Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1853).djvu/272

256 some of their families; but, above all things, that he must not attempt to run away; that in the course of the journey to the Indian town he generally endeavored to keep close to Logan, who had a great deal of conversation with him, always encouraging him to be cheerful and without fear, for that he would not be killed, but should become one of them, and constantly impressing on him not to attempt to run away; that in these conversations he always charged Captain Michael Cresap with the murder of his family; that on his arrival in the town, which was on the 18th of July, he was tied to a stake, and a great debate arose whether he should not be burnt; Logan insisted on having him adopted, while others contended to burn him; that at length Logan prevailed, tied a belt of wampum round him as the mark of adoption, loosed him from the post, and carried him to the cabin of an old squaw, where Logan pointed out a person who he said was this subscriber's cousin, and he afterwards understood that the old woman was his aunt, and two others his brothers, and that he now stood in the place of a warrior of the family who had been killed at Yellow Creek; that about three days after this Logan brought him a piece of paper, and told him he must write a letter for him, which he meant to carry and leave in some house where he should kill somebody; that he made ink with gunpowder, and the subscriber proceeded to write the letter by his direction, addressing Captain Michael Cresap in it, and that the purport of it was, to ask “why he had killed his people? That some time before they had killed his people at some place (the name of which the subscriber forgets) which he had forgiven; but since that he had killed his people again at Yellow Creek, and taken his cousin, a little girl, prisoner; that therefore he must war against the whites, but that he would exchange the subscriber for his cousin.” And signed it with Logan's name, which letter Logan took and set out again to war; and the contents of this letter, as recited by the subscriber, calling to mind that stated by Judge Innes to have been left, tied to a war club, in a house, where a family was murdered, and that being read to the subscriber, he recognises it, and declares he verily believes it to have been the identical letter which he wrote, and supposes he was mistaken in stating, as he has done before from memory, that the offer of the exchange was proposed in the letter; that it is probable it was only promised him by Logan, but not put in the letter; while he was with the old woman, she repeatedly endeavored to make him sensible that she had been of the party at Yellow Creek, and by