HEARKEN to the words of your father. I am an old oak that has withstood the storms of more than a hundred winters. Leaves and branches have been stripped from me by the winds and frosts. My eyes are dim. My limbs totter. I must soon fall!
But when young and strong, my bow could be bent by no young man of the Pennacooks. My arrows would pierce a deer at a hundred yards, and I could bury my hatchet in a sapling up to the handle.
No wigwam then had so many furs. No pole had so many scalp locks as Passaconnaway's!147 Then I delighted in war. The whoop of the Pennacooks was heard upon the Mohawk and no voice so loud as Passaconnaway's. The scalps upon the pole of my wigwam told the story of Mohawk suffering.
The English came, they seized our lands; I sat me down at Pennacook. They followed upon my footsteps. I made war upon them, but they fought with fire and thunder.148 My young men were swept down before me, when no one was near them.
I tried magic against them, but they still increased and got the better of me and mine.149 I gave place to them and came to my beautiful island of Natticook.
I, that can make the dry leaf turn green and live again I, that can take the rattlesnake in my palm as I would a worm, without harm I, who have had communion with the Great Spirit dreaming and awake I am powerless before the pale faces. The oak will soon break before the whirlwind. It shivers and
Then think, my children, of what I say. I commune with the Great Spirit. He whispers to me now: "Tell your people peace, peace, is the only hope of your race. I have given fire and thunder to the pale faces for weapons. I have made them plentier than the leaves of the forest, and still shall they increase!
These meadows shall turn with the plough. These forests shall fall by the axe. The pale faces shall live upon your hunting-grounds, and make their villages upon your fishing-places!" The Great Spirit says this and it must be so!
We are few and powerless before them ! We must bend before the storm! The wind blows hard! The old oak trembles! Its branches are gone! Its sap is frozen! It bends! It falls! Peace, peace with the white men is the command of the Great Spirit and the wish the last wish of Passaconnaway.