Christian Indians had been put in practice, according to rational probability they had taken or slain Philip, and so retarded his motion, that the rest might have come up with him and destroyed his party. But God's providence overruled those prudent suggestions, and permitted this, our arch enemy, to live longer, to be a scourge to us.
About the latter part of July, 1675, the Council sent Capt. Edward Hutchinson as a commissioner to treat with the Nipmuck Indians, and as a guard and assistant to him, Capt. Wheeler and twenty-five of his troops were sent with him, and three of our Christian Indians for guides and interpreters, named Joseph and Sampson, brothers, and sons to old Robin Petuhanit, deceased, a good man who lived at Hasanamoset, together with George Memecho, their kinsman: these three accompanied Captain Wheeler and Captain Hutchinson, and were with them at the swamp near Quabage, when the Nipmuck Indians perfidiously set upon our men and slew seven[1] of our men and wounded others; the Indian, George, was taken prisoner by the enemy, and came home afterward and brought good intelligence. The other two brothers, Joseph and Sampson, acquitted themselves very industriously and faithfully, and, by their care and skilful conduct, guided Captain Hutchinson and Captain Wheeler with their company in safety to Brookfield, an English town near adjacent, which was in a few hours after attacked by those Indians, and most of it burnt. They had only time to get together into one of the best houses, which was the same where the two wounded Captains Hutchinson and Wheeler were, with the remnant of their soldiers and the inhabitants, which, that night and the next day, was besieged and assaulted by the enemy, and divers attempts made to fire it. The particular relation of the matter is declared in the history of the wars,[2] and another
- ↑ Wheeler in his narrative says eight, and gives their names, as follows: Zachariah Philips of Boston, Timothy Farley of Bilerica, Edward Coleborn of Chelmsford, Samuel Smedly of Concord, Sydrach Hopgood of Sudbury, Sergeant Ayres, Sergeant Joseph Pritchard, and Corporal John Coy of Brookfield. Mr. Hubbard states the right number, but in the "Letter to London," [p. 20, Drake's edition,] sixteen are said to have been killed "at once."
- ↑ This valuable narrative, which appears to have been unknown to the historian Hutchinson, was reprinted in 1827, by the New Hampshire Historical Society, in the second volume of their Collections.
