A truce was finally agreed upon; but it is doubtful if this could have been arranged but for the fortunate presence of Roger Williams, then on his way to England, and who not being permitted to sail from Boston, was now at Manhattan for that purpose. Beloved and respected by all the Indian tribes, his mediation was accepted, and a covenant of peace with the Dutch was entered into by all the River Indians. But peace was only of short duration. As the Indians saw the vacant places in their wigwams, and as one counted up his father or mother slain, and another his sons, or when but one member was left to deplore all the rest gone, an old chief spoke only the voice of a whole tribe, when he said that the price of blood had not yet been paid. In the autumn the war broke out afresh, and John Underhill, a veteran soldier, the leader of the Massachusetts force in the Pequod war, though now a fugitive from New England, was appointed commander of the Dutch forces. But now as regards Underhill we must say a few words, though we delay the course of the narrative, as to the cause of his leaving Boston, which was so singularly characteristic of puritan manners. Underhill had not only the courage, but somewhat of the lax morality of the old soldier of those days, and this latter circumstance brought him into trouble. Spite of the good service which he had rendered to Massachusetts in his martial character, he was compelled “to make his appearance before the whole congregation of Boston on lecture day, at the close of the sermon, and standing on a form in his worst clothes—he who was so fond of brave apparel—without a band, and with a linen cap pulled over his eyes, to do penance for his wicked courses, and with sighs and tears and tokens of sorrow of heart, beseech the compassion of the congregation for one who, like him, had yielded to the temptations of Satan.” Having thus satisfied the offended morals of Boston, he removed to New Netherlands, of which, at the head of 120 men, he now became the protector. The war continued for two years, and then the Indians sued for peace, which the Dutch—who had suffered equally with themselves, and in which their European neighbours, unwilling to embroil themselves, refused to aid them—were no less willing to grant. The Mohawks, who were friendly to the Dutch, sent an ambassador to Manhattan to negotiate peace, and on the 30th of August, 1645, according to the custom of the Indians, the delegates of both parties met in the open air; and in front of New Amsterdam, the sachems of the various tribes of River Indians, the Mohegans, and those of Long Island, with the chiefs of the Five Nations as witnesses, and the director and council, and the whole population of New Netherlands standing round, signed a solemn treaty of peace; or, to use the figurative and beautiful language of the Indians, “there, in presence of the sun and the ocean, planted the tree of peace and buried the tomahawk beneath its shade.”