‘So will we.’  John Scott said, ’Stay awhile and I will fetch you a letter, from under Governor Winthrop’s hand, which I do not question much will satisfy you.’  So he went into the house and fetched it forth and read it before us, bearing date as he said, of March 25, 1664.

“It was concerning the governor’s desiring him to meet him to end some difference in the Narragansett country about a tract of land.  John Scott said, ’If you will return to your body, I will fetch a commission under his Majesty’s hand, which shall command you all.’  Whereupon he made a flourish and said that he would go down unto the face of the company and read it, and he would see if the proudest of them all dared to lay hands upon him.  ‘Let them,’ said he, ’take me if they dare.’

“Then he came down to the head of the company, and read the commission, which he said had the seal manual upon it.  Whereupon he renewed his challenge that he would see if the proudest of them all dared to lay hands upon him.  Then Nathaniel Seely arrested him in his Majesty’s name to go with him according to law.”

Scott was taken to Hartford and thrown into jail, where, it is said, he experienced much harsh usage.  Soon after this Governor John Winthrop, from Hartford, visited the English Long Island towns, removed the officers appointed by Scott, and installed others who would be devoted to the interests of Connecticut.

Governor Stuyvesant being informed of his presence, immediately crossed the East river to Long Island, to meet the Connecticut governor, who was thus encroaching upon the Dutch domains.  He urged upon Governor Winthrop the claims of Holland upon New Netherland, by the apparently indubitable title of discovery, purchase and possession, as well as by the clearly defined obligations of the Hartford treaty of 1650.  It will be remembered that by that treaty it was expressly agreed that,

“Upon Long Island a line run from the westernmost part of Oyster Bay, in a straight and direct line to the sea, shall be the bounds between the English and the Dutch there; the easterly part to belong to the English, the westernmost part to the Dutch.”

But here was Governor Winthrop, in total disregard of this treaty, many miles west of this line, endeavoring to wrest several towns from the Dutch dominion, and to annex them to the Connecticut colony.  All Governor Stuyvesant’s arguments were unavailing.  Governor Winthrop paid no heed to them.  He knew very well that the Dutch governor had no military power with which to enforce his claims.  Governor Winthrop therefore contented himself with simply declaring that the whole of Long Island belonged to the king of England.

“All Governor Stuyvesant could address, writes O’Callaghan,