h in Providence, in the colonial period, and that a
minister was sent over under authority of the bishop of London. The
minister had to depart, and the church was closed on account of some
scandal. I wrote to the present bishop of London inquiring if there was
any record of the incident in the Episcopal archives, and he answered me
to the effect that nothing could be found relating to it.

CHAPTER IX.

New England Prospering--Outbreak of King Philip's War--Causes of the
War--White or Indian Had to Go--Philip on the War-path--Settlements Laid
in Ashes--The Attack on Hadley--The Great Swamp Fight--Philip Renews the
War More Fiercely Than Before--His Allies Desert Him--Betrayed and
Killed--The Indians Crushed in New England.

The civil war between Charles I. and the Parliament put an end to Puritan
immigration to New England, and some of the settlers went back to
England, and gave efficient aid to their fellow Puritans in fighting
against the king. The people of New England were, on the whole,
prosperous about the middle of the seventeenth century. Nearly every head
of a family owned his house and the land which he occupied, and in the
coast towns many were engaged in profitable trade and the fisheries.
Fishing vessels from abroad were customers for the agricultural products
of the colony, and gradually the colonists built their own vessels and
absorbed the fisheries themselves. The figure of a codfish in the
Massachusetts State House was, until recently, a reminder of the
beginning of Massachusett's wealth and prosperity.

King Philip's War was a terrible blow to the colonies, and came near to
proving their destruction. The immediate provocation of the conflict was
slight enough, but the conflict itself was inevitable. There was no
longer room in New England for independent Indian tribes side by side
with English colonies. One race or the other had to give way and war
meant extermination for one or the other. King Philip, Sachem of the
Wampanoags, saw that the further progress of the colonies would involve
the extinction of his race. He was a brave man, and possessed of uncommon
ability. He did not move hastily, although his tribesmen clamored for
bloodshed to avenge three of their fellows whom the English had hanged on
a doubtful charge of murder, based on the killing of an Indian traitor.
When Philip was prepared to strike he sent his women and children to the
Narragansetts for protection, and then started on