The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War after the Conquest of CanadaParkman, Francis
History
The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War after the Conquest of Canada
Parkman, Francis
Pontiac's Conspiracy, 1763-1765
While this paper warfare was raging in the city, the representatives of
the frontiersmen, Smith and Gibson, had laid before the Assembly the
memorial, entitled the Remonstrance; and to this a second paper, styled a
Declaration, was soon afterwards added.[397] Various grievances were
specified, for which redress was demanded. It was urged that those
counties where the Quaker interest prevailed sent to the Assembly more
than their due share of representatives. The memorialists bitterly
complained of a law, then before the Assembly, by which those charged with
murdering Indians were to be brought to trial, not in the district where
the act was committed, but in one of the three eastern counties. They
represented the Moravian converts as enemies in disguise, and denounced
the policy which yielded them protection and support while the sick and
wounded of the frontiers were cruelly abandoned to their misery. They
begged that a suitable reward might be offered for scalps, since the want
of such encouragement had “damped the spirits of many brave men.” Angry
invectives against the Quakers succeeded. To the “villany, infatuation,
and influence of a certain faction, that have got the political reins in
their hands, and tamely tyrannize over the other good subjects of the
province,” were to be ascribed, urged the memorialists, the intolerable
evils which afflicted the people. The Quakers, they insisted, had held
private treaties with the Indians, encouraged them to hostile acts, and
excused their cruelties on the charitable plea that this was their method
of making war.
The memorials were laid before a committee, who recommended that a public
conference should be held with Smith and Gibson, to consider the grounds
of complaint. To this the governor, in view of the illegal position
assumed by the frontiersmen, would not give his consent; an assertion of
dignity that would have done him more honor had he made it when the
rioters were in arms before the city, at which time he had shown an
abundant alacrity to negotiate. It was intimated to Smith and Gibson that
they might leave Philadelphia; and the Assembly soon after became involved
in its inevitable quarrels with the governor, relative to the granting of
supplies for the service of the ensuing campaign. The supply bill passed,
as mentioned in a former chapter; and the consequent military
preparations, together with a threatened renewal of the war on the part of
the enemy, engrossed the minds of the frontier people, and caused the
excitements of the winter to be forgotten. No action on the two memorials
was ever taken by the Assembly; and the memorable Paxton riots had no
other definite result than that of exposing the weakness and distraction
of the provincial government, and demonstrating the folly and absurdity of
all principles of non-resistance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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