The same causes which had spread the English settlements over so wide a territory now led, as an indirect result, to their partial union into a confederacy. The immediate consequence of the westward movement had been an Indian war. Several savage tribes were now interspersed between the settlements, so that it became desirable that the military force should be brought, as far as possible, under one management. The colony of New Netherlands, moreover, had begun to assume importance, and the settlements west of the Connecticut river had already occasioned hard words between Dutch and English, which might at any moment be followed by blows. In the French colonies at the north, with their extensive Indian alliances under Jesuit guidance, the Puritans saw a rival power which was likely in course of time to prove troublesome. With a view to more efficient self-defence, therefore, in 1643 the four colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven formed themselves into a league, under the style of "The United Colonies of New England." These four little states now contained thirty-nine towns, with an aggregate population of 24,000. To the northeast of Massachusetts, which now extended to the Piscataqua, a small colony had at length been constituted under a proprietary charter somewhat similar to that held by the Calverts in Maryland. Of this new province or palatinate of Maine the aged Sir Ferdinando Gorges was Lord Proprietary, and he had undertaken not only to establish the Church of England there, but also to introduce usages of feudal jurisdiction like those remaining in the old country. Such a community was not likely to join the Confederacy; apart from other reasons, its proprietary constitution and the feud between the Puritans and Gorges would have been sufficient obstacles.