therefore concluded that it must be best, in his new condition, to treat every one else shrewdly, at least, if not badlythe Quakers and Miantonomah can tell you why! So can Butler, in his Hudibras, who seems to have known something about Sam in his earliest dealings with the simple Narragansetts:

"Our brethren of New England use
Choice malefactors to excuse,
And hang the guiltless in their stead
Of whom the churches have less need;
As lately happened. In a town
There lived a cobbler, and but one,
That out of doctrine could cut use,
And cut men's lives as well as shoes.
This precious brother having slain,
In times of peace, an Indian,
(Not out of malice, but mere zeal,
Because he was an Infidel),
The mighty Tottipottymoy
Sent to our elders an envoy,
Complaining sorely of the breach
Of league held forth by brother patch,
Against the articles in force

Between both churches, his and ours,
For which he prayed the Saints to render
Into his hand or hang the offender.
But they naturally having weighed,
They had no man for him o' the trade.
(A man that serv'd them in a double
Capacity, to teach and cobble),
Resolved to spare him, yet to do
The Indian Hoghgan, Moghgan too,
Impartial justice, in his stead did
Hang an old weaver that was bed-rid.

There had been many adventurings toward the South, before Sam came to raise a nasal hymn within the rocky wilderness, that shook a continent with long reverberations. The Cabots had surveyed the North, Verrazzani, Cartier, Roberval, De la Roche, and noble old Champlain, had named the St. Lawrence, surveyed the Arcadia of the French, and settled Quebec. Ponce de Leon, seeking for the fountain. of eternal youth, remained yet an old man, though Spanish commerce, through his superstitious yet chavalric enterprise, won a new passage through the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico.

Then had come the stubborn Cortez, and many a gallant Knight went down in his miraculous conquest. But Sam, even from the embryo of his cloudy birth, has always thought the proudest thing this Cortez ever did was when he took Pamphilo de Narvaez prisoner.

This is the same person who had been sent by the jealous governor to Cuba to take Cortez prisoner, who, after having declared him an outlaw, was himself easily defeated. He lost an eye in the affray, and his own troops deserted him. When brought into the presence of the man whom he had promised to arrest, he said to him, "Esteem it great good fortune that you have taken me captive." Cortez replied, and with truth, "It is the least of the things I have done in Mexico.

But with all the cark and cant which entered into the composition of his nature, our northern Sam, nevertheless, proves himself, in a general way, to be a right loyal gentleman, that is, not particularly loyal to his king, but a most worshipful servitor of that hard-handed despot who prorogued the Long Parliament. We may as well say, en passant, that there seemed to have been a contest between the old Continent and the new, when they managed almost simultaneously to produce Oliver Cromwell and Sam, for they both whined at first and proved themselves reverentially absurd, yet always were victorious. Cromwell conquered an empire, and Sam, a New World.

Being both tyrants, they could not well be contrasted, but the motto of them both seems to have equally been, Pray to God and keep your powder dry."

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Raleigh, the loftiest cavalier the world has ever seen, and Smith- the veritable John Smith—the noblest of adventurers, had long ago formed colonies in Virginia, but not even the dauntless energies of Smith could make them stay colonized respectably, and San Augustine and Jamestown, and the settlements in North Carolina, and on the Chesapeake, had all proved partial failures, since the thirst for gold and wild adventure had mostly led them, rather than what he loves to call the solemn purpose to found an empire, when Sam really came, as we have seen.

CHAPTER III.

First act of Diplomacy on the part of "Sam"-His tender mercies toward the heathen King Philip, and other merciful attributes.

THOUGH the Sam, whose birth and advent we have described, may be considered by the unbelievers as more or less of a myth, because he is not always visible to the naked eye, yet this is no sign- for it is to be remembered that his proportions are too great to be taken in by the gaze of common mortals and for the same reason that the roar of Niagara makes a silence, thus confounding one sense — that of hearing with the voice of nature, his great dimensions may confound another that of sight-seeming to it only a continuation of space.

We shall perceive, however, before this legend is through, that his existence is yet a veritable one, and if we can neither see nor hear him, we can feel him, and that the grip of his giant hand is now, and has been, as unmistakable throughout the land as the shaking of his mighty feet.

Now, as a conscientious historian, we have not set out to prove Sam to have been a saint from the origin, though he may have been a very large baby. On account of his size, his wants were, of course, enormous. A childling of the elements, he could not be expected to have learned much of such unruly parentage, concerning the differences between right and wrong.

Therefore it is not to be considered particularly surprising that "the oldest act of diplomacy recorded in New England" should have been when, in their first parley with Massasoit, the chief of the Wampanoags, one of Sam's people, Mr. Winslow, was dispatched with some handsome presents and a pot of "strong water," to open a negotiation with the shy and simple savage, and that he, tempted by

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the novel sensations produced by the unknown drink thus offered to him, as a pledge of amity, agreed to "come in " and discuss, with Governor Carver, the terms of a treaty. Then it followed of necessity that "after an exchange of salutations, refreshments were placed before the chief, of which he and his people freely partook." That "a league of friendship was then agreed on," and that "the Indians departed well pleased with their interview," as says the impartial narrator - can not reasonably be doubted.

Who can doubt, also, that Sam must have got greatly the better of his ally through the potency of his "refreshments?" Is it not pretty clearly shown in the fact that he actually kept faith with these poor Wampanoags, for about fifty years? But then, having nearly "pushed " King Philip, the haughty successor and grandson of this same Massasoit," off the end of the log," upon which that good-natured old chief, as the ancient tradition goes, "had welcomed his tired limbs to sit down and rest," he made a characteristic conclusion of a long and terrible war, when, having hunted the unfortunate King through the swamps of New England, like a wolf, for having objected to being pushed off into the mud, he first shot him through the heart, in order to be sure he was dead, and then had him beheaded and quartered, by a man whom he had, as may be supposed, spiritually admonished from his birth to be named "Captain Church," for the express purpose of sanctifying this deed we mean, of course, as a veracious narrator, that it only sounded better to Sam that such a deed should have been done by something or somebody who bore such a name.

We should not blame him if this were really true, for predilections like this were strictly, peculiarly his own; and, as he first claimed their assertion in his own immense and manly way, we can begin to understand how it was that Sam proved afterward to be such a pet of Oliver Cromwell.

It seems, altogether, a supererogation of pale-gilled Puritanism, that local historians, who presume to write a history of Sam, should so modestly pass over this most characteristic opening incident of his history, for there is quite sufficient grandeur in his nature and his plain-told acts to relieve

* Hoyt's Antiquarian Researches, page 21.

them of any necessary defense of prevaricating cant. The same story, of the first interview with Massasoit, is thus, in other words, narrated by one who seems to have felt himself "spiritually admonished," very much as we have related above concerning Captain Church, to become "the defender of the faith," instead of the historian of Sam.

"The chieftain of a race as yet so new to the Pilgrims, was received with all the ceremonies which the condition of the colony permitted. A treaty of friendship was soon completed in few and unequivocal terms. The parties promised to abstain from mutual injuries, and to deliver up offenders. The colonists were to receive assistance if attacked-to render it if Massasoit should be attacked unjustly. The treaty included the confederates of the sachem; it is the oldest act of diplomacy recorded in New England; it was concluded in a day, and, being founded on reciprocal interests, was sacredly kept for more than half a century. Massasoit desired the alliance, for the powerful Narragansetts were his enemies; his tribe, moreover, having become habituated to some English luxuries, were willing to establish a traffic, while the emigrants obtained peace, security, and the opportunities of a lucrative commerce."*

The dainty form of speech which, here including everything in the phrases "all the ceremonies which the condition of the colony permitted" skims over the "pot of strong water to the chief," and concludes that Massasoit "having become habituated to some English luxuries, was willing to establish a traffic," is too transcendentally rich not to be twenty-seven years in advance-as the Dial has since been published-of the first modest insinuation from the same meridian, that Massasoit, having "left Mr. Winslow in the custody of his men, as a hostage, ventured to the English, by whom he was hospitably entertained, and with whom he concluded the treaty, already noticed."+

The voice of Sam, himself, it is said, can yet be heard on any still day, reverberating among the Green Mountains.

Bancroft's United States, vol. 1st, page 317.

tHistory of the United States of America, by the Rev. Charles A. Goodrich, 23d edition.