* For an account of Pontiac's conspiracy, see "The Old Northwest"
by Frederic A. Ogg (in "The Chronicles of America").


At this time the Scotch-Irish frontiersmen suddenly became
prominent. They had been organizing for their own protection and
were meeting with not a little success. They refused to join the
expedition of regular troops marching westward against Pontiac's
warriors, because they wanted to protect their own homes and
because they believed the regulars to be marching to sure
destruction. Many of the regular troops were invalided from the
West Indies, and the Scotch-Irish never expected to see any of
them again. They believed that the salvation of Pennsylvania, or
at least of their part of the province, depended entirely upon
themselves. Their increasing numbers and rugged independence were
forming them also into an organized political party with decided
tendencies, as it afterwards appeared, towards forming a separate
state.

The extreme narrowness of the Scotch-Irish, however, misled them.
The only real safety for the province lay in regularly
constituted and strong expeditions, like that of Bouquet, which
would drive the main body of the savages far westward. But the
Scotch-Irish could not see this; and with that intensity of
passion which marked all their actions they turned their energy
and vengeance upon the Quakers and semicivilized Indians in the
eastern end of the colony. Their preachers, who were their
principal leaders and organizers, encouraged them in denouncing
Quaker doctrine as a wicked heresy from which only evil could