THE BATTLE IN TIVERTON.
Dartmouth burned.
Perfidy of the English.
Captain Church then went, with a small army, to ravage the territories of Wetamoo. When he arrived at the spot where Fall River now stands, he found that Wetamoo, with her warriors, had taken refuge in a neighboring swamp. Just then news came that a great part of the town of Dartmouth was in flames, that many of the inhabitants were killed, and that the survivors were in great distress. Captain Church marched immediately to their rescue. But the foe had finished his work of destruction, and had fled into the wilderness, to emerge at some other spot, no one could tell where, and strike another deadly blow. The colonists, however, took one hundred and sixty Indians prisoners, who had been induced by promises of kind treatment to come in and surrender themselves. To the extreme indignation of Captain Church, all these people, in most dishonorable disregard of the pledges of the capitulation, were by the Plymouth authorities sold into slavery. This act was as impolitic as it was criminal. It can not be too sternly denounced. It effectually deterred others from confiding in the English.
Attempts to capture Philip.
An unfortunate ambush.
The colonists, conscious of the intellectual supremacy of King Philip as the commanding genius of the strife, devoted their main energies to his capture, dead or alive. Large rewards were offered for his head. The barbarian monarch, with a large party of his warriors, had taken refuge in an almost impenetrable swamp upon the river, about eighteen miles below Taunton. All the inhabitants of Taunton, in their terror, had abandoned their homes, and were gathered in eight garrison houses. On the 18th of July, a force of several hundred men from Plymouth and Taunton surrounded the swamp. They cautiously penetrated the tangled thicket, their feet at almost every step sinking in the mire and becoming shackled by interlacing roots, the branches pinioning their arms, and the dense foliage blinding their eyes. Philip, with characteristic cunning, sent a few of his warriors occasionally to exhibit themselves, to lure the English on. The colonists gradually forgot their accustomed prudence, and pressed eagerly forward. Suddenly from the dense thicket a party of warriors in ambush poured upon their pursuers a volley of bullets. Fifteen dropped dead, and many were sorely wounded. The survivors precipitately retired from the swamp, "finding it ill," says Hubbard, "fighting a wild beast in his own den."
Lesson of caution dearly purchased.
The English, taught a lesson of caution by this misadventure, now decided to surround the swamp, guarding every avenue of escape. They knew that Philip had no stores of provisions there, and that he soon must be starved out. Here they kept guard for thirteen days. In the mean time, Philip constructed some canoes and rafts, and one dark night floated all his warriors, some two hundred in number, across the river, and continued his flight through the present towns of Dighton and Rehoboth, far away into the unknown wilderness of the interior of Massachusetts. Wetamoo, with several of her warriors, accompanied Philip in his flight. He left a hundred starving women and children in the swamp, who surrendered themselves the next morning to the English.