THE BATTLE OF BLOODY BROOK.*

GATHERED together in this temple not made with hands, to commemorate an important event in the early history of the country, let our first thoughts ascend to Him whose heavens are spread out as a glorious canopy above our heads. As our eyes look up to the everlasting hills which rise before us, let us remember that, in those dark and eventful days, the hand that lifted their eternal pillars to the clouds was the sole stay and support of our afflicted sires. While we contemplate the lovely scene around us, once covered with the gloomy forest and the tangled swamps through which the victims of this day pursued their unsuspecting path to the field of slaughter, let us bow in gratitude to Him, beneath whose paternal care a little one has become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation. Let us bear in thankful recollection, that at the period when the sturdy limbs of the tree which now overshadows us, hung with nature's rich and verdant tapestry, were all folded up within their seminal germ, the thousand settlements of our beloved country, teeming with life and energy, were struggling with unimagined hardships for a doubtful existence, in a score of feeble plantations scattered through the hostile wilderness. It is not alone the genial showers of the spring and the native richness of the soil which have nourished the growth of this stately tree. The sod from which it sprung was moistened with the blood of brave men who fell for their country, and the ashes of peaceful dwellings are mingled with the consecrated earth.

* Address delivered at Bloody Brook, in South Deerfield, September 30, 1835, in commemoration of the fall of the "Flower of Essex," at that spot, in King Philip's war, September 18, (O. S.,) 1675.

In like manner, it is not alone the wisdom and the courage, the piety and the virtue, of our fathers, not alone the prudence with which they laid the foundations of the state, to which we are indebted for its present growth and prosperity. We ought never to forget-we ought this day especially to remember that it was in their sacrifices and trials, their heart-rending sorrows, their ever-renewed tribulations, that the corner stone of our privileges and blessings was laid.

As I stand on this hallowed spot, my mind filled with the traditions of that disastrous day, surrounded by these natural memorials, impressed with the touching ceremonies we have just witnessed, the affecting incidents of the bloody scene crowd upon my imagination. This compact and prosperous village disappears, and a few scattered log cabins are seen, by the mind's eye, in the bosom of the primeval forest, clustering for protection around the rude block-house in the centre. A cornfield or two has been rescued from the all-surrounding wilderness, and here and there the yellow husks are heard to rustle in the breeze that comes loaded with the mournful sighs of the melancholy pine woods. Beyond, the interminable forest spreads, in every direction, the covert of the wolf, of the rattlesnake, of the savage; and between its gloomy copses, what is now a fertile and cultivated meadow, stretches out a dreary expanse of unreclaimed morass. I look, — I listen. All is still, All is still, solemnly, frightfully still. No voice of human activity or enjoyment breaks the dreary silence of nature, or mingles with the dirge of the woods and watercourses. All seems peaceful and still; and yet there is a strange heaviness in the fall of the leaves in that wood which skirts the road; there is an unnatural flitting in those shadows; there is a plashing sound in the waters of that brook, which makes the flesh creep with horror. Hark! it is the click of a gunlock from that thicket: no, it is a pebble that has dropped from the overhanging cliff upon the rock beneath. It is, it is the gleaming blade of a scalpingknife: no, it is a sunbeam, thrown off from that dancing ripple. It is, it is the red feather of a savage chief, peeping

from behind that maple-tree: no, it is a leaf which September has touched with her many-tinted pencil. And now a distant drum is heard: yes, that is a sound of life, — conscious, proud life. A single fife breaks upon the ear, a stirring strain. It is one of the marches to which the stern warriors of Cromwell moved over the field at Naseby and Worcester. There are no loyal ears to take offence at a puritanical march in a transatlantic forest; and hard by, at Hadley, there is a gray-haired fugitive, who followed the cheering strain, at the head of his division in the army of the great usurper. The warlike note grows louder; I hear the tread of armed men. But I run before my story.

Before we proceed to the details of the catastrophe, which forms the subject of this day's commemoration, let us consider, for a moment, the state of things at that time existing in New England, and the previous events of the war, of which this was so prominent an occurrence.

Although the continent of America, when discovered by the Europeans, was in the possession of the native tribes, it was obviously the purpose of Providence that it should become the abode of civilization, the arts, and Christianity. How shall these blessings be introduced? Obviously by no other process none other is practicable than an emigration to the new-found continent from the civilized communities of Europe. This is doubly necessary, not only as being the only process adequate to produce the desired end, but in order to effect another great purpose in the order of Providence, namely, the establishment of a place of refuge for the victims of persecution, and the opening of a new field of action, where principles of liberty and improvement could be developed, without the restraints imposed on the work of reform, by long-established and inveterate abuses.

There was, therefore, a moral necessity that the two races should be brought into contact in the newly-discovered region; the one, ignorant, weak in every thing that belongs to intellectual strength, feebly redeeming the imperfections of the savage by the stern and cheerless virtues of the wilderness; the other, strong in his powerful arts, in his weapons

of destruction, in his capacity of combination; strong in the intellectual and moral elevation of his character and purposes,

the two thus separated by a chasm which seems all but impassable! A fearful approach; a perilous contiguity! But how shall it be avoided? Shall this fair continent, adequate to the support of civilized millions, on which Nature has bestowed her richest bounties, lie waste, the exclusive domain of the savage and the wild beast? If not, how shall it be settled? The age of miracles is past; the emigrants must be brought hither, and sustained here, by the usual motives and impulses which operate on the minds of men. If things are left to second causes, the passion for adventure, the lust of power, the thirst for gold, will spur on the remorseless bands of Pizarro and Cortés. Prospects of political aggrandizement and commercial profit must actuate the planters of Virginia. The arm of spiritual persecution must drive out the suffering Puritan in search of a place of rest. In correspondence with the motives which prompt the separate expeditions or the individual leaders, will be the relations established with the natives. In Spanish America, a wild and merciless crusade will be waged against them; they will be hunted by the war-horse and the bloodhound; vast multitudes will perish; the residue will be enslaved, their labor made a source of profit, and they will thereby be preserved from annihilation. In the Anglo-American settlements, treaties will be entered into, mutual rights acknowledged; the artificial relations of independent and allied states will be established; and, as the civilized race rapidly multiplies, the native tribes will recede, sink into the wilderness, and disappear. Millions of Mexicans, escaping the exterminating sword of the conquerors, subsist in a miserable vassalage to the present day: of the tribes that inhabited New England, not an individual of unmixed blood, and speaking the language of his fathers, remains.

Was this an unavoidable consequence? However deplorable, there is too much reason to think that it was. We cannot perceive in what way the forest could have been cleared, and its place taken by the cornfield, without destroy

ing the game; in what way the meadows could be drained, and the beaver-dams broken down, without expelling their industrious little builders; nor in what way the uncivilized man, living by the chase, and requiring a wide range of forest for his hunting-ground, destitute of arts and letters, -belonging to a different variety of the species, speaking a different tongue, suffering all the disadvantages of social and intellectual inferiority, could maintain his place by the side of the swelling, pressing population, the diligence and dexterity, the superior thrift, arts, and arms, and the seductive vices, of the civilized race.

I will not say that imagination cannot picture a colonial settlement, where the emigrants should come in such numbers, with such resources, with such principles, dispositions, and tempers, as instantly to form a kindly amalgamation with the native tribes, and, from the moment of setting foot on the new-found soil, commence the benign work of brotherhood and assimilation. I would not stint the resources, nor sound the depths, of godlike benevolence. But, in a practical survey of life on both sides, such a consummation seems impossible. The new comers are men, men of all tempers and characters. Their society may be formed on the platform of religion; their principles may be pure, lofty, austere; their dispositions peaceful; their carriage mild and gentle; but their judgments will be fallible, and they cannot be expected to rise far above the errors and prejudices of their age. Our fathers regarded the aboriginal inhabitants as heathen. They bestowed unwearied pains to Christianize them, and with much greater success than is generally supposed. Still the mass remained unconverted, and an ominous inference was drawn from the expulsion of the native races of Canaan. Scarcely, moreover, were the first colonists settled in Plymouth, when licentious adventurers followed in their train, who not only introduced among the Indian tribes the destructive vices of the Europeans, and furnished them with fire-arms and weapons of steel, but by acts of violence and injustice gave provocation for their use.

Then, too, we must look on the Indian, not with the eye