The wretched Kieft had not one word to reply. He however, made a weak and unavailing attempt to appease the wrath of the Long Island Indians. But the roaring tornado of savage vengeance could not thus be divested of its terrors. The messengers he sent, approaching a band of Indians, cried out to them, "We come to you as friends." They shouted back contemptuously, "Are you our friends? You are only corn thieves." Refusing all intercourse they disappeared in the forest.
During all these scenes the infamous and cowardly Kieft ensconced himself securely within the walls of the fort. The bewailings of ruined farmers, and of widows and orphan children rose all around him. To divert public clamor, he fitted out several expeditions against the Indians. But these expeditions all returned having accomplished nothing.
"The proud heart of the Director," writes Brodhead,
"began to fail him at last. In one week desolation and
sorrow had taken the place of gladness and prosperity. The
colony entrusted to his charge was nearly ruined. It was
time to humble himself before the Most High, and invoke from
heaven the mercy which the Christian had refused the savage.
"A day of general fasting and prayer was proclaimed. 'We
continue to suffer much trouble and loss from the heathen,
and many of our inhabitants see their lives and property in
jeopardy, which is doubtless owing to our sins,' was Kieft's
contrite confession, as he exhorted every one penitently to
supplicate the mercy of God, 'so that his holy name may not,
through our iniquities, be blasphemed by the heathen.'"
The people still held the Director responsible for all the consequences which had followed the massacres of Pavonia and Corlaer's Hook. They boldly talked of arresting and deposing him, and of sending him, as a culprit, back to Holland. The Director, panic stricken, endeavored to shift the responsibility of the insane course which had been pursued, upon one Adriansen, an influential burgher, who was the leading man among the petitioners who had counselled war.
Adriansen was now a ruined man. His own plantation had been utterly devastated. Exasperated by his losses, he had no disposition to take upon himself the burden of that popular odium which had now become so heavy. Losing all self-control, he seized a sword and a pistol, and rushed into the Director's room, with the apparent intention of assassinating him, exclaiming, "what lies are these you are reporting of me."
He was disarmed and imprisoned. One of his servants took a gun, went to the fort and deliberately discharged the piece at the Director, but without hitting him. The would-be assassin was shot down by a sentinel and his head exposed upon the scaffold. Adriansen was sent to Holland for trial.
After terrible scenes of suffering, a temporary peace was restored through the heroic interposition of DeVrees. He was the only man who dared to venture among the exasperated Indians. They watched over him kindly, and entreated him to be cautious in exposing himself, lest harm might befall him from some wandering Indians by whom he was not known. But the wrongs which the Indians had experienced were too deep to be buried in oblivion. And there was nothing in the character of Kieft to secure their confidence. After the truce of a few weeks the war, without any imaginable cause, broke out anew.
All the settlements at Westchester and Long Island were laid waste. Scarcely an inhabitant, save the roving Indian, was to be found in those regions. The Dutch were driven out of the whole of New Jersey. The settlers on Staten Island were trembling in hourly expectation of an assault. War's devastating surges of flame and blood swept nearly the whole island of Manhattan. Bold men ventured to remain well armed, upon a few of the farms, or boweries as they were called, in the immediate vicinity of the fort, but they were continually menaced with attack, night and day. A bowery was a farm on which the family resided. A plantation was one of those extended tracts of land, which was partly cultivated but upon which no settler dwelt. There was no protection anywhere for the trembling population, save in and directly around fort Amsterdam. Mr. Brodhead, alluding to these scenes of terror, writes,
"The women and children lay concealed in straw huts, while
their husbands and fathers mounted guard on the crumbling
ramparts above. For the fort itself was almost defenceless.
It resembled rather a mole-hill than a fortress against an
enemy. The cattle, which had escaped destruction, were
huddled within the walls, and were already beginning to
starve for want of forage. It was indispensable to maintain
a constant guard at all hours, for seven allied tribes, well
supplied with muskets, powder and ball, which they had
procured from private traders, boldly threatened to attack
the dilapidated citadel with all their strength, now
amounting to fifteen hundred men.
"So confident had the enemy become, that their scouting
parties constantly threatened the advanced sentinels of the
garrison. Ensign Van Dyck, while relieving guard at one of
the outposts, was wounded by a musket ball in his arm. All
the forces that the Dutch could now muster, besides the
fifty or sixty soldiers in garrison, were about two hundred
freemen. With this handful of men was New Netherland to be
defended against the implacable fury of her savage foe."