in desolation, to
undergo the torments of a lingering death. Capt. Bedlock was stripped
naked, and stuck full of pine splinters and set on fire. Captains Ransom
and Durgee were thrown alive into the fire. One of the tories, whose
mother had married a second husband, butchered her with his own hand,
and then massacred his father-in-law, his own sisters, and their infants
in the cradle. Another killed his own father, and exterminated all his
family. A third imbued his hands in the blood of his brothers, his
sisters, his brother-in-law, and his father-in-law. Other atrocities, if
possible still more abominable, we leave in silence. The tories appeared
to vie with and even to surpass the savages in barbarity. Such men as
these, Col. Bigelow had to contend with in Worcester, in 1774, and upon
hearing of this bloody massacre, it was said that Col. Bigelow was
filled with horror and indignation, and swore eternal vengeance and
condign punishment upon all the tories. Col. Bigelow at this time was
at his post in Rhode Island, and on hearing of this bloody tragedy, it
was said by the same informant, that he walked his room for one hour
without speaking. At length he exclaimed, "Our worst enemies are those
of our own household."

IX.

SCOUTING.

After the British evacuated Rhode Island, Col. Bigelow moves on with his
regiment, and the next we hear of him he is at "Verplank's Point." The
American army was at this time very much divided. The great object of
the commander-in-chief was to annoy the British forces as much as
possible, and we think that it is not saying too much of Col. Bigelow,
that no Colonel in the whole American army was better qualified for that
service. His whole life had been and was at this time, devoted to his
country's cause. He had left Worcester and all its pleasant
associations, with a determination to free the colonies from the mother
country, or die in the attempt. He seemed to feel that the whole
responsibility of the struggle rested on him. Always ready to obey
orders from superior officers cheerfully, and never wanting in energy to
execute them. The deep snows of Quebec had not cooled his ardor. The
fetid stench of an English prison ship could not abate his love of
liberty and country. The blood and carnage of Saratoga and of Monmouth
had given him confidence. The blood-stained soil of Valley Forge had
inured him to hardships to which others would have yielded.

The news of the bloody butc