_Col. Barré._ Isaac Barré (1726-1802), M.P. for Calne. Barré, who had
served with Wolfe in America, was a devoted friend of the colonists and
in Parliament was regarded as a master of invective and the special
antagonist of Lord North. North had his revenge in _Anticipation_; see
Introduction, p. 12.
_the Indians, headed by Col. Butler, began their rapine in Cherry
Valley._ John Butler (1725-1796), Indian agent under the Johnsons in the
Mohawk Valley; Lieutenant-Colonel of Militia, 1768; Major in command
of Butler’s Rangers, 1777. Under his leadership parties of Loyalists
and their Indian allies of the Six Nations systematically harried the
back settlements in New York and Pennsylvania during the Revolution.
Their raids reached a peak of frequency and destructiveness in the early
summer of 1778, the notorious “Wyoming Massacre” occurring 3-4 July.
None of the settlements mentioned by Barré had been attacked at the time
his informant is supposed to have written; but rumors were rife on the
frontier as well as at the Poughkeepsie headquarters of the Continental
Army; and the worst fears of the settlers were realized when Butler’s
son, Captain Walter Butler, together with the Mohawk chief Joseph Brant,
sacked the village of Cherry Valley on the 11th of November. See Howard
Swiggett, _War out of Niagara: Walter Butler and the Tory Rangers_, New
York, 1933, chs. vi-vii.
_Gen. Carlton._ Guy Carleton (1724-1808), Lieutenant-General; Governor of
Quebec, 1775-78; requested his recall because of differences with Lord
George Germain, May 1777; cr. Baron Dorchester of Dorchester (Oxford),
1786.
_Miss Macrea._ Jane MacCrea, daughter of a Tory clergyman residing near
Fort Edward on the upper Hudson, was scalped by a marauding party of
Burgoyne’s Indian allies, 27 July 1777. This incident, about which a mass
of romantic legend soon grew up, proved highly embarrassing to Burgoyne
and the Administration.