Burial Hill is also memorable as the site of the second[186] regular church edifice in New England, built to serve the double purpose of church and citadel. From this cause the eminence was long called Fort Hill. By February, 1621, after the defiance of Canonicus, the town was inclosed within a palisade, taking in the top of the hill under which it was situated. In 1622 the colonists built their church-fortress; it should have been dedicated with Luther's anthem:
"God is a castle and defense,
When troubles and distress invade,
He'll help and free us from offense,
And ever shield us with his aid."
Ever willing to turn an honest penny, the Dutch, in 1627, opened a correspondence between Fort Amsterdam and Plymouth, with offers of trade. They followed it with an embassy in the person of Isaac de Rasieres, who, says Bradford, was their chief merchant, and second to their governor. He came into Plymouth "honorably attended with a noise of trumpeters." It is in a letter of De Rasieres, found at The Hague by Mr. Brodhead, that we obtain a circumstantial account of town and fortress as they then existed.
"Upon the hill," he writes, "they have a large, square house, with a flat roof, made of thick sawn planks, stayed with oak beams, upon the top of which they have six cannons, which shoot iron balls of four and five pounds, and command the surrounding country. The lower part they use for their church, where they preach on Sundays and the usual holidays."[187]
A looker-on here in 1807 found in this burying-ground and on the summit of the hill the remains of the ditch that surrounded the ancient fortification erected in 1675, on the approach of Philip's war. This was a work of greater magnitude than that of the first adventurers, inclosing a space one hundred feet square, strongly palisaded with pickets ten and a half feet high. As late as 1844 the whole circuit of this work was distinctly visible.[188] The head of Wittuwamet, one of the chiefs killed by Standish's party at Weymouth in 1623, was set up on the battlements of the fort, as was afterward that of the renowned King Philip. The vaunting, the exasperating mockery of a savage, is in these lines:
'Who is there here to fight with the brave Wattawamat?'
Then he unsheathed his knife, and, whetting the blade on his left hand,
Held it aloft and displayed a woman's face on the handle,
Saying, with bitter expression and look of sinister meaning,
'I have another at home, with the face of a man on the handle;
By-and-by they shall marry; and there will be plenty of children.'
According to Edward Winslow, the English stood to their guns when Indians came among them. To allay distrust in the minds of the savages, they were told it was an act of courtesy observed by the English, both on land and sea. The sentinel who paced his lonely round here in 1622 should have had steady nerves. The nearest outpost was his fellow-watcher on the ramparts of Fort Amsterdam. He could hardly pass the word on "All's well!" to Jamestown or Saint Augustine, or hear the challenge from Port Royal, in Acadia. Behind him was the wilderness, out of which it was a wonder the Indians did not burst, it was so easy to overwhelm the devoted little band of Englishmen and brush them away into the sea. I make no account of the few scattered cabins along the northern coast, and the Pilgrims made no account of them. Thus they lived for ten years within the narrow limits of an intrenched camp, a picket lodged within an enemy's country, until the settlement in Massachusetts Bay enabled them to draw breath. Why might they not say to those after-comers,
"We are the Jasons; we have won the fleece?"
The procession of the Pilgrims to their church was a sight that must have exceedingly stirred the sluggish blood of the Dutch emissary. He found them attentive to proffers of trade; acute, as might be expected of the first Yankees, where profits were in question; but there was no doubt about the quality of their piety. At the hour of worship the silent village was assembled by drum-beat, as was befitting in the Church Militant. At this signal the house-doors open and give passage to each family. The men wear their sad-colored mantles, and are armed to the teeth, as if going to battle. Silently they take their places in front of the captain's door, three abreast, with matchlocks shouldered. The tall, stern-visaged ones, we may suppose, lead the rest. In front is the sergeant. Behind the armed men comes Bradford, in a long robe. At his right hand is Elder Brewster, with his cloak on. At the governor's left marches Miles Standish, his rapier lifting up the corner of his mantle, and carrying a small cane in his hand. The women in sober gowns, kerchiefs, and hoods, their garments poor, but scrupulously neat, follow next; the lowlier yielding precedence to those of better condition. At command, they take their way up the hill in this order, and, entering within the rude temple they have raised, each man sets down his musket where he may lay hand upon it. "Thus," says De Rasieres, "they are on their guard night and day."