For the fury of the latter was generally in battle, but the
former exercised their cruelties in cold blood, and generally made
deliberate preparations for them, by assuming the guise of Indians. In
these infernal masks they gave vent to private malice, and cut the
throats of their neighbors and their innocent children. In such a
position a patriot's life was doubly assailed, and it was often the
price of it, to declare himself "a son of liberty," a term then often
used by the revolutionists.
He had just entered his seventeenth year when the war against the
British authorities in the land broke out, and he immediately declared
for it; the wealthy farmer (Swartz) with whom he lived, being one of the
first who were overhauled and "spotted" by the LOCAL COMMITTEE OF
SAFETY, who paraded through the settlement with a drum and fife. He was
at the disarming of Sir John Johnson, at Johnstown, under Gen. Schuyler,
where a near relative, Conrad Wiser, Esq., was the government
interpreter. He was at Ticonderoga when the troops were formed into
hollow square to hear the Declaration of Independence read.
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