the most dangerous advice--to wit, that they should wait
and not attack the Dutch until all suspicion had been lulled, and then
divide themselves equally through the houses of the Christians and
slaughter all these in one night--was secretly waging war against
us with his tribe, who killed some of our people and set fire to the
houses. It was therefore resolved to send thither a troop of one hundred
and twenty men. The burghers under their company, the English under the
Sergeant Major Van der Hyl(2) (who within a few days had offered his
services and was accepted), the veteran soldiers under Pieter Cock, all
under the command of Mr. La Montagne, proceed hence in three yachts,
land in Scouts Bay on Long Island,(3) and march towards Heemstede(4)
(where there is an English colony dependent on us.) Some sent forward in
advance dexterously killed an Indian who was out as a spy. Our force was
divided into two divisions--Van der Hil with fourteen English towards
the smallest, and eighty men towards the largest village named
Matsepe,(5) both which were very successful, killing about one hundred
and twenty men; of ours one man remained on the field and three were
wounded.

(1) Chief of the Canarsee tribe, in western Long Island.

(2) John Underhill, whose unctuous piety and profligate life
have an important place in Winthrop and other New England
historians. With Captain John Mason he had the leading part
in the crushing of the Pequots in 1637. Banished from
Massachusetts and restored, this amusing reprobate had gone
to the Dutch, "having good offers made him by the Dutch
governor (he speaking the Dutch tongue and his wife a Dutch
woman)," but had now settled at Stamford. Later he lived at
Flushing and at Oyster Bay, where he died in 1672.

(3) Now called Manhasset Bay.

(4) Now Hempstead, Long Island, where early in 1644 Robert
Fordham and other English from Stamford had formed a colony
under New Netherland jurisdiction.

(5) Mespath, now Newtown, Long Island.

(6) Stamford.

Our forces being returned from this expedition, Capt. Van der Hil
was despatched to Stantfort,(1) to get some information there of the
Indians. He reported that the guide who had formerly served us, and was
supposed to have gone astray in the night, had now been in great danger
of his life among the Indians, of whom there were about five hundred
together. He offered