gone Samuel Mosely and more than a hundred volunteers gathered together in Boston in, it was said, less than three hours’ time.
“Had I been in Boston I would have joined, too,” said David regretfully.
“This Mosely is he who was wont to be a pirate at Jamaica, I take it,” said Obid. “I doubt a fitter man could be found to deal with the savages, master.”
“Nay, a privateer he was, Obid, with the King’s commission.”
“I see but little difference,” Obid grumbled. “Nor matters it so long as he employs a pirate’s methods against the heathen.”
News came slowly, but about the first of the month they learned that Swansea had been burned to the ground by the Indians and that the English troops had made rendezvous there and had moved against the hostiles who were in force near by. David pleaded with his father to be allowed to go to Dedham and join a band then being recruited, but was denied. Stories of unrest among the Nipmucks trickled in, and from Boston came the report that the Indians of the several Praying Villages were under suspicion and that a plan that had been advanced to recruit them into the English forces was
