settlements did not
present so many points exposed to attack; but there is no doubt that
it might have wrought fearful havoc. We can, at any rate, find no
difficulty in comprehending the manifold perplexity of the Massachusetts
men at this time, threatened as they were at once by an Indian crusade,
by the machinations of a faithless king, and by a bitter theological
quarrel at home, in this eventful year when they laid aside part of
their incomes to establish Harvard College. [Sidenote: Origin of the
Pequot War]

The schemes of Sassacus were unsuccessful. The hereditary enmity of the
Narragansetts toward their Pequot rivals was too strong to be lightly
overcome. Roger Williams, taking advantage of this feeling, so worked
upon the minds of the Narragansett chiefs that in the autumn of 1636
they sent an embassy to Boston and made a treaty of alliance with the
English. The Pequots were thus left to fight out their own quarrel; and
had they still been separated from the English by the distance between
Boston and the Thames river, the feud might very likely have smouldered
until the drift of events had given a different shape to it. But as the
English had in this very year thrown out their advanced posts into the
lower Connecticut valley, there was clearly no issue from the situation
save in deadly war. All through the winter of 1636-37 the Connecticut
towns were kept in a state of alarm by the savages. Men going to their
work were killed and horribly mangled. A Wethersfield man was kidnapped
and roasted alive. Emboldened by the success of this feat, the Pequots
attacked Wethersfield, massacred ten people, and carried away two girls.
[Sidenote: Sassacus is foiled by Roger Williams] [Sidenote: The Pequots
take the warpath alone]

Wrought up to desperation by these atrocities, the Connecticut men
appealed to Massachusetts and Plymouth for aid, and put into service
ninety of their own number, under command of John Mason, an excellent
and sturdy officer who had won golden opinions from Sir Thomas Fairfax,
under whom he had served in the Netherlands. It took time to get men
from Boston, and all that Massachusetts contributed to the enterprise at
its beginning was that eccentric daredevil John Underhill, with a force
of twenty men. Seventy friendly Mohegans, under their chief Uncas, eager
to see vengeance wrought upon their Pequot oppressors, accompanied the
expedition. From the fort at Saybrook this little company set sail on
t