, living in exposed areas of the colony, reportedly lost
their lives in the massacre. The gallant young Berkeley, as proficient a
soldier as he was a playwright and courtier, struck back hard at the
Indians. The entire colony was put on a war footing. Campaigns, usually
by small mobile forces, were conducted against the Indians where they
could be found. The June Assembly passed an act for "perpetuall warre
with the Indians" promising to "pursue and root out those which have any
way had theire hands in the shedding of our blood and massacring of our
people."

As in the case of so many Indian wars, there was a difference of opinion
as to which Indian nations were guilty of the attack. The Assembly's act
attempted to restrict reprisals to those who had actually perpetrated
the massacre. Some individuals, however, like Col. William Claiborne,
seem to have desired to extend the reprisals to the Indians living
between the Rappahannock and the Potomac, where the land interests of
Claiborne and others were concentrated at this time.

Little progress was made in defeating the enemy in the early months of
the war. The Assembly, meeting in June 1644, foreseeing ruin and
desolation unless the colony could be furnished with a greater supply of
arms and ammunition, entreated Governor Berkeley to return to England
and implore His Majesty for assistance to the country. The Assembly also
commissioned Mr. Cornelius Lloyd as agent for the colony to obtain what
supplies he could from the Dutch plantation in Hudson's River, from the
Swedish plantation on the Delaware, and from the New England
settlements.

It does not seem, from the records available, that either mission was
successful. Governor Berkeley found England involved in full-scale war
between the forces of the King and those of Parliament. Instead of
receiving aid from the King, Berkeley lent his own assistance to the
King's cause in his English campaigns. Berkeley returned to Virginia a
year later.

The mission of Virginia's agent to the northern colonies apparently met
with similar lack of success. Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts
Bay attributed the massacre to Virginia's expulsion of certain "godly
ministers" sent from New England a short time before, and told the
Virginia agent that Massachusetts could not spare the powder requested.
When Massachusetts' principal powder store shortly thereafter blew up,
Winthrop wondered whether God's wrath might not have been kind