, and twenty escaped.

Some writer has stated that the battle was fought on the 21st, instead
of the 18th of April. It may not be proved that the battle was fought
on the 18th, but it is determined that it was fought previous to the
21st.

On the 21st of April, the Massachusetts Council communicated the fact
in writing to the Plymouth Colony. It is true that Lieutenant Jacobs
does not mention the loss of Wadsworth and Brocklebank in a letter to
the Governor and Council, dated at Marlboro' on the 22nd of April; but
in his letter of the 24th, he refers to the subject as he might have
done, had he received the intelligence when he received his authority
to take the command of the fort and men at Marlboro'. And this was
probably the case. That communication between the two towns was
suspended, is apparent from Jacobs' letter of the 22nd of April, to
which I have referred. The conclusion, I think, is that, under the
circumstances, there is a reasonable amount of evidence in support of
the statement of President Wadsworth.

The loss of Wadsworth and Brocklebank was severely felt by the colony.
Hubbard says, "Wadsworth was a resolute, stout-hearted soldier, and
Brocklebank a choice, spirited man." Mather says, "but the worst part
of the story is, that Captain Wadsworth, one worthy to live in our
history under the name of a good man, coming up after a long, hard,
unwearied march with seventy men unto the relief of distressed Sudbury,
found himself in the woods on the sudden, surrounded with about five
hundred of the enemy, whereupon our men fought like men, and more than
so."

Capt. Samuel Wadsworth was the youngest son of Christopher Wadsworth,
one of the early Plymouth Pilgrims, who settled at Duxbury with Capt.
Miles Standish. Samuel Wadsworth was born in Duxbury about 1630, and
was therefore forty-five or six years of age when he died. He first
appears at Milton, in 1656, where he took up three hundred acres of
land near the center of the town. He was interested in obtaining the
separation of the town from Dorchester and in its incorporation in
1662. In the new town he was the first captain of the militia, one of
the selectmen, a member of the House of Representatives, a trustee of
the church and active in church affairs. That he was highly esteemed
in the town is apparent from these facts as well as from a memorial of
Robert Babcock, one of the selectmen of Milton. He feelingly alludes
to the loss in these