carried off prisoners to be tortured to death, and children to
tell by and by strange tales of life in the wigwams. The militia were
called out, but left their houses unprotected. At Newich-wannock, the
farmhouse of a man named Tozer was attacked by the Indians when only
tenanted by fifteen women and children. A girl of eighteen, who was the
first to see the approach, bravely shut the door and set her back against
it; thus giving time for the others to escape by another door to a better
secured building. The Indians chopped the door to pieces with their
hatchets, knocked the girl down, left her for dead, and hurried on in
pursuit of the others, but only came up with two poor little children,
who had not been able to get over the fence. The rest were saved, and
the brave girl recovered from her wounds; but other attacks ended far
more fatally for the sufferers, and the rage and alarm of the New
Englanders were great. A few of the recently taught and unbaptized
Indians from what were called the "new praying towns" had joined their
countrymen; and though the great body of the converts were true and
faithful, the English confounded them all in one common hatred to the Red-
skin. The magistrates and Government were not infected by this blind
passion, and did all they could to restrain it, showing trust in the
Christian natives by employing them in the war, when they rendered good
and faithful service; but the commonalty, who were in the habit of
viewing the whole people as Hivites and Jebusites, treated these allies
with such distrust and contumely as was quite enough to alienate them.

In July 1675, three Christian Indians were sent as guides and
interpreters to an expedition to treat with the Indians in the Nipmuck
country. One was made prisoner, but the two officers in command gave the
fullest testimony to the good conduct of the other two; nevertheless they
were so misused on their return that Mr. Gookin declared that they had
been, by ill-treatment, "in a manner constrained to fall off to the
enemy." One was killed by a scouting party of praying Indians; the other
was taken, sold as a slave, and sent to Jamaica; and though Mr. Eliot
prevailed to have him brought back, and redeemed his wife and children,
he was still kept in captivity.

The next month, August, a number of the Christian Indians were arrested
and sent up to Boston to be tried for some murders that had been
committed at Lancaster. Eliot and Gooki