ew at all. The governor, who had
treated them with civility throughout, gave them an escort of soldiers
for the homeward journey, and they and the redeemed prisoners returned
safely to Albany.

The war went on as before, but the Indians were fast growing tired of
it. The Penobscots had made themselves obnoxious by their attacks on
Fort St. George, and Captain Heath marched across country from the
Kennebec to punish them. He found their village empty. It was built,
since Westbrook's attack, at or near the site of Bangor, a little below
Indian Old Town,--the present abode of the tribe,--and consisted of
fifty wigwams, which Heath's men burned to the ground.

One of the four hostages still detained at Boston, together with another
Indian captured in the war, was allowed to visit his people, under a
promise to return. Strange to say, the promise was kept. They came back
bringing a request for peace from their tribesmen. On this,
commissioners were sent to the St. George, where a conference was held
with some of the Penobscot chiefs, and it was arranged that deputies of
that people should be sent to Boston to conclude a solid peace. After
long delay, four chiefs appeared, fully empowered, as they said, to make
peace, not for the Penobscots only, but for the other Abenaki tribes,
their allies. The speeches and ceremonies being at last ended, the four
deputies affixed their marks to a paper in which, for themselves and
those they represented, they made submission "unto his most excellent
Majesty George, by the grace of God king of Great Britain, France, and
Ireland, defender of the Faith," etc., promising to "cease and forbear
all acts of hostility, injuries, and discord towards all his subjects,
and never confederate or combine with any other nation to their
prejudice." Here was a curious anomaly. The English claimed the Abenakis
as subjects of the British Crown, and at the same time treated with them
as a foreign power. Each of the four deputies signed the above-mentioned
paper, one with the likeness of a turtle, the next with that of a bird,
the third with the untutored portrait of a beaver, and the fourth with
an extraordinary scrawl, meant, it seems, for a lobster,--such being
their respective totems. To these the lieutenant-governor added the seal
of the province of Massachusetts, coupled with his own autograph.

In the next summer, and again a year later, other meetings were held at
Casco Bay with the chiefs of the va