having a controversy pending with Uncas, visited the Manhat tans with an hundred men, and passed through all the Mablcan villages to secure their alliance for'the destruction of his rival.

The Dutch, however, gave to him a different mission.

From a

whispered suspicion it grew to public clamor, that the embassy had no less an object than to secure the union of all the Indians in a

"

general

war against both the English and the Dutch."

The story spread to New England, where its falsity was demon-

THE INDIAN TRIBES

strated ; x but in the meanwhile the inhabitants at

New Amster

dam saw the hand of hostile Indians in every thing

;

believed

that they had attempted to destroy the settlement by setting fire to its powder-magazine,

and the director by poisoning him " or

enchanting him by their deviltry." The storm passed over only to be succeeded by another.

The

Hackinsacks and Tappans had hitherto escaped special irritating collisions with the Dutch. True, the Tappans had resisted the

attempt to place them under tribute, but this attempt appears to have been abandoned. De Vries 3 had settled among the latter, after the

disaster

which

him on Staten

befel

kindly treatment had won their confidence. however, forced them to take up the hatchet.

and by Circumstances, island,

Contrary to the

advice of the director, and in .opposition to the wishes of a ma jority of the Hackinsacks^ one Myndert Van der Horst pur chased a tract near Communipaw and made settlement thereon.