Chapter XXI.
"Be certain what you do, sir; lest your justice
Prove violence."
Winter's Tale.
The designs of the celebrated Metacom had been betrayed to the Colonists, by the treachery of a subordinate warrior, named Sausaman. The punishment of this treason led to inquiries, which terminated in accusations against the great Sachem of the Wampanoags. Scorning to vindicate himself before enemies that he hated, and perhaps distrusting their clemency, Metacom no longer endeavored to cloak his proceedings; but, throwing aside the emblems of peace he openly appeared with an armed hand.
The tragedy had commenced about a year before the period at which the tale has now arrived. A scene, not unlike that detailed in the foregoing pages, took place; the brand, the knife, and the tomahawk, doing their work of destruction, without pity and without remorse. But, unlike the inroad of the Wish-Ton-Wish, this expedition was immediately followed by others, until the whole of New-England was engaged in the celebrated war, to which we have before referred.
The entire white population of the Colonies of New-England had shortly before been estimated at one hundred and twenty thousand souls. Of this number, it was thought that sixteen thousand men were capable of bearing arms. Had time been given for the maturity of the plans of Metacom, he might have readily assembled bands of warriors who, aided by their familiarity with the woods, and accustomed to the privations of such a warfare, would have threatened serious danger to the growing strength of the whites. But the ordinary and selfish feelings of man were as active, among these wild tribes, as they are known to be in more artificial communities. The indefatigable Metacom, like that Indian hero of our own times, Tecumthà, had passed years in endeavoring to appease ancient enmities and to lull jealousies, in order that all of red blood might unite in crushing a foe that promised, should he be longer undisturbed in his march to power, soon to be too formidable for their united efforts to subdue. The premature explosion in some measure averted the danger. It gave the English time to strike several severe blows against the tribe of their great enemy, before his allies had determined to make common cause in his design. The summer and autumn of 1675 had been passed in active hostilities between the English and Wampanoags, without openly drawing any other nation into the contest. Some of the Pequots, with their dependent tribes, even took sides with the whites: and we read of the Mohegans being actively employed in harassing the Sachem, on his well-known retreat from that neck of land, where he had been hemmed in by the English, with the expectation that he might be starved into submission.
The warfare of the first summer was, as might be expected, attended by various degrees of success, fortune quite as often favoring the red-men, in their desultory attempts at annoyance, as their more disciplined enemies. Instead of confining his operations to his own circumscribed and easily environed districts, Metacom had led his warriors to the distant settlements on the Connecticut; and it was during the operations of this season, that several of the towns on that river were first assailed and laid in ashes. Active hostilities had in some measure ceased, between the Wampanoags and the English, with the cold weather, most of the troops retiring to their homes, while the Indians apparently paused to take breath for their final effort.
It was, however, previously to this cessation of activity, that the Commissioners of the United Colonies, as they were called, met to devise the means of a concerted resistance. Unlike their former dangers from the same quarter, it was manifest, by the manner in which a hostile feeling was spreading around their whole frontier, that a leading spirit had given as much of unity and design to the movements of the foe, as could probably ever be created among a people so separated by distance and so divided in communities. Right or wrong, the Colonists gravely decided that the war on their part was just. Great preparations were therefore made to carry it on, the ensuing summer, in a manner more suited to their means, and to the absolute necessities of their situation. It was in consequence of the arrangements made for bringing a portion of the inhabitants of the Colony of Connecticut into the field, that we find the principal characters of our legend in the warlike guise in which they have just been re-introduced to the reader.
Although the Narragansetts had not at first been openly implicated in the attacks on the Colonists, facts soon came to the knowledge of the latter, which left no doubt of the state of feeling in that nation. Many of their young men were discovered among the followers of Metacom, and arms taken from whites, who had been slain in the different encounters, were also seen in their villages. One of the first measures of the Commissioners, therefore, was to anticipate more serious opposition, by directing an overwhelming force against this people. The party collected on that occasion was probably the largest military body which the English, at that early day, had ever assembled in their Colonies. It consisted of a thousand men, of whom no inconsiderable number was cavalry--a species of troops that, as all subsequent experience has shown, is admirably adapted to operations against so active and so subtle a foe.
The attack was made in the depth of winter, and it proved fearfully destructive to the assailed. The defence of Conanchet, the young Sachem of the Narragansetts, was every way worthy of his high character for courage and mental resources, nor was the victory gained without serious loss to the Colonists. The native chief had collected his warriors, and taken post on a small area of firm land, that was situated in the centre of a densely wooded swamp; and the preparations for resistance betrayed a singular familiarity with the military expedients of a white man. There had been a palisadoed breast-work, a species of redoubt, and a regular block-house, to overcome, ere the Colonists could penetrate into the fortified village itself. The first attempts were unsuccessful, the Indians having repulsed their enemies with loss. But better arms and greater concert finally prevailed, though not without a struggle that lasted for many hours, and not until the defendants were, in truth, nearly surrounded.