When they
find their foe abroad, they boldly rush upon him, and make him prisoner,
or take his scalp. At times they approach the walls or palisades with
the most audacious daring, and attempt to fire them, or beat down the
gate. They practice, with the utmost adroitness, the stratagem of a
false alarm on one side when the real assault is intended for the other.
With untiring perseverance, when their stock of provisions is exhausted,
they set forth to hunt, as on common occasions, resuming their station
near the besieged place as soon as they are supplied.
It must he confessed, that they had many motives to this persevering and
deadly hostility, apart from their natural propensity to war. They saw
this new and hated race of pale faces gradually getting possession of
their hunting grounds, and cutting down their forests. They reasoned
forcibly and justly, that the time, when to oppose these new intruders
with success, was to do it before they had become numerous and strong in
diffused population and resources. Had they possessed the skill of
corporate union, combining individual effort with a general concert of
attack, and directed their united force against each settlement in
succession, there is little doubt, that at this time they might have
extirpated the new inhabitants from Kentucky, and have restored it to
the empire of the wild beasts and the red men. But in the order of
events it was otherwise arranged. They massacred, they burnt, and
plundered, and destroyed.
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