Page:Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (Volume One).djvu/203

Rh power and vengeance of Philip could fall. Points of the interior, to be sure, were garrisoned, but for the most part it was an unbroken forest, or marked only by heaps of smouldering ruins.

And here may we well pause and reflect, that however we or posterity may judge the Indian policy of our ancestors, the scenes through which they passed were not calculated to mitigate the horrors of war, or in the hour of triumph to awaken emotions of pity for the fallen.

As for the Indians, they were destroyed. Their great sachems had fallen. Anawon, Canonchet, Philip, were no more. Nor had their fighting men survived them. Their towns, of which they had many, were burned. And why should the humble wigwam remain when the heroic spirit of its occupant had departed?

And, worse than all, the women and children had been massacred or sold into slavery.

Peace came; but—sad thought—there was no treaty of peace. It was a war of extermination. Not often in the history of the world has it happened thus. The colonists believed that they had been fighting the battles of God’s chosen people. Mather says, “the evident hand of Heaven appearing on the side of the people, whose hope and help were alone in the Almighty Lord of Hosts, extinguished whole nations of savages at such a rate, that there can hardly any of them now be found under any distinction upon the face of the earth.”

At some points in New Hampshire and the district of Maine, the fires of war flickered ere they went forever out. Omitting comparatively unimportant incursions, the Indian wars of Massachusetts and New Plymouth were ended. The existence of these hitherto feeble settlements was rendered