The Canestoga Indians, to the number of forty, lived in a village, in the vicinity of Lancaster; they were in amity with the whites, and had been in peace and quiet for a considerable length of time. An association of men, denominated the "Paxton boys," broke into their little town and murdered all who were found at home--fourteen men, women and children fell a prey to the savage brutality of those sons of civilization [79]. The safety of the others was sought to be effected, by confining them in the jail at Lancaster. It was in vain. The walls of a prison could afford no protection, from the relentless fury of these exasperated men. The jail doors were broken open, and its wretched inmates cruelly murdered.--And, as if their deaths could not satiate their infuriate murderers, their bodies were brutally mangled, the hands and feet lopped off, and scalps torn from the bleeding heads of innocent infants. A similar fate impended the christian Indians of Nequetank and Nain; and was only averted, by the timely interposition of the government of Pennsylvania. They were removed to Philadelphia, where they remained from November 1763 'till after the close of the war in December 1764; during which time the Paxton boys twice assembled in the neighborhood of the city, for the purpose of assaulting the barracks and murdering the Indians, but were deterred by the military preparations made to oppose them; and ultimately, but reluctantly, desisted. Had the feelings excited in the minds of these misguided men, by the cruelties of the Indians, been properly directed, it would have produced a quite different result. If, instead of avenging the outrages of others, upon those who were no otherwise guilty than in the complexion of their skin, they had directed their exertions to the repressing of invasion, and the punishment of its authors, much good might have been achieved; and they, instead of being stigmatized as murderers of the innocent, would have been hailed as benefactors of the border settlements. Associations of this kind were formed in that province, and contributed no little to lessen the frequency of Indian massacres, and to prevent the effusion of blood, and the destruction of property. At the time the Paxton boys were meditating and endeavoring to effect the destruction of the peaceable christian Indians, another company, formed by voluntary league, was actively engaged in checking the intrusions, of those who were enemies, and in punishing their aggressions. A company of riflemen, called the Black boys (from the fact of their painting themselves red and black, after the Indian fashion,) under the command of Capt. James Smith, contributed to preserve the Conococheague valley, during the years 1763 and 1764, from the devastation [80] which had overspread it early after the commencement of Braddock's war.