The case was withdrawn, and Burroughs was glad to get away.  He preferred the Indians at Casco Bay to the people here.  When we consider, that a committee of the parish petitioned the Court to have such a meeting of the inhabitants; that it was held, by an order of Court, in compliance with said petition; that Burroughs came back to the village to attend it; that the meeting agreed, in answer to an inquiry from him to that effect, to conform to the order of the Court in making it the occasion of a full and final “reckoning” between them; that they spent two days and a half in bringing in and sifting all claims on either side; and that, when, at the time agreed upon,—­the afternoon of the third day,—­the whole body of the inhabitants had come together to ratify and give effect to the “reckoning,” the marshal came in with a writ, and, evidently in violation of his feelings, was forced by John Putnam to arrest Burroughs, thereby breaking up the proceedings asked for by the parish and ordered by the Court, for a debt which he did not owe,—­it must be allowed, that it was one of the most audacious and abominable outrages ever committed.

The scene presented in these documents is perhaps as vivid, and brings the actual life before us as strikingly, as any thing that has come down to us from that day.  We can see, as though we were looking in at the door, the spectacle presented in the old meeting-house:  the farmers gathered from their remote and widely scattered plantations, some possibly coming in travelling family-vehicles,—­although it is quite uncertain whether there were any at that time among the farmers; some in companies on farm-carts; many on foot; but the greater number on horseback, in their picturesque costume of homespun or moose-skin, with cowl-shaped hoods, or hats with a brim, narrow in front, but broad and slouching behind, hanging over the shoulders.  Every man was belted and sworded.  They did not wear weapons merely for show.  There was half a score of men in that assembly who were in the Narragansett fight; and some bore on their persons scars from that bloody scene of desperate heroism.  Every man, it is probable, had come to the meeting with his firelock on his shoulder, to defend himself and companions against Indians lurking in the thick woods through which they had to pass.  Their countenances bespoke the passions to which they had been wrought up by their fierce parish quarrels,—­rugged, severe, and earnest.  We can see the grim bearing of the cavalry lieutenant, John Putnam, and of his elder brother and predecessor in commission.  Marshal Skerry, with his badges of office, is reluctant to execute its functions upon a persecuted and penniless minister; but, in accordance with the stern demands of the inexorable prosecutors, is faithful still to his painful duty.  The minister is the central object in the picture,—­a small, dark-complexioned man, the amazed but calm and patient victim of an animosity in which he had no part, and for which he