Vain is it for apologists to try to shift on to local subordinates the blame for the shameful course of Lord Liverpool's government. The same king was (nominally) reigning who had employed these same allies only thirty years before, George Third was on the throne through both wars; that of the Revolution and that of 1812. English ears--such as were sensitive to just and bitter denunciation--must still, in 1812, have been ringing with the public outcry against the infamy of 1775-82. Even England's own servants protested against it. Doubtless they felt, as any gentleman must feel, that he who stays at home in personal safety and employs base minions to do his murdering, is more contemptible than are the minions themselves, for they at least take their lives in their hands when they set out. Where stand the guilty in this business? Lower than where we should stand if we had, during our Civil War, incited the negroes to the destruction of their masters' families, for the negro cannot be as cruel as the Indian could not helping being. Lower than Russia would stand if, in a war along the Afghan frontier, she should scheme for a new Sepoy rebellion, with its ravishing and maiming of well born English women. Such women were treated worse than even Dante's fancy could portray, and yet not worse than were the survivors of the Chicago Massacre. * * * * * In the little settlement a wild season of alarm followed the double murder at Hardscrabble. The surviving civilians, consisting of a few discharged soldiers and some families of half-breeds, organized themselves for defense. They took for their stronghold the Agency House already-mentioned as standing on the river-bank just west of the fort. The house (as has been said) was built of logs and had porches on both its long sides. They planked up the porches, leaving loopholes for firing through, and set guards in proper military fashion. To quote once more from Munsell.