ates.

In the year 1646 a large number of Indians formed a conspiracy to set
fire to Hartford and murder the inhabitants. An Indian who was engaged
to assassinate the governor, terrified, as he remembered that every
one who had thus far murdered an Englishman had been arrested and
executed, revealed the plot. The Indians generally, at this time,
manifested a very hostile spirit, and many outrages were perpetrated.
The English did not deem it prudent to pursue and punish the
conspirators, but overlooked the offense.

In the wars which the savages waged with each other, the hostile
parties would pursue their victims even into the houses of the
English, and cut them down before the eyes of the horror-stricken
women and children. In a very dry time the Indians set fire to the
woods all around the town of Milford, hoping thus to set fire to the
town. With the greatest difficulty the inhabitants rescued their
dwellings from the flames.

In the year 1648, marauding bands of the Narragansets committed
intolerable outrages against the people of Rhode Island, killing their
cattle, robbing their houses, and insulting and even beating the
inmates. The colonists were exceedingly perplexed to know what to do
in these emergencies. The whole wilderness of North America was filled
with savages. If they commenced a general war, it was impossible to
predict how far its ravages might extend. The colonists were eminently
men of peace. They wished to build houses, and cultivate fields, and
surround their homes with the comforts and the opulence of a high
civilization. They had bought their lands of the Indians fairly, and
had paid for them all that the lands then were worth.

Massasoit died about the year 1661. He remained firm in his fidelity
to the English until his death, though very hostile to the conversion
of the Indians to Christianity. At one time, when treating for the
sale of some of his lands in Swanzey, he insisted very pertinaciously
upon the condition that the English should never attempt to draw off
any of his people from their religion to Christianity. He would not
recede from this condition until he found that the treaty must be
broken off unless he yielded.

As the English found many of the Indian names hard to remember and to
pronounce, they were fond of giving English names to those with whom
they had frequent intercourse. The Indians in general were quite proud
of receiving these names. Massasoit, with that innate