at peace with the Algon'quins; the laws of Maryland refer to Indian hostilities and massacres, which extended as far as Richmond. Penn came without arms; he declared his purpose to abstain from violence; he had no message but peace; and not a drop of Quaker blood was ever shed by an Indian.

12. Was there not progress from Melendez to Roger Williams?-from Cortez and Pizarro to William Penn? The Quakers, ignorant of the homage which their virtues would receive from Voltaire and Raynal, men so unlike themselves, exulted in the consciousness of their humanity. "We have done better," said they truly, "than if, with the proud Spaniards, we had gained the mines of Potosi. We may make the ambitious heroes, whom the world admires, blush for their shameful victories. To the poor, dark souls round about us we teach their RIGHTS AS MEN."

King Philip's War.—Irving.

[A few months after the settlement of Plymouth, in Massachusetts, a treaty of friendship was made with Massasoit (mas-sa-soit'), chief of the Wampanoags (wom-pa-no’ags), which, during his life, was sacredly observed by the Indians. After his death, his two sons, Alexander and Philip, were looked upon as unfriendly to the whites; and when, upon the death of the elder brother, Philip became chief, trouble began to be anticipated.

It was evident to the Indians that the spreading settlements were fast reducing their domains and breaking up their hunting-grounds; and they saw plainly, in the growing power of the whites, their own inevitable destruction. Nothing short of a combination of all the New England tribes for the extermination of the colonists, it was thought, could arrest the tide against them; and Philip, so it was alleged, was the leading spirit in plotting the combination. A converted Indian, who had been sent as a missionary among his people, was the principal informer against the chief. This man was afterward found murdered. The execution by the whites of three Indians, who had been arrested, tried, and convicted of the murder, may be considered as the immediate cause of the war (1675).

The subsequent events are thus beautifully described by Irving, in his sketch entitled "Philip of Pokanoket."]

1. THE nature of the contest that ensued was such as too often distinguishes the warfare between civilized men and savages. On the part of the whites, it was conducted with superior skill and success; but with a wastefulness of the blood, and a disregard of the natural rights of their antago nists; on the part of the Indians, it was waged with the despera

tion of men fearless of death, and who had nothing to expect from peace, but humiliation, dependence, and decay.

2. The events of the war are transmitted to us by a worthy clergyman of the time, who dwells with horror and indignation on every hostile act of the Indians, however justifiable, whilst he mentions with applause the most sanguinary' atrocities of the whites. Philip is reviled as a murderer and a traitor, without considering that he was a true-born prince, gallantly fighting at the head of his subjects to avenge the wrongs of his family, to retrieve the tottering power of his line, and to deliver his native land from the oppression of usurping strangers.

3. The project of a wide and simultaneous revolt, if such had really been formed, was worthy of a capacious mind, and, had it not been prematurely discovered, might have been overwhelming in its consequences. The war that actually broke out was but a war of detail, a mere succession of casual exploits and unconnected enterprises. Still, it sets forth the military genius and daring prowess of Philip; and wherever, in the prejudiced and passionate narrations that have been given of it, we can arrive at simple facts, we find him displaying a vigorous mind, a fertility of expedients, a contempt of suffering and hardship, and an unconquerable resolution, that command our sympathy and applause.

4. Driven from his paternal domains at Mount Hope, he threw himself into the depths of those vast and trackless forests that skirted the settlements, and were almost impervious" to anything but a wild beast or an Indian. Here he gathered together his forces, like the storm accumulating its stores of mischief in the bosom of the thunder-cloud, and would suddenly emerge at a time and place least expected, carrying havoc and dismay into the villages.

5. There were, now and then, indications of these impending ravages, that filled the minds of the colonists with awe and apprehension. The report of a distant gun would perhaps be heard from the solitary woodland, where there was known to be no white man; the cattle which had been wan

dering in the woods would sometimes return home wounded; or an Indian or two would be seen lurking about the skirts of the forests, and suddenly disappearing; as the lightning will sometimes be seen playing silently about the edge of the cloud that is brewing up the tempest.

6. Though sometimes pursued and even surrounded by the settlers, yet Philip as often escaped almost miraculously from their toils, and, plunging into the wilderness, would be lost to all search or inquiry, until he again emerged at some far distant quarter, laying the country desolate. Among his strongholds were the great swamps or morasses which extend in some parts of New England, composed of loose bogs of deep black mud, perplexed with thickets, brambles, rank weeds, the shattered and mouldering trunks of fallen trees, overshadowed by lugubrious' hemlocks. The uncertain footing and the tangled mazes of these shaggy wilds rendered them almost impracticable to the white man, though the Indian could thrid their labyrinths' with the agility of a deer.

7. Into one of these, the great swamp of Pocasset Neck, was Philip once driven with a band of his followers. The English did not dare to pursue him, fearing to venture into these dark and frightful recesses, where they might perish in fens and miry pits, or be shot down by lurking foes. They therefore invested the entrance to the Neck, and began to build a fort, with the thought of starving out the foe; but Philip and his warriors wafted themselves on a raft over an arm of the sea, in the dead of night, leaving the women and children behind, and escaped away to the westward, kindling the flames of war among the tribes of Massachusetts and the Nipmuck country, and threatening the colony of Connecticut.

8. In this way, Philip became a theme of universal apprehension. The mystery in which he was enveloped exaggerated his real terrors. He was an evil that walked in darkness; whose coming none could foresee, and against which none knew when to be on the alert. The whole country abounded with rumors and alarms. Philip seemed almost possessed of ubiquity; for, in whatever part of the widely-extended frontier an irruption

from the forest took place, Philip was said to be its leader. Many superstitious notions also were circulated concerning him. He was said to deal in necromancy', and to be attended by an old Indian witch or prophetess, whom he consulted, and who assisted him by her charms and incantations'. This indeed was frequently the case with Indian chiefs; either through their own credulity, or to act upon that of their followers; and the influence of the prophet and the dreamer over Indian superstition has been fully evidenced in recent instances of savage warfare.

9. At the time that Philip effected his escape from Pocasset, his fortunes were in a desperate condition. His forces had been thinned by repeated fights, and he had lost almost the whole of his resources. In this time of adversity he found a faithful friend in Canon'chet, chief sachem' of all the Narragansets. He was the son and heir of Mianton'imo, the great sachem, who, after an honorable acquittal of the charge of conspiracy, had been privately put to death at the perfidious instigations of the settlers. "He was the heir," says the old chronicler", "of all his father's pride and insolence, as well as of his malice toward the English ;"-he certainly was the heir of hist insults and injuries, and the legitimate avenger of his murder.

10. Though he had forborne to take an active part in this hopeless war, yet he received Philip and his broken forces with open arms; and gave them the most generous countenance and support. This at once drew upon him the hostility of the English; and it was determined to strike a signal blow that should involve both the sachems in one common ruin. A great force was, therefore, gathered together from Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut, and was sent into the Narraganset country in the depth of winter, when the swamps, being frozen and leafless, could be traversed with comparative facility, and would no longer afford dark and impenetrable fastnesses to the Indians.

11. Apprehensive of attack, Canonchet had conveved the greater part of his stores, together with the old, the infirm, the women and children of his tribe, to a strong fortress; where

he and Philip had likewise drawn up the flower of their forces. This fortress, deemed by the Indians impregnable', was situated upon a rising mound or kind of island, of five or six acres, in the midst of a swamp; it was constructed with a degree of judgment and skill vastly superior to what is usually displayed in Indian fortification, and indicative of the martial genius of these two chieftains.

12. Guided by a renegade" Inaian, the English penetrated, through December snows, to this stronghold, and came upon the garrison by surprise. The fight was fierce and tumultuous. The assailants were repulsed in their first attack, and several of their bravest officers were shot down in the act of storming the fortress, sword in hand. The assault was renewed with greater success. A lodgment was effected. The Indians were driven from one post to another. They disputed their ground inch by inch, fighting with the fury of despair. Most of their veterans were cut to pieces; and after a long and bloody battle, Philip and Canonchet, with a handful of surviving warriors, retreated from the fort, and took refuge in the thickets of the surrounding forest.

13. The victors set fire to the wigwams and the fort; the whole was soon in a blaze; many of the old men, the women, and the children perished in the flames. This last outrage overcame even the stoicism of the savage. The neighboring woods resounded with the yells of rage and despair, uttered by the fugitive warriors, as they beheld the destruction of their dwellings, and heard the agonizing cries of their wives and offspring. "The burning of the wigwams," says a contemporary writer, "the shrieks and cries of the women and children, and the yelling of the warriors, exhibited a most horrible and affecting scene, so that it greatly moved some of the soldiers." The same writer cautiously adds, "they were in much doubt then, and afterward seriously inquired, whether burning their enemies alive could be consistent with humanity, and the benevolent principles of the Gospel."

14. The fate of the brave and generous Canonchet is worthy of particular mention; the last scene of his life is one of the