they came up.  Seven or eight Indians were then seen repeatedly running off and on the pond, and shortly three of them came towards the party—­the woman spoke to them, and two of the Indians joined the English, while the third remained some one hundred yards off.  Something being observed under the cassock of one of the Indians, he was searched and a hatchet taken from him.  The two Indians then took hold of the man who had seized the Indian woman, and endeavoured to force her away from him, but not succeeding in this, he tried to get possession of three different guns, and at last succeeded in geting hold of one, which he tried to wrest from the man who held it; not being able to accomplish this, the Indian seized the Englishman by the throat, and the danger being imminent, three shots were fired, all so simultaneously that it appeared as if only one gun had been discharged.  The Indian dropped, and his companions immediately fled.  In extenuation of this, to say the least of it, most deplorable event, it is said, “could we have intimidated him, or persuaded him to leave us, or even have seen the others go off, we should have been most happy to have been spared using violence—­but when it is remembered that our small party were in the heart of the Indian country, a hundred miles from any European settlement, and that there were in our sight at times, as many Indians as our party amounted to, and we could not ascertain how many were in the woods that we did not see, it could not be avoided with safety to ourselves.  Had destruction been our object, we might have carried it much farther.”

The death of this Indian was subsequently brought before the Grand Jury, and that body having enquired into the circumstances connected with it, in its report to the Court makes the following statement:—­“It appears that the deceased came to his death in consequence of an attack on the party in search of them, and his subsequent obstinacy, and not desisting when repeatedly menaced by some of the party for that purpose, and the peculiar situation of the searching party and their men, was such as to warrant their acting on the defensive.”

Now, taking the foregoing report as given by the leader of the expedition, and in which there can be no question but that the conduct of the English party is as favourably represented as it possibly could be, yet does the statement detailed afford no excuse for the Indian, and is the word “obstinacy” as applied by the Grand Jury, applicable to him?

It may not be forgotten that the Indian was surprised in the “heart of his own country”—­treading his own soil—­within sight of his home—­that home was invaded by armed men of the same race with those who had inflicted on his tribe irreparable injuries—­his wife was seized by them—­his attempts to release her, which ought to have been respected, were violently resisted,—­and then, maddened by the bonds and captivity of his wife, he continues, with a courage and devotion to her which merited a