With the same outlook and policies in the southern part of his jurisdiction, Andros' first reaction to the Susquehannock dispersion was dismay. He informed Maryland of King Philip's War, then newly begun, and warned of the danger of a universal rising of the tribes against Englishmen everywhere.⁸⁸ At the first opportunity he tried to repair the damage done by the southern colonies. When Delaware Bay's Captain Cantwell reported the presence of a Susquehannock somewhere on the bay, Andros scolded Cantwell for failing to make immediate contact with the Indians.⁸⁹ Cantwell exerted himself and produced two Susquehannock sachems in New York on 2 June, 1676. Andros came directly to the point with them. If the Susquehannocks would return to live "anywhere" within his government, he said, "they shall be welcome and protected from their Enemys." He promised not only that the Mohawks and Senecas would be at peace with them, but also to make peace for them with Virginia and Maryland. He passed on a Mohawk invitation for the Susquehannocks to move in as guests. All was to be entirely as the Susquehannocks themselves desired: "They should say whether they will come into the Government or no. If they will not, it is well; if they will, he will make provision for them." No wonder the Susquehannocks departed "well satisfyed," but they had not been empowered to conclude a treaty so they returned for consultation with their "folks" living in sanctuary among Renowickam's Lenape.⁹⁰   Somehow they spread word of Andros' proffered protection, and their scattered people began to drift in, some to the old fort on the Susquehanna River, others to join the nucleus on the Delaware.

Andros' intervention was far from welcome in Maryland. The Marylanders wanted "their" Indians under their own control. For the same commercial reasons that Andros wanted the Susquehannocks in New York, and in spite of all the past bloodshed, Baltimore wanted them in Maryland. In any event he did not want them under the control of a province that he intended to raid again. Opportunity to counter Andros' measures came by way of the trading post of Jacob, My Friend, at the head of Chesapeake Bay. (The trader's involvement has been obscured by successive changes of name. Once Claeson, then Clawson, he now appears in the records as Jacob Young.) Jacob had his own commercial reasons for keeping the Susquehannocks nearby; if they were to leave for Mohawk country, his trade would go with them. Amid all the intrigue, Jacob became still another factor as he set himself to work at cross purposes with Andros and in behalf of Baltimore. While Andros tried to get the Susquehannocks to come to New York, Young tried to get them down to St. Mary's in Maryland. His long friendship and influence with them, and some highly suspect influence with Andros' commander at New Castle, won the decision. On 4 August, 1676, the Susquehannocks came with Young and New Castle's Captain Cantwell to the head of the Chesapeake to send a message to the Maryland Council. The Indians asked for "peace and trade as formerly with the English." The Council observed that Andros had already made peace between the Susquehannocks and the Iroquois "so that now they are at Ease and out of our reach." But "this notwithstanding," the Susquehannocks seemed to desire "to treate of a peace with the English in Generall." It was a "blessing from God unhoped for," according to the Council. "Wee thought it not to be Slighted." A safe conduct was dispatched at once.⁹¹

Apparently a truce was negotiated to give the Maryland Council time to consult the province's allies, but this was far from the end of the affair. Neither the European friends of the Susquehannocks nor the Indian friends of Maryland were willing to let the peace be consummated in the proposed manner. Captain Cantwell, in the first place, had flouted Andros' policy by even permitting negotiations directly between Maryland and the Susquehannocks. Cantwell and Jacob Young at the head of the Chesapeake had sent the Susquehannocks' solicitation for peace with Maryland on August 4; on the same day in New York, Andros and his Council resolved that Cantwell should not "promise or engage anything" but should refer the Indians to Andros himself to handle Maryland as well as the Iroquois. Cantwell's job was to be strictly limited to informing the Marylanders of his commands from Andros. To justify this procedure, Andros remarked that the greatest service he could do the Marylanders was "to take off the said Indyans lest goeing to the Mohawks and Senecas, they might induce them to make inroads upon the Christians, which none of us could remedy." Cantwell was further to offer a present to the Susquehannocks, in Andros' name, to be delivered explicitly on the Delaware rather than on the Chesapeake.⁹²

It would seem that Captain Cantwell was not quite a good and faithful servant. Not only did he act prematurely (perhaps on purpose) to create an undesirable commitment, but he raised an alarm about an Indian danger that Andros found to be nonexistent; and apparently he did not inform Andros of his and Jacob Young's excursion to Maryland. Whatever he and Young were up to, they failed; the truce with Maryland could not be developed into a treaty because of unexpected complications made by still another set of interested parties. When Maryland's Council informed its allied Indians of the Susquehannock peace overture, the allied Piscatawa and Mattawoman tribes objected strenuously. They had joined the Maryland militia in pursuit of fleeing Susquehannock bandsin all likelihood they had been militarily more effective than the militiaand they feared retaliation. They wanted the war continued until the Susquehannocks could not possibly survive as a serious threat. Faced with this opposition, the Maryland Council asked whether the allies would march under Maryland's officers against the Susquehannocks in their rebuilt fort. The allies agreed.⁹³ From subsequent developments, one can see that this reply opened an interesting vista to the Marylanders. They had never given up the hope of seizing the Delaware Bay for themselves, and they had often played with the notion of excusing invasion on the grounds that they were pursuing hostile Indians into the Delaware valley. Their new maneuvers indicate that their hope was still alive.