Mr. Hawley had been deflected by the French wars from work among the Iroquois, in contrast to whom the Mashpees “appeared abject,” he thought. “A half naked savage were less disagreeable than Indians who had lost their independence.” But he might better have been thankful for that civilization which his predecessors had made possible: for the less trouble was his, and his Indian parishioners gave him, moreover, valid title to two hundred acres of their best land. He lived among them for fifty years, and is said to have “possessed great dignity of manner and authority of voice, which had much influence.” And his Indians, though “abject,” did him credit. In 1760 one Reuben Cognehew presented himself at the Georgian court with a protest against the colonial governor, and returned with orders to treat the Indians better; and in the Revolution, Hawley said, more than seventy of the Mashpee women were made widows. In his old age he wrote a letter full of a humorous philosophy that must have stood him in good stead through his long ministry: “Retired as I am, and at my time of life I need amusement. I read, but my eyes soon become weary. I converse, but it is with those who have my threadbare stories by rote. In such case what can I do? I walk, but soon become weary. I cannot doze away my time upon the bed of sloth, nor nod in my elbow chair.” He contemplates his fowl and observing “how great an underling one of the cocks was made by Cockran and others of the flock I pitied his fate, and concluded to take an active part in his favor.” Whereupon Master Cockerel “gathered courage with his strength, sung his notes, and enjoyed his amours in consequence of my action. But alas! to the terror and amazement of the whole company he in his turn became an intolerant tyrant. The Archon had better understanding than I and I have determined not to meddle in the government of hens in future, nor overturn establishments. Cocks will be cocks. As the sage Indian said, ‘Tucks will be tucks, though old hen he hatch ’em!’” As for other animals, though “Milton, full of his notions, supposes that a change in consequence of Adam’s fall passed upon them,” Mr. Hawley notes them much of the “same nature that they had before the Revolution in this country, and that important one now regenerating the Old World, as it is called; and under every form of government and dispensation, men will be men.”