On the other side, Andros seems to have gotten wind somehow of the peculiar activities of his deputy on the Delaware. With his usual decisiveness, he dismissed Cantwell from office and commissioned Captain John Collier as replacement. To Collier, Andros gave fresh instructions. A polite but genuine ultimatum was to be delivered to Maryland. Either the Susquehannock's were to be actually received within that province or some acceptable reason for keeping them dangling in an unconfirmed truce would have to be given to Andros. Otherwise, Andros would take the Indians himself "rather than hazard their being obliged to refuge with a grudge and rancour in their hearts, further off, if not wholly out of our reach." Collier was instructed further to take another, somewhat ambiguous, message to the Susquehannock's. As many of those people as could be persuaded were to be brought to New York. The rest were to be given a new and ominous warning that "though they shall receive no harme from the Government" Andros would not "now undertake to Secure them from others where they are."⁹⁴

Andros now wrote directly to the deputy governor of Maryland. "I have some interest with the Mohawks and Senecas," he stated, "which can best deale with them." At such points the twentieth century despairs of the seventeenth's bad habit of using pronouns without definite referents. Who were the "them" who could be dealt with? Did he mean that his interest could deal with Mo. hawks and Senecas? Or did he mean that the Mohawks and Senecas could best deal with the Susquehannock's? At least, Andros was definite, if not entirely clear, on one point. "I shall be ready to use all fitting means for the best," he wrote; it might have been either a promise or a threat. So far as the Iroquois were concerned, Andros expressed a fear that the Susquehannock's might soon "necessarily Submitt to the Mohawks and Senecas, which passionately desire it." Such a submission, he thought, might prove "of a bad consequence." He appears to mean that the consequences would be bad for Maryland. He pushed the Marylanders to reply. Was the "late Peace" with the Susquehannock's "Sufficient"? Should the Susquehannock's be permitted to remain where they were, or should they be removed?⁹⁵