I r i ' I ] ' I f UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 1 m LIBRARY OF THE ¥fiVERSiTY OF California. L,i^%',|i % ;' ^^:%^ v'% ^. v^'^ • «y 1^ V;/.^ ■^^ .<^ Jpy, czy^ yr(/ayi!^. BANCROFT'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. CENTENARY EDITION, Vol. II. s/ HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, FROM THE DISCOVERY OF THE CONTINENT. BY / GEORGE BANCROFT. IN SIX VOLUMES. Vol. XL THOROUGHLY REVISED EDITION. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 1876. copyuight, 1876, By George Bancroft. CAMBRIDGE : PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON. CONTENTS OF VOLUME H. CHAPTER XXI. MARYLAND. Maryland, p. 3 — Death of Lord Baltimore, 5 — " Baconists " in Mary- land, 7 — Restrictions on Suffrage, 7 — Protestantism, 8 — A Tory President, 9 — Revolution, 10 — Culpepper in Virginia, 10 — Increase of Royal Power, 11 — Appeals to the Assembly prohibited, 12 — ^Virginia redeemed, 13 — Howard of Effingham, 13 — Rebels sent to Virginia, 13 — Kidnapped Men and Boys, 14 — Despotism, 15 — Resisted, 16 — Tendencies to Union, 17. CHAPTER XXII. NEW NETHERLAND. Holland and Union, p. 18 — Revolution in the Netherlands, 19 — Holland, 20 — Zealand, 20 — Origin of the Dutch West India Company, 23 — Henry Hud- son, 25 — Sails up the North River, 27 — The Uncultivated Wilderness, 29 — Geographical Features, 30 — Progress, 30 — Hudson's Last Voyage, 32 — The Dutch Traffic on the North River, 33 — Albany, 35 — Olden Bameveldt and Grotius oppose Colonization in America, 36 — West India Company chartered, 37 — Colonization, 37 — Colonial Diplomacy, 38 — Charter of Liberties, 40 — Monopoly of Lands, 43 -De Vries plants Delaware, 44 — Dutch Fort at Hart- ford, 45 — Gustavus Adolphus and New Sweden, 46 — Dutch and Indian Wars, 49 — Municipal Liberties desired, 53 — Roger Williams mediates a Truce, 54 — Peace, 54 — New Albion, 55 — Stuyvesant's Administration, 56 — New Swe- den, 56 — Amsterdam purchases Delaware, 56 — Emigrants, 57 — Jews, 58 — Waldenses, 59 — Huguenots, 59 — Africans, 60 — Dawn of Democratic Liberty, 61 — Effects of the Restoration of Charles II., 64 — Conquest of New Nether- land, 68 — New Jersey, 70 — Delaware, 73 — New York, 74 — New York recon- quered, 75 — Restored, 75 — Rights of Neutral Flags, 77. CHAPTER XXin. THE PEOPLE CALLED QUAKERS IN THE UNITED STATBS. Unity of the Human Race, p. 78 — Progress of Emancipation, 78 — Power of the People in England, 80 — Progress of Intellectual Freedom, 80 — Speculative Truth, 81 — Quakers, 81 — George Fox, 81 — Struggle for Freedom of Mind, 83 — Obtains it, 84 — Preaches Freedom to the People, 84 — His Purpose, 86 — The Inner Light, 87 — Its Reality, 87— Quaker Method, the Method of Des- 207722 VI CONTENTS. cartes, 87 — Asserts Freedom of Conscience, and of Mind, 88 — Repels Super- stition, 89 — Respects Universal and Necessary Truths, 90 — The Bible, 90 — Christianity, 91 — Philosophy, 92 — Quaker Morality, 92 — Vows, 93— Power, 93 — Riches, 93 — Education, 93 — Capital Punishment, 94 — Imprisonment for Debt, 94 — War, 94 — Common Prayer, 94 — The Sacraments, 94 — Mourning, 94 — Oaths, 94 — Sensual Pleasures, 94 — Dress, 95 — Style, 95 — Tracts, 95 — Hireling Ministry, 95 — Persecution, 95 — Resistance, 96 — Quaker Method of Revolution, 96 — Power of Truth, 97 — Faith in Humanity, 97 — Universal Enfranchisement, 98 — Priesthood, 99 — Woman, 99— Kings, 99— Nobles, 99 Titles, 99— Hat Worship, 100 — Influence of the Age on Fox, 100 — Progress of his Opinions, 100 — Quakers persecuted, 101 — They buy West New Jersey, 102 — The Concessions, 102 — The Quaker Constitution, 102 — Relations with the Indians, 103 — With the Duke of York, 103 — Progress of the Settlement, 105. CHAPTER XXIV. PENNSYLVANIA. William Penn, p. 107— Pennsylvania, 107 — Letter to the People, 108 — Monopoly, 109 — Government, 111 — Free Society, 111 — Delaware, 111 — Sails for America, 112 — Life of Penn, 112 — John Locke and Penn, 119 — Penn on the Delaware, 121 — The Great Treaty with the Indians, 122 — Organization of the Government, 124 — Penn and Baltimore, 125 — Philadelphia, 125 — Consti- tutions established, 126 — Trial for Witchcraft, 128 — Progress, 128 — Penn's Farewell, 130 — Boundary with Maryland, 130 — Penn in England, 131 — His Fame, 131 — His Fortunes, 133 — Quaker Legislation, 134 — Indian Alarm, 135 — Slavery, 135 — Death of George Fox, 136. CHAPTER XXV. JAMES n. CONSOLIDATES THE NORTHERN COLONIES. _,^^Andros in New York, p. 137 — Claims Connecticut, 137 — Character of James IL, 138 — His Colonial Policy, 139— New York discontented, 140— East New Jersey, 141 — Cause of the Emigration of Scottish Presbyterians, 142 — No Persecution in New Jersey, 144 — Free Trade in New York, 145 — Charter of Liberties, 146 — The Five Nations, 146 — Their Wars with other Tribes, 147 — With the French, 148 — Treaty at Albany, 150 -War with the French, 152 — Policy of Louis XIV., 153 — Magnanimity of the Onondagas, 153 — War re- vived, 154 — Treaty for New England, 154 — Dudley, Aadros, 154 — Tyranny, 156 — John Wise resists, 156 — Connecticut, 158 — Rhode Island, 159 — Con- solidation, 160. CHAPTER XXVI. , THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. England, Clarendon's Ministry, p. 161 — The Cabal, 162 — Shaftesbury, 162 — Danby, 163 — Shaftesbury, 164 — Reaction, 165 — James IL, 165— Baxter, 167 CONTENTS. "VU — The Tories, the Whigs, 168 — Penn's Party, 169— The Revolution of 1688, 170 — Revolution in Massachusetts, 171 — Plymouth, 172— Rhode Island, 173 — Connecticut, New York, 173 — Absolute Sovereignty of Parliament, 174. CHAPTER XXVII. THE BESULT THUS FAR. Population of the Twelve Oldest States in 1688, p. 175 —Elements of the Coun- try, 175 — A Free People, 175 — An Anglo-Saxon People, 176 — Character of the Virginians, 176 — A Christian People, 177 — A Protestant People, 177 — Political Character of Protestantism, 177 — Christianity originally an Enfran- chisement, 177 — Origin of the Political Influence of the Seven Sacraments, 178 — The Exclusive Sacraments found a Spiritual Tyranny, 178 — Imperfect Re- sistance from Scholastic Theologians ; from Sensualists ; from the Feudal Aris- tocracy; from Monarchs ; from Scholars, 179 — Wy cliff e appeals to the People, 179 — John Huss, 179 — Luther and Lutheranism, 180 — Anabaptists, 181 — Cal- vin, 182 — -Political Mission of Calvinism, 183 — Calvinism revolutionized the English World, 183 — Calvinism and Massachusetts, 183 — Progress in New- England, 184 — Connecticut, 184— Rhode Island, 184 — The Quakers, 185 — Coincidence of Quakers and Descartes, 185 — America struggles for Universal- ity, 185 — Influence on the Red Man, 185 — On the Black Man, 185 — France, England, and the Rising Colonies, 186. CHAPTER XXVni. THE SOUTHERN STATES AFTER THE REVOLUTION. The Fortunes of the Stuarts, p. 188 — The Aristocratic Revolution of Eng- land, 188 — Character of William of Orange, 189 — Sketch of Somers, 190 — The Revolution vindicates English Liberties, 190 — The Anglican Church, 190 — Right of Resistance, 192 — Power of Parliament, 192 — Influence of the Com- mercial Classes, 193 — Theory of the Revolution, 194 — Power of Opinion, 194 — Free Press, 195 — Character of the Revolution, 195 — Parties in South Caro- lina, 196 — Abrogation of Locke's Constitution, 198 — Archdale, 198 — Prog- ress ; Huguenots enfranchised, 199 — High Church Faction, 200 — Produce of Carolina, 201 — North Carolina, 202 — Its Anarchy, 203 — Progress, 203 — Virginia, 205 — Forms of Government, 206 — The Church, 207 — Character of its People, 208 — Maryland, 210 — The Protestant Association, 210 — Legisla- tion, 211 — Power of Proprietary restored, 211. CHAPTER XXIX. THE MIDDLE STATES AFTER THE REVOLUTION. Pennsylvania, p. 214 — Delaware, 214 — George Keith's Schism, 215 — Fletcher claims the Government, 216 — Penn restored, 219 — Negroes, 219 — New Constitution, 220 — New Jersey, 223 — It becomes a Royal Province, 225 —New York, 226 — Leisler, 237 — Sloughter arrives, 228 — Leisler and Mil- Viil CONTENTS. borne executed, 230 — Colonial Liberties asserted, 231 — Established Churcli, 232 — Bellomont, 233 — Sketch of Lord Cornbury, 234 — His Administration, 235 — Lovelace, Hunter, 237. CHAPTER XXX. NEW ENGLAND AFTER THE BEVOLUTION. Connecticut, p. 242 — Commands its own Militia, 243 — Rhode Island, 244 — Charters endangered, 244 — Massachusetts, 245 — Revolution in Opinion, 247 — Belief in Witchcraft, 247 — Cotton Mather, 248 — Glover, the Witch, 249 — Skepticism, 250 — Cotton Mather, the Champion of Witchcraft, 250 — New- Charter, 252 — New Hampshire a Royal Province, 254 — Phips and Stough- ton, 255 — Witchcraft at Salem, 256 — The New Charter arrives, 258 — The Hanging of Witches begins, 259 — More Victims, 261 — Confessions, 262 — Willard, Burroughs, Proctor, 262 — Currier, Jacobs, 263 — Last Executions, 264 — Cotton Mather' s ' ' Wonders of the Invisible World, ' ' 265 — Meeting of General Court, 266 — The Delusion over, 267 — Moral Revolution, 269— Dudley, 270. CHAPTER XXXI. THE RULE OF PARLIAMENT AND THE COLONIES. The Principles of the Revolution applied by the Colonies to their own Condi- tion, p. 271 — The Anglican Church in England and Ireland, 272 — King Wil- liam desires Union, 273 — System of James II., 273 — The System of Governing by Instructions, 274 — Appointment of the Board of Trade, 275 — Its Plan of Union, 276 — The Constitution proposed by Penn, 277 — Parliament and Taxa- tion, 278 — The Prerogative and the Veto, 278 — The Judiciary, 279 — Writ of Habeas Corpus, 279 — The Press, 279 — The Church, 279 — The Slave-Trade, 280 — The Charter Governments threatened, 280 — The Mercantile System sus- tained and developed, 282 — Courts of Admiralty, 283 — Laws against Manufac- tures in the Colonies, 284 — Opposition to the Mercantile System, 285 — Piracy, 286 — Regulation of Colonial Currency, 286— American Post-Office, 287 — Naval Stores and the Navy, 287 — As yet no Taxation by Parliament, 288 — Tendencies to Independence, 288. CHAPTER XXXn. PROGRESS OF FRANCE IN NORTH AMERICA. European Colonial System, p. 290 — Mercantile System, 291 — Its Develop- ments, 291 — The System of Portugal, 293 — Spain, Holland, 294 — France and England, 294 — New France, 298 — The Hundred Associates, 298— Jesuits, 298 — Jesuits in Canada, 299 — Character of Brebeuf, 301 — Mode of Life, 302 — Hospital, 303 — Ursuline Convent, Montreal, 304 — Progress of Missions, 304 — Raymbault and Jogues at the Falls of the St. Mary, 306 — Jogues in Western New York, 308 — Bressani, 310 — Mission on the Kennebec, 311 — Martyrdom of Jogues, 312 — Of Daniel, 313 — Of Brebeuf and Lallemand, 314 — Missions to the Five Nations, 315 — Dablon, 317 — Rend Mesnard, Chaumonot, 318. CONTENTS. IX CHAPTER XXXin. FRANCE AND THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. The Ottawas, p. 320 — Missions to the Far West; Gareau, 320 — Ren^Mes- nard, 321 — Alloiiez, 323 — Dablon and Marquette, 325 — Congress at St. Mary's, 326 — Jesuits in Michigan, Wisconsin, Nortliern Illinois, 327 — Joliet, 328 — Marquette and Joliet discover the Mississippi, 328 — Death of Marquette, 333 — La Salle at Frontenac, 333 — On Lake Erie, 335 — On the Miami, 335 — Walks to Fort Frontenac, 336 — Hennepin's Discoveries, 337 — Tonti, 337 — La Salle descends the Mississippi, 338 — Colony for Louisiana, 338 — La Salle in Texas, 339 — Texas a Part of Louisiana, 340 — La Salle departs for Canada, 341 — Is murdered, 342 — Fate of his Companions, 343. CHAPTER XXXIV. FRANCE CONTENDS FOR THE FISHERIES AND THE GREAT WEST. American Possessions of France, p. 344 — Alliances; Objects of the War, 345 — Relative Strength of French and English Colonies, 345 — Plans of Hostil- ity, 347 — Sack of Montreal; War in Hudson's Bay, 347 — Cocheco, 348 — Pemaquid, 349 — Schenectady, 349 — Salmon Falls, 350 — An American Con- gress, 350 — Conquest of Acadia, 351 — Expedition against Quebec, 351 — War on the Eastern Frontier, 353 — Hannah Dustin, 354 — War of the French with the Five Nations, 355 — Financial Measures, 357 — Peace of Ryswick, 357 — Boundaries, 358 — Detroit founded, 359 — Illinois colonized, 360 — Character of D'Iberville, 363 — Colonization of Louisiana, 365 — Collision with England on the Mississippi, 365 — Exploring Expeditions, 367 — Settlement on the Mobile, 367. CHAPTER XXXV. WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION. War of the Spanish Succession, p. 369 — Expedition of South Carolina against St. Augustine, 371 — War with the Spanish Indians, 372 — Attack on Charles- ton, 372 — War with the Abenakis, 373 — Burning of Deerfield, 374 — Mas- sacre at Haverhill, 376 — Bounty on Scalps, 377 — Conquest of Acadia, 378 — Character of Bolingbroke, 379 — Plan for conquering Canada, 380 — Sir Hovenden Walker and General Hill, 380 — Detroit besieged, 383 — France desires Peace, 386 — Peace of Utrecht, 387 — Balance of Power, 387 — Spain, Belgium, 388 — Free Ships, Free Goods, 390 — The Assiento, 390 — British Slave-Trade, 390 — Surrender of Territory to England, 392. CHAPTER XXXVI. THE ABORIGINES EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI. THEIR LANGUAGES. Cape Breton, p. 393 — Languages of the Aborigines, 394 — The Algon- kin; Micmacs, Etchemins, 395 — Abenakis, 395 — Pokanokets, 396 — Lenni- X CONTENTS. Lenape, Nanticokes, Corees, 396 — Powhatan Confederacy, Shawnees, Miamis, 397 — Illinois, 398 — Chippewas, Ottawas, Menomonies, 398 — Sacs and Foxes, 399 — The Dakota ; Sioux, Winnebagoes, 399 — Huron-Iroquois ; Wyandots, Iroquois, 400 — Tuscaroras, 401 — The Catawba; Woccons, 401 — The Cher- okee, 402— The Uchee, 403 — The Natchez, 403 — The MoUlian; Chickasaws, 404 — Choctaws, Muskohgees, 405 — Numbers, 406 — Character of their Lan- guage, 408 — Its Letters, its Hieroglyphics, 409 — Its Poverty of Abstract Terms, 410 — Its Synthetic Character, 410 — Inferences, 415. CHAPTER XXXVII. THEIR MANNERS, POLITY, AND RELIGION. Manners of the Aborigines, p. 418 — Dwellings, 418 — Marriage, 419 — The Mother and Child, 419 — Education, 420 — Condition of Woman, 421 — Resources, 422 — Hospitality, 423 — Famine, 424 — Treatment of the Sick, the Aged, 424 — Dress, 424 — Political Institutions, 425 — Absence of Law, 426 — Retaliation, 426 — The Tribe, 427 — Its Chiefs, 427 — Its Councils, 428 — Records, 429 — The Code of War, 430 — Religion, 433 — Idea of Divinity, 434 — Origin of Faith, 434 — Manitous, 435 — Sacrifices, 436 — Penance, 437 — Guardian Spirits, 438 — Medicine Men, 438 — Temples, 440 — Dreams, 440 — Faith in Immortality, 441 — Burials, 441 — The World of Shades, 442 — Graves, 443. CHAPTER XXXYIII. their nature and origin. Natural Endowments, p. 446 — Correspondence of Powers, 447 — Organic Differences, 448 — Inflexibility, 449 — Uniformity of Organization, 449 — Physi- cal Characteristics, 450 — Progress of Improvement, 451 — Origin, 451 — Mounds, 451 — Traditions, 453 — Analogies of Language, 454 — Of Customs, 455 — Israelites, Egyptians, Carthaginians, 456 — Scandinavians, Chinese, 457 — Astronomical Science in America and Asia, 457 — American Culture its own, 458 — Connection of America and Asia, 459 — The American and 'Mon- golian Races, 460. CHAPTER XXXIX. colonial rivalry of FRANCE AND ENGLAND. House of Hanover; George I., p. 462 — Philip of Orleans, 463 — Walpole, 464 — Fleury, 464 — War with the Yamassees, 465 — Revolution in Carolina, 467 — It becomes a Royal Province, 468 — Treaty with the Cherokees, 469 — Disputes with France on the North-east, 470 — Sebastian Rasles, 471 — His Death, 474 — Lovewell's Fight, 474 — Peace with the Eastern Indians, 474 — Bounds on the Lakes and St. Lawrence, 475 — Oswego, 475 — Claims of England, 476 — French Forts at CroAvn Point, at Niagara, 477. CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER XL. PROGRESS OF LOUISIANA. Louisiana, p. 479 — The French on the Ohio, 480 — English Jealousy aroused, 480 — Indifference of Walpole, 481 — Vincennes, 481 — Louisiana under Crozat, 482 — The Credit System of Law, 484 — The Mississippi Company, 485 — New Orleans, 486 — War between France and Spain, 487 — France claims Texas, 487 — Progress and End of the Mississippi Company, 487 — Its Moral, 490 — The Natchez, 491 — They begin a Massacre, 493 — The Natchez are defeated, 494 — The Crown resumes Louisiana, 495 — War with the Chickasaws, 495 — D'Arta- guette and Vincennes, 497— War renewed, 498 — Louisiana in 1740, 499. CHAPTER XLL TWENTY-SIX YEARS OF COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION UNDER THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. Progress of Anglo-American Colonies, p. 500 — Taxation by Parliament, 500 — Regulation of Charters, 501 — Colonial Manufactures repressed, 502 — Par- liament and Colonial Administration, 503 — Carolina, 503 — Pennsylvania, 503 — Virginia, 503 — New Jersey, 503 — New York, 504 — Massachusetts, 504 — Policy of Sir Robert Walpole, 505 — The Board of Trade on Colonial Commerce and such Encroachments, 506 — Proposes a New System of Colonial Admin- istration, 507 — The Charters in Danger, 508 — Dummer's Defence of the Char- ters, 508— Advice of Trenchard, 510 — Flight of Shute to England, 510 — The Duke of Newcastle, 511 — Opinion of Yorke on the Power of Parliament to tax the Colonies, 512 — New York Assembly and Periodical Grants, 512 — Burnet succeeded by Montgomery, 513 — Sir William Keith and a New Plan of Colo- nial Administration, 513 — Burnet in Boston, 513 — Belcher made Governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, 515 — New York and New Jersev, 616 — Carolina, 517 — Contest on Laws of Inheritance, 519 — Gee on Colonial Trade, 519 — The Restrictive System, 521 — Discrimination in Favor of Southern Colo- nies, 522 — Of the Islands against the Continent, 523 — Prohibitory Duties for the Colonists, 524 — Cosby, 524 — The Press, 525 — Clarke in New York, 526 — Walpole and Colonial Commerce, 527 — The Board of Trade urges Strong Measures, 528 — Paper Money, 529 — Religion in the Colonies, 532 — Beneficent Measure of Parliament, 533 — Prosperity of the Colonies, 533 — Immigration, 634 — Berkeley, 535 — Education and the Press, 537 — Benjamin Franklin, 538 — Growth of Liberty, 541. CHAPTER XLH. BRITISH MONOPOLY OF THE SLAVE-TRADE. COLONIZATION OF GEORGIA. Motives of an Historian to write a True History ; Test of Truth, p. 544 Truth in History can be ascertained, 545 — The Law of Progress, 545 — History the Record of God's Providence, 545 — Edwards, Vico, Bossuet, 545— Metro- politan Monopolists divided, 546 — South Sea Company and the Asgiento, 547 — Xll CONTENTS. England and the Slave-Trade, 547 — Slave Coast, 548 — The Slave in Africa, 548 — The Passage, 549 — The African in North America, 550 — Numbers, 551 — Labors, 551 — Progress; Emancipation, 552 — Conversion did not enfran- chise, 553 — Color, 554 — Colonies and the Slave-Trade, 554 — England and the Slave-Trade, 555 — Moral Opinion, 555 — English Legislation, 557 — England compels the Colonies to admit Negro Slaves, 558 — England and Spain, 559 — Colonization of Georgia proposed, 560 — Oglethorpe and Imprisonment for Debt, 560 — Plans a Colony, 561 — Oglethorpe at Savannah, 562 — Council with the Muskohgees, 563 — Cherokees and Choctaws, 564 — Lutheran Emigrants, 564 — Oglethorpe returns to England, 566 — Land Titles, 567 — Ardent Spirits, 567 — Slaves, 567 — New Emigration, 568 — John and Charles Wesley, 568 — Whitefield, 569 — Frederica, 570— Darien, 570 — Contest on Boundaries, 571 — Treaty with Indians, 572. CHAPTER XLTII. WAR BETVTEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND SPAIN. Oglethorpe among the Muskohgees, p. 573 — England and English Smugglers, 574 — Tale of Jenkins's Ears, 575 — The Convention, 576 — War, 577 — Anson, 577 — Vernon at Porto Bello, 577 — Attack on Carthagena, 579 — 111 Success, 579 — Oglethorpe invades Florida, 580 — Spaniards invade Georgia, 580 — Character of Oglethorpe, 581 — Slavery in Georgia, 582 — Fleury averse to War, 582 — War of the Austrian Succession, 583 — War of France with Eng- land, 583 — The Pretender, 584 — Frederic 11. and Prussia, 585 — War in the East Indies, 585 — Madras taken, 585 — Behring discovers North-West America, 586 — The Central Provinces undisturbed, 586 — Treaty at Lancaster with the Six Nations, 587 — Franklin's Volunteer Militia, 588 — New England resolves to conquer Louisburg, 588 — The Expedition, 589 — Sails to Cape Breton, 590 — Lands at Louisburg, 591 — The Siege, 592 — The Surrender, 593 — 111 Suc- cess of French Fleets, 594 — Plan of conquering Canada abandoned, 594 — Kalm's Opinion, 594 — Impressment of Sailors, 595 — Congress of Aix-la- ChapeUe, 596 — Washington, 597. COLONIAL HISTORY, CONTINUED. VOL. II. '-'»■ I HE UNIVERSITY COLONIAL HISTORY, CONTINUED. CHAPTER XXI. MARYLAND. The progress of Maryland, under the more generous pro- prietary government, was tranquil and rapid. Like Virginia, Maryland was a colony of planters ; its I66O. staple was tobacco, and its prosperity was equally checked by the navigation acts. Like Virginia, it possessed no considerable village ; its inhabitants were scattered among the woods and along the rivers ; each plantation was a little world within itself, and legislation vainly attempted the creation of towns by statute. Like Virginia, its laborers were in part indented servants, whose term of service was limited by persevering legislation ; in part negro slaves whose importation was favored both by English cupidity and by provincial statutes. As in Virginia, the appoint- ing power to nearly every office in the counties as well as in the province was not with the people, and the judiciary was placed beyond their control ; while the party of the propri- etary, which possessed the government, was animated by a jealous regard for his prerogative and derived his authority from the will of Heaven. As in Virginia, the taxes imposed by the county officers were not conceded by the direct vote of the people, and were burdensome alike from their exces- sive amount and the manner of their levy. But, though the administration of Maryland did not favor the increasing spirit of popular liberty, it was marked by conciliation and humanity. To foster industry, to promote union, to cherish religious peace, — these were the honest i>urposes of Lord Baltimore during his long supremacy. 4 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXI. At the restoration, the authority of Philip Calvert, the proprietary's deputy, was promptly and quietly recognised. Fendall, the former governor, who had obeyed the impulse of the popular will as paramount to the authority of Bal- timore, was convicted of treason. His punishment 1661. was mild ; a wise clemency veiled the incipient strife between the people and their sovereign, under a gen- eral amnesty. Peace was restored, but Maryland was not placed beyond the influence of the ideas which that age of revolution had set in motion ; and the earliest opportunity would renew the strife. Yet the happiness of the colony was enviable. The per- secuted and the unhappy thronged to its domains. If Bal- timore was, in one sense, a monarch, his monarchy was tolerable to the exile who sought for freedom and repose. Numerous ships found employment in its harbors. The white laborer rose rapidly to the condition of a free propri- etor ; the female emigrant was sure to improve her condi- tion, and the charities of home gathered round her in the Kew World. In the wilderness, where artificial amuse- ments were unknown, the planter's heart was in his family ; his pride in his children. Emigrants arrived from every clime ; and the colo- 1666. nial legislature extended its sympathies to many nations as well as to many sects. From France came Huguenots ; from Germany, from Holland, from Sweden, from Finland, I believe from Piedmont, the children of misfortune sought protection under the tolerant sceptre of the Roman Catholic. The country of Jerome and of Huss sent forth its sons, who at once were made citizens of Mary- land with equal franchises. The empire of justice and hu- manity, according to the light of those days, had been complete but for the sufferings of the people called Quakers. Yet they were not persecuted for their religious worship, which was held publicly and without interruption. " The truth was received with reverence and gladness ; " and with secret satisfaction George Fox relates that members of the legislature and the council, persons of quality, and justices of the peace, were present at a large and very heavenly 1674. MARYLAND. 5 meeting. The Indian emperor, after a great debate with his council, came, followed by his kings, with their subordi- nate chieftains, and, reclining on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, they listened to the evening discourse of the benevolent wanderer. At a later day, the heir of the prov- ince attended a Quaker assembly. But the refusal of the Quakers to perform military duty subjected them to fines and harsh imprisonment ; the refusal to take an oath some- times involved them in a forfeiture of property ; nor was it before 1688, six years after the arrival of William Penn in America, that indulgence was fully conceded. Meantime, Charles, the eldest son of the proprie- tary, resided in his patrimony. He visited the banks 1662. of .the Delaware, and struggled to extend the limits of his jurisdiction. As in Massachusetts, money was coined at a provincial mint, and, at a later day, the value of foreign coins was arbitrarily advanced. A duty 1686. was levied on the tonnage of every vessel that en- i662. tered the waters. A state house was built at a cost 1674. of forty thousand pounds of tobacco, — about a thou- sand dollars. The Indian nations were pacified; and 1666. their rights, subordination, and commerce defined. By acts of compromise between Lord Baltimore and 1662. the representatives of the people, the power of the i67i. former to raise taxes was accurately limited, and the 1674. mode of paying quit-rents established on terms favor- able to the colony ; while, on the other hand, a custom of two shillings a hogshead was levied on all exported tobacco, of which a moiety was appropriated to the defence of the government ; the residue became conditionally the revenue of the proprietary. Thus was the declining life of Cecilius Lord Baltimore, the father of Maryland, the tolerant legislator, blessed with success. The colony which he had planted in youth crowned his old age with its gratitude. Who among his peers could vie with him in honors ? A firm supporter of prerogative, a friend to the Stuarts, he was touched with the sentiment of humanity ; though of the Roman church, of which he ven- erated the expositions of truth as infallible, he established 6 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXI. an incipient equality among sects. He knew not the worth of popular power ; he had not perceived the character of the institutions which were forming in the New World, and his benevolent designs were the fruit of his personal character, his proprietary interests, and the necessity of his position. In Rhode Island, intellectual freedom was a principle which Roger Williams had elicited from the sympathies of the people ; in Maryland, it was the policy of the sovereign, who did not know that ideas find no secure shelter but in the breast of the multitude. The people are less easily shaken than the prince. Rhode Island never lost the treas- ure of which it had become conscious. The principle of liberty of conscience was in Maryland an uncertain posses- sion, till the same process of thought, which had redeemed the little colony of the north, slowly but surely infused itself into the public mind on the Chesapeake. Lord Bal- timore failed to obtain that fame which springs from suc- cessful influence on the masses ; his personal merits No^^30. ^^® ^^^® from stain. He died after a supremacy of more than forty-three years. The commercial me- tropolis of Maryland commemorates his name. The death of Cecilius recalled to England the heir 1676. of the province, who had now administered its gov- ernment for fourteen years with a moderation which had been rewarded by the increasing prosperity of his patrimony. Previous to his departure, the code of laws re- ceived a thorough revision; the memorable act of A^T%o. toleration was confirmed. Virginia had, in 1670, prohibited the importation of felons until the king or privy council should reverse the order. In Maryland, six years later, "the importation of convicted persons" was absolutely prohibited without regard to the will of the king or the English parliament, and in 1692 the prohibition was renewed. The established revenues of the proprietary were continued. As Lord Baltimore saUed for England, the seeds of dis- content were already germinating. The office of proprietary, a feudal principality with extensive manors in every county, was an anomaly ; the sole hereditary legislator in the prov- 1681. MARYLAND. T ince, his power was not in harmony with the political pre- dilections of the colonists or the habits of the New World. The doctrine of the paramount authority of an hereditary sovereign was at war with the spirit which emigration fostered, and the principles of civil equality naturally grew up in all the British settlements. The insurrection of Bacon found friends north of the Potomac, and a rising was checked only by the prompt energy of the government. But the vague and undejSned cravings after change, the tendency toward more popular forms of administration, could not be repressed. The assembly which was convened i678. during the absence of the proprietary shared in this spirit ; and the right of suffrage was established on a corresponding basis. The party of " Baconists " had ob- tained great influence on the public mind. Differences between the proprietary and the people became ap- parent. On his return to the province, he himself, j^ll\j^ by proclamation, annulled the rule which the rep- resentatives of Maryland had established respecting the elective franchise, and, by an arbitrary ordinance, limited the right of suffrage to freemen possessing a Sept. 6. freehold of fifty acres, or having a visible personal estate of forty pounds. No difference was made with respect to color. In Virginia, the negro, the mulatto, and the Indian were first disfranchised in 1723 ; in Maryland, they retained by law the right of suffrage till the time when the poorest white man recovered his equal franchise. Tlie restrictions, which for one hundred and twenty-one years successfully resisted the principle of universal suffrage among freemen of the Caucasian race, were introduced in the midst of scenes of civil commotion. Fendall, the old republican, was again planning schemes of insurrection, and even of independence. The state was not only troubled with poverty, but was in danger of falling to pieces ; for it was said, " The maxims of the old Lord Baltimore will not do in the present age." The insurrection was for the time repressed ; but its symptoms were the more alarming from the religious fa- naticism with which the principle of popular power was com- 8 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXL bined. The discontents were increased by hostility toward the creed of papists ; and, as Protestantism became a politi- cal sect, the proprietary government was in the issue easily subverted; for it had struck no deep roots either in the religious tenets, the political faith, or the social condition of the colony. It had rested only on a grateful deference, which was rapidly wearing away. On the death of the first feudal sovereign of Mary- 167fi land, the archbishop of Canterbury had been solicited to secure an establishment of the Anglican church, which clamored for favor in the province where it enjoyed equality. Misrepresentations were not spared. "Maryland," said a clergyman of the church, " is a pest-house of iniquity." The cure for all evil was to be " an established support of a Protestant ministry." The prelates demanded not freedom, but privilege ; an establishment to be maintained at the common expense of the province. Lord Baltimore re- sisted ; the Roman Catholic was inflexible in his regard for freedom of worship. The opposition to Lord Baltimore as a feudal sovereign easily united with Protestant bigotry. When an 1681. insurrection was suppressed by methods of clemency and forbearance, the government was accused of par- tiality towards papists ; and the English ministry issued an order that offices of government in Maryland should be intrusted exclusively to Protestants. Roman Catholics were disfranchised in the province which they had planted. With the colonists Lord Baltimore was at issue for his hereditary authority, with the English church for his relig- ious faith ; attempts to modify the unhappy effects of the navigation acts on colonial industry involved him in oppo- sition to the commercial policy of England. His rights of jurisdiction had been disregarded ; the custom-house officer of Maryland had been placed under the superintendence of the governor of Virginia ; and the unwelcome relations, resisted by the officers of Lord Baltimore, had led to quar- rels and bloodshed, which were followed by a con- 1685. troversy with Virginia. The accession of James II. seemed an auspicious event for a Roman Catholic 1688. MARYLAND. 9 proprietary; but the first result from parliament was an increased burden on the industry of the colony, by means of a new tax on the consumption of its produce in England ; while the king, who meditated the subversion of British freedom, resolved with impartial injustice to reduce all the colonies to a direct dependence on the crown. The proprietary, hastening to England, vainly pleaded 1687. his irreproachable administration. His remonstrance was disregarded, his chartered rights despised ; and a writ of quo warranto was ordered against his patent. But, before the legal forms could be brought to an issue, the people of England had sat in judgment on their king. The approach of the revolution effected no im- mediate benefit to Lord Baltimore. What though mutinous speeches and practices against the proprietary government were punishable by whipping, boring of the tongue, imprisonment, exile, death itself? The spirit of popular liberty, allied to Protestant bigotry and the clamor of a pretended popish plot, was too powerful an adversary for his colonial government. William Joseph, the presi- dent to whom he had intrusted the administration, con- vened an assembly. The address, on opening it, explains the character of the proprietary and of the insurrection which followed. " Divine Providence," said the represen- tative of Lord Baltimore, " hath ordered us to meet. The power by which we are assembled here is undoubtedly derived from God to the king, and from the king to his excellency, the lord proprietary, and from his said lordship to us. The power, therefore, whereof I speak, being, as said, firstly, in God and from God ; secondly, in the king and from the king ; thirdly, in his lordship ; fourthly, in us, — the end and duty of and for which this assembly is now called and met is that from these four heads ; to wit, from God, the king, our lord, and selves." Having j^^^* thus established the divine right of the proprietary, he endeavored to confirm it by invading the privileges of the assembly, and exacting a special oath of fidelity to his dominion. The assembly resisted, and was prorogued. Is it strange that excitements increased ; that they were height- 10 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXL ened by tidings of the invasion of England ; that they were kindled into a flame by a delay in proclaiming the new sov- ereign ? An organized insurrection was conducted by John Coode, a worthless man, of old an associate of Fendall ; and "The Association in arms for the defence of the Ai?g^23. Protestant religion " usurped the government. The party was strengthened by the most false and virulent calumnies against the absent proprietary, and the overthrow of liberty of conscience was menaced by the insurrection. But would the reformed English government suffer papists to be oppressed in the colony where they had taken some Bteps towards toleration ? Would the new dynasty seek to appropriate to itself the power and the rights that had been wrested from Lord Baltimore by turbulent violence ? The method pursued by the ministry of William and Mary towards Maryland would test their sincerity, and show whether they were governed by universal principles of justice, or had derived their inspiration for liberty from circumstances and times ; whether they had made a revo- lution in favor of humanity or in behalf of established privi- leges. About two years after Virginia had been granted ju^y^s. ^^ Arlington and Culpepper, the latter obtained an appointment as governor of Virginia for life, and was proclaimed soon after Berkeley's departure. The Ai5J25. Ancient Dominion was changed into a proprietary government, and the administration surrendered, as it were, to one of the proprietaries, who at the same time was sole possessor of the domain between the Rappahan- nock and the Potomac. Culpepper was disposed to regard his office as a sinecure, but the king chid him for remaining in England ; and, embarking for Virginia, the gover- 1G80. nor, early in 1680, arrived in his province. He had no high-minded regard for Virginia; he valued his office and his patents only as property. Clothed by the royal clemency with power to bury past contests, he per- verted the duty of humanity into a means of enriching him- self and increasing his authority. Yet Culpepper was not singular in his selfishness ; it was in harmony with the 1680. MARYLAND. H maxims which prevailed in England. As the British mer- chant claimed the monopoly of colonial commerce, as the British manufacturer valued Virginia only as a market for his goo(Js, so British courtiers looked to appointments in America as a source of revenue to themselves, or a provision for their dependants. Nothing but Lord Culpep- per's avarice gives him a place in American history. Having taken the oath of office at Jamestown, and leso. organized a council of members friendly to preroga^ ^^^ ^^' tive, the wilful followers of Bacon were disfranchised. Till this time the council and house sat together. To an assembly convened in June, three acts, framed in Junes. England and confirmed in advance by the great seal, were proposed for acceptance. The first was of indemnity and oblivion, — less clement than had been hoped, yet defin- itive, and therefore welcome. The second withdrew from the assembly the powers of naturalization, and declared it a prerogative of the governor. And the third, still more grievous to colonial liberty, constructed after an English precedent, yet so hateful to Virginians that it encountered severe opposition and was carried only from hope of par- don for the rebellion, authorized a perpetual export duty of two shillings a hogshead on tobacco, and granted the pro- ceeds for the support of government, to be accounted for not to the assembly, but to the king. Thus the power of Virginia over colonial taxation, the only check on the administration, was voted away without condition. The royal revenue was ample and was perpetual. Is it strange that political parties in Virginia showed signs of change? that many who had been zealous among the Cavaliers learned to distrust the royal influence? The salary of governor of Virginia had been a thousand pounds : for Lord Culpepper it was doubled, because he was a peer. A further grant was made for house-rent. Per- quisites of every kind were sought for and increased. Kay, the peer was not an honest man. He defrauded the sol- diers of a part of their wages by an arbitrary change in the value of current coin. Having made himself familiar with Virginia, and employed the summer profitably, in the 12 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXL month of August he sailed for England from Boston. How unlike Winthrop and Haynes, Clarke and Williams ! Virginia was impoverished ; the low price of tobacco left the planter without hope. The assembly had at- 1680. tempted by legislation to call towns into being and cherish manufactures. With little regard to colonial liberties, it also petitioned the king to prohibit by proclama- tion the planting of tobacco in the colonies for one year. The first measure could not countervail the navigation acts ; with regard to the second, riots were substituted for the royal proclamation, and mobs collected to cut up the fields of tobacco-plants. 1682 Culpepper returned to reduce Virginia to quiet, and to promote his own interests as proprietor of the Northern Neck. A few victims on the gallows silenced discontent. The assembly was convened, and its little remaining control over the executive was wrested from it. The council constituted the general court of Virginia ; ac- cording to usage, appeals lay from it to the general assem- bly. The custom menaced Culpepper with defeat in his attempts to appropriate to himself the cultivated planta- tions of the Northern Neck. The artful magistrate, for a private and lucrative purpose, fomented a dispute between the council and the assembly. The burgesses, in their high court of appeal, claimed to sit alone, excluding the council from whose decision the appeal was made ; and Culpepper, having referred the question to the king for decision, May 23. ^^^^ announced that no appeals whatever should be permitted to the assembly, nor to the king in council, under the value of one hundred pounds sterling. It shows the spirit of the council of Virginia, that it welcomed the new rule, desiring only that there might be no appeal to the king under the value of two hundred pounds. The holders of land within the grant of Culpepper now lay at his mercy, and were compelled eventually to negotiate a compromise. All accounts agree in describing the condition of Vir- ginia, at this time, as one of extreme distress. Culpepper had no compassion for poverty, no sympathy for a province 1685. MARYLAND. 13 % •wasted by perverse legislation ; and the residence in Vir- ginia was so irksome that he returned to England. Nor did he retain his office as governor. His patent was for life; but it was rendered void by a process of law, not so much from regard to colonial liberties as to recover a prerogative for the crown. The council of Vir- ginia reported the griefs and restlessness of the ]v/ay\ country, and renewed the request that the grant to Culpepper and Arlington might be recalled. The ex- haustion of the province rendered negotiation more easy ; the design agreed well with the new colonial policy of Charles II. Arlington surrendered his rights to Cul- pepper ; and in the following year Virginia became j^fy 25. again a royal province. Lord Howard of Effingham was Culpepper's succes- Aug. sor. Like so many before and after him, he solicited office in America to get money, and resorted to the usual expedient of exorbitant fees. It is said he did not scruple to share perquisites with his clerks. The ideas of right and wrong — the same in every breast, if the voice within does but find a willing listener — are yet obscured and perverted by men's interests and habits. In Virginia, the avarice of Effingham was the public scorn ; in England, it met with no severe reprobation. The accession of James II. made but few changes i685. in the political condition of Virginia. The suppres- sion of Monmouth's rebellion gave to the colony useful citizens. Men connect themselves, in the eyes of posterity, with the objects in which they take delight. James II. was inexorable towards his brother's favorite. Monmouth was beheaded ; and the triumph of legitimacy was commemo- rated by a medal, representing the heads of Monmouth and Argyle on an altar, their bleeding bodies beneath, with this inscription, " Sic aras et sceptra tuemur^'* " Thus we de- fend our altars and our throne." " Lord chief justice is making his campaign in the west : " I quote from a letter which James II., with his own hand, wrote to one in Europe, in allusion to Jeffries's circuit for punishing the insurgents ; " he has already condemned several hundreds, 14 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXI. some of whom are already executed, more are to be, and the others sent to the plantations." This is the language of the sovereign of our ancestors. The prisoners condemned to transportation were a salable commodity. Such was the demand for labor in America that convicts and laborers were regularly purchased and shipped to the colonies, where they were sold as indented servants. The courtiers round James II. exulted in the rich harvest which the re- bellion promised, and begged of the monarch frequent gifts of their condemned countrymen. Jeffries heard of Sep?*i9. *^® scramble, and indignantly addressed the king : " I beseech your majesty that I may inform you that each prisoner will be worth ten pound, if not fifteen pound, apiece ; and, sir, if your majesty orders these as you have already designed, persons that have not suffered in the service will run away with the booty." At length the spoils were distributed. The convicts were in part persons of family and education, accustomed to elegance and ease. " Take all care," wrote the monarch, under the conn- ect. 4. tersign of Sunderland, to the government in Vir- ginia, " take all care that they continue to serve for ten years at least, and that they be not permitted in any manner to redeem themselves, by money or otherwise, until that term be fully expired. Prepare a bill for the assembly of our colony, with such clauses as shall be requisite for this purpose." No Virginia legislature seconded such malice ; and in December, 1689, the exiles were pardoned. Tyranny and injustice peopled America with men nurtured in suffer- ing and adversity. The history of our colonization is the history of the crimes of Europe. On another occasion, Jeffries exerted an opposite influ- ence. Kidnapping had become common in Bristol; and not felons only, but young persons and others, were hurried across the Atlantic and sold for money. At Bristol, the mayor and justices would intimidate small rogues and pilferers, who, under the terror of being hanged, prayed for transportation as the only avenue to safety, and were then divided among the members of the court. The trade was exceedingly profitable, — far more so than the 1683. MARYLAND. 15 slave-trade, — and had been conducted for years. By ac- cident it came to the knowledge of Jeffries, who delighted in a fair opportunity to rant. Finding that the aldermen, justices, and the mayor himself were concerned in this sort of man-stealing, he turned to the mayor, who was sitting on the bench, bravely arrayed in scarlet and furs, and gave him every ill name which scolding eloquence could devise. Nor would he desist till he made the scarlet chief magistrate of the city go down to the criminal's post at the bar, and plead for himself as a common rogue would have done. The prosecutions depended till the revolution, which made an amnesty; and the judicial kidnappers, retaining their gains, suffered nothing beyond disgrace and terror. Virginia ceased for a season to be the favorite resort of voluntary emigrants. Men were attracted to the New World by the spirit of enterprise and the love of freedom. In Virginia, industry was depressed and the royal authority severe. The presence of a frigate had sharpened the zeal of the royal officers in enforcing the acts of naviga- tion. The new tax in England, on the consumption 1685. of tobacco, was injurious to the producer. Culpepper and his council had arraigned a printer for publishing ^Ih^lis. the laws, and ordered him to print nothing till the king's pleasure should be known. And Effingham was the bearer of the royal pleasure ; having received the express instruction to allow no printing-press on any pretence what- ever. The rule was continued under James II. The methods of despotism are monotonous. To perfect the system, Effingham established a chancery court, in which he himself was chancellor. The councillors might advise, but were without a vote. An arbitrary table of fees followed of course. This is the period when royal authority was at its height in Virginia. The executive, the council, the judges, the sheriffs, the county commissioners, and local magistrates, were all appointed directly or in- directly by the crown. Virginia had no town-meetings, no village democracies, no free municipal institutions. The custom of a colonial assembly remained, but it was chosen under a restricted franchise ; its most confidential officer 1^ COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXL 1686. "^^s ordered to be appointed by the governor, and Aug. 1. i^g power over the revenue was impaired by the per- manent gi-ant which it could not recall. The indulgence of liberty of conscience, and the enfranchisement of papists, "Were in themselves unexceptionable measures ; they could bring no detriment to colonial liberties ; yet toleration itself was suspected in King James, as a device to restore domin- ion " to popery." The year after Bacon's rebellion, when the royal commissioners forcibly seized the records of the assembly, the act had been voted " a violation of privilege," " an outrage never practised by the kings of Eng- . 1678. land," and " never to be offered in future." When the records were again demanded, that this resolution might be expunged, Beverley, the clerk of the house, refused obedience to the lieutenant-governor and council, saying he might not do it without leave of the burgesses, his masters. In 1685, the first assembly convened after the accession of James II. questioned a part of his negative power. Former laws had been repealed by the assembly ; the king negatived the repeal, w^hich necessarily revived the earlier law. It marks the determined spirit of the colonists, and their rapid tendency towards demanding self-government as a natural right, that the assembly obstinately refused to acknowledge this exercise of prerogative, and brought upon themselves, from King James, a censure of their " unneces- sary debates and contests touching the negative voice," "the disaffected and unquiet disposition of the members, and their irregular and tumultuous proceedings." Nov^^is. '^^® assembly was dissolved by royal proclamation. James Collins was imprisoned and loaded with ApS\ irons for treasonable expressions. The servile coun- cil pledged to the king their lives and fortunes, but the people were more intractable than ever. The indomi- table spirit of personal independence, nourished by the manners of rural life, could never be repressed. Unlike ancient Rome, Virginia placed the defence of liberty not in municipal corporations, but in persons. The liberty of the individual was ever highly prized ; and freedom sheltered itself in the collected energy of the public mind. Such 1667. MARYLAND. 17 April. was the character of the new assembly which was convened some months before the British revolution. The turbulent spirit of the burgesses was greater than ever, and an immediate dissolution of the body seemed to the council the only mode of counteracting their influ- ence. But the awakened spirit of free discussion, banished from the hall of legislation, fled for refuge among the log houses and plantations that were sprinkled along the streams. The people ran to arms : general discontent threatened an insurrection. The governor, in a new country, without soldiers and without a citadel, was compelled to practise moderation. Tyranny was impossible ; it had no powerful instruments. When the prerogative of the governor was at its height, he was still too feeble to oppress the colony. Virginia was always " a land of liberty." Nor let the first tendencies to union pass unnoticed. In the Bay of the Chesapeake, Smith had encountered warriors of the Five Nations ; and others had fearlessly roamed to the shores of Massachusetts Bay, and even invaded the soil of Maine. Some years before Philip's war, the Mohawks committed ravages near Northampton, on i667. Connecticut River ; and the general court of Mas- sachusetts addressed them a letter : " We never yet did any wrong to you, or any of yours," such was the language of the Puritan diplomatists, " neither will we take any from you, but will right our people according to justice." In 1677 Maryland invited Virginia to join with itself and with New York in a treaty of peace with the Seneca Indians, and in the month of August a conference was held with that tribe at Albany. In July, 1684, the governor of Virginia and of New York, and the agent of Massachusetts, met the sachems of the Five Nations at Albany, to strengthen and burnish the covenant-chain, and plant the tree of peace, of which the top should reach the sun, and the branches shel- ter the wide land. The treaty extended from the St. Croix to Albemarle. New York was the bond of New England and Virginia. The north and the south were united by the acquisition of New Netherland. 18 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIL CHAPTER XXIL ]SrEW NETHERLAND. The spirit of the age was present when the foundations of Kew York were laid. Every great European event affected the fortunes of America. Did a state prosper, it sought an increase of wealth by plantations in the west. Was a sect persecuted, it escaped to the New World. The Reformation, followed by collisions between English dis- senters and the Anglican hierarchy, colonized New England ; the Reformation, emancipating the Low Countries, led to settlements on the Hudson. The Netherlands divide with England the glory of having planted the first colonies in the United States ; they also divide the glory of having set the example of public freedom. If England gave our fathers the idea of a popular representation, the united provinces were their model of a federal union. At the discovery of America, the Netherlands possessed the municipal institutions which had survived the wreck of the Roman world and the feudal liberties of the middle ages. The landed aristocracy, the hierarchy, and the mu- nicipalities exercised political franchises. The municipal officers, in part appointed by the sovereign, in part perpetu- ating themselves, had common interests with the indus- trious citizens, from whom they were selected ; and the nobles, cherishing the feudal right of resisting arbitrary taxation, joined the citizens in defending national liberty against encroachments. The urgencies of war, the Reformation, perhaps 1517 to also the arrogance of power, often tempted Charles V. to violate the constitutions of the Netherlands ; Philip IL, on his accession in 1559, formed the deliberate purpose of subverting them, and found a willing coad- 1555. NEW NETHERLAND. 19 jutor in the prelates. During the middle age the church was the sole guardian of the people ; and its political influ- ence rested on gratitude towards the order which limited arbitrary power by invoking the truths of religion, and opened to plebeian ambition the highest distinctions. In the progress of society, the ward was become of age, and could protect its rights ; the guardian had fulfilled its ofiice, and might now resign its supremacy. But the Roman hierarchy, rigidly asserting authority, refused to submit belief to the test of inquiry, and struggled to establish a spiritual despotism : the sovereigns of Europe, equally re- fusing to subject their administrations to discussion, aimed at absolute dominion in the state. A new political alliance was the consequence. The Catholic priesthood and the temporal sovereigns, during the middle age so often and so bitterly opposed, entered into a natural and necessary friend- ship. By increasing the number of bishops, who, in riglit of their ofiice, had a voice in the -states, Philip II., in 1559, destroyed the balance of the constitution. Thus the power of the sovereign sought to crush inher- ited privileges. Patriotism and hope animated the prov- inces; despotism and bigotry were on the side of Philip. We have witnessed the sanguinary character of the Spanish system at St. Augustine ; we are now to trace the feudal liberties of the Netherlands to the Isle of Manhattan. The contest in the Low Countries was one of the most memorable in the history of the human race. All classes were roused to opposition. The nobles framed a solemn petition ; the common people broke in pieces the images that filled the churches. Despotism then seized possession of the courts, and invested a commission with arbitrary power over life and property ; to overawe the burghers, the citadels were filled with mercenary soldiers ; to strike terror into the nobility, Egmont and Horn were executed. Men fled; but whither? The village, the city, the court, the camp, were held by the tyrant ; the fugitive had no asylum but the ocean. The establishment of subservient courts was followed by arbitrary taxation. But feudal liberty forbade taxation 20 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXH. except by consent ; and the levying of the tenth penny excited more commotion than the tribunal of blood. Mer- chant and landholder, citizen and peasant, Catholic and Prot- estant, were ripe for insurrection ; and even with foreign troops Alba vainly attempted to enforce taxation with- 1572. out representation. Just then, in April, 1572, a party of the fugitive " beggars " succeeded in gaining the harbor of Briel ; and, in July of the same year, the states of Holland, creating the Prince of Orange their stad- 1575. holder, prepared to levy money and troops. In 1575 Zealand joined with Holland in demanding for free- dom some better safeguard than the word of Philip II., 1576. and in November of the following year nearly all the provinces united to drive foreign troops from their soil. " The spirit that animates them," said Sidney to Queen Elizabeth, " is the spirit of God, and is invincible." The particular union of five northern provinces at 1579. Utrecht, in Januar-y, 1579, perfected the insurrection by forming the basis of a sovereignty ; and, when their ablest chiefs were put under the ban, and a price offered for the assassination of the Prince of Orange, the deputies in the assembly at the Hague, on the twenty- juiy^26. sixth of July, 1581, making few changes in their ancient laws, declared their independence by abjur- ing their king. " The prince," said they, in their manifesto, " is made for the subjects, without whom there would be no prince ; and if, instead of protecting them, he seeks to take from them their old freedom and use them as slaves, he must be holden not a prince, but a tyrant, and may justly be deposed by the authority of the state." A rude structure of a commonwealth was the unpremeditated result of the revolution. The republic of the United Netherlands was by its origin and its nature commercial. The device on an early Dutch coin was a ship laboring on the billows without oar or sails. The rendezvous of its martyrs had been the sea ; the muster of its patriot emigrants had been on shipboard ; and they had hunted their enemy, as the whale-ships pursue their game, in every corner of the ocean. The two leading mem- 1581. NEW NETHERLAND. 21 bers of the confederacy, from their situation, could seek subsistence only on the water. Holland is but a peninsula, intersected by navigable rivers ; protruding itself into the sea ; crowded with a dense population on a soil saved from the deep by embankments, and kept dry only with pumps driven by windmills. Its houses were rather in the water than on land. And Zealand is composed of islands. Its inhabitants were nearly all fishermen ; its villages were as nests of sea- fowl, on the margin of the ocean. In both provinces every house was by nature a nursery of sailors ; the sport of chil- dren was among the breakers ; their boyish pastimes in boats ; and, if their first excursions were but voyages to some neighboring port, they soon braved the dangers of every sea. The states advanced to sudden opulence ; before the insurrection, they could with difficulty keep their em- bankments in repair ; and now they were able to support large fleets and armies. Their commerce gathered into their harbors the fruits of the wide world. Producing almost no grain of any kind, Holland had the best-supplied granary of Europe ; without fields of flax, it swarmed with weavers of linen ; destitute of flocks, it became the centre of all woollen manufactures ; and provinces which had not a forest built more ships than all Europe besides. They con- nected hemispheres. Their enterprising mariners displayed the flag of the republic from Southern Africa to the arctic circle. The ships of the Dutch, said Raleigh, outnumber those of England and ten other kingdoms. To the Italian cardinal the number seemed infinite. Amsterdam was the centre of the commerce of Europe. The sea not only bathed its walls, but flowed through its streets ; and its merchantmen lay so crowded together that the beholder from the ramparts could not look through the thick forests of masts and yards. War for liberty became unexpectedly a well-spring of opulence ; Holland plundered the commerce of Spain by its maritime force, and supplanted its rivals in the gainful traffic with the Indies. Lisbon and Antwerp were despoiled ; Amsterdam, the depot of the merchandise of Europe and of the east, was become beyond dispute the 22 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXII. first commercial city of the world ; the Tyre of modern times ; the Venice of the north ; the queen of all the seas. In 1581, the year after Portugal had been forcibly annexed to Spain and the Portuguese settlements in Asia were become for a season Spanish provinces, the epoch of the independence of the Netherlands, Thomas Buts, an Englishman who had five times crossed the Atlantic, offered to the states to conduct four ships-of-war to America. The adventure was declined by the government ; but no 1591. obstacles were offered to private enterprise. Ten years afterwards, William Usselinx, who had lived some years in Castile, Portugal, and the Azores, proposed a West India company ; but the dangers of the undertaking were still too appalling. In 1594 the port of Lisbon was closed by the king of Spain against the Low Countries. Their carrying trade in Indian goods was lost, unless their ships could pen- etrate to the seas of Asia. A company of merchants, believing that the coast of Siberia fell away to the south- east, hoped to shorten the voyage at least eight thousand miles by using a north-eastern route. A double expedition was sent forth on discovery ; two fly-boats vainly tried to pass through the Straits of Yeigatz, while, in a large ship, William Barentsen, whom Grotius honored as the peer of Columbus, coasted Nova Zembla to the seventy-seventh degree, without finding a passage. Netherlanders in the service of Portugal had visited India, Malacca, China, and even Japan. Qf these, 1595. Cornelius Houtman in April, 1595, sailed for India by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and before his return circumnavigated Java. In the same year, Jacob van Heemskerk, the great mariner and naval hero, aided by Barentsen, renewed the search on the north-east, but at- tempted in vain to pass to the south of Nova Zembla. The republic, disheartened by the repeated failure, refused to fit out another expedition ; but the city of Amster- 1596. dam, in 1596, despatched two ships under Heems- kerk and Barentsen to look for the open sea, which, it had been said, was to be found to the north of all known 1602. NEW NETHEHLAND. 23 land. Braver men never battled with arctic dangers ; they discovered the jagged cliffs of Spitzbergen, and came within ten degrees of the pole. Then Barentsen sought to go round Nova Zembla, and, when his ship was hopelessly- enveloped by ice, had the courage to encamp his crew on the desolate northern shore of the island, and cheer them during a winter, rendered horrible by famine, cold, and tlie fierce attacks of huge white bears, whom hunger had mad- dened. When spring came, the gallant company, travers- ing more than sixteen hundred miles in two open boats, were tossed for three months by storms and among icebergs, before they could reach the shelter of the White Sea. Bar- entsen sunk under his trials, but was engaged in poring over a sea-chart as he died. The expeditions of the Dutch were without a parallel for daring. It was not till 1597 that voyages were undertaken 1597. from Holland to America. In that year, Bikker of Amsterdam, and Leyen of Enkhuisen, each formed a com- pany to traffic with the West Indies. The commerce was continued with success ; but Asia had greater attrac- tions. In 1598, two-and-twenty ships sailed from 1598. Dutch harbors for the Indian seas, in part by the Cape of Good Hope, in part through the Straits of Magellan. When in 1600, after years of discussion, leoo. a plan for a West India company was reduced to writing, and communicated to the states-general, it was not adopted, though its principle was approved. But the zeal of merchants and of statesmen was concen- tred on the east, where jealousy of the Portuguese inclined the native princes and peoples to welcome the Dutch as allies and protectors. In March, 1602, by the pre- I602. vailing influence of Olden Barneveldt, the advocate of Holland, the Dutch East India company was chartered with the exclusive right to commerce beyond the Cape of Good Hope on the one side, and beyond the Straits of Magellan on the other. The states, unwilling to pledge themselves to the chances of war, granted all powers requi- site for conquests, colonization, and government. In the age of feudalism, privileged bodies formed the balance of 24 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXH. the commercial and manufacturing interests against the aristocracy of the sword, and suited the genius of the re- public. The Dutch East India company is the first in the series of great European trading corporations, and became the model for those of France and England. As years rolled away, the progress of English commerce in the west awakened the attention of the Netherlands. England and Holland had been allies in the contest against Spain ; had both spread their sails on the Indian seas ; had both become competitors for possessions in Araer- 1607. ica. In the same year in which Smith embarked for Virginia, vast designs were ripening among the Dutch ; and Grotius, himself of the commission to which the affair was referred, acquaints us with the opinions of his countrymen. The United Provinces, it was said, abounded in mariners and in unemployed capital : not the plunder of Spanish commerce, not India itself, America alone, so rich in herbs of healing virtues, in forests, and in precious ores, could exhaust their enterprise. Their mer- chants had perused every w^ork on the Western World, had gleaned intelligence from the narratives of sailors ; and now they planned a privileged company, which should count the states-general among its stockholders, and possess ex- clusively the liberty of approaching America from New- foundland to the Straits of Magellan, and Africa from the tropics to the Cape of Good Hope. The Spaniards are feeblest, it was confidently urged, where they are believed to be strongest ; there would be no war but on the. water, the home of the ^atavians. It would, moreover, be glori- ous to bear Christianity to the heathen, and rescue them from their oppressors. Principalities might easily be won from the Spaniards, whose scattered citadels protected but a narrow zone. To the eagerness of enterprise, it was replied that war had its uncertain events, the sea its treacheries ; the Span- iards would learn naval warfare by exercise ; and the little fleets of the provinces could hardly blockade an ocean or battle for a continent ; the costs of defence would exceed the public resources ; home would be lost in the search for 1609. NEW NETHERLAND. 25 a foreign world, of which the air breathed pestilence, the natives were cannibals, the unoccupied regions were hope- lessly wild. The party that desired peace with Spain, and counted Grotius and Olden Barneveldt among its leaders, for a long time succeeded in defeating every effort at Bata- vian settlements in the west. While the negotiations with Spain postponed the forma- tion of a West India company, the Dutch found their way to the United States through another channel. In 1607, a company of London merchants, excited by the immense profits of voyages to the east, contributed the means for a new attempt to discover the near passage to Asia ; and Henry Hudson, an Englishman by birth, was the chosen leader of the expedition. With his only son for his companion, he coasted the shores of Greenland, and hesi- tated whether to attempt the circumnavigation of that country or the passage across the north. He came nearer the pole than any earlier navigator ; but, after he had re- newed the discovery of Spitzbergen, vast masses of ice compelled his return. The next year beheld Hudson once more on a leos. voyage, to ascertain if the seas which divide Spitz- bergen from Nova Zembla open a path to China. The failure of two expeditions daunted Hudson's 1609. employers ; they could not daunt the great navigator. The discovery of the passage was the desire of his life ; and, repairing to Holland, he offered his services to the Dutch East India company. The Zealanders, disheartened by former ill-success, made objections ; but they were over- ruled by the directors for Amsterdam ; and on the fourth day of April, 1609, five days before the truce with Spain, the " Half Moon," a yacht of about eighty tons' burden, commanded by Hudson and manned by a mixed crew of Ketherlanders and Englishmen, his son being of the num- ber, set sail for China by way of the north-east. On the fifth day of May he had attained the height of the north cape of Norway ; but fogs and fields of ice near Nova Zembla closed against him the Straits of Veigatz. Remem- bering the late accounts from Virginia, Hudson, with prompt 26 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIL decision, turned to the west, to look for some opening north of the Chesapeake. On the thirtieth of May he took in water at the Faroe Isles, and in June was on the track of Frobisher. Early in July, with foremast carried away and canvas rent in a gale, he found himself among fishermen from France on the Banks of Newfoundland. On the eighteenth he entered a very good harbor on the coast of Maine, mended his sails, and refitted his ship with a fore- mast from the woods. On the fourth of August, a boat was sent on shore at the headland which Gosnold seven years before had called Cape Cod, and which was now named Kew Holland; and on the eighteenth of August the " Half Moon " rode at sea off the Chesapeake Bay, which was known to be the entrance to the river of King James in Virginia. Here Hudson changed his course. On the twenty-eighth he entered the great bay, now known as Delaware, and gave one day to its rivers, its currents and soundings, and the aspect of the country. Then, sailing to the north along the low sandy coast that appeared Igp^t* like broken islands in the surf, on the second of Sep- tember he was attracted by the " pleasant sight of the high hills" of Navesink. On the following day, as he approached the "bold" land, three separate rivers seemed to be in sight. He stood towards the northernmost, which was probably Rockaway Inlet; but, finding only ten feet of water on its bar, he cast about to the southward, and, almost at the time when Champlain was invading New York from the north, he sounded his way to an anchorage within Sandy Hook. On the fourth, the ship went further up the Horse Shoe to a very good harbor near the New Jersey shore ; and that same day the people of the countrj" came on board to traffic for knives and beads. On the fifth, a landing was made from the " Half Moon." When Hudson stepped on shore, the natives stood round and sang in their fashion. Men, women, and children were feather-mantled, or clad in loose furs. Their food was Indian corn, which, when roasted, was pronounced to be excellent. They always carried with them maize and tobacco. Some had pipes of red copper, 1609. NEW NETHERLAND. 27 with earthen bowls and copper ornaments round their necks. Their boats were made each of a single hollowed tree. Their weapons were bows and arrows, pointed with sharp stones. They slept abroad on mats of bulrushes or on the leaves of trees. They were friendly, but thievish, and crafty in carrying away what they fancied. The woods, it was specially noticed, abounded in " goodly oakes," and from that day the new comers never ceased to admire the great size of the trees. On the sixth, John Colman and four others, in a 1609. boat, sounded the Narrows, and passed through Kill ^^^^- van Kull to Newark Bay. The air was very sweet, and the land as pleasant with grass and flowers and trees as they had ever seen ; but, on the return, the boat was at- tacked by two canoes, and Colman killed by an arrow. On Wednesday the ninth, Hudson moved cautiously from the lower bay into the Narrows ; and on the eleventh, by aid of a very light wind, he went into the great river of the north, and rode all night in a harbor, which was safe against every wind. On the morning of the twelfth, the natives, in eight-and twenty canoes, crowded about him, bringing beans and very good oysters. The day was fair and warm, though the light wind was from the north ; and as Hudson, under the brightest autumnal sun, gazed around, having behind him the Narrows opening to the ocean, before him the noble stream flowing from above Weehawken with a broad, deep channel between forest-crowned palisades and the gently swelling banks of Manhattan, he made a record that " it was as fair a land as can be trodden by the foot of man." That night he anchored just above Manhattan ville. The flood-tide of the next morning and of evening brought him near Yonkers. On the fourteenth, a strong south-east wind wafted him rapidly into the Highlands. At daybreak, on the fifteenth, mists hung over the land- scape ; but, as they rose, the sun revealed the neighborhood of West Point. With a south wind the " Half Moon " soon emerged from the mountains that rise near the water's edge; sweeping upwards, it passed the elbow at Hyde 28 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIL Park, and at night anchored a little below Red Hook, within the shadow of the majestic Catskill range, which it was noticed stands at a distance from the river. Trafficking with the natives, who were " very loving," taking in fresh water, grounding at low tide on a shoal, gg^j.'^ the Netherlanders, on the evening of the seventeenth, reached no higher than the latitude of about forty-two degrees eighteen minutes, just above the present city of Hud- son. The next day Hudson went on shore in one of the boats of the natives with an aged chief of a small tribe of the River Indians. He was taken to a house well constructed of oak bark, circular in shape, and arched in the roof, the granary of the beans and maize of the last year's harvest ; while out- side enough of them lay drying to load three ships. Two mats were spread out as seats for the strangers ; food was immediately served in neat red wooden bowls ; men, who were sent at once with bows and arrows for game, soon re- turned with pigeons ; a fat dog, too, was killed ; and haste made to prepare a feast. When Hudson refused to wait, they supposed him to be afraid of their weapons ; and, tak- ing their arrows, they broke them in pieces and threw them into the fire. The country was pleasant and fruitful, bear- ing wild grapes. "Of all lands on which I ever set my foot," says Hudson, "this is the best for tillage." The River Indians, for more than a century, preserved the memory of his visit. The " Half Moon," on the nineteenth, drew near the landing of Kinderhook, where the Indians brought on board skins of beaver and otter. Hudson ventured no higher with the yacht ; an exploring boat ascended a little above Albany to where the river was but seven feet deep, and the sound- ings grew uncertain. So, on the twenty-third, Hudson turned his prow towards Holland, leaving the friendly tribes persuaded that the Dutch would revisit them the next year. As he went down the river, imagination peopled the region with towns. A party which, somewhere in Ulster county, went to walk on the west bank, found an excellent soil, with large trees of oak and walnut and chestnut. The land near Newburg 1609. NEW NETHERLAND. 29 seemed a very pleasant site for a city. On the first of October Hudson passed below the mountains. On ^^^JIJ; the fourth, not without more than one conflict with the savages, he sailed out of " the great mouth of the GREAT RIVER " whicli bcars his name ; and, about the season of the return of John Smith from Virginia to England, he steered for Europe, leaving to its solitude the beautiful land which he admired beyond any country in the world. Sombre forests shed a melancholy grandeur over the useless magnificence of nature, and hid in their deep shades the rich soil which no sun had ever warmed. No axe had levelled the giant progeny of the crowded groves, in whicli the fantastic forms of limbs, withered or riven by lightning, contrasted strangely with the verdure of a younger growth of branches. The wanton grape-vine, fastening its leafy coils to the top of the tallest forest tree, swung with every breeze, like the loosened shrouds of a ship. Trees might everywhere be seen breaking from their root in the marshy soil, and threatening to fall with the first rude gust ; while the ground was strown with the ruins of former woods, over which a profusion of wild flowers wasted their fresh- ness in mockery of the gloom. Reptiles sported in the stag- nant pools, or crawled unharmed over piles of mouldering logs. The spotted deer couched among the thickets ; and there were none but wild animals to crop the uncut herbage of the prairies. Silence reigned, broken, it may have been, by the flight of land-birds or the flapping of water-fowl, and rendered more dismal by the howl of beasts of prey. The streams, not yet limited to a channel, spread over sand-bars, tufted with copses of willow, or waded through wastes of reeds ; or slowly but surely undermined the groups of syca- mores that grew by their side. The smaller brooks spread out into sedgy swamps, that were overhung by clouds of mos- quitoes ; masses of decaying vegetation fed the exhalations with the seeds of pestilence, and made the balmy air of the summer's evening as deadly as it seemed grateful. Life and death were hideously mingled. The horrors of cor- ruption frowned on the fruitless fertility of uncultivated nature. 30 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIL And man, the occupant of the soil, was untamed as the savage scene, in harmony with the rude nature by which he was surrounded ; a vagrant over the continent, in con-' stant warfare with his fellow-man ; the bark of the birch his cano6; strings of shells his ornaments, his record, and his coin ; the roots of uncultivated plants among his re- sources for food ; his knowledge in architecture surpassed both in strength and durability by the skill of the beaver ; bended saplings the beams of his house ; the branches and rind of trees its roof ; drifts of leaves his couch ; mats of bulrushes his protection against the winter's cold ; his religion the adoration of nature ; his morals the 1609. promptings of undisciplined instinct ; disputing with the wolves and bears the lordship of the soil, and dividing with the squirrel the wild fruits with which the universal woodlands abounded. The history of a country is modified by its climate, and, in many of its features, determined by its geographical situation. The region which Hudson had discovered pos- sessed near the sea an unrivalled harbor ; a river that admits the tide far into the interior on the north, the chain of great lakes, which have their springs in the heart of the continent ; within its own limits the sources of rivers that flow to the Gulfs of Mexico and St. Lawrence, and to the Bays of Chesapeake and Delaware ; of which, long before Europeans anchored off Sandy Hook, the warriors of the Five Nations availed themselves in their excursions to Quebec, to the Ohio, or the Susquehannah. With just sufficient difficulties to irritate, and not enough to dishearten, New York united richest lands with the highest adaptation to foreign and domestic commerce. How changed is the scene from the wild country on which Hudson gazed ! The earth glows with the colors of civilization ; the meadows are enamelled with choicest grasses ; woodlands and cultivated fields are harmoniously blended ; the birds of spring find their delight in orchards and trim gardens, variegated with selected plants from every temperate zone ; while the brilliant flowers of the tropics bloom from the windows of the greenhouse or mock 1609. NEW NETHERLAND. 31 at winter in the saloon. The yeoman, living like a good neighbor near the fields he cultivates, glories in the fruit- fulness of the valleys, and counts with honest exultation the flocks and herds that browse in safety on the hills. The thorn has given way to the rosebush ; the cultivated vine clambers over rocks where the brood of serpents used to nestle ; while industry smiles at the changes she has wrought, and inhales the bland air which now has health on its wings. And man is still in harmony with nature, which he has subdued, developed, and adorned. For him the rivers that flow to remotest climes mingle their waters ; for him the lakes gain new outlets to the ocean ; for him the arch spans the flood, and science spreads iron pathways to the recent wilderness ; for him the hills yield up the shining marble and the enduring granite ; for him immense rafts bring down the forests of the interior ; for him the marts of the city gather the produce of all climes, and libraries collect the works of every language and age. The passions of society are chastened into purity ; manners are made benev- olent by refinement ; and the virtue of the country is the guardian of its peace. Science investigates the powers of every plant and mineral, to find medicines for disease ; schools of surgery rival the establishments of the Old World ; the genius of letters begins to unfold his powers in the warm sunshine of public favor. An active daily press, vigilant from party interests, free even to dissolute- ness, watches the progress of society, and communicates every fact that can interest humanity ; and commerce pushes its wharfs into the sea, blocks up the wide rivers with its fleets, and sends its ships, the pride of naval architecture, to every zone. A ha])py return voyage brought the " Half Moon " into Dartmouth on the seventh of November. There I609. the vessel was arbitrarily delayed, and the services of its commander and English seamen were claimed by their liege. Hudson could only forward to his employers an account of his discoveries ; he never again saw Holland or the land which he eulogized. 32 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXn. The Dutch East India company refused to search further for the north-western passage ; but English merchants, renewing courage, formed a company, and Hud- son, in " The Discovery," engaged again in his great pur- suit. He had already explored the north-east and the north, and the region between the Chesapeake and Maine. There was no room for hope but to the north of Newfoundland. Proceeding by way of Iceland, where " the famous Hecla " was casting out fire, passing Greenland and Frobisher's Straits, he sailed on the second of August, 1610, into the straits which bear his name, and into which no one had gone before him. As he came out from the passage upon the wide gulf, he believed that he beheld " a sea to the westward," so that the short way to the Pacific was found. How great was his disappointment, when he found himself embayed in a labyrinth without end. Still confident of ultimate success, the determined mariner resolved on win- tering in the bay, that he might perfect his discovery in the spring. His crew murmured at the sufferings of a winter for which no preparation had been made. At length the late and anxiously expected spring burst forth ; but it opened in vain for Hudson. Provisions were exhausted ; he divided the last bread among his men, and prepared for them a bill of return ; and " he wept as he gave it them." Believing himself almost on the point of succeeding, where Spaniards and English, and Danes and Dutch, had failed, he left his anchoring-place to steer for Europe. For two days the ship was encompassed by fields of ice, and the discontent of the crew broke forth into mutiny. Hudson was seized, and, with his only son and seven others, four of whom were sick, was thrown into the shallop. Seeing his commander thus exposed, Philip Staffe, the carpenter, de- manded and gained leave to share his fate ; and just as the ship made its way out of the ice, on a midsummer day, in a latitude where the sun, at that season, hardly goes down and evening twilight mingles with the dawn, the shallop was cut loose. What became of Hudson ? Did he die miserably of starvation ? Did he reach land to perish from the fury of the natives ? Was he crushed between ribs of I UNIVERSITY 1 1614. V ^ ^ NEW /eTHERLAND. od ice ? The returning ship encountered storms, by which he was probably overwhelmed. The gloomy waste of waters which bears his name is his tomb and his monument. The " Half Moon," having been detained for many months in Dartmouth by the jealousy of the English, did not reach Amsterdam till the middle of July, 1610, too late, perhaps, in the season for the immediate equipment of a new voyage. At least no definite trace of a voyage to Manhat- tan in that year has been discovered. Besides, to avoid a competition with England, the Dutch ambassador at Lon- don, that same year, proposed a joint colonization of Vir- ginia, as well as a partnership in the East India trade ; but the offer was put aside from fear of the superior " art and industry of the Dutch." The development of a lucrative fur-trade in Hud- leii. son River was therefore left to unprotected private adventure. In 1613, or in one of the two previous years, the experienced Hendrik Christiaensen of Cleve " and the worthy Adriaen Block chartered a ship with the skipper Ryser," and made a voyage into the waters of New York, bringing back rich furs, and also two sons of native sachems. The states-general still hesitated to charter a West In- dia company ; but on the twenty-seventh of March, 1614, they ordained that private adventurers might I6i4. enjoy an exclusive privilege for four successive voy- ages to any passage, haven, or country they should there- after find. With such encouragement, a company of merchants, in the same year, sent five small vessels, of which the " Fortune," of Amsterdam, had Christiaensen for its commander ; the " Tiger," of the same port, Adriaen Block ; the " Fortune," of Hoorn, Cornells Jacobsen May, to extend the discoveries of Hudson as well as to trade with the natives. The " Tiger " was accidentally burnt near the Island of Manhattan ; but Adriaen Block, building a yacht of six- teen tons' burden, which he named the " Unrest," plied forth to explore the vicinity. First of European navigators, he steered through Hellgato, passed the archipelago near Norwalk, and discovered the river of Red Hills, which we VOL. II. 8 34 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIL know as the Housatonic. From the Bay of New Haven he turned to the east, and ascended the beautiful river which he called the Freshwater, but which, to this hour, keeps its Indian name of Connecticut. Near the site of Wethersfield he came upon one Indian tribe ; just above Hartford, upon another ; and he heard tales of the Horicans, who dwelt in the west, and moved over lakes in bark canoes. The Pequods he found on the banks of their river. At Montauk Point, then occupied by a savage nation, he reached the ocean, proving the land east of the sound to be an island. After discovering the island which bears his name, and exploring both channels of that which owes to him the name of Roode Eiland, now Rhode Island, the mariner from Holland imposed the names of places in his native land on groups in the Atlantic, which, years before, Gosnold and other English navigators had visited. The " Unrest " sailed beyond Cape Cod ; and, while John Smith was making maps of the bays and coasts of Maine and Massachusetts, Adriaen Block traced the shore as far at least as Nahant. Then leaving the American-built yacht at Cape Cod, to be used by Cornells Hendricksen in the fur-trade, Block sailed in Christiaensen's ship for Holland. The states-general, in an assembly where Olden Barne- veldt was present, readily granted to the united company of merchants interested in these discoveries a three years' monopoly of trade with the territory between Virginia and New France, from forty to forty-five degrees of latitude. Their charter, given on the eleventh of October, 1614, names the extensive region New Netherland. Its north- ern part John Smith had that same year called New England. To prosecute their commerce with the natives, Christiaensen built for the company, on Castle Island, south of the present city of Albany, a truck-house and military post. The building was thirty-six feet by twenty- six, the stockade fifty-eight feet square, the moat eighteen feet wide. The garrison was composed of ten or twelve men. The fort, which may have been begun in 1614, which was certainly finished in 1615, was called Nassau j the river 1618. NEW NETHERLAND. 35 for a time was known as the Maurice. With the Five Nations a friendship grew up, which was soon ratified according, to the usages of the Iroquois, and during the power of the Dutch was never broken. Such is the begin- ning of Albany : it was the outpost of the Netherland fur- trade. The United Provinces, now recognised even by Spain as free countries, provinces, and states, set no bounds to their enterprise. The world seemed not too large for their com- merce under the genial influence of liberty, achieved after a struggle longer and more desperate than that of Greece with Peisia. This is the golden age of their trade with Japan, and the epoch of their alliance with the emperor of Ceylon. In 1611 their ships once again braved the frosts of the arctic circle in search of a new way to China ; and it was a Dutch discoverer, Schouten, from Hoorn, who, in 1616, left the name of his own beloved seaport leie. on the southernmost point of South America. In the same year a report was made of further discoveries in North America. Three Netherlanders — who went up the Mohawk valley, struck a branch of the Delaware, and made their way to Indians near the site of Philadelphia — were found by Cornells Hendricksen, as he came in the " Unrest " to explore the bay and rivers of Delaware. On his return to Holland in 1616, the merchants by whom he had been employed claimed the discovery of the country between thirty-eight and forty degrees. He described the inhabi- tants as trading in sables, furs, and other skins ; the land as a vast forest, abounding in bucks and does, in turkeys and partridges ; the climate temperate, like that of Holland ; the trees mantled by the vine. But the states-general refused to grant a monopoly of trade. On the first day of January, 1618, the exclusive 1618. privilege conceded to the company of merchants for New Netherland expired; but voyages continued to be made by their agents and by rival enterprise. The fort near Albany having been destroyed by a flood, a new post was taken on Norman's Kill. But the strife of political parties still retarded the establishment of permanent settle- 36 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIL merits. By the constitution of the Low Countries, the municipal officers, who were named by the stadholder or were self-renewed on the principle of close corporations, appointed delegates to the provincial states; and these again, a representative to the states-general. The states, the true personation of a fixed commercial aristocracy, re- sisted popular innovations ; and the same instinct which led the Romans to elevate Julius Caesar, the commons of England to sustain Henry YII., the Danes to confer hered- itary power on the descendants of Frederic III., the French to substitute absolute for feudal monarchy, induced the people of Holland to favor the stadholder. The division extended to domestic politics, theology, and international intercourse. The friends of the stadholder asserted sover- eignty for the states-general ; while the party of Olden Barneveldt and Grotius, with greater reason in point of historic facts, claimed sovereignty exclusively for the pro- vincial assemblies. Prince Maui'ice, who desired to renew the war with Spain, favored colonization in America ; the aristocratic party, fearing the increase of executive power, opposed it from fear of new collisions. The Gomarists, who satisfied the natural passion for equality by denying personal merit, and ascribing every virtue and capacity to the benevolence of God, leaned to the crowd ; Avhile the Arminians, nourishing pride by asserting power and merit in man, commended their creed to the aristocracy. Thus the Calvinists, popular enthusiasm, and the stadholder, were arrayed against the provincial states and municipal authorities. The colonization of New York by the Dutch depended on the struggle ; and the issue was not long doubtful. The excesses of political ambition, disguised under the forms of religious controversy, led to violent counsels. In August, 1618, Olden Barneveldt and Grotius were taken into custody. In November, 1618, a few weeks after the first acts of violence, the states-general gave a limited in- corporation to a company of merchants ; yet the conditions of the charter were not inviting, and no organization took place. In May of the following year, Grotius, the first polit- 1621. NEW NETHERLAND, 37 ical writer of his age, was condemned to imprisonment for life ; and by the default of the stadholder, Olden Barne veldt, at the age of threescore years and twelve, the venerable founder of the republic, was conducted to the scaffold. These events hastened the colonization of New Nether- land, where as yet no Europeans had repaired except commercial agents and their subordinates. In 1620, 1620. merchants of Holland, who had thus far had a trade only in Hudson River, wished to plant there a new com- monwealth, lest the king of Great Britain should first people its banks with the English nation. To this end it was proposed to send over John Robinson, with four hundred families of his persuasion; but the pilgrims had not lost their love for the land of their nativity, and the states were unwilling to guarantee them protection. A voyage from Virginia, to vindicate the trade in the Hudson for England, proved, a total loss. The settlement of Manhattan grew directly out of the great continental struggles of Prot- estantism. The thirty years' war of religion in Germany had i62i. begun ; the twelve years' truce between the Nether- lands and the Spanish king had nearly expired ; Austria hoped to crush the Reformation in the empire, and Spain to recover dominion over its ancient provinces. The states- general, whose existence was menaced by a combination of hostile powers, were summoned to display unparalleled energy in their foreign relations ; and on the third of June, 1621, the Dutch West India company, which became the sovereign of the central portion of the United States, was incorporated for twenty-four years, with a pledge of a renewal of its charter. It was invested, on the part of the Netherlands, with the exclusive privilege to traffic and plant colonies on the coast of Africa from the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope ; on the coast of America, from the Straits of Magellan to the remotest north. Subscription to its joint stock was open to every nation ; the states-general made it a gift of half a million of guilders, and were stock- holders to the amount of another half million. The fran- chises of the company were immense, that it might lay its 88 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIL own plans, provide for its own defence, and in all things take care of itself. The states-general, in case of war, were to be known only as its allies and patrons. While it was expected to render efficient aid in the impending war with Spain, its permanent objects were the peopling of fruitful unsettled countries and the increase of trade. It might acquire provinces, but only at its own risk; and it was endowed with absolute power over its possessions, subject to the approval of the states-general. The company was divided into five branches or chambers, of which that in Amsterdam represented four ninths of the whole. The government was intrusted to a board of nineteen, of whom eighteen represented the five branches, and one was named by the states. Thus did a nation of merchants give away the leave to appropriate continents ; and the corporate company, invested with a boundless liberty of choice, culled the rich territories of Guinea, Brazil, and New Netherland. Colonization on the Hudson and the Delaware was neither the motive nor the main object of the establishment of the Dutch West India company; the territory was not de- scribed either in the charter or at that time in any public act of the states-general, which neither made a formal spe- cific grant nor offered to guarantee the possession of a single foot of land. Before the chamber of Amsterdam, under the authority of the company, assumed the care of New Nether- land, while the trade was still prosecuted by private enter- prise, the English privy council listened to the complaint of Arundel, Gorges, Argall, and Mason of the Plymouth com- pany against " the Dutch intruders ; " and by the 1622. king's direction, in February, 1622, Sir Dudley Carle- ton, then British ambassador at the Hague, claiming the country as a part of New England, required the states- general to stay the prosecution of their plantation. This remonstrance received no explicit answer ; while Carleton reported of the Dutch that all their trade there was in ships of sixty or eighty tons at the most, to fetch furs, nor could he learn that they had either planted or designed to plant a colony. Bnt the English, at that time disheartened by 1625. NEW NETHERLAND. 39 the sufferings and losses encountered in Virginia, were not disposed to incur the unprofitable expense of a new settle- ment ; and the Dutch ships, which went over in 1622, found none to dispute the possession of the country. The organization of the West India company in 1623 was the epoch of its zealous efforts at colo- 1623. nization. In the spring of that year, "The New .Netherland," a ship of two hundred and sixty tons' burden, carried out thirty families. They were chiefly Walloons, Protestant fugitives from Belgian provinces. April was gone before the vessel reached Manhattan. A party under the command of Cornelis Jacobsen May, who has left his name on the southern county and cape of New Jersey, ascended the river Delaware then known as the South River of the Dutch, and on Timber Creek, a stream that enters the Delaware a few miles below Camden, built Fort Nassau. At the same time Adriaen Joris, on the site of Albany, threw up and completed the fort named Orange. There eighteen families were settled ; their huts of bark rose round the fort, and were protected by covenants of friendship with the various tribes of Indians. The next year, 1624, may be tnken as the era of a 1624. continuous civil government, with Cornelis Jacobsen May as the first director. It had power to punish, but not with death ; judgments for capital crimes were to be referred to Amsterdam. The emigrant ship returned laden with valuable furs, and the colony was reported to be bravely prosperous. In 1625, May was succeeded by William Yerhulst. i625. The colony was gladdened by the arrival of two large ships freighted with cattle and horses, as well as swine and sheep. At Fort Orange a child of Netherland parentage was born. In that year, Frederick Henry, the new, stadholder, was able to quell the passions of religious sects, and unite all parties in a common love of country. Danger from England also was diminished; for Charles I., soon after his accession, entered into a most intimate alli- ance with the Dutch. Just then Jean de Laet, a member of the chamber of Amsterdam, in an elaborate work on the 40 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIL West Indies, opportunely drew the attention of his country- men to their rising colony, and published Hudson's glowing description of the land. Under such auspices, Peter Minuit, a German 1626. of Wesel, in January, 1626, sailed for New Nether- land as its director-general. He arrived there on the fourth of May. Hitherto the Dutch had no title to owner- ship of the land; Minuit purchased the Island of Man- hattan from its native proprietors. The price paid was sixty guilders, about twenty-four dollars for more than twenty thousand acres. The southern point was selected for " a battery," and lines were drawn for a fort, which took the name of New Amsterdam. The town had already thirty houses, and the emigrants' wives had borne them children. In the want of a regular minister, two " con- solers of the sick "read to the people on Sundays "texts out of the Scriptures, together with the creeds." No danger appeared in the distance except from the pre- tensions of England. The government of Manhattan sought an interchange of "friendly kindness and neighborhood" with the nearest English at New Plymouth ; and by 1627. a public letter in March, 1627, it claimed mutual " good-will and service," pleading " the nearness of their native countries, the friendship of their forefathers, and the new covenant between the states-general and Eng- land against the Spaniards." Bradford, in reply, gladly ac- cepted the " testimony of love." " Our children after us," he added, " shall never forget the good and courteous en- treaty which we found in your country, and shall desire your prosperity for ever." His benediction was sincere ; though he called to mind that the English patent for New England extended to forty degrees, within which, therefore, the Dutch had no right " to plant or trade ; " and he espe- cially begged them not to send their yachts into the Narragansett. "Our authority to trade and plant we derive from the states of Holland, and will defend it," rejoined Minuit. But, in October of the same year, he sent De Rasieres, who stood next him in rank, on a conciliatory embassy to New 1629. NEW NETHERLAND. 41 Plymouth. The envoy proceeded in state with soldiers and musicians. At Scusset, on Cape Cod Bay, he was met by a boat from the Old Colony, and "was honorably at- tended with the noise of trumpets." He succeeded in con- certing a mutual trade; but Bradford still warned the authorities of New Amsterdam to "clear their title" to their lands without delay. The advice seemed like a wish to hunt the Dutch out of their infant colony, and led the college of nineteen to ask of the states-general forty soldiers for its defence. Such were the rude beginnings of J^ew Netherland. 1628. The women and children of the colony were con- centred on Manhattan, which, in 1628, counted a population of two hundred and seventy souls, including Dutch, Wal- loons, and slaves from Angola. Jonas Michaelius, a clergy- man, arriving in April of that year, " established a church,'' which chose Minuit one of its two elders, and at the first administration of the Lord's Supper counted fifty communicants. This was the age of hunters and Indian traders ; of traffic in the skins of otters and beavers ; when the native tribes were employed in the pursuit of game, as far as the St. Lawretice, and the skiffs of the Dutch, in quest of furs, penetrated every bay and bosom and inlet, from Narragansett to the Delaware. It was the day of straw roofs and wooden chimneys and wind- mills. There had been no extraordinary charge ; there was no multitude of people ; but labor was well directed' and profitable ; and the settlement promised fairly both to the state and to the undertakers. The experiment in feudal institutions followed. Reprisals on Spanish commerce were the alluring pursuit of the West India company. On a single occasion, in 1628, the captures secured by its privateers were almost eighty- fold more valuable than all the exports from their colony for the four j^receding years. While the company of merchant warriors, conducting their maritime enter- 1629. prises like princes, were making prizes of the rich fleets of Portugal and Spain, and, by their victories, pouring the wealth of America into their treasury, the states-general COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXn. interposed to subject the government of foreign con- 1629. quests to a council of nine ; and in 1629 the college of nineteen adopted a charter of privileges for pa^ troons who desired to found colonies in New Ketherland. These colonies were to resemble the lordships in the Netherlands. Every one who would emigrate on his own account was 23romised as much land as he could cultivate ; but husbandmen were not expected to emigrate without aid. The liberties of Holland were the fruit of municipali- ties ; the country people were subordinate to their landlord, against whose oppression the town was their refuge. The boors enjoyed as yet no political franchises, and had not had the experience required for planting states on a prin- ciple of equality. To the enterprise of proprietaries, New Netherland was to owe its tenants. He that within four years would plant a colony of fifty souls became lord of the manor, or patroon, possessing in absolute property the lands he might colonize. Those lands might extend sixteen miles in length ; or, if they lay upon both sides of a river, eight miles on each bank, stretching indefinitely far into the in- terior ; yet it was stipulated that the soil must be purchased of the Indians. Were citi*es to grow up, the institution of their government would rest with the patroon, who was to exercise judicial power, yet subject to appeals. The school- master and the minister were praised as desirable ; but there was no establishment for their maintenance. The colonists were forbidden to manufacture any woollen or linen or cotton fabrics; not a web might be woven, not a shuttle thrown, on penalty of exile. To impair the monopoly of the Dutch weavers was punishable as a perjury. The company, more- over, pledged itself to furnish the manors with negroes ; yet not, it was warily provided, unless the traflic should prove lucrative. The Isle of Manhattan, as the chosen seat of commerce, was reserved to the company. This charter of liberties was fatal to the interests of the corporation ; its directors and agents immediately appro- priated to themselves the most valuable portions of its ter- ritory. In June, 1629, three years, therefore, before the concession of the charter for Maryland, Samuel Godyn and 1630. NEW NETHERLAND. 43 Samuel Blommaert, both directors of the Amsterdam cham- ber, bargained with the natives for the soil from Cape Henlopen to the mouth of Delaware River ; in July, 1630, this purchase of an estate, more than thirty 1630. miles long, was ratified at Fort Amsterdam by Min- uit and his council. It is the oldest deed for land in Dela- ware, and comprises the water-line of the two southern counties of that state. Still larger domains were in the same year appropriated by the agents of another director of the Amsterdam chamber, Kiliaen van Rensselaer, to whom successive purchases from Mohawk and Mohican chiefs gave titles to land north and south of Fort Orange. His deeds also were promptly confirmed ; so that his possessions, in- cluding a later supplementary acquisition, extended above and below Fort Orange, for twenty-four miles on each side of the river and forty-eight miles into the interior. In the same year he sent out emigrants to the colony of Ren sselaer- wyck. In July, 1630, Michael Pauw, another director, bought Staten Island; in the following November, he be- came the patroon of Hoboken and what is now Jersey City ; and he named his "' colonic " on the mainland Pavonia. The company had designed, by its charter of liberties, to favor the peopling of the province, and yet to retain its trade ; under pretence of advancing agriculture, individuals had acquired a title to all the important points, where the natives resorted for traffic. As a necessary consequence, the feudal possessors were often in collision with the central government ; while, to the humble emigrant, the monopoly of commerce was aggravated by the monopoly of land. A company was soon formed to colonize the tract acquired by Godyn and Blommaert. The first settlement in Delaware, older than any in Pennsylvania, was undertaken by a com- pany, of which Godyn, Van Rensselaer, Blommaert, the histo- rian De Laet, and a new partner, David Pietersen de Vries, were members. By joint enterprise, in December, 1630, a ship of eighteen guns, commanded by Pieter Heyes, and laden with emigrants, store of seeds, cattle, and agricultural im- plements, embarked from the Texel, partly to cover the southern shore of Delaware Bay with fields of wheat and 44 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXII. tobacco, and partly for a whale-fialiery on the coast. A yacht which went in company was taken by a Dun- 1631. kirk privateer ; early in the spring of 1631, the larger vessel reached its destination, and just within Cape Henlopen, on Lewes Creek, planted a colony of more than thirty souls. The superintendence of the settlement was intrusted to Gillis Hosset. A little fort was built and well beset with palisades ; the firms of Holland were affixed to a pillar ; the country received the name of Swaanendael ; the water, that of Godyn's Bay. The voyage of Heyes was the cradling of a state. That Delaware exists as a separate commonwealth is due to this colony. According to English rule, occupancy was necessary to complete a title to the wilderness ; and the Dutch now occupied Delaware. On the fifth of May, Heyes and Hosset, in behalf of Godyn and Blommaert, made a further purchase from In- dian chiefs of the opposite coast of Cape May, for twelve miles on the bay, on the sea, and in the interior ; and, in June, this sale of a tract, twelve miles square, was formally attested at Manhattan. Animated by the courage of Godyn, the patroons of Swaanendael fitted out a second expedition, under the command of De Yries. But, before he set sail, news was received of the destruction of the fort and the murder of its people. Hosset, the commandant, had caused the death of an Indian chief ; and the revenge of the savages was not appeased till not one of the emigrants remained alive. De Vries, on his arrival, found only the ruins of the house and its palisades, half consumed by fire, and here and there the bones of the colonists. Before the Dutch could recover the soil of Delaware from the natives, the patent granted to Baltimore gave them an English competitor. Distracted by anarchy, the adminis- tration of New Netherland could not withstand encroach- ments. The too powerful patroons disputed the fur-trade with the agents of the West India company. In 1632. 1632, to still the quarrels, the discontented Minuit was displaced; but the inherent evils in the sys- tem were not lessened by appointing as his successor the 1640. NEW NETHERLAND. 45 selfish and incompetent Wouter van T wilier. The English government claimed that New Netherland was planted only on sufferance. The ship in which Minuit embarked for Holland entered Plymouth in a stress of weather, and was detained for a time on the allegation that it had traded with- out license in a part of the king's dominions. Yan Twiller, who arrived at Manhattan in April, 1633, 1633. was defied by an English ship, which sailed up the river before his eyes. The rush of Puritan emigrants to New England had quickened the movements of the Dutch on the Connecticut, which they undoubtedly were the first to discover and to occupy. The soil round Hartford was purchased of the natives, and a fort was erected Jan. 8. on land within the present limits of that city, some months before the pilgrims of Plymouth colony raised their block-house at Windsor, and more than two years before the people of Hooker and Haynes began i635. the commonwealth of Connecticut. To Avhom did the country belong ? Like the banks of the Hudson, it had been first explored, and even occupied, by the Dutch ; but should a log hut and a few straggling soldiers seal a terri- tory against other emigrants ? The English planters were on a soil over which England had ever claimed the sover- eignty, and of which the English monarch had made a grant ; they were there with their wives and children, and they were there for ever. It were a sin, said they, to leave so fertile a land unimproved. Their religious enthusiasm, zeal for popular liberty, and numbers, did not leave the issue uncertain. Altercations continued for years. The Dutch fort remained in the hands of the Dutch West India company till it was surrounded by English towns. At last, the English in Connecticut grew so numerous as not only to overwhelm its garrison, but, under a grant from Lord Stirling, to plant a part of Long Island. In the second year of the government of William Kieft, the i64o. arms of the Dutch on the east end of that island were thrown down in derision, and a fool's head set in their pjace. While the New England men were thus encroaching on 46 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXII. the Dutch on the east, a new competitor for possessions in America appeared in Delaware Bay. Gustavus Adolphus, the greatest benefactor of his race in the line of Swedish kings, had discerned the advantages which might be ex- pected from colonies and widely extended commerce. 1624. The royal zeal was encouraged by William Usselinx, a Netherlander, who for many years had given thought to the subject; at his instance, a commercial com- pany, with exclusive privileges to traffic beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, and the right of planting colonies, was June 14. sanctioned by the king and incorporated by the states Ma^^i ^^ Sweden. The stock was open to all Europe for subscription ; the king himself pledged four hundred thousand dollars of the royal treasure on equal risks ; the chief place of business was established at Gottenburg ; a branch was promised to any city which would embark three hundred thousand dollars in the undertaking. The government of the future colonies was reserved to a royal council : for " politics," says the charter, " lie beyond the profession of merchants." Men of every rank were solicited to engage in the enterprise ; it was resolved to invite " col- onists from all the nations of Europe." Other nations employed slaves in their colonies ; and " slaves," said they, " cost a great deal, labor with reluctance, and soon perish from hard usage ; the Swedish nation is laborious and intelligent, and surely we shall gain more by a free people with wives and children." To the Scandinavian imagina- tion, hope painted the New World as a paradise ; the pro- posed colony as a benefit to the persecuted, a security " to the honor of the wives and daughters " of those whom wars £ind bigotry had made fugitives ; a blessing to the " common man ; " to the " whole Protestant world." It may 1629. prove the advantage, said Gustavus, of " all oppressed Christendom." But the reviving influence of the pope menaced Prot- estant Christendom with ruin. The insurrection against intellectual servitude, of which the Reformation was the 1630 gi*eat expression, appeared in danger of being sup- May 29. pressed, when Gustavus Adolphus resolved to in- 1638. NEW NETHERLAND. 4T vade Germany and vindicate the rights of conscience with his sword. Even the cherished purpose of colonization yielded in the emergency; and the funds of the company were arbitrarily applied as resources in the war. It was a war of revolution ; a struggle to secure German liberty by establishing religious equality; yet even the great events on which the destinies of Germany were suspended could not wholly drive from tlie mind of Gustavus his de- signs in America. They did but enlarge his views ; ocSe. and at Nuremberg, only a few days before the battle of Liitzen, where humanity won one of her most glori- ous victories, and lost one of her ablest defenders, the en- terprise, which still appeared to him as " the jewel of his kingdom," was recommended to the people of Germany. In confirming the invitation to Germany, Oxen- 1633. stiern declares himself to be but the executor of ^^^- ^^• the wish of Gustavus. The same wise statesman, one of the great men of all time, the serene chancellor, who in the busiest scenes never took a care with him to his couch, renewed the patent of the company in June, 1633, June 26. and in December of the next year extended its ben- efits to Germany. The charter was soon confirmed by the deputies of the four upper circles at Frankfort. " The con- sequences " of this design, said Oxenstiern, " will be favor- able to all Christendom, to Europe, to the whole world." And were they not so ? The first permanent colonization of the banks of the Delaware is due to Oxenstiern. Yet more than four years passed away before the design was carried into effect. We have seen Min- i638. uit, the early governor of New Netherland, forfeit his place amidst the strifes of faction. He now offered the benefit of his experience to the Swedes ; and leaving Sweden, probably near the close of the year 1637, he sailed for the Bay of Delaware. Two vessels, the " Key of Cal- mar " and the " Griffin," formed his whole fleet ; the Swed- ish government provided the emigrants with a religious teacher, with provisions, and merchandise for traffic with the natives. Early in the year 1638, the little company of Swedes and Finns arrived in the Delaware Bay ; the lands 48 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIL from the sonthprn cape, which the emigrants from hyper- borean regions named Paradise Point, to the falls in the river near Trenton, were purchased of the natives ; and near the mouth of Christiana Creek, within the limits of the present state of Delaware, Christiana Fort, so called from the little girl who was then queen of Sweden, was erected. The colony was not unmolested. Should the Dutch suffer their province to be dismembered ? The records at Albany still preserve the paper in which Kieft, then director-gen- eral of New Netherland, claimed for the Dutch the country on the Delaware : their possession had long been guarded by forts, and had been sealed by the blood of their country- men. But at that time the fame of Swedish arms pro- tected the Swedish flag in the New World ; and, while Banner and Torstenson were humbling Austria and Den- mark, the Dutch did not proceed beyond a protest. Meantime, tidings of the loveliness of the country had been borne to Scandinavia, and the peasantry of Sweden and of Finland longed to exchange their farms in Europe for homes on the Delaware. Emigration increased ; at the last considerable expedition, there were more than a hun- dred families eager to embark for the land of promise, and unable to obtain a passage in the crowded vessels. The plantations of the Swedes were gradually extended ; and to preserve the ascendency over the Dutch, who re- newed their fort at Nassau, Printz, the governor, 1643. in 1643, established his residence in Tinicum, a few miles below Philadelphia. A fort, constructed of hemlock logs, defended the island ; and houses began to cluster in its neighborhood. Pennsylvania, like Delaware, traces its lineage to the Swedes, who had planted a suburb of Philadelphia before William Penn became its proprie- tary. The banks of the Delaware from the ocean to the falls were known as New Sweden. The few English fami- lies within its limits, emigrants from New England, 1640. allured by the climate and the opportunity of Indian traffic, were either driven from the soil or submitted to Swedish jurisdiction. While the limits of New Netherland were narrowed by 1642. NEW NETHERLAND. 49 competitors on the east and on the south, and Long Island was soon to be claimed by the agent of Lord Stirling, the colony was almost annihilated by the vengeance of the neighboring Algonkin tribes. Angry and even bloody quarrels had sometimes arisen between dishonest traders and savages maddened by intoxication. The blame- less settlement on Staten Island had, in consequence, i640. been ruined by the blind vengeance of the tribes of New Jersey. The strife continued. An Indiafi boy, who had been present when, years before, his uncle had been robbed and murdered, had vowed revenge, and, now that ho was grown to man's estate, remembered and i64i. executed the vow of his childhood. A roving but fruitless expedition into the country south of the Hudson was the consequence. The Raritans were outlawed, and a bounty of ten fathoms of wampum was offered for every member of the tribe. The season of danger brought with it the necessity of consulting the people ; and the commons elected a body of twelve to assist the governor. De Vries, the head of the committee of the people, urged the advantage of friend- ship with the natives. But the traders did not learn hu- manity, nor the savage forget revenge ; and the son of a chief, stung by the conviction of having been defrauded and robbed, aimed an unerring arrow at the first Hol- lander exposed to his fury. A deputation of the 1642. river chieftains hastened to express their sorrow, and deplore the never-ending alternations of bloodshed. The murderer they could not deliver up ; but after the custom of the Saxons in the days of Alfred, or the Irish under Elizabeth, in exact correspondence with the usages of earli- est Greece, they offered to purchase security for the mur- derer by a fine for blood. Two hundred fathom of the best wampum might console the grief of the widow. " You yourselves," they added, " are the cause of this evil ; you ought not craze the young Indians with brandy. Your own people, when drunk, fight with knives, and do foolish things ; you cannot prevent mischief, till you cease to sell strong drink to the Indian." Kieft was inexorable, and demanded the murderer. Just VOL. II. 4 '60 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXH. then, a small party of Mohawks from the neighbor- j^^; hood of Fort Orange, armed with muskets, descended from their fastnesses, and claimed the natives round Manhattan as tributaries. At the approach of the formida- ble warriors of a braver Huron race, the more numerous but cowering Algonkins crowded together in despair, begging assistance of the Dutch. Kieft seized the moment for an exterminating massacre. In vain was it foretold that the ruin would light upon the Dutch themselves. In the 2^^26. stillness of a dark winter's night, the soldiers at the fort, joined by freebooters from Dutch privateers, and led by a guide who knew every by-path and nook where the savages nestled, crossed the Hudson, for the purpose of destruction. The unsuspecting tribes could offer little re- sistance. Nearly a hundred perished in the carnage. Day- break did not end its horrors ; men might be seen, mangled and helpless, suffering from cold and hunger ; children were tossed into the stream, and, as their parents plunged to their rescue, the soldiers prevented their landing, that both child and parent might drown. The massacre was held in detestation by the colonists, who afterwards decided to imitate the precedent of Vir- ginia, by deposing their governor and sending him back to Holland. For the moment, he was proud of his deed of treachery, and greeted the returning troops with exultation. But his joy was short. No sooner was it known that the midnight attack had been made not by the Mohawks, but by the Dutch, than every Algonkin tribe round Manhattan was seized with frenzy. From the swamps sudden onsets were made in every direction ; villages were laid waste ; the farmer murdered in the field ; his children swept into captivity. From the shores of New Jersey to the borders of Connecticut, not a bowery was safe. It was on this occa- sion that Anne Hutchinson perished with her family. The Dutch colony was threatened with ruin. " Mine eyes," says a witness, " saw the flames at their towns, and the frights and hurries of men, women, and children, the pres- ent removal of all that could for Holland." The director was compelled to desire peace. 1640. NEW NETHERLAND. 61 On the fifth of March, 1643, a convention of six- 1543 teen sachems assembled in the woods of Rockaway ; ^*^- '^• and at daybreak De Vries and another, the two envoys from Manhattan, were conducted to the centre of the little senate. Their best orator addressed them, holding in one hand a bundle of small sticks. " When you first arrived on our shores, you were destitute of food ; we gave you our beans and our corn ; we fed you with oysters and fish ; and now, for our recompense, you murder our people." Such were his opening words ; having put down one little stick, he proceeded : " The traders whom your first ships left on our shore, to traffic till their return, were cherished by us as the apple of our eye : we gave them our daughters for their wives ; among those whom you have murdered were chil- dren of your own blood." He laid down another stick ; and many more remained in his hand, each a memento of an unsatisfied wrong. " I know all," said De Vries, in- terrupting him, and inviting the chiefs to repair to thie fort. The speaking ceased ; the chieftains gave costly presents, ten fathoms of seawan, to each of the whites ; and then the party went by water to New Amsterdam. There peace was made ; but the presents of Kieft were those of a nig- gard, and left still in the Indians the rankling memory of the cruel slaughter of their infants. A month later, a sim- ilar covenant was made with the tribes on the river. But confidence was not restored. The young warriors among the red men would not be pacified ; one had lost a father or a mother ; a second owed revenge to the memory of a friend. No sufficient ransom had stifled revenge and calmed the pride of honor. "The presents we have July 20. received," said an older chief, in despondency, " bear no proportion to our loss ; the price of blood has not Sept. 15. been paid ; " and war was renewed. The commander of the Dutch troops was John Underhill, a fugitive from New England, a veteran in Indian warfare, and one of the bravest men of his day. Having the licen- tiousness not less than the courage of the soldiers of that age, he had been compelled, at Boston, in a great assembly, on lecture-day, during the session of the i64o. 52 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXH. general court, dressed in the habit of a penitent, to stand upon a platform, and with sighs and tears, and bi-okenness of heart, and the aspect of sorrow, to beseech the com- passion of the congregation. In the following year, Sept. he removed to New Netherland, and now, \nth an army of one hundred and twenty men, became the protector of the Dutch settlements. The war con- ^1645? tinned for two years. At length, the Dutch were weary of danger ; the Indians tired of being hunted like beasts. The Mohawks claimed a sovereignty Atfg.^30. ^^^^ ^h® Algonkins ; their ambassador appeared at Manhattan to negotiate a peace ; and in front of Fort Amsterdam, according to Indian usage, under the open sky, on the spot now so beautiful, where the com- merce of the world may be watched from shady walks, in the presence of the sun and of the ocean, the sachems of New Jersey, of the River Indians, of the Mohicans, and of Long Island, acknowledging the chiefs of the Five Nations as witnesses and arbitrators, and having around them the director and council of New Netherland, with the whole commonalty of the Dutch, set their marks to Sept. 6. a solemn treaty of peace. The joy of the colony broke forth into a general thanksgiving ; but infamy attached to the name of Kieft, the author of the carnage ; the emigrants desired to reject him as their governor ; the West India company disclaimed his barbarous policy, lets! About two years after the peace, he embarked for Europe in a large and richly laden vessel ; but the ship in which he sailed was dashed in pieces on the coast of Wales, and the man of blood was overwhelmed by the waves. A better day dawned on New Netherland, when the brave and honest Stuyvesant, recently the vice-director of Curayao, wounded in the West Indies, in the attack on St. Martin, a soldier of experience, a scholar of some 1646. learning, was promoted for his services, and entered on the government of the province. Sad experience Majh. dictated a system of lenity towards the natives. The interests of New Netherland required free trade ; at 1649. NEW NETHERLAND. 53 first, the department of Amsterdam, which had alone 1648. borne the expense of the colony, would tolerate no interlopers. But the monopoly could not be enforced ; and export duties were substituted. Manhattan began to pros- per, when its merchants obtained freedom to follow the impulses of their own enterprise. The glorious destiny of the city was anticipated. " When your commerce becomes established, and your ships ride on every part of the ocean, throngs that look towards you with eager eyes will be allured to embark for your island." This prophecy was, nearly two centuries ago, addressed by the merchants of Amsterdam to the merchants of Manhattan. At that time, who could have foreseen that the population and wealth of that famed emporium would one day be so far excelled by the settlement that had barely saved its life from the vengeance of the savages ? The Island of New York 1649. was then chiefly divided among farmers; the large forests which covered the park and the adjacent region long remained a common pasture, where, for yet a quarter of a century, tanners could obtain bark, and boys chest- nuts ; and the soil was so little valued that Stuyvesant thought it no wrong to his employers to purchase of them at a small price an extensive bowery just beyond the cop- pices, among which browsed the goats and kine from the village. A desire grew up for municipal liberties. The company which effected the early settlements of New Netherland introduced the self-perpetuating councils of the Netherlands. The emigrants were scattered on boweries or plantations ; and, seeing the evils of this mode of living widely apart, they were advised in 1643 and 1646 by the Dutch authori- ties to gather into " villages, towns, and hamlets, as the English were in the habit of doing." In 1649, when the province was " in a very poor and most low condition," the commonalty of New Netherland, in a petition addressed to the " states-general," prayed for a suitable municipal gov- ernment. They referred to the case of New England, say- ing " neither patroons, lords, nor princes are known there, only the people. Each town, no matter how small, hath its 54 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIL own court and jurisdiction, also a voice in the capitol, and elects its own officers." But the prayer was unheeded. With its feeble population, New Netherland could not protect the eastern boundary. Of what avail were 1647. protests against actual settlers ? Stuyvesant was in- structed to preserve the House of Good Hope at ]^l[ Hartford ; but, while he was claiming the country from Cape Cod to Cape Henlopen, there was danger that the "N"ew England men would stretch their settlements to the North River, intercept the navigation from Fort Orange, and monopolize the fur-trade. The commercial corporation would not risk a war; the expense would im- pair its dividends. " War," they declared, " cannot in any event be for our advantage ; the New England people are too powerful for us." No issue was left but by nego- Sept.^ii. tiation ; Stuyvesant himself repaired as ambassador to Hartford, and was glad to conclude a provisional treaty, which allowed New Netherland to extend on Long Island as far as Oyster Bay, on the main to the neighbor- hood of Greenwich. This intercolonial treaty was accept- able to the West India company, but was never ratified in England ; its conditional approbation by the states-general is the only state paper in which the Dutch government rec- ognised the boundaries of the province on the Hudson. The West India company could never obtain a national guarantee for the integrity of their possessions. 1651 to The war between the rival republics in Europe did 1654. jjQ|. extend to America ; in England, Roger Williams delayed an armament against New Netherland. It is true that the West India company, dreading an attack jJaghs. f^om New England, had instructed their governor "to engage the Indians in his cause." But the friendship of the Narragansetts for the Puritans could not be shaken. " I am poor," said Mixam, one of their sachems, "but no presents of goods, or of guns, or of powder and shot, shall draw me into a conspiracy against my friends the English." The naval successes of the Dutch in- 1653. spired milder counsels; and the news of peace in Europe soon quieted every apprehension. 1666. NEW NETHERLAND. 65 The provisionary compact left Connecticut in possession of a moiety of Long Island ; the whole had often, but in- effectually, been claimed by Lord Stirling. Near the southern frontier of New Belgium, on Delaware Bay, june*2i. the favor of Strafford had also obtained for Sir Edward Ployden a patent for New Albion. The ^^^^^ county never existed, except on parchment. The lord palatine attempted a settlement; but, for want of a pilot, he entered the Chesapeake ; and his people were ab- sorbed in the happy province of Virginia. He was never able to dispossess the Swedes. With the Swedes, therefore, powerful competitors for the tobacco of Virginia and the beaver of the Schuylkill, the Dutch were to contend for the banks of the Delaware. Li the vicinity of the river, the Swedish company was more powerful than its rival ; but the whole province of New Netherland was tenfold more populous than New Sweden. From motives of commercial security, the Dutch built Fort Casimir, on the site of Newcastle, within five i65i. miles of Christiana, near the mouth of the Brandy- wine. To the Swedes this seemed an encroachment ; jealousies ensued ; and at last, aided by stratagem and 1654. immediate superiority in numbers. Rising, the Swed- ish governor, overpowered the garrison. The ag- gression was fatal to the only colony which Sweden had planted. That kingdom was exhausted by a long succession of wars ; the statesmen and soldiers whom J^^g* Gustavus had educated had passed from the public service ; Oxenstiern, after adorning retirement by the sub- lime pursuits of philosophy, was no more ; a youthful and licentious queen, greedy of literary distinction, and without capacity for government, had impaired the strength of the kingdom by nursing contending factions, and then capri- ciously abdicating the throne. Sweden had ceased to awaken fear, and the Dutch comi:)any commanded Stuyvesant to "revenge their wrong, to drive the NoT^ie. Swedes from the river, or compel their submission." The order was renewed ; and in September, 1655, 1655. after they had maintained their separate existence 56 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXII. for a little more than seventeen years, the Dutch gov- ernor, collecting a force of more than six hundred men, sailed into the Delaware with the purpose of conquest. Resistance would have been unavailing. One fort Sep?'25. after another surrendered : to Rising honorable terms were conceded ; the colonists were promised the quiet possession of their estates ; and, in defiance of protests and the turbulence of the Scandinavians, the jurisdiction of the Dutch was established. Such was the end of New Sweden, the colony that connects our country with Gustavus Adol- phus and the nations that dwell on the Gulf of Bothnia. The descendants of the colonists, in the course of genera- tions, widely scattered and blended with emigrants of other lineage, constituted perhaps more than one part in two hundred of the population of our country in the early part of the nineteenth century. At the surrender, they did not much exceed seven hundred souls. Free from ambition, ignorant of the ideas which were convulsing the English mind, it was only as Protestants that they shared the im- pulse of the age. They cherished the calm earnestness of religious feeling ; they reverenced the bonds of family and the purity of morals ; their children, under every disadvan- tage of want of teachers and of Swedish books, were well instructed. With the natives they preserved peace. A love for Sweden, their dear mother country, the abiding sentiment of loyalty towards its sovereign, continued to dis- tinguish them ; at Stockholm, they remained for a century the objects of a disinterested and generous regard ; affection united them in the New World ; and a part of their de- scendants still preserv^e their altar and their dwellings round the graves of their fathers. The conquest of the Swedish settlements was fol- low^ed by relations bearing a near analogy to the pro- vincial system of Rome. The West India company desired an ally on its southern frontier ; the country above Chris- tiana was governed by Stuyvesant's deputy; while Dec. the city of Amsterdam became, by purchase, the proprietary of Delaware, from the Brandywine to 1659. Bombay Hook ; and afterwards, under cessions from 1655. NEW NETHERLAND. 57 the natives, extended its jurisdiction to Cape Henlo- pen. But did a city ever govern a province with forbearance ? The noble and right honorable lords, \llf the burgomasters of Amsterdam, instituted a para- lyzing commercial monopoly, and required of the colonists an oath of absolute obedience to all their past or future commands. But Maryland was free; Virginia governed itself. The restless colonists, almost as they landed, and even the soldiers of the garrison, fled from the dominion of Amsterdam to the liberties of English colonies. The at- tempt to elope was punishable by death, and scarce thirty families remained. Dui-ing the absence of Stuyvesant from Manhat- 1655. tan, the warriors of the neighboring Algonkin tribes, ^®p** never reposing confidence in the Dutch, made a desperate assault on the colony. In sixty-four canoes, they appeared before the town, and ravaged the adjacent country. The return of the expedition restored confidence. The captives were ransomed, and industry repaired its losses. The Dutch seemed to have firmly established their power, and promised themselves happier years. New Netherland consoled them for the loss of Brazil. They exulted in the possession of an admirable territory, that needed no embankments against the ocean. They were proud of its vast extent, from New England to Maryland, from the sea to the Great River of Canada, and the remote north-western wilderness. They sounded with exultation the channel of the deep stream, which was no longer shared with the Swedes ; they counted with delight its many lovely runs of water, on which the beavers built their villages ; and the great travellers who had visited every continent, as they ascended the Delaware, declared it one of the noblest rivers in the world, with banks more inviting than the lands on the Amazon. Meantime, the country near the Hudson gained by in- creasing emigration. Manhattan was already the chosen abode of merchants; and the policy of the government invited them by its good-will. If Stuyvesant sometimes displayed the rash despotism of a soldier, he was sure to be reproved by his employers. Did he change the rate of * 58 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIL duties arbitrarily, the directors, sensitive to com- ^mo!* niercial honor, charged him " to keep every contract inviolate." Did he tamper with the currency by raising the nominal value of foreign coin, the measure was rebuked as dishonest. Did he attempt to fix the price of labor by arbitrary rules, this also was condemned as unwise and impracticable. Did he interfere with the merchants by inspecting their accounts, the deed was censured as without precedent "in Christendom;" and he was ordered to "treat the merchants with kindness, lest they return, and the country be depopulated." Did his zeal for Calvinism lead him to persecute Lutherans, he was chid for his bigotry. Did his hatred of "the abominable sect of Quakers" im- prison and afterwards exile the blameless Bowne, " let every peaceful citizen," wrote the directors, "enjoy freedom of conscience ; this maxim has made our city the asylum for fugitives from every land ; tread in its steps, and you shall be blessed." Private worship was therefore allowed to every religion. Opinion, if not yet enfranchised, was already tolerated. The people of Palestine, from the destruction of their temple an outcast and a wandering race, were allured by the traffic and the condition of the New World ; and not the Saxon and Celtic races only, the children of the bondmen that broke from slavery in Egypt, the posterity of those who had wandered in Arabia, and worshipped near Calvary, found a home, liberty, and a burial-place on the Island of Manhattan. The emigrants from Holland were themselves of the most various lineage ; for Holland had long been the gathering- place of the unfortunate. Could we trace the descent of the emigrants from the Low Countries to New Netherland, we should be carried not only to the banks of the Rhine and the borders of the German Sea, but to the Protestants who escaped from France after the massacre of Bartholo- mew's eve, and to those earlier inquirers who were swayed by the voice of Huss in the heart of Bohemia. New York was always a city of the world. Its settlers were relics of the first-fruits of the Reformation, chosen from the Belgic 1656. NEW NETHERLAND. 59 provinces and England, from France and Bohemia, from Germany and Switzerland, from Piedmont and the Italian Alps. The religious sects, which, in the middle ages, had been fostered by the municipal liberties of the south of France, were the harbingers of modern freedom, and had therefore been sacrificed to the inexorable feudalism of the north. After a bloody conflict, the plebeian reformers, crushed by the merciless leaders of the military aristocracy, escaped to the highlands that divide France and Italy. Preserving the discipline of a benevolent, ascetic morality, with the simplicity of a spiritual worship, " When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones," it was found, on the progress of the Reformation, that they had by three centuries anticipated Luther and Calvin. The hurricane of persecution, which was to have swept Prot- estantism from the earth, did not spare their seclusion ; mothers with infants were rolled down the rocks, and the bones of martyrs scattered on the Alpine mountains. The city of Amsterdam offered the fugitive Wal- jyll^{Q^ denses a free passage to America, and a welcome was prepared in New Netherland for the few who were willing to emigrate. The persecuted of every creed and every clime were invited to the colony. When the Protestant churches in Kochelle were razed, the Calvinists of that city were gladly admitted ; and the French Protectants came in such num- bers that the public documents were sometimes issued in French as well as in Dutch and English. Troops of orphans were shipped for the milder destinies of the New World ; a free passage was offered to mechanics ; for "population was known to be the bulwark of every state." The government of New Netherland had formed just ideas of the fit materials for building a common- wealth ; they desired " farmers and laborers, foreigners and exiles, men inured to toil and penury." The colony increased ; children swarmed in every village ; the advent of the year and the month of May were welcomed with noisy frolics : new modes of activity were devised ; lumber 60 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIL was shipped to France ; the whale pursued off the coast ; the vine, the mulberry, planted ; flocks of sheep as well as cattle were multiplied ; and tile, so long imported from Holland, began to be manufactured near Fort 1664. Orange. New Amsterdam could, in a few years, boast of stately buildings, and almost vied with Bos- ton. *' This happily situated province," said its inhabitants, '"may become the granary of our fatherland; should our Netherlands be wasted by grievous wars, it will offer our countrymen a safe retreat ; by God's blessing, we shall in a few years become a mighty people." Thus did various nations of the Caucasian race assist in colonizing our central states. The African also had his portion on the Hudson. The West India company, which sometimes transported Indian captives to the West Indies, having large establishments on the coast of Guinea, 1626. at an early day introduced negroes into Manhattan, and continued the negro slave-trade without remorse. We have seen Elizabeth of England a partner in the com- merce, of which the Stuarts, to the days of Queen Anne, were distinguished patrons ; the city of Amsterdam did not blush to own shares in a slave-ship, to advance money for the outfits, and to participate in the returns. In pro- 1G64. portion to population, New York had imported as many Africans as Virginia. That New York is not a slave state like Carolina is due to climate, and not to the supeVior humanity of its founders. Stuyvesant was instructed to use every exertion to promote the sale of negroes. They were imported sometimes by way of the West Indies, often directly from Guinea, and were sold at public auction to the highest bidder. The average price was less. than one hundred and forty dollars. The monop- oly of the traffic was not strictly enforced ; and a change of policy sometimes favored the export of negroes to the Eng- lish colonies. The enfranchised negro might become a free- holder. With the Africans came the African institution of abject slavery ; the large emigrations from Connecticut engrafted on New Netherland the Puritan idea of popular freedom. 1660. NEW NETHERLAND. 61 There were so many English at Manhattan as to require an English secretary, preachers who could speak in English as well as in Dutch, and a publication of civil ordinances in English. Whole towns had been settled by New England men, who, having come to America to serve God with a pure conscience, and desiring to provide for the outward comforts and souls' welfare of their posterities, planted New England liberties in a Congregational way, with the consent and under the jurisdiction of the Dutch. Their presence and their activity foretold a revolution. In the fatherland, the power of the people was unknown ; in New Netherland, the necessities of the colony had given it a twilight existence, and delegates from the Dutch towns, at first twelve, then perhaps eight in number, had mitigated the arbitrary authority of Kieft. There 1642. was no distinct concession of legislative power to the people ; but the people had, without a teacher, become con- vinced of the right of resistance. The brewers re- fused to pay an arbitrary excise : " Were we to Au^ts yield," said they, " we should offend the eight men, and the whole commonalty." The large proprietaries did not favor popular freedom ; the commander of Kens- selaer Stein had even raised a battery, that " the i644. canker of freemen " might not enter the manor ; but the patrons cheerfully joined the free boors in resist- ing arbitrary taxation. As a compromise, it was 1647. proposed that, from a double nomination by the villages, the governor should appoint tribunes, to act as magistrates in trivial cases, and as agents for the towns, to give their opinion whenever they should be consulted. Town-meetings were absolutely prohibited. Discontents increased. Vander Donk and others were charged with leaving nothing untried to abjure what they called the galling yoke of an arbitrary gov- ^1^2'** ernment. A commission repaired to Holland for redress ; as farmers, they claimed the liberties essen- i650. tial to the prosperity of agriculture ; as merchants, they protested against the intolerable burden of the cus- toms , and, when redress was refused, tyranny was followed 62 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIL by its usual consequence, clandestine associations against oppression. The excess of complaint obtained for Aprh. New Amsterdam a court of justice like that of the metropolis ; but the municipal liberties included no political franchise; the sheriff was appointed by the gov- ernor ; the two burgomasters and five schepens made a double nomination of their own successors, from which *' the valiant director himself elected the board." The city had privileges, not the citizens. The province gained only the municipal liberties, on which rested the commercial aristocracy of Holland. Citizenship was a commercial priv- ilege, and not a political enfranchisement. It was not much more than a license to trade. The system was at war with Puritan usages ; the Dutch in the colony always relied on themselves; and 1653. the persevering restlessness of the people led to a ^ec.*^ general assembly of two deputies from each village in New Netherland ; an assembly which Stuyvesant was unwilling to sanction, and could not prevent. As in Massachusetts, this first convention sprung from the Dec. will of the people ; and it claimed the right of delib- erating on the civil condition of the country. " The states-general of the United Provinces," such was the remonstrance and petition, drafted by George Baxter, and unanimously adopted by the convention, " are our liege lords ; we submit to the laws of the United Provinces ; and our rights and privileges ought to be in harmony with those of the fatherland, for we are a member of the state, and not a subjugated people. We, who have come together from various parts of the world, and are a blended commu- nity of various lineage ; we, who have, at our own expense, exchanged our native lands for the protection of the United Provinces; we, who have transformed the wilderness into fruitful farms, — demand that no new laws shall be enacted but with consent of the people, that none shall be appointed to office but with the approbation of the people, that obscure and obsolete laws shall never be revived." Stuyvesant was taken by surprise. He never had faith in " the wavering multitude ; " and doubts of man's capacity 1658. NEW JSTETHERLAND. 63 for self-government dictated his reply. "Will you set your names to the visionary notions of an Englishman ? Is there no one of the Netherlands' nation able to draft your peti- tion ? And your prayer is so extravagant, you might as well claim to send delegates to the assembly of their high mightinesses themselves. 1. "Laws will be made by the director and council. Evil manners produce good laws for their restraint ; and there- fore the laws of New Netherland are good. 2. " Shall the people elect their own officers ? If this rule become our cynosure, and the election of magistrates be left to the rabble, every man will vote for one of his own stamp. The thief will vote for a thief ; the smuggler for a smuggler; and fraud and vice will become privileged. 3. " The old laws remain in force ; directors will never make themselves responsible to subjects." The delegates, in their rejoinder, appealed to their 1653. inalienable rights. " We do but design the general ^^^- ^^• good of the country and the maintenance of freedom ; nat- ure permits all men to constitute society, and assemble for the protection of liberty and property." Stuyvesant, hav- ing exhausted his arguments, could reply only by an act of power; and, dissolving the assembly, he commanded its members to separate on pain of arbitrary punishment. " We derive our authority from God and the West India company, not from the pleasure of a few ignorant subjects : " such was his farewell message to the convention which he dispersed. The West India company declared this resistance to arbitrary taxation to be " contrary to the maxims of every enlightened government." "We approve the taxes you propose," — thus they wrote to Stuyvesant; "have no re- gard to the consent of the people ; " " let them indulge no longer the visionary dream that taxes can be imposed only with their consent." But the people continued to indulge the dream ; taxes could not be collected ; and the colonists, in their desire that popular freedom might ^1^*** prove more than a vision, listened with complacency 64 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIL to the hope of obtaining English liberties by submitting to English jurisdiction. Cromwell had planned the conquest of New Netherland ; in the days of his son, the design was revived ; and the restoration of Charles II. threatened New Netherland with danger from the south, the north, and from England. In previous negotiations with the agent of Lord 1659. Baltimore, the envoy of New Netherland had firmly maintained the right of the Dutch to the southern bank of the Delaware, pleading purchase and colonization before the patent to /Lord Baltimore had been granted. The facts were conceded ; but, in the pride of strength, it was answered that the same plea had not availed Claybome, and should not avail the Dutch. On the restoration, Lord Baltimore renewed his claims to the country from New- castle to Cape Henlopen ; they were defended by his agents in Amsterdam and in America, and were even presented to the states-general of the United Provinces. The college of nineteen of the West India company was inflexible ; Se^^'i. coiiscious of its rights, it refused to surrender its pos- sessions, and resolved " to defend them even to the spilling of blood." Beekman, the Dutch lieutenant-gov- ernor on the Delaware, was faithful to his trust; the juris- diction of his country was maintained ; and when ^1664^ young Baltimore, with his train, appeared at the mouth of the Brandywine, he was honored as a guest ; but the proprietary claims of his father were trium- phantly resisted. The Dutch and Swedes and Finns kept the country safely for William Penn. At last, the West India company, desiring a barrier against the English ^^nd ^^ *^® south, transferred the whole country on the July- Delaware to the city of Amsterdam. The banks of the river from Cape Henlopen to the falls at Trenton certainly remained under the jurisdiction of the Dutch. In the interior, the salt springs of Syracuse were discovered by the Jesuits in 1654 ; and in the course of two following years the place was occupied by a colony of the French. With Virginia, during the protectorate, the most ami- cable relations had been confirmed by reciprocal cour- 1663. NEW NETHERLAND. 65 tesies. Even during the war between England and 1653. Holland, friendly intercourse had continued ; for why, it was said, should there be strife between old friends and neighbors, brothers in Christ, dwelling in countries so far from Europe ? Commerce, if interrupted by a transient hesitancy as to its security, soon recovered its freedom, and was sometimes conducted even with Europe by way of Virginia. Equal rights in the colonial courts wefre 1659. reciprocally secured by treaty. But, upon the restora- tion, the act of navigation, at first evaded, was soon enforced ; and by degrees Berkeley, whose brother jJ,^io. coveted the soil of New Jersey, threatened hostility. Clouds gathered in the south. . In the north, affairs were still more lowering. Massachu- setts did not relinquish its right to an indefinite extension of its territory to the west ; and the people of Connecticut not only increased their pretensions on Long Island, but, regardless of the provisionary treaty, claimed q^j* West Chester, and were steadily advancing towards the Hudson. To stay these encroachments, Stuyve- sant himself repaired to Boston, and entered his g^^; complaints to the convention of the united colonies. His voyage was a confession of weakness ; Massachusetts maintained a neutrality, and Connecticut demanded delay. An embassy to Hartford renewed the language of remon- strance with no better success. Did the Dutch assert their original grant from the states-general, it was j^^^ interpreted as conveying no more than a commer- cial privilege. Did they plead discovery, purchase from the natives, and long possession, it was replied that Con- necticut, by its charter, extended to the Pacific. " Where, then," demanded the Dutcli negotiators, "where is New Netherland?" And the agents of Connecticut, with pro- voking indifference, replied: '^We do not know." These unavailing discussions were conducted during the horrors of a half-year's war with the savages round Esopus. The rising village on the banks of that stream was laid waste ; many of its inhabitants murdered or June, made captive ; and it was only on the approach of Nov. VOL. II. 6 66 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXII. winter that an armistice restored tranquillity. The colony had no friend but the Mohawks. " The Dutch," said the faithful warriors of the Five Nations, " are our brethren. "With them we keep but one council fire ; we are united by a covenant chain." The contest with the natives, not less than with New England, displayed the feebleness of New Netherland. The prot-ince had no popular freedom, and therefore had no public spirit. In New England, there were no poor ; in New Netherland, the poor were so numerous it was diffi- cult to provide for their relief. The Puritans easily sup- ported schools everywhere, and Latin schools in their larger villages ; on Manhattan, a Latin school lingered with diffi- culty through two years, and was discontinued. In New England, the people, in the hour of danger, rose involunta- rily, and defended themselves ; in the Dutch province, men were unwilling to go to the relief even of villages that were in danger from the Indians, and demanded protection from the company, which claimed to be their absolute sovereign. 1663, The necessities of the times wrung from Stuyve- ^°^- ^- sant the concession of an assembly ; the delegates of the villages would only appeal to the states-general and to the West India company for protection. But the states- general had, as it were, invited aggression by abstaining from every public act which should pledge their honor to the defence of the province ; and the West India company was too penurious to risk its funds, where victory was so hazardous. A new and more full diet was held in AMii. *^^ spring of 1664. Rumors of an intended invasion from England had reached the colony ; and the popu- lar representatives, having remonstrated against the want of all means of defence, and foreseeing the necessity of sub- mitting to the English, demanded plainly of Stuyvesant: " If you cannot protect us, to whom shall we turn ? " The governor, faithful to his trust, proposed the enlistment "of every third man, as had more than once been done in the fatherland." And thus Manhattan was left without de- fence ; the people would not expose life for the West India company ; and the company would not risk bankruptcy for 1664. NEW NETHEELAND. 67 a colony which it vahied chiefly as property. The estab- lished government could not but fall into contempt. In vain was the libeller of the magistrates fastened Ma^fiia. to a stake, with a bridle in his mouth. Stuyvesant confessed his fear of the colonists: "To ask aid of Jane 2. the English villages would be inviting the Trojan horse within our walls." "I have not time to tell Aug. 4. how the company is cursed and scolded ; the inhabi- tants declare that the Dutch have never had a right to the country." Half Long Island had revolted ; the settle- ments on the Esopus wavered; the Connecticut men had purchased of the Indians all the sea-board as far as the North River. Such were the narratives of Stuyvesant to his em-; ployers. In the mean time the united provinces could not expect a war with England. No cause for war existed except Eng- lish envy of the commercial glory and prosperity of Holland. In confidence of peace, the countrymen of Grotius were planning liberal councils ; at home, they designed an aban- donment of the protective system and concessions to free trade ; in the Mediterranean, their fleet, under De Ruyter, was preparing to suppress the piracies of the Barbary states. At that very time the English were engaging in a piratical expedition against the Dutch possessions on the coast of Guinea. The king had also, with equal indifference Feb. to the chartered rights of Connecticut and the claims of the Netherlands, " by the most despotic instrument re- corded in the colonial archives of England," granted to the Duke of York, not only the country from the Mar. 12. Kennebec to the St. Croix, but the territory from the Connecticut River to the shores of the Delaware; and, under the conduct of Richard Nicolls, groom of the bed- chamber to the Duke of York, the English squadron, which carried the commissioners for New England to July 23. Boston, having demanded recruits in Massachusetts, and received on board the governor of Connecticut, Aug. 28. cast anchor in Gravesend Bay. Long Island was lost ; soldiers from New England pitched their camp near Breuke- len ferry. 68 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXII. ,gg4 In Kew Amsterdam there existed a division of Aug. 30. counsels. Stuyvesant, faithful to his employers, struggled to maintain their interests ; the municipality, conscious that the town was at the mercy of the English fleet, desired to avoid bloodshed by a surrender. A joint committee from the governor and the city having demanded of Nicolls the cause of his presence, he replied by requiring of Stuyvesant the immediate acknowledgment of English sovereignty, with the condition of security to the inhabi- tants in life, liberty, and property. At the same time, Winthrop of Connecticut, whose love of peace and candid affection for the Dutch nation had been acknowledged by the West India company, advised his personal friends to offer no resistance. " The surrender," Stuyvesant Sept. 1. nobly answered, " would be reproved in the father- land." The burgomasters, unable to obtain a copy of the letter from Nicolls, summoned not a town-meeting, — that had been inconsistent with the manners of the Dutch, — but the principal inhabitants to the public hall, where it was resolved that the community ought to know all Sept. 2. that related to its welfare. On a more urgent demand for the letter from the English commander, Stuyvesant angrily tore it in pieces ; and the burgomasters, instead of resisting the invasion, spent their time in framing Sept. 3. a protest against the governor. On the next day, a new deputation repaired to the fleet ; but Nicolls de- clined discussion. "When may we visit you again?" said the commissioners. " On Thursday," replied Nicolls ; " for to-morrow I will speak with you at Manhattan." " Friends," it was smoothly answered, "are very welcome there." " Raise the white flag of peace," said the English comman- der, "for I shall come with ships-of-war and soldiers." The commissioners returned to advocate the capitulation, which was quietly effected on the following days. The aristocratic liberties of Holland yielded to the hope of popular liberties like those of New England. The articles of surrender, framed under the auspices of the municipal authority, by the mediation of the younger Winthrop and Pynchon, accepted by the magistrates and 1665. NEW NETHERLAND. 69 Other inhabitants assembled in the town-hall, and ^^q^ not ratified by Stuyvesant till the surrender had vir- Sept. 8. tually been made, promised security to the customs, the religion, the municipal institutions, the possessions of the Dutch. The enforcement of the navigation act was delayed for six months. During that period, direct intercourse with Holland remained free. The towns were still to choose their own magistrates, and Manhattan, now first known as Kew York, to elect its deputies, with free voices in all public affairs. Very few of the colonists embarked for Holland ; it seemed, rather, that English liberties were to be added to the security of property. In a few days, Sept. 24. Fort Orange, now named Albany, from the Scottish title of the Duke of York, quietly surrendered ; and the league with the Five Nations was renewed. Early in October, the Dutch and Swedes on the Dela- Oct.i. ware capitulated; and for the first time the whole Atlantic coast of the old thirteen states was in possession of England. Our country had obtained geographical unity. The dismemberment of New Netherland ensued june on its surrender. Two months before the conquest, ^^' ^' the Duke of York had assigned to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, both proprietaries of Carolina, the land between the Hudson and the Delaware. In honor of Car- teret, the territory, with nearly the same bounds as at pres- ent, except on the north, received the name of New Jersey. If to fix boundaries and grant the soil could constitute a state, the Duke of York gave political existence to a com- monwealth. Its moral character was moulded by New England Puritans, English Quakers, and dissenters from Scotland. Meantime, avarice paid its homage to freedom; i665. and the royalists, who were become lords of the soil, ^^^- ^^• indifferent to liberty, sought to foster their province by most liberal concessions. Security of persons and property under laws to be made by an assembly composed of the gov- ernor and council, and at least an equal number of representa- tives of the people ; freedom from taxation except by the "^0 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIL colonial assembly ; a combined opposition of the people and the proprietaries to any arbitrary impositions from Eng- land; freedom of judgment, conscience, and worship to every peaceful citizen, — these were the allurements to New Jersey. To the proprietaries were reserved a veto on pro- vincial enactments, the appointment of judicial officers, and the executive authority. Lands were promised at a moder- ate quit-rent, not to be collected till 1670. The Duke of York, now president of the African company, was the patron of the slave-trade ; the proprietaries, more true to the prince than to humanity, offered a bounty of seventy-five acres for the importation of each able emigrant, and the concession was interpreted to include the negro slave. That the tenure of estates might rest on equity, the Indian title to lands was in all cases to be quieted. The portion of ISTew Netherland which thus gained popu- lar freedom was at that time almost a wilderness. The first occupation of Fort Nassau in Gloucester, and the grants to Godyn and Blommaert, above Cape May, had been of so little avail that, in 1634, not a single white man dwelt within the Bay of the Delaware. The pioneers of Sir Edmund Ploy- den and the restless emigrants from New Haven had both been unsuccessful. Here and there, in the counties of Glou- cester and Burlington, a Swedish farmer may have preserved his dwelling on the Jersey side of the river ; and, before 1664, perhaps three Dutch families were established about Burlington ; but as yet West New Jersey had not a hamlet. In East Jersey, of which the hills and the soil had been trodden by the mariners of Hudson, a trading station seems, in 1618, to have been occupied at Bergen. In December, 1651, Augustine Herman purchased, but hardly took posses- sion of the land that stretched from Newark Bay to the west of Elizabethtown ; while, in January, 1658, other pur- chasers obtained the large grant called Bergen, where the early station became a permanent settlement. Before the end of 1664, a few families of Quakers appear also to have found a refuge south of Raritan Bay. ,gg3 More than a year earlier. New England Puritans, Mar. 26. sojoumcrs ou Loug Island, solicited of the Dutch, 1666. NEW NETHEBLAND. 71 and, as the records prove, obtained leave to establish on the banks of the Raritan and the Minisink their cherished institutions, and even their criminal jurisprudence. Soon after the surrender, a similar petition was re- gept^. newed to the representative of the Duke of York ; and, as the parties, heedless of the former grant to Herman, succeeded in obtaining from the Indians a Oct. 28. deed of an extensive territory on Newark Bay, NicoUs, ignorant as yet of the sale of New Jersey, and having already granted land on Hackensack Neck, encour- Oct. 3. aged emigration by ratifying the sale. The tract Dec. 2. afterwards became known as " the Elizabethtown purchase," and led to abundant litigation. In April, 1665, a further patent was issued, under the same ^p^fg. authority, to William Goulding and others, for the region extending from Sandy Hook to the mouth of the Raritan. For a few months. East New Jersey bore the name of Albania. Nicolls could boast that " on Nov. the new purchases from the Indians three towns were beginning ; " and, under grants from the Dutch and from the governor of New York, the coast from the old settlement of Bergen to Sandy Hook, along Newark Bay, at Middle- town, at Shrewsbury, was enlivened by humble plantations, that were soon to constitute a semicircle of villages. In August, 1665, Philip Carteret appeared among the tenants of the scattered cabins, and was quietly received as the governor appointed for the colony by the proprietaries. In vain did Nicolls protest against the division of his prov- ince, and struggle to secure for his patron the territory which had been released in ignorance. The incipient peo- ple had no motive to second his complaints ; the freedom of New Jersey assured its separate existence. Yet so feeble were the beginnings of the commonwealth, it was but a cluster of four houses, which, in honor of the kind-hearted Lady Carteret, was now called Elizabethtown, and rose into dignity as the capital of the province. To New England, messengers were despatched to publish the tidings that Puritan liberties were warranted a shelter on the Raritan. Immediately an association leee. 72 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXII. of church members from the New Haven colony sailed into the Passaic, and, at the request of the governor, holding a council with .the Hackensack tribe, thera- May 21. sclves extinguished the Indian title to Newark. " With one heart, they resolved to carry on their spiritual and town affairs according to godly govern- 1667. ment ; " to be ruled under their old laws by officers 1668. chosen from among themselves ; and when, in May, May 26. 1668, a colonial legislative assembly was for the first time convened at Elizabethtown, the influence of Puritans transferred the chief features of the New England codes to the statute-book of New Jersey. The province increased in numbers and prosperity. The land was accessible and productive ; the temperate climate delighted by its salubrity ; there was little danger from the neighboring Indians, whose strength had been broken by long hostilities with the Dutch ; the Five Nations guarded the approaches from the interior ; and the vicinity of older settlements saved the emigrants from the distresses of a first adventure in the wilderness. Every thing was Mar!'"25. ^^ good augury, till, in 1670, the quit-rents of a half- penny an acre were seriously spoken of. But, on the subject of real estate in the New World, the Puritans dif- fered from the lawyers widely, asserthig that the heathen, as a part of the lineal descendants of Noah, had a rightful claim to their lands. The Indian deeds, executed partly with the approbation of Nicolls, partly with the consent of Carteret himself, were therefore pleaded as superior to pro- prietary grants ; the payment of quit-rents was refused ; disputes were followed by confusion ; and, in May, lily^k. 1672, the disaffected colonists, obeying the impulse of independence rather than of gratitude, sent dep- uties to a constituent assembly at Elizabethtown. By that body Philip Carteret was displaced, and his office transferred to the young and frivolous James Carteret, a natural son of Sir George. The proprietary officers could make no June 15. resistance. William Pardon, who withheld the rec- ords, found safety only in flight. Following the juiyi. advice of the council, after appointing John Berry 1665. NEW NETHERLAND. T3 as his deputy, Philip Carteret repaired to England, in search of new authority, while the colonists remained in the undis- turbed possession of their farms. The liberties of New Jersey did not extend beyond 1664 to the Delaware ; the settlements in New Netherland, ^^^^ on the opposite bank, consisting chiefly of groups of Dutch round Lewistown and Newcastle, and Swedes and Finns at Christiana Creek, at Chester, and near Philadelphia, were retained as a dependency of New York. The claim of Lord Baltimore was. denied with pertinacity. In 1672, the people of Maryland, desiring to stretch the boundary of their prov- ince to the bay, invaded Lewistown with an armed force. The country was immediately reclaimed, as belonging by conquest to the Duke of York ; and Delaware still escaped the imminent peril of being absorbed in Maryland. In respect to civil liberties, the territory shared the 1664. fortunes of New York ; and for that province the establishment of English jurisdiction was not followed by the hoped for concessions. Connecticut, surrender- ing all claims to Long Island, obtained a favorable Dec. 1. boundary on the main. The city of New York was incorporated ; the municipal liberties of Albany were not impaired ; but the province had no political franchises, and therefore no political unity. In the governor and his sub- servient council were vested the executive and the highest judicial powers ; with the court of assizes, ^xeJj*^ composed of justices of his own appointment, holding oflice at his will, he exercised supreme legislative power, promulgated a code of laws, and modified or repealed them at pleasure. No popular representation, no true English lib- erty, was sanctioned. Once, indeed, and only once, a convention was held at Hempstead, chiefly for the jyJarcii. purpose of settling the respective limits of the towns on Long Island. The rate for public charges was there perhaps agreed upon ; and the deputies were induced to sign an extravagantly loyal address to the Duke of York. But " factious republicans " abounded ; the deputies were scorned by their constituents for their inconsiderate ser- vility ; and the governor, who never again allowed an T4 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIL 1666. assembly, was " reproached and vilified " for his arbi- trary conduct. Even the Dutch patents for land were held to require renewal, and Nicolls gathered a har- vest of fees from exacting new title-deeds. 1667. Under Lovelace, his successor, the same system was ^*^' more fully developed. Even on the southern shore of 1669. the Delaware, the Swedes and Finns, the most endur- ing of all emigrants, were roused to resistance. " The method for keeping the people in order is severity, and laying such taxes as may give them liberty for no thought but how to discharge them." Such was the remedy Oct. 18. proposed in the instructions from Lovelace to his southern subordinate, and carried into effect by an arbitrary tariff. In New York, when the established powers of the towns favored the demand for freedom, eight villages soon Oct. 9. united in remonstrating against the arbitrary govern- ment ; they demanded the promised legislation by an- nual assemblies. But absolute government was the settled policy of the royal proprietary ; and taxation for purposes of defence, by the decree of the governor, was the Odl^s. ^^^^ experiment. The towns of Southold, South- ampton, and Easthampton, expressed themselves will- ing to contribute, if they might enjoy the privileges of the New England colonies. The people of Huntington refused altogether ; for, said they, " we are deprived of the liberties of Englishmen." The. people of Jamaica declared the de- cree of the governor a disfranchisement, contrary to the laws of the English nation. Flushing and Hempstead were equally resolute. The votes of the several towns were presented to the governor and council ; they were Dec. 21. censured as " scandalous, illegal, and seditious, alien- ating the peaceable from their duty and obedience," and, according to the established precedents of tyranny, were ordered to be publicly burnt before the town-house of New York. It was easy to burn the votes which the yeomanry of Long Island had passed in their town-meetings. But, mean- time, the forts were not put in order ; the government of 1673. NEW NETHERLAND. 75 the Duke of York was hated as despotic ; and when, in the next war between England and the Netherlands, a small Dutch squadron, commanded by the gallant ju?J^3o. Evertsen of Zealand, approached Manhattan, the city surrendered within four hours ; the people of New Jersey made no resistance ; and the counties on the Delaware, recov- ering greater privileges than they had enjoyed, cheerfully followed the example. The quiet of the neighboring colonies was secured by a compromise for Long Island and a timely message from Massachusetts. The Mohawk chiefs congrat- ulated their brethren on the recovery of their colony. " We have always," said they, "been as one flesh. If the French come down from Canada, we will join with the Dutch na- tion, and live and die with them ; " and the words of love were confirmed by a belt of wampum. New ll]l[ York was once more a province of the Netherlands. The moment at which Holland and Zealand retired for a time from American history, like the moment of their entrance, was a season of glory. The nation of merchants and manufacturers had just achieved its independence of Spain, and given to the Protestant world a brilliant example of a federal republic, when its mariners took possession of the Hudson. The country was now reconquered, at a time when the provinces, single-handed, were again struggling for existence against yet more powerful antagonists. France, supported by the bishops of Munster and Cologne, had suc- ceeded in involving England in a conspiracy for the politi- cal destruction of England's commercial rival. Charles II. had begun hostilities as a pirate ; and Louis XIV. did not disguise the purpose of conquest. With armies amounting to two hundred thousand men, to which the Netherlands could oppose no more than twenty thousand, the French monarch invaded the republic ; and, within a month, it was exposed to the same desperate dangers which 1673. had been encountered a century before ; while the English fleet, hovering off the coast, endeavored to land English troops in the heart of the wealthiest of the prov- inces. Ruin was imminent, and had come but for the pub- lic virtue. The annals of the human race record but few Of THE 76 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIL instances where moral power has so successfully defied every disparity of force, and repelled desperate odds by invincible heroism. At sea, where greatly superior numbers were on the side of the allied fleets of France and England, the untiring courage of the Dutch would not consent to be defeated. On land, the dikes were broken up ; the country drowned ; the son of Grotius, suppressing anger at the ignominious proposals of the French, protracted the nego- tiations till the rising waters could form a wide and impas- sable moat round the cities. Was an invasion still feared from the east ? At Groningen, the whole population, with- out regard to sex, children even, labored on the fortifi- cations; and fear was not permitted even to a woman. "Would William of Orange sustain the crisis with calm in- trepidity ? Arlington, one of the joint proprietaries of Virginia, advised him to seek advancement by yielding to England. " My country," calmly replied the young man, " trusts in me ; I will not sacrifice it to my interests, but, if need be, die with it in the last ditch." The landing of British troops in Holland could be prevented only by three naval engagements. De Ruyter and the younger Tromp had been bitter enemies ; the latter had been disgraced on the accusation of the former; political animosities jm/eV. ^^^ increased the feud. At the battle of Soulsbay, where the Dutch with fifty-two ships of the line en- gaged an enemy with eighty, De Ruyter was successful in his first manoeuvres, while the extraordinary ardor of Tromp plunged headlong into dangers which he could not over- come ; the frank and true-hearted De Ruyter checked him- self in the career of victory, and turned to the relief of his rival. "Oh, there comes grandfather to the rescue," shouted Tromp, in an ecstasy ; " I never will desert him so long as I breathe." The issue of the day was uncer- june 14. tain. In the second battle, the advantage was with the Dutch. About three weeks after the conquest of New Netherland, the last and most terrible conflict Aug. 21. took place near the Helder. The enthusiasm of the Dutch mariners dared almost infinite deeds of valor ; the noise of the artillery boomed along the low coast of 1674. NEW NETHERLAND. 77 Holland ; the churches on the shore were thronged with suppliants, begging victory for the right cause and their country. The contest raged, and was exhausted, and was again renewed with unexampled fury. But victory was with De Ruyter and the younger Tromp, the guardians of their country. The British fleet retreated, and was pur- sued ; the coasts of Holland were protected. For more than a century, no other naval combat was fought between Netherlands and England. The English parliament, condemning the war, refused supplies ; Prussia and Austria were alarmed ; Spain openly threatened, and Charles II. consented to treaties. All conquests were to be restored ; and Holland, which had been 1674. the first to claim the enfranchisement of the oceans, against its present interests, established by compact the rights of neutral flao:s. In a work dedicated to all the princes and nations of Christendom, and addressed to the common intelligence of the civilized world, the ad- mirable Grotius, contending that right and wrong are not the evanescent expressions of fluctuating opinions, but are endowed with an immortality of their own, had established the freedom of the seas on an imperishable foundation. Ideas once generated live for ever. With the recognition of maritime liberty, Holland disappears from our history ; when, after the lapse of more than a century, this principle comes in jeopardy, Holland, the mother of four of our states, will rise up as our ally, bequeathing to the new fed- eral republic the defence of commercial freedom which she had vindicated against Spain, and for which we shall see her prosperity fall a victim to England. On the final transfer of New Netherland to England, Oct. 3i. after a military occupation of fifteen months by the Dutch, the brother of Charles II. resumed the possession of New York, and Carteret appeared once more as proprietary of the eastern moiety of New Jersey ; but the banks of the Delaware were reserved for men who had been taught by the uneducated son of a poor Leicestershire weaver to seek the principle of God in their own hearts, and to build the city of humanity by obeying the nobler instincts of human nature. 78 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXHL CHAPTER XXIII. THE PEOPLE CALLED QUAKERS IN THE UNITED STATES. The nobler instincts of humanity are the same in every age and in every breast. The exalted hopes that have dignified former generations of men will be renewed as long as the human heart shall throb. The visions of Plato are but revived in the dreams of Sir Thomas More. A spiritual unity binds together all members of the human family; and every heart contains an incorruptible seed, capable of springing up and producing all that man can know of God and duty and the soul. An inward voice, uncreated by schools, independent of refinement, opens to the unlettered hind, not less than to the polished scholar, a €ure pathway to immortal truth. This is the faith of the people called Quakers. A moral principle is tested by the attempt to reduce it to practice. The history of European civilization is the history of the gradual enfranchisement of classes of society. The feudal sovereign was limited by the power of the military chief- tains, whose valor achieved his conquests. The vast and increasing importance of commercial transactions gave new value to the municipal privileges, of which the Roman em- pire had bequeathed the precedents; while the intricate questions that were perpetually arising for adjudication crowded the ignorant military magistrate from the bench, and reserved the wearisome toil of deliberation for the learning of his clerk. The emancipation of the country people followed. In every European code, the ages of feudal influence, of mercantile ambition, of the enfranchise- ment of the yeomanry, appear distinctly in succession. It is the peculiar glory of England, that her history is marked by an original, constant, and increasing political Chap. XXIH. THE QUAKERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 79 activity of the people. In the fourteenth century, the peasantry, conducted by tilers and carters and ploughmen, demanded of their young king a deliverance from the bondage and burdens of feudal oppression ; in the fifteenth century, the last traces of villeinage were wiped away ; in the sixteenth, the noblest ideas of human destiny, awaken- ing in the common mind, became the central points round which plebeian sects were gathered ; in the seventeenth, the yeomanry and owners of small freeholds began to feel an instinct for dominion, and their ambition would not rest till it had attempted a democratic revolution. The best soldiers of the Long Parliament were country people ; the men that turned the battle on Marston Moor were farmers and farmers' sons, fighting, as they believed, for their own cause. The progress from the rout of Wat Tyler to the victories of Naseby and Worcester and Dunbar was made in less than three centuries. So rapid was the diffusion of ideas of freedom, so palpable was the advancement of popular intelligence, energy, and happiness, that to whole classes of enthusiasts the day of perfect enfranchisement seemed to have dawned ; legislation, ceasing to be partial, was to be reformed and renewed on general principles, and the reign of justice and reason was about to begin. In the language of that age, Christ's kingdom on earth, his second coming, was at hand. Under the excitement of hope, created by the rapid progress of liberty, which, to the common mind, was an inexplicable mystery, the blissful centuries of the millennium promised to open upon a favored world. Political liberties had been followed by the emancipation of knowledge. The powers of nature were freely examined ; the merchants always tolerated or favored the pursuits of science. Galileo would have been safe at Venice, and honored at Amsterdam or London. The method of free inquiry, applied to chemistry, had invented gunpowder, and changed the manners of the feudal aristocracy ; applied to geography, had discovered a hemisphere, and, circumnavi- gating the globe, made the theatre of commerce wide as the world; applied to the mechanical process of multiplying 80 ' COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIIL books, had brought the New Testament, in the vulgar tongue, within the reach of every class ; applied to the rights of persons and property, had, for the English, built up a system of common law, and given securities to liberty in the interpretation of contracts. The inductive method, in its freedom, was about to investigate the laws of the out- ward world, and reveal the wonders of divine Providence as displayed in the visible universe. On the continent of Europe, Descartes had already applied the method of observation and free inquiry to the study of morals and the mind ; in England, Bacon hardly proceeded beyond the province of natural philosophy. He compared the subtile visions, in which the contemplative soul indulges, to the spider's web, and sneered at them as frivolous and empty ; but the spider's web is essential to the spider's well-being, and, for his neglect of the inner voice, Bacon paid the terrible penalty of a life disgraced by flattery, selfishness, and mean compliance. Freedom, as applied to morals, was cherished in England among the people, and therefore had its development in religion. If the hierarchy abandoned the cause of the people, that cause always found advocates in the inferior clergy ; and Wycliffe did not fear to deny dominion to vice and to claim it for justice. At the Reformation, the inferior clergy, rising against Rome and against domestic tyranny, had a common faith and common political cause with the people. A body of the yeomanry, becoming Independents, planted Plymouth colony. The inferior gentry espoused Calvinism, and fled to Massachu- setts. The popular movement of intellectual liberty is measured by advances towards the liberty of prophesying and the liberty of conscience. The moment was arrived for the plebeian mind to make its boldest effort at escape from hereditary prejudices ; when the freedom of Bacon, the enthusiasm of Wycliffe, and the politics of Wat Tyler, were to gain the highest unity in a sect ; when a popular, and therefore, in that age, a religious party, building upon a divine principle, should demand freedom of mind, purity of morals, and universal enfranchisement. 1644. THE QUAKERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 81 The sect had its birth in a period of intense public activ- ity, when the heart of England was swelling with passions, and the public mind turbulent with factious leaders ; when zeal for reform was invading the church, subverting the throne, and repealing the privileges of feudalism ; when Presbyterians in every village were quarrelling with Ana- baptists and Independents, and all with the Roman Catho- lics and the English church. The sect could arise only among the common people, who had every thing to gain by its success, and the least to hazard by its failure. The privileged classes had no motive to develop a principle before which their privileges would crumble. " Poor mechanics," said William Penn, " are wont to be God's great ambassadors to mankind." " He hath raised up a few despicable and illiterate men," wrote the accomplished Barclay, " to dispense the more full glad tid- ings reserved for our age." It w^as the comfort of the Quakers, that they received the truth from a simple sort of people, unmixed with the learning of schools ; and, almost for the first time in the history of the world, a plebeian sect proceeded to the complete enfranchisement of mind, teach- ing the English yeomanry the same method of free inquiry which Socrates had explained to the young men of Athens. The simplicity of truth was restored by humble instru- ments, and its first messenger was of low degree. George Fox, the son of "righteous Christopher," a Leicestershire weaver, by his mother descended from the stock of the mar- tyrs, distinguished even in boyhood by frank inflexibility and deep religious feeling, became in early life an apprentice to a Nottingham shoemaker, who was also a landholder, and, like David, and Tamerlane, and Sixtus V., was set by his employer to watch sheep. The occupation was grateful to his mind, for its freedom, innocency, and solitude; and the years of earliest youth passed away in prayer and reading the Bible, frequent fasts, and the reveries of i644. contemplative devotion. His boyish spirit yearned after excellence ; and he was haunted by a vague desire of an unknown, illimitable good. In the most stormy period of the English democratic revolution, just as the Independents VOL. II. 6 82 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIH. were beginning to make head successfully against the Pres- byterians, when the impending ruin of royalty and the hierarchy made republicanism the doctrine of a party, and inspiration the faith of fanatics, the mind of Fox, as it re- volved the question of human destiny, was agitated even to despair. The melancholy natural to youth heightened his anguish ; abandoning his flocks and his shoemaker's bench, he nourished his inexplicable grief by retired medita- tions, and, often walking solitary in the chase, sought for a vision of God. He questioned his life ; but his blameless life was igno- rant of remorse. He went to many " priests " for comfort, but found no comfort from them. His Avretchedness urged him to visit London ; and there the religious feuds con- vinced him that the great professors were dark. He re- turned to the country, where some advised him to marry, others to join Cromwell's army ; but his excited mind con- tinued its conflicts ; and, as it has happened to young men from love, his restless spirit drove him into the fields, where he walked many nights long by himself, in misery too great to be declared. Yet at times a ray of heavenly joy beamed upon his soul, and he reposed, as it were, serenely on Abra- ham's bosom. He had been bred in the church of Engrland. One 1646. day, the thought rose in his mind that a man might be bred at Oxford or Cambridge, and yet be unable to ex- plain the great problem of existence. Again he reflected that God lives not in temples of brick and stone, but in the hearts of the living ; and from the parish priest and the parish church he turned to the dissenters. But among them he found the most experienced unable to reach his condition. Neither could the pursuit of wealth detain his mind from its struggle for fixed truth. His desires were those which wealth could not satisfy. A king's diet, palace, and attendance, had been to him as nothing. Re- jecting "the changeable ways of religious" sects, the "brit- tle notions " and airy theories of philosophy, he longed for " unchangeable truth," a firm foundation of morals in the 1648. THE QUAKERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 83 soul. His inquiring mind was gently led along to principles of endless and eternal love, till light dawned within him ; and, though the world was rocked by tempests of opinion, his secret and as yet unconscious belief was stayed by the anchor of hope. The strong mind of George Fox had already risen above the prejudices of sects. The greatest danger remained. Liberty may be pushed to dissoluteness, and freedom is the fork in the road where the by-way leads to infidelity. One morning, as Fox sat silently by the fire, a cloud 1648. came over his mind ; a baser instinct seemed to say : " All things come by nature ; " and the elements and the stars oppressed his imagination with a vision of pantheism. But, as he continued musing, a true voice arose within him, and said : " There is a living God." At once the clouds of skepticism rolled away ; mind triumphed over matter, and the depths of conscience were irradiated and cheered by light from heaven. His soul enjoyed the sweetness of repose, and he came up in spirit from the agony of doubt into the paradise of contemplation. Having listened to the revelation which had been made to his soul, he thirsted for a reform in every branch of learn- ing. The physician should quit the strife of words, and solve the appearances of nature by an intimate study of the higher laws of being. The priests, rejecting authority and giving up the trade in knowledge, should seek oracles of truth in the purity of conscience. The lawyers, abandoning their chicanery, should tell their clients plainly that he who wrongs his neighbor does a wrong to himself. The heav- enly-minded man was become a divine and a naturalist, and all of God Almighty's making. Thus did the mind of George Fox arrive at the conclu- sion that truth is to be sought by listening to the voice of God in the soul. Not the learning of the universities, not the Roman see, not the English church, not dissenters, not the whole outward world, can lead to a fixed rule of mo- rality. The law in the heart must be received without prejudice, cherished without mixture, and obeyed without fear. 84 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXni. Such was the spontaneous wisdom by which he was guided. It was the clear light of reason, dawning as \^l' through a cloud. CJonfident that his name was written in the Lamb's book of life, he was borne, by an irre- pressible impulse, to go forth into the briery and brambly world, and publish the glorious principles which had rescued him from despair and infidelity, and given him a clear per- ception of the immutable distinctions between right and wrong. At the very crisis when the house of commons was abolishing monarchy and the peerage, about two years and a half from the day when Cromwell went on his knees to kiss the hand of the young boy who was Duke of York, the Lord, who sent George Fox into the world, forbade him to put off his hat to any, high or low ; and he was required to thee and thou all men and women, without any respect to rich or poor, to great or small. The sound of the church bell in Nottingham, the home of his boyhood, struck to his heart ; like Milton and Roger Williams, his soul abhorred the hireling ministry of diviners for money ; and, on the morn- ing of a first-day, he was moved to go to the great steeple- house and cry against the idol. " When I came there," says Fox, " the people looked like fallow ground, and the priest, like a great lump of earth, stood in the pulpit above. He took for his text these words of Peter : ' We have also a more sure word of prophecy ; ' and told the people this was the Scriptures. Now, the Lord's power was so mighty upon me, and so strong in me, that I could not hold ; but was made to cry out : * Oh, no ! it is not the Scriptures, it is the Spirit.'" The principle contained a moral revolution. If it flattered self-love and fed enthusiasm, it also established absolute freedom of mind, trod every idolatry under foot, and en- tered the strongest protest against the forms of a hierarchy. It was the principle for which Socrates died and Plato suf- fered ; and, now that Fox went forth to proclaim it among the people, he was everywhere resisted with angry vehe- mence, and priests and professors, magistrates and people, swelled like the raging waves of the sea. At the Lancaster sessions, forty priests appeared against him at once. To the Chap. XXIII. THE QUAKERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 85 ambitious Presbyterians, it seemed as if hell were broke loose ; and Fox, imprisoned and threatened with the gallows, still rebuked their bitterness as " exceeding rude and devil- ish," resisting and overcoming pride with unbending stub- bornness. Possessed of great ideas which he could not trace to their origin, a mystery to himself, like Cromwell and so many others who have exercised vast influence on society, he believed himself the special ward of a favoring Provi- dence, and his doctrine the spontaneous expression of irresistible, intuitive trxith. Nothing could daunt his en- thusiasm. Cast into jail among felons, he claimed of the public tribunals a release only to continue his exertions ; and, as he rode about the country, the seed of God sparkled about him like innumerable sparks of fire. If cruelly beaten, or set in the stocks, or ridiculed as mad, he none the less proclaimed the oracles of the voice within him, and rapidly gained adherents among the country people. If driven from the church, he spoke in the open air; forced from the shelter of the humble alehouse, he slept without fear under a haystack, or watched among the furze. His fame increased ; crowds gathered, like flocks of pigeons, to hear him. His frame in prayer is described as the most awful, living, and reverent ever felt or seen; and his vigorous understanding, disciplined by clear convictions to natural dialectics, made him powerful in the public discus- sions to which he defied the world. A true witness, writing from knowledge and not report, declares that, by night and by day, by sea and by land, in every emergency of the nearest and most exercising nature, he was always in his place, and always a match for every service and occasion. By degrees " the hypocrites " feared to dispute with him ; and the simplicity of his principle found such ready en- trance among the people that the priests trembled and scud as he drew near; "so that it was a dreadful thing to them, when it was told them : ' The man in leathern breeches is come.' " The converts to his doctrine were chiefly among the yeomanry ; and Quakers were compared to the butterflies that live in fells. It is the boast of Barclay that the sim- 86 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIII. plicity of truth was restored by weak instruments, and Penn exults that the message came without suspicion of human wisdom. It was wonderful to witness the energy and the unity of mind and character which the strong per- ception of speculative truth imparted to illiterate mechanics ; they delivered the oracles of conscience with fearless free- dom and natural eloquence ; and, with happy and uncon- scious sagacity, spontaneously developed the system of moi-al truth, which, as they believed, exists as an incor- ruptible seed in every soul. Every human being was embraced within the sphere of their benevolence. George Fox did not fail, by letter, to catechise Innocent XI. Ploughmen and milkmaids, be- coming itinerant preachers, sounded the alarm throughout the world, and appealed to the consciences of Puritans and Cavaliers, of the Pope and the Grand Turk, of the negro and 'the savage. The plans of the Quakers designed no less than the establishment of a universal religion ; their apostles made their way to Rome and Jerusalem, to New England and Egypt ; and some were even moved to go towards China and Japan, and in search of the unknown realms of Prester John. The rise of the people called Quakers is one of the memorable events in the history of man. It marks the moment when intellectual freedom was claimed uncon- ditionally by the people as an inalienable birthright. To the masses in that age all reflection on politics and morals presented itself under a theological form. The Quaker doctrine is philosophy, summoned from the cloister, the college, and the saloon, and planted among the most de- spised of the people. As poetry is older than critics, so philosophy is older than metaphysicians. The mysterious question of the purpose of our being is always before us and within us ; and the child, as it begins to prattle, makes inquiries which the pride of learning cannot solve. The method of the solu- tion adopted by the Quakers was ^he natural consequence of the origin of their sect. The mind of George Fox had the highest systematic sagacity ; and his doctrine, developed Chap. XXIII. THE QUAKERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 87 and rendered illustrious by Barclay and Penn, was distin- guished by its simplicity and unity. The Quaker has but one word, the inner light, the voice of God in the soul. That light is a reality, and therefore in its freedom the highest revelation of truth ; it is kindred with the Spirit of God, and therefore merits dominion as the guide to virtue ; it shines in every man's breast, and therefore joins the whole human race in the unity of equal rights. Intellectual freedom, the supremacy of mind, universal enfranchise- ment, — these three points include the whole of Quakerism, as far as it belongs to civil history. Quakerism rests on the reality of the Inner Light ; and its method of inquiry is absolute freedom applied to consciousness. The revelation of truth is immediate. It springs neither from tradition nor from the senses, butj directly from the mind. No man comes to the knowledge of God but by the Spirit. "Each person," says Penn, "knows God from an infallible demonstration in himself, and not on the slender grounds of men's lo here interpre- tations, or lo there." " The instinct of a Deity is so natural to man that he can no more be without it, and be, than he can be without the most essential part of himself." As the eye opens, light enters ; and the mind, as it looks in upon itself, receives moral truth by intuition. Others have sought wisdom by consulting the outward world, and, con- founding consciousness with reflection, have trusted solely to the senses for the materials of thought; the Quaker,; placing no dependence on the world of the senses, calls the soul home from its wanderings through the mazes of tradi- tion and the wonders of the visible universe, bidding the vagrant sit down by its own fires to read the divine inscrip- tion on the heart. " Some seek truth in books, some in learned men, but what they seek for is in themselves." Man is an epitome of the world, and, to be learned in it, we have only to read ourselves well." Thus the method of the Quaker coincided with that of Descartes, who founded his system on consciousness, and made the human mind the point of departure in philosophy. But Descartes plunged immediately into the confusion of 88 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIIL hypothesis, drifting to sea to be wrecked among the barren waves of ontological speculation ; and even Leibnitz, con- fident in his genius and learning, lost his way among the monads of creation and the pre-established harmonies in this best of all possible worlds ; the illiterate Quaker adhered strictly to his method, and never ventured to sea except with the certain guidance of the cynosure in the heart. He was consistent, for he set no value on learning acquired in any other way. Tradition cannot enjoin a ceremony, still less establish a doctrine; historical faith is as the old heav- ens that are to be wrapped up like a scroll. The constant standard of truth and goodness, says Wil- liam Penn, is God in the conscience ; and liberty of con- science is therefore the most sacred right, and the only avenue to religion. To restrain it is an invasion of the divine prerogative. It robs man of the use of the instinct of a Deity. To take away the great charter of freedom of conscience is to prevent the progress of society ; or rather, as the beneficent course of Providence cannot be checked, it is in men of the present generation but knotting a whip- cord to lash their own posterity. The selfishness of bigotry is the same in every age ; the persecutors of to-day do not differ from those who inflamed the people of Athens to demand the death of Socrates ; and the Quaker champions of freedom of mind would never shrink from its exercise, through fear of prisons or martyrdom. But the Quaker asked for conscience more than security against penal legislation. He proclaimed an insurrection against every form of authority over conscience ; he resisted every attempt at the slavish subjection of the understand- ing. He had no reverence for the decrees of a university, a convocation, or a synod ; no fear of maledictions from the Vatican. Nor was this all. The Quakfjr denied the value of all learning, except that which the mind appropriates by its own intelligence. The lessons of tradition were no bet- ter than the prating of a parrot, and letter learning may be hurtful as well as helpful. When the mind is not free, the devil can accompany the zealot to his prayers and the doctor to his study. The soul is a living fountain of im- Chap. XXIIL THE QUAKERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 89 mortal truth; but a college is in itself no better than a cistern, in which water may stagnate, and truth to him who is learned and not wise, who knows words and not things, is of no more worth than a beautiful piece of sculpture to a Vandal. Let then the pedant plume himself in the belief that erudition is wisdom ; the waters of life, welling up from the soul, gush forth in spontaneous freedom ; and the illiterate mechanic need not fear to rebuke the proudest rabbis of the university. The Quaker equally claimed the emancipation of con- science from the terrors of superstition. He did not waken devotion by appeals to fear. He could not grow pale from dread of apparitions, or, like Grotius, establish his faith by the testimony of ghosts ; and, in an age when the English courts punished witchcraft with death, he rejected the delu- sion as having no warrant in the free experience of the soul. To him no spirit was created evil ; the world began with innocency ; and, as God blessed the works of his hands, their natures and harmony magnified their Creator. God made no devil ; for all that he made was good, without a jar in the whole frame. Discord proceeds from a perversion of powers, whose purpose was benevolent ; and the spirit be- comes evil only by a departure from truth. The Quaker was equally warned against the delusions of self-love. His enemies, in derision, sneered at his idol as a delirious will-o'-the-wisp, that claimed a heavenly descent for the offspring of earthly passions ; and Fox and Barclay and Penn earnestly denounced " the idolatry which hugs its own conceptions," mistaking the whimseys of a feverish brain for the calm revelations of truth. But " How shall I know," asks Penn, "that a man does not obtrude his own sense upon us as the infallible Spirit ? " And he answers, " By the same Spirit." The Spirit witnesseth to our spirit. The Quaker repudiates the errors Avhich the bigotry of sects, or the zeal of selfishness, or the delusion of the senses, has engrafted upon the unchanging principles of morals ; and accepting intelligence wherever it exists, from the collision of parties and the strife in the world of opinions, he gathers together the universal truths which of necessity constitute 90 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIIL \i I the common creed of mankind. There is a natural sagacity ! of sympathy, which separates what belongs to the individ- ual from that which commends itself to universal reason. Quakerism "is a most rational system." Judgment is to J be made not from the rash and partial mind, but from the eternal light that never errs. The divine revelation is uni- versal, and compels assent. The jarring reasonings of individuals have filled the world with controversies and debates ; the true light pleads its excellency in every breast. Neither may the divine revelation be confounded with in- dividual conscience ; for the conscience of the individual follows judgment, and may be warped by self-love and debauched by lust. The Turk has no remorse for sensual indulgence, for he has defiled his judgment with a false opinion. The papist, if he eat flesh in Lent, is reproved by the inward monitor ; for that monitor is blinded by a false belief. The true light is therefore not the reason of the individual, nor the conscience of the individual ; it is the light of universal reason ; the voice of universaL con- , science, " manifesting its own verity, in that it is confirmed and established by the experience of all men." Moreover, it has the characteristic of necessity. " It constrains even its adversaries to plead for it." " It never contradicts sound reason," and is the noblest and most certain rule ; for " the divine revelation is so evident and clear of itself that by its own evidence and clearness it irresistibly forces the well- disposed understanding to assent." But would the Inner Light bend to the authority of written inspiration ? The Bible was the religion of Prot- estants ; had the Quaker a better guide ? The Quaker believed in the unity of truth ; there can be no contradic- tion between right reason and previous revelation, between just tradition and an enlightened conscience. But the Spirit is the criterion. The Spirit is the guide which leads into all truth. The Quaker reads the Scriptures with delight, but not with idolatry. It is his own soul which bears the valid witness that they are true. The letter is not the Spirit ; the Bible is not religion, but a record of religion. " The Scriptures," — such are Barclay's words — Chap. XXIII. THE QUAKERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 91 "are a declaration of the fountain, and not the fountain itself." Far from rejecting Christianity, the Quaker insisted that he alone maintained its primitive simplicity. The skeptic for ever vibrated between opinions ; the Quaker was fixed even to dogmatism. The infidel rejected religion ; the Quaker cherished it as his life. The scoffer pushed free- dom to dissoluteness ; the Quaker circumscribed freedom by obedience to truth. George Fox and Yoltaire both pro- tested against priestcraft ; Voltaire in behalf of the senses,^ Fox in behalf of the soul. To the Quakers Christianity is" freedom. And they loved to remember that the patriarchs were graziers, that the prophets were mechanics and shep- herds, that John Baptist, the greatest of envoys, was clad in a rough garment of camel's hair. To them there was joy in the thought that the brightest image of divinity on earth had been born in a manger, had been reared under the roof of a carpenter, had been content for himself and his guests with no greater luxury than barley loaves and fishes, and that the messengers of his choice had been rustics like themselves. Nor were they embarrassed by knotty points of theology. Their creed did not vary with the subtilties of verbal criticism ; they revered the eternity of the Inner Light without regard to the arguments of grammarians on the use of the Greek article. Did philosophers and divines involve themselves in the mazes of liberty and fixed decrees, of foreknowledge and fate, the monitor in the Quaker's breast was to him the sufliicient guarantee of freedom. Did men defend or reject the Trinity by learned dissertations and minute criticisms on various readings, he avoided the use of the word, and despised the jargon of disputants ; but the idea of God with us, the incarnation of the Spirit, the union of Deity with humanity, was to the Quaker the dear- est and the most sublime symbol of man's enfranchisement. As a consequence of this faith, every avenue to truth was to be kept open. " Christ came not to extinguish, but to improve the heathen knowledge." " The difference between the philosophers of Greece and the Christian Quaker is rather in manifestation than in nature." He cries Stand, to 92 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIIL every thought that knocks for entrance ; but welcomes it as a friend, if it gives the watchword. Exulting in the won- derful bond which admitted him to a communion with all the sons of light, of every nation and age, he rejected with scorn the school of Epicurus ; he had no sympathy with the follies of the skeptics, and esteemed even the mind of Aris- totle too much bent upon the outward world. But Aristotle himself, in so far as he grounds philosophy on virtue and self-denial, and every contemplative sage, orators and phil- osophers, statesmen and divines, were gathered as a cloud of witnesses to the same unchanging truth. " The Inner Light," said Penn, " is the domestic God of Pythagoras." Tiie voice in the breast of George Fox, as he kept sheep on the hills of Nottingham, was the spirit which had been the good genius and guide of Socrates. Above all, the Christian Quaker delighted in " the divinely contemplative Plato," the "famous doctor of gentile theology," and recognised the identity of the Inner Light with the divine principle which dwelt with Plotinus. Quakerism is as old as humanity. The Inner Light is to the Quaker not only the revelation of truth, but the guide of life and the oracle of duty. He demands the uniform predominance of the world of thought over the world of sensation. The blameless enthusiast, well aware of the narrow powers and natural infirmities of man, yet aims at perfection from sin ; and, tolerating no compro- mise, demands the harmonious development of man's higher powers with the entire subjection of the base to the nobler instincts. The motives to conduct and its rule are, like truth, to be sought in the soul. Thus the doctrine of disinterested virtue — the doctrine for w^hich Guyon was persecuted and Fenelon disgraced, the doctrine which tyrants condemn as rebellion, and priests as heresy — was cherished by the Quaker as the foundation of morality. Self-denial he enforced with ascetic severity, yet never with ascetic superstition. He might array himself fantastically to express a truth by an apparent symbol, but he never wore sackcloth as an anchorite. " Thoughts of death and hell to keep out sin were to him no better than fig-leaves." He would obey the imperative dictate of truth, Chap. XXIH. THE QUAKERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 93 even though the fires of hell were quenched. Virtue is happiness ; heaven is with her always. The Quakers knew no superstitious vows of celibacy; they favored no nunneries, monasteries, " or religious bed- lams;" but they demanded purity of life as essential to the welfare of society, and founded the institution of marriage on permanent affection, not on transient passion. Their matches, they were wont to say, are registered in heaven. Has a recent school of philosophy discovered in wars and pestilence, in vices and poverty, salutary checks on popula- tion ? The Quaker, confident of the supremacy of mind, feared no evil, though plagues and war should cease, and vice and poverty be banished by intelligent culture. Des- potism favors the liberty of the senses ; and popular freedom rests on sanctity of morals. To the Quaker, licentiousness is the greatest bane of good order and good government. The Quaker revered principles, not men, truth, not power, and therefore could not become the tool of ambi- tion. " They are a people," said Cromwell, " whom I can- not win with gifts, honors, ofiices, or places." Still less was the Quaker a slave to avarice. Seeking wisdom, and not the philosopher's stone, to him the love of money for money's sake was the basest of passions, and the rage of indefinite accumulation was " oppression to the poor, com- pelling those who have little to drudge like slaves." " That the sweat and tedious labor of the husbandmen, early and late, cold and hot, wet and dry, should be converted into the pleasure, ease, and pastime of a small number of men, that the cart, the plough, the thresh, should be in inordinate severity laid upon nineteen parts of the land to feed the appetites of the twentieth, is far from the appointment of the great Governor of the world." It is best the people be neither rich nor poor ; for riches bring luxury, and luxury tyranny. The supremacy of mind, forbidding the exercise of tyr- anny as a means of government, attempted a reformation of society, but only by means addressed to conscience. The system contained a reform in education ; it demanded that children should be brought up, not in the pride of caste, 94 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIH. still less by methods of violence ; but as men, by methods suited to the intelligence of humanity. Life should never be taken for an offence against property, nor the person imprisoned for debt. And the same train of reasoning led to a protest against war. The Quaker believed in the power of justice to protect itself ; for himself, he renounced the use of the sword ; and, aware that the vices of society might entail danger on a nation not imbued with his principles, he did not absolutely deny to others the right of defence, but looked forward with hope to the period when the progress of civilization should realize the vision of a universal and enduring peace. The supremacy of mind abrogated ceremonies ; the Quaker regarded " the substance of things," and broke up forms as the nests of superstition. Every Protestant re- fused the rosary and the censer ; the Quaker rejects com- mon prayer, and his adoration of God is the free language of his soul. He remembers the sufferings of divine philan- thropy, but uses neither wafer nor cup. He trains up his children to fear God, but never sprinkles them with bap- tismal water. He ceases from labor on the first day of the week, for the ease of creation, and not from reverence for a holiday. The Quaker is a pilgrim on earth, and life is the ship that bears him to the haven ; he mourns in his mind for the departure of friends by respecting their advice, taking care of their children, and loving those that they loved; and this seems better than outward emblems of sorrowing. His words are always freighted with innocence and truth ; God, the searcher of hearts, is the witness to his sincerity ; but kissing a book or lifting a hand is a superstitious van- ity, and the sense of duty cannot be increased by an im- precation. The Quaker distrusts the fine arts, they are so easily perverted to the purposes of superstition and the delight of the senses. Yet, when they are allied with virtue, and express the nobler sentiments, they are very sweet and refreshing. The comedy where, of old, Aristophanes ex- cited the Athenians to hate Socrates, and where the profli- gate gallants of the court of Charles II. assembled to hear Chap. XXIH. THE QUAKERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 95 the drollery of Nell Gwyn heap ridicule on the Quakers, was condemned without mercy. But the innocent diver- sions of society, the delights of rural life, the pursuits of science, the study of history, would not interfere with aspi- rations after God. For apparel, the Quaker dresses soberly, according to his condition and education ; far from prescrib- ing an unchanging fashion, he holds it " no vanity to use what the country naturally produces," and reproves nothing but that extravagance which "all sober men of all sorts readily grant to be evil." Like vanities of dress, the artifices of rhetoric were de- spised. Truth, it was said, is beautiful enough in plain clothes ; and Penn, who was able to write exceedingly well, often forgot that style is the gossamer on which the seeds of truth float through the world. Careless of style, the Quakers employ for the propagation of truth no weapons but those of mind. They distributed tracts ; but they would not sustain their doctrine by a hire- ling ministry. " A man thou hast corrupted to thy inter- ests will never be faithful to them ; " and an established church seemed " a cage for unclean birds." When a great high-priest, who was a doctor, had finished preaching from the words, " Ho every one that thirsteth, come buy without money," George Fox " was moved of the Lord to say to him, ' Come down, thou deceiver ! Dost thou bid people come to the waters of life freely, and yet thou takest three hundred pounds a year of them?' The Spirit is a free teacher." Still less would the Quaker employ the methods of perse- cution. He was a zealous Protestant, but in the season of highest excitement he pleaded for absolute liberty of wor- ship, and sought to enfranchise the Roman Catholic him- self. To persecute, he esteemed a confession of a bad cause ; for the design that is of God has confidence in itself, and knows that any other will vanish. " Your cruel- ties are a confirmation that truth is not on your side," was the remonstrance of a woman of Aberdeen to the magis- trates who had imprisoned her husband. In like manner, the Quaker never employed force to 96 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIIL effect a social revolution or reform, but, refusing obedi- ence to wrong, deprived tyranny of its instruments. The Quaker's loyalty, said the Earl of Arrol at Aberdeen, is a qualified loyalty ; it smells of rebellion : to which Alexan- der Skein, brother to a subsequent governor of West 1676. New Jersey, calmly answered : " I understand not loyalty that is not qualified with the fear of God rather than of man." The Quaker never would pay tithes', never yielded to any human law which traversed his con- science. He did more : he resisted tyranny with all the moral energy of enthusiasm, bearing witness against blind obedience not less than against will worship. Believing in the supremacy of mind over matter, he sought no control over the government except by intelligence ; and therefore he needed to hold the right of free discussion inviolably sacred. He never consented to the slightest compromise of this freedom. Wherever there was evil and oppression, he claimed the right to be present with a remonstrance. He delivered his opinions freely before Cromwell and Charles II., in face of the gallows in New England, in the streets of London, before the English commons. The heaviest penalties that bigotry could devise never induced him to swerve a hair's-breadth from his purpose of speak- ing freely and publicly. This was his method of resist- ing tyranny. Algernon Sydney, who took money from Louis XIV., like Brutus, would have plunged a dagger into the breast of a tyrant ; the Quaker, without a bribe, resisted tyranny by appeals to the monitor in the tyrant's breast, and he labored incessantly to advance reform by enlightening the public conscience. Any other method of revolution he believed an impossibility. Government ^- such was his belief — will always be as the people are ; and a people imbued with the love of liberty create the irresistible necessity of a free government. He sought no revolution but that which followed as the consequence of the public intelligence. Such revolutions were inevitable. " Though men consider it not, the Lord rules and overrules in the kingdoms of men." Any other revolution would be transient. The Quakers submitted to the restoration of Chap. XXIII. THE QUAKERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 97 Charles II., as the best arrangement for the crisis, confident that time and truth would lead to a happier issue. " The best frame, in ill hands, can do nothing that is great and good. Governments, like clocks, go from the motion im- parted to them ; they depend on men rather than men on government. Let men be good, the government cannot be bad ; if it be ill, they will cure it." Even witli absohite power, an Antonine or an Alfred could not make bricks without straw, nor the sword do more than substitute one tyranny for another. The moral power of ideas is constantly effecting improve- ment in society. No Quaker book has a trace of skej^ticism on man's capacity for progress. Such is the force of an honest profession of truth, the humblest person, if single- minded and firm, " can shake all the country for ten miles round." The integrity of the Inner Light is an invincible power. It is a power which never changes ; such was the message of Fox to the pope, the kings, and nobles of all sorts ; it fathoms the world, and throws down that which is contrary to it. It quenches fire ; it daunts wild beasts ; it turns aside the edge of the sword ; it outfaces instruments of cruelty ; it converts executioners. It was remembered with exultation that the enfranchisements of Christianity were the result of faith, and not of the sword ; and that truth in its simplicity, radiating from the foot of the cross, has filled a world of sensualists with astonishment, over- thrown their altars, discredited their oracles, infused itself into the soul of the multitude, invaded the court, risen superior to armies, and led magistrates and priests, states- men and generals, in its train, as the trophies of its strength exerted in its freedom. Thus the Quaker was cheered by a firm belief in the progress of society. Even Aristotle, so many centuries ago, recognised the upward tendency in human affairs ; a Jewish contemporary of Barclay declared that progress to be a tendency towards popular power ; George Fox per- ceived that the Lord's hand was against kings ; and one day, on the hills of Yorkshire, he had a vision that he was but beginning the glorious work of God in the earth ; that VOL. II. 7 98 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIIL his followers would in time become as numerous as motes in the sunbeams; and that the party of humanity would gather the whole human race in one sheepfold, Neither art, wisdom, nor violence, said Barclay, conscious of the vitality of truth, shall quench the little spark that hath appeared. The atheist — such was the common opinion of the Quakers — the atheist alone denies progress, and says in his heart : All things continue as they were in the be- ginning. If, from the rules of private morality, we turn to political institutions, here also the principle of the Quaker is the Inner Light. He acquiesces in any established government which shall build its laws upon the declarations of "uni- versal reason." But government is a part of his religion : and the religion that declares " every man enlightened by the divine lisfht " establishes o^overnment on universal and equal enfranchisement. " Not one of mankind," says Penn, " is exempted from this illumination." " God discovers himself to every man." He is in every breast, in the ignorant drudge as well as in Locke or Leibnitz. Every moral truth exists in every man's and woman's heart, as an incorruptible seed ; the ground may be barren, but the seed is certainly there. Every man is a little sovereign to himself. Freedom is as old as reason itself, which is given to all, constant and eternal, the same to all nations. The Quaker is no mate- rialist ; truth and conscience are not in the laws of coun- tries ; they are not one thing at Rome, and another at Athens; they cannot be abrogated by senate or people. Freedom and the right of property were in the world before Protestantism ; they came not with Luther ; they do not vanish with Calvin ; they are the common privilege of mankind. The Bible enfranchises those only to whom it is carried ; Christianity, those only to whom it is made known ; the creed of a sect, those only within its narrow pale. The Quaker, resting his system on the Inner Light, redeems the race. Of those who believe in the necessity of faith in an outward religion, some have cherished the mild super- Chap. XXIII. THE QUAKERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 99 stition that, in the hour of dissolution, an angel is sent from heaven " to manifest the doctrine of Christ's passion ; " the Quaker believes that the heavenly messenger is always present in the breast of every man, ready to counsel the willing listener. Man is equal to his fellow-man. No class can, "by long apprenticeship " or a prelate's breath, by wearing black or shaving the crown, obtain a monopoly of moral truth. There is no distinction of clergy and laity. The Inner Light sheds its blessings on the whole human race ; it knows no distinction of sex. It redeems woman by the dignity of her moral nature, and claims for her the equal culture and free exercise of her endowments. As the human race ascends the steep acclivity of improvement, the Quaker cherishes woman as the equal companion of the journey. Nor does he know an abiding distinction of king and subject. The universality of the Inner Light " brings crowns to the dust, and lays them low and level with the earth." " The Lord will be king ; there will be no crowns but to such as obey his will." With God a thousand years are indeed as one day ; yet judgment on tyrants will come at last, and may come ere long. Every man has God in the conscience ; therefore the Quaker knows no distinction of castes. He bows to God, and not to his fellow-servant. " All men are alike by crea- tion," says Barclay ; and it is slavish fear which reverences others as gods. " I am a man," says every Quaker, and re- fuses homage. The most favored of his race, even though endowed with the gifts and glories of an angel, he would regard but as his fellow-servant and his brother. The feu- dal nobility still nourished its pride. "Nothing," says Penn, " nothing of man's folly has less show of reason to palliate it." " What a pother has this noble blood made in the world ! " " But men of blood have no marks of honor stampt upon them by nature." The Quaker scorned to take off his hat to any of them ; he held himself the peer of the proudest peer in Christendom. With the eastern despotism of Diocletian, Europe had learned the hyperboles 100 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIIL of eastern adulation ; but " My Lord Peter and My Lord Paul are not to be found in the Bible ; My Lord Solon or Lord Scipio is not to be read in Greek or Latin stories." And the Quaker returned to the simplicity of Gracchus and Demosthenes, though " Thee and Thou proved a sore cut to proud flesh." This was not done for want of courtesy, which " no religion destroys ; " but he knew that the hat was the symbol of enfranchisement, worn before the king by the peers of the realm, in token of equality ; and the sym- bol, as adopted by the Quaker, was a constant proclamation that all men are equal. Thus the doctrine of George Fox was not only a plebeian form of philosophy, but also the prophecy of political changes. The spirit that made to him the revelation was the invisible spirit of the age, rendered wise by tradition, and excited to insurrection by the enthusiasm of liberty and religion. Everywhere in Europe, therefore, the Quakers were exposed to persecution. Their seriousness was called melancholy fanaticism ; their boldness, self-will ; their fru- gality, covetousness ; their freedom, infidelity ; their con- science, rebellion. In England, the general laws against dissenters, the statute against papists, and special statutes against themselves, put them at the mercy of every malig- nant informer. They were hated by the church and the Presbyterians, by the peers and the king. The codes of that day describe them as " an abominable sect ; " " their principles as inconsistent with any kind of government." During the Long Parliament, in the time of the protecto- rate, at the restoration, in England, in New England, in the Dutch colony of New Netherland, everywhere, and for wearisome years, they were exposed to perpetual dangers and griefs ; they were whipped, crowded into jails among felons, kept in dungeons foul and gloomy beyond imagina- tion, fined, exiled, sold into colonial bondage. They bore the brunt of the persecution of the dissenters. Imprisoned in winter without fire, they perished from frost. Some were victims to the barbarous cruelty of the jailer. Twice George Fox narrowly escaped death. The despised people braved every danger to continue their assemblies. Haled 1675. THE QUAKERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 101 out by violence, they returned. When their meeting- houses were torn down, they gathered openly on the ruins. They could not be dissolved by armed men ; and when their opposers took shovels to throw rubbish on them, they stood close together, "willing to have been buried alive, witnessing for the Lord." They were exceeding great sufferers for their profession, and in some cases treated worse than the worst of the race. They were as poor sheep appointed to the slaughter, and as a people killed all day long. Is it strange that they looked beyond the Atlantic i674. for a refuge ? When New Netherland was recovered from the united provinces, Berkeley and Carteret entered again into possession of their province. For Berkeley, al- ready a very old man, the visions of colonial fortune had not been realized ; there was nothing before him but contests for quit-rents with settlers resolved on governing themselves ; and in March, 1674, a few months after Mar. is. the return of George Fox from his pilgrimage to all our colonies from Carolina to Rhode Island, the haughty peer, for a thousand pounds, sold the moiety of New Jersey to Quakers, to John Fenwick in trust for Edward Byllinge and his assigns. A dispute between Byllinge and Fenwick was allayed by the benevolent decision of William Penn ; and, in 1675, Fenwick, with a large company i675. and several families, set sail in the " Griffith " for the asylum of Friends. Ascending the Delaware, he landed on a pleasant, fertile spot ; and, as the outward world easily takes the hues of men's minds, he called the place Salem, for it seemed the dwelling-place of peace. Byllinge was embarrassed in his fortunes ; Gawen Laurie, William Penn, and Nicholas Lucas became his assigns as trustees for his creditors, and shares in the undivided moi- ety of New Jersey were offered for sale. As an affair of property, it was like our land companies of to-day ; except that in those days speculators bought acres by the hundred thousand. But the Quakers wished more ; they desired to possess a territory where they could institute a govern- ment j and Carteret readily agreed to a division, for his 102 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIII. 1676. partners left him the best of the bargain. And now Aug. 26. tiiat the men who had gone about to turn the world upside down were possessed of a province, what system of politics would they adopt ? The light that lighteth every man shone brightly in the pilgrims of Pl^-mouth, the Calvinists of Hooker and Haynes, and in the freemen of Virginia, when the transient abolition of monarchy com- pelled even royalists to look from the throne to a surer guide in the heart ; the Quakers, following the same ex- alted instincts, could but renew the fundamental legislation of the men of the " Mayflower," of Hartford, and of the Old Dominion. " The coxcessioxs are such as Friends approve of;" this is the message of the Quaker iDroprietaries in England to the few who had emigrated : " We lay a foun- dation for after ages to understand their liberty as Chris- tians and as men, that they may not be brought into bondage but by their own consent ; for we put the Mar?^'3 POWEE IN THE PEOPLE." And ou the third day of March, 1677, the fundamental laws of West New Jersey were perfected and published. They are written with almost as much method as our present con- stitutions, and recognise the principle of democratic equal- ity as unconditionally and universally as the Quaker society itself. No man, nor number of men, hath power over conscience. No person shall at any time, in any ways, or on any pre- tence, be called in question, or in the least punished or hurt for opinion in religion. The general assembly shall be chosen, not by the confused way of cries and voices, but by the balloting box. Every man is capable to choose or be chosen. The electors shall give their respective deputies instructions at large, which these, in their turn, by indentures under hand and seal, shall bind themselves to obey. The disobedient deputy may be questioned before the assembly by any one of his electors. Each member is to be allowed one shilling a day, to be paid by his immediate constituents, " that he may be known as the servant of the people." The executive power rested with ten commis- sioners, to be appointed by the assembly ; justices and 1678. THE QUAKERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 103 constables were chosen directly by the people; the judges, appointed by the general assembly, retained office but two years at the most, and sat in the courts but as assistants to the jury. In the twelve men, and in them only, judgment resides ; in them and in the general assembly rests discretion as to punishments. " All and every person in the province shall, by the help of the Lord and these fundamentals, be free from oppression and slavery." No man can be im- prisoned for debt. Courts were to be managed without the necessity of an attorney or counsellor. The native was protected against encroachments; the hel2:)less orijhan educated by the state. Immediately the English Quakers, with the good wishes of Charles II., flocked to West New Jersey ; and commis- sioners, possessing a temporary authority, were sent to administer affairs till a popular government could be insti- tuted. When the vessel, freighted with the men of peace^ arrived iii America, Andros, the governor of New York, claimed jurisdiction over their territory. The claim, which, on the feudal system, was perhaps a just one, was com- promised as a present question, and referred for decision to England. Meantime, lands were purchased of the Indians ; the planters numbered nearly four hundred souls ; and, already at Burlington, under a tent covered with sail-cloth, the Quakers began to hold religious meetings. The Indian kings also gathered in council under the 1678. shades of the Burlington forests, and declared their joy at the prospect of permanent peace. " You are our brothers," said the sachems, " and we will live like brothers with you. We will have a broad path for you and us to walk in. If an Englishman falls asleep in this path, the Indian shall pass him by, and say. He is an Englishman ; he is asleep ; let him alone. The path shall be plain ; there shall not be in it a stump to hurt the feet." Every thing augured success to the colony, but that, at Newcastle, the agent of the Duke of York, who still pos- sessed Delaware, exacted customs of the ships ascending to New Jersey. It may have been honestly believed that his jurisdiction included the whole river ; when urgent reraon- 104 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXm. strances were made, the duke referred the question to a disinterested commission, before which the Quakers reasoned thus : — 1678 to " An express grant of the powers of government 1680. induced us to buy the moiety of New Jersey. If we could not assure people of an easy, free, and safe govern- ment, liberty of conscience, and an inviolable possession of their civil rights and freedoms, a mere wilderness would be no encouragement. It were madness to leave a free country to plant a wilderness, and give another person an absolute title to tax us at will. " The customs imposed by the government of New York are not a burden only, but a wrong. By what right are we thus used ? The king of England cannot take his subjects' goods without their consent. This is a home-born right, declared to be law by divers statutes. • " To give up the right of making laws is to change the government and resign ourselves to the will of another. The land belongs to the natives ; of the duke we buy nothing but the right of an undisturbed colonizing, with the ex- pectation of some increase of the freedoms enjoyed in our native country. We have not lost English liberty by leaving England. " The tax is a surprise on the planter : it is paying for the same thing twice over. Custom, levied upon planting, is unprecedented. Besides, there is no end of this power. By this precedent, we are assessed without law, and ex- cluded from our Eno^lish riajlit of common assent to taxes. We can call nothing our own, but are tenants at will, not for the soil only, but for our personal estates. Such conduct has destroyed government, but never raised one to true greatness. " Lastly, to exact such unterminated tax from English planters, and to continue it after so many repeated com- plaints, will be the greatest evidence of a design to intro- duce, if the crown should ever devolve upon the duke, an unlimited government in England." This argument of the Quakers was triumphant. Sir William Jones decided that, as the grant from the Duke of 1682. THE QUAKERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 105 York had reserved no profit or jurisdiction, the tax was illegal. The Duke of York promptly acqviiesced in the decision, and in a new indenture relinquished ^^^/q^ every claim to the territory and the government. After such trials, vicissitudes, and success, the light of peace dawned upon West New Jersey ; and in November, 1681, Jennings, acting as governor for the proprietaries, convened the first legislative assembly of the representatives of men who said thee and thou to all the world, and wore their hats in presence of beggar or king. Their first meas- ures established their rights by an act of fundamental legis- lation, and, in the spirit of " the Concessions," they framed their government on the basis of humanity. Neither faith, nor wealth, nor race was respected. They met in the wilderness as men, and founded society on equal rights. What shall we relate of a community thus organized ? That they multiplied, and were happy? that they levied for the' expenses of their commonwealth two hundred pounds, to be paid in corn, or skins, or money? that they voted the governor a salary of twenty pounds ? that they prohibited the sale of ardent spirits to the Indians ? that they forbade imprisonment for debt ? The formation of this little govern- ment of a few hundred souls, that soon increased to thou- sands, is one of the most beautiful incidents in the history of the age. West New Jersey had been a fit home for F^nelon. The people rejoiced under the reign of God, confident that he would beautify the meek with salvation. A loving correspondence began with Friends in England, and from the fathers of the sect frequent messages were received. " Friends that are gone to make JJgg! plantations in America, keep the plantations in your hearts, that your own vines and lilies be not hurt. You that are governors and judges, you should be eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, and fathers to the poor ; that you may gain the blessing of those who are ready to perish, and cause the widow's heart to sing for gladness. If you rejoice because your hand hath gotten much ; if you say to fine gold, Thou art my confidence, — you will have denied the 106 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIH. God that is above. The Lord is ruler among nations ; he will crown his people with dominion." In the midst of this innocent tranquillity, Byllinge, the original grantee of Berkeley, claimed as proprietary the right of nominating the deputy governor. The usurpation was resisted. Byllinge grew importunate ; and the Quakers, setting a new precedent, amended their constitutions ac- cording to the prescribed method, and then elected a gov- ernor. This method of reform was the advice of William Pexx. ^^„^ For in the mean time William Penn had become 1682. T T . T • 1 »..,.. deeply mterested in the progress of civilization on the Delaware. In company with eleven others, he had purchased East New Jersey of the heirs of Carteret. But of the east- ern moiety of New Jersey, peopled chiefly by Puritans, the history is intimately connected with that of New York. The line that divides East and West New Jersey is the line where the influence of the humane society of Friends is merged in that of Puritanism. 1680. PENNSYLVANIA. 107 CHAPTER XXIV. PENNSYLVANIA. It was for the grant of a territory on the opposite bank of the Delaware that William Penn, in June, 1680, became a suitor. His father, distinguished in English j^^^i history by the conquest of Jamaica, and by his con- duct, discretion, and courage, in the signal battle against the Dutch in 1665, had bequeathed to him a claim on the gov- ernment for sixteen thousand pounds. Massachusetts had bought Maine for a little more than one thousand pounds ; then, and long afterwards, colonial property was lightly esteemed ; and to the prodigal Charles II., always embar- rassed for money, the grant of a province seemed the easiest mode of cancelling the debt. William Penn had powerful friends in North, Halifax, and Sunderland; and a pledge given to his father on his death-bed obtained for him the assured favor of the Duke of York. Sustained by such friends, and pursuing his object with enthusiasm, William Penn triumphed over " the great oppo- sition " which he encountered, and obtained a charter for the territory, which received from Charles II. the name of Pennsylvania, and which was to include three degrees of latitude by five degrees of longitude west from the Dela- ware. The Duke of York desired to retain the three lower counties, that is, the state of Delaware, as an appendage to New York ; Pennsylvania was therefore, in that direction, limited by a circle drawn at twelve miles' distance from Newcastle, northward and westward, unto the beginning of the fortieth degree of latitude. This impossible boundary received the assent of the agents of the Duke of York and Lord Baltimore. The charter, as originally drawn up by William Penn 108 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIV. himseK, conceded powers of government analogous to those of the charter for Maryland. That nothing might be at variance with English law, it was revised by the jIm! attorney-general, and amended by Lord North, who inserted clauses to guard the sovereignty of the king and the commercial supremacy of parliament. The acts of the future colonial legislature were to be submitted to the king and council, who had power to annul them if contrary to English law. The power of levying customs was ex- pressly reserved to parliament. The bishop of London, quite unnecessarily, claimed security for the English church. The people of the country were to be safe against taxation, except by the provincial assembly or the English i^arliament. In other respects, the usual franchises of a feudal proprie- tary were conceded. 1681. At length, writes William Penn, "After many Mar. 5. -^aitings, watchings, solicitings, and disputes in coun- cil, my country was confirmed to me under the great seal of England. God will bless and make it the seed of a nation. I shall have a tender care of the government, that it be well laid at first." Pennsylvania included the principal settlements of the Swedes ; and patents for land had been made to Dutch and English by the Dutch West India company, and after- wards by the Duke of York. The royal proclamation Apr. 2. soon announced to all the inhabitants of the province that William Penn, their absolute proprietary, was invested with all powers and pre-eminences necessary for the government. The proprietary also issued his proclama- tion to his vassals and subjects. It was in the following words : — " My Fkiends, — I wish you all happiness here and here- after. These are to lett you know, that it hath pleased God in his Providence to cast you within my Lott and Care. It is a business, that though I never undertook before, yet God has given me an understanding of my duty and an honest minde to doe it uprightly. I hope you will not be troubled at your chainge and the king's choice ; for 1681. PENNSYLVANIA. 109 you are now fixt, at the mercy of no Governour that comes to make his fortune great. You shall be governed by laws of your own makeing, and live a free, and if you will, a sober and industreous People. I shall not usurp the right of any, or oppress his person. God has furnisht me with a better resolution, and has given me his grace to keep it. In short, whatever sober and free men can reasonably desire for the security and improvement of their own happiness, I shall heartily comply with. I beseech God to direct you in tl\e way of righteousness, and therein prosper you and your children after you. I am your true Friend, " Wm. Penn. "London, 8th of the month called April, 1681." Such were the pledges of the Quaker sovereign on assum- ing the government ; it is the duty of history to state that, during his long reign, these pledges were redeemed. He never refused the free men of Pennsylvania a reasonable desire. With this letter to the inhabitants, young Mark- lesi. ham immediately sailed as agent of the proprietary. -"^^y- He was to govern in harmony with law, and the people were requested to continue the established system of rev- enue till Penn himself could reach America. During the summer, the conditions for the sale of lands Juiyii. wei^ reciprocally ratified by Penn and a company of adventurers. The enterprise of planting a province had been vast for a man of large fortunes ; Penn's whole estate had yielded, when unencumbered, a revenue of fifteen hun- dred pounds; but, in his zeal to rescue his suffering brethren from persecution, he had, by heavy expenses in courts of law and at court, impaired his resources, which he might hope to retrieve from the sale of domains. Would he sacrifice his duty as a man to his emoluments as a sovereign ? In August, a company of traders offered six thousand pounds and an annual revenue for a monopoly of the Indian traflSo between the Delaware and the Susquehannah. To a father of a family, in straitened circumstances, the temptation was great ; but Penn was bound, by his religion, to equal laws, 110 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIV. and he rebuked the cupidity of monopoly. "I will not abuse the love of God," — such was his decision, — " nor act unworthy of his Providence, by defiling what came to me clean. No ; let the Lord guide me by his wisdom, to honor his name and serve his truth and people, that an example and a standard may be set up to the nations ; " and he adds to a Friend : " There may be room there, though not here, for the Holy Experiment." 1681. With a company of emigrants, full instructions Sept. 30. ^yej.g forwarded respecting lands and planting a city. Penn disliked the crowded towns of the Old World; he desired the city might be so planted with gardens round each house as to form "a greene country town." Oct. 18. And almost at the same time he«addressed a letter to the natives of the American forest, declaring himself and them responsible to one and the same God, having the same law written in their hearts, and alike bound to love and help and do good to one another. Meantime, the mind of Penn was deeply agitated by thoughts on the government which he should establish. To him government was a part of religion itself, an emanation of divine power, capable of kindness, goodness, and charity ; having an opportunity of benevolent care for men of the highest attainments, even more than the office of correcting evil-doers ; and, without imposing one uniform model on all the world, without denying that time, place, and emergen- cies may bring with them a necessity or an excuse for mon- archical or even aristocratical institutions, he believed " any government to be free to the people, where the laws rule, and the people are a party to the laws." That Penn was superior to avarice, was clear from his lavish expenditures to relieve the imprisoned ; that he had risen above ambition, appeared from his preference of the despised Quakers to the career of high advancement in the court of Charles II. But he loved to do good; and could passionate philanthropy resign absolute power, apparently so favorable to the ex- ercise of vast benevolence ? Here, and here only, Penn's 1682 spirit was severely tried ; but he resisted the tempta- i^ay 5. tion. " I purpose," — such was his prompt decision, 1682. PENNSYLVANIA. Ill — " for the matters of liberty I purpose, that which is extraordinary — to leave myself and successors no power of doeing mischief ; that the will of one man may not hinder the good of a whole country." " It is the great end of gov- ernment to support power in reverence with the people, and to secure the people from tlie abuse of power ; for liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without lib- erty is slavery." Taking counsel, therefore, from all sides, listening to the theories of Algernon Sydney, whose Roman pride was ever faithful to the good old republican cause, and deriving still better guidance from the suavity and humanity of his Quaker brethren, Penn published a frame of government, not as an established constitution, but as a system to be referred to the freemen in Pennsylvania. About the same time, a free society of traders was 1682. organized. " It is a very unusual society," — such ^^^ ^^" was their advertisement, — " for it is an absolute free one, and in a free country ; every one may be concerned that will, and yet have the same liberty of private traffique, as though there were no society at all." To perfect his territory, Penn desired to possess the bay, the river, and the shore of the Delaware to the ocean. The territories or three lower counties, now forming the state of Delaware, were in possession of the Duke of York, and, from the conquest of New Netherland, had been esteemed an appendage to his province. His claim, arising from con- quest and possession, had the informal assent of the king and the privy council, and had extended even to the upper Swedish settlements. It was not difficult to obtain from the duke a release of his claim on Pennsylvania ; and, after much negotiation, the lower province was Aug. 24. granted by two deeds of feoffment. From the forty- third degree of latitude to the Atlantic, the western and southern banks of Delaware River and Bay were under the dominion of William Penn. Every arrangement for a voyage to his province being finished, Penn, in a beautiful letter, took leave of his family. His wife, who was the love of his youth, he reminded of his impoverishment in consequence of his public spirit, and 112 COLONIAL HISTOKY. Chap. XXIV. recommended economy: " Live low and sparingly till my debts be paid." Yet for his children he adds : "Let their learning be liberal ; spare no cost, for by such parsimony all is lost that is saved." Agriculture he proposed as their employment. " Let my children be husbandmen and house- wives." Friends in England watched his departure with anxious hope ; on him rested the expectations of their soci- ety, and their farewell at parting was given with " the inno- cence and tenderness of the child that has no guile." After a long passage, rendered gloomy by frequent death among the passengers, many of whom had in Eng- oSv. •'^^^ been his immediate neighbors, on the twenty- seventh day of October, 1682, William Penn landed at Newcastle. The son and grandson of naval officers, his thoughts had from boyhood been directed to the ocean ; the conquest of Jamaica by his father early familiarized his imagination with the New World, and in Oxford, at the age of seven- teen, he indulged in visions of happiness, of which America was the scene. Bred in the school of Independency, he had, while hardly twelve years old, learned to listen to the voice of God in his soul ; and at Oxford, where his excellent gen- ius received the benefits of learning, the words of a 1661. Quaker jDreacher so touched his heart that he was fined and afterwards expelled for non-conformity. His father, bent on subduing his enthusiasm, beat him and turned him into the streets, to choose between poverty with a pure conscience, or fortune with obedience. But how could the hot anger of a petulant sailor continue against an only son? It was in the days of the glory of Descartes that, to complete his education, William Penn received a father's permission to visit the continent. From the excitements and the instruction of travel, for which the passion is sometimes stronger than love or am- bition, the young exile turned aside to the college 1663! ^* Saumur, where, under the guidance of the gifted and benevolent Amyrault, his mind was trained in the severities of Calvinism, as tempered by the spirit of universal love. 1667. PENNSYLVANIA. 113 In the next, year, Penn, having crossed the Alps, i664. was just entering Piedmont, when the appointment of his father to the command of a British squadron, in the naval war with Holland, compelled his return to the care of the estates of the family. The discipline of society and travel had given him grace of manners, enhanced by severe but unpretending purity of morals ; and in London the travelled student of Lincoln's Inn, if diligent in gaining a knowledge of English law, was yet es- HH' teemed a most modish fine gentleman. In France, the science of the Huguenots had nourished reflection ; in London, every sentiment of sympathy was excited by the horrors which he witnessed during the devastations of the plague. Having thus perfected his understanding by the 1665. learning of Oxford, the religion and philosophy of the French Huguenots and France, and the study of the laws of England, in the bloom of youth, being of engaging manners, and so skilled in the use of the sword that he easily disai-med an antagonist, of great natural vivacity and gay good humor, the career of wealth and preferment opened before him through the influence of his father and the ready favor of his sovereign. But his mind was already imbued Vith " a deep sense of the vanity of the world, and the irreligiousness of its religions." In 1666, on a journey in Ireland, William Penn leee. heard his old friend Thomas Loe speak of the faith that overcomes the world ; the undying fires of enthusiasm at once blazed up within him, and he renounced every hope for the path of integrity. It is a path into which, says Penn, " God, in his everlasting kindness, guided my feet in the flower of my youth, when about two-and-twenty years of age." And in the autumn of that year he was in jail for the crime of listening to the voice of conscience. " Re- ligion," such was his remonstrance to the viceroy of Ire- land, " is my crime and my innocence ; it makes me a prisoner to malice, but my own freeman." After his enlargement, returning to England, he i6r>6. encountered bitter mockings and scornings, the in- ^^^* VOL. II. 8 114 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIV. vectives of the priests, the strangeness of all his old com- panions ; it was noised about, in the fashionable world, as an excellent jest, that " William Penn was a Quaker again, or some very melancholy thing ; " and his father, in 1667. anger, turned him penniless out of doors. The outcast, saved from extreme indigence by a 1668. mother's fondness, became an author, and announced to princes, priests, and people, that he was one of the despised, afflicted, and forsaken Quakers ; and, repairing to court with his hat on, he sought to engage the Duke of Buckingham in favor of liberty of conscience, claimed from those in authority better quarters for dissenters than stocks and whips and dungeons and banishments, and was urging the cause of freedom with importunity, when he himself, in the heyday of youth, was consigned to a long and close imprisonment in the Tower. His offence was heresy : the bishop of London menaced him with imprisonment 1669! ^^^' ^^^® unless he would recant. " My prison shall be my grave," answered Penn. The kind-hearted Charles II. sent the humane and candid Stillingfleet to calm the young enthusiast. "The Tower," such was Penn's message to the king, " is to me the worst argument in the world." In vain did Stillingfleet urge the motive of royal favor and preferment ; the inflexible young man demanded freedom of Arlington, " as the natural privilege of an Eng- lishman." Club-law, he argued with the minister, may make hypocrites ; it never can make converts. Conscience needs no mark of public allowance. It is not like a bale of goods that is to be forfeited unless it has the stamp of the custom-house. After losing his freedom for about nine months, his prison door was opened by the intercession of his father's friend, the Duke of York ; for his constancy had commanded the respect and recovered- the favor of his father. The Quakers, exposed to judicial tyranny, were led, by the sentiment of humanity, to find a barrier against their oppressors by narrowing the application of the common law, and restricting the right of judgment to the jury. Scarcely had Penn been at liberty a year, when, after 1671. PENNSYLVANIA. 115 the intense intolerance of " the conventicle act," he was arraigned for having spoken at a Quaker meet- ge^Jt.'a. ing. "Not all the powers on earth shall divert us from meeting to adore our God who made us." Thus did the young man of five-and-twenty defy the English legisla- ture ; and he demanded on what law the indictment was founded. " On the common law," answered the recorder. " Where is that law ? " demanded Penn. " The law which is not in being, far from being common, is no law at all." Amidst angry exclamations and menaces, he proceeded to plead earnestly for the fundamental laws of England, and, as he was hurried out of court, still reminded the jury that "they were his judges." Dissatisfied with the first verdict returned, the recorder heaped upon the jury every oppro- brious epithet. " We will have a verdict, by the help of God, or you shall starve for it." " You are Englishmen," said Penn, who had been again brought to the bar ; " mind your privilege, give not away your right." " It never will be well with us," said the recorder, " till something like the Spanish inquisition be in England." At last, the jury, who had received no refreshments for two days and two nights, on the third day, gave their verdict, "Not Sept. 5. guilty." The recorder fined them forty marks apiece for their independence, and, amercing Penn for contempt of court, sent him back to prison. The trial was an era in judicial history. The fines were soon afterwards discharged by his father, who was now approaching his end. " Son William," said the dying admiral, " if you and your friends keep to your plain way of preaching and living, you will make an end of the priests." Inheriting a large fortune, he continued to defend pub- licly, from the press, the principles of intellectual liberty and moral equality ; he remonstrated in unmeasured terms against the bigotry and intolerance, " the hellish darkness and debauchery," of the university of Oxford ; he exposed the errors of the Roman Catholic Church, and in the same breath pleaded for a toleration of their worship; and, never fearing openly to address a Quaker meeting, jg^Q^ he was soon on the road to Newgate, to suffer for ^6^^- 116 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIV. bis honesty by a six months' imprisonment. "You are an ingenious gentleman," said the magistrate at the trial; " you have a plentiful estate ; why should you render yourself unhappy by associating with such a simple peo- ple ? " "I prefer," said Penn, " the honestly simple to the ingeniously wicked." The magistrate rejoined by charg- ing Penn with previous immoralities. The young man, with passionate vehemence, vindicated the spotlessness of his life. " I speak this," he adds, " to God's glory, who has ever preserved me from the power of these pollutions, and who, from a child, begot a hatred in me towards them." " Thy words shall be thy burden ; I trample thy slander as dirt under my feet." From Newgate, Penn addressed parliament and the nation in the noblest plea for liberty of conscience ; a liberty which he defended by arguments drawn from experience, from religion, and from reason. If the efforts of the Quakers cannot obtain " the olive branch of toleration, we bless the providence of God, resolving by patience to outweary per- secution, and by our constant sufferings to obtain a victory more glorious than our adversaries can achieve by their cruelties." On his release from imprisonment, a calmer season ^leis!' followed. Penn travelled in Holland and Germany; then returning to England, he married a woman of extraordinary beauty and sweetness of temper, whose noble spirit " chose him before many suitors," and honored him with " a deep and upright love." As persecution in Eng- land was suspended, he enjoyed for two years the delights of rural life and the animating pursuit t)f letters ; till the storm was renewed, and the imprisonment of George Fox, on his return from America, demanded intercession. What need of narrating the severities, which, like a slow poison, brought the prisoner to the borders of the grave? Why enumerate the atrocities of petty tyrants, invested with village magistracies, the ferocious passions of irresponsible jailers ? The statute-book of England contains the clearest impress of the bigotry which a national church could foster and a parliament avow ; and Penn, in considering England's 1678. PENNSYLVANIA. IIT present interest, far from resting his appeal on the senti- ment of mercy, merited the highest honors of a statesman by the profound sagacity and unbiassed judgment with which he unfolded the question of the rights of conscience in its connection with the peace and happiness of the state. It was this love of freedom of conscience which gave in- terest to his exertions for New Jersey. The summer and autumn after the first considerable Quaker emigration to the eastern bank of the Delaware, George Fox and William Penn and Robert Barclay, with others, embarked for Hol- land, to evangelize the continent ; and Barclay and Penn went to and fro in Germany, from the Weser to the Mayne, the Rhine, and the Neckar, distributing tracts, discoursing with men of every sect and every rank, preaching in pal- aces and among the peasants, rebuking every attempt to inthrall the mind, and sending reproofs to kings and magis- trates, to the princes and lawyers of all Christendom. The soul of William Penn was transported into fervors of de- votion ; and, in the ecstasies of enthusiasm, he explained " the universal principle " at Herford, in the court of the princess palatine, and to the few Quaker converts among the peasantry of Kirchheim. To the peasantry of the highlands near Worms, the visit of William Penn was i678. an event never to be forgotten. The opportunity of observing the aristocratic institutions of Holland and the free commercial cities of Germany was valuable to a statesman. On his return to England, the new sufferings of the Quakers excited a direct appeal to the English parliament. The special law against papists was turned against the Quakers ; Penn explained the differ- ence between his society and the papists ; and yet, at a season when Protestant bigotry was become a frenzy, he appeared before a committee of the house of commons to plead for universal liberty of conscience. " We must give the liberty we ask : " such was the sublime language of the Quakers ; " we cannot be false to our principles, though it were to relieve ourselves ; for we would have none to suffer for dissent on any hand." 118 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIV. jg^g Defeated in his hopes by the dissolution of the par- liament, Penn took an active part in the ensuing elections. He urged the electors throughout England to know their own strength and authority ; to hold their rep- resentatives to be properly and truly their servants, to maintain their liberties, their share in legislation, and their share in the application of the laws. "Your well-being," these were his words, " depends upon your preservation of your right in the government. You are free; God and nature and the constitution have made you trustees for posterity. Choose men who will, by all just and legal ways, firmly keep and zealously promote your power." And as Algernon Sydney now " embarked with those that did seek, love, and choose the best things," William Penn engaged in the election, and obtained for him a majority which was defeated only by a false return. But every hope of reform from parliament van- 1680 %f JL X ished. Bigotry and tyranny prevailed more than ever; and Penn, despairing of relief in Europe, bent the energy of his mind to the establishment of a free Oct^27 government in the New World. For that "heavenly end " he was prepared by the severe discipline of life, and the love, without dissimulation, which formed the basis of his character. The sentiment of cheerful human- ity was irrepressibly strong in his bosom ; as with John Eliot and Roger Williams, benevolence gushed prodigally from his ever overflowing heart ; and when, in his late old age, his intellect was impaired and his reason prostrated by apoplexy, his sweetness of disposition rose serenely over the clouds of disease. Possessing an extraordinary great- ness of mind, vast conceptions, remarkable for their uni- versality and precision, and " surpassing in speculative endowments;" conversant with men, and books, and gov- ernments, with various languages, and the forms of political combinations, as they existed in England and France, in Holland and the principalities and free cities of Germany, he yet sought the source of wisdom in his. own soul. Hu- mane by nature and by suffering; familiar with the royal family ; intimate with Sunderland and Sydney ; acquainted 1682. PENNSYLVANIA. 119 with Russell, Halifax, Shaftesbury, and Buckingham ; as a member of the Royal Society, the peer of Newton and the great scholars of his age, — he vahied the promptings of a free mind above the awards of the learned, and reverenced the single-minded sincerity of the Nottingham shepherd more than the authority of colleges and the wisdom of philosophers. And now, being in the meridian of life, but a year older than was Locke when, twelve years be- fore, he had framed a constitution for Carolina, the Quaker legislator was come to the New World to lay the founda- tions of states. Would he imitate the vaunted system of the great philosopher? Locke, like William Penn, was tolerant ; both loved freedom ; both cherished truth in sin- cerity. But Locke kindled the torch of liberty at the fires of tradition ; Penn, at the living light in the soul. Locke sought truth through the senses and the outward world ; Penn looked inward to the divine revelations in every mind. Locke compared the soul to a sheet of white paper, just as Hobbes had compared it to a slate, on which time and chance might scrawl their experience ; to Penn, the soul was an organ which of itself instinctively breathes divine harmonies, like those musical instruments which are so curi- ously and perfectly framed that, when once set in motion, they of themselves give forth all the melodies designed by the artist that made them. To Locke, " Conscience is noth- ing else than our own opinion of our OAvn actions ; " to Penn, it is the image of God, and his oracle in the soul. Locke, who was never a father, esteemed "the duty of parents to preserve their children not to be understood with- out reward and punishment ; " Penn loved his children, with not a thought for the consequences. Locke, who was never married, declares marriage an affair of the senses; Penn reverenced woman as the object of fervent, inward affection, made not for lust, but for love. In studying the understanding, Locke begins with the sources of knowl- edge ; Penn, with an inventory of our intellectual treasures. Locke deduces government from Noah and Adam, rests it upon contract, and announces its end to be the security of property ; Penn, far from going back to Adam, or even to 120 COLONIAL mSTOEY. Chap. XXIV. Noah, declares that " there must be a people before a gov- ernment," and, deducing the right to institute government from man's moral nature, seeks its fundamental rules in the immutable dictates "of universal reason," its end in freedom and happiness. The system of Locke lends itself to contend- ing factions of the most opposite interests and purposes ; the doctrine of Fox and Penn, being but the common creed of humanity, forbids division, and insures the highest moral unity. To Locke, happiness is pleasure ; things are good and evil only in reference to pleasure and pain ; and to " inquire after the highest good is as absurd as to dispute whether the best relish be in apples, plums, or nuts ; " Penn esteemed happiness to lie in the subjection of the baser instincts to the instinct of Deity in the breast, good and evil to be eternally and always as unlike as truth and false- hood, and the inquiry after the highest good to involve the purpose of existence. Locke says plainly that, but for re- wards and punishments beyond the grave, "it is certainly right to eat and drink, and enjoy what we delight in ; " Penn, like Plato and Fenelon, maintained the doctrine so terrible to despots that God is to be loved for his own sake, and virtue to be practised for its intrinsic loveliness. Locke derives the idea of infinity from the senses, describes it as purely negative, and attributes it to nothing but space, duration, and number ; Penn derived the idea from the soul, and ascribed it to truth and virtue and God. Locke declares immortality a matter with which reason has noth- ing to do, and that revealed truth must be sustained by outward signs and visible acts of power; Penn saw truth by its own light, and summoned the soul to bear witness to its own glory. Locke believed " not so many men in wrong opinions as is commonly supposed, because the greatest part have no opinions at all, and do not know what they contend for;" Penn likewise vindicated the many, but it was be- cause truth is the common inheritance of the race. Locke, in his love of tolerance, inveighed against the methods of persecution as " popish practices ; " Penn censured no sect, but condemned bigotry of all sorts as inhuman. Locke, as an American lawgiver, dreaded a too numerous democracy, 1682. PENNSYLVANIA. 121 and reserved all power to wealth and the feudal proprie- taries ; Penn believed that God is in every conscience, his light in every soul; and therefore he built — such are his own words — "a free colony for all mankind." This is the praise of William Penn, that, in an age which had seen a popular revolution shipwreck popular liberty among selfish factions, which had seen Hugh Peter and Henry Yane perish by the hangman's cord and the axe ; in an age when Sydney nourished the pride of patriotism rather than the sentiment of philanthropy, when Russell stood for the liberties of his order, and not for new enfranchisements, when Harrington and Shaftesbury and Locke thought gov- ernment should rest on property, — Penn did not despair of humanity, and, though all history and experience denied the sovereignty of the people, dared to cherish the noble idea of man's capacity for self-government. Conscious that there was no room for its exercise in England, the pure enthusiast, like Calvin and Descartes, a voluntary exile, was come to the banks of the Delaware to institute " the Holy EXPERIMEXT." The news spread rapidly that the Quaker king was at Newcastle ; and, on the day after his landing, in Oct.* presence of a crowd of Swedes and Dutch and Eng- lish, who had gathered round the court-house, his deeds of feoffment were produced ; the Duke of York's agent surrendered the territory by the solemn delivery of earth and water, and Penn, invested with supreme and undefined power in Delaware, addressed the assembled multitude on government, recommended sobriety and peace, and pledged himself to grant liberty of conscience and civil freedom. From Newcastle, Penn ascended the Delaware to Chester, where he was hospitably received by the honest, kind-hearted emigrants who had preceded him from the north of England ; the village of herdsmen and farmers, with their plain man- ners, gentle dispositions, and tranquil passions, seemed a harbinger of a golden age. From Chester, tradition describes the journey of Penn to have been continued with a few friends in an open boat, in the earliest days of November, to the beautiful bank, fringed 122 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIV. with pine-trees, on which the city of Philadelphia was soon to rise. 1682. In the following weeks, Penn visited West and PgJ; East New Jersey, New York, the metropolis of his neighbor proprietary, the Duke of York, and, after J^l meeting Friends on Long Island, he returned to the banks of the Delaware. To this period belongs his first grand treaty with the Indians. Beneath a large elm-tree at Shakamaxon, on the northern edge of Philadelphia, William Penn, surrounded by a few friends, in the habiliments of peace, met the numerous delegation of the Lenni-Lenape tribes. The great treaty was not for the purchase of lands, but, confirming what Penn had written and Markham covenanted, its sub- lime purpose was the recognition of the equal rights of humanity. Under the shelter of the forest, now leafless by the frosts of autumn, Penn proclaimed to the men of the Algonkin race, from both banks of the Delaware, from the borders of the Schuylkill, and, it may have been, even from the Susquehannah, the same simple message of j)eace and love which George Fox had professed before Cromwell and •Mary Fisher had borne to the Grand Turk. The English and the Indian should respect the same moral law, should be alike secure in their pursuits and their possessions, and adjust every difference by a peaceful tribunal, composed of an equal number of men from each race. " We meet," such were the words of William Penn, 1682. Nov! " on the broad pathway of good faith and good-will ; no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. I will not call you children ; for parents sometimes chide their children too severely : nor brothers only; for brothers differ. The friendship between me and you I will not compare to a chain ; for that the rains might rust, or the falling tree might break. We are the same as if one man's body were to be divided into two parts ; we are all one flesh and blood." The children of the forest were touched by the sacred doctrine, and renounced their guile and their revenge. They received the presents of Penn in sincerity ; and with 1683. PENNSYLVANIA. 123 hearty friendship they gave the belt of wampum. " We will live," said they, " in love with William Penn and his children, as long as the moon and the sun shall endure." This agreement of peace and friendship was made under the open sky, by the side of the Delaware, with the sun and the river and the forest for witnesses. It was not confirmed by an oath ; it was not ratified by signatures and seals ; no record of the conference can be found ; and its terms and conditions had no abiding inscription but on the heart. There they were written like the law of God. The simple sons of the wilderness, returning to their wigwams, kept the history of the covenant by strings of wampum, and, long afterwards, in their cabins, would count over the shells on a clean piece of bark, and recall to their own memory, and repeat to their children or to the stranger, the words of William Penn. New England had just terminated a dis- astrous war of extermination; the Dutch were scarcely ever at peace with the Algonkins ; the laws of Maryland refer to Indian hostilities and massacres, which ex- tended as far as Richmond. Penn came without 1682. arms ; he declared his purpose to abstain from vio- lence ; he had no message but peace ; and not a drop of Quaker blood was shed in his time by an Indian. Was there not progress from Melendez to Roger Wil- liams ? from Cortez and Pizarro to William Penn ? The Quakers, ignorant of the homage which their virtues would receive from Voltaire and Raynal, men so unlike themselves, exulted in the consciousness of their humanity. We have done better, said they truly, "than if, with the proud Spaniards, we had gained the mines of Potosi. We may make the ambitious heroes, whom the world admires, blush for their shameful victories. To the poor, dark souls round about us we teach their rights as men." In the following year, Penn often met the Indians 1683. in council and at their festivals. He visited them in their cabins, shared the hospitable banquet of hominy and roasted acorns, and laughed and frolicked and practised athletic games with the confiding red men. He spoke with them of religion, and found that the tawny skin did not ex- 124 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIV. elude the instinct of a Deity. " The poor savage people believed in God and the soul without the aid of meta- physics." Peace existed with the natives ; the contentment of the emigrants was made perfect by the happy inaugura- Dec.^4-7. ^^^^ ^^ ^h^ government. A general convention had been permitted by Penn : the people preferred to appear by their representatives ; and in three days the work of preparatory legislation at Chester was finished. The charter from the king did not include the territories ; these were now enfranchised by the joint act of the inhabi- tants and the proprietary, and united with Pennsylvania on the basis of equal rights. The freedom of all being thus confirmed, the Inward Voice, which was the celestial visitant to the Quakers, dictated a code. God was declared the only Lord of conscience ; the first day of the week was reserved as a day of leisure, for the ease of the creation. The rule of equality was introduced into families by ab- rogating the privileges of primogeniture. The word of an honest man was evidence without an oath. The mad spirit of speculation was checked by a system of strict accountability, applied to factors and agents. Every resi- dent who paid scot and lot to the governor possessed the right of suffrage ; and, without regard to sect, every Christian was eligible to office. No tax or custom could be levied but by law. The Quaker is a spiritualist ; the pleas- ures of the senses, masks, revels, and stage-plays, not less than bull-baits and cock-fights, were prohibited. Murder was the only crime punishable by death. Marriage was esteemed a civil contract; adultery, a felony. The false accuser was liable to double damages. Every prison for convicts was made a workhouse. There were neither poor rates nor tithes. The Swedes and Finns and Dutch were invested with the liberties of Englishmen. Well might Lawrence Cook exclaim in their behalf : " It is the best day we have ever seen." The work of legislation being finished, the proprietary urged upon the house his religious counsel, and the assembly was adjourned. The government having been organized, William Penn, 1683. PENNSYLVANIA. 125 accompanied by members of his council, hastened to "West River, to interchange courtesies with Lord Baltimore, and fix the limits of their respective provinces. The Decf ii. adjustment was difficult. Lord Baltimore claimed by his charter the whole country as far as the fortieth degree. Penn replied, just as the Dutch and the agents of the Duke of York had always urged, that the charter for Maryland included only lands that were still unoccupied ; that the banks of the Delaware had been purchased, appro- priated, and colonized, before that charter was written. For more than fifty years, the country had been in the hands of the Dutch and their successors ; and, during that period, the claim of Lord Baltimore had always been resisted. The answer of Penn was true, and conformed to English law as applied to the colonies. In 1623, the Dutch had built Fort Nassau, in New Jersey ; and the soil of Delaware was pur- chased by Godyn, and colonized by De Yries, before the promise of King Charles to Sir George Calvert. But what line should be esteemed the limit of New Netherland ? This remained a subject for compromise. A discussion of three days led to no result : tired of useless debates, Penn crossed the Chesapeake to visit Friends at Choptank ; and returned to his own province, prepared to renew negotiation or to submit to arbitration in England. The enthusiasm of William Penn sustained him in un- ceasing exertions. Purchasing the ground of the lesa. Swedes, in a situation " not surpassed " — such are his ^nd words — " by one among all the many places he had ^e^- seen in the world," on a neck of land between the Schuyl- kill and Delaware, appointed for a town by the convenience of the rivers, the firmness of the land, the pure springs and salubrious air, he laid out Philadelphia, the city of refuge, the mansion of freedom. Pleasant visions of innocence and happiness floated before the imagination of his Quaker brethren. " Here," said they, " we may worship God ac- cording to the dictates of the Divine Principle, free from the mouldy errors of tradition ; here we may thrive, in peace and retirement, in the lap of unadulterated nature ; here we may improve an innocent course of life on a virgin Elysian 126 COLONIAL HISTOEY. Chap. XXIV. shore." But vast as were the hopes of the humble Friends, who now marked the boundaries of streets on the chestnut or ash and walnut trees of the original forest, they were surpassed by the reality. Pennsylvania bound the northern and the southern colonies in bonds stronger than paper chains ; Philadelphia was the birthplace of American inde- pendence and the pledge of union. 1683. In March, the infant city, in which there could Mar. 12. j^^ve been few mansions but hollow trees, was already the scene of legislation. From each of the six counties into which Penn's dominions were divided, nine representatives, Swedes, Dutch, and English, were elected for the purpose of establishing a charter of liberties. They desired it might be the acknowledged growth of the New World, and bear date in Philadelphia. " To the people of this place," said Penn, " I am not like a selfish man ; through my travail and pains the province came ; it is now in Friends' hands. Our faith is for one another, that God will be our counsellor for ever." And, when the general assembly came together, he referred to the frame of government proposed in England, saying : " You may amend, alter, or add ; I am ready to settle such foundations as may be for your happiness." The constitution which was established created a legisla- tive council and a more numerous assembly ; the former to be elected for three years, one third being renewed March, annually ; the assembly to be annually chosen. Rota- tion in office was enjoined. The theory of the consti- tution gave to the governor and council the initiation of all laws ; these were to be promulgated to the people ; and the office of the assembly was designed to be no more than to report the decision of the people in their primary meetings. Thus no law could be enacted but with the direct assent of the whole community. Such was the system of the charter of liberties. But it received modifications from the legislature by which it was established. The assembly set the precedent of engaging in debate, and of proposing subjects for bills by way of conference with the governor and council. In return, by unanimous vote, a negative voice was allowed the governor on all the doings of the council, and such a power 1710. PENNSYLVANIA. * 127 was virtually a right to negative any law. It would have been more simple to have left the assembly full power to originate bills, and to the governor an unconditional nega- tive. This was virtually the method established in 1683 ; it was distinctly recognised in the fundamental law in 1696. Besides, the charter from Charles II. held the proprietary responsible for colonial legislation ; and no act of provincial legislation could be perfected till it had passed the great seal of the province. That a negative voice was thus reserved to William Penn was, I believe, the opinion of the colonists of that day ; such was certainly the intention of the royal charter. In other respects, the frame of govern- ment gave all power to the people ; the judges were to be nominated by the provincial council, and, in case of good behavior, could not be removed by the proprietary during the term for which they were commissioned. But, for the hereditary office of proprietary, Pennsylvania would have been a representative democracy. In Maryland, the council was named by Lord Baltimore ; in Pennsylvania, by the people. In Maryland, the power of appointing magistrates, and all, even the subordinate executive officers, rested solely with the proprietary ; in Pennsylvania, William Penn could not appoint a justice or a constable ; every executive offi- cer, except the highest, was elected by the people or their representatives ; and the governor could perform no public act but with the consent of the council. Lord Baltimore had a revenue derived from the export of tobacco, the staple of Maryland; and his colony was burdened with taxes : a similar revenue was offered to William Penn, and declined. In the name of all the freemen of the province, the charter was received by the assembly with gratitude, as one "of more than expected liberty." "I desired," says Penn, " to show men as free and as happy as they can be." In the decline of life, the language of his heart was still the same. " If, in the relation between us," he 1710. writes in his old age, " the people want of me any thing that would make them happier, I should readily grant it." 128 • COLONIAL niSTOEY. Chap. XXIV. When Peter, the great Russian reformer, attended in England a meeting of Quakers, the semi-barbarous philan- thropist could not but exclaim : " How happy must be a community instituted on their principles ! " " Beautiful ! " said Frederic of Prussia, when, a hundred years later, he read the account of the government of Pennsylvania ; " it is perfect, if it can endure." To the charter which Locke invented for Carolina, the palatines voted an immutable immortality ; and it never gained more than a short, partial existence : to the people of his province Penn left it free to subvert or alter the frame of government ; and its essential principles remain to this day without change. Such was the birth of popular power in Pennsylvania and Delaware. It remained to dislodge superstition from its hiding-places in the mind. The Scandinavian emigrants came from their native forests with imaginations clouded by the gloomy terrors of an invisible world of fiends ; and a turbulent woman was brought to trial as a witch. Fetf*27. P^^J^ presided, and the Quakers on the jury out- numbered the Swedes. The grounds of the accusa- tion were canvassed ; the witnesses calmly examined ; and the jury, having listened to the charge from the governor, returned this verdict : " The prisoner is guilty of the common fame of being a witch, but not guilty as she stands indicted." The friends of the liberated prisoner were required to give bonds that she should keep the peace ; and in Penn's domain, from that day to this, neither demon nor hag ever rode through the air on goat or broomstick ; and the worst arts of conjuration went no further than to foretell fortunes, mutter spells over quack medicines, or discover by the divining-rod the hidden treasures of buc- caneers. 1683 to Meantime, the news spread abroad that William 1688. Penn, the Quaker, had opened "an asylum to the good and the oppressed of every nation ; " and humanity went through Europe, gathering the children of misfortune. From England and Wales, from Scotland and Ireland and the Low Countries, emigrants crowded to the land of promise. On the banks of the Rhine, it was whispered 1684. PENNSYLVANIA. 129 that the plans of Gustavus Adolphus and Oxenstiern were consummated; new companies were formed under better auspices than those of the Swedes ; and, from the highlands above Worms, the humble people, who had melted at the eloquence of Penn, renounced their German homes for the protection of the Quaker king. There had been nothing in the history of the human race like the confidence which his simple virtues and institutions inspired. In August, 1683, " Philadelphia consisted of three or four little cottages ; " the conies were yet undisturbed in their hereditary bur- rows; the deer fearlessly bounded past blazed trees, un- conscious of foreboded streets ; the stranger that wandered from the river bank was lost in the thickets of the inter- minable forest ; and, two years afterwards, the place con- tained about six hundred houses, and the schoolmaster and the printing-press had begun their work. In three years from its foundation, Philadelphia gained more than New York had done in half a century. This was the happiest season in the public life of William Penn. " I must, with- out vanity, say," such was his honest self-gratulation, " I have led the greatest colony into America that Ma?\ ever any man did upon a private credit, and the most prosperous beginnings that ever were in it are to be found among us." The government had been organized, peace with the natives confirmed, the fundamental law established, the courts of justice instituted ; the mission of William Penn was accomplished ; and now, like Solon, the most humane of ancient legislators, he prepared to leave the common- wealth, of which he had founded the well-being. Intrusting the great seal to his friend Lloyd, and the executive power to a committee of the council, Penn sailed for England, leaving freedom to its own development. The province already contained eight thousand souls. His de- parture was favorable to the colony and to his own Aug. la, tranquillity. He had established a democracy, and was himself a feudal sovereign. The two elements in the government were incompatible ; and for ninety years the civil history of Pennsylvania is but the account of the jarring VOL. II. 9 130 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIV. of these opposing interests, to which there could be no happy issue but in popular independence. But rude collisions were not yet begun ; and the benevolence of William Penn breathed to his people a farewell, unclouded by apprehension. " My love and my life are to you and with you, and no water can quench it, nor distance bring it to an end. I have been with you, cared over you, and served you with unfeigned love ; and you are beloved of me and dear to me beyond utterance. I bless you in the name and power of the Lord, and may God bless you with his righteousness, peace, and plenty, all the land over." " You are come to a quiet land, and liberty and authority are in your hands. Rule for him under whom the princes of this world will one day esteem it their honor to govern in their places." " And thou, Philadelphia, the virgin settlement of this province, my soul prays to God for thee, that thou mayest stand in the day of trial, and that thy children may be blessed." " Dear friends, my love salutes you all." And, after Oct.\ -^^ reached England, he assured eager inquirers that " things went on sweetly with Friends in Pennsyl- vania; that they increased finely in outward things and in wisdom." The question respecting the boundaries between the domains of Lord Baltimore and of William Penn Dec. 9. was promptly resumed before the committee of trade and plantations ; and, after many hearings, it was decided that the tract of Delaware did not constitute Oct^iV. ^ P^^* ^^ Maryland. The proper boundaries of the territory remained to be settled; and the present Nov. 7. limits of Delaware were established by a compro- mise. There is no reason to suppose any undue bias ,on the minds of the committee ; had a wrong been sus- pected, the decision would have been reversed at the Revo- lution of 1688. This decision formed the basis of an agreement between the respective heirs of the two proprietaries in 1732. Three years afterwards, the subject became a question in chancery ; in 1750, the present boundaries were decreed by Lord Hard- wicke; ten years later, they were, by agreement, more 1686. PENNSYLVANIA. 131 accurately defined; and, in 1761, commissioners began to designate the limit of Maryland on the side of Pennsylvania and Delaware. In 1763, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, two mathematicians or surveyors, were engaged to mark the lines. In 1764, they entered upon their task, with good instruments and a corps of axemen ; by the middle of June, 1765, they had traced the parallel of lati- tude to the Susquehannah ; a year later, they climbed the Little Alleghany ; in 1767, they carried forward their work, under an escort from the Six Nations, to an Indian war- path, two hundred and forty-four miles from the Delaware River. Other hands, at a later day, continued Mason and Dixon's line to the west, as the southern boundary of Pennsylvania. But the care of colonial property did not absorb the enthusiasm of Penn ; and, now that his father's friend had succeeded to the throne, he employed his fortune, his influence, and his fame to secure that " impartial " liberty of conscience which, for nearly twenty years, he had ad- vocated before the magistrates of Ireland, and English juries, in the Tower, in Newgate, before the commons of England, in public discussions with Baxter and the Pres- byterians, before Quaker meetings, at Chester and Phila- delphia, and through the press to the world. It was his old post, the oflice to which he was faithful from youth to age. Fifteen thousand families had been ruined for dissent since the restoration ; five thousand persons had died victims to imprisonment. The monarch was persuaded to exercise his prerogative of mercy ; and, at Penn's intercession, not less than twelve hundred Friends i686. were liberated from the horrible dungeons and prisons where many of them had languished hopelessly for years. Penn delighted in doing good. His house was thronged by swarms of clients, envoys from Massachusetts among the number ; and sometimes there were two hundred at once, claiming his disinterested good offices with the king. For Locke, then a voluntary exile, he obtained a promise of im- munity, which the blameless philosopher, in the just pride of innocence, refused. And at the very time when the Koman 132 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIV. Catholic Fenelon, in France, was pleading for Protestants iagainst the intolerance of Louis XIV., the Protestant Penn, in England, was laboring for the equal rights of the Roman Catholics. Claiming for the executive of the country the prerogative of employing every person, " according to his ability, and not according to his opinion," he labored to effect a repeal of every disfranchisement for opinion. Ever ready to deepen the vestiges of British freedom, and vindicate the right of " the free Saxon people to be governed by laws of which they themselves were the makers," his whole soul was bent on effecting this end by means of parliament during the reign of James II., well knowing that the Prince of Orange was pledged to a less liberal policy. The political tracts of "the arch Quaker" in behalf of liberty of conscience connect the immutable principles of human nature and human rights with the character and origin of English freedom, and exhaust the question as a subject for English legislation. He resisted the violent trans- fer of Magdalen College to the Catholics, and desired that the universities might not be shut against them and other dis- senters. No man in England was more opposed to Roman Catholic dominion ; but, like an honest lover of truth, and well aware that he and George Fox could win more converts than James II. and the pope with all their patronage, he desired, in the controversy with the Roman church, nothing but equality. He knew that popery was in England the party of the past, from causes that lay in the heart of society, incapable of restoration ; and therefore he ridiculed the popish panic as a scarecrow fit only to frighten children. Such was the strong antipathy of England to the Roman see, he foretold the sure success of the English church, if it should plough with that heifer, but equally predicted the still later result, that the Catholics, in their turn becoming champions of civil freedom, would unite with its other advocates, and impair and subvert the English hierarchy. Penn never gave counsel at variance with popular rights. He resisted the commitment of the bishops to the Tower, and, on the day of the birth of the Prince of Wales, pressed the king exceedingly to open their prison-doors. His private Chap. XXIV. PENNSYLVANIA. 133 correspondence proves that he esteemed parliament the only- power through which his end could be gained ; and, in the true spirit of liberty, he sought to infuse his principles into the public mind, that so they might find their place in the statute-book through the convictions of his country- men. England to-day confesses his sagacity, and is doing honor to his genius. He came too soon for success, and he was aware of it. After more than a century, the laws which he reproved began gradually to be repealed ; and the principle which he developed is slowly but firmly as- serting its power over the legislation of Great Britain. The political connections of William Penn have involved him in the obloquy which followed the overthrow of the Stuarts ; and the friends to the tests, comprising nearly all the members of both the political parties, into which Eng- land was soon divided, have generally been unfriendly to his good name. But ^their malice has been without perma- nent effect. There are not wanting those who believe the many to be the most competent judge of the beautiful ; every Quaker believes them the best arbiter of the just and the true. It is certain that they, and they only, are the dispensers of glory. Their final award is given freely, and cannot be shaken. Every charge of hypocrisy, of selfish- ness, of vanity, of dissimulation, of credulous confidence ; every form of reproach, from virulent abuse to cold apol- ogy; every ill-meant word from tory and Jesuit to blas- phemer and infidel, — has been used against Penn ; but the candor of his character has always triumphed over calumny. His name was safely cherished as a household word in the cottages of Wales and Ireland and among the peasantry of Germany ; and not a tenant of a wigwam from the sea to the Susquehannah doubted his integrity. His fame is now wide as the world ; he is one of the few who have gained abiding glory. Was he prospered ? Before engaging in his American enterprise, he had impaired his patrimony to relieve the suf- fering Quakers ; his zeal for his provinces hurried him into colonial expenses beyond the returns, and left him without a revenue ; and he, who had so often been imprisoned for 184 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIV. religion, in his old age went to jail for debt. But yet William Penn was happy. " He could say it before the Lord, he had the comfort of having approved himself a faithful steward to his understanding and ability." Meanwhile, the Quaker legislators in the woods of Penn- sylvania were serving their novitiate in popular legislation. To complain, to impeach, to institute committees of in- quiry, to send for persons and papers, to quarrel with the executive, — all was attempted, and all without permanent harm. But the character of parties was already evident ; and that of the people tended towards diminishing the little remaining authority of their feudal sovereign. Penn had reserved large tracts of territory as his private property ; he alone could purchase the soil from the natives ; and he reserved quit-rents on the lands which he sold. Pennsyl- vania, for nearly a century, sought to impair the exclusive right to pre-emption, and to compel an appropriation of the income from quit-rents, in part at least, to the public ser- vice. Jealousy of a feudal chief was early displayed. jaiL^ '^^^ maker of the first Pennsylvania almanac was censured for publishing Penn as a lord. The assem- 1685. bly originated bills without scruple ; they attempted a new organization of the judiciary; they alarmed the merchants by their lenity towards debtors ; they Mar.^i5. would vote no taxes ; they claimed the right of in- specting the records, and displacing the officers of the courts; they expelled a member who reminded them of their contravening the provisions of their charter. The executive power was imperfectly administered; for the council was too numerous a body for its regular exer- FetK^i. ^^^^' ^ commission of five was substituted; and 1688. finally, when it was resolved to appoint a deputy governor, the choice of the proprietary was not wisely made. In a word, folly and passion, not less than justice and wisdom, had become enfranchised on the Dela- ware, and were desperately bent on the exercise of their privileges. Free scope was opened to every whim that enthusiasts might propose as oracles from the skies, to every selfish desire that could lurk under the Quaker garb. 1688. PENNSYLVANIA. 135 But prosperity rose over the clouds of discontent, and the passions of the young apprentices at legislation died away at the adjournments. Peace also was uninterrupted. Once, indeed, it was rumored that on the Brandywine five hundred Indians were assembled to concert a massacre. Immediately Caleb Pusey, with five Friends, hastened- unarmed to the scene of anticipated danger. The sachem repelled the report with indignation ; and the griefs of the tribe were canvassed and assuaged. " The great God, who made all mankind, ex- tends his love to Indians and English. The rain and the dews fall alike on the ground of both ; the sun shines on us equally ; and we ought to love one another." Such was the diplomacy of the Quaker envoy. The king of the Dela- wares answered : " What you say is true. Go home, and harvest the corn God has given you. We intend you no harm." The white man agreed with the red man to love one another. William Penn employed blacks without scruple. The free society of traders, which he chartered and en- couraged, in its first public agreement relating to them, did but substitute, after fourteen years' service, the severe con- dition of adscripts to the soil, for that of slaves. At a later day, he endeavored to secure to the African mental and moral culture, the rights and happiness of domestic life. His efforts were not successful, and he himself died a slaveholder. In his last will, he directed his slaves to be emancipated ; but his direction was not regarded by his heirs. On the' subject of negro slavery, the German mind was least inthralled by prejudice, because Germany had never yet participated in the slave-trade. The Swedish and German colony of Gustavus Adolphus was designed to rest on free labor. If the general meeting of the Quakers for a season forebore a positive judgment, already, in 1688, "the poor hearts" from Kirchheim, "the 1688. little handful " of German Friends from the highlands above the Rhine, came to the resolution that it was not lawful for Christians to buy or to keep negro slaves. This decision of the German emigrants on negro slavery 136 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIV. was taken during the lifetime of George Fox, who recog- nised no distinction of race. " Let your light shine among the Indians, the blacks, and the whites," was his message to Quakers on the Delaware. His heart was with the settle- ments of which he had been the pioneer ; and, a few weeks before his death, he exhorted Friends in America to be the light of the world, the salt to preserve earth from corrup- tion. Covetousness, he adds, is idolatry ; and he bids them beware of that " idol for which so many lose morality and humanity." 1691. On his death-bed, the venerable apostle of equal- Jan. 13. ^^y ^^g \[fiQ^ above the fear of dying, and, esteem- ing the change hardly deserving of mention, his thoughts turned to the New World. Pennsylvania and Delaware and West New Jersey, and in some measure Rhode Island and North Carolina, were Quaker states ; as his spirit, awakening from its converse with shadows, escaped from the exile of fallen humanity, nearly his last words were : *' Mind poor Friends in America." His works praise him. Neither time nor place can dissolve fellowship with his spirit. To his name William Penn left this short epitaph : " Many sons have done virtuously in this day ; but, dear George, thou excellest them all." An opposite system was developed in the dominions of the Duke of York. 1675. NORTHERN COLONIES CONSOLIDATED. 137 CHAPTER XXV. JAMES II. CONSOLIDATES THE NORTHEEN COLONIES. The country which, after the reconquest of New Nether- land, was again conveyed to the Duke of York, in- cluded the New England frontier from the Kennebec junl*29. to the St. Croix, extended continuously to Connecti- cut River, and was bounded on the south by Maryland. We have now to trace an attempt to consolidate the whole coast north of the Delaware. The charter from the king sanctioned whatever ordinances the Duke of York or his assigns might establish ; and in regard to justice, revenue, and legislation, Edmund Andros, the governor, was left responsible only to his own con- science and his employer. He was instructed to display all the humanity and gentleness that could consist with arbi- trary power ; and to use punishments not from wilful cru- elty, but as an instrument of terror. On the last day of October, he received the surrender of the colony from the representatives of the Dutch, and renewed the absolute authority of the proprietary. The inhabitants of the east- ern part of Long Island resolved, in town-meetings, to adhere to Connecticut. The charter certainly did not coun- tenance their decision ; and, unwilling to be declared rebels, they submitted to New York. In the following summer, Andros, with armed ^^^^ sloops, proceeded to Connecticut to vindicate his jurisdiction as far as the river. On the first alarm, William Leet, the aged deputy governor, one of the first seven pillars of the church of Guilford, educated in England as a lawyer, a rigid republican, hospitable even to regicides, con- vened the assembly. A proclamation was unani- Juiyio. mously voted, and forwarded by express to Bull, the 138 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXV. captain of the company on whose firmness the inde- Juiy^ii. pendence of the little colony rested. It arrived just as Andros, hoisting the king's flag, demanded the surrender of Saybrook Fort. Immediately the English colors were raised within the fortress. Despairing of vic- tory, Andros attempted persuasion. Having been allowed to land with his personal retinue, he assumed authority, and in the king's name ordered the duke's patent, with his own commission, to be read. In the king's name, he was com- manded to desist ; and Andros was overawed by the fish- ermen and farmers who formed the colonial troops. Their proclamation he spoke of as a slander, and an ill requital for his intended kindness. The Saybrook militia, escorting him to his boat, saw him sail for Long Island ; and Connecticut, resenting the aggression, made a declaration of its wrongs, sealed it with its seal, and transmitted it to the neighboring plantations. In New York itself Andros was hardly more wel- come than at Saybrook ; for the obedient servant of the Duke of York discouraged every mention of assemblies, and levied customs without the consent of the people. But, since the Puritans of Long Island claimed a representative government as an inalienable English birthright, and the whole population opposed the ruling system as a tyranny, the governor, who was personally free from vicious disposi- tions, advised his master to concede legislative franchises. The dull James II., then Duke of York, of a fair com- plexion and an athletic frame, was patient in details, yet singularly blind to universal principles, plodding with slug- gish diligence, but unable to conform conduct to a general rule. Within narrow limits he reasoned correctly ; but his vision did not extend far. Without sympathy for the crowd, -he had no discernment of character, and was the easy victim of duplicity and intrigue. His loyalty was but devotion to the prerogative which he hoped to inherit. Brave in the face of expected dangers, an unforeseen emer- gency found him pusillanimously helpless. He kept his word sacredly, unless it involved complicated relations, which he could scarcely comprehend. Spiritual religion is 1677. NORTHERN COLONIES CONSOLIDATED. 139 an enfranchising power, expanding and elevating the soul ; a service of forms was analogous to the understanding of James ; to attend mass, to build chapels, to risk the king- dom for a rosary, — this was within his grasp; he had no clear perception of religious truth. Freedom of conscience was, in that age, an idea yet standing on the threshold of the world, waiting to be ushered in ; and none but exalted minds — Roger Williams and Penn, Yane, Fox, and Bunyan — went forth to welcome it ; no glimpse of it 1677. reached James, whose selfish policy, unable to gain immediate dominion for his persecuted priests and his con- fessor, begged at least for toleration. Debauching a woman on promise of marriage, he next allowed her to be traduced as having yielded to frequent prostitution, and then mar- ried her ; he was conscientious, but his moral sense was as slow as his understanding. He was not bloodthirsty ; but to a narrow mind fear seems the most powerful instrument of government, and he propped his throne with the block and the gallows. A libertine without love, a devotee with- out spirituality, an advocate of toleration without a sense of the natural right to freedom of conscience, — in him the muscular force prevailed over the intellectual. He floated between the sensuality of indulgence and the sensuality of superstition, hazarding heaven for an ugly mistress, and, to the great delight of abbots and nuns, winning it back again by pricking his flesh with sharp points of iron, and eating no meat on Saturdays. Of the two brothers, the Duke of Buckingham said well, that Charles would not and James could not see. James put his whole character into his reply to Andros, which is as follows : — " I cannot but suspect assemblies would be of dangerous consequence ; nothing being more known than the aptness of such bodies to assume to themselves many privileges, which prove destructive to,* or very often disturb, the peace of government, when they are allowed. Neither do I see any use for them. Things that need redress may be sure of finding it at the quarter sessions, or by the legal and ordi- nary ways, or, lastly, by appeals to myself. However, I shall be. ready to consider of any proposal you shall send." 140 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXV. In November, some months after the province of Sagada- hock — that is, Maine beyond the Kennebec — had been pro- tected by a fort and a considerable garrison, Andros ^ll\ hastened to England ; but he could not give eyes to 1678. the duke ; and, on his return, he was ordered to con- tinue the duties, which, at the surrender, had been 1679. established for three years. In the next year, the revenue was a little increased. Meantime, the Dutch Calvinists had been inflamed by an attempt to thwart the discipline of the Dutch Reformed Church. Yet it should be added that the taxes were hardly three per cent on im- ports, and really insufficient to meet the expenses of the colony ; and that the claim to exercise prerogative in 1678. the church was abandoned. As in the days of Love- lace, the province was "a terrestrial Canaan. The inhabitants were blessed in their basket and their store. They were free from pride ; and a wagon gave as good content as in Europe a coach, their home-made cloth as the finest lawns. The doors of the low-roofed houses, which luxury never entered, stood wide open to charity and to the stranger." The Island of New York may, in 1678, have contained not far from three thousand inhabitants ; in the whole colony, there could not have been far from twenty thousand. Ministers were scarce but welcome, and relig- ions many ; the poor were relieved, and beggars unknown. A thousand pounds were opulence; the possessor of half that sum was rich. The exports were land productions — wheat, lumber, tobacco — and peltry from the Indians. In the community, composed essentially of farmers, great equality of condition prevailed ; there were but " few mer- chants," "few servants, and very few slaves." Prompted by an exalted instinct, the people demanded power to govern themselves. Discontent created a 1681. popular convention; and if the two Platts, Titus, Wood, and Wicks of Huntington, arbitrarily sum- moned to New York, were still more arbitrarily thrown into prison, the purpose of the yeomanry remained unshaken. The government of New York was quietly maintained over the settlements south and west of the Delaware, till 1682. NORTHERN COLONIES CONSOLIDATED. 141 they were granted to Penn ; over the Jerseys Androa claimed a paramount authority. We have seen the Quakers refer the contest for decision to an English commission. In East New Jersey, Philip Carteret had, as the deputy of Sir George, resumed the government, and, gaining popularity by postponing the payment of quit- rents, confirmed liberty of conscience with representative government. A direct trade with England, unencumbered by customs, was encouraged. The commerce of New York was endangered by the competition ; and, disregard- ing a second patent from the Duke of York, Andros qcI%^ claimed that the ships of New Jersey should pay tribute at Manhattan. After long altercations and the arrest of Carteret, terminated only by the honest verdict of a New York jury, Andros again entered New Jersey, to intimidate its assembly by the royal patent to the j^^q'2, duke. The people of New Jersey could not, as in the happier Connecticut, plead an earlier grant from the king. But when were Puritans at a loss for arguments in favor of freedom? "We are the representatives of the freeholders of this province : " such was the answer of the assembly; "his majesty's patent, though under the great seal, we dare not grant to be our rule or joint safety ; for the great charter of England, alias Magna Charta, is the only rule, privilege, and joint safety of every free-born Englishman." The firmness of the legislature preserved the indepen- dence of New Jersey ; the decision of Sir William Jones pro- tected its people against arbitrary taxation ; its prosperity sprung from the miseries of Scotland. The trustees of Sir George Carteret, tired of the burden of colonial property, exposed their province to sale ; and the unappropriated domain, with jurisdiction over the five thousand 1682 already planted on the soil, was purchased by an Feb.* association of twelve Quakers, under the auspices of William Penn. A brief account of the province was im- mediately published ; and settlers were allured by a reason- able eulogy on its healthful climate and safe harbors, its fisheries and abundant game, its forests and fertile soil, and 142 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXV. the large liberties established for the encouragement 1682. of adventurers. In November, 1682, possession was taken by Thomas Rudyard, as temporary deputy governor ; the happy country was already tenanted by " a sober, professing people." Meantime, the twelve proprie- tors selected each a partner; and, in March, 1683, to the twenty-four, among whom was the timorous, cruel, ini- quitous Perth, afterwards chancellor of Scotland, and the amiable, learned, and ingenious Barclay, who became nom- inally the governor of the territory, a new and latest u&rhi. patent of East New Jersey was granted by the Duke of York. From Scotland the largest emigration was expected ; and, in 1685, just before embarking for America with his own family and about two hundred passengers, George Scot of Pitlochie addressed to his countrymen an argument in favor of removing to a country where there was room for a man to flourish without wronging his 1685. neighbor. " It is judged the interest of the govern- ment " — thus he wrote, apparently with the sanction of men in power — "to suppress Presbyterian principles altogether ; the whole force of the law of this kingdom is levelled at the effectual bearing them down. The rigorous putting these laws in execution hath in a great part ruined many of those who, notwithstanding thereof, find themselves in conscience obliged to retain these principles. A retreat, where, by law, a toleration is allowed, doth at present offer itself in America, and is nowhere else to be found in- his majesty's^ dominions." This is the era at which East New Jersey, till now chiefly colonized from New England, became the asylum of Scottish Presbyterians. Who has not heard of the ruthless crimes by which the Stuarts attempted to supplant the church of Scotland, and extirpate the faith of a whole people? To whom has the tale not been told of the defeat of 1679. Graham of Claverhouse on Loudon Hill, and the subsequent rout of the insurgent fanatics at Bothwell Bridge ? Of the Cameronians, hunted like beasts of prey, and exasperated by sufferings and despair ? refusing, in face of the gallows, to say, " God save the king ; " and charged 1684. NORTHERN COLONIES CONSOLIDATED. 148 even by their wives to die for the good old cause of the covenant? "I am but twenty," said an innocent girl at her execution ; " and they can accuse me of I68O. nothing but my judgment." The boot and <'he thurabikins could not extort confessions. The con- demnation of Argyle displayed the prime nobility as lesi. "the vilest of mankind;" and wide-spread cruelty I682. exhausted itself in devising punishments. Just after 1683. the grant of East New Jersey, a proclamation, un- paralleled since the days when Alva drove the Netherlands into independence, proscribed all who had ever communed with rebels, and put twenty thousand lives at the mercy of informers. " It were better," said Lauderdale, " the country bore windle straws and sand larks than boor rebels to the king." After the insurrection of Monmouth, 1684. the sanguinary excesses of despotic revenge were revived, gibbets erected in villages to intimidate the people, and soldiers intrusted with the execution of the laws. Scarce a Presbyterian family in Scotland but was involved in proscriptions or penalties ; the jails overflowed, and their tenants were sold as slaves to the plantations. Maddened by the succession of military murders ; driven from their homes to caves, from caves to morasses and mountains ; bringing death to the inmates of a house that should shelter them, death to the benefactor that should throw them food, death to the friend that listened to their complaint, death to the wife or the father that still dared to solace a husband or a son ; ferreted out by spies ; hunted with packs of dogs, — the fanatics turned upon their pur- suers, and threatened to retaliate on the men who should continue to imbrue their hands in blood. The council re- torted by ordering a massacre. He that would not take the oath should be executed, though unarmed; and the recusants were shot on the roads, or as they labored in the fields, or as they stood in prayer. To fly was a confession of guilt ; to excite suspicion was sentence of death ; to own the covenant was treason. The houses of the victims were set on fire; their families shipped for the colonies. "It never will be well with Scotland, till the country south of 144 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXV. the Forth is reduced to a hunting-field." The remark is ascribed to James. "I doubt not, sir, but to be able to propose a way how to gratifie all such as your majestie shall be pleased to thinke deserving of it, without touching your exchequer," wrote Jeffries to James II., just as he had passed sentence of transportation on hundreds of Mon- mouth's English followers. James II. sent the hint to the north, and in Scotland the business was equally well 1685. understood. The indemnity proclaimed on the ac- cession of James II. was an act of delusive clemency. Every day wretched fugitives were tried by a jury of soldiers, and executed in clusters on the highways; women, fastened to stakes beneath the sea-mark, were drowned by the rising tide ; the dungeons were crowded with men perishing for want of water and air. The humanity of the government was barbarous ; of the shoals transported to America, women were often burnt in the cheek, men marked by lopping off their ears. Is it strange that Scottish Presbyterians of virtue, edu- cation, and courage, blending a love of popular liberty with religious enthusiasm, hurried to East New Jersey in 168?! ^^^^ numbers as to give to the rising commonwealth a character which a century and a half has not effaced? In 1686, after the judicial murder of the Duke of Argyle, his brother. Lord Neill Campbell, who had pur- chased the proprietary right of Sir George Mackenzie, and in the previous year had sent over a large number of settlers, came himself to act for a few months as chief magistrate. When Campbell withdrew, the executive power, weakened by transfers, was intrusted by him to Andrew Hamilton. The territory, easy of access, flanked on the west by out- posts of Quakers, was the abode of peace and abundance, of deep religious faith and honest industry. Peaches and vines grew wild on the river sides; the woods were crimsoned with strawberries; and "brave oysters" abounded along the shore. Brooks and rivulets, with " curious clear water," were as plenty as in the dear native Scotland ; the houses of the towns, unlike the pent villages of the old world, were scattered upon the several lots and farms ; the high- 1683. NORTHERN COLONIES CONSOLIDATED. 145 ways were so broad, that flocks of sheep could nibble by the roadside ; troops of horses multiplied in the woods. In a few years, a law of the commonwealth, giving force to the common principle of the New England and the Scottish Calvinists, established a system of free schools. It was " a gallant, plentiful" country, where the humblest laborer might soon turn farmer for himself. In all its borders, said Gawen Laurie, the faithful Quaker merchant, who had been Rudyard's successor, " there is not a poor body, or one that wants." The mixed character of New Jersey springs from the different sources of its people. Puritans, Covenanters, and Quakers met on her soil ; and their faith, institutions, and preferences, having life in the common mind, survive the Stuarts. Every thing breathed hope, but for the arbitrary cupidity of James II., and the navigation acts. Dyer, the collector, eager to levy a tax on the commerce of the colony, com- plained of their infringement ; in April, 1686, a writ of quo warranto against the proprietaries menaced New Jersey with being made " more dependent." It was of no avail to appeal to the justice of King James, who revered the pre- rogative with idolatry ; and in 1688, to stay the process for forfeiture, the proprietaries, stipulating only for their right of property in the soil, surrendered their claim to the juris- diction. The province was annexed to New York. In New York, the attempt to levy customs without jggg a colonial assembly had been defeated by the grand ^i*'"''^* jury, and trade became free, just as Andros was returning to England. All parties joined in entreating for the people a share in legislation. The Duke of York temporized. The provincial revenue had expired ; the ablest lawyers in England questioned his right to renew it ; the province op- posed its collection with a spirit that required com- pliance, and in January, 1683, the newly appointed 1683. governor, Thomas Dongan, nephew of Tyrconnell, a Roman Catholic, was instructed to call a general assembly of all the freeholders, by the persons whom they should choose to represent them. Accordingly, on the seventeenth VOL. II. 10 146 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXV. of the following October, about seventy years after Man- hattan was first occupied, about thirty years after the de- mand of the popular convention by the Dutch, the people of New York met in assembly, and by their first act claimed the rights of Englishmen. " Supreme legislative power," such was their further declaration " shall for ever be and reside in the governor, council, and people, met in general assembly. Every freeholder and freeman shall vote for representation without restraint. No freeman shall suffer but by judgment of his peers ; and all trials shall be by a jury of twelve men. No tax shall be assessed, on any pretence whatever, but by the consent of the assembly. No seaman or soldier shall be quartered on the inhabitants against their will. No martial law shall exist. No person, professing faith in God by Jesus Christ, shall at any time be any ways dis- quieted or questioned for any difference of opinion." Thus did New York, by its self -enacted " charter of franchises and privileges," take its place by the side of Virginia and Mas- sachusetts, surpassing them both in religious toleration. The proprietary accepted the revenue granted by the legislature for a limited period, permitted another session to be held, and promised to make no alterations in the form or matter of the bill containing the franchises and privileges of 1685. the colony, except for its advantage ; but in 1685, in less than a month after James II. had ascended the throne, he prepared to overturn the institutions which he had conceded. A direct tax was decreed by an. ordi- nance ; the titles to real estate were questioned, that larger fees and quit-rents might be extorted ; and, of the farmers of Easthampton who protested against the tyranny, six were arraigned before the council. While the liberties of New York were sequestered by a monarch who desired to imitate the despotism of France, its frontiers had no protection against encroachments from Canada, except in the valor of the Iroquois. The Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas,' Cayugas, and Senecas, the Five Na- tions, dwelling near the river and the lakes that retain their names, formed a confederacy of equal tribes. The union of three of the nations precedes tradition; the Oneidas 1685. NORTHERN COLONIES CONSOLIDATED. 147 and Senecas were younger associates. Each nation was a sovereign republic, divided again into clans, between which a slight subordination was scarcely perceptible. The clans- men dwelt in fixed places of abode, surrounded by fields of beans and of maize ; each castle, like a New England town or a Saxon hundred, constituted a little democracy. There was no slavery, no favored caste. All men were equal. The union was confirmed by an unwritten compact; the congress of the sachems, at Onondaga, like the Witena- gemots of the Anglo-Saxons, transacted all common busi- ness. Authority resided in opinion ; law in oral tradition. Honor and esteem enforced obedience; shame and contempt punished offenders. The leading warrior was elected by the general confidence in his virtue and conduct; merit alone could obtain preferment to office ; and power was as permanent as the esteem of the tribe. No profit was attached to eminent station, to tempt the sordid. As their brave men went forth to war, instead of martial instru- ments, they were cheered by the clear voice of their leader. On the smooth surface of a tree from which the outer bark had been peeled, they painted their deeds of valor by the simplest symbols. These were their trophies and their annals ; these and their war-songs preserved the memory of their heroes. They proudly deemed themselves supreme among mankind ; men excelling all others ; and hereditary arrogance inspired their young men with dauntless courage. When Hudson, John Smith, and Champlain were in Amer- ica together, the Mohawks had extended their strolls from the St. Lawrence to Virginia ; half Long Island paid them tribute ; and a Mohawk sachem was reverenced on Massa- chusetts Bay. The geographical position of their fixed abodes, including within their immediate sway the head- lands not of the Hudson only, but of the rivers that flow to the Gulfs of Mexico and St. Lawrence, the Bays of Chesa- peake and Delaware, opened widest regions to their canoes, and invited them to make their war-paths along the chan- nels w^here New York and Pennsylvania are now perfecting the avenues of commerce. Becoming possessed of fire- arms by intercourse with the Dutch, they renewed their 148 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXV. 1649. merciless, hereditary warfare with the Hurons ; and, 1653 to in the following years, the Eries, on the south shore ^^^' of the lake of which the name commemorates their 1656 to existence, were defeated and extirpated. The AUe- ^^^2- ghany was next descended ; and the tribes near Pitts- burg, probably of the Huron race, leaving no monument but a name to the Guyandot River of Western Virginia, were subjugated and destroyed. In the east and in the west, fron the Kennebec to the Missisvsippi, the Abenakis as well as the Miamis and the remoter Illinois, could raise no barrier against the invasions of the Iroquois but by alliances with the French. But the Five Nations had defied a prouder enemy. At the commencement of the administration of Dongan, 1676. the European population of New France, which, in 1679, amounted to eight thousand five hundred and fifteen souls, may have been a little more than ten thou- sand ; the number of men capable of bearing arms was perhaps three thousand, about the number of warriors of the Five Nations. But the Iroquois were freemen ; New France suffered from despotism and monopoly. The Iro- quois recruited their tribes by adopting captives of foreign nations ; New France was sealed against the foreigner and the heretic. For nearly fourscore years, hostilities had prevailed, with few interruptions. Thrice did Champlain invade the country of the Mohawks, till he was ^1615!^ driven with wounds and disgrace from their wilder- ness fastnesses. The Five Nations, in return, at the I623! period of the massacre in Virginia, attempted the destruction of New France. Though repulsed, they continued to defy the province and its allies, and, 1637. under the eyes of its governor, openly intercepted canoes destined for Quebec. The French authority 1640. was not confirmed by founding a feeble outpost at 1642. Montreal ; and Fort Richelieu, at the mouth of the 1645. Sorel, scarce protected its inimediate environs. Nego- tiations for peace led to no permanent result ; and even the influence of the Jesuit missionaries, the most faithful, disinterested, and persevering of their order, could 1683. NORTHERN COLONIES CONSOLIDATED. 149 not effectually restrain the sanguinary vengeance of the barbarians. The Iroquois warriors scoured every wilderness to lay it still more waste ; they thirsted for the blood of the few men who roamed over the regions between Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario. Depopulating the 1649. whole country on the Ottawa, they obtained an ac- knowledged superiority over New France, mitigated only by commercial relations of the French traders with the tribes that dwelt farthest from the Hudson. The i654, colony was still in perpetual danger ; and Quebec itself was besieged. A winter's invasion of the country of the Mohawks 1666. was useless. The savages disappeared, leaving their European adversaries to war with the wilderness. By degrees the French made firmer advances ; and a fort built at the outlet of Ontario, for the j^urpose, as was pretended, of having a convenient place for treaties, commanded the commerce of the lake. We have seen the Mohawks brighten the covenant i673. chain that bound them to the Dutch. The English, on recovering the banks of the Hudson, confirmed without delay the Indian alliance, and, by the confidence with which their friendship inspired the Iroquois, increased the dan- gers that hovered over New France. The ruin which menaced Canada gave a transient existence to a large legislative council ; and an assem- J^g^ bly of notables was convoked by De la Barre, the governor-general, to devdse a remedy for the ills under which the settlements languished. It marks the character of the colonists, that, instead of demanding civil franchises, they solicited a larger garrison from Louis XIV. The governor of New York had been instructed to 1683. preserve friendly relations with the French ; but Dongan refused to neglect the Five Nations. From the French traders who were restrained by a strict monopoly, the wild hunters of beaver turned to the English, who favored competition ; and their mutual ties were strength- ened by an amnesty of past injuries. Along the war-paths of the Five Nations, down the Sua- 150 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXV. quehannah, and near the highlands of Virginia, the proud Oneida, Onondaga, and Cayuga warriors had left bloody traces of their presence. The impending struggle with New France quickened the desire of renewing peace Juiy*i3. "^^^^ t^® English ; and the deputies from the Mo- hawks and the three offending tribes, soon joined by the Senecas, met the governors of New York and Virginia at Albany. To the complaints and the pacific proposals of Lord Howard of Effingham, Cadianne, the Mohawk orator, July 14. replied : " Sachem of Virginia, and you, Corlaer, sachem of New York, give ear, for we will not con- ceal the evil that has been done." The orator then rebuked the Oneidas, Onondagas, and Cayugas, for their want of faith, and gave them a belt of wampum, to quicken their memory. Then, turning to Effingham, he continued : " Great sachem of Virginia, these three beaver-skins are a token of our gladness that your heart is softened ; these two, of our joy that the axe is to be buried. We are glad that you will bury in the pit what is past. Let the earth be trod hard over it; let a strong stream run under the pit, to wash the evil away out of our sight and remembrance, so that it never may be digged up. You are wise to keep the covenant chain bright as silver, and now to renew it and make it stronger. These nations are chain-breakers; we Mohawks," — as he spoke he gave two beavers and a rac- coon, — "we Mohawks have kept the chain entire. ■ The covenant must be preserved; the fire of love of Virginia and Maryland, and of the Five Nations, burns in this place : this house of peace must be kept clean. We plant a tree whose top shall touch the sun, whose branches shall be seen afar. We will shelter ourselves under it, and live in unmo- lested peace." At the conclusion of the treaty, each of the three offend- i»ig nations gave a hatchet to be buried. " We bury none for ourselves," said the Mohawks, " for we have never broken the ancient chain." The axes were buried, and the offending tribes in noisy rapture chanted the song of peace. 1684. NORTHERN COLONIES CONSOLIDATED. 351 " Brother Corlaer," said a chief for the Onondagas ^^^^ and Cayugas, " your sachem is a great sachem ; and ^"S- 2. we are a small people. When the English came first to Manhattan, to Yirginia, and to Maryland, they were a small people, and we were great. Because we found you a good people, we treated you kindly, and gave you land. Now, therefore, that you are great and we small, we hope you will protect us from the French. They are angry with us because we carry beaver to our brethren." The envoys of the Senecas soon arrived, and ex- Aug. 5. pressed their delight that the tomahawk was already buried, and all evil put away from the hearts of the English sachems. On the same day, a messenger from De la Barre appeared at Albany. But his complaints were unheeded. " We have not wandered from our paths," said the Senecas. " But when Onondio, the sachem of Canada, threatens us with war, shall we run away? Shall we sit still in our houses? Our beaver-hunters are brave men, and the beaver- hunt must be free." The sachems returned to nail the arms of the Duke of York over their castles ; a protection, as they thought, against the French, an acknowledgment, as the English deemed, of British sovereignty. Meantime, the rash and confident De la Barre, with six hundred French soldiers, four hundred Indian allies, four hundred carriers, and three hundred men for a garrison, advanced to the fort which stood near the outlet of the present Rideau Canal. But the exhalations of August on the marshy borders of Ontario disabled his army ; and, after crossing the lake, and disembarking his wasted troops in the land of the Onondagas, he was compelled to solicit peace from the tribes whom he had designed to exterminate. The Mohawks, at the request of the English, refused to negotiate ; but the other nations, jealous of English suprem- acy, desired to secure independence by bal.incing the French against the English. An Onondaga chief called Heaven to witness his resentment at English interference. " Onondio," he proudly exclaimed to the envoy of New York, " Onondio has for ten years been our father ; Corlaer has Ions: been our brother. But it is because we have 152 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXV. willed it so. Neither the one nor the other is our master. He who made the world gave us the land in which we dwell. We are free. You call us subjects ; we say we are breth- ren ; we must take care of ourselves. I will go to my father, for he has come to my gate, and desires to speak with me words of reason. We will embrace peace instead of war ; the axe shall be thrown into a deep water." ' The deputies of the tribes repaired to the presence of De la Barre to exult in his humiliation. " It is well for you," said the eloquent Haaskouaun, rising from the calumet, " that you have left under ground the hatchet which has so often been dyed in the blood of the French. Our children and old men had carried their bows and arrows into the heart of your camp, if our braves had not kept them back. Our warriors have not beaver enough to pay for the arms we have taken from the French ; and our old men are not afraid of war. We may guide the English to our lakes. We are born free. We depend neither on Onondio nor Corlaer." Dismayed by the energy of the Seneca chief, the governor of Canada accepted a disgraceful treaty, leaving his allies at the mercy of their enemies. Meantime, fresh troops arrived from France ; and De la Bnrre was superseded by Denonville, an officer whom Charlevoix extols as possessing, in a sovereign degree, every quality of a perfectly honorable man. His example, it is said, made virtue and religion more respectable ; his 1685. tried valor and active zeal were enhanced by prudence and sagacity. But blind obedience paralyzes con- science and enslaves reason ; and quiet pervaded neither the Five Nations nor the English provinces. For the defence of New France, a fort -was to be estab- lished at Niagara. The design, which would have jj^y controlled the fur-trade of the upper lakes, was resisted by Dongan ; for, it was said, the country south of the lakes, the whole domain of the Iroquois, is subject to England. Thus began the long contest May 22. for territory in the west. The limits between the English and French never were settled ; but, for the present, the Five Nations of themselves were a sufficient 1687. NORTHERN COLONIES CONSOLIDATED. 153 bulwark against encroachments from Canada, and in the Bummer of 1686 a party of English traders penetrated even to Michilimackinac. The gentle spirit which swayed William Penn at Shak- amaxon did not find its way into the voluptuous councils of Versailles. " The welfare of my service," such were the instructions of Louis XIV. to the governor of New France, " requires that the number of the Iroquois should be dimin- ished as much as possible. They are strong and robust, and can be made useful as galley-slaves. Do what you can to take a large number of them prisoners of war, and ship them for France." By open hostilities, no i687. captives could be made ; and Lamberville, the mis- sionary among the Onondagas, was unconsciously employed to decoy the Iroquois chiefs into the fort on Ontario. In- vited to negotiate a treaty, they assemble without distrust, are surprised, put in irons, hurried to Quebec, and thence to Europe, and the warrior hunters of the Five Nations, who used to roam from Hudson's Bay to Carolina, were chained to the oar in the galleys of Marseilles. Meantime, the old men of the Onondagas summoned Lamberville to their presence. " We have much reason," said an aged chief, "to treat thee as an enemy; but we know thee too well. Thou hast betrayed us ; but treason was not in thy heart. Fly, therefore, for, when our young braves shall have sung their war-song, they will listen to no voice but the swelling voice of their anger." And trusty guides conducted the missionary through by-paths into a place of security. The noble forbearance was due to the counsel of Garonkonthie. An incursion into the country of the Senecas followed. The savages retired into remoter forests ; of the domain which was overrun without resistance, possession was taken by the French, and a fort erected at the point where the Niagara pours its waters into Lake Ontario. France seemed to have gained firm possession of Western New York. But, as the French army withdrew, the wilderness remained to its old inhabitants. The Senecas in their turn made a descent upon their still feebler enemy ; and the Onondagas 154 COLONIAL HISTOKY. Chap. XXV. threatened war. " Onondio has stolen our saohems ; he has broken," said they, "the covenant of peace;" and Dongan, at the solicitation of the French, offered himself as mediator, but only on condition that the kidnapped chiefs should be ransomed, the fort in the Iroquois country razed, and the spoils of the Senecas restored. 1688 "^^^^ negotiations fail ; and Haaskouaun advances with five hundred warriors to dictate the terms of peace. " I have always loved the French," said the proud chieftain to the foes whom he scorned. " Our warriors proposed to come and burn your forts, your houses, your granges, and your corn ; to weaken you by famine, and then to overwhelm you. I am come to tell Onondio he can escape this misery, if within four days he will yield to the terms which Corlaer has proposed." Twelve hundred Iroquois were already on Lnke St. Francis ; in two days they could reach Montreal. The haughty condescension of the Seneca chief was accepted, the ransom of the Iroquois chiefs conceded, and the whole country south of the chain of lakes rescued from the dominion of Canada. In the course of events, New York owes its present northern boundary to the valor of the Five Nations. But for them Canada would have embraced the basin of the St. Lawrence. 1686. During these events, James II. had, in a treaty ^^^' with Louis Xiy., made it a condition of amity be- tween the colonies of the two states that neither should assist the Indian tribes with whom the other might be at war. Thus did the king of England ignorantly abandon his allies. Yet, with all his faults, James II. had a strong sentiment of English nationality ; and, in consolidating the northern colonies, he hoped to engage the energies of New England in defence of the whole English frontier. The alarm of Massachusetts at the loss of its charter had been increased by the news that Kirke, after- wards infamous for military massacres in the west of Eng- land, was destined for its governor. It was a relief to find that Joseph Dudley, a degenerate son of the colony, was intrusted for a season with the highest powers of magistracy 1688. NORTHERN COLONIES CONSOLIDATED. 155 over the country from Narragansett to Nova Scotia. The general court, in session at his arrival, and un- May^i'5. prepared for open resistance, dissolved their assembly, and returned in sadness to their homes. The charter government was publicly displaced by the arbitrary May 25. commission, popular representation abolished, and the press subjected to the censorship of Randolph. Nov. 29. At last. Sir Edmund Andros, glittering in scarlet Dec. 20. and lace, landed at Boston, as governor of all New England. How unlike Penn at Newcastle ! He was au- thorized to remove and appoint members of his council, and, with their consent, to make laws, lay taxes, and control the militia of the country. He was instructed to tolerate no printing-press, to encourage Episcopacy, and to sustain authority by force. From New York came West as secre- tary. In the council, there were four subservient members, of whom but one was a New England man. The other mem- bers formed a fruitless but united opposition. " His excel- lency," said Randolph, " has to do with a perverse people." A series of measures followed, the most vexatious and tyrannical to which men of English descent were ever exposed. "The wicked walked on every side; and the vilest men were exalted." As agents of James II., they established an arbitrary government ; as men in office, they coveted large emoluments. The schools of learning, formerly so well taken care of, were allowed to go to decay. The religious institutions were impaired by abolishing the methods of their support. " It is pleasant," said the foreign agents of tyranny, " to behold poor coblers and pitiful mechanics, who have neither home nor land, strutting and making noe mean figure at their elections, and some of the richest merchants and wealthiest of the people stand by as insignificant cyphers ; " and therefore a town-meeting was al- mI^ig. lowed only for the choice of town officers. The vote by ballot was rejected. To a committee from Lynn, Andros said plainly : " There is no such thing as a town in the whole country." To assemble in town-meeting for deliberation was an act of sedition or a riot. 156 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXV. 1687. Personal liberty and the customs of the country- were disregarded. None might leave the colony without a special permit. Probate fees were increased almost twenty-fold. " West," says Randolph, — for dis- honest men betray one another, — " extorts what fees he pleases, to the great oppression of the people, and renders the present government grievous." To the scrupulous Puritans, the idolatrous custom of laying the hand on the Bible, in taking an oath, operated as a widely disfranchising test. The Episcopal service had never yet been performed within Massachusetts Bay, except by the chaplain of the hated commission of 1665. Its day of liberty was j^; come. Andros demanded one of the meeting-houses for the church. The wrongs of a century crowded on the memories of the Puritans, as they answered : " We cannot with a good conscience consent." Goodman Need- ham declared he would not ring the bell ; but at the illf/25. f^ppointed hour the bell rung ; and the love of liberty did not expire, even though, in a Boston meeting- house, the Common Prayer was read in a surplice. Jiufe23, ^y ^^^ ^y» ^^^ people were desired to contribute towards erecting a church. " The bishops," answered Sewall, " would have thought strange to have been asked to contribute towards setting up New England churches." At the instance and with the special concurrence of James II., a tax of a penny in the pound and a poll-ta^x of mS?^3. twenty pence, with a subsequent increase of duties, were laid by Andros and his council. The towns generally refused payment. Wilbore, of Taunton, was im- prisoned for writing a protest. To the people of Aug. 23. Ipswich, then the second town in the colony, in town- meeting, John Wise, the minister who used to assert, "Democracy is Christ's government in church and state," advised resistance. " We have," said he, " a good God and a good king ; we shall do well to stand to our privileges." " You have no privilege," answered one of the council, after the arraignment of Wise and the selectmen, "you have no privilege left you but not to be sold as slaves." 1688. NORTHERN COLONIES CONSOLIDATED. 157 " Do you believe," demanded Andros, " Joe and Tom may- tell the king what money he may have ? " The writ of habeas corpus was withheld. .The prisoners pleaded Magna Charta. " Do not think," replied one of the judges, " the laws of England follow you to the ends of the earth." And in his charge to the packed jury, Dudley spoke plainly : " Worthy gentlemen, we expect a good verdict from you." The verdict followed ; and after imprisonment came heavy fines and partial disfranchisements. Oppression threatened the country with ruin ; and the oppressors, quoting an opinion current among the mercan- tile monopolists of England, answered without disguise: "It is not for his majesty's interest you should thrive." The taxes, in amount not grievous, were for pub- lesz. lie purposes. But the lean wolves of tyranny were ^^^^• themselves hungry for spoils. In 1680, Randolph had hinted that " the Bostoneers have no right to government or land, but are usurpers." It was the intention of King James that " their several properties, according to their ancient records," should be granted them ; the fee for the grants was the excuse for extortion. " All the inhabitants," wrote Randolph, exultingly, " must take new grants of their lands, which will bring in vast profits." Indeed there was not money enough in the country to have paid the exorbi- tant fees which were demanded. The colonists pleaded their charter; but grants under the charter were declared void by its forfeiture. Lynde, of Charlestown, produced an Indian deed. It was pronounced " worth no more than the scratch of a bear's paw." Lands were "held not by a feudal tenure, but under grants from the general court to towns, and from towns to individuals. The town of Lynn produced its records ; they were slighted " as not worth a rush." Others pleaded possession and use of the land. " You take possession," it was answered, " for the king." "The men of Massachusetts did much quote Lord Coke;" but, defeated in argument by Andros, who was a good lawyer, John Higginson, minister of Salem, went back from the common law of England to the book of Genesis, and, remembeiing that God gave the earth to the 158 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXV. sons of Adam to be subdued and replenished, declared that the people of New England held their lands " by the grand charter from God." And Andros, incensed, bade him ap- prove himself " a subject or a rebel." The lands reserved for the poor, generally all common lands, were appropriated by favorites ; writs of intrusion were multiplied ; and fees, amounting, in some cases, to one fourth the value of an estate, were exacted for granting a patent to its owner. A selected jury offered no relief. " Our condition," Oc?22. ^^^^ Danforth, " is little inferior to absolute slavery ; " and the people of Lynn afterwards gave thanks to God for their escape from the worst of bondage. " The governor invaded liberty and property after such a man- ner," said the temperate Increase Mather, " as no man could say any thing was his own." By the additional powers and instructions of June, 1686, Andros was authorized to demand the Rhode Island char- ter, and to receive that of Connecticut, if tendered to him. Against the charter of Rhode Island a writ of quo warranto had been issued. The judgment against Massachusetts left no hope of protection from courts submissive to the royal will ; and the Quakers, acting under instructions from May\ *^® towns, resolved not " to stand suit," but to appeal to the conscience of the king for the " privileges and liberties granted by Charles II., of blessed memory." Flowers were strown on the tomb of Nero ; the colony of Rhode Island had cause to bless the memory of Charles II. Soon after the arrival of Andros, he demanded the surren- der of the charter. "Walter Clarke, the governor, insisted on waiting for " a fitter season." Repairing to Rhode jsS^iz. Island, Andros, in January, 1687, dissolved its gov- ernment and broke its seal ; five of its citizens were appointed members of his council, and a commission, irre- sponsible to the people, was substituted for the suspended system of freedom. That the magistrates levied moderate taxes, payable in wool or other produce, is evident from the records. It was pretended that the people of Rhode Island were satisfied, and did not so much as petition for their charter again. 1687. NORTHERN COLONIES CONSOLmATED, 159 In the autumn of the same year, Andros, attended jgg^ by some of his council, and by an armed guard, set ^^^- 26- forth to assume the government of Connecticut. How un- like the march of Hooker and his peaceful flock ! Dongan had in vain solicited the people of Connecticut to submit to his jurisdiction ; yet they desired, least of all, to hazard, the continuance of liberty on the decision of the dependent English courts. On the third writ of quo warranto, the colony, in a petition to the king, asserted its chartered rights, yet desired, in any event, rather to share the for- tunes of Massachusetts than to be annexed to New York. Andros found the assembly in session, and Oct. 3i. demanded the surrender of its charter. The brave governor Treat pleaded earnestly for the cherished patent, which had been purchased by sacrifices and martyrdoms, and was endeared by halcyon days. The shades of evening descended during the prolonged discussion ; an anxious crowd had gathered to witness the debate. Tradition loves to relate that the charter lay on the table ; that of a sud- den the lights were extinguished, and, when they were re- kindled, the charter had disappeared. It is certain that " in this very troublesome season, when the constitution of Connecticut was struck at. Captain Joseph Wadsworth, of Hartford, rendered fruitful and good service in securing the duplicate charter of the colony, and safely keeping and preserving the same " for nearly eight-and-twenty years. The precious parchment may for a time have lain concealed in the hollow of an oak. Meantime Andros assumed the government, selected councillors, and, demanding the rec- ords of Connecticut, to the annals of its freedom set the word Finis. One of his few laws prohibited town-meet- ings except for the election of officers. The colonists sub- mitted ; yet their consciences were afterwards " troubled at their hasty surrender." If Connecticut lost its liberties, the eastern frontier was depopulated. An expedition against the French establish- ments, which have left a name to Castine, roused the pas- sions of the neighboring Indians ; and Andros, after a short deference to the example of Penn, made a vain pursuit 160 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXV. 1688. of a retreating enemy, who had for their powerful allies the savage forests and the inclement winter. July. Not long after the first excursion to the east, the whole seaboard from Maryland to the St. Croix was united in one extensive despotism. The entire dominion, of which Boston, the largest English town in the New "World, was the capital, was abandoned to Andros, its governor-general, and to Randolph, its secretary, with his needy associates. But the impoverished country disap- pointed avarice. The eastern part of Maine had already been pillaged by agents, who had been — it is Randolph's own statement — " as arbitrary as the Grand Turk ; " and in New York, also, there was, as Randolph expressed it, " little good to be done," for its people " had been squeezed dry by Dongan." But, on the arrival of the new July 30. commission, Andros hastened to the south to super- sede his hated rival, and assume the government of New York and New Jersey. 1687. The spirit which led forth the colonies of New 1688. England kept their liberties alive ; in the general gloom, the ministers preached sedition and planned resist- ance. Once at least, to the great anger of the governor, they put by thanksgiving ; and at private fasts they besought the Lord to repent himself for his servants, whose power was gone. The enlightened Moody refused to despair, con- fident that God would yet " be exalted among the heathen." 1688. On the Lord's Day, which was to have been the Apr. 29. ^g^y qI thanksgiving for the queen's pregnancy, the church was much grieved at the weakness of Allen, who, from the literal version of the improved Bay Psalm Book, gave out, — Jehovah, in thy strength The king shall joyful be. And joy in thy salvation, How vehemently shall hee ! Thou granted hast to him That which his heart desired. But Willard, while before prayer he read, among many other notices, the occasion of the governor's gratitude, and, after Puritan usage, interceded largely for the king, "otherwise altered not his course one jot," and, as the crisis drew near, goaded the people with the text, " Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, warring against sin." 1667. THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 161 CHAPTER XXYI. "^C^ \ THE REYOLUTIOIS- OF 1688. Desperate measures were postponed, that one of the ministers might make an appeal to the king-; .,and Increase Mather, escaping the vigilance of Randolph, embarked on the dangerous mission for redress. But relief came from a revolution of which the influence was to pervade the world. On the restoration of Charles II., the Puritan or leeo to republican element lost all hope of gaining dominion ; ^^^^" and the history of England, during its next period, is but the history of the struggle for a compromise between the republican and the monarchical principle. The contest for freedom was continued, yet within limits so narrow as never to endanger the existence, or even question the right, of monarchy itself. The people had attempted a democratic revolution, and had failed ; no longer struggling to control events, it was now willing to wait and watch the move- ments of the men of property of the country. The ministry of Clarendon, the first after the res- leco to toration, acknowledged the indefeasible sovereignty ^^^^' of the king, and sought in the prelates and high nobility the natural allies to the royal prerogative. Its policy, not destitute of honest nationality, nor wholly regardless of English liberties, yet renewed intolerance in religion ; and, while it respected a balance of powers, claimed the prepon- derance in the state for the monarch. But twenty years of freedom had rendered the suppression of dissent from the church of England more than ever impossible. The country was dissatisfied ; ceasing to desire a republic, it still demanded greater security for freedom. But, as no general election for parliament was held, a change of VOL. II. 11 162 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVL ministry could be effected only by a faction within the palace. The royal -council sustained Clarendon ; the rakes about court, railing at his moroseness, echoed the popular clamor against him. His overthrow " was certainly de- signed in Lady Castlemaine's chamber;" and, as he retired at noonday from the audience of dismission, she ran un- dressed from bed into her aviary, to enjoy the spectacle of the fallen minister, and " bless herself at the old man's going away." The gallants of Whitehall crowded to "talk to her in her bird-cage." " You," said they to her, as they glanced at the retiring chancellor, " you are the bird of passage." 1668 to The administration of the king's cabal followed. 1671. England had demanded a liberal ministry ; it ob- tained a dissolute one : it had demanded a ministry not enslaved to prelacy ; it obtained one indifferent to all re- ligion, and careless of every thing but pleasure. Bucking- ham, the noble buffoon at its head, debauched other men's wives, fought duels, and kept about him a train of volup- tuaries ; but he was not, like Clarendon, a tory by system ; far from building up the exclusive church of Engband, he ridiculed bishops as well as sermons ; and when the Quakers went to him with their hats on, to discourse on the equal rights of every conscience, he told them that he was at heart in favor of their principle. English honor was wrecked ; English finances became bankrupt ; but the prog- ress of the nation towards internal freedom was no longer opposed with steadfast consistency ; and England was bet- ter satisfied than it had been with the wise and virtuous Clarendon. As the tendency of the cabal became apparent, a new division necessarily followed : the king was surrounded by men who still desired to uphold the prerogative, and stay the movement of the age ; while Shaftesbury, always con- sistent in his purpose, " unwilling to hurt the king, ^1073!° y^^ desiring to keep him tame in a cage ; " averse to the bishops, because the bishops would place pre- rogative above liberty; averse to democracy, because democracy would substitute freedom for privilege, — in 1679. THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 163 organizing a party, afterwards known as the whig party, suited himself to the spirit of the times. It was an age of progress towards liberty of conscience; Shaftesbury fav- ored toleration : it was an age when the vast increase of commercial activity claimed for the moneyed interest an influence in the government; Shaftesbury always lent a willing ear to the merchants. Commerce and Protestant toleration were the elements of his power over the public mind. He did not so much divide dominion with the mer- chants and the Presbyterians as act as their patron ; having himself for his main object to keep " the bucket " of the aristocracy from sinking. The declaration of in- 1672. dulgence, an act of high prerogative, yet directed against the friends of prerogative, was his measure. Im- mediately freedom of conscience awakened in English in- dustry unparalleled energies ; and Shaftesbury, the skeptic chancellor, was eulogized as the savior of religion. Had the king been firm, the measure would probably have suc- ceeded. He wavered ; for he distrusted the dissenters : the Presbyterians wavered also ; for how could they be satisfied with relief dependent on the royal pleasure ? The seal of the declaration was broken in the king's presence ; and Shaftesbury, confiding no longer in the favor of his fickle sovereign, courted a popular party by securing the passage of a test act against papists, and advocating with power a bill for the ease of Protestant dissenters. i673. Shaftesbury fell. Under the lord treasurer, Danby, the old Cav- leisto aliers recovered power. It was the day for statues ^^^^' to Charles I. and new cathedrals. To win strength for his party from the favor of Protestant opinion, Danby avowed his willingness to aid in crushing popery, and he gave his influence to the popish plot. But Shaftesbury was already sure of the merchants and dissenters. " Let the treasurer," exclaimed the fallen chancellor, " cry as loud as he pleases ; I will cry a note louder, and soon take his place at the head of the plot ; " and, indifferent to perjuries and judicial murders, he was successful. In the subservient house of commons, there were many corrupt members who would 164 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVL never have been elected but in tbe iirst fit of loyalty at the restoration. Danby preferred the unfitness of a perpetual parliament to the hazard of a new election, and, by pensions and rewards, purchased the votes of the profligate. But knavery has a wisdom of its own ; the profligate members had a fixed maxim, never to grant so much at once that they should cease to be wanted ; and, discovering the in- trigues of Danby for a permanent revenue from France, they were honorably true to nationality, and, true Ja^fk. ^^^^ *^ ^^^ ^^^^ instinct of selfishness, they impeached the minister. To save the minister, this longest of English parliaments was dissolved. "When, after nineteen years, the people of England were once more allowed to elect representatives, the great ma- jority against the court compelled a reorganization of the ministry ; and, by the force of public opinion and of par- liament, Shaftesbury, whom, for his mobility and his diminu- tive stature,' the king called Little Sincerity, corn- Apr. 21. pelled the reluctant monarch to appoint him lord president of the council. The event is an era in English history. Ministers had been impeached and driven from office by the commons. It is the distinction of Shaftes- bury that he was the first statesman to attain the guidance of a ministry through parliament by means of an organized party, and against the wishes of the king. In the cabinet, the bill of exclusion of the Duke of York from the succes- sion was demanded ; a bill for ihat purpose was introduced into the house of commons ; and it was observed that the young men cried up every measure against the duke ; " like so many young spaniels, that run and bark at every lark that springs." "The axe," wrote Charles, "is laid to the root ; and monarchy must go down too, or bow exceeding low before the almighty power of parliament ; " and just after Shaftesbury, who, as chancellor, had opened the prison- doors of Banyan, now, as president of the council, had procured the passage of the habeas corpus act, the May 27. commons were prorogued and dissolved. Shaftes- bury was displaced, and henceforward the councils of the Stuarts inclined to absolutism. 1G81. THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 165 Immediately universal agitation roused the spirit ^q^q of the nation. Under the influence of Shaftesbury's ^^^- ^' genius, on Queen Elizabeth's night, a vast procession, bear- ing devices and wax figures representing nuns and monks, bishops in copes and mitres, and also — it should be ob- served, for it proves how much the Presbyterians were courted — bishops in lawn, cardinals in red caps, and, last of all, the pope of Rome, side by side in a litter with the devil, moved through the streets of London, under the glare of thousands of flambeaux, and in the presence of two hundred thousand spectators ; the disobedient Monmouth was welcomed with bonfires and peals of bells ; a panic was created, as if every Protestant freeman were to be massa- cred, every wife and daughter to be violated ; the kingdom was divided into districts among committees to procure pe- titions for a parliament, one of which had twenty thousand signatures and measured three hundred feet ; and at last the mbst cherished Anglo-Saxon institution was made to do service, when Shaftesbury, proceeding to Westmin- ster, represented to the grand jury the mighty junt^ig. dangers from popery, indicted the Duke of York as a recusant, and rei">orted the Duchess of Portsmouth, the king's new mistress, as " a common neusance." The extreme agitation was successful ; and in two succes- I68O. sive parliaments, in^each of which men who were and at heart dissenters had the majority, the bill for ex- mScIi. eluding the Duke of York was passed by triumphant votes in the house of commons, and defeated only by the lords and the king. But the public mind, firm, even to superstition, in its re- spect for hereditary succession, was not ripe for tlie measure of exclusion. After less than a week's session, Charles II. dissolved the last parliament of his reign, and ap- pealed to the people against his enemies. To avoid March the charge of despotism, he still hanged a papist ^^^'^'^' whom he knew to be innocent ; and his friends declared him to have no other purpose than to resist the arbitrary sway of " a republican prelacy," and the installation of the multitude in the chair of infallibility. The ferocious in- 166 * COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVL tolerance which had sustained the popish plot lost its credit ; men dreaded anarchy and civil war more than they feared the royal prerogative. The king had already exercised the power of rest**icting the liberty of the press ; through judges, who held places at his pleasure, he was supreme in the courts ; omitting to convoke parliament, he made himself irresponsible to the people ; pursuing a judicial warfare against city charters and the monopolies of boroughs, he reformed many real abuses, but at the same time subjected the corporations to his influence. Controlling the appointment of sheriffs, he controlled the nomination of juries ; and thus, in the last three or four years of the reign of King Charles II., the government of England was administered as an absolute monarchy. An " association " against the Duke of York could not succeed among a calculating aristocracy, as the Scottish covenant had done among a faithful people ; and, on its disclosure and defeat, the voluntary exile of Shaftes- bury excited no plebeian regret. No deep popular indigna- tion attended Russell to the scaffold ; and on the day on which the purest martyr to aristocratic liberty laid his head on the block, the university of Oxford decreed absolute obedience to be the character of the church of England, while parts of the writings of Knox, Milton, and Baxter were pronounced "false, seditious, and impious, heretical and blasphemous, infamous to the Christian religion, ■^^'rj^ and destructive of all government," and were there- fore ordered to be burnt. Algernon Sydney followed to the scaffold. Thus liberty, which at the restoration excited loyalty, banished from among the people, made its way through rakes and the king's mistress into the royal councils. Driven from the palace, it appealed to parliament and the people, and won power through the frenzied antipathy to Roman Catholics. Exiled from parliament by their dis- solution, from the people by the ebb of excitement, it concealed itself in an aristocratic association and a secret aristocratic council. Chased from its hiding-place by dis- closures and executions, and having no hope from parlia- 1685. THE EEVOLUTION OF 1688. 167 ment, people, the press, tlie courts of justice, the king, it left the soil of England, and fled for refuge to the country of the Prince of Orange. How entirely monarchy had triumphed in England. 1685. appeared on the death of Charles II. His brother, whom the commons, in three successive parliaments, had desired to exclude, ascended the throne without opposition, continued taxes by his prerogative, easily suppressed the insurrection of Monmouth, convened a parliament, under the new system of charters so subservient that it bowed its back to royal chastisement ; while the " Presbyterian ras- cals," the troublesome Calvinists, who, from the days of Edward VI., had kept English liberty alive, were consigned to the courts of law. " Richard," said Jeffries to Baxter, *' Richard, thou art an old knave ; thou hast written books enough to load a cart, every one as full of sedition as an egg is full of meat. I know thou hast a mighty party, and a great many of the brotherhood are waiting in corners to see what will become of their mighty Don ; but, by the grace of Almighty God, I'll crush you all ;" and the docile jury found " the main incendiary " guilty of sedition. Fac- tion had ebbed ; " rogues " had grown out of fashion ; there was nothing left for them but to " thrive in the plan- tations." The royalist Dryden wrote : Truth is, the land with saints is so run o'er, And every age produces such a store. That now there's need of two New Englands more. But the tide of liberty was still swelling, and soon wafted the "saints" to their partial deliverance. To understand fully the revolution which followed, it must be borne in mind that the great mass of dissenters were struggling for liberty ; but, checked by the memory of the disastrous issue of the previous revolution, they ranged themselves, with deliberate moderation, under the more liberal party of the aristocracy. Of Cromwell's army, the officers had been, " for the most part, the meanest sort of men, even brewers, cobblers, and other mechanics ; " recruits for the camp of William of Orange were led by bishops and the high nobility. There was a vast popular 168 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVL movement, but it was subordinate ; the proclamation of the prince took notice of the people only as " followers " of the gentry. Yet the Eevolution of 1688 is due to the dissent- ers quite as much as to the whig aristocracy ; to Baxter hardly less than to Shaftesbury. It is the consummation of the collision which, in the days of Henry YIII. and Edward, began between the churchmen and the Puritans, between those who invoked religion on the side of passive obedience, and those who esteemed religion superior to man, and held resistance to tyranny a Christian duty. If the whig aris- tocracy looked to the stadholder of aristocratic Holland as the protector of their liberties, Baxter and the Presbyterians saw in William the Calvinist their tolerant avenger. Of the two great aristocratic parties which led the politics of England, both respected the established British constitution. But the tory opposed reform, and leaned to the past ; he defended his privileges against the encroach- ments of advancing civilization. The bishops, claiming for themselves a divine right by direct succession, were his natural allies ; and to assert the indefeasible rights of the bishops, of the aristocracy, and of the king, against dissent- ers, republicans, and whigs, was his whole purpose. The whigs were also a party of the aristocracy, bent on the preservation of their privileges against the encroach- ments of the monarch. In an age that demanded liberty, the whigs, scarce proposing new enfranchisements, gathered up every liberty, feudal or popular, known to English law, and sanctioned by the fictitious compact of prescription. In a period of progress in the enfranchisement of classes, they sliared political influence with the merchants and bankers ; in ,an age of religious sects, they embraced the more mod- erate and liberal of the church of England, and those of the dissenters whose dissent was the least glaring ; in an age of speculative inquiry, they favored freedom of the press. How vast was the party is evident, since it cherished among its numbers men so opposite as Shaftesbury and Sydney, as Locke and Baxter. These tv\^o parties embraced almost all the wealth and learning of England. But there was a third party of those 1686. THE EEVOLUTION OF 1688. 169 v^'ho were pledged to " seek and love and chuse the best things." They insisted that all penal statutes and tests should be abolished ; that, for all classes of non-conformists, whether Roman Catholics or dissenters, for the plebeian Beets, "the less noble and more clownish sort of people," "the unclean kind," room should equally be made in the English ark ; that the church of England, satisfied with its estates, should give up jails, whips, halters, and gibbets, and cease to plough the deep furrows of persecution ; that the concession of equal freedom would give strength to the state, security to the prince, content to the multitude, wealth to the country, and would fit England for its ofiice of assert- ing European liberty against the ambition of France ; that reason, natural right, and public interest demanded a glo- rious magna charta for intellectual freedom, even though the grant should be followed by " a dissolution of the great corporation of conscience." These were the views which were advocated by William Penn against what he calls "the prejudices of his times ; " and which overwhelmed his name with obloquy as a friend to tyranny and a Jesuit priest in disguise. But the easy issue of the contest grew out of a legs. division in the monarchical party itself. James 11. ^^^^' could not comprehend the. value of freedom or the obliga- tion of law. The writ of habeas corpus he esteemed incon- sistent with monarchy, and " a great misfortune to the people." A standing army, and the terrors of corrupt tribunals, were his dependence ; he delighted in military parades; swayed by his confessor, he dispensed with the laws, multiplied Catholic chapels, rejoiced in the revoca- tion of the edict of Nantes, and sought to intrust civil and military power to the hands of Roman Catholics. The bishops had unanimously voted against his exclusion ; and, as the badge of the church of England was obedience, he for a season courted the alliance of " the fairest of the spotted kind." To win her favor for Roman Catholics, he was willing to persecute Protestant dissenters. This is the period of the influence of Rochester. The church of England refused the alliance. The king ITO COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVL would now put no confidence in any zealous Protes- iS tant ; lie applauded the bigotry of Louis XIV., from whom he solicited money. " I hope," said he, " the king of France will aid me, and that we together shall do great things for religion ; " and the established church be- ,came the object of his implacable hatred. " Her day of grace was past." The royal favor was withheld, that she might silently waste and dissolve like snows in spring. To dimin- ish her numbers, and apparently from no other motive, he granted — what Sunderland might have done from indiffer- ence, and Penn from love of justice — equal franchises to every sect; to the powerful Calvinist and to the "puny" Quaker, to Anabaptists and Independents, and " all the wild increase " which unsatisfied inquiry could generate. The declaration of indulgence was esteemed a death-blow to the church, and a forerunner of the reconciliation of England to Rome. The franchises of Oxford were invaded, that Catholics might share in its endowments ; the bishops were imprisoned, because they would not publish in their churches the declaration, of which the purpose was their defeat; and, that the system of tyranny might be perpetu- ated. Heaven, as the monarch believed, blessed his pious pilgrimage to St. Winifred's Well by the pregnancy of his wife and the birth of a son. The party of prerogative was trampled under foot ; and, in their despair, they looked abroad for the liberty which they themselves had assisted to exile. The obedient church of England set the exam- ple of rebellion. Thus are the divine counsels perfected. "What think you now of predestination?" demanded William, as he landed in England. Tories took the 1688. lead in inviting the Prince of Orange to save the English church ; the whigs joined to rescue the privi- leges of the nobility ; the Presbyterians rushed eagerly into the only safe avenue to toleration ; the people quietly ac- quiesced. King James was left alone in his palace. His terrified priests escaped to the continent ; Sunderland was always false ; his confidential friends betrayed him ; his daughter Anno, pleading conscience, proved herself one of his worst enemies. " God help me," exclaimed the discon- 1689. THE KEVOLUTION OF 1688. ITl solate father, bursting into tears, "my very children have forsaken me ; " and his grief was increased by losing a piece of the true wood of the cross, that had belonged to Edward the Confessor. Paralyzed by the imbecility of doubt, and destitute of counsellors, he fled beyond the sea. Aided by falsehoods, the Prince of Orange, without striking a blow, ascended the throne of his father-in-law; and Mary, by whose letters James was lulled into security, came over to occupy the throne, the palace, and the bed of her father, and sequester the inheritance of her brother. The great news of the invasion of England and the declaration of the Prince of Orange reached Boston on the fourth day of April, 1689. The messenger 1689. was immediately imprisoned ; but his message could not be suppressed ; and " the preachers had already ma- tured the evil design" of a revolution. For the events that followed were " not a violent passion of the rabble, but a long-contrived piece of wickedness." " There is a general buzzing among the people, Apr. i6. great with expectation of their old charter or they know not what : " such was the ominous message of Andros to Brockholst, with orders that the soldiers should be ready for action. About nine o'clock of the morning of the eigh- teenth, just as George, the commander of the " Rose " frigate, stepped on shore. Green and the Boston ship-car- penters gathered about him and made him a prisoner. The town took the alarm. The royalist sheriffc* endeavored to quiet the multitude ; and they at once arrested him. They next hastened to the major of the regiment, and demanded colors and drums. He resisted ; they threatened. The crowd increased; companies form under Nelson, Foster, Water- houfse, their old officers; and already at ten they seized Bullivant, Foxcroft, and Ravenscraft. Boys ran along the streets with clubs ; the drums beat ; the governor, with his creatures, meeting opposition in council, withdrew to the fort to desire a conference with the ministers and two or three more. The conference was declined. All the com- panies soon rallied at the town-house. Just then, the last 172 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVL governor of the colony, in office when the charter was abrogated, Simon Bradstreet, glorious with the dignity of fourscore years and seven, one of the early emigrants, a magistrate in 1630, whose experience connected the oldest generation with the new, drew near the town-house, and was received by a great shout from the freemen. The old magistrates were reinstated, as a council of safety; the town rose in arms, "with the most unanimous resolution that ever inspired a people ; " and a declaration read from the balcony defended the insurrection as a duty to God and the country. " We commit our enterprise," it was added, " to Him who hears the cry of the oppressed, and advise all our neighbors, for whom we have thus ventured our- selves, to joyn with us in prayers and all just actions for the defence of the land." On Charlestown side, a thousand soldiers crowded to- gether ; and there would have been more of them if needed. The governor, vainly attempting to escape to the frigate, was, with his creatures, compelled to seek protec- tion by submission ; through the streets where he had first 1689. displayed his scarlet coat and arbitrary commission, Apr. 19. i^Q jjjj(j jjig fellows were marched to the town-house, and thence to prison. On the next day, the country people came swarming •across the Charlestown and Chelsea ferries, headed by Shepherd, a schoolmaster of Lynn. All the cry was against Andros and Randolph. The castle was taken ; the frigate was mastered ; the fortifications were occupied. How should a new government be instituted ? Town- meetings, before news had arrived of the proclamation of William and Mary, were held throughout the colony. Of fifty-four towns, forty certainly, probably more, voted to reassume the old charter. Representatives were May 22. choseii ; and once more Massachusetts assembled in general court. It is but a short ride from Boston to Plymouth. Apr. 22. Already on the twenty-second of April, Nathaniel Clark, the agent of Andros, was in jail ; Hinckley resumed the government, and the children of the pilgrims 1690. THE EEVOLUTION OF 1688. 173 renewed the constitution which had been unanimously signed in the " Mayflower." But not one of the fathers of the old colony remained alive. John Alden, the last survivor of the signers, famed for his frugal habits, and an arm before which forests had bowed, had been gathered in death. The royalists had pretended that " the Quaker grandees " of Rhode Island had imbibed nothing of Quakerism but its indifference to forms, and did not even desire a res- toration of the charter. On May-day, their usual ^^y\, election day, the inhabitants and freemen poured into Newport ; and the " democracie " published to the world their gratitude "to the good providence of God, w^hich had wonderfully supported their predecessors and themselves through more than ordinary difficulties and hardships." " We take it to be our duty," thus they continue, " to lay hold of our former gracious privileges, in our charter con- tained." And, by a unanimous vote, the officers, whom Andros had displaced, were confirmed. But Walter Clarke wavered. For nine months there was no acknowledged chief magistrate. The assembly, accepting Clarke's disclaimer, elected Almy. Again excuse was made. yIT.%g. Did no one dare to assume responsibility? All eyes turned to one of the old Antinoraian exiles, the more than octogenarian, Henry Bull ; and the fearless Quaker,* true to the light within, employed the last glimmerings of life to restore the democratic charter of Khode Island. Once more its free government is organized : its seal is renewed ; the symbol, an anchor ; the motto, Hope. Massachusetts rose in arms, and perfected its revolution without concert ; " the amazing news did soon fly like lightning;" and the people of Connecticut spurned the gov- ernment, which Andros had appointed, and which they bad always feared it was a sin to obey. The charter was resumed; an assembly was convened; and, in spite May 9. of the Finis of Andros, new chapters were begun in the records of freedom. Suffolk county, on Long Island, rejoined Connecticut. New York shared the impulse, but with less unanimity. " The Dutch plot " was matured by Jacob Leisler, a man of 1*^4 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVI. energy, but passionate and ill-educated, and not possessed of that happy natural sagacity which elicits a rule of action from its own instincts. But the common people among the Dutch, led by Leisler and his son-in-law Milborne, insisted on proclaiming the stadholder king of England. In New Jersey there was no insurrection. The inhab- itants were unwilling to invoke the interference of the pro- prietaries. There is no reason to doubt that, in the several towns, officers were chosen, as before, by the inhabitants themselves, to regulate all local affairs ; while the 1689. provincial government, as established by James II., fell with Andros. We have already seen that Mary- land had perfected a revolution, in which Protestant intol- erance, as well as popular liberty, had acted its part. The passions of the Mohawks, also, were kindled by the certain prospect of an ally ; they chanted their loudest war-song, and prepared to descend on Montreal. Thus did a popular insurrection, beginning at Boston, extend to the Chesapeake and to the wilderness. This New England revolution " made a great noise in the world." Its object was Protestant liberty ; and William and Mary, the Protestant sovereigns, were proclaimed w^ith rejoicings such as America had never before known in its intercourse with England. Could it be that America was deceived in her confidence ; that she had but substituted the absolute sovereignty of parliament, which to her would prove the sovereignty of a commercial as well as a landed aristocracy, for the despot- ism of the Stuarts ? Boston was the centre of the revolu- tion which now spread to the Chesapeake ; in less than a century, it will commence a revolution for humanity, and rouse a spirit of power to emancipate the world. Chap. XXVn. THE RESULT THUS EAR. 1T5 CHAPTER XXVII. THE RESULT THUS TAR. Thus have we traced, almost exclusively from contempo- rary documents and records, the colonization of the twelve oldest states of our Union. At the period of the great European Revolution of 1688, they contained not very many beyond two hundred thousand inhabitants, of whom Massachusetts, with Plymouth and Maine, may have had forty-four thousand ; New Hampshire and Rhode Island, with Providence, each six thousand ; Connecticut, from seventeen to twenty thousand ; that is, all ISTew England, seventy-five thousand souls ; New York, not less than twenty thousand ; New Jersey, half as many; Pennsyl- vania and Delaware, perhaps twelve thousand; Mary- land, twenty-five thousand ; Virginia, fifty thousand, or more ; and the two Carolinas, which then included the soil of Georgia, probably not less than eight thousand souls. The emigration of the fathers of these twelve common- wealths, with the planting of the principles on which they rested, though, like the introduction of Christianity into Rome, but little regarded by contemporary writers, was the most momentous event of the seventeenth century. The elements of our country, such as she exists to-day, were already there. Of the institutions of the Old World, monarchy had jio motive to emigrate, and was present only by its shadow ; in the proprietary governments, by the shadow of a shadow. The feudal aristocracy had accomplished its mission in Europe ; it could not gain new life among the equal condi- tions of the wilderness ; in at least four of the twelve colonies, it did not originally exist at all, and, in the rest, had scarcely a monument except in the forms of holding 176 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVIL property. Priestcraft did not emigrate ; by the steadfast attraction of interest, it was retained in the Old World ; to the forests of America, religion came as a companion ; the American mind never bowed to an idolatry of forms ; and there was not a prelate in the whole English part of the continent. The municipal corporations of the European commercial world, the close intrenchments of burghers against the landed aristocracy, could not be transferred to our shores, where no baronial castles demanded the con- certed opposition of guilds. Nothing came from Europe but a free people. The people, separating itself from all other elements of previous civilization ; the people, self- coniiding and industrious ; the people, wise by all traditions that favored popular happiness, — the people alone broke away from European influence, and in the New World laid the foundations of our republic; Plebeian, though ingenuous the stock From' which her graces and her honors sprung. The people alone were present in poAver. Like Moses, as they said of themselves, they had escaped from Egyptian bond- age to the wilderness, that God might there give them the pattern of the tabernacle. Like the favored evangelist, the exiles, in their western Patmos, listened to the angel that dictated the new gospel of freedom. Overwhelmed in Europe, popular liberty, like the fabled fountain of the sacred Arethusa, gushed forth profusely in remoter fields. Of the nations of the European world, the chief emi- gration was from that Germanic race most famed for the love of personal independence. The immense majority of American families were not of " the high folk of Nor- mandie," but were of "the low men," who were Saxons. This is true of New England ; it is true of the south. The Virginians were Anglo-Saxons in the woods again, with the inherited culture and intelligence of the seventeenth century. " The major part of the house of burgesses now consisted of Virginians that never saw a town." The Anglo-Saxon mind, in its serenest nationality, neither dis- torted by fanaticism, nor subdued by superstition, nor wounded by persecution, nor excited by new ideas, but Chap. XXVII. THE RESULT THUS FAR. 177 fondly cherishing the active instinct for personal freedom, Becure possession, and legislative power, such as belonged to it before the Reformation, and existed independent of the Reformation, had made its dwelling-place in the empire of Powhatan. With consistent firmness of character, the Virginians welcomed representative assemblies; displaced an unpopular governor; at the overthrow of monarchy, established the freest government ; rebelled against the politics of the Stuarts ; and, uneasy at the royalist prin- ciples which prevailed in its forming aristocracy, soon manifested the tendency of the age at the polls. The colonists, including their philosophy in their religion, as the people up to that time had always done, were neither skeptics nor sensualists, but Christians. The school that bows to the senses as the sole interpreter of truth had little share in colonizing our America. The colonists from Maine to Carolina, the adventurous companions of Smith, the pro- scribed Puritans that freighted the fleet of Winthrop, the Quaker outlaws that fled from jails with a Newgate prisoner as their sovereign, — all had faith in God and in the soul. The system which had been revealed in Judea, — the system which combines and perfects the symbolic wisdom of the Orient and the reflective genius of Greece, — the system, conforming to reason, yet kindling enthusiasm ; always hastening reform, yet always conservative; proclaiming absolute equality among men, yet not suddenly abolishing the unequal institutions of society; guaranteeing absolute freedom, yet invoking the inexorable restrictions of duty ; in the highest degree theoretical, and yet in the highest degree practical ; awakening the inner man to a conscious- ness of his destiny, and yet adapted with exact harmony to the outward world; at once divine and humane, — this system was professed in every part of our widely extended country, and cradled our freedom. Our fathers were not only Christians ; they were, even in Maryland by a vast majority, elsewhere almost unanimously, Protestants. Now the Protestant Reformation, considered in its largest influence on politics, was the awakening of the common people to freedom of mind. VOL. 11. 12 178 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVII. During the decline of the Roman empire, the oppressed invoked the power of Christianity to resist the supremacy of brute force ; and the merciful priest assumed the office of protector. The tribunes of Rome, appointed by the people, had been declared inviolable by the popular vote ; the new tribunes of humanity, deriving their office from religion, and ordained by religion to a still more venerable sanctity, defended the poor man's house against lust by the sacra- ment of marriage ; restrained arbitrary passion by a menace of the misery due to sin unrepented and unatoned ; and taught respect for the race by sprinkling every new-born child with the water of life, confirming every youth, bearing the oil of consolation to every death-bed, and sharing freely with every human being the consecrated emblem of God present with man. But from protectors priests grew to be usurpers. Ex- pressing all moral truth by the mysteries of symbols, and reserving to themselves the administration of seven sacra- ments, they claimed a monopoly of thought, and exercised an absolute spiritual dominion. Human bondage was strongly riveted ; for they had fastened on the affections, the under- standing, and the reason. Ordaining their own successors, they ruled human destiny at birth, on entering active life, at marriage, when frailty breathed its confession, when faith aspired to communion with God, and at death. The fortunes of the human race are embarked in a life- boat, and cannot be wrecked. Mind refuses to rest; and active freedom is a necessary condition of intelligent exist- ence. The instinctive love of truth could warm even the scholastic theologian ; but the light which it kindled for him was oppressed by verbal erudition, and its flickering beams, scarce lighting the cell of the solitary, could not fill the colonnade of the cloister, far less reach the busy world. Sensualism also was free to mock superstition. Scoffing infidelity put on the cardinal's hat, and made even the Vatican ring with ribaldry. But the indifference of dis- soluteness has no creative power ; it does but substitute the despotism of the senses for a spiritual despotism ; it never brought enfranchisements to the multitude. Chap. XXVII. THE RESULT THUS FAR. 179 The feudal aristocracy resisted spiritual authority by the sword; but it was only to claim greater license for their own violence. Temporal sovereigns, jealous of a power which threatened to depose the unjust prince, were ready to set prelacy against prelacy, the national church against the Catholic Church ; but it was only to assert the absolute liberty of despotism. By slow degrees, the students of the humanities, as they were called, polished scholars, learned lessons of freedom from Grecian and Roman example ; but they hid their patriotism in a dead language, and forfeited the claim to higher influence and enduring fame by suppressing truth, and yielding independence to the interests of priests and princes. Human enfranchisement could not advance securely but through the people ; for whom philosophy was included in religion, and religion veiled in symbols. There had ever been within the Catholic Church men who preferred truth to forms, justice to despotic force. " Dominion," said Wyclift'e, " belongs to grace ; " meaning, as I believe, that the feudal government, which rested on the sword, should yield to a government resting on moral principles. And he knew the right method to hasten the coming revolution. " Truth," he asserted with wisest benevolence, " truth shines more brightly the more widely it is diffused ; " and, catching the plebeian language that lived on the lips of the multitude, he gave England the Bible in the vulgar tongue. A timely death could alone place him beyond persecution ; his bones were disinterred and burnt, and his ashes thrown on the waters of the Avon. But his fame brightens as time ad- vances ; when America traces the lineage of her intellectual freedom, she acknowledges the benefactions of Wycliffe. In the next century, a kindred spirit emerged in Bohemia, and tyranny, quickened by the nearer approach of danger, summoned John Huss to its tribunal, set on his head a huge paper mitre begrimed with hobgoblins, permitted the bishops to strip him and curse him, and consigned one of the gentlest and purest of our race to the flames. " Holy simplicity ! " exclaimed he, as a peasant piled fagots on the 180 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVIL fire ; still preserving faith in humanity (the Quakers after- wards treasured up the example), though its noblest instincts could be so perverted; and, perceiving the only mode through which reform could prevail, he gave as a last coun- sel to his multitude of followers : " Put not your trust in princes." Of the descendants of his Bohemian disciples, a few certainly came to us by way of Holland ; his example was for all. Years are as days in the providence of God and in the progress of the race. After long waiting, an Augustine monk at Wittenberg, who had seen the lewd corruptions of the Roman court and who loathed the deceptions of a coarse superstition, brooded in his cell over the sins of his age and the method of rescuing conscience from the domin- ion of forms, till he discovered a cure for these vices in the simple idea of justification by faith alone. With this prin- ciple, easily intelligible to the universal mind, and spreading, like an epidemic, widely and rapidly, — a principle strong enough to dislodge every superstition, to overturn every tyranny, to enfranchise, convert, and save the world, — he broke the wand of papal supremacy, scattered the lazars of the monasteries, and drove the penance of fasts, and the terrors of purgatory, masses for the dead, and indulgences for the living, into the paradise of fools. That his principle contained a democratic revolution, Luther saw clearly ; he acknowledged that "the rulers and the lawyers needed a reformer ; " but he " could not hope that they would soon get a wise one," and in a stormy age, leaving to futurity its office, accepted shelter from feudal sovereigns. " It is a heathenish doctrine," such was his compromise with princes, " that a wicked ruler may be deposed." " Do not pipe to the populace, for it anyhow delights in running mad." " God lets rogues rule for the people's sin." " A crazy pop- ulace is a desperate, cursed thing ; a tyrant is the right clog to tie on that dog's neck." And yet, adds Luther, " I have no word of comfort for the usurers and scoundrels among the aristocracy, whose vices make the common people es- teem the whole aristocracy to be out and out worthless." And he praised the printing-press, as the noblest gift of Chap. XXVII. THE RESULT THUS FAE. 181 human genius. He forbade priests and bishops to make laws how men shall believe ; for, said he, " man's authority- stretches neither to heaven nor to the soul." Nor did he leave Truth to droop in a cloister or wither in a palace, but carried her forth in her freedom to the multitude ; and, when tyrants ordered the German peasantry to deliver up their Saxon New Testament, " No," cried Luther, " not a single leaf." He pointed out the path in which civilization should travel, though he could not go on to the end of the journey. In him, freedom of mind was like the morning sun, as it still struggles with the sickly dews and vanishing spectres of darkness. In pursuing the history of our country, we shall hereafter meet in the Lutheran kingdom of Prussia, of which the dynasty had become Calvinistic, at one time an active ally, at another a neutral friend. The direct influence of Luther- anism on America was inconsiderable. New Sweden had the faith and the politics of the German reformer; no democratic ideas distracted its single-minded loyalty. As the New World sheltered neither bishops nor princes, in respect to political opinion, the Anglican church in Vir- ginia was but an enfranchisement from popery, favoring humanity and freedom. The inhabitants of Virginia were conformists after the pattern of Sandys and of Southamp- ton, rather than of Whitgift and Laud. Of themselves they asked no questions about the surplice, and never wore the badge of non-resisting obedience. The meaner and more ignoble the party, the more general and comprehensive are its principles ; for none but princi- ples of universal freedom can reach the meanest conditionr~%( The serf defends the widest philanthropy ; for that alone can break his bondage. The plebeian sect of Anabaptists, "the scum of the Reformation," with greater consistency than Luther, applied the doctrine of the Reformation to the social relations of life, and threatened an end to kingcraft, spiritual dominion, tithes, and vassalage. The party was trodden under foot, with foul reproaches and most arrogant scorn; and its history is written in the blood of myriads of the German peasantry; but its principles, safe in their 182 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVIL immortality, escaped with Roger Williams to Providence ; and his colony is the witness that, naturally, the paths of the Baptists were paths of freedom, pleasantness, and peace. Luther finished his mission in the heart of Germany, under the safeguard of princes. In Geneva, a republic on the confines of France, Italy, and Germany, Calvin, appeal- ing to the people fi^r support, continued the career of en- franchisement by planting the institutions which nursed the minds of Rousseau and Necker. The political character of Calvinism, which, with one consent and with instinctive judgment, the monarchs of that day, except that of Prussia, feared as republicanism, and which Charles II. declared a religion unfit for a gen- tleman, is expressed in a single word, — predestination. Did a proud aristocracy trace its lineage through genera- tions of a high-born ancestry, the republican reformer, with a loftier pride, invaded the invisible world, and from the book of life brought down the record of the noblest enfran- chisement, decreed from all eternity by the King of kings. His converts defied the opposing world as a world of repro- bates, whom God had despised and rejected. To them the senses were a totally depraved foundation, on which neither truth nor goodness could rest. They went forth in confi- dence that men who were kindling with the same exalted instincts would listen to their voice, and be effectually *' called into the brunt of the battle " by their side. And, standing serenely amidst the crumbling fabrics of centuries of superstitions, they had faith in one another ; and the martyrdoms of Cambray, the fires of Smithfield, the surren- der of benefices by two thousand non-conforming Presby- terians, attest their perseverance. Such was the system which, for a century and a half, assumed the guardianship of liberty for the English world. " A wicked tyrant is better than a wicked war," said Luther, preaching non-resistance ; and Cranmer echoed back : " God's people are called to render obedience to governors, although they be wicked or wrong-doers, and in no case to resist." English Calvinism reserved the right of resisting tyranny. To advance intellectual freedom, Calvinism denied, abso- Chap. XXVII. THE RESULT THUS FAR. 183 lately denied, the sacrament of ordination ; thus breaking up the great monopoly of priestcraft, scattering the ranks of superstition, and knowing no master, mediator, or teacher but the eternal reason. " Kindle the fire before my face," said Jerome meekly, as he resigned himself to his fate ; to quench the fires of persecution for ever, Calvinism resisted with fire and blood, and, shouldering the musket, proved, as a foot-soldier, that, on the field of battle, the invention of gunpowder had levelled the plebeian and the knight. To restrain absolute monarchy in France, in Scotland, in Eng- land, it allied itself with the party of the past, the decaying feudal aristocracy, which it was sure to outlive ; to protect itself against feudal aristocracy, it infused itself into the mercantile class and the inferior gentry ; to secure a life in the public mind, in Geneva, in Scotland, wherever it gained dominion, it invoked intelligence for the people, and in every parish planted the common school. In an age of commerce, to stamp its influence on the 'New World, it went on board the fleet of Winthrop, and was wafted to the Bay of Massachusetts. Is it denied that events follow principles, that mind rules the world ? The institutions of Massachusetts were the exact counterpart of its religious system. Calvinism claimed heaven for the elect ; Massachusetts gave franchises to the members of the visible church. Calvinism rejected the herd of reprobates; Massachusetts inexorably disfranchised churchmen, royal- ists, and all world's people. Calvinism overthrew priest- craft ; in Massachusetts, none but the magistrate could marry ; the brethren could ordain. Calvinism saw in good- ness infinite joy, in evil infinite woe, and, recognising no other abiding distinctions, opposed secretly but surely he- reditary monarchy, aristocracy, and bondage ; Massachusetts owned no king but the King of heaven, no aristocracy but of the redeemed, no bondage but the hopeless, infinite, and eternal bondage of sin. Calvinism invoked intelligence against Satan, the great enemy of the human race ; and the farmers and seamen of Massachusetts nourished its college with, corn and strings of wampum, and in every village built the free school. Calvinism, in its zeal against Rome, 184 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVIL reverenced the Bible even to idolatry; and, in Massachu- setts, the songs of Deborah and David were sung with- out change ; hostile Algonkins, like the Canaanites, w^ere exterminated or enslaved ; and wretched innocents were hanged, because it was written, "The witch shall die." " Do not stand still with Luther and Calvin," said the father of the pilgrims, confident in human advancement. From Luther to Calvin, there was progress ; from Geneva to New England, there was more. Calvinism, — I speak of its political character, in an age when politics were con- trolled by religious sects ; I pass no judgment on opinions which relate to an unseen world, — Calvinism, such as it existed, in opposition to prelacy and feudalism, could not continue in a world where there was no prelacy to combat, no aristocracy to overthrow. It therefore received develop- ments which were imprinted on institutions. It migrated to the Connecticut ; and there, forgetting its foes, it put off its armor of religious pride. " You go to receive your reward," was said to Hooker on his death-bed. " I go to receive mercy," was his reply. For predestination Con- necticut substituted benevolence. It hanged no Quakers, it mutilated no heretics. Its early legislation is the breath of reason and charity ; and Jonathan Edwards did but sum up the political history of his native commonwealth for a century, when, anticipating, and in his consistency excelling, Godwin and Bentham, he gave Calvinism its political eu- thanasia, by declaring virtue to consist in universal love. In Boston, with Henry Vane and Anne Hutchinson, *' Calvinism ran to seed ; " and the seed was " incorruptible." Election implies faith, and faith freedom. Claiming the Spirit of God as the companion of man, the Antinomians asserted absolute freedom of mind. For predestination they substituted consciousness. " If the ordinances be all taken away, Christ cannot be ; " the forms of truth may perish ; truth itself is immortal. " God will be ordinances to us." The exiled doctrine, which established conscience as the highest court of appeal, fled to the island gift of Miantonomoh ; and the records of Rhode Island are the commentary on the true import of the creed. Chap. XXVII. THE RESULT THUS FAB. 185 Faith in predestination alone divided the Antinomians from the Quakers. Both reverenced and obeyed the voice of conscience in its freedom. The near resemblance was perceived so soon as the fame of George Fox reached Amer- ica ; and the principal followers of Anne Hutchinson, Cod- dington, Mary Dyar, Henry Bull, and a majority of the people, avowed themselves to be Quakers. The principle of freedom of mind, first asserted for the common people, under a religious form, by Wycliffe, had been pursued by a series of plebeian sects, till it at last reached a perfect development, coinciding with the highest attainment of European philosophy. By giving a welcome to every sect, America w^as safe against narrow bigotry. At the same time, the moral unity of the forming nation was not impaired. Of the various parties into which the Reformation divided the people, each, from the proudest to the most puny sect, rallied round a truth. But, as truth never contradicts itself, the collision of sects could but eliminate error ; and the Ameri- can mind, in the largest sense eclectic, struggled for univer- sality, while it asserted freedom. How had the world been governed by despotism and bigotry ; by superstition and the sword ; by the ambition of conquest and the pride of privilege ! And now the happy age gave birth to a people which was to own no authority as the highest but the free conviction of the public mind. Thus had Europe given to America her sons and her culture. She was the mother of our men, and of the ideas which guided them to greatness. The relations of our country to humanity were already wider. The three races, the Caucasian, the Ethiopian, and the American, were in presence of one another on our soil. Would the red man disappear entirely from the forests, which for thousands of years had sheltered him safely? Would the black man, in the end, be benefited by the crimes of mercantile avarice ? At the close of the middle age, the Caucasian race was in nearly exclusive possession of the elements of civilization, while the Ethiopian remained in insulated barbarism. No commerce connected it with Europe ; no intercourse existed 186 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVIL by travel, by letters, or by war; it was too feeble to at- tempt an invasion of a Christian prince or an Arab dynasty. The slave-trade united the races by an indissoluble bond ; the first ship that brought Africans to America was a sure pledge that, in due time, ships from the New World would carry the equal blessings of Christianity to the burning plains of Nigritia, that descendants of Africans would toil for the benefits of European civilization. That America should benefit the African, was always the excuse for the slave-trade. Would America benefit Europe? The probable influence of the New World on the Old be- came a prize question at Paris ; but not one of the writers divined the true answer. They looked for it in commerce, in mines, in natural productions ; and they should have looked for revolutions, as a consequence of moral power. The Greek colonists planted free and prosperous cities ; and, in a following century, each metropolis, envying the happiness of its daughters, imitated its institutions, and rejected kings. Rome, a nation of soldiers, planted colo- nies by the sword ; and retributive justice merged its liber- ties in absolute despotism. The American colonists founded their institutions on popular freedom, and " set an example to the nations." Already the plebeian outcasts, the Anglo- Saxon emigrants, were the hope of the world. We are like the Parthians, said Norton in Boston ; our arrows wound the more for our flight. " Jotham upon Mount Gerizim is bold to utter his apologue." We have written the origin of our country ; we are now to pursue the history of its wardship. The relations of the rising colonies, the representatives of democratic freedom, are chiefly with France and England ; with the monarchy of France, which was the representative of absolute des- potism, having subjected the three estates of the realm, the clergy by a treaty with the pope, feudalism by standing armies, the communal institutions by executive patronage and a vigorous police ; with the parliament of England, which was the representative of aristocratic liberties, and had ratified royalty, primogeniture, corporate charters, the peerage, tithes, prelates, prescriptive franchises, and every Chap. XXVII. THE RESULT THUS FAR. 187 established immunity and j^rivilege. The three nations and the three systems were, by the Revolution of 1688, brought into direct contrast with one another. At the same time, the English world was lifted out of theological forms, and entered upon the career of commerce, which had been pre- pared by the navigation acts and by the mutual treaties for colonial monopoly with France and Spain. The period through which we have passed shows why we are a free people ; the coming period will show why we are a united people. We shall have no tales to relate of more adventure than in the early period of Virginia, none of more sublimity than of the pilgrims at Plymouth. But we are about to enter on a wider theatre ; and, as we trace the progress of commercial ambition through events which shook the globe from the wilds beyond the Alleghanies to the ancient abodes of civilization in Hindostan, we shall still see that the selfishness of evil defeats itself, and God rules in the affairs of men. 188 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XX Vm. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE SOUTHERN STATES AFTER THE REVOLUTION. The Stuarts passed from the throne of England. The family, distinguished by a blind resistance to popular opinion, was no less distinguished by misfortunes. During their separate sovereignty over Scotland, but three of the race escaped a violent death." The first of them who aspired to the crown of Great Britain was by an English sovereign doomed to death on the scaffold; her grandson was beheaded in the name of the English people. The next in the line, long a needy exile, is remembered chiefly for his vices ; and James II. was reduced from royalty to beggary by the conspiracy of his own children. Yet the New World has monuments of the Stuarts ; North America acquired its British colonies during their rule, and towns, rivers, headlands, and even states bear their names. James I. promoted the settlement of Virginia ; a timely neglect fostered New England ; the favoritism of Charles I. opened the way for religious liberty in Maryland ; Rhode Island long cherished the charter which it won from Charles II. ; the honest friendship of James II. favored the grants which gave liberties to Pennsylvania, and extended them to Delaware ; the crimes of the dynasty banished to our country men of learning, virtue, and fortitude. Despotism rendered benefits to freedom. "The wiisdom of God," as John Knox had predicted, " compelled the very malice of Satan, and such as were drowned in sin, to serve to his glory and the profit of his elect." Four hundred and seventy-four years after the barons at Runnymede extorted Magna Charta from their legitimate king, the aristocratic Revolution of 1688 established for England and its dominions the sovereignty of parliament and the supremacy of law. Its purpose was the security of Chap. XXVIH. THE SOUTH AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 189 property and existing franchises, and not the abolition of privilege or the equalization of political power. The chiefs of the nobility, who, in 1640, had led the people in its struggle for liberty, had, from the passionate enthusiasm of " a generous inexperience," been hurried, against their design, into measures which their interests opposed. Made circumspect by the past, the renewed contest did not dis- turb their prudence, nor triumph impair their moderation. Avoiding the collisions with established privileges that spring from the fanatical exaggeration of abstract principles, still placing the hope of security on the system of checks and the balance of opposing powers, they made haste to finish the work of establishing the government. The character of the new monarch of Great Britain could mould its policy, but not its constitution. True to his purposes, he yet wins no sympathy. In political sagacity, in force of will, far superior to the English statesmen who environed him ; more tolerant than his ministers or his parliaments, the childless man seems like the unknown character in algebra which is introduced to form the equation, and dis- missed when the problem is solved. In his person thin and feeble, with eyes of a hectic lustre, of a temperament in- clining to the melancholic, in conduct cautious, of a self- relying humor, with abiding impressions respecting men, he sought no favor, and relied for success on his own inflexi- bility and the ripeness of his designs. Too wise to be cajoled, too firm to be complaisant, no address could sway his resolve, no filial respect controlled his ambition. His exterior was chilling ; yet he took delight in horses and the chase. In conversation he was abrupt, speaking little and slowly, and with repulsive dryness ; in the day of battle, he was all activity, and the highest energy, without kindling his passions, animated his frame. His trust in Providence was so connected with faith in general laws that, unconscious to himself, he had sympathy with the people, who always have faith in Providence. "Do you dread death in my company ? " he cried to the anxious sailors, when the ice on the coast of Holland had almost crushed the boat that was bearing him to the shore. Courage and pride pervaded the 190 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVIII. reserve of the prince, who, spurning an alliance with a bastard daughter of Louis XIV., had made himself the centre of a gigantic opposition to France. For England, for the English people, for English liberties, he had no affection, indifferently employing the whigs, who found their pride in the revolution, and the tories, who had op- posed his elevation, and who yet were the fittest instruments "to carry the prerogative high." One great passion had absorbed his breast, the independence of his native country. The encroachments of Louis XIV., which, in 1672, had made him a revolutionary stadholder, now assisted to con- stitute him a revolutionary king, transforming the impassive champion of Dutch independence into the defender of the liberties of Europe. The English statesmen who settled the principles of the revolution took experience for their guide. It is true that Somers, the acknowledged leader of the whig party, of plebeian origin, and unsupported by inherited fortune, was ready, with the new king from a Calvinistic commonwealth, to admit some reform in the maxims of government and re- ligion. Yet, free from fanaticism even to indifference, by nature, by his profession as a lawyer, and by the tastes which he had cultivated, averse to metaphysical abstrac- tions, he labored to make an inventory of the privileges and liberties of Englishmen and imbody them in a public law, not to set forth the rights of man. Freedom sought its title-deeds in experience, in customs, in records, charters, and prescription. The bill of rights was designed to be an authentic recapitulation of ancient and well-established na- tional possessions. A king had bj'oken the ties that bound England to Rome ; the Puritans made the people of England Protestant, and in the finally triumphant war of English liberty had done most efficient service. But the statute-book of the kingdom, alike when it was Catholic, and from the days of Henry VIIL, knew no other rule than the unity of the church. It was the policy of Bacon almost as much as of Whitgift. A revolution made on the principle of asserting established rights and liber ies might be willing to promote further re- Chap. XXVIII. THE SOUTH AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 191 forms, but knew not how to set about thera. For Scotland there was no such difficulty ; there the claim of right could, on historical ground, recognise the abolition of Episcopacy. In England, it was taken for granted that the Anglican church must subsist as the national church, and as a con- sequence the men of the revolution desired to comprehend the largest number of persons within its pale. In the con- vention which changed the dynasty, there was no party strong enough to carry through a vital change. The state of parties was reversed ; Queen Elizabeth was in earnest, and would not be swayed by the persistent hostility of parliament to all superstitions that lurked in the prayer book ; King "William wished concessions, but his parliaments would not support him, and he was too indifferent to religion to hold out. No statesman of that day proposed to go back to the second service book of Edward VI., or to make it possible for a consistent Calvinist like John Knox to become a royal chaplain or to be presented to a benefice. The law of Charles II., which for the first time required Episcopal ordination before presentation to a benefice, was not re- pealed. In the convocation of the clergy, the Puritans were not represented, for the unrepealed law of Charles II. had turned them all out of the church. Nothing was therefore done beyond the toleration act of the convention parliament. The old laws enforcing conformity were left in force against Catholics ; Protestants were exempted from penalties for absenting themselves from church and worshipping in con- venticles, as the statute called them, provided the religious unity was so far at least preserved that their preachers would subscribe the doctrinal articles of the church of England. But even this narrow liberty was yielded only at the price of civil disfranchisement. The ministry, the privy council, both houses of i:)arliament, the bench, all great employments, even places in corporations, were shut against the non-conformists, to whom the English consti- tution, in a great measure, owed its salvation. In Ireland, persecution was double-edged ; there was not even a toleration act, though two thirds of the inhabitants were Catholics, and of the Protestants one half were non- 192 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVIII. conformists. In the next reign, the Anglicans gained fresh powers of harassing those who had carried out most thoroughly the principles of the Reformation. To an act of terrible severity against the Catholics, provisions were at- tached, to use the words of a British historian, that "if, on the death of a Protestant land-owner, the Protestant next of kin, to whom the estate would lapse, happened to be a Presbyterian, he was to be passed over in favor of a more remote member of the establishment. The English test act was introduced as a parenthesis. The Presbyterians, the Independents, the Huguenot immigrants, the Quakers, were swept under the same political disabilities, and were cut oif from the army, the militia, the civil service, the commission of the peace, and from seats in the municipal corporations." But the English revolution at least accepted from the Puritans and Presbyterians the doctrine of the right of resistance to tyranny, the cherished principle of liberty, familiar in the middle ages to the feudal nobles of every monarchy in Europe, and now transmitted as an inheritance to the great supporters of the Reformation. The commons of England, by a vast majority, declared the executive power to be a conditional trust ; and the hereditary assem- bly of patricians, struggling in vain for the acknowledgment of a right of succession inherent in birth, after earnest de- bates, submitted to confess an original contract between king and people. The election of William III. to be king for life was a triumph of the perseverance of the more popular party in the commons over the inherited prejudices of the high aristocracy. In this lies the democratic ten- dency that won to the revolution the scattered remnant of " the good old " republicans ; this appropriated to the whigs the glory of the change, in which they took pride, and of which the tories regretted the necessity. This has com- mended to the friends of freedom the epoch in which the great European world beheld a successful insurrection ^ against legitimacy and authority over mind. By resolving that James II. had abdicated, the represen- tatives of the English people assumed to sit in judgment on its kings. By declaring the throne vacant, they annihilated CHAP.XXVm. THE SOUTH AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 193 the principle of legitimacy. By disfranchising a dynasty for professing the Roman faith, they not only exerted the power of interpreting the original contract, but of intro- ducing into it new conditions. By electing a king, they made themselves the fountain of sovereignty. His civil list was settled by them at his accession for his life ; but all other supplies were granted by them annually and made subject to specific appropriations. The royal prerogative of a veto on the acts of parliament soon fell into disuse. The dispensing power was expressly abrogated, or denied. The judiciary was rendered inde- pendent of the crown ; so that charters were safe against executive interference, and state trials ceased to be col- lisions between blood-thirsty hatred and despair. For Eng- land, parliament was absolute. The progress of civilization had gradually elevated the commercial classes, and given importance to towns. Among those engaged in commerce, in which the ancient patricians had no share, the spirit of liberty became active, and was quickened by the cupidity which sought new benefits for trade through political influence. The day for shouting liberty and equality had not come ; the cry was " Liberty and property." Wealth became a power in the state ; and when, at elections, the country people were first invited to seek other representatives than the large landholders, it was not the leveller or the republican, but the merchant, or a candidate in the interest of the merchant, who taught the timid electors their first lessons in independence. Moreover, as the expense of wars soon exceeded the reve- nue of England, the government prepared to avail itself of the largest credit. The price of such aid was political in- fluence. That the government should protect commerce and domestic manufactures, that the classes benefited by this policy should sustain the government with all their resources, was the reciprocal relation and compromise, on which rested the fate of parties in England. The accu- mulations and floating credits of commerce soon grew powerful enough to compete with the landed interest. The imposing spectacle of the introduction of the citizens VOL. II. 13 194 COLONIAL HISTOKY. Chap. XXVIIL and of commerce as the arbiter of alliances, the umpire of factions, the judge of war and peace, roused the attention of speculative men ; so that, in a few years, Bolingbroke, claiming to speak for the landed aristocracy, described his opponents as the party of the banks, the commercial cor- porations, and, "in general, the moneyed interest;" and Addison, espousing the cause of the burgliers, declared nothing to be more reasonable than that " those who have engrossed the riches of the nation should have the manage- ment of its public treasure, and the direction of its fleets and armies." In a word, the old English aristocracy was compelled to respect the innovating element imbodied in the moneyed interest. Still more revolutionary was the political theory de- veloped by the revolution. Absolute monarchy was denied to be a form of civil government. Nothing, it was held, can bind freemen to obey any government save their own agreement. Political power is a trust ; and a breach of the trust dissolves the obligation to allegiance. The supreme power is the legislature, to whose guardianship it has been sacredly and unalterably delegated. By the fundamental law of property, no taxes may be levied on the people but by its own act or that of its authorized agents. The revolution is further marked as a consequence of public opinion, effected without bloodshed in favor of the strongest conviction. It refused to confirm itself by force, and would not tolerate standing armies. It compelled William III. to dismiss his Dutch guards. A free discus- sion of the national policy and its agents was more and more demanded and permitted. The English government, which used to punish censure of its measures or its minis- ters with merciless severity, began to lean on public con- viction. The whigs could not consistently restrain debate ; the tories, from their interests as a minority, desired free- dom to appeal to popular sympathy ; and the adherents of the fallen dynasty loved to multiply complaints against im- pious usurpation. All were clamorous for liberty; and Jacobites and patriots could frame a coalition. It was no longer possible to set limits to the active spirit of inquiry. Chap. XXVIII. THE SOUTH AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 195 The philosophy of Locke, cherishing the variety that is always the first fruit of analysis and free research, was ad- mired, even though it seemed to endanger some dogmas of the church, of which the denial was still by the statutes a crime. Men not only dissented from the unity of faith, but even denied the reality of faith ; and philosophy, pass- ing from the ideal world to the actual, claimed the right of observing, weighing, measuring, and doubting, at its will. The established censorship of the press, by its own limita- tion, drew near its end, and, after a short renewal, was suffered to expire, never again to be revived. England enjoyed the liberty of unlicensed printing. If prosecu- tions for libels still continued, the demand for the freedom of the press, was already irresistible. Its force was in- creased by the unlimited freedom of parliamentary debate, the freedom of elections, and the right of petition, which belonged to every Englishman. "In the Revolution of 1688, there was certainly no appeal to the people." In the contest between the nation and the throne, the aristoc- racy constituted itself the mediating lawgiver, and made privilege the bulwark of the commons against despotism. The free press carried political discussions everywhere. By slow degrees, a popular opinion would gather a conscious- ness of existence. By slow degrees, the common people v^ would gain hardihood enough to present petitions ; to come together for the consideration of public grievances. If the aristocracy refused to abdicate the control of parliament; if Lord Somers did not propose a reform of boroughs, such as the people of that day had not learned to desire, the liberty of unlicensed printing opened an avenue for diffus- ing political instruction, and was a pledge of the ultimate concession of reform. Thus the Revolution of 1688, though narrow in its prin- ciple, imperfect in its details, ungrateful towards Puritans, frightfully intolerant towards Catholics, forms an era in the history of England and of mankind. Henceforward the title of the king to the crown was bound up with the title of the aristocracy to its privileges, of the people to its liberties : it sprung from the nation, and not from 196 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVIIL a power superior to the nation ; from law, and not from divine right; and its responsibility was therefore not to God alone, but to God and the nation. The revolution respected existing possessions, yet made conquests for free- dom ; preserved the ascendency of the aristocracy, yet in- creased the weight of the middling class ; the securities of personal liberty, of opinion, and of the press; and the responsibility of the executive. England became the star of constitutional government, shining as a beacon on the hori- zon of Europe, and, in the heart of despotic countries, compelling the eulogies of Montesquieu and the homage' of Voltaire. Never in the history of man had so large a state been blessed with institutions so favorable to public happiness, to the arts of peace, to the development of its natural resources. Its commerce connected it with every quarter of the globe ; and its colonies were so many pledges that the whole race would participate in the benefit of her freedom and her culture. When the revolution was effected, the statesmen of England had no plan for administering the colonies. The new king and his ministers, without knowledge of their con- dition or experience in their affairs, were now swayed by the principles of liberty, now eager to strengthen the preroga- tive, and they often followed the precedents and usages of the previous reign. To the proprietaries of Carolina, the respect of the revolution for vested rights secured their possessions. In the territory itself, south and west of Cape Fear, political parties had already become passionate, if they had not acquired consistency. Of "the pretended churchmen" who were among the early emigrants, some were known as " ill livers," having the manners of the time of Charles II. The larger part of the settlers were dissenters, bringing with them the faith and the staid sobriety of the Calvinists of that age. At first, "the ill livers," averse to restraint, opposed the proprietaries, whose government the grave Presbyterians, as friends to order, sustained. When the obstinate perversity of the proprietaries drove the Presby- tei'ians into opposition, those who were styled "the nobil- 1692. THE SOUTH AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 197 ity," together with the high church party, constituted a colonial oligarchy against the great mass of the people. The dissenters, who, from respect to an established govern- ment, had favored the proprietaries, now joined even with " ill livers " in behalf of colonial rights. The people had deposed Colleton. His successor i690. was Seth Sothel, who to pretensions as a proprietary added the choice of the inhabitants His administration is the triumph of the more popular party ; and its enactments were made, with silent disregard of the nobility, by the exclusive consent of the commons. The " wise, moderate, and well-living " Thomas Smith, who had advised martial law, and those who had established it, were disfranchised for two years. Methods of colonial defence were adopted, and were, in the following years, improved i69i. by providing military stores, and establishing a rev- enue ; in May, the Huguenots were fully enfran- May i. chised, as though they had been free-born citizens. The statute-book of South Carolina attests the moderation and liberality of the government, which derived its chief sanction from the immigrants. But tranquillity did not return. As the Revolution of 1688 respected the rights of the proprietaries, the insurrec- tionary government soon came to an end. Factions multi- plied in a colony which had as yet gained no moral unity. The legal sovereigns would not expend their private for- tunes in reducing their insurgent liege-men ; the colonial oligarchy, which they favored, was too feeble a minority to conduct the government ; and the people were forbidden by law to take care of themselves. To this were added the evils of an uncertain boundary on the south, and of disor- dered finances. All the acts of the demofiratio, legislature were i692. rejected by the proprietaries ; while, as a remedy for anarchy, Philip Ludwell, a moderate adherent of Berkeley, once collector of customs in Virginia, a man of a candid mind, a complainant in England against Effingham, and since 1689 governor of North Carolina, was sent to establish order and the supremacy of the proprietaries. But he had 198 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVIIL power to inquire into grievances, not to redress them. Dis- putes respecting quit-rents and the tenure of lands con- tinued ; and, after floating for a year between the wishes of his employers and the necessities of the colonists, Ludwell gladly withdrew into Virginia. A concession followed. In April, 1693, the propri- etaries voted " that, as the people have declared they would rather be governed by the powers granted by the charter, without regard to the fundamental constitutions, it will be for their quiet, and for the protection of the well- disposed, to grant their request." So perished the legisla- tion of Shaftesbury and Locke. It had been promulgated as immortal, and, having never gained life in the colony, was, within a quarter of a century, abandoned by the pro- prietaries themselves. Palatines, landgraves, and caciques, "the nobility" of the Carolina statute-book, were doomed to pass away. On the abrogation of the constitutions, Thomas Smith was by the proprietaries appointed governor. The system of biennial assemblies, which, with slight changes, still endures, was immediately instituted by the people ; but, as the political opinions of Smith were at variance with those of the majority, his personal virtues could not conciliate for him confidence. Despairing of success, he proposed 1694. that one of the proprietaries should visit Carolina, with ample powers alike of inquiry and of redress. The advice pleased ; and the grandson of Shaftesbury, the pupil and antagonist of Locke, was elected dictator. On his declining, the choice fell upon John Archdale, an honest member of the society of Friends. He was invested with larger powers than any of his predecessors. The disputes in South Carolina had grown out of the selfishness of a high church oligarchy, sustained by the pro- prietaries. Now the peaceful Archdale, the mediator between the factions, was himself, as a dissenter, pledged to Au^^iT. freedom of conscience, and his powers permitted him to infuse candor into his administration, though not into the constitution of Carolina. Conscious that " dissent- ers could kill wolves and bears, fell trees, and clear ground, 1697. THE SOUTH AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 199 as well as churchmen ; " and acknowledging that emigrants should ever expect " an enlargement of their native rights in a wilderness country," — he selected for the council two men of the moderate party to one high churchman. This balance of power was in harmony with colonial opinion. By remitting quit-rents for three and for four years, by reg- ulating the price of land and the form of conveyances, by giving the planter the option of paying quit-rents in money or in the products of the country, he quieted the jarrings between the colonists and their feudal sovereigns. To culti- vate friendship with the Indians, he established a board to decide all contests between them and the white men. The natives round Cape Fear obtained protection against kid- nappers, and requited this security by kindness towards mariners shipwrecked on their coast. The government was organized as it had been in Maryland, the proprietaries appointing the council, the people electing the house of assembly. The defence of the colony rested on the militia. With the Spaniards at St. Augustine friendly relations sprung up : a Quaker could respect the faith of a papist. Four Indians, converts of the Spanish priests, captives to the Yamassees, and exposed to sale as slaves, were ran- somed by Archdale, and sent to the governor of St. Augus- tine. " I shall manifest reciprocal kindness," was his reply, " and shall always observe a good correspondence with you;" and, when an English vessel was wa-ecked on Florida, the Spaniards retaliated the benevolence of Arch- dale. The fame of Carolina began to increase now that jg^g it " stood circumstanced with the honor of a true Eng- J^^"® 26. lish government, zealous for the increase of virtue as well as outward trade and business ; " and the representatives of its freemen declared that Archdale, "by his wisdom, pa- tience, and labor, had laid a firm foundation for a most glorious superstructure." Immediately after the return of the Quaker legislator, the Huguenots were once more and successfully endowed with the rights of citizens by the colonial legislature. ]v/a?ia Liberty of conscience was conferred on all Chris- 200 COLONIAL HISTOKY. Chap. XXVIH. tians, unhappily with the exception of papists. This was the first act in CaroKna disfranchising religious opinion. Soon after Archdale reached England, the work of proprietary legislation was renewed. The new code asserted the favorite maxim of the reformers of that day, that " all power and dominion are most naturally founded in property." But this maxim, which in England was, in the progress of freedom, a conquest of commercial industry over the pride of birth, was, with the laws resting on it, rejected in Carolina. The journals of the provincial Septal assembly show that, after they had been read and debated, paragraph by paragraph, the question of ordering them to a second reading was carried in the nega- tive. Carolina refused alike a hereditary nobility and the dominion of wealth. The colonial oligarchy looked for favor to an exclusive religion of state. Even the consent of non-conformists had been given to the public maintenance of one min- ^^y^g ister of the church of England ; and orthodoxy had, as in nearly every colony, been protected by the 1704. menace of disfranchisement and prisons. In 1704, "the high pretended churchmen," having, by the arts of Nathaniel Johnson, gained a majority of one in an assembly representing a colony of which two thirds were dissenters, abruptly disfranchised them all, and, after the English precedent, gave to the church of England a monop- oly of political power. The council, no longer composed on the princijiles of Archdale, joined in the eager assent of |the governor. In the court of the proprietaries, Archdale op- posed the bill ; but Lord Granville, the palatine, an oppo- nent to occasional conformity, scorned the remonstrances of the Quaker. "You," said he, "are of one opinion, I of another ; and our lives may not be long enough to end the controversy. I am for this bill, and this is the party that I will head and countenance." Dissenters having Nov. thus been excluded from the house of commons, the church of England was easily established by law. At the same time, a body of lay commissioners was nomi- nated by the oligarchy from its own number, to supersede 1706. THE SOUTH AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 201 the authority of the bishop. The intolerant spirit which persecuted dissenters assumed " a haughty dominion over the clergy itself." The dissenters, excluded from the colonial legislature, rejected with contumely by the proprietaries, appealed to the house of lords, where the spirit of Somers prevailed. An address to Queen Anne, in behalf of them, was adopted ; the lords of trade and plantations reported M^ar.^i2. that the proprietaries had forfeited their charter, and May 24. advised its recall by a judicial process; the intol- erant acts were, by royal authority, declared null June lo. and void. In November of the same year they were repealed by the colonial assembly; but, while dissenters were tolerated and could share political power, the church of England was immediately established as the religion of the province. This compromise continued till the revolution. Mean- time, the authority of the proprietaries was tainted by the declaration of the queen and the opinion of English law- yers. Strifes ensued perpetually respecting quit-rents and finances ; and, as the proprietaries provided no sufficient defence for the colony, their power, which had no guaran- tee even in their own interests, and still less in the policy of the English government or the good-will of the colonists, awaited only an opportunity to expire. This period of turbulence and insurrection, of angry fac- tions and popular excitements, was nevertheless a period of prosperity. The country rapidly increased in population and the value of its exports. The prolific rice-plant had, at a very early period, been introduced from Madagascar ; in 1691, the legislature rewarded the invention of new meth- ods for cleansing it ; its culture steadily increased ; and the rice of Carolina was esteemed the best in the world. Hence the opulence of the colony ; hence, also, its swarms of negro slaves. The profits of the rice-fields tempted the planter to enlarge his domains, and Africa furnished la- borers. The cereal grasses were ill adapted to the sands near the sea, or the alluvial swamps. The woods were more inviting. 202 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVIIL Early in the eighteenth century, the Carolina Indian trader had penetrated a thousand miles into the interior. The skins of bears, beavers, wildcats, deer, foxes, and raccoons, invited commerce. The oak was cleft into staves for the West Indies : the trunk of the pine was valued for masts, boards, and joists ; its juices yielded turpentine ; from the same tree, when dry, fire extracted tar. But naval stores were still more the produce of North Carolina, where, as yet, slaves were very few, and the planters mingled a leisurely industry with the use of the fowling-piece. While the Avorld was set on fire by wars of unparalleled extent, the unpolished inhabitants of North Car- olina multiplied and spread in the enjoyment of the highest personal liberty. Five miles below Edenton, just a hun- dred yards from the sound, beneath the shade of a large cedar, the stone that marks the grave of Henderson Walker keeps the record that " North Carolina, during his adminis- tration, enjoyed tranquillity." This is the history of four years in which the people, without molestation, enjoyed their wild independence. It was the liberty of freemen in the woods. " North Carolina," like ancient Rome, was famed " as the sanctuary of runaways ; " seventy years after its origin, Spotswood describes it as "a country where there's scarce any form of government ; " and it long con- tinued to be said, with but slight exaggeration, that "in Carolina every one did what was right in his own eyes> paying tribute neither to God nor to Caesar." In such a country, which was almost an utter stranger to any public worship, among a people made up of Presby- terians and Independents, of Lutherans and Quakers, of men who drew their politics, their faith, and their law from the light of nature, — where, according to the royalists, the majority " were Quakers, atheists, deists, and other evil-dis- posed persons," — the pious zeal or the bigotry of the 1704. proprietaries, selecting Robert Daniel, the deputy governor, as the fit instrument, resolved on estab- lishing the church of England. The legislature, chosen without reference to Jthis end, after much opposition, ac- ceded to the design ; and further enacted that no one, who 1711. THE SOUTH AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 203 would not take the oath prescribed by law, should hold a place of trust in the colony. Then did North Carolina first gain experience of disfranchisements for opinions ; then did it first hear of glebes and a clergy; then were churches first ordered to be erected at the public cost. But a people does not bend in a generation : the laws could not be enforced ; and, six years afterwards, "there was but one clergyman in the whole country." The Quakers, led by their faith, were foremost in opposition. They were "not only the principal fomenters of the distractions in Carolina," but the governor of the Old Dominion complained that they "made it their business to instil the like pernicious notions into the minds of his majesty's subjects in Virginia, and to justify the mad actions of the rabble by arguments destruc- tive to all government." On a vacancy in the office of governor, anarchy 1705. prevailed. " The North had been usually governed by a deputy, appointed by the governor of South Carolina;'* and Thomas Cary obtained a commission in the wonted form. The proprietaries disapproved the appointment, and gave leave to the little oligarchy of their own deputies to elect the chief magistrate. Their choice fell on William Glover ; and the colony was forthwith rent with divisions. On the one side were churchmen and royalists, the im- mediate friends of the proprietaries ; on the other, " a rabble of profligate persons," that is, the Quakers and other dis- senters, and that majority of the people which was uncon- sciously swayed by democratic instincts. Each party had its governor; each elected its house of repre- ■^{Jio*^ sentatives. Neither could entirely prevail. The one wanted a legal sanction, the other popular favor ; and, as " it had been the common practice for them in North Car- olina to resist and imprison their governors," till they came " to look upon that as lawful which had been so long tol- erated, the party of the proprietaries was easily " trodden under foot." " The Quakers were a numerous people there, and, having been fatally trusted with a large share in the administration of that government," were resolved nio., " to maintain themselves therein." To restore order, ^^^^* 204 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVIH. Edward Hyde was despatched to govern the province ; but he was to receive his commission as deputy from Tynte, the governor of the southern division ; and, as Tynte had ah-eady fallen a victim to the climate, Hyde could show no evidence of his right, except private letters from the pro- prietaries ; and " the respect due to his birth could avail nothing on that mutinous people." The legislature which he convened, having been elected under forms which, in the eyes of his opponents, tainted the action with illegality, showed no desire to heal by prudence the distractions of the country, but, blinded by zeal for revenge, made pas- sionate enactments, " of which they themselves had not power to enforce the execution," and which, in Virginia, even royalists condemned as unjustifiably severe. At once "the true spirit of Quakerism appeared" in an open dis- obedience to unjust laws : Gary and some of his friends took up arms ; it was rumored that they were ready for an alliance with the Indians ; and Spotswood, an experienced soldier, now governor of Virginia, was summoned by Hyde as an ally. The loyalty of the veteran was embarrassed. He could not esteem " a country safe which had in it such dangerous incendiaries." He believed that, unless " meas- ures were taken to discourage the mutinous spirits, who had become so audacious as to take up arms, it would prove a dangerous example to the rest of her majesty's planta- tions." But "the difficulties of marching forces into a country so cut with rivers were almost insuperable ; '•' there were no troops but the militia ; the counties bordering on Carolina were " stocked with Quakers," or, at least, with " the articles of those people ; " and the governor of Vir- ginia might almost as well have undertaken a military expedition against foxes and raccoons, or have attempted to enforce religious uniformity among the conies, as employ methods of invasion against men whose dwellings were so sheltered by creeks, so hidden by forests, so protected by solitudes. The insurgents "obstructed the course of justice, demanding the dissolution of the assembly, and the repeal of all laws they disliked." Spotswood could only send a party of marines from the guard-ships, as evidence 1710. THE SOUTH AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 205 of his disposition. No effusion of blood followed. Gary, and the leaders of his party, on the contrary, boldly ap- peared in Virginia, for the purpose, as they said, of appealing to England in defence of their actions ; and Spotswood compelled them to take their passage in the men-of-war that were just returning. But North Carolina remained as before; its burgesses, obeying the popular judgment, "refused to make provision for ^l^l^!^ defending any part of their country," unless "they could introduce into the government the persons most obnoxious for the late rebellion ; " and therefore the assembly was promptly dissolved. There was little p^^! hope of harmony between the proprietaries and the inhabitants of North Carolina. But here, as elsewhere in America, this turbulence of freedom did not check the increase of population. Not- withstanding the contradictory accounts, the province, from its first permanent settlement by white men, has constantly been advancing, and has, I think, always exceeded South Carolina in numbers. The country ^between the Trent and the Neuse was occupied ; and at the con- nio. fluence of those rivers, in a wide sandy champaign, emigrants from Switzerland began the settlement of New Berne. Germans, fugitives from the devastated Palatinate, found a home in the same vicinity. In these early days, few negroes were introduced into the colony. Its trade was chiefly engrossed by New England. The increasing expenses of the government amounted, in 1714, to nine hundred pounds. While the people were establishing a commonwealth, the surplus revenue to the proprietaries, by sales of land and the quit-rents from their boundless domains, was but one hundred and sixty-nine pounds, or twenty guineas to each proprietary. For Virginia, the revolution gave to her liberties the regularity of law ; in other respects, the character of her people and the forms of her government were not changed. The first person who, in the reign of King William, entered the Ancient Dominion as lieutenant-governor, was the same Francis Nicholson who, in the days of King James, had 206 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVIIL been the deputy of Andros for the consolidated provinces of the north, and had been expelled from New York 1692. by the insurgent people ; his successor was Andros himself, fresh from imprisonment in Massachusetts. The earlier administration of the ardent but narrow-minded Nicholson was signalized by the establishment of the College of William and Mary, the first-fruits of the revolution, in age second only to Harvard ; at the instance of the learned and persevering commissary Blair, whose zeal for future generations was aided by subscriptions, by a gift of quit- rents from the king, by an endowment from the royal domain, and by a tax of a penny a pound on tobacco ex- ported to other plantations. To the care of Andros the historical inquirer owes the preservation of those few early papers of Virginia which have escaped ofiicial neglect, fires, time, and civil wars ; but neither from the royalist gover- nors of that day, nor from their successors, was there hope of an enlargement of civil freedom. The powers of the governor were exorbitant ; he was at once lieutenant-general and admiral, lord treasurer and chancellor, the chiei judge in all courts, president of the council, and bishop, or ordinary ; so that the armed force, the revenue, the interpretation of law, the administration of justice, the church, — all were under his control. The checks on his power existed in his instructions, in the council, and in the general assembly. But the instruc- tions were kept secret ; and, besides, they rather confirmed his prerogatives. The members of the council owed their appointment to his recommendation, their continuance to his pleasure, and, moreover, looked to him for advancement to places of profit. The assembly was restrained by the prospect of a negative from the governor and from the crown, was compelled to solicit the concurrence of the coun- cil, was exposed to influence from royal patronage, was watched in its actions by a clerk whom the governor ap- pointed, and was always sure of being dissolved if com- plaints grew loud or opposition ardent. It had, moreover, lost the method of resistance best suited to the times, since, in addition to quit-rents, a fonner legislature had established a perpetual revenue. A '^ OF THE \ f UNIVERSITY I 1703. X^JftftW©*^'^^^ ^^^ REVOLUTION. 207 Yet the people of Virginia found methods of nourishing the spirit of independence. The permanent revenue was sure to be exhausted on the governor and his favorites ; when additional supplies became necessary, the burgesses, as in Jamaica and in other colonies, claimed the right of nominating a treasurer of their own, subject to their orders, without further warrant from the governor. The statutes of Virginia show that the first assembly after the . revolution set this example, which was often imitated. i69i. The denial of this system by the crown increased the aversion to raising money ; so that Virginia refused to con- tribute its quota to the defence of the colonies against France, and not only disregarded the special orders for assisting Albany, but with unanimity, and even with the assent of the council, justified its disobedience. While other provinces were exhausted by taxation, in eleven years eighty-three pounds of tobacco for each poll was the total sum levied by all the special acts of the assembly ^\jl^^ of Virginia. The very existence of the forms of representation led to comparison. Virginia was conscious of its importance to the mother country; and its inhabitants, long aware that their liberties were less than those of New England, were put "upon a nice inquiry into the circumstances of the government." England also provoked a generous rivalry. "The assembly concluded itself entitled to all the rights and privileges of an English parliament ; " and the records of the house of commons were examined in search of pre- cedents favorable to legislative freedom. The constitution of the church in Virginia cherished colonial freedom ; for the act of 1642, which established it, reserved the right of presentation to the parish. The license of the bishop of London and the recommendation of the governor availed, therefore, but little. Sometimes the par- ish rendered the establishment nugatory by its indolence of action ; sometimes the minister, if acceptable to the con- gregation, was received, but not presented. It was the general custom to hire the minister from year to 1703. year. A legal opinion was obtained from England, 208 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVni. that the minister is an incumbent for life, and cannot be displaced by his parishioners ; but the vestry kept themselves the parson's master by preventing his induction, so that he acquired no freehold in his living, and might be removed at pleasure. Nor was the character of the clergy who came over always suited to win affection or respect. The par- ishes, moreover, were of such length that some of the people lived fifty miles from the parish church ; and the assembly would not increase the taxes by changing the bounds, even from fear of impending " paganism, atheism, or sectaries." "Schism" threatened "to creep into the church," and to generate " faction in the civil government ; " and, when Virginia and the crown came to a first violent collision, the strife related to the rights of " the parsons." But the greatest safeguard of liberty in Virginia was the individual freedom of mind, which formed, of necessity, the characteristic of independent landholders living apart on their plantations. In the age of commercial monopoly, Virginia had not one market town, not one place of trade. " As to outward appearance, it looked all like a wild desert ; " and the mercantile world, founding its judgment on the absence of cities, regarded it as " one of the poorest, miserablest, and worst countries in all America." It did not seek to share actively in the profits of commerce; it had little of the precious metals, and still less of credit ; it was satisfied with agriculture. Taxes were paid in tobacco ; remittances to Europe were made in tobacco ; the revenue of the clergy, and the magistrates, and the colony, was col- lected in the same currency ; the colonial tradesman received his pay in straggling parcels of it ; and ships from abroad were obliged to lie whole months in the rivers, before boats, visiting the several plantations on their banks, could pick up a cargo. In the season of a commercial revolution, the commercial element did not enter into the character of the colony. Its inhabitants " daily grew more and more averse to cohabitation." All royalists and churchmen as they were by ancestry, habit, and established law, they reasoned boldly in their seclusion, making their own good pleasure 1703. their rule of conduct. " Pernicious notions, fatal to 1709. 1710. 1710. THE SOUTH AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 209 the royal prerogative, were impfovmg daily ; " and, though Virginia protested against the charge of " republicanism," as an unfounded reproach, yet colonial opinion, the off- spring of free inquiry which seclusion awakened, the woods sheltered, and the self-will of slaveholders fortified, was more than a counterpoise to the prerogative of tlie Brit- ish crown. In former ages, no colony had ever enjoyed a happier freedom. From the days of the insurrection of Bacon, for a period of three quarters of a century, Virginia possessed uninterrupted peace. On its own soil, the strife with the Indians was ended ; the French hesitated to invade the western frontier, on which they lowered : if some- times alarm was spread by privateers upon the coast, a naval foe was not attracted to a region which had neither town nor magazines, wherc-jthere was nothing to destroy but a field of tobacco, nothing to plunder but the frugal stores of scattered plantations. The soil was stained by nothing but the sweat of the laborer. In such scenes of tranquil happiness, the political strifes were but the fitful ebullitions of a high spirit, which, in the wantonness of in- dependence, loved to tease the governor; and, again, if the burgesses expressed loyalty, they were loyal only because loyalty was their humor. Hence the reports forwarded to England were often contradictory. " The inclinations of the country," wrote Spotswood in 1710, " are rendered mysterious by a new and unaccountable humor, which hath obtained in several counties, of excluding the gentlemen from being burgesses, and choosing only persons of mean figure and character." " This government," so he reported in the nejct year, " is in perfect peace and tranquillity, under a due obedience to the royal authority, and a gentlemanly conformity to the church of ^England;" and the letter had hardly left the Chesapeake before he found himself thwarted by the impracticable burgesses ; and, dissolving the assembly, feared to convene another till opinion should change. But Spotswood, the best in the line of Virginia governors, a royalist, a high churchman, a traveller, bore testimony to the virtues of the people. " I will do justice to this coun- try," he writes to the bishop of London, and his evidence VOL. II. 14 210 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVIII. is without suspicion of bi-as ; " I have observed here less swearing and prophaneness, less drunkenness and debauch- ery, less uncharitable feuds and animosities, and less knav- erys and villanys, than in any part of the world, where my lot has been." The estimate of fifty thousand as the popula- tion of the colony on the accession of Queen Anne is far too low. The English revolution was a " Protestant " revolution : of the Roman Catholic proprietary of Maryland it seques- tered the authority, while it protected the fortunes. Dur- ing the absence of Lord Baltimore from his province, his powers had been delegated to nine deputies, over whom William Joseph presided. The spirit that swayed their counsels sprung from the doctrine of legitimacy which the revolution had prostr^^ed ; and they fell with it. Distrust- ing the people, they provoked opposition by demanding of the assembly, as a qualification of its members, an oath of fidelity to the proprietary. On resistance to the illegal de- mand, the house was prorogued ; and, even after the suc- cessful invasion of England became known, the deputies of Lord Baltimore hesitated to proclaim the new sovereigns. 1689. The delay gave birth to an armed association for "^P"^' asserting the right of King William ; and the depu- ties were easily driven to a garrison on the south side of Patuxent River, about two miles above its mouth. Aug. 1. There they capitulated, obtaining security for them- selves, and yielding their assent to the exclusion of papists from all provincial ofiices. A convention of the associates, " for the defence of the Protestant religion," as- sumed the government in the names of William and Mary, and in a congratulatory address denounced the influence of Jesuits, the prevalence of popish idolatry, the connivance by the government at murders of Protestants, and the danger from plots with the French and Indians. The privy council, after a debate on the address, advised the forfeiture of the charter by a process of law ; but King William, heedless of the remonstrances of the proprietary 1691. who could be convicted of no crime but his creed, junei. ^jj^ impatient of judicial forms, by his own power 1702. THE SOUTH AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 211 constituted Maryland a royal government. The arbitrary decree was sanctioned by a legal opinion from Lord Holt ; and the barons of Baltimore were superseded for a generation. In 1692, Sir Lionel Copley arrived i692. with a royal commission, dissolved the convention, assumed the government, and convened an assembly. Its first act recognised William and Mary; but, as it con- tained a clause giving validity in the colony to the Great Charter of England, it was not accepted by the crown. The second established the church of England as the religion of the state, to be supported by general taxa- tion. The ancient capital, inconvenient in its site, was, moreover, tenanted chiefly by Catholics and surrounded by proprietary recollections : under Protestant auspices, the city sacred to the Virgin Mary was abandoned, i694. and Annapolis became the seat of government. The establishment of a religion of state, earnestly advanced by the boastful eagerness of Francis Nicholson, who for four years was governor of Maryland, and by the ^Hg^^ patient, the disinterested, but unhappily too exclu- sive earnestness of the commissary, Thomas Bray, became the settled policy of the government. In 1696, the inviola- ble claim of the colony to English rights and liberties was engrafted by the assembly on the act of establishment ; and this also was disallowed; for the solicitor-general Trevor " knew not how far the enacting that the great charter of England should be observed in all points would be agreea- ble to the constitution of the colony or consistent with the royal prerogative." In 1700, the presence and noo. personal virtues of Bray, who saw Christianity only in the English church, obtained by unanimity a law command- ing conformity in every " place of public worship." Once more the act was rejected in England from regard to the rights of Protestant dissenters ; and when, at last, the Anglican ritual was established by the colonial legisla- 1702. ture, and the right of appointment and induction to every parish was secured to the governor, the English acts of toleration were at the same time put in force. Prot- estant dissent was safe ; for the difficulty of obtaining 212 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXVni. English missionaries, the remoteness of the ecclesiastical tribunals, the scandal arising from the profligate lives and impunity in crime of many clergymen, the zeal of the nu- merous Quakers for intellectual freedom, and the activity of a sort of " wandering pretenders from New England," deluding even " churchmen by their extemporary prayers and preachments," — all united as a barrier against persecu- tion. The Roman Catholics alone were left without an ally, exposed to English bigotry and colonial injustice. On the soil which, long before Locke pleaded for toleration or Penn for religious freedom, a Catholic proprietary 1704. had opened to Protestants, the Catholic inhabitant became the victim of Anglican intolerance. Mass might not be said publicly. No Catholic priest or bishop might seek to make proselytes. No Catholic might teach the young. If the wayward child of a papist would but become an apostate, the law wrested for him from his parents a share of their property. The disfranchisement of the proprietary related to his creed, not to his family. Such were the methods adopted " to prevent the growth of popery." For a quarter of a century, the administration of Mary- land resembled that of Virginia. Nicholson and Andros were governors in each. Like Virginia', Maryland had no considerable town, was disturbed but little by the Indians, and less by the French. Its " people were well-natured and most hospitable." Its staple was tobacco ; yet hemp and flax were raised, and both, like tobacco, were sometimes used as currency. In Somerset and Dorchester, the 1706. manufacture of linen, and even of woollen cloth, was attempted. Industry so opposite to the system of mercantile monopoly needed an apology ; and the assembly pleaded, in excuse of the weavers, that they were driven to their tasks " by absolute necessity." As Maryland lies in the latitude where, in the collision of negro labor and white labor, climate gives the white man the advantage, and as the large introduction of slaves drove free laborers to more northern regions, this province surpassed every other in the number of its white servants. The market was always sup- 1715. THE SOUTH AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 213 plied with them, the price varying from twelve to thirty- pounds. By its position, also, Maryland was connected with the north ; it is the most southern colony which, in 1695, con- sented to pay its quota towards the defence of New York, thus forming, from the Chesapeake to Maine, an imperfect confederacy. The union was increased by a public post. Eight times in the year, letters might be for- i695. warded from the Potomac to Philadelphia. During the period of the royal government, the assembly still re- tained influence ; for they refused to establish a permanent revenue. They encouraged tillage ; exempted provincial vessels from a tax levied on British shipping ; recognised the collector of parliamentary customs by regulating his fees ; endeavored to obstruct the importation of negroes by imposing taxes ; and attempted to prevent the introduction of convicts. To show their gratitude for the blessings which they enjoyed, they acknowledged the title of George I. They promised a library and a free school to every parish. The population of the colony increased, but not so rapidly as elsewhere. The usual estimates for this period are too low. In 1710, the number of bond and free nio. must have exceeded thirty thousand ; yet a bounty for every wolfs head continued to be offered ; the roads to the capital were long marked by notches on trees ; and water-mills still solicited legislative encouragement. Such was Maryland as a royal province. In 1715, 1715. the authority of the infant proprietary was vindi- cated. To recover his inheritance, he renounced the Catho- lic Church for that of England ; the persecution never crushed the faith of the colonists. 214 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIX. CHAPTER XXIX. THE MIDDLE STATES AFTER THE REVOLUTION. More happy than Lord Baltimore, the proprietary of Pennsylvania regained his rights without surrendering his faith. Accepting the resignation of the narrow and im- perious but honest Blackwell, who, at the period of the revolution, acted as his deputy, the Quaker chief desired " to settle the government in a condition to please the generality," to " let them be the choosers." " Friends," such was his message, " I heartily wish you all well, and beseech God to guide you in the ways of righteousness and peace. I have thought fit, upon my further stop in these parts, to throw all into your hands, that you may see the confidence I have in you, and the desire J have to give you all possible contentment." And, as the council of his province was, at that time, elected directly by the jime*2. people, that body collectively was constituted his deputy. Of its members, Thomas Lloyd, from North Wales, an Oxford scholar, was universally beloved as a bright example of the integrity of virtue. The path of preferment had opened to him in England, but he chose rather the internal peace that springs from " mental felicity." This Quaker preacher, the oracle of " the patriot rustics " on the Delaware, was now, by free suffrage, constituted president of the council. But the lower counties Nov. 21. were jealous of the superior weight of Pennsylvania; disputes respecting appointments to ofiice grew up ; the council divided ; protests ensued ; the members from the territories withdrew, and would not be reconciled ; ApTii'i. ^^ that, with the reluctant consent of William Penn, who, though oppressed with persecutions and losses, never distrusted the people of his province, and always 1692. * THE MIDDLE STATES. 215 endured hardships as though they " were, in the end, every- way for good," the lower counties were constituted a govern- ment by themselves under Markham. The separate exist- ence of the commonwealth of Delaware was the act of its own citizens. Uncertainty rested on the institutions of the prov- I69i. inces; an apparent schism, among the Quakers in- creased the trouble. The ministers of England, fearing the easy conquest of a colony of non-combatants by an enemy, were, in October, 1691, inclined to annex Pennsylvania to some other province, and to take it under the immediate government of the king. In this design they found an ally. Amidst the applause of the opponents of Qujikers, George Keith, conciliating other Protestants by a 2.' more formal regard for the Bible, asserted his own exclusive adhesion to the principles of Friends by pushing the doctrine of non-resistance to an absolute extreme. No true Quaker, he asserted, can act in public life either as a lawgiver or as a magistrate. The inferences were plain ; if Quakers could not be magistrates in a Quaker community, King William must send churchmen to govern them. Con- forming his conduct to his opinion, Keith resisted the mag- istracy of Pennsylvania with defiant contumely. The grand jury found him guilty of a breach of the laws ; an indict- ment, trial, and conviction followed. The punishment awarded was a fine of five pounds ; yet, as his offence was, in its nature, a contempt of court, the scrupulous Quakers, shunning the punishment of impertinence, lest it should seem the punishment of opinion, forgave the fine. Mean- time, the envious world, vexed at the society which it could neither corrupt nor intimidate, set up the cry that the Qua- kers were turned persecutors. Not a word of explanation would be listened to. The expressions of indignation, which the bluntness of the Quaker magistrates had not restrained, were quoted as proofs of intolerance. But, in the great conflict of parties, the devices of an 'apostate to deceive have but an accidental and transient interest : dis- owned by those who had cherished and advanced him, Keith was soon left without a faction, and made a true ex- 216 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIX. position of his part in the strife by accepting an Anglican benefice. 1692. The disturbance by Keith, creating questions as to Oct. 21. ^Yie administration of justice, confirmed the disposition of the English government to subject Pennsylvania ApT%6. ^^ ^ royal commission ; and, in April, 1693, Benjamin Fletcher, assuming power as governor for William and Mary, once more united Delaware to Pennsylvania. " Some, who held commissions from the proprietor, withdrew at the publishing of their majesties' commission, and others refused to act under that power." When the house of representatives assembled, re- sistance was developed. It was the object of Fletcher to gain supplies ; the wary legislators were intent on main- taining their privileges. The laws founded on the charter of Penn they declare to be " yet in force ; we desire the same may be confirmed to us as our right and liberties." " If the laws," answered Fletcher, " made by virtue of Mr. Penn's charter, be of force to you, and can be brought into competition with the great seal which commands me hither, I have no business here ; " and he pleaded the royal pre- rogative as inalienable. " The grant of King Charles," replied Joseph Growdon, the speaker, "is itself under the great seal. Is that charter in a lawful way at an end ? " To reconcile the difference, Fletcher proposed to May 24. rc-cnact the greater number of the former laws. " We are but poor men," said John White, " and of inferior degree, and represent the people. This is our difficulty ; we durst not begin to pass one bill to be enacted of our former laws, least by soe doing we declare the rest void." 1693. The royalists next started a technical objection : May 25. ^Yiq old laws are invalid because they do not bear the great seal of the proprietary. " We know the laws to be our laws," it was answered ; " arid we are in the enjoy- ment of them ; the sealing does not make the law, but the consent of governor, council, and assembly." The same spirit pervaded the session ; and the grant of a penny in the pound, which, it was promised, " should not be dipt in blood," was connected with a capitulation recognising 1690. THE MIDDLE STATES. 217 the legislative rights of the representatives. And a public manifesto, signed by all the members from Pennsylvania, declared it to be " the right of the assembly that, before any bill for supplies be presented, aggrievances ought to be redressed." " My door was never shut," said Fletcher on parting ; " but it was avoided, as if it were treason for the speaker, or anie other representative, to be seen in my company during your sessions." One permanent change in the constitution was the fruit of this administration : the house originated its bills, and retained this right ever after. Fletcher would gladly have changed the law for " yearlie delegates ; " for " where," thought the royalist, " is the hurt, if a good assemblie should be continued from one year to another ? " But the people saved their privilege when they elected an assembly of which Fletcher could " give no good character at Whitehall," and which he could have no wish to continue. The assembly of the next year was still more im- i694. practicable, having for its speaker David Lloyd, the keenest discoverer of grievances, and the most quiet and persevering of political scolds. " If you will not levy money to make war," such was the governor's May. message, " yet I hope you will not refuse to feed the hungrie and clothe the naked." The assembly was willing to give alms to the sufferers round Albany ; but it claimed the right of making specific appropriations, and collecting and disbursing the money by ofiicers of its own appointment. The demand was rejected as an infringement on the royal prerogative ; and, after a fortnight's altercation, the assembly was dissolved. Such was the success of a royal governor in Pennsylvania. Thrice, within two years after the revolution, had Wil- liam Penn been arrested and brought before court, and thrice he had been openly set free. In 1690, i69o. he prepared to embark once more for America ; emi- grants crowded round him ; a convoy was granted ; the fleet was almost ready to sail, when, on his return from the funeral of George Fox, messengers were sent to apprehend him. Having been thrice questioned and thrice acquitted, 218 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIX. he went into retirement. Locke would have interceded for his pardon ; but Penn refused clemency, waiting rather for justice. The delay completed the wreck of his fortunes; sorrow lowered over his family ; the wife of his youth died ; his eldest son had no vigorous hold on life ; even among Friends, some cavilled at his conduct ; Jesuit, papist, rogue, and traitor were the gentlest calumnies of the world ; yet Penn preserved his serenity, and, true to his pi-inciples, in a season of passionate and almost universal war, published a plea for eternal peace among the nations. But, among the many in England whom Penn had benefited, gratitude was not extinct. On the restora- tion of the whigs to power, Rochester, who, under James II., had given up office rather than profess Romanism, the less distinguished Ranelagh, and Henry, the brother of Alger- non Sydney, of old the correspondent of the Prince of Orange, as well as the w^arm friend of William Penn, interceded for the restoration of the proprietary of Pennsyl- vania. " He is my old acquaintance," answered William ; "he may follow his business as freely as ever; I have noth- ing to say against him." Appearing before the king in council, his innocence was established ; and, in Au- A^ugf20. g^stj 1694, the patent for his restoration passed the seals. 1695. The pressure of poverty delayed the return of the Mar. 26. proprietary to the banks of the Delaware ; and Mark- ham was invested with the executive power. The Sept. 9. members of the assembly, which he convened, anx- ious for political liberties, which the recent changes had threatened to efface, found a remedy within themselves, and, assuming the power of fundamental legislation, framed a democratic constitution. They would have " their privi- leges granted before they would give anie monie." Doubt- ful of the extent of his authority, Markham dissolved the assembly. 1696. The legislature of the next year, by its own author- ^*^^' ity, subject only to the assent of the proprietary, established a purely democratic government. The gover- nor was but chairman of the council. The council, the 1701. THE MIDDLE STATES. 219 assembly, each was chosen by the people. The time of election, the time of assembling, the period of office, were placed beyond the power of the executive. The judiciary depended on the legislature. The people constituted them- selves the fountain of honor and of power. When the assembly next came together, Markham could say May'\*2. to them : " You are met, not by virtue of any writ of mine, but of a law made by yourselves." The people ruled ; and, after years of strife, all went happily. Nothing was wanting but concert with the proprietary. Before the close of the century, William Penn was 1699. once more within his colony. The commonwealth, •^"^- ^*^' which had been as an infant nestling under his wing, had ripened into self-reliance. Passing over all intermediate changes, the proprietary acknowledged the present validity of the old fundamental law. " Let's make a ^JJJ.ji^ constitution," said a member of the council, " that may be firm and lasting to us and ours ; " and Penn invited them "to keep what's good in the charter and frame of government, to lay aside what is burdensome, and to add what may best suit the common good." And the old charter was surrendered, with the unanimous June 7. consent of the assembly and council. Yet the coun- ties of Delaware dreaded the loss of their independence by a union with the extending population of Pennsylvania. Besides, in the lower province, the authority of William Penn rested but on sufferance ; in the larger state, it was sanctioned by a royal charter ; and a passionate J^JJ- strife delayed the establishment of government. Meantime, the proprietary endeavored to remove the jealousy with which his provinces were regarded in Eng- land. The parliament ever insisted on the colonial monop- oly, and the colony readily passed laws against piracy and illicit trade ; but it could not assent to propitiate the Eng- lish sovereigns by granting its quota for the defence of New York. In regard to the improvement of the negroes, Penn attempted to legislate not for the abolition of slavery, but for the sanctity of marriage among the slaves, and for their 220 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIX. personal safety. The latter object was effected ; the former, which would have been the forerunner of freedom, was defeated. Neither did philanthropy achieve permanent benefits for the Indian. Treaties of peace were renewed with the men of the wilderness from the Potomac to Oswego, and the trade with them was subjected to regulations ; but they could not be won to the faith or the habits of civilized life. 1710. These measures were adopted amidst the fruitless Aug. 21. ^ranglings between the delegates from Delaware and those from Pennsylvania. At last, the news was received that the English parliament was about to render all their strifes and all their hopes nugatory by the general abroga- tion of every colonial charter. An assembly was summoned instantly ; and, when it came together, the proprietary, eager to return to England to defend the common rights Sept. 15. of himself and his province, urged the perfecting of their frame of government. " Since all men are mortal," such was his weighty message, "think of some suitable expedient and provision for your safety, as well in your privileges as property, and you will find me ready to comply with whatever may render us happy by a nearer union of our interests. Review again your laws ; propose new ones, that may better your circumstances ; and what you do, do it quickly. Unanimity and despatch may con- tribute to the disappointment of those that too long have sought the ruin of our young country." The relations of Penn to his colony were twofold ; he was their sovereign, and he was the owner of the unappro- priated domain. The membei*s of the assembly, impelled by an interest common to every one of their constituents, were disposed to encroach on his private rights. If some of their demands were resisted, he readily yielded every thing which could be claimed, even by inference, from his promises, or could be expected from his liberality ; making his interests of less consideration than the satisfaction of his people ; rather remitting than rigorously exacting his revenues. Of political privileges, he conceded all that was desired. 1708. THE MIDDLE STATES. 221 The council, henceforward to be appointed by the proprie- tary, became a branch of the executive government ; the assembly assumed to itself the right of originating every act of legislation, subject only to the assent of the governor. Elections to the assembly were annual ; the time of its elec- tion and the time of its session were fixed ; it was to sit upon its own adjournments. Sheriffs and coroners were nominated by the people ; no questions of property could come before the governor and council ; the judiciary was left to the discretion of the legislature. Religious liberty was established, and every public employment was open to every man professing faith in Jesus Christ. Happy Penn- sylvania ! While, in revolutionized England, the triennial parliaments were dependent for the time of their election, prorogation, and dissolution, on the will of the sovereign ; while papists were persecuted and dissenters disfranchised, in Pennsylvania human rights were respected. The fun- damental law of William Penn, even his detractors concede, was in harmony with universal reason, and true to the ancient and just liberties of the people. On returning to America, William Penn had designed to remain here for life, and to give a home to his family and his posterity in the New World. But his work was accom- plished. Divesting himself and his successors of all power to injure, he had founded a democracy. And now, having given freedom and self-government to his provinces, no strifes remaining but strifes about property, happily for himself, happily for his people, happily for posterity, he departed from the " young countrie " of his affections, and exiled himself to the birthplace of his fathers. For the separation of the territories, contingent provision had been made by the proprietary. In 1702, Penn- sylvania convened its legislature apart, and the two 1702. colonies were never again united. The lower coun- ties became at once almost an independent republic; for, as the authority of the proprietary was one of suffer- ance merely and was often brought into question, 1708. the executive power intrusted to the governor of Pennsylvania was too feeble to limit the power of the 222 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIX. people. The legislature, the tribunals, the subordinate executive offices of Delaware knew little external control. 1701 to The subsequent years in Pennsylvania exhibit con- ^^^^' stant collisions between the proprietary, as owner of the unappropriated public territory, and a people eager to enlarge their freeholds. The scoldings of David Lloyd may be consigned to oblivion ; the integrity of the mildly aris- tocratic James Logan, to whose judicious care the proprie- tary estates were intrusted, has preserved a purity unsullied by the accusations or impeachments of the assembly. Strifes also existed on political questions. The end of government was declared to be the happiness of the people, and from this maxim the duties of the governor were derived. But the organization of the judiciary was the subject of longest controversy. That the tenure of the judicial office 1707. should be the will of the people was claimed as "the people's right." The rustic legislators insisted on their right to institute the judiciary, fix the rules of court, define judicial power with precision, and by request displace judges for misbehavior. Neither would they, even in the highest courts, have English lawyers for judges. "Men skilled in the law," said they, " of good integrity, are 1706. very desirable ; yet we incline to be content with the best men the colony affords." And the courts ob- tained no permanent organization till the accession of the house of Hanover. The civil constitution included feu- dalism and democracy ; from this there could be no escape but through the sovereignty of the people. Twice, indeed, the province had almost become a royal one, — once by act of parliament, and once by treaty. But, in England, a real regard for the sacrifices and the virtues of William Penn gained him friends among English statesmen ; and the malice of pestilent English officials, of Quarry, and the men employed in enforcing the revenue laws, valuing a colony only by the harvest it offered of emoluments and jobs, and ever ready to appeal selfishly to the crown, the church, or English trade, was never able to overthrow his influence. His poverty, consequent on his disinterested labors, created a willingness to surrender his province to the crown ; but he 1706. THE MIDDLE STATES. 223 insisted on preserving the colonial liberties, and the crown hardly cared to buy a democracy. If the violent conflicts of the assembly, in their eagerness to engross all authority, and gain control over the questions of property between the province and its proprietary, seemed sometimes to compel a surrender of his powers of government, yet the bare appre- hension of such a result always brought the colonists to a gentler temper. In the government of Penn, there were an executive de- pendent for support on the people and all subordinate exec- utive oflicers elected by the people ; the judiciary dependent for its existence on the people ; all legislation originating exclusively with the people ; no fortSj no armed police, no militia ; perfect freedom of opinion ; no established church ; no difference of rank ; and a harbor opened for the reception of all mankind, of children of every language and every creed. Could it be that the ini^sible power of reason would be able to order and to restrain, to punish crime and to protect property, under such a constitution? Would not confusion, discord, and rapid ruin successively follow ? Or was it a conceivable thing that, in a country without army, without militia, without forts, and with no sheriffs but those elected " by the rabble," wealth and population should in- crease, and the spectacle be given of the happiest and most prospered land? Never did any country enjoy so much prosperity, or increase so rapidly in wealth and numbers, as Pennsylvania. In New Jersey, had the proprietary power been vested in the people or reserved to one man, it would have survived ; but it was divided among speculators in land, who, as a body, had gain, and not freedom, for their end. In April, 1688, " the proprietors of East New Jersey had surrendered their pretended right of government," and the surrender had been accepted. In October of the same year, the council of the proprietaries of West New Jersey voted to surrender to the secretary-general for the dominion of New England " all records relating to government." Thus the whole province fell, with New York and New England, under the consolidated government of Andros. At the rev- 224 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIX. olution, therefore, the sovereignty over New Jersey was merged in the crown ; and the legal maxim, soon promul- gated by the lords of trade, that the domains of the propri- etaries might be bought and sold, but not their executive power, weakened their attempts at the recovery of author- ity, and consigned the colony to a temporary anarchy. Will you know with how little government a community of husbandmen may be safe ? For twelve years, the prov- ince was not in a settled condition. From June, 1689, to August, 1692, East New Jersey had apparently no superin- tending administration, being, in time of war, destitute of military officers as well as of magistrates with royal or pro- prietary commissions'. They were protected by their neigh- bors from external attacks ; and there is no reason to infer that the several towns failed to exercise regulating powers within their respective limits. Afterwards commissions were issued by two sets of ^proprietors, of which each had its adherents ; while a third party, swayed by disgust at the confusion, and by disputes about land titles, rejected the proprietaries altogether. In the western moiety, 1689. Daniel Coxe, as largest owner of the domain, claimed exclusive proprietary powers ; yet the people dis- allowed his claim, rejecting his deputy under the bad name of a Jacobite. In 1691, Coxe conveyed such authority as he had to the West Jersey Society ; and, in 1692, Andrew Hamilton was accepted as governor under their commission. This rule, with a short interruption in 1698, continued through the reign of William. But the law officers 1694. of the crown questioned even the temporary settle- ment ; the lords of trade claimed all New Jersey as 1699. a royal province, and proposed a settlement of the question by " a trial in Westminster Hall on a feigned issue." The proprietaries, threatened with the ultimate in- terference of parliament in respect to provinces " where," it was said, " no regular government had ever been estab- lished," resolved to resign their pretensions. In their nego- tiations with the crown, they wished to insist that there should be a triennial assembly; but King William, though he had against his inclination approved an act of parlia- 1702. THE MIDDLE STATES. 225 ment of that nature for England, would never consent to it in the plantations. In the first year of Queen Anne, the surrender 1702. took place before the privy council. The domain, ^p^- ^^* ceasing to be connected with proprietary powers, was, under the rules of private right, confirmed to its possessors, and was never confiscated. After the revolution, even to the present time, their rights have been respected like other titles to estates. The surrender of " the pretended " rights to government being completed, the two Jerseys were united in one prov- ince ; and the government was conferred on Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, who, like Queen Anne, was the grandchild of Clarendon. Retaining its separate legislature, the prov- ince had for the next thirty-six years the same governors as New York. It never again obtained a charter : the royal commission and the royal instructions to Lord April. Cornbury constituted the form of its administration. To the governor appointed by the crown belonged the power of legislation, with consent of the royal council and the representatives of the people. A freehold, or property qualification, limited the elective franchise. The governor could convene, prorogue, or dissolve the assembly at his will, and the period of its duration depended on his pleas- ure. The laws were subject to an immediate veto from the governor, and a veto from the crown, to be exercised at any time. The governor, with the consent of his council, insti- tuted courts of law, and appointed their ofiicers. The peo- ple took no part in constituting the judiciary. Liberty of conscience was granted to all but papists, but favor was invoked for the church of England, of which, at the same time, the prosperity was made impossible by investing the governor with the right of presentation to benefices. In suits at law, the governor and council formed a court of appeal : if the value in dispute exceeded two hundred pounds, the English privy council possessed ultimate juris- diction. Two instructions mark, one a declining bigotry, the other an increasing interest. " Great inconvenience," says Queen Anne, "may arise by the liberty of printing VOL. II. 16 226 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIX. in our province " of l^ew Jersey ; and therefore no print- ing-press might be kept, " no book, pamphlet, or other matters whatsoever, be printed without a license." And, in conformity with English policy, especial countenance of the traffic "in merchantable negroes" was earnestly enjoined. The courts, the press, the executive, became dependent on the crown ; and the interests of free labor were sacrificed to the cupidity of the Royal African com- pany. One method of influence remained to the people of New Jersey. The assembly must fix the amount of its grants to the governor. The queen did not venture to prescribe, or to invite parliament to prescribe, a salary ; still less, herself to concede it from colonial resources. Urgent that all appropriations should be made directly for the use of the crown, to be audited by her officers, she wished a fixed revenue to be settled; but the colonial deliberations were respected, and the wise assembly, which never established a permanent revenue, often embarrassed its votes of supplies by insisting on an auditor of its own. The freemen of the colony were soon conscious of the diminution of their liberties. For absolute religious free- dom, they obtained only toleration ; for courts resting on enactments of their own representatives, they had courts instituted by royal ordinances ; and the sense of their loss quickened their love of freedom by an undefined sentiment of having suffered a wrong. By degrees they claimed to hold their former privileges by the nature of an inviolable compact. The surrender of their charter could change the authority of the proprietaries, but not impair their conces- sions of political liberties. Inured to self-reliance and self- government, no thought of independence sprung up among them ; but the Quakers and Puritans of East and West New Jersey, cordially joining to vindicate their common liberties, never feared to encounter a royal governor, and were ever alert to resist encroachments on their rights. In New York, the dread of popery and despotism bewildered the hasty judgment of the less cultivated. There were differences in origin ; the Dutch were not 1689. THE MIDDLE STATES. 227 blended with the English ; and if, of the latter, the stern dissenters opposed the churchmen and those who had gathered round the royal governor, among the Dutch the humbler class of people had not amalgamated with "the gentlemen of figure." From the first, feudal distinctions had existed among the emigrants from Holland. In assum- ing power, Leisler rested chiefly for his support upon the less educated classes of the Dutch, and English dissenters were not heartily his friends. The large Dutch landholders, many of the English merchants, the friends to the Angli- can church, the cabal that had gro\^Ti up round the royal governors, were his wary and unrelenting opponents. But his greatest weakness was in himself. Too restless to obey and too passionate to command, as a Presbyterian, Leis- ler was averse to the church of England ; as a man of middling fortunes, to the aristocracy ; while, as a Dutch- man and a Calvinist, he was an enthusiast for William of Orange. The Protestant insurgents had, immediately after the revolution in Xew England, taken possession of the fort in New York. A few companies of militia sided with Leis- ler openly, and nearly five hundred men soon joined him in arms. Their declaration, published to the world, avows their purposes : " As soon as the bearer of j^^f 3 orders from the Prince of Orange shall have let us see his power, then, without delay, we do intend to obey, not the orders only, but also the bearer thereof." A committee of safety of ten assumed the task of June 8. rec^ganizing the government, and Jacob Leisler re- ceived their commission to command the fort of New York. Of this he gained possession without a struggle. An address to King William was forwarded, and a letter from Leisler was received by that prince, if not with favor, yet with respect, and without rebuke. Nicholson, the deputy governor, had been heard to say, what was after- July 25. wards often repeated, that the people of New York were a conquered people, without claim to the rights of Englishmen ; that the prince might lawfully govern them by his own will, and appoint what laws he pleased. The 228 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIX. dread of this doctrine sunk deeply into the public mind, and afterwards attracted the notice of the assemblies Aug^^ie. ^^ New York. At that period of disorder, the com- mittee of safety reassembled ; and " Leisler, an inso- lent alien, assisted," say " the principal men " of New York, "by those who formerly were thought unfit to be in the meanest offices," was constituted the temporary governor of the province. The appointment was, in its form, open to censure. Courtland, the mayor of the city. Bayard, and others of the council, after fruitless opposition, retired to Albany, where the magistrates, in convention, proclaimed their allegiance to William and Mary, and their resolution to disregard the authority of Leisler. When Milborne, the son-in-law of Leisler, first came to demand the fort, he was successfully resisted. In December, letters were received addressed to Nicholson, or, in his absence, to " such as, for the time being, take care for preserving the peace and administering the law" in New York. A commission to Nicholson accom- panied them. The commission proved the royal favor to be with the tory party, the friends of the late government ; but, as Nicholson was absent, Leisler esteemed his own authority to have received the royal sanction. 1690. A warrant was issued for the apprehension of Bay- Jan. 17. ^j.^ . g^jj^ Albany, in the spring, terrified by the calam- ity of an Indian invasion, and troubled by the anger and the outrages of domestic factions, yielded to Milborne. To protect the frontier, and invade and conquer Canada, was the ruling passion of the northern colonies; but the ^m- mer was lost in fruitless preparations, and closed in strife. Meantime, a house of representatives had been convened, and, amidst distress and confusion, the government consti- tuted by the popular act. In January of 1691, the "Beaver" arrived in New York harbor with Ingoldsby, who bore a commission as captain. Leisler offered him quarters in the city : Jan. 30. " Possession of his majesty's fort is what I demand," replied Ingoldsby, and he issued a proclamation re- quiring submission. Thus the aristocratic party obtained as 1691. THE MIDDLE STATES. 229 a leader one who held a commission from the new sovereign. Leisler, conforming to the original agree- j^^^^u ment made with his fellow-insurgents, replied that Ingoldsby had produced no order from the king, or from Sloughter, who, it was known, had received a commission as governor, and, promising him aid as a military officer, refused to surrender the fort. The troops, as Feb. i. they landed, were received with all courtesy and accommodation ; yet passions ran high, and a shot even was fired at them. The outrage was severely reproved by Leisler, who, amidst proclamations and counter- proclamations, promised obedience to Sloughter on Mar. lo. his arrival. On the evening on which the profligate, needy. Mar. 19. and narrow-minded adventurer, who held the royal commission, arrived in New York, Leisler sent messengers to receive his orders. The messengers were detained. Next morning, he asked, by letter, to whom he should Mar. 20. surrender the fort. The letter was unheeded ; and Sloughter, giving no notice to Leisler, commanded In- goldsby " to arrest Leisler, and the persons called his council." The prisoners, eight in number, were promptly arraigned before a special court constituted for the purpose by an ordinance, and having inveterate royalists as judges. Six of the inferior insurgents made their defence, were con- victed of high treason, and were reprieved. Leisler and Milborne denied to the governor the power to institute a tribunal for judging his predecessor, and they appealed to the king. On their refusal to plead, they were condemned of high treason as mutes, and sentenced to death ; Joseph Dudley, of New England, now chief justice of New York, giving the opinion that Leisler had had no legal au- thority whatever. " Certainly never greater villains May 7. lived," wrote Sloughter ; but he " resolved to wait for the royal pleasure, if by any other means than hanging he could keep the country quiet." Meantime, the assembly, for which warrants had Aprils, been issued on the day of Leisler's arrest, came 230 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIX. together. In its character it was thoroughly royalist, establishing a revenue, and placing it in the hands of the receiver-general, at the mercy of the governor's warrant. It passed several resolves against Leisler, especially declar- ing his conduct at the fort an act of rebellion ; and Slough- ter, in a time of excitement, assented to the vote of May^i4. ^^^ council, that Leisler and Milborne should be executed. " The house, according to their opinion May 15. given, did approve of what his excellency and coun- cil had done." Accordingly, on the next day, amidst a drenching rain, Leisler, parting from his wife Alice and his numerous fam- ily, was, with his son-in-law, Milborne, led to the gal- May i6. lows. Both acknowledged the errors which they had committed "through ignorance and jealous fear, through rashness and passion, through misinformation and misconstruction ; " in other respects, they asserted their innocence, which their blameless private lives confirmed. " Weep not for us, who are departing to our God," — these were Leisler's words to his oppressed friends, — " but weep for yourselves, that remain behind in misery and vexation ; " adding, as the handkerchief was bound round his face, " I hope these eyes shall see our Lord Jesus in heaven." Mil- borne exclaimed : " I die for the king and queen, and the Protestant religion, in which I was born and bred. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." The appeal to the king, which had not been permitted during their lives, was made by Leisler's son ; and, though the committee of lords of trade reported that the forms of law had not been broken, the estates of " the deceased " were restored to their families. Dissatisfied with this im- perfect redress, the friends of Leisler and Milborne, with the assent of the king, persevered till, in 1695, an act of parliament, strenuously but vainly opposed by Dudley, re- versed the attainder. In New York, their partisans, whom a royalist of that day described as " the meaner sort of the inhabitants," and who were distinguished always by their zeal for toleration, for opposition to the doctrine of legiti- macy, formed a powerful, and ultimately a successful, party. 1692. THE MIDDLE STATES. 231 The rashness and incompetency of Leisler were forgotten in sympathy for the judicial murder by which he fell ; and the principles which he upheld, though his opponents might rail at equality of suffrage and demand for the man of wealth as many votes as he held estates, necessarily became the principles of the colony. There existed in the province no party which would i69i. Bacrihce colonial freedom. Even the legislature of 1691, composed of the deadly enemies of Leisler, asserted the right to a representative government, and to English liberties, to be inherent in the people, and not a consequence of the royal favor of King William. " No tax whatever shall be levied on his majestie's subjects in the province, or qn their estates, on any pretence whatsoever, but by the act and consent of the representatives of the people in general assembly convened;" "supreme legislative power belongs to the governor and council, and to the people by their representatives : " such was the voice of the most royalist assembly that could ever be convened in New York. King William would not approve the act by which " a subordinate legislature declared its own privileges ; " but it was even printed among the laws in force in New York without any notice of its disallowance. " New England," wrote the royalist councillors, "has poisoned the western parts, for- merly signal for loyal attachments, with her seditious and anti-monarchical principles." In the administration of the covetous and pas- 1692. sionate Fletcher, a man of great mobility and feeble ^^^*" judgment, the people of New York, whom he described as " divided, contentious, and impoverished," were disciplined into more decided resistance. As to territory, the policy of consolidating provinces was revived ; for the security of the central province, the command of the militia of New Jersey and Connecticut was, by a royal commission, con- ferred on Fletcher, and he was invested with powers of government in Pennsylvania and Delaware. An address was sent to the king, representing the great cost of defending the frontiers, and requesting that the neighboring colonies might contribute to the protection of 232 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIX. Albany. The necessity of common defence in this 1695. age led only to instructions. All the colonies north of Carolina were directed to furnish quotas for the defence of New York or the attacks on Canada; but the instructions, though urgently renewed, were never enforced, and were by some colonies openly disregarded. In its relations towards Canada, New York shared the passion for conquest, which gradually extended to other colonies. In its internal affairs, bordering on Puritan New England, it is the most northern province that admitted by enactment the partial establishment of the Anglican church. The Presbyterians had introduced themselves under com- pacts with the Dutch government. The original settlers from the Netherlands were Calvinists, yet with a church organization far less popular than that of New England, and having in some degree sympathy with the ecclesiastical polity of Episcopacy. During the ascendency of the Dutch, it had often been asserted in an exclusive spirit ; when the colony became English, the conquest was made by men de- voted to the English throne and the English church, and the influence of churchmen became predominant in the council. The idea of toleration was still imperfect in New Netherland. It is not strange, therefore, that the efforts of Fletcher to privilege the English service were partially suc- cessful. The house framed a bill, in which they established certain churches and ministers, reserving the right of pres- entation to the vestrymen and church-wardens. The gov- ernor, interpreting the act, limited its meaning to the English form of worship, and framed an amendment giving the right of presentation to the representative of the crown. The assembly asserted it for the people, rejecting the amendment. "Then I must tell you," retorted Fletcher, this " seems very unmannerly. There never was an amend- ment desired by the council board but what was rejected. It is a sign of a stubborn ill-temper. I have the power of collating or suspending any minister in my government by their majesties' letters patent ; and, whilst I stay in this government, I will take care that neither heresy, schism, nor rebellion, be preached among you, nor vice and pro- THE MIDDLE STATES. 233 fanity encouraged. You seem to take the whole power into your hands, and set up for every thing." The " stubborn temper " of the house was immov- 1695. able ; and, two years afterwards, that the act might ^^^- ^^' not be construed too narrowly, it was declared that the vestrymen and church-wardens of the church established in New York might call a Protestant minister who had not received Episcopal ordination. Not a tenth part of the population of that day adhered to the Episcopal Church ; the public spirit demanded toleration ; and if, on the one hand, the English church succeeded in engrossing the pro- vision made by public acts for the ministry, on the other, the dissenters were wakened to jealousy, lest the Episcopal party, deriving countenance from England, might nourish a lust for dominion. To the mixed races of legislators in the province, the governor, in 1697, said : " There are none of you but what are big with the privileges of Englishmen and Magna Charta." The differences were tranquillized in the short adminis- tration of the kindlier Earl of Bellomont, an Irish peer, with a sound heart and honorable sympathies for popular freedom. He arrived in New York after the peace of Kyswick, with a commission extending to the ^{,^^"2 borders of Canada, including New York, New Jersey, and all New England, except Connecticut and Rhode Island. In New York, Bellomont, who had served on the committee of parliament to inquire into the trials of Leisler and Mil- borne, was indifferent to the little oligarchy of the royal council, of which he reproved the vices and resisted the selfishness. The memory of Leisler was revived ; and the assembly, by an appropriation of its own in favor of his family, confirmed the judgment of the English parliament. The enforcement of the acts of trade, which had been violated by the connivance of men appointed to execute them ; and the suppression of piracy, which, as the turbu- lent offspring of long wars and of the false principles of the commercial systems of that age, infested every sea from America to China, — were the great purposes of Bellomont ; yet for both he accomplished little. The acts of trade, 234 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIX. despotic in their nature, contradicting the rights of hu- manity, were evaded everywhere ; but in New York, a city, in part, of aliens, owing allegiance to England, without the bonds of common history, kindred, and tongue, they were disregarded without scruple. No voice of conscience de- clared their violation a moral offence ; respect for them was but a calculation of chances. In the attempt to suppress piracy, the prospect of infinite booty to be recovered from pirates, or to be won from the enemies of England, had gained from the king and the admiralty a commission for William Kidd, and had deluded Bellomoiit into a partner- ship in a private expedition. Failing in his hopes of opu- lence, Kidd found his way as a pirate to the gallows. In the house of commons, the transaction provoked inquiry, and hardly escaped censure. Neither war nor illiberal legislation could retard the growth of the city of New York in commerce, in wealth, and in numbers. The increased taxes were imposed with equity and collected with moderation. " I will pocket none of the public money myself, nor shall there be any embez- zlement by others," was the honest promise of Bellomont ; and the necessity of the promise is the strongest com- mentary upon the character of his predecessors. The con- fiding house of representatives voted a revenue for six years, and placed it, as before, at the disposition of the governor. His death interrupted the short period of har- mony in the colony; and, happily for New York, Lord Cornbury, his successor, had every vice of character neces- sary to discipline a colony into self-reliance and resistance. Of the same family with the queen of England ; brother- in-law to a king whose service he had betrayed ; the grand- son of a prime minister; himself heir to an earldom, — Lord Cornbury, destitute of the virtues of the aristocracy, illus- trated the worst form of its arrogance, joined to intellectual imbecility. Of the sagacity of the common mind, of its firmness, he knew nothing ; of political power he had no conception, except as it emanates from the self-will of a superior ; to him popular rights existed only as a condescen- sion. Educated at Geneva, he yet loved Episcopacy as 1705. THE MIDDLE STATES. 235 a religion of state subordinate to executive power. And now, at about forty years of age, with self-will and the pride of rank for his counsellors, without fixed principles, without perception of political truth, he stood among mixed people of New Jersey and of New York as their governor. The royalists anticipated his arrival with the in- cense of flattery ; and the hospitality of the colony, which was not yet provoked to defiance, elected a house of assembly disposed to confide in the integrity of one who had been represented as a friend to Presbyterians. The expenses of his voyage were compensated by a grant of two thousand pounds, and an annual revenue for the public service provided for a period of seven years. In April, 1703, a further grant was made of fifteen hundred pounds to fortify the Narrows, " and for no other use whatever." But Lord Cornbury cared little for the limitations of a pro- vincial assembly. The money, by his warrant, disappeared from the treasury, while the Narrows were left defenceless ; and the assembly, awakened to distrust, by addresses to the governor and the queen solicited a treasurer jj^^ of its own appointment. The governor sought to hide his own want of integrity by reporting to the lords of trade that " the colonies were possessed with an opinion that their assemblies ought to have all the privileges of a house of commons ; but how dangerous this is," he adds, " I need not say." The general revenue had i704. been fixed for a period of years ; no new appropria- tions could be extorted ; and, heedless of menaces or solici- tations, the representatives of the people in 1704 asserted " the rights of the house." Lord Cornbury answered : " I know of no right that you have as an assembly, but such as the queen is pleased to allow you." Broughton, the attor- ney-general in New York, reported in the same year that " republican spirits " were to be found there. The firmness of the assembly won its first victory ; for 1705. the queen permitted specific appropriations of inci- dental grants of money, and the appointment by the general assembly of its own treasurer to take charge of extraordi- nary supplies. 236 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIX. In affairs relating to religion, Lord Cornbury was equally imperious, disputing the right of ministers or schoolmasters to exercise their vocation without his license. The question of the freedom of the pulpit no longer included the whole question of intellectual freedom ; the victory for toleration had been won ; and the spirit of political freedom found its organ in the provincial legislature. His long undetected forgery of a standing instruction in favor of the English church led only to acts of petty tyranny, useless to English interests, degrading the royal prerogative, .and benefiting the people by compelling their active vigilance. The power of the people redressed the griefs. If Francis Make- mie, a Presbyterian, was indicted for preaching without a license from the governor; if the chief justice advised a special verdict, — the jury, composed, it is said, of Episco- palians, constituted themselves the judges of the law, and readily agreed on an acquittal. In like manner, at Jamaica, the church which the whole town had erected was, by the connivance of Cornbury, reserved exclusively for the Epis- copalians ; an injustice which was reversed in the colonial courts. 1708. Twice had Cornbury dissolved the assembly. The Aug. 19. tjiii-d which he convened proved how rapidly the political education of the people had advanced. Dutch, English, and New England men were all of one spirit. The rights of the people, with regard to taxation, to courts of law, to officers of the crown, were asserted with an energy to which the governor could offer no resistance. Without presence of mind, subdued by the colonial legislature, and now appearing as dispirited as he was indigent, he submitted to the ignominy of reproof, and thanked the assembly for the simplest act of justice. In New Jersey there were the same demands for money, and a still more wary refusal ; representatives, elected 1704. by a majority of votes, excluded by the governor; assemblies convened, and angrily dissolved. At last, necessity compelled a third assembly, and among its members were Samuel Jennings and Lewis Morris. The latter was of a liberal mind, yet having no fixed system ; intrepid, but 1709. THE MIDDLE STATES. 237 not exclusive. The former, elected speaker of the assembly, was a true Quaker, of a hasty yet benevolent temper, faith- ful in his affections, "stiff and impracticable in politics." These are they whom Lord Cornbury describes " as capable of any thing but good ; " whom Quarry and other subser- vient counsellors accuse as " turbulent and disloyal," " en- couraging the governments in America to throw off the royal prerogative, declaring openly that the royal instruc- tions bind no further than they are warranted by law." The assembly, according to the usage of that day, wait on the governor with their remonstrance. The April?. Quaker speaker reads it for them most audibly. It charges Cornbury with accepting bribes ; it deals sharply with "his new methods of government," his "encroach- ment" on the popular liberties by "assuming a negative voice to the freeholders' election of their representatives;" " they have neither heads, hearts, nor souls, that are not for- ward with their utmost power lawfully to redress the mis- eries of their country." " Stop ! " exclaimed Cornbury, as the undaunted Quaker delivered the remonstrance ; and Jennings meekly and distinctly repeated the charges, with greater emphasis than before. What could Cornbury do ? He attempted to retort, charging the Quakers with dis- loyalty and faction ; and they answered, in the words of Nehemiah to Sanballat : " There is no such thing done as thou sayest, but thou feignest them out of thine own heart." And they left, for the instruction of future governors, this weighty truth : " To engage the affections of the people, no artifice is needful but to let them be unmolested in the enjoyment of what belongs to them of right." Lord Cornbury had fulfilled his mission ; more successful than any patriot, he had taught New York the necessity and the methods of incipient resistance. The assem- bly which met Lord Lovelace, his short-lived sue- ^prii. cessor, began the contest that was never to cease but with independence. The crown demanded a permanent revenue, without appropriation ; New York henceforward would -raise only an annual revenue, and appropriate it specifically. That province was struggling to make the in- 238 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIX. crease of the power of the assembly an open or tacit condi- tion of every grant. The provincial revenue, as established by law, would not expire till 1709 ; but the war demanded extraordinary supplies ; and, in 1704, the moneys voted by the assembly were to be disbursed by its own officers. The royal council, instructed from England, would have no money expended but by the warrant of the governor and council ; but the delegates resolved that " it is inconvenient to allow the council to amend money bills ; " and council, governor, and board of trade yielded to the fixed will of the representatives of the people. In 1705, the assembly were allowed by the queen " to name their own treasurer, when they raised extraordinary supplies ; " and by degi*ees all legislative grants came to be regarded as such, ^l^lo^ and to be placed in the keeping of the treasurer of the assembly, beyond the control of the gov- ernor. In 1708, the delegates, after claiming for the people the choice of coroners, made a solemn declaration that "the levying of money upon her majesty's subjects in this colony, under any pretence whatsoever, without consent in general assembly, is a grievance ; " and, in 1709, as the condition of joining in an effort against Can- ada, the legislature assumed executive functions. In the same year, by withholding grants, they prepared to compel their future governors to an annual capitulation. In 1710, Cornbury's successor, Robert Hunter, the friend of Swift, the ablest in the series of -the royal governors of New York, a man of good temper and discern- ment, whom the whig ministry enjoined to suppress the " illegal trade still carried on with the Dutch islands," and with the enemy under " flags of truce," found himself in his province powerless and without a salary. He writes of his government to a friend : " Here is the finest air to live upon in the universe : the soil bears all things, but not for me ; for, according to the custom of the country, the sachems are the poorest of the people." " Sancho Panza was indeed but a type of me." In less than five months after his Sept. 1. arrival, he was disputing with an assembly. As they would neither grant appropriations for more 1710. THE MIDDLE STATES. 239 than a year, nor give up the supervision of their own treas- urer over payments from the public revenue, they were pro- rogued and dissolved. Perceiving that their conduct was grounded on perma- nent motives, he made his report accordingly; and his letters reached England when Saint-John, a young man of thirty, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, had become secre- tary of state. In March, 1711, a bill was drawn under the superintendence of the board of trade, reciting the neglect of the general assembly of New York to continue the taxes which had been granted in all the previous sixteen years, and imposing them by act of parliament. Sir Edward Northey and Sir Robert Raymond, the attorney and solici- tor generals, both approved the bill ; but it was intended as a measure of intimidation, and not to be passed. Mean- time, Hunter wrote to Saint-John " that the colonies were then infants at their mother's breasts, but such as would wean themselves when they came of age." The desire to conquer Canada prevailed, in the summer of 1711, to obtain for that purpose a specific grant of bills of credit for ten thousand pounds. But when fresh instruc- tions, with a copy of the bill for taxing New York by parlia- ment, were laid before the assembly, no concession was made. The council, claiming the right to make amendments to the money bills, asserted that the house, like itself, existed only "by the mere grace of the crown ; " but the assembly, defy- ing the opinion of the lords of trade, as concluding nothing, rose to the doctrine required by the emergency. The share of the council in legislation, they agree, comes " from the mere pleasure of the prince ; " but for themselves they claim an " inherent right " to legislation, springing " not from any commission or grant from the crown, but from the free choice and election of the people, who ought not, nor justly can, be divested of their property without their consent." At the time of this controversy. Saint- John, better known as Lord Bolingbroke, was secretary for the colonies. Mak- ing to him a report of these proceedings. Hunter wrote: " Now the mask is thrown off. The delegates have called 240 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXIX. in question the council's share in the legislature, trumped up an inherent right, declared the powers granted by her majesty's letters patent to be against law, and have but one short step to make towards what I am unwilling to name. The assemblies, claiming all the privileges of a house of commons, and stretching them even beyond what they were ever imagined to be there, should the councillors by the same rule lay claim to the rights of a house of peers, here is a body co-ordinate with, and consequently independent of, the great council of the realm ; yet this is the plan of government they all aim at, and make no scruple to own." " Unless some speedy and effectual remedy be applied, the disease will become desperate." " If the assembly of New York," re- ported the lords of trade, in 1712, "is suffered to proceed after this manner, it may prove of very dangerous conse- quence to that province, and of very ill example to the other governments in America, who are already but too much inclined to assume pretended rights, tending to in- dependency on the crown." And Hunter, as he saw the province add to its population at least one third in the reign of Anne, mused within himself on " what the conse- quences were likely to be, when, upon such an increase, not only the support of" the royal "government, but the incli- nation of the people to support it at all, decreases." Again the board of trade instructed him as to what the legislature should do, and the legislature remained inflexible. The menacing mandates of the reign of Queen Anne had but increased the ill humor of New York. 1690. NEW ENGLAND AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 241 CHAPTER XXX. NEW ENGLAND AFTER THE EEVOLTTTION. New York would willingly have extended her boundary over a part of Connecticut ; but the people of the colony themselves vindicated its liberties and the integrity of its territory. Governor Treat having, in May, ^^ay'g. 1689, resumed his office, the assembly, which soon convened, obeying the declared opinion of the freemen, organized the government according to their charter. On the joyful news of the accession of William May 26. and Mary, every fear vanished, every countenance brightened with joy. '' Great was that day," said the loyal address of Connecticut to King William, June i3. "when the Lord, who sitteth upon the floods, did divide his and your adversaries like the waters of Jordan, and did begin to magnify you like Joshua, by the deliver- ance of the English dominions from popery and slavery. Because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore hath he made you king, to do justice and judgment." And, de- scribing their acquiescence in the rule of Andros as " an involuntary submission to an arbitrary power," they an- nounced that, by the consent of the major part of the free- men, they had themselves resumed the government. In obtaining the approval of the king. Whiting, the 1690. agent of Connecticut, was aided by all the influence which the religious sympathy of the Presbyterians could enlist for New England. The English corporations had been restored ; and Edward Ward gave his opinion that a surrender, of which no legal record existed, did not invali- date a patent. Somers assented. " There is no ground of doubt," reiterated Sir George Treby. And the sanctity at- tached to the democratic charter and government of Con- necticut is an honorable proof of the respect which was VOL. II. 16 242 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXX. cherished by the Revolution of 1688 for every existing fran- chise. So the rule of the people was restored ; they elected their own governor, council, assembly men, and all their magistrates, and all annually. Connecticut rested on free labor, and upheld equality : the people were the sources of all power. The English crown would willingly have resumed, at least, the command of the militia, which, after having been, at one time, assigned to the governor of Massachusetts, by whom it was never challenged, was claimed as a part 1692. of the royal prerogative, and in 1692 conferred on the governor of New York. The legislature resisted, and referred the question to the consideration of its con- stituents, a community chiefly of freeholders, the unmixed progeny of English Puritans. Their opinion favored Se^t. ^ petition to the king, by the hands of Fitz-John Winthrop. To give the command of the militia, it was said, to the governor of another colony, is, in effect, to put our persons, interests, and liberties entirely into his power : by our charter, the governor and company them- selves have a commission of command. Meantime, Fletcher, refusing to await the decision from England, repaired to Hartford with a small retinue, to assume the authority over the militia, conferred on him by his instructions. He found the general court in session, went up to them, caused his commission to be read, gave the governor a memorial requiring obedience to the king's command, and so left them to debate. At the end of two days, they sent him a paper, insisting on their charter, and refusing obedience. After a conference with some of them, he quickly discovered that they were resolved and positive. To the secretary of state he reported that he had gone so far as he could without resorting to force, saying further : " I never saw magistracy so prostituted as here ; the laws of England have no force in this colony ; they set up for a free state." Six months later, the Aprfig. ^i^S' ^^ council, decided, on the advice of Ward and Treves, that the ordinary power of the militia in Connecticut and in Rhode Island belonged to their respec- 1694. NEW ENGLAND AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 243 live governments ; and Winthrop, returning from his agency to a joyful welcome, was soon elected governor of the colony. The decisions which established the rights of Connecticut included those of Rhode Island. The assaults of the royalists were always made upon the more powerful colony, in the assurance that the fate of both would be included in its overthrow. These two commonwealths were the portion of the British empire distinguished above all others by the largest liberty. Each presented the anomaly of a nearly absolute democracy under the shelter of a monarchy. But the results in the two were not strictly parallel. Rhode Island had asserted entire freedom of mind ; it had there- fore, apparently, less unity in its population and less co- hesion. In consequence, it was inferior in all that required joint action, but had a greater regard for personal liberty and independence. No bitter conflict with the crown had excited any deep hostilities ; and the colony yielded for a season to quiet influence what it might have refused to force or entreaty. It interpolated into the statute-book the exclusion of papists from the established equality. As all freemen had a joint interest in the large commons of land in the several townships, the right of admitting freemen, who would thus become sharers in the reserved lands, was transferred to the towns. In Connecticut, no other influence gave a bias, except that of the Puritan clergy, who were there, and there only, consociated by the legislature ; and it was first the custom, and afterwards the order, that " the ministers of the gospel should preach a sermon on the day appointed by law for the choice of civil rulers, proper for the direction of the towns in the work before them." But danger was not passed. The crown, reserving to itself the right of appeal, had still a method of interfering in the internal concerns of the little republics. Besides, their charters were never safe ; absolute sovereignty being claimed in England, their freedom rested on forbearance. Both were included among the colonies in which the lords of trade advised a complete restoration of the prerogatives 244 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXX. of the crown. Both were named in the bill which, Aprhi. ^^ 1701, was introduced into parliament for the abro- gation of all American charters. The journals of the Mays, house of lords relate that Connecticut was publicly heard against the measure, contending that its liber- ties were held by contract, in return for services that had been performed ; that the taking away of so many charters would destroy all confidence in royal promises, and would afford a precedent dangerous to all the chartered corpora^ tions of England. Yet the bill was read a second time, and its principle, as applied to colonies, was advocated by the mercantile interest and by "great men" in England. The impending war with the French postponed the purpose till the accession of the house of Hanover. But the object was not left out of mind. Lord June. Cornbury, who had in vain solicited money of Con- necticut, wrote home that " this vast continent would never be useful to England, till all the proprietary and charter governments were brought under the crown." An officer of the English government sought to rouse mercan- tile avarice against the people of Connecticut by reporting that, " if the government be continued longer in these men's hands, the honest trade of these parts will be ruined." And Dudley, a native New England man, after he became gov- ernor of Massachusetts, took the lead in the conspiracy against the liberties of New England, preparing a volume of complaints, and urging the appointment of a gov- 1705. ernor over Connecticut by the royal prerogative. The lords of trade were too just to condemn the colony unheard, and it succeeded in its vindication ; only an obsolete law against Quakers, which had never been enforced, after furnishing an excuse for outcries against Puritan intolerance, was declared null and void by the queen in council. The insurrection in Boston, which had overthrown the dominion of Andros, had sprung spontaneously from the people. Among the magistrates, and especially among the ministers, some distrusted every popular movement, and sought to control a revolution of which they feared 1689. NEW ENGLAND AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 245 the tendency. The insurgents insisted on the restoration of the charter ; but Cotton Mather, claiming only English liberties, and not charter liberties, and selfishly jealous of popular power, was eager to thwart the design-, and, against the opinion of the venerable Bradstreet, the Apr?20. charter magistrates, joining to themselves " the prin- cipal inhabitants " of Boston, became a self-constituted *' council for the safety of the people." Thus was the pop- ular will defeated. The colony had demanded its ancient liberties ; the men on whom it was compelled to rely, as- suming to be its guardians, " humbly " waited " for direc- tion of the crown of England," and lost the only oppor- tunity to vindicate its sequestered freedom. " Had they, at that time," — it is the confession of Increase Mather, — " entered upon the full exercise of their charter govern- ment, as their undoubted right, wise men in England were of opinion they might have gone on without disturbance." When the convention of the people assembled, they, too, were jealous of their ancient privileges. May 9. Instead of recognising the self-constituted council, they excluded the new associates, and declared the gover- nor, deputy governor, and assistants, chosen and sworn in 1686, according to charter rights, and the deputies sent by the freemen of the towns, to be the government now settled in the colony. The council resisted ; and the May 22. question was referred to the people. Nearly four fifths of the towns instructed their representatives to reas- sume ; but the pertinacity of a majority of the council permitted only a compromise. In June, the repre- June 5. sentatives, upon a new choice, assembled in Boston. Again they refused to act, till the old charter ofiicers should assume their power as of right. The council accepted the condition, but still as subject to directions from England. Indeed, the time had gone by. Already an address to King William had contained the assurance that " they had not entered upon the full exercise of the charter govern- ment," and was soon answered by the royal assent to the temporary organization which the council had adopted. But the popular party, jealous of the dispositions of Increase 246 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXX. Mather, joined with him, in the agency for New England, Sir Henry Ashurst and two of their own adherents, the patriot Elisha Cooke, and the honest but less able Thomas Oakes. A revolution in opinion was impending. The Reforma- tion, to overthrow accumulated superstitions, went back of them all and sought the criterion of truth in the Bible ; and a slavish interpretation of the Bible had led to a blind idolatry of the book. But true religion has no alliance with bondage ; and, as the spirit of the Reformation, which was but a less perfect form of freedom of mind, was advancing, reason was summoned to interpret the records of the past, and to separate time-hallowed errors from truths of the deepest moment. The statute-book, in obedi- ence to this adoration of the letter, had asserted the exist- ence of wit^chcraft by establishing death as its penalty; sustaining both the superstition and its punishment by reference to the Jewish records. New England, like Canaan, had been settled by fugitives. Like the Jews, they had fled to a wilderness ; like 1688. the Jews, they looked to heaven for a light to lead them on ; like the Jews, they had no supreme ruler but God ; like the Jews, they had heathen for their foes ; and they derived their legislation from the Jewish code. But, for the people of New England, the days of Moses and of Joshua were past ; for them there was no longer a promised land, — they were in possession. Reason now insisted on bringing the adopted laws to the proof, that it might hold fast only the good. Skepticism began to appear; not the giant skepticism which, in Europe, was beginning to overthrow the accumulated abuses of centuries, but a cautious doubt, which should eliminate the errors adhering to the glorious faith by which New England had been created. The fear of sorcery and the evil power of the invisible world had sprung alike from the letter of the Mosaic law and from the wonder excited by the mysteries of nature. Man feels that he is a dependent being. The reverence for universal laws is implanted in his nature too deeply to be removed. The infinite is everywhere ; and 1688. NEW ENGLAND AETER THE REVOLUTION. 247 everywhere man has acknowledged it, beholding in every power the result of an infinite attribute. The same truth superstition admits, yet disguises, when it fills the air with spectres ; or startles ghosts among the tombs ; or studies the stars to cast a horoscope ; or gazes on the new moon with confiding credulity ; or, yielding blindly to fear, beholds in the evil that is in the world the present malignity of Satan. The belief in witchcraft had fastened itself on the elements of faith, and become deeply branded into the common mind. Do not despise the credulity. The people did not rally to the error; they accepted the superstition only because it had not yet been disengaged from religion. The same causes which had given energy to the religious principle had given weight to the ministers. In the settle- ment of New England, the temple, or, as it was called, the meeting-house, w^as the centre round which the people gath- ered. As the church had successfully assumed the exclusive possession of civil franchises, the ambition of the ministers had been both excited and gratified. They were not only the counsellors by an unwritten law ; they were the authors of state papers, often employed on embassies, and, at home, speakers at elections and in town-meetings. "New Eng- land," says Cotton Mather, "being a country whose interests are remarkably inwrapped in ecclesiastical circumstances, ministers ought to concern themselves in politics." But their political mission was accomplished. Under their guid- ance, God's people had entered into possession of the prom- ised land, and had planted commonwealths free from the presence of royalty, of feudalism, and of prelacy. The power of the ministers over the magistrates, having now no effect but to narrow and restrain, reposed no longer on the energy of religion, but on a superstitious veneration. It is the beauty of truth that nothing can rest upon it but justice. The ministers, desirous of unjust influence, could build their hope of it only on error ; and the struggle for greater freedom of mind — the struggle against superstition, and against the slavish interpretation of the Bible — was one with the struggle against their dominion in the state. In the last year of the administration of Andros, who, 248 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXX. as the servant of arbitrary power, had no motive to dispel superstition, the daughter of John Goodwin, a child of thir- teen years, charged a laundress with having stolen linen from the family ; Glover, the mother of the laundress, a friendless emigrant, almost ignorant of English, like a true woman with a mother's heart, rebuked the false accusation. Immediately the girl, to secure revenge, became bewitched. The infection spread. Three others of the family, the young- est a boy of less than five years old, soon succeeded in equally arresting public attention. They would affect to be deaf, then dumb, then blind, or all three at once ; they would bark like dogs, or purr like so many cats ; but they ate well and slept well. Cotton Mather went to prayer by the side of one of them, and, lo ! the child lost her hearing till prayer was over. What was to be done ? The four ministers of Boston, and the one of Charlestown, assembled in Good- win's house, and spent a whole day of fasting in prayer. In consequence, the youngest child, the little one of four years old, was " delivered." But if the ministers could thus by prayer deliver a possessed child, then there must have been a witch ; the honor of the ministers required a prosecution of the affair ; and the magistrates, William Stoughton being one of the judges, and all holding commissions exclusively from the English king, and being irresponsible to the people of Massachusetts, with a " vigor" which the united ministers commended as "just," made "a discovery of the wicked instrument of the devil." The culprit was evidently a wild Irish woman, of a strange tongue. Goodwin, who made the complaint, " had no proof that could have done her any hurt ; " but " the scandalous old hag," whom some, thought "crazed in her intellectuals," was bewildered, and made strange answers, which were taken as confessions ; some- times, in excitement, using her native dialect. One Hughes testified that, six years before, she had heard one Howen say she had seen Glover come down her chimney. It was plain the prisoner was a Roman Catholic; she had never learned the Lord's prayer in English ; she could repeat the paternoster fluently enough, but not quite correctly : so the ministers and Goodwin's family had the satisfaction of get- 1689. NEW ENGLAND AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 249 ting her condemned as a witch, and executed. " Here," it was proclaimed, "was food for faith." So desperately wicked is the heart of man : the girl, who knew herself to be a deceiver, had no remorse ; and to the ministers, in their self-righteousness, it never occurred that vanity and love of power had blinded their judgment. There were skeptics in Boston. The age, thought the ministers, " was a debauched one," given up " to Saddu- cism ; " and, as the possessed damsel obtained no relief. Cotton Mather, eager to learn the marvels of the world of spirits, and " wishing to confute the Sadducism " of his times, invited her to his house ; and the artful girl easily imposed upon his credulity. The devil would permit her to read in Quaker books, or the Common Prayer, or popish books ; but a prayer from Cotton Mather, or a chapter from the Bible, would throw her into convulsions. By a series of experiments, in reading aloud passages from the Bible, in various languages, the minister satisfied himself, " by trials of their capacity," that devils are well skilled in languages, and understand Latin and Greek and even Hebrew ; though he fell " upon one inferior Indian language which the dae- mons did not seem so well to understand." Experiments were made, with unequal success, to see if devils can know the thoughts of others; and the inference was that "all devils are not alike sagacious." The vanity of Cotton Mather was further gratified ; for the bewitched girl would say that the demons could not enter his study, and that his own person was shielded by God against blows from the evil spirits. The revolution in New England seemed to open, i689. once more, a career to the ambition of ministers. Yet great obstacles existed. The rapid progress of free inquiry was alarming. " There are multitudes of Sadducees in our day," sighed Cotton Mather. " A devil, in the apprehen- sion of these mighty acute philosophers, is no more than a quality or a distemper." " We shall come," he adds, " to have no Christ but a light within, and no heaven but a frame of mind." " Men counted it wisdom to credit nothing but what they see and feel. They never saw any witches; 250 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXX. therefore, there are none." " How much," add the minis- ters of Boston and Charlestown, "how much this fond opinion has gotten ground is awfully observable." " Witch- craft," shouted Cotton Mather from the pulpit, " is the most nefandous high treason against the Majesty on high ; " "a capital crime." " A witch is not to be endured in heaven or on earth." And, because men were skeptical on the subject, " God is pleased," said the ministers, " to suffer devils to do such things in the world as shall stop the mouths of gainsayers, and extort a confession." The Dis- course of Cotton Mather was therefore printed, with a copious narrative of the recent case of witchcraft. The story was confirmed by Goodwin, and recommended by all the ministers of Boston and Charlestown as an answer to atheism, proving clearly that " there is both a God and a devil, and witchcraft ; " and Cotton Mather, announcing him- self as an eye-witness, resolved henceforward to regard " the denial of devils, or of witches," as a personal affront, the evidence " of ignorance, incivility, and dishonest impudence." This book, thus prepared and recommended, was printed in 1689, and widely distributed. Unhappily, it gained fresh power from England, where it was " published by Richard Baxter," who declared the evidence strong enough to con- vince all but " a very obdurate Sadducee." This tale went abroad at a moment when the enthusiasm of the country was engrossed by the hopes that sprung from the accession of King William. The conquest of New France was the burning passion of New England, in harmony with its hatred of legitimacy and the old forms of Christianity. To subdue the French dominions, this was the joint object which was to foster a common feelincf between Eno^land and the American colonies. This passion advanced even to action, but, at that time, was only fruitful of disasters. Meanwhile, the agents of Massachusetts, appealing to the common enmity towards France, solicited a restoration of its charter. King William was a friend to Calvin- Mar^ u. ^^*^' ^^^' <^^ *^^ fi^'^t interview with Increase Mather, conceded the recall of Sir Edmund Andros. The convention parliament voted that the taking away of the 1689. NEW ENGLAND AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 251 New England charters was a grievance ; and the English Presbyterians, with singular affection, declared that " the king could not possibly do any thing more grateful to his dissenting subjects in England than by restoring to New England its former privileges." The dissolution of the con- vention parliament, followed by one in which an influence friendly to the tories was perceptible, destroyed the hope of relief from the English legislature : to attempt a reversal of the judgment by a writ of error was hopeless. There was no avenue to success but through the favor of a monarch who loved authority. The people of New England "are like the Jews under Cyrus," said Wiswall, the agent for Plymouth colony : with a new monarch " on the throne of their oppressors, they hope in vain to rebuild their city and their sanctuary." Yet William III. professed friendship for Massa- iggg. chusetts. His subjects in New England, said In- J"iy*- crease Mather, if they could but enjoy "their ancient rights and privileges," would make him "the emperor of Amer- ica." In the family of Hampden, Massachusetts inherited a powerful intercessor. The Coimtess of Sunderland, whom the Princess, afterwards Queen, Anne describes as " a hypo- crite," " running from church to church after the famousest preachers, and keeping a clatter with her devotions," is remembered in America as a benefactress. The aged Lord Wharton, last surviving member of the Westminster assem- bly of divines, " a constant and cordial lover of all good men," never grew weary in his zeal. I take pleasure in recording that the tolerant archbishop of Canterbury, the rational Tillotson, charged the king " not to take away from the people of New England any of the privileges which Charles I. had granted them." " The charter," said the feebler Burnet, " was not an act of grace, but a contract between the king and the first patentees, who promised to enlarge the king's dominion at their own charges, pro- vided they and their posterity might enjoy certain privi- leges." Yet Somers resisted its restoration, pleading its imperfections. The charter sketched by Sir George Treby was rejected by the privy council for its liberality ; and that 252 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXX. which was finally conceded reserved such powers to the crown that Elisha Cooke, the popular envoy, declined to accept it. But Increase Mather, an earlier agent for the colony, announced it as conferring on the general court, " with the king's approbation, as much power in New Eng- land as the king and parliament have in England. The people," he added, " have all English liberties, can be touched by no law but of their own making, nor can be taxed by any authority but themselves." The freemen of Massachusetts, under the old charter, had elected their governor annually ; that officer, the lieutenant- governor, and the secretary w^ere henceforward appointed by the king during the royal pleasure. The governor had been but first among the magistrates ; he was now the repre- sentative of English royalty, and could convene, adjourn, or dissolve the general court. The freemen had, by popular vote, annually elected their magistrates or judicial officers ; the judges were now appointed, with consent of council, by the royal governor. The decisions in the courts of New England had been final ; appeals to the privy council were now admitted. The freemen had exercised the full power of legislation within themselves by their deputies ; the warrior king reserved a double veto, — an immediate nega- tive to the governor of the colony, while, at any time within three years, the king might cancel any act of colonial legis- lation. In one respect, the new charter was an advance- ment. Every form of Christianity, except, unhappily, the Koman Catholic, was enfranchised ; and, in civil affairs, the freedom of the colony, no longer restricted to the members of the church, was extended so widely as to be, in a prac- tical sense, nearly universal. The legislature continued to encourage by law the religion professed by the majority of the inhabitants, but it no longer decided controversies on opinions; and no synod was ever again convened. The charter government of Massachusetts, as established by the revolutionary monarch of England, differed from that of the royal provinces in nothing but the council. In the royal colonies, that body w^as appointed by the king; in Massachusetts, it was, in the first instance, appointed by 1690. NEW ENGLAND AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 253 the king, and, subject to a negative from the governor, was ever after elected, in joint ballot, by the members of the council and the representatives of the people. As the coun- cillors were twenty-eight in number, they generally, by their own vote, succeeded in effecting their own re-election ; and, instead of being, as elsewhere, a greedy oligarchy, were famed for their unoffending respectability. The territory of Massachusetts was by the charter vastly enlarged. On the south, it embraced Plymouth colony and the Elizabeth Islands ; on the east, Maine and all beyond it to the Atlantic ; on the north, it was described as swept by the St. Lawrence, — the fatal gift of a wilderness, for the conquest and defence of which Massachusetts expended more treasure, and lost more of her sons, than all the Eng- lish continental colonies beside. Fi-om the Elizabeth Islands to the St. Lawrence, and east- ward to the Atlantic, Massachusetts now included the whole region, except New Hampshire. That colony became hence- forward a royal province. Its inhabitants had assem- bled in convention to institute government for them- 2; selves ; at their second session, they resolved to unite, and did actually unite, with Massachusetts ; and both colo- nies desired that the union might be permanent. But Eng- land, if it annexed to Massachusetts the burden of the unconquered desert east and north of the Piscataqua, held itself bound by no previous compact to concede to New Hampshire any charter whatever. The right to the soil, which Samuel Allen, of London, had purchased of Mason, was recognised as valid ; and Allen himself received the royal commission to govern a people whose territory, in- cluding the farms they had redeemed from the wilderness, he claimed as his own. His son-in-law Usher, of Boston, formerly an adherent of Andros, and a great speculator in lands, was appointed, under him, lieutenant-governor. The English Revolution of 1688 valued the uncertain claims of an English merchant more than the liberties of a province. Indeed, that revolution loved not liberty, but privilege, and respected popular liberty only where it had the sanction of a vested right. 254 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXX, 1592. In 1692, the new government for New Hampshire Aug. 13. -^as organized by Usher. The civil history of that colony, for a quarter of a century,' is a series of lawsuits about land. Complaints against Usher were met by counter complaints, till New Hampshire was placed, with 1699. Massachusetts, under the government of Bellomont ; and a judiciary, composed of men attached to the colony, was instituted. Then, and for years afterwards, followed scenes of confusion : trials in the colonial courts, resulting always in verdicts against the pretended proprie- tary ; appeals to the English monarch in council ; papers withheld ; records of the court under Cranfield destroyed ; orders from the lords of trade and the crown disregarded by a succession of inflexible juries ; a compromise proposed, and rendered of no avail by the death of one of the parties ; an Indian deed manufactured to protect the cultivators of the soil; till, at last, the heirs of the proprietary 1715. abandoned their claim in despair. The yeomanry of New Hampshire gained quiet possession of the land which their labor had rendered valuable. The waste do- main reverted to the crown. A proprietary, sustained by the crown, claimed the people of New Hampshire as his tenants; and they made themselves freeholders. For Massachusetts, the nomination of its first offi- cers under the charter was committed to Increase Mather. As governor he proposed Sir William Phips, a native of New England, who honestly loved his country, of a dull intellect, headstrong, and with a reason so feeble that in politics he knew nothing of general principles, in religion was a victim to superstition. Accustomed, from boyhood, to the axe and the oar, he had gained distinction only by his wealth, the fruits of his enterprise with the diving-bell in raising treasures from a Spanish wreck. His partners in this enterprise gained him the honor of knighthood ; his present favor was due to the honest bigotry and ignorance which left him open to the influence of the ministers. Intercession had been made by Cotton Mather for the advancement of William Stoughton, a man of cold affec- tions, proud, self-willed, and covetous of distinction. He 1692. NEW ENGLAND AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 255 had acted under James II. as deputy president ; a fit tool for sucli a king, joining in all " the miscarriages of the late government." The people had rejected him, in their elec- tion of judges, giving him not a vote. Yielding to the request of his son, Increase Mather assigned to Stoughton the office of deputy governor. " The twenty-eight assist- ants, who are the governor's council, every man of them," wrote the agent, " is a friend to the interests of the churches." " The time for favor is come," exulted Cotton Mather ; " yea, the set time is come. Instead of my being made a sacrifice to wicked rulers, my father-in-law, with several related to me, and several brethren of my own church, are among the council. The governor of the prov- ince is not my enemy, but one whom I baptized, and one of my own flock, and one of my dearest friends." And, utter- ing a midnight cry, he wrestled with God to awaken the churches to some remarkable thing. A religious excite- ment was resolved on. " I obtained of the Lord that he would use me," says the infatuated man, " to be a- herald of his kingdom now approaching ; " and, in the gloom of winter, among a people desponding at the loss of 1692. their old liberties, their ill success against Quebec, the ravages of their north-eastern border by a cruel and well-directed enemy, the ruin of their commerce by French cruisers, the loss of credit by the debts with which the fruit- less and costly war overwhelmed them, the wildest imagi- nations might prevail. In modern times, the cry of witchcraft had been raised by the priesthood rarely, I think never, except when free inquiry was advancing. Many a commission was empow- ered to punish alike heresy and witchcraft. The bold in- quirer was sometimes burnt as a wizard, and sometimes as an insurgent against the established faith. In France, where there were most heretics, there were most condemna- tions for witchcraft. Rebellion, it was said, is as the sin of witchcraft; and Cotton Mather, in his discourse, did but repeat the old tale : " Rebellion is the Achan, the trouble of us all." In Salem village, now Danvers, there had been between ^^^ COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXX. Samuel Parris, the minister, and a part of his people, a strife so bitter that it had even attracted the atten- ^^^[ tion of the general court. The delusion of witch- craft would give opportunities of terrible vengeance. In the family of Samuel Parris, his daughter, a child of nine years, and his niece, a girl of less than twelve, began to have strange caprices. " He that will read Cotton Mather's Book of Memorable Providences may read part of what these children suffered ; " and Tituba, a half Indian, half negro female servant, who had practised some wild incantations, being betrayed by her husband, was scourged by Parris, her master, into confessing herself a witch. The minis- Mar. 11. ters of the neighborhood held at the afflicted house a day of fasting and prayer ; and the little children be- came the most conspicuous personages in Salem. Of a sud- den, the opportunity of fame, of which the love is not the exclusive infirmity of noble minds, was placed within the reach of persons of the coarsest mould ; and the ambition of notoriety recruited the little company of the possessed. There existed no motive to hang Tituba : she was saved as a living witness to the reality of witchcraft ; and Sarah Good, a poor woman of a melancholic temperament, was the first person selected for accusation. Cotton Mather, who had placed witches " among the poor and vile and ragged beggars upon earth," and had staked his own reputation for veracity on the reality of witchcraft, prayed " for a good issue." As the affair proceeded, and the accounts of the witnesses appeared as if taken from his own writings, his boundless vanity gloried in " the assault of the evil angels upon the country, as a particular defiance unto himself." Yet the delusion, but for Parris, would have languished. Of his own niece, the girl of eleven years of age, he de- manded the names of the devil's instruments who bewitched the band of "the afflicted," and then became at once in- former and witness. In those days, there was no prosecut- ing officer ; and Parris was at hand to question his Indian servants and others, himself prompting their answers and acting as recorder to the magistrates. The recollection of the old controversy in the parish could not be forgotten ; 1692. NEW ENGLAND AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 257 and ParriS, moved by personal malice as well as by blind zeal, "stifled the accusations of some," — such is the testimony of the people of his own village, — and, at the same time " vigilantly promoting the accusation of others," was " the beginner and procurer of the sore afflictions to Salem village and the country." Martha Cory, who on her j^ar^2i. examination in the meeting-house before a throng, with a firm spirit, alone, against them all, denied the presence of witchcraft, was committed to prison. Mar 24. Rebecca Nurse, likewise, a woman of purest life, an object of the special hatred of Parris, resisted the company of accusers, and was committed. And Parris, filling his prayers with the theme, made the pulpit ring with Aprils. it. " Have not I chosen you twelve," — such was his text, — " and one of you is a devil ? " At this, Sarah Cloyce, sister to Rebecca Nurse, rose up and left the meet- ing-house ; and she, too, was cried out upon, and sent to prison. The subject grew interesting ; and, to examine Sarah Cloyce and Elizabeth Procter, the deputy governor and five other magistrates went to Salem. It was a Apr. 11. great day ; several ministers were present. Parris officiated ; and, by his own record, it is plain that he him- self elicited every accusation. His first witness, John, the Indian servant, husband to Tituba, \fas rebuked by Sarah Cloyce, as a grievous liar. Abigail Williams, the niece to Parris, was also at hand with her tales : the prisoner had been at the witches' sacrament. Struck with horror, Sarah Cloyce asked for water, and sank down " in a dying faint- ing fit." " Her spirit," shouted the band of the afflicted, " is gone to prison to her sister Nurse." Against Elizabeth Procter, the niece of Parris told stories yet more foolish than false : the prisoner had invited her to sign the devil's book. " Dear child," exclaimed the accused in her agony, " it is not so. There is another judgment, dear child ; " and her accusers, turning towards her husband, de- clared that he, too, was a wizard. All three were com- Apr. is. mitted. Examinations and commitments multiplied. Api 14. Giles Cory, a stubborn old man of more than four- VOL. II. 17 258 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXX. score years, could not escape the malice of his minister and his angry neighbors, with whom he had quarrelled. Edward Bishop, a farmer, cured the Indian servant of a fit by flog- ging him ; he declared, moreover, his belief that he could, in like manner, cure the whole company of the Apn^22. afflicted, and, for his skepticism, found himself and his wife in prison. Mary Easty, of Topsfield, another sister to Rebecca ISTurse, — a woman of singular gentleness and force of character, deeply religious, yet uninfected by superstition, — was torn from her children and sent Apr. 22. to jail. Parris had had a rival in George Burroughs, a graduate of Harvard College, who, having formerly preached in Salem village, had had friends there Mays, desirous of his settlement. He, too, a skeptic in witchcraft, was accused and committed. Thus far, there had been no success in obtaining confessions, though earnestly solicited. It had been hinted, also, that May 11. confessing was the avenue to safety. At last. Deliv- erance Hobbs owned every thing that was asked of her, and was left unharmed. The gallows was to be set up not for those who professed themselves witches, but for those who rebuked the delusion. Simon Bradstreet, the governor of the people's choice, deemed the evidence insufiicient ground of guilt. May 14. On Saturday, the 14th of May, the new charter and the royal governor arrived in Boston. On the next May 16. Monday, the charter was published ; and the parish- ioner of Cotton Mather, with the royal council, was installed in office. The triumph of Cotton Mather was perfect. Immediately a court of oyer and terminer was in- stituted by ordinance, and the positive, overbearing Stough- ton appointed by the governor and council its chief judge, with Sewall and Wait Winthrop, two feebler men, as his associates : by the second of June the court was in session at Salem, making its first experiment on Bridget Bishop, a poor and friendless old woman. The fact of the witchcraft was assumed as " notorious : " to fix it on the prisoner, Samuel Parris, who had examined her before her commit- ment, was the principal witness to her power of inflicting 1692. NEW ENGLAND AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 259 torture ; he had seen it exercised. Deliverance Hobbs had been \yhipped with iron rods by her spectre ; neighbors, who had quarrelled with her, were willing to lay their little ills to her charge ; the poor creature had a preternatural excrescence in her flesh ; " she gave a look towards the great and spacious meeting-house of Salem," — it is Cotton Mather who records this, — "and immediately a daemon, invisibly entering the house, tore down a part of it." She was a witch by the rules and precedents of Keeble and Sir Matthew Hale, of Perkins and Bernard, of Baxter and Cotton Mather ; and, on the 10th of June, protesting her innocence, she was hanged. Of the magistrates at that time, not one held oflice by the suffrage of the people : the tribunal, essentially despotic in its origin, as in its character, had no sanction but an extraordinary and an illegal com- mission ; and Stoughton, the chief judge, a partisan of Andros, had been rejected by the people of Massachusetts. The responsibility of the tragedy, far from attaching to the people of the colony, rests with the very few, hardly five or six, in whose hands the transition state of the government left, for a season, unlimited influence. Into the interior of the colony the delusion did not spread. The house of representatives, which assembled in 1692. June, was busy with its griefs at the abridgment of'juiy2. the old colonial liberties. Increase Mather, the agent, June 9. was heard in his own defence ; and, at last. Bond, the June 24. speaker, in the name of the house, tardily and lan- guidly thanked him for his faithful and unwearied exer- tions. No recompense was voted. " I seek not yours, but you," said Increase Mather ; " I am willing to wait for recompense in another world ; " and the general July 2. court, after prolonging the validity of the old laws, adjourned to October. But Phips and his council had not looked to the gen- eral court for directions ; they turned to the ministers of Boston and Charlestown ; and from them, by the hand of Cotton Mather, they received gratitude for their sedulous endeavors to defeat the abominable witchcrafts ; prayer that the discovery might be perfected ; a caution against haste 260 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXX. and spectral evidence ; a hint to affront the devil, and give him the lie, by condemning none on his testimony alone ; while the direful advice w^as added : " We recommend the speedy and vigorous prosecution of such as have ren- Jun?30. wanted, and had formed his system of colonial government VOL. II. 18 274 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXL in America. Six northern colonies were consolidated under one captain-general, who, with a council likewise appointed by himself, was invested with legislative power. This arbi- trary system, which was to have been extended to all, ap- peared to give to him a colonial civil list and revenue at his discretion; to make his servants directly and solely dependent on himself; and, by uniting so many colonies under one military chief, to erect a barrier against the Indians, and against French encroachments. 168510 C)n reaching the throne, in 1685, James II. adopted ^^^- the purpose of reducing " the independent " colonial administrations ; and with promptness, consistency, and de- termination, employed the prerogative for that end. The letters patent of Massachusetts were ah-eady cancelled ; those of Connecticut and Rhode Island, of Maryland, of New Jersey, of Carolina, were to be annulled or surren- dered. But the system vanished like the shadow of a cloud, having no root in the colonies, and being adverse to the principle now formally recognised in the English institutions. jggg^ In February, 1689, at the instance of Sir George Feb. Treby, the .convention which made William III. king voted " that the plantations ought to be secured against quo warrantos and surrenders, and their ancient rights restored." But the clause in their favor did not reappear in later proceedings ; they are not named in the declaration of rights; their oppression by James was not enumerated as one of the causes of the revolution ; and Somers would not include the Massachusetts charter in the bill for restor- ing corporations. The plan of James II. was so far adopted that twice several northern provinces were grouped together under one governor. The first soldiers sent to America after the revolution were two companies ordered to New York in 1689, and which seem to have arrived there in 1691. They were to be paid out of the revenue of England, till provision should be made for them at New York. One hundred pounds, also, were sent for presents to the Indians. This arrange- ment was to be transient ; the ministry never designed to 1696. PARLIAMENT AND THE COIyONIES. 275 make the defence of America and the conduct of Indian relations a direct burden on the people of England. The crown had no funds at its disposal for the public defence. The conduct of a war required union, a common treasury, military force, and a central will. In October, 1692, the sovereign of England attempted this union by an act of the prerogative; sending to each colony north of Carolina a requisition for a fixed quota of money and of men for the defence of New York, "the outguard of his majesty's neighboring plantations in America." This is memorable as the first form of British regulation of the col- onies after the Revolution of 1688. The requisition was neglected. Pennsylvania, swayed by the Society of Friends, attracted notice by its steadfast disobedience. Yet England insisted that the colonists should " employ their own hands and purses in defence of their own estates, lives, and families ; " and, in 1694, when two i694. more companies at New York were placed upon the English establishment, and when artillery and ammunition were furnished from " the king's magazines," a royal man- datory letter prescribed to the several colonies the exact proportion of their quotas. But the " order, by reason of the distinct and independent governments," was " very uncertainly complied with." The governor of New York had nothing " to rely on, for the defence of that frontier, but the four companies in his majesty's pay." Pennsyl- vania wholly refused its contingent ; while Massachusetts urged that, as "all were equally benefited, each ought to give a reasonable aid." The king of England attempted a more efficient method of administering the colonies ; their affairs were taken from committees of the privy council ; and, in May, i696. 1696, a board of commissioners for trade and planta- tions, consisting of the chancellor, the president of the privy council, the keeper of the privy seal, the two secretaries of state, and eight special commissioners, was called into being. To William Blathwayte, John Locke, and the rest of the first commission, instructions were given by the crown " to inquire into the means of making the colonies most use- 276 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXI ful and beneficial to England ; into the staples and manu- factures which may be encouraged there ; into the means of diverting them from trades which may prove prejudicial to England ; to examine into and weigh the acts of the assem- blies; to set down the usefulness or mischief of them to the crown, the kingdom, or the plantations themselves ; to require an account of all the moneys given for public uses by the assemblies of the plantations, and how the same are employed." The several provinces gained unity in the person of the king, whose duties with regard to the colonies were transacted through one of the secretaries of state ; but the board of trade was the organ of inquiries and the centre of colonial information. Every law of a provincial legisla- ture, except in some of the charter governments, if it escaped the veto of the royal governor, might be arrested by the unfavorable opinion of the law officer of the crown, or by fhe adverse report of the board of trade. Its rejection could come only from the king in council, whose negative, even though the act had gone into immediate effect, inval- idated every transaction under it from the beginning. The board of trade was hardly constituted, before it was summoned to plan unity in the military efforts of the provinces ; and Locke, with his associates, despaired, on beholding them "crumbled into little governments, dis- united in interests, in an ill posture and much worse dis- position to afford assistance to each other for the 1697. future." The board, "after considering with their utmost care," could only recommend the appoint- ment of "a captain-general of all the forces and all the militia of all the provinces on the continent of North America, with power to levy and command them for their defence, under such limitations and instructions as to his majesty shall seem best ; " " to appoint officers to train the inhabitants ; " from " the Quakers, to receive in money their share of assistance;" and "to keep the Five Nations firm in friendship." " Rewards " were to be given " for all exe- cutions done by the Indians on the enemy; and the scalps they bring in to be well paid for." This plan of a military dictatorship is the second form of British regulation. Chap. XXXI. PARLIAMENT AND THE COLONIES. 277 With excellent sagacity, — for true humanity perfects the judgment, — the gentle William Penn, forerunner and teacher of Franklin and of America, matured a plan of a permanent union, by a national representation of the Amer- ican states. On the eighth day of February, 1697, he de- livered his project for an annual "congress," as he termed it, of two delegates from each province, with a special king's commissioner as the presiding officer, to establish intercolonial justice, "to prevent or cure injuries in point of commerce, ... to consider of ways and means to support the union and safety of these provinces against the public enemies. In this congress, the quotas of men and charge will be much easier and more equally set than it is possible for any establishment here to do ; for the provinces, knowing: their own condition and one another's, can debate that matter with more freedom and satisfaction, and better adjust and balance their affairs, in all respects, for their common safety ; " and he added, " The 'determination, in the assembly I propose, should be by plurality of voices." The proposition was advocated before the English world in the vigorous writings of Charles Davenant. He dis- dained the fear of a revolt of the colonies, "while they have English blood in their veins and have" profitable " relations with England." " The stronger and greater they grow," thus he expressed his generous confidence, " the ftiore this crown and kingdom will get by them. Nothing but such an arbitrary power as shall make them desperate can bring them to rebel. . . . And as care should be taken to keep them obedient to the laws of England, and dependent upon their mother country, so those conditions, privileges, terms, and charters should be kept sacred and inviolate, by which they were first encouraged, at their great expense and with the hazard of their lives, to dis- cover, cultivate, and plant remote places. . . . Any in- novations or breach of their original charters (besides that it seems a breach of the public faith) may, peradventure, not tend to the king's profit." But the ministry adopted neither the military dictator- ship of Locke and his associates, nor the peaceful congress 278 COLONIAL HISTORY. Cha-p. XXXL of William Penn, nor the widely read and long-remembered advice of Davenant, but trusted the affair of quotas and salaries to royal instructions. Two causes served to protect the colonies from any other system. Responsible ministers were unwilling to provoke a conflict with them, and a gen- erous love of liberty in the larger and better class of Englishmen compelled them as patriots to delight in its extension to all parts of the English dominions. England, at " the abdication " of its throne by the Stuarts, was, as it were, still free from debt ; and a direct tax on America, for the benefit of the English treasury, was, I think, at that time not dreamed of. That the respective colonies should contribute to the common defence against the French and Indians was desired in America, was ear- nestly enjoined from England ; but the demand for quotas continued to be directed to the colonies themselves, and was refused or granted by the colonial assemblies, as their own policy prompted, though the want of concert and the refusal of contributions readily suggested the interference of parliament. If the declaratory acts, by which every one of the colonies asserted their right to the privileges of Magna Charta, to the feudal liberty of freedom from taxation except with their own consent, were always disallowed by the crown, it was done silently, and the strife on the power of parliament to tax the colonies was willingly avoided. The colonial legislatures had their own budgets ; and financial questions arose : Shall the grants be generally for the use of the crown, or carefully limited for specific purposes ? Shall the moneys levied be confided to an oflicer of royal appointment, or to a treasurer responsible to the legislature? Shall the revenue be granted permanently, or from year to year? Shall the salaries of the royal judges and the royal governor be fixed, or depend annually on the popular contentment? These were questions consistent with the relations between me- tropolis and colony; but the supreme power of parliament to tax at its discretion was not yet maintained in England, was always denied in America. In this way, there grew up a great system of administra- Chap. XXXI. PARLIAMENT AND THE COLONIES. 279 tion by the use of the prerogative. It controlled legislation. In England, the veto power ceased to be used. In the course of a few years, it came to be applied to all the col- onies except Connecticut and Rhode Island. The crown obtained everywhere the mastery over the judiciary ; for the judges, in nearly all the colonies, received their appointments from the king and held them at his pleasure ; and the right of appeal to the king in council was maintained in them all. Nor was the power given up to bring a chartered colony, by a scire facias, before English tribunals. Where the people selected the judges, as in Connecticut and Rhode Island, they were chosen annually, and the public preference, free from fickleness, gave stability to the office; whece the appointment rested with the royal gov- ernor, the popular instinct desired for the judges an inde- pendent tenure for life. The security of personal freedom was not formally denied to America. Massachusetts, in an enactment of 1692, claimed the full benefit of the writ of habeas corpus ; " the privilege had. not yet been granted to the plantations," was the reply even of Lord Somers ; it was not become a vested right ; and the act was disallowed. When, afterwards, the privilege was affirmed by Queen Anne, the burgesses of Virginia, in their gratitude, did but esteem it " an assertion to her subjects of their just rights and properties." England conceded the security of per- sonal freedom as a boon ; America claimed it as a birthright. Copying the precedents of the Stuarts, the obsolete in- structions, by which every royal governor was invested with the censorship over the press, were renewed. Yet, in spite of them, the press was generally as free in America as in any part of the world. In like manner, the governors were commanded to " allow no one to preach without a license from a bishop ; " but the instruction was, for the most part, suffered to slumber. For the advancement of the Anglican church, the crown incorporated and favored the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts ; but to dissenters in America royal charters were refused. 280 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXL The most terrible of the royal instructions was that which fostered slavery. Before the English crown became directly concerned in the slave-trade, governors were charged to keep the market open for merchantable negroes ; and measures adopted by the colonial legislatures to restrain the traffic were nullified by the royal veto. In May, 1689, the lords of the committee of colonies, willing even to derive power from the usurpations of James II., represented to King William that " the present rela- tion" of the charter colonies to England is a matter " worthy of the consideration of parliament, for the bring- ing those proprieties and dominions under a nearer depen- dence on the crown." But at that time, I think, nothing was designed beyond the strict enforcement of the naviga- tion acts. In March, 1701, less than ten years after the grant of the charter of Massachusetts, the board of trade invited " the legislative power " of England to resume all charters, and reduce all the colonies to equal " dependency ; " and, in April, a bill for that end was introduced into the house of lords. As the (ganger of a new war with France increased, William was advised that, " besides the assistance he might be pleased to give the colonies, it was necessary that the inhabitants should on their part contribute to their mutual security ; " and a new requisition for quotas wa3 made by the warlike sovereign. For Pennsylvania the quota was three hundred and fifty pounds ; William Penn himself was present to urge compliance ; but war, reasoned the Quakers, is not better than peace ; trade and commerce are no less important than weapons of offence ; and, professing " readi- ness to acquiesce wtih the king's commands," the assembly of Pennsylvania, like Massachusetts, made excuses Jan' ^^^' ^^ absolute refusal. Immediately in January, 1702, the board of trade turned to their sovereign, representing the defenceless condition of the plantations : " Since the chartered colonies refuse obedience to the late requisitions, and continue the retreat of pirates and smug- glers, the national interest requires that such independent 1706. PARLIAMENT AND THE COLONIES. 281 administrations should be placed by the legislative power of this kingdom in the same state of dependence as the royal governments." Such was the deliberate and abiding opin- ion of the board, transmitted across half a century to the Earl of Halifax and Charles Townshend. But the charters had nothing to fear from William of Orange ; for him the sands of life were fast ebbing, and in March he was no more. The white inhabitants of British America, who, at the accession of William III., were about one hundred and eighty thousand, were, at the accession of Anne, 1702. at least two hundred and seventy thousand. Their governors were instructed to proclaim war against France ; and a requisition was made of quotas " to build fortifications and to aid one another." " The other colonies will not contribute," wrote Lord Cornbury, from New York, " till they are compelled by act of parliament ; " and he after- wards solicited " an act of parliament for the establishment of a well-regulated militia everywhere." In Virginia, the burgesses would do nothing " that was disagreeable to a prejudiced people," and excused themselves from comply- ing with the requisition. So did all the colonies : " New York, the Jerseys, Pennsylvania, the Carolinas," were in- formed against, as "transcripts of New England," which furnished " the worst of examples." " Till the proprieties are brought under the queen's government," wrote Lord Cornbury, in 1702, " they Ytoq^^ will be detrimental to the other settlements." " Con- necticut and Ithode Island," he added, the next year, "hate everybody that owns any subjection to the queen." The chief justice of New York, in July, 1704, assured the secretary of state that " antimonarchical principles and malice to the church of England daily increase in most proprietary governments, not omitting Boston ; and, to my own knowledge, some of their leading men already begin to talk of shaking off their subjection to the crown of England." Roused by continued complaints, the privy council, in December, 1705, summoned the board of trade " to lay be- 282 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXI. fore the queen the misfeasances of the proprieties, and the advantage that may arise from reducing them." The Jan. board obeyed, and, in the following January, repre- sented the original defects in the forms of the char- ter governments, their assumed independence, their antago- nism to the prerogative, the difficulty of executing acts of parliament in provinces where their validity was scarcely admitted, the present inconveniences of administration, and the greater ones which were to come. A bill was, in con- sequence, introduced into the commons, " for the better regulation of the charter governments ; " btit it was not sus- tained, for the ministry were divided in judgment as to the remedy. The inquiry in the house of lords, in 1708, was also without results. The shyness of the English parliament to tax America or to abrogate American charters was changed into eager- ness to interfere when any question related to trade. Of the great maritime powers, England was the last to estab- lish the colonial system in its severity ; yet, pleading " the usage of other nations to keep their plantations' trade to themselves," we have seen that she also, in the reign of Charles I., renewed and extended that colonial monopoly, binding it up in a corn law. Every state, it was argued, has, in exclusion of all others, an indisputable right to the services of its own subjects. England should not only be the sole market for all products of America, but. the only storehouse for its supplies. In these opinions, the change of dynasty made nO differ- ence. The enforcement of the mercantile system in its intensest form is a characteristic of the policy of the aris- tocratic revolution of England. By the corn laws, English agriculture became an associate in the system of artificial legislation. " The value of lands " began to be urged as a motive for oppressing the colonies. All questions on colo- nial liberty and affairs were decided from the point of view of English commerce and the interests of the great land- holders. It was said that New York had never respected the acts of trade ; that Pennsylvania and Carolina were the refuge of the illicit trader; that the mariners of New i 1699. PARLIAMENT AND THE COLONIES. 283 England distributed the productions of the tropics through the world. By an act of 1696, all former 1696. acts giving a monopoly of the colonial trade to Eng- land were renewed, and, to effect their rigid execution, the paramount authority of parliament was strictly asserted. Colonial commerce could be conducted only in sliips built, owned, and commanded by the people of England or of the colonies. A clause giving a severe construction to the act of 1672 declared that, even after the payment of export duties on the products of the colonies, those products should not be taken to a foreign market ; at the same time, " the officers for collecting and managing his majesty's revenues" in America obtained equal powers of visiting, Bearching, and entering warehouses and wharfs with the offi- cers of the customs in England ; charters were overruled, — it is the first act of parliament of that nature, — and the ap- pointment of the proprietary governors was subj^ected to the royal negative ; all governors were ordered to promise by oath their utmost efforts to carry every clause of the acts of trade into effect ; and every American law or custom re- pugnant to this or any other English statute for the colo- nies, made or hereafter to be made, was abrogated, as " ille- gal, null, and void, to all intents and purposes whatsoever." The words were explicit, both declaratory and enacting ; but it was not easy to restrain the trade of a conti- nent. In March, 1697, the house of lords, after an i697. inquiry, represented to the king the continuance of illegal practices, and advised " courts of admiralty in the plantations, that offences against the act of navigation might no longer be decided by judges and jurors who were them- selves often the greatest offenders. The commis- sioners for the customs joined in the demand ; and 1698. royalists of the next century were glad to repeat that Locke, the philosopher of liberty, sanctioned th*© measure. The crown lawyers overruled all -objections derived from proprietary charters, and the king set up his. courts of vice- admiralty in America. In 1699, the system, which made England the only 1699. market and the only storehouse for the colonies, re- 284 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXI. ceived a new development by an act of parliament, which reached the door of every farm-house within them, and imbodied the despotic will of a selfishness known only to highly civilized life. As yet, the owners of land were not sufficiently pledged to the colonial system. Wool was the great staple of England, and its growers and manufacturers envied the colonies the possession of a flock of sheep, a spindle, or a loom. The preamble to an act of parliament avows the motive for a restraining law in the conviction, that colonial industry would " inevitably sink the value of lands " in England. The mother country could esteem the present interest of its landholders paramount to natural jus- tice. The clause, which I am about to cite, is a memorial of a delusion which once pervaded all Western Europe, and whicli has already so passed away that men grow incredulous of its former existence : " After the first day of December, 1699, no wool, or manufacture made or mixed with wool, being the produce or manufacture of any of the English plantations in America, shall be loaden in any ship or vessel, upon any pretence whatsoever, — nor loaden upon any horse, cart, or other carriage, — to be carried out of the English plantations to any other of the said plantations, or to any other place whatsoever." The fabrics of Connecticut might not seek a market in Massachusetts, or be carried to Albany for traffic with the Indians. An English sailor, finding him- self in want of clothes in an American harbor, might buy there forty shillings' worth of woollens, but not more ; and this small concession was soon repealed. Did a colonial assembly show favor to manufactures, the board of trade was sure to interpose. Error, like a cloud, must be seen from a distance to be measured. Somers and Locke saw no wrong in this legislation, as Jeremy Taylor and Berkeley had seen none in that which established the church in Ire- land. England, in its relations with foreign states, sought a convenient tariff ; in the colonies, it prohibited industry. And the interests of landlords and manufacturers, jointly fostered by artificial legislation, so corrupted the public judgment that the intolerable injustice of the mercantile system was not surmised. 1701. PARLIAMENT AND THE COLONIES. 285 In Virginia, the poverty of the people compelled them to attempt coarse manufactures, or to go unclad ; yet Nichol- son, the royal governor, advised that parliament should forbid the Virginians to make their own clothing. Spots- wood repeats the complaint : " The people, more of necessity than of inclination, attempt to clothe themselves with their own manufactures ; " adding that " it is certainly necessary to divert their application to some commodity less prejudicial to the trade of Great Britain." The 1701. charter colonies were reproached by the lords of trade " with promoting and propagating woollen and other manu- factures proper to England." The English need not fear to conquer Canada : such was the reasoning of an American agent ; for, in Canada, " where the cold is extreme, and snow lies so long on the ground, sheep will never thrive so as to make the woollen manufactures possible, which is the only thing that can make a plantation unprofitable to the crown." The policy was continued by every admin- istration. To the enumerated commodities molasses and rice were added in 1704; though in 1730 rice was liberated. Irish linen cloth was afterwards conditionally excepted ; but now, at the end of three years, Ireland was abruptly dismissed from partnership in the colonial monopoly ; even while the enumerated products might still be carried to " other English plantations." An English parliament could easily make these enact- ments, but America evaded them as unjust. From Penn- sylvania, the judge of the court of admiralty — a court hated in that colony, as " more destructive to freedom than the ship-money" — wrote home that his " commission could be of no effect, while the government denied the force of the acts of parliament ; " and though William Penn entered a plea that his people were " not so disobedient aS mistaken and ignorant," yet in August, 1699, the board of trade reported " the bad disposition of that people and the mis- management of that administration, as requiring a speedy remedy." In New Hampshire, Lord Bellomont, in November, 1700, 286 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXL found that the people " laughed at the orders of the board " of trade against carrying their lumber directly to Portugal. In the same year, the councillors of Massachusetts were openly "indignant at the acts of navigation;" insisting that " they were as much Englishmen as those in England, and had a right, therefore, to all the privileges which the people of England enjoyed." And the people of Boston were told from the pulpit that they were " not bound in conscience to obey the laws of England, having no repre- sentatives there of their choosing." To the orders sent to Carolina, " to prosecute breaches of the act of navigation," the replies were but complaints " of encouragement to illicit trade, and opposition to the officers of the revenue and the admiralty." "The malignant humor of the proprietary- governments " infected Maryland and Virginia. From 1688 to 1698, the plantation duties yielded no more than the expenses of management. All the energy of authority could make the plantation duties yield to the exchequer no more than about a thousand pounds a year. The maritime wars had increased piracy ; and, in iprii. I'i^OO, parliament seized the opportunity of the crime to illustrate its authority. It defined the offence, overruled patents in constituting courts for its trial, and, should a charter governor fail to obey the new statute, declared the charter of his colony forfeited. " The parlia- ment, having in view the refractoriness of New England and other plantations," thus wrote the board of trade, " have now passed an act that extends to all ; by which those of New England may perceive that, where the public good does suffer by their obstinacy, the proper remedy will be found here." To " make most of the money centre in England," the lords of trade proposed a regulation of the colonial currency, by reducing all the coin of America to one standard. The proclamation of Queen Anne confirmed to all the colonies a depreciated currency, but endeavored to make the depre- ciation uniform and safe against change. In a word, Eng- land sought to establish for itself a fixed standard of gold and silver; for the colonies, a fixed standard of deprecia- 1704. PARLIAMENT AND THE COLONIES. 287 tion. As the colonies had of themselves depreciated their currency, England gained its first object and monopolized all gold and silver. Even the shillings of early coinage in Massachusetts were nearly all gathered up, and remitted ; but the equality of depreciation could never be maintained against the rival cupidity of the competitors in bills of credit. In 1708, an act of parliament, supporting the procla- mation of Queen Anne, fixed the rates of coin in America, as if by the most august authority to limit the depreciation of bills ; but paper money continued to increase in the royal, and still more in the charter, colonies. Thus, in 1709, New York first emitted bills of credit, disposing of the proceeds by vote of the assembly. In 1710, the body politic of South Carolina issued forty-eight thousand pounds, which bore interest, and were loaned to individuals, to be sunk by small annual instalments. These depreciated immediately, yet formed the currency of the colony. The American post-office defrayed its own expenses. By an act of prerogative, William III. had, in 1692, appointed a postmaster for the northern provinces. New York feebly encouraged, Massachusetts neglected, the enterprise. In 1710, the British parliament erected a post-office for Amer- ica, establishing the rates of postage, conferring the freedom of all ferries, appointing a summary process for collecting dues, and making New York the centre of its operations. The routes of the mails were gradually extended through all the colonies; Virginia, where it was introduced in 1718, made transient resistance; for "the people," as Spotswood informed the board, " called the rates of postage a tax, and they believed that parliament could not lay any tax on them without the consent of the general assembly." But the rates of postage soon came to be regarded as an equitable payment for a valuable service. The British parliament interfered for one other purpose, not so directly connected with trade. In 1704, to emancipate the English navy from dependence on Sweden, a bounty was offered on naval stores, and was accompanied by a proviso which extended the jurisdiction of parliament to every grove north of the Delaware. Every pitch-pine tree, 288 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXI. not in an enclosure, was consecrated to the purj^oses of the English navy ; and, in the undivided domain, no tree fit for a mast might be cut without the queen's license. Beyond these measures, parliament at that time did not proceed. The English lawyers of the day had no doubt of the power of parliament to tax America. But we have seen that even the impetuous Saint- John would not carry out the plan for the payment of royal officers in the colonies by a parliamentary tax. Oxford, the lord treasurer, looked to America for the means of supporting its own military establishment. In August, 1711, before paying the gar- rison at Port Royal, he inquired of the board of trade "whether there be not money of her majesty's revenue in that country to pay them ; " and in June, 1713, " foreseeing that great expense would arise to the kingdom by the large supplies of stores demanded for the colonies, he desired the board of trade to consider how they might be made to sup- ply themselves." But the absorbing spirit of faction within the English cabinet of itself baffled every effort at system. The papers of the board of trade began to lie unnoticed in the office of the secretary of state; its annual reports ceased ; and whoever had colonial business to transact went directly to the privy council, to the admiralty, to the treasury. But, with every year of the increase of the colonies, prophecies had been made of their tendencies t.o indepen- dence. " In all these provinces and plantations," thus, in August, 1698, wrote Nicholson, who had been in office in New York and Maryland, and was then governor of Vir- ginia, " a great many people, especially in those under pro- prietaries, and the two others of Connecticut and Rhode Island, think that no law of England ought to be in force and binding on them without their own consent ; for they foolishly say that they have no representative sent from themselves to the parliament, and they look upon all laws made in England, that put any restraint upon them, to be great hardships." Ireland was already reasoning in the same manner ; and its writers joined America in disavowing the validity of British statutes in nations not represented in the British legislature. 1706. PARLIAMENT AND THE COLONIES. 289 In 1701, the lords of trade, in a public document, de- clared "the independency the colonies thirst after is now notorious." " Commonwealth notions improve daily," wrote Quarry, in 1703; "and, if it be not checked an time, the rights and privileges of English subjects will be thought too narrow." In 1705, it was said in print : " The colonists will, in process of time, cast off their allegiance to England, and set up a government of their own ; " and by degrees it came to be said " by people of all conditions and qualities, that their increasing numbers and wealth, joined to their great distance from Britain, would give them an oppor- tunity, in the course of some years, to throw off their de- pendence on the nation, and declare themselves a free state, if not curbed in time, by being made entirely subject to the crown." " Some great men professed their belief of the feasibleness of it, and the probability of its some time or other actually coming to pass." VOL. II. 19 290 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIL CHAPTER XXXII. PBOGEESS OF FRANCE IN NOKTH AMERICA. If our country, in the inherent opposition between its principles and the English system, was as ripe for govern- ing itself in 1689 as in 1776, the colonists disclaimed, and truly, a present passion for independence. A deep instinct gave assurance that the time was not yet come. They were not merely colonists of England, but they were riveted into an immense colonial system, which every commercial coun- try in Europe had assisted to frame, and which bound in its strong bonds every other quarter of the globe. The ques- tion of independence would be not a private strife with England, but a revolution in the commerce and in the pol- icy of the world; in the present fortunes, and, still more, in the prospects of humanity itself. As yet, there was no union among the settlements that fringed the Atlantic ; and but one nation in Europe would, at that day, have tolerated — not one would have fostered — an insurrection. Spain, Spanish Belgium, Holland, and Austria were then the allies of England against France, which, by centralizing its power and by well-considered plans of territorial aggrandizement, excited the dread of a universal monarchy. When Austria, with Belgium, shall abandon its hereditary warfare against France ; when Spain and Holland, favored by the armed neutrality of Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, and Russia, shall be ready to join with France in repressing the commercial ambition of England, — then, and not till then, American independence becomes possible. Those changes, extraordinary and improbable as they might have seemed, were to spring from the false principles of the mercantile system, which made France and England enemies. Our borders were become the scenes of jealous collision ; our soil was the destined battle-ground on which the grand con- Chap. XXXII. PROGRESS OF FRANCE IN AMERICA. 291 flict of the rivals for commercial privilege was to begin. The struggles for maritime and colonial dominion, which transformed the unsuccessful competitors for supremacy into the defenders of the freedom of the seas, having, in their progress, taught our fathers union, secured to our country the opportunity of independence. The mercantile system placed the benefit of commerce, not in a reciprocity of exchanges, but in a favorable balance of trade. Its whole wisdom was to sell as much as possible, to buy as little as possible. Pushed to its extreme, the pol- icy would destroy all commerce ; it might further the selfish aims of an individual nation ; the commerce of the world could flourish only in spite of it. In its mitigated form, it was a necessary source of European wars ; for each nation, in its traffic, sought to levy tribute in favor of its industry, and the adjustment of tariffs and commercial privileges was the constant subject of negotiations among states. The jealousy of one country envied the wealth of a rival as its own loss. Territorial aggrandizement was also desired and feared, in reference to its influence on European commerce ; and, as France, in its ambitious progress, encroached upon the German empire and the Spanish Netherlands, the mercan- tile interests of England led directly to an alliance with Austria as the head of the empire, and with Spain as the sovereign of Belgium. Thus the commercial interest was, in European politics, become paramount; it framed alliances, regulated wars, dictated treaties, and established barriers against conquest. The discovery of America, and of the ocean-path to India, had created maritime commerce, and the European colonial system had united the world. Now, for the first time in the history of man, the oceans vindicated their rights as natural highways ; now, for the first time, great powers struggled for dominion on the high seas. The world entered on a new epoch. Ancient navigation kept near the coast, or was but a passage from isle to isle ; commerce now selected, of choice, the boundless deep. 292 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXn. The three ancient continents were divided by no wide Beas, and their intercourse was chiefly by land. Their voyages were, like ours on Lake Erie, a continuance of in- ternal trade ; the vastness of their transactions was measured not by tonnage, but by counting caravans and camels. But now for the wilderness commerce substituted the sea ; for camels, merchant-men ; for caravans, fleets and convoys. The ancients were restricted in the objects of commerce ; for how could rice be brought across continents from the Ganges, or sugar from Bengal ? But now commerce gath- ered every production from the east and the west ; tea, sugar, and coffee from the plantations of China and Hin- dostan ; masts from American forests ; furs from Hudson's Bay ; men from Africa. With the expansion of commerce, the forms of business were changing. Of old, no dealers in credit existed between the merchant and the producer. The Greeks and Romans were hard-money men ; their language has no word for bank-notes or currency; with them there was no stock market, no broker's board, no negotiable scrip of kingdom or commonwealth. Public expenses were borne by direct taxes, or by loans from rich citizens, soon to be cancelled, and never funded. The expansion of commerce gave birth to immense masses of floating credits ; larger sums than the whole revenue of an ancient state were transferred from continent to continent by bills of exchange ; and, when the mercantile system grew strong enough to originate wars, it gained power to subject national credit to the floating credits of commerce. Every commercial state of the earlier world had been but a town with its territory ; the Phoenician, Greek, and Italian republics, each was a city government, retaining its municipal character with the enlargement of its jurisdiction and the diffusion of its colonies. The great European mari- time powers were vast monarchies, grasping at continents for their plantations. In the tropical isles of America and the east, they made their gardens for the fruits of the torrid zone ; the Cordilleras and the Andes supplied their mints with bullion ; the most inviting points on the coasts of 1484. PROGRESS OF FRANCE IN NORTH AMERICA. 293 Africa and Asia were selected as commercial stations ; and the temperate regions of America were to be filled with agriculturists, whose swarming increase — such was the uni- versal metropolitan aspiration — should lead to the infinite consumption of European goods. That the mercantile system should be applied by each nation to its own colonies, was universally tolerated by the political morality of that day. Thus each metropolis was at war with the present interests and natural rights of its colonies ; and, as the European colonial system was estab- lished on every continent, as the single colonies were, each by itself, too feeble for resistance, colonial oppression was destined to endure as long, at least, as the union of the oppressors. But the commercial jealousies of Europe ex- tended, from the first, to European colonies ; and the home relations of the states of the Old World to each other were finally surpassed in importance by the transatlantic conflicts with which they were identified. The mercantile system, being founded in error and injustice, was doomed not only itself to expire, but, by overthrowing the mighty fabric of the colonial system, to emancipate commerce and open a boundless career to human hope. That colonial system all Western Europe had contributed to build. Even before the discovery of America, Portugal had reached Madeira and the Azores, the 1443; Cape Verde Islands and Congo; within six years }^; after the discovery of Hayti, the intrepid Vasco da Gama, following where none but Africans from Carthage had preceded, turned the Cape of Good Hope, arrived at Mozambique and, passing the Arabian peninsula, landed at Calicut, and made an establishment at Cochin. Within a few years, the brilliant temerity of Portugal achieved establishments on Western and Eastern Africa, in Arabia and Persia, in Hindostan and the eastern isles, and in Brazil. The intense application of the system of monopoly, combined with the despotism of the sovereign and the priesthood, precipitated the decay of Portuguese commerce in advance of the decay of the mercantile sys- tem J and the Moors, the Persians, Holland, and Spain, 294 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIL dismantled Portugal of her possessions at so early a period that she was never involved, as a leading party, in the wars of North America. Far different were the relations of Spain with our colo- nial history. In the division of the world by Pope Alex- ander YI. between Portugal and Spain, the east had been allotted to the former; Spain therefore never reached the Asiatic world except by travelling west, and, obedient to the Roman see, never claimed possession of any territory in Asia beyond the Philippine Isles. But in America there grew up a Spanish world safe against conquest from its boundless extent, yet doubly momentous to our fathers from its vicinity and its commercial system. Occupying Florida on our south, Spain was easily involved in con- troversy with England on the subject of reciprocal terri- torial encroachments ; and, excluding foreigners from all participation in her colonial trade, she could not but arouse the cupidity of English commerce, bent on extending itself by smuggling, and, if necessary, by force. Yet the colo- nial maxims, in conformity with which Spain had spread its hierarchy, its missions, its garrisons, and its inquisition over islands and half a continent, were adopted by England ; and both powers were, by their legislation, pledged to the system of colonial monopoly. Holland had risen into existence as the advocate and example of maritime freedom, and had, moreover, been ejected from the continent of North America. Yet, as a land power, it needed the alliance of England as a barrier against France ; and the aristocratic republic, possessing precious spice islands in the Indian Seas, admitted to them no European flag but its own. But the two powers, of which the ambition was most ac- tively interested in the colonial system, were France and England, both stern advocates of colonial exclusiveness, and both jealous competitors for new acquisitions. The political condition of France rendered her commer- cial advancement possible. The story of Louis XIY., on coming of age, entering parliament with a whip in his hand, was invented as the emblem of absolute monarchy. The 1667. PROGRESS OF FRANCE IN NORTH AMERICA. 295 feudal system, that great antagonist to free industry, was subjected to the crown ; and the people of France emerged into existence, one day to assert their power. While abso- lute monarchy was the period of transition from heredi- tary privilege to equality; while the memory of repub- lican virtues was kept alive by the poetry of Corneille, and the vices of courts were rebuked in the fictions of Fenelon, — the policy of France gave dignity to the class of citizens. In the magistracy, as in the church, they could reach high employments ; the meanest burgher could have audience of the king ; and the members of the royal council were, almost without exception, selected from the ignoble. Colbert and Louvois were not of the high no- bility. The great middling class was constantly increasing in importance ; and the energies of France, if not employed in arms for aggrandizement, began to be husbanded for commerce and the arts. Even before the days of Colbert, the colonial rivalry with England had begun. When Queen Elizabeth gave a charter to a first not very successful English East India company, France, under Richelieu, struggled also, though vainly, to share the great commerce with Asia. The same year in which England took possession of Barbados, French- men occupied the half of St. Christopher's. Did England add half St. Christopher's, Nevis, and at last Jamaica, France gained Martinique and Guadaloupe, with smaller islets, founded a colony at Cayenne, and, by the aid of bucca- neers, took possession of the west of Hayti. England, by its devices of tariffs and prohibitions and by the royal assent to the act of navigation, sought to call into action every power of production, hardly a year before Colbert hoped in like manner by artificial legislation to fos- ^l^^^° ter the manufactures and finances of France, and insure to that kingdom spacious seaports, canals, colonies, and a navy. The English East India company had but just revived under Charles II., when France gave priv- ileges to an East India commercial corporation ; and, if the folly of that corporation in planting on the Island of Madagascar, where there was nothing to sell or to buy, 296 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXH. effected its decline, still the banner of the Bourbons 1675. reached Malabar and Coromandel. The fourth Afri- 1674. can company, with the Stuarts for stockholders and 1679. the slave-trade for its object, soon found a rival in the Senegal company ; and, just at the time when the French king was most zealous for the conversion 1685. of the Huguenots, he established a Guinea company to trade from Sierra Leone to the Cape of Good Hope. France was, through Colbert and Seignelay, be- come a great naval power, and had given her colonial sys- tem an extent even vaster than that of the British. So eager was she in her rivalry on the ocean, so menacing was the competition of her workshops in every article of ingenious manufacture, that the spirit of monopoly set its brand upon language, and England and France were called natural enemies. Memory fostered the national antipathy; France had not forgotten English invasions of her soil, English victo- ries over her sons. France adhered to the old religion, and the revocation of the edict of Nantes made it a Catholic empire ; England succeeded in a Protestant revolution, which made political power a monopoly of the Anglican church, disfranchised all Catholics, and even subjected them, in Ireland, to a legal despotism. In England, freedom of mind made its way through a series of aristocratic and plebeian sects, each of which found its support in the Bible ; and the progress was so gradual, and under such variety of forms, both among the people and among philosophers, that the civil institutions were not endangered, even when freedom degenerated into skepticism or infidelity. In France, reason was emancipated by philosophy, and making its way, at one bound, to abso- lute skepticism, rejected every prejudice, and menaced the institutions of church and of state. In England, philosophy existed as an empirical science ; men measured and weighed the outward world, and con- structed the prevailing systems of morals and metaphysics on observation and the senses. In France, the philosophic 1622. PROGRESS OF FRANCE IN NORTH AMERICA. 297 mind, under the guidance of Descartes, of Fenelon, of Malebranche, assumed a character alike spiritual and uni- versal. Still more opposite were the governments. In France, feudal monarchy had been quelled by a military monarchy ; in England, it had yielded to a parliamentary monarchy, in which government rested on property. France sustained the principle of legitimacy ; England had selected its own sovereign, and to dispute his claims involved not only a question of national law, but of English independence. To these causes of animosity, springing from rivalry in manufactures and in commercial stations, from contrasts in religion, philosophy, opinion, and government, there was added a struggle for territory in North America. Not only in the West Indies, in the East Indies, in Africa, were France and England neighbors, over far the largest part of our country Louis XIV. claimed to be the sovereign ; and the prelude to the overthrow of the European colonial system, which was sure to be the overthrow of the mer- cantile system, was destined to be the mighty struggle for the central regions of our republic. The first permanent efforts of French enterprise, in col- onizing America, preceded any permanent English settle- ment north of the Potomac. Years before the pilgrims anchored within Cape Cod, the Roman church had been planted, by missionaries from France, in the eastern moiety of Maine ; Le Caron, an unambitious Fran- Jgjg* ciscan, the companion of Champlain, had passed into the hunting-grounds of the Wyandots, and, bound by his vows to the life of a beggar, had, on foot or paddling a bark canoe, gone onward and still onward, taking alms of the savages, till he reached the rivers of Lake Huron. While Quebec contained scarce fifty inhabitants, 1^23. priests of the Franciscan order — Le Caron, Viel, ^^^^* Sagard — had labored for years as missionaries in i626. Upper Canada, or made their way to the neutral Huron tribe that dwelt on the waters of the Niagara. After the Canada company had been suppressed, I622. and the Calvinists, William and Enieric Caen, had for 298 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIL five years, enjoyed its immunities, the hundred asso- 1627. ciates, — Richelieu, Champlain, Razilly, and opulent merchants, being of the number, — by a charter from Louis XIII., obtained a grant of New France, and, 1632. after the restoration of Quebec by its English con- querors, entered upon the government of their prov- ince. Its limits embraced specifically the basin of the St. Lawrence, and of such other rivers in New France as flowed directly into the sea; they included Florida, or the country south of Virginia, esteemed a French province in virtue of the unsuccessful efforts of Coligny. Religious zeal, not less than commercial ambition, had influenced France to recover Canada; and Cham- 1635! plain, its governor, ever disinterested and compas- sionate, full of honor and probity, of ardent devotion and burning zeal, esteemed " the salvation of a soul worth more than the conquest of an empire." The commercial monopoly of a privileged company could not foster a col- ony ; the climate of the country round Quebec, " where summer hurries through the sky," did not invite to agricul- ture ; no persecutions of Catholics swelled the stream of emigration ; and, at first, there was little, except religious enthusiasm, to give vitality to the province. Touched by the simplicity of the order of St. Francis, Champlain had selected its priests of the contemplative class for his com- panions; "for they were free from ambition." But the aspiring honor of the Galilean church was interested ; a prouder sympathy was awakened among the devo- 1632. tees at court; and the Franciscans having, as a men- dicant order, been excluded from the rocks and deserts of the New World, the office of converting the heathen of Canada, and thus enlarging the borders of French dominion, was intrusted solely to the Jesuits. The establishment of " the Society of Jesus " by Loyola had been contemporary with the Reformation, of which it was designed to arrest the progress ; and its com- i54o'. plete organization belongs to the period when the first full edition of Calvin's Institutes saw the light. Its members were, by its rules, never to become prelates, and 1632. PROGRESS OF FRANCE IN NORTH AMERICA. 299 could gain power and distinction only by influence over mind. Their vows were poverty, chastity, absolute obedi- ence, and a constant readiness to go on missions against heresy or heathenism. Their colleges became the best schools in the world. Emancipated in a great degree from the cloistral forms, separated from domestic ties, constitut- ing a community essentially intellectual as well as essen- tially plebeian, bound together by the most perfect organ- ization, and having for their end a control over opinion among the scholars and courts of Europe and throughout the habitable globe, the order of the Jesuits held, as its ruling maxims, the widest diffusion of its influence and the closest internal unity. Immediately on its institution, their missionaries, kindling with a heroism that defied every danger and endured every toil, made their way to the ends of the earth ; they raised the emblem of man's salvation on the Moluccas, in Japan, in India, in Thibet, in Cochin China, and in China ; they penetrated Ethiopia, and reached the Abyssinians ; they planted missions among the Kaffres ; in California, on the banks of the Maraiihon, in the plains of Paraguay, they invited barbarians to the civilization of Christianity. Champlain could devise no method of building up i632. the dominion of France in Canada but an alliance with the Hurons, or of confirming that alliance but the establishment of missions. Such a policy was congenial to a church which cherishes every member of the human race, without regard to lineage or skin. It was, moreover, fa- vored by the conditions of the charter itself, which recog- nised the neophyte among the savages as an enfranchised citizen of France. Thus it was neither commercial enterprise nor royal ambition which carried the power of France into the heart of our continent : the motive was religion. Religious en- thusiasm colonized New England ; and religious enthusiasm founded Montreal, made a conquest of the wilderness on the upper lakes, and explored the Mississippi. Puritanism gave New England its worship and its schools ; the Roman church created for Canada its altars, its hospitals, and its 300 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIL Beminariea. The influence of Calvin can be traced in every ISTew England village ; in Canada, the monuments of feu- dalism and the Catholic Church stand side by side ; and the names of Montmorenci and Bourbon, of Levi and Conde, are mingled with memorials of St. Athanasius and Augustin, of St. Francis of Assisi, and Ignatius Loyola. 1633. Within three years after the second occupation of 1636. Canada, the number of Jesuit priests in the province reached fifteen ; and every tradition bears testimony to their worth. They had the faults of ascetic superstition ; but the horrors of a Canadian life in the wilderness were resisted by an invincible passive courage and a deep inter- nal tranquillity. Away from the amenities of life, away from the opportunities of vain-glory, they became dead to the world, and possessed their souls in unalterable peace. The few who lived to grow old, though bowed by the toils of a long mission, still kindled with the fervor of apostolic zeal. The history of their labors is connected with the ori- gin of every celebrated town in the annals of French Amer- ica : not a cape was turned, nor a river entered, but a Jesuit led the way. Behold, then, the Jesuits Brebeuf and Daniel, soon to be followed by the gentler Lallemand, and many others of their order, bowing meekly in obedience to their 1634. vows, and joining a party of barefoot Huron s, who were returning from Quebec to their country. The journey, by way of the Ottawa and the rivers that interlock with it, was one of more than three hundred leagues, through a region horrible with forests. All day long the missiona- ries must wade, or handle the oar. At night, there is no food for them but a scanty measure of Indian corn mixed with water; their couch is the earth or the rocks. At five-and-thirty waterfalls, the canoe is to be carried on the shoulders for leagues through thick woods or over roughest regions ; fifty times it was dragged by hand through shallows and rapids, over sharp stones ; and thus — swimming, wading, paddling, or bearing the canoe across the portages, with garments torn, with feet mangled, yet with the breviary safely hung round the neck, and vows, 1634. PROGRESS OF FRANCE IN NORTH AMERICA. 301 as they advanced, to meet death twenty times over, if it were possible, for theiionor of St. Joseph — the consecrated envoys made their way, by rivers, lakes, and forests, from Quebec to the heart of the Huron wilderness. There, to the north-west of Lake Toronto, near the shore of Lake Iroquois, which is but a bay of Lake Huron, they raised the first humble house of the Society of Jesus gS" among the Hurons; the cradle, it was said, of his church who dwelt at Bethlehem in a cottage. The little chapel, built by aid of the axe and consecrated to St. Joseph, where, in the gaze of thronging crowds, vespers and matins began to be chanted and bread was consecrated by solemn mass, amazed the hereditary guardians of the council-fires of the Huron tribes. Beautiful testimony to the equality of the human race ! the sacred wafer, emblem of the divin- ity in man, all that the church offered to the princes and nobles of the European world, was shared with the humblest of the savage neophytes. The hunter, as he returned from his wide roamings, was taught to hope for eternal rest ; the braves as they came from war, were warned of the wrath which kindles against sinners a never-dying fire, fiercer far than the fires of the Mohawks ; the idlers of the Indian villages were told the exciting tale of the Saviour's death for their redemption. Two new Christian villages, St. Louis and St. Ignatius, bloomed among the Huron forests. The dormant sentiment of pious veneration was awakened in many breasts, and there came to be even earnest and ascetic devotees uttering prayers and vows in the Huron tongue ; while tawny skeptics inquired if there were indeed, in the centre of the earth, eternal flames for the unbe- lieving. The missionaries themselves possessed the weaknesses and the virtues of their order. For fifteen years enduring the infinite labors and perils of the Huron mission, and exhibiting, as it was said, " an absolute pattern of every religious virtue," Jean de Brebeuf, respecting even the nod of his distant superiors, bowed his mind and his judgment to obedience. Besides the assiduous fatigues of his oflice, each day, and sometimes twice in the day, he applied to 302 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXH. himself the lash ; beneath a bristling hair-shirt he wore an iron girdle, armed on all sides with projecting points ; his fasts were frequent ; almost always his pious vigils con- tinued deep into the night. In vain did Asmodeus assume for him the forms of earthly beauty ; his eye rested benig- nantly on visions of divine things. Once, imparadised in a trance, he beheld the Mother of Him whose cross he bore, surrounded by a crowd of virgins, in the beatitudes 1640. of heaven. Once, as he himself has recorded, while engaged in penance, he saw Christ unfold his arms to embrace him, promising oblivion of his sins. Once, late at night, while praying in the silence, he had a vision of an infinite number of crosses, and with mighty heart he strove again and again to grasp them all. Often he saw the shapes of foul fiends, now appearing as madmen, now as raging beasts ; and often he beheld the image of Death, a blood- less form, by the side of the stake, struggling with bonds, and at last falling, as a harruless spectre, at his feet. 1638. Having vowed to seek out suffering for the greater glory of God, he renewed that vow every day, at the moment of tasting the sacred wafer ; and, as his cupidity for martyrdom grew into a passion, he exclaimed : " What shall I render to thee, Jesus, my Lord, for all thy benefits ? I will accept thy cup, and invoke thy name ; " and, in sight of the Eternal Father and the Holy Spirit, of the most holy Mother of Christ and St. Joseph, before angels, apostles, and martyrs, before St. Ignatius and Francis Xavier, he made a vow never to decline the opportunity of martyrdom, and never to receive the death-blow but with joy. The life of a missionary on Lake Huron was simple and uniform. The earliest hours, from four to eight, were ab- sorbed in private prayer; the day was given to schools, visits, instruction in the catechism, and a service for prose- lytes. Sometimes, after the manner of St. Francis Xavier, Brebeuf would walk through the village and its environs, ringing a little bell, and inviting the Huron braves and counsellors to a conference. There, under the shady forest, the most solemn mysteries of the Catholic faith were sub- jected to discussion. It was by such means that the senti- 1635. PROGRESS OF FRANCE IN NORTH AMERICA. 303 ment of piety was unfolded in the breast of the great warrior Ahasistari. Nature had planted in his mind the seeds of religious faith : " Before you came to this country," he would say, " when I have incurred the greatest perils, and have alone escaped, I have said to myself, *■ Some pow- erful spirit has the guardianship of my days ; ' " and he professed his belief in Jesus, as the good genius and pro- tector, whom he had before unconsciously adored. After trials of his sincerity, he was baptized ; and, enlisting a troop of converts, savages like himself, " Let us strive," he exclaimed, " to make the whole world embrace the faith in Jesus." As missionary stations multiplied, the central spot i639. was named St. Mary's, upon the banks of the river now called Wye. There, at the humble house dedicated to the Virgin, in one year three thousand guests froni the cabins of the red man received a frugal welcome. The news from this Huron Christendom awakened in France the strongest sympathy ; religious communities, in Paris and in the provinces, joined in prayers for its ad- vancement; the king sent magnificently embroidered gar- ments as presents to the neophytes ; the queen, the prin- cesses of the blood, the clergy of France, even Italy, listened with interest to the novel tale ; and the pope him- self expressed his favor. To confirm the missions, the first measure was the establishment of a college in New France ; and the parents of the Marquis de Gamache, pleased with his pious importunity, assented to his entering the order of the Jesuits, and added from their ample fortunes the means of endowing a seminary for education at Quebec. Its foundation was laid, under happy auspices, in 1635, just before Champlain passed from among the i635. living, two years before the emigration of John Harvard, and one year before the general court of Massa- chusetts had made provision for a college. The fires of charity were at the same time kindled. The Duchess d'Aiguillon, aided by her uncle, the Cardinal Riche- lieu, endowed a public hospital, dedicated to the Son of God, whose blood was shed in mercy for all mankind. Its 804 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXH. doors were open, not only to the sufferers among the emi- grants, but to the maimed, the sick, and the blind of any of the numerous tribes between the Kennebec and Lake Supe- rior; it received misfortune without asking its lineage. From the hospital nuns of Dieppe, three were selected, the youngest but twenty-two, the eldest but twenty-nine, to brave the famine and the rigors of Canada in their patient missions of benevolence. The same religious enthusiasm, inspiring Madame de la Peltrie, a young and opulent widow of Alen9on, with A^u?i. ^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^ ^^^ from Dieppe and two others from Tours, established the Ursuline convent for the edu- cation of girls. As the youthful heroines stepped on shore at Quebec, they stooped to kiss the earth which they adopted as their country, and were ready, in case of need, to tinge with their blood. The governor, with the little garrison, received them at the water's edge ; Hurons and Algonkins, joining in the shouts, filled the air with yells of joy; and the motley group escorted the new comers to the church, where, amidst a general thanksgiving, the Te Deum was chanted. Is it wonderful that the natives were touched by a benevolence which their poverty and squalid misery could not appall ? Their education was also attempted ; and the venerable ash-tree still lives, beneath which Mary of the Incarnation toiled, though in vain, for the culture of the red man's children. Meantime, a colony of Algonkins had been estab- lished in the vicinity of Quebec; and the name of Silleri is the monument to the philanthropy of its projector. Here savages were to be trained to the faith and the man- ners of civilization. Of Montreal, selected to be a nearer rendezvous for 1640. converted Indians, possession was taken, in 1640, by a solemn mass, celebrated beneath a tent. In the 1641. following February, in France, at the cathedral of Our Lady of Paris, a general supplication was made that the Queen of Angels would take the Island of Montreal under her protection. In August of the same year, in the presence of the French gathered from all parts of Canada, 1639. PROGRESS OF FRANCE IN NORTH AMERICA. 305 and of the native warriors summoned from the wilderness, the festival of the assumption was solemnized on the island itself. Henceforward, the hearth of the sacred fires of the Wyandots was consecrated to the Virgin. "There the Mohawk and the feebler Algonkin," said Le Jeune, " shall make their home ; the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and a little child shall guide them." The occupation of Montreal did not immediately pro- duce nearer relations with the Huron missionaries, who, for a period of three years, received no supplies ^Hl^^ whatever : so that their clothes fell in pieces ; they had no wine for the chalice but the juices of the wild grape, and scarce bread enough for consecration. Yet the efforts of the Jesuits were not limited to the Huron na- tion. Within thirteen years, this remote wilderness ^1^7^ was visited by forty-two missionaries, members of the Society of Jesus, besides eighteen others, who, if not initiated, were yet chosen men, ready to shed their blood for their faith. Twice or thrice a year, they all assembled at St. Mary's ; for the rest of the time, they were scattered through the infidel tribes. I would willingly follow their progress, as they gradually surveyed the coast of our republic, from the waters of the Niagara to the head of Lake Superior ; but their narratives do but incidentally blend description with their details of conversions. Yet the map which was prepared by the order, at Paris, in 1660, proves that, in this earliest period, they had traced the highway of waters from Lake Erie to Lake Supe- rior, and had gained a glimpse, at least, of Lake Michigan. Within six years after the recovery of Canada, the lesg. plan was formed of establishing missions, not only ^^^^" among the Algonkins in the north, but south of Lake Huron, in Michigan, and at Green Bay ; thus to gain access to the immense regions of the west and the north-west, to the great multitude from all nations, whom no one can number. But the Jesuits were too feeble and too few to attempt the spiritual conquest of so many countries : they prayed for recruits ; they invoked the blessing of the Divine Majesty on their thoughts and enterprises. VOL. n. 20 806 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXH. At the various missions, Indians from the remotest points appeared. In 1638, there came to the Huron mission a chief of the Huron tribe that dwelt on the head-waters of the Ohio ; and we find constant mention of Algonkins from the west, especially from Green Bay. In the autumn of 1640, Charles Raymbault and Claude Pijart reached the Huron missions, destined for service among the Algonkins of the north and the west. By continual warfare with the Mohawks, the French had been excluded from the navigation of Lake Ontario, and had never even launched a canoe on Lake Erie. Their avenue to the west was by way of the Ottawa and French River ; so that the whole coast of Ohio and Southern Michigan remained unknown, except as seen by missionaries from their stations in Canada. In 1640, Brebeuf had been sent to the villages of the neutral nation which occupied the territory on the Niagara. Of these, some villages were ex- tended on the southern shore of Lake Erie, beyond Buf- falo; but it is not certain that Brebeuf visited them, or that he was at any time on the soil of our republic. His mission perfected the knowledge of the great watercourse of the valley of the St. Lawrence. " Could we but gain the mastery," it was said, " of the shore of Ontario on the side nearest the abode of the Iroquois, we could ascend by the St. Lawrence, without danger, and pass free beyond Niag- ara, with a great saving of time and pains." Thus did Jesuits see the necessity of possessing a post in Western New York, seven years after the restoration of Quebec. At this time, no Englishman had reached the basin of the St. Lawrence. The country on the sea was held by the Dutch ; that part of New York which is watered by streams that flow to the St. Lawrence was first visited by the French. But the fixed hostility and the power of the Five Nations left no hope of success in gaining safe intercourse by the St. Lawrence. To preserve the avenue to the west by the Ottawa, Pijart and Charles Raymbault, in 1640, on their pilgrimage to the Huron country, attempted the conver- sion of the roving tribes that were masters of the high- 1641. PROGRESS OF FRANCE IN NORTH AMERICA. 307 ways ; and, in the following year, they roamed as ig4i_ missionaries with the Algonkins of Lake Nipising. ^*y ^• Towards the close of summer, these wandering tribes prepared to celebrate " their festival of the dead," — to gather up the bones of their deceased friends, and give them jointly an honorable sepulchre. To this ceremony all the confederate nations were invited ; as they approach the shore, on a deep bay in Lake Iro- Sept. quois, their canoes advance in regular array, and the representatives of nations leap on shore, uttering ex- clamations and cries of joy, which the rocks echo. The long cabin for the dead had been prepared ; their bones are nicely disposed in coffins of bark, and wrapped in such furs as the wealth of Europe would have coveted ; the mourning-song of the war-chiefs had been chanted, all night long, to the responsive wails of the women. The farewell to the dead, the dances, the councils, the presents, all were finished. But, before the assembly dispersed, the Jesuits, by their presents and their festivals, had won new aif ection, and an invitation was given to visit the nation of Chip- pewas at Sault Ste. Marie. For the leader of this first invasion of the soil of our republic in the west, Charles Raymbault was selected ; and, as Hurons were his attendants, Isaac Jogues was given him as a companion. It was on the seventeenth day of September, i64i. 1641, that the birch-bark canoe, freighted with the . first envoys from Christendom, left the Bay of Penetan- gushene for the Falls of St. Mary. Passing to the north, they floated over a wonted track till beyond the French River ; then they passed onward over the clear waters and between the clustering archipelagoes of Lake Huron, be- yond the Manitoulins and other isles along the shore, to the straits that form the outlet of Lake Superior. There, at the falls, after a navigation of seventeen Oct. 4. days, they found an assembly of two thousand souls. They made inquiries respecting many nations, who, had never known Europeans, and had never heard of the one God. Among other nations, they were told of the 308 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIL Nadowessies, the famed Sioux, who dwelt eighteen days' journey farther to the west, beyond the Great Lake, then still without a name ; warlike tribes, with fixed abodes, cultivators of maize and tobacco, of an unknown race and language. The religious zeal of the French bore the cross to the banks of the St. Mary and the confines of Lake Superior, and looked wistfully towards the homes of the Sioux in the valley of the Mississippi, fiv^e years before the New England Eliot had addressed the tribe of Indians that dwelt within six miles of Boston harbor. The chieftains of the Chippewas invited the Jesuits to dwell among them, and hopes were inspired of a permanent mission. A council was held. " We will embrace you," said they, " as brothers ; we will derive profit from your words." After finishing this excursion, Raymbault designed to rejoin the Algonkins of Nipising, but the climate forbade ; and, late in the season, he returned to the harbor of the Huron missions, wasting away with consumption. In mid- summer of the next year, he descended to Que- 00^22 ^^^' -^t^^ languishing till October, the self-denying man, who had glowed with the hope of bearing the gospel across the continent, through all the American Bar- bary, even to the ocean that divides America from China, ceased to live ; and the body of this first apostle of Chris- tianity to the tribes of Michigan was buried in " the par- ticular sepulchre," which the justice of that age had " erected expressly to honor the memory of the illustrious " Cham plain. Thus the climate made one martyr : the companion of Raymbault was destined to encounter a far more dreaded foe. The war-parties of the Five Nations, hereditary en- emies of the Hurons, and the deadly opponents of the French, controlled the passes between Upper Canada and Quebec ; and each missionary on his pilgrimage was 1642. in danger of captivity. Such was the fate of Isaac Jogues, who, having been one of the first to carry the cross into Michigan, was now the first to bear it through jg42 the villages of the Mohawks. From the Falls of St. June 13. Mary he had repaired to the Huron missions, and 1642. PROGRESS OF FRANCE IN NORTH AMERICA. 309 thence, with the escort of Ahasistari and other Huron braves, he descended by the Ottawa and St. Law- rence to Quebec. On his return with a larger fleet ^ug^'i. of canoes, a band of Mohawks, whose war-parties, fearlessly strolling through the illimitable forest, were ever ready to burst suddenly upon their foes, lay in wait for the pilgrims, as they ascended the St. Lawrence. " There can be but three canoes of them," said Ahasistari, as, at day- break, he examined their trail on the shore : " there is nothing to fear," added this bravest of the braves. Un- happy confidence ! The Mohawks, from their ambush, at- tacked the canoes, as they neared the land : the thin bark is perforated ; Hurons and Frenchmen alike make for the shore, to find security in the thick forests. Jogues might have escaped ; but there were with him converts, who had not yet been baptized ; and when did a Jesuit missionary seek to save his own life, at what he believed the risk of a soul ? Ahasistari had gained a hiding-place : observing Jogues to be a captive, he returned to him, saying : " My brother, I made oath to thee that I would share thy fortune, whether death or life ; here am I to keep my vow." The horrible inflictions of savage cruelty ensued, and were continued all the way from the St. Lawrence to the Mohawk. There they arrived the evening before the fes- tival of the assumption of the Virgin ; and, as he ran the gauntlet, Jogues comforted himself with a vision of the glory of the queen of heaven. In a second and a third vil- lage, the same sufferings were encountered ; for days and nights he was abandoned to hunger and every torment which petulant youth could devise. But yet there was con- solation : an ear of Indian corn on the stalk was thrown to the good father ; and see ! to the broad blade there clung drops of water or of dew, enough to baptize two captive neophytes. Three Hurons were condemned to the flames. The brave Ahasistari, having received absolution, met his end with the enthusiasm of a convert and the pride of the most gallant war-chief of his tribe. Sad was the fate of the captive novice, Ren6 Goupil. He 310 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIL had been seen to make the sign of the cross on an si^ig. infant's brow. " He will destroy the village by his charms," said his master ; and, summoned while re- citing alternately with Jogues the rosary of the Virgin, a blow with the tomahawk laid him lifeless. Father Jogues had expected the same fate ; but his life was spared, and his liberty enlarged. On a hill apart, he carved a long cross on a tree, and there, in the solitude, meditated the imitation of Christ, and soothed his griefs by reflecting that he alone, in that vast region, adored the true God of earth and heaven. Roaming through the stately forests of the Mohawk Valley, he wrote the name of Jesus on the bark of trees, graved the cross, and entered into possession of these countries in the name of God; often lifting up his voice in a solitary chant. Thus did France bring its banner and its faith to the confines of Albany. The missionary himself was humanely ransomed from cap- tivity by the Dutch, and, sailing for France, soon returned to Canada. 1644. Similar was the fate of Father Bressani. Taken ^*y- prisoner while on his way to the Hurons ; beaten, mangled, mutilated; driven barefoot over rough paths, through briers and thickets ; scourged by a whole village ; burned, tortured, wounded, and scarred, — he was eyewit- ness to the fate of one of his companions, who was boiled and eaten. Yet some mysterious awe protected his life; and he, too, was at last humanely rescued by the Dutch. Meantime, to make good the possession of the 1645. country, a treaty of peace is sought by the French with the Five Nations, and at Three Rivers a great meeting is held. There are the French officers in their magnificence ; there the five Iroquois deputies, couched upon mats, bearing strings of wampum. It was agreed to smooth the forest path, to calm the river, to hide the toma- hawk. "Let the clouds be dispersed," said the Iroquois; "let the sun shine on all the land between us." The Al- gonkins joined in the peace. " Here is a skin of a moose," said Negabamat, chief of the Montagnez ; " make moccasons for the Mohawk deputies, lest they wound their feet on 1647. PROGRESS OF FRANCE IN NORTH AMERICA. 311 their way home." " We have thrown the hatchet," said the Mohawks, " so high into the air, and beyond the skies, that no arm on earth can reach to bring it down. The French shall sleep on our softest blankets, by the warm fire, that shall be kept blazing all the night long. The shades of our braves that have fallen in war have gone so deep into the earth that they never can be heard calling for re- venge." " I place a stone on their graves," said Pieskaret, " that no one may move their bones." With greater sincerity, the Abenakis of Maine, touched by the charities of Silleri, had solicited missionaries. Con- version to Catholic Christianity would establish their warlike tribes as a wakeful barrier against New England ; and, in August, 1646, Father Gabriel Dreuillettes, ^ug^lg. first of Europeans, made the long and painful jour- ney from the St. Lawrence to the sources of the Kennebec, and, descending that stream to its mouth, in a bark canoe continued his roamings on the open sea along the coast. The cross was already planted there, raised by the disciples of St. Francis of Assisi over their humble lodge near the mouth of the Penobscot. After a short welcome, the ear- nest apostle returned to the wilderness ; and, a few miles above the mouth of the Kennebec, the Indians, in large numbers, gathered about him, building a rude chapel. In the winter, he was their companion in their long excursions in quest of game. Who can tell all the hazards that were encountered ? The sharp rocks in the channel of the river were full of perils for the frail canoe ; winter turned the solitudes into a wilderness of snow ; the rover. Christian or pagan, must carry about with him his house, his furniture, and his food. But the Jesuit succeeded in winning the affections of the savages ; and, after a pilgrimage of ten months, an escort of thirty conducted him to ju^^fs. Quebec, full of health and joy. Thus, in September, 1646, within fourteen years from the restoration of Quebec, France, advancing rapidly towards a widely extended dominion in North America, had its out- posts on the Kennebec and on the shores of Lake Huron, and had approached the settlements round Albany. 312 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXII. The strength of the colony lay in the missions. The government was weakened by the royal jealousy; 1646. the population hardly increased ; there was no mili- tary force ; and the trading company, deriving no income but from peltries and Indian traffic, had no motive to make large expenditures for protecting the settlements or promoting colonization. Thus the missionaries were left, almost alone, to contend against the thousands of braves that roamed over Acadia and the vast basin of the St. Lawrence. But what could sixty or seventy devotees ac- complish amongst the countless wild tribes from Nova Scotia to Lake Superior ? They were at war as Tvell with nature as with savage inhumanity, and had to endure perils and sufferings under every form. The frail bark of the 1623. Franciscan Viel had been dashed in pieces, and the missionary drowned, as he was shooting a rapid, on his return from the Hurons. Father Anne de Koue, in the depth of winter, leaves Quebec for the mouth of the Sorel, to shrive the garrison ; and, losing his way among pathless snows, perishes by the frosts of Canada. No faithful Jesuit would allow an infant to die unbaptized; and the Indian father, interpreting the sprinkling as a device to kill his child, avenged his affections by the death of the missionary. Still greater was the danger which sprung from the hostility of the tribes towards the French, or towards the nations by whom their envoys were received. 1645. A treaty of peace had, indeed, been ratified, and 1646. fQj. Qjjg winter Algonkins, Wyandots, and Iroquois joined in the chase. The wilderness seemed hushed 1646. into tranquillity. In May, 1646, Father Jogues, commissioned as an envoy, was hospitably received by the Mohawks, and gained an opportunity of offering the friendship of France to the Onondagas. On his return, jg4g his favorable report raised a desire of establishing June 27. a permanent mission among the Five Nations ; and he himself, the only one who knew their dialect, Oct. was selected as its founder. "Ibo, et non redibo," — "I shall go, but shall never return," — were his words of farewell. On arriving at the Mohawk castles, he 1648. PROGRESS OF FRANCE IN NORTH AMERICA. 313 was received as a prisoner, and, against the voice ^q^q of the other nations, was condemned by the grand ^^t. is. council of the Mohawks as an enchanter, who had blighted their harvest. Timid by nature, yet tranquil from zeal, he approached the cabin where the death-festival was kept, and, as he entered, received the death-blow. His head was hung upon the palisades of the village, his body thrown into the Mohawk River. This was the signal for war. The Iroquois renewed their invasions of the Huron country. In vain did the French seek to engage New England as an ally i648. in the contest. The Huron nation was doomed ; the ancient clans of the Wyandots were to be exterminated or scattered ; and the missionaries on the river Wye shared the dangers of the tribes with whom they dwelt. Each sedentary mission was a special point of attraction to the invader, and each, therefore, was liable to the hor- rors of an Indian massacre. Such was the fate of the village of St. Joseph. On the morning of July 4, 1648, when the braves were absent on the chase, and none but women, children, and old men remained at home, Father Anthony Daniel hears the cry of danger and confusion. He hastens to the scene to behold his converts, in the apathy of terror, falling victims to the fury of Mohawks. No age, however tender, excites mercy ; no feebleness of sex wins compassion. A group of women and children fly to him to escape the tomahawk ; as if his lips, uttering messages of love, could pronounce a spell that would curb the madness of destruction. Those who had formerly scoffed his mis- sion implore the benefit of baptism. He bids them ask for- giveness of God, and, dipping his handkerchief in water, baptizes the crowd of suppliants by aspersion. Just then the palisades are forced. Should he fly? He first ran to the wigwams to baptize the sick; he next pronounced a general absolution on all who sought it, and then prepared to resign his life as a sacrifice to his vows. The wigwams are set on fire ; the Mohawks approach the chapel, and the consecrated envoy serenely advances to meet them. As- tonishment seized the barbarians. At length, drawing near, 314 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIL they discharge at him a flight of arrows. All gashed and rent by wounds, he still continued to speak with surprising energy ; now inspiring fear of the divine anger, and anon breathing the affectionate messages of mercy and grace. Such were his actions till he received a death-blow from a halbert. The victim to the heroism of charity died, the name of Jesus on his lips ; the wilderness gave him a grave ; the Huron nation were his mourners. By his religious associ- ates it was believed that he appeared twice after his death, youthfully radiant in the sweetest form of celestial glory ; that, as the reward for his torments, a crowd of souls, redeemed from purgatory, were his honoring escort into heaven. 1649. Not a year elapsed, when, in the dead of a Cana- Mar. 16. ^^^^ winter, a party of a thousand Iroquois fell, before dawn, upon the little village of St. Ignatius. It was sufficiently fortified, but only four hundred persons were present, and there were no sentinels. The palisades were set on fire, and an indiscriminate massacre of the sleeping inhabitants followed. The village of St. Louis was alarmed ; and its women and children fly to the woods, while eighty warriors prepare a defence. A breach is made in the palisades ; the enemy enter ; and the group of Indian cabins becomes a slaughter- house. In this village resided Jean de Brebeuf, and the younger and gentler, yet not less patient, Gabriel Lalle- mand. The character of Brebeuf was firm beyond every trial ; his virtue had been nursed in the familiar sight of death. Disciplined by twenty years' service in the wilderness work, he wept bitterly for the sufferings of his converts, but for himself he exulted in the prospect of martyrdom. Both the missionaries might have escaped ; but here, too, there were converts not yet baptized; be- sides, the dying might, in the hour of agony, desire the ordinances ; and both, therefore, remain. They exhort the combatants to fear God : they bend over the dying to give them baptism, and claim their spirits as redeemed. Success was with the Mohawks : the Jesuit priests are now their prisoners, to endure all the tortures which the 1649. PROGRESS OF FRANCE IN NORTH AMERICA. 315 ruthless fury of a raging multitude could invent. Brebeuf was set apart on a scaffold, and, in the midst of every out- rage, rebuked his persecutors, and encouraged his Huron con- verts. They cut his lower lip and his nose ; applied burning torches to his body ; burned his gums, and thrust hot iron down his throat. Deprived of his voice, his assured coun* tenance and confiding eye still bore witness to his firmness. The delicate Lallemand was stripped naked, and envel- oped from head to foot with bark full of rosin. Brought into the presence of Brebeuf, he exclaimed : " We are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men." The pine bark was set on fire, and, when it was in a blaze, boiling water was poured on the heads of both the mission- aries. The voice of Lallemand was choked by the thick smoke ; but, the fire having snapped his bonds, he lifted his hands to heaven, imploring the aid of Him who is an aid to the weak. Brebeuf was scalped while yet alive, and died after a torture of three hours ; the sufferings of Lallemand were prolonged for seventeen hours. The lives of both had been a continual heroism ; their deaths were the astonish- ment of their executioners. It may be asked if these massacres quenched enthusiasm. The Jesuits never receded ; but as, in a brave army, new troops press forward to fill the places of the fallen, there were never wanting heroism and enterprise in behalf of the cross and French dominion. It was intended to collect the scattered remnants 1649. of the Hurons in the Grand Manitoulin Isle, which was chosen to be the centre of the western missions. " We shall be nearer," wrote Rageneau, cheeringly, " to the Al- gonkins of the west ; " and, as the way to Quebec, even by the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence, was beset with danger, it was thought that, through the remote wilderness, some safe avenue might yet be opened. But the Hurons, destined to be scattered through the widest regions, hovered, for a season, round the isles that were nearest the graves of their ancestors ; and the mission on the Grand Manitoulin was abandoned. The great point of desire was the conversion of the 316 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIL Five Nations themselves. Undismayed by barbarism or the martyrdom of their brethren, the missionaries were still eager to gain admission, while the Mohawks and the other tribes, having now through commerce with the Dutch learned the use of fire-arms, seemed resolved on asserting their power in every direction, — not only over the bar- barians of the north, the west, and the south-west, but over the French themselves. They bade defiance to forts and intrenchments ; their war-parties triumphed at Three 1651. Rivers, were too powerful for the palisades of Silleri, and proudly passed by the walls of Quebec. The Ottawas were driven from their old abodes to the forests in the Bay of Saginaw. No frightful solitude in the wilder- ness, no impenetrable recess in the frozen north, was safe against the passions of the Five Nations. Their chiefs, animated not by cruelty only, but by pride, were resolved that no nook should escape their invasions, that no nation should rule but themselves ; and, as their warriors strolled by Three Rivers and Quebec, they killed the gov- 1653. ernor of the one settlement, and carried off a priest from the other. At length, satisfied with the display of their prowess, they themselves desired rest. Besides, of the scattered Hurons, many had sought refuge among their oppressors, and, ac- cording to an Indian custom, had been incorporated with the tribes of the Five Nations. Of these, some re- 1654. tained affection for the French. When peace was concluded, and Father Le Moyne appeared as envoy among the Onondagas to ratify the treaty, he found there a multitude of Hurons, who, like the Jews at Babylon, retained their faith in a land of strangers. The hope was renewed of winning the whole west and north to Christendom. The villages bordering on the settlements of the Dutch were indifferent to the peace ; the western tribes, who could more easily traffic with the French, adhered to it 1654. firmly. At last, the Mohawks also grew weary of the strife ; and Le Moyne, selecting the banks of their river for his abode, resolved to persevere, in the vain ( 1655. PROGRESS OF FRANCE IN NORTH AMERICA. 317 hope of infusing into their savage nature the gentler spirit of civilization. The Onondagas were more sincere ; and when Chaumonot, a native of France, long a missionary among the Hurons, left Quebec for their territory, he was ac- 1655. companied by Claude Dablon, a missionary, who had recently arrived from France, and a party of laymen and soldiers. They were hospitably welcomed at On- Nov. 5. ondaga, the principal village of the tribe. A general convention was held, by their desire ; before the mul- Nov. 15. titudinous assembly of the chiefs and the whole peo- ple, gathered under the open sky, among the primeval forests, presents were delivered ; and the Jesuit, with much gesture, after the Italian manner, discoursed so eloquently to the crowd that it seemed to Dablon as if the word of God had been preached to all the nations of that land. On the next day, the chiefs and others crowded round Nov. 16. the Jesuits, with their songs of welcome. " Happy land ! " they sang ; " happy land ! in which the French are to dwell ; " and the chief led the chorus, " Glad tidings ! glad tidings ! it is well that we have spoken together ; it is well that we have a heavenly message." A chapel sprung into existence, and, by the zeal of the na- Nov. is. tives, was finished in a day. " For marbles and precious metals," writes Dablon, " we employed only bark ; but the path to heaven is as open through a roof of bark as through arched ceilings of silver and gold." The savages showed themselves susceptible of religious ecstasy ; and in the heart of New York, near the present city of Syracuse, hard by the spring which is still known as the Jesuits' Well, the services of the Roman church were chanted as securely as in any part of Christendom. The charter of the hundred associates included the basin of every tributary of the St. Lawrence. The Onondagas dwelt exclusively on the Oswego and its tributary waters ; their land was, therefore, a part of the empire of France. The cross and the lily, emblems of France and Christianity, were cher- ished in the hamlet which was at that time the farthest inland European settlement in our country, and preceded 318 COLONIAL HISTOEY. Chap. XXXIL by a century the occupation of Western New York by the English. The success of the mission encouraged Dablon to invite a French colony into the land of the Onondagas ; and, though the attempt excited the jealousy of the Mohawks, whose war-chiefs, in their hunt after Huron fugitives, still roamed even to the Isle of Orleans, a company of ;^aj^7 fifty Frenchmen embarked for Onondaga. Diffuse harangues, dances, songs, and feastings were their July 11. welcome from the Indians. In a general convocation of the tribe, the question of adopting Christianity July 24. as its religion was debated ; and sanguine hope al- ready included the land of the Onondagas as a part of Christendom. The chapel, too small for the throng of wor- shippers that assembled to the sound of its little bell, was enlarged. The Cayugas also desired a missionary, and they received the fearless Rene Mesnard. In their village, a chapel was erected, with mats for the tapestry ; and there the pictures of the Saviour and of the Virgin mother were unfolded to the admiring xjhildren of the wilderness. The Oneidas also listened to the missionary; and, early 1657. in 1657, Chaumonot reached the more fertile and more densely peopled land of the Senecas. The in- fluence of France was planted in the valleys of Western Kew York. The Jesuit priests published their faith from the Mohawk to the Genesee, Onondaga remaining the cen- tral station. But the savage nature of the tribes was unchanged. At this time, a ruthless war of extermination was waged against the nation of Erie and in the north of Ohio. The crowded hamlet became a scene of carnage. Prisoners, too, were brought home to the villages, and delivered to the flames ; and what could the Jesuits expect of nations who could burn even children with refinements of tortures ? "Our lives," said Mesnard, "are not safe." In Quebec, and in France, men trembled for the missionaries. They made their home among cannibals; hunger, thirst, nakedness, were to be encountered ; nature itself offered trials ; and the first colony of the French, making its home near the Lake 1659. PROGRESS OF FRANCE IN NORTH AMERICA. 319 of Onondaga, and encountering the forest with the axe, suffered from fever before they could prepare their tene- ments. Border collisions also continued. The Oneidas mur- dered three Frenchmen, and the French retaliated by seizing Iroquois. At last, when a conspiracy was i657. •framed in the tribe of the Onondagas, the French, having vainly solicited re-enforcements, abandoned M^arAg. their chapel, their cabins, their hearths, and the valley of the Oswego. The Mohawks compelled Le Moyne to return ; and the French and the Five Na- ^q^^^ tions were once more at war. Such was the issue of the most successful attempt at French colonization in New York. 1658. 320 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIH. CHAPTER XXXIII. FRANCE AND THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPL Meantime, the Jesuits reached our country in the far west. In August, 1654, two young fur-traders, sinit- Aug%. t®^ with the love of adventure, joined a band of the Ottawas or other Algonkins, and, in their gondolas of bark, ventured on a voyage of five hundred leagues. After two years, they reappeared, accompanied by a fleet of fifty canoes. The natives ascend the cliff of St. Louis, wel- comed by a salute from the ordnance of the castle. They describe the vast lakes of the west, and the numerous tribes that hover round them ; they speak of the Knisteneaux, whose homes stretched away to the Northern Sea ; of the powerful Sioux, who dwelt beyond Lake Superior ; and they demand commerce with the French, and missionaries for the boundless west. The request was eagerly granted ; and Gabriel Dreuillettes, the same who carried the cross through the forests of Maine, and Leonard Gareau, of old a mission- ary among the Hurons, were selected as the first relig- ious envoys to a land of sacrifices and deaths. The canoes are launched; the tawny mariners embark; the oars flash, and sounds of joy and triumph mingle with tlie last adieus. But, just below Montreal, a band of Mohawks, enemies to the Ottawas, awaited the convoy; in the Aug. 30. affray, Gareau was mortally wounded, and the fleet dispersed. The remote nations, by the necessity of the case, still sought alliance with the French. The Mohawks, and their confederates, receiving European arms from Albany, exter- minated the Fries, and approached the Miamis and the Illi- nois. The western Indians desired commerce with the 1661. FRANCE AND THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 321 French, that they might gain means to resist the Iroquois ; and, as furs were abundant there, the traders pressed for- ward to Green Bay. Two of them dared to pass the winter of 1659 on the banks of Lake Superior. En- i659. riched with knowledge of the western world, in the summer of 1660, they came down to Quebec, with an escort of sixty canoes, rowed by three hundred Algonkins, and laden with peltry. If the Five Nations can penetrate these remote re- leeo. gions, to satiate their passion for blood ; if mercantile enterprise can bring furs from the plains of the Sioux, — why cannot the cross be borne to their cabins, and the name of the king of France be pronounced in their councils ? The zeal of Francis de Laval, the bishop of Quebec, kindled with a desire himself to enter on the mission ; but the lot fell to Rene Mesnard. He was charged to visit Green Bay and Lake Superior, and, on a convenient inlet, to establish a residence as the common place of assembly for the sur- rounding nations. Joining a party of Ottawas who were returning to their homes on Lake Superior, he made few preparations ; for he trusted, such are his words, " in the Providence which feeds the little birds of the desert, and clothes the wild flowers of the forests." Obedi- ent to his vows, the aged man entered on the path Aug. that was red with the blood of his predecessors, and made haste to scatter the seeds of truth through the wilder- ness, even though the sower cast his seed in weeping. " In three or four months," he wrote to a friend, " you may add me to the memento of deaths." In October, Oct. 15. he carried the flying church of Christian savages to the bay which he called St. Theresa, and which may have been the Bay of Keweena, on the south shore of Lake Supe- rior. After a residence of eight months, he yielded to the invitation of Hurons who had found refuge in the Isle of St. Michael ; and, bidding farewell to his neo- leei. phytes and the French, and to those whom he never more should meet on earth, he departed, with one attendant, for the Bay of Chegoimegon. The accounts would indi- cate that he took the route by way of Keweena Lake and VOL. II. 21 322 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIH. Portage. There, while his attendant was employed Aagho. i^ transporting the canoe, Mesnard was lost in the forest, and was never again seen. 1660. Meantime, the colony of New France was too fee- ble to defend itself against the fickleness and increas- ing confidence of the Iroquois : the harvest could not be gathered in safety ; the convents were insecure ; many pre- pared to return to France ; in moments of gloom, it seemed as if all must be abandoned. True, religious zeal was 1661. still active. Le Moyne once more appeared among the Five Nations, and was received with affection at Onondaga. The deputies of the Senecas, the Cayu- Aug. 12. gas, and the Onondagas, assembled to the sound of the bell that had belonged to the chapel of the Jesu- its ; and the resolve of the council was peace. But he could influence only the upper nations. The Mohawks would not be appeased ; Montreal was not safe : one 1662. ecclesiastic was killed near its gates ; a new organi- zation of the colony was needed, or it would come to an end. 1663. The company of the hundred associates resolved, Feb. 14. therefore, to resign the colony to the king ; and immediately, under the auspices of Colbert, it was conceded to the new company of the West Indies. An appeal was made, in favor of Canada, to the king ; the company of Jesuits publicly invited him to assume its defence, and become their champion against the Iroquois. After various efforts at fit appointments, the year 1665 saw the colony of New France protected by a royal regiment, with the aged but indefatigable Tracy as general ; with Courcelles, a veteran soldier, as governor ; and with Talon, a man of business and of integrity, as intendant and repre- sentative of the king in civil affairs. Every omen was favor- able, save the conquest of New Netherland by the English. That conquest eventually made the Five Nations a depen- dence on the English world ; and if for twenty-five years England and France sued for their friendship with uncer- tain success, yet afterwards, in the grand division between parties throughout the world, the Bourbons found in them 1666. FRANCE AND THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 823 implacable opponents. The Europeans in their struggle against legitimacy and for freedom, having come all the way into the wilderness, pursued the contest even there, making of the Iroquois allies, and of their hunting-fields battle-grounds. With better hopes, undismayed by the sad fate of Gareau and Mesnard, indifferent to hunger, nakedness, and cold, to the wreck of their ships of bark, and to fa- tigues and weariness by night and by day, — in August, 1665, Father Claude Allotiez embarked on 2ug!*8. a mission by way of the Ottawa to the far west. Early in September he reached the rapids, through which the waters of the upper lakes rush to the Huron, and ad- mired the beautiful river with its woody isles and inviting bays. On the second of that month, he entered the lake which the savages reverenced as a divinity, and of which the entrance presents a spectacle of magnificence rarely excelled in the rugged scenery of the north. He passed the lofty ridge of naked sand, which stretches along the shore its stupendous piles of drifting barrenness ; he sailed by the cliffs of pictured sandstone, which for twelve miles rise three hundred feet in height, fretted by the chafing waves into arches and bastions, caverns and towering walls, heaps of prostrate ruins, and erect columns crowned with fantastic entablatures. Landing on the south shore, he said mass ; thus consecrating the forests, which he claimed for a Christian king. Sailing beyond the Bay of St. Theresa, and having vainly sought for a mass of pure copper of which he had heard rumors, on the first day of October he arrived Oct. at the great village of the Chippewas in the Bay of Chegoimegon. It was at a moment when the young war- riors were bent on a strife with the warlike Sioux. A grand council of ten or twelve neighboring nations was held to wrest the hatchet from the hands of the rash braves ; and Allotiez was admitted to an audience before the vast assem- bly. In the na;me of Louis XIV. and his viceroy, he com- manded peace, and offered commerce and an alliance against the Iroquois ; the soldiers of France would smooth the path 324 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIIL between the Chippewas and Quebec ; would brush the pirate canoes from the rivers; would leave to the Five Nations no choice but between tranquillity and destruction.* On the shore of the bay, to which the abundant fisheries ^mi.^ attracted crowds, a chapel soon rose, and the mission of the Holy Spirit was founded. There admiring throngs who had never seen a European came to gaze on the white man, and on the pictures which he displayed of the realms of hell and of the last judgment ; there a choir of Chippewas were taught to chant the pater and the ave. During his long sojourn, he lighted the torch of faith for more than twenty different nations. The dwellers round the Sault, a band of " the Outehibouec," as the Jesuits called the Chippewas, pitched their tents near his cabin for a month, and received his instructions. The scattered Ilurons and Ottawas, that roamed the deserts north of Lake Supe- rior, appealed to his compassion, and, before his return, obtained his presence in their morasses. From the unex- plored recesses of Lake Michigan came the Pottawatomies ; and these worshippers of the sun invited him to their homes. The Sacs and Foxes travelled on foot from their country, which abounded in deer and beaver and buffalo. The Illinois, a hospitable race, unaccustomed to canoes, having no weapon but the bow and arrow, came to re- hearse their sorrows. Their ancient glory and their num- bers had been diminished by the Sioux on the one side, and the Iroquois, armed with muskets, on the other. Curiosity was roused by their tale af the noble river on which they dwelt, and which flowed towards the south. " They had no forests, but, instead of them, vast prairies, where herds of deer and buffalo, and other animals, grazed on the tall grasses." They explained, also, the wonders of their peace- pipe, and declared it their custom to welcome the friendly stranger with shouts of joy. " Their country," said Allouez, " is the best field for the gospel. Had I had leisure, I would have gone to their dwellings, to see with my own eyes all the good that was told me of them." Then, too, at the very extremity of the lake, the mission- ary met the wild, impassive warriors of the Sioux, who I 1668. FRANCE AND THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 325 dwelt to the west of Lake Superior, in a land of prairies, with wild rice for food, and skins of beasts, instead of bark, for roofs to their cabins, on the banks of the Great River, of which Alloiiez reported the name to be " Messipi." After residing for nearly two years chiefly on the southern margin of Lake Superior, and connecting his name with the progress of discovery in the west, Alloiiez in August, 1667, returned to Quebec to urge the estab- j^^^ lishment of permanent missions, to be accompanied by little colonies of French emigrants ; and such was hia own fervor, such the earnestness with which he was seconded, that, in two days, with another priest, Louis Nicolas, for his companion, he was on his way, returning to the mission at Chegoimegon. In this year, some Indians gave to the French a massive specimen of very pure copper ore. The prevalence of peace favored the progress of 1668. French dominion ; the company of the West Indies, resigning its monopoly of the fur-trade, gave an impulse to Canadian enterprise ; a recruit of missionaries had arrived from France ; and Claude Dablon and James Marquette repaired to the Chippewas at the Sault, to establish the mission of St. Mary. It is the oldest settlement begun by Europeans within the present limits of the commonwealth of Michigan. For the succeeding years, the illustrious triumvirate, Alloiiez, Dablon, and Marquette, were employed in confirm- ing the influence of France in the regions that extend from Green Bay to the head of Lake Superior, mingling happi- ness with suffering, and winning glory by perseverance. For to what inclemencies from nature and from man was each missionary among the barbarians exposed ! He defies the severity of climate, wading through water or through snows, without the comfort of fire ; having no bread but pounded maize, and often no food but the unwholesome moss from the rocks ; laboring incessantly ; exposed to live, as it were, without nourishment, to sleep without a resting-place, to travel far and always incurring perils, — to carry his life in his hand, expecting captivity, death from the toma- hawk, tortures, fire. And yet the simplicity and the free- 826 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIH. dom of life in the wilderness had their charms. The heart of the missionary would swell with delight, as, under a serene sky, and with a mild temperature, and breathing a pure air, he moved over waters as transparent as the most limpid fountain. Every encampment offered his attendants the pleasures of the chase. Like a patriarch, he dwelt beneath a tent ; and of the land through which he walked, he was its master, in the length of it and in the breadth of it, profiting by its productions, without the embarrassment of ownership. How often was the pillow of stones like that where Jacob felt the presence of God ! How often did the ancient oak, of which the centuries were untold, seem like the tree of Mamre, beneath which Abrahahi broke bread with angels ! Each day gave the pilgrim a new site for his dwelling, which the industry of a few moments would erect, and for which nature provided a floor of green inlaid with flowers. The purpose of discovering the Mississippi, of which the tales of the natives had published the magnificence, sprung from Marquette himself. He Sept. 13. had resolved on attempting it in the autumn of 1669; and, when delay intervened, from the neces- sity of employing himself at Chegoimegon, which Alloiiez had exchanged for a new mission at Green Bay, he selected a young Illinois as a companion, by whose instructions \qjq- he became familiar with the dialect of that, tribe. Continued commerce wdth the French gave pro- 1(570. . . o 1 tection to the Algonkins of the west, and confirmed their attachment. A political interest grew up, and ex- tended to Colbert and the ministry of Louis XIV. It became the fixed purpose of Talon, the intendant of the colony, to spread the power of France to the utmost bor- ders of Canada, and even to the South Sea. To this end, as soon as he disembarked at Quebec, he made choice of Saint- Lusson to hold a congress at the Falls of St. Mary. The invitation was sent by Nicolas Perrot in every direction for more than a hundred leagues round about ; and fourteen nations, among them Sacs, Foxes, and Miamis, agreed to be present by their ambassadors. 1671. FRANCE AND THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 327 The fourth of June, 1671, the day appointed for jg^j the congress of nations, arrived ; and, with AUoliez J^^^®- as his interpreter, Saint-Lusson, fresh from an excursion to Southern Canada, — that is, the borders of the Kennebec, where English habitations were ah-eady sown broadcast along the coast, — appeared at the Falls of St. Mary as the delegate of Talon. There are assembled the envoys of the republicans of the wilderness, and brilliantly clad officers from the veteran armies of the king of France. It was announced to the natives, gathered, as they were, from the head-springs of the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, and the Red River, that they were placed under his protection. A cross of cedar was raised ; and, amidst the groves of maple and pine, of elm and hemlock, that are intermingled on the banks of the St. Mary, where the bounding river lashes its waters into snowy whiteness, as they hurry past the dark evergreen of the forested islands in the channel, — the whole company of the French, bowing before the emblem of man's redemption, chanted to its glory a hymn of the seventh century : — Vexilla Regis prodeunt ; Fulget crucis mysterium. The banners of heaven's King advance ; The mystery of the cross shines forth. By the side of the cross, a cedar column was planted and marked with the lilies of the Bourbons in the presence of the ancient races of America, in the heart of our continent. Yet this daring ambition of the servants of a military mon- arch was doomed to leave no abiding monument, this echo of the middle age to die away. In the same year, Marquette gathered the wander- i67i. ing remains of one branch of the Huron nation round a chapel at Point St. Ignace, on the continent north of the peninsula of Michigan. The climate was repulsive ; but fish abounded, at all seasons, in the strait j and the estab- lishment was long maintained as the key to the west, and the convenient rendezvous of the remote Algonkins. Here Marquette once more gained a place among the founders of Michigan. Nicolas Perrot attempted the discovery of cop- per mines near Lake Superior. 328 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIIL 1672. The countries south of the village founded by Mar- quette were explored by Allotiez and Dablon, who bore the cross through Eastern Wisconsin and the north of . Illinois, visiting the Mascoutins and the Kickapoos on the Milwaukee, and the Miamis at the head of Lake Michigan. The young men of the latter tribe were intent on an excur- sion against the Sioux, and they prayed to the missiona- ries to give them the victory. After finishing the circuit, Alloiiez extended his rambles to the cabins of the Foxes on the river which bears their name. The long-expected discovery of the Mississippi was at hand, to be accomplished by Joliet, of Quebec, of whom there is no record but of this one excursion, and by Marquette, who, after years of pious assiduity to the poor wrecks of Hurons, whom he planted near abundant fisher- ies on the cold extremity of Michigan, entered with equal humility upon a career, which exposed his life to perpetual danger, and by its results affected the destiny of nations. The enterprise projected by Marquette had been favored by Talon, the intendant of New France, who, on the point of quitting Canada, wished to signalize the last period of his stay by ascertaining if the French, descending the great river of the central west, could bear the banner of France to the Pacific, or plant it, side by side with that of Spain, on the Gulf of Mexico. A branch of the Pottawatomies, familiar with Marquette as a missionary, heard with wonder the daring proposal. " Those distant nations," said they, " never spare the stran- gers ; their mutual wars fill their borders with bands of warriors ; the Great River abounds in monsters, which devour both men and canoes ; the excessive heats occasion death." " I shall gladly lay down my life for the salvation of souls," replied the good father ; and the docile nation joined him in prayer. At the last village on Fox River ever visited by the French, — where Kickapoos, Mascoutins, and Miamis dwelt together on a hill in the centre of prairies and groves, that extended as far as the eye could reach, and where Allouez had already raised the cross, which the 1673. FRANCE AND THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 329 savages had ornamented with brilliant skins and crimson belts, a thank-offering to the Great Manitou, — the ancients assembled in council to receive the pilgrims. " My com- panion," said Marquette, "is an envoy of France to dis- cover new countries ; and I am ambassador from God to enlighten them with the gospel;." and, offering presents, he begged two guides for the morrow. The wild men an- swered courteously, and gave in return a mat, to serve as a couch during the long voyage. Behold, then, in 1673, on the tenth day of June, the meek, single-hearted, unp;;etending, illustrious Marquette, with Joliet for his chieftain, five Frenchmen as his com- panions, and two Algonkins as guides, lifting their two canoes on their backs, and walking across the narrow port- age that divides the Fox River from the Wisconsin. They reach the water-shed ; uttering a special prayer to the im- maculate Virgin, they leave the streams that, flowing on- wards, could have borne their greetings to the castle of Quebec ; already they stand by the Wisconsin. " The guides returned," says the gentle Marquette, " leaving us alone, in this unknown land, in the hands of Providence." Embarking on the broad Wisconsin, the discoverers, as they sailed west, went solitarily down its current, between alter- nate plains and hillsides, beholding neither man nor the wonted beasts of the forest : no sound broke the appalling silence, but the ripple of their canoe, and the lowing of the buffalo. In seven days, " they ent^ed happily the Great River, with a joy that could not be expressed ; " and the two birch-bark canoes, raising their happy sails under new skies and to unknown breezes, floated down the calm mag- nificence of the ocean stream, over broad clear sand-bars, the resort of innumerable water-fowl; winding through islets that swelled with tufts of massive thickets from the bosom of the channel, and between the natural parks and prairies of Illinois and Iowa. About sixty leagues below the mouth of the Wis- 1673. consin, the western bank of the Mississippi bore on J""® 25. its sands the trail of men ; a little footpath was discerned leading into a beautiful prairie j and, leaving the canoes, 380 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIIL Joliet and Marquette resolved alone to brave a meeting with the savages. After walking six miles, they beheld a village on the banks of a river, and two others on a slope, at a distance of a mile and a half from the first. The river was the Mou-in-gou-e-na, or Moingona, of which we have corrupted the name into Des Moines. Marquette and Joliet were the first white men who trod the soil of Iowa. Com- mending themselves to God, they uttered a loud cry. The Indians hear; four old men advance slowly to meet them, bearing the peace-pipe, brilliant with many colored plumes. " We are Illinois," said they, — that is, when translated, " We are men ; " and they offered the calumet. An aged chief received them at his cabin with upraised hands, exclaiming : " How beautiful is the sun. Frenchman, when thou comest to visit us ! Our whole village awaits thee ; thou shalt enter in peace into all our dwellings." And the pilgrims were followed by the devouring gaze of an astonished crowd. At the great council, Marquette published to them the one true God, their Creator. He spoke, also, of the great captain of the French, the governor of Canada, who had chastised the Five Nations and commanded peace ; and he questioned them respecting the Mississippi and the tribes that possessed its banks. For the messengers, who announced the subjection of the Iroquois, a magnificent festival was pre- pared of hominy and fish, and the choicest viands from the prairies. • After six days' delay, and invitations to new visits, the chieftain of the tribe, with hundreds of warriors, attended the strangers to their canoes ; and, selecting a peace-pipe embellished with the head and neck of brilliant birds, and all feathered over with plumage of various hues, they hung round Marquette the mysterious arbiter of peace and war, the sacred calumet, a safeguard among the nations. 1673. The little group proceeded onwards. " I did not •^^^^y- fear death," says Marquette ; " I should have es- teemed it the greatest happiness to have died for the glory of God." They passed the perpendicular rocks, which wore the appearance of monsters ; they heard at a distance the I 1673. TRANCE AND THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 331 noise of the waters of the Missouri, known to them by its Algonkin name of Pekitanoni ; and, when they came to the grandest confluence of rivers in the world, — where the swifter Missouri rushes like a conqueror into the cahner Mississippi, dragging it, as it were, hastily to the sea, — the good Marquette resolved in his heart, anticipating Lewis and Clarke, one day to ascend the mighty river to its source ; to cross the ridge that divides the oceans, and, descending a westerly flowing stream, to publish the gospel to all the people of this New World. In a little less than forty leagues, the canoes floated past the Ohio, which then, and long afterwards, was called the Wabash. Its banks were tenanted by numerous villages of the peaceful Shawnees, who quailed under the incursions of the Iroquois. The thick canes begin to appear so close and strong that the buffalo could not break through them ; the insects become intolerable ; as a shelter against the suns of July, the sails are folded into an awning. The prairies vanish ; and forests of whitewood, admirable for their vastness and height, crowd even to the skirts of the pebbly shore. It was, moreover, observed that, in the land of the Chickasaws, the Indians had obtained fire-arms. Near the latitude of thirty-three degrees, on the western bank of the Mississippi, stood the village of Mitchigamea, in a region that had not been visited by Europeans since the days of De Soto. " Now," thought Marquette, " we must, indeed, ask the aid of the Virgin." Armed with bows and arrows, with clubs, axes, and bucklers, amidst continual whoops, the natives, bent on war, embark in vast canoes made out of the trunks of hollow trees ; but, at the sight of the mysterious peace-pipe held aloft, God touched the hearts of the old men, who checked the impetuosity of the young ; and, throwing their bows and quivers into the canoes, as a token of peace, they prepared a hospitable welcome. The next day, a long, wooden canoe, containing ten men, escorted the discoverers, for eight or ten leagues, to the village of Akansea, the limit of their voyage. They had left the region of the Algonkins, and, in the midst of the 832 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap-XXXIH. Sioux and Chickasaws, could speak only by an inteq^reter. A half league above Akansea, they were met by two boats, in one of which stood the commander, holding in his hand the peace-pipe, and singing as he drew near. After offering the pipe, he gave bread of maize. The wealth of his tribe consisted in buffalo skins ; their weapons were axes of steel, — a proof of commerce with Europeans. Thus had our travellers descended below the entrance of the Arkansas, to the genial climes that have almost no win- ter but rains, beyond the bound of the Huron and Algon- kin languages, to the vicinity of the Gulf of Mexico, and to tribes of Indians that had obtained European arms by traffic with Spaniards or with Virginia. So, having ascer- tained that the father of rivers went not to the ocean east of Florida, nor yet to the Gulf of California, on the seven- teenth of July Marquette and Joliet left Akansea and ascended the Mississippi. At the thirty-eighth degree of latitude, they entered the river Illinois, and discovered a country without its paragon for fertile prairies. The tribe of the Illinois entreated Mar- quette to come back and reside among them. One of their chiefs, with their young men, conducted the party to Chi- cago ; and, before the end of September, the explor- 1674. ers were safe in Green Bay. In a relation sent the next year by Father Dablon, a canal is proposed to connect Lake Michigan with the Illinois River. . Joliet returned to Quebec to announce the discovery, of which the fame, through Talon, fired the ambition of 1675. Colbert. In 1675, Marquette, who had been delayed by his failing health for more than a year, rejoined the Illinois on their river. Assembling the whole tribe, whose chiefs and men were reckoned at two thousand, he raised before them pictures of the Virgin Mary, spoke to them of one who had died on the cross for all men, and built an altar and said mass in their presence on the prairie. Again celebrating the mystery of the eucharist, on Easter Sunday he took possession of the land in the name of Jesus Christ, and, to the universal joy of the multitude, founded the mission of the Immaculate Conception. This work 1677. FRANCE AND THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 333 accomplished, he journeyed by way of Chicago to Mack- inaw; but, foreknowing his death, he entered a little river in Michigan to breathe his last. Exposed upon the shore, like Francis Xavier, whom he loved to imitate, he repeated in solitude all his acts of devotion of the preceding days. Then, having called his companions and given them absolu- tion, he bogged tliem once more to leave him alone. When, after a little while, they went to seek him, they found him passing gently away near the stream that bears his name. On its highest bank, the canoe-men dug his grave in the sand. Ever after, the forest rangers, if in danger on Lake Michi- gan, would invoke his name. One state in the north-west calls after him city and county and river. At the death of Marquette, there dwelt at the outlet of Lake Ontario Robert Cavalier de la Salle. Of a good family, he had renounced his inheritance by entering the seminary of the Jesuits. After profiting by the discipline of their schools, and obtaining their praise for purity and diligence, he had taken his discharge from the fraternity ; and, with no companions but poverty and a boundless sj^irit of enterprise, about the year 1667, when the attention of all France was directed towards Canada, the young mer- chant adventurer embarked for fame and fortune in New France. Established at first, as a fur-trader, at La Chine, and encouraged by Talon and Courcelles, he explored Lake Ontario, and ascended to Lake Erie ; and, when the French governor, some years after occupying the banks of the Sorel, began to fortify the outlet of Lake On- i675. tario. La Salle, repairing to France, and aided by Frontenac, obtained the rank of nobility, and the grant of Fort Frontenac, now the village of Kingston, on condition of maintaining the fortress. The grant was, in fact, a con- cession of a large domain and the exclusive trafiic with the Five Nations. In the portion of the wilderness of which the leisto young man was proprietary, cultivated fields proved ^^''^• the fertility of the soil; his herd of cattle multiplied; groups of Iroquois built their cabins in the environs, a few French settled under his shelter ; Franciscans, now tolerated 334 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIIL in Canada, renewed their missions under his auspices ; the noble forests invited the construction of log cabins and ves- sels with decks ; and no canoe-men in Canada could shoot a rapid with such address as the pupils of La Salle. Fortune was within his grasp. But Joliet, as he descended from the upper lakes, had passed by the bastions of Fort Frontenac, had spread the news of the brilliant career of discoveries opened in the west. In the solitudes of Upper Canada, the secluded adventurer had inflamed his imagination by read- ing the voyages of Columbus and the history of the rambles of De Soto ; and the Iroquois had, moreover, described to him the course of the Ohio. Thus the young enthusiast framed plans of colonization in the south-west, and of com- merce between Europe and the Mississippi. Once more he repaired to France ; and from the policy of Colbert, who instinctively listened to the vast schemes which his heroic sagacity had planned, and the special favor of Seignelay, Colbert's son, he obtained, with the monopoly of the traffic in buffalo skins, a commission for perfecting the dis- 1678. covery of the Great River. With Tonti, an Italian veteran, as his lieutenant, and a recruit of mechanics and mariners ; with anchors, and sails, and cordage for rig- ging a ship, and stores of merchandise for traffic with the natives, — with swelling hopes and a boundless ambition. La Salle, in the autumn of 1678, returned to Fort Frontenac. As a discoverer, he should have gone to the head-waters of the Alleghany, and so to the Ohio ; he chose the way by the lakes for the sake of trading for buffalo robes. Before winter, " a wooden canoe " of ten tons, the first that ever sailed into Niagara River, bore a part of his company to the vicinity of the falls ; at Niagara, a trading-house was estab- lished ; in the mouth of the Cayuga Creek, the work of ship-building began ; Tonti and the Franciscan Hennepin, venturing among the Senecas, established relations of amity; while La Salle himself, skilled in the Indian dia^ lects, was now urging forward the ship-builders, now gather- ing furs at his magazine, now gazing at the mighty cataract, now sending forward a detachment into the country of the Illinois to prepare the way for his reception. 1679. FRANCE AND THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 835 Under the auspices of La Salle, Europeans first pitched a tent at Niagara; it was he who, in 1679, amidst the salvo from his little artillery, the chanting of the Te Deum, and the astonished gaze of the Senecas, first launched a wooden vessel, a bark of sixty tons, on the upper Niagara River, and, in the " Griffin," freighted with the colony of fur-traders for the valley of the Mississippi, on the seventh day of August unfurled a sail to the breezes ^^fj^^j. of Lake Erie. Indifferent to the malignity of those who envied his genius or were injured by his special privi- leges. La Salle, first of mariners, sailed over Lake Erie and between the verdant isles of the Detroit ; debated planting a colony on its banks ; gave a name to Lake Aug. 17. St. Clair, from the day on which he traversed its shallow waters ; and, after escaping from storms on Lake Huron, and planting a trading-house at Mack- Aug. 27. inaw, he cast anchor in Green Bay. Here having despatched his brig to Niagara River with a very rich cargo of furs, he himself, with his company in scattered groups, repaired in bark canoes to the head of Lake Michigan ; and at the mouth of the St. Joseph's, in that peninsula where Allotiez had already gathered a village of Miamis, awaiting the return of the " Griffin," he constructed the trading- house, with palisades, known as the Fort of the Miamis. It marks his careful forethought that he sounded the mouth of the St. Joseph's, and raised buoys to mark the channel. But of his vessel, on which his fortunes so much depended, no tidings came. Weary of delay, he resolved to penetrate Illinois; and, leaving ten men to guard Dec. 3. the fort of the Miamis, La Salle himself, with Hen- nepin and two other Franciscans, with Tonti and about thirty followers, ascended the St. Joseph's, and, by a short portage over bogs and swamps made dangerous by a snow- storm, entered the Kankakee. Descending its narrow stream, before the end of December, the company had reached the site of an Indian village on the Illinois, prob- ably not far from Ottawa, in La Salle county. The tribe was absent, passing the winter in the chase. 336 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIIL iggQ On the banks of Lake Peoria, Indians appeared ; Jan. 4. tiiey were Illinois ; and, desirous to obtain axes and fire-arms, they offered the calumet, and agreed to an alli- ance : if the Iroquois should renew their invasions, they would claim the French as allies. They heard with joy that colonies were to be established in their territory ; they described the course of the Mississippi, and they were willing to guide the strangers to its mouth. The spirit and prudence of La Salle, who was the life of the enterprise, won the friendship of the natives. But clouds lowered over his path : the " Griffin," it seemed certain, was wrecked, thus delaying his discoveries as well as impairing his for- tunes ; his men began to despond : alone against them all, he toiled to revive their courage ; there could be no safety but in union : " None," he added, " shall stay after the spring, unless from choice." But fear and discontent pervaded the company ; and when La Salle planned and began to build a fort on the banks of the Illinois, four days' journey, it is said, below Lake Peoria, thwarted by destiny, and almost despairing, he named the fort Crevecoeur. Yet here the immense power of his will appeared. With no resources but in himself, fifteen hundred miles from the nearest French settlement, impoverished, pursued by enemies at Quebec, and in the wilderness surrounded by uncertain nations, he inspired his men with resolution to saw trees into plank and prepare a bark ; he despatched Louis Hen- nepin to explore the upper Mississippi ; he questioned the Illinois and their southern captives on the course of the Mississippi ; he formed conjectures respecting the Tennessee River ; and then, as new recruits were needed, and sails and cordage for the bark, in the month of March, with a musket and a pouch of powder and shot, with a blanket for his pro- tection, and skins of which to make moccasons, he, Marcii. with three companions, set off on foot for Fort Fron- tenac, to trudge through thickets and forests, to wade through marshes and melting snows, having for his pathway the ridge of highlands which divide the basin of the Ohio from that of the lakes, without drink except water from the brooks, without food except supplies from the gun. i 1681. FRANCE AND THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 337 During the absence of La Salle, Michael Accault, accom- panied by Du Gay and by the Franciscan, Louis Hennepin, bearing the calumet, followed the Illinois to its junction with the Mississippi ; and, invoking the guidance of St. Anthony of Padua, they then ascended the mighty stream far beyond the mouth of the Wisconsin. The great falls in the river, which he describes with tolerable accuracy, were named from the chosen patron of the expedition. On a tree near the cataract, the Franciscan engraved the cross, and the arms of France ; and, after a summer's rambles, diversified by a short captivity among the Sioux, the party returned, by way of the Wisconsin and Fox Rivers, to the French mission at Green Bay. In Illinois, Tonti w^as less fortunate. La Salle had se- lected, as the fit centre of his colony, Rock Fort, near a village of the Illinois ; a cliff rising two hundred feet above the river that flows at its base, in the centre of a lovely country of verdant prairies, bordered by distant slopes, richly tufted w^ith oak and black walnut, and the noblest trees of the American forest. This rock Tonti was to fortify ; and, during the attempt, men at Crevecoeur de- serted. Besides, the enemies of La Salle had instigated the Iroquois to hostility ; and, in September, a large party of them, descending the river, threatened ruin to his enterprise. After a parley, Tonti and the few men that remained with him, excepting the aged Franciscan Gabriel de la Ribourde, fled to Lake Michigan, wiiere they found shelter with the Pottawatomies. On the authority of a legend made up in Paris from the adventures of Tonti, — a legend full of geo- graphical contradictions, of confused dates, and manifest fiction, — some have placed this attack of the Iroquois on the Illinois in 1681. The narrative of Hennepin, the whole of which was printed in 1682, proves conclusively that it happened in 1680, as Frontenac, the governor of Canada, related at the time. When, therefore, La Salle returned to Illinois, with large supplies of men and stores for rigging a brigantine, he found the post in Illinois deserted. Hence came lesi. the delay of another year, which was occupied in 338 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIIL traffic at Green Bay ; in looking up Tonti and his men ; and in finishing a capacious barge. At last, in the early 1682. part of 1682, La Salle and his company descended the Mississippi to the sea. As he floated down its flood ; as he framed a cabin on the first Chickasaw bluff ; as he raised the cross by the Arkansas ; as he planted the arms of France near the Gulf of Mexico, — he anticipated the future affluence of emigrants, and heard in the distance the foot- steps of the advancing multitude that were coming to take possession of the valley. Meantime, he claiined the terri- tory for France, and gave it the name of Louisiana. The year of the descent has been unnecessarily made a question ; its accomplishment was known in Paris before the end of 1682. This was the period of the proudest successes and largest ambition of Louis XIY. La Salle will return, it was said, to give to the court an ample account of the terrestrial paradise of America ; ih^re the king will at once call into jggg being a flourishing empire. And, in fact. La Salle, May 12. remaining in the west till his exclusive privilege had ^°^- expired, returned to Quebec to embark for France. Colbert, whose genius had awakened a national spirit in behalf of French industry, and who yet had rested his system of commerce and manufactures on no firmer basis than that of monopoly, was no more ; but Seignelay, his son, the minister for maritime affairs, listened confidingly to the expected messenger from the laud which was regarded with pride as "the delight of the New World." 1684, In the early months of 1684, the preparations for July 24. colonizing Louisiana were perfected, and in July the fleet left Rochelle. Four vessels were destined for the Mississippi, bearing two hundred and eighty persons, to take possession of the valley. Of these, one hundred were soldiers, — an ill omen, for successful colonists always defend themselves : about thirty were volunteers, two of whom — young Cavalier, and the rash, passionate Moranget — were nephews to La Salle : of ecclesiastics, there were three Franciscans, and three of St. Sulpice, one of them being brother to La Salle ; there were, moreover, mechanics of 1685. FRANCE AND THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 339 various skill ; and the presence of young women proved the design of permanent colonization. But the mechanics were poor workmen, ill versed in their art ; the soldiers, though they had for their commander Joutel, a man of courage and truth, and afterwards the historian of the grand enterprise, were themselves spiritless vagabonds, without discipline and without experience ; the volunteers were rest- less with indefinite expectations ; and, worst of all, the naval commander, Beaujeu, was deficient in judgment, envious, self-willed, and foolishly proud. Disasters lowered on the voyage at its commencement : a mast breaks ; they return ; the voyage begins anew amidst variances between La Salle and the naval commander. In every instance on the record, the judgment of La Salle was right. At St. Domingo, La Salle, delayed and cruelly thwarted by Beaujeu, saw already the shadow of his coming misfortunes. On leaving the island, they were more Nov^ts at variance than ever. They double Cape Antonio ; Dec. 12. they discover land on the continent : aware of the Dec. 28. easterly direction of the gulf-stream, they sail slowly in the opposite course. On the tenth day of January, jan^io. 1685, they must have been near the mouth of the Mississippi ; but La Salle thought not, and the fleet passed beyond it. Presently, he perceived his error, and desired to return ; but Beaujeu refused ; and thus they went to the west, and still to the west, till they reached the Bay of Matagorda. Weary of differences with Beaujeu, believing the streams that had their outlet in the bay might be either branches from the Mississippi or lead to its vicinity, La Salle resolved to disembark. While he was busy in provid- ing for the safety of his men, his store-ship, on entering the harbor, was wrecked by the careless pilot. Others gazed listlessly ; La Salle, calming the terrible energy of his grief at the sudden ruin of his boundless hopes, borrowed boats from the fleet to save, at least, some present supplies. But with night came a gale of wind, and the vessel was dashed utterly in pieces. The stores, provided with the munificence that marked the plans of Louis XIV., lay scattered on the 340 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIII sea ; little could be saved. To aggravate despair, the sav- ages came down to pilfer, and murdered two of the volun- teers. Terror pervaded the group of colonists : the evils of the wreck and the gale were charged to La Salle, as if he ought to have deepened the channel and mastered the winds ; men deserted, and returned in the fleet. La Salle, who, by the power of his will, controlled the feeble and irritable per- sons that surrounded him, and even censured their in efii- ciency, their treachery, and their disobedience, with angry vehemence, was yet, in his struggle against adversity, mag- nanimously tranquil. The fleet sets sail, and there remain on the beach of Matagorda a desponding company of 1685. about two hundred and thirty, huddled together in a fort constructed of the fragments of their ship- wrecked vessel, having no reliance but in the constancy and elastic genius of La Salle. Ascending the small stream at the west of the bay, in the vain hope of finding the Mississippi, La Salle selected a site on the open ground for the establishment of a fortified post. The spot, which he named St. Louis, was a gentle slope, which showed, towards the west and south-west, the bound- less expansion of the landscape, verdant with luxuriant grasses, and dotted with groves of forest trees ; south and east was the Bay of Matagorda, skirted with prairies. The waters abounded with fish, and invited crowds of wild fowl ; the fields were alive with deer, and bisons, and wild turkeys, and the dangerous rattlesnake, bright inhabitant of the meadows. There, imder the suns of June, with timber felled in an inland grove, and dragged for a league over the prairie grass, the colonists prepared to build a shelter ; La Salle being the architect, and himself marking the beams and tenons and mortises. With parts of the wreck, brought up in canoes, a second house was framed, and of each the roof was covered with buffalo skins. This is the settlement which made Texas a part of Lou- isiana. In its sad condition, it had yet saved from the wreck a good supply of arms, and bars of iron for the forge. Even now, this colony possessed, from the bounty of Louis 1687. FRANCE AND THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 341 Xiy., more than was contributed by all the English mon- archs together for the twelve English colonies on the Atlan- tic. Its number still exceeded that of the early colony in Virginia, or of those who embarked in the " Mayflower." France took possession of Texas ; her arms were carved on its forest trees ; and by no treaty or public document, except when she ceded the whole of Louisiana, did she ever after relinquish the right to the province as colonized under her banners, and made still more surely a part of her terri- tory, because the colony found there its grave. Excursions into the vicinity of the Fort St. Louis had discovered nothing but the luxuriant productiveness of the country. La Salle proposed to seek the Mis- J^ec' sissippi in canoes ; and, after an absence of about four months, and the loss of twelve or thirteen men, he re- 1686. turned in rags, having failed to find "the fatal river," March, and yet renewing hope by his presence. In April, he plunged into the wilderness, with twenty companions, lured towards New Mexico by the brilliant fictions of the rich mines of Sainte Barbe, the El Dorado of Northern Mexico. There, among the Cenis, he succeeded in obtaining five horses, and supplies of maize and beans ; but he found no mines. On his return, he was told of the wreck of the little bark which had remained with the colony : he heard it unmoved. Heaven and man seemed his enemies. With the giant en- ergy of an indomitable will, having lost his hopes of for- tune, his hopes of fame ; with his colony diminished to about forty, among whom discontent had given birth to plans of crime; with no Europeans nearer than the river Panuco, no French nearer than Illinois, — he resolved to travel on foot to his countrymen at the north, and return from Canada to renew his colony in Texas. Leaving twenty men at Fort St. Louis, in January, lesi. 1687, La Salle, with sixteen men, departed for Can- '^*"- ^^• ada. Lading their baggage on the wild horses from the Cenis, which found their pasture everywhere in the prai- ries ; in shoes made of green buffalo hides ; for want of other paths, following the track of the buffalo, and using 342 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIH skins as the only shelter against rain ; winning favor with the savages by the confiding courage of their leader, — they ascended the streams towards the first ridge of highlands, walking through beautiful plains and groves, among deer and buffaloes, — now fording clear rivulets, now building a bridge by felling a giant tree across a stream, — till they had passed the basin of the Colorado, and, in the upland country, had reached a branch of Trinity River. In the little company of wanderers, there were two men, Duhaut and L'Archeveque, who had embarked their capital in the enterprise. Of these, Duhaut had long shown a spirit of mutiny : disappointed avarice maddened by suffering, and impatient of control, awakened ungovernable hatred. In- viting Moranget to take charge of the fruits of a Mar! 17. l^uffalo hunt, they quarrelled with him and murdered him. Wondering at the delay of his nephew's return. La Salle, on the twentieth of March, went to seek him. At the brink of the river, he observed eagles hovering as if over carrion ; and he fired an alarm gun. Warned by the sound, Duhaut and L'Archeveque crossed the river ; the former skulked in the prairie grass ; of the latter, La Salle asked : " Where is my nephew ? " At the moment of the answer, Duhaut fired ; and, without uttering a word, La Salle fell dead. " You are down now, grand bashaw ! you are down now!" shouted one of the conspirators, as they despoiled his remains, which were left on the prairie, naked and without burial, to be devoured by wild beasts. For force of will, and vast conceptions; for various knowledge, and quick adaptation to untried circumstances ; for energy of purpose and unfaltering hope, — this daring adventurer had no superior among his countrymen. He won the affec- tion of the governor of Canada, the esteem of Colbert, the confidence of Seignelay, the favor of Louis XIY. After beginning the occupation of Upper Canada, he perfected the discovery- of the Mississippi from the Falls of St. An- thony to its mouth ; and he is remembered as the father of colonization in the great central valley of the west. But avarice and passion were not calmed by the blood of La Salle. Duhaut and another of the assassins, grasping at 1687. FRANCE AND THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 343 an unequal share in the spoils, were themselves murdered, while their reckless associates joined a band of savages. Joutel, with the brother and surviving nephew of La Salle, and others, in all but seven, obtained a guide to the Arkan- sas ; and fording rivulets, crossing ravines, by rafts or boats of buffalo hides making a ferry over rivers, not meeting the cheering custom of the calumet till they reached the country above the Red River, leaving an esteemed companion in a wilderness grave on which the piety of an Indian matron heaped offerings of maize, — so many of them as sur- vived came upon a branch of the Mississippi, and be- juiy^24. held on an island a large cross. Never did Christian gaze on that emblem with heartier joy. Near it stood a log hut, tenanted by two Frenchmen. Tonti had descended the river, and, full of grief at not finding La Salle, had established a post near the Arkansas. 344 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIV. CHAPTER XXXIV. FRANCE CONTENDS FOR THE FISHERIES AND THE GREAT "WEST. Such were the events which gave to the French not only New France and Acadia, Hudson's Bay and Newfoundland, but a claim to a moiety of Maine, of Vermont, and to more than a moiety of New York, to the valley of the Mississippi, and to Texas even, as far as the Rio Bravo del Norte. Throughout that wide region, it sought to introduce its authority, under the severest forms of the colonial system. That system was enforced, with equal eagerness, by Eng- land upon the sea-coast. Could France and England and Spain have amicably divided the American continent; could they have been partners, and not rivals, in oppression, I know not whence hope could have beamed upon the colonies. But the aristocratic revolution of England was the signal for a war with France, growing out of " a root of enmity," which Marlborough described as " irreconcilable to the gov- ernment and the religion " of Great Britain. Louis XIV. took up arms in defence of legitimacy ; and England had the glorious office of asserting the right of a nation to reform its government. But, though the progress of the revolu- tionary principle was the root of the enmity, France could not, at once, obtain the alliance of every European po'Cver which was unfriendly to change. She had encroached on every neighbor ; and fear, and a sense of wrong, made all of them her enemies. From regard to the integrity of its territory, the German empire, with Austria, joined with England; and, as the Spanish Netherlands, which consti- tuted the barrier of Holland and Germany against France, and the path of England into the heart of the continent, 1688. RIVALRY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 345 could be saved from conquest by France only through the interposition of England and Holland, an alliance foUoAved between the Protestant revolutionary republic and monarchy, on the one side, and the bigoted defender of the Roman Catholic Church and legitimacy, on the other. Hence, also, in the first war of King William, the frontiers of Carolina, bordering on the possessions of Spain, were safe against in- vasion : Spain and England were allies. Thus the war of 1689, in Europe, roused Louis XIV. in behalf of legitimacy, and, at the same time, rallied against him, not England only, but every power which dreaded his lawless ambition. William III. was not only the defender of the nationality of England, but of the territorial freedom of Europe. In North America, the battle was for the fisheries, and for territory at the north and west. The idea of weakening an adversary, by encouraging its colonies to assert indepen- dence, did not, at that time, exist ; the universal maxim of European statesmanship assumed the fact that they must have a master. In the contests that followed, religious faith and roving enterprise secured to Louis XIV. the active support of the French Canadians. The English colonists sided heartily with England : the English revolution was to them the pledge for freedom of mind as marked by Protestantism, for national freedom as illustrated in the exile of a tyrant and in the election of a constitu- tional king. Thus the strife in America was between 1689. England and France for the possession of colonial monopolies ; and, in that strife, England rallied her forces under the standard of advancing freedom. If the issue had depended on the condition of the colo- nies, it could hardly have seemed doubtful. The French census for the North American continent, in 1688, showed but eleven thousand two hundred and forty-nine persons, scarcely a tenth part of the English population on its fron- tiers ; about a twentieth part of English North America. West of Montreal, the principal French posts, and 1688. those but inconsiderable ones, were at Frontenac, at Mackinaw, and on the Illinois. At Niagara, there was a 346 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIV. wavering purpose of maintaining a post, but no permanent occupation. So weak were the garrisons, that English traders, with an escort of Indians, had ventured even to Mackinaw, and, by means of the Senecas, obtained a large share of the commerce of the lakes. French diplo- 1687. macy had attempted to pervade the west, and concert an alliance with all the tribes from Lake Ontario to the Mississippi. The traders were summoned even from the plains of the Sioux ; and Tonti and the Illinois were, by way of the Ohio and the Alleghany, to precipitate them- selves on the Senecas, while the French should come from Montreal, and the Ottawas and other Algonkins, under Durantaye, the vigilant commander at Mackinaw, should descend from Michigan. But the power of the Illinois was broken ; the Hurons and Ottawas were almost ready to become the allies of the Senecas. The savages still 1688. held the keys of the great west ; no intercourse ex- isted but by means of the forest rangers, who pene- trated the barren heaths round Hudson's Bay, the morasses of the north-west, the homes of the Sioux and Miamis, the recesses of every forest where there was an Indian with skins to sell. " God alone could have saved Canada this year," wrote Denonville, in 1688. But for the missions at the west, Illinois would have been abandoned, and the fort at Mackinaw lost. Personal enterprise took the direction of the fur- 1689 trade : Port Nelson, in Hudson's Bay, and Fort Al- bany, were originally possessed by the French. The atten- tion of the court of France was directed to the fisheries ; and Acadia had been represented by De Meules as the most important settlement of France. To protect it, the Jesuits Vincent and James Bigot collected a village of Abenakis on the Penobscot; and a flourishing town now marks the spot where the Baron de Saint-Castin, a veteran officer of the regiment of Carignan, established a trading- fort. Would France, it was said, strengthen its post on the Penobscot, occupy the islands that command the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and send supplies to Newfoundland, she would be sole mistress of the fisheries for cod. Hence the i I 1689. RIVALRY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 347 Strife with Massachusetts, in which the popular mind was so deeply interested that, to this day, the figure of a cod- fish is suspended in the hall of its representatives. Thus France, bounding its territory next New England by the Kennebec, claimed New England east of that river. Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Newfoundland, Labrador, and Hudson's Bay ; and, to assert and defend this boundless region, Acadia and its dependencies counted but nine hun- dred French inhabitants. The missionaries, swaying the mind of the Abenakis, gave the hope of savage allies. On the declaration of war by France against Eng- legg. land. Count Frontenac, once more governor of Can- "^^"^ ^^ ada, was charged to recover Hudson's Bay ; to protect Acadia ; and, by a descent from Canada, to assist a fleet from France in making conquest of New York. Of that province De Callieres was, in advance, appointed governor ; the English Catholics were to be permitted to re- main ; other inhabitants, to be sent into Pennsyl- Sept. 25. vania or New England. But, on reaching the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Frontenac learned the capture of Montreal. On the twenty-fifth of August, the Iroquois, fifteen hundred in number, reached the Isle of Montreal, at . ' La Chine, at break of day, and, finding all asleep, set fire to the houses, and engaged in one general massacre. In less than an hour, two hundred people met death under forms too horrible for description. Approaching Montreal, they made an equal number of prisoners ; and, though they never were masters of the city, they roamed unmolested over the island till the middle of October. In the moment of consternation, Denonville ordered Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, to be evacuated and razed. From Three Rivers to Mackinaw, there remained not one French town, and hardly even a post. In Hudson's Bay, a band of brothers — De Sainte 1689. H^lene and D'Iberville — sustained the honor of French arms. They were Canadians, sons of Charles Le- moine, an early emigrant from Normandy, whose numerous offspring gave to American history the name of Bien- ville. Passing across the ridge that divides the rivers of 348 COLONIAL HISTORY. Chap. XXXIV Hudson's Bay from those of the St. Lawrence, amidst marvellous adventures, by hardy resolution and daring presence of mind, they had, in 1686, conquered the posts of the English from Fort Rupert to Albany River, leaving them no trading-house in the bay, except that of which, in 1685, they had dispossessed the French at Port Nelson. That post remained to the English ; but the sons of Lemoine intercepted the forces which were sent to proclaim William of Orange monarch over jagged cliffs and deep ravines never warmed by a sunbeam, — over the glaciers and moun- tains, the rivers and trading-houses in Hudson's Bay. Ex- ulting in their success, they returned to Quebec. 1689. In the east, blood was first shed at Cocheco, where, June 27. thirteen years before, an unsuspecting party of three hundred and fifty Indians had been taken prisoners, and shipped for Boston, to be sold into foreign slavery. The memory of the treachery was indelible ; and the Indian emissaries of Castin easily excited the tribe of Penacook to revenge. On the evening of the twenty-seventh of June, two squaws repaired to the house of Richard Waldron, and the octogenarian magistrate bade them lodge on the floor. At night, they rise, unbar the gates, and summon their companions, who at once enter every apartment. " What now ? what now ? " shouted the brave old man ; and, seizing his sword, he defended himself till he fell stunned by a blow from a hatchet. They then placed him in a chair on a table in his own hall : " Judge Indians again ! " thus they mocked him ; and, making sport of their debts to him as a trader, they drew gashes across his breast, and each one cried : " Thus I cross out my account ! " At last, the mutilated man reeled from faintness, and died in the midst of tortures. The Indians, burning his house and others that stood near it, having killed three-and- twenty, returned to the wilderness with twenty-nine cap- tives. August comes. The women