The position of the Dutch was perilous in the extreme, and had the Indians known their power the whites would have been swept away. Governor Kieft now solicited aid from New England, offering a large sum for men and arms and proposing that New Netherland should be mortgaged to secure the i)ayment of the money. They received the aid, however, of only a few English volunteers. Two companies, one of sixty-five and one of seventy-five men, were soon organized, and the work of retaliation commenced. Quantities of corn were captured upon Staten and Long Islands and an expedition sailed to Greenwich, in Connecticut, and marched through our eastern borders, but accomplished nothing beyond the burning of two forsaken castles and some corn. From these ex])editions prisoners were taken to Fort Amsterdam, where they were treated with shocking cruelty, as is recorded in the " Breeden Raedt." A more formidable expedition was then organized. Hearing that a large number of Indians were assembled at their village on the Mehanas, near the present village of Bedford, the force was taken in sailing-vessels to Greenwich and then marched through the snow to their destination, which was reached about midnight. The village consisted of three rows of houses ranged in streets, each eighty paces long. The village was surrounded, the surprised Indians were shot down as soon as they appeared and the houses were set on fire. The inmates preferred to perish in the flames rather than to fall by their enemy's weapons. In this merciless manner five hundred human beings were butchered. Other statements carry the number to seven hundred. The militarj' power of the Indians was now broken and thereafter warlike operations ceased. On the 30th of the following August, 1645, a general treaty of peace was concluded between the Dutch and the Indians of the Lower Hudson, and signed by their respective chiefs -- Aepjen, the grand sachem of the Mohegans, representing his people.