CHURCH'S SWORD.
Another military chieftain, little less renowned than Standish, was Colonel Benjamin Church, the famous Indian fighter. He was Plymouth-born, but lived some time in Duxbury. In turning over the pages of Philip's and King William's wars, we meet him often enough, and always giving a good account of himself. One act of the Plymouth authorities during Philip's war deserves eternal infamy. It drew from Church the whole-hearted denunciation of a brave man.
During that war Dartmouth was destroyed. The Dartmouth Indians had not been concerned in this outrage, and after much persuasion were induced to surrender themselves to the Plymouth forces. They were conducted to Plymouth. The Government ordered all of them to be sold as slaves, and they were transported out of the country, to the number of one hundred and sixty.[212]
I despaired of being able to match this act of treachery with any contemporaneous history. But here is a fragment that somewhat approaches it in villainy. In 1684 the King of France wrote M. de la Barre, Governor of New France, to seize as many of the Iroquois as possible, and send them to France, where they were to serve in the galleys, in order to diminish the tribe, which was warlike, and waged war against the French. Many of them were actually in the galleys of Marseilles.[213]
The balance is still in our favor. In 1755 we expatriated the entire French population of Acadia. Mr. Longfellow tells the story graphically in "Evangeline." John Winslow, of Marshfield, was the instrument chosen by the home government for the work. It was conducted with savage barbarity. Families were separated, wives from husbands, children from parents. They were parceled out like cattle among the English settlements. Their aggregate number was nearly two thousand persons, thenceforth without home or country. One of these outcasts, describing his lot, said, "It was the hardest that had happened since our Saviour was upon earth." The story is true.
Our little boat worked her way gallantly back to Plymouth. Though thoroughly wet with the spray she had flung from her bows, I was not ill-pleased with the expedition. Figuratively speaking, my knapsack was packed, my staff and wallet waiting my grasp. With the iron horse that stood panting at the door I made in two hours the journey that Winthrop, Endicott, and Winslow took two days to accomplish. Certainly I found Plymouth much changed. The Pilgrims would hardly recognize it, though now, as in centuries before their coming,
"The waves that brought them o'er
Still roll in the bay, and throw their spray,
As they break along the shore."