November. 1642. subsequent interview of the Governor with him at Boston there was little cordiality on either side.1 Two years more had passed of suspicious amity, when intelligence was brought to Boston from Connecticut and New Haven that Miantonomo had Sept. 1. planned a general massacre of the English, to take place after the harvest. Mr. Eaton, Mr. Ludlow, and Mr. Haynes had each received disclosures of the plot from friendly Indians who were unknown to one another.2 During the same time, -as the English learned from what they considered trustworthy sources, - repeated attempts to assassinate Uncas, by ambuscade and by poison, had been made at the instigation of his rival.3 Sept. 8. Connecticut and New Haven would have immediately gone to war. They proposed that Massachusetts should raise a hundred men, to be joined by a proportionate number of their own people. But that Colony, less exposed and more calm, held back from so critical a step. In a General Court, which was promptly convened, the uncertainties and the certain sacrifices of a conflict were pondered; the proof of an Indian conspiracy was not found to be indubitable; and "if" so they argued -"we should kill any of them, or lose any of our own, and it should be found after to have been a false report, we might provoke God's displeasure, and blemish our wisdom and integrity before the hea 1 Winthrop, II. 15, 16. 66 Ibid., 78, 79.- Lion Gardener had similar information. (Relation of the Pequot Wars, in Mass. Hist. Col., XXIII. 153 – 155.) So had the Dutch at New Amsterdam. "Miantenimo, principal Sachem of Sloops Bay, came here with one hundred men, passing through all the Indian villages, solicit ing them to a general war against both the English and the Dutch." (Documentary History of New York, IV. 6. then." Another topic of the deliberation is not to be overlooked. "Lastly, it was considered that such as were to be sent out on such an expedition were for the most part godly, and would be as well assured of the justice of the war as the warrant of their call, and then we should not fear their forwardness and courage; but, if they should be sent out not well resolved, we might fear the success." "1 Accordingly, while letters were addressed to Connecticut remonstrating against immediate hostilities, John Leverett and Edward Hutchinson were sent to acquaint Miantonomo with the charges against him, and to invite him to Boston to make his vindication.2 In due time he presented himself to the Governor, attended by two or three of his counsellors, whom he always kept at hand as witnesses, and by a few other Indians dwelling nearer to the town. He asked to be confronted with his accusers, and denied the imputed conspiracy, alleging it 1 Winthrop, II. 80.-The quoted passage suggests a remark which may appear premature in this place, but may be borne in mind for future verification. Sooner and later, the people of New England have been summoned to not a little military service, and they have performed it generally with becoming determination, not seldom with desperate valor. But they have done it as a duty, not for glorification. I know not that a trace can be found of the foolish and mischievous vocabulary of "martial glory," "renown in arms," and the like, in all the narratives or correspondence of their wars. When, from time to time, they have beat their enemies, it has been because that proceeding was required by some definite obligation. But to be attracted to fighting by ambition for fame has been no weakness of that people. From the storming of the Indian fort on the Mystic to the storming of Lord Corn- "Habet ipsa suos heroas alitque * Mass. Rec., II. 23. to be a calumny of Uncas. The magistrates "spent the better part of two days in treating with him, and in conclusion he did accommodate himself to them to their satisfaction." He had scarcely been dismissed, when still more urgent letters came from Connecticut, insisting on the reality of the plot and the immediate necessity of counteraction; and others from Plymouth, communicating intelligence received there to the same effect. On his way home, Miantonomo killed one of his attendants, whom, for participation in the attempts to assassinate Uncas, he had promised to surrender to that chief. This was interpreted as a precaution on his part against further discoveries. But the Massachusetts Magistrates, on consultation, resolved not to recede from the ground which they had taken, and reiterated their advice to the western settlements to practise longer forbearance.1 Disorders of at Providence. A further occasion of disquiet was presented by a connection which Miantonomo now formed with some disaffected English borderers. One of the numerous quarrels in the Narragansett plantations had taken place a year before at Providence. A portion of the associates Samuel Gor of Roger Williams had established themselves on ton and others the west side of the bay, north of the river Pawtuxet. Here they found themselves so incommoded by some lawless persons who sat down among them, that, for want of any nearer authority to Massachu- competent to give them redress, they were fain to apply themselves to that of Massachusetts Bay. In a petition to the Magistrates of that Nov. 17. Colony, they professed to give "true intelligence of the insolent and riotous carriages of Samuel Gorton and his company, which came from the island of Aquetnet, Application setts for protection against them. 1641. Haynes at Hartford, from sources independent of each other. (A True Relation of a Conspiracy of Miantonomo," &c., in Mass. Hist. Coll., XXIII. 161. This anonymous tract was probably written in August, 1642.) 1 Winthrop, II. 81-83; Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 9. together with John Greene and Francis Weston." These persons, they alleged, were combined with others "against the fairest and most just and honest ways of proceeding in order and government that we could rightly and truly use for the peaceable preservation and quiet subsistence of ourselves and families, or any that should have fair occasion to go out or come in amongst us;" and by their "writings, words, and actions" showed a design “to have no manner of honest order or government, either over them or amongst them." The petitioners sustained their complaint by the recital of particular acts of disorder and violence; and they concluded by entreating the Massachusetts people, " of gentle courtesy, and for the preservation of humanity and mankind, to consider their condition, and lend them a neighborlike helping hand, and send assistance to help them and ease them of their burden." The petition was signed by thirteen persons.1 The General Court not being together, the Magistrates replied. "We told them," writes Winthrop, "that except they did submit themselves to some jurisdiction, either Plymouth's or ours, we had no calling or warrant to interpose in their contentions; but if they were once subject to any, then they had a calling to protect them.” 2 Of four disturbers complained of by name in the petition, three were afterwards especially conspicuous in a long series of events. Randall Holden had been one of It is in Mass. Hist. Coll., XXI. 2; R. I. Hist. Coll., II. 191. William Arnold, of Providence, wrote, May 25, 1642: "I do not only approve of what my neighbors before me have written, but this much I say, that it is also evident, and may easily be proved, that the said Gorton nor his company are not fit persons to be received in and made members of such a body in so weak a state as our town is in at present." "There is no state but in the first place will seek to preserve its 1642. March. 1637. Sept. 19. the original confederates with Coddington, and then one of those who helped to displace him from the government at Portsmouth.1 He had been appointed successively Corporal and Marshal, "reunited to the body" at the coalition of the towns, and finally disfranchised and disarmed.2 It must have been about the time of these censures, that he followed his friend Samuel Gorton from Portsmouth to Providence. John Greene, said to have been previously a surgeon at Salisbury in England, had been at Providence almost from its beginning.3 Soon after taking up his residence there, he made a visit to Boston, where he was fined twenty pounds, and "enjoined not to come into the jurisdiction, for speaking contemptuously of the Magistrates." * Gorton, previously a clothier in London, had come to Boston during the Antinomian controversy, and thence, after a short time, removed to Plymouth. At that place he found a home with the minister, Mr. Smith, and before long attracted notice by a dispute with his host, originating, as Gorton supposed, in the preference of Smith's wife for Gorton's prayers over those of her husband." Whatever may have been its cause, its consequence was that Smith repented of his hospitality, and ordered him out of the house, which Earlier history of Gorton. 1636. 1 See Vol. I. 514. to some friends to demand an hundred * R. I. Rec., I. 46, 47, 52, 56, 60, pound debt of him, which he having 100, 119, 123. borrowed it of a citizen, the citizen bequeathed it to some good use, whereof Mr. Walker was called to some trust. But then Mr. Gorton departed out of this jurisdiction to Plymouth." Representations of this kind, however, against a man so troublesome and odious in his day, are not to be taken à la rigueur. Letter of Gorton to Nathaniel Morton in Force's Tracts and Other Papers, IV. (vii.) 7. A very imperfect copy of this letter is in Hutchinson, I. 467, and in R. I. Hist. Coll., II. 246. |