aged "more than twenty leagues of country, where there were hamlets and houses," and "in a single day swept away all that the English had there," and "killed more than two hundred of them." One might suppose that these were soldiers that were killed, as he says in a preceding paragraph that a handful of his savages were equal to two or three thousand European soldiers; but no, the larger number of the victims of these heroes, who had so recently partaken of the communion, and received the fatherly admonition to observe the laws of war and abstain from unnecessary cruelty, were helpless women and children. And he continues, after saying complacently that

they carried desolations throughout the land, which belonged to the English," that, "therefore, these gentlemen," using the words with playful sarcasm, persuaded with reason, that in keeping my savages in their attachment to the Catholic faith, I strengthened more and more the bonds which united them to the French, have put in operation all sorts of tricks and artifices to detach them from me."

Could men have had better reason than these afflicted colonists, whose homes were destroyed and wives and children butchered in the most atrocious manner, to resort to tricks and artifices, or even to set

'Vide Letter of Ralé, Oct. 12th, 1723.

a price upon the head of one so destructive to them? Surely not, yet the tricks and artifices, which were uppermost in Ralé's mind, were the sending of a Protestant missionary to the savages with Bibles in their own tongue, and a schoolmaster to instruct them.

Dudley entered into the war with zeal, and carried it into the enemy's country. An expedition was planned against Norridgewock, and Colonel Hilton was dispatched with two hundred and seventy men, in the winter of 1705, to attack it. The weather was severe, and the march on snowshoes laborious, but the party pushed on with persevering energy, and reached the village in good condition, only to find it abandoned. They, however, destroyed it and the chapel which Ralé had built. After the war had raged for four years, Dudley wrote, "Their Priests and Jesuits have gotten the command of all the Inland Indians, and have debauched the Indians of the Province of Mayn, and by their late Trade and discovery of the Messasseppi River, have in a manner made a circle round all the English Colonies, from New England to Virginia, and do every year give the Goverm'ts of New England very great trouble."

And a few months later: "The Post Script of this Letter referring to the Barbarous Method of the French and Indians depending upon them. Scalping

the dead that fall into their hands, is upon Account that the French Government have set the Heads of Her Majties Subjects at a Value, sometimes Forty Shillings, sometimes Five pounds, which the Savages cannot challenge without showing the Scalps, as the French have made it in their Order referring thereto. This I have Expostulated and Upbraided Mr. Vaudreuil and Mr. Subercass and every Governour on the French side, and challenged them to tell their own Master if they dare, of such Barbarity used to Christians, but to no effect, and have threatened them to leave their Prisoners in the hands of the Indians as they have done Many of Ours, but have prevailed nothing."

On August 29, 1708, Haverhill was attacked by a band of French and savages, and her only clergyman, the Rev. Benjamin Rolfe, slain. The situation.

1 Vide Dudley's letters in B. T. New England, vol. 14, S. 26, office of the Public Records, London, Nov. 10, and March 1, 1708.

2 The Rev. Benjamin Rolfe was born at Newbury in 1662, and graduated at Harvard in 1684, and later was chaplain of a small body of soldiers at Casco. He was married to Mehitabel Atwater, March 12, 1693, just after his call to Haverhill, where he was ordered the January following. It was early on Sunday morning, August 29, 1708, that the savages attacked Haverhill. There were two soldiers in the

was indeed a serious one for New England, and excited grave apprehensions for her future in the minds of the wisest of her people; but after another ten years of war, peace at last came. Ralé heard from Quebec that negotiations for peace were pending, and knowing that news of the signing of the treaty would reach Boston before it could reach Quebec, wrote Capt. Moody as follows:

parsonage, but they were panic-stricken and afforded no assistance to Rolfe, who leaping from his bed strove to hold the door against them. Finding this impossible, he fled through the house after being wounded in the arm by a bullet fired through the door, but was overtaken and killed with a hatchet. Mrs. Rolfe was also brained with a hatchet, and her infant torn from her arms and its brains dashed out against a stone near the door. Two children were preserved by being hidden under tubs in the cellar by a faithful servant. Rolfe, his wife and child, were buried in one grave and this epitaph placed upon it: "Clauditus hoc tumulo corpus Reverendi pii doctique viri D. Benjamin Rolfe, ecclesiæ Christi quæ est in Haverhill pastoris fidelissimi; qui domi suæ ad hostibus barbare trucidatus. A laboribus suis requieuit mane diei sacræ quietis, Aug. XXIX, Anno Domini MDCCVIII. Ætatis suæ XLVI. Vide History of Haverhill, by George Wingate Chase, Haverhill, 1861, pp. 220, 228 et passim, Bancroft's History of the U. S., Boston, 1841, vol. 3, p. 215 et seq., The History of the Wars of New England, etc., by Samuel Penhallow, Esq., Cincinnati, 1859, p.

"NANRANTSOAK, 18 Novemb. 1712.

"SIR-The Governor-General of Canada acquaints me by his letter which has been brought me some days since, that the last vessel of the King arrived at Quebec the 30 Sept., reports that peace is not yet concluded between the two crowns of France & England, but that they talk strongly of it. That is what he tells me about it.

"And other letters that I have received inform me that Monsieur, the Intendent, who has arrived in this vessel, says, that being upon the point of embarking at Rochelle, some one there received a letter from Monsieur Tallard, which asserted that peace had been made, & that it would be published at the end of October.

"Now they cannot know of it in Canada, but can know of it at Boston, where vessels can come at all seasons, if you know anything of it, I pray you let me know of it, in order, that I may send instantly to Quebec upon the ice, to inform the governor-general of it, so that he may prevent the savages from committing any act of hostility." 1

1 This letter was inclosed in a letter written by Moody to Gov. Dudley, Dec. 10th, in which he says that The Indians have made us these visits in my absence, and brought several letters from the Friar,