In the midst of this growing prosperity, a sudden tempest of blood and misery broke over New England. The colonies were gradually extending themselves; “yet the entire white population,” says Hildreth, “did not yet exceed 60,000, occupying the sea-coast, and the lands of the Lower Connecticut. Lancaster, about forty miles from Boston, was the frontier town of the Bay settlements; Brookfield, some thirty miles from the river, was the most eastern town in the Connecticut valley. There intervened between these townships a great space of rugged country, wholly unsettled, and occupied by a few straggling Indian tribes.” Excepting in the instance of the Pequods, the native tribes of New England remained very much undiminished. The Pocanokets still occupied the eastern, and the Narragansetts the western, side of Narragansett Bay. In Connecticut but few natives remained, as the various tribes had mostly ceded their land to the new-comers. Uncas, the celebrated Mohegan chief, was now an old man. The Penacooks still occupied the falls of the Merrimac and the heads of the Piscataqua, their aged sachem, Passaconaway, having great respect for the whites. “The Indians of Maine and the region eastward possessed their ancient haunts undisturbed; but their intercourse was principally with the French settlers. Acadia was again given up. The New England Indians were occasionally harassed by war-parties of Mohawks, but by the intervention of Massachusetts peace had recently been established.” Earnest endeavours were being made to convert the Indians to Christianity; Eliot and his devoted coadjutors were labouring to bring these forlorn children of the forest into the fold of Christ, and already, as we have related, civilisation and Christianity had been accepted by considerable numbers. Still those remained who proudly resisted their influence, among which were the Narragansetts and Pocanokets already mentioned, lying in the very midst of the English settlements. These tribes, who boasted of the glory and power of their forefathers, of their great numbers and vast extent of territory, had been galled by the gradual and irresistible advance of the white intruders in their boundaries, until at length they found themselves confined to the peninsulas formed by the northern and eastern branches of Narragansett Bay, and began to dread that they should be driven into the very sea itself.