The _second_ charge comes from the cannon story: that the men at the fort induced the Indians to man the drag-ropes, and to stand in the line of direction of the piece aimed for execution; and then fired off the piece upon the whole body of the unfortunates, when thus "in line, and blew them to atoms." This is a tale of woe rather tougher than the quoted Williamson gives it,--who is inclined to discredit it. But is even Williamson's reluctant account true? The best reply to this allegation of horror is to be found in the narrative of the Jesuits, in 1611, who went to the Kennebec by the inland passage, in quest of corn. The Indians met them. They gave them an account of their treatment of the colonists, whom they represented as having been defeated by them. They "flattered" the French, saying that "they loved them well;" and, to gain their favor, told them how the English drove them from their doors and tables with clubs, and made their dogs bite them. All this might have been done for protection, under a renewal of the hostile attitude assumed by the natives on Gilbert's trip up the Androscoggin. The French were good listeners to any charge against English Protestants. Now, if this story about the cannon had been as true as its reality would have been cruel, why should not these Indians have told its barbarities to such good auditors? A cannon ball, with the explosion from the muzzle, would have made a more damaging narrative than a club or a dog-bite. Yet no syllable of the great event is recorded, while the little ones are faithfully chronicled to the disparagement of the Protestants. It is doubtful whether any cruelties did occur so utterly at variance with the known kind treatment of them by the "worthy" President. For the Jesuits say of these Indians, that they were "flatterers," and "the greatest speech-makers (_harangueurs_) in the world." When they had encouraged their visitors (_honied_ them, _emmieloyent_) with promises of grain, they put them off by trucking in beaver.[6] Such witnesses do not amount to much; and, if Mr. Parkman uses the language of your correspondent in calling these uncertain incidents "the most shocking barbarities," it might be well wished that so able and interesting a historian as he, had given the brief narrative itself, rather than to have derived such a "theory" from its statements. Were there no "shocking barbarities" elsewhere against the natives? The first known utterance of this cannon story was made in Massachusetts, about seventy years after its asserted occurrence.