Morton writes in his New English Canaan: “Some few years before the English came to inhabit in New Plymouth, the hand of God fell heavily upon the natives, with such a mortal stroke that they died on heaps. In a place where many inhabited there hath been but one left alive to tell what became of the rest. And the bones and skulls upon the several places of their habitations made such a spectacle, after my coming into these parts, that as I travelled in that forest, near the Massachusetts, it seemed to me a new-found Golgotha.” In view of these facts it was stated, in the Great Patent of New England, granted by King James, on the 3d of November, 1820, “We have been further given certainly to know, that within these late years there hath, by God’s visitation, reigned a wonderful plague amongst the savages there heretofore inhabiting, in a manner to the utter destruction, devastation and depopulation of that whole territory, so as there is not left, for many leagues together, in a manner, any that do claim or challenge any kind of interest therein. Whereby we, in our judgment, are persuaded and satisfied that the appointed time is come in which Almighty God, in his great goodness and bounty towards us and our people, hath thought fit and determined, that these large and goodly territories, deserted as it were by their natural inhabitants, should be possessed and enjoyed by such of our subjects and people as shall, by his mercy and favor, and by his powerful arm, be directed and conducted thither.” All the afternoon was spent in earnest communication with Samoset. He told them that the Nausites, by whom they had been attacked, numbered about one hundred souls. There was a powerful tribe, called the Wampanoags, upon the shores of what is now called Bristol Bay. Their chief, Massasoit, was so powerful that he exercised a sort of supremacy over many of the tribes in the vicinity. There was another numerous tribe, not far from the Wampanoags, called the Narragansets. Samoset does not seem to have known, or if so, was not willing to tell the number of Indians lurking in the woods around the Pilgrim settlement. The mystery of their conduct was, however, in some degree revealed, when the Pilgrims were informed that the Indians, with their priests, had met in a dark swamp, in a general pow-wow, hoping by their curses and incantations to destroy the white men. On the whole, the information communicated by Samoset was encouraging. It led them to hope that their foes were not so numerous as they feared, that they regarded, with superstitious dread, the God of the white man, and that they were rather disposed to rely upon witchcraft and incantations, in their warfare upon the new-comers, than upon more material and dangerous weapons. Had the Indians known what ravages death was making in the huts of the Pilgrims, they would have felt assured that their magic arts were signally successful.