After this, the colonists had their season of success; and more Indians are said to have been slain during the autumn and winter of 1622-3, than had ever before fallen by the hands of the English, since the settlement of Jamestown. [FN] But the course adopted by the civilized party sufficiently indicates the desperate state of their affairs. They availed themselves of a stratagem worse than barbarous in its principle, however circumstances might be supposed in this case to justify it. A peace was offered to the enemy and accepted; but just as the corn which the latter were thus induced to plant, was beginning to grow ripe, the English fell upon them in all directions at a given hour of an appointed day, killed many, and destroyed a vast quantity of provisions. Several of the greatest war-captains were among the slain; and for sometime Opechancanough himself was reported to be one. This rumor alone, so long as believed, was equal to a victory; "for against _him,_" says the historian, "was this stratagem chiefly laid." * * * * * [FN] Stith. Such language furnishes evidence enough of the apprehension which his movements and reputation had excited. But he gave more substantial reasons for the respect which he still wrested from his enemy, by his prowess. A battle took place at his own village of Pamunkey, in 1625, in which the main body of the savages numbered eight hundred bow-men, independently of detachments from remote tribes; and though the English, led on by Governor Wyatt in person, succeeded in driving the enemy from the field, they were unable to pursue them even as far as Matapony. That town was their principal depot and rallying point, and the acknowledged inability to reach it, though but four miles distant, proves that the battle was by no means decisive. It appears from this affair, too, that all the efforts of the English, during an inveterate war of three years, had not driven the tribes even from the neighborhood of their own settlements. What was more discouraging, Opechancanough was not to be deceived a second time by the arts of diplomacy. In 1628, the governor's proclamation, which announced the appointment of commissioners to negotiate with the enemy, declared expressly an intention to repeat the stratagem of 1622; [FN] but the plan failed of success, and the Pamunkies and Chickahominies--most immediately under the influence of Opechancanough--were more troublesome at this period than ever before. * * * * * [FN] Ancient Records of Virginia.