War is always demoralizing. Many, rioting in its scenes of carnage and of crime, lose all sense of humanity, and become desperadoes. After the close of the Pequot war, a young fellow, lusty and desperate, by the name of Arthur Peach, who had done valiant service in cutting down the Indians, felt a strong disinclination to return to the monotony of peaceful life. He became thoroughly dissolute, a wild adventurer, ripe for any crime. To escape the consequences of some of his misdeeds, he undertook, with three boon companions, as bad as himself, to escape to the Dutch colony at the mouth of the Hudson. As they were travelling through the woods they stopped to rest, and, kindling a fire, sat down to smoke their pipes. An Indian came along, who had a quantity of wampum, which had become valuable as currency, recognized by all the tribes. They invited him to sit down and smoke with them. As they were thus smoking together, Peach said to his companions that he meant to kill the Indian, “for the rascal,” said he, “has undoubtedly killed many white men.” The Indian, who did not understand English, was unsuspicious of danger. Peach, watching his opportunity, thrust his sword through his body once or twice, and taking from him his wampum and some other valuables, he and his companions hurried on their way, leaving him as they supposed, dead. Though mortally wounded, the Indian so far revived as to reach some of his friends, when, having communicated to them the facts of the murder, he died. The men were all arrested. The proof was so positive that they made no denial of their guilt. They were all condemned, and three were executed, one having made his escape. Francis Baylies, commenting upon this occurrence, writes: “This execution is an undeniable proof of that stern sense of duty which was cherished by the Pilgrims. To put three Englishmen to death for the murder of one Indian, without compulsion, or without any apprehension of consequences, for it does not appear that any application was made on the part of the Indians, for the punishment of the murderers, and they might have been pacified by the death of one, and probably even without that, denotes a degree of moral culture unknown in new settlements. It stands in our annals without a parallel instance. The truth of the fact is avouched by all our early historians, and it stands an eternal and imperishable monument of stern, unsparing, inflexible justice. And, in all probability it was not without its earthly reward, for the Indians, convinced of the justice of the English, abstained from all attempts to avenge their wrongs, by their own acts, for many years.”[48]