"And marching through that county soon they met _The Narraghansett Prince,_ proud Ninigrett, To whom the English say, we lead these bands, Armed in this manner, thus into your lands, Without design to do you injury, But only to invade the enemy; You, who to the expense of so much blood Have long time born their evil neighborhood, Will bid us welcome, and will well excuse That we this way have took our rendezvouz, &c." [FN] * * * * * [FN] "A Brief Account of the Agency of the Hon. John Winthrop Esq. in the Court of King Charles the second, Anno Dom. 1682; when he obtained a charter for the Colony of Connecticut." _Vol. IV. Mass. His. Coll._ If what is here intimated was true, that the Pequots had been bad neighbors to the Nianticks, as they certainly had been to the Narraghansetts, it is no matter of wonder that numbers of those tribes engaged in the English expedition; and it indicates the pride, if not magnanimity on the other hand that neither would consent to fight against the common enemy of both. From Major Mason's account of the affair, it would appear that the English took this independence of Ninigret rather in dudgeon. "On the Wednesday morning," says that writer, "we marched from thence to a Place called Nayanticke, it being about eighteen or twenty miles distant, where another of those Narraghansetts lived in a Fort; it being a Frontier to the Pequots. They carryed very proudly towards us; not permitting any of us to come into their Fort." Upon which Mason set a guard about them, forbidding the Indians to go in or out, and quartered in the neighborhood over night. Whether this "Sachem" was Ninigret or one of his subjects, the conduct of Mason could hardly have left a very gratifying impression on the mind, of that chieftain. Possibly, if borne in mind by the reader, it may throw some light upon subsequent events. From the time of Miantonomo's death, all the sachems we have mentioned as succeeding to his power, came prominently into intercourse with the English. Ninigret and Pessacus, particularly, were distinguished by a continual series of controversies alternately with that people, and the Mohegans, and very often with both. They inherited the strong prejudice of the slaughtered Narraghansett against Uncas and his tribe; and most bitterly was that prejudice exasperated by the slaughter itself.