This, when at Sowans raged our battle loud,
How their round thunders made that battle dumb.
See the passage from Winthrop, in [note to stanza xxxiii.]
This how amid the Pequot nation they
Build the square lodge, and whet him to the fray.
The Plymouth Company had established a trading house on the Connecticut, as early as 1633. Their trade with the Pequots in arrow points, knives, hatchets, &c., might very probably give offence to the Narragansets. “We found,” says Winthrop, “that all the sachems of Narraganset, except Canonicus and Miantonomi were the contrivers of Mr. Oldham’s death, and the occasion was because he went to make peace and trade with the Pequots.”