his gun under him." They "drew him through the mud to the upland;
and a doleful, great, naked dirty beast he looked like." The head
brought only thirty shillings at Plymouth: "scanty reward and
poor encouragement," thought Captain Church. William Hubbard, the
minister of Ipswich, wrote a comprehensive "Narrative of the
Troubles with the Indians in New England," bringing the history
down to 1677. Under the better known title of "Indian Wars," this
fervid and dramatic tale, penned in a quiet parsonage, has
stirred the pulses of every succeeding generation. The close of
King Philip's War, 1676, coinciding as it does with Bacon's
Rebellion in Virginia, marks an era in the development of our
independent life. The events of that year, in the words of
Professor Tyler, "established two very considerable facts,
namely, that English colonists in America could be so provoked as
to make physical resistance to the authority of England, and,
second, that English colonists in America could, in the last
resort, put down any combination of Indians that might be formed
against them. In other words, it was then made evident that
English colonists would certainly be safe in the new world, and
also that they would not always be colonists."

While the end of an historical or literary era cannot always be
thus conveniently indicated by a date, there is no doubt that the
final quarter of the seventeenth century witnessed deep changes
in the outward life and the inner temper of the colonists. The
"first fine careless rapture" was over. Only a few aged men could
recall the memory of the first settlements. Between the founding
of Jamestown and the rebellion under the leadership of Nathaniel
Bacon almost seventy years had intervened, an interval
corresponding to that which separates us from the Mexican War.