Eliot, during these troubles, was subjected to much contempt and
reproach. His efforts to protect his people, and watch over their
interests, were incessant; but so strong was the suspicion against them,
that the colonists, not content with confining a great number of them in
Long Island, inflicted on them many sufferings, and a few of the more
cruel said that they were worthy of death.
But the war began to draw to a close: Quanonchet, venturing out with a
few followers near the enemy, was pursued and taken. His behaviour under
his misfortunes was very noble and affecting; for when repeated offers
were made him of life, if he would deliver up Philip, and submit his
own people to the English, he proudly rejected them. They condemned him
to die, and, by a refinement of cruelty, by the hands of three young
Indian chiefs. The heroic man said, “that he liked it well, for he should
die before his heart was soft, or he had spoken any thing unworthy of
himself.”
Philip was deeply moved by the death of the chieftain, for their
friendship was like that of David and Jonathan, strongest in misery and
exile. He was not yet left desolate: his beloved wife and only child
were with him. They had shared all his sufferings; in his flights, his
inroads, his dwellings in the swamps, they seem never to have left his
side. The unfortunate prince now returned to Mount Hope, the scene of
his former power and happiness; it was for no purpose of defence that he
came, for it was too near the English settlements, but merely to visit
it once more. “He finds it,” says Mather, “to be Mount Misery, Mount
Confusion!”
No doubt it was so to his bleeding spirit; for, with all his savage
propensities, this prince was susceptible of some of the finest feelings
of our nature. He sat down mournfully on the beautiful Mount, on which
were now the ruins of his fortress and camp; but he could not remain long
here, for the feet of his pursuers were nigh, and he was compelled to
seek his distant retreats again:—there was a greater agony in store for
him than the sight of his ruined home.
Early one morning, his quarters were surprised by the English, most of
his followers slain, and his wife and son made captive. The chief fled,
broken-hearted, but unsubdued, leaving all he loved on earth in the hands
of those who had no mercy. “This was no small torment to him,” quaintly
says the historian. “Wo to him that spoileth! His peag, or silver belt,
the ensign of his princedom, also remained in our hands, so hardly did he
escape.” The measure of his woes was not yet full. The Indian princess of
Pocasset was warmly attached to his cause, and had more than once aided
him in his extremity; she had received him beneath her roof, soothed his
sorrows, and, what was more, summoned her people to fight for him; and
saved him and his people in her canoes the year before. Now, she followed
him in his flight, and, as the more devout said, as if by a judgment,
could not find a canoe to transport her, and, venturing over the river
upon a raft, it broke under her, and she was drowned. Her body was soon
after washed on shore, and the English, forgetful of all decency and
delicacy to a woman of her rank, though a savage, cut off her head, and
placed it on high, which, when the Indians who were her people saw, they
gathered round, and gave way to the most sad and touching lamentations.
Philip now began, like Saul of old, when earth was leaving him, to look
to the powers beyond it, and to apply to his magicians and sorcerers,
who, on consulting their oracles, assured him that no Englishman should
ever kill him. This was a vague consolation, yet it seems to have given
him, for a while, a confidence in his destiny, and he took his last stand
in the middle of a distant and almost inaccessible swamp. It was a fit
retreat for a despairing man, being one of those waste and dismal places
to which few ever wandered, covered with rank and dense vegetation. The
moist soil was almost hidden by the cypress and other trees, that spread
their gloomy shades over the treacherous shallows and pools beneath.
In the few drier parts, oaks and pines grew, and, between them, a
brushwood so thick, that the savage could hardly penetrate: on the long
rich grass of these parts, wild cattle fed, unassailed by the hand of
man, save when they ventured beyond the confines of the swamp. There were
wolves, deer, and other animals; and wilder men, it was said, were seen
here; it was supposed that the children of some of the Indians had either
been lost or left here, and had thus grown up like denizens of this wild.
Here the baffled chieftain gathered his little band around him, like a
lion baited by the hunters, sullenly seeking his gloomy thickets, only to
spring forth more fatally; despair was his only friend; for what other
was now left: his love was turned to agony; his wife was in the hand of
his enemies; and would they spare her beauty? His only son, the heir of
his long line, must bow his head to their yoke; his chief warriors had
all fallen, and he could not trust the few who were still with him.
Quanonchet, whose fidelity and attachment were stronger than death, was
in the land of spirits, chasing the shadowy deer, and solaced with many
wives; for Philip, to the last, believed in the religion of his country.
In this extremity, an Indian proposed to seek peace with the English;—the
prince instantly laid him dead at his feet. This man had a friend, who,
disgusted with the deed, soon after fled from the place to Rhode Island,
where the English were recruiting their weary forces, and betrayed the
place of his retreat. On this intelligence, a body of forces instantly
set out.
[Illustration: Death of King Philip.