"I return you a fine moose-skin coat," answered the Governor to this request, "but I cannot make a treaty with you unless you send proper warriors for me to treat with, and enough of them. Furthermore, your men have murdered Captain Stone, my friend, and I can make no peace with you until you deliver to me the Pequots who killed him and his men."
Sassacus was a warrior of high renown. He had twenty-six sachems, or war captains, under his control, and could muster—at any time—seven hundred warriors. His residence was upon the Atlantic, at Groton, Connecticut, and near the Mystic River he had a splendid stronghold, situated upon a verdant eminence, which gradually descended to the waters of the sparkling stream. He and his men looked upon the English as intruders, who had no right to come to the soil of Connecticut. But, as the intrepid Sassacus had warred with the Dutch at New York, so that they had cut off his trade with them, he wished to now gain the good will of the English, near Boston. The Pequots were men of the utmost independence of spirit and had conquered most of the smaller tribes lying around them. They called these people whom they captured "women" and "cowards."
"Your Captain Stone took two of our men," said the emissary from Sassacus. "He detained them by force and made them pilot him up the river. The Captain and the crew then landed, taking the guides on shore, with their hands bound behind them. The Pequots next fell upon the white men and killed them. The vessel, with the remainder of the crew, was blown up, I do not know why, nor wherefore."
This was a pretty good story, and as the Governor of Massachusetts could not substantiate his own side, he was inclined to believe it, for he had no means of proving its falsity. So a treaty was concluded, with the following terms:
I. The English to have such land in Connecticut as they needed, provided they would make a settlement there; and the Pequots to render them all the assistance that they could.
II. The Pequots to give the English four hundred fathoms of wampum, forty beaver and thirty otter skins, and to surrender the two murderers whenever they should be sent for.
III. The English to send a vessel immediately, to trade with them, as friends, but not to fight them, and the Pequots would give them all their custom.
Having signed this document, the emissary from Sassacus and his companion started back on their five days' journey to the habitation of their Chief. But, unfortunately for them, the Pequots were then at war with the Narragansetts, and a party of about two hundred and fifty warriors of the latter tribe had come as far as Neponset (the boundary between Milton and Dorchester) for the avowed purpose of waylaying and killing the two Pequots on their way home. Learning of this, the Governor sent an armed force to request a visit from these Narragansett braves, and two Sachems—with about twenty men—obeyed the summons. "We have been hunting around the country," said they, "and came to visit the Indians at Neponset, according to old custom. We meant no harm to the Pequots. They can go home in safety." And they kept good this promise, so that the two Pequots made their return trip in perfect security.