3. That if anything were taken away from any of theirs, he should cause it to be restored; and they should do the like to his.
4. If any made unjust war against him, they would aid him; if any made war against them, he should aid them.
5. He should send to his neighboring confederates, to certify them of this, that they might not wrong them, but might be likewise comprised in the conditions of peace.
6. That when their men came to them, they should leave their bows and arrows behind them.
After this he returned to his place, called Sowams, some forty miles off, but Squanto stayed with them, and was their interpreter, and became a special instrument sent of God for their good, beyond their expectation. He showed them how to plant their corn, where to take fish and other commodities, and guided them to unknown places, and never left them till he died. He was a native of these parts, and had been one of the few survivors of the plague hereabouts. He was carried away with others by one Hunt, a captain of a ship, who intended to sell them for slaves in Spain; but he got away for England, and was received by a merchant in London, and employed in Newfoundland and other parts, and lastly brought into these parts by a Captain Dermer, a gentleman employed by Sir Ferdinand Gorges and others, for discovery and other projects in these parts. Of Captain Dermer I will say something, because it is mentioned,—in a book published A. D. 1622, by the President and Council of New England,—that he made peace between the savages of these parts and the English, of which this plantation, as it is there intimated, had the benefit. But what kind of peace it was appears by what befell him and his men.
Captain Dermer had been here the same year that the people of the Mayflower arrived, as appears in an account written by him, and given to me by a friend, bearing date, June 30th, 1620; and as they came in the November following, there was but four months’ difference. In this account to his honoured friend, he makes the following references to this very place:
“I will first begin,” says he, “with the place from which Squanto (or Tisquantem) was taken away, which in Captain Smith’s map is called ‘Plymouth’; and I would that Plymouth had the same commodities. I could wish that the first plantation might be situated here, if there came to the number of fifty persons or upward; otherwise at Charlton, because there the savages are less to be feared. The Pokanokets, who live to the west of Plymouth, bear an inveterate hatred to the English, and are of greater strength than all the savages from there to Penobscot. Their desire of revenge was occasioned by an Englishman, who having invited many of them on board slaughtered them with small shot, when, as the Indians say, they offered no injury on their part. Whether they were English or no, it may be doubted; but they believe they were, for the French have so assured them. For this reason Squanto cannot deny but they would have killed me when I was at Namasket, had he not interceded hard for me. The soil of the borders of this great bay may be compared to most of the plantations which I have seen in Virginia. The land is of various sorts. Patuxet is a stubborn but strong soil; Nauset and Satucket are for the most part a blackish and deep mould, much like that where the best tobacco in Virginia grows. In the great bay itself is a quantity of cod and bass, or mullet.”
But above all, he commends the Pokanokets’ country for the richest soil, and much open ground fit for English grain, etc.
“Massachusetts, about nine leagues from Plymouth, and situated between both, is full of islands and peninsulas, for the most part very fertile.”
He was taken prisoner by the Indians at Manamoick, a place not far off, now well-known. He gave them what they demanded for his liberty, but when they had got what they desired, they still kept him, and endeavoured to kill his men; but he freed himself by seizing some of them, whom he kept bound till they gave him a canoe-load of corn (of which, see Purch: lib. ix, fol. 1778). But this was A. D. 1619.