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Indeed, it is quite evident that Massasoit was influenced to enter into his alliance with the English mainly from his dread of the Narragansets. Bribery and corruption are almost as common in barbarian as in civilized courts. Canonicus had brought over to his cause one of the minor chiefs of Massasoit, named Corbitant.
The venerable Roger Williams, his friend, the friend of his father and the friend of the long-dead Canonicus, had advised him to stay out of the war. "Massachusetts," said Roger Williams, "can raise thousands of men at this moment; and if you kill them, the king of England will supply their place as fast as they fall." "It is well," replied Canonchet. "Let them come. We are ready for them.
War had occasionally raged between the Narragansets and the Wampanoags, and the two tribes were bitterly hostile to each other. Canonicus regarded the newly-arrived English with great jealousy, and was particularly annoyed by the friendly relations existing between them and the Wampanoags.
Tuesday evening, however, Captain Mason landed, and had an interview with Miantunnomah, a chief very high in rank, who seems to have shared with his uncle Canonicus in the government of the Narragansets. "Two mighty chiefs one cautious, wise, and old; One young, and strong, and terrible in fight All Narraganset and Coweset hold; One lodge they build, one council-fire they light."
A violent tempest arose, tumbling in such a surf upon the shore that he could not land, while he was every moment threatened with being swallowed up in the abysses which were yawning around him. At length, after having encountered much hardship and surmounted many perils, he arrived at the imperial residence of Canonicus.
These terms were religiously kept for half a century; by which time the colonists were able to take care of themselves. Its good effects were illustrated in the case of the chief Canonicus, who was disposed to pick a quarrel with the Englishmen, and sent them, as a symbol of his attitude, a rattlesnake's skin wrapped round a sheaf of arrows.
Canonicus, on the other hand, rescued the captives taken from the boat, and restored them to their friends. The English now decided that it was necessary for them so to punish the Indians as to teach them that such outrages could no longer be committed with impunity. It was a fearful vengeance which was resolved upon.
As they went unpunished they grew ever bolder until at length one day their chief, Canonicus, sent a messenger to the Governor with a bundle of arrows tied about with a large snakeskin. This was meant as a challenge. But the Governor was not to be frightened by such threats. He sent back the snakeskin stuffed with bullets and gunpowder, and with it a bold message.
The school teacheth, that canonicus qui jurat se servaturum statuta edita in aliquo collegio, non tenetur ex juramenta ad servandum futura; the canon law judgeth, that qui jurat servare statuta edita, &c., non tenetur ex juramento ad novitur edita. Sect. 8. But we are more fully to consider that ground whereby the Bishop thinketh to purge himself, and those of his sect, of the breach of the oath.
Bradford, to indicate that he also understood the language of emblems, sent the skin back stuffed with powder and bullets. Canonicus seems to have fancied that these substances were capable of destroying him spontaneously, and returned them with pacific assurances. Such weapons, combined with the alliance, were too much for him.
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