Meanwhile, he was at deadly war, as usual, with the Narraghansetts. The very next morning after the treaty was concluded, and while the messengers still tarried in Boston, news came, that a party of two or three hundred of the tribe last named had come as far as Neponsett, (the boundary between Milton and Dorchester) for the purpose of laying wait and killing the Pequots on their way home. The English immediately despatched a small armed force, to request a visit from the Narraghansetts; and two sachems, with about twenty of their men, obeyed the summons. They said they had been hunting round-about the country, and came to visit the Indians at Neponsett, according to old custom. However this might be, they showed themselves quite ready to gratify the English in their requests; and the Pequots were permitted to return home unmolested. A passage in the Journal of Winthrop, relating to this occasion, illustrates the spirit of Sassacus and his subjects. The Narraghansetts were privately told by the Governor, that if they should happen to make peace with the Pequots, they should receive a goodly proportion of the wampum just sent.--"For the Pequots held it dishonorable to offer them any thing as of themselves, yet were willing we would give it them, and indeed did offer us so much to that end." Thus matters remained until 1636. During that season one Oldham, an Englishman who had been trading in Connecticut, was murdered by a party of Block-Island Indians; several of whom are said to have taken refuge among the Pequots, and to have been protected by them. On the strength of this fact and this supposition, the Governor of Massachusetts--Mr. Oldham being a Dorchester resident--despatched a force of ninety men, under Captain Endecott, commissioned (as Mr. Winthrop tells us,) to put to death the men of Block-Island, but to spare the women and children, and bring them away, and take possession of the Island. Thence they were to go to the Pequots, "to demand the murderers of Captain Stone and other English, and _one thousand fathom of wampum for damages_ &c. and some of their children as hostages which if they should refuse the were to obtain it by force."