Alexandria Gazette, Commercial And Political

By accounts from the Southward in peake are beginning to carry on the war, which our rulers having seen fit to declare against them, in a manner quite contrary to the wishes and desires of the people in that quarter. They declare that if the people fire upon them when dey land, that they will burn their houses and take their property. On the contrary, that if they conduct peaceably towards them, they shall not be injured in person or property. In consequence a number of buildings at Havre de Grace at the mouth of the Susquehannah, and Fredericktown and Georgetown, lying on Sassafras creek, all in Maryland, have been principally burnt. These proceedings the advocates of the war declare to be contrary to the rules of war—and inveigh against them with great vehemence and wrath. It may be so. I do not know much about the rules of war—but I believe that when we come to be called to an account in the great day of reckoning, that the killing of men will be found to be as great a crime in the view of him who sees not as man sees, as the burning of houses. Further, I would observe, that since we declared and commenced this war, we have had several accounts from the western states (Kentucky, Ohio, &c.) of our men going on expeditions into the Indian country, and burning whole Indian towns, & destroying their corn. When these accounts came and were published by our war printers, as 'glorious victories.' I do not remember that any of them complained that such proceedings were contrary to the rules of war, or that the perpetrators of them, were in any respect, worse than war-men in general.