essenger to Alexander, at Mount Hope, informing
him of these reports of his hostile intentions which were in
circulation, and requesting him to attend the next court in Plymouth
to vindicate himself from these charges.

Alexander apparently received this message in a very friendly spirit.
He assured Captain Willet, the messenger, that the accusation was a
gross slander; that the Narragansets were his unrelenting foes; and
that they had fabricated the story that they might alienate from him
his good friends the English. He promised that he would attend the
next meeting of the court at Plymouth, and prove the truth of these
declarations.

Notwithstanding this ostensible sincerity and friendliness, various
circumstances concurred to increase suspicion. When the court
assembled, Alexander, instead of making his appearance according to
his agreement, was found to be on a visit to the sachem of the
Narragansets, his pretended enemies. Upon this, Governor Prince
assembled his counselors, and, after deliberation, ordered Major
Winslow, afterward governor of the colony, to take an armed band, go
to Mount Hope, seize Alexander by surprise before he should have time
to rally his warriors around him, and take him by force to Plymouth.
Major Winslow immediately set out, with ten men, from Marshfield,
intending to increase his force from the towns nearer to Mount Hope.
When about half way between Plymouth and Bridgewater, they came to a
large pond, probably Monponsett Pond, in the present town of Halifax.
Upon the margin of this sheet of water they saw an Indian hunting
lodge, and soon ascertained that it was one of the several transient
residences of Alexander, and that he was then there, with a large
party of his warriors, on a hunting and fishing excursion.

The colonists cautiously approached, and saw that the guns of the
Indians were all stacked outside of the lodge, at some distance, and
that the whole party were in the house engaged in a banquet. As the
Wampanoags were then, and had been for forty years, at peace with the
English, and as they were not at war with any other people, and were
in the very heart of their own territories, no precautions whatever
were adopted against surprise.

Major Winslow dispatched a portion of his force to seize the guns of
the Indians, and with the rest entered the hut. The savages, eighty in
number, manifested neither surprise nor alarm in seeing the English,
and were apparently quite uns