This request Stuyvepermitted to remain until after harvest. but promised that if they would agree to palisade sant refused ;

at once the ground to be selected for a village, he would

remain

with them until the work was completed.

While these proceedings were being held, some twelve or fifteen Indians, accompanied

by two of their chiefs, arrived at

the house of Stol, where the director was staying, with word that other sachems were deterred from coming to the conference

which he had invited through fear of the soldiers. Stuyvesant gave his assurance that no harm should befall them, when about fifty

additional Indians, with a few women and children, made

their appearance,

and seated themselves beneath an aged tree

which stood without the fence, " about a stone's throw from the house." Accompanied only by an interpreter and two of his followers, Stuyvesant went out and seated himself in the " and made midst of the when one of, the chiefs

Indians, arose, a long harangue," detailing the events of the war waged in Kieft's time (1645), and how many of their tribe the Dutch

had then slain, adding, however, that they had obliterated these things from their hearts and forgotten them. 1

all

Stuyvesant replied to this address, that those things had oc curred before his time, and that the recollection of them had

been u all thrown away" by the subsequent peace.

He asked

them, however, if any injury had been done them, in person or The Indians property, since he had come into the country. remained silent.