had many vices; but he would not permit blood to be shed, under pretence
of religion, in any part of his dominions. The Quakers in England told him
what had been done to their brethren in Massachusetts; and he sent orders
to Governor Endicott to forbear all such proceedings in future. And so
ended the Quaker persecution,--one of the most mournful passages in the
history of our forefathers."

Grandfather then told his auditors, that, shortly after the above
incident, the great chair had been given by the mint-master to the Rev.
Mr. John Eliot. He was the first minister of Roxbury. But besides
attending to his pastoral duties there, he learned the language of the red
men, and often went into the woods to preach to them. So earnestly did he
labor for their conversion, that he has always been called the apostle to
the Indians. The mention of this holy man suggested to Grandfather the
propriety of giving a brief sketch of the history of the Indians, so far
as they were connected with the English colonists.

A short period before the arrival of the first Pilgrims at Plymouth, there
had been a very grievous plague among the red men; and the sages and
ministers of that day were inclined to the opinion, that Providence had
sent this mortality, in order to make room for the settlement of the
English. But I know not why we should suppose that an Indian's life is
less precious, in the eye of Heaven, than that of a white man. Be that as
it may, death had certainly been very busy with the savage tribes.

In many places the English found the wigwams deserted, and the corn-fields
growing to waste, with none to harvest the grain. There were heaps of
earth also, which, being dug open, proved to be Indian graves, containing
bows and flint-headed spears and arrows; for the Indians buried the dead
warrior's weapons along with him. In some spots, there were skulls and
other human bones, lying unburied. In 1633, and the year afterwards, the
smallpox broke out among the Massachusetts Indians, multitudes of whom
died by this terrible disease of the old world. These misfortunes made
them far less powerful than they had formerly been.

For nearly half a century after the arrival of the English, the red men
showed themselves generally inclined to peace and amity. They often made
submission, when they might have made successful war. The Plymouth
settlers, led by the famous Captain Miles Standish, slew some of them in
1623, without any very evid