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.