Gove's Insurrection.
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��Solomon or David it is now . . . Wee have a hard prison, a good keeper, a hard Captain, irons an inch over, five foot seven inches long, two men locked together, yet I had, I thank God for it, a very goode night's rest." On the loth of February, 1683, a spe- cial court was called to tr}' Gove and his comrades, and "after long con- sideration the jury found Gove guilty of high treason, . . . and all the rest in arms, . . , the governor ordered the court to suspend its judgement (on the latter) till His Majesty's pleasure should be known therein ; most of them being young men and unacquainted with the law." The judge, who, it is said, shed tears while sentencing Gove, pronounced the dreadful sentence that he should be hung, drawn, and quartered, — that be- ing the punishment for the offence. This judge, Richard Waldron, was a very important man in the New Hamp- shire colony. He was promoted from the rank of captain to that of colonel, and in his capacity as judge sentenced three Quaker women to be whipped through Dover, Hampton, and Salis- bury, and soon to Dedhara. This order was obeyed only in Dover and Hamp- ton, however, for in Salisbury, Walter Barefoote, the deputy governor, took them out of the constable's hands pre- tending to deliver them up to the offi- cers of Newbury, but really protect- ing them and sending them out of Waldron's reach. Whittier has cele- brated this event in his Poem of "■ How the women went from Dover," as follows :
'•'Sliow me the order, and meanwhile strike A blow at your peril I" «aid Justice I'ike. Of all the rulers the lands possessed, Wisest and boldest was he, and best.
" He read the warrant : '• These convey From our precincts; at every town on the way
��Give each ten lashes.' God judge the brute! I tread his warrant under ray foot!
Cut loose these poor ones and let them go I Come what will of it, all men shall know No warrant is good, though backed by the Crown, For whipping women in Salisbury town I"
Six years after Gove's trial, on the 27th of June, 1689, Major Waldron was killed by the Indians, whose an- ger he had provoked in capturing some of their tribe and selling tiiem into- slavery. This happened in 1676. Two squaws asked Waldron if they might spend the night of the 27th in his house. No suspicion was aroused by this request, and the Major showed them how to unfasten the doors, in case they wished to go out during the night. Merandowit asked Waldron what he would do if the Indians should attack him, and the Major carelessly told him that he could assemble a hundred men by merelv raising his finger. During the night the gates were opened, and the Indians outside rushed in and entered the Major's apartment. At first he drove them back with his sword, which he had seized as he sprang from bed, but he was soon stunned and overpowered. After a supper, which the inhabitants of the house were forced to provide, the Indians tortured Major Waldron, till, faint from loss of blood, he fell forward, when one of the Indians held his own sword beneath him, and falling on its point he expired. It is said that the Quakers, whom he order- ed to be flogged, foretold his horrible death.
But to return to Gove and his com- panions. Most of these were pardon- ed, and Gove himself, after being sent over to England and confined iu the Tower for some years, was par- doned and sent back to Hampton. There is on file in the State Paper
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