It was, however, previously to this cessation of activity, that the Commissioners of the United Colonies, as they were called, met to devise the means of a concerted resistance. Unlike their former dangers from the same quarter, it was manifest, by the manner in which a hostile feeling was spreading around their whole frontier, that a leading spirit had given as much of unity and design to the movements of the foe, as could probably ever be created among a people so separated by distance and so divided in communities. Right or wrong, the Colonists gravely decided that the war on their part was just. Great preparations were therefore made to carry it on, the ensuing summer, in a manner more suited to their means, and to the absolute necessities of their situation. It was in consequence of the arrangements made for bringing a portion of the inhabitants of the Colony of Connecticut into the field, that we find the principal characters of our legend in the warlike guise in which they have just been re-introduced to the reader. Although the Narragansetts had not at first been openly implicated in the attacks on the Colonists, facts soon came to the knowledge of the latter, which left no doubt of the state of feeling in that nation. Many of their young men were discovered among the followers of Metacom, and arms taken from whites, who had been slain in the different encounters, were also seen in their villages. One of the first measures of the Commissioners, therefore, was to anticipate more serious opposition, by directing an overwhelming force against this people. The party collected on that occasion was probably the largest military body which the English, at that early day, had ever assembled in their Colonies. It consisted of a thousand men, of whom no inconsiderable number was cavalry--a species of troops that, as all subsequent experience has shown, is admirably adapted to operations against so active and so subtle a foe. The attack was made in the depth of winter, and it proved fearfully destructive to the assailed. The defence of Conanchet, the young Sachem of the Narragansetts, was every way worthy of his high character for courage and mental resources, nor was the victory gained without serious loss to the Colonists. The native chief had collected his warriors, and taken post on a small area of firm land, that was situated in the centre of a densely wooded swamp; and the preparations for resistance betrayed a singular familiarity with the military expedients of a white man. There had been a palisadoed breast-work, a species of redoubt, and a regular block-house, to overcome, ere the Colonists could penetrate into the fortified village itself. The first attempts were unsuccessful, the Indians having repulsed their enemies with loss. But better arms and greater concert finally prevailed, though not without a struggle that lasted for many hours, and not until the defendants were, in truth, nearly surrounded.