ed them, and
requested them to lie by, that he might come on board. Finding that the
boat's crew were not to be allured to the shore by this artifice, the
Indians put off from the shore in three canoes, and attacked the boat.
Never was a contest of this sort maintained with more desperate bravery.
The Indians attempted to board the boat, and the inmates made use of all
arms of annoyance and defence. Captain Hubbel, although he had been
severely wounded in two places, and had the cock of his gun shot off by
an Indian fire, still continued to discharge his mutilated gun by a
fire-brand. After a long and desperate conflict, in which all the
passengers capable of defence but four, had been wounded, the Indians
paddled off their canoes to attack the boats left behind. They were
successful against the first boat they assailed. The boat yielded to
them without opposition. They killed the Captain and a boy, and took the
women on board prisoners. Making a screen of these unfortunate women, by
exposing them to the fire of Captain Hubbel's boat, they returned to the
assault. It imposed upon him the painful alternative, either to yield to
the Indians, or to fire into their canoes at the hazard of killing the
women of their own people. But the intrepid Captain remarked, that if
these women escaped their fire, it would probably be to suffer a more
terrible death from the savages. He determined to keep up his fire, even
on these hard conditions; and the savages were beaten off a second time.
In the course of the engagement, the boat, left to itself, had floated
with the current near the north shore, where four or five hundred
Indians were collected, who poured a shower of balls upon the boat. All
the inmates could do, was to avoid exposure as much as possible, and
exercise their patience until the boat should float past the Indian
fire. One of the inmates of the boat, seeing, as it slowly drifted on, a
fine chance for a shot at an Indian, although warned against it, could
not resist the temptation of taking his chance. He raised his head to
take aim, and was instantly shot dead. When the boat had drifted beyond
the reach of the Indian fire, but two of the nine fighting men on board
were found unhurt. Two were killed, and two mortally wounded. The noble
courage of a boy on board deserves to be recorded. When the boat was now
in a place of safety, he requested his friends to extract a ball that
had lodged in the skin of his forehead. When