Page:Life and astonishing adventures of Peter Williamson (2).pdf/16

16 another house inhabited by an unhappy old man, whose name was John Adams, with his wife and four small children ; and, meeting with no resist- ance, they immediately sealped the unhappy wife and her four children, before the good old man’s eyes. Inhuman and horrid as this was, it did not satiate them, for when they had murdered the poor woman, they acted with her in sueh a brutal manner, as deseency, or the remembrance of the crime, will not permit me to mention, and this even before the unhappy husband, who not being able to avoid the sight, and incapable of affording her the least relief, entreated them to put an end to his miserable being ; but they were as deaf and regardless to the tears, prayers, and entreaties of this venerable sufferer, as they had been to those of the others, and proceedcd in their hellish purpose of burning and destroying his bouse, barn, cattlc, hay, corn, and every thing the poor man a few hours before was master of. Having saved what they thought proper from the flames, they gave the old man, fecble, weak, and in the miserable condition he then was, as well as myself, burdens to earry, and loading them- selves likewise with bread and meat, pursued their journey on towards the Great Swamp, where, being arrived, they lay for eight or nine days, sometimes diverting themselves in excrcis- ing the most atrocious and barbarous cruelties on