The first great sachem of the Pequots known to the English was Pekoath, from whom they probably derived the national name. He appears to have been a great warrior. He was going on conquering and to conquer, when the earliest settlements of the English were made upon the Massachusetts coast. Tribe after tribe retreated before him as he advanced, till his terrible myrmidons were at length in a situation to locate themselves at their ease on the best soil, and beneath the most genial skies, of New England. As early as 1631, Waghinacut, a sachem of one of the expelled or subject tribes just mentioned, travelled across the wilderness to Boston; and attended by a Massachusetts Sagamore, and one Jack Straw (an Indian who had formerly lived with Sir Walter Raleigh in England,) made application for the alliance or assistance of the Massachusetts government against Pekoath. He gave a glowing description of his native land; and promised, if some of the English would go there and settle, that he would supply them with corn, and pay them eighty beaver-skins yearly. This proposition being rejected, he desired that at least two men might be permitted to accompany him, with the view of examining the country. He showed great anxiety to effect that object, but to no purpose; the governor suspected some stratagem, and politely dismissed his visiter with the compliment of a good dinner at his own table. [FN] * * * * * [FN] _Winthrop's Journal._ Waghinacut persevered, however, and succeeded. He went to Plymouth, and Governor Winslow sent out a party, at his suggestion, who are understood to have been the first discoverers of Connecticut river and the adjacent parts. The successor of Pekoath, and the last as well as first great sachem of his tribe known personally to the whites, was Sassacus, a warrior of high renown, who, when the English commenced their settlements in Connecticut, soon after the transaction last mentioned, had no fewer than twenty-six sachems or war-captains under his dominion, and could at that time muster, at the smallest calculation, seven hundred bowmen. The site of his principal fortress and residence, was on a most beautiful eminence in the town of Groton, commanding one of the best prospects of the Sound and the adjacent country which can be found upon the coast. Another strong-hold was a little farther eastward, near Mystic river; and this also was finely situated upon a verdant swell of land, gradually descending towards the south and southeast.