before he
tired of his hopeless mission.

In the letter just quoted, Rale seems to have done his best to rasp the
temper of his New England correspondent. He boasts of his power over the
Indians, who, as he declares, always do as he advises them. "Any treaty
with the governor," he goes on to say, "and especially that of
Arrowsick, is null and void if I do not approve it, for I give them so
many reasons against it that they absolutely condemn what they have
done." He says further that if they do not drive the English from the
Kennebec, he will leave them, and that they will then lose both their
lands and their souls; and he adds that, if necessary, he will tell them
that they may make war.[246] Rale wrote also to Shute; and though the
letter is lost, the governor's answer shows that it was sufficiently
aggressive.

The wild Indian is unstable as water. At Arrowsick, the Norridgewocks
were all for peace; but when they returned to their village their mood
changed, and, on the representations of Rale, they began to kill the
cattle of the English settlers on the river below, burn their haystacks,
and otherwise annoy them.[247] The English suspected that the Jesuit
was the source of their trouble; and as they had always regarded the
lands in question as theirs, by virtue of the charter of the Plymouth
Company in 1620, and the various grants under it, as well as by purchase
from the Indians, their ire against him burned high. Yet afraid as the
Indians were of another war, even Rale could scarcely have stirred them
to violence but for the indignities put upon them by Indian-hating
ruffians of the border, vicious rum-selling traders, and hungry
land-thieves. They had still another cause of complaint. Shute had
promised to build trading-houses where their wants should be supplied
without fraud and extortion; but he had not kept his word, and could not
keep it, for reasons that will soon appear.

In spite of such provocations, Norridgewock was divided in opinion. Not
only were the Indians in great dread of war, but they had received
English presents to a considerable amount, chiefly from private persons
interested in keeping them quiet. Hence, to Rale's great chagrin, there
was an English party in the village so strong that when the English
authorities demanded reparation for the mischief done to the settlers,
the Norridgewocks promised two hundred beaver-skins as damages, and gave
four hostages as security that they would pay