That he did this appears from the fact, so singular in Indian history, that among all the Pokanoket tribes, there was scarcely an instance of even an individual broil or quarrel with the English during his long life. Some of these tribes, living nearer the Colony than any other Indians, and going into it daily in such numbers, that Massasoit was finally requested to restrain them from "pestering" their friends by their mere multitude,--these shrewd beings must have perceived, as well as Massasoit himself did, that the colonists were as miserably fearful as they were feeble and few. Some of them, too,--the sachem Corbitant, for example,--were notoriously hostile, and perhaps had certain supposed reasons for being so. Yet _that_ cunning and ambitious savage extricated himself from the only overt act of rebellion he is known to have attempted, by "soliciting the good offices of Massasoit," we are told, "to reconcile him to the 'English." And such was the influence of the chief sachem, not only over him, but over the Massachusetts sachems, that nine of the principal of them soon after came into Plymouth from great distances, for the purpose of signifying their humble respect for the authority of the English. That Massasoit was beloved as well as respected by his subjects and neighbors, far and wide, appears from the great multitude of anxious friends who thronged about him during his sickness; Some of them, as Winslow ascertained, had come more than one hundred miles for the purpose of seeing him; and they all watched _his_ operations in that case, with as intense anxiety as if the prostrate patient had been the father or the brother of each. And meagre as is the justice which history does the sachem, it still furnishes some evidence, not to be mistaken, that he had won this regard from them by his kindness. There is a passage of affecting simplicity in Winslow's Relation, going to show that he did not forget their minutest interests, even in his own almost unconscious helplessness. "That morning," it is said, "he caused me to spend in going from one to another among those that were sick in the town [Sowams]; requesting me to treat them as I had him, and to give to each of them some of the same I gave him, _saying they were good folk._"