The ancient historical records of Norwalk, Conn ... - Hay genealogy

66 NORWALK.
[This was in king Philip's war.
[Seep. 63.]
After some successes
of Philip, there was a general rising of the Indians
against the English, for
an extent of nearly three hundred
miles. The Indians were perfectly acquainted
with the situation of every English settlement. They
lurked at every unguarded pass—crept by night into
their barns, gardens, and out-houses—concealed themselves
behind fences—laid in wait in the fields. The
whole country, save some few towns, was a wilderness.
Parties of Indians would plunder and burn a town, carry
the inhabitants away captive, and then retire into the
forests and swamps. Brookfield had been burnt ; Hadley,
Deerfield, and Northfield had been attacked, and
numbers killed :
Captain Lathrop and ninety or a hundred
men had been ambushed and slaughtered between
Hadley and Deerfield. Springfield had been attacked
and partly destroyed. The Narragansetts, who had
made a treaty with the English, now harbored their enemies
;
and many of their warriors, after having been
engaged in these marauding expeditions, had returned
wounded. There was the clearest evidence that the
Narragansetts were preparing to join openly in the war.
They could muster two thousand warriors, and had a
thousand muskets. Should the Indians all engage in
the spring,
in such a warfare as they had hitherto carried
on, there was scarcely any hope, but that nearly all
the English settlements must be cut ofi" in detail, without
the possibility of successful resistance.
It was therefore determined to attack them in the
winter, though such an enterprise was full of hazard.
Should any disaster befall the troops of the colonies,
might be diificult or impossible to send them succors or
it