e point. With his forces divided into war
parties as necessity or circumstances dictated, he was able in the
space of thirteen months to attack and partially or entirely destroy a
great number of towns, among which were Brookfield, Lancaster,
Marlboro', Sudbury, Groton, Deerfield, Springfield, Hatfield,
Northfield, Northampton, Chelmsford, Andover, Medfield, Rehoboth,
Plymouth, Scituate, Weymouth, and Middleborough in Massachusetts, and
New Plymouth, Providence and Warwick in Rhode Island. Of these, twelve
or thirteen were entirely destroyed.

Six hundred dwellings were burned, and sixteen hundred persons slain
or carried into captivity. There was not a house standing between
Stonington and Providence. It was as destructive as a war would now be
to Massachusetts which should send twenty thousand able-bodied men to
the grave, and render twenty thousand families houseless, and for the
most part destitute. Had all the events of the Revolution been crowded
into twelve months, the conflict would have been less terrible than was
the war with Philip. His operations menaced and endangered the
existence of the colony. There was a probability that the taunting
threat of John Monoco, the leader of the party which burned Groton,
that he would burn Chelmsford, Concord, Watertown, Cambridge,
Charlestown, Roxbury and Boston, might even be executed. Hardly
anything else remained of the Massachusetts colony on which the power
and vengeance of Philip could fall. Points of the interior, to be
sure, were garrisoned, but for the most part it was an unbroken forest,
or marked only by heaps of smouldering ruins.

And here may we well pause and reflect, that however we or posterity
may judge the Indian policy of our ancestors, the scenes through
which they passed were not calculated to mitigate the horrors of war,
or in the hour of triumph to awaken emotions of pity for the fallen.

As for the Indians, they were destroyed. Their great sachems had
fallen. Anawon, Canonchet, Philip, were no more. Nor had their
fighting men survived them. Their towns, of which they had many, were
burned. And why should the humble wigwam remain when the heroic spirit
of its occupant had departed?

And, worse than all, the women and children had been massacred or sold
into slavery.

----"few remain
To strive, and those must strive in vain."

Peace came; but--sad thought--there was no treaty of peace. It was a
war of extermination. Not of