the warpath against the
settlers of Plymouth colony. Major Savage, with horse and foot from
Boston, joined the Plymouth forces, and they drove Philip back into a
swamp at Pocasset. After a siege of many days Philip made his way from
the swamp, was welcomed by the Nipmucks, a tribe in interior
Massachusetts, and with fifteen hundred warriors he hurried to attack the
white settlements in Connecticut. The colonial army meanwhile hastened to
the Narragansett country, and compelled Canonchet, chief of the
Narragansetts, upon whom King Philip had relied for aid, to make a treaty
of friendship. Philip was disappointed by the loss of this expected ally,
but disappointment made him only the more resolute and desperate.
Everywhere he excited the New England tribes against the English, and
carefully avoiding any general encounter, he waylaid the settlers,
destroyed their homes and laid ambuscades for them in field and highway,
now and then attacking some important town. The colonists suffered
fearfully; numbers were slain; whole settlements were devastated, and the
gun had to be kept at hand in church, at home and at daily toil. No one
knew when the dusky foe would suddenly spring from the forest; no woman
left her doorstep without fear that she might never enter it again, and
the settler, whom duty summoned from home, looked anxiously on his return
to see if his dwelling was there. Even the churches, with congregations
armed as they listened to the Word of God, were assailed and the
worshipers sometimes massacred. Deerfield was laid in ashes, and Hadley
was saved undoubtedly by the sudden appearance of a venerable man,
William Goffe, the regicide, who had been a major-general under Cromwell,
was one of the judges who signed the death warrant of Charles I., and had
fled to New England from the vengeance of Charles II. He was concealed in
Hadley when the Indians attacked the place, and unexpectedly appeared
among the inhabitants, most of whom took him for a supernatural being,
and animated them to repulse the savages. He then as suddenly
disappeared, going back to his place of refuge. Philip, encouraged by his
successes, made a bold attack upon Springfield, but was repulsed with
serious loss. He then retreated to the Narragansett country, and was
hospitably received by Canonchet.

Although Canonchet's sympathies were with Philip, it is not certain that
the Narragansett chief had hostile designs against the English. The
colonists h