For mine own part, were it my business to draw a sword, I should reckon it sinful to fight under such a banner.

Neither can I, in my pulpit, ask the blessing of Heaven upon it." Such, probably, was the way in which Roger Williams and John Endicott used to talk about the banner of the Red Cross.

Endicott, who was a prompt and resolute man, soon determined that Massachusetts, if she could not have a banner of her own, should at least be delivered from that of the Pope of Rome.
Not long afterwards there was a military muster at Salem.

Every able-bodied man, in the town and neighborhood, was there.

All were well armed, with steel caps upon their heads, plates of iron upon their breasts and at their backs, and gorgets of steel around their necks.