under Captain John Mason, shortly sallied forth once more against the common foe, their destination this time being the chief stronghold of the Pequods, a fort near the present town of Stringbow, on the Pawcatuk River. The fort was surprised at night, and though the Indians fought with desperate courage, and at one time seemed likely to be victorious, they were finally overwhelmed. Their wigwams were then set on fire, and six hundred men, women, and children perished in the flames. The morning broke on a scene of terrible misery; yet the cup of Pequod disaster was not yet full. As the English, who had again lost but two men, were resting from their horrible night's work, six hundred native warriors were seen advancing proudly toward the ruins of their homes.
Arrived within sight of their desolate village, the unhappy Pequods are said to have paused for one moment in silent agony, and then, with a yell of rage and despair, to have swept down upon the invaders, many of whom were slain in the first onslaught, though the final result to the Pequods was but a repetition of previous struggles. All but a little remnant were slain without mercy, and, returning red-handed to Saybrook, at the mouth of the Connecticut, the victors were joined by a number of recruits from Massachusetts, whose arrival had been delayed by the excitement caused in the parent colony by the expulsion of Anne Hutchinson for heresy.
Thus reënforced, the Connecticut settlers hunted the survivors of the original owners of the soil down like beasts of prey. Their chief, Sassacus, fled in his despair to the Mohawks, who betrayed his trust by murdering him, and sending his scalp to the English; and in July, 1637, five months after the beginning of the war, the last scene of the long tragedy took place in a swamp where stands the modern town of Fairfield. Three hundred Pequod warriors were there surrounded, and while many were slain and some few escaped, two hundred were taken prisoners alive. In spite of their eager entreaties for death, the unhappy men were sent, some of them to the Bermudas as slaves, and the remainder dispersed among the Mohegans and Narragansetts, to be to them "hewers of wood and drawers of water."
While the Pequod war was still in progress, a fresh colony arrived at Boston from England, including John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton, men of wealth and social station, whom the Massachusetts authorities would gladly have retained among them. There were, however, now no good lands to spare for new-comers near the old settlements, and it was absolutely necessary for them to seek some other home. At the close of the war,
