Still it sets forth the military genius and daring prowess ofPhilip; and wherever, in the prejudiced and passionate narrations thathave been given of it, we can arrive at simple facts, we find himdisplaying a vigorous mind, a fertility of expedients, a contempt ofsuffering and hardship, and an unconquerable resolution, thatcommand our sympathy and applause.
Driven from his paternal domains at Mount Hope, he threw himselfinto the depths of those vast and trackless forests that skirted thesettlements, and were almost impervious to any thing but a wild beast,or an Indian. Here he gathered together his forces, like the stormaccumulating its stores of mischief in the bosom of the thunder cloud,and would suddenly emerge at a time and place least expected, carryinghavoc and dismay into the villages. There were now and thenindications of these impending ravages, that filled the minds of thecolonists with awe and apprehension. The report of a distant gun wouldperhaps be heard from the solitary woodland, where there was knownto be no white man; the cattle which had been wandering in the woodswould sometimes return home wounded; or an Indian or two would be seenlurking about the skirts of the forests, and suddenly disappearing; asthe lightning will sometimes be seen playing silently about the edgeof the cloud that is brewing up the tempest.
Though sometimes pursued and even surrounded by the settlers, yetPhilip as often escaped almost miraculously from their toils, and,plunging into the wilderness, would be lost to all search orinquiry, until he again emerged at some far distant quarter, layingthe country desolate. Among his strongholds, were the great swampsor morasses, which extend in some parts of New England; composed ofloose bogs of deep black mud; perplexed with thickets, brambles,rank weeds, the shattered and mouldering trunks of fallen trees,overshadowed by lugubrious hemlocks. The uncertain footing and thetangled mazes of these shaggy wilds, rendered them almostimpracticable to the white man, though the Indian could thread theirlabyrinths with the agility of a deer. Into one of these, the greatswamp of Pocasset Neck, was Philip once driven with a band of hisfollowers. The English did not dare to pursue him, fearing toventure into these dark and frightful recesses, where they mightperish in fens and miry pits, or be shot down by lurking foes. Theytherefore invested the entrance to the Neck, and began to build afort, with the thought of starving out the foe; but Philip and hiswarriors wafted themselves on a raft over an arm of the sea, in thedead of the night, leaving the women and children behind; andescaped away to the westward, kindling the flames of war among thetribes of Massachusetts and the Nipmuck country, and threatening thecolony of Connecticut.
In this way Philip became a theme of universal apprehension. Themystery in which he was enveloped exaggerated his real terrors. He wasan evil that walked in darkness; whose coming none could foresee,and against which none knew when to be on the alert. The whole countryabounded with rumors and alarms. Philip seemed almost possessed ofubiquity; for, in whatever part of the widely-extended frontier anirruption from the forest took place, Philip was said to be itsleader. Many superstitious notions also were circulated concerninghim. He was said to deal in necromancy, and to be attended by an oldIndian witch or prophetess, whom he consulted, and who assisted him byher charms and incantations. This indeed was frequently the casewith Indian chiefs; either through their own credulity, or to act uponthat of their followers: and the influence of the prophet and thedreamer over Indian superstition has been fully evidenced in recentinstances of savage warfare.
At the time that Philip effected his escape from Pocasset, hisfortunes were in a desperate condition. His forces had been thinned byrepeated fights, and he had lost almost the whole of his resources. Inthis time of adversity he found a faithful friend in Canonchet,chief Sachem of all the Narragansetts. He was the son and heir ofMiantonimo, the great Sachem, who, as already mentioned, after anhonorable acquittal of the charge of conspiracy, had been privatelyput to death at the perfidious instigations of the settlers. "He wasthe heir," says the old chronicler, "of all his father's pride andinsolence, as well as of his malice towards the English;"- hecertainly was the heir of his insults and injuries, and the legitimateavenger of his murder. Though he had forborne to take an active partin this hopeless war, yet he received Philip and his broken forceswith open arms; and gave them the most generous countenance andsupport. This at once drew upon him the hostility of the English;and it was determined to strike a signal blow that should involve boththe Sachems in one common ruin. A great force was, thereforegathered together from Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut, andwas sent into the Narragansett country in the depth of winter, whenthe swamps, being frozen and leafless, could be traversed withcomparative facility, and would no longer afford dark and impenetrablefastnesses to the Indians.
Apprehensive of attack, Canonchet had conveyed the greater part ofhis stores, together with the old, the infirm, the women andchildren of his tribe, to a strong fortress; where he and Philip hadlikewise drawn up the flower of their forces. This fortress, deemed bythe Indians impregnable, was situated upon a rising mound or kind ofisland, of five or six acres, in the midst of a swamp; it wasconstructed with a degree of judgment and skill vastly superior towhat is usually displayed in Indian fortification, and indicative ofthe martial genius of these two chieftains.
