Now, we look upon the assault of Alexander, in 1662, in the first place, as not only a sufficient cause of suspicion and resentment, but of war; and that, upon the best construction which can be put upon the most favorable of the _ex-parte_ relations that appear upon record. By the old treaty itself; which Alexander also took the gratuitous trouble to _renew,_--and without any reference to courtesy or humanity, or to national fidelity, or to personal friendship, existing up to this date,--the English were bound generally to treat him as an allied sovereign, and especially to make a preliminary demand of satisfaction, in all eases of complaint. We have seen that the charge brought against him in 1662,--vague and unsupported as it was,--was not so much as explained to the sachem, previously to his being taken from his own territory by an armed force, and carried before an English justice of the Peace. In no other instance does the Plymouth Colony seem to have exercised an authority of this nature, even over the meanest subjects of the sachem. "Inasmuch as complaint is made, that many Indians pass into divers places of this jurisdiction," say the records of the Colony for 1660, "it is enacted that no strange or foreign Indians be permitted to become residents, and that _notice be given to the several sagamores to prevent the same._" A remark might be made upon the policy of laws like these, so far as the Pokanokets were concerned; as also of the acts of 1652, and 1653, which prohibited the sale of casks, barques, boats and horses, to the Indians, besides providing a punishment for such of them, resident in the Colony, as should violate the Christian sabbath, or discharge their guns in the night-time. But these regulations the Government had an undoubted right to make, as Massasoit and Philip had possessed a right,--which, however, they were complaisant enough to relinquish,--of selling their own lands to purchasers of their own choosing. Such was the state of things previous to the submission of 1671. With regard to this, it is quite clear that, even if Philip was made to understand the instrument which it is well known he could not read, he could look upon it only as an insult, imposed upon him under circumstances amounting to duress. Independently of any force, too, he must have thought himself justified, by the manifest disposition and the summary measures of the English, in availing himself of any stratagem to lull suspicion and to gain time. He might or might not, at this period or before, have meditated acting offensively against them, in revenge of the indignity suffered by his brother and his nation; but it was certainly both prudent and patriotic in him, to put himself on the defensive. He had a right, it appears to us, both to drill his own people in martial exercises, and to make alliances with his Indian neighbors.