The Pilgrims of New England, Mrs. J. B. Webb [best books to read in your 20s TXT] 📗

the fortress, which was rapidly becoming a prey to the devouring flames. All the English withdrew outside the palisades, and thickly surrounded the fort; while their Indian allies, who had hitherto kept aloof, now took courage to approach, and form a second circle outside. The most furious despair now took possession of the souls of the devoted Pequodees: and their terrible war-cry was heard resounding high, and mingled with the agonising yells of the women and children, and helpless aged men, who were expiring amid the flames. Many of the warriors climbed the palisades, and leaped down among their foes, hoping to escape; but they were quickly despatched by the muskets and bayonets of the English; or if any had power to break through the first hostile line, they fell beneath the battle-axes of the Mohicans.

Rodolph had received a considerable wound, but it had not entirely disabled him. At the head of his men he passed through the open gate of the fortress, and attempted still to lead and command them. He found, however that his strength was failing, and that he could no longer wield his good broad sword. He therefore stood leaning on it, and watching, with mingled feelings of pity and horror, the progress of the work of destruction.

Presently he saw a side entrance to the fort thrown suddenly open, and the form of the Indian Chief--whose tomahawk had saved his life, and whose voice had awakened such strange feelings--appeared rushing forth. He was attended by another striking looking warrior, and followed by a band of determined natives, who were resolved to escape, or sell their lives dearly.

Rodolph's men, who occupied the position opposite to that gate, raised their muskets to fire on these brave men; but their commander loudly and authoritatively bade them desist.

'Hold! I command you!' he exclaimed. 'Let that noble Chieftain escape, and all his attendants for his sake. He saved my life in the fort; and death to the man who injures him!

He attempted to rush forward to enforce his orders, but pain and loss of blond prevented him from moving; and he would have fallen but for the support of one of his comrades.

Meanwhile, Henrich and Jyanough, and their band of Nausetts, had rushed through the unopposing ranks of the English, and were now contending desperately with the Indian line beyond. The British troops paused, and looked after them; and the sympathy that brave men feel for each other prevented any of them from attempting to pursue or molest them. On the contrary, all now wished them success.

With breathless anxiety Rodolph gazed after them, and watched the towering plumes that adorned the noble head of the Sachem, as he bore onward through the opposing crowd of Indians. He passed, and gained the plain beyond, attended by his followers; and, from the elevated position at which the fort was erected, Rodolph could still watch the little band retiring, until the Indian heroes were hidden from view by a thicket.

So fiercely had the fire seconded the efforts of the English that the whole conflict only lasted one hour. In that brief space of time, between five and six hundred Indians--young and old, men and women-- were destroyed by fire and sword; and the small remainder were made prisoners of war by the English, or carried off as prizes by the hostile natives. Only two of the British soldiers were slain, but many were wounded; and the arrows remaining some time in the wounds, and the want of necessary medicine and refreshment, added greatly to their sufferings The medical attendants attached to the expedition, and the provisions, had all been left in the boats, and a march of more than six miles through their enemies' land was necessary, in order to reach them.

Litters were therefore constructed and, in these, the wounded were sent off under the charge of the Mohicans, while the able-bodied men, whose number was reduced to little more than forty, prepared to follow as a rear-guard. The whole party were still near the smoking ruins of the fort, when they were startled by perceiving a large body of armed natives approaching. These were a band of more than three hundred Pequodees, sent by Sassacus to aid the garrison of Fort Mystic. Happily, they did not discover the small number of the English who were in a condition to oppose them, and they turned aside, and avoided a re-encounter. The white men took advantage of this mistake on the part of their enemies, and hastened forward with all the speed that circumstances would allow.

But they had not proceeded far when their ears were assailed by the most discordant yells from the Pequodees. They had reached the scene of devastation; and, when they beheld the ruined fort, and the ground strewn with hundreds of mangled corpses and expiring friends, their fury knew no bounds. They stamped and howled with rage and grief, and madly tore their hair; while they gave vent to their excited feelings in that fearful and peculiar yell, at the sound of which the stoutest hearts might quail. Then, with a wild and desperate effort at revenge, they rushed down the bill in pursuit of their cruel enemies. The rear- guard turned, and met the onset bravely. The savages were received with a shower of bullets, which checked their furious assault; but they hung on the rear of the English, and harassed them during the whole of their retreat. They, however, reached their vessels in safety, and arrived in triumph at Hartford, from which port they had sailed three weeks before.

This discomfiture proved a death-blow to the pride and power of the redoubted Sassacus. Disgusted alike by his arrogance, and by his recent defeat, many of his own warriors deserted him and attached themselves to other tribes; and the Sachem then destroyed his second fortress, end carried off his treasure to the land of the Mohawks, near the river Hudson, and, with his principal Chiefs, joined that warlike race.

Meanwhile, the remainder of the troops from Massachusetts, whom the Government had not thought it necessary to send with Captain Mason, had landed at Saybroke, led by Captain Houghton, and attended by Wilson as their spiritual guide. They arrived just in time to hear of the successful issue of the campaign; and had, therefore, nothing left for them to do, except to join a small band from Connecticut, and keep down or destroy the few Pequodees, or other hostile Indians who still lurked about the district, and kept the settlers in fear and anxiety. These wretched natives were chased into their most secret haunts, where they were barbarously slain; their wigwams were burnt, and their fields desolated. Nor were the English the only foes of the once terrible Pequodees. Their Indian rivals took advantage of their present weak and scattered condition, to wreak upon them the suppressed vengeance of bygone years; and pursued, with ruthless cruelty, those whose very name had once inspired them with awe and dread. And yet--with shame be it said!--the _Christian_ leader of the troops of Massachusetts, himself a member of the strict and exclusive Church of Boston, surpassed these savages in cruelty.

On one occasion, he made prisoners of nearly a hundred Pequodees. Of these miserable creatures he sent the wives and children into servitude at Boston, while he caused the men--thirty-seven in number--to be bound hand and foot, and carried in a shallop outside the harbor, where they wore thrown overboard. If this barbarous deed was not committed by the directions of the _Christian_ Fathers of Massachusetts, yet they certainly neither disclaimed nor censured it. Indeed, so little were cruelty and oppression, when exercised against the red men, regarded as crimes by many of the settlers, that one of their learned divines, even of the age succeeding the perpetrations of the above appalling event, expressed it as his opinion that 'Heaven had smiled on the English _hunt';_ and added, with horrible and disgusting levity, 'that it was found to be the quickest way _feed the fishes_ with the multitude of Indian captives!'

The other tribes who had joined the Pequodees in opposing the conquering white men, were pardoned on their submission; but that devoted race, who fought like heroes to the very last, were extirpated as a nation from the face of the earth. The very name in which they had so long gloried, and which had been a terror to all the neighboring tribes, was not permitted to remain, and to tell where once they had dwelt and reigned unrivalled. The river, which had been called the Pequod, received the appellation of the Thames; and the native township, on the ruins of which an English settlement was founded, was afterwards called New London. Numbers of the women and boys, who were taken captive from tune to time by the British troops, were sold and carried as slaves to Bermuda, and others were divided among the settlers, and condemned--not _nominally to slavery,_ for that was forbidden by the laws of New England, but--to _perpetual servitude,_ which must, indeed, have been much the same thing to free-born Indian spirits, accustomed to the wild liberty of the forests and the prairies.

Sassacus--the once mighty Chief of this mighty and heroic people--was basely slain by the Mohawks, among whom he had sought fellowship and protection, for the sake of the treasures that be had brought with him from his own lost dominions; and his heart was sent by his murderers as a peace-offering to the government of Connecticut.

Thus ended the war which had been commenced as a necessary measure of self-defence, and in which the pious and high-minded Roger Williams had, at first, taken so active and influential a part. The manner in which it was carried out, and the cruelty that marked so many of its details, were repulsive in the highest degree to his just and benevolent spirit; but where mercy was concerned, his opinion and advice had no influence with the stern men of Boston. The only act which met with his approbation in the conclusion of the campaign, was the assignment of the depopulated lands of the Pequodees to Uncas, the Chief of the Mohicans. As being a conquered territory, the usual laws of war would have annexed it to the territory of the victors. But, in this case, the settlers adhered to their original principle of only obtaining, by purchase from the natives, those tracts of land on which they desired to settle; and a great part of that which was now bestowed on Uncas, was afterwards bought back from him and his inferior Sachems, or obtained by friendly contract, until the English became possessors of the whole district. At a subsequent period, the Pequodees who had escaped from their desolated land, and joined other tribes, assembled themselves together, and made one final effort at establishing their independence in a distant part of the country. But their power and prosperity were broken for ever. Captain Mason was again sent to subdue this remnant of the tribe; and the destruction that was accomplished on these unhappy exiles spread a fear of the white men through all the Indian race in that part of the continent. From that time the settlers of Connecticut--who had been the original cause of this cruel war--enjoyed an unbroken peace and security for forty years.


CHAPTER XXIV.

'The voices of my home! I hear them still! They have been with me through the stormy night-- The blessed household voices wont to fill My heart's clear depths with unalloyed delight! I hear them still unchanged; though some from earth Are music parted, and the tones of mirth-- Wild silvery tones, that rang through days more bright, Have died in others--yet to me they