This terrible forerunner of the English is alluded to by several of the old writers. It swept the coast from the Fresh Water River to the Penobscot, with a destructiveness like to that witnessed in London a few years later. Sir F. Gorges tells us that the Indians inhabiting the region round about the embouchure of the Saco were sorely afflicted with it, "so that the country was in a manner left void of inhabitants." Vines, Sir Ferdinando's agent, with his companions, slept in the cabins with those that died; but, to their good fortune, as the narrative quaintly sets forth, "not one of them ever felt their heads to ache while they stayed there." This was in the year 1616-'17. Levett says the Indians at "Aquamenticus" were all dead when he was there. Samoset explains, in his broken English, to the Pilgrims that the lawful occupants of Patuxet had, four years before, been swept away by an extraordinary plague. The Indians had never seen or heard of the disease before. Villages withered away when the blight fell upon them; tribes were obliterated, and nations were reduced to tribes. Doubtless, this disaster had much to do with the peaceable settlement of Plymouth, Salem, and Boston. Had the Pilgrims been everywhere resisted, as at Nauset, they could hardly have planted their colony in Plymouth Bay. There was another cause to which the English owed their safety, as related to them by many aged Indians. A French ship had been cast away on Cape Cod. The crew succeeded in landing, but the Indians, less merciful than the sea, butchered all but three of them. Two were ransomed by Dermer, one of Sir F. Gorges's captains. The other remained with the savages, acquired their language, and died among them. Before his death he foretold that God was angry, and would destroy them, and give their heritage to a strange people. They derided him, and answered boastfully, they were so strong and numerous that the Manitou could not kill them all. Soon after the pestilence depopulated the country. Then came the Englishmen in their ships. The savages assembled in a dark swamp, where their conjurors, with incantations lasting several days, solemnly cursed the pale-faces, devoting them to destruction. Thus the English found safety in the superstitious awe of the natives. The story of the terrible plague is as yet unwritten. Governor Bradford says that when Winslow went to confer with Massasoit, he passed by numbers of unburied skulls and bones of those who had died.