messengers brought back his answer, to the effect, 1. that he acknowledged to "have broken his covenant these two years, and that it was, and had been, the constant grief of his spirit;" 2. that he was prevented by illness (which, however, the messengers said they saw no signs of) from presenting himself to the Commissioners; 3. that he sent Ninigret, with full powers to act for him; 4. that "when he made his covenant, he did it in fear of the army that he did see."

Ninigret appeared, and argued the question anew. "He first pretended ignorance, as if he had not known what covenants had been made." Then he "asked, for what the Narragansetts should pay so much wampum." The ground having been patiently gone over again with him, he professed that he "was resolved to give the Colonies due satisfaction in all things," and sent away some of his followers to collect the wampum which remained due. They returned in two or three weeks with only a small portion of it. Ninigret alleged that this deficiency was owing to his absence. The Commissioners took him at his word, and dismissed him with the threat, that, "if they brought not a thousand fathom more within twenty days, the Commissioners would send no more messengers, but take course to right themselves, as they saw cause, in their own time." They then set the hostages at liberty.1

Aug. 16.

Whether or not the savages were hoping and scheming for an opportunity to settle their account by an exterminating war, another year passed, and the account still remained unsettled, while the colonists continued to receive alarming intelligence of attempts of the Narragansetts to engage the powerful and mercenary Mohawks in the service of their revenge. For three years longer,

1 Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 76- Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 105-107. 80, 96. The Narragansetts, it seems, did not 2 Winthrop, II. 333, 334; comp. now even spare their old friends at War

power; and

1650.

Sept. 5.

a repetition of remonstrances and menaces by the English obtained nothing more than an uncertain and anxious peace. A Narragansett Indian, seized in an attempt to assassinate their ally, Uncas, affirmed that he had been bribed to the deed by the chiefs of his tribe.1 The Commissioners became apprehensive of the effect of further delaying to bring to an issue the question of they "thought meet, and agreed, to keep the Colonies from contempt among the Indians, and to prevent their improving the said wampum to hire other Indians to join with themselves, that twenty men well armed should be sent out of the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts to Pessacus, to demand the said wampum, and, upon refusal or delay, to take the same, or the value thereof, in the best and most suitable goods they could find." "If other means were wanting," the officer was instructed, "with as little hurt as might tion against be," to "seize and bring away either Pessacus the Narraor his children." Captain Atherton, accordingly, led twenty men through the woods to the sachem's wigwam. Leaving them at the entrance, he went in, and announced the purpose of his visit. The savage would have begun another conference; but Atherton, seizing him by the hair, led him out with one hand, while, with a cocked pistol in the other, he overawed his attendants. This demonstration was decisive. The wampum was paid on the spot, and for the present the machinations of the Narragansetts seemed to be disconcerted.

"2

Decisive ac

gansetts.

In New Haven and Connecticut, where the Indians near the towns were more numerous than in Massachu

wick. (Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 135.) Probably they were incensed against Gorton (who had lately returned from England) when they found how illusory were those promises of his, of protection from the King, by accepting which they had offended the other Colonies.

131.

Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 129

2 Ibid., 151, 152.

* I relate this episode after Mather (Magnalia, Book VII. Chap. VI. § 4). Valeat quantum. — Atherton was understood to know the Narragansetts well. See above, pp. 132, 226; below, p. 329.

Indian troubles in New Haven and Connecticut.

setts and Plymouth, they were also more bold and troublesome. They were especially annoying near the western border, where the vicinity of the Dutch at once kept them in a state of constant irritation, and afforded them some security against the resentment of the English. A party of them murdered an Englishman near Fairfield. It was reported that the crew of a shipwrecked vessel had been killed by the savages on Long Island.1 A native went into a house at Stamford, and with a hammer inflicted blows on a woman's head, which permanently destroyed her reason. He was taken and executed, but not till his friends had made such hostile demonstrations as had occasioned aid to be summoned from New Haven and the river towns.2 An Indian declared that Sequasson, sachem of Sicaiog (Hartford), had offered him a bribe to murder Mr. Haynes, Mr. Hopkins, and Mr. Whiting, Magistrates of Connecticut.3 Fires were set by some savages in Windsor and in Milford; and, when one of them was caught, his comrades rescued him.4 At Stamford also, and at Southampton, they gratified their sanguinary instincts.5 Underhill had been hunting them in the service of the Dutch, and their resentment did not distinguish between the races of foreigners. The people of Connecticut and New Haven had to keep perpetual watch and ward.

1646.

1648, 1649.

New settlements in

The new settlement of Branford, a few miles east of New Haven, and that of Farmington, a short distance from Hartford to the west, increased the number of the towns in the Colonies of New Haven and Connecticut respectively. Branford

the western
Colonies.
16

1 N. H. Rec., I. 134; Records, &c., missioners, however, do not appear to in Hazard, II. 128. have, on reflection, believed this story. * Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 6264; Trumbull, I. 160.

Winthrop, II. 188, 189; Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 23.

Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 59-61; comp. Winthrop, 332, 333. The Com

was established by a junction of two companies; of which one came from Southampton, on Long Island, the other was composed of Wethersfield men who were dissatisfied with some ecclesiastical proceedings in that place. Among the planters at Farmington were some of the most esteemed citizens of Hartford.

A more important extension of the settlements of Connecticut was made in the opposite direction, under the auspices of a man who brought to her a large accession of means and of character. John Winthrop, the younger, returning from England to Massachusetts, "brought with him a thousand pounds stock, and divers work- 1643. men, to begin an iron-work." He formed a jointstock company; the General Court encouraged the enterprise, as "much conducing to the good of the country," by voting them land, a monopoly of the article for twentyone years, and "freedom from public charges, trainings, &c. ;" and a beginning was made at Braintree.

Plantation

the younger at Pequot River.

1646.

For a time the project excited great expectation; but the prime mover in it must be supposed to have been disappointed; for, after three years, we find him to have transferred his attention to another ob- of Winthrop ject. By him and "Mr. Thomas Peter, a minister, brother to Mr. Peter of Salem," "a plantation was begun at Pequot River;" and the General Court of Massachusetts gave authority "to them two for ordering and governing the plantation till further order." It was known that Connecticut, on some grounds not yet considered, made a claim to the territory. But "it mattered not to which jurisdiction it did belong, seeing the confederation made all as one; but it was of great concernment to have it planted, to be a curb to the Indians, &c." It was at the very doors of Uncas, who, with all

2

1 See Vol. I. 613; comp. Winthrop, &c., in Hazard, II. 71. "Pequot harII. 212, 213, App. A. 69. bor and the lands adjoining" had early

* Winthrop, II. 266; comp. Records, been had in view as an advantageous

his motives for obsequiousness to the English, had to be looked after with a sleepless eye. At his new residence, Winthrop was but thirty miles distant from the Narragansett home of Roger Williams, which lay in the most convenient road between the western and the Atlantic settlements. The place was called by the Indians Nameaug. Winthrop would have had his settlement remain a dependency of Massachusetts; but the Commissioners, on a reconsideration of the subject, "concluded July 26. that the jurisdiction of that plantation doth and ought to belong to Connecticut;"1 and presently afterwards he received a commission from the General Court of that Colony to execute justice according to their laws and the rules of righteousness.

1647.

Sept. 9.

place for a settlement. (Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 17.) The Records of the General Court of Massachusetts, for October 7, 1640, (I. 304,) have the following entry: "Mr. John Winthrop, jr. is granted Fisher's Island, against the mouth of Pequot River, so far as is in our power, reserving the right of Connecticut and Saybrook;" and Connecticut confirmed the grant six months later. (Conn. Rec., I. 64.) June 28, 1644, the General Court of Massachusetts ordered "that Mr. John Winthrop, jr. . . . . . should have liberty to make a plantation in the Pequot country, with such others as should present themselves to join in the said plantation, and they should enjoy such liberties as were necessary, and other far remote plantations did enjoy; and also to lay out a convenient place for ironworks, provided that a convenient number of persons to carry on the said plantation did appear to prosecute the same within three years." (Mass. Rec., II. 71.) Within the appointed time a convenient number did appear. Winthrop was on the spot, probably for an inspection of it, in June, 1645, as appears from a letter

"2

of Roger Williams, addressed to him there. (Knowles, 207.) As early as September, 1646, some few families being gone to the new plantation at Pequot, some of them kept in the Indians' wigwams there, while their own houses were building" (Winthrop, II. 276; comp. Mass. Rec., III. 76); and Winthrop joined them, going by water from Boston to his "new habitation,' in the following month. (Winthrop, II. App. A. 65.) Peter was not permanently an associate of the new planters. He went to England not long after November, 1646, (New England's Salamander, 17,) and never returned.

Davenport and his friends at New Haven were in great hope that Winthrop would take up his abode with them; and for a while he seems to have entertained thoughts of gratifying them. They went so far as to provide a house for him in their town. The benefit of his medical knowledge and skill was extremely desired. (See Davenport's letters to him, in Mass. Hist. Coll., XXIX. 294, 297; XXX. 6, 8, 11-15, 21-25.).

1 Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 87. 2 Conn. Rec., I. 157; comp. 164.