第103章 THE SKETCH BOOK(5)

As the night drew on they were surrounded in their dismal retreat,so as to render escape impracticable. Thus situated, their enemy"plied them with shot all the time, by which means many were killedand buried in the mire." In the darkness and fog that preceded thedawn of day some few broke through the besiegers and escaped intothe woods: "the rest were left to the conquerors, of which many werekilled in the swamp, like sullen dogs who would rather, in theirself-willedness and madness, sit still and be shot through, or cutto pieces," than implore for mercy. When the day broke upon thishandful of forlorn but dauntless spirits, the soldiers, we are told,entering the swamp, "saw several heaps of them sitting close together,upon whom they discharged their pieces, laden with ten or twelvepistol bullets at a time, putting the muzzles of the pieces underthe boughs, within a few yards of them; so as, besides those that werefound dead, many more were killed and sunk into the mire, and neverwere minded more by friend or foe.

Can any one read this plain unvarnished tale, without admiring thestern resolution, the unbending pride, the loftiness of spirit, thatseemed to nerve the hearts of these self-taught heroes, and to raisethem above the instinctive feelings of human nature? When the Gaulslaid waste the city of Rome, they found the senators clothed intheir robes, and seated with stern tranquillity in their curulechairs; in this manner they suffered death without resistance oreven supplication. Such conduct was, in them, applauded as noble andmagnanimous; in the hapless Indian it was reviled as obstinate andsullen! How truly are we the dupes of show and circumstance! Howdifferent is virtue, clothed in purple and enthroned in state, fromvirtue, naked and destitute, and perishing obscurely in a wilderness!

But I forbear to dwell on these gloomy pictures. The easterntribes have long since disappeared; the forests that sheltered themhave been laid low, and scarce any traces remain of them in thethickly-settled states of New England, excepting here and there theIndian name of a village or a stream. And such must, sooner orlater, be the fate of those other tribes which skirt the frontiers,and have occasionally been inveigled from their forests to mingle inthe wars of white men. In a little while, and they will go the waythat their brethren have gone before. The few hordes which stilllinger about the shores of Huron and Superior, and the tributarystreams of the Mississippi, will share the fate of those tribes thatonce spread over Massachusetts and Connecticut, and lorded it alongthe proud banks of the Hudson; of that gigantic race said to haveexisted on the borders of the Susquehanna; and of those variousnations that flourished about the Potomac and the Rappahannock, andthat peopled the forests of the vast valley of Shenandoah. They willvanish like a vapor from the face of the earth; their very historywill be lost in forgetfulness; and "the places that now know them willknow them no more for ever." Or if, perchance, some dubious memorialof them should survive, it may be in the romantic dreams of thepoet, to people in imagination his glades and groves, like the faunsand satyrs and sylvan deities of antiquity. But should he venture uponthe dark story of their wrongs and wretchedness; should he tell howthey were invaded, corrupted, despoiled, driven from their nativeabodes and the sepulchres of their fathers, hunted like wild beastsabout the earth, and sent down with violence and butchery to thegrave, posterity will either turn with horror and incredulity from thetale, or blush with indignation at the inhumanity of theirforefathers.- "We are driven back," said an old warrior, "until we canretreat no farther- our hatchets are broken, our bows are snapped, ourfires are nearly extinguished:- a little longer, and the white manwill cease to persecute us- for we shall cease to exist!"THE END.

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