MEMOIR, f,^ 'ITZf READ BEFORE THE HISTORICAL SOCIETI^ OF THE STATE OF XTE-Vtr-VORX, DECEMBER 31, 1816. BY EGBERT BENSON. Cui (viuscoe) nomen asilo ilomanum est, oestron Graii vertere vocantes. — Vir^. SEGONS EDITION — WITH NOTUS. JAMAICA: HENRY C. SLEIGHT, PRINTER. 1825. MEMOIR 1 HE subject of this Memoir, if so it may be termed, will be NAMES ; chiefly names of places, and farther restricted to places in that portion of our country, once held and claimed by the Dutch by right of dis- covery, and by them named New Netherland; to he described, generally, as bounded on the east by the Connecticut, and on the west by the Delaware, and a space m breadth, adjacent to the farther bank of each, the extent of it not now to be ascertained, but, doubt- less, as far as was judged needful to secure the exclu- sive use of the rivers. Held by right of discovery— 2. right gravely ques- tioned by some, and furnishing matter for wit and pleasantry to others ; because, with deference to both, not justly apprehended by either. An understood conventional law between the maritime nations of Europe, to prevent interferences otherwise to be apprehended, that the discovery of territory should enure to the benefit of the sovereign by whose sub- jects made. The benefit, where the territory inha- bited, a right, in exclusion of other sovereigns and their subjects, to purchase, from the uncivihzed occu- pants, the SOIL ; their right to which, recognised by the Dutch in the first instance, and afterward bv the English on the surrender of the colony to (hem, 16G4. and ever regarded by both with the best faith. No grant to their own people without a previous Indian purchase, as it was termed — no purchase without a previous license for it — the sale under the superintend- ence of an authorised magistracy, in quahty as guar- dians for the Indians ; and hence, complaints from them of injury, either from their own mistakes, or from imposition in the purchasers, rare, notwithstand- ing we meet with a part of the consideration not more definitely expressed, than as consisting of " some handsful of powder, "^"^ If asked, whence the inducement in selecting the subject, a mere research, furnishing httle to please, perhaps less to instruct ? My answer will simply be, that nothing relative to the history of country — the soil that gave hirth — " the place of our father's se- pulchres'''^ — '^ the paternal seats, our unceasing desire it may be granted us ourselves to die there," — ^^vas never with others, and I trust will never be with us, wholly uninteresting. The English, when speaking of their country, call \t England ^ when speaking of it, with emphasis or emotion, at times. Old England ; still only its name on the map — the Dutch, when •speaking of their country, always by a name peculiai* to themselves, Het Vaderlandt, the Father Land, The order to be observed, will be generally the ]Mimitive Indian, and the subsequently successive Spanish, Dutch, and English, names. As authorities,* among others, a reference will be * Pee Note III imderstoocl to be to the Theatrum Terrarum Orbi> of Ortelius, surnamed the Ptolemy of his time, pub- lished 1572; the Niewee Werldt, cATeiy World, ot" De Laet, pubhshed in 1625, and the same work in Latin, published in 1633; the Beschryvinge Van NiEUWE Nederlandt, Description of New Nether- land, by Van Der Donck, after a residence here of some years, pubhshed in 1656 ; and the Brandende Veen, a burning pile of turf , a collection of seacharts. with notes by iJo^^ereeii, published in 1675; all ol them, it must be admitted, imperfect, and in very many instances, erroneous, but probably not more so than others, who, at the same period, attempted the geography, and to borrow the appellation just cited., of this, to them, Nezv World ; from necessity, how- ever, those named must serve as guides, aware, at the same time, that while we follow, there must still be a reliance on our own circumspection, INDIAN NAMES. It may be a question, whether the Indians had general names for large tracts of country ? The five nations, or, as heretofore, not unusually distinguished by us, our Indians as residing within our jurisdic- tion, the Mohocks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas, had no general name for their domain, or the parts of it, although separated by duly definite limits, the distinct property of each. The. extensive, and, as relatively to them, south and southwestern region, including, at least, a portion of the Carolinas, they designated by referring to their 8 general name for its inhabitants, the country of tht Flat-Heads. They waged war with them, and it Avould seem implacably so. Returning home from one of their expeditions, they brought otT, to replace those lost among themselves in their fights, a whole people, the Tuscaroras, incorporating them into their confederacy as the sixth nation, and assigning them lands for residence, but withholding the power oi alienation. On the other hand, there is abundant reason to be- lieve, that, inlayidj every distinct space, scarcely more extensive than a neighbourhood, and, on the coast, every river, bay, and cape, and every island, its contents not more than to serve as the abode of a single tribe, had a distinct name. Of the places on the coast, Tybee, Ocracock, Hateras, Roanoke, Currituck, Chesapeake, Chingoteague, Squan, Nevesink, Rockaway, Nan- tucket, with its secondary Muskegut, are those only ^till known to our mariners by their Indian names. Montock, it is true, is Indian, but the appropriation of it, as a name for the extreme eastern point of Long-Island, is by the English, and probably since the reign of Queen Anne, the point appearing on a chart of the coast, dedicated to her son the Duke of Glou- cester, without a name. It is the name of a peninsula denoted in a petition to the government in 1680, for a license to purchase it from the Indians, " as a tract eastward of Easthampton, called Montauck ;" and we find it at the same period called Montaukett, and its sachem formally claiming before the governor and council, a right, and as by conquest, to sell the lands as far west as Matinicock. The peninsula is within thr 9 limits of the town of Easthampton ; the whiles, the appellation generally in use with us, when intending to distinguish between ourselves and the Indians, exercising only a modified right of property, the right of pasturage; the remnant of Indians still there, en- joying the exclusive right of culture. The tribe was known as the Mattozvas, or Mattowaks, or Mattouwax, all of w^hich, however ditferentlj spelt or pronounced by the whites, doubtless purport the same name ; but whether the tribe took their name from the place, or the place took its name from the tribe, is a question from which it behooves me to refrain. As of Dutch descent, I ought ever to have before me the n^arning from the ^^ mighty contests^'''' in the parent country of my family, on the question whether the hook catches the fish, or the fish the hook, and the parties accord- ingly distinguished as the Hoecks, and the Cabel jaus, the Hooks, and the Cods. The immediate neighbours to this tribe were the Shinnicocks^ v/ho, and aiso at an early period, pre- sented a sachem elect to the governor for his appro- bation ; a sohtary instance. At a treaty with the Oneidas, at Fort Schuyler, in 1788, they presented to the commissioners a lad, made a sachem the day before, and Skonondo, a respectable individual among them, as the guardian during his minority. The in- tent of the one ceremonial, the making a sachem, as furnishing an occasion for the other, the announcing it being understood, the keg of rum, the expected com- pliment in return, was not withheld. From the mere suggestion by the Montauck Indians of a claim, by conquest, to the whole of the territory 2* 10 between their home and Mattinicock, we are led to suppose they were numerous and powerful, the natu- ral consequence a pre-eminence, and thereby their name in time becoming the general or national name for the Indians throughout the whole island. It was usual with the Dutch to speak of the maquaas, and the English afterward by the name, as pronounced by them, the Mohocks^ intending at the same time the whole confederacy. Our historian expresses himself, in the tBxt^ "all the Indians on Long-Island were in subjection to i\\efive nations, and acknowledged it by the payment of an annual tribute,'' and concludes a note on the passage, that the tribute still continued to be paid to the Mohocks, Indeed, it is well known that Mohock was the standing bugbear, with the matron- squaws on the island to /n^^^en their unquiet children, when losing their patience with them. Nayack — The name of a place at the Narrows, on the Long-Island side : In the grant to Corlelyaxi, 1671, the land is described "as to begin at the point oi Nayack, and to stretch along the bay," and hence Nicolls, who commanded the armament sent against the Dutch here, dates his summons of surrender to the town, " on board his Majesty's ship the Guyney, riding before Nayack." The lands, the western bank of the river, for a few miles northward from the Tappan meadows, known by the same name, Nayack. The bay, between the geele, ye lloiv, and the roode. rrd. Hook, still retains its Indian name, Gazuanns. 11 LNDIAN NAMES OF PLACES— INLAND. Our island of Manhattan^ or as pronounced by i\\v Dutch, and spelt by the whites of New-England, and both prefixing the article^ the Manhadoes ;* and the like observed by Stuyvesant in his answer to the sum- mons to surrender, " the Manhattans," and in the arti- cles of capitulation, signed at the governor's Bou- WERIE, Farm, still in the family, the road or lane lead- ing to it, known as the Bouweriesche Laening, cor- rupted to Boxoery-Lane, now Bowery -Street, the town and the inhabitants are mentioned as the " town of Manhattans," "the town of ^/le Manhattoes," "the townsmen of the Manhattans." A marsh or swamp extended across the island, from between where Canal-street terminates at the North river and the space of the shore of the East river, the portion of Cherry-street between James and Catha- rine streets. Cherry-street, so called from being laid through a public garden, with a bowling-green in it, called Cherry-Garden, having a front on the East river of 384 feet, and extending in the rear to the meadow of Wolvert Webbers, the property of Rich- ard Sacket, Malster ; the western side of his malt- house the line of the eastern side of Roosevelt-street there. James-street, called after Jacobus, James, Roosevelt, and Catharine-street, after Catharine, the wife of Hendrick Rutgers, proprietors, at the time, of the grounds through which they were laid. There was a large pond, or Kolck, in the marsh "^ See Note IV. 12 about midway between Broadway and Chatham-street, and a stream, or '' rivulet^^'^ from it, running eastward, and crossing Chatham-street, between Pearl and Roose- velt streets, and there a bridge over it. The English pronounced the word Kolck, as if consisting of two syllables, Kol-lick, and the waters from the adjacent high grounds collecting in it, an etymologist, not long since, chose to imagine the true original name to have been an English one, Collect ; and, the pond having lately been filled up, thence the name of a street pass- ing over the space it occupied, Co//ec/-street. The pond, besides being referred to very generally as emphatically the Kolck, was distinguished by the appellation of the Versche Water, F7'esh Water, and which was also at times applied to the stream. A part of the description of a piece of land, in an ancient conveyance, is " being beyond the Fresh Water,'''' and then farther denoted by its Indian name, Warpoes, Also a piece of land on the north side of the island Manhattans, called by the Indians, Muscoote, The Indian name for the grounds now known as Grcenzvich, the name given to the place by Captain, afterward Sir Peter, Warren, when on the station here, and purchasing them, was Sapokanikan, and, in like man- ner, as Manhadoes, retained in use by the Dutch, and spoken of as a distinct place, so that the skippers when, in coming down the river, they had turned Sa- pokanikan Vomi, would express themselves, ''they were in sigjht of Manhadoes.'^'' The Indian name for the extreme southern point of the island, to be con- sidered as the point on the shore dividing between tht; wat<*r^ of the two rivers, was Kap'se ; and also in 13 tamiliar use with the skippers, when intending to mention, with some precision, the time at which they passed from the one river into the other. From those of the above circumstances having relation to Indian names, and perhaps the passage from De Laet, to be instantly cited, also considered, may not the conjec- ture be hazarded, that Manhattans^ or Manhadoes, was the name of a tribe of Indians, and the peninsula, on the hither side of the Fresh Water, their exclusive or separate place of abode ? Our river — " The great river of New Nether- land," says De Laet, " is by some called Manhattes, after the nation of Indians who dwell near, or at, the beginning or mouth of it." This is no otherwise giving the name of the river, than by referring to the name of the tribe of Indians at its mouth. The Sieur Des Monts led a colony from France, in 1604. He entered the Bay of Fundy, thence there- after at times known as French Bay ; visited a harbour which he called Port Royal, now Annapolis; and afterward making the circuit of the bay, and re- turning along the western shore, came to a river the 24th June, and it being the festival of the Baptist, gave it the name of St. John, Sailing farther west- ward, he entered the Bay of Passamaquoddy, and landed on an island in a river emptying into the bay, and gave it the name of St, Croix, There will be a reference in the sequel to the history of these colo- nists, as furnished by L'Escarbot, who was there two years thereafter ; it will be here only farther mention- ed, that of the whole number, seventy-nine persons, thirty-five died during the winter, of the scurvy, 14 >poken of as a disease not known before, and, as It would seem, attributed to the extreme coldness of the climate. " From April to the middle of December,'* says Champlain, in De Laet, " the air of Canada i? healthy, but January, February, March, are unhealthy, and you are then severely afflicted with the scurvy.'' He came out with Des Monts as his geographer, and went afterward to Canada, and probably the tirst who explored the lake still bearing his name. In the ac- count of the voyage, as taken from his own publica- tion of it, speaking of the river in the Bay of Passama- quoddy, he calls it the river of the Etchemins ; in like manner with De Laet, designating it by referring to the name of the tribe of hidians inhabiting its banks, it having, but of which he was not informed at the time, an Indian name, the Scudiac. The Indian name of our river is Sha-te-muc, Here, however, not having general tradition, or written docu- ment, to warrant me, it is proper 1 should state, and so submit, my authority. In 1 785, 1 met with a person of the name of Rouw : his parents were of the German families, who came over in 1710, under the protection, and at the expense of Queen Anne, and settled on a tract of six thousand acres, within the limits of the Manor of Livingston, heretofore known as the German Camp, now German Tow7i, purchased for them, it being intended they should raise hemp, and, the pine then abounding in the vicinity, make tar, for the use of the navy. In the conversation with him, he told me his father, at a very early day, parted with his farm in the Camp, and took a lease for one, from the proprietor of the Ma- 15 nor. at a place called, by the Indians, Stissinck, about twelve miles from the river ; that the family were, as it respected white neighbours, for a long time, almost solitary; that their chief intercourse was w^th the Indians, who were still numerous there ; that the In- dian boys were his play-fellows, so that, as he grew up, the Indian became as familiar to him as the Ger- man, the language of the family. Among other in- quiries, I asked him if he knew the Indian name of the river? He replied, he did; it was Sha-te-muc» With a view to ascertain w^hether he was not repeat- ing only individual hearsay, I asked him how he came by the know^ledge of the name ? He rephed, it was always called so by the Indians ; that, when going to, or coming from, the river, they w^ould say they w^ere going to, or had come from, Sha-te-muc ; in short, that he had come to the knowledge of the Indian name for it, in the same manner he had come to the knowledge of the name by which it was known by the whites, the North River, I then mentioned, that, possibly, it was the name for a portion of it, a reach in it, there ; he replied, it was usual with him, when a young man, and the deer scarce in the Tackhanick mountains in the neighbourhood, to go and hunt w^ith the Wiccapec Indians in the Highlands^ and the river was known to them by the same name. I was a stranger to him personally ; but when I resided at Red-Hook, in Dutchess County, at a previous period, I knew seve- ral of the family, and they w^ere respectable ; his re- collection and judgment were entire, his appearance decent, and his deportment proper. I might have saved myself the necessity of the surmise to him. thtit 16 possibly it was only the name of a portion of the rivei'. had it occurred to me, that the Indians, using the same language, have the same name for a river throughout its whole length. An Indian meeting a white man on the confines of Canada, asked him where he came from ? He told him from Connecticut river ; the Indian, instantly extending his arms late- rally from him to the utmost stretch, as the expressive gesture, repeated the name Connecticoota, adding its meaning. Long River, Croton River — supposed to be the mispelling of the name of an Indian, probably the proprietor of the lands at the mouth of it, as we find it, in very early documents, in the genitive, Croton's River. In an Indian deed, 1685, the river is called Kitchazvmi, and the lands adjacent to it, on the south, Sincksinck, Schenectady — A tract within the limits of the Co- j.ONiE or JuRisDicTiE of Rensselaerwyck, extend- ing from the river in a northwestern direction, a mile in breadth, was formed by the Dutch government into a separate Jurisdiction, known as the Jurisdiction of Schenectady^ the name of the five nations, for the site of the only settlement, at the time, within it, the Dorp, or village of Beverwyck, on the bank of the river, and its meaning on the further side of the pint wood, denoting its situation relatively to them. The license from Stuyvesant to Van Curler and his asso- ciates, to purchase the lands, described in it, as " the well known Flatt lying behind the Fort Orange, land- ward in," is dated in 1661. The term Flatt has obtained among us as a translation of the Dutch Vlachte, when used to denote lau,ds on a river bv 17 alluvion. This Flatt was, at the time, distinguished by the Dutch as the Groote, or Great^ Vlachte. The Indian name for it, Oronowaragouhre, It was instantly settled by the whites, and their village con- sidered as within the Jurisdiction of Schenectady. Nicolls, very shortly after the surrender of the colony, erected the Jurisdiction into a city, giving it the name of Albany^ after the Scotch title of the Duke of York, but restricting its western extent to sixteen miles from the river; the residue however, and especially as it regarded the settlement at the Gr-eat Flatt, whicli would otherwise, if so to be expressed, have become extraparochial, was considered as still subsisting as a Jurisdiction, and no new one being assigned to it, the name of Schenectady of course continued to be used : and the Schout or Sheriff as still in office ; and at the moment happening to reside there, we accordingly fmd the following entry in the minutes of the Council, 15th October, 1675, "Sanders Leenderts Glen, and Ludovicus Cobez, Schout of Schenectady, appeared with a request from their village for a patent. Or- dered, that they have a patent for the land about and above Schenectady. The Bowerys, or Farms, at Schenectady, are to pay for each of them, containing twenty morgan, and in proportion, four bushels oi wheat, as a quitrent. The magistrates of Schenec- tady to have liberty to impose a levy ;" and thus the name was transferred from the Schenectady of the five nations to their Oronowaragouhre, Nachicnack — The Indian name for the point of land, the site of the village of Waterford, and sold at an early day, and the grantees denoted ia the deed, 3 by the names of Gozen Gerritse, and Philip Pk- TERSE, the last syllable, se, an abbreviation of sen. varied from zoon, son, the Christian name of the fa^ therof theone being Gerrit, and of the other, Peter. and their surnames, Van Schaick and Van Schuy- ler. Taking this species of Patronymic^ and using it as a surname, a practice our Dutch ancestors brought over with them, and it has now, in some fami- lies, become the permanent surname : Instances — the Myndertses, the descendants of Myndert Van Everen ; the LEFFERTSEs,of Leffert Van Haage- wouT ; the Martenses, of Martin Schenck ; the RiKERTSES, abbreviated to Riker, of Rikert Lent : the Remsens, of Rembrandt, abbreviated to Rem. Van Der Beek, — with some the English son, as be- ing of the same import, has been substituted for the Dutch sen : Instances — the Johnsons of King's and Ulster counties ; the Gei-ritsons ; the Everisons ; the Bensons ; — with a number of our Dutch families, (he preposition Van, of, as a part of the surname, has gone into disuse : Instances — the Van Ten Broecks, the Van Gansevoorts, the Van Varicks, the Van KouwENHOVENS, and in the family of Philip Petersk Van Schuyler, already named, the use of it proba- bly ceasing with him, as it does not appear to have been used even by his son, Major Peter Schuyler, "dis- tinguished," says our historian, "for his singular bra- very and activity in the defence of his country. In Ihe summer of 1691, he, with a parly of Mohocks, passed through the Lake Champlain, and made an irruption on the French settlements at the north end of it. Dt Callieres, the Governor of Montreal, to 19 oppose him, collected a small army of eight hundred men, and encamped at La Prarie, Schuyler had several conflicts with the enemy, and slew about thre( hundred of them, which exceeded in number his whole party ; he succeeded to the influence and ho- nours of Van Curler. Whatever he recommended or disapproved, had the force of a law with the five nations ; and they afterward addressed the Governor of the Colony by the title of Gorah Quider, instead of Peter, which they could not pronounce. Governor Peter." The nick-name formerly much in use with the Dutch here : Instances — the residence of Jak RooDHAER, a little freely translated Foxy-head John, referred to in a grant, his name, though somewhat an- glicised in spelling. Van Salisbury ; a grant to Ja- cob Flodder, Jacob Rafter, his occupation on the river, his name Gardinier. Vader Kees, Father Cornelius, the plaintiff in a suit, his name Jansen. A few famihes, descended from clergymen, still using the surname as Latinised by their classical progenitors : Instances — Goetius, Polhemius, Curtenius, Man- CIUS, BOGARDUS. Our names for the five nations, are not their names in their own language ; they are the names by which the Indians inhabiting the banks of the river, the Mo- hegans, or, as pronounced by the Dutch, Mahik An- ders, denote them, and being those first communica- ted to the whites, they have retained them in use : Their names, in their own language, are, the Mohocks, Te-ka-te-righ-te-^o-ne, Council of two Bands, alluding to the two clans, or castles, of them, the one at Fort Hunter, so called after Governor Hunter, the other m 20 Fort Hendrick, so called after their distinguished chieC usually known as King Hendrick, who fell in the bat- tle at Lake George, 1755; the Oneidas, Ni-ho-ron-ta- o-o-wa, a great tree ; the Onondagas^ Ro-tigh-re-a-na- gigh-tSi, carrying their houses on their hacks ; the Cay- ygas, Sho-ti-non-no-wen-te-zyee-ne, the great pipe : and the Senecas, Ya-te-ho-ni-non-hagh-Aon-te, the people at the end of the house, A pecuharity to be noticed in these names, dwelling on the penidtimatt syllable : A few farther instances — names of places — Mo-non-ga-/ie-]a, Wa-ma-na-pa-^wa-sick, Ca-nes-ti- gi-r<-ne. ^2iXneso{ persons — An-na-ta-A;«i<-les, a taker of towns, the name of the Five Nations for General Washington; Ta-ha-ne-ye-a-ta-A:aw-ye, ancient his legs, their name for General Schuyler — I have pla- ced thee, my friend, by the side of him who knew thee, thy intelligence to discern, thy zeal to promote, thy country's good, and, knowing thee, prized thee. Let this be thy eulogy. I add, and with truth, pecu- liarly thine. Content, it should be mine to have ex- pressed it. There will be a farther occasional mention of In- dian names in the sequel. SPANISH NAMES OF PLACES. The Spaniards were the first Europeans who gave names to places on our coast. There w^ere upward? of thirty in number, between Cape Florida and Capo Cod. Florida itself, and St. Augustine, St. Lucia. Caneveral, St. Juan, Matanzas, and Roman, or more properly Romana, only are found on the charts of the 21 present day. A few of the others will be noticed. A Cape is laid down as in latitude 36, with the name of Trafalgar, and was subsequently farther denoted by the Dutch as the southern point of Virginia on the Ocean. They named the Chesapeake the Bay of the Mother of God ; the Delaware, the Bay of All Saints ; and the Hudson, the River of the Mountains, Who the Spanish voyagers were, and whether the same who gave the name of Campo Bello to an island in the Bay of Fundy, or of Tremont to the Peninsula of Boston, from the three eminences in it, cannot now be ascertained, at least not without more research than the success of it would recompense. There is no trace of their having landed in our vicinity. In- deed, according to Van Der Donck, it is scarcely to be believed their ships were even in sight from the shore. "This country," he says, "was first found and discovered by the Dutch, in 1609, when a ship, the Half Moon, was fitted out by the East India Com- pany, to seek westward for a passage through to China. Henry Hudson was the master and supercargo ; an Enghshman by birth, but who had long abode among the Netherlanders, and then in the service and pay of the East India Company. That it was first discover- ed by the Netherlanders is evident from this, that the Indians, or Natives, of whom there are many still living, and so old as to remember it, declare, that be- fore the arrival of the ship Half Moon, they did not know there were any other people in the world so un- like them as being more hairy, much less so far other- M'ise dificring from them in kind and fashion, as our 3* 22 nation. There arc some who maintain tliat the Spaniards were in this country many years before, but, finding it too cold, left it ; but I could never un- derstand so from the Indians." Notwithstanding what Van Der Donck here relates, I cannot forbear from the conjecture that they ap- proached so near as distinctly to discern the opening. the Narrows^ and concluding it to be the entrance into a river, and Nevesinck and Staten Island being the only land on the coast apparently moiintaitioKs, thence the name, the River of the Mountains ; for although 1 give the passage entire from him, I am not therefore to be understood as giving it unqualified credit. He was a Dutchman, and doubtless penned the passage in asseveration of their title to the river as the first discoverers of it ; and it does not require an atten- dance of a whole half century on courts of justice to learn, that where interest, or wish, or not less ill^than good will, or even only the vanity of narrating, to show we know something not known to others, or the absence of heed, or any other of the varieties ef hu- man frailty, there how sparing of belief. To a point now known as Sandi/ or Monemy Pointy a point on the hither shore of the peninsula of Cape Cod. they gave the name of Cape Mallebarre, The Dutch called it Ongelukige Haven, Unlucky Harbour^ pro- bably intended as a translation of the Spanish name. The name Mallebarre had ceased to be known until the hearing before the commissioners in 1798, to de- termine the River St. Croix, intended in the treaty of peace which closed the war of the Revolution, wheY) 23 L'Escarbot being read in proof, and he mentioning- it, the knowledge of it was revived, and it has since- found its place on the Charts of the Coast of Massa- chusetts. It will be recollected, that we have spoken of the ^ oyage of Sieur des Monts in an attempt to plant a colony, of his landing on the Island of St. Croix, and the loss of a number of his followers by death during the winter : the history of the survivors is briefly re- lated in the following extract from L'Escarbot, and to which we have alluded. " The season being pass- ed, the Sieur Des Monts, tired of his sorrowful abode at St. Croix, determined to search for another port in a country more warm and more to the south ; and having seen the coast of Mallebarre, and with much labour, and not finding what he desired, he deter- mined to go to Port Royal, to make his stay there, and wait until he should have the means to make a more ample discovery." The French permitted to come as far as Mallebarre,* and then, instead of land- ing to abide there, or pursuing their voyage farther, rhey are to discern it as more eligible to return to Port Royal. What a Providence ! Continuing their rourse westward a few leagues farther, would have discovered to them the Bay of Nassau of the Dutch, with the Garden Island, the Aquiday of the Indians, the Rhode-Island of the English, in its bosom, its west- ern coast the country of the Narragansetts^ the Land of Pasturage, the Land of Milk. What might not have been now the condition of these our happy re- '■^- S'ee Note \ . 24 oions, "if we knew it," had they been peopled b} French instead of Enghsh colonists ! Our free fornos of Government ; next to the revelation of hinnself, the ])est gift from the Deity to man during his stay here ! When the present Constitution* was vouchsafed us, the Representatives of the nation, peculiarly so deno- minated, in their Address, to the Most beloved Citi- zen, What an appellation ! With what hearts bestow- ed ! in answer to his speech to the Congress, at the opening of the Session, avowed " the responsibility on us for the destiny of Republican Liberty, '^^ We select- ed and reserved on whom the ultimate hope for Man. whether capable of a free Government, a Govern- ment elective throughout, a self Government, a Go- vernment, the administrations of it, for their rectitude, and otherwise for their wisdom, depending on his own volitions, his own prudence, the latter taken as imply- ing " the constant presence of Deity with us," is to rest! Should we succeed to fulfil it, and would il were not possible we should not, what of national Re- proach must we not, in the course of the Probation. have escaped, what of national Exaltation shall wc not have obtained ! DUTCH NAMES OF PLACES The Dutch called the Delaware the South, and the Hudson the ^orth, River, from their relative situation to each other. They appear also to have been known by two other names, to be considered perhaps as their ^ See Note M. 25 legal names, Prince Mauri ts's and Prince Hezc- drick's, Rivers, after two Princes of the House ot Orange. The name of Maurits has since become appropriated to a small river, issuing into Delaware Bay on the eastern side. They used the word Kill in two senses ; in one, as the same with the English word Creek, an arm of the sea or of a river ; the other as importing a Stream, Mespat Kill, originally In- dian, but retained in use by the Dutch, Newtown creek / Maquaas Kill, Mohock River, The Schuylkill still retaining its Dutch name, the translation hiding Creek, perhaps more strictly sculking Creek ; schuyl TE HouwDEN, whcu applied to Debtor, the same meaning with Latitat in the process. The Brandy- wine River and Banks retain their Dutch name. BooMPTiES HoECKS, tree point, corrupted to Bombay Hook. Whore Kill and Reedy Island, literal transla- tions of their Dutch names. The southern cape^ HiNLOPEN its Dutch name, a common surname; a Francis Hinlopen laid the first stone of a public weigh-house in Amsterdam, 1 668. The northern cape May, Mey, also known as Cape Cornelius, named after Skipper Cornelius Jacobse Mey. The first inlet without the cape on the New-Jersey shore, the Beere Gat, the Bear Gut, The word Gat, when * used in a nautical sense, the corresponding word in Dutch with Gtit in English when used in the same sense. The channel between the buoys leading into the Texel, is called the Gat. The passage between the Island of Goeree and the Main on their coast, the Gat of Goeree. The English speak of the Gut of Gibraltar, the Gut of Canso; and every inlet from , 26 tlie sea, through the beach into the bay on the south- ern shore of Long-Island, is spoken of as a Gut, Van Der Donck expresses himself, " besides fine bays and rivers, there are also convenient Gaten to those who are acquainted with them, but at present not navigated, especially the Beere Gat." Great and little Egg Harbours, translations of their Dutch names. Barne Gat retaining its Dutchname,anabbreviationof Bran- DENDE Gat, the Breaker Gut. The Dutch lexicogra- phers have interpreted Brandende, when importing a breaking of the sea, into Latin, by ferxor maris ; but Brandende also importing burning, and Gat Hole. we find the inlet laid down in the English chart here- tofore referred to, by the name of burning hole, Sandy Hook; the Dutch generally called it the Sandt Punt, and it is also mentioned as the Sandt Hoeck, and for some time called by the English Sandy Point, The island under the Long-Island shore, to be considered as the northeastern chop of the entrance from the sea, Beeren Island, Bear Island, but the soil being of the kind denominated by us Beach, barren, hence corrupt- ed to Barren Island. To an Island immediately west- ward of it they gave the name of Conyn's Island, Coney Island; Conyn, a Dutch surname still remaining among us; — from the name Coney, iheve are already symptoms of the beginning of a tradition that it once abounded in Rabbits, The Narrows they called the Hoofden, their name for the forelands on the British coast, lite- rally head lands. The names of the towns in the vicinity, Utretcht, Breuckelen, corrupted to Brookline, and Amersfort, changed to Flat lands, denote the District in the Father Land, furnishing thf 27 first settlers. Gravesend settled, and in Duteh time, and under a Dutch grant, by some families immedi- ately from England — a Lady Deborah Moody, the Dido, leading the colony. Flathush ; a corruption, and may also serve as a translation, of its Dutch name, Vlachte-bos — its primitive Dutch name, Mid- wouT, Midwood, — why or whence changed, does not appear. A conjecture is offered, that Breuckelen and Amersfort were, from their proximity to the wa- ters, earliest settled, and a space intermediate and about equidistant between them remained as Wout or Bos, Wood, and denoted as the MiD-ioout, and the Bos on the Plain or Vlachte, the site of the present village of Flathush, as to be distinguished from Bos, or Wood, on the contiguous Geberghle, or Ridge, came to be designated as the Vlachte-bos. Rust- dorp, the Dutch name for Jamaica, say Tarrytown, Coe and his associates, in their application, 1656, to Stuyvesant, for the lands there, represent themselves as " living at a new plantation, near the Beaver path, called Jemaico'''^ — hence the subsequent Jamaica, We find the Dutch Vlissengen, in the English Flushing ; and the Armen Bouerey, the Farm, purchased by the Deaconry of New-York, for the use of the poor, in an intended translation of it, the Poor Bozyery. TheDutch called the Bay bounded on the south by the Ocean, on the east by Long Island, on the north partly by the mouth of the Hudson and partly by the shore of New- Jersey, and on the west wholly by the shore of New- Jersey, and Staten-Island considered as lying within it, The Great Bay of New Netherland, and so called, as Van Der Donck expresses it, ^'•propter Kxcellcn- 28 ilam^'^'' eminently the Bay, Newark Bay, from its re- lative situation to the Great Bay, they called Het ACHTER CuL, literally the Back Bay ; Cul, borrowed from the French Cul de sac, and also in use with the Dutch to signify a bay. Achter Cul, found in very early writings in English referring to it, cor- rupted to Arther CuWs Bay : the passage from it into the Great Bay they called Het Kill van het Cul, the Kill of the Cull, finally come to be expressed by the Kills, A reef in the Bay, not far from the mouth of the Kills, Robyns rift, seal reef; the seal hereto- fore frequently taken in the Bay, and Robyn, a name with the Dutch for it. The name of the reef cor- rupted to Bobbins Reef, The Strait between the Bay and the Sound, the latter also occasionally dis- tinguished by them as the Great Bay, they denoted from its relative situation to the other two rivers, as the East River ; the island at the entrance of it they called Nooten Island, J^ut Island, corrupted to J^lut- ten Island, the name by which it was known till within the last fifty years, when it began at times to be spoken of, or referred to, as the Governor''s Island, it having, from the beginning, been reserved for the use of the Governor, and hence its present name exclusively Governor's Island, Long Island retains its Dutch name translated ; and a legal name was assigned to if by an act of Assembly, 1693, the Island of J^assau, Staaten Island retains its name with a slight vari- ance in the spelling, Statcn Island ; an island of the same name on the coast of the district of Maine. Among the first who came over, not improbable the very first as husbandmen, were some families of JVa!- 29 loons, A child born in 1625, named Sarah, the pa- rents, Walloons, of the name of D'Rapalje. The blessing of the relations of Rebecca seems to have rested on her ; the mother of thousands, at least, in succession from her, in King's County. A tradition in the family, that she was the first rvhite born here, and that, induced by the circumstance, the Indians gave to D'Rapalje and his brethren, like the other French who followed them in the same century, for- saking their country not to forsake the truth^ the lands- adjacent to the bay, hence named Het Waalf. BoGHT, the Walloon Bai/, corrupted to the Wallahovl Bay. Besides D'Rapalje, the names of Le Escuyer, Duryee, La Sillier, Cershou, Conseiller, Musserol. and others, still to be found there, or in the vicinity. Extract from the Journal of the Dutch Council, 1656 : — " Sarah Jorison, the first born Christian daughter in New Netherland, widow of Hans Hansen, burdened with seven children, petitions for a grant of a piece of meadow, in addition to the twenty mor- gen granted to her at the Waale Boght." The set- tlement also denoted, at times, as Markwyck, Market- i&yck, and the adjacent Tract, then still a wood, as BoswYCK, tolerably translated by Bushwyck, The Dutch Wyck is still to be traced in the EngHsh Greew- loich^ Ipswich ; when applied to a city, the Dutch used it as a substitute for the English Ward, To digress for a moment — Winter wheat to be taken in payment at five shil- lings, and summer wheat at four shillings and six- pence, per bushel — 1 675. 4 30 Wampum — six white to pass for a stuiver or pen- ny, and three hlack at the same rate — 1672. Bond for 1600 guilders in Wampum — 1672. Mexico plate to pass at the rate of six shillings, and Peru at the rate o( Jive shillings, per eighteen penny- weight— 1675. 110/. in pieces of eight, at six shillings, J^ew-Eng- land money, each, the consideration for a lot — 1668. A grant for a tobacco plantation at the Waale BOGHT— 1643. 20 Guilders in Wampum equal only to 10 Guilders in Holland money. A ship arrived in Holland from New Netherland. laden with tobacco and some peltry — 1661. A conveyance for a farm at Mespat Kill, with the habitation and the tobacco house — 1665. 750 guilders in tobacco, the consideration in a con- veyance for a lot ; 932 pounds weight of tobacco raised on a farm ; and an action for 400 pounds weight oi tobacco and 2 Stuivers — 1667. 2100 pounds weight of tobacco, the consideration for half of a farm on the Delaware ; and a mortgage of half a crop of tobacco on the ground : and, at the same period, more acres of peas than of wheat re- turned in the inventories of estates of persons -de- ceased; and hence, perhaps, the apparently high price of the grain. Madeira wine one shilling and ten-pence a quart, and rum two shillings and four-pence a gallon — 1675. Total of the assessed value of estates in the city. J 668, 78,231/., and a tax of a penny half-penny in a 31 pound to be levied on it ; the total of the value, 1815, 81,636,512 dollars. To return to our subject — The name of the point opposite to the Waale BoGHT, one of the chops of our harbour, Curler's Hook, and still retaining it, and so called after Arent Van Curler, the same already mentioned as the predecessor of Schuyler in influence and honour with the five nations. He purchased the farm or plantation there in 1652, and as denoted by its Indian name Nechtank^ and afterwards removed to Albany, and was drowned in Lake Champlain, and hence the Dutch thereafter called it Curler's Lake. " It is in honour of this man, who was a favourite of the In- dians," says our historian, "that the governors of New- York, in all their treaties, were addressed by the name of Curler ^"^"^ or as generally spelt, Corlear, His widow took out administration of his estate b\ her name before marriage, Juffrouw, Madam, ANTO-zU^'i' isli»-8laghboom ; always the privilege* of the Dutch wife to resume it at pleasure, to show her descent. Pride ! vanity ! granted, Sir " Valour and Contem- plation," and — what then ? A point in the narrow part of the lake, they called the Kruine Punt, corrupted to, and which may also pass for a translation of it. Crown Point ; the word crown understood as intending the crown of the head: more properly, however. Scalp, or Scalping, Point, The historian speaks of it " as the place whence the French sent out their scalping parties." The French * See Note VII, 32 « ailed it Fort Frederick, To Ticonderoga, the Indiait Meeting of Waters, they gave a name apparently sin- gular, Carillon, a chime of bells* To Lake George, a name importing, the Lake of the Holy Sacrament. The Dutch name for a small bay or cove, on the East River, about two miles above Curler's Hook, Deutel Bay, corrupted to Turtle Bay. When the head of the cask was farther secured with pegs, they would say the cask was gedeutelt ; the pegs were short, but at the base broad ; the Bay narrow at its entrance, broad at the bottom ; the supposed resem- blance between the bay and the peg, the supposed origin of the name. The Point, about the same dis- tance farther, they called Hoorn's Hoeck, Hornh Point; there is a point in the Thames of the same name, but pronounced there in plainer English, " the- word unpleasing to the married ear." THE ISLANDS IN THE RIVER The Dutch name of the first, Varken, Hog Island, its legal English name Manning^s Island, so called after the proprietor of it once, the unfortunate Cap- tain John IVtanning, "whose sword was afterward broken over his head in public, before the City Hall. for treacherously delivering up the garrison to the Dutch, 28th July, 1673." The next two islands. Groote, and Kleyne, Barent's Islands, corrupted 10 Great and Little Barn Islands, Barent, a Dutch Christian name. Barent Janse, overseer of the Island under the West-India company. Little Barens'' Island. L^rantcd to Delaval, 1 069 : a piece of meadow released 33 to him on the north side of Barents Isle ; a piece re- leased to him on the south side of Little Barent'^s Island. The tract between Harlem River and the large stream next eastward, Bronck's Land. Jonas Bronck, the first proprietor of it : — the passage be- tween it and Little Barn Island, called Bronck's River, and the stream also, as the lands on its banks became settled, afterward denoted by, and still retain- ing, the same name. The Dutch name for West- chester, OosTDORP, Easton ; and a district adjacent to it, not now to be defined, Vreedlandt, Peace Land, The islands, the Gesellen, their Dutch name trans- lated, the Brothers, The passage between Long- Island and Great Barn Island, the Dutch called Het Helle Gat, corrupted to Hell-Gate^ and finally to Hurl-Gate, I have shown what Gat imports in Dutch, when used as in the present instance, so that Hellegat may be interpreted either Hellgut, or the Gut of Hell, De Laet, in his Latin work, has it fnferi os. When a ferry was, within a few years since, about to be established from Hoorn's Hoeck to Long-Island, and a dock being necessary for a landing or stairs, the persons employed to build it. having finished it, a duty of humanity still remained. the traveller was to be directed in the right way ^ they accordingly put up a hand or guide board, where the road turns off from the main road, with the direction coarsely painted on it, no matter how coarsely^ it was plain enough for all to read it, " The road to Hurl- gate Ferry," and this the origin of the name Hurl- gate, That they should be offended at the first syllable in the name ifeZ/gate, may perhaps be ar- 4* 34 counted for: they may have considered the use of it. unless in open reprehension of themselves, or in rebuke of others, as naughty, having been so trained in their youth ; or they may have been apprehensive, that being too familiar with the name, might tend to render the place too familiar, and so take otf from the dread of it ; but why they should adopt hurl as the substitute cannot be conceived, inasmuch as a gate, so far from hurling or hurrying us through, may, at times, perform to us one of the best offices of a friend, to stay or check us in our career of more haste than good speed. Perhaps the dockbuilders iiever thought so far ; and I am fearful, that however inclined we may be to find a motive for them, w^e shall, after all, be obliged to say, that when they undertook to amend the name, they zvent beyond their dock. But the persons most to blame are the editors of our pub- lic papers. It will be acknowledged they have it in iheir power to give currency — limit it for the moment to names ; it ought, however, to occur to them, that all power implies trust for the due exercise of it, and they speak as familiarly of going, and coming, through Hurlgatc, as they do of going out of, and coming into. Sandy Hook, 1 pray, however, I may not be consi- dered as taking it upon me to be their censor — far different from it; for notwithstanding the carpings of some, who love to be ever finding fault, that, not unfrc- quently, their facts are not the fact, their reasonings not logic, their praise sickening, their dispraise, as to Ihe manner of it, tlic reverse of good manners, their wit, omitting to remember " that mediocrity in wit was {-ics'cr permitted in any,-' their best excuse; and not- 35 withstanding the sneers of others, that at times they are so sententious, so sagacious, so profound, as to be won- derful, I say, and say it with sincerity, may they flourish : zoithout newspapers, numerous and free, we are without Liberty ; the growth even of weeds indicates soil and season ; I, however, prefer another illustration more courteous and not less apt— the richest harvest must have its straws to sustain it. The English Hellgate has been so long peaceably in possession, I am con- tent it should remain so. I have no desire to go back either to Dutch language or Dutch law ; not to the one because not better than the English, nor to the other, because not so good. The Dutch took the civil law of Rome ; there they erred ; they should have taken the common law of England — The trial by jury ! — How the law ? To be declared by the judge, hence ever to be a man of the law. How the fact ? To be found by the unanimous verdict of a jury to be taken from the Laity of the place at large, to be kept together in private, until agreed ; and in the discre- tion of the judge, in the mean time, to permit suste- nance to be furnished them. How the inquiry ? In open court before the judge, by the oral testimony of the witnesses, the jury to notice their demeanour and appearance, and, if requisite, they to be confronted. How the evidence ? Under the control of the judge a? incident. How if the judge err? An exception to be taken to his opinion, and the error examined else- where. How if the jury mistake in their verdict ? In the sound discretion of the judge to set it aside, and award a new trial. How if a juror happen to be returned not standing indifferent between the parties / 36 To be challenged, and the challenge to he instantlv tried by triers, to be elected by the judge, and, where life in jeopardy, the accused privileged to challenge a due number peremptorily and no cause of challenge required — all this of human contrivance ! " In the year one thousand six hundred and four- teen," says De Laet, " the ship of Skipper Adrian , Block took fire by accident, and he built here a '^ Yacht of thirty-eight i^Qi keel, forty-four feet and a half on deck, and eleven feet and a half beam, with which he sailed through the Hellegat into the Great Bay, and visited all the places thereabout, and went in it as far as Cape Cod ;" and I shall intend him to have been the first who passed through the Gat, and that, wherever they were given, he gave the Dutch names to the places he visited. If he went through at about two thirds flood, and either at the full or change, it must have appeared most terrific to him, and the name, the exclamation, might have escaped him. Still I think he is not wholly to be pardoned. As a Dutchman, it is to be presumed, he was very early instructed in his cate- chism, and if he had attended to the proofs in the margin under the proper Sunday Section, he would have seen it was more to be likened to the way lead- ing to the good place, narrow, scarcely admitting two abreast, the Hog''s back, and the Pot, the rock on the one hand, and the whirlpool on the other, mind your helm, keep in the true tide, his incessant caution to his Stierman, whereas the way leading to the other place, the bad place, is laid down as being broad, as many at a time as choose, and you have nothing to do 37 but to dow7i sail or lay upon your oarsy as the case may be, and leave yourself to the current, and drive through. The Sunday Section ; the name by which the sec- tions are distinguished in the Dutch Original ; the name by which the day was known to the first con- verts from among the Gentiles, taught by the Apos- tles, they taught by the Divine Teacher himself, and the use of it continued by them after their conversion. and from them to those who claimed, and rightfully, to be their followers, the reformers, including the Reverend Fathers, the Synod of Dort, all distinctly understanding the terms or names they used, and hence distinctly understanding themselves — Satisfied the seventh, the required, portion of time, a diurnal revolution of the sun, was set apart, and the observance of the hitherto day ceasing, as alike typical with priest- hood and altar, and so alike spent ; and the next day taken as the most obvious course, there being no rea- son for prefering another, they appear to have occu- pied themselves otherwise than in surmising and in- quiring, whether it would not tend to a more devout observance of it, to substitute the name by which it was known by the Apostles among themselves, they being Jews, the^r^^ day ; or the name by which it is mentioned by an apostle, referring to an occasion ren- dering it, in an eminent sense, the day of the Lord, '^ When his great voice was heard as of a trumpet, I am the First and the Last," and the text accord- ingly to be viewed, as preserved to us, to intimate doc- Irine, not formally to prescribe name; or the Jewish name for the last day of the week, the Sabbath, their 38 day of rest from work from sunset to sunset ? In England they have schools on the day for the gratuitous instruction of the poor ; we have them now likewise ; there, having the merit to have led^ they are called Sun- day Schools ; with us, having the merit only, for although merit still no more than secondary^ to h2iVefollo7ved, they are in some places to be called Sabbath Schools. To impart sanctity by force of a J^ame ! Singular con- ception 1 — The more singular, the intelligence of many, in whom apparently found, considered — But if no- ticed as in some^ in respect to a day, must I not, if to stand equal with all, notice it as in others in respect to a Building — The Church of The most holy Trinity — Christ Church — the Church of the Holy Spirit — Saint George's Church — By w^hat Name did the Apos- tles denote the Building, the place where they came together to join in worship ? — The Temple, with its Services, had by the advent of the prototype, the Divine Intercessor in Person, in thejiesh, ceased — The Synagogue however remained, and, deducing from the Volume of Scripture as the authority, the preferable presumption, 1 choose to express myself with dilFidencc, would seem to be, that they continu- ed it, with its mode of rule, and of Oversight, or Charge, by an Eldership ; and hence with its Name, Two passages will be cited, and the last perhaps to be received as decisive — " Not forsaking the assembling ourselves together" — in the original, " synagogueing,^' *• If there come into your assembly a man" — in the original, " synagogue.^'^ The Puritans, doubtless, adopted the preferable translation, or name, a Meet- ing House. 39 Another instance of the not improbable effect of mere Name, The Dutch, in their Version of the Scriptures, at the Reformation, in translating the Greek Episcopos, rejected the exotic Bischoff, and be- took themselves to the indigenous Opsiender ; in the compound preposition for preposition, and verb for verb. The great Reformer did not in his Version, take the kindred German indigenous Au i Fsciler , Ovc?-^ seer, but adhered to the exotic Bischoff,^ He, how- ever, was consistent ; for when he came to the pas- sage, where the Greek Episcopous occurs, he transla- ted it by the plural Bischoffen, thereby making the whole College of Ephesian Elders Bishops, Had the English been uniform in their Version, and translated the Greek Episcopos throughout, as they have done in the passage alluded to, by their alike correspondent indigenous Overseer, there would perhaps have been the like effect as with the Dutch, not even a term, or name, in their language, left for Episcopacy. Before quitting the Subject, chiefly occupying the last (ew paragraphs, I would mention the fact, not only as authority for the early, and doubtless univer- sal, use of the name Sunday, but also for another pur- pose, which will be perceived without farther intima- tion ; that it is the name by which the Emperor Con- stantine denotes the day, in his Edict, enjoining the religious observance of it. The first instance of the interposition or agency of the secular sovereignty in aid of the kingdom of Christ. It is a Maxim ; and to repeat it in the Diction of the highly endowed Gen- tile from whom I borrow it, " Omnia mala exempla ex bonis orta sunt." Not unfrequently vouched by 40 iJhristian Doctors ; but as it checks project and inno- vation, less frequently heeded by them. It may be translated, " that scarcely an evil example or effect, not to be traced to good or sincere beginning." The names of the evil effects of the pious zeal of the imperial convei*t, Hierarchy, or religious establish- ment ; and the thing signified, found, even at the pre- sent day, throughout the whole of European Chris- tendom. I pray it may be noticed that I am still within m) Subject, Jsfames ; so that if all true, then all right. Skipper Block named the Norwalk Islands Archi- pelago ; Stratford, or the Indian Housatenick, River, Royenbergh's River; an Island in the Sound, Val- c HEN, Falcon or Hawk, Island, not improbable from the resort of the Fish Hawk there, corrupted by some to Fawkncr''s, by others to Falkland, Island. The Connecticut he named the Versche, Fresh, River, doubtless as to be distinguished from the south and north rivers, in sooner meeting with fresh water on entering it from the sea. The Dutch built a Fort on the Flat, the western l)ank of it, now the city of Hartford, for the protec- tion of their trade with the Indians, and called the Fort, at times, the Huys, the trading House, van GOEDE HOPE, of gOod hopC, JoHANNES De La MoN- TAGNE, of the council of New Netherland, and Doctor of Medicine, was the Governor ; Trumbull, the histo- riographer of Connecticut, calls him Monsieur Mon- tague ^ the surname Montague, appertaining to an ancient and noble family, in England ; he says the Dutch called the Fort, the Hirse of Good Hope ; if 41 rlie word was ever in their laiiguagc, it has since be- «:ome obsolete ; he also says, " the Indians had no set meals, but, like other wild creatures, ate when they were hungry, and could find any thing to satisfy the <:ravings of nature, and dressed their corn with a clam- shelly or with a stick make flat and sharp at one end, and that the Dutch* were always intruders, and had no right to any part of this country." The rule of I he good nature of criticism is, '* that where much splendour in the pages, not to suffer ourselves to be offended at a few specks ;" and it is to be hoped, the historian would have forborne from so angrily calling names ^ had he known of the very friendly mention his brother of New Netherland makes of his countrymen. The indiscretion of attempting the history of this country, not well read in the Dutch ! Van Der Donck, speaking of the Pumpkin, expresses himself, " It grows here with little or no labour, and need not yield to the apple for sweetness, so that the English, who generally love whatever tastes szveet, use it in their Pies." 1 knew one of the same name with the Governor 5 John De La Mantagne, ordinarily pronounced Jan MoNTAGNE, sexton of the old Dutch Church in Gar- den-street, '' the street adjoining the garden of Alder- man Johannes Kip," built in 1692; the grant for the ground, from the Corporation of the city, the prece- ding year, and '• the Common Council resolving itself into a grand committee to attend to the surveying and laying it out:" taken down in 1810, and the present ^ See^^oteVni. 12 uiie built on the same site. I saw liiui at the house of my parents ; I in my earUest youth, he approaching to fourscore. He was on his round to collect the Do- minie's Gelt, the minister's salary ; for the Dutch always took care the stipend to the minister should be competent, that so he never might be straitened "" to desire a gift." He told me his father and grandfather before him, the latter probably the same as mentioned in the Records, 1649, '' Jan Da La Montague, school- master, with 250 Guilders salary," had been the sex- tons of the congregation, so that, as I have it from the relation of others, the successive incumbents having been as well of the same Christian as surname, the name had, as it were, become the name of the office- like Den Keyser, the CcBsar, the Emperor, and ac- cordingly when the English, having built a church, had also a sexton, the Dutch children, and not impossible some adults, called him de Engelshe Jan Mon- TAGNE, the Eiiglish John Montague, He told me his grandfather was the sexton when the church was within the fort, and which, from the inscription in Dutch, on a marble, doubtless placed in front of il, found buried in the earth, and then removed to the belfry of the church in Garden-street, when the fort was taken down, a few years since, appears to have been built as early as 1642. The site of the first church, the late church in Garden-street, considered as the third in succession, perhaps not to be now far- ther ascertained than as a piece of ground referred to in 1699, '• as belonging to the Dutch congregation,'^ and in 1715, "as once called the Oude Kerck, old Church, and afterward the house of Allard Anthonv. 43 ;iud lying between Custo7n-House-6trcet,^^ the portion of Pearl-street between Whitehall and Broad-street, "and Bridge-street, and fronting on Broad-street.'- He further told me, that when, on the surrender of the town to the English, they took the church for a part of the day, his grandfather still officiated. An instance of singular liberality ! He, a son of the church of Holland, still "keeping the door of the temple,'* when the service within it, according to the ritual of the church of England ! Perhaps he thought, there being no difference between the confessionals of the two churches, the ritual ought to make none ; nay, were it supposed, merely however for the sake of the supposition, because, as applied to him personally, not to be imagined possible^that both confessional and ritual were to him matters of indifference ; still it may be a question, whether his liberality would not be left the same ? it being now ascertained, what has been long suspected, that boasted liberality in matters ot religion, and utter indifference about them, the one. easily made to resolve itself into the other. On the death of my cotemporary, the consistory gave the office to his son, who enjoyed it. till the dis- persion of the congregation, on the invasion of the city in 1776 ; — an office — that it was in the church, sufficient, according to the notioii^of the day, to make it respectable ; that the emolument, sparing as it w as. canae sensibly in aid to the sustentation of the family, j^L sufficient towMfed^ it lucrative ; both sufficient to make . ' it desirable, and consequently to invite competion : in the gift, and held at the pleasure, of a body, them- selves fluctuating, gne half going out yearly by rota- 44 lion; and we here see it passing, as an inheritance from father to son, for four generations, and for a pe- riod, little short, if any thing, of a century and a half. What an inducement to the father to due demeanour in it, '• the hope of the recompense," that after him ii would be bestowed on his son ! What encouragement to the son, the hope of the gift, to render himself de- serving of it ! What proof of character in those who have gone before us !* How stable ! how constant I " How changed are we from them !" Scarce an elec- tion, and a change not at least meditated ; and should we continue thus " variable and mutable," it is to be apprehended the time may come, when our beautiful and spacious City-Hall of marble^ including the piers between the windows in ithe snug cupola of wood on the top of it ; nay, taking in the old Bridewell, left to stand as a wing to it ; farther still, expand it so as to cover the neat grass-ptet in front of it, if it were not a pity to spoil it,t and especially enclosed as it is with pales of a due height, like the dense iron work in front of St. Paul's, to hide the base of the building, the whole will not furnish wall for the portraits of all and singular our successive governors and mayors. In addition to the probability from the circumstance just mentioned, that the name of the person was con- ceived to be the nakme of the office, my cotemporar} having called his eldest son, John, I infer it was also his father's name ; and it being his own name, I in like manner infer it was the name of his grandfather: ^ y .1 so that the family appears to have been, from as far /^ bark as we can trace it, constantly and duly mindful "-' See Note IX. t See Not£ Xs 45 of the duty of respect, and, as it would seem, iu tlic opinion of some, a respect allied to piety, in a son, to call a son after his own father. Lest, however, I should be conceived as laying down this duty as of universal obligation, it has appeared to me, proper to state a few cases, and from which it may easily bo reasoned to others, where I think it may be dispensed with. A father and a son — the son the first of the family ever rich ; his coach at the door, and his plate on the sideboard, and, as a thing of course, arms on both. His riches ; entitled '* to call them his own, he made them himself;" his coach and his plate, no one enti- tled to grudge him them ; but the arms, the borrowed plume, always more than half spoils all ; even grant- ing the family deduced from the croisades, and, with it, its gentility never interrupted, not an instance ol servile occupation in the whole line of descent, and so the plumage not assumed, still, in a community with our institutions — a feather. The father, a mechanic of the humblest order, a son of St. Crispin, alike ready to serve a customer, whether to mend or make, and so never above his business,' and so, all sense ; in morals, all worthy and so, if I may be permitted in a plui/ on the word, and in an allusion to his vocation, *• no rest or residue of him leather,'^^ Here an ex- emption arises by mere force of elevation of condi- tion ; it has been given to the son to become rich ; the father is left poor. A name, abstracted from the sole and simple use of it, the surname to distinguish between famihes, the Christian name between individuals of the same 40 lamily, or ot the same surname, ''is a sound, and uc more ;" yet, as the sound may happen to be, so it ma} be decisive against taking it as a name ; and which furnishes another case of exemption. To illustrate by the case already stated. Let u< suppose the son disposed to honour his father, and to that end to waive his exemption ; but at the same time let the name of the father, instead of Eiigenio, or any other name of that stamp, be supposed to be some old fashioned, or, which comes to the same thing, somt- Old Testament, name ; take one of the lesser pro- phets, say Habakkuk, the name given to the father by his father, in his day somewhat inclined to Puritan- ism ; — now the trying question presents itself; can a father ever be held to call a son after a grandfather with such a name ? I answer this question by asking another, which answers itself; Can a lady be held to call a daughter Bridget, after her mother, the nam^ given to her by her mother, great grandmother to Miss lo be named, she having been at the time a cook-maid. Where the brothers are numerous, another case. Here the exemption arises from the necessity of the thing itself, as will be perceived. So in the habit of calling the first name the Chris- tian name, I cannot forbear fiom it, even when refer- ring to a Jew case for illustration. If every of the sons of the Patriarch had called a son after their common father, a moiety of the He- brew alphabet must have been impressed into the ser- vice to distinguish between the twelve grandsons of the same Christian name ; and if the sons of these master's interest as if his own ; his master not wholly free from Debt, himself not wholly at Ease ; would probably come to think it the better course for persons entering into life, instead of instantly betaking them- selves to BORROWING for means in aid of their Busi- ness, to zcait for them till acquired by their owv EFFORTS ; and it thence occurring to him further, thai the description in the bequest, duly adhered to, and at the same time depending on the town of Boston alone, there would be a hazard of a failure of a suffi- ciency of borrowers to employ the whole capital, and with it a failure of liis own calculation of the actual increase of it, he had the precaution to pro- vide, '• that should there in time be more than the occasion in Boston may require, the other towns in the state to have it ; and the principal and interest paid. 10 be again let out to fresh borrowers, and which he calculated would, in one hundred years, be one hun- dred and thirty thousand pounds, of which the town were, in their discretion, to lay out one hundred thou- sand pounds in public works, the remaining thirty-one thousand pounds to be continued to be let out at in- terest in the manner above directed, for one hundred years, when he calculated the sum would be four millions and sixty-one thousand pounds sterling; one million and sixty-one thousand pounds to be disposed of by the town, and the remaining three millions by 49 'the gov^rmncnt of the state, not presuming to carrj his views farther," — and no wonder — to have gone on with the accumulation for another cycle of two hundred years, and all intermediate contingencies duly guarded against, would certainly have been a most unreasonable draft on human providency. It may be a question, whether a testamentary disposition of this kind would not now with us be adjudged void, as within the prohibition intended by our statute, gene- mlly known as the restraining act,* making it unlaw- ful for persons, without an incorporation, to the effect of a license, from the legislature, to lend monies, the sum generally not large, so as to keep themselves always in condition to accommodate others •, the lend- ers furnishing the borrowers with their own notes as the currency, in the place of coin ; a promissory note with an endorser the security ; a day of payment ex- pressed, and in no instance exceeding ninety days, yet the note understoood to be renewed from time to time, the interest accrued to be paid at each renewal, and the principal not to be called for unless on a previous convenient notice ; and to receive monies as deposited for safe keeping ; or in fewer words, simply to follow the business of banking, as understood among us ; the good to arise to the public, to prevent an undue multi- plication of banks, and a farther benefit, since disco- vered, a rehef, as far as it goes, from the burden ol taxes, payment into the treasury of a sum, the price of the license, 1 might here enlarge on several particulars. 1 will, however, only, and briefly, mention a few of them. * See Note XII. 50 Calling a child after a friend noi yet deceased — tlir^ inconvenienr^^ as it sometimes happens the best friend? part before death parts them. To show our zeal for the party, calling a son after a distinguished leader in it ; — a similar inconvenience. should the father or godfather find it ?no7'e convenient to change his party ; in either case, the name always a thi7ig in the way* ^' Following great names" in naming a son — the greater the name, the more sad, should he prove '^ the heaviness of his mother,^^ The man of wisdom has selected the mother as the depository of the pride, and so, in great measure, of the principle, wholly ot the sensibility, of the family. Double, treble, quadruple names, and so on, for I find no limit prescribed by fashion, law laid out of the question, as "of no avail if unfashionable to observe it," to the number of names ; it must doubtless be still understood, they are not to be more numerous than can conveniently be retained in the recollection, nor too much time lost in repeating them all ; for ii some are never to be repeated, but ever to be left mute, then, for aught appearing, they might as well have been left out at first; at the same time, where several expecting the compliment, and we wishing always to please all^ and of course very careful never to offend any ; a disposition, if we find it in us, cer- tainly to be cherished ; there, to be safe against tht^ disappointment, a failure of the requisite successive christenings, to take a number of the names at once, ought perhaps to be considered only as a branch ol that economy ol' opportunity usually intended by killing two birds with one stone. Making surnames do duty also as Christian names, and enough of the latter on the ground, and, so far from asking the relief, entitled to complain of being injured in rank or precedence ; and none being dis- cernible for it, either as founded in taste or utility, or in any thing else, it is to be viewed as among the numberless instances of arbitrary exercise of power, where "the will is to suffice for the reason j'^'' and it were to be wished that some, chargeable with it, would make the case their own ; they know how they have felt at times at seeing others raised to a level with themselves. Naming counties, towns, villages, streets, forts, and so forth, after the heroes and other worthies of our land, by formal public authority, a sort of legis- lative monument, which has this to recommend it to repubhcan economy, that it comes cheap, so that if on a just estimate of the name and fame, at a future day, it should be found not to have been worth pre- serving, there will be little, if any thing, to be regret- led as having been thrown away ; and the late fate of the name of a street, and where the worth, great and imquestionable, shows it even, at best, precarious. The vestry of Trinity church, however, need not want a name for their venerable church-warden, Colonel Joseph Robinson, and Park Place, at the same time, left' undisturbed ; they have only to peti- tion the Common Council for leave to resume their original name for Rector-Street, before laying out their grounds on Broadway, Robinson-Street. A monu- 52 MENT* to come cheap! as cheap as where the money (or one of marble or bronze, whether furnished from the pubhc treasury, or contributed from the private purses of individuals, being grudged as an improvi- dent expenditure, is raised bi/ xvay of lottery^ it costs nothing, ^" There, my lord," said the pious and loyal Jebusite to his prince, " is the threshing floor to build an altar, there the oxen for burnt sacrifice and the threshing instruments for wood, and wheat for the meat offering, take them to thee and offer, I give them all :" — " Nay," replied the man who slew a giant, " I will not take for the Lord that which is thine ; I will buy them of thee at the full price ^ 1 will not offer of that which doth cost me nothing,^'' Let this suffice under this head of discourse, since ihe whole may be considered as resolving itself into this as a general conclusion, that inasmuch as in the most simple preparation of one of the most simple articles of our food, roasting an egg, it is true to a proverb, there is to be reason, much more ought there to be reason m givijig a name. Now to attend again to Skipper Block, in his cruise of discovery. He called an island in the sound, Visscher's Island, Fisherh Island, and the eastern point of Long-Island. V^isscher's Hoeck, Fisher'^s Point, A map of New Netherland, scarcely more than a tolerable diagram of it, but being as early as 1G42, probably the first, was by a person of the name of Visscher. Plum Islands, the name he gave them, translated. Block ^■- S^e Note XI H. 53 Island, the skipper's own name. I trust it did not proceed from himself; it would give me regret he should be found among those, ^' who thinking their dwelling places are to continue to all generations, call their lands after their own names,^'* The next island, eastward, he called Martin Wyngaard's Island, Martin Fine?/ar Dcr Donck, ' and hearty friend of New Netherland, always, to his death." Pownal, in a journal of a passage from Albany to New- York, in 1753, calls it Topang Sea, not unlike a Chinese name ; the point or peninsula, the northern chop of the bay, or entrance into Croton River, the Skippers called Sarah's Point; the In- dians gave it to William and Sarah Teller, husband and wife, and she survived him ; the promontory on the western shore, opposite to it, Verdreitige Hoeck, Tedious Point ; it occupies such a space on the shore, that, in a calm, or the wind foul, long in passing it : Haverstroo, literally, oat straw, the name of the tract of arable land immediately above it; its Indian name. Kumochenack, Stony Point retains its Dutch name translated ; the British took possession of it, and for- tified it, in the war of the Revolution ; the assault and capture of it, by Wayne, an exploit, for gallantry and success, in our offensive warfare on the land, remain- ing to be equalled. The Bonder Bergh, and on the east side of the river, the Kill of Jan Peek, retaining their Dutch names ; the promontory just above Peek's Kill, presenting itself on turning the point of the Don- der Bergh, they called Antonie's Neus, corrupted to Saint Anthony'^s JSI'ose, At the period when the opinion began to prevail that the calendar ought to be revised and reformed, the Dutch judged it preferable, at least for themselves, to make one anew, and to take their own time for it : even the cases of Saint Peter arid Saint Paul, favoured suitors as they are, and unquestionably entitled to be, are still suffered to lay over, and, to preserve the ques- 6* 58 lion entire, they are guarded to this day to speak of them only as plain Peter and plain Paul. In every instance where the court of claims have proceeded to a definite sentence, they have uniformly dismissed the petition. Briefly to report a few cases, as specimens, the decision, however, only, and the principle of it ; omitting, as not called for by the occasion, the argu- ments of counsel. Patrick of Kirkpatrick in Scotland — he emigrated to Ireland ; the reason why not known, and the eraj not having come down to us as one peculiarly of re- form or revolution in government, none can be ima- gined ; that it was with the hope a consistory could be found there to pass him with less scrutiny, evidentl} a fiing by the native at the adopted country. If ob- jected, that the word not allowed in grave discourse, the answer, that there is no synonyme for it in the lan- guage, and no periphrasis without employing, at least . half a score of others, and then, perhaps, as not unu- sual, falling short of the exact sense. Man, from his very condition, can have only one native country ; it can never be said of him, he was born in two countries ; if Patrick had expressed him- self, he was an Irishman born in Scotland, it would have been obviously a blunder ; but while this is ad- mitted on the one hand, it ought to be so on the other, that the objection to having an adopted country, that if you may have one you may have more, and as man\ more, one after another, as may suit ; as many xoed- loclcs 2iS ports in a voyage, in succession, to touch at, i? as obviously futile. Tlio Duloli roadily acknowledged the nuril of rid- 59 ding a community of reptiles, and so far the petitioner had no reason to complain that justice was not done him ; still there was a reason, and it was sufficient, which must for ever forbid them from having a good- liking to him ; they were republicans, and his very name, Patrick^ a direct derivative from the Latin Pa- tricius, signifying nobleman, or aristocrat, George of Cappadocia, the champion Saint of the English — although the Dutch had never read Gibbon, nor another great historian who had just preceded him, and if they had, it would not have escaped their sagacity that both were to be watched when writing about the saints ; they, however, had the fact from another quarter, and it was sufficient, that George ex- pelled their favourite, Athanasius, from his episcopal throne of Alexandria, and usurped it himself; for although liberal in a toleration to strangers, for the sake of trade, still, as among themselves, strenuous for the necessity of a quicunque vult,^ in order, as they would express themselves, to know where to find a man ; for be it known, that to profess one way and believe another^ was never known among the Dutch. Anthony of Egypt — the first monk, and hence to be supposed foremost in the heresy of "forbidding to marry ;" nothing ever to be called after him. JVicAo/a5 of Patara, in Lysia. Here something like an interlocutory was entered. From the legend, as preserved by the learned Egnatius of Venice, it ap- peared he had secretly put in at the window of a father, so " distressed in estate," as to have become '• afflicted in mind" to desperation, a sum expressed * See Note XIV. 60 to be "of no small weight in gold," and thereby saved him from bartering his three daughters to ruin. I( was farther offered in evidence, " that he was descend- ed from rich parents," to show how his heart had been preserved to him " in all the time of his wealth ;" the fact being well known, the counsel against the peti- tion, to save the necessity of proof, admitted it, and its pertinency to the inquiry; the cause was ordered to be retained for further advisement^ and in the mean time the petitioner to have leave to take and use the name of Sanctus Klaas ; that he be deemed so far tutelar, as that his anniversary, it being referred to the proper officer of the court to ascertain it, be kept : and that the children, in their httle hymn of thanks, for the good things, the reward for going to bed early, found in the stocking, hung up in the corner, on the eve of it, and put in by him during the night as he lides in his wagon, tilled with them, over the roofs of the houses, and down and up the chimneys, might ad- dress him as Goedt Heyligh Man, good holy man, A peculiarity, as to be collected from these reports, making the likings and dislikes rest on a single reason, and, of course, the sufficiency and sincerity of them brought to a single test, and which the Dutch, '' their minds ever conscious of rectitude," never shunned. There was a day always kept here by the Dutch, and the keeping of it delegated by the mothers to their daughters still at school, vrouwen dagh, woman\s day ; the same day with the Valentine'' s day of the English, and although diflerently, still, perhaps, not less salutarily, kept. Every mother's daughter fur- nished with a piece of cord, the size neither too large 61 nor too small ; the twist neither too hard nor too loose ; a turn round the hand and then a due length left to serv^e as a lash ; not fair to have a knot at the end of it, but fair to practise for a few days to acquire the slight ; the law held otherwise in duelhng. On the morning of the day, the youngster never venturing to turn a corner without first listening whether no warblers behind it. No golden apples to divert from the direct course in this race. Schoolboy Hippome- nes, espied and pursued by charmer Atalanta ; he en- cumbered with his satchel, still striving to outrun, and, to add to his speed, bending forward, thereby giving the requisite roundness to the space between the shoulders : she too swift afoot for him, and over- taking him, and three or four strokes briskly and smartly laid on ; he, to avoid a farther repetition, stopping and turning ; she looking him steadfast in the eye, and perceiving it required all the man in him to keep back the tear ; not all the fruit in all the orchards of the Hesperides, and in their best bearing year, to compensate for the exultation of the little heart for the moment. The boys insisted the next day should be their's, and be called mannen dagh, man's day ; but my masters were told, the law would thereby de- feat its own very purpose, which was that they should, at an age, and in a way, most likely never to forget it, receive the lesson of manliness, he is never to STRIKE. This privilege has been neglected for such a length of time, that, perhaps, it is never again to be recover- ed ; 1 do not however think it lays in our mouth to charge the other sex, that rather than be at the trouble. ^3 and especiall)^ if attended with expense, to preserve rights, let them he lost, I have now to do with my own party, and, therefore, the other party not entitled to take offence at any thing I may say. My own party, the Federal party, by iheiT primitive perfect name without the subsequently invented addition of Republican, Is it not in the constitution itself, that those who formed it were Repubhcans? Suppose, yes — then " the expression of it wholly inoperative,^' Suppose, no — will calling themselves so,make them sot* There will be parties where the government is free : still, "wo unto them through whom they come." A neutral ^mong freemen, a solecism in character^ per- haps, nearer the truth, no character; hence, every one sees the necessity of sl parti/ name, if only to live by in the community; for there is the formahst in politics as well as in religion ; regular in giving his vote, never failing to observe the day of the election, but as for money for the expense of it, not the thou- sandth part of a tithe ; the \ote fulfils all patriotism with him — he wants no public office — certainly not — you only leave him to earn and to save, and he will leave it to you to sustain the government to protect him in the enjoyment of his earnings and savings — he wants no public office — wonderful self-denial ! Wc were once the subjects of a prince, the supreme ma- gistracy in him as an inheritance, the people privileged to choose only a portion, a third branch, of the legis- lature ; by the revolution, all power in them ; all offic* of their gift; they the "fountain of all honour;'* \rhencf' is it, that the same thing which was then so 63 nought^ should now, and by the same class, those- desirous to be distinguished for their wealth, and otherwise for their condition, be so slighted 1 I leave this question to the learned scribe and wise disputer among us, never at a loss concerning any thing, " the subject of knowledge or the subject of being;" but it being of some moment, if we are to hope to come out right, to see to it a little that we set out right. I would recommend to them — they will pardon it, should it appear too didactic — to begin with the first of the alphabetical rhymes in their Primer,* to serve as the ground-work of all explanation of moral phenomenon. The promontory in the Highlands, called Anto- nie's Nose^ after Antonie De Hooge, secretary of the colony of Rensselaerwyck. Herman Rutgers, the ancestor of the respectable family of the name among us, married his daughter and only child. The Dutch divided the whole river into Racks, Reaches ; there were thirteen in number ; three of them, being those only where the portion of the Ri-- ver, or distance in it, denoted by each, can now be ascertained, will be particularly noticed. The follow- ing are the names of others translated from the Dutch, and the probable order of them from south to north, the Horse reach, the Sail Maker^s reach, the Cook'^s reach, the High reach, the Fox reach, the Ba- ker's reach, John Pleasure''s reach, the HarVs reach, the Sturgeon reach, Fisher'^s reach, and the Fast reach, as importing Jirm not swift. The Martelaer's Rack, tJie Martyrh reach, the * See Ncfte XV. 64 short reach instantly on passing West Point. It has been said that Martelaer was in use among the Dutch, figuratively, to signify contending or struggling, as well as suffering. The reach is more at a right angle with the general course of the river than any other in it, and you may have the wind from the west- ward, and still so fair as to lay your course the whole of the distance from New- York to Albany, till you come to turn West Point, and then right ahead, so that you have to heat, and to contend, and striiggle with it to weather the high rocky point on the oppo- site side of the river. Pownal, in the journal already referred to, says, •• on having entered this pass," the pass at the Boter Bergh, Butter Hill, from its supposed resemblance to a roll of butter, " a very peculiar rock, called Mart- ler'^s Rock, projects from the east into the river, and at the foot of these immense high mountains, although it is as high as a sloop's mast, looks like a dwarf or mole." The journalist was afterwards governor of the colony of the Massachusetts Bay ; and if, judging from Martler's Rock and Topang Sea, it should be in- sinuated, that seemingly the ministry at home, the mode of expression generally used when speaking of the administration in the parent country, did not always exercise the best care and judgment in choos- ing governors for the colonies, it may be conceded, and not to be wondered at ; had they been, as we have since become, privileged to choose for them- selves in their own case, it must be presumed, and to borrow the phraseology of that part of the ancient writ of election for members of Parliament, doubtless 65 intended as admonition to the electors iioni the Lord Chancellor, the keeper of the sovereign's conscience, it being of his functions to issue it, '* the best, most able. and discreet men for business,'^'' would have been sought for and preferred. We, however, must do ihem the justice, that, as it regarded us they were so far mindful of the respect due to us, as never to disparage us by placing over us a person of mean con- any, on the first news of the descent of the Frencbr^and Indians on the country of the Mo- hocks, gain^ Ijjm'the esteem both of the public and our Indian ^laMi^'i. The express reached New- York on the 12th of February, at ten o'clock in the night, and in less than three days he embarked with three hundred volunteers. The river, which was hereto- fore very uncommon at that season, was open, and he landed at Albany, and arrived at Schenectady on the 1 7th of the month 5 but still too late to be of any other use than to strengthen the ancient alliance. The Indians, in commendation of his activity on the occasion, gave him the nam^ of Cai/enguirago, or the great swift arrozv''^ — ^A name expressive of the speed with which he flew to the relief and succour of his? 66 friends and allies ; what an honourable memorial !' The corporation of our city, in July thereafter, pre- sented " an address of thanks to him for the great care he had taken for the security of the province : and also a cup of gold, as a token of their gratitude to their majesties, for appointing a person of so great vigilance, prowess, and conduct, to rule over us." We must admit him to have been stout of hearty and if correct in judgment, correct to perceive the extent of it, and, of course, farther correct, free from pre- tensions beyond it, and then, rarely otherwise than correct to discern what is fit and commendable, and so, ultimately correct both in opinion and conduct, through- out, another comphment awaited him far more grate- ful. On a subsequent occasion, they attribute '* to his prudence, that all their late heats and animosities are healed." The governor, the guide, the guardian, the father of the people, healing their heats and ani- mosities ! how suitably, how worthily occupied ! — the *' civil discord,'''^ known as " the troubles in Leisler'^s time,'^'^ " the heats and animosities" intended — unhappy Leisler! made to suffer for treason, and his heart at the time filled with affectionate loyalty to his prince, WilHam of Orange, emphatically of glorious memo- ry, a deliverer of Europe at the period from the am- bition of a ruler of the French, Lewis of Bourbon, the fourteenth of the name, aspiring at the empire of it universally, and for which his people, in their own vanity, and to gratify his, surnamed him great. The Lange Rack, the Long Reach, the reach from PoLLEPEL Island to the short turn in the river, the Krobj Elleboog : the first syllable retained, and the 67 ^ast translated, its present name, the Crom Elbozv, — Lepel is a 5^300/1 — a Pollepel a ladle, and particu- larly the one with a short handle for beating the batter for the WAFEL ; the resemblance of the island to the convex side of the bowl of the ladle, the origin of the name : a point in the long reach Danse Kamer, dan- cing chamher, still retaining its name. WiLTWYCK, the Dutch name for the town of Kings- ton — literally Wildwich or Indianwich, The Dutch built a redoubt on the bank of the creek, at the land- ing, and thence the creek known as Redout Kill, corrupted to Rundout Kill, A second company of Walloons, consisting of twelve families, came over very early, and settled on the southern branch of the Redout Kill, and from them called the Waalf. Kill, corrupted to Wallkill ^ their settlement is re- ferred to in an ancient grant as the Frenchmen'' s Land — they gave it the name of the Paltz, the Pa- latinate, having probably taken refuge there in the first instance : the two islands in the river, Magdalen' Island, and Slypsteen, Grindstone, Island, retain their Dutch names ; the point projecting from the east shore toward the last, its Dutch name Roode Hoeck, translated, Redhook — the creek, Roelof Jansen's Kill, retaining its Dutch name; as does also the creek on the opposite side of the river, the Cat's Kill. The following circumstances may, perhaps, serve for a probable conjecture whence the name of the first of these two creeks — Jan, John, and Roelof, some have supposed Ralph, very common Christian names ; and, accordingly, not unusual for a number to pass by the conbination of the latter, with the patro- 68 U}mic iVoni tlie former, Roelof Janae, and the irue iiirnaine never noticed — among those, the subjects o' \\ie usage, was a Roelof Jansen^ overseer of the Orphan Chamber, and so named in the pubhc record?, even when mention©^ of him in reference to his trust. His widow, in 1638, married to Domine Everardus Bogardus, the first minister who came over from Hol- land, and sent by the West India Company, they claiming to be the Patrons of the Churches in the Colony ; the term used in the English law sense, en- titled .to present the preacher. The Dutch called our Catamount or Panther^ at times, Het Catlos, but more generally Het Cat, emphatically the Cat; it is also their name for the domestic cat, except when to dis- tinguish the male, and which is then called the kater : and hence, mistaking the origin of the name, a branch of it has received the name of the Kater's Kill. The Island between Cats Kill and Hudson, under the east shore Vastrick^s Island, so called after Gerrit V'astrick. Het Klauver Rack, the Clover Reach — the Reach at Hudson — the Bluffs^ or terminations of the hills ihere, on the east side of the river, called by the Dutch the Klauvers, the Clovers, from their resem- blance, it is said, to the clover, but whether to the leaf or the flower, different opinions. Beeren Island and ihe OvERSLAoii, still retaining their Dutch names. The Dutch navigators speak of the river Gambia, on ihe coast of Africa, as having an Overslagh, a bar. at its mouth. A few were selected from the crews of the Dutch ships which sailed up the river the following year 69 after the discovery of it, to remain here a winter oven They erected an habitation on the point of the island, the southern hmit of the city of Albany, and enclosed it with pallisadoes, as a defence against the Indians, and it was known as the Kasteel, the Castle, Stuyvesant, in his correspondence with the government of the Massachusetts Bay, mentions the island as still known by the name of Kasteel Island, Albany w^as known by the several Dutch names of Beverwyck, Willemstadt, and Fort Orange, chiefly by the last. It was also known as the Fuyck, or Hoop-net ; and a kill is mentioned as there, and known as the Fuyck Kill, changed to Rutten Kill, an abbreviation of Rutgert's Kill, Rutgeirt Bleecker. a proprietor of the ground adjacent to it, the third creek from the Norman's Kill inclusive — the creek, known as the Vyvde Kill, the Jifth creek, the creek at water vleit, literally at the time, water flood, the word vleit since rarely in use, the seat of the family of Van Rensselaer. The lands immediately opposite to Albany, and for a distance along, and from, the river, the Dutch denoted as Het Greene Bosch, the pine woods, corrupted to Greenbush. The mouths of the Mohock they distinguished as the Spruyten. corrupted to, and which may also possibly pass for a translation, the Sprouts. The larger island formed by the Sprouts, they called Walvisch Island, Whale Island. "I cannot forbear," says Van Der Donck, ^' to mention, that in the year 1647, in the month of March, when, by a great freshet, the water was fresh almost to the great bay, there were two whales, of ■folerable size, up the river, the one turned back, but 7* 70 the other stranded, and stuck not far iVom tiie grear fall of the Cohoes." The arable land immediately above, they denoted as the Halve Maan, the half moon, from its crescent-like form along the hills on the western side. The river from the rapids upwards, and for the distance of about twelve miles, the Indian? denominated a lake, the Dutch Het Stille Water. the still water. The name of the Island of St. Bar- tholomew, in the West Indies, now generally abbre- viated to St, Barts, so the Dutch Bartholomeus, ab- breviated to the first syllable, pronounced Bat, and sometimes to the two last syllables, pronounced as il one, Mees. Bartholomeus Van Hoogeboom, the first who settled on the river above the Still Water : ioFin his name, the two names, of Batten Kill and Meesen Kill. ENGLISH NAMES OF PLACES. Few of them ancient. The island in the bay. Lore Island, now Bedlow^s Island. Nicolls granted it to Needham, and he, within a few days thereafter, parted with it to Alderman Isaac Bedlow. Hallett''s Cove, on the East river — the first of the family must have possessed lands there to some extent, as we find the island beyond Hellgate, now Riker'^s Island, called Hallett''s Island. The two islands near it, the Bro- thers, their Dutch name, the Gesellen, translated. The large rocks at the entrance of Hellgate, the larger one, the Mill Rock ; the other, the Hancock Rock. Frog'^s Neck — Throgmorton, an Englishman, took a i;rant for it, under tlie Dutch, 1C43 ; the name abbre- 71 vLatedfrom Throgmortoti^s to Throg^s, and finally cor- rupted to Frog^s, Neck. The Stepping Stones — rocks projecting in a line from the Long-Island shore into the Sound, and their tops bare at low water. An In- dian origin is asserted for this name, and a tradition vouched as the authority, heretofore repeated by our Suffolk County men, to their neighbours of Connecti- cut, over the way, in retort for the jeer from them, that the soil of the eastern part of the island is so poor as to be made to produce only meagre hills of Indian corn, and it constituting the chief food of the inhabi- tants, not uncommon, in a calm time, to hear the samp mortars agoing, quite across the Sound. It said, that, at a certain time,* doubtless some ages ago, the evil spirit set up a claim, against the Indians, to Connecticut, as his peculiar domain ; but they, be- ing in possession, determined, of course, to try to hold it. By Connecticut, the premises in question, is to be understood the original Connecticut proper, the territory between the oblong, our eastern boundary in that quarter, and the Sound ; for had it been known to the parties, but which, indeed, was not found out by the whites themselves for the first hundred years after they succeeded to the occupancy, that Connecti- cut was capable of being rolled or strectched out the whole breadth of the continent, there would have been no need of strife between them; there would have been land amply to satisfy both, and scores of millions of acres to spare. The surfaces of Connecti- cut and Long-Island were then the reverse of what they are now. Long-Island was covered with rocks : =^- St;e Note XVI. 72 Connecticut was free from them. The Indians were fully sensible of what they had to dread from such an adversary, and accordingly betook themselves to a course, not unusual on ccasions of great difficult} and danger; they referred the case to the squaws, the mothers of the tribes, who, it is said, recommended an offer to quit, on being allowed for their betterments — a Novanglican law term, devised to signify the dwel- ling, and other erections, and comprehending girdling the trees to disencumber the land of the wood, by a person entering, without title, on land never before cultivated, known as nezo, or wild, land, and for which he considers the rightful, whenever he shall appear, bound to allow him according to their value, to be assessed by a jury of the same place, before he him- self bound to quit ; on a principle, a kind of corollary from the rule, that it is oppressive and unjust that one should reap and another have sown, and so it is unjust and oppressive that one should inhabit and another have built. No answer, as was to be expected, was? given to this offer; and the parties, claiming to be entitled to the rights of sovereign states, and there being no federal court to interpose between them, had recourse to the " ultimate means of discussion be- tween princes," to arms. Indeed, had there been a court, it is to be doubted whether they could have been brought to be amenable to it. As to the party defendant, the Indian — the man of "the Wood ^ a wigwam of bark his habitation, and the ^kins of the beasts, he tracks or entraps, furnishing his coat and his couch ; and, to repeat it as expres- sed bv himsrlf. "to divide the land, each to have a 73 NUiparate and permanent property in his plantation., would be to make him as bad as a white manJ^^ His subsistence — in seasons, the return of the inhabitant of the pool from the torpor of winter, to furnish his mess, an annunciation to him of a respite from starv- ing. His hospitality ; the mere effect o{ all things in common ; and the aged Sachem, when unable to crawl and partake in the wigwam of another, left to starve in his own. His fighting, cowardly; rarely, at the same moment, exposing himself erect in posture and uncovered by a tree, and roasting a prisoner alive, festivity ; hence, whence urged to war. With him blood for blood, and the tomahawk has been put into the hand of the widow to avenge the blood of the slain husband. " The native force of his mind unaid- ed, his manners unsoftened, and consequently left fierce ;" in a word, a savage. The notices on his mind of the duty of rendering to another his own, very faint, if any ; of an authorized means to enforce it, none.* I am aware that I am here differing from one among •us of celebrity for literature and science, and of whom I have presumed to be a follower, with, however, une- qual pace, in the humble task I have assigned myself, to prepare notes, or collect materials, for the history of the State, the place of my birth and residence, for the benefit of whoever will undertake the principal work, the history itself. The passage alluded to, in the volume he has favoured us with, reads thus : "If it were made a question, whether no law, as among are happier of themselves, than under the care of the wolves." Now I am quite willing to allow him his premises, and in the utmost latitude he may wish, that the people are sheep, the leader breaking into mis- chief the rest follow, and, it is said, to precipitating down a well ; and, in reference to the particular im- mediately before us, wholly incapable to take care of themselves, and that the administrators of the govern- ment are wolves. Will it not then be happier for the sheep to employ dogs to take care of them ? No ; for in the same pages where we read of ravening wolves, we read of greedy dogs. Will it not be the least er?7, on the whole, for the social flock to leave the " sweet tender grazings of the field," betake themselves to the dank wilderness, and there separate each one to become solitary ? More strenuously, no ; for whether for no law, and so for less evil and more happiness, or for less or more any thing else, whatever it may be I do not care, I utterly deny man has a right to turn HEATHEN. As to the other high litigant party ; his hostility to courts of justice is notorious, especially where the judges are learned, distinguishing, upright, undaunted, revered ; they frequently thwart him In some of his^ best projects ; where they are of a different character, illiterate, and ignorant, and so in proportion, either conceited or stupid, or without probity, but with its usual concomitant, a consciousness of without re- putation for it, and so cither showing assurance or be- lb tracing cowardice, there he not only tolerates the court, he gives it all his countenance and help, be- cause theti^ unprincipled advocates, not to be reckoned among the least profitable o( his servants, can, un- overruled, by confounding truth and error, right and wrong, play his part as eifectually to subserve his purposes, as if played immediately by himself. The parties foreseeing there would be war, were, as behooved them, prepared for it. The renowned arch-leader, an host in himself, took the field alone : and, being an over-match for the In- dians in skill and spirit, he at first advanced on them : but they having provided there should be constantly reinforcements on their march, thereby preserving their corps entire, and harassing him incessantly, giving him no rest night nor day, he was obliged finally to yield to vigilance and perseverance, and fall back : he retired collected, and, as usual, giving up the ground only inch by inch, and, though retiring, still presenting a front wherever attack threatened; he kept close to the Sound to secure his flank on that side and having reached Frog's Point, and the watei-s becoming narrow, to be crossed by the Indians in bark canoes, easily to be made in a night, and the tide being out, and the rocks showing their heads, he availed himself of them, and stepping from one to another, effected his retreat to Long-Island. He at first betook himself, sullen and silent, to Coram, in the middle of the island ; but it being in his nature not to remain idle long, and " rage superadded, soon roused him and ministered to him the means of re- venge." He collected all the rocks on the island in 76 heaps at Cold Spiiug, and throwing them in diflcreiit directions to different distances across the Sound ou Connecticut, covered the surface of it with them, as we now see it ; and it has been repeated from the whites, the first settlers of the lands at Cold Spring, that the Indians to the last who remained, not only undertook to show the spot where he stood, but in- sisted they could still discern the print of his feet. Whether he has ever visited Connecticut since, not known ;* if so, it must have been in some borrowed form, and his stay short, for we must certainly ac- know;ledge that no state in the union can compare with her for a steady haj)itual effort to keep the demon out, . '* . ;^t-; .y ; - \ .; If this tradition be believe^ bjf thp Indians, it serves to give us some notion of their gec^gy. Are these rocks alluvial ? Whoever has seen them will pro- nounce them resembling every thing more than '' the smooth stone of the stream." Arc they primitive / No : they come from Long-Island. What are they .'' Here a defect in the nomenclature ; happily the ** Greek and Latin fonts" are at baud to supply it. Well for our science we have some literature among us to draw on for names. The English gave to the river the name of HudsonK^ River, by way o( continiuil claim, he being of English birth. The Dutch insisted that being in their em- ploy, and expressly to explore, he was, as a disco- verer, to be considered as their subject, and the case of Columbus a precedent ; he a native of Genoa, and ihc king of Spain taking to himself the bcn-efit of his ■^ See Note X\ 111. / / discoveries^ and none of the European powers gain- saying it. Nay, they seem wholly to have overlooked their own case ; their sovereign, James 1st, having, prior to the voyage of Hudson, " granted all the lands along the Coast of North America between the 341h and 45th degrees of latitude, and one hundred miles into the country, to his subjects, the Patentees of the north and south Virginia Patents," he claiming it by the discoveries of the Venetian Cabots. The colony and its metropohs, called after the duke's English title, New-York -, Ulster County, called after his Irish title ; King^s and Queen"* s Counties, and Duke and Dutchess Counties, so called in compliment to Charles and his queen, and to the duke and his dutchess ; Duke's County has passed to Massachusetts ; Richmond County, the title of a son of Charles ; Orange County ; then already a relationship between the royal family of England and the house of Orange in Holland. The town of Hurley, in Ulster County j the name given to it by Governor Colonel Lovelace, his family Barons of Hurley in Ireland. Vermont^ Green Mountain, and the town of Amenia, in Dutch- ess County, Pleasant, if you please, owe their names to the fancy of Young the poet, I mean the American, not the English, Young ; he had a peculiar facility in making English words from Latin ones. In his Poem, the Conquest of Quebec, in describing the portents he feigned to have preceded the battle of the Plains of Abraham, and which, according to his fiction, ap« palled the stout heart of Wolfe not a little, the first line of one of the couplets, " vulpine ululations, ur- .sine growl«," and the two concluding words of the 78 next, '• predicting owls," those which preceded have escaped my memory, and it is not now in my power to recover them ; sad fate for an epic ! " scarce twice five lustres past and out of print." Williams, who lias written a book, " The Natural and Civil History of Vermont," makes honourable mention of him, ranking him among the fathers and founders of the state, giving due precedence, however, to Ethan Allen. ANCIENT NAMES OF STREETS IN THE CITY. PearZ-street, its Dutch name translated ; certainly the most ancient, and originally extending only to Whitehall-street — the name of the latter from the fVhitehall Imi, on the west side below Pearl-street, the private property of Governor Dongan, destroyed by fire, and its ruins referred to in a conveyance, 1 724. On the east side from Pearl-street upwards, to at least HS far as Stone-stree, Het Steene Straat, perhaps so distinguished as for a time the only one paved, the Dutch West-India Company had their Packhuy- 5EN, warehouses, and that portion of it was known as the WiNCKEL-straet, shopping-street of the day; the ground on the west side open, and a market being there, was known as the Marktvelt, the Market Field, nnd hence a passage to it from Broad-street, the Marktvelt Steegje, Market-Field Lane, The Breeds Weg, the Broad Way, at times known by a feodal appellation, the Heere Weg, the Lordh Way — A branch of it to the North River, Beaver Lane — an order, 1656 — ''that the ordinary place, for casting anchor in the North River, be before, or near, the 79 Beaver Path." Broad-street originally a graft, u term signifying a ditch in fortification, but when ap- plied to a street, signifying one with a canal in it. While a graft, it was also usually known by the feodal appellation, the Heere Graft, Lordh Graft : and at times also as the Breede, Broad, Graft ; the canal extended as far as Beaver-street, and there divided into two branches, one to the west, the Bee- ver, Beaver, Graft, now Beaver-street, the other to the east, the Prinsen, Prince'^s, Graft, afterward Prmce's-street, now the eastern portion of Beaver- street. The Prince'^s Graft terminated in a Sloot, narrow ditch, and there a landing-place for the coun- try people coming to market in their canoes, now be unflattering to me : they have been, and from onl v 92 being once heard, when read, remembered and />o/?- dered for a full half year. I have understood it is- licld among physicians, that the longer the draught, pill, or bolus, (and my Memoir, perhaps, something not unlike a compound of all three,) is retained, the better, if effect is finally produced; and the more violent the effect, the more they conclude the drug to have been genuine. The intent of the above, is to explain whence the publication of the Memoir, and not the vote of thanks, or even denoting myself a Member of the Society. I interleaved a few copies of the first impression of it, designed for particular distribution, with notes, in manuscript ; none of them, however, as will be per- ceived, tending to vary the import of a single sentence in the text, which, as it is to be my Memorial, must ever remain the same as rearf. No. II. The Memoir is to be considered as a piece in the loom ^ and the subject, as professed, Naincs. to serve- only •' as the ivarp for the interwoven woof ^^^ and, to compare small things with great, in the famous weav- ing match of old, the fair websters had, probably, the iike zvarp — "the skill of the goddess-oxe appeared in the woof; and the four lessons^ the finish of th<* work, decided her victorious." I trust there will no( be found, in my piece, a lesson, whether, as senti- ment, and not just ; or, as hint, or hit, and not fair. There is always an understood limit to the time liUowed for discourses, however variously denomi- jiated. to be read before a society, or other assemblage of persons, convened for the occasion ; hence, as to sundry subjects, comprised in the general one, I was restricted to mere instances, or examples, to aid as inlimations to others- disposed to a farther or mon- 93 particular inquiry ; ia short, bat with a saving from the imputation of a vanity in the first expression in the sentence, I had to make it a multum in parvo. No. III.— Page 6. From the passages' cited from De Laet and Van Der Donck, and from others, relative to it, briefly in- terspersed through the pages, and although some are not citations, still none wholly without vrarrant, may be collected the history of the discovery of the coun- try by the Dutch, and the occupancy and settlement of it by them ; at least as much of it, very probably, as is worth research. No. IV.— Page 11. Petrus Stuyvesant was the last of the Governors of the Colony, under the Dutch. He arrived in 1647. and the records of his administration are duly entire to serve as proof of character. He was of the profes- s-ion of arms, and had lost a hmb in the service ; and hence the Indians, at times, in contumely, called him Wooden-leg — he being their dread ; not unhke them. His skill or experience, and peculiarly his militarj habits, must have stood him in very !)eneficial stead . in his command here, — being incessantly vexed with the marauding clans of the Mohegan family — their homes, then, still adjacent to the Hudson and Rariton, and intermediate waters. Let a few instances suffice : At one time, and w ithin a few weeks after a treaty of amity with them, 700 landed at the town, early in the morning, without notice, armed with bows and arrows ; toward the close of the day they became disorderly : and, on the cry of murder, the inhabitants immediately betook themselves to their arms, and compelled them 9* 91 10 re-embark and retire, witli the loss of three ol'theii- luimber, killed — two of the whites were killed. At another time, they made an irruption into the settle- ment, the site of the present town of Bergen, burnt the houses, killed a number of the inhabitants, and car- ried off 100 of them, prisoners. Again; while h<' was absent, occupied in reducing the Swedish for- tresses on the Delaware, 900 crossed the river, landed at Spuyten-duyvel Creek, took post there, and re- mained until they were apprised that he had returned. Again ; 900 intruded into the town, but perceiving the inhabitants prepared to receive them, they, after a stay of a few hours, went otT. Orders of the govern- ment, during the period, '' forbidding the Skippers to sail on the river, unless in companies of three, or al least two, yachts, well armed ; and the inhabitants to be on their guard against the Indians, and patrol during Divine service, ^^er ric^5." The claims of his neighbours on the east, the whites of New-England, were a source of disquietude and perplexity to him. In one of his letters to hi> principals, the West India Company, cited by our his- torian, he expresses himself, '' You imagine the trou- bles in England will prevent any attempt on these parts ; Alas ! they are ten to one in number to us : and are able, without any assistance, to deprive us of the country when they please ; and their de- mands, encroachments, and usurpations, give the peo- ple great concern ; the right to b(»th rivers, by pur- ehase and possession, being our own, without dis- pute." This indicates not only his suspicion, but u settled apprehension in him, that they meditated, ulti- mately, to wrest from the Dutch the whole of their possessions here ; and the difficulty of his situation was increased by the reflection, that the case, appa- rently, admitted of no rule of compromise, or con- cessions. Indeed, if there were, he had little to hope Jrom good disposition in them ; on the contrary, in 95 llie correspondence, between him and them, they. coarsely, and as if with design to anger, apply the appellation of intruders to the Dutch ; he, however, liesitated not a moment to retort it on them in terms. The Connecticut men, at one time, charged him, not only with instigating the Indians to it, but even with an intended personal agency, as an accomplice with them, in a plot to massacre all the whites in their Colony, and the writer of their History gives the outrageous calumny, as a fact, in his narrative. They certainh ought, at least, to have supposed for him, that he had read his Bible, and heeded its contents ; so that, " be- fore going to make war against them, he would have sat down and consulted^ whether he were able, with his One, to meet them coming against him with their Ten,'>' The Director, or Governor, and his Council, were a Court of Justice in the last resort ; and in criminal cases, highly penal, they had both original and exclu- sive jurisdiction. It was not unusual with them, when differing, to give their opinions seriatim, and in writing, and which were entered at large in their Journal. Those by Stuyvesant, shew him to have been deliberate and impartial in his inquiries, distinct in his perception^;, and by no means uninformed respecting the princi- ples of criminal jurisprudence. Undaunted — Firm ; never abating of steadfastness in his purposes — Vigilant ; not a moment without heed : and unceasing in his care for the protection, and otherwise for the welfare of those in charge to him. His administration, perhaps his life, through- out, at no time at variance with just principle and sound sense. In fine, the whole of the duties of the trust, and the whole of his character considered. it may be questioned, v/hether the chief magistrac} . among us, has ever been confided to an individual more adequate to it, or of more worth. 96 xNo. v.— Page 23. That ilie French, instead of landing at Mallebane. to abide there, or pursuing their voyage farther, did discern it more eligible to return to Port Royal ; and, so discerning, did return, to be ascribed to Proxidena. to the Deity; such hi? purpose^ and the mind and loill of man subservient to it. What this doctrine / May it not challenge denial / If admitted, what noi the conclusion'/' No. VI.— Page 24. The present Constitution — for the thitherto rccci\ - t'd ]usi federal exposition of it, as to the soxcreignlif of the S7flf/e-Go\ernmcnts in their relation to the sovereignti/ o( the General Government; the follow- ing extract from a note from the Commissioners, on the part of New- York, to those on the part of New- Jersey, in tlic conferences between them, 1807, rela- tive to the jurisdiction of the Hudson, where it flow.- between the two States ; New-Jersey insisting, as one ground of claim to it, to the middle of the channel. New- York having always exercised it to the shore on the New-Jersey side — that she was an independent sovereign State — the extract : " New-Jersey was always an independent, sovereign State, as against New-York both de facto and de jure ; and, on the principle of the American Revolution, she was always so dc jure, as against Great Britain ; with this excep- tion, that (he Prince, possessing the British crown for the time being, was her sovereign, entitled to, and ex- ercising, the like powers and prerogatives as in Great Britian, and of consequence in whom the supreme* exe< iiti-.e power was vested, and to whom, as po^- 97 scssing especially the fecial powers, as they are some- times termed, the powers of peace and war, the duty of allegiance was due ; with whose concurrent agenc} in her legislature, she could " raise armies, maintain navies, regulate commerce and navigation, lay and collect duties on imports and exports, and tonnage on vessels, naturalize foreigners, coin monies," and assert, and vindicate her rights as to her boundaries, and which she actually did as to her northern boundary ; except the last, however, all the rights or powers here enumerated, the indicia of sovereignty, she has, equally with the State of New- York and every other State in the Union, delegated or ceded to the general sove- reignty of the United States, and is now perhaps more to be likened to a corporation with certain powers, none more plenary than that of life and death for breaches of her own internal peace ; and is no other- wise indepedent than as she holds such powers inde- pendent of the general sovereignty, but still, in a sense, at the will of the legislatures or conventions of three-fourths of the states." Note — suppletory to the above. The legislature of Virginia, February, 1786, pro- posed to the States, a Convention of Commissioners, to meet at Annapolis, in Maryland, in September, " to consider how far an uniform system, in their commer- cial intercoui'se and regulations, might be necessary to their common interest and permanent harmony ; and to report an act, relative to this great object, which, when ratified, would enable the United States in Con- gress assembled, effectually to provide for the same." The measure being approved, the legislature of this State appointed their Commissioners, Messrs. Duane, Gansevoort, R. C. Livingston, Hamilton, and me. Mr. Gansevoort wholly declined the appointment: and when the time for the Convention to assemble. 98 approached, Mr. Diiane gave notice to his colleagues of indisposition, and Mr. Livingston of a probable detention by business, for some days, at least. I wa*^ Attorney-General, and, at the time, in Albany, attend- ing the Supreme Court, and it became doubtful, whe- ther the public business would not detain me. A casual conversation between the late Mr. Justice Ho- bart and me, the intended Convention the subject, terminated in a conclusion, that the present oppor- tunity for obtaining a Convention to revise the whole of our mode or system of General Government, by confederation or league, ought not to be suffered to pass ; that I should consign over the business of the court, to some friend to conduct it for me; proceed to New- York, and communicate to Mr. Hamilton what had passed between us ; which I did ; and he instantly concurring, we set out for Annapolis, where we found Commissioners from New-Jersey, Penn- sylvania, Delaware, and Virginia. Here the same being substantially repeated, and there being the hkt; instantaneous concurrence, a committee was appoint- ed to prepare an address to the States, which was reported and agreed to ; the whole in the course of not exceeding three or four days, and we separated. The draft was by Mr. Hamilton, although not formality one of the committee. It is to be found [jrinted, in Carey's American Museum for April, 1787 ; and con- cludes, '' with a suggestion by the Commissioners, with the most respectful deference, of their sincere conviction, that it might essentially tend to advance the interest of the Union, if the States, by whom they had been respectively delegated, would concuj- themselves, and use endeavours to procure the con- currence of the other States, in Uie appointment of Commissioners to meet at Philadelphia, on the second Monday in May, to take into consideration the situa- tion of the United States, and to devise such farther provisions as should appear to them necessary to 99 jender the Constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union." Is this entitled to be veiwed as the origin of the present Constitution ? No. VII.—Page 31. We have Milton for it, that Sir He was expressly ''formed for Contemplation and Valour'''' — has n6t Lady She, as often as she has chosen it, shown her- self, with her '''Softness and Grace," as potently endowed ? No. VIII.— Page 49. " Homo sum^ humani nihil a me alienum puto.'"' I AM a Dutchman, and so think nothing, which con- terns the Dutch, of unconcern to me. Note to a sermon, in commemoration of the landing of the New-England Pilgrims, delivered 22d Decem- ber, 1820, by John Chester, pastor of the second presbyterian church in Albany : " It seems to be admitted, that the captain of the ship had been bribed, by some interested persons, to land them far north of the place they intended. After they had found Cape Cod, they would have gone to the Hudson ; but the captain would not proceed ; and in a short time the severity of the season made it im- possible." 1 presume it will be conceded to me, that the pas- sages in the Memoir, from the historiographer of Con- necticut, were utterly unentitled to be otherwise no- ticed than they were ; but the Discourse, to which the note, the subject of the present note to the Memoir, is attached, bespeaking the preacher as possessing, with ingenuousness of disposition, and courtesy of man- 100 'uers, a correct, cultivated, mind, a charge from him is not to pass as unmeriting to be regarded. The an- swer, however, will not be laboured. It will consist wholly of extracts from Neal's History of New-Eng- land, 1 722, and Hutchinson's History of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, 1 760, which, with the in-' ferences they will themselves suggest, and a few I may, for the greater certainty, intimate, will, I con- tide, suffice to undeceive him. Extracts from Neal : — *'0n the 5th August, 1620. both -ships, the Speedwell of 60 tons, and the May- Flower of 180 tons, sailed, in company, from South- hampton, for New-England ; but, before they got to Ihe Land's End, Captain Reynolds, master of the Speedwell, complained that his ship was so leaky that he durst not venture out to sea in her. Upon which they put into Dartmouth to have her caulked. They then put to sea a second time ; but when they had sailed about 100 leagues, Mr. Reynolds alarmed the passen- gers again, telling them he should certainly founder at sea, if he held on the voyage ; so both ships put back again into Plymouth, and the Speedwell was dismissed as unfit for the voyage. The whole company, being about 120, were now stowed, in one ship, which sailed out of Plymouth on the 6th of September, and, after a long and dangerous voyage, they fell in with the land at Cape Cod, on the 9th of November following. Here they refreshed themselves about half a day ; then tacked to the southward for Hud- son's River, but Mr. Jones, the master, had, it seems, been bribed by the Hollanders to carry them more to the north, the Dutch intending themselves to take possession of these parts, as they did some time after. Instead, therefore, of putting out to sea, he entangled among dangerous shoals and breakers, where, meetina with a storm, the ship was driven back again to the Cape ; upon which they put into the harbour, and resolved, considering the season of the year, to at- 101 tempt a settlement there, and not proceed forward to the River." After speaking of the attempt, by Sir Richard Grenville, to plant a Colony at Roanoke Island, in 1 585, and which finally failed, he concludes the passage, " that several other attempts were made, in the Queen's time, toward a settlement in these parts, but they all miscarried." Extracts from Hutchinson : — " Gosnold, an Enghsh- man, made a voyage, in 1602, to that part of North America since called New-England, and landed on the eastern coast, in about 43 degrees north latitude, and it is not certain any European had been there before him." " He landed on one of the Elizabeth Islands, and gave them that name, in honour of Queen Elizabeth, and built a Fort, and intended a settlement on the island, or the continent near it, but could not persuade his people to remain there, and they all re- turned to England before winter." " King James, in 1606, claiming the territory, by the discovery of tlui Cabots, granted all the continent of North America, from 34 to 45 degrees, which he divided into two Colonies, viz : the southern, or Virginia, to certain merchants of London ; and the northern, or New- England, to merchants of Plymouth — New-England to begin at the 40th degree." " Popham and others, patentees of the northern Colony, began a settlement at Sagadoc ; and the next year, those which survived the winter, returned to England; their design of a plantation being at an end." " Whether Britain would have had any Colonies in America at this day, if religian had not been the grand inducement, is doubtful. One hundred and twenty years had passed from the discovery of the northern continent by the Cabots, without successful attempts ; and after re- peated attempts had failed, it seems less probable that any should undertake such an affair, than it woi^ld have been if no such attempt had ever been made." • Per&ecutio*v drove one Mr. Robinson and bi» 10 102 church, from England to Holland." " In 1 6 1 7, they be- gan to think of removing to America." " The Dutch laboured to persuade them to go to Hudson'' s River and settle under their West-India Company, hut they had not lost their affections for the English, and chose to be under their government and protection,'^'' " Some of the chiefs of them addressed the King, to grant them liberty in religion under the great seal, which he re- fused." " They laid aside the design for that year." •• In 1619, they renewed their application, and resolv- ed to venture, though they could not have a special grant from the King, of liberty of conscience." "In July, 1620, the principal of them went over to South- hampton, where the ships were ready to take them on board." " They sailed the beginning of August, but were obliged, repeatedly, to put back, and leave one of their ships behind, with part of the company, at last. They intended for Hudson's River, or the coast, near it, but the Dutch had bribed their pilots and he carried them farther northward, so that they fell in about Cape Cod, and arrived in that harbour the nth November." "The harbour is good, but the country is sandy and barren. This was dis- <:ouraging, but it was too late to put to sea again." Extracts from Hutchinson, in continuation : — '• I think I may with singular propriety, call their lives a pilgrimage, ' tantum religio potuit suadcrc,'' " " It was about the 8th or 9th November, before they made Ihe coast of America, and, falling more to the north- ward than they intended, they made another attempt to sail farther southward, but meeting with contrary winds and hazardous shoals, they were glad to put into the harbour of Cape Cod, determined to winter in the most convenient place they could iind. This disappointment was grievous to them ; but before the spring they considered it as a favourable providence ^ they were so reduced in the winter by sickness and death, they suppe.scid (hey must have faflen a pi*ey to 103 ibe Indians on Hudson's River, where tliej proposed to begin a Colony." " The master, or pilot, it is said. bribed by the Dutch West India Company, had enga- ged, at all events, not to land them at Hudson's River, but they were determined on it, and earlier in the year he would have found it difficult to have diverted them." " The whole number, exclusive of mariners, amounted to 101 ; about one-fourth heads of families, and the rest, wives, children, and servants." " They came out to seek a vacuum domicilium. (a favourite expression,) in some part of the globe, where they would, according to their own apprehension, he free from the control of European joozuer." I assume it, that, from these extracts, there is suffi- cient, as between the English and the other European powers, for the intendment of a dereliction by them, previous to the voyage of Hudson, of whatever right had accrued by the discovery of the Cabots, at least as it respects the territory westward from Elizabeth Islands to the Delaware, and the present purpose requires no more, and consequently the occupancy of the Dutch, rightful. The historians furnish no authority for the charge of the hrihe^ nor even an intimation how this " thing of darkness was brought to light." The two captains, doubtless, before their departure from Southampton, agreed on a rendezvous on the coast, in the event of separating on the passage 5 hence, they must alike have been " participants in the crime." One of them finally staid behind. Did he, to disburden his con- science, disclose it, and, to show the sincerity of his contrition, disburden himself of his share of the recompense for it ? The voyage laid aside, always a return of premium — indeed, may it not be asked, whether the narrative, in reference to the fact, th/' alleged corruption, is reconcileable with itself through- out. The passage expressed, " that they came out to seek a vacuum domicilium in some part of the globe 104 where they would, according to their own apprehen- sion, be free from the control of European power,'* certainly merits peculiar notice ; and in my view of it, may serve satisfactorily for the inference, that these justly styled pilgrims, meritorious beyond commend- ation, forsook their homes without reflecting, and not unnatural, " distressed and perplexed as they were on every side," there was no such refuge, as they sought. to be found here, a space unclaimed, unoccupied, and exempt from metropohtan control and intolerance, for that their sovereign had already granted the whole of the coast, with extensive adjacent territory, to their fellow-subjects, the patentees, the merchants of Lon- don, or the merchants of Plymouth, mentioned b^ Hutchinson, so that when they parted from the shores of the one continent, it was with no other than a general destination to reach those of the other by the most direct course the winds should permit ; and assuredly we must presume for them, they were wholly una- ware, that the instant they landed, with intent to pos- sess, they were, by the law which necessarily followed them, to be declared trespassers on the property oi others. No. IX.— Page 44. PERjiArs what is already found in the text of the Memoir, on the subject to which this Note relates, might be deemed suflicient whence to collect the whole of the character of the Dutch Colonists ; for, if not too far-fetched, may not stability, and espe- cially as it regards communities, be considered so the greater, as necessarily to contain, or imply, every other quality, however estimable, as the less. But it having been intimated that, although there is sufficient, and possibly some may think even to spare, as to the '•Uitiesp the abodes of the ''men,'^^ the inhabitants ^ 105 still that a modicum more, as to their ^^ manners,^' would not come amiss ; hence, the few following paragraphs. The distinction between the two classes, under the degree of knighthood, and, to borrow the English terms whereby to denote them, gentlemen, or those entitled to bear arms, to show descent, and yeomen^ prevailed in Holland, not less than elsewhere through- out Europe, at the period of the settlement of the country by the Dutch ; with an exception, therefore, of those who came over in public trust, and a few more, still capable to trace their family to a colony original of note or condition, the others, generally, husbandmen, mechanics, or traders ; and therefore, probably not more than one, in some scores, a gentle- man, in its sense as defined, and so no other ancestry to boast, than honest parentage. It may be perceived from the text of the Memoir, that I have not an opi- nion widely different as to the English colonists — ''that hoyr&veY faultless iheiT lives diud fidelity, still, as to race and revenue, both alike plebeian, and not more of nobility in the one than the other." Negro slavery, common, at the time, to all the colonies on our continent, whichsoever of the Euro- pean States the metropolitan — so far, perhaps, in exte- nuation. A milder form of it than among the Dutch of New-Netherland, scarcely to be imagined. The power of the master to punish, understood not to ex- ceed moderate correction by stripes. Where a handi- craft, there in the same workshop ; where a husband- man, there in the same field — the slave merely a fel- low-labourer with the master, " fulfilling only the like tasJc^"^ — always partaking, and alike without stint, of the same fare, the fruit of their joint earnings. Still he was a slave, subject to the will of another, his fellow- man ; and assignable, as the " beast, bom to bear la- bour ;" and surely not among the least of the mercies 106 '. alliijg for praise ; it has been given to us in ilics?- latter days to see the injustice of the bondage. It can hardly be said of the Dutch, they were labo- rious — a more qualified term will suit better — they were diligent ; at no time wholly idle ; on the con- trary, constant and persevering; whatever begun always sure to finish it, and nothing ever slighted — always to finish and never to slight ; not a little of concomitant character imphed in it, and certainly the discretion, '' when intending to build, of sitting down first and counting the cost." Their women, truly assiduous in what appertained to them ; witness the well-kneaded loaf, than which a not more certain sign of housewifery : and, adepts in clecmsing, therefore excelling peculiarly in the dairy ; hence, the well-wrought roll, the companion of the loaf; bread and butter, the hoter-ham of Holland, con- stituting, accordingly, the greater proportion of the sohd food of the family. The Dutch were upright and undisguised in all their intercourse, and hence, the confidence among, them with each other, entire. They were frugal. Here, possibly, we may hesitate to commend unquali- fiedly. Labour is life ; the absence of it, the absence of life ; no limit, therefore, to acquisition. The more knowledge, the more the means of happiness ; the more wealth, the more the means of knowledge. This is earning ; but the lesson to save, is to be prac- tised with great caution, from its almost inevitable tendency to the excess of it, the habit to hoard. The prodigal may be reclaimed from " zuaste,''^ but we have no instance warranting hope of the miser. That the Dutch Colonists should be distant and reserved to strangers, and more so if differing from them in language, would scarcely be to be censured in them; they vvere, however, wholly free trom inci- vility or rudeness ; and certainly not wanting in hog 107 pitality. The poor, and "especially those of the household of faith," indigent communicants, main- tained by the congregations ; and, duly mindful of the apostolic injunction, the Sunday-gatherings for them continued to the present day. A remissness, it must be acknowledged, in them; no provision for the education of their youth. The prevalence of their language, for a great length of time, even after the surrender of the Colony to the Enghsh, and their blame-worthy attachment to it, were impediments, to be left to time to remove ; and to which may be added, that, prior to the close of the war, in 1763, comparatively few strangers of British birth came to reside here. It was from a necessity. imposed on the New-England Colonists, but assuredly not detracting from the merit of it, to train and rear, from among themselves, those who should be qualified to contend for the faith, held, by them, the same "once delivered to the saints." Not so with the Dutch. Their removal hither, wholly spontaneous ; the sole inducement, gain^ either as traders or culti- vators. Their clergy, accordingly, during the period alluded to, natives of Holland, and there educated. At the same time it ought to be mentioned to their credit, that their first care, after providing for their own immediate safety and subsistence, was, to form themselves into congregations, build churches, and call ministers. The call always addressed to the Classis of Amsterdam, the churches in the Colonies being considered as confided to their rule and care. The Dutch clergy being diligent as catechists, the doctrines of the mother-church have through the suc- cessive generations, continued to be taught with unde- viating fidelity and purity ; and on a marriage, and as an article of indispensable garnishment in the house, the foho Bible was procured ; literally in boards, and with clasps of brass correspondently stout ; and read- ing it in the family, the us)ial Sunday evening cm* 108 ployment, and, with the text, always the marginal notes, occupying the greater portion of the page : and still to be resorted to as just comment. They were temperate. Indeed, and in a word, it may safely be said of them, they were without vice ; and perhaps, peculiarly possessing a wisdom, doubtless unspeakably beneath that which is from above, and, dlthouo^h negative, still having its value, the "first," or highest " wisdom" of Gentilism, they were withovl folly; it being certain that conceit, vanity, affecta- tion, caprice, or nonsense, in any of its endless mo- difications, if ever found among the Dutch, rarely so. Such were our grandsires, the Dutch Colonists : Uieir grandsires, the first in the history of nations, who resisted intolerance and oppression and suc- ceeded. No other boast here than that, it is yet to happen that their sons have failed to prove themselves worthy of their lineage. No. X.— Page 44. The pales, enclosing the City Hall, have, since the Memoir, been removed, and their place supplied by a railing of iron ; and, in addition, it is now farther to be hid within rows of trees ; a proper precaution ; be- cause should we apprehend the elfect of a view of it^ ALL AT ONCE, might bc more than we could well bear, we may then take it peicc meal, by peeping from dif- ferent points, over the railing, through the openings : and which will bc quite enough to satisfy us, if curious to know it, whether it actually rests on a base, or, like the mausoleum, the wonder, it is borne in the air. f believe we are alone in the practice of emhowering our public structures of style — perhaps entitled to the very merit of having introduced it. The Dutch Chuch, in William-Street, a rare specimen of correct architecture — rare, as possessing simplicify and imil^, 109 and peculiarly appropriate for a Christian Church : where it is not only permitted to the votaries, but en- joined on them, to assemble within the temple ; hence the Portico of the Pagan, for the accommodation of any to remain without, not there. This building, so cre- ditable to us, is to be sought for in a grove of Button- zoood, " Abraham planted a grove, and there called on the name of the Lord." Afterward expressly forbid- den to his posterity ; " thou shalt not plant there a grove near unto the altar of the Lord ;" from its tendency, a rule for estimating whether we are to do, or to forbear ; the worth of it seldom estimated ; to repeat it, from its tendency to fallacious, hence hurt- ful, associations — the gloom of the shade— the gloom of the gothic cloister — their effect on the imagination to pass for real solemnity of mind — the " contemplations'^"^ of the inmates of the last declared " heavenly !" "All the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever 5 and I will make nations of thee ; and kings shall come out of thee ; and I will establish my covenant to be a God unto thee, and thy seed after thee." These promises, and the command, " thou shalt not,'^'' notwithstanding, the heirs of the promises would have their groves for their false worship, until •' they were smitten for it, and scattered beyond the River." " There have been converts from atheism ; from superstition none, or very rare." More of truth and force in this sentiment, more cases where appli- cable, than, perhaps, we are aware. No. XI— Page 47. " I BEQUEATH my poHtical opinion,'''* Is not this, I bequeath my political wisdom ? I bequeath it to my " country,'''' Except writing one's own Life, can a weakness, or vanity, beyond it, be conceived ? Does not the opinion resolve itself into this — that, to pre- serve the government, /ree, you must contrive it to go n no without the impulse of hire, for labour F Another SAGE, in mind, morals, and religion, about of the same mould; in science about of the same attainment; knowing something of almost all things, master, tho- roughly so, of none, referred to in the sequel, as will be perceived, and also in reference to the subject of government, and especially as discoursing gravely about the happiness of a flock of sheep, and their be- ing under the care of the wolf, and their option to withdraw from it, and take care of themselves, pro- nounced " our Franklin, at fourscorce, the ornament of human nature." Note — Suppletory to the above. We have Franklin-Counties ; Franklin-Towns . Franklin-Streets ; Franklin-Banks ; Franklin-Mar- kets ; Franklin-Hearths ; Franklin-Gridirons ; in short. Churches hitherto excepted, we have scarcely a genus of entity among us, without a species, or at least an individual of it, and the Doctor's name not adjec- ilvely prefixed, in memorial of his own excellence, and thereby to " signify it as a property or quality in the fhing named f^ and finally, as if to crown it, one of the first rates in our navy, named after him, although not bred to the sea, or ever in battle ; on the contrary, his general deportment indicated a preference for "^a- civity ;" so that it would not have been more out of the way for the administration, had they been of a re- ligioso sect, to have called the ship after Job, as the most patient, or after Moses, as the most meek, of men. Congress, by declaring the subjects to furnish the names, all of them importing place, in exclusion of person, have wisely guarded against sectarian predi- lection in future. Extract from Mr. Webster's Discourse, delivered at Plymouth, 22d December 1820, in commemoration of the first setllcmcnt of New-England : Ill ' When the first century closed — the crepuscular light had begun to flash along the cast of a luminary ; and which was to mark the Age, with its own name, as the Age of Franklin." The Doctor, some where, but as I do not, on search, iind it in either of his two Lives ; the one, the little lesson-manual by himself, mentioned in the text of the Memoir 5 the other, his Biography, by his Grandson, since his decease ; a compilation of correspondence and pieces, six volumes octavo^ I presume I must have met with it in some fugitive letter, among those we have seen occasionally, within the few last years, reprinted in our public papers ; " one, and from which, to learn the others,'^'' will, with a few brief remarks, be subjoined to this Note. The passage alluded to, was to the purport, thai his mother told him, if he were diligent to improve himself in learning and knowledge, he might come to be the companion of Princes ; and which he conceived to have actually taken place, when in England, the beginning of the last reign, as agent for Pennsylvania, he was invited to the dinner given by the City of London to the King of Denmark. Little did he dream of the more ample accomplish- ment of the maternal promise or prediction, in reserve for him. Hitherto he had, and on a mere formal, or official, " bidding," as a Colony Agent, his light bor- rozved, been a guest at the same feast made for roy- alty ; he is now, and for attributed personal pre-emi- nence, his lustre his own, to be raised to the very peerage itself of Emperors and Kings. We have heard of an Age, called after Augustus of Rome ; oi one, called after a Lewis of France ; hereafter, we are to hear of one, called after Franklin of America : and a descendant of the heretic-banishing, infidel- anathematizing, puritan forefathers of New-England, who, on landing at Plymouth, as has been carefully handed down to us, for the last fifty of the two hun 112 died }ears IVom the event, all stepped on the same rock, presenting himself as the God-father, giving the name. The rock has lately been weighed from the ooze, and brought high and dry ashore ; hence, the yearly visit to it since. In European Christendom, pilgrimages may be said to have gone into disuse for ages. But, may it not be asked, whether there is not an objection to our taking on ourselves to have an age, and to be suspected as not having occurred, or, if so, not fully considered ? To illustrate, by the Augustan, or Roman, age, there not having been a due " series of years, or flight of times," to pronounce on the immortality of the French age ; and so, at present^ not competent to serve as precedent. The Augustan Age has become famous, from the writers who flourished in it ; and the name, compU- mental to Augustus, whose reign the era, and to whose patronage it is intended to be ascribed, that they were so numerous, and every of them so excel- ling ; we, however, select the patron from the very ranks of the writers themselves ; and, I should not be surprised, if we were to have the whole European monarchy of letters on our backs, for the innovation, . not less unclassical than incongruous. For, granting we have the requisite complement of them, even with the Doctor himself to spare, and of due celebrity to pass as, and for, the American Classicks j still, the specified correlative, regalia, prince, reign, and pa- tron, wanting, the objection remains, and we, of course, as yet, not susceptible of an age. The letter, above referred to : " The following is a letter from Dr. Franklin to the celebrated Mr. Whitefield. His ideas of religion are given in a more favourable light than some have been willing to place them. His tenets were at variance with the established faith. No person, however, can 113 doubt that he possessed the essentials. If charily is a Christian virtue, then Frankhn's Hfe illustrated it." Thus far the Editor. Now the letter: " For my own part, when I am employed in serving- others, I do not look upon myself as conferring favours, but as paying debts. In my travels, and since my settlement, I have received much kindness from men to whom I shall never have any opportunity of making the least direct return, and numberless mercies from God, who is infinitely above being bene- fitted by our services. These kindnesses from men. I can, therefore, only return on their fellow-men ; and I can only show my gratitude for these mercies from God, by a readiness to help his other children and my brethren. For I do not think that thanks and com- pliments, though repeated weekly, can discharge our real obligations to each other, and much less to our Creator. You will see, in this, my notion of good works ; that I am far from expecting to merit heaven .by them. By heaven, we understand a state of hap- piness, infinite in degree, and eternal in duration : 1 can do nothing to deserve such rewards. He that, for giving a draught of water to a thirsty person, should expect to be paid with a good plantation, is modest in his demands compared with those who think they de- serve heaven for the little good they do on earth. Even the mixed, imperfect pleasures we enjoy, in this world, are rather from God's goodness, than our merit: how much more such happiness of heaven. For my own part, I have not the vanity to think I de- serve, the folly to expect, nor the ambition to deserve, it ; but, content myself in submitting to the will and disposal of that God who made me, who has hitherto preserved and blessed me, and in whose fatherly goodness I may well confide, that he will never make me miserable ; and that even the afflictions I may, at any time, suffer, shall tend to my benefit. The faith 11* 114 you mention, has certainly its use in the world ; I do not desire to see it diminished, nor would I endeavour to lessen it in any man. But, I wish it were more productive of good works, than I have generally seen it : I mean real good works : works of kindness, cha- rity, mercy, and public spirit ; not holiday keeping, sermon reading, or hearing ; performing church cere- monies, or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments, despised by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity. The worship of God is a duty ; the hearing and reading of sermons may be useful, but if men rest in hearing and praying, as many do, it is as if a tree should value itself on being watered and putting forth leaves, though it never produced any fruit. Your great Master thought much less of these outward appearances and profes- sions than many of his modern disciples. He prefer- red the doers of the word to the mere hearers — the son, that seemingly refused to obey his father, and yet performed his commands, to him that professed his readiness, but neglected the work; the heretical, but charitable, Samaritan, to the uncharitable, though orthodox Priest and sanctified Levite ; and those who '^ave food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, raiment to the naked, entertainment to the stranger, and relief to the sick, though they never heard of his Name, he declares shall, at the last day, be accepted, when those who cry. Lord! Lord! who value themselves upon their faith, though great enough to perform miracles. but have neglected good works, shall be rejected. He professed that he came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance ; which implied his modest opinion that there were some, in his time, who thought themselves so good that they need not hear even him for improvement ; but, nowadays, we have scarce a little parson that does not think it the duty of every man, within his reach, to sit under his petty ministrations. 115 and that whoever omits them, offends God. I wish, to such, more humihty, and to you, health and happi- ness, being your friend and servant." I give the above, as I found it in a Cazenovia paper. 1818. Another copy appeared in an Albany paper, 1820, with the Doctor's name subscribed, and a date. as to time, 1 752 ; but without a direction. A short introductory paragraph, wanted in the copy here presented, mentions it as having been written on the fourth day from the date of the one to which it pur- ports to be an answer. Rather off hand. It is obvi* ously studied. The Doctor's art has here failed him '^io conceal his aH." In 1752, the Doctor was in America, and Whitefield in England, so that the sug- gestion of the Cazenovia editor, that the latter was the correspondent, not possible to be true. These two copies must have been reprinted from distinct papers, serving as originals to the respective editors. The Doctor himself, doubtless, furnished the copy, in the first instance, for pubUcation ; abundant proof be- ing to be found, in Almanacks and newspapers, of his readiness to comply with the rule, " for you to know is nothing, unless you give it to another, that he also know what you know;" indeed, I presume there never was a previous letter, and so the whole di fable. to be denominated the apologue of the Doctor and his /e/^ne J correspondent — wholly ?ieto ; a species of the for ensick j and the question the Doctor makes his correspondent propound, by way of challenge, is. whether faith, without works, not preferable to works. without faith ? The Doctor negaiur. Now, as faith, without works, is dead, and so no faith ; and as works, not done in faith, are not acceptable, and so no works ; the terms explained, the question vanishes. There is, in one view of them, a difference, material in the question, of more or less merit — if such a question there can be ; martyrs have suffered for the faith which "came to them by hearing;" such the ap- 116 pointed means ; works^ and peculiarly those specified by the Doctor, and distinguished by him as real good works, have, as they ought to have, i\\e praise, and so the reward, of men ; but hence, not possible the doers should ever be called to suffer for them. The Doctor vouches THE GREAT TEACHER, " that the doers are to be preferred to the hearers of the word." True : but why not vouch him, when replying to the inquiry of his followers, " what they were to do to work the works of God ?" The reply — "The work of God is to believe on him whom he hath sent." To have cited this teaching, as it would have been an acknow- ledgment of faith in the messenger, and, of course, in the message, " that he came to save that which was lost," would have been, in the phraseology of dispu- tants, and now, from use, legitimately English, a/*e/o de se ; the very pith of the moral, or rather, inteiprc- tation, of the Doctor's/«6/e being, man never lost j never a lapse of him. Peculiar praise oi good works. when in contrast w\th faith, and especially, as in the present instance, if an entire silence, at the same time, as to those which arc evil, ever to excite suspi- cion, there is something rt'?7z/y intended, and you would never have persuaded the jealous, shrewd, earnest, puritan, the pilgrim, otherwise than that, in the Doc- tor' 8 preach?nent about them, he saw the very clef I track throughout. There is a rule, " that what you dare not do directly, you shall not betake yourself to do it obliquely,'''' Rather strict for constant observ- ance — an avowed, or direct, attack on Christianity, not always safe. These parsons, with their lank heads, and their long prayers, ''filed zuith flatteries and compliments to the Deity i'''^ flatteries and compli- ments to the most high and all-perfect ! When the pen indited this sentence, ought we not, in charity, to suppose an entire suspension of thought for the mo- ment? These parsons, to repeat it, " /^///e," and big, like their predecessors of old, at times thwarting and 117 troubling the philosophic Israel ; a host, and not a lew of them, masters in the science of argument, the Doctor, therefore, aware, not discreet to measure wea- pons with them ; the more so, as skill in eclecticks, to discern the relation hetweenpremises and consequence, not his best skill. Take a sample from his reasonings before us. " I have not the vanity to think I deserve heaven as reward, nor the folly to expect it as of merit, but content myself in submitting to the disposal of that God who made me, and who has hitherto pre- served and blessed me, and in whose fatherly goodness I will confide, that he never will make me miserable ;" so that, because his Maker has blessed him in a state of probation here, therefore he will bless him in a state of retributionheTediiter — how logically just the deduction / To notice, and merely to notice, a single expression more, and to finish : " God will never make me mise- rable." Whence has Doctor Franklin it, that the Creator ever makes his creatures miserable ? Is not the misery of maii, wholly chargeable on himself^ no faith in the revelation, his Creator has vouchsafed him of the means to be saved from it ? No. XII.— Page 49. The Bank of New- York was not incorporated by the legislature until 1791, a period of six years from its establishment, during which it was a partnership, the stockholders, as partners, liable in their several persons and estates, on the notes or bills ; still doing business, with like credit, and like profit to themselves and accommodation to the public, as afterwards. The restraining act was passed in 1 804 ; and, in the intermediate time five other banks were incorporated, and they have multiplied since, to the session of 1816. inclusive, to twenty more ; and of them a number, I leave it to every one to inquire, and ascertain it for 118 himself, where, it is believed, in the community, the incorporation proceeded not from worthy motives, in those who granted it, or was obtained by lamentably unworthy means, by those who applied for it — such among the effects of a law, in unnatural or arbitrarv restraint of individual faculty and volition — that the banks have refused to redeem their notes, among the effects of incorporation — one proof among others, and not to be numbered, that abuse and corruption must be the effect, whenever the government, and the more free the fornix the danger of the evil not less to be shunned, the evil itself being surely more to be dreaded, will not be regardful to limit itself, in the exercise of the powers entrusted to it, to their simple, sole, legitimate, object. Protection ; to defend me against hostility from without, against violence and fraud from within, and to provide the requisite means for me to compel others " to render to me my own ;" 0. due administration of justice, and then only to be superadded those regulations, no term more apt, occurring, which utility/, restricted in its sense, to scarcely more than the opposite of inconvenience, and all partaking of rule, may suggest — this the whole necessary, the whole I am entitled to require from the government and consequently the whole it is held to afford to me — this the measure between us of my rights and its duties, and "the law of these duties^ fulfilled," the government will find it has nothing to spare for supererogation. Note — Snppletory to the above. Protection against violence and fraud, and none against slander ? None ! Each one to be the keeper, and so the protector, of his own character. Let him be what he ought to be ; diligent, temperate, upright, heedful; his life "the shield to quench the dart." Was it ever known, that a person of character, truly 119 so, went to law for it ? A solecism in conduct. '' Ac- tions on the case for words,'^'' still a title in our code. Protection, the sole duty of the government ? Most assuredly — for what is government ? May it not be de- fined in a sentence ? The best practical combination of private or separate right, with public or aggregate force. Why the entire surrender of private or sepa- rate property to the government ? For the sake of aggregate force. Why aggregate force ? For the sake of mutual safety. If so, then when the govern- ment requires from me a portion of my property, or ''substance,^'' for any other purpose, doth it not usurp on my private or separate volition or option, whether I will, or will not, contribute, and especially if the purpose partake of eleemosynary ? surely, alms, falsely so called, if by coercion, A surrender of my life to the government ; entitled to require from me to ex- pose it to the forlorn hazard. The same question occurs here, and the same answer. For what pur- pose ? General or mutual safety. In a word ; why the public purse at the disposal of the government ; or, to make the illustration more apt, to substitute the term, "ruler?" Because the trust in him "to bear the public sword, and not in vain, but as the means to enable him to bear it as a revenger, to execute wrath on those that do evil." It has been stated, that one branch of protection, is, " to provide the means to compel others to render to me my own,'''' Are not courts of justice emphati- cally the means ? What is a government, and however to be preferred as more free, not having an enlight- ened, impartial, efficient administration of justice? He, who, though he have the utterance of an angel, a knowledge to understand all mysteries, a faith to REMOVE MOUNTAINS, a beneficeuce to others to the impoverishment of himself, and the zeal of a martyr, what is he if he have not love ? Sound ; noise ; nay. nothing. 120 No. XIII.— Page 52. "In Congress — 1th August, J 783. '* Resolved, unanimously, (ten States being pre- !?ent,) that an Equestrian Statu .e of General Washing- ton be erected at the place where the residence of Congress shall be established — that it be of Bronse — that the General be represented in a Roman dress, holding a truncheon in his right hand, and his head encircled with a laurel wreath — that it be supported by a marble pedestal, on which are to be represented, in basso releivo, the following principal events of the war, in which the General commanded in person, viz : the evacuation of Boston — the capture of the Hes- sians at Trenton — the battle of Princeton — the action of Monmouth — and the surrender of York. On the upper part of the pedestal to be engraved as follows : The United States, in Congress assembled, ordered this Statue to be erected in the year of our Lord, 1783; in honour of George Washington, the illus- trious Commander in Chief of the Armies of the United States of America, during the War which vin- dicated, and secured, their Liberty, Sovereignty, and Independence." The inquiry — Whence this Vote or Vow, still un- fiilfilled ? The answer — According to the Memoir, the money nV:?e — all, all. extinct ! No. XIX.— Page 82. In addition to the passage in the text, in Italics, as to the principle of the Revolution, the ^om( between the Colonists and the mother country, the following further extracts from the Note mentioned in Note No. 6 ; New Jersey, as a distinct ground of claim, insisting on a sovereignty as derived from the Revolu- tion — the extract : " Neither will any supposed change in the condition of New-Jersey by the Revolution affect the case. The Parliament, or Legislature, of the mother country, claimed a right to pass laws binding on the Colonies. The Colonists claimed to be entitled to like rightf= 124 wiih their fellow-subjects in Britain, and so not bound by any law to which they did not assent, or, in effect, to be sovereign, or independent of the parliament. Attempts were made to define the nature or extent of the sovereignty to be retained or enjoyed by the Co- lonies, or to establish 2i fundamental between the Par- liament and them, and they to remain members of the empire, thereby to preserve the unity of it ; all of which failed, inasmuch as they would only have ter- minated in the incongruous and futile mode of govern- ment, an imperium in imperio ; and there being no alternative between an absolute submission to the will of the Parliament and the empire remain entire, and an absolute independence of such will, and, of course, Cci>f severance of the empire, the Colonists resolved on the latter. Such is the simple principle of the Ame- rican Revolution. The question was hmited as to parties, it being between the Parliament and the Co- lonists, and not between the Colonists themselves; and also as to its subject, it being a more legal ques- tion arising in the British Constitution. Note — suppletory to the above. Perhaps the question may more precisely be stated ; how the principle in the British Constitution, in regard to the people, they viewed as represented in the House of Commons, a branch of the legislature, and so deno- minated when to be distinguished from the King and the Lords, the other two branches, legislation and representation inseparable, is to be applied to the peo' pie of the Colonies, in their relation to the people of the metropolitan community, it not being practicable for them to participate in the representation "! Wholly inapplicable, sdij the parliament ; and therefore, /rom necessity we must legislate for them. Such our claim. No, reply the Colonists ; there is an alternative in the 125 carie, and rightful for us to avail ourselves of it ; to separate from you, and form representative govern- ments of our own. Such our counter-claim* This statement of the question results in a distinct and complete issue in laio between the parties ; and, if so, does it not follow, that the instrument^ the formal annunciation of the independence, usually known as the declaration of it, is hiisconceived ? Instead of leaving the controversy as resting on the merits of the claim, and counter-claim, of right, abstracted from fact, there being none in question between the par- ties, it enumerates a series of acts on the part of the government of the parent State, some by the King, separately, as in the exercise of his prerogative, others as conjunctly with the other two branches of the legislature, the whole charged as oppressions, and the King thereupon denounced a tyrant. Admitting them, for the sake of the argument, still they being with intent to enforce the claim, or overt-acts of it, they aught alike to have been resisted, even if as un- detrimental as an entry on lands to preserve a right. As proof they would have been resisted, take the fol- lowing, from the address of the first Congress, to the people of Great Britain : " Know then, that we con- sider ourselves, and do insist that we are, and ought to be, as free as our fellow-subjects in Britain; and that 710 power on earth has a right to take our property from us without our consenf'^ — " that we will never submit to be hewers of wood or drawers of water for any ministry or nation in the world j'^'* and, to add to the solemnity of the asseveration of claim, the language of the Volume of the Book selected to express it. The whole pecuharly bespeaking the character of the indi« vidual who prepared it, John Jay. It was not possi- ble for us to recede, and no calculation our adversa- ries would not persist. Such the spirit of 1774, to correct the anachronism of 1776. 126 According to the general tenor, however, of the declaratioji, the actual oppressions charged in it, are made the cause, and to adopt its diction, '' for decla- ring ourselves absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between us and the State of Great Britain is and aught to be dissolved;" or, in a word, the cause of the Revolution; thereby not only placing it on other than its simple true ground ; but also obviously detracting from the merit of it. Abject those not resisting oppression; degrees more so, if the op- pressor an individual tyrant. The reptile will turn when trodden on. In short, if the statement here of the precise principle, or the point, of the Revo- lution, correct, then how much of the preamhh to the declaration might not have been spared. Pub- licly reading it has become a part of the ceremonial when assembled to celebrate the anniversary of it. Introduced by the Tammany Society or, Columbian Order when instituted in 1787. The Memoir asserts the liberty of the Revolution an " original liberty. What would we think of one, entitled to hold by prescription, still insisting to hold by grant, and have it annually publicly proclaimed as his origin of right ? But is there not a farther, and more serious, question here; and to be hoped hitherto not per- ceived ? This formula not known during the war for the Independence. The treaty of peace put an end to the struggle. Now the question: Did it not also, as from its very nature, impose it on the parties as a mutual duty between them, an OBLIVION of aggression; or, in the diction of the DIVINE pacificator, " a forgiveness of tres- PASSES ?" 127 No. XX — Page 83. A CcELEBS myself, and recommending the eur- ^e.^ search for a wife! Is the hand, the pointer, less to be heeded, when showing the right road to others, because itself not going it? Neither will I suppose the adage obsolete; " Jstihil dulcius amico monitor e,^^ Epitaph of Prior, the poet, by himself, in the teign of Wilham the third: " Nobles and Heralds by your leave, I rr.?^^® ^*^^ ^^^* °"^ ^^s Matthew Prior : * The son of Adam and of Eve, Let Bourbon or Nassau go hi^hei .*" FINIS. J ■I r^i-^^ ^/j ^ij?t^^-4i^, //L^-,7^^{^^ ^k^fd^^^ct^-n/L; JL CORRECTIONS. Page 27, line 1, the wanting between in and Diii'/n 31, 20, Antonio to be Antonia. 39, 8, Aufscher to be Aufscher. 40, 6, convent to be convert. 55, 17, Dafs to be DaZs. 55, 28, Fonteyn to be Fonteyne«. 68, 5, mentionerf to be mention. 70, 15, form to be from. 75, 3, their to be there. 7f). 22, Stadhny's to be Stad/hny'?. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS illlii I ii III \\\i iiii>>< 'ii 00141146890