refer the matter to their castles.

;

but they would

little

faith in the

French, however, for they made treaties and did not observe them ; and when hunting parties of the Mohawks were abroad, they were attacked by the French Indians, among whom a number of Frenchmen were always skulking to knock them on

In their request that the Mohawks would not aid the Esopus clans in an attack upon the Dutch, the embassadors

the head.

were more successful, the chiefs promising that they would re fuse their belts and have nothing to do with them. 1

In the meantime

had broken out

hostilities

in the

Esopus

Chambers 2 had employed a number of Indians to husk

country.

corn, and, on the night of the termination of their labor, they had asked for and obtained some brandy. carouse followed,

in the course of

which another bottle of brandy was procured.

When the debauch was at its height, one of them discharged his gun, loaded only with powder,

the village.

which had the effect to alarm

One of them, more wise than his associates, de

plored the act of his companion, and proposed that they should

*

(yCallaghan, n, 389, etc.

courts and

Thomas Chambers was of English He settled at Panhoosic, now

causes arising between the vassals.

birth.

of Rensselaersfrom thence re-

Troy, in the jurisdiction

wyck,

in

1651, and

moved to the Esopus country in 1652, where he took part in the early Indian wars, became a captain in the Dutch service, and was elected delegate to the His reprovincial assembly in 1664. sidence was near the confluence of the Walkill with the Hudson, and was built for the fort,