Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/190

 colonists as to their respective rights and privileges.

The disputes between France and England relative to the "Spanish succession" brought on a second intercolonial war, and involved the colonists not only with the French in the north, but with the Spaniards, also, in Florida. Active preparations were made in Canada, in 1702, for renewing the contest, and the settlements in Maine were furiously attacked. The colonists had already provoked hostilities by plundering the half-breed son of Baron Castin, on the Penobscot. The eastern Indians, wholly under French influence, were easily roused to seek revenge. Accordingly a body of two hundred Canadians and a hundred and fifty Indians, under the command of Hertelle de Rouville, in March, 1704, descended the Connecticut and stole upon the village of Deerfield, in the dead of a wintry night, while the sentinels were all asleep, and the snowdrifts piled high rendered it an easy thing to scale the palisade. The village was burned, nearly fifty of the inhabitants murdered, and a hundred more driven through the snow-covered forests to Canada, a distance of about three hundred miles. As the women and children sunk with fatigue, their sufferings were ended by the tomahawk. In reprisal for these atrocities the English offered a premium of—on an average—$100 for the scalps of the Indians, and the whole frontier was a scene of bloody and barbarous recrimination. So difficult, however, was it to succeed in taking an Indian that it was calculated that every Indian scalp brought in during this war cost the colony over $3,000.

This same De Rouville, in 1708, set forth on another predatory expedition, with the view of surprising Portsmouth, but not being able to obtain some expected reinforcements, fell again upon the little village of Haverhill. With that astonishing bigotry and fanaticism of the day, thinking that they were doing God service, they went through their devotions, then entered the village a little before sunrise, and began the wonted work of destruction. Fifty of the inhabitants were killed by the hatchet, or burned in the flames of their own homesteads. The first panic having subsided, a bold defence was made. Davis, an intrepid man, concealed himself behind a barn, and by beating violently on it, and calling out to his imaginary succors, "Come on! Come on!" as if already on the spot, succeeded in alarming the invaders. Here occurred another remarkable instance of female energy and heroism, called forth by the terrible emergencies of the period. One Swan, and his wife, seeing two Indians approach their dwelling, to save themselves and children, planted themselves against the narrow doorway, and maintained it with desperate energy against them, till their strength began to fail. The husband, unable to bear the pressure, cried to his wife that it was useless any longer to resist, but she, seeing but one of the half-naked Indians was already forcing himself into the doorway, seized a sharp-pointed spit, drove it with her whole strength into his body, and