ten in the history of the world has it
happened thus. The colonists believed that they had been fighting the
battles of God's chosen people. Mather says, "the evident hand of
Heaven appearing on the side of the people, whose hope and help were
alone in the Almighty Lord of Hosts, extinguished those nations of
savages at such a rate, that there can hardly any of them now be found
under any distinction upon the face of the earth."

At some points in New Hampshire and the district of Maine, the fires of
war flickered ere they went forever out. Omitting comparatively
unimportant incursions, the Indian wars of Massachusetts and New
Plymouth were ended. The existence of these hitherto feeble
settlements was rendered certain. Although political and religious
controversies occupied the attention of the settlers, they yet found
means to cultivate the arts of peace. The forest was broken up,
commerce was increased, agriculture flourished, new settlements were
made, confidence was created, men saw before them a future in which
they had hope. As our fathers passed from war to peace they forgot
not their religious duties, and the 29th of June in Massachusetts, and
the 17th of August in Plymouth, were set part as days of public
thanksgiving and praise. Days of sadness, too, they must have been;
days of woe as well as of triumph. The colonies were bereaved in the
loss of brave and valuable men,--families were bereaved in the loss of
homes,--and all were bereaved in the fall or captivity of kindred and
friends. And could our ancestors have seen that this was the first
great step in the red man's solemn march to the grave, a tear of
sympathy would have fallen in behalf of a noble and heroic race.

The war was brief; its operations were rapid. In the space of less
than fourteen months the Indians were exterminated and the whites
reduced to the condition I have faintly portrayed. Yet, until the
19th of December, 1675, when the colonists made a most destructive
attack upon the Indians at what is now South Kingston, the war had
been confined chiefly to the valley of the Connecticut. But from that
moment Philip was like a hungry tiger goaded in confinement, suddenly
let loose upon his prey. The destruction of villages and the deadly
ambuscade of bodies of men followed each other in quick succession. In
the space of sixty days his forces attacked Lancaster, Medfield,
Weymouth, Groton, Warwick, Marlboro', Rehoboth, Providence,