r horses, cattle, sheep, and
hogs were, for the most part, killed or driven away by the enemy. A
large proportion of the male inhabitants were in one day slaughtered.
In a single engagement, near two hundred women became widows, and a much
greater number of children were left fatherless." (Dr. Ramsay's History
of the United States, Vol. II., Chap. xix., pp. 323, 324.)

REMARKS UPON DR. RAMSAY'S ACCOUNT.

Such is the account of this melancholy affair by Dr. Ramsay, a friend of
General Washington, and a distinguished officer in the American army.
Let us note Dr. Ramsay's admissions and his omissions. He admits that
the Tories or Loyalists had been persecuted, imprisoned, plundered, and
banished; that no less than twenty-seven of them had been taken, and
sent to Hartford, in Connecticut, but were afterwards released; yet he
might have added that they were kept prisoners nearly a year, and then
discharged for want of any evidence against them. It is also admitted
that "others of the same description (as those who had been sent
prisoners to Connecticut) were instigated by _revenge_ against the
Americans, from whom some of them had suffered banishment and loss of
property." It is likewise admitted that the whole invading party
consisted of but 1,100 men, of whom only 200 were Tories, the remaining
900 being Indians. But it is not stated that those Indians were
neighbours, and many of them the connections of the northern tribes of
those Indians whose settlements had been invaded, their fields and towns
destroyed, as a precaution lest they should co-operate with the British;
nor is it said that many of these Indians were residents in the
neighbourhood, and were treated like the Tories.

It furthermore appears from this narrative that the Americans in Wyoming
were not even taken by surprise, but were prepared for their enemy; that
none were killed except in the conflict of the battle; that the thirty
men and two hundred women in the garrison were not murdered, but were
"permitted (with their effects) to cross the Susquehanna and retreat to
Northampton." The taking of the cattle and burning of the houses and
barns was after the example of the Americans in invading and destroying
the Indian settlements. It is therefore clear, according to Dr. Ramsay's
own narrative, that the "Massacre of Wyoming" was not an _unprovoked
aggression_, like that of the Americans against the more Southern
Indians, but a _retaliation_ for injuries p