ve years; and then the first and long the
only missionary among the Indians was John Elliott, self-appointed, and
supported by contributions from England. But during those twelve years,
and afterwards, they slew the Indians by thousands, as the Canaanites
and Amalekites, to be rooted out of the land which God had given to "the
saints" (that is, to themselves), to be possessed and enjoyed by them.
The savage foe, whose arms were bows and arrows,[276] were made
"formidable" in defence of their homes, which they had inherited from
their forefathers; and if, in defence and attempted recovery of their
homes when driven from them, they inflicted, after their own mode of
warfare, "cruelties" upon their invaders, yet they themselves were the
greatest sufferers, almost to annihilation.[277]

2. "The colonies being nourished by the indulgence" of England, assumed
by Charles Townsend, is the second ground of Colonel Barre's retort, who
affirmed that the colonies grew by England's neglect of them, and that
as soon as she began to care for them, that care was exercised in
sending persons to rule over them in one department or another, etc.

In reply, let it be remembered that three out of the four New England
colonies--Plymouth, Rhode Island, and Connecticut--elected their own
governors and officers from the beginning to the end of their colonial
existence, as did Massachusetts during the first half century of her
first Charter, which she forfeited by her usurpations, persecutions, and
encroachments upon the rights of others, as I have shown in Chapter VI.
of this history; and it has been shown in Chapter VII., on the authority
of Puritan ministers, jurists, and historians, that during the seventy
years that Massachusetts was ruled under the second Royal Charter, her
governors being appointed by the Crown, she advanced in social unity, in
breadth and dignity of legislation, and in equity of government,
commerce, and prosperity, beyond anything she had enjoyed and manifested
under the first Charter--so much so, that the neighbouring colonies
would have gladly been favoured with her system of government. It is
possible there may have been individual instances of inefficiency, and
even failure of character, in some officers of the Government during a
period of seventy years, as is the case in all Governments, but such
instances were few, if they occurred at all, and such as to afford no
just pretext for the rhapsody and insinuations of