41 HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



and one of the earliest officers of the Ancient and Honorable Artil- 

 lery Company." "He was sworn freeman, 1 8th of May, 1630. In 

 1637, his great friend Sir Harry Vane, sent him as commander of the 

 colony troops, to Saybrook, a Connecticut." The same year he was 

 "disfranchised, and eventually banished from the jurisdiction of Mas- 

 sachusetts — his ideas of religious toleration being more liberal than those 

 around him." "In 1638, he returned to England, but was banished 

 thence for certain religious and moral delinquences. While there he 

 published a work entitled " Nevves from America, or a New and Exper- 

 imental Discoverie of New England ; containing a true relation of their 

 warlike proceedings there, two years last past, with a figure of the In- 

 dian Fort, or Palizado. By Capt. John Underhill, a commander in the 

 warres there." The book gives a very good account of the Pequot war, 

 in which he was a conspicious actor. " Myself," he writes, "received 

 an arrow through my coat-sleeve, a second against my helmet, on the 

 forehead ; so, as if God, in His providence, had not moved the heart of 

 my wife to persuade me to carry it along with me, (which I was unwill- 

 ing to do), I had been slain. Give me leave to observe two things 

 from hence — first, when the hour of death is not yet come, you see God 

 useth weak means to keep His purpose inviolated ; secondly, let no man 

 despise advice and counsel of his wife, though she be a woman." The 

 book abounds in similar quaint passages. It is filled with religious cant, 

 for he was an arrant hypocrite. He appears to be equally fond of sin- 

 ning and repenting. It is amusing to read in these pages of Winthrop, 

 how ingeniously he managed through several years, to delude the Puri- 

 tans by his professions of sanctity, while he led in their midst the most 

 dissolute of lives." & 



"In 1638 he was chosen Governor of Dover, New Hampshire, in 

 place of Burdett. The same infirmity rendered his removal unavoida- 

 ble, and he went to the Dutch ; with them he succeeded," for governor 

 Kieft gave him a command of one hundred and twenty men in their 

 wars with the natives. In February, 1644, the Dutch soldiers, under 

 their valiant leader, encountered the Indians on what is now called In- 

 dian Hill, in the town of Bedford, leaving five hundred of their enemy 

 dead on the field. He totally extinguished the Pequots. Besides this, 

 Underhill is said to have killed one hundred and fifty Indians on Long 

 Island. He was a representative from Stamford to the General Court 

 of Connecticut, in 1633. e In 1644, he came with the Rev. Mr. Denton, 



a Klllingworth. near Saybrook, is said to have been named by rnderhill. 



b Manhattan Papers. No. 10. By Vanwargen. — Sunday Time*. 



e in ltv>3, Privateer's commission was given to Capt. John T'ndorriill and others "to goe 

 against the Dutch or any enemies of ye Commonwealth of New England."— New voL vii. No. 

 1.P " 



