THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS GIFT OF THE PIERCE FAMILY HISTORIC LANDMARKS OF AMERICA BOOKS BY MISS SINGLETON TURRETS, TOWERS, AND TEMPLES. Great Buildings of the World Described by Great Writers. GREAT PICTURES. Described by Great Writers. WONDERS OF NATURE. Described by Great Writers. ROMANTIC CASTLES AND PALACES. Described by Great Writers. FAMOUS PAINTINGS. Described by Great Writers. HISTORIC BUILDINGS. Described by Great Writers. FAMOUS WOMEN. Described by Great Writers. GREAT PORTRAITS. Described by Great Writers. HISTORIC BUILDINGS OF AMERICA. Described by Great Writers. HOLLAND. Described by Great Writers. PARIS. Described by Great Writers. LONDON. Described by Great Writen. RUSSIA. Described by Great Writers. JAPAN. Described by Great Writers. VENICE. Described by Great Writers. ROME. Described by Great Writers. A GUIDE TO THE OPERA. LOVE IN LITERATURE AND ART. THE GOLDEN ROD FAIRY BOOK. THE WILD FLOWER FAIRY BOOK. GERMANY. Historic Landmarks of America As Seen and Described by Famous Writers COLLECTED AND EDITED BY ESTHER SINGLETON With Numerous Illustrations NEW YORK DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 1907 LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFpKMtt DAVIS COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY Published October, IQO? Preface ONE of the most striking features of American history is the fact that the greater number of important events have occurred amidst bold and beautiful scenery. It has, there fore, been my aim to present in this volume, a number of the most picturesque and important pilgrimage places in America places that are doubly famous for their beauty and historical associations. It would be impossible to include within the covers of a small book every scene that justifies the name of a Land mark of American History. I have, therefore, in my selec tions, endeavoured to take the reader on as long and varied a trip as possible, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast, from Canada to Mexico, from Maine to Florida, and down the Mississippi from the Great Lakes to New Orleans, not omitting a few inland towns such as Mexico and Santa Fe, Denver and Chicago, that represent the oldest and the newest phases of civilization in the Western Hemisphere. I have also ventured to include a short description of my own of a town of entirely different type the much neg lected, but very charming, remnant of Colonial days An napolis. In addition to cities, I have included lakes, bays, straits, mountains, islands, harbours, plains, and rivers that have formed the stage-setting for most dramatic episodes. Fa mous battlegrounds, such as Bunker Hill, Saratoga, Lexing- vi PREFACE ton, the Brandywine, the Plains of Abraham, and Gettys burg, have demanded their share of attention, while places famous for raids and skirmishes, such as the Alamo and Harper's Ferry, have also been included. I have also followed the footprints of many of the great explorers Columbus, Henry Hudson, Cortes, Sir George Somers, Sir Thomas Gates, Samuel de Champlain, Fathers White, Hennepin, and Marquette, Joliet, Ponce de Leon, Jean Ribault, Rene de Laudonniere, Jacques de la Metairie, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Smith, Gosnold, Masse, Baird, Biencourt, Newport, Poutrincourt, and others, whose cour ageous expeditions into the wild forests of the Red Man prepared the way for civilization. Four important Indian characters also appear in these pages Powhatan, Poca- hontas, Pontiac, and King Philip. The reader will doubtless notice the preponderance of the fort among the landmarks. This is explained by the fact that nearly every American town had its origin in the little stockade first built for protection against the savages and later as a redoubt against French or English foes. These are eloquent testimonies to the far-sightedness of the French, English, and American generals and explorers, who planted their garrisons in such commanding positions. Many of these sites have now become great cities, such as, for instance, Pittsburg and Detroit, and many of these old forts such as Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Niagara, Ticonderoga, West Point, Michilimacinac, etc., are among the most picturesque sights that America offers to the traveller. The earliest colonists have not been forgotten : the Spanish settlements in California and Florida, Oglethorpe's in Sa vannah, and the English settlements in Plymouth and James- PREFACE vii town have not been forgotten. It is interesting to compare Gardiner's instructive account of the Founding of James town with Irving's sympathetic article on the Bermudas, which shows how closely Prospero's magic isle is linked with American history, and gives lovers of The Tempest an added interest in that exquisite play. My appreciative thanks are extended to Messrs. Little, Brown & Co. for permission to use the extract on Lake Champlain from Pioneers of France in the New World; to Messrs. J. B. Lippincott for permission to reprint Aitken's Sault Ste. Marie from Lippincott s Magazine; and to the Overland Monthly for allowing me to include Miller's Santa Fe. E. S. NEW YORK, September, 1907. Contents PAGE THE BERMUDAS i WASHINGTON IRVING. YORKTOWN ....... 10 LORD CORNWALLIS. MANHATTAN ISLAND . . . . .15 DAVID T. VALENTINE. THE VALLEY OF WATERFALLS .... 22 GEORGE N. CURZON. BUNKER HILL 35 DANIEL WEBSTER. TlCONDEROGA ....... 40 BENSON JOHN LOSSING. LAKE CHAMPLAIN 51 FRANCIS PARKMAN. SAN FRANCISCO . . . . . -57 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. THE CHESAPEAKE BAY 64 FATHER ANDREW WHITE. MEXICO 71 HERNANDO CORTES. ix x CONTENTS PAGE ST. AUGUSTINE ...... 78 GEORGE R. FAIRBANKS. DENVER 88 GEORGE W. STEEVENS. LAKE GEORGE 92 T. ADDISON RICHARDS. PLYMOUTH ROCK 102 JOHN GORHAM PALFREY. FORT NIAGARA ....... 109 S. DE VEAUX. THE BRANDYWINE . . . . . .113 BENSON JOHN LOSSING. THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER 121 JARED SPARKS. CHICAGO . . . . . . 134 GEORGE W. STEEVENS. BOSTON HARBOUR 141 CHARLES KNIGHT. SARATOGA 146 E. S. CREASY. SAULT STE. MARIE 154 ISAAC AIKEN. LEXINGTON 159 HENRY B. DAWSON. SAN SALVADOR ....... 167 WASHINGTON IRVING. CONTENTS xi PAGE WEST POINT 172 BENSON JOHN LOSSING. THE ACQUISITION OF LOUISIANA . . .182 JACQUES DE LA METAIRIE. GETTYSBURG 189 JAMES SCHOULER. ST. ANTHONY AND MINNEHAHA . . . 195 EDWARD DUFFIELD NEILL. NEWPORT 201 T. ADDISON RICHARDS. THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM 211 JOHN KNOX. DETROIT 216 J. T. HEADLEY. THE ALAMO ....... 226 HENRY BRUCE. SAVANNAH 229 BENSON JOHN LOSSING. HARPER'S FERRY 237 JOHN G. ROSENGARTEN. MACHILIMACINAC 248 HENRY B. DAWSON. NARRAGANSETT 253 WASHINGTON IRVING. THE SETTLEMENT OF JAMESTOWN . . . 261 SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER. xii CONTENTS PAGE FORT Du QUESNE ....,.,.. 270 E. SARGENT. ST. JOHN'S RIVER ....,., ,.: 279 GEORGE R. FAIRBANKS. MONTEREY 284 LADY MARY HARDY. ANNAPOLIS ....... 290 ESTHER SINGLETON. THE SETTLEMENT OF MOUNT DESERT . . . 295 WILLIAM D. WILLIAMSON. SANTA FE" 300 CLARENCE A. MILLER. ILLUSTRATIONS THE BATTERY, NEW YORK . . . Frontispiece VILLAGE OF ELBRA, BERMUDA . . Facing page 2 YORKTOWN HARBOUR ... " 10 EL CAPITAN, YOSEMITE VALLEY . "22 BUNKER HILL MONUMENT . "36 RUINS OF TlCONDEROGA ... 4O LAKE CHAMPLAIN .... "52 SAN FRANCISCO " "58 CAPE HENRY, VIRGINIA ... 64 MEXICAN SCENE, TAMPICO . "72 FORT MARION, ST. AUGUSTINE . . "78 DENVER " "88 ROGERS' SLIDE, LAKE GEORGE . "92 PLYMOUTH ROCK .... " 102 OLD FORT NIAGARA ... "no THE BRANDYWINE .... "114 A MISSISSIPPI RIVER LANDING . "122 MADISON STREET FROM FIFTH AVENUE, CHICAGO .... " 134 BOSTON HARBOUR .... 142 BATTLE MONUMENT, SCHUYLERVILLE, N. Y. . " 146 THE LOCKS, SAULT STE. MARIE . 154 THE GREEN, LEXINGTON ... " 160 SIEGE BATTERY DRILL, WEST POINT . "172 NEW ORLEANS FROM THE HARBOUR . "182 LITTLE ROUND TOP, GETTYSBURG . "190 MlNNEHAHA FALLS ... " 196 xiii xiv ILLUSTRATIONS NEWPORT HARBOUR . . . Facing page 202 WOLFE'S MONUMENT, PLAINS OF ABRAHAM " " 2 i2 DETROIT " "216 THE ALAMO ....." " 226 SAVANNAH " " 230 STRAITS OF MACKINAC ..." " 248 INDIAN ROCK, NARRAGANSETT " " 254 HAMPTON ROADS FROM NEWPORT NEWS " "262 PlTTSBURG " " 270 ON THE ST. JOHN'S RIVER, FLORIDA . " " 280 MIDWAY POINT, MONTEREY " " 284 ARTILLERY DRILL, U. S. NAVAL ACADEMY, ANNAPOLIS " " 290 BAR HARBOUR FROM GREAT HILL, MT. DESERT ISLAND ..." " 296 THE PLAZA, SANTA F . . ... " " 300 THE BERMUDAS WASHINGTON IRVING " Who did not think, till within these foure yeares, but that these islands had been rather a habitation for Divells, than fit for men to dwell in? Who did not hate the name, when hee was on land, and shun the place when he was on the seas? But behold the misprision and conceits of the world I For true and large experience hath now told us, it is one of the sweetest paradises that be upon earth." A Plaint descript. of the Bermudas (1613). IN the course of a voyage home from England, our ship had been struggling, for two or three weeks, with per verse head-winds, and a stormy sea. It was in the month of May, yet the weather had at times a wintry sharpness, and it was apprehended that we were in the neighbourhood of floating islands of ice, which at that season of the year drift out of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and sometimes oc casion the wreck of noble ships. Wearied out by the continued opposition of the elements, our captain at length bore away to the south, in hopes of catching the expiring breath of the trade-winds, and making what is called the southern passage. A few days wrought, as it were, a magical " sea change " in everything around us. We seemed to emerge into a different world. The late dark and angry sea, lashed up into roaring and swashing surges, became calm and sunny; the rude winds died away; and gradually a light breeze sprang up directly aft, filling out every sail, and wafting us smoothly along on an even keel. The air softened into a bland and delightful tempera ture. Dolphins began to play about us; the nautilus came 2 THE BERMUDAS floating by, like a fairy ship, with its mimic sail and rainbow tints; and flying-fish, from time to time, made their short excursive flights, and occasionally fell upon the deck. The cloaks and overcoats in which we had hitherto wrapped our selves, and moped about the vessel, were thrown aside; for a summer warmth had succeeded to the late wintry chills. Sails were stretched as awnings over the quarter-deck, to protect us from the midday sun. Under these we lounged away the day, in luxurious indolence, musing, with half- shut eyes, upon the quiet ocean. The night was scarcely less beautiful than the day. The rising moon sent a quiver ing column of silver along the undulating surface of the deep, and, gradually climbing the heavens, lit up our tow ering top-sails and swelling main-sails, and spread a pale, mysterious light around. As our ship made her whisper ing way through this dreamy world of waters, every bois terous sound on board was charmed to silence; and the low whistle, or drowsy song, of a sailor from the forecastle, or the tinkling of a guitar, and the soft warbling of a female voice from the quarter-deck, seemed to derive a witch ing melody from the scene and hour. I was reminded of Oberon's exquisite description of music and moonlight on the ocean: "Thou remembrcst Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back, Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song; And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, To hear the sea-maid's music." Indeed, I was in the very mood to conjure up all the imaginary beings with which poetry has peopled old ocean, and almost ready to fancy I heard the distant song of the mermaid, or the mellow shell of the triton, and to picture to THE BERMUDAS 3 myself Neptune and Amphitrite with all their pageant sweep ing along the dim horizon. A day or two of such fanciful voyaging, brought us in sight of the Bermudas, which first looked like mere summer clo'ids, peering above the quiet ocean. All day we glided along in sight of them, with just wind enough to fill our sails; and never did land appear more lovely. They were clad in emerald verdure, beneath the serenest of skies; not an angry wave broke upon their quiet shores, and small fishing craft, riding on the crystal waves, seemed as if hung in air. It was such a scene that Fletcher pictures to him self, when he extolled the halcyon lot of the fisherman : " Ah ! would thou knowest how much it better were To bide among the simple fisher-swains: No shrieking owl, no night-crow lodgeth here, Nor is our simple pleasure mixed with pains. Our sports begin with the beginning year; In calms, to pull the leaping fish to land, In roughs, to sing and dance along the yellow sand." In contemplating these beautiful islands, and the peace ful sea around them, I could hardly realize that these were the " still vexed Bermooths " of Shakespeare, once the dread of mariners, and infamous in the narratives of the early dis coverers, for the dangers and disasters which beset them. Such, however, was the case; and the islands derived addi tional interest in my eyes, from fancying that I could trace in their early history, and the superstitious notions connected with them, some of the elements of Shakespeare's wild and beautiful drama of the Tempest. I shall take the liberty of citing a few historical facts, in support of this idea, which may claim some additional attention from the American reader, as being connected with the first settlement of Virginia. 4 THE BERMUDAS At the time when Shakespeare was in the fulness of his talent, and seizing upon everything that could furnish ali ment to his imagination, the colonization of Virginia was a favourite object of enterprise among people of condition in England, and several of the courtiers of the Court of Queen Elizabeth were personally engaged in it. In the year 1609, a noble armament of nine ships and five hundred men sailed for the relief of the colony. It was commanded by Sir George Somers, as admiral, a gallant and generous gentleman, about sixty years of age, and possessed of an ample fortune, yet still bent upon hardy enterprise, and ambitious of signalizing himself in the service of his country. On board of his flag-ship, the Sea Vulture, sailed also Sir Thomas Gates, lieutenant-general of the colony. The voy age was long and boisterous. On the twenty-fifth of July, the admiral's ship was separated from the rest, in a hurri cane. For several days she was driven about at the mercy of the elements, and so strained and racked, that her seams yawned open, and her hold was half filled with water. The storm subsided, but left her a mere foundering wreck. The crew stood in the hold to their waists in water, vainly en deavouring to bail her with kettles, buckets, and other ves sels. The leaks rapidly gained on them, while their strength was rapidly declining. They lost all hope of keeping the ship afloat, until they should reach the American coast; and wearied with fruitless toil, determined, in their despair, to give up all farther attempt, shut down the hatches, and abandon themselves to Providence. Some, who had spirit uous liquors, or " comfortable waters," as the old record quaintly terms them, brought them forth, and shared them with their comrades, and they all drank a sad farewell to one another, as men who were soon to part company in this world. In this moment of extremity, the worthy admiral, who THE BERMUDAS 5 kept sleepless watch from the high stern of the vessel, gave the thrilling cry of " land ! " All rushed on deck, in a frenzy of joy, and nothing now was to be seen or heard on board, but the transports of men who felt as if rescued from the grave. It is true the land in sight would not, in ordi nary circumstances, have inspired much self-congratulation. It could be nothing else but the group of islands called after their discoverer, one Juan Bermudas, a Spaniard, but stigmatized among the mariners of those days as " the islands of devils! " "For the islands of the Bermudas," says the old narrative of this voyage, " as every man knoweth that hath heard or read of them, were never inhabited by any Christian or heathen people, but were ever esteemed and reputed a most prodigious and inchanted place, affording nothing but gusts, storms, and foul weather, which made every navigator and mariner to avoid them as Scylla and Charybdis, or as they would shun the Divell himself." Sir George Somers and his tempest-tossed comrades, how ever, hailed them with rapture, as if they had been a ter restrial paradise. Every sail was spread, and every exertion made to urge the foundering ship to land. Before long, she struck upon a rock. Fortunately, the late stormy winds had subsided, and there was no surf. A swelling wave lifted her from off the rock, and bore her to another; and thus she was borne on from rock to rock, until she remained wedged between two, as firmly as if set up on the stocks. The boats were immediately lowered, and, though the shore was above a mile distant, the whole crew were landed in safety. Everyone had now his task assigned him. Some made all haste to unload the ship, before she should go to pieces; some constructed wigwams of palmetto leaves, and others ranged the island in quest of wood and water. To their surprise and joy, they found it far different from the deso late and frightful place they had been taught, by seamen's 6 THE BERMUDAS stones, to expect. It was well wooded and fertile; there were birds of various kinds, and herds of swine roaming about, the progeny of a number that had swum ashore, in former years, from a Spanish wreck. The island abounded with turtle, and great quantities of their eggs were to be found among the rocks. The bays and inlets were full of fish; so tame, that if anyone stepped into the water, they would throng around him. Sir George Somers, in a little while, caught enough with hook and line to furnish a meal to his whole ship's company. Some of them were so large that two were as much as a man could carry. Craw-fish, also, were taken in abundance. The air was soft and salu brious, and the sky beautifully serene. Waller, in his Sum mer Islands, has given us a faithful picture of the climate: "For the kind spring, (which but salutes us here,) Inhabits these, and courts them all the year: Ripe fruits and blossoms on the same trees live; At once they promise, and at once they give: So sweet the air, so moderate the clime, None sickly lives, or dies before his time. Heaven sure has kept this spot of earth uncursed To shew how all things were created first." We may imagine the feelings of the shipwrecked manners, on finding themselves cast by stormy seas upon so happy a coast; where abundance was to be had without labour; where what in other climes constituted the costly luxuries of the rich, were within every man's reach; and where life promised to be a mere holiday. Many of the common sailors, especially, declared they desired no better lot than to pass the rest of their lives on this favoured island. The commanders, however, were not so ready to console themselves with mere physical comforts, for the severance from the enjoyment of cultivated life, and all the objects of THE BERMUDAS 7 honourable ambition. Despairing of the arrival of any chance ship on these shunned and dreaded islands, they fitted out the long-boat, making a deck of the ship's hatches, and having manned her with eight picked men, despatched her, under the command of an able and hardy mariner, named Raven, to proceed to Virginia, and procure shipping to be sent to their relief. While waiting in anxious idleness for the arrival of the looked-for aid, dissensions arose between Sir George Somers and Sir Thomas Gates, originating, very probably in jeal ousy of the lead which the nautical experience and pro fessional station of the admiral gave him in the present emergency. Each commander of course had his adherents: these dissensions ripened into a complete schism; and this handful of shipwrecked men, thus thrown together on an uninhabited island, separated into two parties, and lived assunder in bitter feud, as men rendered fickle by pros perity, instead of being brought into brotherhood by a com mon calamity. Weeks and months elapsed, without bring ing the looked-for aid from Virginia, though that colony was within a few days* sail. Fears were now entertained that the long-boat had been either swallowed up in the sea, or wrecked on some savage coast; one or other of which most probably was the case, as nothing was ever heard of Raven and his comrades. Each party now set to work to build a vessel for itself out of the cedar with which the island abounded. The wreck of the Sea Vulture furnished rigging, and various other articles; but they had no iron for bolts, and other fasten ings; and for want of pitch and tar, they payed the seams of their vessels with lime and turtle's oil, which soon dried, and became as hard as stone. On the tenth of May, 1610, they set sail, having been about nine months on the island. They reached Virginia 8 THE BERMUDAS without farther accident, but found the colony in great dis tress for provisions. The account they gave of the abund ance that reigned in the Bermudas, and especially of the herds of swine that roamed the island, determined Lord Delaware, the governor of Virginia, to send thither for sup plies. Sir George Somers, with his wonted promptness and generosity, offered to undertake what was still considered a dangerous voyage. Accordingly, on the nineteenth of June, he set sail, in his own cedar vessel of thirty tons, accom panied by another small vessel, commanded by Captain Argall. The gallant Somers was doomed again to be tempest- tossed. His companion vessel was soon driven back to port, but he kept the sea; and, as usual, remained at his post on deck, in all weathers. His voyage was long and boisterous, and the fatigues and exposures which he underwent, were too much for a frame impaired by age, and by previous hardships. He arrived at Bermudas completely exhausted and broken down. His nephew, Captain Mathew Somers, attended him in his illness with affectionate assiduity. Finding his end ap proaching, the veteran called his men together, and exhorted them to be true to the interests of Virginia; to procure pro visions, with all possible despatch, and hasten back to the relief of the colony. With this dying charge, he gave up the ghost, leaving his nephew and crew overwhelmed with grief and consternation. Their first thought was to pay honour to his remains. Opening the body, they took out the heart and entrails, and buried them, erecting a cross over the grave. They then embalmed the body, and set sail with it for England ; thus, while paying empty honours to their de ceased commander, neglecting his earnest wish and dying injunction, that they should return with relief to Virginia. The little bark arrived safely at Whitechurch, in Dorset- THE BERMUDAS 9 shire, with its melancholy freight. The body of the worthy Somers was interred with the military honours due to a brave soldier, and many volleys were fired over his grave. The Bermudas have since received the name of the Somet Islands, as a tribute to his memory. The accounts given by Captain Mathew Somers and his crew of the delightful climate, and the great beauty, fer tility, and abundance of these islands, excited the zeal of enthusiasts, and the cupidity of speculators, and a plan was set on foot to colonize them. The Virginia company sold their right to the islands to one hundred and twenty of their own members, who erected themselves into a distinct cor poration, under the name of the " Somer Island Society " ; and Mr. Richard More was sent out, in 1612, as governor, with sixty men, to found a colony. YORKTOWN LORD CORNWALLISi I HAVE the mortification to inform your Excellency that I have been forced to give up the posts of York and Gloucester, and to surrender the troops under my command, by capitulation, on the igth instant, as prisoners of war to the combined forces of America and France. I never saw this post in a very favourable light, but when I found I was to be attacked in it in so unprepared a state, by so powerful an army and artillery, nothing but the hopes of relief would have induced me to attempt its defence, for I would either have endeavoured to escape to New York by rapid marches from the Gloucester side, immediately on the arrival of General Washington's troops at Williamsburg; or I would, notwithstanding the disparity of numbers, have attacked them in the open field, where it might have been just possible that fortune would have favoured the gallantry of the handful of troops under my command, but being as sured by your Excellency's letters that every possible means would be tried by the navy and army to relieve us, I could not think myself at liberty to venture upon either of those desperate attempts; therefore, after remaining for two days in a strong position in front of this place in hopes of being attacked, upon observing that the enemy were taking meas ures which could not fail of turning my left flank in a short time, and receiving on the second evening your letter of the 24th of September, informing me that relief would sail about the 5th of October, I withdrew within the works on the 1 Letter to Sir Henry Clinton. 10 YORKTOWN II night of the 2Qth of September, hoping by the labour and firmness of the soldiers to protract the defence until you could arrive. Everything was to be expected from the spirit of the troops, but every disadvantage attended their labour, as the works were to be continued under the enemy's fire, and our stock of intrenching tools, which did not much ex ceed 400 when we began to work in the latter end of August, was now much diminished. The enemy broke ground on the night of the 3Oth, and constructed on that night, and the two following days and nights, two redoubts, which, with some works that had be longed to our outward position, occupied a gorge between two creeks or ravines, which come from the river on each side of the town. On the night of the 6th of October they made their first parallel, extending from its right on the river, to a deep ravine on the left, nearly opposite to the centre of this place, and embracing our whole left at a dis tance of 600 yards. Having perfected this parallel, their batteries opened on the evening of the gth against our left, and other batteries fired at the same time against a redoubt advanced over the creek upon our right, and defended by about 1 20 men of the 23rd Regiment and Marines, who maintained that post with uncommon gallantry. The fire continued incessant from heavy cannon, and from mortars and howitzers throwing shells from 8 to 16 inches, until all our guns on the left were silenced, our work much dam aged, and our loss of men considerable. On the night of the nth they began their second parallel, about 300 yards nearer to us. The troops being much weakened by sickness, as well as by the fire of the besiegers, and observing that the enemy had not only secured their flanks, but proceeded in every respect with the utmost regularity and caution, I could not venture so large sorties as to hope from them any con siderable effect, but otherwise, I did everything in my power 12 YORKTOWN to interrupt this work by opening new embrasures for guns and keeping up a constant fire from all the howitzers and small mortars that we could man. On the evening of the 1 4th they assaulted and carried two redoubts that had been advanced about 300 yards for the purpose of delaying their approaches, and covering our left flank, and during the night included them in their second parallel, on which they con tinued to work with the utmost exertion. Being perfectly sensible that our works could not stand many hours after the opening of the batteries of that parallel, we not only continued a constant fire with all our mortars and every gun that could be brought to bear upon it, but a little before daybreak on the morning of the i6th, I ordered a sortie of about 350 men, under the direction of Lieutenant-Colonel Abercrombie, to attack two batteries which appeared to be in the greatest forwardness, and to spike the guns. A detach ment of Guards with the Both Company of Grenadiers, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Lake, attacked the one, and one of light infantry, under the command of Major Armstrong, attacked the other, and both succeeded in forcing the redoubts that covered them, spiking n guns and killing or wounding about 100 of the French troops, who had the guard of that part of the trenches, and with little loss on our side. This action, though extremely hon ourable to the officers and soldiers who executed it, proved of little public advantage, for the cannon having been spiked in a hurry, were soon rendered fit for service again, and before dark the whole parallel and batteries appeared to be nearly complete. At this time we knew that there was no part of the whole front attacked on which we could show a single gun, and our shells were nearly expended. I, there fore, had only to choose between preparing to surrender next day, or endeavouring to get off with the greatest part of the troops, and I determined to attempt the latter. In this sit- YORKTOWN I3 uation, with my little force divided, the enemy's batteries opened at daybreak. The passage between this place and Gloucester was much exposed, but the boats having now returned, they were ordered to bring back the troops that had passed during the night, and they joined us in the forenoon, without much loss. Our works, in the meantime, were going to ruin, and not having been able to strengthen them by an abattis, nor in any other manner but by a slight fraizing which the enemy's artillery were demolishing wherever they fired, my opinion entirely coincided with that of the engineer and principal officers of the army, that they were in many places assailable in the forenoon, and that by the continuance of the same fire for a few hours longer, they would be in such a state as to render it desperate, with our numbers, to attempt to maintain them. We at that time could not fire a single gun; only one 8-inch and little more than 100 Cohorn shells remained. A diversion by the French ships of war that lay at the mouth of York River was to be ex pected. Our numbers had been diminished by the enemy's fire, but particularly by sickness, and the strength and spirits of those in the works were much exhausted, by the constant watching and unremitting duty. Under all these circum stances, I thought it would have been wanton and inhuman to the last degree to sacrifice the lives of this small body of gallant soldiers, who had ever behaved with so much fidelity and courage, by exposing them to an assault which, from the numbers and precautions of the enemy, could not fail to succeed. I therefore proposed to capitulate; and I have the honour to enclose to your Excellency the copy of the cor respondence between General Washington and me on that subject, and the terms of capitulation agreed upon. I sin cerely lament that better could not be obtained, but I have neglected nothing in my power to alleviate the misfortune and distress of both officers and soldiers. The men are well 14 YORKTOWN clothed and provided with necessaries, and I trust will be regularly supplied by the means of the officers that are per mitted to remain with them. The treatment, in general, that we have received from the enemy since our surrender has been perfectly good and proper, but the kindness and attention that has been shown to us by the French officers in particular their delicate sensibility of our situation their generous and pressing offer of money, both public and private, to any amount has really gone beyond what I can possibly describe, and will, I hope, make an impression on the breast of every British officer, whenever the fortune of war should put any of them into our power. MANHATTAN ISLAND DAVID T. VALENTINE THE first discovery has been generally ascribed to Henry Hudson, an Englishman by birth, who, in the year 1690, being then in the service of the Dutch, sailed west ward from the shores of Europe, in search of a northwest passage to the East Indies. The vessel commanded by Hud son was a small yacht, called the Half Moon, manned by from sixteen to twenty men, partly of Dutch and partly of English birth. This vessel was not over eighty tons burden, being designed for coasting. After traversing the American coasts, between Newfoundland and the Chesapeake Bay, he turned his course northward again, designing to explore, leisurely, the extent of the country thus passed by. On the 1st of September, 1609, he discovered the Highlands of Neversink, described by him as a " very good land to fall in with and a pleasant land to see." The next day he rounded Sandy Hook, and the second day following he anchored under the Jersey shore in the south bay. The Indians, flocking to the shore in great numbers, ap pear at once to have understood the designs of their visitors, for, whether by tradition or rumour from other lands, they seem to have been acquainted with the articles of trade most in use between the whites and the Indians, and were apt at driving a bargain. They offered tobacco and other products in exchange for knives and beads. Their disposition seemed friendly, and the women presented such articles of food as they had prepared in that season. On the 6th of September, a boat's crew, despatched by Hudson to explore the coast further inland, entered the 15 l6 MANHATTAN ISLAND Narrows and came in sight of Manhattan Island. They de scribed the land encircling the bay as covered with trees, grass and flowers, and the air as filled with delightful fra grance. The return of this small party was unfortunate, as, for some unexplained reason, the boat was attacked by two canoes filled with Indians, and one of the crew, named John Coleman, was killed by an arrow piercing his throat. It seems probable from the course taken by Hudson, after this disaster, that the assault by the natives was not without provocation, as friendly intercourse was still kept up between the parties. On the nth of September, Hudson weighed and sailed up through the Narrows. Having anchored in New York harbour, he was visited by the neighbouring Indians, who made great show of love, giving presents of tobacco and Indian corn. He remained at anchor but one day, and, on the 1 2th of September, took his course up the river, which has since borne his name. In his exploration to the head of navigation, near the present site of Albany, he was engaged about three weeks, and finally put to sea on the 4th of October, making directly for Holland with news of his discovery of this fine river and its adjacent country, which he described as offering every inducement for settlers or traders that could be desired. Besides the fertility of the soil, which was satisfactorily shown by the great abundance of grain and vegetables found in the possession of the Indians, a still more enticing pros pect was held out to the view of the merchant, in the abund ance of valuable furs observed in the country, which were to be had at a very little cost. Hudson had, therefore, scarcely made publicly known the character of the country visited by him, when several merchants of Amsterdam fitted out trading vessels and despatched them to this river. Their returns were highly satisfactory, and arrangements were im- MANHATTAN ISLAND 17 mediately made to establish a settled agency here to super intend the collection of the furs and the trade with the Indians while the ships should be on their long journey between the two hemispheres. The agents thus employed pitched their cabins on the south point of Manhattan Island, the head man being Hendrick Corstiaensen, who was still the chief of the settlement in 1613, at which period an English ship, sailing along the coast from Virginia, entered the harbour on a visit of observation. Finding Corstiaen sen here, with his company of traders, the English captain summoned him to acknowledge the jurisdiction of Virginia over the country, or else to depart. The former alternative was chosen by the trader, and he agreed to pay a small tribute to the Governor of Virginia in token of his right of dominion. The Dutch were thereupon left to prosecute their trade without further molestation. The Government of Holland did not, however, recognize the claims of England to jurisdiction over the whole Ameri can coast, and took measures to encourage the discovery and appropriation of additional territory by a decree giving to any discoverers of new countries the exclusive privilege of trading thither for four successive voyages to the exclusion of all other persons. This enactment induced several mer chants to fit out five small ships for coasting along the American shores in this vicinity. One of these vessels, com manded by Captain Block, soon after its arrival on the coast was accidentally destroyed by fire. Block immediately began the construction of another, of thirty-eight feet keel, forty-four and a half feet on deck, and eleven and a half foot beam, which was the first vessel launched in the waters of New York. She was called the Unrest or Restless, and plowed her keel through the waters of Hell Gate and the Sound, the pioneer of all other vessels, except the bark canoes of the aboriginal inhabitants. 18 MANHATTAN ISLAND The several ships despatched on this exploring expedition having returned to Holland, from their journals and sur veys a map of a large extent of country was made, over which the Dutch claimed jurisdiction, and to which they gave the name of New Netherland. The owners of the^e vessels, as the reward of their enterprise, were granted tl 2 promised monopoly of trade thither for four voyages to be completed within three years, commencing on the first of January, 1615. These merchants seem to have been composed in part of those who had established the first trading-post here, but having increased their numbers and capital, and enlarged their former designs of trade, formed themselves into a com pany under the name of the " United New Netherland Company." Corstiaensen was continued the principal agent here, and they likewise established a post at the head of the river on an island opposite the present site of Albany. Forts of a rude description (being merely inclosures of high pali sades) were erected at both places. The privileges granted to the " United New Netherland Company " being, however, limited in respect to time, their establishment on this island can hardly be considered as a permanent settlement; the cabins of the settlers were nearly of equal rudeness with those of their Indian neighbours; and but few of the luxuries of civilization found their way into their habitations. The great object of the settlement was, however, successfully carried on, and stores of furs were in readiness to freight the ships on their periodical visits from the Fatherland. No interruption of the friendly intercourse carried on with the Indians took place, but, on the contrary, the whites were abundantly supplied by the natives with food and most other necessities of life, without personal labour and at trifling cost. The Indian tribes in the neighbourhood of this trading- MANHATTAN ISLAND 19 post were the Manhattans, occupying this island; the Pacha- mies, the Tankiteks and the Wickqueskeeks, occupying the country on the east sides of the Hudson River, south of the Highlands; the Hackingsacks and the Raritans, on the west si^e of the river and the Jersey shore; the Canarsees, the R^ckways, the Merrikokes, the Marsapeagues, the Mattine- cocks, the Nissaquages, the Corchaugs, the Secataugs and the Shinecocks, on Long Island. The trade of this colony of settlers was sufficiently prof itable to render its permanency desirable to the United New Netherland Company, as it is found that at the termination of their grant, in the year 1618, they endeavoured to pro cure from the Government in Holland an extension of their te"rm, but did not succeed in obtaining more than a special licence, expiring yearly, which they held for two or three subsequent years. In the meantime, a more extensive association had been formed among the merchants and capitalists of Holland, which in the year 1621, having matured its plans and projects, received a charter under the title of the " West India Company." Their charter gave them the exclusive privilege of trade on the whole American coast, both of the northern and southern continents, so far as the jurisdiction of Holland extended. This great company was invested with most of the functions of a distinct and separate govern ment. They were allowed to appoint governors and other officers; to settle the forms of administering justice; to make Indian treaties, and to enact laws. Having completed their arrangements for the organiza tion of their government in New Netherland, the West India Company despatched their pioneer vessel hither in the year 1623. This was the ship New Nftherland ', a staunch vessel, which continued her voyages to this port, as a regular packet for more than thirty years subsequently. On board 20 MANHATTAN ISLAND the New Netherland were thirty families to begin the colony this colony being designed for a settlement at the head of the river, the vessel landed her passengers and freight near the present site of Albany, where a settlement was established. The return cargo of the New Netherland was five hundred otter skins, one thousand five hundred beavers, and other freight, valued at about twelve thousand dollars. It having been determined that the headquarters of the company's establishment in New Netherland should be fixed on Manhattan Island, preparations for a more extensive colony to be planted here were made, and, in 1625, two ships cleared from Holland for this place. On board these vessels were shipped one hundred and three head of cattle, together with stallions, mares, hogs and sheep in a proportionate number. Accompanying these were a considerable number of settlers, with their families, supplied with agricultural implements and seed for planting; household furniture, and the other necessaries for establishing the colony. Other ships followed with similar freight, and the number of emigrants amounted to about two hundred souls. On the arrival of the ships in the harbour, the cattle were landed, in the first instance on the island now called Gov ernor's Island, where they were left on pasturage until con venient arrangements could be made on the mainland to prevent their straying in the woods. The want of water, however, compelled their speedy transfer to Manhattan Island, where, being put on the fresh grass, they generally throve well, although about twenty died in the course of the season, from eating some poisonous vegetable. The settlers commenced their town by staking out a fort on the south point of the island, under the direction of one Kryn Frederick, an engineer sent along with them for that purpose; and a horse-mill having been erected, the second story of that building was so constructed as to afford accom- MANHATTAN ISLAND 21 modation for the congregation for religious purposes. The habitations of the settlers were of the simplest construction, little better, indeed, than those of their predecessors. A director-general had been sent to superintend the interests of the company, in the person of Peter Minuit, who, in the year 1626, purchased Manhattan Island from the Indian proprietors for the sum of sixty guilders, or twenty four dollars, by which the title to the whole island, containing about twenty-two thousand acres, became vested in the West India Company. The success of the company proved itself, for a short period, by the rise in the value in their stock, which soon stood at a high premium in Holland. Various interests, however, were at work in the company to turn its advan tages to individual account, and, in 1628, an act was passed under the title of " Freedoms and Exemptions granted to all such as shall plant Colonies in New Netherlands." This edict gave to such persons as should send over a colony of fifty souls above fifteen years old, the title of " pa- troons," and the privilege of selecting any land (except on the island of Manhattan), for a distance of eight miles on each side of any river, and so far inland as should be thought convenient, the company stipulating, however, that all the products of the plantation thus established should be first brought to the Manhattans, before being sent elsewhere for trade. They also reserved to themselves the sole trade with the Indians for peltries in all places where they had an agency established. With respect to such private persons as should emigrate at their own expense, they were allowed as much land as they could properly improve, upon satisfying the Indians therefor. These privileges gave an impetus to emigration, and as sisted, in a great degree, in permanently establishing the settlement of the country. THE VALLEY OF WATERFALLS GEORGE N. CURZON SINCE 1851, when the first stranger entered the Yo- semite, it has been visited by some forty-three thousand persons. At first, the facilities of access and accommoda tion being very scant, the influx was so slow that at the end of ten years it had only reached six hundred and fifty- three for the entire period. Then it began to advance by leaps and bounds, till the yearly average has now risen above two thousand five hundred, a total which with the improve ments in railroads and hotels that are still in course of erec tion will be largely augmented in the near future. When I spoke of the discovery of the Yosemite Valley, I must be understood of course to refer to the first invasion of its borders by the foot of the white man. Long be fore, perhaps for centuries, it had formed a secure retreat for Indian tribes, who in the pathless glens and gorges of the Sierras conducted an internecine tribal warfare, or pur sued an animal quarry scarcely wilder than themselves. It was by collision with these very Indians that the beauti ful valley accidentally became known to the pioneers of what we call Western civilization, who at the beginning of the second half of the last century poured into California in the mad thirst for gold, sowing in rapacity and lust and crime the seeds from which civilization and religion, too often begotten in a like stormy travail, were at a later date to spring. At first the Indians did not recognize as enemies the scattered groups of gold-diggers who suddenly alighted upon 22 C>|>yrl|rht, \tury who sought both fame and fortune in the path of discovery, was Ponce de Leon, a companion of Columbus on his second voyage, a veteran and bold mariner, who, after a long and adventurous life, feeling the infirmities of age and the shadows of the decline of life hanging over him, willingly credited the tale that in this, the beautiful land of his imagination, there existed a fountain whose waters could restore youth to palsied age, and beauty to efface the marks of time. The story ran that far to the north there existed a land abounding in gold and in all manner of desirable things, but, above all, possessing a river and springs of so remark able a virtue that their waters would confer immortal youth on whoever bathed in them; that upon a time, a con siderable expedition of the Indians of Cuba had departed northward, in search of this beautiful country and these waters of immortality, who had never returned, and who, it was supposed, were in a renovated state, still enjoying the felicities of the happy land. Furthermore, Peter Martyr affirms, in his second decade, addressed to the Pope, " that among the islands on the north side of Hispaniola, there is one about three hundred and twenty-five leagues distant, as they say which have searched the same, in the which is a continual spring of running water, of such marvellous virtue that the water thereof being drunk, perhaps with some diet, maketh old 78 ST. AUGUSTINE 79 men young again. And here I must make protestation to your Holiness not to think this to be said lightly, or rashly; for they have so spread this rumour for a truth throughout all the Court, that not only all the people, but also many of them whom wisdom or fortune hath divided from the common sort, think it to be true." Thoroughly believing in the verity of this pleasant account, this gallant cavalier fitted out an expedition from Porto Rico, and in the prog ress of his search came upon the coast of Florida, on Easter Monday, 1512, supposing then, and for a long period after wards, that it was an island. Partly in consequence of the bright spring verdure and flowery plains that met his eye, and the magnificence of the magnolia, the bay, and the laurel, and partly in honour of the day, Pascua Florida, or Palm Sunday, and reminded, probably, of its appropriate ness by the profusion of the cabbage palms near the point of his landing, he gave to the country the name of Florida. On the third of April, 1612, he landed a few miles north of St. Augustine, and took possession of the country for the Spanish Crown. He found the natives fierce and implaca ble; and after exploring the country for some distance around, and trying the virtue of all the streams, and growing neither younger nor handsomer, he left the country without making a permanent settlement. The settlement of Florida had its origin in the religious troubles experienced by the Huguenots under Charles IX. in France. Their distinguished leader, Admiral Coligny, as early as !555> projected colonies in America, and sent an expedition to Brazil, which proved unsuccessful. Having procured permission from Charles IX. to found a colony in Florida, a designation which embraced in rather an indefinite man ner the whole country from the Chesapeake to the Tortugas, he sent an expedition in 1562 from France, under com- 80 ST. AUGUSTINE mand of Jean Ribault, composed of many young men of good family. They first landed at the St. John's River, where they erected a monument, but finally established a settlement at Port Royal, South Carolina, and erected a fort. After some months, however, in consequence of dis sensions among the officers of the garrison, and difficulties with the Indians, this settlement was abandoned. In 1564 another expedition came out under the com mand of Rene de Laudonniere, and made their first landing at the River of Dolphins, being the present harbour of St. Augustine, and so named by them in consequence of the great number of dolphins (porpoises) seen by them at its mouth. They afterwards coasted to the north, and entered the River St. John's, called by them the River May. Upon an examination of this river Laudonniere concluded to establish his colony on its banks ; and proceeding about two leagues above its mouth, built a fort upon a pleasant hill of " mean height " which, in honour of his sovereign, he named Fort Caroline. The colonists after a few months were reduced to great distress, and were about taking measures to abandon the country a second time t when Ribault arrived with reinforce ments. It is supposed that intelligence of these expeditions was communicated by the enemies of Coligny to the court of Spain. Jealousy of the aggrandizement of the French in the New World, mortification for their own unsuccessful efforts in that quarter, and a still stronger motive of hatred to the faith of the Huguenot, induced the bigoted Philip II. of Spain to despatch Pedro Menendez de Aviles, a brave, big oted, and remorseless soldier, to drive out the French colony and take possession of the country for himself. The compact made between the King and Menendez ST. AUGUSTINE 8l was that he should furnish one galleon completely equipped, and provisions for a force of six hundred men; that he should conquer and settle the country. He obligated him self to carry one hundred horses, two hundred horned cat tle, four hundred hogs, four hundred sheep and some goats, and five hundred slaves (for which he had a permission free of duties), the third part of which should be men, for his own service and that of those who went with him, to aid in cultivating the land and building. That he should take twelve priests, and four fathers of the Jesuit order. He was to build two or three towns of one hundred families, and in each town should build a fort according to the nature of the country. He was to have the title of Adelantado of the country, as also to be entitled to a Marquis and his heirs after him, to have a tract of land, receive a salary of 2000 ducats, a percentage of the royal duties, and have the freedom of all the other ports of New Spain. His force consisted, at starting, of eleven sail of vessels with two thousand and six hundred men; but, owing to storms and accidents, not more than one-half arrived. He came upon the coast on the a8th of August, 1565, shortly after the arrival of the fleet of Ribault. On the yth day of September, Menendez cast anchor in the River of Dolphins, the harbour of St. Augustine. He had previously discov ered and given chase to some vessels of Ribault, off the mouth of the River May. The Indian village Selooe then stood upon the site of St. Augustine, and the landing of Menendez was upon the spot where the city of St. Augus tine now stands. Fray Francisco Lopez de Mendoza, the Chaplain of the expedition, thus chronicles the disembarkation and atten dant ceremonies: " On Saturday the 8th day of September, the day of the nativity of our Lady, the General disembarked, with 82 ST. AUGUSTINE numerous banners displayed, trumpets and other martial music resounding, and amid salvos of artillery. " Carrying a cross, I proceeded at the head, chanting the hymn Te Deum Laudamus. The General marched straight to the cross, together with all those who accom panied him; and, kneeling, they all kissed the cross. A great number of Indians looked upon these ceremonies, and imitated whatever they saw done. Thereupon the General took possession of the country in the name of his Majesty. All the officers then took an oath of allegiance to him as their general and as adelantado of the whole country." The name of St. Augustine was given, in the usual man ner of the early voyagers, because they had arrived upon the coast on the day dedicated in their calendar to that eminent saint of the primitive church, revered alike by the good of all ages for his learning and piety. On the loth day of July, in the year 1821, the standard of Spain, which had been raised two hundred and fifty-six years before over St. Augustine, was finally lowered forever from the walls over which it had so long fluttered, and the Stars and Stripes of the youngest of nations rose where sooner or later the hand of destiny would assuredly have placed them. It was intended that the change of flags should have taken place on the 4th of July; owing to a detention this was frustrated, but the inhabitants celebrated the 4th with a handsome public ball at the governor's house. The Spanish garrison and officers connected with it, re turned to Cuba and some of the Spanish families, but the larger portion of the inhabitants remained. In December, 1835, the war with the Seminole Indians broke out; and for some years St. Augustine was full of the pomp and circumstance of war. It was dangerous to venture beyond the gates; and many sad scenes of Indian massacre took place in the neighbourhood of the city. Dur- ST. AUGUSTINE 83 ing this period, great apparent prosperity prevailed; property was valuable, rents were high; speculators projected one city on the north of the town, and another on the west; a canal to the St. Johns, and also a railroad to Picolata; and great hopes of future prosperity were entertained. With the cessation of the war, the importance of St. Augustine diminished; younger communities took the lead of it, aided by superior advantages of location, and greater enterprise, and St. Augustine has subsided into the pleasant, quiet, dolce far nlente of to-day, living upon its old memories, con tented, peaceful, and agreeable, and likely to remain with out much change for the future. Of the public buildings, it may be remarked that the extensive British barracks were destroyed by fire in 1792; and that the Franciscan Convent was occupied as it had been before, as barracks for the troops not in garrison in the fort. The appearance of these buildings has been much changed, by the extensive repairs and alterations made by the United States government. It had formerly a large circular look-out upon the top, from which a beautiful view of the surrounding country was obtained. Its walls are probably the oldest foundation in the city. The present United States Court House, now occupied by many public offices, was the residence of the Spanish govern ors. It has been rebuilt by the United States, and its former quaint and interesting appearance has been lost, in removing its look-out tower, and balconies, and the handsome gate way, mentioned by De Brahm, which is said to have been a fine specimen of Doric architecture. Trinity Episcopal Church was commenced in 1827, and consecrated in 1833, by Bishop Bowen, of South Carolina. The Presbyterian Church was built about 1830, and the Methodist chapel about 1846. The venerable-looking building on the bay, at the corner 84 ST. AUGUSTINE of Green Lane and Bay Street, is considered the oldest building in the place, and has evidently been a fine building in its day. It was the residence of the attorney-general in English times. The monument on the public square was erected in 1812-13, upon the information of the adoption of the Spanish constitution, as a memorial of that event, in pursu ance of a royal order to that effect, directed to the public authorities of all the provincial towns. Geronimo Alvarez was the Alcalde under whose direction it was erected. The plan of it was made by Sr. Hernandez, father of the late General Hernandez. A short time after it was put up, the Spanish constitution having had a downfall, orders were issued by the government that all the monuments erected to the constitution throughout its dominions should be demol ished. The citizens of St. Augustine were unwilling to see their monument torn down ; and, with the passive acquiscence of the governor, the marble tablets inscribed PLAZA DE LA CONSTITUCION being removed, the monument itself was allowed to stand; and it thus remains to this day, the only monument in existence to commemorate the farce of the constitution of 1812. In 1818, the tablets were restored without objection. The bridge and causeway are the work of the government of the United States. The present sea-wall was built be tween 1835 and 1842, by the United States, at an expense of one hundred thousand dollars. I cannot perhaps better conclude these historic notices than by giving the impressions of the author of Thanatop- sis, one whose poetic fame will endure as long as American literature exists. Writing from St. Augustine in April, 1843, he says: " At length we emerged upon a shrubby plain, and finally came in sight of this oldest city of the United States, ST. AUGUSTINE 85 seated among its trees on a sandy swell of land, where it has stood for three hundred years. I was struck with its ancient and homely aspect, even at a distance, and could not help likening it to pictures which I had seen of Dutch towns, though it wanted a wind-mill or two to make the resemblance perfect. We drove into a green square, in the midst of which was a monument erected to commemorate the Spanish constitution of 1812, and thence through the narrow streets of the city to our hotel. " I have called the streets narrow. In few places are they wide enough to allow two carriages to pass abreast. I was told that they were not originally intended for car riages; and that in the time when the town belonged to Spain, many of them were floored with an artificial stone, composed of shells and mortar, which in this climate takes and keeps the hardness of rock; and that no other vehicle than a hand-barrow was allowed to pass over them. In some places you see remnants of this ancient pavement; but for the most part it has been ground into dust under the wheels of the carts and carriages introduced by the new inhabitants. The old houses, built of a kind of stone which is seemingly a pure concretion of small shells, overhang the streets with their wooden balconies; and the gardens be tween the houses are fenced on the side of the street with high walls of stone. Peeping over these walls you see branches of the pomegranate, and of the orange trees now fragrant with flowers, and, rising yet higher, the leaning boughs of the fig with its broad, luxuriant leaves. Occa sionally you pass the ruins of houses walls of stone with arches and stair-cases of the same material, which once be longed to stately dwellings. You meet in the streets with men of swarthy complexions and foreign physiognomy, and you hear them speaking to each other in a strange language. You are told that these are the remains of those who inhab- 86 ST. AUGUSTINE ited the country under the Spanish dominion, and that the dialect you have heard is that of the island of Minorca. " * Twelve years ago,' said an acquaintance of mine, ' when I first visited St. Augustine, it was a fine old Span ish town. A large proportion of the houses which you now see roofed like barns, were then flat-roofed ; they were all of shell rock, and these modern wooden buildings were not then erected. That old fort which they are now repairing, to fit it for receiving a garrison, was a sort of ruin, for the outworks had partly fallen, and it stood unoccupied by the military, a venerable monument of the Spanish domin ion. But the orange-groves were the wealth and ornament of St. Augustine, and their produce maintained the inhab itants in comfort. Orange-trees of the size and height of the pear-tree, often rising higher than the roofs of the houses, embowered the town in perpetual verdure. They stood so close in the groves that they excluded the sun; and the atmosphere was at all times aromatic with their leaves and fruit, and in spring the fragrance of the flowers was almost oppressive.' " The old fort of St. Mark, now called Fort Marion, a foolish change of name is a noble work, frowning over the Matanzas, which flows between St. Augustine and the island of Anastasia; and it is worth making a long journey to see. No record remains of its original construction; but it is supposed to have been erected about a hundred and fifty years since, and the shell rock of which it is built is dark with time. We saw where it had been struck with cannon balls, which, instead of splitting the rock, became imbedded and clogged among the loosened fragments of shell. This rock is therefore one of the best materials for fortification in the world. We were taken into the ancient prisons of the fort-dungeons, one of which was dimly lighted by a grated window, and another entirely without light; and ST. AUGUSTINE 87 by the flame of a torch we were shown the half-obliterated inscriptions scrawled on the walls long ago by prisoners. But in another corner of the fort, we were taken to look at the secret cells, which were discovered a few years since in consequence of the sinking of the earth over a narrow apartment between them. These cells are deep under ground, vaulted overhead, and without windows. In one of them a wooden machine was found, which some supposed might have been a rack, and in the other a quantity of human bones. The doors of these cells had been walled up and concealed with stucco, before the fort passed into the hands of the Americans. " You cannot be in St. Augustine a day without hearing some of its inhabitants speak of its agreeable climate. Dur ing the sixteen days of my residence here, the weather has certainly been as delightful as I could imagine. We have the temperature of early June as June is known in New York. The mornings are sometimes a little sultry; but after two or three hours a fresh breeze comes in from the sea sweeping through the broad piazzas, and breathing in at the windows. At this season it comes laden with the fragrance of the flowers of the Pride of India, and some times of the orange-tree, and sometimes brings the scent of roses, now in bloom. The nights are gratefully cool; and I have been told by a person who has lived here many years, that there are very few nights in summer when you can sleep without a blanket." DENVER GEORGE W. STEEVENS NEXT morning we were in Colorado. The sleepers were white with frost, but the sun was half a furnace at six in the morning, and the sky was all blue. We were rolling, rolling now across the raw prairie. Wave after wave of it spread out boundlessly on every side, a pale, sil very-grey under the frost and the dazzling sunshine. No room for agriculture here. Seen in the bulk the prairie is much like a smooth, undulating sea; but if you look closer it is more like a glacier a glacier of caked sand, wrinkled with a thousand crevasses in which streams should run, but which only rarely contain so much as a little ooze. The surface is dappled with tufts of sage-scrub small bushes that at a distance resemble bleached heather. Occasionally appeared sparse blades of coarse grass, but the rare steers and horses had a right to be thin. Nothing flourishes in this arid wilderness except prairie-dogs. Hundred of the brown- furred little devils, a mixture of rabbit and guinea-pig, were scampering up and down in the sun, or perking themselves bolt upright at the edge of their holes, comically, like a dog begging, to look at the train as it rolled past them. Pres ently in the distance the ground began to rise into hills, and then the hills into mountains. We did not climb them but turned northward and ran through country where the grey of the prairie began to be relieved with yellow of deciduous trees, and a green field or so of clover. So we ran into Denver, the mining capital of the West, the Queen City of the Plains. 88 DENVER 89 The Queen City of the Plains, if I may presume to criti cise on a very brief acquaintance, is more plain than queenly. A very well-made, well-arranged city beyond doubt, but undistinguished. Solid brick-built houses, neither too large nor too small, she has in the central part, and agreeable residences. Her tram-car system and electric lighting sys tem are not to be impeached. In one respect I noticed Denver has risen superior to American carelessness. Many cities are apt in places to leave the names or numbers of their streets to be remembered by the inhabitant, or con structed out of the inner consciousness. Denver puts a couple of boards at each street corner with not only the names but also some of the more important or necessary businesses between that corner and the next. But, alas! even Denver is human, for many of the corners have indeed the brackets for such boards, but no trace of boards for the brackets. The inhabitants appear, at first sight, to gain a precarious livelihood by selling each other railway tickets at reduced rates. Outward from the business centre Den ver is much the same as other American cities. Perhaps a little more beautiful than Chicago, in that the suburban roads are oftener planted with trees; perhaps a little less so, in that the acres of railroad tracks and factory in smaller Denver are less diluted by dwelling houses. Much the same in that the outskirts of both are dingy and dusty and sooty, and largely over-populated with Germans. But if Chicago has her lake to redeem her, Denver has her mountains. No city can be wholly unpleasing where you can look up from a street of railway ticket-offices and mining agencies to see a great mountain filling the end of the vista. It has been remarked by some profound observer that the spectacle of high mountains suggests majestic calm. It does. But how majestically calm mountains can look I never knew till I saw the Rockies from the Argo Smelting 90 DENVER Works. On one side a maze of railway lines and row on row of freight-trucks formed the foreground. Behind them was a large, low parallelogram of dingy brick and un- painted wood and dull slate; out of it rose more than a dozen fat chimneys, vomiting clouds of impenetrable black ness. The sun was smeared with the dirtiness of it; the air was poisoned with the reek of it, and throbbed with the pulse of machinery. On the other side rose the Rocky Mountains. In front were the naked brown sides of the lower eleva tions harsh in colour and savage in outline. Behind them towered summits fading from brown to a more kindly grey, and beginning to blend the wildness of their shape with the clouds. And yet further rose the white peaks above the clouds, basking serene and unperturbed in the glory of their neighbour, the sun. " In the world there is nothing great but man," I repeated with my face to the factory, and then looked at the mountains. They did not trouble to rebuke me. What is the smelter to them? They looked down on that table-land without interest when the smelter was born, and they will look down without condescending to triumph when it dies. Why did I plough through sand and Germans to the Argo Smelter? I haven't an idea, unless it was the weird of the conscientious journalist, which never lets him get away from what he cannot understand. There was next to no work going, and nearly all the plant was still and cold. It was even pathetic to see the sparse workmen strolling about the great sheds built to keep twenty times their num ber busy. But I saw them crushing silver ore, and it was about the grimmest industrial operation there could be. No delicacy of contrivance or sheen of racing steel, but heavy, grimy machinery, crushing the blocks of metallic rock by sheer brute force. Then I saw the powder being raked to and fro in a square furnace, and being raked round and DENVER 91 round in a circular furnace. Finally it comes out, as I un derstood, in a form in which it can be dissolved in hot water and thence precipitated as pure metal. At this point I saw some rubble in a wooden box, and turned to ask a work man whether any use could be made of it. He said it could; that was the silver. That the silver that dirty- white crumbling mess; half dust, half coagulated like frozen snow! That was it: there was about 200 ounces of it, he said, strewn about the box, and that was the crushings of over ten tons of ore. And was that the stuff that all this herculean and vulcanic machinery had been tearing its heart out and burning its ribs through to force from the rock? That the stuff that is shaking this whole country as it has hardly been shaken before? Away, vile dross! But that is not the view of Denver. Denver is the centre to which comes for smelting the gold and the silver, the copper and lead, and the other metals which are woven into all the mountains of Colorado. Colorado calls herself the Silver State, and of right, for she puts out more than one-seventh of the whole production of the world. But silver is not what it was. In the last three years it has gone down nearly fifty per cent. What was paying ore then is now only fit for the dump-heap. ' Talk of silver barons," said a mining engineer; "you could count them nowadays on the fingers of your two hands. I don't suppose there are half-a-dozen silver-mines now running, bar those that produce gold as well. It was a beautiful business once. But now you can't be surprised if people that are in want cry out for some change, even if it is not quite sound economically." I told him I was not surprised the less so since I perceived that he meant to vote for free coinage at 1 6 to I himself. So will they all in Colorado. Who can blame them? LAKE GEORGE T. ADDISON RICHARDS THE Indian, true to that dominant emotion of his heart a pure and reverent love of Nature always fervently worshipped at this shrine and baptized it humbly in sympathy with its own character and sentiment Hori- con, or the Silvery Waters; he called it, too, Canideriout, or the Tail of the Lake, from its relative position to the proximate waters of Champlain. The French Catholics, equally obeying the specialities of their morale, christened it, in honour of their religious creed, Lake Sacrament ; while the Anglo-Saxon, no less mindful of his highest and holiest love, made it do homage to his egotism, and named it after himself Lake George! As we jog on, we may, if we are poetically or archaeo- logically bent as one is apt to be under such circumstances recall the woeful story of the ill-fated Jenny McCrea, and the victory of Gates, and defeat of Burgoyne on Bemis' Heights, both stories of the vicinage. After dinner at Glen's Falls, we may delight us with the angry and tortu ous passage of the upper Hudson, over immense barriers of jagged marble; and looking into the past, we may espy the hiding-place of Cooper's fair creations Alice and Cora Munroe, with their veteran guardians, Uncas and Hawk- Eye. The clamour of human industry at this once quiet spot would now drown the footfall of the Mohican better than ever did his stealthy moccasin. Midway between these famous falls and the lake, we take a peep at Williams' Rock, a venerable boulder on the 92 LAKE GEORGE 93 wayside, remembered with the fate of its god-father, Col. Williams, killed here in the " soul-trying " times. The action which immortalized this ancient druid has given a dreary interest to another spot hard by a deep-down, dank, and dismal " Bloody Pond," where sleep the poor fellows who were left to pay the Scot at this sad merry-making. The charm of many of the islands and localities embraced in the view from Caldwell, is pleasantly heightened by asso ciations of historic incident. Diamond Isle was once (who, now watching its peaceful aspect, would ever think it!) a depot for military stores and war-clad bands. Long Point, hard by, in 1757, formed with the shore a harbour for the bateaux of Montcalm. Yonder, too, are still found the ruins of forts, and other adjuncts of the pride, pomp, and circumstances of glorious war. Fort William Henry, the most interesting of these relics, was built by the English during the colonial wars with the French, in 1775. Two years after, it was destroyed by the Gallic general, Mont- calm, on the surrender of the English garrison. The cir cumstances of this capitulation are too tragical to be easily forgotten. As the conquered troops were leaving the fort, under the promise of protection and escort, they were sav agely attacked by the Indian allies of the victors, and fifteen hundred were slain or made captives, the French looking calmly and perfidiously on the while, and denying all succour or interference. To complete the horror of the scene, the mangled corpses of more than a hundred women strewed the ground. In this vicinage are the ruins of Fort Gex>rge; and close by was once a third fortification, named in honour of Gen eral Gage. The average width of Lake George is between two and three miles. At the Mohican House, this average is ex ceeded; indeed, at one other point only is it anywhere 94 LAKE GEORGE broader than here. All the leading features of the locality are happily commanded here. The islands within range of the eye are many and of surpassing beauty and among them is that odd little nautical eccentricity called Ship Island, from the mimicry in its verdure to the proportions and lines of the ship. The landing is near the mouth of the northwest bay a special expanse of five miles, stolen from the main waters by the grand mountain promontory, aptly called the Tongue. It is the extension into the Lake of this ridge of hill which forms the Narrows, entered imme diately after passing Bolton. Contracted as the channel is at this point, it seems yet narrower from the greater ele vation of the mountains, among which are the most mag nificent peaks of the neighbourhood. Here is the home of Shelving Rock, with its hemisphere of palisades, and its famous dens of rattlesnakes; here, too, monarch of hills, the Black Mountain, with his rugged crown of rock, holds his court. Tongue Mountain is the favoured haunt of the Nimrods in their search for the luscious venison. Speaking of the chase reminds us that we owe a line to the sister sport of the angle. It is in the vicinage of Bolton that both these delights may be best attained, and particularly is it the field, par excellence, for piscatory achievements. Were it not that so very little credence is placed in the avoirdu pois of fishermen, we would allude modestly to the weight of certain astonishing creatures of the trout and bass kind which we have ourselves persuaded to the hook. Charming as are the scenes from the surface of the Lake, they are surpassed by the glimpses continually occurring in the passage of the road on the western shore (the precipi- tousness of the mountains on the other side admits of no land passage), and commanded by the summits of the hills. Leaving Bolton, the road which has thus far followed the margin or the vicinage of the water, steals off, and sullenly LAKE GEORGE 95 winds its rugged and laborious way across the mountains, offering nothing of interest until it again descends to the Lake near Garfield's a tedious traverse of a score of miles or more. The interval is much more rapidly and pleasantly made on the steamer. From Sabbath-Day Point and Gar- field's the road again jogs on merrily in the neighbourhood of the water. Descending the mountains at the northern end of this central portion of the Lake road, you catch a noble and welcome panorama of the upper part of the Horicon. But returning to Bolton we were about speak ing of the delightful scenes from the shore thereat. Within a short walk northward, an exceedingly characteristic view is found looking across the mouth of the Northwest bay of the Narrows. From all the eminences or from the shore, the landscape is here of admirable simplicity, breadth, and grandeur. It is seen most justly as the morning sun peeps over Black Mountain and its attendant peaks. Looking southward from various points yet further on, fine views of the head of the Lake are obtained among them the master feature of the southern extremity the French Mountain terminating a pleasant stretch of lawn, hill, and islanded water. It is while the eye is filled with such scenes as these modest hilltops offer, more, perhaps, than when embowered in the solitudes of the island shades, or than when wander ing by the rippling shore, that the soul is most conscious of the subtle nature of the charms which make us cling to and desire ever to dwell near Horicon. This secret and omnipotent essence is the rare presence of the quiet and grace of the beautiful heightened, but not overcome, by the laughing caprices of the picturesque, and the solemn dig nity of the grand in nature. The beautiful alone, wanting that contrast and variety which keeps curiosity alert and interested, soon wearies and cloys the sublime calling forth 96 LAKE GEORGE feelings of astonishment, and sometimes even of terror, stretches the fibres so much beyond their natural tone as to create pain, so that the effect, however great, cannot be very enduring. When these several qualities are united, as they are in the luxuriant, changeful, and wide-spreading landscape of Lake George, a pleasant and lasting sensation of delight is the result a healthy tone of pleasurable ex citement, in which are avoided the extremes both of the languor of beauty and the painful tension of emotion pro duced by the sublime. The attractions of Horicon will be yet more perfect when time shall effect the additional infusion of the picturesque, which will follow the enterprise, opulence, and taste of in creasing population. Though now exhibiting all the ele ments of perfect beauty, she yet bides her time for complete development. She is now, to her sister waters of the Old World, as the untaught forest maiden is to the peerless queen of the boudoir and saloon. The refining and spirit ualizing hand of art will soon enliven her quieter features, and soften her rougher characteristics. Ruined battlements and legendary shrines may never deck her bluffs and prom ontories in the mystic veil of romance, but happy cottages and smiling homes of health and content will climb her rude acclivities, and merry summer villas will peep glee fully out of the clustering shrubbery of her lovely isles, bringing to heart more grateful thoughts and hopes than would the vaunted accessories of older spots, inasmuch as they will whisper of a yet higher civilization and of a nobler life. So admirably attuned are all the elements of beauty in the scenery of Lake George, that on our first acquaintance with the region we could scarcely imagine it ever to appear under a different aspect than the sunny phase in which we then saw it. So perfect did nature appear, both in the LAKE GEORGE 97 general sentiment and in the most minute detail, that we could think of her doing " Nothing but that, more still, still so, and own No other function " As we gazed around upon the chattering waters and upon the rejoicing hills, we wondered whether storm and cloud ever darkened their radiant face whether the wrath of the mad and unchained elements ever managed to break the spell of calm repose. But we learned in due time that, as the mildest eye will sometimes glance in wrath, and the rosiest lip will curl in scorn, so the black scowl of the tempest would gather upon the brows of the peaceful hills, and hide the smile of the gentle floods of Horicon only, though, soon to pass away, and leave hill and water more verdant and sparkling than before. When the air is thus cleared by storm or shower, the surrounding hills glitter in almost painful distinctness, each stem and stone from the base to the crown of the mountains seeming to come within the grasp of your hand. Once deceived by this false sem blance we were persuaded to undertake the passage of the Lake and the ascent of Black Mountain. "It is so easy and simple a matter," said our adventurous friends, " and may be managed so readily and so rapidly." Alas! poor deluded wretches! Well was it that our fancy came with the rising of the sun, and that no delay followed in the exe cution, for night fairly overtook us before we regained our domicile, under the firm conviction of the verity of the old proverb touching the deceitfulness of appearances. As a memento of this excursion we brought back a rattlesnake which we demolished on the way; and the skin of which one of our party, following the sumptuary habits of the people, afterwards wore as a hat-band. Turning from the position whence we have been gazing upon the French 98 LAKE GEORGE Mountain, we may detect, upon the extreme left, the petite area of Fourteen Mile Island, lying at the base of Shelving Rock, and near the entrance to the Narrows. This is a famous temporary home of the Nimrods who chase the deer over the crags of the Tongue Mountain, opposite. The domestic appliances of this rude resting-place are as nomadic as the roughest hunter could desire. On the Pinacle, a lofty peak west of the hotel, a more extended panorama of the Lake is obtained. We often climbed to the summit of the hills on the road westward of Bolton; once we found ourselves there at the very peep of day, when the stern and rugged phiz of Black Mountain was bathed in the purple light of the rising sun; the few fleeting clouds visible in the heavens were tinged with gold, doubly gorgeous in contrast with the grey hue of the unillu- mined hills beneath, the blue waters, and the yet-sleeping islands. Still a few moments, and " heaven's wide arch was glorious with the sun's returning march." Floods of living light swept over the extended landscape the hun dred islets rubbed their sleepy eyes, and joyously awoke again, while the waters threw off the drapery of their couch in the shape of long lines of vapour, which the jocund king of day merrily performing the role of chambermaid busied himself in rolling carefully up on the hillside, and hiding away until they should be again required. It was one of those magical scenes of which the poet and painter more often dream than realize. Thus far our panorama gazings have (from the inter vening of the Tongue) shown us only the southern end of Horicon. At the 2200 feet elevation of the Black Mountain, the eye sweeps the entire extent of the lake Champlain, lying at its eastern base and of all the region round, to the peaks of the Adirondacks, and the green hills of Vermont. But very few tourists, few of the Nimrods LAKE GEORGE 99 even, brave the toils of an ascent to the crown of this stately pile. The way is wearisomely steep and beset with dan gers. Watching with due precaution for the rattlesnake, you may overlook the approach of the bear, or unexpectedly encounter the catamount not to mention the host of less distinguished animals, " native here, and to the manner born." When you are ready, or necessitated rather, to say adieu to Bolton (for continued parting is the sad alloy of the traveller's rare privilege of varied greeting), the little steamer will pick you up all in the morning betimes, and whisk you through the Narrows to your next bivouac, at Sabbath-Day Point. The passage of the Narrows, either in storm or sunshine, at noontide or night, is not the least agreeable item in your Lake experience. The waters here reach a depth of four hundred feet, and so surprisingly translucent are they, that you may watch the gambols of the finny peoples many fathoms below the surface. In most parts of the Lake you may count the pebbles at the bottom as your skiff glides along. We shall be set ashore at Sabbath-Day Point in a bat- teau, for want of a steamboat landing. Such a convenience was once found here. Once Sabbath-Day Point was a point everybody longed to know. A commodious and fash ionable summer hotel stood here, and a miraculous old land lord did the honours in his own remarkable way. Hotel, landlord, and visitors have all vanished. Nature, though, yet remains young, lovely, and riant as ever. The pleas~ ant strip of meadow pokes its merry nose into the Lake with the saucy impudence of other days, and scans with wonted satisfaction the glorious sweep of the waters, as they vanish southward in the defile of the Narrows; or northward, reflect on their broad expanse the Titan phiz 100 LAKE GEORGE of good Saint Anthony, and the rocky flanks of Roger's Slide. In 1756, a handful of colonists here successfully repelled a stormy onslaught of the Indians and French. Here, too, in 1758, General Abercrombie and his gallant army lunched, en route from Fort George, at the head of the Lake, to attack the French at Ticonderoga. The sky was gemmed with stars, and the disc of the moon fell unbroken upon the motionless waters, as this glorious array of a thou sand boats, bearing sixteen thousand men, pursued their stealthy march. As the brilliant cavalcade debarked, the bright uniforms sparkled in the beams of the rising sun, and the morning being the Sabbath, the little cape was happily called Sabbath-Day Point. Here again, in the memorable 1776, the patriot militia dealt some successful back-handers to the Tories and their Indian allies. From Sabbath-Day Point we may re-embark on the steamer, or continue our journey by land, as the road now touches the Lake again. Three miles onward we make the little village of Hague, if village it can be styled. The visitor will remember the locality as Garfield's one of the oldest and most esteemed summer camps. Judge Garfield would seem to have an intimate acquaintance with every deer on the hillside, and with every trout in the waters, so habitually are these gentry found at his luxurious table. An excellent landing facilitates the approach to Gar- field's, and the steamboat touches daily, up and down. The shore route hence to Ticonderoga is through a pleasant country, well worth exploring. We will pursue our journey now by water. Just beyond, the Lake is again reduced to Procrustean limits, as it brushes between the opposing walls of Rogers' Rock and Anthony's Slide. The reader is doubtless familiar with the ruse by which Major Rogers, flying from the Indians in 1758, persuaded them LAKE GEORGE IOI that he had achieved the marvellous feat of sliding down this grand declivity; thus cleverly reversing the theory of the sublime Western poet seeking to " Prove that one Indian savage Is worth two white men, on an av'rage." North of Rogers' Rock the character of the Lake changes ; the wild mountain shores yield to a fringe of verdant lawn and shady copse, and the water grows momently more shal low. This last variation was a Godsend to the first Eng lish captives, detained by the French and Indians in the olden time, upon Prisoners' Island, hereabouts. At a quiet moment they took French leave, and waded ashore. Directly west of Prisoners' Island is Howe's Landing, the point of debarkation of the mighty flotilla which we met at Sabbath-Day Point: and here, too, good reader, is our landing, and the end of our voyage of Horicon. You will now collect your traps, and stepping with us, into one of the carriages which await take a pleasant jog of four miles down the merry outlet of Lake George, and through the two villages of Ticonderoga, or " Tye," as they are familiarly called, to the brave old fort which the sturdy Ethan Allen so audaciously seized, " in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." In this little four-mile gallop of Horicon to Lake Champlain, the water makes a descent of two hundred and thirty feet, forming in the journey two series of very considerable cas cades, called the Upper and Lower Falls; both made indus trially available by the denizens of the villages just men tioned. This ride, with its opening vistas of the valleys and hills of Vermont; its foaming cataracts; its charming reve lations of the grand waters of Champlain ; and, above all, its termination amidst the remains of the famed old Fort, is a welcome sequel to the day's delights. PLYMOUTH ROCK JOHN GORHAM PALFREY THE narrow peninsula, sixty miles long, which ter minates in Cape Cod, projects eastwardly from the mainland of Massachusetts, in shape resembling the human arm bent rectangularly at the elbow and again at the wrist. In the basin enclosed landward by the extreme point of this projection, in the roadstead of what is now Provincetown, the Mayflower dropped her anchor at noon on a Saturday near the close of autumn. The exigencies of a position so singular demanded an organization adequate to the preser vation of order and of common safety, and the following instrument was prepared and signed: " In the name of God, amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c., hav ing undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honour of our King and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one of another, covenant and com bine ourselves together in a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid ; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitu tions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and 102 PLYMOUTH ROCK 103 obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder sub scribed our names, at Cape Cod, the nth of November, in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini 1620." Such was the beginning of the Colony of Plymouth. To the end of its separate history, it continued to be an humble community in numbers and in wealth. When four years had passed, the village consisted of only thirty-two cabins, inhabited by a hundred and eighty persons. The government of the company was proscribed by the majority of voices, and administered by one of its members, with another for his assistant. It was not so much a com monwealth as a factory, of which the head bore the title of Governor. Six years later, it had added two hundred more; and, at the end of its life of seventy years, its popu lation, scattered through several towns, had probably not come to exceed eight thousand. It is on account of the vir tue displayed in its institution and management, and of the great consequences to which it ultimately led, that the Colony of Plymouth claims the attention of mankind. In any other view, its records w r ould be unattractive. The building of log hovels, the turning of sand-heaps into corn fields, dealings with stupid Indians and with overreaching partners in trade, anxious struggles to get a living, and, at most, the sufferings of men, women, and children, wast ing under cold, sickness, and famine, feebly supply, as the staple of a history, the place of those splendid exhibitions of power, and those critical conflicts of intrigue and war, which fill the annals of great empires. At the time of the adoption of the compact for a govern ment, Carver was chosen Governor of the company. In the afternoon, " fifteen or sixteen men, well armed," were sent on shore to reconnoitre and collect fuel. They re- 104 PLYMOUTH ROCK turned at evening, reporting that they had seen neither person nor dwelling, but that the country was well wooded, and that the appearance as to soil was promising. Having kept their Sabbath in due retirement, the men began the labours of the week by landing a shallop from the ship and hauling it up the beach for repairs, while the women went on shore to wash clothes. While the car penter and his men were at work on the boat, sixteen others, armed and provisioned, with Standish for their commander, set off on foot to explore the country. The only incident of this day was the sight of five or six savages, who on their approach ran away too swiftly to be overtaken. At night, lighting a fire and setting a guard, the party bivouacked at the distance, as they supposed, of ten miles from their vessel. Proceeding southward next morning, they observed marks of cultivation, some heaps of earth, which they took for signs of graves, and the remains of a hut, with " a great kettle, which had been some ship's kettle." In a heap which they opened, they found two baskets containing four or five bushels of Indian corn, of which they took as much as they could carry away in their pockets and in the kettle. Further on, they saw two canoes, and " an old fort or pali- sado, made by some Christians," as they thought. The sec ond night, which was rainy, they encamped again, with more precautions than before. On Friday evening, having lost their way meanwhile, and been amused by an accident to Bradford, who was caught in an Indian deer-trap, they returned to their friends " both weary and welcome," and idelivered in their corn into the store to be kept for seed, for they knew not how to come by any, and therefore were very glad, proposing, so soon as they could meet with any of the inhabitants of that place, to make them large satis faction. The succeeding week was spent in putting their tools in PLYMOUTH ROCK 105 order and preparing timber for a new boat. During this time, which proved to be cold and stormy, much incon venience was experienced from having to wade " a bow shot " through the shallow water to the shore; and many took " coughs and colds, which afterwards turned to the scurvy." On Monday of the week next following, twenty- four of the colonists, in the shallop, which was now re fitted, set out for an exploration along the coast, accom panied by Jones, the shipmaster, and ten of his people, in the long-boat. That day and the following night they suffered from a cold snowstorm, and were compelled to run in to the shore for security. The next day brought them into the harbour to which the preceding journey by land had been extended, now named by them Cold Har bour, and ascertained to have a depth of twelve feet of water at flood-tide. Having slept under a shelter of pine trees, they proceeded to. make an examination of the spot as to its fitness for their settlement; in doing which, under the snow-covered and frozen surface, they found another parcel of corn and a bag of beans. These spoils they sent back in the shallop with Jones and sixteen of the party, who were ill, or worn out with exposure and fatigue. Marching inland five or six miles, they found a grave with a deposit of personal articles, as " bowls, trays, dishes," " a knife, a pack-needle," " a little bow," and some " strings and bracelets of fine white beads." Two wigwams were seen, which appeared to have been recently inhabited. Re turning to their boat in the evening, the party hastened to rejoin their friends. The question was discussed whether they should make a further examination of the coast, or sit down at the harbour which had been visited. The land about it had been under cultivation. The site appeared healthy, and convenient for defence, as well as for taking whales, of 106 PLYMOUTH ROCK which numbers were daily seen. The severity of the win ter season was close at hand, and the delay, fatigue, and risk of further explorations were dreaded. But on the whole, the uncertainty as to an adequate supply of water, with the insufficiency of the harbour, which, though com modious for boats, was too shallow for larger vessels, was regarded as a conclusive objection, and it was resolved to make a further examination of the bay. The mate of the 'Mayflower had told them of Agawam, now Ipswich, as a good harbour, with fertile land, and facilities for fishing. But, as things stood, it was thought too distant for a visit. As soon as the state of the weather permitted, a party of ten, including Carver, Bradford, and others of the prin cipal men, set off with eight seamen in the shallop on what proved to be the final expedition of discovery. The severity of the cold was extreme. :< The water froze on their clothes, and made them many times like coats of iron." Coasting along the cape in a southerly direction for six or seven leagues, they landed and slept at a place where ten or twelve Indians had appeared on the shore. The Indians ran away on being approached, and at night it was supposed that it was their fires which appeared at four or five miles' distance. The next day, while part of the company in the shallop examined the shore, the rest, ranging about the country where are now the towns of Wellfleet and East- ham, found a burial-place, some old wigwams, and a small store of parched acorns, buried in the ground ; but they met with no inhabitants. The following morning, at daylight, they had just ended their prayers, and were preparing breakfast at their camp on the beach, when they heard a yell, and a flight of arrows fell among them. The assail ants turned out to be thirty or forty Indians, who, being fired upon, retired. Neither side had been harmed. A number of the arrows were picked up, " some whereof PLYMOUTH ROCK 107 were headed with brass, others with hart's horn, and others with eagle's claws." Getting on board, they sailed all day along the shore in a storm of snow and sleet, making, by their estimate, a distance of forty or fifty miles, without discovering a har bour. In the afternoon, the gale having increased, their rudder was disabled, and they had to steer with oars. At length the mast was carried away, and they drifted in the dark with a flood tide. With difficulty they brought up under the lee of a " small rise of land." Here a part of the company, suffering from wet and cold, went on shore, though not without fear of hostile neighbours, and lighted a fire by which to pass the inclement night. In the morn ing, " they found themselves to be on an island secure from the Indians, where they might dry their stuff, fix their pieces, and rest themselves; and, this being the last day of the week, they prepared there to keep the Sabbath. 1 " On Monday, they sounded the harbour, and found it fit for shipping, and marched also into the land, and found 1 " A trustworthy tradition has preserved the knowledge of the landing-place, naturally an object of interest both to the inhabi tants and to strangers. It was Plymouth Rock. Part of it is now imbedded in a wharf. When this was about to be built, in 1741, Elder Thomas Faunce, then ninety-one years old, came to visit the rock, and to remonstrate against its being exposed to injury; and he repeated what he had heard of it from the first planters. Elder Faunce's testimony was transmitted through Mrs. White, who died in 1810, ninety-five years old, and Deacon Ephraim Spooner, who died in 1818, at the age of eighty-three. In 1775, the rock was broken into two pieces, in an attempt to remove it to the town square. The large fragment which was separated was, in 1834, placed before Pilgrim Hall, and inclosed within an iron railing. " The tradition does not appear to have unequivocally determined who it was that landed on the rock, whether the exploring party of ten men who went on shore at Plymouth, December n (old style), or the whole company, who came into Plymouth harbour in I0 g PLYMOUTH ROCK divers cornfields and little running brooks, a place, as they supposed, fit for situation; ... so they returned to the ship again with this news to the rest of their people, which did much comfort their hearts." Such is the record of that event which has made the twenty-second of De cember a memorable day in the calendar. the Mayflower on Saturday, December 16, and who, or a part of whom, 'went a land' two days after. The received opinion, that the same landing-place, as being the most convenient within sight, was used on both occasions, appears altogether probable." FORT NIAGARA S. DE VEAUX THIS fortress is in latitude 43 cleg. 14 sec. N. In 1679, a small spot was enclosed by palisades, by M. De Salle, an officer in the service of France. In 1725, the fort was built. In 1759, it was taken by the British, under Sir William Johnson. The capture has been ascribed to treachery, though there is not known to be any existing authority to prove the charge. In 1796, it was surrendered to the United States. On the igth of December, 1813, it was again taken by the British, by surprise; and in March, J 8i5, again surrendered to the Americans. This old fort is as much noted for enormity and crime, as for any good ever derived from it by the nation in occupation. While in the hands of the French, there is no doubt of its having been, at times, used as a prison; its close and impregnable dungeons, where light was not admitted, and where re mained, for many years after, clear traces, and a part of the ready instruments for execution, or for murder. Dur ing the American Revolution it was the headquarters of all that was barbarous, unrelenting, and cruel. There, were congregated the leaders and chiefs of those bands of murderers and miscreants, that carried death and destruc tion into the remote American settlements. There, civil ized Europe revelled with savage America; and ladies of education and refinement mingled in the society of those whose only distinction was to wield the bloody tomahawk and scalping-knife. There, the squaws of the forest were raised to eminence, and the most unholy unions between 109 HO FORT NIAGARA them and the officers of highest rank, smiled upon and coun tenanced. There, in their stronghold, like a nest of vul tures, securely, for seven years, they sallied forth and preyed upon the distant settlements of the Mohawks and Susquehannas. It was the depot of their plunder; there, they planned their forays, and there they returned to feast, until the hour of action came again. Fort Niagara is in the State of New York, and stands on a point of land at the mouth of the Niagara River. It is a traditionary story, that the mess-house, which is a very strong building and the largest in the fort, was erected by stratagem. A considerable, though not powerful, body of French troops had arrived at the point. Their force was inferior to the surrounding Indians, of whom they were under some apprehensions. They obtained consent of the Indians to build a wigwam, and induced them, with some of their officers, to engage in an extensive hunt. The materials had been made ready, and, while the Indians were absent, the French built. When the parties returned, at night, they had advanced so far with the work as to cover their faces, and to defend themselves against the sav ages, in case of an attack. In progress of time, it became a place of considerable strength. It had its bastions, ravines; its ditch and pickets; its curtains and counterscarp; its cov ered way, drawbridge, raking batteries; its stone towers, laboratory, and magazine; its mess-house, barracks, bakery and blacksmith shop; and, for worship, a chapel, with a large ancient dial over the door, to mark the hourly course of the sun. It was, indeed, a little city of itself, and for a long period the greatest south of Montreal, or west of Albany. The fortifications originally covered a space of about eight acres. At a few rods from the barrier gate, was the burying ground; it was filled with memorials of the mutability of human life; and over the portals of the FORT NIAGARA III entrance was painted, in large and emphatic characters, the word " REST." It is generally believed that some of the distant for tresses of France were often converted into state prisons, as well as for defensive purposes. There was much about Fort Niagara to establish the belief that it had been used as such. The dungeon of the mess-house, called the black hole, was a strong, dark, and dismal place; and in one cor ner of the room was fixed the apparatus for strangling such unhappy wretches as fell under the displeasure of the despotic rulers of those days. The walls of this dungeon, from top to bottom, had engraved upon them French names, and mementos in that language. That the prisoners were no common persons was clear, as the letters and emblems were chiselled out in good style. In June, 1812, when an attack was momentarily expected upon the fort by a superior British force, a merchant, resident at Fort Ni agara, deposited some valuable articles in this dungeon. He took occasion, one night, to visit it with a light; he exam ined the walls, and there, among hundreds of French names, he saw his own family name engraved, in large letters. He took no notes, and has no recollection of the other names and memorials; he intended to repeat his visit, and to ex tend his examination, but other avocations caused the sub ject to be neglected; and it was not brought to mind again until late years, when all was changed. In further corroboration that Fort Niagara had wit nessed scenes of guilt and foul murder, was the fact that, in 1805, it became necessary to clear out an old sink at tached to the mess-house. The bones of a female were found therein, evidently, from the place where discovered, the victim of some atrocious crime. There were many legendary stories about the fort. In the centre of the mess-house was a well of water, but, it 112 FORT NIAGARA having been poisoned by some of the former occupants, in latter years the water was not used; and it was a story with the soldiers, and believed by the superstitious, that at midnight the headless trunk of a French general officer was often seen sitting on the curb of the old well, where he had been murdered, and his body thrown in; and, accord ing to dreamers and money-diggers, large treasures, both in gold and silver, have been buried in many of the nooks and corners of the old fort. Many applications used to be made to the American officers, to dig for money, and per sons have been known to come from a considerable dis tance for that purpose. The requests were, of course, refused. Of late years, matter of fact has been more strange than romance. William Morgan was kidnapped from the jail in Canandaigua; carried in a post coach, undiscovered and by violence, for more than one hundred miles, through a populous country; the perpetrators, at the time, unsus pected; was lodged in the magazine at Fort Niagara, for three or four days ; and then was never more seen. He was the last human victim offered up in these recesses of oppres sion and blood. What future scenes are to be acted in this useless and ruinous old fort, time will divulge. In the palmy days of Fort Niagara, before the last war with England, and while in possession of the United States, the commanding officer was the principal man in the sur rounding country for many miles, and the lieutenants and under officers, men of considerable importance; but the show and eclat of military command have vanished, and the farmer, the mechanic, and the man of business, fill, independently and respectably, their allotted stations. THE BRANDYWINE BENSON JOHN LOSSING ON the morning of the nth of September, the day of the battle on the Brandywine, the main strength of the American army was posted on the heights east of Chad's Ford, and commanding that passage of the creek. The brigades of Muhlenberg and Weeden, which composed Greene's division, occupied a position directly east of the ford; Wayne's division and Proctor's artillery were posted upon the brow of an eminence near Chad's house, imme diately above the ford; and the brigades of Sullivan, Ster ling, and Stephen, which formed the right wing, extended some distance up the river, on the left of the main body. At Pyle's Ford, two miles below, General Armstrong was posted with one thousand Pennsylvania militia, to guard that pass. General Maxwell, with about one thousand light troops, took post on the heights upon the west side of the river, about a mile from Chad's Ford, to dispute that passage. At daybreak, the column under Cornwallis moved along the Lancaster road, which, for several miles, ran nearly parallel with the Brandywine. General Howe was with this division. Knyphausen and his command moved for ward at nine o'clock. A dense fog enshrouded the coun try, and the scouting parties of both armies often came in close contact before they were aware of their proximity. From behind the walls of the graveyard of the Kennet meeting-house, and also of houses, trees, and clumps of bushes, parties of militia kept up an annoying fire upon the "3 II 4 THE BRANDYWINE advancing enemy. Knyphausen, however, pushed forward toward Chad's Ford. He sent a strong advance party to dislodge Maxwell. They met at about ten o'clock, and a severe engagement ensued. Maxwell was driven back to the verge of the stream at the ford, where he was re-enforced. Turning upon his pursuers, he made a furious charge. The ranks of the enemy were thrown into confusion, and fell back upon Knyphausen's main column. Unable to cope with Maxwell in open battle without bringing a larger force into action, Knyphausen sent a detachment through the woods to make an attack upon his flank. Perceiving this movement, Maxwell retreated across the stream, leaving the whole vast bank of the Brandywine in possession of the enemy. Knyphausen now brought forward his ordnance, and from the brow of the hill upon the west side of the stream he kept up a strong cannonade upon the Americans, without attempting to cross. The fire was returned with spirit by Proctor's artillery. Knyphausen did not cross the Brandywine, because he was instructed by Howe to amuse the Americans with feigned efforts to make the passage of the ford, until Cornwallis should cross above, and gain the right and rear of the patriots. This accomplished, Knyp hausen was directed to push across Chad's Ford, when the two divisions of the royal army would make a simultaneous attack. During these manoeuvres of Knyphausen, several detachments of the Americans crossed the river, and boldly attacked his flanking parties and those who were labouring to throw up intrenchments. Captains Porterfield and Waggoner having secured a footing on the western side, General Maxwell recrossed the stream with a considerable force, drove the enemy from the ground, killed about thirty men, and seized a quantity of intrenching tools, with which they were constructing a battery. Knyphausen sent an THE BRANDYWINE THE BRANDYWINE 115 overwhelming force against them, which soon drove the Americans back to their lines on the east side of the river. General Sullivan, who commanded the right wing of the Americans, was ordered to guard the fords as high up as Buffington's, just above the forks of the Brandy wine. He sent scouting parties in various directions to observe the movements of the enemy. Colonel Moses Hazen was sta tioned with a considerable force at Jones's Ford. Between nine and ten in the morning, Colonel Theodoric Bland, with some light horse, crossed the Brandywine at Jones's Ford, and discovered a portion of Cornwallis' division marching toward the west branch, at Trimble's Ford. Bland despatched a messenger to Sullivan with the infor mation, which was confirmed by another despatch from Colonel Ross (dated at " Great Valley road at eleven o'clock"), who was in the rear of Cornwallis' division, informing Sullivan that " five thousand men, with sixteen or eighteen field pieces, were on the march for Taylor's and Jefferies's Fords." Similar intelligence was sent by Colonel Hazen. These accounts reached Washington, from Sullivan, between eleven and twelve o'clock. The comman- der-in-chief immediately ordered Sullivan to pass the Brandywine and attack Cornwallis, while he, with the main division, crossed, and engaged Knyphausen at Chad's Ford. General Greene, of Washington's division, was or* dered to cross the river above the ford and gain Knyp- hausen's rear. Before these several movements could be executed, counter intelligence was received by Sullivan from Major Spear, of the militia, posted upon the forks of the Brandywine, who informed him that there was no appear ance of an enemy in that quarter. Spear's information was confirmed by Sergeant Tucker, who had been sent out in that direction expressly to gain information. Relying upon this intelligence, Sullivan halted. He despatched a mes- Il6 THE BRANDY WINE senger to Washington with the information, and the medi tated attack upon the enemy at Chad's Ford was aban doned. Greene, who had crossed with his advanced guard, was recalled. While Washington was thus kept in suspense by con flicting intelligence, Cornwallis gained his coveted advan tage. He made a circuitous march of seventeen miles, keeping beyond the American patrols, crossed the west branch of the Brandywine at Trimble's Ford, and the east branch at Jefferis's, and gained the heights near the Bir mingham meeting-house, within two miles of Sullivan's right flank, before that general was certain that Howe and Corn wallis had left Kennet Square ! This apparent want of vigi lance on the part of his patrols drew upon Sullivan the severest censure of the public. Already the failure of an expedition against British posts on Staten Island, under his general command, had biased public opinion against him; and Congress, wherein Sullivan had several active enemies, had directed General Washington to appoint a court to investigate the matter. The disasters which occurred on the Brandywine were charged to Sullivan's want of vigi lance, energy, and skill, and he was held responsible for the defeat of our troops. Even his honourable acquittal, by a court-martial, subsequently, did not altogether remove from the public mind a distrust of his ability as a general officer. When Sullivan was assured, by a note from Colonel Bland, dated at " quarter past one o'clock," that the enemy were in great force on Osborne's Hill, a little to the right of the Birmingham meeting-house, he despatched a mes senger to Washington with the intelligence, and marched immediately to oppose the enemy. His division consisted of his own, Sterling's, and Stephens' brigades. Upon the gentle slopes near the Birmingham meeting-house he began to form his line for battle, his left extending toward the THE BRAND YWINE 117 Brandywine. It was an advantageous position, for both flanks were covered by thick woods; but, in consequence of the delay in waiting the return of the messenger with orders from the commander-in-chief, the rough and broken char acter of the ground, and the time occupied by Sullivan in making a wide circuit in bringing his brigade to its assigned place in the line, he was not fully prepared for action when the refreshed and well-formed battalions of the enemy, under Cornwallis, came sweeping on from Osborne's Hill, and commenced a furious attack. The advanced guard were German troops. On arriving at the Street road, they were fired upon by a company of Americans stationed in an orchard north of Samuel Jones's brick dwelling-house. The Hessians returned the fire, and the action soon became gen eral. The artillery of both armies opened with terrible effect; and while the Americans maintained their position, the carnage was great. The most indomitable courage was displayed, and for a while the result was doubtful. The Americans, many of them unskilful militia, repelled charge after charge of the well-disciplined infantry, chasseurs, grenadiers, and guards of the enemy, until overwhelming numbers obliged them to yield. The right wing of the Americans, under General Deborre, first gave way, and the left, under Sullivan, soon followed. The latter officer used every exertion to rally the flying troops, but in vain. In broken fragments they fled over the fields toward the main division of the army at Chad's Ford. The centre division (Stirling's brigade), in which was General Con- way, with eight hundred men, yet remained firm as a rock in the midst of the wild ocean of carnage. To this divi sion Sullivan now attached himself, and, with Stirling and Lafayette, engaged personally in the hottest of the battle. To this point Cornwallis directed his energies. His artil lery made dreadful breaches in their ranks, and strewed Il8 THE BRANDYWINE the earth with the slain. Resistance was vain, and, when hope no longer encouraged the contending patriots of the centre, they, too, wheeled, and joined their comrades in their flight. Two of Sullivan's aides were killed ; and La fayette, who had leaped from his horse, and, sword in hand, was endeavouring to rally the yielding patriots, was wounded in the leg by a musket-ball, and fell. Gimat, his aide, helped him on a horse, and he escaped. Despair seized the troops, and every effort to rally them was, for a time, vain. They fled to the woods in the rear, pursued by the victorious enemy. Some of them were rallied half a mile northward of Dilworth, and a brief encounter en sued between the fugitives and the pursuing party of the left wing of the enemy. The conflict was short, and the Americans again fled. The British right wing got en tangled in the woods, and did not participate in the subse quent engagement, when Greene checked the pursuers. On receiving intelligence of the approach of the British, Washington, with Greene's division of Virginians and Pennsylvanians, pushed forward to the support of Sullivan, leaving General Wayne at Chad's Ford to oppose the p;is- sage of Knyphausen. When the first cannon-peals from the Birmingham meeting-house broke over the country, Greene pressed forward to the support of the right wing. His first brigade, under General Weedon, took the lead, and so rapid was their march that they travelled four miles in forty minutes. Between Dilworth and the meet ing-house they met the flying Americans, closely pursued by the British. Greene, by a skillful movement, opened his ranks and received the fugitives, then, closing them again, he covered their retreat and checked the pursuers by a continual fire of artillery. At a narrow defile about a mile from the meeting-house, in the direction of Chester, flanked on each side by woods, he changed his front, faced THE BRANDYWINE 119 the enemy, and kept them at bay while the retreating party rested and formed in his rear. Greene defended this pass with great skill and bravery until twilight, when the pur suers encamped for the night. In this defence the brigades of Weedon and Muhlenberg were greatly distinguished, particularly the Tenth Virginia Regiment, under Colonel Stevens, and a Pennsylvania regiment, under Colonel Stewart. We have observed that the plan of the enemy was to attack the Americans front and rear at the same time, by Cornwallis gaining the right flank of the patriots, and Knyphausen crossing the Brandywine at Chad's Ford. The firing of heavy guns on the American right was to be the signal for the German general to ford the stream. When the firing commenced at the Birmingham meeting-house, Knyphausen observed the departure of Greene's division, and the consequent weakening of the defence of the pas sage of the river. He immediately made a proper disposi tion of his troops for crossing. Wayne was on the alert, and, the moment Knyphausen's forces moved forward, he opened upon him a heavy fire of artillery from his intrench- ments and the battery near Chad's house. Although in no condition to oppose nearly one-half of the British army, he stood firm at first, and gallantly confronted the heavy and steadily progressing columns. But on receiving intelligence of the defeat of Sullivan at Birmingham meeting-house, and discovering that a considerable force of the enemy, who had penetrated the woods, were coming out upon his flank, Wayne ordered a retreat. This was accomplished in great disorder, leaving his artillery and munitions of war in the hands of Knyphausen. They retreated, in broken columns and confused fragments, behind the division of General Greene, then gallantly defending the pass near Dilworth, and joined the other defeated troops. The approach of 120 THE BRANDYWINE night ended the whole conflict. The Americans retreated to Chester that night, where they rendezvoused, and the next day marched toward Philadelphia, and encamped near Germantown. General Armstrong, who was stationed at Pyle's Ford, had no opportunity to engage in the action. The British remained upon the field, near Dilworth, Howe taking up his quarters at Gilpin's, a few miles from Chad's Ford. Military men, when considering the battle of Brandy- wine, have questioned the judgment of Washington in incurring the great risk incident to a disparity in numbers and discipline. The numbers engaged in the action have never been accurately ascertained. The British effective force, on the day of the battle, was probably not less than seventeen thousand men, while that of the Americans did not exceed eleven thousand, and many of these were raw militia. Washington was aware of the expectations of Congress and the whole country, and wisely considered that a defeat in battle would be less depressing upon the minds of the soldiers and the people, than permitting the enemy to march, without opposition, to the capture of Philadel phia, then the political metropolis of America. Influenced by these considerations, he resolved to fight the enemy; and had not conflicting intelligence perplexed and thwarted him in his plans, it is probable that victory would have crowned the American army. The result was disastrous, and many noble patriots slept their last sleep upon the battlefield that night. THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER JARED SPARKS THE first Europeans who are certainly known to have discovered and explored this river, were two Frenchmen, Father Marquette and M. Joliet, in the year 1673. Marquette was a native of Picardy, and Charle- voix calls him " one of the most illustrious missionaries of New France," adding that he travelled widely, and made many discoveries besides that of the Mississippi. He had resided some time in Canada, and attained a proficiency in the languages of the principal native tribes, who resided in the regions bordering on the Upper Lakes. The first set tlement of the old town of Michillimackinac, in 1671, is ascribed to his exertions and influences. The Indians had given many accounts of a great river at the West, which flowed southwardly, and which they called Mississipy, as the word is written by Marquette. It be came a matter of curious speculation, what course the river pursued, and at what place it disembouged itself into the sea. There were three opinions on this subject. First, that it ran towards the southwest, and entered the Gulf of Cali fornia; secondly, that it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico; and thirdly, that it found its way in a more easterly direc tion, and discharged itself into the Atlantic Ocean some where on the coast of Virginia. The question was not less important in a commercial and political view, than inter esting as a geographical problem. To establish this point, and to make such other dis coveries as opportunities would admit, M. de Frontenac, 121 122 THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER the Governor of Canada, encouraged an expedition to be undertaken. The persons to whom it was intrusted were M. Joliet, then residing at Quebec, and Father Marquette, who was at Michillimackinac, or in the vicinity of that place. Marquette wrote an account of his tour and voy age down the Mississippi, which was sent to France, and published eight years afterwards in Paris. From this ac count the following particulars are chiefly taken. In some parts the translation is nearly literal, and all the prominent facts are retained. On the 1 3th of May, 1673, Father Marquette and M. Joliet, with five other Frenchmen, embarked in two canoes, with a small provision of Indian corn and smoked meat, having previously acquired from the Indians all the intel ligence they could afford respecting their proposed route. The first nation through which they passed, was the Folles Avoines (Wild Rice), so called from the grain of that name, which abounds in the rivers and marshy lands. This plant is described as growing about two feet above the water, resembling European oats, and gathered by the savages during the month of September. The ears are dried, separated from the chaff, and prepared for food either by pounding into meal, or simply boiling the grain in water. The natives, having been made acquainted by Father Marquette with his design of visiting the most remote nations and preaching to them the Gospel, did their utmost to dissuade him from it, representing the cruelty of some of the tribes, and their warlike state, the dangerous naviga tion of the river, the dreadful monsters that were found in it, and, finally, the excessive heat of the climate. He thanked them for their good advice, but declined following it; assuring them that, to secure the success of his undertaking, he would gladly give his life; that he felt THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER 123 no fear of the monsters they described; and that their information would only oblige him to keep more on his guard against surprise. After having prayed, and given them some instructions, he parted from them, and arrived at the Bay of Puans, now called Green Bay, where consid erable progress had been made by the French priests in the conversion of the Indians. The name of this bay has a less unpleasant meaning in the Indian, than in the French language, signifying also salt bay, which induced Father Marquette to make strict researches for salt springs in this vicinity, but without suc cess. He concluded, therefore, that the name was given to it in consequence of the ooze and mud, deposited there, from whence, as he thought, arise vapours that produce frequent and violent thunder-storms. He speaks of this bay as about thirty leagues long, and eight leagues wide at its entrance, gradually contracting towards its head, where the flux and reflux of the tides, much like those of the sea, may be easily observed. Leaving this bay, they ascended the river, since known as Fox River, that empties into it. At its mouth, he says, the river is broad and deep, and flows gently; but, as you advance, its course is interrupted by rapids and rocks; which he passed, however, in safety. It abounds with bustards, ducks, and teal, attracted by the wild rice, which grows there. Approaching the village of Maskoutins, or Nation of Fire, he had the curiosity to taste the mineral water of a stream in its vicinity. The village consisted of three several nations, namely, Miamis, Maskoutins, and Kika- beaux. The first were the most friendly and liberal, and the finest-looking men. Their hair was long over their ears. They were good warriors, sucessful in their expedi tions, docile, and fond of instruction. They were so eager to listen to Father Allonezo, when he was among them, that 124 THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER they allowed him no repose, even in the night. The Mas- kontins and Kikabeaux were coarser, and less civilized; their wigwams were constructed of rushes (birch bark being scarce in this country), and might be rolled up in bundles and carried where they pleased. In visiting these people, Father Marquette was much gratified at seeing a large cross erected in the centre of the village, decorated with thank offerings to the Great Spirit, for their success during the last winter. The situation of the village was striking and beautiful, it being built on an eminence, whence the eye overlooked on all sides a bound less extent of prairie, interspersed with groves and forests. The soil was good, producing abundantly Indian corn, grapes, and plums. Immediately on their arrival, Father Marquette and M. Joliet assembled the chiefs, and explained to them the ob jects of their expedition, expressing their determination to proceed at all risks, and making them some presents. They requested the assistance of two guides, to put them in their way; which request the natives readily granted, returning for their presents a mat, which served them as a bed dur ing the voyage. The next day, being the loth of June, the two Miamis, their guides, embarked with them in sight of all the inhabitants of the village, who looked with aston ishment on the hardihood of seven Frenchmen in under taking such an expedition. They knew that within three leagues of the Maskoutins was a river which discharged itself into the Mississippi; and further, that their course must be west southwest; but so many marshes and small lakes intervened, that the route was intricate; the more so, as the river was overgrown with wild rice, which obstructed the channel to such a degree that it was difficult to follow it. On this account their guides were necessary, who conducted them safely to THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER 125 a portage, which was about two thousand seven hundred paces across. The guides aided them in transporting their canoes over the portage to the river, which ran towards the west, and then they left them and returned. The travellers quitted the waters, which flow towards Quebec, five or six hundred leagues from that place, and embarked on an unknown stream. This river was called Mesconsin (Wisconsin). It was very broad, but its bot tom was sandy, and the navigation was rendered difficult by the shoals. It was full of islands, overgrown with vines; and the fertile banks through which it flowed were inter spersed with woods, prairies, and groves of nut, oak, and other trees. Numbers of bucks and buffaloes were seen, but no other animals. Within thirty leagues of their place of embarkation, they found iron mines, which appeared abundant and of good quality. After continuing their route for forty leagues, they arrived at the mouth of the river, in forty-two degrees and a half of latitude; and on the i yth of June, they entered with great joy the waters of the Mississippi. This river derives its source from several lakes in the north. At the mouth of the Mesconsin its channel was narrow, and it flowed onwards with a gentle current. On the right was seen a chain of high mountains, and on the left fertile fields interrupted by islands in many places. They slowly followed the course of the stream to the south and southwest, until, in forty- two degrees of latitude, they per ceived a sensible change in the surrounding country. There were but few hills and forests. The islands were covered with beautiful trees. From the time of leaving their guides, they descended the two rivers more than one hundred leagues, without discovering any other inhabitants of the forests, than birds and beasts. They were always on their guard, kindling a 126 THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER fire on the shore towards evening, to cook their food, and afterwards anchoring their canoes in the middle of the stream during the night. They proceeded thus for more than sixty leagues from the place where they entered the Mississippi, when, on the 25th of June, they perceived on the bank of the river the footsteps of men, and a well- beaten path leading into a beautiful prairie. They landed, and, leaving the canoes under the guard of their boatmen, Father Marquette and M. Joliet set forth to make discov eries. After silently following the path for about two leagues, they perceived a village, situate on the margin of a river, and two others on a hill, within half a league of the first. As they approached nearer they gave notice of their arrival by a loud call. Hearing the noise, the Indians came out of their cabins, and, having looked at the strangers for a while, they deputed four of their elders to talk with them, who slowly advanced. Two of them brought pipes ornamented with feathers, which, without speaking, they elevated towards the sun, as a token of friendship. Gain ing assurance from this ceremony, Father Marquette ad dressed them, inquiring of what nation they were. They answered that they were Illinois, and, offering their pipes, invited the strangers to enter the village, where they were received with every mark of attention, conducted to the cabin of the chief, and complimented on their arrival by the natives, who gathered round them, gazing in silence. After they were seated, the calumet was presented to them, and, while the old men were smoking for their enter tainment, the chief of all the Illinois tribes sent them an invitation to attend a council at his village. They were treated by him with great kindness, and Father Marquette, having explained to him the motives of this voyage, en forcing each part of his speeech with a present, the chief in reply expressed his approbation; but urged him, in the name THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER 127 of the whole nation, not to incur the risks of a further voyage, and rewarded his presents by the gift of a calumet. The council was followed by a feast, consisting of four courses, from each of which they were fed with much cere mony; and afterwards they were conducted in state through the village, receiving many presents of girdles and garters from the natives. The following day they took leave of the chief, promising to return in four moons, and were accompanied to their canoes, with every demonstration of joy, by more than six hundred savages. Before leaving this nation, Father Marquette remarked some of their peculiarities. The name Illinois, in the na tive language, signifies men, as if implying thereby, that other tribes are brutes in comparison, which in some sense Father Marquette thought to be true, as they were more civilized than most of the tribes. Their language, on the borders of the river, was a dialect of the Algonquin, and was understood by Father Marquette. In the form of their bodies the Illinois were light and active. They were skilful in the use of arms, brave, but wild and tractable in disposition. They were entirely ignorant of the use of leather, and iron tools, their weapons being made of stone, and their clothing of the skins of wild beasts. The soil was rich and productive, and game abundant. After this peaceful interview with the natives, the voy agers embarked again, and passed down the stream, looking out for the river Pekitanoni (Missouri), which empties into the Mississippi from the northwest. They observed high and steep rocks, on the face of which were the figures of two monsters, which appeared as if painted in green, red, and blue colours; frightful in appearance, but so well exe cuted as to leave Father Marquette in doubt whether they could be the work of savages, they being also at so great a height on the rocks as to be inaccessible to a painter. 128 THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER As they floated quietly down a clear and placid stream, conversing about the figures they had just passed, they were interrupted by the sound of rapids before them; and a mass of floating timber, trunks and branches of trees, was swept from the mouth of the Pekitanoni with such a degree of violence, as to render the passage dangerous. So great was the agitation, that the water was thereby made very muddy, and it did not again become clear. The Pekitanoni is described as a large river flowing into the Mississippi from the northwest, with several villages on its banks. At this place Father Marquette decided, that unless the Mississippi altered its previous course it must empty its waters into the Gulf of Mexico; and he conjectured from the accounts of the natives that, by following the stream of the Pekitanoni, a river would be discovered, which flowed into the Gulf of California. About twenty leagues south of the Pekitanoni, and a little more to the southeast, they discovered the mouth of another river, called Ouabouskigou (Ohio), in the lati tude of thirty-six degrees; a short distance above which, they came to a place formidable to the savages, who, believ ing it the residence of a demon, had warned Father Mar quette of its dangers. It proved nothing more than a ledge of rocks, thirty feet high, against which the waves, being contracted by an island, ran with violence, and, being thrown back with a loud noise, flowed rapidly on through a narrow and unsafe channel. The Ouabouskigou came from the eastward, where the country was thickly inhabited by the tribe of Chuouanons, a harmless and peaceful people, much annoyed by the Iro- quois, who were said to capture them as slaves, and kill and torture them cruelly. A little above the entrance of this river were steep banks, in which the boatmen discovered iron ore, several veins of THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER 129 which were visible, about a foot in thickness, portions of it adhering to the flint-stones; and also a species of rich earth, of three different colours, namely, purple, violet, and red, and a very heavy red sand, some of which, being laid on an oar, left a stain during fifteen days. They here first saw tall reeds, or canes, growing on the shores, and began to find the maringouins (mosquitoes) very troublesome; the attacks of which, with the heat of the weather, obliged the voyagers to construct an awning of the sails of their canoes. Shortly afterwards they saw savages armed with muskets, waiting their approach on the bank of the river. While the boatmen prepared for a defence, Father Marquette presented his calumet, and addressed them in Huron, to which they gave no answer, but made signals to them to land, and accept some food. They consequently disem barked, and, entering their cabins, were presented with buffalo's meat, bear's oil, and fine plums. These savages had guns, hatchets, knives, hoes, and glass bottles for their gunpowder. They informed Father Marquette that he was within ten days' journey of the sea; that they pur chased their goods of Europeans, who came from the east; that these Europeans had images and beads, played on many instruments, and were dressed like himself; and that they had treated them with much kindness. As they had no knowledge of Christianity, the worthy Father gave them what instruction he could, and made them a present of some medals. Encouraged by the information received from these savages, the party proceeded with renewed ar dour on their voyage, between banks covered with thick forests, that intercepted their view of the prairies; in which, however, they heard at no great distance the bellowing of buffaloes. They also saw quails upon the shores, and shot a small parrot. I 3 o THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER They had nearly reached the thirty-third degree of lati tude, steering towards the south, when they discovered a village on the river's side, called Metchigamea. The na tives, armed with bows and arrows, clubs, and tomahawks, prepared to attack them; some in canoes, trying to inter cept their course, others remaining on shore. Father Mar- quette in vain presented his calumet of peace. They were ready to attack, when the elders, perceiving at last the calumet, commanded the young warriors to stop, and, throwing their arms at the feet of the strangers, as a sign of peace, entered their canoes, and constrained them to land, though not without some uneasiness. As the savages were not acquainted with any of the six languages spoken by Father Marquette, he addressed them by signs, until an old man was found who understood a little Illinois. Through this interpreter, he explained their intention of going to the borders of the sea, and gave the natives some religious instruction. In reply they answered, that whatever information he desired might be obtained at Akamsca (Arkansas), a village ten leagues lower down the river; and presented them with food. After passing a night of some anxiety, they embarked the following morn ing with the interpreter; a canoe with ten savages preced ing them. About half a league from Akamsca, they were met by two canoes full of Indians, the chief of whom pre sented his calumet, and conducted them to the shore, where they were hospitably received and supplied with provisions. Here they found a young man well acquainted with the Illinois language, and through him Father Marquette ad dressed the natives, making them the usual presents, and requesting information from them respecting the sea. They answered, that it was within five days' journey of Akamsca; that they knew nothing of the inhabitants on its borders, being prevented by their enemies from holding intercourse THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER 131 with these Europeans; that their knives and other weapons were purchased partly from the eastern nations, and partly from a tribe of Illinois, four days' journey to the eastward; that the armed savages, whom the travellers had met, were their enemies; that they were continually on the river be tween that place and the sea; and that, if the voyagers pro ceeded further, great danger might be apprehended from them. After this communication, food was offered, and the rest of the day was spent in feasting. These people were friendly and hospitable, but poor, although their Indian corn produced three abundant crops in a year, which Father Marquette saw in its different stages of growth. It was prepared for food in pots, which, with plates and other utensils, were neatly made of baked earth by the Indians. Their language was so very diffi cult, that Father Marquette despaired of being able to pro nounce a word of it. Their climate in winter was rainy, but they had no snow, and the soil was extremely fertile. During the evening the old men held a secret council. Some of them proposed to murder the strangers, and seize their effects. The chief, however, overruled this advice, and, sending for Father Marquette and M. Joliet, invited them to attend a dance of the calumet, which he after wards presented to them as a sign of peace. The good Father and his companion began now to con sider what further course they should pursue. As it was supposed that the Gulf of Mexico extended as far north as thirty-one degrees and forty minutes, they believed them selves not to be more than two or three days' journey from it; and it appeared to them certain that the Mississippi must empty itself into that gulf, and not into the sea through Virginia, at the eastward, because the coast of Virginia was in the latitude of thirty-four degrees, at which they had already arrived; nor yet into the Gulf of Cali- I 3 2 THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER fornia, at the southwest, because they had found the course of the river to be invariably south. Being thus persuaded that the main object of their expedition was attained, and considering, moreover, that they were unable to resist the armed savages, who infested the lower parts of the river, and that, should they fall into the hands of the Spaniards, the fruits of their voyage and discoveries would be lost, they resolved to proceed no further, and, having informed the natives of their determination, and rested another day, they prepared for their return. After a month's navigation on the Mississippi, having followed its course from the forty-second to the thirty- fourth degree of latitude, they left the village of Akamsca, on the 1 7th of July, to return up the river. They retraced their way, slowly ascending the stream, until, in about the thirty-eighth degree of latitude, they turned into another river (Illinois), which abridged their route and brought them directly to Lake Illinois (Michigan). They were struck with the fertility of the country through which that river flowed, the beauty of the forests and prairies, the variety of the game, and the numerous small lakes and streams which they saw. The river was broad and deep, and navigable for sixty-five leagues, there being, in the season of spring and part of the summer, only half a league of portage between its waters and those flowing into Lake Illinois. On its banks they found a village, the in habitants of which received them kindly, and, on their de parture, extorted a promise from Father Marquette to re turn and instruct them. One of the chiefs, accompanied by the young men, conducted them as far as the Lake; whence they proceeded to the Bay of Puans, where they arrived near the end of September, having been absent about four months. Such is the substance of Father Marquette's narrative; THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER 133 and the whole of it accords remarkably with the descrip tions of subsequent travellers, and with the actual features of the country through which he passed, as to remove every doubt of its genuineness. The melancholy fate of the author, which followed soon afterwards, was probably the reason why his expedition was not in a more conspicuous manner brought before the public. In addition to this narrative, nothing is known of Mar- quette, except what is said of him by Charlevoix. After returning from his last expedition, he took up his residence, and pursued the vocation of a missionary, among the Mi- amis in the neighbourhood of Chicago. While passing by water along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan towards Michillimackinac, he entered a small river, on the i8th of May, 1675. Having landed, he constructed an altar, performed mass, and then retired a short distance into the wood, requesting the two men who had charge of his canoe, to leave him alone for half an hour. When the time had elapsed, the men went to seek for him and found him dead. They were greatly surprised, as they had not discovered any symptoms of illness; but they remembered, that, when he was entering the river, he expressed a presen timent that his voyage would end there. To this day the river retains the name of Marquette. The place of his grave, near its bank, is still pointed out to the traveller; but his remains were removed the year after his death to M ichillimackinac. CHICAGO GEORGE W. STEEVENS /CHICAGO! Chicago! queen and guttersnipe of cities, ^^ cynosure and cesspool of the world! Not if I had a hundred tongues, every one shouting a different language in a different key, could I do justice to her splendid chaos. The most beautiful and the most squalid, girdled with a two fold zone of parks and slums, where the keen air from lake and prairie is ever in the nostrils and the stench of foul smoke is never out of the throat; the great port a thousand miles from the sea; the great mart which gathers up with one hand the corn and cattle of the West and deals out with the other the merchandise of the East; widely and gener ously planned with streets of twenty miles, where it is not safe to walk at night; where women ride straddlewise, and millionaires dine at midday on the Sabbath; the chosen seat of public spirit and municipal boodle, of cut-throat com merce and munificent patronage of art; the most American of American cities, and yet the most mongrel; the second American city of the globe, the fifth German city, the third, Swedish, the second Polish, the first and only veritable Babel of the age; all of which was in 1871 a heap of smoking ashes. Where in all the world can words be found for this miracle of paradox and incongruity? Go first up on the tower of the Auditorium. In front, near three hundred feet below, lies Lake Michigan. There are lines of breakwater and a lighthouse inshore, where the water is grey and brown, but beyond and on either hand to the rim spreads the brilliant azure of deep water the - MADISON STREET FROM FIFTH AVENUE, CHICAGO CHICAGO 135 bosom of a lake which is also a sea shining in the transparent sunlight. White sails speckle its surface, and far out ocean going steamers trail lazy streaks of smoke behind them. From the lake blow winds now soft and life-giving like old wine, now so keen as to set every nerve and sinew on the stretch. Then turn round and look at Chicago. You might be on a central peak of the high Alps. All about you they rise, the mountains of building not in the broken line of New York, but thick together, side by side, one behind the other. From this height the flat roofs of the ordinary build ings of four or five storeys are not distinguishable from the ground ; planting their feet on these rise the serried ranks of the heaven-scaling peaks. You are almost surprised to see no snow on them; the steam that gushes perpetually from their chimneys, and floats and curls away on the lake breeze, might well be clouds with the summits rising above them to the sun. Height on height they stretch away on every side till they are lost in a cloud of murky smoke inland. These buildings are all iron-cored, and the masonry is only the shells that cases the rooms in them. They can even be built downward. You may see one of them with eight sto reys of brick wall above, and then four of a vacant skeleton of girders below; the superstructure seems to be hanging in air. Broader and more massive than the tall buildings of New York, older also and dingier, they do not appear, like them, simply boxes of windows. Who would suppose that mere lumps of iron and bricks and mortar could be sublime? Yet these are sublime and almost awful. You have awak ened, like Gulliver, in a land of giants a land where the very houses are instinct with almost ferocious energy and force. Then go out on a cable car or the electric car or the ele vated railroad Chicago has them all, and is installing new ones with feverish industry every day to the parks and the 136 CHICAGO boulevards. Along Lake Shore Drive you will find the homes of the great merchants, the makers of Chicago. Many of these are built in a style which is peculiarly Chicago's own, though the best examples of it are to be seen in the business centre of the city. It uses great blocks of rough-hewn gran ite, red or grey. Their massive weight is relieved by wide round arches for doors and windows, by porches and por ticos, loggias and galleries, over the whole face of the build ing from top to bottom. The effect is almost prehistoric in its massive simplicity, something like the cyclopean ruins of Mycenae or Tiryns. The great stores with the open arches and galleries make up a combination of solid strength and breeziness, admirably typical of the spirit of the place. On the other side of the Drive is the blue expanse of Lake; in between, broad roads and ribbons of fresh grass. Yet here and there, among the castles of the magnates, you will come on a little one-storeyed wooden shanty, squatting many feet below the level of the road, paint and washed-out playbills peeling off it, and the broken windows hanging in shreds. Then again will come a patch of empty scrubby waste, choked with rank weeds and rubble. It is the same thing with the carriages in which the millionaires and their fami lies drive up and down after church on Sunday. They are gorgeously built and magnificently horsed, only the coach man is humping his back or the footman is crossing his legs. These are trivialities, but not altogether insignificant. The desire to turn out in style is there, and the failure in a little thing betrays a carelessness of detail, an incapacity for order and proportion, which are of the essence of Chicago. Never was a better found vessel spoiled for a ha'porth of tar. It will be well worth your while again to go south to Washington Park and Jackson Park, where the World's Fair was held. Chicago, straggling over a hundred and eighty-six square miles, was rather a tract of houses than an CHICAGO 137 organic city until somebody conceived the idea of coupling her up with a ring of parks connected by planted boulevards. The southern end of the system rests on the Lake at these two parks. Chicago believes that her parks are unsurpassed in the world, and certainly they will be prodigiously fine when they are finished. Broad drives and winding alleys, ornamental trees, banks and beds of flowers and flowering shrubs, lakes, and ornamental bridges, and turf that cools the eye under the fiercest noon you bet your life Chicago's got 'em all. Also Chicago has the Art Building, which is the one remaining relic of the World's Fair, and surely as divinely proportioned an edifice as ever filled and satisfied the eye of man. And always beyond it is the Lake. Seem ing in places almost to rise above the level of the land, it stretches along the whole western side, so that Chicago is perhaps the only one of the world's greatest cities that is really built along a sea-line. Sparkling under the sun by day, or black beneath a fretwork of stars by night, it is a perpetual reminder that there is that in nature even greater and more immeasurable than the activities of Chicago. The Art Building aforesaid is now the Field Columbian Museum, having been endowed by a leading citizen of that name with a cool million dollars. Other gifts, with divi dends contributed by holders of exhibition stock, brought up the total to half as much again. Chicago has a University hard by, which has come out westward, like Mahomet to the mountain, to spread the light among the twenty-five mil lion souls that live within a morning's journey of Chicago. This University has not been long in existence; in a short time it has received in benefactions from citizens of this place nearly twelve million dollars. Think of it, depressed Oxford and Cambridge a University endowed at the rate of half a million sterling a year! Two other prominent Chicago men found themselves in Paris a while ago, when a collection of 138 CHICAGO pictures were being sold; promptly they bought up a hun dred and eighty thousand dollars' worth for the gallery of their city. There is hardly a leading name in the business of the place but is to be found beneath a picture given or lent to this gallery. And mark that not only does the untutored millionaire buy pictures, but his untutored operative goes to look at them. It is the same impulse that leads school teach ers of sixty to put in a course at the University during their summer vacation. Chicago is conscious that there is some thing in the world, some sense of form, of elegance, of re finement, that with all her corn and railways, her hogs and by-products, and dollars, she lacks. She does not quite know what it is, but she is determined to have it, cost what it may. Mr. Phil D. Armour, the hog king, giving a picture to the gallery, and his slaughter-house man painfully spelling out the description of it on Sunday afternoon there is something rather pathetic in this, and assuredly something very noble. But there is another side to Chicago. There is the back side to her fifteen hundred million dollars of trade, her seventeen thousand vessels, and her network of ninety thou sand miles of rail. Away from the towering offices, lying off from the smiling parks, is a vast wilderness of shabby houses a larger and more desolate Whitechapel than can hardly have a parallel for sordid dreariness in the whole world. This is the home of labour, and of nothing else. The evening's vacancy brings relief from toil, the morn ing's toil relief from vacancy. Little shops compete fran tically for what poor trade there is with tawdry adver tisements. Street stretches beyond street of little houses, mostly wooden, begrimed with soot, rotting, falling to pieces. The pathways are of rickety and worm-eaten planks, such as we would not tolerate a day in London as CHICAGO 139 a temporary gangway where a house is being built. Here the boarding is flush with the street; there it drops to it in a two-foot precipice, over which you might easily break your leg. The streets are quagmires of black mud, and no attempt is made to repair them. They are miserably lighted, and nobody thinks of illuminating them. The police force is so weak that men and women are held up and robbed almost nightly within the city limits; nobody thinks of strengthening it. Here and there is a pit or a dark cellar left wholly unguarded for the unwary foot- passenger to break his neck in. All these miles of un kempt slum and wilderness betray a disregard for human life which is more than half barbarous. If you come to your death by misadventure among these pitfalls, all the consolation your friends will get from Chicago is to be told that you ought to have taken better care of yourself. You were unfit; you did not survive. There is no more to be said about it. The truth is that nobody in this rushing, struggling tumult has any time to look after what we have long ago come to think the bare decencies of civilization. This man is in a hurry to work up his tallow, that man to ship his grain. Everybody is fighting to be rich, is then straining to be refined, and nobody can attend to making the city fit to live in. I have remarked several times before that America is everywhere still unfinished, and unless the char acter of the people modifies itself with time I do not be lieve it ever will be. They go half-way to build up civil ization in the desert, and then they are satisfied and rush forward to half-civilize some place further on. It is not that they are incapable of thoroughness, but that in cer tain things they do not feel the need of it. In Chicago there is added to this what looks like a fundamental inca pacity for government. A little public interest and a I 4 o CHICAGO small public rate would put everything right; both are wanting. Wealth every man will struggle for, and even elegance; good government is the business of nobody. For if Chicago is the lodestone that attracts the enter prise and commercial talent of two hemispheres, it is also the sink into which drain their dregs. The hundred and twenty thousand Irish are not a wholesome element in municipal life. On the bleak west side there are streets of illiterate, turbulent Poles and Czechs, hardly able to speak a word of English. Out of this rude and undigested mass, how could good government come? How could citizens combine to work out for themselves a common ideal of rational and ordered civic life? However, Chicago is now setting her house in order. It is thought a great step for ward that there are now actually one-third of the members of the municipal body who can be relied upon to refuse a bribe. Some day Chicago will turn her savage energy to order and co-operation. Instead of a casual horde of jos tling individuals, she will become a city of citizens. She will learn that freedom does not consist solely in contempt for law. On the day she realizes this she will become the greatest, as already she is the most amazing, community in the world. BOSTON HARBOUR CHARLES KNIGHT IT was Sunday, the 28th day of November, 1773, when there sailed into Boston Harbour the English merchant ship Dartmouth, laden with chests of tea belonging to the East India Company. The Act of Parliament which al lowed the Treasury to license vessels to export the teas of the Company to the American colonies free of duty was the signal for popular gatherings in Boston. Samuel Adams, in the Boston Gazette, roused again that feeling of resistance which had partially subsided. The Governor of Massachusetts, in October, wrote to Lord Dartmouth, who had succeeded Lord Hillsborough as Colonial Secretary, that Samuel Adams, " who was the first person that openly, and in any public assembly, declared for a total indepen dence," had " obtained such an ascendency as to direct the town of Boston and the House of Representatives, and con sequently the Council, just as he pleases." The East India Company had appointed its consignees in Boston. On the night of the 2d of November, summonses were left at the houses of each of these persons, requiring them to appear on a certain day at Liberty Tree, to resign their commissions ; and notices were issued desiring the freemen of Boston and of the neighbouring towns to assemble at the same place. The con signees did not appear; but a committee of the Assembly traced them to a warehouse, where they were met to con sult. They were required not to sell the teas; but to re turn them to London by the vessels which might bring them. They refused to comply, and were denounced as enemies 141 I 4 2 BOSTON HARBOUR to their country. Philadelphia had previously compelled the agents of the Company to resign their appointments. Town meetings were held at Boston, when strong resolu tions were adopted. In this state of things, on that Sunday, the 28th of No vember, the first tea-ship arrived. The New England colo nists preserved that strict observance of the Sabbath which their Puritan fathers felt the highest of duties. But it was a work of necessity to impede the landing of the tea; and a committee met twice on that Sunday to concert measures. They obtained a promise from Rotch, the commander of the ship Dartmouth, that his vessel should not be entered till the following Tuesday. On Monday, the Committee of all the neighbouring towns assembled at Boston; and five thou sand persons agreed that the tea should be sent back to the place whence it came. " Throw it overboard," cried one. The consignees, alarmed at this demonstration, declared that they would not send back the teas, but that they would store them. This proposal was received with scorn, and then the consignees agreed that the teas should not be landed. But there was a legal difficulty. If the rest of the cargo were landed, and the tea not landed, the vessel could not be cleared in Boston, and after twenty days was liable to seizure. Two more ships arrived, and anchored by the side of the Dartmouth. The people kept watch night and day to prevent any attempt at landing the teas. Thirteen days after the arrival of the Dartmouth, the owner was sum moned before the Boston Committee, and told that his vessel and his tea must be taken back to London. It was out of his power to do so, he said. He certainly had not the power; for the passages out of the harbour were guarded by two King's ships, to prevent any vessel going to sea with out a license. On the i6th, the revenue officers would have legal authority to take possession of the Dartmouth. For BOSTON HARBOUR 143 three days previous there had been meetings of the Boston Committee; but their journal had only this entry: "No business transacted matter of record." On the 1 6th of December, there was a meeting in Bos ton of seven thousand persons, who resolved that the tea should not be landed. The master of the Dartmouth was ordered to apply to the Governor for a pass for his vessel to proceed on her return voyage to London. The Gov ernor was at his country house. Many of the leaders had adjourned to a church, to wait his answer. The night had come on when Rotch returned, and announced that the Gov ernor had refused him a pass, because his ship had not cleared. There was no more hesitation. Forty or fifty men, disguised as Mohawks, raised the war-whoop at the porch of the church; went onto the wharf where the three ships lay alongside; took possession of them; and deliber ately emptied three hundred and forty chests of tea into the waters of the bay. It was the work of three hours. Not a sound was heard but that of breaking open the chests. The people of Boston went to their rest as if no extraor dinary event had occurred. On the 27th of January, 1774, the news of this decisive act reached the English Government. On the 29th there was a great meeting of the Lords of the Council to consider a petition of Massachusetts for the dismissal of Hutchin- son, the Governor, and Oliver, the Lieutenant-Governor. Dr. Franklin appeared before the Council as agent for Mas sachusetts. He had obtained possession of some private let ters written confidentially several years before, in which Hutchinson and Oliver avowed sentiments opposed to what they considered the licentiousness of the colonists. These letters Franklin transmitted to the Assembly at Boston, who voted, by a large majority, that the opinions expressed con templated the establishment of arbitrary power; and they 144 BOSTON HARBOUR accordingly petitioned for the removal of the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor. The intelligence from Boston of the destruction of the teas was not likely to propitiate the Coun cil. Franklin was treated with little respect; and Wed- derburn, the Solicitor-General, assailed him with a torrent of invectives, at which the Lords cheered and laughed. Franklin bore the assaults with perfect equanimity; but from that hour he ceased to be a mediator between Great Britain and the Colonists. The Council reported that the petition from Massachusetts was " groundless, vexatious and scandalous." Two days after, Franklin was dismissed from his office of Deputy Postmaster-General. He said to Priest ley, who was present at the Council, that he considered the thing for which he had been so insulted as one of the best actions of his life. The Parliament had met on the I3th of January. It was the 7th of March when Lord North delivered the King's message relating to " the violent and outrageous proceed ings at the town and port of Boston, in the province of Mas sachusetts Bay, with a view to obstructing the commerce of this Kingdom, and upon grounds and pretences immedi ately subversive of the constitution thereof." There was a debate, of which the most remarkable part was, that when Lord North stated that the proper papers should be ready on the following Friday, Thurlow, the Attorney-General, said, loud enough to reach the ear of the minister, " I never heard of anything so impudent; he has no plan yet ready." The one plan which first presented itself the most unfor tunate of all plans is exhibited in a note of the King to Lord North, dated the 4th of February : " Gen. Gage, though just returned from Boston, expresses his willingness to go back at a day's notice if convenient measures are adopted. He says, ' They will be lions while we are lambs ; but if we take the resolute part, they will undoubtedly prove BOSTON HARBOUR 145 very weak.' Four regiments sent to Boston, will, he thinks, be sufficient to prevent any disturbance. All men now feel that the fatal compliance of 1766 has increased the preten sions of the Americans to thorough independence." On the I4th of March, Lord North brought in a Bill for remov ing the Custom House from Boston, and declaring it un lawful, after the ist of June, to lade or unlade, ship or unship, any goods from any lading-place within the harbour of Boston. There was little opposition to this measure, which was passed in a fortnight, and when sent to the Lords was quickly adopted. Chatham suggested, in a letter to Shel- burne, that reparation ought first to be demanded and re fused before such a bill could be called just. The letter of Chatham, in which he makes this suggestion, is that of a great statesman, exhibiting the sound qualities of his mind perhaps even more clearly than his impassioned oratory : " The whole of this unhappy business is beset with dan gers of the most complicated and lasting nature; and the point of true wisdom for the mother country seems to be in such nice and exact limits (accurately distinguished, and embraced, with a large and generous moderation of spirit), as narrow, short-sighted counsels of state, or overheated pop ular debates, are not likely to hit. Perhaps a fatal desire to take advantage of this guilty tumult of the Bostonians, in order to crush the spirit of liberty among the Americans in general, has taken possession of the heart of government." SARATOGA E. S. CREASY BURGOYNE reached the left bank of the Hudson on the 30th of July. Hitherto he had overcome every diffi culty which the enemy and the nature of the country had placed in his way. His army was in excellent order, and in the highest spirits, and the peril of the expedition seemed over when once on the bank of the river which was to be the channel of communication between them and the British army in the south. The astonishment and alarm which these events pro duced among the Americans were naturally great ; but in the midst of their disasters, none of the colonists showed any dis position to submit. The local governments of the New Eng land States, as well as the Congress, acted with vigour and firmness in their efforts to repel the enemy. General Gates was sent to take the command of the army at Saratoga; and Arnold was despatched by Washington to act under him, with reinforcements of troops and guns from the main Amer ican army. Burgoyne's employment of the Indians now pro duced the worst possible effects. Though he laboured hard to check the atrocities which they were accustomed to com mit, he could not prevent the occurrence of many barbarous outrages, repugnant both to the feelings of humanity and to the laws of civilized warfare. The American command ers took care that the reports of these excesses should be cir culated far and wide, well knowing that they would make the stern New Englanders not droop, but rage. Such was their effect. Every man saw the necessity of becoming a 146 Copyright, IHiH, by DHr.it !'liot,. K ra|.liic Co. BATTLE MONUMENT, SCHUYLERVILLE, NEW YORK SARATOGA 147 temporary soldier, not only for his own safety, but for the protection and defence of those connections which are dearer than life itself. Thus an army was poured forth by the woods, mountains, and marshes, which in this part were thickly sown with plantations and villages. While resolute recruits were thus flocking to the standard of Gates and Arnold at Saratoga, and while Burgoyne was engaged at Fort Edward in providing the means for the fur ther advance of his army, two events occurred, in each of which the British sustained loss and the Americans ob tained advantage, the moral effects of which were even more important than the immediate result of the encounters. Notwithstanding these reverses, which added greatly to the spirit and numbers of the American forces, Burgoyne determined to advance. Having, by unremitting exertions, collected provisions for thirty days, he crossed the Hudson by means of a bridge of rafts, and, marching a short dis tance along its western bank, he encamped on the I4th of September on the heights of Saratoga. The Americans had fallen back from Saratoga, and were now strongly posted near Stillwater, about half-way between Saratoga and Al bany, and showed a determination to recede no further. The country between Burgoyne's position at Saratoga and that of the Americans at Stillwater was rugged, and seamed with creeks and water-courses; but, after great labour in making bridges and temporary causeways, the British army moved forward. About four miles from Saratoga, on the afternoon of the igth of September, a sharp encounter took place between part of the English right wing, under Bur goyne himself, and a strong body of the enemy, under Gates and Arnold. The conflict lasted till sunset. The British remained masters of the field; but the loss on each side was nearly equal (from five hundred to six hundred men) ; and the spirits of the Americans I4 8 SARATOGA were greatly raised by having withstood the best regular troops of the English army. Burgoyne now halted again, and strengthened his position by field-works and re doubts; and the Americans also improved their defences. The two armies remained nearly within cannon-shot of each other for a considerable time, during which Burgoyne was anxiously looking for intelligence of the promised expedi tion from New York. At last a messenger brought the in formation that Clinton was on his way up the Hudson to attack the American forts which barred the passage to Al bany. Burgoyne, in reply, stated that unless he received assistance before the loth of October, he would be obliged to retreat to the lakes through want of provisions. The Indians and the Canadians now began to desert Bur goyne, while, on the other hand, Gates's army was contin ually reinforced by fresh bodies of the militia. And find ing the number and spirit of the enemy to increase daily, and his own stores of provisions to diminish, Burgoyne determined on attacking the Americans in front of him, and, by dis lodging them from their position, to gain the means of mov ing upon Albany, or, at least, of relieving his troops from the straitened position in which they were cooped up. Burgoyne's force was now reduced to less than 6000 men. The right of his camp was on some high ground a little to the west of the river: thence his intrenchments extended along the lower ground to the bank of the Hudson, their line being nearly at a right angle to the course of the stream. The lines were fortified in the centre and the left with redoubts and field-works. The numerical force of the Americans was now greater than the British, even in regular troops, and the numbers of the militia and volunteers which had joined Gates and Arnold were greater still. The right of the American position, that is to say, the part of it nearest to the river, was too strong to be assailed with any prospect of SARATOGA 149 success, and Burgoyne therefore determined to endeavour to force their left. For this purpose he formed a column of 1500 regular troops with two twelve-pounders, two how itzers, and six six-pounders. The enemy's force immedi ately in front of his lines was so strong that he dared not weaken the troops who guarded them by detaching any more to strengthen his column of attack. Burgoyne pushed forward some bodies of irregular troops to distract the enemy's attention, and led his column to within three-quarters of a mile from the left of Gates's camp, and then deployed his men into line. The Grenadiers, un der Major Ackland, were drawn up on the left, a corps of Germans to the centre, and the English Light Infantry and the 24th regiment on the right. But Gates did not wait to be attacked; and directly the British line was formed and began to advance, the American general, with admirable skill, caused a strong force to make a sudden and vehement rush against its left. The Grenadiers under Ackland sus tained the charge of superior numbers nobly. But Gates sent more Americans forward, and in a few minutes the action became general along the centre, so as to prevent the Germans from sending any help to the Grenadiers. Bur- goyne's right was not yet engaged ; but a mass of the enemy were observed advancing from their extreme left, with the evident intention of turning the British right, and cutting off its retreat. The Light Infantry and the 24th now fell back, and formed an oblique second line, which enabled them to baffle this manoeuvre, and also to succour their com rades in the left wing, the gallant Grenadiers, who were overpowered by superior numbers, and, but for this aid, must have been cut to pieces. Arnold now came up with three American regiments and attacked the right flank of the English double line. Burgoyne's whole force was soon compelled to retreat toward their camp; the left and centre I 5 o SARATOGA were in complete disorder; but the Light Infantry and the 24th checked the fury of the assailants, and the remains of Burgoyne's column with great difficulty effected their re turn to their camp, leaving six of their guns in the pos session of the enemy, and great numbers of killed and wounded on the field ; and especially a large proportion of the artillerymen, who had stood to their guns until shot down or bayoneted beside them by the advancing Americans. Burgoyne's column had been defeated, but the action was not yet over. The English had scarcely entered the camp, when the Americans, pursuing their success, assaulted it in several places with uncommon fierceness, rushing to the lines through a severe fire of grape-shot and musketry with the utmost fury. Arnold especially, who on this day appeared maddened with the thirst of combat and carnage, urged on the attack against a part of the intrenchments which was occupied by the Light Infantry under Lord Balcarras. But the English received him with vigour and spirit. The struggle here wUs obstinate and sanguinary. At length, as it grew towards evening, Arnold having forced all ob stacles, entered the works with some of the most fearless of his followers. But at this critical moment of glory and danger, he received a painful wound in the leg which had already been injured at the assault on Quebec. To his bitter regret, he was obliged to be carried back. His party still continued the attack; but the English still continued their obstinate resistance, and at last night fell, and the assailants withdrew from this quarter of the Brit ish intrenchments. But in another part the attack had been more successful. A body of Americans under Colonel Brooke, forced their way in through a part of the intrench ments on the extreme right, which was defended by the Ger man reserve under Colonel Breyman. The Germans re sisted well, and Breyman died in defence of his post ; but the SARATOGA ! 5 I Americans made good the ground which they had won, and captured baggage, tents, artillery, and a store of ammuni tion, which they were greatly in need of. They had, by establishing themselves on this point, acquired the means of completely turning the right flank of the British, and gain ing their rear. To prevent this calamity, Burgoyne ef fected during the night a complete change of position. With great skill he removed his whole army to some heights near the river, a little northward of the former camp, and he there drew up his men, expecting to be attacked on the fol lowing day. But Gates was resolved not to risk the cer tain triumph which his success had already secured for him. He harrassed the English with skirmishes, but attempted no regular attack. Meanwhile he detached bodies of troops on both sides of the Hudson to prevent the British from re- crossing that river and to bar their retreat. When night fell, it became absolutely necessary for Burgoyne to retire again, and, accordingly, the troops were marched through a stormy and rainy night toward Saratoga, abandoning their sick and wounded, and the greater part of their baggage to the enemy. Burgoyne now took up his last position on the heights near Saratoga, and, hemmed in by the enemy who refused an en counter, and baffled in all his attempts at finding a path of escape, he lingered until famine compelled him to capitu late. At length the I3th of October arrived, and as no pros pect of assistance appeared, and the provisions were nearly exhausted, Burgoyne, by the unanimous advice of a coun cil of war, sent a messenger to the American camp to treat of a convention. After various messages, a convention for the surrender of the army was settled, which provided that " the troops under General Burgoyne were to march out of their camp with honours of war, and the artillery out of I 5 2 SARATOGA the intrenchments to the verge of the river, where the arms and artillery were to be left. The arms to be piled by word of command of their own officers. A free passage was to be granted to the army under Lieutenant-General Burgoyne to Great Britain, upon condition of not serving again in North America during the present contest." The articles of capitulation were settled on the 1 5th of October, and on that very evening a messenger arrived from Clinton with an account of his success, and with the tidings that part of his force had penetrated as far as Esopus, within fifty miles of Burgoyne's camp. But it was too late. The public faith was pledged ; and the army was indeed too debili tated by fatigue and hunger to resist an attack, if made; and Gates certainly would have made it, if the convention had been broken off. Accordingly, on the 1 7th, the Convention of Saratoga was carried into effect. By this convention 5790 men sur rendered themselves as prisoners. The sick and wounded left in the camp when the British retreated, together with the numbers of the British, German, and Canadian troops, who were killed, wounded, or taken, and who had deserted in the preceding part of the expedition, were reckoned to be 4689. Gates, after the victory, immediately despatched Colonel Wilkinson to carry the happy tidings to Congress. On be ing introduced into the hall, he said : " The whole British army has laid down its arms at Saratoga; our own, full of vigour and courage, expect your orders. It is for your wis dom to decide where the country may still have need of their services." Honours and rewards were liberally voted by the Con gress to their conquering general and his men ; and it would be difficult to describe the transports of joy which the news of this event excited among the Americans. SARATOGA 153 They began to flatter themselves with a still more happy future. No one any longer felt any doubt about their achieving their independence. All hoped, and with good reason, that a success of this importance would at length de termine France, and the other European powers that waited for her example, to declare themselves in favour of America. " There could no longer be any question respecting the fu ture, since there was no longer the risk of espousing the cause of a people too feeble to defend themselves." SAULT STE. MARIE ISAAC AIKEN THE St. Mary's River, which separates the upper penin sula of Michigan from Canada, and connects Lake Huron with Lake Superior, is sixty-three miles long, and is probably the most difficult of navigation on the continent. It is between two and three miles w r ide at the mouth, and studded with numerous beautiful islands. As we ascend, the stream becomes quite narrow at different points, then sud denly widens out into picturesque lakelets. Reaching the head of the river, we meet the falls, where all boats had to stop prior to the opening of the canal, but now pass on freely, no matter what their tonnage may be. The " falls " are a succession of rapids, with a descent of twenty-two feet in three-quarters of a mile, their whole length. There is no bold precipice at any point over which the waters leap, but a gradual flow into the deep channel of the river. There are several small islands scattered among the rapids, creating different channels. The waters rush down with great fury, leaping over huge boulders and winding round the fairy islands. The fish are abundant in the rapids. Indians and half-breeds may be seen at all hours of the summer day scooping out splendid white-fish. Two of them go out in each canoe. The canoe will sit in the dashing stream by the hour, steady as though held by anchor. They go right out into the most turbulent parts of the channel. One man sits in the stern of the canoe, and with his single oar holds her in the same position for a long time, her bow parting the waters beautifully. To the spectator ashore it frequently 154 SAULT STE. MARIE 155 looks very hazardous. There is quite an art in the manage ment of the frail little shell in such a position. The Indian who handles the net dips it quickly at the right moment and locality, and takes in his fish as the noble fellow is heading courageously against the current. This fishing is laborious, but very exciting, and frequently pays well. A score of ca noes out in the rapids at a time when the fish are plenty produces a scene of high excitement among spectators on the shore, who probably have just landed from the steam boat on their first trip to Lake Superior. Adventurous strangers catch the spirit of the scene and try their hand. And now for fun. It is all very well while they are content to go out and share with the Indian; but if prompted by their vanity to take charge of a canoe one to hold the oar, the other to fish their ardour is soon dampened, and a good laugh afforded those who remain on terra firma. The scene is ludicrous in the highest degree. Despite the utmost efforts of white men I have seen try it, the canoe rushes down stream. They try again and again, but down, down she goes like a bird, and the only wonder is that she does not upset. Our travellers, having worked themselves into a frenzy of excitement to become expert fishermen after the style of the Sault Indian and half-breed, give up in disgust, make for the bank as soon as possible, and rarely try a sec ond time. One chance, however, yet remains for the cour ageous spirits that of having an exhilarating dance among the dashing, laughing waters. And be it known that the ladies are generally two to one in the adventure. This is to walk up the river bank to the head of the rapids, step into a canoe, and rush down some of the channels, an Indian hav ing you in charge. I have seen this done several times, but never attempted it. If everything happens to go right, all is well; but a little oversight, and your chances of escape need not be reckoned on. Several lives were lost in earlier 156 SAULT STE. MARIE years in this attempt to descend the rapids. An Indian can do it safely, because he does not lose self-control through excitement. One who has not learned the art of suppressing all excitement under the most extreme circumstances should never make the venture. The village of Sault Ste. Marie was founded by the Jes uits over two hundred years ago. The settlement figures prominently in the history of their missions among the In dians. It was also the seat of a government fort. The town is of little importance in any way. There is nothing to build it up, there being no mineral deposits in the vicinity, and its agricultural interests cannot amount to much at any time in the future. It will always have a great deal of sum mer travel, on account of its location by the falls. The country around is highly romantic, and the trout fishing good in the streams. It is a delightful place at which to spend a few weeks in summer, exploring the many wild haunts around the mouth of the lake, and in fishing and duck-shooting. It is only about fifteen years since Lake Superior was fully opened to our lake commerce by the construction of the St. Mary's ship canal, to overcome the obstruction of the rapids to continuous navigation. This canal is a noble mon ument to the enterprise of the present age. The old maxim was, " Perseverance conquers all things " ; the modern read ing of which is, " Money conquers all things." Thousands of years ago men were content to build pyramids, the tower of Babel and such like, without reference to large or even small dividends on their investments, but all that kind of building is unknown in America. We have as much perse verance as the pyramid or tower builders, but while they were content to live to work, we work to live. With us every thing of this kind must pay in dollars, and then we build as high as the ancients, and excavate deeper, and bore through SAULT STE. MARIE 157 greater mountains, and talk under the widest oceans, and span with iron rails the largest continents. We stop at nothing. And so, up here lay inexhaustible mountains of minerals, but the rocks of Sault rapids stood as an impass able barrier in the way of vessels waiting to carry these min erals to where they might augment the material wealth of the world; and presto! the rocks disappear. A million dol lars' worth of powder and muscle expended, and a highway is opened for the vessels through solid rock. The canal is wide and deep enough to admit the largest boats in the trade. I believe there are some steamers on the lower lakes too long for the locks, but these would not suit the Lake Superior trade. The locks are probably the largest in the world. The canal is a mile long. The cost of construction was largely borne by a government appropriation of lands in the State of Michigan. All vessels passing through pay toll. We pass out of the ship canal across Tequamenon Bay into the lake with the rising of the sun. The morning is delightful. Such an atmosphere, so pure to the eye, so in vigorating to breathe, one never moves through in lower latitudes. Every passenger is in ecstasy with the hour and surroundings. The lake is smooth as a sea of glass, save the gentle swell created by the motion of the boat. There is not the slightest current in the air that we can feel, except that arising from our own motion. We sit on the upper deck that we may be able to sweep the eye over the whole picture. Wild ducks by thousands are seen over toward the north shore. Some of them fly off in alarm: most remain quietly on the water, paying no attention to us. Indians are encamped on the south shore, the smoke of their camp- fires curling up snake-like toward the sun while their morn ing meal is in course of preparation. Some of them are glid ing over the water in their canoes. And here, farther up, are white men busy taking in splendid white-fish and Mack- 158 SAULT STE. MARIE inac trout from their gill-nets. As it is now breakfast hour, the gulls begin to gather round the boat, hovering over her track that they may pick up the crumbs that will be thrown overboard by the waiters. The captain brings out a beauti ful little fowling-piece and tries to wing some of them. Shot after shot is fired, but no bird falls. With every flash the birds make a sudden curve, and instantly fall into place again, following us up closely. They have a sublime con tempt for the gun, if they are gulls. They seem to know well enough that danger is threatening them, but neverthe less consider themselves masters of the situation. Some of the passengers, who pride themselves on being good marks men, are itching to try the captain's gun: they feel sure of success. They are gratified with the chance to shoot, but not with their ill success. Not a bird is hurt. In the mean time, the ladies have their enjoyment of the scene by casting bread on the water, and watching the birds dip with beau tiful agility and pick it up, sweeping right on without break ing their graceful curve through the air. The rapid motion of the steamer soon carries us out on the lake, where we lose sight of land on the north, while on the south, keeping close to shore, we pass successively White- fish Point, the seat of the lighthouse ; Point au Sable, a chain of barren white sand-hills, rising several hundred feet above the lake; the world-renowned Pictured Rocks, stretching like a grand panorama for five miles along the coast; and Grand Island, where there is a fine natural harbour. Im mediately after passing Grand Island, Marquette looms into view. LEXINGTON HENRY B. DAWSON THE troubles between the colonies and the mother country, which, for upwards of half a century, had been accumulating and gaining strength, had been increased to an alarming extent by the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765. The loyalty of the colonists had been so much im paired by the passage of the Act, that its repeal, while it temporarily quieted them, did not effectually restore good will ; and the mutiny act, which accompanied the repeal, and the act imposing duties on tea and other necessary articles, which speedily followed, called forth the energetic opposi tion of the people throughout nearly the whole of the Brit ish American colonies. Letters and remonstrances, and petitions for relief, had been addressed by the colonists and by the colonial assem blies to influential persons in Europe, and to parliament and the king; conventions and congresses had been convened and dissolved; riots and loss of life and limb had marked the progress of the popular antipathies against the representa tives of the crown; the committees of correspondence had been organized for the purpose of harmonizing the opposi tion, and of producing concert of action throughout the young confederacy. A determined spirit of resistance had been manifested in the different seaports, when an intended attempt to force the tea into the colonies had been made known; and in New York and Boston, at least, the people, in their might, had returned the consignments to their owners, or re-consigned them to the waters of their harbours. The closing of the 159 160 LEXINGTON port of Boston; the abrogation of the rights of the colonial assembly of New York; the suspension of the charter of the colony of Massachusetts Bay; and other measures of a kin dred character, had been adopted by the British govern ment, or by the royal governors of the several colonies. Non importation leagues had been reorganized and their require ments enforced, and other retaliatory measures had been adopted by the colonists; the militia had been put into a state of greater efficiency; arms had been provided by those who were without them; and by the colonies for the general use; the manufacture of arms and of gun-powder had been commenced in several of the colonies; encouragement had been offered to those who would engage in the manufacture of saltpetre; military stores had been collected and deposited in convenient places; and resistance to the power of the mother country, by open force, had been made the subject of common conversation. The " Committee of Supplies," appointed for that pur pose by the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, had pur chased a considerable quantity of military stores and pro visions, and had placed a portion of them in the custody of Colonel James Barrett, in the town of Concord, seventeen miles northwest from the town of Boston. Early in the spring of 1775, information of this movement had been con veyed to General Thomas Gage, the commander-in-chief of the British forces in Boston, and steps were taken for the capture or destruction of the stores. Officers in disguise had been sent out as spies, to sketch the roads, to ascertain the situation of the stores, and to obtain such other information as might be useful in the prosecution of the enterprise. A few days before the time appointed to make the seizure, the grenadier and light-infantry companies were taken off duty, under pretence of enabling them to learn a new exer cise, but really for the purpose of throwing the people of LEXINGTON 161 Boston off their guard. It had a contrary effect, however, and the Bostonians still more closely watched the movements of the troops and the government. A Daughter of Liberty, in Boston, privately notified Sam uel Adams and John Hancock, who had withdrawn from Boston and were residing in Lexington, that within a few days the troops would leave the town, but the object of the expedition was not ascertained. Mr. Adams inferred, from the number of troops to be employed, that the destruction or capture of the stores was the object ; and the " Committee of Safety," of the Provincial Congress, voted " that all the ammunition be deposited in nine different towns; and that other articles be lodged, some in one place, some in another: so as to the fifteen medicinal chests, two thousand iron pots, two thousand bowls, fifteen thousand canteens, and eleven hundred tents; and that the six companies of matrosses be stationed in different towns." On the eighteenth of April, for the purpose of still fur ther concealing the purposes of the general, a party of offi cers dined together at Cambridge; but after dinner they scattered themselves upon the road leading to Concord, for the purpose of intercepting any expresses which might be sent out of Boston to alarm the country on the departure of the troops. Notwithstanding all their caution, however, they were seen, and the object of their mission was under stood. The " Committee of Safety " had been in session at Menotomy (West Cambridge), and the veteran General William Heath, who was a member, on his return home, met eight or nine of the party riding towards Lexington. His experienced eye detected the character of their equipments; and that circumstance, connected with the lateness of the hour, and their distance from Boston, excited his suspicion. In the town the same secrecy was attempted, yet, although nearly all the leaders of the popular party had retired into 162 LEXINGTON the country, Dr. Joseph Warren, who remained, noticed the movements, and took immediate steps to prevent their suc cess. Assisted by Paul Revere, subsequently well known as one of the earliest engravers in the country, beacon lights were thrown out from the tower of the North Church ; and Revere himself (rowed across the Charles River by a tried friend, five minutes before the sentinels on the Som erset, a man-of-war which was anchored in the channel, re ceived orders to prevent any person from passing), hastened towards Lexington, by way of Charlestown, while William Dawes was despatched by way of Roxbury to the same place. A short distance beyond Charlestown Neck, Revere was stopped by two British officers who had been patrolling the road since sunset on the preceding evening, but, being mounted on a fine horse, he escaped, by way of the road leading to Medford. As he rode through that town he aroused the captain of the minute-men, and stopping at almost every house on his way to Lexington, the inhabitants were prepared to discharge the important duty which was rapidly devolving upon them. Dawes also successfully dis charged the trust reposed in him, and arrived at Lexington in safety. The two friends immediately proceeded to the house of Rev. Jonas Clark, the pastor of the church at Lex ington, where John Hancock and Samuel Adams were secreted ; and notwithstanding the guard of minute-men, who had been posted around the house, strangely forbade their entrance, they succeeded in arousing the sleeping patriots, and in persuading them to retire to Woburn. The two friends, joined by Samuel Prescott, of Concord an active Son of Liberty after arousing the minute-men in Lexing ton, proceeded towards Concord, calling up the inhabitants on their road, until they reached Lincoln, where they fell in with another party of British officers. Revere and Dawes were seized and taken back to Lexington ; but Prescott, leap- LEXINGTON 163 ing over a stone wall, escaped and galloped on towards Con cord, spreading the alarm along the road, and in the villages through which he passed. He reached Concord about two o'clock, and the alarm-bell, on the belfry of their meeting house, called forth the inhabitants to the town-hall, their place of rendezvous. Old and young alike responded to the call, and while the minute-men and most of the militia, headed by Rev. William E. Emerson, their pastor, carrying their guns, and powder-horns, and ball-pouches, answered to their names at roll-call, others, with equal or greater dili gence, ran expresses to distant villages, or hurried away the stores and provisions, and secreted them in the woods and thickets, a load in a place. Children, even, whose tender age forbade heavier labour, ran beside the teams, and, with goads, urged on their unwilling steps, and women, trem bling for the result, assisted in the work, wherever their efforts or their words of encouragement were found useful. At the different villages in the vicinity similar scenes were enacted, and the inhabitants generally seemed to have been thoroughly aroused, and appreciated the importance of the occasion. At Lexington, by two o'clock, the village green was thronged with excited men. The aged, who were exempt, unless w r hen insurrection or invasion threatened the peace of the town, stood shoulder to shoulder with their sons; and, by their example and their experience, gave encouragement and strength to the undisciplined masses who were present. One hundred and thirty men, strong and true, answered to their names; and John Parker, the captain of the beat, at the same time that he ordered them to load with ball, strictly enjoined them to reserve their fire until after the enemy com menced the assault. No sign of the approach of the enemy being visible, the company was dismissed, with orders to re assemble at the roll of the drum. !6 4 LEXINGTON But to return to Boston. Lord Percy, a general in the British service, while crossing the Common in the evening, overtook a party of the townsmen, one of whom probably recognizing his lordship, and intending to be heard re marked, in his hearing, " They will miss their aim." Percy inquired, " what aim " was referred to, and was answered, "Why, the cannon at Concord." Perceiving that the in tended expedition was known in the town, Percy hastened to General Gage with the intelligence, and orders were im mediately issued to the sentries on the Neck, and on the different vessels in the harbour, that no person should be per mitted to leave the town without special orders from head quarters. These orders, as we have seen, were issued too late, and the energetic Revere and Dawes were beyond the reach of both the sentries and the general. At length, about eleven o'clock, the grenadiers and light- irifantry, the elite of the army, about eight hundred in number, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, embarked at the Common and proceeded up the Charles River, as far as a place known as Phipps's Farm, in the present town of West Cambridge. Landing at that place, they immediately proceeded on their way towards Lexington, under the guid ance of several Loyalists, at whose urgent solicitation the expedition was planned. In the selection of this course the enemy was probably influenced by information which he had received of the meeting of the " Committee of Safety " at Menotomy (now West Cambridge) on the preceding after noon, and by hopes which he entertained on securing some of its members, as the troops halted when they came oppo site Wetherby's tavern, where the meeting had been held. Several members of the committee, among whom were Colo nels Orne and Lee, and Elbridge Gerry, were then sleeping in the house; and they barely escaped, in their night-clothes, by the back door, into the fields. LEXINGTON 165 The enemy's approach to Lexington was announced by the firing of guns and the ringing of alarm-bells ; and Colonel Smith, perceiving that his advance into the country had be come known, immediately detached six companies of light- infantry, under Major Pitcairn, of the marines, with orders to press on, by a forced march, to Concord, and secure two bridges over the Concord River, near that town ; and, at the same time, he sent a messenger to Boston for reinforcements. Pitcairn, as he was directed, advanced rapidly towards Lex ington, capturing several persons on the way. One of these prisoners, named Thaddeus Bowman, escaped, and, hasten ing to Lexington, informed Captain Parker of the approach of the enemy. The drum was immediately beat to arms, and about seventy, who were in the immediate neighbourhood, assembled on the green, one half of whom were without arms. Captain Parker ordered those who were unarmed to go into the meeting-house (near by), equip themselves, and join the company; while those who were armed, thirty-eight in number, he directed to follow him to the north end of the green, where he formed them in line, in single file. Before those who were in the meeting-house could obtain arms and ammunition, Pitcairn and his detachment came up; and the latter, probably by design, were wheeled so as to cut the for mer off, and prevent them from joining their comrades under Captain Parker. Marching up by column of platoons, the enemy advanced within fifty feet of the position occupied by Captain Parker, and there halted. Major Pitcairn then advanced a few feet in front of his men, brandished his sword, and shouted, "Lay down your arms, you damned rebels, or you are all dead men!" and immediately afterwards, " the rebels" fail ing to comply with his first order, he ordered his men to " Fire! 9 The first platoon discharged their pieces, but no one was hurt. Captain Parker then directed every man to 166 LEXINGTON take care of himself, and they accordingly dispersed. While they were retreating, the second platoon of the enemy also fired, killing several and wounding others. Accounts of the affair differ respecting the use of their arms by the party under Captain Parker. Some authorities state that they returned the fire when they found that they were fired upon while retreating; and Stedman, who went out from Boston with the reinforcement sent to meet Colonel Smith on his return, states that one British soldier was wounded, and that Major Pitcairn's horse was wounded in two places. Many of those who were present state posi tively that the enemy's fire was not returned by the Ameri cans; and thus the matter rests, from conflict of testimony, in great uncertainty. Of the Americans, the following were killed: Ensign Robert Monroe, Jonas Parker, Samuel Hadley, Jonathan Harrington, Jr., Isaac Muzzy, Caleb Harrington, and John Brown, of Lexington, and Asabel Porter, of Woburn; and nine were wounded. By this time the main body, under Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, came up, and the whole party pushed on for Concord, six miles distant, probably elated with the victory which had been won at Lexington; and, more than ever, convinced of the truth of their insinuations respecting the courage of the colonists. Little did they suppose, however, that the blood shed on the village green at Lexington, like that of the mar tyrs, was but a " seed " in the hands of the husbandman, which being cast forth, produces fruit in its season. Although not the first blood shed in the cause of American freedom, it was the first which called forth the united opposition, by armed force, of the excited colonists, and broke down the wall of separation which had so long divided the different sections of the country New York from Virginia, and both from New England. SAN SALVADOR WASHINGTON IRVING TT was on Friday morning, the I2th of October, that * Columbus first beheld the New World. As day dawned he saw before him a level island, several leagues in extent, and covered with trees like a continual orchard. Though apparently uncultivated, it was populous, for the inhabitants were seen issuing from all parts of the woods and running to the shore. They were perfectly naked; and, as they stood gazing at the ships, appeared by their attitudes and gestures to be lost in astonishment. Columbus made signal for the ships to cast anchor, and the boats to be manned and armed. He entered his own boat richly attired in scar let, and holding the royal standard; while Martin Alonzo Pinzon and Vincent Janez, his brother, put off in company in their boats, each with a banner of the enterprise em blazoned with a green cross, having on either side the letters F. and Y., the initials of the Castilian monarchs, Ferdinand and Ysabel, surmounted by crowns. As he approached the shore, Columbus, who was dis posed for all kinds of agreeable impressions, was delighted with the purity and suavity of the atmosphere, the crystal transparency of the sea and the extraordinary beauty of the vegetation. He beheld, also, fruits of an unknown kind upon the trees which overhung the shores. On landing he threw himself on his knees, kissed the earth, and returned thanks to God with tears of joy. His example was followed by the rest, whose hearts indeed overflowed with the same feelings of gratitude. Columbus, then rising, drew his 167 168 SAN SALVADOR sword, displayed the royal standard, and assembling round him the two captains, with Rodrigo de Escobedo, notary of the armament, Rodrigo Sanchez, and the rest who had landed, he took solemn possession in the name of the Cas- tilian sovereigns, giving the island the name of San Salva dor. Having complied with the requisite forms and cere monies, he called upon all present to take the oath of obedience to him, as admiral and viceroy, representing the persons of the sovereigns. The feelings of the crew now burst forth in the most extravagant transports. They had recently considered them selves devoted men, hurrying forward to destruction; they now looked upon themselves as favourites of fortune, and gave themselves up to the most unbounded joy. They thronged around the admiral with overflowing zeal, some embracing him, others kissing his hands. Those who had been most mutinous and turbulent during the voyage were now most devoted and enthusiastic. Some begged favours of him, as if he had already wealth and honours in his gift. Many abject spirits, who had outraged him by their inso lence, now crouched at his feet, begging pardon for all the trouble they had caused him, and promising the blindest obedience for the future. The natives of the island, when, at the dawn of day, they had beheld the ships hovering on their coast, had sup posed them monsters which had issued from the deep during the night. They had crowded to the beach and watched their movements with awful anxiety. Their veering about, apparently without effort, and the shifting and furling of their sails, resembling huge wings, filled them with aston ishment. When they beheld their boats approach the shore, and a number of strange beings clad in glittering steel, or raiment of various colours, landing upon the beach, they fled in affright to the woods. Finding, however, that there SAN SALVADOR 169 was no attempt to pursue nor molest them, they gradually recovered from their terror, and approached the Spaniards with great awe; frequently prostrating themselves on the earth, and making signs of adoration. During the ceremo nies of taking possession, they remained gazing in timid admiration at the complexion, the beards, the shining ar mour and splendid dress of the Spaniards. Columbus par ticularly attracted their attention, from his commanding height, his air of authority, his dress of scarlet, and the deference which was paid to him by his companions; all which pointed him out to be the commander. When they had still further recovered from their fears, they approached the Spaniards, touched their beards, and examined their hands and faces, admiring their whiteness. Columbus was pleased with their gentleness and confiding simplicity, and suffered their scrutiny with perfect acquiescence, winning them by his benignity. They now supposed that the ships had sailed out of the crystal firmament which bounded their horizon, or had descended from above on their ample wings, and that these marvellous beings were inhabitants of the skies. As Columbus supposed himself to have landed on an island at the extremity of India, he called the natives by the gen eral appellation of Indians, which was universally adopted before the true nature of the discovery was known, and has since been extended to all the aboriginals of the New World. The island where Columbus had thus, for the first time, set his foot upon the New World, was called by the natives Guanahane. It still retains the name of San Salvador, which he gave to it, though called by the English Cat Island. The light which he had seen the evening previous to his making land may have been on Watling's Island, which lies a few leagues to the east. San Salvador is one of the great cluster of the Lucayos, or Bahama Islands, which 170 SAN SALVADOR stretch southeast and northwest from the coast of Florida to Hispaniola, covering the northern coast of Cuba. On the morning of the 1 4th of October, the Admiral set off at daybreak with the boats of the ship to reconnoitre the island, directing his course to the northeast. The coast was surrounded by a reef of rocks, within which there was depth of water and sufficient harbour to receive all the ships in Christendom. The entrance was very narrow; within there were several sand-banks, but the water was as still as in a pool. The island appeared throughout to be well wooded, with streams of water and a large lake in the centre. As the boats proceeded they passed two or three villages, the in habitants of which, men as well as women, ran to the shores, throwing themselves on the ground, lifting up their hands and eyes, either giving thanks to heaven, or worship ping the Spaniards as supernatural beings. They ran along parallel to the boats, calling after the Spaniards, and inviting them by signs to land, offering them various fruits and ves sels of water. Finding, however, that the boats continued on their course, many threw themselves into the sea and swam after them, and others followed in canoes. The admiral received them all with kindness, giving them glass beads and other trifles, which were received with transports as celestial presents, for the invariable idea of the savages was that the white men had come from the skies. In this way they pursued their course, until they came to a small peninsula, which with two or three days' labour might be separated from the mainland and surrounded with water, and was therefore specified by Columbus as an excel lent situation for a fortress. On this were six Indian cabins, surrounded by groves and gardens as beautiful as those of Castile. The sailors being wearied with rowing and the island not appearing to the admiral of sufficient importance SAN SALVADOR 171 to induce colonization, he returned to the ships, taking seven of the natives with him, that they might acquire the Spanish language and serve as interpreters. Having taken in a sup ply of wood and water, they left the island of San Salvador the same evening, the admiral being impatient to arrive at the wealthy country to the south, which he flattered himself would prove the famous island of Cipango. WEST POINT BENSON JOHN LOSSING FROM the brow of the hill, near the Cadet's Monu ment, is a comprehensive view of the picturesque village of Cold Spring, on the east side of the river, occupying a spacious alluvial slope, bounded by rugged heights on the north, and connected, behind a range of quite lofty moun tains, with the fertile valleys of Dutchess and Putnam Counties. We shall visit it presently. Meanwhile let us turn our eyes southward, and from another point on the margin of the Cemetery, where a lovely shaded walk in vites the strollers on warm afternoons, survey Camp Town at our feet, with West Point and the adjacent hills. In this view we see the Old Landing-Place, the road up to the pla teau, the Laboratory buildings, the Siege Battery, the Hotel, near the remains of old Fort Clinton, upon the highest ground on the plain, the blue dome of the Chapel, the turrets of the great Mess Hall, on the extreme right, the Cove, crossed by the Hudson River Railway, and the range of hills on the eastern side of the river. Following this walk to the entrance gate, we traverse a delightful winding road along the river-bank, picturesque at every turn, to the parting of the ways. One of these leads to the Point, the other up Mount Independence, on whose summit repose the grey old ruins of Fort Putnam. We had ascended that winding mountain road many times before, and listened to the echoes of the sweet bugle, or the deeper voices of the morning and evening gun at the Point. Now we were invited by a shady path, and a desire for 172 WEST POINT 173 novelty, from the road between Forts Webb and Putnam, into the deep rocky gorge between Mount Independence and the more lofty Redoubt Hill, to rear of the old fortress, where it wears the appearance of a ruined castle upon a mountain crag. The afternoon sun was falling full upon the mouldering ruin, and the chaotic mass of rocks beneath it; while the clear blue sky and white clouds presented the whole group, with accompanying evergreens, in the boldest relief. Making our way back by another but more difficult path, along the foot of the steep acclivity, we soon stood upon the broken walls of Fort Putnam, 500 feet above the river, with a scene before us of unsurpassed interest and beauty, viewed in the soft light of the evening sun. At our feet lay the promontory of West Point, with its Military Academy, the quarters of the officers and the cadets, and other buildings of the institution. To the left lay Constitu tion Island, from a point of which, where a ruined wall now stands, to the opposite shore of the main, a massive iron chain was laid upon floating timbers by the Americans, at the middle of the old war for independence. Beyond the island arose the smoke of the furnaces and forges, the spires, and the roofs of Cold Spring. Toward the left loomed up the lofty Mount Taurus, vulgarly called Bull Hill, at whose base, in the shadow of a towering wall of rock, and in the midst of grand old trees, nestles Under Cliff, then the home of Morris, whose songs have delighted thousands in both hemispheres. On the extreme left arose old Cro' Nest; and over its right shoulder lay the rugged range of Break Neck, dipping to the river sufficiently to reveal the beautiful country beyond, on the borders of Newburgh Bay. This is one of the most attractive points of view on the Hudson. Fort Putnam was erected by the Americans in 1778, for the purpose of defending Fort Clinton, on West Point WEST POINT below, and to more thoroughly secure the river against the passage of hostile fleets. It was built under the direction of Colonel Rufus Putnam, and chiefly by the men of his Massachusetts regiment. It commanded the river above and below the Point, and it was almost impregnable, owing to its position. In front, the mountain is quite steep for many yards, and then slopes gently to the plains; while on its western side, a perpendicular wall of rock, fifty feet in height, would have been presented to the enemy. Redoubts were also built upon other eminences in the vicinity. These being chiefly earth-works, have been almost obliterated by the action of storms; and Fort Putman was speedily dis appearing under the hands of industrious neighbours, who were carrying off the stone for building purposes, when the work of demolition was arrested by the Government. Its remains, consisting of only broken walls and two or three arched casemates, all overgrown with vines and shrubbery, are now carefully preserved. Even the cool spring that bub bles from the rocks in its centre, is kept clear of choking leaves; and we may reasonably hope that the ruins of Fort Putnam will remain, an object of interest to the passing traveller, for more than a century to come. The views from Roe's Hotel, on the extreme northern verge of the summit of the plain of West Point, are very pleasing in almost every direction. The one northward, similar to that from the Siege Battery, is the finest. West ward the eye takes in the Laboratory, Lieutenant-Colonel Wood's Monument, a part of the shaded walk along the northern margin of the plain, and Mount Independence, crowned with the ruins of Fort Putnam. Southward the view comprehends the entire Parade, and glimpses, through the trees, of the Academy, the Chapel, the Mess Hall, and other buildings of the institution, with some of the officers' quarters and professors' residences on the extreme right. WEST POINT 175 The earthworks of Fort Clinton have recently been restored, in their original form and general proportions exactly upon their ancient site, and present, with the beautiful trees grow ing within their green banks, a very pleasant object from every point of view. The old fort was constructed in the spring of 1778, under the direction of the brave Polish sol dier, Thaddeus Kosciuszko, who was then a colonel in the Continental Army, and chief of the Engineers' Corps. The fort, when completed, was 600 yards around, within the walls. The embankments were 21 feet at the base and 14 feet in height. Barracks and huts sufficient to ac commodate six hundred persons were erected within the fort. It stood upon a cliff, on the margin of the plain, 180 feet above the river. Kosciuszko was much beloved by the Revolutionary Army, and his memory is held in reverence by the American people. He was only twenty years of age when he joined that army. He had been educated at the Military School of Warsaw. He had not completed his studies, when he eloped with a beautiful girl of high rank. They were overtaken by the maiden's father, who made a violent at tempt to seize his daughter. The young Pole was compelled either to slay the father or abandon the daughter. He choose the latter, and obtaining the permission of his sovereign, he went to France, and there became a student in drawing and military science. In Paris he was introduced to Dr. Franklin, and, fired with a desire to aid a people fighting for independence, he sailed for America, bearing letters from that minister. He applied to Washington for em ployment. " What do you seek here? " asked the leader of the armies of the revolted colonies. " I come to fight as a volunteer for American independence," the young Pole re plied. " What can you do ? " Washington asked. " Try me," was Kosciuszko's prompt reply. Pleased with the 176 WEST POINT young man, Washington took him into his military family. The Congress soon afterwards appointed him engineer, with the rank of colonel. He returned to Poland at the close of the Revolution, and was made a major-general under Poniatowski. He was at the head of the military move ments of the Revolution in Poland in 1794, and was made a prisoner, and carried to St. Petersburg. This event caused Campbell to write : " Hope for a season bade the earth farewell, And freedom shrieked when Kosciuszko fell." After the Empress Catherine died, the Emperor Paul lib erated him, offered him command in the Russian service, and presented him with his own sword. He declined it, saying, " I no longer need a sword, since I have no longer a country to defend." He revisited the United States in 1797, when the Congress granted him land in considera tion of his services. He afterwards lived in Switzerland, and there he died in 1817. A public funeral was made for him at Warsaw. Twelve years afterwards, the cadets at West Point, actuated by love for the man and reverence for his deeds, erected a beautiful marble monument to his mem ory, within the ruins of old Fort Clinton, at a cost of about $5000. It bears upon one side the name of " KOSCIUSZKO," and on another, the simple inscription. " Erected by the Corps of Cadets, 1828." It is a conspicuous and pleasing object to voyagers upon the river. Passing along the verge of the cliffs, southward from Kosciuszko's monument, the visitor soon reaches another memorial stone. It is of white marble, the chief member being a fluted column, entwined by a laurel wreath, held in the beak of an eagle, perched upon its top. The pedestal is of temple form, square, with a row of encircling stars WEST POINT 177 upon its entablature, and a cannon, like a supporting col umn, at each corner. It was erected to commemorate a battle fought between a detachment of United States troops under Major Frances L. Dade, and a party of Seminole Indians, in the Everglades of Florida, on the a8th of De cember, 1835. A few feet from Dade's Command's Monument, a narrow path, through a rocky passage, overhung with boughs and shrubbery, leads down to a pleasant terrace in the steep bank of the river, which is called Kosciuszko's Garden. At the back of the terrace the rock rises perpendicularly, and from its outer edge descends as perpendicularly to the river. This is said to have been Kosciuszko's favourite place of re sort for reading and meditation, while he was at West Point. He found a living spring bubbling from the rocks, in the middle of the terrace, and there he constructed a pretty little fountain. Its ruins were discovered in 1802, and re paired. The water now rises into a marble basin. Seats have been provided for visitors, ornamental shrubs have been planted, and the whole place wears an aspect of mingled romance and beauty. A deep circular indention in the rock back of the fountain was made, tradition affirms, by a can non-ball sent from a British ship, while the Polish soldier was occupying his accustomed loitering-place, reading Vau- ban, and regaled by the perfume of roses. From this quiet, solitary retreat, a pathway, appropriately called Flirtation Walk, leads up to the plain. A short distance from Kosciuszko's Garden, upon a higher terrace, is Battery Knox, constructed by the cadets. It com mands a fine view of the eastern shore of the Hudson, in the Highlands, and down the river to Anthony's Nose. Near by are seen the Cavalry Stables and the Cavalry Exer cise Hall, belonging to the Military School ; and below there is seen the modern West Point Landing. A little higher 178 WEST POINT up, on the plain, are the groups of spacious edifices used for the purposes of the institution. West Point was indicated by Washington, as early as 1783, as an eligible place for a military academy. In his message to Congress in 1793, he recommended the establishment of one at West Point. The subject rested until 1802, when Congress made provision by law for such an institution there. Very little progress was made in the matter until the year 1812, when, by another act of Con gress, a corps of engineers and professors were organized, and the school was endowed with the most attractive fea tures of a literary institution, mingled with that of a military character. From that time until the present, the academy has been increasing in importance, as the nursery of army officers and skilful practical engineers. The buildings of the West Point Military Academy con sisted, at the time we are considering, of cadets' barracks, cadets' guard-house, academy, mess-hall, hospital for cadets, chapel, observatory, and library, artillery laboratory, hos pital for troops, equipment shed, engineers' troops barracks, post guard-house, dragoons' barracks, cavalry exercise hall, cavalry stables, powder magazine, the quarters oi the offi cers and professors of the academy, workshops, commissary of the cadets' and sutler's store, shops and cottages for the accommodation of non-commissioned officers and their fami lies, laundresses of the cadets, etc. The principal edifices are built of granite. The post is under the general command of a superinten dent, who bears the rank of brevet-colonel. The average number of cadets was about two hundred and fifty. Candi dates for admission are selected by the War Department at Washington City, and they are required to report themselves for examination to the superintendent of the academy be tween the first and twentieth day of June. None are ad- WEST POINT 179 mitted who are less than sixteen or more than twenty-one years of age, who are less than five feet in height, or who are deformed or otherwise unfit for military duty. Each cadet, on a mission, is obliged to subscribe his name to an agreement to serve in the army of the United States four years, in addition to his four years of instruction, unless sooner discharged by competent authority. The course of instruction consists of infantry tactics and military policy, mathematics, the French language, natural philosophy, drawing, chemistry, mineralogy, artillery tac tics, the science of gunnery, and the duties of a military laboratory, engineering and the science of war, geography, history and ethics, the use of the sword, and cavalry exer cise and tactics. The rules and regulations of the academy are very strict and salutary, and the instruction in all de partments is thorough and complete. The road from the plain to the landing at West Point was cut from the steep, rocky bank of the river, at a heavy expense to the government. A steam ferry-boat connects West Point with the Garri son Station of the Hudson River Railway opposite. Near the latter is the old ferry-place of the Revolution, where troops crossed to and from West Point. Here Washington crossed on the morning when General Arnold's treason was discovered, and here he held a most anxious consultation with Colonel Hamilton when the event was suspected. We crossed the ferry to Garrison's and from the road near the station obtained a pleasant view of West Point, glimpses of the principal buildings there, and the range of lofty hills beyond, which form the group of the Cro 5 Nest and the Storm King. Following a winding road up the east bank of the river from this point, we came to a mill, almost hidden among the trees at the head of a dark ravine, through which flows a clear mountain stream called Kedron Brook, 180 WEST POINT wherefore I could not learn, for there is no resemblance to Jerusalem or the Valley of Jehoshaphat near. It is a portion of the beautiful estate of Ardinia, the property of Richard Arden, Esq. His son, Lieutenant Thomas Arden, a gradu ate of the West Point Military Academy, owns and occu pies Beverly, near by, the former residence of Colonel Bev erly Robinson (an eminent American loyalist during the war for independence), and the headquarters of General Bene dict Arnold at the time of his treason. It is situated upon a broad and fertile terrace, at the foot of Sugar-Loaf Moun tain, one of the eastern ranges of the Highlands, which rises eight hundred feet above the plain. General Arnold was at the Mansion of Colonel Robin son (Beverly House) on the morning of the 24th of Sep tember, 1780, fully persuaded that his treasonable plans for surrendering West Point and its dependencies into the hands of Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander-in-chief, then in possession of New York, for the consideration of a brigadier's commission in the British army, and .10,000 in gold, were working prosperously. Major Andre, Arnold's immediate accomplice in trea sonable designs, had, in a personal interview, arranged the details of the wicked bargain, and left for New York. Arnold believed he had arrived there in safety, with all requisite information for Sir Henry; and that before Wash ington's return from Connecticut, whither he had gone to hold a conference with Rochambeau and other French offi cers, Clinton would have sailed up the Hudson and taken possession of the Highland fortresses. But Andre did not reach New York. He was captured on his way, by militia men, as a suspicious-looking traveller. Evidences of his character as a spy were found upon his person, and he was (detained. Washington returned sooner than Arnold ex pected him. To the surprise of the traitor, Hamilton and WEST POINT 181 Lafayette reached the Beverly House early on the morning of the 24th, and announced that Washington had turned down to the West Point Ferry, and would be with them soon. At breakfast Arnold received a letter from an officer below, saying, " Major Andre, of the British Army, is a prisoner in my custody." The traitor had reason to expect that evidences of his own guilt might arrive at any moment. He concealed his emotions. With perfect coolness he or dered a horse to be made ready, alleging that his presence was needed " over the river " immediately. He then left the table, went into the great passage, and hurried up the broad staircase to his wife's chamber. In brief and hurried words he told her that they must instantly part, perhaps forever, for his life depended on his reaching the enemy's lines without detection. Horror stricken, the poor young creature, but one year a mother, and not two a wife, swooned and sank senseless upon the floor. Arnold dare not call for assistance, but kissing, with lips blasted by words of guilt and treason, his boy, then sleeping in angel innocence and purity, he rushed from the room, mounted a horse, hastened to the river, flung himself into his barge, and directing th'e six oarsmen to row swiftly down the Hudson, escaped to the Vulture, a British sloop-of-war, lying far below. THE ACQUISITION OF LOUISIANA JACQUES DE LA METAIRIE * To all those to whom these presents shall come, greeting: Know, that, having been requested by the said Sieur de la Salle to deliver to him an act, signed by us and by the witnesses therein named, of possession by him taken of the country of Louisiana, near the three mouths of the River Colbert, in the Gulf of Mexico, on the gth of April, 1682. In the name of the most high, mighty, invincible, and victorious Prince, Louis the Great, by the Grace of God, King of France and of Navarre, Fourteenth of that name, and of his heirs, and the successor of his crown, we, the aforesaid Notary, have delivered the said act to the said Sieur de la Salle, the tenor whereof follows: On the 27th of December, 1681, M. de la Salle departed on foot to join M. de Tonty, who had preceded him with his followers and all his equipage forty leagues into the Miami's country, where the ice on the River Chekagou, in the country of the Mascoutens, had arrested his progress, and where, when the ice became stronger, they used sledges to drag the baggage, the canoes, and a wounded Frenchman, through the whole length of this river, and on the Illinois, a distance of seventy leagues. At length, all the French being together, on the 25th of 1 Notary of Fort Frontenac in New France, commissioned to exercise the said function of Notary during the voyage to Louisiana in North America by M. de la Salle, Governor of Fort Frontenac for the King, and commandant of his Majesty given at St. Ger main, on the i2th of May, 1678. 182 THE ACQUISITION OF LOUISIANA 183 January, 1682, we came to Pimiteoui. From that place, the river being frozen only in some parts, we continued our route to the River Colbert, sixty leagues, or thereabouts, from Pimiteoui, and ninety leagues, or thereabouts, from the village of the Illinois. We reached the banks of the River Colbert on the 6th of January, and remained there until the I3th, waiting for the savages, whose progress had been impeded by the ice. On the I3th, all having assembled, we renewed our voyage, being twenty-two French, carrying arms, accompanied by the Reverend Father Zenobe Membre, one of the Recollect Missionaries, and followed by eighteen New England savages, and several women, Ilgonquines, Otchipoises and Huronnes. On the I4th, we arrived at the village of Maroa, consisting of a hundred cabins, without inhabitants. Proceeding about a hundred leagues down the River Colbert, we went ashore to hunt on the 26th of February. A Frenchman was lost in the woods, and it was reported to M. de la Salle, that a large number of savages had been seen in the vicinity. Thinking that they might have seized the Frenchman, and in order to observe these savages, he marched through the woods during two days, but without finding them, because they had all been fright ened by the guns which they had heard, and had fled. Returning to camp, he sent in every direction French and savages on the search, with orders, if they fell in with savages, to take them alive without injury, that he might gain from them intelligence of this Frenchman. Gabriel Barbie, with two savages, having met five of the Chikacha nation, captured two of them. They were received with all possible kindness, and, after he had explained to them that he was anxious about a Frenchman who had been lost, and that he only detained them that he might rescue him from their hands, if he was really among them, and after wards make with them an advantageous peace (the French 184 THE ACQUISITION OF LOUISIANA doing good to everybody), they assured him that they had not seen the man whom we sought, but that peace would be received with the greatest satisfaction. Presents were then given to them, and as they had signified that one of their villages was not more than half a day's journey distant, M. de la Salle set out the next day to go thither; but, after travelling till night, and having remarked that they often contradicted themselves in their discourse, he declined going farther without more provisions. Having pressed them to tell the truth, they confessed that it was yet four days' jour ney to their villages; and perceiving that M. de la Salle was angry at having been deceived, they proposed that one of them should remain with him, while the other carried the news to the village, whence the elders would come and join them four days' journey below that place. The said Sieur de la Salle returned to the camp with one of these Chikachas; and the Frenchman, whom we sought, having been found, he continued his voyage, and passed the river of the Chepontias, and the village of the Metsigameas. The fog, which was very thick, prevented his finding the passage which led to the rendez-vous proposed by the Chik achas. On the 1 2th of March, we arrived at the Kapaha village of Akansa. Having established a peace there, and taken possession, we passed, on the I5th, another of their villages, situate on the border of their river, and also two others, farther off in the depth of the forest, and arrived at that of Imaha, the largest village in this nation, where peace was confirmed, and where the chief acknowledged that the village belonged to his Majesty. Two Akansas embarked with M. de la Salle to conduct him to the Talusas, their allies, about fifty leagues distant, who inhabit eight villages upon the borders of a little lake. On the igth we passed the villages of Tourika, Jason, and Kouera; but as they THE ACQUISITION OF LOUISIANA 185 did not border on the river, and were hostile to the Akanas and Taensas, we did not stop there. On the 2Oth, we arrived at the Taensas, by whom we were exceedingly well received, and supplied with a large quantity of provisions. M. de Tonty passed a night at one of their villages, where there were about seven hundred men carrying arms assembled in the place. Here again a peace was concluded. A peace was also made with the Koroas, whose chief came there from the principal village of the Koroas, two leagues distant from that of the Natches. The two chiefs accompanied M. de la Salle to the banks of the river. Here the Koroa chief embarked with him, to conduct him to his village, where peace was again concluded with this nation, which, besides the five other villages of which it is composed, is allied to nearly forty others. On the 3 1st, we passed the village of the Oumas without know ing it, on account of the fog, and its distance from the river. On the 3d of April, at about ten o'clock in the morning, we saw among the canes thirteen or fourteen canoes. M. de la Salle landed, with several of his people. Footprints were seen, and also savages, a little lower down, who were fishing, and who fled precipitately as soon as they discovered us. Others of our party then went ashore on the borders of a marsh formed by the inundation of the river. M. de la Salle sent two Frenchmen, and then two savages to re connoitre, who reported that there was a village not far off, but that the whole of this marsh, covered with canes, must be crossed to reach it; that they had been assailed with a shower of arrows by the inhabitants of the town, who had not dared to engage with them in the marsh, but who had then withdrawn, although neither the French nor the sav ages with them had fired, on account of the orders they had received not to act unless in pressing danger. Presently 186 THE ACQUISITION OF LOUISIANA we heard a drum beat in the village, and cries and howlings with which these barbarians are accustomed to make attacks. We waited three or four hours, and, as we could not encamp in this marsh, and seeing no one, and no longer hearing anything, we embarked. An hour afterwards we came to the village of Maheo- nala, lately destroyed, and containing dead bodies and marks of blood. Two leagues below this place we encamped. We continued our voyage till the 6th, when we discovered three channels by which the River Colbert discharges itself into the sea. We landed on the bank of the western channel, about three leagues from its mouth. On the 7th, M. de la Salle went to reconnoitre the shores of the neighbouring sea, and M. de Tonty likewise examined the great middle channel. They found these two outlets beautiful, large, and deep. On the 8th we reascended the river, a little above its confluence with the sea, to find a dry place, beyond the reach of inundations. The elevation of the North Pole was here about twenty-seven degrees. Here we prepared a column and a cross, and to the said column we affixed the arms of France, with this inscription: LOUIS LE GRAND, RIO DE FRANCE ET DE NAVARRE, REGNE; LE NEUVIEME, AVRIL, 1682. The whole party, under arms, chanted the Te Deum, the Exaudiat, the Domine salvum fac Regem; and then, after a salute of firearms and cries of Vive le Roi, the column was erected by M. de la Salle, who, standing near it, said with a loud voice in French : " In the name of the most high, mighty, invincible, and victorious Prince, Louis the Great, by the Grace of God, King of France and of Na varre, Fourteenth of that name, this ninth day of April, one thousand six hundred and eighty-two, I, in virtue of THE ACQUISITION OF LOUISIANA 187 the commission of his Majesty, which I hold in my hand and which may be seen by all whom it may concern, have taken, and do now take, in the name of his Majesty and of his successors to the crown, possession of this country of Louisiana, the seas, harbours, ports, bays, adjacent straits; and all the nations, people, provinces, cities, towns, villages, mines, minerals, fisheries, streams, and rivers, comprised in the extent of the said Louisiana, from the mouth of the great river St. Louis, on the eastern side, otherwise called Ohio, Alighin, Sipore, or Chukagona, and this with the consent of the Chaouanons, Chikachas, and other people dwelling therein, with whom we have made alliance; as also along the River Colbert, or Misissippi, and rivers which discharge themselves therein, from its source beyond the country of the Kious or Nadouessious, and this with their consent, and with the consent of the Motantees, Ilinois, Mesigameas, Natches, Kouoas, which are the most consid erable nations dwelling therein, with whom also we have made alliance either by ourselves, or by others in our behalf ; as far as its mouth at the sea, or Gulf of Mexico, about the twenty-seventh degree of the elevation of the North Pole, and also to the mouth of the River of Palms ; upon the assurance, which we have received from all these nations, that we are the first Europeans who have descended or ascended the said River Colbert; hereby protesting against all those, who may in future undertake to invade any or all of these countries, people, or lands, above described, to the prejudice of the right of his Majesty, acquired by the consent of the nations herein named. Of which, and of all that can be needed, I hereby take to witness those who hear me, and demand an act of the Notary, as required by law.'* To which the whole assembly responded with shouts of Vive le Roi, and with salutes of firearms. Moreover, the said Sieur de la Salle caused to be buried at the foot of 188 THE ACQUISITION OF LOUISIANA the tree, to which the cross was attached, a leaden plate, on one side of which were engraved the arms of France, and the following Latin inscription: LVDOVICVS MAGNVS REGNAT. NONO APRILIS CIO IOC LXXXII. ROBERTVS CAVELIER, CVM DOMINO DE TONTY, LEGATO, R. P. ZENOBIO MEMBRE, RECOL- LECTO, ET VIGINTI GALLIS, PRIMVS HOC FLVMEN, INDE AB ILINEORVM PAGO, ENAVI- GAVIT, EJVSQVE OSTIVM FECIT PERVIVM, NONO APRILIS ANNI CID IOC LXXXII. After which, the Sieur de la Salle said, that his Majesty, as eldest son of the Church, would annex no country to his crown, without making it his chief care to establish the Christian religion therein, and that its symbol must now be planted; which was accordingly done at once by erecting a cross, before which the Vexilla and the Domine salvum fac Regem were sung. Whereupon the ceremony was con cluded with cries of Vive le Roi. Of all and every of the above, the said Sieur de la Salle having required of us an instrument, we have delivered to him the same, signed by us, and by the undersigned wit nesses, this ninth day of April, one thousand six hundred and eighty-two. LA METAIRIE, Notary. De la Salle; P. Zenobe, Recollect Missionary; Henry de Tonty; Francois de Boisrondet; Jean Bourdon; Sieur d'Autray; Jacques Cauchois; Pierre You; Gilles Meucret; Jean Michel, Surgeon; Jean Mas; Jean Dulignon; Nicolas de la Salle. GETTYSBURG JAMES SCHOULER GETTYSBURG to the Southern cause "a glorious field of grief " lies in a peaceful pastoral region, walled in on the west by the blue line of the South Moun tain range, and studded throughout its landscape by lesser hills. Nearly as the same longitude as Washington, it is situated in Pennsylvania not far north of the Maryland border. Here the Chambersburg and Hagerstown roads cross one another and diverge; while a valley, highly culti vated, with grain fields and orchards, lies slumbering with thrifty farmhouses between two nearly parallel ranges of hills Seminary Ridge on the west (near which stands a Lutheran seminary) , and, on the southeast, Cemetery Ridge, one of whose hills is consecrated for burial purposes. This latter range begins in a bold and rocky cliff, called Gulp's Hill, at whose southerly extremity towers a conical and com manding rock, Round Top, crowned with a smaller spur, called Little Round Top, which overlooks the surrounding country. Midway in the peaceful valley is a lower inter mediate ridge, along which runs the road to Emmitsburg. Upon this natural theatre was fought the desperate three days' battle to be described, in the hot and exhausting weather of midsummer. Learning from Couch that Lee's army had turned away from the Susquehanna River, Meade, before dawn of July 1st, arranged for a defensive line of battle along Pike's Creek, there to await the enemy's approach. But Reynolds had gone leisurely on in advance to occupy the obscure town of Gettysburg, having in command the First, Third, and 189 I 9 o GETTYSBURG Eleventh Corps, the left grand division of Meade's army. Buford, who had taken possession of this town with his cavalry the day before, and thrown out pickets, encountered on the Chambersburg road a fragment of the enemy's ad vancing host. He despatched the tidings at once to Rey nolds, who dashed forward on horseback, on that memorable morning with his First corps following fast on foot, and sent word for the rest of his command, now miles in the rear, to hasten up quickly. After an anxious survey with Buford from the belfry of the Lutheran seminary, Reynolds resolved upon the morning's work. Here a battle might well be risked; here the instant duty was to keep back that oncoming wave until Meade could mass his host to break it. With a higher mandate before his eyes, the letter of his written directions seems to have been disregarded. " Heth's Conferedate division approached in force from the west; and while Reynolds held it watchfully in check on the Chambersburg road, that devoted officer was shot dead by a bullet through his brain. His glory on this field was first and greatest, yet others were to win glory there before the fight ended. Doubleday now took charge, with such of the First corps as had arrived, and the fighting began in earnest. From ten in the forenoon for three long hours the First corps alone, with Buford's cavalry, bore the brunt of the enemy's advance, and forced A. P. Hill to wait for Ewell. The Confederates, largely reinforced, were pressing hotly when, about two o'clock, Howard arrived with his Eleventh corps, and, by virtue of his rank, assumed direc tion. He deployed at once to hold the two western roads to the left, while on the right confronting Ewell's phalanx, which came into view on the road from Carlisle. But the Union line had extended too far; and Ewell, assailing it sim ultaneously in front and on the exposed flanks, won an easy victory; for in both numbers and position the Confederates GETTYSBURG 191 had now the advantage. Howard's column was pressed back into the town and through it, closely pursued, and suffering much in wounded and captured. But before this misfortune, Howard had taken the precaution to secure Cemetery Hill, which made a strong refuge place for posting anew his retreating troops as they poured southward. At this juncture, and toward four in the afternoon, Hancock arrived on the scene, sent thither by Meade to assume com mand in consequence of the death of Reynolds, whose tidings reached him. Hancock's splendid presence at this discour aging moment was like that of another army corps, and gave calmness and confidence to our exhausted soldiery. He checked the fighting and received the disorganized regi ments as they arrived. Howard, though demurring at the authority given by Meade to one who was, in lineal rank, his junior, co-operated generously in restoring order. The two arranged together a new position on Cemetery Hill and along the Ridge, impregnable to further assault for the day, and covering Gettysburg and the roads from Baltimore and the south. Slocum now reached the scene with Sickle's dusty veterans of the Third corps, who had been marching all day by the Emmitsburg road. To him, as ranking officer, the command was turned over, and Hancock galloped back to urge upon Meade the advantage of this new field of battle. Meade, while taken unawares, had not hesitated what course to pursue; and, though but three days in command of this great army, He relinquished one plan to take up another, and moved his whole force promptly to the rescue. All night, and by every road of approach, the Union troops came swarming in from the southward and marched to their positions under the light of the full moon. Meade himself came upon the field at one o'clock the next morning, pale, hollow-eyed, worn with toil and loss of sleep, yet rising to the measure of his responsibilities. I 9 2 GETTYSBURG Lee, at the opposite entrance to Gettysburg, had arrived on the first, in season to watch from Seminary Ridge the new position which his flying foe was taking. His mind was not yet made up to fight an offensive battle; for, im pressed by the steadiness of this new alignment, he gave no order of attack to break up the Union preparations, but merely sent Ewell the suggestion to carry Cemetery Hill, if he thought it practicable. Ewell, however, spent the afternoon in waiting to be reinforced; and a great Confed erate opportunity was neglected. The sanguinary fight of the second did not commence until far into the afternoon. This July weather was hot and oppressive; many of the troops just arrived on either side had borne a long and exhausting march; and doubtless the opposing commanders felt the onerous burden of initiating battle. Little Round Top was the key to the Union position; and the enemy concealing their movements in thick woods until the signal for assault was given, revealed them selves suddenly at four o'clock, with an outflanking line. Sickles held an advance position not intended by Meade, but too late to be rectified. Upon him, unsheltered, was made by Hood's division from Longstreet the first furious assault, Lee desiring that ground for his artillery in storm ing the higher crests beyond. Here, for nearly two hours, raged a fierce and sanguinary conflict. The Confederates were driven from the hill; but later in the day, when the Union right was much depleted by the reinforcements hurried to Round Top, a line of intrench- ments left here by Geary's division were carried by the Confederate General Johnson, who held the position all night. Artillery had taken part wherever it could, in a pell-mell fight which slackened and then ceased late in the evening. GETTYSBURG 193 Thursday, the 3d of July, dawned with that same bright summer weather, intensely hot, which invited inaction, until the sun should pass its meridian. Meade, though uncertain of the issue, prepared for either fate with coolness and fore thought. At sunrise he telegraphed to his general who commanded at Frederick, to harass and annoy the enemy should they be driven to retreat, but in case discomfiture came to the Union army, then to interpose his force so as to protect Washington. The midday silence was broken by a simultaneous dis charge of 130 cannon planted on the Confederate ridge, to whose terrific uproar half the number responded on the Union side. Dense clouds of smoke settled over the valley, through which the shells went hissing and screaming to and fro. This tentative artillery duel, whose damage done was trifling in comparison with the prodigious noise and flame, occupied about an hour. The Union lines stood firm as before, and even firmer, and no spot showed weakness for the foe to break. Obedient to Longstreet's orders, as the black canopy rolled away, Pickett valiantly led forth his troops from behind a ridge, where they had lain concealed, and a column of some 17,000 men moved wedge-like over the green landscape of waving grain and stubble, irradiated by the beaming sun. On they came, in full sight from Cemetery Ridge, for nearly a mile; but before they had ad vanced half-way across the valley they bore off toward the centre and in the direction of Hancock's front. And now, while the Union artillery, which Lee had hoped to silence, opened from right to left upon the forlorn column with a terribly destructive fire, Pickett's assaulting force of five thousand, thinning in ranks at every step, approached the long, bristling Union line, which was drawn up firm on the heights. Pettigrew's division, supporting it on the left, was attacked by Alexander Hay's, of Hancock's corps, with 194 GETTYSBURG such fury that the ranks wavered and broke, and all coura geous who were left alive mingled with the troops of Pick- ett. At an advanced point, where part of Webb's small force held a stone fence, that barrier was carried with yells of triumph; but Webb fell back among his guns, and, aided from right to left by Union brigades and regiments, which rushed valorously to the scene, a din and confusion arose, men fighting and overturning one another like wild beasts, until, at a little clump of woods, where Gushing, a Union lieutenant of artillery, fired a shot as he dropped, and the Confederate General Armistead, foremost in this assault, fell while waving his hat upon his sword-point, the last invading surge expended itself. More than two thousand men had been killed or wounded in thirty minutes. Pickett now gave the order to retreat, and as his bleeding and shat tered force receded in confusion, the Union soldiery sprang forward, enveloping on all sides the Confederate ranks and swept in prisoners and battle ensigns. Wilcox, too, whose supporting column on the other side had become isolated, had to cut his way out in retreat, forced by a Union brigade, while batteries from above on Little Round Top rained down iron hail. While this main battle raged, sharp cav alry combats took place upon both flanks of the hostile armies. With the repulse of Pickett's splendid but impracticable charge, the third day's fight of Gettysburg, the briefest of all in duration, and yet in proportion, the bloodiest, came to an end. Lee, shaken by the terrible consequences, took candidly the blame of this futile effort upon himself, and with soothing words drew off to save the remnant of his army. Meade, from the opposite heights, made no counter charge, but comprehending quite slowly the magnitude of his victory, which he described in despatches as a " handsome repulse," refrained from pressing forcibly his advantage. ST. ANTHONY AND MINNEHAHA EDWARD DUFFIELD NEILL E~KE the Garden of Eden, the State is encircled by rivers and lakes. There is " water, water everywhere " ; and in view of this characteristic, Nicollet called the country Undine. To naiads and all water spirits it would be a per fect paradise. The surface of the country is dotted with lakes, and in some regions it is impossible to travel five miles without meeting a beautiful expanse of water. Many of these lakes are linked together by small and clear rivulets, while others are isolated. Their configuration is varied and picturesque ; some are large, with precipitous shores, and con tain wooded islands; others are approached by gentle grassy slopes. Their bottoms are paved with agates, carnelians, and other beautiful quartz pebbles. Owens, in his Geologi cal Report, says: " Their beds are generally pebbly, or cov ered with small boulders, which peep out along the shore, and frequently show a rocky line around the entire circum ference. Very few of them have mud bottoms. The water is generally sweet and clear, and north of the water-shed is as cool and refreshing during the heats of summer as the water of springs or wells. All the lakes abound with vari ous species of fish, of a quality and flavour greatly superior to those of the streams of the Middle or Western States." The country also contains a number of ha-ha, as the Da- kotahs call all waterfalls. As the State of New York shares with Great Britain the sublimest cataract, so Minnesota has a joint ownership in a picturesque fall. It is about a mile and a half above the mouth of Pigeon River. The perpen dicular descent is sixty feet, after which the river chafes its 196 ST. ANTHONY AND MINNEHAHA way for many yards. About one mile below the west end of Grand Portage, the old depot of the Northwest Company, are the great cascades of Pigeon River. " The scenery at the cascades presents the singular combination of wild grandeur and picturesque beauty, with an aspect the most dreary and desolate imaginable. In the distance of four hundred yards, the river falls one hundred and forty-four feet. The fall is in a series of cascades through a narrow gorge, with perpen dicular walls, varying from forty to one hundred and twenty feet, on both sides of the river." The streams in the north east county of Minnesota nearly all come into Lake Superior with a leap. Half a mile from the lake, the Kawimbash hurries through perpendicular walls of stone, seventy-five feet in height, and at last pitches down a height of eighteen or twenty feet. On Kettle River, a tributary of the St. Croix, there are also interesting rapids and falls. The falls of St. Croix, thirty miles above Stillwater, elicit the admiration of the traveller. Between lofty walls of trap rock, the river rushes, " at first with great velocity, forming a succession of whirl pools, until it makes a sudden bend, then glides along pla cidly, reflecting in its deep waters the dark image of the columnar masses, as they rise towering above each other to the height of a hundred to a hundred and seventy feet." On the Vermilion River, which is a western tributary of the Mississippi, opposite the St. Croix, there are picturesque falls, about a mile from Hastings. A drive of less than fifteen minutes from Fort Snelling, in the direction of St. Anthony, brings the tourist to a water fall that makes a lifetime impression. " Stars in the silent night Might be enchained, Birds in their passing flight Be long detained, ST. ANTHONY AND MINNEHAHA 197 And by this scene entrancing, Angels might roam, Or make their home, Hearing, in waters dancing, 'Mid spray and foam, Minnehaha!" These, within a brief period, have obtained a world-wide reputation, from the fact that a " certain one of our own poets " has given the name of Minne-ha-ha to the wife of Hiawatha. Longfellow, in his vocabulary, says: "Minne- ha-ha Laughing-water; a waterfall or a stream running into the Mississippi, between Fort Snelling and the Falls of St. Anthony." All waterfalls, in the Dahkotah tongue, are called Ha-ha, never Minne-ha-ha. The " h " has a strong guttural sound, and the word is applied because of the curl ing or laughing of the waters. The verb I-ha-ha primarily means, to curl; secondarily, to laugh, because of the curling motion of the mouth in laughter. The noise of Ha-ha is called by the Dahkotas I-ha-ha, because of its resemblance to laughter. A small rivulet, the outlet of Lakes Harriet and Calhoun, gently gliding over the bluff into an amphitheatre, forms this graceful waterfall. It has but little of " the cataract's thunder." Niagara symbolizes the sublime ; St. Anthony the picturesque; Ha-ha the beautiful. The fall is about sixty feet, presenting a parabolic curve, which drops, without the least deviation, until it has reached its lower level, when the stream goes on its way rejoicing, curling along in laughing, childish glee at the graceful feat it has performed in bound ing over the precipice. Five miles above this embodiment of beauty are the more pretentious Falls of St. Anthony. This fall was not named by a Jesuit, as Willard says, in her History of the United States, but by Hennepin, a Franciscan of the Recollect Order. 198 ST. ANTHONY AND MINNEHAHA He saw it while returning from Mille Lac, in the month of July, 1680, and named it after his patron Saint, Anthony of Padua. In the last edition of his travels, the adventurous father says, " The navigation is interrupted by a fall, which I called St. Anthony of Padua's, in gratitude for the favours done me by the Almighty through the intercession of that great saint, whom we had chosen patron and protector of all our enter prises. This fall is forty or fifty feet high, divided in the middle by a rocky island of pyramidal form." As Hennepin was passing the falls, in company with a party of buffalo hunters, he perceived a Dahkotah up in an oak opposite the great fall, weeping bitterly, with a well-dressed beaver robe, whitened inside, and trimmed with porcupine quills, which he was offering as a sacrifice to the falls, which is in itself admirable and frightful. I heard him while shedding copious tears say, as he spoke to the great cateract: " Thou who art a spirit, grant that our nation may pass here quietly without accident, may kill buffalo in abundance, conquer our ene mies, and bring in slaves, some of whom we will put to death before thee; the Messenecqz (to this day the Dah- kotahs call the Fox Indians by this name) have killed our kindred, grant that we may avenge them." The only other European, during the time of the French dominion, whose account of the falls is preserved, is Charle- ville. He told DuPratz, the author of a history of Louis iana, that, with two Canadians and two Indians, in a birch canoe laden with goods, he proceeded as far as the Falls of St. Anthony. This cataract he describes as caused by a flat rock, which forms the bed of the river, and causing a fall of eight or ten feet. It was not far from a century after Hennepin saw the " curling waters," that it was gazed upon by a British subject. Jonathan Carver, a native of Connecti cut, and captain of a Provincial troop, was the Yankee who ST. ANTHONY AND MINNEHAHA 199 first looked on this valuable water-power, and began to make calculations for further settlement. His sketch of the falls in 1766 was the first ever taken, and was well engraved in London. Carver, like Hennepin, speaks of a rocky island dividing the falls, and estimates its width about forty feet, and its length. not much more, "and about half way between this island and the eastern shore, is a rock, lying at the very edge of the fall, that appeared to be about five or six feet broad, and thirty or forty long." During the two generations that have elapsed since this description was penned, some changes have taken place in the appearance of the falls. The small island about forty feet broad, which is now some distance in front of the falls, w r as probably once in its midst. The geological character of the bed of the river is such, that an undermining process is con stantly at work. The upper stratum is limestone, with many large crevices, and about fifteen feet in thickness. Beneath is the saccharoid sandstone, which is so soft that it cannot resist the wearing of the rapid waters. It is more than prob able that in an age long passed, the falls were once in the vicinity of Fort Snelling. In the course of two years they have receded many feet. The numbers of pine logs that pitch over the falls have increased the recession. As the logs float down they are driven into the fissures, and serve as levers, other logs and the water communicating the power, to wrench the limestone slabs from their localities. In time the falls will recede until they become nothing more than rapids. The fall of water on the west side of the dividing island is several rods above that on the east side, and the difference is occasioned by the greater volume of water on the former side, causing a more rapid recedence. There are two islands of great beauty in the rapids above the falls. The first juts some feet beyond the falls, and con- 200 ST. ANTHONY AND MINNEHAHA tains about fifteen acres. It is now generally known as Hennepin Island, not, as some blunderer says in Harper's Magazine for July, 1853, because the Jesuit father was placed there by the Indians, but in accordance with the fol lowing suggestion, in an address before the Historical So ciety of Minnesota, on January first, 1850: " As a town in the State of Illinois has already taken the name of Hennepin, which would have been so appropriate for the beautiful village of St. Anthony, we take leave of the discoverer of those picturesque falls, which will always render that town equally attractive to the eye of the poet and capitalist, by suggesting that the island which divides the laughing waters be called Hennepin." NEWPORT T. ADDISON RICHARDS NEWPORT occupies the south-west corner of the island upon which the little state of Rhode Island, of which it forms a considerable part, was named. To the old aboriginal occupants the region was known as Aquidneck, Aquitneck, or Aquethneck, according to varying orthogra phies signifying " Isle of Peace." Its southern shores are washed by the surf of the Atlantic, while at all other points it is surrounded by the waters of Narragansett Bay. In the year 1638 it was purchased by the first white settlers, of the Chieftains Canonicus and Miantonomi, for the certain num ber of broadcloth coats, jack-knives, and other sundries, which went at the time to make up the customary price of such commodities as Indian states and territories. The Aquidneck pioneers were a party led by John Clarke, William Coddington, Mrs. Hutchinson, and others, who were driven by the oppressions of religious bigotry from their homes in the neighbouring colony of Massachusetts, as Roger Williams and his friends had just before been compelled to seek an asylum on the site of the present City of Providence, thirty miles above, at the head of the Narragansett Bay. Clarke and his fellow-exiles had set out on foot for Long Island on the Delaware, but were happily stopped en route by Mr. Williams and persuaded to enshrine their Penates on the Island of Aquidneck, in his own vicinage. Their first settle ment was Pocasset, now Portsmouth, in the upper part of their new territory, but the busy hive increased so fast, that when a year only had passed they found it necessary to 201 202 NEWPORT swarm, which they did, a portion of them proceeding south ward, in 1639, and founding for themselves the present City of Newport. As on the settlement of Roger Williams in Providence, so in the colony at Aquidneck, there was a hearty exorcising of the demon of intolerance and persecution, in matters of con science, which so marred the character of the neighbouring regions; and entire freedom, both religious and civil, was solemnly assured to all a wise as well as just policy which at once strengthened the new settlements with the wealth and virtue of the classes proscribed elsewhere, especially the then numerous ones of Quakers and Jews. The admission of these elements into the body politic and social, contributed greatly to the immediate success and to the after fortunes of the people; and to this day is the salutary influence power fully and usefully at work. Next to the great blessing of religious liberty, the chief attraction of Aquidneck, or Rhode Island as the inhabi tants re-named it, from its fancied resemblance to the Isle of Rhodes, in the Mediterranean was the purity and pleas antness of its climate, a greater secret of its success at this day even than then. "It is," says Neal in his history (1715-20), "deservedly esteemed the paradise of New-England, for the fruitfulness of the soil and for the temperateness of the climate; and though it be not above sixty-five miles south of Boston, it is a coat warmer in winter." Berkeley, of whose agreeable connection with the neighbourhood we shall speak by-and-by, writing in 1729 to a friend, describes the climate as like that of Italy, and not colder in winter than he had experienced it everywhere north of Rome. " We have," said Callender in his Historical Discourse in 1739, " all summer, a south and south-westerly sea-breeze " ; while another writer of a cen tury back praised it as " the healthiest country he ever knew." NEWPORT 203 The climate of Newport, thus so remarked by visitors at the earliest periods, no less than now, for its charming quali ties, comes, says Professor Maury, from the trend of the gulf- stream, driven thitherward by the prevailing south and south west winds. In March, 1644, six years after the first settlement at Aquidneck and seven years after the arrival of Williams at Providence, the two colonies were united by the English crown under a free, common charter, with their present style and title of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and with the fitting words, " Amor vincet omnia" as their con federate motto. For a space of a century and more from the time of its first settlement in 1639 to the approach of the Revolution, when its commercial character passed away, Newport con tinued steadily to grow in numbers and importance, until it came to be looked upon as the future metropolis of America, " being then ranked," says Cooper in the Red Rover, " among the most important posts along the whole line of our ex tended coasts." It was at this palmy period questionable if even New York could ever, with all its great promise, attain to the height which Newport had reached! All the neigh bouring towns drew their foreign supplies from the little capital of Rhode Island, and looked to it as a market for their own industry. More and more, year by year, her grow ing manufactories amassed wealth at home, and her increas ing tonnage gathered fortune abroad. At one time upward of thirty distilleries were in active operation, and a large fleet was continually engaged in the transport of their ma terials from the West Indies. Her seamen were enterpris ing and successful, too, in the whale-fishing, and were the first, it is said, to carry that bold business as far as the Falk land Islands. The old commercial character of the town came to our 204 NEWPORT mind in vivid contrast with the present aspect when, as we were only the other day gliding down its quiet harbour in one of the many pleasure boats of the place, our eye fell upon one a solitary one of those veterans of the sea a whale-ship ; and our skipper informed us that " she had sunk herself to her owners," having just come home, after a four- years' cruise, with only four hundred barrels of oil. Drift ing beneath the stern of the grim old craft, we thought we saw ' Ichabod, Newport/ painted there! In these days of commercial prosperity, Newport was not less pre-eminent for intelligence, taste, and learning, and was, as Dr. Waterhouse said in 1824 (Boston Intelligencer), " the chosen resort of the rich and philosophic from nearly all parts of the civilized world." In this characteristic of the old town there was a foreshadowing of the special fea tures of the new; for, with all its opulence and refinements, the social Newport of the Nineteenth Century by no means exceeds that of the Eighteenth in elegance and culture, or even approaches it in true dignity and courtliness of man ners, in princely liberality, or in high-toned morale. These were yet the stately days of the old aristocratic regime, when the unwashed democracy of modern times was all un dreamed of. Among the earliest of the distinguished names associated with the story of Newport is that of the venerable Bishop Berkeley, who made his appearance there in 1729, tarrying some two years. The memory of this amiable and learned philosopher is often and vividly recalled to the mind of the present people and visitors at Newport. On the edge of the town, within sound of the surf on the sea-shore, there yet stands the house which he built and occupied, under the name of Whitehall, beneath the humble roof of which he wrote some of his finest works, among them the famous ode in which occurs the oft-quoted line, " Westward the course NEWPORT 205 of empire takes its way." In a recess of the rocky bluff near by, on the Sachuest or Second Beach, known to us as the Hanging Rocks, he is said to have penned the pages of his " Minute Philosopher," under the inspiration of the voiceful sea. The worthy Bishop's eloquence was occasion ally heard from the pulpit of the venerable Trinity Church, and the organ in use there to this day, was the gift of his generous hand. In the society which Berkeley met in Newport was found his clerical friend Honeyman, the rector of Trinity Church, and the god-father of the lofty observatory-crowned emi nence on the north of the city. Then there was the Rev. John Callender, the author of the famous " Historical Dis course " ; the wise divines Stiles and Hopkinson, and Abra ham Redwood, the generous founder of the beautiful Red wood Library, so attractive to the stranger in the town at the present day; and besides these learned worthies, there were the hospitable Malbones, Godfrey and John, many merchant princes, and other large-hearted specimens of the fine old gentry of by-gone days. It would be pleasant to recall here the numerous anecdotes which have come down to us of the social life of Newport at this period, but we must hasten on to the eventful story of later days. Before we glance at this, the Revolutionary epoch, no less in the fortunes and fate of Newport than in the political character of the country, let us hastily chronicle the names of yet a few others whose lives have shed lustre upon the place, as that of Gilbert Stuart, the illustrious painter, and of Ed ward Malbone, another estimable artist, and of yet a third, the venerable Charles B. King. The eloquent voice of Chan- ning was often heard on the old isle of Aquidneck, and his homestead is among the picturesque relics of the region. So, also, are the home and tomb of Oliver Hazard Perry, the illustrious Commodore of the Lake. 206 NEWPORT It was thus, under the most propitious breezes of fortune, material and moral, ruffled only in earlier years by the neighbouring wars of King Philip, and the still earlier ru mours of war between the French and Indians in the north, that old Newport lived from her birth to the troublesome clays of the Revolution, which robbed her of her population and wealth, never to come back again by the old path of commercial enterprise and success. The only action which may properly be called a battle that happened in Rhode Island during the Revolution, was fought, with no decided success on either side, on Butt's or Quaker hill, in Portsmouth, the original settlement of the island. Yet the people were staunch adherents of the pop ular cause, and many opportunities came for the display of their gallantry and valour at home as well as abroad. Long before the actual commencement of hostilities, they per formed the first overt act of resistance w r hich was made in the Colonies to the royal authority, by the summary de struction of the armed sloop Liberty, in return for her rude treatment of a vessel from an adjoining colony, and of themselves when they demanded atonement therefor. The incensed Newporters boarded the Liberty, cut her cables, and let her drift out to Goat Island, where she was soon afterward burnt during a heavy thunder-storm. Sub sequently to this act there occurred, further up the bay, the similar exploit of Gaspee Point, in which the obnoxious toll- gathering craft, the Gaspee, was adroitly persuaded to run upon the unknown, hidden sands, and while thus helpless, was destroyed by a rebellious party from Providence. Not less daring was the attack of the Pigot by the crew of the little sloop Hawk, on the east side of the island. Nothing, either, could have been more neatly done than the bold seizure of the British commander Prescott, at his own head-quarters at Portmouth, when Colonel Barton, of NEWPORT 207 Providence, and a few trusty fellows dropped down the bay at night, under the noses of the enemy's ships, and mastering the sentinels, coolly took the old tyrant from his bed and carried him, without superfluous toilette, again beneath the shadow of the British vessels, to the American camp. The General himself said at the moment to his gallant captor: " Sir, you have made a bold push to-night ! " The first threat of war against Rhode Island was made in the fall of 1775, when Admiral Wallace, who commanded an English fleet in the harbour at the time, seemed to be preparing to carry off the live stock at the southern end of the island for the supply of the royal troops in Boston. Foiled seasonably in his project, he swore vengeance against the town, frightening away half of its inhabitants, and sorely terrifying the rest, until a compromise was made by furnishing him certain supplies and stores. He then pro ceeded up the bay, leaving desolation wherever his demands were denied. In the following spring (1776), Wallace was, by a spirited effort, driven out of the harbour of New port; but before Christmas of that same year there came a British fleet, under Sir Peter Parker, from which nine or ten thousand troops, English and Hessians, were landed at Middletown, five miles from Newport; and hereabouts the intruders stayed until the Autumn of 1779, now in their camp, and now quartered upon the inhabitants of the towns, but, in camp or not, always aggressive and destructive; so that at their final departure they left only ruin and dismay where they had found prosperity and happy content. On abandoning the island, after their three years' possession, they completed the destruction they had begun and continued by burning the barracks at Fort Adams and the light-house at Beavertail Point, and by bearing away the town records, which were subsequently regained, but in such condition as to be of little use. The churches had been used and abused 208 NEWPORT as barracks; the Redwood Library was robbed of its treas ures; hundreds of buildings had been destroyed, and of all the beautiful trees which formerly adorned the island, scarcely one remained. The investment of the island by the British, and the grad ual wreck which (resulted from wanton destruction and from the continual defence of their position, reduced the population from twelve to four thousand, desolated the country, and ruined Newport, despite the brilliant flicker of life which followed, in the gay occupancy of the town by the French troops under Rochambeau and the Admiral de Ternay. A brave but futile attempt had been made the previous autumn (August, 1778), with the co-operation of a French fleet, under D'Estaing, to expel the enemy from Rhode Island. The people now confidently hoped for release from the yoke which had so long galled them, but with the ex ception of a little maneuvering, and sailing to and fro, and the sinking of some boats as obstructions to the naviga tion, nothing of great moment happened on the water, and nothing on the land but the action (during the retreat of of the Americans) at Butt's hill, already alluded to as the only battle of the Revolution fought upon Rhode Island soil. In this attempt, from ten to fifteen thousand of the patriot troops were engaged, under the command of Gen erals Greene and Sullivan. They crossed over from the main-land to the upper end of Aquidneck, at Tiverton. The failure of the expedition is attributed to the want of prompt and energetic aid on the part of the Count d'Estaing. The coming of the second French fleet, under De Ternay, though not required now to drive the enemy from their threshold, was no less warmly hailed than had been that of D'Estaing before. It entered Newport harbour on the loth of July, 1780, amidst the acclamations of the populace. NEWPORT 209 Scarcely, however, was Rochambeau established in his head quarters, at the old " Vernon house" (yet standing), when news came of the approach of the enemy's blockading squadron. As in the case of previous rumours of war, how ever, no engagement followed, and the French officers were left to display their gallantry in the drawing- and ballroom, to the high edification of the beautiful belles of the day and place, instead of their prowess in the tented field. They went, at last, and finally, during the following year (1781), and Newport was left without any new troubles, to mourn over the crushing and fatal issue of her past misfortunes. During the French occupancy of the town, Washington was received there amidst a general illumination, and such rejoicings as the depressed hearts of the people allowed. He was entertained at the head-quarters of the Count de Rochambeau, in the present " Old Vernon House." The com mander of the fleet, the Count de Ternay, died here, and was buried with great pomp in the cemetery of Trinity Church. Thus brilliantly ended the Revolutionary story of New r - port. The brightness, though, made the gloomy night which followed only the darker; for, as the gay ships sailed away, so passed the last ray of the old sunshine of success in which the now desolate and almost deserted town had so long and so joyously lived. There is little to be said of Newport during the half- century between the close of the Revolution and her mem orable social renaissance, about the year 1840. This was the dark age in her eventful history, in which the wearied and worn old town seemed to doze her crippled life away, without effort and without hope. No longer was the daring whaler seen entering her harbour covered with the slime of distant seas; no more were her warehouses crowded with the rich fabrics and produces of the far-off Indies; no longer 210 NEWPORT echoed the cheerful hum of industry, and her houses what remained of them were so deserted that it became, with the unsympathizing around, a jest to say that with the tenants' privileges in Newport was the liberty to use such portions of his dwelling as he pleased for his daily fuel! In process of time " the pleasant light of stars " shone out, and the town reawakened at last to the new and yet brighter dawning which gradually followed. Other ports had in the interval supplanted her in her old commercial position, but the original secrets of her success were again remem bered the beauties of her rocky shores, and the marvellous sweetness of her climate. In summer days, many come to enjoy these enviable pleasures. Year by year the number of these visitors increased, until the annual " arrivals " swelled from tens to hundreds and from hundreds to thou sands. Many of the strangers, not contented with their brief summer stay, took up their permanent abode in the town, replacing the old dwellings with sumptuous villas, here one and there another, until at last there grew up the long spacious streets of cottage and castle which now form the new and beautiful Newport that looks down so encourag ingly from its hilly terrace upon the old town basking by the lazy sea. In this renewed prosperity the old taverns and inns grew by-and-by to be insufficient for the accommodation of the coming throngs, and some twenty years ago there began to spring up the great hotels, which are now annually over run with all that is most gay and most dazzling of the luxury, the elegance, the pomp, the parade, and the fashion of the land. With the erection of the Ocean House in 1845, the new life of Newport was fairly begun, and her position as one of the great national watering-places of the Republic forever assured. THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM JOHN KNOX GREAT preparations are making, throughout the fleet and army, to surprise the enemy, and compel them to decide the fate of Quebec by a battle: all the long-boats below the town are to be filled with seamen, marines, and such detachments as can be spared from Points Lev! and Orleans, in order to make a feint off Beauport and the Point de Lest, and endeavour to engross the attention of the Sieur de Montcalm, while the army are to force a de scent on this side of the town. The Officer of our regiment, who commanded the escort yesterday on the reconnoitering party, being asked, in the General's hearing, after the health of one of the gentlemen who was reported to be ill, replied, " He was in a very low, indifferent state " ; which the other lamented, saying, " He has but a puny, delicate constitution." This struck his Excellency, it being his own case, who in terrupted, " Don't tell me of constitution, the Officer has good spirits, and good spirits will carry a man through every thing." The Brigadiers Monckton and Murray, with the troops under their command, reimbarked this day from the parish of St. Nicholas, and returned to their ships. This evening all the boats of the fleet below the town were filled with marines, etc., covered by frigates and sloops of war, worked up, and lay half-channel over, opposite to Beau- port, as if intending to land in the morning, and thereby fix the enemy's whole attention to that quarter; the ships attending them are to edge over, at break of day, as near 211 212 THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM as possible without grounding, and cannonade the French intrenchments. At nine o'clock this night, our army in high spirits, the first division of them put into the flat-bot tomed boats, and, in a short time after, the whole squadron moved up the river with the tide of flood, and, about an hour before day-light next morning, we fell down with the ebb. Weather favourable, a star-light night. Thursday, September 13, 1759. Before daybreak this morning we made a descent upon the north shore, about half a quarter of a mile to the east ward of Sillery; and the light troops were fortunately, by the rapidity of the current, carried lower down, between us and Cape Diamond; we had, in this debarkation, thirty flat-bottomed boats, containing about sixteen hundred men. This was a great surprise on the enemy, who, from the natural strength of the place, did not suspect, and conse quently were not prepared against, so bold an attempt. The chain of sentries, which they had posted along the summit of the heights, galled us a little, and picked off several men, and some Officers, before our light infantry got up to dis lodge them. This grand enterprise was conducted and ex ecuted with great order and discretion ; as fast as we landed, the boats put off for reinforcements, and the troops formed with much regularity: The General, with Brigadiers Monckton and Murray, were a-shore with the first division. We lost no time here, but clambered up one of the steepest precipices that can be conceived, being almost a perpendicular and of an incredible height. As soon as we gained the sum mit, all was quiet, and not a shot was heard, owing to the excellent conduct of the light infantry under Colonel Howe ; it was by this time clear daylight. Here we formed again, the river and the south country in our rear, our right extending to the town, our left to Sillery, and halted a few THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM 213 minutes. The General then detached the light troops to our left to route the enemy from their battery, and to dis able their guns, except they could be rendered serviceable to the party who were to remain there; and this service was soon performed. We then faced to the right, and marched towards the town by files, till we came to the Plains of Abraham an even piece of ground which Mr. Wolfe made choice of, while we stood forming upon the hill. Weather showery: about six o'clock the enemy first made their appearance upon the height, between us and the town; whereupon we halted, and wheeled to the right, thereby forming the line of battle. The enemy had now likewise formed the line of battle, and got some cannon to play on us, with round and canister-shot; but what galled us most was a body of Indians and other marksmen they had con cealed in the corn opposite to the front of our right wing, and a coppice, that stood opposite to our centre, inclining towards our left; but the Colonel Hale, by Brigadier Monckton's orders, advanced some platoons, alternately from the Forty-Seventh regiment, which, after a few rounds obliged these sculkers to retire: we were now ordered to lie down, and remained some time in this position. About eight o'clock we had two pieces of short brass six pounders playing on the enemy, which threw them into some con fusion, and obliged them to alter their disposition, and Montcalm formed them into three large columns; about nine the two armies moved a little nearer each other. The light cavalry made a faint attempt upon our parties at the battery of Sillery, but were soon beat off, and Monsieur de Bougainville, with his troops from Cape Rouge, came down to attack the flank of our second line, hoping to penetrate there; but by a masterly disposition of Brigadier Towns- hend, they were forced to desist, and the third battalion of Royal Americans was then detached to the first ground we 214 THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM had formed on after we had gained the heights, to preserve the communication with the beach and our boats. About ten o'clock the enemy began to advance briskly in three columns, with loud shouts and recovered arms, two of them inclining to the left of our army, and the third towards our right, firing obliquely at the two extremities of our line, from the distance of one hundred and thirty, until they came within forty yards; which our troops withstood with the greatest intrepidity and firmness, still reserving their fire, and paying the strictest obedience to their Officers: this uncommon steadiness, together with the havoc which the grape-shot from our field-pieces made among them, threw them into some disorder, and was most critically main tained by a well-timed, regular, and heavy discharge of our small arms, such as they could no longer oppose; hereupon they gave way, and fled with precipitation, so that, by the time the cloud of smoke was vanished, our men were again loaded, and, profiting by the advantage we had over them, pursued them almost to the gates of the town, and the bridge over the little river, redoubling our fire with great eagerness, making many Officers and men prisoners. The weather cleared up, with a comfortable warm sun-shine: the Highlanders chased them vigorously towards Charles's River, and the Fifty-Eighth to the suburb close to John's Gate, until they were checked by the cannon from the two hulks; at the same time a gun, which the town had brought to bear upon us with grape-shot, galled the progress of the regiments to the right, who were likewise pursuing with equal ardour, while Colonel Hunt Walsh, by a very judi cious movement, wheeled the battalions of Bragg and Ken nedy to the left, and flanked the coppice where a body of the enemy made a stand, as if willing to renew the action; but a few platoons from these corps completed our victory. Then it was that Brigadier Townshend came up, called THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM 215 off the pursuers, ordered the whole line to dress, and re cover their former ground. Our joy at this success is inex pressibly dampened by the loss we sustained of one of the greatest heroes which this or any other age can boast of General James Wolfe, who received his mortal wound, as he was exerting himself at the head of the grenadiers of Louisburg. The Sieur de Montcalm died late last night; when his wound was dressed, and he settled in bed, the surgeons who attended him were desired to acquaint him ingenuously with their sentiments of him, and, being answered that his wound was mortal, he calmly replied, " he was glad of it " : his Excellency then demanded, "whether he could survive it long, and how long? " He was told, " about a dozen hours, perhaps more, peradventure less." " So much the better," re joined the eminent warrior; " I am happy, I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec." After our late worthy general of renowned memory was carried off wounded, to the rear of the front line, he desired those who were about him to lay him down ; being asked if he would have a surgeon ? he replied, " it is needless; it is all over with me." One of them cried out, "they run, see how they run." "Who runs?" demanded our hero, with great earnestness, like a person roused from sleep. The Officer answered, " The enemy, sir. Egad, they give way everywhere ! " Thereupon the General re joined, " Go one of you, my lads, to Colonel Burton; tell him to march Webb's regiment with all speed down to Charles's River, to cut off the retreat of the fugitives from the bridge." Then, turning on his side, he added, "Now, God be praised, I will die in peace" and thus expired. DETROIT J. T. HEADLEY THE elevated belt of inland seas which stretches from the St. Lawrence to the tenth parallel of west longi tude has always formed one of the most striking and im portant features of this continent. At the outset, when an unbroken forest extended, in the southern section, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, through which the settler must hew his difficult way with the axe, he could, by these great in land seas, penetrate to its very centre. The French, who claimed the Canadas by right of discovery, extended their exploration to Michilimackinac, and thence south to the mouth of the Mississippi. But the English colonies, push ing in from the Atlantic seaboard, south of the St. Law rence, forced them back, till the lakes and the river became the boundary-line between the two, and the scene of bloody conflicts. So in the Revolution a fiercer struggle took place along this belt of water. The French early saw that the Detroit River was a min iature Straits of Gibraltar to all the water that lay beyond, and, as far back as 1701, established there its most impor tant western station. It was composed of a military colony, extending for twelve or sixteen miles up and down the west bank of the river, in the centre of which stood the fort, a quadrilateral structure embracing about a hundred houses. Numerous white dwellings lay scattered along the banks, each surrounded with a picket-fence, while orchards and gardens and outhouses exhibited the thrift of the Cana dian settlers. It altogether formed a beautiful and sunny 216 DETROIT 217 opening to the gloomy wilderness; and to the trader and soldier, weary with their long marches and solitary bivouacs in the forest, it was ever a most welcome sight. Three large Indian villages were embraced in the limits of the settlement. A little below the fort, and on the same side of the river, were the lodges of the Pottawatamies; nearly opposite them, those of the Wyandots; while two miles farther up lay sprinkled over the green meadows the wigwams of the Ottawas. The French and English struggled long and stubbornly for the control of the Western continent, but at last the de cisive conflict came, when the Canadas were put up and battled for on the Plains of Abraham. With the fall of Montcalm, the French power was forever broken; and the surrender of Montreal, which soon followed, virtually closed the war. The St. Lawrence and the Lakes now being in possession of the English, nothing remained for the weak Western posts but to submit quietly to their new masters. The news of the overthrow of the colonial government had reached them, but having received no formal summons to surrender, they still kept the flag of France flying; and Captain Rogers, a native of New Hampshire, was sent with 200 Rangers, in fifteen whaleboats, to take possession of them. On the 7th of November he encamped on the pres ent site of Cleveland a point never before reached by British troops. Here a deputation of Indians met him, in the name of Pontiac, the savage lord of this wilderness. Before night the chief himself arrived, and demande'd the reason of Rogers's visit. The latter told him that the French had ceded all Canada to the British, who now had undis puted sway, and he was on his way to take possession of Detroit. Pontiac stayed till morning, and in another inter view with the Ranger professed a desire for peace. Rogers 218 DETROIT then kept on, and at length reached Detroit, over which the lilies of France were still waving. The British colours at once supplanted them, and the surrounding Canadians swore allegiance to the British crown. The Indians, who had been on the most friendly terms with the French, soon had cause to regret their change of masters. The English always practiced a cruel policy towards the Indians, which soon showed its legitimate fruits among the tribes in the neighbourhood of Detroit. There was one chief among them who held undisputed sway by the force of his genius and the loftiness of his character. Like Tecumseh and Red Jacket, he was one of those few savage monarchs that seem made for a nobler destiny than to be acknowledged leader of a few thousand naked bar barians. He saw, with great forecast of thought, the hu miliation of the Indians if the British were allowed undis puted sway; for, with the French no longer as allies, he could not resist successfully their aggressions. He resolved, therefore, before the British got firmer foothold, to over whelm them with savage forces, trusting to French aid to complete the work. So, in May, 1762, he sent messengers to the various surrounding tribes, summoning them to as semble for consultation on the banks of Ecorces River, a short distance from Detroit. Pontiac was chief only of the Ottawas, though the other tribes acknowledged his authority. He was at this time about fifty years of age, and though not above the middle height, bore himself with wonderful dignity. The tribes responded to Pontiac's call. Soon the fierce Ojibwas and Wyandots assembled at the place of rendez vous, and took their seats upon the grass in a circle. For a long time not a word was spoken in the council. At last Pontiac strode into its midst, plumed and painted for war. Casting his fierce glance around on the waiting group, he DETROIT 219 commenced denouncing the English and calling on the chiefs to arise in defence of their rights. His voice at times pealed like a bugle, and his gestures were sudden and vio lent. After arousing his chiefs by his eloquence, he un folded his plans. He proposed that on the second of May they should visit the fort, under pretence of interchanging friendly and peace ful greetings; and then when the garrison was suspecting no treachery, suddenly fall on them and massacre the whole. They all readily assented to his scheme. Gladwyn, commander of the fort, had seen nothing to rouse his suspicions, and everything betokened a quiet sum mer, until, just before this premeditated massacre, when a Canadian woman, who had visited the Ottawa village to buy some venison and maple sugar, reported that, as she was passing among the wigwams, she observed the warriors busily engaged in filing off their gun-barrels. Among the Ojibwas was a young Indian girl, named Catherine, of rare beauty and exquisite form. Large dark and dreamy eyes lighted up her nut-brown complexion, re vealing a loving and passionate nature, while her moccasined foot pressed the green sward light and gracefully as a young fawn's. Struck with her exquisite loveliness, Gladwyn had become enamoured of her; and his passion being returned, she had become his mistress. The next day after the re-v port of the woman was made, this girl came into the fort bringing some elk-skin moccasins, which she had worked with porcupine quills, as a present for Gladwyn. Her pertinacity and the melancholy manner in which she resisted his importunities convinced him that she held a secret of serious import, and he pressed her still more ear nestly. At last her firmness gave way before his warm pleadings, and the loving heart triumphed over its fears. She no longer saw her angry tribe and the vengeful chief- 220 DETROIT tains demanding her death as the betrayer of her race. She only saw the adored form of her lover before her, and her lips broke their painful silence. Making him promise not to betray her secret, she told him that the Indians had sawed off their gun-barrels so that they could carry them concealed under their blankets; and Pontiac, with his chiefs thus armed, was about to visit the fort to hold a council. He would make a speech, and at its close present to Gladwyn a peace-belt of wampum. When he reversed it in his hands, it was to be the signal for a general massacre of all but the Canadians. When the welcome light of morning broke over the forest, all was bustle and commotion within the fort. The sun rose bright and clear; but a heavy mist lay along the river, entirely shrouding it from view. At length the heavy folds began to move and lift, and finally parted and floated gracefully away on the morning air, revealing the water covered with bark canoes moving steadily across the river. Only two or three warriors appeared in each, the others lying flat on their faces on the bottom, to avoid being seen. Pontiac had ordered this to be done, so as not to awaken any suspicions in the garrison that his mission was not what he represented it to be a peaceful one. He could not leave them behind, for he would need them in the approaching conflict. There was a large common behind the fort; this was soon filled with a crowd of Indians squaws, children, and warriors mingled together some naked, some dressed in fantastic costumes, or gaudily painted, and all apparently preparing for a game of ball. Pontiac slowly approached the fort, with sixty chiefs at his back marching in Indian file. Each was wrapped to the chin in his blanket, under neath which, grasped with his right hand, lay concealed his trusty rifle. From the heads of some waved the hawk, the eagle, and raven plume. Others showed only the scalp-lock, DETROIT 221 while a few wore their hair naturally the long dark locks hanging wildly about their malignant faces. As Pontiac passed through the gate of the fort he uttered a low ejaculation of surprise. Well might he do so; for the unexpected sight that met his gaze would have startled a greater stoic even than he. Instead of beholding the gar rison lulled into security, and entirely off its guard, he found himself between two lines of glittering steel, drawn up on each side of the gate to receive him. The houses of the traders and those employed by the garrison were all closed, and the occupants, armed to the teeth, standing on guard upon the corners of the streets; while the tap of the drum, heard at intervals, told in language that Pontiac could not mistake that the garrison, which he expected to find care less and insecure, was in a state of the keenest vigilance and apparent alarm. Casting a dark and moody glance around on these hostile preparations, he strode haughtily through the principal street of the place, and advanced direct to the council-house, followed by his chiefs. Passing through the door he saw Gladwyn and the other officers seated at the farther end, each with his sword by his side, and a brace of pistols in his belt. Pontiac's brow darkened at this additional proof that his treacherous and bloody plot had been discovered. Controlling himself, how ever, by a strong effort, he rallied, and addressing Gladwyn, said, in a somewhat reproachful tone, " Why do I see so many of my father's young men standing in the streets with their guns?" Gladwyn replied carelessly that he had just been drilling them to keep up proper discipline. Pontiac knew this to be false; but he could not do otherwise than appear to believe it, and the chiefs sat down. Pontiac then arose and began his address holding in the meantime the fatal wampum belt in his hand. Gladwyn paid indifferent attention to his speech, but kept his eye glued to that belt 222 DETROIT of wampum; for when the deadly signal should be given, no time must be lost. Pontiac spoke with all that plausi bility and deep dissumulation so characteristic of the Indian when plotting treachery. Pontiac slowly reached forth his hand, and began to reverse the wampum. Gladwyn saw it, and quick as lightning, made a slight, rapid gesture a signal before agreed upon. In an instant every hand sought the sword hilt, and the quick clank of arms through the open door smote ominously on the ear. The next moment the roll ing sound of the drum, beating the charge, echoed afar through the streets. The effect was electrical. Pontiac paused, confounded. He now knew that his dark plot had been discovered. The look of baffled rage and undying hate which he threw around him was followed by an un certain, disturbed look. He dared not make the signal agreed upon, for a girdle of steel surrounded him. The lion was caged; the haughty lord of the forest caught in his own trap. But beating back his swelling rage, smothering with a strong effort the fires ready to burst into conflagra tion, he resumed his composure, and sat down. Gladwyn rose to reply. Indulging in no suspicions, he received the belt of wampum as if it had been offered in the true spirit of conciliation and kindness. Pontiac was compelled to swallow his fierce passions and listen calmly nay, outwardly with meekness to the hypocritical harangue. The farce was the more striking for its being the finale of such an intended tragedy. These two men, burning with hatred against each other, yet wearing the outward guise of friend ship, and expressing mutual trust and confidence while such an unsprung mine of death and slaughter lay at their feet presented a scene not soon to be forgotten by the spec tators. At length the council broke up; and Pontiac, cast ing haughty and fierce glances on the ranks as he passed DETROIT 223 out, strode through the gate of the fort, and returned, silent and moody to his wigwam. Determined not to be baffled so, he next morning re turned to the fort, with but three chiefs, to smoke the cal umet of peace, and another farce was enacted, in which each endeavoured to outdo the other in dissimulation. To keep up this show of friendly relations, Pontiac, after the interview was over, retired to the field, and calling his young warriors together, had one of their wild, grotesque, indescribable games of ball. The next Monday, early in the morning, the garrison found the common behind the fort thronged with the Indians of four tribes. Soon after, Pon tiac was seen advancing toward the fort accompanied by his chiefs. Arriving at the gate, he demanded admittance. Gladwyn replied that he might enter alone, but that none of his riotous crew should accompany him. Pontiac, in his rage, turned away, and repeated Gladwyn's reply to the Indians, who lay hidden in the grass. In an instant the field was in an uproar. They leaped up, yelling and shout ing, and finding nothing else to wreak their vengeance upon, went to the house of an old English woman, and, dragging her forth, murdered her. They also mangled and butchered a man by the name of Fisher. Pontiac, scorning such mean revenge, hastened to the shore, and launching his boat, sprang in, and turned its prow up the stream. With strong and steady strokes he urged it against the current till he came opposite the village of his tribe, when he halted, and shouted to the women to immediately remove to the other side of the river from that on which the fort stood. They instantly obeyed; and huts were pulled down and dragged with all their utensils to the shore. Pontiac then retired to his cabin, and spent the day pondering future schemes of revenge. By night the removal was effected; and the war riors having returned from the fort, all were assembled on 224 DETROIT the grass. Suddenly Pontiac, in full war costume, and swinging his tomahawk above his head, leaped into their midst, and began a fierce and exciting harangue. When he had closed, a deep murmur of assent followed, and open war was resolved upon. The long and weary summer at length wore away, and the frosty nights and chilling winds of autumn reminded the garrison of the approach of winter, when they would be blocked in beyond all hope of succour. The Indians had neg lected their crops; and they, too, began to look anxiously forward to the winter, for which they were poorly provided. At the end of September several of the tribes broke up their camps and left. Pontiac, however, remained; and though he dared not attack the fort, he kept the garrison as closely confined as they would have been if besieged by an army of ten thousand men. The beautiful month of October passed like the sultry summer. The farmers had gathered in their harvests; the forest had put on the glorious hues of autumn, till the wilderness was one immense carpet of purple and gold and green. The placid stream reflected, if possible, in still brighter colours, the gorgeous foliage that overhung its banks; and when the mellow breeze ruffled its surface, broke up the rich flooring into ten thousand fragments and forms, till it looked like a vast kaleidoscope. The dreamy haze of the Indian Summer overspread the landscape; the forest rustled with falling leaves; the wild fowl gathered in the stream, or swept in clouds overhead, winging their way to the distant ocean; and all was wild and beautiful in that far-off island of the wilderness. But all this beauty passed unnoticed by the little beleaguered garrison. At length the cold storms swept the wilderness, filling the heavens with leaves, and scattering them thick as snow- flakes over the bosom of the stream, until the gayly decorated DETROIT 225 forest stood naked and brown against the sky. Still Pon- tiac lingered, determined to starve his enemies out. But as November approached he received a message from Fort Chartres, on the Mississippi, which, at the same time that it filled his daring spirit with rage, crushed his fondest hopes. It was a despatch from the French commander at that post, telling him that he must no longer look for help from that quarter, as the French and English had made peace. En raged and mortified, he broke up his camp and retired with his warriors to the Maumee. THE ALAMO HENRY BRUCE THE Alamo was an old Franciscan Mission, dating from the beginning of the Eighteenth Century. It was surrounded by walls three feet thick, and eight feet high. It covered, altogether, an area of nearly three acres. It contained a roofless church of hewn stone, and several other buildings, and was defended by fourteen guns. The garrison consisted of one hundred and forty-five men, be sides some non-combatants, and these were increased on the ist of March, 1836, or, according to Crockett, on the 24th of February, by about thirty men from Gonzalez. There was a plentiful supply of water from two aqueducts, which quickly became the special object of the enemies' at tack. Colonel Travis is said to have been most careless from the first; it was to his own surprise that a large store of provisions was discovered in the Alamo after the siege had begun. But listen to the ring of one or two of his latest letters: " I am still here, March 3rd, in fine spirits, and well to do. With one hundred and forty-five men, I have held this place ten days against a force variously esti mated from fifteen hundred to six thousand; and I shall continue to hold it till I get relief from my countrymen, or I will perish in its defence. We have had a shower of bombs and cannon-balls continually falling among us the whole time, yet none of us have fallen." And again : " Take care of my little boy. If the country should be saved, I may make him a splendid fortune; but if the country should be lost, and I should perish, he will have nothing but the 226 THE ALAMO 227 proud recollection that he is the son of a man who died for his country." The members of the garrison were insubor dinate, and of a quality more willing to die with their young commander than to obey him. There is a tragical completeness and grandeur about the sOry of the defence and of the fall of the Alamo, which makes me unwilling to give any fragments of it here. We have the journal of the gentle David Crockett until the 5th of March, and his details bring the last days of these devoted Texans very close to us. It is only the story of one hun dred and seventy-five bad-mannered backwoodsmen perish ing for their disobedience of General Houston's orders; and yet there is a divine irradiation over it all. The Alamo was taken in the earliest morning of Sunday, the 6th of March, 1836, and Travis, Bowie, Crockett, with all their companions, were butchered by Santa Anna's particular command. The Convention, which was sitting at Washington on the Brazos during these days, was driven almost mad by terror and by Travis's reiterated messages for help. Gen eral Austin was in the United States; one is tempted more and more to believe that General Houston was the one man in Texas not altogether demented. On the morning of Sunday, March 6th, the latest express ever sent out by Colonel Travis reached the Convention, crying for help. One mad member moved that the Convention should ad journ and march to the relief of the Alamo more than one hundred and fifty miles fifty men against eight thou sand! The Convention was proceeding to adjourn accord ingly, and it strained all Houston's personal influence to stamp out the proposition. For what followed we must trust the words and the authority of Mr. Lester: " Houston stopped speaking, and walked immediately out of the Convention. In less than an hour he was mounted on 228 THE ALAMO his battle-horse, and with three or four brave companions was on his way to the Alamo. Men looked upon it as an idle and desperate attempt, or surely more w T ould have fol lowed him. The party rode hard that day, and only stopped late at night to rest their horses. They were now in the open prairie. At break of day Houston retired some dis tance from the party and listened intently, as if expecting a distant signal. Colonel Travis had stated in his letters that as long as the Alamo could hold out against the invaders, signal guns would be fired at sunrise. It is a well authenti cated fact that for many successive days these guns had been heard at a distance of over one hundred miles across the prairie; and being now within the reach of their sound, Houston was anxiously waiting for the expected signal. The day before, like many preceding it, a dull, rumbling mur mur had come booming over the prairie like distant thunder. He listened with an acuteness of sense which no man can understand whose hearing has not been sharpened by the teachings of the dwellers of the forest, and who is awaiting a signal of life or death from brave men. He listened in vain. Not the faintest murmur came floating on the calm morning air. He knew the Alamo had fallen, and he re turned to tell his companions. The event confirmed his conviction, for the Alamo had fired its last gun the morning he left Washington ; and at the very moment he was speaking in the Convention those brave men were meeting their fate." SAVANNAH BENSON JOHN LOSSING SAVANNAH is pleasantly situated upon a sand-bluff, some forty feet above low-water mark, sloping toward swamps and savannahs at a lower altitude in the interior. It is upon the south side of the river, about eighteen miles from the ocean. The city is laid out in rectangles, and has ten public squares. The streets are generally broad and well-shaded, some of them with four rows of Pride-of-India trees, which, in summer, add greatly to the beauty of the city and comfort of the inhabitants. Before noting the localities of interest in Savannah and suburbs, let us open the interesting pages of its history, and note their teachings respecting Georgia in general, and of the capital in par ticular, whose foundations were laid by General Oglethorpe. We will here refer only to the single circumstance con nected with the earlier efforts at settlement, which some believe to be well authenticated, namely, that Sir Walter Raleigh, when on his way to the Orinoco, in South America, entered the Savannah River, and upon the bluff where the city now stands, stood and talked with the Indian king. There are reasonable doubts of the truth of this statement. As late as 1730, the territory lying between the Savannah and Altamaha Rivers was entirely uninhabited by white people. On the south the Spaniards held possession, and on the west the French had Louisiana, while the region under consideration, partially filled with powerful Indian tribes, was claimed by Great Britain. To prevent France and Spain from occupying it (for the latter already began 229 230 SAVANNAH to claim territory even north of the Savannah), and as a pro tection to the Carolina planters against the encroachments of their hostile neighbours, various schemes of emigration thither were proposed, but without being effected. Finally, in 1729, General James Oglethorpe, a valorous soldier and humane Christian, then a member of Parliament, made a proposition in that body for the founding of a colony to be composed of poor persons who were confined for debt and minor offences in the prisons of England. He instituted an inquiry into their condition, which resulted in the convic tion that their situation would be more tolerable in the position of a military colony, acting as a barrier between the Carolinians and their troublesome neighbours, than in the moral contamination and physical miseries of prison life. The class of persons whom he designed to transplant to America were not wicked criminals, but chiefly insolvent debtors. Oglethorpe also proposed to make the new colony an asylum for the persecuted Protestants of Germany and other Continental states, and in this religious idea he in cluded the pious thought of spiritual benefit to the Indian tribes. The Earl of Shaftsbury (the fourth bearing that title) and other influential men warmly espoused the scheme, and a general enthusiasm upon the subject soon pervaded the nation. A royal charter was obtained in 1732 for twenty- one years; large sums were subscribed by individuals; and in the course of two years, Parliament voted one hundred and eighty thousand dollars in support of the scheme. Oglethorpe volunteered to act as governor of the new colony, and to accompany the settlers to their destination. Accordingly, in November, 1732, he embarked with one hundred and twenty emigrants, and in fifty-seven days ar rived off the bar of Charleston. He was warmly welcomed by the Carolinians, and on the thirteenth of January he SAVANNAH 231 sailed for Port Royal. While the colonists were landing, Oglethorpe, with a few followers, proceeded southward, ascended the Savannah River to the high bluff, and there selected a spot for a city, the capital of the future state. With the Yamacraw Indians, half a mile from this bluff, dwelt Tomo Chici, the grand sachem of the Indian con federacy of that region. Oglethorpe and the chief both de sired friendly relations; and when the former invited the latter to his tent, Tomo Chici came, bearing in his hand a small buffalo skin, appropriately ornamented, and addressed Oglethorpe in eloquent and conciliatory terms. Friendly relations were established, and on the twelfth of February the little band of settlers came from Port Royal and landed at the site of the future city of Savannah. For almost a year the governor lived under a tent stretched upon pine boughs, while the streets of the town were laid out, and the people built their houses of timber, each twenty- four by sixteen feet in size. In May following, a treaty with the Indian chiefs of the country was held, and on the first day of June it was signed, by which the English obtained sovereignty over the lands of the Creek nation as far south as the St. John's, in Florida. Such was the beginning of one of the original thirteen states of our confederacy. Within eight years after the founding of Savannah, twenty-five hundred emigrants had been sent out to Georgia, at an expense of four hundred thousand dollars. Among these were one hundred and fifty Highlanders, well disci plined in military tactics, who were of essential service to Oglethorpe. Very strict moral regulations were adopted; lots of land, twenty-five acres each, were granted to men for military services, and every care was exercised to make the settlers comfortable. Yet discontent soon prevailed, for they saw the Carolinians growing rich by traffic in negroes; they also saw them prosper commercially by trade with the 232 SAVANNAH West Indies. They complained of the Wesleyans as too rigid, and these pious Methodists left the colony and re turned home. Still, prosperity did not smile upon the set tlers, and a failure of the scheme was anticipated. Oglethorpe, who went to England in 1734, returned in 1736, with three hundred emigrants. A storm was gather ing upon the southern frontier of his domain. The Spaniards at St. Augustine regarded the rising state with jealousy, and as a war between England and Spain was anticipated, vigilance was necessary. Oglethorpe resolved to maintain the claim of Great Britain south to the banks of the St. John's and the Highlanders, settled at Darien, volunteered to- aid him. With a few followers, he hastened in a scout- boat to St. Simon's Island, where he laid the foundations of Frederica, and upon the bluff near by he constructed a fort of tabby? the ruins of which may still be seen there. He also caused forts to be erected at Augusta, Darien, on Cum berland Island, and near the mouth of the St. Mary's and St. John's. Perceiving these hostile preparations, the Span ish authorities at St. Augustine sent commissioners to con fer with Oglethorpe. They demanded the evacuation of the whole of Georgia, and even of the region north of the Savannah to St. Helena Sound. This demand was accom panied by a menace of war in the event of non-compliance. Thus matters stood for several months. In the winter of 1736-7 Oglethorpe again went to Eng land, where he received the commission of brigadier-general, with a command extending over South Carolina as well as Georgia. There he remained a year and a half, when he returned to his colony with a regiment of six hundred men to act against the Spaniards. England declared war against Spain in the latter part of 1739, and Oglethorpe 1 A mixture of lime, oyster shells and gravel, which, when dry, forms a hard, rocky mass. SAVANNAH 233 immediately planned an expedition against St. Augustine. The St. Mary's was then considered (as it remains) the boundary between Georgia and Florida. Over that line Oglethorpe marched in May, 1740, with four hundred of his regiment, some Carolinians, and a large body of friendly Indians. He captured a Spanish fort within twenty-five miles of St. Augustine. A small fortress, within two miles of that place, was surrendered on his approach, but a summons to give up the town was answered by defiant words. The invaders maintained a siege for some time, when the arrival of re-enforcements for the garrison, and the prevalence of sickness in the camp, obliged them to withdraw and return to Savannah. The inhabitants of Georgia first began to feel the hand of British taxation when, in 1767, Governor Wright com municated his instructions from the King to require implicit obedience to the Mutiny Act. They were compelled to acquiesce, but it was with reluctance. They had not realized the practical iniquity of the Stamp Act; and when, in 1768, the Assembly at Savannah appointed Dr. Franklin an agent to attend to the interests of the colony in Great Britain, they had no formal special complaint to make, nor difficulties with government for him to adjust. They generally in structed him to use efforts to have the acts of Parliament repealed, which were offensive to the colonies. To a cir cular letter from the speaker of the Massachusetts Assembly, proposing a union of the Colonies, an answer of approval was returned. In 1770, the Legislature spoke out boldly against the oppressive acts of the mother country, by pub lishing a Declaration of Rights, similar in sentiment to that of the " Stamp Act Congress " at New York. Governor Wright was displeased, and viewing the progress of revolu tionary principles within his province with concern, he went to England to confer with ministers. He remained there 234 SAVANNAH about a year and a half. During his absence, James Hab- ersham, president of the council, exercised executive func tions. The Republicans of Georgia had become numerous in 1773, and committees of correspondence were early formed, and acted efficiently. A meeting of the friends of liberty was called in Savannah in the autumn of that year, but Sir James Wright, supported by a train of civil officers, pre vented the proposed public expression of opinion. The wealthy feared loss of property by revolutionary movements, while the timid trembled at the thought of resistance to royal government. Selfishness and fear kept the people com paratively quiet for a while. In the meantime, a pow erful Tory party was organizing in South Carolina and in Georgia, and emissaries were sent to the governors of these provinces among the Indians on the frontiers, to prepare them to lift the hatchet and go out upon the war-path against the white people, if rebellion should ensue. Such was the condition of Georgia when called upon to appoint repre sentatives in the Continental Congress, to be held at Phila delphia in 1774. Half encircled by fierce savages, and pressed down by the heel of strongly supported power in their midst, the Republicans needed stout hearts and unbend ing resolution. These they possessed; and in the midst of difficulties they were bold, and adopted measures of co operation with the other colonies in resistance to tyranny. There are but few remains of Revolutionary localities about Savannah. The city has spread out over all the British works; and where their batteries, redoubts, ram parts, and ditches were constructed, public squares are laid out and adorned with trees, or houses and stores cover the earth. Not so with the works constructed by the French engineers during the seige in the autumn of 1779. Al though the regular forms are effaced, yet the mounds and SAVANNAH 235 ditches may be traced many rods near the margin of the swamp southeast of the city. These I visited early on the morning of my arrival in Savannah. I procured a saddle horse and rode out to " Jasper's Spring," a place famous as the scene of a bold exploit, which has been the theme of history and song. 1 It is near the Augusta road, two and a half miles westward of the city. The day was very warm. The gardens were garnished with flowers; the orange-trees were blooming; blossoms covered the peach trees, and insects were sporting in the sunbeams. 1 Sergeant William Jasper while securing the Carolina flags upon the parapet of the Spring Hill redoubt at Savannah there sealed his patriotism with his life's blood. Jasper was one of the bravest of the brave. After his exploits at Fort Moultrie, his commander, General Moultrie, gave him a sort of roving commis sion, certain that he would always be usefully employed. Jasper belonged to the second South Carolina regiment, and was privileged to select from his corps such men as he pleased to accompany him in his enterprises. Bravery and humanity were his chief characteristics, and while he was active in the cause of his country, he never injured an enemy unnecessarily. While out upon one of his ex cursions, when the British had a camp at Ebenezer, all the sympa thies of his heart were aroused by the distress of a Mrs. Jones, whose husband, an American by birth, was confined in irons for deserting the royal cause after taking a protection. She felt certain that he would be hanged, for, with others, he was taken to Savannah for that purpose the next morning. Jasper and his only companion (Sergeant Newton) resolved to rescue Jones and his fellow-prisoners. Concealing themselves in the thick bushes near the spring (at which they doubted not the guard of eight men would halt), they awaited their approach. As expected, the guard halted to drink. Only two of them remained with the prisoners, while the others, leaning their muskets against a tree, went to the spring. Jasper and his companion then leaped from their concealment, seized two of the guns, shot the two sentinels, and took possession of the remainder of the muskets. The guards, unarmed, were powerless, and surrendered. The irons were knocked off the wrists of the prisoners, muskets were placed in their 236 SAVANNAH Jasper's Spring is just within the edge of a forest of oaks and gums, and is remarkable only on account of its his torical associations. It is in the midst of a marshy spot partially covered with underwood, on the northern side of the road, and its area is marked by the circumference of a sunken barrel. Being the only fountain of pure water in the vicinity, it is resorted to daily by travellers upon the road. hands, and the custodians of Jones and his fellow-patriots were taken to the American camp at Purysburg the next morning, them selves prisoners of war. Jones was restored to his wife, child, and country, and for that noble deed posterity blesses the name of Sergeant Jasper. That name is indelibly written on the page of history, and the people of Savannah have perpetuated it by bestow ing it upon one of the beautiful squares of their city. HARPER'S FERRY JOHN G. ROSENGARTEN IT was a wet Monday in October, on my return from a journey, with a large party of friends and acquaint* ances, as far north as Chicago and as far south as St. Louis and the Iron Mountains. We were gradually near- ing home, and the fun and jollity grew apace as we got closer to the end of our holiday and to the beginning of our everyday work. Our day's ride was intended to be from Cumberland (on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad) to Baltimore. The murky drizzle made our comfortable car all the more cosy, and the picturesque glories of that part of Western Vir ginia, through which we had come very leisurely and en- joyably, were heightened by the contrast of the dull cloud that hung over the valley of the Potomac. At Martinsburg the train was stopped for an unusually long time ; and in spite of close questioning, we were obliged to satisfy our curiosity with a confused story of an out break and a strike among the workmen at the armoury, with a consequent detention of trains, at Harper's Ferry. The train pushed on slowly, and at last came to a dead halt at a station called The Old Furnace. There a squad of half a dozen lazy Virginia farmers we should call them a picket just now, in our day of military experiences told us half a dozen stories about the troubles ahead, and finally the people in charge of our train deter mined to send it back to wait for further news from below. A young engineer who was employed on the railroad was 237 238 HARPER'S FERRY directed to go along the track to examine it, and see what, if any, damage had been done. As I had brushed up an acquaintance with him, I volunteered to accompany him, and then was joined by a young Englishman, a Guardsman on his travels, one of the Welsh Wynns, just returning from a shooting tour over the prairies. We started off in the rain and mud, and kept together till we came to a bridle-path crossing the railroad and climbing up the hills. Here we met a country doctor, who offered to guide us to Bolivar, whence we could come down to the Ferry, and as the trains would be detained there for several hours, there would be time enough to see all the armoury workshops and wonders. So off we started up the muddy hillside, leaving our engineer to his task on the railroad ; for what pedestrian would not prefer the worst dirt road to the best railroad for an hour's walking? My guide Dr. Marmion was the name he gave in ex change for mine said that the row at the Ferry was nothing but a riotous demonstration by the workmen. He came from quite a distance, and, hearing these vague re ports, had turned off to visit his patients in this quarter, so that he might learn the real facts; and as it was then only a little past nine, he had time to do his morning's work in Bolivar. So there we parted, he agreeing to join me again at the Ferry; and he did so later in the day. Turning to the left on the main pike, I found little knots of lounging villagers gathered in the rain and mud, spit ting, swearing, and discussing the news from the Ferry. Few of them had been there, and none of them agreed in their account of the troubles; so I plodded on over the hill and down the sharp slope that led to the Ferry. Just as I began the descent, a person rode up on horseback, gun in hand, and as we came in sight of the armoury, he told me the true story that a band of men were gathered together HARPER'S FERRY 239 to set the slaves free, and that, after starting the outbreak on the night before, they had taken refuge down below. He pointed with his gun, and we were standing side by side, when a sudden flash and a sharp report and a bullet stopped his story and his life. The few people above us looked down from behind the shelter of houses and fences from below not a soul was visible in the streets and alleys of Harper's Ferry, and only a few persons could be seen moving about the building in the armoury inclosure. In a minute, some of the towns people, holding out a white handkerchief, came down to the fallen man, and, quite undisturbed, carried him up the hill and to the nearest house all with hardly a question or a word of explanation. Shocked by what was then rare enough to be appalling sudden and violent death by fire arms in the hands of concealed men, I started off again, meaning to go down to the Ferry, with some vague notion of being a peacemaker, and at least of satisfying my curi osity as to the meaning of all these mysteries: for while I saw that fatal rifle-shot meant destruction, I had no con ception of a plot. Just as I had reached the point where I had joined the poor man who had fallen it was a Mr. Turner, formerly a captain in the army, and a person deservedly held in high esteem by all his friends and neighbours, a knot of two or three armed men stopped me, and after a short parley directed me to someone in authority, who would hear my story. The guard who escorted me to the great man was garrulous and kind enough to tell me more in detail the story, now familiar to all of us, of the capture of Mr. Lewis Washington and other persons of note in the Sun day night raid of a body of unknown men. The dread of something yet to come, with which the people were manifestly possessed, was such as only those can know who 240 HARPER'S FERRY have lived in a Slave State; and while there was plenty of talk of the steadiness of the slaves near the Ferry, it was plain that that was the magazine that was momentarily in danger of going off and carrying them all along with it. The officers of the neighbouring militia had gathered together in the main tavern of the place, without waiting for their men, but not unmindful of the impressive effect of full uniform, and half a dozen kinds of military toggery were displayed on the half dozen persons convened in a sort of drum-head court-martial. I was not the only prisoner, and had an opportunity to hear the recitals of my fellows in luck. First and fore most of all was a huge, swaggering, black-bearded, gold- chain and scarlet-velvet-waistcoated, piratical-looking fel low, who announced himself as a Border Ruffian, of Vir ginia stock, and now visiting his relations near the Ferry; but he said that he had fought with the Southern Rights party in the Kansas war, and that when he heard of the " raid," as he familiarly called the then unfamiliar feat of the Sunday night just past, he knew who was at the top and bottom of it, and he described in a truthful sort of way the man whose name and features were alike unknown to all his listeners, " Ossawatomie Brown," " Old John Brown." Garnishing the story of their earlier contests with plentiful oaths, he gave us a lively picture of their personal hand-to-hand fights in the West, and said that he had come to help fight his old friend and enemy, and to fight him fair, just as they did in " M'souri." He wanted ten or a dozen men to arm themselves to the teeth, and he'd lead 'em straight on. His indignation at his arrest and at the evident incredulity of his hearers and judges was not a whit less hearty and genuine than his curses on their cowardice in postponing any attack or risk of fighting until the arrival of militia, or soldiers, or help of some HARPER'S FERRY 241 kind, in strength to overpower the little band in the armoury, to make resistance useless, and an attack, if that was nec essary, safe enough to secure some valiant man to lead it on. My story was soon told. I was a traveller; my train had been stopped; I had started off on foot, meaning to walk over the hill to the Ferry, and expecting there to meet the train to go on to Baltimore. The interruptions were plentiful, and talk blatant. I showed a ticket, a memorandum-book giving the dates and distances of my recent journey, and a novel (I think it was one of Bal zac's) in French, and on it was written in pencil my name and address. That was the key-note of plenty of suspicion. How could they believe any man from a Northern city innocent of a knowledge of the plot now bursting about their ears? Would not my travelling companions from the same latitude be ready to help free the slaves? And if I was set at liberty, would it not be only too easy to communicate between the little host already beleaguered in the armoury engine house and the mythical great host that was gathered in the North and ready to pour itself over the South? Of course all this, the staple of their everyday discussions, was strange enough to my ears; and I listened in a sort of silent wonderment that men could talk such balderdash. Any serious project of a great Northern movement on behalf of Southern slaves was then as far from credible and as strange to my ears as it was possible to be. It seemed hardly worth while to answer their suggestions; I therefore spoke of neighbours of theirs who were friends of mine, and of other prominent persons in this and other parts of Vir ginia who were acquaintances, and for a little time I hoped to be allowed to go free; but after more loud talk and a squabble that marked by its growing violence the growing drunkenness of the whole party, court and guard and spec- 242 HARPER'S FERRY tators all, I was ordered along with the other prisoners to be held in custody for the present. We were marched off, first to one house and then to another, looking for a con venient prison, and finally found one in a shop. Here it was a country store we sat and smoked and drank and chatted with our guard and with their friends inside and out. Now and then a volley was fired in the streets of the village below us, and we would all go to a line fence where we could see its effects: generally it was only riotous noise, but occasionally it was directed against the engine house or on someone moving through the armoury yard. As the militia in and out of uniform, and the men from far and near, armed in all sorts of ways, began to come into the village in squads, their strength seemed to give them increased confidence, and especially in the perfectly safe place where I sat with half a dozen others under a heavy guard. Now and then an ugly-looking fowling-piece or an awkwardly handled pistol was threateningly pointed at us, with a half-laughing and half-drunken threat of keeping us safe. Toward afternoon we were ordered for the night to Charlestown, and to the jail there that has grown so famous by its hospitality to our successors. Early morning was very welcome, for it brought the court-martial up to Charlestown, and I was soon ready for a hearing. Fortunately, after a good deal of angry discus sion and some threats of short shrift, a message came up from the Ferry from Governor Wise; and as I boldly claimed acquaintance with him, they granted me leave to send down a note to him, asking for his confirmation of my statements. While this was doing, I was paroled and served my Kan sas colleague by advice to hold his tongue; he did so, and was soon released; and my messenger returned with such advices, in the shape of a pretty sharp reprimand to the HARPER'S FERRY 243 busy court-martial for their interference with the liberty of the citizen, as speedily got me my freedom. I used it to buy such articles of clothing as could be had in Charles- town, and my prison clothes were gladly thrown aside. Some of my fellow-travellers reached the place in time to find me snugly ensconced in the tavern, waiting for an ancient carriage; with them we drove back to the Ferry in solemn state. The same deserted houses and the same skulking out of sight by the inhabitants showed the fear that outlasted even the arrival of heavy militia reinforce ments. We stopped at Mr. Lewis Washington's, and, with out let or hindrance, walked through the pretty grounds and the bright rooms and the neat negro huts, all alike life less, and yet showing at every turn the suddenness and the recentness of the fright that had carried everybody off. Our ride through Bolivar was cheered by a vigorous greet ing from my captor of the day before, the village shoe maker, a brawny fellow, who declared that he knew I was all right, that he had taken care of me, that he would not have me hanged or shot, and " wouldn't I give him sum't to have a drink all round, and if ever I came again, please to stop and see him " ; and so I did, when I came back with my regiment in war-times; but then no shoe maker was to be found. I paid my respects to Governor Wise, and thanked him for my release; was introduced to Colonel Lee (now the Rebel general), and to the officers of the little squad of marines who had carried the stronghold of the " invaders," as the Governor persistently called them. In company with " Porte Crayon," Mr. Strothers, a na tive of that part of Virginia, and well known by his sketches of Southern life, I went to the engine-house, and there saw the marks of the desperate bravery of John Brown 244 HARPER'S FERRY and his men. I saw, too, John Brown himself. Wounded, bleeding, haggard, and defeated, and expecting death with more or less of agony as it was more or less near, John Brown was the finest specimen of a man that I ever saw. His great, gaunt form, his noble head and face, his iron- grey and patriarchal beard, with the patient endurance of his own suffering, and his painful anxiety for the fate of his sons and the welfare of his men, his reticence when jeered at, his readiness to turn away wrath with a kind answer, his whole appearance and manner, what he looked, what he said all impressed me with the deepest sense of reverence. If his being likened to anything in history could have made the scene more solemn, I should say that he was likest to the pictured or the ideal representation of a Roundhead Puritan dying for his faith, and silently glory ing in the sacrifice not only of life, but of all that made life dearest to him. His wounded men showed in their patient endurance the influence of his example; while the vulgar herd of lookers-on, fair representatives of the cow ardly militia-men who had waited for the little force of regulars to achieve the capture of the engine-house and its garrison, were ready to prove their further cowardice by maltreating the prisoners. The marines, who alone had sac rificed life in the attack, were sturdily bent on guarding them from any harsh handling. I turned away sadly from the old man's side, sought and got the information he wanted concerning " his people," as he called them, and was rewarded with his thanks in a few simple words, and in a voice that was as gentle as a woman's. The Governor, as soon as he was told of the condition of the prisoners, had them cared for, and, in all his bitter ness at their doings, never spoke of them in terms other than honourable to himself and to them. He persistently praised John Brown for his bravery and his endurance; and HARPER'S FERRY 245 he was just as firm in declaring him the victim of shrewd and designing men, whose schemes he would yet fathom. The day was a busy one; for little squads of regulars were sent out on the Maryland Heights to search for the stores accumulated there; and each foraging party was followed by a trail of stragglers from all the volunteers on the ground, who valiantly kept on to the Maryland side of the bridge that crossed the Potomac, and then, their cour age oozing out of their ringers and toes both, stopped there and waited for the return of the regulars. On the instant of their arrival, each time fetching a great hay-waggon full of captured goods, tents, picks, spades, pikes, the tag-rag and bobtail party at once set to work to help themselves to the nearest articles, and were soon seen making off homeward with their contraband of war on their backs. The plunder, however, was not confined to the captured property. A strong force of militia soon invaded the armoury, and every man helped himself to a rifle and a brace of pistols, and then, tiring of the load, began to chaffer and bargain for their sale. Governor Wise was called on to interfere and preserve the Government property; he came into the little inclosure of the works, and began an eloquent address, but seeing its uselessness, broke off and put his Richmond Greys on guard; and then the distribution of public property was made through the regular channels that is, the men in side brought guns and pistols to the men on guard, and they passed them out to their friends beyond, so that the trade went on almost as free as ever. Night soon came, and it was made hideous by the drunken noise and turmoil of the crowd in the village. Matters were made worse, too, by the Governor's order to impress all the horses; and the decent, sober men trudged home rather out of humour with their patriotic sacrifice; while the tipsy and pot-valiant militia fought and squabbled with each 246 HARPER'S FERRY other, and only ceased that sport to pursue and hunt down some fugitive negroes, and one or two half-maddened drunken fellows who in their frenzy proclaimed themselves John Brown's men. Tired out at last, the Governor took refuge in the Wager House for an hour or two, he had stood on the porch haranguing an impatient crowd as " Sons of Virginia "! Within doors the scene was stranger still. Huddled together in the worst inn's worst room, the Governor and his staff at a table with tallow candles guttering in the darkness, the Richmond Greys lying around the floor in picturesque and (then) novel pursuit of soft planks, a mot ley audience was gathered together to hear the papers cap tured at John Brown's house the Kennedy farm on Mary land Heights read out with the Governor's running com ments. The purpose of all this was plain enough. It was meant to serve as proof of a knowledge and instigation of the raid by prominent persons and party leaders in the North. The most innocent notes and letters, common place newspaper paragraphs and printed cuttings, were dis torted and twisted by the reading and by the talking into clear instructions and positive plots. However, the main impression was of the picturesqueness of the soldiers rest ing on their knapsacks, and their arms stacked in the dark corner of the Governor and his satellites, some of them in brilliant militia array, seated around the lighted table, and of the grotesque eloquence with which either the Gov ernor or some of his prominent people would now and then burst out into an oratorical tirade, all thrown away on his sleepy auditors, and lost to the world for want of some clever shorthand writer. In the morning I was glad to hear that my belated train had spent the last forty-eight hours at Martinsburg, and I did not a bit regret that my two days had been so full HARPER'S FERRY 247 of adventure and incident. Waiting for its coming, I walked once more through the village, with one of the watchmen of the armoury, who had been captured by John Brown and spent the night with him in the engine-house, and heard in all its freshness the story now so well known. MICHILIMACINAC HENRY B. DAWSON THE dispute with Great Britain had resulted in a declaration of war by the Congress of the United States; yet, notwithstanding an appeal to arms had been made by the infant republic, there appears to have been but little preparation made to carry it on. Not the least of the many subjects which appear to have been almost wholly neglected by the executive departments of the Gov ernment, was the notification of the several military posts, on the frontiers, of the declaration a neglect which was, subsequently, productive of great mischief to the country. At the period in question, the United States occupied the Island of Michilimacinac (since called Mackinac) with a small garrison of regular troops, not more for the protec tion of traders, than for the purpose of holding a check over the Indians of the northwestern part of the country. This island is situated in the straits which lead from Lake Mich igan to Lake Huron; is of a circular form, about seven miles in circumference, and from three to four miles from the main. It is a rock of limestone, covered with a rough but fertile soil, on which is borne a heavy growth of tim ber. The fort occupied a high bank on the southeastern side of the island, overlooking and commanding a fine har bour; and was, itself, commanded by the high ground in its rear, on which had been erected two block-houses, each of which was defended by two long nine-pounders, two howitzers, and a brass three-pounder; and a company of fifty-seven men, officers included, commanded by Lieutenant 248 MACHILIMACINAC 249 Porter Hanks, of the United States Artillery, formed the garrison. About fifty miles northeast from this post, Gen eral Brock, in the spring of 1812, had erected a small work, called Fort St. Joseph, and had garrisoned it with a de tachment of the Tenth Royal Veteran Battalion, forty-five in number, under Captain Charles Roberts. Intelligence of the declaration of war having been con veyed, by express, from New York to Queenstown and Montreal, at the expense of some British merchants resid ing at the former city, the enemy had been apprised of the measure at a much earlier date than that on which the American officers had received the information, and the latter, therefore, laboured under great disadvantages. One of the most notable instances of this official neglect, which resulted in the most serious consequences to the country, was that of the neglect to notify the commanders of the northwestern posts, especially that of Michilimacinac, whose first information of the existence of war was received from the enemy, with a demand for his surrender. As before related, the enemy received early advice of the declaration of war from the British merchants residing in New York; and one of the first cares of Sir Isaac Brock was to notify Captain Roberts, at St. Joseph's, with orders to make an immediate attack on Michilimacinac, if prac ticable; or, in the event of an attack on his post, by the Americans, to defend it to the last extremity. At a subse quent date the order was renewed, with directions to sum mon the neighbouring Indians to his assistance, and to ask for the same purpose, the co-operation of such of the em ployees of the British fur companies, who might happen to be near him; and, still later, the Captain was left to his own discretion to adopt either offensive or defensive meas ures, as circumstances might warrant. With a degree of promptitude which reflects honour on his professional char- 250 MACHILIMACINAC acter, Captain Roberts decided to act offensively; and he took immediate measures to insure a successful termination of his enterprise. He was far beyond the limits within which he could have commanded the assistance of other portions of the Royal forces; and he fell back on the lim ited resources of his secluded position with remarkably good judgment and success. Calling to his quarters Mr. Pothier, an agent of the Southwest Company, who was then at St. Joseph's, he laid before that gentleman his proposed plan of operations, and solicited his assistance. Mr. Pothier, struck with the importance of the projected enterprise, and the feasibility of the plan of operations, immediately opened the stores of the company, and placed everything they con tained, which might contribute to the success of the expe dition, at the command of Captain Roberts; while, at the same time, he offered his own services, as a volunteer, with those of one hundred and eighty Canadian voyageurs employees of the company one-half of whom he armed with muskets or fowling-pieces. Captain Roberts also in vited the assistance of the neighbouring Indians both American and British and about four hundred and twenty-five of the savages responded to his call. On the day after the receipt of the orders last referred to (July 16), at ten o'clock in the morning, Captain Rob erts embarked, with his entire force regular, volunteer, and savage and two iron six-pounders, and under the convoy of the Northwest Company's brig Caledonia, which was laden with stores and provisions, he approached the Island of Michilimacinac. At three o'clock in the morning of the seventeenth of July, the flotilla reached the place of rendezvous; and one of the two guns was immediately taken up the high ground in the rear of the fort, and placed in battery in a position which completely com manded the garrison. MACHILIMACINAC 251 In the meantime, Lieutenant Hanks and his little com mand remained comparatively ignorant of their impending danger. It is true, an Indian interpreter had told the Lieu tenant, on the sixteenth, that the Indians at St. Joseph's intended to make an immediate attack on the post; and from the sudden coolness which some of the chiefs, in the vicinity of his post, had displayed, he appears to have been inclined to believe the interpreter's information. He im mediately called a council, and invited " the American gen tlemen at that time on the island " to participate in the deliberations; the result of which was the appointment of Captain Daurman, as a scout, to proceed to St. Joseph's to watch the motions of the Indians. The Captain embarked about sunset, and had proceeded only a short distance before he met the enemy's flotilla, by whom he was captured, and returned to the island. At daybreak he was landed, with instructions to remove all the inhabitants of the little vil lage to the west side of the island where the enemy's flotilla then laid in order that their persons and prop erty might be protected; at the same time forbidding him from conveying any information to the garrison, and threatening with extermination all those who might seek refuge with the garrison and offer any resistance. The in habitants of the village appear to have obeyed the order without any delay; and the intelligence of their exodus, which was carried to the fort by Doctor Day, who was passing that way, was the first intimation which Lieu tenant Hanks had received of the presence of an enemy of any kind, nor did he then suspect that the intruders were subjects of his Britannic majesty, lawfully prosecuting a warfare which his own government had declared, nearly a month before that time. He lost no time, however, in ordering the block-houses, on the high ground in his rear, to be occupied and supplied with ammunition and 252 MACHILIMACINAC stores; and every gun in the main works was prepared for action. By this time, however, the enemy had gained the heights, and placed his gun in battery, as before referred to, while the Indians, in great numbers, showed themselves in the margin of the woods, near the fort. At about eleven o'clock a flag was sent, requiring the surrender of the fort and its garrison to his Britannic majesty's forces the ear liest notice which the garrison had received of the char acter of their enemy. After consulting his officers and the American gentlemen who were present; and taking into consideration the strength and disposition of the enemy, it was resolved to yield to the demand; and the fort and the island were, accordingly, surrendered to the arms of Great Britain. Of the great importance of this conquest, both parties were immediately fully sensible. Not only were the stores which were taken quite valuable, but seven hundred pack ages of furs were among the trophies of the victory. But not alone from the value of the spoils does the interest which has attached to this affair arise. General Hull has shown Its effects in the most vivid colours when he said, ff After the surrender of Michilimacinac, almost every tribe and nation of Indians, excepting a part of the Miamis and Delawares, north from beyond Lake Superior, west from beyond the Mississippi, south from the Ohio and Wabash, and east from every part of Upper Canada, and from all the intermediate country, joined in open hostility, under the British standard, against the army I commanded, contrary to the most solemn assurance of a large portion of them to remain neutral." The same views were entertained by the enemy; and the standard British authorities on the history of those times, have left on record their testimony to the same effect. NARRAGANSETT WASHINGTON IRVING ' I N HE nature of the contest that ensued was such as too often distinguishes the warfare between civilized men and savages. On the part of the whites, it was con ducted with superior skill and success; but with a waste fulness of the blood and a disregard of the natural rights of their antagonists; on the part of the Indians, it was waged with the desperation of men fearless of death, and who had nothing to expect from peace, but humiliation, dependence, and decay. The project of a wide and simultaneous revolt, if such had really been formed, was worthy of a capacious mind, and, had it not been prematurely discovered, might have been overwhelming in its consequences. The war that act ually broke out, was but a war of detail, a mere succession of casual exploits and unconnected enterprises. Still, it sets forth the military genius and daring prowess of Philip; and wherever, in the prejudiced and passionate narrations that have been given of it, we can arrive at simple facts, we find him displaying a vigorous mind, a fertility of expe dients, a contempt of suffering and hardship, and an un conquerable resolution, that command our sympathy and applause. Driven from his paternal domains at Mount Hope, he threw himself into the depths of those vast and trackless forests that skirted the settlements, and were almost im pervious to anything but a wild beast or an Indian. Here he gathered together his forces, like the storm accumulating 253 254 NARRAGANSETT its stores of mischief in the bosom of the thunder-cloud, and would suddenly emerge at a time and place least expected, carrying havoc and dismay into the villages. There were, now and then, indications of these impend ing ravages, that filled the minds of the colonists with awe and apprehension. The report of a distant gun would per haps be heard from the solitary woodland, where there was known to be no white man; the cattle which had been wandering in the woods would sometimes return home wounded; or an Indian or two would be seen lurking about the skirts of the forests, and suddenly disappearing; as the lightning will sometimes be seen playing silently about the edge of the cloud that is brewing up the tempest. Though sometimes pursued, and even surrounded, by the settlers, yet Philip as often escaped, almost miraculously, from their toils, and, plunging into the wilderness, would be lost to all search or inquiry, until he again emerged at some far-distant quarter, laying the country desolate. Among his strongholds were the great swamps or morasses which extend in some parts of New England, composed of loose bogs of deep black mud, perplexed with thickets, bram bles, rank weeds, the shattered and mouldering trunks of fallen trees, overshadowed by lugubrious hemlocks. The uncertain footing and the tangled mazes of these shaggy wilds rendered them almost impracticable to the white man, though the Indian could thrid their labyrinths with the agility of a deer. Into one of these, the great swamp of Pocasset Neck, was Philip once driven with a band of his followers. The Eng lish did not dare to pursue him, fearing to venture into these dark and frightful recesses, where they might perish in fens and miry pits, or be shot down by lurking foes. They therefore invested the entrance to the Neck, and began to build a fort, with the thought of starving out the foe; but NARRAGANSETT 255 Philip and his warriors wafted themselves on a raft over an arm of the sea, in the dead of night, leaving the women and children behind, and escaped away to the westward, kin dling the flames of war among the tribes of Massachusetts and the Nipmuck country, and threatening the colony of Connecticut. In this way, Philip became a theme of universal appre hension. The mystery in which he was enveloped exag gerated his real terrors. He was an evil that walked in darkness; whose coming none could foresee, and against which none knew when to be on the alert. The whole country abounded with rumours and alarms. Philip seemed almost possessed of ubiquity; for, in whatever part of the widely-extended frontier an irruption from the forest took place, Philip was said to be its leader. Many superstitious notions also were circulated concern ing him. He was said to deal in necromancy, and to be attended by an old Indian witch or prophetess, whom he consulted, and who assisted him by her charms and incanta tions. This, indeed, was frequently the case with Indian chiefs; either through their own credulity, or to act upon that of their followers; and the influence of the prophet and the dreamer over Indian superstition has been fully evidenced in recent instances of savage warfare. At the time that Philip effected his escape from Pocas- set, his fortunes were in a desperate condition. His forces had been thinned by repeated fights, and he had lost almost the whole of his resources. In this time of adversity he found a faithful friend in Canonchet, chief sachem of all the Narragansetts. He was the son and heir of Mian- tonimo, the great sachem, who, after an honourable acquit tal of the charge of conspiracy, had been privately put to death at the perfidious instigations of the settlers. " He was the heir," says the old chronicler, " of all his father's 256 NARRAGANSETT pride and insolence, as well as of his malice toward the Eng lish " he certainly was the heir of his insults and injuries, and the legitimate avenger of his murder. Though he had forborne to take an active part in this hopeless war, yet he received Philip and his broken forces with open arms; and gave them the most generous counte nance and support. This at once drew upon him the hos tility of the English; and it was determined to strike a signal blow that should involve both the sachems in one common ruin. A great force was, therefore, gathered to gether from Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut, and was sent into the Narraganset country in the depth of winter, when the swamps, being frozen and leafless, could be traversed with comparative facility, and would no longer afford dark and impenetrable fastnesses to the Indians. Apprehensive of attack, Canonchet had conveyed the greater part of his stores, together with the old, the infirm, the women and children of his tribe, to a strong fortress; where he and Philip had likewise drawn up the flower of their forces. This fortress, deemed by the Indians impreg nable, was situated upon a rising mound or kind of island, of five or six acres, in the midst of a swamp; it was con structed with a degree of judgment and skill vastly supe rior to what is usually displayed in Indian fortification, and indicative of the martial genius of these two chieftains. Guided by a renegade Indian, the English penetrated, through December snows, to this stronghold, and came upon the garrison by surprise. The fight was fierce and tumul tuous. The assailants were repulsed in their first attack, and several of their bravest officers were shot down in the act of storming the fortress, sword in hand. The assault was renewed with greater success. A lodgment was ef fected. The Indians were driven from one post to another. They disputed their ground inch by inch, fighting with the NARRAGANSETT 257 fury of despair. Most of their veterans were cut to pieces; and after a long and bloody battle, Philip and Canonchet, with a handful of surviving warriors, retreated from the fort, and took refuge in the thickets of the surrounding forest. The victors set fire to the wigwams and the fort; the whole was soon in a blaze; many of the old men, the women and the children perished in the flames. This last outrage overcame even the stoicism of the savage. The neighbour ing woods resounded with the yells of rage and despair uttered by the fugitive warriors, as they beheld the destruc tion of their dwellings, and heard the agonizing cries of their wives and offspring. " The burning of the wigwams," says a contemporary writer, " the shrieks and cries of the women and children, and the yelling of the warriors, exhibited a most horrible and affecting scene, so that it greatly moved some of the soldiers." The same writer cautiously adds, " they were in much doubt then, and afterward seriously inquired, whether burning their enemies alive could be consistent with humanity, and the benevolent principles of the Gospel." The defeat at the Narranganset fortress and the death of Canonchet, were fatal blows to the fortunes of King Philip. He made an ineffectual attempt to raise a head of war by stirring up the Mohawks to take arms; but though pos sessed of the native talents of a statesman, his arts were counteracted by the superior arts of his enlightened enemies, and the terror of their warlike skill began to subdue the resolution of the neighbouring tribes. The unfortunate chieftain saw himself daily stripped of power, and the ranks rapidly thinning around him. Some were suborned by the whites; others fell victims to hunger and fatigue, and to the frequent attacks by which 258 NARRAGANSETT they were harassed. His stores were all captured; his chosen friends were swept away from before his eyes; his uncle was shot down by his side; his sister was carried into captivity; and in one of his narrow escapes he was com pelled to leave his beloved wife and only son to the mercy of the enemy. " His ruin," says the historian, " being thus gradually carried on, his misery was not prevented, but augmented thereby; being himself made acquainted with the sense and experimental feeling of the captivity of his children, loss of friends, slaughter of his subjects, bereave ment of all family relations, and being stripped of all out ward comforts, before his own life should be taken away." However Philip had borne up against the complicated miseries and misfortunes that surrounded him, the treachery of his followers seemed to worry his heart and reduce him to despondency. It is said that " he never rejoiced after ward, nor had success in any of his designs." The spring of hope was broken the ardour of enterprise was extin guished he looked around, and all was danger and dark ness; there was no eye to pity, nor any arm that could bring deliverance. With a scanty band of followers, who still remained true to his desperate fortunes, the unhappy Philip wandered back to Mount Hope, the ancient dwell ing of his fathers. Here he lurked about, like a spectre, among scenes of former power and prosperity, now bereft of home, of fam ily, and friend. There needs no better picture of his desti tute and piteous situation, than that furnished by the homely pen of the chronicler, who is unwarily enlisting the feelings of the reader in favour of the hapless warrior whom he reviles. " Philip," he says, " like a savage wild beast, hav ing been hunted by the English forces through the woods, above a hundred miles backward and forward, at last was driven to his own den upon Mount Hope, where he retired, NARRAGANSETT 259 with a few of his best friends, into a swamp, which proved but a prison to keep him fast till the messengers of death came by divine permission to execute vengeance upon him." Even in this last refuge of desperation and despair, a sul len grandeur gathers round his memory. We picture him to ourselves seated among his careworn followers, brooding in silence over his blasted fortunes, and acquiring a savage sublimity from the wildness and dreariness of his lurking- place. Defeated, but not dismayed crushed to the earth, but not humiliated he seemed to grow more haughty be neath disaster, and to experience a fierce satisfaction in draining the last dregs of bitterness. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, but great minds rise above it. The very idea of submission awakened the fury of Philip, and he smote to death one of his followers, who proposed an expedient of peace. The brother of the victim made his escape, and in revenge be trayed the retreat of his chieftain. A body of white men and Indians were immediately despatched to the swamp where Philip lay crouched, glaring with fury and despair. Before he was aware of their approach, they had begun to surround him. In a little while he saw five of his trustiest followers laid dead at his feet; all resistance was vain; he rushed forth from his covert, and made a headlong attempt to escape, but was shot through the heart by a renegade Indian of his own nation. Such is the scanty story of the brave but unfortunate King Philip; persecuted while living, slandered and dis honoured when dead. If, however, we consider even the prejudiced anecdotes furnished us by his enemies, we may perceive in them traces of amiable and lofty character suf ficient to awaken sympathy for his fate, and respect for his memory. We find that, amidst all the harassing cares and ferocious passions of constant warfare, he was alive to 260 NARRAGANSETT the softer feelings of connubial love and paternal tender ness, and to the generous sentiment of friendship. The captivity of his " beloved wife and only son " is mentioned with exultation as causing his poignant misery; the death of any near friend is triumphantly recorded as a new blow on his sensibilities; but the treachery and desertion of many of his followers, in whose affections he had confided, is said to have desolated his heart, and to have bereaved him of all further comfort. He was a patriot attached to his native soil a prince true to his subjects, and indignant of their wrongs a sol dier daring in battle, firm in adversity, patient of fatigue, of hunger, of every variety of bodily suffering, and ready to perish in the cause he had espoused. Proud of heart, and with an untamable love of natural liberty, he preferred to enjoy it among the beasts of the forests, or in the dis mal and famished recesses of swamps and morasses, rather than bow his haughty spirit to submission, and live depend ent and despised in the ease and luxury of the settlements. With heroic qualities and bold achievements that would have graced a civilized warrior, and have rendered him the theme of the poet and the historian, he lived a wanderer and a fugitive in his native land, and went down like a lonely bark foundering amid darkness and tempest -with out a pitying eye to weep his fall, or a friendly hand to record his struggle. THE SETTLEMENT OF JAMESTOWN SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER December 19, 1606, the little company which was destined to succeed where so many had failed, sailed from the Thames in three small vessels. They were in all a hundred and five. The vessels were commanded by a Captain Newport. It was arranged that the names of the colonial council should be kept secret until the arrival of the expedition in America. This precaution had probably been taken to prevent any collision between Newport and the colonial authorities. It was, however, attended with unforeseen results. The chief persons who had engaged in the undertaking were jealous of the abilities of Smith, and absurd rumours were spread among them that he intended to make himself King of Virginia. They, therefore, re solved upon intercepting his supposed design by placing him in confinement; and they conducted across the Atlantic as a prisoner the man to whom the whole conduct of the enterprise ought to have been confided. After a tedious voyage, the expedition arrived at the mouth of the Chesapeake. They gave to the headlands between which they sailed the names of Cape Henry and Cape Charles, in honour of the two English princes. As soon as they had landed, they opened their instructions, and found that seven of their number had been appointed to form the council, and that both Smith and Gosnold were included in the number. After some hesitation, they se lected a site upon a stream to which they gave the name of the James River, upon which they proceeded to build the 261 262 THE SETTLEMENT OF JAMESTOWN town which is known as Jamestown to this day. The first act of the council was to nominate Wingfield, one of the earlier promoters of the expedition, to the presidency, and to expel Smith from their body. It was not till some weeks had passed that they were persuaded to allow him to take his seat. In June Newport returned to England with the vessels. As soon as he had left Virginia the troubles of the colonists began. They had arrived too late in the season to allow them to sow the seed which they had brought with them with any hope of obtaining a crop. The food which was left behind for their support was bad in quality, and the hot weather brought disease with it. Nearly fifty of their number were gentlemen who had never been accustomed to manual labour. Half of the little company were swept away before the beginning of September. Among those who perished was Gosnold, whose energetic disposition might, perhaps, if he had survived, done good service to the colony. To make matters worse, the president was inef ficient and selfish, and cared little about the welfare of his comrades, if he only had food enough for himself. The council deposed him; but his successor, Radcliffe, was equally incompetent, and it was only by the unexpected kindness of the natives that the colonists were enabled to maintain their existence. As the winter approached, their stock was increased by large numbers of wild fowl which came within their reach. In spite, however, of this change in their circumstances, it was only at Smith's earnest en treaty that they were prevented from abandoning the col ony and returning to England. During the winter, Smith employed himself in explor ing the country. In one of his expeditions he was taken prisoner by the Indians. Any other man would have been instantly massacred. With great presence of mind, he took THE SETTLEMENT OF JAMESTOWN 263 a compass out of his pocket, and began talking to them about its wonders. Upon this, the chief forbade them to do him any harm, and ordered him to be carried to their village. While he was there he still more astonished his captors by sending a party of them with a letter to Jamestown. They were unable to comprehend how his wishes could be conveyed by means of a piece of paper. At last he was conducted before Powhatan, the superior chief over all the tribes of that part of the country. After a long consulta tion, it was determined to put him to death. He was dragged forward, and his head was laid upon a large stone, upon which the Indians were preparing to beat out his brains with their clubs. Even then his good fortune did not desert him. The chief's daughter, Pocahontas, a young girl of ten or twelve years of age, rushed forward, and, taking him in her arms, laid her head upon his, to shield it from the clubs. The chief gave way before the entreaties of his daughter, and allowed him full liberty to return to Jamestown. On his arrival there, he found all things in confusion. The president had again formed the intention of abandon ing the colony, and was only deterred once more by the energetic exertions of Smith. The colonists were also in debted to him for the liberal supplies of provisions which were from time to time brought to them by Pocahontas. He had not been long at liberty, when Newport arrived with a fresh supply of provisions. He also brought with him about a hundred and twenty men, the greater part of whom were bent upon digging for gold. Smith applied him self to the more profitable undertaking of carrying his explorations over the whole of the surrounding country. The gold-diggers did not add anything to the stock of the community; and it was only by the arrival of another ship 264 THE SETTLEMENT OF JAMESTOWN that the colonists were enabled during the summer of 1608 to avoid absolute starvation. Some little corn had, however, been sown in the spring, and it was hoped that, with the help of what they could obtain from the natives, there would be sufficient provision for the winter. Shortly after Newport had again left the colony, Smith returned from one of his exploring expeditions. He found the whole colony dissatisfied with the conduct of the inca pable president, who, with the exception of Smith, was the only member of the original council still remaining in Vir ginia. A third member had, however, been sent out from England. This man, whose name was Scrivener, had at tached himself w r armly to Smith, and, to the general satis faction of the settlers, the two friends deposed Radclifie, and appointed Smith to fill his place. Smith had not long been president when Newport again arrived. The members of the company in England were anxious to see a return for the capital which they had ex pended. They pressed Smith to send them gold, and threat ened to leave the colony to starve, if their wishes were not complied with. The only conditions on which he was to be excused were the discovery of a passage into the Pacific, or of the lost colony which had been founded by Raleigh. They sent him seventy more men, of whom, as usual, the greater number were gentlemen. They expected him to send them home, in return, pitch, tar, soap-ashes, and glass. To assist him in this they put on board eight Poles and Dutchmen, who were skilled in such manufactures. He at once wrote home to the treasurer of the company, Sir Thomas Smith, explaining to him the absurdity of these demands. The colonists, he told him, must be able to feed themselves before they could establish manufactures. If any more men were sent out, " but thirty carpenters, hus bandmen, gardners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons and THE SETTLEMENT OF JAMESTOWN 265 diggers up of trees " and " roots," would be better " than a thousand of such " as had lately arrived. Under Smith's rule the settlement passed safely through another winter. The Indians were compelled to respect the rising colony. The greater part of the gentlemen were induced to work heartily, and those who refused were told plainly that if they would not do the work they would be left to starve. It appeared as if, at last, the worst diffi culties had been overcome. The summer of 1609 was drawing to a close, when news arrived in Virginia that a fresh charter had been granted, by which considerable changes were authorized in the government of the colony. The working of the orig inal arrangements had been, in many respects, unsatisfac tory. The council at home, which had been enlarged in 1607, had found but little to do, as all practical business connected with the support of the colony was in the hands of the company. The company itself had proved but ill- fitted to devise the best measures for a quick return for the money which they had laid out, and had been too eager to press the colonists to engage in trade before they had brought under cultivation a sufficient quantity of land for their own support. Undoubtedly the best thing which the new council could have done would have been to have placed Smith at the head of the settlement. But, being ignorant of his true value, they took the next best step in their power. The government of merchants and captains had proved only another name for organized disorder. They, therefore, determined to try the experiment of sending out persons whose rank had made them accustomed to command, and who, if they were under the disadvantage of being new to colonial life, might be supposed to be able to obtain respect from the factions by which the colony was distracted. It 266 THE SETTLEMENT OF JAMESTOWN was also plain that the settlement must be regarded, at least for the present, as a garrison in a hostile country, and that the new government must be empowered to exer cise military discipline. The selections were undoubtedly good. Lord de la Warr, an able and conscientious man, was to preside, under the name of General; Sir Thomas Gates, one of the oldest promoters of the undertaking, was to act as his Lieutenant; Sir George Somers was to com mand the vessels of the company as Admiral; Sir Thomas Dale, an old soldier from the Low Country wars, was to keep up discipline as Marshal; while Sir Ferdinando Wain- man was invested with the rather unnecessary title of Gen eral of the Horse. Lord de la Warr was to be preceded by Gates, Somers, and Newport, who were jointly to admin ister the government till the appearance of the General himself. The whole scheme was well contrived, and, if it had been carried out according to the intentions of the council, all would have gone well. In May, nine ships sailed with five hundred fresh men to recruit the colony, and with large stores of provisions. Unfortunately, the ship which contained the three commissioners was wrecked on the Ber mudas, and the remaining vessels, with the exception of one which perished at sea, arrived in the Chesapeake with the information that Smith's authority was at an end, but without bringing any new officers to fill his place. To make matters worse, the men who arrived were chiefly a loose and disorderly mob, who had been chosen without any special regard for the requirements of an emigrant's life, and with them were several of Smith's old opponents, previously returned to England. Smith, seeing that no lawful authority had come to re place his own, determined to maintain himself in his post. The newcomers raised unlooked-for difficulties. They not THE SETTLEMENT OF JAMESTOWN 267 only showed great disinclination to submit to his orders, but they set at naught all the ordinary rules of prudence in their intercourse with the natives. The Indians came to Smith with complaints that his men were stealing their corn and robbing their gardens. He was doing his best to introduce order again among these miserable men, when an accident deprived the colony of his services. Some gun powder in a boat, in which he was, accidentally took fire, and the wounds which he received made it impossible for him to fulfil the active duties of his office. He accordingly determined to return to England, leaving the unruly crowd of settlers to discover, by a bitter experience, the value of his energy and prudence. They were not long in learn ing the extent of their capacity for self-government. They utterly refused to submit to Percy, who had been elected by the council as Smith's successor. As soon as the natives heard that Smith was gone, they attacked the settlement and met with but little resistance. The settlers themselves wasted the provisions which should have served for their subsistence during the winter. There was no recognized authority, and every man followed his own inclination. When Smith sailed for England, the colony consisted of four hundred and ninety men. Within six months, a mis erable remnant of sixty persons was supporting itself upon roots and berries. In this extremity, Gates arrived, having contrived to escape in a pinnace from the Bermudas. On May 23, 1610, he landed at Jamestown. He had expected to find a flourishing colony, where he could obtain support for the hundred and fifty shipwrecked settlers who accompanied him. He found famine staring him in the face. The corn which had been sown would not be ready for harvest for months, and the Indians refused to bargain with their oppressors. When he had landed all his little store, he 268 THE SETTLEMENT OF JAMESTOWN found that there would only be enough to support life for sixteen days. It was, therefore, determined, by common consent, to forsake the country, as the only means to avoid starvation, and to make for Newfoundland, where the fu gitives hoped to obtain a passage to England in the vessels which were engaged in fishing. On June 7, the remnants of the once prosperous colony quitted the spot which had been for three years the centre of their hopes, and dropped down the river. Before, how ever, they had got out of the Chesapeake, they were aston ished by the sight of a boat coming up to meet them. The boat proved to belong to Lord de la Warr's squadron, which had arrived from England in time to save the set tlement from ruin. The arrival of Lord de la Warr was the turning point in the early history of Virginia. He brought provisions upon which the settlers could subsist for a year, and by his authority he was able to curb the violence of the fac tions which had been with difficulty kept down even by the strong hand of Smith. Peace was restored with the Indians, and the colonists willingly obeyed the Governor's direc tions. He had not been long in Virginia before ill-health com pelled him to return. After a short interval, he was suc ceeded by Sir Thomas Dale. Dale introduced a code of martial law. This code was unjustifiably severe, but even that was better than the anarchy which threatened to break out again on Lord de la Warr's departure. A still more advantageous change was brought about under his govern ment. Hitherto, the land had been cultivated for the good of the whole colony, and it had been found difficult to make men work heartily who had no individual interest in their labours. Dale assigned three acres of land to each settler. The immediate results of this innovation were manifest. THE SETTLEMENT OF JAMESTOWN 269 The improvement was still more decided when Gates, who had been sent back to England, returned as Governor in August, 1611, with considerable supplies, of which the most valuable part consisted of large numbers of cattle. From that time the difficulties which had impeded the for mation of the settlement were heard of no more. FORT DU QUESNE E. SARGENT FORT DU QUESNE was situated on the east side of the Monongahela, on the tongue of land formed by the junction of that stream with the Alleghany. Though full of faults in its original construction, and small, it was built with immense labour, and it had " a great deal of very strong works collected into very little room." By the doubtful evidences which we possess, its shape would seem to have been a parallelogram, its four sides facing very nearly to the points of the compass, but a bastion at each corner gave it a polygonal appearance. Its longest sides were fifty yards; its shorter, forty. These were made of very large squared logs, to the height of twelve feet, and compactly filled in with earth to the depth of eight; thus leaving about four feet of ram parts to shelter the plateau. The sides of the fort near est the rivers being comparatively protected by nature, were not furnished with bastions; but a strong stockade, twelve feet high, and made of logs a foot in diameter driven pile- wise into the ground, extended from bastion to bastion and completely enclosed the area. This stockade was ingen iously wattled cross-wise with poles, after the fashion of basket-work, and loopholes, slanting downwards, were cut through to enable the men to fire. At the distance of some four rods from these walls, as they may be called, a shallow ditch was dug completely environing them and pro tected by a second stockade, seven feet high, built in a manner similar to the first, and solidly embanked with earth. 270 FORT DU QUESNE 271 Two gates opened into the fort; the western from the waterside, and the eastern, about ten feet wide, from the land. Immediately between the eastern postions was sunken a deep well, whose diameter was the width of the gate way, and over which a drawbridge was placed that at night, or in time of danger, was drawn up with chain and levers; and these actually formed the gate. Both portals were strongly framed of squared logs; but the eastern gate opened on hinges, and had a wicket cut in it for ordinary- use. Within the fort, and hard by the eastern gate, were placed the magazine and kitchen; the former, twenty feet wide by forty long, and but five feet high, was built of heavy hewed timber, deeply sunk into the ground to almost its full altitude, and its roof plastered with a coating of potter's clay nearly four feet in thickness. By this means, it was comparatively secure from any missile save bombs or hot-shot thrown from the brow of the adjacent hills. It is to these precautions that we are indebted at this day for the solitary vestige of Old Fort Du Quesne that remains to us. Some workmen, in the summer of 1854 J us t about a century after Stobo wrote being employed in making excavations for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, brought to light this building, which alone, of all its com rades, had, from its peculiar formation, escaped as well the destroying hand of Time as the torch of its baffled creator, when, in 1758, he forever abandoned his beloved fortress and fled before the approach of Forbes. Leaves, dirt, and rubbish must soon have accumulated above its neglected roof. The storms of winter came, and the freshets of the spring; and ere long not a human being had reason to believe that beneath his feet stood, intact almost as on the day it was built, the Old French Magazine. Beside this, however, there were other buildings within the walls; heavy and substantial log-houses, such as the 272 FORT DU QUESNE wants of the garrison might require. Two were store houses or magazines; two others were barracks; a seventh was the commandant's residence; and lesser erections served for a guard-house and a prison. The backs of these were at but a yard's distance from the walls, which they aided greatly to strengthen; all the intervening space being filled in with earth. Their roofs, covered with boards sawed by hand upon the spot, were level at the eaves with the ram parts; nor were there any pickets or sharpened palisades crowning the walls. Had Braddock reached this place, it was St. Clair's proposition to erect a battery on the brow of the opposite hill, which perfectly commanded the fort, and thence, with hot-shot, to set these buildings on fire, and so subdue the post. All their artillery consisted of eight cannon; one-half of them three- and the remainer four- pounders; five of which were mounted on the northwestern bastion defending the powder-magazine. When Stobo wrote, M. de Contrecceur and a guard of five officers and forty men were all who lodged in the fort; bark cabins were erected around it for the rest of the garrison. Every preparation was made for their permanent comfort; and already kitchen-gardens upon the Alleghany and mills upon the Monongahela, and a vast cornfield, extending for a quarter of a mile up either stream, furnished promise of future subsistence. The woods all around had been cut down, and hardly a stump remained within musket-shot to shelter the approach of a foe. Although the Canadian militia returning to their homes left but a small garrison of regulars to hold the fort towards the end of the summer of 1754, yet, if any reli ance may be placed upon the reports which reached the English provinces, there was still a plenty of aid within call; no less than 2200 fresh troops being sent thitherward from Quebec during that season; and on the 25th of Sep- FORT DU QUESNE 273 tember 300 Caghnawagas, or French Indians, and a convoy of provisions from Quebec arrived. Five days before, when Lieutenant Lyon with a flag of truce from Virginia and a fruitless proposition to exchange La Force (the officer cap tured at Tumonville's defeat) for Captain Stobo, visited Du Quesne, he found but one hundred men in the fort. But despite their scanty numbers, they were pursuing a most dangerous policy towards English interests by assid uously tempting the Indians of the Six Nations in the vicin ity to forswear their ancient alliances; and sending their Caghnawagas among the Shawanoes and other western tribes to bring them into the interests of Canada. A num ber of savages had frequented the post ever since the cap ture of Fort Necessity, and among these numerous and valuable presents were distributed. Through the medium of the Delaware, or perhaps more directly from Quebec and France, through the intercession of the spy Hennessey, they were in November advised of the expected reinforcements from England ; and not comprehending a six months' delay in the enterprise, the French had hastened at once to rein force Fort Du Quesne with eight additional cannon, and a plenty of stores. The garrison was also increased to noo men; and nearly 400 Indians, Adirondacks, Caghna wagas, and Ottawas, were sent thither from the confines of New France. Having settled upon his course, on the 8th of July, Braddock, following the Valley of Long Run, marched southwestwardly eight miles towards the Monongahela, and pitched his camp for the night upon an inviting declivity between that stream and another rivulet called Crooked Run, some two miles from the river. He was now within two easy marches of the Ohio, to gain which he looked for no other opposition than what he might encounter in the morrow's fordings; and so far as we can discover, there 274 FORT DU QUESNE were in his ranks but two individuals at all diffident of success. What precautionary steps his education and capacity could suggest were here taken by Braddock. Before three o'clock on the morning of the Qth, Gage was sent forth with a chosen band to secure both crossings of the river, and to hold the further shore of the second ford till the rest of the army should come up. At four, St. Clair, with a working-party, followed to make the roads. At six A. M. the General set out, and advantageously posted about 400 men upon the adjacent heights, and made, with all the waggons and baggage, the first crossing of the Monongahela. Marching thence in order of battle towards the second ford, he received intelligence that Gage had occupied the shore according to orders, and that the route was clear. The only enemy he had seen was a score of savages, who fled without awaiting his approach. By eleven o'clock, the army reached the second ford; but it was not until after one that the declivities of the banks were made ready for the artillery and waggons, when the whole array, by a little before two o'clock, was safely passed over. Not doubting that from some point on the stream the enemy's scouts were observing his operations, Braddock was re solved to strongly impress them with the numbers and condition of his forces; and accordingly the troops were ordered to appear as for a dress-parade. In after life, Washington was accustomed to observe that he had never seen elsewhere so beautiful a sight as was exhibited during this passage of the Monongahela. Every man was attired in his best uniform; the burnished arms shone bright as silver in the glistening rays of the noonday sun, as, with colours waving proudly above their heads, and amid in spiring bursts of martial music, the steady files, with dis ciplined precision, and glittering in scarlet and gold, ad- FORT DU QUESNE 275 vanced to their position. While the rear was yet on the other side, and the van was falling into its ordained course, the bulk of the army was drawn up in battle array on the western shore, hard by the spot where one Frazier, a German blacksmith in the interest of the English, had lately had his home. Two or three hundred yards above the spot where it now stood was the mouth of Turtle Creek (the Tulpewi Sipu of the Lenape), which, flowing in a southwestwardly course to the Monongahela that here has a northwestwardly direction, embraces, in an obtuse angle of about 125, the very spot where the brunt of the battle was to be borne. The scene is familiar to tourists, being, as the crow flies, but eight miles from Pittsburg, and scarce twelve by the course of the river. For three- quarters of a mile below the entrance of the creek, the Monongahela was unusually shallow, forming a gentle rapid or ripple, and easily fordable at almost any point. Its common level is from three to four hundred feet below that of the surrounding country; and along its upper banks, at the second crossing, stretches a fertile bottom of a rich, pebbled mould, about a fourth of a mile in width, and twenty feet above low-water mark. At this time it was covered by a fair, open walnut-wood, uncumbered with bush or undergrowth. On the evening of the 8th of July, the ground had been carefully reconnoitred and the proper place for the action selected. The intention was to dispute as long as possible the passage of the second ford, and then to fall back upon the ravines. But long ere they reached the scene, the swell of military music and the crash of falling trees, apprised them that the foe had already crossed the river, and that his pioneers were advanced into the woodlands. Quickening their pace into a run, they managed to reach the broken ground just as the van of the English came in sight. 276 FORT DU QUESNE The French (some of whom, according to Garneau, were mounted), held the centre of the semi-circular disposition so instantly assumed; and a tremendous fire was at once opened on the English. The officers sought to collect their men together and lead them on in platoons. Nothing could avail. On every hand the officers, distinguished by their horses and their uniforms, were the constant mark of hostile rifles; and it was soon as impossible to find men to give orders as it was to have them obeyed. In a narrow road, twelve feet wide, shut upon either side and overpent by the primeval forest, were crowded together the panic-stricken wretches, hastily loading and reloading, and blindly discharging their guns in the air, as though they suspected their mysterious mur derers were sheltered in the boughs above their heads; while all around, removed from sight, but making day hideous with their war-whoops and savage cries, lay ensconced a host insatiate for blood. Foaming with rage and indignation, Braddock flew from rank to rank, with his own hands en deavouring to force his men into position. Four horses were shot under him, but mounting a fifth, he still strained every nerve to retrieve the ebbing fortunes of the day. At last, when every aide but Washington was struck down; when the lives of the vast majority of the officers had been sacrificed with a reckless intrepidity, a sublime self-devotion that surpasses the power of language to ex press ; when scarce a third part of the whole army remained unscathed, and these incapable of aught save remaining to die or till the word to retire was given; at last Braddock abandoned all hope of victory; and, with a mien undaunted as in his proudest hour, ordered the drums to sound a re treat. The instant their faces were turned, the poor reg ulars lost every trace of the sustaining power of custom; FORT DU QUESNE 277 and the retreat became a headlong flight. " Despite of all the efforts of the officers to the contrary, they ran," says Washington, " as sheep pursued by dogs, and it was im possible to rally them." Beneath a large tree standing between the heads of the northernmost ravines, and while in the act of giving an order, Braddock received a mortal wound; the ball passing through his right arm into the lungs. Falling from his horse, he lay helpless on the ground, surrounded by the dead, abandoned by the living. So terminated the bloody battle of the Monongahela; a scene of carnage which has been truly described as unexam pled in the annals of modern warfare. Of the 1460 souls, officers and privates, who went into the combat, 456 were slain outright, and 421 were wounded; making a total of 877 men. Of 89 commissioned officers, 63 were killed or wounded; not a solitary field-officer escaping unhurt. Whether we regard the cause, the conduct, or the con sequences of this battle, the reflections it gives rise to are alike valuable and impressive. It brought together prac tically for the first time in our history the disciplined reg ular of Europe and the riflemen of America; and it taught the lesson to the latter that in his own forests he was the superior man. It was the beginning of a contest in whose revolving years the colonies became a school of arms, and a martial spirit of the people was fostered and trained till they had attained that confidence which naught but custom can afford. Had Braddock been successful, the great prov ince of Pennsylvania, and probably those of New Jersey, Maryland, and New York, freed from danger, would have continued in their original ignorance and aversion of mili tary science. His failure left their frontiers open to the enemy, and the spirit of self-preservation soon compelled 278 FORT DU QUESNE them to welcome the weapons from which they had once re coiled with loathing. It was there and then that Morgan and Mercer, Gates and Washington, first stood side by side in marshalled array; and in that day's dark torrent of blood was tempered the steel which was to sever the col onies from the parent-stem. ST. JOHN'S RIVER GEORGE R. FAIRBANKS THE account given by Laudonniere, himself, the leader of the Huguenots, by whom Fort Caroline was con structed, is as follows: After speaking of his arrival at the mouth of the river, which had been named the River May by Ribault, who had entered it on the first day of May, 1562, and had therefore given it that name, he says, " Departing from thence, I had not sailed three leagues up the river, still being followed by the Indians, crying still, * amy, amy, J that is to say, friend, but I discovered an hill of meane height, neare which I went on land, harde by the fieldes that were sowed with mil, at one corner whereof there was an house, built for their lodgings which keep and garde the mil. . . . ". . . Now was I determined to searche out the qual ities of the hill. Therefore I went right to the toppe there of; where we found nothing else but cedars, palms, and bay trees of so sovereign odor that Balme smelleth not more sweetly. The trees were environed around about with vines bearing grapes, in such quantities that the number would suffice to make the place habitable. Besides the fer- tilitie of the soyle for vines, one may see mesquine wreathed about the trees in great quantities. Touching the pleasure of the place, the sea may be seen plain enough from it; and more than six great leagues off, towards the River Belle, a man may behold the meadows, divided asunder into isles and islets, enterlacing one another. Briefly, the place is so pleasant, that those which are melancholicke, would be in- forced to change their humour. . . . 279 280 ST. JOHN'S RIVER " Our fort was built in form of a triangle; the side towards the west, which was toward the land, was inclosed with a little trench and raised with turf made in the form of a battlement, nine feet high; the other side, which was towards the river, was inclosed with a palisade of planks of timber, after the manner that Gabions are made; on the south line, there was a kind of bastion, within which I caused an house for the munition to be made. It was all builded with fagots and sand, saving about two or three foote high, with turfes whereof the battlements were made. " In the middest, I caused a great court to be made of eighteen paces long, and the same in breadth. In the middest whereof, on the one side, drawing towards the south, I builded a corps de garde and an house on the other side towards the north. . . . One of the sides that inclosed my court, which I made very faire and large, reached into the grange of my munitions; and on the other side, towards the river, was mine own lodgings, round which were galleries all covered. The principal doore of my lodging was in the middest of the great place, and the other was towards the river. A good distance from the fort I built an oven." Jacob Le Moyne, or Jacques Morgues, as he is some times called, accompanied the expedition, and his Brevis Narratio contains two plates, representing the commence ment of the construction of Fort Caroline, and its appear ance when completed. The latter represents a much more finished fortification than could possibly have been con structed, but may be taken as a correct outline, I presume, of its general appearance. Barcia, in his account of its capture, describes neither its shape nor appearance, but mentions the parapet nine feet high, and the munition-house and store-house. From the account of Laudonniere and Le Moyne, it was ST. JOHN'S RIVER 281 situated near the river, on the slope or nearly at the foot of a hill. Barcia speaks of its being behind a hill, and of descending towards it. The clerical-carpenter, Challeux, speaks of being able, after his escape, to look down from the hill he was on, into the court of the fort itself, and seeing the massacre of the French. As he was flying from the port towards the sea, and along the river, and as the Span iards came from a southeast direction, the fort must have been on the westerly side of a hill, near the river. The distance is spoken of as less than three leagues by Laudonniere. Hawkins and Ribault say the fort was not visible from the mouth of the river. It is also incidentally spoken of in Barcia as being two leagues from the bar. Le Challeux, in the narrative of his escape, speaks of the dis tance as being about two leagues. In the account given of the expedition of De Gourgues, it is said to be, in gen eral terms, about one or two leagues above the forts after wards constructed on each side of the mouth of the river; and it is also mentioned in De Gourgues, that the fort was at the foot of a hill, near the water, and could be over looked from the hill. The distance from the mouth of the river, and the nature of the ground where the fort was built, are thus made sufficiently definite to enable us to seek a location which shall fulfil both these conditions. It is hardly necessary to remark, that there can be no ques tion but that the fort was located on the south or easterly side of the river, as the Spaniards marched by land from St. Augustine, in a northwesterly direction to Fort Caro line. The River St. John's is one of the largest rivers, in point of width, to be found in America, and is more like an arm of the sea than a river; from its mouth for a distance of fifteen miles, it is spread over extensive marshes, and there are few points where the channel touches the banks of the 282 ST. JOHN'S RIVER river. At its mouth it is comparatively narrow, but imme diately extends itself over widespread marshes; and the first headland or shore which is washed by the channel is a place known as St. John's Bluff. Here the river runs closely along the shore, making a bold, deep channel close to the bank. The land rises abruptly on one side, into a hill of moderate height, covered with a dense growth of pine, cedar, etc. This hill gently slopes to the banks of the river, and runs off to the southwest, where, at the dis tance of a quarter of a mile, a creek discharges itself into the river, at a place called the Shipyard from time imme morial. I am not aware that any remains of Fort Caroline, or any old remains of a fortress, have ever been discovered here; but it must be recollected that this fort was con structed of sand and pine trees, and that three hundred years have passed away, with their storms and tempests, their rains and destructive influences a period sufficient to have destroyed a work of much more durable character than sandy entrenchments and green pine stakes and timbers. Moreover, it is highly probable, judging from present ap pearances, that the constant abrasion of the banks still go ing on has long since worn away the narrow spot where stood Fort Caroline. It is also to be remarked, that as there is no other hill, or highland, or place where a fort could have been built between St. John's Bluff and the mouth of the river, so it is also the fact, that there is no point on the south side of the river where the channel touches high land, for a distance by water of eight or ten miles above St. John's Bluff. The evidence in favour of the location of Fort Caro line at St. John's Bluff is, I think, conclusive and irresist ible, and accords in all points with the descriptions given as to distance, topography, and points of view. ST. JOHN'S RIVER 283 It is within the memory of persons now living, that a considerable orange grove and somewhat extensive build ings, which existed at this place, then called St. Vicente, have been washed into the river, leaving at this day no vestiges of their existence. It has been occupied as a Spanish fort within fifty years; yet so rapid has been the work of time and the elements, that no remains of such occupation are now to be seen. The narratives all speak of the distance from the mouth of the river as about two leagues; and in speaking of so short a distance the probability of exactness is much greater than when dealing with longer distances. As to the spot itself, it presents all the natural features mentioned by Laudonniere; and it requires but a small spice of enthusiasm and romance that it be recognized as a " goodlie and pleasante spotte," by those who might like the abundance of the wild grapes and the view of the dis tant salt meadows, with their " isles and islets, so pleas-* ante that those which are melancholicke would be inforced to change their humour." It is but proper, however, to say, that at a plantation known as Newcastle there is a high range of ground, and upon this high ground the appearance of an old earthwork of quadrangular form; but this point is distant some six leagues from the mouth of the river, is flanked by a deep bay or marsh to the southeast, and the work is on the top of the hill and not at its foot, is quarangular, and is a considerable distance from the water. These earthworks, I am satisfied, are Spanish or English remains of a much later period. MONTEREY LADY MARY HARDY T T 7E reach Monterey in the cool of the evening. A queer * tumble-down Spanish town lying close along the sea-shore. One or two fishermen are trailing their nets on the face of the water, and some fishing-smacks, with their brown, patched sails, are anchored in the bay, and are rocked so gently by the waves they seem to be coquetting with their own shadows. Not much more than a century ago a host of Spanish vessels sailed into this now lonely and deserted harbour, their colours flying, their decks crowded with sol diers, sailors, priests, and nuns. Here they landed in search of a good site whereon to found a mission for their priestly labours. They stationed themselves on an elevated point about two miles from the sea ; there the labour of love began. They buit a presidio for the soldiers to protect the fathers from the native Indians. Every man who had hands to work devoted himself to the cause, and laboured till the church and mission buildings were completed. All that part of the country was taken possession of in the name of the King of Spain, and the work of conversion began. The ceremony was performed with a blare of trumpets, beating of drums, and salvos of artillery, calling out an army of echoes from the surrounding hills and mountains. The poor Indians were at first dazed with the display of tawdry mag nificence and frightened at the thundering sounds which shook the air and seemed to make the solid earth tremble beneath their feet; but by degrees they approached, and then learned that this wonderful expedition was organized 284 MONTEREY 285 expressly for their benefit. Peace in this world and glory in the next was freely promised them. The gates of Para dise were opened before them; they had nothing to do but to walk in and take possession. Scores were converted every 'day ; they bowed down before the altar. The acolytes swung the incense, the fathers preached and chanted in an unknown tongue, the nuns, from behind their grated gallery, lifted their songs of adoration and praise, and the poor heathen souls were caught up in the great mystery and won to God. From Mexico and Spain settlers soon came flocking into the beautiful valley, establishing themselves upon the sea shore, building dwellings, grazing cattle, and growing fruits and flowers, increasing and multiplying themselves and their houses till the city grew and, for a time, flourished in peace and plenty, carrying on a thriving trade not only with Spain and Mexico, but with the inhabitants along the coast. The descendants of the first settlers, to a great extent, still oc cupy the now half-deserted, dilapidated town. The mission church, presidio, and other buildings appertaining thereto are on an elevated spot some two miles distant from the town overlooking the lovely and extensive Carmel Valley. Only a century ago the church was filled with priests and converts, the presidio with soldiers, their clanking arms and breastplates glittering in the sun; vessels rode at anchor in the harbour, and crowds of Dutch and Spanish traders, with their bales of merchandise, swarmed upon the silver-sanded beach below. Now all is gone, like painted shadows fading from the sunshine. The church, crowning the hilltop and dominating the landscape for miles around, is one of the most beautiful, picturesque, and perfect ruins upon the coast. Its exterior is complete, even to the rusty bell which still hangs in the belfry tower, and creaks with a ghostly clang when the wind blows through; and we are surprised to find so much of 2 86 MONTEREY the decorative masonry still intact. Dilapidated saints and cherubs, with broken trumpets and mouldering wings, still hold their places, while all around is slowly but surely crum bling to decay; and, though in places you may see the day light streaming through the roof, you can still ramble through the nun's gallery and look down upon the altar, where the broken font still clings to the wall. On the occasion of our visit, a small side chapel or vestry was decorated with ivy, evergreens, and paper flowers, and tin sconces, with the remains of guttering candles, were left upon the walls. It had evidently been used very lately by the villagers, perhaps, for some festive gathering. The ex tensive range of adobe buildings which surround the church and were occupied by the converts and day-labourers, are still in a state of semi-preservation; the roofs are gone, but the walls are still standing. The whole of these sacred pos sessions were enclosed, and entered then as now by a mas sive gateway at the foot of the southern slope. The town of Monterey is only interesting from its asso ciation with the past. It is dirty, it is dusty, it is utterly void of all modern improvements. Streets! there are none to speak of, except, perhaps, a row of slovenly shops which have been run up by some demented genius the last few years. The old adobe houses and they are all made of that species of sun-dried clay straggle about in the most bewildering fashion; it is much easier to lose your way than to find it. The people are all strongly characteristic of their Spanish origin; they are a dark, swarthy, lazy-looking race, and scarcely seem to have energy enough to keep themselves awake. Their houses have no pretension to architecture of any kind; there is no attempt at pretty cottage-building or rural decoration; not even a creeping plant is trained to hide the bare walls. I suppose the men do the work some times, but I have seen them at all hours, shouldering the MONTEREY 287 door-posts, smoking in sombre, majestic silence, while the wives sit on stools beside them, generally with bright-col oured handkerchiefs pinned across their breasts, huge gold hoops in their ears, and often thick bracelets on their arms. In her barbaric love of display the woman forms a pictur esque and striking figure in the shadow of her majestic lord ; she is a piece of brilliant colouring, from the full, red lips, rich-hued complexion, to the sparkling black eyes which il luminate the whole. In the heart of the town there is a long, low range of deserted buildings, formerly occupied by the military; the windows are all broken, the worm-eaten doors hang, like helpless cripples, on their hinges, and only the ghostly echo of the wind goes wandering through the empty chambers. In all quarters of the town you may come upon houses with windows patched or broken and padlocked doors, the owners having died or wandered away, and no one (but the rats) cares to take possession of bare walls. Nobody heeds them ; they are left to natural decay. We passed some lonely, barn- like dwellings, with curtained windows and large gardens behind, where we could see the orchard trees, and flowering shrubs, and white winter roses growing; these were shrouded with almost monastic quietude. We go to the primitive Catholic Church on Sunday, and wonder where all the beautiful women dressed in their picturesque national cos tume have come from. They have a proud, haughty look upon their faces, and seem to resent our intrusion. These, we are told, are the aristocratic remains of the ancient dwell ers in the city, who form a small exclusive society among themselves, and live in the secluded barn-like buildings above alluded to. Some are in the midst of the town; some scat tered on the outskirts. The music was good and the service reverently conducted. One clear, cool morning we pack a luncheon basket and 288 MONTEREY start for a "cruise on wheels." We drive first past the old mission buildings to the Moss Beach, lying along the shores of the Pacific Ocean, and so called from the peculiar mossy character and beauty of the seaweed it flings liberally along the pure, white sand, for the beach here is like pow dered snow, and stretches far into the wild inland, its still, billowy waves sparkling like diamonds in the sunshine. A few miles farther on, and after a pleasant drive through pretty home scenery, we pass a Chinese fishing village, it being a mere collection of miserable hovels, and, as an In dian decorates his wigwam with scalps, these are hung inside and out with rows of dried and drying bodies of fish. The beach is covered with their bony skeletons and fishy remains in different stages of decomposition, and the whole air is redo lent with an " ancient and fish-like smell." We are satis fied with an outside view, and have no desire to explore, but drive on as fast as we can till we reach the " pebbly beach of Pescadero," which is quite a celebrated spot. Peo ple come from miles round to visit it, and spend many hours in hunting for moss agates; for these, and many others of a beautiful and rare description, may be found in great num bers there. But apart from the chance of finding these treasures, the pebbly beach is in itself a great attraction for its rarity, as all along that portion of the coast there is only a sand shore. Thence we drive on to the lighthouse, which stands on a rocky eminence jutting out into the sea. We climbed the narrow stairway to the top, and enjoyed an extensive pano ramic view of the wild sea and wilder land surrounding. A lonely, desolate place it was, and to some folk would be maddening in its monotonous dreariness, with the waves for ever beating round its rocky base, varied only by the screech of the sea-birds or howling of the wandering wind. Yet even in this bleak spot the keeper has coaxed flowers into MONTEREY 289 growing, and hollyhocks, scarlet geraniums, dahlias, and other hardy plants are blooming round the lonely dwelling. We are to take our lunch at Cypress Point, which we reach about three o'clock in the afternoon. This interesting and romantic spot which we had selected for our temporary festivity is an extensive grove, a miniature forest of cypress trees, covering and growing to the very verge of a lofty cliff which rises about two hundred feet perpendicularly from the sea. Their sombre forms, still and motionless, though a stiff breeze is blowing, turn oceanwards like dark-plumed, dusky sentinels keeping watch and ward over the rock-bound land. How many centuries have they stood there? Their age is beyond our ken. We feel the strange fascination of this gloomy spot. The ancient trees have grown into strange, fantastic forms. Some lie prone upon the ground, gnarled and twisted as though they had wrestled in their death-agony ages ago, and left their skeletons bleaching in the sunshine, for, like the whitening bones of a dead man, they crumble at the touch. Some have twined their stiff branches inex tricably together, apparently engaged in an everlasting wres tling match. Here, like a half-clothed wizard, stands a skel eton tree with fingers pointing menacingly at its invisible destroyer. On every side the weird, strange forms strike the imagination, and though the sea is laughing and spar kling in the sun, and the soft wind fanning us with its cool, invigorating breath, the grim, silent congregation gives us an uncanny feeling, though we gather under their shade and eat, drink, and are merry. We shiver as we think what a spectral scene the cypress grove must be in the moonlight. ANNAPOLIS ESTHER SINGLETON ANNAPOLIS, the capital of Maryland, was made the -**. seat of government for that colony in 1688. Origin ally known as Providence, it received its present name in 1708, in honour of Queen Anne. It is beautifully situated on the Severn River, thirty miles south of Baltimore and forty miles northeast of Washington, commanding a fine view of the Chesapeake Bay. During the colonial period this cheer ful little town was one of the most important social centres, ranking with New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Williams- burg, and Charleston in its display of wealth and fashion. Records give abundant evidence of riches and pleasure on the part of the inhabitants. Social entertainments din ners, balls, parties, etc., were numerous, and card-playing, gambling, horse-racing, cock-fighting, and duelling were in dulged in with fervour. Annapolis was one of the earliest towns in this country to build a theatre, and a new one was opened in 1760 by the famous Hallam Company, where such plays and farces as Romeo and Juliet, The Recruiting Officer, Venice Preserved, Richard HI., Bold Stroke for a Wife, Lethe, Miss in her Teens, Stage Coach, Lying Valet, and Damon and Phillida, delighted the bewigged and bepainted beaux and belles. In 1769-1777, Eddis, who held an office under the Brit ish Government in Annapolis, said : " The quick importation of fashions from the mother country is really aston ishing. I am almost inclined to believe that a new fashion is adopted earlier by the polished and affluent American than 2(JO ANNAPOLIS 291 by many opulent persons in the great metropolis; nor are op portunities wanting to display superior elegance. We have varied amusements and numerous parties, which afford to the young, the gay, and the ambitious an extensive field to contend in the race of vain and idle competition. In short, very little difference is, in reality, observable in the manners of the wealthy colonist and the wealthy Briton." In 1781, the Abbe Rodin, Count Rochambeau's chaplain, who travelled extensively through the North and South, wrote: "There appears to be more wealth and luxury in Annapolis than in any other city which I have visited in this country. The extravagance of the women here surpasses that of our own provinces; a French hairdresser is a man of great importance; one lady here pays to her coiffeur a salary of a thousand crowns. This little city, which is at the mouth of the Severn River, contains several handsome edifices. The State House is the finest in the country; its front is orna mented with columns, and the building surmounted by a dome. There is also a theatre here. Annapolis is a place of considerable shipping. The climate is the most delightful in the world." The Duke de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, in his Voyage dans les tats-Unis, (1795-7), observed: "In a country which has belonged to England for a long time, of which the most numerous and nearest connections are yet with England, and which carried on with England almost all of its commerce, the manners of the people must necessarily resemble, in a great degree, those of England. As for Amer ican manners particularly, those relative to living are the same as in the provinces of England. As to the dress, the English fashions are as faithfully copied as the sending of merchandise from England and the tradition of tailors and mantua-makers will admit of. The distribution of the apart ments in their houses is like that of England, the furniture 292 ANNAPOLIS is English, the town and carriages are either English, or in the English taste; and it is no small merit among the fash ionable world to have a coach newly arrived from London and of the newest fashion." Notwithstanding the strong English flavour of society in Annapolis, the town early caught the flames of the Revolu tion. The passage of the Stamp Act was received with the greatest indignation here in March, 1766, and three months later the Sons of Liberty from Baltimore, Kent, and Anne Arundel Counties joyfully gathered here upon its repeal. Anti-British sentiment ran high in this old town; and in its harbour an episode occurred in connection with tea that rivals that of the Boston Harbour. The story bears re peating. On Saturday, the I5th of October, 1774, the brig Peggy Stewart arrived in Annapolis from London. Among the cargo were 2320 pounds of tea consigned to Thomas Charles Williams & Company of Annapolis. On this discovery, the citizens were summoned to a general meeting. It was found that Mr. Anthony Stewart, the proprietor of the ves sel, had paid the duties, and the citizens then and there de termined to appoint a committee to prevent the landing of the " detestable plant," as it was then termed. Some mem bers, however, proposed to land the tea and burn it ; but this motion met with scorn. Mr. Stewart prepared and distrib uted a hand-bill, addressed to the " Gentlemen of the Com mittee, the citizens of Annapolis, and the inhabitants of Anne Arundel County," in which he exonerated himself to the best of his ability. A few days later, he was forced to apologize and acknowledge himself in the wrong. Eddis, who was an eye-witness, says: " Mr. Stewart was induced by the advice of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Esquire, and from an anxious desire to preserve the public tranquillity, as well as to secure his own personal safety, to propose setting ANNAPOLIS 293 fire himself to the vessel, which being immediately assented to, he instantly repaired on board, accompanied by several gentlemen who thought it necessary to attend him, and hav ing directed her to be run aground, near the wind-mill point, he made a sacrifice of his valuable property, and in a few hours the brig, with her sails, cordage and every appurte nance, was effectually burnt." McMahon, in his history of Maryland, says: "The tea- burning at Boston has acquired renown, as an act of unex ampled daring at that day in the defence of American liber ties, but the tea-burning at Annapolis, which occurred in the ensuing fall, far surpasses it in the apparent deliberation and utter carelessness of concealment attending the bold meas ures which led to its accomplishment." The most noted of the public buildings is the State House, erected in 1772 (Joseph Clarke was the architect), which has been the scene of political and social events. In the Sen ate Room, Washington surrendered his commission in 1783, and in this room was ratified the treaty of peace with Great Britain in that year, recognizing the independence of the young Republic. Here, also, the first Constitutional Con vention met in 1786. The walls of the State House are appropriately hung with historical pictures and portraits, some of them by Charles Wilson Peale, a native of Annap olis. St. John's College, built in 1789, is another interesting edifice, and its Green is of historic interest, because it was twice used for the encampment of an army by the French during the Revolutionary War, and by the Americans in 1812. The United States Naval Academy, which bears the same relation to the Navy that West Point does to the Army, was founded in 1845. The idea originated with George Ban croft, Secretary of the Navy in President Folk's Cabinet. 294 ANNAPOLIS Annapolis still retains much of its Eighteenth Century appearance. The traveller finds delight in the quiet streets, where low and wide houses of red brick with white facings and columned porticos wreathed with creepers, standing in gardens of blooming flowers and shrubs, have an old-world atmosphere rarely met with in this country. THE SETTLEMENT OF MOUNT DESERT WILLIAM D. WILLIAMSON pOUTRINCOURT, wishing to revive his plantation * at Port Royal, procured the King's confirmation of the grant, upon condition of his endeavours to convert the natives to the Catholic faith. In view of both purposes, this adventurer, his son Biencourt and two Jesuits, Biard and Masse, with several families intending to become set tlers, embarked for America. While on the passage, a severe controversy arose between him and the ecclesiastics; in which he boldly told them, " it was his part to rule them on earth, and theirs only to guide him to heaven." He tarried a short time at Port Royal, and returning to France, left his son in command. Disdaining to be under the control of these priests, who were merely invited by his father to reside in the plantation, Biencourt threatened them with corporal punishment in return for their spiritual anathemas. In such a state of society, the three could hardly continue together until the spring. At an early day, there fore, the Jesuits bade him farewell and proceeded westward to Mount Desert. This was the highest, largest, and consequently the most noted Island upon the coast. It was " so named by the French," perhaps by Champlain, " on account of the thir teen high mountains " it exhibited ; which were the first lands seen from the sea. It is supposed that the place of resi dence selected by the missionaries was on the western side of the Pool a part of the sound which stretches from the southeasterly side of the heart of the Island. Here they 295 296 THE SETTLEMENT OF MOUNT DESERT constructed and fortified an habitation, planted a garden, and dwelt five years; entering with great zeal and untiring perseverance upon the work of converting the natives to Christianity. Meanwhile, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, a man never over come by discouragements, was equally bold and ardent in his pursuits, though of a different character. " As to the coldness of the climate," says he, " I have had too much ex perience in the world to be frightened with such a blast. Many great kingdoms, and large territories, more northerly seated, and by many degrees colder, are plentifully inhab ited divers of them being stored with not better commodi ties than these parts afford if like industry, art, and labour be used." He was confident ; yet so strangely had the pas sion for adventures abated that he could find nobody willing to engage with him either in making settlements or dis covery. He, however, purchased a ship with his own money and procured a master and crew to make a voyage hither, possibly to keep possession of the country against the French, though avowedly for the purposes of fishing and traffic the only objects supposed to be sufficient at this time to induce them to cross the Atlantic. On board the ship he sent Richard Vines, and some others of his servants in whom he had the most confidence, and this was the course he pur sued several years. Among the visitants to these Northern coasts at this period was one Samuel Argal, subsequently governor of South Vir ginia. Driven by a violent storm, he bore away 4jr Saga- dahock; and coming in sight of a small, rocky island out of Penobscot Bay, in lattitude 43 44', he approached it as the wind abated, and on the 28th of July landed upon it. Here he found a great store " of seals, and therefore called it Seal Rock," a name it still retains. Another visitor was Sir George Somers, who landed at Sagadahock in Septem- THE SETTLEMENT OF MOUNT DESERT 297 her, on his way to Bermuda. A third was Capt. Edward Harlow. Since the Charter was obtained, Gorges had been viewing the American coast between Piscataqua and Passamaquoddy with peculiar intensity and predilection, and continually drawing from voyagers, from the natives, and in particular from Richard Vines, a great variety of facts about its situa tion, its inhabitants, and its resources. So, without doubt, other Englishmen, as well as he, had before this noticed with jealousy and displeasure the progressive French settle ment at Port Royal, and the residence of the Jesuits at Mount Desert. Meanwhile, an opportune transaction gave fresh vigour to the enterprises of the French in this region. Madame de Guercheville, a Catholic lady of France, zealous for the conversion of the American natives, after procuring of de Monts a surrender of his patent, had it all confirmed to her by a Charter from the King, excepting Port Royal, previously granted to Poutrincourt. She appointed one Suassaye her agent, who set up at Port le Hive, in Acadia, where he arrived May i6th, the arms of his mistress in token of possession taken; and at Port Royal he made a visit, where he found only five persons, of whom two were Jesuit missionaries. Suassaye, producing his pious credentials, took both monks into the service of the mission, and sailed for Mount Desert. Here twenty-five colonists were landed on the south side of the river ; a small fort was built ; the ship's crew of thirty-five men helped fit up the habitations ; and here they set up a cross, celebrated mass, and called the place St. Saviour. Whether this was on the eastern end of the island, as one account states, or in the southerly part, as others report, where Biard and Masse were residing, we have no means at this time to determine. But scarcely had these emigrants provided themselves with some few accommodations, when they had to encounter new 298 THE SETTLEMENT OF MOUNT DESERT and unexpected troubles from the English. Capt. Argal of Virginia, in a fishing trip to these waters, being cast ashore at Pentagoet, or Penobscot Bay, was there fully in formed by the natives what the French were doing at St. Saviour, sometimes called Mount Mansel. This intelligence he immediately communicated to the Virginia magistrates, and they at once determined to expel these Catholic Frenchmen as obtruders within the limits of the first Charter granted to the patentees of North and South Virginia. Eleven fishing vessels were speedily equipped, carrying sixty soldiers and fourteen pieces of cannon, and of this little armament Argal was appointed the commodore. His first approach completely surprised the French; yet having a ship and a barque in the harbour, and " a small entrenchment " on shore, they made a show of resistance. This was all they were able to do, for the cannon were not in a situation to be used, and the men were mostly absent from the fort, engaged in their respective employments. Argal, in his attack upon the vessels found the capture of them to be no difficult task, even with musketry. Gilbert du Thet, one of the Jesuits, was killed by a musket-ball while in the act of levelling a ship's gun against the assail ants; others were wounded, and those on board, except four or five, were taken prisoners. Argal then landed and summoned the fort. The commander requested time for a consultation, but through fear of his being reinforced, his request was not granted. The garrison then abandoning the fort through a private passage, escaped to the woods. After breaking in pieces the cross which the Jesuits had erected, Argal reared another inscribed with the name of his king, and in this way took formal possession of the place. The people came in the next day and surrendered them selves, their patent, and their stores. Argal treated them THE SETTLEMENT OF MOUNT DESERT 299 with kindness, and gave them their choice, either to return home in such French vessels as might perchance resort to the coast, or to go with him to Virginia. To complete the reduction of Acadia, the fleet sailed far ther eastward, piloted, as some say, by the Jesuit Father Biard, who was glad of an opportunity to avenge himself of Biencourt, or, as others affirm, by an Indian whom Argal had pressed into his service. At St. Croix Island, he " took one vessel," destroyed what remained of de Monts's settle ments, and crossing the Bay of Fundy, came to anchor before Port Royal. The French at the time were mostly absent from the fort; Biencourt being employed in exploring the country, and others differently engaged. Argal, therefore, lost no time, and in two hours after he had landed his men he re duced the entire settlement to ashes. The two commanders afterwards had a meeting in a neighbouring meadow and discussed the subjects of their rights and claims, when Biencourt made proposals to nego tiate; but Argal in return said his only orders were to dis possess the French, and if they should be found there again, they would be treated as enemies. In this mood they parted; and Argal carried the French ship, pinnace, cattle, and provisions to Jamestown. SANTA FE 1 CLARENCE A. MILLER SANTA FE is interesting mainly as the seat of three widely differing civilizations. These, though successive, were gradually so. The last two coexist. The first pro jected itself in lighter and lighter shades through the second ; and perhaps even yet, with a subtle pervasion through the Mexican life and character, looks about its old home and its ruined buildings, like a ghost of a shadow. Relics found along the Santa Fe valley show that the city enjoyed its greatest prosperity and grandeur as a pre historic Aztec pueblo. The glories, wealth, and achieve ments of Aztec civilization are more for imagination to outline than for history to describe. From accounts of Span ish warriors, priests, and explorers, from ruins and hiero glyphics, from Aztec language, tradition, mythology, and custom, we can gather enough to excite deep interest in and sympathy with the unhappy people of Montezuma. We know enough to induce investigators to enter the field dis closed, and by close life with the remnants of tribes to explore it more thoroughly. Spain, by virtue of gunpowder and treachery, overcame the native races, robbed them of their wealth and freedom, killed their chiefs, and stamped out their sacred fires; but we know enough of what Spain thus destroyed to doubt that the civilization that she sub stituted was much of an improvement. The Indians tell a story of the birth of Montezuma near the southern extremity of the Santa Fe mountain range; of his journey southward on the back of an eagle, the peo- 1 By kind permission of the Overland Monthly. 300 SANTA FE 301 pie following and founding cities where the eagle had nested each night ; and of the founding of the capital city of Mexico at the end of the long march. This myth suggests that New Mexico is in reality the old Mexico, and was once the centre of Aztec power and culture, and that the tribes found there by the Spanish were but the weak and unpro- gressive of the race. They were not of the stuff of which Argonauts are made. They had looked askance at fortune, and their faint hearts did not win her encouragement. So they had quietly stayed in the peaceful and fruitful fields of the Rio Grande, or laboured at the old turquoise mine by day, and spent the nights in their safe, rock-protected pueblos. Their prudence brought a tame prosperity, which met a common fate at Spanish hands with that of their more adventurous brethren. About 1538, when the masts of the Mayflower yet grew in the forest and the Pilgrim grandfathers were in their cradles, Cabeza de Vaca, a Spanish ^Eneas, led his shipwrecked party through the Rio Grande valley. Priests, chieftains, and explorers followed, each drawn by zeal in his profession, until, by 1600, the country was overrun with Spaniards. The Indians were enslaved, and toiled in the mines, that hidalgoes might wear jewels. A successful re volt in 1680 freed the Indians, until De Vargas, about a dozen years after, reconquered them. The third civilization appeared on the scene in the first dec ade of the Nineteenth Century. Not conquest, not religion, but trade was the incentive ; for the newcomer was a Saxon, and particularly a Yankee one. Profit multiplied his foot steps into a well-defined trail to the Missouri River, and the waggon road that the traveller on the Atchinson, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad sees continually near the track is the same old Santa Fe trail. The Rio Santa Fe boldly rushes through the centre of 302 SANTA FE the town, putting to its left the staid old Mexican residence portion that clusters around venerable San Miguel, and re serving to its right the blocks where American business moves on, though slowly, and weighted with Mexican conservatism. The town, on the whole, is sleepy and ancient looking; crooked streets, too narrow for but one sidewalk, find their ways like paths among the jutting, irregular fronts of adobe buildings. Then there is the Plaza, a Spanish feature which always makes small towns look less like lively cities than ever. Around this are most of the American business buildings, but Mexican adobe structures are inserted between them. The old crooked walls of Jesus Ascencion Garcia's Broad Gauge Saloon are buttressed by a brand new brick bank building. On the street a stylish dog-cart dashes past its original undeveloped type a great, heavy structure resting on two oxen and two thick discs of wood, which creak on wooden axles. More primitive even than that, comes a drove of small donkeys known as burros, each bearing much more than his bulk of cord-wood or hay, and all driven by an Indian from the pueblo of Tesuque or by a darker-looking Mexican. On Sunday afternoons it has been the custom of all Santa Fe to promenade on the Plaza. Time was when the Plaza was a bare market-place, but American innovation and im provement has made it a park. In the centre a monument commemorates the soldiers who died for the Union in New Mexico. Here are fountains supplied from the Santa Fe reservoir three miles away. A heavy growth of alfalfa covers the ground, and cottonwoods wave above. The mili tary band plays in the pavilion, and the audience is of many nationalities and languages, drawn here by music, the lan guage of the world. They fill the benches in the park ; they throng the long veranda of the old Palace; they promenade along the paths, or drive stylish teams. There are Mexican SANTA FE 303 matrons, with the indispensable mantilla, a head-dress after the manner of some village gossip who is just going over to some neighbour with a bit of news. Their faces are old and wrinkled sad prophecy of the future in store for the fresh faces of the young senoritas/ Here carefully steps an invalid, watchful of his small reserve of strength, and enjoying the air which he came so far to breathe. Yonder are negroes, in conspicuous spirits and health, delighting in bright colours. A party of tour ists pass the monument, and read every inscription, because it is their duty to. They are here but two days, and must see everything. Who can learn about three centuries in two days? A glimpse of a switching cue shows that Santa Fe is not unblessed with Chinese. On a bench near by, three or four soldiers from the military quarter, in bright uniform, lounge and gaze at the passing senoritas. These Mexican maidens have discarded the mantilla for the nonce, and in Sunday bonnets and ribbons suited to their dark faces, move gaily past, " with all their bravery on, and tackle trim." A representative of the wealthiest and most influ ential class of Santa Fe passes in the contented-looking per son of a Jew with his wife; they are followed by an unmis takable Bridget with their little Jewish baby. Pueblo Indians attract attention amid the crowd by the profusion of red colour in their principal garment. This blanket is thrown loosely about the body, and seems always about to fall to the ground. They wear white leggins, look ing as if cut when loose trousers were in vogue, and since then made tight and stylish by an extra seam. The red paint on their cheeks is so blended with their bronze colour as to produce a by no means bad effect. The hair is black, and too coarse to seem human. It reaches everywhere down from the crown like a thatch on a hay-stack, and in front is cut off square with the eyebrows, banged, without a doubt, 3 o 4 SANTA FE and we were centuries behind when we adopted the style. The beauty of this coiffure, though sometimes adorned on state occasions by a feather or two, is always unconcealed. Whether the Indian is selling fish in the streets, or ploughing behind his black and white oxen with a stick for a plough share, or making Aztec pottery in front of the laddered en trance to his house, he is bareheaded. Castilian ladies, though rarely seen in public, appear on these Sunday afternoons. The quiet dress and demeanour, and the intelligence seen in the countenances, give evidence of the advantages of families of long-continued wealth, power and culture. But the power was hereditary; the culture was made possible by leisure afforded by wealth; and the wealth came as large land-grants, gifts of a government ever partial to its nobility; a government possessed of land undiminish?d by any homestead laws for the benefit of its common people. To this bright-coloured crowd of human contrasts, thus moving among themselves, the long, one-story palace is a background. Its stirring history comes to the mind in pic tures quickened and made vivid by the heroic music of the bands, a background to the thought. The park is gone; Indians are toiling with huge blocks of adobe, building thick walls for the palace that will stand so long. Now comes the resplendent Spanish army they enter in triumph they christen with the new name Santa Fe. Many affairs of state follow; decorations and costumes brighten the scenes. Now it is dark and still ; a light from the palace window aids the Captain-General within to plan his battles from the surrounding maps. Troops gather on the Plaza by early morning. When they return, they lead captives within those gloomy walls. Some are led out again to be shot; others remain their fate, quien sabe? All is again changed; In dians supplant the native Spaniards; heathen rites and the cachlna dance celebrate success. Now, between lines of men SANTA FE 305 on the one hand and women on the other, De Vargas and his band make their triumphal entry; Te Deum laudamus, sing the priests. The man of the palace is again a Spaniard. Now more familiar faces appear sun-browned, but shrewd. They come with long waggon trains and mule teams and cracking whips; the town gathers to receive them as to a great event long looked for. Another rebellion, and a tur bulent crowd follows a man carrying a human head that of Governor Perez. With Mexican suddenness, change again occurs, and the Plaza is again the scene of the cus tomary wholesale execution of gentlemen with political tastes. Now appear the Stars and Stripes, and soldiers in our uniform of the Mexican War. Rebels succeed and tear down the flag, but the reign of the Stars and Bars is soon over. What unknown scenes and events those thick palace walls have concealed! How well they have kept their secrets; like Hamlet's friends, they disclose nothing in their dull looks not even a wise " we could an' if we would." Santa Fe is full of churches, cathedrals, and religious schools. Everyone has heard of San Miguel, part of whose adobe walls have been standing for nearly three hundred years, and which has stood in its entirety as at present since 1710. The visitor is directed by a notice that he is to pull a cord three times; a deep-toned bell solemnly responds to the action, and this somewhat mysterious preliminary brings to the door a boyish-looking " brother," who repays one's entrance fee with a description of the objects of interest. The old, clear- toned bell is of pure copper ; the carved vigas are quaint and curious; the paintings are the same sort of works of early Spanish-American art (it is a pity to apply that word to them) that is to be found in all the old churches of New Mexico. Opposite San Miguel is an old pueblo house, ap parently used by several Mexican families. It is the oldest house in this old town. THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW RENEWED BOOKS ARE SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE RECALL LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS Book Slip-50m-8,'66(G5530s4)458 N2 477720 E179 Singleton, E. S613 Historic landmarks of America. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS