sun is above the earth are our thoughts from war or the least rupture between us."

Notwithstanding all their assurances, within six weeks the whole country from Casco to Wells was in a flame, and another terrible ten years' war begun. Parties of French and Indians spread havoc through the feeble settlements, sparing neither old nor young. Wells, Winter Harbor, and Spurwink were among the towns destroyed. The whole of the exposed northern border of Massachusetts, from Casco Bay to the Connecticut River, was watched from hiding-places offering every facility for sudden invasion and safe retreat. For this reason little impression could be made upon the Indians, as they could rarely be found. De Vaudreuil, Governor of Canada, succeeded in keeping the Iroquois neutral. Between the Abenakis and the French a close friendship already existed.

Deerfield, a palisaded village on the Connecticut, enclosing twenty acres, had a garrison of twenty soldiers quartered in different houses. The town was still suffering from the ravages of the previous war. A party of two hundred French and one hundred and forty-two Indians, on snowshoes, under the lead of Hertel de Rouville, made their way from Canada, reaching its vicinity on the last night of February, 1704. The drifted snow enabled them to enter the town over the pickets early next morning, and the sentinels having deserted their posts, the terrible warwhoop was the first notice the doomed villagers received of their approach. The torch was applied, and only the church and one dwelling-house escaped. Death or captivity was the lot of the inhabitants, one hundred and twelve of whom, including Rev. John Williams, the minister, and his family, were carried to Canada.

Mr. Williams, who, after his return home, published a narrative of this tragedy, tells us that he was roused from sleep by the sound of axes and hatchets plied against his doors and windows. Leaping from his bed, he seized his arms, and put a pistol to the breast of the first Indian who came up; but it missed fire, and he was seized and bound. He and his family were allowed to put on some clothing, and, "the sun about an hour high," they began their march, the snow being knee-deep. His wife, having recently become a mother, was feeble, and on the second day she fell from weariness, and was tomahawked.

During the march his life was often threatened. Nineteen of his fellow-prisoners were murdered and two starved to death by the way. "And yet," says the narrator, "God made the Indians so to pity our children that, though they had several of their own wounded to carry upon their shoulders for thirty miles before they came to the river, yet they carried

our children, incapable of travelling, in their arms and upon their shoulders."

Williams's feet were "so full of pain" he could scarce stand upon them, but was forced to travel in snow-shoes twenty-five miles a day and sometimes more. The party were eight weeks reaching Montreal, where the governor took him from the Indians and treated him kindly. After a captivity of two years and a half he was exchanged, and with fifty-seven other prisoners, two of whom were his children, he returned home.

Eunice, his youngest daughter, was adopted by the Indians, who refused to ransom her, and she became the wife of a Caughnawaga chief. Long afterwards she visited her friends in Deerfield in her Indian dress, and, notwithstanding a day of fasting and prayer by the whole village for her deliverance, she returned to her Indian home and her Mohawk children.

On Lake St. Louis, near Montreal, the Indian village of Caughnawaga (St. Regis), with its wretched log-houses, clusters round a fine stone church with a glittering tin roof. The early Jesuits induced the Indians to collect furs, which they sent to France in exchange for a church-bell. The return ship was captured by the English, and the bell was sent to Deerfield, Massachusetts.

When the Caughnawagas heard where their bell had gone, they deter

mined to obtain possession of it. They took part in Hertel's expedition, on condition that Deerfield should be the first place attacked. When in the midst of the massacre the tones of the bell sounded, they knelt in superstitious awe. Then, with shouts of victory, they bore it on poles through the forests, while it tolled with doleful sound. Exhausted with the terrible march in midwinter, they buried it at Burlington, Vermont. Next summer they dug it up, and it was borne into their village in triumph between two white oxen.

One house in Deerfield escaped destruction and stood until within a few years, the marks of the Indian bullets being still visible. It was courageously defended by seven men, who fired from the windows upon the enemy, the women with them running bullets and loading their guns. Several times the enemy tried to set fire to the house, but failed. Captain Stoddard, watching his opportunity, sprang from a window and made his way to Hatfield, giving the alarm. Soon the settlers were in pursuit, and gave De Rouville battle, but were forced to retreat.

1704.

Massachusetts and New Hampshire now offered a reward of £20 for every Indian captured, and £40 for each scalp. Evidently they thought one dead Indian worth two living ones. The old Indian fighter Church, prominent thirty years before in Philip's war, at the head of five hundred and fifty men, carried destruction through all the French settlements east of the Penobscot, but effected nothing of consequence.

Aug. 27, 1706.

An attack on a garrison-house at Oyster River was repelled in a singular manner. It happened at the moment to be occupied only by women. "They put on hats, letting their hair hang down, and fired so briskly that they struck a terror into the enemy, and they withdrew."

Aug. 29, 1708.

A formidable inroad upon the English settlements was planned by the French at Montreal in 1708, who fixed upon Lake Winnipiseogee as the place of rendezvous for their Indian allies. A few only came at the appointed time. The expedition was led by Des Chaillons, who attacked Haverhill, Massachusetts, in the night, burned the fort and many dwellings, and killed or captured about one hundred persons, including Rev. Benjamin Rolfe, the minister, his wife and child. A few brave men, led by Samuel Ayer, rallied a short distance from the town, formed an ambush, and by a vigorous attack succeeded in rescuing a number of the prisoners and inflicted some loss on the enemy. Ayer lost his life in this daring attempt.

Haverhill was at this time a cluster of thirty cottages and log cabins