It is said that he wept, and that from that time
forth he never smiled. But he laid new sacrifices upon the altar of
his people's liberty, invoked the spirit of his ancestors, and
exhibited resources and courage worthy of a heroic age.
He stood in a position of great and manifest peril. The English were
superior in numbers, comparatively well equipped, and above all united.
They had garrisoned towns to which they could fly. Philip's own tribe
was comparatively weak, but he easily associated the Narragansets with
him. But this combined force was inadequate to the emergency. He
united many of the tribes of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and
Connecticut, and as far as possible animated them with his own
unconquerable will. You may imagine him standing among the dark men of
the forest and with a rugged yet burning eloquence reciting the history
of their common wrongs, or with prophetic power lifting the veil from
the shadowy, though not to him uncertain, future.
He was continually subject to great personal dangers. A price was set
upon his head, the Christian Indians were allies of the English and
continually employed against him, while above all Uncas and the
Mohegans were his deadly enemies. Hunted by English and Indians,
assailed by famine and treachery, weakened by death and desertion, his
fate was inevitable.
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