antations as possibly intelligence could be given."[177]

The assault of the savages was swift and deadly. In all parts of the
colony they fell upon the settlers, and those that had received no
warning were, in most cases, butchered before they could suspect that
harm was intended. Sometimes the Indians sat down to breakfast with
their victims, "whom immediately with their owne tooles they slew most
barbarously, not sparing either age or sex, man woman or childe".[178]
Many were slain while working in the fields; others were trapped in
their houses and butchered before they could seize their weapons. The
savages, "not being content with their lives,... fell againe upon the
dead bodies, making as well as they could a fresh murder, defacing,
dragging, and mangling their dead carkases into many peeces".[179]

That the plot was so successful was due to the completeness of the
surprise, for where the English made the least resistance the savages
were usually beaten off. A planter named Causie, when attacked and
wounded and surrounded by the Indians, "with an axe did cleave one of
their heads, whereby the rest fled and he escaped; for they hurt not any
that did either fight or stand upon their guard. In one place where they
had warning of it, (they) defended the house against sixty or more that
assaulted it."[180]

At the plantation of a Mr. Harrison, where there were gathered seven men
and eighteen or nineteen women and children, the savages set fire to a
tobacco house and then came in to tell the men to quench it. Six of the
English, not suspecting treachery, rushed out, and were shot full of
arrows. Mr. Thomas Hamor, the seventh man, "having finished a letter he
was writing, followed after to see what was the matter, but quickly they
shot an arrow in his back, which caused him to returne and barricade up
the dores, whereupon the Salvages set fire to the house. But a boy,
seizing a gun which he found loaded, discharged it at random. At the
bare report the enemy fled and Mr. Hamor with the women and children
escaped."[181] In a nearby house, a party of English under Mr. Hamor's
brother, were caught by the Indians without arms, but they defended
themselves successfully with spades, axes and brickbats.[182]

One of the first to fall was Reverend George Thorpe, a member of the
Virginia Council, and a man of prominence in England.[183] Leaving a
life of honor and ease, he had come to Virginia to work for the
conversion of the