Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/77

Rh and on Friday morning before sunrise they turned their faces towards Plymouth with Tokamahamon as guide. A two days' trip, by the same route as they came, brought the embassy home again, to relate to their friends the wonders of the new country and to receive their congratulations over their successful mission. Winslow and Hopkins were the first white men who ever trod this soil of whom we have any reliable record. Their mission was a peaceful one; they little dreamed, perhaps, that night as they slept by the side of the powerful sachem, that in fifty years or a little more, the little settlement at Plymouth would have extended its plantations and its government, too, over the whole forty miles which they had traversed. And the kind-hearted Indian king had no conception of the fact that half a century would witness the white man's cabin, where then the smoke of his wigwam ascended, or that a new civilization would so soon, if ever, plant its foundations upon the ruins of this early barbarism.

In March, 1623, tidings came to Plymouth that Massassoit was sick and likely to die, and also that a Dutch vessel had been stranded near his residence. The Indians, when sick, always expected aid from their friends. It therefore seemed best to Governor Bradford to send another party to visit the chief and to have a conference with the Dutch. The talents of Edward Winslow, his former visit, his friendship to Massassoit, and his knowledge of the Dutch language marked him as the most fit man for the expedition. With him went as a companion, an English gentleman whose home was in London but who was sojourning at Plymouth, and who greatly desired to see the Indian country. For this young man fate had in store a most glorious future. To him it was reserved to take the lead of the English people in their struggle against the arbitrary power of the Crown, and to shed his life blood in that great contest which gave to England a free constitution. His name was John Hampden, and it is fitting that his name should be perpetuated in Barrington History, in