MISFORTUNES OF PHILIP.
The last defeat, in which his best fighting men were slain, had broken the power, but not the spirit, of Philip. Unable to meet the colonists in the open field, he harassed them in a thousand ways, so that, as the spring advanced, the more industrious and timid were thrown into the extremity of despair, and said, “How shall we wade through another summer like the last?” But the chief was now a wandering exile; his paternal dominion was taken; the singular friendship of Quanonchet, “the mighty sachem of the Naragansets,” was his last support. The fidelity of this man was tried to the uttermost: he had received the fugitive with open arms; rallied all his forces around him; they fought, side by side, with the heroism of men on the last strand of their country; were defeated, and fled together, without a reproach or complaint on either side; they retreated yet farther into the interior, and, by their persuasions, engaged other tribes in the cause; but, at this moment, the Maquas, a powerful nation in the west, made a descent on them, and wasted their band. In spite of these disasters, they again advanced.
CLOSE OF THE WAR.
Eliot, during these troubles, was subjected to much contempt and reproach. His efforts to protect his people, and watch over their interests, were incessant; but so strong was the suspicion against them, that the colonists, not content with confining a great number of them in Long Island, inflicted on them many sufferings, and a few of the more cruel said that they were worthy of death.
But the war began to draw to a close: Quanonchet, venturing out with a few followers near the enemy, was pursued and taken. His behaviour under his misfortunes was very noble and affecting; for when repeated offers were made him of life, if he would deliver up Philip, and submit his own people to the English, he proudly rejected them. They condemned him to die, and, by a refinement of cruelty, by the hands of three young Indian chiefs. The heroic man said, “that he liked it well, for he should die before his heart was soft, or he had spoken any thing unworthy of himself.”
Philip was deeply moved by the death of the chieftain, for their friendship was like that of David and Jonathan, strongest in misery and exile. He was not yet left desolate: his beloved wife and only child were with him. They had shared all his sufferings; in his flights, his inroads, his dwellings in the swamps, they seem never to have left his side. The unfortunate prince now returned to Mount Hope, the scene of his former power and happiness; it was for no purpose of defence that he came, for it was too near the English settlements, but merely to visit it once more. “He finds it,” says Mather, “to be Mount Misery, Mount Confusion!”
No doubt it was so to his bleeding spirit; for, with all his savage propensities, this prince was susceptible of some of the finest feelings of our nature. He sat down mournfully on the beautiful Mount, on which were now the ruins of his fortress and camp; but he could not remain long here, for the feet of his pursuers were nigh, and he was compelled to seek his distant retreats again:—there was a greater agony in store for him than the sight of his ruined home.
Early one morning, his quarters were surprised by the English, most of his followers slain, and his wife and son made captive. The chief fled, broken-hearted, but unsubdued, leaving all he loved on earth in the hands of those who had no mercy. “This was no small torment to him,” quaintly says the historian. “Wo to him that spoileth! His peag, or silver belt, the ensign of his princedom, also remained in our hands, so hardly did he escape.” The measure of his woes was not yet full. The Indian princess of Pocasset was warmly attached to his cause, and had more than once aided him in his extremity; she had received him beneath her roof, soothed his sorrows, and, what was more, summoned her people to fight for him; and saved him and his people in her canoes the year before. Now, she followed him in his flight, and, as the more devout said, as if by a judgment, could not find a canoe to transport her, and, venturing over the river upon a raft, it broke under her, and she was drowned. Her body was soon after washed on shore, and the English, forgetful of all decency and delicacy to a woman of her rank, though a savage, cut off her head, and placed it on high, which, when the Indians who were her people saw, they gathered round, and gave way to the most sad and touching lamentations.
Philip now began, like Saul of old, when earth was leaving him, to look to the powers beyond it, and to apply to his magicians and sorcerers, who, on consulting their oracles, assured him that no Englishman should ever kill him. This was a vague consolation, yet it seems to have given him, for a while, a confidence in his destiny, and he took his last stand in the middle of a distant and almost inaccessible swamp. It was a fit retreat for a despairing man, being one of those waste and dismal places to which few ever wandered, covered with rank and dense vegetation. The moist soil was almost hidden by the cypress and other trees, that spread their gloomy shades over the treacherous shallows and pools beneath.