The Naragansett men told us after, that thirteen of the Pequods were killed, and forty wounded; and but one of Block Island killed.1 At the last general court, order was taken to restrain the trade with the Indians, and the governour and council appointed to let it to farm, for a rent to be paid to the treasury. The inhabitants of Boston, who had taken their farms and lots at Mount Woollaston, finding it very burdensome to have their business, &c. so far off, desired to gather a church there. Many meetings were about it. The great let was, in regard it was given to Boston for upholding the town and church there, which end would be frustrate by the removal of so many chief men as would go thither. For helping of this, it was propounded, that such as dwelt there should pay six-pence the acre, yearly, for such lands as lay within a mile of the water, and three-pence for that which lay further off. [Very large blank.] A ship of Barnstaple arrived here with eighty heifers. Another from Bristol arrived, a fortnight after, with some cattle and passengers; §but she had delivered most of her cattle and passengers§ at Pascataquack for Sir Ferdinando Gorge his plantation at Aquamenticus. Canonicus sent us word of some English, whom the Pequods had killed at Saybrook; and Mr. Williams wrote, that the Pequods and Naragansetts were at ||truce,|| and that Miantunnomoh told him, that the Pequods had laboured to persuade them, that the English were minded to destroy all Indians, Whereupon we sent for Miantunnomoh to come to us. [Very large blank.] Another windmill was erected at Boston, and one at Charlestown; and a watermill at Salem, and another at Ipswich, and another at Newbury.3 [Very large blank.] 1 One prisoner was, by order of court, made a slave for life. If a man, he was preserved contrary to the instructions of the troops, and perhaps against his own desire. 2 I take this opportunity of printing the name as Winthrop wrote it, though usually spelt as two syllables. Probably the family had, in early times, as the old books and Collins's Peerage give it occasionally, used the writing of Gorge; and the old grammar, for the possessive case, employ ing the pronominal his, led them and all others to dignify it by the final s. 3 With this paragraph closes the regular sequence of narrative in the first volume of MS. For the many happy hours and days spent upon it, no slight share of veneration is by me felt and acknowledged. SA CONTINUATION OF THE HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND.§ 1636. 8ber.] AFTER Mr. Endecott and our men were departed from the Pequod, the twenty men of Saybrook lay wind-bound there, and went to fetch some of the Indians' corn; and having fetched every man one sackful to their boat, they returned for more, and having loaded themselves, the Indians set upon them. So they laid down their corn and gave fire upon them, and the Indians shot arrows at them. The place was open for the distance of musket shot, and the Indians kept the covert, save when they came forth, about ten at a time, and discharged their arrows. The English put themselves into a single file, and some ten only (who had pieces which|| could reach them) shot; the others stood ready to keep them from breaking in upon our men. So they continued the most part of the afternoon. Our men killed some of them, as they supposed, and hurt others; and they shot only one of ours, and he was armed,1 all the rest being without arms. He was shot through the leg. Their arrows were all shot compass, so as our men, standing single, could easily see and avoid them; and one was employed to gather up their arrows. At last they emptied their sacks, and retired safe to their boat. About two days after, five men of Saybrook went up the river about four miles, to fetch hay in a meadow on Pequot 1 The meaning is, with defensive armour. Back and breast pieces of iron were then commonly worn. Those without arms had muskets. side. The grass was so high as some Pequots, being hid in it, set upon our men, and one, that had hay on his back, they took; the others fled to their boat, one of them having five arrows in him, (but yet recovered.) He who was taken was a godly young man, called [blank] Butterfield; (whereupon the meadow was named Butterfield Meadow.) About fourteen days after, six of Saybrook, being sent to keep the house in their cornfield, about two miles from the fort, three of them went forth on fowling, (which the lieutenant had strictly forbidden them.) Two had pieces, and the third only a sword. Suddenly about one hundred Indians ||came out of the covert, and set|| upon them. He who had the sword brake through them, (and received only two shot, not dangerous,) and escaped to the house, which was not a bow-shot off, and persuaded the other two to follow him; but they stood still till the Indians came and took them, and carried them away with their pieces. Soon after they burnt down the said house, and some outhouses and haystacks within a bow-shot of the fort, and killed a cow, and shot divers others; but they all came home with the arrows in them. 21.] Miantunnomoh, the sachem of Naragansett, (being sent for by the governour,) came to Boston with two of Canonicus's sons, and another sachem, and near twenty sanaps. Cutshamakin gave us notice the day before. The governour sent twenty musketeers to meet him at Roxbury. He came to Boston about noon. The governour had called together most of the magistrates and ministers, to give countenance to our proceedings, and to advise with them about the terms of peace. It was dinner time, and the sachems and their council dined by themselves in the same room where the governour dined, and their sanaps were sent to the inn. After dinner, Miantunnomoh declared what he had to say to us in [blank] propositions, which were to this effect: That they had always loved the English, and desired firm peace with us: That they would continue in war with the Pequods and their confederates, till they were subdued; and desired we should so do: They would deliver our enemies to us, or kill them: That if any of theirs should kill our cattle, that we would not kill them, but cause them to make satisfaction: That they would now make a firm peace, and two months hence they would send us a present. 1 Hubbard, 252, after faithful transcription of this narrative of the fate of Butterfield, has added from Ovid, Icarus Icariis nomina dedit aquis. We should be well pleased, did other parts of his volume show equal attention to the reader's gratification. The governour told them, they should have answer the next morning. In the morning we met again, and concluded the peace upon the articles underwritten, which the governour subscribed, and they also subscribed with their marks, and Cutshamakin also. But because we could not well make them understand the articles perfectly, we agreed to send a copy of them to Mr. Williams, who could best interpret them to them. So, after dinner, they took leave, and were conveyed out of town by some musketeers, and dismissed with a volley of shot. THE ARTICLES. 1. A firm peace between us and our friends of other plantations, (if they consent,) and their confederates, (if they will observe the articles, &c.) and our posterities. 2. Neither party to make peace with the Pequods without the other's consent. 3. Not to harbour, &c. the Pequods, &c. 4. To put to death or deliver over murderers, &c. 5. To return our fugitive servants, &c. 6. We to give them notice when we go against the Pequods, and they to send us some guides. 7. Free trade between us. 8. None of them to come near our plantations during the wars with the Pequods, without some Englishman or known Indian. 9. To continue to the posterity of both parties. The governour of Plimouth wrote to the deputy,1 that we had occasioned a war, &c. by provoking the Pequods, and no more, and about the peace with the Naragansetts, &c. The deputy took it ill, (as there was reason,) and returned answer accordingly, and made it appear, 1. That there was as much done as could be expected, considering they fled from us, and we could not follow them in our armour, neither had any to guide us in their country. 2. We went not to make war upon them, but to do justice, &c.; and having killed thirteen of them for four or five, which they had murdered of ours,|| and destroyed sixty wigwams, &c. we were not much behind with them. 3. They had no cause to glory over us, when they saw that they could not save §themselves nor§ their houses and corn from so few of ours. 4. If we had left but one hun ||us|| 1 Winthrop had not mentioned his own election to the second place. dred of them living, those might have done us as much hurt as they have or are likely to do. 5. It was very likely they would have taken notice of our advantage against them, and would have sitten still, or have sought peace, if God had not deprived them of common reason. About the middle of this month, John Tilley, master of a bark, coming down Connecticut River, went on shore in a canoe, three miles above the fort, to kill fowl; and having shot off his piece, many Indians arose out of the covert and took him, and killed one other, who was in the canoe. This Tilley was a very stout man, and of great understanding. They cut off his hands, and sent them before, and after cut off his feet. He lived three days after his hands were cut off; and themselves confessed, that he was a stout man, because he cried not in his torture. About this time two houses were burnt, and all the goods in them, to a great value; one was one Shaw at Watertown, and the other one Jackson of Salem, both professors, and Shaw the day before admitted of the former church. This was very observable in 'Shaw, that he concealed his estate, and made show as if he had been poor, and ||was|| not clear of some unrighteous passages. One Mrs. Hutchinson, a member of the church of Boston, a woman of a ready wit and bold spirit, brought over with her two dangerous errours: 1. That the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person. 2. That no sanctification can help to evidence to us our justification.-From these two grew many branches; as, 1, Our union with the Holy Ghost, so as a Christian remains dead to every spiritual action, and hath no gifts nor graces, other than such as are in hypocrites, nor any other sanctification but the Holy Ghost himself. [Large blank.] 1 In the original first stood both, instead of Shaw; they, instead of he; their, instead of his; they, instead of he; and were, instead of was, in the progress of the sentence. The alteration was made by Winthrop. We may therefore conclude, that the report against Jackson's character was unfounded, and that he did not deserve to have his house and goods burnt by accident. son. 2 Being descended from this lady, the editor feels not at liberty to indulge his pen in a memoir, of which all benefit is indeed anticipated by the more honourable labours of a nearer relative, the late Gov. HutchinTime has abated all the venom of the accusations against her, and the futility of most of them will forever forbid the inquiry of reason. Mather, in the middle age, and Eliot, of the present, 1 Hist. Coll. IX. 28—30, give her great credit, as in our text, for powers of mind; and all are strengthened by the orthodox contemporary, Johnson, lib. I. c. 42, who calls her "the masterpiece of women's wit." |