.MTAxNQ.NjcxMzU

in the disposal of the unclear corporation at London in common stock Lieutenant Ruddock very well knew of for the principal Indians who kept the same had made him privy to it when they first fetched it from Boston in the beginning of the war as all the other unclear Indians had their proper for their defence against the common enemy but unclear this notwithstanding it was alleged and pleaded in unclear at the trial of the 11 Indians as an artifice to render them all perfidious and treacherous to every English that they had concealed a great quantity of powder and ball and hid it in the ground in the fort yet pretended to deliver all to the Lieutenant ; for the captain and soldiers when they seized the prisoner not long after, ransacked the fort and finding this common stock of ammunition, and 3 or guns more (which some men that were abroad when the former were delivered had brought in the fort) afterward were seized; this matter was much talked of and great clamours made against those poor Christians about it (1), but when every chiefs the preying Indians of Marlborough had liberty to make and for themselves, things were so fully cleared that neither did honesty, perfidiousness, or lying could be imputed to them touching those things. But yet notwithstanding all their arms and ammunition surrendered and seized (which to them was a very considerable matter) at such a time and was their own property yet was taken away and squandered by the soldiers and others and never restored to every Indian.

(1) In times of excitement, the quiet voice of reason is drowned in the clamours of the multitude