PHILIP OF POKANOKET.
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AN INDIAN MEMOIR.As moal bronze unged his look:
<span style="crey">A soul that pity touchd, but never shook;</span>
<span style="crey">Traind from his tree-rockd cradle to his bier,</span>
<span style="crey">The ?erce extremes of good and ill to brook</span>
<span style="crey">Impassive--fearing but the shame of fear--</span>
<span style="crey">stoic of the woods--a man without a tear.</span>
<span style="crey">CAMPBELL.</span>
IT is to be regretted that those early writers who treated of the discovery alement of America have not given us more particular and did ats of the remarkable characters that ?ourished in savage life. The sty aes which have reached us are full of peculiarity and i; they furnish us with nearer glimpses of human nature, and show what man is in a paratively primitive state and what he owes to civilization.
There is something of the charm of discovery in lighting upon these wild and unexplored tracts of human nature--in witnessing, as it were, the native growth of moral se, and perceiving those generous and romantic qualities which have been arti?cially cultivated by society vegetating in spontaneous hardihood and rude magni?ce.
In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost the existenan depends so much upon the opinion of his fellow-men, he is stantly ag a studied part. The bold and peculiar traits of native character are re?ned away or softened down by the levelling in?uence of what is termed good-breeding, and he practises so may deceptions and affects so many generous ses for the purposes of popularity that it is dif?cult to distinguish his real from his arti?cial character.
The Indian, on the trary, free from the restraints and re?s of polished life, and in a great degree a solitary and indepe being, obeys the impulses of his ination or the dictates of his judgment; and thus the attributes of his nature, being freely indulged, grow singly great and striking.
Society is like a lawn, where every roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface; he, however, who would study Nature in its wildness and variety must pluo the forest, must explore the glen, must stem the torrent, and dare the precipice.
These re?es arose on casually looking through a volume of early ial history wherein are recorded, with great bitterness, the es of the Indians and their wars with the settlers New England. It is painful to perceive, even from these partial narratives, how the footsteps of civilization may be traced in the blood of the abines; how easily the ists were moved to hostility by the lust of quest; how merciless aerminating was their warfare. The imagination shrinks at the idea of how many intellectual beings were hunted from the earth, how many brave and noble hearts, of Natures sterling age, were broken down and trampled in the dust.
Such was the fate of PHILIP OF POKA, an Indian warrior whose name was oerror throughout Massachusetts and ecticut.
He was the most distinguished of a number of porary sachems whned over the Pequods, the Narragas, the anoags, and the other eastern tribes at the time of the ?rst settlement of New England--a band of native untaught heroes who made the most generous struggle of which human nature is capable, ?ghting to the last gasp in the cause of their try, without a hope of victory or a thought of renown. Worthy of an age of poetry and ?t subjects for local story and romantic ?, they have left scarcely any authentic traces on the page of history, but stalk like gigantic shadows in the dim twilight of tradition.*
* While correg the proof-sheets of this article the author is informed that a celebrated English poet has nearly ?nished an heroi oory of Philip of Poka.
When the Pilgrims, as the Plymouth settlers are called by their desdants, ?rst te on the shores of the New World from the religious persecutions of the Old, their situation was to the last degree gloomy and disheartening. Few in number, and that number rapidly perishing away through siess and hardships, surrounded by a howling wilderness and savage tribes, exposed to the rigors of an almost arctiter and the vicissitudes of an ever-shifting climate, their minds were ?lled with doleful forebodings, and nothing preserved them from sinking into despondency but the stroement ious enthusiasm. In this forlorn situation they were visited by Massasoit, chief sagamore of the anoags, a powerful chief whned reat extent of try. Instead of taking advantage of the sty number of the strangers and expelling them from his territories, into which they had intruded, he seemed at oo ceive for them a generous friendship, aeowards them the rites of primitive hospitality. He came early in the spring to their settlement of New Plymouth, attended by a mere handful of followers, entered into a solemn league of pead amity, sold them a portion of the soil, and promised to secure for them the good-will of his savage allies. Whatever may be said of Indian per?dy, it is certain that the iy and good faith of Massasoit have never been impeached. He tinued a ?rm and magnanimous friend of the white men, suffering them to extend their possessions and tthen themselves in the land, araying no jealousy of their increasing porosperity. Shortly before his death he came once more to New Plymouth with his son Alexander, for the purpose of renewing the ant of pead of seg it to his posterity.
At this ference he endeavored to protect the religion of his forefathers from the encroag zeal of the missionaries, and stipulated that no further attempt should be made to draw off his people from their a faith; but, ?nding the English obstinately opposed to any such dition, he mildly relinquished the demand. Almost the last act of his life was t his two sons, Alexander and Philip (as they had been named by the English), to the residence of a principal settler, reending mutual kindness and ?dence, areating that the same love and amity which had existed between the white men and himself might be tinued afterwards with his children. The good old sachem died in peace, and was happily gathered to his fathers before sorrow came upon his tribe; his children remained behind to experiehe ingratitude of white men.
His eldest son, Alexander, succeeded him. He was of a quid impetuous temper, and proudly tenacious of his hereditary rights and dignity. The intrusive polid dictatorial duct of the strangers excited his indignation, and he beheld with uneasiheir exterminating wars with the neighb tribes. He was doomed soon to incur their hostility, being accused of plotting with the Narragas to rise against the English and drive them from the land. It is impossible to say whether this accusation was warranted by facts or was grounded on mere suspis. It is evident, however, by the violent and overbearing measures of the settlers that they had by this time begun to feel scious of the rapid increase of their power, and to grow harsh and insiderate ireatment of the natives. They despatched an armed force to seize upon Alexander and t him before their courts. He was traced to his woodland haunts, and surprised at a hunting-house where he was reposing with a band of his followers, unarmed, after the toils of the chase. The suddenness of his arrest and the e offered to his sn dignity so preyed upon the irascible feelings of this proud savage as to throw him inting fever. He ermitted to return home on dition of sending his son as a pledge for his re-appearance; but the blow he had received was fatal, and before he reached his home he fell a victim to the agonies of a wounded spirit.
The successor of Alexander was Metamocet, or King Philip, as he was called by the settlers on at of his lofty spirit and ambitious temper. These, together with his well-known energy aerprise, had rendered him an object of great jealousy and apprehension, and he was accused of having always cherished a secret and implacable hostility towards the whites. Such may very probably and very naturally have been the case. He sidered them as inally but mere intruders into the try, who had presumed upon indulgend were extending an in?uence baneful to savage life. He saw the whole race of his trymeing before them from the face of the earth, their territories slipping from their hands, and their tribes being feeble, scattered, and depe. It may be said that the soil was inally purchased by the settlers; but who does not know the nature of Indian purchases in the early periods of ization?
The Europeans always made thrifty bargains through their superior adroitness in traf?d they gained vast accessions of territory by easily-provoked hostilities. An uncultivated savage is never a niquirer into the re?s of law by whi injury may be gradually and legally in?icted. Leading facts are all by which he judges; and it was enough for Philip to know that before the intrusion of the Europeans his trymen were lords of the soil, and that now they were being vagabonds in the land of their fathers.
But whatever may have been his feelings of general hostility and his particular indignation at the treatment of his brother, he suppressed them for the present, rehe tract with the settlers, and resided peaceably for many years at Poka, or as, it was called by the English, Mount Hope,* the a seat of dominion of his tribe. Suspis, however, which were at ?rst but vague and ie, began to acquire form and substance, and he was at length charged with attempting to instigate the various eastern tribes to rise at once, and by a simultaneous effort to throw off the yoke of their oppressors. It is dif?cult at this distant period to assign the proper credit due to these early accusations against the Indians. There roo suspi and an apto acts of violen the part of the whites that gave weight and importao every idle tale. Informers abounded where tale-beari with tenand reward, and the sword was readily uhed when its success was certain and it carved out empire.
* Now Bristol, Rhode Island.
The only positive eviden recainst Philip is the accusation of one Sausaman, a renegado Indian, whose natural ing had been quied by a partial education which he had received among the settlers. He ged his faith and his allegiawo or three times with a facility that evihe looseness of his principles. He had acted for some time as Philips ?dential secretary and sellor, and had enjoyed his bounty and prote. Finding, however, that the clouds of adversity were gathering round his patron, he abandoned his servid went over to the whites, and in order to gain their favor charged his former beor with plotting against their safety. A rigorous iigation took place. Philip and several of his subjects submitted to be examined, but nothing roved against them. The settlers, however, had now gooo far to retract; they had previously determihat Philip was a dangerous neighbor; they had publicly eviheir distrust, and had done enough to insure his hostility; acc, therefore, to the usual mode of reasoning in these cases, his destru had bee necessary to their security. Sausaman, the treacherous informer, was shortly afterwards found dead in a pond, having fallen a victim to the vengeance of his tribe. Three Indians, one of whom was a friend and sellor of Philip, were apprehended and tried, and oestimony of one very questioness were ned and executed as murderers.
This treatment of his subjects and ignominious punishment of his friend ed the pride and exasperated the passions of Philip.
The bolt which had fallen thus at his very feet awakened him to the gathering storm, aermio trust himself no longer in the power of the white men. The fate of his insulted and brokeed brother still rankled in his mind; and he had a further warning iragical story of Miantonimo, a great Sachem of the Narragas, who, after manfully fag his accusers before a tribunal of the ists, exculpating himself from a charge of spirad receiving assuranity, had been per?diously despatched at their instigation. Philip therefathered his ?ghting-men about him, persuaded all strahat he could to join his cause, sent the women and children to the Narragas for safety, and wherever he appeared was tinually surrounded by armed warriors.
Whewo parties were thus in a state of distrust and irritation, the least spark was suf?t to set them in a ?ame. The Indians, having ons in their hands, grew mischievous and itted various petty depredations. In one of their maraudings a warrior was ?red on and killed by a settler.
This was the signal for open hostilities; the Indians pressed to revehe death of their rade, and the alarm of war resouhrough the Plymouth y.
In the early icles of these dark and melancholy times we meet with many indications of the diseased state of the publid. The gloom ious abstra and the wildness of their situation among trackless forests and savage tribes had disposed the ists to superstitious fancies, and had ?lled their imaginations with the frightful chimeras of witchcraft and spectrology. They were much given also to a belief in omens. The troubles with Philip and his Indians were preceded, we are told, by a variety of those awful warnings which freat and public calamities. The perfe of an Indi<mark></mark>an boeared in the air at New Plymouth, which was looked upon by the inhabitants as a &quious apparition." At Hadley, Northampton, and other towns in their neighborhood "was heard the report of a great piece of ordnance, with a shaking of the earth and a siderable echo."* Others were alarmed on a still sunshiny m by the discharge of guns and muskets; bullets seemed to whistle past them, and the noise of drums resounded in the air, seeming to pass away to the westward; others fahat they heard the galloping of horses over their heads; aain monstrous births which took place about the time ?lled the superstitious in some towns with doleful forebodings. Many of these portentous sights and sounds may be ascribed to natural phenomena--to the northern lights which occur vividly in those latitudes, the meteors which explode in the air, the casual rushing of a blast through the top branches of the forest, the crash of fallen trees or disrupted rocks, and to those other uncouth sounds and echoes which will sometimes strike the ear sely amidst the profound stillness of woodland solitudes. These may have startled some melancholy imaginations, may have been exaggerated by the love for the marvellous, and listeo with that avidity with which we devour whatever is fearful and mysterious. The universal currency of these superstitious fancies and the grave reade of them by one of the learned men of the day are strongly characteristic of the times.
* The Rev. Increase Mathers History.
The nature of the test that ensued was such as too often distinguishes the warfare between civilized men and savages. On the part of the whites it was ducted with superior skill and success, but with a wastefulness of the blood and a disregard of the natural rights of their antagonists: on the part of the Indians it was waged with the desperation of men fearless of death, and who had nothing to expect from peace but humiliation, dependence, and decay.
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 justi?able, whilst he mentions with applause the most sanguinary atrocities of the whites. Philip is reviled as a murderer and a traitor, without sidering that he was a true-born prince gallantly ?ghting at the head of his subjects to avehe wrongs of his family, to retrieve the t power of his line, and to deliver his native land from the oppression of usurping strangers.
The project of a wide and simultaneous revolt, if such had really been formed, was worthy of a capaind, and had it not beeurely discovered might have been overwhelming in its sequehe war that actually broke out was but a war of detail, a mere succession of casual exploits and unected 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 arrive at simple facts, we ?nd him displaying a vigorous mind, a fertility of expedients, a pt of suffering and hardship, and an unquerable resolution that and our sympathy and applause.
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 thundercloud, and would suddenly emerge at a time and place least expected, carrying havod dismay into the villages. There were now and then indications of these impending ravages that ?lled the minds of the ists 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 wandering 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.
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 try desolate. Among his strongholds were the great ss or morasses which extend in some parts of New England, posed 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 uain footing and the tangled mazes of these shaggy wilds rehem almost impracticable to the white man, though the Indian could thread their labyrinths with the agility of a deer.
Into one of these, the great s of Pocasset Neck, hilip once driven with a band of his followers. The English did not dare to pursue him, fearing to veo these dark and frightful recesses, where they might perish in fens and miry pits or be shot down by lurking foes. They therefore ied the entrao 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 ?ames of war among the tribes of Massachusett<bdo>..</bdo>s and the Nipmuck try and threatening the y of ecticut.
In this hilip 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 ing none could foresee and against whione knew when to be on the alert. The whole try 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 ing him. He was said to deal in neancy, and to be attended by an old Indian witch or prophetess, whom he sulted and who assisted him by her charms and intations. This, indeed, was frequently the case with Indian chiefs, either through their own credulity or to act upon that of their followers; and the in?uence of the prophet and the dreamer over Indian superstition has been fully evidenced i instances of savage warfare.
At the time that Philip effected his escape from Pocasset his fortunes were in a desperate dition. His forces had been thinned by repeated ?ghts and he had lost almost the whole of his resources. In this time of adversity he found a faithful friend in chet, chief Sachem of all the Narragas. He was the son and heir of Miantonimo, the great sachem who, as already mentioned, after an honorable acquittal of the charge of spiracy, had been privately put to death at the per?dious instigations of the settlers. "He was the heir," says the old icler, "of all his fathers pride and insolence, as well as of his malice towards the English;" he certainly was the heir of his insults and injuries and the legitimate avenger of his murder. Though he had forboro 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 tenand support. This at once drew upon him the hostility of the English, and it was determio strike a signal blow that should involve both the Sachems in one on ruin. A great force was therefathered together from Massachusetts, Plymouth, and ecticut, and was sent into the Narraga try in the depth of winter, when the ss, being frozen and lea?ess, could be traversed with parative facility and would no longer afford dark and imperable fasto the Indians.
Apprehensive of attack, chet had veyed th></a>e greater part of his stores, together with the old, the in?rm, the women and children of his tribe, to a strong fortress, where he and Philip had likewise drawn up the ?ower of their forces. This fortress, deemed by the Indians impregnable, was situated upon a rising mound or kind of island of ?ve or six acres in the midst of a s; it was structed with a degree of judgment and skill vastly superior to what is usually displayed in Indian forti?cation, and indicative of the martial genius of these two chieftains.
Guided by a renegado Indian, the English peed, through December snows, to this stronghold and came upon the garrison by surprise. The ?ght was ?erd tumultuous. The assailants were repulsed in their ?rst attack, and several of their bravest of?cers were shot down i of st the fortress, sword in hand. The assault was renewed with greater success. A lodgment was effected. The Indians were driven from one post to ahey disputed their ground inch by inch, ?ghting with the fury of despair. Most of their veterans were cut to pieces, and after a long and bloody battle, Philip and chet, with a handful of surviving warriors, retreated from the fort and te ihickets of the surrounding forest.
The victors set ?re 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 ?ames. This last e overcame eveoicism of the savage. The neighb woods resounded with the yells e and despair uttered by the fugitive warriors, as they beheld the destru of their dwellings and heard the agonizing cries of their wives and offspring. "The burning of the wigwams," says a porary writer, "the shrieks and cries of the women and children, and the yelling of the warriors, exhibited a most horrible and affeg se, so that it greatly moved some of the soldiers." The same writer cautiously adds, "They were in much doubt then, and afterwards seriously inquired, whether burning their enemies alive could be sistent with humanity, and the benevolent principles of the gospel."*
* MS. of the Rev. W. Ruggles.
The fate of the brave and generous chet is worthy of particular mention: the last se of his life is one of the inst>?</a>ances on record of Indian magnimity.
Broken down in his power and resources by this signal defeat, yet faithful to his ally and to the hapless cause which he had espoused, he rejected all overtures of peace offered on dition of betraying Philip and his followers, and declared that "he would ?ght it out to the last man, rather than bee a servant to the English." His home beiroyed, his try harassed and laid waste by the incursions of the querors, he was obliged to wander away to the banks of the ecticut, where he formed a rallying-point to the whole body of western Indians and laid waste several of the English settlements.
Early in the spring he departed on a hazardous expedition, with only thirty choseo pee to Seack, in the viity of Mount Hope, and to procure seed to plant for the sustenance of his troops. This little hand of adventurers had passed safely through the Pequod try, and were in the tre of the Narraga, resting at some wigwams near Pautucket River, when an alarm was given of an approag enemy. Having but seven men by him at the time, chet despatched two of them to the top of a neighb hill t intelligence of the foe.
Panic-struck by the appearance of a troop of English and Indians rapidly advang, they ?ed ihless terror past their chieftain, without stopping to inform him of the danger.
chet sent another scout, who did the same. He thewo more, one of whom, hurrying ba fusion and affright, told him that the whole British army was at hand. chet saw there was no choice but immediate ?ight. He attempted to escape round the hill, but erceived and hotly pursued by the hostile Indians and a few of the ?eetest of the English. Finding the swiftest pursuer close upon his heels, he threw off, ?rst his blahen his silver-laced coat a of peag, by which his enemies knew him to be chet and redoubled the eagerness of pursuit.
At length, in dashing through the river, his foot slipped upon a stone, and he fell so deep as to wet his gun. This act so struck him with despair that, as he afterwards fessed, "his heart and his bowels turned within him, and he became like a rotten stick, void of strength."
To such a degree was he unhat, being seized by a Pequod Indian within a short distance of the river, he made ahough a man of great vigor of body and boldness of heart. But on being made prisohe whole pride of his spirit arose within him, and from that moment we ?nd, in the aes given by his enemies, nothing but repeated ?ashes of elevated and prince-like heroism. Being questioned by one of the English who ?rst came up with him, and who had not attained his twenty sed year, the proud-hearted warrior, looking with lofty pt upon his youthful tenance, replied, "You are a child--you ot uand matters of war; let your brother or your chief e: him will I answer."
Though repeated offers were made to him of his life on dition of submitting with his nation to the English, yet he rejected them with disdain, and refused to send any proposals of the kind to the great body of his subjects, saying that he knew none of them would ply. Being reproached with his breach of faith towards the whites, his boast that he would not deliver up a anoag nor the paring of a anoags nail, and his threat that he would burn the English alive in their houses, he disdaio justify himself, haughtily answering that others were as forward for the war as himself, and "he desired to hear no more thereof."
So noble and unshaken a spirit, so true a ?delity to his cause and his friend, might have touched the feelings of the generous and the brave; but chet was an Indian, a being towards whom war had no courtesy, humanity no law, religion no passion: he was o die. The last words of his that are recorded are worthy the greatness of his soul. Wheence of death was passed upon him, he observed "that he liked it well, for he should die before his heart was soft or he had spoken anything unworthy of himself." His enemies gave him the death of a soldier, for he was shot at Stoning ham by three young Sachems of his own rank.
The defeat at the Narraga fortress and the death of chet were fatal blows to the fortunes of King Philip. He made an iual attempt to raise a head of war by stirring up the Mohawks to take arms; but, though possessed of the native talents of a statesman, his arts were teracted by the superior arts of his enlightened enemies, and the terror of their warlike skill began to subdue the resolution of the neighb tribes. The unfortunate chieftain saw himself daily stripped of power, and his ranks rapidly thinning around him. Some were suborned by the whites; others fell victims to hunger and fatigue and to the frequent attacks by which they were harassed. His stores were all captured; his chosen friends were swept away from before his eyes; his uncle was shot down by his side; his sister was carried into captivity; and in one of his narrow escapes he was pelled to leave his beloved wife and only son to the mercy of the enemy.
"His ruin," says the historian, "being thus gradually carried on, his misery was not prevented, but augmehereby; being himself made acquainted with the sense and experimental feeling of the captivity of his children, loss of friends, slaughter of his subjects, bereavement of all family relations, and being stripped of all outward forts before his own life should be taken away."
To ?ll up the measure of his misfortunes, his own followers began to plot against his life, that by sacri?g him they might purchase dishonorable safety. Through treachery a number of his faithful adherents, the subjects of Wetamoe, an Indian princess of Pocasset, a near kinswoman and federate of Philip, were betrayed into the hands of the enemy. Wetamoe was among them at the time, and attempted to make her escape by crossing a neighb river: either exhausted by swimming or starved with cold and hunger, she was found dead and naked he water-side. But persecution ceased not at the grave. Eveh, the refuge of the wretched, where the wicked only cease from troubling, was no prote to this outcast female, whose great crim<s></s>e was affeate ?delity to her kinsman and her friend.
Her corpse was the object of unmanly and dastardly vengeahe head was severed from the body a upon a pole, and was thus exposed at Taunton to the view of her captive subjects. They immediately reized the features of their unfortunate queen, and were so affected at this barbarous spectacle that we are told they broke forth into the "most horrid and diabolical lamentations."
However Philip had borne up against the plicated miseries and misfortuhat surrounded him, the treachery of his followers seemed t his heart and reduce him to despondency. It is said that "he never rejoiced afterwards, nor had success in any of his designs." The spring of hope was broken--the ardor of enterprise was extinguished; he looked around, and all was danger and darkness; there was o pity nor any arm that could bring deliverance. With a sty band of followers, who still remairue to his desperate fortuhe unhappy Philip wandered back to the viity of Mount Hope, the a dwelling of his fathers. Here he lurked about like a spectre among the ses of former porosperity, now bereft of home, of family, and of friend. There needs er picture of his destitute and piteous situation than that furnished by the homely pen of the icler, who is unwarily enlisting the feelings of the reader in favor of the hapless warrior whom he reviles.
"Philip," he says, "like a savage wild beast, having been hunted by the English forces through the woods above a hundred miles backward and forward, at last was driven to his own den upon Mount Hope, where he retired, with a few of his best friends, into a s, which proved but a prison to keep him fast till the messengers of death came by divine permission to execute vengeance upon him."
Even in this last refuge of desperation and despair a sullen grandeur gathers round his memory. We picture him to ourselves seated among his care-worn followers, brooding in silence over his blasted fortunes, and acquiring a savage sublimity from the wildness and dreariness of his lurking-place. Defeated, but not dismayed--crushed to the earth, but not humiliated--he seemed to grow more haughty beh disaster, and to experience a ?erce satisfa in draining the last dregs of bitterness. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, but great minds rise above it. The very idea of submission awakehe fury of Philip, and he smote to death one of his followers who proposed an expedient of peace. The brother of the victim made his escape, and in reverayed the retreat of his chieftain, A body of white men and Indians were immediately despatched to the s where Philip lay crouched, glaring with fury and despair. Before he was aware of their approach they had begun to surround him. In a little while he saw ?ve of his trustiest followers laid dead at his feet; all resistance was vain; he rushed forth from his covert, and made a headlong attempt to escape, but was shot through the heart by a renegado Indian of his own nation.
Such is the sty story of the brave but unfortunate King Philip, persecuted while living, slandered and dishonored when dead. If, however, we sider even the prejudiced aes furnished us by his enemies, erceive iraiable and loftly character suf?t to awaken sympathy for his fate and respect for his memory. We ?nd that amidst all the harassing cares and ferocious passions of stant warfare he was alive to the softer feelings of ubial love and paternal tenderness and to the generous se of friendship. The captivity of his "beloved wife and only son" are mentioned with exultation as causing him poignant misery: the death of any near friend is triumphantly recorded as a new blow on his sensibilities; but the treachery aion of many of his followers, in whose affes he had ?ded, is said to have desolated his heart and to have bereaved him of all further fort. He atriot attached to his native soil--a prirue to his subjects and indignant of their wrongs--a soldier daring in battle, ?rm in adversity, patient of fatigue, of hunger, of every variety of bodily suffering, and ready to perish in the cause he had espoused. Proud of heart and with an untamable love of natural liberty, he preferred to enjoy it among the beasts of the forests or in the dismal and famished recesses of ss and morasses, rather than bow his haughty spirit to submission and live depe and despised in the ease and luxury of the settlements. With heroic qualities and bold achievements that would have graced a civilized warrior, and have rendered him the theme of the poet and the historian, he lived a wanderer and a fugitive in his native land, a down, like a lonely bark foundering amid darkness and tempest, without a pityio weep his fall or a friendly hand to record his struggle.
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