CHAPTER ceedings, a special meeting was forthwith called of the Commissioners for the United Colonies, and prompt meas1645. ures were taken for the support of this convenient ally. July 28. In the curious manifesto issued by the commissioners on this occasion, they acknowledge their "lord and master" to be "king of peace and righteousness," requiring them to hold forth an example not only to Europe, but to the "barbarous tribes of the wilderness." They profess, indeed, "an awful respect to divine rules," and an endeavor "to walk uprightly and inoffensively, and in the midst of many injuries and insults to exercise much patience and long suffering;" but they argue that, under existing circumstances, "God calls the colonies to war," and they order accordingly an immediate levy of three hundred men. Sergeant-major Gibbons was appointed commander-in-chief, with Standish of Plymouth, Mason of Connecticut, Seely of New Haven, and Leverett and Atherton of Massachusetts, as his council of war. Endicott was still major general of Massachusetts; Gibbons, to whom the leadership of this expedition was intrusted, was commander of the Suffolk regiment. Originally a wild companion of Morton of Merry Mount, he had joined the Boston Church, and, having property, had established himself in that town as a merchant. He was, so Captain Edward Johnson tells us, "a man of resolute spirit, bold as a lion, being wholly tutored up in New England discipline, very generous and forward to promote all military matters." Alarmed at the preparations against him, and not placing any great reliance on that patience and long suffering, or that awful respect for divine rules of which the treatment of Miantonimoh had furnished an unpromis ing specimen, Pessacus listened to Williams's advice and hastened to Boston to make his peace. He could only X. obtain it by promising to indemnify Uncas for the depre- CHAPTER dations committed upon him; to pay the colonists, for the cost of their late preparations, wampum equivalent to 645 $5000, and to give hostages for future good behavior— terms which he felt himself obliged to concede. In terror or admiration of a power so vigorously exercised, several inferior sagamores followed the example of the chiefs of Shawomet in subscribing to the ten commandments, and acknowledging themselves the subjects of Massachusetts. Besides the petty tribes about Massachusetts Bay, this course was adopted by two sachems near "the great hill of the west, called Wachusett," and even by Passaconoway, the Merrimac sachem. It was among the smaller and nearer of these subject tribes that the devoted Eliot now first began his missionary labors. The affairs of La Tour had at length reached a crisis. Early in the spring he had again visited Boston to solicit further aid. The courage and energy of Madame La Tour repulsed an attack which D'Aulney made during her husband's absence on the fort of St. John's; but a Boston ship, sent to St. John's with a supply of provisions, fell into D'Aulney's hands. He confiscated the vessel, and sent back the men in an old shallop, with loud complaints of breach of faith and threats of vengeance, to which the magistrates replied with equal spirit. A second attack on St. John's was more successful. The fort was taken, the garrison were hanged as rebels, and Madame La Tour died shortly after of grief and vexation. La Tour estimated his loss at £10,000, $48,000, and he was totally ruined by it, as was Major Gibbons and some other Boston merchants, to whom his fort was mortgaged. Gibbons's claim against La Tour amounted to upward of £2000, or near $10,000. So far from granting any further aid, the General X. CHAPTER Court caused a paper to be drawn up, and presented to the Commissioners for the United Colonies, strongly rep1645. robating the whole connection with La Tour, who pres ently went to seek aid of Sir David Kirk, governor of Newfoundland. He soon returned, however, with a small vessel lent him by Kirk, and remained during the winter a pensioner on the bounty of his Boston friends. They fitted him out in the spring with goods for trading with the Indians at the eastward; but he betrayed his trust, forced the English part of his crew on shore near Cape Sable, and ran away with the vessel and cargo; "whereby it appeared, as the Scripture saith," such is Winthrop's remark on the occasion, "that there is no confidence in an unfaithful or carnal man." The Boston sailors left on shore by La Tour wandered about in great distress, till some Indians gave them a shallop, provisions, and a pilot. La Tour, who did not lack capacity and enterprise, presently established himself as a fur trader in the distant region of Hudson's Bay. 1646. Not long after La Tour's final departure arrived another visitor no less remarkable. This was Captain Cromwell, who, ten years before, had been a common sailor in New England, but who now was commander of three fastsailing brigantines, each of some sixty tons burden, and full of armed men. Under a sort of second-hand conmission from the Earl of Warwick to make reprisals on the Spaniards, he had captured in the West Indies several richly-laden Spanish vessels. He was doubtless a freebooter, among the earliest of those so famous presently as buccaneers. A storm drove him into Plymouth, "divine Providence," according to Winthrop, "so directing for the comfort and help of that town, which was now almost deserted." These providential visitors spent freely and gave liberally to many of the poorer sort; yet, X. even in the case of these formidable and liberal strangers, CHAPTER the Plymouth magistrates did not fail to vindicate their authority. One of Cromwell's men, inclined to be mu- 1646. tinous, in a struggle with his commander received a slight wound, which presently mortified and caused his death. A jury of inquest having found these facts, Cromwell consented to be tried, "so it might be by a council of war." Such a tribunal being organized, composed of some of the magistrates and military officers, Cromwell came before it and exhibited his commission, on sight of which, probably without any very critical examination of its tenor and authority, he was at once acquitted. Shortly afterward he came to Boston. "He and all his men had much money, and great store of plate and jewels of great value, yet he took up his lodging in a poor thatched house; and when he was offered the best in the town, his answer was, that in his mean estate that poor man entertained him when others would not, and therefore he would not leave him now, when he might do him good." Winthrop, lately re-elected governor, received, as a present from this magnanimous freebooter, an elegant sedan chair, captured in one of his prizes, said to have been designed as a gift from the viceroy of Mexico to his sister. The faithlessness of La Tour facilitated the negotiations with D'Aulney, which the Commissioners for the United Colonies had taken in hand. They offered to May send an embassador to treat at Penobscot; but D'Aulney satisfied with the compliment, preferred to send agents to Boston. These agents having arrived in a pinnace Sept on the Lord's day, just as the people were going to afternoon's service, Sergeant-major Gibbons sent two of his chief officers to meet them at the water side, and to conduct them without noise to their lodgings. The public CHAPTER Worship being ended, the governor sent Gibbons and X. others with a guard of musketeers to attend the em 1646. bassadors to his house. He met them without the door, carried them in, entertained them with wine and sweet- Notwithstanding this treaty, which was scaled by presenting to D'Aulney the sedan chair which Captain Cromwell had given to Winthrop, this popish French neighbor still remained an object of much suspicion to New England; nor was it long before he seized and confiscated several Boston vessels for trading with the Indians within the French limits. While the negotiation with D'Aulney's messengers was still going on, a very unwelcome visitor made his appearance at Boston in the person of Randall Holden, one of Gorton's companions in his recent visit to England. Holden brought letters of safe-conduct from the Parliamentary Commissioners for Plantations; also a copy of the complaint against the Massachusetts magistrates which Gorton had lodged with that board, and an order thereupon that Gorton's people should be allowed quiet |