The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1930-07-11

is more than will be believed in Eng.
land until authenticated facts shall in
every gazette convince mankind of the
truth of this horrid tale. Miss Nc
Craze, young lady lovely to the sight.
of virtuous character and amiable dis
position, engaged to be married to an
officer in your army, was with other
women and children taken out of a
house near Fort Edward, carried in
to the woods, and there scalped and
mangled in the most shocking manner.
The miserable fate of Miss
McCrae was partly aggravated by her
being dressed to receive her promised
husband; but met her murderers EN-
ployed by you"
TO this Burgoyne sent an indignant
reply. He said: II condescend to in
form you that l would not be con-
sciOus of the acts you presume to i'm
pute to me for the whole continent of
were in its bowels and a paradise on
its surface Respecting Miss
McCrae, her fall wanted not the tragic
display you have labored to give it,
to make it as sincerely abhOrred and
lamented by me, as it can possibly be
by the tenderest of her friends The
fact was no premeditated barbarity,
on the contrary two chiefs who had
brought her off for the purpose Of Sc
curity, not Of violence to her person,
disputed who should be her guard, and
in fit of savage passion in the one
from whose hands she was snatched,
the unhappy woman became the vic
tim. Upon the first intelligence of the
events, obliged the Indians to deliver
the murderer into my hands, and
though to have punished him by our
laws and principles of justice would
have been perhaps unprecedented, he
certainly would have suffered an ig
nOminious death, had l not been con-
vinced by circumstances and observa-
ton beyond the possibility of doubt,
that a pardon under the terms | pre-
scribed and they accepted, would be
more efficacious than an execution to
prevent similar mischiefs."
In this same letter he also quoted
his standing orders to the savages that
prisoners be brought to him unframed
and boldly denied that they had been
broken in any case except that of the
unfortunate Jane McCrea. Since this
last statement was VIGOROUSLY untrue,
and since he had admitted the MUIR
-, Of hn ri nd fri n1 tn hic
pardoning the murderer, he was thus
placed on the defensive at once, and
Gates, whose letter had been printed
in nearly all the Patriot newspapers,
had all the better of the exchanges
of notes.
No doubt that master propaganda
Of them all, canny Ben Franklin made
good use of it, just as he used the
famous inventory of scalps' story
(Which he had manufactured) so eff
GENTLY in stirring up the Patriots to
high pitch of fury against the Brit
ish. Although it is impossible ever to
lay a finger upon the definite results
of propaganda, there can be no doubt
that this story had an important effect
upon Patriot morale at time when
it was very low. 1t took the fighting
of Willett and a Gansevoort at Fort
Schuyler (Stanwix), of a Stark and a
Warner at Bennington and of Nor
gan and an Arnold at Saratoga to
crush the invader and TO make his de-
feat one of the fifteen decisive battles
of the world and his surrender the
real turning point in the American
Revolution. But the beautiful girl who
was struck down by an Indian bull
let that July morning, 153 years
ago, deserves share i'm that great
victory. Unwittingly she played al
important role in a mighty drama. Sc
Jane McCrea did not die i'm vain.
t@ by Western Newspaper Cnion-l