This letter was written in March, 1675, just on the eve of the great war of King Philip. The friendly disposition of Ninigret was now put to the test. The Nipmucks, Nashaways, Pocontocks, the Hadley and Springfield Indians, the Pokanokets of Philip, the tribes of Maine, and still nearer home the Narraghansetts, were involved in the common controversy of the times. But Ninigret remained faithful to the English; and though he took no personal part in the war, some of his warriors distinguished themselves more than once by their zealous cooperation with their allies. Ninigret was one of the signers of the treaty of July, wherein the Narraghansetts bound themselves to remain neutral; and in October his counsellor, Cornman, signed a confirmation of the same instrument, in _his_ name, at Boston, with an additional agreement to surrender up such Pokanoket refugees as might be found in his territories. Several of the Narraghansett sachems did the same, but Ninigret, alone, seems to have maintained his fidelity. At all events, he alone had the credit of it, and the consequent benefit. The Narraghansetts were completely subdued, and their country overrun and subjected. The tribe and territory of Ninigret were spared; and several of their descendants were living on the premises so late as 1738, when few, if any, of the Narraghansett blood could be found within the limits of Rhode Island. [FN] * * * * * [FN] Callender's Century Discourse. The precise time of the death of Ninigret is not recorded. It is not probable that he lived long after Philip's war, for two good reasons. He is rarely if at all mentioned, subsequently; and he must have been already quite advanced in age. It was now over forty years since that Pequot war, at the date of which he is mentioned by Prince. Pessacus must have died previous to Phillip's war. We do not find his name in the Colonial Records after 1658, though it would certainly have been among the signatures to the treaty last mentioned, had he been living at the date of its execution. The English regarded him as the leading man of his tribe. The three principal complaints made against Ninigret, and the occasion of the ill-treatment he received from the English, were his hostility to Uncas, his intercourse with the Dutch, and the wars which he waged with the Long Islanders. Respecting the latter, enough has already been said. Enough appears in the protest of the Massachusetts commissioners, alone, to show that the English had but a poor reason for interfering as they did. They barely alleged that these Indians were their friends; but nothing is more obvious than that _such_ reasoning, however satisfactory to themselves, could only render them, in the words of the protest, "low and contemptible in the eyes of the Indians."