many things, and those neither unreasonable nor unprobable; as that it was a great designe, and subjecte to many unconceivable perills & dangers; as, besids the casulties of ye seas (which none can be freed from) the length of ye voiage was such, as ye weake bodys of women and other persons worne out with age & traville (as many of them were) could never be able to endure. And yet if they should, the miseries of ye land which they should be [17] exposed unto, would be to hard to be borne; and lickly, some or all of them togeither, to consume & utterly to ruinate them. For ther they should be liable to famine, and nakednes, & ye wante, in a maner, of all things. The chang of aire, diate, & drinking of water, would infecte their bodies with sore sickneses, and greevous diseases. And also those which should escape or overcome these difficulties, should yett be in continuall danger of ye salvage people, who are cruell, barbarous, & most trecherous, being most furious in their rage, and merciles wher they overcome; not being contente only to kill, & take away life, but delight to tormente men in ye most bloodie maner that may be; fleaing some alive with ye shells of fishes, cutting of ye members & joynts of others by peesmeale, and broiling on ye coles, eate ye collops of their flesh in their sight whilst they live; with other cruelties horrible to be related. And surely it could not be thought but ye very hearing of

these things could not but move ye very bowels of men to grate within them, and make ye weake to quake & tremble. It was furder objected, that it would require greater sumes of money to furnish such a voiage, and to fitt them with necessaries, then their consumed estats would amounte too; and yett they must as well looke to be seconded with supplies, as presently to be trasported. Also many presidents of ill success, & lamentable misseries befalne others in the like designes, were easie to be found, and not forgotten to be aledged; besids their owne experience, in their former troubles & hardships in their removall into Holand, and how hard a thing it was for them to live in that strange place, though it was a neighbour countrie, & a civil and rich comone wealth.

It was answered, that all great & honourable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and must be both enterprised and overcome with answerable courages. It was granted ye dangers were great, but not desperate; the difficulties were many, but not invincible. For though ther were many of them likly, yet they were not cartaine; it might be sundrie of ye things feared might never befale; others by providente care & ye use of good means, might in a great measure be prevented; and all of them, through ye help of God, by fortitude and patience, might either be borne, or overcome. True it was, that such

atempts were not to be made and undertaken without good ground & reason; not rashly or lightly as many have done for curiositie or hope of gaine, &c. But their condition was not ordinarie; their ends were good & honourable; their calling lawful, & urgente; and therfore they might expecte ye blessing of God in their proceding. Yea, though they should loose their lives in this action, yet might they have comforte in the same, and their endeavors would be honourable. They lived hear but as men in exile, & in a poore condition; and as great miseries might possibly befale them in this place, for ye 12. years of truce were now out, & ther was nothing but beating of drumes, and preparing for warr, the events wherof are allway uncertaine. Ye Spaniard might prove as cruell as [18] the salvages of America, and ye famine and pestelence as sore hear as ther, & their libertie less to looke out for remedie. After many other perticuler things answered & aledged on both sids, it was fully concluded by ye major parte, to put this designe in execution, and to prosecute it by the best means they could.

W. Bradford, History of Plimouth Plantations (Boston, 1898), 32-35.

8. A Colonial View of War (1640)

By REVEREND WILLIAM HOOKE

Hooke was a minister at New Haven and later became Chaplain to Oliver Cromwell.

If you should but see Warre described to you in a Map, especially in a Countrey, well knowne to you, nay dearely beloved of you, where you drew your first breath, where once, yea where lately you dwelt, where you have received ten thousand mercies, and have many a deare friend and Countrey-man and kinsman abiding, how could you but lament and mourne?

Warre is the conflict of enemies enraged with bloody revenge, wherein the parties opposite carry their lives in their hands, every man turning prodigall of his very heart blood, and willing to be killed to kill. The instruments are clashing swords, ratling speares, skul-dividing Holberds, murthering pieces, and thundering Cannons, from whose mouthes proceed the fire, and smell, and smoake, and terrour, death, as it were, of the very bottomlesse pit. Wee wonder now and then at the sudden death of a man: alas, you might there see a thousand men not onely healthy, but stout and strong, struck dead in the twinckling of an eye, their breath exhales without so much as, Lord have mercy upon us.

Death heweth its way thorow a wood of men in a minute of time from the mouth of a murderer, turning a forrest into a Champion suddenly; and when it hath used these to slay their opposites, they are recompenced with the like death themselves. O, the shrill earepiercing clangs of the Trumpets, noise of Drums, the animating voyces of Horse Captaines, and Commanders, learned and learning to destroy! There is the undaunted Horse whose neck is clothed with thunder, and the glory of whose nostrills is terrible; how doth hee lye pawing and praunsing in the valley, going forth to meete the armed men? he mocks at feare, swallowing the ground with fiercenesse and rage, and saying among the trumpets, Ha, Ha, hee smels the battell a far off, the thunder of the Captaines and the shouting. Here ride some dead men swagging in their deepe saddles; there fall others alive upon their dead Horses; death sends a message to those from the mouth of the Muskets, these it talkes with face to face, and stabs them in the fift rib: In yonder file there is a man hath his arme struck off from his shoulder, another (by him hath lost his leg; here stands a Soldier with halfe a face, there fights another upon his stumps, and at once both kils and is killed; not far off lies a company wallowing in their sweat and goare; such a man whilst he chargeth his Musket is discharg'd of his life, and falls upon his dead fel