N00162:41
An earnest exhortation to the inhabitants of New-England, to hearken to the voice of…
An earnest exhortation to the inhabitants of New-England, to hearken to the voice of God in his late and present dispensations as ever they desire to escape another judgement, seven times greater that any thing which as yet hath been. / By Increase Mather; teacher of a church in Boston in New-England. ; [Eight lines of Scripture texts]
Boston: printed by John Foster, 1676
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
At first they were so far credited as to be Armed by the English, hoping they might do good service as the Monhegins and Natick Indians had done. But within a while their Treachery was justly suspected. Whereupon Soldiers were sent (on or about August 25.) to demand their Arms. They were then gone out of their Forts, our Men searching after them, they suddenly shot out of a Swamp, and after that an hot dispute continued for some hours. How many Indians were slain we know not, but nine English fell that Day, wherein this Providence is observable, that those nine men which were killed at that time belonged to nine several Towns, as if the Lord should say, that he hath a controversy with every Plantation, and therefore all had need to repent and reform their ways.
At first they were so far credited as to be Armed by the English, hoping they might do good service as the Monhegins and Natick Indians had done. But within a while their Treachery was justly suspected. Whereupon Souldiers were sent (on or about August 25.) to demand their Arms. They were then gone out of their Forts, our Men searching after them, they suddenly shot out of a Swamp, and after that an hot dispute continued for some hours. How many Indians were slain we know not, but nine English fell that Day, wherein this Providence is observable, that those nine men which were killed at that time belonged to nine several Towns, as if the Lord should say, that he hath a controversie with every Plantation, and therefore all had need to repent and reform their ways.
Now the English have a multitude of open Enemies more then when this trouble began, so that greater desolations are now expected.
Wherefore September I. the Indians set upon Deer field, (alias […]) and killed one man, and laid most of the Houses in that new hopeful Plantation in ruinous heaps. That which addeth solemnity and awfulness to that Desolation, is, that it happened on the very day when one of the Churches in Boston were seeking the face of God by Fasting and Prayer before him. […] Also that very day the Church in Hadly was before the Lord in the same way, but were driven from the Holy Service they were attending