[456] See supra, pp. [11], [162], [170]. The Plymouth people may have despoiled the grave of Chickatawbut’s mother of its bear-skins during some one of their earlier visits to Boston Bay. Their last visit to those parts, prior to the “battle” spoken of in this chapter, was in November, 1622 (Young’s Chron. of Pilg. p. 302), when they got little in the way of supplies, and heard nothing but complaints from the Indians of Weston’s people, who had then been several months at Wessagusset. It is far more probable that these latter stripped the grave at Passonagessit. In any event there can be little doubt that Morton himself had visited the spot while taking his “survey of the country” during the previous summer (Supra, [6]), and it is quite clear that the despoiling the grave had no connection with the subsequent “battle,” in which Chickatawbut took no part.
[457] “Insomuch as our men could have but one certain mark, and then but the arm and half face of a notable villain, as he drew [his bow] at Captain Standish; who, together with another both discharged at once at him, and brake his arm.” (Young’s Chron. of Pilg., p. 341.)
[458] This is the famous Wessagusset hanging which Butler introduced into his poem of Hudibras (Canto II. lines 409-36), in the passage already referred to (Supra, [96]). It is as follows:—
“Our Brethren of New-England use
Choice malefactors to excuse,
And hang the Guiltless in their stead,
Of whom the Churches have less need;
As lately ’t happen’d: In a town
There liv’d a Cobler, and but one,
That out of Doctrine could cut Use,