Page:Anne Bradstreet and her time.djvu/353

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ANNE BRADSTREET.
337

having first plied a delegation of Penobscot Indians with liquor, gave orders for their massacre while still in their drunken sleep. In an after attack by French and Indians upon the fort, he surrendered on promise of personal safety, and in time, returned to Andover, disgraced, but abundantly satisfied to have saved his scalp.

The rest of the story is given by Cotton Mather in the Magnalia:

"The winter, (1693) was the severest that ever was in the memory of Man. And yet February must not pass without a stroke upon Pemquid Chub, whom the Government had mercifully permitted after his examination to retire unto his habitation in Andover. As much out of the way as to Andover there came above thirty Indians about the middle of February as if their errand had been for vengeance upon Chub, whom, with his wife they now massacred there." Hutchinson comments gravely: "It is not probable they had any knowledge of the place of his abode, but it caused them greater joy than the taking of many towns. Rapin would have pronounced such an event the immediate judgement of Heaven. Voltaire, that in the place of supposed safety, the man could not avoid his destiny."

The towns mustered hastily, but not before the flames of the burning buildings had arisen at many points, and terrified women and children had been dragged from their beds and in one or two cases murdered at once, though most were reserved as captives. Dudley Bradstreet and his family were of this latter number. The house was broken into and plundered; his kinsman who attempted defence, cut down on the