Overhead anxious faces could be seen looking out at the window.  It was not by the wishes of the Assembly that such letters were made public; but many of them had been addressed to James Freeman himself, and they could not restrain him from doing as he would with his own.

“My friends,” he said, and his voice rose distinct in the clear air, “we have heavy tidings today.  You shall hear what is written from some sufferers not far from Fort Cumberland, where forty white men, women, and children were barbarously murdered a few days back.

“’We are in as bad circumstances as ever any poor Christians were ever in; for the cries of the widowers, widows, fatherless and motherless children are enough to pierce the hardest of hearts.  Likewise it is a very sorrowful spectacle to see those that escaped with their lives with not a mouthful to eat, or bed to lie on, or clothes to cover their nakedness or keep them warm, but all they had consumed to ashes.  These deplorable circumstances cry aloud to your Honour’s most wise consideration how steps may speedily be taken to deliver us out of the hand of our persecutors the cruel and murderous savages, and to bring the struggle to an end.’”

The reader paused, and a low, deep murmur passed through the crowd, its note of rage and menace being clearly heard.  The speaker took up another paper and recommenced.

“This comes from John Harris on the east bank of the Susquehanna: 

“’The Indians are cutting us off every day, and I had a certain account of about fifteen hundred Indians, besides French, being on their march against us and Virginia, and now close on our borders, their scouts scalping our families on our frontier daily.’”

Another pause, another murmur like a roar, and a voice from the crowd was raised to ask: 

“And what says the Assembly to that?”

“They say that if the Indians are rising against us, who have been friendly so long, then we must surely have done something to wrong them; and they are about to search for the cause of such a possible wrong, and redress it, rather than impose upon the colony the calamities of a cruel Indian war!”

A yell and a groan went up from the crowd.  For a moment it seemed almost as though some attack would be made upon the Assembly House.  The habits of law and obedience were, however, strong in the citizens of Philadelphia, and in the end they dispersed quietly to their own homes; but a fire had been kindled in their hearts which would not easily be quenched.

Days were wasted by the Quakers in an unsuccessful attempt to prove that there had been some fraud on the part of the Governor in a recent land purchase from the Indians.  And they again laid before the Governor one of their proposals, still containing the clause which he was unable to entertain, and which inevitably brought matters to a deadlock.

The Quakers drew up a declaration affirming that they had now taken every step in their power, “consistent with the just rights of the freemen of Pennsylvania, for the relief of the poor distressed inhabitants,” and further declared that “we have reason to believe that they themselves would not wish us to go further.  Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary relief and safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”