Character of Joseph Bettys--His exploits--Capture and execution--Progress of the war--Gradual cessation of hostilities--Dwindling down to mere affairs of outposts and scouting parties--Commissioners appointed to negotiate a treaty of peace--Indian battles on the Kentucky frontier--Defeat of Colonel Boon--Destruction of the Shawanese towns--The Moravians on the Muskingum--Their removal to Sandusky by the Wyandots--Return to secure their crops--Invasion of their towns by Colonel Williamson--Treachery of Williamson and his men to the Indians--Horrible massacre--Invasion of the Sandusky country by Crawford and Williamson--Defeat of their army--Colonel Crawford captured--Sentenced to die by torture--His interview with the sachem Wingemond--His execution--Close of the year--Doubts as to a treaty of peace--Colonel Willett's attempt to surprise Oswego--The news of peace--Sufferings of Tryon County--Return of its population--End of the wars of the Mohawk.
Among the minor, but yet not unimportant events of the border war at the north and west of Albany, was the capture, some time in the Winter of 1781--'82, of the celebrated loyalist marauder, Joseph Bettys, whose name has occurred in connexion with that of John Waltermeyer in the preceding chapter. Bettys, or "Joe Bettys" as he was commonly called, was a man of uncommon shrewdness and intelligence. Bold, athletic, and of untiring activity; revengeful and cruel in his disposition; inflexible in his purposes; his bosom cold as the marble to the impulses of humanity; he ranged the border settlements like a chafed tiger snuffing every tainted breeze for blood, until his name had become as terrific to the borderers, as were those of Kidd and Pierre le Grande upon the ocean in the preceding century. At the commencement of the war, Bettys was an inhabitant of Ballston. He early took the field in the cause of the republic, and a sergeant's warrant was conferred upon him in Colonel Wynkoop's regiment. But he had a proud, independent spirit, that could ill brook the severity of military discipline; and for some act of contumacy, he was reduced to the ranks. Still, knowing well his determined character and unflinching courage, and unwilling that his country should lose his services, the same gentleman [FN] who had obtained his first warrant, procured him another, and a transfer to the fleet under the command of General Arnold on Lake Champlain, in the Summer of 1776.