The prevision of Washington was shortly realized, and a cloud of red warriors descended on the border settlements, carrying murder, rapine, and ruin before them.  Scores of quiet settlements were destroyed, hundreds of men, women, and children massacred, and in a short time the whole of the outlying farms were deserted, and crowds of weeping fugitives flocked eastward behind the line held by Washington’s regiment.

But bad as affairs were in Virginia, those in Pennsylvania were infinitely worse.  They had, for many years, been on such friendly terms with the Indians, that many of the settlers had no arms, nor had they the protection in the way of troops which the government of Virginia put upon the frontier.  The government of the colony was at Philadelphia, far to the east, and sheltered from danger, and the Quaker assembly there refused to vote money for a single soldier to protect the unhappy colonists on the frontier.  They held it a sin to fight, and above all to fight with Indians, and as long as they themselves were free from the danger, they turned a deaf ear to the tales of massacre, and to the pitiful cries for aid which came from the frontier.  But even greater than their objection to war, was their passion of resistance to the representative of royalty, the governor.

Petition after petition came from the border for arms and ammunition, and for a militia law to enable the people to organize and defend themselves; but the Quakers resisted, declaring that Braddock’s defeat was a just judgment upon him and his soldiers for molesting the French in their settlement in Ohio.  They passed, indeed, a bill for raising fifty thousand pounds for the king’s use, but affixed to it a condition, to which they knew well the governor could not assent; viz, that the proprietary lands were to pay their share of the tax.

To this condition the governor was unable to assent, for, according to the constitution of the colony, to which he was bound, the lands of William Penn and his descendants were free of all taxation.  For weeks the deadlock continued.  Every day brought news of massacres of tens, fifties, and even hundreds of persons, but the assembly remained obstinate; until the mayor, aldermen, and principal citizens clamoured against them, and four thousand frontiersmen started on their march to Philadelphia, to compel them to take measures for defence.

Bodies of massacred men were brought from the frontier villages and paraded through the town, and so threatening became the aspect of the population, that the Assembly of Quakers were at last obliged to pass a militia law.  It was, however, an absolutely useless one.  It specially excepted the Quakers from service, and constrained nobody, but declared it lawful for such as chose to form themselves into companies, and to elect officers by ballot.  The company officers might, if they saw fit, elect, also by ballot, colonels, lieutenant colonels, and majors.  These last might then, in conjunction with the governor, frame articles of war, to which, however, no officer or man was to be subjected, unless, after three days’ consideration, he subscribed them in presence of a justice of the peace, and declared his willingness to be bound by them.