 | CHAPTER III. The doomed chief, or, Two hundred years ago |  |
3. CHAPTER III.
In bloodier acts conclude those who with blood began.
Childe Harold.
The instant the death-doom of the poor, fated prisoners was
pronounced, the meeting-house began to vomit forth its crowds
of now freshly excited occupants. The court and jury had
evidently the popular tide in their favor, and accordingly,
their decision, however strangely they might have arrived at
it, was applauded by the majority of the assembled crowd,
with a unanimity and emphasis that effectually overpowered
the feeble murmurs of the less bigoted few, who were disposed
to doubt the justice and wisdom of the measure. And
as the procession was being re-formed and put in motion, the
grim smile of satisfaction and inward triumph was everywhere
observable on the grave and well trained countenances of the men,
as they nodded knowingly to each other, and with quickened motions
bustled to their places in the ranks; while the same exultant
emotions found a livelier expression in the out-bursting
shouts of the boys, who, now as ever, the first to give voice to
any suppressed public feeling, ran trooping along in advance
towards the understood place of execution, the strongly enclosed
yard of the public prison. Everything, indeed, seemed
to wear the air of rejoicing. The shrill fifes struck up their
merriest tune, and the unmuffled drums fiercely rolled their
jubilant clamors upon the air; and the procession swept on
like a triumphal march, graced with the trophies of war, to
the celebration of a victory. As the head of the column
living mass, both those in formal array and the flanking
crowd of eager spectators, together poured into the spacious
enclosure; when the first object that greeted their eyes was
a new gallows, from which the workmen with their hastily
snatched tools, were seen precipitately retreating, to make
room for the in-rushing torrent. So well had the authorities
anticipated the result of the trial, and the consequent need
of such a structure to carry out the programme of the day.
As this, and all similar arrangements, embracing both ropes
and rough coffins, had been thus providently effected in
advance, there was no need of any delay in proceeding at
once to the eagerly sought consummation, and accordingly,
therefore, the procession, after marching round the jail house,
situated near the high fence on one side of the spacious arena,
and then doubling in a smaller circle round the gallows, came
to a halt, so as to bring the prisoners and their guard to the
foot of the ladder leading up to the platform, which was made
of rough, new planks, sufficiently extended to admit a dozen
persons, and elevated about ten feet from the ground. The
Indian prisoners were then at once pushed forward by the
guard with the muzzles of their loaded and cocked muskets,
and driven up the ladder to the platform, to which the sheriff,
his few armed assistants, and the ever ready Dummer, again
selected to make the customary prayer on the occasion, had
all first ascended to take the victims in charge as they severally
reached the top of the ladder. The prisoners were then
placed in a row, and made to stand so as to face the greater
proportion of the thickly packed crowd of spectators below,
when they were allowed a momentary respite, professedly to
permit them to reflect on the awful fate so closely awaiting
them; but in reality, more probably, to make them an exclusive
spectacle for a few moments, when nothing else was
occurring to divert the attention of the spectators.
It was a strange, sad scene. First, and the most conspicuous
of the motly group now occupying the scaffold, stood the
brawny savage captain and councillor of Metacom, Tobias,
glancing with proud defiance at his executioners, and now
frowning contemptuously down upon the gazing crowd below.
Next stood the son of this unflinching prisoner, a lad of perhaps
eighteen, with a bosom visibly heaving with agitation,
but frequently glancing up to the dauntless countenance of
his father, as if to gain from his intrepid bearing the courage
that would enable him to die like a man and a warrior; and
last of the three doomed red men, stood a tall, straight, middle-aged
Indian, with head erect, and a look of boast and
scorn, which seemed to challenge the gazers to detect in him
the least sign of fear or relenting. Next, and partly enclosing
the prisoners, were arranged the sheriff's assistants,
with pistols in hand, keenly watching the former, but occasionally
glancing, as if for expected orders, to their superior,
the sheriff, a severe, matter-of-fact looking man, with that
prompt, unquestioning cast of countenance which betokened
his equal readiness to make a prayer, or hang an Indian, as
the authorities might be pleased to direct. The latter important
personage had taken his stand with a drawn sword in
his hand, a little in the rear of his line of assistants, and was
keeping his eye on Deacon Mudgridge, at the foot of the
ladder below, as if waiting for a signal to proceed; and last
among this contrasted group, apart from all, stood the pious
Shadow Dummer, with his folded hands raised to his chin,
his head meekly canted on one side, his eyes partly shut, and
his face devoutly turned heavenward.
Such was the contrasted picture presented in the important
few, who were now the focus of all eyes, either as executioners
or sufferers, that were to furnish the materials of the great
exhibition of the day, as they stood there on the platform
above, in bold relief against the sky. Below the whole broad
devoted to the purposes of the occasion, was blackened all
over by the multitude of men, boys, and the spiritless, half-civilized
red men of the vicinity, going under the name of
praying Indians, with here and there a more erect, unerring
specimen of the same race, from the forests, who had neither
pretension nor desire to claim any such distinction—all
here congregated to witness this widely bruited trial, and almost
as widely promised execution. But they presented no such
appearance as that of a modern promiscuous assemblage, diversified
by variety of habiliments, difference of deportment, and
faces of every expression, from sad and grave, to lively and
jocose. For as they stood here in their broad-brimmed, sugarloaf
hats, dark, long, and wide flapped round-abouts, trouser or
petticoat breeches, awkwardly furbelowed, or doubled over at the
knee, long, gartered hose, and buckled shoes, all of uniform cut
and color in the still unaltered fashion of the Puritan costume
of James the First—as thus garbed, they stood here, with their
stiff and measured motions, subdued demeanors, and countenances
trained to the solemn, unvarying gravity which they
supposed could alone comport with the character of a Christian
people, they seemed as much like as a herd of animals
of the same species, with one general outward appearance, one
general expression of countenance, and one deportment among
old and young; for even the boys seemed like men of a lesser
growth. And there was no perceptible variation in the appearance
of the whole vast crowd, except what might have
been occasioned by the bareheaded, blanketed Indians with
whom it was sprinkled.
But there was now a commotion among the expectant
throng. Deacon Mudgridge, still the acting director of the
ceremonies, was seen making a signal to the sheriff, who, in
turn, was seen beckoning to some one else, standing near him.
And presently the Shadow was seen slowly advancing to the
upturned his cadaverous face, spread abroad his long,
bony arms, and raised his loud, heaven-aspiring voice in
thanksgiving and prayer. He thanked God for the special
care he had taken of his rock-founded church, and chosen
people in America—for the triumphs he had, from time to
time, vouchsafed them over the powers of darkness, as latterly
manifested in the raging of the heathen in the wilderness, and
especially he thanked him for the signal manner in which he
had made justice to triumph in their behalf, this day, through
the instrumentalities of wise and godly rulers and judges, and
the strong pillars of his church-household. And he prayed
that the auspicious result might be made to work a lasting
rebuke on the heathen malignants, now plotting the overthrow
of God's church and people, and teach their accursed sachem
a lesson which should strike terror into his black and guilty
heart, and make him to see that the Lord reigneth, and will
consume all those who may attempt to conspire against his
elect, like stubble in the fire, yea, like chaff in the fiery furnace.
All this, with great unction, he thanked God for, and all
this with equal unction and added fervor he prayed for, forgetting
to offer one single word in petition for mercy for the
souls of the poor red men about to be launched into eternity.
And he, doubtless, really believed, that his effort would be as
acceptable to a just and merciful heaven, as he knew it would
be to his bigot-blind hearers on earth.
Scarcely had the loud, long-drawn voice of Dummer ceased
in the suddenly modulated double amen, before that of Deacon
Mudgridge, now mounted on a block about half way between
the segregated group of court officials and the ladder, was
heard sternly muttering.
“Proceed! the prisoners have been allowed time for that
reflection, and repentance for their awful crime, which, if
their torments in the dreadful place to which they are about
to go,—they have had ample time for this,—it is almost sunset,—time
presses,—proceed at once with the execution.”
“Proceed there!” echoed the sheriff, waving his sword to
his assistants; “lead the oldest prisoner to his drop,—the furtherest
there on the right,—adjust the noose round his neck,
and let one of you stand ready with his hatchet to cut the cord
holding up the drop, when the word is given.”
The preparations had evidently all been elaborately made.
Three separate drops, one for each prisoner, and all jutting
out nearly a yard beyond the outer edge of the platform, had
been constructed, fitted in, and made secure on a level, by a
strong cord fastened to the front part, and running up to a
round, elevated beam fixed up on the other side of the scaffolding
for the purpose. Over these drops, dangling from
the long arm of the gallows-tree, hung the fatal nooses, ready
for the necks of the prisoners.
With eager alacrity, the obsequious assistants sprang to the
execution of these designated preliminaries, and within two
minutes, the still undaunted old warrior stood out alone on the
drop, throwing his last look of contempt more defiantly than
ever around him. An attempt was then made to draw a cap
over his face, but by a sudden motion of his head, he brought
it to his feet, and kicked it scornfully down upon the hooting
crowd below.
“Strike the cord then!” shouted the sheriff.
It was done. The drop fell; and the old captain and councillor
of King Philip was a contorted corpse.
The tall prisoner was next placed upon his drop and made
ready for his fate, in the same way, and with the same hurried
manner, as if the executioners were laboring under secret
misgivings about the part they were performing, and were
anxious to have the job over. His face wore a less stoical
him. But he bore up bravely, proudly, and was turned off
in the midst of his own death-chant, which he went down
singing in full strain, till the jerk of the rope suddenly cut
short his song and his life together.
The ready executioners then immediately laid hold of the
last, whom we have named as the youthful prisoner. He
was now more agitated than ever, started wildly, as the first
hand was laid upon him, and hung back shuddering, and
shrinking from the fatal drop before him. But finding this
of no avail, he ceased his struggles, and, casting an agonized
look up into the faces of his executioners, he broke out into
the few English words of which he was master, and piteously
begged for his life. He might as well, however, have appealed
to the gallows itself; and the only response which his
petitions received, was the quick lasso-like throw, and the
tightening of the rope round his neck, and the violent push
that sent him staggering forward on to the drop. And before
he had time to recover his balance, came the sharp order
of the impatient sheriff to the man standing with uplifted
hatchet over the cord sustaining the drop.
“Strike!”
The rasping sound of the blow of the severing instrument
instantly followed, and the drop and the prisoner went down
together. But the next moment the crowd below was seen
suddenly to heave like a billow, and a quick half-smothered
cry of surprise and horror burst from a thousand voices. The
rope had broken; and the paralyzed, but still life-whole victim
had been landed, doubled and distorted, on the ground at the
very feet of the shrinking throng. Two soldiers of the guard
that had taken post near by, now quickly threw down their
guns, sprang forward and seized the prisoner, just as he had
succeeded, after several convulsive and ineffectual efforts, in
gaining his feet; while another, with leveled and cocked musket,
horrid implements, to which he was being forced along to undergo
a second ordeal, now seemed to recall the poor fellow to
his full consciousness; and he again broke out into wild lamentations
and petitions for mercy.
“Stay a little,” said the here interposing Deacon, to whom
a new thought seemed suddenly to have occurred,—“keep
your hold, but let him stand a moment. Wretch!” he continued,
and turning sternly to the frantic and struggling
victim,—“guilty wretch, after this foretaste of what so certainly
awaits you, won't you now confess your crimes?”
The prisoner suddenly paused, and, in the first impulse of
the moment, threw a look of scorn upon the other, in return
for what was evidently deemed an insulting proposition, but
he remained silent.
“Poor heathen,” resumed the Deacon in softened tones,
instead of giving, as all seemed to expect, a fierce order for
the instant renewal of the murderous ordeal on the exhibition
of such contumacy,—“poor benighted heathen, now if you
will only say you were there and saw your father, Tobias, and
that other Indian kill Sassamon, I will give you my promise
that we won't hang you.”
The poor, tried, and tempted sufferer again paused and
seemed to be passing through a severe inward struggle between
pride,—perhaps principle, and the love of life. The
latter, however, as he glanced up to the dead bodies of his
kindred, and the gallows, with the already substituted new
rope awaiting his neck, at length appeared to prevail, and he
repeated over in the affirmative the words which the other had
shaped for him.
“Then you say, and truly confess, that you did see Tobias
and the other Indian kill Sassamon, and put him through
the ice?”
“Y-a-s,—said so.”
“And you stood by yourself, saw the deed done, and did
nothing to prevent it?”
“Y-a-s, but no help do it,—no touch him, one time, at all.”
“There!” exclaimed the Deacon, triumphantly, mounting
a block, and waving his hand to attract the attention of the
whole assemblage, as well as that of all the court authorities,—
“there! what will the blaspheming doubters say, now? He
has confessed,—one of the very murderers themselves has
fully confessed the foul deed! The verdict, sentence, and
execution of the two dead, hell-deserving murderers, all now
stand completely vindicated. It was but Heaven's justice
upon them. They were both rightfully executed. And this
poor wretch, also, who has just owned himself an accomplice
in the deed,—what can he now say against his well-merited
doom? `Out of his own mouth will I condemn him saith
my God.” How shall we, then, dare incur His displeasure,
by suffering the wretch to escape the death which the sentence
this day so justly pronounced against him, and, which
is now required at our hands? I confess,” he added, looking
round to those who had acted as the magistrates at the
trial,—“I freely confess I do not see how we can avoid such
a God-bounden duty.”
“No, truly, brother Mudgridge,” mildly responded one of
the magistrates; “but you gave him your promise that he
should not be hanged, if he confessed, as he did; and it were
to be wished, in ordinary cases—not that I would contend
that a promise to a heretic heathen, and made to bring about,
as we are commanded, the ends of justice, should be deemed
a conscience-binding matter—still, as I was about to say, it
were rather, perhaps, to be wished that there was no necessity
of contravening the literal words of the promise.”
“I concur with the brother who has just spoken,” said another
of the court, a little more firmly; “but as the promise was
made, I should prefer not to have it broken, at least, not in
prisoners were swung off, was here, perhaps he would—”
“The promise need not be broken—I said he should not be
hung, and he shan't,” interposed the Deacon, lowering his voice,
and looking knowingly to the magistrates—“leave that to me.”
So saying, he turned round to the soldier standing with
leveled gun, a few yards behind the prisoner, and hurriedly
gave him some signal. The deafening report of a musket the
next instant burst from the spot. And as the smoke rose,
the hapless young Indian was seen prostrate and writhing in
dying agony on the ground.
Thus was consummated a measure so unwisely begun, so
questionably conducted, and so horribly concluded. As a
matter of policy only, it was, under the circumstances, a measure
of madness from its inception; it was persisted in and
carried on in violation of many of the most established principles
of law and justice, and brought to close in a manner,
about which, even some of the bigoted actors themselves,
were evidently not without their misgivings. Especially was
this betrayed in the case of Deacon Mudgridge, who, as soon
as the last act was over, seemed impatient to have the crowd
depart, lest, probably, his opponent in the trial, Williams, or
others like him, who were perhaps present, should make a
speech questioning some of the proceedings; and, after fidgeting
awhile at the delay of the spectators, who seemed in no
haste to move, he sought the never failing Dummer, and suggested
that perhaps a few words had better be said, as a sort
of announcement that the proceedings were over, or as a dismissal
of the assembly; whereupon the ever ready Shadow, in
a strange mingling of the announcement of a crier, with the
benediction of a minister, jumbled together in accordance
with the wording of the hint just received, mounted a bench
and loudly exclaimed—
“The Lord reigneth, let the people rejoice! The spectacles
now retire to their homes; and may the Lord add his blessing,
and suitably impress them all by the solemn scenes they
have this day witnessed. Amen.”
But contrary to the announcement of the Shadow, and no
less to the wishes of the Deacon, the proceedings of the day
were not to close without an additional scene, and one, too,
which was as unwelcome to many as it was unexpected to all.
As the crowd were beginning to get in motion, preparatory
to taking their departure, individuals in different parts of the
swaying throng were seen suddenly stopping short, and pointing
excitingly up over the top of the tall fence on the western
side of the enclosure. One after another rapidly caught the
significant gestures; and soon the whole assembly were
brought to a stand, and their eyes turned in the direction of
the indicated spot.
There, in the last flickering gleams of the setting sun, planted
on the flat roof of an old deserted building, a little removed
from the other side of the fence, but so far overtopping it as
to bring it within view of all, conspicuously stood, side by
side, two persons of the different sexes, both garbed in dress and
insignia which sufficiently betokened at once their race and
individual distinction. The man, who was tall, strongly built,
but in exquisite proportions, with a towering Grecian head,
and features of corresponding shapeliness, wore on his head a
snugly setting coroniform cap, composed of an encircling belt
of bright wampun, and surmounted by a single tastily enwreathed
plume of red feathers—on his feet and legs, gaily
beaded, yellow gaiters; and on his body a blue broad cloth
frock, made whole like a hunting shirt, terminating in a red
fringe at the knees, and confined round the waist by a broad
wampun girdle. These, with the bright-bladed tomahawk, that
gleamed from his girdle, and the long gun that stood resting in
the hollow of his arm at his side, completed his dress, and all his
the forest, and still of a model figure, and finely cut features,
was similarly accoutred, except in the lengthened skirt and
high bosom by which the Indian female costume is mainly
distinguished.
“It is King Philip!”—“Aye, King Philip and Queen
Weetamo!” were soon heard buzzing through the surprised
and agitated throng of gazers below. For a moment after he
was discovered, the chief object of their riveted attention remained
motionless, silent, and thoughtful. But now he advanced
a step, his lips opened, and his voice, rising like the
first low notes of a trumpet, rang out clear and distinct upon
the air:—
“Listen! listen, pale faces of Plymouth! listen to the last
words which Metacom has desire ever to say to you. The men
that my father could have brushed into the sea with his hand,
but instead gave them all the lands they wanted, protected
them in their feebleness, and all his life stood between them
and the hostile tribes who would have destroyed them —these
men have grown too strong to remember his kindness in their
treatment to his son. True, they have talked peace, but done
the works of war, Metacom has talked peace and showed his
good faith by doing the works of peace. They have made
treaties with him as a king, and used him as a subject bound
to obey them, and bear all they put upon him, without word
or question. They have seized on his lands and hunting
grounds, on claim of deeds from traitor Indians, that they knew
had no right to sell them. They have got his people drunk
and cheated them out of their furs and wampun. They have
forced him to give up the hunting guns by which his people
got their living. They have put heavy fines upon him. They
have taken his bad Indians by the hand, and rewarded them
for lying about him. They have thought to make him a
slave, and once planned to seize him as a prisoner, and serve
have done; and so broken their treaty, as many times as the
snows have come and gone, since he took the place of his father.
But still Metacom wanted peace. He would not
listen to the words of war from his tribe, who knew there was
good cause of war; for he yet hoped that the pale faces would
soon show some of the repentance and good doing they so
much preach to the Indians. And he stood between them
and his angry warriors. Yet he found none of the good
doing, but much of the worse. He soon found them threatening
war against him, unless he came to Plymouth to humble
and put himself in subjection. And because he did not come
they sent a paid spy among his tribe—one who was before a
traitor, and a criminal, but spared death in great mercy, and
who now died for his double crime. They then, guided by
other traitors, came within his treaty limits, seized the best
men of his tribe as murderers, who were no murderers. As
murderers they tried and sentenced them, instead of giving
them up to be tried by their own people as you were bound by
your treaty to do. And now you have dared to choke them
to death with ropes, after your own fashion, like dogs, or your
Quakers and witches. And there they hang, to tell the red
man the story of the way in which you would have peace and
friendship with his people. Metacom has been here to see
with his own eyes how you have made this black finish to
your high heaped insults and outrages. And he has now
opened his mouth to tell you he will hold back the hatchets
of his warriors no longer. And if they now be made red—
if your houses burn, and your people die—on your own contriving
heads rest the blood of your slain men—on your own
affrighted eyes flash the light of your burning buildings, and
on your own guilty ears ring the cries of your perishing
women and children.”
During the first part of this cutting and most unwelcome
coming as if in confirmation of the uneasy Deacon's apprehensions,
though from a far different source, that important
personage made no active demonstrations, and only stood
wincing, and frowning his pious indignation. But as the
bold speaker was drawing to the close, which involved a
virtual declaration of war, the pent wrath of the former began
to show itself in action. He started, looked fiercely around,
and then hastened in among the group of the amazed, but
more quiet officials, held a low, hurried consultation with
them, and then ran back, and made some communication to
the guard, the nature of which the next moment became apparent.
A strong detachment of the guard was seen rushing
towards the entrance of the enclosure, and the rest, on a
fresher instigation, hastily cocking and raising their muskets.
But all in vain. The quick eye of the wary chief had detected,
and rightly divined the whole movement. And before the
sound of his last terrible words had died on the ears of his
dismayed and trembling listeners, he had disappeared, and was
lost, alike as a target for those preparing to fire on him from
within, and as a prisoner-prize for those sent round to seize
him from without. He had somehow strangely slipped away
and was nowhere to be found.
But though Philip, who had caused so much annoyance to
the court leaders, as well as the deep sensation everywhere
apparent among the general mass of the assemblage, had now
disappeared, and all seemed to breathe easier, like men suddenly
relieved from the presence of some fearful apparition—
though Philip, the chief cause of the commotion, had disappeared;
yet neither the one class nor the other of the disturbed
throng were to be let off without a finale of the strange
scene, calculated to sink deeper in minds imbued with superstition
than anything in the one they had just witnessed.
Philip had indeed taken his final departure, but his companion
twilight like some antique bronze statue, frowning down upon
all, but with looks particularly bent on the soldiers who had
just been baulked of their noble game, and who still stood
with their guns partly raised in the direction, and seemingly
hesitating, in their evident surprise that she had not taken
fright and fled also, whether she was to be made a substitute
target for their bullets. In a moment she defiantly took a
step in advance, and with wild gestures, and in shrill and
frantic tones, exclaimed,—
“Let the pale faces fire, if they like. It would be a brave
thing to kill a squaw, and a fitting close of their bloody
days' doings! Aye, let them fire, if they will, and finish an
old work on the queen-wife of the murdered Alexander!
What! cowards, are you afraid of a woman? Then hear the
curse and prophecy of the bruised and broken-hearted Wetamoo,
who has been made strong enough to live only by the
hope of seeing the hour when her terrible wrongs should be
avenged! Base poisoners of my noble husband, that sweet
hour is at hand. The day of the red man's reckoning has
come. The bitter curse, which, in all her dreams, and in all
her day doings, has for years been burning in the torn bosom
of Wetamoo, is at last about to light upon your heads. You
have at last aroused the old lion of his long angry tribe, and
you will soon see the difference between Philip in the war-path,
and Philip meekly asking peace in your council lodge.
He will soon see for every drop of the blood of his people you
have this day shed, a whole river flowing from your own.
And the glad eyes of Wetamoo will soon see, too, for every
hair of her murdered husband's head, a bloody scalp torn
from the heads of the pale faces, swinging in the lodges of the
red men. You made Wetamoo a widow, and you have made
two other widows to-day, but for every widow you have made
among the red men, you shall see a thousand wailing widows
made red with blood, and your whole land heavy with tears.
This is the curse and prophecy of Wetamoo, and by her God,
and by your God, she swears that the one shall follow you till
every word and jot of the other be fulfilled.”
She ceased. As she had been permitted, notwithstanding
the boldness of her denunciations, and the fearful import of
her prophetic maledictions, to proceed unmolested, so unmolested
she was allowed to retire from her stand, and go where
she chose. And so ended the day, made memorable in Puritan
history, as the precursor of the desolating and terrible
Indian war that so closely followed. Yes, the day, with all
its exciting scenes, had at length ended; but it had ended in
a manner which was as little anticipated by the movers of its
principal proceedings as it was relished by them. Their object
in the arrest, trial, and summary execution of the poor victimized
red men, was far less to further the ends of justice,
than to overawe Philip and his tribe, and all other tribes
with whom he might otherwise ally himself for hostile purposes;
and at the same time gratify the bitter prejudices of
their whole people, and impress them with the desired ideas
of their own inflexible justice, and fearlessness in executing
it. It was with the originators, therefore, what they doubtless
deemed a very sagacious political measure, especially devised
to intimidate the apprehended foe, and thus, to use a
modern phrase, to conquer a peace with the dreaded Philip
and his stubborn tribe, which they were conscious could, with
their own deliberately aggressive policy, be in no other manner
obtained. And these astute managers evidently had, to
the end of the trial, even in despite the untoward appearance
and effort of Roger Williams, fully succeeded in keeping the
popular current, as before intimated, running strongly on
their side, as manifested in the fierce exultation of the whites,
and the trembling awe of the praying and other Indians in
But the execution, especially the last act of the revolting
scene, had obviously been an overdose even for Bigotry
herself. A reaction of feeling was beginning to take effect;
and doubt and apprehension on the white, and kindling
resentment on the Indian spectators, were usurping the place
of the defiant exultations and over-weening confidence of the
one, and the abject fears of the other, that but a few hours
before were on all sides so palpably displayed.
It was of this altered state of feeling in the mingled crowd,
that the sagacious Philip, who had been an unseen spectator
of the whole scene, and whose discriminating eye had detected
the change of the moral current, had suddenly resolved to
take the advantage by boldly showing himself, and make a
speech intended no less for effect on his own recreant subjects
present, than on the superstitious and bigot-blind followers of
the court of Plymouth. And he had counted not in vain.
His bold and skillful effort, falling, as it did, on the doubtful
and fluctuating feelings of the crowd, had brought the gathering
tide against him at least to an ebb. And the work which
he had so successfully begun seemed to receive a finishing
blow in the fiery and fearful words of the wrongs-treasuring
Wetamoo, whose weirdlike foretokenings of blood and desolation
fell on ears and hearts too deeply impressed with the wild
superstitions of the times to resist the spell of fear and foreboding,
which those words were so well calculated to throw
over them.
Thus did the outgeneraling chief turn the arms of the
court of Plymouth against themselves, in all that related to
the effect counted on from their measure, as was abundantly
shown, not only by the silent, thoughtful, and strangely altered
manner in which the mingled assemblage dispersed that night,
but by the general panic that immediately followed among the
whites, and the disappearance of large numbers of recreant or
their old master, now, for the first time, thrown defiantly on
the breeze.
“But, can this”—here, perhaps, asks the surprised and
doubting reader, whose ears, from his youth upwards, have
been continually regaled with the unqualified, stereotyped
laudations of the intelligence and exalted virtues of the Pilgrim
Fathers, which, almost from time immemorial, have been
one of the accepted droppings of the pulpit, and one of the
staple themes of Fourth of July and Pilgrim-day rostrums—
“can this be a truthful picture of the treatment and policy
of the colonists towards the Indians, or those of them, at least,
who declined to part with their tribal independence? Can it
be any thing like a fair representation of the proceedings of
one of the courts of justice of that day? And, finally, can it
place in a true light the hitherto unquestioned religious character
of the rulers and chief actors in the public affairs of
that peculiar era?”
We hope not, doubting reader; for the credit of our forefathers,
we really hope it is an exaggerated picture, or at least
one of a very limited application. But till you shall have
traveled back with us, and, unbiased by all pre-conceived
opinions, have carefully examined the records of those times,
taken all the facts and circumstances stated and admitted by
cotemporary writers, and, rejecting all modern eulogistic or
palliating commentaries, have drawn for yourself all the fairly
deducible inferences—till you have done this, and convinced
us and yourself, by that only safe process of arriving at the
truth, that our picture is an unwarranted and improbable one,
we must let it stand, and bear the responsibility of its general
truthfulness.
The great mistake of the pilgrim fathers consisted in
making the civil rule subservient to the ecclesiastical. This,
from the very nature of the case, ever has led, and ever must
mis-steps in governmental policy; for the leaders of the
church less often attain their positions of influence by the
capacities which would qualify them to become advisers and
dictators in civil proceedings, than by the mere fervor of
their religious enthusiasm; and their counsels, consequently,
must ever be unsafe, and, however honestly intended, not
unfrequently lead to measures productive of public mischief
or individual wrong. This placing of the civil power under
church control would have been less dangerous, doubtless, if
the church had been built up on the best principles for insuring
its purity. But this could not have been so here; for
here, again, the pilgrim fathers fell into another error, which
must often have been as injurious to the interests of true
religion, as it was unsafe in the administration of civil authority.
They had established the rule, that no man should hold
any office unless he was a member of the church. If human
nature was the same then as now, this was virtually offering a
reward for hypocrisy, under which all the most cunning, calculating,
and ambitious, without any reference to their secret
feelings or belief, would go through the forms of a profession,
and rush into the church. And the same unscrupulous ambition
and lack of principle that had induced them to seek
admission into the sacred fold, would, when they got there,
induce them to strive for posts of influence, where they could
control the sincere and undiscerning, and, through the power
thus obtained, subserve their own wicked or selfish purposes
at the expense of private right and public welfare.
Under all these circumstances, therefore, why should it be
thought strange or improbable to find in control, at times, that
class of men of whom we have made Deacon Mudgridge the
representative, or that the latter should find ready instruments
in another and entirely honest class, represented by the sincere
but zeal-blinded Dummer, and still more ready tools in yet
the pliant and unscrupulous Dick Swain?
The pilgrims closely resembled the Jews, whom they
avowedly copied. But it should be said of both, that, with
all their faults, the severe physical training they imposed upon
themselves, and the high moral energies they cultivated, were
admirably calculated to make nurseries of men destined to
found great and powerful nations. The training of Moses
made the soldiers of Joshua and David, whose achievements
resulted in the establishment of the splendid empire of Solomon;
and the training of the pilgrims made the soldiers of
our revolution, and their achievements have also resulted,
under a more diffused intelligence, and modified and more
correct views of the offices and requirements of religion, in
the still more splendid and beneficent fabric of our present
American liberty.
With these remarks, intended to meet the scruples of the
doubters at the threshold, and apprise all that we do not intend
to follow the beaten track any farther than we think it
leads to truth and justice, we will return to the thread of our
narrative.
| CHAPTER III. The doomed chief, or, Two hundred years ago | |