A force
of a thousand men with such Indian allies as could be mustered, was
marched immediately into his country. This was the force engaged on
the 19th of December in the famous Swamp Fight, the most sanguinary
battle of Philip's War. Six hundred warriors were slain, six hundred
wigwams were burned, and an unknown number of women, children and old
men perished in the flames. The English loss exceeded two hundred,
among whom were several brave officers. From this moment the fortunes
of Canonchet were identified with Philip's, and he is supposed to have
commanded in many of the attacks upon the frontier towns. About the
last of March, 1676, he visited the Connecticut River to urge, if not
to superintend the planting of corn. Finding his people destitute of
seed, he returned to obtain a supply, but was arrested at Seekonk and
executed at Stonington. His death was a sad blow to Philip, and the
occasion of a great joy in the colonies. When told that he must die,
he said:
"It is well. I shall die before my heart is soft. I will speak
nothing which Canonchet should be ashamed to speak. It is well."
Thus fell Canonchet, the last great chief of the Narragansets. A man
so noble and chivalric in his spirit that his life and death commanded
the admiration of his worst enemies. They vainly imagined that some
disembodied spirit of Greece or Rome had revisited the earth in the
vast physical and mental proportions of Canonchet.
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