In accordance with the promptness which has ever characterized the Massachusetts colony, scarcely an hour elapsed, after the tidings reached Boston, ere the men were on the march. Governor Bradford, speaking of the insolent tone adopted by the Narragansets, writes, “They received the English commissioners with scorn and contempt, and told them that they would have no peace with Uncas without his head. They also gave them this further answer,--that it mattered not who began the war, they were resolved to follow it up, and that the English should withdraw their garrison from Uncas, or they would bring down the Mohawks upon them. And withal they gave them this threatening answer, that they would lay the English cattle on heaps as high as their houses, and that no Englishman should step out of his door but that he should be shot.” The English commissioners needed guides to lead them through the wilderness of the Narraganset country, to communicate the reply of the Narraganset chiefs to Uncas. They refused to furnish them with any guide. At last, in scorn they brought forward a poor, old, decrepit Pequot woman saying, with derisive laughter, that they might take her if they pleased. In addition to all these indignities the commissioners were seriously menaced with personal violence. As their interpreter was communicating his message to the sachems, three burly savages came and stood behind him, brandishing their tomahawks in the most insulting and threatening manner. The friendly Indians, who had accompanied the English, were so alarmed by this conduct of the Narragansets that they fled in the utmost haste, leaving the commissioners to go home alone. “Thus,” writes Governor Bradford, “while the commissioners in care of the public peace sought to quench the fire kindled among the Indians, these children of strife breathe out threatenings, provocation and war against the English themselves. So that unless they should dishonor and provoke God by violating a just engagement, and expose the colonies to contempt and danger from the barbarians, they cannot but exercise force, when no other means will prevail to reduce the Narragansets and their confederates to a more just and sober temper.” The Plymouth colonists were as prompt in action as those of Massachusetts. Captain Miles Standish was of course placed at the head of the command. With rapid steps his little army of forty men traversed the forest to the appointed rendezvous at Seekonk, now Rehoboth. Having a much shorter journey to take, he was encamped upon the spot before the Massachusetts men reached it. The Connecticut and New Haven forces also soon arrived. Quite a large number of friendly Indian warriors also joined them. They were armed with muskets, and placed under the command of Captain Standish.