During the two years' deadly struggle the colonists had been surfeited with horrors, of which the statistics of loss can convey but slight idea. Of the eighty or ninety towns in Plymouth and Massachusetts, nearly two-thirds had been harried by the savages,--ten or twelve wholly, and the others partially destroyed; while nearly six hundred fighting men--about ten per cent of the whole--had either lost their lives or had been taken prisoners, never to return. It was many years before the heavy war-debts of the colonies could be paid; in Plymouth the debt exceeded in amount the value of all the personal property. The year before Philip fell (1675), trouble broke out with the Indians to the north, on the Piscataqua. In the summer of 1678 the English of Maine felt themselves compelled to purchase peace, thus establishing a precedent which fortunately has not often been followed in America. The home government was much annoyed at the obstinacy of the colonists in not calling on it for aid in these two Indian wars. Jealous of English interference, they preferred to fight their battles for themselves, and thus to give no excuse to the king for maintaining royal troops in New England. 71. Territorial Disputes (1649-1685). Sidenote: Massachusetts extends her territory. Massachusetts early gave evidence of a desire to extend her territory. Disputes in regard to lands frequently gave rise to quarrels with the Indians. In 1649 the strip of mainland along Long Island Sound, between the western boundary of Rhode Island and Mystic River, was granted to her by the federal commissioners. From 1652 to 1658 she absorbed the settlements in Maine, now neglected by the heirs of Gorges, just as in 1642-1643 she had annexed the New Hampshire towns. The council for foreign plantations had been dissolved in 1675, and the management of colonial affairs was resumed by a standing committee of the Privy Council styled "the Lords of the Committee of Trade and Plantations." At this time the Gorges and Mason heirs renewed their respective claims to Maine and New Hampshire, which they said had been wrongfully swallowed up by Massachusetts. Sidenote: The king's charges against Massachusetts.