“The history I am going to write, proves, that days of fasting and prayer, without reformation, will not avail to turn away the anger of God from a professing people; and yet witnesseth, how very advantageous, gracious supplications are, to prepare particular Christians, patiently to suffer the will of God, in very trying publick calamities.”
“On the twenty-ninth of February, 1703, 4, not long before the break of day, the enemy came in like a flood upon us; our watch being unfaithful, an evil, whose awful effects, in a surprisal of our fort, should bespeak all watch men to avoid, as they would not bring the charge of blood upon themselves. They came to my house in the beginning of the onset, and by their violent endeavours to break open door and windows, with axes and hatchets, awaked me out of sleep; on which I leaped out of bed, and running toward the door, perceived the enemy making their entrance into the house. I called to awaken two soldiers, in the chamber; and returned toward my bed-side, for my arms. The enemy immediately brake into the room, I judge to the number of twenty, with painted faces, and hideous acclamations. I reached up my hands to the bed-tester, for my pistol, uttering a short petition to God, for everlasting mercies for me and mine, on the account of the merits of our glorified Redeemer; expecting a present passage through the valley of the shadow of death; saying in myself, as Isaiah xxxviii. 10, II. / said, in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years. I said, I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord, in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world. Taking down my pistol, I cocked it, and put it to the breast of the first Indian who came up; but my pistol missing fire, I was seized by three Indians, who disarmed me, and bound me naked, as I was in my shirt, and so I stood for near the space of an hour. Binding me, they told me they would carry me to Quebec.”
I cannot relate the distressing care I had for my dear wife, who had lain-in but a few weeks before, and for my poor children, family, and Christian neighbours. The enemy fell to rifling the house, and entered in great numbers into every room of the house. I begged of God to remember mercy in the midst of judgment; that he would so far restrain their wrath, as to prevent their murdering of us; that we might have grace to glorify his name, whether in life or death; and, as I was able, committed our state to God. The enemies who entered the house were all of them Indians and Macquas*, insulted over me a while, holding up hatchets over my head, threatening to burn all I had; but yet God, beyond expectation, made us in a great measure to be pitied;
for though some were so cruel and barbarous as to take and carry to the door, two of my children, and murder them, as also a negro woman;”
“…(they) Gave liberty to my dear wife to dress herself, and our children. About sun an hour high, we were all carried out of the house, for a march, and saw many of the houses of my neighbours in flames, perceiving the whole fort, one house excepted, to be taken. Who can tell what sorrows pierced our souls, when we saw ourselves carried away from God’s sanctuary, to go into a strange land, exposed to so many trials ? The journey being at least three hundred miles we were to travel ; the snow up to the knees, and we never inured to such hardships and fatigues; the place we were to be carried to, a popish country. Upon my parting from the town, they fired my house and barn. We were carried over the river, to the foot of the mountain, about a mile from my house, where we found a great number of our Christian neighbours, men, women and children, to the number of an hundred, nine teen of whom were afterwards murdered by the way,…”
“…He that took me was unwilling to let me speak with any of the prisoners, as we marched; but on the morning of the second day, he being appointed to guard the rear, I was put into the hands of my other master, who permitted me to speak to my wife, when I overtook her, and to walk with her, to help her in her journey. On the way we discoursed of the happiness of those who had a right to an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens; and God for a father, and friend; as also, that it was our reasonable duty, quietly to submit to the will of God, and to say, the will of the Lord be done. My wife told me her strength of body began to fail, and that I must expect to part with her; saying, she hoped God would preserve my life, and the life of some, if not all of our children, with us; and commended to me, under God, the care of them. She never spake any discontented word as to what had befallen us, but with suitable expressions justified God in what had befallen us. We soon made an halt, in which time my chief surviving master came up, upon which I was put upon marching with the foremost, and so made to take my last farewell of my dear wife, the desire of my eyes, and companion in many mercies and afflictions. Upon our separation from each other, we asked for each other, grace sufficient for what God should call us to. After our being parted from one another, she spent the few remaining minutes of her stay in reading the holy Scriptures; which she was wont personally every day to delight her soul in reading, praying, meditating of, and over, by herself, in her closet, over and above what she heard out of them in our family worship. I was made to wade over a small river, and so were all the English, the water above knee-deep, the stream very swift; and after that, to travel up a small mountain; my strength was almost spent, before I came to the top of it. No sooner had I overcome the difficulty of that ascent, but I was permitted to sit
down, and be unburthened of my pack. I sat pitying those who were behind, and in- treated my master to let me go down, and help up my wife; but he refused, and would not let me stir from him. I asked each of the prisoners (as they passed by me) after her, and heard that in passing through the above- said river, she fell down, and was plunged over head and ears in the water; after which she traveled not far; for at the foot of this mountain, the cruel and blood thirsty savage, who took her, slew her with his hatchet, at one stroke; the tidings of which were very awful; and yet such was hard-heartedness of the adversary, that my tears were reckoned to me as a reproach. My loss, and the loss of my children, was great; our hearts were so filled with sorrow, that nothing but the comfortable hopes of her being taken away in mercy to herself, from the evils we were to see, feel, and suffer under, (and joined to the assembly of the spirits of just men made perfect, to rest in peace, and joy unspeakable, and full of glory, and the good pleasure of God thus to exercise us), could have kept us from sinking under, at that time. That Scripture, Job i. 21. Naked came I out of my mother s womb, and naked shall I return thither; the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord; was brought to my mind, and from it, that an afflicting God was to be glorified; with some other places of Scripture, to persuade to a patient bearing my afflictions…”