Undoubtedly the Scotch-Irish played an important part in the early history of lynch-law in the United States. But it was rather because they were the vanguard of a new civilization than because they were of Scottish descent that they played this important part. Environmental influences of old had made them pioneers. Before coming to this country they had behind them a century of frontier life. Their experience in Ireland, where the soil was poor and where by reason of the difference in religion they lived apart from, and often in open hostility to, the natives, led them to be self-reliant and self-assertive. Their training had thus made them sturdy frontiersmen, quite the sort to subdue the wilderness and become the founders of a new civilization. Amid the vicissitudes incident to settlement in a virgin territory it was often necessary, as a matter of self-preservation, to use prompt and decisive measures against depredators. That the early settlers did not always observe “due process of law” can scarcely be urged as deserving condemnation. They merely adopted the means which seemed to them the most expedient under the existing circumstances. The adoption of summary measures by Scotch-Irish Rangers in Pennsylvania in 1763, however, does not furnish an isolated instance, nor indeed the earliest instance, of the use of such measures against Indians. The provincial governments were not infrequently called upon to take note of such occurrences in order to preserve amicable relations with the various Indian tribes, and considerable difficulty was commonly experienced when the attempt was made to bring to justice white men who had murdered Indians.