The authorities at fort Orange, having secured the friendship of the Mohawks, endeavored to obtain an armistice with the Indians at Esopus, and a release of the captives they had taken. Several Mohawk and Mohegan chiefs, as mediators, visited Esopus, on this mission of mercy. They were partially successful. An armistice was reluctantly assented to, and two captives were liberated. The Indians, however, still retained a number of children, they having killed all the adults. Those who had agreed to the armistice were not the principal chiefs, and the spirit of the war remained unbroken.
Under these circumstances Stuyvesant wrote to Holland for aid. In his letter he said,
"If a farmer cannot plough, sow or reap, in a newly settled
country, without being harassed; if the citizens and
merchants cannot freely navigate the streams and rivers,
they will doubtless leave the country and seek a residence
in some place where they can find a government to protect
them.'"
The Directors wrote back urging him to employ the Mohawks and other friendly tribes against the Esopus Indians. The governor replied,
"The Mohawks are, above all other savages, a vain-glorious,
proud and bold tribe. If their aid be demanded and obtained,
and success follow, they will only become the more inflated,
and we the more contemptible in the eyes of the other
tribes. If we did not then reward their services, in a
manner satisfactory to their greedy appetites, they would
incessantly revile us, and were this retorted, it might lead
to collision. It is therefore safer to stand on our own feet
as long as possible."
The governor had a long controversy with the Massachusetts authorities in reference to its claim to the upper valley of the Hudson. In this he expressed very strongly the title of Holland to the North river.
"Printed histories," he writes,
"archives, journals, and registers prove that the North
river of New Netherland was discovered in the year 1609, by
Hendrick Hudson, captain of the Half Moon, in the service
and at the expense of the Dutch East India Company. Upon the
report of the captain several merchants of Amsterdam sent
another ship, in the following year, up the said river.
These merchants obtained from the States-General a charter
to navigate the same. For their security they erected in
1614, a fort on Castle Island, near fort Orange New
Netherland, including the North river, was afterwards
offered to the West India Company, who, in the year 1624,
two years before Charles I. ascended the throne of England,
actually and effectually possessed and fortified the country
and planted colonies therein. The assertion that the Hudson
river is within the Massachusetts patent granted but
thirty-two years ago, therefore, scarcely deserves a serious
answer."
Notwithstanding the undeniable strength of his argument, Governor Stuyvesant felt very uneasy. To his friends he said,
"The power of New England overbalances ours tenfold. To protest against their usurpations would be folly. They would only laugh at us."