become my servant. Many were my contrivances after
this purpose, and as many more objections occurred after I hatched them.
I once contrived to dig a hole under the place where they made their
fire, and put therein five or six pounds of gunpowder, which would
consequently blow up all those that were near it: but then I was loth to
spend so much upon them, lest it should not do that certain execution I
could desire, & but only affright & not kill them. Having laid this
design aside, I again proposed to myself to lie privately in ambush, in
some convenient place, with my three guns double loaded, and let fly at
them in the midst of their dreadful ceremony: and having killed two or
three of them at every shot, fall upon the rest suddenly with my three
pistols, & not let one mother's son escape. Thus imagination pleased my
fancy so much that I used to dream of it in the night time. To put my
design in execution, I was not long in seeking for a place convenient
for my purpose, where unseen I might behold every action of the savages.
Here I placed my two muskets, each of which was loaded with a brace of
slugs, and four or five smaller bullets about the size of pistol
bullets; the fowling-piece was charged with near a handful of the
largest swan-shot, and in every pistol were about four bullets. And thus
all things being prepared, no sooner would the welcome light spread over
the element, but, _like a giant refreshed with wine_, as the Scripture
has it, would I issue forth from my castle, and from a lofty hill, three
miles distant, view if I could see any invaders approach unlawfully to
my kingdom. But having waited in vain two or three months, it not only
grew very tiresome to me, but brought me to some consideration, and
made me examine myself, what right I had to kill these creatures in
this manner.

If (argued I to myself) this unnatural custom of theirs be a sin
offensive to Heaven, it belongs to the Divine Being, who alone has the
vindictive power in his hands, to shower down his vengeance upon them.
And perhaps he does so, in making them become one another's
executioners. Or, if not, if God thinks these doings just, according to
the knowledge they conceive, what authority have I to pretend to thwart
the decrees of Providence, which has permitted these actions for so many
ages, perhaps from almost the beginning of the creation? They never
offended me, what right have I then to concern myself in their shedding
one another