The following instances of cruelty, exercised towards the prisoners
taken at Salmon falls, are mentioned by Dr. Mather. Robert Rogers,
a corpulent man, being unable to carry the burden which the Indians
imposed upon him, threw it in the path and went aside in the woods
to conceal himself. They found him by his track, stripped, beat, and
pricked him with their swords: then tied him to a tree and danced round
him till they had kindled a fire. They gave him time to pray, and take
leave of his fellow prisoners, who were placed round the fire to see
his death. They pushed the fire toward him, and when he was almost
stifled, took it away to give him time to breathe, and thus prolong
his misery; they drowned his dying groans with their hideous singing
and yelling, all the while dancing round the fire, cutting off pieces
of his flesh and throwing them in his face. When he was dead they left
his body broiling on the coals, in which state it was found by his
friends and buried. Mehetabel Goodwin was taken with a child of five
months old; when it cried they threatened to kill it, which made the
mother go aside and sit for hours together in the snow to lull it to
sleep; her master seeing that this hindered her from travelling, took
the child, struck its head against a tree, and hung it on one of the
branches; she would have buried it but he would not let her, telling
her that if she came again that way she might have the pleasure of
seeing it. She was carried to Canada, and after five years returned
home. Mary Plaisted was taken out of her bed, having lain in but three
weeks: they made her travel with them through the snow and “to ease her
of her burden,“ as they said, struck the child’s head against a tree,
and threw it into a river. An anecdote of another kind may relieve the
reader after these tragical accounts. Thomas Toogood was pursued by
three Indians and overtaken by one of them, who having enquired his
name, was preparing strings to bind him, holding his gun under his arm,
which Toogood seized and went backward, keeping the gun presented at
him, and protesting that he would shoot him if he alarmed the others
who had stopped on the opposite side of the hill. By this dexterity
he escaped and got safe into Cocheco; while his adversary had no
recompense in his power but to call after him by the name of Nogood.