, and springing off, his life had well nigh
been sacrificed by his rashness. He was quickly thrown to the ground,
and the uplifted tomahawk about to descend on his head, when a timely
shot, directed with fatal precision, took effect on the Indian and
saved him.

Had the Moravians been disposed for war, they could easily have
ensured their own safety, and dealt destruction to the whites. If,
when their town was entered by a party of only sixteen, their thirty
men, aided by the youths of the village, armed and equipped as all
were, had gone forth in battle array, they could have soon cut off
those few; and by stationing some gunners on the bank of the river,
have prevented the landing of the others of the expedition. But their
faith in the sincerity of the whites--their love of peace and
abhorrence of war, forbade it; and the confidence of those who first
rushed into the town, in these feelings and dispositions of the
Indians, no doubt prompted them to that act of temerity, while an
unfordable stream was flowing between them and their only support.

During the massacre at Gnadenhutten, a detachment of the whites was
ordered to Shoenbrun to secure the Moravians who were there.
Fortunately however, two of the inhabitants of this village had
discovered the dead body of Shabosh in time to warn their brethren of
danger, and they all moved rapidly off. When the detachment arrived,
nothing was left for them _but plunder_.--_This was secured_, and they
returned to their comrades. Gnadenhutten was then _pillaged_ of every
article of value which could be easily removed; its houses--even those
which contained the dead bodies of the Moravians--were burned to
ashes, and the men set out on their return to the settlements.[5]

The expedition against the Moravian towns on the Muskingum, was
projected and carried on by inhabitants of the [239] western counties
of Pennsylvania,--a district of country which had long been the
theatre of Indian hostilities. Its result (strange as it may now
appear) was highly gratifying to many; and the ease with which so much
_Indian_ blood had been made to flow, coupled with an ardent desire to
avenge the injuries which had been done them by the savages, led to
immediate preparations for another, to be conducted on a more
extensive scale, and requiring the co-operation of more men. And
although the completion of the work of destruction, which had been so
successfully begun, of the Moravian Indians, was t