During the progress of this invasion occurred the last important incursion of the Indians within the limits of Vermont. While Carleton's force swept with purposed harmlessness past the western border of Vermont, an expedition set forth against Newbury, on the Connecticut, with the putative object of capturing a Lieutenant Whitcomb, who, while scouting on the Richelieu some years before, had mortally wounded and then robbed the British General Gordon. The force was commanded by Lieutenant Horton of the British army, seconded by a Canadian named La Motte, aided by one Hamilton, an escaped prisoner of war, who had been in Newbury and Royalton on parole of honor during the previous summer. It consisted of 300 men,[88] all but seven of whom were Indians. It is probable, from this preponderance of the savage element in its composition, that the real purpose of the expedition was the rapine which it so successfully accomplished. Guided by old warriors, who had often followed this ancient warpath of their people in the days when their onslaughts were the constant dread of the New England frontiers, the party took its way up the Winooski, past tenantless houses and deserted farms, on whose broad intervale meadows the timid deer now grazed undisturbed. Then it came to where the wild stream wound through the unbroken wilderness; now among the frost-painted forest of deciduous trees, and now in the black shade of evergreens. Among the great pines that then clad the narrow valley, where now stands the capital of the State, they overtook and made prisoners two hunters from Newbury. These told the leaders that the people of their town were expecting an attack, and were prepared for it. Upon this they turned southward, and, following a branch of White River, on the 16th of October fell upon Royalton and neighboring towns. The attack was at first conducted in perfect silence, till the alarm of it spread among the inhabitants; then the infernal clamor of the warwhoop resounded among the hills that had so long been strangers to its echoes, giving to the panic another terror. Burning, pillaging, and making prisoners as they swooped with the celerity of falcons upon one and another isolated homestead or defenseless hamlet, they killed four persons, captured twenty-five others, and destroyed quantities of stock and garnered harvests. As they drew off with prisoners and booty, Mrs. Hendee, the brave young wife of a settler, followed them, so earnestly pleading for the release of her little son that he was restored to her; and, upon her further entreaty, nine other small lads were set free.