A "black and fatal" day was this, says the
chronicler, "the saddest that ever befell New England." To this day the
memory of the slaughter at Bloody Brook survives, and the visitor to
South Deerfield may read the inscription over the grave in which Major
Treat's men next day buried all the victims together. The Indians now
began to feel their power, and on the 5th of October they attacked
Springfield and burned thirty houses there. [Sidenote: Ambuscade at
Bloody Brook, September 12]
Things were becoming desperate. For ten weeks, from September 9 to
November 19, the Federal Commissioners were in session daily in Boston.
The most eminent of their number, for ability and character, was the
younger John Winthrop, who was still governor of Connecticut. Plymouth
was represented by its governor, Josiah Winslow, with the younger
William Bradford; Massachusetts by William Stoughton, Simon Bradstreet,
and Thomas Danforth. These strong men were confronted with a difficult
problem. From Batten's journal, kept during that disastrous summer, we
learn the state of feeling of excitement in Boston. The Puritans had
by no means got rid of that sense of corporate responsibility which
civilized man has inherited from prehistoric ages, and which has been
one of the principal causes of religious persecution.
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