Whereupon the Director dispatched eighty soldiers thither to avenge the act, who burnt their corn and killed three or four of their people. Both sides then desisted from further proceedings. Next it happened that a Wechquaeskeck Indian' murdered, about the year 1640, an old man in his own house with an axe, for which no satisfaction having been afforded by the tribe, 12 men, chosen from the Commonalty, afterwards resolved, in the year 1642, to revenge the murder by open war but nothing was done at that time in consequence of missing the enemy, ;

who, observing what was designed against them, sued for peace. Some time afterwards the Hackingsack Indians designedly shot, with an arrow, a Dutchman, who sat thatching a house. The Commonalty were very much troubled at this, dreading the ' A Wfcstcheater tribe. -- Ed.

HOLLAND DOCUMENTS : IL 151

recurrence of other such acts. And while tlie Director was seei^ing in vain for satisfaction, God seemed to have taken vengeance on those of Witqueschaclc, through the Mahikan Indians, who surprizing, slew full 70 of them and led many women and children away into captivity. This obliged the remainder to fly to our people at the Manhattans, where they were received into the houses, and fed by the Director during fourteen days. Shortly after this, seized with another panic, they fled with the Hackingsacx, fully a thousand strong, to the vicinity of the fort, and over the river of Povonia. Some of the 12 men perceiving this, the Director, on the petition of three of them, namely, Jan Janse Damen, Abraham Plangh and Maryn Adriaense who signed in the name of the entire body, authorized an attack on the abovementioned Indians, in the course of the night between the 27"" and 28"" of February, 1643, by a party of soldiers and burghers, who, with cruel tyranny, slew 80 of them, and took 30 prisoners.