n not be too sternly
denounced. It effectually deterred others from confiding in the
English.

The colonists, conscious of the intellectual supremacy of King Philip
as the commanding genius of the strife, devoted their main energies to
his capture, dead or alive. Large rewards were offered for his head.
The barbarian monarch, with a large party of his warriors, had taken
refuge in an almost impenetrable swamp upon the river, about eighteen
miles below Taunton. All the inhabitants of Taunton, in their terror,
had abandoned their homes, and were gathered in eight garrison houses.
On the 18th of July, a force of several hundred men from Plymouth and
Taunton surrounded the swamp. They cautiously penetrated the tangled
thicket, their feet at almost every step sinking in the mire and
becoming shackled by interlacing roots, the branches pinioning their
arms, and the dense foliage blinding their eyes. Philip, with
characteristic cunning, sent a few of his warriors occasionally to
exhibit themselves, to lure the English on. The colonists gradually
forgot their accustomed prudence, and pressed eagerly forward.
Suddenly from the dense thicket a party of warriors in ambush poured
upon their pursuers a volley of bullets. Fifteen dropped dead, and
many were sorely wounded. The survivors precipitately retired from the
swamp, "finding it ill," says Hubbard, "fighting a wild beast in his
own den."

The English, taught a lesson of caution by this misadventure, now
decided to surround the swamp, guarding every avenue of escape. They
knew that Philip had no stores of provisions there, and that he soon
must be starved out. Here they kept guard for thirteen days. In the
mean time, Philip constructed some canoes and rafts, and one dark
night floated all his warriors, some two hundred in number, across the
river, and continued his flight through the present towns of Dighton
and Rehoboth, far away into the unknown wilderness of the interior of
Massachusetts. Wetamoo, with several of her warriors, accompanied
Philip in his flight. He left a hundred starving women and children
in the swamp, who surrendered themselves the next morning to the
English.

A band of fifty of the Mohegan Indians had now come, by direction of
Uncas, to proffer their services to the colonists. A party of the
English, with these Indian allies, pursued the fugitives. They
overtook Philip's party not far from Providence, and shot thirty of
their number, without the loss