After this wholesale slaughter a portion of the troops hastened back to the settlements to be ready for defence in case of a sudden attack, and the rest made their way to Saybrooke, where they were received with great triumph. The troops which had been promised by Massachusetts to aid in this war arrived a few days after it was over, having been detained in consequence of the excitement which just then prevailed in the colony regarding Anne Hutchinson and her so-called heresy. Wilson, a celebrated minister of Boston, attended the troops, who now joining their friends completed the war of extermination. The feeble remains of the Pequod nation were hunted from their hiding-places, every wigwam was burned, and every settlement destroyed. Sassacus, the chief, being reproached by his people for the misfortunes which had come upon them, fled to the Mohawks, where he was slain, and his scalp sent to the English. The last remnants of this once fierce and formidable race were killed in a dismal swamp, whither they had fled for safety at nightfall, and into which some of their pursuers plunged also in their over-haste of slaughter. Horrible was the struggle around the midnight bog; the old narrative reads like a dreadful nightmare dream. But we will not relate its horrors. The colonists, as Underhill, the leader of the Massachusetts forces, declares, “were bereaved of pity and without compassion,” and the race of the Pequods were annihilated as a people. Vain had been the prayer of Roger Williams and the advice of old Canonicus, that the women and children, at least, should be spared. Of those who yielded, about 200 in number, many were sent to the Bermudas, and, with grief and shame we write it, were sold into slavery; of the remainder some were distributed to the English settlements, and the rest incorporated among the Narragansetts and Mohegans. The lands of the Pequods were declared to be won by conquest, and the tribe to be extinct for ever. The determined spirit of vengeance which had been displayed in this war filled the natives both with terror and respect, and a long season of peace ensued. A general day of solemn thanksgiving was held throughout all New England, to commemorate this event.