It is true that Lieutenant Jacobs
does not mention the loss of Wadsworth and Brocklebank in a letter to
the Governor and Council, dated at Marlboro' on the 22nd of April; but
in his letter of the 24th, he refers to the subject as he might have
done, had he received the intelligence when he received his authority
to take the command of the fort and men at Marlboro'. And this was
probably the case. That communication between the two towns was
suspended, is apparent from Jacobs' letter of the 22nd of April, to
which I have referred. The conclusion, I think, is that, under the
circumstances, there is a reasonable amount of evidence in support of
the statement of President Wadsworth.
The loss of Wadsworth and Brocklebank was severely felt by the colony.
Hubbard says, "Wadsworth was a resolute, stout-hearted soldier, and
Brocklebank a choice, spirited man." Mather says, "but the worst part
of the story is, that Captain Wadsworth, one worthy to live in our
history under the name of a good man, coming up after a long, hard,
unwearied march with seventy men unto the relief of distressed Sudbury,
found himself in the woods on the sudden, surrounded with about five
hundred of the enemy, whereupon our men fought like men, and more than
so."
Capt. Samuel Wadsworth was the youngest son of Christopher Wadsworth,
one of the early Plymouth Pilgrims, who settled at Duxbury with Capt.
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