In the year 1631, a singular event occurred. A very eccentric man, calling himself Sir Christopher Gardner, visited Massachusetts. He was descended, it is said, from the illustrious house of the Bishop of Winchester, and in his extended travels had visited nearly all quarters of the globe. At Jerusalem, he had been made knight of the Holy Sepulchre. Weary, as he said, of the world, and desiring to do penance, by bodily mortification, for his sins, he came to the Pilgrims, offering to perform the most menial services for his living. Still he brought over with him two servants, and a very fine-looking woman whom he called his cousin. He endeavored to join the church, but they would not receive him. Being guilty of conduct for which he was about to be arrested and brought to trial, he fled into the wilderness, and took refuge with the Indians. The Massachusetts authorities offered a reward for his capture and return to them. Some of the Namasket Indians came to Governor Bradford, from the vicinity of Middleborough, and told him where Sir Christopher was, and that they could easily kill him, but could not easily take him alive; that he was a desperate man, and had a gun and sword, and that he would certainly kill some of them should they attempt to take him. The Governor told them by no means to kill him, but to watch their opportunity and to capture him. They did so, and catching him one day by the side of a river, endeavored to surround him. In his attempts to escape, by getting into a canoe to cross the stream, as he presented his musket to his pursuers, to keep them off the frail structure of bark, swept by the current against a rock, turned under him, and he was thrown, with his musket, into the water. Dripping, he reached the shore, his musket no longer of any use, and his only resource the rapier. He brandished that so fiercely that the Indians did not dare close in upon him. They, however, got some long poles, and with blows such as savages would be likely to strike, beat the sword out of his hands, fearfully bruising and mangling them. He being thus disarmed and rendered helpless, they seized him and conveyed him to Governor Bradford. As the Governor looked upon the poor man, with his arms and hands terribly inflamed and swollen, the Indians said: “We did not hurt him; we only whipped him a little with our sticks.” The Governor censured the Indians for beating him so cruelly, and had his wounds tenderly nursed. Some papers upon his person showed that he was a concealed papist, and one who had enjoyed the highest advantages of university education. Governor Winthrop, being informed of his apprehension, caused him to be brought to Massachusetts, and then sent him immediately to England.