[Pioneers and Founders by Charlotte Mary Yonge]@TWC D-Link bookPioneers and Founders CHAPTER I 10/45
An annual tribute of a length of wampum, for every male in the tribe, varying according to age and rank, was paid to the English, and their supremacy was so entirely established that nearly forty years of peace succeeded. Eliot's missionary enterprise, Mather allows, was first inspired by the "remarkable zeal of the Romish missionaries," by whom he probably means the French Jesuits, who were working with much effect in the settlements in Louisiana, first occupied in the time of Henri IV.
Another stimulus came from the expressions in the Royal Charter which had granted licence for the establishment of the colony, namely, "To win and incite the natives of that country to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of mankind and the Christian faith, in our Royal intention and the Adventurers' free profession, is the principal end of the Plantation." That the devil himself was the Red men's master, and came to their assistance when summoned by the incantations of their medicine men, was the universal belief of the colonists, in corroboration of which the following story is given:--"The Indians in their wars with us, finding a sore inconvenience by our dogs, which would make a sad yelling if in the night they scented the approaches of them, they sacrificed a dog to the devil, after which no English dog would bark at an Indian for divers months ensuing." In the intended contest Mr.Eliot began by preaching and making collections from the English settlers, and likewise "he hires a native to teach him this exotick language, and, with a laborious care and skill, reduces it into a grammar, which afterwards he published.
There is a letter or two of our alphabet which the Indians never had in theirs; though there were enough of the dog in their temper, there can scarce be found an R in their language,.
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