“So perfect was the cunning and dissimulation of Opechancanough, that on the morning of this fatal day, the straggling English by his direction were conducted in safety through the woods to their settlements, and presents of venison and fowl were sent in his name to the governor and counsellors, accompanied with expressions of regard and assurances of friendship. ‘Sooner,’ said the wily chieftain, ‘shall the sky fall, than the peace shall be violated on my part.’ “And so entirely were the English duped by these professions and appearances, that they freely lent the Indians their boats, with which they announced the concert, the signal and the hour of attack to their countrymen on the other side of the river. “The fatal hour having at length arrived, and the necessary dispositions having every where taken place; on a signal given, at mid day, innumerable detachments setting up the war-whoop, burst from their concealments on the defenceless settlements of the English, massacreing all they met, without distinction of age or sex; and according to custom mutilating and mangling in a shocking manner the dead bodies of their enemies. “So unexpected and terrible was the onset, that scarcely any resistance was made. The English fell scarcely knowing their enemies, and in many instances by their own weapons. In one hour three hundred and forty-seven men, women, and children, including six of the council and several others of distinction, fell without a struggle, by the hands of the Indians. Chance alone saved the colony from utter extirpation. “A converted Indian, named Chanco, lived with Richard Pace, loved by his master on account of his good qualities, with an affection at once Christian and parental. The night preceding the massacre, the brother of Chanco slept with him; and after a strict injunction of secrecy, having revealed to him the intended plot, he commanded him, in the name of Opechancanough, to murder his master. The grateful Indian, shocked at the atrocity of the proposal, after his brother’s departure, flew to Pace and disclosed to him the information he had received. There was no time to be lost. Before day a despatch was forwarded to the governor at Jamestown, which with the adjacent settlements was thus preserved from the ruin that hung over them. * * * * *