[FN] Callender's Century Discourse.
The precise time of the death of Ninigret is not recorded. It is not probable that he lived long after Philip's war, for two good reasons. He is rarely if at all mentioned, subsequently; and he must have been already quite advanced in age. It was now over forty years since that Pequot war, at the date of which he is mentioned by Prince. Pessacus must have died previous to Phillip's war. We do not find his name in the Colonial Records after 1658, though it would certainly have been among the signatures to the treaty last mentioned, had he been living at the date of its execution. The English regarded him as the leading man of his tribe.
The three principal complaints made against Ninigret, and the occasion of the ill-treatment he received from the English, were his hostility to Uncas, his intercourse with the Dutch, and the wars which he waged with the Long Islanders. Respecting the latter, enough has already been said. Enough appears in the protest of the Massachusetts commissioners, alone, to show that the English had but a poor reason for interfering as they did. They barely alleged that these Indians were their friends; but nothing is more obvious than that such reasoning, however satisfactory to themselves, could only render them, in the words of the protest, "low and contemptible in the eyes of the Indians."
"There being noe agreement produced or proved,"—said Mr. Bradstreet, of Massachusetts, in 1653—"whereby the collenies are obliged to protect the Long Island Indians against Ninnegrett or others, and so noe Reason to engage them in theire quarrells the grounds whereof they cannot well vnderstand: I therefore see not sufficient light to this vote."
It is obvious that even an "obligation," by agreement, to protect those Indians, might not imply a right to do so as regarded other parties—but granting such a right as consequent upon sufficient provocation, it still remains to prove upon which party lay the blame of the first attack. Ninigret always asserted that he acted in self-defence, and no doubt such was his real opinion. The English only reprimanded him upon old scores, when he laid his grievances before them; and then sent an armed vessel and a body of troops to fight for his enemies. The Long Islanders told a different story; but this was at best but one Indian testimony against another; and how much theirs in particular could be relied upon, appears from the fact, that within a year or two after this same affair, they themselves committed the most flagrant depredations upon the English. Trumbull says, that in 1657, "after all the trouble and expense which the English had been at for their defence, they became tumultuous, and did great damage to the inhabitants of Southampton."
To conclude this discussion, we introduce some passages of a manuscript letter from Roger Williams to the government of one of the colonies, which has already been cited. It bears date of Oct. 5, 1654, and was written to prevent war. [FN]
[FN] Col. Rec. of R.I.
"The Cause and Roote of all ye present mischief is ye Pride of 2 Barbarians, Ascassassôtick, ye Long Island Sachim, and Nenekunat, of the Narigansett. The former is proud and foolish. The latter is proud and fierce. I have not seene him these many years, yet from their sober men I hear he pleads,