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CH. XII.]

ACTS OF THE ROYAL COMMISSIONERS.

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report, that the king issued an order
that Bellingham, the governor, 1666.
and some others, should pro-
ceed to England to answer for their
defiance of his majesty's authority.

with such of their requisitions as they thought proper; but, professing sincere loyalty to his majesty, declined acknowledging their authority, and protested against the exercise of it within their limits. In consequence of this asser-The summons created no little excitetion of their rights, an angry correspondence took place between them, at the close of which the commissioners informed the General Court, that they would lose no more of their labors upon them, but would represent their conduct to his majesty. From Boston, the commissioners proceeded to New Hampshire, where they exercised several acts of government, and offered to release the inhabitants from the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. This offer was almost unanimously declined. In Maine, they excited more disturbance. They encouraged the people to declare themselves independent, and found many disposed to listen to their suggestions; but Massachusetts, by a prompt and vigorous exertion of power, constrained the disaffected to submission to her authority.

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ment, and it was earnestly debated whether to obey or not. They who advocated seeming obedience without really giving up the points at issue, prevailed; and, fortunately, just at this juncture, by sending a timely supply of provisions for the fleet in the West Indies, and also a present of masts for the English navy, they were able to put off the immediate danger. The king's designs upon the liberty of the colonies were suspended, if not abandoned; the great plague and the fire in London intervened, and for several years after this New England remained undisturbed in the enjoyment of her ancient rights and privileges.

At the end of fifty years from the arrival of the emigrants at Plymouth, the New England colonies were supposed to contain one hundred and twenty towns, and probably some sixty or seventy thousand inhabitants. The acts of Parliament not being rigidly enforced, their trade had become extensive and profitable. The habits of industry and economy, which had been formed in less happy times, continued to prevail, and gave a competency to those who had nothing, and wealth to those who had a competency. The wilderness receded before adventurous and hardy laborers, and its savage inhabitants found their game dispersed, and their favorite haunts invaded. This was the natural conse

quence of the sales of land which were at all times readily made to the whites. But this consequence the Indians did not foresee; and when they felt it in all its force, the strongest passions of the savage nature were aroused to seek revenge. A leader only was wanting to concentrate and direct their exertions, and Philip, of Pokanoket, sachem of the Wampanoags, a tribe living within the boundaries of Plymouth and Rhode Island, assumed that honorable but dangerous station. His father, Massasoit, was the friend, but he had ever been the enemy, of the whites; and this enmity, arising from causes of national concern, had been embittered to vindictive hatred by their conduct towards his elder brother. This brother, being suspected of plotting against them, was seized by a detachment of soldiers and confined; and the indignity so wrought upon his proud spirit as to produce a fever that put an end to his life. Philip inherited the authority and proud spirit of his brother. He exerted all the arts of intrigue and powers of persuasion of which he was master, to induce the Indians, in all parts of New England, to unite their efforts for the destruction of the whites. He succeeded in forming a confederacy able to send into action between three and four thousand warriors.

The bloody struggle commenced sooner than was intended by Philip. A hasty act of revenge placed

1675.

him in open defiance of the colonists, and he had no alternative but to yield in absolute submission, or to persist and endeavor bravely to carry out his plans. Philip plundered the

houses nearest Mount Hope, his residence. Soon after, he attacked Swanzey, and killed a number of the inhabitants. This was in the latter part of June, 1675.

The troops of the colony marched immediately to Swanzey, and were soon joined by a detachment from Massachusetts. The Indians fled, and marked the course of their flight by burning the buildings, and fixing on poles, by the way side, the hands, scalps, and heads of the whites whom they had killed. The troops pursued, but unable to overtake them, returned to Swanzey. The whole country was alarmed, and the number of troops augmented. By this array of force, Philip was induced to quit his residence at Mount Hope, and take post near a swamp at Pocasset. At that place the English attacked him, but were repulsed. Sixteen were killed, and the Indians by this success were made bolder.

Panic prevailed throughout the colony. Dismal portents of still heavier calamities were fancied in the air and sky; shadowy troops of careering horses, Indian scalps, and bows imprinted upon the sun and moon, even the sigh of the wind through the forest, and the dismal howling of wolves, terrified the excited imagination of the colonists. The out-settlers fled for security to the towns, where they spread abroad fearful accounts of the cruel atrocities of the Indians.

Meanwhile, the war spread along the whole exposed frontier of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and even of New Hampshire. The villages were isola

CH. XII.]

DESTRUCTION OF THE INDIANS.

ted, large uncultivated tracts lying between. The Indians lived intermixed with the whites, and as every brake and lurking place was well known to them, they were able to fall suddenly upon any village or settlement they might mark for destruction. Many were shot dead as they opened their doors in the morning-for the Indians had both learned the use and acquired possession of firearms; many were killed in the same way while in the fields, or while travelling, or while going to the places of the public worship of God. Unable also to cultivate the fields, the settlers were exposed to famine, while the convoys of provisions sent to their assistance were waylaid and seized, and their escort cut off in ambush. Such was the fate of the brave Lathrop, at the spot which still retains the name of "Bloody Brook." On one occasion, at Hadley, while the people were engaged in divine service, the Indians burst in upon the village; panic and confusion were at their height, when suddenly there appeared a man of very venerable aspect, who rallied the terrified inhabitants, formed them into military order, led them to the attack, routed the Indians, saved the village, and then disappeared as marvellously as he had come upon the scene. The excited and grateful inhabitants, unable to discover any trace of their preserver, supposed him to be an angel sent from God. It was no angel, but one of Cromwell's generals, old Goffe the regicide, who, compelled by the vigilant search made after him by order of the English government, to fly from place to place, had espied from an elevated

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cavern in the neighborhood the murderous approach of the savages, and hurried down to aid the affrighted colonists in this extremity.

During the summer, the Indians, having the advantage of concealment in the woods and forests, were able to carry on this very harassing and destructive warfare; but when winter came, and the forests were more open, the colonists, by a vigorous effort, succeeded in raising a force of a thousand men, and determined to strike a deci sive blow. Josiah Winslow, of Plymouth, was appointed commander-inchief. On the 18th of December, the troops formed a junction in the territory of the Narragansetts, who had given shelter to the enemy, and after a long march through the snow, and a night spent in the woods, they approached the stronghold of the tribe. This was about one o'clock. The Indians had entrenched themselves on a rising ground, in the midst of a swamp surrounded by a palisade. The leaders were all shot down as they advanced to the charge; but this only excited to the highest pitch the desperate determination of the colonists, who, after having once forced an entrance, and being again repulsed, after a fierce struggle protracted for two hours, burst infuriated into the Indian fort. Revenge for the blood of their murdered brethren was alone thought of; mercy was implored in vain; the fort was fired, and hundreds of Indian wives and children perished in the midst of the conflagration; while their provisions, gathered together for the long winter, being consumed, and their wigwams

burned, those who escaped from fire and sword wandered miserably through the forests to perish with cold and hunger. This was the most desperate battle recorded in the early annals of the country. But the victory was decisive. One thousand Indian warriors were killed; three hundred more, and as many women and children, were made prisoners. Yet the price of victory was dear, indeed. Six captains and eighty men were killed, and one hundred and fifty men were wounded.

The Indians, rendered desperate, vented their fury upon all who came within their reach. But their

1667.

a thousand houses had been burned, and goods and cattle of great value had been plundered or destroyed. The colonies had also contracted a heavy debt, which, with characteristic pride of independence, they forbore to apply to the mother country to lighten.

1680.

In 1680, New Hampshire, at the solicitation of John Mason, to whose ancestor a part of the territory had been granted, was constituted a separate colony. Massachusetts, apprehending the loss of Maine also, purchased of the heirs of Gorges their claim to the soil and jurisdiction, for about $6,000.

The colonists continuing to evade the acts of trade, on the ground that they were violations of their rights, Edward Randolph was sent over in July, 1680, as collector of the royal customs, and inspector for enforcing the acts of trade. The magistrates ignored his commission, and refused to allow him to act, so that he was compelled to go back to England. He speedily returned, 1682. however, in February, 1682, with a royal letter, peremptorily demanding that agents be sent at once fully empowered to act for the colonies.

power was broken, and ere long they began to fade away out of sight. The leaders alone, Philip, and Canonchet, sachem of the Narragansetts, refused to yield. The latter died rather than attempt to make a peace with the whites. The unhappy Philip, the author of the war, wandered from tribe to tribe, assailed by recriminations and reproaches for the misery he had brought upon his brethren, and with a heart full of the bitterest anguish. Compelled at length to return to his old haunts, where he was yet sustained by Witamo, a female Resistance became useless, although chief and relative, he was presently at- there was no flinching on the part of the tacked by the English, who carried off leaders. Every effort was made, even his wife and child as captives; shortly to bribery, to propitiate the king withafter, he was treacherously shot by one out yielding the point of their of his own adherents who deserted to rights; but to no purpose. A the English. Thus perished Philip of scire facias was issued in England, and, Pokanoket, who, in many respects, was in 1684, the charter was declared to be worthy of a better fate. His child forfeited; thus the rights and liberties was sent to Bermuda, and sold into of Massachusetts, so long and so dearly slavery. cherished, lay at the mercy of Charles Peace was welcome indeed, for nearly II., who was known to meditate the

1682.

CH. XII.]

ANDROS AND THE CONNECTICUT CHARTER.

most serious and fundamental innovations, but who died before any of them could be carried into effect.

1686.

A temporary government was established by the appointment of Joseph Dudley, son of the former governor. Soon after, however, in 1686, James II. placed Sir Edmund Andros over the colonies. He came out fully prepared to forward the arbitrary and tyrannical designs of the last of the Stuarts, and brought with him, in the royal frigate in which he came, two companies of troops to enforce his authority, if need be. He was empowered to remove and appoint the members of the council at his pleasure, and, with the consent of a body thus under his control, to levy taxes, make laws, and call out the militia. His subordinates were entirely devoted to him. Dudley was made chief justice, and Randolph, that old antagonist of the theocracy, who had spent years of persevering hostility, and had done every thing he could to humble the pride of his enemies, was appointed as colonial secretary. The press, previously placed under his control, had already been thoroughly gagged; it was now entirely suppressed.

Connecticut and Rhode Island suffered from the same spirit of arbitrary exercise of power. A writ of quo warranto had been issued, and Andros repaired to Hartford and demanded the charter of the Assembly then in session. That body, says Trumbull, was "extremely reluctant and slow with re

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dition is, that Governor Treat strongly represented the great expense and hardships of the colonists in planting the country; the blood and treasure which they had expended in defending it, both against the savages and foreigners; to what hardships and dangers he himself had been exposed for that purpose; and that it was like giving up his life, now to surrender the patent and privileges so dearly bought, and so long enjoyed. The important affair was debated and kept in suspense until the evening, when the charter was brought and laid upon the table where the Assembly were sitting. By this time, great numbers of people were assembled, and men sufficiently bold to enterprise whatever might be necessary or expedient. The lights were instantly extinguished, and Captain Wadsworth, of Hartford, in the most silent and secret manner, carried off the charter, and secreted it in a large hollow tree, fronting the house of the Honorable Samuel Wyllys, then one of the magistrates of the colony. The people appeared all peaceable and orderly. The candles were officiously relighted, but the patent was gone, and no discovery could be made of it, or of the person who had conveyed it away."* Andros, however, declared the charter forfeited, and at the end of the records inscribed the expressive word-FINIS.

The arbitrary proceedings of Andros were not permitted to continue for any great length of time. The infatuated James II. was rapidly bringing on that crisis in England which resulted in his

* "History of Connecticut,” pp. 371, 372.

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