The General Court of Massachusetts was in session at the same time as the Federal Commissioners. There might be an outbreak of the Narragansetts at any mo that the energetic head of a powerful tribe of savages had been long busy in maturing a conspiracy, which, should it break out at a favorable time, would imminently peril their existence, and at best could only be subdued by the shedding of much blood on both sides. Miantonomo, the Narragansett, was not to be allowed by them to repeat, on a larger theatre, the part of Sassacus the Pequot, and to be discomfited-if discomfited he should be at such heavy cost to his miserable followers. Assurances of his peaceable dispositions, which at first they had gladly trusted, had in their judgment been subsequently so fully discredited, as to make it appear that no safe reliance could be placed on any professions or pledges of his for the future. Their sense of the alarming exigency is made manifest by their costly and annoying military preparations. The record of the deliberations which conducted to the hard result, bears its own complete evidence of integrity and calmness. And there is no way so reasonable of accounting for the persuasion of existing danger in this instance, as the supposition of its good foundation in fact. "Barbarian craft, which says one thing and does another, will always furnish arguments for distant advocates. But it is only upon the spot, that the real significance of events can be judged; and the uprightness of the commander must often be the guaranty for the integrity of his conduct." (Quarterly Review, CIV. 478.) If, with such circumstances, the career of the Hindu, Nena Sahib, had been brought to a close five years ago, no one can tell how voluminously the English Muse would have bewailed his fate, and rebuked "the deep damnation of his taking off." Instead of taking upon themselves the execution of the conspirator, the Commissioners intrusted it to his savage foe, using care, at the same time, that it should be free from any accompaniments of savage cruelty. In this there was no sentimental affectation, and no symptom of distrust of the justice of their decree. The Narragansett chief was the prize of Uncas, who had but applied for their judgment and advice to authorize his exaction of the penalty to which Indian usages subjected even such captives as had neither been guilty of extraordinary treachery, nor were peculiarly feared. Further, the killing of the Indian chief by his captor, according, as it did, with the usages of Indian warfare, was no affront to his tribe. If he had been put to death by the English, who had not taken him in war, it would have more touched their point of honor, and provoked a keener resentment. The advice of the five ministers of religion to put Miantonomo to death has been thought to add a painful feature to the transaction. But certainly, if the act was not approved by Christian morality, it should not have been done at all; if it was approved by Christian morality, it was fit to be advised by Christian ministers. And when wolves are prowling about the flock for a chance to gorge themselves, who so bound to be watchful as the shepherds? The religious guides of the settlers in New England were accustomed and were expected to speak their minds, and take their full share of the responsibilities of the time. The guardians of that fold were no "dumb dogs." of Massachu. setts against Gorton's company. Sept. 15. ment; and the mutinous English, who might stimulate it, required to be closely watched. Acting, it may be preProceedings sumed, with reference to the contemporaneous proceedings of the Commissioners, the Court issued a warrant to the settlers at Shawomet to Sept. 12. appear in Boston at its next meeting," to answer the complaints of Pomham and Sacononoco." The warrant brought an immediate reply, addressed by Randal Holden, in the name of the company, "To the Great and Honored Idol General, now set up in the Massachusetts." It was made up of language in part unintelligibly mystical, and in part ingeniously and expressively abusive. It told the Magistrates, that, " to add to their former pride and folly, they had writ another note out of principles, which is the kingdom of darkness and of the Devil." It averred, that they "delighted to trust in the kingdom of darkness and of the Devil," and that they "lived by blood." It called them "hypocrites," a "generation of vipers," and "that beast and false prophet." It replied to their proposal for a hearing in their Court, that they were "most audacious to urge it," and, to the offer of safe-conduct for that purpose, that the writers "could not sufficiently vilify" it. It declared, that their "shallow, humane, and carnal capacities" should "never enter into the kingdom of God to be a doorkeeper there," and that "the axe was laid to the root of the tree, whereof they were a part." And it insulted them with vainglorious defiance: "If your sword be drawn, ours is girt upon our thigh; if you present a gun, make haste to give the first fire; for we are come to put fire upon the earth, and it is our desire to have it speedily kindled." 2 1 Winthrop, II. 121-123; Hypocrisie Unmasked, 2, 3; Simplicitie's Defence, 33. 2 R. I. Rec., I. 262.-Winslow says, "Because their orthography was so bad as it would scarce have been understood, I • Hypocrisie Unmasked, 28-36; left it to be corrected by the printer, This missive reached Boston before the Commissioners of the Confederacy had separated. The Magistrates consulted them, and were advised to proceed in the matter "according to what they should find just, and the rest of the jurisdictions would approve and concur in what should be so warrantably done, provided that this conclusion should not prejudice the government of Plymouth in any right they could justly claim unto any tract or tracts besides that possessed by the English and Indians who had submitted themselves to the government of the Massachusetts." The Magistrates accordingly despatched a prompt and peremptory answer. They briefly recited the circumstances of the case, as apprehended by themselves, and concluded: "We therefore intend shortly to send commissioners into your parts to lay open the charges against you, and to hear your reasons and allegations, and thereupon to receive such satisfaction from you as shall appear in justice to be due. We give you also to understand, that we shall send a sufficient guard with our commissioners, for their safety against any violence or injury; for, seeing you will not Sept. 19. They ragansett sachems, who were known to be in a deep conspiracy against all the English in the land at the same time.” (Ibid., Epistle Dedicatory.) Again, Winslow lays stress on Gorton's 1 Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 10. A topic of Winslow's book was "the dangerous agreement which he [Gorton] and his accomplices made with ambitious and treacherous Indians, who at the same time were deeply engaged in a desperate conspiracy to cut off all the rest of the English in the other plantations." (Hypocrisie Unmasked, Title-page.) He says that the Commissioners were disposed to have Massachusetts proceed against Gorton's people, "the more because of Gorton's extraordinary familiarity with Miantonomo, and the rest of the Nar 66 so desperate close with so dangerous and potent enemies, and at such a time of conspiracy by the same Indians.” (Ibid., 75.) The Narragansetts, he says, had changed their demeanor since "malignant English sate down so near them, and held counsel with them." (Ibid., 87.) "If the Gortonians be suffered to live so near them, it will be our ruin, or those Indians' (which we desire not) in short time." (Ibid., 74.) "All these considered, you shall hereby see cause enough why they proceeded against him as a common enemy of the country." (Ibid., 75.) trust yourselves with us upon our safe-conduct, we have no reason to trust ours with you upon your bare courtesy. But this you may rest ass.red of, that, if you will make good your offer to us of doing us right, our people shall return and leave you in peace; otherwise, we must right ourselves and our people by force of arms."1 Sept. 28. The commissioners proceeded on their errand, with an escort of forty men. The commander and first commissioner was George Cooke, of Cambridge. Edward Johnson, of Woburn, author of the "Wonder-Working Providence of Zion's Savior in New England," and Humphrey Atherton, of Dorchester, a person now rising into consequence, were associated with him in the trust. At a little distance from Shawomet they were encountered with a written warning not to advance, on peril of their lives, it being declared, as the purpose of the assailed, "to increase wrath and horror, the end of war, in the souls of all men that seek after it." The commissioners, in their written reply addressed to the bearer of the letter, expressed their wish to bring the dispute to a just and amicable settlement with the malecontents, wherein if they should fail, they should "look upon them as men prepared for slaughter."* The commissioners pushed on rapidly, and blockaded the settlement. The proceeding was protracted by a truce, obtained through the friendly intervention of two ministers, and two other inhabitants, of Providence, who from the scene of action addressed a letter to Winthrop, proposing that the claims of Gorton's party should be submitted to an arbitration. The Governor, after a hasty consultation, sent back a refusal, on several grounds, one of which was, that Oct. 2. Oct. 3. 1 Simplicitie's Defence, 34; Mass. Rec., II. 41, 44, 46; Winthrop, II. 137. Cooke afterwards went to England, and was a Colonel in Cromwell's service. Simplicitie's Defence, 36. So says Gorton, who professes to give a copy of the reply. (Ibid., 38.) But Winslow (Hypocrisie Unmasked, 70) disputes its authenticity. "1 "they were no State, but a few fugitives, living without law or government." After some days the party surrendered, no life having been lost, and were led away prisoners, through Providence, to Boston. They complained of spoliation of their property, and of hardships and insult on the march. They were ten in number.3 At Boston they were imprisoned till the meeting of the Court. Massachusetts had broken up Gorton's den, as, thirteen years before, the infant settlements had broken up Thomas Morton's, when his relations with the Indians made him an insufferable neighbor. But now arose a perplexing question. The mischief-making was intolerable; but where was the law against it? It was impossible to suffer it to go on; but by what regular process was it to be arrested? In earlier times no such question would have arisen. But Massachusetts had now recently begun to administer justice according to a written code, and little time was needed to create in Englishmen a sense of the sanctity of the special prescribed law. There was not and could not prudently be made, in terms— a law against Gorton's "appeal to the Honorable State of England;"5 though in this consisted no small part of his of fensiveness, and of the anxiety which he occasioned. For his transactions with the Narragansetts, he might have been indicted under the twelfth article of the Capital Laws; but the Magistrates may well have been unwilling to make a panic by proclaiming all the causes, in |