The Pilgrims reached the place of their destination in safety, and fixed upon the locality for their town, which they called Hartford. At once they began to build and to cultivate. The miseries of the former year had to be guarded against, houses to be built, and the forest felled before the land could be planted; and through that summer and the whole of the year their labours were arduous and unremitting. The fatigues and hardships of labour were not, however, all that they had to contend against. They had enemies in the Dutch, who saw with jealousy and hatred the steady advance of the English on their borders; the country, unlike Massachusetts, was thickly populated by native tribes of a fierce and warlike character. The Pequods, occupying the country to the eastward, mustered 700 warriors, whilst the settlers themselves scarcely amounted to 200. It was by this bold and relentless tribe that that league of extermination with the Mohegans and Narragansetts was formed, which, as we have related, was revealed and prevented by Roger Williams. But although the Narragansetts and Mohegans gave in their adherence to the English, the Pequods remained not the less inveterate. Injuries and murders were of daily occurrence, and at length the settlers of the three colonies agreed to unite together to suppress the common enemy. Uncas, sachem of the Mohegans, was their ally, and after solemn prayer and religious exercises, the command was given to John Mason, an old soldier of the Netherlands, who conducted himself so much to the satisfaction of all, that “an inheritance was given to him in that part of the country as a reward of his faithful service.” “After nearly a whole night,” says Bancroft, “spent at the request of the soldiers in importunate prayer, by the very learned and godly Stone, who accompanied them as chaplain, about sixty men, one-third of the whole colony, aided by John Underhill and twenty gallant recruits, whom the forethought of Vane had sent from Massachusetts, sailed up the Pequod river, now called the Thames, on the banks of which dwelt the enemy; and designing to reach the Pequod fort unobserved, entered a harbour in Narragansett Bay. The next day was the Sabbath, sacred to religion and rest.” Religion was mixed up in every circumstance of life among the New England settlers, even when, to our view, the very circumstances lacked somewhat of the Christian spirit; as, for instance, it is recorded, probably on a Sabbath, that while Stone was earnestly praying for some token of love which might confirm to them the fidelity of their Indian allies, of whom they had doubts, these allies came in with five Pequod scalps and a prisoner, which was considered as Heaven’s answer to their prayer.