Indians; but though the Government obtained the arrest of the murderers, the jury would not find them guilty. The Wamesit Indians fled into the forest, and sent a piteous letter:--"We are not sorry for what we leave behind, but we are sorry that the English have driven us from our praying to God and from our teacher. We did begin to understand praying to God a _little_." They were invited back, but were afraid to come till cold and hunger drove them to their old abode, and then the indefatigable Eliot and Gookin visited them, and did all in their power to bring about a better feeling towards them in Chelmsford. This whole autumn and winter--a terribly severe one--seems to have been spent by these good men in trying to heal the strifes between the English and the Indians. Wanalanset had fled, true to his father's policy of never resisting, and they were sent to invite him back again; but when he returned, he found that the maize grounds of his settlement had been ploughed up by the English and sown with rye, so that his tribe had most scanty subsistence. Several settlements of Christians were deported to Deer Island. One large party had been made prisoners by their heathen countrymen and had managed to escape, but when met with wandering in the woods by a party of English soldiers, were plundered of the little the heathens had left them, in especial of a pewter cup, their communion plate, which Mr. Eliot had given them, and which was much treasured by their native pastor. The General interfered in their behalf, but could not protect them from much ill-usage. The teacher was sent with his old father and young children to Boston, where Mr. Eliot saw and cheered him before he was conveyed to Deer Island. There, in December, Eliot, with Gookin and other friends, frequently visited the Indians, now five hundred in number, and found them undergoing many privations, but patient, resigned, and unmurmuring. The snow was four feet deep in the woods by the 10th of December that year, and the exertion and exposure of travelling, either on snow-shoes or sledges, must have been tremendous to a man of Mr. Eliot's age; but he never seems to have intermitted his labours in carrying spiritual and temporal succour to his people, and in endeavouring to keep the peace between them and the English.