DEAR AND WORTHY SIR,

To let you know something of our affairs, you may understand that the Pequots have sent some of theirs to us, to desire our friendship, and offered much wampum and beaver, etc. The first messengers were dismissed without answer; with the next we had divers days’ conference, and taking the advice of some of our ministers, and seeking the Lord in it, we concluded a peace and friendship with them, upon these conditions, That they should deliver up to us those men who were guilty of Stone’s death, etc., and if we desired to plant in Connecticut, they should give up their right to us, and we would send to trade with them as our friends, which was the chief thing we aimed at, they being now at war with the Dutch, and the rest of their neighbours. To this they readily agreed; and that we should mediate a peace between them and the Narragansets, for which end they were content we should give the Narragansets part of the present they would bestow on us; for they stood so much on their honour, as they would not be seen to give anything of themselves. As for Capt. Stone, they told us there were but two left of those who had any hand in his death, and that they killed him in a just quarrel; for, said they, he surprised two of our men, and bound them, to make them by force to show him the way up the river, and he, with two others, coming on shore, nine Indians watched them, and when they were asleep in the night they killed them, to deliver their own men; and some of them, going afterwards to the bark, it was suddenly blown up. We are now preparing a bark to send unto them.¹⁵

Yours, ever assured,
John Winthrop.

Boston, March 12, 1634.

Not long after these things, Mr. John Oldham, of whom much is spoken before, being now an inhabitant of the Massachusetts, went, with a small vessel, and slenderly manned, on trading on those south parts; and, upon a quarrel between him and the Indians, was cut off by them, in such manner as hath been forenoted, at an island called by the Indians Manisses, by the English, Block Island. This, with the former, about the death of Stone, and the baffling of the Pequots with the English of the Massachusetts, moved them to take revenge, and to require satisfaction for these wrongs; but it took little effect; some of the murderers of Mr. Oldham fled to the Pequots, and although the English went to the Pequots, and had some parley with them, yet they did but delude them; and the English returned without doing any thing to purpose, being frustrated of their opportunity by their deceit. After the English of the Massachusetts were returned, the Pequots took their time and opportunity to cut off some of the English at Connecticut, as they passed up and down upon their occasions; and tortured some of them, in putting them to death in the most barbarous manner, and most blasphemously, in this their cruelty, bade them call upon their God, or mocked and derided them when they so did; and, not long after, assaulted them at their houses and habitations, as will appear more fully in the ensuing relation.

1637.

In the forepart of this year, the Pequots fell openly upon the English at Connecticut, in the lower parts of the river, and slew sundry of them, as they were at work in the fields, both men and women, to the great terror of the rest; and went away in great pride and triumph with many threats. They also assaulted Say- brook fort, at the mouth of the river of Connecticut, although it was strong and well defended. It struck them with much fear and astonishment, to see their bold attempts in the face of danger, which made them in all places to stand upon their guard, and to prepare for resistance, and earnestly to solicit their friends and confederates in the Massachusetts Bay, to send them speedy aid, for they looked for more forcible assaults. Mr. Vane, being then governor of that jurisdiction, writ from their general court to the governor and court of New Plimouth, to join with them in war, to which they were cordially willing. In the mean time, before things could be prepared for to set out, the Pequots, as they had done the winter before, sought to make peace with the Narragansets, and used many pernicious arguments to move them thereunto, as that the English were strangers, and began to overspread their country, and would deprive them thereof in time, if they were suffered to grow and increase; and if the Narragansets did assist the English to subdue them, that did but make way for their own overthrow; for if they were rooted