The troops had been sent mainly on the representations of Captain Daniel Patrick, of Greenwich, and to him the disappointed Dutchmen looked for an explanation. On a Sunday afternoon, during the hour of sen-ice, a Dutch soldier met the captain at Stamford, and, after stating that the troops had been deluded, openly charged him with treachery. The captain threw back the insult with some rough words, and spat in his accuser's face; but as he turned on his heel the Dutchman drew a pistol and shot him dead.

Some Stamford men, who seemed nettled at the taunts of the Dutch, volunteered to discover the place where the Indians lay concealed. Four scouts went out, who 60on returned, and conducted a party of twenty-five to an Indian village, where about twenty savages were killed; and an old man, two squaws, and some children made prisoners. The old man offered to show the Dutch the way to Wetquescheck, an Indian stronghold consisting of three castles constructed of plank five inches thick, nine feet high, and braced all around by heavy timbers, pierced for small arms. Sixty-five men, under the command of Lieutenant Baxter and Sergeant Cock, following the old man's guidance, cautiously approached the castles, expecting a formidable resistance; but, to their surprise, they found the stronghold deserted. The over-prudent Indians had retreated, leaving the Dutch to burn two of the castles, a small quantity of stores, kill one or two men, and take a few women and children prisoners.

Meanwhile Pennewitz, of Long Island, one of the oldest and most experienced chiefs in the country, and who, in the first war, had proposed to slaughter the Dutch in a single night, was secretly acting a hostile part, and had already killed a number of Christians and burnt numerous barns. It was therefore resolved to send a force of one hundred and twenty men towards Heemstede (Hempstead), the English under command of Underhill, the Dutch under Peter Cock, and all