Having accurately performed divine service to the end, I presented the savages, as if they had politely come to visit me, with any little gifts that were at hand, but failed to elicit from them what their intentions were, though I could not but suspect them to be of the very worst nature; for they examined every corner of my house, impudently attempted, in my presence, to pull up the stakes with which it was surrounded, and tried whether they could burst open the wooden door of the chapel with their shoulders. Meanwhile, I smilingly looked on, and took especial care to prevent the suspicions of my mind from appearing in my countenance; knowing that the greatest coward is inspired with courage if he perceives himself an object of terror. I boasted of our intrepidity and skill in archery, displayed a store of arms, and a variety of leaden bullets, and descanted upon the wonderful power of the musket, which reaches the most distant objects, and penetrates and demolishes the hardest substances. The Governor, on leaving the colony, had given me, for the defence of the inhabitants, one of those very small cannon which are fixed to the prows of ships; to load this, he had furnished me with eight charges of gunpowder, fifteen bullets, but only one iron ball, weighing scarce half a pound, which, to deprive them of all inclination to assault the colony, I gave to the savages to handle and look at. When they came to visit me in my apartment, "Oh, how heavy it is," they exclaimed: "what a hole it would make in a man's body!"