Even Philip consented to deliver them up until the English should see no
further cause for detaining them. Upon this, in June 1671, Eliot wrote a
remarkable letter to Mr. Prince, the Governor of Plymouth, requiring him
not to detain the arms, especially of Philip. "My reasons are," he says,
"first, lest we render ourselves more afraid of them and their guns than
indeed we are or have cause to be. Alas! it is not the gun, but the man;
nor, indeed, is it the man, but our sin that we have cause to be afraid
of. Secondly, your so doing will open an effectual door to the
entertainment of the Gospel." Probably Mr. Eliot was right, and the
keeping the arms only irritated the high-spirited chief, who said to the
messenger of the Governor of Massachusetts, "Your governor is but a
subject. I will not treat but with my brother, King Charles of England."

For four years enmity smouldered on. The rights of the dispute will
never be known. The settlers laid all upon Philip's machinations, except
those who lived near his wigwams and knew him best; and they said that so
far from entering into a conspiracy, he always deplored the war, but was
forced on by the rage and fury of the young braves, over whom the Sachems
had no real power, and who wanted to signalize their valour, and could
not fail to have their pride insulted by the demeanour of the ordinary
English. One instance of brutality on the river Saco is said to have
been the immediate cause of the war in that district. Some English
sailors, seeing a canoe with an Indian woman and her infant, and having
heard that a papoose could swim like a duck, actually upset the canoe to
make the experiment. The poor baby sank, and the mother dived and
brought it up alive, but it died so soon after, that the loss was laid to
the charge of the cruel men by the father, who was a Sachem named
Squando, of considerable dignity and influence, a great medicine man.

On Philip's border to the southward, a plantation called Swawny was
attacked and burnt by the Indians in the June of 1675. He is said to
have shed tears (impassible Indian as he was) at the tidings, foreseeing
the utter ruin of his people; and, twenty days after, Squando's influence
led to another attack 200 miles off, and this was viewed as a sign of
complicity with Philip.

There was deadly terror among the English. The Indians swarmed down at
night on lonely villages and farmhouses, slew, scalped, burnt, and now
and then