when Smith gave orders that the Indians should not be molested. this order, Stol went among the villagers and them to unite in a sortie against the Indian encamp Enlisting some ten or eleven persons in the enterprise,

Notwithstanding invited

ment.

he left the village and stealthily appro'ached the sleeping Indians,

who were aroused from their slumbers by a volley fired among Jumping up to escape, one was knocked on the head with an axe, a second was taken prisoner, a third fled, and a fourth, too deeply intoxicated to awake, " was hewn on the head with

them.

a cutlass," which roused him to consciousness and he made ofF. Stol

and

his valorous associates

then returned to the

village

and recounted their deeds of noble daring, justifying their pro ceedings by the assertion that the Indians first attacked them, an assertion subsequently proved to be without foundation.

Ensign Smith, finding his orders disobeyed, and hostilities actually commenced by a people whose movements he could not control, determined to leave the settlers to their fate by Learning returning with his command to Fort Amsterdam. his intention, the settlers frustrated his design by chartering, on their own account, all the sailing vessels that lay at the shore in

which he and his men intended to embark.

The only alterna

tive that remained to him was to send an express to the director,

detailing the state this purpose in

of affairs and requesting his presence.

With

view he sent an armed party, eighteen or nine-