"The moment I set eyes on thee. Those white dogs had been slain an hour sooner but for thy presence among them and a fear of doing thee harm. Now, what say you? Shall this man be delivered to the tormentors, or shall he be killed where he lies? It is certain that his punishment must be great, for he has earned all that may be given. Also I do not care that he should recognize me and spread the report that I was once his slave, for that would shame me in the eyes of my people. Thou, too, must ever keep secret the matter of my having crossed the salt waters."
"I will remember," replied Tasquanto. "As for this white man, I would crop his ears with the same brand of ownership that he has placed upon many an Indian captured and sold into slavery. Then would I let him sail away in his own ship as a warning to all other white men. Death he deserves, since he has treated many of our people to death and worse, but to him the shame of cropped ears will be even more bitter than death."
So favorably was Massasoit impressed with this idea that he ordered it carried out at once. Thus, half an hour later, the brutal Dermer, who had done so much to cause the name of Englishman to be hated in the New World, was set adrift in a canoe, minus both his ears, and allowed to depart to his own ship. It is recorded in history that he reached Virginia, where he soon afterwards died from wounds received at the hands of New England savages.
Having thus satisfactorily concluded one part of his undertaking, Massasoit next turned his attention to the rebel Narragansetts. Moving his entire force against their stronghold, he demanded that all goods received from the English should be delivered up, and also that Miantinomo should come to his camp, bringing a chief's belt in token of submission. Massasoit swore that, in case his demands were refused, he would not depart from that place until every rebel in the fort was destroyed. So mild were these terms in comparison with what had been expected that they were instantly accepted, and a cruel war between neighbors was averted.
With peace thus restored, the authority of Massasoit over the great territory, already named New England by Captain John Smith, was so firmly established that until the day of his death it was never again questioned.
But if one of his two chief causes for anxiety was thus removed, the other was looming ominously near. Some six months after Tasquanto's escape from his long captivity a little English ship, buffeted by winter gales of the North Atlantic, was slowly approaching the American coast. Although only of one hundred and fifty tons' burden, or about the size of a small coasting schooner of to-day, she carried one hundred passengers besides her crew and an immense quantity of freight.
For three months had her passengers—men, women, and children—been on board the overcrowded little craft, and they were sick for a sight of land. Their destination was the mouth of the Shatemuc or Hudson River, but their first landfall, made under a cold December sky, was the bluff headland, stretching far out to sea like a beckoning finger, that Gosnold, some twenty years earlier, had named the Cape of Cods. From here the ship was headed southward towards her destination, but soon became involved in a labyrinth of shoals covered with roaring breakers. Also she was beaten by adverse gales until her weary company hailed with joy her captain's decision to run back to the safe shelter of Cape Cod. Here, in what is now the harbor of Provincetown, the sea-worn strangers disembarked, so profoundly happy at finding themselves once more on land that the wooded wilderness seemed a paradise.
They had come to establish homes in the New World, and though disappointed at not gaining the more southerly latitude for which they had set out, they now determined to remain where they were, since it was too late in the season for further explorations. Still, they spent two weeks in examination of the country close at hand, and finally selected a site for settlement across the bay enclosed by Cape Cod. Here was a good harbor, plenty of fresh water, and much land already cleared of forest growth by its former Indian occupants.
They named this place "Plymouth" after the last English port from which they had sailed, and on Christmas day began the work of building houses.