[Here follows a rude map of the Pequod and Mohegan country.]
“Thus, with my best salutes to your worthy selves and loving friends with you, and daily cries to the Father of mercies for a merciful issue to all these enterprises, I rest,
“Your worship’s unfeignedly respective
“ROGER WILLIAMS.
“For his much honored Mr. Governor, and Mr. Winthrop, Deputy Governor, of the Massachusetts, these.”
The Pequods now prosecuted the war with all the cruelty of savages. They murdered several individuals, whom they found at work in the fields, or surprised on the rivers; and some of them they put to death with barbarous tortures. They attacked the fort at Saybrook, at the mouth of Connecticut river. They thus spread alarm through the colonies. Massachusetts, Plymouth and Connecticut immediately agreed to invade the Indian territory, with their joint forces, and attempt the entire destruction of the Pequods. Massachusetts accordingly sent 120 men, under General Stoughton, with Mr. Wilson, of Boston, as their chaplain, an indispensable attendant of a military expedition in those days. They marched by the way of Providence, and were hospitably entertained, at that place, by Mr. Williams. His own account of the transaction may be properly quoted: “When the English forces marched up to the Narraganset country, against the Pequods, I gladly entertained at my house, in Providence, the General Stoughton and his officers, and used my utmost care, that all his officers and soldiers should be well accommodated with us.”[[170]] He accompanied the troops to Narraganset, where, by his influence, he established a mutual confidence between them and the Indians. He then returned to Providence, and acted through the war as a medium of intercourse between the government of Massachusetts, the army and the Indians.
Major Mason, with seventy-seven men from Connecticut and Massachusetts, and several hundred Narraganset and other Indians,[[171]] attacked the Pequods, in May, 1637, at Mistick fort, near a river of that name, in the county of New-London, a few miles east of Fort Griswold. In this fort, five or six hundred Pequods, men, women and children, had taken refuge, and had fortified it, as well as their skill would permit, with palisadoes, which offered but a feeble defence, and presented no obstacle to musketry. They made a desperate resistance, but as they were armed only with bows, tomahawks and English hatchets, they killed and wounded but a few of the assailants, while the English troops poured in a destructive fire, and then rushed into the fort, sword in hand. The slaughter was dreadful, the warriors falling by the bullet and the sword, and the old men, women and children perishing in the flames. The action lasted an hour, and terminated in the burning of the fort, and the death of all its inmates, except a few prisoners.
A considerable number of the Pequods were soon after killed in a battle in a great swamp. The tribe was extinguished. Sassacus, the Pequod sachem, fled to the Mohawks, by whom he was murdered. Such of the Pequods as were not killed, were either sent to Bermuda, and sold for slaves, or mingled with the Narragansets and other tribes.[[172]] Thus the brave and powerful Pequods disappeared forever, and such was the terror which this victory spread among the savages, that they refrained from open hostilities for nearly forty years. A day of thanksgiving was kept by all the churches in Massachusetts, in commemoration of the victory, from which their soldiers had returned, without the loss of a man killed in battle. The account given by Winthrop is characteristic of those times: “The captains and soldiers who had been in the late service were feasted, and after the sermon, the magistrates and elders accompanied them to the door of the house where they dined.” Miantinomo, the Narraganset sachem, visited Boston, in November, to negotiate with the government, and acknowledged that all the Pequod country and Block-Island belonged to Massachusetts, and promised that he would not meddle with it without their leave.
We have seen the part which Mr. Williams took in this war, and may ascribe to him no small share in producing its favorable termination. Some of the leading men in Massachusetts felt, that he deserved some acknowledgment of gratitude for his services. He says, in his letter to Major Mason, that Governor Winthrop “and some other of the council motioned, and it was debated, whether or no I had not merited, not only to be recalled from banishment, but also to be honored with some mark of favor. It is known who hindered, [alluding, it is supposed, to Mr. Dudley] who never promoted the liberty of other men’s consciences.”
His principles, however, were not then viewed with more favor than at the time of his banishment; and the fear of their contagious influence overcame the sentiment of gratitude for his magnanimous conduct and invaluable services during the war. It was not himself, so much as his doctrines, which his opponents disliked. To those doctrines they were conscientiously hostile; and they were not the only men who have thought that they did God service, by stifling the generous emotions of the heart, in obedience to the stern dictates of a mistaken sense of duty.