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THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES
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such instances, which show the closeness and frequency of the intercourse between the two nations. Gardiner remained in command of Fort Saybrook, which practically cut off Fort Good Hope and isolated it from New Amsterdam, for overland communication through the primeval forest was full of difficulty and danger.
But now this forlorn hope of eastern New Netherland was about to be not merely isolated, but in a measure overwhelmed in a new tide of English migration. The ing of Con- majority of the people in Cambridge, Watertown, and Dorchester disapproved of some theocratic features in the government of Massachusetts, and in particular of the restriction of the suffrage to church members. In 1636, under their great leader, Thomas Hooker, the Cambridge congregation came in a body through the wilderness to the fields which Fort Good Hope   vainly   as-          t
pired to command, " /ft/} ' and began building Hartford. So wholesale was the move that only eleven families were left in Cambridge, which, but for a new arrival from England, would have presented the appearance of a deserted village. In similar wise, the Dorchester congregation came to Windsor and quite swallowed up the little Plymouth settlement; and the Watertown congregation came to Wethersfield. The English population of 800 souls, thus suddenly brought into Connecticut, far outnumbered all the Dutch in New Netherland. Against such odds there was small hope of success, but the Dutch remained for some years unmolested at their Hartford fortress, for the English could well afford to disregard them.
The ferocious Indian war that followed this migration hardly belongs to the history of New Netherland, except for The Pe- an incident which reflects great honour upon the quotwar Dutch governor and has been too little noticed. We may briefly recall to mind how certain Narragansetts murdered an English  trader at  Block  Island,  whereupon