His situation during the last few months of the war, was so deplorable, and yet his exertions so well sustained, that we can only look upon him with pity and admiration. His successes for some time past had been tremendous; but the tide began to ebb. The whole power of the Colonies was in the field, aided by guides and scouting-parties of his own race. The Saconets, the subjects of a near relation of his own, enlisted under Church. Other tribes complained and threatened. Their territory, as well as his, had been over-run, their settlements destroyed, and their planting and fishing-grounds all occupied by the English. Those of them who were not yet hunted down, were day and night followed into swamps and forests, and reduced to live,—if they did not actually starve or freeze,—upon the least and worst food to be conceived of. Hundreds died of diseases incurred in this manner. "I have eaten horse," said one of these miserable wretches, "but now horse is eating me." Another informed Church, on one occasion, that about three hundred Indians had gone a long way to Swanzey, in the heat of the war, for the purpose of eating clams, and that Philip was soon to follow them. At another time, the valiant captain himself captured a large party. Finding it convenient to attack a second directly after, he bade the first wait for him, and join him at a certain rendezvous. The day after the skirmish, "they came to him as they were ordered," and he drove them all together, that very night, into Bridgewater pound, and set his Saconet soldiers to guard them. "Being well treated with victuals and drink," he adds, with great simplicity, "they had a merry night, and the prisoners laughed as loud as the soldiers; not being so treated for a long time before."
The mere physical sufferings of Philip, meanwhile, are almost incredible. It is by his hair-breadth escapes, indeed, that he is chiefly visible during the war. Occasionally, the English come close upon him; he starts up, like the roused lion, plunges into the river or leaps the precipice; and nothing more is seen of him for months. Only a few weeks after the war commenced, he was surrounded in the great Pocasset swamp, and obliged to escape from his vigilant enemies by rafting himself, with his best men, over the great Taunton river, while their women and children were left to be captured. On his return to the same neighborhood, the next season, a captive guided the English to his encampment. Philip fled in such haste as to leave his kettle upon the fire; twenty of his comrades were overtaken and killed; and he himself escaped to the swamp, precisely as he had formerly escaped from it. Here his uncle was shot soon afterwards at his side. Upon the next day, Church, discovering an Indian seated on a fallen tree, made to answer the purpose of a bridge over the river, raised his musket and deliberately aimed at him. "It is one of our own party," whispered a savage, who crept behind him. Church lowered his gun, and the stranger turned his head. It was Philip himself, musing, perhaps, upon the fate which awaited him. Church fired, but his royal enemy had already fled down the bank. He escaped from a close and bloody skirmish a few hours afterwards.
He was now a desolate and desperate man, the last prince of an ancient race, without subjects, without territory, accused by his allies, betrayed by his comrades, hunted like a spent deer by blood-hounds, in daily hazard of famishing, and with no shelter day or night for his head. All his chief counsellors and best friends had been killed. His brother was slain in the Pocasset swamp; his uncle was shot down at his own side; and his wife and only son were captured when he himself so narrowly escaped from the fire of Church. And could he have fled for the last time from the soil of his own country, he would still have found no rest or refuge. He had betaken himself once to a place between York and Albany; but even here, as Church says, the Moohags made a descent upon him and killed many of his men. His next kennelling-place [FN] was at the fall of Connecticut river, above Deerfield, where, some time after, "Captain Turner found him, came upon him by night, killed a great many men, and frightened many more into the river, that were hunted down the falls and drowned." He lost three hundred men at this time. They were in their encampments, asleep and unguarded. The English rushed upon them, and they fled in every direction, half-awakened, and crying out, "Mohawks! Mohawks!"
[FN] The language of Church. The same name might be as properly applied, we suppose, to a curious cave in the vicinity of Winnecunnett pond, in Norton (Mass.) In the midst of a cluster of large rocks, it is formed by the projection of one over another which meets it with an acute angle. It is five feet high, and the area at the base is seventeen feet by nine. Tradition represents it as one of the Sachem's secret retreats, and it bears the name of "Philip's-Cave" to this day.
We cannot better illustrate Philip's character, than by observing, that within a few days of this affair, he was collecting the remnants of the Narraghansetts and Nipmucks among the Wachuset hills, on the east side of the river; that they then made a descent upon Sudbury; "met with and swallowed up the valiant Captain Wadsworth and his company; [FN-1] and many other doleful desolations in those parts." We also find, that Philip was setting parties to waylay Church, under his own worst circumstances; and that he came very near succeeding. He is thought to have been at the great swamp-fight in December, 1675; and to have led one thousand Indians against Lancaster on the ensuing 8th of February. In August of the former season, he made his appearance among the Nipmucks, in a swamp ten or twelve miles from Brookfield. "They told him at his first coming," said one of them who was taken captive, "what they had done to the English at Brookfield [burning the town.] Then he presented and gave to three sagamores, namely, John alias Apequinast, Quanansit, and Mawtamps, to each of them about a peck of unstrung wampum." [FN-2] Even so late as the month before the sachem's death, a Negro, who had fought under him, informed the English of his design of attacking certain towns, being still able to muster something like a thousand men. In his last and worst days, he would not think of peace; and he killed with his own hand, upon the spot, the only Indian who ever dared to propose it. It was the brother of this man by whom he was himself soon after slain.
[FN-1] This strong expression of the Captain's may refer to the really savage treatment which the unfortunate prisoners met with in this case. We have it on the authority of Mather, at least, that those "devils incarnate" inflicted a variety of tortures not necessary to be enlarged upon here; "and so with exquisite, leisurely, horrible torments, roasted them out of the world." History of New England, Book VII. p. 55, London Ed. 1702.
[FN-2] Note to Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts. Mather says, that these very Indians had covenanted by a formal treaty, a month before, that they would not assist Philip.
These are clear proofs, then, that Philip possessed a courage as noble as his intellect. Nor is there any doubt that history would have furnished a long list of his personal exploits, but that his situation compelled him to disguise as well as conceal himself. If any thing but his face had been known, there was nothing to prevent Church from shooting him, as we have seen. And universally influential as he was,—the master-spirit every where guiding, encouraging, soothing and rewarding,—it is a fact worthy of mention, that from the time of his first flight from Pocasset until a few weeks before his death, no Englishman could say, that he had either seen his countenance or heard his voice. Hence Church describes him as being always foremost in the flight. The price put upon his head, the fearful power which pursued him, the circumstance that some of his own acquaintance were against him, and especially the vital importance of his life to his cause, all made it indispensable for him to adopt every stratagem of the wary and cunning warfare of his race.