I am their mother, who shall bar me from them. Shakspeare. On the burning of Royalton, Vermont, by the Indians, in 1776, Mrs. Hendee, of that place, exhibited a praiseworthy and heroic character. The attack was sudden, and her husband being absent in the Vermont regiment, and she being in the field, the Indians seized her children, carried them across White river, at that place perhaps an hundred yards wide and quite deep for fording, and placed them under the keepers having the other persons they had collected, thirty or forty in number, in charge. On discovering the fate of her children, Mrs. Hendee resolutely dashed into the river, waded through, and fearlessly entering the Indian camp, regardless of their tomahawks menacingly flourished round her head, boldly demanded the release of her little ones, and persevered in her alternate upbraidings and supplications, till her request was granted. She then carried her children back through the river and landed them in safety on the other bank. But not content with what she |