CHAPTER XVII. ADVERSITY AND PROGRESS.-WESTON'S COLONY, AND WHAT CAME OF IT. Yet THE second year of the colony at Plymouth, and the third, brought no such sorrow as that of the first winter. they were years of peril and of suffering. While the Pilgrims were on good terms with their neighbor Massasoit, and with all the Indians under his authority, they had not been able to enter into similar relations with Canonicus, the sachem of a much more powerful nation. The Narragansets, inhabiting nearly all the territory now included in the State of Rhode Island, are supposed to have been at that time about thirty thousand, for they had been strangely spared by the pestilence which had wasted other tribes. It was natural for them to be jealous of the advantages which their neighbors under Massasoit were likely to gain from alliance and intercourse with the English; and it began to be reported that they were preparing for an attack on Plymouth. They knew, indeed, that the colony had been reinforced, but they knew also that the men who came by the Fortune had brought neither arms nor provisions. After not many days, there came into the village a messenger from the Narragansets (Jan., 1622), whose message Governor Bradford and Assistant Allerton, in the absence of their interpreter, were able to understand only in part. He brought a bundle of new arrows tied up in a rattlesnake's skin, and, having intimated that the suspicious gift was for Squanto, he "desired to depart with all expedition." From a friendly and faithful Indian who was with him, they could learn no more than what they must have inferred without his aid, namely, that the symbol meant mischief. The mes senger was committed to the custody of Captain Standish, to be detained till his message could be more distinctly understood and answered. After a night's detention, he was set at liberty, as being under the protection of "the law of arms." He was charged "to certify his master that the governor had heard of his large and many threatenings, and was much offended;" to tell him that, "if he would not be reconciled to live peaceably," the governor "dared him to the utmost;" and to assure him that the Englishmen at Plymouth, though not at all afraid of him, were desirous of peace with him as with all men. All this was while Squanto was absent. On his return, he informed the governor "that to send the rattlesnake's skin in that manner imported enmity, and that it was no better than a challenge." After some consultation with the assistant, the captain, and perhaps others, "the governor stuffed the skin with powder and shot, and sent it back, returning no less defiance to Canonicus, assuring him that if he had shipping now present, thereby to send his men to Narraganset, they would not need to come so far by land to us; yet withal showing that they should never come unwelcome or unlooked for." An Indian was found who consented to be the bearer of the message with the stuffed snakeskin; and so well did he perform his task that the Narraganset king was not disposed to maintain his challenge. "He would not once touch the powder and shot, nor suffer it to remain in his country." The terrible symbol was sent from place to place, till it came back to Plymouth in good condition. Meanwhile all hands were busy with preparations for defense. Bradford and his associates, "notwithstanding [their] high words and lofty looks" toward those who threatened them, knew the weakness of the colony, and what skill they had in military engineering was put in requisition. By thirty or forty days of united labor, the village was inclosed (Feb.) with a stockade, having "flankers in convenient places, with gates to shut, which were every night locked, and a watch kept, and, when need required, there was also warding in the daytime." Every man under the captain had his immediate commander, and knew the point to which he must instantly repair in case of an alarm. In such insecurity were they night and day. The entire force to defend that outpost of civilization against uncounted hordes of savages was, at the utmost, not more than fifty men and boys, including all who had lately come by the Fortune. Keeping watch by night and ward by day, on their half-rations, no man of them sleeping but with his weapons beside him ready for battle, theirs must have been a stalwart faith if they could sing, "The Lord is my Shepherd," unfalteringly in Ainsworth's uncouth verse: "Jehovah feedeth me, I shall not lack. In grassy folds he down doth make me lie: "Yea, though I walk in dale of deadly shade, I'll fear none ill: For with me thou wilt be; Thy rod, thy staff eke, they shall comfort me. 'Fore me a table thou hast ready made In their presènce that my distressers be." Amid such anxieties, the question was raised whether it would be safe for them to weaken their power of self-defense by sending out a trading expedition which they had planned, and which the Indians around Boston harbor were expecting. Bradford, Allerton, and Standish (the governor, the assistant, and the captain), held a consultation (March) with other principal men, and their conclusion was that, "as hitherto, upon all occasions," they "had manifested undaunted courage and resolution," so in these circumstances no other policy would be safe. Their storehouse was almost empty, and unless they could obtain food by traffic they must soon perish; nor could they shut themselves up in their fortification without exposing at once their weakness and their fear. "Therefore," said they," we thought best to proceed in our trading voyage, making this use of that we heard" about hostile intentions on the part of the savages, "to go the better provided, and use the more carefulness both at home and abroad, leaving the event to the disposing of the Almighty. As his providence had hitherto been over us for good, so we had now no cause (save our sins) to despair of his mercy in our preservation and continuance, while we desired rather to be instruments of good to the heathen about us than to give them the least measure of just offense." Just at this time their confidence in Squanto was shaken; for the temptations incident to his position seemed to have overpowered him. They found reason to believe that, among his fellow-savages, he was pretending to have unbounded influence over the English, and under that pretense was taking bribes (perhaps he would have preferred to say fees) to avert the hostility or to conciliate the favor of the growing power at Plymouth. The exposure of his practices made him dependent on them for his personal safety; for it brought upon him the wrath and life-long hatred of Massasoit. He dared not desert them, and they allowed him to remain among them. But in the mean time they had already taken under their patronage another Indian, Hobbamoc, whom they found faithful in their service, and who was especially useful as a check upon Squanto. If at any time they distrusted what one of them said, they could hear the testimony of the other, and could require that at the mouth of two witnesses every word should be established. Poor Squanto lived only a few months after the exposure of his duplicity. He died, "desiring the governor to pray for him that he might go to the Englishmen's God in heaven, and bequeathed sundry of his things to sundry of his English friends as remembrances of his love." Hobbamoc lived several years among the Pilgrims, and seems to have received an allotment of land in their township. After his death, he was held in affectionate remembrance. When his memory had not yet passed into tradition, it was said of him: "As he increased in knowledge, so ་ in affection and also in practice, reforming and conforming himself accordingly; and though he was much tempted by enticements, scoffs, and scorns from the Indians, yet could he never be gotten from the English, nor from seeking after their God, but died among them, leaving some good hopes in their hearts that his soul went to rest." In the early summer, when the supply of provisions was failing, and stark famine was beginning to pinch the company at Plymouth, they were one day startled by the sight of a sail-boat coming into their harbor (June). The boat proved to be a shallop from the Sparrow, a vessel which Weston and another of the Adventurers had sent to the coast of Maine for a fishing voyage on their private account. Any hope of relief which the sight of an English sail might have awakened was soon dispelled, for "this boat," says Bradford, "brought seven passengers and some letters, but no victuals, nor any promise of any." The Sparrow had sailed from England before any intelligence of the Fortune had been received there, and the letters which she brought gave to the governor such views of what might be expected from Weston, and of discord and mutual antipathy among the Adventurers, that he dared not communicate the discouraging information save to the few in whom he could most safely confide. Weston was proposing to withdraw from the partnership; and though he reiterated his professions of friendship, he and his associate were intending to send out a colony which should be their own, and of which these seven passengers were to be the pioneers. He complained that "the parsimony of the Adventurers,” overruling his generous intentions, was the reason why the emigrants by the Fortune were so ill provided with necessaries, and that the same parsimony was keeping back the "supply of men and provisions" which, without waiting for her return, he had been soliciting for the colony. He, therefore, and those who were of his faction among the Adventurers, invited the Planters to unite with them in demanding that the partnership should be dissolved immediate |