Every settler on whom they laid hands was murdered -- women and children dragged into captivity ; and though the settlements around Fort Amsterdam extended, at this period, thirty English miles to the east, and twenty-one to the north and south, the enemy burned the dwellings, desolated the farms and farm-houses, killed the cattle, destroyed the crops of grain, hay, and tobacco, laid waste the country all around and drove the settlers, panic-stricken, into Fort Amsterdam. 'Mine eyes saw the flames of their towns,' says Roger Williams, 'the frights and hurries of men, women and children, and the present removal of all that could to Holland."b "The assassins," says Bancroft, "were compelled to desire a peace, which was covenanted with the River Ind ians the 2 2d of April, 1643." Tins was principally brought about by the Dutch Patroon de Vries, and not by Roger Williams, as some of the New England historians claim-"

This peace proved unsatisfactory, for we find the Indians again taking up arms.

15th Sept., 1643, it was resolved by the Dutch to renew the war, either by force or stratagem, against the River Indians/'

"A. D. 1644, some of the Stamford people having surprised an

o Bancroft's Hl8t tj. 8. ii. 2S9. 90.

b O't'alliiRhan's Hist. N. N. p. "70. Pliod Maml Hist. Rec. ill. 156. « O'Callaghan's Hist. N. N. p. 2T6. note. d O'Callaghan's Hist p. 2S5.

HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER.

Indian village and taken some prisoners ; one of them an old man, proposed to the Dutch, in hopes ol obtaining a reward, "to lead any of thentroops against the Weckquaesqueecks, who are said to be entrenched in three castles, at the north. Lieutenant Baxter and Sergeant Cock were, thereupon, ordered to proceed under the guidance of this old man, with sixty-five men against this tribe.