“I never was against the righteous use of the civil sword of men or nations, but yet since all men of conscience or prudence ply to windward, to maintain their wars to be defensive, (as did both King and Scotch, and English, and Irish too, in the late wars,) I humbly pray your consideration, whether it be not only possible, but very easy, to live and die in peace with all the natives of this country. “For, secondly, are not all the English of this land, generally, a persecuted people from their native soil? and hath not the God of peace and Father of mercies made these natives more friendly in this, than our native countrymen in our own land to us? Have they not entered leagues of love, and to this day continued peaceable commerce with us? Are not our families grown up in peace amongst them? Upon which I humbly ask, how it can suit with Christian ingenuity to take hold of some seeming occasions for their destructions, which, though the heads be only aimed at, yet, all experience tells us, falls on the body and the innocent. “Thirdly, I pray it may be remembered how greatly the name of God is concerned in this affair, for it cannot be hid, how all England and other nations ring with the glorious conversion of the Indians of New-England. You know how many books are dispersed throughout the nation, of the subject, (in some of them the Narraganset chief sachems are publicly branded, for refusing to pray and be converted;) have all the pulpits in England been commanded to sound of this glorious work, (I speak not ironically, but only mention what all the printed books mention,) and that, by the highest command and authority of Parliament, and church wardens went from house to house, to gather supplies for this work. “Honored Sirs, “Whether I have been and am a friend to the natives’ turning to civility and Christianity, and whether I have been instrumental, and desire so to be, according to my light, I will not trouble you with; only I beseech you consider, how the name of the most holy and jealous God may be preserved between the clashings of these two, viz: the glorious conversion of the Indians in New-England, and the unnecessary wars and cruel destructions of the Indians in New-England. “Fourthly, I beseech you forget not, that although we are apt to play with this plague of war more than with the other two, famine and pestilence, yet I beseech you consider how the present events of all wars that ever have been in the world, have been wonderful fickle, and the future calamities and revolutions, wonderful in the latter end.