natives despised them, and treated them with contempt, and even violence.  Thus early was the British name brought into disrepute with the Indians, when men bearing that name came among them for mere purposes of speculation and profit, and ware not governed by the Christian principles of humanity and justice that distinguished the earliest settlers in New England from all those who followed them.  Nor did the evil consequences of their ill conduct rest with themselves.  They fell also on the peaceably-disposed colony of Plymouth, and were the means of involving them in hostilities with the natives, which had hitherto been warded off by the kind and judicious management of the Governor and his assistants.

The general state of peace which had, up to this period, been maintained with the Indians, was greatly to be attributed to the bold and decisive measures that were always adopted by Miles Standish, the military chief of the little community, and the leader of every warlike expedition.  He well knew how to impress the natives with a due respect, for he never tolerated the slightest injury or insult, and yet he never permitted his men to be guilty of any act of injustice or oppression towards the red men.

Since the arrival of Weston’s disorderly colony, Captain Standish had shown himself even more decided in maintaining the rights and the dignity of the Plymouthers, and had endeavored to show the natives that they were not to identify the new comers with those whom they had already learnt to know and to respect.  But at length, in spite of all these judicious measures, the Pilgrims were drawn into the quarrel that subsisted between their countrymen of Wessagussett and the natives; and, having drawn the sword, they certainly forgot the principles of mercy and humanity that had hitherto guided them.  Active measures were, undoubtedly, called for; but cruelty and stratagem were unworthy of these Christian warriors.

The continued marauding expeditions of the men of Wessagussett had exasperated the neighboring tribes to the last degree; and the state of weakness to which they were reduced by their own thoughtless and improvident conduct, led the natives to suppose that they would fall an easy prey to their combined force.  They, therefore, again formed a combination to attack and utterly destroy these oppressive intruders into their country.  Probably the council of Chiefs, who met in the depths of the forest to arrange their plan of operations, would have contented themselves with contriving the destruction of the new and offending colony, which they might easily have effected had they confined their projected operations to that object alone.  But there was one in the council who could not rest satisfied with such a partial vengeance on the white strangers; and his fiery eloquence, and false assertions and insinuations, prevailed over the rest of the Chiefs to disregard every treaty, and every obligation that ought to have bound them to the settlers of New Plymouth, and to include them also in their savage scheme of massacre and plunder.