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of this war, (which to this day is styled Philip's War), probably soon, or not very long after the swamp fight, and destruction of his party there, made his escape with a number of his men to the Maquas, a powerful and numerous tribe of Indians westward, who sheltered him and his company, whose aid and assistance he importuned against the English. But finding some of these Indians, among whom he had been hospitably harbored, scattered in the wood, he killed them all, as he thought, and told the rest that the English had done it, to prejudice them against the English. But one of them was not so wounded but after some time he revived so as to get home, and told his countrymen that it was Philip and not the English that had killed them. Upon this they slaughtered 50 of his men; but he made his escape, mightily defeated in his design by his own treachery and falsehood, and in the spring returns to Mount Hope, now Bristol, which was become Mount Ebal to him, for the curse and vengeance of God seemed to follow him wherever he went.

July 27, sagamore John submitted himself to the mercy of the English, with 180 Nipmuck Indians, and brought in Matoonas, who first began the war in Massachusetts colony, the year before; who was shot to death by sagamore John, by order of the English.

On July 31, a small party of soldiers issued out of Bridgewater, fell unexpectedly upon a company of Indians, who snapped their guns at the English, but they all missed fire. They took 15 captive and slew 10, without the loss of a man of their own. Thus God wrought wonderfully in providence for us, in several preceding engagements with the Indians, wherein great spoil was made on them, without any loss on the side of the English.

King Philip, the grand promoter of the war, was one of them that escaped at that time.

On August 1, Captain Church, with about 30 English and 20 friendly Indians, took 23 of the enemy; and the next morning he came upon Philip's head-quarters, where they took and slew about 130 of the enemy, with the loss of but one of his men. Philip himself, now hardly escaping, left his peag, his wife and his son behind him.

On August 6, an Indian deserter, informing the inhabitants of Taunton where they might probably surprise more of the enemy, 20 men of ours soon brought in 36 of them.

The squaw-sachem of Pocasset, endeavoring about this time to escape over a river on a raft, the raft broke and she was drowned. The English, that found her, took off her head and stuck it up on a pole in Taunton; which when the captived Indians of her party saw, and knew whose head it was, they broke out into hideous lamentation, after their manner of mourning over their dead,-wherein they were used to unite in this dolorous tone, Too-too-too-too-too-tooo! and continue repeating over and over for a long time during the whole of their mourning, as I have seen and heard them. Near this time an Indian, one of Philip's men, took a disgust at him for killing an Indian who had propounded an expedient for peace with the English; upon which he ran away from him to Rhode Island, where Captain Church then was recruiting his small force; and upon this deserter's intelligence he set out on a new expedition, and not long after arrived at a swamp where Philip, with a few of his men that were left, was kennelled. And at that instant Philip was telling his dream the night before,-much like the dream of the man in the army of Midian. So Philip dreamed that he was fallen into the hands of the English, therefore proposed an immediate escape; and just in that interim an Englishman and an Indian presented their guns at him. The Englishman's gun missed fire, but the Indian shot him through the heart, and in the place, or near to it, where he first plotted and commenced this bloody war; and the Indian that fired the first gun at the English in the beginning of this war, was slain with him at the same time. Now Philip, this Indian king and great sagamore, was cut into quarters, and hanged up in the woods, and his head carried to Plymouth on a Thanksgiving day, before appointed; and on this very day, as Dr. Cotton Mather remarks, God sent them in the head of a leviathan for a Thanksgiving feast.

Thus, according to my best information, and the truest intelligence I have been able to obtain, have I given an account of the English that were slain both in the wars with Sassacus, the great sachem of the Pequots, and Philip, the sachem of the Wampanoags, as his men were called, the seat of which war was in Plymouth Patent (where it also ended by the death of Philip, as is shown above) and in the Massachusetts. These wars were short, though much English,

but far more Indian blood was spilt in the time. Philip's war began in June, 1674, and ended in 1676; but the Pequot war was finished in a shorter time, as God wonderfully appeared for the help of the first settlers of the gospel and gospel churches in this wilderness land, who were then eminently a praying people. God heard their prayers, and in abundant instances remarkably gave them success against their enemies, which then probably, in their several tribes and sagamoreships, were 100 to 1 of the English inhabitants, or likely a greater inequality as to numbers.

Before I pass from this war with Philip, as above related, to that which succeeded in the northward or northeast part. of the country, (raised and carried on ever since almost, except some few and short cessations, by the French and Indians, against the English colonies in the land), it may be proper in this place to acquaint my reader, that, some time after the Pequots were subdued by the English, as before is related, Ninicraft, the grand sagamore in the west part of the Narragansett country, a powerful prince, who had appeared friendly to the English, made war against Uncas, the sachem of the Mohegan tribe, dwelling in Connecticut on the back of New London. The occasion of this rupture between these two Indian kings is uncertain at this day, unless it proceeded from envy in Ninicraft, to find that the English put more confidence in Uncas than they did in his fidelity, of which they were suspicious. Indeed, a party of Ninicraft's men accompanied the English at their taking the Pequot fort, but they stood at such a distance only as lookerson, and did them no other service than to stop those Indians that endeavored to escape, as before is noted.

The Massachusetts, from the strong friendship the Mohegans had proved toward the English, concluded to assist Uncas against this his potent adversary, and accordingly raised and sent a party of men for that purpose; but before they arrived the controversy was decided, for Uncas had defeated Ninicraft's party. However, as Ninicraft was found to be the aggressor, it was thought proper he should pay the charge of this armament and travail the English had been put to by his means, which he consented to do; but delaying the payment much longer than was expected, and perhaps promised, this delay occasioned Captain Atherton (I suppose of Dorchester) to go and make a demand of it.

Accordingly he, with no more than eight men with him, entered Ninicraft's fort, (which I have seen, as I have also the ruins of the Pequot fort), and entering into his wigwam, took him by the hair of his head with one hand, holding with the other a loaded pistol at his breast, declaring withal, that unless he would take speedy care to pay the money he had promised, he would instantly shoot him dead on the spot. Ninicraft complied, whilst his attendants and numerous company about him stood amazed, and were struck with a wonderful surprise at this effort of Captain Atherton with his eight men. God, that has the command of all hearts, and can restrain the rage and fury of the most fierce and bloodthirsty as well as barbarous salvages, kept them from doing these men any harm. ·

Some other instances I shall give of the like nature at Block Island, where I was born, and upon good authority. Some time after this island began to be settled by the English, there then being but 16 Englishmen and a boy, and about 300 Indians, the Indians were wont, some of them, to treat the English in a surly, lordly manner, which moved the English to suspect they had some evil designs in hand ; and it being in the time of Philip's war, there was a large stone house garrisoned, erected by James Sands, Esq., one of the first settlers. To this garrison the women and children were gathered. But this was not esteemed a sufficient defence against such a great number of Indians as were then on the island. They therefore kept a very watchful eye on them, especially when they had got a considerable quantity of rum among them and they got drunk, as is common with them, and then they are ready for mischief. Once, when they had a large keg of rum, and it was feared by the English what might be the consequence, Mr. Thomas Terry, then an inhabitant there, the father of the present Colonel Terry, Esq., of Freetown, who had gained the Indian tongue, went to treat with them as they were gathered together on a hill that had a long descent to the bottom; where he found their keg or cask of rum, with the bung out, and began to inquire of them who had supplied them with it. They told him Mr. Arnold, who was a trader on Rhode Island. Upon which he endeavored to undervalue him and prejudice their minds against him; and in their cups they soon pretended that they cared as little for Mr. Arnold as he did. He told

them, that if they spake the truth, they should prove it, (which is customary among them), and the proof he directed was, to kick their keg of rum, and say, Tuckisho Mr. Arnold; the English is, "I don't care for Mr. Arnold;" which one of them presently did, and with his kick rolled it down the hill, the bung being open, as was said; and by the time it came to the bottom, the rum had all run out. By this stratagem, the English were made easy for this time.

were.

But the following instances were especially here intended. The Indians still insulting and threatening the English people, they became more cautious and watchful over them. About this time, or perhaps not long after, Ninicraft himself came over to visit this part of his dominions, as these islanders were his subjects; but his seat was on the main land over against them. And there came with him a number of his chief men, with many others, which gave the English new grounds of suspicion, fearing what might be their design, as they were drinking, dancing and revelling after their usual customs at such times. Whereupon the English went to parley with them, and to know what their intentions The before-mentioned James Sands, who was the leading man among them, entered into a wigwam, where he saw a very fine brass gun standing, and an Indian fellow lying on a bench in the wigwam, probably to guard, and keep it. Mr. Sands's curiosity led him to take and view it, as it made a curious and uncommon appearance. Upon which the Indian fellow rises up hastily and snatches the gun out of his hand, and withal gave him such a violent thrust with the butt end of it as occasioned him to stagger backward. But feeling something under his feet, he espied it to be a hoe, which he took up and improved, and with it fell upon the Indian. Upon which a mighty scuffle ensued, the English and Indians on the outside of the wigwam closing in one with another; which probably would have issued in the destruction of the whole English party, as they were but a handful in compare with the great number of Indians, into whose hands they seemed then to be fallen, had not God, by a remarkable instance of his power, prevented it. For, in the time of this tumult and impending tragedy, Ninicraft, who was at that time on the island, was retired into a hot-house; there ran a messenger from the company and acquainted him with the affair. Upon which he came

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