192 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS It is customary to credit the final success of the Pilgrims of Plymouth to the religious element that held sway over them, making them patient, persistent, un- compromising, faithful, and earnest. But the wisdom of Carver, the genius of Bradford, the fervor of Brewster, the zeal of Winslow, would have been of small avail had they not been backed by the decision, the resolution, the courage, the constancy, and the forethought of their brave captain, Miles Standish, "the John Smith of New England " as he has been called, the man of helpful meas- ures and of iron nerves, who could " hew down forests and live on crumbs." From first to last he was the loyal supporter and trusty defender of the Ply- mouth colony. No danger unnerved him, no duty staggered him. With but eight men he started out, in 1623, to overawe and subdue the Indians of Massa- chusetts then an unknown and perplexing quantity ; single-handed he checked the conspiracy at Weymouth and turned the tables upon the savage plotters, by himself assassinating the assassins a deed that saved the colony from Indian massacre, but called forth the mild protest of the Pilgrim preacher at Leyden, Mr. Robinson, who wrote of it : " Concerning the killing of these poor Indians, oh ! how happy a thing had it been, if you had converted some before you had killed any. . . . Let me be bold to exhort you seriously to consider of the disposition of your captain, whom I love. There is cause to fear that by occasion, especially of provocation, there may be wanting (in him) that tender- ness of the life of man which is meet." But the Pilgrims of Plymouth seem not to have questioned the decisive measures of the man who knew when and how to act in their defence. Alone he faced the roystering Morton at Merrymount, unarming that vaporing rebel and putting his riotous colony upon its good be- havior. He led out the forty men of Plymouth enlisted for the Pequot War, headed the expedition that in 1635, sailed against the encroaching French in Penobscot Bay, and, as late as 1653, when "very auncient and full of dolorous paines," expressed himself as ready to take the command intrusted to him when the colony forces were about to enter upon a struggle for the right of occupa- tion of the Connecticut country with the Dutch colonists of Manhattan. He never refused any burden however heavy nor shirked any duty however onerous ; he cheerfully yielded obedience to the civil power, never exceeding his orders, nor rashly assuming responsibilities, nor leading his men upon unwise vent- ures. While always the military commander of the colony, his counsel and help were counted as equally valuable in matters of administration. He served re- peatedly as one of the governor's council ; he was at one time assistant-governor or deputy, and, from 1644 to 1649, was treasurer of the Plymouth colony. He went to England as the envoy of the colonists in 1625, and in the midst of plague, of evil times and of bitter jealousies, withstood the tyranny of the Lon- don traders who owned the Pilgrims' labor ; and braving both heavy debt and the possibility of censure, bought out the traders' rights in the name of his associates. The personal descriptions of this remarkable man that have come down to us, show him as a man of small stature, quick-tempered, choleric, sturdy and bluff. " As a little chimney is soon fired," wrote the Puritan historian Hubbard,
