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the commander, and Mr. Wilson, of Boston, their chaplain, "to sound the silver trumpet of the gospel before them." These two were designated by lot, with public invocation of God. Connecticut raised ninety men, under the command of Capt. Mason. Captain Underhill joined the expedition with nineteen of the garrison. Uncas, the sachem of the Mohegans, lent his assistance.

On their way to the Pequot country, from Saybrook they sent out a party of Indians, who met seven Pequots, of whom they killed five and took one; him they tortured, and set all their heads on the fort; so contagious are malignant pas sions. This was done, because they had tortured some of our men taken captive.

The army sailed from Connecticut river, passed Pequot, or the Thames, and entered the Narraganset or Mistick. They were joined by five hundred Narraganset Indians; but as the army marched to the intended scene of action, these daring sons of war fell in the rear or fled. So terrible was the name of Sassacus, who was in one of the two forts where the Pequots had assembled, and which the English designed immediately to assault: "Sassacus," they said, "was all one a God, nobody could kill him." The army

silently moved by the light of the moon toward the nearest fort. Wequash, their guide and spy, brought them word, that the Pequots in the fort were all asleep. Seeing the English vessels pass them in the course of the day, sup posing they had returned home in terror, they had sung and danced with joy till midnight, and were now buried in deep sleep. Captain Mason approached the east side and Underhill the west side of the fort; dog barked; the centinel awoke: he cried, Wannux, Wannux, i.e. English, English; the troops soon entered the fort, which consisted of trees set in the ground, two winding passages being left open; a dreadful carnage followed. Instantly the guns of the English

were directed to the floors of the wigwams, which were covered with their sleeping inhabitants. Terrible was the consternation to be roused from their dreams by the blaze and thunder of the English musketry; if they came forth, the English swords waited to pierce them; if they reached. the pallisadoes, and attempted to climb over, the fatal balls brought them down; their combustible dwellings, crowded together, were soon in flames; many of them roasted and burned to death, rather than venture out; others fled back to their burning houses, and were consumed, to escape the English swords.* The English endeavoured to save the women and children alive; which the men observing, in anguish and dying terror, cried, I Squaw, I Squaw, in hopes of finding mercy; but their hour was come. Their dwellings being wrapped in fire, the army retired and surrounded the fort: to escape was impossible; like a herd of deer they fell before the deadly weapons of the English. The earth was soon drenched in their blood and covered with their bodies. In a few minutes, five or six hundred of them lay gasping in their blood, or silent in death. The darkness of the forest, the blaze of the dwellings, the rivulets of blood, the ghastly looks of the dead, the groans of the dying, the shricks of the women and children, the yells of the friendly savages, presented a scene of sublimity and horror indescribably dreadful.

The same morning, May 20, 1637, their pinnaces arrived with provisions in Pequot harbour to relieve their necessi ties. They were in the country of their enemies; the mighty Sassacus and his garrison were near, ready to fall upon them; they were parched with thirst, and fainting with hunger. But they directed their march for Pequot harbour, which they considered six miles distant. On the way they

* Trumbull.

were assailed by three hundred savages, furious as bears bereaved of their whelps. Being repelled with cour age, they retired; when they found their slaughtered friends at the fort, their grief and madness were indescribable; they stamped the ground; they tore their hair; they roared and howled like wolves of the forest.

The Massachusetts troops, under Captain Stoughton, did not arrive till the latter part of June. By the assistance of the Narragansets, they surrounded a swamp and took eighty captives; thirty of them were men, all of whom excepting two sachems, they killed. Those who had escaped from the Connecticut forces retired to the fort of Sassacus; they upbraided him with their misfortunes; they separated; they were scattered over the country. All the other tribes exulted in their fall, attacked and killed them wherever they found them, or sent them to the English as prisoners, or, having killed them, sent their heads and limbs.

Captain Stoughton and his company pursued a party beyond Connecticut river, but not finding them, he returned to Pequot river, where he heard of a hundred; he marched, found and killed twenty-two men, took two sachems and a number of women and children, thirty of whom were given to the Narragansets, forty-eight were sent to Boston, who were placed in different families.

A few days after, Capt. Stoughton being joined by Capt. Mason and troops of Connecticut, sailed for New Haven with eighty men. They killed six Indians, and took two. At a head of land east of New Haven, now Guilford, they beheaded two sachems, and called the place Sachem's Head, which name it still retains. A Pequot prisoner had his life given him on condition of his finding Sassacus; he found him, and brought the intelligence to the English; but Sassacus suspecting the mischief, with Mononotto, another famous chief, fled to the Mohawks. In a swamp,

three miles west of Fairfield, eighty of their men and two hundred women and children had concealed themselves. Capt. Stoughton by information from a Pequot spy, whom he had employed, discovered them; Lieutenant Davenport and two or three others endeavouring to enter, were badly wounded. A fire was kept up for several hours, when the Indians desired a parley and offered to yield. They came forth in small numbers, during the afternoon, in which time two hundred women and children had resigned themselves, with the sachem of the place; but night coming on, the men would not come out, and declared they would fight; accordingly, a constant firing was kept up all night. Toward morning, it being very dark, the Pequots crept silently out of the swamp and fied. So terminated the Pequot war, and Pequot nation. Sassacus, with twenty or thirty attendants, had fled to the Mohawks, who treacherously violating all the laws of hospitality, slew them, being hired as it was supposed by the Narragansets. A part of the skin and hair of Sassacus they sent to Massachusetts. So vanish the tribes of men in sad succession. In the course of a few months one of the most formidable nations, then in NewEngland, was swept away; eight or nine hundred of them had been killed; many were fugitives in the forests, and a remnant, to save themselves from cruel deaths by their own countrymen, submitted to the English. Captain Stoughton, on his way home, landed once more at Block Island, had an interview with the natives, who submitted themselves tributaries to the English.

In August, the troops returned to Boston, having lost but two of their number, both of whom died with sickness, A thanksgiving was observed through the colonies on account of their complete victory over their enemies.

The day previous to the dreadful storming of the fort at Mistick, had been kept as a day of fasting and prayer. This

or some other circumstances attending that bloody scene, wonderfully impressed the mind of Wequash, the guide of the English, with the power of the Englishman's God. He went about the colony of Connecticut with bitter lamentations, that he did not know Jesus Christ, the Englishman's God. The good people faithfully instructed him concerning the religion of the gospel; after which he made a most serious profession; he forsook his savage vices, went up and down the country preaching Christ to his benighted countrymen; he bore a thousand abuses from them, and finally submitted to death for his religion.

CHAP. XIV.

Earthquake; Uncas visits Gov. Winthrop; Hampton settled; Harvard College founded; Indian plot at Kennebec; settlement of Kowley; character of Rev. Ezekiel Rogers.

The year 1638 was remarkable for a great earthquake throughout New England. This earthquake, as did that also of 1627, which was equally violent and extensive, constituted a remarkable era, that was long remembered and referred to by the pious inhabitants of the se infant colonies.

This year, Uncas, from Mohegan, made governor Winthrop a visit at Boston; in his polite address, after delivering his present, laying his hand on his heart, he said, "This heart is not mine, but yours; I have no men, they all yours; command me any difficult service, and I will perform it; I will not believe any Indian's words against the English; if any man kill an Englishman, I will put him to death, let him be ever so dear to me." The governor gave him "a

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