ADDRESS

DELIVERED AT BLOODY BROOK, IN SOUTH DEERFIELD, SEPTEMBER 30, 1835, IN COMMEMORATION OF THE FALL OF THE 'FLOWER OF ESSEX,' AT THAT SPOT, IN KING PHILIP'S WAR, SEPTEMBER 18, (o. s.) 1675.

GATHERED together in this temple not made with hands, to unroll the venerable record of our fathers' history, let our first thoughts ascend to Him, whose heavens are spread out, as a glorious canopy, above our heads. As our eyes look up to the everlasting hills which rise before us, let us remember that in the dark and eventful days we commemorate, the hand that lifted their eternal pillars to the clouds, was the sole stay and support of our afflicted sires. While we contemplate the lovely scene around us, once covered with the gloomy forest and the tangled swamps, through which the victims of this day pursued their unsuspecting path to the field of slaughter, let us bow in gratitude to Him, beneath whose paternal care a little one has become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation. Assembled under the shadow of this venerable tree, let us bear in thankful recollection, that at the period when its sturdy limbs which now spread over us, hung with nature's rich and verdant tapestry, were all folded up within the narrow compass of their seminal germ, the thousand settlements of our beloved country, teeming with the life, energy, and power of prosperous millions, were struggling with unimagined hardships for a doubtful existence, in a score of feeble plantations scattered through the hostile wilder

ness.

Alas, it was not alone the genial showers, and the gentle dews, and the native richness of the soil, which nourished the growth of this stately tree. The sod from which it sprung, was moistened with the blood of brave men who fell for their country, and the ashes of peaceful dwellings are mingled with the consecrated earth. In like manner, it is not alone the wisdom and the courage, the piety and the virtue of our fathers,-not alone the prudence with which they laid the foundations of the state, to which we are indebted for its happy growth and all-pervading prosperity. No, we ought never to forget, we ought this day especially to remember, that it was in their sacrifices and trials, their heart-rending sorrows, their ever-renewed tribulations, their wanderings, their conflicts, their wants, and their woes,-that the corner-stone of our privileges and blessings was laid.

As I stand on this hallowed spot, my mind filled with the traditions of that disastrous day, surrounded by these enduring natural memorials, impressed with the touching ceremonies we have just witnessed,—the affecting incidents of the bloody scene crowd upon my imagination. This compact and prosperous village disappears, and a few scattered log cabins are seen, in the bosom of the primeval forest, clustering for protection around the rude blockhouse in the centre. A corn-field or two has been rescued from the all-surrounding wilderness, and here and there the yellow husks are heard to rustle in the breeze, that comes loaded with the mournful sighs of the melancholy pine woods. Beyond, the interminable forest spreads in every direction, the covert of the wolf, of the rattle-snake, of the savage; and between its gloomy copses, what is now a fertile and cultivated meadow, stretches out a dreary expanse of unreclaimed morass. I look, I listen. All is still,solemnly, frightfully still. No voice of human activity or enjoyment breaks the dreary silence of nature, or mingles with the dirge of the woods and water-courses. All seems peaceful and still : -and yet there is a strange heaviness in the fall of the leaves in that wood that skirts the road;-there is an unnatural flitting in those shadows;-there is a plashing sound in the waters of that brook, which makes the flesh creep with horror. Hark! it is the click of a gun-lock from that thicket;-no, it is a pebble, that has dropped from the over-hanging cliff, upon the rock beneath. It is,

it is the gleaming blade of a scalping-knife;-no, it is a sun-beam, thrown off from that dancing ripple. It is, it is the red feather of a savage chief, peeping from behind that maple tree;—no, it is a leaf, which September has touched with her many-tinted pencil. And now a distant drum is heard; yes, that is a sound of life,— conscious, proud life. A single fife breaks upon the ear, a stirring strain. It is one of the marches, to which the stern warriors of Cromwell moved over the field at Naseby and Worcester. There are no loyal ears, to take offence at a puritanical march in a transatlantic forest; and hard by, at Hadley, there is a grayhaired fugitive, who followed the cheering strain, at the head of his division in the army of the great usurper. The warlike note grows louder ;-I hear the tread of armed men :-but I run before my story.

Before we proceed to the details of the catastrophe, which forms the subject of this day's commemoration, let us pause, for a moment, on the state of things at that time existing in New-England, and the previous events of the war, of which this was so prominent an occurrence.

Although the continent of America, when discovered by the Europeans, was in the possession of the native tribes, it was obviously the purpose of Providence, that it should become the abode of civilization, the arts, and Christianity. How shall these blessings be introduced? Obviously by no other process, none other is practicable, than an emigration to the new-found continent from the civilized communities of Europe. This is doubly necessary, not only as being the only process adequate to produce the desired end, but in order to effect another great purpose connected with the relief and regeneration of mankind, namely, the establishment of a place of refuge for the children of persecution, and the opening of a new field of action, where principles of liberty and improvement could be developed, without the restraints imposed on the work of reform, by the inveterate abuses of the established order of things abroad.

There was, therefore, a moral necessity, that the two races should be brought into contact, in the newly-discovered region; the one, ignorant, weak in every thing that belongs to intellectual strength, feebly redeeming the imperfections of the savage, by the stern and

cheerless virtues of the wilderness ;-the other, strong in his powerful arts, in his weapons of destruction, in his capacity of combination ;-strong in the intellectual and moral elevation of his character and purposes:-the two thus separated, alas, by a chasm, which seems all but impassable!-A fearful approach;-a perilous contiguity! But how shall it be avoided? Shall this fair continent, adequate to the support of civilized millions,-on which nature has bestowed her bounties,-on which Providence is ready to shower its blessings, lie waste, the exclusive domain of the savage and the wild beast? Heaven forbid. How shall it be settled? The age of miracles is past; the emigrants must be brought hither, and sustained here, by the usual motives and impulses which operate on the minds of men, and under the various working of the circumstances of the first discovery and occupation. If things are left to second causes, the passion for adventure, the lust of power, the thirst for gold, will spur on the remorseless bands of Pizarro and Cortes. Prospects of political aggrandizement and commercial profit must actuate the planters of Virginia. The sword of spiritual persecution must drive out the suffering Puritan, in search of a place of rest. In correspondence with the motives which prompt the separate expeditions or the individual leaders, will be the relations established with the natives. In Spanish America, a wild and merciless crusade will be waged against them; they will be hunted by the warhorse and the bloodhound; vast multitudes will perish, the residue will be enslaved, their labor made a source of profit, and they will thereby be preserved from annihilation. In the Anglo-American settlements, treaties will be entered into, mutual rights acknowledged; the artificial relations of independent and allied states will be established; and as the civilized race rapidly multiplies, the native tribes will recede, sink into the wilderness, and disappear. Millions of Mexicans, escaping the exterminating sword of the conquerors, subsist in a miserable vassalage to the present day;-of the tribes that inhabited New-England, not an individual, of unmixed blood, and speaking the language of his fathers, remains. Was this an unavoidable consequence? However deplorable, there is too much reason to think that it was. We cannot perceive in what way the forest could have been cleared, and its place taken by the cornfield, without destroying the game; in what way the

meadows could be drained, and the beaver-dams broken down, without expelling their industrious little builders;-nor in what way the uncivilized man, living from the chase, and requiring a wide range of forest for his hunting-ground, destitute of arts and letters, belonging to a different variety of the species, speaking a different tongue, suffering all the disadvantages of social and intellectual inferiority, could maintain his place, by the side of the swelling, pressing population,-the diligence and dexterity, the superior thrift, arts, and arms,—the seductive vices, of the civilized race. I will not say, that imagination cannot picture a colonial settlement, where the emigrants should come in such numbers, with such resources, with such principles, dispositions, and tempers, as instantly to form a kindly amalgamation with the native tribes; and from the moment of setting foot on the new-found soil, commence the benign work of brotherhood and assimilation, moving forward to a peaceful conquest, beneath the banner of charity. I would not stint the resources, or sound the depths of godlike benevolence. But in a practical survey of life on both sides, such a consummation seems impossible. The new comers are men,men of all tempers and characters. Their society may be formed on the platform of religion; their principles may be pure, lofty, austere; their dispositions peaceful; their carriage mild and gentle; but their judgments will be fallible, and they cannot be expected to rise far above the errors and prejudices of their age. Our fathers regarded the aboriginal inhabitants as heathen. They bestowed unwearied pains to christianize them, and with much greater success, than is generally supposed. Still the mass remained unconverted, and an ominous inference was drawn from the expulsion of the native races of Canaan. Scarcely, moreover, were the first colonists settled in Plymouth, when licentious adventurers followed in their train; who not only introduced among the Indian tribes the destructive vices of the Europeans, and furnished them with fire-arms and weapons of steel; but by acts of violence and injustice gave provocation for their use. Then, too, we must look on the Indian, not with the eye of sentiment and romance, but of truth and reality. Seen as he really is, he stands low in the scale of humanity. His vices were not all learned of the white settlers. Before the European was known on the continent, he was perpet