Cape Cod, a frightful distemper had swept away a great many along its coasts, which made the landing and intrusion of our forefathers much easier than it otherwise might have been.  In the year 1763, above half of the Indians of this island perished by a strange fever, which the Europeans who nursed them never caught; they appear to be a race doomed to recede and disappear before the superior genius of the Europeans.  The only ancient custom of these people that is remembered is, that in their mutual exchanges, forty sun-dried clams, strung on a string, passed for the value of what might be called a copper.  They were strangers to the use and value of wampum, so well known to those of the main.  The few families now remaining are meek and harmless; their ancient ferocity is gone:  they were early christianised by the New England missionaries, as well as those of the Vineyard, and of several other parts of Massachusetts; and to this day they remain strict observers of the laws and customs of that religion, being carefully taught while young.  Their sedentary life has led them to this degree of civilisation much more effectually, than if they had still remained hunters.  They are fond of the sea, and expert mariners.  They have learned from the Quakers the art of catching both the cod and whale, in consequence of which, five of them always make part of the complement of men requisite to fit out a whaleboat.  Many have removed hither from the Vineyard, on which account they are more numerous on Nantucket, than anywhere else.

It is strange what revolution has happened among them in less than two hundred years!  What is become of those numerous tribes which formerly inhabited the extensive shores of the great bay of Massachusetts?  Even from Numkeag (Salem), Saugus (Lynn), Shawmut (Boston), Pataxet, Napouset (Milton), Matapan (Dorchester), Winesimet (Chelsea), Poiasset, Pokanoket (New Plymouth), Suecanosset (Falmouth), Titicut (Chatham).  Nobscusset (Yarmouth), Naussit (Eastham), Hyannees (Barnstable), etc., and many others who lived on sea-shores of above three hundred miles in length; without mentioning those powerful tribes which once dwelt between the rivers Hudson, Connecticut, Piskataqua, and Kennebeck, the Mehikaudret, Mohiguine, Pequods, Narragansets, Nianticks, Massachusetts, Wamponougs, Nipnets, Tarranteens, etc.—­They are gone, and every memorial of them is lost; no vestiges whatever are left of those swarms which once inhabited this country, and replenished both sides of the great peninsula of Cape Cod:  not even one of the posterity of the famous Masconomeo is left (the sachem of Cape Ann); not one of the descendants of Massasoit, father of Metacomet (Philip), and Wamsutta (Alexander), he who first conveyed some lands to the Plymouth Company.  They have all disappeared either in the wars which the Europeans carried on against them, or else they have mouldered away, gathered in some of their ancient towns, in contempt and oblivion: