In this
posture I fetched a compass to my right hand of near a mile, as
well to get over the creek as to get into the wood, so that I could
come within shot of them before I should be discovered, which I had
seen by my glass it was easy to do.
While I was making this march, my former thoughts returning, I
began to abate my resolution: I do not mean that I entertained any
fear of their number, for as they were naked, unarmed wretches, it
is certain I was superior to them - nay, though I had been alone.
But it occurred to my thoughts, what call, what occasion, much less
what necessity I was in to go and dip my hands in blood, to attack
people who had neither done or intended me any wrong? who, as to
me, were innocent, and whose barbarous customs were their own
disaster, being in them a token, indeed, of God's having left them,
with the other nations of that part of the world, to such
stupidity, and to such inhuman courses, but did not call me to take
upon me to be a judge of their actions, much less an executioner of
His justice - that whenever He thought fit He would take the cause
into His own hands, and by national vengeance punish them as a
people for national crimes, but that, in the meantime, it was none
of my business - that it was true Friday might justify it, because
he was a declared enemy and in a state of war with those very
particular people, and it was lawful for him to attack them - but I
could not say the same with regard to myself.
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