Still less is known of the strength of Philip's confederated tribes. Pestilence and war had depopulated New England previous to the arrival of the Pilgrims. In 1675 the Pokanokets and Narragansets were the most powerful, and together mustered three or four thousand warriors. Philip was sachem of the Pokanokets and Canonchet of the Narragansets. These tribes constituted Philip's reliable strength, but he had confederated with him and pledged to the common cause the smaller chiefs of the Piscataqua and Merrimack, of central Massachusetts and the valley of the Connecticut. The Narragansets occupied what is now Rhode Island and the islands adjacent thereto, while Philip as the chief of the Pokanokets or Wampanoags had his seat at Montaup or Mount Hope. It was not, however, expedient or possible for him to consecrate a large force upon any one point. With his forces divided into war parties as necessity or circumstances dictated, he was able in the space of thirteen months to attack and partially or entirely destroy a great number of towns, among which were Brookfield, Lancaster, Marlboro', Sudbury, Groton, Deerfield, Springfield, Hatfield, Northfield, Northampton, Chelmsford, Andover, Medfield, Rehoboth, Plymouth, Scituate, Weymouth, and Middleborough in Massachusetts, and New Plymouth, Providence and Warwick in Rhode Island. Of these, twelve or thirteen were entirely destroyed. Six hundred dwellings were burned, and sixteen hundred persons slain or carried into captivity. There was not a house standing between Stonington and Providence. It was as destructive as a war would now be to Massachusetts which should send twenty thousand able-bodied men to the grave, and render twenty thousand families houseless, and for the most part destitute. Had all the events of the Revolution been crowded into twelve months, the conflict would have been less terrible than was the war with Philip. His operations menaced and endangered the existence of the colony. There was a probability that the taunting threat of John Monoco, the leader of the party which burned Groton, that he would burn Chelmsford, Concord, Watertown, Cambridge, Charlestown, Roxbury and Boston, might even be executed. Hardly anything else remained of the Massachusetts colony on which the power and vengeance of Philip could fall. Points of the interior, to be sure, were garrisoned, but for the most part it was an unbroken forest, or marked only by heaps of smouldering ruins. And here may we well pause and reflect, that however we or posterity may judge the Indian policy of our ancestors, the scenes through which they passed were not calculated to mitigate the horrors of war, or in the hour of triumph to awaken emotions of pity for the fallen.