of men high in authority is to follow him, but now the most formidable
enemy in his path is the swollen Sudbury River and its bordering marsh.
We find the aristocratic scorn mingling with the story of Prescott's
dearly bought victory over this natural obstacle, told in Winthrop's
History of New England among what the author classes as remarkable
"special providences."

"Prescot another favorer of the Petitioners lost a horse and his loading
in Sudbury river, and a week after his wife and children being upon
another horse were hardly saved from drowning." That the kindly hearted
Winthrop could coolly attribute the pitiable disaster of the brave
pioneer to the wrath of God towards the political philosophy of Robert
Child, pictures vividly the bigotry natural to the age and race, a
bigotry which culminated in the horrors of the persecution for
witchcraft. This Sudbury swamp was the lion in the path from the bay
westward during many a decade. In 1645, an earnest petition went up to
the council from Prescott and his associates, complaining that much time
and means had been spent in discovering Nashaway and preparing for the
settlement there, and that on account of the lack of bridge and causeway
at the Sudbury River, the proprietors could not pass to and from the
bay towns--"without exposing our persons to perill and our cattell and
goods to losse and spoyle; as yo'r petitioners are able to make prooffe
of by sad experience of what wee suffered there within these few dayes."
The General Court ordered the bridge and way to be made, "passable for
loaden horse," and allowed twenty pounds to Sudbury, "so it be donne
w'thin a twelve monthe." The twelve month passed and no bridge spanned
the stream. That the dangers and difficulties of the crossing were not
over-stated by the petitioners is proven by the fact that more than one
hundred years afterwards, the bridge and causeway at this place "half a
mile long"--were represented to the General Court as dangerous and in