reported that, about this time, Philip took
a party of warriors and traversed the unbroken wilderness extending
between the Connecticut and the Hudson. He went as far as the present
site of Albany, and endeavored to rouse the Mohawks, a powerful tribe
in that vicinity, to unite with him against the English. It is said,
though the charge is not sustained by any very conclusive evidence,
that Philip, in order to embroil the Mohawks with the English,
attacked a party of Mohawk warriors, and, as he supposed, killed them
all. He then very adroitly arranged matters to convince the Mohawks
that their countrymen had been murdered by the English. But one of the
Mohawks, who was supposed to be killed, revived, and, covered with
blood and wounds, succeeded in reaching his friends. The story he told
roused the tribe to rage, and, allying themselves with the English,
they fell fiercely upon Philip.

Whether the above narrative be true or not, it is certain that about
this time the Mohawks became irreconcilably hostile to King Philip,
and fell upon him and upon all of his allies with great fury.

And now suddenly, and almost miraculously, the tide of events
seemed to turn in favor of the English. It is very difficult to
account for the wonderful change which a few weeks introduced. The
Massachusetts Indians, for some unknown cause, became alienated
from the sovereign of the Wampanoags, and bitterly reproached him
with having seduced them into a war in which they were suffering
even more misery than they created. All the Indians in the vicinity
of the English settlements had been driven from their corn-fields
and fishing-grounds, and were now in a famishing condition. They
had sufficient intelligence to foresee that absolute starvation
was their inevitable doom in the approaching winter. At the same
time, a pestilence, deadly and contagious, swept fearful desolation
through their wigwams. The Indians regarded this as evidence that
the God of the white men had enlisted against them. The colonial
forces in the valley of the Connecticut penetrated the forest in
every direction, carrying utter ruin into the homes of the natives.
In this horrible warfare but little mercy was shown to the women
and the children. The English did not torture their foes, but they
generally massacred them without mercy.

This sudden accumulation of disasters appalled Philip and all his
partisans. They were thrown into a very surprising state of confusion
a