Oncle Jazon proved to be one of the most refractory among those
who demanded tomahawking and scalping as the only treatment due
Long-Hair. The repulsive savage stood up before them stolid,
resolute, defiant, proudly flaunting the badge which testified to
his horrible efficiency as an emissary of Hamilton's. It had been
left in his belt by Clark's order, as the best justification of
his doom.
"L' me hack 'is damned head," Oncle Jazon pleaded. "I jes' hankers
to chop a hole inter it. An' besides I want 'is scelp to hang up
wi' mine an' that'n o' the Injun what scelped me. He kicked me in
the ribs, the stinkin' varmint"
Beverley pleaded eloquently and well, but even the genial Major
Helm laughed at his sentiment of gratitude to a savage who at best
but relented at the last moment, for Alice's sake, and concluded
not to sell him to Hamilton. It is due to the British commander to
record here that he most positively and with what appeared to be
high sincerity, denied the charge of having offered rewards for
the taking of human scalps. He declared that his purposes and
practices were humane, and that while he did use the Indians as
military allies, his orders to them were that they must forego
cruel modes of warfare and refrain from savage outrage upon
prisoners. Certainly the weight of contemporary testimony seems
overwhelmingly against him, but we enter his denial.
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