Even after this blow Philip succeeded in arousing the Maine and New Hampshire tribes to his support, and the war still raged for a while through the New England settlements. Rhode Island suffered severely. Warwick was burned, and the cattle driven off. Tradition says that when the enemy approached Providence, Roger Williams, now a very old man, went out to meet them. "Massachusetts," he said, "can raise thousands of men at this moment, and if you kill them, the King of England will supply their places as fast as they fall." "Let them come," was the reply, "we are ready for them. But as for you, brother Williams, you are a good man; you have been kind to us many years; not a hair of your head shall be touched." Fifty-four houses in the northern part of the town were burned, but the fearless old man was not harmed. Many of the colonists took refuge on Aquidneck, where the inhabitants of Newport and Portsmouth received them with great kindness. To protect the island a little flotilla of four boats, manned each by five or six men, was kept sailing around it day and night. There was no rest for old or young. April opened a brighter prospect. Canonchet, chief of the Narragansetts was taken prisoner. A young Englishman attempted to examine him. "You much child; no understand matters of war. Let your brother or your chief come. Him I will answer," was his haughty reply. He was offered his life if his tribe would submit, but refused it. The offer was renewed and he calmly said, "Let me hear no more about it." He was sent to Stonington, where a council of war condemned him to death. "I like it well," said he; "I shall die before my heart is soft, or I have said anything unworthy of myself." That as many as possible of his own race should take part in his execution Pequots were employed to shoot him, Mohegans to cut off his head and quarter him, and the Niantics to burn his body. When all this had been done, his head was sent to the Commissioners at Hartford as "a taken of love and loyalty."