I 



THE RETROSPECT OF THE YEAR. 2l 



friend, and a friend to us all), is a second Burrow. The 

 Lord established him, and us all, in every good way of 

 truth I . . . 



Yours in the Lord Christ, 



Samuel Fuller. 

 Massachusetts, June 28, Anno 1630." 



I fear Governor Endecott was not able during his life- 

 time to make to Plymouth any return of a favor of this 

 magnitude, but he was only ten years in his grave when 

 King Philip's war broke out ; when that dusky strategist 

 and statesman, — the first expounder, as I take it, of the 

 Monroe Doctrine on this continent, began swinging the 

 tomahawk, without discrimination, over fighters and skulk- 

 ers, babes and mothers, patriarchs and preachers ; letting 

 his bludgeon tall, like the rains of heaven, alike on the 

 just and on the unjust in this Plj^mouth Colon}'. Blazing 

 Medfield was rolled up like a scroll, and pillage and mas- 

 sacre seemed to wait on what was spared by fire. If ever 

 a struggling colony wanted help, Plymouth wanted help 

 at that hour. Providence had favored us at that hour with 

 a doughty champion in the person of Captain Joseph Gard- 

 ner — the " Fighting Joe " of the period — who buckled on 

 his harness, and mustered his musketeers, and marched 

 out at the head of a gallant train-band from his home in 

 Salem, — that home not three doors off from the present 

 quarters of the Essex Institute, — to do and to die in effec- 

 tive battle for the safety of the Plymouth Colony, and 

 there, in Xarragansett Swamj), to render up a dearly valued 

 lite inside the palisado breastworks of the savage chief- 

 tain. I thank you, sir, for the opportunity of a word ; 

 and you, gentlemen, my listeners, for your courtesy and 

 patience in permitting me to refresh your recollections on 

 two events which should forever bind together the desti- 

 nies of Eastern Massachusetts. 



