t New Amsterdam. Through all the settlements
the tidings spread, creating universal panic. Mothers and maidens
turned pale as they thought of another Indian war. The farmers and
their families, abandoning everything, fled from all directions to the
forts within their reach. Every able-bodied man was put to work in
strengthening the defences.

The governor promptly dispatched forty-two well-armed men to Esopus.
Large bounties were offered to all who would enlist. Forty-six
friendly Indians from Long Island offered their services and were
accepted as auxiliaries. Ample supplies were forwarded to the
devastated village. Scouting parties were sent up the river to search
out the savages in their hiding-places. The Mohawks interposed their
friendly mediation in behalf of peace, and succeeded in recovering and
restoring to the Dutch several captives.

They also informed the governor that the Indians had taken the
remaining captives to one of their villages about thirty miles
southwest of Esopus, and that they refused to release them unless the
governor would send them rich presents and make a peace without any
compensation for what had transpired at Esopus. It seems that the
Indians regarded the massacre there simply as the just atonement which
they had exacted for the enslavement of their brethren, and that now
their rude sense of justice being satisfied, they were ready to enter
into a solid peace. But the governor was not at all disposed to regard
the matter in this light. He deemed it necessary, under the
circumstances, that the Indians should feel the full weight of the
white man's avenging hand.

Just then a woman, Mrs. Van Imbrock, who had succeeded in effecting
her escape from the Indians, reached Esopus, having traversed the
wilderness through a thousand perils. She was a woman of great energy,
intelligent and observing, and her heart was bleeding in view of the
friends she had left behind her in captivity. She was eager to act as
a guide to lead a war-party for the rescue of her friends in the
retreat of the savages. She estimated their number at about two
hundred warriors. They occupied a square fort, very strongly built of
timber. And still they adopted the precaution of sending the prisoners
every night under strong guard, to some distant place in the
mountains. The Indians had a very clear appreciation of the value of
their captives as hostages.

Governor Stuyvesant sent a force of two hundred and ten men, u