of earlier times had suffered, no wonder the colonists did not question whether the natives had any rights to be considered,

and came to scarcely regard them as human beings, or that the sentiment "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" should have prevailed. Indeed, the one chance for the divine law of the survival of the fittest to be carried out in Virginia seemed to be in the prompt and total extermination of the red race.

III.

THE REIGN OF TERROR.

The beginning of serious war with the Indians happened in this wise. One Sunday morning in the summer of 1675, as some of the settlers of Stafford County took their way peacefully to church, with no thought of immediate danger in their minds, they were greeted, as they passed the house of one Robert Hen, a herdsman, by the ghastly spectacle of the bloodstained bodies of Hen himself, and an Indian, lying across Hen's doorstep. Though scarred with the gashes of the deadly tomahawk, life was not quite gone out of the body of the white man, and with his last breath he gasped, "Doegs—Doegs," the name of a most hostile tribe of Indians.

At once the alarm was given and the

neighborhood was in an uproar. Experience had taught the Virginians that such a deed as had been committed was but a beginning of horrors and that there was no telling who the next victim might be. Colonel Giles Brent, commander of the horse, and Colonel George Mason, commander of the foot soldiers of Stafford County,—both of them living about six or eight miles from the scene of the tragedy,—with all speed gathered a force of some thirty men and gave chase to the murderers. They followed them for twenty miles up the Potomac River and then across into Maryland (which colony was then at peace with the Indians), firing upon all the red men they saw without taking time to find out whether or not they were of the offending tribe. In Maryland, Colonels Brent and Mason divided the men under them into two parties and continued their chase, taking different directions. Soon each party came upon, and surrounded, an Indian cabin. Colonel Brent shot the king of the Doegs who was in the cabin found by him, and took his son, a boy eight years

old, prisoner. The Indians fired a few shots from within the cabin and were fired upon by the white men without. Finally the Indians rushed from the doors and fled. The noise of the guns aroused the Indians in the cabin—a short distance away—surrounded by Colonel Mason's men, and they fled with Mason's men following and firing upon them, until one of them turning back rushed up to Mason and shaking him by both hands said, "Susquehannocks—friends!" and turned and fled. Whereupon Colonel Mason ran among his men, crying out,

"For the Lord's sake, shoot no more! These are our friends the Susquehannocks!"

The Susquehannocks were an exceedingly fierce tribe of Indians but were, just then, at peace with the English settlers.

Colonels Mason and Brent returned to Virginia, taking with them the little son of the chief of the Doegs; but as murders continued to be committed upon both sides of the Potomac, Maryland (which was now drawn into the embroglio) and Virginia soon afterward raised between them a thousand

men in the hope of putting a stop to the trouble. The Virginians were commanded by Col. John Washington (great-grandfather of General Washington) and Col. Isaac Allerton. These troops laid siege to a stronghold of the Susquehannocks, in Maryland. The siege lasted seven weeks. During it the besiegers brought down upon themselves bitter hatred by putting to death five out of six of the Susquehannocks' "great men" who were sent out to treat of peace. They alleged, by way of excuse, that they recognized in the "great men" some of the murderers of their fellow-countrymen. At the end of the seven weeks, during which fifty of the besiegers were killed, the Susquehannocks silently escaped from their fort in the middle of the night, "knocking on the head" ten of their sleeping foes, by way of a characteristic leave-taking, as they passed them upon the way out. Leaving the rest to guard the cage in blissful ignorance that the birds were flown, the Indians crossed over into Virginia as far as the head of James River. Instead of the notched trees that were wont

to serve as landmarks in the pioneer days, these infuriated Indians left behind them a pathway marked by gaping wounds upon the bodies of white men, women, and children. They swore to have still further revenge for the loss of their "great men," each of whose lives, they said, was worth the lives of ten of the Englishmen, who were of inferior rank, while their ambassadors were "men of quality."

Sir William Berkeley afterward rebuked the besiegers before the Grand Assembly for their breach of faith, saying,

"If they had killed my grandfather and grandmother, my father and mother and all of my friends, yet if they had come to treat of peace they ought to have gone in peace."

The English held that the savages were utterly treacherous, their treaties of peace were dishonored by themselves and were therefore unworthy of being kept by others.

An investigation made by Governor Berkeley showed that neither of the Virginia officers was responsible for the shabby piece of work.

However faithless the Indians may have been in most matters, they were as good as their word touching their vengeance for the loss of their "men of quality." About the first of the new year a party of them made a sudden raid upon the upper plantations of the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers, massacred thirty-six persons, and fled to the woods. News of this disaster was quickly carried to the Governor, who for once seemed to respond to the need of his people. He called a court and placed a competent force to march against the Indians under command of Sir Henry Chicheley and some other gentlemen of Rappahannock County, giving them full power, by commission, to make peace or war. When all things had been made ready for the party to set out, however, Governor Berkeley, with exasperating fickleness, changed his mind, withdrew the commission, and ordered the men to be disbanded, and so no steps were taken for the defense of the colony against the daily and hourly dangers that lurked in the forests, threatened the homes and haunted the steps of

the planters—robbing life in Virginia of the freedom and peace which had been its chief charm.

The poor Virginians were not "under continual and deadly fears and terrors of their lives" without reason. As a result of their Governor's unpardonable tardiness in giving them protection, the number of plantations in the neighborhood of the massacre was in about a fortnight's brief space reduced from seventy-one to eleven. Some of the settlers had deserted their firesides and taken refuge in the heart of the country, and others had been destroyed by the savages.

Not until March did the Assembly meet to take steps for the safety and defense of the colonists, three hundred of whom had by that time been cut off, and then, under Governor Berkeley's influence, the only action taken was the establishment of forts at the heads of the rivers and on the frontiers, and of course heavy taxes were laid upon the people to build and maintain them. These fortifications afforded no real defense, as the garrisons within them were

prohibited from firing upon