AS WIVES AND SERVANTS. 426

to be dragged out and have their brains knocked out, and then te
be eaten up like a calf that is killed for a dainty.

The first thing they did was to cause the old Indian, Friday’s
father, to go in and see first if he knew any of them, and then if
he understood any of their speech. As soon as the old man came
in, he looked seriously at them, but knew none of them; neither
could any of them understand a word he said or a sign he could
make, except one of the women.

However, this was enough to answer the end, which was to
satisfy them that the men into whose hands they were fallen were
Christians ; that they abhorred cating of men or women, and that
they might be sure they would not be killed. As soon as they
were assured of this, they discovered such joy, and by such awk-
ward and several ways as is hard to describe; for it seems they
were of several nations.

The woman, who was their interpreter, was bid in the next
place to ask them if they were willing to be servants, and to work
for the men who had brought them away to save their lives; at
which they all fell a dancing ; and presently one fell to taking up
this, and another that, or anything that lay next, to carry on their
shoulders, to intimate that they were willing to work.

The governor, who found that the having women among them
would presently be attended with some inconvenience, and might
occasion some strife, and perhaps blood, asked the three men what
they intended to do with these women, and how they intended to
use them—whether as servants oras women. One of the Hnglish-
men answered very boldly and readily, “That they would use them
as both.” To which the governor said, “I am not going to
restrain you from it; you are your own masters as to that. But
this I think is but just, for avoiding disorders and quarrels amongst
you, and I desire it of you for that reason only, namely, that you
will all engage that if any of you take any of these women as a
woman or wife, that he shall take but one; and that having taken
one, none else shall touch her: for thongh we cannot marry any of
you, yet ’tis but reasonable that while you stay here, the woman
any of you takes should be maintained by the man that takes her,
and should be his wife; I mean,” says he, “ while he continues