- \ 
 
L I 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 Miss Ethel Bicker 
 
 from the 
 
 Library of her Father 
 Nathan Clifford Ricker 
 Head of the Department of 
 Architecture, 1873-1911 
 
 973 
 
L16I I 
 
r 
 
 1 
 
SCRIBNER'S 
 
 POPULAR HISTORY OF 
 THE UNITED STATES 
 
. 
 
 
. 
 
SCRIBNER'S 
 
 POPULAR HISTORY OF 
 THE UNITED STATES 
 
 FROM THE EARLIEST DISCOVERIES OF THE WESTERN 
 HEMISPHERE BY THE NORTHMEN TO THE PRESENT TIME 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 
 
 SIDNEY HOWARD GAY 
 
 NOAH BROOKS 
 
 WITH MORE THAN SIXTEEN HUNDRED 
 ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS 
 
 VOLUME I 
 
 NEW YORK 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1896 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1876, BY 
 SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1881, 1896, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 RIGHT OF TRANSLATION RESERVED 
 
 Press of J. J. Little & Co. 
 Astor Place, New York 
 
/tfa 
 
 I 
 
 
 PUBLISHERS' INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE plan of the Popular History of the United States, now finally 
 completed, was laid before Mr. William Cullen Bryant in 1874, and 
 actual work was begun in the following year. It was Mr. Bryant's 
 ambition and the purpose of the publishers to produce not only the 
 best but the most comprehensive history of the country that had been 
 or could be written in a popular form. 
 
 Under the supervision and leadership of Mr. Bryant, Mr. Sydney 
 Howard Gay, long Mr. Bryant's chief assistant in the editorial man- 
 agement of the " Evening Post," was selected as the best equipped 
 of all known to him to undertake the actual writing of such a work. 
 
 
 
 Mr. Bryant's editorial supervision was to be constant and active 
 throughout the entire preparation of the history, and the clear and 
 vigorous Preface which he wrote (still retained in the completed 
 work) laid down the lines of what he had in mind. In fact, how- 
 ever, he was able to read the proofs only of the first and second 
 I volumes before his death. Mr. Gay carried on the work to the com- 
 
 pletion of the original scheme. He had several assistants in the 
 
 ^ 
 
 collection and preparation of material, and one important contributor 
 in the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, who wrote the chapters in the 
 second volume upon the Spanish Colonization in the Southwest. 
 
 Because of the very nearness of the Civil War and its consequences 
 to the time at which the history was begun, much less space was 
 accorded to the latter half of this century than its importance now 
 calls for. Since the rise of the great literature concerning the Civil 
 War, it has been possible to give to that passage of the great narra- 
 tive a scale equal to that of the rest, and to take advantage of the 
 invaluable material ungathered or uncodified at the time when Mr. 
 Gay ended his work. Finally, as it has become evident that the 
 

 vm 
 
 PUBLISHERS' INTRODUCTION. 
 
 quarter-century following the war is also to rank as one of the most 
 momentous, perhaps materially the most momentous of our history, 
 it has been felt that no book can now fulfil what this originally 
 aimed to do without bringing the narrative to a very much later time 
 than was at first thought of. 
 
 It was therefore decided a year or two ago by the publishers to 
 remake the History beyond the chapters in the fourth volume 
 which treat of the beginning of the war, and to confide the work 
 of completing the book from that time to the present, and upon a 
 greatly enlarged scale, to Mr. Noah Brooks, whose qualifications for 
 such an undertaking need no attestation. The plan adopted, besides 
 the rewriting of a portion of the fourth volume, has involved the 
 addition of a fifth, and the narrative is now continued down to within 
 a year or two of the actual present with a fulness not attempted, it 
 is believed, in any other history of the same comprehensive scope. 
 
 A feature of the history to which from the beginning great care 
 and expenditure have been devoted is its illustration, with which the 
 greatest, pains have been taken, not only as to historical accuracy but 
 as to the quality of its art. The illustrators of the original history 
 were the best men of the day, and the same standard is followed in 
 the new portion, with the additional advantage of the improved pro- 
 cesses for reproduction and perfected printing. The complete work 
 contains over 1600 illustrations, which represent practically every 
 illustrator who has been favorably known for the last twenty years. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THERE are several excellent histories of the United States 
 of North America in print, and it will naturally be asked 
 what occasion there is for another. 
 
 The title of this work is in part an answer to the question. 
 It is intended to be a popular history a work for that large 
 class who have not leisure for reading those narratives which 
 aim at setting forth, with the greatest breadth and variety of 
 circumstance, the annals of our nation's life. At the same 
 time it is the design of the present work to treat the subject 
 more at large than is done in those compends, some of them 
 able in their way, which are used as text-books in the schools. 
 Unlike 'these latter, it is not a compilation from histories 
 already written, but in its narrativje of events and its repre- 
 sentation of the state of our country at different epochs, has 
 derived its materials through independent research from orig- 
 inal sources. It is also within the plan of this work to rely in 
 part for its attraction on the designs with which it is illus- 
 trated likenesses of men conspicuous in our annals, views 
 of places and buildings memorable in our history, and repre- 
 sentations of usages and manners which have had their day 
 and have passed away. 
 
 But in saying this, we state but a small part of our plan. 
 It is our purpose to present within a moderate compass a 
 view of changes, political and social, occurring within our 
 Republic, which have an interest for every nation in the civil- 
 ized world, and the history of which could not be fully written 
 until now. In the two centuries and a half of our existence 
 as an off-shoot of the great European stock, a mighty drama 
 has been put upon the stage of our continent, which, after a 
 
x PREFACE. 
 
 series of fierce contentions and subtle intrigues, closed in a 
 bloody catastrophe with a result favorable to liberty and 
 human rights and to the fair fame of the Republic. Within 
 that time the institution of slavery, springing up from small 
 and almost unnoticed beginnings, grew to be a gigantic power 
 claiming and exercising dominion over the confederacy, and 
 at last, when it failed in causing itself to be recognized as a 
 national institution and saw the signs of a decline in its polit- 
 ical supremacy, declaring the Union of the States dissolved, 
 encountering the free States in a sanguinary five years' war, 
 and bringing upon itself overthrow and utter destruction. 
 
 We stand, therefore, at a point in our annals where the 
 whole duration of slavery in our country, from the beginning 
 to the end, lies before us as on a chart; and certainly no his- 
 tory of our Republic can now be regarded as complete which 
 should fail to carry the reader through the various stages of 
 its existence, from its silent and stealthy origin to the stormy 
 period in which the world saw its death-struggle, and recog- 
 nized in its fall the sentence of eternal justice. It is instruc- 
 tive to observe how in its earlier years slavery was admitted, 
 by the most eminent men of those parts of the country 
 where it had taken the deepest root, to be a great wrong ; 
 and how afterward, when the power and influence of the 
 slave-holding class were at their height, it was boldly de- 
 fended as a beneficent and just institution, the basis of the 
 most perfect social state known to the world, so powerfully 
 and surely do personal interests pervert the moral judgments 
 of mankind. The controversy assumed a deeper interest as 
 the years went on. On the side of slavery stood forth men 
 singularly fitted to be its champions ; able, plausible, trained 
 to public life, men of large personal influence and a fierce 
 determination of will nourished by the despotism exercised 
 on their plantations over their bondmen. On the other side 
 was a class equally able and no less determined, enthusiasts 
 for liberty as courageous as their adversaries were imperious, 
 restlessly aggressive, ready to become martyrs, and from time 
 to time attesting their sincerity by yielding up their lives. 
 So fierce was the quarrel, and so gener.il was the inclination 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 even in the free States to take part with the slave-owners, 
 that the name of Abolitionist was used as a term of reproach 
 and scorn ; and to point out a man as worthy of wearing it, 
 was in some places the same thing as to recommend him to 
 the attentions of the mob. Yet even while this was a name 
 of opprobrium, the hostility to slavery was gathering strength 
 under a new form. The friends of slavery demanded that 
 the authority of the master over his bondman should be rec- 
 ognized in all the territory belonging to the Union not yet 
 formed into States, in short, that the jurisdiction of the 
 Republic, wherever established, should carry with it the law 
 of slavery. A party was immediately formed to resist the 
 application of this doctrine, and after a long and vehement 
 contest elected its candidate President of the United States. 
 Meantime the rapid settlement of our Pacific coast by a 
 purely free population, in consequence of the opening of the 
 gold mines, showed the friends of slavery that they were to 
 be hereafter in a minority, the power of which would dimin- 
 ish with every successive year. They instantly took the res- 
 olution to revolt against the Union, declared it thenceforth 
 dissolved, and rushed into a war, in which their defeat carried 
 with it the fall of slavery. It fell, dragging down with it 
 thousands of private fortunes, and leaving some of the fair- 
 est portions of the region whence it issued its decrees ravaged 
 and desolate, and others, for a time, given over to a confusion 
 little short of anarchy. 
 
 Writers who record the fortunes of nations have most gen- 
 erally and wisely stopped at a modest distance from the time 
 in which they wrote, for this reason among others, that the 
 narrative could not be given with the necessary degree of 
 impartiality, on account of controversies not yet ended, and 
 prejudices which have not had time to subside. But in the 
 case of American slavery the difficulty of speaking impar- 
 tially both of the events which form its history and of the 
 characters of its champions and adversaries, is far less now 
 than it ever was before. Slavery has become a thing of the 
 past; the dispute as to its rights under our Constitution is 
 closed forever. The class of active and vigilant politicians 
 
xii PREFACE. . 
 
 ,i 
 
 who, a few ' years since, were ever* on the watch for some 
 opportunity of promoting its interests by legislation, is now 
 as if it had never been ; slavery is no longer either de- 
 nounced or defended from the pulpits ; the division of polit- 
 ical journals into friends and enemies of slavery exists no 
 longer, and when a candidate for office is presented for the 
 suffrages of his fellow citizens, it is no longer asked, " What 
 does he think of the slavery question ? " So far, indeed, does 
 this fierce contest seem already removed into the domain of 
 the past, and separated from the questions and interests of 
 the present moment, that when a person is pointed out as 
 having been- a distinguished Abolitionist he is looked at with 
 somewhat of the same historical interest as if it had been 
 said, " There goes one who fought so bravely at Lundy's 
 Lane ; " or, '' There is one who commanded a company of 
 riflemen at the battle of New Orleans." The champions of 
 slavery on one side able men and skilled in the expedients 
 of party warfare, and in many instances uncorrupt and pure 
 in personal character, and the champions of the slave on 
 the other, fearless and ready for the martyrdom which they 
 sometimes suffered, their faculties exalted by a sense of dan- 
 ger, can now, as they and their acts pass in review before 
 the historian, be judged with a degree of calmness belonging 
 to a new era of our political existence. 
 
 But the great conclusion is still to be drawn that the exist- 
 ence of slavery in our Republic was all utter variance with 
 the free institutions which we made^eiir boast ; and that it 
 could not be preserved in the vast growth which it had at- 
 tained without altering in a great degree their nature, and 
 communicating to them its own despotic character. Where 
 half the population is in bondage to the other half there is a 
 constant danger that the subject race will rise against their 
 masters, who naturally look to repression and terror as their 
 means of defence. The later history of slavery in our coun- 
 try is full of examples to show this severe laws against 
 sedition in the slave States, an enforced silence on the subject 
 of human liberty, an expurgated popular literature, and vis- 
 itors to the slave States chased back by mobs across the fron- 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 tier which they had imprudently crossed. It is remarkable 
 that, not very long before the civil war, certain of the south- 
 ern journals began to maintain in elaborate leading articles 
 that the time had arrived for considering whether the entire 
 laboring class of whatever color should not be made the serfs 
 of the land-owners and others of the more opulent members 
 of society. 
 
 A history like this would have been incomplete and frag- 
 mentary had it failed to record the final fate as well as the 
 rise and growth of an institution wielding so vast an influence 
 both in society and politics, with champions so able and reso- 
 lute, organized with such skill, occupying so wide and fertile 
 a domain, and rooted there with such firmness as to be re- 
 garded by the friends of human liberty with a feeling scarcely 
 short ok despair. To have broken off the narrative before 
 reaching the catastrophe, would have been like rising from 
 the spectacle of a drama at the end of the fourth act. Few 
 episodes in the world's history have been so complete in 
 themselves as this of American slavery. Few have brought 
 into activity such mighty agencies, or occupied so vast a 
 theatre, or been closed, although amid fearful carnnge, yet in 
 a manner so satisfactory to the sense of natural justice. 
 
 Here is the place to speak of another important conclusion 
 to be drawn from the result of our late civil war. It has 
 proved the strength of our political system. When the slave 
 States first revolted it is wonderful with what unanimity the 
 people of the Old World, even those who wished well to the 
 Northern States, adopted the conclusion that the Union could 
 endure no longer, and that the bond once broken could never 
 be reunited. Those powers which had regarded the United 
 States as a somewhat uncomfortable neighbor, rapidly becom- 
 ing too strong to be reasonable in its dealings with the mon- 
 archies of Europe, fully believed that thereafter there would 
 exist, on the North American continent, two rival common- 
 wealths of the same origin, yet so diverse from each other in 
 their institutions as to be involved in frequent disagreements, 
 and thus to prove effectual checks upon each other, relieving 
 the European powers from the danger of aggression in this 
 
xiv PREFACE. 
 
 quarter. It was sometimes said by Englishmen who thought 
 that they were speaking in the interest of humanity : "All the 
 interest we feel in your quarrel is this, that you should go to 
 pieces as quickly and with as little bloodshed as possible." The 
 steps taken by Great Britain and France were in accord with 
 the expectation of which I have spoken ; Britain instantly 
 declaring the slave States a belligerent power, a virtual 
 acknowledgment of their independence, and France posting 
 a dependent Prince in Mexico, with the view of intervening in 
 that quarter as soon as it might appear politic to do so. Till 
 the close of our civil war the armed cohorts of France hung 
 like a thunder-cloud over our southwestern border, but the 
 hour never came when the signal might be given for the 
 grim mass to move northward. 
 
 The period of time at which the nation inhabiting the do- 
 main of our Republic came into being is so recent, that we 
 may trace its growth with as much distinctness as if we were 
 the contemporaries of its birth. The records of its early exist- 
 ence have been preserved as those of no other nation have 
 been which has risen to any importance in the annals of the 
 world. To the guidance of these the historian may trust 
 himself securely, with no danger of losing his way among 
 the uncertain shadows of tradition. It is with a feeling of 
 wonder that he sees colonies, planted in different parts of the 
 North American continent so remote from each other, under 
 such different circumstances, and so entirely without concert 
 on the part of the adventurers who led them thither, united 
 at last in a political fabric of such strength and solidity. The 
 columns of the great edifice were separately laid in the wil- 
 derness amid savage tribes, by men who apparently had no 
 thought of their future relation to each other ; but as they 
 rose from the earth it seemed as if a guiding intelligence had 
 planned them in such a manner that in due time they might 
 be adjusted to each other in a single structure. Those who 
 at the outbreak of our civil war administered the govern- 
 ments of Europe had, it is certain, little confidence in the 
 stability and duration of a political fabric so framed. It was 
 loosely and fortuitously put together, they thought, of ele- 
 
PREFACE. xv 
 
 ments discordant in themselves, whose imperfect cohesion a 
 shock like that of the southern revolt would destroy forever. 
 
 It survived that shock, however, and, in part at least, for 
 the very reason of its peculiar structure. It survived it be- 
 cause every man in the free States felt that he was a part of 
 the government ; because in our system of decentralized 
 power a part of it was lodged in his person. He felt that 
 he was challenged when the Federal Government was defied, 
 and that he was robbed when the rebels took possession of the 
 forts of the Federal Government and its munitions of war. 
 The quarrel became his personal concern, and the entire 
 people of the North rose as one man to breast and beat back 
 this bold attack upon a system of polity which every man of 
 them was moved to defend by the feeling which would move 
 him to defend his fireside. Perhaps out of this fortuitous 
 planting of our continent in scattered and independent settle- 
 ments has arisen the strongest form of government, so far as 
 respects cohesion and self-maintenance, that the world has 
 seen. Certainly the experience of the last few years, begin- 
 ning with the civil war, gives plausibility to this idea. 
 
 All the consequences of that war have not been equally 
 fortunate with this. It may be admitted that, in some in- 
 stances, the influence of a military life on the young men 
 who thronged to our camps was salutary, in bringing out the 
 better qualities of their character and moulding it to a more 
 manly pattern, by overcoming the love of ease and accustom- 
 ing the soldier to endure suffering and brave danger for the 
 common cause. Yet it is certain that in other men it en- 
 couraged brutal instincts which had been held in check by 
 the restraints of a peaceful order of things ; that it made 
 them careless of inflicting pain, and indifferent to the taking 
 of life. Accordingly, after the close of the war, crimes of vio- 
 lence became fearfully numerous, men more often carried 
 about deadly weapons, quarrels more often led to homicide, 
 robberies accompanied by assassination were much more 
 frequent, and acts of housebreaking were perpetrated with 
 greater audacity. It would seem invidious to say that these 
 crimes were most frequent in the region which had been the 
 
xvi PREFACE. 
 
 seat of the war ; but it is certain that there the peace was 
 often deplorably disturbed by quarrels between the white race 
 and the colored which led to bloodshed. Thus the state of 
 society left by the war may be fairly put to the account of 
 the great error committed in allowing slavery to have a place 
 among our institutions. 
 
 But while men were watching with alarm these offences 
 against the public peace, it was discovered, with no little sur- 
 prise, that crimes of fraud had become as numerous, and were 
 equally traceable to the war as their cause. So many oppor- 
 tunities had presented themselves of making easy bargains 
 with the agents of the government, and so many chances of 
 cheating the government offered themselves in the haste and 
 confusion with which most transactions of this kind were 
 accomplished, that hundreds of persons of whom little was 
 known save that they had become suddenly rich, flaunted in 
 all the splendor of exorbitant wealth, and exercised the in- 
 fluence which wealth commands. The encouragement which 
 their success and the mystery with which it was accompanied 
 gave to dishonest dealings was felt throughout the commu- 
 nity, and the evil became fearfully contagious. The city of 
 New York was a principal seat of these enormities. In that 
 busy metropolis men are so earnestly occupied with their pri- 
 vate affairs, so absorbed in the competitions of business, that 
 it is not easy to fix the attention of the greater proportion, 
 even of the most intelligent, upon matters of public and gen- 
 eral interest as long as the chances of individual success are 
 left open. But the boundless waste of those who had posses- 
 sion of the public funds, the sudden increase of the city debt, 
 and the enormous taxation to which the citizens were sub- 
 jected, at length alarmed the entire community ; the tax-pay- 
 ers consulted together ; they called in the aid of the most 
 sagacious and resolute men. who with great pains tracked the 
 offenders through all their doublings and laid their practices 
 bare to the public eye. The infamy of those who were con- 
 cerned in these enormities followed their exposure. 
 
 I have already spoken of the contagious nature of these 
 examples of corruption. The determination to effect a reform 
 
PREFACE. xvn 
 
 and drag the offenders to justice, when onoe awakened, spread 
 with equal rapidity. It is remarkable how, immediately after 
 the exposure of the enormous knaveries committed in New 
 York, the daily journals were filled with accounts of lesser 
 villainies in less considerable places. It seemed for a while as 
 if peculation had been taken up by a large class as a profes- 
 sion, so numerous were the instances of detection. The pub- 
 lic vigilance was directed against every person in a pecuniary 
 trust ; some who had never before been suspected found 
 themselves suddenly in the custody of the law, and others, 
 fearing that their turn might soon come, prudently ran away. 
 There never has been a time when it was so dangerous for a 
 public man to make a slip in his accounts. Investigation be- 
 came the order of the day, and a considerable part of the con- 
 tents of every daily paper consisted of the proceedings of 
 committees formed for examining into the accounts of men 
 who held pecuniary trusts. At first sight it seemed as if the 
 world had suddenly grown worse ; on a second reflection it 
 was clear that it was growing better. A process of purgation 
 was going on ; dishonest men were stripped of the power of 
 doing further mischief and branded with disgrace, and men 
 of whom better hopes were entertained put in their place. 
 The narrative of these iniquities could not properly stop short 
 of the punishment which overtook the offenders, and which, 
 while it makes the lesson of their otherwise worthless lives 
 instructive, vindicates to some extent the character of the 
 nation at large. 
 
 In reviewing the history of the last hundred years there is 
 one question which stands out in special prominence : the 
 policy of encouraging domestic manufactures by high duties 
 on goods imported from other countries. It was recommended 
 in the early years of our Republic by Hamilton, whose au- 
 thority had great weight with a large class of his fellow- 
 citizens; and afterwards, under the name of the American Sys- 
 tem, was made the battle-cry of a great party under a no less 
 popular leader, Henry Clay. But after a struggle of many 
 years, during part of which the protective system seemed to 
 have become thoroughly incorporated into our revenue laws, 
 

 
 xviii PREFACE. 
 
 a tendency to freedom of trade began to assert itself. The 
 tariff of duties on imported commodities became from time 
 to time weeded of the provisions which favored particular 
 manufactures, and, although still wanting in simplicity of pro- 
 ceeding and far more expensive in its execution than it should 
 have been, was in the main liberal and not unsatisfactory to all 
 parties. The manufacturers had ceased from the struggle for 
 special duties, and seemed content with those which were laid 
 merely for the sake of revenue. The question of protection 
 was no longer a matter of controversy. 
 
 But the war revived the old quarrel, and left it a legacy to 
 the years which are yet to come. When the southern mem- 
 bers at the beginning of the war withdrew from Congress, 
 there were found, among those whom they left in their seats, a 
 majority who had been educated in the Henry Clay school of 
 politics, and were therefore attached to the protective system. 
 In laying taxes to supply the necessities of the Treasury, they 
 enacted a tariff of duties more rigidly restrictive and of more 
 general application than the country had ever before known. 
 This opened again the whole controversy. The struggle of 
 forty years, which had ended as we have already related, is 
 revived under circumstances which strongly imply that we 
 have the same ground to go over again. The manufacturers 
 are not likely to give up without a struggle what they believe 
 so essential to their prosperity ; and the friends of free trade, 
 proverbially tenacious of their purposes, are not likely to be 
 satisfied while there is left in the texture of our revenue laws 
 a single thread of protection which their ingenuity can detect 
 or their skill can draw out. 
 
 The history of our Republic shows that a nation does not 
 always profit by its own experience, even though it be of an 
 impressive nature. Our government began the first century 
 of its existence with a resort to paper money and closed it 
 with repeating the expedient. In the first of these instances 
 slips of paper with a peculiar stamp were made to pass as 
 money by the authority of Congress, and were known by the 
 name of Continental money, which soon became a term of op- 
 probrium. The history of this currency is a sad one : a his- 
 
PREFACE. xix 
 
 tory of creditors defrauded, families reduced from competence 
 to poverty, and ragged and hunger-bitten soldiers who were 
 paid their wages in bits of paper scarcely worth more than the 
 coarse material on which their nominal value was stamped. 
 The more of this Continental money was issued the lower it 
 sank in value. The whole land was filled with discontent, and 
 the leaders of the Revolution were in the utmost perplexit\\ 
 The injustice inflicted and the distress occasioned by this policy 
 are not merely recorded in our annals, there are many per- 
 sons yet living who have heard of them in their youth at the 
 firesides of their fathers. 
 
 Eighty years afterwards, in the midst of our late civil war, 
 when the necessity of raising money for the daily expenses of 
 maintaining and moving our large armies from place to place 
 upon the vast theatre of our war, began to press somewhat 
 severely upon our government, the question was again raised 
 whether the government notes should not be made a legal ten- 
 der in the payment of debts, and the Treasury relieved from the 
 necessity of providing for their redemption in coin. The Sec- 
 retary of the Treasury applied to some of the most eminent 
 bankers and men of business, English and American, for their 
 opinions. Certain of the wisest of these vehemently dissuaded 
 him from a resort to paper money. The}' pointed to the dis- 
 asters which experience had shown to have invariably attended 
 the measure, and urged him to trust to the loyalty of the coun- 
 try, of which he had seen such gratifying proofs already given, 
 for obtaining the necessary supplies of money for the war. This 
 could be done by issuing debentures payable at a somewhat 
 distant date, and for such moderate sums as persons of moder- 
 ate means could conveniently take. At all events they urged 
 that the expedient of resorting to paper money should be post- 
 poned till every other was tried and the necessity for it became 
 imminent and unavoidable. These wise counsels were not fol- 
 lowed. Others had given their opinion that a resort to paper 
 money was unavoidable, and after some hesitation it was re- 
 solved to take the step immediately. The moment that the 
 project was brought before Congress, it found eager cham- 
 pions, both on the floor of the two chambers and in the lobbies ; 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 for whenever a measure is proposed which involves a change 
 of nominal values, there spring up in unexpected quarters hun- 
 dreds of patriotic persons to assist in hurrying it through Con- 
 gress. The government was relieved of the obligation of pay- 
 ing its notes; but a solemn pledge was given that they should 
 be paid at the earliest practicable moment. While the war 
 lasted, we went on making issue after issue of these notes, with 
 no provision for their payment. Meantime the prices of every 
 commodity rose, and with them the expenses of the war, 
 and speculation flourished. 
 
 For eight years after the war no approach had been made 
 towards the fulfilment of the solemn pledge of which I have 
 spoken, although in that time many millions of the national 
 debt had been paid off in our depreciated currency. So vast 
 was the mass of promises to pay, and so small the accumula- 
 tions of gold within the reach of the government, that not 
 one of those who within that period administered the Treas- 
 ury Department ventured to propose any plan for returning 
 to specie payments, but, averting his eyes from the difficulty, 
 allowed our finances to drift toward an uncertain future. 
 Then came the panic of 1873, which swept so many large 
 banking and commercial houses to their ruin. Immediately 
 a loud call was heard for a new issue of paper money, from 
 those who fancied that they saw in the measure a remedy for 
 theif own pecuniary embarrassments. The question was 
 hotly debated in Congress ; a majority of both houses was 
 found to be in its favor ; the pledge which bound the country 
 to return to specie payments was scouted, as given in igno- 
 rance of the true interests of the country ; and a bill was 
 passed, adding, as President Grant observed in his message, a 
 hundred millions to our depreciated currency. Fortunately 
 for the country he sent back the bill with his 'Objections, and 
 it failed to become a law ; else the mischiefs and disasters of 
 the days of Continental money might have returned upon us, 
 with a violence proportioned to the growth w r hich our com- 
 mercial interests had in the meantime attained. 
 
 It is not likely that this question will again be raised in 
 our day, and the bitter experience which we have had of the 
 
PREFACE. xxi 
 
 mischiefs of paper money in these two instances will remain 
 as a warning to the coming times ; though who shall say 
 with any confidence that the warning will be duly heeded ? 
 But there is another controversy bequeathed to ns by the 
 late civil war, which will probably lead to acrimonious and 
 protracted disputes, and perhaps be made to some extent the 
 basis of party divisions. Of that I would now speak. 
 
 Before the war the boundaries of the powers assigned to 
 the National Government, and those which remained with the 
 several States, were pretty sharply defined by usage, and at- 
 tempts were but rarely made to go beyond them. The leaders 
 of opinion in the Southern States deemed it necessary to the 
 security and permanence of slavey, that any encroachment 
 of the National Government on the rights reserved to the 
 States should be resisted to the utmost ; and it must be ad- 
 mitted that, although many of them pushed the claim of State 
 sovereignty to an absurd extent, they did good service in 
 keeping the eyes of the people fixed upon that limit beyond 
 which, under our Constitution, the National Government has 
 neither function nor power. When the civil war broke out it 
 was apparent that the majority of those who remained in Con- 
 gress had not been trained to be scrupulous on this point. 
 One of their early measures, the creation of a system of 
 national banks, would, twenty years before, have been 
 regarded by a majority of the people of the United States as 
 a direct violation of the Constitution. Other measures were 
 adopted in the course of the war for which it was impossible 
 to find any authority in the Constitution, and of which the 
 sole justification was military necessity. As compared witli 
 the state of opinion which prevailed before the war, it is man- 
 ifest that a certain indifference to the distinction between the 
 Federal power and that of the States has been creeping into 
 our politics. Schemes for accumulating power in the govern- 
 ment at Washington, by making it the owner of our rail- 
 ways, for administering telegraphic communication by Federal 
 agency, for cutting canals between river and river, and for 
 an extensive system of national education with a central 
 bureau at Washington, show this tendencv. These and kin- 
 
xxii PREFACE. 
 
 dred projects will most certainly give ample occasion for pro- 
 tracted disputes on the floor of Congress and in the daily 
 press. On one hand will be urged, and plausibly, the public 
 convenience ; and on the other the danger lest our govern- 
 ment of nicely balanced powers should degenerate into a 
 mere form, and the proper functions of the States be absorbed 
 into the central authority, a fate like that predicted by 
 some astronomers for our solar system, when the orbs that 
 revolve about the sun, describing narrower and narrower cir- 
 cles, shall fall into the central luminary to be incorporated 
 with it forever. 
 
 In looking over this vast array of important questions set- 
 tled, and of new ones just arising on the field of vision, it is 
 difficult to resist the conclusion that the historian of our Re- 
 public would perform his office but in part who should stop 
 short of the cycle of a hundred years from the birth of our 
 nation. In that period great interests have been disposed of 
 and laid aside forever ; with the next hundred years, we have 
 a new era with new responsibilities, which we are to meet 
 with what wisdom we may. It is matter of rejoicing that 
 among the latest events of this first century, and following 
 close upon our great civil war, we are able to record a great 
 triumph of the cause of peace and civilization in the settle- 
 ment of our collateral quarrel with Great Britain, a quarrel 
 which in other times might easily have been nursed into a 
 war. Let us hope that this example will be followed by all 
 the nations of the earth in their future controversies. 
 
 To what has been said of the plan of the present history 
 in the first paragraph of this Introduction, I have yet some- 
 thing to add. The works of the Mound Builders, which lie 
 scattered by thousands over our territory, from the Gulf of 
 Mexico to Oregon, and which within the last thirty years 
 have been even more carefully examined than ever before, 
 prove clearly, what was previously doubted by many, the 
 existence of a semi-civilized race dwelling within our borders, 
 who preceded the savage tribes found here by the discoverers 
 from the Old World, and who disappeared at some unknown 
 era, leaving behind them no tradition, nor any record save 
 
PREFACE. xxiii 
 
 these remarkable monuments. With what we have learned 
 of this race, since any history of this country has been pub- 
 lished, and what has been discovered by modern science of 
 the pre-historic existence of man, pertaining to our continent 
 as well as to those of the other hemisphere, the present 
 history naturally begins, and it has been thought important 
 to record, briefly but clearly and comprehensively, the present 
 state of our knowledge of the Mound Builders, as well as of 
 the savage tribes by whom they were succeeded, as prelim- 
 inary to the discovery and settlement of the country by 
 another race. 
 
 The history of the early voyagers and colonists of our con- 
 tinent, both before and after Columbus, is made up of inci- 
 dents which have often been wrought into connected narra- 
 tives, but not in such a manner as to deprive other historians 
 of the power of giving them, by a due selection of circum- 
 stances, something of a new interest. The adventures of 
 those whose explorations preceded the permanent settlement 
 of our territory during three generations of mankind were of 
 a nature to call into exercise qualities which command our ad- 
 miration, courage, perseverance, patient endurance of hard- 
 ship, and ready resources in times of great emergency. The 
 recital of these adventures brings us down to the period when 
 our country began to be peopled from the Old World, by 
 colonists establishing themselves at different points along our 
 coast, companies of men and women seeking a home in the 
 New World for different purposes, but all of them courageous 
 and adventurous, unapt to quail before discouragement, and 
 prepared to encounter disaster. It was perhaps owing in 
 part to a conformity of character in these respects, that, as 
 they grew in population, these settlements coalesced so readily 
 into one nation, and presented so united a front in resistance 
 to the tyrannical pretensions of the mother country. In giv- 
 ing the history of these colonies, in tracing their origin and 
 growth, and delineating their character, it will be seen that 
 here, like the future oak wrapped up in the acorn, lay the 
 peculiar form of government which distinguishes our republic 
 among the nations, and that from what may be called the 
 
 
XXIV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 accidental formation of these communities, small at first, 
 distant from one another, and organized independently of each 
 other, grew the composite structure of our national polity, 
 which we regard as so important to our liberties. The events 
 of this period of adolescence and immaturity in our political 
 institutions, lasting for a century and a half, must, of course, 
 be given in a condensed form ; but this has been done, it is 
 hoped, with sufficient fulness to enable the reader to see how 
 naturally, from the beginnings of which we have, spoken, arose 
 the confederated Republic now so great and powerful. 
 
 The attention of the reader, neither in this part of the 
 work nor elsewhere, will be occupied with the growth of our 
 population and our political progress to such an extent as to 
 neglect the advancement made in the arts of peace and the 
 refinements of life. The customs and usages of past gen- 
 erations, their modes of living and ways of thinking, their 
 occupations and amusements, their condition in respect of 
 public and private morals, will be found described in these 
 pages, and a portraiture given, so far as its true outlines, its 
 lights and shades, can now be discerned, of society in the past. 
 The changes which these at different periods have undergone 
 will be carefully noted. 
 
 The history of the United States naturally divides itself 
 into three periods, upon the third of which we lately, at the 
 close of our civil war, entered as a people, with congruous 
 institutions in every part of our vast territory. The first was 
 the colonial period ; the second includes the years which 
 elapsed from the Declaration of Independence to the struggle 
 which closed with the extinction of slavery. The colonial 
 period was a time of tutelage, of struggle and dependence, 
 the childhood of the future nation. But our real growth, as a 
 distinct member of the community of nations, belongs to the 
 second period, and began when we were strong enough to 
 assert and maintain our independence. To this second period 
 a large space has been allotted in the present work. Not 
 that the mere military annals of our Revolutionary War would 
 seem to require a large proportion of this space, but the vari- 
 ous attendant circumstances, the previous controversies with 
 
PREFACE. xxv 
 
 the mother country, in which all the colonies were more or 
 less interested, and which grew into a common cause ; the 
 consultations which followed ; the defiance of the mother 
 country, in which they all joined ; the service in an army 
 which made all the colonists fellow-soldiers; the common 
 danger, the common privations, sufferings, and expedients, the 
 common sorrow at reverses and rejoicing at victories, require 
 to be fully set forth, that it may be seen by how natural a 
 transition these widely scattered communities became united 
 in a federal Republic, which has since rapidly risen to take its 
 place among the foremost nations of the world, with a popu- 
 lation which has increased tenfold, and a sisterhood of States 
 enlarged from thirteen to thirty-seven. 
 
 So crowded with events and controversies is this second 
 part of our history, and the few years which have elapsed of 
 the third ; so rapid has been the accumulation of wealth and 
 the growth of trade ; so great have been the achievements 
 of inventive art and the applied sciences ; with such celerity 
 has our population spread itself over new regions, and so 
 vehement have been the struggles maintained against abuses, 
 moral and political, that it has not been easy to give due atten- 
 tion to all of them, without exceeding the limits prescribed 
 for this work. But we have aimed to preserve a due propor- 
 tion in the recital of events and the analysis of causes, 
 treating the most important with a certain fulness of recital, 
 and passing rapidly over the rest, and in the meantime not 
 permitting ourselves in any part of the work to indulge a 
 boastful vein, nor to overlook the faults and mistakes, the 
 national sins and wrongs of which we may have been guilty. 
 We have endeavored to divest ourselves, while engaged in 
 this task, of all local prejudices, and every influence which 
 might affect the impartiality of the narrative. 
 
 In writing the history of the only great nation on the 
 globe, the beginnings of which are fully recorded in contem- 
 porary writings, and for which we are not compelled, as in 
 other cases, to grope in the darkness of tradition, the authors 
 of this work have ascended to the proper sources, the ancient 
 records themselves. The narrative has been drawn irnme- 
 
XXVI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 diately from these writings, and by them has every statement 
 and date of our early history been verified. For the later 
 periods, the materials are of course voluminous and circum- 
 stantial, even to embarrassment. We are not without the 
 hope that those who read what we have written will see in 
 the past, with all its vicissitudes, and with all our own short- 
 comings, the promise of a prosperous and honorable future, 
 of concord at home and peace and respect abroad, and that 
 the same cheerful piety which leads the good man to put his 
 personal trust in a kind Providence, will prompt the good 
 citizen to cherish an equal confidence in regard to the destiny 
 reserved for our beloved country. 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 
 
 NEW YORK, 1876. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PRE-HISTORIC MAN. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MAN COEVAL WITH EXTINCT ANIMALS. THE CAVE-PEOPLE. SCANDINAVIAN 
 SHELL-HEAPS. LAKE-DWELLINGS OF SWITZERLAND. HABITS OF THE PRIM- 
 ITIVE MAN. Two STONE AGES. RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN STONE KELICS OF 
 TWO HEMISPHERES. AMERICA THE OLDEST CONTINENT. A ZONE OF PYRA- 
 MIDS. TRADITIONS OF A LOST CONTINENT. SHELL-HEAPS IN UNITED STATES. 
 A PRE-HISTORIC HUNT IN MISSOURI. HCMAN REMAINS IN GOLD-DRIFT OF 
 CALIFORNIA. SUPERIOR ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AMERICA 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE MOUND BUILDERS. 
 
 PROGRESS IN CIVILIZATION OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN. PRE-HISTORIC RACE 
 IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE. EARTHWORKS IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
 Bio ELEPHANT MOUND. GARDEN-BEDS. MILITARY WORKS. TEMPLE AND 
 ALTAR MOUNDS. RELICS FOUND IN THESE TUMULI. ANCIENT COPPKK- 
 MINING AT LAKE SUPERIOR. CONNECTION BETWEEN THIS AND LATER CIVILI- 
 ZATIONS. REMAINS IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA. SKULLS FOUND IN 
 THE MOUNDS 19 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. 
 
 EARLY VOYAGES. DISCOVERY OF ICELAND. GREENLAND COLONIZED BY ERIC 
 THE RED. BJARNI HERJULFSON DISCOVERS AMERICA. SONS OF ERIC THE 
 RED. LEIF'S VOYAGE TO VINLAND THE GOOD. EXPEDITION OF THORVALD. 
 His DEATH. COLONY OF THORFINN KARLSEFNE. FIGHT WITH SKR.EL- 
 LIXGS. SUPPOSED IRISH SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA. COLONY OF FREYDIS. 
 THE MASSACRE. GLOOMY WINTER AT VINLAND. ROUND TOWER AT NEW- 
 PORT. DIGHTON ROCK. THE ICELANDIC SAGAS , 35 
 
xxviii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. 
 
 ARABIAN SAILORS ON THE SEA OF DARKNESS. WELSH TRADITION OF AMER- 
 ICAN DISCOVERY. VOYAGE OF MADOC, PRINCE OF WALES. EVIDENCE AD- 
 DUCED. SUPPOSED TRACES OF WELSH AMONG DoEQS, MANDAN8 AND MoDND 
 
 BUILDERS. NARRATIVE OF THE BROTHERS /INI SHIPWRECK OF NICOLO 
 ZENO AT FRISLAXD. His ACCOUNT OF ENGRONELAND. ADVENTURES OF A 
 FRISLAND FISHERMAN. THE WESTERN VOYAGE OF PRINCE ZICHMNI. CHI- 
 NESE DISCOVERY OF FISANG. STATE OF NAUTICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL 
 KNOWLEDGE BEFORE COLUMBUS 64 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. 
 
 THE KINGDOM OF CATHAY. EFFORTS IN EUROPE TO FI>D A SEA-WAT TO 
 INDIA. PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR. BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE OF 
 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. His DESIGN OF A WESTERN VOYAGE TO INDIA. 
 FAITH IN HIS DIVINE MISSION. THE THEORIES OF CONTEMPORARY GEOG- 
 RAPHERS. His LIFE IN SPAIN. THE COUNCIL AT SALAMANCA. His FIRST 
 VOYAGE. His BELIEF THAT HE HAS DISCOVERED INDIA. THE DELUSION OF 
 HIS LIFE. His BRIKF HONOR AND FINAL DISGRACE 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOT8. 
 
 THIHD VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS. His DISCOVERY OF THE MAIN LAND. THE 
 VOYAGE OF AMERIGO VESPUCCI. FIRST PRINTED ACCOUNT OF THE NEW 
 WOULD. PUBLICATIONS OF ST. DIE COLLEGE. THE PRINTER-MONKS, 
 WAI.DSEEMULLER AND RINGMANN. EXPEDITION OF THE CABOTS FROM ENG- 
 LAXD. NORTH AMERICA DISCOVERED. MAP OF SEBASTIAN CABOT. JOHN- 
 CABOT'S PATENTS FROM HENRY VII. FIRST ENGLISH COLONY SENT TO THE 
 NEW WORLD. SEBASTIAN CABOT SAILS DOWN THE AMERICAN COAST . . . 
 
 92 
 
 118 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 . 
 
 DESIGNS FOR THE DISCOVERY OF A NORTHWEST PASSAGE TO INDIA. THE 
 
 CORTEREAL VOYAGES. VASCO NONEZ DE BALBOA REACHES THE PACIFIC 
 
 OCEAN. SEARCH FOR THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. FLORIDA DISCOVERED. 
 GULF OF MEXICO SAILED OVER. EXPLORATIONS ON THE ATLANTIC SEA- 
 COAST. ESTAVAN GOMEZ ON THE BORDERS OF THE UNITED STATES. EX- 
 PEDITION OF PAMPHILO DE NARVAEZ TO FLORIDA. ADVENTURES OF CABEA 
 DE VACA. THE ENTERPRISE OF HERNANDO DE SOTO. THE DISCOVERY op 
 THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. DEATH AND DRAMATIC BURIAL OF DE SOTO. 
 RETURN OF THE TROOPS OF DE SOTO. TRISTAN DE LUNA'B ATTEMPT TO 
 FOUND A COLONY .... ... 139 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 FBENCH DISCOVERIES AND ATTEMPTS AT COLONIZATION. 
 BRETON FISHERMEN ON NEWFOUNDLAND BANKS. GIOVANNI DA VERRAZANO 
 
 FIRST ENTERS NEW YORK HARBOR. JACQUES CABTIER SENT ON AN AMER- 
 ICAN EXPEDITION. EXPLORATION OF THE ST. LAWRENCE RIVER. CAR- 
 TIER'S VISIT TO THE INDIAN TOWN OF HOCHBLAOA. VOYAGE OF FRANCIS 
 DE LA ROQUE, LORD OF ROBERVAL. THE HlGULNOTS SEEK AN ASYLUM 
 IN AMERICA. THE COLONY OF ADMIRAL COLIGNY. JOHN RIBAULT GOES 
 TO FLORIDA. SETTING UP THE ARMS OF FRANCE. LAUDONNIERE COMMANDS 
 A SECOND ENTERPRISE. BUILDING OF FOKT CAROLINE. PROGRESS OF THE 
 COLONY 17* 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FRENCH AND SPANISH COLONISTS IN FLORIDA. 
 
 PLOTS AGAINST THE FRENCH GOVERNOR LAUDOXNIERE. OPEN MUTINY IW 
 HIS COLONY. FIGHT WITH INDIANS. VISIT OF AN ENGLISH FLEET TO 
 PORT ROYAL. ARRIVAL OF RIBAULT WITH A FLEET OF SEVEN SHIPS. 
 CRUSADE OF PEDRO MENENDEZ AGAINST HERETICS. His ATTACK ox FORT 
 CAROLINE. SLAUGHTER OF RIBAULT AND HIS MEN BY THE SPANIARDS. 
 FOUNDING OF THE FIRST PERMANENT SETTLEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 INDIGNATION OF THE FRENCH AT THE SPANISH ATROCITIES. DOMINIQUE 
 DE GOURGUES GOES TO FLORIDA. HE MAKES ALLIES OF THE SAVAGES. 
 ATTACK ON THE SPANISH FORT. THE BLOODY RETALIATION. A SPANISH 
 MISSION ox THE RAPPAHANXOCK . . 200 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ENGLISH VOYAGES AND ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. 
 
 FIRST IMPULSE IN ENGLAND TOWARD AMERICAN COLONIZATION. UNSUCCESS- 
 FUL VOYAGES. THEORIES OF A NORTHEAST PASSAGE. VOYAGE OF SIR 
 HUGH WlLLOUGHBY AND RlCHARD CHANCELLOR. FROBISHER AND DAVIS 
 IN THE NORTHWEST. SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT'S PLAN FOR AMERICAN SET- 
 TLEMENTS. His DEPARTURE FROM ENGLAND AND ARRIVAL AT NEWFOUND- 
 LAND. Loss OF SIR HUMPHREY ON HIS RETURN. WALTER RALEIGH SENDS 
 
 TWO SHIPS TO EXPLORE IN AMERICA. HlS FlRST COLONY REACHES THE 
 
 COAST OF NORTH CAROLINA. TOBACCO INTRODUCED INTO ENGLAND. NEW 
 PLANTATION BEGUN UNDER GOVERNOR JOHN WHITE. MYSTERIOUS DIS- 
 APPEARANCE OF THE SETTLERS. UNSUCCESSFUL SEARCH FOR THE LOST COL- 
 ONY. RALEIGH'S ATTEMPT AT COLONIZATION ENDED BY IMPRISONMENT . . 224 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. 
 
 GOSNOLD'S EXPEDITION. PATENT GRANTED TO LONDON AND PLYMOUTH COM- 
 PANIES. A COLONY SETS OUT FOR VIRGINIA. DISCORD ON SHIPBOARD. 
 THE BUILDING OF JAMESTOWN. NEWPORT'S EXPLORATION OF THE RIVER. 
 
xxx 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 GOVEKNOKSIIIP OF EDWARD WING FIELD. DISCONTENT AND SUFFERING AMONG 
 THE COLONISTS. THE INDIAN CHIEF POWHATAN. ACCOUNTS OF SMITH'S 
 CAPITKE BY THE SAVAGES. DISCREPANCIES IN SMITH'S OWN STORY. 
 RETURN OF NEWPORT FROM ENGLAND. CORONATION OF POWHATAN. SER- 
 VICES OF SMITH TO THE COLONY. THE NEW CHARTER. EXPEDITION OF 
 GATES AND SOMERS. THE TEMPEST AND THE SHIPWRECK. OPPORTUNE 
 . COMING OF LORD DE LA WAKRE. CODE OF LAWS FOR THE COLONY. 
 ADMINISTRATION OF GATES AND DALE. CULTIVATION OF TOBACCO. MAR- 
 RIAGE OF POCAHONTAS. SANDYS AND YEARDLEY. THE COLONY FIRMLY 
 ESTABLISHED. WHITE AND BLACK SLAVERY. THE FlKST AMERICAN LEGIS- 
 LATURE : . 262 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 COLONIZATION UNDER THE NORTHERN COMPANY. 
 
 THE SEA-COAST OF MAINE. THE EARLY FISHERMEN. FRENCH TRADERS. 
 PONTGRAVE AND PODTHINCOURT. GEORGE WfiYMOUTH's VOYAGE. COLONY 
 OF CHIEF JUSTICE POPHAM. SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN IN NEW YORK. SETTLE- 
 MENT ON MT. DESERT. ARGALL'S DESTRUCTION OF THE FRENCH COLONY. 
 JOHN SMITH IN NEW ENGLAND. EXPEDITIONS OF FERDINANDO GORGES. 
 .SECOND CHARTER OF THE PLYMOUTH COMPANY. NOVA SCOTIA GIVEN TO SIR 
 WILLIAM ALEXANDER. GRANT OF THE PLYMOUTH COMPANY TO GORGES. 
 FIRST TOWNS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE AND MAINE. THE BREAKING UP OF THE 
 PLYMOUTH COMPANY. CHARACTER OF GORGES 
 
 308 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. SETTLEMENT OF 
 
 NEW AMSTERDAM. 
 
 COMMERCIAL ENTERPISE AND PROSPERITY OF THE DUTCH. THEIR INTEREST 
 IN A SHORT ROUTE TO INDIA. EARLY NORTHEAST VOYAGES. HENRY HUD- 
 SON EMPLOYED BY EAST INDIA COMPANY. His FlRST VOYAGE TO AMER- 
 ICA. ENTRANCE INTO NEW YORK/'BAY AND DISCOVERY OF THE HUDSON 
 RIVER. His RETURN TO ENGLAND. VOYAGE TO HUDSON'S BAY. THE 
 DUTCH ESTABLISH TRADING-POSTS AT MANHATTAN ISLAND. DUTCH WEST 
 INDIA COMPANY CHARTERED. EMIGRATION OF WALLOONS. SETTLEMENTS 
 ON SITES OF ALBANY AND NEW YORK CITY .... . 333 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE PURITANS. 
 
 THE PURITANS UNDER JAMES I. SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE ENGLISH AT 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. THE SEPARATISTS OF 
 NORTH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE. BREWSTER AND THE EPISCOPAL RESIDENCE AT 
 SCROOBY. PERSECUTION OF THE PURITANS. THEIR ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE 
 FROM ENGLAND. LONG EXILE IN HOLLAND. MOTIVES FOR A PROPOSED 
 REMOVAL TO AMERICA. PETITION TO KING JAMES. NEGOTIATIONS WITH 
 THE DUTCH. EMBARKATION OF THE PILGRIMS AT DELFT-HAVEN. FINAL 
 DEPARTURE OF THE "MAY FLOWER" FROM ENGLAND. ARRIVAL AT CAPE 
 COD. FORM OF GOVERNMENT ADOPTED. EXPLORATIONS ALONG THE COAST. 
 SITE KOR A COLONY SELECTED. CONFUSION OF FACTS AND DATES AS TO THE 
 LANDING AT PLYMOUTH. THE FIRST WINTER. SUFFERINGS AND DEATHS . 370 
 
CONTEXTS. xxxi 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 * 
 
 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. 
 
 THE COMING OF FRIENDLY INDIANS. SAMOSET AND SQUANTO. CAPTAIN 
 DERMER'S PREVIOUS VISIT TO PLYMOUTH. STANDISH'S VISIT TO BOSTON 
 HARBOR. REINFORCEMENTS FROM ENGLAND. THE FIRST CHRISTMAS AT 
 PLYMOUTH. HOSTILE MESSAGE FROM THE NARRAGANSETTS. ARRIVAL OF 
 WESTON'S COLONISTS. THEIR SETTLEMENT AT WESSAGUSSET. AN INDIAN 
 CONSPIRACY. STANDISH'S EXPEDITION AND THE PLOT DEFEATED. THE 
 GRIEF OF PASTOR ROBINSON. ARRIVAL OF ROBERT GORGES. FIRST ALLOT- 
 MENT OF LAND IN PLYMOUTH. JOHN PEIRCE'S PATENT. THE LYFORD AND 
 OLDHAM CONSPIRACY. THEIR BANISHMENT. BREAKING UP OF THE LONDON 
 COMPANY. THE PILGRIMS THROWN ON THEIR OWN RESOURCES. THE FISH- 
 ING STATION AT CAPE ANN. ENCOUNTER BETWEEN CAPTAIN STANDISH AND 
 MR. HEWES. THE DORCHESTER SETTLEMENT AT CAPE ANN. CONANT'S 
 CHARGE OF IT, AND HIS REMOVAL TO NAUMKEAG. SETTLEMENTS ABOUT 
 BOSTON HARBOR. MORTON OF MERRY MOUNT. STANDISH'S ARREST OF 
 MORTON 400 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. 
 
 THE ORDER OF PATRONS ESTABLISHED IN NEW NETHERLAND. DIVISION AND 
 MONOPOLY OF LANDS. THE COMPANY OVERREACHED BY THE PATROONS. 
 MASSACRE OF THE COLONISTS OF SWAANENDAEL. WOUTER VAN TWILLER 
 APPOINTED GOVERNOR. WEAKNESS AND ABSURDITIES OF HIS ADMINISTRA- 
 TION. SUPERSEDED BY WILLIAM KIEFT. POPULAR MEASURES OF THE 
 COUNCIL AT AMSTERDAM. PURCHASE OF LANDS FROM PATROONS. INCREASE 
 OF IMMIGRATION. PROMISE OF PROSPERITY TO THE COLONY. PORTENTS 
 OK COMING CALAMITIES. A COUNCIL OF TWELVE APPOINTED 429 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 WAR WITH THE INDIANS. THE SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE. 
 
 CHANGE OF POLICY TOWARD THE INDIANS. KIEFT'S CRUEL AND STDPID 
 OBSTINACY. MASSACRE OF INDIANS BY THE DUTCH AT PAVONIA. RETALI- 
 ATIONS BY THE NATIVES. MURDER OF THE HUTCHINSON FAMILY AT ANNIE'S 
 HOECK. DISASTROUS CONDITION OF THE COLONY. APPEAL OF THE PEOPLE 
 OF NEW AMSTERDAM TO THE STATES GENERAL. END OF THE WAR. KIEFT 
 REMOVED FROM OFFICE. TERRITORIAL ENCROACHMENTS OF RlVAL COL- 
 ONIES. THE ENGLISH AT THE EAST. A SWEDISH SETTLEMENT ON THE 
 DELAWARE. FORT CHRISTINA. THE SWEDISH GOVERNOP, JOHN PRINTZ . . 450 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 JEALOUSY OF JAMES I. OF THE VIRGINIA COMPANY. EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 
 ELECTED TREASURER. PROGRESS OF THE COLONY. MASSACRE OK 1622. 
 DISSENSIONS IN THE LONDON COUNCIL. CHARTER OF THE COMPANY TAKEN 
 AWAY. RAPID SUCCESSION OF GOVERNORS OF THE COLONY. LORD BAL- 
 
XXX11 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 TIM. >KK, AND HIS VISIT TO VIRGINIA. CHARTER OF MARYLAND. CECIL 
 CALVERT'S COLONY. ITS LANDING IN MARYLAND THE FIRST TOWN. 
 ST. MARY'S BLUFF. PURCHASE FROM THE INDIANS. THE FIRST CATHOLIC 
 CHAPEL. FRIENDLY RELATIONS WITH THE INDIANS 476 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. 
 
 THE COLONY FIRMLY PLANTED. HOSTILITY OF THE VIRGINIANS. DISPUTE 
 WITH CLAYBORNE. ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN CLAYBORNE AND COHNWALLIS. 
 GOVERNOR HARVEY DEPOSED AND SENT TO ENGLAND. MEETINGS OF THE 
 MARYLAND ASSEMBLY. TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS. DISSENSIONS BE- 
 TWEEN PAPISTS AND PURITANS. REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND. A PARLIA- 
 MENTARY SHIP SEIZED IN MARYLAND. CLAYBORNE'S RECOVERY OF KENT 
 ISLAND. His RULE IN MARYLAND. RESTORATION OF BALTIMORE. DEATH 
 OF GOVERNOR CALVERT. MISTRESS MARGARET BRENT .... . 499 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 FRESH EMIGRATION TO MASSACHUSETTS. A NEW CHARTER. ARRIVAL OF 
 HlGGINSON AND SKELTON. THE FlRST CHCRCH AT SALEM. THE CASE OF 
 JOHN AND SAMUEL BROWNE. THEY ARE ORDERED BACK TO ENGLAND BY 
 ENDICOTT. THE COUNCIL'S REBUKE. PROPOSED TRANSFER OF THE GOV- 
 ERNMENT OF THE COLONY TO NEW ENGLAND. PROBABLE MOTIVES OF THE 
 COUNCIL IN PROCURING THE PATENT. THE CAMBRIDGE CONFERENCE. 
 
 WlNTHROP CHOSEN GOVERNOR. DEPARTURE FOR NEW ENGLAND. His 
 
 FAREWELL ADDRESS TO ENGLISH CHURCHMEN. OLDHAM AND BRERETON'S 
 PATENTS. SETTLEMENTS IN AND ABOUT BOSTON. OLD SETTLERS ABOUT 
 THE BAY. THE COMING OF ROGER WILLIAMS. . .- 517 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. 
 
 LAWS, ECCLESIASTICAL AND POLITICAL. JOHN ELIOT'S WORK AMONG THE 
 INDIANS. JOHN COTTON ARRIVES IN BOSTON. THE RED CROSS IN THE 
 KING'S BANNER. PERSECUTION AND BANISHMENT OF ROGER WILLIAMS. 
 THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF RHODE ISLAND. SETTLERS FROM PLYMOUTH ON 
 THE CONNECTICUT RIVER. JOHN WINTHROP, JR., FIRST GOVERNOR OF CON- 
 NECTICUT. HOOKER'S EMIGRATION TO HARTFORD. ANNE HUTCHINSON AND 
 HER DOCTRINES. MURDER OF JOHN OLDHAM. BEGINNING OF THE PF.QUOD 
 WAR .... . .538 
 
' 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, VOLUME I. 
 
 STEEL PLATE. 
 Title. Engraver. To/ace 
 
 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS S. Hollyer . . Title 
 
 From Herrera''s History of America. 
 
 FULL-PAGE ENGBA VINOS. 
 
 To face 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. page 
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH . . 1 
 
 After the painting attributed to Federigo Zuccero. 
 
 A PRE-HISTORIC MAMMOTH HUNT . E. Bayard . . . Hildibrand . . 16 
 
 MOUNDS NEAR MARIETTA, OHIO . . J. D. Woodward . Meeder & Chubb . 24 
 COLUMBUS BEFORE THE COUNCIL AT 
 
 SALAMANCA E. A. Abbey . . J. Miller . . .108 
 
 SEARCH FOR THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH . E. Buyard . . . Ch. Barbant . . 146 
 
 RIBAULT'S PILLAR ON THE RIVER MAY . W. L. Sheppard . J. Earst . . . 196 
 
 THE LOST COLONY W. L. Sheppard . W. J. Linton . . 254 
 
 SITE OF GOSNOLD'S FORT .... A. Bierstadt . . W. H. Morse . . 264 
 
 From a picture in the possession of Miss Emma Hathaway, Boston. 
 
 LAKE CHAMPLAIN T. Moran . . . E. Bookhout . . 320 
 
 THE SABBATH ON CLARK'S ISLAND . G. H. Boughton . W. J. Linton . . 392 
 
 From a picture in the possession of Robert Hoe, New York. 
 LANDING OP SWEDES AT PARADISE 
 
 POINT T. Moran . . . J. A. Bogert . 466 
 
 GEORGE CALVERT, LORD BALTIMORE . . 435 
 
 After a copy, in the possession of the Maryland Historical Society, of the 
 painting by Daniel Mytens. 
 
xxxiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 
 THE MULBERRY TREE AT ST. MARY'S 
 
 POINT T. Moran . . . Robert Varley . 496 
 
 ENDICOTT CUTTING THE CROSS FROM 
 
 THE KING'S BANNER E. A. Abbey . . J. G. Suiithwick 542 
 
 * 
 ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT. 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 
 PRIMEVAL AMERICA Runge Winham . . 1 
 
 LONG-HAIRED ELEPHANT " " . . 2 
 
 CARVING ON BONE (Long-haired Ele- 
 phant) Hosier .... McDonald . . 3 
 
 CARVING ON BONE (Group of Reindeer) " " . . 3 
 
 LAKE-DWELLER'S VILLAGE (Restored by 
 
 Keller) Miller . . 4 
 
 SAVAGE OF THE STONE AGE .... Runge .... Karst .... 5 
 
 STONE IMPLEMENTS Hosier .... Walker ... 6 
 
 Flint Awl. Swiss Stone Axe. Spear 
 Head. Stone Celt. Stone Scra- 
 per. Bone Awl. Stone Dagger. 
 
 EARLIEST POTTERY " McDonald . . 6 
 
 DRINKING-CUP " " . . 7 
 
 THE AGE OF ICE Runge .... Miller ... 8 
 
 BRONZE IMPLEMENTS Hosier .... McDonald . . 9 
 
 Celt. Bronze Hair-pin (Swiss). 
 Bronze Razor Knife-blade (Dennak). 
 
 Bronze Knife-blade (Danish). 
 
 SCULPTURED STONE " McDonald . . 9 
 
 LAKE-DWELLER'S LOOM " Miller .... 10 
 
 ARROW-HEADS FROM DIFFERENT COUN- 
 TRIES " Karst .... 11 
 
 Ireland. France. North America. 
 
 Terra del Fuego. Japan. 
 
 A ZONE OF PYRAMIDS " Karst .... 12 
 
 Egypt. Central America. India. 
 North America. 
 
 DR. KOCH'S ARROW-HEAD " McDonald . . 17 
 
 EARTHWORKS IN OHIO " Karst .... 20 
 
 ANIMAL MOUNDS " McDonald . . 22 
 
 BIG ELEPHANT MOUND " " . . 22 
 
 TEMPLE MOUND IN MEXICO .... " Miller.* ... 26 
 
 ALTAR MOUNDS '' McDonald . . 27 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 xxxv 
 
 Title. Designer. 
 
 POTTERY PROM MOUNDS 
 
 STONE AND COPPER RELICS FROM MOUNDS . Hosier .... 
 Axe. Bracelets. Stone Arrow Points. 
 
 Stone Axe. Bronze Knife. 
 COPPER IMPLEMENTS RECENTLY DIS- 
 COVERED IN WISCONSIN 
 
 From photographs of specimens in collection of Wisconsin His- 
 torical Society. Selected from photographs taken under the 
 direction of Lyman C. Draper and J. D. Butler. 
 Adzes. Arrow-heads. Chisel. 
 
 Knife. Awl. Spear-head. 
 
 POTTERY AND SUPPOSED IDOLS RECENTLY FOUND WITH 
 HUMAN REMAINS IN BURIAL MOUNDS IN SOUTHEAST MlS- 
 
 8OURI 
 
 From photographs taken under the direction of A. J. Conant of 
 St. Lnuis. 
 
 MINING TOOLS Hosier .... 
 
 CARVED PIPES 
 
 SCULPTURED HEADS 
 
 Mound Builders. Central America. 
 
 CLOTH FROM MOUNDS 
 
 DISCOVERY OF GREENLAND A. R. Waud . . 
 
 FLOKKO SENDING OUT RAVENS ... ... 
 
 NORSE SHIPS ENTERING BOSTON. HARBOR . . . 
 
 BURIAL-PLACE OF THORVALD .... ... 
 
 NORSK RUINS IN GREENLAND .... Hosier .... 
 
 SCOUTS RETURNING TO THK SHIP . . A. R. Waud . . 
 
 ESQUIMAUX SKIN-BOAT Hosier .... 
 
 LEIF'S BOOTHS A. R. Waud . . 
 
 NEWPORT TOWER Hosier . . . 
 
 CHESTERTON MILL .... 
 
 DIGHTON ROCK .... 
 
 STEUBENVILLE ROCK ... 
 
 THE SEA OF DARKNESS A. R. Waud . 
 
 WELSH BARD 
 
 DAVID, PRINCE OF WALES 
 
 From Powell's History of Cambria. 
 
 MADOC LEAVING WALES A. R. Waud . . 
 
 WELSHMAN Hosier 
 
 MANDAN BOATS 
 
 From Catlin's North American Indians. 
 
 WELSH CORACLE A. R. Waud . 
 
 MANDAN INDIAN Hosier 
 
 SHIPWRECK OF NICOI.O ZENO . . . . A. R. Waud 
 
 Engraver. 
 
 Karst . 
 Eustmead 
 
 Bobbett 
 
 Roberts . 
 
 McDonald 
 Eastmead 
 Juengling 
 
 McDonald 
 Miller . 
 Anthony 
 Linton . 
 Anthony 
 Nugent . 
 Anthony 
 Speer . 
 Anthony 
 Miller . 
 Roberts . 
 Eastmead 
 Roberts . 
 Anthony 
 Bookhout 
 Eastmead 
 
 Linton . 
 Miller . 
 Karst 
 
 Miller . 
 it 
 
 Anthony 
 
 Page. 
 
 28 
 29 
 
 30 
 
 31 
 
 30 
 32 
 32 
 
 33 
 35 
 37 
 43 
 45 
 46 
 48 
 51 
 55 
 59 
 60 
 61 
 61 
 64 
 67 
 68 
 
 69 
 71 
 73 
 
 74 
 75 
 77 
 
XXXVI 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 
 GREENLAND GEYSER Hosier .... Juengling . . 79 
 
 AZTEC CITY A. R. Waud . . Miller ... 82 
 
 CHINESE JUNK Hosier .... " ... 86 
 
 THE "FAR CATHAY" T. Moran . . . Linton ... 92 
 
 ASTROLABE Hosier .... Karst ... 96 
 
 PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR Nichols ... 97 
 
 From General Collection of Voyages and Discoveries by Span- 
 ish and Portuguese, London, 1789. 
 
 SHIP OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY .... Hosier .... Eastmead . . 100 
 
 THE CHRIST-BEARER Aikens . . . 102 
 
 Front a Map of Juan de la Cosa. 
 
 COLUMBUS ON SHIPBOARD A. R. Waud . . Bobbett . . . 105 
 
 ISABELLA, QUEKN OF CASTILE Nichols . . . 109 
 
 THE FLEET OF COLUMBUS Hosier Miller . . . 110 
 
 RECEPTION BY SOVEREIGNS A. R. Waud . . . Anthony . . 115 
 
 COLUMBUS ENTERING THE ORINOCO . ... . . 119 
 
 COLUMBUS IN CHAINS G. G. White . . Varley . . .120 
 
 AMERIGO VESPUCCI Nichols . .122 
 
 From a portrait in Herrera's Historia General de las Indias. 
 VESPUCCI AT THE CONTINENT 123 
 
 From De Bry's Duae Navigationes Amend Vespucci, 1619. 
 
 PRINTING OK VESPUCCI'S BOOK . . . G. G. White . . Anthony . . 125 
 
 JOHN CABOT IN LONDON Sheppard ... Karst . . . 135 
 
 SEBASTIAN CABOT Nichols . . . 138 
 
 From the N. Y. Historical Society's copy of the original by 
 
 Holbein. 
 
 FAC-SIMILE OF SIGNATURE OF AMERIGO VESPUCCI .... McDonald . .138 
 
 From Verhagen. 
 
 CORTEREAL AT LABRADOR T. Moran .... Bogert . . . 140 
 
 VASCO NUNEZ ON SHIPBOARD . . . E A. Abbey . . Bobbett . . . 143 
 
 THE SOUTH SEA A. R. Waud . . Varley . . .144 
 
 FIRST EMBARKATION ON THK SOUTH 
 
 SEA " ... Bogert . . .145 
 
 JUAN PONCE DE LEON Miller . . . 147 
 
 From a portrait in He.rrera's Historia General de las Indias. 
 
 STRAITS OF MAGELLAN A. R. Waud . . Hitchcock . . 150 
 
 CLAVOS AND ESCLAVOS Sheppard . . . Varley . . .152 
 
 RETURN TO THE BEACH " .... Bogert . . . 154 
 
 UPSET IN THE SURF " .... Andrew . . . 155 
 
 DE SOTO Nichols . . .157 
 
 From a portrait engraved for the Bradford Club, of New York. 
 
 THE MUSTER AT SAN LUCAR . . . . E. A. Abbey . . Varley . . .158 
 
 SACRIFICE OF JUAN ORTIZ Sheppard . . . Miller . . .159 
 
 THE INDIAN QUEEN " ... Bobbett. . . 162 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xxxvii 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 
 PALISADED TOWN Hosier Miller . . . 163 
 
 From De Bry't Brevis Nairatio, 1591. 
 
 FLEET OF THE CACIQUE A. R. Waud . . Bogert . . .165 
 
 BURIAL OF DB SOTO " ... " ... 168 
 
 DEPARTURE OF THE SPANIARDS ... " ... " ... 170 
 
 FISHING FLEET AT NEWFOUNDLAND. . T. Moran . . . Miller . . .174 
 
 PORTRAIT OF GIOVANNI DA VERRAZANO Nichols . . . 1 76 
 
 INDIANS MAKING A CANOE Hosier .... Varley . . .177 
 
 From De Bry's Admiranda Narratio, 1590 
 
 VERRAZANO IN NEWPORT HARBOR . . A. R. Wau<l . . Bogert . . .179 
 
 JACQUES CARTIER Nichols . . .180 
 
 From the portrait in Histoire de la Colonie Francaise en Canada. 
 
 SETTING UP THE ARMS OF FRANCE . . Bayard .... Hildibrand . .182 
 
 DONNACONA'S STRATEGY " ... Laplante . . 184 
 
 CARTIER AT HOCHELAGA E. A. Abbey . . Varley . . .186 
 
 CARTIER'S DEPARTURE FROM ST. MALO A. R. Waud . . Bogert . . . 188 
 
 FRENCH COSTUMES (16th Century) . . . W. Waud . . . Langridge . .189 
 
 ENTERING THE ST. JOHN RIVER . . . T. Moran . . . Bogert . . .191 
 
 BUILDING THE PINNACK A. R. Waud . . Fay . . . .195 
 
 FORT CAROLINE Hosier .... Roberts . . . 198 
 
 From De Bry's Brevix Narratio, 1591. 
 
 ARREST OF THE PIRATES E. Bayard . . . Laplante . . 201 
 
 FIGHT WITH INDIANS " .... . . 203 
 
 PEDRO MENENDEZ Nichols . . . 205 
 
 From Shea's Charlevoix's New France. 
 
 RESCUE OF LAUDONNIERE E. Bayard . . . Laplante . . 208 
 
 MASSACRE OF RIBAULT " ... " . . 211 
 
 LAYING OUT OF ST. AUGUSTINE . . . Sheppard . . . Anthony . . 213 
 
 DKATH OF THE SENTINEL E. Bayard . . . Barbant . .217 
 
 THE FRENCH FIFER A. R. Waud . . Anthony . . 223 
 
 WILI.OUGHBY'S SHIPS IN ARCTIC SEAS A. R. Wau.l . . Bogert . . .228 
 
 FROBISHER'S DEPARTURE ...... " . Kin<* . 230 
 
 O 
 
 SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT Nichols . . .232 
 
 VIEW ON COAST NEAR TORQUAY . . . A. R. Waud . . Bogert . . .233 
 
 DARTMOUTH HARBOR " ... " ... 234 
 
 SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT READING HIS 
 
 COMMISSION Fredericks . . . Bobbett . . .237 
 
 WRECK OF THE "DELIGHT" . . . . A. R. Waud . . Anthony . . 238 
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH Nichols . . .240 
 
 From a portrait in Prince's Worthies of Devon. 
 
 LANDING ON THE ISLAND T. Moran . . . Anthony . . 242 
 
 LORD AND LADY OF SECOTAN .... Hosier .... Winham . . 244 
 
 From De Bry's Admiranda Narratio, 1590. 
 
 QUEEN ELIZABETH OF ENGLAND Walker . . . 245 
 
 From an original by Zuccero in Lodge's Portraits. 
 
xxxvm LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Designer, Engraver. Page. 
 
 SIGNATURE OK RALPH LANE McDonald . . 246 
 
 AN INDIAN VILLAGE Hosier Aikens . . . 248 
 
 From De Bry's Admiramla Narratio, 1590. 
 
 TOBACCO PLANT " ... 250 
 
 BARTHOLOMEW GILBERT'S DEATH . . Sheppard. . . . Linton . . . 260 
 
 SIGNATURE OF QUEEN ELIZABETH 261 
 
 SIGNATURE OF SIK WALTER RALEIGH 261 
 
 ENTRANCE TO CHESAPEAKE BAY . . T. Moran .... Meeder . . . 262 
 
 PROVINCETOWN A. R. Waud . . . McCracken . . 263 
 
 JAMES I Nichols . . .268 
 
 From a portrait in Goodman's History of Court of James I. 
 JOHN SMITH " ... 269 
 
 From Smith's Map in his General History of Virginia. 
 Fac-simile. 
 
 NEWPORT'S EMBARKATION Sheppard .... Varley . . . 271 
 
 DEPOSITION OF WINGFIELD . . . . E. A. Abbey . . . Bobbett . . . 277 
 JOHN SMITH TAKEN PRISONER Richardson . . 280 
 
 From Smith's General History. Fac-simile. 
 POCAHONTAS SAVING LlFE OF SMITH " . . 282 
 
 From Smith's General History. Fac-simile. 
 POWHATAN AND HIS WlVES " . . 284 
 
 From Smith's General History. Fac-simile. 
 
 CORONATION OF POWHATAN .... Sol Eytinge . . . J. P. Davis . . 288 
 TAKING KING OF PAMUNKEY PRISONER Richardson . . 290 
 
 From Smith's General Hit/ory. 
 
 SIGNATURE OF SIR THOMAS GATES 292 
 
 SIGNATURE OF WILLIAM STRACHEY 292 
 
 WRECK OF THE "SEA ADVENTURE" . A. R. Waud . . King .... 293 
 
 SIGNATURE OF GEORGE PERCY 295 
 
 SIGNATURE OF LORD DE LA WARRE 296 
 
 ARRIVAL OF DE LA WARRE .... Sheppard . . . Smithwyck . . 297 
 
 THE IDLE COLONISTS Fredericks . . . Bobbett . . . 299 
 
 POCAHONTAS Hosier Eastmead . . 303 
 
 PRESENTATION OF POCAHONTAS AT 
 
 COURT . Sol Eytinge . . . J. P. Davis . . 304 
 
 SIGNATURE OF JAMES 1 307 
 
 INDIANS AT A PORTAGE Sheppard . . . W. J. Linton . 308 
 
 SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN Hosier .... Aikens . . . 312 
 
 From portrait in CEuvres de Champlain, Quebec, 1870. 
 
 SIGNATURE OF CHAMPLAIN 313 
 
 THE MOUTH OF THE KENNEBEC . . . W. Waud . . . W. J. Linton . 315 
 
 INDIANS IN LONDON Cary Varley . . .317 
 
 MEETING OF NAHANADA AND SKIT- 
 
 WARROES Sheppard . . . Bogert . . . 318 
 
 SETTING DOGS ON THE INDIANS ... " ... " ... 320 
 
 GREAT HEAD T. Moran . . . Bookhout . . 323 
 
 BAR HARBOR " . Hitchcock . 324 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xxxix 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 
 SOMES'S SOUND T. Moran . . . Anthony . . 325 
 
 AKGALL'S ATTACK ON THE FRENCH . Sheppard . . . Gray . . . .326 
 
 COD-FISHING Perkins . . . Andrew . . . 328 
 
 RICHARD VINES AT CKAWFORD NOTCH Waud .... Anthony . . . 330 
 
 SIGNATURE OF FERDINANDO GORGES 332 
 
 VIEW AT THE MOUTH OF THE Pis- 
 
 CATAQUA T. Moran . . . Varley .... 334 
 
 MEDAL [Time of Charles V.] .... Hosier .... Aikens . . . 340 
 DUTCH SHIPPING [16th Century] . . . A. R. Waud . . Varley . . . 342 
 BARENTZ AT NOVA ZEMBLA .... " . . Bookhout . . . 344 
 
 HUDSON'S ATTACK ON THE INDIAN 
 
 VILLAGE Sol Eytinge . . Andrew . . . 349 
 
 THE APPROACH TO THE NARROWS . . E. Perkins . . King .... 350 
 
 ROBYN'S RIFT A. R. Waud . . Anthony . . . 352 
 
 VERDRIETIG HOECK J. D. Woodward . Morse .... 353 
 
 LIMIT OF HUDSON'S VOYAGE .... " . . Annin .... 354 
 
 NAHANT T. Moran . . . Bookhout . . . 359 
 
 BLOCK ISLAND A. R. Waud . . Hoey .... 360 
 
 UPPER WATERS OF THE DELAWARE . W. H. Gibson . Harley . . . 362 
 
 TRADING SCOUTS A. R. Waud . . Richardson . . 363 
 
 FIRST SETTLEMENT AT ALBANY ... *' . . French . . . 366 
 
 EARLIEST PICTURE OF NEW AMSTEU- 
 
 . DAM Hosier .... McDonald . . 368 
 
 From a map of the period. 
 
 FIRST SEAL OF PLYMOUTH COLONY Maurice . . . 370 
 
 VIKW OF SCROOBY VILLAGE .... Warren . . . Gray .... 372 
 FIRE-PLACE IN 16TH CENTURY ... " ... French . . . 373 
 SITE OF SCROOBY MANOR ..... " ... " ... 374 
 
 SIGNATURE OF WILLIAM BREWSTER 375 
 
 ATTEMPTED FLIGHT OF PURITANS . . Fredericks . . Bobbett . . . 377 
 CHURCH AT AUSTERFIELD, BRADFORD'S 
 
 BIRTHPLACE Hosier .... Karst .... 380 
 
 LEYDEN Woodward . . Juengling. . . 384 
 
 DELFT-HAVEN Hosier .... Karst .... 386 
 
 PLYMOUTH HARBOR, ENGLAND . . . T. Moran . . . Varley 387 
 
 HARBOR OF PROVINCETOWN . . . . A. R. Waud . . Harley . . .388 
 THE LANDING ON CAPE COD .... " . . Langridge . . 390 
 
 SIGNATURE OF MILES STANDISH 391 
 
 RELICS FROM THE "MAYFLOWER" Hosier. . . . Juengling. . . 395 
 
 John Alden's Bible. William Clark's 
 
 Mug and Wallet, etc. 
 LANDING OF JOHN ALDEN AND MARY 
 
 CHILTON Abbey .... Varley . . .396 
 
 STONE CANOPY OVER PLYMOUTH ROCK Hosier . . . Bookhout . . 397 
 
xl LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Deriyner. Enyraver. 
 FIRST BURIAL PLACE NEAR THE LAND- 
 ING Gibson .... McCracken . . 398 
 
 GOVERNOR CARVER'S CHAIR .... Hosier .... McDonald . . 399 
 VISIT OF SAMOSET TO THE COLONY . A. R. Waud . . J. P. Davis . . 400 
 
 SIGNATURES TO PLYMOUTH PATENT 403 
 
 CHRISTMAS REVELLERS Fredericks . . Bobbett . . . 404 
 
 BURIAL HILL Hosier .... Miller .... 406 
 
 SWORD OF MILES STANDISH 408 
 
 SIGNATURE OF WILLIAM BRADFORD 410 
 
 SITE OF FIRST CHURCH AND GOV- 
 ERNOR BRADFORD'S HOUSE . . . A. R. Waud . . French . . .411 
 
 SIGNATURE OF EDWARD WINSLOW 413 
 
 EXPULSION OF OLDHAM Abbey .... Langridge . .415 
 
 BARRICADE AT CAPE ANN .... " ... French . . . 418 
 STANDISH'S POT AND PLATTER . . . Hosier .... Maurice . . .419 
 
 SPINNING WHEEL " ... Karst .... 422 
 
 FESTIVITIES AT MERRY MOUNT . -. . Fredericks . . Bobbett . . . 425 
 
 PLYMOUTH ROCK Hosier .... Richardson . . 428 
 
 AMSTERDAM W. Waud . . . Langridge . . 429 
 
 SEAL OF NEW NETHERLAND 430 
 
 DUTCH COSTUMES W. Waud . . . Langridge . . 431 
 
 TRADING FOR FURS A. R. Waud . . Bogert. . . . 434 
 
 INDIAN TAKING DOWN THE ARMS OF 
 
 HOLLAND ' . . " ... 436 
 
 PORTRAIT OF DE VRIES Bross .... 437 
 
 From a photograph of an old print in 1st edition of De Vries's Voyages. 
 VAN TWILLER'S DEFIANCE .... Fredericks . . Bobbett . . . 438 
 DE VRIES ON THE EAST RIVER . . . A. R. Waud . . Bookhout . . . 439 
 
 DUTCH WINDMILL 442 
 
 GOVERNOR'S HOUSE AND CHURCH . . Hosier .... McDonald . . 442 
 THE OBSTINATE TRUMPETER .... Fredericks . . Bobbett . . . 443 
 LANDING OF DUTCH COLONY ON 
 
 STATEN ISLAND A. R. Waud . . J. P. Davis . .447 
 
 SELLING ARMS TO THE INDIANS . . " . . Langridge . . 450 
 
 DE VRIES IN THE ICE A. R. Waud . . Morse .... 453 
 
 DINNER AT VAN DAM'S M. A. Hallock . Anthony . . . 454 
 
 INDIAN FUGITIVES FROM PAVONIA . . Fredericks . . Bobbett . . . 455 
 MASSACRE OF ANN HUTCHINSON . . Sheppard . . . Richardson . . 457 
 
 THE BINNENHOF Hosier .... Hitchcock . . 459 
 
 MARCH AGAINST THE INDIANS IN CON- 
 NECTICUT Winslow Homer. W. J. Linton . 461 
 
 HALL OF THE STATES GENERAL . . Hosier .... Avery .... 463 
 SMOKING THE PIPE OF PEACE . . . Sheppard . . . Bogert .... 464 
 COSTUMES OF SWEDES W. Waud . . . Langridge . .467 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 xli 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Pag*. 
 
 EARLY SWEDISH CHURCH Hosier .... Cocheu . . .469 
 
 PRINTZ AND THE SAILOR Sheppard . . . Bogert. . . .472 
 
 TAKING WARNING TO JAMESTOWN . . Warren , . . J. P. Davis . . 480 
 
 DESERTED SETTLEMENT W. H. Gibson . Harley .... 483 
 
 SCENERY IN THE CHESAPEAKE . . . T. Moran . . . W. J. Linton . 485 
 
 HENRIETTA MARIA Bross . . . . 48< 
 
 From Lodge's portraits. 
 
 CECIL CALVERT [From an old print] ... 489 
 
 COWES IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT . . . Woodward . . Bogert ... .490 
 
 LANDING OF THE COLONY Fredericks . . Bobbett . . .492 
 
 GOVERNOR CALVERT AND THE INDIAN 
 
 CHIEF Sheppard . . . J. P. Davis . . 493 
 
 ST. GEORGE'S ISLAND T. Moran . . . Anthony . . .495 
 
 THE BLUFF AT ST. MARY'S .... " . . " . . 496 
 
 RETURN FROM A HUNT Woodward . . Meeder . . .497 
 
 MARYLAND SHILLING . . 4 " 
 
 CLAYBORNE'S TRADING-POST ON KENT 
 
 ISLAND A. R. Waud . . Richardson . . 500 
 
 FIGHT BETWEEN CLAYBORNE AND CORN- 
 
 WALLIS " Bookhout . . . 502 
 
 EXCITEMENT AT JAMESTOWN .... Fredericks . . Bobbett . . . 503 
 
 CLAYBORNE'S PETITION '* . . . 507 
 
 INDIAN ATTACK ON AN OUTLYING PLAN- 
 TATION Sheppard . . . Harley . . . .509 
 
 CHANCELLOR'S POINT FROM ST. INI- 
 
 GOE'S T. Moran . . . Varley . . . 512 
 
 CHURCH NEAR THE SITE OF THE FIRST 
 
 JESUIT CHAPEL " . . W. J. Linton . . 513 
 
 FAC-SIMILE OF MS. RECORDS 515 
 
 SHAWMUT Woodward . . Meeder . . .517 
 
 PORTRAIT OF ENDICOTT Nichols . . . 520 
 
 SIGNATURE OF ENDICOTT 521 
 
 THE OLD PLANTER'S HOUSE Roberts . . . 522 
 
 COLONIAL RELICS Hosier .... French . . . 523 
 
 Endicott's Sundial, etc. 
 SEAL OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY COM- 
 PANY Hosier 525 
 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN WINTHROP, SENIOR Nichols . . . 527 
 
 SIGNATURE OF WINTHROP 527 
 
 COLONIAL FURNITURE Lathrop . . . Marsh .... 530 
 
 COLONIAL RELICS " ... " .... 531 
 
 OLD HOUSE, BOSTON, ENGLAND . . . Hosier .... Miller .... 533 
 
 MAP OF BOSTON HARBOR 534 
 
 SIGNATURE OF ROGER WILLIAMS .534 
 
xlii 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 
 FIRST CHURCH, SALEM Hosier .... Juengling . . 535 
 
 SIGNATURE OF JOHN COTTON 540 
 
 ST. BOTOLPH'S CHURCH, BOSTON, ENG- 
 LAND .*... Hosier. . . . Karst . . . .541 
 
 ROGER WILLIAMS'S HOUSE, SALKM Bobbett . . . 545 
 
 ROGER WILLIAMS BUILDING HOUSE Anthony . . . 546 
 
 SITE OF FORT GOOD HOPE A. R. Waud . . Annin .... 548 
 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN WINTHROP, JUNIOR Bross .... 550 
 
 TEARING DOWN THE DUTCH ARMS . . Sheppard . . . Bogert . . . 550 
 
 SIGNATURE OF LORD SAY AND SEAL 551 
 
 HOOKER'S EMIGRATION TO CONNECTI- 
 CUT Slieppard . . . Bogert . . . 552 
 
 HENRY VANE 553 
 
 TRIAL OF ANN HUTCHINSON .... Abbey . . , . Marsh .... 555 
 RECAPTURE OF OLDHAM'S VESSEL . . A. R. Waud . . Langridge . . 557 
 
 LIST OF MAPS. 
 
 Titlt. Page. 
 
 MAP OF CAPE Con AND NAWSET ISLE 41 
 
 THE ZENI MAP ~ 84 
 
 GLOBE OF MARTIN BEHAIM, 1492 103 
 
 SEBASTIAN CABOT'S MAP, 1544 132 
 
 MAP OF VIRGINIA 243 
 
 From Harlot's Relation. 
 
 MAP OF CAPE COD . , 2G4 
 
 MAP OF PLYMOUTH HARBOR 394 
 
 MAP OF NKW ENGLAND 519 
 
 Fac-simile. From Smith's General History. 
 

 
 WALTER RALEIGH. 
 (From the jwtralt attributed to f'ederigo Zuccero.) 
 
Primeval America. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PRE-HISTORIC MAN. 
 
 MAN COETAL WITH EXTINCT ANIMALS. THE CAVE-PEOPLE. SCANDINAVIAN SHELL- 
 HEAPS. LAKE-DWELLINGS OF SWITZERLAND. HABITS OF THE PRIMITIVE MAN. 
 Two STONE AGES. RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN STONE RELICS OF Two HEMISPHERES. 
 AMERICA THE OLDEST CONTINENT. A ZONE OF PYRAMIDS. TRADITIONS OF 
 A LOST CONTINENT. SHELL-HEAPS IN UNITED STATES. A PRE-HISTORIC HUNT 
 IN MISSOURI. HUMAN REMAINS IN GOLD-DRIFT OF CALIFORNIA. SUPERIOR AN- 
 TIQUITY OF MAN IN AMERICA. 
 
 THE period and the conditions of the early existence of man have, 
 within the last half century, been the subject of fresh and interesting 
 investigation. The recognition of human relics in certain geological 
 relations has established the fact that there once prevailed in Europe 
 a barbarism essentially like that belonging to the lower type 
 
 t f . im . , . Antiquity of 
 
 or savages or our own time. This primeval state of man in man in EU- 
 
 that portion of the world existed too long ago to be included 
 
 within the historic period ; and, so far as careful observation has been 
 
 made, similar evidence of the antiquity of the race is found in the 
 VOL. i. i 
 
2 
 
 1HE PRE-HISTOIUC MAN 7 . 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 imperishable signs of human habitation and the rude arts of savage 
 life in all other parts of the globe. 
 
 Northern Europe at one period was buried in an Arctic winter for 
 many centuries. On the summits of lofty mountain ranges, great 
 glaciers of ice and snow were piled, which advanced by slow degrees, 
 and covered land and sea. When at length this long and dreary 
 period drew toward its close, the glaciers receded, and the earth be- 
 came habitable, then, although a period of intense cold was long con- 
 tinued, there appeared many great and strange animals, now known 
 
 only by their fossil 
 remains. Among 
 them, wandering in 
 herds over the region 
 which afterwards was 
 shaped into the pres- 
 ent continent of Eu- 
 rope, feeding upon 
 the vegetation of a 
 virgin world, were 
 the elephant, with 
 long hair and mane, 
 a rhinoceros clad in 
 fur, a gigantic elk 
 ten feet in height, 
 with antlers measur- 
 ing eleven feet from tip to tip, the cave-bear, the cave-lion, and other 
 ferocious beasts after their kind, hiding themselves and their prey in 
 dens and caverns. In caves and gravel drifts in France, in Belgium, 
 and in England, man has left the indubitable witnesses of his life, in 
 association with the bones of these extinct animals, of which whole 
 races perished while he survived through periods of successive sub- 
 mersions and upheavals of land, of floods from slowly receding gla- 
 ciers, of alterations in climate due, perhaps, to the changing relative 
 positions of the earth to the sun, perhaps to the relative areas of land 
 and sea in different portions of the globe at different periods. 
 
 These people who first appeared, or the first, at least, who are 
 known to have appeared, in Europe, were mere naked sav- 
 ages with an instinct to kill and to eat, to creep under a rock 
 as a shelter from the cold and the rain ; who in the course of time 
 learned that fire would burn and cook, that there was warmth in the 
 skin of a beast, that a sharpened stone would kill and would scrape 
 much better than a blunt one. From generation to generation they 
 lived and died in the caves where they have left the evidences of their 
 
 Long-haired Elephant. 
 
 The caye- 
 
 Ulrn. 
 
REMAINS IN SHELL-HEAPS. 
 
 Carving on Bone. (Long-haired Elephant.) 
 
 existence ; and it is a curious and interesting mark of their progress 
 that some of these troglodytes in the south of France made tolerable 
 carvings in bone and 
 drawings of various 
 animals upon horns 
 and tusks of ivory. 
 Pictures of the long- 
 haired elephant and 
 of groups of reindeer 
 show the possession 
 of that artist - sense 
 which seems as pe- 
 culiar to and inher- 
 ent in man as the power to laugh and the faculty of articulate speech ; 
 and they prove also that these artists were familiar with the animals 
 they sketched, of which one is known to the modern world only by 
 its fossil remains, and another, though still extant, is able to live only 
 in latitudes of extreme cold. 
 
 On the coast of Denmark there are immense shell-heaps called 
 
 Kj okken-Moddings kitchen 
 middings or kitch- Remsinflill 
 en-refuse - heaps sheii-heaps. 
 
 differing little, if at all, from 
 similar heaps on other coasts, 
 all over the world, except 
 that they have been dug 
 into, turned up, sifted, stud- 
 ied, inch by inch, atom by 
 
 atom, with that sagacity, pa- 
 Caving on Bone. (Group of Reindeer.) ^^ &nd milmtene88 which 
 
 distinguish modern science. In these are found, mingled with stone im- 
 plements, bones of various beasts and birds and shells of different fish, 
 the bones of a certain species of grouse, a bird known to have fed 
 upon the buds of the pine tree. But the pine tree does not grow, and 
 has not grown within the historic period, in Denmark. It is found, 
 however, in the peat-bogs, thirty feet beneath the present surface of 
 the soil. Above these buried pines are the trunks of the oak and white 
 birch that followed the pine forests, flourished for centuries, and then 
 in their turn died out. On the upper surface of the bogs grows the 
 beech, the common forest tree of Denmark now, as it has been so far 
 back as either history or tradition goes. Thus forest after forest of dif- 
 ferent species, to which the climate and the soil were adapted, has come 
 and gone since the people of the Kjokken-Moddings fed upon this bird, 
 the capercailzie, which lived upon the buds of those buried pines. 
 

 THE PRE-HISTORIC MAN. 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 Nor are these men of the caves and of the Kjokken-Moddings the 
 only representatives of the ancient race or races who left their relics 
 in their actual habitations. In the years 1853-54, two successive dry 
 seasons reduced the waters of the lakes of Switzerland to a lower point 
 than was ever known before. It was discovered, first by accident and 
 afterward by careful search, that dwellings built upon piles had once 
 
 
 Lake-dweller's Village. (Restored by Keller.) 
 
 stood in these lakes near their shores. Continued systematic and pa- 
 tient examination of the sites of these habitations proves that some of 
 them belonged to an ancient people, and that, as their relics show, 
 they lived in them, from century to century, from the earliest appear- 
 ance of man down, probably, to the historic period. 
 
 With these last discoveries the case seems complete. In the dark 
 caves of various regions, for whose possession these early men doubt- 
 less contended with the cave-lion, the cave-bear, and the cave-hyena ; 
 by the sea-shore in the Kjokken-Moddings of Denmark; in the huts 
 of the Lake region where they put water between themselves and all 
 danger from wild beasts or other enemies, their history is read in the 
 simple implements of the infancy and childhood of the race. 
 
 When the human creature learned that he could avail himself of ' 
 
 his hands in a way and with an intelligent purpose to which 
 of the prim- no other animal had attained, and of which mere paws and 
 claws seemed incapable, his first use, probably, of that dis- 
 covery was to hurl a stick or a stone at an enemy or a wild beast in 
 
IMPLEMENTS OF THE STONE AGE. 
 
 5 
 
 defence or attack. Observation and experience would soon lead him 
 to some contrivance better than a mere missile, and to combine the 
 stick and the stone into an artificial weapon. So, also, from bruising 
 or crushing with a pebble, the transition is equally natural to a rude 
 
 Savage of the Stone Age. 
 
 hammer or hatchet, the stone prepared, in some way, to receive a 
 handle, or sharpened at one end to an edge, so that a blow could be 
 struck to break or cut with careful limitations. In the first period of 
 this early age, therefore, when man is supposed to have begun to learn 
 that he had the faculty of invention which might make him superior 
 to all other animals, are found the first rude weapons and implements, 
 arrow-heads and spear-heads, knives, hatchets, hammers, and tools 
 sharpened to edges of different shapes and for various purposes, all 
 made of stone or bone, but all only roughly chipped, unground, and 
 unpolished. 
 
 It must have taken generations, it may have taken centuries, before 
 even this much of culture was secured by the man, whose wants were 
 few, whose intellect was as feeble as the intellect of a modern child, 
 but whose mere brute force of muscular strength and whose power of 
 endurance were probably so great as alone to suffice, for the most 
 part, to satisfy all his wants. Certainly, as the relics he has left be- 
 hind him show, a long time elapsed before he much improved his con- 
 dition. Slowly and gradually he added to the number of his tools, and 
 improved upon their shape and capability. Among the most common 
 
6 
 
 THE PRE-HL5TORIC MAN. 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 of these improved implements is what the antiquary calls a celt 
 celtis, a chisel and which may have been used either as a chisel, a 
 hatchet, or an adze ; he contrived a scraper, with which he cleaned 
 
 Fig. 1, flint awl. 2, Swiss stone axe. 
 
 Stone Implements. 
 
 3, spear-head. 4, stone celt, b, stone scraper. 6, bone awl. 
 7, atone dagger. 
 
 the adhering flesh from the skins of the beasts he killed ; he invented 
 bodkins and needles of bone, to pass through them the sinews that 
 served for thread when he made clothing of these skins; and he fash- 
 ioned harpoons for fishing. To his offensive weapons lie added dag- 
 gers ; his axe he improved in size and shape; and he cut jagged teeth 
 in long flakes of flint for saws. Such of these implements as were for 
 
 use once or twice only in war or in the 
 chase, or for rough and infrequent purposes, 
 he left still rudely chipped. 
 
 But with the exercise of the inventive 
 power came the sense of beauty, the con- 
 sciousness of increased effectiveness in the 
 perfection of a tool, and perhaps the de- 
 velopment of a new satisfaction in the per- 
 manent possession of personal property of 
 his own creation. Then he was no longer 
 Earliest Pottery. content with the rough pebble that he 
 
 picked up on the beach, but sought for better material ; he studied the 
 grain and the cleavage of different flints and obsidians ; bestowed time 
 
 
 
THE PRIMITIVE MAN. 
 
 
 
 and much labor upon the perfecting of his implements ; contrived new 
 and more convenient handles : gave grace and outline to their shapes ; 
 ground their edges to keen sharpness, and 
 polished them with studious care. So in 
 the lapse of centuries he attained at length 
 to the age of Polished Stone. With it 
 come the first evidences of the manufac- 
 ture of a rude pottery, learned, perhaps, 
 by some observant savage from the acci- mg-cu P . 
 
 dental baking of clay, who conceived therefrom a better drinking- 
 cup, or vessel to hold his food, than a clam-shell or the hollow of his 
 hand. 1 
 
 From all the varied relics of the man of the early, and so far as 
 is yet known the earliest epoch, the ethnologist has deduced Hj gmo4eo f 
 that he was of small brains, retreating forehead, projecting Ufe - 
 jaws, low in intellect, but of great strength of bone and muscle, 
 which enabled him to encounter and overcome the formidable dangers 
 of his time. He lived near the sea-shore or on the banks of lakes 
 and rivers, from which he drew, in part, his subsistence. A hunter 
 and fisherman, compelled to a constant struggle for bare subsistence, 
 he did not at first cultivate the earth, and it is doubted if even he 
 bestowed much labor upon gathering the fruits and vegetables which 
 irature unassisted might have afforded him. His food was flesh ; the 
 incisors of the jaws that have been found are, like those of the Esqui- 
 maux of the present day, worn smooth, and it is surmised that, like 
 that people, he preferred to eat raw perhaps because he was slow in 
 learning how to cook the flesh of the animals he killed. His front 
 teeth did not overlap as ours do, but met one another like those of the 
 Greenlanders, and he could therefore the more easily tear and gnaw 
 the flesh from the bones. 2 Sometimes on the bones of children, as well 
 as of adults, the marks of such human teeth have been observed, and 
 it is supposed that failing other food, he fed, not only upon his enemies 
 whom he killed in battle, but upon those whom he could only be led 
 to eat by the extremity of hunger or the mere fondness for human flesh. 
 But he was not always a cannibal, or at least the testimony to this 
 propensity is not always present among the other evidences of his way 
 of life. The skins of the beasts he killed in the chase or trapped, 
 perhaps served for tents, and no doubt for clothing ; their flesh and 
 the marrow of their bones, for which he seems to have had a special 
 fondness, were his food. These skins he dressed with his unpolished 
 stone scraper, shaped them with his stone knife, sewed them with 
 
 1 See Tylor, Lubbock, Lyell, Vogt, Dawkins, Gustaldi, Busk, Keller, Figuier, et al. 
 
 2 Pre-historic Times. By Sir John Lubbock. 
 
8 
 
 THE PRE-HISTORIC MAN. 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 threads of sinews in needles of bone. A flatness or compression of 
 the shin-bone, differing from the shape of the tibia of civilized man, 
 is sometimes found, which permitted, it is suggested, of a disposition 
 of the muscles peculiarly adapted to men living by hunting in a rough 
 and mountainous country. 1 He found a shelter at first in natural 
 caves, and in huts of the simplest construction, partly because the con- 
 vulsions of nature, however gradual they may have been, were still 
 too frequent and too tremendous to admit of any pretermission of the 
 struggle with the elements by which alone he could maintain exist- 
 ence ; or to leave any leisure for the development of the architectural 
 faculty. 
 
 To the beginning of that remote and long continued epoch has 
 been given the name of the Stone Age, because then men 
 had only learned to fashion from the pebbles they picked up 
 at their feet, a rude weapon for warfare or a ruder imple- 
 ment for domestic use. And this era of the childhood of the race is 
 divided into two periods, the Unground Stone Age (Palaeolithic), and 
 the Ground Stone (Neolithic) Age. But the dividing line between 
 
 
 The Age of Ice. 
 
 1 See Broca upon the Ossemens des Azies ; Busk on Human Remains, etc., in the Cave* 
 of Gibraltar. Report of the International Congress of Pre-historic Archaeology, 1868 ; 
 Dawkius' Cave Hunting, London, 1874. 
 
THE LAKE-DWELLERS. 
 
 these two periods is so vague and uncertain that it is thought by 
 some impossible to define it in any other way than by the recurrence 
 of a second glacial era when all Europe was wrapped in an Arctic 
 winter, and buried in Arctic ice, probably for hundreds of years. 1 
 
 At any rate a long period passed away before these rude men 
 learned to grind and polish the 
 stones which at first they only 
 chipped, and it is doubted if 
 their stone axes were pierced to 
 receive a handle till working in 
 metals in later times had taught 
 them a method for the process. 
 For the Stone Age overlapped 
 the Bronze, and even when they 
 had come to know how to smelt 
 copper and had learned that 
 nine parts of that metal to one 
 of tin would make a combina- 
 tion hard enough for a useful 
 tool, or sword, or spear, they 
 long held to their old imple- 
 ments of stone, no doubt, be- 
 
 Fig. 1, celt. 
 
 Bronze Implements. 
 2, bronze hair-pin (Swiss). 
 
 IP 
 
 3, bronze razor 
 knife-blade (Deuuak). 4, bronze knife-blade (Danish.) 
 
 cause of the cost of material and slow growth of skill. But when man 
 began to smelt ores he began to make history ; and there is a visible 
 
 connection between the Bronze Age and our 
 own, in traditions, oral and written, in in- 
 scriptions upon sculptured stones, in picture- 
 writing in temples and on ancient monu- 
 ments. 
 
 The Lake-dwellers, however, though some 
 of them were in the condition of the earliest 
 Stone Age, were generally of that more re- 
 cent period when the continent had settled 
 into its present form ; their population was 
 numerous enough to gather into communi- 
 ties sufficient for the felling of trees with 
 their stone axes ; these trees, sharpened with 
 the aid of fire, they drove into the muddy 
 bottoms of the lakes as piles for the support 
 of the platforms of their houses. With their relics, in beds three feet 
 in thickness, the accumulation of centuries, are found the first evi- 
 dences of agriculture and horticulture. Among the charred remains 
 
 1 The Great Ice Age ; and its Relation to the Antiquity of Man. By James Geikie. 1874. 
 
 Sculptured Stone. 
 
10 
 
 THE PRE-HISTORIC MAN. 
 
 [CHAP. L 
 
 Lake-dweller's Loom. 
 
 of their villages, which seem to have often been destroyed by fire, 
 
 are wheat, barley, and linseed, ap- 
 i- pies and pears cut in halves as if 
 for winter use, the seeds of straw- 
 berries, raspberries, elderberries, blackber- 
 ries, loaves of bread, fragments of woven 
 cloth. 1 But the earlier men of the caves, 
 and probably of the Kjokken-Moddings, hact" 
 reached to no such point of culture. Nor 
 was it till he had attained to the Age of 
 Polished Stone that man domesticated ani- 
 mals. With the implements of that time 
 are found also the bones of the dog, the hog, 
 the horse, the ox, the sheep, the goat, ani- 
 mals made useful for labor as well as for 
 food. 2 
 
 The earliest of these peoples inhabited 
 Europe at that remote period, when, as geologists believe, the lands 
 now called Italy and Spain were joined to Africa, and in 
 the place of the Mediterranean Sea were only a few land- 
 locked basins ; when the British Islands, as far north as the 
 Shetlands, were a part of the continent ; when the present bottom of 
 the North Sea was a low, wide plain covered, probably, by magnifi- 
 cent forests, through which the Rhine, with the Elbe and the Thames 
 as its tributaries, wound its way to discharge its waters at length into 
 the ocean north of Scandinavia ; and when the western boundary of 
 Europe was far out in the Atlantic beyond the present coasts of Ire- 
 land and France, extending in an unbroken line from the Arctic Ocean 
 to Africa. 
 
 Was this primeval savage, as his story is thus read in the relics he 
 has left behind him in imperishable stone, a man of a dark or a white 
 skin ? In what tongue did he speak ? Was he the ancestor of any of 
 the cultivated European races of to-day? To these questions there is 
 no satisfactory, perhaps no possible, answer. We only know that his 
 condition was evidently not unlike that of the dark-skinned barbarians 
 of our own time, and that there is no record in history of a 
 white race at so low a point of culture. There is, apparently, 
 
 Geologic 
 changes in 
 Europe. 
 
 
 
 among ^od- no trace of his lineage in any living European race, unless 
 it be in the small, black-eyed, dark-haired, swarthy people 
 of the Basque provinces of France, of Ireland west of the Shannon, 
 and of the mountains of Wales, who, it is supposed, may have 
 
 1 Keller's Lake Dwellings. Desor'a Lacustrine Constructions. 
 
 2 Cave Hunting, Researches on the Evidences of Caves, etc. By W. Boyd Dawkins. 
 
SIMILARITY IN SAVAGE RELICS. 11 
 
 descended from Neolithic ancestors. 1 Otherwise he either perished 
 in the course of nature, like many species of plants and animals of 
 former eras, or was exterminated by a stronger and wiser people, 
 migrating from the East, who came with weapons of bronze in their 
 hands, bringing with them that germ from which has grown the civili- 
 zation of Europe and America. 
 
 It is a curious and interesting inquiry what bearing this new-found 
 evidence of the antiquity of man has upon the question of the origin 
 of the first inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere and of the time of 
 their first appearance. There is a remarkable resemblance in the 
 relics of all pre-historic races, as there is a similarity in the rude works 
 of art of barbarous people in all parts of the world, and in all ages. 
 So great is this resemblance, that, it is said, a skilful observer of stone 
 implements could not, from an unticketed heap, tell within thousands 
 
 Arrow-heads from different Countries. 
 Fig. 1, Ireland. 2, France. 3, N. America. 4, Terra del Fuego. 5, Japan 
 
 of years or thousands of miles when and where they were made. 2 It 
 is only by their positions and the relations in which they are found, 
 that it is possible to assign to them 
 
 to the condition of the people to whom they once belonged. But as 
 they are, in certain positions and relations, accepted as proving the 
 antiquity of man, it is difficult to believe that in one half the world, 
 where they may be as plentiful as in the other half, they are without 
 any such significance. However puzzling it may be to distinguish 
 between the stone-hatchet or arrow-head of the modern Indian and 
 that dropped by some earlier savage before the Indian possessed the 
 land, it is possible that such a distinction may yet be clearly estab- 
 lished. 
 
 " First-born among the continents," says Agassiz, " though so much 
 later in culture and civilization than some of more recent 
 birth, America, so far as her physical history is concerned, of'Smer^an 
 has been falsely denominated the New World. Hers was ' 
 the first dry land lifted out of the waters, hers the first shore washed 
 
 1 See W. Boyd Dawkins, in Cave Hunting, and in Fortnightly Review, September, 1874, 
 who, on this point, follows Dr. Tliumam and Professor Huxley. 
 * Tylor's Early History, etc., p. 206. 
 
12 
 
 THE PRE-HISTORIC MAN. 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 by the ocean that enveloped all the earth beside ; and while Europe 
 was represented only by islands rising here and there above the sea, 
 America already stretched an unbroken line of land from Nova Scotia 
 to the Far West." 1 
 
 If then an antiquity of the human race, till recently supposed to 
 be incredible, be accepted as true, a door is thrown wide open for 
 speculation the farther we go back in time. The hypothesis of a 
 Mongolian migration is no longer indispensable to account for the 
 earliest appearance of man on that half the globe which the most 
 
 i 
 
 A Zone of Pyramids. 
 Fig. 1, Egypt. 2, Central America. 3, ladia. 4, North America. 
 
 eminent geologist of this country held to be the older half. Com- 
 munication between the two hemispheres, it is conjectured, may have 
 been, long ages ago, quite as possible in other ways as in our era across 
 the sea of Kamtschatka. To account for the resemblance in the works 
 of art, the temples, the pyramids, the hieroglyphics of Central America 
 and Mexico, to those of Asia, it has been suggested that the Eastern 
 and Western Continents once approached each other where the ocean 
 now rolls between, and that a zone or circle of the earth was at that 
 period occupied by a pyramid-building people. And to strengthen the 
 supposition, it is alleged that there are many points of resemblance 
 between the Guanches, the aboriginal but now extinct people of the 
 Canary Isles, and the ancient Egyptians on this parallel zone. 2 In the 
 form of the skull the Guanches are said to have been allied to the 
 
 1 Geological Sketches, by L. Agassi/, p. 1. 
 
 * The Races of Men. JJy Robert Kiiox. London, 1 862. 
 
TRADITIONS OF A LOST CONTIXEXT. 13 
 
 Caribs of the Antilles, and both to the tribes of the whole eastern coast 
 of America from its extreme northern limit to Paraguay and Uruguay 
 in the south. 1 Humboldt suggests 2 that the summits of the Madeira 
 and of the Canary Islands may have once been the western extremity 
 of the chain of the Atlas mountains. Others go farther and assume 
 that these islands and those of the West Indies are the summits of 
 mountain chains that once crowned an Atlantic continent which was 
 afterward submerged and disintegrated by some great cataclysm. The 
 similarity of the flora on the islands of the coast of Africa and Western 
 Europe, and those of Central Europe and Eastern America can only 
 be accounted for, according to some geologists, by the supposition of 
 such a continent before the human period. 3 The bolder theorists are 
 disposed to accept the fact without the limitation, as the time of the 
 destruction of such a continent, if it ever existed, and the first appear- 
 ance of man are alike uncertain. 
 
 In curious coincidence with these mingled facts and conjectures 
 the story is recalled which Plato says was related to Solon 
 
 ,.,,.,. , Tradition of 
 
 by an Egyptian priest of the island called Atlantis, " larger an Atlantic 
 than Asia [Minor] and Libya combined," lying beyond the 
 Pillars of Hercules, inhabited by a powerful and warlike people, and 
 which was destroyed by earthquakes and floods nine thousand years 
 before his time. In later tunes the " Island of Antilia," the " Island 
 of the Seven Cities," the "Island of the Holy Bishop Brandon," 
 placed midway in the " Sea of Darkness," as the Atlantic was then 
 called, found its place in the earliest maps of the world, sometimes 
 under one name, sometimes another, when ttre geography of one half 
 the globe was merely guessed at. 
 
 These speculations, traditions, and supposed fables are not history ; 
 but it is not impossible that in them may yet be found some aid in 
 putting together the unwritten story of the early human race on this 
 continent. It is not indeed yet established upon unquestioned evi- 
 dence that man is as old here as anywhere else ; but that such evi- 
 dence is forthcoming is hardly a subject of doubt now even among 
 those slowest to believe. 
 
 The natives of North America, when first visited by Europeans a 
 few centuries ago, belonged as distinctly to the Stone Age as the ear- 
 liest inhabitants of Europe did at an epoch too remote to be accu- 
 rately measured in years. It is not easy, therefore, to distinguish in 
 this country between the possible relics of a primeval race and those 
 of the modern Indians, where, whatever the difference of time be- 
 
 1 Professor Retzius of Stockholm. Smithsonian Report, 1859. 
 
 2 Travels to the Equinoctial Ret/ions of America. By Alexander von Humboldt. 
 
 8 See Lecture by Edward Sues*, in Vienna, translated for Smithsonian Report, 1872. 
 Opinions of Professors Unger and Heer, quoted by Lyell, Antiquity of Man, p. 492. 
 
14 THE PRE-HISTORIC MAN. [CHAP. 1 
 
 tween them, there was none of culture. Thus Lyell repeatedly refers, 
 in different works, 1 to the shell-heaps along the American coast from 
 Massachusetts to Georgia as identical with the Kjokken-Moddings, the 
 kitchen refuse-heaps, of Denmark. As witnesses to the existence of a 
 people in an early stage of barbarism, these refuse heaps of 
 shells on the coasts of different countries are undoubtedly 
 
 IT S 
 
 identical, but it may be questioned whether those upon our 
 own are the work of the modern Indian, or of a race that long pre- 
 ceded them, and coeval, perhaps, with those primitive savages who fed 
 in Denmark upon shell-fish which can no longer live in the waters of 
 the Baltic, and upon the birds whose food was the buds of trees 
 buried now in the bogs beneath successive forests. Such heaps are 
 found from Nova Scotia to Florida, upon all the Sea Islands of the 
 Southern States, along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and upon the 
 banks of fresh-water streams. Their number and their size suggest 
 the former presence of a lai-ge population and its long continuance. 
 One upon Stalling' s Island, in the Savannah River, two hundred 
 miles above its mouth, is three hundred feet in length by one hun- 
 dred and twenty in width, and with an average elevation of more 
 than fifteen feet. 2 Did the scattered tribes of Indian hunters accum- 
 ulate these huge relics of their summer fishing? Perhaps when 
 longer studied, and with a definite purpose, they may shed new light 
 here, as the shell-heaps of Denmark, the caves of Germany, France, 
 and England, the remains of human habitation beneath the lakes of 
 Switzerland, have done in Europe, upon the antiquity of the early 
 inhabitants. 3 
 
 But where the fact to be observed depends upon geological evi- 
 dence, the question is simply one of verification of that evidence. 
 This involves, ordinarily, scientific knowledge and accurate observa- 
 tion. Such observation and knowledge will, in the long run, be 
 brought to bear upon the subject and to dispel all doubts, if that is 
 possible, either one way or the other. Meanwhile the progress of the 
 accumulation of such evidence, whether more or less conclusive, is nei- 
 ther valueless nor without interest. 
 
 1 Visit to the United States. Antiquity of Man. 
 
 2 Antiquities of the Southf-rn Indians. C. C. Jones, Jr. 
 
 8 The late Professor Jeffries Wyman, of Cambridge, who had examined the structure 
 and contents of these refuse-heaps with the careful habit and rigid method of scientific 
 research, asserts, in a private letter, that no glass l>eads or tools of metal have hitherto been 
 found in them, though such articles were largely distributed among the Indians by the 
 earliest European visitors ; that some of the older mounds are wanting in any traces of 
 pottery ; that no pipes or fragments of pipes have been found in them by him and other 
 accurate explorers, though smoking was the universal custom of the Indians when first 
 known ; that trees have been observed upon them, which showed by their annular growth 
 an age antedating from one to three centuries the landing of Columbus; and that there 
 is no record, with a single exception, in the narrativ es of the early voyagers of these heaps 
 marking the dwelling-places of the Indians. 
 
FOSSILS FOUND IN AMERICA. 15 
 
 Thus, near Natchez, Mississippi, there was found about thirty years 
 ago, a fragment of a human bone, the pelvis, in association with the 
 bones of the mastodon, the megalonyx, and other extinct animals. 
 Were the man and the beasts to whom these bones belonged living 
 at the same time? That time was about a hundred thousand years 
 ago, 1 when the mastodon and megalonyx, whose remains must have 
 been buried beneath the present valley and delta of the 
 Mississippi, were certainly alive. The fissure at the bot- mains in 
 torn of which the bones were found was made during the 
 earthquakes of 1811-12, which extended through a portion of the Mis- 
 sissippi Valley, heaving the earth up into long hillocks, and tearing it 
 open into deep ravines. Sir Charles Lyell, on his visit to this coun- 
 try in 1846, carefully examined the locality and these fossils, with a 
 stronger bias, he has since said, against the probability " of the con- 
 temporaneous entombment of man and the mastodon than any geolo- 
 gist would now be justified in entertaining." 2 He suggested that the 
 human bone may have fallen from the surface of the soil, while those 
 of the fossil beasts came from strata underneath. Other scientific men 
 afterward adopted this suggestion, though he has since candidly ac- 
 knowledged that " had the pelvic bone belonged to any recent mam- 
 mifer other than man, such a theory would never have been resorted 
 
 tO." 3 
 
 So in New Orleans, in 1852, a human skeleton was dug from an 
 excavation, made for the foundation of gas-works, at a depth of six- 
 teen feet, and beneath four successive buried forests of cypress. Dr. 
 Dowler, into whose possession this skeleton came, believed, from its 
 position, that it had lain there not less than fifty thousand years, but 
 whether this be correct or not, depends upon intricate calculations as 
 to the yearly deposits of the river, about which there is great differ- 
 ence of opinion among geologists. There is on Petit Anse Island, in 
 Louisiana, a bed of almost pure rock salt, found in every part of it at 
 a depth of from fifteen to twenty feet. On this spot have been disin- 
 terred the fossil bones of the mastodon and the elephant, and under- 
 neath them lay fragments of matting and bits of broken pottery in 
 great profusion. The people to whom' this refuse once belonged had 
 resorted to the island for salt, before, it is assumed, the superimposed 
 mud of fifteen or twenty feet in depth, and in which the mastodons 
 and elephants were buried, was deposited ; on the other hand, it is 
 doubted whether the whole mass of soil and all it contained may not 
 have been washed down from the surrounding hills, mingling together 
 indiscriminately the remains of various ages. 
 
 1 Sir Charles Lyell, Second Visit to the United States, vol. ii. p. 151. 
 
 Lyell's Antiquity of Man, p. 236. 
 8 Ibid., p. 239. 
 
16 THE PRE-HISTORIC MAN. [CHAP. L 
 
 Evidence still more interesting and conclusive that man and the ex- 
 tinct animals were contemporaneous is alleged to have been found in 
 Missouri nearly forty years ago. A Dr. Koch, of St. Louis, an enthu- 
 siastic, though not a scientific, collector and exhibitor of fossil remains, 
 affirmed that in 1839 he dug up, in the bottom lands of the Bour- 
 beuse River, in Missouri, from a depth of eight or nine feet, the bones 
 of a mastodon, in such juxtaposition with human relics as 
 i"n to show that man and this beast, whose race is no longer 
 
 in existence, met upon that spot in deadly hostility. He 
 asserted that, when the exhumation was made, the great bones of the 
 legs of the animal stood erect as if the creature had become im- 
 movably mired in the deep and tenacious clay. Around it had been 
 kindled a fire by human hands, and in the ashes that lay about the 
 skeleton to the depth of from two to six inches were scattered bits 
 of charred wood and half-burnt bones, stone arrow-heads, stone axes, 
 and rough stones, these last brought evidently from the beach of 
 the river at some distance, where in a stratum of the bank, and there 
 only in the neighborhood, are similar stones still found. All these 
 missiles unquestionably had been hurled at the creature, whose gigan- 
 tic strength, stimulated by pain and rage and fear, the torments of 
 the flames, the shouts of the pursuers, the sharp wounds from their 
 stone weapons, was not enough to extricate him from the slough into 
 which his great weight had sunk him. 
 
 There are in this case two considerations to be borne in mind. If 
 man and the mastodon did not live at the same time, a discovery of 
 their remains in the alleged relations is necessarily impossible. But 
 there is no inherent improbability in the story if they were contem- 
 poraneous ; so huge a beast might easily become mired in a swamp, 
 and then be surrounded and put to death by the savages by such 
 means as were at their command. 1 The only remarkable thing about 
 the incident would be that subsequent deposits of earth should have so 
 completely covered these fossil remains, without disturbing them, that 
 they could be exhumed in their original condition so long afterward. 2 
 
 1 Savages are alike in all ages and countries. "The people," in the Lake region of 
 Eastern Africa, says the great traveller, Livingstone, "employ these continuous or set-in 
 rains for hunting the elephant, which gets bogged and sinks in from fifteen to eighteen 
 inches in soft mud ; then even he, the strong one, feels it difficult to escape." The Last 
 Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa, p. 143. 
 
 2 See Article XXXV., Silliman's Journal, May, 1875, by James D. Dana; which is de- 
 voted to a discussion of this case. Professor Dana considers Koch's statement " very 
 doubtful , " but his doubt is evidently as to Koch's truthfulness and character, and not as 
 to any inherent improbability in such a discovery, as he says, " it is to be hoped that the 
 geologists of the Missouri Geological Survey now in progress will succeed in settling the 
 question positively." And on the essential point which alone gives the story any impor- 
 tance, he adds : " The contemporaneity claimed will probably be shown to be true for 
 North America by future discoveries, if not already established ; for Man existed in Eu- 
 rope long before the extinction of the American mastodon." 
 
r "' '" '" ' V 
 
 t* 
 
 z. 
 
 X 
 
 o 
 
 - 
 o 
 
 I 
 
 W3 
 
 - 
 - 
 
 
 < 
 
THE CALAVERAS SKULL. 17 
 
 At this exhumation, Dr. Koch always affirmed that twenty persons 
 of the vicinity were present ; others have vouched for his integrity 
 and general truthfulness ; l and though he had little knowledge of 
 scientific facts and methods, and made grave mistakes in the classifica- 
 tion of fossil bones, his experience and success in recovering them was 
 greater than that of any other explorers. 2 If such a scene, then, the 
 evidences of which he claims to have uncovered, ever occurred a 
 scene in itself by no means improbable if man and the mastodon 
 lived at the same time in the same region of country a picture is 
 presented of a hunt by pre-historic men on this continent vivid enough 
 to appeal to the dullest imagination, and more remarkable than any 
 similar incident yet found anywhere else. 
 
 A year later than this asserted discovery on the Bourbeuse River, 
 the same diligent collector claimed to have made another 
 which must be considered on the same grounds. In the 
 bottomlands of the Pomme de Terre River, in Benton 
 County, Missouri, he dug up, he asserts, an almost en- 
 tire skeleton of another mastodon, beneath which were 
 two stone arrow-heads in such a position that they must 
 have been there when the animal fell. They lay in a 
 bed of vegetable mould, covered by twenty feet of Dr. Koch s Arrow- 
 alternate strata of sand, clay, and gravel, hitherto head ' 
 
 undisturbed, and on the surface of the ground grew a forest of old 
 trees. 
 
 Later discoveries of other fossils are not less significant, in the con- 
 troversies to which they have given rise, of growing interest 
 in the importance of the subject. In 1857, the fragment 
 of a human skull was taken, it is asserted, from the gold 
 drift of California, one hundred and eighty feet below the surface of 
 Table Mountain, in association with the fossil bones of extinct ani- 
 mals. More recently, in 1867 or 1868, another human cranium was 
 found in a mining shaft in Calaveras County, which Professor Whit- 
 ney, of the State Geological Survey, believes to have been an 
 authentic " find." To all the alleged circumstances in regard to it 
 he gave a careful examination, and his testimony is accepted as conclu- 
 sive by many eminent scientific men. 3 The shaft in which the bone 
 was buried is one hundred and fifty feet deep, and was sunk through 
 five beds of lava and volcanic tufa, and four beds of gold-bearing 
 
 1 Pre-historic Races of the United States, by J. W. Foster, p. 62. Charles Rau, in Smith, 
 Ionian Report for 1872. 
 
 3 The Mastodon giganteus mounted in the British Museum was found in Missouri by Dr. 
 Koch, and a representation of it, copied from Owen, is given in Dana's Manual of Geology, 
 1875, p. 566. 
 
 Among others, by the late Professor Jeffries Wyman. 
 VOL. I. 2 
 
 manekuiii 
 
18 THE PRE-HISTORIC MAN. [CHAP. I. 
 
 quartz. In this superincumbent mass no crack or crevice was appar- 
 ent through which the bone could have fallen to so great a depth, 
 and the inference therefore is that it was deposited in the place where 
 it lay when that was on the surface of the earth's crust, and that over 
 it in subsequent ages were piled up the successive beds of gravel and 
 volcanic cinders. If this be true of these skulls, then the men whom 
 they represent lived before the human race appeared in Europe, so 
 far as is yet ascertained; and before the stupendous peaks of the 
 Sierra Nevada Mountains of California were lifted from the sea. 
 
 Though the number of alleged facts bearing upon the antiquity of 
 the human family on this continent are still few and need unques- 
 tioned confirmation, the inclination of scientific belief is that the evi- 
 dence exists and will yet be found. 1 When this shall be done beyond 
 cavil a new foundation will be laid on which to base the inquiry as to 
 the earliest people of the Western World. However strong may be 
 the probability of the Asiatic origin of the North American Indians, 
 behind them appears another race which must have been displaced 
 by that Mongolian migration. If here as elsewhere there were races 
 more ancient than has hitherto been supposed, we can no longer look 
 upon the Western Hemisphere as solitary and unpeopled, unknown 
 and useless to man till he, grown old in the East, was numerous 
 enough and far enough advanced in intelligence and wants to wander 
 abroad upon the face of the earth in search of a new home. 
 
 1 See ante, p. 16. Note from Silliman's Journal. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 
 
 THE MOUND BUILDERS. 
 
 PROGRESS IN CIVILIZATION OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN. PRE-HISTORIC RACE IN 
 THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE. EARTHWORKS IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. BIG 
 ELEPHANT MOUND. GARDEN-BEDS. MILITARY WORKS. TEMPLE AND ALTAR 
 MOUNDS. RELICS FOUND IN THESE TUMULI. ANCIENT COPPER-MINING AT LAKE 
 SUPERIOR. CONNECTION BETWEEN THIS AND LATER CIVILIZATIONS. REMAINS IN 
 MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA. SKULLS FOUND IN THE MOUNDS. 
 
 THE North American Indians are, as a race,- in no higher plane of 
 culture now than they were three hundred years ago. If 
 
 , , . , , ... , .f The North 
 
 they have any inherent capability for progress it they American 
 could, had they remained isolated and unmolested, have ever 
 raised themselves above the conditions of the second age of stone 
 implements, that progress was arrested when they came into subjec- 
 tion to another and a higher race. It has been easy enough to inten- 
 sify the weaknesses which distinguished them as savages, by adding 
 to these the most sensual and degrading vices acquired from the 
 whites ; and in that process of degradation has been lost whatever of 
 stern and manly virtue is supposed to be the compensation in the 
 simple child of nature for the minor morals of civilized life. 
 
 It seems irrational to assume that such a people, whose contact for 
 two centuries and a half with the culture of another race has been 
 unproductive of any good, can have once fallen from a semi-civilization 
 possessed by their ancestors, but of which they have neither distinct 
 inheritance nor even dim tradition. There is no influence visible or 
 conceivable to account for a change so remarkable. They had evi- 
 dently never lost their physical vigor ; no enemy had ever before come 
 to dispossess them of the soil which they claimed as their own, or to 
 trample out by conquest and servitude the feeble sparks of nascent 
 development ; and no higher civilization had invaded and overwhelmed 
 the feeble efforts of the childhood of a race. It is to set aside all the 
 facts of history, as well as all rational conjecture, to suppose that a 
 race now apparently so hopelessly incapable of improvement had, 
 without cause, at some former period, fallen from the condition of a 
 partially cultivated people, to that of savage hunters in a country 
 
20 
 
 THE MOUND BUILDERS. 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 which had become a wilderness through their own voluntary degrada- 
 tion. 
 
 But behind these Indians, who were in possession of the country 
 Race in when it was discovered by Europeans, is dimly seen the 
 ttrior 1 to *"" shadowy form of another people who have left many remark- 
 Indians. a bi e evidences of their habits and customs and of a singular 
 degree of civilization, but who many centuries ago disappeared, either 
 exterminated by pestilence or by some powerful and pitiless enemy, 
 or driven from the country to seek new homes south and west of the 
 Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 The evidences of the presence of this ancient people are found 
 almost everywhere upon the North American Continent, except, 
 perhaps, upon the Atlantic coast. They consist of mounds sometimes 
 of imposing size, and other earthworks, so numerous that in Ohio 
 
 Earthworks in Ohio. 
 
 alone there are, or were till quite recently, estimated to be not less 
 than ten thousand of the Mounds, and fifteen hundred enclosures of 
 earth and stone all evidently the work of the same people. In other 
 parts of the country they were found in such numbers that no attempt 
 has ever been made to count them all. 
 
 There are no data by which the exact age of these singular relics 
 of a once numerous and industrious people, living a long-sustained, 
 agricultural life, can be fixed. But it is evident from certain estab- 
 lished facts that this must date from a very remote period. The chief 
 seat of their power and population seems to have been in the Missis- 
 
GREAT AGE OF MOUNDS. 21 
 
 -S. 
 
 sippi Valley. The signs of their occupation are many along the banks 
 of its rivers, but they are rarely found upon the last formed 
 
 , ,-ii Mounds in 
 
 terraces of those streams, those which have been longest 
 
 ^y 
 
 in formation, and which were the beds of the rivers when 
 most of the earthworks were built. It is very seldom that the human 
 bones found in them, except those of later and evidently intrusive 
 burial, are in a condition to admit of their removal, as they crumble 
 into dust on exposure to the air ; while bones in British tumuli, known 
 to belong to the Roman period and to ages older than the Christian 
 era, are frequently taken entire from situations, as regards soil and 
 moisture, much less conducive to their preservation, than those of the 
 mounds. 1 They are often, also, covered by the primeval forests, which 
 are known to have grown undisturbed since the country was first 
 occupied by the whites, and the annular growth of these trees has 
 been ascertained to be sometimes from five to eight centuries. 
 
 But this, so far from fixing the date of the occupation of these 
 works, does not even indicate the time when they were abandoned ; 
 for a considerable period must have elapsed before the ground was 
 occupied by trees of any kind, and before the forest, in its gradual 
 and slow encroachment, obtained complete possession of the ground ; 
 and then forest after forest may have grown, and fallen, and mingled 
 with the soil through the progress of many centuries, before the seed 
 of the latest growth was sown, five hundred or a thousand years ago. 
 The late President Harrison, who Avas considered an authority on ques- 
 tions of arboriculture, and who has been quoted by almost every writer 
 on this subject, maintained, in an address before the Ohio Historical 
 Society, that a long period elapsed before the growth which came in 
 upon abandoned cleared land became assimilated in kind to the trees 
 of the surrounding forest. For that reason alone he believed the works 
 of the Mound Builders to be of " immense age." 
 
 Even the purpose for which they were erected is often doubtful ; 
 and one class of them baffles all rational conjecture. In the State 
 of Wisconsin, occupying the region between Lake Michigan and the 
 Mississippi River, are many earthworks of a peculiar character, which 
 find few parallels in other parts of the country, while in the same 
 region is remarked the absence of the circumvallations and immense 
 mounds so numerous elsewhere. The significance of these works in 
 the northwest seems to be in their configuration alone, though what 
 that significance could have been is altogether inexplicable. 
 
 Generally, these figures are in groups, though sometimes they stand 
 alone ; they represent animals, usually in relief, though frequently the 
 
 1 Squier and Davis : Monuments of the ^f^ssissipp^ Valley. Pre-historic Man, etc., Dr. 
 Daniel Wilson, p. 228. 
 
22 
 
 THE MOUND BUILDERS. 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 reverse, and the figures are varied enough and distinct enough, to 
 
 show that they were 
 
 V 
 
 meant to be the effigies 
 
 O 
 
 of perhaps every quad- 
 ruped then known in 
 the country, of birds 
 with outstretched 
 wings, of fishes with 
 fins extended, of rep- 
 tiles, of man ; and of 
 inanimate things, the 
 
 ( \ v ( J \t LrJ X / \ war-club, the bow and 
 
 \S ~ ^* *-^ Sr I C arrow, the pipe, the 
 
 Animal Mounds. 
 
 ^ "I 
 
 cross, the crescent, the 
 circle, and other mathe- 
 matical forms. They 
 rise above the surface two, four, sometimes six feet in height ; the 
 shapes of animal figures vary from ninety to one hundred and twenty 
 the mounds. f ee ' n length, jj u t; there are rectangular embankments, only 
 a few feet in height and width, that stretch out to a length of several 
 hundred feet. Among all these representations of animals there is 
 no one more remarkable than 
 that recently described, called 
 the Big Elephant Mound, found 
 in Wisconsin a few miles below 
 the mouth of the Wisconsin 
 River. Its name indicates its 
 form ; its length is one hun- 
 dred and thirty-five feet, and its 
 other proportions are in accord- 
 ance with that measurement. 1 It 
 does not seem probable that the people who piled up these mysterious 
 earthworks could represent a mastodon or elephant if it were not a 
 living creature with which they were familiar. 
 
 In other parts of the country walls of stone and earth were raised 
 Objects of f r defence ; mounds of great or small dimensions were 
 the builders. nea p e( j U p t o cover the dead, or erected to their memory, or 
 set up as monuments where some mysterious rites of incremation, 
 or sacrifice, or worship had been celebrated ; or they marked the 
 former site of temples or of habitation. The precise object of the 
 builders, or how they attained it, can often be only guessed at ; but 
 that there was a purpose connected, in some way, with the civil or 
 
 1 Smithsonian Report, 1872. 
 
 Big Elephant Mound. 
 
EARTH-WORKS IN MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 23 
 
 religious life, or the hostile or the social relations of a very numerous 
 people, is evident. But of these works in Wisconsin there is no such 
 explanation. It does not seem possible that they could have been 
 the foundations either of dwellings or of temples for worship ; they 
 certainlv could not have been for defence ; they were rarely places of 
 sepulture, and no probable conjecture has as yet been advanced that 
 assigns to them any conceivable human intent. Yet they exist in 
 great numbers, scattered over a broad extent of country. They must 
 have cost a vast deal of labor, and they indicate the presence, when 
 they were made, of a large population. 
 
 In a portion of Wisconsin, as well as in some other places, are found 
 earthworks of another kind, but quite as remarkable, which, from 
 their supposed use, have been called " garden-beds." These are ridges, 
 or beds, about six inches in height and four feet in width, methodically 
 arranged in parallel rows, sometimes rectangular in shape, sometimes 
 of various but regular and symmetrical curves, and occupying fields of 
 from ten to a hundred acres. It has been suggested that these were 
 beds for the cultivation of maize by a people subsequent to those who 
 made the animal mounds, and who had no knowledge either of their 
 origin or purpose. But they may have been the results of the labor 
 of the same people and parts of some general design ; or, if they were 
 really " garden-beds," the fact that they were carried across the effigies 
 would show that no sacred character attached to those works. 
 
 Elsewhere works of a similar character, though in some respects 
 still a subject of conjecture, are better understood. Long walls of 
 earth and rough stone, often carried in connecting lines for many 
 miles, mark, if not sites of towns or cities, at least the presence of a 
 dense population. The selection of these sites was plainly guided by 
 convenience of access to navigable streams and the possession of lands 
 best suited for cultivation ; and it has been observed that the places 
 where the remains of this ancient people are most abundant, are those 
 which the pioneers of modern civilization selected as the natural cen- 
 tres of settlement and trade. They understood the advantages of sit- 
 uations like those of Cincinnati and St. Louis, and they crowded the 
 
 > 
 
 pleasant valleys of the Scioto, the Miami, the Wabash, the Kentucky, 
 the Cumberland, and others through which run the tributaries to the 
 Ohio and Mississippi rivers, where the bottom-lands are broadest, the 
 soil most fertile, and means of communication by water-carriage the 
 most available. 
 
 The ruins of the works which mark this occupation are generally 
 in groups ; the walls, however, are not continuous like those Fort j fica . 
 of a walled town, even where most extensive, but mark tions 
 different enclosures devoied to various purposes. Thus at the mouth 
 
24 THE MOUND BUILDERS. [CHAP. II. 
 
 of the Scioto there are embankments which measure in the aggregate 
 about twenty miles, though the area actually enclosed in its avenues, 
 squares, and circles, is only about two hundred acres. But the points 
 most capable of defence, where defence was evidently intended, were 
 selected with military skill. The summits of hills were made inacces- 
 sible to attack by lines of circumvallation ; peninsulas, surrounded on 
 three sides by a deep stream or precipitous bluffs, and only to be 
 approached on one side, were there made difficult, if not impossible 
 of access ; and in these citadels, doubtless, the outlying populations, 
 in case of danger, warned by the smoke or flame rising from mounds 
 placed on the loftiest hills, in sight of each other for many miles, 
 found safe refuge. Nor were these walls made in haste, or for a tem- 
 porary purpose. In height, they vary from five to five and twenty 
 feet ; at their base they are often twenty feet and more in width ; and 
 frequently outside the wall is a moat measuring twenty-five or fifty, 
 or eighty feet in width, according to the importance of the position or 
 the difficulty of defending it. Military works like these, built not far 
 apart, and with so much care and labor, enclosing areas from five to 
 about a hundred and fifty acres, in a country no doubt thickly settled, 
 indicate that this was a people skilful in military affairs, subject, 
 probably, to frequent attack from a powerful and much dreaded 
 enemy, but quite capable of making a long and sturdy defence. 
 
 So far, seems plain enough. Defensive earthworks are not uncom- 
 mon with other savage or semi-civilized peoples, though their complete- 
 ness is a measure, in some degree, of the density of the population, 
 the supply of labor, and of skill in its use. But with these Mound 
 Builders the skill of the soldier and the engineer was used for the pro- 
 tection of a people who had apparently developed a degree of civil, and 
 perhaps religious culture, altogether above anything that the red man 
 has ever been known to possess, or that belongs to any merely barbar- 
 ous race. Their works of circumvallation, other than those meant 
 merely for defence, were singular in design and, in some respects, re- 
 markable in construction. They are usually upon the table-lands, and 
 often in groups extending for several miles, but connected with each 
 other directly, or showing a relation by propinquity, the groups 
 made up of squares, circles, and other mathematical figures, ranging 
 from two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet in diameter to a mile 
 in circuit. 
 
 Near these enclosures, or within them, are mounds, some large, some 
 small, some pyramids, others parallelograms, generally truncated, some- 
 times terraced, or their summits approached by inclined planes. Ave- 
 nues of imposing width, between embankments several feet in height 
 often connect these enclosed areas, extending, in one instance, in obvi- 
 
x 
 o 
 
 f 
 
 5 
 
 - 
 
 at 
 
 < 
 
 bl 
 S. 
 
 2; 
 
 D 
 O 
 
DIMENSIONS OF MOUNDS. 25 
 
 cms connection from both banks of the Ohio River for a total length 
 of sixteen miles. Other graded roads lead from terrace to 
 
 ... Mathemiti- 
 
 terrace, apparently to secure access to the streams ; while <i correct- 
 others still, so far as can now be discerned, lead from nothing 
 to nowhere, the significance of the avenue being apparently in its 
 existence, and not in its direction. The squares in these works are 
 perfect squares ; the circles, perfect circles ; and as some of these are 
 a mile in circuit, there must have been brought to their construction 
 much engineering skill and knowledge, and the use of instruments. 
 They bear, moreover, such relations to each other as to show unmis- 
 takably some fixed and general design ; and similarity of proportions 
 in places sixty or seventy miles apart seem to indicate the application 
 or some common geometrical rule to their construction. Thus in Ohio 
 is often found a combined work of a square with two circles, and they 
 usually agree in this, that each of the sides of the squares measures 
 exactly 1,080 feet, and the adjacent circles 1,700 and 800 feet respect- 
 ively. This identity of measurement in similar works in different 
 parts of the country can hardly have been accidental. Within these 
 walls, instead of outside of them, are occasionally moats or ditches, 
 and this is accepted as conclusive proof that such works were not 
 defensive. They may have surrounded the houses and estates of chiefs 
 and other men of power and consideration ; they may have been public 
 parks and places of public games ; or they may have been, as is gen- 
 erally concluded by explorers, the metes and bounds within which was 
 enclosed the ground held sacred to the superstitions and the religious 
 rites of a people who found room elsewhere for the duties, the avoca- 
 tions, and the exigencies of their every-day life. 
 
 These witnesses to the occupation of the land by a numerous and 
 busy population long ago, can only be considered as the ruins which 
 mark the site of that ancient habitation. The solid earth has with- 
 stood the inroads of time ; whatever was perishable and once bore the 
 impress of such degree of culture as the people may have acquired, 
 has perished. In the mounds, however, we gain some farther insight 
 into their character, though they are themselves as remarkable, and 
 almost as inexplicable, as the extensive system of circumvallations, 
 embankments, and excavations of which they make a part. These 
 mounds are of all dimensions, from that of Cahokia, Illinois, one of a 
 group of sixty which covered six acres of ground, and that of Seltzer- 
 town, Mississippi, of about equal extent, and others of like imposing 
 dimensions, to those of the region extending from the Gulf of Mexico 
 to the Valley of the Arkansas, and westward into Texas, which are 
 described as " from one foot to five feet in height, with a diameter 
 from thirty feet to one hundred and forty feet, and as numbered by 
 
26 
 
 THE MOUND BUILDERS.. 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 millions," 1 and innumerable smaller mounds found in Missouri. If 
 these were the foundations of human dwelling-places, the country 
 must have been one vast town ; and if it is difficult to believe this, 
 it is no less difficult to conceive of their being raised in such immense 
 numbers and in such close proximity, for any other purpose. 
 
 Of the character of other mounds, many of which have been care- 
 fully explored, there is less doubt. They are divided by Squier and 
 Davis, and their classification is usually followed by other observers, 
 into Altar or Sacrificial Mounds, Mounds of Sepulture* 
 
 Mounds for i T i T e r^\ 
 
 various Temple Mounds, and Mounds of Observation, though there 
 are many, such as the "Animal Mounds " of Wisconsin and 
 a few of a similar character found in Ohio, and those of the Arkansas 
 Valley, that defy all conjecture as to their use. 
 
 The Temple Mounds are so called either because there are similar 
 
 elevations in Mexico on 
 which temples 
 
 were 
 
 erected, or because, hav- 
 ing level summits which 
 may be reached by ter- 
 races, by inclined planes, 
 or by spiral pathways, 
 they may be supposed to 
 have been convenient 
 sites for such edifices, or 
 to have been used for 
 religious purposes with- 
 out buildings. There was 
 certainly ample room for 
 either mode of worship 
 on such a mound as that 
 at Cahokia, whose truncated top measured two hundred by four hun- 
 dred and fifty feet, and on many others in the Southern States of 
 equal dimensions ; and that they were the sites of buildings, of some 
 sort, seems probable also from the fact that there are many plat- 
 forms of earth, acres in extent, though only a few feet high, similar 
 in every respect to the larger elevations, except in height, which 
 could hardly have been used for any other purpose. 
 
 But as these mounds have none of the peculiarities of those con- 
 taining the singular structures called Altars, and as they evidently 
 were not places of sepulture, their use must have been different from 
 either. As they are usually found, however, with the Altar Mounds 
 within the enclosures, it has been conjectured that all the extensive 
 
 1 Statement of Professor Forehey in Foster's Pre-hittoric Races of the United Statu. 
 
 Temple Mound in Mexico. 
 
TEMPLE AND ALTAR MOUNDS. 
 
 27 
 
 works of circumvaHatie-n, except those evhterrtiy erected for defence, 
 with the many and various elevations enclosed within them, whatever 
 their character or shape, had some intimate relation to the religious 
 faith and ceremonies of those who constructed them. If the grounds 
 of such a supposition may be considered rational and sufficient, and 
 in the absence of any other theory it seems the most obvious, it is 
 only the more remarkable that at a period so remote that much, if not 
 the whole of Europe was still in the darkness of primeval barbarism, 
 so large a part of North America should be inhabited by a numerous 
 population so advanced in a civilization developed by themselves, that 
 they could expend upon a single phase of life so much evident reflec- 
 tion and accurate knowledge, and devote to it an amount of manual 
 labor so immense and so continuous. 
 
 These so-called Temple Mounds, whether temples really crowned 
 their summits, or whether religious ceremonies were performed upon 
 them under no other roof than the over-arching sky, are in themselves 
 sufficiently remarkable, if only for their great size. The cubic con- 
 tents of that of Cahokia are estimated as equal to one fourth of the 
 great pyramid of Ghizeh, and of that at Grave Creek, Virginia, as 
 nearly equal to the third pyramid of Mycerinus. 1 
 
 But the Altar Mounds are still more interesting. They are always 
 symmetrical, but not always 
 uniform in shape, and in 
 height they do not generally 
 exceed eight feet. Unlike 
 all other mounds, whether 
 used for burial or as places 
 of worship, they are laid up 
 in different strata of earths, 
 not in horizontal lines, but 
 in conformity with the curve 
 of the surface of the mound. Of these strata, from one to four, though 
 usually two or three only, are invariably of fine white sand, and be- 
 neath the whole, upon a level with the surrounding plain, is found a 
 hard-baked hearth or basin, which explorers call an altar. In shape 
 these altars differ ; but that form, Whatever it may be, is always sym- 
 metrical and carefully constructed. They bear always the marks of 
 the fires that had been kindled upon them, and the cremation may 
 have been of dead or living subjects or of burnt-offerings of animals 
 or material things. But whether such fires were for sacrifices or were 
 only a method of disposing of the dead, the places where they were 
 made were important enough and sacred enough to require that they 
 
 1 Foster's Pre-histonc Race*, p. 346. 
 
 Altar Mounds. 
 
28 THE MOUND BUILDERS. [CHAP. II. 
 
 should be, not the careless heaping up of earth, but the construction of 
 a rude work of art. The character is invariable ; wherever a mound 
 is found thus made with successive strata of carefulty imposed earth 
 and sand, conforming to its outward shape, an altar is beneath ; and 
 wherever the altar or hearth is found, if covered at all, the alternate 
 beds of earth and sand are carefully laid over it ; all others are un- 
 stratified. 
 
 Beneath these mounds are found chiefly the specimens of pottery, of 
 
 implements of war and 
 the chase, and of do- 
 mestic life, which al- 
 ways indicate, in some 
 degree, the condition 
 and progress of the 
 people who used them ; 
 but this curious fact is 
 dwelt upon by Squier, 
 that, though the num- 
 
 Pottery from Mounds. - - , . , . 
 
 ber ot such articles in 
 
 any one deposit may be large, the variety is limited ; a collection of 
 Relief found pipes may be found upon one altar, a heap of pottery, or 
 m them. o f arrow -heads, or of pearls, or of copper tools, upon others ; 
 but a single kind predominates in each, with little mingling of other 
 implements. The most plausible explanation of these structures is, 
 that they were places of sacrifice, with a religious meaning, for the 
 altars were, in some cases, evidently used repeatedly before they were 
 finally covered with so much care. They may have been places of 
 human sacrifice ; but probably were not for the burning of those who 
 died from natural causes, as the disposition of their bodies is other- 
 wise accounted for. Thousands of other mounds are raised over the 
 remains of one or two persons in each, while the common multitude 
 received only that ordinary burial which the immense accumulation 
 of human bones in some places indicates. 
 
 It is unfortunate for the archaeologist that the depositories of arti- 
 cles of personal use among these people were exposed to an intense 
 heat. Only stone or clay could resist it, for it melted copper and 
 lead and destroyed almost entirely whatever was perishable. But for 
 this something more might be learned than we are ever likely to 
 know of their habits and customs, and of the advance they had made 
 in arts of which there are found some indications. But there is cer- 
 tainly enough to show that they had developed a civilization of a vig- 
 orous and original growth, though as yet in its earlier stages, and 
 enough to justify a belief that there must have been much else in theii 
 
RELICS OF STONE AND COPPER. 
 
 29 
 
 culture to answer to those evidences of combined labor and abstract 
 thought exhibited in their public works of defence, and their apparent 
 devotion to some ceremonial system. " The art of pottery " among 
 them, says Squier, who is peculiarly qualified to give an opinion upon 
 the subject, had " attained to a considerable degree of perfection. Va- 
 rious, though not abundant specimens of their skill have been recov- 
 ered, which, in elegance of model, delicacy, and finish, as also in fine- 
 ness of material, come fully up to the best Peruvian specimens, to 
 which they bear, in many respects, a close resemblance. They far 
 exceed anything of which the existing Indian tribes are known to 
 have been capable." 
 
 If their arrow-heads and hammers, and other articles of bone, of 
 
 Stone and Copper Relics from Mounds. 
 Fig. 1, axe. 2, bracelets. 3, stone arrow-points. 4, stone axe. 5, bronze knife. 
 
 polished porphyry, granite, jasper, quartz, obsidian this they could 
 only have got from Mexico and other minerals, show that they were 
 still in the Stone Age, their implements of copper prove that they 
 were gradually approaching to the age of metals. The late Professor 
 Foster believed that many of their implements clearly show the marks 
 of being cast ; l but if that point needs to be confirmed by farther in- 
 vestigation, it is at least plain that they had advanced beyond the age 
 when tools and weapons of stone are made only by chipping, to that 
 of pounding a malleable metal into shape with a hammer. They 
 could hardly have failed to observe the effect which the fire of their 
 altars had upon this material which was superseding stone, and a 
 people so intelligent would not have delayed long in availing them- 
 selves of that knowledge, had their progress not been arrested by some 
 sudden and violent interruption. 
 
 The copper was already in common use, and extensive and syste- 
 matic mining was established on the southern shores of Lake Superior. 
 
 1 Pre-historlc Races of the United States, p. 259. 
 
30 THE MOUND BUILDERS. [CHAP. II. 
 
 The miners of our time find excavations and trenches in that region 
 from eighteen to thirty feet deep, where these primitive 
 Lke supe- workmen had preceded them, and half-finished work and 
 their scattered tools of stone, and wood, and copper, buried 
 beneath the accumulations of many centuries of vegetable and forest 
 growth, attest at once to their active and intelligent labor and to its 
 apparently abrupt abandonment. So numerous are their stone ham- 
 mers some of such weight that they must have been wielded, by 
 the help of handles of withe, by two men that they have been 
 removed by the cart-load, and in one spot they were so plentiful as 
 to be sufficient for the walls of a well. 1 In a deserted trench in the 
 Minnesota mine was found, eighteen feet beneath the surface of the 
 ground, a mass of copper of about six tons, raised upon a frame of 
 wood five feet in height, preparatory to removal. From these ancient 
 
 mines, of whose workings the Indians had no 
 tradition, was supplied the metal used by the 
 Mound Builders, a thousand miles distant in the 
 Valley of the Mississippi. From that agricul- 
 tural region, probably, the miners came with 
 their supplies for their summer's support ; and 
 the method of conveyance which took them and 
 their provisions to the mines sufficed, no doubt, 
 for carrying back the ore to market across the 
 lakes and the long land journey. They must 
 Mining Tools. have had boats of more capacity than canoes for 
 
 such cargoes, and better fitted for the navigation 
 
 of waters not much less perilous than the open sea ; but how they pro- 
 vided, without animals, for the carriage of such heavy burdens over 
 hundreds of miles of land travel it is not so easy to understand, un- 
 less they depended upon a servile population whose presence seems 
 otherwise indicated by the immense amount of manual labor which 
 all their works required. Of this copper-mining the Indians had 
 even no tradition, and among them, at the time of European discov- 
 ery, copper was only used, and that rarely, for purposes of rude orna- 
 ment. 
 
 This dead and buried culture of the ancient people of North Amer- 
 Cniture of i a ' to whose memory they themselves erected such curious 
 bJJfidTng nd " monuments, is specially noteworthy in that it differs from all 
 P* ? 1 *- other extinct civilizations. Allied, on the one hand, to the 
 rude conditions of the Stone Age, in which the understanding of man 
 does not aim at much beyond some appliance that shall aid his naked 
 hands in procuring a supply of daily food, it is yet far in advance of 
 
 1 Wilson's Pre-hisloric .lfH, p. 161. 
 
COPl'EK IMPLEMENTS RECENTLY DISCOVERED IN WISCONSIN. 
 
 [From the Collection of the Wisconsin Historical Society.] 
 
 No. 1. An Adze, with "wings" for fit-] No. 5. A Chisel, apparently cast, the rough- 
 ting, j ness showing sand-mould and white spots of 
 No. 2. An Arrow-head, with "wings" for melted silver. 
 
 fitting to arrow. 
 
 No. 3. An Arrow-head, with "wings" for 
 fitting to arrow. 
 
 No. 4. A Knife, with socket for handle. 
 
 No. 6. An Awl. 
 
 No. 7. A Spear-head, 11 inches in length, 
 with socket for handle. 
 No. 8. An Adze. 
 
POTTERY AND SUPPOSED IDOLS 
 
 RECENTLY FOUND WITH HUMAN REMAINS IN BURIAL MOUNDS 
 IN SOUTHEAST MISSOURI. 
 
OBJECT OF THE MOUND BUILDERS. 31 
 
 that rough childhood of the race ; and while it touches the Age of 
 Metal, it is almost as far behind, and suggests the semi-civilization 
 of other pre-historic races who left in India, in Egypt, and the centre 
 of the Western Continent, magnificent architectural ruins and relics 
 of the sculptor's art, which, though barbaric, were nevertheless full of 
 power peculiar to those parallel regions of the globe. 
 
 It is hardly conceivable that these imposing earthworks were meant 
 for mere out-door occupation. A people capable of erecting fortifica- 
 tions which could not be much improved upon by modern military 
 science, as to position, and, considering the material used, the method 
 of construction ; and who could combine for religious observances en- 
 closures in groups of elaborate design, extending for more than twenty 
 miles, would probably crown such works with structures in harmony 
 with their importance and the skill and toil bestowed upon their erec- 
 tion. Such wooden edifices, for wood they must have been, would long 
 ago have crumbled into dust ; but it is not a fanciful suggestion that 
 probably something more imposing than a rude hut once stood upon 
 tumuli evidently meant for occupation, and sometimes approaching the 
 Pyramids of Egypt in size and grandeur. These circumvallations of 
 mathematical figures, bearing to each other certain well-defined rela- 
 tions, and made, though many miles apart, in accordance with some 
 exact law of measurement, no doubt surrounded something better than 
 an Indian's wigwam. That which is left is the assurance of that which 
 has perished ; it is the scarred and broken torso bearing witness to 
 the perfect work of art as it came from the hands of the sculptor. 
 
 Nor is this the only conclusion which is forced upon us. These peo- 
 ple must have been very numerous, as otherwise they could not have 
 done what we see they did. They were an industrious, agricultural 
 people; not, like the sparsely scattered Indians, nomadic tribes of 
 hunters ; for the multitude employed upon the vast system of earth- 
 works, and who were non-producers, must have been supported by 
 the products of the labor of another multitude who tilled the soil. 
 Their moral and intellectual natures were so far developed that they 
 devoted much time and thought to occupations and subjects which 
 could have nothing to do with their material welfare a mental con- 
 dition far in advance of the savage state. And the degree of civiliza- 
 tion which they had reached, trifling in some respects, in others full 
 of promise, was peculiarly their own, of which no trace can be dis- 
 cerned in subsequent times, unless it be among other and later races 
 south and west of the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 Doing and being so much, the wonder is that they should not have 
 attained to still higher things. But the wonder ceases if we look for 
 the farther development of their civilization in Mexico and Central 
 
32 
 
 THE MOUND BUILDERS. 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 America. If they did not die out, destroyed by pestilence or famine ; 
 if they were not exterminated by the Indians, but were, at last, 
 
 driven away by a savage foe 
 against whose furious onslaughts 
 they could contend no longer 
 even behind their earthen ram- 
 parts, their refuge was probably, 
 if not necessarily, farther south 
 or southwest. In New Mexico 
 they may have made their last 
 defence in the massive stone for- 
 tresses, which the bitter experi- 
 ence of the past had taught 
 them to substitute for the earth- 
 works they had been compelled 
 to abandon. Thence extending 
 southward they may, in succes- 
 sive ages, have found leisure, in 
 the perpetual summer of the 
 tropics where nature yielded a 
 subsistence almost unsolicited, 
 for the creation of that archi- 
 tecture whose ruins are as re- 
 markable as those of any of the 
 pre-historic races of other continents. The sculpture in the stone of 
 those beautiful temples may be only the outgrowth of that germ of 
 Their sculp- ar * shown in the carvings on the pipes which the Mound 
 ""* Builders left on their buried altars. In these pipes a striking 
 
 fidelity to nature is shown in the delineation of animals. It is reason- 
 able to suppose that they 
 were equally faithful in por- 
 traying their own features in 
 their representations of the 
 human head and face ; *and 
 the similarity between these 
 and the sculptures upon the 
 ancient temples of Central 
 America and Mexico is seen 
 at a glance. 
 
 There also it mav be that 
 
 / 
 
 they discovered how to fuse and combine the metals, making a harder 
 and better bronze than the Europeans had ever seen ; learned to exe- 
 cute work in gold and silver which the most skilled European did not 
 
 Carved Pipes. 
 
 Sculptured Heads. 
 Fig. 1, Mound Builders. 2, Central America. 
 
SKULLS EXHUMED FROM MOUNDS. 33 
 
 pretend to excel; to manufacture woven stuffs of fine texture, the 
 rude beginnings whereof are found in the fragments of coarse cloth ; 
 in objects of use and ornament wrought 
 in metals, left among the other relics in 
 the earlier northern homes of their race. 
 In the art of that southern people there 
 was nothing imitative ; the works of the 
 Mound Builders stand as distinctly orig- 
 
 . i i>i i t f Cloth from Mounds. 
 
 mal and independent of any foreign in. 
 
 fluence. Any similarity in either that can be traced to anything else 
 is in the apparent growth of the first rude culture of the northern 
 race into the higher civilization of that of the south. It certainly 
 is not a violent supposition, that the people who disappeared at one 
 period from one part of the continent, leaving behind them certain 
 unmistakable marks of progress, had reappeared again at another 
 time, in another place where the same marks were found in larger 
 development. 
 
 There can hardly be a doubt that there is yet something to be 
 learned of the character of this singular people. Some recent ex- 
 plorers believe that they find new traces of their mode of worship and 
 of their religious faith, and others that new facts are coming to light 
 from a study of their skulls. Hitherto but little has been learned 
 from this last source, so great is the difficulty of recovering any com- 
 plete crania from deposits where the decay of all perishable things is 
 so thorough. Till quite recently the number of authentic skulls, that 
 is, of those free from all suspicion of being of later and 
 intrusive burial in the mounds, was less than half a dozen, humed from 
 
 , . mounds. 
 
 Their shape and capacity show no uncommon type. But 
 those lately recovered from different places in Illinois, Indiana, and 
 Iowa indicate, like the Neanderthall skull found in a cave in Prussia, 
 and the Dorreby skull of the Stone Age of Denmark, a very low 
 order of intellect. 1 General H. G. Thomas, U. S. A., has exhumed 
 from some mounds in Dakota Territory a number of skulls of the 
 lowest type, " unlike," he says, " that of any human being to-day 
 alive on this continent," but " like those of the great Gibbon 
 monkey." 2 It is easier to believe that the mounds are the burial- 
 places of more than one extinct race than that their builders were not 
 far from idiots. 
 
 Future explorations may shed more light upon this inquiry. Man 
 is older on other continents than was till quite recently supposed. If 
 
 1 See Foster's Pre-his'.oric Races of the L'nittd States, chap, vii., for collation of the evi- 
 dence on these crania. 
 
 a Sixth Annual Rejiort of the United States Geological Survey, by F. B. Hayden, p. 656. 
 VOL. I. 3 
 
34 THE MOUND BUILDERS. [CHAP. II. 
 
 older elsewhere he may, by parity of reasoning, be older here. We 
 are permitted to go behind the Indians in looking for the earliest in- 
 habitants of North America, wherever they may have come from or 
 whenever they may have lived. In such an inquiry, relieved of some 
 of the limitations which have hitherto obstructed it, we may find in the 
 relics of an early and rude culture much to dispel the obscurity and 
 mystery which till within four centuries have shrouded the New World 
 in darkness. 
 
Discovery of Greenland. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. 
 
 EARLY VOYAGES. DISCOVERY OF ICELAND. GREENLAND COLONIZED BY ERIC THE 
 RED. BJARNI HERJULFSON DISCOVERS AMERICA. SONS OF ERIC THE RED. 
 LEIF'S VOYAGE TO VINLAND THE GOOD. EXPEDITION OF THORVALD. His DEATH. 
 
 COLONY OF THORFINN KARLSEFNE. FIGHT WITH SKR^ELLINGS. SUPPOSED^ 
 IRISH SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA. COLONY OF FREYDIS THE MASSACRE. 
 GLOOMY WINTER AT VINLAND. ROUND TOWER AT NEWPORT. DIGHTON ROCK. 
 
 THE ICELANDIC SAGAS. 
 
 WERE these great Western continents, stretching almost from pole 
 to pole, unknown till 1492 to the nations who had made the world's 
 history ? The pride of human knowledge has for nearly four centuries 
 resented such an imputation. If facts were wanting, ingenious sup- 
 positions of more or less probability were made to take the place of 
 facts. Even before Flavio Gioia introduced the use of the magnetic 
 needle into maritime Europe some unlucky vessel may have 
 
 i , . 11-1 it Pre-Colum- 
 
 been driven across the Atlantic and stranded upon strange bia 
 shores ; or some Phoenician navigator who understood " night- 
 sailing " may have boldly turned his ship's head to the West, after 
 passing the Pillars of Hercules, in search of new fields of adventure 
 and of traffic ; or some of the fearless navigators who steered into the 
 Sea of Darkness in search of Antilia, or the Island of the Seven 
 Bishops, may have landed for a night upon coasts which some super- 
 natural power was supposed to guard from the intrusion of man. Or 
 
 

 36 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III. 
 
 it may be that the lost Tribes of Israel wandered through Asia to 
 the Northwest coast and were the progenitors of the North American 
 Indians and the ancient Mexicans ; that the Malays crossed the Poly- 
 nesian Archipelago and invaded the Western Hemisphere on the 
 South ; that a vast army of Mongols came with their elephants, whose 
 bones are left as a witness of their invasion from Brazil to Rhode 
 Island ; that the Apostle St. Thomas preached Christianity in Peru ; 
 or that St. Patrick sent Irish missionaries to the Isles of America. 
 All these theories have had their advocates. 
 
 But there was one ancient people whose warriors wei'e the dread 
 The North- ^ a ll Europe, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, and 
 men- whose long experience as pirates made them fearless and 
 
 successful sailors, who, there seems no good reason for doubting, did 
 cross the Atlantic from coast to coast, almost five hundred years be- 
 fore Columbus stept upon and knelt down to kiss the sands of the 
 beach of San Salvador. The Northmen had a genius for discovering 
 new countries by accident, and having approached and settled within 
 a few hundred miles of the coast of the Western Continent, it would 
 have been strange rather than otherwise if such bold rovers had not 
 found their way thither. They made, indeed, no permanent settle- 
 ment, and if it may be held as an argument against the probability of 
 their having made the discovery at all that it is hard to find a conti- 
 nent, it may, with quite as much force, be urged that it is still harder 
 to lose one, when found. But here again the Northmen are not with- 
 out a parallel in their own experience, for it is certain that they dis- 
 covered and held Greenland for more than four hundred years, and 
 lost it again for more than two centuries. 
 
 It was by accident the Northmen discovered Iceland ; Naddod, an 
 They discov- illustrious sea-rover, having been driven, about the year 860, 
 er Iceland. U p On its coasts by a storm. He called it Snoeland Snow- 
 land. Four years later, one Gardar Svafarson was also carried thither 
 by tempest, and finding it by circumnavigation an island, gave it the 
 name of Gardar-h6lm Gardar's Isle. His account of it was so pleas- 
 ant that soon after Floki, or Flokko, another famous viking, went out 
 to plant a colony. 1 Not trusting to the chances which had befallen 
 and befriended his predecessors, he took with him three ravens, which 
 he was careful before starting to have consecrated to the g<xls, and to 
 
 1 There is some little discrepancy as to those first discoverers. The editor of Mallet's 
 Northern Antiquities, Bohn's edition, puts Naddod first and Gardar second; De Costa 
 Pre-Columbian Discovery in America fjives the precedence to Gardar; while Crautz 
 History of Greenland who cites as his authority " the learned Icelander, Arugrim Jonas," 
 says Naddok (Naddod) was h'rst driven on the coast by a storm, and that he was followed 
 " by a certain pyrate whose name was Flokko," and omits any mention whatever of Gar- 
 dar. 
 
DISCOVERY OF ICELAND. 37 
 
 these lie trusted to guide him to the land he sought. The first he 
 let loose returned toward the islands of Faroe, which Flokko con- 
 cluded, therefore, must still be the nearest land ; the second, sent out 
 some days later, returned to the vessel, which was accepted as a proof 
 that there was no land within a raven's flight ; but the third, when let 
 loose, circling into the air, turned its course at length steadily west- 
 ward, and him Flokko followed, till he reached the island. For one 
 winter he and his colony lived there ; but his cattle all perished with 
 cold. In the spring, when he would have sown seed, thick ice still 
 
 Flokko sending out Ravens. 
 
 covered the coasts and rivers ; so when the summer came he sailed 
 back to Norway, declaring that the land, which he called Island, 
 Iceland was unfit for the habitation of either man or beast. Ten 
 years later, however, another colony was taken out from Norway by 
 the Earl Ingolf, who sought in Iceland a refuge from the tyranny of 
 King Harold Haarfager, who no doubt was a despot, but whose offence 
 in this case seems to have been some intolerant notions he held about 
 a manslaughter that Ingolf had committed. The attempt at coloniza- 
 tion was this time successful, and a state was founded which for sev- 
 eral centuries was the most remarkable community of that age for the 
 simplicity and freedom of its political institutions, for the license, not 
 to say the licentiousness, of its social life, and for the intelligence and 
 cultivation of its people. 
 
 Greenland was discovered by another, almost inevitable accident, 
 for, from mid-channel between it and Iceland, both are at the same 
 time visible. 1 Gunnbiorn, or Gunbioern, one of the early settlers of 
 
 1 Craiitz's Greenland, book iv. p. 245. 
 

 38 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III. 
 
 Iceland, was driven westward by a storm, when he saw land which 
 was held in remembrance for the next century as Gunnbiorn's Rocks. 
 Eric the Red, a man disposed to acts of violence which he was too 
 weak to sustain when resented, was compelled to find safety in exile. 
 Gunnbiorn's Rocks seemed to him a good place to go to, and thither 
 he went. 
 
 In three years he was back in Iceland, full of glowing descriptions 
 
 of this country, which he called Greenland, " because, quoth 
 settles he, people will be attracted hither if the land has a good 
 
 name." He returned to Greenland with large additions to 
 his colony. It was the sons of this Eric the Red who were the first 
 Europeans, so far as is positively known, to set foot upon this conti- 
 nent. 
 
 But this came about by still another accident. Among those who 
 
 followed Eric to Greenland was Herjulf, who had a son, " a 
 
 Bjarni sails . . ,, , , t rt- -r- 
 
 for Green- promising young man, of the name of Bjarni, or Biarne. 
 They were both in the habit of making trading voyages to 
 Norway in the summer, and passing the winter together at home in 
 Iceland. On returning from Norway in the year 985, Bjarni, who was 
 a dutiful son as well as a promising youth, found that his father had 
 followed Eric. He instantly proposed, without unloading his ship, to 
 go after him, though, as he said to his crew, " Our voyage will be 
 thought foolish, as none of us have been on the Greenland sea be- 
 fore." But this did not daunt them ; they set sail, and in three days 
 lost sight of land. 
 
 Then thick fogs beset them, and "for many days" they were driven 
 by a north wind they knew not whither. When the weather cleared, 
 they made all sail for another day and night, and then welcomed the 
 sight of land again. It was, they said, a country covered with woods, 
 without mountains, and with small hills inland. This they were sure 
 could not be Greenland ; so they turned seaward once more, and for 
 these Northmen knew how to sail on a wind "left the land on their 
 larboard side, and let the stern turn from the land." After sailing two 
 days and two nights they again approached the coast, which, they saw 
 as they neared it, was low and wooded. Bjarni refused to go on shore, 
 at which his crew grumbled ; for this, he said, can no more be Green- 
 land than the land we saw before, "because in Greenland are said 
 to be very high ice-hills." 
 
 Then for three nights and days they went on their way as before, 
 with a southwest wind, when for the third time they made land ahead, 
 and it was " high and mountainous, with snowy mountains." Once 
 more said Bjarni, " In my opinion this land is not what we want ; " 
 and again he refused to leave his ship, but sailed along the coast and 
 found it was an island. Standing out to sea again, still with the 
 
BJARNl'S VOYAGE. 39 
 
 southwest wind, after three days and nights they once more sighted 
 land. " This," said Bjarni, " is most like what has been told me of 
 Greenland ; and here we shall take to the land." He had made what 
 sailors would call a good landfall, for the cape before him was called 
 Herjulfness, where his father, Herjulf, had built him a house. Here 
 Bjarni went on shore and made it his home for the rest oL his days. 1 
 
 Bjarni was blamed both in Norway and at home, that he made no 
 exploration of the country that he had thus discovered. But Voy age of 
 the voyage was the subject, no doubt, of many a tale, and f^tdf^ 
 of much discussion in the long winter evenings of Greenland, Greenland - 
 among a race of bold and hardy sailors, themselves hardty yet settled 
 in a region which, till within a few years, was only known by the 
 name of one who had looked at it from the deck of his ship. Bjarni 
 seems to have preferred an annual visit to Norway, and the pleasures 
 of the court of Earl Eric, to any more voyages in unknown seas ; but 
 in the house of Eric the Red in Greenland, whose sons were growing 
 up, the story was, no doubt, often told of that dreary drift in the fog 
 for many days before the northerly wind ; of the low wooded shores 
 and the pleasant green hills stretching inland, that greeted the long- 
 ing eyes and brought hope again to the desponding hearts of the lost 
 mariners ; of the runs of two and three days each from coast to coast, 
 and that wonderful landfall at last, when they dropped their anchor 
 right under the cape where the father, whom the son was in search of, 
 had built his house. Thorvald, the grandfather of these boys, was 
 among the early Norwegian pioneers in Iceland ; Eric, his son, had led 
 the first colony to Greenland ; so the sons of Eric longed to throw 
 their seat-posts 2 overboard in their turn on some unknown coast. 
 
 It was long debated, doubtless, in family councils, and finally deter- 
 mined that this new adventure should be undertaken. In the year 
 1000, Leif, the eldest son, went to Herjulfness and bought his ship of 
 Bjarni, manned her with a crew of thirty-five men, Bjarni among them, 
 perhaps as pilot. When he was ready to sail, Leif prayed his father 
 to go with them as the most fitting commander for such an expedition, 
 and the old viking, objecting that he was too old, consented. On the 
 way to the ship, however, his horse stumbled and threw him, and look- 
 ing upon the mishap as a warning, he said, " It is not ordained that I 
 should discover any more countries than that which we now inhabit, 
 
 1 This, and the following narratives of the voyages to Vinland, we condense from the 
 Antiquitates Americana;, by Professor C. C. Rafn, and published by the Antiquarian Society 
 of Copenhagen, 1837 ; collated with the translations in Beamish 's Discovery of America by 
 the Northmen, and De Costa's Pre-Columbian Discovery. 
 
 2 The seat-posts were the columns of a chieftain's seat, which, when he went to sea, he 
 took with him and threw overboard when he approached a coast ; where they landed, di- 
 rected by the gods, he followed, it was assumed, in safety. 
 
40 THK NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III. 
 
 and we should make no further attempt in company." He returned 
 to his home at Brattahlid, and the expedition sailed with Leif as its 
 leader. 
 
 Leif reversed, the order of Bjarni's voyage, and sought first for the 
 voyage of land which the other saw last Newfoundland. When they 
 Lucky, son reached it they went ashore and found it a country without 
 Red. r ' c grass ; snow and ice covered it, and from the sea to the 
 mountains it was a plain of flat stones. Said Leif, " We have not 
 done like Bjarni about this land, that we have not been upon it ; now 
 will I give the land a name, and call it Helluland." 1 Again they 
 put to sea, and sought the next land that Bjarni had seen Nova 
 Scotia. Here also they went on shore, and found a country covered 
 with woods, with low and flat beaches of white sand. " This land," 
 said Leif, u shall be named after its qualities, and called Markland ; " 
 that is, woodland. They set sail again with a northeast wind, and in 
 two days once more made the land, as Bjarni had done, sailing in the 
 opposite direction with a southwest wind; and the land now before 
 them was that which Bjarni had first seen when driven in from the 
 sea. There can be little doubt they were now on the coast of New 
 England, but precisely where is a disputed question, for there are cer- 
 tain incongruities in the original narratives which it is difficult, if not 
 impossible, to reconcile. 
 
 Their first landing-place was an island north of the main. The 
 weather was pleasant ; the dew was upon the grass, and this 
 
 New Eng- i i . o -ITTI 
 
 land coast they tasted, and it was very sweet.' 2 When they embarked 
 again, it was to sail through a sound between the island and 
 a cape that ran out northward from the main, past which they went 
 westward. To find where and what this island was, is the chief 
 source of difficulty. Professor Rafn, who says that by northward the 
 Northmen meant eastward, according to their compass, 3 believes that 
 it was the island of Nantucket, and that they sailed thence across the 
 entrance to Buzzard's Bay, to Seaconet Passage, and then up the 
 Pocasset River to Mount Hope Bay. But this is unsatisfactory to 
 other interpreters of the Saga, and an island and a cape on the out- 
 side of Cape Cod, between Orleans and Chatham, which long ago 
 disappeared, are substituted for Nantucket. 4 If it be said that Nan- 
 tucket can be called neither east or north of any main land in 
 sight ; that the waters between it and the neighboring coast can hardly 
 be called a sound ; so it may be objected to the other theory that it 
 
 1 From Hella, a flat stone. 
 
 2 Hcmey-de\v, it is said, is still found on the grass at Xantuckct. 
 8 Antiquitatfs Americaiue, p. 428. 
 
 * Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen, B. F De Coeta. p. 29. 
 
VOYAGE OF LEIF THE LUCKY. 
 
 41 
 
 is impossible to reconcile the incidents of the narrative to so long a 
 distance between the first 
 landing-place and the place 
 of final settlement; and 
 that if an island must be 
 brought up from the bot- 
 tom of the sea to meet the 
 exigency, it would be quite 
 as easy to place it where it 
 would answer to all the dif- 
 ficulties of the case. Yet 
 there is no doubt that 
 marked changes have tak- 
 en place within the last few 
 centuries along the outer 
 const of Cape Cod ; that an 
 island called Nawset, and a 
 cape called Point Gilbert, 
 once existed at the points 
 indicated, and were known 
 to Capt. John Smith and 
 Bartholomew Gosnold early 
 in the seventeenth century. 1 
 
 Making due allowance, then, Map of Cape Cod and Nawset Isle. 
 
 for possible inaccuracies in a narrative written long after the event, 
 it is by no means improbable that some discrepancies may be ac- 
 counted for by changes along the coast line of Massachusetts within 
 the last eight hundred years. 
 
 It is now, however, generally conceded that this was a veritable 
 discovery of the coast of Rhode Island bv the Northmen, and 
 
 11-11 !. TT T Rhode Isl- 
 
 that they landed at some point either in Mount Hope Bay or and inioth 
 in Narragansett Bay. They went up a river that came 
 through a lake, says the narrative, and this is in accordance with the 
 appearance of those waters. Here they cast anchor, went ashore, and 
 built a house in which to pass the winter. According to the latest 
 explanation of the Scandinavian calendar, their description of the 
 shortest day gave the sun as rising at 7.30 A. M., and setting at 4.30 
 P. M., thus fixing the latitude at 41 24' 10", which is about that of 
 Mount Hope Bay. " There came," they said, " no frost in winter, 
 and little did the grass wither there ; " and " the nature of the coun- 
 
 1 See an article by Amos Otis, of Yarmouth, Mass., on The Discovery of an Ancient Ship 
 on Xawset Beach, Orleans, Cape Cod, ill May, 1863. New England Genealogical Rtqister 
 vol. 18, p. 37, et serf. 
 
 MAP OP 
 
 CAPE COD 
 
 and 
 ISLE NAWSET 
 
42 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III. 
 
 try was, as they thought, so good, that cattle would not require house- 
 feeding." Such a season would be exceptional now, even for the 
 neighborhood of Newport ; but any ordinary New England winter 
 would seem mild to these hardy Greenlanders. 
 
 Leif divided his company into two parties, one of which was alter- 
 nately to explore the country. On one of these expeditions a man 
 named Tyrker, a German, and who was Leif's foster-father, was miss- 
 ing. A party had just started to search for him, with Leif at its 
 head, when the German reappeared in a state of great excitement. 
 He gesticulated wildly, spoke for a long time in his native tongue, 
 and " Leif saw that his foster-father was not in his right senses." But 
 Leif was mistaken ; the poor German, who had lived long in the ice- 
 fields of the frozen North, had only been carried back for the moment 
 to the Vaterland, for he said at length in Norsk, " ' I have not been 
 much farther off, but still I have something new to tell of ; I found 
 vines and grapes ! ' ' But is that true, my fosterer ? ' quoth Leif. 
 * Surely it is true,' replied he, ' for I was bred up in a land where 
 there is no want of either vines or grapes.'' 
 
 Then, no doubt, he led them to the woods, that they might see 
 witli their own eyes the climbing vines and the clustering fruit, and 
 it may well have seemed to them that in a country where these grew 
 wild there could be no real winter. So precious were they to Leif 
 that thenceforward one duty of his men was to gather grapes, and he 
 filled his long-boat with them to take back to Greenland. What bet- 
 ter evidence could he bring of the value of the land to a people whose 
 greatest delight, next to fighting, was drinking ? They had not yet 
 forgotten, notwithstanding their new religion, that the chief of their 
 old Pagan gods, Odin, had no need of food only because wine was 
 to him both meat and drink ; that all the heroes of Valhalla drank 
 daily of the wonderful flow of milk from the she-goat Heidrun, and 
 that the milk was mead. So heaping up on deck the grapes of this 
 viniand the beautiful land where in winter was no frost, and which he 
 Good. named Viniand (Vineland), and filling the hold of his vessel 
 
 with timber, about which, at least, there could be no questionable value 
 in treeless Greenland, Leif returned home in the spring. It was on 
 this return voyage, or one of the year before from Norway, that he 
 saved a shipwrecked crew ; but whenever it was, for that and the dis- 
 covery of Viniand he was thereafter known as Leif the Lucky. 
 
 The voyage, as we can readily believe, made "much talk" in Green- 
 land, and another of the sons of Eric thought the country 
 goes to New had not been sufficiently explored. "Thou canst go with 
 my ship, brother, if thou wilt, to Viniand," said Leif ; for 
 Eric the Red having died that winter, he was now (1002) the head 
 
THORVALD IN NEW ENGLAND. 43 
 
 of the house, and not disposed just then for maritime adventures. 
 Thorvald accepted the offer, and with a crew of thirty men sailed for 
 the new country. 
 
 The booths which his brother had put up were still standing, and 
 he went into winter quarters, his men fishing for their support ; the 
 waters, as Leif had found two years before, abounding with salmon 
 and other fish. In the spring, Thorvald sent some of his men in the 
 ship's long-boat to explore to the westward. They spent the summer 
 in this pleasant excursion, coasting along the shores of Rhode Island, 
 Connecticut, and Long Island, the whole length of the Sound, pene- 
 trating, probably, to New York, and finding there another lake through 
 which a river flowed to the sea. They landed on many islands ; they 
 
 Norse Ships entering Boston Harbor. 
 
 beached their boat many times on the broad, wide, shallow sands, down 
 to the edge of which grew the green grass and the great trees which 
 made this pleasant land seem a very garden to these w r anderers from 
 a country all rocks, and ice-mountains, and fields of snow. But once 
 only did they see any sign of human habitation, and that was a coru- 
 shed built of wood. 
 
 The next spring (1004), Thorvald started for a more extended trip, 
 as he went in his ship. Standing first eastward, he then sailed north- 
 ward along the sea-coast of Cape Cod, where a heavy storm caught 
 him off a ness (cape), and drove his ship ashoi'e, perhaps at Race 
 Point. Here they remained a long time to repair damages, putting 
 in a new keel ; the old one they set up in the sand, and the place they 
 called Kjalarness (Keel-ness or Keelcape), in commemoration of the 
 disaster. Then they cruised along the opposite shore of what is now 
 
44 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III. 
 
 Plymouth County, Massachusetts, and sailed into its bays till they 
 came to " a point of land which stretched out and was covered with 
 wood." l " Here," said Thorvald, " is beautiful, and here I would like 
 to raise my dwelling." Before the day was out he looked upon his 
 words as prophetic. 
 
 For the first time the Northmen here met with the natives met 
 
 them as Europeans so often did in subsequent centuries, 
 the skra-i- Looking about them at this beautiful spot, they saw in a 
 
 secluded nook three skin-boats set up as tents, beneath which 
 were nine Skrrellings, 2 on whom they stole unawares and captured 
 eight of them. The ninth escaped; the eight they immediately killed 
 in cold blood. This cruel deed done, they lay down to sleep upon 
 the grass under the trees ; but it was not to pleasant dreams. " There 
 came a shout over them so that they all awoke. Thus said the shout : 
 ' Wake thou ! Thorvald ! and all thy companions, if thou wilt preserve 
 life, and return thou to thy ship, with all thy men, and leave the land 
 without delay.' ' It was the savage war-whoop of the enraged Ski-tel- 
 lings, come to avenge the murder of their fellows. The Northmen 
 fled to their ship to defend themselves behind their battle-skreen. 3 
 " Fight little against them," was Thorvald's order, mindful now of 
 the mercy he should have shown before. When the fight was over, 
 and the Skraellings had retired, the answer to Thorvald's inquiry as 
 
 1 It is conjectured that this point is Nantasket Beach, at the end of which is Point Alder- 
 ton, a noble promontory opjwsite the narrow entrance to Boston Harbor. But this can 
 hardly be, for Nantasket Beach is not " a point," but a peninsula between three and four 
 miles long, not " stretching out " into the sea, but making a continuation of the coast line 
 from Cohasset Rocks to the channel connecting Boston Harbor with the sea, and inclosing 
 on one side the inner bay into which various rivers empty south of Boston. This peninsula 
 is, most of it, a long, narrow beach of white sea sand, and can never have been covered 
 with wood. Point Alderton, moreover, is a hill several hundred feet in height, and is one 
 of a group of similar hills within a mile or two. The description in the Saga does not in 
 the least conform to the natural features of this locality, and the "remarkable grove of 
 trees" referred to in Antifjuitutes Americans as mentioned in Laurie and Whittie's Sailing 
 Directions, and the Duke of Saxe Weimar's Travels, is a singular grove of small wild crab 
 trees covering an acre or two of ground, but not visible from Point Alderton or Nantasket 
 Beach. There is at Cohasset, about ten miles south of Point Alderton, a point of land, a 
 bold, rocky promontory, jutting out from beautiful wooded hills, which might well have im- 
 pressed Thorvald with its beauty, and have been a favorite place of resort, in its sheltered 
 nooks and for its neighborhood to good fishing-grounds, to the Skraellings. 
 
 2 The Northmen were used to calling the Esquimaux Skraellings, a term of contempt, 
 meaning, says Crantz, "chips, parings, i. ., dwarfs." The assumption is that these people 
 of the Vinland vicinity were Esquimaux. If that be true, and the term was not used merely 
 for want of any other to apply to copper-colored natives, then we are to conclude that the 
 Indians were later comers in that part of the country. Did they first displace the Mound- 
 building people, and then, in the course of time, move upon and displace the Esquimaux 
 of the Atlantic coast? Was it this race who were not smokers, and who mude the shell- 
 heaps where no pipes are found ? 
 
 * A shield made of large planks of wood. 
 
THORSTEIN OF ERICSFIORD. 
 
 45 
 
 Burial-place of Thorvald. 
 
 to who was wounded was, None. Then said lie, " I have gotten 
 a wound under the arm, for an arrow fled between the edge Thorva i d 
 of the ship and the shield, in under my arm, and here is the klllu<J ' 
 arrow, and it will prove a mortal wound to me. Now counsel I ye, 
 that ye get ready in- 
 stantly to depart, but ye 
 shall bear me to that cape 
 where I thought it best to 
 dwell ; it may be that a 
 true word fell from my 
 mouth, that I should dwell 
 there for a time ; there 
 shall ye bury me, and 
 set up crosses at my head 
 and feet, and call the 
 place Krossaness forever, 
 in all time to come." And 
 it was as he said ; he died, and they buried him on the pleasant cape 
 that looked out upon the shores and waters of Massachusetts Bay ; 
 at his head and feet they planted crosses, and then sailed back to Vin- 
 land to their companions with the heavy tidings of the death of their 
 young commander. In the spring the colony, with another load of 
 grapes and timber, returned to Greenland. 
 
 There was still another son of Eric, Thorstein of Ericsfiord. He 
 had married Gudrid, the widow of Thorer, captain of that Eric - s son 
 crew of shipwrecked mariners whom Leif had rescued. Thor- Thorstein - 
 stein, taking his wife with him, sailed in the spring or summer of 
 1005 for Vinland, chiefly, however, to find Krossaness and bring home 
 the body of his unfortunate brother Thorvald. But Vinland he did 
 not find, nor Krossaness ; and after cruising about for months without 
 once seeing land, they returned early in the winter and landed in the 
 western settlement, at some distance from Ericsfiord. It was not long 
 before sickness broke out here among the crew ; many died, and among 
 them Thorstein. Wonderful marvels attended this season of death ; 
 the dead sat up in their beds and talked ; they shook the house, as 
 they lay down again, till all its timbers creaked ; and they made them- 
 selves preternaturally heavy when taken out for burial. Thorstein 
 was one of these ghostly performers. He prophesied to the weeping 
 Gudrid, telling her, first, for her comfort, that he had " come to a good 
 resting-place." She would be married again, he said, and from her 
 and her husband would descend " a numerous posterity, powerful, 
 distinguished, and excellent, sweet, and well - favoured." Many 
 
46 
 
 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 Thorfinn 
 Karlx'tn 
 
 K\ j''.l,t ]< 
 
 other pleasant things he told her, all of which came to pass in due 
 season. 1 
 
 The next and most important expedition of all those to Vinland, 
 next to Leifs first voyage, was made by Thorfinn, surnamed 
 Karlsefne. that is, the promising, or the man destined to be- 
 come great. He was a merchant of Iceland, wealthy, and 
 of distinguished lineage. A trading voyage had brought him to Green- 
 land in 1000, and he remained for the winter at Brattahlid, the family 
 
 seat and old home of Eric, 
 which Leif had inherited. 
 It was a winter of festivi- 
 ties. " They set up the 
 game of chess " to beguile 
 the long winter evenings, 
 and u sought amusement 
 in the reciting of history, 
 and in many other things, 
 and were able to pass life 
 I joyfully." The Yule feast 
 was of more than usual 
 profusion and richness, and 
 that was speedily followed by a marriage, -which was celebrated with 
 great rejoicings. Gudrid, who had returned home in the spring with 
 the body of her late husband, Thorstein, had found favor in the eyes 
 of Karlsefne, for she was " a grave and dignified woman, and there- 
 with sensible, and knew well how to carry herself among strangers." 
 Thus, before the first year of her widowhood was over, was brought 
 to pass the first item in her late husband's prophecy, by her marriage 
 to an Icelander. 
 
 Vinland the Good was not forgotten ; the conversation often turned 
 upon it, and " it was said that a voyage thither would be particularly 
 profitable by reason of the fertility of the land." With Karlsefne 
 from Iceland had come three other merchants, Snorri Thorbrandson, 
 in the ship with Karlsefne, and Bjarni (or Biarne) Grimolfson and 
 Thorhall Gamlason, in a ship of their own. The talk of the new land 
 had its due effect on these strangers, and an expedition was planned to 
 consist of these two Iceland vessels, and a third commanded by a 
 Greenlander, Thorvard. This man had married Frevdis, a natural 
 
 Norse Ruins m Greenland. 
 
 1 Sir Walter Scott, in his Abstract of tfie Ei/rlM/ijijia Sni/n, alluding to stories of this sort 
 amon<* the Icelanders, many of which are curiously like the alleged phenomena of modern 
 " Spiritualism," says, " Such incidents make an invariable part of the history of a rude 
 ajre, and the chronicles which do not afford these marks of human credulity may he j-riev- 
 ouslv suspected as heincr deficient in authenticity." Beamish ( Di scorer >/ of the Northmen) 
 cites this remark as peculiarly applicable to the narratives relating to Vinland. 
 
COLONY OF TIIOKFIXN KARLSEFXE. 47 
 
 daughter of Eric the Red, who had a conspicuous part to play in the 
 subsequent attempts at colonization. Thus in one winter, at a Green- 
 land fireside, was organized a voluntary expedition, to consist of three 
 ships and one hundred and forty men and women, 1 about equalling in 
 size that for which, four centuries later, Columbus waited seven years, 
 with prayers and in poverty, upon the Spanish sovereigns. 
 
 The adventurers sailed in the spring of 1007. Gudrid and Freydis 
 embarked with their husbands ; and there were on board many other 
 women, married and unmarried ; which was not, as it turned out, 
 fortunate, for among their subsequent troubles, and when they divided 
 into parties, " the women," says one of the narratives, " were the 
 cause of it, for those who were unmarried would injure those who were 
 married, and hence arose great disturbance." But the object evi- 
 dently was to make a permanent settlement, and that, of course, was 
 out of the question without women. They took with them also cattle 
 of all kinds. 
 
 The enterprise was plainly full of promise at its beginning; but it 
 met with various misfortunes, and, at the end of three years, was 
 abandoned. It does not seem certain at what precise spot the colony 
 was planted. The first landfall of the fleet after leaving Markland 
 for they touched there as well as at Helluland was Kjalarness, 
 which they recognized by the keel set np there by the unfortunate 
 Thorvald three years before. They ran past Cape Cod, and because 
 " it was long to sail by," they called it Furdustrands, or Wonder- 
 strands. Somewhere along this coast they put in at a cove, and Karl- 
 sefne sent out as scouts two Scotch slaves, who were very swift of foot, 
 and who had been given, years before, to Leif the Lucky by the King 
 of Norway, as one of the inducements to persuade him to become a 
 Christian. The historians are careful to describe the apparel of these 
 Scots, a man and a woman, which must have been good for 
 running, as it consisted of only one garment, and was a happy combi- 
 nation of a hat and a breech-cloth, covering the head, buttoning be- 
 tween the legs, but open everywhere else, and without sleeves. These 
 scouts were gone three days, and came back with encouraging reports 
 of the pleasantness and fruitfulness of the country, one carrying a 
 bunch of grapes, the other an ear of corn. Nantucket, or Martha's 
 Vineyard, which the fleet next reached, and where eider-ducks 2 were 
 
 1 The Northmen counted by the long and the short hundred. If the number of Karl- 
 sefne's expedition were reckoned by the long hundred, they counted one hundred and sixty 
 persons. 
 
 2 Though the eider-duck is no longer known on those shores, the Northmen are not likelv 
 to have made any mistake as to the birds they saw in such numbers. That particular duck 
 was as familiar to them, no doubt, as to the modern Greeiilanders and Icelanders, to whom 
 the down has long been held as so precious an article of traffic that the bird is under uni- 
 
48 
 
 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 so plentiful that it was difficult to walk without treading on their eggs, 
 they called Stream Island, and the bay beyond Buzzard's Bay 
 Stream Frith, because of the rapid currents around their shores. On 
 the shores of this bay they spent the first winter. 
 
 And with this winter their troubles began. They had improvidently 
 neglected to lav in a sufficient stock of provisions, and when, 
 
 Malcontents * - 
 
 :n the cui- the next summer, the fishing was poor there came absolute 
 scarcity. Now in Thorvard's ship was one Thorhall, who 
 had been the huntsman in summer, and in winter the steward of Eric 
 the Red. He was, it is said, " a large man, and strong, black, and 
 like a giant, silent, and foul-mouthed in his speech, and always egged 
 
 Scots Returning to the Ship. 
 
 on (eggjadi) Eric to the worst ; he was a bad Christian." Perhaps 
 it was only hunger that first drove him to desert ; but he pretended, 
 after three days' absence in the wilderness, and the others believed 
 him, that while they were praying to God for food without an answer, 
 his invocations to Thor had caused a whale to be cast upon the beach 
 during this season of scarcity, of which they all eat, and were all made 
 sick. But he was insubordinate as well as morose and impious, for 
 when soon after it was proposed to seek a new and better habitation, 
 and Karlsefne thought it best that they should go southward, Thor- 
 hall refused, and would go northward. It was made plain presently 
 
 versal protection. See Letters on fee/ami, during the Banks' Expedition in 1772. London, 
 1780, ]). 144, tt seff. Crantz's Greenland, book ii. chap. 1. Description of Greenland, by 
 Hans Egede, chap. v. 
 
COLONY OF THORFINN KARLSEFNE. 49 
 
 that he meant to abandon the expedition and return to Greenland, 
 and he persuaded nine others of the company to follow him. As the 
 manner was with these old vikings, in times of unusual excitement, 
 he took to verse, and jeered at and satirized Vinland the Good. As 
 he carried water to his ship, of which they seem to have allowed him 
 to take possession, he sang, 
 
 " People told me when I came 
 I litlnT. all would be so fine ; 
 The good Vinland, known to fame, 
 Rich in fruits and choicest wine ; 
 Now the water-pail they send ; 
 To the fountain I must l>eiid ; 
 Nor from out this land divine 
 Have I quaffed one drop of wine." 
 
 And once more, as he hoisted his sails to desert his comrades in dis- 
 tress, he sang another song, mocking at their disaster and reminding 
 them how, by the help of the " red-bearded " Thor, he had poisoned 
 them with boiled whale, thus : 
 
 " Let onr trusty band 
 Haste to Fatherland ; 
 Let our vessel brave 
 Plough the angry wave, 
 While those few who love 
 Vinland here may rove, 
 Or, with idle toil, 
 Fetid whales may boil, 
 Here on Furdustrand 
 Far from Fatherland." l 
 
 But disaster attended these deserters. After doubling Cape Cod a 
 gale from the west struck their vessel, and merchants from Ireland 
 afterward reported that she was driven before the wind to the coast 
 of that country, where Thorhall and his companions were seized by the 
 natives and reduced to slavery. 
 
 After the departure of the malcontents, the two other ships, com- 
 manded by Karlsefne and Biarni (Biarne) Grimolfson, set 
 
 i f i i Karlsefne 
 
 sail from the settlement at Buzzard s Bay upon an exploring explores 
 
 T * f COaSt f 
 
 expedition southward along the coast. According to two of Rhode ii- 
 the three narratives, and these the best and most circum- 
 stantial, they sailed " a long time " before they came " to a river that 
 ran out from the land through a lake to the sea." The other account 
 is, that they went directly on their arrival to Leif's booths, and Leif, 
 it will be remembered, went also up a river that flowed through a 
 lake. The supposition is that Karlsefne and his companions anchored 
 
 1 Beamish's Translations. 
 VOL. i. 4 
 
 - 
 
50 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III. 
 
 in Mount Hope Bay, where, it is supposed, Leif had passed the winter, 
 partlv because of this river and lake, the sandy shoals and the ebb of 
 the tide, which answer to the character of that bay ; and partly be- 
 cause they called the place where they landed Hop, and a hill near 
 Bristol, Rhode Island, the seat of the Indian chief, King Philip, was 
 known to the first English settlers as Mount Hope. 1 The Indians, 
 it is assumed, had preserved the name, and thus the settlement of the 
 Northmen is fixed, a fanciful and rather violent supposition, which 
 will hardly bear close examination. As they " sailed long to the 
 south," and as their course from Buzzard's Bay to Mount Hope Bay 
 would be first southwest, and then northward, it seems quite as likely 
 that they finally reached some other point on the coast ; where, is and 
 always must be a matter of conjecture. 
 
 But wherever it was, they set themselves down on the upper side 
 First winter ^ tne ^ Jl ^ e or bay, some putting up houses directly on the 
 invioiand. s j lore an( j others going farther inland. For one winter, at 
 east, it proved a pleasant abiding place. The streams were full of 
 fish; on the meadows they found fields of "self-sown wheat," that 
 is, of maize or Indian corn, sown probably by the natives ; on the 
 uplands, the trees were festooned with grape-vines, so precious in their 
 eyes; and the woods were full of game. All the winter long there 
 was no snow upon the ground, and the cattle sustained themselves 
 upon the still green and juicy grasses of the fields. 2 There seemed to 
 
 1 " How, when, or by whom this noted point received the name of Mount Hope, does not 
 appear. Dr. Stiles notes, in his edition of Church's History, that ' its name is Mont- 
 haup, a mountain iu Bristol ' The editor of Yanioden says, ' The Indians called it Mont- 
 aun or Hfont-haup ; ' and Alden, Epitaphs, iv. 77, that, 'according to authentic tradition, 
 however, Mon Top was the genuine Aboriginal name of this celebrated eminence.' But 
 these are most likely all corruptions of Mount I/o/>e." Drake's edition of Hubbard's In- 
 dian Wars, Koxbury, 1865, vol. i. p. 46; note by the editor. 
 
 2 As the mildness of the winter and absence of snow are dwelt upon in the narratives of 
 the different voyages, it is probable that the climate of North America was, nine centuries 
 ago, more moderate than now, as it is positively known that of Greenland and Iceland 
 was. And this would be entirely in accordance with the astronomical theory of that grad- 
 ual change whereby, through the precession of the equinoxes, the order of the seasons 
 is completely reversed in every period of 10,500 years. If we are now iu that cycle which 
 is slowly bringing longer winters and more intense cold to the northern hemisphere, as 
 some astronomers suppose, one tenth of that period would make quite change enough to 
 account for these statements of the Northmen. Even six hundred years later, Edward 
 Winslow, who wns exceedingly careful and conscientious in all his statements, wrote in 
 1624 (Narrative of the Plantations : Purchas, vol. iv.), " Then for the temperature of the air, 
 i'n almost three years' experience I can scarce distinguish New England from Old England 
 in respect of heat and cold, frost, snow, rain, wind, etc. ; .... if it (the heat) do exceed 
 England, it is so little as must require better judgments to discern it. And for the winter, 
 I rather think (if there be difference) it is both sharper and longer in New England than 
 Old ; and yet the want of those comforts in the one, which I have enjoyed in the other, 
 
 may deceive my judgment also I cannot conceive of any (climate) to agree better 
 
 with the constitutions of the English, not being oppressed with the extremity of heat, nor 
 
COLONY OF TFIORFIXX KARLSEFNE. 51 
 
 be none in this pleasant land to molest them or make them afraid, for 
 when, soon after their arrival, a great number of the natives came 
 upon them suddenly, they came with signs of peace. They landed 
 from their canoes, and loitered about the settlement, gazing in wonder 
 upon the strangers and all that belonged to them, but they liad appar- 
 ently no hostile intent, and neither meddled nor were they meddled 
 with. When they left, they disappeared beyond the cape, and nothing 
 more was seen of them till the following spring. They are described 
 as " black and ill-favored (or fierce), and with coarse hair on the 
 head ; they had large eyes and broad cheeks." 
 
 But in the spring (1009) they came back again in much augmented 
 numbers, " so many," it is related, " as if the sea was sowen Trade with 
 with coal." But still they came in amity, and a brisk trade thc natiTeg 
 at once sprung up between them and the colonists. Red cloth was 
 exchanged, as long as it lasted, for skins, sables, and other furs ; when 
 that was all gone the women made milk porridge, which satisfied the 
 savages quite as well and brought quite as much as the bits of red 
 cloth, though, as the Saga says, they only carried away in their bellies 
 the results of a barter of which the Northmen gained the more sub- 
 stantial benefit. But this pleasing state of things was interrupted by 
 an unfortunate incident. A bull belonging to Karlsefne rushed out 
 of the woods with a hideous bellow, and so frightened the-Skraellings 
 that they fled to their boats and paddled away with all the strength 
 that a new terror could give them. It was a ludicrous interruption 
 to the profitable traffic of por- 
 ridge for peltries ; but the na- 
 tives evidently looked upon it 
 as a hostile demonstration, 
 having the same dread of this 
 huge, unknown beast, that 
 the Indians of Hispaniola had 
 some centuries later of the Esquimaux skin-boat, 
 
 horses of the Spaniards. 
 
 For weeks, perhaps for months, for the accounts differ, nothing more 
 was seen of the Skraellings ; but when they returned again, they came 
 " like a rushing torrent," with the poles of their boats now 'turned 
 away from the sun, whereas in their previous visit they had been 
 turned toward it. The Northmen looked upon this as a sign of hos- 
 tility, and accepted the challenge, holding up to them the red shield of 
 war instead of the white shield of peace. 
 
 nipped by biting cold." No truthful and accurate observer could write thus now of the 
 bitter climate of Massachusetts, with its extremes of temperature in summer and winter. 
 
52 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III. 
 
 Then began a furious battle. The Northmen had the advantage of 
 Battle with weapons, for they fought with swords. But they were over- 
 skrseiiings. p Owere( j by numbers, and soon fled. Something like a panic, 
 moreover, seized upon them, even more senseless than the fright which 
 overcame the Sknellings the spring before at the bello wings of the 
 bull. It is said that a huge ball at the end of a pole was flourished 
 over them, and thrown to the ground with a horrid noise. The noise 
 and the novelty of this method of warfare, with the accompaniment of 
 shouts and yells, seem to have been the only frightful thing about it, 
 for it did the Northmen no harm, though they fled before it like 
 affrighted children. But there was one among them who was not 
 frightened ; this was Freydis, the natural daughter of Eric the Red, 
 and wife of Thorvard. Rushing out among the combatants, she 
 shrieked, " Why do ye run, stout men as ye are, before these mis- 
 erable wretches, whom I thought ye would knock down like cattle ? 
 And if I had weapons, methinks I could fight better than any of 
 ye." But thej r gave no heed to the dauntless woman, still seeking 
 safety in flight to the shelter of the woods. Freydis, Avho was heavy 
 with child, followed closely behind, pursued by the Skrasllings. Com- 
 ing presently to the dead body of a countryman, dead with a stone 
 arrow in his brain, she seized his sword and was ready to defend 
 herself. 
 
 She did more than this, for she completely turned the tide of bat- 
 of ^le, and that in a way which has no parallel in any other 
 record of Amazonian exploits. She turned and faced the 
 advancing savages ; but instead of attacking them, she tore open her 
 dress, and exposing her naked breasts, beat them with the sword with 
 the aspect and the cries of a fury. The Sknellings, terrified at this 
 strange action, turned and ran with all speed to the canoes, and seiz- 
 ing the paddles, flew, like a flock of startled wild duck just skimming 
 the surface of the water in their swift flight, down the bay. Perhaps 
 they thought the woman some powerful priestess whose incantations 
 and imprecations would bring upon them swift destruction ; or it may 
 be that her frantic gestures and cries, her courageous defiance, and 
 the exposure of her bare booom to their attacks, daunted them be- 
 cause it was something they could not understand ; but this picture of 
 the fierce Norse warriors flying before a sheep's paunch tied to the 
 end of a pole, and owing their safety to the fury of a woman beside 
 herself with rage, is in ludicrous contrast with the tradition of their 
 reckless and invincible courage. 
 
 The colony This was virtually the end of Karlsefne's attempt at colo- 
 abDdoned. m ' za tion, though it was not absolutely abandoned till the 
 following spring, of 1010. He and his companions were not again mo- 
 
COLONY OF TMORFIXN KARLSEFXE. 53 
 
 lested by the Skradlings, but they thought it not worth while to 
 remain in a country, however otherwise desirable, where they were 
 liable to such attacks. This decision was probably confirmed by meet- 
 ing, on one of their excursions, with a Uniped, who, after killing one 
 of their number, fled out to sea. Such marvels were believed in even 
 in a much later and more enlightened age. 1 Other natives were 
 sometimes met and generally killed, no doubt without much com- 
 punction. Two boys they took as prisoners were carried back to 
 Greenland, taught Norse, and baptized. From them it was learned 
 that there were two kings over the Skrsellings, one named Avalidania, 
 the other, Valldidia ; their people had no houses, but lived in dens 
 and caves. In another part of the country, however, there was, they 
 said, another people, who "wore white clothes, and shouted loud, and 
 carried poles with flags.'' And this was supposed to be the White 
 Man's Land, a mythical colony of Irish somewhere south of Vinland. 2 
 
 1 Charlevoix ( History of New France, vol. i. pp. 124, 128, Shea's edition) repeats the 
 stories told five centuries later, of voyagers who saw or heard of Uuipeds, men with only 
 one leg and foot, and with two hands on the same arm, of pygmies, of giants, of men 
 who never eat, of headless men, and of other monsters, of which, he says, " it is easy to 
 believe that there is some exaggeration, but it is easier to deny extraordinary facts than to 
 explain them." 
 
 2 The Northmen called the country somewhere south of Vinland the White Man's Land, 
 or Great Ireland, and believed that it was occupied by the Irish. Professor Kafn supposes 
 it to have extended from Chesapeake Bay to East Florida. One of their narratives relates 
 that in the year 928, one Ari Marson, an Icelander, was driven there by an easterly storm, 
 and was not permitted to go away again. The story came from a Limerick merchant and 
 from the Earl of the Orkneys, and it is therefore presumed that occasional intercourse was 
 kept up between the people of this Hvitramanna-laud and Europe. A romantic storv is 
 also told of one Bjarni Asbrandson, a famous viking, who was always fighting, or singing 
 songs, or making love. The marital bond sat loosely upon the women of Iceland, and it 
 was nothing unusual that Bjami should overstep the limits of morality and propriety in 
 his attentions to another man's wife, and that her husband and his friends should therefore 
 attempt to kill him. The husband of this woman Thurid, Bjarni seems to have held in 
 great contempt ; but for her brother, Snorri, the high-priest, he entertained a very different 
 feeling. After an encounter with him, in which they both showed a good deal of magna- 
 nimity, Suorri trying to kill Bjarui and failing, but frankly acknowledging his intention, 
 and Bjarni having it in his power to kill Snorri but choosing not to do so. it was agreed 
 between them that Bjarni should go abroad and not see Thurid for a year. He went, and 
 the vessel he sailed in was never heard of afterward. Thirty years later an Icelandic ship 
 was driven westward by a storm upon an unknown coast, where all her people were made 
 prisoners. They were surrounded by a great crowd, and " it rather seemed to them that 
 they spoke Irish." The prisoners were bound and taken inland, where they met, sur- 
 rounded by a large number of persons, a white-haired and martial-looking chieftain, with 
 a banner borne before him, whom all treated with the greatest deference. He spoke to the 
 strangers in the Northern tongue, and when he learned that they came from Iceland and 
 the district of Bogafiord, he asked for all the principal men of those parts by name, and 
 was especially minute in inquiries about Snorri the priest, Thurid his sister, and her son 
 Kjartan. The prisoners were soon released by his orders, with injunctions to depart with 
 all speed from that country and never to return again, or to permit others to come thither. 
 As they were about to leave, he took from his finger a gold ring, and putting that, and also 
 
54 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III. 
 
 Karlsefne and his ship reached Greenland in safety. On board of 
 First Euro- ner was the ^ rs t child, so far as is known, born of European 
 bo on'this pi u ' en tage on this continent. This was Snorri, the son of 
 continent. Karlsefne and Gudrid, born in Vinland, A. D. 1007. He was 
 their only child, and in him was fulfilled another of the prophecies of 
 Gudrid's former husband, as he lay dead in his bed, for in Snorri 
 began a long line of distinguished descendants. 1 
 
 There remains to be briefly told the story of Freydis, with whom 
 ends all positive history of these attempted settlements on the coast 
 of the North American continent. Other voyages, it is supposed, were 
 made at different times for the next two centuries, as allusions to such 
 adventures, though there are no distinct narrations, are, according to 
 Professor Rafn, scattered through Icelandic literature. It is even con- 
 jectured that the colony at Vinland may have been kept alive, not- 
 withstanding the gloomy memory of the deeds of Freydis, which 
 would, it might be supposed, have made the spot dreaded as one 
 haunted by the victims of the savage fury of a cruel and unrelenting 
 woman. If any efforts, however, were made to found future colonies, 
 they must needs have been feeble and desultory, or they would have 
 left some permanent signs behind them. 
 
 That Freydis was a fearless woman we have seen already in her 
 encounter with the savages. It was with her, at least, no dread of 
 them that induced her to return with her countrymen to Greenland. 
 Greenland, with its savage rocks, its ice-bound waters, its mountains 
 of perpetual snow, its gloomy fiords, its barren soil, its long winters 
 where the sun just crept above the horizon, was to her a poor ex- 
 change for the fair, bright land where the winters were sunshiny and 
 mild ; where the pleasant waters of its sequestered bays washed, all the 
 seasons through, the smooth beaches of clean, white sand ; where the 
 great oaks, and elms, and pines, and maples cast their grateful shadows 
 
 a good sword, into the hands of the Icelandic cnptain, he said, " If the fates permit you to 
 come to your own country, then shall you take this sword to the yeomaii, Kjartan of Froda, 
 but the ring to Thurid his mother." Wheu asked from whom it should be said these gifts 
 came, he answered, " Say, he sends them who loved the lady of Froda better than her 
 brother, the priest of Helgafell ; but if any man therefore thinks that he knows who has 
 owned these gifts, then say these my words, that I forbid anyone to come to me, for it is the 
 most dangerous expedition, unless it happens as fortunately with others at the landing- 
 place as with you ; but here is the land great, and bad as to harbours, and in all part 
 may strangers expect hostility, when it does not turn out as has been with you." So say- 
 ing, he turned away with his banner waving over him. Gudlief, the Icelandic captain, on 
 his return, faithfully delivered the ring to Thurid, the lady of Froda, and the sword to 
 Kjartan her son, who was now supposed to be the son of Bjarui also. For it was plain 
 that the stately, white-hnired chieftain of Hvitramanna-land was Bjarni Asbrandson, who, 
 thirty years before, had disappeared from Iceland. 
 
 1 Thorvnldsen, the eminent Danish sculptor, and Finn Magnusson, the distinguished 
 Danish scholar, are among the later descendants of Snorri. 
 
COLONY OF FREYDIS. 
 
 55 
 
 Colony of 
 Fioydis. 
 
 over the rich verdure of the meadows, and in the deep woods the 
 long vines, climbing to the tops of the lofty trees, festooned them 
 with clusters of rich fruit. 
 
 The restless woman had hardly reached home before she set her ac- 
 tive brain at work to plan a return to that land of promise, 
 to reap a fresh harvest in the trade for furs with the natives, 
 in shiploads of timber, in boat-loads of dried grapes. Such persua- 
 sions, however, were futile with her own people, either because they 
 knew as much about Vinland as she did and cared less, or because they 
 knew her ; but they succeeded with two strangers. There came that 
 summer (1010) to Greenland from Norway two brothers, Helgi and 
 Finnbogi, Icelanders, in a ship of their own, laden with merchandise. 
 
 Leif's Booths. 
 
 Freydis was at home at Garde when she heard of their arrival, but 
 she sought them out at once, and laid a proposition before them. An 
 expedition was agreed upon on joint and equal account. The brothers 
 were to have thirty fighting men on board their ship, and Freydis 
 the same number, among whom she permitted her husband, Thor- 
 vard, to count one. Of Leif, her brother, she asked the gift of the 
 houses or booths in Vinland, built by him ten years before, a gift 
 he declined to make, though he was quite willing to lend them to this 
 expedition as he had to others. It was a question fraught with future 
 trouble, for Freydis meant that these shelters should belong exclu- 
 sively to her and not to the enterprise. 
 
 They set sail in the spring of 1011. On board of Freydis's ship 
 went five more fighting men than the stipulated number, stowed 
 
56 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III. 
 
 away out of sight. Helgi and Finnbogi were the first to reach Vin- 
 land, and before the other ship arrived they had landed goods and 
 j^jf.,, stored them in Leifs booth's, assuming that joint occupation 
 
 Booths. was a p ar j. the agreement. But when FYeydis came and 
 found the buildings thus partially occupied, she resented it as an 
 unauthorized intrusion, and high words followed between her and the 
 brothers. 
 
 " Leif lent the houses to me, not to you," the woman asserted. 
 
 " We thought it was to both," said the brothers. 
 
 They had discovered by this time that she had cheated them as to 
 the number of fighting men which each party was to take, and they 
 added that she was more than a match for them with her sharp prac- 
 tices. So they left the booths to which Freydis claimed that she had 
 the exclusive right, built a house for themselves, and into it moved 
 their company and their goods. 
 
 The brothers were clearly of a sociable and cheerful disposition, 
 desiring nothing so much as harmony and peace. It was they who 
 yielded always, and Freydis who encroached. Winter amusement is 
 no less a duty than a pleasure with those who live in high latitudes, 
 when without it men would sink into apathy and despair in the long 
 dark night of months, as all Arctic voyagers know. The good Ice- 
 landic custom of " passing life joyfully" in the winter time Helgi and 
 Finnbogi maintained in Vinland, more, of course, to keep their people 
 occupied than because of any exigency of climate. They contrived 
 games and sports within doors and without, inviting the Freydis peo- 
 ple to these diversions, doing all they could to keep up a pleasant in- 
 Discord in tercouTse between the two houses. But discord crept in ; 
 the colony. ev ^ re ports were circulated ; jealousies and enmities were 
 aroused on the right hand and on the left ; perhaps more even than 
 in Karlsefne's time, two years before, women were implicated in these 
 troubles ; one at least was at the bottom of them all, and she was 
 unsparing of the rest. The games first languished, then dropped ; 
 visits, friendly greetings, intercourse of any kind between the two com- 
 panies became less and less frequent, and finally ceased altogether. 
 The evil influence was at last triumphant. The colony of perhaps 
 seventy-five people divided into two hostile camps, hating each other, 
 ready to fly at each other's throats. Such was the miserable state of 
 feeling nearly all winter, growing worse the longer it lasted ; none the 
 less bitter and implacable that it was without any visible and suffi- 
 cient cause. 
 
 When the alienation was complete, and the mutual exasperation at 
 its height, Finnbogi was surprised, one day, to see, in the dim twilight 
 of the early morning, Freydis standing, silent and alone, in the door- 
 
COLONY OF FREYDIS. 57 
 
 way of his house. He was shocked, perhaps, as well as surprised^ at 
 a visit at such an unseemly hour ; but raising himself in his bed, he 
 said, 
 
 " What wilt thou here, Freydis ? " 
 
 She answered, " I wish that thou wouldst get up, and go out with 
 me, for I would speak with thee." 
 
 Finubogi rose and followed her to the trunk of a tree, not far from 
 the house, but out of hearing of any one within, where they sat down. 
 
 " How art thou satisfied here?" asked Freydis. 
 
 The answer which Finnbogi gave was unfortunate even fatal; for 
 the question was a leading one, and Freydis hoped to hear him say 
 that he was not satisfied at all, and longed to be gone. But he 
 said, 
 
 " Well think I of the land's fruitfulness, but ill do I think of the 
 discord that has sprung up betwixt us, for it appears to me that no 
 cause has been given." 
 
 She artfully agreed to this, for her purpose evidently was to show 
 that so great was that discord, either one party or the other must go 
 away. Finnbogi's assertion gave little hope that his would be that 
 party. For she said, 
 
 " Thou sayest as it is, and so think I ; but my business here with 
 thee is, that I wish to change ships with thy brother, for ye have a 
 larger ship than I, and it is my wish to go from hence." 
 
 " That must I agree to, if such is thy wish," was the reply. Then 
 the conference broke up. 
 
 This acquiescence in her departure and readiness to expedite it, on 
 the part of Finnbogi, and his avowed satisfaction with the country, 
 which had no drawback except this discord which would be removed 
 by that departure, were not what she meant to get by that early visit. 
 She must find some other way, however desperate, of gaining her end. 
 Returning to her house and bed, this misplaced woman, so clearly fitted 
 to be a queen, determined to move her husband to a desperate deed. 
 She had gone barefooted through the dew to Finnbogi's house. The 
 Saga is careful to relate that when she got up " she dressed herself, 
 6ut took no shoes or stockings, and the weather was such that much 
 dew had fallen ; " but it was also such that " she took her husband's 
 cloak." So now on her return, exasperated at the failure of her 
 errand, she got into bed cold and wet, and the sleeping Thorvard, 
 awakened in this unpleasant way, demanded resentfully why she was 
 in this condition. She retorted angrily, 
 
 " I was gone to the brothers, to make a bargain with them about 
 their ship, for I wished to buy the large ship ; but they took it so 
 ill, that they beat me and used me shamefully ; but thou ! miserable 
 
58 THE NORTHMEN' IX AMERICA. [CHAP. III. 
 
 man ! wilt surely neither avenge my disgrace or thine own, and it is 
 easy to see that I am no longer in Greenland, and I will separate from 
 thee if thou avengest not this." 
 
 Such approaches and reproaches could net be withstood by the pla- 
 of ible and obedient Thorvard. With all speed he called his 
 " nien to arms, and went at once to the house of the brothers, 
 their people jj. wag y e j. early^ f or Freydis had lost no time, and Helgi and 
 
 Finnbogi, and all their people, were still asleep. By a sudden and 
 stealthy attack Thorvard and his men overwhelmed and bound them ; 
 one by one they were led from the building, and one by one they 
 were dispatched as they came out. Not a man was left. 
 
 But among them were five women, and on these no man would lay 
 his hands. 
 
 " Give me an axe ! " shrieked Freydis. 
 
 The axe was given her ; she fell upon the five women, and no man 
 stayed her hand ; and " she did not stop till they were all dead." 
 
 This cruel and cowardly work finished, they returned to their own 
 dwelling ; and Freydis, says the faithful chronicle, " did not appear 
 otherwise than as if she had done well." But, nevertheless, it was a 
 deed to be concealed, and she was not the woman to forget that neces- 
 sity even at such a moment. Turning, therefore, to her people, she 
 gave them this assurance of her future conduct : 
 
 " If it be permitted us," she said, " to come again to Greenland, I 
 will take the life of that man who tells of this business ! Now should 
 we say this that they remained behind when we went away." 
 
 She was now in sole command and in sole possession, for Thorvard, 
 the husband, can hardly be supposed to possess any will or authority 
 of his own in such a vigorous presence. None ventured to disobey the 
 imperious and desperate woman. Under her stern rule the rest of the 
 winter was spent in cutting timber and gathering together such other 
 commodities as the country afforded ; and so successful were they in 
 this work, that when the spring came and they were ready for depart- 
 ure, the larger ship of the two brothers, which Freydis had so coveted 
 and had obtained at such bloody cost, was loaded with all that she 
 could can-y. 
 
 It was, it is to be hoped, a gloomy winter, though thus crowded with 
 oiooin work. The silent and empty house of Helgi and Finnbogi, 
 lowetuhe where, for many weeks, "life had passed joyfully" with games, 
 massacre. am | S p Or t s an( j tale, and song, after the manner of their coun- 
 try, was always before them ; in the murmurs of the lonely sea, in the 
 sighs and sobs of the winds in the deep solitude of the melancholy 
 woods, they heard the voices of those late comrades; the graves of 
 almost as many dead as they could count of their living company 
 
SUPPOSED RELICS OF THE NORTHMEN. 59 
 
 reminded them continually of that cowardly and cruel slaughter of 
 defenceless men ; and visions would come to sleepless eyes, in the long 
 winter nights, of the relentless woman in her naked, bloody feet, with 
 her bare arms red with blood, as she cut down the helpless creatures 
 whom none else would kill, and they were not men enough to save. 
 
 But their consciences were stronger than the threats or the blan- 
 dishments of Freydis ; for though she lavished many gifts upon them 
 on their return to Greenland, though she had assured them she " would 
 take the life of that man who told of this business," whispers, never- 
 theless, were soon abroad of frightful deeds done in Vinland, and cir- 
 culating swiftly from mouth to mouth. These soon reached the ears 
 of Leif, who, seizing two of his sister's followers, put them to the 
 torture and extorted a confession of all the atrocities which, under 
 the leadership of Freydis, had been done in the colony. Then said 
 Leif, " I like not to do that to Freydis, my sister, which she has 
 deserved, but this will I predict, that their posterity will never thrive." 
 It certainly was not a severe punishment for the murder of thirty-two 
 men and five women, that no one from that time forth thought other- 
 wise than ill of Freydis and her accomplices. But she disappears from 
 history with this mark of execration, and with her ends also essentially 
 the history of the Northmen in Vinland the Good. 
 
 Enthusiastic antiquaries have sought to find in the region supposed 
 to be Vinland some visible relics of its several colonies. If 
 there were any it would be much more remarkable than Northmen 
 
 ff'ijii sought in 
 
 that there are none, after the lapse of nine hundred years. xe Eng- 
 Leif's booths, though they were probably solid structures of 
 hewn timber, would hardly abide the onslaughts of the elements for 
 so many centuries ; and there is no 
 intimation in any of the narratives 
 that the Northmen erected more last- 
 ing monuments, to become, in 
 
 " Unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time," 
 
 the witnesses of their former presence. 
 
 There is at Newport, R. I., a round 
 
 stone tower, which Professor Rafn 
 
 and others believed was built by the 
 
 Northmen ; but Palfrey, in his " His- Newport Tower, 
 
 tory of New England," shows quite 
 
 conclusively that this is only an old stone mill, erected by Governor 
 Arnold late in the seventeeth century, who in his will referred to it 
 as " my stone-built wind-mill." " Without doubt," says Dr. Palfrey, 
 with peculiar force, " it is extraordinary that no record exists of the 
 
60 
 
 THE NORTHMEN IX AMERICA. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 erection of so singular an edifice by early English inhabitants of 
 Rhode Island. But it would be much more strange that the first 
 English settlers should not have mentioned the fact, if, on their arri- 
 val, they had found a vestige of a former civilization, so different from 
 everything else within their view." Beside, the harbor of Newport 
 was undoubtedly visited by more than one voyager before 
 at "Newport any permanent settlement was made, and it is incredible, if 
 
 proved Gov. " . . , i , i i i -i 
 
 Arnold;* the tower was in existence, that it should never have been 
 alluded to by anybody in log-book or journal, till Governor 
 Arnold speaks of it as his windmill. Dr. Palfrey says, moreover, 
 that the Arnold family is supposed to have come from Warwick- 
 shire, England. Governor Arnold 
 had a farm which he called " Lem- 
 mington Farm;" and in Warwick- 
 shire there is a Leamington, three 
 miles from which, at Chesterton, is 
 a round stone mill, the counterpart 
 of that at Newport. The tradition 
 in regard to this mill is that it wsis 
 from a design by Inigo Jones. If 
 so, it was probably built when Arnold 
 was a boy, or not long before, and 
 would be, as the work of an emi- 
 nent architect, the admiration of the 
 country round about. What more 
 natural than that Governor Arnold, 
 when advanced in life, should re- 
 produce, as nearly as he could, an 
 edifice supposed to be a master- 
 piece of architecture of its kind, and 
 endeared to him by all the memories 
 and associations of his early home? 1 
 
 The Danish antiquaries adduce also the Dighton Rock, as it is called, 
 as an evidence of the visits of the Northmen to New Eng- 
 land. This rock is on the bank of the Taunton River, in the 
 town of Berkeley, Mass., opposite Dighton. Upon it are carved rude 
 hieroglyphics, which have been an object of curious interest for nearly 
 two centuries. Various copies, differing much from each other, have 
 been taken at different times during all that period, and some of them 
 have been sent to Europe for the consideration of learned societies. 
 The characters have been assumed to be Phoenician, Scythian, Roman, 
 and even Hebrew, until the Danish antiquaries pronounced them to 
 1 See Palfrey's History of New England, p. 56, et seq. 
 
 Chesterton Mill. 
 
 Dighton 
 Rock. 
 
SUPPOSED RELICS OF THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 61 
 
 be Runic. They profess to find the name of Thorfinn in the middle 
 of the inscription, in certain rude characters, some of which are clearly 
 Roman letters ; other marks above are interpreted as signifying the 
 Roman numerals, CXXXI., the number of Thorfinn Karlsefne's com- 
 pany after the desertion of Thorhall and his companions ; below is the 
 figure of an animal of some sort, perhaps, if we may make a sug- 
 gestion, the bull that frightened the Skrjcllings, and a ship, which 
 one must be an antiquary to find; on the right are Gudrid and her son 
 Snorri, born in Vinland ; on the left Karlsefne himself, with a com- 
 panion. These and other fanciful interpretations are held to be a com- 
 plete record of the expedition of Karlsefne and its leading incidents. 
 
 Dighton Rock. 
 
 On the other hand, the rude pictures have been declared by more 
 than one Indian chief to be the record only of a successful Indian hunt ; 
 and General Washington, when 
 taken to the rock, said the figures 
 resembled those he had often 
 seen upon the buffalo robes of 
 the Western Indians. The let- 
 ters and numerals were probably 
 added by another and later art- 
 ist. Such picture-writings upon 
 rocks, to commemorate successful 
 hunts or successful fights, were 
 not uncommon among the In- 
 dians, and they have been found s,e U benv,,,e Rock. 
 
 in various parts of the country. There is an instance of it on the 
 Virginia shore of the Ohio River, near Steubenville, Ohio, 1 bearing 
 
 1 Ancient Monuments of the Mississip/ii Valley. By Squier and Davis. 
 
62 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. [CHAP. III. 
 
 a marked resemblance to that of the Dighton Rock. In 1850, Mr. 
 J. G. Bvuff found, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, a defile fifteen or 
 twenty miles in length, where the face of the precipices was covered 
 with picture-writing, some of it on the under surface of rocks, where 
 it could have been done only by the aid of platforms. These sculp- 
 tured hieroglyphics are so numerous that it is estimated to have painted 
 them with a brush would have required the labor of many workmen 
 for several months. 1 
 
 But the claim for the discovery of America by the Northmen re- 
 quires no support from such questionable evidence, and is 
 
 Icelandic -,-, , 
 
 sagas. Their rather iniured than otherwise by a resort to it. Its real 
 
 evidence. i i- i -i* i ,.,. , . 
 
 strength lies in the narratives themselves, which, if what is 
 claimed for them be true, decide the question beyond controversy. 
 The Icelanders, like all the Scandinavians, were excessively fond of 
 listening to the poems of their Skalds and the stories of their Saga- 
 men. In Iceland and Greenland, especially, condemned by the rigor 
 of the climate to live an in-door life for the larger part of the year, 
 it was necessary, not merely " to make life pass joyfully," but to 
 render it tolerable, to have some other resource than merely eating 
 and drinking. They resorted to " recitals of history " and of songs 
 or poems, often of inordinate length; sometimes mythological, some- 
 times imaginative, more generally tales of the deeds of dead and living 
 heroes ; often, no doubt, exaggerated and adorned, when the deeds 
 related were of heroes listening to the praises of their own achieve- 
 ments ; but nevertheless these were faithful relations, in the main, 
 of actual occurrences. This habit of the people, degenerating on the 
 one hand into a mere love of gossip, feeding an insatiable appetite 
 for details of the affairs of their neighbors, on the other hand pre- 
 served every event of interest or importance to be handed down by 
 word of mouth from generation to generation. When with Chris- 
 tianity the Roman alphabet was introduced, these Sagas were reduced 
 to writing by diligent and studious men ; inestimable treasures laid up 
 for the use of future historians. 
 
 Such records in regard to the settlement of the Northmen on the 
 American coast were known to have been made, and the fact was 
 frequently referred to by early writers. Thus Adam of Bremen, who 
 wrote an ecclesiastical history about the middle of the eleventh cen- 
 tury, has a passage relating to the subject which, if it be not a sub- 
 sequent interpolation, of which there is no evidence, is an incontestible 
 proof of the discovery of Vinland. He made a visit to Denmark, and 
 was informed, he says, by the king, " that a region called Vinland had 
 been found by many in that ocean, because there vines grew spon 
 
 1 Smithsonian Report, 1873, p. 409. 
 
 
EVIDENCE OF THE ICELANDIC SAGAS. 63 
 
 taneously, making the best wine ; for that fruits grow there which 
 were not planted, we know, not by mere rumor, but by the positive 
 report of the Danes." But, though several historians of different coun- 
 tries, who have written within the last two hundred years, have rec- 
 ognized that this discovery was actually made, the details of so inter- 
 esting a fact were not fully known until the different narratives were 
 gathered together by the Northern Antiquarian Society of Denmark, 
 and published in a single volume. 1 
 
 The fullest and most important of these relations exist in manu- 
 script, in a collection known as the "Codex Flatb'iensis," written be- 
 tween the years 1387 and 1395. These, now preserved in the Royal 
 Library at Copenhagen, were found in a monastery on the Island of 
 Flato on the west coast of Iceland, where they had lain forgotten 
 and unnoticed for centuries. There is no serious question now of the 
 authenticity of these Sagas, as whatever doubt may, at one time, have 
 been entertained has been effectually put to rest. Like other chron- 
 icles, relating to the early history of Greenland and Iceland, of Swe- 
 den and Norway, they were long preserved by oral tradition, from cen- 
 tury to century, and at length committed to writing, long after the 
 time to which they referred. The main facts related in them are un- 
 questionably true ; the incongruities, discrepancies, and even absur- 
 dities which can be pointed out, are such as would inevitably occur in 
 verbal repetitions, for nearly three centuries, of the circumstantial 
 details of distant voyages and adventures ; and such errors, moreover, 
 are incontestible evidence that the narratives were not constructed for 
 a purpose long after the date of a pretended event, but are veritable 
 relations of actual occurrences told by those who took part in them, 
 and unconsciously changed by those who repeated them, from time 
 to time, on points which seemed to them of little interest or im- 
 portance. Not less conclusive is the simplicity, sometimes even child- 
 ishness, of the narratives, the preservation of unimportant partic- 
 ulars, remarkable only for their singularity, so characteristic of all 
 uncultivated people, who, like children, delight in marvels and are 
 captured by novelty. 
 
 1 Antifjiiilates Americana, sive Scriptares Septentrionales Rerum Colnmhianariiin in America. 
 Samling qfde i Nordens Old-skrifler, etc., etc. Edidit Societas Regia Autiquariorum Sep- 
 teutvioualiurn. Copenhagen: Hafuiee, 1837. 
 
The Sea of Darkness. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. 
 
 ARABIAN SAILORS ON THE SEA OF DARKNESS. WELSH TRADITION OF AMERICAN 
 DISCOVERY. VOYAGE OF MADOC, PRINCE OF WALES. EVIDENCE ADDUCED. 
 SUPPOSED TRACES OF WELSH AMONG DOEGS, MANDANS, AND MOUND BUILDERS. 
 NARRATIVE OF THE BROTHERS ZENI. SHIPWRECK OF NICOI.O ZENO AT FRISLAND. 
 His ACCOUNT OF ENGRONELAND. ADVKNTURES OF A FKISLAND FISHERMAN. 
 THE WESTERN VOYAGE OF PRINCE ZICHMNI. CHINESE DISCOVERY OF FCSANG. 
 STATE OF NAUTICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE BEFORE COLUMBUS. 
 
 IN the town of Bristol, England, there is a suburb called Cathay, 
 so presrving the memory of that prosperous time when Bristol, next 
 to London, was the richest and most important city of the kingdom, 
 of that proud period when her merchants carried on a thriving 
 trade with the Indies, before Columbus sailed to find a Western pas- 
 sage to the far East. So in Lisbon, as late as the beginning of the 
 thirteenth century, there was a street called Almagrurin, which 
 means in English "Those that go astray," so named in commem- 
 oration of a bold adventure of some Arab sailors, who had ventured 
 
ARABIAN SAILORS ON THE SEA OF DARKNESS. 65 
 
 further toward the Sea of Darkness than any others were known to 
 have sailed before. 1 
 
 The Arab geographers relate the incident, the memory of which 
 the street preserves, and some historians have found in it a sugges 
 tion of possible American discovery, as early as the twelfth century, 
 and far south of the colony at Vinland. Lisbon was then still in pos- 
 session of the Arabs, who, above all other people of that period, were 
 students of geometry and astronomy, applied those sciences to geog- 
 raphy and navigation, and were the boldest sailors of the age. Eight 
 of these hardy and well-instructed men, bound together by 
 
 ,,.,., . , .' . .. , Expedition 
 
 ties of relationship, determined to explore that mighty and of eight Arab 
 mysterious ocean which stretched from the coast of Portugal 
 to the setting sun, on whose western horizon no sail ever crept up 
 against the sky, or disappeared from sight beneath its waters. 
 
 Building themselves a vessel, they put on board provisions for sev- 
 eral months, showing thereby a determination that their explorations 
 should not be cut short for want of time. Taking an east wind they 
 steered fearlessly westward, and after eleven days their ship ploughed 
 into a sea thick with grass, concealing, as they thought, many reefs 
 of sunken rocks, and giving forth a fetid smell. They imagined that 
 the light of the sun was failing them as they approached the confines 
 of that dreary sea, whose mysterious waters, they did not doubt, in 
 accordance with the belief of the time, were concealed in perpetual 
 night, haunted by demons, and filled with strange creatures of mon- 
 strous shapes. Alarmed at these portents, they turned their vessel's 
 head southward, and in twelve days more reached an island which 
 they named El Ghanam, meaning " small cattle," because they found 
 upon it numerous flocks of sheep. Here they landed, but saw no 
 people. Some of the sheep they killed, but the flesh was so bitter as 
 to be unfit for food, and they found nothing else worth taking except 
 figs and fresh water. 
 
 Then they sailed away again southward ; at the end of twelve days, 
 on approaching an island the people came out to meet them 
 in boats and made them all prisoners. When taken on shore incidents of 
 they were carried before the king of the country, who, on 
 hearing through an interpreter, who spoke Arabic, the object of their 
 voyage, laughed at them heartily for their folly. His father, he told 
 them, had once sent slaves into that Western Ocean, who, after cruis- 
 ing about for a month, lost sight of the sun, and thus were compelled 
 to return without the voyage profiting them anything. From this 
 interview the Arabs were dismissed to prison ; but as soon as the wind 
 
 1 Notices et f^jrtraits dc In Bihllotheque du Roi, cited in The History <>f Tlie New World by 
 Dun Juaii Baptista Munoz, p. 119 
 vor.. i. 5 
 
66 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. L^'HAP. IV. 
 
 veered to the west they were put, blindfolded and pinioned, into a 
 boat, carried out to sea, and abandoned to the mercy of the winds 
 and waves. They drifted, within three days, upon the mainland of 
 Africa, where they were kindly treated by the natives Berbers 
 and whence they returned to Lisbon. Thereafter they were known 
 among their countrymen as " the strayed ones." 1 
 
 From the direction in which these Arabs had sailed, and from the 
 length of their voyage, the most reasonable supposition is that they 
 first reached the Madeira group, where the flesh of the wild goat is 
 bitter, as the animals browse on a plant called la coquerel? and 
 that the next land they saw was the Cape Verde Islands. But 
 the natives of that country they described as of a red color, with 
 straight black hair, and for this reason, and because some of the ac- 
 counts have given the voyage as being thirty or five and thirty days, 
 instead of twelve, before land was reached, it has been supposed that 
 these wanderers had touched the shores of America or some of the 
 islands upon its coast. If, however, the narrative of Edrisi, the 
 Arabian geographer, be accepted as authentic, according to the trans- 
 lation which we have followed, the course pursued by these Arabs 
 from Lisbon could hardly have taken them to the westward of the 
 Azores. One claim, therefore, to the discovery of the western world, 
 whether by accident or design, before the voyages of the navigators 
 of the fifteenth century, may be held to be disposed of. 
 
 The tradition that America was discovered about the year 1170 by 
 a Welsh prince named Madog, or Madoc, is still more cir- 
 
 Di**oovprv 
 
 of America cumstantial, and attempts to support it by later evidence 
 have been made from time to time for the last two hundred 
 years. Even so cautious and judicial a critic as Humboldt says in 
 allusion to it : "I do not share the scorn with which national tradi- 
 tions are too often treated, and am of the opinion that with more 
 research the discovery of facts, entirely unknown, would throw much 
 light on many historical problems." 
 
 Certainly we are not to forget the distinction between a tradition 
 and an invention ; it is impossible to establish the one, and, as a lie 
 can never be made the truth, it is not worth repeating ; but the other 
 is an honest relation, accepted as such by those who first repeated it, 
 and which may yet be sustained by evidence. This tradition re- 
 lating to Madoc had, no doubt, some actual basis of truth, however 
 much it may have been misapprehended ; the evidence adduced from 
 time to time in support of it has been believed by many, and is curious 
 
 1 Edrisi, the Arabian geographer's account of The Voi/aye of the Arabs, in Major's Life of 
 Prince Henry the Navigator, p. 147 et set]. Humboldt's Krttmrn Critique, p. 137, T. 2. 
 
 2 Bertlielot's Natural History of the L'anaries, quoted from M. d'Avezac by Major. 
 
THE WELSH TRADITION. 
 
 67 
 
 and entertaining ; the tradition itself in its original baldness has found 
 a place in historical narrative for three hundred years ; for each and 
 all of these reasons it demands brief consideration. 
 
 The story was first related in Caradoc's " History of Wales," pub- 
 lished by Dr. David Powell in 1584. Caradoc's history, however, 
 came down only to 1157, and Humphrey Llwyd (Lloyd), who trans- 
 lated it, added the later story of Madoc. Lloyd received 
 it from Guttun Owen, a bard who, about the year 1480, forthV 
 
 . i, . ,. i'i-i ,1 Welsh story. 
 
 copied the registers of current events which, as late as the 
 year 1270, were kept in the Abbeys of Con way, North Wales, and 
 StratFlur, South 
 Wales, and com- 
 pared together 
 every three years 
 by the bards be- 
 longing to the 
 two houses. An- 
 
 Welsh Bard. 
 
 other bard, Cynt'rig ab Gronow, referred to the tradition of western 
 discovery by Madoc about the same time with Owen ; and another 
 allusion to it is claimed in the following lines literally translated 
 written three years earlier by Sir Meredyth ab Rhy : 
 
 " On a happy Hour, I, on the water, 
 Of Mannaers mild, the Huntsman will be, 
 Madog bold of pleasin-r Countenance, 
 Of the true Lineage of Owen Gwyned. 
 I coveted not Land, my Ambition was, 
 Not great Wealth, but the Sens." 1 
 
 This may certainly be accepted as conclusive evidence, at least, that 
 the mild-mannered and good-looking prince was fond of the sea ; but 
 it is difficult to find anything else in it that can be supposed to refer 
 to the discovery of America. The only real authorities may properly 
 
 1 Williams's Enquiry. 
 
68 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 be considered as reduced to two the bards Guttun Owen and Cyn- 
 frig ab Gronow. 1 
 
 The story is briefly this : When Owen Gwynedd, Prince of North 
 Wales, was gathered to his fathers, a strife arose among his sons as to 
 who should reign in his stead. The eldest legitimate son, Edward, 
 was put aside, or put himself aside, as unfit to govern, " because of 
 
 the maime upon his face," ho was known 
 as "Edward with the broken-nose,'' and 
 the government was seized by Howel who 
 was illegitimate, " a base son begotten of 
 an Irish woman." But the next brother, 
 David, refused allegiance to this Howel, 
 and civil war followed. At length the 
 usurper was killed in battle, and the right- 
 ful heritage established, David holding the 
 reins of government as regent till the son 
 of Edward, the eldest brother, was of age. 
 In this contention Madoc took no part, but 
 endeavored to escape from it ; which, in- 
 Prince of Wales. asmuch as it was a struggle for the lineal 
 
 succession of his family, was not much to his credit. Leaving his 
 
 1 Compare Lyttleton's History of Henry //..vol. vi. An Enquiry Concerning the First Dis- 
 covery of America, by John Williams, LL. I). London, 1791. Jones's Musical Relicks of 
 Welsh Bards, vol. i. From Dr. Powell's History, Hakluyt copied the story at length, 
 referring also to Guttun Owen, asserting, however, in his first edition, of 15S9, that the 
 land which Madoc reached wis, in his opinion, Mexico ; in his second edition, of 1600, that 
 it was some part of the West Indies. In this, as in most other accounts of early voyagers, 
 later writers have followed Hakluyt. But here, Dr. Belknap interposes a word of caution. 
 "The design," he says, " of his (Hakluyt) bringing forward the voyage of Madoc appears, 
 from what he says of Columbus, to have been the asserting of a discovery prior to his, and 
 consequently the right of the Crown of England to the sovereignty of America ; a point at 
 that time warmly contested between the two nations. The remarks which the same author 
 makes on several other voyages, evidently tend to the establishment of that claim." [Amer- 
 ican Biography, etc., by Jeremy Belknap, p. 65.] While of Powell, from whom Hakluyt 
 copies, Robertson says : " The memory of a transaction so remote must have been very im- 
 perfectly preserved, and would require to be confirmed by some author of greater credit, 
 and nearer to the aera of Madoc's voyage than Powell." [Robertson's History of America, 
 vol. ii., note 17.] Thus the story at the outset has to contend with a reflection upon the 
 credibility of the author who first promulgated it, and upon the motive of him on whose 
 authority it has generally been repeated. But, on the other hand, it is the registers of the 
 Welsh abbeys of Conway and Strat Flur, copied by Guttun Owen, and the statement of Cyn- 
 frig ab Gronow, upon which Powell, or rather Humphrey Llwyd, the translator of Caradoc's 
 History, relied as authority for the tradition. The writings of these bards are supposed to 
 be lost ; but if they really related the story, the trustworthiness of Powell, and the motives 
 of Hakluyt, are of no importance whatever, as it was told by the earlier writers twelve 
 years before Columbus made his first voyage. If Madoc's discovery supposing there were 
 any was made upon knowledge, that knowledge could only have come from Iceland ot 
 Greenland. 
 
MADOC'S VOYAGE AND HIS COLONY. 
 
 69 
 
 brothers (about 1170) to fight it out among them, he got together a 
 fleet and put to sea in search of adventures. He sailed IIistorical 
 westward, leaving Ireland to the north, which, it may be 5JJ!J o 
 remarked, is nearly the only thing he could do in sailing ^jag 6 - 
 from Wales, unless he laid his course northward through the Irish 
 Sea. But at length he came to an unknown country, where the 
 natives differed from any people he had ever seen before, and all 
 things were strange and new. Seeing that this land was pleasant and 
 fertile, he put on shore and left behind most of those in his ships 
 and returned to Wales. 
 
 Coming among his friends again, after so eventful a voyage, he told 
 them of the fair and extensive region he had found ; there, he assured 
 them, all could live in peace and plenty, instead of cutting each other's 
 
 Madoc leaving Wales. 
 
 throats for the possession of a rugged district of rocks and mountains. 
 The advantages he offered were so obvious, or his eloquence The Welgh 
 so persuasive, that enough determined to go with him to fill colony, 
 ten ships. There is no account of their ever having returned to 
 Wales ; but on the contrary, it is said, " they followed the manners of 
 the land they came to, and used the language they found there," 
 a statement which, if true, shows, not only that they did not return, 
 but that some intercourse was preserved with their native land. 
 Their numbers, nevertheless, must have been sufficient to have formed 
 a considerable colony, and if, as the narrative asserts, the new country 
 " was void of inhabitants " meaning, probably, that it was only 
 sparsely peopled it is difficult to believe that they could have 
 become so entirely assimilated to the savages as to lose their own cus- 
 toms and their own tongue. 
 
70 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 Moreover, if such were the fact it destroys all other evidence, which 
 was supposed to be subsequently found, of the existence of such a 
 colony. That supposed evidence is, that a tribe of Indians of light 
 complexion and speaking the old British language, was found within 
 the present limits of the United States in the seventeenth century, and 
 that traces of such a people were still evident at a quite recent period. 
 
 The earliest testimony on this point is a letter 1 to Dr. Thomas 
 Lloyd, of Pennsylvania, and by him transmitted to his brother, Mr. 
 C. H. S. Lloyd, in Wales. The letter purported to have been written 
 by the Rev. Morgan Jones, and was dated New York, March 
 to HS exist- 10th, 1685-6, more than half a century before its publication 
 in the Magazine. The Rev. Mr. Jones declares that in the 
 year 1660 twenty -five years before the date of the letter he was 
 sent as chaplain of an expedition from Virginia to Port Royal, South 
 Carolina, where he remained eight months. Suffering much from 
 want of food, he and five others at the end of that time started to 
 return to Virginia by land. On the way they were taken prisoners 
 by an Indian tribe, the Tuscaroras, and condemned to die. On hear- 
 ing this sentence, Mr. Jones " being very much dejected," exclaimed 
 " in the British (z. e. Welsh) tongue," " Have I escaped so many 
 dangers, and must I now be knocked on the Head like a Dog." Im- 
 mediately he was seized around the waist by a War Captain, belong- 
 ing to the Doegs, and assured in the same language that he should 
 not die. He was immediately taken to the " Emperor of the Tusca- 
 roras," and, with his five companions, ransomed. The providential 
 Doeg took them to his own village, where, they were kindly welcomed 
 and hospitably entertained. For four months Mr. Jones remained 
 among these Indians, often conversing with them, and preaching to 
 them three times a week in the British language. The conclusion is 
 that these Indians were descendants of the Welsh colonists under 
 Madoc. 
 
 The Mr. Lloyd to whom this letter was sent, subsequently adduced 
 some oral and hearsay testimony, to the same effect ; as, for ex- 
 ample, that a sailor declared he had met with some Indians on the 
 coast, somewhere between Virginia and Florida, who informed him 
 in good Welsh, that their people came from Gwynedd, North Wales. 
 But such testimony is so vague that it may be set aside without hesi- 
 tation, leaving the letter of Mr. Jones the sole evidence of this Welsh 
 survival on this continent, within the first century of its settlement by 
 the English. In the next century, however, there came forth fresh 
 witnesses. 
 
 First. A missionary from New York, a Mr. Charles Beatty, travel- 
 
 1 First published in The (f-oudon) Gentleman's Magazine, vol. x., 1740. 
 
SUPPOSED TRACES OF THE WELSH. 71 
 
 ling in 1776, to the Southwest, four or five hundred miles, though he 
 did not himself see any of these Welsh Indians, met with several 
 others who had seen and talked with them. A Mr. Benjamin Sutton 
 assured him that he had visited an Indian town on the west side of 
 the Mississippi, whose people were not so tawny as other natives, 
 and whose language was the Welsh. They had a book which they 
 cherished with great care, though none among them could read it, 
 which Mr. Sutton assumed to be a Welsh Bible, manuscript, it must 
 have been, as the art of printing was not invented when Madoc is 
 supposed to have left Wales, in 1170. One Levi Hicks, who had 
 been among Indians from his youth, also told Mr. Beatty that he had 
 visited such a town west of the Mississippi, where the language 
 spoken, he was informed, was Welsh ; 
 and Joseph, Mr. Beatty 's interpreter, 
 had seen natives whom he supposed 
 to be of the same tribe, and who, 
 he was sure, spoke Welsh, because 
 he had some little knowledge of that 
 tongue. Mr. Beatty, in repeating 
 these statements, relates, in corrobo- 
 ration of them, the story of the Rev. 
 Mr. Jones, adding to it, however, 
 that that clergyman had also found 
 a Welsh Bible in possession of the 
 Doegs, which they could not read, 
 but held him in all the more esteem 
 
 Welshman. 
 
 because he could, a circumstance 
 
 which Mr. Jones does not mention in his letter, but would hardly 
 
 have omitted had it been true. 
 
 Second. In 1785 was published a narration by a Capt. Isaac Stew- 
 art, to the effect that, having been taken prisoner by the Indians, with 
 a Welshman named David, about the year 1767, they were carried 
 seven hundred miles up the Red River, when they came to " a nation 
 of Indians remarkably white, and whose hair was of a red color, at 
 least, mostly so." The Welshman found these people were of his own 
 race. Their story was that their forefathers came from a foreign 
 country and landed on a coast east of the Mississippi, which, from the 
 description, must have been Florida. When afterward the Spaniards 
 took possession of Mexico they fled west of the Mississippi, and up 
 the Red River ; and, as an evidence of the truth of this account, they 
 showed to Captain Stewart some rolls of parchment, covered with 
 writing in blue ink, which they kept wrapped up in skins with great 
 care. Unfortunately neither Captain Stewart nor his Welsh com- 
 panion could read these precious documents. 
 
72 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 Third. Mr. Williams, the author of " An Enquiry Concerning the 
 First Discovery of America by the Europeans," from whose book we 
 condense these narratives, asserts on an authority for which he vouches 
 as respectable and truthful, that a Welshman, living on the banks of 
 the Ohio, declares, in a letter dated October 1, 1778, that he had been 
 several times among Indians who spoke the old British, and that he 
 knew of another person in Virginia who had visited a tribe of Welsh 
 Indians living on the Missouri R'>er. four hundred miles above its 
 junction with the Mississippi. 
 
 Such, it has been assumed, is the conclusive evidence that the de- 
 scendants of Madoc and his companions, who migrated from Wales in 
 1170, were seen about five hundred years later in 1660 some- 
 where between Jamestown, Virginia, and Port Royal, South Caro- 
 lina, having carefully preserved their nationality and language. That 
 about one hundred years afterward in 1767 the same tribe, or 
 others of the same lineage, were living on the Red River, seven hun- 
 dred miles from its mouth, still speaking the Welsh tongue ; that ten 
 years afterward a similar people, with the same language, were seen 
 by two witnesses somewhere in the same region ; that ten years later 
 still, another person knew of a similar tribe on the Missouri ; and that 
 Indians had been met with by other persons at various times and in 
 various places, who spoke Welsh. The discrepancies in the accounts, 
 save the one remarkable fact that .some of the witnesses observe 
 that these Indians were white, while others do not mention a pe- 
 culiarity so striking that it could hardly fail, if it existed, to excite 
 their wonder, are not greater than are consistent with truth under 
 the ordinary rules of evidence. But the one point on which they all 
 agree the speaking of ancient British is the most formidable 
 argument, and by the probability of its truth all these narratives can 
 be most conclusively tested. 
 
 The thorough exploration of all the territory of the United States 
 within the last half century has left little to be learned of any of the 
 Indian tribes, and there are none among them known to speak a 
 tongue which would be recognized as Welsh. Yet if there was such 
 a tribe a hundred, or even two hundred years ago, who had for six 
 hundred years preserved their language when surrounded by a savage, 
 alien race, it is hardly possible that a century later, such a people 
 could have become so utterly extinct, or so absorbed by savages whose 
 influence they had so long resisted, as to leave no certain trace of their 
 origin. 
 
 But all that is pretended by the later inquirers is, that a tribe of 
 Indians, the Mandans, showed, if not traces of an intermixture with 
 the blood of the whites, at least a marked difference between themselves 
 
 
SUPPOSED TRACES OF THE WELSH. 
 
 73 
 
 and other native tribes. Among them were in use certain words in 
 which is a resemblance, or a fancied resemblance, to the old British 
 language. In the manufacture of their pottery, and in the making of 
 blue beads, they are said to have shown a superiority over 
 the ordinary savage. Mr. Catlin believed them to be a cross theory and* 
 between the Indians and the Welsh, and is inclined to ac- 
 cept a theory, favored also by some other writers, that the Mandans 
 are the descendants of the Mound Builders, and that the builders 
 of those numerous earth- works were the people originating in Madoc's 
 Colony. 1 The boat they used, Catlin says, was more like the coracle 
 of the Welsh than the canoe of other Indians ; and he asserts that in 
 complexion, in the color of their hair and eyes, they seemed rather 
 
 Mandan Boats. 
 
 to be allied to the white than the red race. Even the late Albert 
 Gallatin, deservedly a high authority on any point relating to the 
 North American Indians, acknowledges that a chief of this tribe whom 
 
 1 Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, in their expedition across the continent, passed the winter of 
 1804-5, among the Mandans and other Indians on the Upper Missouri ; but there is nothing 
 in their journal to indicate that they observed those striking differences in complexion, in 
 character, and customs, between the Mandans and other tribes, which Catlin describes 
 at great length. The method of making the beads which Mr. Catlin considers so sig- 
 nificant a fact, Lewis and Clarke say was known to the Ricarees as well as to the Man- 
 dans. As the material used was pounded glass, the process must have come into use since 
 the introduction of glass by modern Europeans, and not have been handed down from the 
 Welsh. To pound up glass, however, and make it into a new form, is an indication of ex- 
 traordinary intelligence in a North American Indian. The Mandan tradition of their 
 origin is, that the nation once lived under ground, near a lake. A grape-vine extending its 
 root through the earth reached their village and let in the light of day. Some of the 
 more daring climbed up this root, and, to their astonishment and delight, came out upon 
 a country charming to look upon, rich in fruits of various kinds, and covered with great 
 herds of buffaloes. The grapes which they carried back, and their report of the delights of 
 that upper region, set the whole nation wild to ascend and take possession of a land so 
 bountiful and so beautiful. Immediately, men, women, and children rushed to the root of 
 the vine, and about half the people had climbed up in safety, when the weight of a woman 
 of unusual corpulence broke the tough root from the stem, and the light of the sun was 
 shut out forever from those who were left l>ehind Nevertheless, the Mandans believed that 
 when they died the good among them would return across the lake to this subterranean vil- 
 lage, and rejoin their kindred ; but that the wicked would never reach that ancient home, 
 for the heavy burdens of their sins would sink them beneath the waters of the lake. The 
 tradition is essentially Indian in character. 
 
74 
 
 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 - 
 
 Welsh Coracle. 
 
 he saw in Washington, was of a lighter shade of complexion than 
 other red men, and that he was the only full-blooded Indian he had 
 ever seen with blue eyes. But he nevertheless rejects the suppo- 
 sition that they are descendants from the Welsh, and speaking their 
 tongue, " a fable " he considers set at rest by a knowledge of the 
 Indian dialects. Certainly it is not pretended that any Indian tribe 
 living within the memory of man has used the old British tongue, as 
 was asserted to be the fact by the witnesses of a century and two 
 centuries ago. The slight resemblances in certain Mandan words to 
 
 Welsh, which Mr. Cat- 
 lin found, but which 
 had no weight with 
 Mr. Gallatin, are not 
 enough to have en- 
 abled the Rev. Mr. 
 Jones to converse fa- 
 miliarly with the 
 Doegs, or preach to 
 them three times a 
 week for four months 
 in their own tongue 
 and his. 
 
 The supposition that the Mound Builders and the Welsh were iden- 
 tical, is equally untenable. Some of the works of the former 
 identify are known, by the trees growing upon them, to have been 
 the Mound erected before the date of Madoc's leaving Wales; and a 
 colony of a few hundred persons could not have so increased 
 and multiplied to the number of the millions who must have been 
 engaged in the erection of the Mound Builders' works, and have ut- 
 terly perished and disappeared again within a period of four hundred 
 years. 1 The Welsh tradition of Madoc's adventure may nevertheless 
 be true, notwithstanding a faihu-e to sustain it by evidence of its 
 subsequent existence within the present limits of the United States. 
 Such a colony may have been founded, and have perished as other 
 colonies have done since ; or a mere remnant of it may have survived 
 to be absorbed by some tribe of Indians, on which it stamped in lan- 
 guage and in look some feeble impression of its own origin. But the 
 story must rest upon whatever intrinsic probability of truth it pos- 
 
 1 The Mandan tribe contained about two thousand persons. As a tribe it was completely 
 extinguished by the small-pox, in 1838, the few whom the pestilence spared being made 
 captives of by the Ricarees, who took possession of their village. This the Sioux soon 
 after attacked, and, in the thick of the fight the unhappy Mandans rushed out beyond the 
 pickets and called upon the Sioux to kill them, for " they were Ricaree dogs, their friends 
 were all dead, and they did not wish to live." They fell upon the besiegers at the same 
 time with such impetuosity, that they were to a man destroyed. Catlin's A'ort/j American 
 Indians, vol. ii , Appendix A. 
 
SUPPOSED TRACES OF THE WELSH. 
 
 Maodan Indian. 
 
 seeses, rather than upon any evidence that a people whose color in- 
 clined to white, and whose tongue was Old British, can be traced 
 on this continent from the middle of the 
 seventeenth century to our own time. 
 Should the original sources of the narra- 
 tive, the registers of the Welsh bards, be 
 ever recovered, or should other manu- 
 scripts be found touching this subject, in 
 the diligent search of later years for fresh 
 knowledge on these old voyages of dis- 
 covery, there may be some further light 
 let in upon this of the Welsh prince. If 
 his course was westward, leaving Ireland 
 to the north, it may be that he and his 
 people settled, not in Florida, but in 
 one of the Azores or of the West India 
 Islands. 1 
 
 It is a superficial objection to the truth of any narrative, that no 
 mention is made of the event it relates by any contemporaneous 
 writer. It is, nevertheless, true that an event which when it happened 
 was not worth a newspaper paragraph, or, if there were 
 no newspapers, wanted the vitality to get itself repeated, 
 may, a century or two afterward, from its consequences or facts - 
 its relations, be of intense interest, and of the highest importance. 
 That the ancient annalist, who did not believe that the author of 
 History should ever condescend to anything that was not an affair of 
 state, should have no ear for the adventures of a petty Welsh 
 prince, of some gallant private gentleman, or of some rough master- 
 mariner, can hardly excite surprise, however much it may be regretted 
 that treaties and protocols, and the enactment of laws were not for- 
 gotten for a moment, and the details of incidents so interesting in- 
 quired into and recorded. There is to be considered always, not only 
 the old historians' lofty notion of the dignity of history, but that the 
 circumstances of time and place may not have been favorable to the 
 
 1 It is a curious fact that this story of the Welsh should have recently appeared in a new 
 form still further west. Among the Zuni of New Mexico, there are said to be white Indians 
 with fair complexions, Hue eyes, and light hair. Among the New Mexicans is a tradition 
 that long ago some Welsh miners wandered into that country with their wives and chil- 
 dren, and that the Zuni killed the men and married the women. The Zuni deny the truth 
 of the tradition ; but there is, nevertheless, a remarkable resemblance tetween some of the 
 words of the Zuni language and the English. Thus, "Eat-a," is to eat; " Eat-on-o-way," 
 is eaten enoiir/h ; and the Zunians, to express admiration, exclaim, " Look ye ! " or " Look ye 
 here ! " The surveyors of a route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific 
 coast, in whose Report (vol. iii., part 1, p. 63), we find this statement, "did not see those 
 white Indians at the time of their visit, as the small-pox was raging among the Zuni, nor 
 did they give much heed to the tradition of the New Mexicans." 
 
76 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 rapid transmission of intelligence, and that the intelligence itself may 
 not have been supposed to be worthy of transmission. And especially 
 where a question of American discovery is concerned, another im- 
 portant fact must have its due weight, that it was not till long after 
 the death of Columbus that any historian thought it worth while to 
 inquire into the truth of any report of a pre-Columbian voyage, or 
 even that there were any such reports to inquire into. If, then, we 
 are in earnest search after the truth, we shall first seek to know if, in 
 regard to any alleged voyage, there is any contemporaneous record or 
 clear tradition of it ; and failing these, if the report be above all sus- 
 picion of having been invented, exaggerated, or perverted, that it 
 might aid in robbing one of the greatest and most unfortunate of men 
 of the immortal fame which he hoped might at length rest upon his 
 name, a hope which was almost the sole compensation and consola- 
 tion for a life of many sorrows. 
 
 / 
 
 The story of the brothers Zeni, resting upon no tradition, and upon 
 no contemporary testimony, is open to all these considerations. The 
 The zeni Zeni were a noble and distinguished family of Venice ; in 
 family. j ier W ars with her neighbors, these brothers, and others of 
 their kindred, had won renown, and were thought worthy of a place 
 in history for their deeds of valor and their services to the state. But 
 no contemporaneous historian had seen fit to relate other achievements 
 of theirs, which, apart from the special importance afterward attached 
 to them, were full of romantic interest ; no Skald, or Saga-man of the 
 North, had even mentioned that island of their Northern seas, where 
 these achievements were said to have been performed. One hundred 
 and seventy-eight years later, in the middle of the sixteenth century, 
 when nations were approaching that great power and opulence which 
 their discoveries and possessions in the New World had given them ; 
 when national jealousies as well as national interests were aroused 
 for the honor of having originated, or of sharing in the most marvel- 
 lous accomplishment of human genius the world had ever seen, then it 
 was that a claim was put forth, unheard of before, that these Venetian 
 brothers, by more than a century, preceded Columbus, and that his 
 laurels must be shared with them. 
 
 In 1558, Francisco Marcolini, of Venice, published a volume of 
 
 letters, arranged and edited by Nicolo Zeno, purporting to be those 
 
 of his ancestors, Nicolo and Antonio Zeno, written between the years 
 
 1380 and 1404. The letters and a map had remained in the family 
 
 archives, apparently unnoticed and unknown, till coming 
 
 Publication . ' , , XT- i , 
 
 of the zeni into the possession of this Nicolo the younger in his child- 
 hood, as playthings, he had torn them into fragments. 
 When he came at an age to understand their value, he put together 
 
NARRATIVE OF THE BROTHERS ZENI. 77 
 
 such of these torn and scattered fragments as he could recover, and 
 gave them to the world. The little volume was afterward included 
 in Ramusio's " History of Early Voyages," but not till after Ram- 
 usio's death, and was subsequently translated and transferred by 
 Hakluyt to his cwn works. From that day to this it has been, and is 
 still, a controverted question whether the story is true or false. By 
 
 Shipwreck of Nicolo Zeno. 
 
 some writers it is denounced as a fraud, easily compiled from infor- 
 mation not difficult to be got from various sources in the middle of the 
 sixteenth century ; by others it is accepted on internal evidence, and 
 especially on the testimony of the restored map, as worthy of belief. 1 
 In the year 1380, according to the Nicolo Zeno of 1558, his ances- 
 tor of the same name, who was wealthy, brave, eager to see the world, 
 and who found at home no occupation suited to his active and daring 
 disposition, fitted out a ship at his own charges, and sailed 
 away northward for England and Flanders in search of 
 adventures. Nor did he seek long, for a storm overtook him, drove 
 his ship out of her course, casting her, at length, on an unknown and 
 inhospitable coast. He and his crew escaped with their lives the perils 
 of the shipwreck only to run a new risk, as they were thrown help- 
 less and exhausted on the shore, in an attack from the natives. But 
 from this they were saved by the appearance, at the critical moment, 
 of the king of the neighboring island of Porland at the head of an 
 army, who rescued the strangers from the hands of the people. Ad- 
 dressing them in Latin, and learning that they were Venetians, he not 
 
 1 The latest essay on the subject, and iu favor of the Zeni Narrative, is by R. H. Major, 
 published by the Hakluyt Society of London. His argument, however, is, for the most part, 
 *n elaboration of that of Reiuholdt Forster in his Northern Voyages. 
 
78 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 only gave them a hearty welcome, but begged them to remain in his 
 service. To this they consented, and served him so well by their 
 courage and their skill in seamanship that Nicolo Zeno was made a 
 knight and the captain of the king's navy. Then Nicolo sent to 
 Venice for his brother Antonio, who soon joined him to share in his 
 prosperity, leaving behind, at home, the third brother, Carlo, to whom 
 all the subsequent letters were written. The name of the king whom 
 the two Venetians followed, and who had saved their lives, was 
 Zichmni, and the country was called the island of Frisland. This 
 island he had, not long before Nicolo's shipwreck, wrested, or was 
 about to wrest by conquest from the king of Norway. 
 
 It is a notable fact that this island of Frisland, which was said to 
 be larger than Iceland, and which carried on a brisk trade in fish and 
 other merchandise with " Britain, England, Scotland, Flanders, Norway, 
 and Denmark," and between which and Venice there seems to have 
 been not infrequent communication, should never have been mentioned 
 any where but about the time of these letters of the brothers Zeni, and 
 
 
 
 that it certainly has had no existence for some hundreds of years. 1 And 
 not only Frisland ; there were various other islands in those northern 
 seas held by this Zichmni, " a prince," says Antonio Zeno, in one of 
 his letters, " as worthy of immortal memory as any that ever lived for 
 his great valiance and singular humanitie." By those who accept the 
 account as true, some suppose that Frisland must have been one of the 
 Faroe Islands, and that among the Hebrides, the Shetland, and the 
 Orkney Islands may be found the rest of the dominion subdued by 
 the prowess of this great prince ; but others suppose that Frisland and 
 the rest were long ago swallowed up by the sea in some mighty cata- 
 clysm, which is the reason why they have been so difficult to find. 2 
 
 With Zichmni the Zeni remained, Nicolo four years, till he died, 
 and Antonio ten years longer. So long as Nicolo lived he did the 
 king good service in aiding in the subjection of a number of the islands 
 of an Icelandic archipelago. But he also sailed as far westward as 
 Engroneland, which is supposed to mean Greenland. He gives a mi- 
 nute and interesting account of a monastery of friars of the order of 
 the Preachers, and of a church dedicated to St. Thomas, 
 in Engrone- which he found in that distant country. These friars lived 
 in that severe climate with a remarkable degree of comfort, 
 and even of luxury. Their monastery was built near a hill from 
 which gushed forth a perennial fountain of hot water ; this they 
 
 1 The iiame was sometimes applied to Iceland ; but the Zeni letters speak of it as an isl- 
 iiinl distinct from Iceland. 
 
 2 See Frobisher's Voyages, Hakluyt, vol. ii. ; Forster's Northern Voyages ; Belknap's History, 
 vol. ii. ; Captain C. C. Zahrtman in Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. v. ; and 
 particularly the Voywje. of the, Venetian Brothers, Nicolo and Antonio Zeno to the Northern Seal 
 in the 14f A Century, translated and edited by R. H. Major, Hakluyt Society publications, 1 873 
 
NARRATIVE OF THE BROTHERS ZENI. 
 
 79 
 
 Greenland Geyser. 
 
 turned to many useful purposes by conveying it in pipes into the 
 church and monastery, warming their 
 cells, cooking their food, heating their 
 covered winter gardens, cultivating the 
 fruits and flowers of more temperate 
 zones, putting it to all uses for which 
 heat is requisite as a substitute for fire. 
 Thus they so modified the rigor of 
 that hyperborean region with little 
 or no labor or trouble to themselves, 
 that those jolly menks made their 
 homes as cheerful as if they were be- 
 neath the sifnny sky of Italy. Even 
 for the buildings of the monastery this 
 volcanic mountain furnished them with 
 ample material ; for on the stones 
 which were cast out of its crater they 
 had only to throw water when " burning hot " to reduce them to 
 excellent lime, which on being used so hardened as to last forever. 1 
 
 1 A German writer, Dethmar Blefkins, a minister sent to Iceland from Hamburg in 1 563, 
 tells much the same story, which he learned from a monk who entered this monastery of St. 
 Thomas in 1546. Blefkins, whose tract is in Purchas, vol. iii., says: "This Monke told 
 us marvellous strange things, that there was in the Monastery of St. Thomas (where he 
 lived) a Fountaine, which sent forth burning and flaming water, that this water was con- 
 veyed through Pipes of stone, to the several Cels of the Monks, and that it made them 
 warme as stoves do with us, and all kinds of meats might be boyled in this Fountaine, and 
 fiery water, and no otherwise than if it had bin on a fire indeed, he advertised moreover, 
 that the walls of the Monastery were made with Pumice stones, out of a certain mountain 
 not farre from the Monastery : like to Hecla in Iceland, for if you powre this water upon 
 the Pumice stone, there wiU follow a slymie matter, which instead of lyme they use for 
 mortar." 
 
 Crantz, in his History of Greenland (p. 265 et seq.), in treating of " lost " Greenland, refers 
 to this statement of the monk as related by Blefkin, but says " it is confessed that the story 
 is told a little incoherently, and its truth is much doubted." " But yet," he adds, " I find a 
 sort of voucher for it in Ccesar Longinus's Extracts of all Journies and Voyages." There, it 
 is said that an English sailor, Jacob (or James) Hall, in the service of Denmark, made sev- 
 eral voyages to Iceland and Greenland and wrote a description of the wild Greenlanders, 
 the most particular, ample, and conformable to truth of all that had written : this man 
 affirms that he also had spoken with the aforesaid monk in Iceland in the presence of the 
 Governor, and had inquired of him about the state of Greenland. He told him, likewise, 
 several things about St. Thomas's cloyster, particularly " that there was a fountain of hot 
 water conveyed by pipes into all their apartments, so that not only their sitting-rooms, but 
 also their sleeping-chambers were warmed by it, and that in this same water meat might be 
 boiled as soon as in a pot over the fire. The walls of the cloyster were all made of pumace- 
 stone, and if they poured this hot water upon the stones, they would become clammy and 
 viscid, and so they used them instead of lime." The Danish Chronicle of Greenland [con- 
 tinues Crantz] also makes mention of this cloyster, and speaks besides of a garden through 
 which a rivulet of this hot fountain flowed, and made the soil so fruitful that it produced 
 the most beautiful flowers and fruits. 
 
 Thus ttiis monk of the German author, Blefken, and the English sailor, Hall, told in 1546 
 
80 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 But discoveries more interesting still were yet to be made. Nicolo 
 died soon after his return from Engroneland, and Antonio proposed 
 to return to Venice, but was not permitted to do so by Zichmni, who 
 retained him for further service. There had arrived at Frisland an 
 ancient fisherman, who had been absent many years in 
 rf*M strange lands, and the tale he told was one which might well 
 arouse so bold a navigator and adventurous a Viking as 
 Zichmni. Six and twenty years before, he said, four fisher-boats from 
 Frisland were driven by a mighty tempest a thousand miles to the 
 westward, when one of them was wrecked upon an island called Esto- 
 tiland supposed to be Newfoundland and taken prisoners by the 
 inhabitants. They were led to " a faire and populous city " and 
 brought before the king, who, learning who and what they were, 
 through an interpreter also a shipwrecked sailor who spoke Latin, 
 determined they should be retained in his service. Five years they 
 lived there and found it to be a rich country, " with all the com- 
 modities of the world," with mines of all manner of metals, and 
 especially abounding in gold. In the middle of it was a high moun- 
 tain from which sprung four great rivers that went forth and 
 watered all the land. The inhabitants they found to be a 
 " witty people," having " all the arts and faculties " of civilized 
 nations, speaking a language of their own, with letters and characters 
 peculiar to themselves. Yet they had intercourse with other countries, 
 for in the king's library there were Latin books which, however, none 
 could read, and they imported merchandise of various kinds from 
 Engroneland. Southward of this kingdom was another great and 
 populous country, very rich in gold, where there were many cities and 
 castles, and where the people raised corn and brewed ale. They were 
 also a maritime people, though they did not understand the use of 
 the compass ; but seeing this wonderful instrument in the hands of 
 the fishermen, and discerning its great utility at sea, they held these 
 strangers in such esteem that they fitted out twelve barks and sent 
 them southward, under their direction, to that other land called 
 Drogeo. 
 
 precisely the same story, in almost identical language, of the Monastery and Church of St. 
 Thomas, in Greenland, and the ingenious hot-water works, supplied from a geyser, which 
 was told by Nicolo Zeuo nearly two hundred years before. The monk could not have bor- 
 rowed from the Venetian book, for that was not published till twelve years after he is said 
 to have entered the Monastery of St. Thomas, in Greenland, where he saw this remarkable 
 oasis in the arctic wilderness, but which nobody but he and Nicolo Zeno had ever thought 
 worthy of description. If, therefore, Blefkeu and Caesar Louginus may be relied upon, 
 and there really was such a monk, telling such a story, about the time of the publication of 
 the Zeui letters, it shows, at least, that other sources of information in regard to Greenland, 
 were open to Nicolo Zeuo the younger, tliau the mutilated fragments of his ancestor's letters. 
 
NARRATIVE OF THE BROTHERS ZENI. 81 
 
 It was an unhappy expedition ; for though the fishermen escaped 
 death at sea in their storm-tossed vessels, they met on land a fate 
 more cruel. Helpless and exhausted, they were made prisoners as 
 they were thrown upon the shore, and most of them were immedi- 
 ately eaten by the savage people " which feed upon man's flesh as the 
 sweetest meat in their judgment, as is." But the man who had got 
 back to Frisland, and some of his companions, were saved ; for however 
 excellent they might be for eating, they were held as better still for 
 slaves. He taught these people the art of taking fish with nets, and so 
 grew presently into great favor ; so great, indeed, that powerful chiefs 
 quarrelled for the possession of his person, and went to war about him, 
 so that he was the royal fisher in turn to no less than twenty-five of 
 these copper-colored lords. For thirteen years he lived among them 
 and thus saw many parts of the country. It was, he said, 
 a very great country, as it were a new world ; " but the 
 people were very rude, very fierce and cruel, and voide of all good- 
 ness;" so savage that they all went naked ; so wanting in intelligence 
 that they had not even the wit to cover themselves with the skins of 
 the beasts they killed with their wooden spears and arrows, though 
 they suffered from the cold. Yet they had laws peculiar to each tribe, 
 and one custom that was universal, that they should kill all they 
 could in constant wars, and eat all they killed. It is not an attractive 
 picture, but is thought by those who maintain the Zeni letters to be 
 authentic, to answer accurately to the character of the Indians after- 
 ward found within the present limits of the United States. 
 
 But farther to the southwest the fisherman found a people of more 
 " civility," as he found a more temperate climate, where they had 
 cities and temples for their idols. To these idols they sacrificed men 
 whom they afterward ate. They understood the use of gold and 
 silver, whereas the more northern people knew nothing of metals. 
 This, it is assumed, is a description of Mexico and her semi-civiliza- 
 tion, thus giving to the fisherman a wide field of observation, who 
 must have travelled, granting the truth of the narrative, down the 
 Atlantic coast, along the whole of the northern, and part of the west- 
 ern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The discovery, if discovery it was, 
 was more extensive than that of Columbus himself, and of other navi- 
 gators, in the next two centuries ; and the marvel is, that there should 
 be no record or tradition of an event so interesting as this finding 
 "as it were of a new world," except in these forgotten letters to Carlo 
 Zeno, of Venice, and that such letters should have been unknown for 
 nearly two hundred years. 
 
 For the fisherman, after his twenty-six years absence and travel in 
 these strange lands and among these barbarous people, returned to 
 
 VOL. I. (! 
 
62 
 
 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 Frisland, where his tale was generally believed and even confirmed 
 by other mariners who also knew something of that far 
 
 Expedition o i i 
 
 of Prince country, bo intense was the interest excited that the prince 
 
 Zichmni. 
 
 Zichmni resolved at once to fit out an expedition, and so 
 many came forward to join it, that Antonio believed that it would be 
 
 Aztec City. 
 
 at no cost to the state. Zichmni commanded in person, setting forth 
 with many barks and men. Two days before sailing, the fisherman, 
 who was to have piloted the fleet, unfortunately died, and his place 
 had to be supplied by other sailors who had returned with him from 
 Estotiland. Soon after leaving the last island which owed Zichmni 
 allegiance, he encountered a gale which lasted for eight days and 
 wrecked most of his vessels. Nevertheless, pushing boldly westward, 
 he reached, at length, an island where he found a safe and com- 
 modious harbor, but where " an infinite number of people came rush- 
 ing furiously to the water-side " and forbade a landing. Zichmni 
 made signs of peace, when ten men came off to him, speaking ten dis- 
 tinct languages, none of which could he understand except that of one 
 from Iceland. From him the prince learned that the island was called 
 Icaria, and the people Icari, after the first king of the place, who was 
 the son of Daedalus, a king of Scotland. This Daedalus had formerly 
 conquered the island, and left his son there to reign in his stead, 
 while he, setting forth in search of new conquests, was overwhelmed 
 by a tempest, and the sea, in memory of him who was drowned in 
 
NARRATIVE OF THE BROTHERS ZENI. 83 
 
 it, was thenceforth called the Icarian Sea. The laws and the land 
 which he had given them they valued far more than life, and they 
 would not tolerate the presence of strangers. One man only from the 
 fleet would they permit to come among them, and he must speak 
 Italian that they might add that to the ten other tongues of their ten 
 interpreters. 
 
 The prince, making a pretence of departing in compliance with the 
 commands of the natives, circumnavigated Icaria, but a multitude of 
 armed men watched the vessels from the hill-tops, kept pace along the 
 beaches with its progress, and menaced it continually ; and when a 
 second attempt was made to go on shore, the Frislanders were re- 
 pulsed, many killed, and more wounded. Against this fierce obsti- 
 nacy Zichmni was convinced at last that it was ^ useless to contend. 
 Once more he set sail, still steering to the west. 
 
 He steered to the west for five days with a fair breeze ; then the 
 weather changed, and the wind came out from the southwest. 
 With this " wind in the powpe " he sailed four days more lands du- 
 
 covered 
 
 sailed, that is, before the wind for four days to the northeast, 
 when once more land loomed up above the sea-line. On what part of 
 the American coast this land may have been, it is not considered 
 prudent even to conjecture; for, given a starting-point, Frisland, 
 which never existed ; a voyage thence westward of not less than ten 
 days to another fabulous island, Icaria ; thence still westward for five 
 days more ; thence for four days in a northeast direction, and the 
 imagination need submit to no trammels of latitude and longitude. 
 But wherever it was, it was so pleasant a country, its days of June 
 were so delicious, its soil was so fruitful, its rivers so fair, its fish and 
 its fowl in such abundance, that here Zichmni resolved to remain, to 
 build a city, to found a state. The harbor where he anchored he 
 called Trin, and the point which stretched out into the sea and em- 
 braced it, he called Capo di Trin. In the centre of the island was an 
 active volcano, visible from the coast, and out of the base of it ran a 
 certain matter like pitch, that flowed into the sea. The country was 
 densely populated by a people small of stature, timid, half wild, and 
 living in caves of the earth. Zichmni sent his ships back to Frisland, 
 under the command of Antonio Zeno, retaining only his boats and a 
 portion of his people ; but whether he himself ever returned thence, 
 or what was the subsequent fate of him and his colony, except that he 
 built his town and explored much of the neighboring region, there is 
 no account. The last letter of Zeno declares that he has written many 
 interesting things in a book, which he should bring home with him, 
 respecting the adventures of his brother and himself, of the prince 
 Zichmni, the many islands he reigned over, and the new lands he dis- 
 
 - 
 
84 
 
 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 covered ; but this the younger Zeno had destroyed in his youth, and 
 here, therefore, the narrative ends. 
 
 The warmest defenders of this irreconcilable story do not venture 
 to deny that much of it is fable, and of that which they accept as 
 
 THE NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN BY ANTONIO ZENO IN THE YEAR I4OO 
 
 The Zeni Map. 
 
 true, some of its essential facts of geography and navigation stand in 
 need of the most ingenious explanation. It is difficult to believe that 
 
 any actual navigator should have described so many islands 
 to this that had no existence in the places where he put them, both 
 
 in the narrative and on a map ; and quite as hard to believe 
 that they have all been since sunk in the sea, if they ever had an 
 existence. If it is assumed that the requisite number, and the con- 
 quest and discovery of those referred to, may be found by looking for 
 them among the Faroe Islands, the Orkneys, or the Hebrides, it is 
 hard to reconcile such a supposition to the known facts of history 
 that Norway, at the end of the 14th century was governed not by a 
 king, but by a queen, Margaret ; that the Orkneys and Shetland 
 isles were never wrested from that crown, but belonged to it till late 
 in the loth century ; that Henry Sinclair. Earl of Orkney, held pos- 
 session of the islands of that name as a loyal subject of Norway at 
 the very time that Zichmni is said to have conquered Frisland ; that 
 the Hebrides have been in continual possession of Scotland since the 
 latter part of the 13th century. While it is exceedingly difficult to 
 

 CHINESE DISCOVERY. 85 
 
 adjust the main statements of the narrative to any reasonable theory 
 consistent with their truth, the meagre information it gives in regard 
 to the Western Continent was possibly accessible from various sources 
 when the letters were published. The most rational conclusion, there- 
 fore, seems to be that if the story were not a clumsy attempt to patch 
 up an account of a voyage, some record of which had been preserved 
 in mutilated and unintelligible fragments of old letters, then it was a 
 bold, but still clumsy, fabrication, whereby it was hoped that the glory 
 of the great discovery might be snatched from Spain and Columbus. 
 In nothing, in either case, is that clumsiness so apparent as in the 
 adaptation of the Grecian names and fables of Daedalus and Icarus to 
 persons and places in the frozen North. 
 
 There is a still older claim to the discovery of the western hemis- 
 phere than can be made either for Northmen, Arabs, Welsh, or Vene- 
 tians. In the Chinese Year-Books, in which are recorded 
 
 Chinese 
 
 from year to year for many centuries, every event of interest ^'j^^,, 
 that occurred in the empire, is the relation of a Buddhist Discovery, 
 priest named Hoei-Shin, who, in the last year of the fifth century, 
 visited a country fifteen thousand li east of Tahan. Precisely the 
 distance measured by twenty thousand li in the year 499, and whether 
 by Tahan was meant Kamtschatka, Alaska, or Siberia, are questions 
 about which there is a good deal of doubt, while on a clear under- 
 standing of them depends any application of the narrative to Amer- 
 ican discovery. 
 
 The country which the priest reached, however, he called Fusang, 
 from its most remarkable product, a tree possessed of many valuable 
 qualities. Its sprouts were like those of the bamboo, and Description 
 were used for food ; it bore an excellent fruit, red in color, in of Fu8an - 
 shape like a pear, and which would keep the whole year round ; its 
 bark was fibrous, and from it the natives made a kind of linen for 
 their clothing, and the paper on which they wrote ; for they were so 
 cultured a people that they used written characters. Another fruit 
 they had was apples ; from a kind of reed they made mats. As 
 beasts of burden they used horses, oxen, and stags ; these were har- 
 nessed to wagons. The hinds Avere kept also for their milk, from 
 which cheese was made ; and the oxen had horns so large that they 
 would hold ten bushels, and were useful as receptacles of household 
 goods. Iron they had not ; but copper, gold, and silver were plentiful, 
 though but little valued. 
 
 Fusang was governed by a king, who when he appeared in public 
 was heralded by the music of horns and trumpets ; he clothed himself 
 apparently in accordance with some astronomical theory, as the color 
 of his garments was changed every two yeai's for a cycle of ten years, 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 when the same order was begun again. The title of this king was 
 Ichi, and he was surrounded by a nobility divided into three ranks. 
 The people were peaceful and had no weapons of war. Offences 
 against the law were punished by imprisonment ; when this was for 
 life, the offenders were allowed to marry, but their children were sold 
 as slaves. 
 
 A thousand li east of Fusang, the monk said, the people were 
 white, were covered with hair, and were all women. When they 
 
 wished to become mothers 
 they had only to bathe in 
 a certain river. Their chil- 
 dren they nourished, not 
 from the breast but from 
 a tuft of hair upon the 
 shoulder. Other wonderful 
 things he related, but these 
 the learned translator, the 
 late Professor Neumann of 
 the University of Munich, 
 g: thought too absurd to re- 
 peat. The old Chinese 
 poets found a potent stimu- 
 lant to their imaginations 
 in these stories of Hoei-Shin, and made of Fusang a delightful region 
 of many marvels where the mulberry trees were thousands of feet in 
 height, and the silk-worms more than six feet in length. In a land 
 blessed with such capabilities for making silk, a Chinaman could con- 
 ceive of nothing wanting. 
 
 Not the least remarkable of the observations of Hoei-Shin is that 
 the people of this distant land were all Buddhists. For he was not 
 the first discoverer ; twenty-nine years before his visit, he said, five 
 beggar-monks from China had reached Fusang and introduced the 
 religion of Buddha, with his holy books and images, instructed the 
 people in the principles of monastic life, and thus wrought a great 
 change in those few years in their belief and their manner of living. 
 
 This alleged discovery has been the subject of a good deal of con- 
 troversy. There is nothing incredible in the supposition that the 
 Chinese may have sailed across the Pacific long before Europeans 
 ventured over the Atlantic Ocean ; for they were early navigators ; 
 knew in the second century of our era the use of the mariner's compass ; 
 and their junks, which have changed little in form since they were 
 first known to Europeans, have been found wrecked upon the west 
 coast of America, at different periods, from the time of the first Span- 
 ish voyages in the Pacific. 
 
 Chinese Junk. 
 
CHINESE DISCOVERY. 87 
 
 While there is no intrinsic improbability, then, of such a discovery, 
 those who see in Hoei-Shin's narrative a record of it, maintain that 
 Fusang was either California or Mexico ; that the Fusang-tree was 
 the great American aloe, or " Maguey," as the Indians call it ; that 
 the oxen with enormous horns were bison ; that the stags were rein- 
 deer, which may have once been used farther south than now ; that 
 the horses were of a race that afterward became extinct, and whose 
 fossil remains have been found by geologists in the western territories 
 of the United States ; that the ancient Mexicans were accustomed to 
 milk the bison-cows and hinds, and to manufacture cheese ; that 
 though Peru was not Mexico, from one the people may have gone to 
 the other ; and Ichi may have meant Inca, the title of the sovereign 
 of Peru, which may have been brought from Mexico ; that orders of 
 nobility were known both in Mexico and Peru ; that the Mexicans had 
 some knowledge of astronomy, and the cycle of ten years, the obser- 
 vance of which determined the Ichi in the color of his garments, may 
 have been a subdivision of the Mexican astronomical period of fifty-two 
 years ; and finally, that Tahan was Alaska, and according to the most 
 reasonable computation of the length of a li of the fifth century, the 
 coast of Mexico is about twenty thousand li from Alaska. 
 
 On the other hand, it is observed that the monk speaks of no long 
 voyage to the country he calls Fusang ; that in using the vague term 
 20,000 li, he meant to indicate a great distance rather than any definite 
 measurement in miles ; and that he may have referred to no region 
 farther off than Kamtschatka, the island of Saghalien or than Japan ; 
 that by Tahan he may have meant Siberia ; that as his narrative is 
 acknowledged to be largely made up of fables, so that which is true is 
 composed of facts and rumors in regard to various countries ; as, for 
 example, a tree similar in its characteristics to those ascribed to the 
 Fusang is found in one of the Aleutian islands ; the reindeer are com- 
 mon to Asia as well as America, and other peoples beside the Mexi- 
 cans are known to have been ignorant of the use of iron and to have 
 used copper instead. 
 
 If the story of Hoei-Shin was not meant to deceive and some 
 Oriental scholars do not hesitate to call him "a lying priest," it is 
 too indefinite, until supported by further evidence, to be accepted as 
 an authentic narrative of a veritable discovery of the Western conti- 
 nent. Its meagre statement of the character and manners of the peo- 
 ple of Fusang and of the productions of the country can hardly be 
 made to apply to the ancient Mexicans by seeking for similarities from 
 the Arctic regions to Peru. 1 
 
 1 See Humboldt's Kxumen Critique, tome 2, p. 62, et seq., and Fusang, or The Discovery of 
 America by Chinese Buddhist Priests in the Fifth Century, by Charles G. Leland. 
 
88 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV 
 
 We have devoted these earlier chapters to periods which, in previous 
 
 histories of the United States and of America, have either had no 
 
 place at all, or have been dismissed in a page or a paragraph. 
 
 Claim of = 
 
 the*e pre- should it ever be possible to penetrate the mystery and 
 periods on darkness which shrouded one half the world almost as com- 
 pletely as if it had been another planet, from the time of 
 its creation to a thousand years after Jesus Christ, such an addition 
 to human knowledge would be of inestimable value and intense inte- 
 rest. Modern science has only begun to read this story of races and 
 of civilizations that long since disappeared, leaving no other record 
 than those relics which till recently have been either overlooked or 
 misunderstood. 
 
 What point in time, or what degree of knowledge, may be thus 
 reached by future discoveries and deductions from them in a field as 
 yet but little explored, it would be rash to hazard even a guess. But 
 it is well to know what ground there is for presuming that it is possi- 
 ble to learn anything of that pre-historic period. And still more in 
 actual history, even though its records be obscure and imperfect, or 
 only traditions reduced to writing ; even though the period of which 
 we can gain only such imperfect information be, in some respects, 
 legendary and romantic, we may, nevertheless, profitablv and prop- 
 erly go further back than the ordinary starting-point by five hundred 
 years. 
 
 Hitherto the legitimate commencement of American history has 
 been held to be toward the end of the fifteenth century, and all 
 beyond fabulous or inscrutable. But there were bold men and skilful 
 
 / 
 
 sailors before Columbus. Ever since men sailed upon the sea, or 
 possessed a literature, there have been glimpses, sometimes transient 
 or illusory, at other times distinct, of a mysterious world in the 
 Western Ocean, the subject of curious conjecture, of vague prophecy, 
 and oftener, perhaps, than is supposed, of attempted discovery. 
 Though there was no permanent occupation and no positive recogni- 
 tion of this as a new quarter of the globe till the Columbian era, the 
 real or supposed approaches to its possession for the five hundred pre- 
 vious years appeal as much to human sympathy, and are as pertinent 
 to human progress, as the mythical periods of the historical nations of 
 the Old World. 
 
 From discoveries made without design and in ignorance of their 
 real character, we are led, in the gradual progress of events and the 
 v ue slow advance of knowledge, to that later time when the 
 eari ioi nai ocean was traversed with a distinct and intelligent purpose 
 gators. an( j w ith unhesitating faith. The Northmen, the Welsh, 
 the Venetians assuming their narratives to be wholly or partially 
 
 
NAUTICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE. 89 
 
 true while they were certain that they had sailed into unknown 
 seas, and were cast upon new lands and among strange peoples beyond 
 the accredited limits of the inhabited world, also believed, no doubt, 
 that they had only reached the farther shores or the out-lying islands 
 of the continent whence they came. The notions as to the shape and 
 the extent of the earth were, at that period, so vague, even among the 
 learned, and the art of navigation was so little developed, that there 
 was not much speculation as to the possibility of penetrating beyond 
 the known limits of the continents and out of the accustomed tracks 
 of ships. All that mariners dared to do was to creep along the coast 
 from headland to headland, with a fair wind, to go to places fre- 
 quently visited. 
 
 The boldest who first ventured out of sight of land, had only the 
 sun by day and the stars by night to steer by ; when these were ob- 
 scured for more than a day or two they lost all reckoning 
 and were at the mercy of the winds and currents. They ofmmticai 
 were without the mariner's compass of later times, for the andknowi- 
 magnetic needle was not in general use till early in the four- 
 teenth century, either because a knowledge of its properties was con- 
 fined to a few, or because there was a timid hesitation to spread the 
 knowledge of an instrument which, it was supposed, would certainly 
 be looked upon among the ignorant as belonging to the Black Art, 
 and one with which no sensible seaman, who thought of his salvation, 
 would trust himself at sea. It was impossible to ascertain the position 
 of a ship out of sight of land, for it was the middle of the fifteenth 
 century before there was any nautical instrument by which the alti- 
 tude of the sun and stars could be taken with any approach to accu- 
 racy. Even sailing on a wind is supposed to have been unknown till 
 the Northmen found it possible, with the wind on the quarter, to still 
 keep the ship on her course if they ventured to haul their tacks 
 aboard. Before that time the sailor was no wiser than the nautilus, 
 which can only sail with a breeze from astern. What little knowledge 
 there was of distant parts of the earth was gained by a few travellers 
 over land in search of information ; by priests devoted to the propa- 
 gation of the Christian faith among the heathen ; by travelling mer- 
 chants of different countries, who, meeting each other at certain great 
 marts for the exchange of merchandise, exchanged information also as 
 to the regions whence they came, or others which they had visited in 
 the pursuit of their calling. 
 
 Of the three continents, Europe, Asia, Africa, into which the world 
 was then supposed to be divided, the boundaries were unknown, and 
 the extreme parts, if not uninhabited, at the north, because of the 
 intensity of the cold ; in the torrid zone, because of the intensity of 
 
90 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES WESTWARD. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 the heat, were believed to be either absolutely impenetrable by 
 those born in more temperate climates, or to be entered only at the 
 risk of life. It was death from cold to go too far northward ; to ven- 
 ture too far southward might be worse than death, for if heat did 
 not at once consume the flesh and bones of the unhappy traveller, it 
 would singe his hair to a crispy wool, and tan his skin to the black- 
 ness of a coal. 
 
 But when, at length, vessels were driven by the fury of tempests, 
 or drifted by irresistible currents westward upon unknown coasts, 
 though the bewildered crews may have believed that they had only 
 reached the farther confines of the continent of Europe, extending 
 northward to the pole, thence southward and westward to some un- 
 approachable boundary, such voyages were, nevertheless, the natural 
 consequence of that boldness which, little by little, ventured farther 
 out to sea, and led at length to such grand results. They were the 
 pioneers of subsequent discovery, and the traditions, speculations, and 
 prophecy scattered through ancient literature, of islands and conti- 
 nents in and beyond the Sea of Darkness, arose in part at least from 
 vague reports of ship? having sometimes sailed into those mysterious 
 waters and touched upon distant shores. 
 
 Then in the fifteenth century came the revival of learning in Europe. 
 Enthusiasm was kindled in the study of science ; especially was this 
 true in regard to cosmography. All that the scholars of the earlier 
 of a S es had taught was diligently learned ; and the new the- 
 ories which the student formed in his closet, the adventurous 
 learning. voyager sought to test by actual experiment. To the polit- 
 ical jealousy of states was added a nobler rivalry in efforts to enlarge 
 the boundaries of geographical knowledge and to augment the com- 
 merce of the world. Sailing upon the sea grew into an art ; it be- 
 came possible to ascertain with some precision the position of a ship 
 out of sight of land ; to tell almost with absolute certainty the direc- 
 tion in which she should be steered, though blackest clouds and dark- 
 est night obscured the sky. It is not easy now to conceive how 
 immense an impulse this was to the activity and intelligence of that 
 age ; but it opened the whole world to those who could avail them- 
 selves of these means of knowledge, and was the dawn of a new 
 era in civilization. New wants were created ; luxury increased, as 
 the products of different and distant countries became known ; a 
 demand arose which gave a new importance and power to commerce 
 and to expeditions to find out new and shorter routes to those distant 
 lands. 1 
 
 And there was no discovery which offered so magnificent a return, 
 
 1 See Robertson's History of America, book ii. 
 
EFFECT OF REVIVAL OF LEARNING. 91 
 
 none which was sought for with so much intrepidity and eagerness, as 
 a shorter way to that marvellous India, with its fabulous riches and 
 strange peoples, which such travellers as Marco Polo and Sir John 
 Mandeville had visited and written of, but which, as yet, could only 
 be reached by adventurous merchants through long and perilous jour- 
 neys overland. The pursuit of this chimera, rendered possible by the 
 fresh acquisitions of knowledge, and the wants of the age, was the 
 crowning event which revealed a New World, whose existence had 
 been held to be one of the curious fables of ancient philosophers. 
 
The " Far Cathay." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 INDIA THE EL DOHADO OF COLUMBUS. 
 
 THE KINGDOM OF CATHAY. EFFORTS IN EUROPE TO FIND A SEA-WAY TO IXDIA. 
 I'KIXCE HEXRY THE NAVIGATOR. BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE OF CHRISTOPHER 
 COLUMBUS. His DESIGN OF A WESTERN VOYAGE TO INDIA. FAITH IN HIS 
 DIVIXE MISSION. THE THEORIES OF COXTEMPORARY GEOGRAPHERS. His LIFE 
 ix SPAIX. THE COUNCIL AT SALAMANCA. His FIRST VOYAGE. His BELIEF 
 
 THAT HE HAS DISCOVERED INDIA. THE DELUSION OF HIS LlFE. HlS HRIEF 
 1IOXOR AND FlXAL DISGRACE. 
 
 IN the far East had reigned for centuries a line of mighty monarchs 
 of the race of Kublai Khan. Among many provinces owing them 
 
THE CITY OF QUINSAI. 93 
 
 allegiance was that of Mangi, bordering on the sea. In this province 
 alone, Marco Polo said, there were twelve thousand cities, all within a 
 few days' travel of each other. Quinsai, whose circuit was a 
 hundred miles, was only one of a hundred and forty cities of Mangi 
 standing in such contiguity that they seemed but one. A 
 permanent garrison of thirty thousand soldiers guarded Quinsai alone ; 
 a police force of some hundreds of thousands of men was always on 
 duty to preserve its domestic peace and order. Spanning its many 
 streets were twelve thousand noble bridges, some of them so lofty that 
 ships could sail beneath without interruption to the passage of the 
 multitudes that were continually crossing them, to and fro. Its prin- 
 cipal street, forty paces in width, bridged in many places by these 
 works of beautiful architecture, extended from one side of the city to 
 the other in a straight line. At intervals of every four miles on this 
 magnificent avenue of thirty-three miles were market-places, each two 
 miles in compass ; behind them ran a canal, on the banks of which 
 were great stone warehouses always filled with precious merchandise. 
 In these spacious marts from forty to fifty thousand people met three 
 days in the week to trade, thronging through the streets that radiated 
 in every direction. These thoroughfares were all of great width and 
 length, and paved with stone, as indeed were all the highways, in 
 city and country, of the province of Mangi. 
 
 The sewerage of Quinsai was more perfect than that of any modern 
 city, for the waters of a river, that bounded it on one side, rin . of 
 were led through the streets and washed completely away Quin^"- 
 all filth and waste matter to a lake on the other side, whence they 
 were carried out to sea. Besides this system of thorough drainage, for 
 the preservation of the public health, there were free baths of hot and 
 cold water, with attendants, male and female, for daily bathing was 
 the habit of this luxurious people from earliest childhood ; and for 
 the sick and feeble the hospitals were " exceeding many," where all 
 were taken care of who were not able to work. A trained fire-depart- 
 ment was in constant readiness to protect the city from conflagrations, 
 and at a fixed hour of the night the putting out of domestic lights 
 and fires was enforced by severe penalties, as a safeguard against 
 accident. All the inhabitants were required to be within their 
 houses at a certain time, and from every guard-house and on every 
 bridge each hour of the day and night was struck on great resounding 
 basons or gongs. 
 
 The marble palace of the king, with its arcades and corridors, its ter- 
 races and courts, its lakes and groves and gardens, filled a circuit of 
 ten miles ; its wide expanse of roof, profusely wrought in gold, rested 
 upon hundreds of pillars of pure gold cunningly adorned in arabesque 
 
94 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V. 
 
 of azure, to heighten the native richness of the yellow metal. Here on 
 holydays, sacred to their gods, were feasts of ten and twelve days' con- 
 tinuance, with guests ten thousand at a time. 
 
 The annual revenue of the king from salt alone, from Quinsai and 
 its associated cities, comprising only one ninth of Mangi, was six mil- 
 lion, four hundred thousand ducats ; from other products, sixteen mil- 
 lion eight hundred thousand more. The population of this one of the 
 one hundred and forty contiguous cities was one million and six hun- 
 dred thousand families ; they consumed daily nine thousand four hun- 
 dred and sixty pounds of pepper, and " hence," says Polo, " may be 
 guessed the quantity of victuals, flesh, wine, and spices were there 
 spent." So wealthy and prosperous and luxurious were these people, 
 that a part of every day was given up to pleasure in boats and barges 
 fitted up for banquets on the lake ; in driving about the long and 
 beautiful streets in chariots lined with cushions and cloths of silk ; in 
 feasting in palaces gorgeously furnished and kept for public use ; in 
 loitering in public gardens, or resting in inviting bowers scattered 
 through them at convenient distances. And this city, " for the ex- 
 cellency thereof," said Marco Polo, " hath the name of the city of 
 Heaven ; for in the world there is not the like, or a place in which 
 are found so many pleasures, that a man would think he were in 
 Paradise." 
 
 Of all the provinces of the East, Mangi was the richest, as it was 
 also the most accessible from the sea. But all the kingdoms, both of 
 Mangi and Cathay, teemed with people, abounded in precious com- 
 modities of nature and of art, and their cities, villages, fortresses, and 
 palaces were tens upon tens of thousands. Armenia the Greater was, 
 >ike Mangi and Cathay, tributary to the great Khan. There also were 
 many opulent communities ; out of its soil sprang wholesome hot wa- 
 ters for the curing of all diseases ; on the top of one of its mountains 
 Noah's Ark still rested. At the city of Cambalu, on the northeast of 
 Cathay, where the Khan resided for three winter months, his palace 
 was of marble with a roof of gold, so blazoned in many colors that 
 nothing but gold and imagery met the eye. It stood in the centre of 
 the city, which was a succession of courts from one to six miles in 
 width, each surrounded with a wall, the outer wall of all extending 
 eight miles on each side of a square. In one of these courts stood al- 
 ways a guard of ten thousand soldiers ; in the imperial stables near 
 by were five thousand elephants. 
 
 From Cambalu radiated roads to the most distant bound- 
 offh"' ora? aries of the empire ; at every twenty-five or thirty miles on 
 these highways were post-houses, wherein were many cham- 
 bers fit to lodge a king, and relays of horses were kept always in readi- 
 
THE GREAT KHAN. 95 
 
 ness for the use of the royal messengers. Of these post-houses there 
 were about ten thousand in the whole empire, and the number of 
 horses kept in them exceeded two hundred thousand. Between these 
 houses, at intervals of three or four miles, were other stations where 
 runners swift of foot always stood ready to carry letters on the king's 
 business, having at their girdles little bells, the ringing whereof gave 
 notice of their coming, and as they met, the letters were handed from 
 one to another and thus hurried forward without a moment's delay. 
 The bridges on these roads, over the many rivers and canals which 
 watered this wonderful country, were noble works of art, built some- 
 times of polished serpentine, sometimes of beautiful marbles, stately 
 with many columns, ornamented with great stone lions and other 
 sculptures, curiously and beautifully wrought. 
 
 In another city, Ciandu, the Khan made his residence for three of 
 the summer months, and there also was " a marvellous palace of 
 marble and other stones," in an enclosure of sixteen miles. So large 
 was the banquet-hall of this royal residence, that the Khan's table in 
 the centre was eighty yards high. Here the royal stud was a herd of 
 white horses and mares to the number of ten thousand, which were in 
 a manner sacred ; for none dared to go before or to hinder these 
 animals wherever they went, and none were allowed to drink of the 
 milk of the mares except they were of the imperial blood. 
 
 The Khan's army was almost like the sands of the sea for numbers, 
 and so magnificent was the state of its many generals that they sat 
 in chairs of solid silver. The royal fleet was fifteen thousand sail, 
 and each vessel carried fifteen horses and twenty men, or two hun- 
 dred and twenty-five thousand horses and three hundred thousand 
 men for the fleet. But the merchant marine far exceeded this, for in 
 a single port Polo saw five thousand ships engaged in trade, and there 
 were many cities that numbered still more. 
 
 In one province a mountain of turquoises pierced the clouds ; in a 
 valley of another nestled a lake where pearls were so plentiful that 
 had there been freedom to gather them, pearls would have been so 
 common as to be of little worth. There were many mines of silver, 
 many rivers whose beds were spangled with gold. The beasts and 
 birds were various and wonderful : serpents with two little feet near 
 their heads, with claws like lions, with eyes bigger than a loaf ; hens 
 that had no feathers, but were covered with hair ; birds of gorgeous 
 plumage ; oxen as large as elephants, with manes as fine as silk ; 
 game of all kinds, which the Khan hunted with hawks and with 
 leopards seated on the backs of horses, whence they sprang at the 
 prey. Spices grew everywhere ; and of fruit there were nuts as large 
 as a child's head, filled with a delicious milk, pears that weighed ten 
 
96 
 
 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V. 
 
 pounds, peaches two pounds each ; canes fifteen paces long and four 
 palms thick, somewhat, no doubt, like those washed up on the beach 
 of the island of Porto Santo and seen by Columbus, grew everywhere 
 in abundance. The people of this favored land clothed themselves in 
 cloth of gold, in silks, in lawns and cambrics of the finest fabric, in 
 furs of ermine and of sable, which they called " the Queen of Furs." 
 
 Fifteen hundred miles from the coast of Mangi was the island of 
 Cipango, Japan, where gold was so plentiful that the palace of 
 the king was covered with golden plates, as the churches of Europe 
 were roofed with lead ; the windows were gilded ; the floors even 
 were paved with gold. There also were many precious pearls. In 
 the surrounding sea there were four hundred and forty other islands, 
 most of them peopled, whereon grew not a tree that yielded not a good 
 smell, while many bore spices, and where also gold abounded. 
 
 All the people of these nucuei-ous and opulent kingdoms were infi- 
 dels and idolaters, and whoever should make of them and their rich pos- 
 sessions a prey would be doing a service to God and the true Church. 
 Of the right to do so there was no question, for it was held to be as 
 much the duty of the Christian as the privilege of the conqueror, to 
 spoil the unbelievers. Even if they were not spoiled, a power and 
 prosperity hitherto unknown would surely come to the nation that 
 should open easy communication with a people whose riches seemed 
 
 inexhaustible, whose commerce exceeded 
 that of all the world beside, whose arts 
 were far beyond anything known in 
 Europe, whose luxury was of a refine- 
 ment and magnificence hardly to be con- 
 ceived of by the ordinary European 
 mind. 
 
 The great problem of the age was to 
 reach this " far Cathay " by sea. Navi- 
 gation grew to a science, drawing all 
 ether sciences to its aid. Dominion 
 over the sea increased with the com- 
 mon use of the magnetic needle in the 
 new mariners' compass ; with the im- 
 proved methods of drawing sea-charts ; 
 with the additions made to the astrolabe 
 which the quadrant afterwards superseded by Martin Behaim and 
 Rodrigo and Joseph the Jew, the king's physicians, the three 
 
 Endeavors to -A 
 
 reach India ablest astronomers and geographers of Portugal. But how- 
 ever much this increase of knowledge advanced the commerce 
 and civilization of Europe, to push out beyond its confines and find the 
 
 Astrolabe. 
 
PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR. 97 
 
 way to that " East " of marvels and mysteries was the impelling mo- 
 tive of the most enlightened and most energetic minds of the fifteenth 
 century. It was only in royal treasure-chests, however, that the 
 means could often be found for the expenditure involved in long 
 expeditions ; still more the civil conditions, and moral and intellectual 
 subservience of the age, suppressed all individual effort that wanted 
 a regal sanction. But fortunately in the fifteenth century there came 
 forward a princely adventurer, Hemy of Portugal, surnamed H of 
 The Navigator, who not only was willing to listen to and to ^'^^i 
 aid all those who proposed voyages of discovery, but was s vi s tor 
 himself diligent above all other men of his time in forwarding such 
 enterprises. By his energy, generosity, and success, an impulse was 
 given to cosmographical studies, and ex- 
 peditions under his auspices or by his ex- 
 ample were pushed to parts where hitherto 
 it was supposed impossible to penetrate. 1 
 Rejecting the absurdities which some of 
 the wisest of men then accepted as true, 
 that human life could hardly be sustained 
 in the intense heat of the torrid zone, and 
 that it was impossible the antipodal regions 
 could be inhabited, because it was absurd 
 to suppose that there could be a people 
 that went about their ordinary business 
 
 with their heads downward, rejecting Prince Henry the Navi ^ ator 
 all such conjectures as unphilosophical, he devoted his princely rev- 
 enues and all the energies of a richly endowed character, to enlarging 
 the boundaries of geographical knowledge. 
 
 The love of science was, perhaps, the primal motive which ruled 
 Prince Henry ; but to this was added a desire to enhance the glory 
 of Portugal, and to extend the blessings of the Christian religion 
 for the salvation of souls. A desire to do good '-'talent de lien 
 faire " was his chosen motto, and such, undoubtedly, was the aim 
 of his life. The particular good, however, that he never lost sight of, 
 was India. He gathered men learned in the sciences about him in 
 his secluded home on the promontory of Sagres, where the unmeas- 
 ured, restless sea was always before his eyes, and the melancholy mur- 
 mur or the mighty roar of those mysterious waters never left his ears. 
 Of his princely court he made a sort of geographical college ; he pro- 
 posed that his seamen should fearlessly cross the line and breathe the 
 heated air which none, it was said, could breathe and live ; he would 
 
 1 See Life of Prince Henri/ of Poi-twjal, surnamed The Navigator; and its Kesults. By 
 Richard Henry Major. London, 1868. 
 vol.. i. 7 
 
98 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V. 
 
 pass Cape Nam or Non so called because, according to the provero, 
 " Whoever passes Cape Not will return or not ; " he would bring the 
 benighted heathen of Africa, from its Mediterranean coast to its far- 
 thest southern limit, to a knowledge of Christ and the true Church ; 
 but the end of all was to double that southern extremity and open a 
 new route to India. 
 
 India always India. It was well to win souls to God ; it was 
 well to dispel the clouds of human ignorance, whether Christian or 
 heathen ; it was well to augment the glory of states and dynasties, 
 and add to the sum of human happiness, by the discovery of strange 
 countries. But commerce with the gorgeous East, so teeming with 
 all precious things, would enrich kingdoms and make states and 
 princes powerful. Courts and palaces, lords and ladies, the increasing 
 wealth, refinement, and luxury of the age, demanded its rich stuffs, 
 its precious stones, its aromatic spices, all its costly merchandise. 
 Now they could be had only in some small degree by tedious, dan- 
 gerous, and expensive travel, partly overland through wide deserts, 
 through hostile countries, a devious and a doubtful way. Great, then, 
 would be, not the glory only, but the profit also, of that man or that 
 people who should shorten that way in distance, remove its difficulties 
 and its perils, and pour the precious commodities of Asia in unstinted 
 abundance into the lap of Europe. 
 
 The devotion of a long life and of his great revenues by Henry did 
 not solve this problem while he lived ; but the success and importance 
 of the many expeditions undertaken by his orders, and the mari- 
 time policy he established, so extended the knowledge of the globe, 
 so added to the power and wealth of Portugal, and led generally to 
 results so brilliant, that thenceforward for nearly two hundred years, 
 the spirit of adventure and the zeal for discovery animated every 
 maritime state of Europe, and opened a new world to the races and 
 the civilization of the old. Not, indeed, that the modern discoverers 
 of the Western Hemisphere were in search of another continent ; they 
 were as far from being guided by any such definite purpose as their 
 predecessors of earlier centuries were innocent of all knowledge that 
 they had made such a discovery when accident threw them upon 
 strange shores. 
 
 Columbus, like the navigators of Prince Henry, meant to find a 
 new route to the East, only in a fresh direction ; and he died in the 
 belief, after four voyages to the New World, that the countries he 
 had discovered were literally the Western Indies the coasts of Asia 
 reached by sailing west. The difference between him and those 
 who by chance crossed the Atlantic before him was that he, impelled 
 by a fervid religious faith and by conclusions drawn from scientific 
 
 
EARLY LIFE OF COLUMBUS. 99 
 
 re 
 
 study, had boldly sought to explore the unknown on which they had 
 only been ignorantly driven. 
 
 The father of Columbus had followed the humble calling of a 
 carder of wool. But among his kindred were some who led Chrlgto her 
 a seafaring life, and with them from the age of fourteen a coiumbus. 
 ship was the home of the son. One or two of these relatives were 
 the servants of any state that would give them a roving commission 
 to fight against its enemies ; and if a commission were wanting, they 
 sought and found a foe in any ship carrying a cargo worth the taking. 
 They did not differ much from what in later times was called a 
 pirate ; but in their own age they had the reputation which a priv- 
 ateer has had in ours. It was with such sea rovers that the great cap- 
 tain learned the practice of navigation ; learned how to carry himself 
 in fight when, sword in hand, he sprang over the bulwarks of a hostile 
 vessel ; learned how to control the rough and lawless men with whom 
 he sailed, now by the enforcement of an iron discipline, now by those 
 arts of persuasion of which, with his winning speech and commanding 
 presence, he was master. In one of these sea fights, off the coast of 
 Portugal, which lasted from morning till night, the vessels, lashed 
 together by iron grapplings, became enveloped in flames, and the only 
 escape from the fire was to jump into the sea. Columbus went over- 
 board with the rest, and, being an expert swimmer, swam, with the 
 aid of an oar, eight leagues to land. He found himself not far from 
 Lisbon, where there were many of his countrymen, Genoese, who 
 received him kindly. The incident is related on the authority of his 
 son Fernando, and if there is an anachronism, as there seems to be, 
 as to the date of the particular naval battle referred to and the time 
 of the residence of Columbus in Lisbon, the mistake, probably, is in 
 confounding one engagement with another. In Lisbon, at any rate, 
 he was living before he was thirty years of age, having abandoned his 
 roving life, and supporting himself and his father's family at home in 
 Genoa by drawing maps and sea-charts. 
 
 Here in Lisbon he became acquainted with, and soon married, the 
 Dona Felipa Moniz Perestrello, a daughter of a late governor of 
 Porto Santo, one of the Madeira Islands, and a renowned navigator 
 under Prince Henry. The charts and journals of Perestrello thus 
 came into possession of Columbus ; and going afterward to R^J^^ of 
 Porto Santo, with his wife, he was brought into familiar 
 intercourse with Pedro Correo, a navigator of some distinc- 
 tion, who had married another daughter of the late governor. This 
 family connection was both an incentive and a help to his cosmograph- 
 ical studies, and it was at this period of his life that he became per- 
 suaded of the feasibility of a western passage to India. In the 
 
100 
 
 INDIA THE ELDORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP, V. 
 
 Madeiras he found people who believed they had seen ample evidence 
 of the truth of the strange stories of the islands of St. Brandan and 
 of The Seven Cities, which were supposed to be somewhere in the 
 Western Ocean. He was told of pieces of curiously-carved wood, one 
 of them found by Correo, his brother-in-law ; joints of gigantic cane, 
 such as Ptolemy said grew in India ; branches of pine ; covered 
 canoes ; the bodies of two strange men, differing in complexion from 
 either Europeans or Africans ; and all these had been picked up at 
 sea, or were found upon the beach, and had evidently drifted from the 
 west. There is also a story which seems to have been current in the 
 life-time of Columbus, accepted by some historians, rejected by others 
 as an attempt to detract from his fair fame, but passed over in silence 
 by those who might, from their own knowledge, have either contra- 
 dicted or confirmed it. It is that about the year 1484 a vessel com- 
 manded by one Alonzo San- 
 chez was driven across the 
 ocean by storm, and that he 
 and his crew landed and spent 
 some time on the island of 
 Hispaniola. On their return 
 they again encountered tem- 
 pestuous weather, and only 
 five out of sixteen survived 
 the hardships they were com- 
 pelled to suffer. Sanchez 
 found a refuge in the house 
 of Columbus, who learned 
 from him the particulars of 
 his western voyage and the land he had discovered, receiving from 
 him also, when he died, his charts and journal. If the story be true, 
 the information Columbus thus gained could have only helped to con- 
 firm his theory, which certainly was not founded on a single fact or 
 a single supposition. 
 
 He found from ancient authors that a belief in such western lands, 
 
 sometimes under one name, sometimes under another, and a belief in 
 
 the possibility of the navigation of the western seas, had long existed. 
 
 From his geographical and astronomical studies, in works 
 
 His theory . 11,11 
 
 of the size ancient and modern, he had come to the conclusion that the 
 earth was in shape a sphere, but that it was much smaller 
 than it had been generally supposed to be. Two thirds of it at least, 
 he was sure, was occupied by Europe and Asia, and the eastern coast 
 of Asia must, in that case, come within the other third of the whole 
 circumference and stretch toward the western coast of Europe. Other 
 
 Ship of Fifteenth Century. 
 
THEORIES OF COLUMBUS. 101 
 
 men more learned than he had held this opinion, but he was the first 
 who proposed to put it to a practical test. If he were right as to the 
 size of the globe, the one weak point of his argument, and the one 
 which his opponents seem to have strangely overlooked, or, at least, 
 did not answer, resorting rather to any dogmatic absurdity in reply to 
 him, if he were right in that, his reasoning was unanswerable. A 
 shorter and a better way to India than that sought by Prince Henry's 
 navigators, round the extremity of Africa, would be to sail directly 
 west. 
 
 The Sea of Darkness and the monsters that guarded it were fables 
 fit only to frighten children. Modern voyagers had exposed the fal- 
 lacy of the supposed fatal heat of the tropics. In one of his roving 
 voyages Columbus himself had sailed, as he says in a letter to his son 
 Fernando, a hundred leagues beyond the island of Thule, to another 
 island, Iceland, where " the English, especially those from Bris- 
 tol, go with their merchandise." This voyage was made in 1467, 
 long before his attention was turned to the question which so ab- 
 sorbed him ten years later. Some have conjectured that he then 
 gained a knowledge of the discoveries of the Northmen and the colo- 
 nization of Vinland more than four and a half centuries earlier. But 
 this is very unlikely. It is possible that the ship in which he sailed, 
 and which, no doubt, was on a privateering cruise, made a short stay 
 in Iceland ; but the young sailor of one-and-twenty, if ashore at all, 
 would find something else to do than to ransack dusty monastic archives 
 for forgotten manuscripts in ancient Norse, or to seek for old traditions 
 among learned monks who would relate therin Latin. He recalled 
 the fact, however, that he had sailed so far beyond the uttermost 
 western boundary of Northern Europe, as one among the many other 
 reasons he had for maintaining that navigation to the west was pos- 
 sible. The Indies, the kingdoms of the Great Khan, the dominions 
 of that mysterious potentate, Prester John, the island of Cipango, or 
 Japan, perhaps many another island along the Asiatic coast, could 
 easily, he was sure, be reached by the manner bold enough to defy 
 all fancied terrors, and to sail for thirty or forty days and about a 
 thousand leagues into those unknown seas. 
 
 This was the work to which Columbus consecrated his life, and it 
 was for this, he believed, that God had singled him out and set him 
 apart from his fellow-men. He was a most diligent student of the 
 Bible. Its prophecies, he was persuaded, were to be fulfilled when 
 rapid and easy communication was established between the uttermost 
 parts of the earth, and all the human family were brought within the 
 saving influence of the Holy Catholic Church. He looked upon him- 
 self as the destined " Christ-bearer" to far-distant and benighted 
 

 102 
 
 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V. 
 
 lands. 1 " God made me," he said, u the messenger of the new heaven 
 
 and the new earth of which He 
 spoke in the Apocalypse by St. 
 John, after having spoken of it 
 by the mouth of Isaiah ; and He 
 showed me the spot where to 
 find it." 2 The power and the 
 riches which, he was persuaded, 
 he could win for himself and the 
 sovereign whom he should serve, 
 he would win to the glory of 
 God in the bringing of souls to 
 Christ in the East and in the 
 West, and his share of the treas- 
 ure gained he would devote to 
 equipping armies to be led to 
 the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre 
 from the hands of the Infidel. 
 He was as genuine a fanatic as 
 Peter the Hermit, or a modern 
 
 Th, Christ-bearer. from Map of Juan de I. Co.a. u Adventist." " In the 6XCCU- 
 
 tion of my western enterprise to India," he said, " human reason, 
 mathematics, and charts availed me nothing. The design 
 
 o?c>ium was simply accomplished as the prophet Isaiah had pre- 
 dicted. 
 
 bus. 
 
 Before the end of the world, all the prophecies 
 must be fulfilled, the gospel be preached all over the earth, and the 
 holy city restored to the Church. Our Lord wished to do a miracle 
 by my voyage to India. It was necessary to hasten his purpose, be- 
 cause, according to my calculations, there only remain one hundred 
 and fifty years to the end of the world." 3 
 
 But this faith in his divine mission was, nevertheless, a corollary to 
 
 1 His son Ferdinand says that as most of his father's affairs were guarded by a special 
 providence, so there was " a mystery " about his name and surname. He was a true Co- 
 lumbus or Columba (a dove), inasmuch as he conveyed the knowledge of Christ to the 
 people of the New World eveu as the Holy Ghost was revealed in the figure of a dove at 
 St. John's baptism. And as St. Christopher was so called Christopher, or Christ- 
 bearer because he had carried the Saviour, according to the legend, across the deep 
 waters at his own imminent peril, so this Christopher " went over safe himself, and his 
 company, that those Indian nations might become citizens and inhabitants of the Church 
 triumphant in heaven." The representation of Columbus as the Christ-bearer on the old 
 maps is copied from the pictures of the gigantic and popular saint, St. Christopher, 
 which were common in the churches early in the sixteenth century. 
 
 2 Letter of the Admiral to the (quondam) nurse of the Prince John, in the Select Letter$ 
 of Christopher Columbus, translated by R. H. Major, for the Hakluyt Society, p. 148. 
 
 * Letter of Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella, in the Profecias. See Humboldt' 
 Examen Critique, Tome I., p. 15. 
 
THEORIES OF OTHER GEOGRAPHERS. 
 
 103 
 
 the logic of the sphere. It was because the world was round, because 
 one third of it yet remained to sail across, and because it was possible 
 to sail across it, that God had given him that mission. On the ever- 
 lasting truths of science must rest the possibility of human achieve- 
 ment. God would not appoint to him the task of bringing the ends of 
 the earth together if it could not be done. The theory of the spherical 
 form of the earth was not new, for that was taught five hundred years 
 before the Christian era. But the ancient geographers supposed that 
 the ocean of the western hemisphere was of such expanse as to In- 
 practically if not absolutely impassable. It was on this all-important 
 
 CT^.no Verde 
 CABO VERB* ^*V 
 
 ** I ..m 
 
 Circulus -Equiaocalialis ST. THOMAS 7 
 
 Globus Martini Behaim 
 
 Narinbergensis 
 
 1492. 
 
 Globe of Martin Behaim. 
 
 point, the size of the globe, that the learned men of modern times 
 assumed that they had received new light. The globe was much 
 smaller than the ancients supposed ; the ocean west of Europe covered 
 only one third of it, and then came Asia. Columbus was not a man 
 of wide learning, but he had diligently informed himself of all that 
 had been advanced on these points by both ancient and modern 
 writers, and he knew that the geographers of the highest reputation of 
 his own time maintained the theory, on which he relied, not only of 
 the shape but of the size of the earth. 
 
 From these he sought argument and encouragement. He can hardly 
 
104 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. y. 
 
 have failed to know Martin Behaim, in the service of the King of 
 Portugal while Columbus was in vain attendance upon that court, 
 Hnc ^ wno snowe d upon his famous globe, completed in 1492, 
 th a fc h e had no doubt of the proximity of Asia to the western 
 coast of Europe. From Paul Toscanelli, of Florence, we know that he 
 received encouraging assurances of sympathy. That learned physician 
 and cosmographer confirmed his opinion as to the certainty and ease 
 of a western passage to India, and of the fame that awaited him who 
 should thus bring within easy reach those empires and kingdoms 
 described by Marco Polo, whose account of their opulence and gran- 
 deur had so inflamed the imagination and fed the fanaticism of Colum- 
 bus. Toscanelli sent him a chart whereon he had laid down the coast 
 of Asia in accordance with the descriptions of the Venetian traveller, 
 and in the intervening ocean between that continent and Europe he 
 placed the islands of Antilla and Cipango, at convenient distances, as 
 stopping-places for water and fresh provisions on the western voyage 
 to the city of Quinsai, in the province of Cathay. 
 
 It was-this sublime faith, and a knowledge of these supposed newly- 
 discovered facts of science, which sustained Columbus for 
 eighteen years as a suppliant, struggling with poverty and 
 sion. obscurity in his own person, with stupidity, obstinacy, in- 
 
 credulity in others, begging from court to court for a royal sanction to 
 his enterprise, and a few ships to undertake it. And when the 
 eighteen years were passed and their labor seemed all for naught, he 
 simply turned, sadly and wearily indeed, but with undiminished zeal 
 and unmoved convictions, to seek in a new quarter the aid he must 
 have, and which he was sure would come at last. Should he find 
 himself once on board his fleet, and with its prows turned westward, 
 nothing but the hand of death could have stayed his progress. To 
 turn back would have been with him to fly in the face of Heaven, to 
 disregard the plain counsels of God. The story, always doubted by 
 the most trustworthy historians, that a day or two before he sighted 
 Guanahani he promised his mutinous and despairing followers to 
 return if land was not seen within three days, is best confuted by 
 its own absurdity. It was a moral impossibility for him to turn back. 
 His faith was of the kind that removes mountains, for he was chosen 
 of God to bear the glad tidings of salvation to millions of his fellow- 
 men before the heavens should be rolled together as a scroll, that 
 near time when the first heaven and the first earth should have passed 
 away, and when there should be no more sea. 
 
 The geographical theory which alone saved the proposition of a 
 western passage to Cathay, or China, from being preposterous, and on 
 which he based his faith in his divine mission and all his hopes of 
 
PERSEVERANCE OF COLUMBUS. 
 
 105 
 
 worldly greatness, he never abandoned. Even after his last voyage, 
 when he had four times crossed and recrossed the Atlantic, he said : 
 " The world is but small ; out of seven divisions of it the dry part 
 occupies six, and the seventh is entirely covered with water." In all 
 his voyages he was constantly finding some fancied resemblance in the 
 names of persons and places among the Indians to cities or provinces 
 or princes of the East mentioned by Marco Polo. The impression 
 which the wonderful stories of that traveller had made upon a mind 
 
 Columbus on Shipboard. 
 
 always ruled by a poetic temperament and a vivid imagination, 
 and the confidence he had in the importance and magnificence of 
 the discovery he proposed to make, were deepened by still another 
 conviction. The wealth of David and Solomon in gold and silver, of 
 which he read in Scripture, he believed came from those parts of the 
 world he expected to reach. Had he only hoped to find a new con- 
 tinent, inhabited by some nations of savages, though he might still 
 have represented to the sovereigns of Portugal, of England, and of 
 Spain the importance and the glory of such a discovery, he would 
 have had little of that enthusiasm and perseverance with which his 
 belief in the certainty of arriving, in little more than a month, on the 
 
106 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V. 
 
 r 
 
 confines of the glorious East inspired him and enabled him to inspire 
 others. The value and the character of a new continent could have 
 been only conjectural ; but of the fabulous wealth, the noble cities, the 
 splendor of the palaces, the magnitude of the commerce, the millions 
 of souls waiting for the coming of a knowledge of Christ in that con- 
 tinent to which he meant to open a new way, he was sure he knew. 
 He asked for aid to enable him to take possession, not of some specu- 
 lative advantage, some shadowy good, but of power and riches and 
 dominion that had been seen of the eyes of men. 
 
 With a patience that nothing could wear out, and a perseverance 
 that was absolutely unconquerable, Columbus waited and labored for 
 eighteen years, appealing to minds that wanted light and to ears that 
 wanted hearing. His ideas of the possibilities of navigation were 
 before his time. It was one thing to creep along the coast of Africa, 
 where the hold upon the land need never be lost ; another, to steer 
 out boldly into that wilderness of waters over which mystery and 
 darkness brooded. Only the learned could understand that the world 
 was a globe, and that it might be as safe to sail upon one part of its 
 surface as another ; only the enlightened could see that to penetrate 
 the unknown might be to find that which was worth knowing. His 
 knowledge was disbelieved in ; his religious zeal and aspirations de- 
 rided. 
 
 He first asked aid of Genoa ; or rather he first offered without suc- 
 cess the empire he proposed to acquire to that, his native, city. Then 
 he assured John II. of Portugal that he would add India to 
 his crown by an easy voyage of less than two months, instead 
 
 of the dubious route around the distant and stormy cape of 
 Africa. John II., who inherited much of the enthusiasm of his 
 great uncle Prince Henry the Navigator, for maritime adventure, and 
 who had sent one or two expeditions in search of that mysterious 
 potentate, Prester John, who reigned, it was supposed, now in Central 
 Africa, now in farthest India, listened with so much interest and 
 attention to the proposition and the arguments of Columbus that he 
 referred the question of the possibility of such a voyage to the most 
 eminent men of learning in church and state in the kingdom. The 
 decision was against the project as visionary and impracticable. This 
 was so unsatisfactory to the king that, it seems probable, had Columbus 
 yielded something of his demand of honor and profit to himself in 
 case of success, the application to John, in spite of the advice of his 
 council, 'might have been successful. 
 
 But at length, when Columbus had been kept for years in suspense 
 and doubt, the Bishop of Ceuta, either to get rid of him, in any event, 
 or to satisfy the king, suggested that a caravel be secretly dispatched 
 
ATTENDANCE ON THE SOVEREIGNS OF SPAIN. 107 
 
 on such a voyage as Columbus had proposed. The advice was treach- 
 erous and base, but the king was weak enough to accept it. A 
 caravel was sent out, under a false pretext, provided with the charts 
 and other documents which Columbus had laid before the council to 
 sustain his proposition. But those in command of her had little in- 
 clination for a venture which they could only look upon as mad, and 
 certain, if persevered in, to end in their own destruction. They only 
 went, therefore, as far as the Cape de Verde Islands, and reported, on 
 their return, that the proposed westward voyage was absurd and im- 
 possible. When Columbus learned of the trickery and trifling of 
 which he was made the subject, he shook the dust of Portugal from 
 off his feet to go and offer, as he believed, to some other prince who 
 should be wise enough to accept them, the richest kingdoms of all the 
 earth. 
 
 He left Lisbon in 1483 or 1484, and first went, it is supposed, to 
 Genoa, to urge in person upon the senate of his native city the pro- 
 posal he had previously made in writing. But whether made in per- 
 son or by letter only, the offer was rejected, and he is next heard of 
 in Spain, seven or eight years before he sailed on his first niBattend . 
 voyage. During those years he was often in attendance ^^l"^ 6 
 upon Ferdinand and Isabella, then busily engaged in war for o s ' )ain - 
 the recovery of Grenada, sometimes serving in the campaigns against 
 the Moors, but always watchful for an opportunity to urge his suit 
 upon the sovereigns, or to commend it to any great man of the court 
 whom he could get to listen to him. He was thought, at length, so 
 far worthy of respect that means were provided for his maintenance 
 when his proposition was actually under consideration, but he sup- 
 ported himself, some part of the time at least, by making maps and 
 charts, as he had done in Portugal. 
 
 He gained some friends among the powerful and influential, but 
 none were more useful and devoted than those of humbler rank whom 
 he found without seeking. Stopping, foot-sore and weary, on his 
 journey to the court of Spain, at the gate of the convent of Santa 
 Maria de Rabida, near Palos, to ask for bread and water for his little 
 son, his appearance and conversation so interested the prior, Juan 
 Perez de Marchina, that he persuaded the travellers to remain for 
 a longer rest than Columbus had intended. Rabida became thence- 
 forth the permanent home of his son, and an occasional one for him- 
 self, for several years. 
 
 There lived at the neighboring port of Palos a family of seafaring 
 men, the Pinzons, and a physician, Garcia Fernandez, learned in geog- 
 raphy and mathematics. The prior, Juan Perez, was himself inter- 
 ested in all maritime subjects, and Columbus found in these men a 
 
108 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V. 
 
 little circle of friends so well informed as to feel at once an enthusiastic 
 interest in the magnitude and importance of his project. With them 
 he discussed his plans, his geographical theories, his astronomical 
 problems, his pious aims. From them he received encouragement and 
 sympathy in the darkest hours of doubt and despondency. They 
 took up the enterprise with as much zeal as if it had been their own ; 
 Juan Perez, who had once been confessor to the queen, used all his 
 personal influence with her to forward the interests of Columbus, and 
 to secure him friends at court ; and when at last his negotiations with 
 the king and queen were successful, it was among these good friends 
 that he found the means to contribute his eighth part of the expenses 
 of the expedition, and two of his three vessels were commanded by 
 the Pinzons. 
 
 His eight years of probation were weary years of poverty, humil- 
 iation, and hope deferred. He was not only derided as an enthusiast, 
 almost as a madman, but was in danger of being denounced as a 
 heretic for devising theories in direct contradiction to the received 
 doctrines of the fathers as to the shape and habitation of the globe. 
 He was looked upon with cold suspicion as a foreigner, and sneered 
 at as vainglorious for assuming to be wiser than many of the learned 
 Decision of ^ ^ s own ^ me ' anc ^ a ^ those of the j >ast . The Council of 
 of C saia" ncil Salamanca, summoned by royal order to meet at the convent 
 mnea. o f g^ Stephen, and listen to his plea, decided against him. 
 The most reverent and powerful prelates, fired with holy zeal, and 
 dogged in their hostility to new-fangled and presumptuous notions, 
 ridiculed with great success a project involving such an absurdity as 
 the existence of the antipodes, where men walked with their heels 
 above their heads, where the trees grew downward, where the snow 
 and rain fell upward from a nether heaven. To maintain that the 
 earth was inhabited beyond the tropics savored of blasphemy. The 
 Bible taught that all men are descended from Adam and Eve, whose 
 primal home was on the banks of the Shat-el-Arab, north of the 
 Persian Gulf ; and as the torrid zone was impassable, to assume that 
 there were human beings beyond that line was to assume that there 
 were races of men who did not descend from Adam and Eve. 
 
 Moreover, it was denied by these bigots that the earth was a globe, 
 for the Scriptures and the fathers taught that it was a level, extended 
 plain, whose extremity could only be reached, if it could be reached at 
 all, by a voyage of several years. But if the world was a globe, then, 
 they triumphantly asserted, such a voyage as this ignorant enthusiast 
 proposed would be absolutely impossible ; for either one way or the 
 other, in going or returning, the sailing would be all up-hill. There 
 were, indeed, men in that grave assembly too enlightened not to detect 
 
J 
 
 25 
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 J 
 
 O 
 
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 O 
 
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 CO 
 
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 S 
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QUEEN ISABELLA'S DECISION. 
 
 109 
 
 the fallacies and absurdities involved in such statements, and to 
 wonder at the ignorance that could believe in them ; others there 
 were ready with facts of navigation and geography, few as they were 
 in that age, to show that, whether Columbus were right or wrong, 
 such objections to his theories were more baseless than his wildest 
 dreams. And there were some, perhaps, who thought, if they did not 
 say so, that the laws of the universe 
 could not be limited to texts of Scrip- 
 ture, or assertions sanctified by noth- 
 ing but priestly authority. It was a 
 gain, nevertheless, to get the subject 
 before so august a body as this Coun- 
 cil of Salamanca, and the eloquence 
 which Columbus brought to its dis- 
 cussion, the special scientific facts of 
 which he showed himself the master, 
 the skill with which he parried at- 
 tack, and the sagacity with which he 
 avoided the pitfalls and ambushes 
 with which the wily monks beset his 
 path, made him new friends and 
 strengthened his old ones. 
 
 Doubtful of success in Spain, he at one time sent his brother Bar- 
 tholomew to England to open negotiations, if possible, with Henry 
 VII. ; at another time he entered into correspondence with Louis XI. 
 of France. From Ferdinand and his counsellors he could get 
 
 i i i , i i -,i Application 
 
 only evasive answers, and wearied out at length with pro- to England 
 crastination, and negotiations that came to nothing, he bade 
 farewell to his friends and started for France and England. But 
 among those who sincerely believed in him and his project was 
 Luis de Santangel, receiver of the ecclesiastical revenues of Aragon, 
 who, on hearing that Columbus had actually started to leave the coun- 
 try, hastened to the queen and begged her to recall him. His entrea- 
 ties and representations, seconded by those of Alonzo de Quintanilla, 
 the Minister of Finance, who happened to be present, prevailed with 
 Isabella. They convinced her that the loss and the shame to Spain 
 would be great and irreparable if such an opportunity to add to her 
 dominion and wealth, by the discovery of a short passage to India, 
 should fall into the hands of any other power. A messenger was 
 immediately dispatched to bring Columbus back, the queen Queen Ifa . 
 declaring that the enterprise should now be her own, and ^"he* " 168 
 that she would pawn the royal jewels to defray its expenses. ent r P rise - 
 This generous sacrifice on her part, however, was rendered unneces- 
 
 Isabella, Queen of Castile. 
 
110 
 
 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V. 
 
 
 sary by Santangel, who took it upon himself to advance the requisite 
 sum. On the arrival of Columbus, negotiation was resumed, and an 
 agreement was at length drawn up between Ferdinand and Isabella 
 and himself by which he was made admiral and viceroy of all the seas 
 and lands he should discover ; a tenth part of all the revenues to be 
 derived from them was to be his ; and he was to provide an eighth 
 pai-t of the expenses. Armed with such authority, he repaired to 
 Palos to make arrangements for the voyage. 
 
 The agreement was signed in April or May, 1492, and on the third 
 of the following August he sailed from Palos in command 
 of an expedition consisting of three vessels and one hundred 
 and twenty men. The largest ship, the Santa Maria, on 
 which flew the admiral's pennant, was probably not more than one 
 
 hundred tons' burden ; the 
 other two, the Pinta and the 
 Nina, commanded respective- 
 ly by his friends Martin 
 Alonzo Pinzon and Vincente 
 Yanez Pinzon, of Palos, were 
 still smaller vessels, called 
 caravels, with no decks amid- 
 ships, but built high out of 
 the water at the stem and 
 stern. 
 
 But not only were his ves- 
 sels small ; they were hardly 
 seaworthy, and one of them, 
 the Pinta, unshipped her 
 rudder before they reached 
 the Canaries. It is conjec- 
 tured, indeed, that this was 
 not accidental, but was con- 
 trived by the owners of the vessel before she left port, they not liking 
 the adventure on which they were compelled to send her. The ad- 
 miral, however, had great difficulty in getting any vessels at all, 
 so intense was the feeling in Palos against the enterprise. The royal 
 mandate ; the promise of immunity from civil or criminal process 
 against any person who would enlist in it ; the example of the Pin- 
 zons, the most respectable and experienced mariners of the port ; and 
 the priestly influence of Juan Perez, the prior of Rabida, were means 
 and influences all needed and all used to procure crews. When the 
 expedition sailed, it was followed by prayers and tears and lamenta- 
 tions for men most of whom were constrained by authority or ne- 
 
 The Fleet of Columbus. 
 
THE FIRST EXPEDITION. Ill 
 
 cessity to enter upon an adventure which seemed desperate to the last 
 degree. 
 
 The sum advanced from the treasury of Aragon by Santangel was 
 one million one hundred and forty thousand maravedis, 
 
 ,. , i i n i i i r Expense of 
 
 "being the sum he lent, says the account-book, "for pay- theexpedi- 
 ing the caravels which their highnesses ordered to go as the 
 armada to the Indies, and for paying Christopher Columbus, who goes 
 in the said armada." 1 If to this be added the one eighth share of the 
 expenses which it was stipulated Columbus himself should provide, 
 the whole cost of the expedition was one million two hundred and 
 eighty-two thousand and five hundred maravedis, a sum hardly equal 
 in its purchasing power to fifty thousand dollars of the money of our 
 time. It is evident, therefore, that the expense of the expedition must 
 always have been a secondary consideration with the sovereigns from 
 whom Columbus had sought assistance. The real difficulty was not 
 money, but the serious doubts as to the soundness of his theory of 
 the possibility of a western voyage to India. It was those doubts, 
 intensified into absolute terror, that filled Palos with wailing and 
 consternation when he succeeded, at last, in making good his de- 
 parture. 
 
 Seven months later he entered the same port with the halo of the 
 most brilliant success about him, and prepared to proceed to court 
 surrounded with the barbaric pomp of painted savages decked out 
 with ornaments of gold, and crowned with coronets of brilliant feath- 
 ers, attendants carrying in their hands birds of the gayest plumage, 
 the stuffed skins of strange beasts, and specimens of trees and plants 
 supposed to bear the most precious spices. No wonder that then the 
 revulsion of feeling was tremendous, and he was hailed as the greatest 
 and most fortunate of men. It was a short-lived triumph, however, 
 never to be repeated on his return from either of his three subsequent 
 voyages, for his was a success that had not succeeded. 
 
 The glory of the discovery he actually made has to a remai'kable 
 degree obscured the fact that in the long discussion before 
 kings and councils of the discovery he proposed to make, it of the great 
 was Columbus who was in the wrong, and his opponents who 
 were in the right, on the main question a short western route to 
 India. The ignorance, the obstinacy, the stupidity, with which he so 
 long contended, were indeed obstacles in the way of an event so im- 
 portant to all civilized races as the possession of half the globe ; but 
 that event was no more proposed or foreseen by Columbus than 
 it was opposed by those who withstood him the most persistently, 
 or ridiculed him the most unmercifully. The very splendor of his 
 
 1 Helps' Life of Columbus, p. 80. 
 
112 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V. 
 
 promises may have made men incredulous of their fulfilment who 
 would, perhaps, have listened to an argument in favor merely of 
 the possibility of sailing westward and of reaching unknown counti'ies, 
 within a moderate distance, which might be worth exploring and 
 worth possessing. But Columbus had no such argument to offer. 
 Neither in his mind nor in theirs was there any thought of a great 
 continent lying between two great oceans, extending almost from 
 pole to pole, and separating the western coast of Europe from the 
 eastern coast of Asia by an area of land and sea that covered half 
 the globe. It was that distant Asia itself that he declared he could 
 reach in less than forty days ; and that they rightly said was im- 
 possible. 
 
 But at last, as he believed, and as they were forced to confess, by 
 an event which all misapprehended, he was justified. The enthu- 
 siasm, the strength of faith, the tenacity of purpose, which through 
 so many years had never faltered, had at length triumphed tri- 
 umphed even in the final struggle with the superstition and despera- 
 tion of men who would have gladly sacrificed him to their fears. 
 They had crossed the ocean hitherto believed to be guarded by strange 
 
 and horrid monsters and shrouded in frightful darkness ; but 
 the New as they approached the land of the Western Hemisphere a 
 
 new terror seized them. They fancied themselves lured by 
 the powers of magic to certain destruction, gliding over smooth 
 waters, favored by gentle breezes, beguiled by birds of gay plumage 
 whose song was of the woods ; by fishes of flashing hues whose 
 natural haunts were the dark and still crevices of rocky shores ; by 
 fantastic clouds that took the semblance of distant mountains or of 
 low beaches, making a dim line upon the edge of sky and sea, but 
 fading into nothingness as they were approached ; by the exquisite 
 perfume of tropical vegetation, enwrapping all the senses, while 
 around them were to be seen only the desolate waters, above them 
 only the cruel sky. But the presence of the man of faith was stronger 
 than the dread of the supernatural. He never faltered for a single 
 instant ; not one passing mist of doubt ever clouded his mind. He 
 knew that God had led him to the threshold of the dominions of 
 Kublai Khan ; and when at daybreak on the 12th of October the 
 morning light revealed the beautiful earth, never so hailed since the 
 top of Ararat pierced the waters of a drowned world, at that su- 
 preme moment he in his sublime faith saw the realization of the 
 visions of a life-time. Before him rose all the splendor and opulence 
 of the thousands of cities and palaces, the fleets of unnumbered ships 
 laden with richest merchandise, the mountains of precious stones, the 
 lakes of pearls, the rivers of gold, of the kingdoms of Mangi and 
 
MISTAKE OF THE GREAT NAVIGATOR. 113 
 
 Cathay ; these for his temporal sovereigns, the King and Queen of 
 Spain : and before him gathered millions of his fellow-creatures, to 
 whose perishing souls he, the " Christ-bearer," came as the messenger 
 of the glad tidings of salvation, to lead them to the feet of his spiritual 
 lord, the Holy Father at Rome. 
 
 And from that moment to the day of his death hardly a doubt 
 seems ever to have cast a shadow over his belief. When he asked of 
 the natives of Guanahani the island he first saw, and 
 appropriately named Salvador, or the Saviour for Cipango, 
 or Japan, they, supposing him to mean those mountains of A81a- 
 Haiti called Cibao, pointed southward ; and no suspicion crossed the 
 mind of Columbus that there could be any misunderstanding either 
 on his part or on theirs. From the ears and noses of these savages 
 were suspended rude ornaments of gold ; on these he fancied he could 
 distinguish engraved characters, and that they were the coin of India. 
 As he continued his voyage among other islands, the answer to the 
 constant inquiry for gold was always the same ; the Indians pointed to 
 the south, and the fervid imagination of the Admiral led him to 
 interpret their gestures as meaning that south ward were kingdoms 
 populous, powerful, rich in all precious things the marvellous country 
 of Marco Polo's narrative. When he reached the coast of Cuba, the 
 Indians, pointing to the interior, contrived to impart the information 
 that at a distance of four days' journey only was Cubanacan, where 
 gold abounded ; he recognized in that word Cubanacan a corrup- 
 tion of the name of that magnificent monarch of whom he was in 
 search, Kublai Khan ; and supposing he had reached the island of 
 Cipango, he dispatched two messengers overland, to deliver to him 
 the letter of which he .was the bearer as ambassador from Ferdinand 
 and Isabella. 
 
 So of all his voyages. Wherever he went, whatever he saw or 
 heard, it only served to deepen this delusion. When he sailed west 
 from Jamaica, he thought he had accomplished so much of The delusion 
 the compass of the earth that he must needs be near the confirmed - 
 Aurea Chersonesus of ancient India. Hispaniola he was sure was 
 Ophir, and in deep pits in the mountains he saw evidences of the 
 ancient mines whence Solomon derived his gold. The extremity of 
 Cuba he assumed to be the extremity of Asia, by doubling which he 
 could sail along the known coasts of India, and reach at length the 
 Red Sea, whei'e, if he pleased, he could leave his own ships, cross the 
 continent to the Mediterranean, and return to Spain, having circum- 
 navigated the world. But there was method in this madness, for 
 yielding on that occasion to the representations of his companions, that 
 the condition of his ships would not admit of so extended a voyage, he 
 
 VOL. I. 8 
 
114 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V. 
 
 required an affidavit from all persons on board his fleet that they be- 
 lieved the coast of Cuba, along which they had sailed, was the coast of 
 Asia. His own belief needed no confirmation, but he was gratified to 
 hear that a neighboring province was called Mangon, and that its 
 people had tails ; for he remembered that Sir John Mandeville had 
 described a tribe of men of that kind in the East, and he was quite 
 certain, therefore, that he was within a few days' travel of the king- 
 dom of Mangi. 
 
 He changed his mind in regard to places as he visited different 
 regions, but he never ceased to affirm his conviction that he was on 
 the veiy eve of the fulfilment of all his hopes. Ten years of observa- 
 tion and reflection upon the character of his discoveries moved him 
 not in the least to any correction of this singular credulity. Even on 
 his fourth and last voyage he wrote to the king and queen that on the 
 coast of Veragua he had reached Mangi, " contiguous to Cathay ; " 
 nineteen days of land travel, he is confident, would take him to the 
 river Ganges ; the mines of Aurea, whence, according to Josephus, he 
 reminds them, came the vast wealth of David and of Solomon, spoken 
 of in Chronicles and the Book of Kings, were, he was now sure, iden- 
 tical with the mines of Veragua ; " in the name of God " he pledged 
 himself in the same letter to conduct any one, who would undertake 
 the mission, to the Emperor of Cathay, to instruct him in the faith of 
 Christ, as the Abbe Joaquim said would be done by some one who 
 came from Spain. 1 And finally from his death-bed he wrote to the 
 new sovereigns, Philip and Juana, that he would yet do them 
 
 The last . fo ' i i i j j i- 
 
 letter of services the like or which had never been seen; and in his 
 
 last solemn will and testament he said, " In the name of the 
 
 Most Holy Trinity, who inspired me with the idea, and afterwards 
 
 made it perfectly clear to me that I could navigate and go to the 
 
 Indies from Spain, by traversing the ocean westwardlv And it 
 
 pleased the Lord Almighty, that in the year one thousand four hun- 
 dred and ninety-two I should discover the continent of the Indies and 
 many islands, among them Hispaniola, which the Indians call Ayte, 
 and the Monicongos, Cipango." 
 
 When the successful discoverer returned to Spain from his first voy- 
 age, his reception was a triumph such as never waited upon any con- 
 queror. The people from citv and town, from village and 
 
 His trium- r " 
 
 phai return country-side, crowded streets and highways as he travelled 
 
 from Palos to Barcelona, to do homage to the man who had 
 
 given India to Spain. At Barcelona the king and queen received him 
 
 sitting on their thrones under a canopy in the open air, and hesitated 
 
 1 Letter on the Fourth Voyage, in Select Letters of Columbus, edited by K. H. Major 
 Hakluyt Soc. Pub. 
 
TRIUMPHAL RETURN TO SPAIN. 
 
 115 
 
 when he approached to accept the customary mark of homage due 
 from a subject to a sovereign. In Portugal, where befoi-e this arrival 
 in Spain he was compelled by stress of weather to seek a haven, he 
 was met with the most bitter exasperation that he should have suc- 
 
 Reception by Sovereigns. 
 
 ceeded in snatching from that kingdom the glory and power and riches 
 her kings and princes had so long sought in the possession of that East 
 which he by the boldness of his genius had found by a few days' 
 westward sailing. Some of the ndvisers of John II. even counselled 
 his assassination, in the hope that the way to his discovery would 
 perish with him. 
 
116 INDIA THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. [CHAP. V. 
 
 But the rage of the Portuguese and the admiration of the Spaniards 
 were alike blind. Had it been known that the tidings he brought 
 were of an unknown world, peopled, apparently, by naked savages 
 only ; that his theory as to the dimensions and divisions of the earth 
 was proved to be a mistake ; that the only feasible road to India was 
 that which the Portuguese had so long sought, round the Cape of 
 Good Hope ; then he might indeed have aroused some languid curios- 
 ity for what he had done, but, still more, bitter ridicule and disap- 
 pointment for his failure to fulfil the magnificent promise with which 
 for nearly twenty years he had wearied almost every court in Europe 
 that could command a ship. The Bahama Islands and The Great 
 Antilles, whatever their discovery might lead to in the time to come, 
 were a poor recompense for Mangi and Cathay. But he returned the 
 herald, as it was supposed, of a splendor and prosperity to Spain un- 
 paralleled in history ; of new power and dominion to the Holy See, 
 and with offers of sudden riches to whomsoever would follow him to 
 the empire of the " King of Kings." The half-crazy enthusiast had 
 become a signal benefactor and hero ; the utmost exaltation of his 
 imagination had held out no promise that was not about to be ful- 
 filled, and the nation fell at his feet. 
 
 Though Columbus himself never knew, or never acknowledged, that 
 he had made a mistake ; though never by a single word, so far as 
 there is any record, did he anticipate the true cause of the undying 
 fame that should wait upon his name, others saw when he returned 
 from his second voyage only the dispelling of a gorgeous vision. The 
 hidalgos who had thronged about him for that expedition, clamor- 
 ing to be led to the possession of the East, found, not an empire 
 filled with magnificent cities, their ports crowded with ships by thou- 
 sands busy with the commerce of a third of the world ; not temples 
 roofed with gold, resting on golden pillars, cunningly wrought and 
 colored ; not a people clothed in silks and costly furs, decked with 
 precious stones, leading lives of a magnificent luxury and ease, in cit- 
 ies of palaces such as Europe never knew ; but only an unreclaimed 
 wilderness peopled by naked savages, where he who would not work 
 must starve, and where what gold they heard of was to be dug with 
 weary toil out of the bowels of the earth. The " pauper pilot," as 
 he was called in the days when he hung about the court a threadbare 
 petitioner, had indeed discovered sortie islands in a distant ocean ; but 
 his promises were idle tales, his hopes the delusions of a morbid imag- 
 ination, his India a figment ; and he himself now proved to be a rank 
 impostor, a foreign adventurer who had thrust himself into the ranks 
 of the proudest nobility in Europe, and abused a nation with mon- 
 strous lies. 
 
RESENTMENT OF THE SPANIARDS. 117 
 
 Such of these disappointed men as lived to return filled the kingdom 
 with their clamors. Seating themselves in the very courts of the Al- 
 hambra, holding up the grapes of which they eat, and displaying the 
 rags which hardly covered them, they would declare that they were 
 reduced to this poor condition by their misfortunes. They had lis- 
 tened to fables and been deceived by lies. When the king came forth 
 they surrounded him, reproaching him and the admiral as the cause 
 of their wretched state, and cried out, " Pay ! pay ! " And if the sons 
 of Columbus, who were pages to the queen, passed that way, " They 
 shouted to the very heavens, saying, ' Look at the sons of the Admiral 
 of Mosquitoland, of that man who has discovered the lands of deceit 
 and disappointment, a place of sepulchre and wretchedness to Spanish 
 hidalgos.' " 1 
 
 This reaction in feeling and opinion made it possible to send him 
 home in chains from his third expedition. The popular in- m g failure 
 difference to the injustice and cruelty which pursued him to anddls 8 race - 
 the end of his days, and the bitter hostility of his many enemies, are 
 explicable only by the disappointment of those magnificent hopes ex- 
 cited by his first discovery, and which he still held out in spite of the 
 stern facts which had opened the eyes of everybody else. Small defer- 
 ence was paid to the authority of one who was looked upon, at best, as 
 a half-crazed enthusiast, and the haughty Spaniards resented it as an 
 insult that any power should still rest in the hands, or any confidence 
 be placed in the word, of one whom they thought rather deserving of 
 punishment as an impostor than of reward as a benefactor. He had 
 promised power, dominion, riches ; a short passage to Cathay ; the con- 
 quest of the East : a savage island or two in the Western seas was as 
 yet the only fulfilment of that promise. What else it was to be he 
 never knew. Not till he was dead did the world begin to understand 
 
 that he had found a New World. 
 
 -. 
 
 i The History of the Life and Actions of Admiral Christopher Colon, etc. By his son. 
 Don Ferdinand Colon. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. 
 
 THIRD VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS. His DISCOVERY OF THE MAIN LAND. THE VOT. 
 AGE OF AMERIGO VESPUCCI. FIRST PRINTED ACCOUNT OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 PUBLICATIONS OF ST. DIE COLLEGE. THE PRINTER-MONKS, WAI.DSEEMCLI.ER 
 AND RlNGMANN. EXPEDITION OF THE CABOTS FROM ENGLAND. NORTH AMER- 
 
 ICA DISCOVERED -- MAP OF SEBASTIAN CABOT. JOHN CABOT*8 PATENTS FROM 
 
 HENRY VII. FIRST ENGLISH COLONY SENT TO THE NEW WORLD. SEBASTIAN 
 CABOT SAILS DOWN THE AMERICAN COAST. 
 
 ON the 30th of May, 1498, Columbus sailed from the port of San 
 Lucar, in Spain, on his third voyage. His special purpose this time 
 was to search for a country which he believed lay south of those lands 
 he had previously discovered. On the 31st of July following, when 
 he was about to abandon his southerly course in despair and turn 
 northward for the Carribee Islands, one of his sailors saw from the 
 masthead a range of three mountains. Giving many thanks to God 
 for his mercy, for the supply of water was failing, the provision of corn 
 and wine and meat was well-nigh exhausted, and the crews of the 
 three vessels were in sore distress from exposure to the heat of the 
 tropics, the admiral made for the land, which proved to be an island. 
 To this he gave the name it still bears of Trinidad, in honor of the 
 Holy Trinity, and also, perhaps, because of the three mountains which 
 were first seen. 
 
 Running along the coast, he soon saw, as he supposed, another 
 island, at the south, but which was the low land of the delta 
 of the g reat River Orinoco. Entering the Gulf of Paria, he 
 sailed along for days with Trinidad on the one hand and the 
 coast of the continent on the other, delighted with the 
 beauty and verdure of the country and with the blandness of the cli- 
 mate, and astonished at the freshness and volume of the water which, 
 with an " awful roaring," met and struggled with the sea. The in- 
 nermost part of the gulf, to which he penetrated, he called the Gulf 
 of Pearls, and into this poured the rivers whose waters, he believed, 
 came from the earthly Paradise. 1 
 
 1 Letters of Columbus, translated by R. H. Major, and published by the Hakluyt Society 
 Third Voyage. 
 
 coiumbu 
 
 1498 - 
 
1498.] THIRD VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS. 119 
 
 For, according to his theory of the globe, the two hemispheres were 
 not round alike, but the Eastern was shaped like the breast The pa,.,^. 
 of a woman, or the half of a round pear with a raised pro- Parad1se 
 jection at its stalk ; and on this prominence, the spot highest and 
 nearest the sky and under the equinoctial line, was the garden 
 wherein God had planted Adam. He did not suppose it possible that 
 mortal man could ever reach that blessed region ; but as he had sailed 
 westward, after passing a meridian line a hundred miles west of the 
 Azores, he had noted that the North Star rose gradually higher in the 
 heavens, the needle shifted from northeast to northwest, the heat, 
 hitherto so intolerable that he thought they " should have been 
 
 Columbus entering the Orinoco. 
 
 burnt," became more and more moderate, the air daily more refresh- 
 ing and delightful, and he was persuaded that he was approaching the 
 highest part of the globe. As lie sailed westward his ships " had 
 risen smoothly toward the sky," till lie had come, at length, to this 
 pleasant land " as fresh and green and beautiful as the gardens of Va- 
 lencia in April," to this mighty rush of sweet waters that filled the 
 Gulf of Pearls and flowed far out to sea, coming as " on his soul " he 
 believed from the Garden of Eden. 1 
 
 . 
 
 1 Irviug (Life of Columbus, book x., chap, iii.) says that Columbus still supposed Paria 
 to he an island, even after he had left the gulf and sailed westward along the outer coast 
 But Columbus himself, in his letter to the King and Queeu, makes a distinction between 
 the main land and Trinidad, in speaking of the one as an island aud the other as the land 
 of Gracia. Nor is it probable that he supposed the earthly paradise to be on an island, or 
 that such a volume of water of which he doubted if "there is any river in the world so 
 large and so deep '' could have its course from the " nipple " of the globe except over a 
 continent. Charlevoix (History of Xeio France, Shea's translation, vol. i., p. 21) says: 
 
120 
 
 COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 It was hard no doubt, to turn away from this celestial land, even 
 to go back to Spain and relate in person to his sovereigns the mar- 
 vellous things he had discovered, and the approach he had made to 
 the topmost pinnacle of the globe ; harder still to thrust away from 
 him considerations so sublime and so congenial to his pro- 
 mt utos*ui- foundly religious nature, to attend to the vulgar affairs of a 
 turbulent colony, where, as he afterward wrote, " there were 
 few men who were not vagabonds, and there were none who had 
 either wife or children." 1 
 
 But in his absence rebellion and anarchy in Hispaniola had reached 
 a point beyond his control, and when he appealed to his sovereigns for 
 
 Columbus in Chains. 
 
 a judge to decide between him and these turbulent Spaniards, who set 
 all law, whether human or divine, at defiance, the court sent, not a 
 judge, but an executioner. His enemies had at length so far pre- 
 vailed against him that Bobadilla, who came professedly to look into 
 
 these troubles, dared to usurp the government of the colony, 
 duet of to take up his residence in the house of Columbus, seizing all 
 
 it contained, both of public and private property and public 
 and private papers, and the moment the admiral came within his 
 reach, to arrest and send him in chains on board ship for transporta- 
 tion to Spain as a felon. When Andreas Martin, the master of the 
 caravel, moved to pity at the sight of so monstrous and cruel an in- 
 
 " On the 1 1th he had seen another land which also he, at first, took to be an island and 
 styled Isla Santa, but he soon found it to be the continent." 
 
 1 " Letter of Columbus to Dona Juana de la Torres," in Select Letters, edited by R. IL 
 Major. 
 
1499.] VOYAGE OF ALONZO DE OJEDA. 121 
 
 dignity, offered to strike these fetters from the limbs of his distin- 
 guished prisoner, Columbus refused, with the words, says his son 
 Ferdinand, " that since their Catholic Majesties, by their letter di- 
 rected him to perform whatsoever Bobadilla did in their name com- 
 mand him to do, in virtue of which authority and commission he had 
 put him in irons, he would have none but their Highnesses them- 
 selves do their pleasure herein ; and he was resolved to keep those 
 fetters as relics, and a memorial of the reward of his many services." l 
 Some atonement was attempted for this outrage in the reception given 
 him by Ferdinand and Isabella. He nevertheless hung up the chains 
 on the wall of his chamber, only to be taken down when, six years 
 later, they were laid with him in his coffin. 
 
 Some months before his return to Spain he had sent home a report 
 of the results of his voyage, the continent he had found, which he sup- 
 posed to be the extremity of the Indies, its wonderful climate, its 
 great rivers, and its strange and attractive people. The excitement 
 which such news must have aroused in every port of Spain was, no 
 doubt, intense, and landsmen, as well as sailors, burned to be off to 
 this land where the natives hung breastplates of gold upon their naked 
 bodies and wound great strings of pearls about their heads and necks. 
 " Now there is not a man," says Columbus, in one of his letters, 
 reminding his sovereigns that he waited seven years at the royal court 
 and was only treated with ridicule, " Now there is not a man, down 
 to the very tailors, who does not beg to be allowed to become a dis- 
 
 coverer." 
 
 At Seville an intrepid and experienced navigator, Alonzo de Ojeda, 
 who was with Columbus on his first voyage, and knew, voyage of 
 therefore, the way to the Indies of the West, proposed at o]^a 
 once a private expedition. Some merchants of Seville sup- 20> 1499 - 
 plied the means, and his patron, the Bishop of Fonseca, superintendent 
 of Indian affairs, and the most bitter and persistent enemy of Colum- 
 bus, gave him license for the voyage, and treacherously procured for 
 him the charts which the great navigator had sent home, notwith- 
 standing the royal order that none should go without permission 
 within fifty leagues of the lands he had last discovered. 2 Ojeda 
 sailed from Port St. Mary on the 20th of May, 1499, and with him 
 went Amerigo Vespucci, a native of Florence, but then re- Amerigo 
 siding in Seville as the agent of a commercial house. This 
 Vespucci had assisted in the fitting out of other expeditions ; he knew 
 
 1 The Life of the Admiral, by his son, Don Ferdinand Colon. Pinkerton's Voyages, 
 vol. xii., p. 121. 
 
 2 History of the New World. Girolamo Benzoui. Published by the Hakluyt Society, 
 p. 37. Ilerrera, Decade I., book iv., chap. i. 
 

 122 
 
 COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CHAP. VL 
 
 Portrait of Vespucci. 
 
 Columbus and had doubtless talked with him of the Sphere and the 
 Antipodes, of the New Indies and the Far Cathay, of the natives 
 
 sometimes tractable as chil- 
 dren, sometimes fierce as 
 tigers ; of the abundant 
 gold and precious stones; 
 of the odorous spices ; of 
 the gorgeous silks and oth- 
 er rich merchandises to be 
 brought by this new route 
 from that wonderful land. 
 He was familiar with all 
 the strange and stirring in- 
 cidents of voyages which 
 for the previous six years 
 had been filling the ears of 
 men with tales more allur- 
 ing and more wonderful 
 than were ever told by the 
 boldest inventors of East- 
 ern fable, and he longed to have a share in the profit and the glory of 
 these great enterprises. In Ojeda's fleet he had command, if we may 
 believe his own statement, of two caravels ; the expedition, first 
 touching the coast about two hundred leagues south of the Gulf of 
 Paria, sailed thence leisurely along from point to point till it reached 
 the Cape de la Veda, meeting, during the months of its progress, with 
 various adventures, and the usual fortune which waited upon the 
 first invaders, received sometimes by the simple and confiding natives 
 as supernatural visitants, sometimes with desperate but generally 
 futile resistance when their lust for slaves, for women, and for gold 
 had come to be better understood. 
 
 This was, probably, the first voyage of Vespucci and his first sight 
 Vespucci-? * a continent which, partly by accident and partly through a 
 theVonti- f rec kless disregard of truth, came afterward to bear his name, 
 nent. 1499. jf ft was j^ flj.^ voyage, he was entitled to no special credit, 
 for he was a subordinate in a fleet commanded by another, who guided 
 the expedition by the charts which Columbus had drawn of the course 
 to Trinidad and the coast of Paria eleven months before. 
 
 In 1501, Vespucci left Spain at the invitation of the King of Por- 
 tugal, and made another, his second, voyage to the West, 
 
 Second Toy- ?..... . . , . TT 
 
 ago of ves- sailing this time in the service of that king. He visited the 
 coast of Brazil, of which, however, he was not the first dis- 
 coverer, for in the course of the previous year 1500 three dif- 
 
1501.] 
 
 SECOND VOYAGE OF VESPUCCI. 
 
 123 
 
 f event expeditions under the guidance respectively of Vicente Yanez 
 Pinzon, Diego de Lepe, and Rodrigo de Bastidas had sailed from 
 Spain and made extensive explorations and important discoveries 
 along that coast ; and a Portuguese fleet, under Pedro Alvarez de 
 Cabral, on its way to India round the Cape of Good Hope, stretched 
 so far to the west to avoid the calms of the coast of Africa as to come 
 by that chance in sight of the opposite land, where, believing it to be 
 a part of a continent, De Cabral landed and took possession in the 
 name of Portugal. 
 
 Vespucci at the Continent. [From De Bry.] 
 
 The expedition of Vespucci, nevertheless, was a bold one, and made 
 important additions to astronomical science in his observations of the 
 heavenly bodies of the Southern firmament, especially of the " South- 
 ern Cross," and to the knowledge of geography in his exploration 
 of the Southern continent and sea of the Western Hemisphere. 
 After leaving Cape Verde, he was sixty-seven days at sea before he 
 made land again at 5 south, off Cape St. Roque, on the 17th of Au- 
 gust. Thence he sailed down the coast, spending the whole winter in 
 its exploration, till in the following April he was as far south as the 
 
124 COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 fifty-fourth parallel, farther than any navigator had been before. 
 The nights were fifteen hours long ; the weather tempestuous and 
 foggy and very cold. The last land he saw is supposed to be the 
 island of Georgia, where, finding no harbors, and seeing no people 
 along its rugged shores, the little fleet turned to escape from these 
 savage seas, where perpetual winter and almost perpetual darkness 
 seemed to reign. They reached Lisbon again in 1502. 
 
 Vespucci wrote an account of this voyage in a letter to Lorenzo de 
 
 Pier Francisco de Medici of Florence, which was published 
 
 narrative of a t Augsburg in 1504. No wonder that, as it was probably 
 
 discovery of .... \ 
 
 the main the first printed narrative of any discovery of the main land 
 of the new continent, it should excite unusual attention. 
 Several editions appeared, in the course of the next four years, in 
 Latin and Italian, and among them one at Strasbourg in 1505 under 
 the editorship of one Mathias Ringmann, a native of Schlestadt, a 
 town in the lower department of the Rhine, twenty-five miles from 
 Strasbourg. So earnest an admirer of Vespucci was this young stu- 
 dent, that he appended to the narrative of the voyage a letter and 
 some verses of his own in praise of the navigator, and he gave to the 
 book the title of " Americus Vesputius : De Ora Antarctica per Re- 
 gem Portugallice pridem inventa" (Americus Vespuccius : concern- 
 ing a southern region recently discovered under the King of Portu- 
 gal). Here was the suggestion of a new southern continent as distinct 
 from the northern continent of Asia, to which the discoveries hitherto 
 mainly north of the equator were supposed to belong. 1 And this 
 supposition of such a new quarter of the globe gave rise, two years 
 afterward, to a name, all growing naturally enough out of the enthu- 
 siasm of this Ringmann for Vespucci, and communicated by him to 
 others. 
 
 In the city of St. Die, not far from Strasbourg, in the province of 
 Lorraine, was a gymnasium or college established by Walter Lud, the 
 secretary of the Duke of Lorraine. In this college was set up one of 
 Coll those newly-invented and marvellous machines, a printing- 
 
 p "f' press ; and Ringmann was appointed not merely the col- 
 t. Die. legiate professor of Latin, but to the important post of 
 proof-reader. In 1507, Lud, the Duke's secretary, and the head, ap- 
 parently, of this little seminary of learning, published from the college 
 printing-press a pamphlet of only four leaves relating to a narrative 
 of four voyages to the New World by Amerigo Vespucci ; this, it is 
 
 1 The term " New World " was often used by the early writers, even by Columbus him- 
 self, iu a vagne way and not at all in the sense afterward attached to it of a new quartei 
 of the globe ; nor was there till long after the deaths of Columbus and Vespucci any defi- 
 nite determination that these newly found lands were not a part of Asia. 
 
1507.] 
 
 THE PRINTING-PRESS OF ST. DIE. 
 
 125 
 
 said by the writer, was sent to the Duke, and he Lud had caused 
 it to be translated from the French, in which it was written, into 
 Latin ; and, as if in recognition of the influence which Ringmann had 
 exercised upon the subject among his fellows of St. Die", Lud imme- 
 diately adds : " And the booksellers carry about a certain epigram 
 of our Philesius (Ringmann) in a little book of Vespucci's translated 
 from Italian into Latin by Giocondi of Verona, the architect from 
 Venice." This refers to the Strasbourg edition of Vespucci's second 
 voyage, edited by Ringmann two years before, and to which he at- 
 tached his laudatory verses. This little book of Lud's, " Speculi 
 
 Printing of Vespucci's Book. 
 
 orbis Declaratio," etc., also contains some Latin verses, versiculi 
 de incognita terra, the last lines of which are thus translated : 
 
 " But hold, enough ! Of the American race, 
 New found, the home, the manners here you trace 
 By our small book set forth in little space." l 
 
 The narrative itself, of Vespucci's four voyages, thus referred to 
 
 1 The original is : 
 
 "Sett $1 plura: situ, jjrntis morrscp reft? 
 Slinrvfn" patua mole Ubellus tiabct." 
 
 Ihirrisse's Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, p. 100, gives and translates the lines. The 
 
126 COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CHAP. VX 
 
 by Lud, was published the same year, 1507, in a book called " Cos- 
 mographiae Introductio," of which it made about one half. 
 mozraphioi This was the work of Martin Waldseemiiller, and published 
 of wauuee- under his Greco-latinized name of " Hylacomylus." He also 
 ' belonged to the St. Die college, where he was a teacher of 
 geography, and his " Introductio" was printed on the college printing- 
 press. Whether the letter was sent to St. Die* addressed to the Duke 
 of Lorraine by Vespucci ; or whether it was procured through the 
 zeal of Ringmann and its address altered without the knowledge of 
 Vespucci, are interesting questions. Interesting, because the letter 
 falling by some means into the hands of Lud and Waldseemiiller 
 Hylacomylus the name of its author came to be imposed upon the 
 whole Western Hemisphere. 
 
 The same letter subsequently appeared in Italian, addressed to an 
 TheSoderiiii em i nent citizen of Venice, named Soderini, who is known 
 letter. to h av e been an early companion and school-fellow of Ves- 
 
 pucci. That it was written originally to Soderini, is evident from 
 certain allusions in it to youthful days and associations which could 
 not refer to the Duke of Lorraine, but were proper enough when ap- 
 plied to the Venetian citizen. If Vespucci himself had the letter 
 translated into French, altered its address, and then sent the copy to 
 Ringmann, or Lud, or Waldseemiiller, a suspicion is aroused that he 
 was in collusion with them, either directly or suggestively, in the be- 
 stowal upon him of an honor that was not rightfully his. Such a 
 suspicion may be altogether unjust ; Vespucci may neither have sent 
 the letter to the Duke nor have made any suggestion in regai-d to it ; 
 and perhaps no accusation would have ever been brought against him 
 were there not serious doubts as to the number of voyages he assumes 
 to have made, whether they were three or four ; as to the year, 1497, 
 in which he declares h > went upon the first one ; and by a certain con- 
 fusion in the letter which might have been intended to mislead, and 
 certainly did mislead, whether intentional or not. 
 
 We do not propose to enter into any examination of a question 
 \vhich is one of circumstantial rather than positive evidence, and which 
 probably will never be definitively settled. Giving to Vespucci the 
 benefit of the doubt, there is much in the fortuitous circumstances of 
 The men the case to explain this naming of a newly-discovered country 
 Amer^r by men wno perhaps, had never looked upon the sea, and 
 it* name. wno ma y ] iave known little, except in a general way, of the 
 different expeditions of the navigators of Spain and Portugal, and still 
 less of the personal interest attached to their fortunes and their deeds. 
 The Duke of Lorraine was a patron of learning ; the young profes- 
 
 little four-leaved book, Speculi orbis, etc., from which they are taken, is iu the British 
 Museum. See al*o Major's Henry the Navigator, p. 383. 
 
 
1507.] THE NAMING OF AMERICA. 127 
 
 sors of the college under his protection were ambitious of literary fame 
 and proud of their literary labors ; it would bring, no doubt, great 
 credit to St. Di6 if, in a work from its printing-press, the world should 
 be taught that these wonderful discoveries of the ten preceding years 
 were not, as had been ignorantly supposed, the outlying islands and 
 coasts of India, but of a new and unknown continent which separated 
 Europe from Asia. The conclusion, very likely, was jumped at a 
 lucky guess of over-confident youth, rather than any superiority of 
 judgment. Had these young book-makers lived in Cadiz or Lisbon, 
 instead of the Vosges mountains, they might have hesitated to pro- 
 nounce upon a question which had as yet hardly been raised, if it had 
 been raised at all, among the older cosmographers and navigators. 
 They rushed in where even Columbus had not thought to tread, and 
 not only announced the discovery of a new continent but proposed 
 to name it. 
 
 The narrative which Ringmann had edited two years before, " De 
 Ora Antarctica," related only to the second expedition of Vespucci 
 the third, as he called it of 1501. But, from the letter now before 
 Lud and Waldseem tiller, they learn much more of the achievements 
 of the greatest of navigators, as they supposed him to be ; for they 
 are told that it was at a much earlier period he made the first dis- 
 covery of these new countries ; that he had subsequently explored 
 them more extensively ; and Waldseemuller concludes that they must 
 be a fourth part of the world. " We departed," says Vespucci, " from 
 the port of Cadiz, May 10th, 1497, taking our course on the great 
 gulf of ocean, in which we employed eighteen months, discovering 
 many lands and innumerable islands, chiefly inhabited, of which our 
 ancestors make no mention." 
 
 Waldseemuller (Hylacomylus) assuming this date of 1497 to be cor- 
 rect if it was so given in the letter Lud declared the Duke had re- 
 ceived from Vespucci says in his geographical work, the " Cosmo- 
 graphia? Introductio " : " And the fourth part of the world 
 having been discovered by Americus may well be called 
 Amerige, which is as much as to say, the land of Americus 
 or America." Again he says : " But now these parts are T >a * 
 more extensively explored, and, as will be seen by the following letters, 
 another fourth has been discovered by Americus Vespuccius, which I 
 see no reason why any one should forbid to be named Amerige, which 
 is as much as to say the land of Americus or America, from its dis- 
 coverer, Americus. who is a man of shrewd intellect ; for Europe and 
 Asia have both of them a feminine form of name from the names of 
 
 women." 
 
 Now in 1497 Vespucci was still residing at Seville engaged as factor 
 
128 COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CHAP. VI 
 
 or partner in a commercial house. In May of the following year, 
 1498, Columbus sailed on his third voyage, and for several months 
 previous Vespucci was busily occupied in fitting out the 
 claim to ships f or that expedition. 1 It is impossible, therefore, that he 
 coverv un- can have gone to sea in -May, 1497, to be absent eighteen 
 
 founded. , ,. J . .. ' ' 
 
 months. I here is no pretence in his letters, nor anywhere 
 else, that he made a voyage earlier than 1497 ; he was in Seville in 
 1498 ; and he certainly was a pilot in Ojeda's fleet when that nav 
 igator, in 1499, followed Columbus to the coast of Paria. That Ves 
 pucci was the first discoverer of the Western continent is, therefore, 
 clearly untrue, although it is true that his account of such a conti- 
 nental land in the west was the one first published, and by his zealous 
 friends at St. Die", who attached his name to it. In the suit between 
 Don Diego Columbus and the crown of Spain, lasting from 1508 to 
 1513, the plaintiff demanded certain revenues by right of prior dis- 
 covery by his father, the defence of the crown being that Columbus 
 had no such priority. In the voluminous testimony on that trial Ves- 
 pucci was not named as one for whom precedence could be claimed, 2 
 while Ojeda, under whom Vespucci went on his first voyage, distinctly 
 asserts that the main land was discovered by Columbus. 3 
 
 It is, nevertheless, probably true that Vespucci explored along the 
 American coast in his several voyages further than any navigator of 
 his time, as he sailed from about the fifty-fourth degree of south lati- 
 tude to the peninsula of Florida, and possibly to Chesapeake Bay at 
 the north. Whether the St. Die* editors i-eally believed, or whether 
 the dates of his voyages were, in some way, so changed as to make 
 it appear, that he was also the first discoverer of a western continent, 
 are questions which may never be answered. But the use they 
 made of his name was adopted in various works within the next few 
 years, and thus in the course of time America became the designa- 
 tion of the whole Western Hemisphere. 4 
 
 , 
 
 1 1 1 ami n>]c It, Examen Critique, Tome v., p. 180. 
 
 2 Vespucci and his Voyages, Santarem ; Irving's Life of Columbus, Appendix. 
 
 3 Irving (Life of Columbus, vol. iii., Appendix No. X.) examines carefully all the evidence 
 known at the time he wrote on this question, and Major (Life of Prince Henry the Navigator, 
 chap, xix.) gives some later facts, particularly those relating to the conscious or unconscious 
 fraud of the priests of St. Die. The subject is discussed at great length by Humholdt 
 (Examen Critique), who believes that the fault was not in the statements of Vespucci, but 
 in the erroneous printing of dates. Vespucci, however, in more than one place speaks of 
 his " fourth voyage " without reference to dates, and it is difficult to understand his relation 
 of the voyage of 1497 as nnythin<r else than a repetition of the incidents related by Ojeda 
 as attending his expedition of 1499, on which Vespucci went with him. Harrisse, in his 
 Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, gives a careful account of the books of Lud and Hyla- 
 comylus. 
 
 4 Humboldt suggests (E.ramen Critique, Tome iv., p. 52) that Hylacomylus, a native of Ger- 
 many, must have known that in inventing the word America to distinguish the new conti 
 
1497.J VOYAGE OF THE CABOTS. 129 
 
 But even if it were possible to reconcile beyond all cavil the rival 
 claims of the two navigators, and give the honor where, as voyage of 
 between them, it undoubtedly belongs, to Columbus, there is theCaboto - 
 a third who takes precedence of both as the first great captain who 
 pushed far enough into the unknown seas to touch the main land of 
 the new continent. It is conceded that a voyage was made as early 
 as 1497 by John Cabot, accompanied by his son Sebastian, from Bris- 
 tol, England, to find the shorter path to India westward. In a little 
 vessel called The Matthew he made his first land-fall on this side 
 the Atlantic on the 24th of June of that year. Whether the land 
 first seen the Terra primum visa of the old maps was Cape 
 Breton, Newfoundland, or the coast of Labrador, is still an open ques- 
 tion, though the latter is held to be the most probable by some of 
 those who have given the subject most careful consideration. 1 But if 
 the ship held its course of north by west from Bristol, it could hardly 
 nave been anything else. At any rate, they sailed along the coast for 
 three hundred leagues, and that could only have been the shore of the 
 main land. These Cabots, then, were the first discoverers of the con- 
 tinent, about a year before Columbus entered the Gulf of Paria, and 
 two years before Ojeda's fleet, in which Vespucci sailed, touched the 
 coast of South America two hundred leagues farther south. 
 
 But which Cabot commanded this expedition ? Here again a doubt 
 is started, and the father and the son has each his advo- W hich 
 cates. John Cabot was probably a native of Genoa, but J^^Sl; 
 he had lived for many years in Venice, whence he removed C3t P editlon ? 
 to London with his family " to follow the trade of merchandise." It 
 is not known when he was born, in what year he emigrated to Eng- 
 land, or how soon he removed from London to Bristol. He was, it is 
 asserted, learned in cosmography and an accomplished navigator, had 
 
 nent, he was giving it a name of Germanic origin. He quotes his learned friend Von der 
 Hagen to prove this, who says that the Italian name Amerigo is found in the Ancient high. 
 German under the form of Amalrich or Amelrich, which in the Gothic is Amalricks. The 
 incursions and conquests of the northern people, and those of the Goths and Lombards 
 spread this name Amalrich, from which Amerigo comes, among the Romance-speaking peo- 
 ples. It was borne by many illustrious men. 
 
 An attempt has recently been made (Atlantic Monthly, April, 1875) to show that the word 
 America was derived from a chain of mountains in Veragua called Amcrique, heard of by 
 the sailors of Columbus on his fourth voyage, and reported by them in Spain. If there 
 were any mountains so called, and the Spaniards ever heard of them, they are not men- 
 tioned by any of the early writers, and the theory, however ingenious, cannot stand a 
 moment in the light of the evidence in regard to the derivation of the word from Amerigo 
 by Lud and Hylacomylus. 
 
 1 Humboldt, Examen Critique ; Biddle, Memoir of Sebastian Cabot ; J. G. Kohl, Coll. of 
 Maine Hist. Soc., vol. i.. Second Series. Stevens in his monograph, The Cabotf, p. 17, thinks 
 that their landfall was Cape Breton. Brevoort, Journal of the Am. Geog. Soc., vol. iv., p. 
 214, agrees with Stevens. 
 
 VOL. I. 9 
 
130 COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CiiAP. VI. 
 
 travelled by land in the East, and had heard from men in the cara- 
 vans of Arabia those strange and captivating tales of the boundless 
 wealth and magnificence of "farthest Ind." 1 He disappears from 
 history in 1498 as suddenly as he appeared two years before, and it is 
 supposed that he died about that time. But whether it was as an 
 old man whose work was happily finished, or as one cut off in the 
 prime of his vigor and his days, there is no record. 
 
 The son, Sebastian, is said to have been only twenty years of age 
 in 1497. He was undoubtedly a young man, but some sup- 
 HMtha pose a supposition necessary, indeed, to their theory in 
 regard to him and his voyages that he was not less than 
 twenty-five years of age when he sailed on this voyage witli his 
 father. And his birth-place is as uncertain as the time of his bii-th. 
 He may have been born in Venice ; perhaps he was born in Bristol. 
 In one account he is represented as saying : " When my father de- 
 parted from Venice many yeeres since to dwell in England, to follow 
 the trade of merchandises, hee tooke mee with him to the citie of 
 London, while I was yet very yong, yet having neverthelesse some 
 knowledge of letters of humanitie, and of the sphere." 2 But his 
 friend Eden's testimony is : " Sebastian Cabot tould me that he was 
 borne in Brystowe, and that at iiij yeare ould he was carried with 
 his father to Venice, and so returned agayne to England with his 
 father after certayne years, whereby he was thought to have been 
 born in Venice." 8 
 
 Both passages are relied upon as sufficient answer to the objection 
 of Sebastian's youth for the command of so important an expedition ; 
 yet neither is conclusive, inasmuch as neither gives the date of the 
 father's emigration to England, while the first proves altogether too 
 much, as it goes on to say : " And when my father died in 
 st-bwtum that time when riewes were brought that Don Christopher 
 Colonus Genoese had discovered the coasts of India, whereof 
 was great talke in all the court of King Henry the Seventh, who then 
 reigned, insomuch that all men with great admiration affirmed it to 
 be a thing more divine than humane, to saile by the West into the 
 East, where spices growe, by a way that was neuer knowen before, by 
 this fame and report there increased in my heart a great flame of 
 desire to attempt some notable tiling." 
 
 That John Cabot was not dead at the period referred to is just as 
 certain as that either he or his son, or both, sailed in search of a north- 
 
 1 Letter of M. d'Avez-ic to Dr. Woods, Maine Hist. CM., vol. i., Second Series. 
 
 2 Report of a conversation with Sebastian Cabot by Galcacius Butrigarius, the Pope's 
 Legate in Spain, first published in Kumusio's Collection of Voyages, copied by Hakluyt and 
 mam succeeding authors. 
 
 8 Richard Eden's Decades of the New World. 
 
 
1497.] MAP OF SEBASTIAN CABOT. 131 
 
 west passage. But this " discourse of Sebastian Cabot," as it is called, 
 though interesting for the main facts to which it testifies, is entitled 
 to no credit as strictly accurate evidence as to details, inasmuch as the 
 narrative was not repeated by him the Pope's Legate in Spain 
 who had it from Cabot, till years had passed away, and then some 
 months elapsed before it was put in writing by the author Ramusio 
 who first published it, and who cautioned his readers that he only 
 presumed " to sketch out briefly, as it were, the heads of what I re- 
 member of it." No reliance, of course, can be put upon such a docu- 
 ment on any disputed point. 
 
 Other old chroniclers, however, notably Fabian, Stow, and Gomara, 
 speak of Sebastian Caboto as the navigator " very expert and cunning 
 in knowledge of the circuit of the world, and islands of the same as 
 by a sea card," who demonstrated to King Henry VII. the feasibility 
 of a northwest passage to the Indies, and who was sent to find it ; 
 and on these writers Hakluyt l relied for his account of the voyage. 
 But Hakluyt substituted the name of John, the father, for that of 
 Sebastian the son, 2 and subsequent authors have, for the most part, 
 accepted his correction. 
 
 Then the question of late is still further complicated by a MS. of 
 Hakluyt's recently brought to light. 3 In this the great i uklu y t -,, 
 chronicler asserts not only that the first expedition was com- ^ecx)t f 
 manded by Sebastian Cabot, but that the voyage itself was voyage - 
 made in 1496. His words are: "A great part of the continent, as 
 well as of the islands, was first discovered for the King of England 
 by Sebastian Gabote, an Englishman, born in Bristow, son of John 
 Gabote, in 1496." And again : " Nay, more, Gabote discovered this 
 large tract of firme land two years before Columbus ever saw any 
 
 part of the continent Columbus first saw the firme lande 
 
 August 1, 1498, but Gabote made his great discovery in 1496." 4 
 There is certainly no trustworthy evidence, and little of any sort, of a 
 voyage by either the father or the son in that year, and the main 
 difficulty here is to reconcile Hakluyt to himself. 
 
 It is less easy to dispose of a map discovered about twenty years 
 ago in Germany, and which is in conflict with all the statements upon 
 this point hitherto relied upon. The map, 5 which is now in the im- 
 perial library at Paris, covers the whole world ; in its delineations of 
 
 1 Voyages, Navigations, etc., by Richard Hackluyt, vol. iii., p. 89. 
 
 2 Memoir of Seliastian Cabot, Biddle, chap, v.; Life of Sebastian Cabot, by J. F. Nichols, 
 City Librarian, Bristol, England, p. 46. 
 
 8 Rev. Dr. Wood in vol. i., Second Series, Maine Hist. Soc. Coll. 
 * Maine Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. i., Second Series. 
 
 6 For detailed description and discussion see J. G. Kohl ; also letter of M. d'Avezac to 
 Rev. Dr. Woods. Maine Hist. Coll., vol. i., Second Series. 
 
132 
 
 COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CHAP. VL 
 
 some countries it is tolerably correct, in others it is full of errors and 
 remarkable for inexplicable omissions ; but it assumes, in one of its in- 
 Testimon scriptions, to have this authority : " Sebastian Cabot, Cap- 
 of the Map. tain and Pilot-major of his Sacred Imperial Majesty the 
 Emperor, Don Carlos, the fifth of his name, and king, our lord, made 
 this figure extended in plane, in the year of . the birth of our Savior 
 Jesus Christ, MDXLIIII." (1544.) With reference to Newfoundland 
 thei'e is this descriptive legend in Latin and Italian : " This land was 
 discovered by John Cabot, a Venetian, and Sebastian Cabot his son, 
 
 Sebastian Cabot's Map, IS44. 
 
 in the year of the birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ, M.CCCC.XCIIII 
 (1494), the twenty-fourth day of June (at 5 o'clock) in the morning ; 
 to which land has been given the name of The Land First Seen (ter- 
 rain primum visam) ; and to a great island, which is very near the 
 said land, the name of St. John has been given, on account of its 
 having been discovered the same day." 
 
 If this legend be correct, it overthrows all previous theo- 
 ries, and puts aside all previous assertions. If the first voy- 
 age of the Cabots was made in 1494, the mistake as to 
 the age of Sebastian has been general, for it is not at all likely that 
 
 Date of the 
 
 voyage 
 
 disputed. 
 
 
1497.] DATE OF THE CABOT VOYAGE. 133 
 
 any share in the responsibility in an expedition so hazardous and 
 uncertain would have been attributed to a lad of seventeen, and it 
 conflicts with all we know of his character to suppose that he would 
 snatch at honors that were not rightfully his. The question thus 
 opened anew has given rise to much learned and labored discussion 
 both in favor of this new supposition and against it, but the most 
 obvious explanation, it seems to us, in view of what was previously 
 known, and from documents which have more recently come to light, 
 is that the date of M.CCCC.XCIIII on the map is either a misprint 
 or a blunder. 
 
 There is no violent improbability in the supposition that the nu- 
 merals VII were changed by the printer or the copyist into IIII, and 
 it was much more likely to happen than that the inscription itself, 
 while announcing a fact hitherto unheard of, should be in its terms 
 almost a literal transcript otherwise of a record hitherto universally 
 accepted as true, which agreed with all the contemporaneous author- 
 ities upon the subject, and which, if it was an error, would probably 
 have been detected and exposed, as it was within half a century of 
 the time when the alleged voyage was said to have been made. This 
 record is the " extract taken out of the map of Sebastian Cabot, cut 
 by Clement Adams," " hung up in the privy gallery at Whitehall," 
 and the Latin text of which is thus translated by Hakluyt : Inrepi tton 
 " In the year of our Lord 1497, John Cabot, a Venetian, "^.M*P 
 and his son Sebastian, (with an English fleet set out from h * 11 - 
 Bristol) discovered that land which no man before that time had at- 
 tempted, on the 24th of June, about five of the clocke, early in the 
 morning. This land he called Prima Vista, that is to say, First Scene; 
 because, as I suppose, it was that part whereof they had the first sight 
 from sea. That island which lieth out before the land, he called the 
 island of St. John, upon this occasion, as I thinke, because it was dis- 
 covered upon the day of John the Baptist." l The essential identity, in 
 everything but the date of the year, of the inscriptions upon the two 
 maps, the same day of the month, the same hour of the day, the same 
 naming of the land first seen, and the same name given to the neigh- 
 boring island, all indicate that both referred to the same expedition, 
 and that one was copied from the other. In the transfer, what more 
 easy and probable that the VII should be changed to IIII, or that 
 IIII should be changed to VII? That such a mistake if this ob- 
 vious explanation of the difficulty be accepted was not made by 
 Clement Adams, whose map was hung up in Whitehall, and was well 
 known in the sixteenth century to Sebastian Cabot's contemporaries, 
 but that it was made by whoever printed or delineated the map of 
 
 1 Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. iii., p. 6. 
 
134 COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CHAP. VL 
 
 1544, unheard of till twenty years ago, there seems to be ample evi- 
 dence. 
 
 This evidence comes from recent researches made on behalf of the 
 British government for historical information among Italian and Span- 
 ish archives. It is found that the Venetian ambassador in England 
 wrote home on the 24th of August, 1497, thus : 
 
 " Also some months ago his majesty, Henry VII., sent out a Vene- 
 Extracts tian, who is a very good mariner, and has good skill in dis- 
 [Jhnd P i"ai- covering new islands, and he has returned safe, and has 
 ian archives. f oun( j two very large and fertile new islands ; having like- 
 wise discovered the seven cities, four hundred leagues from England, 
 on the western passage. The next spring his majesty means to send 
 him with fifteen or twenty ships." l And in the archives of Venice 
 is also a letter dated August 23, 1497, from one Lorenzo Pasqualigo, 
 a Venetian living in London, to his brother, in which he writes : 
 
 " The Venetian, our countryman, who went with a ship from Bris- 
 tol in quest of new islands, is returned, and says that seven hundred 
 leagues hence he discovered land, the territory of the Grand Cham ; 
 he coasted for three hundred leagues and landed ; saw no human 
 beings, but he has brought hither to the king certain snares which had 
 been set to catch game, and a needle for making nets ; he also found 
 some felled trees, wherefore he supposed there were inhabitants, and 
 returned to his ship in alarm. 
 
 " He was three months on the voyage, and on his return he saw two 
 islands to starboard, but would not land, time being precious, as he 
 
 was short of provisions The king has also given him 
 
 money wherewith to amuse himself till then (the next spring), and 
 he is now at Bristol with his wife, who is also a Venetian, and with 
 his sons. His name is Zuan Cabot, and he is styled the Great Ad- 
 miral ; vast honor is paid him ; he dresses in silk, and these English 
 run after him like mad people, so that he can enlist as many of them 
 as he pleases, and a number of our own." 2 
 
 A similar letter, written about the same time from the Spanish am- 
 bassador in England, and dealing with the same incident the return 
 of this Genoese of Bristol from a voyage of discovery is found in 
 the Spanish archives at Seville. And unless other contemporary tes- 
 timony, equally direct, respectable, and impartial, shall be found to 
 offset these statements, they may be accepted as settling two points : 
 First, that the first voyage of the Cabots, on which the western conti- 
 nent was discovered, was made in the summer of 1497 ; and second, 
 that the leader of the enterprise was John (Zuan) Cabot. 
 
 1 Papers on English Affairs; extracted from the Venetian Calendar, by Rawdon Brown, 
 p. 260. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 262. 
 
1497.] 
 
 JOHN CABOT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 135 
 
 Of him this is the one fair glimpse that history gives us. When or 
 where he was born, when or where he died and was buried, can only 
 be guessed at with more or less of probability ; and of all the John CAbot 
 events of a life that certainly was not a short one this inci- in London - 
 dent alone stands out distinct and clear, as he walks through White- 
 hall and the Strand, from palace to counting-house, clothed in the 
 costliest garments of the day, telling courtier and merchant and mari- 
 ner how only a month's sail away he had found the Eastern Continent 
 of which Columbus had hitherto discovered only some outlying islands. 
 And it is no marvel that these English should have " run after him 
 like mad," should have watched for his coining, and have given him 
 
 John Cabot in London. 
 
 good hearty English cheers whenever he appeared, for his brave ex- 
 ploit was to the honor of the English name, as well as to his own. 
 
 If other proof were wanting that this was the first voyage, a curious 
 bit of evidence comes in to corroborate the story of the return of the 
 successful navigator and the reception that was given him. In the 
 account of the Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry is this 
 entry : " 10th August, 1497. To hym that found the New 
 Isle, 10J." l That this refers to Cabot seems improbable ; Auieric *- 
 but it is quite likely that the king should have sent, or given with his 
 own hand, such a reward to the sailor who from his faithful watch 
 at the mast-head was the first to cry "Land ho!" on the coast of 
 North America. 
 
 1 Nicolas, Excerpta Historica, quoted by Biddle and by Nicholls. 
 
 foi 
 
136 COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 The voyage was made under a patent granted by the king on the 
 5th of March, 1496, authorizing John Cabot and his three sons, Lewis, 
 Patents of Sebastian, and Sancius, to " sail to all parts, countries, and 
 John cabot. geag O f the E as t, Q tne w es t;, and of the North, under our 
 
 banners and ensigns, with five ships of what burthen or quantity 
 soever they be, and so many mariners or men as they will have with 
 them in the said ships, upon their own proper costs and charges, to 
 seek out, discover, and find whatsoever isles, countries, regions, or 
 provinces of the heathen and infidels, whatsoever they be, and in what 
 part of the world soever they be, which before this time have been 
 unknown to all Christians." The patent was in entire disregard of 
 the bull of Pope Alexander VI., of May, 1498, by which the heathen 
 world was divided from pole to pole between Spain and Portugal ; but 
 the south was probably excluded from the sailing directions in defer- 
 ence to actual possession by either of those nations. The king was 
 cautious; he did not mean to run any risk of involving himself in 
 trouble with either of those powers ; he carefully stipulated that one 
 fifth of all the profits of the adventure should be his, and all the cost 
 he threw upon the Cabots. Though a year passed away before the 
 expedition set out, it is doubtful if it included more than the single 
 ship of the admiral The Matthew of Bristol. At all events that 
 ship, The Matthew, Captain John Cabot, cleared out at the Bristol 
 custom-house for the territories of the Grand Khan and a market in 
 May, 1497, and returned again to port in about three months, having 
 sailed meanwhile three hundred leagues along the coast of North 
 America. 
 
 In the Italian archives, from which we just now quoted, it is said 
 Sebastian that another expedition was to follow up this great discovery 
 * n ^ ne 8 P r ' n g- " The king," writes Pasqualigo, " has prom- 
 j ge j na j. j n t ] ie 8 pri n g our countryman shall have ten ships, 
 armed to his order, and at his request has conceded him all the pris- 
 oners, except such as are confined for high treason, to man his fleet." 
 On the 3d of February, 1498, accordingly, a second patent, or rather 
 license was issued by which John Kabotto was authorized to impress 
 six English ships, "and them convey and lede to the Londe and Isles 
 of late founde by the said John in oure name and by our commande- 
 mente." The expedition consisted, however, of only two ships ; on 
 board of them went three hundred passengers, whether volunteers or 
 convicts from the jails, and its evident purpose was colonization. It 
 sailed from Bristol in the spring probably in May under the 
 command so all the old narratives concur in saying of the young 
 Sebastian. John disappears with this grant to him to settle the lands 
 he had discovered ; is dead at least to history. 
 
1498.] SEBASTIAN CABOT EXPLORES THE COAST. 137 
 
 But the voyage was barren of any results of value, except that 
 Sebastian noted that " in the seas thereabout were multitudes of big 
 fishes that they call tunnies, which the inhabitants call Baccalaos, 
 that they sometimes stopped his ship." And he therefore " named 
 this land Baccalaos." l Probably he left his three hundred emigrants 
 somewhere on this inhospitable coast to make such settlement as they 
 could, while he explored still farther northward. He reached the 
 latitude of 67^, fighting his way through seas of ice, and looking 
 anxiously for the gulf that should lead him to the Indies. " To his 
 great displeasure" he found the coast, at length, trending eastward, 
 probably on the peninsula of Cumberland ; his crews, perhaps reduced 
 in numbers by the hardships of such navigation, perhaps in despair 
 and alarm at penetrating farther into a region where in July the cold 
 was increasing and " the dayes very long in maner without any 
 night," grew insubordinate and mutinous, and clamored to return. 
 Turning southward, he picked up his three hundred colonists, or what 
 was left of them, and sailed into pleasanter seas. 
 
 " Ever intent to find that passage to India," and baffled in the 
 search for it at the north, he hoped to discover it by run- Fjn)t coagt 
 ning down the coast. Into what bays and estuaries he may 0^^ 
 have penetrated ; how anxiously he scanned the headlands ; tinent 
 how diligently sounded for depth of water, and marked the set of cur- 
 rents that he might miss no indication of an opening to the west ; or 
 how long he was in making this first coast-survey of the Continent, 
 there is no record. 2 But doubtless he did his work faithfully and 
 well, keeping along the shore of Maine and Massachusetts, missing no 
 landmarks, doubling Cape Cod, perhaps rounding Nantucket and run- 
 ning into Buzzard's Bay and Long Island Sound, and approaching 
 the harbor of New York ; for he sometimes landed, found " on most 
 
 1 Peter Martyr, De Orbe Novo. But Dr. Kohl doubts this. The cod-fisherv, he says, 
 had long existed on the northern coasts of Europe, and the fish were called bv the Ger- 
 manic nations " Cabliauwe," or " Kabbeljouwe," or still farther transposed, " Backljau." 
 The Portuguese changed it to Bacalhao. The root of the word is the Germanic " boldi," 
 meaning fish. The name, therefore, could not have had an Indian origin. Mnim Il'ixt. 
 Coll., vol. i., Second Series. Brevoort, on the other hand (Journal of the Am. Gfog. So- 
 ciety, p. 205), says it is simply "an old Mediterranean or Romance name, given to the pre- 
 served codfish, when it has been dried and kept open and extended by the help of a small 
 stick. This was the stockfish of the North, and from the word Baculum, it became the Bac- 
 alao and Baccalieu of the South of Europe." 
 
 2 Brevoort and Stevens doubt if Cabot ever sailed south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 
 Peter Martyr who says, " Cabot is my very friend whom I use familiarly and delight to 
 have him sometimes keepe me company in mine own house " asserts " that he was 
 thereby brought so far into the South by reason of the land bending so much southwards, 
 that it was there almost equal in latitude with the sea Fretum Herculeum ("Straits of Gib- 
 raltar) having the north pole elevate in the same degree." Gomara says that Cabot sailed 
 so far north that " the days were very long, as it were without night ; " and that he fol- 
 lowed the coast southward to the 38, whence he returned home. 
 
138 
 
 COLUMBUS, VESPUCCI, AND THE CABOTS. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 of the places, copper or brass among the aborigines," and captured 
 some of the natives and brought them home to England. But when 
 he had reached 38 north, that is, about Cape Hatteras, his provisions 
 failing, lie changed his course for Bristol. 
 
 Whether Sebastian Cabot was satisfied that no passage to 
 of Sebastian Cathay was to be found between 67 J and 38, north lati- 
 tude, there is nowhere any positive assurance. He lived, how- 
 ever, to be eighty years of age ; in the course of that long life he held 
 
 the honorable and influential position of 
 Pilot-major both in Spain and England ; 
 he led, in the service of Spain, an event- 
 ful expedition to the Rio de la Plata ; in 
 the service of England he sent another 
 to Russia, and established commercial in- 
 tercourse between the two nations ; but, 
 unless he made a third voyage to North 
 America in 1516, which was cei'tainly 
 projected, though its accomplishment is 
 questioned, he abandoned, after his re- 
 turn in 1498, all farther attempts at 
 discovery or settlement on the coast of 
 North America. The honor of the dis- 
 covery of the mainland of the continent 
 was his ; but seventy years passed away 
 
 before the first permanent colony was planted north of the Gulf of 
 Mexico. 
 
 Sebastian Cabot. 
 
 Fac-simile of Signature of Amerigo Vespucci 
 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 DESIGNS FOR THE DISCOVERY OF A NORTHWEST PASSAGE TO INDIA. THE COR- 
 TEREAL VOYAGES. VASCO NUNEZ DE BALBOA REACHES THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 
 SEARCH FOR THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. FLORIDA DISCOVERED. GULF OF MEX- 
 ICO SAILED OVER. EXPLORATIONS ON THE ATLANTIC SEA-COAST. E8TAVAN GOMEZ 
 
 ON THE BORDERS OF THE UNITED STATES. EXPEDITION OF PAMPHILO DE NAR- 
 VAEZ TO FLORIDA. ADVENTURES OF CABEC.A DE VACA. THE ENTERPRISE OF 
 HERNANDO DE SOTO. THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. DEATH AND 
 DRAMATIC BURIAL OF DE SOTO. RETURN OF THE TROOPS OF DE SOTO. TRIS- 
 TAN DE LUNA'S ATTEMPT TO FOUND A COLONY. 
 
 THAT the Cabots were the first modern discoverers of the Western 
 Continent, or, indeed, that Columbus was the first European who, in 
 the fifteenth century, visited the New World, is not undisputed. John 
 Skolnus, or John of Kolno, a Pole, is said to have been on the coast of 
 Labrador in 1477 ; it is claimed by some French writers that in 1488 
 one Cousin, a Frenchman of Dieppe, was driven across the Atlantic 
 and made land on the other side at the mouth of a wide river ; that 
 with him was one of that family of Pinzons of Palos which gave, fouv 
 years later, captains one of them perhaps this very captain to two 
 of the three ships of Columbus. The evidence of such an expedition is 
 so slight, that constructive arguments have only more or less weight 
 as they are more or less ingenious. 
 
 When, however, the path to the new Indies was fairly opened, in 
 the last decade of the fifteenth century, fresh voyages fol- 
 lowed in rapid succession, and not navigators only, but sov- Spain" 8 ' 
 ereigns vied with each other to share with Spain the glory European el 
 and the riches of the new discoveries. Henry VII. of Eng- ' 
 land, when he gave a patent to the Cabots, no doubt reflected that 
 Columbus might have been an English, rather than a Spanish admiral. 
 The king of Portugal did not attempt to conceal his chagrin that the 
 dominion and power which had fallen, or inevitably would fall, into 
 the hands of Spain, he had rejected. But though Spain could not be 
 interfered with at the south, it was still possible to find the yet undis- 
 covered way to India by a northern passage ; there might still be 
 unknown islands, or even continents, full of gold and heathen men, in 
 northern seas. 
 
140 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 In 1500, accordingly, two caravels were dispatched from Portugal 
 fia ar cor- un( 3er the command of Gaspar Cortereal, in search of a pas- 
 tercai seeks ga ~ e t o j n( ji a j n northern latitudes. He made no settlement, 
 
 a northwest 
 
 passage. jj ut explored the coast, either on that or a second voyage 
 made the next year, for six or seven hundred miles, as far north as 
 the fiftieth parallel, where his further progress was stopped by the ice. 
 The country he called Terra de Labrador the land of laborers 
 though that name was afterwards transferred to a region farther north. 
 
 Cortereal at Labrador. 
 
 The people were like Gypsies in color, well made, intelligent, and 
 modest ; they lived in wooden houses, clothed themselves in skins and 
 furs, used " swords made of a kind of stones, and pointed their arrows 
 with the same material." The country abounded with timber, espe- 
 cially pine ; the seas were full of fish of various kinds ; and, with such 
 natural advantages, added to its populousness, it was thought that its 
 acquisition might prove valuable to Portugal. If Cortereal did not 
 open a way to India, or find mines of gold to rival those of Hispaniola, 
 at least he had discovered, as he hoped, a new Slave Coast, and he 
 enticed or forced on board his caravels fifty-seven of the natives whom 
 he meant to sell as slaves. These were pronounced as " admirably 
 calculated for labor, and the best slaves ever seen." l 
 
 1 The Cortereal voyages are not free from the confusion which surrounds so many of the 
 early narratives. Several writers (see Barrow's Chronological History of Voyages ; Lard- 
 ner's Cyclopedia ; Edinburgh Cabinet Library) following Cordeiro's Historia Insularia, assert 
 that Newfoundland was first discovered by John Vaz Costa Cortereal in 1463 or 1464 ; but 
 Biddle (Memoir of Cabot, book ii., chapter 11) shows that there is no good authority for 
 any such voyage. A passage in the life of his father by Ferdinand Colon, however, seems 
 to have been overlooked by all these writers. He says that Vincent Dear, a Portuguese, 
 
1502.J THE CORTEREAL VOYAGES. 141 
 
 Cortereal made two voyages, but from the second he never came 
 back. It is uncertain what his fate was. He may have been Fate of the 
 lost at sea ; or, as it has been conjectured, he may have been Cortercal(i - 
 killed by the natives in an attempt to kidnap another cargo of slaves, 
 or in revenge for the capture of those stolen on the previous voyage. 
 But this, of course, involves the presumption that the kidnapping was 
 on his first expedition, and that the retribution fell upon him on his 
 return to the coast. But the latest and most reasonable suggestion is 
 that it was on his second voyage that he committed this outrage upon 
 the Indians, and that he and his fifty captives perished together at 
 sea. And this is the more probable conjecture since we know that 
 Miguel Cortereal, a younger brother, sailed from Lisbon, on the 10th 
 of May, 1502, with two vessels, in search of Gaspar, eight months 
 after the report of the arrival of one of Caspar's caravels. The 
 Indians may have punished him also for his brother's cruelty to their 
 kindred, for he did not return. The next year the king sent out an 
 expedition in quest of both, but that came back without tidings of 
 
 returning from Guinea to Terceira, saw, or thought he saw, an island, and told this to one 
 Luke de Gazzana, a wealthy Genoese merchant. Gazzana sent out a vessel, and " the pilot 
 went out three or four times to seek the said island, sailing from one hundred and twenty 
 or one hundred and thirty leagues, but all in vain, for he found no land. Yet for all this, 
 neither he (Gazzana) nor his partner gave over the enterprise till death, always hoping to 
 find it." Ferdinand Colon adds that a brother of Gazzana also told him that he knew the 
 sons of " the captain who discovered Terceira," Gaspar and Michael Cortereal, " who went 
 several times to discover that land ; and it is plain from the context that Ferdinand Colon 
 means to refer to distinct expeditions to the West those before his father's first voyage by 
 Gazzana's direction, when John Vaz Costa Cortereal was governor of Terceira; and these 
 by the younger Cortereals in 1500. It was natural enough that these expeditious should 
 be confounded with each other, and this confusion was not cleared up even when Hakluyt 
 published the first edition of his voyages in 1582, who says : " An excellent learned man of 
 Portugal, of singular gravety, authortie, and experience, tolde me very lately that one 
 Gouus Cortereal, captayne of the vie of Terceira, about the yeare 1 574, which is not above 
 eight years past, sent a ship to discover the North West Passage." Here is an obvious 
 mistake of about a century. 
 
 In regard to the actual expedition of Gaspar Cortereal, the principal original source of 
 information hitherto relied upon, is the letter of Pietro Pa.*qualigo, Venetian Ambassador 
 to Portugal, to his brother, October 19, 1501. This was first published in a volume of voy- 
 ages printed in Venice in 1507, under the title Paesi Novamente rttrovati vt \ovo Mmido. 
 But Dr. Kohl (Collections of Maine Hist. Society, 1869), rely ing upon some recent researches 
 in the Portuguese archives by M. Kuntsmaun (Die Entdeckuny America's), assumes that 
 Pasqualigo's letter refers to the second voyage of Cortereal, and that the caravel, on board 
 which he was with fifty of the Indians, never arrived. The letter says : " On the 8th of the 
 present month one of the two caravels which his most serene majesty dispatched last year 
 on a voyage of discovery to the North, under the command of Gaspar Corterat, arrived 
 
 here They have brought hither of the inhabitants, seven in all, men, women, 
 
 and children, and in the other caravel, which is looked for every hour, there are fifty 
 more." If this was the first voyage, the other caravel subsequently arrived with the fifty 
 Indians, as Cortereal certainly made a second expedition. The date alone of the letter 
 (October, 1501) if Cortereal sailed in 1500 suggests that Pasqualigo confounded the 
 two voyages, and that he refers to the second, from which Cortereal did not return. 
 
142 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 either. Then the eldest brother, Vasqueanes Cortereal, the governor 
 of Terceira, one of the Azores, begged permission to continue the 
 search, but the king forbade it, and the Portuguese, discouraged by 
 such a succession of disasters, abandoned all farther attempts at dis- 
 covery in the northern seas. 
 
 These explorations in high northern latitudes the Spanish left for 
 the most part to other nations. Not that they were less eager to find 
 a passage to India, but they believed that they alone were seeking it 
 in the right direction. The conviction was of slow growth that 
 another continent, hitherto unknown, lay between Europe and Asia, 
 and that this must be passed before the coveted spice islands of the 
 East could be reached by sailing westward. Even Columbus himself 
 must have had some misgivings, for while he professed to believe 
 that on his third and fourth voyages he had reached the continent of 
 Asia, he was none the less persistent in seeking from Venezuela to 
 Hondui-as for a strait that should lead him to a South Sea and to 
 search of India. It is not easy to reconcile his avowed theoretical con- 
 fora"ve8t'- Dictions with his practical conduct ; but it is remarkable 
 em passage. j.j iat conjecture or reasoning should have led him to seek for 
 such a channel where, if it existed at all anywhere between Terra 
 del Fuego and the Arctic Sea, it was most likely to be found. In his 
 fourth and last voyage, crowded with misfortunes more romantic than 
 the boldest imagination would have ventured to put forth as fiction, 
 he groped his way along the coast of Central America in search of an 
 eastern passage. The problem of an easy and rapid communication 
 by sea with the far East, has to-day no other solution than a possible 
 artificial channel where the great navigator hoped to find one hollowed 
 out by the waters of two meeting seas. 
 
 To the genius of Columbus this homage was paid by all his con- 
 temporaries whither he led there they followed. As Ojeda 
 ditions from and Vespucci, after his discovery of the Southern Continent, 
 on his third voyage, went to Paria and explored the coast 
 north and south of that gulf, so Solis and Pinzon, moved by his ex- 
 ample, sailed into the Caribbean Sea and along its shores where 
 Columbus, on his fourth voyage, had led the way. Within four or 
 five years of his death, in 1506, the whole coast from Carthagena to 
 Yucatan had been visited by many adventurers, dividing the country 
 amongst them, fighting with each other as occasion offered, slaughter- 
 ing, mutilating, or enslaving the Indians, as best served their purpose 
 in the gathering of gold. 
 
 vascoxunez Among these freebooters was Vasco Nunez de Balboa, an 
 ie Baiboa. excellent specimen of that class of Spanish discoverers who 
 overran the southern half of the New World, and of which Pizarro 
 
1506.J 
 
 VASCO XCNEZ DE BALBOA. 
 
 143 
 
 and Cortez who were fitted for their future careers at the same 
 time and in the same school and region with Vasco Nunez were still 
 more brilliant instances. 
 
 This Nunez was eminent in that bravery which belonged to men 
 who, clad in steel, armed with an arquebuse or cross-bow, and a sword, 
 mounted, perhaps, on horseback, were ready to meet any number of 
 naked savages with only bows and arrows ; he was vigorous and capa- 
 ble of great endurance, as well as bold; and he was pitilessly cruel, 
 unscrupulous, and dissolute, but at the same time zealous for th 
 Church. 
 
 Vasco Nunez on Shipboard. 
 
 To escape from his creditoi-s in Hispaniola he concealed himself in 
 a cask, on board a vessel about to sail for the Caribbean Sea. 1 When 
 far from land he crept from his hiding-place and prevailed by prayers 
 and tears upon Enciso, the commander of the expedition, not to put him 
 ashore and leave him. as he threatened, to starve on a barren island. 
 Afterward, when the vessel was wrecked, Nunez, who had been on the 
 
 1 Herrcra, Decade I., l>ook viii., chap. 2. 
 
144 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CuAi-. VII. 
 
 coast before and remembered an Indian village on the river Darien, 
 led the crew, harassed by the natives and reduced almost to starvation, 
 to that place. By force of character and skilful management he soon 
 became the head of a party, helped to depose Enciso, to whom he owed 
 his life, got rid of others who had some title to the government of the 
 province, and raised himself to supreme command. 
 
 From the son of an Indian chief he learned, on one of his maraud- 
 ing expeditions into the interior, that six days' iourney fur- 
 
 Rumor* of a e - , J J , J 
 
 Land oi ther on was another sea, and beyond it a country so abound- 
 ing in gold that the people ate and drank out of dishes made 
 of it. In September, 1513, he started from Darien to find that sea. 
 He fought his way through tribes of hostile Indians, whom he sub- 
 dued by killing many, " hewing them in pieces as the Butchers doe 
 fleshe in the shambles, from one an arme, from another a legge, 
 
 from him a buttocke, from 
 another a shoulder, and from 
 some the necke from the bodie 
 at one stroke ; " and some the 
 dogs brought down and tore 
 limb from limb " as if they 
 were wild bores or Hartes." 1 
 
 At length the invaders The South sea. 
 
 reached a high mountain from the top of which, said the Indian 
 guides, the southern sea was in sight. Nunez ordered his men to halt 
 while he climbed up alone. Far beneath him, on the other side, 
 
 i Peter Martyr's Third Decade, trans, by Lok. Hakluyt, vol. v., edition of 1812 
 
 
1513.] 
 
 DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 145 
 
 lay the blue ocean, sparkling and glorious in the sunlight, stretching 
 as far as the eye could reach, North, South, West, to where DigcoT ery O f 
 sky and water seemed to meet. It was for this that all the o*^Tspt 
 great navigators of the world had been seeking for nearly 1513- 
 twenty years, and when the sight of it broke upon Vasco Nufiez he fell 
 prone upon the ground. Raising himself presently upon his knees, he 
 gave thanks to God that it had "pleased his diuine maiestie to reserue 
 vnto that day the victorie and prayse of so great a thing vnto him." 
 An ecstacy of delight, of triumph and devotion possessed him. With 
 one hand he beckoned his followers to come to him ; with the other 
 he pointed wildly seaward, " shewing them the great maine sea here- 
 tofore vnknowne to the inhabitants of Europe, Aphrike, and Asia.' 
 
 First Embarkation on the South Sea. 
 
 Again he fell upon his knees, and to his prayers, " desiring Almighty 
 God and the blessed Virgin to fauor his beginnings, and to give him 
 good successe to subdue those landes, to the glory of his holy name, 
 and increase of his holy religion." His companions joined him and 
 " praysed God with loude voyces for ioy," for he " exhorted them to 
 lyft up their hearts and beholde the lande euen now vnder their feete, 
 and the sea before their eyes which shoulde bee vnto them a full and 
 lust rewarde of their great laboures and trauayles now ouerpassed." 
 He ordered heaps of stone to be piled up in token that he took pos- 
 session of the country for his sovereign, and the name of Ferdinand 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 10 
 
146 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 of Castile he carved upon many trees as he went down the Pacific 
 slope. 
 
 The men, marshalled in battle array, were ordered by this pious 
 captain to assail the natives and " to esteeme them no better than 
 dogges meate, as they shoulde be shortly." 1 From that fate, how- 
 ever, gold could always save them. Twelve men, among whom was 
 Pizarro, the future conqueror of Peru, 2 were sent in advance to find 
 the safest and shortest path to the shore. At the spot where they 
 approached it two canoes were stranded upon the beach. As the 
 flood-tide floated them Alonso Martin stepped into one, and Blaze de 
 Atienza followed in the other, and they called to their companions to 
 witness that they were the first Spaniards Martin first, and Atienza 
 second who embarked upon the South Sea. When, a few days 
 later, Vasco Nunez arrived with his whole company, he marched into 
 the water up to his thighs, with his sword and target, and solemnly 
 pronounced that ocean and all that pertained to it as the possession of 
 the sovereigns of Castile and Leon, which he would defend against 
 all comers. 3 
 
 Thenceforward the exploration and occupation of the western coast, 
 both north and south, went forward with little interruption. But 
 Fate of the man whose energy and perseverance led the way, Vasco 
 aeTde Bai- Nunez de Balboa, fell a victim, five years later, to the jealousy 
 boa< and fears of the Governor of Darien, Peter Anias, who 
 
 ordered him, after the mockery of a trial, to be beheaded. Such 
 atrocities were so common among the Spaniards that this one, though 
 perpetrated against a man whose eminent services had been recog- 
 nized by an appointment as Adelantado over the sea he had discov- 
 ered, seems to have gone unpunished and almost unnoticed by the 
 government at home. 
 
 While the course of Spanish adventure was thus, in the earlier 
 years of the sixteenth century, directed towards Central America, 
 leading, in due season, to such events as the discovery of the Pacific, 
 the conquests of Peru and Mexico, and the exploration of the western 
 coast of the present United States, it was not forgotten that there 
 might be other regions further north on the Atlantic coast worth pos- 
 sessing. Juan Ponce de Leon, who had enriched himself by the sub- 
 jugation of Porto Rico, resolved, when deprived of the governorship 
 of that island, to increase his fame and his riches by some new enter- 
 prise. He had heard that there were lands at the north, of which 
 marvellous tales were told, not only of great wealth of gold and prec- 
 ious stones, but that hidden away somewhere in the. deep recesses of 
 
 i Peter Martyr. 2 Life of Pizarro, by Arthur Helps, p. 55. 
 
 8 Ilerrera, Decade I., book x., chap. 1. 
 
 
SEARCH FOR THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 
 
 
1512.] 
 
 PONCE DE LEON DISCOVERS FLORIDA. 
 
 147 
 
 its forests bubbled up a fountain of which whosoever drank should 
 receive the priceless gift of perpetual youth. The rumor of Legend of 
 
 11 i ri-i'i i i the Fountain 
 
 gold was enough to tempt Spanish cupidity ; but that was of Youth, 
 as nothing to Ponce de Leon, already rich but already old, to the 
 promise of being young again. 
 
 To find this new marvel of the New World, Juan Ponce de Leor. 
 started from Porto Rico with three ships, in March, 1512. 1 As 
 fitting in a quest for a fountain of 
 immortality, the adventurers floated 
 over that summer sea as men intent 
 on pleasure, to whom time was long 
 and burdened with no serious du- 
 ties ; they sailed from island to 
 island, touching here and there as 
 fancy led them, seeking the safest 
 and pleasantest coves, where the 
 shades were deepest in the noon- 
 day sun and the waters coolest, 
 where the fruits were sweetest, the 
 Indians most friendlv and their 
 
 if 
 
 women loveliest. After a month 
 of such idle dalliance they crossed 
 the Bahama Channel, and, on the 
 27th of March, which happened to be Easter Sunday and which the 
 Spaniards call Pascua de Flores, 2 they saw and passed an island on 
 the opposite coast. Two or three days later Ponce de Leon 
 landed on the main, near the point now called Fernandina. 3 
 Taking possession of it in the name of Spain he named it 1512 - 
 Florida, because the land was first seen on the Pascua de Flares, and 
 because it was fair to look upon, covered with pleasant groves and 
 carpeted with flowers. 
 
 For more than thirty days they sailed along the coast on both sides 
 of the Peninsula, and among the Bahama Islands, sometimes traffick- 
 ing, more often fighting with the Indians, who were bold and fierce, but 
 seeking always for the wonderful fountain. Whether it was on the 
 mainland, or, as some of the Indians said, on the Island of Bimini, of 
 
 1 Dr. J. G. Kohl (Maine Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. i., Second Series, p. 240) says March 3, 1513 
 and that Peschel, in his Geschiclite des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, has proved that the year 
 1512, to which this voyage of De Leon is usually assigned, is incorrect. March 3, 1512, old 
 style, would be 1513, new style, and Bancroft accordingly gives the date 15^$. Dr. Kohl 
 leaves it doubtful whether he means 15^$, or 15^|. 
 
 2 Herrera, Hildreth, Irving, and some other writers, erroneously state that Pascua de 
 Flores is Palm Sunday. La Pascua de las Flores is La Pascua de la Resurrection, or 
 Easter Sunday. 
 
 * Peter Martyr says (Decade V., chap. 1) "that parte of the lande which Johannes Pon- 
 tius lirst touched, from the north side of the Fernandina." 
 
 Juan Ponce de Leon. 
 
148 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 the Bahama group, 1 the restoring waters were never found ; though 
 those who sought them drank of every spring and bathed in every 
 stream their eager and hungry eyes could spy in the deep shadows of 
 the woods. 
 
 Leon claimed, nevertheless, great merit with the king for finding 
 a land so fair and promising, and he was made its Adelantado, on 
 condition that he would colonize it. In 1521, this first governor of 
 territory within the limits of the present United States, returned to 
 the province assigned to him, but, in a fight with Indians who opposed 
 his landing, he received from an arrow a wound from which no heal- 
 ing waters could wash the poison. He retired then to Cuba, thankful, 
 perhaps, at last, that " eloquent, just, and mightie death " 
 juan Ponce could release him from the burden of old age, doubly 
 
 de Leon ~ 
 
 weighted now by the calamity of poverty, for the remnant 
 of his riches was spent in his last expedition. 2 Other Spanish naviga- 
 tors followed this gay old cavalier, but the object of their search was 
 gold, not youth. Don Diego Velasquez, one of the earlier adventurers 
 in Hispaniola, who had conquered Cuba, and become its governor, 
 ambitious, energetic, and intelligent, sent several expeditions into the 
 Gulf of Mexico, wisely, for his purpose, directing them to its southern 
 rather than to its northern coasts. It was the road to Mexico, which 
 Cortez soon found ; but that Florida was visited by two of the other 
 captains of Velasquez was almost by accident rather than by design. 
 
 Hernandez de Cordova touched there on his return from a 
 
 \ ovages in 
 
 the ouif of cruise along the coast of Yucatan, in 1517, and John de Gri- 
 
 Mexico. 
 
 jalva did the same thing the next year. In 1516, Diego 
 Miruelo is said to have made a voyage on his own account to Florida, 
 and to have brought back some gold. In 1518, also, Francis Garay, 
 the governor of Jamaica, landed on that shore, was attacked by the 
 natives, and lost most of his men. 3 But he returned the next year, 
 
 1 In Peter Martyr's Map of 1511, Florida is laid down as Isla de Beimeni. 
 
 2 " Whether the old fable of the Fountain of youth was derived by the Indians from the 
 Spaniards, or was of indigenous growth, it is impossible to decide. It was undoubtedly firmly 
 believed in among the other marvels of the New World. " The Dene, Aiglianus the Senator, 
 and Licentiatus Figuera, sent to Hispaniola to be President of the Senate, .... these three 
 agree," says Peter Martyr, " that they had heard of the fonntaine restoringe strength, and 
 that they partly belieued the reportes ; but they sawe it not, nor proued it by experience, 
 because the inhabitants of that Terra Florida haue sharpe nayles, and are eager defenders 
 of their rights." But the Dene related that an Indian, "grieuously oppressed with old 
 age, moued with the fame of that fonntaine, and allured through the lone longer of lyfe. 
 went from his natiue ilande neere vnto the country of Florida to drinke of the desired foun- 
 taine, .... and hauinge well drunke and washed himselfe for many flayes with the ap- 
 pointed remedies, by them who kept the bath, hee is reported to haue brought home a manly 
 strength, and to haue vsed nil manly exercises, and that hee married againe, and begatt chil 
 dren." Aiglianus is De Ayllon, who visited Florida after De Leon. 
 
 8 Peter Martyr, Decade V., chap. 1. 
 
 
1520.] KIDNAPPING INDIANS. 140 
 
 and was the first thorough explorer of the Gulf coast of the United 
 States. He made its entire circuit, and drew a chart by which lie 
 showed that " it bendeth like a bow," and that a line stretched from 
 the shore of Yucatan to the point at which Ponce de Leon first touched, 
 would " make the string of the bow." Florida, he found, was not an 
 island, as De Leon had supposed, " but by huge, crooked windings and 
 turninges to bee joyned to this maine continent of Tenustitan" (Yu- 
 catan). He came, also, " vpon a riuer, flowing into the Ocan with a 
 broade mouth ; and from his ships discryed many villages couered with 
 reedes ; " and this was the first discovery of the Mississippi, the Rio 
 del Espirito Santo, the River of the Holy Ghost. 1 But he thought 
 the coast, which he spent about eight months in exploring, " to be very 
 litle hospitable, because he sawe tokens and signes of small store of 
 golde, and that not pure." 2 
 
 Fernandina was as yet the northernmost point touched by the 
 Spaniards on the Atlantic coast. But northward from that 
 place was a country known as Chicora, and somewhere up the AI- 
 
 ...... , ,, ,. CTI lantic coast. 
 
 within it was supposed to be the sacred river of Jordan, 
 whose waters possessed a healing power akin to, if not the same, as 
 those of the Fountain of Youth. 3 To this land of Chicora Lucas Vas- 
 quez de Ay lion either sent or led an expedition of two ships in 1520 
 from Hispaniola, and the river now known as the Combahee, in South 
 Carolina, 4 he named the Jordan. It does not appear that he went 
 anywhere else than to the mouth of this river, though he was sent in 
 search of a passage that would lead to India. But the real purpose 
 was slaves. The people of the Jordan, unlike those farther south, 
 gave the strangers a kindly welcome. They crowded aboard the 
 ships, the like of which they had never seen before, as eager, as cu- 
 rious, and as confiding as children. The very ease of kid- 
 napping these simple and unsuspicious savages might have Indians 'for 
 suggested it. The hoisting of the sails, the weighing of the 
 anchors, gave them no alarm ; imperceptibly to them the vessels stole 
 away, on an even keel, without apparent motion, and not till they 
 were so far from the shore that to return was impossible, did the poor 
 creatures understand the cruel treachery of which they were the vic- 
 tims. They were to be sold as slaves for the gold mines and planta- 
 tions of the Islands. But of the two vessels one foundered at sea, and 
 all on board perished ; on the other, but few lived to reach Hispaniola, 
 
 1 Shea's Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi, p. viii. 
 
 2 Peter Martyr. 
 
 8 Compare, however, Herrera, Decade I., lib. ix., chap. 5 ; Narrative of Fontanedo in Ter- 
 naux-Compans, and note by the editor, and J. G. Kohl, in Maine Hist. Socy. Coll., p. 248 
 Dr. Kohl says that the river was named Jordan for the captain of one of Ay lion's ships. 
 
 < Bancroft, Hist. U. S., vol. 1 . 
 
150 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII 
 
 .- 
 
 for this virtue has always belonged to the North American Indian 
 he prefers death to slavery, and has often pined away and speedily 
 died, like other wild creatures, when deprived of freedom. 
 
 Four or five years later, another expedition sailed from Hispaniola, 
 Expedition which Ayllon certainly commanded in person, and from 
 vwque which he never returned. It consisted of several ships, car- 
 de Ayuon. rying five hundred soldiers and sailors, and a few women. 1 
 Taking the Jordan as the starting point, the coast was explored as far 
 north as Maryland, and some expeditions were made inland. 2 Many 
 were killed by the Indians ; many more died from sickness, and among 
 them Ayllon himself, till only one hundred and fifty, out of the 
 original company of six hundred, were left to return to Hispaniola. 
 
 But the most that any of these adventurers did was to penetrate the 
 country a short distance, to traffic a little with natives when they hap- 
 
 Straits of Magellan. 
 
 pened to be in the mood, and more often to retire before them when 
 
 they opposed the landing or the stay of the intruders. Mean- 
 
 cortez in while, on the other side of the Gulf, Cortez had penetrated 
 
 into Mexico, and the spirit of adventure, the dreams of 
 
 boundless wealth, the hopes of brilliant conquest, received a new and 
 
 intense impulse by his success. " To the South, to the South," wrote 
 
 Peter Martyr, " For the great and exceeding riches of the JEquinoc- 
 
 tiall, they that seeke riches must not goe vnto the cold and frozen 
 
 North." 
 
 1 The earlier authors differ as to whether there were three or six ships, and whether they 
 ailed in 1524, 1525, or 1526. 
 
 2 On the Portuguese Map of Ribero, 1529, the Land of Ayllon " Tierra de Ayllon," 
 covers the present States of Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland. 
 
1525.] VOYAGE OF ESTAVAN GOMEZ. 151 
 
 And the hoped-for passage to the East was not forgotten. Rich 
 as was the booty in Mexico and Central America, it was as nothing 
 to the splendid acquisition of India, if only the short way by sea 
 could be discovered. Magellan had passed by the Straits to which 
 he gave his name into the Pacific Ocean, but nothing was gained 
 thereby over the older route round the Cape of Good Hope. With 
 that great navigator had sailed, as pilot of one of his ships, Stephen 
 Gomez, a Portuguese by birth, but then serving in Spain. He had 
 deserted Magellan soon after entering the Straits, 1 but does not seem, 
 therefore, to have been held in any less estimation in Spain, as he was, 
 with Cabot, the pilot-major, Ferdinand Columbus, and other eminent 
 cosmographers, one of the Council of Badajos, appointed in 1524 to 
 settle the conflicting claims of Spain and Portugal to the New World. 
 
 In February, 1525, Gomez sailed under a royal commission to find 
 a passage to Cathay, which he believed was somewhere be- Estavan Q^ 
 tween Florida and the Bacallaos, or Newfoundland. As he ^t of' "* 
 was absent about ten months, he had ample time to explore c - s - 1625 - 
 the whole Atlantic coast of the present United States. He sailed 
 from North to South to about the latitude of New York, but at what 
 point he first touched the continent, into what bays and rivers he may 
 have entered, there is no positive record. 2 He brought home a cargo 
 of the natives to be sold as slaves, and an anecdote in relation to them, 
 repeated from book to book for three hundred and fifty years, has 
 chiefly preserved the memory of this expedition. So great was the 
 anxiety to be assured that the passage to India had been discovered, 
 that one inquirer, carried away by zeal and enthusiasm, when he 
 learned that Gomez had returned with a cargo of slaves (esclavos), 
 mistaking the word, hurried to the court with the glorious news that 
 the ships were laden with cloves (clavos), and must therefore have 
 found their way to the Spice Islands of the East. "But after 
 the court vnderstoode," says the faithful chronicler, Peter Gomez- 
 Martyr, " that the tale was transformed from cloues to slaues 
 (clavos to esclavos), they brake foorth into a great laughter, to the 
 shame and blushinge of the fauorers who shouted for joy." 
 
 A more formidable and more disastrous attempt than any of these 
 to take possession of the country was made in 1528 by Pam- 
 philo de Narvaez. He sailed from Spain in 1527 under a xtr^ei. 
 commission from the Emperor, Charles V., with five ships 
 
 1 That the Gomez who explored the coast of the United States in 1525, and the Gomez 
 who deserted Magellan, are identical, is generally accepted as without question. But Piga- 
 fetta, in his relation of the Magellan voyage, calls the Gomez of that fleet, not Estevan 
 but Emanuel. See Pigafetta, in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, vol. xi. 
 
 2 On the Ribero Map, the legend, " Tierra de Estevan Gomez," is written across that re- 
 gion now occupied by the Middle and Northern Atlantic States of the Union. 
 
152 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII 
 
 and about five hundred men ; but delays occurring in the West Indies, 
 where lie passed the following winter, he made a second start in March, 
 
 
 1528, with four ships and a 
 brigantine, carrying four hun- 
 dred men and eighty horses. 
 Two days before Easter he 
 landed in or near Tampa Bay, 1 
 and prepared at once to ad- 
 vance into the country. In a 
 reconnoissance along the coast 
 they came upon a little Indian ciavos and 
 
 village, where they found some bodies in a sort of mummified condi- 
 tion, the sacred remains, no doubt, of the ancestors or the chiefs of the 
 tribe. The officer in command chose to assume this preservation of the 
 dead as a kind of idolatry, and ordered them to be burned, and the 
 outrage was a sufficient warning to the natives of the treatment they 
 might expect from such invaders. 
 
 Alvar Nunez Cabec,a de Vaca, a Spaniard of noble birth, was the 
 treasurer of the expedition and its voluntary historian. 2 He protested 
 earnestly against the mad project of Narvaez to leave the coast, cer- 
 tain, he said, that were that done, he " would never more find the 
 ships, nor the ships him." Nevertheless he determined to follow his 
 captain rather than be left in command of the fleet, lest his courage 
 
 1 Bancroft ; compare Buckingham Smith in notes to Letters of DP. Soto. 
 
 2 The Relation of Alvar Nunez Cabe^a de Vaca, is a minute narrative of this expedition 
 and his own strange personal adventures. An admirable translation of it was made by the 
 iate Buckingham Smith. 
 
 
 
1528.] DISASTROUS EXPEDITION OF NARVAEZ. 153 
 
 should be called in question. The marching force consisted of three 
 hundred men, forty of whom were mounted. Each man car- 
 ried two pounds of biscuit and half a pound of bacon, and Narvarzinto 
 with this slender store of provision they plunged into an un- 
 known wilderness, where their first act had already been one sure to 
 provoke hostilities from its savage people. Their rations, with such 
 fruit of the palmetto as they could pick up by the way, supported them 
 for the first fifteen days, and then the fear of starvation was added to 
 the other difficulties which they began to understand. Toiling on 
 through swamps and forests, wading the lagoons, crossing rivers by 
 swimming and on temporary rafts, harassed continually by an enemy 
 with whom suddenness and secrecy of attack were the first arts of 
 war, their courage and their hopes were only sustained by some vague 
 reports from prisoners of gold to be found in a distant district called 
 Apalachen. 1 
 
 They had started on the 1st of May ; on the 25th of June a mis- 
 erable village was reached of forty houses, in the middle of a dense 
 swamp, from which the Indians had fled leaving behind only the 
 women and children. This was Apalachen, and they gave thanks to 
 God, believing that " here would be an end to their great hardships." 
 The village they took without resistance, and in it found maize to 
 satisfy their hunger ; the woods around abounded with game, had 
 they had the skill to take it ; and gold, they believed, was plentiful. 
 But hardly had they laid off the heavy armor from their galled and 
 weary backs, when the Indians attacked them and burnt the wigwams 
 in which they had taken shelter, provocation being first given, as 
 usual, by the Spaniards, who held a cacique as prisoner who had come 
 to them as a friend. 
 
 Their great need of rest and the time required to examine the 
 country round about for gold, detained them twenty-five days in Apa- 
 lachen. But no gold was to be found, and but little maize ; in all 
 that district this miserable village of forty houses was the largest ; the 
 people were not numerous, were very savage, and very poor. Steal- 
 ing out from their lurking-places in the neighboring swamps, they so 
 harassed the Spaniards that one could not venture from the camp so 
 short a distance as to lead a horse to water, that an arrow would not 
 whiz through the bushes from an unseen foe. Thus sore beset with 
 hunger, disease, and danger, all their hopes of sudden wealth de- 
 stroyed, they resolved at length to make their way to the sea. 
 
 In a march of twelve or fifteen days they fought their way to the 
 
 1 At the head-waters of the Apalacha River are the Apalachian Mountains of Georgia, 
 to which probably the Indians referred, while the Spaniards understood them to mean the 
 village near its mouth. 
 
154 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 coast. Well nigh worn out they lay down upon the sands in sore 
 perplexity and distress, behind them a country they could not live 
 in, before them a sea over which there was but one way to escape. 
 Building the They must build vessels ; but they " knew not how to con- 
 yesseis. struct, nor were there tools, nor iron, nor forge, nor tow, nor 
 resin, nor rigging ; . . . . nor any man who had a knowledge 
 of their manufacture ; and, above all, there was nothing to eat while 
 
 Return to the Beach 
 
 building, for those who should labor." But invention is sometimes 
 born of despair. A soldier undertook to make a pair of bellows with 
 pipes of hollow wood and deerskins, and his example was emulated 
 by others. The cross-bows, the stirrups, the spurs, and whatever else 
 they had of iron, were beaten into nails, into axes, saws, and other 
 needful tools. With these they contrived to build five boats, each 
 more than thirty feet in length, the seams of which they caulked with 
 the fibre of the palmetto, and pitched with pine rosin ; cordage was 
 made of the tails and manes of the horses ; the sails from the shirts 
 of the men. Every three days a horse was killed for food, while the 
 boats were building, the skin of the legs taken off whole to be used 
 when tanned as water-bottles. Besides the horse-flesh they fed upon 
 shell-fish and such maize as, through hard fighting, they could get 
 from the Indians. 
 
 At this place forty of the men died of disease and hunger, besides 
 suffering of those who had been killed in their contests with the savages, 
 the men. ft j^ one o { ^he horses had been slaughtered and eaten, 
 and for that reason they called the spot Bahia de Caballos, or the Bay 
 
1528.] CABECA DE VACA. 155 
 
 of the Horses. 1 On the 22d of September, almost five months from 
 the time of their departure from the spot, nearly three hundred miles 
 distant, where they first landed, the wretched fugitives embarked 
 upon their frail boats, loading them down almost to the gunwales, 
 and pushed out into the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 They crept slowly along the coast for weeks, hoping to reach the 
 Spanish colony of Panuco on the western shore of the gulf. Endur- 
 ing always the extremity of suffering from cold, and wet, and hunger, 
 they were buffetted when on the sea by storms, and repulsed by the 
 Indians when they attempted a landing. At length the boats parted 
 company. First the governor refused to throw a rope to the men of 
 Cabe^a de Vaca, of whom only one or two were able to lift an oar, 
 saying the time had come when each man must take care of himself. 
 Then a storm parted the others, and De Vaca's boat was driven upon 
 the beach of an island. 2 To get off again the next day the men 
 stripped to the skin, as it was necessary to wade into the water to dig 
 the boat out of the sand and once more set her afloat. But when this 
 was done and they had jumped aboard, the surf again upset her before 
 they had time to resume their clothing. Some were drowned ; those 
 
 Upset in the Surf. 
 
 who were not were left as absolutely naked and destitute as they came 
 into the world, for not one thing in the boat was recovered. For- 
 tunately the Indians were humane and pitiful, making fires to warm 
 
 1 The Bahia de Caballos is probably the present harbor of St. Marks. 
 
 2 Cabeca de Vaca called this island Mathado misfortune. Its locality is uncertain, 
 but it may have been the island of Galveston. Buckingham Smith is entirely at a loss to 
 identify it. Fairbanks (History of Florida] thinks it was the islaud of Santa Rosa. 
 
156 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 the half frozen and famished bodies of the strangers, giving them food 
 from their own scanty stores. In a few days these were joined by 
 companions from another boat, who had also been wrecked not far 
 distant. The company now numbered eighty. Exposure, starvation, 
 and sickness, soon decided the fate of most of them, though some 
 prolonged their lives awhile by feeding on those who were the first 
 to die. Before the winter was over, only fifteen of the eighty were 
 left alive. The governor and all his boat-load had been driven out 
 to sea, and perished soon after he had refused assistance to his follow- 
 ers in distress. 
 
 A few of the adventurers in the other boats had saved themselves 
 in other places, but one after another they all, except four, had died 
 miserably, some killed by the Indians, who had mads them their 
 slaves, some dying of starvation, some from exposure and disease. 
 The four survivors, by name Cabeqa de Vaca, Dorantes, Cas- 
 vaeaandhis tello, and Estevanico, the last a negro, wandered from tribe 
 to tribe for six years, held sometimes in the cruelest slavery, 
 and sometimes carrying on a petty traffic with the natives, in combs, 
 in bows, arrows, and fishing-nets of their own making. Their food 
 was chiefly the fruit of the prickly pear, roots, and nuts ; what little 
 venison they occasionally received from the Indians they ate raw, for 
 only thus could their weakened stomachs digest it. They always went 
 naked, and " twice a year," says Cabec,a de Vaca, " we cast our skins 
 like a serpent." In later years they gained influence and power among 
 the Indians by acting as physicians, working, he declares, the most 
 marvellous cures simply by reciting pater nosters and by making the 
 sign of the cross, till they came to be held in great reverence and fear. 
 
 Thus slowly and painfully they made their way, wandering to 
 and fro through forests and swamps, over prairies and deserts, ex- 
 posed to the summer's heat and the winter's cold, across the present 
 State of Texas, through the Mexican province of Sonoi'a, to the sea 
 coast of the other side of the continent on the Gulf of California. 
 
 There they found and were succored by their countrymen, who 
 had already invaded that country in search of emeralds, of gold, 
 and of slaves, and speedily returned to Spain, heroes of an adventure 
 as remarkable and as romantic as any recorded in the Spanish annals 
 of North America. 
 
 There arrived in Spain about the same time with Cabeca de Vaca 
 iiernando one wuo ^ ia< ^ been engaged in quite a different sort of ser- 
 iesoto. vice. This was Hernando de Soto, who had followed Pizarro 
 to Peru, and shared with him his dangers and his success. Leaving 
 Spain like so many others " with nothing but blade and buckler," he 
 had come back with wealth to further his ambition for the acquisition 
 
 
1538.] 
 
 IIERXANDO DE SOTO. 
 
 Io7 
 
 of some new country where he should be the leader and not a subaltern 
 merely. The disastrous result of every expedition to Florida thus far 
 had not shaken the belief among the adventurous Spaniards in the 
 value of the country, and that somewhere in the interior were riches 
 such as had been gathered in marvellous abundance in other parts 
 of the New World. De Soto appeared at court with a numerous 
 baud of followers in gorgeous apparel and other lavish display of the 
 wealth he had acquired in Peru, and asked that authority to take pos- 
 session of Florida, with a commission as Adelantado, be 
 given him. The announcement of his intentions was re- 
 ceived with the utmost enthusiasm. Gentlemen of birth Flori(U - 
 and position flocked from all parts of Spain to his standard, eager 
 to serve under so gallant and re- 
 nowned a leader, and in an adven- 
 ture which he thought so hopeful as 
 to be willing to risk in it his fortune, 
 his fame, and his life. Some came 
 even from Portugal, and they seemed 
 better to understand the character 
 of the enterprise. For when De 
 Soto mustered his men at San Lucar 
 the Spaniards appeared " in doublets 
 and cassocks of silk, pinckt and em- 
 broidered," as if about to start on 
 a holiday excursion, while " the 
 Portuguese were in the equipage of 
 soldiers in neat armor." l But so 
 strong was the desire to go with him that men parted with their 
 estates to buy an interest and an outfit in this new expedition ; and 
 the excitement was not a little increased by the story of Cabe9a de 
 Vaca, who on his return had also asked to be made Adelantado of 
 Florida. It was thought he could tell, if he would, wonderful tales of 
 the richness, in many pi-ecious things, of the region where he had en- 
 dured so much, and out of which he had come literally as naked as 
 he came into the world. 
 
 De Soto went prepared for conquest and colonization. His force 
 was between six and seven hundred men some say a thousand 
 
 1 A Relation of the Invasion and Conquest of Florida ly the Spaniards, nnder the Command 
 of Fernando de Soto. Written in Portuguese by a Gentleman of the Town of the Elvas. This 
 is the original and the fullest and most trustworthy narrative of the expedition of De Soto 
 There have been several translations, the first by Hakluyt (vol. iii.), and the last by 
 Buckingham Smith, published by the Bradford Club. We rely mainly on the Relation 
 but comparing Garcilaso de Vega, Biedma, and Herrera. 
 
 De Soto. 
 
158 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 with, perhaps, a few women ; among them were a number of priests 
 Preparations w ^h all the paraphernalia of their office, and mechanics with 
 "" tne instruments of their trades. 1 The fleet consisted of nine 
 vessels, ships, caravels, and pinnaces ; and besides their 
 human freight they carried between two and three hundred horses. 
 
 Florida. 
 
 
 
 4H 
 
 stujViiH 
 
 1 i 
 
 i, - - 
 
 vtx, 
 
 M 
 
 i f *. 
 
 Ss^-f ._-- ^^-~^^^= r , 
 
 
 m'^^^i 
 
 /i r 
 
 The ad- 
 
 The Muster at San Lucar. 
 
 a large herd of swine, and a number of bloodhounds, the most efficient 
 ally of the Spaniards in the conquest of the New World. The em- 
 peror appointed De Soto governor of Cuba, that he might easily ob- 
 tain supplies for the new colony, and every possible facility thus be 
 given to the enterprise. After a year's preparation in 
 Spain and the West Indies the expedition sailed at last 
 f rO Qp Havana on the 18th of May, 1539, and on the 30th 
 the troops were landed at Tampa Bay. 
 
 From Tampa Bay the adventurers inarched into the interior, pur- 
 suing substantially the same route as Narvaez about eleven years 
 before. Within the first few days De Soto had the good fortune to 
 meet with a Spaniard who had been captured from one of the ships 
 of that earlier expedition by the Indians, and in his long captivity 
 had become familiar with their language. The romantic story of 
 storv of John Smith and Pocahontas was in part anticipated in the 
 juan Ortiz, experience of this man, Juan Ortiz. When first captured 
 by a band whose chief was named Ucita, 2 he was bound hand and 
 
 1 De Biedma's narrative. Herrcra says, nine hundred beside the sailors, three hundred 
 and thirty horses and three hundred hogs. 
 
 2 Portwjni'ai' Relation. Herrera calls him Harrihiagua, the name of his village. 
 
1539.] 
 
 ADVENTURES OF JUAN ORTIZ. 
 
 159 
 
 foot to stakes, stretched at length upon a scaffolding beneath which 
 a fire was kindled. The smoke had enwreathed the victim and the 
 forked flames were leaping to seize the naked flesh, when the intended 
 holocaust was suddenly interrupted by the prayers of a daughter of 
 the chief. She besought her father to spare the life of the Christian ; 
 one such, she urged, if he could do no good at least could do no harm ; 
 and she made a cunning appeal to the vanity of the chief by suggesting 
 how great a distinction it would be to hold a white man as a captive. 
 Her prayers were listened to ; Ortiz was lifted from the scaffold and 
 unbound, to serve thenceforth as a slave. What the feeling was which 
 the sight of the pale stranger had aroused in the bosom of the dusky 
 maiden, or what the relation which may have afterward existed be- 
 tween them, we are not told ; but whether it was on her part mere 
 pity for a stranger, or a tenderer and deeper sentiment, it was not 
 forgotten. Three years later Ucita was defeated in a petty war with 
 
 Sacrifice of Juan Ortiz. 
 
 another chieftain, and there was danger that Ortiz would be sacrificed 
 to propitiate the devil whose anger, Ucita believed, had brought this 
 misfortune upon him and his people. Then the princess came again 
 to the rescue of the stranger and saved him from probable death. 
 Warning him of his danger, and leading him secretly and alone in 
 the night-time beyond the boundaries of her father's village, she put 
 him in the way to find the camp of the victorious chieftain who had 
 just triumphed over her father and would protect, she knew, the 
 Christian slave. 
 
160 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 Ortiz, when years afterwards he heard that his countrymen had 
 arrived in Florida, was glad enough to welcome them, while he did not 
 forget that he had some cause of gratitude to his Indian friends. As 
 a horseman i-ode at him, not distinguishing him from the savages, lie 
 cried out : " Do not kill me, cavalier ; I am a Christian ! Do not 
 slay these people ; they have given me my life ! " Fortunately his 
 appeal was heard in time, and to him the expedition was more in- 
 debted than to any other man, next to De Soto himself ; for through 
 him alone was it possible to hold any intelligent communication with 
 the Indians, whether for peace or war. His death, which occurred 
 not long before that of the governor, was a source of deep perplexity 
 and " a great cross to his designs." 
 
 When De Soto turned his face inward he sent his ships back to 
 The march Cuba for provisions to return at an appointed time. The 
 inland. army toiled painfully through the woods and swamps of 
 Florida from spring till autumn. The provisions they brought with 
 them were soon exhausted, and the country afforded them but little 
 support. They heard, as Narvaez did before them, of Apalachen 
 where gold abounded ; and when they reached the spot where, ap- 
 palled by the difficulties before him and the poverty of the country 
 round about, he had turned to the sea for refuge, so also the courage 
 of De Soto's men gave way and they entreated him to return. But 
 the governor declared he would never go back till he had seen with 
 his own eyes the dangers in store for them if any there were. 
 
 The first winter was passed in the neighborhood of Apalachen 
 Bay, and the point where Narvaez had built his boats and whence he 
 started on his fatal voyage. Communication was held with Cuba ; 
 arrangements were made for a future supply of provisions, and 
 twenty Indian women were sent as slaves to Dona Isabella, De 
 Soto's wife, as an earnest of good things to come. 
 
 In the spring they pushed northward, and in April they were still 
 only about three hundred miles from Tampa Bay. To the 
 th unhappy natives their march was as the march of a pesti- 
 lence. The news of their coming was the signal for war. 
 The cacique of every tribe they met was compelled to pay tribute in 
 maize ; to supply them with as many men as were needed for per- 
 sonal attendants and as carriers of burdens from the boundaries of 
 one tribe to those of another ; and that the service might be faithfully 
 done, these slaves were chained in couples, neck to neck. The women 
 they took both for servants and mistresses, following therein the ex- 
 ample of the governor, who consoled himself for the absence of the 
 Dofia Isabella by the possession of not less than two of the comely 
 Indian girls, the daughters of caciques or others, as best suited his 
 
 t 
 
1540.] DE SOTO IN FLORIDA. 161 
 
 inclination. What was not granted through fear or good-will was 
 taken by the strong hand ; and in either case the result was the 
 same subjection and cruelty. A messenger whose message was not 
 pleasing carried back for answer to his master the bloody stumps of 
 his severed hands ; amusement was combined with punishment by 
 setting up prisoners as targets to be shot at with arrows. 
 
 Maize they now often found in abundance in the fields and gran- 
 aries of the Indians. They took it, or it was given to them Want of 
 it mattered little which. But they suffered, especially food - 
 the sick, for the need of salt and meat, though game, in the season, 
 was plenty and the natives never wanted for it. The woods were 
 alive with deer, with wild turkeys, and partridges ; ducks covered the 
 ponds ; the rivers were full of fish ; but the Spaniards lacked the 
 skill either to entrap or to kill any wild thing except an Indian. 
 When in extremity, the adventurers fed upon the hogs which had 
 been produced in great numbers from the drove brought from Cuba, 
 and which had thriven on the plentiful mast of the forest ; nor did 
 the hungry soldiers disdain to eat the native dogs whenever they 
 could get them. But it was always war, and always a struggle for 
 existence, while the gold they were searching for they only heard of 
 and always in some province yet to be reached. Their hopes were 
 fed, however, by the possession of great quantities of pearls fed, 
 though not satisfied. 
 
 In April of the second spring there came to meet the governor an 
 Indian queen, or cacica, who was brought to the bank of a 
 
 i i-^ V t C-L. l V-- A DeSotoand 
 
 river, carried in a litter by four of her principal subjects. A the Indian 
 barge, over whose stern was a canopy supported by a lance, 
 and beneath which was spread a carpet and cushions, awaited her. 
 On meeting the governor she took from her own neck a heavy 
 string of pearls and threw it over his, presenting him beside with 
 mantles of feathers and thread made from the bark of trees. Offering 
 these, with many protestations of welcome and good will, and observ- 
 ing the eagerness with which the Spaniards received the pearls, and 
 how great a value they put upon them, she told them they could be 
 found in large quantities in the graves of the villages. These were 
 speedily rifled, and though three hundred and fifty pounds weight 
 were gathered at one time, they proved of little value, as they had 
 been bored by some heated implement, and had lost their lustre. Nev- 
 ertheless they were pearls, and the hopes and the cupidity of the Span- 
 iards were excited accordingly. 
 
 In the province of this cacica many of the people would have been 
 glad to remain and found a colony. But De Soto, who was an u in- 
 flexible man and dry of word.*' willing enough to listen to advice but 
 
 VOL. I. 11 
 
162 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. Vll 
 
 seldom taking it, determined to push on ; and there were never want- 
 ing those among the Indians who were ready to answer his eager 
 
 inquiries for gold with most satisfactory state- 
 ments, anxious to see him depart in further 
 search. To the cacica, who gave him not only 
 pearls and mantles, but much provision, he 
 made a return not unusual with him for gen- 
 erosity and kindness. He retained her as a 
 captive, and made slaves and beasts of burden 
 of her subjects ; but she was wary enough to 
 
 evade the vigi- 
 lance of her 
 guards Egcape of 
 and es- tneca<tic - 
 cape into the 
 woods, taking 
 with her a box 
 full of pearls 
 which were said 
 to be of great 
 value. Her peo- 
 ple were the 
 most civilized of 
 any of the Flo- 
 ridians that De 
 Soto met with in 
 his three years' 
 march, for they 
 
 wore shoes and clothing made from skins which they dressed and 
 colored with great skill, and adorned themselves with mantles, made 
 of feathers, or in a textile fabric of some woody fibre. The cacica's 
 village was only two days' journey from the sea the Atlantic coast 
 at the point where Ayllon had landed nearly twenty years before. 
 The Indians cherished a dagger and some beads, perhaps a rosary, 
 which they said came from some of Ayllon's men. 
 
 From the province of the cacica the invaders marched northwest, 
 and, in the course of the summer, reached the neighborhood of the 
 Appalachian chain. They had seen among the Indians some little 
 tlxes f copper which were supposed to contain a mixture of 
 g y . anc j tne p rocess O f smeltirg ores, as practised among 
 the people where they were mined, was described with great accuracy. 
 Had the Spaniards pushed forward at the point they had now reached 
 they would have found what they were in search of, though not in 
 
 The Indian Queen. 
 
 indications 
 of gold. 
 
1540.J 
 
 DE SOTO AT MAVILLA. 
 
 163 
 
 large quantities. But an exploring party pronounced the mountains 
 impassable, and fortunately for the natives, whose fate, in case of dis- 
 covery would have been to gather gold as slaves, or resistance to 
 death, the Spaniards lacked either the skill or the diligence to trace 
 the evidences of the existence of metals. De Soto therefore turned 
 south again with his little army of marauders, and wandered the rest 
 of the summer in the valleys of the streams emptying into Mobile 
 Bay. 
 
 In October they reached Mavilla, a village which has given its 
 name to the river and city of Mobile. The country round about, as 
 well as that through which they had been wandering for weeks, was 
 populous, and they 
 had done nothing 
 to conciliate, every 
 thing to exasperate 
 the natives. Ma- 
 villa was a place of 
 importance, con- 
 taining many 
 houses, and sur- 
 rounded with pal- 
 isades ; it was soon 
 evident that its 
 possession was not 
 to be yielded with- 
 out a Struggle. Palisaded Town. [From De Bry.) 
 
 The governor and a few attendants entered ; the cacique, who was 
 with him, took refuge in a house, and, deaf both to entreaties and 
 threats, defied him. It was easy enough to provoke an outbreak. 
 A Spaniard replied to some haughty words from a chief by laying his 
 back open with a cutlass, and all the Indians sprung to their ^ Me with 
 bows and arrows. Every house was an ambuscade, and be- the natITes - 
 fore the Christians could fly to the fields five of them were slain. 
 Among those who escaped was De Soto, who, forming his troops, 
 at once invested the town, and led the assault, the soldiers carrying 
 their arms in one hand and a torch in the other. The defence was 
 brave, desperate, and useless. A contest between naked savages and 
 men, many of whom were mounted, and all were in armor, was 
 rather a hunting-chase than a battle. Twenty-five hundred of the 
 Indians were speedily put to the sword, or were driven to torture 
 and death by suffocation in the smoke and flames of their own 
 houses ; of the Spaniards, eighteen only were killed, and one hun- 
 dred and fifty received arrow wounds from which they quickly recov- 
 
164 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 ered. 1 Their most serious loss was of the propei'ty destroyed by the 
 fire, for at the first desperate onset, before the Spaniards had time to 
 rally, the chains of the captives were stricken off and their burdens 
 taken within the palisades. 
 
 De Soto was now, as he learned from the Indians, within six days of 
 Pensacola (Ochuse), where some of his ships awaited news of him. 
 But he concealed the fact from his own men, lest they should desert 
 him, and held no communication with the ships, for he preferred that 
 as yet there should be no tidings sent to Cuba of the expedition. His 
 pearls, the only thing of value he had found, were all lost ; he had 
 little else to report than continued misfortune, and that in his two 
 years' wanderings he had lost more than a hundred men. After a 
 month's stay at Mavilla, he again moved farther into the interior till 
 he reached the upper part of the State of Mississippi, where he went 
 The span- " ltiO winter quarters on the banks of the Yazoo River. The 
 wii'rte? int country was populous, and the maize was plentiful; there 
 quarters. was ^ therefore, no lack of food. But the cold was severe, 
 the snow covered the ground, and whether on the march or in camp 
 hostilities with the Indians never ceased. There was constant aggres- 
 sion on one side ; constant retaliation on the other. In March a night 
 attack was made upon the camp of the Spaniards which was more 
 disastrous to them than the fight at Mavilla. All that was saved 
 from the burning at that place was lost in this. Twelve Spaniards 
 were killed , fifty horses and four hundred hogs perished in the flames ; 
 while on the other side the loss was only one man and one woman. 
 In the confusion and suddenness of the attack and the fire, the soldiers 
 lost nearly all their clothing, as well as their arms, saddles, and other 
 property, leaving them for some days so destitute and miserable, that, 
 " had the Indians," says the narrative, " returned the second night, 
 they might, with little effort, have overpowered us." 2 The losses, 
 however, were in a few days repaired, so far as was possible, by the 
 forging of new swords and the making of new spears and saddles. 
 Skins had to be substituted for clothing, and mats of dried grass for 
 blankets. 
 
 In the course of the spring and summer the army crossed the State 
 of Mississippi diagonally from the southeast to the northwest corner 
 till they reached the great river the Mississippi, which the Span- 
 iards called the Rio Grande at about the thirty-fifth degree of lat- 
 itude, or the boundary line between the States of Mississippi and Ten- 
 
 1 Portuguese Relation. Herrera says (Decade IV., book vii., chap. 4) that the Spanish 
 loss was eighty-three men, and that of the Indians eleven thousand, four thousand of whom 
 were burnt to death. 
 
 a Portuguese Relation. 
 
1541.] 
 
 DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 
 
 165 
 
 
 
 
 nessee. " This river in that place was half a league over, so that a 
 man could not be distinguished from one side to the other ; 
 it was very deep and very rapid, and being always full of 
 trees and timber that was carried down by the force of the 
 stream, the water was thick and very muddy. It abounded with 
 fish, most of which differed much from those that are taken in the 
 rivers of Spain." Boats were necessary to cross, and it took a month 
 to build them. 
 
 A great cacique, Aquixo, was lord of the country on the other side 
 of the Mississippi, and in a day or two he approached to meet Vi<it of the 
 the strangers. He name with an imposing array of two hun- cac " ue - 
 dred canoes, filled with armed men, a part of whom stood up to pro- 
 tect the rowers with feathered shields, but all with their bodies and 
 faces painted, their heads adorned with plumes of many colors. The 
 
 
 cacique and other chiefs were sheltered 
 
 under awnings. " The canoes were 
 
 most neatly made and very large, and, 
 
 with their pavilions, feathers, shields, 
 
 and standards, looked like a fleet of 
 
 galleys." They brought presents of 
 
 fish and fruit and bread, and came, they said, to welcome and do 
 
 homage to the strangers. But the strangers chose to believe that 
 
 they had a hostile purpose ; when they hesitated to land the Span- 
 
 Fleet of the Cacique. 
 
166 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VIL 
 
 iards killed five or six of them for such a want of confidence, and 
 others who attempted to make a landing they fell upon as coming 
 with evil intent. 
 
 When the boats were finished the army crossed without opposition. 
 For a few days they kept along the west bank of the river, making 
 their way with difficulty through the forest and wet bottom lands, and 
 harassed by constant attacks from the Indians. But they reached, ere 
 long, a higher and dryer country, where they remained for more than 
 a month, and where they found artificial hills, on which the caciques 
 piety of the sometimes put their houses. 1 On one of these De Soto set 
 Spaniards. U p a cross wnen two blind men were brought to him to be 
 cured, and instead of healing he gave a homily to the assembled 
 heathen on the mystery of the atonement. The simple natives knelt 
 in imitation of the Spaniards at the foot of the cross, and De Soto 
 admonished them "to honor and adore it, and demand of the Lord 
 who was in Heaven all that they might stand in need of." Not long 
 after De Soto accepted as a present from a chief his two sisters, " both 
 handsome and well-shaped," with a request that the governor would 
 make them his wives. But women with that tribe were as cheap as 
 morality was with the Spaniards ; they were purchased for a shirt a 
 piece. 
 
 It is not clear how far north and west the expedition marched dur- 
 ing this summer, as the narratives are obscure and sometimes con- 
 flicting. While the larger part of the force remained through a por- 
 tion of June and all of July in the neighborhood of the Mississippi, 
 a reconnoitering party was sent into the interior, which when 
 limit of the it returned almost in a starving condition, reported that the 
 country was poor and barren. They learned that further 
 north there were very few people, but many cattle bisons. The 
 robes of these animals they procured at different times from the 
 Indians, " which were very convenient against the cold of that country 
 because they made a good furr, the hair of them being as soft as 
 sheep's wool." But the progress of the main body seems to have been 
 generally south west ward, crossing the St. Francis and the White 
 rivers, marching through a country fertile, well-watered, and thickly 
 inhabited, as far as the present site of Little Rock, in Arkansas. 
 They found and used the saline springs of that State, and finally went 
 into winter quarters on the banks of a river which may have been 
 
 1 " The caciques of this country make a custom of raising, near their dwellings, very high 
 hills, on which they sometimes build their huts. On one of these we planted the cross, and 
 went with much devotion on our knees to kiss the foot of it." A Narrative of the Expedi- 
 tion of Hernando de Soto. By Luis Hernandez de Biedma. Historical Collections of Loui 
 tana. By B. F. French, 1850, p. 105. These hills were no doubt the "mounds" of the 
 earlier people, but which the Spaniards naturally supposed were raised by the Indians. 
 
1542.] DEATH OF DE SOTO. 167 
 
 either the White or the Arkansas. Near by, the Indians had re- 
 ported, was a great lake which, it was supposed, might be an arm of 
 the sea ; and De Soto hoped to reopen communication in the spring 
 with Cuba, and procure reinforcements, of which he was in great need. 
 He had lost in his three years' wanderings two hundred and fifty men 
 and one hundred and fifty horses ; and since his first winter at Ap- 
 palachee Bay no tidings had been sent to the Dona Isabella whether 
 he were alive or dead. 
 
 That he was dead was to be her next news of him. With the 
 spring the march was resumed, and its sole object now was to reach 
 the sea. Communication with the Indians had become more difficult, 
 for Ortiz had died in the course of the winter. The Indians, obser- 
 ving the weakness and perplexities of the Spaniards, were more defiant 
 than any of their tribes had hitherto been. A haughty cacique sent 
 word to De Soto that his boast of being the son of the Sun would be 
 accepted when he was seen to dry up the great river ; that meanwhile 
 it was not the custom of him who sent this message to visit inferiors ; 
 if the stranger wished to see him he was always at home ; if he came 
 in peace he would find a welcome ; if with hostile intentions the chief 
 was equally ready for him. De Soto was in no condition to punish or 
 resent this defiance. An expedition that was sent down the river t< 
 find the sea, returned and reported that in eight days journey they 
 could make but little progress, for the country was full of swamps and 
 dense forests, and that the river with many bends ran far up into the 
 land. 
 
 Worn down with hardships, anxiety, disappointment, and despair, 
 De Soto sank under this accumulation of misfortunes. Con- p^^ o{ 
 scious of approaching death, he called the principal officers ^ Soto- 
 of the expedition about him. He told them he was dying; he thanked 
 them for the fidelity and affection they had always shown him, and 
 regretted that he had not been able to reward them as he had always 
 hoped to do, and according to their deserts ; he asked pardon of all 
 who believed they had cause of offence against him, and as a last 
 favor he begged they would in his presence choose a leader to take his 
 place, that he might leave them without fear of dissensions to arise 
 after he was gone. They asked him to appoint his own successor, 
 and he named Luis Moscoso de Alvarado, whom they all swore to 
 obey. The next day, the 21st of May, 1542, he died. 
 
 It was thought wise to conceal his death from the Indians, for he 
 had assured them not only that he was the son of the Sun, 
 but that Christians could not die. The new governor ordered iu the Great 
 
 River 
 
 him to be buried secretly in die gateway of the camp. But 
 
 the suspicions of the natives, who had seen him sick, were aroused 
 
168 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. V1L 
 
 He was no longer visible, but they saw a new-made grave, and gath- 
 ering about it looked down with curious eyes and in solemn, whis- 
 pered consultation upon the mysterious heap of earth. Then Moscoso 
 ordered the body to be disinterred with great precaution in the dead 
 of night, and, the mantles in which it was wrapped being made heavy 
 with sand, it was dropped silently and in the darkness in the middle 
 of the deep waters of the Mississippi. And when the cacique of 
 
 Burial of De Soto. 
 
 Guachoya came to Moscoso and said : " What has been done with my 
 brother and lord, the Governor ? " The answer was, " He has ascended 
 into the skies for a little while and will soon be back." l 
 
 Either De Soto misunderstood this Luis de Moscoso or history has 
 Luis de belied him. It is said that he loved a life of ease and gayety 
 MOSCOSO. j n a Christian land, rather than one of toil and hardship 
 and self-denial in the discovery and subjection of strange countries. 
 But whether he believed that longer persistence in an enterprise, 
 now in its fourth year, whose sole fruits had been death and disaster, 
 was foolhardiness, or whether he wanted the enei'gy and boldness to 
 pursue it and achieve success, he decided at once to lead his com- 
 panions back to Cuba if he could find the way. When this was 
 announced and council called to consult as to the best direction to 
 pursue, there were many who were glad that De Soto was quiet in his 
 loaded mantles at the bottom of the great river. With him the enter- 
 prise could have ended only with his and their lives, and they rejoiced 
 that he was taken and they left. 
 
 l Herrera says that the body was inclosed in the trunk of an oak hollowed out for the 
 purpose, and sunk " in the middle of the river, where it was a quarter of a league over 
 and nineteen fathoms deep." 
 
 
1542.] RETREAT OF DE SOTO'S MEN. 169 
 
 The determination was to seek their countrymen, as Cabega de 
 Vaca had done, on the Pacific coast. Through the summer and au- 
 tumn they straggled west and south, east and north, as they The gpan . 
 were led by some vague rumor or vaguer hope. Every- j^Sl^uJ' "* 
 where they inquired the way to the sea ; but they met with Cuba - 
 no Indians who had ever seen it. Everywhere they asked if Chris- 
 tians had not visited that region ; and when the Indians answered, No, 
 they sometimes put them to the torture and extorted false confessions, 
 which only misled the Spaniards with some new delusion. Enemies 
 waylaid them with that stealthiness which only Indians are capable 
 of ; guides misled them with that cunning which the Indian counts 
 as one of his chief virtues ; hunger, sickness, insubordination, con- 
 fusion well nigh bordering on despair, so beset them, that it seemed 
 they could never escape unless God should be pleased to work mira- 
 cles on their behalf. Once more, in the early winter, they turned 
 back to the great river for a last effort to save themselves. 
 
 A few miles above the mouth of the Arkansas, where the timber 
 was the largest they had seen, they built, in the course of Building the 
 the next six months, seven brigantines. The maize which bri K autines - 
 the Indians had stored in two neighboring villages the Spaniards 
 seized for their own support meanwhile. From the chains struck from 
 the slaves, from shot, from their stirrups, and whatever else of iron 
 the camp afforded, they forged the requisite nails and spikes. The 
 bark of the mulberry tree was twisted into cordage, and from the fibre 
 of a plant like hemp they made oakum. The natives supplied them 
 with mantles of matting for sails, and this was held as a special inter- 
 position of Divine Providence, " disposing the Indians to bring the gar- 
 ments ; otherwise there had been no way but to go and fetch them." 
 They did not, however, trust to Providence alone , for when the Chris- 
 tians had, or thought they had, reason to suspect that the Indians were 
 coming with a hostile purpose, under a pretence of bringing presents, 
 they killed some of the messengers, cut off the noses and the hands 
 of others and sent them back to the caciques. This conciliatory 
 measure had the desired effect, and the Indians brought and offered 
 with great eagerness everything in their possession that would hasten 
 the departure of such guests. The maize of which they had been- 
 robbed was the chief food of these poor creatures, and for want of it 
 they would often fall dead " of clear hunger and debility " about the 
 camp where they came to beg. The governor ordered, under heavy 
 penalties, that nothing should be given them to appease their hunger ; 
 but to the credit of his men the orders were not 1'igidly obeyed, for 
 " the Christians, seeing that even the hogs had their bellies full, and 
 that these poor Indians came and took so much pains to serve them r 
 
170 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 and whose extreme misery they could not but pity, charitably gave 
 them of the maes they had, " a weakness they reproached themselves 
 for afterward, when they loaded their vessels with stores for the 
 voyage and had room for more. 
 
 These boats were finished in June. Most of the horses and all the 
 hogs were killed for provisions, and on the 2d of July, 1543, 
 
 down the the expedition, reduced now to three hundred and seventy- 
 Mississippi. 
 
 two persons, embarked for the voyage down the Mississippi. 
 They were seventeen days in reaching the mouth of the river, fighting 
 
 Departure of the Spaniards. 
 
 their way on the water as they had always done on the land, for the 
 Indians grew the more aggressive with the hope that they were seeing 
 the last of the hated white men. Sailing out into the Gulf, pursued 
 to the last moment by the natives, they cruised for fifty days along 
 the coast of Louisiana and Texas, till the}- reached the Spanish colony 
 of Panuco. Haggard, gaunt, half-naked, having only a scanty cover- 
 ing of skins, looking more like wild beasts than men, they kissed the 
 ground when they landed among their countrymen, and " on bended 
 knees, with hands raised above them, and their eyes to heaven re- 
 mained untiring in giving thanks to God." 
 
 But the relation of such hardships as these men endm-ed, fol- 
 lowing upon the almost complete extermination that befell the Nar- 
 vaez expedition, could not deter their countrymen from further ex- 
 plorations in the same direction. It could not be forgotten that a 
 
1559.1 DON TRISTAN DE LUNA. 171 
 
 great country, still in the possession of savage heathens, stretched from 
 the Atlantic coast, along which Gomez, Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, 
 and Ponce de Leon had sailed, to that Western or as it was then 
 called, Southern Ocean, reached by Cabeca de Vaca, and his three 
 companions, after six years' wanderings. De Soto slept quietly, after 
 three years of travel, at the bottom of a river, broad and deep, hun- 
 dreds of miles from its mouth, and no man could tell how far the land 
 watered by it and its tributaries extended. 
 
 So vast a field for enterprise, and so full of magnificent promise, 
 notwithstanding the fate of all who had hitherto entered it, could not 
 long remain neglected. Yet in spite of its inviting name, The Land of 
 Flowers continued most inhospitable to all attempts on the part of the 
 Spaniards to gain a foothold there. An expedition, led by some zeal- 
 ous friars, eager for the conversion of the heathen, landed on its shores* 
 and were massacred as soon as they set foot thereon. Twice within 
 the ten years following De Soto's expedition, a fleet of ships, crowded 
 with adventurers, and richly laden with treasure from Mexico, were 
 wrecked on its coast, and those on board who escaped the perils of 
 the sea were slaughtered by the natives, leaving barely enough alive to 
 tell the story of their disaster. Occasionally a solitary survivor of one 
 of these ill-fated enterprises returned to the Spanish settlements in 
 Mexico, or the West Indies, to recount his romantic adventures. 
 Hardly an expedition, after that of Ponce de Leon had first landed 
 at Florida, failed to meet somewhere among the Indians, a white cap- 
 tive of their own race who had belonged to some previous company of 
 explorers, and who, taken captive by the Indians, had been spared to 
 slavery, after his companions were slain. Their story would be no 
 less romantic than that of Cabeca de Vaca, or of Juan Ortiz, if, like 
 them, it had gained a chronicler. 
 
 It was exactly twenty years after the imposing departure of De Soto 
 from San Lucar, that a fleet of still larger size, and no less 
 magnificence than his, was fitted up at Vera Cruz, in Mexico, of DonTris- 
 for the conquest and settlement of Florida. It was com- 
 manded by Don Tristan de Luna, a scion of a noble family in Arragon, 
 whose father was for several years a governor of Yucatan. He sailed 
 from Vera Cruz on the 14th of August, 1559, with an army of 1500 
 men, besides many friars zealous for the conversion of the Indians, 
 and a number of women and children, the families of the soldiers who 
 were to colonize Florida. They had a prosperous voyage to a good 
 harbor, which they named the Santa Maria. 1 Here they anchored 
 the ships, and Don Tristan prepared to send news of his arrival back 
 
 1 Hist. qfFlorida,by G. R. Fairbanks, says this was Peusacola Bay, as the old Spanish 
 maps gave the Bay as the Santa Maria 
 
172 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 to the viceroy. But the accustomed ill- fortune of Spanish adventurers 
 in these parts attended him. On the sixth day after his arrival, 
 a great storm arose, and all his ships were driven on shore and de- 
 stroyed. Left on the land with his great army with no means of return- 
 ing to Mexico, he at once sent out a detachment of soldiers, under his 
 sergeant-major, to explore the country, and seek for the rich provinces 
 of which they had heard, while he remained at the port with the rest 
 of his people. 
 
 The detachment, after a march of forty days through a country 
 empty of people and barren of provisions, reached an Indian 
 
 Exploration i-iii 1-1 -, \ 
 
 of the couu- town, which, although deserted, contained a quantity of corn, 
 beans, and other vegetables. Most of the natives had run 
 away on their approach, but they found a few bolder ones still lurking 
 about the village, and conciliated them with presents of beads and rib- 
 bons. From these they learned that the town had been very large and 
 well peopled, but had been attacked by men like themselves, who had 
 destroyed and driven away the inhabitants. These same strange inva- 
 ders had caused the general desolation of the country, and the abandon- 
 ment of the villages which they had seen on the march. Refreshing 
 himself and his men on the provisions, which seemed abundant, the 
 sergeant-major sent back a party of sixteen to report to De Luna. In 
 their absence, De Luna, who had lost a large part of his provisions in 
 the shipwreck, was greatly distressed for want of food, and anxious for 
 the safety of the sergeant-major. He was preparing to set out in search 
 of him, when his messengers arrived, and he at once started to join 
 the advance with his train of a thousand men, women, and children. 
 Guided by the sixteen soldiers, they reached the Indian town, and for 
 a short time feasted on the food they found there. But the supplies, 
 which had seemed so inexhaustible to the first-comers, were soon con- 
 sumed by the great numbers. The suffering that ensued was most 
 severe. They were forced to eat bitter acorns, and even the bark and 
 leaves of the young trees. A party was sent out again to find if they 
 could discover any relief, or see anything of the rich town of Coqa, 
 of which the Indians told them. These were forced on their inarch 
 to eat their pack-mules, and then the leather of their straps, and 
 their gun-covers. Their lives were preserved by their entrance into 
 a wood of chestnut and walnut trees, where they surfeited themselves 
 on the abundant fruit. 
 
 De Luna awaited their return, till the sight of his people dying of 
 hunger made him resolve to return to the port of Santa Maria. He 
 reached there after much suffering, and was soon followed by the ex- 
 ploring party, who brought back still more unfavorable reports of the 
 sterility and poverty of the country. They had found none of the 
 
 
15G1.] SPANISH FAILURES IN NORTH AMERICA. 173 
 
 noble cities, rich in gold and silver, with people clothed in garments 
 of silk and cloth of the Indies, of which they had heard reports. 
 Instead, they saw only desolate lands, and villages deserted even by 
 the savage inhabitants, who had learned to flee on the approach of 
 the white man. 
 
 At the port De Luna procured two small vessels, either built from 
 the remains of the wreck, or else preserved from the storm 
 which had destroyed the larger ships. These he sent back Luna's en- 
 to the viceroy, with appeal for succor. Relief came in the 
 shape of two ships, well provisioned, prepared to take away the un- 
 happy colony, now distracted with misery, discontent, and anarchy. 
 Tristan de Luna at first refused to abandon his enterprise, and in- 
 sisted on being left behind with a few followers. But he was recalled 
 by the Viceroy, and at last returned to Mexico in 1561, about two 
 years from the time of his first setting out. Thus ended the most care, 
 fully prepared and most promising attempt ever made to colonize 
 Florida by the Spaniards. Fortunately for the progress of the human 
 race, and the future history of North America, all their efforts to gain 
 a permanent foothold north of the Gulf of Mexico, were in the main 
 unsuccessful. 
 
Fishing Fleet at Newfoundland. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 FRENCH DISCOVERIES AND ATTEMPTS AT COLONIZATION. 
 
 BRETON FISHERMEN ON NEWFOUNDLAND BANKS. GIOVANNI DA VERRAZANO FIRST 
 ENTERS NEW YORK HARBOR. JACQUES CARTIER SENT ON AN AMERICAN EXPE- 
 DITION. EXPLORATION OF THE ST. LAWRENCE KIVER. CARTIER'S VISIT TO 
 THE INDIAN TOWN OF HOCHELAGA. VOYAGE OF FRANCIS DE LA KOQUE, LORD 
 
 OF ROBERVAL. THE HUGUENOTS SEEK AN ASYLUM IN AMERICA. THE COL- 
 
 ONY OF ADMIRAL COLIGNY. JOHN RIBAULT GOES TO FLORIDA. SETTING UP 
 THE ARMS OF FRANCE. LAUDONNIERE COMMANDS A SECOND ENTERPRISE. 
 BUILDING OF FORT CAROLINE. PROGRESS OF THE COLONY. 
 
 As early as 1504, the hardy fishermen of various nations had fol- 
 lowed the Cabots and Cortereals across the Atlantic, and were tossing 
 all the summer through in their little vessels on the Grand Banks, 
 and along the coasts of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. It was only 
 to sail a few degrees more to the westward than their fathers had done, 
 for it is certain that the mariners of England, of Brittany, Nor- 
 mandy, and the Bay of Biscay had approached, if they had not seen, 
 the Western continent, long before its discovery by either Columbus 
 or Cabot. It is not at all unlikely that they may have explored in 
 the sixteenth century, harbors, rivers, and islands along the shores of 
 New England, whose discovery has been the subject of controversy 
 on behalf of this or that early navigator of distinction, for nearly three 
 hundred years. But of what they did there is no record ; content 
 with finding good fishing ground, any other knowledge they may 
 
 
1523.] FRENCH FISHERMEN. 175 
 
 have gained excited little interest beyond their own limited circle of 
 humble people, too ignorant and too busy to trouble themselves or 
 others with geographical conjectures. The practical question of lib- 
 erty to fish in the newly-discovered seas, was all they cared for, and 
 that they settled among themselves. 
 
 Some of these Breton fishermen gave a name Cape Breton to 
 an island ; in 1506, John Denys, of HonnVur, explored the 
 Gulf of St. Lawrence ; two years afterward, Thomas Aubert, 
 
 a pilot of Dieppe, visited, it is supposed, Cape Breton Island, 
 and carried some of the natives thence to France ; 1 and in 1518, the 
 Baron de Leri proposed to settle a colony on Sable Island, 2 but only 
 landed some cattle, whose progeny, eighty years later, served to feed 
 some miserable Frenchmen left there by the Marquis de la Roche. 
 But all these, like the fishing voyages, were private enterprises. 
 
 Spain, notwithstanding the marvellous splendor of her conquests 
 farther south, had persisted for nearly twenty years, at great sacrifice 
 of human life and of treasure, in the attempt to lay open the secret 
 which she believed was hidden in the region north of the Gulf of 
 Mexico. England and Portugal had both shown that they were not 
 disposed to yield the possession of the continent unquestioned to Spain. 
 France alone of the great maritime powers of Europe, seemed indif- 
 ferent ; for though no fishermen on the American coast were more en- 
 terprising and more fearless than hers, they claimed no rights except 
 upon the sea. In 1522, a single ship of the Magellan expedition re- 
 turned to Portugal, having circumnavigated the globe and solved the 
 problem that by sailing westward the East could be reached. A new 
 impulse was given to the desire for a shorter northern pas- Interegt felt 
 sage to India, and Francis I. of France, aroused to the great [^ ISriJ.ln' 
 event of his time, is said to have declared : " Why, these dlscover i'- 
 princes coolly divide the New World between them ! I should like to 
 see that article of Adam's will which gives them America ! " In 1528 
 he proposed to compete with other powers, both for a share in that 
 New World, and to find for France a shorter route to Cathay. 
 
 With this intent an expedition put to sea from some port in Brit- 
 tany, in the autumn of 1523. It consisted originally of four voyage of 
 vessels, but before much progress was made, two of these VerrM no - 
 were first disabled or lost, and afterward a third, leaving only a 
 single ship, called the Danphine Dalfina. 3 The commander was 
 
 1 Charlevoix, History of Xew France, vol. i., p. 106. 
 
 '2 Lescarbot, Histoire de Nmn-tlle France, p. 21. De Leri's full title was Le Sieur, Baron 
 de Leri et de Saint Just, Vicomte de Gueu, This has been erroneously supposed to refer to 
 two men. 
 
 8 In the many accounts of this voyage, Dalfiua is usually translated Dolphin, but by 
 later writers, Dauphine. The latter, undoubtedly, is correct, as to the name of this 
 
176 
 
 FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 
 
 [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 Giovanni da Verrazano, a native of Florence Italian by birth, as 
 Columbus and Cabot were, who, according to the historians of 
 Dieppe, was a captain of one of Thomas Aubert's ships ten years 
 before. 1 He saw and did, for aught that can be known now, no more 
 
 than Cabot and Cortereal 
 had seen and done about a 
 quarter of a century before. 
 But he has left behind him 
 in a letter to the king, a 
 narrative of his adventm-es, 
 and for the first time we get 
 a dim and passing glimpse 
 by actual description, of 
 much of the long stretch of 
 the Atlantic coast of North 
 America now within the 
 boundaries of the United 
 States. So vague, indeed, 
 and sometimes so incorrect 
 is this narrative, that the 
 question has been raised 
 whether it was not alto- 
 gether destitute of truth. 2 
 But the argument of its want of accuracy, based on internal evi- 
 dence, may be brought with equal force against many of the accounts 
 of early expeditions which certainly were made. 3 
 
 It has been supposed by some writers that Verrazano may have 
 made a voyage in 1523 with his four ships across the Atlantic, and 
 that the allusion in his letter to a disaster which overtook two of them, 
 on " Northern coasts," refers to such an expedition. But the letter 
 is otherwise taken up with the single voyage of the Dauphine, in 
 
 ship. Verrazano alludes to it as " the glorious and fortunate name of our good ship," del 
 glarioso name efortunato. " Glorious " would be held to be proper as applied to the Dau- 
 phine, but is not at all fitting as descriptive of a dolphin. 
 
 1 Note by J. G. Shea, in Charlevoix, vol. i.,p. 106. 
 
 2 See An Inquiry into the Authenticity of Documents concerning a Discovery in North Amer- 
 ica, claimed to have been made by Verrazzano. Read before the New York Historical Soci- 
 ety, October, 1864. By Buckingham Smith. 
 
 8 The letter of Verrazano to Francis I. was first published by Ramusio, within about 
 thirty -two years of its date, and was copied from him by Hakluyt. It has been held to be 
 authentic for three centuries, and is not now to be easily set aside. The discovery, a few 
 years since, of a map, by Hieronimus da Verrazano, in a public library in Rome, dating 
 about 1529, offsets, it is claimed, any possible constructive argument against his vovage 
 from negative evidence. For description of this map and the newest theory as to the 
 course of Verrazauo, see an article by James Carson Brevoort, in Journal of American 
 Geographical Society, of New York, vol. iv. 
 
 Giovanni da Verrazano. 
 
 
1524.] 
 
 VOYAGE OF VERRAZANO. 
 
 177 
 
 which he finally set sail from the Madeiras in January, 1524. In 
 forty-nine days he " reached a new country which," he writes, Hig arriTal 
 " had never before been seen by any one," and which by fires | ) ( ^n h * ( ^ er " 
 along the shore, he knew to be inhabited. His land-fall, he SIarch 152 * 
 says, was on the thirty-fourth parallel, or about the latitude of Cape 
 Fear, as his course after leaving the Madeiras was " towards the west, 
 with a little northwardly." Thence he ran southward for fifty 
 leagues, but finding no harbors he reversed his course. Cruising 
 leisurely along the coast for two hundred leagues, he first notes that 
 the shore was covered with fine sand, rising into little hills about 
 fifty paces broad ; then that arms of the sea flowed in through inlets, 
 making an inner and an outer beach ; but beyond the coast-line he 
 saw a country rising into beautiful fields, and broad plains covered 
 with immense forests more or less dense, various in foliage and color, 
 and festooned with vines. This verdant land was fragrant with wild 
 roses, violets, lilies, and many other flowers, watered with many lakes 
 and streams. Beasts of the chase, and birds of gay plumage and 
 pleasant song, were plentiful. The balmy air of a delicious summer 
 blew gently over a smooth sea, and on the long stretch of coast, the 
 water was deep, and there were no rocks or hidden dangers to vex the 
 mariner. 
 
 The natives thronged upon the sands to watch this strange ship, and 
 the strange white men on board of her. They beckoned them to 
 land, and when a sailor, attempting to swim ashore, was 
 
 , ,, , , , , , Hospitality 
 
 thrown, half-drowned by the surf, upon the beach, they res- of the n- 
 cued him, built fires to warm him and to dry his clothing 
 his comrades on the ship looking on meanwhile, dreading to see him 
 presently sacrificed and 
 spitted for a savage 
 feast. But when his 
 strength was restored, 
 the natives dismissed 
 him with many demon- 
 strations of tenderness 
 and respect. A few 
 days later the French- 
 men made a cruel re- 
 turn for this kindness 
 and hospitality, by cap- 
 turing and carrying off 
 an Indian boy they 
 met near the shore, lndians making a Canoe ' [De Bry - ] 
 
 and would have taken also the comely mother, who had only known 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 12 
 
178 FRENCH DISCOVERIES. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 eighteen Indian summers, but for her outcries and vigorous resistance. 
 All these people were dark in color, well-made, naked, except some 
 scantv covering of furs, or dressed deer-skins and ornamental feath- 
 ers ; their canoes were trunks of trees hollowed out by fire and with 
 stone hatchets ; and their ai'ms were bows and arrows. 
 
 The Dauphine anchored at length where a deep river flowed into 
 the sea from among steep hills ; a boat put off inland for a 
 short distance, and found that this river widened into a lake 
 
 some leagues in circuit. The ship had probably entered the 
 outer Bay of New York ; the Narrows, between the beautiful hills 
 of Staten Island and the bluffs of Long Island opposite, was the sup- 
 posed mouth of a river ; the magnificent sweep of the inner harbor 
 looked, as it does to-day to a stranger, like a lake ; the Indians plied 
 their canoes in large numbers from shore to shore, and at night their 
 watch-fires blazed in the same unbroken circle of twenty miles that 
 now shows the continuous twinkling line of the gaslights of a million 
 of people. 1 But winds which brought peril to the ship in the outer 
 harbor soon compelled them to put to sea again, and they left with 
 regret "a region that seemed so commodious and delightful," and 
 where they deluded themselves with the notion that the hills showed 
 indications of great wealth in mineral deposits. 
 
 Sailing east for fifty leagues they passed an island of triangular form, 
 which is supposed to be Block Island, and a few leagues farther entered 
 a spacious haven, where they remained fifteen days. The entrance, 
 Narra nsett w ^h a rock in mid-channel suitable for a fortification, was 
 *>' a mile or two wide and looking toward the south ; but within 
 
 it was a large bay of many leagues, containing five small islands of 
 great beauty, and covered with trees. The latitude, says Verrazano, 
 was 41 40', which is about that of Narragansett Bay, and he describes 
 the country 4> as pleasant as it is possible to conceive," abounding in 
 fruit trees of which he could have only seen the blossoms, as he 
 was there in May well watered, with open plains, as well as forests 
 of stately trees, and having many animals of various kinds. If this 
 was the Vinland of the Northmen, the stone tower of Newport was 
 not there when the Frenchmen spent a fortnight in that harbor, and 
 became familiar with its shores. Verrazano describes the houses of 
 the natives as built of split logs, and nicely thatched with straw, and 
 he could hardlv have failed to see and describe so remarkable a struc- 
 
 I 
 
 ture as the tower if it was in existence, and he was ever in Newport 
 harbor. 
 
 Here was their only resting-place for any length of time. When 
 
 1 There are almost as many theories as there are writers on Vetrazano's voyage, but 
 that most geni-rallv received and wtiich oeems the most rational, is the explanation which 
 we have here adopted. 
 

 1524.] 
 
 VOYAGE OF VERRAZAXO. 
 
 179 
 
 the voyage was resumed it was to cruise along the shores of New 
 England, seeing in the distance as they passed the White Mountains 
 of New Hampshire, and sailing among the pleasant islands on the 
 coast of Maine. The Indians of this northern region they found 
 fiercer and less trustful than those with whom they had trafficked and 
 held friendly intercourse farther south, for these knew something of 
 
 = ^ white men in the fish- 
 
 r .^^<<3iMi&iiS*&m&^ ing vessels of Baeca- 
 
 O 
 
 laos, and had profited 
 by the knowledge. 
 
 Little else is known 
 of Verrazano than is 
 
 given in this narrative of 
 his voyage in the Dau- 
 phine. It is conjectured 
 that this was not his only 
 expedition to the New 
 
 World, and Hakluyt Verrszano in Newport Harbor. 
 
 says : " he had been 
 
 thrice on that coast." l But whether his voyages were one or three, 
 he profited by his observations. His intention was to find a passage 
 to Cathay. The opinions of the ancients that " our ocean was one and 
 the same as the eastern one of Asia,'' the discovery of the new land 
 had disproved. It was possible, he thought, that this new land might 
 be penetrated, but he wits convinced after the cruise of the Dauphine, 
 
 1 Since this chapter was put in tyj>e a volume of nearly two hundred pages, by Henry 
 C. Murphy, on the voyage of Verrazauo, lias been published. Mr. Murphy's aim is to show 
 that the claims of discovery made in Verrazano's name have no real foundation. The work 
 is learned, laborious, dud exhaustive, aud seems to leave nothing more to be said on that 
 side of the question. 
 
180 
 
 FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 
 
 [CHAP. VIII.. 
 
 that it was " another world," appearing " really to show itself to be 
 larger than our Europe, Africa, or even Asia." That any 
 short route to Cathay could be found was clearly impos- 
 continent. sible. His conclusion was that the globe was evidently larger 
 than the ancients supposed ; it was proved that the sea was wider ; 
 this western land, as the voyages of the Spaniards, the Portuguese, 
 and that of the Dauphine combined had shown, stretched from the 
 Strait of Magellan to the fiftieth degree of northern latitude, a length 
 
 greater than that from the northern- 
 most point of Europe to the most 
 southern of Africa ; if its breadth 
 was in accordance with its length, 
 then a new continent larger than 
 Asia lay between Europe and In- 
 dia. He may have thought, there- 
 fore, that there was little to be 
 gained by a western passage to In- 
 dia, even if one existed ; and that 
 it certainly could not be a short one. 
 The credit belongs to him, not only 
 of having first explored with some 
 care the Atlantic coast of the United 
 States, but of first promulgating the 
 true theory of the size of the globe 
 in contradistinction to that of the old cosmographers, which Columbus 
 had adopted and believed in to the day of his death. 
 
 The subsequent fate of this navigator is unknown. Some writers 
 maintain that he is identical with a noted corsair, Juan Florin or 
 Florentin, who preyed upon the Spanish treasure-ships, but 
 was captured at last by the Spaniards and hanged. 1 But 
 Ramusio, who first published his letter, says that in a sub- 
 sequent voyage Verrazano having gone ashore with some companions, 
 was killed by the natives, roasted, and eaten in the sight of those 
 who remained on board the ship. 2 It is also conjectured, from an 
 Italian letter written in 1537, that he was then still living in Rome. 3 
 Ten years elapsed before France sent out another expedition, when 
 Philip Chabot, Admiral of France, urged the King to establish a 
 colony somewhere in the northwest. The enterprise was entrusted 
 
 1 This story seems to have been first published by De Barcia (Ensayo Cronologico, p. 8| 
 in 1723. 
 
 2 Biddle (Mtmoir of Cabot, chap, ix.) assumes that this ship must have been the Mary of 
 Guilford, which sailed from England in 1527, and that Verrazano was her pilot. 
 
 8 Letter of Annibal Caro, cited from Tiraboschi's Italian Literature, by Smith, Murphy, 
 and others. 
 
 Jacques Cartier. 
 
 fate of 
 
1535] VOYAGE OF JACQUES CARTIER. 181 
 
 to Jacques Cartier, an experienced navigator of St. Malo, and he 
 sailed from that port in April, 1534, with two ships of only Jacque8Car _ 
 sixty tons each, and carrying each sixty-one men. In twenty gf 'jajjio from 
 days the fleet reached Bona Vista Bay, on the east coast of Apri1 ' 1534 
 Newfoundland, whence, after some delay from the ice, they steered 
 northward and passed through the Straits of Belle Isle into the Gulf, 
 afterwards named the St. Lawrence. Cartier coasted along the west- 
 ern shores of Newfoundland, finding the country so inhospitable, so 
 filled with stones and wild crags, with not a cart-load of good earth 
 anywhere, that he believed it to be " the land God allotted to Cain." 
 The natives were uncouth and savage, " dressed in beasts' skins, their 
 hair tied on top like a wreath of hay, a wooden pin run through 
 it," and ornamented with feathers. Crossing the gulf he en- Hi gdeficri p. 
 tered a bay, which because of the heat he named the Bay J^J'/of* 
 of Chaleur, where the natives, he thought, were " the poor- Canada - 
 est in the world," without clothing, eating fish and flesh almost raw, 
 and with no houses but their upturned canoes. But the country was 
 inviting, and he took possession of it in the name of the King of 
 France, setting up a cross thirty feet high, with three fleur-de-lys, 
 and the inscription Vive le Hoi de France carved at its top. 1 Poor 
 and savage as the natives were they knew enough to object to his pro- 
 ceeding, and their chief, protesting by signs that this was his country, 
 said that he wanted no crosses set up in it. But Cartier enticed him 
 and some others on board his ship, and conciliating him with some 
 trifling presents, obtained his consent to take his two sons to France. 
 They sailed soon after on the homeward voyage, and arrived at St. 
 Malo in September, after an absence of a little more than four months. 
 The report of these discoveries was so favorably received that 
 another expedition was determined upon, and Cartier was ^. mA 
 dispatched the next spring in May, 1 535 with three carter f 
 ships, the largest, however, only one hundred and twenty May> 1535 ' 
 tons. Among his followers were some young men of family and 
 fortune, enthusiastic for adventure. The embarkation was a solemn 
 and eventful day in St. Malo ; the ships' companies making confession, 
 hearing high mass in the cathedral, and departing with the blessing 
 of the bishop. They were going, not only to find the way to Cathay, 
 and plant French colonies in new lands, but whole nations were to be 
 brought within the pale of the Holy Catholic Church. 
 
 1 There is an old tradition, says Charlevoix, that the Spaniards had visited this country 
 before Cartier, but finding no mines, said of it aca-nada nothing there. These words the 
 Indians remembered and repeated, and hence the name Canada. Others derive the name, 
 says Charlevoix, from the Indian word Kannata, meaning a collection of cabins. Shea 
 adds in a note that the Spanish derivation is fictitious. History of New France, vol. ii., p. 
 118. 
 
182 
 
 FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 
 
 [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 the St. 
 Lawrence. 
 
 On the 10th of August the fleet was at the mouth of the St. Law- 
 Entering rence, and this name which Cartier first gave to the strait be- 
 tween the island of Anticosti he called it Assumption 
 
 Island and the north coast 
 became in time the name of the 
 whole gulf and the great river. 1 
 The two Indians, Taignoagny 
 and Domagaia, whom he had 
 taken home with him the vear 
 
 / 
 
 before, told him that this river 
 was the Hochelaga, and that it 
 came from so far that no 
 man had ever seen the 
 head of it. From the 
 t great width of its mouth, 
 and the depth and volume 
 of its waters, he might 
 well suppose it to be an 
 arm of the sea, and that 
 he was at length at 
 the opening of the 
 
 - f j-; ? .,- 
 
 Setting up the Arms of France 
 
 strait, so long sought for, that would lead him to the Indian Ocean ; 
 but his guides said that it narrowed as it ascended, and that its waters 
 were fresh. He made no haste, therefore, to push forward, leisurely 
 
 1 Charlevoix, History of New France, vol. ii., p. 115. 
 
 
1535.] EXPLORATION OF THE ST. LAWRENCE. 183 
 
 exploring the coasts, examining the country, and looking for a con- 
 venient harbor for winter quarters. 
 
 On the first of September he met the dark waters of the Saguenay 
 pouring into the St. Lawrence ; fifteen leagues further on he anchored 
 in the shadow of a pleasant island, which, because it was covered with 
 hazels, he called Isle aux Coudres ; eight leagues further he Exp i orin g 
 found another island still pleasanter and larger, and so themer 
 abounding in grapes that he named it Bacchus Island now known 
 as the Isle d'Orleans. A fleet of canoes put out from the beach to 
 look at these strange visitors, but the natives wei-e too much alarmed 
 to venture within their reach, till Taignoagny and Domagaia, whom 
 they recognized as of their own race, assured them that the strangers 
 were friends. Then they flocked aboard the vessels, listened to the 
 wonderful story of all that had befallen the two youths on their visit 
 to France, and of the kindness and benefits that had been bestowed 
 upon them. Donnacona, the " lord " of Saguenay, had come with the 
 rest, and he addressed to Cartier a long oration, took his arm, and, 
 kissing it, twined it about his own neck in token of amity and grati- 
 tude that these two young men, his countrymen, had received such 
 favors at the hands of the French. 
 
 A few leagues farther on, at the mouth of a stream which Cartier 
 named the St. Croix, - now the St. Charles was the village of 
 Stadacona, the home of the chieftain Donnacona. 1 In the waters 
 which washed its shores, beneath the cliffs where now stands the city 
 of Quebec upon the site of this Indian village, was safe 
 
 r i i i ... , , Anchorage 
 
 anchorage for the ships, and protection from the storms of on the -it,. 
 the coming winter. But Cartier heard from the natives of 
 another and a larger town, the seat of a rival and more powerful chief 
 than Donnacona, from which the river took its name Hochelaga. 
 This he resolved to visit. The way to it, Donnacona said, was long 
 and beset with perils, for he was jealous that any of the wealth of 
 knives and copper basins, of little looking-glasses and brilliant colored 
 beads, which the strangers brought, should fall into the hands of the 
 rival chieftain and his people. To his persuasions he added gifts, pre- 
 senting to Cartier two boys, one of whom was his own brother, and a 
 little girl of ten or twelve years of age who was his sister's child. 
 
 The Frenchman laughed at danger, and was deaf to entreaty ; and 
 then the cunning savage tried intimidation. Three devils cunning of 
 Indian devils came out to the ships, " wrapped in hogges theeava ee 
 skins white and blacke, their faces besmeered as blacke as any coales, 
 
 1 Charlevoix ( History of New France), asserts that the St. Croix and the St. Charles 
 are uot the s-ame. For the evidence and authorities that they are identical, see Shea's 
 notes to Churlevoix, vol. ii., pp. 116, 117, and Parkman's Pioneers of New France, p. 185. 
 
184 
 
 FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 
 
 [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 with homes on their heads more than a yard long." l A crowd of 
 natives followed howling and shrieking, and then with a hideous up- 
 roar retreating to the woods. Taignoagny and Domagaia, in real or 
 pretended fright, with clasped, uplifted hands, and eyes raised to 
 heaven, cried out, " Jesu ! Jesu ! Jesu Maria ! " declaring that these 
 devils had come from Hochelaga, sent by the god of that people to 
 say that all should perish in the ice and snow who ventured thither. 
 But the Christians could answer prophecy with prophecy, and beat 
 
 Donnacona's Strategy. 
 
 the heathen at their own game. The devils 
 they only mocked at, and as for the Indian 
 god, Cudruaigny, he was declared to be noth- 
 ing " but a fool and a noddle." His messen- 
 gers, they said, might take him word that 
 Christ would defend from the cold all who be- 
 lieved in him, and though the French captain 
 had not himself talked with Jesus upon this subject, the priests had, 
 and received from him a promise of fair weather. There was nothing 
 cartier pro- niore to be said. The devils were ignominiously defeated ; 
 <ed^up the |. ne wors hipp ers of Cudruaigny gave three great shrieks in 
 renc *- token of their acceptance of his discomfiture, and fell to sing- 
 ing and dancing on the beach after their usual mad fashion. Cartier, 
 
 1 Narration of Cartier's Voyages, Hakluyt, vol. iii. 
 
1535.] CARTIER AT HOCHELAGA. 185 
 
 with the smallest of his vessels, a pinnace, and two boats, started the 
 next day for Hochelaga. 
 
 For thirteen days they sailed leisurely along the pleasant banks of 
 the river, noting and admiring the fruitfulness of the land, the beauty 
 of the forests, and the many kinds of game, both beasts and birds, 
 they sheltered; the abundance of wild fruit, especially of grapes. 
 Everywhere on the way the natives received them with joy and won- 
 der, and when, on the second of October, they landed about 
 eleven miles from Hochelaga, below the rapids of St. Mary, 1 the to n of 
 a thousand Indians, men, women, and children, came down 
 to the strand to welcome them. With great pomp and circumstance, 
 Cartier, " very gorgeously attired," marched with his companions to 
 this royal residence. It was a village of about fifty huts, surrounded 
 with a triple row of palisades, in the midst of wide fields where the 
 brown dried leaves of the Indian corn waved and rustled in the autumn 
 winds. On this spot now stands Montreal, and a hill near by which 
 Cartier called Mont Royal, gave a name to the future city. 
 
 In the centre of Hochelaga was a public square where all the people 
 gathered. The women and the maidens came with their Cartierbe _ 
 arms full of children, begging that they might even so much J,fthe 
 as be touched by these wonderful white men from some 8ick 
 far-off country. The " lord and king," Agouhanna, a man of fifty 
 years, helpless from palsy, was brought in by his attendants stretched 
 upon a deer-skin. Upon his head instead of a crown he wore " a cer- 
 tain thing made of the skinnes of hedge-hogs like a red wreath," but 
 otherwise his apparel did not distinguish him from his subjects. He 
 prayed that relief might be given him from the disease with which he 
 was afflicted. Cartier with his own hands rubbed the shrunken limbs 
 of the royal sufferer, who bestowed upon him in return his crown of 
 colored porcupine quills. It seemed to these poor heathen " that God 
 was descended and come downe from heaven to heale them," and the 
 halt, the lame, the blind, the impotent from age so old, some of 
 them, " that the hair of their eyelids came downe and covered their 
 cheekes " were brought forward to be healed. The best the good 
 captain could do was to pray ; he read the first chapter of the Gos- 
 pel of St." John and the passion of Christ, from his service-book, and 
 besought the heavenly Father that He would have mercy upon these 
 benighted savages, and bring them to a knowledge of His holy Word. 
 The Indians were " marvellously attentive," looking to heaven as 
 the Christians did, and imitating all the gestures of devotion ; but 
 they better understood, and were overwhelmed with joy when, the 
 prayers being finished, the distribution of hatchets, knives, beads, 
 rings, brooches of tin, and other trifles was begun. 
 
 1 The Conquest of Canada, by the author of Hochelaga, vol. ii., p. 55 
 
186 
 
 FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 
 
 [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 Cartier and his companions soon returned to their winter-quarters 
 at the mouth of the St. Charles,- where those they had left behind had 
 meanwhile built a rough fort. The river within a few weeks was 
 covered with solid ice, and the ships were buried in four feet of snow. 
 With the increasing cold, one of those pestilences so common 
 among the Indians broke out, and, whether it was contagious, 
 or whether it was superinduced by exposure to the severity 
 of the climate, it soon attacked the French. Twenty-four of the com- 
 
 Pestilence 
 
 among the 
 
 
 Cartier at Hochelaga. 
 
 pany died, and the rest were so enfeebled that only three were capable 
 of any exertion. To the fear of death from sickness was added sus- 
 picion of the Indians, who, they were afraid, would take advantage of 
 the weakness of the strangers and exterminate those whom the pesti- 
 lence spared. The natives were ordered to keep away from the fort 
 and the ships under pretence of precaution against infection ; and, 
 when any of them approached, Cartier ordered his sick men to beat 
 with hammers and sticks against the side of their berths that the noise 
 might be mistaken for sounds of busy industry. 
 
 But where they looked for danger came succor. From the Indians) 
 they learned that a decoction of the leaves and bark of a certain tree 
 
 / 
 
 was a specific for that malady under which they were fast perishing. 
 The squaws brought branches of the tree, and taught them how to pre- 
 
1540.] EXPEDITION OF ROBERVAL. 187 
 
 pare and use this sovereign medicine, which, in a few days, not only did 
 all that was promised for it, but also cured the sick of some old chronic 
 difficulties. 1 
 
 Their suspicions of the Indians, nevertheless, continued. When 
 Donnacona had gone on a hunting expedition the French 
 had feared it was to gather a force sufficient for an attack 
 
 upon the fort and ships. A certain shyness the Indians 
 showed on their return, and an unwillingness to part, except at a high 
 price, with provision they needed for their own support, confirmed the 
 apprehensions. Suspicion on the one side undoubtedly begot it on 
 the other ; but that the natives had the most ground for it was shown 
 in the end. When Cartier, in the spring, was ready to sail, he enticed 
 Donnacona, with nine others, on boai'd his ships, seized and confined 
 them, and, heedless of the cries and entreaties of their countrymen, car- 
 ried them to France. In July, 1536, the fleet arrived at St. Malo; and, 
 when four years later, another expedition returned to Canada, Donna- 
 cona and his companions, excepting one little girl, were all dead. They 
 had been baptized and received into the bosom of the Church, however, 
 before they died compensation enough, it was thought, for enforced 
 loss of liberty, country, and friends. 
 
 Cartier made to King Francis a report of the fruitfulness of Canada. 
 its wealth in copper, gold, and precious stones, which he had heard of, 
 but not seen ; of the wonders of the land, the deer with only two feet, 
 the men with only one, others who never eat, and others still, mere 
 pigmies in stature ; but the interest excited was not enough to lead to 
 any renewal of the attempt at colonization till 1540. In that year 
 Jean Francois de la Roque, Seigneur de Roberval of Picardv, asked a 
 commission for farther exploration and experiment, and let- CommisS j on 
 ters patent were issued, in which the titles were conferred j^J^j 1 * 
 upon him of Lord of Norimbegua, Viceroy and Lieutenant- 15 *- 
 general in Canada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, Newfoundland, Belle Isle, 
 Carpont, Labrador, Great Bay, and Baccalaos. A Spanish spy alarmed 
 his government with a report that colonization was now to be under- 
 taken by the French on a grand scale ; that thirteen ships were to 
 
 1 The tree was called Ameda, or Hanneda, by the Indians, and was thought, says the old 
 chronicle, to be the Sassafras. But the same narrative (Hakluyt, vol. iii.) says, that the 
 leaves were taken at the time from the tree, which, of course, could not have been possible 
 of the sassafras in winter. ' A tree as big as any Oake in France," it relates, " was sjxiiled 
 and lopped bare, and occupied all in five or sixe daies, and it wrought so well that if all the 
 phisicians of Mmintpelier and Louaine had beue there with all the drugs of Alexandria, they 
 would not have done so much in one yere as that tree did in sixe dares ; for it did so pre- 
 vaile, that as many as used of it, by the grace of God, recovered their health." In the ac- 
 count of the next voyage of Cartier the Hauneda is spoken of as a tree " which hath the 
 most excellent virtue of all the trees in the world," and as measuring " about three fath- 
 oms about." It was probably the spruce. 
 
 
188 
 
 FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 
 
 [CHAP. 
 
 take out twenty-five hundred men, and two years' provisions. " Let 
 them go," said the Portuguese, "they can do no harm in Baccalaos." 1 
 But in May, 1541, Cartier, who was the pilot general, got away with 
 five vessels only, leaving Roberval to follow, after further prepara- 
 tions, the next year. 
 
 Cartier's Departure from St. Malo. 
 
 The expedition, like those preceding it, was barren of any perma- 
 nent results. A new fort was begun a few miles above the site of the 
 old one, at the mouth of the St. Croix River ; some little land was 
 sowed ; something which they took to be gold was gathered ; something 
 else, probably crystals of quartz, they supposed were diamonds for 
 they were so " faire, polished, and excellently cut," that in the sunlight 
 they " glister as it were sparkles of fire." Two ships were sent home 
 in the autumn with tidings of good progress. It was determined, 
 nevertheless, to abandon the adventure. The Indians soon became 
 troublesome, for probably they were not in the least imposed upon by 
 the story of Jacques Cartier, that their kidnapped countrymen ex- 
 cept Donnacona, who, it was acknowledged, was dead were all mar- 
 ried in France, and living there as " lords." And the next summer 
 Roberval, on his way out with an addition to the colony, of two 
 hundred men and women, met Cartier in the harbor of St. John, 
 Newfoundland, with his three remaining vessels bound homeward. 
 Roberval indignantly ordered him to return to the St. Law- 
 rence. In the morning his lieutenant was far out to sea on 
 his way to France, having quietly slipped off in the darkness 
 of the night. Perhaps it was not fear of the Indians, nor the hope- 
 
 1 See Buckingham Smith's Collection de raros Documentos, p. 107, et seq. 
 
 Cartier 
 deserts 
 Roberval. 
 
1555.] 
 
 THE HUGUENOTS IN AMERICA. 
 
 189 
 
 lessness of a longer struggle with the difficulties and hardships of 
 settling a new country, that alone influenced Cartier and his com- 
 panions. For, says the old narrative, they were " moved, as it seem- 
 eth, with ambition, because they would have all the glory of the dis- 
 covery of those parts themselves." 
 
 Roberval continued his voyage, weakened but not dismayed by the 
 desertion of his lieutenant. Of the colony he planted little 
 is known except its failure, after at least one winter's ex- Roiwrvai 
 perience of the hardships of the wilderness. According to of attempt 
 one account, Cartier was sent to bring the survivors home. 1 
 At any rate they returned. Roberval, it is said, undertook another ex- 
 pedition with a brother in 1549, which was lost at sea ; but it is also 
 asserted that this could not be, as he was killed in Paris. Cartier died 
 about 1555. It was not till the end of the century that other French- 
 men followed these first adventurers for the settlement of the northern 
 portion of that immense country in North America which France 
 claimed as her own. 
 
 The foothold she next strove for was much farther south, where it 
 was hoped a handful of Huguenots might find an asylum Hu uenot 
 from religious persecution. In 1555 a colony went out to ^'u" h y ^n ier . 
 the Rio de Janeiro, but it soon came to a dismal end. They ica - 
 were Protestants, seeking to escape in the wilderness the scaffold and 
 the fagot to which 
 their religious belief at 
 home exposed them ; 
 but bitter dissensions 
 soon arose among them 
 upon such questions as 
 whether water could 
 be rightfully mixed 
 with the wine of the 
 Lord's Supper, or its 
 bread be properly 
 made of Indian meal. 
 Villagagnon, the lead- 
 er, repenting of his 
 Protestant heresies, if 
 he ever seriously en- 
 tertained them, returned to the bosom of the indulgent mother church, 
 and abandoned his command. A little remnant of the colony was 
 attacked by the Portuguese, and if any escaped alive it was only by 
 throwing themselves upon the more tender mercy of the savages. 
 
 1 Lescarbot, ffistoire de Colonie Francaise en Canada. 
 
 French Costumes (16th Century). 
 
190 FRENCH DISCOVERIES. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 Meanwhile the Reformation took deeper root in France, a struggle 
 for political power as well as for the rights of conscience. There were 
 many anxious to escape from present wrong and suffering, and from 
 the uncertainties of the future, strong as the Protestant party had 
 Admiral Co- grown both among the people and at Court. Coligny, the lord 
 admiral, and leader of the Huguenots, with a view to the 
 gl ol T ^ France, and to the protection also of his oppressed 
 countrymen, proposed to renew the attempt at colonization 
 in the New World. In February, 1562, he sent from Havre, in the 
 name of the king, two ships under the command of Captain John 
 Ribault, " to discover, and view a certaine long coast of the West In- 
 dia .... called La Florida," a coast so long, indeed, that it included 
 the whole of the Atlantic side of the United States from the Rio 
 Grande to the Canadian line. Ribault had under his command, beside 
 the seamen, a band of soldiers, and with him went a number of gen- 
 tlemen who were rather his companions than his subordinates. He 
 was a man of experience, of character, of tried courage, of good sense 
 and confirmed faith ; and " a man in truth," says the old chronicle, 
 "expert in sea causes." 1 His followers, it was hoped, wei-e worthy 
 of such a leader. They meant to build up the Reformed Protestant 
 Church in the wilderness to the glory of God, and the salvation of a 
 " brutishe people ; " but they also looked " to trafficke in riche and 
 inestimable commodities," in gold, and silver, and pi'ecious stones. 
 They were determined to be rich, and they proposed also to be good. 
 The voyage was tempestuous and long, for winds from the west 
 and southwest drove them back, compelling them to put into 
 
 Thev reach 
 
 the coast of Brest to land their sick, and " suffer the tempest to passe." 
 Taking thence a new departure on the 27th of February, they 
 held a direct course across the Atlantic till the 30th of April, when they 
 approached " a fayre coast, stretchying of a great length, covered with 
 an infinite number of high and fayre trees, without anye shewe of hills." 
 It was the coast of Florida, in about the latitude of twenty-nine and 
 a half. Casting anchor some leagues from the land, off a cape which 
 they named Cape Francois, and which is supposed to be a headland of 
 Matanzas Inlet, the boats were sent to seek for a harbor. On their re- 
 turn in the afternoon, with a favorable report, they weighed anchor and 
 sailed along the coast northward, observing it " with unspeakable 
 pleasure, of the odorous smell and beautie of the same," till the}- came 
 to " a goodly and great river." Entering this the next morning they 
 found it " to increase still in depth and largenesse, boyling and roar- 
 ing through the multitude of all kind of fish." It was a safe and pleas- 
 ant harbor. The Indians running along the sands welcomed them 
 1 Laudoiiuiere's Notable Historic, in Hakluyt, vol. iii. 
 
1562.] 
 
 RIBAULT AT THE ST. JOHN RIVER. 
 
 191 
 
 with wondering but friendly gestures, showing " all gentlenesse and 
 amitie," and pointing out the easiest landing-place ; trinkets, " some 
 looking-glasse, and other prettie things of small value," were exchanged 
 for skins and girdles of leather " as well courerd and coloured as was 
 possible ; " the chief, or king, made an oration, eloquent but unintelli- 
 gible ; and the French fell upon their knees upon the beach, " to give 
 thanks to God for that of His grace He had conducted them to these 
 strange places, and to beseech Him to bring to the knowledge of our 
 Saviour, Christ, this poore people." The river they called, from the 
 day on which they entered it, the River of May. It is now known as 
 the St. John. 
 
 Entering the St. John River. 
 
 There were no bounds to the delight and enthusiasm with which 
 the impressible Frenchmen entered upon their new possession ; and in 
 token of its being theirs they set up, on the second day, a 
 stone column, on which were engraved the arms of France, 
 on the south bank of the river, " upon a little hill compassed Frauc - 
 with Cypres, Bayes, Paulmes, and other trees, with sweete smelling 
 and pleasant shrubbes." This was the first boundary on the south of 
 his Majesty's dominion in the New World. It was erected in the early 
 morning, before the Indians were assembled, perhaps because these 
 Frenchmen were conscious that they had no more rightful title to the 
 land than the red men had to the streets of Paris. But there was no 
 
192 FRENCH DISCOVERIES. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 cause for anxiety ; the natives looked at the pillar with mute surprise, 
 evidently regarding it as only one puzzle the more about these strange 
 visitors. They had yet to learn that as heathens they were the rightful 
 spoil of all good Christians. The strangers chose to take this country 
 as their own, for to them it seemed " the fairest, fruitfulest, 
 
 of the new and pleasantest of all the world." Its trees were " of wonder- 
 country. - - i i i t r f i 
 
 till greatnesse and height, and ot every variety for beauty 
 and value ; to the tops the wild vines grew " with grapes according ; " 
 the caterpillars on the mulberries they supposed were silkworms ; in 
 these pleasant woods roamed deer, wild swine, bears, lynxes, leopards, 
 conies, and many other beasts unknown, all valuable for food or for 
 their skins and furs ; among the many birds were turkeys, partridges of 
 two kinds, and woodcocks ; eyrets, herons, bitterns, curlews screamed, 
 or swam, or waded about the waters of the bay ; in the river was 
 " marvellous store " of trout, millet, plaice, turbot, and other fishes ; 
 so that they concluded, "it is a thing unspeakable to consider the 
 thinges that bee seene there, and shall bee founde more and more in 
 this incomparable lande, which never yet broken with plough yrons 
 bringeth forth al things according to his first nature, wherewith the 
 eternall God indued it." 
 
 Not less attractive were the mild-mannered and courteous though 
 naked savages. The men were well-shaped, of goodly stature, digni- 
 Manners of ^ ec ^' self-possessed, and of pleasant countenance ; the women 
 the natives. we n favored, modest, suffering no one "dishonestly to ap- 
 proch too neare them ; " and both were so beautifully painted that 
 " the best Painter of Europe could not amende it." But better and 
 more promising than all, some of these Indians wore ornaments of 
 gold, silver, copper, pearls, and turquoises ; from a collar of gold and 
 silver about the neck of one of them, hung a pearl as big as an acorn, 
 which the owner was willing enough to part with for a looking-glass 
 or a knife. Pearls were found there as fair as in any country of the 
 woi'lcl, taken from oysters along the river side, among the reeds and in 
 the marshes, in " so merveylous aboundance as is skant probable." 
 Even Cibola could be reached in boats by way of rivers in twenty 
 days Cibola, two thousand miles off on the Pacific, which the Span- 
 ish friar, Marco de Nia, visited in the year 1539, and reported that 
 within it were seven great cities, the houses whereof were built of 
 lime and stone, two, three, sometimes five stories in height, ascended 
 on the outside by ladders ; whose inhabitants clothed themselves in 
 gowns of cotton, in woollen cloth, and in garments of leather, wearing 
 girdles of turquoises around their waists, emeralds in their ears and 
 noses; whose common household vessels were of gold and silver; 
 and where gold was more abundant than in Peru, the walls of the 
 
 
1562.] COLONY AT PORT ROYAL. 193 
 
 temples being covered with plates of that precious metal. This was 
 the captivating perspective seen by the new comers through the 
 everglades, and festooned, perfumed forests of Florida in May the 
 seductive vision of a life of opulence and ease which awaited them in 
 place of the civil strife and religious persecution which they had left at 
 home. 
 
 From the St. John River of May they sailed northward along 
 the coast, naming the streams for well-known rivers of France. 
 Everywhere the natives gave them the same kind welcome ; 
 
 i i i i -PI They sail up 
 
 everywhere thev found the country beautiful and promis- the coast 
 
 ..." . , , . , . northward. 
 
 ing "lull of havens, rivers, and islands, says Captain 
 Ribault, "of such fruitfulnes as cannot with tongue be expressed ; in 
 fertilitie apt and commodious throughout to beare and bring forth 
 plentifully all that men would plant or sowe upon it.*' On the 27th 
 they entered the harbor of Port Royal. Here a navy might 
 
 .,., ., . PI Entrance to 
 
 ride in safety as navies have since done " one ot the t>i,rt Koyai 
 fayrest and greatest havens in the worlde," into which 
 flowed " many rivers of meane bignesse and large," watering " one of 
 the goodliest, best, and frutefullest countreys that ever was seene, and 
 where nothing lacketh, and also where as good and likely commodities 
 bee founde as in other places thereby." Here it was proposed to 
 plant a colony. 
 
 Ribault called his company together and made them an address, 
 which he modestly omits in his own relation, 1 but which is faith- 
 fully reported in another. 2 He reminded them of the great im- 
 portance of the enterprise in which they were engaged, and of the 
 " eternal memorie " which should of right belong to those, who, for- 
 getting their parents and their country, should have the 
 " goode happe to make tryall of the benefits and commodities HUU to 
 of this new land." Their humble birth and condition, he 
 told them, should be no discouragement, for many, it should be re- 
 membered, among the Romans, " for their so valiant enterprises, not 
 for the greatnesse of their parentage, haue obtained the honour to 
 tryumph ; " and not among the Romans only were there many notable 
 examples of men of low origin rising to places of dignity and power. 
 And his promise to those who should permit themselves to be " regis- 
 tred forever as the first that inhabited this strang countrey," was " I 
 will so imprint your names in the king's eares, and the other princes, 
 
 1 The True and Last Discouerie of Florida, made by Captain John Ribault in the yerre 1562. 
 Dedicated to a great noble man of France, and translated into Englishe by one Thomas Hackit. 
 Hakluyt's Divers Voyages. 
 
 2 A Notable Historic containing Foiire Voyages made by Certaint French Captames into 
 Florida, etc., etc., by Monsieur Laudonniere. Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. iii. 
 
 VOL. i. 13 
 
194 FRENCH DISCOVERIES. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 that your renowne shall hereafter shine vnquenchable through our 
 Realme of France." 
 
 Whether moved by his eloquence, or carried away by the en- 
 thusiasm which the events and scenes of the last few days inspired, 
 there were so many anxious to be left behind, that Ribault " had 
 much to do to stay their importunitie." Thirty, however, were all he 
 Beginning could spare, and a soldier of long experience, Albert de la 
 French set- Pierria, who was the first among them all to offer to remain, 
 tiement. AV;IS appointed captain. With a good will all hands then 
 went to work to put up a fort for the protection of the colonists. It 
 was called Charles Fort, and was built on a little island in a stream 
 they called Chenonceau, now known as Archer's Creek, about six 
 miles from Beaufort, South Carolina. 1 This done, Ribault set sail 
 with his two vessels on the llth of June, to return to France, leaving 
 with the colonists a store of victuals and ammunition, and this part- 
 ing exhortation: that they be obedient to their captain, and live as 
 brethren, one with another. 
 
 The first care of the colonists was to finish the fort, never resting 
 night or day till this was done, that there might the sooner be leisure 
 for exploration into the interior. But here all real work began and 
 ended. A place to fight in, if need be, first ; then to spy out and 
 gather the riches of the land in gold and silver and precious stones, 
 was their notion of colonization. No provision was made for the 
 future ; they relied on Ribault's promise to send them speedy succor, 
 as if it were a narrow stream and not three thousand miles of ocean 
 that separated them from France. The " fat ground," so " won- 
 derfull fertill that it will bring forthe the wheate and all other come 
 twice a yeere," they suffered to remain as they found it, '" unbroken 
 with plough-irons," and ere long they were suffering for want of 
 food. The game with which in their season the woods were 
 ami idleness filled, the fish with which the waters were alive, they were 
 *' too unskillful or too idle to take. Indolent and improvident, 
 they soon became dependent upon the bounty of the savages. They 
 cultivated the friendship of all the tribes within their reach, and 
 though the Indians soon learned to look upon them with contempt for 
 their idleness and imbecility, they seem to have felt for them none 
 of that hatred and fear which the Spaniards always aroused by their 
 licentiousness and cruelty. 
 
 No aid came from France. The Indians, who lived as their race 
 lives always, from hand to mouth, and in their natural state were ac- 
 customed to look starvation in the face at least once a year between 
 seed-time and harvest, had little to spare. Of this, however, they 
 
 1 Pioneers of France in the Nttc World, by Frauds Parkmau. 
 
 
15C2.] 
 
 THE COLONY ABANDONED. 
 
 195 
 
 gave generously, and when at one time the store-house at Charles 
 Fort, filled by the charity of a distant chief, was, the next night, de- 
 stroyed with all it contained, by fire, their savage benefactors built, 
 within twelve days, a new house, and refilled it. With hunger and 
 destitution the colonists grew discontented, desperate, and insubordi- 
 nate. Captain Albert, either from an ill-judged attempt to enforce 
 rigid discipline among these starving wretches, or else in the mere 
 wantonness of power, hanged a drummer, named Guernache, for 
 some trifling fault, and banished a soldier, La Chere, to a desolate 
 island, where he was afterward found half dead from him- Mu ti nvan( i 
 ger. Thereupon followed defiance and mutiny from others blood(<hed 
 who were threatened with the like punishments, and these only ended 
 in the murder of the captain. Then Nicolas Barre was chosen gov- 
 ernor, " a man worthy of commendation, and one which knewe so 
 well to quit himselfe of his charge that all rancour and dissention 
 ceased among them." There was at last peace. 
 
 But they were as hungry as before, and the question now was, how 
 to get back to France. So desperate was their condition that, although 
 there were no mechanics among them, they determined to build a 
 
 Building the Pinnace. 
 
 small pinnace. For cordage they took such rope as the Indians could 
 make for them ; for sails, what they had left of their own sheets and 
 shirts ; for provisions, as much corn as the natives chose to give ; and so, 
 "drunken with excessive joy" at the hope of seeing France Buildingof 
 again, but as always, without " foresight and consideration," vessel - a 
 
 embarkation 
 for Frauce. 
 
 and with ' slender victual," they put to sea. Xo madder 
 
 voyage, perhaps, was ever undertaken. Only one third of it was 
 
196 FRENCH DISCOVERIES. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 made when the wind failed them. For the next three weeks they 
 sailed only twenty-five leagues, and then provision became so short 
 that twelve kernels of corn a day was each man's allowance. Even 
 this was soon exhausted, and there was nothing left to eat but their 
 shoes and leather jackets. A part died of hunger. Water there was 
 none, except the salt sea that poured in at every seam of their crazy 
 craft. A storm overtook them, and for three days they lay helpless and 
 Misery on m despair in the bottom of the boat, which drifted whither- 
 Bhipboard. soever it would. Hope revived at the proposition that one 
 should die to save the rest, and the lot fell upon that La Chere whom 
 Captain Albert had banished from the colony to starve alone upon 
 an island at Port Royal. " Now his flesh was divided equally among 
 his fellowes : a thing so pitiful to recite," says Laudonnie're, " that my 
 pen is loth to write it." But it saved the rest ; they soon after fell in 
 with an English vessel, on board of which was one of their com- 
 panions who had gone home with Ribault, and they were taken, 
 the most feeble to France, the others as prisoners to England. 
 
 It was by no neglect of Ribault's that the thirty men left at Charles 
 Fort had watched in vain for his promised return till they were ready 
 Affairs in * resort to any desperate measure. Civil war had broken 
 France. ou f. w h en h e reached France ; and Coligny, the lord admiral, 
 had no leisure to think, even in the interest of the reformed religion, 
 of a feeble colony planted in the wilderness on the other side of the 
 sea. So long as the country at home was distracted by the war, and 
 so long as any doubt remained of his own party attaining to supreme 
 power in the state, it was vain to ask for aid. A few months after 
 Ribault's return, the Duke of Guise, the head of the Catholic faction, 
 was assassinated, and in the confusion that followed, Coligny had 
 enough to do to defend himself against the charge of being the insti- 
 gator of that act. True, it ultimately led to a short peace, but it was 
 long before there was even the semblance of a reconciliation between 
 parties hating each other with both religious and political rancor ; 
 long before there was any real relief to a country whose business and 
 agriculture were wellnigh ruined, whose discharged soldiers lived by 
 robbery, whose people were generally suffering for want of food, and 
 from whose borders a foreign foe had still to be expelled. 
 
 But in 1564, Coligny represented to the king that no news had 
 been heard from the men sent to Florida, and that it was a pity they 
 Coligny - 8 should be left to perish. A new expedition was determined 
 ture under" on ^ut ^ * s no * cef t am that the survivors taken from the 
 etonniere 1 * 11 " pinnace did not arrive in France before it sailed. If so, the 
 166 *- attempt at colonization, at any rate, was to be persevered 
 
 in, and three ships sailed in April under the command of Captain 
 Rend de Laudonnidre, who was with Ribault on the first voyage. 
 
1564.] COLIGNY'S SECOND COLONY. 197 
 
 In June the fleet of three ships arrived in the River of May. On 
 landing, the Frenchmen were greeted with shouts of welcome by a 
 crowd of Indians, men and women, who cried out, " Ami ! Ami ! " 
 (Friend ! Friend I) the one French word they had learned from their" 
 former visitors, and remembered. Their Paracoussy, or chief, whose 
 name was Satouriona, led the Frenchmen to the pillar of 
 stone which Ribault had set up two years before, "and wee piiur adored 
 found the same," says Laudonniere, " crowned with crownes 
 of Bay and at the foote thereof many little baskets full of mill 
 (corn), which they call in their language, Tapaga Tapola. Then, 
 when they came thither, they kissed the same with great reuerence, 
 and besought vs to do the like, which we would not denie them, to 
 the ende we might drawe them to be more in friendship with vs." 
 The next day the chief received the captain and his suite in state, 
 " vnder the shadow of an arbour, apparalled with a great Harts skinne 
 dressed like chamois, and painted with detiices of strange and diners 
 colours, but of so liuely a portrature, and representing antiquity, with 
 rules so iustly compassed, that there is no Painter so exquisite that 
 could finde fault therewith." 
 
 Among the first gifts from the Indians was a wedge of silver, given 
 to Laudonniere by a son of Satouriona. When inquiry was 
 
 < i " Giftofcilrer 
 
 afterward made as to where tins silver came from, the cun- from the u 
 ning Indian, who understood the eagerness of the French- 
 men to find mines of the precious metals, and meant to turn that 
 passion to his own account, asserted that the wedge was taken from a 
 tribe, some days' journey in the interior, called the Thimogoa ; that 
 they were his natural and deadly enemies, and if the strangers w^uld 
 join him in fighting them, enough of gold and silver could be got to 
 satisfy all their desires. 
 
 But the enthusiasm and delight of Laudonniere and his companions 
 were as the case had been with Ribault and his company, and as 
 was entirely characteristic of them all as Frenchmen extravagant 
 and beyond all reason. The soil of this incomparable country was 
 so rich ; the trees festooned with vines and hanging moss, and " of so 
 souereign odour that Baulme smelleth nothing in com- 
 parison," were so grand and beautiful ; the waters of the 
 lakes and rivers were so sweet and placid; the meadows were <KTe ' 
 so inviting, divided asunder into " little iles and islets ; " the flowers 
 of such delightful hue and fragrance, that it seemed that life there 
 must be passed in uninterrupted happiness and pleasure. And the 
 people, apparently, were worthy of so pleasant a land, being " of a 
 natural disposition perfect and well guided." Athore, the eldest son 
 of Satouriona, was " gentle and tractable ; perfect in beautie, wise- 
 
198 
 
 FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 
 
 [CHAP. VIIL 
 
 Building of 
 Fort Caro- 
 line 
 
 dome, honest sobrietie, and modest grauitie." The chief of a neigh- 
 boring tribe was " gratious and courteous," and " one of the tallest 
 men and best proportioned that may bee founde ; " his wife a model as 
 a princess, a woman, and a mother, endowed with great beauty, u of 
 virtuous countenance and modest gravity," having in her train five 
 graceful daughters, well brought up, " taught well and straightly." 
 That they none of them wore much if any clothing perhaps added to 
 rather than took from the glamour of this arcadian picture. Life, too, 
 as seemed fitting, was prolonged in this land where the men were 
 noble and brave, the women beautiful, and all nature bountiful. The 
 father of a chief was found whose descendants were counted to the 
 fifth generation. How old the sire was is not stated ; but his vener- 
 able son numbered two hundred and fifty years, and both expected, 
 unless cut off by a violent death, to live thirty or forty years longer. 
 
 Laudonniere, after sailing a few leagues along the coast, returned 
 to the River of May without going to Port Royal, having heard, no 
 doubt, either from the Indians or before leaving France, of the aban- 
 donment of Charles Fort. He determined to settle on the 
 May, rather than at Port Roval. as " it was much more need- 
 
 / * / 
 
 full to plant in places plentifull of victual, than in goodly 
 havens, faire, deepe, and pleasant to the view." The spot chosen was 
 
 just above what is 
 now known as St. 
 John's Bluff, on the 
 bank of the river. 1 
 At break of day, 
 the trumpet sound- 
 ed to assemble the 
 people ; a Psalm 
 of thanksgiving was 
 sung ; the blessing 
 of God was asked 
 upon their enter- 
 prise, and then all 
 fell to work with 
 shovels, cutting - 
 hooks and hatchets. 
 The fort was in the shape of a triangle, fronting the river, with the 
 bluff on one side, a marsh on the other, and the woods in the rear. 
 It was finished in a few days, with the aid of Satouriona's people, 
 and was uumed Fort Caroline, in honor of the king, Charles IX. of 
 France. 
 
 1 Parkiuan's Pioneers of Neto France. Fairbanks' History of St. Auyustine. 
 
 Fort Caroline [De Bry ] 
 
1564.] CUPIDITY OF THE FRENCHMEN. 199 
 
 They could handle the shovel to build fortifications, but not to till 
 the ground. As in the first colony, no seed was planted ; the only 
 harvest thought of was gold and silver. The experience of the un- 
 fortunate Port Royalists profited them nothing ; if they considered at 
 all the advantage which numbers gave them, it was only; that they 
 would be able to explore the farther, and use them, if need be, in the 
 subjection of the Indians, in acquiring the wealth they hoped to find. 
 Expeditions were sent from time to time into the interior, always 
 with the same purpose. Everywhere gold and silver were 
 asked for; everywhere was the same answer: it was some for gold and 
 
 silver. 
 
 chief beyond who had them in plenty, and against that par- 
 ticular chief the informant was always anxious to commence hostil- 
 ities with the aid of the Frenchmen. There was no fable telling of gold 
 that they were not eager to swallow. It was " good newes " at Fort 
 Caroline that there were certain Indians who covered " their brests, 
 armes, thighes, legs, and foreheads, with large plates of gold and silver," 
 as protective armor, and that " the height of two foot of gold and sil- 
 ver," would be the booty that might be taken from the least of the 
 petty chiefs of that people. Two Spaniards were brought to the Fort 
 from the Gulf coast, where they had been shipwrecked fifteen years 
 before ; they i-eported that the king of that country " had great store 
 of gold and silver, so farre forth that in a certaine village he had a 
 pit full thereof, which was at the least as high as a man, and as large 
 as a tunne ; " that " the common people of the countrey also had great 
 store thereof ; " that " the women going to dance, did weare about 
 their girdles plates of gold as broad as a sawcer, and in such number 
 that the weight did hinder them to dance at their ease ; and that the 
 men ware the like also." While the cupidity of the Frenchmen was 
 inflamed with such stories, there could be no useful industry and no 
 steady discipline. Promises to the chiefs of rendering aid in their 
 attacks upon their neighboi-s, were kept or broken, as either course 
 seemed most likely to further the search for treasure. It was a trial 
 of cunning with the native chiefs, in which, on the whole, the savages 
 came off the best ; for they were sometimes enabled, by the help of 
 the Christians, to add to their store of scalps, while the promised 
 riches which the Christians coveted, wore still to be got by some new 
 expedition. " The mountaine of Apaliohi," which they soon learned 
 to believe was the source of the precious metals they were in search 
 of, seemed after every fight to be as distant as ever. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FRENCH AND SPANISH COLONISTS IN FLORIDA. 
 
 PLOTS AGAINST THE FRENCH GOVERNOR LAUDONNIERE. OPEN MUTINY IN HIS 
 COLONY. FIGHT WITH INDIANS. VISIT OF AN ENGLISH FLEET TO PORT ROYAL. 
 ARRIVAL OF RIBAULT WITH A FLEET OF SEVEN SHIPS. CRUSADE OF PEDRO 
 MENENDEZ AGAINST HERETICS. His ATTACK ON FORT CAROLINE. SLAUGHTER 
 
 OF HlBAULT AND HIS MEN BY THE SPANIARDS. FOUNDING OF THE FlRST PER- 
 MANENT SETTLEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES. INDIGNATION OF THE FRENCH AT 
 THE SPANISH ATROCITIES. DOMINIQUE DE GOURGUES GOES TO FLORIDA. HE 
 MAKES ALLIES OF THE SAVAGES. ATTACK ON THE SPANISH FORT. THE 
 BLOODY RETALIATION. A SPANISH MISSION ON THE RAPPAHANNOCK. 
 
 DISAPPOINTMENT in these extravagant hopes and ill-directed 
 efforts soon led to the inevitable results. Discontent and insubordina- 
 tion showed themselves in the fort ; Laudonniere was blamed 
 tjon in Fort for want of energy and enterprise, and a plot was formed to 
 depose him and even to take his life. One La Roquette pre- 
 tended to have discovered by magic a mine of gold and silver, far up 
 the river, which he promised should yield ten thousand crowns each 
 to the soldiers who should take it, besides a reserve of fifteen hundred 
 thousand for the king. Genre, a trusted friend of Laudonnidre, was, 
 with Roquette, the head of this conspiracy, and many of the soldiers 
 were fascinated with the old delusion in fresher and more captivating 
 colors than ever. But to reach this wonderful mine it was necessary 
 first to dispose of the captain ; for he held the key of the store-house, 
 was rigidly economical of provision, was obeyed and trusted by many 
 of the soldiers, and was an obstacle generally in the way of any plan 
 whereby every man in the colony was to do just as he pleased with- 
 out regard to anybody else. It was proposed to the apothecary to 
 give him enough arsenic or quicksilver " to make mee," says Laudon- 
 niere himself, " pitch ouer the pearch ; " the master of the fire-works 
 was asked to put a keg of gunpowder under his bed. But neither 
 proposition found favor in the eyes of those scrupulous officers ; ex- 
 posure speedily followed, and the conspirators were punished on the 
 spot or sent back to France. 
 
 But the fire was only smothered, not extinguished. Other mal- 
 
 
1564.] 
 
 A PIRATICAL VOYAGE. 
 
 201 
 
 contents soon after stole two small vessels, the only ones the colony 
 
 possessed for excursions into the interior, and made off to 
 
 the West India Islands for a piratical voyage on their own necmwize 
 
 J , ., the ships. 
 
 account. Two other and larger vessels were built as soon as 
 possible, but were no sooner ready for sea than they also were seized, 
 the mutineers, this time, being strong enough to imprison Laudon- 
 niere and compel him to sign a roving commission authorizing them 
 to make a cruise among the Spanish colonies. By robbing churches 
 and seizing treasure-ships they hoped to so enrich themselves as to be 
 independent even of government at home, if their acts should be re- 
 pudiated. But the fate which so often followed buccaneers attended 
 them. They soon quarrelled over the booty they easily acquired ; 
 
 Arrest of the Pirates. 
 
 three of the vessels finally fell into the hands of the Spaniards ; the 
 fourth, steered by a pilot who, with some of the sailors, had been com- 
 pelled against his will to go in her, was brought back by his skillful 
 management to Fort Caroline, when Laudonniere had the satisfaction 
 of seizing the ringleaders and punishing them with death. 
 
 In the spring a new enemy beset them, whose coming should have 
 been foreseen " ignominious hunger." The provisions they brought 
 
202 FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CuAP. IX. 
 
 with them were exhausted, and they could no longer rely upon the 
 stock of corn and beans which the Indians had laid up for 
 
 Famine at- . . .. , . , . , 
 
 tacks the winter use, as they parted unwillingly with any portion of 
 their small remainder. Ti'inkets and clothing, with which 
 they had become familiar, diminished in value in the eyes of the 
 savages, and they knew from experience how to measure with accu- 
 racy the wasting corn-heaps by the months still to elapse before the 
 ripening of the new corn. Less thoughtful than the Indians, the col- 
 onists had provided for no scarcity, and looked forward to no harvest, 
 depending alone upon succor from France, as their unfortunate coun- 
 trymen had done before them. Day by day, they climbed the hill 
 and scanned the horizon in vain for a sight of the returning ships ; and 
 dav by day their flesh wasted away, their bones pierced the skin, and 
 hardly strength was left them to gather sorrel and dig the few edible 
 roots they could find in the woods wherewith to keep the life in their 
 miserable bodies. Driven to this extremity they clamored to be led 
 back to France, though not one of their two or three small vessels was 
 large enough to carry the whole company, or fit to encounter the 
 perils of such a voyage. 
 
 It was the time of planting, and they could as easily have waited 
 for the ripening of fruit and grain and have thus made themselves 
 self-sustaining and independent of all outside aid for the future, as pro- 
 vide for the three months it would take to build another ship. But 
 they thought of nothing, cared for nothing, but to get away. A new 
 ship, therefore, must be built, and they devoted such strength as they 
 had left to that work. Meantime, they were in want of food. For- 
 aging expeditions among the Indians only ended in disappointment ; 
 the hungry crowd surrounded Laudonniere, demanding that he should 
 seize one of the neighboring chiefs and hold him to be ransomed in 
 corn and other provision. " Shall it not be lawful for vs," they said, 
 " to punish them for the wrong they doe unto vs, beside that we know 
 apparently how little they respect vs." The wrongs were that the 
 Indians were too prudent to part with the stores which were hardly 
 sufficient for their own support till the new corn was fit to gather ; the 
 want of respect was the unconcealed contempt they felt for these 
 civilized paupers who permitted themselves to be reduced to this 
 pitiful extremity. 
 
 The remedy proposed did not commend itself to Laudonniere's 
 judgment, but he was compelled to yield to the clamor around him. 
 in'upticeto Outina, one of their kings, was seized amid the lamentations 
 the Indians. o f ] ie W omen and the cries for vengeance from the men of 
 his tribe. The treacherous act, as Laudonniere expected, failed to 
 arouse either the fears or the generosity of the Indians ; but it in- 
 
1565.J 
 
 ARRIVAL OF AN ENGLISH FLEET. 
 
 203 
 
 flamed to the last degree their cunning and ferocity. Under pretence 
 of providing for the ransom of their chief, they led the Frenchmen 
 into an ambuscade, out of which they escaped, after a hard day's fight, 
 with only two bags of corn, while two of their men were killed and 
 twenty-two wounded. Incapable of the industry and wanting in the 
 
 -V^%^' '">---< 5 - '^ 
 
 ^--^-.^W^-l^t* Tl -* > ^ . /** * 
 
 ^^jSpssfc' 
 
 ^-w^^'j&at 
 
 Fight with Indians. 
 
 forethought indispensable to the successful colonist, they could still 
 acquit themselves, weak as they were, with honor as soldiers. 
 
 As the season advanced food became more plentiful, and grain was 
 gathered for the homeward voyage in August, 1565. On the third 
 day of that month, however, Laudonniere, ever on the watch for aid 
 from home, saw from the look-out on the bluff a fleet ap- 
 
 , . ic i iici Visit of an 
 
 proachmg. At the fort " they were so glad of those newes, English fleet 
 that one would haue thought them to bee out of their wittes John Haw- 
 to see them laugh and leape for joy." Their joy was so far 
 premature, that the ships were English, not French, though otherwise, 
 as the event proved, they had equal cause for thankfulness. 
 
 The fleet was commanded by Sir John Hawkins, now returning 
 from a second and profitable voyage to the coast of Guinea, where he 
 had learned three years before that " store of Negros might be had," 
 
204 FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 and that they " were very good marchandise in Hispaniola." l He 
 was not deaf or blind to the claims of humanity in white men, and 
 took pity on the sore distress of the French colony, relieving not only 
 their present wants, but offering to transport them to France. There 
 was great " bruite and mutiny " when Laudonniere declined the offer, 
 and the soldiers threatened that they would go without him. A com- 
 promise at last was made, and one of the English vessels was pur- 
 chased, with sufficient provision for the voyage. Hawkins made some 
 generous additions by gift, and then left them with renewed life and 
 hope at this unexpected and timely relief, having won among them, 
 says Laudonniere, " the reputation of a good and charitable man 
 deseruing to be esteemed as much of vs all as if he saued all our 
 lines." 
 
 In a few days they were ready to sail, and waited only a fair wind, 
 when, on the 28th of August, another fleet was seen approaching. 
 The long-expected aid had come at last from France. Seven 
 ships anchored at the mouth of the river with three hun- 
 
 dred men on board, under the command of Ribault himself. 
 Amid the salutes of cannon, the greetings of old friends and com- 
 panions, the welcome to fellow-countrymen who were looked on as 
 deliverers, there was one man who was crushed by this arrival with a 
 sense of new misfortune, and, the hardest of all things to bear, of 
 cruel injustice in return for a self-sacrificing and faithful discharge of 
 duty. 
 
 This was Laudonniere, who soon learned that the discontented and 
 insubordinate persons, whom he had sent back to France the year 
 before, had brought accusations against him of an unwarrantable as- 
 sumption of power and tyrannical behavior in the colony, and that 
 these had been listened to by Admiral Coligny. Ribault was sent to 
 take command in his place, and he was recalled to answer for his con- 
 duct. When we remember the many difficulties he had had to en- 
 counter ; the extravagant expectations of sudden wealth which had 
 possessed his followers and the consequent disappointment and discon- 
 tent ; the mutinies he had been compelled to submit to or to quell ; 
 the calamity of famine he had been called upon to relieve ; the war 
 with the Indians into which he was forced against his better judg- 
 ment ; and that through all he had held the colony together and saved 
 
 it f rom absolute destruction, it is much easier to believe that 
 Lau- ne was unfortunate than in fault. But his disgrace over- 
 
 whelmed him, and he makes a touching, though unconscious 
 appeal to all human sympathy, in the record of his state at this 
 
 1 See Voi/ayes of the riy'it ivorshij>ful and valiant Kniyht Sir John Hawkins. Hakluyt's 
 Voyages, vol. iii. 
 
1565.] EXPEDITION OF PEDRO MENENDEZ. 205 
 
 point of his sad story, that " weakened with my former trauaile, and 
 fallen into a melancholy vpon the false reports that had bene made of 
 niee, I fell into a great continuall feuer." It was doubtless a satis- 
 faction to him to be assured that his friends among the new-comers 
 were'at once satisfied that the accusations against him were malicious, 
 and had no foundation in truth ; that Ribault begged him not to leave 
 the colony, and generously offered to build another fortress for his 
 own company, and to leave him unmolested in command of Fort 
 Caroline. But Laudonniere felt too keenly the impeachment of his 
 honor and character, to accede to any proposition but implicit obe- 
 dience to the orders from home, and an immediate return to France 
 to meet his accusers face to face. But misfortune had not yet done 
 with him. Calamities yet to come wei-e to sweep away all question, 
 for a time all memory, of his past administration of affairs. 
 
 Only a week had passed, when a third fleet appeared, silently and 
 suddenly in the night-time at the mouth of the River of May. 
 When hailed as to who they were and what they wanted, oi Pedro 
 the answer was that they were from Spain ; that Pedro Me- 
 nendez was in command ; and that he had come in obedience to the 
 king to burn and destroy such Lutheran French as should be found in 
 his dominions. 1 An attack was to 
 have been made in the morning. 
 Three of Ribault's ships had gone 
 up the river to Fort Caroline ; the 
 other four were no match for the 
 Spaniards, and had no alternative 
 but to slip their cables and stand 
 out to sea. They not only outsailed 
 the Spanish vessels, but turned and 
 followed them, when the chase was 
 relinquished, and watched their en- 
 trance into the River of Dolphins, 
 a few leagues southward, and the 
 landing of men, provisions, ord- 
 nance, and ammunition. Pedro 
 
 This expedition of Menendez was esteemed in Spain as almost a 
 new crusade. There was no lack of either men or means in 
 so holy an undertaking as the extermination of heretics, wirar-*i*wi 
 
 ,i ,1 .... ... heretics. 
 
 with their pernicious doctrines, were sure to vitiate the pure 
 minds of the Indians of the New World, stain their white souls with 
 ineffaceable evil, and lead them to perdition. This fervent religious 
 zeal, coupled with the execution and approval of the most frightful 
 
 1 MS. Letter of Meiieiidez to the King ; Turkman's Pioneers, etc., p. 100. 
 
206 FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 atrocities, was perfectly in accordance with the spirit of the times; 
 but it is quite possible that the determination of the Spaniai-ds to 
 destroy, in the name of God, a handful of people in the wilderness, 
 because they were heretics, may have been inflamed by the piracies 
 which the mutineers, who stole Laudonniere's ships, had committed in 
 the West Indies. Menendez himself, however, was a bigot, who 
 could conceive of no better manifestation of love to God than cruelty 
 to man, when man was heretical ; whose scent for blood was unerring 
 as that of the most ferocious wild beast ; whose ti-eacherous cunning 
 character of ul approsiching and seizing his prey, was the keenest animal 
 sienendez. instinct, sharpened to the utmost degree by human intel- 
 ligence. He undoubtedly looked upon his enterprise as a sacred mis- 
 sion, and, when on his outward voyage his fleet had been scattered by 
 a storm, he insisted upon proceeding with only a part of his force, de- 
 claring that it was evidently God's will that the victory he was to 
 achieve should be due, not to numbers, but to the Divine assistance. 
 But the most intense religious bigotry condescends to worldly wis- 
 dom, and there is little doubt that information had been sent to Spain 
 by some of the Catholics of the French court that reinforcements were 
 about to go to Fort Caroline under Ribault, and that the zeal of 
 Menendez was quickened by that intelligence to fall upon the here- 
 tics before this assistance could reach them. 
 
 When the report was taken back to Fort Caroline, that the Span- 
 Ribauit de- i al 'ds had left their ships, Ribault proposed at once to fall 
 'iwtiic f '~ u P on them with all his force before they had time to fortify 
 Spaniards, themselves on shore, and overcome them while in a defence- 
 less condition. Laudonniere, on the other hand, urged that there Avas 
 great danger of sudden storms at that season on that coast, which 
 might defeat such an expedition by disabling the ships, or driving 
 them to sea, while a prolonged absence of the soldiers would leave 
 Fort Caroline defenceless, and exposed to attack by the Spaniards. 
 His counsel, as the event proved, was wise, but it was unheeded. 
 Ribault sailed with all the larger vessels and neai'ly all the effective 
 men at his command. He left behind him at Fort Caroline about two 
 hundred and forty persons, including the sick, the women, and the 
 children, but among them all a very few only were able to bear 
 arms. 1 
 
 As Laudonniere feared, Ribault and his ships were scattered by a 
 sudden and violent tempest just as they were about to attack the 
 enemy at the mouth of the River of Dolphins an event which was 
 
 1 Challeux's Disconra de VHistoire de la Floride better known as " the carpenter's nar- 
 rative," gives two hundred and forty as the number of persons left iu the fort, but Laudon- 
 Jiiere's estimate is much smaller. 
 
 
1565.] BLOODTHIRSTY ATTACK ON FO11T CAROLINE. 207 
 
 hailed by the Spaniards as another providential interposition in their 
 favor. This miscarriage of Ribault was the opportunity of Planof 
 Menendez, and he lost no time in availing himself of it. Mcnendez - 
 From the Indians he learned that many of the men had embarked 
 upon the French vessels, and he proposed to proceed at once overland 
 to the attack of Fort Caroline, trusting to reach it before the fleet 
 could return. To many of his companions it seemed a foolhardy 
 enterprise to march through unknown forests and swamps, to attack a 
 fortress of whose strength and the number of whose defenders they 
 were ignorant, and when defeat would probably be fatal alike to those 
 who went upon the expedition and those who were left behind. But 
 Menendez, confident in his judgment, invincible in his fanaticism, was 
 firm in his purpose. Fort Caroline, he was sure, was almost defence- 
 less ; it would be easy to find the way through the woods by the com- 
 pass ; by making an attack when least expected, success was certain ; 
 and finally, he said, " we shall the more speedily do a service to our 
 God and our king, and comply with our conscience and our duty." 
 
 On the morning of September the 17th five hundred men were 
 drawn out upon the beach, a mass was said, and the march began. At 
 the moment of starting two Indians, who had recently come 
 
 _ , J . , March on 
 
 from Fort Caroline^ appeared, and were secured as guides Fortcaro- 
 across the country, and a French deserter was to show them 
 where the fortress could be most easily approached and most success- 
 fully assaulted. For two days they struggled through the woods and 
 morasses, exposed to heavy rains, sometimes wading to their waists, 
 in danger Of losing the ammunition and provision which each man 
 carried on his back, a cold, wet, hungry, disconsolate, and grumb- 
 ling throng of stragglers held to any military duty or purpose only 
 by the iron will of one man. They reached the fort in the night of 
 the second day, and halting in water up to their knees, the pitiless 
 storm beating upon their heads, they waited for daylight. 
 
 The cold and drenching rain had driven the sentinels of the feeble 
 garrison to shelter. One man only was found at his post, and he was 
 seized and speedily put to death by a reconnoitring party that ad- 
 vanced with the first glimmer of daylight. Then the Spaniards poured 
 through breaches in the palisades with cries of " Santiago ! Victory ! 
 God is with us ! " There was little fighting ; only slaughter. 
 The panic-stricken Frenchmen, aroused from sleep by the attack otThe 
 Spanish war-cry, confused by the darkness and by the sud- 
 denness of the attack, sought only, each for himself, to escape and find 
 shelter in the woods and swamps. Neither sex nor age was spared, 
 according to the French accounts ; but the Spanish relations declare 
 that quarter was given to the women, and children under fifteen years 
 
208 
 
 FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 of age. Some were taken prisoners, apparently only from a refinement 
 of cruelty, for they were all hanged a few hours later. Over their 
 heads Menendez put this inscription, "I do this, not as to Frenchmen, 
 but as to Lutherans." 
 
 The whole number thus massacred in the name of religion was one 
 hundred and forty-two. Those who escaped made their way 
 through the marshes to the two vessels that Ribault had left 
 behind him. Among these was Laudonniere, who was 
 found the morning after the attack, held up by a soldier, in water to 
 
 Survivors 
 of the 
 slaughter. 
 
 Rescue of Laudonniire. 
 
 the arm-pits, where they had passed the night. When this wretched 
 remnant of the colony was rescued, the vessels, which a nephew of Ri- 
 bault commanded, sailed for France without waiting for tidings of the 
 expedition to the River of Dolphins. 
 
1565.] FATE OF THE WRECKED FRENCHMEN. 209 
 
 Thus far Menendez was crowned with complete success. " We owe," 
 he said, " to God and His mother, more than to human strength, this 
 victory over the adversaries of the Holy Catholic Religion." 1 Not a 
 heretic Frenchman was left alive on the River of May, and that even 
 the memory of them might be wiped out, the names of the river and 
 the fort were changed to San Mateo by these devout Spaniards, the 
 nearest saint-day, that of St. Matthew, being on the 21st day of Sep- 
 tember. Taking fifty soldiers with him Menendez returned to his 
 encampment at the mouth of the River of Dolphins. A messenger had 
 been sent forward to announce his success and his coming, and the 
 whole camp turned out to meet him in procession with priests at their 
 head in full canonicals, chanting a Te Deum, and bearing a crucifix. 
 The Adelantado and his followers knelt before and kissed the cross, 
 giving thanks to God that He had enabled them to extirpate his ene- 
 mies and theirs. , 
 
 The next anxiety of Menendez was to know what had become of the 
 other heretics on board of Ribault's ships. Nor had he long to wait. 
 Intelligence was soon brought in by the Indians that the Frenchmen 
 were wrecked on .Anastasia Island, a little to the southward. Pro- 
 ceeding thither with fifty soldiers, Menendez found a party 
 
 r*f ITT i The fate of 
 
 of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred men, to whom the wrecked 
 he made himself known. Thrown by the storm upon this 
 desolate beach, exhausted from want of food and rest, with no means 
 of escape or of subsistence, they appealed to his humanity to aid them 
 in reaching a place of refuge at their fort, Caroline. Were they Cath- 
 olics or Lutherans ? he asked. They replied that they were all of 
 the Reformed Religion. Then he told them that their fort was de- 
 stroyed, and all ifs men were put to the sword. As to themselves, he 
 said, that being of the new faith " he held them for enemies, and would 
 wage war upon them even to blood and to fire, would pursue them with 
 all cruelty wherever he should encounter them in whatever sea or land." 
 They begged that he would give them shelter till succor could be sent 
 them from France, which was at peace with Spain. His answer was: 
 " They could give up their arms and place themselves under my mercy, 
 that I should do with them what our Lord should order ; and from 
 that I did not depart, nor would I, unless God our Lord should other- 
 wise inspire." 2 Then they offered him fifty thousand ducats to spare 
 their lives ; but he was inexorable, and they, not knowing how small 
 his force was, perhaps misled by the courtesy with which he treated 
 their messengers, accepted the only alternative that seemed left to 
 
 1 MS. Letter from Menendez to the King, iu Parkmaii's Pioneers of France. 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
 VOL. I. 14 
 
210 THE FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 them, and surrendered unconditionally, giving up their arms and stand- 
 ards. 
 
 An inlet divided the two parties, and the treacherous Spaniard or- 
 
 dered that the Frenchmen should be brought over in companies of ten. 
 
 As each squad arrived they were told that as they were 
 
 Themur- , *, . , J 
 
 many, and their captors were tew, it would be necessary, as 
 
 a prudent and rational precaution, that the prisoners should 
 be bound before they were marched together to the Spanish encamp- 
 ment. They were led then behind a sand-hill, out of sight of their 
 fellows on the other shore, and their hands securely tied behind their 
 backs with bow-strings. When toward night-fall all were gath- 
 ered together, they were marched a short distance to a spot which the 
 adelantado himself had chosen and marked upon the sand with a spear. 
 Once more the fatal question was asked : Were they all Lutherans ? 
 A dozen, who professed to be Catholics, and four others, who were calk- 
 ers and carpenters, and whose services were needed, were led aside. A 
 few moments later, of all the rest, all bound, not able even to raise 
 an unarmed hand to ward off a blow, not one was left alive. 
 
 A cruel and inexorable fate seemed to pursue the wretched French- 
 men. The sand could hardly have soaked up the blood of the men so 
 treacherously murdered, or the murderers have reached their camp a 
 few miles distant, when Ribault himself, with the rest of his followers, 
 arrived at the spot whence the others had, only a few hours before, 
 been betrayed to their death. Menendez heard of it the 
 
 Ribault cap- . e i 11-111 " I. i 
 
 turedby morning alter his return, and hurried back again to the inlet. 
 
 Menendez. , , , IT 
 
 As before he made sucli disposition of his men as to com- 
 pletelv deceive the French, who knew nothing of the movements of 
 the Spanish soldiers since their landing ; as before, when aid was 
 asked to enable the shipwrecked men to reach Fort Caroline, the 
 answer was that the fort had been taken and its people put to the 
 sword ; and to convince Ribault that he was completely at the mercy 
 of his enemy, he was led aside and shown the pile of the unburied 
 corpses of his murdered countrymen. Nevertheless, the Frenchmen 
 apparently would not believe that Menendez was absolutely want- 
 ing in all humane instincts, and when a ransom of a hundred thou- 
 sand ducats was offered for their lives, they had, or thought they had, 
 a pledge for their safety. The Spanish narratives assert that no such 
 pledge was given, while the French declare that he bound himself by 
 an oath to spai'e their lives ; but at best, the answers of Menendez 
 were only equivocal, and meant to betray. Of the three hundred 
 and fifty Frenchmen, however, only one hundred and fifty, with 
 Ribault at their head, offered to surrender; the rest refused, and 
 marched southward. 
 
1565.] 
 
 DEATH OF RIBAULT. 
 
 211 
 
 The stratagems of the day before were again resorted to. In 
 squads of ten, the Frenchmen were brought across the inlet ; these 
 detachments, on landing, were taken out of sight of those yet to come r 
 and their hands bound behind their backs as a pretended precaution 
 for a coming march ; when all were thus secured, they were led to the 
 spot where lay the bodies of their countrymen on the blood- red sand. 
 If there was still any lingering doubt or hope in the minds of the 
 wretched and betrayed men, it was dispelled by the questions, which, 
 to Menendez, had but one significance were they Catholics or Lu- 
 therans ? and were there any among them who wished to make confes- 
 sion ? Ribault answered that they were all of the Reformed ^^ of 
 Faith. Then, after repeating the Psalm, Domine memento Rlbault - 
 mei, he said, " that from dust they came and to dust they must return ; 
 
 Massacre of Ribault. 
 
 twenty years more or less could matter but little ; and that the ade- 
 lautado could do with them as he chose." Two youths of eighteen 
 years of age, and the fifers, trumpeters, and drummers were spared. 
 The rest were "put to the sword, judging this," says Menendez, in 
 his letter to the king, " to be expedient for the sei'vice of God our 
 Lord, and of your majesty." 
 
 That God would be pleased, he takes for granted ; why the king 
 
212 FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 should be, he gives a reason ; for he adds : " I consider it great good 
 fortune that he (Ribault) should be dead, for the King of France 
 could effect more with him and five hundred ducats than with other 
 men and five thousand, and he would do more in one year than 
 another in ten, for he was the most experienced sailor and naval 
 commander known, and of great skill in this navigation of the Indies 
 and the coast of Florida. He was, besides, greatly liked in England, 
 in which kingdom his reputation was such that he was appointed 
 Captain-General of all the English fleet, against the French Cath- 
 olics in the war between England and France, some years ago." 
 Even the savage has magnanimity enough to honor the dead in whose 
 living presence he may have ti'embled ; but that his enemy was to 
 be feared in life, was with Menendez, a reason for treating his dead 
 body with indignity. The flowing beard of Ribault, which had 
 excited the wonder and admiration of the Indians, was cut off and 
 sent to Spain as a trophy ; and his head, divided into four quarters, 
 was stuck up on lances at the four corners of the fort at the River of 
 Dolphins. 1 The place of the cruel and treacherous massacre is known, 
 to this day, as " the bloody river of Matanzas." 2 
 
 There were two hundred men still at large somewhere in Florida. 
 These were soon after heard of at a point farther down the coast. 
 They had entrenched themselves behind some temporary defences, and 
 from the materials of a wrecked vessel were building an- 
 of in- other in which to return to France. The adelantado marched 
 
 made prison- thither and attacked them ; the fort was destroyed, and the 
 unfinished ship burnt. Most of the men surrendered under 
 a promise that their lives should be spared ; but a score of them, with 
 the captain, escaped to the woods, declaring that they would take the 
 chance of being eaten by savages rather than trust themselves to any 
 pledge of Spanish faith. Menendez evidently did not think the im- 
 molation of the heretics who now surrendered, necessary to the glory 
 of God and his mother ; nor was their number sufficient to excite any 
 fears for the safety of his colony. These prisoners, therefore, he held 
 to the order of the king, instead of assassinating them the moment 
 they were in his power. And the king wrote in reply : " As to those 
 he (the adelantado) has killed, he has done well, and as to those he 
 has saved, they shall be sent to the galleys." 3 
 
 The heretics all, or nearly all, dead or held as prisoners, Menendez 
 
 ' See original documents reprinted in French's Hist. Coll. of La., New Series, 2 vols., and 
 Charlevoix's History, Shea's edition, for a comparison of all the accounts of these incidents. 
 
 2 History and Antiquities of St. Augustine, Florida. By George H. Fairbanks, New York, 
 1858. 
 
 3 MS. Letter of Menendez. Parkman'a Pioneers. 
 
1565.] 
 
 FOUNDING OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 213 
 
 then had leisure to look after the other interests of his colony, at the 
 mouth of the River of Dolphins. He had landed at this gt Au _ ug . 
 spot on the 8th of September, after his unsuccessful chase tinebuilt - 
 of the French ships from the River of May. It was here that Ribault 
 had followed to attack him, when his fleet was scattered by the tem- 
 pest, and finally shipwrecked. Menendez had gone on shore and taken 
 formal possession of the country in the name of the King of Spain, 
 with military pomp and religious solemnity ; a priest meeting him at 
 the water's edge, chanting a Te Deum, and bearing a crucifix, which 
 the soldiers knelt before and kissed with devout thankfulness. The 
 Indians watched these mysterious proceedings with simple wonder ; 
 but they received the strangers with great kindness, and gave them 
 
 Laying out of St. Augustine. 
 
 the house of a chief, called Selooe, for immediate shelter. This was 
 made the nucleus of a fort ; a ditch was at once dug around it, and a 
 rampart of earth and fascines raised. It was the first permanent 
 European settlement within the present boundaries of the United 
 States, and called by Menendez. St. Augustine, because on the festival 
 day of that saint the 28th of August the Spanish fleet had come 
 in sight of the coast of Florida, and run. into the mouth of this river. 
 
214 FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 From this point, a few days later, he had marched upon Fort Caro- 
 line, and then to the massacres at Matanzas Inlet ; and here he had 
 returned with a sense of security thus frightfully purchased, to found 
 a state. 
 
 Not a month had elapsed since the fleet of Ribault sailed into the 
 River of May, with streaming banners, amid the firing of guns, great 
 and small, the hearty cheers for a voyage happily finished, 
 the shouts of joy at an unexpected deliverance from danger 
 and distress. Of the ships, two only were now afloat 
 those carrying Laudonniere and his companions on their painful and 
 perilous voyage back to France of the people, the few others who 
 were alive were fugitives in the woods of Florida, or prisoners in the 
 hands of a relentless bigot, whose mercy, when he showed any, was 
 only some method of cruelty just short of death. Eight hundred 
 Frenchmen 1 had perished, most of them stabbed to death while their 
 hands were in bonds, behind their backs. 
 
 But there was yet to come another act in the bloody baptism of the 
 first permanent colony planted in the New World, north of the Gulf 
 of Mexico. The news of the atrocities committed by Menendez was 
 long in reaching Europe, and any intelligence of the details was de- 
 layed till they were gathered chiefly from the relations sent home by 
 the Spaniards themselves, pieced out from the fragmentary stories 
 of the few fortunate Frenchmen who escaped. The horror 
 in t'STnoeTt an( ^ indignation which these tales excited were not confined 
 cruelties! 8 * 1 * the friends and families of those who had fallen victims 
 to treachery and cruelty, or to those who shared their sor- 
 row from religious sympathy. But the Catholic King of France, and 
 his infamous mother, took no steps to assert the honor of the crown 
 and the rights of the people, either by punishing the perpetrators of 
 so horrible an atrocity, or by calling upon Spain to bring them to jus- 
 tice. The declaration of Menendez that he executed his prisoners at 
 Fort Caroline not as Frenchmen, but as Lutherans, was clearly held to 
 be, if not a justification, at least so far a palliation of his crime, that it 
 called for no redress from a Catholic monarch. If vengeance or honor 
 demanded retaliation it was left to whomsoever might take it upon 
 himself to inflict it. 
 
 Nearly three years passed away, and the Spaniards of Florida had 
 probably dismissed all fear of any retribution for the treach- 
 ery and cruelty of their leader. In the spring of 1568 three 
 'of small vessels appeared off the mouth of the River of May, 
 
 its name changed, as we have said, to San Mateo, 
 and the garrisons of two forts built there after the capture of Fort 
 
 1 Charlevoix's Nfio France, vol. ii., p. 211. 
 
1567.] DOMINIQUE DE GOURGES. 215 
 
 Caroline saluted the strangers as they passed, supposing them to be 
 Spanish. The salute was returned gun for gun, but the ships were 
 French not Spanish, and under the command of Dominique de Gour- 
 gues, a soldier of the highest reputation. 
 
 De Gourgues, returning from foreign service, had heard of the 
 massacre of his countrymen in Florida, and that the deed had gone un- 
 punished for two years. It is not certain whether he was a Catholic 
 or a heretic ; but he was, at any rate, a Frenchman, and the soldier 
 blazed into rage and shame that Frenchmen should have been so be- 
 trayed to death, and that no hand had been lifted to smite their 
 murderers. With his passion mingled, doubtless, something of per- 
 sonal resentment, for he had himself once been made a prisoner by the 
 Spaniards and, contrary to the rules of honorable warfare, condemned 
 to the galleys. However, without making his purpose public, he now 
 sold his estates, and borrowed money from his friends to fit out an ex- 
 pedition, ostensibly for the coast of Africa. 
 
 Sailing in August, 1567, he went to that coast, and thence to the 
 West Indies. His cruise had lasted all winter, and perhaps its ex- 
 penses were defrayed by a trade in negroes, seized in fights, which he 
 is known to have had with some African princes near Cape Blanco. 
 The spring found him in harbor at the western extremity of Cuba, 
 when, for the first time, he disclosed to his men the real ob- 
 
 . f i i" ^ 1 1 i i i Object of De 
 
 ject of his expedition. Calling them together lie repeated oourRues' 
 
 i ,.111 111 . Vr expedition. 
 
 the story of the slaughter at the " bloody river of Matan- 
 zas ; " he asked them to follow him, avenge this monstrous cruelty, 
 and wipe off the stain upon the honor of France. Open ears and 
 quick sympathies received his speech ; it was even easier to arouse 
 the indignation than to restrain the impetuosity of his men, and 
 they were hardly willing to wait for favorable weather to put to 
 sea. Wherever he would lead they would follow, and every marx 
 of them felt that the honor of his country was in his special keep- 
 ing, and vengeance for the murder of his countrymen his sacred 
 duty. 
 
 De Gourgues stood out to sea, after passing the forts at the mouth 
 of the May, that he might the better conceal his destination from the 
 Spaniards ; returning to the coast again, when a few leagues north- 
 ward, he entered the mouth of a small river, probably the present St. 
 Ilia. 1 The Indians, who also supposed the strangers to be Spanish, 
 
 1 The Reprinse de la Floridf, and Laudonniere's narrative, call the river the Tacatacourou, 
 named the Seine by the French, now the St. Ilia. Fairbanks' History of St. Augustine says 
 it was the Somme, now the St. Mary's, that De Gourgues entered ; Parkman (Pioneers), con- 
 jectures that it may have been either the St. Ilia or St. Mary's. As the earliest narratives 
 distinctly state that the river entered was the Seine the Tacatacourou ; and as Laudon- 
 niere says that the place of rendezvous afterward was beyond the Somme the St. Mary's 
 there seems to be no good reason for not accepting those narratives. 
 
216 FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 crowded to the shore prepared to oppose their landing, for Menendez 
 Reception of an( l n ' s companions had made themselves so thoroughly 
 
 hateful to the natives that they were determined to hinder 
 natives. any more o f a race they feared and detested from entering 
 the country. But when they discovered that the new-comers were 
 their old friends, the French, they received them with every possible 
 sign of satisfaction and welcome, followed by the wildest delight when 
 they learned that the expedition was a hostile one against the Spanish 
 settlements. 
 
 Satouriona, who had been the friend of the French, after the Indian 
 fashion, when they were at Port Royal and on the May, was 
 liancewith the chief who received De Gourgues. Between them an alli- 
 ance was entered into with the most binding Indian solemni- 
 ties, a son of the chief and his wife being given as hostages for the 
 safety of a reconnoitring party sent to examine the position of the forts 
 on the May. Satouriona called in all the warriors from the country 
 round about. A rendezvous was appointed further down the coast, to 
 which the Indians went by land, the French by water. Thence they 
 pushed forward, wading through marshes and streams, their feet torn 
 and bleeding with the stones and sharp shells that lie in their beds, 
 forcing their way through the tangled forests, at their head marching 
 De Gourgues and Olotocara, 1 a nephew of Satouriona. 
 
 At dawn they were in front of the Spanish fort on the north bank 
 of the May, and, as at Fort Caroline when Menendez sur- 
 the spanun prised it at the same hour of the day, a single sentinel only 
 was at his post to give the alarm. Shouting that the French 
 were upon them, he coolly plied a gun he brought to bear upon the 
 advancing enemy, till Olotocara, springing upon the platform, ran him 
 through with a pike. The affrighted garrison rushed from their 
 quarters in a vain attempt to escape, while French and Indians, in 
 hot fury and savage hate, poured over the defences. In a few mo- 
 ments, of the Spaniards fifteen only, who were seized and bound, were 
 left alive. 
 
 The attack was as sudden, the onslaught as furious and as irresisti- 
 ble, the destruction more complete than when Menendez, nearly three 
 yeai's before, had fallen in the light of the early morning, amid the 
 roar of the storm, the cries of men, and the shrieks of women and chil- 
 dren, upon the feeble garrison of Fort Caroline. But the work was as 
 yet but just begun, and the completeness of French vengeance was to 
 be made still more significant. 
 
 The soldiers of the fort on the south bank of the river were at no 
 
 1 The name i.s spelled Olotocara, Olotacara, Olatocara, Olocotora, and Olotoraca, by dif- 
 ferent authors. 
 
1568.] 
 
 ATTACK ON THE SPANISH FORT. 
 
 217 
 
 loss to understand what was befalling their comrades on the other 
 side. The woods were alive with Indians ; the air was filled with 
 their frightful yells of anger and defiance ; to the Spaniards it was 
 clear from their boldness that something more than usual had given 
 
 Death of the Sentinel. 
 
 them confidence and courage, and certainly it could be no savage hand 
 that trained the guns of the captured fort so promptly and truly as to 
 silence those that had been brought to bear upon the attacking party. 
 The murderers of Ribault and his men did not need to be told that 
 the white men they saw among the Indians must be French. 
 
 As speedily as possible De Gourgues embarked his men upon a ves- 
 sel he had taken the precaution to have near at hand, to cross the river, 
 
218 FRENCH AXD SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 and the Indians, too impatient to await its return for them, plunged 
 into the stream and swam over. The Spaniards, appalled 
 the span- and bewildered by the impetuosity of an onslaught trans- 
 ferred to their side of the river, which had evidently swept 
 everything before it on the other, made only a feeble attempt to 
 defend their works, and fled for their lives. The avenging French 
 were behind them as they abandoned their fortifications ; in the forest 
 the Indians met and fell upon them as they sought, like hunted beasts, 
 concealment beneath the deep shadows and in the tangled under- 
 brush of the woods. In this, as in the other fort, there were sixty 
 men ; in this, as in the other, fifteen were seized to be held a little 
 while as captives ; in this, as in the other, all the rest were killed. 
 
 San Mateo, with a force of nearly three hundred men, was yet to 
 be taken. The alarm at that post was intense, for it was only known 
 that both the forts below were overcome in a few hours and not a man 
 escaped. The commander sent out a soldier, disguised as an Indian, 
 to learn the strength and designs of the invaders ; but the quick eyes 
 Fort Matco ^ Olotocara detected the cheat ; the spy was secured, and 
 besieged. ^he garrison remained in the belief that San Mateo was 
 about to be surrounded by two thousand Frenchmen. De Gourgues 
 rested two days, and then appeared in the woods behind the fort. The 
 enemy opened fire, which only sent the Frenchmen to the protection of 
 the trees. Not knowing that De Gourgues' force was little more than 
 a hundred men, the Spaniards probably supposed this to be only a 
 detachment sent in advance, and a sortie was made to meet and dis- 
 perse it. But the Spanish soldiers ventured too far ; De Gourgues 
 threw a body of men between them and the fort ; a deadly fire, close 
 at hand, met them in the face ; in front, in flank, in the rear, the 
 Frenchmen fell upon them sword in hand ; not one was spared. 
 
 From within the palisades the Spaniards watched for the success 
 
 and saw the slaughter of their comrades. They thought no longer of 
 
 defence, but only of escape. Rushing in a mob to the op- 
 
 The panic- >,,, 
 
 stricken posite side of the fort, they threw themselves into the woods 
 and fled, mad with fear, for their lives. They were met 
 with the exultant war-whoop of hundreds of savage warriors eager 
 for revenge, who sprang upon them from their ambushes, pierced them 
 with deadly arrows, brought them down with crushing blows from 
 tomahawks, tearing the bloody scalps from heads whose brains had not 
 ceased to throb. Some few, perhaps, were fortunate enough, or brave 
 enough, to fight their way through this storm of merciless slaughter ; 
 some turned and fled back again, hoping for quarter from Christian 
 enemies. But few, if any, escaped from sudden death. 
 
 But the massacre of Fort Caroline was not even yet atoned for. 
 
1568.] THE MASSACRE REVENGED. 219 
 
 The flag of France once more floated over its ramparts of earth ; the 
 bodies of nearly four hundred Spaniards lay unburied on the Thc lagt ^ 
 shores of the River of May ; but there were prisoners still t" 1 "*'" 011 - 
 alive. De Gourgues ordered them to be brought before him, in the 
 presence of his own men and his Indian allies. He was there, he 
 told them, to avenge acts which were as heinous an insult to France 
 as they were atrocious crimes against humanity; although such deeds 
 could not be punished as they deserved, the perpetrators should, at 
 least, be made to suffer all the retaliation that could be inflicted by an 
 honorable enemy. Near by were still standing the trees on which 
 Menendez had hanged his prisoners, beneath the inscription : " I do 
 this not as to Frenchmen, but as to Lutherans." To the same trees 
 the Frencli captain ordered the Spaniards to be led for execution, and 
 over their heads were the words burned into a plank with a hot 
 iron, " I do not this as unto Spaniards, nor as unto Maranes ; l but 
 as unto traitors, robbers, and murderers." 
 
 The whole force which De Gourgues commanded, including soldiers 
 and sailors, was less than three hundred men. It was not sufficient to 
 justify him in an attack upon St. Augustine, or even to await a pur- 
 suit in formidable numbers from that point, which would be sure to 
 follow if he remained upon the coast. He had done all he could do 
 to satisfy the wounded honor of his country, to avenge the perfidy 
 and cruelty which betrayed so many of his countrymen to death. But 
 to give completeness to his work he demolished the three forts whose 
 garrisons he had exterminated ; this done, he took leave of his Indian 
 allies with mutual protestations of good-will, with inter- ^ rtureof 
 change of presents, with regrets on one side at the departure ^m ^ 1 *" 6 * 
 of such cherished friends, on the other with assurance of a ida - 
 speedy return. " I am willing now to live longer," said an aged 
 squaw, in the spirit of heathen philosophy, " for I have seen the 
 French return and the Spaniards killed." And that, no doubt, was 
 the feeling of all her people. There was some good-will toward the 
 French, of whom they had little fear. But the Spaniards they both 
 feared and hated. 
 
 The intelligence of what De Gourgues had done reached Spain in 
 time for the king to send a fleet of small vessels to intercept him on 
 the coast. It was not far behind him in pursuit at Rochelle, where he 
 first arrived, and followed him to other ports, but he fortunately 
 evaded capture. The French king would not have regretted it had 
 the Spaniards overtaken him ; for much as his deeds in Florida were 
 generally applauded, and especially by the Huguenots, he was looked 
 
 i Marane was an opprobrious term applied to Spaniards, meaning originally, suggest* 
 Parkmau (Pioneers of New France), 9 Moor. 
 
220 FRENCH AND SPANISH IX FLORIDA. [CHAI>. IX. 
 
 upon coldly at the Catholic court ; and he found it prudent, when the 
 king of Spain offered a reward for his head, to go into retirement, if 
 not into actual concealment. For several years he lived in obscurity, 
 and died when about to take up arms once more against his old 
 Deaths of enemies, as commander of the Portuguese fleet in the service 
 of Don Alphonso, then at war with Philip II. of Spain. 
 Mcneiidcz had died five years before (in 1574) when about 
 to sail as admiral of the Spanish armada against Elizabeth of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 The extirpation of error in the slaughter of heretics by Menendez 
 had been fearfully avenged ; in the propagation of the faith the bloody 
 apostle was even less successful. He was, to do him justice, as zealous 
 in the one cause as in the other, but the Indians steadily refused to 
 listen to the teachings of the priests who, alone of all the Spaniards, 
 were not more merciless and cruel than the savages themselves. And 
 they learned moreover, from the success of De Gourgues' expedition, 
 that Spaniards were not invincible, and they were not slow to profit 
 by that lesson whenever the opportunity offered. 
 
 But Menendez did not confine his efforts, either for colonization or 
 the conversion of the Indians, to the region about St. Augus- 
 fortsoiMen- tine. By the way of the Bay of St. Mary, as Gomez and 
 other early navigators called Chesapeake Bay, Menendez be- 
 lieved that the passage to India would be found, and in 1566 he sent 
 a vessel carrying soldiers and priests to establish a post somewhere 
 on the shores of the Bay or one of its tributary rivers. The party was 
 guided by an Indian convert, a brother of the cacique of the Axacan 
 or lacan country, as a portion of Virginia was called, whence he had 
 been taken some years before to Mexico, and christened by the name 
 of the viceroy, Don Luis de Velasco. This expedition was unsuccess- 
 ful. But Menendez continued to urge his project, and four years later 
 induced the general of the order of Jesuits to direct the establishment 
 of a missionary station at Axacan. 
 
 The Indian convert, Don Luis, was then in Spain, and gladly 
 availed himself of such an opportunity to return to his own country, 
 promising to use his influence, with his brother and his people on be- 
 half of the missionaries. With him went a priest and two religious 
 from Spain, and at Port Royal they were joined by the father John 
 Baptist Segura, the head of the Jesuit Mission of Florida, another 
 priest, and four Indian boys, novices from the mission school at 
 Havana. 
 
 In September, 1570, this little party of devout and courageous mis- 
 sionaries were landed on the banks of the Potomac, which the early 
 Spanish navigators called the Espiritu Santo, where the vessel left 
 
1570.] THE SPANISH MISSIONARIES. 221 
 
 them, with a few stores, alone in the wilderness. Travelling six miles 
 on foot across the country to the Rappahannock, they pushed 
 
 J ,. , / f , Missionarien 
 
 into the interior for some distance along the coast or that ontheKap- 
 
 11 i T -11 TT i pahannock. 
 
 river, till they reached an Indian village. Here they put up 
 a rude log cabin for their own shelter and as a chapel, which they 
 named "La Madre de Dios de lacan " "the chapel of the mother 
 of God at lacan, "or Axacan. 
 
 Their provisions were scanty, and they were soon called upon to 
 endure the hardships of winter. The Indians were even poorer than 
 usual, for there had been a long period of scarcity, and they could 
 give at best but little aid to the strangers, though they received them 
 with kindness. The helpless missionaries could neither hunt nor fish, 
 and were almost entirely dependent upon the good-will and good 
 offices of Don Luis, through whom alone could they hold much intelli- 
 gent communication with the people of his tribe. But Don Luis soon 
 forgot that he was a Christian ; the instinct, of Indian blood 
 
 Desertion of 
 
 and the force of early habits were stronger than the rite of their Indian 
 
 "* ally. 
 
 baptism and the pious promises of the neophyte ; lie soon 
 abandoned the brethren and resumed the companionship of his youth 
 and the free and savage life of the woods. In ceasing to be the friend 
 of the Christians he became their most dangerous enemy, constrained 
 in the nature of the case to prove thus the sincerity of his conduct to 
 those whom he had once abandoned for civilized life and the religion 
 of the white man. 
 
 Again and again messengers were sent to the renegade to recall 
 him to the duties he had so solemnly assumed, but they were answered 
 only with frivolous excuses. Late in January father Quiros, taking 
 with him two of the Indian boys belonging to the mission, went to try 
 the effect of personal and spiritual authority with the man upon whose 
 friendship now even their lives depended. But his expostulations and 
 entreaties were met with evasions by Don Luis, who was unable, nev- 
 ertheless, while standing face to face with the good father and listen- 
 ing to the solemn and tender admonitions of the priest, to avow the 
 full extent of his own hypocrisy and treachery. But no sooner had 
 Quiros and his two companions turned disappointed and sorrowful 
 to retrace their foot-steps than they were brought to the ground by a 
 volley of arrows from the lurking savages. 
 
 The father Segura and his little company spent the time meanwhile 
 in prayer in the chapel as day after day passed and there Massacre O f 
 were no tidings of Quiros. On the fourth day the war- the prie8t8 - 
 whoop rung through the woods ; a band of painted savages surrounded 
 the chapel, Don Luis at their head dressed in the cassock of the mur- 
 dered priest. Segura and his companions were no longer in doubt as 
 
222 FRENCH AND SPANISH IN FLORIDA. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 to the fate of Qniros ; they guessed, no doubt, what was speedily to be 
 their own. Don Luis demanded their knives and hatchets, which were 
 meekly surrendered. At a signal from the apostate the savages rushed 
 upon the defenceless missionaries, and all except one of the Indian 
 boys, saved by a brother of Don Luis, were instantly slaughtered. 
 
 In the spring a vessel arrived from Port Royal with supplies. A 
 crowd of Indians thronged the banks of the river as it approached ; 
 at a distance men were visible, clothed in the garments of the dead 
 priests. The savages shouted, " See the fathers who came to us. 
 We have treated them well ; come and see them, and we will treat 
 you likewise." The sailors were not deceived by this shallow artifice, 
 and returned at once to Port Royal to report the evident fate of the 
 mission. 
 
 Menendez, in the course of the year, returned from Spain, and 
 resolved, on hearing the story, to punish the Indians for killing his 
 friends. Taking a small and fast vessel he sailed up the Potomac, 
 landed a small force and marched in pursuit of Don Luis and his 
 brother the cacique. He failed to overtake them, but othei's were 
 captured, and confessed ; the boy, Alphonsus, was brought to him, 
 who related the particulars of the massacre, pointing out eight of 
 those among the prisoners who were concerned in it. These the ade- 
 lantado hanged at the yard-arm of his vessel, first having them bap- 
 tized, more perhaps, to the satisfaction of his own conscience than to 
 their edification. This done he returned to St. Augustine. For 
 more than thirty years longer that remained the sole European colony 
 within the limits of the present United States. The unknown site 
 somewhere on the banks of the Rappahannock, of the chapel of Our 
 Lady of Axacan, marked the only important attempt of Spanish colo- 
 nization north of Florida. 1 
 
 In 1586, Sir Francis Drake, on his way home from an expedition to 
 South America, in cruising along the coast of Florida in search of the 
 first English colony on the island of Roanoke, saw an outlook on 
 Anastasia Island. Entering the River of Dolphins he found the Span- 
 ish settlement, then under the command of Pedro Menendez, a nephew 
 of the founder. In the fort was a treasure-chest, containing .2,000, 
 sir Francis wn ich Drake did not leave behind him; the town was a 
 duster of wooden houses, and these he burnt. 2 As he ap- 
 proached the fort, from which the Spaniards had fled, " forth- 
 with came a Frenchman being a Phipher (who had bene prisoner with 
 
 1 Sec original MS. by John Gilmary Shea, in New York Historical Library; and "The 
 Log Chapel on the Rappahaunock," by the same author, in Catholic World for March, 
 1875. 
 
 2 Barcia. 
 
1586.] 
 
 CAPTURE OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 223 
 
 them) in a little bonte, playing on his Phiph the time of the Prince of 
 Orenge his song." 1 Of the companions of Ribault whom Menendez 
 
 The French Flfer. 
 
 spared from the second massacre at Matanzas Inlet, because he had 
 need of them, one was a fifer, and he it was, probably, who gave this 
 shrill welcome to the English invader. 
 
 1 Sir Francis Drake's West Indian Voyage of 1585. Hakluyt, vol. iii., 1600 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 ENGLISH VOYAGES AND ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. 
 
 FIRST IMPULSE IN ENGLAND TOWARD AMERICAN COLONIZATION. UNSUCCESSFUL 
 VOYAGES. THEORIES OF A NORTHEAST PASSAGE. VOYAGE OF SIR HUGH Wn.- 
 
 LOUUIlliY AND RlCHARD CHANCELLOR. FltOBISHER AND DAVIS IN THE NORTHWEST. 
 
 SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT'S PLAN FOR AMERICAN SETTLEMENTS. His DEPARTURE 
 FROM ENGLAND AND ARRIVAL AT NEWFOUNDLAND. Loss OF SIR HUMPHREY ON 
 HIS RETURN. WALTER RALEIGH SENDS TWO SHIPS TO EXPLORE IN AMERICA. 
 His FIRST COLONY REACHES THE COAST OF NORTH CAROLINA. TOBACCO INTRO- 
 DUCED INTO ENGLAND. NEW PLANTATION BEGUN UNDER GOVERNOR JOHN WHITE. 
 
 MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF THE SETTLERS. UNSUCCESSFUL SEARCH FOR 
 THE LOST COLONY. RALEIGH'S ATTEMPT AT COLONIZATION ENDED BY IMPRISON- 
 MENT. 
 
 IT is not always unprofitable, and it is often interesting, to reflect 
 what might have been the course of human events but for the inter- 
 vention of some slight action, seeming at the moment to be of trifling 
 importance. Had Columbus, for example, refused to deviate on his first 
 voyage from that directly westward course which he had laid down as 
 the only true one, his first land-fall would probably have been the coast 
 of Florida. The history of the world would have flowed in another 
 channel, and the progress of the human race been arrested for centuries 
 if the order had not been given on board the Santa Maria to put the 
 helm up and stand southwest for a night, in pursuit of a cloud-bank 
 which one of the Pinzons mistook for land. We may venture upon 
 almost any latitude of conjecture as to what might have been, had the 
 Spanish march of conquest and possession been directed to the terri- 
 tory now occupied by the United States rather than to that of the rich 
 and semi-civilized peoples of Mexico and Peru. In the providence of 
 God it was not to be. 
 
 Besides, the disasters and disappointments attending all the expedi- 
 tions of the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the French in North Amer- 
 ica, in the course of the sixteenth century, were alleviated and atoned 
 for by none of that dazzling acquisition of wealth that came from the 
 spoiling of the semi-civilized nations of the South. The North Amer- 
 ican Indians, unlike the natives of softer climates whom the Spanish 
 subdued so easily, would fight to the death with the fierceness of 
 wild beasts rather than quietly submit to the white men, or if re- 
 
1527.] AWAKING OF ENGLISH INTEREST. 22.S 
 
 duced to slavery would die in obstinate despair. There were no slaves 
 and no gold in this inhospitable region ; people and country were 
 proved to be alike valueless in the estimate of the Spanish conquerors, 
 the one feeble colony at St. Augustine alone being an exception, and 
 that owed its origin to a cruel fanaticism and was held together by 
 the spirit of religious propagandism. It was happy for the world that 
 it was so. If the history of South America had been repeated in the 
 north it would have been better that the Atlantic had still been held 
 to be a sea of darkness into which no ship manned by mortals could 
 penetrate and live. At length it was plain that not the Spanish but 
 a people of another blood, another faith, and another destiny were to 
 possess the land, though more than a century passed from the time 
 that the Cabots looked upon their terram primiim visam of the New 
 World before an English colony was planted upon its shores. 
 
 The idea of the real value the new-found regions were to be to 
 the English people, was of slow growth in the English mind. A 
 short way to India was the main purpose of the voyages of the Cabots. 
 If other voyages were projected or made under commissions from 
 Henry VII. early in the sixteenth century, as was probably the case, 
 they had no other object. Robert Thorne, an eminent merchant of 
 London, whose father is supposed to have been upon a voy- Awakin g of 
 age to Newfoundland, urged Henry VIII. in 1527, to send Kt n in ' 
 out fresh expeditions to discover new lands and kingdoms Amenca 
 whereby the king would win perpetual glory, and his subjects in- 
 finite profit. " To which places," he said, " there is left one way to 
 discover, which is into the north, for that of the foure partes of the 
 worlde, it seemeth three partes are discovered by other princes. For 
 out of Spaine they have discovered all the Indies and Seas Occidentall, 
 and out of Portingall all the Indies and Seas Oriental! ; so that by 
 this part of the Orient and Occident they have compassed the world. 
 .... So that now rest to be discovered the sayd nortlie parts, the 
 which it seemeth to mee, is onely your charge and duety. Because 
 the situation of this your Realme is thereunto neerest and aptist of all 
 others." l And in another letter on the same subject and written 
 with the same purpose, he says: " It appeareth plainely that the New- 
 foundland that we discovered, is all a maine land with the Indies 
 Occidentall, from whence the Emperor hath all the gold and pearles : 
 
 and so continueth of coast more than 5000 leagues of length 
 
 So that to the Indies it would seem we have some title Now 
 
 then if from the sayd New found lands the Sea be navigable, there is 
 no doubt but sayling northward and passing the Pole, descending to 
 the Equinoctial line, we shall hit these Islands [of India,] and it should 
 
 1 Letter of Kobert Thorne to Henry VIII., Hakluyt, vol. i., p. 212. 
 VOL. i. 15 
 
ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. . [CHAP. X. 
 
 be a much shorter way than either the Spaniards or Portingals 
 have." i 
 
 The same year two ships, the Mary of G-uilford and the Samson, 
 Early TOY- sailed from London, possibly in compliance with these ex- 
 Engfau'd, hortations of Thome's. 2 At any rate the expedition was 
 
 undertaken at the king's command ; it went, wrote John Rut, 
 the captain of the Mary of Guilford, as far north as the fifty-second 
 parallel ; was prevented by the. ice from venturing further ; and the 
 ship then returned to England, without reporting any more interesting 
 fact than that John Rut counted " eleven saile of Normans, and one 
 Brittaine, and two Portugall Barkes, and all a fishing," in the harbor 
 of St. John. 3 The Samson parted company with the other ship be- 
 fore she reached St. John and was probably lost. In this expedition 
 Cardinal Wolsey seems to have had some pecuniary interest. 
 
 In 1536 an enterprise equally discouraging and certainly tragic was 
 
 undertaken by one Master Hore, of London, " assisted by 
 
 Voyage of . J J 
 
 Masteriiore, the king's favor and good countenance," Hore persuading 
 many gentlemen of Inns of Court and of Chancery and 
 some country gentlemen of good estate to go with him. Altogether 
 there were one hundred and ten persons who sailed from Gravesend 
 in April of that year in the ships Trinitie and Minion, the former of 
 one hundred and forty tons burden. They arrived in Newfoundland 
 after a stormy passage of two months, where they went ashore and re- 
 mained for the summer. What good result was expected from such 
 an expedition it is not easy to understand, for it was so ill provided that 
 the men were soon in a starving condition, and forced to seek susten- 
 ance in such wild roots as they could gather. And to such extremity 
 were they reduced that they soon murdered each other secretly and fed 
 upon the flesh of the victims. 
 
 The captain, who had supposed that the loss of his men was due 
 to wild beasts and Indians, had no other remedy, when the shocking 
 truth became known to him, than to make a " notable Oration," in 
 which he set forth their sin in the strongest terms as offensive to God, 
 exhorting them to repentance and prayer. The murders probably 
 ceased, but the famine continued, and it was not long before hunger 
 drove them to cast lots for the choice of one who should die to save 
 the rest. But such was the mercy of God, says the narrative, that 
 a French ship well provisioned arrived that same night. Of this the 
 
 1 Thome to the English Ambassador in Spain. Hakluyt, vol. i. 
 
 2 Biddle (Memoir of Cabot, p. 279) suggests that it was on board the Mary of Guilford 
 that Verrazano was pilot when he was captured and eaten by the savages. Her captain 
 would hardly have omitted to mention such an incident had it occurred on board his vessel. 
 
 8 Purchas's Pilgrims, John Rut's letter to Henry VIII., vol. Hi., p. 809. Hakluyt refers 
 to the sailing of one ship in 1527, and calls her the Dominus Vobiscvm, voL iii., p. 129. 
 
1553.] VOYAGE OF SIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY. -'-' 
 
 Englishmen, either by force or by fraud, possessed themselves and put 
 to sea, leaving the Frenchmen their empty vessel, and to starve in their 
 stead. The Frenchmen, afterward, however, found their way to Eng- 
 land, and were recompensed by the king for their losses, though the 
 pirates who had overpowered them were not punished, as they should 
 have been, in consideration of the dire distress which incited them to 
 so base a crime. 1 
 
 The want of success in these adventures had undoubtedly a dis- 
 couraging influence. The belief, handed down even to a recent 
 period as a kind of national heirloom, that British courage and perse- 
 verance would find somewhere a northwest passage to India, was, if not 
 abandoned, at least forgotten for nearly forty years in the middle period 
 of the sixteenth century. In place of it a conviction gained ground that 
 the true road to Cathay was by the northeast. Sebastian Cabot was at 
 that time in England, and he had " long had this secret in his mind;" 
 originating, perhaps, in his own experience of half a century before, 
 and his familiar knowledge, gained as pilot-major of Spain and Eng- 
 land, of the abortive attempts of Spanish, Portuguese, French, and 
 English to go, as Thome said in his letter to Henry VIII., by way of 
 the north into the back side of the New found land. 
 
 There was at this period great depression in the trade of England, 
 and the growth of commercial enterprise was seeking untried channels. 
 The merchants of London were looking for new and better markets for 
 their " commodities and wares " than could be found near home, and 
 they sought counsel of Cabot. Trade and science struck hands at once. 
 In 1553 Sebastian Cabot appears as first governor of " the 
 mysterie and companie of the merchants adventurers for 
 the discovrie of Regions, Dominions, Islands, and places un- 
 known," and is preparing " ordinances, instructions and ad- ch nto 
 vertisements of and for the direction of the intended voyage for 
 Cathay." 
 
 In May of that year three ships sailed from London under the com- 
 mand of Sir Hugh Willoughby as captain-general of the fleet. & T Uugh 
 Evidently great things were expected. Willoughby was " a wmou s hb >' 
 most valiant gentleman and well born," chosen as the admiral above 
 all others because he was '* of goodly personage and singular skill in 
 the service of warre; " Richard Chancellor, captain of one of the ships 
 and pilot-major of the fleet, was of the household of Henry Sidney 
 afterward the father of Sir Philip Sidney who, in a public speech, 
 assured the merchants, not only of the value of his friend, but that he 
 hoped " this present godly and virtuous intention would prove profita- 
 ble to this nation and honourable to this our land ; " an intention 
 
 1 Hakluj-t, vol. Hi., p. 129. 
 
228 
 
 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X. 
 
 which the nobility were ready to help and further. Even the names 
 of the ships indicate the sanguine hopes of the expedition, for they 
 were called the Bona Esperanza, the Edward (for the king) Bona- 
 venture, and the Bona Confidential. They were well built and well 
 provided ; and one of them, says Clement Adams, 1 " was made stanch 
 and firme by an excellent invention : " they covered a piece of the 
 keel of the ship with thin sheets of lead to protect it from the 
 worms, the first time apparently that sheathing was used in Eng- 
 land. 
 
 On the 20th of May the fleet dropped down to Greenwich. The 
 court was at that place, and the courtiers came running out 
 to see the vessels ; the privy council looked out from the 
 windows and from the tops of the towers ; the people crowded 
 down to the shore ; upon the ships the sailors clustered like bees in 
 
 
 Willoughby's Ships in Arctic Seas. 
 
 the tops, upon the yards and shrouds, and while hills and valleys rever- 
 berated with salute after salute, these mariners " all apparelled in 
 watchet or skie-coloured cloth," .... "shouted in such sort that 
 the skie rang againe with the noyses thereof." It was a gala-day on 
 the Thames, " a very triumph in all respects to the beholders." 
 
 In the north seas the ships, not many days after, parted company 
 in a storm. Two of them kept together, and were found two years 
 later by some Russian fishermen in a Lapland harbor. They were 
 the Bona Experanza and the Bona Confidentia. In the cabin of the 
 Esperanza sat the body of Sir Hugh Willoughby, a pen between his 
 
 1 See his narrative in Hakluyt, vol. i., p. 243, et set/. 
 
1570.] SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT'S DISCOURSE. 229 
 
 frozen fingers, his journal open on the table before him. Scattered 
 about both ships lay the bodies of the frozen crews ; every man on 
 board had perished with the cold. When afterward an attempt was 
 made to take the ships back to England with their frozen companies, 
 they were buried as they had died, together, for both the vessels 
 foundered at sea. 
 
 In all the tragedies of Arctic explorations none is more pathetic than 
 this ; unlike many others, however, it was not a useless sacrifice. 
 Chancellor in the other ship reached Archangel, and travelled thence 
 overland to Moscow. A new channel of trade was opened ; 
 such civilization as Western Europe then possessed was opened be- 
 brought to the knowledge and observation of less cultivated land and 
 
 Russia 
 
 peoples ; the Muscovy Company became powerful and rich, 
 and largely added to that commercial prosperity and greatness which 
 were to be the pride and strength of England. Satisfied that a north- 
 east passage to Cathay was doubtful if not impossible, the English were 
 content with the fruits which this search for it had brought them. 
 
 A few years later the old idea revived. In 1570 an ingenious essay 
 full of the cosmographical learning of the time, written by Sir Hum- 
 phrey Gilbert, renewed the interest if not the belief in the northwest 
 passage. 1 America, he thought, was the Atlantis of Plato, Aristotle, 
 and other ancient philosophers. Partially submerged and Humphrey 
 divided by floods, all knowledge of it was lost for many 
 centuries ; but since it had been recently rediscovered, mod- 
 ern geographers had come to the conclusion of the ancients, 
 that it was an island. If an island it could be circumnavigated, and 
 it would be possible by sailing on the north side of America to go to 
 " Cataia, China and East India." Not only was it theoretically pos- 
 sible, but it had actually been done. According to several writers, 
 there had been, both before the Christian era, and also in the eleventh 
 century, certain Indians cast upon the shores of Germany. They 
 could not, argued Gilbert, have come by the southwest through the 
 Strait of Magellan, nor by the southeast around the Cape of Good 
 Hope, because of the distance and because of the winds and cur- 
 rents ; nor by the northeast, even if there were any passage that way, 
 which he doubted, because of the shallowness of the sea, and its 
 being therefore perpetually frozen. Their only probable route, there- 
 fore, was by the northwest. But it was not a question of probabili- 
 ties. One of the old writers had declared that three brothel's had 
 sailed from Europe through this passage, and hence it was called Fre- 
 tum Trium Fratrum the Strait of the Three Brothers. He, Sir 
 Humphrey, had with his own ears heard a certain Spaniard assure Sir 
 
 1 "Discourse written by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Knight," Hakluyt, vol. iii., p. 11. 
 
230 
 
 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X. 
 
 Henry Sidney l that he knew a friar, a man famous for his many 
 voyages, who had sailed through and made a map of this strait ; that 
 he told the King of Portugal of it, who " most earnestly desired him 
 not in anywise to disclose or make the passage knowen to any nation : 
 ' for that (said the king) if England had knowledge and experience 
 thereof, it would both greatly hinder the King of Spaine and me.' " 
 
 This ingenious essay its author 
 showed to George Gascoigne, the 
 poet, who was first interested in 
 it as a literary work. But it had 
 also another value, and for that he 
 
 borrowed it. Martin Fro- 
 bisher, or Forboiser, was a 
 kinsman of Gascoigne, and 
 was then proposing if not 
 actually preparing for a 
 
 northwestern expedition. To Frobisher's Departure. 
 
 him, doubtless, Gascoigne showed the paper ; perhaps it was by his 
 counsel that it was soon after published ; 2 at any rate it can hardly 
 have failed to influence opinion, and so have forwarded Fro- 
 bisher's purposes. Two months later in June, 1576 he 
 sailed with three small vessels, one of them a pinnace of only 
 ten tons. As they passed Greenwich on their way down the 
 river, the queen, Mary, watched them from the windows, and conde- 
 
 ' 
 
 1 Sir Henry Sidney, who nearly twenty years before took so lively an interest in the 
 discovery of the northeast passage, and made a speech at a Merchants' meeting just before 
 the sailing of Sir Hugh Willoughby. 
 
 2 Memoir of Cabot, p. 290. Biddle quotes from the original publication, now iu the British 
 Museum, of Gilbert's essay with an introduction by Gascoigne. This introduction Hak- 
 luyt omits. 
 
1587.] FROBISHER'S VOYAGES. 231 
 
 scended to wave her hands in token of farewell. She afterwards sent 
 messengers on board to express her "good liking" to the expedition 
 an evidence of the importance attached to it. 
 
 Frobisher made two other voyages in the two following years. On 
 all of them he saw the land of Frisland " rising like pinna- Frob isher-s 
 cles of steeples," in about latitude 61, from twelve to fif- JS^* 
 teen days sail west from the Shetland Islands. All along its ages 
 coast were high mountains covered with snow, except where their 
 sides were too precipitous. Nowhere could he find a landing-place 
 or a harbor, nor were there any signs of habitation. Either this was 
 Greenland, or Frisland has since disappeared, for no navigator since 
 Frobisher has ever seen it. 
 
 Thence Frobisher steered westward, pursuing on each voyage 
 nearly the same course. The strait, which to this day bears his 
 name, he thought was a passage to the sea of Suez, and the island 
 of Cumberland he supposed to be a part of the coast of Asia. On 
 the first voyage he picked up some black stones, and one of these, 
 on his return, was given as a curiosity to the wife of one of the 
 adventurers. She threw it into the fire, and after long exposure to 
 the heat without being consumed, it glistened like gold, and was pro- 
 nounced to be such by the refiners. A new impulse and a new pur- 
 pose were given to the subsequent expeditions, and on the last Fro- 
 bisher went out in command of fifteen ships. They were to come 
 back laden with ore, and, said the commander of the fleet, " if it had 
 not beene for the charge and care we had of the fleete and freighted 
 ships, we both would and could have gone through to the South Sea, 
 called Mar del Sur, and dissolved the long doubt of the passage which 
 we seeke to finde to the rich countrey of Cataya." 1 But the hundreds 
 of tons of supposed ore which they brought back to England proved 
 no less a delusion than the passage to the East, for they held no 
 gold. 
 
 The cost of these shiploads of black stones was forgotten in the 
 course of the next four or five years, and only Frobisher's assurance 
 remembered that, but for the care of those useless cargoes he would 
 have sailed direct to Cathay. Another northern expedition remains 
 to be noticed before we turn to the more important events of the same 
 period under the guidance of statesmen who were wise enough to 
 see that the power and opulence of England were to be increased 
 by founding an empire in the New World rather than by John 
 seeking a passage to the rich kingdoms of other peoples. }L 
 Three times in the course of the years 1585-86 and 1587, 
 John Davis heroically pushed his way through those frozen northern 
 
 1 Hakluyt, vol. iii., p. 80. 
 

 
 232 
 
 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X. 
 
 seas. On the third of these voyages, in 1587, he left his two small 
 vessels on the coast of Cumberland Island to fish, while he went north- 
 ward in a pinnace. For about six weeks he pushed his way among the 
 icebergs and fields of ice, sometimes along the western coast of Deso- 
 lation, as he called Greenland, sometimes on the opposite coast, and 
 penetrating Baffin's Bay as far as the seventy-third parallel. In the 
 Strait, which ever since has borne his name, he saw the land on both 
 sides of him ; but beyond was " a great sea, free, large, very salt and 
 blew, and of an unsearchable depth." Davis was persuaded that 
 nothing but ice and bad weather prevented his sailing direct to India 
 along the northern coast of America ; but these did stay his further 
 progress in any direction and he returned to where he had left his 
 ships. These, meanwhile, satisfied with their " catch " of cod, had 
 ruthlessly abandoned their commander and gone home to save their 
 fish. The pinnace, however, reached England in safety. The death of 
 Secretary Walsingham, who was Davis's chief patron, and the prepar- 
 ations to meet the Spanish Armada, prevented any further prosecution 
 of his discoveries. 
 
 The familiar names of two straits upon the map of North America 
 sir Humph- keep alive the memory of these intrepid navigators, Frobisher 
 an d Davis. The voyages of both, if not directly due to the 
 tt Discourse " of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, which George Gas- 
 coigne published, received from it, doubtless, an important impulse. 
 
 But Gilbert himself meanwhile 
 had wider views than the possi- 
 bility of navigation around the 
 northern coast of North Amer- 
 ica, though no strait or head- 
 land upon the continent bears 
 the name of the first English- 
 man who sought it with the 
 single purpose of colonizing 
 and making it a part of the 
 British Empire. " Many voy- 
 ages," says Captain Edward 
 Hayes, " have bene pretended, 
 yet hitherto never any thor- 
 oughly accomplished by our 
 nation of exact discovery into 
 the bowels of those maine, 
 ample and vast countreys, ex- 
 tended infinitely into the north from 30 degrees, or rather from 25 
 degrees, of septentrionall latitude, neither hath a right way bene taken 
 
 Sir Humphrey Gilbert. 
 
 
1587.] 
 
 SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. 
 
 233 
 
 of planting a Christian habitation and regiment upon the same." 1 It 
 is not, indeed, quite true that, as the narrative goes on to say, that 
 " worthy gentleman our countryman, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Knight, 
 was the first of our nation that caried people to erect an habitation 
 and government in those northerly countreys of America; " for Cabot 
 had taken colonists to Baccalaos eighty years before. It nevertheless 
 is true that in the active brain of Gilbert was first conceived the proj- 
 ect which was the germ of the future power of England in the New 
 World, the seed whence grew the present United States. 
 
 Sir Humphrey Gilbert was one of three brothers, all of whom were 
 men of character and distinction, and all engaged in schemes of Ameri- 
 
 View on Coast near Torquay. 
 
 can colonization. The family was one of consideration and wealth in 
 the County of Devon, then of the first importance in the country for 
 its commerce and sea-ports. The family seat was not far from the 
 port of Torquay, looking out upon the English channel. 2 The father 
 was Otho Gilbert, whose name is remembered because he was the 
 father of such sons and the husband of their mother. Humphrey, the 
 second son, was educated at Eton and Oxford, and was des- Familv of 
 tined for the law. But Devon influences were stronger than ^""0*11- 
 those of school and college. Let him ride where he would bert- 
 from his father's castle, within a circuit of not many miles, he would 
 
 1 Hakluyt, vol. iii., p. 143, ft seq. 
 
 " Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, by Edward Edwards, vol. i., p. 76. 
 
234 
 
 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X. 
 
 come upon Torquay, Dartmouth, Brixham, Teignmouth, Exeter, their 
 ports filled with vessels of all kinds, from the tall ship that sailed 
 southward in pursuit of Spanish galleons, to the little craft that ven- 
 tured into northern seas to load with cod upon the coast of Bacca- 
 
 laos. About the quays of the 
 busy sea-ports loitered mari- 
 ners and soldiers, come home 
 from foreign voyages or for- 
 eign service, with tales of 
 
 Dartmouth Harbor. 
 
 
 travel in strange lands and of deeds of war ; and to a young man of 
 courage and imagination these would have an irresistible charm in an 
 age when the lure to ambition was romantic adventure. 
 
 On the maternal as well as paternal side Gilbert was of good blood, 
 for his mother, who was the mother also, by a second marriage, of Sir 
 Walter Raleigh, was of a family distinguished at various periods of 
 English history, the Champernouns. She was, says John Fox, the 
 martyrologist, " a woman of noble wit and of good and godly opin- 
 ions." Not much is known of her, but it is enough to know that she 
 was the mother of the Gilberts and of Raleigh, a woman to be held 
 in reverential remembrance in a land where her sons were the first 
 to plant the seed that should bear good fruit in the New World. 
 Humphrey Sir Humphrey Gilbert was first a soldier, serving in the 
 vj^fasl 9 **" wars of France, of Ireland, and of the Netherlands. That 
 soldier. | ie c |^ good service there is ample testimony. In the Neth- 
 erlands he led a regiment for the Prince of Orange, fighting for the 
 
1583.] SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT'S EXPEDITION. 235 
 
 Huguenots and the new faith. In Ireland he was made Governor of 
 Munster. " For Sir Humphrey Gilbert," wrote Sir Henry Sidney, 
 ' I cannot say enough .... for the estimation that he hath won to 
 the name of Englishman there [in Ireland] before almost not known, 
 exceedeth all the rest." " I never hard," wrote Sir Walter Raleigh, 
 " nor rede of any man more fered than he is among the Irishe na- 
 
 con." 
 
 In 1578 Gilbert received an ample charter giving him power for the 
 next six years to discover " such remote heathen and barbar- nig charter 
 ous lands, not actually possessed by any Christian prince or : 
 people," and have them for his own both by sea and land as absolute 
 proprietor. Though that portion of America near the river of Canada 
 was the best known, the more southern region was Gilbert and those 
 engaged with him believed the more valuable. Florida, it was said, 
 was by divine limitation the impassable boundary of Spanish domin- 
 ion in the New World, and " that the countreys lying Xorth of Florida 
 God hath reserved the same to be reduced into Christian civility by 
 the English nation." 2 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh was chief among those who entered into this 
 scheme of his half-brother, and who contributed money, influence, and 
 personal effort for its success. When, the year after Gilbert received 
 the charter, he made the first attempt to avail himself of the privileges 
 it bestowed, Raleigh, it is said, sailed with him. The expedition, how- 
 ever, returned within a few days crippled, and with the loss of one ship 
 probably captured in a fight with the Spaniards at sea. But it encoun- 
 tered many difficulties even before starting. Dissensions had arisen 
 among those who- had engaged in it, followed by withdrawals ; theu 
 Orders of Council came, first that Gilbert should only put to sea under 
 sureties of good behavior ; then that he should abandon the enterprise 
 altogether under pain of the queen's displeasure. For the watchful 
 Spaniards, jealous of every English vessel that turned her head west- 
 ward, complained of depredations made or to be made upon Spanish 
 commerce complaints likely enough to be well founded, for he was 
 no true British sailor in the reign of Elizabeth, who did not hate the 
 Spaniard as he hated the enemy of mankind, and did not hold him to 
 be the lawful prey of all Christian men. 
 
 But in 1583 the start was more successful. Raleigh's influence 
 with Elizabeth removed all obstacles that the Lords of Council could 
 put in the way, if they were still disposed to listen to Spanish com- 
 plaints, or the Spaniards to offer them. The queen wished Gil- 
 bert " as great goodhap and safety to his ship as if herself were there 
 
 1 Edwards' Life of Raleigh, vol. ii., pp. 2-12. 
 
 2 Report oftJie Voyages, etc., of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, by Edward Haies. Hakluyt, vol. iii., 
 p 143. 
 
286 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X. 
 
 in person," and desired him to send her his picture as a keepsake. 
 His charter, moreover, expired in a year, and he could afford to delay 
 Gilbert siis no longer. He sailed in June in command of five ships, the 
 offlVe ThTps. largest of which, the Raleigh, was fitted out by Sir Walter 
 1583. himself at an expense of .2,000, and was two hundred tons 
 
 burden. The smallest, the Squirrel, was only ten tons burden ; of the 
 other three, the Golden Hind and the Swallow measured forty tons 
 each, and the admiral's ship, the Delight, was one hundred and twenty 
 tons. The Raleigh deserted them in a few days and returned to port, 
 pestilence having broken out, it was said, among her crew ; but some- 
 thing else was the matter, for, says Captain Edward Hayes, the owner 
 and captain of the Golden Hind, as well as historian of the expedition, 
 
 " the reason I could never understand Therefore I leave it unto 
 
 God." l And Gilbert himself wrote to Sir George Peckham, 2 " the 
 Ark Raleigh ran from me in fair and clear weather, having a large 
 wind. I pray you, solicit my brother Raleigh to make them an ex- 
 ample to all knaves." 3 
 
 In all there was a company of about two hundred and sixty men, 
 among them mechanics of all trades fitted for a new settlement, as 
 well as mineral men and refiners. On the admiral's ship was a 
 band of music " for solace of their own people," and they carried 
 such " toyes as morris-dancers, hobbie-horses and May-like conceits to 
 delight the savage people, as well as petty haberdashrie wares " for 
 barter with them. 
 
 The vessels all arrived in due season at the appointed place of meet- 
 ig' St. John's, Newfoundland. Here Sir Humphrey read 
 to the tradesmen and fishermen of all nations, who, as had 
 territory. come to be the settled custom, had gathered there for the 
 summer, his commission from the queen. He took possession of the 
 place and the neighboring country, for two hundred leagues in every 
 direction, with proper solemnities, receiving a sod and a twig in token 
 thereof, and setting up a pillar with the arms of England carved upon 
 it. He had gone there, however, only as a convenient stopping-place 
 for repairs and provisions, on his way to that more southern country, 
 which was the real object of the expedition. It was a disastrous 
 delay. Many of his men deserted ; many were disabled by sickness 
 from further service ; and some died. Altogether they were a rough 
 and worthless set, some of whom had been pirates, and were impressed 
 
 1 Hayes' Narrative, Hakluyt, vol. iii. 
 
 2 Letter to Sir George Peckham, Purchas Pile/rims, vol. iii. 
 
 8 Oldys, in his Life and Works of Sir Walter Raleigh, vol. i., says, and others have repeated 
 it on his authority, that Raleigh was in command of his own ship. Gilbert's letter is the 
 most conclusive evidence that that could not have been the case. He would not have as- 
 serted that a ship which Raleigh commanded deserted in fair and clear weather, nor have 
 asked him to punish as knaves the men who were under his orders. 
 
1583.] 
 
 SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT'S EXPEDITION. 
 
 237 
 
 against their will for the voyage. On the passage out, the crew of 
 the Sivallow had overhauled a French fishing vessel, stripped her of 
 sails and rigging, and robbed the men of provisions and clothing, 
 leaving them to perish seven hundred leagues from land. At St. 
 John's, a conspiracy was detected to seize the vessels while the admiral 
 and the captains were on shore. Defeated in this, some of the men 
 boarded a fishing vessel, put the crew ashore, and stole out to sea. 
 This accumulation of mishaps made it expedient to send the Swallow 
 home with the sick and as many of the discontented and the insub- 
 
 Sir Humphrey Gilbert reading his Commission. 
 
 ordinate as could be spared, leaving Sir Humphrey with only three 
 vessels and a diminished company. 
 
 At length they resumed the voyage. Doubling Cape Race, they 
 sailed along the west coast of Newfoundland, as far as Pla- rxM , g0 f ^ e 
 centia Bay, then headed for Cape Breton and Sable Island, Delt s ht - 
 meaning to land upon the latter, where they had heard were great 
 store of cattle and swine, the progeny of some left there about thirty 
 years before. For a week they struggled with contrary winds, mak- 
 ing only about one hundred and twenty leagues. In thick weather 
 and a gale of wind they suddenly found themselves, in the early 
 morning, among breakers and on a lee shore, as so many have done 
 
238 
 
 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X. 
 
 since on the dangerous coasts of Nova Scotia. Presently the Delight, 
 the largest ship, struck and in a few moments went to pieces. Seven- 
 teen of her crew jumped into the long-boat, and after seven days of 
 exposure, without food or water, fifteen of them reached Newfound- 
 land ; the rest were drowned ; among them the captain, Maurice 
 Browne, who refused to leave his ship, but " mounting upon the high- 
 est deck he attended imminent death and unavoidable." These were 
 the men who had belonged to the Swalloiv, and had robbed and left 
 to " imminent death " the crew of the French fisherman on the out- 
 
 Wreck of the " Delight." 
 
 ward passage, and that deed "justified to the mind," said Captain 
 Hayes, " God's judgments inflicted upon them " in this sudden ship- 
 wreck. The Golden Hind and the Squirrel, warned in time by the 
 fate of their fellow, hauled off and stood out to sea. 
 
 The weather continued tempestuous and cold, for winter was ap- 
 proaching ; the land they sought they could not fall in with 
 after beating about for many days ; provisions were failing, 
 and hunger pushing them sore ; and it was resolved to re- 
 turn to England. Notwithstanding the disasters that had attended 
 
 Gilbert re- 
 Bolves to r 
 turn to Km 
 land. 
 
1583.] SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT'S EXPEDITION. 239 
 
 the expedition, Sir Humphrey was content. At St. John's one of his 
 assayers had brought him an ore, which he solemnly affirmed was of 
 silver, and so persuaded of this was Gilbert that he believed he had 
 but to return in the spring to gather great wealth. This vision took 
 possession of him and was a great comfort in all his trials, though it 
 did not make him forget his wise purpose of colonization on the con- 
 tinent farther south. The specimens of the ore had been left on board 
 the Delight, by mistake of his servant, and the assayer, who knew 
 most about them, was lost in that vessel. 
 
 But Sir Humphrey knew where to find the mine. Hitherto he had 
 said little about it, and had enjoined silence upon others ; but now 
 that he was far out at sea and returning to England after so many 
 misfortunes, he talked not a little about the great store of silver in 
 his new possessions. The thing he seemed most to regret, next to the 
 loss of his men, was the loss of the lumps of ore ; and when long after, 
 on visiting the Golden Hind at sea, he met the boy whose fault it was 
 that these precious minerals were left on the Delight, he fell upon and 
 beat him " in great rage." Good and pious and wise man as he was 
 known to be, he was of a choleric and unforgiving disposition. Years 
 before, when he was putting down the rebellion in Ireland, the castle 
 or fort that did not surrender at his first summons, he " would not 
 afterwards," he said, " take it of their gift, but won it perforce how 
 many lives so ever it cost ; putting man, woman, and child of them to 
 the sword." There was good reason why he should be more feared 
 than any other man by the Irish, as Raleigh said he was. Among sail- 
 ors who were pirates if they had the opportunity, and among Irish 
 outlaws who were no better than half savages, he showed little of the 
 quality of mercy. 
 
 So much did he rely upon his mine of silver, that he was sure the 
 queen, upon report thereof, would readily advance 10, 000, where- 
 with he would equip two fleets in the spring, one to bring home the 
 ore, the other for a new venture to the south to plant colonies. " I 
 will set you forth royally next spring," he said to his companions, " if 
 God send us safe home." That hope was not ill-founded ; the prom- 
 ise of sudden wealth in the New World was never made to dull ears. 
 But it would only have been one more idle tale to be confuted, for 
 there was no mine ; the colonies, other hands than his were to plant. 
 
 The vessel Gilbert had last embarked upon was the Squirrel, the 
 smallest of the fleet, of only ten tons burden. He was be- The ginking 
 sought to leave her and find greater safety on board the Golden 
 Hind ; but his answer was always : " I will not forsake my 
 little company going homeward, with whom I have passed so death - 
 many storms and perils." Severe as he was he would ask no man 
 
240 
 
 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X. 
 
 to do that which he was himself afraid to do. So small a craft was 
 a poor thing in which to cross the Atlantic in September. The 
 weather was foul, the waves ''terrible, breaking short and high like 
 
 pyramids Never men saw more outrageous seas." On the 
 
 9th of the month the Squirrel came near foundering, but rode out 
 the storm. The Golden Hind approached and hailed her, and Sir 
 Humphrey Gilbert, sitting quietly in the stern of the boat with a 
 book in his hand, answered cheerfully, " we are as near to heaven by 
 sea as by land." In the darkness of the night that followed they 
 anxiously watched on board the Hind for the Squirrel's lights ; sud- 
 denly at midnight, " as it were in a moment," they disappeared. The 
 little vessel " was devoured and swallowed up of the sea." 
 
 The County of Devon bred great men for the reign of Elizabeth, 
 sir waiter an( ^ the greatest of them all was Walter Raleigh. Whatever 
 Raleigh. fo e i oca | influence of its maritime position, the contagion of 
 example, or the stimulus of noble emulation in families, did to form 
 
 the characters of its sons, was done in 
 larger share for Walter Raleigh than 
 for all the rest. His half brother, 
 Humphrey Gilbert, was a dozen years 
 his senior ; but that difference did not 
 forbid close affection and companion- 
 ship between them, while it gave the 
 weight of years to example and pre- 
 cept. Walter, like Humphrey, went 
 with the gallant band of young Eng- 
 lishmen, to fight on the continent for 
 the new faith, and against the Pope ; 
 like him he served in Ireland, to sub- 
 due the half savage rebels of as he 
 called it "that commonwelthe or 
 rather common woo ; " like him he 
 hated the Spaniard, and longed for 
 adventure and discovery ; and he saw, as Gilbert saw, that the way 
 to check the growth and power of Spain in the New World, was to 
 take possession of the thousand miles of sea-coast, north of Florida, 
 which the curse of Spanish invasion had not yet blighted, that 
 therein was to be found the true glory of England, and the best 
 service to her queen. They were true brothers in spirit, in character, 
 and in determined purpose, even more than in blood. 
 
 Raleigh's loss was not a slight one in the desertion, at the outset, of 
 the ship the Raleigh which he had built and fitted out at his own 
 charges ; but that was as nothing to the loss of his friend and brother, 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh. 
 
1584.] RALEIGH'S FIRST EXPEDITION. 241 
 
 whose heroic death the Golden Hind reported within a few days in 
 England. Neither discouraged him, and he seems to have accepted the 
 last as imposing upon him the new duty of carrying out alone the 
 projects in which hitherto he had been content to second his half 
 brother. Gilbert's patent was so near the time of its ex- 
 piration as to be useless for any fresh enterprise ; and as all 
 knowledge of the supposed silver mine was lost with him, ullbert - 
 Raleigh had no special motive for planting a colony so far north as 
 Newfoundland. With the promptitude and energy so characteristic of 
 the man, he at once set himself to work, and in March, 1584, had 
 secured from the queen a new patent with enlarged powers and priv- 
 ileges. A month later two ships, well manned and victualed, sailed 
 down the Thames and put to sea, under the command of Captain 
 Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlow. 
 
 This evidently was only a voyage of exploration, to find the place 
 best adapted for the future colony. They sailed by way of 
 the Canaries and the West Indies, for navigators had not pediti"n. eJt 
 yet learned to venture out of the course laid down by Co- 
 lumbus a century before, except when seeking those northern parts 
 about the great river of Canada. It was sixty-six days befoi'e the 
 smell of the land, " so sweet and so strong a smell, as if wee had been 
 in the midst of some delicate garden abounding with all kinds of odo- 
 riferous flowers," warned them of their near approach to the Western 
 Continent, and two days more July 4th before they saw the low, 
 sandy shore of North Carolina. 
 
 Presuming this to be the main land, they kept along the coast 
 for one hundred and twenty miles, seeking for a good harbor, and then 
 entered an inlet, supposing it to be the mouth of a river. After their 
 long and weary voyage, worn out with the heat, and suffering from the 
 malaria of the tropics, they were enraptured with the region upon 
 which they had fallen, more by chance than design. The cool sea- 
 breeze tempered the heats of July; the waves rippled gently upon 
 the white sands of the beach, lifting in their ebb and flow the grace- 
 ful branches and clustering fruit of the vine which climbed every tree 
 and bush down to the water's edge. The land rose gradually into low 
 hills, crowned with cedars more stately and more beautiful than the 
 cedars of Lebanon. 
 
 Mounting one of these hills they saw that they were upon an isl- 
 and about sixteen mile* in length, the sea stretching on both 
 sides further north and south than the eye could reach. The 
 
 main land was still distant. As they afterward discovered, 
 
 and as Verazzano had observed sixty years before, there ran along 
 
 this coast for many miles a chain of long and narrow islands washed 
 
 VOL. I. 16 
 
242 
 
 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X. 
 
 on one side by the ocean and on the other by an inner sea from twenty 
 to fifty miles in breadth. In one of the connecting inlets Amadas and 
 Barlow had found a harbor and had anchored their vessels in Painlico 
 Sound. 
 
 The island on which they landed has been generally supposed to be 
 Wocokon, identical with that now known as Ocracoke, lying between 
 Hatteras and Ocracoke inlets. 1 But on the map accompanying Hari- 
 ot's " Briefe and True Relation of the New found Land of Virginia," 
 published by De Bry in 1590, the island beginning next south of Cape 
 
 Landing on the Island. 
 
 Hatteras, is called Croatoan, and the second island south of that is 
 Wocokon. Ocracoke, therefore, is that which was then called Croa- 
 toan, while that then known as Wocokon, is now, probably, Ports- 
 mouth Island. 2 The first footprints of the coming nation of Eng- 
 
 1 See Stith's Virginia; Holmes' Annals ; Belknap's American Biography; Bancroft's 
 History of the United States ; Hildreth's History, and others. 
 
 2 In the original narrative, the source of all that is known of this voyage, written by Cap- 
 tain Barlow, 1 no name is given to the island on which the expedition first landed. But in 
 describing the boundaries of the territory under the separate rule of different Indian chiefs, 
 the southernmost town of one of them is placed on what is now known as Pamlico River) 
 and Wocokon is referred to as not far distant. The unnamed island where they first went 
 ashore, was, says Captain Barlow's narrative, about twenty miles from Roanoke Island ; 
 and from the Occam Albemarle Sound at the entrance of which lay Roanoke, to the 
 
 1 In Ilakluyt, vol.iii.,p. 246 
 
1584.] 
 
 RALEIGH'S FIRST EXPEDITION. 
 
 243 
 
 lish blood on the shores of the New World were made not at Ocracoke 
 but on the low sandy beach of Chickconocomack Bank, still EMlct ^^ 
 often called by the people of the neighborhood Hatteras, o Undin 8- 
 Cape Hatteras, or Hatteras Bank. And as the inlet, through which 
 the ships of Amadas and Barlow entered Pamlico Sound, was twenty 
 miles from Roanoke Island, that channel must in the course of time 
 have been filled by the shifting sands, while New Inlet, which is only 
 
 Map in Harlot's " Relation." [Fac-simile.] 
 
 twelve and a half miles from Roanoke, has been formed as its name 
 implies since the settlement of the country. 
 
 The ships had not long to wait for a visit from the natives. On 
 the third day came three Indians across the sound in canoes, Vlsite from 
 one of whom ventured boldly among the strangers, was shown the natives - 
 about the ships, entertained with wine and food, and made happy by 
 presents of a shirt and some other trifles. In return he loaded his 
 
 Indian town near Wocokon, was four days' journey. Then Strachey, who was the first 
 secretary of the first permanent Virginia colony, founded twenty-three years afterward, and 
 who was probably familiar with the whole region, says of Amadas and Barlow, " thev 
 arrived upon the coast in a harborow called Hatorask ; " and he subsequently confirms, while 
 he follows the original narrative by adding, "to the so-ward four dales journey, they discov- 
 ered Socoto the last town southwardly of Wincandacoa" "neare unto which" was Woco- 
 kon, an " out island." 1 On the map of 1590 in Hariot's Relation, " Hatoras" is laid down 
 as at the first inlet north of the point now called Cape Hatteras. 
 
 1 The Historie of Traraile into Virginia Britannia, etc., by William Strachey, Gent. First published in 
 1849, by the Hakluyt Society, London, pp. 12, 143. 
 
244 
 
 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT [CHAP. X. 
 
 canoe with fish, fresh caught in the sound, and piling them up in two 
 heaps upon the sand signified by signs that one was for each ship. 
 The next day there came many boats bringing forty or fifty men, led 
 by Granganameo, the brother of the king of that country. From him 
 the Englishmen learned that the region round about was called Win- 
 gandacoa, whereof Wingina, then ill at home from a wound received 
 in battle, was the king. Thesy visitors were a " handsome and goodly 
 people, and in their behaviour as mannerly and civil as any in 
 Europe." 
 
 Afterward they came in greater numbers and in entire confidence 
 and cordialty, bringing food and skins, and accepting in return what- 
 ever the strange white men at whose whiteness they " wondered 
 marvellously" chose to give. They soon brought with them their 
 wives and children, and among them was the wife of Granganameo, a 
 " woman very well favoured, of meane (medium) stature and very bash- 
 ful ; she had on her backe a long cloake of leather, with the furre side 
 next to her body, and before her a piece of the same : about her forehead 
 she had a bande of wite Corall, and so had her husband many times : 
 in her eares she had bracelets of pearles hanging downe to her mid- 
 dle, and those were of the bignes of good pease." Such was a Vir- 
 ginia princess of the sixteenth century. 
 
 A few days later Captain Barlow, with seven men, went up the 
 Occam Albemarle Sound for twenty miles, and on re- 
 turning landed on the north end of Raonoak (Roanoke) isl- 
 and. Here in a palisaded village of nine houses, built of cedar, was the 
 
 residence of the chief Granganameo ; 
 and here this modest wife he being 
 absent received and entertained their 
 new friends with a boundless and grace- 
 ful hospitality. Her house of five 
 rooms she put at their disposal ; she 
 and her women fed them with the 
 best that field, forest, and rivers, and 
 Indian skill could provide ; washed and 
 dried their clothing ; bathed their feet 
 in warm water. And she disarmed 
 her men that the confidence of her 
 guests might remain undisturbed, and 
 sent guards to watch by the river bank 
 
 Lord and Lady of Secotan. [From De Bry.] 
 
 that no danger should approach while 
 
 they slept in peace in their boat, covered by the dressed skins she 
 gave them. 
 
 The adventurers were back again in England by the middle of Sep- 
 
 Indian hos- 
 
1584.] 
 
 RALEIGH'S FIRST EXPEDITION. 
 
 245 
 
 tember, having spent, perhaps, six weeks among a people so attractive 
 and so simple, amid scenes so novel. Of the country they said " the 
 soile is the most plentifull, sweete, fruitfull and wholesome of all the 
 worlde ; " of trees they found fourteen " of sweet smelling EnthuRia gtic 
 timber ; " the oaks were of as many kinds as in England, {eadven- 
 but " far greater and better ; " the fruits were " of divers turers - 
 kinds, and very excellent good," such as " melons, walnuts, cucumbers, 
 gourdes, pease," and " grapes in all the world the like abundance is 
 not to be found ; " the 
 corn of the country 
 [maize] was very white, 
 fair and well tasted, and 
 there were three crops 
 from May to Septem- 
 ber ; the fish were the 
 best in the world and 
 in greatest abundance ; 
 of " divers beasts " they 
 name fat bucks, conies, 
 and hares ; and for 
 the people, they were 
 " most gentle, loving 
 and faithful, void of all 
 guile and treason, and 
 such as live after the 
 maner of the golden 
 age." l As witnesses to 
 the truthfulness of this 
 pleasing picture of the 
 new found land, they 
 carried back with them 
 to England two of the 
 natives named Manteo 
 and Wanchese ; some of its products, " as chamois, buffalo and deer 
 skins," and " a bracelet of pearls as big as peas " for Sir Walter 
 Raleigh. 
 
 The effect of such a report was very marked in England. In the 
 name of a virgin queen Raleigh was permitted to call the 
 new country Virginia ; as a reward for his part in its dis- named vir- 
 covery the honor of knighthood was bestowed upon him ; to 
 his arms was added the legend, Propria insignia Walteri Ralegh, mili- 
 tis, Domini, et Grubernatoris Virginice ; 2 and perhaps that he might 
 
 1 Captain Barlow's " Narrative " in Hakluyt. 
 
 2 Edwards' Life of Raleigh, vol. i., p. 87. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth. 
 
246 
 
 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X. 
 
 have the means to persevere in this enterprise he was enriched with a 
 monopoly in the granting licenses for the sale of certain wines. Al- 
 ready a favorite with Elizabeth, he entered now more actively into 
 public affairs as member of parliament for the County of Devon, and 
 procured from that body a confirmation of the royal patent for the 
 possession and colonization of foreign lands. 
 
 In the spring a larger expedition and with a more definite purpose 
 was fitted out. On the 9th of April, 1585, a fleet of seven 
 ships, under command of Sir Richard Grenville, sailed from 
 
 Raleigh 'g 
 colony un- 
 der Sir Rich- 
 ard cren- Plymouth. On board were about one hundred men who 
 
 Of this Ralph Lane was 
 
 ville. 1585. 
 
 were to form the future colony. Of this Ralph 
 to be the governor ; Philip Amadas, who in this as in the expedition 
 of the previous year, commanded a ship, was his deputy ; of another 
 ship Sir Thomas Cavendish, a young gentleman just come of age and 
 into his inheritance by the death of his father, was owner and cap- 
 tain ; Thomas Hariot, the mathematician and astronomer, went as 
 the scientific man of the expedition. One John White was the artist, 
 and his sketches are among the earliest, the most authentic, and 
 the most valuable of the habits and appearance though no doubt 
 somewhat idealized of the natives of Virginia as the Englishmen 
 found them. 
 
 Altogether it was a notable company. Lane was already a sol- 
 dier of reputation and was after- 
 wards knighted by the queen. 
 Cavendish, just out of boyhood, 
 made, a year later, the most fa- 
 mous voyage of the time around 
 signature of Ralph Lane. ^g WO rld, in which he gave some 
 
 valuable contributions to geographical knowledge ; and he specially 
 commended himself to the affectionate respect of his country- 
 men and the approbation of the queen, for he wrote on his 
 return, " I burnt and sunk nineteen sail of ships, small and 
 great ; and all the villages and towns that ever I landed at I burned 
 and spoiled," ships, towns, and villages being all Spanish. Hariot 
 was Raleigh's friend to the end of his career ; aided him in that " His- 
 tory of the World" which he wrote in the Tower; and because of this 
 friendship, was thought worthy to be called from the bench a "devil" 
 by Chief Justice Popham. Of him it is questioned whether he or 
 Des Cartes invented the system of algebraic notation ; whether he or 
 Galileo was the first observer of spots upon the sun, and of the satel- 
 lites of Jupiter, the testimony in Hariot 's favor being not trivial. 
 Grenville, the admiral, was Raleigh's kinsman and his dear friend. 
 Five years later, off the Azores, he in hia single ship fought fifteen 
 
 Notable 
 men in the 
 colony. 
 
1585.] THE RALEIGH-GRENVILLE COLONY. 247 
 
 great Spanish galleons for fifteen hours, and when at last mortally 
 wounded, said with his last breath in the heat and smoke of battle, 
 " Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind, for 
 that I have ended my life, as a true soldier ought to do, fighting for 
 his country, queen, religion and honour." 
 
 It was men of this stamp who entered iwto the projects of Raleigh 
 to plant English people, with English law and English civilization, in 
 the New World. English hatred of the Spaniard took that direction 
 that the growth of Spanish power and dominion and wealth should 
 be checked beyond the sea as well as on it. Nor was Raleigh's policy 
 confined to North America. But here we have nothing to do with his 
 romantic expeditions to Guiana, the last one a brief and sad interval 
 between his release from twelve years' imprisonment in the Tower 
 and his mounting the scaffold at Westminster Gate House. There, 
 feeling with his finger the edge of the axe, he said, " It is a sharp 
 and fair medicine to cure me of all my diseases ; " and to a hesitat- 
 ing executioner, he added, " What dost thou fear? Strike man, 
 strike ! " That which was glory under Elizabeth was treason under 
 James. 
 
 Every man who went with Grenville hated Spain as Raleigh hated 
 her. The fleet sailed by way of the Canaries and the West Indies, 
 spoiling the Spaniards wherever the opportunity offered, taking two 
 of their frigates, one of which " had a good and rich fraight and divers 
 Spaniards of account in her which afterwards were ransomed for good 
 round summes." On his return voyage in August, the admiral fell 
 in with another richly laden Spaniard which he took, he and his men 
 boarding her in a boat, made on the instant and so hastily knocked 
 together that it fell to pieces as they sprang from it to the deck of the 
 enemy. 
 
 It was nearly three months from the time they left Plymouth be- 
 fore they had their first sight of the American coast south of 1^^ at 
 Cape Fear. Standing northward they narrowly escaped Wocok011 
 shipwreck at that stormy point, and three days afterward landed 
 as the original narrative distinctly says, at Wocokon. 
 
 Word was sent to Roanoke Island, by the Indian Manteo, of the 
 return of the English. But the pleasant relations with the natives, 
 established the year before, were soon disturbed. Grenville with his 
 captains and other principal men of his fleet started almost imme- 
 diately for an excursion of eight days further inland. Crossing Pam- 
 lico Sound they visited several Indian villages along the coast of the 
 present Hyde County, North Carolina, and the lake which the sav- 
 ages called Paquipo, now named Mattamuskeet Lake. In one of 
 these villages a silver cup was stolen by an Indian, and not being 
 
248 
 
 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X. 
 
 speedily returned, they burnt and spoiled their corn and town, says 
 the narrative, all the people being fled. Grenville soon returned to 
 England with a portion of the fleet ; but Lane, who remained as gov- 
 ernor, followed, in the subsequent intercourse with the Indians, the 
 evil example thus set him, found it, perhaps, difficult to do any- 
 thing else when the fears and the passions of the savages were once 
 
 An Indian Village. [From Harlot's " Relation " Fac-simile ] 
 
 aroused by such an act of cruel injustice. Peace for a time was kept 
 by Granganameo, and his father Ensenore, an old and venerable man ; 
 but they both died in the course of the winter and spring, and with 
 them all memory of the kindly intercourse of the year before was 
 lost. 
 
 Wingina, who called himself Pemissapan after the death of his 
 brother, Granganameo, the chief of the country round about Roan- 
 oke Island, threw off at length all pretences of friendship. He 
 
 > 
 
1585.] THE RALEIGH-GREXVILLE COLONY. 249 
 
 and his subjects alone had been under the kindly influences of the 
 visitors of the year before, while tribes farther off had not come in 
 contact with Amadas and Barlow. This second expedition had begun 
 with burning a village on Pamlico River ; some of the men made their 
 way almost as far north as Chesapeake Bay ; Lane with two boats 
 penetrated the interior far up the Chowan and the Roanoke rivers ; 
 and wherever the strangers went it was with such evident purpose 
 and spirit as to excite throughout all this region at first secret mis- 
 trust and dread, and then open warfare. The son of one powerful 
 chief Lane carried about with him as a prisoner, sometimes putting 
 him in " the bilboes " and threatening to cut off his head. The sim- 
 ple, trustful, and kindly natives whom Barlow had found only a year 
 before living, as he said, after the manner of those of the Golden Age, 
 were suddenly transformed into wily savages. They hated and feared 
 the Englishmen who, they believed, had brought pestilence Change in 
 among them, and who could kill them with invisible bullets, of'th^n 1 ^ 
 though they fled far out of sight into the most secret recesses tiTes - 
 of the forest. To submit to the presence of the strangers was, they 
 feared, to consent to their own final extermination, and they acted ac- 
 cordingly. Pemissapan proposed to starve out the colony on Roan- 
 oake Island by planting no maize, hoping that the men would separate 
 themselves into small companies to seek for subsistence, and could 
 then be cut off in detail. Ensemore, Pemissapan's father, persuaded 
 him to forego this project, and fortunately the seed was sown before 
 the old man died in April. Then the chief entered into conspiracies 
 with the heads of other tribes, ventured at last upon an attack on the 
 colony, and lost his life. 
 
 But Lane, meanwhile, had pushed up the Roanoke River, beguiled 
 by a tale of the abundance of pearls, of a rich mine of copper, Governor 
 and that the head waters of the river were so near a sea that J^Ji^the 
 the waves thereof would break into it in stormy weather. Roanoke 
 The mine they may have thought was gold, as probably it was ; the 
 Spaniards before them had heard of the smelting of gold in North 
 Carolina. Lane and his men did not go far enough to find either the 
 gold or the passage to the South Sea ; but the Indians kept them 
 ever on the watch with their frightful war-whoops ; starvation was 
 so imminent that they were reduced to a pottage of sassafras leaves 
 and a porridge of dogs'-meat ; and the captain concluded that noth- 
 ing else but a good mine, or a passage to the South Sea, could bring 
 the country " into request to be inhabited by our nation," notwith- 
 standing the fatness of the soil and " its most swete and beautifullest 
 climate." 
 
 Soon after Lane's return from this expedition and when the enmity 
 
250 
 
 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X. 
 
 visit of 
 
 among the Indians about Roanoke Island had broken out into open 
 hostilities, a fleet of twenty-three ships, commanded by Sir 
 th Francis Drake, appeared off the coast. They were fresh from 
 
 colony. 1686. tne sac ^ o { g t Augustine, and called to get tidings of the 
 
 progress of the Virginian colony, and give it help if needed. Drake 
 
 loaded a well -manned ship with 
 provisions to leave with Lane, 
 but a storm soon after dispersed 
 his fleet, and this ship with 
 others was driven out to sea and 
 returned to England. Another 
 vessel was put at the governor's 
 disposal and the question sub- 
 mitted by him to the colonists 
 whether they would remain or 
 return home. They had given 
 up all hope of the succor which 
 Grenville had promised to send 
 them ; a year's trial of the hard- 
 ships of the wilderness and the 
 disappointment about the mine 
 had so completely disheartened 
 them that they clamored to leave 
 the country. They cai'ried to- 
 bacco with them, which was 
 then, it is supposed, introduced 
 for the first time into England. 1 
 In such haste did they take their departure 2 that " they left," says 
 
 a narrator, " all things confusedly, as if they had been chased thence 
 
 1 Sir Walter Raleigh made the smoking of tobacco fashionable among the courtiers, aud 
 even Elizabeth and the ladies of the court are said to have followed his example. Its culti- 
 vation and use seem to have been universal among the North American Indians. The 
 Portuguese introduced it into Europe. Lord Nicot, French Ambassador to Portugal, in 
 1559, 1560,and 1561, sent the seeds to France, and from himitwas named Nicotiana. It was 
 held as a sovereign remedy for some diseases, especially ulcers. ( Maison Rustique, or the 
 Cauntrie Farm. Translated into English by Robeii Surflet Practitioner in Physicke. London, 
 1600.) Hariot, in his Briefe and True Rejtort of the New found land of Virginia, and its Com- 
 modities, says the Indians called tobacco Uppowoc, and that " the leaves thereof being dried 
 and brought into powder they use to take the fume or smoke thereof, by sucking it thorew 
 pipes mad: of clay, into their stomacke and head ; from whence it purgeth superfluous 
 fleame and other grosse humours, and openeth all the pores and passages of the body ; by 
 which meanes the use thereof not only preserveth the body from obstructions, but also (if 
 any be, so that they have not been of too long continuance) in short time breaketh them : 
 whereof their bodies are notably preserved in health, and know not many grievous diseases, 
 wherewithal wee in England are oftentimes afflicted." The Carribbees called their pipes 
 Tolxicco, aud the Spaniards transferred the word to the herb itself. 
 
 2 Hakluyt, vol. Hi., p. 265. 
 
 Tobacco Plant. 
 
1587.] THE CITY OF RALEIGH. 251 
 
 by a mighty army, and no doubt so they were ; for the hand of God 
 came upon them for the cruelty and outrages committed by some of 
 them against the native inhabitants of that countrey." But Raleigh 
 had not forgotten them. Drake's fleet had not been long at sea be- 
 fore a ship arrived at Hatorask well freighted with all things needful 
 for their relief. Finding Roanoke Island deserted, they set sail again for 
 England, and had been gone only a fortnight when Sir Rich- 
 ard Grenville himself arrived with three ships well provided turn* to 
 
 Virginia. 
 
 with supplies for the colony. As there was no colony to re- 
 lieve he landed fifteen 1 men to hold possession, consoling himself for' 
 his fruitless errand by spoiling some towns in the Azores and taking 
 some Spaniards on his homeward passage. 
 
 Raleigh was not discouraged by these repeated reverses, but the next 
 summer (1587) sent a new colony of one hundred and fifty 
 men. He gave it a charter, and incorporated it under the 
 name of the Governor and Assistants of the City of Raleigh, 158r " 
 Virginia. The company included women as well as men. The 
 ernor was John White, and Simon Ferdinaudo, who had been a captain 
 of one of Grenville's ships two years before, was admiral. There was 
 utter want of harmony and cooperation between these two men from 
 the hour of sailing to the end of the voyage, au element in the ex- 
 pedition necessarily fatal to its success. What Ferdinando thought 
 of White we do not know ; but White's opinion of Ferdinando he has 
 left on record. The Admiral was passionate, wilful, given to much 
 swearing " tearing God to pieces ," says White and clearly had 
 his own way always. That way was, if we may believe White, an 
 intention to ruin as well as rule. One of the vessels he is accused 
 of leaving at a port in the West Indies, stealing away in the night 
 in his own ship, hoping that her captain would never, for want 
 of knowledge, reach Virginia, or that he would be taken by the 
 Spaniards. It was White's intention to go up the Chesapeake Bay, 
 in accordance with Sir Walter Raleigh's orders, to find a seat for his 
 colony, after looking on Roanoke Island for the fifteen men whom 
 Grenville had left there the year before. But when Ferdinando had 
 got forty of the colonists on board the pinnace at Hatorask to go 
 to the island, he ordered the sailors not to bring them back again, 
 declaring that the summer was too far gone to admit of time being 
 spent in seeking for the best spot for a settlement. The two men 
 were governed by different motives : one was for delay ; the other 
 for speed ; the governor wanted time to move with caution and con- 
 sider consequences ; the sailor wanted to reach his port and discharge 
 
 1 Hakluyt, vol. iii., p. 265, also Strachey, p. 150. Smith, Stith, and others who follow 
 them say erroneously fifty men were left by Greiiville. 
 
252 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X. 
 
 his cargo, looking forward to some new venture, probably some 
 homeward-bound Spaniard laden with treasure. 
 
 The fifteen men whom Grenville had left at Roanoke were not to 
 be found. The fort was razed to the ground ; the huts were 
 
 Governor . , , . 
 
 white and standing, but they were overgrown with melon-vines, and the 
 
 hi* colony , J b .. 
 
 on Roanoke deer roamed through them undisturbed by any fear of human 
 
 Icland . I'.'-* 
 
 presence. Ihe whitening bones of one man were the only 
 sign of recent habitation. All that White could learn of the fate of 
 his countrymen was that they had been attacked by the Indians, two 
 of them killed and the rest driven to a little island in the harbor of 
 Hatorask. They could be traced no farther. 
 
 The fleet remained a little more than a month, but before it sailed 
 the enmity between the Englishmen and the Indians was renewed 
 with fresh fury. One of the assistants, Mr. Howe, while searching 
 alone for shell-fish along the beach of Roanoke Island, was killed by 
 some of the tribe of which Pemissippan had been chief. To revenge 
 his death an attack was made before daylight upon an encampment 
 of Indians, who, after one of them was killed, were found to be 
 friends from Croatan where Manteo's people lived. The effect upon 
 the Croatans of this unhappy blunder was probably not favorable to 
 their continued friendship, though they may have been appeased for 
 the moment by the subsequent christening of Manteo who, by Sir 
 Walter Raleigh's order, was, in reward of his faithfulness to the 
 English, baptized with due ceremony under the name of Lord of 
 Roanoke and Dasamonquepeuk. Before the fleet sailed, also, the 
 daughter of White, the wife of Ananias Dare, one of the assistants, 
 gave birth, August 18, to a daughter, who was christened Virginia 
 the first child of English parentage born upon the territory of the 
 present United States. 
 
 White returned to England to ask for further assistance. He says 
 he went at the earnest solicitation of all the colonists ; but 
 
 White goes . . .. . 
 
 back to it seems unlikely that a necessity for sending the governor 
 on such an errand could have arisen within a month of their 
 arrival. The anxious desire, so evident in his narrative, to justify 
 his going, indicates that it was his own wish rather than the wish of 
 those he left behind him, to get back to England. He never suc- 
 ceeded in anything he undertook for the colony, and never failed in 
 ingeniously finding reasons for the failure in the conduct of other 
 people. ' 
 
 Only one single word was ever again heard directly from the colony. 
 White sailed from Roanoke on the 27th of August, 1587 ; it was the 
 9th of the same month, three years later, 1590 before he again 
 set foot in Virginia. There was no help at first for this delay. When 
 
1590.] WHITE'S LAST VOYAGE. 253 
 
 White reached home England was busy from one end to the other in 
 raising recruits for the army to resist the threatened Spanish invasion ; 
 every ship in her ports was pressed into the naval service in one ca- 
 pacity or another. Sir Francis Drake, who, that year, cruising along 
 the coasts of Spain destroyed a hundred of her ships, wrote to Lord 
 Burleigh : " Assuredly there never was beard of or known so great 
 preparations as the king of Spain hath and daily maketh ready for the 
 invasion of England." In the summer of 1588 the Armada of one 
 hundred and forty ships was in the Channel ; Raleigh, as he Warbe . 
 had been among the foremost to arouse, arm, and drill the Sa^ d ng " 
 people to repel the invaders, so now he was on board the fleet Spaln ' 
 that went to meet them on the sea. The " Invincible Armada " soon 
 ceased to terrify England, and though Philip of Spain, when he learned 
 of its dispersion and partial destruction, swore he would waste his 
 crown to the value of a wax candle but he would drive Elizabeth from 
 the throne he claimed as his own, 1 Drake was heard of ere the year 
 was over harrying the Spaniards again on their own coasts. White, 
 meanwhile, succeeded in getting off in April, 1588, to the relief of the 
 colony with two vessels and fifteen new planters. But they went no 
 further than a few leagues north of the Madeira Islands, where, in an 
 encounter with the Spaniards, so many of the men were wounded and 
 the pinnaces so disabled that they were compelled to return to Eng- 
 land. 2 It had been first proposed to send a larger expedition under 
 Sir Richard Grenville, but the ship was stopped by Order of Council, 
 and Grenville himself ordered for service against the Armada. It was 
 only by importunity that White was allowed to sail with these two 
 small pinnaces, and it was not till 1590 that he was permitted to make 
 another attempt to get back to his colony. 
 
 In February of that year, hearing that three ships belonging to a 
 London merchant were ready for sea on a voyage to the West 
 Indies, but detained by general Order of Council, he procured o 
 their release through the influence of Raleigh. The condi- ony - 1590- 
 tion was that they should carry a reasonable number of passengers 
 and land them in Virginia ; but this was fulfilled only so far as to take 
 White alone. They sailed in March ; spent four months in a cruise 
 against the Spaniards among the West India Islands, capturing some 
 prizes, and arrived at Wocokon on the 9th of August. 
 
 Six days later the ships anchored in Hatorask harbor, having spent 
 one night on the way off the Island of Croatoan. At Hatorask White 
 was cheered with the sight of a great smoke rising in the direction of 
 
 1 Rapin's History of England, vol. ix. 
 
 2 See the first edition of Hnkluyt, of 1589, p. 771. The voyage is not mentioned in the 
 second edition of 1600, which contains White's narrative of his visit to Koanoke in 1590. 
 
254 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X. 
 
 Roanoke Island, and the next morning salutes were fired at proper in- 
 tervals to let the colonists know of the arrival of their countrymen. 
 Boats put off for the island, but before they reached it another column 
 of smoke in another direction raised fresh hopes. This they steered 
 for, but having consumed the day in reaching the place where it seemed 
 to rise it proved a delusion. Neither men nor signs of any habitation 
 were found. 
 
 A disaster the next day well nigh put an end to all further attempts 
 to reach Roanoke. The boats were sent ashore at Hatorask for water ; 
 the surf was heavy in the inlet, one of the boats was upset, and two 
 of the captains of the ships and five others were drowned. So dis- 
 heartened were the sailors at this mishap that they refused at first to 
 go on, and this determination was with difficulty overcome by the will 
 and authority of White and the remaining captain. It was night be- 
 fore they reached Roanoke and approached the spot where White ex- 
 pected to find his friends. Glimmering through the trees they saw 
 the light of a fire, and for a moment their hopes were kindled 
 
 Search for . ' . . r 
 
 white's coi- into enthusiasm. Approaching it along the shore the notes 
 of a trumpet-call from the boats rang clear and shrill through 
 the silent woods ; the sailors sung out in cheering tones the familiar 
 words of English songs which would have so stirred the blood of any 
 listening Englishmen long exiled from home. But there was no 
 answer. The light of the distant fire still flickered above the dim line 
 of the forest ; but out of the darkness came no friendly shout of men, 
 no woman's glad cry of joy and welcome. 
 
 They landed at day-break ; the fire they had seen was from burn- 
 ing grass and rotting trees, kindled, no doubt, by the Indians whose 
 fresh foot-prints were found in the sand. Pushing through the woods 
 toward the spot where White had left his colony three years before, 
 they saw the letters C R O, carved upon the trunk of a tree, upon the 
 brow of a hill. Pausing to consider what this might mean, White 
 remembered that when he left the colony it was proposed that the 
 people should remove to the main land, and that wherever they went 
 the name of the place should be left behind them here upon trees or 
 door-posts. It was further understood that should any misfortune have 
 overtaken them, they should carve beneath the name a cross. Here 
 then was the guide, if CRO meant Croatoan, to the place whither the 
 colony had removed, though it was to an outer island rather than to 
 the main. But to the anxious father and governor there was this en- 
 couragement, the sign of the cross was wanting. 
 
 Again they pushed on after a brief consultation upon the " faire 
 Romane letters curiously carved," which White had thus explained. It 
 was not far to the deserted post, still surrounded with its palisades. 
 
 
1590.] THE LOST COLONY. 255 
 
 Here all doubts were removed : at the entrance, upon one of the largest 
 of the trees from which the bark had been stripped, was The deser ted 
 carved in capital letters, the word CROATOAN in full, and * ort 
 still without the cross. Within the palisades the houses were gone, 
 but scattered about were bars of iron and pigs of lead, some large guns 
 with their balls " fowlers " and " sacker shot," they were called, 
 and other tilings too heavy for a hasty removal, all overgrown with 
 grass and weeds. In a trench not far off were found some chests 
 where they had been buried by the colonists and dug up afterward 
 by the Indians ; among these were three belonging to White, but all 
 had been rifled ; books were torn out of their covers, the frames of pic- 
 tures and of maps were rotten with dampness, and a suit of armor was 
 almost eaten up with rust. " Although it much grieved me," says 
 White, " to see such spoyle of my goods, yet on the other side I greatly 
 joyed that I had safely found a certaine token of their [the colonists] 
 safe being at Croatoan, which is the place where Manteo was borne, 
 and the Savages of the Island our friends." 
 
 It was his only consolation if he really believed that his friends, 
 among whom was his daughter, had found any such refuge. 
 The boats had hardly regained the ships at Hatorask when white's 
 
 . i i oearch for 
 
 a gale of wind with a heavy sea set in, and in attempting to the missing 
 get under way one of the ships lost her anchors and was near 
 going ashore. The water casks, which had been taken to the land to 
 be filled, could not be brought off ; provisions were short, the sailors 
 were despondent and impatient, and it was determined to abandon all 
 attempts to go to Croatoan in further search of the colony, but to sail 
 at once to the West Indies and recruit. White was only a passenger, 
 and could probably do nothing to change this determination, though 
 his friends, if still alive, were not many miles distant. He may, 
 indeed, have been doubtful if they were still alive, for the ships on 
 their arrival on the coast had stopped at Wocokon, had sailed along 
 the shores of Croatoan, and anchored for a night off the north end of 
 the island. Had there been anv survivors of the colonists there, tliev 
 
 / > 
 
 could hardly have failed, on the look-out as they would always have 
 been for succor, to see the passing vessels and have made their presence 
 known by signals of some sort. But no signs had been seen of living 
 men ; no columns of smoke curled up above the trees ; no flags of 
 distress were descried ; no friendly Indians beckoned them to land ; 
 no sound of gun or shout broke the silence of the wilderness. At 
 Roanoke alone, in the one word Croatoan carved upon the trees, 
 and in the crumbling vestiges of the colony, half buried in the rank 
 growth of two or three summers, were there any evidences that Eng- 
 lishmen had ever been there tokens, also, that they had perished. 
 
256 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X. 
 
 That such was White's conviction that he believed his daughter 
 and her children, and all the rest whom he had led to this distant land, 
 had fallen victims to the vengeance of the natives is the most char- 
 itable way of accounting for the readiness with which he seems to 
 have acceded to the proposal to sail for the West Indies. It was, 
 indeed, suggested that they should return to Virginia, after taking on 
 board a fresh stock of water and provisions ; but that could only have 
 been a pretext, for as Croatoan was directly in their course a delay of 
 half a day would have sufficed to ascertain whether there were any 
 Englishmen alive upon the island. "I leave off," said White, in a 
 letter to Hakluyt, narrating the details of this voyage, "I leave off 
 from prosecuting that whereunto I would to God my wealth were an- 
 swerable to my will." Others did not leave off, no doubt sincerely be- 
 lieving what with White may have been only a desperate hope, that 
 the unhappy planters were not all exterminated. Sir Walter Raleigh 
 seems never to have neglected any chance of finding his lost colony, 
 but excuses wei'e never wanting for not making a thorough search on 
 the part of those whom he engaged to undertake it. 
 
 In 1602, that no divided interest should interfere with a thorough 
 prosecution of the object of the voyage, he bought a vessel and hired a 
 Raleigh crew for this one purpose. The ship was commanded by 
 ueTMaceVo Samuel Mace, who twice before had been in Virginia, " a 
 croatoan. sufficient mariner, and an honest, sober man." But he, like 
 the rest, found something else to do than to search for his countrymen. 
 Did he think it a fool's errand ? The honest man and sufficient mari- 
 ner spent a month on the coast, forty leagues southwest of Hatteras, 
 perhaps at the mouth of Cape Fear River, trafficking with the Indians, 
 making no attempt to reach Croatoan, on the standing pretext of stress 
 of weather and loss of ground tackle. 1 There was an evident unwil- 
 lingness in England to acknowledge publicly that so cruel a calamity 
 as the total destruction of so manv men and women could have be- 
 
 \j 
 
 fallen an attempt to colonize Virginia ; Raleigh himself was reluctant 
 to give up if he' ever gave up his firm pel-suasion that they had 
 not all perished ; but as those who were sent to their relief made little 
 or no effort to find them, it is charitable to suppose that though they 
 accepted his service they had no faith in his opinion. 
 
 That the colonists were all massacred soon after White left them, 
 nas been the common belief in later times ; but there is 
 good reason for doubting if that were the fact. There was 
 colony. clearly a conviction prevalent in the colony at Jamestown, 
 twenty years afterward, that some of the Roanoke people had es- 
 
 1 Purchas, vol. iv. ; Strachey's Historic ofTravaUe into Virginia, p. 134. The statement 
 in Purchas is that Raleigh had sent succor to those left in Virginia in 1587, "five sev- 
 eral times at his pwn charges," before he sent Mace. 
 
1602.] THE LOST COLONY. 257 
 
 caped destruction, and might be even then surviving. 1 Strachey 
 refers to them again and again, and in a way that conveys the impres- 
 sion he is speaking of a fact he knows will not be questioned. In 
 describing the country of the Upper Potomac, he says that in the high 
 land " to the so'ward " the people of Peccarecamek and Ochanahoen 
 have, according to the report of an Indian, houses of stone, which 
 they were taught to build " by those Englishe whoe escaped the 
 slaughter at Roanoak," and that a certain chief had " preserved seven 
 of the English alive fower men, two boyes, and one yonge mayde, 
 who escaped and fled up the river Chanoke, [probably the Chowan,] 
 to beat his copper." Of White's last visit to Roanoke, when he found 
 the indication that should have led him to Croatoan, he also says : 
 " Howbeit, Captaine White sought them no further, but missing them 
 there, and his company havinge other practises, and which those tymes 
 afforded, they returned covetous of some good successe upon the Span- 
 ish fleete to returne that yeare from Mexico and the Indies, neglect- 
 ing thus these unfortunate and betrayed people, of whose end you 
 shall yet hereafter read in due place in this decade." 
 
 But this story, if he ever wrote it, has not yet been recovered. 
 What it may have been we can only infer from expressions like these 
 scattered through " The Historic of Travaille." " He [Powhatan] 
 doth often send unto us to temporise with us, awayting perhapps a fit 
 opportunity (inflamed by his furious and bloudy priests) to offer us a 
 tast of the same cuppe which he made our poore countrymen drinck of 
 at Roanoak." The King of England, it is said elsewhere, " hath bene 
 acquainted that the men, women, and childrene of the first plantation 
 at Roanoak were by practise and comandement of Powhatan (he him- 
 self perswaded therunto by his priests,) miserably slaughtered with- 
 out any offence given him, either by the first planted (who twenty 
 and od yeares had peaceably lyved intermixt with those salvages, and 
 were out of his territory,) or by those who now are come." And 
 again : " Powhatan hath slaughtered so many of our nation without 
 offence given, and such as were seated far from him, and in the terri- 
 tory of those weroance [chiefs] which did in no sort depend on him 
 or acknowledge him." 
 
 Assuming that Strachey was a trustworthy reporter and of that 
 there is no question of what he saw and heard in Virginia, we con- 
 clude it was the belief at Jamestown that there were some survivoi's 
 
 1 The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia, by William Strachey, the first secre- 
 tary of the colony at Jamestown, though written at an early period of the settlement, was 
 not published till 1849, and the new light he sheds upon this subject is so recent that it has 
 not, we believe, been noticed anywhere except by the Rev. E. E. Hale, in vol. iv. of the 
 Collections of the American Antiquarian Society. 
 
 VOL. I. 17 
 
258 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. [CHAP. X. 
 
 of White's colony, and that these Powhatan, or rather his priests, 
 
 caused to be put to death after the settlement of the English at that 
 
 place. Understanding this, we are better able to comprehend some 
 
 allusions in the Smith histories which, without the light 
 
 Allusions in. ir i 111-1 i 1-111 
 
 Smith's his- given by btrachey, have seemed blind and inexplicable, but 
 
 tones to ii 
 
 these coio- are clearly a continuation ot otracney s story that there were 
 some survivors, in 1606, of the Roanoke people. Thus, in 
 " The True Relation," l the first book by Captain Smith on Virginia, 
 he says, in relating an interview with the Emperor Powhatan : " What 
 he knew of the dominions he spared not to acquaint me with, as 
 of certain e men cloathed at a place called Ocanahonan. cloathed like 
 me." And again he says : " The people clothed at Ocamahowan, he 
 [Powhatan] alsoe confirmed." 2 The allusion in both cases can only 
 be to the lost colonists. And in the work known as his " Generall His- 
 torie," published fifteen years afterward, is this passage: "How or why 
 Captaine Newport obtained such private commission as not to return 
 without a lumpe of gold, a certaintie of the South Sea, or one of the 
 lost company sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh, I know not." 3 That 
 one of the objects of an expedition into the interior was to succor some 
 of the survivors of the Roanoke colony, and because some of those 
 unhappy men and women lived to so late a period without being re- 
 leased by their friends in England, is why, probably, Strachey speaks 
 of them as being betrayed. 
 
 Raleigh's patent of 1584 was renewed from time to time, though as 
 early as 1589 he hoped that he had induced others to carry on the work 
 which he had begun. In those first years of enthusiasm, he had ex- 
 pended it is said, forty thousand pounds sterling in his several expedi- 
 tions, 4 and he then enlarged on behalf of Thomas Smith and others, 
 merchants of London, the chailer of " The City of Raleigh " under 
 which White and his associates were incorporated. 5 But this new 
 company did nothing, and Raleigh's efforts were limited to the 
 
 Raleigh 'gin- r J & & 
 
 terest in his attempt to convev help to those colonists in whose total de- 
 
 colony 
 
 struction he persistently refused to believe, down to the time 
 when he sent Mace, in 1602. Of that voyage we have some further 
 
 1 A True Relation of Virginia. By Captain John Smith. Edited by Charles Dcane, 
 Boston, 1866, p. 28. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 37. We follow the punctuation of the passage in accordance with Mr. Denne's 
 suggestion, by which alone can it have any meaning. 
 
 8 The Voyages and Discoveries of Captain John Smith, vol. i., p. 120. Richmond edition. 
 
 4 Oldys, in his Life of Raleigh, vol. i., p. 117, makes this statement on the authority of a 
 scarce pamphlet which he describes as " a brief relation of Sir Walter Raleigh's troubles." 
 The sum named is probably exaggerated. 
 
 6 The indenture between Raleigh and Smith has sometimes been supposed to be a con 
 veyance of the patent of 1584, from Raleigh to Smith and others. It was only to include 
 them, with enlarged privileges, in " the City of Raleigh " charter. 
 
 
1602.] THE LOST COLONY. 259 
 
 account in a letter from Raleigh, to Secretary Sir Robert Cecil, written 
 in August of that year. " I wrote unto you," he says, " in my last 
 that I was gonn to Weymouth to speake with a pinnes of myne arived 
 from Virginia." Mace was from Weymouth, had sailed in March of 
 that year for Virginia, and as he had spent a month on the coast to 
 trade with the Indians, and to load his vessel with sassafras, he 
 would be back in Weymouth in three or four months. His landfall 
 was " forty leagues to the southwestward of Hatteras." l 
 
 Raleigh's pinnace was also loaded, he says, with u sarsephraze," and 
 her landfall was " forty leagues to the west of it," i. e. Virginia, 
 and it was for that reason that the captain did not " spake with the 
 peopell " the colonists at Croatoan. This letter was written to Ce- 
 cil to ask him to intercede with the Lord Admiral for the seizure of 
 sassafras brought home at the same time by a Captain Gilbert, who 
 also had been on the American coast, forty leagues to the east of 
 Roanoke, because, says Raleigh, " I have a patent that all shipps and 
 goods are confiscate that shall trade ther without my leve." There 
 can be no doubt that the pinnace here referred to was the one com- 
 manded by Mace. 
 
 Captain Gilbert was himself the bearer of this letter. He, said 
 Raleigh, commending him to the good offices of the secretary, ^ M h . g 
 *' is my Lord Cobham's man It is he by a good ie"*on 
 
 * > American 
 
 token that had the great diamonde." The allusion re- busies, 
 called no doubt to Cecil's mind some stirring adventure, perhaps some 
 piece of rare good luck in a fight with the Spaniard, in which Gilbert 
 had been conspicuous. But although he was Lord Cobham's man, 
 he was also, we suppose, a nephew of Raleigh's and in friendly 
 relations with him, notwithstanding this proposed seizure of his sassa- 
 fras. That, indeed, seems only to have been what is now called a busi- 
 ness arrangement, Gilbert assenting to this method of taking one of 
 the cargoes out of the market that the other might command a higher 
 price. He also, no doubt, was the Bartholomew Gilbert who had sailed 
 in April with Bartholomew Gosnold for the coast of New England, 
 arriving home again the latter part of July, not long before the date 
 of this letter. 
 
 " I do sende both the barks away againe," writes Raleigh. Of 
 Mace we hear no more ; but Bartholomew Gilbert, it is known, sailed 
 for Virginia, the following spring. 2 It was partly a trading voyage to 
 the West Indies, but had also another object in which Raleigh's will is 
 seen even if we had not his own assertion that Gilbert was to go 
 
 i Tracts appended to Bremon. Miss. Hist. Coll. 
 - Purehas, vol. iv., p. 1556. 
 
260 
 
 ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. TCiiAr. X. 
 
 again, this time with bis sanction. The vessel took in a cargo in 
 the West Indies, and on her way homeward went up the Chesepian 
 (Chesapeake) Bay to look for the lost colony. The search was 
 brief ; heavy weather for some days prevented a landing, till at length 
 Gilbert ventured to go on shore with a boat. Leaving this in charge 
 of two boys, he with his men started on an expedition inland. They 
 were still in sight of the lads thev had left behind when 
 
 " ,, 111 
 
 a band of Indians started from an ambush and attacked 
 them furiously. Several men were seen to fall, wounded 
 
 by arrows : the affrighted boys put 
 
 off hurriedly to the ship, leaving the 
 
 captain and his companions at the 
 
 mercy of the savages. Nothing more 
 
 Fate of Bar- 
 
 
 Bartholomew Gilbert's Death. 
 
 was heard of them, and the ship, her crew reduced in numbers, 
 the captain and other officers gone, soon set sail and returned to 
 England. 
 
 With this tragic event the death of another Gilbert in the cause 
 of American colonization ends Raleigh's connection with that couii' 
 try to which, as he said the year before, he still held the title, and of 
 which he speaks in this letter to Cecil in these memorable words : 
 " I shall yet live to see it an Inglishe nation." 1 
 
 In this same summer, when his nephew lay dead on the beach of 
 Chesapeake Bay, the final sacrifice of Raleigh on behalf of that 
 new English nation, his patent expired by his attainder. On the 
 
 1 Edwards' Life of Ralci;/h, London, 18G8, vol. ii. Letter o.\. From the original Cecil 
 Papers. 
 
1603.] 
 
 ATTAINDER OF RALEIGH. 
 
 261 
 
 charge of high treason, James I. found in Sir John Popham re- 
 membered now chiefly for the part he took in the trial of End of Ra . 
 Raleigh, and for following his example in attempting to '^e r ; s can 
 found a colony on the North American coast a chief jus- entcr P risc 
 tice base enough to bend the law to the will of a tyrannical master. 
 
 Signature of Qjeen Snzabeth. 
 
 Signature of Sir Walter 
 
Entrance to Chesapeake Bay 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. 
 
 GOSNOI.D'S EXPEDITION. PATENT GRANTED TO LONDON AND PLYMOUTH COMPANIES. 
 A COLONY SETS OUT FOR VIRGINIA. DISCORD ox SHIPBOARD. THE BUILDING 
 OF JAMESTOWN. NEWPORT'S EXPLORATION OF THE RIVER. GOVERNORSHIP OF 
 EDWARD WINGFIELD. DISCONTENT AND SUFFERING AMONG THE COLONISTS. 
 THE INDIAN CHIEF POWHATAN. ACCOUNTS OF SMITH'S CAPTURE BY THE SAV- 
 AGES. DISCREPANCIES IN SMITH'S OWN STORY. RETURN OF NEWPORT FROM 
 ENGLAND. CORONATION OF POWHATAN. SERVICES OF SMITH TO THE COLONY. 
 THE NEW CHARTER. EXPEDITION OF GATES AND SOMERS. THE TEMPEST AND 
 THE SHIPWRECK. OPPORTUNE COMING OF LORD DE LA WARRE. CODE OF LAWS 
 FOR THE COLONY. ADMINISTRATION OF GATES AND DALE. CULTIVATION OF 
 TOIIACCO. MARRIAGE OF POCAHONTAS. SANDYS AND YEARDLEY. THE COLONY 
 FIRMLY ESTABLISHED. WHITE AND BLACK SLAVERY. THE FlRST AMERICAN 
 LEGISLATURE. 
 
 BARTHOLOMEW GOSNOLD sailed from Falmouth, England, on the 
 2oth of March, 1602, in a small vessel called the Concord Bartholo- 
 mew Gilbert being his second in command sent, not by Raleigh, nor 
 going with Raleigh's consent, but by the Earl of Southampton. 1 He 
 
 1 The letter from Raleigh to Cecil, referred to in the previous chapter, shows that the 
 presumption that this vovnge wns made with his consent (see Bancroft, Pnlfi'fi/, and others), 
 is erroneous. He asks that Gilhcrt's ' sarsephrase " l>e seized, " been use I have a piitint 
 that all shipps and goods are confiscate that shall trade ther without my leve." That 
 he had given such leave, has hitherto been assumed, because Breretou (see Purrlms's Pit- 
 ifrims and Mass. Hist. Co.'/., vol. viii., Third Series), addresses his narrative of the voyage to 
 Sir Walter Raleigh. Brereton's own words, however, make it plain that he did so only as a 
 matter of courtesv. 
 
1G02.] 
 
 GOSNOLD'S EXPEDITION. 
 
 263 
 
 took with him thirty-two persons, of whom twenty were to remain 
 and found a colony somewhere on the northern coast of Vir- vo.vageot 
 ginia, as the whole country was then called, from the thirty- ""'.''i"^. 
 fourth to the forty-fifth parallel of latitude. His purpose was "' d - 1602 ' 
 to go by a direct northwest course, avoiding the usual circuitous route 
 by the Canaries and the West India Islands ; but contrary winds 
 drove him southward to one of the Azores, whence he steered nearly 
 due west, arriving on the coast of New England at about 40 of 
 latitude, on the 14th of May. 
 
 At a point which he called Savage Rock, not far, probably, from 
 Cape Ann, if not the Cape itself, the Concord was boarded by a party 
 of Indians in a Biscay shallop, carrying both sails and oars ; their lead- 
 er, and one or two others, were partially clothed in European garments, 
 which, as well as the boat, they had obtained from Biscay fishermen ; 
 nor was this the only evidence of frequent intei'course with such visit- 
 ors, for it is said, " they spoke divers Christian words, and seemed to 
 understand more than we, for want of language, could comprehend." l 
 Finding at this place no good harbor, they stood southward, crossed 
 Massachusetts Bay, and the next morning dropped anchor, within a 
 league from the shore, under the lea of a great promontory. 
 
 Provincetown. 
 
 On this breezy point, jutting out into the Atlantic, which a voyager 
 along the coast of the United States can hardly escape hitting, either 
 in fair weather or foul, stands to-day the picturesque village of Prov- 
 incetown, half buried always in sand, and at the proper season oom- 
 
 1 The Relation of Captain Gosnold's Voyaye, liy Gabriel Archer, in Purchas, vol. iv. 
 
264 
 
 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 pletely covered over with drying cod-fish. Gosnold and his people at 
 first called this promontory Shoal Hope, but presently changed the 
 name to Cape Cod. Champlain called it Cap Blanc (Cape White), 
 four years later, because of the aspect which its sands gave it ; l and 
 in 1614 Captain John Smith named it Cape James ; but the name 
 Cape Cod it has never lost. The captain and some of his companions 
 landed, and found pease, strawberries, and whortleberries, as yet un- 
 ripe ; the woods were cypress, birch, witch-hazel, and beech products 
 which the visitor to the extremity of Cape Cod will now hardly find, 
 by the most diligent search. 
 
 Doubling the headland, they sailed for six days along the outer coast 
 
 of the cape, " the back side " as it is now called, which 
 
 past cape the Northmen, it is supposed, had discovered six hundred 
 
 years before, and named Wonder-strands. Certain points now 
 
 known as dangerous shoals, but which were then peninsulas of firm 
 
 land, the Concord's crew 
 called Tucker's Terror and 
 Gilbert's Point, from two 
 of their officers. The fish- 
 ing was so good, better, 
 they thought, than off the 
 banks of Newfoundland, 
 that they " pestered " their 
 ship with the quantity of 
 cod they took each day ; in- 
 land the country seemed 
 covered with grass and well 
 wooded, and to be very 
 populous. A few of the 
 natives came alongside in 
 their birch canoes, others 
 ran along the beaches " ad- 
 miring" the strangers; the 
 pipes of those who boarded 
 the ship, it was observed, 
 were " steeled with copper," 
 and one of these Indians 
 
 Map of Cape Cod. ^^ & breastplate of that 
 
 metal a foot in length and half a foot in breadth. 
 
 Crossing the Vineyard Sound, they came " amongst many fair 
 islands," on one of which they landed. It was full of woods and 
 fruit-bearing bushes, with such an incredible store of vines running 
 
 1 Voywjes du Sieur tie Clianiplain. 
 
 - 
 
u 
 
 ft 
 
 O 
 
 ft 
 
 f 
 
 a 
 3 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 H 
 
 O 
 
 a 
 
1002.] GOSXOLD'S EXPEDITION. 265 
 
 upon every tree, that they could not go for treading upon them. 
 It is the Northmen's story over again. " We will call it Vinland," 
 said Leif the Lucky, of the country lie found, probably in these same 
 waters. To the island on which they first landed, Gosnold and his 
 people gave the name of Martha's Vineyard. 1 This, there is little 
 doubt, is now known as No Man's Land, the name of Martha's Vine- 
 yard being afterward transferred to the larger island north of it. Here 
 they did not go ashore, but doubling its southwest extremity, calling 
 it Dover Cliff as they passed, sailed into Buzzard's Hay. It seemed 
 to them one of the "stateliest" of Sounds, and worth}' to r)e< .i, lHSto 
 be called Gosnold's Hope. On an island now known by its ^"JL^h 
 Indian name of Cuttyhunk, 2 but which Gosnold called Eliz- Mand - 
 abeth, the designation now of that whole group of which Cuttv- 
 luink is the outermost, it was determined to plant the colony. 
 
 The soil was " fat and lusty." The seed of various grains, planted 
 as an experiment, sprung up in fourteen days to a height of from 
 six to nine inches. Indeed, on all the coast, no more enticing place 
 could be found than this lovely island, with its southern side to the 
 sea, the Gulf Stream winding in near enough to warm the tides that 
 washed its shores. In a lake two or three miles in circuit, one end of 
 it only a few yards from the outer beach, was a rocky islet an island 
 within an island and on this they determined to build a fort. The 
 larger part of the company at once set to work, and for the next three 
 weeks were busy on a place of habitation and defence, while a few, 
 " and those but easy laborers," employed themselves in gathering 
 sassafras few, because, adds Captain Gosnold, in a letter to his 
 father, 3 " We were informed before our going forth, that a ton (of 
 sassafras) was enough to cloy England." What became of this cargo, 
 we learn from Raleigh's letter to Secretary Cecil. 
 
 The Indians were frequent visitors, bringing furs, wampum, to- 
 bacco "which they drink (smoke) green, but dried into powder, 
 very strong and pleasant" and such provision as they had for 
 traffic. Among them, as among the natives of the Cape, copper was 
 in common use as an ornament, and by signs they made known that 
 they dug it out of the ground, which gave great hope to the English 
 of mines not far distant. Gosnold, with some of his companions, 
 
 1 Or Martin's Vineyard, as it is often written by early writers. Captain Pring, who 
 made essentially the same voyage the next year, was on hoard the Concord. His name was 
 Martin, and it my have been given to the island in his honor, suggests Belknap. as the 
 ii:>ines of others of this ship's company were used to designate other places as Tucker's 
 Terror, Gilbert's Point, Gosnold's Hope, Hill's Hap. 
 
 3 " A contraction of Poo-cut-oli-hiink-un-nok, which signifies a thing that lies out of the 
 water." Be.lknnft's American Ltioirajihy, vol ii., p. 114. 
 
 :i Master Bartholomew Gosnold's letter to his lather, touching his tirst voyage to Vir- 
 ginia. See Purchas and Mass. Hist. Coll. 
 
266 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 visited other islands of the group, and explored the main in the di- 
 rection of the site of the present town of New Bedford, and found it 
 to be " the goodliest continent that ever we saw, promising more by 
 far than we did expect ; for it is replenished with fair fields, and in 
 them fragrant flowers, also meadows, and hedged in with stately 
 groves, being furnished also with pleasant brooks, and beautified with 
 two main rivers." 1 The natives were, on the whole, not unfriendly ; 
 and in a place so pleasant, with so much that was encouraging, this 
 might have been the first English colony on the American coast, had 
 the Concord been better provided. 
 
 But when the time came for her return, it was found that only 
 
 enough stores could be spared to sustain for six weeks at most those who 
 
 should remain. There was little reason to hope that they 
 
 Abandon- .... . 1111 i 
 
 ment of the might live upon the country, and they had made no provision 
 for a crop by planting. The uncertainty as to how soon 
 succor might reach them from home, and the doubt whether the 
 Indians would leave them unmolested, counselled prudence, and they 
 wisely resolved that none should be left behind. On the 18th of 
 June they sailed for England, and on the 23d of July arrived off 
 Exmouth. When four days afterward they anchored in Portsmouth 
 Harbor, " we had not," said Gosnold, in the letter to his father, " one 
 cake of bread, nor any drink but a little vinegar, left." 
 
 Indirectly this voyage of Gosnold's was not without important re- 
 sults, though a failure in its immediate purpose. New England thus 
 just missed of being the site of the first settled colony, but attention 
 was turned to these Northern coasts, never to be again relaxed for any 
 long period. The immediate interest aroused was enough to send out 
 in the course of the next two or three years, several expeditions for 
 trade with the Indians. 
 
 Martin Pring, who was with Gosnold in the Concord, was fitted out 
 by some Bristol merchants in the spring of 1603, with two 
 pring s voy- vessels, one of fifty tons, the other of twenty-six only, with 
 which he ran along the coast of Maine, stopping long enough 
 in Casco Bay to find the fishing better than off Newfoundland ; look- 
 ing into the mouth of the Kennebunk, the York, and the Piscataqua 
 rivers, cruising with delight among the many islands along that shore. 
 Then following Gosnold's track from " Savage Rock " to Buzzard's 
 Bay, trading with Indians wherever he could find them, he was back 
 again in England, his two vessels well laden, within six months. Wey- 
 mouth, whom the Earl of Southampton and Lord Arundel sent out 
 two years later, was bent rather upon discovery than trade. But 
 these voyages were the direct consequence of that of Gosnold ; the 
 
 1 Archer's Relation. 
 
1606.] PATENT TO THE VIRGINIA COMPANIES. 267 
 
 shorter route he opened by steering directly westward instead of the 
 circuitous course followed by vessels going to Virginia for the previous 
 twenty years, and the report of a rich and productive country, and a 
 salubrious climate, at least in the summer months, on the Northern 
 coast, promised a new field for English enterprise. 
 
 Gosnold himself was full of zeal and energy. The failure to 
 plant a colony on Elizabeth Island did not in the least discourage 
 him, and the few weeks spent in that region assured him of the possi- 
 bility of successful colonization anywhere along the coast under better 
 auspices. He inspired men of influence and wealth with something 
 of his own enthusiasm. The merchants of London, Bristol, and Plym- 
 outh considered the subject in its commercial aspect, and that seemed 
 full of promise ; but there were many others who saw it in a more 
 comprehensive light. Chief among these was Richard Hakluyt, a 
 London clergyman, whose diligence as an author bore witness to the 
 deep interest he felt in discovery in the New World, and the import- 
 ance he believed the possession of its Northern portion to be to Eng- 
 land. The result of the labors of such men was the formation of an 
 association composed of some of the most influential and respectable 
 persons in the kingdom, and which determined beyond a doubt the 
 future of North America. 
 
 Letters-patent were issued in April, 1606, to Sir George Somers, 
 Richard Hakluyt, Edward Maria Wingfield, and others who Patent 
 should be joined to them, by which was granted all the 
 territority on the American coast, between 34 and 4o c , ] 
 and the islands within a hundred miles. It was required that two 
 companies be formed, one to be called the first, or Southern Colony ; 
 the other, the second, or Northern Colony. The jurisdiction of 
 the Southern colony, whose council was chiefly composed of resi- 
 dents of London and came therefore to be known as the London 
 Company, extended from Cape Fear to the eastern end of Long 
 Island, from 34 to 41 ; the other was called the Plymouth Com- 
 pany, as its council was appointed from Plymouth and its vicinity ; its 
 limits overlapped those of the other, extending from 38 to 45, or 
 from about the latitude of Delaware Bay to Halifax, Nova Scotia. 
 
 Each colony was to be governed by a resident council of thirteen, to 
 be appointed by the king, with power to choose a president, Government 
 who should not be a clergyman, from -their own body, and [uheV^tne 
 to fill any vacancies that should occur among themselves New World - 
 from death or resignation. The laws enacted by them were subject 
 to revision either by the king or the council in England. No part 
 whatever in the government was given to the people; even trial by jury 
 was allowed only in cases of capital crimes, which were " tumults, re- 
 
 to 
 
268 
 
 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 bellion, conspiracy, meetings and sedition, together with murder, man- 
 slaughter, incest, rapes, and adultery ; " lesser crimes and misdemean- 
 ors were to be tried before the president and council, and punished 
 according to their will. Real estate was to be held as under the laws 
 of England, but for the first five years all personal property and the 
 fruits of the labors of the colonists were to be held as a common 
 stock, and each member of the community was to be supported 
 from the general store. Religion was to be established in accord- 
 ance witli the rites and doctrines of the Church of England ; the 
 
 people were enjoined by virtue of such 
 penalties as the president and council 
 should choose to inflict, to "kindly 
 treat the savage and heathen people 
 in those parts, and use all proper 
 means to draw them to the true service 
 and knowledge of God," and also to 
 lead them to " good and sociable traf- 
 fic." Such were the essential features 
 of the first constitution of government 
 established within the limits of the 
 present United States. It was espec- 
 ially the work of that pedantic despot, 
 James I., who afterward amused him- 
 self with drawing up a code of laws 
 for the administration of a government 
 where, in the last resort, all political power rested in his hands, and 
 the hands of those of his appointment. 
 
 In the summer of 1606, two ships sailed for New England under 
 the auspices of the Plymouth Company, one in May commanded by 
 Captain Pring ; the other in August, of which Henry Chalong was 
 Captain. 1 Chalong was taken by the Spaniards, but Pring sailed 
 along the coast of Maine and made, on his return, so favorable a report 
 of the country that Chief Justice Popham, of the Plymouth Company, 
 determined, the next year, to send his brother George Popham and 
 Raleigh Gilbert, a son of Sir Humphrey, 2 to settle a colony at the 
 mouth of the Sagadahoc. As this colony, however, returned to Eng- 
 land in a few months the first permanent settlement was that made by 
 the London Company in Virginia. 
 
 1 Some confusion has arisen in regard to these voyages. In the ship with Pring went 
 Captain Hanam, or Hanham, some authors say as master, others as captain. Strachey 
 speaks of a voyage by Captain Haines, which is probably a mistake for Hanam, and has 
 led some writers to suppose there were three expeditions sent in 1606 by the Plymouth 
 Company. 
 
 2 See Prince's Worthies of Devon. 
 
 James I. 
 
1606.] 
 
 THE COLONY SETS OUT FOR VIRGINIA. 
 
 269 
 
 John Smith. 
 
 The colony numbered one hundred and five men men only, for 
 there were no women. Of these only about twenty were mechanics ; 
 of the rest, some were soldiers, some were servants, and Memberg of 
 nearly half of the whole number were "gentlemen," with thcfo K>"> 
 whom it was not of so much consequence that they were unaccus- 
 tomed to labor, for the better bred and better educated a man is, 
 the better able is he for any work 
 but that they looked upon labor as a 
 degradation. Among its most nota- 
 ble persons were Bartholomew Gos- 
 nold and Gabriel Archer, Gosnold's 
 companion in the Concord and his- 
 torian of that expedition ; Edward 
 Maria Wingfield, afterward the first 
 governor; the Rev. Robert Hunt, the 
 chaplain, a good man, who soon had 
 enough to do to keep the hands of 
 his charge from each others' throats; 
 George Percy, a brother of the Earl 
 of Northumberland, who did eifi- 
 cient service in the early struggles 
 of the colony ; and John Smith, 
 already distinguished for a romantic career as a soldier in a war 
 against the Turks. 
 
 They sailed from Blackwall, England, on the 19th of December, 
 1606, in three vessels: the largest, the Sarah Constant, of one T h ey sail for 
 hundred tons burden, the second, the God- Speed, of forty, ]^^f\^ 
 the third, the Discovery, a pinnace of twenty tons ; l and of 
 this little fleet, Captain Christopher Newport, an able and experienced 
 sailor, was commander. Contrary winds kept them hanging about the 
 coast for five weeks ; when fairly started on their western course, they 
 went though Gosnold and Archer could have taught them better 
 by the old route of the West Indies, trading with the Spaniards and 
 dallying in pleasant places, so that four months passed before they saw 
 the coast of Virginia. 2 The delay was not only at great cost of pro- 
 visions, which they soon came to sorely need, but so long a voyage 
 was in itself enough to breed discontent among men who must have 
 been impatient to reach their destination. Discontent bred insubor- 
 dination, and this was aggravated by the ignorance as to who among 
 them was to be in authority in the future colony, and might, therefore, 
 
 1 Purchas, vol. iv. 
 
 2 Smith's History of Vinjiniu, book Hi., chap. 2, says five months, bur this is an obvious 
 blunder. 
 
270 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [Cnxp. XL 
 
 command beforehand obedience and respect ; for the London Council 
 had unwisely ordered that the seals of their letters of instruction and 
 appointment should not be broken till the colonists had landed upon 
 the shores of Virginia. Among these malcontents John Smith made 
 himself peculiarly obnoxious. His offence may have been in reality 
 nothing more serious than to complain loudly of a delay, which, to one 
 of his active and impatient temper, must needs have been exceedingly 
 irksome ; but perhaps his example was contagious, and it was there- 
 fore thought necessary to put him under restraint. He was accused 
 (if we may accept his own statement) of an intention to usurp the 
 government, to murder the council, and make himself king ; x whether 
 charges so serious were really believed to be true, or were only meant 
 to curb a turbulent disposition, he was still considered as under arrest 
 for several weeks after the arrival in Virginia. 
 
 The intention, it is supposed though on insufficient authority 
 was to follow the Raleigh colonies and go to Roanoke Island ; the 
 reckoning, however, was in fault, if that was their purpose, for they 
 overshot it. But there was, probably, no such intention. The in- 
 structions of the Council were that the ships should seek for a safe 
 port at the entrance of some navigable river, and if more than one 
 was discovered that should be preferred, if there were any such, which 
 had two branches. Should either of these branches come from the 
 northwest then that one was to be entered, as it might be the passage 
 to the South Sea. 2 The hope of finding this passage the London 
 Council never relinquished so long as the Company remained in exist- 
 ence. 
 
 Only three days were consumed in search of such a harbor, and on 
 
 * *> 
 
 Arrival in * ne 26 th of April, 1607, they sailed into Chesseian (Chesa- 
 peake) Bay. Its southern point where some of the peo- 
 1607. pj e ^ on landing^ W ere attacked by the Indians, and Gabriel 
 Archer and a sailor wounded they called Cape Henry ; its northern, 
 Cape Charles, in honor of the sons of the king. They would, doubt- 
 less, have welcomed the sight of a much less inviting land than this 
 after the long delay ; but the} 7 sailed up this noble bay with irrepres- 
 sible delight, eager to begin their work. 
 
 Their first business was to ascertain who among them were to have 
 the management of affairs. On the night of their arrival at Cape 
 Henry the sealed box was opened and it was ascertained that the 
 council was to consist of Bartholomew Gosnold, John Smith, Edward 
 Wingfield, Christopher Newport, John Ratcliffe, John Martin, and 
 George Kendall. The next seventeen days were spent in looking for 
 
 1 Smith's General History. 
 
 2 See instructions in full iu Xeill's History of the Viryinia Comjmny in London. 
 
1607.] 
 
 THE BUILDING OF JAMESTOWN. 
 
 271 
 
 
 
 a suitable place to plant the colony, about which there was much dis- 
 agreement, and on the loth of May they fixed on the present site 
 of Jamestown so named in honor of the king on a pe- 
 ninsula about forty miles from the mouth of the Pow- 
 hatan, which, also in honor of James, they called the King's, 
 and afterward James River. This was to be their permanent home ; 
 the council, excepting Smith, were sworn into office, and Wingfield 
 chosen president. 
 
 Then " falleth every man to worke ; the Councell contrive the 
 Fort, the rest cut downe trees to make place to pitch 
 their Tents ; some provide clapboard to relade the 
 ships, some make gardens, 
 some nets, etc." l It was 
 
 Newport's Embarkation. 
 
 the laying of the first solid foundation of that English nation, which 
 Raleigh had said five years before he should vet live to see. 
 
 O V V 
 
 In the instructions of the Council the emigrants were commanded to 
 discover the communication which was supposed to exist by some river 
 or lake between Virginia and the South Sea. This they evidently 
 looked upon as one of their first duties, and accordingly within a week 
 Captain Newport " fitted out a shallop with provision and all neces- 
 saryes belonging to a discovery " they believed they had not far to 
 seek and proceeded with " five gentlemen, four maryners, and 
 fourteen saviors, with a perfect resolutyon not to returne, but either to 
 finde the head of this ryver, the laake mentyoned by others hereto- 
 
 Smith's History, book i., chap. 1. 
 
272 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CuAP. XI. 
 
 fore, the sea againe, the niountaynes Apalatai [Appalachian] or some 
 issue." l The issue was that they returned within the week without 
 having discovered either the head of the river, the lake, the South 
 Sea, or the mountains. 
 
 They made, however, a fair survey of James River for a hundred 
 !U1< 1 fifty in il es i visiting several Indian kings, or weroances, 
 as t ne y were called in the native tongue. By these they were 
 received with great kindness, and made welcome with venison, 
 turkeys, maize, strawberries, mulberries, raspberries, pompions (pump- 
 kins), dried nuts, and tobacco. In return they gave their hosts the 
 usual gifts of beads and other trifles, inviting the chiefs sometimes 
 to share their English food, and drink of their strong drinks to that 
 degree as to make the simple savage both sick and sullen. One 
 tribe was governed by a "queen," Queen Ahumatec "a fatt, 
 lustie, manly woman," dressed in a copper " crownet," a copper neck- 
 lace, a deer-skin girdle, and " ells (else) all naked." She affected great 
 state and was haughty in demeanor, but " cheered somewhat her 
 countenance " when presented liberally with gifts. It was also ob- 
 served of her, that she was much less affrighted at the discharge of a 
 gun than the men. 2 
 
 Their further progress up the river was stayed at that point where 
 the citv of Richmond now stands, and where the water fell down 
 
 tf 
 
 " through great mayne rocks from ledges of rocks above two fadome 
 high." Just below was the village of a king Pawatah (Powhatan), 
 a brother or son, probably, of that Powhatan afterwards known as the 
 Emperor, which Newport named Pawatah 's Tower, placed upon a 
 hill on the north bank, or Popham side of the river; the south bank 
 they called the Salisbury side. At this point it was proposed to 
 proceed by land and reach the Quirauk (Blue Ridge) Mountains; 
 but they were dissuaded by the Indians, who represented the way as 
 tedious, and the people of that region as the enemies of Powhatan. 
 Hei'e, therefore, ended their discoveries, which, though they did not 
 find the entrance to the South Sea, they hoped would ' tend to the 
 glory of God, his majeste's renowne, our countrye's profytt, our 
 owne advancing, and fame to all posterity." 3 
 
 As they went down the river, they observed a change in the con- 
 duct of the Indians which excited their apprehensions ; and these were 
 well founded, for on reaching Jamestown they learned that the camp 
 had been attacked during their absence. Several of the men were 
 
 1 Ca/>tain Ntv/iort's Discoveries in Virginia. First published, from MS. found ill the Eng- 
 lish State Paper Office, in vol. iv. of Collections of the American Antiquarian Society, 1860. 
 - Ibid. 
 3 Ibid. 
 
1607.] NEWPORT'S EXPEDITION. 273 
 
 wounded, one boy was killed, and the President, Wingfield, had nai - - 
 rowly escaped, an arrow having passed through his beard. 
 
 George Percy and Gabriel Archer, both men of note, went with 
 Newport on this expedition, and were probably not without some 
 share in its responsibilities and success, such as they were. Xewport - s 
 The coupling of Smith's name alone with Newport's, in -"S 
 Smith's " History," is an assertion of a prominence belong- dlti " n 
 ing quite as much to others as to him. Courageous, enterprising, and 
 energetic as he unquestionably was, he was inclined to make himself, 
 or at least sanctioned others in making him, more the hero of the 
 early history of Virginia than the facts seem always to warrant. His 
 own " History " is apparently the only authority for the assertion that 
 he was arrested in the West Indies ; and such an arrest must have 
 been made, if made at all, by Newport's orders. 1 It may be that the 
 difference between Smith and Wingfield, which afterward led to such 
 serious results, showed itself thus early, and that Newport saw the 
 necessity of putting a restraint upon one of a turbulent and daring 
 character. If this were so, it is more probable that he kept Smith 
 with him that he might be under his own control, and prevented 
 from interfering in the organization of affairs at the fort, rather than 
 that he divided with him the responsibility and honor of the first 
 expedition into the interior. 
 
 Newport remained at the fort about three weeks before sailing for 
 England, and assisted with his sailors in putting it in a better state 
 of defence. u We labored," says the narrative of his expedition, 
 under date of May 28th, the day after his return " pallaz- Buildingthe 
 doing (palisading) our forte." The colony had been on shore fort - 
 a fortnight, and had protected the encampment only with boughs of 
 trees. The attack from the Indians showed that more efficient de- 
 fence, for which the branches were only a temporary substitute and 
 all that as yet there had been time to put up, must be at once made, 
 But in Smith's "History," we are told that "the president's overween- 
 ing jealousy would admit no exercise at arms, or fortification, but the 
 boughs of trees cast together in the form of a half moon by the extra- 
 ordinary pains, and diligence of Captain Kendall." This seems to be 
 pure detraction, for there is nowhere else any intimation that Wing- 
 field was wanting in diligence and energy, and the Newport narrative 
 declares that at the first attack from the savages he " shewed himself 
 a valiant gentleman," the proof whereof, was the arrow shot through 
 his beard when with four others of the council he took the post of 
 danger in the front. 
 
 1 We find no mention of it in the abridgment in Purchas of Percy's Narrative, in the re- 
 port of Newport's expedition up the James River, nor in Wingficld's Discourse of Virginia. 
 VOL. L 18 
 
274 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN, AMERICA. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 There was evidently trouble brewing which Newport tried to avert 
 before he sailed on the 21st of June. Where the fault lay 
 
 Trouble .111 XT 
 
 brewing in is not clear, but there was, savs the Newport narrative, 
 
 the colony. i 11 i 
 
 " among the gentlemen, and all the company, a murmur and 
 grudg against certayne preposterous proceedings, and inconvenyent 
 courses." A petition was sent in to the council, in relation to these 
 difficulties, whatever they were, and Newport by " fervent persway- 
 son " won a " uniformity of consent " among them, so that, continues 
 the narrator, " we confirmed a faythfull love one to another ; and in 
 our heartes subscribed an obedyence to our superyors this day. Cap- 
 tain Smyth was this day sworne one of the Counsell, who was elected 
 in England." 
 
 A compromise was thus apparently effected, and harmony restored 
 by this admission of Smith to the board of councillors. But in 
 Smith's " History" there is a material difference in the account of this 
 transaction. 1 Referring to his arrest in the West Indies, from which 
 he was not released, according to that authority, till he was admitted 
 to the council, it is asserted that it was proposed to send him to Eng- 
 land for trial. " But he so much scorned their charitie," says the nar- 
 rative, u and publikely defied the vttermost of their crueltie, he wisely 
 prevented their policies, though he could not suppresse their envies. 
 . . Many vntruthes were alledged against him ; but being so 
 apparently disproved, begat a generall hatred in the hearts of the 
 company against such vniust Commanders, that the President was ad- 
 iudged to give him 200J, so that all he had was seized vpon, in part 
 of satisfaction, which Smith presently returned to the Store for the 
 generall vse of the Colonv." Whether there was anv such arrest or 
 
 */ */ 
 
 not, there is good reason for doubting that there was any such trial, for 
 it is not mentioned in other relations of the troubles of that period. 
 Two months later, however, Wingfield, who had then been deposed 
 from the presidency, was called before the council to answer to an 
 action of slander brought by Smith, who, he said, had concealed an 
 intended mutiny; in this suit Wingfield was adjudged to pay a fine 
 of 200 damages. 2 
 
 As this is Wingfield's own acknowledgment, there can be no reason- 
 able doubt of its truth, since he could have no motive for misrepresen- 
 tation ; while if the statement of Smith's " History " hitherto ac- 
 
 1 Smith's Central! Historie, which is a compilation of the narratives of various persous 
 published under his mime, has hitherto heeu the main reliance of writers upon this period 
 of the history of Virginia. See Stith, Buck, and others who had access only to one side 
 of the story. 
 
 2 A Discourse of Virginia. By Ediourd Maria \\'!n<ifieliL Now first printed from the 
 original ntunuscri/>t in the Lambeth Library. 'Collections of the American Antiquarian Soci- 
 ety, 1860. 
 
1607.] GOVERNORSHIP OF WIXGFIELD. 275 
 
 cepted in the absence of any other be also true, then we are to be- 
 lieve that Wingfield was twice condemned that summer, to pay Smith 
 200, which is not at all likely, and is nowhere asserted, and to ac- 
 cept also the occurrence of so curious a legal proceeding as the trial of 
 one man Smith for treason, whose acquittal involved the punish- 
 ment of another man Wingfield who was not on trial at all. But 
 if the account in Smith's " History " of the circumstances attending 
 his admission to the council be rejected in so important a 
 circumstance on the testimony, recently published, of the wingfiews 
 Newport narrative and Wingfield's "Discourse," it is im- 
 possible not to question its truth in other particulars, and to doubt not 
 only that there was a trial at that time for treason, but that there 
 was any arrest. 
 
 A few days before his departure, and a week after " the faithful 
 love one to another'' was confirmed by his fervent persuasions, 
 Newport asked of Wingfield how he thought himself settled in the 
 government. Wingfield's answer was : " that no disturbance could 
 endanger him or the colony, but it must be wrought either by Captain 
 Gosnold or Mr. Archer ; for the one was strong with friends and fol- 
 lowers, and could if he would ; and the other was troubled with an 
 ambitious spirit, and would if he could." l This epigrammatic presen- 
 tation of the condition of affairs, Newport reported to both Gosnold 
 and Archer, and urged them, with many entreaties, to be mindful of 
 their duties to the king and the colony. The internal dissensions 
 were plain enough to him ; perhaps he also foresaw how they might be 
 inflamed by the sufferings the colonists were to endure for want of 
 those stores consumed on the long voyage from England which should 
 have been their present support. 
 
 It was a summer of great hardship. Early in July disease broke 
 out anrong them, partly the effect of climate, but more often 
 caused and aggravated by the want of food and proper shelter. rfQ* 
 " For the most part," says Percy, " they died of mere fam- 
 ine." By September nearly one half were dead, and among them 
 Gosnold. Wingfield hail found no reason to fear the influence which 
 lie told Newport, " that worthy and religious gent," had over the 
 colonists. Upon Gosnold's good-will, the president said, when speak- 
 ing of his death, depended the success of his own administration of 
 affairs and of the colony ; and so much did he rely upon his counte- 
 nance and counsel in the differences between himself and the other 
 councillors, that he " did easily foretel his owne deposing from his 
 command, " when his friend was taken ill. This good opinion of 
 Wingfield's is confirmed by all we know of Gosnold, who seems, in the 
 
 1 Wingfield's OMOtMTM of I7/v/ii. 
 
276 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CiiAP. XI. 
 
 glimpses we have of him here and elsewhere, to have been a man of 
 thoughtful mind, calm judgment, and self reliant temper. He deserves 
 to be remembered next to Raleigh among the direct founders of the 
 American colonies. 
 
 But for the scarcity of food harmony might have been maintained 
 among the leaders, for that was clearly the ostensible and a bitter cause 
 of quarrel, whatever ambitions and jealousies may have lain hidden 
 beneath the surface. They might, say Smith's partisans, have all been 
 canonized as saints had they been as free from all other sins as from 
 the sins of gluttony and drunkenness ; for a half pint of boiled wheat 
 and another of barley, infested with worms, was each man's daily 
 allowance. 1 The president, it is said, exempted only himself from this 
 Accusations penurious and fatal diet, keeping for his own use all the good 
 winpfieid. things in store, and denying them even to the sick. On the 
 His defence. o th er hand Wingfield says in his defence : " As I understand 
 by a report I am much charged with staruing the colony. I did 
 
 alwaies giue every man his allowance faithfully It is 
 
 further said I did much banquet and ryot. I never had but one squir- 
 ell roasted, whereof I gave part to Mr. Ratcliff, then sick, yet was that 
 squirell given me. I did never heate a flesh pott but when the com- 
 mon pot was so likewise." When the store of oil, vinegar, sack, and 
 aquavitee was all spent, saving two gallons of each, he ordered the 
 vessels containing them to be " boonged vpp," reserving the sack for 
 the communion table, the other articles for emergencies of extreme 
 sickness. Gosnold, whom he consulted, approved of this pious and 
 prudent action ; but when he was dead and the president told the rest 
 of the council of this little reserve of precious stores, he exclaims : 
 " Lord, how they then longed for to supp up that little remnant ! for 
 they had nowe emptied all their own bottles and all other that they 
 could smell out." And this small reserve, when they afterward came 
 into possession of it, they " poored into their own bellyes." Again and 
 again, the council demanded of him, he declares, larger allowances for 
 themselves and their favorites who were sick. The president, protest- 
 ing he would not be partial, refused unless his associates would take the 
 responsibility by official action ; for had he at that time enlarged the 
 proportions of food allowed to each man it would have been, he de- 
 clares, to have starved the whole colony, and he would not join 
 with them, therefore, in such ignorant murder without their own 
 warrant. 
 
 Early in September, Wingfield says the three other members of the 
 
 1 " Our food was but a small can of barley sod in water, to five men a day ; our drinke, 
 cold water taken out of the river, which was at flood very salt, at a low tide full of slime 
 and filth ; which was the destruction of many of our men." Percy in Purchas 
 
1607.] 
 
 DISCONTENT AND SUFFERING. 
 
 277 
 
 council, Ratcliffe, Smith, and Martin, waited upon him and by war- 
 rant deposed him from both the council and the presidency. H -i ng fieia 
 He declined at first to be thus summarily dealt with ; more de P W!d - 
 than once he reminded them he had offered his resignation, which the 
 council had refused to accept, and now they could not legally remove 
 him, as, according to the charter, that must be done by a majority of a 
 full council of thirteen. But finally, he gave up the contest, saying, 
 " I ame at your pleasure ; dispose of me as you will, without further 
 gavboiles." 
 
 The next day he was called before the council, and the change in 
 the government 
 was made known 
 and discussed at a 
 public meeting of 
 the colonists. The 
 three councillors 
 gave the reasons 
 for their action, 
 and with two of 
 them hunger evi- 
 dently was at the 
 bottom of their 
 discontent. Rat- 
 cliffe, the new 
 president, com- 
 plained that he 
 had been denied 
 " a penny whitle, 
 (a small pocket- 
 knife probably 
 wanted for trade 
 with the Indians), 
 a chickyn, a spoon- 
 ful of beere, and 
 served with foule 
 corne ; " Martin declared that Wingfield had neglected his duties 
 to the colony, "did nothing but tend his pott, spitt and oven;" 
 and had, moreover, starved his son and denied him " a spoonefull of 
 beere." All this would seem frivolous enough if we did not remem- 
 ber that these poor people were in the extremity of hunger, against 
 which no dignity is proof. But Smith showed a nobler passion. He 
 repelled an accusation of lying ; he resented the scorn with which 
 he had been treated by Wingfield, who said that though they were 
 
 Deposition of Wingfield 
 
278 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI 
 
 equals here, in England Smith would not be a fit companion for his 
 Wingfield's servant. Archer, who was now made recorder, and sub- 
 sequently a member of the council, followed with other charges in 
 writing, too slight to be remembered, though the accuser, says Wing- 
 fieid, " glorieth much in his penn worke." 
 
 Kendall was deposed from the council earlier than Wingfield, and 
 Kendaii shot seems to have belonged to neither party, or, perhaps, to each 
 for mutiny, by turns. He was confined for a time with the ex-president 
 on board the pinnace, and was subsequently tried for mutiny, and shot. 
 In arrest of judgment the poor man objected that the new president's 
 name was not Ratcliffe but Sicklemore, and the plea was allowed ; 
 but judgment, nevertheless, was pronounced by Martin. Afterward, 
 according to the sequence of the narrative though neither the dato 
 of Kendall's execution nor of this incident is given Wingfield was 
 summoned to appear before the council, which he refused to do on the 
 ground that he was not legally deposed, but suggested, instead, a con- 
 ference in the presence of ten of the most trustworthy gentlemen of 
 the colony. This being granted, he proposed, inasmuch ' as he had 
 no joy " to live longer under the laws and government of the present 
 rulers and "much misliking their triumvirate," to return to England 
 and report to the London Council the sad condition of their charge 
 in Virginia ; not that he was anxious to leave the colony, for he was 
 quite willing to remain if either Ratcliffe or Archer would undertake 
 this errand ; but if it were thought better that the enterprise should 
 be altogether abandoned he would give a hundred pounds toward de- 
 fraying the expenses of taking the whole company home. These 
 propositions were all rejected ; even the making them was considered 
 a defiance of the council, and the fort opened fire upon the pinnace 
 apparently to prevent Wingfield's departure. If he really intended 
 to abandon his companions without regard to their wishes, this hostile 
 measure answered its purpose. 
 
 Meanwhile the distress of the colonists would have been more dis- 
 services of astrous than it was but for the kindness of the Indians, who, 
 t(?the S col- h w h en Affairs were at the worst, brought them maize and 
 other provisions. The energy of Smith was at the same 
 time of the greatest service. Taking a few men with him in a boat 
 he traded up and down the rivers gathering supplies. When the 
 savages were insolent and refused to trade, he brought them to terms 
 by force of arms. But returning from one of these excursions he found 
 according to the ' General History " that Wingfield and Kendall, 
 then living in disgrace on board the pinnace, seeing all things at ran- 
 dom in the absence of Smith, were attempting to regain their lost 
 authority, or to take the pinnace and sail for England. This plot was 
 
1607.] DISSATISFACTION IN THE COLONY. 279 
 
 discovered to Smith on his unexpected return, " and much trouble he 
 had," continues the account, " to prevent it, till with store of sakre 
 and musket shot he forced them stay or sinke in the river, which action 
 cost the life of Captaine Kendall." Wingfield's proposition, that either 
 he, or Ratcliffe, or Archer should go to England, was construed into a 
 mutiny, as we know from Wingfield's own representation, and both 
 these relations undoubtedly refer to the same incident ; but that Ken- 
 dall's death was the result in any sense of that attack upon the pin- 
 nace cannot be true if Wingfield's statement be correct that he was 
 previously tried and executed. 
 
 It is difficult to reconcile such discrepancies in any other way than 
 to suppose a determination on the part of the writer in Smith's " His- 
 tory " to justify Smith and to magnify his services. That Wingfield 
 and Kendall took advantage of his absence to carry out their treason- 
 able purposes, and that it was only his opportune return, and his 
 prompt and energetic action, ending in the death of one of the ring- 
 leaders in the mutiny, that averted a serious disaster, is a heroic view 
 of affairs with Smith as the principal figure, greatly redounding to 
 his credit. But in conflict with it is Wingfield's essentially probable 
 and apparently truthful narrative of the struggle between him and 
 the council, and between the council and others; of the criminations 
 and recriminations, of the orders and disobedience, the conferences, the 
 resistance and violent remedies which followed in turn, and in all of 
 which many of the colonists, as was natural, were warmly enlisted. 
 It is a representation of events differing from the history of the period 
 hitherto accepted, and in it Smith's part seems neither so important 
 nor so praiseworthy as it has usually been made to appear. 
 
 Whatever was the weakness of Wingfield's administration, Smith 
 and his friends were as little satisfied with that of Ratcliffe 
 and Martin. It was because " of the companies dislike of 
 their president's weaknes, and their small love to Martin's 
 never mending sicklies," that Smith found all things at randome " 
 on the occasion just referred to. According to the same authority, 
 soon after bringing Wingfield to obedience and Kendall to punish- 
 ment, he was called upon to deal with other offenders. Ratcliffe and 
 Archer next proposed to abandon the colony to its fate, " which proj- 
 ect also was curbed and suppressed by Smith." As the winter ap- 
 proached, however, tranquillity was restored, when, as the harvests were 
 gathered, game became plentiful, and there was enough to eat ; then 
 no more of the "Tuftaffaty humorists desired to goe for England." 1 
 
 Smith had now leisure for further exploration into the interior. 
 Wingfield says that he started on the 10th of December to go up the 
 
 1 Smith's General History. 
 
 Dissatisfac- 
 tion with 
 the i 
 tratioti. 
 
28(1 
 
 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 Chickahominy to trade for corn, and to find the head of that river. 
 On its upper waters two of his men, who were left with a canoe, were 
 slain by the Indians, Pamunkey's men, and Smith himself, who was 
 on shore at some distance, was taken prisoner, his life being saved 
 " by the means of his guide," who was an Indian. He was taken to 
 several of the neighboring chiefs to see if he could be recognized as 
 one of a party who, two or three years before, had kidnapped some 
 Indians ; l he was taken at last to the great Powhatan, who sent him 
 back to Jamestown on the 8th of January. He had been absent just 
 four weeks. 
 
 Smith's life was saved, says Wingfield, by means of his guide. The 
 smith i taken s t rv as usually told is that Smith tied the Indian to himself 
 prisoner. \vith his garters, and held him as a shield against the arrows 
 of his assailants. Making his way toward the boat, which he had left 
 in charge of two of his men, he and the guide slipped together into 
 
 ntlfth ajiilunae tohis armt 
 'Fninauiifce c nrf 
 
 From Smith's " General History." [Fac-simile.] 
 
 . 
 
 an " oasie creek," from which it was impossible to extricate them- 
 selves. Half dead with cold, he at length threw away his arms and 
 surrendered, and was taken before Opechankanough, King of Pa- 
 munkey. He sought to propitiate the chief by presenting him with 
 " a round Ivory double compass Dyall." The savages marvelled much 
 at the playing of the needle which they could see, but, for the glass 
 over it, could not touch. With this "globe like jewel," Smith ex- 
 plained to the king and his people the movements of the sun, moon, 
 
 1 There is no record of any voyage to Virginia within two or three years previous to the 
 settlement of Jamestown when any Indians were kidnapped, and if this refers to those 
 taken bv Weymouth and carried to England in 1605, it shows a more intimate relation be- 
 tween tiie tribes of New England and those of Virginia than has been supposed to exist. 
 
1607.] SMITH TAKEN PRISONER BY THE INDIANS. 281 
 
 and stars, the shape of the earth, the extent of land and sea, the dif- 
 ference in the races of men, and "many other suchlike matters,'' at 
 which, it was hardly necessary to add, the savages " all stood as 
 amazed with admiration." They nevertheless tied the lecturer to a 
 tree, and were about to shoot him to death with arrows, when Ope- 
 chankanough, who seemed to have a better appreciation than his fol- 
 lowers had of the sciences of astronomy and cosmography, holding up 
 the wonderful compass, stayed the execution. They then released 
 the prisoner, fed him, and used him well. 
 
 So well, indeed, did they feed him, that he thought they meant to 
 fatten him for a feast ; and they received him otherwise with so much 
 honor, that they dressed themselves in their brightest paints, the plum- 
 age of the most brilliant birds, the choicest rattle-snake tails, and 
 " such toys," adding, perhaps, as Strachey says the Indians some- 
 times did, "a dead ratt tyed by the tail, and such like conundrums," 
 and so attired danced before him and the king, "singing and yell- 
 ing out with hellish notes and screeches." They promised him, more- 
 over, life and liberty, land and women, if he would aid them by his 
 advice in an attack upon Jamestown ; but from this he dissuaded them 
 by representations of the mines, great guns, and other engines with 
 which such an attack would be repulsed. When he persuaded them 
 to send a letter to the fort, and the messenger's brought, as he prom- 
 ised they should, such things as he asked for, the savages were amazed 
 anew, that either the paper itself spoke to those who received it, or 
 that Smith had the power of divination. 
 
 This clothed and bearded white man was a strange spectacle to the 
 Indians, and men, women, and children crowded to see him, as he was 
 led from tribe to tribe. At length he was taken before the 
 great king of all, Powhatan, at a place called Werowoco- 
 
 moco, which signifies king's house, on the north side of the 
 York River, and only fourteen or fifteen miles from Jamestown. 
 When Smith was led into his presence, the emperor received him in 
 state, seated on a throne which was much like a bedstead, clothed in a 
 robe of raccoon skins. On each side of him sat a young girl of six- 
 teen or eighteen years, and beyond them a double row of men and 
 women, their heads and shoulders painted red and adorned with 
 feathers. A queen served the prisoner with water to wash his hands, 
 and a bunch of feathers on which to dry them ; a feast was spread 
 before him as if he were an honored friend and welcome guest, for 
 such was the Indian treatment of those who presently were to be led 
 out to die. 
 
 This ceremonious and hospitable reception was followed by a brief 
 consultation between the king and his chief men. T\vo great stones 
 
282 
 
 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 were then brought in, to which Smith was dragged, and his head laid 
 upon them. The executioners stood ready to beat out his 
 
 to MM to brains with their clubs, but at this critical moment, " Poca- 
 hontas, the King's dearest daughter, when no in treaty could 
 
 prevaile, got his head in her arms, and laid her owne vpon his to saue 
 
 fjffiy Fo whatan. coniaiiJt C:Smith t o 
 
 hisUJ( his 1 hail kfu llnr/S 
 w Jir Subiecltf/ Zf) aftJitir kinfS readf.ji nifkny 
 
 From Smith's "General History " [Fac-simile.] 
 
 him from death : whereat the E nip-arum- \vas contented he should 
 line to make him hatchets, and her bells, beads, and copper." 
 
 The authority for this romantic story is Smith's " General History.'' 
 
 With other things, it has come to be considered an estab- 
 
 cies in the lished historical fact because that work was long accepted 
 
 twoaccounts i i i j? 11 
 
 of his cap- as the best, as it is the tullest, of the contemporary narra- 
 tives of the adventures of the Jamestown colonists for the 
 first two years. Obscurer authors were either not consulted or were 
 unknown by those who gave currency to these relations. But Wing- 
 
1608.] INCONSISTENCIES IN SMITH'S STORY. 283 
 
 field, who records with such accuracy all the essential facts of Smith's 
 capture, and his return to the fort by Powhatan, says nothing of Poca- 
 liontas; Strachey, to whom this young girl was evidently an object of 
 interest, and who speaks in terms of praise of Smith's services and 
 hazai'ds on behalf of the colony, and of his great experience among 
 the Indians, makes no allusion to this romance in the life of both ; 
 Hamor, who was also at one time secretary of the colony, and whose 
 tract 1 is largely a biography of Pocahontas and of her interesting 
 relations to the English, is silent on this first important service ren- 
 dered by her to one of the principal men of the colony. 
 
 And even Smith differs with himself in different publications, as to 
 the treatment he met with from Powhatan. In his first book, the 
 " True Relation," published in 1608, he says that the emperor " kindly 
 received me with good words, and great platters of sundry victuals ; 
 assuring me of his friendship, and my liberty in four days." After 
 much kindly conversation between them, Powhatan " thus having, 
 with all the kindness he could devise, sought to content me, he sent 
 me home with four men one that usually carried my gown InconKigt . 
 and knapsack after me, two others loaded with bread, and filth's 11 
 one to accompany me." Such treatment is altogether incon- stor> ' 
 sistent with a design upon his life, nor is there any hint of such an in- 
 tention in the savage chief, or of the interference of his little daughter 
 to avert it. It is only in the " General History," first published in 
 1624, that the narrative of Smith's captivity asserts that the prisoner 
 was sentenced to death by Powhatan, and his life saved by Pocahon- 
 tas. 2 Then we are told that he was sent back in a few days to James- 
 town, not with four friendly guides only, who carried his clothing or 
 were laden with provisions, but with twelve savages, with whom he 
 did not feel that his life was safe till within the palisades and under 
 the protecting guns of the fort. Meanwhile between the publication of 
 the " True Relation " of 1608, and that of the " General History " of 
 1624, the princess had become famous as the " Lady Rebecca ; " by her 
 services to the colony ; by her marriage with an Englishman, Rolfe ; 
 by her visit to England, presentation at court, and her baptism into 
 the Christian Church ; and by her death on the eve of her return to 
 her own country. 
 
 This Powhatan, who was called an emperor by the earlier writers, 
 was the most powerful of all the Indian chiefs of Virginia, The great 
 and became an important person in the history of the colony, hatan. 
 Smith was the first to meet with him ; the Pawatah who had enter- 
 
 1 A Trite Discourse nf the Present Estate of \~ryinia until IStlt nf.Tunc, 1614. By Ralph 
 Hamor, Jr. 
 
 2 See comments on this subject by Charles Deane in his edition of Smith's True Relation. 
 
284 
 
 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 tained Newport and his companions, some months before, at the 
 falls of James River, being another and less powerful chief, perhaps 
 a son of Powhatan. For Powhatan was a native of the country just 
 above the falls of the James, and it was from it that he took his name. 
 Among his own people he was known as Ottaniack, or as Mamanato- 
 wick, the latter meaning great king ; but his true name, and that 
 by which he was saluted by his subjects, was Wahunsenacawh. 1 He 
 is described as a goodly old man, " well beaten with many cold and 
 stormye winters," being somewhere about eighty years of age. He 
 was tall in stature, stalwart and well shaped of limb, sad of coun- 
 tenance though his face was round and fat, and his thin gray hairs 
 hung down npon his broad shoulders. As in his younger years he 
 had been strong and able, so also had he been a cruel savage, "dar- 
 ing, vigilante, ambitious, subtile to enlarge his dominions," striking 
 terror and awe into neighboring chiefs. Though in his old age he 
 
 delighted in security and 
 pleasure, and lived in peace 
 with all about him, he was 
 from the first watchful and 
 jealous of these white-faced 
 strangers who were pene- 
 trating his rivers, devour- 
 ing his corn, and building 
 houses within his dominions. 
 With that Indian subtlety 
 of which he was peculiarly 
 a master, he sought their 
 friendship, when that would 
 best serve his purpose, but 
 never letting an opportunity 
 pass to cut them off when it 
 could be done with little or 
 no loss to himself and his 
 people. 2 
 
 He had, it was said, many 
 more than a hundred wives, 
 of whom about a dozen, all 
 young women, were special 
 favorites. When in bed 
 one sat at his head, and another at his feet ; when at meat one was 
 at his right hand, another at his left. Of his living children, when 
 he first became known to the English, twenty were sons and twelve 
 
 1 Strachey's Historie of Travails into Virginia, p. 48. 2 Strachey, pp. 49, 54. 
 
 POWHATAN 
 
 jtfelit thisjtatf &LJfy7uon -tvfit/i Copt Smith 
 s-was tbtiuavd^io Ai'mjiri/onfr 
 iffoy 
 
 From Smith's "General History." [Fac-imile.] 
 
 
1608.] SMITH'S RETURN FROM CAPTIVITY. 285 
 
 were daughters, and among these last was one " whome he loved 
 well, Pochahuntas, which may signifie little wanton ; howbeyt she 
 was rightly called Amonate at more ripe yeares," in accordance 
 with an Indian custom in the naming of their children. She 
 was well known at Jamestown at an early period. The In- 
 dian girls wore no clothing till the age of eleven or twelve years, nor 
 were " they much ashamed thereof, and therefor," continues Strachey, 
 "would Pochahuntas, a well-featured but wanton young girle, Pow- 
 hatan's daughter, sometymes resorting to our fort, of the age then of 
 eleven or twelve yeares, get the boys forth with her into the markett 
 place, and make them wheele, falling on their hands, turning up their 
 heeles upwards, whome she would followe and wheele so herself, naked 
 as she was, all the fort over." As Strachey did not go to Virginia 
 till 1610, and if he saw this young princess in that year, then eleven 
 or twelve years of age, " turning cart-wheels " among the boys of 
 Jamestown, she could have been only eight or nine years old at the 
 time Smith was taken prisoner by her father. Elsewhere speaking 
 of her as " using sometyme to our fort in t} 7 mes past," he adds, 
 " nowe married to a private captaine, called Kocoum, some two yeares 
 
 since." l 
 
 Again, we hear that Smith, on his return, found the colony " all 
 in combustion ; " that some of the leaders were, as usual, engaged in 
 that inexplicable preparation to run away with the pinnace, which 
 never came to anything ; and once more that Smith, for the third 
 time, and, at "the hazard of his life, with sakre, falcon and musket 
 shot, forced them to stay or sink." 
 
 It is remarkable with what ingratitude these repeated services, if 
 they were rendered, were received by a people among whom there 
 seems to have been little law but the law of the strongest ; for on this 
 very day of Smith's return, and while he was compelling obedience on 
 board the pinnace with the guns of the fort, the council, through the 
 influence of Archer, were trying him by the Levitical law, for the 
 death of the two men who were killed, while under his command, by 
 the savages. He was adjudged guilt} 7 , and to be put to death the 
 next day ; " but," says the " General History," " he quickly tooke 
 such order with such Lawyers, that he layd them by the heeles till 
 he sent some of them prisoners to England." Wingfield agrees that 
 Smith was tried on the day of his return, and condemned to opportune 
 be hanged either that or the next day, but that his life was ^puln 01 
 saved by the opportune arrival of Newport. Of an attack Xew P rt - 
 on the pinnace at the same time by Smith, he says nothing. In the 
 
 1 Major, the editor of Strachey's Historic of Travaile into Virginia, supposes it must have 
 been written between 1612 and 1616. 
 
286 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 " True Relation," Smith says that he was welcomed back with truest 
 signs of joy, by all except Archer and two or three others, and that 
 these laid "great blame and imputation" upon him for the loss of the 
 two men, slain by the Indians. " In the midst of my miseries," he 
 adds, " it pleased God to send Captaine Nuport the same night, 
 . . . . and for a while those plots against me were deferred." 
 There is no boastful assertion of laying his enemies by the heels, 
 nor of his bringing mutineers to order on board the pinnace. The 
 narrative simply and naturally recognizes his own troubles, and is 
 thankful for the arrival of one more powerful than any of the fac- 
 tious leaders, to bring security and peace. 
 
 On every account, Newport's arrival was opportune. In less than 
 nine months the colony had become reduced to about forty persons, 
 and his ship brought to a starving and despairing people an addition 
 of one hundred and twenty men, besides a stock of provisions, of im- 
 plements of husbandry, and of seeds. About the time of his arrival 
 a fire which nearly destroyed the fort, consumed the entire stock of 
 stores procured from the Indians, reducing the colonists to complete 
 dependence upon the supplies brought by Newport. Unfortunately, 
 however, Newport and his crew remained for fourteen weeks at James- 
 town, and helped in the consumption of these provisions. Near the 
 fort a deposit of yellow mica was found, which was mistaken for gold. 
 The colonists were quite ready to take the risk of starvation, that the 
 ship might be laden with this useless dirt. That it was useless, some 
 of the more judicious, and Smith among them, were convinced, for 
 there could be no hope of productive industry till this dream of sud- 
 den wealth was dispelled. Happily it did not last long, for in the 
 spring when the second vessel, which had sailed with Captain New- 
 port from England but had been detained in the West Indies by bad 
 weather, arrived, she was sent home with a cargo of cedar. Wingfield 
 and Archer returned home in one of these vessels, and Martin in the 
 other, leaving Smith the principal person of the colony, and without 
 rivals. 
 
 Newport spent a portion of the time of his stay in a visit to Pow- 
 hatan, whose friendship he evidently deemed of great im- 
 vi!it p to r ' portance to the colony. The emperor received him with 
 great courtesy, seated, as when Smith was led into his pres- 
 ence not long before as a prisoner, upon his bedstead throne, and 
 surrounded by his warriors and women. He had received from Smith 
 who had entertained him on that occasion with a number of re- 
 markable stories, all lies, as to the motives which had led the English 
 to that country an exalted notion of the power of Newport. No 
 doubt to prove that he was as generous as he was great, Newport per- 
 
1608.] SURVEY OF CHESAPEAKE BAY. 287 
 
 mitted Powhatan to name his own price in corn for the copper kettles 
 and trinkets which he offered in exchange. The result was, that the 
 confiding Englishman got much the worst of the bargain. But Smith, 
 who much better understood the nature of the wily but simple savage, 
 presently restored the balance of trade by displaying in the eyes of 
 the king some blue beads, on which a high price was put, as precious 
 ornaments worn only by royal personages. Corn fell to a few beads 
 the bushel, and the visit was made on the whole a profitable one in 
 provisions, and in the establishment, for the present, of friendly rela- 
 tions with the powerful chief. 
 
 Smith passed the summer of 1608 in two expeditions upon the 
 waters of Virginia, making an extended survey of Chesa- smith makes 
 peake Bay and its tributary rivers, of which he drew a map * 
 of remarkable correctness. In the Potomac he was beset by B;IJ- 
 a band of Indians, who, if their story could be believed, were instigated 
 through Powhatan, by some persons in Jamestown, to cut off Smith 
 and his party. A more dangerous mishap befell him in the same 
 river, where he was stung by a fish he calls a stingray ; he was thought 
 to be so near death that a grave was dug for his burial on an island 
 near by ; but he recovered in time to eat of the fish that struck him. 
 On the second expedition the party ventured as far as Sassafras River, 
 not far below the mouth of the Susquehanna, where the Indians are 
 said to have known little of Powliatan, except by name, but who held 
 intercourse with the French of Canada at a much greater distance. 
 These were remarkable voyages to be made in open boats, into an un- 
 known country, constantly exposed to the inclemencies of weather, the 
 possibility of an entire failure of the means of subsistence, and the 
 attacks of hostile savages. But it is characteristic of the exaggera- 
 tion which distinguishes the Smith narratives that he is said to have 
 sailed a distance of about three thousand miles while absent from 
 Jamestown only three months. 
 
 On the return from the last expedition early in September, Cap- 
 tain Smith was made president of the colony. Newport arrived soon 
 after with a second reinforcement of men and supplies, and 
 with him came the two first women of the colony, Mistress join theo" 
 Forrest and her maid Ann Burras. The latter did not wait 
 long for a husband, for her marriage to John Laydon is announced a, 
 few weeks later. 
 
 Newport came with orders from the London Council to bring home 
 a lump of gold, to discover the passage to the South Sea, and 
 to find the survivors of the Roanoke Colony. He brought of i> - 
 with him also some " costly novelties," as a basin, a ewer, 
 a bed and some clothes for Powhatan, with directions to bestow the 
 
FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 ceremony of a coronation upon that naked monarch. He found neither 
 the lump of gold, the passage to the Pacific, nor any of the survivors 
 of the Koanoke massacre ; but he crowned the savage who had, per- 
 haps, procured the deaths of those unhappy persons. 
 
 Powhatan, reminded of his royal state, declined to go to Jamestown 
 to receive the presents when summoned thither by Smith as a special 
 ambassador. " I also am a king," he said ; and if the King of Eng- 
 land had sent him gifts, they should be brought to him ; he should not 
 go to receive them. Newport went, and the gifts were accepted ; but 
 
 Coronation of Powhatan. 
 
 the coronation was a more difficult matter. No persuasions could in- 
 duce the chief to kneel, and it was only by bearing heavily upon his 
 shoulders that he could be made to stoop so low as to admit of the 
 assumption that his posture was the proper one for the placing of a 
 crown upon his head. The firing of a pistol as a signal for a volley 
 from the boats in honor of the event startled him into an attitude of 
 defence with the suspicion that he was the victim of some treachery ; 
 but being presently reassured of the entire sincerity of these proceed- 
 ings, he accepted them as an acknowledgment of his regal state, and 
 gave his old moccasins, the deer-skin he used for a blanket, and seven 
 or eight bushels of corn in the ear, to the representatives of his royal 
 brother of England. 
 
1608.] SERVICES OF SMITH. 289 
 
 If Captain Newport committed any errors they were errors of judg- 
 ment, or acts done in obedience to orders from the Council at 
 home, who held him in deserved respect and confidence. It ici*m on 
 
 \t'\\ in irf 
 
 was, perhaps, because of that estimation that the jealousy of 
 Smith was aroused against him. Newport is abused in the " General 
 History," after the second visit, with almost as much vehemence and 
 rancor as Wingfield and others were before him. Smith, no doubt, 
 understood better than any of his companions, the character of the In- 
 dians ; to him this coronation of Powhatan was an absurdity, believ- 
 ing their ends would be more easily gained with the chief by dealing 
 with him as a wily but ignorant savage rather than as a powerful king. 
 A display of strength wisely used, he thought, was more likely to 
 establish peaceful relations with the Indians than deprecatory meas- 
 ures and a show of pretended respect, which the natives would only 
 construe into an acknowledgment of weakness. But he was not con- 
 tent with merely following his own wiser conclusions, both with regard 
 to the Indians and the management of his own people ; he would see 
 neither good intentions nor good results in the actions of others. Had 
 he shown in his own acts something more of the spirit of conciliation, 
 and had he been less severe to subordinates and less jealous of his 
 companions, his services, undoubtedly great, would have done much 
 more to promote the secure establishment and welfare of the colony. 
 
 The chief merit of his administration was, that he kept the colony 
 from starvation. It depended for food mainly upon the In- Merits 0{ 
 dians, for the colonists were neither provident enough, nor mTnistra* d 
 industrious enough to protect the stores brought from Eng- tion 
 land, from destruction by decay, or by the rats which came in the ships 
 and had also founded a colony. In cunning and courage the Indians 
 were no match for Smith. He could always persuade them to sell or 
 constrain them to give him provisions, and there was need enough for 
 all that he could gather. He attempted to compel the people to steady 
 labor, but, except when Newport's vessels were to be loaded for the re- 
 turn voyage, without much success. They would all rather beg or buy 
 of the Indians, than plant, or fish, or hunt, and in spite of the severe 
 laws of the president, would abandon the tasks to which they were 
 put. . Then a large proportion of the colonists were considered, by 
 right of their being " gentlemen," exempt from labor. Two of them, 
 indeed, did go heartily to work in felling trees, and were so efficient 
 that, it was said, forty like them would be worth a hundred common 
 laborers. But their example does not seem to have been followed by 
 others of their class, who may have been deterred partly by the sever- 
 ity of a regulation of the president's, that a record should be kept of 
 every oath uttered by men at work, and for each oath a can of water 
 
 VOL 1. *1 
 
290 
 
 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 be poured down the sleeve of the offender when the day's work was 
 over. 
 
 Indolence and hunger were not the only troubles. Jamestown was 
 in an unwholesome region, and deaths from the malaria of the sur- 
 
 f_ C.SmitntaKetnlfit Eny,</ Famavnlsge prifontr, -Iff 08.. 
 
 From Smith's "General History." [Fac-simile.] 
 
 rounding swamps were frequent. Among those who died was Captain 
 Wynne, a member of the council. Scrivener, another of the coun- 
 cil, Captain Waldo, the commander of the fort in Smith's absence, 
 Anthony Gosnold, a brother of Bartholomew, with eight others, were 
 drowned by the upsetting of a boat. The council was thus reduced 
 
1609.] THE NEW CHARTER. 291 
 
 to Smith alone, and the colony, if not altogether dependent upon him, 
 was, at least, under his sole direction. He was, if we may believe 
 the narratives written in his interest, quite equal to this enlarged re- 
 sponsibility. The Indians were as children in his hands, whether in 
 negotiation or conflict. One stalwart chief he seized by his long hair 
 in the presence of his tribe drawn up in battle array, with a pistol at 
 his breast compelled him to submission, and led him trembling with 
 fear among his people who threw down their arms in dismay. On 
 another occasion he closed in fight with the King of Paspahey, a giant 
 in strength and stature, who took him up, and bore him to the river 
 to drown him ; but in the struggle in the stream, Smith who was a 
 small man at length got such a hold upon the throat of the savage 
 as to nearly strangle him, and led him off at last a prisoner to the fort. 
 
 His own people, the president ruled with a relentless will, punishing 
 the idle and insubordinate, threatening to hang the mutinous, if they 
 did not give over their attempts to abandon the colony. Two or three 
 Dutchmen, nevertheless, revolted from his authority, fled to the In- 
 dians, and entered into a conspiracy with Powhatan for the destruc- 
 tion of Jamestown. But Smith knew their plans, defeated them, 
 and brought the great chief himself into submission. In the course 
 of these events he was aided by the little girl Pocahontas, who some- 
 times gave him timely information of attempts to be made upon his 
 life, and often supplied the starving colonists with the needed sup- 
 plies. 
 
 But the energy and services of Smith, whatever they really were, 
 could only keep a feeble life in the colony. With the mate- t new chap . 
 rial of which it was composed, it was not possible to do more, v#nu e 
 The cost had been great, and the return almost nothing to J^f^'y 
 the adventurers in England, and a new charter with larger ieo9 
 powers and privileges was asked for. It was granted by James, and 
 dated the 23d of May, 1609. The number of corporators was very 
 large, and included the most exalted among the nobility, the highest 
 among the clergy, the most distinguished among navigators, the 
 wealthiest among the merchants in the kingdom, as well as all of the 
 most influential guilds of London in their corporate capacity. The 
 boundaries of the land it bestowed upon the company, were from two 
 hundred miles north to the same distance south of Cape Comfort, in- 
 cluding all the country between those extreme points, from the Atlantic 
 to the Pacific Ocean, and the islands within a hundred miles of both 
 coasts. A council, to sit always in London, was nominated in the- 
 charter, future vacancies in which were to be filled by the corporators. 
 The appointment of officers and enactment of laws for the colony 
 were to be made by this body, and " for divers reasons and consider*- 
 
292 
 
 
 
 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 1609. 
 
 Signature of Sir Thomas Gates. 
 
 tions " this provision of the charter was to take immediate effect on 
 the arrival in Virginia of a new governor. Smith's administration 
 was clearly not approved of, which cannot be wondered at when we 
 remember how many of the men whom he had quarrelled with, de- 
 nounced, and superseded had returned to England. 
 
 So extended were the interests engaged in the naming of the cor- 
 porators under this new charter that the contributions were large to 
 carry on the enterprise. A fleet of nine ships, carrying five 
 the eet hundred people, was dispatched the latter part of May, the 
 s. lieutenant-general, Sir Thomas Gates, the admiral, Sir George 
 Somers, and the vice-admiral, Captain Newport, taking pas- 
 sage together in one of them, the Sea Adventure. Lord De la Warre 
 was appointed captain-general, but as he remained in England, Sir 
 
 Thomas Gates was to assume supreme com- 
 mand on his arrival at Jamestown. Among 
 the captains of the fleet were Ratcliffe, 
 Martin, and Archer, whose return to the 
 colony by order of the new Council Smith 
 might well consider a reflection upon his administration, and an 
 answer to the complaints and charges he had sent home. Among 
 the vessels was the Virginia, the first American ship, built by the 
 people who were sent out under George Popham by the Council of 
 the Second or Northern Colony, two years before, to make a set- 
 tlement at the mouth of the Sagadahoc the Kennebec River in 
 Maine. 
 
 The fleet was dispersed by a storm soon after sailing. Seven of 
 them reached the Chesapeake in August, in a more or less shattered 
 condition ; of the two that were missing, one was a pinnace, which 
 had foundered at sea, the other the admiral's ship, the Sea Adven- 
 ture, on board which were Gates, Somers, Newport, and William 
 Strachey. She also was supposed to be lost, for nothing was heard of 
 her till the next spring. 
 
 Off the Bermuda group "the still vexed Bermoothes " of Shake- 
 speare a storm had assailed the Sea Adventure and wrecked her on 
 
 one of those islands. It was such a storm 
 as Shakespeare describes in the first act of 
 " The Tempest," and to Strachey's account 
 of it, it is thought the dramatist was in- 
 debted for his inspiration. 1 Storm after storm, with fury added to 
 fury, each more outrageous than that which went before, battered the 
 
 V. 
 
 1 A True Reportory of the Wracke, and redemption of Sir Thomas Gates ; upon and from 
 the Hands of the Bermudas, etc.. etc. Written by William Strachey, Esquire. Purchas, 
 vol. iv., lib. ix., chap. vi. 
 
 Signature of William Strachey. 
 
1609.] 
 
 TEMPEST AND SHIPWRECK. 
 
 293 
 
 doomed ship, and made her miserable people, says Strachey, " looke 
 one vpon the other with troubled hearts, and panting bosoms : g tntchey> 
 our clamors dround in the windes, and the windes in thunder." the 8 h"- f 
 There was " nothing heard that could give comfort, nothing wreclc 
 seene that might incourage hope. Such was the tumult of the ele- 
 ments that the Sea swelled above the Clouds, and gave battell vnto 
 Heaven. It could 
 not be said to raine, 
 the waters like whole 
 Riuers did flood in 
 
 the ayre 
 
 Windes and Seas 
 were as mad as fury 
 and rage could make 
 them." The ship 
 sprung a leak, or 
 many leaks from 
 every joint almost, 
 " having spued out 
 her Oakum," and 
 this fresh calamity, 
 the news of which, 
 "imparting no lesse 
 terrour than danger, 
 ranne through the 
 whole Ship with 
 much fright and 
 amazement," seemed 
 " as a wound giuen 
 to men that were be- 
 fore dead . " Yet they 
 fought bravely for 
 their lives, passen- 
 gers as well as seamen. " The common sort stripped naked, as men 
 in Gallies, the easier both to hold out, and to shrinke from vnder the 
 salt water, which continually leapt in among them, kept their eyes 
 waking, and their thoughts and hands working, with tyred bodies, 
 and wasted spirits, three dayes and foure nights destitute of outward 
 comfort, and desperate of any deliuerance, testifying how mutually 
 willing they were, yet by labour to keepe each other from drowning ; 
 albeit each one drowned while he laboured." The heavens looked so 
 black upon them during all this time, that not a star was seen by 
 night, nor the sun by day ; but on the last night of their terrible 
 
 Shipwreck of the " Sea Adventure." 
 
294 FIKST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CiiAi-. XI. 
 
 struggle with the winds and waves, Sir George Somers saw, and called 
 others to see, " an apparation of a little round light, like a faint Starre, 
 trembling and streaming along with a sparkling blaze, halfe the 
 height vpon the Maine Mast, and shooting sometimes from Shroud to 
 Shroud, tempting to settle as it were vpon any of the foure Shrouds : 
 and for three or four houres together, or rather more, halfe the night 
 it kept with vs, running sometimes along the Maine yard to the very 
 end, and then returning ..... but vpon a sodaine, towards 
 the morning watch they lost of it, and knew not what way it made." 
 So the boatswain in Shakespeare's " Tempest " heard the howlings 
 from within the ship, louder than the weather ; so Miranda 
 besought her wizard father to allay the war of the wild waters, 
 
 Tempest ' : 
 
 when the sea mounted to the sky and dashed the fire out, as 
 she saw the brave ship dashed all to pieces ; so Ariel flamed amaze- 
 ment, burning in many places, on the topmast, the yards, the bowsprit, 
 and then in a deep nook safely harbored the king's ship, as, on the 
 morning of the fifth day, the Sea Adventure lay firmly fixed and quiet, 
 between two rocks in still waters, under the lea of the island. 
 
 On these islands henceforth known as the Somers Islands as well 
 as the Bermudas, from Sir George Somers, and corrupted later into 
 Summer Islands there was abundance of food, especially of wild 
 hogs, for the support of Gates and his one hundred and fifty com- 
 panions, men, women, and children. There was no hardship in a win- 
 ter in that lovely climate, and the people were for the most part con- 
 tentedly employed in hunting and fishing, and in building two 
 pinnaces in which to continue their voyage. There were deaths, and 
 births, and even marriage among them ; the wife of " one John Rolfe" 
 gave birth to a daughter which was christened Bermuda, and a boy 
 born to another couple was called Bermudas. Nor was crime wanting 
 in private murders and public mutinies, for which there was due pun- 
 ishment ; but, on the whole, the winter passed pleasantly, and in May 
 they all embarked save two deserters and a few who were sent off 
 earlier in the long-boat, and who, it was afterward supposed, reached 
 Chesapeake Bay, but were murdered when they landed by some of 
 Powhatan's people. 
 
 Meanwhile affairs at Jamestown were not prospering. In the ab- 
 sence of the captain-general, Sir Thomas Gates, Smith continued 
 
 president, for there was no authority to supersede him. The 
 contrition of colony was, as usual, in a distracted condition, hungry and 
 
 dependent for food upon the Indians. Martin was sent to 
 make a settlement at Nansemond ; Captain West went to the falls of 
 James River, and Ratcliffe to Point Comfort, for the same purpose. 
 West bought of Powhatan, for a small quantity of copper, the country 
 
1610.] "THE STARVING TIME." 29o 
 
 he proposed to occupy the region about Richmond but the good- 
 will of the Indians was secured neither by kindness nor by abstaining 
 from bad treatment. The attempts to settle at these new points were 
 unsuccessful ; half the men were killed, and among them Captain 
 Ratcliffe. While West was at the falls, Smith went to his assistance, 
 and met with an accident which put an end to his career in Virginia. 
 By an explosion of gunpowder in his boat, he was so burned and 
 maimed that it was necessary he should go to England for surgical aid, 
 and he sailed soon after with the returning fleet. 1 
 
 Percy succeeded him in the presidency, but he was capable neither 
 of maintaining harmony among the leading men, nor even G^^ Per . 
 that degree of limited prosperity among the people, which 
 existed under Smith. The late president had been so far dencv - 
 able to compel the colonists to labor during the past summer, that the 
 autumn brought them a considerable harvest ; the swine and other 
 animals had increased in num- 
 bers, and the people generally 
 were in good health. Whatever /j 
 
 may have been the severity of his v 
 
 , ., - , , , Signature of George Percy. 
 
 rule, it produced good results, and 
 
 was probably no harsher than was necessary among men described as 
 a " lewd company, wherein were many unruly gallants packed thither 
 by their friends to escape ill destinies," and as "men of such distem- 
 pered bodies and infected minds, whom no examples daily before their 
 eyes, either of goodnesse or punishment can deter from their habitual 
 impieties, or terrify from a shameful death." Before the return of 
 spring, improvidence, idleness, and debauchery had done their work. 
 The store of provisions which Smith had gathered from the harvest 
 and from the Indians, the domestic animals, which had been carefully 
 preserved for their natural increase, were all speedily consumed ; 
 hunger, despair, and death followed, and the winter was recorded in 
 the annals of the colony, as " the starving time." When Gates arrived 
 in May, of the five hundred whom Smith had left at Jamestown six 
 months before, only sixty were alive. 
 
 1 It is said in the Relation of Virginia, by Henry Spellman, 1609 recently recovered 
 and published in London (1872) that Captain Smith sold Spellmau to Powhatau for this 
 land on the James, and required West to settle upon it. But that Captain West, "having 
 bestowed cost to begine a touue in another place misliked it." That thereupon unkindness 
 arose between them ; Captain Smith saying little at the time, but afterwards conspiring 
 with Powhatan to kill Captain West. " Which plotte," adds Spellmau, " tooke hut smale 
 effect, for in the meane time Capt. Smith was Aprehended and sent abord for England." 
 This Spellman is well known to have been a captive for some years among the Indians. 
 
 John Redclyffe also wrote, October 4, 1609, to the Earl of Salisbury, that Smith was sent 
 home to answer to some misdemeanors. Sainsbury State Papers, quoted in Neill's History 
 of the Virginia Company. 
 
296 
 
 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XL 
 
 When Gates landed, he entered the church and ordered the bell 
 to be rung as a summons to the people, and as many as 
 Gaes, n the could of the sixty miserable survivors crawled out to wel- 
 generai r come him. Service was first held in " zealous and sorrowful 
 prayer," and then Percy delivered up to him the old patent, 
 his own commission, and the seal of the council. Gates went out to 
 look at the seat of his new government. It was a scene of desolation. 
 The palisades were torn down ; tfie ports stood wide open ; the gates 
 were broken from their hinges ; the empty houses of the dead had been 
 dismantled for fire-wood, those who were alive being too weak or 
 too indolent to go to the forest near by for fuel, or too much afraid to 
 venture far from the Block House, not knowing when or where to look 
 for the arrows or the tomahawks of Indians lurking in the woods. 
 
 The governor was satisfied in the course of a week, that the one 
 wise thing to do was to abandon Jamestown with all possible speed, 
 and get to some place where they might hope to be saved from starva- 
 tion. From the Indians nothing could be looked for but the most 
 determined hostility ; the store of provisions brought from the Ber- 
 mudas could be made to last only a few days longer, and it was de- 
 termined, therefore, to sail for Newfoundland, where there would be 
 English vessels from which assistance could be obtained. Accord- 
 ingly, on the 7th of June, just a fortnight after the arrival of Gates, 
 the whole company embarked on two vessels he found in port and the 
 two built in Bermuda, the president himself being the last to go on 
 board, that he might save the fort and houses from destruction, as 
 some of the more desperate had determined to celebrate their depar- 
 ture by a conflagration. 
 
 It was fortunate that he took this precaution. As the ships lay at 
 anchor the next day in the lower part of the river, waiting 
 for the ebb tide, the governor's vessel was boarded by a 
 boat from seaward. It was one sent in advance by Lord De 
 , leio. l a Warre, who had arrived at Point Comfort, where he had 
 heard of Gates' decision, and hastened to send orders to intercept him. 
 
 The news was received gladly by 
 Gates ; the tide which had prevented 
 the vessels getting out to sea was 
 taken advantage of to return to 
 Jamestown, and that night the col- 
 onists were back again under the 
 shelter of their old quarters, which 
 
 frQm destruction. 
 
 Lord De la 
 Warre's fleet 
 arrives off 
 Point Com- 
 fort. 
 
 Signature of Lord Delaware (Tho La Warre). 
 
 Two days later De la Warre also brought his three ships to anchor 
 opposite the fort and went ashore. 
 
1610.] OPPORTUNE COMING OF DE LA WARRE. 297 
 
 As he landed he fell upon his knees and engaged in silent prayer. 
 A procession, dignified but ragged, ceremonies more imposing in in- 
 tention than in fact, awaited him, as he arose ; in prayer and in ser- 
 mon, his coming was welcomed ; his commission as captain-general was 
 read, and with parchments and seal, Sir Thomas Gates surrendered 
 into his hands the colony which he had governed a fortnight. Then 
 in a timely speech, De la Warre rebuked the idleness and 
 other shortcomings of the past, warning his hearers that he n&w of 
 held the sword of justice in his hands, which would certainly 
 be drawn if occasion called for it, but encouraging them also with as- 
 surances of the good store of provisions with which his ships were 
 laden. 
 
 There was food enough on hand to last for a year, but De la Warre 
 
 Arrival of Oe la Warre. 
 
 was mindful of the future. 
 He immediately dispatched 
 Sir George Somers and Captain Argall 
 to the Bermudas, to bring off some of 
 the wild swine with which those islands abounded, to replace the stock 
 which the colonists had eaten up the previous winter. Both these ves- 
 sels were driven northward by stress of weather, and Argall returned 
 to Virginia ; Somers reached the Bermudas, but soon after died there, 
 and his nephew, who succeeded to the command of his vessel, returned 
 to England. In Virginia, De la Warre was more fortunate. Argall 
 was successfully employed in trading with the natives for corn ; two 
 forts were built near the mouth of the James, and another at the falls ; 
 the Indians were brought into more peaceful, if not more friendly 
 
298 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 relations, by force of arms, however, rather than by conciliatory meas- 
 ures ; and something like order and industry was enforced among the 
 colonists. On the whole, the administration of De la Warre was more 
 successful than that of his predecessors ; but it lasted only a year, when 
 failing health compelled him to return to England, leaving Percy 
 again governor. 
 
 Four years had passed away since Newport first sailed up the Pow- 
 New im- hatan and landed the first comers, and public enthusiasm in 
 ?oionizl the " action," as these attempts at colonization were called 
 in the language of the time, as in ours we say " an enter- 
 prise," needed new impulses. Zealous divines preached eloquent 
 sermons in the pulpits of London, and the Council plied the public 
 with pamphlets. Gold mines and the South Sea, were still occasion- 
 ally held out as possible discoveries ; but the true value of Virginia, the 
 mildness of its climate, the fertility of its soil, the magnificence of its 
 rivers, the value of its timber and other natural products, its fitness 
 generally for the home of civilized men, were coming to be better 
 understood, and the dream of a repetition of Spanish experience farther 
 south faded into dimness. The Council had to contend with doubt and 
 indifference, the natural result of the mistakes and disasters of these 
 first four years. The return of De la Warre was depressing, for 
 much depended upon his success, until he could publicly explain 
 the details of the sickness that made it necessary ; how ague seized 
 him followed by dysentery, to that succeeding cramps, to them the 
 gout, and to the gout scurvy, till one wonders that he escaped at all, 
 and can better understand the malarial influences with which these 
 first settlers contended, and which carried them off so rapidly. 
 
 But fortunately before his arrival two fresh expeditions had sailed 
 for Virginia, one under Sir Thomas Gates, whom De la Warre had 
 sent home for assistance, the other under Sir Thomas Dale. Both 
 were amply provided with men, with supplies, and with domestic ani- 
 mals. The lessons of four years of experience had not been lost, and 
 the colony began at last to achieve some degree of prosperity. 
 
 Dale arrived in May, 1611. He was wise as well as energetic, and 
 set himself to cure, by something better than threats and ex- 
 bale com- hortations, the idleness of a people whom he found relapsing 
 vireinii, n again into want and suffering, while they amused themselves 
 with playing bowls in the streets of Jamestown. He gave 
 to each man three acres of cleared ground to cultivate for his own sup- 
 port and took away from him the dependence upon the public store 
 for food. The result justified his expectations, and three men did 
 more work under the new rule than thirty did under the old. There 
 was an incentive to labor in the appeal to self-interest, for he who 
 
1611. J 
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF GATES AND DALE. 
 
 299 
 
 was idle was very likely to starve. Tracts of corn-land, surrounded 
 by palisades and protected by a block-house, appeared in various 
 places ; a beginning was really made in the settlement of the country 
 under the influence of steady industry. 
 
 Gates followed Dale in August, and superseded him for the time 
 being, in the government of the colony, but seconded his wise efforts 
 to bring about a reform in the habits of the people. A new New ^^g. 
 settlement was made, and a town called Henrico in honor of ments - 
 Prince Henry, was built a few miles below the falls of the James, 
 
 The Idle Colonists. 
 
 on the extreme end of what is now known as Farrar's Island ; and a few 
 months later, another town was begun at the mouth of the Appomattox, 
 and named Bermuda City. Both sites were elevated and healthful ; 
 the clearing and inclosing of lands for plantations, the laj'ing out of 
 streets, the building of houses, gave employment to idle hands. Hope 
 and energy were aroused in men who would gradually become good 
 and self-sustaining citizens in the prospect of homes of their own, and 
 in ceasing to be paupers dependent for subsistence upon public stores 
 brought from England, and upon corn bought at the public expense or 
 stolen from the Indians. The foundation of the future state was at last 
 firmly laid in the idea of the welfare of each individual member of the 
 community. Not that the change was immediate ; it was not easy to 
 alter a condition of things which had continued for several years, and 
 
300 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XL 
 
 the old system of support from the public store was still adhered to 
 with regard to new comers for a certain period after their arrival. It 
 was, nevertheless, the beginning of a new state of affairs, and the be- 
 ginning of anything like a hopeful prosperity. 
 
 It was not easy, however, for the Council in London to look upon 
 
 these emigrants as a body of Englishmen capable of being governed by 
 
 the same laws and influenced by the same motives and 
 
 Code of laws i i 
 
 for the habits to which they were accustomed at home. A code ot 
 
 colony. _ , . 
 
 pains and penalties for crime was sent out, under which they 
 were to live, drawn not from the common law and statutes of England 
 but taken from the martial laws of the Low Countries. 1 The penalty 
 was death for blaspheming God ; for speaking " impiously or mali- 
 ciously " of the Holy Trinity, collectively or individually ; for any 
 word or act in derision or in despite of the Holy Scriptures ; for 
 traitorous words against the king ; for murder, for adultery, for rape, 
 whether of white or Indian ; for perjury, or bearing false witness ; 
 for trading with the Indians without a license ; for embezzlement of 
 the public goods ; for desertion of the colony, for treason or misprision 
 of treason against it or its rulers ; for ordinary theft ; for robbing a 
 garden, wilfully pulling up a flower, a root, or herb when set to weed- 
 ing ; for gathering grapes, or plucking ears of corn, whether belonging 
 to a private person or the public. He who used profane swearing, tak- 
 ing the name of God in vain or by other oaths, had a bodkin thrust 
 through his tongue for the second time offending, and the third time suf- 
 fered death ; the penalty for absence from public worship, or violating 
 the Sabbath, was deprivation of a week's allowance, public whipping, 
 and if three times repeated, death ; slander of the councillors or other 
 principal officers of the colony, evil speaking of the colony itself, or of 
 books written on its behalf, were punished by whipping, and by the 
 galleys for three years, and by death for the third offence ; disobedi- 
 ence of the magistrates carried the same penalties, and he who un- 
 worthily demeaned himself to any minister or preacher was publicly 
 whipped three times, and compelled to ask forgiveness of the congre- 
 gation for three successive Sundays ; to kill any domestic animal, any 
 poultry, or even a dog, though they might be one's own, without per- 
 mission, was punished as a capital crime in the principal, and he who 
 assisted him was to lose his ears and be branded in the hand ; those 
 who failed to keep their houses neat and clean, whose bedsteads were 
 not three feet from the ground, and who threw foul water into the 
 streets, were subject to trial by court-martial ; a tradesman who 
 neglected his business was sent to the galleys for four years if he per- 
 sisted in the offense ; if he or any soldier failed to appear at his ap- 
 
 1 Stith's History of Virginia, p. 122. 
 
1611.] TOBACCO. 301 
 
 pointed work at beat of drum, morning and afternoon, or left his 
 work before the hour appointed, he was laid " head and heels to- 
 gether " all night upon the guard, for the first offence, for the second 
 whipped, for the third sent to the galleys ; whoever failed to render to 
 the minister an account of his faith, or refused to take advice from him 
 touching matters of religion, was whipped daily till he repented of his 
 obduracy ; public " launderer or launderesses," bakers, cooks, and 
 fishermen were kept to a faithful discharge of their duties by similar 
 penalties, and the minister or preacher who neglected to read publicly 
 on every Sabbath day the laws and ordinances, of whi^b we give this 
 brief abstract, was deprived for a week of his allowance from the public 
 store. But this was only the civil code. To the martial law, the 
 pains and penalties of which were much more severe, and the possi- 
 ble offences more minute and varied, the citizens were also amenable. 
 
 If there was want of good order and good government, it was not 
 for lack of authority in the hand of the magistrates. The increasing 
 prosperity of the colony, however, in the administration of affairs by 
 Gates and by Dale, owed little to the severity of the laws. The al- 
 lotments of lands, first made by Dale, were increased after the expira- 
 tion by limitation of the system of a common support and a common 
 interest in the colony. There gradually grew up along the James and 
 some of its tributaries a settled, though scattered community of plant- 
 ers, dependent on their own industry for their support, free from 
 the evil associations and habits engendered in the earli^f- days of 
 Jamestown. 
 
 From gaining a subsistence it was an easy step to the accumu- 
 lation of a surplus ; before the expiration of the first decade of the 
 colony, the London Council began the granting of patents of large 
 tracts of land to individuals, and such tracts were also given to colonists 
 for meritorious services. The planting of tobacco was soon 
 
 ~ Culture and 
 
 found to yield a far more profitable harvest than the sowing of export of 
 
 * tobacco. 
 
 corn, so profitable, indeed, that it was necessary ere long to 
 regulate by law the proportion of ground sowed for profit, and for food. 
 From a fashion of the court, introduced by Raleigh, the use of tobacco 
 had become so common in England, that the cheaper staple of Virginia 
 found a market where there was no demand for the dearer product of 
 the Spanish colonies. In 1614 a member of Parliament said in a 
 speech in the House : " Many of the divines now smell of tobacco ; 
 and poor men spend 4d. of their day's wages at night in smoke." 1 
 The increasing consumption greatly alarmed the king for the morals 
 of his subjects, who were deaf equally to his arguments and his 
 remonstrances ; but his fears for morality gave way to apprehensions 
 
 1 Neill's History of the Virginia Company. 
 
302 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 in later years of loss to the revenue. Taxes and restrictions upon 
 sales which the charter did not warrant, impelled the planters to look 
 for a market in Holland. But a prerogative of the crown was not 
 to be sacrificed to the prosperity of the colony, and this first dispute 
 between it and the king was only settled by a compromise which sent 
 all Virginia tobacco to England for exportation, but gave a monopoly 
 of the trade to the Company. 
 
 This settlement, however, of the various questions to which this 
 important trade gave rise was not reached till after discussions and 
 difficulties protracted for a period of years, during which the colony 
 was gradually growing to wealth and power. At the outset the cul- 
 tivation of tobacco was so lucrative that those who had no land planted 
 in the streets of Jamestown, and those who had were necessarily re- 
 strained by law, from running the risk of starvation by planting it all 
 in tobacco, and none in corn. This profitableness of the crop, as it 
 was found to continue, made the larger tracts of land desirable, but 
 the land was useless without laborers. 
 
 The future of Virginia and with hers, that of all that portion of 
 supply of the country where one or two great staples could be produced 
 a * an enormous profit was determined by these considera- 
 slaves. ^j ons ]yj en ne ]^ O serv i ce f or a term of years were brought 
 
 over from England by ship-loads. These were often convicted felons, 
 often paupers who sold themselves in the extremity of want, or were 
 sold to be got rid of, and were often unfortunate wretches kidnapped 
 without regard to their condition, and in defiance of the law. On 
 each laborer brought into the colony there was a bounty in land, and 
 to his owner he represented also a certain profit in tobacco. So far as 
 these people themselves were concerned they were, from training and 
 habit, the least desirable population of a new country, in which they 
 were to be, after a term of service as slaves, the free citizens ; but a 
 worse result followed, for the circumstances that made their servitude 
 profitable, made it also the forerunner of a system still more perni- 
 cious, and of the evils of which there was no possible mitigation. 
 When, in 1619, a Dutch ship arrived at Jamestown with a cargo of 
 negroes from the coast of Guinea, they were eagerly welcomed at good 
 prices by the planters. For many years these two systems of slavery 
 existed side by side, till the obvious truth became firmly established 
 that it was more desirable to own a black man in fee simple than a 
 white man for a limited period. 
 
 Before the colony, however, became the object of earnest attention 
 as a source of wealth in the production of one great staple, the inter- 
 est in it was kept alive by other events. A third charter was granted 
 in March, 1611-12, which included the Bermudas within the territory 
 
 
1616.] 
 
 MARRIAGE OF POCAHOXTAS. 
 
 303 
 
 
 of the Company sold soon after to another corporation ; the privilege 
 
 of establishing a lottery was also given. Before this was revoked 
 
 three years afterward by Parlia- 
 
 ment, as unconstitutional and in- 
 
 jurious to public morals, it had 
 
 added nearly thirty thousand 
 
 pounds to the treasury of the 
 
 Council. In 1616, public curi- 
 
 osity was aroused by the appear- 
 
 ance in London, of the Princess 
 
 Pocahontas as the wife of Mr. 
 
 John Rolfe, who was also distin- 
 
 guished as the first cultivator of 
 
 tobacco in Virginia. 1 
 
 Rolfe, it seems, was a widower, 2 
 who was one of the company of 
 Sir Thomas Gates, and was the 
 father of the child born in the Ber- 
 mudas, at the time of the wreck 
 of the Sea Adventure, and chris- 
 tened Bermuda. In an expedition 
 up the Potomac, in search of corn, 
 Captain Argall had engaged an Indian to entice Pocahontas on board 
 his vessel, whom he took with him to Jamestown, and detained in the 
 expectation of compelling Powhatan to exchange her for 
 corn and for certain Englishmen and English arms, held by 
 that chief. While held as a prisoner, under the care of Sir hontas - 
 Thomas Dale, she became a Christian, and was received into the 
 church under the baptismal name of the Lady Rebecca. Whether 
 the acquaintance between Rolfe and the princess commenced at that 
 time, is not certain ; but they were married soon after. Dale was so 
 much interested in this comely daughter of Powhatan that he pro- 
 posed to the king to send him a younger sister, of whose attractions he 
 had heard, proposing to make her, said the messenger, " his nearest 
 companion, wife, and bed-fellow." The offer could only have been 
 made to get possession of the girl ; wife she could not be, as there was 
 already a Lady Dale in England. The king may have seen through 
 the design ; at any rate he good-naturedly declined the proposed honor 
 of surrendering his daughter to be the mistress of even a white 
 governor. 
 
 1 Harmor's True Discourse of th* Present State of Virt/inia. 
 
 3 Pocahontas was also a widow if Strachey's statement was correct that she had married 
 a " private captain called Kocoum." 
 
304 
 
 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 Dale took Rolfe and his wife to England, and with them went sev- 
 eral other young Indians, men and women, and one Tamocomo, the 
 husband of another of Powhatan's daughters. The young people were 
 under the guardianship of the Council, and to be educated as Chris- 
 tians ; but Tamocomo was an emissary of his father-in-law, under or- 
 ders to gather information in regard to the English people. His ob- 
 servations may have been valuable, but he soon gave over an attempt 
 
 - 
 
 Presentation of Pocahontas at Court. 
 
 to take a census of the population by notches on a stick. The whole 
 Pocahontas P ar ty excited the liveliest curiosity. The Lady Rebecca was 
 m England. rece i ve( j a t court with great favor, though grave doubts were 
 entertained, suggested it was supposed by James, who was never un- 
 mindful of the divine right of kings, whether Rolfe had not been guilty 
 of treason in presuming to make an alliance with a royal family. The 
 princess appeared at the theatres and other public places, everywhere 
 attracting great attraction as the daughter of the Virginian emperor, 
 and as one to whom the colonists had sometimes been indebted for 
 
 
1619.] SANDYS AND YEARDLEY. 305 
 
 signal services ; and everywhere exciting admiration for her personal 
 graces, and the propriety and good sense witli which she always con- 
 ducted herself. She remained in England for nearly a year, and died 
 as she was about to sail for her native country. Her only child, a 
 son, is claimed as the ancestor of some of the most respectable families 
 of Virginia. 
 
 Alliances by marriage between the whites and Indians were encour- 
 aged and were not infrequent, as it was hoped to establish by such con- 
 nections more friendly relations with the savages. They had, no 
 doubt, some influence, the marriage of Pocahontas especially leading to 
 a treaty with Powhatan which he faithfully observed so long as he 
 lived, and which was renewed after his death, in 1618, by his successor. 
 Meanwhile Dale was succeeded in the government of the colony, first 
 by George Yeardley, then by Captain Argall, and again by Yeardley. 
 During Dale's administration, Argall, who was of an adventurous and 
 unscrupulous disposition, had won notoriety, if not distinc- 
 tion, by the destruction of a little colony of French at Port 
 Royal in the Bay of Fundy. As governor he was more 
 diligent in the pursuit of his own interests, than in any care for the 
 welfare of the colony. The complaints against him were so loud and 
 bitter as to demand reparation at the hands of the Council in London, 
 while he was also called to account for the neglect and ruin which had 
 fallen upon those plantations which it was his duty to have worked on 
 behalf of the Company. Lord De la Warre was sent out to displace 
 him and correct these abuses, but died on the way, somewhere, it is 
 supposed, near the mouth of the bay since known as the Delaware. 
 Yeardley, who meanwhile had returned to England, was made cap- 
 tain-general and ordered to Virginia. 
 
 The appointment in 1619 of Sir George Yeardley for x he was now 
 knighted as president, was the beginning of a new era in 
 the history of Virginia. Others had been as honest, ener- 
 
 min 
 
 getic, and clear-sighted as he, and as earnest in their efforts 'reor. 
 
 
 on behalf of the " action." But he reaped the benefit of all 
 that they had done and had, besides, the advantage, which 
 they often wanted, of being sustained by a wise conduct of affairs in 
 England. Sir Thomas Smith, who from the beginning had been the 
 treasurer of the company in London with almost plenary powers, re- 
 tired from office this same year, and his place was supplied by Sir 
 Edwin Sandys. Smith had been accused of mismanagement, and his 
 accounts were in some disorder, but his reputation at the time evi- 
 dently suffered no serious injury, as on his retiring, a grant of two- 
 thousand acres of land in Virginia was made him by the London 
 Council. He had had many obstacles to encounter in the raising and 
 
 VOL. i. 20 
 
306 FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT -IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 disbursements of means to found a distant colony in an unknown re- 
 gion, and had done, perhaps, all that could be done in the first twelve 
 years. The earlier difficulties were overcome when affairs came into 
 the hands of Sandys and Yeardley, and to achieve success was a much 
 easier task. 
 
 When Yeardley arrived in Virginia the colony numbered about six 
 hundred persons. They had become discouraged and discontented 
 under the arbitrary and dishonest rule of Argall, were suffering from 
 a scarcity of food, having neglected the cultivation of maize, that they 
 might raise the more tobacco and acquire the means to return to Eng- 
 land. To induce and even to compel them to raise more to eat and 
 less to sell, was the governor's first object, and he observed his own 
 laws by planting corn on the Company's lands, and writing the treas- 
 urer in London that he must not expect remittances in tobacco for at 
 least a year. To restore confidence among the colonists and to assure 
 them of a guaranty for the future, he gave to them the power of self- 
 government, to a certain extent, by calling upon them to send repre- 
 sentatives from each of the towns, hundreds, or plantations to meet 
 with the governor and council and decide upon all matters relating to 
 the colony. The governor was to have a veto upon their legislation, 
 and no laws were valid till approved by the Company at home. With 
 this power of government came the sense of possession and perma- 
 nency, undoubtedly exercising a strong influence over the minds of the 
 colonists. Sir Edwin Sandys proposed to create a more complicated 
 form of government, but this germ of the future commonwealth, in a 
 house of representative burgesses, was left for a time to a natural 
 growth. The first legislative assembly met in the church at James- 
 town, on the 30th of July, 1619, and consisted of twenty-two repre- 
 sentatives and the governor and council. One of the acts passed at 
 this meeting was for the punishment of drunkenness. 
 
 In this first year of Yeardley 's administration, the loss by death to 
 Progress of tne colony was three hundred. By the special order of the 
 the colony, fcing^ its number was increased by the transportation of one 
 hundred felons gathered from the jails of England. These misfortunes 
 were offset by the wisdom of Sandys. Ten thousand acres of land 
 were set apart at Henrico, for the foundation of a university, where 
 both Indians and whites were to be educated, and within two years a 
 hundred men were settled upon these lands, to cultivate them on half 
 shares. A measure of more immediate benefit, was the transportation, 
 with their own consent, of a hundred " maids, young and uncorrupt," 
 as wives for young men, who, from being only temporary settlers, 
 would thus be made, by domestic ties, permanent inhabitants and good 
 citizens. The young women met with the heartiest welcome, and none 
 
1619.] PROGRESS OF THE COLONY. 307 
 
 remained long without a husband, though the price of a wife was the 
 cost of her transportation, payable in tobacco, except to those who 
 were tenants of the Company's lands. Many poor children, both boys 
 and girls, were sent out as apprentices. The system was sometimes 
 taken advantage of by private persons, and young women and children 
 kidnapped and sold as slaves to the planters ; but the purpose of the 
 Council was benevolent and its results beneficial to the colony. Pro- 
 vision was made for the religious instruction of the people ; the prin- 
 cipal seats of the colony were more securely fortified ; a lasting peace 
 with the Indians was thought to be secured by treaties. Within a 
 twelvemonth eight ships were sent out to the colony by the treasurer. 
 Sir Edwin Sandys, and four more by private adventurers, carrying an 
 aggregate of twelve hundred and sixty-one persons, to be about 
 equally divided between the plantations of the Company and those 
 belonging to individuals. The new English nation had at length 
 taken firm root on the shores of America. 
 
 Signature of James I. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 COLONIZATION UNDER THE NORTHERN COMPANY. 
 
 THE SEA-COAST OF MAINE. THE EARLY FISHERMEN. FRENCH TRADERS. FONT- 
 GRAVE AND POUTRINCOURT. GEORGE WEYMOUTH'S VOYAGE. COLONY OF CHIEF 
 
 JUSTICE POPHAM. SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN IN NEW YORK. SETTLEMENT ON MT. 
 DESERT. ARGALL'S DESTRUCTION OF THE FRENCH COLONY. JOHN SMITH IN 
 NEW ENGLAND. EXPEDITIONS OF FERDINANDO GORGES. SECOND CHARTER OF 
 THE PLYMOUTH COMPANY. NOVA SCOTIA GIVEN TO SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER. 
 GRANT OF THE PLYMOUTH COMPANY TO GORGES. FIRST TOWNS IN NEW HAMP- 
 SHIRE AND MAINE. THE BREAKING UP OF THE PLYMOUTH COMPANY. CHAR- 
 ACTER OF GORGES. 
 
 ON a map of the 
 State of Maine, its 
 rivers and lakes appear to be the 
 result of an accidental slopping 
 over of water, just as when it 
 curdles on a polished table into 
 pools, and struggles without pur- 
 pose to and fro. But no systematic 
 engineering could improve this 
 order of nature, or dis- 
 
 ,. i Maine. Its 
 
 pose the waters better inland com- 
 
 e .1 .11 munication 
 
 for that inland commu- 
 nication which the savages main- 
 
 ^. tained and the white man learned 
 
 Indian, at a Portage. o f them. Broad and deep rivers, 
 
 fed by lakes that are strung upon rivulets, with branches to explore 
 and drain every nook of the land, were highways which the birch 
 
 
 
1605.] THE SEA-COAST OF MAINE. 309 
 
 canoe was expressly framed to travel ; it was no burden when the 
 voyager came to carrying-places around falls and rapids. The Kenne- 
 bec was called the shortest route to the great river of the North, the 
 St. Lawrence, which could also be reached by the Penobscot, though 
 in a more difficult and tortuous way. By water portages and a few 
 day's marches, the Indian could strike the Chaudiere and drop down 
 to the neighborhood of Quebec, or visit the ancient town of Hochelaga, 
 which gave the St. Lawrence its first name. 
 
 No less remarkable is the coast, which hangs like a tattered fringe 
 to seaward,. broken into numerous coves and inlets with their Itg ^ 
 long protecting line of islands and picturesque bluffs wooded C0a8t- 
 with the birch and pine. The tide runs up deep bays and fills the 
 quiet reaches between the mainland and the outer sea, inviting crafts of 
 every tonnage, from a shallop to a ship, to lie in shelter or to slip along 
 to harbors. Here the early navigators moored in safety under the lee 
 of islands, and explored in their boats the intricate waters of the coast, 
 to fill their casks, to exchange trinkets for peltry with the natives, or 
 to pitch upon a spot for permanent occupancy. They tell how the 
 contrasts of foliage, the singing of birds, the stretches of green 
 meadow, and all the scents of summer mixed with the tonic air, de- 
 lighted them as they rowed along the streams or penetrated into the 
 woods. Rosier, who accompanied Capt. George Weymouth in 1605 
 upon his voyage of discovery, and was the chronicler of what they 
 saw, writes with great enthusiasm of the " excellent depth of water 
 for ships of any burthen," of the good holding ground, of the planted 
 peas and barley which grew half an inch a day, of the gallant coves 
 with sandy beaches where ships might be careened, secure from all 
 winds, and the "plane plots " of thirty and forty acres of clear grass, 
 " the goodness and beauty whereof I cannot by relation sufficiently 
 demonstrate." It is easy to conceive the surprise and pleasure of 
 a ship's crew let loose upon this balmy and picturesque coast in some 
 month of summer, as Weymouth's were in early June, after a tedious 
 voyage made in cramped quarters, shared in later times with horses, 
 goats, and cows for the use of colonists. These men tasted the first 
 rapture which a virgin land, whose charms had never been once sus- 
 pected, could bestow. There grew, close to launching places, spars 
 of various woods, and trees for building pinnaces and vessels ; brooks 
 of sweet water came trickling down in all directions, fringed with 
 grass or berries of the wood, the soil invited tillage, the woods were 
 stocked with game, colonies of beavers were established near to falls, 
 and the sea swarmed with fish of many kinds salmon, haddock, 
 pollock, and cod. The first attempts at colonizing, upon Newfound- 
 land and " the Maine," turned upon the value of this fishery, and 
 
310 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 were stimulated by it. There is no doubt that many gangs of fish- 
 ermen wintered upon the northeastern coast, and upon islands off 
 the coast of Maine, many years before there was thought of char- 
 tering a colony. So the fisherman pursued and worked a vein of 
 wealth wherever the cod ran along the shores of the New 
 on coast' 8 World ; and the mute fish piloted History to the scenes of 
 her most speaking achievements. She stepped from the 
 deck of a fishing smack, and began the work of founding a republic 
 by tending the rude stages where the fish were dried.- 
 
 Norumbega, the name by which Maine was earliest known in Eng- 
 land, although its boundaries were vague and shifting, is first 
 rations"? designated in an account of French voyages in Ramusio's 
 collection of travels. Norumbega was derived by European 
 pronunciation from an Indian word belonging to the tribes between 
 the Kennebec and Penobscot. It was applied by them to an aborig- 
 inal kingdom whose seat of power was in a half-mythical town near 
 Penobscot Bay, and upon the eastern side of it. But the early geog- 
 raphers sometimes applied the name to the whole region between Cape 
 Sable and Cape Cod, and occasionally even as far south as Florida. 
 It properly belonged, however, only to that region near the Penob- 
 scot whose people referred to a mysterious site of aboriginal rule in 
 the interior. At a later period, this great lord of the Penobscot coun- 
 try was called the Bashaba ; but although a good many names of local 
 sagamores of distinction are mentioned in the early annals, nobody 
 ever had an interview with the veritable Bashaba, nor entered the 
 traditional city of Norumbega. It is probable that the term bashaba 
 merely indicated the sagamore who happened at different times to 
 enjoy the ascendency among the Penobscot tribes. 
 
 It is said that an English ship, sent out in 1527, sailed along the 
 coasts of Arambec, a corruption plainly of Norumbega, and that her 
 men frequently went on shore, to explore these unknown lands. 1 
 
 Among other voyagers to the coast of Maine, at this period, was 
 Andre* Thevet, the French traveller and cosmographer, who had been 
 a member of Villegagnon's Huguenot colony in South America. He 
 relates that in 1536 he visited the Grand River (Penobscot), and 
 gives a circumstantial narrative of his intercourse with the natives. 
 The behavior of his Indians was so effusively affectionate, that one 
 is disposed, at first, to question his truthfulness. But, in fact, the 
 Abnakis and Micmacs, the aboriginal inhabitants of Maine, were 
 
 i Hakluyt, iii. 129. Biddle (Memoir of Selxistian Cabot), believes the English voyage re- 
 ferred to, to be identical with that of John Hut, in the same year (mentioned in Purchas, 
 vol. iii. p. 809), and Kohl (Maine Hist. Coll., vol. i., Second Series), seems to share his 
 opinion, and says : " This voyage was the first instance in which Englishmen are certainly 
 known to have put their foot on these shores." 
 
 . 
 
1605.] THE FRENCH AND THE INDIANS. 311 
 
 more amiable, and indulged in more social habits than were known 
 among other Indians of New England. Their temper was not uni- 
 form, however ; at the least hint they would fly to suspicions, and 
 take up arms. But there is abundant evidence that they were dis- 
 posed to welcome the English, until the hostile policy of the French 
 began to exert its influence. 
 
 The Abnakis, who inhabited the territory from the Penobscot, 
 north to Canada, and through New Hampshii'e, loved to col- Abo rigine8 
 lect in permanent villages, of which there were five, two in of Maine 
 Canada, and one on each river, the Kennebec, the Androscoggin, and 
 the Saco. These are described by French missionaries as having been 
 enclosed by stout and high palisades. The wigwams were built of 
 bended poles, and covered with bark. The dress of the natives was 
 " ornamented with a great variety of rings, necklaces, bracelets, belts, 
 etc., made out of shells and stones, worked with great skill. They 
 practised also agriculture. Their fields of skamgnar (corn) were 
 very luxuriant. As soon as the snows had disappeared, they prepared 
 the land with great care, and at the commencement of June they 
 planted the corn, by making holes with the fingers, or with a stick, 
 and having dropped eight or nine grains of corn, they covered them 
 with earth. Their harvest was at the end of August." l 
 
 They were very brave, tenacious of purpose, faithful to engage- 
 ments, uncompromising in war, hospitable, " and their attachment to 
 the family was," says one of their historians, " such as we do not 
 read of in other tribes of the Algic people." 
 
 The French knew how to attach these Indians permanently to 
 themselves, and keep them firmly hostile to the English. They soon 
 came under the influence of the French missionaries, and of the sol- 
 diers and traders, who showed the tact and adaptability which distin- 
 guish that nation. Even in giving names to places, a significant dif- 
 ference between the French and English policy showed itself. The 
 French flattered the Indians by trying to pronounce all their local 
 names, and by perpetuating them. The Englishman made English 
 words migrate and settle upon the new sites, ignoring the native 
 nomenclature. He loved thus to recall his Portsmouth, Rye, Appledore, 
 his York, Falmouth, and Portland. Either the place of his birth, or 
 the port from which he started, provided names for the new places. 
 The French studied in every way to appropriate the habits of the 
 Indians, to hunt, travel, eat, sleep, and dress in the native fashion. 
 They were apt learners of the different dialects ; the lists of words 
 and the dictionaries compiled by their missionaries can be relied upon. 
 And these devoted men drew savage admiration by their constancy, 
 
 1 Collections of Maine Hist. Soc., vi. 218-19. 
 
312 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CuAP. XII. 
 
 French 
 
 France. 
 
 calmness in perils, assiduous efforts to teach and civilize, and their 
 skill in healing, as well as by the impressive solemnity of those novel 
 services of religion, with cross, cup, bell, and candle, under the 
 groined arches of the primitive cathedral. But the English possessed 
 over the French one great advantage ; and that has since been styled 
 " manifest destiny." For the current of history undermines and car- 
 ries away the adroitest policies and the nicest arts of accommodation. 
 The French claimed the region which included Maine, under the 
 t^le of Nouvelle France, although from the time of Jacques 
 Cartier and De la Roque, until nearly into the beginning of 
 ^e seventeenth century, they made no definite attempt to 
 settle there. In the last decade of the sixteenth century, a new in- 
 terest was awakened, especially fn Brittany and Normandy, whose 
 fishers continued in constant intercourse with the new-found lands. 
 In 1598, the Marquis de la Roche obtained a patent from Henry IV., 
 and made a futile attempt at settlement. He landed a colony of 
 wretches drawn from the galleys and the prisons of France, on the 
 barren shores of Sable Island, and left them to drag out a miserable 
 existence, subsisting on som^ cattle which had bred from a number 
 left there by the ships of the Baron de Leri, eighty years before. 
 
 The year following, Pontgravd, a merchant of St. Malo, 
 
 of Pont- who had been for furs as far as Tadoussac on the St. Law- 
 
 champiain. rencc, formed the design of establishing a fur-trading port in 
 
 Canada. He enlisted with him De Chauvin, an experi- 
 
 enced sea officer, who had sufficient influence at court to obtain a 
 
 commission similar to that grant- 
 ed De la Roche. Chauvin went 
 on two voyages, but whatever 
 results they might have produced 
 were checked by his sudden 
 death, as he prepared to go upon 
 a third. In 1603 Pontgrave' 
 went himself on a voyage, taking 
 with him Samuel de Champlain, 
 an officer of repute in the French 
 navy, a man in good favor at 
 court, and an ardent Catholic. 
 
 Together with Pontgrave", 
 Champlain explored the St. 
 Lawrence, and carried back to 
 France maps and observations 
 made upon the banks of that 
 noble river. In the following year, another and more important 
 
 Samuel de Champlain. 
 
1604.] DE MONTS IN ACADIA. 313 
 
 expedition was undertaken, which came very near establishing a per- 
 manent French colony within the present limits of Maine. This new 
 expedition was led by Pierre du Guast, 
 Sieur de Monts, the governor of Pons 
 in the province of Saintonge. He 
 
 had been on one of the voyages of ^ Signature of Chimplain 
 Pontgrave*, and -dn the death of Du 
 Chaste, the governor of Dieppe, who had succeeded to Chauvin's 
 commission for discovery and colonization in America, De Monts ob- 
 tained it. 
 
 De Monts was a Huguenot, but he had rendered such important 
 services to Henry IV. during the troubles of the League, that the 
 king, though he changed his faith, did not lose confidence in Acadia 
 his servant. Eager for maritime adventure and discovery, fjf"^^ 
 De Monts procured an edict which created him lieutenant- ] 
 general of Acadia, as the country was called from the 40th to the 46th 
 degree of north latitude. 1 Free exercise of his own religion was per- 
 mitted to him, in return for which he engaged to have the savages 
 converted to Catholicism. A company was formed by merchants of 
 Rouen and Rochelle, to whom the king granted by letters-patent the 
 exclusive trade in furs and fish between the 40th, and 54th, degrees 
 of north latitude. 
 
 De Monts sailed from Havre de Grace on the 7th of March, 1604. 
 He took with him his friend Jean de Biencourt, the Baron de Pou- 
 trincourt, and Champlain, whose experience in previous voyages he 
 thought would be of service in this new enterprise. Poutrincourt 
 wished to find a place to which he might transfer his family, and 
 forget the turbulent politics of Europe in the permanent occupancy 
 of a land unvexed by parties and religious strife. 
 
 De Monts reached in about two months a harbor on the eastern 
 side of Nova Scotia, where he found a vessel engaged in fishing and 
 an illicit fur-trade. It was commanded by a Captain Rossignol, whose 
 only consolation for the confiscation of his cargo was the transference of 
 his name to the harbor. The place is now called Liverpool, and Rosig- 
 nol's name is perpetuated in a lake not far distant, the largest in Nova 
 
 1 The word is usually supposed to be derived from the French or Latin, but comes, says 
 one authority, from the Indian word Aquoddie, a pollock. It was corrupted by the French 
 into Acadie, Acadia, Cadia, Cadie. The original is preserved in the name of Passama- 
 quoddy Bay, which is derived from Pos (great), ayuam (water), aqiioddie (pollock) ; mean- 
 ing great water for pollock. Historical Magazine, vol. i., p. 84. Another authority (see 
 Collections of Maine Historical Society, vol. i., p. 27, note) says that the Acadi is a pure 
 Micmac word meaning place, and was used by the Indians in combination with some other 
 word, as Suga-bun-acadi, the place of ground nuts, and Passam-acadi ( Passamaquoddy ), the 
 place of fish. 
 
314 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 Scotia. The present Port Mouton, on the next bay, is probably the 
 Port au Mouton of De Monts, which he so named because he there 
 lost a sheep overboard, and where he spent a month on shore while 
 Champlain explored southward for a place that would better suit them 
 for a permanent settlement. 
 
 Champlain doubled Cape Sable and returned to show the expedition 
 the way to the Bay of Fundy. This De Monts named Baye Fran- 
 caise ; the harbor now known as Annapolis, Champlain called Port 
 Royal. After sailing up Minas Bay, they crossed the Bay of Fundy, 
 entered Passamaquody Bay, and on a little island which they named 
 St. Croix, in the river now known as the St. Croix, the 
 Passamaquody, or the Schoodic, they determined to settle. 
 
 It was an unfortunate choice ; timber was scarce ; the water 
 had to be brought from the main land; before the winter was over 
 they were reduced to salt meat and snow water, and the scurvy broke 
 out among them. The island is now known as Neutral Island, and 
 is on the border line between Maine and New Brunswick. 
 
 Champlain, always restless and bent on new discoveries, sailed dur- 
 
 ing the winter as far south as Cape Cod, which Gosnold had 
 explores already visited and named. The Frenchman called it Cap 
 
 southward. . . . .. . , 
 
 Blanc, from the white sands ot its long beaches ; he nar- 
 rowly escaped shipwreck somewhere along that dangerous coast, at 
 a place he named Cape Mallebarre, perhaps Gosnold's Point Care, 
 the extremity of Isle Nawset. In the spring he again sailed south- 
 ward with De Monts, who was determined to find a better spot than 
 St. Croix on which to plant his colony. They entered the mouths 
 of those noble rivers of Maine, the Penobscot, the Kennebec, the 
 De Monts Casco, the Saco ; visited Mount Desert, sailed up Portland 
 least of 6 Harbor, which De Monts named Marchin, from the Indian 
 Maine. chief with whom they had some trade. There was many a 
 pleasant spot in the deep bays they penetrated where they could have 
 sat down contented to fish and trade and thrive, far away from the 
 turmoils and contentions of the Old World which Poutrincourt hoped 
 to escape. But the natives showed none of the kindly traits which 
 Thevet had described ; they menaced and repulsed the strangers, who 
 returned to St. Croix. 
 
 The condition of the colony was more miserable than ever, and 
 hardly any change could be for the worse. The next move was to 
 Removal of a harbor in Acadia, on the other side of the Bay of Fundy, 
 to e port ny to which Champlain had given, the year before, the name 
 Royai- o f Port Royal, now Annapolis. Here for several years 
 the colony maintained a feeble existence. 
 
 But the English were not idle while the French were thus busy in 
 
 
1605.] 
 
 GEORGE WEYMOUTH'S VOYAGE. 
 
 315 
 
 attempts to gain a foothold in the new country. Foremost among 
 those who saw the importance of colonization were the earls of 
 Arundel and Southampton ; the former, one of those steadfast friends 
 of Sir Walter Raleigh who did not desert him even when led to 
 the scaffold ; the other, that friend and patron of Shakespeare who 
 gave him 1,000 and was distinguished for the dedication Voyageof 
 the poet made to him of his earliest poems. These two mtJj'tfa."' 5 
 noblemen united in sending out a ship under George Wey- 1606 - 
 mouth, who was instructed to explore that part of North Virginia 
 to be known a few years later as New England. 
 
 Weymouth sailed in the Archangel, March 5, 1605. On May 17 he 
 
 The Mouth of the Kennebec. 
 
 came to anchor near the island of Monhegan, twelve miles southeast 
 of Pemaquid, an Indian word signifying " that runs into the water." 
 The cape jutting southward forms the most eastern headland of 
 Lincoln County. The delight of Weymouth and his sailors was un- 
 bounded at beholding the beauty of this island where they first landed. 
 Gooseberries, strawberries, wild peas, and rosebushes grew to its 
 very verge, and rills of sweet water trickled through cleft rocks, and 
 ran into the salt sea. With delicious draughts from these rivulets the 
 men eagerly cooled their sea-parched mouths, while they refreshed 
 their eyes with the spring greenness of the landscape ; from the sea 
 they took a store of cod, a welcome change from their sea-rations, which 
 gave them a foretaste of the great plenty of fish they found there 
 afterwards. 
 
 The authorities differ as to the next movement of Weymouth. One 
 theory takes him up the Penobscot to the neighborhood of Belfast ; 
 
316 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 a second, toward the islands outside of Boothbay Harbor, and into 
 the Sagadahoc ; and a third, up St. George's River, which is 
 
 ed by wey- i us t west of Penobscot Bav, and runs up toward the Cam- 
 mouth. J . . 
 
 den Hills. He saw mountains far inland ; these are claimed 
 
 by some to have been the White Mountains, and by others the 
 Camden Hills, because he tried to reach them and came so near that 
 his men thought themselves " to have been within a league of them." l 
 It hardly seems possible that they could have made such an estimate 
 respecting the White Mountains, which can be seen in clear weather 
 from several points off the coast over low land. On the whole, the 
 evidence seems to be in favor of their landing at Pemaquid, and visit- 
 ing the region between the St. George and the Kennebec River. 
 
 If they were delighted with the little island where they had first 
 touched land, they were no less enchanted with the main- 
 with the in- land. The narrative praises the richness of the soil and 
 the number of native products found there, from the good 
 clay for brick-making to the finest and tallest trees they had ever 
 seen ; the very shells on the beach yielded pearls, and the bark of 
 the trees oozed gum which smelled like frankincense. As usual, the 
 Indians received them at first with hospitality, gave them good bar- 
 gains in peltries, feasted them in their best fashion, and offered them 
 tobacco. But the savages soon showed mistrust of the whites, and 
 the whites suspected treachery among the savages. The hostile feel- 
 ing growing out of these suspicions decided Weymouth to keep no 
 faith with the natives. Five of them, who trusted him sufficiently to 
 come on board his vessel, he detained and took with him to England. 
 Arriving at the port of Plymouth he gave three of them to Sir 
 Ferdinando Gorges, who was the governor of the fort there, a lead- 
 ing member of the Plymouth Council and warmly interested in all 
 things concerning America. The other two captives he sent up to 
 London to Sir John Popham. The kidnapped Indians were the ob- 
 jects of curious wonder. Such gaping crowds followed them in the city 
 streets as Shakespeare alluded to, when in " The Tempest " he made 
 Trinculo long to have Caliban on exhibition in England : " Not a 
 holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver ; there would this 
 monster make a man ; any strange beast there makes a man ; when 
 they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay 
 out ten to see a dead Indian." 
 
 Sir John Popham, the chief justice, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, 
 to whose care these Indians were given, had both been largely instru- 
 mental in getting from the king the patent for the North Virginia 
 Company, and their zeal received a new impulse from the informa- 
 
 1 James Rosier's Narration of the Expedition, in Purchas. 
 
1607.] 
 
 THE POPHAM COLONY. 
 
 317 
 
 tion gained from these captive natives. A ship was soon despatched 
 under Captain Henry Chalong to make further discoveries, 
 and two of the Indians were sent back in her. But she unfor- 
 tunately was captured by the Spaniards. Another vessel was Gor s es - 
 sent soon after with Thomas Hanham and Martin Pring as master 
 and captain, who took with them the Indian, Nahanada, to his tribe 
 at Pemaquid. And these expeditions were followed up by another, 
 which but for a series of untoward events, would have made the 
 
 Indians in London. 
 
 permanent settlement of New England only a few months behind that 
 of Virginia. 
 
 On May 31, 1607, The Gift of God, of which Sir George Popham, 
 the brother of the chief iustice, was captain, and The Mary 
 
 -r -i i i r i . .01 f T 116 Popham 
 
 and John, commanded by Raleigh Gilbert, a younger son of colony. 
 Sir Humphrey Gilbert, set sail from Plymouth. One hun- 
 dred and twenty persons were on board, many of them well adapted 
 for the founding of a colony. There is no evidence of the truth 
 of the assertion sometimes made, that the chief justice depleted the 
 prisons of England to furnish forth this company ; in fact, his powers 
 could not stretch to that extent, though James I., a few years later, 
 gave to persons who had been prosecuted for grave crimes the alterna- 
 tive of a colony or a prison. 
 
318 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 On board one of the ships was Skitwarroes, 1 one of the five Indians 
 Arrival of captured by Weyrnouth, to serve as a guide and interpreter. 
 
 the colony. rr>\ i e ,i -, 
 
 Ihe chaplain of the expedition was Richard Seymour, a gen- 
 tleman of the highest culture, who is supposed to have been a kins- 
 man of Sir Edward Seymour, Lord Protector in the reign of Edward 
 VI. He lived in the neighborhood, and was probably related to 
 the families of Raleigh, Gilbert, Gorges, and Popham, all of whom 
 were allied by intermarriage. Among the colonists were various arti- 
 sans, carpenters, sawyers, laborers, a smith, 
 and a master ship-builder. They came to 
 '^ anchor to the north of Monhegan on the 
 31st of July, and were soon boarded by 
 some natives, who seemed perfectly familiar 
 with European trading habits. A week 
 was spent in boat expeditions among the 
 
 " 
 
 Meeting of Nahanada and Skitwarroes. 
 
 islands, and on the evening of the oth of August they found on one 
 of these a cross, which Weymouth had set up two years before. Cap- 
 tain Gilbert sent a boat up the river to the mainland, piloted by the 
 Indian Skitwarroes, to a village of the natives situated in Pemaquid. 
 At the first appearance of the boat the Indians took to their arms; 
 but when their chief recognized Skitwarroes, and saw that those with 
 him were Englishmen, he commanded his party to lay aside their bows 
 and arrows, kissed and embraced the strangers, and entertained them 
 for hours with a kindly and cheerful welcome. The chief who met 
 them in this friendly way was Nahanada, 1 who had been returned to 
 his home the year before by Captain Hanham. 
 
 1 The original accounts differ from each other, and in themselves, in the spelling of these 
 Indian names. 
 
 
 
1607.] THE POPHAM COLONY. 319 
 
 On August 9, which was Sunday, they landed upon an island to 
 which they gave the name of St. George, where the service of the 
 Church of England was read and a sermon preached by the chaplain, 
 many natives attending with great sobriety of demeanor. On August 
 15, the Gift of God entered the Sagadahoc, which was the name 
 of the broad channel below the junction of the Androscoggin and 
 Kennebec ; its Indian meaning is " the end of it," as if it had been 
 named by natives exploring from above. The Sheepscot River comes 
 down to the east, directly north of George's Island. 1 On August 17th, 
 they sailed up the Sagadahoc in the pinnace and long boat, TheM , ttle . 
 and noticed all its advantages of islands and fresh water ment 
 streams ; and on the next day they made choice of a peninsula upon 
 the western side which the Indians called, after a native chief, Sabino.- 
 All landed here on the 19th, another sermon was preached, the presi- 
 dent's commission was read, and the first act of the first English colony 
 of New England was complete. A fort was built, mounting twelve 
 guns, to defend the little town of forty or fifty houses which quickly 
 sprung up. The master shipwright of the expedition, Thomas Digby, 
 had the timber cut down, shaped, and left to season during 
 the autumn, for building a small vessel of thirty tons, which huiit'iu* 
 when done was called the Virginia. This was the first vessel 
 built by Englishmen in American waters ; and the first use she was 
 put to was to take back to England, before the winter was over, nearly 
 two thirds of the colonists, thus early discouraged by the rigor of the 
 climate. 
 
 The Indians did not relish this cool annexation of their favorite 
 peninsula, in which they were not consulted, not even asked to sell, 
 still less to accept an equivalent. But it was characteristic of the 
 Anglo-Saxon method. They soon began to be troublesome : they 
 intruded within the enclosures, and some of the more reckless colo- 
 nists set the dogs upon them, and used their sticks too freely. Cap- 
 tain Gilbert went exploring up the river, and came into the district 
 of a chief less" disposed than Nahanada was to keep the peace with 
 these intruders. They endeavored to get possession of Gilbert and 
 his crew, and he ran the gauntlet of menaces all the way. 
 
 1 Its Indian name was Sipsa-couta, " flocking of birds." We surmise that the English 
 language gained the word coot from this river ; just as skunk is a fragrant legacy from the 
 native sagankou. Moose is derived from muu&souk, muskrat, properly musquash, from 
 mouskouessou, and the honk, or cry of the goose, from sf.hunk. So our favorite American- 
 ism, scoot, came from the native word si:h<>ot. "to go with a rush;' 1 and when, in later 
 times, a new kind of vessel was launched at Newburyport, a bystander, using the same 
 native word, cried, " How she schoous ! " aiid schooner she was from that day. 
 
 2 Perhaps Sebenoa Anglicized. This peninsula was a favorite resort of the natives, and 
 numerous relics of stone axes, hammers, arrow-heads, and chippings of stone-work, indicate 
 that it was a place for the manufacture of savage weapons. 
 
320 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII 
 
 On the 5th of February, Popham, who was the president of the 
 
 colony, died, and Captain Gilbert succeeded to the office. The ship 
 
 Mary and John had been sent back to London in the preceding 
 
 December, to procure supplies. It returned to find the colony in a 
 
 deplorable condition. The winter had been of exceptional 
 
 of the coi- severity ; fighting had broken out between the men and the 
 
 natives ; the storehouse with all its contents had been burned ; 
 
 the natives were in possession of the fort for awhile, and the explosion 
 
 of a barrel of gunpowder, through their own carelessness, they believed 
 
 to be done by the art of the whites. 
 This incident probably was the germ 
 of a story which obtained circulation 
 at a later period, that the colonists 
 induced a number of natives to drag 
 
 Setting Dogs on the Indians. 
 
 
 along one of the guns by the ropes, running with them in front of the 
 muzzle, and that when they were well in line with it the gun was dis- 
 charged. But when the Indians were recounting to the Jesuits the 
 injuries which they had sustained from the English, this incredible 
 incident was not mentioned. If it had been, the Jesuit missionaries 
 would not have failed to record it. 
 
 In the spring came the news of the death, first, of Chief Justice 
 Breaking- Popham, then of Sir John Gilbert, the elder brother of the 
 pophanT new governor. The last compelled the return of Raleigh 
 colony. Gilbert to England, for he was his brother's heir. The loss 
 of two governors, of the principal mover and proprietor of the colony, 
 within so short a time, and the desertion of so many of their com- 
 panions were discouragements so serious that the remaining forty-five 
 determined to return home with Gilbert. 
 
. 
 
s 
 
 < 
 
 X 
 
 o 
 
1608.] CHAMPLAIN'S DISCOVERIES. 321 
 
 Sir Francis Popham, the son of the chief justice, continued for 
 years to send expeditions to the coast of Maine, at his private cost ; 
 but no permanent settlement was made, though the crews of these 
 vessels may have wintered sometimes at Monhegan, and sometimes at 
 Pemaquid. The Northern Virginia Company was inactive, content, 
 apparently, to watch and wait for the results of the efforts of the sister 
 company farther south. The French, on the other hand, though the 
 tenacious preference of the English for the Atlantic coast may have 
 served to turn their attention to the bays and rivers farther east and 
 north, persisted in the attempt to gain possession of the land. In 
 1608, Champlain penetrated in a new direction within the territory of 
 the present United States. 
 
 On the 3d of July, 1608, he reached Stadacona Quebec and 
 began, the next day, to build a fort near the spot where Jacques 
 Cartier had passed, nearly three quarters of a century before, the 
 winter of 1535-36. Champlain's adventurous spirit did not permit 
 him to remain long at rest, and in the intervals of his fre- 
 
 Champlain 
 
 quent voyages to and from trance, he was busy with new founds Q Ue - 
 discoveries, making charts of sea-coasts and river-courses, 
 taking minute notes of climate and the natural products of the country, 
 and writing narratives of all that befell him on land and sea. When 
 in the spring his fort at Stadacona was finished, the little colony 
 well established, their garden-plots laid out and carefully planted, he 
 had time to think of new adventures. With a few companions he 
 sailed up the great river, visiting its islands, entering the mouths of 
 its tributary streams, giving them names by which many of them are 
 known to this day. At the mouth of the Iroquois. now the Richelieu, 
 he met by appointment a party of natives on the war-path against 
 their enemies, the Iroquois. The river, he learned, came from a beau- 
 tiful lake, which his shallop could reach without difficulty. The 
 latter statement he soon found was not true, the Indians deceiving 
 him that they might lure him on to take part in their expected battle. 
 Disappointed but not discouraged, he persuaded two of his men to go 
 on with him, and sent the rest back to Quebec with the vessel. 
 
 They made the somewhat perilous passage safely, without losing 
 a single canoe, landing where the falls were highest and carrying 
 their frail boats on their backs, till they came to smoother Diflcover y 
 water. It was early in July when they entered the lake "4a^plain. 
 dotted with many beautiful islands and surrounded with 1609- 
 noble trees, many of them, Champlain observed, like those of his native 
 France, on which hung vines as luxuriant as he had ever seen any- 
 where. Coasting the lake he saw to the east some lofty mountain 
 peaks, still snow-covered under the July sun. In the secluded valleys 
 
 VOL. I. 21 
 
322 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 among these mountains lived the fierce Iroquois, who had fertile plains 
 rich in corn and other natural products. After a sail about the lake 
 Cham plain gave it his own name, the only instance, he records, in 
 which he had thus arrogated to himself the honor of his discoveries. 
 
 Several days passed before their foes, the Iroquois, made their ap- 
 pearance. It was in the dusk of the evening when they came to the 
 banks of the lake, and all night the two parties taunted and defied 
 each other for the fight which was to take place when the next day's 
 sun should rise. But the party of savages who counted on the assist- 
 Fightot ance of Champlain and his companions, kept their white 
 the Indians. . (l \\\ es carefully concealed. Next day they formed in ranks 
 and approached to within about two hundred feet of the Iroquois, who 
 awaited them firmly. At that point they opened their ranks to give 
 passage to Champlain, who advanced to the front and discharged his 
 harquebus, wounding two of the enemy, who, astonished at such an 
 appearance and its effect, fled in fright and disorder to the woods, 
 pursued by the delighted victors. 
 
 After this battle Champlain returned to Quebec, where he con- 
 tinued governor until its surrender to the English admiral Kertk in 
 1629. He was reinstated in the office when it again fell into the 
 hands of the French, and from that time continued to command there 
 till his death in 1635. 
 
 Meanwhile a second attempt was made by the French to obtain a 
 
 settlement on the coast of Maine. In the autumn of 1605, De Monts 
 
 sailed for France, promising to send out supplies to the Port 
 
 tempts of Royal Colony. But during his absence prejudice had been 
 
 De Monts. - , . TT- i -i 
 
 aroused against him as a Huguenot. His exclusive privilege 
 of fishing the king had revoked, and the merchants did not care to 
 invest in a venture which promised small returns. After many dif- 
 ficulties, however, he procured an outfit, and set sail on May 13, 1G06, 
 not arriving at Port Royal till July 27, but just in time to prevent 
 the worn-out settlers from returning to France. Still desiring to find 
 a more southerly place for his colony, he despatched Pontrincourt on 
 the old route along the New England coast, and returned to France. 
 Off Cape Cod Poutrincourt's vessel was stranded upon a shoal, and 
 three of his men were killed by the natives, who manifested great 
 hostility. The weather also proving unfavorable he put back, and 
 reached Port Royal about the middle of November. Champlaiu 
 and the other gentlemen received him with great joy, and a butt of 
 the best Burgundy 4% made their caps spin round." 
 
 In the midst of their spring planting a vessel arrived with the un- 
 welcome news that no more men nor supplies could be furnished, and 
 that the colony must be disbanded. Port Royal was left uninhabited 
 
1613.] 
 
 THE FRENCHMEN AT MT. DESERT. 
 
 323 
 
 till 1610, when Poutrincourt returned at the instance of the king to 
 make the new settlement a central station for the conversion of the 
 Indians, a work which made some Jesuit missionaries prominent in 
 the history of the New World. His son followed in 1611, with Fathers 
 Pierre Biard, and Enemoud Masse. Madame la Marquise de Guer- 
 cheville, a pious Catholic, to whom De Monts had ceded his title to 
 Acadia, and to whom afterwards the French king granted the whole 
 territory now covered by the United States, was the chief patroness of 
 these voyages. Desir- 
 ing to make another 
 settlement, she des- 
 patched a vessel in 
 1613, with two more 
 Jesuits, Father Quen- 
 tin and Gilbert du 
 Thet, and forty-eight 
 men under La Saus- 
 saye, who intended to 
 reach a place called 
 Kadesquit (Bangor) 
 on the Penobscot. 
 This spot had been 
 selected by Father 
 Biard on a trip which 
 he made from Port 
 Roval to the Penob- 
 
 tt 
 
 scot. They reached 
 Port Royal on May 
 16, and taking Fa- 
 thers Biard and Masse 
 on board sailed for 
 their destination. 
 
 But such a fog en- 
 veloped them oft' Me- 
 nans (Grand Manan) 
 that they had to lie to for two davs ; when the weather cleared up 
 they saw the island which Champlain named Monts De- Mount D^. 
 serts, and which the Indians called Pemetig, which means ert- 
 " at the head," from its commanding position. The lifting fog dis- 
 closed Great Head, rising sheer from the ocean to buttress the forests 
 of Green and Newport mountains. On their right was the broad sheet 
 of water, since called Frenchman's Bay, extending far into the land. 
 Into this they gladly sailed, and dropping anchor inside of Porcupine 
 
 Great Head. 
 
 
. 
 
 324 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN" COMPANY. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 Island, effected a landing not far from the bar which gives its name to 
 a little harbor. There the broad flank of Green Mount, with New- 
 port just alongside to make a deep and still ravine, greeted the eyes 
 which sea-spray and the fog had filled. Eagle Lake lay buried in the 
 forest in front of them, and the wooded slopes stretched along to the 
 right as far as they could see. The islands with bronzed cliffs to sea- 
 ward, and bases honeycombed by the tide, wore sharp crests of fir and 
 pine. The American coast does not supply another combination so 
 striking as this, of mountains with their feet in deep ocean on every 
 side, lifting two thousand feet of greenery to vie with the green of 
 waves ; of inland recesses where brooks run past brown rocks, and 
 birds sing woodland songs as if their nests swung in a country remote 
 
 Bar Harbor. 
 
 from sea-breezes. Delicate ferns fill the moist places of the wood, 
 and the sea-anemones open in the little caverns where the tide leaves 
 a pool for them. Nature has scattered the needled pines, of shape so 
 perfect, from those of an inch high to the finished tree, artfully dis- 
 tributed in the open spaces. The Frenchmen hailed this picturesque 
 conclusion to their voyage, and named the place and harbor St. Sau- 
 veur. 
 
 Several Indian villages were on the island. A smoke rose as a sig- 
 nal that the men were observed ; they signalled with another smoke, 
 and the natives came to see them. Father Biard had met some of 
 them on the Penobscot. and now inquired the way to Kadesquit. 
 They answered that their place was better, and so wholesome that 
 sick natives in the neighboring parts were bi-ought thither to be 
 cured. But when Father Biard could not be persuaded, they belied 
 
1613.] 
 
 THE SETTLEMENT AT ST SAUVEUR. 
 
 325 
 
 their own sanitary praises, and begged the good father to come and 
 see their sagamore, Asticon, who was very sick, and like to die with- 
 out the sacrament. This wily stroke prevailed : they took him round 
 to the eastern shore of a bay, which is now called Somes's Sound, from 
 a Gloucester man who settled there in 1760. Great shell heaps still 
 indicate the site of Asticon's village. He only had an attack of 
 rheumatism ; so the father asked the natives to show him the place 
 which they esteemed to be so much better than Kadesquit. They 
 took him around the head of the Sound, to a grassy slope of twenty 
 or thirty acres, with a stream on each side, running down to the tide. 
 The bay was as still as a lake ; " the black soil fat and fertile, the 
 pretty hill abutting softly on the sea, and bathed on its sides by two 
 streams, the little islands which break the force of waves and wind." 1 
 
 Somes's Sound. 
 
 These islands are the Great and Little Cranberry, and Lancaster's. 
 The cliffs rise to a great height, and the water at their base is deep 
 enough for any ship to ride a cable's length from the shore. Xo won- 
 der that Father Biard thought no more of Kadesquit. They planted 
 the cross, threw up a slight entrenchment, and La Saussaye began to 
 plant, for the time was early in June. 
 
 But, unfortunately, the English in Virginia were used to cruise along 
 the coast as far as Pemaquid annually to catch fish. This 
 year Samuel Argall sailed on such a fishing voyage, some tact on the 
 accounts adding that he was sent by Dale, the governor, to 
 drive the French out of Acadia. Champlain says he had fourteen pieces 
 of artillery. When he reached Pemaquid, the savages, not intending 
 
 1 Father Biard's Rtlation. 
 
326 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 any harm, as the French and English were then at peace, gave him 
 to understand that Frenchmen had arrived at Mount Desert. They 
 attributed the excitement of Argall and his men to a pleased anticipa- 
 tion of meeting the French, and procuring some needed stores. So an 
 Indian volunteered to guide Argall to the French vessel. He, without a 
 challenge, summons, or word of explanation, bore directly down, "swift 
 as an arrow," says Biard, upon the French vessel, on the plea that it 
 was in waters covered by the patent of the Virginia Company, and 
 opened fire. Only ten men were on board the vessel, the rest being scat- 
 tered on shore. The sails had been 
 
 *^ . 
 
 converted into deck-awnings, and the 
 anchor was fast on the bottom, so that 
 by no sea manoeuvre could they evade 
 the attacking vessel. No gun- 
 ners were on board ; Du Thet 
 undertook to serve one of the 
 guns, and fired once wildly, 
 when he was mortally wounded 
 
 ., 
 
 - 
 -:" 
 
 ' 
 
 Argall's Attack on the French 
 
 
 by a musket shot. The vessel surrendered, the Englishmen landed 
 and began to search the tents. Argall, finding La Saussaye's desk, 
 broke it open and took out his royal commission, then locked the 
 desk, and when he returned coolly asked him for his papers. Of 
 course they were missing ; then Argall, pretending that he was an 
 impostor, with no title to fish, trade, or settle, gave his soldiers license 
 to plunder, which they did thoroughly in a couple of days. After 
 the death of Du Thet, who lingered for a day, the other Jesuits 
 remonstrated with Argall, and declared that they were on a genuine 
 mission, approved by their king. " Well," said he, " it is a great pity 
 that you have lost your papers." 
 
 La Saussaye, Father Masse, and a dozen men were turned loose in 
 
1G14.] DESTRUCTION OF FRENCH SETTLEMENTS. 327 
 
 a boat to find their way to Port Royal. Near the coast they were 
 met by two fishing vessels which carried them to France. Father 
 Biard and the rest of the company were carried to Virginia ; and as 
 Argall began by representing that they had sailed without a commis- 
 sion, they were lodged in jail, where they were so badly treated, and 
 threatened with death, that Argall became frightened, and told Sir 
 Thomas Dale, the Governor, that he had taken La Saussaye's commis- 
 sion : they were then released. 
 
 Argall's conduct was approved at Jamestown. The governor 
 sent him back, with his own vessel and the French prize, to 
 destroy all the settlements in Acadia. He landed again at of Vrench n 
 Somes's Sound, cut down the French cross, set up another 
 with the English arms, and obliterated every trace of the settlement. 
 Then sailing to the island of St. Croix, he burned all the vacated 
 buildings there and carried off a stock of salt. His next point was 
 Port Royal, where Biencourt, Poutrincourt's son, who was incapable of 
 making any effective resistance, tried to buy Argall off by proposing 
 to divide the trade with him. But Argall executed his commission. 
 He "destroyed the fort and all monuments and marks of French power 
 at Port Royal. He even caused the names of De Monts and other 
 captains, and the fleurs-de-lys, to be effaced with pick and chisel from 
 a massive stone on which they had been engraved." 1 In one of his ves- 
 sels were the three Jesuits who had been taken to Virginia. On their 
 return, the vessel in which they sailed became separated from Argall's 
 in a storm, and driven to the Azores, whence they found their way to 
 England, and then to France. Thus not a Frenchman was left upon the 
 coast of Maine, nor a single cross to signify priority of possession. 
 
 After this expedition of Argall and his ruthless work of destruction 
 at Mount Desert, the next English navigator of any note who visited 
 Maine was Captain John Smith, who in 1614 came thither 
 with two ships fitted out by some London merchants. As in xe t-.ng- 
 usual, a search after rich mines was announced as one of the 
 chief objects of the adventure, but it easily and naturally turned to a 
 fishing and fur-trading voyage. Several ships were drying and pre- 
 paring their fish upon the coasts when Smith arrived among them, and 
 his own sailors, expert in this sort of work, readily took in a cargo. 
 " Is it not pretty sport," writes Smith, in his narrative of the voyage, 
 " to pull up two pence, six pence, and twelve pence as fast as you can 
 haul and veere a line." 
 
 Smith did not spend all his time in trading and fishing, but leaving 
 most of his crew thus employed, he cruised along shore in a little boat, 
 drawing a map as he went from isle to isle, from harbor to harbor, 
 
 1 Beamish's History of Nova Scotia, vol. i., p. 58. 
 
328 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 marking all soundings, rocks, and landmarks. This map he took 
 home, and submitted to the prince, afterwards Charles I., who 
 gave to the country, at Smith's suggestion, the name of New England. 
 Smith had sailed with two ships, and on his return left one behind 
 Indians kid- to finish lading. They took a good cargo of fish, but not 
 satisfied with that, the ship-master, Thomas Hunt, seized 
 twenty-seven 1 of the savages, it is supposed in Plymouth 
 Bay, and carried them captive to Spain, whither he went to dispose 
 of his cargo. There he sold his fish at an excellent profit, and sold 
 also his Indian prisoners as slaves. Through the benevolent efforts 
 
 napped by 
 
 Captain 
 
 Hunt. 
 
 Cod-fishine. 
 
 of a brotherhood of Spanish friars, some of the savages were rescued 
 and sent to London, and thence to their native country. 
 
 Smith's characteristic enthusiasm was greatly excited by the value 
 
 of the fishery on the coast he had visited. He commended that staple 
 
 to the consideration of English merchants, and argued that 
 
 forced- fish, although it might seem a " mean and base commodity," 
 
 had yet made the fortunes of so thriving a state as Holland. 
 
 He also made an able plea for colonisation in New England, declaring 
 
 that those who undertook the matter could, with sense, discretion, and 
 
 perseverance, get rich. " For I am not so simple," he says, " as to 
 
 think any other motive than wealth will ever erect a commonwealth, 
 
 or draw company from their ease and humors at home, to stay in New 
 
 1 Accounts differ as to the number of the kidnapped Indians, but Smith's Description oj 
 New England says twenty-seven. 
 
1617.] RICHARD VINES AT WINTER HARBOR. 329 
 
 England, to effect my purposes." And he therefore urged earnestly 
 the great commercial value of fur and fish, so abundant there. In a 
 letter written to Lord Bacon, in 1618, to commend the fisheries to his 
 care, he says that he had made a fishing voyage two years previous 
 with only forty -five men, 1 and had cleared .1,500 in less than three 
 months on a cargo of dried fish and beaver skins- This would be a 
 good catch even* for a fisherman of the present day, for a pound ster- 
 ling in Lord Bacon's time had more value than twenty-five dollars of 
 our money of the present day, so that John Smith's three months' ven- 
 ture brought in an amount nearly equal to 40,000. 
 
 He made an attempt to go again to New England in 1615, but was 
 driven back to port by storms ; on starting out a second time he was 
 captured by French pirates, and only reached England after much de- 
 lay and ill fortune. His energy in fighting against adverse circum- 
 stances seems for the first time to have deserted him, for we hear no 
 more of any attempt at new adventures, though he never lost his in- 
 terest in the New World.l? In the same year of this second attempt of 
 Smith's, Richard Hawkins, who was made president of the voyage of 
 Plymouth Company, sailed to the coast of New England, but Richard 
 
 Hawkins. 
 1615. 
 
 found so serious a war raging among the savages that he left 
 
 those parts, going south to Virginia, and afterwards to Spain, where 
 
 he sold his cargo, and thence returned to England. 
 
 Finding himself not seconded by any other of the Company, Gorges 
 sent out, at his own expense, Richard Vines to make a set- Richard 
 tlement. This heroic man spent the winter of 1616 and Vtoe8- 
 1617 in Saco Bay, at a place called Winter Harbor. A pestilence 
 which depopulated all the Indian tribes between the Penobscots and 
 the Narragansetts had broken out. Vines, who was a physician, had 
 no thought of deserting his post, though his vessels offered an easy 
 escape ; he tended the Indians with assiduous kindness, and after- 
 wards, when he ventured into the interior, the savage gratitude pre- 
 ceded him, and he was everywhere received with hospitality and rever- 
 ence. Through all the raging of this disease among the Indians, he 
 and his men often lying in the cabins with sick and dying, not one 
 of them, it is narrated, ever felt so much as a headache, but retained 
 uninterrupted health. 
 
 Vines was absorbed in trade, discover)', and the cultivation of 
 friendly relations with the Indians. The dismal winter, 
 which devastated so many native wigwams, was used by vines m the 
 him to make the whole coast better known to the English. 
 
 1 This was very likely the voyage of 1614, as the date of the letter probably referred to 
 its publication, and there is no record of any voyage accomplished by Smith after 1614, 
 This was a very profitable cargo, as he says Hunt sold his fish " at forty reals a quintal, 
 each hundred weighing two and a half quintals." 
 

 330 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 He had no fear of the savages, for he ventured in a canoe up the 
 valley of the Saco River to its source, that trickles through that nar- 
 row gap, or Crawford's Notch, the sad gate by which so many white 
 people were subsequently taken into Canadian captivity. He was 
 
 the first to describe the 
 White Mountains, if 
 not tlie first to reach 
 them. To him also 
 belongs the honor of 
 restraining traders 
 from debauching the 
 Indians with r u m . 
 Thus he favored a 
 kind of Maine Law be- 
 fore Maine existed. 
 The E nglish m i g h t 
 have traced to rum the 
 gradual deterioration 
 of the native temper 
 of the Abnakis, from 
 which they were the 
 first to suffer in the 
 frontier raids ; it ex- 
 asperated courage to 
 ferocity, and embit- 
 tered every pi-aetice of 
 savage warfare. Rum 
 never made the In- 
 dian good-natured. 
 He became something 
 appalling, a concentration of the cruel and mocking rage of many 
 men, as soon as liquor filled his veins. 
 
 The post of Gorges, as governor of Plymouth, seems to have been 
 especially favorable to catch all the news, and receive all the wonders 
 which the line of returning ships brought to England from her pos- 
 sessions in the New World. The governor had begun by 
 questioning the first Indian captives whom Wey mouth had 
 brought him, about the country from whence they came, 
 and he seems to have regarded them as most useful allies in discovery. 
 Thus it happened again that some of the natives who were kidnapped 
 were sent to him to dispose of, either to be retained in his keeping 
 or returned on the ships that he fitted out for America. One of these 
 Indians, named Epenovv, a savage of " goodly and brave aspect," who 
 
 Richard Vines at Crawford Notch. 
 
 The Indian 
 captives of 
 Uorgea. 
 
1619.] EXPEDITIONS OF FERDINAXDO GORGES. 331 
 
 had been exhibited in London as a curiosity, came into Gorges' hands, 
 and was sent by him as guide and interpreter in an expedition sent 
 in 1614, fitted out by himself and the Earl of Southampton. 
 
 But the wily Epenow was restless in captivity. He quietly bided 
 his time, and no sooner was he in his native land than he EpenoW) _ 
 planned with his savage kinsfolk, who came out in their ^mThe 1 ** 
 canoes to visit the ship, to make his escape. Though strictly Eu 8 l1811 
 watched, and clad in long coats, to be easily laid hold of if he should 
 attempt to escape, he suddenly leaped off the ship, one day, when 
 standing between two men who were acting as his guards, and once in 
 the water easily reached the shore. 
 
 Another of these savages, named Tisquantum, or Squanto, one of 
 those whom Thomas Hunt had sold in Spain, was shipped 
 to Newfoundland, where Captain John Mason was governor 
 of an English plantation. Here, in 1618, Squanto met with a Captain 
 Dermer, who had sailed with Smith in one of his vo} r ages. Dermer 
 wrote to Gorges that if he would send him a commission in New 
 England, he would go there from Newfoundland, taking Squanto 
 with him. Gorges responded by sending out Captain Rocroft, who 
 had before been in Virginia. 
 
 Rocroft was ordered to go to New England only, but he had barely 
 reached the coast when he overhauled a bark, commanded 
 by a Frenchman, from Dieppe, and enriching himself witli croft in vi r - 
 what lie found on board, sailed for Virginia. Here he fell ' 
 in with some boon companions, quarrelled with them, and was killed. 
 His vessel, left to drift without a captain, was lost, and although 
 some of the cargo was saved, no part of this venture ever came back 
 to Gorges. 
 
 In the mean time, Dermer, disappointed in his hopes of getting 
 a ship in Newfoundland, returned to Plymouth to confer 0aptll j nDer . 
 with the governor and get his commission. Gorges hurried ^thv'nor- 
 him back in a ship of his own which happened to be in port. *** 1 
 Dermer left his ship at the island of Monhegan, and in an open pin- 
 nace explored the coast in 1619 from Maine to Virginia. At Mar- 
 tha's Vineyard he met Epenow, who told the story of his escape with 
 much merriment. Thence Dermer sailed through Long Island Sound, 
 the first Englishman who discovered that inland passage, lost an 
 anchor in the rapids of Hell Gate ; acquired, as lie believed, certain 
 knowledge from the Indians of a passage to the South Sea ; and went 
 out to sea again through the Narrows. He may have thought the 
 Hudson river to be the channel which the Indians assured him they 
 knew. If so, when he returned the next season in search of it, he 
 was, very likely, better instructed by the Dutch whom he found on 
 
332 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 Manhattan Island. He seems, at any rate, to have said nothing more 
 about the South Sea, to have gone again to Virginia, and to have died 
 there soon after. 
 
 In the mean time the Northern Company, of which Gorges was the 
 charter of most active member, had never been satisfied with their 
 rights under the charter which connected them with the 
 y. 1620. g ou th Virginia Company, and in 1620 urged their claims 
 to a new patent so strongly that it was granted them by the king. 
 
 This defined their territory as that land 
 from the 40th to the 48th degree 
 of latitude. Against this charter 
 the Virginia Company loudly remon- 
 strated, because, according to Gorges's 
 
 Signature of Ferdinando Gorges. . , . , ,, . 
 
 account, " they were debarred the inter- 
 meddling within our limits who had formerly excluded us from having 
 to do with theirs." l The dispute was referred to a committee of 
 Parliament, before whom Gorges appeared three times to argue the 
 rights of the Plymouth Company, and, on the third hearing, being 
 called to state the case, he made a speech so sensible and so eloquent, 
 urging the value of the fishing trade, which, even while they were 
 disputing on boundaries, might be monopolized by French or Hol- 
 landers, that most who heard him were satisfied with his representa- 
 tion, and in spite of the strong influence held by the Virginia Com- 
 pany, the king could not be induced to revoke his patent. 
 
 Their charter being thus confirmed, the Plymouth Company felt 
 Grant to themselves on a sure basis, and more than ever Gorges was 
 AieMndiT inclined to redouble his attempts at settlement in the new 
 1621 lands. The company in 1621 made a grant to one of the 
 
 Scotch favorites of James I., Sir William Alexander, afterwards 
 made Earl of Stirling, a man of some literary fame both as a drama- 
 tist and a writer of sonnets. This grant was called Nova Scotia, 
 and extended from Cape Sable to the St. Lawrence, including Cape 
 Breton, and all the islands within six leagues. It will be seen that 
 this grant encroached on the French dominion of Acadia, which still 
 stretched its indefinite boundaries about that region. The French 
 then and thenceforth, until the final settlement between France and 
 England, claimed, and largely maintained their claim, to all the 
 territory east of the Penobscot and north to the St. Lawrence ; the 
 English held their right to all west of the Kennebec. The land 
 lying between was disputed territory, which neither was fully able 
 to hold. Alexander's design was to people all his territory with his 
 own countrymen, who should present a firm barrier of Scotch Presby- 
 1 Gorges's Narrations, Maine Hist. Coll., vol. ii. 
 
1623.] THE LACONIA GRANT. 333 
 
 terianism to the Catholicism which the French settlers had brought 
 thither. 
 
 But the territory, including all the sea-coast of Maine, New Hamp- 
 shire, and Massachusetts, between the lands of Alexander and the 
 little Pilgrim colony just fastened on that rocky shore at Plymouth, was 
 still unoccupied. Ships, laden with fish, furs, and timber, constantly 
 plied between England and its namesake in the New World. In one 
 year fifty ships came into English ports from these parts with profit- 
 able cargoes of these homely exports, and the value of their American 
 possession began to be clearly recognized by the Company, even though 
 no mines like those of Mexico and Peru were found there. Early in 
 1622, Gorges for the first time got a special grant for himself from the 
 Company of which he was so indefatigable a member. He joined with 
 him John Mason, also a member of Plymouth Company, who had 
 been, says Gorges, governor of a plantation in Newfound- The ^^.^^ 
 land, and was a man of action and experience. This grant Grant - 1623 - 
 the two owners named Laconia ; it embraced the region between 
 the Merrimack and Kennebec, stretching back to Canada and the 
 great lakes. The year their grant was confirmed, 1623, they sent 
 over a ship-load of settlers,- half fishermen and half planters, with 
 all necessary tools and provisions, to make a permanent <^ ttlement 
 settlement. They sailed in the spring, and debarked at ^^"Jn,, 
 the mouth of the Piscataqua. There they divided into two 1623 
 parties. One of these stopped at a pleasant place, which was named 
 " Strawberry Bank," where the white blossoms of the wild straw- 
 berry spreading over the land gave promise of fruitful farms, and 
 the close proximity of the sea made it easy for the fishermen at any 
 time to take to their boats. There they built a rude house for gen- 
 eral occupation, and went to work at once to furnish means for cur- 
 ing the fish, which was to be their staple product, by erecting salt- 
 works. This was the site of the old town of Portsmouth, New Hamp- 
 shire. The other party went up the river a few miles, and began the 
 plantation of Dover. These two towns were the first decided fruits of 
 Gorges's work of colonization. 
 
 Almost simultaneously with the beginning of these settlements 
 another enterprise was begun by the Plymouth Company. 
 
 rr,, , J J . . , . / Governor- 
 
 Inere was as yet no general government instituted in its general of 
 
 j . , , T . . the Plym- 
 
 terntories, and it was therefore decided to appoint a gov- outacom- 
 ernoi'-general over their whole domain, who should go in 
 person to America, and establish such laws and government as should 
 be in conformity to those of England. Robert Gorges, a son of Fer- 
 dinando, was thus appointed in 1623, and a large grant of land on 
 Massachusetts Bay, of three hundred square miles, was given him by 
 
Robert 
 Gorges. 
 
 334 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 the Company of Plymouth. He had for his assistants Captain West 
 and Captain Christopher Levett, both of whom had been in New 
 England, and also the governor of the New Plymouth Colony already 
 established on lands near his own grant. Gorges went first 
 to New Plymouth to confer with its governor, and was hos- 
 pitably received. The wife of Robert Gorges was a daughter of the 
 Earl of Lincoln, who felt so much interest in Puritan emigration, 
 and Gorges, probably, had no special hostility to the religious senti- 
 ments of the New Plymouth colony, and held most amicable rela- 
 tions with the Pilgrim fathers. But he did not like the country, and 
 only remained there till the spring of 1624, when he took ship and 
 went up the coast to the mouth of the Piscataqua, where he was to 
 meet Captain Levett. He soon after went back to England and never 
 
 View at the Mouth of the Piscataqua. 
 
 returned to America. His brother, John Gorges, succeeded him in his 
 rights there, and in his turn made over this grant to William Brere- 
 ton, who established several families in the lands originally given to 
 Robert Gorges. 
 
 Captain Levett, now one of the assistants of the newly appointed 
 governor-general, had shortly followed his chief from England, and 
 met him at the mouth of the Piscataqua. Here Mr. David Thomp- 
 son, one of the planters who had settled in Portsmouth the year be- 
 fore, already had a successful plantation ; both Gorges and Levett 
 were his guests. Captain Levett made an interesting exploration of 
 Levetfs Maine in the region of the Sagadahoc, looking for a place for 
 ages. 1623. permanent settlement. He had the true spirit of an adven- 
 turer, and relates cheerfully, that after sleeping night after night on 
 
1G30.] SETTLEMENTS IN MAINE. 335 
 
 the wet ground, he was filled with content at getting dried grass 
 for his bed ; and recounts with much merriment the story of the 
 beggar, who said if he were rich he would have every day" a breast of 
 mutton with a pudding in it, and sleep up to his neck in dry straw. 
 
 Levett finally built a house at a place he called York, somewhere 
 near the present site of that town, in Maine, and then returned to 
 England, where he printed an account of all that he had seen and 
 done, and specially commended to the attention of merchants the rich 
 products of the country and sea-coasts, in timber, furs, and codfish, 
 ending with the wholesome advice that no man go to the country 
 unless he was willing to work. He declares that a man with a family 
 who were unfit to labor would do better to stay at home with them ; 
 but he that could work and had not too many hostages to fortune in 
 the shape of wife and children, if he went out properly equipped with 
 tools, and enough provisions to last till he was prosperously estab- 
 lished, was certain to get rich in New England. 
 
 In all these attempts no permanent plantation which could fairly 
 be called a settlement had been made on the coast of Maine. 
 Although a large part of the Laconia grant was within fniimuT^f 
 the present limits of that State, yet the first expedition sent 
 by Mason and Gorges had established itself on the other side of the 
 river, which was to form the boundary of New Hampshire. As Lev- 
 ett explored the coast, although he found many fishing stations, and 
 mentions several large tracts that had been granted to English 
 owners, he speaks of no settlements west of the Piscataqua after he 
 left the hospitality of Mr. Thompson's plantation. There were some 
 scattered beginnings on Monhegan Island, and several fishing stages 
 for the cure of the fish, some of which afterward formed the nucleus 
 of a town ; and it is not unlikely that solitary plantations may have 
 been begun, of which we have no record, along that coast which 
 furnished resting places and harbors for so many fishing vessels, and 
 from whence so much tall timber had already been carried away. In 
 1625, two wealthy merchants of Bristol, Robert Aldworth and Giles 
 Eldridge, bought Monhegan Island, and sent over an agent to settle 
 there ; a year later they bought the point of Pemaquid, which had 
 already been sold by Samoset, the friend of the New Plymouth colo- 
 nists, to an English purchaser, and there thev established a flourishing 
 colony, which in 1630 numbered eighty-four families. 
 
 In this same year 1630, the Plymouth Council gave Richard 
 Vines and John Oldham, each a tract of land on the Saco settlements 
 River, four miles broad on the sea, and extending eight ^ d vSn^ u , 1 
 miles up into the land. Oldham had been six years in the on the! * co 
 country, and Vines's coming must certainly date thirteen or fourteen 
 
336 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 years earlier. 1 These two men founded the towns of Biddeford 
 and Saco, on their tract, which faced each other on opposite sides of 
 the river. These were the most decided beginnings of settlements in 
 Maine. No such well-defined towns were built in this as in the other 
 colonies, and to this want of centralization and concentration Maine 
 owed in part its relation afterwards as a dependency of Massachusetts. 
 Its scattered settlements were unable to preserve for it a separate ex- 
 istence when its stronger neighbor prepared to include it in her more 
 powerful organization. 
 
 In 1629, when the settlements in Laconia on the Piscataqua were 
 Gorges and S1X years old* Mason and Gorges divided their grants into 
 vldTtheir t wo P^'ts, the former taking all west of the Piscataqua, and 
 grant - naming it New Hampshire, Mason being then governor of 
 
 the County of Hampshire, England, and the latter all east of that 
 stream, to the River Sagadahoc, the eastern boundary of Laconia. 
 Gorges named his part of the territory New Somersetshire, from the 
 county which had been his early home. For this new tract, now 
 solely his, he sent his nephew William Gorges and othei-s. " with 
 craftsmen, for the building of houses, and erecting of saw-mills," also 
 cattle, laborers, and servants, and the foundation of a plantation was 
 laid. This was the town of York, on which a planter named Edward 
 Godfrey was the first settler. On this, Gorges had set aside an in- 
 heritance for his grandson Ferdinando, of 12,000 acres, and it seems 
 to have been his favorite point for the establishment of a proprietary 
 interest for his family in New England. 
 
 But already bitter complaints were made in England, that discon- 
 tented spirits full of disaffection to the king, and hostile to 
 
 pany resign the government of the established church, were settling on 
 I635 rp * the grants made by the Plymouth Company. Gorges, in 
 New England, was looked upon with jealous}' and dislike by many of 
 the Puritans, because of his large territorial claims in their vicinity, as 
 well as on account of his opinions as a loyalist and member of the 
 English Church ; on the other hand he was attacked in England as an 
 upholder and author of the reputed license of laws and opinions 
 among the new colonies in Massachusetts. He seems to have been 
 deeply hurt at this, after his long and arduous work in forwarding the 
 plantation of English colonies in New England, and he " therefore 
 was moved to desire the rest of the lords, that were the principal 
 actors in this business, that we should resign our grand patent to the 
 king, and pass particular patents to ourselves, of such parts of the 
 
 1 There is a doubt about the exact time of Vines's first coming. Prince, in his Chronol- 
 ogy, says it was the winter of 1616-17, but Gorges, in his narrative, puts it after the attempt 
 at settlement by the Pophain Colony, and just before one of the voyages of 1614. 
 
1635] DIVISION OF THE COMPANY'S LANDS. 337 
 
 country about the sea-coast as might be sufficient to our own uses, and 
 such of our private friends as had affections to works of that nature." J 
 This was done in 1635, and the lands of the Company, lying between 
 the forty-eighth and thirty-sixth degree of latitude, were parcelled out 
 among its members. 2 
 
 This new division confirmed the right of Gorges to the tract lying 
 between the Piscataqua and the Kennebec, with a sea-coast 
 
 The terri- 
 
 of sixty miles, and an extent of one hundred and twenty ton- of 
 miles inland. And now for the first time, he called this his 
 province of Maine, 3 and he drew up for it a code of laws, dividing the 
 land first into counties, subdividing these into hundreds, and again 
 into parishes or tithings, as fast as population flu wed in to fill up the 
 vacant places. He offered also to transport planters to his domain, 
 promising to assign them a certain portion of land at the low rate of 
 two or three shillings for a hundred acres, and if any would found 
 a town or city, he would endow it with such liberties and immun- 
 ties as they would have in England. Others of poorer condition, 
 who would go as laborers, should have as much land as they could 
 till, at the rent of four or six pence an acre, according to the situ- 
 ation. 
 
 The laws and government were a return to Saxon simplicit)', 
 the lord proprietary retaining ownership of the soil. In 1637, the 
 king gave Gorges a commission as governor of New England, to com- 
 pensate him for his strenuous efforts in colonization, and the many 
 losses he had suffered in these endeavors. He made preparations to 
 go to Maine, to assume the duties of this office, and see a country 
 in which he had so great an interest, but some accident prevented his 
 departure, and he never came to America. Three years later, he sent 
 
 1 Gorges's " Brief Narration," Maine Hist. CM., vol. ii , part 2, pp. 5, 7. 
 
 2 The divisions were : (1.) Between the St. Croix and Pemaquid, to William Alexander. 
 (2.) From Pemaquid to Sagadahoc, in part to the Marquis of Hamilton. (3.) Between the 
 Kennebec and Androscoggiu ; and (4.) From Sngadahoc to Piscataqua, to Sir F. Gorges. 
 (5.) From Piscataqua to the Naumkeag, to Mason. (6.) From the Naumkeag round the 
 sea-const, by Cape Cod to Narragansett, to the Marquis of Hamilton. (7.) From Narra- 
 gausett to the half-way bound, between that and the Connecticut River, and fifty miles up 
 into the country, to Lord Edward Gorges. (8.) From this midway point to the Connecticut 
 River, to Earl of Carlisle. (9 and 10.) From the Connecticut to the Hudson, to Duke of 
 Lennox. (11 and 12.) From the Hudson to the limits of the Plymouth Company's terri- 
 tory, to Lord Mulgrave. See Huhbard's Hist. N. E., Mass. Hist. Coll., Series 2, vol. v., 
 p. 228. Williamson's Hist. Maine, vol. i., p. 256. Gorges's " Brief Narration," Maine Hist. 
 Coll., vol. ii., p. 54. 
 
 8 Sullivan in Hist, of Maine, and others, say that the territory was called the Province of 
 Maine, in compliment to Queen Henrietta, who hail that province in France for dowry. 
 But Folsom, " Discourse on Maine," Maine Hist. Coll., vol. ii., p. 38, says that that province 
 in France did not belong to Henrietta. Maine, like all the rest of the coast, was known as 
 the " Maine," the mainland, and it is not unlikely that the word so much used by the early 
 fishers on the coast, may thus have been permanently given to this part of it. 
 VOL.. i. 22 
 
338 COLONIZATION UNDER NORTHERN COMPANY. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 over his kinsman Thomas Gorges, who came first to Boston, and after 
 a courteous reception by the governor there, went to take up his 
 abode at Agamenticus. 
 
 To Ferdinando Gorges more credit is due than has been always 
 The services acknowledged, for his persistent efforts to settle New Eng- 
 ter d of llttrac l an( l, and for his unswerving belief in the value of such a 
 Gorges. colony to the mother country. In the conflict of patents 
 and titles between him and the Virginia Company, and between 
 him and the colonists of Massachusetts Bay, his real and essential 
 services as the friend of colonization have been in some degree 
 lost sight of. As a staunch adherent to the Established Church, 
 he undoubtedly wished that those who should find homes in the 
 lands under his jurisdiction in the New World should be of the 
 faith of that Church in which he believed. But the jealousy with 
 which, for this reason, he was regarded, seems to have had no suffi- 
 cient ground ; for no sectarian narrowness prevented his being the 
 earnest friend of the Puritans of New Plymouth, and always desirous 
 of their success and welfare. If, indeed, the fear of him as a zealous 
 Churchman was quite sincere, it was, at least, no doubt increased by 
 a covetous jealousy of him as a patentee. As so often happens, the 
 contemporary estimate of his character, taking its form from the con- 
 victions and interests of those who made it, has survived, and is often 
 accepted as just by those who do not in the least sympathize with the 
 partial and narrow views which led to that judgment. Losing sight 
 of these, or taking them at their real value as the result of local and 
 temporary influences, the true place of Gorges is found among those 
 Englishmen whose far-sighted wisdom, zeal, and energies were de- 
 voted earnestly and unselfishly to the permanent settlement of his 
 countrymen upon this continent. He builded, perhaps, better than 
 he knew ; but, so far as he did know, he built with no narrow pur- 
 pose. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 . 
 
 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. SETTLEMENT OF NEW 
 
 AMSTERDAM. 
 
 COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE AND PROSPERITY OF THE DUTCH. THEIR INTEREST IN A 
 SHORT ROUTE TO INDIA. EARLY NORTHEAST VOYAGES. HENRY HUDSON EM- 
 PLOYED BY EAST INDIA COMPANY. His FIRST VOYAGE TO AMERICA. ENTRANCE 
 INTO NEW YORK BAY AND DISCOVERY OF THE HUDSON KIVER. His RETURN TO 
 ENGLAND. VOYAGE TO HUDSON'S BAY. THE DUTCH ESTABLISH TRADING-POSTS 
 AT MANHATTAN ISLAND. DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY CHARTERED. EMIGRA- 
 TION OF WALLOONS. SETTLEMENTS ON SITES OF ALBANY AND NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 ALONG the whole Atlantic coast of North America, there were, in 
 the early years of the seventeenth century, only three feeble Euro- 
 pean colonies established, that of the Spanish at St. Augustine, of 
 the English on the James River, and of the French in Acadia on the 
 shores of the Bay of Fundy. Yet more than a hundred years had 
 passed away since it was claimed that Cabot had run along this coast 
 for a thousand miles in an English ship ; and that only a few years 
 later Verrazano for the French, and Gomez for the Spanish, had visited 
 and named some of the most distinctive of its rivers, bays, and capes. 
 Of all the states of Europe, Spain alone had increased in wealth and 
 power from the discovery of the New World. Into her coffers, both 
 public and private, gold had poured in such enormous quantities from 
 the ravishment of Mexico and Peru, as to affect the relative value of 
 everything that was bought and sold among civilized people ; but 
 otherwise no other nation shared in this sudden wealth except as 
 their ships could spoil the Spaniards on the high seas. The Em- 
 peror Charles V. stamped upon his gold coin the device of the Pillars 
 of Hercules and the legend Plus Ultra ; but other powers saw as yet 
 little reason to boast that there was much for them beyond the west- 
 ern boundary of Europe. 
 
 That Spain had gained so much and other nations seemingly so 
 little, was owing partly to the poverty in gold and silver of the north- 
 ern regions ; partly to the failure to find the northwest passage to 
 the South Sea ; and partly to the absorbing interest of great political 
 and religious complications which agitated all Europe during much of 
 the sixteenth century. But there were secondary results of American 
 
340 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 discovery in the growth of commerce and navigation, the closer rela- 
 tions, whether hostile or friendly, between nations, the significance 
 of which was to be developed in the coming years of another era. 
 These, as they led the way in a certain degree to juster views of the 
 importance of the New World to the Old, so also, they brought an- 
 other power into competition with the other maritime states of Europe 
 for a share in the acquisition of a hemisphere. 
 
 When Charles V. resigned his Spanish possessions to his son, with 
 certain outlying kingdoms in Europe and that great and vague Plus 
 Ultra, a portion of them included a country small in extent, but al- 
 ready of extraordinary wealth and energy, a country of which the 
 
 Medal. Time of Charles V 
 
 favorite phrase of historians has always been that it had " wrested 
 its territory from the sea." This was the region occupied 
 
 The Nether- * 
 
 
 by the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands. Its people 
 had been busy for centuries in redeeming foot after foot of 
 swamp, and marsh, and submerged land, and surrounding the fertile 
 territory thus gained with dikes and defences against the ocean ; in 
 developing an agriculture which was amazing considering the re- 
 sources at command ; in establishing trades which even at this time 
 produced the highest results of any in Europe ; and in training, as 
 such means inevitably must, a race of prosperous, vigorous, and intel- 
 ligent citizens. It is easy to admit, without being carried away by any 
 enthusiastic admiration, that the material advancement of the country 
 at the time of Charles's abdication denoted the highest degree of 
 prosperity. The emperor is said, and probably without exaggeration, 
 to have derived two of the five millions of gold which formed his 
 annual revenue, from these little provinces alone. 1 They had become 
 leaders in the commerce of the world, and had gained much of the 
 trade that had been a great source of wealth to the southern nations 
 of Europe ; they had shown themselves powerful in war as well as in 
 1 Suriano MS., quoted by Motley, Rise of the Dutch RfpuMic, chap. i. 
 
1581.] WAR OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. 341 
 
 peace ; and their political institutions, in all those things where they 
 themselves controlled them, were liberal and enlightened not only for 
 the time, but might have been held so in a much later period. 
 
 It was dangerous to attempt to oppress or repress provinces like 
 these ; but Charles and Philip were among the most short- Policy of 
 sighted of their class of rulers. Charles had treated the f^ 1 "^ the 
 Netherlands with cruelty of every kind; he had extorted Netherlani18 - 
 from them enormous sums for schemes of personal ambition, besides 
 constantly drawing from them a revenue utterly disproportionate to 
 their place among his possessions ; he had interfered with their polit- 
 ical liberties and charters in every possible way ; repressed every at- 
 tempt to make their institutions as liberal as the intelligence of their 
 citizens required ; issued edicts disposing of their people as if they had 
 been born serfs ; and finally had established the Inquisition, where 
 Protestantism was rapidly becoming the prevalent faith. But it was 
 reserved for Philip to attempt to carry out his father's policy with a 
 still more terrible thoroughness, and with a bigotry which even 
 Charles did not bring into the work. He established a still more 
 elaborate tyranny in the provinces ; sent them governors each one of 
 whom was worse than his predecessor ; and finally, by setting over 
 them the brutal Alva, he roused the Netherlands into open war. 
 
 This war continued through the century, and soon assumed its true 
 character that of a war of independence. What was already the 
 wealthiest and strongest of the regions subject to Spain, became 
 through it one of the first of the self-sustained nations of Europe. 
 Bound together by the Union of Utrecht in 1579, and declaring their 
 entire independence in the memorable declaration issued at Waro{ the 
 the Hague on the 26th of July, 1581, the seven provinces y"^. 
 of Gelderland and Zutphen, Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, lands - 
 Friesland, Overyseel, and Groningen, states which had, at length, de- 
 termined to throw off all foreign rule, established the Republic of the 
 United Netherlands, and carried on the conflict against Spain not as a 
 rebellion, but as an independent power. It was apparently as unequal 
 a struggle as any recorded in history ; but the heroic pertinacity with 
 which it was continued was greater than the inequality of the combat- 
 ants. The little republic steadily gained ground through all discour- 
 agements. The murder of William of Orange, the great leader of his 
 people, only " hardened their stomachs," as Walsingham wrote, "to 
 hold out as long as they should have any means of defence." This 
 spirit brought about its inevitable results. Spain was slowly but very 
 surely taught the strength of it ; and more than forty years after the 
 time when Philip had sent Alva into his provinces, the independence 
 of the United Netherlands was acknowledged in a treaty which estab- 
 
342 
 
 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CiiAP. XIII. 
 
 lished a twelve years' truce, conceded virtual freedom of worship, and 
 practically granted to the Dutch great material advantages which had 
 long been in dispute. The seven provinces which had maintained the 
 long and unequal war, took their place as a united independent re- 
 public. 
 
 The new nation had not, however, won its independent existence 
 
 only by an ordinary struggle with arms ; it had used means which 
 
 were perhaps as important to the world at large as the ends which 
 
 they gained. It had defeated Spain almost literally by 
 
 Commercial . ' J . . . . * . 'I J 
 
 prosperity of virtue ot its wonderful commercial prosperity. .Provinces 
 that had been, fifty years before, a most thriving and im- 
 portant source of the riches of the state, had attained during the 
 
 Dutch Shipping. [16th Century.] 
 
 struggle to the commercial leader- 
 ship of the world. " In every branch 
 of human industry," says Motley. " these republicans took the lead. 
 . . . . But the foundation of the national wealth, the source of the 
 apparently fabulous power by which the republic had at last over- 
 thrown her gigantic antagonist, was the ocean." 1 He cites author- 
 ities to show that at this time the United Netherlands had nearly one 
 hundred thousand sailors in her service, and possessed three thousand 
 ships in her commercial and war fleets. 
 
 While its commerce in Europe was of very great importance, the 
 real golden prize which the new nation in the long conflict 
 trade. j ia( j a l mos t completely taken away from Spain, was the India 
 trade. So humiliating and disastrous was this loss to the Spaniards, 
 
 1 Motley, the United Ndlurlands, vol. iv., pp. 552, 553. 
 
 The East 
 
1594.] NORTHEAST VOYAGES. 348 
 
 that when by the treaty they were compelled practically to concede 
 the right of Eastern commerce to the Dutch, they did so in a secret 
 article, and in language that vainly sought to conceal the fact by inge- 
 nious circumlocution. For twenty years this trade had so increased, 
 and capital had flowed into it in such abundance, that it had returned 
 threefold to its owners. In 1602, seven years before the truce, the 
 Dutch East India Company, the first of great trading-monopolies, was 
 formed by the consolidation of several small corporations, its charter 
 granting it sole permission to trade for twenty-one years to the east 
 of the Cape of Good Hope, and to sail through the Straits of Mag- 
 ellan ; four years afterward it declared a dividend of seventy-five per 
 cent. The establishment of a similar company for trade to the West 
 Indies had been suggested some time before this, and small associations 
 for that purpose had even been formed ; but a renewed attempt in 
 1607 was put aside, for the time at least, by the States General. 1 
 With such interests as they had at stake in the East, it would have 
 
 / 
 
 been extraordinary if the government and merchants of the Nether- 
 lands had not been drawn sooner or later into the search for 
 the supposed short passage to India. They had not been pa*xe to 
 idle in the matter : and their first efforts, like all others, had 
 been confidently directed to the Arctic Seas. They had carefully 
 watched the English expeditions in both hemispheres ; but Linschoten, 
 perhaps their chief practical geographer, the study of whose life had 
 been paths of ocean navigation, and Plantius, another learned scholar 
 of the time, and many more, were firm believers in the theory that 
 the long-sought way lay to the northeast, through ice-bound regions, 
 about which the common people held as many wild superstitions as 
 ever the ancients had held about the ultimate bounds of their narrower 
 world. 2 
 
 In June, 1594, Willem Barentz, a pilot of Amsterdam, with four 
 vessels provided by the provincial and several city govern- 
 ments, the whole expedition being advised and furthered .vage by 
 by the geographers just named, and by others, sailed for 
 the Arctic region to the northeast. Barentz, separated from the 
 
 1 In 1591, according to the Dutch historians, William Usselincx of Antwerp had sug- 
 gested such a company. In 1597 Leyen of Enckhuysen and Peterszoou of Amsterdam, two 
 merchants, had formed small societies for West India trade. In 1607, the consideration of 
 renewed proposals of Usselincx was postponed by the States, lest the granting of another 
 large charter should prejudice the approaching negotiations with Spain. Compare Motley, 
 United Netherlands, vol. iv., pp. 298, 299, 300. Brodhead's History of the State of New York, 
 vol. i., pp. 21, 22, Dutch authorities cited. 
 
 2 Many of these fantastic notions of the north are detailed by Motley, United Netherlands, 
 vol. iii., pp. 553, 554, where they are repeated from several Dutch sources. Some believed a 
 region to exist there where perpetual summer reigned, and a cultured and happy race lived 
 in great comfort and order ; others peopled the Arctic lands with races of savages, half men 
 and half beasts, and with various terrible monsters. 
 
344 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 rest, reached and explored Nova Zembla ; while the others sailed into 
 the straits called the Waigats. They all returned before the winter. 
 Linschoten, the geographer, who had accompanied one of the ships, 
 was still sanguine that the northeast passage to India was possible ; 
 the hopes of the rest were somewhat dampened. Nevertheless the 
 enterprise was tried a second and a third time : the second expedi- 
 tion, in the summer and autumn of 1595, proceeded by way of the 
 Waigats, but was an utter failure, returning without result of any 
 kind ; while the third, in 1596, under Barentz, Heemskerk, and Van 
 der Kyp, penetrated beyond 
 the eightieth parallel, and dis- 
 covered and landed upon Spitz- 
 bergen. Barentz and Heems- 
 kerk, separating from the 
 
 Barentz at Nova Zembla. 
 
 other vessel, rounded Nova Zembla, and became imprisoned by the 
 ice near Ice Havenga Bay, to which Barentz had given the name. 
 They were kept here, enduring the greatest suffering, until the next 
 year ; and it was in endeavoring to escape from their imprisonment, 
 that Barentz finally yielded to the rigor of the climate and to priva- 
 tion, dying in his boat in June, 1597. His companions finally effected 
 their return ; but with this last failure much of the enthusiasm about 
 a northeastern passage died away. 
 
 These attempts show how fully prepared the Netherlander had 
 become, when their independence was finally acknowledged, and their 
 commercial prosperity had reached so great a height, to turn their 
 attention to a new region of the earth. The old pathways to India 
 were all their own ; they had thus far found the way effectually 
 barred to the northeast ; and, commercially at least, they might 
 
1607.] HENRY HUDSON. 345 
 
 naturally look for new worlds to conquer. The English voyages to 
 the west had been followed, as were all English undertakings, with 
 watchful and jealous eyes ; but the old delusion was still powerful : 
 it was only India upon which minds were fixed ; and we shall see how 
 it was only the action of one navigator that turned Dutch enterprise 
 toward the west at all. 
 
 Among the persons in intimate relations with the Muscovy Com- 
 pany of England, of which Sebastian Cabot was the governor, and 
 which had sent the expedition of Willoughby in search of a northeast 
 passage to India, was an experienced navigator, Henry Hudson. It 
 is quite likely that he was the lineal descendant of one of the found- 
 ers of that corporation, 1 and may, for that reason, have been held in 
 high esteem and trust by its members, and employed on other impor- 
 tant voyages before he went upon those by which he is best known. 
 He was probably a native, as he was a citizen, of London ; he was a 
 friend of Captain John Smith, and intimate with other adventurous 
 navigators of the time ; and no doubt from training and associations, 
 the aim of his life, as it was that of so many of his contemporaries, 
 was the discovery of a passage to the East, either by a northeastern 
 or northwestern passage. 
 
 The last expedition, under the direction of the Muscovy Company, 
 was commanded by Hudson. Sailing from Gravesend on IIenry Hud . 
 the first of May, 1607, he was instructed to proceed directly ^h/north? 
 across the pole. He steered northwest, and along the Green- east - 160; - 
 land coast to about the eightieth parallel, but could penetrate no far- 
 ther because of the ice, along the unbroken barrier of which he sailed 
 to the eastward, to the region of Spitzbergen. But he could nowhere 
 find an opening in the almost solid wall ; and late in the same year 
 he returned to England after a practically fruitless voyage. In the 
 early part of the next season he made another attempt, this time to 
 the northeast ; but the ice again stopped him near Nova Zeinbla, and 
 he made his way back with another report of ill success. 
 
 The Muscovy Company now abandoned for the time all further 
 effort. But the report of these two voyages had excited wide Hllllson in . 
 attention ; it was of just the nature to stimulate the enter- ^er- the 
 prise of the Dutch rivals of the English traders ; and the lands 
 navigator, who had proved himself, even in his failures, to be skilful, 
 brave, and of great energy and perseverance, had barely returned 
 from his second expedition when he received a new commission. The 
 Dutch East India Company's directors sent for him to come to Am- 
 sterdam. 
 
 1 See Historical Inquiry concerning Henri/ Hudson, his Relations and Early Life, Itis Connec 
 tion with the Muscovy Company, etc. By John Meredith Read. 
 
346 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 The directors resident at Amsterdam decided that before positively 
 engaging Hudson they must wait for the meeting of the Company's 
 Council of Seventeen, in the following year. But the repeated ex- 
 plorations undertaken by the Muscovy Company had aroused others 
 beside the East India Company. As soon as this delay was an- 
 nounced, Hudson was approached by a former officer of the corpora- 
 tion, who had now, however, left it and become a keen opponent of its 
 plans, one Le Maire, a French merchant in the Dutch city, who 
 at once sought to secure him for the service of France, and was aided 
 in this design by President Jeannin, French ambassador at the 
 ms contract Hague. 1 This attempt was all that was needed to spur the 
 Els'? India East India directors into immediate decisive action, and they 
 company. s ig ne d a contract with him on January 8, 1609. This paper 
 specified that the directors should furnish a small vessel to Hudson, 
 with the needed outfit, in which he was to sail as soon as the favor- 
 able season opened in April. He was to have a sum equivalent to 
 about three hundred and twenty dollars of our gold for his expenses, 
 and the support of his family during his absence ; and, should he not 
 return, his widow was to receive eighty dollars as an indemnity for 
 his loss. Should he find a practicable passage, he was to receive a 
 suitable reward, the clause promising this being only generally 
 expressed. 2 
 
 The old theory of the passage was rigidly adhered to, both in the 
 contract and in Hudson's detailed instructions. He was to search for 
 a passage " around by the North side of Nova Zembla," and he was 
 " to think of discovering no other routes or passages, except the route 
 around by the north and northeast above Nova Zembla." 3 
 
 Armed with memoranda of sailing instructions which had been 
 made by Barentz on hisfirst voyage, and with an ancient document 
 by a Greenland navigator, 4 Hudson made himself master of the whole 
 
 1 Nel/ociation du Pres. Jeannin, cited by Read, Hist. Ing., p. 140, and by Henry C. Miir- 
 phy, Hudson in Holland. 
 
 2 Mr. Henry C. Murphy, the most successful of inquirers into the history of Hudson's 
 voyage and matters connected with it, discovered a copy of this contract between Hudson 
 and the Chamber of Amsterdam, in the royal archives at the Hague. It is given, with the 
 full details of these negotiations, etc., in his Henry Hudson in Holland^ 
 
 8 Murphy's Hudson, p. 39, seq. 
 
 * This singular document had, in the translation used by Hudson, the following title: "A 
 Treatise oflvER BOTY, a Gronlnnder, translated out of the Norsh Language into High Dutch 
 in the yeere 1560. And after, out of Hiah Dutch, into Low Dutch, by WILLIAM BARENT- 
 SON of Amsterdam, who toas chiefs Pilot aforesaid. The same Copie in Hiah Dutch is in the 
 hands of IODOCVS HONDIVS, which I have seene. And this was translated out of Low Dutch 
 by Master WILLIAM STERE, Marchant, in the yeere 1608, for the use of one HENRI E HUDSON. 
 WILLIAM BAKENTSON'S Booke is in the hands of Master PETER PLANTIVS, who lent the 
 same to mf." The treatise contains a variety of quaint sailing directions and information 
 concerning the northern seas as known to Norse voyagers in the time before Columbus ; and 
 
1609.] HUDSON'S FIRST VOYAGE. 347 
 
 plan he was to carry out ; yet there are indications that even before 
 his departure probabilities in a very different direction had occurred 
 to him. In his long consultations with Plantius, the geographer, and 
 others, rude maps of regions far to the west were studied, and discus- 
 sions took place, in which the fixed belief of Plantius as to a north- 
 eastern route appears to have been called in question by Hudson. 1 
 
 On Saturday, the fourth of April, 1609, Hudson sailed from Am- 
 sterdam in a yacht or Vlie-boat 2 named the Half Moon, 
 with a crew of Dutch and English sailors, numbering, ac- of Hudson. 
 
 ,.~ . . . . April 4,1609. 
 
 cording to different authorities, sixteen, eighteen, or twenty 
 men, the smallest number probably being the true one. The vessel 
 was of eighty tons burden forty lasts by Dutch measurement and 
 had been most carefully equipped. By noon of Monday she was off 
 the Texel, and the voyage was fairly begun. She steered away to the 
 north, making up the Norway coast toward the North Cape, in literal 
 accordance with instructions to Hudson, and soon gained the regions 
 with which his previous explorations had made him more or less 
 familiar. 3 On the fifth of May he passed the northern extremity of 
 the main land, and sailed directly toward Nova Zembla ; but the sea 
 was filled with ice as it had been before, and he was not long in find- 
 ing his progress as effectually barred in this direction as it had been 
 in preceding voyages. His crew were discontented and insubordinate ; 
 it is said that some of them, used only to warmer climates, were un- 
 able to bear the cold of these high latitudes ; and besides, they were 
 of two nationalities, and seem to have quarrelled continually. 
 
 The obstacles thus put in Hudson's way to the northeast, seemingly 
 
 it further gives an accouut, conceded by northern antiquaries to he substantially correct, of 
 the Icelandic colonies in Greenland. It has an interest of its own apart from its connection 
 with these voyages; for its antiquity is undoubtedly very great, and it throws no little 
 light on the state of Greenland in the days of its settled condition. The Treatise of Boty 
 (or Bardsem, as he is generally called), has leen published with an introduction and notes, 
 by the Rev. B. F. De Costa, under the title of Sailing Directions of Henry Hudson, etc. 
 
 1 Van Meteren, Historie der Nederlanden, quoted by Re.-id, Historical Inquiry, p. 155, says 
 that Hudson showed Plantius a letter and maps of his friend Captain John Smith, in which 
 the latter explained that there was a sea leading into the Western Ocean nortli of the Eng- 
 lish colony. 
 
 2 From the river Vlie, where such boats were used. The name passed into the English 
 fly-boat. 
 
 8 Of this voyage we have several accounts, differing in no essential particular, but supple- 
 menting each other iu many ways. John de Laet, who published the Nleuwe Wertlt in 
 1625, made use in writing it of Hudson's own journal, which unfortunately has not been 
 preserved. Van Meteren's Historie der Nederlanden, published in 1614, contains mate- 
 rials which came to its author at first hand. But the most minute record of the voyage is 
 that made by Robert Juet, Hudson's former mate, who acted on this expedition as a cap- 
 tain's clerk, or kind of purser, and kept a precise and probably exceedingly accurate diary 
 of every matter of interest during the whole duration of the exploration. His account 
 appears in full iu Purchas, vol. iii. 
 
348 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 impassable bars to further discovery, confirmed his doubts of the im- 
 possibility of a northeastern passage, and led him to take a most 
 lie changes important step. In direct violation of his instructions, he 
 his course, offered his crew a choice between two courses. One was to 
 sail westward, and, making the American coast, to search for a pas- 
 sage where Captain John Smith had indicated the probability of one, 
 somewhere north of the English colony ; and the other was to keep 
 nearer the latitude they were in, and sailing directly to the west, to 
 try again at Davis's Straits. The first proposal was adopted, and on 
 May 14, nine days after rounding the North Cape, the Half Moon 
 was put about, and headed west by south. In two weeks she was 
 taking fresh water at the Faroe Islands, and in six she lay safely off 
 the banks of Newfoundland, the little vessel much the worse for her 
 encounters with those northern seas. 
 
 Hudson avoided a fleet of fishermen which lay off the bank ; and at 
 once made his way farther south and west. On July 12 he 
 
 Visit to the J . ' 
 
 coast of sighted the coast of the continent, and six days later an- 
 chored in one of the large bays on the coast of what is now 
 the State of Maine almost without doubt Penobscot Bay where 
 his crew were set to work upon repairs to the vessel. A new fore- 
 mast was brought from shore to replace the one the vessel had lost at 
 sea, and she was put into thorough order. But Hudson's stay here 
 was cut short by an incident which, with many other things in this 
 expedition, shows the lawless and buccaneering spirit of his crew. 
 As the Half Moon lay in the bay, two shallops filled with Indians ap- 
 proached her, their crews looking for peaceful trade with the stran- 
 gers, and such friendly intercourse as the French had everywhere 
 encouraged. But Hudson's men met them in another temper. Man- 
 ning a boat, they captured and carried off one shallop ; and then, in 
 pure wantonness, they armed two skiffs of their own with pieces 
 which deserved their name of " murderers," and attacked and plun- 
 dered the Indian village on the shore. The outrage fully warranted 
 a quick revenge ; and Hudson feared it, for on the same afternoon 
 the ship was dropped down to the entrance of the bay, and on the 
 next day (July 26), she was again under sail to the southwest. 
 
 Though within a week she went aground on what are now known 
 as St. George's Shoals, it was ten days before her crew sighted land 
 again ; this time at the north end of the headland of Cape Cod, 
 which Hudson, before he knew it to be Gosnold's Cape, promptly 
 named " New Holland." Some of the men landed here, for they 
 fancied they heard people calling from the shore, and that the voices 
 sounded like those of " Christians ; " but they came back after see- 
 ing none but savages, and the yacht again bore away to sea, passing 
 
1609.] 
 
 HUDSON'S FIRST VOYAGE. 
 
 349 
 
 Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, and once more making a straight 
 course to the southwest. 
 
 When Hudson made land again he was close by the entrance of 
 Chesapeake Bay. Just within it he might have found his 
 countrymen on the banks of the James, and have consulted 
 his friend Smith about that " sea leading into the western 
 ocean," of which the Virginian captain had written in the letter shown 
 to Plantius. Perhaps because they were his countrymen, while he was 
 in foreign service, he made no attempt to reach them, but sailed 
 away to the northward, following the trend of the coast, until he 
 
 Hudson's Attack on the Indian Village. 
 
 came to the capes of the great bay which a few years later was 
 named the Delaware. He tried to enter it, but unsuccessfully, for 
 the Half Moon drew too much water for its shallow bars ; so the 
 vessel again took up her northward course, and passed along a coast 
 that looked like " broken islands " the now familiar sand-banks 
 of New Jersey until, in the evening of the second of September, 
 the high hills of Navesinck were made to the northward, and the 
 vessel came to anchor near a shore that was " a pleasant land to see." 
 The night was fair, with little wind ; as morning came a thick 
 mist settled about them, and hid the pleasant coast from the explorers; 
 
350 
 
 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 KntiT.- the 
 lower hnr- 
 bor of New 
 York. 
 
 but when it bad lifted, toward noon of the 3d of September, and they 
 had made their way along the lung, curving sand-spit that 
 extended just beyond the hills near which they had lain, 
 they saw before them what they thought were three great 
 rivers. The northernmost seemed to them the broadest, but they 
 could not enter it because of the bar across its mouth ; and coin- 
 ing back to the deeper one the passage through which Verrazano's 
 boats, it is supposed, had passed nearly a century before into the 
 " most beautiful bay " the Half Moon floated slowly past the sandy 
 cape, and cast anchor, at nightfall, just within its shelter. 
 
 The Approach to the Narrows. 
 
 When the next morning dawned, the whole broad bay lay in view ; 
 and the explorers, little dreaming how their judgment was to be con- 
 firmed in centuries to come, decided, as they shifted their anchorage 
 to the greater security of the " Horseshoe " further inside Sandy 
 Hook, that it was " a very good harbour."' Across it, to the north, 
 they could see an island with low hills, beside which another great 
 river ran out from the land ; on the east the coast trended awav in a 
 
 f 
 
 long ridge ; and on the west a vast curve of low, wooded shore ex- 
 tended from where the Half Moon lay to the mouth of a third river, 
 barely in sight in the northwest. The wondering Indians crowded 
 the beach near by ; and though their own traditions represent them 
 as alarmed and troubled at the strangers' coming, they put off in their 
 canoes to the vessel, and seemed to the crew to welcome them with 
 delight. 
 
1609.] DISCOVERY OF THE HUDSON RTVER. 351 
 
 The boats, while the vessel lay at anchor, were busy in the ex- 
 ploration of the bay. On the 4th, a boat's crew put out to fish ; 
 and, according to an Indian tradition, landed on the long beach of 
 Congu, or Coney Island, the first Europeans who trod the shore of 
 the great New Netherland harbor. On the 6th, another crew rowed 
 across the broad expanse between the vessel and the more distant 
 island ; and passing through the " river " which we now call the Nar- 
 rows, explored the strait on the west side of the harbor, running be- 
 tween the island and the main, the " Kills " of later times. But 
 as they came back through these, past shores which were The Half 
 " as pleasant with grass and flowers, and goodly trees, as ever ^ 1 
 they had seen," they were set upon by two canoe-crews of Indiau8 
 Indians, who shot a flight of arrows at them, and then made off 
 under cover of the darkness of an approaching stormy night, leav- 
 ing an Englishman, John Colman, dead in the boat, and two others 
 wounded. 
 
 Losing their way in the night and storm, the diminished crew only 
 regained the vessel late in the morning of the next day. At noon 
 they buried the dead man in the sand on the beach, and gave to 
 Sandy Hook, in memory of him, the name of Colman's Point, a 
 title it did not long retain. The yacht was put in a condition of 
 defence, for no one knew whether the attack upon the boat was not 
 the prelude to general hostilities ; but though the Indians, during the 
 next few days, made some demonstrations that were interpreted by 
 the crew as hostile, nothing more serious happened. Two Indian cap- 
 tives were kept on the vessel, the men putting red coats upon them 
 and holding them as hostages ; but there was no attack. 
 
 The Half Moon had spent a week in the lower bay, her crew thus 
 exploring the shores and trading with the people, when Hudson, after 
 several times changing his anchorage, and drawing nearer the mouth 
 of the Narrows, decided to push on into the great river. 
 
 On the twelfth of September, an afternoon when it was very " faire 
 and hot " along the shores of the wooded islands that lay on either 
 side of the broad passage, his little vessel floated up with the floodtide, 
 through the quiet strait which her discovery was to make a thorough- 
 fare for the world. The hills of Staten Island were covered 
 
 ., - ., . ,, - , The Kills of 
 
 with " great and tall oaks, and " very sweet smells came staten 1*1- 
 from them ; " and the high terminal ridge of Long Island was 
 wooded to the water's edge. The channel probably seemed broader 
 than we see it, for its surface and shores were unbroken, and the inner 
 bay that lay before the explorers widened more gradually from the 
 strait than now. At the mouth of the Kills lay projecting rocks, 
 the present name of which is a corruption of the old title " Robyn's 
 
352 
 
 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 Robyn's Rift. 
 
 Rift," * that marked them as the favorite haunt of seals. The main- 
 land on the west was bordered by a broad marsh, as now ; but every- 
 where else the shore was 
 covered with trees, even at 
 the northern limit of the 
 view, where a few little 
 islands dotted the surface 
 near a rounded point, be- 
 side which opened still 
 further reaches of the 
 great river. The stran- 
 ger sailed across the 
 great and beautiful bay, 
 going up slowly with the 
 tide and anchoring at 
 night ; the people crowded 
 about her in canoes, and 
 brought corn and tobacco, " making show of love." 
 
 As the yacht entered the broad mouth of the river that stretched 
 
 away to the north in long still reaches over which " no Christian " had 
 
 ever sailed before, it is not strange that her crew were amazed 
 
 Sail up the . 
 
 Hudson at the strong current, and began its exploration with intense 
 curiosity as to where so vast a stream might lead them. 
 Their progress was slow. They floated with a light wind past the 
 long shore of Manhattan Island, then more wild and rugged than 
 any of the scenery that lay about it, its stony hills scantily wooded, 
 and its rough beach broken by rocky inlets. Beyond it the eastern 
 bank grew higher, and gentle in its slope ; but on the other side of 
 the stream the rocky palisades began, overlooking the lonely river and 
 towering above the solitary ship as though they shut out some still 
 stranger region of the silent country into which the discoverers were 
 following an unknown way. 
 
 When the river broadened into the great bays above the " Tap- 
 paan Zee " and " Haverstroo " of later New Netherland 
 Mnnn at the topography the voyagers sailed more fearlessly and rap- 
 idly ; the long cape or hook was passed which later Dutch 
 sailors called Verdrietig (tedious), because it remained so long in 
 sight ; but with the quickly narrowing current beyond, the land sud- 
 denly grew high and mountainous in what seemed the very path 
 of the vessel, and the scenery about her became darker and wilder. 
 As she passed, just before nightfall, through the narrow gap in the 
 mountains that had seemed to stand unbroken in her way, the lonely 
 i Robyn's Rift i. e. Seal Reef now called Robin's Reef. 
 
 
1609.] 
 
 DISCOVERY OF THE HUDSON RIVER. 
 
 353 
 
 Verdrietig Hoeck. 
 
 ship came into the heavy shadow of the great Donderberg, and 
 
 into the stillness which always lies, even now, over the long, dark 
 
 reach between the Hudson Highlands. As it grew dark, the explorers 
 
 anchored near where the high promontory of West Point extends into 
 
 the stream, the 
 
 densely wooded 
 
 mountains about 
 
 it making an 
 
 amphitheatre 
 
 through which 
 
 the river runs in 
 
 the deep shadows 
 
 of its sides. They 
 
 were in the midst 
 
 of an unbroken 
 
 wilderness such 
 
 as they had never 
 
 seen before ; and 
 
 the little yacht, 
 
 anchored at night, 
 
 with her lights 
 
 marking the one gleam of life in the silent expanse of river and 
 
 forest, might well have seemed to her crew to be strangely lost and 
 
 isolated in the darkness and stillness of a region unknown to civilized 
 
 men. 
 
 The morning following this first night in the Highlands was misty 
 and still ; and while the fog hid the river from view Hudson's two 
 Indian hostages slipped out of a port and swam quietly away ; but 
 when the weather cleared, and the Half Moon got under way, they 
 were seen on the shore, calling to the crew " in scorn." The yacht 
 passed on with a fair wind among the hills ; all day, indeed, she had 
 mountains in sight ; and at night anchored where the higher Catskills 
 lie a little back from the river side. Here the crew found " very lov- 
 ing people, and very old men ; " and lay for a day at anchor, filling 
 their casks with water, and bartering with the Indians for their corn, 
 pompions (pumpkins), and tobacco. 
 
 At this point the river navigation changed, the stream growing 
 shallower and more difficult, so that in the run of the next few days 
 the vessel sometimes grounded, but without injury, upon the soft* 
 " ozie " shoals. The scenery changed as the banks grew lower, and 
 fertile plains bordered the stream. On the eighteenth Hudson himself 
 went ashore, near where the town that bears his name now stands ; 
 and visited an old chief who seemed to be a governor of the country, 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 23 
 
354 
 
 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 and who showed him how great store of maize and other provision lay 
 in his village, and how the young men of his tribe could " make good 
 
 cheer " for their guest, killing game and feasting him roy- 
 t>rtained by ally. When the captain insisted upon returning to his ship 
 
 toward the close of the day, they fancied it was from fear, 
 and to show him that he had no cause for it, they took their arrows, 
 broke them in pieces and threw them into the fire. But he refused 
 to stay longer and returned on board the yacht. 
 
 With the run of the next dav the vessel reached the limit of 
 
 / 
 
 her voyage. She lay near the present site of Albany ; the 
 
 End of the c , , , 
 
 nver naviga- water was fresh, the stream constantly growing shallower 
 and narrower. If, when he entered it, Hudson had enter- 
 tained a notion that this might be a passage to the South Sea, he 
 
 must now have been persuaded that it was 
 only a river flowing from far to the north. 
 Lying for four days at his anchorage, he 
 sent out boats to sound the stream above, 
 the twentieth as far as the shoals near 
 
 
 Limit of Hudson's Voyage. 
 
 where Troy stands, and on the twenty -second to a little distance be- 
 yond Waterford, a place where the village of Half-Moon still com- 
 memorates the farthest point of his exploration. Both boats returned 
 with the same report, a narrowing shallow river, flowing between low 
 banks, over shoals impassable for the yacht ; and dwindling as they 
 passed up it, so that there seemed to be no hope of greater depth beyond. 1 
 
 1 The precise point reached by Hudson has always been a matter of some dispute, for a 
 very little study shows that the measurements of " leagues " given in Juet's Journal are not 
 to be relied upon. De Laet says Hudson reached lat. 43, which would be about twenty- 
 five miles above Albany, and fifteen above Waterford. A Collection of Dutch East India 
 Voyages, a work cited by Moulton in Yates' and Moulton's History of New York, vol. i., part 
 
1609.] DISCOVERY OF THE HUDSON RIVER. 355 
 
 The captain, who had not been idle while his boats were thus en- 
 gaged, now put his vessel about, and prepared for the return to the 
 river's mouth. While he lay in the stream, his men putting the 
 spars in order, or trading as before with the always friendly natives 
 for otter skins and fruits, he had entertained the chief men of the 
 country at a feast, the story of which lingered for two hundred years 
 in their traditions. 1 
 
 It was here, where Hudson gave the chiefs " much wine and aqua 
 vitce" that the northern Indians first saw a drunken man ; and A drunken 
 " they did not know how to take it," thinking him bewitched, lndum - 
 and bringing charms ("stripes of beads "), to save him from the stran- 
 gers' arts. But when the old chief promptly recovered on the next 
 day, after " sleeping all night quietly," and professed himself much de- 
 lighted with the experience, they held the whites in high honor, and 
 made Hudson " an oration ; " and as the Half Moon sailed away down 
 the river, between the pleasant banks of the reach below, they fol- 
 lowed with friendly farewells, and hearty regrets at their guests' de- 
 parture. 
 
 For two days of her downward voyage, the yacht made such slow 
 progress as the troublesome navigation and frequent shoals 
 permitted ; but on the third, a stiff gale blew from the south, down the 
 and for two days more she lay at anchor, while the crew 
 brought wood, nuts, and fruit from the shore. They were but a few 
 miles from the place where they *' had first found loving people " ; 
 and canoes came up from the friendly village, bringing the old chief 
 who had so amazed his companions at the revel a few days before, 
 
 1, p. 248, note, says he went to 42 40', but gives no indication as to whether it means that the 
 Half Moon reached this point, or only the boat. Lambrechtsen (Beschryviny, etc., quoted 
 by Moulton and others) agrees with De Laet. Mr. George Folsom, in editing Juet's Jour- 
 nal (extracts) in the N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. i., says : " the boat probably reached Castle 
 Island (now called Patroon's Island, just below Albany) ; " and he does not believe the ship 
 approached Albany at all. Brodhead (Hist. State N. Y., vol. i., p. 31 ) thinks the l>ont went 
 " probably to some distance above Waterford," on the 22d. In the text, we have adopted, 
 after a careful comparison, the theory of Yates and Moulton. Their account nearly agrees 
 with De Laet, who had Hudson's journal before him, with Lambrechtsen, and with Juet's 
 descriptions. 
 
 1 A tradition of the first coming of the whites, in which this scene had special prominence, 
 existed among the Iroquois or Six Nations, nearly two centuries afterward. A similar 
 tradition current among the Delawares (especially the Mohican branch) was carefully re- 
 corded about 1760 by the Keverend John Heckewelder, a Moravian missionary among the 
 Pennsylvania Indians. In 1801 he gave his account of it to Dr. Miller, who placed the MS. 
 in the library of the New York Historical Society. This paper, which purports to give the 
 tradition verbatim as it came from the lips of " aged and respected Delawares, Mouseys, and 
 Mahicanni," is quoted at length by Brodhead, in note A of his appendix to Hist. State of 
 N. Y., vol. i. ; also by Yates and Monlton, i. 1, p. 252. See also Dr. Miller's address in 
 N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. i., p. 35 ; and pp. 71, 73; Hist, and Lit. Transactions of the Am. 
 Philo. Soc., vol. i. (Philadelphia, 1819). Singularly enough it places the scene of the revel 
 on Manhattan Island. 
 
356 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 and who again received Hudson's hospitality, though it is not recorded 
 that he repeated his experience of aqua vitce. He brought a friend 
 with him, and women, who behaved themselves with modesty ; and 
 as he went away he made signs that the crew should come to his vil- 
 lage, to be feasted in their turn. But with the next morning a fair 
 wind came ; and leaving the old man " very sorrowful," the Half 
 Moon sailed away down the stream, only delaying awhile in the bay 
 now overlooked by Newburg, before she again made her way among 
 the points and eddy winds of the Highlands. 
 
 The old man's regrets at his white friends' departure would prob- 
 ably have been less keen, if he could have foreseen that before many 
 days were over, they were to commit an act of very foolish and wanton 
 cruelty against some of his fellow-Indians. As the vessel anchored at 
 the mouth of Haverstraw Bay, at noon of the first of October, the 
 A thievish ^ a )' ^ her passage through the kills, the " people of the 
 Indian. mountains " came flocking aboard her as before. But among 
 them, wondering at the ship and weapons, was one savage of thievish 
 propensities, who took the opportunity to climb by the rudder into 
 a cabin window, and steal therefrom " a pillow, and two shirts, and 
 two bandeleers." 1 As he was making off with this trifling booty, 
 he was seen by the mate, who forthwith shot him in the breast and 
 killed him ; and then, all the rough brutality of the crew being 
 aroused, the boats were manned, a general pursuit began, and another 
 Indian, who tried to seize one of the boats as he swam, shared the fate 
 of his fellow. 
 
 This was the first interruption of the harmony between the Indians 
 and whites since the death of Colman ; but it was to be followed by 
 more serious trouble. The next day, as the yacht reached Manhattan, 
 one of the two savages who had been prisoners on her and escaped, 
 appeared with many followers, approaching with evidently hostile 
 Affmvwith intent. When they were not suffered to come alongside, 
 the savages, they called to their aid two canoes filled with armed men, 
 who ran under the stern of the vessel and shot a flight of arrows 
 at her, but without doing harm. The crew replied by a half dozen 
 musket-shots, two or three of which took effect, and drove the savages 
 to shore. But more than a hundred now gathered near the upper end 
 of Manhattan Island, where, when scattered by shot from a falcon on 
 the yacht, some of them manned still another canoe, and were only 
 driven off after severe execution had been done among them. The 
 Half Moon withdrew across the river, and anchored under the high 
 bank at Hoboken, passing a stormy night and day under its shelter, 
 but receiving no further attack. She had again reached the mouth 
 
 1 A bandoleer, meauing a short sword or cutlass. 
 
1609.] HUDSON'S RETURN TO ENGLAND. 357 
 
 of the great river which she had been the first vessel to ascend ; her 
 disorderly crew were little inclined for any fresh adventures ; and 
 disputes, which continued even after she set sail, had begun, as to her 
 next destination. As she again weighed anchor and sailed across the 
 upper bay, whose shores may have begun already to show the bright 
 colors of autumn foliage, officers and crew wrangled over their plans 
 for the future. The Dutch mate desired to winter in Newfoundland, 
 and explore Davis' Straits during the next spring ; the crew " threat- 
 ened savagely " if they were not taken back to Europe ; and nud80n - 9 
 Hudson feared their violence, and wished besides to carry the "o^mber, 
 news of his discoveries at once to Holland. It was not until 1609- 
 the yacht had passed through the Kills on her outward route, and had 
 dropped below Sandy Hook, that a compromise was at last effected. 
 It was decided to make first of all for the British Islands, and two days 
 later they were well out at sea upon an eastern course. The voyage 
 was prosperous ; and on the seventh of November the ship lay safely 
 in Dartmouth Harbor, her turbulent sailors contented for the time, 
 and her master sending his report to the Amsterdam directors of the 
 Dutch East India Company. 
 
 Hudson had of course intended to go in person to his employers, 
 as soon as he should reach a European port ; but he was not per- 
 mitted to do so. In spite of the frequency with which, at that period, 
 men entered foreign service, the obligations of nationality were arbi- 
 trarily enforced when any advantage was to be gained there- 
 
 1 i -i-i i i 11,1 His deten- 
 
 by ; and the English government saw that they had let a tion in Eng- 
 man of too great ability enter the employ of their energetic 
 neighbors. When the news of the Half Moon's arrival was received in 
 London an order was issued forbidding her captain to leave the coun- 
 try, and reminding him and the Englishmen on his vessel that they 
 owed their services to their own nation. Hudson entered again the 
 employ of the Muscovy Company, to whose efforts his success seems 
 to have given new energy ; and in the spring of 1610 he sailed on his 
 last and fatal voyage to the northwest, to be abandoned by his brutal 
 crew among the ice-fields of the great and desolate bay which bears 
 his name and was the last of his discoveries. The Half Moon was 
 detained for months at Dartmouth, and was only permitted to return 
 to Amsterdam in July of the year of her captain's departure. 
 
 Hudson's discovery was received in the Netherlands in a way char- 
 acteristic of the people. It had opened to the government 
 
 ic<j_ /~, 11 T ii-.i 11 Indifference 
 
 of the htates (jreneral a broad and tertile territory, untouched of the Dutch 
 before by any European nation, and undoubtedly their own American 
 
 ten i 1*1 i discoveries. 
 
 by right ot nrst occupation ; yet this seems to have been onlv 
 
 a secondary consideration in their minds. Territorial increase seemed 
 
358 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 at first sight a comparatively unimportant matter ; the first thought 
 of government and people was the commercial value of the new region. 
 For several years the States did little in the matter but to give official 
 information about the situation of the new river and the course nec- 
 essary to reach it, formal inquiries on these subjects having reached 
 them from the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Enckhuysen, and 
 Hoorn. They did not in set terms affirm their right to the discovered 
 territory, extend its boundaries indefinitely, as England, France, and 
 Spain had done in similar cases, or make grants to encourage coloni- 
 zation an idea which does not seem even to have occurred to them 
 until very much later. This was not the course of the government 
 alone ; the East India Company itself did nothing farther with regard 
 to the west. The short passage to Cathay was still the absorbing 
 scheme with its directors ; another unsuccessful expedition was soon 
 to be sent to the northeast, urged by the indefatigable Plan ti us. The 
 discovery of the " Great River of the Mountains " by Hudson did 
 not seem to them a compensation for his failure to find a Northeast 
 passage. 
 
 While these stood aloof, however, private enterprise, as so often be- 
 fore in Holland, stepped in to seize the advantages of the 
 the fur new region. No sooner had the Half Moon come back to 
 
 trade. 
 
 Amsterdam, than a few shrewd merchants of the city, who 
 saw the advantage of buying costly furs for trifles from ignorant and 
 friendly savages, engaged a part of her crew to guide a vessel of their 
 own to the great bay and river, and bring her back laden with good 
 peltries. The venture was highly successful ; and a trade quickly 
 sprang up, that constantly attracted new vessels and fresh competi- 
 tion, and grew quietly but steadily till it held a high place in Nether- 
 land commerce, and furnished a new channel for the private capital 
 now set free from the dangers and disturbances of the long Spanish 
 Avar. 
 
 Thus the three years following the return of Hudson's expedition saw 
 the lonely " River of the Mountains " traversed by the little 
 
 Dutch trad- J . . J 
 
 ing boats in round-prowed vessels of the Dutch, with their crews of eager 
 
 the Hudson. . , e 
 
 traders, making their slow way up or down the stream trom 
 one Indian village to another ; or lying at anchor in the sheltered bays, 
 while canoes laden with skins thronged about them, and the savages 
 flocked aboard for the beads and knives and hatchets which they 
 took in payment. Manhattan Island, though only a fort and one or 
 two small buildings had been erected upon it perhaps not even 
 these till 1613 had become the chief station for the collection of the 
 peltries and their shipment to home ports ; and an unsuccessful at- 
 tempt even had been made to keep European goats and rabbits there 
 
1614.] 
 
 EXPEDITIONS OF ADRIAEN BLOCK. 
 
 359 
 
 for the traders' use. l The river began to be called Mauritius, after 
 the Stadtholder Maurice of Orange. Not only its waters, but the 
 bays of the present New Jersey, and the coast as far south as Dela- 
 ware Bay, were embraced in the territory of the Dutch fur-trade ; 
 and the energetic Netherland seamen began to push out right and left 
 from their new station, and to add fresh discoveries to their scanty 
 knowledge of the neighboring shores. 
 
 Foremost in these enterprises were Hendrick Christaensen, Adriaen 
 Block, and Cornelis Jacobsen May, three Dutch captains, Fir8ttniding 
 who, by the end of the four years following Hudson's voy- P 084 buUt - 
 age, had grown most familiar with the new region, and had engaged 
 their ships most successfully in its trade. Christaensen, who by that 
 time had made ten voyages to the river, built the first great trading 
 post upon it, in 1614. Fort Nassau, on Castle Island, close by Al- 
 bany, and was appointed its commander. Block spent the winter 
 of 1613-14 on Manhattan Island, in building a yacht of six- Exp i oring 
 teen tons, the Onrust (Meatless), to take the place of his Ad y riL f 
 ship, the Tiger^ which had accidentally been burned. In Block - 
 the spring he sailed eastward, passing through the rapids of Hell-Gate 
 in the East River, 
 explored Long 
 Island Sound 
 from end to end, 
 discovered and 
 entered the Quo- 
 nehtacut, or Con- 
 necticut River, 
 and made his way 
 up the New Eng- 
 land coast as far 
 as what he called 
 Pye Bay, now 
 the bay of Na- 
 hant, which he 
 called " the limit 
 of New Nether- 
 land." He visited 
 the shores of Nar- 
 
 ragansett Bay, and saw within it that " Roode " or " Red " island 
 from which the modern State of Rhode Island derives its name. 
 
 1 Wassenaar's Historfscfie Verhael, vol. ix., p. 44, quoted hy Brodhead, vol. i., p. 47. Cap- 
 tain Argall is said, on doubtful authority, to have visited Manhattan Island, on his return 
 from Port Royal, and to have found four or five houses there. 
 
 Nahant. 
 
360 
 
 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 Block Island. 
 
 Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket the Dutch named Texel and Vie- 
 land ; the waters surrounding them the Zuyder Zee ; the island which 
 still bears Block's name, northeast of Montauk Point, they called 
 " Visscher's Hoeck." Meeting Hendrick Christaensen's ship, the For- 
 tune ', which had been sent 
 to Cape Cod Bay perhaps 
 to take him on board, 
 Block transferred the 
 Restless to another skip- 
 per, Cornelis Hendricksen, 
 and sailed in the other ves- 
 sel to Holland, adding his 
 report to the list of explo- 
 rations which revealed the 
 extent and wealth of the 
 new country. 
 
 May had seen " Vis- 
 scher's Hoeck" even be- 
 fore Block, and had vis- 
 ited the coast of Martha's Vineyard. But his name is perpetuated 
 farther south, in the Cape May of Southern New Jersey ; though 
 New York bay was for many years called, in his honor, Port Ma\. 
 
 It was now four years since Henry Hudson's crew had returned to 
 Amsterdam, and the trade with the Mauritius River had aroused so 
 brisk a competition as to alarm the few merchants who had been the 
 first to engage in it. With the spirit of an age when the right of 
 monopoly was firmly believed in and looked upon as the protection of 
 commerce, they had already urged upon the States General the pas- 
 sage of an ordinance to protect them from those who were interfer- 
 ing with a traffic which, as they believed, belonged only to them. 
 They had succeeded so far as to secure (March 20, 1614) a decree in 
 general terms, by which any discoverers of " new passages, havens, 
 lands, or places," should have " the exclusive right of navigating to 
 the same for four voyages," provided they reported their discoveries 
 within fourteen days after their return to Holland. But the pas- 
 sage of this act was only a preliminary step. With Block's return 
 in September they began to press for a special charter ; and pro- 
 vided with a carefully-drawn " figurative map " of the new country, 
 they appeared before the assembly of the States, detailed to that 
 body the merits of their work, the great risk, expense, and effort to 
 which they had been put, and asked to be protected. Under the 
 conditions of the ordinance of March, with the terms of which they 
 had complied, and which had, indeed, been the spur of Block and 
 
1614.] THE NEW NETHERLAXD COMPANY. 361 
 
 the rest in their discoveries, there could be no hesitation ; and their 
 charter was granted on the llth of October, a charter in which 
 the name " New Netherland" was first officially applied to x ew x eth er- 
 the American region " between New France and Virginia. 
 being the seacoasts between 40 and 45." The New Neth- 
 erland Company were given the monopoly of the trade : 
 for three years from January 1, 1615, and no other Dutch citizens 
 were to be permitted to " frequent or navigate " those " newly-dis- 
 covered lands, havens, or places," " on penalty of the confiscation of 
 the vessel and cargo, besides a fine of fifty thousand Netherlands 
 ducats." 
 
 The prescribed three years passed quietly and prosperously away, 
 every trading voyage of the company bringing in enormous profits 
 to the Amsterdam proprietors ; while in the great region now laid 
 open to their enterprise, new explorations were undertaken 
 
 i i-r-il rt AimS and ac " 
 
 and new resources opened. It was a development of trade, compiish- 
 
 , , 1 f XT TkT ment f th * 
 
 rather than of the country, however ; for the New Nether- Netherland 
 land Company had no interest in the future of a territory in 
 which they held so short-lived a title ; they had no motive to colonize 
 it or test its agricultural capacities ; their aim was naturally to get 
 from it all the gain they could in the little time given them, and leave 
 to others the uncertain experiments which might come after. If this 
 system had its evils, it had also its benefits. It led to constant search 
 for new trading grounds, and thus brought about a more thorough 
 knowledge of the geography of the neighboring region than settled 
 colonists might have gained in many years. It kept up constant com- 
 munication with Europe, so important to a distant settlement. Best 
 of all, it established friendly relations with the Indians wherever the 
 traders met them ; and these, though often one-sided, were founded 
 on mutual interest, and differed entirely from the enmity and fear 
 which were usually the immediate result of any intercourse, however 
 brief, between Europeans and Indians. 
 
 Even the murder of Hendrick Christaensen, by one of two Indians 
 whom he had long before taken on a voyage to Holland, but had 
 restored safely to their homes, did not change the friendly attitude 
 of the whites, though they promptly punished the murderer. The com- 
 Just before Christaensen's death he had finished the trading- fSS^in Net?" 
 house and defences at Fort Nassau, and in the directorship of Xetherlands - 
 this he was succeeded by Jacob Eelkens, who had been a clerk in Am- 
 sterdam, and who, though wanting the adventurous spirit of his pre- 
 decessor, was an excellent commercial agent. As the three years of 
 the company's monopoly went on, he sent constantly increasing stores 
 of furs down the great river to Manhattan ; his scouts made long ex- 
 
362 
 
 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 peditions into the vast forests to the westward, to barter with new 
 tribes, and find new kinds of skins ; and unknown regions were 
 roughly mapped out for the guidance of future traders. 
 
 In one of these expeditions, a party of three scouts, who had pene- 
 trated farther into the interior than any before them, seem 
 to have reached the upper waters of the Delaware, and to 
 have descended the stream to the mouth of the Schuylkill. 
 Here they were seized by the Indian tribes of that neighborhood, and 
 held as prisoners, though without suffering any .harm at the hands of 
 
 
 Upper Waters of the Delaware. 
 
 their captors. Their situation gave rise, in turn, to new explorations, 
 which it would have seemed natural to undertake long before, but 
 which had been neglected. For when the traders at Manhattan heard 
 of the detention of three of their fellows, and studied out the probable 
 position of those who had taken them, they at once despatched Cor-" 
 nelis Heudricksen in the yacht Restless along the coast to the south- 
 ward, that he might go up the rivers from the great bay into which 
 they were supposed to flow, and ransom the prisoners. 
 
 Hendricksen thoroughly explored the shores of Delaware Bay and 
 
 river, and brought back, besides the three scouts, the most 
 piore Deia- glowing acounts of the river banks covered with grape-vines 
 
 and abounding in game ; and of the trade for seal-skins, 
 which he had opened with the natives. His explorations completed 
 the survey of the whole coast that nominally belonged to New Neth- 
 
1618.] 
 
 EXPIRATION OF THE FIRST CHARTER. 
 
 363 
 
 erland ; for he had been as far south as the cape he named Hinlopen, 
 or Inloopen, either after a worthy Amsterdam merchant, or, as some 
 contend, because it seemed to vanish as the ship drew near. The 
 Amsterdam directors even founded, upon the discovery of these new 
 " havens, lands, and places," a claim for a new special charter ; but 
 the States General feared to encroach upon the boundaries of Vir- 
 ginia, and refused the petition, though Hendricksen had been sent 
 home to aid it by plans and arguments. 
 
 In the early summer of 1617, Jacob Eelkens removed the Com- 
 pany's trading-post from Castle Island, where it was exposed to disas- 
 trous freshets every spring, to the west bank of the river at the mouth of 
 the little stream called Tawasentha by the natives ; and here, a little 
 later, he concluded the first formal treaty of friendship with 
 
 ITT T> Expiration 
 
 the Indians. But besides these two events, nothing note- of the first 
 
 New Xether- 
 WOrthy marked the last year and a half of the prosperous land charter 
 
 New Netherland monopoly ; on the first of January, 1618, 
 its charter expired by its own limitation, and all petitions for a re- 
 newal were refused. 
 Those who had held 
 privileges under it, still 
 continued for several 
 years to enjoy their ad- 
 vantages almost with- 
 out much trouble from 
 competition ; but be- 
 fore the law their ex- 
 clusive rights had 
 ended. A more pow- 
 erful company than 
 they had ever proposed 
 was soon to succeed to 
 all their privileges, and to add to them the functions of the founders 
 and virtual rulers of a new state, where the Amsterdam merchants 
 had only sought the immediate profits of a trade. 
 
 The greatness of the new country's resources had made itself felt in 
 Holland ; and the need of some more comprehensive and direct action, 
 such as other nations were taking in regard to their American terri- 
 tories, was now appreciated. In the characteristic spirit of the Neth- 
 erlands, this action took a commercial direction almost as a matter of 
 course. The requests of small bodies of merchants were refused, it is 
 true ; the owners of a new ship (which, under May's command, had 
 gone as far south as Chesapeake Bay), fared as ill, when they peti- 
 tioned for a charter, as the Netherland Company had before them. 
 
 Trading Scouts. 
 
364 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 But it was on commercial grounds, nevertheless, that the American 
 possessions were to be dealt with ; and whatever power and riches 
 they were to bring to the state were to come by the hands of a great 
 trading corporation. 
 
 In 1621, the year in which the twelve years' truce with Spain ex- 
 India p^'ed, the great West India Company, so often suggested be- 
 d" f re ' an d so l n g debated and postponed, was chartered by 
 the States General of the Netherlands, with powers scarcely 
 less than those of its fellow monopoly in the East. Its patent, with 
 that assumption of authority which belonged to the great monopolies 
 of the time, forbade any and all inhabitants of the United Netherlands, 
 for twenty-two years after the first of July, 1621, to sail to the coasts 
 of Africa between the tropic of Cancer and the Cape of Good Hope, 
 or to those of America between the banks of Newfoundland and the 
 Straits of Magellan except in the service of the West India Company. 
 In the Dutch territory in America its power was practically absolute. 
 It could make treaties, appoint governing officers from the highest to 
 the lowest ; build and garrison forts ; administer justice ; exercise, in 
 fact, all the functions of a government, and was only responsible to 
 the States General for its acts as shown through its own reports. Its 
 central board of nineteen delegates, drawn from its five chambers of 
 directors in Amsterdam, Middleburg, Dordrecht, North Holland, 
 Friesland and Groningen, together with a representative of the States 
 General, sat at their council-board at home, and ruled a territory im- 
 measurably greater than their little state built upon the marshes ; 
 a small army of officials and a considerable merchant fleet carried 
 out their orders ; thirty-two vessels of war and eighteen armed yachts 
 were at their service in case they needed defence. 1 
 
 It was to the Amsterdam chamber of this powerful corporation, 
 
 that the affairs of all the region of New Netherland were given in 
 
 charge ; and, by the authority of their patent, the West 
 
 pany tX 9 India Company formally " took possession " of the country 
 
 possession of , . , ../.m ' rm t i 
 
 it* domains, in the spring of 1622. Ihe enterprise of private traders 
 had not been discontinued in the mean time ; for the fur 
 trade had been so vigorously prosecuted along the coasts to the south 
 and east of Manhattan, and even in the bays near which the new 
 English colony of Plymouth had been founded, that Sir Dudley 
 Carleton, King James's Ambassador at the Hague, had entered a pro- 
 test against the encroachment. But this remonstrance went through 
 a process which would now be called " stifled in committee " ; for it 
 
 1 Sixteen war vessels and four yachts provided by the States General under the terms of 
 the charter ; sixteen vessels, and fourteen yachts by themselves. For the charter in full see 
 O'Callaghan, vol. i., Appendix A. 
 
1623.] THE WALLOONS. 365 
 
 was referred first to one branch of the Netherland government and 
 then to another, each professing ignorance of any actual Dutch estab- 
 lishment in America, until at last the subject was fairly forgotten. 
 At all events, it was not permitted to interfere with the West India 
 Company's plans ; these went steadily on, and now took such shape as 
 for the first time promised the new territory a permanent population, 
 and began to change it from being the resort of transient traders to 
 the site of settled and lasting colonies. 
 
 In the spring of 1623, when the Company had at last completed all 
 their arrangements, closed their subscription books, and fully organ- 
 ized their official staff, that clause of their charter which prescribed 
 that " they must advance the peopling of those fruitful and unsettled 
 parts," received its first practical attention. Early in March the ship 
 New Netherland sailed from Holland, and carried as her Emigra . 
 passengers, not only many of the company's officers and ser- M^,^ 6 
 vants, but also the first colonists, in the true meaning of the 1623 ' 
 word, who were to make their homes in the new country, and be 
 the earliest tillers of its soil. Like the first settlers of New England, 
 these " Walloons " had been driven from their homes by religious 
 persecution, but it had been of a fiercer and more relentless kind 
 than any that the English Puritans had been made to feel. Their 
 name, in which the root of the old Dutch " Waalsche " and the 
 German " Welschen " appears, indicated their French origin ; but 
 they had lived for generations in those southern Netherland prov- 
 inces which had not joined the great revolt against Spain, and whose 
 population was chiefly Roman Catholic. In Hainault and Luxem- 
 bourg, Namur and Limburg, they had formed a class sharply distinct 
 from the mass of the people. Speaking French that was even then 
 quaint and old in its forms, and professing the reformed religion, they 
 were a marked race, out of place among the Flemish subjects of 
 Philip ; and the savage persecution of the Spaniards had been ex- 
 ercised against them with a force that was driving great numbers of 
 them into the freer Netherlands. Here they generally settled, seek- 
 ing, by industry and their remarkable skill as mechanics, to replace 
 the property they had lost ; but many of them longed for a county 
 they could call their own, and the sense of permanence and security 
 which that alone could give. 
 
 It was a company of these thrifty people who now ventured to the 
 New World. They had already applied through Sir Dudley Carle- 
 ton to King James and the Virginia Company for permission to emi- 
 grate to Virginia ; but only unsatisfactory conditions were offered 
 them. The West India dii-ectors, hearing of their application, 
 wisely seized upon the opportunity, and made them tempting offers, 
 
366 
 
 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO .NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 First Settlement at Albany. 
 
 which they accepted. Thus they sailed on the New Netherlands under 
 They settle ^ ie command of the Company's first regularly appointed 
 site'ot director, the old Captain Cornelis Jacobsen May ; and, the 
 
 Albany. gjjjp p ass i n g U p the Mauritius or North river as far as where 
 the fort had been on Castle Island, they were landed there on the 
 
 west bank, and set 
 to work with all the 
 industry of men whose 
 welfare depended on 
 their own hands. 
 When the yacht 
 Mackarels which had 
 been sent out the year 
 before to take posses- 
 sion, returned to Hol- 
 land, she reported that 
 the colonists' corn was 
 *' nearly as high as a 
 man " ; and around the 
 large and strong "Fort Orange," which they had thrown up on their 
 first arrival, a village of huts of bark was already clustered, where the 
 sturdy Walloon families were living, and already carrying on a brisk 
 traffic with the Indians, whom they described as " quiet as lambs." J 
 
 Not all the Walloons, however, and by no means all of the New 
 Netherlands passengers, established themselves at Fort Orange. 
 About eighteen families settled there ; but several others had, on the 
 way, been sent from Manhattan to the South (Delaware) River, and 
 still others to the mouth of the Connecticut or Fresh River, and to the 
 western end of Long Island at Waal-bogt, or Walloon's Bay now 
 known by the English corruption, Wallabout. Eight men, 
 Manhattan" 1 too, were left at Manhattan Island, to form a trading es- 
 tablishment for the Company. On the South River, the 
 settlers built a fort, which was finished a year after their arrival ; and 
 from its site, northward and eastward, all along the coast to Narragan- 
 sett Bay, the Dutch now traded peacefully, their settlements growing 
 in prosperity and their traffic in profits ; so that Adriaen Joris, who 
 had come out as second in command of the New Netherlands was able to 
 report, when he returned home in December, 1624, that everything 
 was going on favorably wherever the colonists had founded their 
 homes. 
 
 i D. D. Barnard (Address before Albany Institute, 1839), says the site of the settlement 
 is now occupied by the business part of Albany. At the time of the address the " Fort 
 Orange Hotel," an old mansion-house, afterward destroyed by fire in 1847, stood on the 
 ground once occupied by the fort. Compare B rod head, vol. i., p. 152, note. 
 
1C26.] THE COLONY AT MANHATTAN. 367 
 
 Three governors in turn administered the affairs of the growing 
 colony during this early period of quiet prosperity : May, as has been 
 said, during 1624 ; William Verhult in 1625 ; and Peter 
 Minuit after the fourth of May, 1626. But it was only with nors of New 
 
 J . " Netherland. 
 
 the arrival of the last that the different settlements were 
 properly united under a single government. It was Minuit who first 
 made Manhattan politically what in spite of neglect it had long been 
 naturally, the chief place of New Netherland. Acquiring a firmer 
 title than that of discovery, by buying the whole island from the In- 
 dians for " the value of sixty guilders," 1 he established himself there 
 with his "Schout" or high sheriff, his "Opper Koopman" or secretary 
 and commissary, and his council of five members, and began to rule with 
 a wisely directed energy. 
 
 His plans with regard to Manhattan were soon aided, though at the 
 temporary cost of the other settlement at Fort Orange, by an act of 
 the greatest folly on the part of Krieckebeeck, a commissioner who 
 now commanded at the latter place, Eelkens having long before been 
 superseded for misconduct toward the Indians, and Barentsen, his suc- 
 cessor in the fur trade, only acting as second in actual control of the 
 fort. Krieckebeeck allowed himself to be persuaded by the Mohican 
 Indians to act as their allies against the Mohawks ; and going out with 
 them upon the war-path, was killed, with several of his people, in a 
 sudden attack made by the enemy. Any farther bad results of his 
 action were, it is true, prevented by his deputy, Barentsen, who was a 
 favorite with the Indians everywhere ; but nevertheless Min- 
 uit thought it best to withdraw the colonists from Fort the colony to 
 Orange to Manhattan, leaving only a small garrison. About 
 the same time, the settlers on the South River left it and joined the 
 main colony ; so that from this time all the chief interests of New 
 Netherland were permanently centred in that spot. 
 
 In material improvements the island had for several years little to 
 boast of. Rude dwellings of wood and bark, clustered along the bank 
 of the North River near the southern extremity of the land, furnished 
 temporary homes for the colonists. A thatched stone build- 
 ing, more lasting and pretentious, formed the Company's bus- ort 
 iness quarters ; while on the point itself a large quadrang- 
 ular stone fort, Fort Amsterdam, was begun, within whose shelter 
 permanent houses were to be built later. 
 
 But these beginnings, though rude, were vigorously pushed forward 
 by the busy settlers ; while from the headquarters thus at last estab- 
 lished where nature seemed to have made a perfect site, the West 
 India Company's yachts carried their rich cargoes back to Holland, or 
 
 1 About twenty-four dollars, gold. 
 
368 
 
 DUTCH EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 followed their fast increasing trade along the coast to the south, or to 
 the east as far as Buzzard's Bay. A friendly letter was 
 
 Increase of . ^ 
 
 New Nether- written to the English colony at Plymouth ; and the New 
 
 land trade. J , " . ,. , 
 
 Netherland government made its first essay in diplomacy in 
 sending its secretary as a formal ambassador to the Puritan Governor 
 Bradford, with whom he exchanged congratulations, though the New 
 Englander stood somewhat stiffly upon his rights under the patent of 
 King James, and argued, though courteously, that the Dutch had 
 no right to the land which they occupied. Later, the matter even 
 threatened to take the form of a more serious dispute ; but the powers 
 at home were still too closely allied to have their colonies at war, and 
 instead of conflict, trade was promoted between Manhattan and Plym- 
 
 Earliest Picture of New Amsterdam. 
 
 outh, whereby the latter obtained "linen and stuffs" and excellent 
 wampum, which was used again in buying from the Indians. 
 
 In 1628 the Island of Manhattan had a population of two hundred 
 Manhattan an( i seventy colonists. The profits of the West India Corn- 
 in 1628. pany's fur trade had more than doubled since the establish- 
 ment of the settlement ; but the agriculture of the new region was 
 not yet far enough advanced to support the people unaided, and sup- 
 plies were still sent out from Holland by every vessel. Mills were 
 built, and there were manufactories of brick and lime, so that the 
 completion of Fort Amsterdam, with its stone facing, was greatly 
 hastened, and better houses began to appear about it ; but the great 
 trouble in the way of the colony's further advance seemed to be a 
 lack of organized labor. Private effort had done its utmost when 
 it provided shelter and food enough to eke out the stores the Com- 
 pany furnished ; and for a little time there seemed danger that the 
 
1628.] A CRISIS IN THE AFFAIRS OF THE COLONY. 369 
 
 New Netherland experiment would come to an end for want of a class 
 with large interests, apart from trade, in the soil itself, and the sys- 
 tematized and disciplined labor that such a class would be sure to 
 foster. Though not a violent or sudden one, it was nevertheless in 
 some sense a crisis in the colony's affairs ; and it was met by the 
 vigilant directors with a measure of relief which was perhaps illiberal 
 and certainly short-sighted, but which at first appeared to attain its 
 end, while it was far from inconsistent with the spirit of the time in 
 which it was adopted. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 THE PURITANS UNDER JAMES I. SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE ENGLISH AT THE BEGIN- 
 NING OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. THE SEPARATISTS OF NORTH NOTTINGHAM- 
 SHIRE. BREWSTER AND THE EPISCOPAL RESIDENCE AT SCROOBY. PERSECUTION 
 OF THE PURITANS. THEIR ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE FROM ENGLAND. LONG EXILE 
 IN HOLLAND. MOTIVES FOR A PROPOSED REMOVAL TO AMERICA. PETITION TO 
 KING JAMES. NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE DUTCH. EMBARKATION OF THE PILGRIMS 
 AT DELFT-HAVEN. FINAL DEPARTURE OF THE "MAY FLOWER" FROM ENGLAND. 
 ARRIVAL AT CAPE COD. FORM OF GOVERNMENT ADOPTED. EXPLORATIONS 
 ALONG THE COAST. SlTE FOR A COLONY SELECTED. CONFUSION OF FACTS AND 
 DATES AS TO THE LANDING AT PLYMOUTH. THE FIRST WINTER. SUFFERINGS 
 AND DEATHS. 
 
 THE moral, political, and, in some sense, tne material training 
 The lemons which the colonists on the James River, in Virginia, were 
 of exile. twelve years in acquiring, as a necessary preparation for 
 future success, the Pilgrims were, during the same period, subjected to 
 
 in Holland. " We are well weaned," 
 said the pastor, Robinson, after nine 
 years of exile, " from the delicate 
 milk of our mother countrie, and 
 enured to the difficulties of a strange 
 and hard land." Poverty in Am- 
 sterdam and Leyden was not, in- 
 deed, quite so irremediable as in the 
 American wilderness, but the lesson 
 it taught did not greatly differ in 
 either place. As exiles in strange 
 lands with no dependence but upon 
 Fit Seal of Plymouth Colony. themselves, the necessity of self-de- 
 
 nial and self-reliance for the sake of self-preservation would grow alike 
 in both places ; in the circumstances of both was the same stimulus to 
 the most active use of all the powers of mind and body; isolation, 
 whether from absolute solitude, or from being surrounded by an alien 
 people, would produce the same sense of mutual interest, of the neces- 
 sity of mutual help, and of a mutual regard for each other's rights, 
 which is the only sure foundation for political self-government. 
 
1603.] THE PURITANS UNDER JAMES I. 371 
 
 While, however, this preparatory education of events was thus, in 
 some measure, the same for the founders of the first two English 
 colonies on the American coast, the Pilgrims had this great advan- 
 tage over their countrymen in Virginia, that a bond of unity in 
 deep-seated religious convictions was strengthened b} T a brotherhood 
 of social relations growing out of the peculiar circumstances of their 
 flight from their native land. 
 
 The accession of James I. to the throne of England did not bring, 
 as thej' hoped it would, relief to those devout and devoted believers, 
 who, through the preceding reign, had contended for religious free- 
 dom. From the time of Mary, " the one side laboured," says Brad- 
 ford, "to have the right worship of God and discipline of Christ 
 established in the Church, according to the simplicitie of the Gospell, 
 without the admixture of men's inventions, and to have, and to be 
 ruled by, the laws of God's word dispensed in those offices, and by 
 those officers of Pastors, Teachers, and Elders, etc., accord- 
 ing to the Scripturs. The other partie, though under many between the 
 
 i J J ^ 1. ^ 11 j- Church and 
 
 colours and pretences, endevored to have the episcopall dig. the sepa- 
 nitie (after the popish maner) with their large power and 
 jurisdiction still retained ; with all those courts, cannons, and cere- 
 monies, together with all such livings, revenues, and subordinate 
 officers, with other such means as formerly upheld their antichristian 
 greatnes, and enabled them with lordly and tyranous power to perse- 
 cute the poore servants of God." l In this succinct statement is the 
 very pith of the matter in that religious controversy which followed 
 the Reformation ; and one of its important results, hardly noticed, 
 and almost unknown at the time, was, that it banished, early in the 
 seventeenth century, a ship-load of yeomen from England. 
 
 At a conference held in 1603, to consider the grievances of this 
 class of his subjects, James I. boasted, in a letter to a friend in Scot- 
 land, that he had " kept such a revel with the Puritans these two 
 days, as was never heard the like ; where I have peppered them so 
 soundly as ye have done the Papists." 2 There was nothing to be 
 hoped from this son of a mother who had been led to the block for 
 her adherence to the ancient faith, as well as for her crimes against 
 the state. It was equally amusing to James to " pepper " Puritans 
 in public debate, and to remember that Catholics had lost their heads 
 for their devotion to the religion in which the}' believed. 
 
 There were many of these persecuted dissenters throughout the 
 
 1 History of Plymouth Plantation, by William Bradford, the Second Governor of The 
 Colony. 
 
 a Strype's Life of Whitgijl, App. No. 46. Quoted in Palfrey's History of New England, 
 vol. ii., p. 130. 
 
372 
 
 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 Kingdom, sometimes gathered into societies of their own, especially 
 in London ; sometimes bearing alone a silent but painful testimony 
 against the undoubted immoralities connived at in the church, and the 
 vain ordinances as they deemed them which they were called 
 upon to share in and to sanction. But in no rural district were they 
 so numerous or so well organized as in that part of England where 
 the borders of Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire met. 
 More than one earnest preacher in that neighborhood had called and 
 held together by his eloquence and zeal a little knot of followers as 
 firm in the faith as he, and ready to follow whithersoever his higher 
 light should lead. 
 
 View of Scrooby Village. 
 
 In North Nottinghamshire, in the Hundred of Basset-Lawe, is 
 The village tue village of Scrooby. Though little more than a hamlet, 
 fn NottTng-' it was f some importance three hundred years ago, as a 
 hamshire. post-town on the great road from London to Scotland, and 
 as containing a manor place belonging to the Archbishop of York, 
 then the Archbishop Sandys, one of whose sons was that Edwin San- 
 dys who, in 1618, was made Treasurer of the Virginia Company in 
 London. There were historical associations connected with the arch- 
 bishop's residence at Scrooby other than those for which Che descend- 
 ants of the " Pilgrim Fathers " may cherish its memory, arid which 
 even now are not without some interest. Here Margaret, Queen of 
 Scotland, daughter of Henry VII., slept for a night, on the way to 
 her own kingdom, in 1503 ; here, also, Henry VIII. passed a night 
 on a northern progress in 1541 ; and in this manor-house Cardinal 
 Wolsey lived some weeks after his fall, ministering to the poor in 
 
1600.] THE ENGLISH IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 373 
 
 deeds of charity, saying mass on Sundays, and distributing alms in 
 meat, and drink, and money. 1 
 
 This house of the archbishop was the one great house of Scrooby, 
 for the people of the neighborhood were, for the most part, plain yeo- 
 men, who followed what Bradford, the Plymouth Governor, called 
 the innocent trade of husbandry. In the method and manners of 
 their lives there was no very essential difference, except that they 
 had enough to eat and wear, from that way of life which fell to the 
 lot of some of them in an American wilderness. 
 
 For the habits of the common people of England at that period 
 were exceedingly simple, and in some respects almost prim- Socia i, 
 itive. Only where wood was plentiful were their houses 
 well and solidly built of timber ; elsewhere they were mere 
 frames filled in with clay. The walls of the rich only, who th ' period - 
 could afford such a luxury, were covered with hangings to keep out 
 the dampness, and even plastered walls were uncommon. The floors 
 of these houses were of clay, and cov- ., f 
 
 ered, if covered at all, with rushes. 
 Chimneys had come into use in the 
 sixteenth century, though it was com- 
 mon long after to have a hole in the 
 roof for the escape of smoke, as is done 
 in Indian wigwams. The windows were 
 not glazed, for that was a luxury so 
 costly that even noblemen when they 
 left their country-houses to go to Court, 
 had their glass-windows packed away i^e-piace 1* icth century. 
 
 with other precious furniture for safe-keeping. In the houses of 
 the common people there was no better protection from the weather 
 than panes of oiled paper. 2 A pallet of straw, with a rough mat for 
 covering, and a log for a pillow, was deemed a good bed. The food 
 of the people was chiefly flesh, for gardening was an art confined to 
 the very rich, for ornamental purposes, and few vegetables were cul- 
 tivated. Even agriculture was in a rude state ; the draining of land 
 was almost unknown, and fever and ague consequently the common 
 disease. A clumsy wooden plough, a wooden fork, a spade, hoe, 
 and flail were the only agricultural implements. The bread was the 
 coarser kind of black bread made of the unbolted flour of oats, bar- 
 ley, or rye, and in times of scarcity this was mixed with ground 
 
 1 See The Founders of New Plymouth, by Rev. Joseph Hunter. London, 1854. Also 
 Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation. 
 
 2 Winslow wrote home from Plymouth, in the early days of the colony, to those about to 
 emigrate : ." Bring paper and linseed oil for your windows." 
 
374 
 
 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV 
 
 gation at 
 
 acorns. Table-forks were unknown ; the spoons and platters, where 
 there were any, were of wood ; with the use of a knife, the fingers, 
 and a common dish, the civilities of the table were generally dis- 
 pensed with. 
 
 The yeomen, who lived in this rude fashion, were not called Sir or 
 The English Master, as gentlemen and knights were, but plain John or 
 vfoman. Thomas. Yet they were the " settled or staid men " 
 from the Saxon Zeoman the great middle class of England, 
 the firm foundation on which the state rested ; and in " foughten 
 fields " the king remained among his yeomanry, or footmen, for on 
 them he relied as his chief strength. The land they lived upon and 
 cultivated was sometimes their own, and they often acquired wealth. 
 Their sons were sent to the universities and the inns of court, and 
 from the ranks of the yeomen great men and great names were given 
 to England ; to the class of gentry came recruits of fresh, healthy 
 blood, quickened by new ambitions, strong in great purposes. It was 
 good stock from which to settle a new country. 
 
 There was at Scrooby a congregation of Separatists, made up, for 
 the most part, of people of this class ; educated and enlight- 
 ened enough to come to conclusions of their own upon ques- 
 tions of religious reformation ; so stable in character as to 
 hold firmly to convictions conscientiously formed ; and endowed with 
 enough of this world's goods to maintain their freedom of thought, 
 
 even to banish- 
 ment, if need be, 
 from their native 
 land. A body of 
 their faith pre- 
 ceded them by 
 some years, in em- 
 igrating to Hol- 
 land, and, after 
 their departure, 
 the Scrooby peo- 
 ple had no separ- 
 ate building in 
 which to congre- 
 gate for religious 
 worship. Their 
 usual place of 
 
 meeting was the manor-house, belonging to the Archbishop of York. 
 The leading man among them was William Brewster, who after- 
 
 site of Scrooby Manor. 
 
1587.] BREWSTER'S EARLY LIFE. 375 
 
 wards became the ruling elder of the little church. 1 Brewster held 
 the office of postmaster or post as it was then called of Scrooby, 
 a position of a good deal of importance, as it enjoined not only the 
 charge of the mails and the dispatch of letters, but the entertainment 
 and conveyance of travellers, in whatever direction they wished to go. 
 The postmaster was, in one sense, an innkeeper ; but an innkeeper for 
 certain duties, by official appointment. 2 As the incumbent of such 
 an office, Brewster occupied the largest and most important house in 
 Scrooby, that belonging to the archbishop. And this, notwithstand- 
 ing his official relation to the state, and its dignity as an episcopal 
 residence, he threw open, once a week, to those with whose opposition 
 to the state and church he was in fullest sympathy. 
 
 But Brewster was otherwise a man of some mark. In his youth he 
 had spent some time at the University of Cambridge, where Winiam 
 he had acquired a knowledge of Latin and Greek. He Brewster - 
 afterward went to court, and entered the service of a noted statesman 
 of the time, William Davison ; was with 
 him when he was sent ambassador from 
 Elizabeth to the Low Countries to perfect 
 a league with the United Provinces that signature of wiiiiam 
 should enable them to maintain their independence of Spain ; was 
 still the faithful friend and follower of his master when Davison was 
 ruined for having issued, as Secretary of State, possibly against the 
 orders, but certainly in accordance with the wishes of Elizabeth, the 
 royal writ for the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. Davison's fall 
 ended Brewster's career as a courtier ; but he still possessed influence 
 enough to secure the appointment of post at Scrooby. Davison was 
 a Puritan. Bradford says of him that he was a " religious and godly 
 gentleman," and that he esteemed Brewster " rather as a son than a 
 servant, and for his wisdom and godliness in private, he would con- 
 verse with him more like a familiar than a master." 3 Such influence 
 must have confirmed, if it did not instill, in Brewster's mind the prin- 
 ciples which governed his subsequent life. 
 
 A society of Separatists, holding weekly meetings under such cir- 
 cumstances, in the house occupied by an officer of the government, 
 and belonp 3 ing to a dignitary of the established Church, would be 
 quite likely to attract more than usual attention ; their boldness may 
 
 1 The office of the ruling elder in the early Puritan churches was to assist the teaching 
 elder, or pastor, in overseeing and ruling the church, and to teach occasionally in the ab- 
 sence of the pastor. See Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims, p. 455, note, for authorities 
 on this point. 
 
 2 See Hunter's Founders of New Plymouth, where the social and official position of Elder 
 Brewster, at Scrooby, was first made clear. 
 
 3 Bradford's Memoir of Elder William Brewster, in Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims. 
 
376 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 have even been construed into a defiance of the law. These people 
 had already been called upon to suffer afflictions, when some of them 
 were members of the church at Gainsborough under the care of John 
 Smith, who, with many of his people, had taken refuge in Holland 
 some years before ; and also, no doubt, when upholding Richard Clif- 
 ton, a clergyman at Babworth in the County of Nottingham, 
 of the sepa- who had been deposed for non-conformity. But those were 
 as " flea-bitings," it was said, 1 to the sufferings they were 
 called upon to undergo soon after they had gathered into a distinct 
 body at Scrooby. They were hunted and persecuted on every side ; 
 some were imprisoned ; the houses of others were beset and watched 
 till they were fain to fly, leaving homes and means of livelihood, to 
 preserve their liberty. 
 
 Brewster soon ceased to be postmaster, no doubt dismissed from 
 the office he had held more than a dozen years. And he was to have 
 been otherwise punished. He and two others of the principal mem- 
 bers of the society, Richard Jackson and Robert Rochester, were sum- 
 moned as Separatists before the Ecclesiastical Commission for the 
 province of York to pay a fine of 20 each ; and for not obeying that 
 summons, a further fine of an equal amount was subsequently recorded 
 against them, recorded, but not paid, for the recusants had fled be- 
 fore the commissioners had time to enforce the penalties. 2 
 
 From the persecutions which these people suffered there was no 
 escape but by exile, and they resolved, therefore, to go to the Low 
 Countries, where they understood there was freedom of religion for 
 all men. Though we learn only in general terms the character of the 
 pains and penalties which they were called upon to endure, these were 
 certainly of no light nature, if persecution for religion's sake is ever 
 light, for they clearly understood the difficulties that beset the path 
 on which they were about to enter, and which they chose as the least 
 painful alternative. " Their desires were sett on the ways of God and 
 to injoy his ordinances," and for these they were ready to leave their 
 native soil, their lands and livings, their friends and familiar acquaint- 
 ance, to go to a country of which they knew nothing except by hear- 
 say, to learn a new language, to get their livings they knew not how. 
 Nor was this all. They could not stay ; neither were they permitted 
 to go, without hindrance, for the ports were shut against them. They 
 were oftentimes betrayed, their goods taken from them to their great 
 trouble and expense, and their intentions defeated. 3 
 
 It was impossible that two or three hundred people could dispose in 
 
 1 Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation. 
 
 2 Hunter's Founders of New Plymouth. 
 
 3 Bradford. 
 
1606.] 
 
 ATTEMPTS TO LEAVE ENGLAND. 
 
 377 
 
 secret of lands and houses and other property, make the other needful 
 preparations to emigrate in a body from a rural neighborhood, and do 
 all this unobserved. They hoped to get away in small detachments, 
 but even this was impossible, without encountering dangers Cruel 
 and oftentimes defeat. At one time, at Boston, in Lincoln- 
 shire, a large party of them got safely at night on board 8hire> 
 ship. But the master was treacherous, and handed them over to the 
 officers with whom he was in complicity ; their goods were rifled and 
 ransacked ; the men were searched to their shirts for money ; even the 
 women were compelled to submit to like indignities " further than be- 
 came modesty ; " and thus outraged, insulted, and robbed, they were 
 led back to the town, a spectacle and wonder to the gaping crowd that 
 flocked from all sides to see and jeer at their sad condition. The mag- 
 
 Attempted Flight of Puritans. 
 
 istrates were kinder than the people, and showed them such favor as 
 they could ; but the whole company were imprisoned for a month, 
 when they were dismissed to go where they would, excepting seven 
 of the chief among them, who were detained for trial. 
 
 These, and others with them, made a more disastrous attempt to 
 escape some months later. A Dutch ship was engaged to take them 
 on board at a lonely place between Hull and Grimsby, and thither 
 
378 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 the women and children were sent in a small vessel ; the men were 
 to go by land. All arrived in due season. The ship rode at an- 
 Attempted c ^ 101 ' som distance from the shore ; the smaller vessel, with 
 uuiurug- th e women and children, lay aground where the ebb-tide 
 tratcd. j la( j j e f jj er> ^ single boat-load of men had been taken off 
 to the ship as the first preparation for departure, when suddenly a 
 mob of country people, some on foot and some mounted, armed with 
 bills and guns and other weapons, rushed down upon the beach. The 
 frightened Dutchman " swore his country's oath, Sawamente," weighed 
 anchor, hoisted sails, and with a fair wind was soon out at sea. His 
 wretched passengers, though destitute of everything but the clothes 
 they wore, gave no thought to their own condition as they looked 
 back to their helpless wives and children thus abandoned to dangers 
 which they could neither defend them from nor share. On shore, 
 some of the men evaded the mob of assailants and dispersed ; others, 
 who remained with their own families, or to give such little protection 
 as they could to the families of their friends carried away by the 
 Dutchman, were taken into custody, with those who, either from age, 
 or youth, or sex, were unable to escape. The unhappy company was 
 at the mercy of the mob, always more cruel than the law. They were 
 hurried from place to place, from one magistrate to another ; denied 
 even the friendly shelter of a jail ; for the women and children, as 
 they mostly were, had been guilty of, at worst, a venial crime in seek- 
 ing to go with their husbands and fathers even to a foreign land. 
 Now they had no homes to which they could be sent, for those they 
 had recently left had passed into other hands ; their present means of 
 support must needs have been very limited and soon exhausted ; what 
 should be done with them then was a puzzling problem which each 
 bench of magistrates tried to throw upon its fellow of the next town 
 or parish, and which none of them thanked the over-zealous populace 
 for thrusting upon them for solution. 
 
 So pitiable a case could hardly fail to excite compassion in any civil- 
 ized community of even two hundred and fifty years ago, and help 
 came no doubt, at last, to these poor people, from many persons as 
 liberal in mind as in purse. For we learn from the narrative of these 
 trials and misfortunes, 1 that " by these so public troubles, in so many 
 eminent places, their cause became famous, and occasioned many to 
 look into the same ; and their godly carriage and Christian behavior 
 was such as left a deep impression upon the minds of many." The 
 scattered families and friends at length united in Holland, 
 of Puritans where the Dutch ship arrived after a tempestuous and dan- 
 gerous voyage. In the course of the winter of 1607-8, and 
 the following spring, the Puritan Church of Scrooby came together 
 
 1 Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation. 
 
1608.] ARRIVAL IN HOLLAND. 379 
 
 again in Amsterdam, its members arriving in several parties, and at 
 different times, after many perils and hardships. 
 
 These simple yeomen of Nottinghamshire, whose travels, till that 
 winter, had seldom, if ever, probably, extended beyond the nearest 
 market town, had come, as it were, into a new world. Instead of the 
 green fields and pleasant hamlets of England, they saw a city risen 
 out of the sea, its long, sluggish canals crowded with ships and spanned 
 by hundreds of bridges. They wandered about streets of a new and 
 strange aspect, filled with people speaking a strange and uncouth lan- 
 guage, and clothed in strange costumes. Accustomed to the monot- 
 ony of simple, rural ways and the rigid economies of country life, they 
 were brought suddenly into places where wealth and luxury abounded, 
 and where the sights and sounds of a vast and busy commerce met 
 them on every side. But there were other realities before them of a 
 sterner kind which gave them little time to observe or think of these 
 new surroundings. The grim face of poverty confronted them, and all 
 their energies were needed in the struggle for a bare subsistence. 
 
 There were already two English Puritan churches in Amsterdam. 
 Strife had arisen among the members, stirred up chiefly by 
 John Smith, the pastor of the church from Gainsborough in churches in 
 Lincolnshire, a man of too restless and contentious a dispo- 
 sition to remain long at rest in any one place or in one belief. The 
 Scrooby people had suffered enough to value tranquillity ; and indeed 
 all their history shows them to have been at all times a people who, 
 next to purity, sought for peace. As they had abandoned the homes 
 they loved so much, that they might live in the quiet enjoyment of 
 their own religious faith, so now, rather than be drawn into these 
 disputes and difficulties among the brethren of Amsterdam, they re- 
 moved, about a year after their arrival, to Leyden. 
 
 This city was, for the next twelve years, their home, where they 
 gained a sufficient livelihood by hard labor, but especially Thelifein 
 " enjoying much' sweet and delightful society and spiritual Uolland - 
 comfort together in the ways of God, under the able ministry and 
 prudent government of Mr. John Robinson and Mr. William Brews- 
 ter." l Brewster, in those years, turned his early education to account 
 by teaching, and carried on also the business of printing, sometimes 
 publishing religious works which were prohibited in England. Brad- 
 ford, who was not more than twenty years of age when he left Not- 
 tinghamshire, learned the trade of silk-weaving, but devoted himself 
 also to study, being particularly anxious to read God's Word in the 
 original Hebrew, and became a leading member of the church. Other 
 principal men among them were Carver, Cushman, and Winslow, 
 
 1 Bradford's History. 
 
380 
 
 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 Diasatisfac- 
 
 
 the latter, a young man of higher social position than any of the rest, 
 who, visiting Ley den while on his travels, became acquainted with the 
 Puritans, and embraced their faith about three years before their de- 
 parture from this city of refuge. 
 
 As the old grew older, and the young attained to manhood, a serious 
 consideration of the future pressed upon them. Though none were 
 very poor, there were none who were very prosperous ; and 
 their circumstances were not such as to attract any large 
 addition to their number, or to increase their material wel- 
 fare. They remained strangers in a strange land, still cher- 
 ishing next to religious purity their birthright as Englishmen. Some 
 of the younger members, who had little or no recollection of their Eng- 
 lish homes, were already yielding to 
 the influences and temptations of 
 foreign habits and manners ; and the 
 elders feared that as they passed 
 away, not only would the Church 
 be scattered, and the good seed of 
 the Gospel perish, but all the ties 
 and associations of a precious inher- 
 itance be lost and forgotten among 
 their children. 
 
 Whither should they go that their 
 faith and their birthright might 
 both be handed down to their pos- 
 terity sacred and inviolate? The 
 power of the hierarchy that had driven them from their homes, hunted 
 them from port to port, robbed them of almost everything but liberty 
 and the right of obedience to the dictates of their own consciences, for- 
 bade that they should go back to England. Where, then, should they 
 seek a new resting-place ? 
 
 There were divided opinions. The anxious discussion of the subject 
 began a year or more before Raleigh returned, to lose his head, from 
 that fatal expedition to Guinea where he had lost his son. El Dorado 
 was still believed in ; there were some among the Puritans of Leyden 
 bold enough and imaginative enough to urge a removal to a land where 
 in perpetual summer, upon a soil that should yield them the fruits of 
 the earth almost without labor, and in the enjoyment of wealth that, 
 from the abundance of gold, need have no limit, they hoped to forget 
 the perils, the hardships, and the poverty of the past. 
 
 Some were opposed to any change. They dreaded to expose their 
 women and the aged to the perils and privations of a long voyage, 1*> a 
 change of climate, and to the dangers to be encountered from a savage 
 
 Church at Austerfield, Bradford's Birthplace. 
 
1617.] PROPOSED REMOVAL TO AMERICA. 381 
 
 people, stories of whose ferocity and cruelty " moved the very bowels 
 
 of men to grate within them, and made the weak to quake and 
 
 tremble." But the more sober-minded, putting aside both delusive 
 
 hopes and vain fears, turned their eyes to Virginia, though 
 
 not to the colony on James River, where, it was thought, they remove to 
 
 would be subjected to religious persecution quite as much as 
 
 in England. Somewhere, however, within the wide domain of the 
 
 Virginia Company they proposed to establish themselves as a separate 
 
 and independent colony, trusting they might obtain from James the 
 
 assurance that they should be left in the undisturbed enjoyment of 
 
 their religious convictions. 
 
 They relied much on the good offices of Sir Edwin Sandys, then a 
 member of the Council of the Virginia Company, and under whose 
 wise management the colony on the James was soon to give its first 
 real promise of permanence and prosperity. Sandys and Brewster had 
 served together under William Davison thirty years before, and had 
 probably continued in friendly relations ; the former can hardly have 
 failed to be familiar with the history of the Scrooby Puritans who had 
 met in the house that Brewster leased, but which belonged to the 
 Sandys family ; 1 he was known, moreover, to share, in some degree, 
 the opinions of the Puritans upon religious subjects, and to sympathize 
 with them in the trials to which those opinions had led. None knew 
 better than he the peculiar fitness of such a community to found a 
 colony men and women of blameless lives, of tenacious morality, of 
 habits of persistent industry, inured to the evils of poverty, accustomed 
 by years of exile to the shifts and devices with which new settlers must 
 make themselves content and prosperous ; for it was not with them as 
 with other men, wrote Robinson and Brewster to Sandys, " whom 
 small things can discourage, or small discontentments cause to wish 
 themselves at home again." 
 
 Robert Cushman and John Carver were sent in 1617 to England as 
 a deputation from the Church to obtain, if possible, a patent C ushman 
 from the king which should give them lands in North Vir- ^nt^EiIg- 
 ginia with the assurance under the royal seal, of religious 1 * nd - 
 liberty. On their part it was promised that " they would endeavour 
 the advancement of his majesty's dominions and the enlargement of 
 the Gospel by all due means." " It was," James said, " a good and 
 honest motion ; but what profits," he asked, " would come from such a 
 movement ? " They answered : " Fishing." " So God have my soul," 
 was the king's reply, " 'tis an honest trade : 'twas the Apostles' own 
 calling." 2 Nevertheless, the negotiations, which were ontinued for 
 
 1 See Founders of New Plymouth for an account of the division of the lands of the See 
 amonjr his sons by Archbishop Sandys. 
 
 2 Winslow's Briff Relation. 
 
382 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 about a year and seconded by men of influence, came to nought. 
 The king was unwilling to recognize such a colony by any public 
 act, and it would have been inconsistent with his orders for the gov- 
 ernment of the South Virginia colony, given years before, when he 
 had commanded that " the word and service of God should be preached 
 and used according to the rites and doctrines of the Church of Eng- 
 land." * 
 
 James, however, was made to understand that these people who be- 
 sought his favor were not such rigid Separatists as their enemies repre- 
 sented them to be, and did not assume that the Christian religion was 
 committed exclusively to their keeping. For they held communion 
 with the Reformed Dutch and French churches, and acknowledged 
 those of Scotland as Churches of Christ ; they assented to the confes- 
 sion of Faith of the English Church, and were ready always to receive 
 into fellowship its devout members, though they did not accept its 
 Liturgy, its stated and formal prayers, and its constitution as a national 
 church. 2 The King they acknowledged as supreme head of the State ; 
 in him was the lawful power to appoint bishops, as well as civil officers, 
 whose authority, therefore, they honored as a part of the civil govern- 
 ment ; and they denied all power or authority in any ecclesiastical 
 body that was not derived from the king. 3 James understood clearly 
 enough, no doubt, the distinction the Puritans always kept 
 Attig in mind between civil and spiritual conformity. But he also 
 understood that they were a harmless and godly people who 
 used their religious freedom for the guidance of their own lives, and not 
 for the government of others. He gave their friends in England the 
 assurance that he would connive at their settlement in America, and 
 should not molest them so long as they conducted themselves peace- 
 ably though he could not extend to them his royal permission and pub- 
 lic recognition. Some of the Puritans, understanding the character 
 of the king, were disposed to think that they had gained in this con- 
 cession all that they could reasonably hope for. James, they said, 
 " had he given them a seal as broad as the house floor," * would 
 have evaded or recalled it, if at any future time he should be disposed 
 to do so. 
 
 But better warrant than the mere word of the king was wanted to 
 
 1 Stith's History of Virginia. 
 
 2 There is a gleam of humor, though he may not have meant it as such, in Robinson's as- 
 sertion that, " Our faith is founded upon the writings of the Prophets and Apostles in which 
 no mention of the Church of England is made." 
 
 8 Compare the Seven Articles sent by the Church at Leyden to the Council in England 
 and signed by Robinson and Brewster. New York Historical Collections, Second Series, vol. 
 iii., Part I. Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation ; Winslow's Brief Relation, in 
 Young's Chronicles. 
 
 * Bradford's Plymouth Plantation. 
 
1619.] NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE DUTCH. 383 
 
 justify them in giving up, without any certainty for the future, the 
 security and peace they possessed in Holland. Negotiations were 
 continued in England, Brewster going over to the assistance of Car- 
 ver and Cushman. After much trouble and delay, a patent was 
 procured from the Virginia Company, issued in the name of Mr. 
 John Wincob, on the 9th of June, 1619. 1 Of this patent nothing 
 further is known, and it was never used. 2 It is supposed to have 
 made a grant of land somewhere near the mouth of the Hudson 
 River. Perhaps the patent was not thought sufficient because it 
 promised to give title to lands in that region. The Puritans were 
 wary and prudent, and evidently the first condition, in their minds, 
 of the proposed movement was that wherever they went they should 
 carry with them a sense of absolute security and protection. The 
 Dutch already had their trading posts on Manhattan Island and the 
 upper waters of the Hudson ; and though they had as yet made no 
 agricultural settlements, they clearly had the best right to that re- 
 gion of country, both by virtue of discovery and of possession. The 
 most obvious course, therefore, for the Puritans was to obtain from the 
 Dutch some confirmation of title, before they moved under a patent 
 from an English company to lands which the Dutch occu- 
 pied. This, at any rate, is what they attempted to do, what- propose to 
 ever may have been /die motive. The pastor, John Robinson, New Nether- 
 proposed, on behalf of the Church, to the Amsterdam Com- 
 pany, that he and his people should go to New Netherland, provided 
 the Company could assure them of protection, and establish a colony 
 there subject to the Prince of Orange and the States General. Four 
 hundred families, to go from Holland and from England, Robinson 
 said, would constitute the colony. 
 
 The proposal seems to have been received with enthusiasm by the 
 Amsterdam merchants, who well knew the value of such material for 
 the settlement of a new country. Their reply was an offer of free 
 transportation, cattle for every family, and other inducements ; 3 but 
 on the question of the indispensable guaranty of safety, they could 
 only refer the memorial to the Prince of Orange with a prayer of 
 their own that protection be granted. The stadtholder re- Their propo _ 
 ferred the subject, in his turn, to the States General. After by'thes^t"* 
 much deliberation and discussion, the petition of the Am- General - 
 sterdam Company, in favor of Robinson's proposal, was rejected. 
 This decision may have been influenced by the proposed establish- 
 
 1 The date is fixed by the journal of the London Council in Xeill's History of the Vir- 
 ginia Com/iany, where the name of the patentee is spelt Wencop, Wincopp, and Whincop. 
 Bradford says Wincob. 
 
 * Bradford's Plymouth Plantation. 
 
 3 \Viuslow in Young's Chronicles; Bradford's History. 
 

 384 
 
 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 merit of the great West India Company, to which would properly 
 belong the settlement of all Dutch possessions in the New World, 
 and by the possible international complications that might arise from 
 colonizing a body of Englishmen under the protection of the States- 
 General. 1 
 
 Nearly three years had now elapsed since negotiations were begun, 
 and none of them had led to any practical result. Many were discour- 
 aged by these difficulties, and some in England, who had at first pro- 
 posed to join in the enterprise, and others in Holland, declined to have 
 anything more to do with it. The more zealous and persistent, who 
 were not to be deterred by any obstacles, were convinced that the time 
 had come to resort to positive measures and to take risks. The reso- 
 
 . . 
 
 Leyden. 
 
 lution shaped itself into " a solemn meeting and day of humiliation 
 to seeke the Lord for his direction," and the conclusion was that such 
 as were disposed and could make the needful preparation should go, 
 with Elder Brewster at their head ; the rest, and the larger number, 
 remaining with Mr. Robinson in Leyden. Those who were left be- 
 hind, it was agreed, should follow when means and opportunity offered. 
 Among those in London who had interested themselves in the nego- 
 tiations for a patent was one Thomas Weston, a merchant. He was 
 in Leyden some time in 1620, while these delays and doubts and dis- 
 
 1 Holland Documents, cited in Brodhead's History of the State of New York. 
 
1620.] PREPARATIONS TO EMIGRATE. 885 
 
 appointments were gradually bringing a portion of the Church to a 
 determination to emigrate at all hazards. Weston's counsel was in 
 harmony with this feeling ; he advised them to rely neither upon the 
 Dutch nor the Virginia Company ; he and others, he assured them, 
 were ready to supply ships and money for such an enterprise ; and he 
 reminded them that Sir Ferdinando Gorges and others were moving 
 for a new patent in Northern Virginia. " Unto which," adds Brad- 
 ford, " Mr. Weston, and the cheefe of them, began to incline 
 it was best for them to goe." Thereupon a joint-stock com- company 01 
 pany was formed, to continue for seven years ; when all the 
 profits of the adventure in trading, fishing, planting, or anything else, 
 were to go for that period into a common stock, and at the end of it 
 were to be equally divided between the adventurers and planters, 
 that is, those who had contributed money only to the enterprise, and 
 those who had engaged in it personally. Every pel-son over sixteen 
 years of age who went was rated at ten pounds, or a single share ; and 
 if he provided his own outfit, to the amount of ten pounds, he was en- 
 titled to two shares. All the members of the colony were to be sup- 
 ported out of the common stock. These were the essential articles of 
 agreement made between the London adventurers, who were chiefly to 
 supply the means of going, and the members of the Leyden Church 
 who were to go. 1 
 
 The conflicting rights and interests of adventurers and planters in 
 this joint-stock company were not adjusted without a good deal of 
 controversy and delay, the planters being especially dissatisfied that 
 the value of the homes which they should make for themselves in the 
 colony should, at the end of the seven years, be equally divided among 
 all the stockholders ; and that, during that period, there should not 
 be two or three days in each week reserved to the colonists in which to 
 labor on their own account. But, at length, all the arrangements for 
 their departure were completed. The Speedwell, a vessel of sixty tons, 
 was bought and fitted in Holland, and another, the Mayfloiver, was 
 chartered in London, and was to receive them at Southampton. 
 
 On or about the 21st of July, 1620, 2 the church at Leyden held a 
 day of humiliation and prayer, the pastor, Mr. Robinson, preaching a 
 sermon " upon which," saj 7 s Bradford, " he spente a good The Pil . 
 parte of the day very profitably, and suitable to their pres- ?""_*' 
 ente occasion." Those that were to stay behind " feasted " IUT6Q 
 those that were to go, " refreshing " them afterward with the singing 
 of psalms, making joyful melody, for many were expert in music. 3 
 
 1 Bradford's Plymouth Plantation, p. 45, where the articles of agreement are given. 
 
 2 Prince's Chronological History of New England. 
 8 Winslow in Young's Chronicles. 
 
 VOL. i. ?5 
 

 386 
 
 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 The next day leaving " the goodly and pleasante citie," continues 
 Bradford, " which had been their resting-place near twelve years ; but 
 they knew they were pilgrims and looked not much on those things, 
 but lift up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest cuntrie, and quieted 
 their spirits " they went to the port of Delft-Haven. 
 
 Here the night was spent, not in sleep, but in friendly entertain- 
 ment, and Christian discourse. On the morrow they parted with 
 their friends, and " truly dolfull," he adds, " was the sight of that 
 sade and mournfull parting ; to see what sighs and sobbs, and praires 
 did sound amongst them, what tears did gush from every eye, and 
 
 pithy speeches pierst each harte But the tide (which waits 
 
 for no man) calling 
 them away, that were 
 thus loath to departe, 
 their Reverend pastor, 
 falling downe on his 
 knees, (and they all 
 with him,) with watrie 
 cheekes comended them 
 with most fervente 
 praiers to the Lord 
 and his blessing. And 
 then with mutuall im- 
 braces, and many tears 
 they tooke their leaves one of an other which proved to be the last 
 leave of many of them." 1 Then they went forth to help lay, in the 
 wilderness across the sea, the foundations of a Nation. 
 
 On the 5th of August, the two ships sailed from Southampton with 
 about one hundred and twenty passengers. In a week they were 
 back again, putting in at Dartmouth, the Speedwell having 
 sprung a leak. In a few days they again put to sea, but only 
 to run back to Plymouth, after sailing a hundred leagues, 
 for the Speedwell proved altogether unseaworthy. A mouth 
 was thus wasted in attempts to get away, and it was not till 
 the 6th of September that the Mayflower succeeded in mak- 
 ing a successful departure alone, carrying, beside her crew, one hun- 
 dred and two persons for the new colony. 2 
 
 It was sixty-five days before thev saw land again. The voyage 
 
 ' 
 
 1 In bidding farewell to their friends, " \ve pave them," says Winslow, " a volley of 
 small shot and three pieces of ordnance ; and so lifting up our hands to each other, and 
 our hearts for each other to the Lord our God, we departed." 
 
 2 This was the exact number that sailed from Plymouth, ami arrived at Cape Cod, there 
 having been one birth and one death on the passage. 
 
 Delft-Haven. 
 
 The depar- 
 ture of the 
 Mayflower, 
 6th of Sep- 
 tember, 
 1620, Old 
 Style, 16th 
 September, 
 New Stvle. 
 
1620.] 
 
 THE VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER. 
 
 387 
 
 was tempestuous ; the ship was too weak to bear much canvas ; and 
 it was a question, when they were half across the ocean, whether they 
 should not return. On the 9th of November, they hailed with delight, 
 as so many storm-tossed mariners had done before them, the low coast 
 of Cape Cod. Their purpose was to find a place farther south, or in- 
 definitely somewhere about the mouth of the Hudson River, for their 
 proposed settlement, and for half a day, after making land, they stood 
 
 Plymouth Harbor, England. 
 
 
 to the southward. But they fell presently among dangerous shoals. 
 Gosnold's Point Care and Tucker's Terror, Champlain's Cape Male- 
 barre, stretched out into the sea and turned them back. The 
 next day they ran along the outer coast of the cape, sailed 
 round its extremity, and on the llth : cast anchor in Cape Cod 
 Harbor, now the Harbor of Provincetown, the only windward port 
 within two hundred miles where the ship could have lain at anchor 
 for the next month, un vexed by the storms which usher in a New 
 England winter. 
 
 Their first act on landing, was to fall upon their knees and bless God 
 " who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered 
 them from all the perils and miseries thereof, againe to set 
 their feete on the firme and stable earth, their proper ele- landing. 
 
 llth Xnvem- 
 
 mente." 2 But however much cause there was for thankful- *>r. ieao, 
 
 0. S. 21st 
 
 ness, they were not unmindful of the serious difficulties with November, 
 which they stood face to face. Among them were some per- 
 sons not of the Leyden Church, but who had been taken on board, 
 perhaps, in England, as servants of the leading and wealthier members 
 
 1 The llth of November, Old Style ; the 21st of November, New Style. 
 
 2 Bradford. 
 
883 
 
 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV- 
 
 of the Company. These men had given, the day before the harbor 
 was reached, and when the ship had been turned back from her south- 
 ward course, some evidences of a discontented and mutinous spirit. 
 If the patent from the Southern Virginia Company was not used, and 
 a settlement was made without the jurisdiction of that Company, then 
 these malcontents intimated they would be under no restraint of legal 
 compact authority, and at liberty to do as should seem to them best. 
 It was determined, therefore, to enter into a compact of gov- 
 ernment which should not only have the binding force of law 
 over all persons disposed to be insubordinate, but which would be, it 
 was thought, of as much virtue under the circumstances in which 
 they were placed as any patent. On the day they entered Cape Cod 
 
 i on 
 board the 
 
 Harbor of Provincetown. 
 
 harbor, therefore, all the men, excepting seven of the servants, entered 
 into and signed this agreement : l 
 
 " In y e name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwrite!!, 
 the loyall subjects of our dread soveraigne Lord, King James, by 
 y e grace of God, of Great Britaine, Franc & Ireland king, defender 
 of y e faith, &c., haveing undertaken, for y e glorie of God, and ad- 
 vancemente of y e Christian faith, and honour of our king & countrie, 
 a voyage to plant y e first colonie in y e Northerne part of Virginia, doe 
 by these presents solemnly & mutualy in y e presence of God, and one of 
 another, covenant & combine our selves togeather into a civill body 
 politick, for our better ordering & preservation & furtherance of y e ends 
 aforesaid ; and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute, and frame such 
 just & equall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions & offices, from time 
 
 i We follow literally the copy in Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation, recovered 
 in full only twenty years ago, and published under the editorship of Charles Deane. This 
 document is given in Mourt's Relation, and Morton's Memorial, with some slight and un- 
 important changes of phraseology. 
 
1620.] A CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 389 
 
 to time, as shall be thought most meete & convenient for y e generall 
 good of y* Colonie, unto which we promise all due submission and 
 obedience. In witnes wherof we have hereunder subscribed our 
 names at Cap-Codd y e 11 of November, in y* year of y e raigne of our 
 soveraigne lord, King James, of England, France & Ireland y e eight- 
 eenth, and of Scotland y e fiftie fourth An : Dom. 1620." 
 
 The promptitude and unanimity saving only of the seven servants, 
 who were the only members of the company it was necessary to reduce 
 to obedience by creating a government with which this compact was 
 made and adopted, almost compel the belief that the colonists were 
 quite content to find themselves without the jurisdiction of either 
 the Dutch, or the Virginia Company. The shoals of Point Care and 
 Tucker's Terror may have been rather a pretext than a cause for 
 making no farther attempt to reach a port more to the southward. 
 Nor does there seem to be any sufficient reason for believing the story, 
 that the captain of the Mayflower was bribed not to take his passen- 
 gers to the mouth of the Hudson River. 1 The negotiations before 
 they left Holland, show that while the States General declined to 
 grant them protection, apparently for political reasons, the New 
 Netherland Company were anxious to induce them to settle in the 
 region of country they claimed as theirs. It was the Puritans who 
 objected to going without this guaranty of safety ; not the Dutch who 
 objected to receiving them. Weston, who represented the London ad- 
 venturers on whom the church members at Leyden were to depend so 
 largely for the means of removal, urged them, as we have already 
 stated, not to rely upon either the Dutch or the Virginia Company, 
 enforcing his counsel with the fact that Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and 
 others, had obtained from the king a patent for that part of America 
 called New England. The Virginia Company opposed this patent ; 
 the questions raised in regard to it were carried to the House of Com- 
 mons, and it was not till the next year that they were definitively dis- 
 posed of. It may have been for this that the Puritans did not seek, 
 before their departure, for a patent from the New England Company ; 
 but they sent for and obtained it, when the Mayfloicer returned to 
 England in the spring. 2 It is quite possible that the Pilgrim Fathers 
 
 1 Morton in his New England's Memorial, published in 1669, says: "Of this Plot be- 
 twixt the Dutch and Mr. Jones, (the master of the Mayflower,} I have had late and certain 
 Intelligence." He does not say what or whence the intelligence was, and it is more likely 
 the story was born of the feeling that grew up against the Dutch in later years, than that 
 it had any real foundation. There is no hint of any dissatisfaction with, or suspicion of 
 Captain Jones in the narratives of the emigrants themselves. It has been said, also, that 
 the Mayflower had run north of her intended course, because the compass was influenced 
 by an axe, concealed purposely, or by chance, near the binnacle. One tale is hardly more 
 improbable than the other. 
 
 2 This was the patent to John Peirce. See the " Brief Narration " of Sir Ferdiuando 
 
390 
 
 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 were content to make their land-fall within the boundaries of New 
 England rather than within those of the Virginia Company. The 
 impatience of the captain of the Mayfloiver to land his passengers 
 and return to England may have found a ready response in men who 
 were not sorry that chance had thrown them where they had nothing 
 to fear from the interference of others, whatever other trials there 
 might be in store for them. 
 
 The extremity of Cape Cod^ now is quite a different place from that 
 on which the passengers of the Mayflower landed, glad to get ashore 
 
 The Landing on Cape Cod. 
 
 anywhere after their long and anxious voyage. Where they found 
 pleasant woods of oak and pine, of ash and walnut, and other fine 
 trees, " open & without underwood, fit either to goe or ride in," 1 are 
 now only a few starved and scattered shrubs. The soil of " ex- 
 cellent black earth, a spit's depth," has disappeared, except here and 
 there in swamps, and in its place are the shifting hills of yellow sand, 
 drifting from year to year like snow before a driving storm, the Cape 
 only saved from being blown away altogether, by the long beach- 
 Gorges, in Maine Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. ii. Davis's notes to Morton's Memorial. Young's 
 Chronicles. Deane's notes to Bradford's History. 
 1 Mourt's Relation. Bradford gives essentially the same account. 
 
 
1620.] THE COAST EXPLORED. 391 
 
 grass which ties it down. 1 But then, as now, the waters of the bay 
 were shallow, and the people waded ashore ; the men to explore the 
 country, the women to wash the clothes after the long sea voyage ; 
 though where fresh water was found for this purpose, can only now 
 be guessed by the curious antiquary, who finds traces of a pond, ob- 
 literated long ago by the encroaching waters of the sea and the ever 
 shifting sands. 2 But there was no water fit for drinking ; for, some 
 days later, the men drank their "first New England water" from 
 springs found ten miles distant from the beach where the Mayflower 
 lay at anchor. 
 
 A company of sixteen men under Captain Miles Standish, made this 
 first reconnoissance of the land, marching through boughs 
 and bushes which tore their armor in pieces ; seeing Indians, 
 for the first time, at a distance ; crossing fields of stubble StandiRh - 
 where they had grown their maize ; finding the winter's store of the 
 grain itself which the natives had 
 buried in the sand, and filling with 
 this a kettle left by some former 
 visitors, or taken perhaps, from some 
 wrecked vessel they returned to 
 the ship like the men from Eshcol, signature of M i, es st.ndi.h. 
 
 with the fruits of the land, at which their brethren were " marvelusly 
 glad & their harts encouraged." 
 
 When the shallop, which the ship had brought, had received the 
 repairs she needed, more extended explorations were made along the 
 shores of the bay. These unfortunate people could not have come at 
 a worse season, and could hardly have found a less fitting place along 
 the whole coast, on which to plant a colony. More than a month was 
 consumed in the search for a spot, which they could venture to believe 
 might answer, a longer time than it would have taken to go hun- 
 dreds of miles farther south, had they wished, or had they been will- 
 ing to put themselves within the jurisdiction of either the Virginia 
 Company or the Dutch. There was nothing to invite, and every- 
 thing to discourage them in the aspect and condition of the country. 
 They were very thankful to have found corn enough in the Indian 
 stores to answer their own needs in the coming spring for seed-corn, 
 which they honestly paid for, when, six months later, they met with 
 the owners ; and they had good reason to congratulate themselves, 
 that the natives of the country seemed to be but few ; these were the 
 only special blessings, but they were duly grateful. The weather was 
 
 1 So serious is the danger of the destruction of the end of Cape Cod, as to call for re- 
 medial measures on the part of the United States Government, within a few years. 
 
 2 See Thoreau's Cape Cod, and Dexter's notes to Mourt's delation. 
 
THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 so cold that the sea-spray, as it fell upon those exposed in the open 
 shallop, encased them, as it were, in armor of ice ; the ground was 
 frozen hard, and during much of the first month covered with snow ; 
 they rather hoped than knew that fish, which was to be their chief 
 dependence, were plentiful, for at that season they could catch but 
 few ; and they sought painfully along the shallow shores for a harbor 
 with water enough to float their ship, whose passengers pined to ex- 
 change their narrow cabins for even the lonely wilderness and the 
 leafless woods, through which the winter storms swept dismally, bring- 
 ing with them the roar, the smell, and the dreariness of the sea. 
 
 The ship herself was safe on good anchorage-ground, and in a land- 
 locked port ; but for her people to remain longer than was absolutely 
 necessary, at a place where there was no fresh water to drink, and 
 where the shore could only be reached by wading, except at the 
 full flood of the tide, was out of the question. No pretermission of 
 diligence, therefore, in seeking for a better spot was permitted, and at 
 last the search was successful. On Wednesday, the 6th of December 
 (Old Style), a party put off for a more extended search than had yet 
 been made. Robert Coppin, the gunner of the Mayflower, was of this 
 company, and he knew, he said for he had been upon this coast be- 
 fore of a good harbor, and a great navigable river in the other head- 
 land of the bay. On Wednesday and Thursday they cruised along 
 the shore, on the west side of the cape, from Provincetown to Truro, 
 from Truro to Wellfleet, from Wellfleet to Eastham as the region is 
 now divided. A sudden attack was made upon them, on Friday morn- 
 ing, by the natives, as they were getting ready to leave the night's 
 camping-ground, and arquebus-shot and arrow flights were exchanged 
 without harm to either party. 
 
 From this point they sailed along the coast for fifteen leagues, on 
 Friday, and, seeing no good harbor, stood on in search of that which 
 Coppin said he knew. The day was stormy ; in the course of it the 
 rudder of the boat was unshipped, and, before they made land on the 
 other side of the bay, she carried away her mast, split her sail, and 
 was near being lost altogether. At nightfall they reached and landed 
 upon an island, since known as Clark's Island, because Clark, the 
 Mayflower's chief mate, was the first to step ashore. The next day, 
 the 9th, they explored the island, and on Sunday, the 10th, they 
 rested, as men would be sure to rest who, on week-days, never forgot, 
 under any circumstances, to ask in outspoken prayer the blessing of 
 God upon their labors. 
 
 On Monday, December llth, 1 they crossed the harbor, sounding it 
 
 1 Dec-ember 11, Old Style : December 21, New Style. In 1769 the "landing of the 'Pil. 
 grim Fathers ' " was first commemorated at Plymouth, and the date in New Style was errone- 
 
CO 
 
 /-. 
 
 7. 
 
 c 
 
1620.] DISCOVERY OF PLYMOUTH. 393 
 
 as they went, and finding it of good depth for small vessels. Along 
 the shore of the mainland they found several brooks of plen- The explor . 
 tiful waters pouring into the bay, and here and there were 
 cleared fields, where the Indians had planted maize, ready 
 for the use of new comers. If not the best of places, it was, 
 says Bradford, who was of the party, "at least the best they N ' S- 
 could find, and the season and their present necessity made them glad 
 to accept it." 
 
 The incident in itself is commonplace enough. Seventeen rough 
 men, 1 who, for the five previous days had been in an open boat, sleep- 
 ing by night upon the bare ground, sometimes drenched with rain, 
 sometimes half frozen with the cold, landed, as they had often done 
 before, from their boat to seek anew a spot that would answer their 
 purpose. History, nevertheless, has marked the act as an epoch. Nor 
 is its significance likely to be forgotten, although confusion and mis- 
 understanding have gathered about it and obscured its exact details. 
 Its importance and interest are none the less because it happens to 
 be commemorated by the descendants of the Pilgrims, wherever they 
 are found, on the anniversary of a day when the event did not occur, 
 and with the general supposition that on that day the people of the 
 Mayflower landed from the ship upon the rock of Plymouth which 
 they certainly did not do till a fortnight later. 
 
 Nor is there any reason, except in the confounding of fact and tra- 
 dition, for the supposition that this boat-load of explorers visited the 
 spot where the Pilgrims afterward made their home. That is three 
 miles from Clark's Island, while the shore of the mainland toward 
 which these men would naturally steer their boat at the nearest point 
 stretches along opposite the island within a much shorter distance. 
 Though they "marched into the land, and found divers corn-fields 
 
 ously niade the 22d, instead of the 21st. The error, which has been perpetuated ever since 
 in the celebration of the day, arose, it has been supposed, from the addition of eleven days, 
 instead of ten, to mark the difference between Old Style and New. The explanation is 
 unsatisfactory, as such a blunder seems hardly likely to have occurred. The error more 
 probably came from a mistake in punctuation, in Mourt's Relation, where the statement 
 is : " And here we made our rendezvous all that day, being Saturday, 10 of Deceml>er 
 on the Sabbath day we rested, and on Monday we sounded the liarl>or," etc. There 
 should be a period after " Saturday," when it would read : ' And here we made our 
 rendezvous all that day, being Saturday. 10 of December, on the Sabbath day, we rested ; 
 and on Monday," etc. Saturday was certainly the 9th, not the 10th ; but when, in 1769, 
 in Plymouth, they turned to Mourt's Relation, to fix the date of this incident, and read the 
 record with its erroneous punctuation, they of course called Monday the 12th, and, adding 
 ten days for difference of styles, made " Forefathers' Day " the 22d. 
 
 1 They were Miles Standish, John Carver, William Bradford, Edward Winslow, John 
 Tilley, Edward Tilley, John Rowland, Hichard Warren, Steven Hopkins Edward Doty; 
 two seamen, John Allerton and Thomas English, hired by the colonists ; of the ship's 
 company, Clark, the first mate, Coppin, the master-gunner, and three unnamed sailors. 
 
394 
 
 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XlV. 
 
 and litle runing brooks," they decided upon no particular site for the 
 colony, for they " afterwards," says Bradford, " took better view of 
 the place, and resolved where to pitch their dwelling." Nor could 
 they have spent much time in a survey of the shores of the harbor, 
 for they returned that day to their companions, at the end of Cape 
 Cod, to report the success of the expedition a return saddened by 
 the news of the death of William Bradford's wife, who, during his 
 absence, had fallen overboard and was drowned. With this voyage 
 of the shallop no tradition seems to be connected. We have only 
 
 Map of Plymouth Harbor. 
 
 
 the cold, bare records of ordinary facts ; the rough pioneer work of 
 men engaged in an arduous duty, to be done at any risk of hardship, 
 and to be done quickly. All the romantic interest that tradition lends 
 to the landing of the Pilgrims came later with the disembarkation of 
 the passengers of the Mayflower, upon the rock at Plymouth. 
 
 On the 15th of December the Mayflower left her harbor at Cape 
 Cod ; the next day, Saturday, the 16th, she dropped her anchor about 
 half-way between Plymouth and Clark's Island. On Monday and 
 Tuesday, the 18th and 19th, exploring parties, some in the shallop, 
 and some on foot, cruised along the shore or roamed through the woods 
 
 

 1621.] THE LANDING ON JANUARY 4, 1621. 395 
 
 for several miles. But it was not till Wednesday that a choice was 
 
 made between two places, and it was decided that the fittest The 
 
 for a settlement was where a hill, overlooking the bay and 
 
 the surrounding country, offered the best site for a fort and 
 
 houses, and near which were fields cleared by the Indians for Dec 26 > x - s 
 
 their own planting, and a plentiful stream of sweet water. Here some 
 
 of them at once established themselves. But communication with the 
 
 ship was, for the next two days, interrupted by bad weather, which 
 
 permitted only of the putting 
 
 off of a boat occasionally in 
 
 the intervals of the storm. 
 
 On Saturday those on shore 
 
 felled some timber. But not 
 
 till Monday, the 25th, did the 
 
 passengers generally go " on 
 
 shore, some to fell timber, 
 
 some to saw, some to rive, and 
 
 some to carry, so no man 
 
 rested all that day." The 
 
 actual beginning Of the Set- Relics from the 'Mayflower.' John Alden's Bible ; William 
 ,1 j Clark's Mug and Wallet, etc. 
 
 tlement was then made, 
 
 " to erect the first house for common use to receive them and their 
 
 goods." 1 
 
 This was on the site of the present town of Plymouth, and at the 
 head of one of its wharves, almost buried in the roadway, is The land . 
 the memorial rock, or rather what there is left of it. 2 Trust- 
 worthy tradition verifies it as that on which the passengers 
 of the Mayflower landed when, for the first time, Monday, 1621 - N - S - 
 December 25th, they left the ship with a distinct purpose of taking 
 possession of a new home. 
 
 Only on Tuesday of the previous week was this spot fixed upon ; 
 the ship was a mile and a half away ; in the interval of nearly a week 
 the stormy weather had made it difficult for the shallop to take even 
 the needed provisions to the few men on shore. Not till Monday, the 
 25th, was the actual work of putting up a shelter on this chosen spot 
 begun ; and then it seems probable and natural indeed only till 
 then does it seem possible that a visit was made by the company 
 generally, men, women, and children, to their future home. 
 
 And it was made, no doubt, with recognition of the occasion as some- 
 thing more than an ordinary occurrence ; with emotions of mingled 
 
 1 Bradford's History. Mourt's Relation. 
 
 2 The upper portion of it was removed, about a hundred years ago, nearer to the centre 
 of the town. 
 
396 
 
 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 gladness and sorrow ; with sad and tender memories of that past life, 
 ending now as they were preparing to leave the ship that brought 
 them from the homes they should never see again ; but with sanguine 
 hope also in the new and free life on which they were about to 
 enter, though beginning in hardship and suffering, visibly begin- 
 ning, with almost all the calamities from which they might have asked 
 to be delivered in no more definite and forcible prayer than that 
 of the Litany against which they protested, " from lightning and 
 
 Landing of John Alden and Mary Chilton. 
 
 tempest ; from plague, pestilence, and famine ; from battle and mur- 
 der, and from sudden death." 
 
 Still another tradition connects this rock with the general land- 
 ing of the Mayflower's passengers. 1 The honor of being the first to 
 
 1 " There is a tradition, as to the person who first leaped upon this rook, when the fami- 
 lies came on shore, December 11, 1620." Coll. Mass. Hist. Society, vol. iii., Second Series, 
 p. 174. It is such careless statements as this that have led to confusion on this subject* 
 " The families" were on board the Mayflower in Provincetown harbor, twenty -five miles 
 from Plymouth, on the llth of December, 1620. The advance party of explorers only 
 landed that day somewhere on the Plymouth shore. 
 
1621.] 
 
 THE FIRST WINTER. 
 
 397 
 
 step upon the rock is divided between John Alden and Mary Chil- 
 ton. 1 Neither of these persons is named in the list, which 
 professes to be a full one, of those who in the shallop, on and Mary 
 the llth of December, discovered the bay of Plymouth ; 
 and certainly no woman could have been upon such an expedition. 
 Nor is it likely that any woman went on shore in the stormy weather, 
 after the arrival of the May- 
 flower in the harbor on the 
 16th, till the general visit was 
 made on the 25th to the selected 
 spot. Whoever then was the 
 first to spring to the rock, 
 about which there may have 
 been, on such an occasion, some 
 pleasant rivalry, whether the 
 young man or the young maiden, 
 the leap was made, no doubt, 
 from the first boat from the 
 Mayflower, on the 25th of De- 
 cember Jan. 4th 1621, N. S. 
 But even yet there was no 
 final transfer of the colonists to 
 
 . , , ,,, ... , ... . i Stone Canopy over Plymouth Rock. 
 
 land. The ship was still the 
 
 home of the larger number, and probably of all the women and chil- 
 dren, those only remaining on shore who were engaged in building 
 or in guarding the accumulating property. On the 10th of January 
 the common house of about twenty feet square was nearly finished ; 
 it was only then that a town of a single street was laid out, and it 
 was agreed that each head of a family should build his own house on 
 the lot assigned him. The building went on slowly, for the inclem- 
 ency of the weather permitted of out-door work for only half the 
 time. Some of the private houses were finished in the course of the 
 winter, but it was not till the 21st of March that all the company 
 went finally on shore. 
 
 Much less room was needed now, if that were one of the reasons for 
 delay in removing from the ship. For the first two months those on 
 shore were exposed, with little or no shelter, to the rigors of 
 a New England winter, though that of 1620-21 was plainly the winter 
 
 of 162021 
 
 one of unusual mildness; those in the ship were crowded 
 
 into close and unwholesome quarters ; provision was scanty and poor ; 
 
 the scurvy appeared and spread rapidly ; other diseases, engendered 
 
 1 Notes on Plymouth, Mass., vol. iii., Second Series, and Notes on Duxbury, vol. x., Mass. 
 Hist. Coll. 
 
398 
 
 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 in want and exposure, became equally prevalent ; and when the spring 
 opened about one half the company were dead. 
 
 Some of the most eminent in character and station ; many in the 
 prime of their days and their strength, whose loss to the colony was 
 most serious ; wives, mothers, children, servants were swept away, 
 leaving those who survived enfeebled by sickness and overwhelmed 
 with grief, when they were most in need of all their physical and 
 mental energies. Carver, the governor, died in April, and his wife 
 soon followed him ; the wife of William Bradford, who was Carver's 
 successor, was drowned as we have already said before the May- 
 flower left Cape Cod harbor ; Edward Winslow, Miles Standish, Isaac 
 Allerton, were soon made widowers ; Edward Tillie and John Tillie, 
 who were of the crew of the shallop that discovered Plymouth Bay, 
 
 First Burial Place near the Landing. 
 
 lost their wives, and both died not long after; John Allerton and 
 Thomas English, of the same company, soon filled graves on the shore 
 they had helped to find ; Mary Chilton, one of the first, no doubt, if 
 not the very first, to spring to the landing-place in glad expectation 
 of a happy future in a new home, was soon alone, both father and 
 mother dead ; others, like hei', were left orphans ; parents were left 
 childless ; in some cases whole families were carried off ; in others 
 there was only a single survivor. Hardly a day passed for four months 
 that they did not bring out their dead. 
 
 So the winter passed. Little happened to break the sad monotony 
 of intervals of work on houses which they might not live to occupy, 
 and nursing the sick till most of them were taken to those narrow 
 houses which they would never leave. Twice the wretched commu- 
 
1621.] 
 
 THE FIRST WINTER AT PLYMOUTH. 
 
 399 
 
 nity were in danger of being burnt out of their poor shelters on shore, 
 the thatched roofs of their two buildings, one for the well, the other 
 for the sick, taking fire by accident and being consumed. Lurking 
 savages were sometimes seen in the neighborhood, but they made no 
 attempt to molest the new comers. Precautions, however, were taken 
 against any attack from them, and Miles Standish, who had been a 
 soldier in the Low Countries, was entrusted with the conduct of mili- 
 tary affairs, as he was generally with the command of all expeditions. 
 
 Governor Carver's Cheir 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. 
 
 THE COMING OF FRIENDLY INDIANS. SAMOSET AND SQUANTO. CAPTAIN DEKMER'S 
 PREVIOUS VISIT TO PLYMOUTH. STAN-DISH'S VISIT TO BOSTON HARHOR. REIN- 
 FORCEMENTS FROM ENGLAND. THE FIRST CHRISTMAS AT PLYMOUTH. HOSTILE 
 MESSAGE FROM THE NARHAGANSETTS. ARRIVAL OF WESTON'S COLONISTS. THEIR 
 SETTLEMENT AT WESSAGUSSET. AN INDIAN CONSPIRACY. STANDISH'S EXPEDI- 
 TION AND THE PLOT DEFEATED. THE GRIEF OF PASTOR ROBINSON. ARHIVAL OF 
 
 ROBERT GORGES. FIRST ALLOTMENT OF LAND IN PLYMOUTH. JOHN PEIRCE'S 
 PATENT. THE LYFORD AND OLDHAM CONSPIRACY. THEIR BANISHMENT. 
 BREAKING-UP OF THE LONDON COMPANY. THE PILGRIMS THROWN ON THEIR OWN 
 RESOURCES. THE FISHING STATION AT CAPE ANN. ENCOUNTER BETWEEN CAP- 
 TAIN STANDISH AND MR. HEWES. THE DORCHESTER SETTLEMENT AT CAPE ANN. 
 CONANT'S CHARGE OF IT, AND HIS REMOVAL TO NAUMKEAG. SETTLEMENTS 
 ABOUT BOSTON HARBOR. MORTON OF MERRY-MOUNT. STANDISH'S ARREST OF 
 MORTON. 
 
 NEW events came with the spring to the colony at Plymouth, as 
 well as health and hope. In March a naked Indian stalked boldly in 
 
 Visit of Samoset to the Colony. 
 
 among them, and greeted them in a few English words, which he had 
 learned from the fishermen and other voyagers on the coast of Maine, 
 
 
1621.] FIRST INTERCOURSE WITH INDIANS. 401 
 
 his home being on the Pemaquid. This man's name was Samoset, 
 but why he was so far from home is not clear. He may The ^ git of 
 have been brought and left in the neighborhood by Captain i n f ^ d !:[ 
 Dermer, who had twice been upon this coast, making his Samo8et 
 second voyage only the previous summer. On his first voyage he 
 visited the place, " which," he said, " in Captain Smith's map is called 
 Plimouth. And," he adds, " I would that the first Plantation might 
 here be seated, if there come to the number of Fifty persons, or up- 
 wards." 1 
 
 From this Samoset they learned that the Indian name of the place 
 they had settled upon was Patuxet, and that about four years before 
 all the inhabitants had been swept off by a plague. 2 He told them 
 who were their nearest Indian neighbors Massasoit's people, the 
 Wampanoags, and the Nausets on Cape Cod. It was these Nausets 
 with whom the Pilgrims had their harmless fight soon after landing, 
 and who were most inimical to the English because seven of their tribe 
 were kidnapped by Hunt in 1614, the other twenty being taken from 
 Patuxet Plymouth. 
 
 Samoset brought to the settlement some of the friendly Indians, and 
 among them Tisquantum or Squanto, one of those whom 
 Weymouth took to England, fifteen years before, and gave t<n or 
 to Sir Ferdinando Gorges. It had been this man's fortune 
 to be again kidnapped, this time by Hunt, and to fall into the hands 
 of Dermer, who brought him home to Patuxet, " my savage's native 
 country." Dermer writes, where he found " all dead," nearly two 
 years before. It was fortunate for the new-comers that their first 
 intercourse with the Indians was through these two men, who were 
 friendly to the English and could speak their tongue. One immediate 
 
 1 Bradford says of this letter that it is " a relation written by him [Dermer], and given 
 me by a friend, bearing date June 30 Ano 1620 In which relation to his hon- 
 ored friend he hath these passages of this very place." Morton in the Memorial, copies ver- 
 batim from Bradford. " I will first begin [says the letter] with that place from whence 
 Squanto or Tisquantum was taken away, which in Captain Smith's map is called Plimouth : 
 and I would that Plimouth had the same commodities. I would that the first Plantation 
 might here be seated if there come to the number of 50 persons or upward." Morton evi- 
 dently mistakes in supposing this letter of June 30, 1620, referred to the visit of that spring. 
 It was in the summer of 1619 that Dermer was at Plymouth. 
 
 2 There can be no doubt from the concurring testimony of several of the writers of that 
 period, that such a pestilence prevailed throughout New England a few years before the 
 settlement of Plymouth. The story was that a party of Frenchmen, trading on the coast of 
 Massachusetts, aroused the enmity of the natives, who fell upon and killed all but five whom 
 they kept as servants. None of them lived long, and the last survivor predicted to the 
 Indians, just before his death, that God was so angry with them for their bloody and cruel 
 deed that He would destroy them all. The Indians answered that they were so many God 
 could not kill them. The prediction, nevertheless, was fulfilled, and the more pious of the 
 early settlers believed that the pestilence was sent as a special providence to rid the country 
 of the heathen and make room for the coining of a Christian people. 
 
 VOL. i. 20 
 
402 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 good result followed, for the natives brought, within a few days, the 
 most powerful Sagamore of that region, Massasoit, with whom the 
 colonists made a treaty both offensive and defensive. They were not 
 much impressed with the dignity of this first Indian king whom they 
 met, for he was distinguished from his followers only by a string of 
 white bone beads about his neck ; his face was painted of a sad red, 
 and both face and head were well oiled so that he " looked greasily." 
 
 Squanto became at once an intimate and valued friend. He taught 
 them how to plant maize, and to manure it -with the alewives which 
 in April came up the brook in great numbers to spawn ; and these he 
 showed them how to take. It was a service of no slight value, for the 
 wheat and peas, and other English seed the colonists sowed, proved 
 almost worthless, either from defect in cultivation, or from delay in 
 visit to planting. Later in the season the Indian guided two am- 
 fnd'other 1 bassadors, Winslow and Hopkins, across the country to Mas- 
 places, sasoit's chief village, Pokanoket, now Warren, Rhode Island, 
 to confirm the treaty of peace and friendship made with him at Plym- 
 outh. The pleasant weather between seed-time and harvest was 
 wisely used in learning the character of the surrounding region, in 
 making the acquaintance of the nearest native tribes, and in acquir- 
 ing an influence over them. 
 
 The cape was explored ; Boston Harbor was visited, and the sight 
 of its islands, then covered with woods, its sheltered coves, and its 
 navigable streams, into which fish of every kind known on that coast 
 swarmed in their season, excited keen regret that their lines had not 
 fallen in such pleasant places. The health of the colonists was now 
 so completely established that ten men could be spared to go off upon 
 some of these excursions half, at least, of their effective force, for 
 the whole colony, including women and children, was reduced to about 
 fifty persons, and seven small houses held them all. Those left at 
 home were employed in fishing and tending the few acres of the ex- 
 pected harvest. Of food there was abundance ; game was plentiful, 
 especially wild turkeys, which long since disappeared from the At- 
 lantic sea-coast, and deer, which to this day roam in the woods from 
 Plymouth to Cape Cod. 1 
 
 In November came the first reinforcement of thirty-five persons in 
 the ship Fortune. She brought also a new patent, issued to John 
 
 1 In the autumn of this year the Governor (says Winslow, in Mourt's Relation) "sent 
 four men on fowling, that so we might after a more speciall manner rejoice together after 
 we had gathered the fruit of our labours." This is thought to be the origin of the New 
 England festival of Thanksgiving. But special reference to such a day by name come? the 
 next year, at the same season, for a fruitful harvest, when, says Morton in his Memorial. 
 " for which mercy, in time convenient, they also solemnized a Day of Thanksgiving unto 
 the Lord." 
 
1621.] 
 
 A PATENT FROM THE PLYMOUTH COMPANY. 
 
 403 
 
 Peirce and associates by the Plymouth Company, which had received 
 its charter the November previous, and had given to the New 
 
 Patent 
 
 Plymouth Puritans the first patent it granted. It was the granted to 
 first time the exiles had heard from England, and the letters 
 were filled with complaints from the London adventurers that the 
 Mayflower, which had returned in the spring, had come without a 
 cargo. To such ungenerous reproaches Bradford who was now 
 governor replied in terms as pathetic as they were dignified, that 
 " it pleased God to vissite us with death daily, and with so generall 
 a disease, that the living were scarce able to burie the dead ; and the 
 well not in any measure sufficiente to tend the sick." This second 
 ship, however, was laden with lumber and some peltries, but unfor- 
 tunately only a small part of her cargo ever reached England, as she 
 was taken by the French on the homeward passage. 
 
 The second winter passed without unusual hardship or sickness ; 
 
 / Kll tUtttl t S3 whereof the said President & Counsell haue 
 to the one pt of this pnte Indenture sett their scales And to 
 th'utner pt hereof the said John Peirce in the name of himself 
 and his said Associate haue sett to his seale geven the day and 
 yeeres first aboue written/ 
 
 Signatures to Plymouth Patent. 1 
 
 1 This patent is preserved sit Plymouth, MHSS., and is the oldest document now in exist- 
 ence relating to her history, as well as the first known grant made by the Plymouth Com- 
 pany. It is puhlished in full in vol. ii., Fourth Series, Mass. Hist. Coll., from which we 
 copy the fac-similes of the signatures of the President and Council who signed it, namely, the 
 Duke of Lenox, the Marquis of Hamilton, the Earl of Warwick, Lord Sheffield, and Sir 
 Ferdiuando Gorges. 
 
404 
 
 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. 
 
 [CHAP. XV. 
 
 there was enough to eat ; order, security, and sobriety were maintained 
 by strict discipline, the discipline, however, of a mixed civil and mili- 
 tary rule and not exclusively of a rigid religious conformity. The 
 better and the larger number were heedful of their own religious walk 
 and conversation, as became a people who for the sake of their faith 
 had submitted to so many years of exile, and who had taken refuge, 
 at last, in the wilderness that they might preserve their allegiance to 
 
 their convictions as well as to their 
 country. Civil order they valued 
 for its own sake, and with that sound 
 common sense, which on a larger field Christmas Reviier. 
 
 would be called statesmanship, se- 
 cured it by enforcing it. But that they did not deny to others the 
 
 freedom of conscience which they claimed for themselves, is 
 Bradford evident from a little incident with the relation of which 
 Christmas Bradford closes his record of the year, and which he calls a 
 
 " passage rather of mirth than of waight." On " the day 
 called Christmas day," as he and others of the Leyden congregation 
 went out to their usual labor, some of those who had recently arrived 
 in the Fortune excused themselves, as it was, they said, against their 
 consciences to work on that day. If it was a matter of conscience, the 
 
1622.] THE NARRAGANSETT INDIANS. 405 
 
 governor assented, then they should be excused till better informed. 
 But when on returning at noon from work these people were found 
 playing at ball, pitching the bar, and at other games in the street, the 
 governor, with more of humor than of that grim intolerance which is 
 often supposed to be the ground-work of the Puritan character, sent 
 them to their houses and their devotions, if they had any to pay, with 
 the reasonable injunction that it was against his conscience they should 
 play while others worked. 
 
 The courage and firmness which secured order at home, was no less 
 sturdy in maintaining peace abroad. The Narragansett Indians sent 
 to Plymouth, in token of enmity and of hostile intentions, a 
 bundle of arrows tied together with the skin of a rattle- 
 
 snake. This was the most numerous and most warlike tribe ' 
 in New England, numbering, it is supposed, thirty thousand, of whom 
 five thousand were warriors. The little colony, in which there were 
 not more than fifty men capable of bearing arms, may not have known 
 the full strength of these Narragansetts, but they knew, at least, that 
 so numerous a people would be formidable enemies. So soon, never- 
 theless, as they understood from Squanto the purport of this symbolic 
 message, the skin of the rattlesnake was stuffed with powder and ball 
 and returned. The Indians were at no loss to comprehend both the 
 meaning of the answer and the spirit that prompted it, and the Pil- 
 grims were unmolested. 
 
 The town, of seven dwellings and two public buildings, was, how- 
 ever, surrounded with palisades, as a measure of precaution ; the 
 order of a military garrison, both for peace within and without, was 
 established ; all the men were enrolled in four companies, with time 
 and place appointed for mounting guard, for drill, and for general 
 muster ; and when, in the spring of 1622, the news came of the mas- 
 sacre in Virginia, the building of a fort was begun within the pal- 
 isades, on what is now known as " the burial-hill " of Plymouth. 
 There were occasional alarms from the Indians ; but that at first, 
 seemingly the most serious, was a false report raised by Squanto, who, 
 coming to entertain a mistaken notion of his own importance, at- 
 tempted to enhance it by arousing the fears and jealousies of his 
 own people and the English, which he alone was to pacify. He 
 learned better behavior for the future, however, when Massasoit 
 demanded his head, and his Plymouth friends pardoned and saved 
 him. 
 
 The first difficulty that had any lasting result came through the 
 conduct of their own countrymen. There was, indeed, a scarcity of 
 food, in the summer of 1622, but that was relieved partly by supplies 
 which Winslow obtained among the English fishermen on the coast of 
 
406 
 
 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. 
 
 [CHAP. XV. 
 
 Maine, and partly from several English vessels which, in the course of 
 the season, visited Plymouth. Among these arrivals were two sent 
 out by that Mr. Weston, of London, who hitherto had been an active 
 and influential friend of their company, but had now retired from it 
 and proposed to plant a colony of his own. 
 
 The people whom Weston sent out were not Puritans. Rude and 
 profane fellows, he himself acknowledged, many of them 
 were ; and Mr. Peirce, in whose name the new charter was 
 "*" taken out, wrote : " As for Mr. Weston's company, they are 
 
 so base in condition, for the most part, as, in all appearance, not fit 
 for an honest man's company." Such as they were, they were landed 
 
 Burial Hill. 
 
 at Plymouth, where they remained for some time, helping to consume 
 the stores to which they had added nothing when they came, and did 
 nothing to increase while they stayed. To support them was a burden ; 
 to be compelled to tolerate their idleness and evil example was a mis- 
 fortune. Plymouth was happily rid of their presence when they de- 
 termined to establish a separate colony at Wichaguscusset, or Wes- 
 sagusset, now Wey mouth, where a broad but shallow stream empties 
 into the harbor, eight or nine miles south of Boston. 
 
 Little good was to be expected from such a company ; and there 
 came nothing but evil. It was not long before the complaints of the 
 Indians were loud and bitter against them. Improvident and idle, or 
 diligent only in stealing, they soon reached the extremity of want 
 and suffering. Some died of hunger. Some sold their clothes and 
 blankets to the natives for food ; others rendered them the most men- 
 ial services to keep off starvation. Many dispersed themselves about 
 the woods and along the shore seeking to subsist on ground nuts and 
 shell-fish. To the Indians they soon became objects of contempt for 
 their weakness, and of resentment for their thefts and, perhaps, for 
 graver wrongs ; for their leader was accused and he would not be 
 likely, if the charge were true, to be the only offender of making 
 
 
1622.] WESTON'S COLONY. 407 
 
 mistresses of the Indian women. But the natives must have come at 
 length to despise much more than they feared them, for they would 
 snatch from between their hands the food the whites had prepared 
 for themselves, and take from under them the blankets in which they 
 had wrapped themselves for sleep. So far from resenting and assum- 
 ing to punish these aggressions of the natives, they attempted to ap- 
 pease their anger by hanging one of the colonists for stealing corn. 
 
 The culprit, it is related, was one of the stoutest among them 
 so stout, and strong, and courageous, that his fellows did not Hanging of 
 venture to arrest him openly, but secured him by some strat- a colonUt - 
 agem, and hanged him thus bound. According to the same narra- 
 tive it was proposed and seriously considered, whether it would not 
 be better to spare this real criminal, who was young and vigorous, 
 and might yet be of great service, and substitute for him on the gal- 
 lows one who was old, and impotent, and sickly. The project was 
 overruled, however, not so much, apparently, from any recognition 
 of the essential wrong which it was proposed to inflict upon the old 
 man, as from the evident inexpediency of resorting to an artifice 
 which would exasperate but not deceive the Indians. 1 
 
 This pestilent colony, the Massachusetts Indians, in conjunction 
 with others, resolved, at length, to exterminate ; and as 
 
 Discovery of 
 
 they naturally supposed such an act would be avenged an Indian 
 
 r t\r i T-I i conspiracy. 
 
 by the countrymen of the Wessagusset people, at .Plymouth, 
 they also were to be fallen upon at the same time, and the country 
 to be thus rid altogether of the English. But before the savages 
 were ready to put this plan in execution, it happened that news came 
 to Plymouth of the serious illness of Massasoit. Edward Winslow 
 and John Hamden, 2 were at once sent to Pokanoket to express sym- 
 
 1 The story rests on the authority of Thomas Morton {New English Canaan, Third 
 Book, chap, iv.), who, however much he may have hated and misrepresented the people of 
 Plymouth, does not appear to have borne any ill-v.Ul towards those of Wessagusset, and 
 may, indeed, have been one of that company. His circumstantial statement does not look 
 like an invention. Butler, in Hudibras, makes use of the story to throw ridicule upon the 
 Puritans, who of course had nothing to do with the incident, if it ever occurred. He rep- 
 resents the culprit us a shoemaker who had slain an Indian because he was an infidel, and 
 then adds, 
 
 " But they maturely having weighed, 
 
 They had no more but him of the trade, 
 
 A man that served them in a double 
 
 Capacity, to teach and cobble, 
 
 Resolved to spare him ; yet to do 
 
 The Indian Hoghgan Moghgan, too, 
 
 Impartial justice, in his stead did 
 
 Hang an old weaver that was bed-rid." 
 
 1 Similarity of name has sometimes suggested that this was John Hampden, the Eng- 
 lish patriot, but the conjecture has no other foundation, and other reasons make it alto- 
 gether improbable. 
 
408 
 
 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. 
 
 [CHAP. XV. 
 
 Sword of Miles Standiih. 
 
 pathy, and if possible, render aid to one who had shown himself a 
 firm friend and ally of the colonists. The chief was apparently in a 
 dying condition, but Winslow by timely remedies and careful nursing, 
 restored him in a few days to health, to the amazement of his friends 
 and followers, who looked upon his cure as a miracle. The gratitude 
 of Massasoit was unbounded, and he showed it by revealing to Hob- 
 bamock, Winslow's Indian guide, the plot against the colonies, in 
 which he had been urged to take part. 
 
 An example had been given within a year in Virginia, of how sud- 
 den, stealthy, and complete, a massacre by Indians might be. The 
 information given by Massasoit was discussed in the " yearly court- 
 day," or town-meeting on the day of the election in March, 1 and 
 it was determined that an expedition be sent to Wessagusset. This 
 
 consisted of only eight men, 
 commanded by Captain Stan- 
 dish, who thought proper to 
 take no more, lest the sus- 
 picions of the Indians should 
 be aroused by the appearance 
 of a greater number. Standish found the colony in a condition quite 
 as forlorn and wretched as had been represented, so scattered, heed- 
 less, imbecile, and unsuspicious, that they would be an easy prey to 
 the savages when these were ready to strike the blow. Only a few 
 of the leading men among them, when told of the designs of the 
 Indians, could believe in the report, and to those few it was confirmed 
 by some circumstances which they had themselves observed. 
 
 Some conference was had with the Indians, who suspected the de- 
 sign of Standish, laughed at, and defied him. They were 
 
 Standiuh at i i i , 
 
 weiwagus- too cautious to expose themselves in any large number to- 
 gether, and Standish seems to have recalled the advice of 
 Massasoit, to cut off the chiefs. Getting two of them, Pecksuot and 
 Wituwamat, with a brother of the latter in a room by themselves, 
 the Captain ordered the door to be closed, and then with two or three 
 of his own men, attacked the Indians. The fight was hand to hand 
 and desperate, but after a long struggle the two chiefs were killed, and 
 the other secured, who was afterwards hanged. Some others were 
 killed at the same time at other places ; so, also, when the alarm was 
 spread, were several of the English, who had wandered from home. 
 A more general battle, or rather skirmish, afterward occurred in an 
 
 - 
 
 1 The annual Town-meeting or "March-meeting day" as it was called for the 
 choosing of public officers and attending to the public business of the town, continued to 
 be held, till within a few years, in March in Massachusetts. It probably originated in 
 the " Court-day " of the Pilgrims. 
 
1623.] STANDISH AND THE INDIAN CONSPIRATORS. 409 
 
 open field, when the Indians fled without loss on either side. The 
 head of Wituwamat was taken to Plymouth, and exposed as a 
 warning to the natives. Thither Standish returned, taking a portion 
 of the Wessagusset men with him ; others going in their own pinnace 
 to Monhegan, on the coast of Maine. The colony was thus entirely 
 broken up. 
 
 This was the first Indian blood shed by the Pilgrims, driven 
 thereto in self-defence by the misconduct of others. The im- ThefirRt In . 
 mediate result was beneficial, whatever may have been the dlankilled - 
 consequences in later times in the enmity planted in the minds of a 
 people who never forget and never forgive an injury. For the time 
 being, however, the energetic conduct of Standish spread terror, not 
 only among the Massachusetts Indians, but those of other tribes en- 
 gaged with them in the plot against the English. They dispersed 
 themselves in the woods and swamps, to avoid the punishment which 
 they feared would fall next upon them ; their planting was neglected, 
 and in the destitution of food that followed in a few months, many 
 perished. 1 
 
 When the news of this affair reached Holland, Mr. Robinson, the 
 pastor, wrote : " Concerning the killing of those poor In- 
 
 Mr. Robin- 
 dial is of which we heard at first by reporte, & since by more son's re- 
 
 certaine relation, oh ! how happy a thing had it been, if you 
 had converted some before you had killed any ; besids, wher bloud is 
 one begune to be shed, it is seldome stanched of a long time after." 
 It was certainly a humane and prophetic judgment, befitting the man 
 and his profession, but not quite so discriminating as it might have 
 been as to the part his own people were constrained to take in their 
 own defence. The experience of two centuries and a half has since 
 shown how easy it is to kill, and how hard to convert an Indian ; and 
 however deplorable the fact may be, it is unquestionably true that 
 occasions have arisen and this was one of them where the choice 
 of killing or converting was not presented. Still less just was the 
 excellent pastor to Captain Standish in the same letter. " Let me be 
 bould," he adds, " to exhorte you seriously to consider of the disposi- 
 tion of your Captaine, whom I love, and am persuaded the Lord in 
 great mercie & for much good hath sent you him, if you use him 
 
 aright Ther is cause to fear that by occasion, espetially of 
 
 provocation, ther may be wanting that tendernes of the life of man 
 (made after God's image) which is meete." The brethren at Plym- 
 outh might have answered that the good pastor at Leyden, who knew 
 nothing of the North American Indians, could hardly judge as to the 
 proper line of duty for Captain Standish, shut up in a room with a 
 
 * Wiuslow's " Relation " iii Young's Chronicles of the Piigri'ns. 
 
410 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 naked savage, bent upon taking his life, and armed with a long, keen, 
 doubled-edged knife ground to a fine point. 
 
 Weston arrived not long after the dispersion of his colony. When 
 
 a few months later Captain Robert Gorges, the recently ap- 
 
 captain pointed governor of all New England, came to Plymouth, 
 
 he proposed to arrest Weston and put him upon trial to an- 
 
 swer, among other things, for the ill conduct of his men at Wessagus- 
 
 set, whereby the peace of the whole country had been endangered. 
 
 Weston's sufficient defence 
 
 ?//* d +^- was ' * na ^ ne 
 
 ra O/o TOT font. held resp onsible for acts done 
 
 signature of w.iiiam Bradford. b y others in his absence. 
 
 Other charges, brought then 
 
 and later, he could not so easily answer. But Governor Bradford and 
 others of the leading men at Plymouth could not forget their former 
 relations with Weston, and the services he had rendered in the outset 
 of their enterprise. Partly at their intercession, and partly because 
 Gorges was at length convinced that nothing could be gained by a 
 continued pursuit of a man bankrupt alike in fortune and character, 
 Plymouth and New England became happily rid of that unfortunate 
 adventurer in the course of the next winter. 
 
 The patent Robert Gorges brought with him gave him a vague title 
 to all the mainland in New England known as Massachusetts, 
 on the northeast side of Massachusetts Bay, with all the coast 
 for ten miles in a straight line toward the northeast, and 
 thirty miles into the interior for that breadth. He, never- 
 theless, assumed Wessagusset on the South shore to be within 
 the limits assigned him, and landed his stores and built warehouses on 
 the site that Weston had chosen. Gorges himself, however, soon re- 
 turned to England ; his people dispersed, in the course of the year, 
 some going home, some to Virginia, except a few who preferred to 
 remain at Wessagusset. 
 
 The year 1623 was otherwise memorable in the annals of the 
 Pilgrims. The laboring in common and on joint account, to which 
 they were bound by their articles of agreement with the London 
 adventurers, was a source of so much injustice, discontent, and con- 
 fusion, and so evident a hindrance to their prosperity almost to 
 their continued existence that the necessity of some modification 
 of that arrangement was forced upon them. The most obvious evil 
 was the radical one ; there could be no true prosperity for the whole 
 so long as there was no just proportion between the labor of the indi- 
 vidual and the welfare it secured to him. It was proposed, therefore, 
 as an experiment, to make allotments of lands, for one year, to each 
 
1623.] 
 
 SCARCITY OF FOOD. 
 
 411 
 
 colonist to cultivate on his own account. That there was any hesita- 
 tion in resorting to so imperative a measure was partly be- 
 
 ... , . . , Allotment* 
 
 cause it was an infringement upon the jointstock agreement, of land to 
 and partly because it was the persuasion of the time that 
 a colony in a new country could only exist as the dependency of a 
 corporation, with a community of goods in anything it produced. 
 
 In Plymouth, as in Virginia, the change once made became per- 
 petual, and from it dates the beginning of true prosperity. The 
 right of every man, thencefor- 
 ward, to ownership in the 
 land and to the fruits of 
 his own labor was estab- 
 lished. The " partic- 
 ular planting " or 
 each man for himself 
 was at once proved 
 to be so advantageous, 
 that " any generall 
 want or famine," says 
 Bradford, writing more 
 than twenty years af- 
 terward, " hath not 
 been amongst them 
 since to this day." 
 
 And there was need 
 enough that some way 
 should be devised to 
 escape from that condition of almost extreme want under which, for the 
 first three years, the colony generally suffered. Above all people of 
 the world, as one of them said, they had reason to pray for 
 their daily bread, it so often happened that none knew at ocamty of 
 night where the next day's food was to come from. To get first few 
 enough from day to day to keep soul and body together was 
 their constant anxiety, and the stimulus to unceasing labor. Their 
 chief sustenance in the summer-time was fish and clams, with some- 
 times a little venison very little it must have been, for stalking deer 
 with the clumsy musket of the period, could but be wearisome and 
 unprofitable hunting. Those who went out by turns in their single 
 boat to fish, would stay away five or six days rather than return 
 empty-handed to be received with gloom and disappointment by 
 their hungry fellows. The treasured stores were eked out in winter 
 with ground nuts and such wild fowl as they could kill. When a ship 
 came in with additions to their number the scant and sorry feast of 
 
 Site of First Church and Governor Bradford's House 
 
412 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 welcome they spread before their friends was a lobster, or a bit of fish 
 without bread, and a cup of water. To deprive an Englishman of 
 that period, when tea and coffee were unknown in Europe, of his beer, 
 was to reduce him to a condition next to starvation ; but the want of 
 " a spoonful of beer," even for the sick, is recorded as among the 
 deprivations most sorely felt in the first year's sufferings, both of 
 Plymouth and Jamestown. " It is worthy to be observed," wrote 
 Bradford, twenty years afterward, in allusion to the sufferings of 
 the early times, " how the Lord doth chaing times and things ; for 
 what is now more plentiful than wine." It was not counted as 
 among the least of the trials which these first colonists had to endure, 
 that a cup of fair water was the only drink. When the search was 
 made along the shores of Plymouth Bay for a fitting place for a set- 
 tlement, the reason given, in addition to the lateness of the season, 
 for the hasty decision was that: "We could not now take time for 
 further search or consideration, our victuals being much spent, espe- 
 cially our beer." l And when, a few years later, a colony came over 
 to settle at Salem, and provisions soon became scarce, " most began 
 to repent when their strong Beere and full cups ran as small as water 
 in a large Land." 2 
 
 There are indications of other troubles in these early years, the 
 cause and sometimes the character of which are not always clear. 
 The root of them all, however, was probabty in the determination on 
 the part of some of the London adventurers to use the colony for their 
 own selfish purposes. Thus when John Peirce, in whose name, 
 second pa- but on behalf of the colony, the first patent from the Plym- 
 outh Company was taken out in 1621, saw that the enter- 
 prise promised within two years to be successful, he procured, in 
 1623, another patent on his own account, under which the Plymouth 
 people were to be merely his tenants. Fortunately for them Peirce 
 met with such losses in sending a ship to America that he was willing 
 to part with this grant ; but for what had cost him only .50, he com- 
 pelled the company to pay him 500. Nor was the conflict of ma- 
 terial interests the only or the most serious one. Among the ad- 
 venturers in London some were Church people, and the jealousy of 
 sect, while harder to reconcile than merely pecuniary interests, em- 
 bittered and intensified all other differences. That the pastor, Rob- 
 inson, and more of their friends from the Church at Leyden did not 
 join them seems to have been because there was a determination 
 among some of the managers in London to prevent it. There was 
 clearly a purpose to get another class of persons than Puritans settled 
 
 1 Mourt's Relation. 
 
 1 Johnson's Wonder Working Providence. 
 
1623.] LYFORD AND OLDHAM. 413 
 
 at Plymouth ; and while it seems plain that those of the Puritan faith 
 were quite ready, so far as it was possible among a people of such 
 strong convictions and rigid lives, to tolerate those who did not agree 
 with them, there are indications at least on the other side, of a purpose 
 to diminish and overcome the puritanic element of the colony, and to 
 put the management of its affairs into the hands of those who had 
 no sympathy with it. But the Puritans were strong in the leader- 
 ship of such men as Bradford, Brewster, and Winslow, who were as 
 eminently endowed with common sense, worldly wisdom, and the gov- 
 erning faculty, as they were deservedly esteemed among the brethren 
 for their soundness in the faith. 
 
 Winslow was sent to England on the business of the colony in the 
 autumn of 1623, and brought, on his return in the spring, a report of 
 these differences. There came with him one John Lyford, a clergy- 
 man, who, as it afterwai'ds appeared, was an emissary of Arrivalof 
 the discontented faction in the London Council, a veritable jjjjjjj Em rd 
 wolf in sheep's clothing among the Plymouth flock, a dis- 1 * nd 
 sembler, mischief-maker, and spyt " The preacher we have sent," 
 wrote Robert Cushman, " is (we hope) an honest, plain man, though 
 
 none of the most eminente and rare Mr. Winslow and my selfe 
 
 gave way to his going, to give 
 continte to some hear, and we ___/- ( 
 
 see no hurt, but only his great '^~^* 3: 
 
 charge of children." The /^/^' signature of Edward 
 charge of his family, which LX 
 
 had to be supported from the public store, was the lightest burden he 
 brought them, as the event showed. Full of protestations of humil- 
 ity, of admiration for the Pilgrims, of being a devout and zealous 
 convert to their way of thinking on religious subjects, he so ingra- 
 tiated himself among them, that he was soon admitted to the church, 
 and taken by the governor into unreserved confidence. 
 
 There was in the colony one John Oldham, who also had won much 
 good repute before the coming of Lyford and was held in like esteem. 
 These two men soon drew together and gathered about them all the 
 discontented spirits of the colony, proposing apparently to subvert 
 both church and state. A movement of this sort could not be carried 
 on long in a community of less than two hundred persons, 
 without being suspected. Lyford and Oldham were watched, i-yford and 
 and when it was found among other things that Lyford had 
 prepared more letters to send to England by the ship in which he 
 came out than any honest purpose would seem to warrant, Bradford 
 felt that it was his duty as chief magistrate and to avert the ruin 
 that such a conspiracy threatened, to intercept these letters. They 
 

 414 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 were found to contain ample evidence against both the suspected 
 men. 
 
 Lyford, however, was not arrested till he openly held a meeting for 
 public worship in accordance with the forms and rites of the Epis- 
 copal Church. It was impossible that the Pilgrims should see the 
 introduction of any other form of religious observance than their own 
 among them without a good deal of feeling, and that alone might, in 
 some degree, warp their judgment. But the offence of Lyford was 
 evidently not so much that he had held such a meeting, as that he 
 should have done so without consultation with the brethren, while he 
 had all the while professed to have abandoned the Episcopal Church, 
 and to be in full accord with a people who, as Bradford said, " all the 
 world knew came hither to enjoy the liberty of their conscience and 
 the free use of God's ordinances ; and for that end had ventured their 
 lives and passed through so much hardship hitherto, and they and 
 their friends had borne the charge of those beginnings, which was not 
 small." But there were other grievances, though this may have been 
 the head and front of his offending, that justified the course pursued 
 with him as a dangerous member of society. 
 
 Oldham was at the same time brought to trial, but not till he had 
 openly disobeyed and defied the Captain when ordered out on guard ; 
 had called him a " beggarly raskell," and had threatened him with a 
 knife. When arraigned before the public meeting with Lyford to 
 answer for his conduct, he loudly called, though he called in vain, 
 upon all who were discontented and on whom they both thought they 
 could rely, to rally around him in open mutiny. The result of the 
 trial, however, was that Lyford publicly and humbly confessed in the 
 church, with many tears, that he had been guilty of grievous wrong, 
 had slandered the brethren, and plotted against their rule in the 
 colony, and that in his pride, vain-glory, and self-love, he had hoped 
 to carry all against them by violence and the strong hand. 
 
 A sentence of banishment was pronounced upon both, to take place 
 some months later. This clemency was misplaced, for Ly- 
 and'co"- a ford wrote again secretly to England, soon after, repeating and 
 maintaining the truth of all the charges he had before made, 
 which were chiefly intolerance among the Pilgrims of all religious 
 opinions and forms of worship but their own ; abuse by the mag- 
 istrates of the civil power to the injury of all who were not of their 
 way of thinking; injustice to those later emigrants who had no in- 
 terest in the joint-stock company; and waste of the public property 
 charges which were all categorically met and denied. 
 
 His case came at length, on this second letter, before a public 
 meeting of the adventurers in London for consideration and decision, 
 
1623.J 
 
 LYFORD AND OLDHAM. 
 
 415 
 
 where Winslow, who meantime was on another visit to England, not 
 only met the accusations made against the good name and peace of 
 the colony, but proved by trustworthy witnesses there present, that 
 Lyford, while a clergyman in Ireland, had been guilty of seduction 
 under circumstances of unusual baseness. About the same time his 
 wife in Plymouth, "a grave matron and of good cariage," when the 
 sentence of banishment was about to be enforced against her hus- 
 band, " was so affected with his doings as she could no longer con- 
 ceaill her greefe and sorrow of minde." She laid her bur- 
 
 . Acknowledg- 
 
 den before a deacon of the church and other mends, ac- ment of L>-. 
 knowledging that this reverend hypocrite had been a for- 
 nicator before their marriage and an adulterer since. Such develop- 
 ments were the best evidence of the true character of the man, and 
 
 Expulsion of Oldham. 
 
 that the prosecution of him by the Puritans was on behalf of social 
 morality, good order, and peace in the colony, and did not proceed 
 from religious bigotry. 
 
 The case of Oldham was less complicated, and was dealt with in a 
 more summary manner. He had the hardihood to return again to 
 Plymouth a few months after his banishment. A coarse owham 
 and open brawler, he made himself so offensive to all good of C pi?m- ut 
 citizens and so abused the forbearance of the magistrates outh - 
 by his open denunciations and loud-mouthed defiance, that even the 
 
416 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 limit of their patience was at length reached. "They committed 
 him," says Bradford, "till he was tamer, and then apointed a gard of 
 musketers which he was to pass throw and every one was ordered to 
 give him a thump on the brich, with the but end of his musket, and 
 then was conveied to the Avater side, wher a boat was ready to cary 
 him away. Then they bid him goe and mende his maners." 
 
 There is not much in the characters or the acts of these men to dis- 
 tinguish them from the ordinary and trivial incidents which necessa- 
 rily mark the history of a handful of people struggling in the wilder- 
 ness to retain their grasp upon existence, while laying the foundations 
 of what may become a commonwealth, or may only be a village. But 
 their conduct had results more serious than were involved in the pun- 
 ishment of two bad men, or than the anxiety they gave to the rulers 
 of the colony, or the scandal they brought upon it. The bringing 
 of Lyford's case before the London meeting was the culmination of 
 the differences and difficulties which had long divided the company; 
 differences and difficulties which had prevented Mr. Robinson and 
 the rest of his flock in Leyden, from joining those in America ; had 
 kept alive that spirit of persecution which the Puritans hoped to 
 escape by voluntary exile ; and had so seriously interfered with the 
 progress and prosperity of the colony. 
 
 That Lyford was really an emissary of a faction whose purpose was 
 to take the colony out of the hands of the Puritans and reduce them 
 Breaking up * the condition of sufferance if even that should be 
 ptny e in m granted them seemed no longer doubtful. His conviction 
 London. before the world as a man of detestable character who had 
 attempted by the most treacherous means to carry out a hostile pur- 
 pose, led the majority of the London adventurers, not to drop him, but 
 to drop the colony. They virtually made common cause with the cul- 
 prit, and accepted his exposure and defeat as their own. The Com- 
 pany from that moment came to an end, and the Plymouth people 
 were left, with a few friends in England, to work out for themselves 
 their own success or their own failure as the case might be. 
 
 It was really the beginning of their success. Thrown upon their 
 own resources, they developed new energies. Assuming in the course 
 of the next year the entire debts and responsibilities of the 
 *nce of the Company, lands, houses, cattle and other domestic animals 
 were equitably divided, and the people from dependent colo- 
 nists became independent citizens, living in the enjoyment of the 
 fruits of their own labor, and under laws of their own making. The 
 whole trade of the colony was put for a limited pei-iod under the 
 sole management of eight of the principal men, who undertook in re- 
 turn and in due time discharged the obligation to liquidate all 
 
16^24.] FISHING STATION AT CAPE ANN. 417 
 
 debts, including that to the old Company which was the price of their 
 freedom. Their friends at Leyden were enabled in time to join them, 
 though the Pastor Robinson, who died in March, 1625, was never 
 permitted to see the promised land. From that time they had none 
 to rely upon but themselves. 
 
 When Winslow returned from England in the spring of 1624, he 
 brought with him a grant, made to himself and Robert Cushman by 
 Edward Lord Sheffield, of 500 acres of land, together with 
 30 acres in addition for each actual settler for a mile and a Ann iv 
 half along the shore of Cape Ann Bay, now Gloucester. 
 " In my discovery of Virginia," says Captain John Smith with char- 
 acteristic audacity, in the dedication to Prince Charles of his descrip- 
 tion of New England " in my discovery of Virginia, I presumed 
 to call two nameless Headlands after my Soveraign's heirs, Cape 
 Henry and Cape Charles." He neither discovered Virginia nor 
 named its capes, but to Cape Ann he did give a name which, however, 
 it did not long retain calling it Cape Tragabigzanda, in honor of 
 that noble Turkish gentlewoman, Charatza Tragabigzanda, whose slave 
 he once was, by right of purchase, and who he tells us, pined for love 
 of him. But Prince Charles ruthlessly took from New England the 
 perpetuation of the memory of this tender romance by changing the 
 name to Cape Ann in honor of his mother, Anne of Denmark. Lord 
 Sheffield's right to that portion of the country was derived partly from 
 purchase and partly from a division of New England among the paten- 
 tees of the Plymouth Company, which division, however, was never 
 approved by the king, and was therefore null and void. 1 
 
 Thither the ship in which Winslow came, was sent to establish a 
 fishing station, after discharging her cargo, an important part 
 of which was three heifers and a bull, the first cattle taken cattle at 
 to Plymouth. But they made a poor voyage, says Bradford, 
 who always thought that fishing was a " thing fatal " to the col- 
 ony partly because of the lateness of the season, and partly because 
 the master of the ship was "a drunken beast, and did nothing (in a 
 maner) but drink and gusle, and consume away the time and his 
 victails." 
 
 The undertaking was on the whole, disastrous, though something 
 was made by trade in peltries. The beaver was to these first people of 
 Massachusetts a better friend than the cod, though the cod hangs to 
 this day in the State House at Boston as the emblem of its prosperity, 
 while only here and there in the country lingers some dim tradition 
 of the beaver, where an embankment across some secluded meadow 
 suggests that a dam may once have been there. The Pilgrims, how- 
 
 1 Smith's General Historic ; The Landing at Cape Anne, by J. Wingate Thornton. 
 VOL. i. 27 
 
418 
 
 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. 
 
 [CHAP. XV. 
 
 ever, built a large frame house and put up a stage for drying fish as 
 the nucleus of a settlement. But here the Lyford trouble was to 
 break out again and plague them. 
 
 The first result of the dissolution of the Company in London which 
 followed his exposure was the sending out of a ship by some 
 of the adventurers who had upheld Lyford, upon a voyage 
 which could hardly fail to come into competition with their 
 late associates. The vessel, under the command of one Hewes, arrived 
 early in the season and finding this place at Cape Ann unoccupied, he 
 
 The fishing 
 station at 
 Cape Ann. 
 
 took possession of the 
 building and fishing-stage 
 which the Plymouth peo- 
 ple had built for their own 
 convenience. The news 
 of this proceeding soon 
 reached Plymouth, and 
 Captain Standish was sent 
 with a company to expel 
 the intruders. A surrender was demanded ; Hewes piled up a barri- 
 cade of hogsheads at the stage-head, and secure behind these with his 
 ship in the rear, as his base of operations, defied the Captain. High 
 words passed and might have ended in bloodshed, for as "a little 
 chimney is soon fired, so was the Plymouth captain, a man of very 
 little stature, yet of a very hot and angry temper." l But the fortifi- 
 
 1 Hubbard's History of New England. 
 
 Barricade at Cape Ann. 
 
 
1624.] THE CAPE ANN COLONY. 419 
 
 cation was one not to be easily carried, and an attack from the open 
 country could only be made at the greatest disadvantage. 
 
 There happened to be present, however, Captain William Peirce in 
 a ship from Plymouth, and one Roger Conant of Nantasket, and at 
 their intercession the anger of Standish was appeased. He was, more- 
 over, too good a soldier not to see that an assault would be hopeless ; 
 so a compromise was made, the 6shermen promising to help the Plym- 
 outh people in building another stage. The house seems to have re- 
 mained in possession of its rightful owners, for a salt-maker was sent 
 from Plymouth to put up pans for salt-boiling. But by his careless- 
 ness, in the course of the summer, house and pans were destroyed by 
 fire, "and this," says Governor Bradford, "was the end of that 
 chargable bussines." 
 
 This Roger Conant, who helped to assuage the hot and angry temper 
 of the Plymouth captain, was an early member of that colony ; but 
 being a churchman, the rigid life of the Separatists was 
 probably distasteful to him, and he removed to Nantasket. 
 
 At Nantasket now the little hamlet of Hull, though the 
 
 old Indian name happily still clings to it, snugly nestling just within 
 
 Boston harbor, in a valley between two great round hills, out of sight, 
 
 though not out of sound of- the surf which the Atlantic rolls up upon 
 
 the long stretch of Nan- 
 
 tasket beach and dashes 
 
 against the ledges of Co- 
 
 hasset in or near this 
 
 lovely nook, Standish, on 
 
 his first visit to Boston har- 
 
 bor, had put up a house. 1 
 
 Of this, probably a year or Standish , s .. Pot and p|atter 
 
 two later, Conant took pos- 
 
 session, and there he, Lyford, and Oldham found refuge when the 
 
 Puritans would no longer tolerate the latter. 
 
 It is not quite certain whether Conant was at this time residing at 
 Cape Ann, or whether he was there only to be present at 
 the apprehended struggle between the Plymouth men and cpexnn 
 the crew of Hewes's vessel, a report of which might easily 
 have reached him at Nantasket, only a few miles distant. At Cape 
 Ann, at any rate, was already planted that first colony of which 
 Conant was sometime in charge, and which was the seed from which 
 sprung the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. 
 
 The merchants of the west of England had for several years sent 
 
 1 " Something like a habitation was put up at Nantasket," says Hubbard (General His- 
 tory of New England), with reference to future traffic with Indians. 
 
420 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 vessels to fish along the coast of New England, 1 and in 1623 it was 
 proposed, as a saving of time and expense, that colonizing and fishing 
 should be united. The extra men whom it was necessary to take on 
 these voyages to catch and to cure the fish, were to be left somewhere 
 on the coast when the fishing season was over and the vessel ready to 
 go home, to employ themselves in building, planting, and hunting, for 
 the rest of the year till they were needed again as fishermen. The 
 plan, indeed, did not answer, for, as Bradford saw so plainly and as 
 the west country merchants proved to their great loss, the prelimi- 
 nary and continuous work necessary in the planting of a colony was 
 incompatible with the business of fishing. It was not till a later 
 period that so many of the thrifty people of Massachusetts, small 
 farmers, or shoemakers, or other handi-craftsmen, in the autumn and 
 winter, found that they could profitably and healthfully spend the 
 spring and summer months in fishing on the Grand Banks, or along 
 the coast for cod and mackerel, and never go to sea at any other 
 time, or for any other purpose. 
 
 A company, however, was formed in 1623 at Dorchester, England, 
 The Dor- ^ wn i c ^ tne ^ ev - John 'White, the minister of that place, 
 chestercom- was ^he moving spirit, to combine planting with fishing. 
 One vessel was sent out that year on such a voyage, and, 
 when she was ready to return, fourteen of her crew were left, with 
 provisions for their support, at Cape Ann to begin a colony. The 
 next spring two ships with more men were sent ; the year after, three. 
 To the people were added cattle in 1625 ; but the experiment, never- 
 theless, was unsuccessful. The fishing proved unprofitable from sev- 
 eral causes ; the landsmen were ill-chosen and ill-governed ; the colony 
 fell into disorder, and most of the people were sent back to England, 
 probably in 1626. 2 A few men remained in charge of cattle sent out 
 the year before. Of these, Conant was chief, having been previously 
 appointed Hubbard says the overseer or governor. 3 
 
 1 In 1620 there were seven or eight fishing-vessels sent out from that part of England 
 anil four years later their number was increased to fifty. 
 
 2 The Planters' Plea. By Rev. John White Hubbard's General History of New Eng- 
 land. 
 
 8 There is much incertitude about the history of this Cape Ann Colony, under the Dor- 
 chester Company. White, in The Planters' Plea, gives the date of its settlement as 1623 ; 
 Hubbard in the General History says, '' about 1624." White does not mention Conniit, but 
 Hubbard says that John Tylly and Thomas Gnrdner, were overseers " at least for one 
 year's time, at the end of which," White and his associates " pitched upon him, the said 
 Conant, for the managing and government of all their affairs at Cape Ann." This would 
 be in 1625, when according to White, after a " two years and a half" experiment, the Com- 
 pany abandoned the attempt, and a few only of the most honest and industrious remained 
 to take charge of the cattle. But Hubbard also says, that " together with him," Conant 
 the Company invited Lyford, " to be the minister of the place," and Oldham, " to trade 
 for them with the Indians," which invitation Lyford accepted, but Oldham declined 
 
1626.] ENDICOTT AT NAUMKEAG. 421 
 
 The same year, Conant, not liking the place at Cape Ann, moved 
 to Naumkeag, or Nahumkeik, now Salem. 1 Mr. White Removal to 
 and some of his associates, encouraged by the fact that this Naumkea s 
 little remainder of their colony still clung together, sent out more 
 cattle, and moved anew in England to engage others in their enter- 
 prise. Some gentlemen in London added to these cattle, and there 
 can be little doubt that emigrants also went out in the course of the 
 year, to join Conant and his few companions. 
 
 The " action " had fallen, at last, into good hands. Some gentle- 
 men of London took hold of it with great energy, moved thereto by 
 
 all three at that time residing at Nantasket ; and elsewhere he says, that these men, after 
 leaving Plymouth, found refuge at Nantasket for the nisei vcs and their families, "for the 
 
 space of a year and a few months, till a door was opened for them at Cape Ann 
 
 about the year 1625." But Lyford and Oldham were not tried at Plymouth till the sum- 
 mer of 1624; Lyford's banishment was not to take place till six months afterward, and 
 Oldham's family had permission to remain in Plymouth the ensuing winter. Neither Ly- 
 ford nor Oldham's family, therefore, went to Nantasket till 1625, and if they remained there 
 a year and some months, could not have gone to Cape Ann till 1626. Bradford, moreover, 
 though he does not mention Conant, says that Lyford went from Nautasket to Naumkeag, 
 Salem. The difficulty is, to reconcile Hubbard with himself; with the fixed date of the 
 Lyford trouble at Plymouth ; and with White's statement as to the beginning and duration 
 of the colony. This difficulty is further complicated by Captain Smith, in his General His- 
 tory, published in 1624, where he says, " and by Cape Ann there is a plantation, a begin- 
 ning by the Dorchester men, which they hold of those of New Plymouth, who also by them 
 have set up a fishing worke." If the Dorchester men held of New Plymouth, it must have 
 been under the Sheffield patent, and such " beginning" of their plantation would necessa- 
 rily be in 1624, and not in 1623; for the Sheffield patent is dated January 1st, 1624, N. S. 
 1623, O. S. and the Plymouth " fishing work " we know was set up in the spring of 1624. 
 Hubbard is supposed to have received his information directlv from Conant, who lived in 
 Salem till 1680, but as his statement about Lyford is manifestly incorrect, he is quite likclv 
 to be so in other particulars as to dates. Smith could have had onlv hearsay information ; 
 the assertions of both, therefore, cannot weigh against the peculiarly clear account of 
 White, in the Planters' Pita. If Conant left Plymouth, as Hubbard says, with Lyford 
 and Conant's memory on such a point would probably be accurate ; if they went first to 
 Nantasket, and lived there even a much shorter time than a year and a few months, they 
 may not have gone to Cape Ann till late in 1625, Conant's "governorship " beginning the 
 next spring, or the winter of 1625-26, when the colony was abandoned by all but himself 
 and a few companions, and he took charge of the cattle. It seems, indeed, most likely that 
 this act of Conant's first commended him to the favorable attention of Mr. White, who 
 was glad to hear of so trustworthy a man on the spot, and, not being willinq: to give up the 
 project, sent more cattle to his care. Meanwhile, Conant had removed to Naumkeag. He 
 could hardly be called a governor, even as governors went in those times. The only 
 authority for it is Hubbard, who evidently used the term indifferently and interchange- 
 ably with overseer or agent. 
 
 1 " Of which place I have somewhere met with an odd observation, that the name of it 
 was rather Hebrew, than Indian ; for 21H3. Nahum, signifies comfort, & "in. signifies an 
 haven ; & our English not only found it an Haven of Comfort, but happened also to put an 
 Hebrew name upon it, for they called it Salem, for the pmcf which they had & hoped in 
 it; & so it is ctillnl unto tin's duy." Mather's Magnalia, vol. i., chap. iv. 
 
 "It fals out that the name of the place, which our late Colony hath chosen for their seat, 
 proves to be perfect Hebrew being called Nahum Keike, by interpretation, The bosome of 
 consolation." White's Planters' Plea, chap. ii. 
 
422 
 
 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. 
 
 [CHAP. XV. 
 
 the promise of pecuniary success and the hope of making an asylum 
 for those who, though not such rigid Separatists as the New Plym- 
 outh people, were nevertheless Non-conformists, anxious to escape the 
 tyranny of the prelates and from a church which they believed was on 
 the high road to Rome. Fit men for the enterprise were sought for, 
 and " among others they lighted at last on master Endicott, a man 
 well knowne to divers persons of good note." In March, a patent 1 
 was procured from the New England Company ; it granted all that 
 tract of country from three miles south of the Charles River, to three 
 miles north of the Merrimack, and under this Endicott was sent out 
 as governor with a few colonists, who arrived at Naumkeag in Sep- 
 tember, 1628. 
 
 Endicott's people and those already at Naumkeag, numbered alto- 
 gether on his arrival, fifty or sixty only. A year later, 
 when the Rev. Francis Higginson joined them with two 
 hundred more, he found there one hundred. How in the mean time 
 had the number doubled ? History prides itself on exactness, and 
 undertakes to say precisely when and how events occurred, how many 
 men were at a given time in a given place, and what they did. But 
 much is, and must be taken upon conjecture and upon trust, in this 
 case, and the reality may, after all, have differed much from the 
 guesses transmitted from book to book, and from century to century. 
 How many men may have scattered themselves along the shores of 
 
 Massachusetts Bay indeed all along 
 the whole coast of New England from 
 1620 to 1630, is altogether uncertain. 
 There were isolated " squatters," no 
 doubt, in various places temporary 
 settlements soon forgotten and soon 
 abandoned, or absorbed in permanent 
 colonies afterward, established with set- 
 tled forms of government. Some vaga- 
 bonds came then, as so many have come 
 since, to the New World, to mingle with 
 and add to the more staid and sober 
 population. There was more than one 
 place along the shores of the Bay, whence men may have gone to 
 Endicott's colony and submitted to law and the restraints of civil 
 society, for the sake of its advantages ; men who gladly surrendered 
 the attractions and the freedom of a half savage life, to be again 
 among houses where women in civilized garments were busy about 
 
 1 The patentees were Sir Henry Roswell, Sir John Young, Thomas Southcote, John 
 Humphrey, John Eiidicott, and Simon Whitcomb. 
 
 Spinning Wheel. 
 
 
1628.] MORTON OF MERRY MOUNT. 423 
 
 their household duties, where the pleasant whir of the spinning-wheel 
 filled the air, where busy farmers sowed or reaped, where horses were 
 driven a-field, and kine gathered into barn-yards. The sights and 
 sounds of rural and domestic life, appealing to so many memories of 
 early homes across the sea, in green and merry England, which they 
 would never see again, must needs have been an irresistible attraction 
 to many of these solitary adventurers, weary, at last, of the silence of 
 the wilderness and the companionship of savages. Little neighbor- 
 hoods that had been drawn together for mutual support and defence, 
 would often melt away into large companies which came with the ad- 
 vantages of numbers and of wealth. For of these smaller plantations, 
 it was said, " they were like the habitations of the foolish, as it is in 
 Job, cursed before they had taken root." 
 
 Nantasket was a place of refuge for Conant, Lyford, and Oldham. 
 The rough house which Standish put up there before Plym- Scatteped 
 outh was a year old, was open to all comers, like the 
 " Humane Houses " of the present day scattered along the 
 coast, places of entertainment for shipwrecked men and perhaps had 
 often sheltered some outcasts whom the rigid righteousness of the 
 Puritans would not tolerate. Thompson's Island, in Boston Harbor, 
 so called to this day, was granted early to David Thompson, whom 
 we know of as living at one time at Piscataway ; and there are trust- 
 worthy intimations that he and others were living on the island at 
 one time and another. When Gorges's colony was broken up at 
 Wessagusset, some few remained behind, and either they or others 
 were still on that river some years later. William Blaxton lived 
 where Boston now stands. Maverick was on Noddle's Island in Bos- 
 ton Harbor. At Mount Wollaston, a colony was planted in 1625, 
 which may have become so attractive to all indolent and shiftless 
 vagrants, as to be a nursery of vagabonds, and an asylum to discon- 
 tented fishermen and sailors who ran away from their ships. 
 
 Mount Wollaston still bearing the same name is in the present 
 town of Quincy, about five miles south of Boston, and was Mount Wol . 
 so named from one Captain Wollaston, who came out from ll>ftaa and 
 
 coast - 
 
 Thomas 
 Morton. 
 
 England in 1625, with thirty others, the larger part- of 
 whom were persons bound to service. These were not profitable emi- 
 grants to take to New England, and Captain Wollaston soon carried 
 some of his servants to a better market in Virginia. Having sold the 
 first importation, he wrote to his partner to come on with more, and 
 to leave a Mr. Fitchter in charge of the colony at Mount Wollaston till 
 further orders. Among the colonists was one Thomas Morton, by 
 profession a lawyer, but by choice a roving and reckless adventurer, 
 impatient of any steady labor and of all serious duties, given to much 
 
424 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. [Cn A p. XV. 
 
 drinking, fond of public sports, deriding always the sobriety of the 
 Puritans and the severity of their lives just the jolly vagabond to 
 lead other vagabonds into any mischief. " In the month of June, 
 Anno Salutis, 1622," he says, " it was my good chance to arrive in 
 the parts of New England." He must, in that case, have been at 
 Plymouth, where he could have found no more congenial companions 
 
 for he, too, professed to be a good church-man than among those 
 whose scrupulous consciences forbade them to chop wood on Christmas 
 day, but permitted them to play at bowls ; and he may have gone to 
 Wessagusset that year with Weston's people, for no brain of that 
 company would have been more likely to conceive that remarkable 
 " Embrion " his own narrative is the sole authority for its birth 
 which suggested the vicarious hanging of an old, sickly, and useless 
 member of the community, in place of a young and lusty culprit. 
 
 At any rate, this troublesome adventurer was at Mount Wollaston ; 
 Mare Mount he named it, which the Puritans, ignorantly or iron- 
 ically, changed to Merry Mount, and Endicott altered again to Mount 
 Dagon. And here, when Fitchter was left in command, he made a 
 characteristic proposal, when his commander happened to be out of the 
 way. He told his companions that as some of their company had 
 already been taken to Virginia and sold for their terms of service, so 
 would the rest be when Wollaston was next heard from. But if they 
 chose, he said, to depose Fitchter and banish him from the colony, he 
 
 Morton and they would henceforth live together as copartners 
 and equals, and they be released from service altogether. He hardly 
 needed to have made the crew about him drunk as it is intimated 
 he did to secure the acceptance of this tempting proposal. Fitchter 
 was deposed and driven forth, and thenceforward not liberty only, but 
 license held high revel at Mount Wollaston. 
 
 Upon the top of the hill was set up, on May-day, a May-pole, eighty 
 
 The May- i visible for miles around, " a faire sea-marke for 
 
 MMTV' directions," says Morton, " how to finde out the way to mine 
 Mount. Host of Ma-re Mount." A pair of buck-horns adorned the 
 top ; a poem of Morton's own composing was nailed at a convenient 
 height to be read of all comers, few of whom could read and fewer 
 still could understand any more of its labored enigma than that Cith- 
 area pointed to land at last : 
 
 " With proclamation that the first of May, 
 At Ma-re Mount shall be kept hollyday." 
 
 A barrel of beer was broached upon the green, and bottles of stronger 
 drink provided for those who wanted it ; all the drums, guns, and pis- 
 tols that the settlement possessed were called into use for the noise 
 

 1625.] 
 
 MORTON OF MERRY MOUNT. 
 
 425 
 
 indispensable to a public rejoicing ; roaring a song of Morton's in 
 praise of drink and " Indian lasses in beaver coats," the hilarious crew 
 danced about the May-pole, with Indian women for partners in the 
 absence of ladies with more clothes on. < 
 
 The sober Puritans would have been shocked by such festivities, 
 
 even had they been free from the 
 immoralities of excessive drinking, 
 of the evil example and opportu- 
 nity thus given to the Indians, and 
 of the debauching of their women. 
 But a stronger feeling than disgust 
 and disapprobation was aroused 
 when Morton's people, in their trade 
 for beaver skins, on which they 
 mainly depended for their subsist- 
 ence, sold arms and ammunition 
 to the Indians, taught them their 
 use, and employed them as hunters. 
 The safety of every present and 
 
 Festivities at Merry Mount 
 
 future colony was put in jeopardy if the savages were to have such 
 means of mischief. There could no longer be a silent submission to 
 these dangerous proceedings at Mount Wollaston. Morton was deaf 
 to remonstrance, and other remedies had to be resorted to by the com- 
 
426 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 mon consent of those at Plymouth and others living at different places 
 about the bay and on the Piscataqua River. Captain Standisb 
 Captain Shrimp, Morton calls him in his " New Canaan," where he 
 gives ludicrous names to all who condemned his conduct was sure to 
 come to the front in such an emergency, and he, in command of a few 
 men, was accordingly sent to Mount Wollaston, by common consent, 
 to arrest the offender. Morton says they found him at Wessagusset, 
 where, it seems, there still remained a small colony. They took him, 
 he declares, by surprise ; but he warily permitted them to eat and 
 drink to satiety while he was carefully abstemious ; when they, over- 
 come by their indulgence, slept, he, vigilant and wide-awake, escaped 
 by night to his own stronghold three miles distant. 
 
 Thither Standish and his men followed him. Bradford in his " His- 
 t r y" sa y s nothing of Wessagusset, but his and Morton's nar- 
 rative agree that at Mount Wollaston Morton closed his 
 Morton. doors and prepared to receive the assailants. Means for de- 
 fence were ample. There were four men in a sort of log fortress with 
 loop-holes ; on a table they laid out three pounds of well-dried pow- 
 der, four guns, and three hundred bullets, and then they fortified 
 themselves with " good aqua solis." The enemy were only nine strong, 
 and the approach to the building was without cover. Standish and 
 his men advanced steadily and in good order, " coming within danger," 
 says Morton, " like a flocke of wild geese, as if they had bin tayled 
 one to another as colts to be sold at a faire," and much blood would 
 have flowed " if mine Host (Morton) should have played upon them 
 out at his ports holes." But he chose not to play upon them. The 
 " sonne of a souldier " contented himself with boasting that had he 
 only had more men he " would have given Captaine Shrimpe (a quon- 
 dam Drummer) such a wellcome, as would have made him wish for a 
 Drume as bigg as Diogenes' tubb that he might have crept into it out 
 of sight." He nevertheless surrendered without firing a shot. The 
 only blood shed was from the nose of one of the defenders, who, from 
 too much " aqua solis," stumbled against the sword of one of Stan- 
 dish's men. The son of a soldier seems to have been a coward as well 
 as a braggart. 
 
 After this almost bloodless victory, Morton was taken to Plymouth 
 Morton sent an d sent thence to England in the custody of John Oldham, 
 to England. wnOi repenting of his former misdeeds, had been taken again 
 into favor. For the time Morton escaped further punishment, and 
 was permitted to return again to New England to plague the Puritans 
 for years to come. He afterward fell into the hands, however, of 
 Endicott whom he nicknamed Captain Littleworth who not only 
 sent him a second time to England, but, before he went, set him in 
 
1630.] CHARTER OF 1630. 427 
 
 the stocks, and confiscated his goods at Mount Wollaston. He had 
 previously burnt his house, and cut down the Maypole. 1 
 
 Meanwhile, during all these later years of the first decade of the 
 Plymouth Colony, " it pleased the Lord to give the plantation peace 
 and health and contented minds." The Dutch of New Netherland 
 sent pompous letters addressed " to the noble, worshipful, wise, and 
 prudent Lords, the Governor and Councillors residing in New Plym- 
 outh " " over high titles," said Bradford in his reply, " more than 
 belongs to us, or is meete for us to receive ; " and an ambassador was 
 sent the secretary Rasierres " with a noyse of trumpeters and some 
 other attendants." But good fellowship was thereby estab- 
 lished between the two colonies, and this was followed by trade ami 
 profitable trade, especially in wampum. This native cur- 
 rency the Indians of the East soon learned to value, though, as its 
 manufacture by the tribes of Long Island from the shells of the qua- 
 haug and the periwinkle was practically unlimited, it soon produced 
 such an inflation of values that, from being rated at first by the penny 
 worth, it came at last to be sold by the fathom, and then to be pro- 
 hibited altogether by colonial law. 
 
 But as the Pilgrims increased their trade, and grew in prosperity, 
 they enlarged their borders. In 1628 they procured from the Plym- 
 outh Company a patent for lands on the Kennebec, and a settlement 
 near the present town of Augusta, Maine, became a val- Charter0 f 
 uable dependency. In 1630 a new patent was granted to 163 - 
 William Bradford and his associates, which, for the first time, defined 
 the limits of the New Plymouth Colony, making its eastern boun- 
 dary the ocean, -from Cohasset River to Narragansett River ; its 
 western, a line drawn from the mouths of these rivers and meeting 
 at the extreme western border of the Indian country, known as the 
 Pokanoket country, which was the southeastern portion of the State 
 of Massachusetts. And this patent also approved the grant on the 
 Kennebec, defining it to be fifteen miles on each bank of that river. 
 
 The colony, however, never procured the royal signature to this char- 
 ter from the Plymouth Company. Their powers of government were 
 derived from the compact signed in the cabin of the Mayfloiuer, the 
 day after her arrival in Cape Cod Harbor, and from the discipline of 
 the church. In the censure of the brethren, and the authority drawn 
 from the general assembly of the people, the law found sufficient and 
 
 i Morton was accused of cruelty to the Indians and other crimes, and was arrested by 
 Endicott on a writ from England. He continued his active hostility to the Puritans till his 
 death in 1645 or 1646, having meanwhile been punished with a year's imprisonment in Bos- 
 ton for his libellous book, The New English Canaan, in which he had attacked, with a good 
 deal of scurrilous humor, all the principal meu of the colonies. 
 
428 
 
 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH. 
 
 [CHAP. XV. 
 
 unquestioned authority. 1 The exigencies of their own condition, the 
 maintenance of social order and of mutual rights, the suggestions 
 of common sense, and the dictates of their own consciences, made the 
 
 body of the law. Not till the first serious crime was com- 
 of John mitted among them the murder of a fellow-colonist by one 
 
 John Billington was it thought necessary to seek for coun- 
 sel, for precedent and sanction in English law. The advice of Gov- 
 ernor Winthrop and other leading men of Massachusetts Bay was 
 asked, as to what should be done under such novel and distressing cir- 
 cumstances, and the conclusion of the united council was that the 
 man should die, and the land be purged of blood. 
 
 1 See Historical Memoir of the County of New Plymouth, pp. 227, 228, by Francis Bay- 
 lies. 
 
 Fragment of the Rock at Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth. 
 
Amsterdam 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. 
 
 THE ORDER OF PATROONS ESTABLISHED IN NEW NETHERLAND. DIVISION* AND 
 MONOPOLY OF LANDS. THE COMPANY OVERREACHED BY THE PATROONS. MAS- 
 SACRE OF THE COLONISTS OF SWAANENDAEL. WOCTER VAN TWILLER APPOINTED 
 GOVERNOR. WEAKNESS AND ABSURDITIES OF HIS ADMINISTRATION. SCPER- 
 SEDED BY WILLIAM KIEFT. POPULAR MEASURES OF THE COUNCIL AT AMSTER- 
 DAM. PURCHASE OF LANDS FROM PATROONS. INCREASE OF IMMIGRATION. 
 PROMISE OF PROSPERITY TO THE COLONY. PORTENTS OF COMING CALAMITIES. 
 A COUNCIL OF TWELVE APPOINTED. 
 
 WITH the short-sighted selfishness that belongs to every great mo- 
 nopoly, the West India Company attempted to assure the growth and 
 prosperity of their colony by means the least likely to secure 
 that end. In the Netherlands the feudal system had grad- west y indui 
 ually given way, as everywhere else in Europe, with the in- 
 creasing intelligence of the people. Titles of nobility still existed, 
 but they had come to be held in little esteem ; and wherever great 
 manorial privileges were still tolerated, it was rather as the right of 
 landlords than of chiefs. But this system a great Netherland com- 
 mercial company now proposed to reestablish upon the virgin soil 
 
430 
 
 PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLOXJZATIOX. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 Seal of New Netherland. 
 
 of a new continent, where that pretence of right, which centuries 
 of endurance were supposed to give it in the Old World, had no 
 existence. 
 
 The plan of the directors at Amsterdam was to establish seigniories 
 
 in the hands of a few great proprietors, whose 
 wealth and ambition would make them lords 
 of people as well as of lands. To the Com- 
 pany, would be saved by this course, they 
 argued, all the enormous cost and care of 
 emigration, the necessity of supporting a 
 small army of officers, and much of the ex- 
 pense of carrying on a government. The 
 colony would increase in wealth and num- 
 bers through the labors of the great proprie- 
 tors, while the chief function of the Company would be to absorb 
 the growing trade and commerce, and to wax fat in opulence and 
 power. 
 
 The " Charter of Privileges and Exemptions," issued by the West 
 India Company's College of Nineteen on June 7, 1629, provided 
 that any person, a member of this Company (for to this restriction the 
 College adhered even in their new measure), who should purchase of 
 the Indians and found in any part of New Netherland except Manhat- 
 tan, a colony of fifty persons over fifteen years of age, should be in all 
 respects the feudal lord or patroon of the territory of which he should 
 thus take possession. Not only should he have a full and inheritable 
 title and proprietorship, but the power to establish officers and magis- 
 Proprietary trates in all towns and cities on his lands ; to hold manorial 
 privileges. CO urts, from which in higher cases the only appeal was to the 
 director-general of New Netherland ; to possess the " lower jurisdic- 
 tions, fishing, fowling and grinding, to the exclusion of all others ; " 
 to make use of all " lands, rivers, and woods, lying contiguous to his 
 own ; " in short, to hold and govern his great manors with as absolute 
 rule as any baron of the Middle Ages, with the added advantage of 
 distance from all other constituted authority except that of the corpo- 
 ration of which he was himself a member. The lands which such 
 proprietors could take under these conditions might have a frontage 
 of sixteen miles on one bank, or eight miles on each bank, of any 
 navigable river ; with the privilege of extending the estates " so far 
 into the country as the situation of the occupiers would permit." 
 The patroons could trade along the American coast within the Com- 
 pany's nominal jurisdiction, if they brought the goods obtained to 
 the headquarters at Manhattan and paid a tariff of five per cent. ; 
 they could engage in the fur trade where the Company itself had 
 
1629.] 
 
 A MONOPOLY WITHIN A MONOPOLY. 
 
 431 
 
 no factories, on much the same conditions ; and avail themselves 
 of the sea-fisheries on paying three guilders a ton for what they 
 caught. Their power over their people was almost unlimited ; for 
 no " man or woman, son or daughter, man-servant or maid- 
 
 , , T i , , . , Condition of 
 
 servant could leave a patroon s service during the time laborers and 
 
 , , 7 i i tenants un- 
 
 they had agreed to remain, except by his written consent; dertnechar- 
 and this rule held in spite of any and all abuses or 
 breaches of contract on the patroon's part. The Company prom- 
 ised to protect and defend the proprietors in the exercise of all 
 these privileges, requiring in return only that each should make an 
 annual report of the condition of his colony. The only privilege 
 that attached to tenants under the patroons was their exemption 
 for ten years from a.11 taxation ; though a certain temporaiy aid was 
 granted to them by the Company's promise to furnish for their 
 assistance " as many 
 blacks (slaves) as they 
 conveniently could." 
 The patroons could 
 bring over their goods 
 on the payment of five 
 per cent, to the Com- 
 pany ; cattle and agri- 
 cultural implements 
 came without cost; 
 but they must pay the 
 passage of " their peo- 
 ple." Certain minor 
 rules with regard to 
 the continued impor- 
 tation of provisions in 
 
 the Company's ships were also inserted in the charter, but they were 
 in every way favorable to the great proprietors. 
 
 This creation of a monopoly within a monopoly, had some im- 
 mediate results that might have been foreseen. The same principle 
 which the Company was carrving out against the rest of 
 
 -ii i i f Results of 
 
 the world, its richer and shrewder members enforced against themonop- 
 their less fortunate fellow-shareholders. Before the charter 
 was published some of the directors in the Amsterdam Council had 
 their preparations fully made to seize upon the benefits they knew 
 to be in prospect. No sooner were the " privileges and exemp- 
 tions " actually made law, than Samuel Godyn, a director, Thefirn 
 informed his colleagues that he and his fellow -director, P" 11001 "- 
 Samuel Blommaert, had already perfected their arrangements to oo 
 
 Dutch Costumet. 
 
432 PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 cupy " the Bay of the South River," and had secured their title and 
 privileges as patroons by purchase of that region, and by due notice 
 to Minuit, at Manhattan. So prompt had been their action that the 
 purchase had been made two days before even the first passage of 
 the charter ; but of course it was decided to come within its rules, 
 and the first patroon's patent was duly delivered during the next 
 year. 1 
 
 Other Amsterdam directors had also availed themselves of their 
 position to forestall the ordinary stockholders, and were but little 
 behind Godyn and Blommaert. In the spring of 1630, Kiliaen van 
 Rensselaer, a wealthy dealer and worker in precious stones, bought 
 from the Indians, through Krol, the Company's commissary at Fort 
 Orange, an immense tract of land on the west side of the North 
 River. It extended from Barren (originally Beeren, or Bear's) Island, 
 about twelve miles below Albany, to Smack's Island, and two days' 
 journey inland ; and to this he added later in the year, and after be- 
 ginning its colonization, another territory to the northward, carrying 
 his boundaries nearly to the confluence of the Mohawk. On 
 quired by the east side of the river he bought, in August, a third tract 
 with a river front extending from Castle Island to Fort 
 Orange, and from " Poetanock, the Mill Creek, northwards to Nega- 
 gonce." Michael Pauw, another director, had meanwhile acquired 
 the territory opposite Manhattan Island, on the west bank, which 
 still bears, in the name Hoboken, a part of its old title " Hobokan- 
 Hacking;" he soon after secured the whole of Staten (then Staa- 
 ten) Island ; and later still the region where Jersey City now stands, 
 and all its neighborhood. While Van Rensselaer called his estate 
 simply Rensselaerswyck (or Manor), Pauw bestowed upon his the 
 more sonorous latinized title of " Pavonia." Fort Orange, reserved 
 for the Company in the north, stood isolated in the midst of Van 
 Rensselaer's vast domain, while the post at Manhattan lay oppo- 
 site the long river-front of Pauw's possessions. The land of both 
 patroons far exceeded the terms of even the liberal charter, absorb- 
 ing some of the Company's most profitable trading- regions. Van 
 Rensselaer's purchases were ratified at Fort Amsterdam on the very 
 day on which the charter was first officially proclaimed there ; and 
 Pauw's final purchase but three months after. 
 
 When the action of these enterprising capitalists was revealed to 
 
 1 July 15, 1630. "It was the first European title, by purchase from the aborigines, 
 within the limits of the present State of Delaware ; and it bears date two years before the* 
 charter of Maryland, granted to Lord Baltimore by Charles I." Brodhead, vol. i., p. 200. 
 Mr. Brodhead found the original patent at Amsterdam, in 1841. It has the names of both 
 proprietors, but the English version among old Delaware documents, has only Godyn'a 
 Compare O'Callaghan, vol. i., p. 122, note ; and Moulton. 
 
1630.] THE PATROOXS. 433 
 
 their fellow-members in the Netherlands, they were indignantly de- 
 nounced as having used " the cunning tricks of merchants." So strong 
 was the feeling against Van Rensselaer and the rest, that they were 
 required by the College of Nineteen to take several partners into the 
 different proprietorships. But they easily evaded the purpose of that 
 order, for Van Rensselaer took Godyn and Blommaert into his part- 
 nership, with John de Laet, Bissels, and Moussart, other Amsterdam 
 directors, and kept for himself two of the fifths into which lie divided 
 the estate. Godyn and Blommaert, in turn took Van Rensselaer and 
 de Laet into association with them, with Captain de Vries, and several 
 others, also directors. By this convenient arrangement the new part- 
 ners gained little, and the first holders merely exchanged one property 
 for another. 
 
 The occupation of the new estates was nearly as speedy as their 
 purchase. Van Rensselaer had begun the colonization of his lands 
 almost as soon as he had acquired the first great tract, sending out 
 settlers, cattle, and farming tools in his ship the Eendragt 
 (Unity), to a point near Fort Orange. Godyn and Blom- oi 
 maert, with their new partners, hastened to follow his ex- 
 ample with their lands at the South River ; and Pieter Heyes, acting 
 in the service of Captain de Vries, took out in the Walvis (Whale), 
 some thirty emigrants to the bay now called Delaware, and early in 
 1G31 founded the colony of Swaanendael, the Valley of Swans, on 
 the shore of the Horekill, a stream near the present town of Lewis- 
 ton, Delaware. At the same time Heyes crossed over to Cape May, 
 and bought from the Indians for his employers, another great tract of 
 land, stretching twelve miles northward along the coast, and twelve 
 miles inland. Then running up to Manhattan, without stopping to 
 try the profitable whale-fishery which was said to exist near the South 
 River, and had formed one great hope of profit with Godyn, he applied 
 to Minuit to register his purchases. 
 
 In spite of the jealousy which the " cunning tricks " of these ear- 
 liest patroons had excited among the members of the West India 
 Company at home, it is probable that the animosity would have died 
 away, and no open quarrel have arisen, had the new proprietors kept 
 quietly to the management of colonies which soon grew to be pros- 
 perous. But they were not content to confine themselves to agricul- 
 ture. The lands of which they had taken possession covered some 
 of the most profitable trading ground that had sent its wealth of 
 costly furs to the Company's Manhattan warehouses. All along the 
 river the Indians had brought their peltries to the shore, to meet 
 the little fleet of trading -yachts which now sailed up and down 
 through the region that Hudson had opened ; and the exports to 
 
 VOL. i. 28 
 
434 
 
 PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 Holland, which in 1626 had been valued at forty-six thousand guild- 
 Thepatroons ers i na( l vapidly increased, within the few years following, 
 nopoiize "the to more than three times that amount. It was hardly to 
 fur trade. j^e ex p ec t et | that the enormous power now put into the 
 hands of the patroons should not be used to acquire a part of this 
 profitable traffic. With so loose a regulation as that imposed upon 
 them by the clause in the " Privileges," which permitted them to 
 trade "where the Company had no factories," it was easy for them 
 to take an ell instead of the inch it had been meant to grant ; to 
 regard only the immediate 
 vicinity of Fort Orange and 
 Manhattan as covered by 
 
 those posts, and to quietly absorb the traffic of the great intermediate 
 region. 
 
 This infringement upon the rights of the Company, however, proved 
 
 a little more than the directors in the Netherlands would bear, and 
 
 the first attempts at it provoked a storm. The Company's monopoly 
 
 was attacked at its strongest point, and its authorities rose 
 
 Energetic . . to . 
 
 protestor m a protest so energetic that it might have put an end to 
 India com- the patroons' power altogether, had this not already been 
 suffered to grow so formidable. The directors drew up an 
 order forbidding all private persons, patroons or otherwise, from deal- 
 ing in peltries, maize, or wampum, and sent out officers to see to its 
 enforcement. The angry complaints of the proprietors were overruled, 
 but the great corporation saw too late the folly of which it had been 
 guilty. Violent disputes occurred before it gained even a partial sue- 
 
1631.] END OF THE COLONY AT SWAANENDAEL. 435 
 
 cess, and the difficulties thus begun not only seriously hindered its own 
 plans, but for several years stood in the way of the whole progress 
 of New Netherland, its colonization, agriculture, and every condition 
 of its growth. 
 
 Toward the end of the summer of 1631, the ship Eendrayt arrived 
 at Fort Amsterdam, bringing letters ordering the recall of Peter Minuit 
 Minuit, who was held to have been far too complaisant in ^"^,. by 
 confirming the purchases and privileges of the patroons. An pany - 1631 
 officer of the Company, one Conrad Notelman, brought out the order, 
 at the same time that he was instructed to supersede Minuit's Sellout, 
 Lampo, in his office ; and in the spring of 1632 the discomfited di- 
 rector-general resigned his authority to the council, with the secretary, 
 Van Remund, at its head, and sailed for home in the vessel that had 
 brought the order of his recall. His voyage was an eventful one, for 
 bad weather compelling the Eendrayt to seek refuge in the English 
 harbor of Plymouth, she was seized there on the ground that she 
 had traded within the limits of the English possessions, and thus a 
 new discussion arose as to the Dutch right to their territory in New 
 Netherland. Like the former disputes, it ended in nothing definite. 
 Both England and the Netherlands renewed their declarations of own- 
 ership more positively than before, but after a long correspondence 
 with the Dutch ambassadors the English government let the Eendragt 
 pursue her voyage in peace. 
 
 While the colonies on the Hudson were suffering from these dis- 
 putes and intrigues, a much more terrible calamity suddenly Endof the 
 ended the existence of the settlement at Swaanendael. It vnen- 
 arose from one of those arbitrary acts common enough in the Uael - 
 intercourse of civilized with savage peoples, acts which the Dutch, 
 however, had hitherto been wise enough to avoid. Heyes, when he 
 had founded the Swaanendael colony for De Vries, had set up a pillar 
 bearing the arms of Holland, in token of possession ; but an Indian 
 chief, attracted by the glitter of the tin plate on which the arms were 
 engraved, and not in the least understanding the importance which 
 the whites attached to the symbol of sovereignty, had taken off the 
 metal and made it into shining tobacco pipes, which he carried away 
 in great delight. Gillis Hossett, the Dutch officer left in charge of 
 the new post, was indignant at this irreverent treatment of the Hol- 
 kmd escutcheon, and expressed himself so angrily that the comrades 
 of the erring chief, thinking to conciliate the Dutch, put their fel- 
 low to death, and came triumphantly to report the fact to the white 
 commander. He explained too late that he only desired to repri- 
 mand the culprit. The Indians were enraged to find that their costly 
 sacrifice had been a useless one, and soon after a band of them ap- 
 
its his es- 
 tates in 
 America . 
 
 PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 preached the settlement under the guise of friendship, fell upon and 
 murdered every person at the post, destroyed the fort, and left only 
 the ruins of the burned houses of the whites to mark the site of 
 Heyes's colony. 
 
 De Vries was about to leave Amsterdam to assume the place of 
 vries vis- patroon at the new settlement, when Minuit brought to 
 Europe the news of this massacre. He did not abandon his 
 voyage, but on arriving at the place where his countrymen 
 were murdered he thought it wiser to make a treaty of peace with the 
 Indians than to attempt to avenge the murder. Going on up the 
 
 South River to the long-deserted 
 site of Fort Nassau, he spent some 
 time in its neighborhood, making 
 still another treaty there. After- 
 wards he dropped down the coast, 
 and visited the English settlement 
 at Jamestown in Virginia, by 
 whose governor, Sir John Harvey, 
 he was received most hospitably ; 
 
 Indian taking down the Arms of Holland 
 
 and the neighborhood of the two colonies was amicably discussed with- 
 out any serious dispute as to the rival rights of Dutch and English. 
 
 It was now the spring of 1633 ; and while De Vries was cruising 
 to the southward, the Company's ship Soutberg was on its way from 
 Amsterdam, bringing out a fourth director - general for 
 New Netherland. For a year after Minuit's departure, at 
 a ^\ mQ when it most needed the guidance of a strong and 
 steady hand, the colony had been left without a ruler ; and the new 
 officer who now arrived was anything but fitted for his post. Bred in 
 the service of the Company at Amsterdam, Wouter Van Twiller 
 was little more than a clerk at the time of his appointment, with 
 
1633.] VAN TWILLER AND THE ENGLISH CAPTAIN. 437 
 
 only the narrow experience of the Company's routine business at home, 
 and apparently without a single quality to fit him for great responsi- 
 bilities. But he had married a niece of Van Rensselaer, the chief of 
 the patroons, and the very influence there was most cause to dread, 
 seems to have thrust him into the place which a strong man might 
 have made respectable, but which he could only belittle. 
 
 He had barely arrived at Fort Amsterdam, in April, when he was 
 overwhelmed by difficulties which soon showed the weakness AD English 
 of his administration. On the 18th of the month an English harbor of 
 vessel, the William, entered the harbor, whose supercargo dam. 
 was Jacob Eelkens, the Company's former commandant at Fort 
 Orange. He had entered the 
 English service when dismissed 
 from that of his own countrymen, 
 and, either through pure malice 
 or from hope of gain, now guided 
 his new masters into the richest 
 possessions of the old. The Wil- 
 liam anchored for a few days in 
 the bay, and Van Twiller, with 
 De Vries, who had arrived from 
 Virginia a short time before, dined 
 with the English captain. But the 
 mask of frienship was soon thrown 
 off, and Eelkens boldly declared 
 his intention to go up the river, 
 the Englishman proposing to trade 
 with the Indians on his own account and to see for himself the land 
 that "belonged to the English," having been discovered by " Hudson, 
 -who was an Englishman." J 
 
 Van Twiller caused the flag of Orange to be raised over the fort 
 and saluted with three guns, the doughtiest defiance of the stranger's 
 purpose which seemed to occur to him ; Eelkens and his captain as 
 promptly ran up the English flag on board the William with a like 
 ceremony. The director strode furiously up and down his 
 ramparts ; but when the Englishman actually weighed his Enguh 
 anchor, and sailed away up the stream without the fear of the ca P tain 
 Company or the Prince of Orange before his eyes, Van Twiller was 
 beside himself at such audacity. He "collected all his people in 
 the fort before his door," and ordering a barrel of wine to be brought 
 and opened, stoutly drank bumper after bumper and cried, " Those 
 who love the Prince of Orange and me, emulate me in this, and assist 
 1 Voyages of De Vries, N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., New Series, vol. i., p. 255. 
 
 De Vries. 
 
 con . 
 the 
 
438 
 
 PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 me in repelling the violence committed by that Englishman ! " Then 
 he retired to his quarters, and the William quietly sailed out of sight 
 and proceeded to Fort Orange without hindrance. " This commander 
 Van Twiller."says the downright De Vries, who was greatly disgusted 
 at such cowardly conduct " this commander Van T wilier, who came 
 to his office from a clerkship an amusing case ! " Later in the day 
 De Vries dined with the director, and gave him his opinion very freely. 
 " I spoke then as if it had been my own case, and told him that I 
 would have made him go from the fort by the persuasion of some 
 iron beans sent him by our guns, and would not have allowed him to 
 go up the river. I told him that we did not put up with those things 
 in the East Indies. There we taught them how to behave." l 
 
 ^' r;r; >'-fc^#%/^ 
 
 Van Twiller's Defiance. 
 
 After several days 
 of hesitation two or 
 three small craft, with a 
 force of soldiers from the 
 fort, were sent to Fort 
 Orange in pursuit of Eel- 
 kens. They succeeded in 
 compelling him to return, 
 
 and the William was then ordered to leave the harbor ; but this tardy 
 triumph came much too late to help the governor's reputation. What 
 little was left he lost in a quarrel with De Vries a short time after, 
 when the patroon sent his yacht The Squirrel through Hellgate, in 
 spite of Van Twiller's prohibition. The latter threatened in this case 
 to take more energetic measures than before, for he pointed 
 with DC the guns in an angle of the fort at De Vries' vessel, and de- 
 clared that he would fire. But as he stood with some of lu's 
 council on the rampart deliberating when he should have been acting, 
 
 1 De Vries' Voyages. 
 
1633.] 
 
 VAN TWILLER AND DE VRIES. 
 
 439 
 
 De Vries himself scornfully approached the group, and rated them in his 
 usual plain-spoken fashion : " It seems that the country is full of fools," 
 he said. " If they must needs fire at something why did they not," he 
 asked, " fire at the Englishman who violated the rights of the river ? " 
 This taunt, it is recorded, "made them desist from firing;" and they 
 contented themselves, as the patroon's vessel sailed away on her trad- 
 ing voyage along the eastern and northeastern coast, with sending a 
 
 yacht to watch her movements. On 
 her return soon after, De Vries again 
 and as coolly disobeyed the govern- 
 or's orders by going on board before 
 she had been searched. Secretary 
 Van llemund and Notelman, the 
 
 De Vries in East River. 
 
 schout or sheriff, were sent to the vessel to demand that her furs should 
 be entered at the fort ; but Notelman, who was " somewhat of a bouser" 
 devoted his visit to a continual clamor for wine, caring little for the 
 business in hand, and only protesting that " he was dry, and would go 
 to the cabin ; " as for the secretary, the patroon openly defied him. 
 Both officials were finally sent ashore with the assurance from De 
 Vries that he was ' astonished that the West India Company should 
 send such fools to the colonies, who knew nothing but how to drink 
 themselves drunk." 
 
 Such was the character of ^an Twiller's government at home. 
 Abroad, where events were independent of his personal interference, 
 results were not always ridiculous though generally weak. By the di- 
 
440 PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 rection of the Company, Arendt Corssen, a commissai'y, bought from 
 the Indians, during the summer of 1633, a tract of land on the 
 
 Schuylkill, within the limits of the present State of Penn- 
 landsonthe sylvania. Here he established a trading post, as some 
 
 compensation for the abandonment of the posts on and near 
 the South River. But by far the most important measure of the 
 year was the first formal attempt made by New Netherland to extend 
 its possessions to the eastward. In the valley of the Fresh or Con- 
 necticut River were now living a great number of the former neigh- 
 bors of the Dutch, the Mohicans, who a few years back had occupied 
 the region opposite Fort Orange. Conquered by the Mohawks, and 
 driven away from their old home in 1628, they had settled in the 
 pleasant country to the east, where they were again defeated by the 
 Pequods, and reduced to the condition of a tributary tribe. Though 
 beaten, they were restless under the yoke, and at different times had 
 The Dutch sought the aid of the whites to restore their old power ; 
 on the . neither the Dutch to the westward, nor the English on 
 
 Connecticut 
 River. 
 
 Massachusetts Bay, would interfere in their dispute. At this 
 early day little attention had been paid to their country as desirable for 
 colonization ; but the Dutch had pushed into it in search of peltries, and 
 had found the valley rich trading ground. The traders had already 
 bought lands on both sides of the river ; and the arms of the States 
 General had been affixed to a tree on Kievit's Hoeck (Saybrook 
 Point), at the mouth of the stream, in 1632. 
 
 Commissary Van Curler was sent to the Connecticut with direc- 
 tions to make a further purchase and establishment on account of the 
 Company. Sailing up the stream to the mouth of Little River (the 
 site of Hartford), he bought tracts there on both sides of the broad 
 channel, and set about founding a post to be called Het Huys de 
 Hoop " the House of Hope," or Fort Good Hope. It was finished, 
 in spite of the protests of the nearest English colony that it was in 
 violation of their rights. The Plymouth people came to build a 
 trading-house a mile and a half above, and found this rival post, 
 which was to be the cause of long and tedious disputes, in full posses- 
 sion of the Dutch. The fields about it were under tillage ; but there 
 was little or no attempt to settle the larger tracts Van Curler had 
 purchased. The questions which the occupation of this outpost raised, 
 gave to Van T wilier ample opportunity for protests and diplomatic 
 correspondence ; but as there was no more forcible assertion of the 
 assumed rights of the Dutch, there was little to retard the inevitable 
 fate of " The House of Hope." 
 
 Indeed, the frontiers of New Netherland seemed beset, at this mo- 
 ment, with difficulties brought about by the English. Within two 
 
1633.] THE SETTLEMENT AT MANHATTAN. 441 
 
 years of this settlement at Hartford, the Netherland territory seemed 
 likely to suffer indirectly from the dispute between the English of 
 Maryland and Virginia. Harvey had just been deposed in Virginia; 
 and the friends of Maryland's old enemy, Clayborne, finding them- 
 selves in power, which they had little hope of retaining long, conceived 
 the idea of establishing a post on the Delaware to make up for their 
 loss of trading privileges through the Maryland charter. They knew, 
 through De Vries' visit to Harvey, of the Dutch Fort Nassau ; and 
 acting Governor West sent out a party of men under a Virginian, 
 George Holmes, to take possession of the now abandoned post. For 
 once, however, Van Twiller, to whom an English deserter carried news 
 of the attempt, was induced to act promptly. A force was sent to the 
 Delaware, and the English invaders were captured, brought to Man- 
 hattan^ and finally returned to Virginia by De Vries' vessel. 
 
 It is probable that some of the difficulties with the English might 
 have been avoided, or at least their recurrence prevented, 
 
 /~. The disputes 
 
 had an excellent suggestion made by the Company to the referred to 
 States General been heeded. The William, the English tiovem- 
 vessel under Eelkens's charge, had made complaint and de- 
 mand for damages, on its return to England, the object of its voyage 
 having been defeated by the action of the Dutch. The application 
 was denied, the Company claiming that damages should rather be paid 
 to them for Eelkens's serious interference with their Indian trade. 
 The controversy, however, necessarily raised the question of the Dutch 
 title to New Netherland, and it was proposed by the Company to submit 
 the whole question to the arbitration of Boswell, the English ambas- 
 sador at the Hague, and Joachimi, one of the Dutch ambassadors in 
 England, who should establish a boundary line between the' English 
 and Dutch possessions in America. Had this suggestion been acted 
 upon, New Netherland would have had a different history ; but like 
 former questions with England, this was suffered to slip out of sight, 
 and in a few months the matter had been practically dismissed by 
 both governments. 
 
 While all these things were passing, the settlement at Manhattan, 
 though twenty years had passed since it was begun, was still little 
 else than a mere trading-post. It very slowly acquired any of the 
 features of a colonial village, in which industries wei-e springing up, 
 new settlers constantly acquiring fresh interests, the customs and life 
 of a little town growing into form. Its people were the Company's 
 people, with the occasional addition of small bodies of emigrants from 
 Holland ; and as yet it had hardly grown to have an interest of its 
 own. Its history thus far had been only the monotonous record of 
 the Company's trade, except for these difficulties with the English, 
 
442 
 
 PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 Dutch Windmill. 
 
 and the measures connected with them, which kept the little band of 
 
 officials in continual perplexity. The place had, however, 
 
 New Am- prospered and increased in some degree. New houses had 
 
 been built of good quality, some of them of brick. The , 
 governor had erected three wind-mills, and quarters had been ar- 
 ranged for about one hundred soldiers 
 which Van Twiller had bi'ought over 
 with him. A church had taken the 
 place of the rough loft in which the few 
 early settlers had worshipped ; and here 
 Domine Everardus Bogardus, who had 
 succeeded Jonas Michaelius (the first 
 minister sent out in 1628), preached on 
 Sundays the doctrines of the Reformed 
 religion. The trading vessels of the Com- 
 pany passed and repassed the fort, or lay 
 at anchor in the upper bay ; the smith, 
 the cooper, brewer, and joiner, had estab- 
 lished rough shops near the fort ; and on 
 the north side of this a farm or bouwerie 
 had been laid out for the Company's use, and was industriously cul- 
 tivated. The "staple right," or right to impose duties on passing 
 vessels, had been granted to the settlement, and added to its impor- 
 tance, and every ship entering the river was stopped before Fort Am- 
 sterdam, and made to pay the impost, or land its cargo. Across the 
 river, opposite Manhattan, Patroon Pauw's commander or superin- 
 tendent, Van Voorst, had built his house ; and the eai'ly colonists 
 of Pavonia had already begun 
 to gather about it, when the 
 Company succeeded in buying 
 back both that region and 
 Staten Island from their owner, 
 in the summer of 16o7. Nearly 
 two years before, they had re- 
 gained, by a similar purchase, 
 the territory of Swaanendael ; 
 but to compensate for this re- 
 turn of property into the cor- 
 poration's hands, Van Rensse- 
 
 laer had added still further to his already enormous estates, which 
 were prospering and growing valuable under his able manager, Ar- 
 endt Van Curler ; while numerous less important proprietors, among 
 them Van Twiller himself and other official persons, who did not fail 
 
 Governor's House and Church. 
 
1637.] 
 
 VAN TWILLER'S UNPOPULARITY. 
 
 443 
 
 to take good care of their own interests, had acquired lands about 
 Manhattan, and on the western end of Long Island. 
 
 Thus affairs stood at the end of the fourth year of Van Twiller's 
 administration. The incompetent governor had grown more Un p 0pll i ar . 
 and more imbecile in his conduct of home affairs, and he was Ityof Hou " 
 
 ter van 
 
 regarded only with contempt by the few sensible men about ' 
 him. Irritable and consequential as he was weak, he was constantly 
 involved in petty quarrels with his associates. Domine Bogardus, who 
 does not seem to have had all that forbearance and gentleness which 
 usually belong to clergymen, is known to have called him, on one 
 occasion, " a child of the devil," and to have declared that he would 
 give him "such a shake from the pulpit, on the next Sunday, as 
 
 The Obstinate Trumpeter. 
 
 would make him shudder." No doubt the governor deserved it, for 
 he often brought disgrace upon himself and his office by brawling over 
 his wine with the drunken superintendents or captains among whom 
 he found congenial companionship. With such a head, the discipline 
 among minor officers was naturally lax enough ; and the gravity of 
 the few records of the time is occasionally enlivened by narratives 
 which might almost seem exaggerations in the pages of Diedrich 
 Knickerbocker. Such was a quarrel between certain officers of the 
 fort and the fort's trumpeter, Corlaer, because the latter persisted in 
 trumpeting in the midst of a leisurely banquet which the others were 
 enjoying with their friends at a corner of the ramparts. The sturdy 
 musician had the best of it, in spite of the number against him, for 
 having given each of the company a " drubbing," he retired in good 
 
444 PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 order. Nor did their going for their swords, and venting their wrath 
 in vows to "eat" the trumpeter, have any disastrous result, 1 for, says 
 the faithful chronicler, when in the morning the wine was evaporated, 
 " their courage was somewhat lowered and they did not endeavor much 
 to find the trumpeter." 
 
 It is not to be wondered at that an administration conducted in 
 Recall of so slipshod and absurd a fashion should receive the sharp 
 \an Twiiier. censure o f tj ie f ew capable men about the governor ; and 
 it was through Van Twiller's treatment of one of these, Van Dinck- 
 lagen, the sellout who now occupied Notelman's place, that the 
 government was suddenly checked in the midst of its abuses. For 
 Van Dincklagen, having ventured to express his contempt too openly, 
 was sent back to Holland with large arrears of salary unpaid, and in 
 a condition giving him a decided right to complain, which he did not 
 hesitate to do. To such purpose did he represent the governor's con- 
 duct before the board of Amsterdam directors, that they determined at 
 once upon Van Twiller's recall, especially as the sellout's account was 
 almost immediately confirmed on the return of De Vries from one of 
 his frequent voyages. In the summer of 1637, the indignant Van 
 T wilier received notice of his removal. If his official career, however, 
 had brought him nothing else, it had brought him wealth. He was 
 now one of the richest among the private citizens of the colony, own- 
 ing, with other large tracts of land, several islands in the East River, 
 one of which was Nutten now Governor's Island, at its mouth. 
 William Kieft of Amsterdam, the fifth director-general or governor 
 f New Netherland, was almost as singular a selection on the 
 part of the directors as his predecessor. His record, in so 
 far as it has been preserved, did not show a mere routine ex- 
 perience, like that of Van Twiller, but it had worse elements in an- 
 other way. He had been an unsuccessful merchant, his business career 
 ending in bankruptcy, for which in accordance with the custom of the 
 time and place, his portrait was nailed to the gibbet. A still worse 
 crime was laid to his charge ; for he was accused of having left in cap- 
 tivity in Turkey some unhappy prisoners he was sent to ransom, while 
 he embezzled the money their friends had provided for their release. 2 
 But he had been strongly recommended to the Company's College of 
 Nineteen, and his appointment was secured by friends at Amsterdam. 
 On the 28th of March, 1638, he i-eached his post at Manhattan ; and 
 while Van Twiller retired to enjoy the comfortable prosperity which 
 he had secured by the thrifty use of his official opportunities, 3 his suc- 
 
 1 De Vries, in N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., New Series, vol. i., p. 259. 
 
 2 De Vries; and authorities in Brodhead, vol. i., p. 274. 
 
 8 There is a partial inventory of the large property Van Twiller accumulated in the 
 Albany Records, vol. i., pp. 89, 91, 101. O'Callaghan, vol. i , p. 183. 
 
1638.] ADMINISTRATION OF WILLIAM KIEFT. 445 
 
 cessor entered upon his duties with a vigor that at least promised well. 
 Kieft's tendencies were decidedly despotic ; he organized a council 
 with a single member, besides himself, who had but one vote to the 
 governor's two. Furthermore, he immediately issued various decrees 
 which restricted all the powers of the post to a few officers who were 
 little more than his tools ; but in spite of this his early measures were 
 generally wise and beneficial. 
 
 It was indeed a wretched condition of affairs that greeted him on 
 his arrival ; and his first act was to have a formal affidavit Condition of 
 made by certain officers and men as to the state of the ^KM** 
 Company's property at Manhattan ; and to embody this in arrival 
 a report to Holland. Van Twiller's zeal for improvements and build- 
 ing had completely died away during the last part of his rule ; and 
 all the repairs and new houses upon which he at first lavished the 
 Company's money, had been suffered to fall into decay. The walls of 
 the fort had fallen on all sides ; the guns were without carriages ; 
 the houses, the mills, the work-shops, both within and without the 
 fort, were in a dilapidated condition ; none of the vessels, except the 
 yacht Prince William, was fit to be put under sail ; it was difficult 
 even to find the site where the magazine or public store once stood ; 
 the Company's farms were without tenants, and the land turned into 
 common. 1 It was not only matters of property that were in disorder ; 
 the moral condition of the post and its discipline in regard to trade 
 were equally out of joint. The crews that visited the port and the 
 traders who made it their headquarters were a rough and lawless set, 
 and small and poor as the Manhattan settlement was at this time, most 
 of the elaborate forms of smuggling, cheating, and adulteration of goods 
 appear from Kieft's documents to have flourished among its people. 
 
 He took these abuses in hand at once, and a series of arbitrary 
 but needed measures, port regulations, excise laws, and dis- 
 ciplinary rules extending to the smallest details, marked the m^SJIfof 
 beginning of his administration. The attempts to enforce 
 them were not always successful, nor could they put a stop to the 
 constant petty thefts of the Company's goods by its minor officers, 
 or the abuse of their official opportunities by which they were fast 
 growing rich. In spite of Kieft's energy, the change of Manhattan 
 Island from a disorderly trading-post to anything like a peaceful and 
 prosperous colony, was only to be brought about by influences quite 
 outside of his control ; and it was most fortunate for all New Nether- 
 land that such influences were at last to make themselves felt, even 
 about the council-board of the selfish and short-sighted directors at 
 Amsterdam. 
 
 1 The deposition in full is in N. Y, Hist. Soc. Coll., New Series, vol. i., p. 279. 
 
446 PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 The patroon difficulties had been partly settled or at least so the 
 New de- directors hoped by the Company's buying back Pavonia 
 pwer/rom all( ^ Swaanendael, thus opening new fields for their trade. 
 thepatroons. j} u j. th ou gh the Company was rid of a few competitors by 
 this means, Van Kensselaer and his fellows, among whom were some 
 new proprietors, had been growing stronger and more prosperous 
 while the affairs of the corporation were mismanaged. Taking ad- 
 vantage of their own strength and the Company's weakness, they 
 proposed a remedy of their own for the troubles and abuses which 
 the directors were striving to cure. This was that their already 
 enormous privileges should be largely increased, and their irrespon- 
 sible jurisdiction be still more extended. 
 
 This extraordinary request was promptly refused ; but it was evi- 
 dent that something must be done, if the Company would 
 
 Actionofthe . ., , . . , i j vi 
 
 west India save itselr from the horns of a very awkward dilemma. 
 It had not power enough to assume a high tone with the 
 patroons unless the States aided it ; and they on the other hand 
 would not aid it unless it showed itself capable of the better govern- 
 ment of its colony. In this crisis the chamber at Amsterdam, with 
 the assent of the Council of Nineteen, adopted a measure which in 
 some degree redeemed its former folly, and solved the question, so 
 far as could be done by half measures. It resolved to do what should 
 have been done long before, and in a proclamation, in the fall of 1638, 
 it opened the New Netherland trade to virtually free competition. 
 People of the United Provinces, and their " allies and friends " of 
 whatever nation, might convey any cattle, merchandise, or goods to 
 New Netherland in the Company's ships, and receive "whatever re- 
 turns they or their agents might be able to obtain in those quarters 
 therefor," subject to a duty of ten per cent, on imports and fifteen per 
 cent, on exports. " And whereas," said the proclamation further, " it 
 is the intention of the Company to people the lands there more and 
 more, and to bring them into a proper state of cultivation, the director 
 and council there shall be instructed to accommodate every one, accord- 
 ing to his condition and means, with as much land as he, by him and 
 his family, can properly cultivate ; " such lands to become the abso- 
 lute property of the possessor, on payment of a quit-rent of one tenth 
 of the produce to the Company. Any colonist taking advantage of 
 this provision had only to promise to submit to the laws in force in 
 New Netherland ; and even further privileges, such as free passages, 
 and aid in bringing over stock for their prospective farms, were granted 
 by the Amsterdam directors to desirable emigrants. 
 
 This wise and timely act placed New Netherland where it had 
 never been before on an equality, so far, with the English colonies 
 
1640.] 
 
 BETTER TIMES IN NEW NETHERLAND. 
 
 447 
 
 about it. The change the measure wrought in its condition was great 
 and immediate. Emigration from Holland began in the very i ncreaged 
 autumn after the issue of the proclamation, De Vries, who *miLo 
 had bought land on Staten Island, being one of the first 1 * nd> 
 to carry out colonists to the plantation. During the next summer 
 ship after ship brought emigrants, people of all conditions, from sub- 
 stantial burghers to the laborers whom they had employed at home. 
 From an unprofitable trading-post New Netherland suddenly became, 
 in the eyes of Hollanders, a very land of promise. Those who emi- 
 grated to it wrote to their friends at home of the prosperity which 
 
 Landing of Dutch Colony on Staten Island. 
 
 began to spring up about them ; rich men, like Melyn of Antwerp, 
 who came " to see the country," sent back for their families and ser- 
 vants to join them. Nor was the immigration from the Netherlands 
 only ; men who had long been restless under the severity of Puritan 
 rule began to seek new homes among the tolerant Dutch ; " whole 
 settlements," says the record, removed to Dutch territory to avail 
 themselves of the new freedom offered there, and " to escape from the 
 insupportable government of New England." 1 Many came from Vir- 
 ginia also, who had been bound to masters there, and had served out 
 their time. 
 
 1 The phrase of the Journael Van Nieuto Nederlant, 1647. See, also, O'Callaghan, vol. i., 
 p. 20S. 
 
448 PROGRESS OF DUTCH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 The main current of this sudden immigration set toward Man- 
 hattan Island and the region about it, though the colonies 
 
 The town of,. , . -in T-I-III /> -i i 
 
 New Am- farther up the river and on btaten Island also benefited by 
 it. On Manhattan itself, where the " town of New Amster- 
 dam " was now first becoming worthy of such a name, thirty well- 
 stocked bouweries [farms] had taken the place, in'the summer of 1639, 
 of the few neglected ones noticed in Kieft's first report, and there 
 were applications for grants of land for a hundred more. Kieft had 
 bought from the Indians, in view of the growing demand, nearly all 
 the land that now forms Queen's County, and part of that in southern 
 Westchester, and this began to be peopled. A part of the shore of the 
 bay, north of the entrance to the Kill van Kull, was also purchased, 
 besides private tracts in different places. Prosperity seemed to follow 
 every enterprise of the new comers, and many of the old abuses van- 
 ished with the coming of a better class of people. The Virginians 
 brought cherry and peach trees, which were soon abundant in the 
 island bouweries ; and they introduced from the south their better 
 method of tobacco- culture. Far up the river, close by Fort Orange, 
 the little village of Beverswyck, which had grown up on the lands 
 of Van Rensselaer and was the central point of his manor, shared 
 in the new immigration. The only one of the original patroon- 
 ships that had succeeded, its prosperity well maintained under the 
 capable Van Curler, attracted many, and the persistent efforts of its 
 owner sent still more. Its fertile farms and excellent houses gave 
 the appearance of more rapid growth than was visible at Manhattan, 
 but its feudal restrictions nevertheless were a serious drawback to 
 its progress, which was less real than that at the river's mouth. In 
 1640 the restless De Vries made a voyage up the Hudson, 
 DeVnesup of which he gives an elaborate account in his journal; and 
 though he appreciated all the material prosperity of Rensse- 
 laerswyck, his quick eye did not fail to note that the patroons had 
 " very much embellished " their property, at the cost of the Com- 
 pany, "and that they had well known how to turn things to their 
 own advantage." Their policy, like the earlier policy of the Company 
 itself, was too selfish for the permanent success of their colonies in 
 any large and popular sense. 
 
 In this same year, 1640, the College of Nineteen passed an ordi- 
 nance materially changing the charter of Privileges and Exemptions, 
 and limiting the lands of future patroons to a water front of one mile, 
 and a depth of two miles ; it left them their feudal privileges, but put 
 disputes between them under the jurisdiction of the governor of Man- 
 hattan. Furthermore, it recognized any one, who should take five 
 settlers to the colony, as a " master," entitled to two hundred acres of 
 
1640.] NEW DIFFICULTIES AND DANGERS. 449 
 
 land, and such " masters or colonists " might form themselves into 
 towns or villages with municipal privileges ; it established a second 
 class of patroons, restricting them to one mile of water-front, and 
 whoever chose might trade at New Netherland in the Company's 
 ships, by the payment of certain imposts. It was a great improve- 
 ment upon the old charter, curtailed the powers of the old patroons 
 and extended their privileges to the people at large. 
 
 This removal of the restrictions upon free emigration, upon the 
 possession of land, and upon the freedom of trade, increased Progre gg of 
 at once and largely the prosperity of the colony. The emi- the colon y- 
 grant naturally preferred to hold his lands directly from the Company, 
 rather than from a manorial proprietor and master, and the possi- 
 bility of doing so was an inducement to remove to a new country. 
 He was a free man, not a serf. This fundamental change in the colo- 
 nial policy made all the difference between a community possessing 
 the elements of success, and one so bound and crippled by its laws, 
 that to escape from, not to seek it, was an instinctive impulse. 
 
 A healthy and rapid progress might now be looked for, but there 
 were dangers and difficulties to be encountered from with- 
 out. On the one hand were the encroachments of the Eng- 
 
 lish upon territory claimed by the Dutch which had to be 
 
 met ; on the other the more serious and more alarming peril of Indian 
 
 hostilities. 
 
 VOL. I. 25) 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 WAR WITH THE INDIANS. THE SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE. 
 
 CHANGE OF POLICY TOWARD THE INDIANS. KIEFT'S CRUEL AND STUPID OBSTI- 
 NACY. MASSACRE OF INDIANS BY THE DUTCH AT PAVONIA. RETALIATIONS BY 
 THE NATIVES. MURDER OF THE HUTCHINSON FAMILY AT ANNIE'S HOECK. DIS- 
 ASTROUS CONDITION OF THE COLONY. APPEAL OF THE PEOPLE OF NEW AMSTER- 
 DAM TO THE STATES GENERAL. END OF THE WAR. KIEFT REMOVED FROM OF- 
 FICE. TERRITORIAL ENCROACHMENTS OF RIVAL COLONIES. THE ENGLISH AT THE 
 EAST. A SWEDISH SETTLEMENT ON THE DELAWARE. FORT CHRISTINA. THE 
 SWEDISH GOVERNOR, JOHN PRINTZ. 
 
 THE wisdom and justice which the Dutch had hitherto shown in 
 their treatment of the savages gradually disappeared under Kieft's 
 administration. The agents of the Company, in their intercourse 
 with the Indians, had been governed by a uniform practice ; but when 
 
 Selling Arms to the Indian*. 
 
 trade was made free and competition grew with its increase, fraud and 
 oppression followed among Indian traders, who had little regard 
 then as now for any rules but the rules of addition and multiplica- 
 tion. This reckless love of gain sowed the seeds of future trouble in 
 
1641.] INDIAN HOSTILITIES. 451 
 
 supplying to the savages those arms which could alone make them 
 very formidable enemies, by putting into their hands the means of 
 avenging the wrongs which they both suffered and imagined. In 
 spite of all laws and all the dictates of common prudence, guns and 
 ammunition were sold to the Indians at enormous prices by the selfish 
 traders along the Upper Hudson, and even at Manhattan whenever 
 the police could be evaded. The Mohawks bought enough to arm 
 four hundred men, not only rendering them formidable to the Dutch, 
 but arousing the enmity of other tribes along the river, who bitterly 
 complained of the superiority thus given to their enemies. Kieft, 
 though he tried to put a stop to this traffic, added fuel to the flame of 
 hatred now rapidly rising about the settlements, by a series of ill- 
 judged measures. (An attempt in 1640, to exact tribute of corn, wam- 
 pum, and furs from the Indians near Manhattan, raised the anger of 
 the savages to the highest pitch, and an attack made by his orders on 
 the Raritans, in revenge for an alleged theft on Staten Island an act 
 really committed by some white traders, was enough to bring about 
 an open war. 
 
 For two years the evils that resulted from these acts hung over 
 New Netherland. When the Raritans, in the spring of 1641, Indian 
 attacked and destroyed the settlement De Vries had made hostllltie8 - 
 on Staten Island, Kieft in retaliation offered a bounty for every 
 head of a Raritan Indian that should be brought to him. Later in 
 the year a young Weckquasgeek, whose uncle had been murdered 
 by a white man, years before when Fort Amsterdam was building, 
 fell upon and killed, in mere desire of blood for blood, a quiet settler, 
 one Smits, who lived by the East River ; and when Kieft demanded 
 the murderer, his tribe refused to give him up. Popular opinion at 
 New Amsterdam, which had been from the first openly hostile to the 
 director's arbitrary treatment of the Indians, compelled him to delay 
 till the next spring any attempt to punish them ; and even then the 
 expedition which he sent against them lost its way in the forest, and 
 came back unsuccessful. The Weckquasgeeks were sufficiently alarmed 
 to make a treaty promising that the murderer should be surrendered ; 
 but it was never done. In the winter of 1642-43 another Indian, mad- 
 dened by drink and by the hostility that had now been awakened 
 everywhere among his race, killed an innocent white man at a new 
 colony at Hackensack ; and again the tribe refused to give him up, 
 but sought to compromise by paying an indemnity of wampum. 
 About the same time the Indians of Connecticut were aroused against 
 English and Dutch alike. There was enmity on every hand. The 
 New Netherland people shared with their English neighbors the dread 
 of a general Indian war. 
 
452 WAR WITH THE INDIANS. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 All the worst traits of Kieft's nature seem to have been called out 
 by these difficulties with the savages. But though he raged against 
 the Indians, and talked of some general and bloody punishment, the 
 community at large were not in the least disposed to second his des- 
 perate purposes. He was openly accused, even, of a want of sincer- 
 ity ; his object was said to be, not so much to punish the Indians as 
 to swell the sum total of his balance-sheet in his accounts with the 
 Company ; and it was declared that he was too ready to send others 
 into dangers where he did not dare to lead. When he proposed to 
 send out an expedition against the Weckquaesgeeks to revenge the 
 murder of Smits, the popular feeling against the measure was so 
 strong that he was constrained to call a public meeting for its consid- 
 eration. The result was the appointment of " Twelve Select Men " 
 who should aid him in coming to a wise decision. The Twelve were 
 cautious in giving advice. The murderer, they thought, should be 
 punished, but his surrender was to be again and again demanded, and 
 any general difficulty with his tribe was to be avoided as long as pos- 
 sible. And they were very decidedly of the opinion that inasmuch as 
 the " Honorable Director is as well the ruler as he is the commander 
 of the soldiery," he ought, " to prevent confusion, to lead the van," 
 their place being " to follow his steps and obey his commands." The 
 Honorable Director no doubt recognized the grim humor of these 
 solemn burghers. He sometime afterward issued a proclamation in 
 which he thanked them for their advice, but forbade any further call- 
 ing of popular meetings, as they tended to dangerous consequences, 
 and to the injury of the country and his own authority. 
 
 Meanwhile events were stronger than either director or council, 
 and all that either could do was to turn them to a wise or unwise ac- 
 count, as the case might be. The unhappy tribes on the lower reaches 
 of the river were a prey to others beside their white neighbors ; and 
 war among ^ n * ne middle of the winter, when the river was full of ice 
 the savages. an( j fa e savages were collected in their winter camps, a war- 
 party from the powerful Mohawks at the north came sweeping down 
 upon them, armed with the guns the Dutch had furnished, and driv- 
 ing before them far greater numbers whole settlements, indeed 
 of the Algonquins. Without making a stand against their formida- 
 ble and always dreaded enemies, the southern Indians, the Weckquas- 
 geeks, the Tappans, and others from the rivers' banks, fled through 
 the woods. Many sought refuge with the white men towards whom 
 they had just before been so hostile ; and they were received with 
 kindness, some at Manhattan itself, some at a colony which De Vries, 
 always the friend of the savages, had begun by the Tappan Sea, and 
 called Vriesendael. At the latter place, indeed, the refugees were so 
 
 
 
1643.] 
 
 KIEFT'S POLICY TOWARD THE INDIANS. 
 
 453 
 
 many that the patroon was anxious about the safety of his goods, and 
 paddled a canoe down to Manhattan to ask that a guard might be 
 sent him from the fort. 
 
 He was full of friendship and sympathy for the persecuted river 
 tribes, though he could not interfere for their protection against the 
 Mohawks ; and when he had brought his canoe safely through the ice 
 floes and landed at New Amsterdam, his presence was a great gain to 
 the strong party there, who were urging upon the governor that the 
 
 De Vriei in the Ice. 
 
 time had come when all the old hostility might be removed by a little 
 kindly treatment of the savages in their distress. Policy p olicy 
 and humanity alike suggested that they should be at least towaniuhe 
 suffered to find a temporary asylum with the whites. But Indians 
 there were a few in the settlement who were ready to aid the di- 
 rector in his plans, and while the rest debated, these resorted to a 
 device worthy of politicians of a later period. The Twelve Men had 
 been disbanded some time before ; but two or three who had belonged 
 to their number now reassumed their power as popular representa- 
 tives, and authorized an act which the whole body would have rejected 
 in an instant. At a dinner at the house of Jansen Dam, one of the 
 Twelve, he and two others, by previous arrangement, presented to the 
 director a petition purporting to come from the community at large, 
 in which they asked that active hostilities should be begun against the 
 natives. " Let us attack them," said they ; and the defenceless coil- 
 
454 
 
 WAR WITH THE INDIANS. 
 
 [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 dition of the Indians was urged as an argument for a sudden and 
 merciless onslaught. 
 
 Kieft acted at once on this pretended popular approval of his own 
 determination. In vain did De Vries, dining with him two days 
 after, point out the folly of such a cburse. " Consider, sir," he said, 
 " what good it will do knowing that we lost our settlements by mere 
 counsel of j an g^ n g with the Indians at Swaanendael in the Hoeren 
 nes- Creek, in 1630, when thirty-two of our men were murdered ; 
 and now lately, in 1640, at Staaten Island, where my people were 
 murdered, occasioned by your petty contrivances of killing the Indians 
 
 Dinner at Van Dam's. 
 
 of Raritan, and mangling the body of their* chief for mere bagatelle." 1 
 But the director had determined, as he said, " to make these savages 
 wipe their chops." He knew as well as De Vries who was presi- 
 dent of the Board of Twelve, when it had any legal existence, that 
 the action at Darn's house was a transparent fraud which could deceive 
 nobody short of Holland. He was not influenced in the least by the 
 wise counsel of De Vries. 
 
 Night attack Across the river, at Pavonia, the frightened Indians had 
 made their chief camp, many hundreds of them collecting 
 there with the Hackensacks, who numbered perhaps a thou- 
 sand. Upon this encampment Kieft had resolved to make his first 
 i De Vries, N. Y. Hist. Soe. Coll., New Series, vol. i., pp. 268, 899. 
 
1643.] 
 
 MASSACRE OF INDIANS AND ITS RESULTS. 
 
 455 
 
 attack, and on the afternoon of the day of De Vries' remonstrance, the 
 soldiers were collected near the fort to prepare for the crossing, which 
 was to happen on the following day. De Vries again protested, as he 
 saw the troops. " You will go," he said, "to break the Indians' heads ; 
 but it is our nation that you are going to murder. Nobody in the 
 country knows anything of it. My family will be murdered again, 
 and everything destroyed." The remonstrance was, of coui-se, useless, 
 though Domine Bogardus and other men of influence joined in it. 
 The night was occupied in preparation ; and at evening of the next 
 
 Indian Fugitives from Pavonia. 
 
 day the soldiers under Sergeant Rodolf, going out, as Kieft falsely 
 said, " in the name of the Commonalty," were carried across the river 
 to Pavonia. 
 
 De Vries sat that night in the great kitchen at the director's, by 
 the fire. Just at midnight, the winter's night being cold and still, 
 he heard loud shrieks from beyond the river. Hurrying Ma8Nlcreof 
 out to the ramparts of the fort, he looked in the direction the lndian8 
 of Pavonia. " I saw nothing," he says in his brief journal, " but the 
 flash of the guns, and heard nothing more of the yells and clamour of 
 the Indians, who were butchered during their sleep." As he sat down 
 again by the fire, thinking of the bloody work going on so near him, 
 
 
456 WAR WITH THE INDIANS. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 there came in an Indian man and woman whom he knew, fleeing for 
 their lives from the Pavonia camp ; saying " that the Indians of Fort 
 Orange had surprised them, and that they came there for shelter." 
 De Vries gave them their first knowledge of the truth that the fort 
 was the worst refuge to which they could come, " and that it was not 
 the savages of Fort Orange who were murdering those of Pavonia, 
 but it was the Swannekins, the Dutch themselves." And with this 
 warning the good patroon took the pair to a side gate of the fort 
 where " no sentry stood," and aided them to hide themselves again in 
 the darkness. Eighty Indians were killed at Pavonia, and forty at 
 Corlaer's Hook that night, with horrible barbarities that might have 
 given the savages themselves a lesson in the art of torture, '^nd this 
 was the feat worthy of the heroes of old Rome!)" says De Tries, in 
 bitter allusion to a grandiloquent boast thatTCieft had made; "to 
 massacre a parcel of Indians in their sleep, to take the children from 
 the breasts of their mothers, and to butcher them in the presence of 
 their parents, and throw their mangled limbs into the fire or water ! 
 Other sucklings had been fastened to little boards, and in this posi- 
 tion they were cut in pieces ! Some were thrown into the river, and 
 when the parents rushed in to save them, the soldiers prevented their 
 landing, and let parents and children drown. Children of five and six 
 years old were murdered, and some aged decrepit men cut to pieces. 
 Those who had escaped these horrors, and found shelter in bushes and 
 reeds, making in the morning their appearance to beg some food or 
 warm themselves, were killed in cold blood, or thrown into the fire or 
 water." " Some," he adds, " came running to them in the country," 
 mangled and mutilated too terribly to be described ; " and these mis- 
 erable wretches, as well as some of our people, did not know but they 
 had been attacked by the Maquas of Fort Orange." The troops came 
 back to the fort in the morning with prisoners and various bloody 
 tokens of their " victory ; " and Director Kieft welcomed them ex- 
 ultantly, as men who had done a noble deed of arms in behalf of the 
 colony and of their homes. fThey had simply thrown away the chief 
 advantage that the Dutch colony had hitherto held over its energetic 
 and more restless rivals. The chief guaranty of safety and prosperity 
 was lost to a people who had little of the military prowess of their 
 neighbors to stand them in stead. 
 
 When the facts of the Pavonia and Corlaer's Hook massacres became 
 known, the results were more terrible than even De Vries, with all 
 Terrible re- ms foresight, had looked for. All about the lower river and 
 Kieft' f poi- th e bay, and on Long Island (where petty plundering ex- 
 icy - peditions, soon after the more important events, drove the 
 
 tribes into common cause with their mainland neighbors), the Al- 
 
1643.] 
 
 WAR WITH THE INDIANS. 
 
 457 
 
 gonquin people rose furiously against the whites. The terrors of an 
 Indian war broke forth with a suddenness which appalled the colo- 
 nists ; and every swamp and wood from the country of the Hacken- 
 sacks to the Connecticut, seemed all at once to swarm with hostile 
 savages. The outlying bouweries and plantations were laid waste, 
 their men killed, and their women and children made prisoners ; peo- 
 ple from the farms crowded to Fort Amsterdam ; even Vriesendael 
 was besieged, and only relieved at the intercession of the Indian who 
 had come to De Vries by the director's fire on the night of the great 
 massacre, and whom he now pointed out as " the good Swannekin 
 chief." A hollow and but half-satisfactory peace with some of the 
 
 tribes, which was only brought about by 
 De Vries's urgent intercession, 
 and hardly kept by the efforts 
 of a few old chiefs, 
 gave a partial 
 
 Massacre of Ann Hutchinson. 
 
 respite, from March until midsummer. But the war broke out again 
 in August, with renewed fierceness, among the tribes above the Hud- 
 son Highlands. Early in the month they attacked and plundered 
 trading-boats upon the river, murdering many of the crews. By Sep- 
 tember the conflict was raging with full force. In the south a band of 
 savages fell upon the quiet home of Ann Hutchinson, at " Annie's 
 Hoeck," now known as Pelham Neck, near New Rochelle, and she and 
 her family, excepting one granddaughter who was carried away captive, 
 were murdered. Other plantations near at hand and on Long Island 
 shared this fate ; the Hackensacks and Navesincks fell upon the settle- 
 
458 WAR WITH THE INDIANS. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 merits to the westward of Manhattan ; even at the outposts of Fort 
 Amsterdam men were wounded by the shots of the lurking savages, 
 who might, had they known their own power, have exterminated 
 the whites, who, in the universal terror, were almost incapable of 
 resistance. 
 
 It may be imagined that during all this terrible retribution Kieft's 
 vindictive rashness had brought upon the wretched colony, his life 
 was not a pleasant one. The terror-stricken people, who crowded with 
 unpopular- their families within the dilapidated and insufficient ram- 
 ity of Kieft p ar ^ s o f t ne f or ^ thronged about him with imprecations and 
 threats. He tried in vain to shift the responsibility to the shoulders 
 of the Twelve Men. " You would not let them meet," was angrily 
 answered ; " how then could they have done this ? " Even the three 
 who had presented him the pretended petition at Dam's house deserted 
 him, and attempted to repudiate their share of responsibility for the 
 calamity they had helped to bring upon the colony. One of them 
 Adriaensen stalked into Kieft's presence and threatened to take his 
 life if he did not stop his " devilish lies." Indeed, his servant at- 
 tempted it, and fired at the director, but he was instantly shot down 
 by a sentinel, and his head was afterwards exposed upon the gibbet. 
 Adriaensen was arrested and sent to Holland for trial ; but the feeling 
 of the people remained unchanged, nor did the proclamation of a sol- 
 emn fast, and the remorseful acknowledgment that these things were 
 " doubtless owing to their sins," persuade anybody that it was the 
 Almighty and not the director who was the author of all their 
 woes. 
 
 Kieft again called the people together in September, 1643, just 
 after the attack upon the trading-boats had shown the gen- 
 assembiy of eral and vindictive nature of the war, and begged them to 
 choose a new council from among themselves, to consult as 
 the former one had done, on the terrible crisis that was upon them. 
 Eight citizens were selected, who seized the reins of government 
 much more firmly and confidently than their predecessors had done. 
 New provisions were made, which the exigency of the times demanded, 
 among them especially the equipment of a large force of soldiers, of 
 whom fifty were English settlers under John Underbill, lately a 
 Massachusetts captain who had fought against the Pequods. Confi- 
 dence was in some measure restored to the terrified town ; and the re- 
 fusal of an application to New Haven for aid the New England col- 
 onies being pledged to each other not to enter separately into war, and 
 New Haven, moreover, doubting whether the Dutch could be justified 
 in the course they had pursued towards the Indians aroused the en- 
 ergies of the New Netherlander, who saw that they must save them- 
 selves or perish. 
 
1643.] 
 
 COUNCIL OF EIGHT MEN. 
 
 The Eight Men, however, did something more than use the scanty 
 resources at their command within the colony. On the A council of 
 twenty-fourth of October they addressed to the College of eight men - 
 Nineteen at Amsterdam, and on the third of November to the States 
 General themselves, 
 then in session in the 
 Binnenhof 1 at the 
 Hague, the first docu- 
 ments ever sent from 
 the people of New 
 Netherland to their 
 government at home. 
 Two letters of direct 
 appeal were sent from 
 the suffering citizens, 
 couched in simple 
 terms to which their 
 hard condition lent 
 convincing eloquence. 
 
 They set forth how 
 " Almighty God had 
 finally, through his 
 righteous judgment, 
 kindled the fire of 
 war " around the " poor 
 inhabitants of New Netherland; " and they painted a pitiable picture of 
 their woes, their women and children starving, their homes destroyed, 
 " matters, in fine, in such a state, that it will be with us according to 
 the words of the prophet : ' Who draws the sword shall perish of 
 hunger and cold." To the States General they wrote that the 
 "wretched people must skulk, with wives and little ones that still are 
 left, by and around the fort on the Manhattes, where we are not one 
 hour safe." They humbly prayed for such assistance " as their High 
 Mightinesses should deem most proper, that they might not be left a 
 prey " to these cruel heathens." 
 
 A terrible winter, and one full of sad forebodings, followed the 
 sending out of these earnest letters of appeal. The suffering people, 
 crowded at the southern end of the beleaguered island, and 
 dreading the Indian arrows even at the doors of the little 
 huts that clustered about Fort Amsterdam, could see no 1643- 
 hope of better days in the future ; and the many who could find pas- 
 
 1 Then the meeting-place of the States General ; now used as the repository of the ar- 
 chives of the Netherlands. 
 
 The Binnenhof. 
 
460 WAR WITH THE INDIANS. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 sage in the vessels going to Holland in the autumn, felt that they 
 were leaving a colony that could never rise again. In this anxious 
 and forlorn crowd was Roger Williams, who was at Manhattan to take 
 ship for Europe, the Boston Puritans not tolerating his presence among 
 them long enough for him to get a fair wind and go to sea. " Their 
 townes," he says, " were in flames .... mine eyes saw the flames at 
 their towns, and their flights and hurries of men, women, and children, 
 the present removal of all that could for Holland." l It was only with 
 the really desperate straits of midwinter, when all attempts to gain 
 aid from their English neighbors had failed, that the spirit of the Eight 
 Men and of the people rose, as man's courage does in extremities, to 
 energetic measures against the enemy ; and even then, the first at- 
 tempts at offensive warfare had but little result. An expedition sent 
 to Staten Island in December accomplished nothing but the capture 
 of some grain, the Indians pursuing their usual tactics of keeping away 
 from a large body of organized troops. Another sally towards Green- 
 wich and Stamford, called thither by a petty skirmish, surprised a little 
 Indian village, and killed its warriors, embittering, rather than aiding 
 to end, the general conflict. 
 
 It was only with the beginning of 1644 that any real success came 
 to the colonial arms. Certain English families, who had 
 indiau ' removed from Stamford to Heemstede [Hempstead] on 
 Long Island, called the attention of Kieft to the dangers to 
 which they were exposed from the Canarsees, the tribe nearest them ; 
 and begged that an expedition should be sent to protect them from 
 attack. The director and the Eight Men sent a hundred and twenty 
 men in answer to this appeal. Two Indian villages were surprised 
 and sacked ; more than a hundred warriors were killed ; and two were 
 brought back to Manhattan, where they were put to death before the 
 governor with such atrocious tortures that Indian women standing by 
 cried " shame," and declared that the Dutch had shown them new 
 methods of torture. 
 
 This success was soon followed by another and a greater. For Un- 
 underhiirs derhill and his force of Dutch and English, having carefully 
 expedition, examined the main position of the Connecticut Indians near 
 Greenwich and Stamford, undertook an expedition of a more decisive 
 character against their principal village. A night march through the 
 February snows brought the little army of a hundred and fifty men to 
 the outskirts of the Indian town, which they had hoped to find unpre- 
 pared for their approach, though the moonlight was so clear and strong 
 that " many winter's days were not brighter." But the savages were 
 warned, and stood upon their guard, nearly seven hundred strong, 
 
 R. I. Hist. Soc. Coil., vol. iii., p. 155. 
 
1644.] 
 
 APPEAL TO THE STATES GENERAL. 
 
 461 
 
 and having their rude fortifications to protect them. The Dutch line 
 advanced steadily, unbroken by the arrows or attempted sorties of 
 the Indians, and nearly two hundred of the besieged warriors fell in 
 the endeavor to drive it back. Underbill succeeded at last in firing 
 the village ; and the flame and the moonlight lit up a slaughter beside 
 which the massacre at Pavonia seemed insignificant. Eight only of 
 the savages escaped. The Dutch, with fifteen wounded, made their 
 way back to Stamford ; and a few days afterward a thanksgiving was 
 
 March against the Indians in Connecticut. 
 
 celebrated on their arrival at Manhattan, after a victory which effect- 
 ually humbled the eastern tribes. 
 
 It was only about Manhattan and on the river that many of the 
 tribes continued hostile after this decisive blow ; and the Eight Men 
 counselled that vigorous measures should now be taken against these 
 nearer and more dangerous neighbors ; more especially as the arrival of 
 a vessel from the Company's colony at Cura^oa had supplied New 
 Netherland with a fresh force of one hundred and thirty soldiers, whom 
 Peter Stuyvesant, the Curac.oa governor, had sent away because he 
 
462 WAR WITH THE INDIANS. [CHAP XVII. 
 
 bad no use for them. It was an addition of military strength to Man- 
 hattan which it was sorely in need of, and warmly welcomed, though 
 how the soldiers were to be fed and clothed it was not easy to see. The 
 treasury was empty ? Kieft's last bill of exchange had come back 
 from Amsterdam protested, for the Company was bankrupt. His 
 only resource was taxation. The best, the most obvious thing to 
 tax was beer. But a tax on his beer was precisely that to which a 
 Dutchman would not submit. So the director blundered through the 
 summer of 1644, without one wise or energetic measure. He was as 
 inert and imbecile now as he had before been violent. He wasted his 
 time in petty disputes and jealousies over petty measures. Still more 
 of the men on whom the colony depended for protection, experienced 
 soldiers and energetic settlers, returned to Holland. In spite of a pali- 
 sade built across the island nearly on a line with the present Wall 
 Street, the Indians continued to skulk almost under the walls of the 
 fort, and to kill and plunder almost without the show of resistance. 
 All through the summer the Eight Men bore with this condition of 
 
 affairs, but in October they wrote again to the College of 
 agamst Nineteen, and this time with a bold and definite statement 
 
 of the reforms they believed to be needed, and the changes 
 they demanded. They again detailed the terrible state in which the 
 unhappy colonists found themselves, and pointed to Kieft's acts as the 
 source of all their troubles ; they complained of his arrogance, and his 
 neglect of all measures for public good, while he cared only for his own 
 arbitrary power. It was impossible, they said, to settle the affairs of 
 the country without a different and more popular form of government ; 
 and they asked permission for the people to elect local officers who 
 in turn might send deputies to confer with the governor and council. 
 If their High Mightinesses would send them a ruler empowered to 
 encourage such a system, " a governor with a beloved peace," .all, 
 they believed, would yet be well. 
 
 This second appeal from New Netherland reached the College of 
 Nineteen, while they were in the midst of the discussion of the 
 former one, and of a great number of complaints received from other 
 sources with regard to the suffering and unprofitable colony. The 
 States General, when they had received the letter of 1643, had per- 
 emptorily ordered that the Company should take measures to relieve 
 their psople beyond the sea ; but the bankrupt and powerless corpora- 
 tion, now seeking to merge itself in its great and successful fellow com- 
 
 panv of the East, could do little toward obeying the order. 
 
 Kieft's re- * " *. 
 
 caiitouoi- As usual, however, a definite demand had far more influ- 
 ence than a general complaint, however eloquent, as it sug- 
 gested something that could be done at once. The immediate pur- 
 
1645.] 
 
 END OF THE INDIAN WAR. 
 
 463 
 
 pose of the Eight Men was gained: Kieft's recall was determined 
 upon, and decreed on the tenth of December. A provisional appoint- 
 ment of Van Dincklagen, 
 the former sheriff, as his 
 successor, was revoked in 
 May, in favor of Peter 
 Stuyvesant, the comman- 
 der at Curac,oa, who had 
 come home for surgical 
 treatment, having lost a 
 leg in an attack on the 
 Portuguese at their Island 
 of St. Martin. The Cham- 
 ber of Accounts, to whom 
 the matter was referred, 
 reported in favor of the 
 political changes recom- 
 mended by the Eight 
 Men, and against Kieft's 
 conduct of the Indian 
 war, and his earlier ad- 
 vice that the savages be 
 exterminated. They sug- 
 gested a great number of advantageous changes in the administration 
 of New Netherland, and for the first time, taught by hard experience, 
 admitted that a colony could not be made successful if managed solely 
 for the immediate and selfish ends which had hitherto been sought by 
 the Company in America, without regard to permanence or to the 
 popular good. 
 
 There was a delay, nevertheless, of a year between determination 
 and execution ; but in the mean time the assurance of what was in- 
 tended was enough greatly to encourage the anxious colonists at Man- 
 hattan. Kieft had a hard life now that it was known how soon he 
 Avould be powerless to trouble them ; and he only aroused more bitter 
 opposition by attempting to repress by summary trials the boldness 
 of those who now denounced him openly. A happier event, however, 
 than even the recall of the hated director, soon rejoiced the colony, 
 and gave promise of the better days that were believed to be in 
 store. 
 
 With the spring of 1645, the Indians themselves began to show a 
 wish for peace, and as early as April the colonists were glad Treatiesw j th 
 to conclude a treaty with some of the tribes about them, the lndian8 - 
 Kieft willingly consenting, in the hope, perhaps, of still retrieving his 
 
 Hall of the States General. 
 
464 
 
 WAR WITH THE INDIANS. 
 
 [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 reputation with the Amsterdam directors. One treaty followed an- 
 other. In May the mediation of an Indian ally secured a lasting peace 
 with the tribes along Long Island Sound ; and in July, Kieft, aided 
 by the patroon's men at Fort Orange and Rensselaerswyck, brought 
 about a similar agreement with the Mohawks and their neighbors on 
 the upper river. Only the tribes immediately about Manhattan re- 
 mained, and with these, who also wanted quiet that they might go 
 back to planting and trading, and escape the vengeance which Un- 
 derbill's victory showed was in store for them sooner or later, nego- 
 tiations were equally successful. On the 30th of August, 1645, the 
 
 citizens of New Amsterdam assembled 
 at the end of the island, on the ground 
 
 still known as 
 the Battery, and 
 
 Smoking the Pipe of Peace. 
 
 witnessed the smoking of the pipe of peace, and the conclusion of a 
 general treaty with all the hostile tribes. On the 6th of September 
 New Netherland held a day of thanksgiving for the ending of the 
 long and terrible Indian war. Throughout the desolated colonies 
 about Manhattan, proprietors and laborers began to rebuild and to 
 cultivate again with renewed courage ; but the country had received 
 a check from which it revived but slowly. 
 
 Sixteen hundred of the savages, indeed, had been killed ; but there 
 was not a single Dutch settlement, except that at Rensselaerswyck 
 and the military post on South River, that had not been attacked and 
 generally destroyed. Besides a few traders there were left upon Man- 
 hattan Island scarcely a hundred people, and throughout the whole 
 province not more than three hundred men capable of bearing arms 
 could have been mustered. 
 
1637.] AFFAIRS OX THE FRONTIERS. 465 
 
 The year and more which yet remained of Kieft's administration, 
 was a time of petty quarrels between him and his officers and the 
 popular representatives. The Domine Bogardus denounced the gov- 
 ernor from the pulpit, as he had done his predecessor, as a vessel 
 of wrath and a fountain of woe and trouble. Kieft retorted by hav- 
 ing cannon fired, drums beaten, and all kinds of noisy games carried 
 on about the church on Sunday. His officers and soldiers were by 
 no means reluctant to give implicit obedience in a warfare of this 
 sort, and for a time the town was kept, between the domine and the 
 governor, in a state of unusual liveliness. Military disaster and civil 
 misrule had brought affairs to such a pass that in the order of nature 
 a change must come, either of reconstruction or absolute dissolution. 
 The " beloved peace " which the new governor was to bring must 
 have wings broad enough to stretch over army, state, and church. 
 
 Meanwhile affairs on the frontiers of New Netherland were in 
 nearly, if not quite, as bad a state as on the island of Manhattan. 
 The steady aggression of the New Englanders had left the Dutch but 
 the merest nominal foothold in Connecticut and eastern Long Island ; 
 and the serious attempt that had been made in 1641-1642, to settle 
 the question of rights and boundaries, had resulted only in the usual 
 empty talk about an arbitration which never came. The Dutch set- 
 tlement at little Fort Good Hope was more a source of amusement than 
 apprehension to the authorities of the thriving town of Hartford, the 
 Dutchmen listening sometimes to remonstrances and reproaches, and 
 sometimes submitting to outrages they could not resist. Dutch control 
 in the Connecticut Valley was gone. On the southern borders of their 
 possessions, however, events of a more positive character had occupied 
 the years of Kieft's unhappy rule. Fort Nassau, reoccupied a few 
 years before, held undisputed control of the beautiful region of the 
 South River ; the old importance of the district as an Indian trading- 
 ground had been reestablished, and the English had ceased to molest 
 the Dutch in this part of their territory, when about the time of 
 Kieft's arrival at Manhattan a new nation appeared on that river. 
 These colonies were to have a brief life, but to leave a lasting impress 
 upon the region where they were established. 
 
 William Usselincx, of Antwerp, who had first proposed and had 
 succeeded in establishing the Dutch West India Company, visited 
 Sweden, in 1624, and urged upon the king the great value which the 
 founding of colonies in America, and the trade that would spring from 
 them, must certainly be to his kingdom and people. The wise and lib- 
 eral Gustavus Adolphus was fully capable of comprehending the broad 
 views of the Holland merchant, and entertained them warmly. Us- 
 selincx set forth the advantages of his plan in a religious, political, and 
 
 VOL. i. 30 
 

 466 THE SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 commercial aspect. He showed that the establishment of a Swedish 
 A Swedish West India Company would benefit the state, in the spread 
 the Christian religion ; in adding to the power and splen- 
 o fa e sovereign ; and in the decrease of taxes, while it 
 augmented the general commercial prosperity of the people. Reward 
 would surely come to a state aiding the cause of Christ ; the state 
 itself would have " another eye ; " by reason of the increased rev- 
 enue "every industrious man would thrive;" and it would greatly 
 tend, said Usselincx, in conclusion, " to the honor of God, to man's 
 eternal welfare, to his majesty's service, and to the good of the king- 
 dom." The project was accepted by the king and the Diet, and ac- 
 companied with the most favorable conditions for Usselincx himself, 
 who was to share largely in the profits. 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus fell at Liitzen, in 1632, before the absorbing 
 importance of his great campaigns had permitted him to take any 
 practical steps toward the carrying out of the plan ; but he had it 
 constantly at heart, and just before his death had drawn up a procla- 
 mation in which he called the project " the jewel of his kingdom." 
 Fortunately, it was left in worthy hands. The chancellor Oxenstiern,. 
 who appreciated its importance as fully as the king, published the 
 proclamation, urged on the undertaking with energy and wisdom, and 
 in December, 1634, secured the passage of a full and definite charter 
 for the Swedish West India Company. But, as in the case of the 
 similar Company in the Netherlands, it was several years before the 
 corporation was ready to act. 
 
 The hope of profitable employment from this Company led to Sweden 
 Swedish coi- * ne discharged director of the New Netherland colony, Peter 
 peter > M i in r - Minuit. He pointed out to Oxenstiern how useful his ex- 
 uit. 1637. perience might be to the Swedes. When the Company was 
 fully organized he was put in command of its first expedition. 
 
 In the autumn of 1637, Minuit set sail from Gottenburg in the 
 Key of Calmar, accompanied by a tender called the Griffin, with about 
 fifty emigrants. The neighborhood of the South River was the region 
 upon which he had fixed for his settlement. The two vessels entered 
 Delaware Bay in April, 1638, and sailed up the river as far as the 
 " Minqua's Kill," as it was then called by the Dutch. To this stream 
 the Swedes gave the name of their queen, Christina, since corrupted 
 into Christiana, and here Minuit made a treaty with the Indian 
 sachem of the region, buying, for a kettle and some trifling wares, all 
 the land on the west side of the South River, from Cape Henlopen to 
 the falls near Santickan (now Trenton), and " as much inwards from 
 it in breadth as they might want." l The spot they chose for their 
 
 1 Acrelins' Hist, of Neio Sweden, translated in N. Y. Hist. Soc. Col!., New Series, vol. i., 
 p. 409 ; Hudde's Report on the Swedish Colony, ih., 439. 
 
 
 
o 
 
 
 
 w 
 t/> 
 
 5 
 
 a 
 c- 
 
 en 
 
 W 
 
 w 
 
 ? 
 
 in 
 
 - 
 o 
 

 
 

 1638.] 
 
 THE SETTLEMENT AT FORT CHRISTINA. 
 
 467 
 
 trading-house and fort Fort Christina was about two miles from 
 the mouth of the creek, and near the site of the present town of 
 Wilmington, Delaware. 
 
 The Swedes, leaving the winter bleakness of their own country, and 
 coming to the beautiful banks of the South River in the 
 freshness of the warm spring, found in the new land even vai in the 
 more than the fulfillment of their hopes ; yet these had been 
 raised by the most glowing descriptions at home. 1 A point just above 
 Cape Henlopen they named as they passed " Paradise Point," and as 
 they lay at anchor in the broad stream by their newly-purchased terri- 
 tory, they were eager 
 to begin a " planta- 
 tion." Fort Nassau 
 was only fifteen miles 
 above, and it needed 
 but little time for ru- 
 mors to reach the 
 Dutch garrison there. 
 of the arrival of two 
 foreign ships within 
 the limits of New 
 Netherland, and the 
 mysterious move- 
 ments of their passen- 
 gers upon the shore. Messengers were dispatched to Minuit to ascer- 
 tain his intentions ; he had only come, he said, for wood and water, 
 and would soon pursue his voyage to the West Indies. The story 
 was distrusted from the first, and when the Swedes began to make ** a 
 small garden" near the bank an operation which was clearly not 
 a part of a West India voyage their commander was compelled 
 gradually to disclose his true purpose. The Griffin even made a 
 trading voyage as far as Fort Nassau, where, though forced to put 
 about, her captain refused to show his commission at the demand of 
 the Dutch. But he announced that the Swedes meant also to build a 
 fort on the river, and that their right to do so was quite as good as 
 that of the Dutch Company. 
 
 The people at Fort Nassau sent intelligence of the matter to Kieft 
 at Manhattan. The director, with great promptness, brought Di g may ot 
 to bear upon the Swedes a sounding proclamation, asserting 
 the right of the West India Company to the banks of the 
 South River, and warning Minuit, in most solemn and 
 weighty terms, not to attempt intrusion, assuring him that the Nether- 
 
 1 See the Argonautica Gustaviana, quoted by Bancroft, vol. ii., p. 284. 
 
 Costume of Swedes. 
 
468 THE SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 lands would protect their rights " in a manner that should appear most 
 advisable." l 
 
 Minuit, himself a Dutchman, and late the director of the Company 
 at New Amsterdam, knew the exact weight of metal which 
 
 Building of 
 
 the Swedish this sort of ordnance carried. He went on with the building 
 of a fort and trading-house, and when he had finished them 
 and had seen trade with the Indians fairly established, he placed a 
 garrison of twenty-four men in possession, well supplied and armed, 
 . and then, without the least regard to the continued protests of the 
 Dutch, sent the vessels home well laden, to return with farther 
 additions to the little colony. 2 The valor and firmness displayed by 
 Kieft in proclamation and letter were admirable, but he was careful 
 not to send anybody to disturb the well-fortified Swedes. Nor was 
 he less loud in his complaints to the Directors in Holland ; but these 
 passed almost unheeded, for any design of Sweden at home or abroad 
 was not to be lightly meddled with. For more than a year all went 
 well with the colony at Fort Christina ; its trade prospered so that 
 it did "thirty thousand florins injury" to that of New Netherland, 3 
 and the little plantation about the fort began to have the appear- 
 ance of prosperity and permanence. It was only with the winter of 
 1639-40, when supplies had begun to run low, and no aid had been 
 sent from home, that their first trials came upon the Swedish settlers. 
 To such straits were they brought, that they at one time determined 
 to give up their enterprise, and go to the Dutch at Manhattan to seek 
 homes or a passage to their fatherland. But the spring brought help. 
 This came not only from their own people, but from the Nether- 
 lands also. Those who had returned in the vessels had 
 to C the 8 ne l w spread far and wide the praises of the beautiful region they 
 had visited, its fitness for colonization, and the promise for 
 the future to those who should be its first possessors. Recruits came 
 with the summer of 1639, from different parts of Sweden and Finland ; 
 several shrewd Netherlander^, to whom the confused sate of the col- 
 ony at Manhattan was anything but attractive, gained permission to 
 take out parties to the South River under Swedish protection. The 
 opening of New Netherland, just at this time, to greater freedom of 
 trade, caused some of these to change their minds, but enough per- 
 severed to make a small Dutch colony, which the Swedish govern- 
 ment decreed must be at least four or five German miles from Fort 
 Christina. 
 
 1 Acrelius, as cited, p. 409 ; O'Callaghan, vol. i., p. 191. 
 
 2 An ambiguous passage in a letter of Kieft, dated in July of this year, has led some 
 writers to believe that Minuit himself went back at this time, but it is clear that he did not. 
 Compare Acrelius, as cited, p. 410. 
 
 Brodhead, vol. i., p. 319. 
 
1641.] 
 
 PROSPERITY AT FORT CHRISTINA. 
 
 469 
 
 The new emigrants the Dutch being under the command of one 
 Joost de Bogaerdt, who drew a salary from the Swedish government 
 sailed for America late in the winter. Their arrival was hailed with 
 delight. Abundant supplies, a great addition to their numbers, and 
 news from home, where they had almost believed their undertaking 
 had fallen into complete neglect, dispelled in a moment the despair 
 of the colonists at Fort Christina. Everything took on 
 the appearance of prosperity; the Dutch settlers, establish- at Fort 
 ing themselves a little to the south of the Swedes, began to 
 build dwellings and plant their crops in the pleasant valley, a happier 
 contrast than they knew to their countrymen at Manhattan, whose 
 mistaken government was at this moment bringing upon them a des- 
 olating war. The summer passed away without a check to their pro- 
 gress ; the Indian trade on the South River passed almost entirely 
 into their hands ; their crops were good, and the fort was not mo- 
 lested by the New Netherlander, Kieft having concluded to raise 
 the siege of proclamations and treat them with neighborly civility. 
 In the autumn a new band of colonists arrived at the fort with further 
 supplies, tools, and conveniences, under the charge of Peter Hollaen- 
 dare. Later still in the season came two or three more vessels, each 
 crowded with passen- 
 gers ; while many who 
 wished to leave Sweden 
 had been unable to come 
 for want of room, and 
 were waiting for other 
 ships to sail. The third 
 winter at the new col- 
 ony passed away with- 
 out bringing the suffer- 
 ing that had been felt 
 in those before it ; with 
 the next spring and sum- 
 mer emigrants contin- 
 ued to join the growing settlement. During this summer (1641) 
 Minuit died at the fort he had founded, regretted by the Swedes, 
 whom he had served most faithfully, and whose enterprise he had 
 made successful where one of less experience would probably have 
 failed. Hollaendare, a Swede, succeeded him in the governorship. 
 
 Even the presence of two claimants in the valley of the South 
 River could not protect it long from the interference of the English, 
 who, De Vries said long before, " thought everything belonged to 
 them." As early as 1640 a New England captain is reported to have 
 
 Early Swedish Church. 
 
470 THE SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 bought some land on the South River from the Indians, who were often 
 ready to sell the same lands to as many people as possi- 
 
 The Gntrlish 
 
 <m the south ble. 1 Early the next spring a number of New England colo- 
 nists, under the command of Robert Cogswell, sailed from 
 Connecticut for the South River, seeking a less rigorous climate and 
 more fertile soil, in a region of whose beauties they had heard so much. 
 At Manhattan, where they lay for a few days on their way, one of 
 Kieft's proclamations was aimed point-blank at them, warning them 
 against encroaching upon New Netherland territory. With a vague 
 assurance that he meant only to settle upon unclaimed lands, the 
 New Englander sailed on, and had no trouble in finding Indians 
 ready to sell him land. The English made quick work with this, as 
 with other settlements within Dutch limits ; and before the end of 
 the summer they had planted corn and built trading-posts on Varck- 
 en's Kill (now Salem Creek, in New Jersey), and on the Schuylkill, 
 near its mouth. Both posts prospered, and New Haven took them 
 under special protection, as colonies connected with the town. By 
 the time Kieft fully realized what had been done, it was too late in 
 the year for action. 
 
 The coming of the English was not less disagreeable to the Swedes 
 The English than to the Dutch ; and when, in the spring of 1642, Kieft 
 ?"e T south m instructed Jansen, the commissary at Fort Nassau, to expel 
 Biver - the intruders, and to maintain on the South River " the rep- 
 
 utation of their High Mightinesses," the people at Fort Christina gave 
 them their energetic aid. The English for once yielded without re- 
 sistance, were taken as prisoners to Manhattan, and thence despatched 
 to their homes. Their appeals for damages, and their request that 
 the New Haven authorities should retaliate, were alike disregarded. 
 
 During the spring of 1648, there arrived at Fort Christina an 
 Arrival of officer who was to play a distinguished part in the Swedish 
 prin e at r Fort colony. Hollacndare had retired from his post as governor, 
 Christina. an( j j o ] m p r j n t z , a cavalry lieutenant in the Swedish ser- 
 vice, was sent out to succeed him. De Vries gives a concise descrip- 
 tion of this burly officer, by saying that he was a man " of brave 
 size," weighing somewhat more than four hundred pounds, and he 
 "doubted not" that the Swede drank three drinks at every meal. 2 
 
 He was evidently looked upon as a somewhat formidable person, 
 and was endowed with a violence of temper quite in keeping with 
 his physical proportions and his free mode of living. Two Swedish 
 war-vessels, the Swan and the Charitas, and a merchant ship, the 
 
 1 Brodhead, vol. i., p. 321, cites authorities for this report; its truth is by no means cer- 
 tain. See O'Callaghan, vol. i., p. 232. 
 
 2 De Vries, N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., New Series, vol. i., p. 273. 
 
1643.] ADMINISTRATION OF GOVERNOR PRINTZ. 471 
 
 Fama, accompanied him to New Sweden, as the colony was now 
 called ; they brought out a large number of colonists ; and the new 
 administration began with something of the dignity and ceremony of 
 an older government. Printz established himself at the island of 
 Tenacong (the present Tinicum, about twelve miles below Philadel- 
 phia), built a fort there the " New Gottenburg " and a house of 
 no mean pretensions for the time and place, which he called " Printz 
 Hall." A part of the colonists remained at Fort Christina ; the rest 
 clustered about the new fort and the governor's mansion ; and at 
 both points prosperous farms and orchards were soon in flourishing 
 condition. According to the instructions to Printz, amicable relations 
 were, if possible, to be kept up with the Dutch, both at Fort Nassau 
 and elsewhere ; but he was to monopolize the Indian trade of the 
 river as far as he could, and his fort was to be so built as to com- 
 mand the stream, and be able to stop all passing vessels. 
 
 The home government had made a very large appropriation (about 
 two million rix dollars annually) for the support of the col- 
 
 J ' . ~* . AdminiRtra- 
 
 ony, and agreed to furnish it with soldiers for protection ; 1 tkm of 
 the settlers had ample resources and were energetic and 
 industrious ; and they had chosen one of the best positions on the 
 coast. The material prosperity of the people was unquestionable and 
 for a pioneer colony exceptional. Their neighbors, however, found 
 some fault with its moral condition, for De Vries records that " neither 
 there nor in Virginia was intoxication or incontinence punished with 
 whipping ; " but this lenity does not seem to have led to any grave 
 disorders, and probably the motley population of Manhattan would 
 not have appeared to advantage in a comparison with the peaceful 
 Swedes. Swedish interests on the river were at any rate cared for in 
 a way that must have fully satisfied Printz's superiors. His fort at 
 Tinicum compelled every vessel, of whatever nationality, to strike her 
 colors as she passed, and no trade was permitted that did not pay due 
 tribute. 
 
 Notwithstanding affairs were conducted in this high-handed way 
 by the new coiners, the Dutch hesitated to oppose them except by 
 the usual protests and empty threats. Printz was not a man likely 
 to be daunted by these. When George Lamberton, the New Ha- 
 ven Englishman who had sent out Cogswell's unsuccessful expedition 
 to the South River, persisted in trading there, the Swedish 
 governor induced him to come ashore at Tinicum, and im- met^fraof 
 prisoned him and two of his crew. He tried to persuade or 
 bribe one of the sailors to accuse the captain of inciting the Indians 
 to attack the Swedes. When the sailor refused, Printz put him in 
 
 1 Hazard, Annul. Penn., apud Brodhead, vol. i., p. 379. 
 
472 
 
 THE SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 irons, and stamped up and down the fort, " a man very furious and 
 passionate, cursing and swearing, and also reviling the English of New 
 Haven as runagates." 1 When called upon by the New Englanders, 
 after Lamberton's release, to give satisfaction for these "foul injuries " 
 and " damages," he sent a letter to Massachusetts denying the whole 
 story. This was in the autumn of 1643. When another New Eng- 
 land vessel (a pinnace sent out from Boston), came to the Delaware 
 in the spring of the next year, the Swedes and the Dutch at Fort 
 Nassau united in refusing to permit her to trade in the river, and sent 
 each a boat to prevent it. The English soon learned that it was not 
 
 "= - - - 
 
 Printz and the Sailor. 
 
 so easy to have 
 their own way on 
 the Delaware as it 
 had been on the 
 of the Connecticut. 
 Printz nevertheless was 
 kindly and good natured 
 when trade was not in 
 question, for in October he res- 
 cued two Boston men from the 
 Indians, who had treacherously 
 boarded an English vessel that entered the bay and killed or captured 
 all her crew. The rescued men he sent to New Haven. 
 .*- In 1645, Jan Jansen, long the commissary at the Dutch Fort Nas- 
 sau, was peremptorily removed by Kieft, because of well-sustained 
 accusations of dishonesty and incompetence, and one Andreas Hudde 
 was appointed in his place. It is very possible that a part of Jansen's 
 neglect of duty lay in his easy submission to the Swedes ; at all events, 
 his successor seems to have understood his obligations to protect the 
 river-trade, as binding him to take a different course. An opportu- 
 nity to make issue with the rival governor was not long wanting. 
 
 1 Winthrop, vol. ii., p. 130, sqq. 
 
1646.] DIFFICULTIES BETWEEN DUTCH AND SWEDES. 473 
 
 In the summer of 1646, a New Amsterdam trading vessel, approaching 
 the right bank of the mouth of the Schuylkill, was sharply Usfuteg ^ 
 ordered off by the Swedish officer of the post near by, and *%* and 
 was forced to obey. The captain of the vessel appealed to Dutch - 
 Hudde ; but when that officer came in person to investigate the com- 
 plaint, he was commanded to " leave the territory of the queen " with 
 as little ceremony as had been used in the first case. He retired to 
 Fort Nassau in great indignation, and an angry interchange of messages 
 and letters followed, during which Printz requested Hudde to define 
 precisely the rights which the Dutch believed they had in the neigh- 
 boring region. Hudde replied rather vaguely to the Swedish messen- 
 gers ; and Printz, who had none of the patience of a diplomat, wrote 
 decisively to the captain of the Manhattan vessel that he must leave 
 the river or lose ship and cargo, conveying his threat, however, in 
 courteous language, and laying all the blame on the Fort Nassau com- 
 missary. 1 The captain wisely obeyed, and sailed away. 
 
 This dispute, however, was only the prelude to further difficulties. 
 Later in the summer Hudde found himself prevented from Further dif . 
 going to the falls at Sankikan (Trenton), whither he had ficultie - 
 been ordered by Kieft on an exploring expedition. Printz had per- 
 suaded the Indians to stop him, making them believe that the Dutch 
 designed to attack the tribes of that region, and build a fort upon their 
 land. The Dutch commissary was furious but discreet, and gave up 
 his expedition. Nor did the interference of Printz cease here. When 
 Hudde, at Kieft's command, attempted to begin a new settlement on 
 some land he had bought near the present site of Philadelphia, a 
 Dutch mile or more to the north of Fort Nassau, on the west shore 
 of the river, Printz sent a deputy to prevent it ; the officer tore down 
 the Dutch arms, and used " in an insolent and hostile manner 
 these threatening words : ' that although it had been the colors of 
 the Prince of Orange that were hoisted there, he would have thrown 
 these too under his feet ; ' besides many bloody menaces." 2 This 
 was followed up by a formal letter from Printz, demanding that 
 Hudde should at once " discontinue the injuries of which he had been 
 guilty against the Royal Majesty in Sweden " injuries which he had 
 committed "without showing the least respect to Her Royal Majesty's 
 magnificence, reputation, and highness ; " and the document so bela- 
 bored the commissary with protests against his " gross violence " and 
 "gross conduct," that it is plain to see the choleric Swede believed 
 himself to be a most patient, innocent, and abused governor. 
 
 Hudde was naturally enough astonished at the tone of this despatch. 
 
 1 Hudde 's report, ill N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., New Series, vol. ii., p. 431. 
 
 2 Hudde's report. 
 
474 THE SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE. [CHAP. XV1L 
 
 He returned an answer in the most exaggerated form of Dutch cour- 
 tesy, to " the Noble Governor De Heer John Printz," addressing him 
 as " Sir Governor." Yet the letter was not without firmness, and 
 contained a great deal of excellent counsel. After protesting that he 
 had done everything in his power to promote " a good correspondence 
 and mutual harmony," he appealed to the Swede to do likewise. " I 
 confide that it is your Honour's intention to act in the same manner 
 at least from the consideration that we who are Christians will not 
 place ourselves as a stumbling-block or laughing-stock to those savage 
 heathens." 
 
 The good sense and moderation of this answer were of no avail. 
 When the sergeant by whom Hudde sent it approached the Swedish 
 governor, who stood before the door of " Printz Hall," with several 
 servants and others about him, the burly officer paid no heed to 
 the messenger's courteous " good morning," but took Hudde's de- 
 spatch from his hand without ceremony, and threw it unopened toward 
 one of his attendants, telling him. to "take care of it." Turning 
 away he went to meet some Englishmen just arrived from New Eng- 
 land, paying no further attention to the sergeant or his letter. The 
 Dutch soldier waited patiently for a considerable time, and then hum- 
 bly asked for an answer ; whereupon the governor became furiously 
 angry, and seizing the unfortunate sergeant with all the strength 
 of his huge frame, threw him violently out of doors, afterward 
 " taking a gun in his hand from the wall, to shoot him, as he imag- 
 ined." 
 
 After this positive breach of friendly relations, nothing but hostility 
 could exist between the Dutch and Swedes on the South River. Dur- 
 ing the short time that was left of Kieft's administration at Manhat- 
 tan, petty acts of enmity and retaliation marked all the intercourse 
 between the settlements of the two nations. "John Printz leaves 
 nothing untried to render us suspected," wrote Hudde a little later, 
 " as well among the savages as among the Christians yea, often is 
 conniving when the subjects of the Company, as well freemen as 
 servants, when arriving at the place where he resides, are in most 
 unreasonable manner abused, so that they are often, on returning 
 home, bloody and bruised." The Dutch trade with the Indians had 
 passed almost entirely out of their control ; the English were kept 
 away with an energy they would never have experienced at the hands 
 of the Fort Nassau garrison. At the moment when Kieft 
 ofNewSwe- gave up his misused power into the hands of his successor at 
 Manhattan, the Swedes were in all respects the lords of the 
 South River valley ; and as the power of their rivals declined, they 
 prospered and grew strong. Large reinforcements of settlers and sol- 
 
 
1635] PROSPERITY OF NEW SWEDEN. 475 
 
 diets came out to them ; convicts and malefactors, some of whom had 
 at first been sent out as servants to the colonists, gave way to the bet- 
 ter class, under whose control they did good work on farms and build- 
 ings ; l the little town at Tinicum, with its manor-house and its church 
 where the Reverend John Campanius preached on Sundays, had an 
 appearance very different from that of the now desolated and unfortu- 
 nate New Amsterdam. When New Netherland was at its lowest point 
 of misfortune and mismanagement, New Sweden had reached a height 
 of prosperity which was, however, to disappear in its turn in the ad- 
 vance of a stronger race. 
 
 i Thomas Campanius Holm's Short Description, already cited, p. 73. The statement 
 made in the same place about the sending back of subsequent bands of convicts is, like many 
 of this author's statements, very improbable. His translator admits a considerable mingling 
 of fable in Holm's work, and his account is only trustworthy where confirmed by others. 
 
CHAPTER XVIIT. 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 JEALOUSY OF JAMES I. OF THE VIRGINIA COMPANY. EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 
 ELECTED TREASURER. PROGRESS OF THE COLONY. MASSACRE OF 1622. DIS- 
 SENSIONS IN THE LONDON COUNCIL. CHARTER OF THE COMPANY TAKEN AWAY. 
 RAPID SUCCESSION OF GOVERNORS OK THE COLONY. LORD BALTIMORE, AND 
 HIS VISIT TO VIRGINIA. CHARTER OF MARYLAND. CECIL CALVEKT'S COL- 
 ONY. ITS LANDING IN MARYLAND. THE FIRST TOWN. ST. MARY'S BLUFF. 
 PURCHASE FROM THE INDIANS. THE FIRST CATHOLIC CHAPEL. FRIENDLY RE- 
 LATIONS WITH THE INDIANS. 
 
 
 
 WHEN the regular meeting for the election of officers of the Vir- 
 ginia Company was held in 1620, a message was received from the 
 king naming four persons, one of whom he wished to be chosen its treas- 
 urer for the ensuing year. It was a despotic act, not easy to enforce, 
 on the one hand ; hard to obey, and difficult to evade on the other. 
 Its own charter, not the royal wish, was the law for the Company. 
 But James sincerely believed that the Council of the Virginia 
 
 .James Land . . ' 
 
 the Virginia adventurers was a nursery of sedition, and, in a measure, he 
 
 Company. . * 
 
 was unquestionably right. Among the many persons who 
 were busy with schemes for peopling the new country, the larger 
 number were moved, some by selfish motives, others by broad com- 
 mercial and patriotic purposes. But besides these, the thinking 
 men of the time, those who valued religious and civil freedom ; who 
 contended and meant to contend against tyranny at home, so long as 
 the struggle was of any avail ; who looked to the future of England 
 with apprehension, and were sustained by the hope that a new Eng- 
 land might arise across the sea all these by a common impulse en- 
 gaged in some scheme of American colonization. The conviction of 
 the king was neither a prejudice nor a mistake, but an instinct. 
 However much it might please him to be busy about the govern- 
 ment of a colony, he watched with jealous eyes any bod}' of men ac- 
 customed to congregate together, lest treason against the royal prerog- 
 ative should be hatched among them. The Council of the Virginia 
 Company attended to its own affairs ; but there were men at that 
 board whose influence, in Parliament and out of it, James dreaded, not 
 without reason. The nominations he now made were only the begin- 
 ning of more serious aggressions. 
 
 
treasurir 
 
 1621.] CONDITION OF THE COLONY. 477 
 
 The Company was happy to effect a compromise. The king con- 
 sented not to insist upon the election of one of liis own candidates ; 
 the Company so far gratified his wish as to quietly drop the man whom 
 he held to be the most obnoxious. " Choose the devil if you will," 
 said James, " but not Sir Edwin Sandys." x The treasurer TheElu .i of 
 elected was the Earl of Southampton a choice hardly 
 more acceptable to James than that of Sandys himself, but 
 quite as advantageous to the interests of the Company. For the pol- 
 icy which for the two previous years had been so successfully pursued, 
 Southampton continued ; nor was the active management of the affairs 
 of the colony by Sandys lost to it ; he still remained a member of 
 the Council, and frequently acted as treasurer always virtually the 
 governor by Southampton's appointment. 
 
 So vigorous was that management that the number of colonists sent 
 to Virginia during the years 1619, 1620, and 1621, was three thou- 
 sand five hundred and seventy, more than half of the whole num- 
 ber se'nt by the Council to the colony since Newport landed the first 
 company at Jamestown in 1607. During the same period fifty 
 patents were granted to individuals for private plantations, and these 
 transported at their own charges and for their own use many servants 
 and cattle in addition to those sent on the company's account. It was 
 not the fault of the London Council that the establishment of a more 
 prosperous community did not follow their large expenditure of labor. 
 of cai-e, and of money. Had there been nothing in the character of 
 the emigrants, a large proportion of whom were persons whose expul- 
 sion from an old country was much more desirable than their acquisi- 
 tion in a new, to stand in the way of the progress and prosperity of 
 the colony, there was reason enough in the want of any diversity of 
 industry and the enforced labor of bound servants in one direction, to 
 check any healthy and vigorous growth. All the energies of the peo- 
 ple continued to be devoted to the cultivation of the one great staple. 
 tobacco, and neither the constant and earn'est remonstrance of the 
 Council in London, nor the evidence of their own short-sightedness in 
 the constant threat of scarcity of food, and often of famine, could in- 
 duce the colonists to adopt a wiser system. The colony was fourteen 
 years old when the governor wrote to the Council in London k% as 
 to barley, oats and the best peas there is either none, or a very small 
 quantity of any of them in the country." 
 
 So long as the colony was in the hands of the Council their efforts to 
 check this evil were never pretermitted, but were never com- rultiTation 
 pletely successful. The law to regulate the planting of to- oftobacco 
 bacco was made more stringent, but seems to have continued, for the 
 
 1 Ncill's History of the Virginia CoiiijMny^ote p. 185. 
 

 478 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 most part, a dead letter, if even there were any attempt to enforce it. 
 Provision was made for the introduction of other industries, but their 
 growth, if they had any at all, was feeble. The soil of Virginia, it 
 was thought, was peculiarly suited to the vine ; cuttings, accordingly, 
 were procured from time to time in large quantities from France, and 
 sent over with French vine-dressers, to attend to their cultivation. 
 Wine, it was hoped, might be manufactured in large quantities ; it 
 was certainly begun, for in the minutes of the proceedings of the 
 Council in London, a single pipe is spoken of as having been sent over, 
 but which, unfortunately, soured on the passage. Mulberry 
 
 Other indus- - . . , . r , , . J 
 
 tries encour- trees and silk-worms were introduced, and everything done 
 to encourage their growth. The Council were sanguine, and 
 one of their letters enjoined the colonial government to tolerate no 
 costly apparel except such silks as should be of their own manufac- 
 ture. This early application of the principle of protection to home 
 industries the colonial officers rather resented as an insult to the rags 
 of the ordinary colonial wear. The silk making was no more flour- 
 ishing than the manufacture of wine. Glass-works also were estab- 
 The first Hshed, with skilled workmen from Italy. Iron-works were 
 """ started. Ship-building and salt-making were encouraged. 
 
 Dutch workmen were sent out to put up saw-mills ; there was not 
 even a grist-mill in the colony till 1622. 
 
 But neither the exhortations of the Council, the diligence of the 
 colonial authorities, nor the amount of capital employed, could bring' 
 the culture of any of these products into successful competition with 
 the growing of tobacco, where the promise of speedy wealth, especially 
 with those who had the means to buy the cheap labor of men bound 
 to service for a term of years, was so much greater. Whatever the 
 prosperity which the cultivation of this single staple brought to the 
 colony in after times, or brought rather to a single class, it is evident 
 that its earlier struggles were greatly prolonged by this concentration 
 of its energies in a single direction. 
 
 Sir George Yeardley, who, with Sandys, had given to the colony, in 
 The massa- 1619, a fresh start and a new chance of success, retired from 
 ere of 1622. fa e governorship in 1622, and was succeeded by Sir Francis 
 Wyat. The Earl of Southampton was reflected treasurer from year 
 to year till the Company lost its charter. With such officers the col- 
 ony would have continued slowly to improve, notwithstanding all 
 drawbacks and mistakes, but for a sudden calamity which, in the 
 spring of 1622, well-nigh ruined it. 
 
 For several years there had been almost unbroken peace with the 
 Indians. So little fear was there of any interruption of this tran- 
 quillity that the English had heedlessly scattered themselves about the 
 
 
1622.] MASSACRE OF 1622. 479 
 
 country upon isolated farms, or in small settlements, as interest or in- 
 clination led them, neglecting all precautions of armed security, per- 
 mitting the natives to come and go familiarly among them without 
 question and without thought of danger. It proved a fatal confidence 
 in a people who reckon dissimulation as among the virtues, and the 
 infliction of vengeance as the noblest use of courage. 
 
 Since the death of Powhatan, his younger brother, Opechancanough, 
 had become the most powerful chief in Virginia. His hatred of the 
 English had never slept, though carefully hidden under the guise of 
 friendship and submission. It was enough to keep alive his anger 
 and his desire for vengeance that these stranger people still remained 
 in a country to which he considered his race had an exclusive right. 
 But he had other provocations in the memory of past wrongs, which 
 the English had forgotten, or which they believed to be condoned 
 for in treaties, in the interchange of many acts of good fellowship, 
 and the long maintenance of kindly and familiar relations. His 
 proposal and attempt to massacre the whole colony was, indeed, pre- 
 ceded by the recent killing of a chief by two boys whose master he 
 had murdered ; but as this brave was well known not to be a favorite 
 of Opechancanough, though popular with the tribe, his death was the 
 pretext rather than the cause of the fearful vengeance which fell upon 
 the whites on the 22d of March, 1622. 
 
 There was no intimation and no suspicion of the intentions of the 
 savages. Not one of the thousands who dispersed themselves about 
 the country to visit the unsuspecting English with sudden death, was 
 moved by any grateful remembrance of favors or of friendship to 
 warn any of the intended victims of the swift calamity which was 
 about to overtake them. On the appointed morning, everywhere, in 
 places wide apart, the savages, sometimes idly loitering, seemingly 
 in friendly mood, into the houses of the whites, sometimes 
 creeping stealthily unseen and unheard into fields where men new and 
 were busily at work, fell upon them with a suddenness and 
 a vigor that gave no time for defence, or prayer, or warning. They 
 spared neither age nor sex, but slaughtered indiscriminately men and 
 women, parents and children, in a riot of atrocity and cruelty to which 
 the North American Indian never so completely abandons himself, and 
 never so fully delights in, as when his victim is utterly defenceless 
 and entirely at his mercy. It was not enough merely to take life, 
 sometimes even at the table where bread had just been given them to 
 eat. With a horrid pleasure they mutilated and disfigured the bodies 
 they had already put beyond help or harm, wreaking their unspent 
 rage upon the dead as a wild beast cries over and tears the creature 
 he has just killed and seeks to find life in it that he may kill again. 
 
480 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 When this cruel work was finished, the savages turned to the posses- 
 sions of those they had murdered. Horses, cattle, and swine were 
 destroyed ; houses and barns set on fire. Hatred and the love of ven- 
 geance made them prodigal of things which at any other time would 
 have been most precious possessions. They left nothing pertaining to 
 the whites that was capable of destruction. 
 
 The attack was chiefly upon those who were at a distance from 
 Jamestown ; but there, fortunately, the people were put upon their 
 guard. The night before the massacre a converted Indian was told 
 by his brother of the proposed extermination of the English, 
 and was urged to do his part toward it by the murder of his 
 master. It was the single instance so far as there is any 
 distinct record in which the tie of blood was forgotten, and the obli- 
 
 The co:o- 
 
 ntsts 
 
 warned. 
 
 Taking Warning to Jamestown. 
 
 gation of kindly relations from benefits received remembered. The 
 Indian revealed to his master what was to happen on this morning. 
 The planter, whose place was opposite Jamestown, hurried across the 
 river before daylight, and gave warning to the authorities of the town. 
 The, people were put under arms ; word was sent to all the planta- 
 tions within timely reach ; and the larger part of the colonists were 
 thereby saved, for the Indians made no attack where they found they 
 were to encounter an armed resistance. Where they did strike, how- 
 ever, the blow was effectual. The number killed, probably within an 
 hour, was about three hundred and fifty. 
 
H 
 
 1C22.] RESULTS OF THE MASSACRE. 481 
 
 In the inevitable hostilities which followed, the people were com- 
 pelled to gather into the larger towns for mutual defence. The 
 smaller places, like Henrico and Charles City, were abandoned ; the 
 scattered plantations were deserted ; the iron-works and the glass- 
 works, where the men had been killed, were given up ; vineyards were 
 destroyed ; cultivation of land or industry of any sort was out of the 
 question, except in the immediate vicinity of the larger bodies of pop- 
 ulation, where there were enough for constant vigilance and armed 
 defence. Discouragement and almost despair, for a time, paralysed 
 the unfortunate colony. 
 
 There was the more leisure for retaliation. " We must advise you, 
 wrote the Council from London, "to root out from being any Extermin)l . 
 longer a people so cursed, a nation ungrateful to all bene- jeans' 118 
 fits, and uncapable of all goodness." " A sharp revenge," urged- 
 they said in another letter, " upon the bloody miscreants, even to the 
 measure that they intended against us, the rooting them out for being 
 longer a people upon the face of the earth." The advice was not 
 needed. " We have anticipated your desires," answered the governor 
 and council of Virginia, " by setting upon the Indians in all places." 
 To the Council's reproaches that they may have brought this calamity 
 upon themselves, in some measure, by their want of watchfulness, 
 and too much trust in the savages, they pointedly replied by remind- 
 ing them in London how, from the beginning, they had been exhorted 
 to be tender with the Indians, to win their good-will by familiar in- 
 tercourse, to entertain them kindly in their homes, and induce them 
 to become members of their families. They bettered, if that were 
 possible, the new instruction. They destroyed the towns, the crops, 
 the fishing- weirs of the natives ; shot them, as they would shoot wild 
 beasts, wherever they were found ; tracked them with bloodhounds to 
 their hiding-places in the forests, and trained their mastiffs to tear 
 them to pieces. 1 
 
 The Company in England was in no condition to bear the panic 
 which the news of the massacre produced. Its differences 
 
 iii- 11 11 i ... i , Dissensions 
 
 with the king, and the struggle between the two factions, led in the Lon- 
 on the one side by Southampton and Sandys, on the other 
 by the Earl of Warwick and the friends of Sir Thomas Smith, the 
 former treasurer of the Company, were pressing hard upon it. The 
 king's jealousy of those members of the " country party " who be- 
 longed to the Council a jealousy nursed by Gondomar, the Spanish 
 ambassador, whose influence over James was so important an element 
 in the politics of the times, the controversy in regard to the im- 
 portation of tobacco, in which was involved the prosperity of the col- 
 
 1 See minutes of the Council, in Neill's History of the Virginia Company. 
 VOL. i. 31 
 
482 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 ony, the revenue of the crown, and the good-will of Spain ; the still 
 unsettled accounts of Sir Thomas Smith, and the peculations of which 
 he was suspected; the steady disregard of the Company, year after 
 year, of the wishes of the king in the choice of its officers ; the appeals 
 of the Council to Parliament for protection, the only result of which 
 was to enrage James, and to prompt him to new and more arbitrary 
 measures ; all these for the next two years threatened the existence 
 of the Company, and at length destroyed it. 
 
 One of the measures to which the Smith faction resorted to get pos- 
 session of power, was to procure the sending of a commission 
 of tL coi- by the Lords of the Privy Council to Virginia to look into 
 the affairs of the colony. The attempt was altogether a 
 failure, for the colonists both privately and through their General As- 
 sembly vigorously protested, and supported their protest with weighty 
 facts, against putting affairs back again into the hands from which 
 they had been happily rescued when Sir Thomas Smith was deposed 
 from the treasuryship. The king was only the more exasperated 
 that he, and those who were acting in accordance with his wishes, 
 should be thus baffled. 
 
 If possession of the Company could not be gained, at least the Com- 
 P an y itself could be destroyed. A movement was made to 
 procure a voluntary surrender of its charter, but this was 
 pany ' successfully resisted. The Privy Council, by order of the 
 
 king, again interfered, and the officers of the Company appealed to 
 Parliament for protection. The matter, James said, was already in 
 the hands of his Council ; the House was warned to let it alone. The 
 case was taken to the Court of King's Bench, and on the 16th of 
 June, 1624, the patent was declared by the chief justice to be null 
 and void. The government of the colony was put into the hands of a 
 commission, at the head of which was Sir Thomas Smith. Whether 
 there was any real obscurity or not about his long unsettled accounts, 
 the}' were liquidated, probably, on whichever side the balance was, 
 by his return to power. 
 
 The decision of the court l was, of course, perfectly arbitrary, and 
 no better law or reason for it could be given than would have been 
 equally applicable to the Plymouth Company, at the head of which was 
 the Earl of Warwick. But it suited the king to take from South- 
 ampton and Sandys a power which he was willing to leave in the hands 
 of Warwick and Gorges. There was, however, no such complication 
 
 1 For authorities as to this final disposition of the Charter of the Virginia Company 
 which differs from Stith's account of it see Neill's History of the Virginia Company in 
 London. Also notes to The AspinwaU Papers, vol. iv., Mass. Hist. Soc. Col., Fourth Series, 
 p. 71. 
 
 
1624.] SLOW RECOVERY OF VIRGINIA COLONY. 483 
 
 of interests as of the tobacco question ; the accounts of Smith ; the 
 uuadjudicated charges against Argall in the one case as in the other, 
 and happily James I. was dead before the colony of Puritans at New 
 Plymouth was thought worthy of much notice, or that of Massachu- 
 setts Bay had an existence. 
 
 Meanwhile the colony in Virginia recovered, in a measure, but very 
 slowly, from the calamities which followed the massacre, the 
 
 m i T rr> Slow Teco ' T - 
 
 famine consequent upon the inability to produce a sufficient > of the 
 crop in the summer of 1622, and the sickness and mortality its mwfor- 
 which attended the crowding of so many people into narrow 
 quarters. They counted it as chief among the blessings of this period 
 that the Lord delivered into their hands a great number of the In- 
 
 Deserted Settlement. 
 
 dians ; that they were able to destroy many of their villages and their 
 crops ; to take from them large quantities of corn which not only 
 served to satisfy their own necessities, but the want of it starved their 
 savage enemies. These hostilities continued almost without intermis- 
 sion, and the whole community lived for years in a state of perpetual 
 panic. 
 
 The reestablishment of industry and security, therefore, was of 
 slow growth, and it was long before the colonists ventured to return 
 to their plantations, or ceased to rely solely for safety upon the pres- 
 ence of numbers. In the progress of this gradual recovery from mis- 
 fortune it was of little moment to them which faction was in the as- 
 
484 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 cendancy in the London Council. They worked out as well as they 
 could their own salvation, and it was years before the transfer of the 
 colony from the control of a corporation to that of the king, made 
 much change in their condition. 
 
 James died in March, 1625, and his son had little leisure, and per- 
 Death of na P s li tt; l e inclination at the outset of his reign, to think of 
 James i. a ^i s t an t colony whicli had for him none of that absorbing 
 interest it had possessed in many respects for his father. Wyat still 
 remained as governor for a year or more after the abrogation of the 
 charter, and then retiring, at his own request, was succeeded by Yeard- 
 ley, whose fitness for the post had been proved in former years The 
 colony during this period seems to have been left almost entirely un- 
 der the control of its own council and general assembly, and when in 
 1627 Yeardley died, the former body elected Francis West, one of 
 their own number and a brother of Lord Delaware, to succeed him. 
 He probably retired in the course of the year, and Dr. John Potts, who 
 was in the hardly less important post of physician to the colony, was 
 chosen its chief magistrate in West's place. 1 The administration of 
 Potts was put an end to, the year after his election, by the 
 
 The first r J J 
 
 royai gov- arrival of the first royal governor, Sir John Harvey, who, 
 though a resident of Virginia, seems to have been prevented 
 by absence in England from assuming the office earlier. He entered 
 upon its duties under a load of unpopularity, acquired as one of 
 James's commissioners in 1624, which, so long as his administration 
 lasted, he did nothing to diminish. 
 
 Potts's term, however, had not expired when Lord Baltimore ar- 
 rived at Jamestown from Newfoundland, where he had a 
 Baltimore to colony called Ferryland. His coming opened a new chapter 
 in Virginia history. The governor and council inquired 
 not, apparently, in any inhospitable mood, but with an entirely nat- 
 ural desire to learn the intention of so distinguished a visitor, who, 
 they probably knew, had not come to Virginia from mere idle curiosity. 
 Baltimore's plan was to found a colony, having already petitioned the 
 king to make a grant of lands to him somewhere in Virginia. But 
 as he seems to have been disposed to remain for a time at Jamestown 
 with his family, the government tendered to him the usual oath of 
 supremacy and allegiance. They knew, no doubt, he was a Catho- 
 lic ; they felt that, in all their tribulations and misfortunes, in one 
 thing, at least, they had been happy to use their own words " in 
 the freedom of our religion which we have enjoyed, and that no Pa- 
 pists have been suffered to settle their abode amongst us." 2 They did 
 
 -. 
 
 1 Burk's History of Virginia, vol. ii., p. 23. 
 
 ' See Memorial to the Lords of the Privy Council, iu Neill's English Colonization of 
 America, from Sainslmry's Collection of State Papers. 
 
GEORGE CALVERT, LORD BALTIMORE. 
 (from a copy of' (he original jxtrtruit by Haiiitl Myttnt>.) 
 
 
1629.] LORD BALTIMORE IN VIRGINIA. 485 
 
 not mean to forego, if they could help it, so great a blessing. If this 
 distinguished Catholic nobleman who, should he settle among them, 
 would bring other papists with him objected to taking the oath, 
 then, they may have reflected, they would be happily rid of Balt j m0 re 
 him. Their oath he declined to take, though not unwilling 
 to subscribe to one of his own composing, which he thought 
 would answer the purpose quite as well. Their answer was 
 a request that he would take shipping for England by the earliest 
 opportunity. He complied so far as to quit the colony, but before re- 
 turning to England he made a voyage of observation to Chesapeake 
 
 Scenery in the Chesapeake. 
 
 Bay, where Lady Baltimore had made a visit the year before. 1 His 
 family he left behind him at Jamestown ; and that he returned there 
 afterward from England to take them away there is this interesting 
 bit of evidence in the colonial records of Virginia : " Thomas Tindall 
 to be pilloried two hours for giving my Lord Baltimore the lie and 
 threatening to knock him down." 2 
 
 George Calvert, created baron of Baltimore a few weeks only be- 
 fore the death of James I., was not a stranger to the Virginia Colony. 
 He had been a member of the London Council ; through him, as sec- 
 retary of state, the wishes of the king were conveyed when he sent 
 to that body a list of persons, one of whom he desired should be 
 chosen treasurer in place of Sandys. As a devoted servant of his 
 
 1 Note to The Aspintrall Papers. Bozman's History of Maryland. McSherry's History 
 of Maryland. Neill, in his English Colonization, says, that this lady was not Lord Balti- 
 more's wife, but gives no authority for the assertion. 
 
 2 Hening's Statutes, cited by Neill. 
 
486 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 royal master, he probably upheld with a hearty good will all the 
 measures of the party hostile to the management of Southampton and 
 Sandys. When in 1624 the charter was taken away from the Com- 
 pany, Calvert was one of the commissioners appointed to take charge 
 of the affairs of the colony. It is not improbable that these facts 
 were remembered against him when he appeared in Jamestown, and 
 Governor Potts tendered to him and his companions the oath of 
 allegiance and supremacy. A man who had been the principal secre- 
 tary of state to James for the last five or six years of his life ; who 
 had done all he could to further the most despotic acts of the king ; 
 who was rightfully supposed to have been active in the efforts to 
 bring about the marriage of Prince Charles with the Spanish infanta ; 
 who had become a Catholic, and who now proposed to plant a Cath- 
 olic colony in Virginia, was not likely to be popular with the colo- 
 nists. 
 
 His interest in American colonization, however, was older than his 
 conversion to the religious faith to which he was now attached. That 
 dated from the first settlement of Virginia. Some years 
 
 ln New- before the death of James, Calvert had obtained a grant of 
 ] an( j s [ n the southeastern part of Newfoundland, to which 
 he gave the name of Avalon. The colony he there established and 
 called Ferryland, was about twenty-five miles north of Cape Race. 
 It was a Protestant colony, its people sent out by Calvert, till he, 
 in 1627, as the Catholic Lord Baltimore, whose political career in 
 England was ended, conceived the idea of making it an asylum 
 for himself and others of his religious faith. He visited Ferryland 
 that and the following year, taking with him, on his second voyage, 
 his own family and forty other papists. The country did not answer 
 his expectations. Discouraged, in a few months' residence, by the 
 severity of the climate, the barrenness of the soil, and the sickness 
 which carried off about one fifth of his company, he sailed for Vir- 
 ginia, probably in the spring of 1629. 1 
 
 He had already written to the king to ask for a grant of land in 
 that region. This request he continued to urge on his return to Eng- 
 land, only with a more definite purpose. His visit to Chesapeake Bay 
 had revealed to him a country in wonderful and charming contrast 
 with the bleak shores of Avalon, and he asked of the king, who 
 was undoubtedly friendly to him, although he discouraged him from 
 engaging in enterprises which involved a necessity of much labor and 
 an exposure to hardship which the condition of Lord Baltimore's 
 health did not justify, a patent which should include all that region. 
 
 1 Authorities differ on this point, but a comparison of events renders it most probable 
 that the spring of 1629 was the time when Lord Baltimore first visited Virgiuia. 
 
1632.] CHARTER OF MARYLAND. 487 
 
 His suit was successful, though he did not live to take advantage 
 of it. 
 
 Lord Baltimore died in April. 1632, but so far matured were all 
 his plans, that the patent was issued in 
 June to his son Cecilius. The father 
 had, indeed, secured a grant more than 
 a year before of lands lying south of 
 James River, but the opposition to this 
 from some of the old Virginians was so 
 great that it was abandoned. 1 He then 
 asked that the country northward might 
 be given him ; here, he thought, he and 
 his Catholic brethren might plant them- 
 selves and live in peace, unmolested by 
 
 their neighbors on the James. He pro- Henrietta Man. 
 
 posed to Charles to call the colony Cres- 
 
 centia, assuring the king that he should have been glad to have given 
 his name to it, but that another province was already known as Caro- 
 lana. The king proposed Mariana, in honor of the queen. But this 
 was objected to as the name of a Spanish historian. Then, said 
 Charles, let it be Terra Marice. And Maryland the Land of Mary 
 it was henceforth called. 2 
 
 The Charter of Maryland gave to Cecilius, Baron of Baltimore, his 
 heirs and assigns, as its " true and absolute lords and proprie- 
 
 ... . Thp charter 
 
 taries," all the country lying in the irregular triangle formed of Mary- 
 by the fortieth degree of latitude, the Potomac River, and 
 Chesapeake Bay ; as well as " all that part of the peninsula or Cher- 
 sonese lying .... between the ocean on the east and the bay of 
 Chesapeake on the west, divided from the residue thereof by a right 
 line drawn from the promontory or headland called Watkins's Point." 
 Briefly, the limits of the Province were like those of the State to-day, 
 save that they included the territory afterward set apart as Dela- 
 ware, and extended a third of a degree farther to the north than now. 
 Thus the region which the patent conferred was taken entirely from 
 what was then known as Virginia ; but the conditions and privileges 
 which the Maryland grant went on to enumerate differed from any 
 that had been given in the case of any previous American colony. 
 
 1 The Duke of Norfolk had proposed a settlement on the south hanks of James River in 
 1629, possibly the very lands granted to Baltimore two years later, and the colonial 
 assembly decreed that a county should be named for him. The same year the patent to Sir 
 Robert Heath, which included the whole coast from Alhemarle Sound to St. Augustine, 
 was granted under the name of the Province of Carolana, in honor of Charles. Neill's 
 English Colonization, pp. 213, 214. 
 
 8 Neill. 
 
488 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 The Lords Baltimore then and in future were to be absolute lords 
 of their province, in as full a sense as such power could ever 
 thf lord-pro- be conferred ; that is, " saving always the faith and alle- 
 giance and sovereign dominion " due to the king. They held 
 their rights by fealty only, the annual payment of "two Indian 
 arrows of those parts," and the requirement that they should deliver a 
 fifth of any gold or silver that might be found, being prescribed as 
 formal considerations of their tenure. No article of the grant required 
 them to render account of their administration to the king ; none pro- 
 vided for the interference of the crown with the colonial government, 
 or defined occasions for it ; none even prescribed means for the inves- 
 tigation of abuse of the powers conferred. It was especially stated 
 that the new province should not thenceforth be a part of the hind of 
 Virginia, or of any other colony, but should enjoy entire independence. 
 
 But the charter was still more noteworthy in the rights which it 
 Political secured to the colonists the people. It provided that the 
 randtTtba freemen of the province should be called together to take 
 colonists. part in framing the laws which were to govern them ; but in 
 cases of emergency, when it should not be convenient to call together 
 such an assembly of the people, the legislative power was given to 
 Lord Baltimore and the magistrates, provided that such laws as they 
 might enact did not infringe upon the rights of the citizens, " in mem- 
 ber, life, freehold, goods or chattels." Further, the liberties thus 
 strongly secured in Maryland were open to all subjects of the English 
 crown ; no restrictions were placed on emigration to the province ; 
 and all colonists and their descendants were placed on the footing of 
 native Englishmen. Last, but by no means least as an attraction to 
 free settlers, even though it was granted rather as a gift to the pro- 
 prietaries than as a direct privilege to the people, the charter added 
 oerpetual exemption from all taxation by the crown. The proprie- 
 taries and the provincial assemblies could regulate their own taxation, 
 but the charter left this to them alone. 
 
 There was only one article in the charter even distantly relating to 
 riau*e in religious matters that which gave to the proprietaries the 
 refatin ar to r patronages and advowsons of all churches which should be 
 religion. built and whiSh must be dedicated and consecrated according 
 to the ecclesiastical laws of England. There was no discrimination in 
 favor of or against any sect within the limits of Christianity. With- 
 out trace, of bigotry, with unprecedented guaranties of liberty to the 
 settler, with the promise of freedom from financial burdens, the charter 
 of Maryland might in very truth be said, as one of its paragraphs 
 affirmed, to " eminently distinguish " the new province " above all 
 other regions of that territory," and to so provide that the new colony 
 
1633] 
 
 CECIL CALVERTS COLONY. 
 
 489 
 
 might "happily increase by a multitude of people resorting thither.' 1 
 and that English subjects might undertake the emigration to it with 
 a ready and a cheerful mind." 
 
 Cecilius Calvert, now Lord Baltimore, intended to go himself as 
 leader of the first expedition, but being, for some reason, detained in 
 England, he delegated the com- 
 mand to his younger brother 
 Leonard ; Jerome Haw-ley and 
 Thomas Cornvvallis, " two 
 worthy and able gentlemen," 
 being appointed his councillors 
 or assistants. 
 
 It has been a disputed ques- 
 tion, whether the majority of 
 those taking part in this first 
 voyage to Maryland were ' gen- 
 tlemen "' or laborers, but the 
 larger portion of the emigrants 
 undoubtedly belonged to the 
 latter class. The expedition, 
 moreover, was in every sense 
 under Roman Catholic leader- 
 ship. Maryland was to be an Cecil 
 asylum for the then persecuted 
 
 Romanists, and of those who came to share in the new venture the 
 leading men were some twenty gentlemen " of very good fashion," 
 men of influence and often of wealth, who hoped to find a 
 
 . Character of 
 
 quiet resort beyond the sea. Among these adventurers, their the colon- 
 presence and leadership lending to the voyage something of 
 the aspect and fervor of a religious pilgrimage, were the Jesuit priests 
 Father Andrew White and Father John Altham, two men whose 
 earnestness, self-sacrifice, and simple piety, have compelled kindly 
 recognition from historians of every sect and opinion. Father White 
 became the annalist of the expedition, and from his quaint and pic- 
 turesque ' Narrative," written in Latin and having its description in- 
 terspersed with many pious reflections and devout thanksgivings, the 
 most vivid idea of the voyage and settlement is gained. 1 
 
 1 Relatio Itineris in Mni-ylandlam (Narrative of a Voyage to Maryland). The manu- 
 script of this valuable narrative was discovered among the archives of the " Donucs pro- 
 fessa" of the Society of Jesus in Rome, by the Rev. William McSherry, of that order, 
 about 1832. Father McSherry at once copied it carefully, and deposited the copy iii the 
 library of the Roman Catholic College at Georgetown, whence it was afterward removed 
 to that of Loyoft College at Baltimore. It has been twice translated, first in 1847 by 
 Dr. N. C. Brooks (the translation which appears in Force's Hist. Tracts, vol. iv.). Our 
 
490 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. XVID. 
 
 The whole number of assembled emigrants, including servants and 
 Departure of laborers, was nearly or quite three hundred. On Friday, 
 und M co r iony. November 22, 1633, they sailed from Cowes, in the Isle of 
 1633- Wight, in a ship, The Ark, accompanied by a pinnace, 
 
 The Dove, and, " and after committing the principal parts of the 
 ship to the protection of God especially, and of His most Holy 
 Mother, and St. Ignatius, and all the guardian angels of Maryland, 
 they put to sea, " with a gentle east wind blowing." 
 
 Cowes in the Isle of Wight. 
 
 The voyage was long, for the vessels followed the circuitous south- 
 ern course by the Azores and the West Indies ; and at St. 
 Christopher's and Barbadoes they made a considerable stay. 
 The first part of the passage was full of danger ; a terrible tempest on 
 the 25th of November, separated the pinnace from the ship, nor did 
 the smaller vessel reappear till six weeks later, when she overtook The 
 Ark far on in her course, and the devout emigrants offered up a hearty 
 thanksgiving for their reunion with the friends they had long given 
 up for lost. Fears of pirates haunted them throughout the voyage ; 
 they narrowly escaped falling into the hands of a Spanish fleet which 
 lay along the Cape de Verd islands ; and only the timely discovery of 
 a plot among the slaves at Barbadoes, prevented their finding that 
 island given up to anarchy and massacre, amid which they would have 
 
 quotations are made from the later and more accurate translation, edited for the Maryland 
 Historical Society in 1874, by the Rev. E. A. Dalrymple of Baltimore, and accompanied by 
 the Latin text. 
 
 
1634.] CECIL CALVERT'S COLONY. 491 
 
 run some risk of being murdered for the sake of their ship and cargo. 
 Storms were frequent, nor were they always saved from danger by 
 monitory '* sun-fish swimming with great efforts against the course of 
 the sun," which Father White believed to be " a very sure sign of a 
 terrible storm," and which once, at least, led them to take prompt pre- 
 cautions. Beset with perils as they were, the emigrants nevertheless 
 made their voyage in safety, and at last, on February 24, 1634, they 
 sighted Point Comfort, in Virginia. 
 
 Glad as they were to be so near the end of their tedious voyage, the 
 new-comers had some cause to fear for their reception among Their 
 the colonists along the James, where the hostility excited vh^n 
 by the granting of Lord Baltimore's patent was now at its s Ternor - 
 height. But Governor Harvey, anxious to gain favor with the king, 
 and personally friendly to Baltimore's purposes, was able to prevent 
 any disagreeable manifestation of the popular feeling. He met the 
 settlers, fortified as they were with royal letters to him, most hospit- 
 ably, and treated them kindly during their stay of more than a week. 
 On the third of March they again set sail, and were soon within those 
 boundaries, on the shore of the beautiful bay, which were to mark 
 their future home. Right gladly did they see the pleasant region that 
 awaited them, for few emigrants to North America had been greeted 
 by a more genial climate or more beautiful lands than these ; and in 
 the pride of possession they " began to give names to places," 1 calling 
 the southern point at the Potomac's mouth, now Smith Point, by 
 the name of St. Gregory, and the northern one St. Michael's, now 
 Point Lookout. 
 
 The entrance to the great river, as Father White described it 
 with enthusiastic admiration, presented nearly the same appearance 
 as in our own day. " It is not," he remarked, " disfigured with any 
 swamps, but has firm land on each side. Fine groves of trees appear, 
 not choked with briers or bushes and undergrowth, but growing at 
 intervals as if planted by the hand of man, so that you can drive a 
 four-horse carriage wherever you chose among the trees." To the 
 right and left opened the mouths of broad estuaries, tributary 
 streams with low shores, behind which rose gentle hills, covered with 
 plentiful, yet not dense forests. " Never have I beheld a larger or 
 more beautiful river," wrote the priest ; " the Thames seems a mere 
 rivulet in comparison with it." The Ark and the Dove sailed up the 
 broad stream, while the shores at night blazed with the camp-fires of 
 the Indians ; and the daylight revealed to the emigrants armed bands 
 
 1 A Relation of Maryland, together with a Map of the Country, etc., London, 1635. Sabin's 
 reprint, edited by Hawks, New York, 1865. This contemporary record is second to Father 
 White's in value as regards details. Its author is unknown. 
 
492 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 hurrying to and fro, the tribes they believed mustering to resist their 
 landing. 
 
 Somewhat more than thirty miles from the river's mouth lay a 
 group of islands, called the Herons' Islands, from the great number 
 of those birds that flocked about them. They are known now as the 
 Blackstone Islands, and in the two centuries that have elapsed, almost 
 all of them have been washed away, a few only rising above the level 
 
 Landing of the Colony. 
 
 of flood tide. The first of these, 
 long since reduced to a long, low 
 sandspit, hardly discernible above the 
 water, the voyagers named St. Clements, 
 and chose as their first landing-place on 
 Maryland soil. It had then a sloping 
 shore, and cedars, nut trees, sassafras, with 
 flowers and herbs, covered the four hundred acres of dry land which 
 have now so nearly disappeared. On March 25, the " day of the An- 
 nunciation of the Most Holy Virgin Mary," an omen which the 
 ceremonies pious emigrants did not fail to note, they took possession of 
 on landing. tne coun t r y w ith solemn ceremonies. After celebrating mass 
 upon the beach, 1 they followed their governor in reverent procession 
 to the highest part of the island, where they planted a great cross of 
 
 i After speaking of the celebration of mass, Father White adds, " this had never been 
 done before in this part of the world." He was not aware of the Jesuit mission on the banks- 
 of the Rappahanock, sixty years earlier. See p. 221 of this volume. 
 
1634.] 
 
 CECIL CALVERT S COLONY. 
 
 493 
 
 wood and knelt around it, while the litany was read. Then Leonard 
 Calvert solemnly proclaimed their right to the beautiful region about 
 them, and took possession of it " for our Saviour and for our Sover- 
 aigne Lord the King of England." 
 
 Two days were spent in explorations by the governor, who went up 
 the river in the Dove, taking with him another pinnace brought from 
 Virginia ; the greater part of the colonists remaining on board the 
 Ark meanwhile, as she lay at anchor in the river at St. Clement's, 
 watched by a crowd of curious Indians upon the shore. The 
 
 ^ . i , Calvert* 
 
 chief obiect of Calvert s excursions was to treat with the journey up 
 
 ,,,... , , . i-i- thePotomac. 
 
 leaders of the tribes, and seek to do away with any hostility 
 with which they might look upon the new settlement. The people left 
 
 behind in the Ark, by signs of friend- 
 s> ^\x ship to the savages about them, grad- 
 lj ; ually made acquaintance with them 
 as they ventured out to the island 
 and watched the English putting to 
 
 Governor Calvert and the Indian Chief 
 
 gether a little vessel, the parts of which they had brought with them. 
 They wondered where a tree could have grown large enough to be hol- 
 lowed for the hull of the Ark; and were amazed at all the tools and 
 arms of the English. Little by little they became convinced of the 
 perfect friendliness of the strangers ; nor was Calvert less successful in 
 establishing good relations with the chiefs. At an Indian town near 
 the mouth of Acquia Creek, where the werowance, or chief, was a 
 
494 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 child, and his uncle Archihau held the regency, the English were 
 gladly welcomed, and established a lasting friendship ; and still fur- 
 ther up the Potomac, at Piscataway, they had a somewhat similar, 
 though more cautious reception. Here they found a Captain Henry 
 Fleet, who had traded for some time among these Indians for furs, 
 and used his influence over the chief to induce him to go on board the 
 pinnace for an interview with Calvert. The friendliness of his bear- 
 ing soon banished the suspicions of the chief and his followers, who 
 had gathered on the shore fearing treachery ; and the parley was 
 highly successful. The definite question was put by the Governor, 
 whether the chief " would be content that he and his people should 
 set down in his country, in case he should find a place convenient for 
 him ; " the werowance gave the cautious but friendly answer that he 
 " would not bid him go, neither would he bid him stay, but that he 
 might use his own discretion." 
 
 This Captain Fleet was familiar with the Potomac and the neighbor- 
 ing country, where he had long carried on a profitable trade in peltries. 
 He had, at one time, been held as a prisoner for several years among 
 The Anacos- * ne Nacostines or Anacostans, a tribe whose principal vil- 
 tan Indians. j a g e wag on fa e s ^ e o f ^ ne p resen t c ity of Washington, where 
 
 their name is still preserved in a corrupted form in the island Analos- 
 tan in the Potomac, and in a little post-office station, Anacostia, near 
 the city limits. His relations with the neighboring Indians at the time 
 of Calvert's arrival were friendly, and he was, at least, in no fear from 
 his old enemies. He was a roving adventurer, sailing to New England, 
 or to Jamestown, or returning to England, wherever a trade in corn 
 or beaver offered the most inducement ; but his long imprisonment 
 among the Anacostans had made him most familiar with the resources 
 along almost the whole course of the Potomac. He was not permitted, 
 however, to enjoy the advantages of this trade undisputed. To con- 
 ceal its source was impossible ; others followed him from Jamestown, 
 and he was at length arrested by order of the authorities there for 
 trading without a license. Two years before he had been taken to 
 Jamestown and put upon trial, but the difficulty seems to have been 
 compounded by his admitting others to a share in his ventures, the 
 profits probably being increased by the employment of larger cap- 
 ital. 
 
 Fleet was no doubt aware that a charter had been granted to Lord 
 Baltimore, and may have seen something of the excitement caused at 
 Jamestown when the news was received that a Catholic colony would 
 soon be planted in such disagreeable proximity, and in a country 
 which the Virginians believed was rightfully theirs. He either did 
 not share the religious prejudices of the colonists, or was ready for 
 
 
1634.J CECIL CALVERT'S COLONY. 495 
 
 other reasons to welcome the new-comers. Welcome them, at any 
 rate, he did ; became afterward one of their number as a man of some 
 mark and influence, and when finally the colony was established, was 
 a member of its General Assembly. 1 
 
 Under the guidance of the man thus fortunately met with, the Ark 
 and the pinnace now dropped down the river to the mouth of a stream 
 
 St. George's Island. 
 
 flowing into the Potomac, Calvert deciding not to make his first settle- 
 ment so far from the sea. This stream they named the St. George ; 
 one of the " two harbors " formed at its mouth 2 received the name 
 St. Mary's, which has become the modern name of the whole river, 
 though a wooded island near at hand still preserves the older title. 
 Sandy points, doubtless higher then than now, and different in form from 
 those left by the wearing tides of two centuries, marked the entrance 
 through which Fleet guided them toward his favorite village of Yao- 
 comico ; 3 but a little way back from the banks, the land rose in 
 gentle undulations, and in the further distance into hills of moderate 
 height. 
 
 The river itself was rather a series of broad bays or lakes than a 
 stream of regular width and rapid current. Passing up through 
 several of these, to one which they named " the bay of St. Ignatius," 
 the settlers anchored and prepared to land. At the end of the broad 
 harbor a low promontory extended from the eastern shore, ending 
 in a sandy beach, the present Chancellor's Point ; and on this, as 
 we understand Father White's description, the Maryland colonists 
 
 1 A narrative of Fleet's voyages to the Potomac was first published in Neill's English 
 Colonization. 
 
 2 Concerning the probable condition of these bays and their shores, and their difference 
 from their present form, see the elaborate note K to White's Narrative, p. 107 of Dr. Dal- 
 rymple's edition. 
 
 8 The name Yaocomico is now given to a village on the Virginia side of the Potomac, 
 nearly opposite St. Mary's River ; but this is an entirely modern transfer of the title from 
 the site to which it properly belonged, the territory of King Yaocomico, on the St. 
 Marv's. 
 
496 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. XVIU. 
 
 first set foot. Walking on through the woods and along the bank 
 for a mile or more, they came upon a region whose beauty and fitness 
 satisfied them that here was a proper site for their future town. The 
 river-bank was higher here than it was farther down the stream, while 
 behind it, at a distance of about a half mile from the water- 
 side, lay a gently sloping valley, on the further side of which, 
 again, was higher land gradually rising to the inland hills. 
 In this valley springs were then as now abundant ; and scattered 
 through it were groves of nut trees and oaks. Here the Indians had 
 
 for their 
 
 The Bluff at St. Mary's. 
 
 their village; and where it approached the water's edge the bank rose 
 into a bold bluff between two broad expanses of the river, similar to 
 those below. The soil was fertile; the neighboring woods, Father 
 White declares, were free from dangerous animals ; the place seemed 
 well-nigh perfect for their purpose. 
 
 On the highest part of the bluff stood a mulberry tree, large enough 
 even then to throw a broad shade about it, and to be visible for a long 
 distance up and down the river. For more than two hundred years 
 afterward its mass of foliage still crowned the promontoi-y ; and its 
 decayed and blackened trunk, lying where it fell but a few years ago, 
 yet marks the place of its growth, but nearer to the edge of the bank 
 than it was when the settlers first stood around it, for the river has 
 changed and reduced the sandy cape. Under this tree, according to 
 well-authenticated tradition, Leonard Calvert made a treaty with the 
 
 Indians of the village. For a certain payment in cloth, tools, 
 chaw of the and trinkets the tribe of Yaocomico consented that the 
 lageand strangers should share their town with them through the 
 
 harvest, and then should purchase all the site, while the 
 easily-contented savages removed their dwelling elsewhere. The fre- 
 
y. 
 
 > 
 as 
 
1634.] 
 
 THE FIRST TOWN. 
 
 497 
 
 quent raids of the Susquehannahs from the north had already inclined 
 
 them to this step ; and they were the more glad if by so doing they 
 
 could win the powerful alliance of the Englishmen. They " made mu- 
 
 tual promises to each 
 
 other, to live friend- 
 
 ly and peaceably to- 
 
 gether, and if any in- 
 
 jury should happen 
 
 to be done on either 
 
 part, that satisfac- 
 
 tion should be made 
 
 for the same." On 
 
 the 27th of March the 
 
 governor took posses- 
 
 sion, and named the 
 
 first village of Mary- 
 
 land Saint Mary's. 
 
 The colonists set 
 
 about their build- 
 
 ing and planting at 
 
 once ; and the com- 
 
 pact with the In- 
 
 dians was kept with 
 
 scrupulous fidelity. 
 
 Through the spring 
 
 and early summer the 
 
 whites and savages 
 
 worked side by side, 
 
 the Indians teaching 
 
 the English to make 
 
 bread and "pone" of Indian corn, or helping them in the hunt; 
 
 the settlers giving them of their trinkets and tools in return. 
 
 Naturally, Father White and his fellow-priests made haste to fit up 
 a temporary chapel in the Indian cabin falling to their shai*e ; but 
 it was not long before they established themselves in a 
 more fitting place for worship. Even before the Indians had the catholic 
 retired, according to the terms of their agreement, the new 
 houses which the colonists were building on every hand were ready 
 for occupation. A little town of comparatively comfortable dwellings 
 clustered in the valley, while nearer the river bank, and especially on 
 the bluff, preparations were made for what were to be the public build- 
 ings of the colony. On the gradual slope from the inland hills toward 
 the valley, and less than half a mile to the eastward of the promon- 
 
 Return from a Hunt. 
 
 TOL. I. 
 
 32 
 
4yo 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 tory, the first church was built a small building, as is shown by the 
 still visible hollow in which its foundations rested, but decorated with 
 all the skill that the rough tools of the colonists permitted. Over the 
 altar was a rudely-carved representation of a mass of clouds, from 
 which rough wooden points descending represented the tongues of 
 flame at Pentecost. In the Roman Catholic College at Georgetown 
 two fragments of this rude altar-piece still remain, plainly showing 
 the simplicity and roughness of the whole. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. 
 
 THE COLONY FIRMLY PLANTED. HOSTILITY OF THE VIRGINIANS. DISPUTE WITH 
 CLAYBORNE. ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN CLAYBORNE AND CORNWALLIS. GOVERNOR 
 HARVEY DEPOSED AND SENT TO ENGLAND. MEETINGS OF THE MARYLAND ASSEM- 
 BLY. TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS. DISSENSIONS BETWEEN PAPISTS AND PURI- 
 TANS. REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND. - A PARLIAMENTARY SHIP SEIZED IN MARYLAND. 
 CLAYBORNE'S RECOVERY OF KENT ISLAND. His RULE IN MARYLAND. RESTO- 
 RATION OF BALTIMORE. DEATH OF GOVERNOR CALVERT. MISTRESS MARGARET 
 
 BRENT. 
 
 
 
 BEFORE the winter set in the Maryland colonists were all comfort- 
 ably sheltered in houses gathered close about the chapel. In that soft 
 and genial climate there was no 
 hardship in living out of doors 
 during the summer, and their 
 wise treatment of the natives 
 hud given them entire freedom 
 from fear of the hostilities which 
 they had most dreaded. Their 
 first trouble came from their own 
 countrymen. The indignation 
 with which the Virginians heard of the new colony was natural enough, 
 however unreasonable. It was not a question of room, for that the 
 country was large enough no one could dispute ; but how many it 
 could support was a serious consideration. The Virginians were 
 jealous of even a single man who should encroach upon the trade in 
 peltries ; that jealousy grew to open enmity when the intrudei-s were 
 numerous enough to absorb completely all the trade with Indians in 
 the country about them. The advantages that must follow from an 
 increase in the population of civilized people, the cultivation of the 
 soil, the growth of commerce, were less immediate and obvious than 
 the disadvantages so plainly seen and felt at once as a scarcity of 
 beaver skins and corn, and higher prices for these Indian staples. 
 These intruders on the Potomac, moreover, though coming under a 
 royal charter, were settling within the domain which the Virginians 
 had long been accustomed to consider their own, and to the loss of 
 
 Maryland Shilling. 
 
500 
 
 MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 which, by the abrogation of their charter, they were by no means 
 reconciled. 
 
 On the other hand the Marylanders were quite secure in their rights 
 under the patent from the king, and resented, no doubt, with some 
 bitterness, the feeling they knew to exist against them in Jamestown 
 because of their religion. In such a state of feeling, any encounter 
 between the colonists would be likely to lead to trouble. 
 
 Among others who had traded within the limits of Baltimore's 
 patent for some years past was William Clayborne, the secretary of 
 Virginia under Governor Harvey, and a member of the Virginia 
 Council. He had done more than trade, which he did undei- royal 
 licenses of different dates authorizing him to explore from the thirty- 
 fourth to the forty-first 
 degree of latitude, he 
 had established on Kent 
 Island, in Chesapeake 
 Bay, and within the limits 
 of the Maryland grant, a 
 small trading post, with a 
 storehouse and a few per- 
 manent settlers whom he 
 employed in the traffic 
 with the Indians of that 
 vicinity. His trade-per< 
 mits were not indeed 
 grants of territory, but it 
 may fairly be questioned 
 whether actual settlement in the wilderness of America was not as 
 good title as a royal patent. At any rate, Clayborne put forward a 
 claim to proprietorship, refused to acknowledge the government of the 
 Maryland proprietary, and used his influence so vigorously in urging 
 this view upon the Virginian authorities that he succeeded in gaining 
 a majority of the council to the support of his pretensions. 
 
 Just before the setting out of the colonists from England, in 1633, 
 the planters of Virginia had presented a remonstrance to the king 
 against the Maryland patent ; but the Privy Council had only advised 
 an amicable settlement, and had finally decided " that the Lord Balti- 
 more should be left to his patent, and the other parties to the course 
 of law ; " while both colonies were ordered to permit entire freedom 
 of trade between them, to harbor no fugitives one from the other, and 
 to preserve a fitting general amity in all their relations. This reas- 
 'serted conclusively the rights of Maryland; yet so far from ending 
 the pretensions of the Virginian trader, it was followed by a long 
 course of resistance to the new jurisdiction. 
 
 Clayborne's Trading-post on Kent Island. 
 
 
1635.] DISPUTE WITH CLAYBORNE. 501 
 
 His bitter hostility to the new colonists had shown itself from the 
 very moment of their landing in America. He had met Leonard Cal- 
 vert and his emigrants at Jamestown, seeking to discourage them at 
 the outset by stories that the Indians along the Potomac were arming 
 to resist their coming. Their actual landing and settlement excited 
 him to measures for which there is not a word of defence in any view 
 of the case. He attempted to turn against the new-comers the friendly 
 tribes with whom, on a visit soon after their arrival, Harvey found 
 them peacefully associated. He seems to have had influence enough 
 over Fleet at one time to induce him to persuade the Indians that the 
 Maryland colonists were Spaniards, enemies of the Virginians, who 
 meant to drive out the tribes about them as soon as they should be 
 strong enough to spoil their villages and take their lands. So well 
 did he succeed, that even in the tribe with whom they had lived at 
 St. Mary's, jealousies and suspicious conduct had begun to alarm the 
 colonists, who hastened to build a block house for a refuge in emer- 
 gency. Yet constant and unbroken kindness proved stronger than 
 Clayborne's efforts; gradually, the savages became convinced of the 
 sincerity of the peaceful settlers ; harmony was restored, and when 
 the Indians withdrew from the village according to their promise, they 
 did so with assurances of continued friendship. 
 
 But Clayborne's energy and persistency in behalf of his claims 
 made him a truly formidable opponent. Easily evading capture by 
 the Marylanders, whom Lord Baltimore had ordered to seize him if 
 they could, he spent the last months of the year in restlessly urging 
 his plans upon the influential men of Virginia, and in preparing to 
 carry out the intention which he had announced, of maintaining his 
 alleged rights even by the use of force. The majority of the Virgin- 
 ians sustained him ; the assembly advised Clayborne that they knew 
 no reason why he or they should surrender the Isle of Kent to the 
 new province. Governor Harvey alone was on the side of the Mary- 
 land people, and for his good offices Lord Baltimore subsequently pro- 
 cured him a letter of thanks from the king. 1 
 
 In the early spring of 1635, when Clayborne despatched a small 
 vessel, the Long Tail, determined to carry out his usual trad- 
 ing voyage in spite of resistance, there were few in Virginia tween armed 
 disposed to hinder him. But the Marvlanders were pre- cuybonw 
 
 j , . , . . and the 
 
 pared, having sent out two armed pinnaces under their com- Maryund 
 missioner or councillor, Cornwallis, to watch for any illegal 
 traders within the charter boundaries. They seized the Long Tail 
 on the 23d of April ; and when Clayborne sent an armed boat under 
 the command of one Ratcliff Warren to recapture her or seize any 
 
 1 Letter to Winde batik, quoted in Neill's English Colonization of America, p. 242. 
 
502 
 
 MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. [CnAr. XlXi 
 
 Maryland vessels he might encounter, Cornwallis met her with one of 
 his pinnaces in the harbor of Wighcomoco on May 10th, and took her 
 after a fight in which Warren and two men of the Virginians were 
 killed, with one of Cornwallis's own crew. The chief of the surviving 
 Virginians seem to have been held by the Maryland officers for trial ; 
 the captured boat to have been carried to St. Mary's. 
 
 This open conflict between the two colonies (for Clayborne was so 
 generally sustained as to give it virtually that importance), caused the 
 most intense excitement, especially when it was followed by a demand 
 on the part of Maryland. The first Assembly of that province had 
 been convened just before the attack upon Clayborne, and though 
 nearly all the records of its 
 proceedings are lost, leaving 
 us in almost complete igno- 
 rance of its acts, yet we know 
 from subsequc'iit references, 1 
 
 Fight between Clayborne and Cornwallis. 
 
 that it decreed " that offenders, in all murders and felonies, shall 
 suffer the same pains and forfeitures as for the same crimes in Eng- 
 land." In the eyes of the Maryland authorities Clayborne's act was 
 a felony ; and they sent messengers to Governor Harvey, requiring 
 that he should deliver up to them the man who according to their 
 understanding of the matter, had rebelled against the terms of the 
 king's charter, and had used force against their government. Harvey, 
 it is true, did not venture to comply with this demand, but he in- 
 sisted that Clayborne should go to England to justify himself before 
 the home government. 
 
 The Virginia governor had from various causes become exceedingly 
 1 Chalmers Annals. See Bozmau, vol. ii., p. 34, and note. 
 
1035.] 
 
 INTENSE FEELING IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 503 
 
 
 
 unpopular, and this support on his part of the Marylanders led to ab- 
 solute revolution. The news of the seizure of Clayborne's 
 vessel and the killing of his men was received at Jamestown 
 with the utmost indignation. The people insisted that Har- 
 vey should at once demand the surrender of the captured pinnace, the 
 recognition of Clayborne's claim to Kent's Island, and that he should 
 add his protest to that of the colonists generally against the patent of 
 Baltimore and the conduct of his people. Harvey refused with a firm- 
 ness creditable to his coui'age if not to his judgment. Affairs came at 
 once to a crisis ; a public meeting was called to meet at the house of 
 William Barrene, the speaker of the Assembly. There was GoT j^rrey 
 the utmost excitement, but the utmost unanimity. Some ^P 08 * 1 - 
 months before, Harvey had written to England that the feeling against 
 
 
 
 
 Maryland was so intense 
 in Virginia that the people openly 
 declared they would rather knock 
 
 */ 
 
 their cattle on the head than sell 
 them to that colony ; and that 
 
 among the malcontents none were so violent as Cap- 
 tain Sam. Mathews, "who scratching his head and in 
 a fury stamping cried out, 'A pox upon Maryland!'' 
 To this man was intrusted the delicate business of 
 dealing with Harvey in this emergency. The next 
 day, taking forty men with him, he marched to the 
 governor's house. This being surrounded, to prevent escape, a mem- 
 ber of the council, John Uty, entered and arrested Harvey on a charge 
 
504 MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 of treason. A few days later the General Assembly met and elected 
 John West as governor and sent Harvey to England for trial. Clay- 
 borne went also to England to get the redress which Virginia, however 
 good her will was, was powerless to give him, but was discouraged by 
 Charles declaring that the act of the Virginians, in arresting and send- 
 ing home a governor, was an intolerable assumption of sovereignty ; 
 that Harvey should go back though it were only for a day. 1 
 
 Some years of peace and prosperity followed in Maryland. From 
 time to time the colony was reinforced by the accession of new emi- 
 igrants. So large had been the yield from their corn, even during the 
 first season's planting, that they had sent a thousand bushels to New 
 England " to provide them some salt-fish, and other commodities 
 which they wanted ; " their cattle and poultry, brought from Virginia, 
 had increased " to a great stock, sufficient to serve the colonie very 
 plentifully." 
 
 The settlement had assumed much more of the aspect of a town 
 than any other English colony had gained in so short a time after its 
 foundation. It had been built from the beginning with no war or 
 disturbance to interrupt its progress, or to make its people fear for its 
 permanence. Bricks and other materials had been brought from 
 England in large quantities, and substantial dwellings had almost 
 immediately succeeded to the Indian cabins. Private buildings of 
 course came first ; and the earlier assemblies of the province seem to 
 st. John's have met at a manor belonging to Governor Calvert, called 
 m * nor St. John's, and situated farther inland. But the command- 
 ing bluff, overlooking all the neighborhood, was sure, sooner or later, 
 to become the site of the capitol of the colony ; and after the lapse 
 of several years a government building or state-house was erected 
 there, in the form of an irregular cross, some fifty feet in length 
 and more than thirty across the shorter arms. 2 It stood but a short 
 distance a little more than thirty yards in the rear of the mul- 
 berry tree, and the rough cruciform hollow where its foundations 
 were laid may still be seen, filled with a dense undergrowth of weeds 
 and bushes, that spring here and there from the fragments of broken 
 masomy. On the mulberry tree before it, probably then the only 
 large tree upon the bluff, were nailed the proclamations of Calvert and 
 his successors, the notices of punishments and fines, the inventories of 
 
 1 Neill. 
 
 2 It is impossible to fix with certainty the exact date of the building of the state-house, 
 or of any of the other principal buildings ; but they belonged, at all events, to the earliest 
 part of the history of the settlement. To Dr. Brome, the present owner of St. Mary's 
 Manor, a large estate covering the site and whole neighborhood of old St. Mary's, who has 
 carefully preserved many local traditions, we are indebted for many interesting facts re- 
 lating to the early settlers. 
 
1635.] PROGRESS OF THE COLONY. 505 
 
 debtors whose goods were to be sold, and all notices calling for the 
 public attention. Even of late years, curious relic-hunters have dug 
 from the decaying trunk the rude nails which thus held the forgotten 
 state papers of two centuries ago. 
 
 The top of the bluff, according to tradition, must once have formed 
 a broad square before the state-house doors, where the people assem- 
 bled, and the little force mustered which was detailed for defence ; 
 where punishments were inflicted, and proclamations read before being 
 posted. But the ceaseless wear of the river has crumbled away a 
 great part of the point, and only a small space now lies between the 
 building-site and the water. A church, built in the last century, 
 stands a little farther back, and the churchyard extends over all that 
 is left of the plateau ; the ground where the Maryland Pilgrims were 
 called together, is occupied by the graves of their descendants. 
 
 In the valley, still further up the inland slope than the Jesuit 
 fathers' church, stood the principal private house, 1 owned by The Govern- 
 Calvert or one of the leaders in the colony, a well-built struc- or 8 Uouse ' 
 ture indeed for a new settlement, for its walls were partly standing 
 within the memory of men now living. In the middle, two stout chim- 
 neys gave outlet for vast fire-places in the large rooms which formed 
 the ground floor and basement, the latter paved with square red tiles. 
 The house was of red brick, ornamented here and there with black ; 
 its general shape was square ; and about it, giving a fortress-like look 
 to the place, rose a stout brick wall with but few openings. Near by 
 was a sudden hollow in the level of the field, from the bottom of which 
 a spring gave the settlement its purest water. Still farther inland 
 lay a little ravine, where the first burial-ground of the colony was 
 made, and the Jesuit fathers piously planted the black cross at the 
 head of every Christian grave. 
 
 It was not only at St. Mary's, however, that the rapidly increasing 
 colony began to take on this appearance of prosperity. Up and down 
 the east bank of the river were farms and plantations ; and even the 
 opposite shore began to be taken up. In 1635, Lord Balti- 
 
 . Land grant* 
 
 more seems to have established certain terms for the grant- made to set- 
 ing of land to settlers : a thousand acres, " erected into a 
 Manor," but subject to a quitrent of a pound a year, to every man 
 who should transport to the colony five able men properly provided ; 
 a hundred acres, subject to a quitrent of two shillings, for every man 
 who should pay his own transportation, and the same for each servant 
 
 1 Local traditions agree in calling this site, on which even meu of middle age remem- 
 ber the ruins, "the Governor's House" It is not improbable, however, that it may have 
 been the brick house built by Cornwallis in 1640, which is especially noticed in the records 
 because of its superiority to its neighbors. It was very possibly occupied by later gover- 
 nors on this account. 
 
506 MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 he should bring, if their number were less than five ; for every married 
 man a hundred acres each for himself and his wife, and fifty for each 
 child all subject to a quitrent of a shilling for every fifty acres. In 
 1636, while these conditions were retained for all future emigrants, 
 still further grants were made to those who had taken part in the 
 original voyage in 1633, and even slight additions to the lands of all 
 who had settled in the colony before the end of 1635; so that the 
 pioneers of the province became a favored class, especially as those 
 who held manors were permitted the feudal privileges of holding 
 courts-leet and courts-baron. The conditions differed, however, in 
 one very essential point, from the feudal element introduced by the 
 Dutch into New Netherlands, the smaller land-holders having as abso- 
 lute a title from the government as the larger ; the estate of each was 
 held in fee simple, to the owner and his heirs forever ; there was no 
 opportunity for the abuses of the feudal class of tenures. 
 
 By the end of 1637, the region about St. Mary's is referred to in doc- 
 uments as the " county " of that name ; while enough colonists had 
 settled over on the west bank of St. George's (St. Mary's) River to en- 
 title them to form one of the " hundreds " into which the county had 
 been divided. Several mills had been built both at St. Mary's and on 
 out-lying farms ; the crops had been successful year after year, and 
 the cattle and poultry brought from Virginia had increased so as to 
 give the whole colony a plentiful supply. 
 
 The inhabitants had now become so numerous that a more complete 
 code of laws was necessary for their government. The Assem- 
 
 Differenoe . 
 
 between the blv of 1635 had proposed a series of regulations for the col- 
 
 popleand ' 4 
 
 the lord ony, but they were not acceptable to the proprietary, who 
 refused his assent to them. Two years later Lord Balti- 
 more sent out suggestions for enactments in place of those he had thus 
 rejected ; and to consider these suggestions the second Assembly of the 
 province was summoned to meet on the 25th of January, 1638. 
 
 The freemen duly came together on that day, some appearing in 
 person, nearly as many by proxy ; but they manifested anything but 
 that passive acquiescence which had been expected in the proposals of 
 their ruler. When these were " put to the question, whether they 
 should be received as laws or not," * only Leonard Calvert and John 
 Lewger, with the twelve proxies they held, voted for them ; against 
 them there were " thirty-seven voices." Lord Baltimore's proposals 
 have not been preserved, but it is probable that this resistance to his 
 will was rather to the construction of the charter that should limit to 
 the proprietary the right of initiating laws, than a dislike for any 
 
 1 Transcription from the original record of Assembly Proceedings, 1637-58, in Bo/man, 
 vol. ii., p. 55. 
 
 
1638.] 
 
 THE SECOND ASSEMBLY. 
 
 507 
 
 special provision. 1 This belief seems sustained by the recorded fact, 
 that when the Assembly immediately afterward proposed " to agree 
 upon some laws till [they] could hear from England again," the Presi- 
 dent (Calvert) denied " any such power to be in the house ; " a de- 
 cision which was warmly contested, and finally overruled, committees 
 being appointed to prepare a draft to be submitted to Lord Balti- 
 more. 
 
 Long delays followed, and several adjournments of the Assembly 
 
 intervened before this draft of " twenty 
 
 If IM^! itp * tm laws " was finally approved and signed 
 
 by the members on March 24th, the 
 
 last day of the session ; but in the mean 
 time the body, using the common law 
 
 Clayborne's Petition. 
 
 of England and the English methods of procedure in default of a code 
 of its own, busied itself with matters quite as pressing. An inquiry 
 was ordered into the fight between the pinnaces, three years before at 
 Wighcomoco. The result of this was the acquittal of all the Mary- 
 landers, the formal indictment of Clayborne, and a bill of attainder 
 passed against him ; while Thomas Smith, next in rank after Ratcliff 
 
 1 This reasonable belief is adopted by Grahame, Bacon, MacSherry, Bozman, Bancroft 
 and others ; but taken in conjunction with other acts and circumstances of the time, need* 
 no authority to justify it. 
 

 508 MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 Warren on the Virginian vessel, was brought to the bar, tried, and 
 sentenced to be hanged, without benefit of clergy. 1 
 
 Clayborne himself, meanwhile, busily at work in England, had 
 come near to turning the tables on his Maryland antago- 
 intri g u e in nists. On his arrival he had presented to the king a peti- 
 tion, setting forth his " wrongs and injuries," citing the li- 
 censes under which he had acted in making his settlement on Kent 
 Island, and pleading his cause with such address, that he very nearly 
 gained not only the end he had first sought, but an enormous grant 
 besides. The king, to whom he had held out hopes of a direct gain 
 from the rents he would pay for what he should receive, favored him, 
 though not in any very definite way ; but the lords commissioners for 
 plantations finally decided sharply against him, declaring " that the 
 ciaybome lands in question absolutely belonged to Lord Baltimore, and 
 defeated. ^hat no plantation, or trade with the Indians, ought to be 
 allowed within the limits of his patent, without his permission. And 
 that with regard to violences complained of, no cause for any relief 
 appeared, but that both parties should be left to the ordinary course 
 of justice." 2 Clayborne went back to Virginia, his immediate end de- 
 feated, but his purpose as positive as ever ; and for a longer time than 
 before, though he struggled against the restraints upon him, he was 
 compelled to leave his enemies in peace. 
 
 The Maryland Assembly of 1638 was not more fortunate than that 
 of three years before, in securing the assent of Lord Bal- 
 of the A?- P timore to the code of laws which it proposed ; but it won 
 a much greater victory in gaining at least a qualified ac- 
 knowledgment of the principle at issue. For the proprietary, immedi- 
 ately after receiving the report of the session at St. Mary's, wrote a 
 letter to his brother the governor, in which, while reserving his right 
 of dissent, he virtually yielded to the freemen the right for which they 
 had contended. That the letter was thus interpreted is evident, from 
 the fact that the next Assembly regarded the question as settled in 
 their favor, and did not again discuss it. 
 
 The colony was ere long disturbed by the enmity of the Susquehan- 
 nah Indians, who, jealous, perhaps, of the favor shown to other tribes, 
 attacked scattered parties of colonists, and the outlying plantations. 
 These hostilities, however, assumed no very formidable aspect, until 
 1642. Bands of the provincial militia were then carefully organized, 
 
 1 " Then did the prisoner demand his clergy ; but it was answered by the President that 
 clergy could not be allowed in his crime, and if it might, yet now it was demanded too late 
 after judgment." Assembly Proceedings, etc. 
 
 2 Report of the Lords Commissioners, etc., quoted by Hazard, Collections, i. p. 130, 
 by Bozman, ii., note xi., p. 584 ; by MacSherry, p. 46, and elsewhere, with slight variations. 
 Comments by Bozman, ii. 587. 
 
 
1642-44.] 
 
 TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS. 
 
 509 
 
 and occasionally sent out to make retaliation ; but the Assembly of 
 July, in the year just named, there had been others in 1640, 
 1641, and March, 1642, but their acts were of little mo- Slightdig . 
 ment, was the first which appeared actually to recognize JroS'in- 
 a state of warfare as existing; and in September, the dians> 
 governor formally proclaimed " that the Susquihanowes, Wicomeses 
 and Nanticoque Indians .are enemies of this province, and as such 
 are to be reputed and proceeded against by all persons." Even 
 then the fighting seems to have differed little from the occasional 
 
 Indian Attack on an Outlying Plantation. 
 
 attacks and expeditions of 
 the years before, though 
 they were called, " an In- 
 dian war." They contin- 
 ued from this time until 
 1644, when binding trea- 
 ties were made with the 
 hostile tribes. All that the 
 colonists suffered from these hostilities, however, was the annoyance 
 and danger inevitable anywhere in the neighborhood of savages, rather 
 than such a devastating and terrible calamity as almost always at- 
 tended a war with the Indians in most of the colonies. Even at the 
 height of the hostile feeling, no such universal measures of defence or 
 of retaliation were necessary, as had been called for in the early days 
 of Virginia, Massachusetts, and New Netherland. 
 
 The first really serious shock to the tranquillity of Maryland came 
 from within the State itself. The earnest, yet unusually tolerant Ro- 
 man Catholics, under whose leadership the settlement had been begun, 
 no longer ruled, when it was a few years old, over an harmonious 
 

 510 MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 people agreeing alike in politics and in religion. As Maryland had 
 
 grown and prospered, the privileges of its generous land-grants and 
 
 liberal charter had been shared with men of all shades of conviction. 
 
 There had been Protestants and even Puritans in the colony from 
 
 its very foundation, though at first they were very few. The 
 
 toleration of toleration with which they had been treated and the pains 
 
 the colony. ..... , i i 
 
 taken to protect them in their rights were from the begin- 
 ning remarkable. In 1638, for instance, it is recorded that the Cath- 
 olic governor and council severely fined an overseer for speaking abu- 
 sively of a book of sermons by an English Puritan ("the silver- 
 tongued Smith," a preacher of much note), which certain of his 
 subordinates were reading ; and similar examples of an impartial spirit 
 appear elsewhere in the early annals. Protestants had been mem- 
 bers of the Assembly and members of the council ; nor does there seem 
 to be any indication of disagreement, in the first few years, between 
 them and their fellows on public questions. But as time went on, and 
 its advantages were better understood, Maryland became a very asy- 
 lum for the persecuted of other provinces. Puritans who had been 
 harshly treated in Virginia removed across the Maryland line, gladly 
 accepting so near a refuge ; and to those in Massachusetts who should 
 be persecuted for any independent opinions, Calvert seiit a special in- 
 vitation to make their homes under his government. The self-in- 
 terest of the proprietary, and a desire to hurry on the growth of the 
 colony, doubtless had much to do with this ; yet it is impossible not 
 to acknowledge the broad spirit of such a course ; it would have been 
 wise statesmanship had it not been a little beyond the appreciation of 
 many who profited by it. 
 
 Differences between the two parties were inevitable, and these wi- 
 dened into an impassable breach as the conflict between king and Par- 
 liament grew more and more intense in England, and the growing 
 power of the Parliament at home stimulated its adherents through all 
 the colonies. 
 
 The outbreak of hostilities in England, in 1642, hastened the crisis 
 of these discontents. Lord Baltimore was a supporter of the 
 king, though he seems to have tried, and at first with more 
 on Mary- success than many others, to keep on fair terms with the Par- 
 liament also ; and this especially in matters relating to his 
 American grant, for the very existence of which he had cause to fear 
 in case of the Parliament's victory. As the power of that body ap- 
 peared more formidable, the greatest care was needed in the govern- 
 ment of the province itself, lest the complaints of the discontented 
 Puritans should grow loud enough to attract parliamentary attention 
 ^o the colony's affairs ; attention which would be fatal to the pro- 
 
1G43.] CLAYBORXE'S OPPORTUNITY, oil 
 
 prietor, if the English Commons should think fit to interfere in favor 
 of their Maryland adherents, and support them in an attempt to gain 
 control. It was necessary to conciliate, and probably for this purpose 
 the proprietary wrote particularly in 1642, that " no ecclesiastic in the 
 province ought to expect, nor is Lord Baltimore, nor any of his officers, 
 although they are Roman Catholics, obliged in conscience to allow to 
 such ecclesiastics any more or other privileges .... than is allowed 
 by his majesty or officers to like persons in England." l This and sim- 
 ilar declarations may have produced an effect at home ; but in the 
 province itself the parties were too strongly divided to admit of con- 
 cession or compromise. Puzzled by the various and contradictory de- 
 mands of the time, Leonard Calvert sailed for England in April, 1643, 
 to consult in person with his brother, leaving Giles Brent, a councillor, 
 to govern as his deputy. 
 
 While affairs were thus confused, Clay borne, quiet for a while, and 
 holding a life-appointment as treasurer of Virginia, which he Clayborne - g 
 had obtained by favoring the king when hostilities first Jor^taifa'- 7 
 broke out, seized his opportunity of retaliation against Mary- tlon 
 land by stirring up the parliamentary faction in Maryland to a rebel- 
 lion against the government of Baltimore. His designs were aided by 
 an unforeseen event. In 1643, the king, then at Oxford, commis- 
 sioned Lord Baltimore, through his colonial officers, to seize any ships 
 from London or belonging to the parliament party, on which his 
 people might be able to lay hands. About the beginning of the next 
 year such a seizure was actually made by order of Calvert's 
 deputy, Brent, the vessel of one Richard Ingle being cap- Pariument- 
 tured on its arrival at St. Mary's, though its commander *** * 
 escaped and made his way to England. Brent issued a proclamation 
 requiring him to appear and answer a charge of treason ; and endeav- 
 ored to exact from the captured crew an oath against Parliament, and 
 a promise to take the ship to Bristol, which the king then held. 
 
 Amid the intense excitement which followed this step, Clayborne 
 took advantage of the always hostile disposition of the people i sybOTne 
 of the Isle of Kent. He seems to have had no difficulty in S^^' 
 again possessing himself of that disputed region. When Kent I8l nd - 
 Calvert returned in 1644 he found the province in a state of anarchy, 
 the factions almost at open war, the Puritan party in unconcealed 
 rebellion against his government, and the old and dreaded enemy of 
 the colony in possession of his claims within her borders. Moreover, 
 he had hardly reached Maryland when Ingle arrived from England 
 in the ship Reformation, commanded by him under a letter of marque 
 from the Parliament, prepared to venture again, as his petition to 
 
 1 Neill's Terra Afariie, p. 107. 
 
512 
 
 MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 that body declared he had done before, " his life and fortune in .... 
 assisting the well-affected Protestants against the tyrannical govern- 
 ment." All the parliament party in the province rose to the aid of 
 him and of Clay borne ; and the governor and council, with the chief 
 of their supporters, were driven from the colony and forced to take 
 refuge in Virginia. Captain Edward Hill, a Virginian, was made 
 governor ; but the control of the conquered province was virtually in 
 the hands of the two leaders of the insurrection. 
 
 Their position, however, was not strong enough to be a comfortable 
 
 one. History and tradition alike speak of their rule as turbulent, 
 
 though all but its mere outline is unrecorded. The Catho- 
 
 Turbulent . 
 
 rule in the hcs, among whom their bitterest opponents were of course 
 peaceful to be found, still formed a considerable part of the popu- 
 lation ; and the hope which they doubtless nourished of a 
 speedy restoration of the proprietary, was fostered by the oppressive 
 acts of Clayborne's government. It is probable, though it cannot 
 
 Chancellor's Point from St. Inigoe's. 
 
 be fully decided by the scanty evidence tradition furnishes, that the 
 Catholic priests, long so powerful a class at St. Mary's, withdrew at 
 this time from the town, and established the Jesuit mission farther 
 from the stormy centre of affairs, where interference, if not confisca- 
 tion of their lands, was daily to be feared. 
 
 At the lower end of the bay of St. Ignatius (of whose name St. 
 Inigoe is an old and once common corruption), was a bluff much like 
 that at St. Mary's, though lower and less picturesque. From it, look- 
 ing to the north across the bay, could be seen the point of first landing 
 (Chancellor's Point) ; and to the south the view extended to the 
 mouth of St. Mary's River. It was a commanding site ; and on it, 
 though whether before or just after this period is not certain, Governor 
 Calvert erected a fort which effectually guarded the approach to the 
 town above. Near or within the fort stood a mill, and about it a few 
 scattered buildings. No ruins of fort or houses remain, save a few 
 
1643.] RESTORATION OF CALVERT. 513 
 
 scattered bricks and hewn stones ; but several cannon, perhaps placed 
 on the ramparts in the time of Calvert himself, have been drawn 
 from the river, where the washing away of the sandy bluff had left 
 them. 
 
 It is to this point that the Jesuits perhaps removed their chief sta- 
 tion during Clayborne's usurpation. They are found there 
 but a few vears later : and from the time of these events St. mon at st. 
 
 . . . , Inigoe'8. 
 
 Inigoe's and not St. Mary's appears as their headquarters. 
 Here they built a chapel on a site still pointed out; and a new 
 churchyard, to which the Catholic dead of the colony seem to have 
 been carried after this change, still makes green a broad field of wheat 
 near by. A Jesuit mission is still kept up at St. Inigoe's, and the 
 traditions of the place make the present chapel the third in order 
 from that of the early settlers. 
 
 Church near the Site of the First Jesuit Chapel. 
 
 The rule of Clayborne's governor and his supporters was, however, 
 to be of short duration. During the winter following his flight, Cal- 
 vert collected his adherents on the Virginia border, and though his 
 force was small, he so skilfully surprised St. Mary's in April, while 
 Clayborne was at Kent Island and Ingle probably in England, 1 that 
 he captured the place with but little resistance or bloodshed, 2 The proprie . 
 and was reinstated in the governorship as suddenly as he aent g reln 
 had been displaced. A period of disorder and partial an- 8tated 
 archy followed, which left the colony at Calvert's return, exhausted 
 and impoverished ; even the malcontents doubtless were glad to be again 
 under the quieter government of the proprietary. The victorious 
 governor's first care seems to have been to go in person to Kent 
 Island, attend to its complete subjection, and put over it a deputy of 
 his own appointment, one Robert Vaughan, a Protestant. Clayborne 
 
 * Neill, Terra Marice, p. 112. 
 
 8 It is evident that there was some fighting, at least, from the expressions in a subsequent 
 correspondence between Governor Greene and Sir Wm Berkeley, quoted at length by Boz- 
 man, vol. ii., note Mi., pp. 637, 899. 
 VOL. i. 33 
 

 514 MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. [CiiAP. XIX. 
 
 appears to have escaped to Virginia, and Ingle to have remained in 
 England, where three years later he preferred charges before the Par- 
 liament against Lord Baltimore's administration of Maryland affairs, 
 but without any definite result. All but these two and their immedi- 
 ate followers doubtless acquiesced quietly enough in the rule of the 
 apparently lenient Calvert, for no records of attempted punishment 
 appear in connection with the governor's return, and three years later 
 an act of general amnesty was passed. Only one person connected 
 with the matter adopted a course that calls for special mention. Cap- 
 tain Hill, who had acted as governor while Calvert was deposed, had 
 the audacity, some time after the restoration of peace, to claim a salary 
 and other compensation for his services in the office, on the ground 
 that he had occupied it as Calvert's representative, the council having 
 power to nominate such a one in case of the governor's absence. In a 
 long "petition" he contradicted himself by calling Calvert's return 
 an " invasion," represented himself as still entitled to his office, and put 
 together a strange tissue of absurdities which were promptly rejected 
 by the governor's successor ; for the correspondence did not take place 
 until death had put a sudden end to Calvert's long and able rule. 
 The governor died on the ninth of June, 1647, after an illness that 
 seems to have seized him on his return from the Isle of Kent. 
 
 Death of 
 
 Governor " Lying upon his death-bed, yet in perfect memory," he ap- 
 pointed Thomas Green, one of his council, to be his succes- 
 sor, and Mistress Margaret Brent, an unmarried sister of that Giles 
 Brent who had once acted as his deputy, to be his administratrix. 1 
 It is possible, as has been suggested in comments on this appoint- 
 ment, 2 that the Brent family were related to the Calverts ; at all 
 events, they stood around the dying governor's bed when his last 
 wishes were expressed ; and Mistress Brent subsequently proved her- 
 self worthy of the trust reposed in her, if not by her judgment, at 
 least by her remarkable strength of will and almost masculine energy 
 and understanding in business. 
 
 With Calvert's administration ends that earliest period of Mary- 
 land's history, which the loss of records and the absence of personal 
 narratives render somewhat more dim and vague than the busy begin- 
 of nings of its sister colonies. The great outlines of its growth 
 r- remain, but we must fill them out by inference rather than 
 uies. j.^ knowledge. Nothing of that abundance of picturesque 
 
 detail, of quaintly told personal experience, of description of the every- 
 day life of the settlers, which gives its vividness to the early history 
 
 1 Kilty's Landholder's Assistant, p. 104, in Bozman, vol. ii., p. 315; and Neill's Terra 
 MnricK, 112, and 113 note. 
 
 * Bozman, vol. ii., p. 307, note. 
 
1647.] DEATH OF GOVERNOR CALVERT. 515 
 
 of Virginia and New England, had come down to us from the quieter 
 Catholic province. The Jesuit Father White's simple and beautiful 
 
 Fac-simile of MS. Records. 1 
 
 1 For many years the MS. records of Maryland, to which Bozman and others writing in 
 the early part of this century appear to have had access, have been lost. In December, 1 875, 
 a box of old papers, supposed to be worthless, was to be sold from the record office at An- 
 napolis, when, on a careful examination of its contents, a portion of the MS. covering: a 
 considerable period subsequent to Calvert's death was discovered, in an almost complete 
 state of preservation. Without disclosing any new facts of moment, it bears witness to the 
 correctness of Bozman's transcripts. In the text 4 fac-simile is given of a part of the page 
 bearing Clerk Bretton's record of Calvert's death-bed appointment of Green. It runs as 
 follows : 
 
 Whereas by Commis ? from y e R^ Hon ble Cecill, L"? Prop r of y e Province of Mary Land 
 to y e late Gouerno r Leonard Caluart Esqr* bearing date y e 18 th Septemh r 1644 att his Lps 
 [Lordship's] Fort att S'. Maries in y e s"? Province Heey e s d Leon. Calvert was authorized, 
 in case hee should happen to dye, or be absent from time to time, out of y e s d Province to 
 nominate elect & appoint such an able person inhabiting & residing \v th in ye s d Province 
 (as he on his discretion should make choice of, & thiuke fitt) to be Governo r of y* s"? Prov- 
 ince. These are therefore to publish & declare to all those whom it may coucerne y y* s d 
 Leon. Calvert did by word of mouth on the Ninth day of June 1647 (lying uppon his death 
 bed, yett in perfect memory) nominate & appoint Thomas Greene E.<q r one of y e Couusell of 
 this Province, to be Governo r of y e same, w th all y e same authority & power of goverm' as 
 he y s d Leonard Calvert was authorized by his Lps Commisn to confcrro uppou him. As 
 by y e oaths of Mr s Margaret & Mary Brent, Francis Aukesill & James Liusey (who were 
 all then present w th him att y e same time) is averred to be true. 
 
 Teste me Willm Bretton, Clk. 
 
516 
 
 MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 journal throws a pleasant light upon the settlement's earliest days ; 
 but the story of his own and his companions' journeys among the 
 Indians along the Potomac, of their pious devotion and endurance, 
 their hardships and bloodless victories, hardly belongs to the annals of 
 the State itself, but rather to the history of that remarkable priesthood 
 whose adventures read like passages of a romance. 
 
 Enough remains of the annals of Lord Baltimore's colony, however, 
 to show most plainly those distinctive features which separated its 
 founders sharply from all the other strongly-marked types from which 
 the- varying races of the future nation sprang. Here were men 
 trained in a different school from New Englanders or Virginians; 
 men with a singular mixture of religious enthusiasm, culture, practical 
 shrewdness, and liberal statesmanship ; far enough in advance of their 
 age to take warning from the errors of others, and while they founded 
 a province in which were mingled feudal and popular, despotic and 
 constitutional institutions, to administer it with such prudence that it 
 grew strong and gained permanence more quickly and tranquilly than 
 any of its predecessors. 
 
Shawmut. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 FRESH EMIGRATION- TO MASSACHUSETTS. A NEW CHARTER. ARRIVAL OF HIG- 
 GINSON AND SKELTON. THE FlRST CHURCH AT SALEM. THE CASE OF JOHN 
 AND SAMUEL BROWNE. THEY ARE ORDERED BACK TO ENGLAND BY EXDICOTT. 
 THE COUNCIL'S REBUKE. PROPOSED TRANSFER OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE 
 COLONY TO NEW ENGLAND. PROBABLE MOTIVES OF THE COUNCIL IN PROCURING 
 THE PATENT. THE CAMBRIDGE CONFERENCE. WINTHROP CHOSEN GOVERNOR. 
 DEPARTURE FOR NEW ENGLAND. His FAREWELL ADDRESS TO ENGLISH CHURCH- 
 MEN. OLDHAM AND BRERETON'S PATENTS. SETTLEMENTS IN AND ABOUT BOS- 
 TON. OLD SETTLERS ABOUT THE BAY. THE COMING OF ROGER WILLIAMS. 
 
 IN June, 1629, three vessels entered the harbor of Salem, followed 
 a few days later by three others. They carried, besides Arrivalof 
 their crews, four hundred and six men, women, and children, "fJJg C a t lo g a . 
 one hundred and forty head of cattle, forty goats, a large lem - 
 stock of provisions, of tools, of arms, of all things necessary to plant a 
 a colony. 1 No enterprise so well appointed as this at the start had 
 heretofore been sent to North America. 
 
 With the exception of the Plymouth people, all the colonies hitherto 
 had been commercial adventures, managed in an office in London. In- 
 deed, Plymouth even was not without this purely trading purpose, 
 
 1 This is Prince's statement in the Chronology on the authority of the colonial rec- 
 ords, and according to the warrant of the lord-treasurer, for the transportation. Dudley, in 
 his letter to the Countess of Lincoln (vol. ii. Force's Historical Tracts and Young's Chron- 
 icles), says, " about 300 ]>eople ; " Francis Higginson, in his New Em/land's Plantation, says, 
 "we brought with us about two hundred passengers," but he refers doubtless to the first 
 three ships only. 
 

 518 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 which, however necessary to its making a beginning, was not its im- 
 pelling motive, while the shrewd men who governed there soon saw 
 that it must be rendered subsidiary to the interests of the colonists 
 themselves, who were men and not machinery. In Virginia, already 
 for twenty years, the experiment presently to be repeated in Mary- 
 land of founding a commonwealth upon the labor of bondsmen and 
 the production of one great staple of trade, had proved to be success- 
 ful, so far as it was successful at all, only in spite of its inherent 
 viciousness. New Netherland was a great Dutch trading-post, where 
 patroons took the place of tobacco-planters ; Dutch boors served in- 
 stead of servants for a term of years, sometimes taken from the 
 English jails, or scraped together from the most wretched of the Eng- 
 lish poor. Just so far as this trading spirit was subordinated to some 
 higher purpose ; just so far as men were held higher than merchandise 
 and the poor man's chance as of greater value than the rich man's 
 opportunity, there these early colonies struck deepest root, and became 
 the soonest strong and prosperous. 
 
 Charles I. had been king only about four years, but there were 
 
 already signs in England, significant enough to those who were wise, 
 
 of coming trouble. Influences and events were gradually 
 
 Character . J 
 
 and causes preparing men for a stormy future, and the number of those 
 
 of the new r r . . 
 
 Puritan \vtto sought to escape from it was rapidly increasing. These 
 persons were not like the Pilgrims, bound together as with 
 hooks of steel, by years of exile and poverty, but they, nevertheless 
 were Puritans, earnest Protestants against the corruptions and for- 
 malities of the established church ; some even Non-conformists ; and 
 all turning their faces wistfully toward the new land, where perhaps 
 distance and obscurity might secure to them religious and political 
 freedom at least would take them out of the thick of the evils 
 which they knew could not be escaped much longer at home. 
 
 The movement, begun at Dorchester by the Rev. Mr. White, with 
 no more ambitious purpose than to plant a colony of fish- 
 ermen at Cape Ann ; growing then to the larger project 
 
 under Endicott with a grant of lands from the Plymouth 
 Company, had assumed other proportions under a royal patent. The 
 new corporation was styled " The Governor and Company of the 
 Massachusetts Bay in New England." 1 
 
 Of this company Matthew Cradock, 2 a London merchant, was the 
 
 1 By Massachusetts Bay was understood, at that time, what is now called Boston Har- 
 bor, from Nahant to Poiiit Alderton. Winthrop's History of New England, by James 
 Savage, vol. i., p. 27. 
 
 a Endicott's wife was a cousin of Cradock's. The exposure and hardships of the first 
 winter were a sore affliction to Endicott's people, and among those who died, it is sup- 
 posed, was Mrs. Endicott. Dr. Fuller, the physician at New Plymouth, was sent by Gov- 
 
1629.] 
 
 MAP OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 519 
 
 FAC-SIMILE FROM SMITH'S GENERAL HISTORY. 
 
520 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 governor in England. These six ships one was the Mayflower, 
 which, nine years before, had carried the Pilgrims to Plymouth 
 arriving in June, at Salem, with this well-appointed colony, were 
 sent out by the new company. The grant made by its patent was 
 from the Merrimack to the Charles River. Endicott was confirmed 
 by the directors in London as the governor of the colony already 
 planted at Salem. " The propagating of the Gospel," he was told in 
 the first letter of instructions, " is the thing we do profess 
 
 JohnEndi- . . _,. & 
 
 cottmade above all to be our aim in settling this Plantation. Cer- 
 tainly to no more zealous hands than Endicott's could such 
 a work be entrusted. There was neither weakness nor hesitation in 
 
 his method of propagandism, and 
 none who stood in his way need ex- 
 pect mercy. 
 
 He was to be aided, his instruc- 
 tions told him, by " a plentiful pro- 
 vision of godly ministers." There 
 were four in the fleet, three of 
 whom were appointed to be mem- 
 bers of the Council. The fourth, 
 the Reverend Ralph Smith, was 
 rather permitted to go than encour- 
 aged, as it was found that there was 
 a " difference in judgment in some 
 things " between him and the other 
 ministers. What that difference was they do not choose to say, but 
 it was only that Smith was a pronounced Separatist in England, and 
 the others were not till they were on the other side of the ocean. 
 " Unless he will be conformable to our government," was the order of 
 the letter of instructions, " suffer him not to remain within the limits 
 of our grant." Mr. Smith was clearly not needed, and, whether sent 
 thither or not, we next hear of him living with his family, in destitu- 
 tion apparently, at Nantasket. Some of the Plymouth people found 
 him there, and moved with pity, took him home with them, and for 
 several years he was their minister. If there was any fault in the 
 Rev. Mr. Smith it was probably an excess of stupidity, for in zeal he 
 seems to have made himself in no way offensive. He is not heard 
 of again for several years, when " partly by his own willingness, as 
 thinking it too heavy a burden, and partly at the desire, and by the 
 persuasion of others," says the truthful Bradford, but with more 
 
 ernor Bradford to minister to the Salem people in their distress. The scurrilous Morton 
 of Merry Mount, who spared nobody, calls Fuller " Dr. Noddy," who, he says, "did a great 
 cure for Captain Littleworth [Endicott]. He cured him of a disease called a wife." 
 
 Endicott. 
 
1629.] RELIGION AND POLITICS. 521 
 
 of euphemism than he often used, he resigned his place of min- 
 ister. 
 
 Apparently it was not Mr. Smith's doctrines, but his acting up to 
 them by separation, that made the London Council cautious. And 
 caution was no doubt, wise, for Archbishop Laud was watchful, and 
 Charles easily offended. There was no hesitation, however, when 
 once the colonists were in their new home, in showing how they con- 
 strued the Council's advice to propagate the gospel. The State was 
 to rest on the Church, and the church they chose to establish was not 
 the Church of England. " Touching your judgment of the outward 
 form of God's worship," 
 Endicott wrote to Governor 
 
 Bradford, a month before 
 
 ., . , f ., -, 
 
 the arrival of the ministers, ^_ 
 
 who were to be of his coun- ^/ f^ ^ 
 
 oil, and with whom came the ^^/S) ' (Aifl-L 
 
 instructions from London f / 
 
 " it is, as far as I can yet ' 
 
 gather, no other than is war- signature of Endicott 
 
 ranted by the evidence of truth, and the same which I have professed 
 and maintained ever since the Lord in mercy revealed Himself unto 
 me." l When the ministers arrived he and they acted in accordance 
 with this avowal. 
 
 Two of them, Messrs. Skelton and Higginson, were not Separatists, 
 but, for the distinction was carefully preserved, Non-Conformists. 
 The third, Mr. Bright, was neither, but still a Conformist. Before 
 six weeks had passed the religious character of the colony was deter- 
 mined ; a day of fasting and prayer was held ; Skelton was chosen 
 pastor and Higginson teacher ; the Plymouth Church was invited 
 to send delegates to the installation, and Bradford and some others 
 " gave them the right hand of fellowship, wishing all prosperity, and 
 a blessed success to such good beginnings." A Confession of ReUgionand 
 Faith and Covenant, according to the Holy Scriptures one {" "^ in 
 article of which was upon the Duty and Power of Magistrates colon >- 
 in matters of Religion was adopted ; the book of Common Prayer 
 was discarded ; the rite of baptism and the Lord's Supper were admin- 
 istered without the ceremonies prescribed in the ritual ; admission to 
 the church was regulated in accordance with the judgment of the elders, 
 and the life and conversation of men were subjects of discipline. They 
 were neither Separatists nor Anabaptists, they said ; it was not the 
 Church of England, nor its ordinances that they abandoned, but its 
 corruptions and disorders ; and being now where they had their liberty 
 
 1 Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation, p. 265. 
 
522 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 The Old Planter's House. 1 
 
 they neither could nor would submit to them because "they judged 
 the imposition of those things to be sinful corruptions in the word of 
 God." i 
 
 This was the understanding of Endicott and his friends as to the 
 best and true method of " propagating the Gospel " in the new planta- 
 
 tion. The London Council 
 was wary and slow ; the 
 colonists were free, and the 
 archbishop's arm was not 
 long enough to reach across 
 the Atlantic. 
 
 To these proceedings the 
 Rev. Mr. Bright gave no 
 countenance. He quietly 
 withdrew to Charlestown ; 
 but there also the mother 
 church was without a shel- 
 ter, and in the course of 
 the year he returned to England. This silent protest seems to have 
 satisfied his sense of duty. But there were others of a more aggres- 
 sive, if not a more earnest spirit. 
 
 These were two brothers, John and Samuel Browne, the first a law- 
 yer, the other a merchant, " men of estates and men of parts 
 and port," says Morton. Both were appointed in London 
 to be members of the council of thirteen to assist Endicott 
 in the government of the colony, and both were commended 
 to his consideration and confidence by Cradock. They belonged to 
 and believed in the Church of England, and would have nothing to 
 do with this " Reformed Congregation," created by the governor and 
 the two clergymen. Nor was theirs merely a negative protest ; calling 
 about them the few whose views and feelings were in sympathy 
 with their own, they held separate meetings and worshipped God 
 according to the ritual. But the liberty which the Salem Noncon- 
 formists loved for themselves was not broad enough to include tol- 
 eration for others. Endicott summoned the Brownes before him. 
 Their course was a " disturbance " to the peace of the colony, and they 
 were put upon their defence. 
 
 1 Morton's Memorial, where the fullest account is given of the incidents attending the 
 formation of the first church in Salem. 
 
 The old Planter's House was originally built at Cape Ann by the Dorchester people. 
 One Richard Brackenbury testifies in 1680 that the London Company having bought out 
 the Dorchester Company, sent a party to Cape Ann to pull down the house and remove 
 it to Salem for Endicott's use. It was accordingly removed to Salem. In 1792 it was 
 altered, but the above cut shows it as originally built. 
 
 " 
 
 
 
1629.] 
 
 JOHN AND SAMUEL BROWNE. 
 
 523 
 
 Their defence was an accusation. The ministers, they said, had 
 departed from the order of the Church of England ; they could 
 hardly have failed to remind them that in the formation of the Com- 
 pany and in the procuring of the charter from the king, there was no 
 open assertion whatever secret purpose there may have been that 
 there was to be such departure ; much less that those should be pro- 
 scribed who still held to the rites and ordained form of worship of 
 the Established Church. The logic of the situation was on their side. 
 Those who for conscience' sake had suffered from intolerance, should 
 have too much conscience to be intolerant of others. Did freedom to 
 worship God mean that those who fled from a persecuting church 
 should straightway form themselves into a church that persecuted ? 
 
 The ministers answered as best they could. They met rather than 
 made accusations, and denied that they were Separatists or Anabap- 
 tists ; they were Non-conformists only because the prayer-book and 
 the ceremonies were of man and not of God, and covered sinful cor- 
 ruption in the Church. They had suffered much and had fled from 
 persecution ; and it was 
 plain that thereafter they 
 and the Church could not 
 dwell together. That the 
 liberty they had contended 
 for and gained was a lib- 
 erty cherished for them- 
 selves and not for others 
 was clear enough. That 
 evidently was their limita- 
 tion ; the gain was one too 
 precious to be imperilled by being shared. They only remembered 
 that they had escaped from a persecuting church, and for its visible 
 signs among them they had no toleration, though those signs were 
 in innocent hands. The practical dealing with the ques- 
 
 ,, . . r< T i i i The Browiies 
 
 tion they left to Endicott, who was stronger than logic, sent back to 
 He told the Brownes " that New England was no place 
 for such as they," J and sent them back to England with the return- 
 ing fleet. 
 
 The first six weeks had determined the policy and the history of the 
 Massachusetts Bay Colony. " There are lately arrived here," wrote 
 the Company to the ministers in October, "being sent from the gov- 
 ernor, Mr. Endicott, as men factious and evil conditioned, John and 
 Samuel Browne, being brothers ; who, since their arrival have raised 
 rumors, (as we hear) of divers scandalous and intemperate speeches 
 
 1 Mortou's Memorial. 
 
 Endicott's Sun Dial and other Colonial Relics. 
 
524 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 passed from one or both of you in your public sermons or prayers in 
 New England as also of some innovations attempted by you." Ex- 
 horting them, then, to clear themselves, if innocent, of these charges, 
 or to repent if otherwise, as the Council must " disallow any such pas- 
 sages," they add " we are tender of the least aspersion, which either 
 directly or obliquely, may be cast upon the state here." l And in a 
 letter to the governor they are still more cautious, but explicit. " Yet 
 for that we do consider," they write, " that you are in a government 
 newly founded, and want that assistance which the weight of such a 
 business doth require, we may have leave to think that it is possible 
 some undigested counsels have too suddenly been put in execution, 
 which may have ill construction with the State here, and make us ob- 
 noxious to the adversary. Let it therefore seem good unto you to be 
 very sparing in introducing any laws or commands which may render 
 yourself or us distasteful to the State here to which (as we ought) 
 we must and will have an obsequious eye." 2 It was clearly to the sud- 
 denness and rashness of the thing, and the influence it might have 
 upon the Company's fortunes, rather than to the thing itself, that the 
 Council in London objected. The letters were signed by men, 
 Winthrop and others, who were later the leading men in Massa- 
 chusetts. It was not the last time they and the impetuous Endicott 
 disagreed. With him, if anything was to be done it was well to do 
 it quickly. 
 
 Of the Brownes we hear little more. Their case was referred to a 
 committee, and slept there. "Though they breathed out threaten- 
 ings," says Morton, " both against the Governor and the ministers 
 there, yet the Lord so disposed of all that there was no further incon- 
 venience followed upon it." They had played their part in fixing the 
 character of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. There was no remedy 
 for the proceedings of Endicott and the ministers. 
 
 There could have been no backward step, even had there been the 
 disposition ; but there was none. Cautious as the Company were not 
 to offend the state, they had a definite aim and purpose, and the ex- 
 pulsion of the Brownes was directly in the line of it. They meant 
 that the control v of the colony should be transferred from England to 
 America ; that it should be governed, not by a council in London, 
 under the watchful and jealous eyes of the church and the court, but 
 by its own members, within its own house. In the same month that 
 Endicott and the ministers were gathering the people together under 
 a new confession of faith and covenant, into a visible Reformed Con- 
 
 1 The Company's Letter to the Ministers. Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts, p. 287 
 et set). 
 
 2 The Company's letter to Gov. Endicott, in Young, pp. 290, 291. 
 
1630.] 
 
 TRANSFER OF THE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 525 
 
 Seal of Massachusetts Bay Com- 
 pany. 
 
 gregation, Mr. Cradock submitted to the London Council a proposi- 
 tion for this transfer of government. It would be, it was Thegovem . 
 said, for the advantage of the colony, and an inducement to 5^^^ 
 persons of worth and position to transport themselves and colon y- 
 their families thither. 1 When first proposed in July, the members 
 were asked to consider the matter privately, " to carry this business 
 secretly, that the same be not divulged," 
 lest the design should be interfered with. It 
 was a serious question whether, under the 
 patent, any such removal of the control of 
 the Company would be legal ; but there was 
 no question at all that a precarious asylum 
 only was opened to those who aimed to escape 
 the growing despotism at home, unless that 
 asylum could be relieved in some degree from 
 the fear of interference. 
 
 The subject was carefully considered ; emi- 
 nent lawyers were consulted upon the legality 
 of such a step, who pronounced in its favor ; 
 and in the course of a few weeks it was de- 
 cided by general consent that the change be made. A partial con- 
 trol in regard to trade was to remain with the Council in London, 
 but the exclusive government of persons was to go with those who 
 should be in authority in the colony itself. 
 
 That a company should thus voluntarily strip itself of power has 
 sometimes been considered as difficult of explanation ; but there is 
 nothing remarkable about it if the fact was that they only possessed 
 themselves of that power to make precisely this disposition of it. 
 The men engaged in this enterprise were men who had a common 
 sympathy in their way of thinking upon politics and religion, and 
 some of them also certain personal relations. It was natural, in the 
 circumstances of the times, that they should be drawn together by a 
 common purpose, to secure somewhere an asylum for those who could 
 no longer submit to the oppression to which they were subjected both 
 in church and state, which was rapidly growing intolerable. To ob- 
 tain a patent for lands in America on any such plea would, of course, 
 have been impossible ; but Jo procure such a grant from the king on 
 the usual plea, of planting colonies and opening new sources of trade, 
 was neither a suspicious nor a difficult thing to do. Within five 
 months, however, of the time of securing the patent, the real object 
 seems to make itself manifest. The proposition is presented to the 
 
 1 See Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay, in Young's 
 Chronicles. 
 
526 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 Council to put the essential government of the colony in the hands of 
 the colonists, but with the exhortation to its members to keep the 
 matter quiet. When the action of Endicott and the ministers in re- 
 gard to the Brownes was known in London, those zealous persons 
 were rebuked, not for the formation of a reformed church, nor for the 
 expulsion of those who were obnoxious to the new establishment, but 
 for want of prudence lest the state should be alarmed and offended. 
 
 Meanwhile the plans of the Council were pushed to a conclusion, 
 and in October the necessary change was made in the board of offi- 
 cers which invested the government of the colony in its i*esident mem- 
 bers. That the precedent thus established was in after years followed 
 even with the royal sanction, and without raising the doubts which 
 had troubled the Council of Massachusetts Bay, is no evidence that 
 their apprehensions then of being interfered with were not well 
 founded. Happily they were permitted to carry out their plan with- 
 out molestation, and they planted the seed of a vigorous republic 
 instead of a feeble and dependent commercial colony. 
 
 A reorganization of the court was required by the change now re- 
 
 solved upon, and accordingly a new governor, and some new 
 
 throp made councillors were elected. This governor was John Winthrop. 
 
 governor. , * 
 
 It is noteworthy that two days after Cradock had made his 
 proposition to the Council in August, a meeting of twelve gentlemen 
 was held at Cambridge, all of whom pledged themselves to the prose- 
 cution of this work of a plantation in New England, and to go thither 
 with their families, within six months, provided that before another 
 month had passed, " the whole government, together with the patent 
 for the said plantation, be first, by an order of court, legally trans- 
 ferred and established to remain with us and others which shall in- 
 habit upon the said plantation." Six of the men who signed this 
 agreement already belonged to the Council, and were re-chosen upon 
 the new board ; and as the pledge at Cambridge and the proposition 
 at London were made within two days of each other, there was, with- 
 out doubt, a common understanding in Conference and Council. An 
 accession was gained of material strength, for some of the new men 
 were men of wealth and position ; the moral gain was still greater, 
 for all of them were of that class whose discontent with the condition 
 of affairs in England was so great that they preferred exile to submis- 
 sion. 
 
 John Winthrop, now in his forty-third year, was a man of good 
 social position, by profession a lawyer, as his father and grandfather 
 had been before him, with a yearly income of 700, which in the 
 money value of our time would be about $18,000. It was a hard 
 thing, no doubt, for a man of his gentle culture to dispose of his 
 
1630.] 
 
 JOHN WINTHROP. 
 
 527 
 
 estate, to sacrifice all the associations clinging to an English home of 
 
 several generations, and to accept in exchange the rough hardships 
 
 of pioneer life in the wilderness. At a farewell dinner which his 
 
 friends gave him on the eve 
 
 of his departure, he essayed 
 
 to speak, but a sudden access 
 
 of tenderness broke down his 
 
 self-control, and tears were the 
 
 last tribute he paid to his 
 
 country. Not that the fibre 
 
 of his character lacked firm- 
 
 ness, but underneath a stern 
 
 devotion to his sense of duty 
 
 was the tenderness of a wo- 
 
 man. In his last letter to his 
 
 wife he reminded her of every 
 
 recurring Monday and Friday, 
 
 for at a fixed hour on those 
 
 days they had engaged to 
 
 commune with heaven, and 
 
 with each other in spirit, in 
 
 mutual prayer. 
 
 The winter of 1629-30 was spent in active preparation. On the 
 30th of March, four ships of a fleet of eleven were at Yarmouth 
 waiting for a wind. The admiral ship of the fleet was the Arbella, 1 
 on board which was Winthrop. Here he and some of his asso- 
 ciates drew up a farewell address, which they called " The 
 Humble Request of His Majesty's Loyal Subjects, the Gov- 
 ernor and the Company late gone to New England : to 
 the Rest of the Brethren in and of the Church of England." " We 
 beseech you," said the address, " by the mercies of the Lord Jesus, 
 to consider us as your brethren, standing in very great need of 
 your help [that is, their prayers and blessings], and earnestly im- 
 ploring it." They esteemed it, they said, " our honor to call the 
 Church of England, from whence we rise, our dear mother ; and can- 
 
 1 The ship's name was the Ecttjle, but was changed to ArM/a, in compliment to Lady Ar- 
 bella Johnson, a daughter of the Earl of Lincoln, and the wife of Isaac Johnson, one of the 
 Council. Both he and his wife were on board the vessel. The Lady Arbella died a few 
 weeks after their arrival at Salem, and her husband soon after followed her. Mather, in 
 
 the Magnolia, savs : 
 
 " ..... He try M 
 To live without her, lik'd it not, and dj'M." 
 
 The lines have since been n favorite epitaph in New England burial-grounds, altered to 
 suit circumstances, in the case of bereaved husbands or wives, where one has not long sur- 
 vived the death of the other. 
 
 
 
528 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 not part from our native country, where she specially resideth, without 
 much sadness of heart and many tears in our eyes, ever acknowledg- 
 ing that such hope and part as we have obtained in the common sal- 
 vation, we have received in her bosom and sucked it from her breasts. 
 We leave it not therefore as loathing that milk wherewith we were 
 nourished there, but blessing God for the parentage and education as 
 members of the same body, shall always rejoice in her good, and un- 
 feignedly grieve for any sorrow that shall ever betide her, and while 
 we have breath sincerely desire and endeavour the continuance and 
 abundance of her welfare, with the enlargement of her bounds in the 
 kingdom of Christ Jesus." They entreated that they should not be 
 forgotten in the prayers of ministers and of brethren, even of those 
 who through want of intelligence of their course could not so well con- 
 ceive of their way as they could desire. And they deprecated any 
 want of charity toward them from any false report of their intentions, 
 or from the disaffection or indiscretion of some who were of them, or 
 rather among them ; l an allusion, perhaps, to the gathering of the 
 Church, the year before, at Salem, and the summary proceedings of 
 Eudicott in the case of the Brownes. 
 
 No doubt they were sincere in these protestations of their love 
 to the mother church, of their tender memory of her as she once was, 
 of their devotion to her as they thought she ought to be ; but they were 
 not quite frank, if in the allusion to " disaffection or indiscretion of 
 some of us, or rather among us," they referred to the church at Salem, 
 whose example they were about to follow in complete unconformity to 
 the Episcopal ceremonial. 
 
 Equally sincere was Higginson when, hardly a year before, as the 
 shores of England grew dim and shadowy upon the horizon, 
 he called his children and other passengers to the stern of 
 
 the ship to take their last look of the land of their birth, 
 and exclaimed : " We will not say as the Separatists were wont to 
 say at their leaving of England, ' Farewell, Babylon ! Farewell, 
 Rome ! ' but we will say, Farewell, dear England I Farewell the 
 Church of God in England, and all Christian friends there ! We do 
 not go to New England as Separatists from the Church of England ; 
 though we cannot but separate from the corruptions in it, but we 
 go to practise the positive part of church reformation and propagate 
 the gospel in America." 2 Yet hardly had they a roof over their heads 
 in Salem ere it was made a penal offence to read the Episcopal ser- 
 vice in public. Every league of the Atlantic gave vigor and courage 
 
 1 Mather's Magnolia, Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts, where " The Request," is 
 given in full. 
 
 2 Mather's Magnalia, vol. i., p. 362. 
 
 
1630.] ARRIVAL OF WINTHROP AND HIS PEOPLE. 529 
 
 to his spiritual mind as to his material body. He soon cast off the 
 habits, the indulgences, and the garments of an invalid, and with 
 equal readiness dropped his timid non-conformity and his weak pro- 
 testations, and put on a frank and manly separatism. " A sip of New 
 England's air," he said, " is better than a whole draught of Old Eng- 
 land's ale." The new atmosphere was as good for him in church 
 matters as in everything else. 
 
 Nor was it otherwise with Winthrop and his people. Within one 
 or two years' time, writes Mather, there were seven churches in the 
 neighborhood of Boston, all of them " golden candlesticks ; " all of 
 them mindful of what " the spirit in the Scripture said unto them ; " 
 thoroughly weaned from, if not loathing the " breasts " of that " dear 
 mother," the English Church ; caring little now for that nice distinc- 
 tion between the Church invisible and pure, and the Church visible 
 and corrupt. 
 
 The Arbella arrived at Salem on the 12th of June, 1630. The con- 
 dition of things was not encouraging. During the winter Arrival of 
 just passed eighty people had died, which must have been 
 nearly a fourth of the whole number. Their provisions were 
 nearly exhausted, and but for this reinforcement, still greater 1630> 0- S- 
 suffering would inevitably have followed. It seemed impossible for 
 any of the early colonies to escape these initiative disasters, notwith- 
 standing the precautions which experience taught them. No better 
 fortune was to attend these new-comers. In the course of the summer 
 seventeen ships arrived among them the faithful Mayflower bring- 
 ing altogether about a thousand persons. Some of them had made 
 long passages, and the scurvy broke out among the passengers. Much 
 sickness prevailed in all the settlements during the following year, 
 due more probably to want of proper shelter than any other cause. 
 
 These settlements were to be made at different places, but Charles- 
 town was a sort of starting-point for most of them, that being the one 
 plantation belonging to the company inside of the Bay. This 
 
 L ' j XL i t i i ^i_ Settlement 
 
 beginning was made there a year or two before by three ofcharies- 
 brothers named Sprague, who went from Salem. One of the 
 immediate duties urged upon Endicott, after the Company obtained 
 its charter, was the speedy occupation of some point within the bay 
 between Nahant and Point Alderton. The patent which Captain 
 Robert Gorges had received from the Plymouth Company had de- 
 scended to his brother John, and he had sold to a Sir William Brere- 
 ton and John Oldham the acquaintance of the latter we have al- 
 ready made at Plymouth all the country from Charles River to 
 Nahant and twenty miles inland. The grant made by the Plymouth 
 Company to the Massachusetts Company, and the royal patent to the 
 
 VOL. I. 34 
 
530 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 Massachusetts Bay Company, included all this region. Neither Brere- 
 ton nor Oldham were disposed to yield their claims, and had failed to 
 come to any agreement with the Council of the Massachusetts Bay 
 Company, in regard to them. The question was a frequent subject at 
 the meetings of the Council in London, and Cradock who spoke of 
 Oldham as a man obstinate and violent in his opinions wrote to Endi- 
 cott to send " forty or fifty persons to Massachusetts Bay to inhabit 
 there .... with all speed .... whereby the better to strengthen our 
 possession there against all or any that shall intrude upon us." This 
 
 
 Colonial Furniture. 
 
 was aimed at the rival claimants, Brereton and Oldham, whose title 
 the Company believed, would not hold good in law against their own, 
 but was coupled with a caution not to molest such other Englishmen 
 as had there planted, and who were willing to live under the govern- 
 ment of the new Company. 
 
 Some of these we have spoken of in a previous chapter Maver- 
 ick, on Noddle's Island, now East Boston ; Thompson, on Thomp- 
 
 
1621.] EARLY SETTLERS ABOUT BOSTON BAY. 531 
 
 son's Island ; Blaxton, or Blackstone, living at this time near the foot 
 of what is now Boston Common, but who removed some years 
 
 . . Old settlers 
 
 later to the banks of the river since known by his name on Boston 
 
 Bay. 
 
 the Blackstone in the southwestern part of the State of 
 Massachusetts. There was one man, also, Thomas Walford, a black- 
 smith, living at Charlestown, then called Mishawau, by the Indians, 
 meaning Great Spring. Thither, where the Spragues had gone be- 
 fore, about a hundred of those who came with Higginson in 1629, 
 went in obedience to the injunction of the company to strengthen their 
 possession. There on the 17th of June stood John Winthrop, the 
 first governor of Massachusetts, on the hill that on another 17th of 
 June, nearly a century and a half later, was to be made more memor- 
 able. 
 
 Colonial Relics. 
 
 One of the first of the fleet to arrive was the Mary $ John, whose 
 captain, either misunderstanding his instructions, or over-anxious to 
 return, landed his one hundred and forty passengers at Nantasket. 
 Among these were John Wareham, and John Maverick, clergymen ; 
 Roger Ludlow, and Edward Rossiter, men of substance and posi- 
 tion. As they could not remain where they had been landed, against 
 their will, several of their number, with an old planter for interpreter, 
 took a boat, and loading it with goods went in search of a place that 
 should better answer their purpose. They touched first at Charles- 
 town, and were there advised to proceed up the river. This they did 
 till the water shoaled near the place where the United States Arsenal 
 at Watertown now stands. A number of Indians in the neigh- 
 borhood alarmed this little band, but when the old planter requested 
 them not to approach the camp that night, they considerately ab- 
 stained. On the next day they sent one of their number with a bass, 
 as token of amity and welcome. The English sent a man with a bis- 
 cuit, and in this economical fashion the intercourse began. The In- 
 
532 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 dians " supplied us with bass, exchanging a bass for a bisket-cake, and 
 were very friendly unto us." These fish no longer run in that river, 
 but the Charles was then a natural fish-way as far up as the first 
 rapids, near which the Indians had erected a basket-weir. 
 
 Here the explorers remained but a few days, for hearing that there 
 
 was at Mattapan a neck of land with good pasturage, where they 
 
 might fence in their cattle, the whole company were taken 
 
 Settlement 3 . . , T^ 
 
 atDorcnes- to that place. Ihey gave to it the name of Dorchester, 
 
 ter Neck. 
 
 perhaps in honor of the Rev. John White, of Dorchester, 
 England, who seems to have had a special interest in this company. 
 They had held a day of fasting at Plymouth before sailing, and Mr. 
 White was_there with them, advising, sympathising, and preaching. 
 They suffered many privations through the first winter at Dorchester, 
 eking out their scanty stores with corn bought from the Indians, 
 subsisting sometimes upon shell-fish, which even the women went out 
 to dig upon the mud-flats off the neck. 1 
 
 The Mary and John arrived in May. From that time to October 
 the ships were dropping in, one after another, through the summer, 
 their passengers scattering about Boston Bay at various points. Some 
 went up the Mystic ; some up the Charles ; beginnings of towns were 
 made at Medford, Watertown, Cambridge, Roxbury, Lynn, and else<. 
 where, and the " golden candlesticks " were gradually lighted. Some 
 other towns moved within a few weeks from Charlestown to Shawmut 
 bgun. Point, the first party being one of young people a ship's 
 boat-load who landed about where the Charlestown bridge now 
 crosses the river. Boston was actually begun in a frolic. Anne Pol- 
 lard, a lively young girl, was the first person, amid some pleasant con- 
 tention, to spring ashore the first white woman who ever stepped 
 upon that spot. 2 
 
 Shawmut was first called Trimountain, not because of the three 
 highest hills that overtopped the peninsula, but because of three emi- 
 nences that then crowned one of them, Beacon Hill, where the State 
 House now stands. 
 
 The water at Charlestown, in spite of its name Mishawan, 
 Great Spring seems not to have been good, and Blackstone in- 
 settiement vited Winthrop and his people to pitch their tents by 
 at Boston. m 's f oun t a in of sweet waters, which welled up somewhere 
 at the bottom of the present Common. 3 The settlement was fairly 
 begun before the first of September, and on the 7th of that month 
 
 1 Memoir of Robert Clap. Young's Chronicles, chap, xviii. The place was called Dor- 
 chester Neck, till early in the present century, when it was annexed to Boston, and has ever 
 since been called South Boston. 
 
 2 Old Landmarks of Boston, by S. G. Drake. 
 8 Ibid. 
 
1631.] ROGER WILLIAMS. 533 
 
 J 
 
 it was ordered at a court held at Charlestown, that the place should 
 be called Boston, from the old home of many of these people in 
 Lincolnshire, England. 
 
 Blackstone claimed to own the whole peninsula, as he was the first 
 white man who had ever occupied it. But title of occupation was held 
 not to be good against title by grant from the king of England. The 
 Company, however, was not 
 disposed to deal ungenerously 
 with him, and before he pushed 
 out again into the wilderness, 
 annoyed by too crowded a pop- 
 ulation, they allowed him about 
 one sixth of the territory, and 
 afterward bought it of him for 
 thirty pounds. Blackstone was 
 an Episcopalian in faith, as well 
 as a man " of a particular hu- 
 mor." He would not accept 
 
 . * Old Houses, Boston, England. 
 
 fellowship in the church of the 
 
 Puritans, frankly saying : " I came from England because I did not 
 like the lord-bishops ; but I can't join with you, because I would not 
 be under the lord-brethren." l Walford, the blacksmith, on the other 
 side of the Charles, was swept away in a more summary fashion by 
 the advancing wave of civilization. In less than a year, it is recorded 
 that he was fined by the court, and banished with his wife beyond 
 the limits of the patent. 2 He was too free in his talk. 
 
 In February, 1631, was a notable arrival. Sickness and want were 
 at that time universal ; even the governor's stores were almost ex- 
 hausted ; others of smaller means were on the scantiest allowance, 
 and a day of fasting and prayer the fasting an easy duty was 
 proclaimed. But before the day arrived, the ship Lion, commanded 
 by the good Captain William Peirce, who so often appeared at pre- 
 cisely the right moment both at Plymouth and Boston, was reported 
 at Nantasket. She was deeply laden with provisions, and the day of 
 humiliation and supplication was changed to one of thanksgiving and 
 praise, for the people felt that, like the children of Israel, they were 
 the chosen of the Lord, and that he had sent them succor. 
 Possibly the fervor of the thanksgiving would have been Roger wu- 
 moderated could they have foreseen what else the ship 
 brought them in the person of Roger Williams, who, with his newly 
 married wife, was a passenger on board the Lion. 
 
 1 Lyford's Plain Dealing. Mather's Magnolia. 
 
 2 See Young's Chronicles, note, p. 374, for various authorities. 
 
534 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 Winthrop boarded the ship in the lower harbor, anxious about 
 the quality and quantity of her cargo, of so much importance to 
 the hungry colonists. The interview between him and Williams 
 was probably cordial, although the latter, while travelling the same 
 road as the Puritans, had travelled faster and further ; and the 
 
 course he had taken in his 
 short career he was not much 
 over thirty in regard to the 
 Established Church, was a re- 
 buke to the cautious prudence 
 shown by Winthrop and his as- 
 sociates before they left Eng- 
 land. It is not likely, however, 
 that it occurred to the governor, 
 when they first met, that here 
 in New England, where both 
 were alike separated from the 
 old order of things, any differ- 
 ence could divide them. Among 
 the passengers of the Lion, the 
 governor says, was Mr. Wil- 
 liams, "a godly minister.' 
 
 IMHB tfnmn ar in Italia. J .4 f ? 7 J 
 
 Boston. 
 
 But they were, nevertheless, speedily and completely divided in 
 their public relations, if not in their private friendship. Williams 
 was at first so well received 
 in Boston, that he was unani- 
 mously elected, according to his 
 own statement, the teacher of 
 the church. But the call was [Signature of Ro ger wnii ams] 
 
 Controversy refused because, he says, " I durst not officiate to an 
 unseparated people, as upon examination and conference 
 I found them to be." l That a controversy arose between 
 him and the church at Boston, and that he refused to join it, be- 
 cause as Winthrop says, " they would not make a public declaration 
 of their repentance for having communion with the churches of Eng- 
 
 1 A MS. letter of Williams to the younger Cotton, in possession of the Massachusetts 
 Historical Society, and quoted by Palfrey, vol. i., p. 406, note, is the authority for this 
 statement. The assertion of the writer thatrhe was elected teacher of the Boston church 
 is a sufficient and clear explanation of how the position of that church hitherto unex- 
 plained came to be a subject of controversy between it and Williams. As Dr. Palfrey 
 says, it is hard to suppose that Williams's memory had failed him when he wrote the let- 
 ter, and extraordinary that the fact is not mentioned in any record of the time. But as the 
 fact of the controversy is given without any clue as to how it arose, and as Williams's state- 
 ment supplies a rational origin for that controversy, the positive evidence of his correctness 
 is greater than the negative evidence of his being mistaken. 
 
1631.] 
 
 WILLIAMS AT SALEM AND PLYMOUTH. 
 
 535 
 
 land," : is noticed by contemporary writers. But this was not the 
 only offence of the recusant minister. He declared that the civil 
 magistrate had no right to punish a breach of the Sabbath, or any 
 offence that was a breach of the first four commandments of the deca- 
 logue. The difficulty was insuperable. The church in Boston was 
 clearly no place for a man avowing such doctrines, whether as teacher 
 or member. In a few weeks he removed to Salem. 
 
 Whether it was the church in Boston that refused to accept Mr. 
 Williams, or Mr. Williams who refused to accept the church, 
 
 . i-i Williams 
 
 the State now stepped m to bring the young clergyman settled at 
 into due subjection. The Salem church called him as its 
 teacher, Mr. Higginson having died about six months before. When 
 Winthrop heard of this, 
 the subject was brought 
 up in a court held at 
 Boston, and Endicott was 
 written to, that " they mar- 
 velled they [at Salem] 
 would choose him with- 
 out advising with the coun- 
 cil," and requesting that 
 the church should proceed 
 no further till there had 
 been some conference. 2 
 The church paid no heed 
 to this admonition, and 
 Williams was settled as 
 the minister. It was only 
 for a few months, how- 
 ever ; the council gave no 
 peace to the church till the offender was driven out from among them 
 to find a refuge at Plymouth, where, as the assistant of the Rem0 vaito 
 Rev. Mr. Smith, he remained for the next two years. Plymouth. 
 
 He was now where the council of Massachusetts Bay could not 
 reach him, and among a people to many of whom his doctrines and 
 ministrations were acceptable. Independent as he was as a thinker, 
 and fearless in avowing his convictions when occasion called for it, he 
 does not seem to have entered upon his career in New England by 
 thrusting forward either them or himself offensively. The worst doc- 
 trine he was accused of promulgating while at Plymouth was that the 
 country on which the English had intruded belonged to those they 
 found there, and that the pretended title of James I. was mere usur- 
 
 1 Savage's Winthrop, vol. i., p. 53. 2 Savage's Winthrop. 
 
 First Church in Salem. 
 
536 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 pation. Some novelties of doctrine seem, at last, to have shocked the 
 good elder Brewster, but Bradford speaks of him in terms of high 
 commendation. But, for a time, his ministrations were entirely with- 
 out offence. Winthrop and Mr. Wilson, the Boston minister, were at 
 Plymouth in the course of the next year walking thither from 
 Weymouth partook of the sacrament on the Lord's day with Mr. 
 Williams, and after ward discussed some question propounded by him, 
 according to the custom of that church ; an amicable and godly dis- 
 cussion, apparently, Mr. Williams refraining from using the opportu- 
 nity to advance any of his heretical views, either civil or religious. 
 For a while, evidently, he ceased to be a troubler in Israel. 
 
 Meanwhile no time was lost in bringing the settlers in their several 
 Enforce- communities under the regulation of both civil and ecclesi- 
 mentofiaw. j^ical polity. Meetings of the court were frequent, and 
 stringent laws were passed and applied with rigor. Thus, one man 
 was fined ten pounds, in September, for selling a gun to an Indian, and 
 it was decreed that not even corn should be sold to the natives without 
 leave. Sir Richard Saltonstall, an assistant, and a man of mark, was 
 fined for whipping two persons when no other assistant was present, 
 as the law prescribed in such cases. An irreverent sportsman was 
 whipped for fowling on Sunday ; a hungry one for stealing a loaf of 
 bread. The first quack in the colony was fined five pounds for pretend- 
 ing to cure the scurvy with a worthless water, for which he charged an 
 exorbitant price, and he was warned against any such practice in 
 future. 1 This austere virtue is now lost, even in Massachusetts. 
 Malicious reflections upon the government and the church at Salem 
 cost an offender his ears. The man who got drunk was held to be dis- 
 orderly and fined for a breach of the peace. Adultery was punished 
 with death. There was no lack of watchfulness over the morals and 
 the manners, as well as the safety of the colonists. Even the ex-gov- 
 ernor, Endicott, was fined forty shillings in a case of assault and bat- 
 tery on one goodman Dexter. In a letter to Winthrop he acknowl- 
 edged that he was wrong in such violence, as unbecoming in a justice 
 of the peace. But in reply to Dexter's threat that, if he could not 
 get justice he would "try it out at blows," Endicott said, that if that 
 were lawful and " he, Dexter, were a fit man for me to deal with, 
 you should not hear me complain ; " then adding piously and peni- 
 tently, though the natural Adam was evidently very strong within 
 him, " I hope the Lord hath brought me off from that course." 
 
 But more important than all other enactments was one passed at 
 the first General Court for elections in the spring of 1631, by which 
 it was declared that no man should be admitted to the body politic 
 
 1 Mass. Col. Rec., cited in Palfrey's History of New England, vol. i., pp. 321 et seg. 
 
1631.] CITIZENSHIP. 537 
 
 who was not a member of some church within its limits. Nothing 
 could so clearly show the character of the people. The test Condition of 
 of citizenship was piety ; and the test of piety was member- citlzelishi p- 
 ship in the Reformed Church. No surer way could have been devised 
 of excluding all but Puritans, and Puritans of a certain way of think- 
 ing, from any share in the government of the colony. But these peo- 
 ple had fled from ecclesiastical tyranny at home, and they believed 
 
 .r * m/ * 
 
 that their only safety lay in a close ecclesiastical corporation of their 
 own, a body corporate in which the adversary could gain no foothold 
 either in the church or in the state. Narrow and illiberal as the pol- 
 icy is, when tried by the standard of later times, it was meant to be a 
 peaceful solution of the problem of that age, the working out of which 
 soon cost England a revolution and the king his head. 
 
 These men had come into the wilderness to build up a theocracy, 
 and made no pretensions of securing liberty for anybody but them- 
 selves. They were quite as intolerant of opinions that were not their 
 own as the most inexorable persecutor that ever "' peppered " a Puri- 
 tan. The question is even not yet quite settled in all minds whether 
 intolerance is more lovely and safe in the hands of men who only 
 mean to use it to the glory of God, than in the hands of men who 
 plainly persecute the righteous for unrighteous ends. The line where 
 disinterested devotion fades into worldly motives and the indulgence 
 of the most selfish passions, is so exceedingly fine and so easily passed, 
 that they must needs be much more than common men who can be 
 trusted with intolerance onlv as a divine attribute. 
 
Gradual 
 progress of 
 the colony. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. 
 
 LAWS, ECCLESIASTICAL AND POLITICAL. JOHN ELIOT'S WORK AMONG THE IN- 
 DIANS. JOHN COTTON ARRIVES IN BOSTON. THE RED CROSS IN THE KING'S 
 BANNER. PERSECUTION AND BANISHMENT OF ROGER WILLIAMS. THE FIRST 
 SETTLEMENT OF RHODE ISLAND. SETTLERS FROM PLYMOUTH ON THE CONNECTI-. 
 CUT RIVER. JOHN WINTHROP, JR., FIRST GOVERNOR OF CONNECTICUT. HOOK- 
 ER'S EMIGRATION TO HARTFORD. ANNE HUTCHINSON AND HER DOCTRINES. 
 MURDER OF JOHN OLDHAJI. BEGINNING OF THE PEQUOD WAR. 
 
 THE accounts that went home for the first year or two from Massa- 
 chusetts Bay were discouraging, and for a while more returned to 
 England than joined the colony. Yet the progress was steady in spite 
 of all discouragements and hardships ; the settlements grew 
 into towns ; the towns grew into a consolidated common- 
 wealth. Local affairs soon came to be entrusted to a few 
 select men from a community, though any freeman who chose could 
 assist at their deliberations. The system which for convenience* 
 sake, as numbers increased, took the place of a meeting of all the 
 freemen, when any question arose, such as the making of roads, or the 
 division of lands begun in one place soon extended to others, till 
 in the course of four or five years town-governments were recognized 
 as the established order. The next step was natural and easy ; repre- 
 sentatives were sent to the General Court, first to consult with the 
 assistants, and to regulate taxation ; next to enact laws, and to take 
 part in the general management of the colony. Step by step the 
 colony grew into a commonwealth a government of the people. 
 
 There was no interference with them from the home government. 
 Men of some influence who had been in the country and left it, 
 voluntarily or involuntarily, from various motives, some- 
 times good and sometimes bad, united to break down the 
 colony. They were so far listened to that the king and 
 the Privy Council looked into the matter, but found nothing 
 which was considered worthy of reprehension. It was considered, 
 apparently, that there was nothing dangerous in Puritanism when so 
 far away ; and it is not at all unlikely that Charles felt a generous 
 interest in the first colony established under a patent signed by his 
 
 Ineffectual 
 attempt in 
 England to 
 injure the 
 colony. 
 
1632.] CLERGYMEN IN MASSACHUSETTS. 539 
 
 own hand, and in a country to which he had given a name. There 
 was controversy between them and Sir Ferdinando Gorges and others 
 about patents ; the Brownes did not readily forget the first cause of 
 complaint they had againat Endicott, and the church at Salem. Mor- 
 ton remembered the prostrate May-pole at Merry Mount, and the 
 stocks in Boston , a mysterious Sir Christopher Gardiner who 
 travelled about the country among the Indians, having with him a 
 pretty young woman, confessedly not his wife, and who was suspected 
 of being a Catholic, with sinister designs on the Western Hemisphere 
 railed at the tyranny of Winthrop, who had dismissed him without 
 ceremony from Massachusetts ; but all these united, with any others 
 who had, or thought they had grievances, availed nothing in England 
 to provoke interference. The colony was happily left to its own 
 devices. 
 
 There the most potent influence Avas the clergy. Though ministers 
 were debarred from holding civil offices, they nevertheless, Influenceof 
 in large measui-e through the church controlled the State. theclei *>'- 
 The franchise of citizenship could only belong to the church-member ; 
 but church-membership was under the control of the ministers. This 
 ecclesiastical government suited the Puritans of Massachusetts and 
 was of their own creation ; but the influence of the bishops in Eng- 
 land, though exercised in a different way, was never more potent than 
 that of the minister of the parish in New England, who continued for 
 a century and a half to be looked up to by his parishioners with almost 
 as much reverence as is rendered to the Pope, long after the rule of 
 the bishops had ceased to exist. 
 
 Not all of them, however, cared for political influence, or were most 
 devoted even to theological questions. Chief among those who had 
 other aims was the Rev. John Eliot of Roxbury, who was The llApog . 
 made the pastor of its first church, in 1632. His life was tle ' Eliot - 
 largely devoted to converting the Indians to Christianity, and to that 
 end he studied their language with great assiduity. 1 Some years later, 
 when he had mastered their difficult tongue, he preached his first ser- 
 mon to a small company of Indians, in a wigwam at Nonantum near 
 Watertown. The presence of Waban, an Indian chief, suggested the 
 text, which was from Ezekiel xxxvii. 9, 10 : " Then said he unto them, 
 Prophesy unto the wind ; " Waban, the chief's name, The p^y^g 
 meaning wind. The sermon was effectual, and Waban be- lndians 
 came a Christian. A sect grew up, among whom he was a man 
 
 1 Elliot's Indian Bible a few copies of which are still in existence and sell at almost 
 fabulous sums, though in a now unknown tongue was published in 1663. The Psalms 
 in Metre, the first book published in America 1C40 was composed partly by him and 
 partly by his colleague, Weld, and by Richard Mather. 
 
540 NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 of influence, called the " Praying Indians," and who became so obnox- 
 ious to the unconverted savage that, at a later period in time of war, 
 it was necessary to place them upon an island in the harbor, for pro- 
 tection, although their own town, Natick " the place of hills " 
 was well fortified. 1 
 
 But Eliot's heroic work was beset with monstrous difficulties. The 
 Indian's ethical condition was derived from the exigencies of the wil- 
 derness, and seldom rose above them into a nobler behavior. This 
 spiritual condition was limited to a vague reference to an overruling 
 Manito, a decided belief in Hobomock, the Evil Spirit, and an unfalter- 
 ing trust in the medicine-man. Into this structure of natural theology 
 he soon learned to infuse a love of rum so strong that it confused his 
 perception of the white man's religion, as it well might do. When 
 the Bible and the puncheon came over to him in the same ship, the 
 remark of one of their chiefs was not irrelevant : " Let me see that 
 your religion makes you better than us and then we may try it." This 
 keen appreciation of the difference between the Englishman's preach- 
 ing and his practice ; the love of fighting which can hardly be assuaged 
 in the breast of an Indian ; the thirst for the new liquors ; 
 
 Difficulties 
 
 in Eliot's the reluctance to form settled towns and to labor, were for- 
 
 wa v 
 
 midable obstacles in Eliot's way ; while the lukewarmness of 
 the colonists, who thought the converts were poor for Christians and 
 spoiled for Indians, constantly dogged his manly and courageous steps 
 as he went to and fro with incessant ministering of religious truths and 
 inculcation of the arts of civilization to the people whose darkness lie 
 so commiserated. 
 
 There were other clergymen not less identified, though in a different 
 wa Y> with the infancy of the Commonwealth. In 1633 large 
 additions were made to the colony, and among them came 
 stone. John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, and Samuel Stone. Hooker 
 and Stone went to Newtown as pastor and teacher ; Cotton remained 
 in Boston as teacher over the church of which Wilson was pastor. 
 The Rev. William Phillips of Watertown had already labored to 
 mould the churches into that form of Congregationalism which after- 
 ^ , , wards prevailed, but the work was completed 
 
 s-rlSrfti Cw&n'/ by Cotton. He had, it is said, "such an in- 
 , r / sinuating and melting way in his preaching, 
 
 signature of John Cotton. that he would usually carry his very adversary 
 captive after the triumphant chariot of his rhetoric ; " and such was 
 
 1 Some of the converts were made magistrates and constables in the towns of Praying In- 
 dians. Here is a warrant addressed to a constable : " 1 . I, HMondi. 2. You, Peter Water- 
 man. 3. Jeremy Wicket. 4. Quick you take him. 5. Fast you hold him. 6. Straight 
 you bring him. 7. Before me, Hidondi. " The, New England History, by Charles W. Elliot, 
 vol. i., p. 326. 
 
1633.] 
 
 ROGER WILLIAMS. 
 
 541 
 
 his authority " that whatever he delivered in the pulpit was soon put 
 into an order of court, if of a civil, or set up as a practice in the 
 church, if of an ecclesiastical 
 concernment." 1 He was an 
 able and a learned man, already 
 distinguished before coming to 
 New England, as rector of St. 
 Botolph's church in Boston, Lin- 
 colnshire, where his non-con- 
 forming opinions were too 
 boldly and ably expressed to 
 escape the notice of the au- 
 thorities. The hostile atten- 
 tion of Laud, the archbishop of 
 Canterbury, was directed toward 
 him, and he was suspected of 
 an intention to emigrate so soon 
 as an attempt should be made 
 to deal with him for non-con- 
 formity. He and Hooker were 
 closely watched. Cotton lay 
 concealed in London for some 
 time, and they only got out of 
 the kingdom by the feint of embarking at the Isle of Wight and going 
 on board in the Downs. 
 
 Within a month of these arrivals, Roger Williams returned fi'om 
 Plymouth to Salem, and returned not to peace but to much Roger Wil . 
 tribulation. Some controversy had at length arisen between i^g^" 
 him and the church at Plymouth, his views savoring, Elder Salem - 
 Brewster thought, of Anabaptism ; he falling, Bradford said, " into 
 strange opinions, and from opinions to practice." Some were desirous 
 of retaining him, but he asked a dismission, and they let him go with 
 a warning to the church at Salem, some of the Plymouth people, how- 
 ever, going with him. 
 
 But the church at Salem would heed no warning, and welcomed him 
 back. For months he exercised his gift " by way of prophecy," a 
 desultory preacher without special charge. But he prophesied so 
 much to the satisfaction of the Salem people, that when Mr. Skelton 
 died the next summer, Williams was called to his place. He was, no 
 doubt, watched narrowly, even before his settlement ; but for a while 
 his utterances were so void of offence, that the governor and as- 
 sistants took up for consideration the treatise he had written while in 
 
 1 Hubbard's History, pp. 175, 182. 
 
 St. Botolph's Church, Boston, Eng. 
 
 
542 NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 Plymouth in relation to the Indian title to the country. The offender 
 was notified to appear at the next General Court for cen- 
 sure. 1 He appeared accordingly, and made due submission, 
 
 asserting that the treatise was written for the private satis- 
 faction of the governor and others at Plymouth, and that there 
 would have been an end of it had not Mr. Winthrop sent to him for a 
 copy. The anxiety to find cause of complaint against him must have 
 been great, when a private manuscript written outside of the jurisdic- 
 tion of Massachusetts, and thus obtained, could be made the pretext 
 of an accusation against the writer. Indeed the governor and council 
 seem to have become a little ashamed of it, for they were gracious 
 enough subsequently to pass the matter over, after consultation with 
 Mr. Wilson and Mr. Cotton, and on consideration that the Indian 
 essay was obscure in meaning, that Mr. Williams had disavowed any 
 evil intent in writing it, and had taken the oath of allegiance. 
 
 But offences were sure to come. It was impossible for Mr. Wil- 
 liams to keep quiet ; equally impossible, for the Council to 
 
 Thcqxicstion . . ,. , A ", ,.. PI 
 
 of veils at let him alone. As a sort of preliminary of what was to 
 come the colony was presently in a buzz, for he had per- 
 suaded the women of Salem that modesty required they should go 
 veiled in public. Here was heresy. Cotton hastened to Salem to re- 
 fute it, and his " insinuating and melting way " brought down every 
 veil in the parish between the Sunday services. It was an exhaustive 
 discourse, if we may trust Hubbard's report of it, and proved to the 
 women of Salem that the Scriptural reasons were not applicable in 
 their case ; for many wei'e wives and not virgins ; none were like 
 Tamar ; and none needed like Ruth, to hold up her veil before Boaz 
 for a measure of barley. Not a woman's face was hidden on Sunday 
 afternoon after this morning's discourse. It was a great triumph over 
 Roger Williams, and so pleased was Mr. Cotton with his success, that 
 he carried the subject into the " Boston Lecture." But here Endicott 
 met him in fierce debate, and so hot did it grow that the governor in- 
 terfered to put an end to it. 2 
 
 Williams had no more devoted follower than Endicott, whose zeal 
 was of the kind that out-runs discretion. At home and abroad he 
 was, for a time, ready to uphold his pastor at any cost, and would, no 
 doubt, had not the governor stopped him, have maintained against 
 Cotton, rather than admit that there was any defect in the doctrine 
 
 1 Savage's Wintltrop, vol. i., p. 122. 
 
 2 Such sermons, however, were not uncommon. Eliot and Chauncy, President of Har- 
 vard College, preached long and learned discourses on Wigs. Lift, of Williams, Sparks's 
 Biography, vol. xiv. All the magistrates in 1C49, signed a solemn protest against men 
 wearing long hair, and commended the subject to the attention of the ministers. Hutch- 
 inson's History. 
 

 
 
 z 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 c 
 z 
 
 tu 
 

1634.] 
 
 ROGER WILLIAMS. 
 
 543 
 
 in regard to veils, that every woman in Boston was like Tamar and 
 should hide her face. The Council of Massachusetts were far more 
 tender of him than of the minister, though he did not always escape 
 punishment. 
 
 His zeal, and the influence of his pastor's teaching were made man- 
 ifest in an act of more moment than whether the women 
 should go uncovered. The preaching of Williams was of cut* out the 
 the searching kind and the application of his principles of 
 undefiled religion, knew no limit. There was in him no fear of prin- 
 cipalities or powers ; for the Church of England he had only abhor- 
 rence ; for those who reverenced her, rebuke if not denunciation. He 
 looked everywhere for the signs of anti-Christ, and at any relic of su- 
 perstition he pointed an unswerving finger. In the red cross of St. 
 George he saw only a remnant of Popery, not an ensign of victory. 
 This fervid flame of pure spiritual doctrine caught up Endicott and he 
 blazed into fury. When next the flag of England fluttered over him 
 in the streets of Salem he seized its folds and cut out the cross in 
 which his pastor saw an emblem of submission to Rome. Some of the 
 soldiers refused to follow the mutilated colors ; the grave offence de- 
 manded the attention of the General Court ; he was rebuked for in- 
 discretion, and dismissed for a time from his seat as an assistant at 
 the Council. It was only because all were persuaded that the act was 
 done out of tenderness of conscience and not out of an evil mind that 
 he was visited with no heavier penalty 1 ; and, besides, there were a 
 good many people who sympathized with the act itself. 
 
 But Williams had not long been settled, against the expostulations 
 if not the direct order of the Council, when the people of Sa- saiemaaks* 
 lem asked that a tract of land at Marblehead be granted gmindu 
 them. The court refused. So palpable and flagrant an refused 
 act of injustice stirred the church to further resistance ; the other 
 churches where the magistrates were members, were written to and 
 urged to admonish them for this gross intolerance toward Salem. 
 There was no other way of appealing to public opinion, and public 
 opinion was the only influence that could be brought to bear upon 
 the magistrates. The appeal was useless ; the clergy made no re- 
 sponse, and of their position, no doubt the magistrates were An , ppea ito 
 quite assured beforehand. The protest led to fresh penal- 'birches 
 ties ; the Salem deputies were deprived of their seats in the P uni8hed - 
 court ; Endicott, as chief and of the most importance, was imprisoned 
 until a satisfactory apology was made for such a spirit of insubordi- 
 nation. It was a complete establishment of the civil authority. Wil- 
 liams asked his people to separate from these subservient churches. 
 
 i Hubbard. 
 
544 NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 But his own church was already subdued, and the request was refused. 
 Salem and Endicott submitted at last to a power inexorable and too 
 strong for them, and the pastor was left helpless and at the mercy of 
 the court. 
 
 And the court was without mercy, as Williams was without any 
 spirit of compromise. He was summoned to Boston to answer for 
 his dangerous heresies, and he appeared, well knowing that there was 
 hardly a magistrate or a minister in the little commonwealth that had 
 not prejudged him. The accusations against him convey an 
 
 A ll6 ~ , _ j i rt* i i 
 
 tions against inadequate notion of how serious an offence his doctrines were 
 
 Williams. IT- TT i i i ... 
 
 among the l j uritans. He was charged with maintaining that 
 the magistrate should not punish a breach of the first four command- 
 ments, except where the result was a breach of the peace ; that he 
 should not tender an oath to an unregenerate man, and that no one 
 should pray with such a person, though he be one's nearest relative ; 
 and that thanks should not be given either after meat or after the sacra- 
 ment. 1 But out of these propositions he deduced the plain doctrine, 
 that the magistrate had no right to meddle with any man's conscience 
 or religious opinions, and that the state exceeded its just power 
 when it assumed to have jurisdiction over any other relations of the 
 citizen than those of person and property. He meant this, and magis- 
 trates and ministers understood that he meant it, and in a community 
 where no man was a citizen except he was a church-member, and no 
 man was a church-member except with the minister's permission, such 
 doctrine was dangerous and intolerable. 
 
 But he was not to be moved. Cotton and Hooker went to Salem 
 Mistrial and *o labor with him, and he withstood them. The court had 
 
 sentence. n j m U p f Qr ^ r j a j - na( J |jj m ^ fljat ^ or ft p u bl} c polemical 
 
 debate. They failed to convict him of error, as he failed to convict 
 them of injustice. He was sent back to Salem with permission to 
 take time to repent, and a warning to prepare for sentence at the next 
 meeting of the General Court, unless ready then to bring forth fruits 
 meet for repentance. 
 
 The fruits were not forthcoming. He was stiff-necked and would 
 not bend, and sentence of banishment was pronounced upon him. He 
 *' hath broached and divulged " said the act, " divers new and danger- 
 ous opinions against the authority of magistrates ; as also writ letters 
 of defamation, both of the magistrates and churches here ; " and there- 
 fore he was ordered to depart out of that jurisdiction within six weeks 
 and not return without license from the court. To this sentence there 
 was only one dissenting voice. 2 
 
 1 Savage's Winthrop. Hubbard. Mather's Magnolia. 
 
 2 Savage's Winthrop. 
 
1635.] BANISHMENT OF ROGER WILLIAMS. 545 
 
 There was more than one dissenting voice however, outside of the 
 General Court, and especially in Salem. A staunch minority stood by 
 the persecuted minister, and no doubt there was some clamor every- 
 where. Perhaps for this reason notice was given him that he might 
 remain till spring. Williams accepted the clemency and went on 
 preaching, but preached precisely as he had done before. He abated 
 not one jot of his dangerous opinions ; gave full measure of his doc- 
 trines of Christian democracy. When the church was closed against 
 him by the timid or the prudent, he called together in his own house 
 such as would listen to him, and quietly but firmly testified to the 
 truth as it was in him. 
 
 The magistrates were exasperated and summoned him again before 
 them. They had heard he intended to plant a colony on Narragansett 
 Bay, " from whence," says 
 Winthrop, " the infection 
 would easily spread into 
 these churches, the people 
 being many of them much 
 taken with the apprehension 
 of his godliness." He re- 
 fused to appear again be- 
 fore the court, but alleged 
 ill health as a reason. It 
 was, no doubt, a good and 
 sufficient excuse, but he 
 may, perhaps, have felt also Roger Willi ' ms ' s House Salem - 
 
 that it was not worth while to be tried a second time for the same 
 offence. At any rate the court was not satisfied, and Captain Under- 
 bill was sent at once to Salem in a shallop with orders to 
 take him and put him on board a ship about to sail for Eng- arrJt of 
 land. When Underbill arrived he was gone ; some kind 
 friends had given him information of the proposed arrest, and he fled 
 alone out into the night and the wilderness. 
 
 Winthrop was not, this year, the governor of Massachusetts, and 
 may have felt that release from official duty permitted the indulgence 
 of a feeling of personal friendship and sympathy. In a letter written 
 thirty-five years afterward, Williams says, " that ever honored gover- 
 nor, Mr. Winthrop, privately wrote to me to steer my course to the 
 Narragansett Bay and Indians for many high and heavenly and public 
 ends, encouraging me from the freeness of place from any English 
 claims or patents." l To Narragansett Bay, accordingly, he steered 
 
 1 Letter from Roger Williams to Major Mason, ifass. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. i., Fourth 
 Series. The letters of Williams to Winthrop during the years immediately succeeding his 
 VOL. i. 36 
 

 546 
 
 NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. 
 
 [CHAP. XXL 
 
 his course, " though in winter snow which I feel yet," he adds, paren- 
 thetically, for it was in January. 
 
 But he was not without friends in the wilderness into which he 
 threw himself. His essay on the rights of the Indian to the soil, 
 which had been construed into an attack upon the patent and upon 
 The night of th e king, and made matter of accusation against him was 
 Williams. no m erely an idle, abstract argument with him, but a living 
 truth. His belief in their rights was wider and more earnest than 
 the belief of those about him, though they were not disposed to be 
 unjust to the natives. But to him they were a people to be tenderly 
 used and gently led out of the darkness of Heathenism, and the in- 
 tercourse he had had with them, while living in Plymouth, was in- 
 fused with this feeling, and had led to the most kindly relations. 
 
 Roger Williams building his House. 
 
 Massasoit, the old friend of the Pilgrims, was his friend also, and 
 with him the wanderer at last found rest at Mount Hope. 
 
 The chief gave him land on the Seekonk River, and there in the 
 
 banishment (see Rhode Island Hist. Soc., vol. i.. Appendix, Muss. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. ii., 
 Third Series, and vol. vi., Fourth Series) show the existence of cordial and even affection- 
 ate relations between them. 
 
 
1633.] SETTLEMENTS ON THE CONNECTICUT. 547 
 
 early spring he began to build himself a house. 1 Here five persons 
 from Salem joined him, but they all soon removed to the other side 
 of the river by the advice of Governor Winslow, of Plymouth. He 
 wrote to Williams that he and his party were within the bounds of 
 the Plymouth grant, and it was best to avoid all possibility of dispute 
 by moving a few miles farther west. The advice was wise and for- 
 tunate. Dropping down the Seekonk River in a canoe, and round 
 into the broad harbor below, they landed at the foot of a hill 
 
 11 -r 11 i Williams 
 
 whose seeming advantages attracted them. In following the settles at 
 
 ProviJcucc 
 
 advice of Winthrop and Winslow, Williams thought he was 
 led by a divine guidance, and therefore, and to use his own words 
 " for many other Providences of the most holy and only wise," he 
 called the place Providence. Here, in June, 1636, the exile and his 
 five companions planted the seed of another New England State. 
 
 This, however, was not the first offshoot from the parent colonies 
 that had taken root along the southern shores of New England. As 
 early as 1631, Wahginnacut, a Sagamore from " the river Quonchta- 
 cut, which lies West of Naragancet," had visited Boston and offered 
 the Governor inducements, in a promised tribute of corn and beaver- 
 skins, to send some Englishmen to settle in his country, which lie said 
 was fruitful. The proposition was refused, as the chief, it was 
 thought, only wanted English aid in a war in which he was then 
 engaged with the Pequots ; but the suggestion did not fall se ttlem( > ntg 
 upon deaf ears. The Dutch from New Netherland had al- J5 Sec^! y 
 ready penetrated the Connecticut valley, and had purchased necticut - 
 lands of the Indians on the banks of the river. In 1633, the Com- 
 missary, Van Curler, had begun to build the Fort Good FortGood 
 Hope, now Hartford on the tract thus bought, and the IIope built - 
 Dutch West India Company claimed the whole valley as theirs, by 
 right of possession and purchase. 
 
 Friendly relations had been established between the Dutch and the 
 Plymouth people, and these learned from the former something of the 
 rich trade and fertile soil they had found on the Fresh or Connecti- 
 cut River. It was welcome intelligence to the Pilgrims, whose 
 trading-post on the Penobscot had already been robbed by the French, 
 and who, probably, had little hope of much more profitable trade in 
 that quarter. Overtures were made by Bradford and Winslow to 
 Winthrop to anticipate the Dutch in their proposed occupation at 
 Fort Good Hope. But the government at Boston " thought not fit to 
 meddle with it," as the neighborhood of a large body of Indians and 
 
 1 The spot is now known as " Mnnton's Cove," a short distance above a bridge in a 
 liend of the river, directly eastward of Providence. Gammdl's Life of Roger Williams, in 
 Sparks's American Biography. 
 
548 
 
 NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. 
 
 [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 
 the shallowness of the river made it a poor place for u plantation. 
 The Plymouth people were not discouraged by this refusal, 
 but in the autumn of 1633 sent William Holmes round by 
 sea to the Connecticut, having on board his vessel the frame 
 of a house already prepared for building. The Dutch threatened to 
 fire upon them as they passed by Fort Good Hope, but Holmes showed 
 his commission from the Governor of Plymouth, and insisted that he 
 must obey orders, and going on, put up his house upon the site of the 
 
 The New- 
 
 Site of Fort Good Hope. 
 
 present town of Windsor, about six miles above the Dutch fort. 1 
 Governor Van Twiller the next year sent troops from New Amster- 
 dam who, however, Avere not employed to oust the intruders 
 upon the territory which, he claimed, not without reason, belonged to 
 the West India Company. But the sturdy Pilgrims, under Holmes, 
 held their own, and entered into successful trade with the Indians. 
 This firm footing on the Connecticut was made, when the next 
 spring a petition was presented to the General Assembly of 
 Massachusetts Bay from the people of Newtown, asking that 
 they might be permitted " to look out either for enlargement 
 or removal." The ministers Hooker and Stone were at the 
 head of this movement, but, though the petition was at first granted, 
 when the intention was avowed of going to the Connecticut, it met with 
 warm opposition. In the autumn the subject again came up for discus- 
 sion in the General Court, when it was urged, that so large an emi- 
 gration would be a great injui'y to the colony ; the emigrants them- 
 selves would be exposed to great dangers both from the Indians and 
 
 1 Trumbull's History of Connecticut. 
 
 thcon- 
 necticut. 
 
1635.] EMIGRATION TO CONNECTICUT. 549 
 
 the Dutch ; it was doubtful if the king would assent to a company 
 settling upon lands to which they had no patent, and there was no 
 good reason for removing so far, when there was ample room within 
 the limits of the Company's patent which they might occupy. On the 
 main question a majority of the deputies from the towns were in favor 
 of granting permission to the petitioners to remove to the Connecti- 
 cut ; but a majority of the assistants voted against it. 
 
 Thereupon arose an important conflict as to the rights of these two 
 classes of representatives whether the assistants who rep- Conflict of 
 resented the magistracy, though smaller in number, should {n^\ n th " 
 not outweigh by their vote the lai-ger number of deputies Court - 
 who represented the people. Neither party was disposed to yield, and 
 a day of fasting and prayer was appointed to get light upon the sub- 
 ject, aided by a sermon from Mr. John Cotton. The result was at 
 least peace for the present, though the question as to the conflicting 
 claim of assistants and representatives remained undetermined, and 
 the I T ewtown people, before Mr. Cotton's sermon was preached, con- 
 sented to accept an enlargement of their borders. 
 
 The wish to remove to the rich lands of the Connecticut Valley 
 was not confined to the church at Newtown. Others of 
 Watertown, Dorchester, and Roxbury, were equally uneasy, tothecon- 
 and as no permission could be obtained to go beyond the 
 limits of the Massachusetts patent, a good many resolved to go with- 
 out. A few men from Watertown began the settlement of Wethers- 
 field in the winter of 1635, and more of their townsmen followed them 
 in the spring; others went from Dorchester and settled themselves 
 about the Plymouth people at Windsor in the summer of that year. 
 In November, a still larger party, gathered probably from various 
 places, started for the new country. It was composed of whole fami- 
 lies, men, women, and children, and they took with them their horses, 
 cattle, and swine. It was a perilous journey through the woods 
 at that season, and winter was upon them before it was over. The 
 river was frozen by the middle of the month, and the vessels which 
 were bringing their household goods and provisions were unable to 
 get to them. Two of these were wrecked on the way. The emi- 
 grants were put to almost the extreme of suffering, and seventy of 
 them, going down the river, in the hope of meeting with their own 
 vessels, were happily rescued by another, and carried back to Mas- 
 sachusetts, miserable and repentant. Those who went to Windsor 
 were complained of by the Plymouth people for intruding on their 
 lands. 
 
 These irregular attempts at settlement, more or less successful, were 
 followed by one which laid the foundation of a stable colony. In the 
 
5; 
 
 NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. 
 
 [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 autumn of this year, John Winthrop, a son of Governor Winthrop of 
 Massachusetts, came out from England, bringing with him a 
 thro n p , the commission to be governor of Connecticut, under the patent 
 of Lord Say and Seal, Lord Brook and others, -which cov- 
 ered that region of country. He brought -with him men, ordnance, 
 
 and ammunition, 
 and had orders to 
 erect a fort at the 
 mouth of the river. 
 Hearing that the 
 
 Signature of Lord Say and Seal. Dutch had deS- 
 
 patched a vessel on the same errand, he immediately sent a small ves- 
 sel from Boston with twenty men to take possession, and when the 
 Dutchman arrived a battery of two cannon confronted him, which 
 was enough to prevent his landing. When the Dutch purchased the 
 country three years before, of the Indians, they had affixed to a tree 
 
 Tearing down the Dutch Arms. 
 
 at Kievit's Hook the arms of the State's General in token of posses- 
 sion. The Englishmen contemptuously tore down this shield, and 
 carved a grinning face in its stead. 1 The place was named Saybrook, 
 in honor of the Lords Say and Brook, the patentees, a strong fort was 
 soon built, and the only evidence left in the valley of the presence of 
 the Dutch was the feeble post of Fort Good Hope. 
 
 1 Brodhi-ad's History of New York. 
 
1636.] 
 
 THE HOOKER EMIGRATION. 
 
 551 
 
 Between the English settlers at Hartford, "Wethersfield, and Windsor 
 and the new governor, it was easy to come to an amicable The Hooker 
 arrangement. And others soon followed from Massachu- 
 setts. The Newtown people, notwithstanding " they had been car- 
 ried captive after the triumphant chariot of Mr. Cotton's rhetoric," 
 and had accepted the offer of 
 more lands which the General 
 Court had offered them ; and 
 notwithstanding the painful ex- 
 perience of some of those who 
 had sought there new homes, 
 still longed for the fresh fields 
 and green meadows of the 
 Connecticut. " Two such em- 
 inent stars, such as were Mr. 
 Cotton and Mr. Hooker," says 
 Hubbard, "both of the same 
 magnitude, though of differing 
 influence, could not well con- 
 tinue in one and the same orb." 
 It is not impossible that there 
 may have been some jealousy 
 between two such eminent men 
 in a small communit) 7 , where there was no influence so potent as that 
 of the clergyman, and where of two the most distinguished only one 
 could be first. Whether Hooker had any such feeling or not, the 
 chief reason he gave for desiring a removal was that it was already 
 too crowded in Massachusetts, and that the policy of the Company in 
 planting settlements so near each other was a mistake. 
 
 The accession of members to the colony during the year 1635, no 
 doubt helped to strengthen this conviction, for there came, that year, 
 about three thousand persons from England. Some must go farther 
 into the interior, and the Newtown people resumed their determina- 
 tion. They disposed of their houses and lands .to a body of new- 
 comers, and prepared for removal. 
 
 In June, 1636, the whole church of Newtown, numbering about a 
 hundred, with Hooker and Stone, the ministers, at their head, started 
 on their journey. They were about ten days in the woods, travelling 
 in that time something less than a hundred miles. They drove before 
 them a hundred and sixty cattle ; wagons carried the old and feeble ; 
 these and tents were a sufficient shelter at night. The forest was 
 beautiful with the abundant flowers of June and with the tender foliage 
 of the young summer ; the woods were vocal with the music of birds, 
 
 John Winthrop. the younger. 
 
552 
 
 NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. 
 
 [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 in that month always in clearest and fullest song ; the rains of spring 
 had passed ; the heats of the later season had not come ; and so, with- 
 out hardship, almost without fatigue, the emigrants traversed the wil- 
 derness, as happy, in their ten days' journey, as a modern church-party 
 that picnics for a day in a suburban grove. 
 They left nothing behind them to regret ; ^fc&&*& 
 before them the future was rosy with hope. 
 The one touch of sombre color, which, how- 
 ever, took nothing of in- 
 terest and even of ro- 
 
 Hooker's Emigration to Connecticut. 
 
 mance from the scene, was the figure of Mrs. Hooker, who, feeble 
 from illness, was carried in a litter. 
 
 Hartford was the end of this pleasant journey ; then so named in 
 
 honor of the Rev. Mr. Stone, who was a native of Hartford in England. 
 
 Wethersfield, and Windsor also, received their names this 
 
 named in summer, as sufficient numbers followed in the path of the 
 
 Connecticut. i i i 
 
 Newtown people, to make them worthy of special designa- 
 tion ; and higher up the river, Pynchon, one of the earliest of the 
 planters, and a member of the original Council in London, began 
 a settlement, with a few others, which soon came to be called Spring- 
 field. At the end of the year there were about eight hundred 
 people in the valley of the Connecticut, which, though governed at 
 first by commissioners from Massachusetts, was soon an established 
 autonomy. 
 
 But this swarming of the hive was by no means the most agitating 
 experience of Massachusetts during this period. A theological dis- 
 
1634.] 
 
 MRS. HUTCHINSON. 
 
 553 
 
 pensation was visited upon it which shook its very soul, and it is not 
 impossible that the interest raised by this was so absorbing that the 
 authorities saw with indifference, or did not notice at all, that the 
 people were leaving the colony with as little hesitation as if no per- 
 mission had ever been asked, and refused of the General Court. 
 
 In 1634 there arrived a Mrs. Ann Hutchinson from Atford, near 
 Boston, England. With her came her husband, a rather 
 insignificant person, and her brother-in-law, the Rev. John MM. uutch- 
 Wheelwright. John Cotton, who came over the year be- 
 fore, was her favorite among all the ministers in England, and she 
 seems to have followed him to this country, for she declared that no 
 church in England suited her. She was a woman of superior intelli- 
 gence, bright, witty, good at a fencing match of tongues, versed in 
 Scripture and theological literature, never so happy as when descanting 
 on her views. Her temper was resolute ; she ruled her weak husband, 
 and had a taste for ruling ; to be an influential centre of opinion was 
 her ambition, which she took no trouble to conceal. Moreover she was 
 skilful in sickness, and knew how to treat the travails and 
 troubles of her sex. She soon became highly popular, only inson-s ad 
 
 herents. 
 
 Winthrop, Wilson, and a few others did not admire her. 
 John Cotton, of course, was her adherent. So also was Sir Henry 
 Vane, who was governor for one of the three years of his residence 
 in the colony and during the contin- 
 uance of this controversy ; a Puritan 
 of the Puritans, and delighting in 
 theological subtleties, he warmly sup- 
 ported Mrs. Hutchinson. The views 
 which she maintained were of the 
 kind called Antinomian ; that is, the 
 Law was not a school-master to bring 
 men to Christ, the Person of the Holy 
 Ghost dwells in a justified person and 
 becomes his justification ; no sanctifi- 
 cation can help to testify to a man 
 that he is justified, or of him, because 
 it may be assumed. The clergy ob- 
 jected that as the Holy Ghost was the 
 Third Person of the Trinity he could 
 not be indwelling. But she declared that made no difficulty. They 
 disliked the distinction which she and her brother-in-law strenuously 
 maintained between a covenant of grace and a covenant of works, and 
 she offended by rallying them for their austerity. 
 
 It was her custom to hold lectures twice a week, to which the 
 
 Henry Vane. 
 
554 
 
 NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. 
 
 [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 
 women flocked, from eighty to one hundred attending to hear her re- 
 peat from memory the sermons she heard, and comment upon 
 lee- them with piquancy. She had Scripture for these novel gath- 
 erings of women, for Titus says that the aged women may 
 teach the young ones. " Coine along with me," says a writer of the 
 period, " I '11 bring you to a woman that preaches better Gospell than 
 any of your black-coats that have been at the Ninnyversity, a woman 
 of an other kind of spirit, who hath had many revelations of things to 
 come, and for my part I had rather hear such a one that speaks from 
 the meere motion of the spirit, without any study at all, then any of 
 your learned Scollers, although they may be fuller of Scripture." 
 
 Only four or five members of the Boston Church held out against 
 her ; the country churches were mainly opposed to her teachings. 
 The feeling began to grow bitter when Mrs. Hutchinson obtrusively 
 Her success ^ e ^ * ne niccting-house whenever Wilson rose to speak. 
 in Boston. Winthrop and Wilson succeeded with difficulty in prevent- 
 ing the election of Wheelwright to an associate place with the teacher 
 and pastor. Their success was provoking and increased the alienations 
 among old friends and fellow-workers. When people began to call 
 each other hard names, to brand this one as under a covenant of works, 
 and that one as superior, being under grace, the General Court took 
 up the matter as becoming dangerous to the State. Wheelwright was 
 pronounced guilty of sedition and contempt because he employed the 
 occasion of a general Fast to preach a discourse in which he 
 of the Gen- called persons living in a covenant of works Anti-Christs and 
 stirred up the people against them. The sentence proved so 
 unpopular, even Winthrop signing a petition against it, that the court 
 went out of Boston and held its sittings at Newtown. 
 
 In May, 1637, the confusion was at its height. At the General Court 
 a quarrel arose upon the presentation of a petition from Boston. The 
 Court would not allow it to be read till after the usual election of 
 magistrates. Vane resisted, and refused with his supporters to take 
 pai-t ; but Winthrop, who was deputy, persisted in voting, and the elec- 
 tion resulted in restoring Winthrop and Dudley to power : Endicott 
 was made a magisti'ate for life; but all the adherents of Mrs. Hutchin- 
 son were left out. The excitement in Newtown was intense, and 
 people came into violent collision. " In the height of the fray, 
 Wilson climbed a tree and made a speech, the meeting being held in 
 the open air." J Winthrop was coldly received in Boston and subjected 
 to studied insults. 
 
 A synod of ministers and magistrates which was held in August at 
 Newtown, and condemned the opinions of Mrs. Hutchinson and Wheel- 
 
 1 Hutchinson. 
 
1634.] 
 
 TRIAL OF MRS. HUTCHINSON. 
 
 555 
 
 Hutch- 
 
 wright did not pacify dissension. The two parties were irreconcilable. 
 Now the General Court began to deal with the principal offenders : 
 some were disfranchised, Wheelwright was banished, and 
 eventually went to the Piscataqua. Mrs. Hutchinson was 
 brought to trial for not discontinuing her meetings at the brought to 
 order of the late synod. It is probable that the agitations tnal- 
 of the years had affected her temper and somewhat impaired her judg- 
 
 Trial of Mrs. Hutchinson. 
 
 ment. She was intemperate enough to claim to be inspired, and that 
 it had been revealed to her that she would come to New England to be 
 
556 NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 persecuted, but that God would ruin the colony for her sake. She nar- 
 rowly escaped procuring the verification of her own prediction, for her 
 quarrel of opinion rent the State when it divided the churches. So 
 intense was the feeling aixmsed against her, that it was believed the 
 Almighty testified His disapprobation of her heresies by pi-oducing 
 monstrous births among women who had accepted her teachings ; and 
 even she herself was suspected of having been the- subject of such a 
 Her banish- dispensation. The Court banished her, but considerately left 
 ment. ner ^ o s j- av ou j. ne bitter winter at a private house. Powder 
 
 and arms were carried out of Boston, and the principal disaffected 
 persons, to the number of seventy-six, were summoned to surrender 
 their arms, which they did. Mrs. Hutchinson then removed to Rhode 
 Island, and afterward to New York, where, as has already been told 
 in a previous chapter, she was killed some years after by the Indians. 1 
 
 One of the reasons which the General Court of Massachusetts had 
 given for not acceding to the requests for permission to remove to the 
 Connecticut Valley was the danger from the Indians. It was no 
 doubt sincere, and it certainly was not without reason. The Indians 
 were far more numerous in that part of the country than along the 
 sea-coast, where the epidemic of years before had more than decimated 
 them. They saw with jealousy and fear the whites intruding upon 
 their territory. With the Dutch hitherto they had kept upon good 
 terms, for the Dutch were traders only, and not settlers upon the 
 Connecticut. But the English were evidently coming with another 
 purpose than mere traffic, and the Indians were alarmed accordingly. 
 
 Aggressions were begun, continued, and grew more frequent. What 
 Indian bos- ^ ne Indians did we know ; what was done to them we do not 
 
 know. Sometimes they robbed the whites, and sometimes 
 they murdered them ; plunder, no doubt, was often their object ; 
 quite as often, perhaps, revenge. When, in 1634, they went on board 
 the schooner of a Captain Stone, somewhere near Fort Good Hope, 
 and murdered all hands, it was probably because there was much they 
 wanted to steal on board the vessel, just in from the West Indies. 
 But when, two years later, Captain Oldham met the same fate at their 
 hands, it is not in the least improbable that there may have been 
 some provocation which led to the deed. 
 
 John Oldham had been in New England from the first settlement 
 of Plymouth. After his ignominious expulsion from that colony, we 
 
 hear of his apparent restoration to favor among that people ; 
 john*oid r - of his attempts to found colonies of his own in Maine and 
 
 Boston harbor, so far, at least, as to procure patents to that 
 end; of his trading along the coast ; of his disputing with the Council 
 
 i Sec p. 457. 
 
1636.] 
 
 DEATH OF OLDHAM. 
 
 557 
 
 of the Massachusetts Bay Company their title to the lands which 
 they held under the hand and seal of the king. Restless, energetic, 
 always engaged in some enterprise, he certainly was ; and there is no 
 evidence that there was anything more amiss in him than belongs 
 almost inevitably to a man of violent temper, removed in a great de- 
 gree from the restraints of civilization, leading a life of adventure, 
 associating and trading with the Indians till he had acquired, perhaps, 
 as such men are apt to do, something of the habits and almost the 
 nature of an Indian. 
 
 In 1636 he was trading in a vessel of his own, along the Connecti- 
 cut River. What encounter there may have been between him and 
 the Indians, that led to the final catastrophe, is not known whether 
 his vessel was boarded by them merely for plunder, or whether some 
 aggression on his part provoked retaliation. But off Block Island, a 
 Massachusetts fisherman, John Gallop, descried the vessel drifting 
 
 >: ''^^'^ - 
 
 Recapture of Oldham's Vessel. 
 
 helplessly out to sea, crowded with Indians who could handle neither 
 helm nor sail. Gallop, who had only one man and two boys with him, 
 without hesitation attacked the vessel and then boarded her, assault- 
 ing the Indians with such weapons as he had at hand. It must have 
 been a gallant naval battle, for the brave fisherman and his brave 
 
658 NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 companions drove the Indians before them, some diving into the hold 
 for safety, some throwing themselves into the sea, till none were left 
 upon the vessel but the dying and the dead. Upon the deck lay the 
 body of Oldham, still bleeding from recent wounds where he had 
 fallen with his crew in defence of his vessel. 
 
 This death of Oldham was the signal for war. The government of 
 Massachusetts Bay, the people who had already come, and 
 
 Beginning " f \ . - 
 
 of the nrst the people who were coming into the Connecticut valley, saw 
 
 Indian War. r r . . . , 
 
 that peace with the requots was no longer to be purchased 
 by attempts at conciliation. Immediate measures were taken to punish 
 this outrage ; the Indians put themselves both on the defensive and 
 the offensive, and the colonies of New England were for the first time 
 engaged in serious war. 
 
 
 
TABLE OF DATES. 
 
 499. Chinese claim to American discovery. 
 
 860. Iceland discovered by Naddod, the Northman. 
 
 985. America seen by Bjarni Herjulfson. 
 
 1000. Leif, son of Eric the Red, discovers America. 
 
 1002. Thorvald the Northman; voyage to America. 
 
 1004. Thorvald's second voyage. 
 
 1005. Voyage of'Thorstein of Ericsfiord. 
 
 1007. Expedition of Thorfinn Karlsefne; sails for America. 
 
 Birth of Snorri, first European child born on this continent. 
 
 1011. Colony of Freydis, daughter of Eric the Red. 
 
 1170. Alleged discovery of America by the Welsh. 
 
 1380. Voyage of Nicolo Zeno, a Venetian. 
 
 1467. Christopher Columbus sails to Iceland. 
 
 1477. Reputed voyage of John of Rolno. 
 
 1483. Columbus leaves Portugal for Genoa. 
 
 1484. Alleged voyage of Alonzo Sanchez. 
 1488. Alleged voyage of Cousin of Dieppe. 
 
 1492. Fii st.voyage of Columbus ; Discovery of West Indies. 
 
 1497. John and Sebastian Cabot discover North America. 
 
 1498. Third voyage of Columbus ; he. discovers the continent of South America. 
 Second voyage of Sebastian Cabot. 
 
 1499. First voyage of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 1500. Gaspar Cortereal goes to Labrador. 
 
 1501. Second voyage of Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 1502. Voyage of Miguel Cortereal. 
 
 1504. Amerigo Vespucci's narrative published. 
 
 1506. Death of Christopher Columbus. 
 
 John Denys of Honfleur explores the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 
 
 1507. America named. 
 
 1512. Discovery of Florida by Juan Ponce de Leon. 
 
 1513. Pacific Ocean discovered by Vasco Nunez de Balboa. 
 
 1516. Voyage of Diego Mirnelo to Florida. 
 
 1517. Hernando de Cordova visits Florida. 
 
 1518. John de Grijalva goes to Florida. 
 Colony of Baron de Leri on Sable Island. 
 
 1519. Francis de Garay explores the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 1520. Lucas Vasquez De Ayllon's expedition to coasts of South Carolina. 
 
 1521. Death of Juan Ponce de Leon. 
 
 1522. A ship of Magellan's Expedition sails around the world. 
 
 VOL. J. 
 
560 TABLE OF DATES. 
 
 -- 
 
 1524. Council of Badajos held to settle claims of Spain and Portugal to America, 
 First French expedition to America under Giovanni da Verrazano. 
 
 1525. Stephen Gomez sails along the Atlantic coast. 
 
 1527. Expedition of John Rut sails from England. 
 
 1528. Pamphilo de Narvaez lands in Florida. 
 
 1534. Jacques Cartier of France sails to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 
 
 1 535. Second voyage of Jacques Cartier. 
 
 1536. Voyage from London commanded by Captain Hore. 
 
 1539. Fernando De Soto lands in Florida. 
 
 1540. Jean Francois de la Roque, Seigneur de Roberval, secures a patent from 
 
 Francis I. 
 
 1541. Jacques Cartier sails on a third voyage. 
 The Mississippi River discovered. 
 
 1542. Death of Fernando de Soto. 
 Voyage of Roberval. 
 
 1543. Return of De Solo's Expedition. 
 1553. Expedition of Sir Hugh Willoughby. 
 1555. Death of Jacques Cartier. 
 
 Huguenot Colony in Brazil. 
 
 1559. Expedition of Don Tristan de Luna. 
 1562. Admiral Coligny's first colony sent to Florida under John Ribault. 
 
 1564. Second Expedition of Coligny under Rene de Laudonniere. 
 
 15C5. Second arrival of Ribault in Florida. 
 
 Massacre of Ribault and his companions by Pedro Menendez. 
 1565. Founding of St. Augustine. 
 
 1568. Attack of Dominique de Gourgues on the Spanish forts. 
 
 1570. Colony of Pedro Menendez landed on the Potomac. 
 
 1574. Death of Pedro Menendez. 
 
 1576. First voyage of Martin Frobisher in search of a Northwest passage; dis- 
 
 covers straits since called by his name. 
 
 1577. Second voyage of Martin Frobisher. 
 1578. Third voyage of Martin Frobisher. 
 
 Sir Humphrey Gilbert receives his first charter for American dis- 
 covery. 
 
 1579. The Union of Utrecht formed. 
 
 1581. The Republic of the United Netherlands established. 
 1583. Sir Humphrey Gilbert sails on his American voyage. 
 1584. Sir Walter Raleigh receives his first patent. 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh's first expedition under Amadas and Barlow. 
 
 1585. Raleigh's second expedition under Sir Richard Greenville. 
 1585-6-7. Voyages of John Davis in search of a Northwest passage. 
 
 1586. Sir Francis Drake attacks St. Augustine, Florida. 
 
 Sir Francis Drake succors Raleigh's colonists in Virginia. 
 1587. Raleigh's colony under Mr. John "White. 
 
 Birth of Virginia Dare. 
 1590. White's second arrival in Virginia. 
 1594. Willem Barentz explores Nova Zembla. 
 
 1598. Marquis de la Roche secures a patent from Henry IV. of France. 
 1602. Voyage of Samuel Mace to Virginia. 
 
 Captain Bartholomew Gosnold begins a settlement on Elizabeth 
 [Cuttyhunk] Island. 
 
TABLE OF DATES. 
 
 561 
 
 Dutch East India Company formed. 
 
 1603. First voyage of Samuel Champlain to America. 
 Martin Pring explores coast of Maine. 
 
 Voyage and death of Bartholomew Gilbert. 
 
 1604. French patent of Acadia granted to De Monts. 
 
 De Monts and Champlain establish a colony in the present limits 
 
 of Maine. 
 1605. Voyage of George Weymouth to the coasts of Maine. 
 
 1606. Patent granted to the Virginia Companies. 
 
 First permanent colony of English set sail for America. 
 
 1607. First permanent settlement of Virginia at Jamestown. 
 Colony sent to Maine by Chief Justice Fopham. 
 Henry Hudson attempts the Northeast passage. 
 
 1608. Founding of Quebec by Samuel de Champlain. 
 
 1609. Second Charter granted to the Virginia Company. 
 The Discovery of Lake Champlain. 
 
 Voyage of Henry Hudson to America. Discovery of the river 
 named for him. 
 
 1610. Arrival of Lord de la Warre in Virginia. 
 
 1611. Sir Thomas Dale, Governor of Virginia. 
 
 1612. Third charter granted to the Virginia Company. 
 
 1613. Settlement of Jesuits on Mount Desert Island. 
 
 1613-14. Captain Samuel Argall breaks up the French settlements in Maine and 
 
 Acadia. 
 
 1614. The New Netherland Company receives its charter. 
 Captain John Smith explores New Englaud. 
 
 Expedition sent by Ferdinando Gorges and Earl of Southampton. 
 1615. Adriaen Block explores Long Island Sound. 
 
 1618. Expiration of the first New Netherland charter. 
 Ferdinando Gorges sends Captain Rocroft to New England. 
 
 1619. First cargo of slaves brought to Jamestown. 
 
 First legislative assembly of Virginia meets in Jamestown. 
 
 1620. The Pilgrims sail from Delft Haven. 
 New charter of the Plymouth Company. 
 
 1621. The Pilgrims settle at Plymouth. 
 
 Nova Scotia granted to Sir William Alexander. 
 The Dutch West India Company incorporated. 
 John Peirce's first patent from the Plymouth Company. 
 
 1622. The Dutch West India Company takes formal possession of New Nether- 
 land. 
 
 Weston's colony established at Wessagusset. 
 The Massacre in Virginia, under Opechancanough. 
 1623. The Laconia Grant to Gorges and Mason. 
 
 Settlement of New Hampshire at Portsmouth and Dover. 
 Robert Gorges made Governor-general under the Plymouth Company. 
 John Pierce's second patent. 
 The Lyford and Oldham difficulty at Plymouth. 
 1625. Permanent settlements in Maine begun under Aid-worth and El- 
 
 dridge. 
 1629. The Massachusetts Bay Company founded. 
 
 Issue of the Charter of Privileges and Exemptions by the Dutch 
 West India Company. 
 
562 TABLE OF DATES. 
 
 Lord Baltimore visits Jamestown. 
 1630. Settlement of Boston and neighboring towns. 
 
 John Winthrop, Governor of Massachusetts Bay. 
 
 Oldham and Vines found Biddeford and Saco in Maine. 
 
 Kiliaen van Rensselaer buys Rensselaerswyek. 
 
 Godyn and Blommaert buy land on the Delaware. Pauw buys Pavonia. 
 1631. Gorges and Mason divide the Laconia grant. 
 
 New Hampshire named by Mason. 
 
 Arrival of Roger Williams at Boston. 
 
 Swaanendael founded by Heyes for De Vries. 
 1632. Maryland granted to Lord Baltimore. 
 
 Dutch traders on the Connecticut. 
 
 1633. The Dutch buy lands on the Schuylkill and on the Connecticut. Fort 
 Good Hope founded. 
 
 Plymouth trading-house on the Connecticut. 
 
 1634. Settlement of Maryland. 
 
 Charter granted to the Swedish West India Company. 
 
 1635. Permanent settlement of Connecticut by emigrants from Massa- 
 
 chusetts Bay. 
 
 The Plymouth Company resign their Patent. 
 Hostilities between Maryland and Virginia. 
 
 1636. Providence founded by Roger Williams. 
 
 1637. Climax of the dissensions excited at Boston by Anne Hutchinson. 
 
 Swedish colonists sail from Gottenburg for America. 
 1638. New Netherland opened to general trade and settlement. 
 
 The Swedes settle in Delaware at Minqua's Kill (near Wilmington). 
 1639. De Vries colonizes Staten Ishind. 
 
 1641. The Raritan Indians destroy De Vries's settlement on Staten Island. 
 Hollaendare, Governor of the Swedes. 
 
 1642. Hostilities between the Maryland settlers and the Susquehannah Indians. 
 
 1643. Massacre of Indians at Pavonia by the Dutch. Indian war. 
 Murder of Anne Hutchinson by the Indians. 
 
 John Printz, Governor of the Swedish Colony. 
 
 1644. Underbill's expedition, in the service of the Dutch, against the Connecti- 
 
 cut Indians. 
 
 Clayborne and Ingle's insurrection in Maryland. 
 1647. Death of Leonard Calvert. 
 
 
i 
 

 L I B RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N IVLRSITY 
 OF ILLI NOIS 
 
 PRLSLNTLD BY 
 
 Miss Ethel Ricker 
 
 from the 
 
 Litrary of her Father 
 Nathan Clifford Ricker 
 Head of the Department of 
 Architecture, 1873-1911 
 
 973 
 B84p 
 
 Y- 
 
 
 - 
 
SCRIBNER'S 
 
 POPULAR HISTORY OF 
 THE UNITED STATES 
 

 / 
 
 / 
 

 
 
 
 
 - 
 
SCRIBNER'S 
 
 POPULAR HISTORY OF 
 THE UNITED STATES 
 
 FROM THE EARLIEST DISCOVERIES OF THE WESTERN 
 HEMISPHERE BY THE NORTHMEN TO THE PRESENT TIME 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 
 
 SIDNEY HOWARD GAY 
 
 NOAH BROOKS 
 
 WITH MORE THAN SIXTEEN HUNDRED 
 ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS 
 
 VOLUME II 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1896 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1876, BY 
 SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1881, 1896, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 RIGHT OF TRANSLATION RESERVED 
 
 Press of J. J. Little & Co. 
 Astor Place, New York 
 
773 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 
 
 THE PEQUOT WAR. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 HOSTILITIES BEFORE THE WAR. ENDICOTT'S EXPEDITION TO BLOCK ISLAND. 
 ITS SUCCESS. INDIANS OF THE MAIN LAND ATTACKED- RETALIATION ON 
 THE ENGLISH PLANTATIONS. A GENERAL WAR KESOLVED ON. MASON'S 
 EXPEDITION. REDUCTION OF THE PEQUOT FORT. RESULTS OF THE SUM- 
 MER'S WORK. EXTINCTION OF THE PEQUOT TRIBE. CHARACTER OF THE 
 INDIANS. RELIGIOUS BELIEF AND MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL QUALITIES. 
 INFLUENCE OF THE PEQUOT WAR UPON THE GROWTH AND PROSPERITY OF 
 THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 THE TOWNS OF THE CONNECTICUT RIVER. PREPARATORY GOVERNMENT. 
 THE FIRST CONSTITUTION AND THE EARLIEST GOVERNORS. CIVIL AND 
 SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE FIRST SETTLERS. NECESSITY OF STRINGENT 
 RULE. CHARACTER OF EARLY LEGISLATION. ANOTHER EMIGRATION FROM 
 BOSTON. NEW HAVEN AND ITS CHURCH OF SEVEN PILLARS. ESTABLISH- 
 MKNT OF OTHER TOWNS AND CHURCHES. DUTCH AND ENGLISH BOUNDARIES. 
 DIFFERENCE OF PURPOSE IN THE Two CLASSES OF SETTLERS. ENGLISH 
 DIPLOMACY AT HOME. ENGLISH INTRUSION UPON LONG ISLAND. CHAR- 
 ACTER OF THE PEOPLE OF CONNECTICUT. SETTLEMENT OF RHODE ISLAND. 
 ROGER WILLIAMS 's COLONY AND ITS GOVERNMENT. HEATED CONTROVERSY IN 
 MASSACHUSETTS. SEVERITY OF THE RULING PARTY. TREATMENT OF THE 
 ANTINOMIANS. SETTLEMENT OF RHODE ISLAND AT ACQUIDNECK (PORTS- 
 MOUTH). CODDINGTON CHOSEN CHIEF JUDGE. DlSCORDS IN THE NEW 
 
 COLONY. THE HUTCHINSONS AT ACQUIDNECK. HOSTILITY OF MASSACHU- 
 SETTS TO ACQUIDNECK. CODDINGTON'S PROPOSED ALLIANCE OF THE COL- 
 ONIES. THE NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. AGAMENTICUS AND ACQUID- 
 NECK EXCLUDED 22 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE BOSTON PURITANS. 
 
 ROGER WILLIAMS AND LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. BOSTON PURITANISM. ITS 
 BIGOTRY. THE BELIEF IN A SPECIAL DIVINE PROTECTION. SPECIAL PROV- 
 IDENCES. PURITAN INTERPRETATION OF DISASTERS AND MISFORTUNES. 
 POPULAR APPREHENSION OF LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. EARLY LAWS OF THE 
 PURITANS. REGULATION OF DRESS AND CUSTOMS. PATERNAL CHARACTER 
 OF THE GOVERNMENT. RELATIONS OF THE SEXES. LAWS AGAINST LYING 
 AND BLASPHEMY. PUNISHMENTS. PURITAN SPIRIT AND ITS RESULTS IN 
 PRACTICE. SAMUEL GOKTON. His ACTION AT BOSTON AND AT PLYMOUTH, 
 AND HIS BANISHMENT. GORTON AND HIS COMPANIONS AT ACQUIDNECK AND 
 PAWTUXET. THK ATTEMPT TO SEIZE WKSTON'S CATTLE. INTERFERENCE 
 OF MASSACHUSETTS. ARBITRARY COURSE OF THE BOSTON MAGISTRATES. 
 GORTON AT SHAWOMET. His LETTER . ... 
 
 51 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE SHAWOMET PEOPLE AND THEIR INDIAN FRIENDS. 
 
 PURCHASE OF LANDS AT SHAWOMET. PROTEST OF TWO INDIAN CHIEFS, PUM- 
 HAM AND SACONONOCO. SHAWOMET PEOPLE SUMMONED TO BOSTON. COM- 
 MISSIONERS APPOINTED TO VISIT THEM. THREATS AND PREPARATIONS FOR 
 
 RESISTANCE. FLIGHT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN. THE MEN BF.SIEGED. 
 NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. A HOLLOW TRUCE. THE MEN TAKEN PRISON- 
 ERS AND CARRIED TO BOSTON. THEIR TRIAL AND PUNISHMENT. THEIR 
 
 RELEASE AND RETURN TO RHODE ISLAND. APPREHENDED TROUBLE WITH 
 THE INDIANS. CHARGES AGAINST MIANTONOMO. FEUD BETWEEN THE 
 MOHICANS AND NARRAGANSETTS. UNCAS BEFRIENDED BY THE COMMISSION- 
 ERS OF THE UNITED COLONIES. CAPTURE OF MIANTONOMO BY UNCAS. 
 His ASSASSINATION BY DIRECTION OF THE ENGLISH. 77 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS. 
 
 THE SHAWOMET CONTROVERSY TAKEN TO ENGLAND. DECIDED IN FAVOR OF 
 GORTON AND HIS ASSOCIATES. CHARTER GRANTED TO PROVIDENCE PLANTA- 
 TIONS. CIVIL LIBERTY AND RELIGIOUS TOLERATION PROVIDED FOR. VISIT 
 OF CLARK, HOLMES, AND CRANDALL TO BOSTON. PUNISHED FOR HOLDING 
 AND PREACHING HETERODOX OPINIONS. DISSENSIONS IN RHODE ISLAND. 
 CODDINGTON APPOINTED GOVERNOR FOR LlFE. THE CHARTER GRANTED BY 
 CHARLES II. ITS CHARACTER AND HISTORICAL INTEREST 97 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 NEW NETHERLAND UNDER PETER STUYVESANT. 
 
 STUYVESANT'S ARRIVAL AT MANHATTAN. HOPEFUL RECEPTION BY THE CITI- 
 ZENS. HE BEFRIENDS EX-GOVERNOR KlEFT. ARREST AND TRIAL OF KUYTER 
 
 AND MELYN. THEIR BANISHMENT AND DEPARTURE WITH KIEFT. WRECK 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 
 OF THE PRINCESS. DIFFICULTIES WITH NEW ENGLAND. SEIZURE OF THE 
 ST. BENINIO. THE CONSEQUENT QUARREL WITH NEW HAVEN. CONTROVERSY 
 WITH THE COMMISSARY OF RENNSELAEHSWVCK. DISCONTENT OF THE PEOPLE. 
 APPEAL OF THE CITIZENS TO HOLLAND. MELYN'S RETURN. REVERSAL OF 
 HIS SENTENCE. THE REMONSTRANCE FORWARDED TO THE STATES-GENERAL. 
 VAN DEB DONCK AND THE DELEGATES AT THE HAGUE. STUYVESANT's CON- 
 TINUED ARROGANCE 115 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE DUTCH AND THEIR NEIGHBORS. 
 
 THE HABTFORD BOUNDARY TREATY OF 1650. ACTION OF THE STATES-GENERAL 
 ON THE NEW NETHERLAND REMONSTRANCE. NEW ENGLAND TROUBLES. 
 STUYVESANT ACCUSED OF CONSPIRING WITH THE INDIANS AGAINST THE ENG- 
 LISH. JOHN UNDERHILL IN THE FIELD. POPULAR DISCONTENTS AT NEW 
 AMSTERDAM AND ON LONG ISLAND. CONVENTION OF THE TOWNS. A RE- 
 NEWED APPEAL TO HOLLAND. ENGLISH FEELING ON LONG ISLAND. HOSTILE 
 PREPARATIONS IN CONNECTICUT. NEW ENGLAND ASKS AID FROM THE PRO- 
 TECTOR AGAINST THE DUTCH. AN APPROACHING CONFLICT PREVENTED BY THE 
 TREATY OF PEACE IN EUROPE. UNFAVORABLE REPLY TO THE CONVENTION'S 
 APPEAL. NEW SWEDEN ON THE DELAWARE. CONTESTS BETWEEN THE DUTCH 
 AND THE SWEDES. STUYVESANT VISITS THE SOUTH RIVER. FORT NASSAU 
 ABANDONED AND FORT C.VSIMIR BUILT BY THE DUTCH. GOVERNOR PfilNTZ 
 BETIRES. FORT CASIMIR TAKEN BY THE SWEDES. RETAKEN BY THE DUTCH. 
 DIVISION OF THE COLONY BETWEEN THE W. I. COMPANY AND THE CITY OF 
 AMSTERDAM. LIMITS OF NEW AMSTEL. DISASTERS AND DISSENSIONS . . . 137 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 QUAKERISM IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS IN ENGLAND. GEORGE Fox. His LIFE, 
 CHARACTER, AND TEACHINGS. BELIEFS OF THE FRIENDS. THEIR MANNER 
 OF LIFE AND SPEECH. THE FRIENDS AND THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 
 ORIGIN OF NAME " QUAKERS." ARRIVAL OF THE FIRST FRIENDS AT BOSTON. 
 ACTION OF THE BOSTON MAGISTRATES. THE PERSECUTION OF THE QUAKERS 
 BEGUN. ACCESSIONS TO THEIR NUMBER. THE FlRST GENERAL LAWS AGAINST 
 THEM. REFUSAL OF RHODE ISLAND TO JOIN IN THIS LEGISLATION. MARY 
 DYER. BANISHED FRIENDS RETURN TO BOSTON. INCREASED STRINGENCY OF 
 THE LAWS. PROCEEDINGS AT NEW HAVEN AND ELSEWHERE. THE DEATH 
 PENALTY IN MASSACHUSETTS. CASES OF PERSECUTION. MARY DYER AND 
 HER COMPANIONS AT BOSTON. THEIR TRIAL AND PUNISHMENT. OTHER 
 TRIALS. INTERFERENCE OF THE KING. END OF THE PERSECUTIONS . 165 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND UNDER THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 RETURN OF SIR JOHN HARVEY TO VIRGINIA. His NEW ADMINISTRATION. 
 SUCCEEDED BY WYAT. SIR WILLIAM BERKELEY APPOINTED GOVERNOR. 
 THE PURITANS AND ROYALISTS OF VIRGINIA. LAWS AGAINST THE FORMER. 
 

 
 via 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 INDIAN INSURRECTION IN 1643. DEATH OF OPECHANCANOUGH. GROWTH OF 
 THE COLONY. EMIGRATION OF CAVALIERS TO AMERICA. SURRENDER OF 
 VIRGINIA TO THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONERS. REDUCTION OF MARY- 
 LAND. CHARACTER AND CAREER OF WILLIAM CLAYBORNE ATTEMPTS OF 
 LORD BALTIMORE TO RETAIN MARYLAND. GOVERNOR STONE'S PROCEEDINGS. 
 FIGHT ON THE SEVERN. THE CONTROVERSY ENDED. RESTORATION OF 
 BERKELEY IN VIRGINIA. NEW LAWS UNDER THE ROYAL GOVERNMENT. 
 SLAVERY. THE TOBACCO TRADE AND THE NAVIGATION ACT. NORTHERN 
 AND SOUTHERN INTERESTS . 200 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE LATTER YEARS OF NEW NETHERLAND. 
 
 NEW AMSTERDAM INVADED BY INDIANS. DESTRUCTION OF PAVONIA. MAS- 
 SACRE AND DEVASTATION ELSEWHERE. JUDICIOUS POLICY OF THE DIRECTOR. 
 
 CONTRAST IN FRENCH AND DUTCH TREATMENT OF THE NATIVES. THE 
 RESULT. THE ESOPUS WAR. STUYVESANT'S DETERMINATION TO ESTABLISH 
 RELIGIOUS UNIFORMITY. PERSECUTION OF THE LUTHERANS AND QUAKERS. 
 INDIFFERENCE OF THE DUTCH TO RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. STUYVESANT 
 REBUKED BY THE AMSTERDAM CHAMBER. CRUEL PUNISHMENT OF A QUAKER. 
 
 BANISHMENT OF JOHN BOWNE AND HIS TRIUMPHANT RETURN FROM HOL- 
 LAND. GROWTH OF NEW NETHERLAND . . 229 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE SURRENDER OF NEW NETHERLAND. 
 
 ENCROACHMENTS OF THE ENGLISH. THE SOUTH RIVER COLONY. LORD BAL- 
 TIMORE'S CLAIM, AND CONTROVERSY WITH MARYLAND. A NEW PATENT 
 GRANTED TO CONNECTICUT. DISSATISFACTION OF NEW HAVEN. OTHER 
 ENGLISH TOWNS ACCEPT THE PROTECTION OF CONNECTICUT. CONFEDERACY 
 OF LONG ISLAND TOWNS UNDER JOHN SCOTT. His ATTEMPTS TO COERCE 
 THE DUTCH. NEW NETHERLAND AND PART OF NEW ENGLAND GRANTED TO 
 THE DUKE OF YORK. THE NICOLLS COMMISSION. NEW NETHERLAND 
 INVADED. ITS SURRENDER. NICOLLS PROCLAIMED GOVERNOR. CHANGE OF 
 NAMES. NEW AMSTEL TAKEN BY THE ENGLISH 247 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE CAROLJNAS. 
 
 THE CAROLINA PATENTS OP 1663 AND 1665. THE PATENTEES. EARLIER 
 GRANTS AND PROJECTED SETTLEMENTS. FIRST SETTLERS ON ALBEMARLE 
 SOUND. NEW ENGLAND MEN AT THE MOUTH OF CAPE FEAR RIVER. THE 
 COLONY UNDER YEAMANS. ORGANIZATION OF THE ALBEMARI.E COLONY. 
 LOCKE'S "FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONS." INDEPENDENT LEGISLATION AT 
 ALBEMARLE. GOVERNORS AND PROGRESS OF THE CAPE FEAR SETTLEMENT. 
 JOSEPH WEST. DISSENSIONS IN THE NORTH UNDER CARTERET AND MILLER. 
 THE PASQUOTANK INSURRECTION. GOVERNOR SOTHELL 268 
 
CONTENTS. lx 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 VIRGINIA UNDER BERKELEY. 
 
 CONDITION OF VIRGINIA IN 1670. ABUSES AND POPULAR GRIEVANCES. THE 
 GRANT TO ARLINGTON AND CULPEPPER. INDIAN HOSTILITIES AND THEIR 
 RESULTS. INEFFICIENCY OF BERKELEY. INDIGNATION OF THE COLONISTS. 
 NATHANIEL BACON TAKES THE FIELD IN DEFIANCE OF THE GOVERNOR. His 
 INDIAN CAMPAIGN. BERKELEY PROCLAIMS HIM A REBEL. POPULAR UPRIS- 
 1NG . CONCESSIONS FORCED FROM THE GOVERNOR. BACON'S ARREST, SUBMIS- 
 SION, AND ESCAPE. HE CAPTURES JAMESTOWN. SECOND INDIAN CAMPAIGN. 
 RENEWED ATTEMPTS OF BERKELEY TO SUPPRESS THE POPULAR MOVEMENT. 
 BACON'S RETURN. HE SEIZES THE GOVERNMENT. FLIGHT OF BERKELEY. 
 THE CONVENTION. AIMS OF THE BACON PARTY. REVIVING FORTUNES OF 
 THE DEPOSED GOVERNOR. BACON AGAIN CAPTURES AND BURNS THE CAPITAL. 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BACON. CLOSE OF THE REBELLION. PUNISHMENT 
 OF THE REBELS. ARRIVAL OF ENGLISH COMMISSIONERS. RECALL AND 
 DEATH OF BERKELEY ...................... 290 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 QUIET BEGINNING OF THE ENGLISH RULE. THE ADMINISTRATION OFNICOLLS. 
 THE NEW JERSEY GRANT. ARRIVAL OF CARTERET. SETTLEMENT OF NEW- 
 ARK AND ELIZABETH. THE CONNECTICUT BOUNDARY. THE NAMES AND 
 DIVISIONS OK THE PROVINCE. THE "DUKE'S LAWS." ENGLISH OFFICIALS. 
 
 THE WAR BETWEEN ENGLAND AND THE NETHERLANDS. DISCONTENT IN 
 LONG ISLAND. NEW YORK AND CANADA. THE FRENCH AND THE MOHAWKS. 
 
 THE PEACE OF BREDA. ADMINISTRATION OF LOVELACE. PROGRESS OF 
 THE PROVINCE. THE TOWN OF NEW YORK. RENEWED WAR IN EUROPE. 
 THE RE-CONQUEST OF NEW NETHERLAND. COLVE'S ADMINISTRATION. NEW 
 NETHERLAND CEDED TO ENGLAND BY THE PEACE OF WESTMINSTER .... 319 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 CHARLESTON FOUNDED. WAR WITH THE INDIANS. GOVERNOR MORETON. 
 JOSEPH BLAKE. LORD CARDROSS'S SETTLEMENT AT PORT ROYAL. PIRACY 
 AND SPANISH HOSTILITY. CARDROSS'S COLONY DESTROYED. SOTHEL DEPOSED 
 AND BANISHED FROM A I.I'.KM AKI.K. HE LEADS A REVOLUTION IN THE SOUTH. 
 His CAREER. THE COLONIES UNDER ONE GOVERNOR. INTRODUCTION OF 
 RICE. JOHN ARCHDALE GOVERNOR. PROSPERITY OF THE COLONIES UNDER 
 HIS RULE ... . 355 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE POLITICAL POLICY OF THE PURITANS. 
 
 THE FIRST MASSACHUSETTS CHARTER. TEMPORIZING POLICY OF THE COLO- 
 NIAL AUTHORITIES. THE GOVERNMENT AT HOME BAFFLED. REVOLUTION IN 
 ENGLAND. THE LONG PARLIAMENT AND THE NEW ENGLAND PURITANS. 
 APPEAL TO CROMWELL. His SCHEMES. THE REGICIDES. CHARLES IL 
 AND THE CHARTER. THE ROYAL COMMISSIONERS. NEW DANGERS TO MAS- 
 SACHUSETTS. EDWARD RANDOLPH. THE CHARTER REVOKED. GOVERNOR 
 ANDROS'S ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT. CONCEALMENT OF THE CONNECTICUT 
 CHARTER. DEPOSITION AND ARREST OF ANDROS. COURSE OF KING WILLIAM. 
 A NEW CHARTER. GOVERNOR PHIPS. EXPEDITION AGAINST CANADA. 
 OPPOSITION TO PHIPS. His RECALL. ... . 373 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 PHILIP'S WAR. 
 
 OUTBREAK OF PHILIP'S WAR. ITS CAUSES. PHILIP'S EARLIER RELATIONS 
 WITH THE ENGLISH. INDIAN ATTACKS AT SWANSEA, TAUNTON, AND ELSE- 
 WHERE. WILLIAM BLACKSTONE. THE FIGHTS AT BROOKFIELD AND HADLEY. 
 THE AMBUSH AT BLOODY BROOK. EXPEDITION INTO THE NARRAGANSETT 
 COUNTRY. THE SURPRISE AT TURNER'S FALLS. PHILIP ATTACKED AND 
 KILLED NEAR MOUNT HOPE 401 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE MAINE AND NEW HAMPSHIRE SETTLERS. KITTERY 
 GORGEANA. THE NORTHERN COLONIES ABSORBED BY MASSACHUSETTS. 
 EARLY NEW HAMPSHIRE CHURCHES. THE ISLES OF SHOALS. HISTORY OF 
 MASON'S NEW HAMPSHIRE GRANT. THE CLAIMS OF HIS HEIRS RESISTED. 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE GOVERNORS. INDIAN HOSTILITIES. ATTACKS AT SACO, 
 BERWICK, AND ELSEWHERE. THE TREATY AT CASCO. WAR RENEWED. 
 DOVER ATTACKED. MURDER OF WALDRON. CLOSE OF THE WAR .... 419 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION. 
 
 OUTBREAK OF THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION. ITS EARLIER HISTORY. CAUSES 
 OF THE EXCITEMENT IN NEW ENGLAND. WITCHCRAFT CASES IN SALEM. 
 SAMUEL PARRIS. THE EARLIER TRIALS. RETURN OF PHIPS. A SPECIAL 
 COURT CREATED FOR WITCHCRAFT CASES. FURTHER PROSECUTIONS. EX- 
 POSURE AND END OF THB DELUSION. WITCHCRAFT IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 THE BELIEF FINDS FEW ADHERENTS OUTSIDE MASSACHUSETTS. "STONE- 
 THROWING " AT GREAT ISLAND. THE CASE OF STEPHEN BURROUGHS . . . 450 
 
CONTENTS. xi 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 COLONIZATION BY FRIENDS. 
 
 PROGRESS OF NEW JERSEY. INSURRECTION UNDER JAMES CARTERET. CHANGES 
 IN THE NEW JERSEY TITLES. THE " QUINTIPARTITE DEED." DIVISION INTO 
 EAST AND WEST JERSEY. PROSPERITY or WEST JERSEY UNDER QUAKER 
 ROLE. CONFLICTS OF JURISDICTION. THE QUAKERS BUY EAST JERSEY. 
 EARLIEST CONNECTION OF WILLIAM PENN WITH AMERICAN COLONIZATION.- 
 LIFE AND CHARACTER OF PENN. THE GRANT OF PENNSYLVANIA. EARLY 
 SETTLERS. PENN IN AMERICA. PHILADELPHIA FOUNDED. THE TREATY AT 
 SHACKAMAXON. PENN'S RETURN TO ENGLAND. PROGRESS OF THE COLONY. 
 PENN AGAIN AT PHILADELPHIA 472 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
 
 THE EXPLORATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE SETTLEMENT OF LOUISIANA. 
 FRENCH MISSIONARIES AND HUNTERS. DISCOVERY OF OHIO, INDIANA, AND 
 OTHER NORTHWESTERN STATES. THE POLICY OF COLBERT AND TALON. 
 DISCOVERY OF THE UPPER LAKES. CONGRESS OF NATIVE TRIBES AT MACKI- 
 NAC. MARQUETTE AND JOLIET SAIL FOR THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSIS- 
 SIPPI. FRENCH COLONY OF 1699. D'!BERVILLE AND HIS BROTHERS. 
 BILOXI AND POVERTY POINT. WAR OF SUCCESSION. PENSACOLA. MINES. 
 
 CROZAT'S GRANT . . 499 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. 
 
 JOHN LAW. THE REGENT ORLEANS. LAW'S BANK. THE WESTERN COMPAHT. 
 
 RENEWED EMIGRATION. THE INDIAN COMPANY. SPANISH WAR. NEW 
 ESTABLISHMENTS. FAILURE OF LAW'S PLANS. RUIN OF SPECULATORS. 
 MISSIONS IN LOUISIANA. THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS. ESTABLISHMENT AT 
 NATCHEZ. RELATIONS WITH THE INDIANS. CUSTOMS OF THE NATCHEZ. 
 CHOPART'S FOLLY. ITS RESULTS. CAMPAIGNS AGAINST THE NATCHEZ AND 
 CHICKASAWS. BIENVILLE RE-APPOINTED. His ILL-SUCCESS AS A MILITARY 
 LEADER. VAUDREUIL AND KERLEREC . 527 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 
 
 SPANISH COLONIZATION. 
 
 SPANISH FOOTHOLD IN THE UNITED STATES. SUCCESSIVE ACQUISITIONS BY 
 THE UNITED STATES. THE FORTUNES OF FLORIDA. BORDER WARS WITH 
 CAROLINA AND GEORGIA. OGLETHORPE'S EXPEDITIONS. FLORIDA CEDED TO 
 ENGLAND. ITS POPULATION. DISCOVERY OF CALIFORNIA. ORIGIN OF THE 
 NAME. ROMANCE OF ESPLANDIAN. FATHER N^A'S PRETENDED DISCOV- 
 ERIES. CORONADO'S EXPLORATION IN ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO. DRAKE 
 IN CALIFORNIA. His RECEPTION BY THE INDIANS. LOCALITIES OF HIS 
 DISCOVERIES . 553 
 

 xii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 SPANISH EXLOKATIONS AND COLONIZATION. 
 
 FATHER AUGUSTIN lluvz. Rio DEL NORTE. CUNAMES. ACOMA. ZUNI OK 
 CIBOLA. JUAN DE ONATE. EL PASO. "EL MORO." INSCRIPTIONS. Vis- 
 CAINO. EUSEBIO FRANCISCO KINO. SALVATIERRA. ARIZONA. PABLO 
 QUIHUE. FATHER AUGUSTIN DE CAMPOS. EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS. 
 LA SALLE. DE LEON. ST. DENIS. DON MARTIN D'ALARCORNE. TEXAS . 
 
 578 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, VOLUME II. 
 
 STEEL PLATE. 
 Title. To face 
 
 PORTRAIT OF PETER STUYVESANT Title 
 
 From the original painting in possession of Van Jtensselaer Stuyvesant, Esq. 
 
 FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 Title. 
 THE MURDER OF LA SALLE 
 
 Engraver. 
 
 Hildibrand 
 
 To face 
 page 
 
 1 
 
 Designer. 
 
 . . . E. Bayard 
 ATTACK ON THE PEQUOT FORT 12 
 
 Foe-simile of a drawing in Captain Underhilfs " Newesfrom New England." 
 THE FIRST SDNDAT AT NEW HAVEN . A. C. Warren . Smithwick& French 28 
 VIEW IN NARRAGANSETT BAT, NEAR THE 
 
 ENTRANCE OF NEWPORT HARBOR . . W. T. Richards . John Dalziel . . 100 
 THE CAPES OF THE DELAWARE . . . F. B. Schell . . A.V. S. Anthony 152 
 THE SURRENDER OF JAMESTOWN . . . A. R. Waud . . A.V. S. Anthony 211 
 THE SURRENDER OF NEW AMSTERDAM . A. Fredericks . A. Bobbett . . 266 
 THE LANDING OF CARTEHET IN NEW 
 
 JERSEY E. A. Abbey . R. Varley . . 321 
 
 HILTON HEAD, AT THE ENTRANCE TO 
 
 PORT ROYAL T. Moran . . . J. A. Bogert . . 360 
 
 THE DEPOSITION OF ANDROS . . . . C. S. Reinhart . A. Bobbett . . 393 
 
 THE DEATH OF PHILIP J. E. Kelly . . F. Juengling . 418 
 
 THE MURDER OF MAJOR WALDRON . . Walter Shirlaw . J. P. Davis . 445 
 
XIV 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM PENN AT THE AGE OF FIFTY-TWO 
 
 From the National Museum's copy by Francis Place. 
 THE FALLS OF NIAGARA Meeder & Chubb 
 
 Foe-simile from the old print in " Hennepin's Voyages.' 1 ' 1 
 JESUIT MISSIONARIES IN CALIFORNIA . W. M. Gary . . F. Juengling . 
 
 To face 
 page 
 
 . 486 
 
 510 
 
 588 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT. 
 
 Title. 
 
 Designer. 
 Hosier . 
 
 Engraver. 
 Varley . 
 
 Page. 
 
 1 
 
 A. C. Warren . Snrithwick & Fr. 
 
 Anthony . 
 
 8 
 
 Meeder & Chubb . 10 
 
 SITE OF THE GREAT PEQUOT FORT 
 From an original sketch for this work. 
 
 GOVERNOR ENDICOTT LANDING ON 
 
 BLOCK ISLAND A. R. Waud . . Anthony . 
 
 NEW LONDON " . . McCracken 
 
 From an original sketch for this work. 
 
 THE CAPTIVE MAIDENS 
 
 ROGER WILLIAMS GOING TO THE SA- 
 CHEM'S HOUSE A. R. Waud 
 
 SITE OF THE NARRAGANSETT FORT 
 
 AT FORT NECK T. Moran . 
 
 From an original sketch for this work. 
 
 PORTER'S ROCKS " ... Boert 11 
 
 O 
 
 From an original sketch for this work. 
 
 ATTACK ON THE PEQUOT FORT . . Sheppard . . . McCracken ... 13 
 SACHEM'S HEAD T. Moran . . . Anthony .... 15 
 
 From an original sketch for this work. 
 
 SlGXATURF. OF JOHN MASON 21 
 
 From an autograph in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections. 
 SIGNATURE OF JOHN HAYNES 23 
 
 From the signature to a letter in the " Winthrop Papers, 1 ' re- 
 produced in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections. 
 SIGNATURE OF EDWARD HOPKINS 24 
 
 Winlhrop Papers. 
 SIGNATURE OF LION GARDINER 25 
 
 Winthrop Pafters. 
 
 SUPPOSED FIKST CHURCH IN HART- 
 FORD Hosier .... Aikens .... 25 
 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN DAVENPORT Varley .... 28 
 
 From a print in the possession of the Reo. Dr. J. R. Davenport. 
 MOMAUGUIN'S SIGNATURE 28 
 
 From the Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 xv 
 
 Title. Designer. Enyraver. Page. 
 
 SITE OF NEWMAN'S BARN .... Hosier .... Maurice .... 29 
 
 From an original sketch for this work. 
 SIGNATURE OF THEOPHILUS EATON 30 
 
 Winthrop Papers. 
 OLD HOUSE IN GUILFORD, 1639 . . Hosier . . . . Smitbwick & Fr. . 31 
 
 From an original sketch for this work. 
 MOUTH OF THE CONNECTICUT . . . T. Morau . . . Aikens .... 32 
 
 From an original sketch for this work. 
 GARDINER'S ISLAND A. R. Waud . . Anthony .... 34 
 
 From an original sketch for this work. 
 MONTAUK POINT " . . " .... 35 
 
 From an original sketch for this work. 
 
 HOOKER'S HOUSE AT HARTFORD . . Hosier .... Varley .... 37 
 COAST OF MASSACHUSETTS. NAN- 
 
 TASKET BEACH Meeder & Chubb . 38 
 
 From a painting by W. Allan Gay, in the possexsion of 
 
 Oliver Fiske, Esq. 
 SIGNATURE OF MIANTONOMO 39 
 
 From the Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections. 
 SIGNATURE OF CANONICUS 39 
 
 From the Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections. 
 THE COVE, PORTSMOUTH, RHODE 
 
 ISLAND Hosier .... Juengling ... 43 
 
 From an original sketch for this icork. 
 PORTRAIT OF GOVERNOR CODDING- 
 
 TON Aikens .... 44 
 
 From a picture at Newport. 
 ENTRANCE TO NEWPORT HARBOR . . Hosier .... Smithwick & Fr. . 45 
 
 From an original sketch for this zcork. 
 CODDINGTON'S HOUSE, NEWPORT . . .... Juengling ... 46 
 
 From an original sketch for thii work. 
 SIGNATURE OF JOHN DAVENPORT 50 
 
 From the Winthrop Papers. 
 SLATE ROCK Hosier .... Bookhout Bros. . 52 
 
 From an original sketch for this icork. 
 RUINS OF THE OLDEST HOUSE NOW 
 
 STANDING IN BOSTON Andrew .... 55 
 
 From a photograph. 
 HINGHAM MEETING HOUSE, BUILT 
 
 1681 Clement .... 58 
 
 From a Photograph. 
 
 SIGNATURE OF REV. NATHANIEL 
 
 WARD 61 
 
 Winthrop Papers. 
 
xvi 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 
 COSTUMES ABOUT THE MIDDLE OF 
 
 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 WOMEN Filmer .... 62 
 
 COSTUMES ABOUT THE MIDDLE OF 
 
 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 MEN " . . . . G3 
 
 THE PILLORY Smithwick & Fr. . 65 
 
 A WANTON GOSPELLER Fredericks . . Bobbett .... 67 
 
 SIGNATURE OF SAMUEL GORTON 69 
 
 From a letter in the possession of the family at Providence. 
 THE CONFLICT OVER WESTON'S CAT- 
 TLE C. S. Reinhart . Clement .... 70 
 
 SITE OF GORTON'S SETTLEMENT AT 
 
 SHAWOMET, NOW WARWICK . . . Hosier .... Bobbett .... 75 
 
 From an original sketch for this work. 
 RUINS OF GORTON'S HOUSE AT SHA- 
 WOMET (WARWICK, R. I.) .... " .... J. P. Davis ... 76 
 
 From an original sketch for this work. 
 SIGNATURE OF PUMHAM 78 
 
 From the Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections. 
 
 THE GORTON PARTY ATTACKED . . C. S. Reinbart . Clement .... 81 
 THE GORTON PARTY BESIEGED IN 
 
 THE BLOCK-HOUSE A. R. Waud . . McCracken ... 83 
 
 WINTHROP BLESSING THE SOLDIERS . C. S. Reinhart . Bobbett .... 85 
 GORTON'S DISPUTE WITH COTTON . " Smithwick ... 88 
 SIGNATURE OF PESSICUS 91 
 
 From the Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections. 
 THE MESSENGERS AT THE TENT OF 
 
 CANONICUS C. S. Reinhart . Smithwick & Fr. . 91 
 
 THE GRAVE OF MIANTONOMO . . . Hosier .... Varley .... 95 
 VIEW OF PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISL- 
 AND Vanderhoof . . Wardell .... 97 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF EDWARD WINSI.OW . . A. Lawrie . . . T. Cole .... 98 
 
 From Family Portraits belonging to Mr. Isaac Winslow. of 
 Hinaham, in the Massachusetts Historical Society's 
 Room*. 
 
 WILLIAMS'S WELCOME A. R. Waud . . Varley . . . .100 
 
 FAC-SIMILE OF THE SIGNATURES AND 
 
 CLOSING SENTENCES OF THE NAR- 
 
 RAGANSETT PATENT 102, 103 
 
 THE MEETING AT WITTKR'S HOUSE . Fredericks . . Bobbett .... 107 
 
 SIGNATURE OF JOHN WILSON 108 
 
 Winthrop Papers. 
 

 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Desiyntr. Engraver. Pnge. 
 
 WHIPPING OF OBADIAH HOLMES . . C. S. Reinhart . Clement . . . .110 
 PORTRAIT OF CHARLES II A. Lawrie . . . Langridge . . .112 
 
 From a print after the painting by Lely. 
 
 ROGER WILLIAMS' COMPASS 114 
 
 STUYVESANT'S RECEPTION .... Fredericks . . Bobbett . . . .117 
 SIGNATURE OF CORNELIS MELYN 119 
 
 From afac-simile in 0' Callaghan' s " New Netherlands' 
 VIEW ON THE COAST OF WALES, NEAU 
 
 SWANSEA A. R. Waud . . Bogert . . . .121 
 
 CAPTURE OF THE ST. BENINIO . . . J. O. Davidson . Meeder & Chubb . 126 
 SIGNATURE OF JOHAN VAN RENSSEL- 
 
 AF.R 128 
 
 From afac-simile in 0' Callaghan' s " New Netherland." 
 
 STUYVESANT AT FORT ORANGE . . Fredericks . . Bobbett . . . 129 
 SIGNATURE OF BRANDT VAN SLECH- 
 
 TENHORST 130 
 
 From 0' Callaghan' s " New Netherland." 
 SIGNATURE OF ADRIAN VAN DER 
 
 DONCK 130 
 
 From 0' Callaghan. 
 THE DELEGATES BEFORE THE STATES 
 
 GENERAL Beech .... Clement .... 133 
 
 SIGNATURE OF GOVERT LOOCKER- 
 
 MANS 134 
 
 MELYN'S MANOR AT STATEN ISLAND Warren . . . McCracken . . . 135 
 SIGNATURE OF THOMAS WILLETT 137 
 
 From 0' Callaghan. 
 
 THE OLD STADT HUYS OF NEW AM- 
 STERDAM Hosier .... Aikens .... 139 
 
 THE BUILDING OF THE PALISADES . Warren . . . McCracken . . .140 
 PORTRAIT OF NINIGRET Anthony. ... 141 
 
 From a Print in Drake's " Book of the Indians," from the 
 
 original in possession of Hon. R. C. Winthrop, Boston. 
 
 UNDERBILL AT FORT GOOD HOPE . C. S. Reinhart . Clement .... 144 
 THE GATHERING AT FAIRFIELD . . Beech .... Fihner .... 147 
 
 THE ARREST OF BAXTER C. S. Reinhart . Clement .... 149 
 
 MOUTH OF THE SCHUYLKILL . . . . A. R. Waud . . McCracken . . .151 
 FORT TRINITY ; . 156 
 
 Fac-simile from Campanius's " New Sweden." 
 NEWCASTLE, DELAWARE A. R. Waud . . Aikens . . . .162 
 
 From a sketch made for this volume. 
 ANIMALS OF NEW NETHERLAND Winham . . . .164 
 
 Fac-simile from a plate in Van der Donck's " Vertoogh." 
 
XV111 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 
 VILLAGE CHURCH AT DRAYTON, 
 
 LEICESTEUSHIRK Beech .... Langridge . . .166 
 
 From an English print. 
 
 Fox REPROVES THE WOMEN . . . . C. S. Reinhart . " . . 169 
 
 SWARTHMORE HALL, RESIDENCE OF 
 
 GEORGK Fox Warren . . . Clement. . . .173 
 
 From a print published by the Friends' Society, Philadel- 
 phia. 
 
 Fox ix PRISOX C. S. Reinharc . Bobbett . . . .176 
 
 MARY FISHER BEFORE THE SUL- . 
 
 TAX Fredericks. . . " .... 178 
 
 UPSHALL'S PROTEST Kappes .... Juengling . . . 180 
 
 DEPARTURE OF ANNE BURDEN. . . C. S. Reinhart . Bobbett . . . .184 
 
 NORTON'S PUNISHMENT Cary .... Smithwick & Fr. . 188 
 
 MARY WRIGHT IN COURT Walter Shirlaw . E. Heinemann . 191 
 
 MARY DYER LED TO EXECUTION . . C. S. Reinhart . Bobbett. . . . 193 
 
 SHATTOCK'S COMMISSION " . Smithwick & Fr. . 196 
 
 FALLS OF THE JAMES Schell .... Anthony . . . 200 
 
 From n photograph. 
 
 SIGNATURE OF BERKELEY 201 
 
 From afac-simile in Haioks's " North Carolina." 
 
 BREAKING UP OF A PURITAN MEET- 
 ING Kappes .... Juengling . . . 203 
 
 DEATH OF OPECHANCANOUGH . . . Cary . . * . Bogert .... 205 
 
 CAPE HATTERAS . A. R. Waud . . Gray 207 
 
 From a sketch. 
 
 THE CAVALIERS AT WORMLY'S HOUSE. Fredericks . . Bobbett .... 209 
 
 SUPPOSED PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM 
 
 CLAYBORNE Clement. . . .212 
 
 In possession of the Clayborne family of Virginia. 
 
 SIGNATURE OF WILLIAM CLAYBORNE 213 
 
 From papers in the State Paper Office, London. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF OLIVER CROMWELL . . A. Lawrie . . . Nichols .... 215 
 From an old print. 
 
 STOXE AT PRESTON'S HOUSE. . . . A. R. Waud . . Wardell . . . .217 
 
 POSTING THE NOTICE ON THE GOLDEN 
 
 LION Cary . . . . E. Bookhout . .218 
 
 THE BATTLE AT THE MOUTH OF THE 
 
 SEVERN Kelly .... Juengling . . . 220 
 
 BERKELEY'S ADDRESS TO THE AS- 
 SEMBLY C. S. Reinhart . Clement .... 224 
 
 TOBACCO SHIPS ix THE JAMES . . . A. R. Waud . . Gray 227 
 
 GOVERNOR'S ISLAND AND THE BAT- 
 TERY A. C. Warren . Langridge . . . 229 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. six 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page, 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF PAVONIA .... Gary .... Clement .... 231 
 
 PORTRAIT AND AUTOGRAPH OF 
 
 FATHER JOGUES " .... Smithwick & Fr. . 234 
 
 From Shea's edition ofJogues' " Novum Belgium." 
 
 TOTEM OR TRIBE-MARK OF THE FIVE 
 
 NATIONS 235 
 
 From La. Hontan. 
 
 NEW AMSTERDAM IN THE MIDDLE OF 
 
 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY Smithwick & Fr. . 236 
 
 From Vischer's map in Asher's " New Netherlands* 
 
 QUAKER WOMEN PREACHING IN NEW 
 AMSTERDAM A. R. Waud . . Schoonmaker . . 239 
 
 HODSHONE "RETIRED TO THE LORD." Walter Shirlaw . McCracken . . 241 
 
 FRIENDS' MEETING-HOUSE IN FLUSH- 
 ING, LONG ISLAND Gary .... Bookhout Bros . 242 
 
 From a sketch made for this work, 
 
 BOWNE'S HOUSE " .... Eastmead . . . 244 
 
 From a sketch made for this work. 
 
 THE MARYLAND AND NEW NETHER- 
 LAND AMBASSADORS Kappes .... Juengling . . . 251 
 
 SWEDISH SOLDIER OF THE SEVEN- 
 TEENTH CENTURY Clement .... 253 
 
 From a photograph of the figure exhibited at the Centennial 
 Exhibition, Philadelphia. 
 
 THE ENGLISH AGITATORS RE-NAMING 
 
 THE TOWNS Kappes . . . Juengling . . . 256 
 
 SCOTT AT BREUKELEN Fredericks . . Smithwick & Fr. . 259 
 
 PORTRAIT OF THE DUKE OF YORK, 
 
 AFTERWARD JAMES II Lawrie .... Clement .... 2CO 
 
 From Lodge's " Portraits." 
 
 SIGNATURE OF RICHARD NICOLLS 261 
 
 From the Winthrop Papers. 
 
 STUYVESANT AND THE ENGLISH LET- 
 TER Fredericks . . Bobbett .... 263 
 
 SIGNATURE OF SIR GEORGE CART- 
 WRIGHT 266 
 
 From the Winthrop Papers. 
 
 SIGNATURE OF SIR ROBERT CARR 267 
 
 SEAL OF NEW AMSTERDAM. Bookhout Bros. . 267 
 
 PORTRAIT OF SHAFTESBURY Nichols . . . .269 
 
 From a print. 
 
 A CAROLINA SETTLEMENT. . . . . A. R. Waud . . Meeder & Chubb . 271 
 
 FINDING THE MESSAGE OF THE NEW 
 ENGLAND SETTLERS ... . Beech . Smithwick & Fr. . 273 
 
XX 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Designer. 
 T. Moran 
 
 Title. 
 
 LANDING OF YEAMANS 
 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN LOCKE 
 
 From the print in the folio edition of his works. 
 PORTRAIT OF GEORGE MONK, DUKE OF 
 
 ALBEMARI.E 
 
 From Lodge's " Portraits." 
 CHARLESTON HARBOR Sehell . . . 
 
 From a sketch. 
 
 ARREST OF DURANT Kelly . . . 
 
 SEAL OF THE CAROLINA PROPRIETORS 
 
 GATHERING OF THE VIRGINIA PLAN- 
 TERS IN 1674 Beech . . . 
 
 THE KILLING OF THE CHIEFS . . . Gary .... 
 BACON QUARTER BRANCH .... Sehell . . . 
 
 From a photograph taken for this volume. 
 BACON'S TROOPS CROSSING THE CREEK. Gary .... 
 
 BACON'S SUBMISSION C. S. Reinhart 
 
 BERKELEY AND THE GLOUCESTER MEN Beech . . . 
 THE CAPTURE OF ELAND'S FLEET. . A. R. Waud . 
 BACON AND THE JAMESTOWN GEN- 
 TLEWOMEN C. S. Reinhart 
 
 BURNING OF LAAVRENCE'S HOUSE AT 
 
 JAMESTOWN Kelly. . . . 
 
 WEST POINT, VIRGINIA A. R. Waud . 
 
 From a sketch. 
 DRUMMOND BEFORE BERKELEY . . . C. S. Reinhart 
 
 BERKELEY'S DEPARTURE White . . . 
 
 VIEW IN THE KILLS A. R. Waud . 
 
 From a sketch made for this wt/rk. 
 
 SEAL OF THE CARTERETS 
 
 VIEW OF NEWARK, NEW JERSEY . . A. R. Waud . 
 
 From a sketch made for this work. 
 MEETING OF THE CONNECTICUT AND 
 
 NEW YORK COMMISSIONERS . . . White . . . 
 MOUTH OF MAMARONECK CREEK . . Vanderhoof . 
 
 From a sketch made for this work. 
 INAUGURATION OF THE FIRST ENGLISH 
 
 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT AT THE 
 
 STADT HUYS White . . . 
 
 ARREST OF CHAZY'S MURDERER . . C. S. Reinhart 
 SUBMISSION OF THE MOHAWKS. . . Gary. . . . 
 
 DEPARTURE OF NICOLLS Beech . . . 
 
 OLD HOUSE IN NEW YORK, BUILT 
 
 1668 
 
 Engraver. Pagt.. 
 
 Bogert 275 
 
 Bross 276 
 
 Nichols . . . .281 
 
 Meeder & Chubb . 283 
 
 Juengling. . . 
 Bookhout Bros. 
 
 Varley. . 
 McCracken 
 Anthony . 
 
 Winham . 
 Anthony . 
 Wardell . 
 Anthony . 
 
 Clement . 
 
 Juengling. 
 Varley. . 
 
 Juengling 
 Karst . . 
 Baker . 
 
 Bookhout Bros. 
 McCracken . 
 
 Clement . . . 
 Meeder & Chubb 
 
 287 
 289 
 
 293 
 295 
 297 
 
 299 
 300 
 305 
 309 
 ' 
 311 
 
 312 
 314 
 
 315 
 317 
 319 
 
 321 
 323 
 
 325 
 326 
 
 
 Karst 329 
 
 Smithwick & Fr. . 333 
 
 Langridge . . . 335 
 
 Bogert 337 
 
 339 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xxi 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 
 VIEW OF WALL STRKET Warren. . . . Winham .... 340 
 
 From a photograph. 
 THK BOWLING GREEN " .... Winham .... 342 
 
 From a photograph. 
 HELL GATK 343 
 
 From an old Dutch print. 
 
 BURNING THE VOTES Kappes .... Juengling. . . . 345 
 
 THE DUTCH ULTIMATUM A. R. Waud . . Speir 349 
 
 OLD HOUSE, SOUTHOLD, L. I. . . . " . . Richardson . . . 353 
 
 From a sketch. 
 
 STUYVESANT'S TOMB 354 
 
 ABANDONMENT OF OLD CHARLESTOWN Kappes. . . . Hellaway. . . . 356 
 AN INDIAN SENT INTO SLAVERY . . Gary . . . . G. A. Bogert . . 357 
 
 PIRATES IN CHARLESTON C. S. Reinhart . Henry Marsh . . 361 
 
 BURNING OF THE SPANISH GALLEY. A. R. Waud . . E. Bookhout . . 363 
 
 SOTHELL AND HIS FOLLOWERS SEIZING 
 
 THE SOUTH CAROLINA GOVERNMENT Kappes .... Juengling . . . 366 
 ACQUITTAL OF THE BUCCANEERS . . Fredericks . . . Bobbett .... 368 
 
 A CAROLINA RICE-FIELD A. R. Waud . . J. P. Davis . . . 369 
 
 ARCHDALE'S ADDRESS Fredericks. . . Bobbett .... 371 
 
 SIGNATURE OF JOHN ARCHDALE 372 
 
 From afac-simile in Hawks' s " North Carolina." 
 CAPE ELIZABETH Andrew 374 
 
 From a sketch made for this volume. 
 FAC-SIMILE FROM THE MASSACHU- 
 SETTS CHARTER 376, 377 
 
 FAC-SIMILE OF THE TITLE-PAGE OF 
 
 ELIOT'S INDIAN BIBLE 378 
 
 From the copy in the library of Harvard University 
 REGICIDE'S CAVE, NEAR NEW HAVEN Smithwick & Fr. . 379 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF SIMON BRADSTREET . . Runge .... Dalziel .... 380 
 
 From a print in the collections of the Mass. Genealogical 
 
 Society 
 THE CRADOCK HOUSE AT MEDFORD, 
 
 BUILT ABOUT 1639 Andrew .... 382 
 
 PINE TREE COINS Karst . . . 385, 386 
 
 From prints in the collections of the Mas.*. Antiquarian So- 
 ciety. 
 PORTRAIT OF SIR EDMUND ANDROS Bross 388 
 
 From the Andros Tracts. 
 VIEW OF THE HARBOR OF CASTINE . Warren. . . . Gray 390 
 
 From a photograph. 
 SECURING THE CONNECTICUT CHARTER. A. R. Waud . . Varley 391 
 
xxn 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 THE CHARTKR OAK 392 
 
 From a painting made for the late Isaac W. Stuart, Hartford. 
 
 GOVEKXOU AXDROS'S ATTEMPT AT 
 
 ESCAPK C. S. Reinhart . Smithwick & Fr. . 394 
 
 PORTRAIT OF INCREASE MATHER . . A. Lawrie . . . Nichols .... 396 
 From a painting in the same collection. 
 
 PmPS RAISING THE SPANISH TREAS- 
 URE A. R. Waud . . Wurzbach . . .397 
 
 BOX IN WHICH THE CONNECTICUT 
 
 CHARTKR WAS KEPT 400 
 
 MOUNT HOPK Warren .... Meeder & Chubb . 401 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
 GRAVE OF UNCAS Hosier .... Juengling. . . . 403 
 
 From a sketch. 
 
 PHILIP'S CHAIR 405 
 
 Now in the Museum of the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass. 
 
 PHILIP'S SEAT AT MOUNT HOPE . . A. R. Waud . . Bogert 406 
 
 From a sketch. 
 
 BLACKSTONE'S STUDY HILI -Hosier .... Smithwick & Fr. . 407 
 
 From a sketch made for this volume. 
 
 BLACKSTONE'S GRAVE " .... " . 408 
 
 GOFFE AT HADLEY A. R. Waud . . Anthony . . . .410 
 
 THE AMBUSH AT BLOODY BROOK. . Cary. .... Baker .... 411 
 
 THE MONUMENT AT BLOODY BROOK Andrew . . . . 412 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
 ATTACK ON THC NARRAGANSETT FORT. Cary Harley .... 413 
 
 TURNER'S FALLS Andrew .... 415 
 
 SITE OF THE SQUAW SACHEM MAG- 
 NUS'S FORT Gibson . . . . J. P. Davis . . . 41G 
 
 CHURCH'S SWORD 417 
 
 In the collection of the Essex Institute. 
 
 RUINS OF CHURCH'S HOUSE Andrew ..... 418 
 
 From a photograph in the Massachusetts Historical Society's 
 Collection. 
 
 PORTSMOUTH HARBOR, N. H. . . . Hosier .... McCracken . . . 419 
 From a sketch made for this volume. 
 
 CHAMPERNOON'S CAIKN " .... Andrew .... 420 
 
 From a photograph made for this volume. 
 
 KITTERY, N. H Key " .... 421 
 
 From a sketch made for this volume. 
 
 EXETER, N. H " " .... 422 
 
 From a sketch made for this rohnne. 
 
 SIGNATURE OF REV. JOHN WHEEL- 
 WRIGHT 423 
 
 From a fac-simile in the Collections of the Mass. Hist. Soc. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xxiii 
 
 Title, Desiyner. Engraver. Page. 
 
 THE SUNDAY INSPECTION OF TAVERNS. Kappes .... Hellaway .... 424 
 
 THE ISLES OF SHOALS Andrew .... 425 
 
 From a sketch made for this volume. 
 
 SIGNATURE OF ROBERT [TUFTON] MA- 
 SOX 429 
 
 From letters in the Massachusetts Archives. 
 
 THE SHERIFF RESISTED ..... C. S. Reinhart . Smithwick & Fr. . 430 
 
 THE ASSAULT ON MASON AND BARE- 
 FOOT Fredericks . . Bobbett .... 432 
 
 SIGNATURE OF JOHN USHER 433 
 
 From a letter in the Mass. A rchives* 
 
 SIGNATURE OF WILLIAM PARTRIDGE 433 
 
 From a letter in the Mass. Archives. 
 
 SIGNATURE OF SAMUEL ALLEN 434 
 
 From a letter in the Mass. A rchires. 
 
 SIGNATURE OF MAJOR WALDRON 435 
 
 From a letter in the Mass. Archives. 
 
 VIEW ON LAKE WINNIPISEOGEE . . Key Andrew .... 43C 
 
 From a sketch made for this volume. 
 
 TUB SAILORS'S UPSETTING SQUANDO'S 
 
 CANOE A. R. Waud . . McCracken . . . 438 
 
 WALDRON'S SHAM FIGHT' " . . Langridge . . . 440 
 
 DOVER, N. H Key Andrew .... 442 
 
 SIGNATURE OF CHAMPERNOON 443 
 
 ELIZABETH HEARD AND THE INDIAN- . Cary ..... Jnengling. . . . 446 
 
 RYK BEACH, LOOKING WEST Andrew .... 448 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
 WITCHES' HILL Warren . . . Hellaway . . . 450 
 
 From a sketch made for thi* volume. 
 
 GENERAL VIKW OF SALEM, MASS. . . " ... Clement .... 454 
 From a photograph. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF COTTON MATHER ... A. Lawrie . . . Anthony .... 456 
 From the painting in the Rooms f the. Massachusetts His- 
 torical Society. 
 
 TITUBA AND THE CHILDREN .... Fredericks . . Winliam .... 457 
 
 TRIAL OF GILES COREY C. S. Reinliart . Smithwick & Fr. . 459 
 
 PORTRAIT OF SALTONSTALL Will .... Nichols .... 460 
 
 From a portrait in the Mass. Historical Society's Rooms. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF LIEUT.-GOV. STOUGHTON Andrew . . . .461 
 
 From the painting in Memorial Hall, Harvard University. 
 
 SHERIFF'S RETURN OF BRIDGET BISH- 
 OP'S EXECUTION Bookhout Bros. . 462 
 
 Fac- simile from the original document preserved at Salem. 
 
 CAPTAIN ALDEN DENOUNCED .... Fredericks . . Bobbett . 463 
 
XXIV 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF CHIEF JUSTICE SEWALL. Will .... Nichols .... 465 
 
 From a print in the " Mass. Hist, and Genealogical Register" 
 SUSANNAH TRIMMINGS AND GOODWIFE 
 
 WALFORD C. S. Reinhart. Smithwiek & Fr. . 467 
 
 BURROUGHS AND THE SHERIFFS . . . A. R. Waud . Anthony . . . .470 
 ENTRANCE TO BARNEGAT INLET ... " . Gray 474 
 
 From a sketch. 
 SEAL OF EAST JERSEY Runge. . . . Bookhout Bros. . 476 
 
 From Whitehead's " East Jersey." 
 BURLINGTON, NEW JERSEY Warren . . . Winham . . . .477 
 
 From a sketch made for this volume. 
 
 ARREST OF CARTERET C. S. Reinhart . Dalziel . . . 479 
 
 WANSTEAD, ESSEX Cary .... Eastmead . . . 482 
 
 From a print in Sarlain's Magazine. 
 
 THE TRIAL OF WILLIAM PENN . . . A. R. Waud . Anthony .... 485 
 CHESTER, PENNSYLVANIA " . Langridge . . . 489 
 
 From a sketch. 
 
 PENN'S ADDRESS AT NEWCASTLE . . " . Hellaway . . . 491 
 
 LKTITIA COTTAGE Vanderhoof . . Bookhout Bros. . 492 
 
 From a Hcliotype in E King's " Independence Hall." 
 THE TRF,ATY GROUND, WITH THE OLD 
 
 ELM STILL STANDING Warren . . . Dalziel 493 
 
 From a print in Sartain's Magazine. 
 THE TREATY MONUMENT AT KENSING- 
 TON A. R. Waud . Bookhout Bros. . 494 
 
 From a sketch made for this volume. 
 OLD PENN MANSION, PHILADELPHIA . Hosier. . . . Eastmead . . . 496 
 
 From a sketch. 
 PKNN'S WAMPUM " ... Eastmead. . . . 498 
 
 In the Pennsylvania Historical Society's Collection at Phila- 
 delphia. 
 TOTEM OF THE HURONS 499 
 
 From La Honlan. 
 ISLAND OF MACKINAC A. R. Waud . Varley .... 500 
 
 From a sketch. 
 TOTEM OF THE Sioux 501 
 
 From La Hontan. 
 TOTEM OF THE FOXES 501 
 
 From La Hontan. 
 SIGNATURE OF JOHKT 502 
 
 From Shea's " Charlevoix." 
 VIEW ON THE Fox RIVER Runge . . . E. Bookhout . . 502 
 
 From a photograph. 
 THE WILD RICE . Warren . . Smithwick & Fr. . 503 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xxv 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 
 MARQUETTE'S RECEPTION BY THE IL- 
 LINOIS E. Bayard . . Hildibrand . . . 505 
 
 TOTEM OF THE ILLINOIS 506 
 
 From La Hontan. 
 MOUTH OF THK OHIO A. R. Waud . Clement. . . . 507 
 
 From a sketch. 
 Sioux CHIEF " ... 511 
 
 From Catlin. 
 SIGNATURE OF TONTY 511 
 
 From Shea's " C/tarlevoix." 
 SITE OF CHICAGO Clement. . . . 512 
 
 From the Illinois Historical Society's print from an old 
 
 sketch. 
 WISCONSIN INDIANS GATHERING WILD 
 
 RICE Warren . . . Smithwick & Fr. . 514 
 
 After Sclioolcrafl. 
 PORTRAIT OF Louis XIV Langridge . . . 515 
 
 From Guizot's History. 
 LA SALLE'S LANDING IN TEXAS Meeder & Chubb. 518 
 
 Reduced fac- simile from the plate in Hennepin's "Voyages." 
 SIGNATURE OF BEAUJEU 519 
 
 From Shea's " Charlevoix." 
 SIGNATURE OF CAVELIER 520 
 
 From Shea's " Charlecoix." 
 SIGNATURE OF LE MOYNE D' IBERVILLE 523 
 
 From Shea's " Charlevoix." 
 PORTRAIT AND SIGNATURE OF BIEN- 
 
 VILLE T. Cole .... 524 
 
 From the print in Shea's " Charlevoix." 
 INDIANS IN A CANOE 526 
 
 Fac-simile from La Hontan. 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN LAW Aikens .... 527 
 
 From Guizot's History. 
 THE REGENT ORLEANS " .... 528 
 
 From Guizot's History. 
 FAC-SIMILE OF A BANK NOTE ISSUED 
 
 BY LAW 530 
 
 From Guizot. 
 NEW ORLEANS IN 1719 Aikens . . . .531 
 
 From an old map reprinted in Thomassy's " Gc'oloyie de la 
 
 Louisiane." 
 A CARICATURE OF THE TIME OF LAW'S 
 
 MISSISSIPPI SCHEME Runge . . . Langridge . . . 534 
 
 From a collection of contemporary prints in the Astor Li- 
 brary, New York. 
 
XXVI 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 
 ARMS OF THE WESTERN COMPANY Wardell. . . . 535 
 
 From the same collection. 
 
 VIEW ON THE ARKANSAS RIVER . . A. R. Waud . Winham . . . 537 
 THE ILEX CASSINE (YAUPAN) . . . Warren . . . Smithwick & Fr. . 538 
 THE MISSISSIPPI AT NATCHEZ . . . A. R. Waud . Hitchcock . . . 540 
 
 From a sketch. 
 
 CHOPART AND THE INDIAN ENVOYS . Gary .... Langridge . . . 543 
 COSTUMES OF FRENCH SOLDIERY 
 
 EARLY IN THE 18m CENTURY. . . A R. Waud. . Langridge . . . 545 
 BIKNVILLE'S ARMY ON THE RIVER . " . . McCracken. . . 547 
 PORTRAIT OF Louis XV Aikens .... 550 
 
 From Guizot. 
 COINS STRUCK IN- FRANCE FOR THE 
 
 COLONIES Bookhout Bros. . 552 
 
 From Prime's Coins. 
 THE OLD FORT AT ST. AUGUSTINE 553 
 
 From a photograph. 
 GENERAL VIEW OF ST. AUGUSTINE. . Schell .... Anthony . . . 556 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PENSACOLA, FLA Andrew .... 558 
 
 From a photograph. 
 OLD GATE AT ST. AUGUSTINE . . Vanderhoof . . Meeder & Chubb . 5C3 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF COKTEZ Will Bross 565 
 
 From a plate by Virtue after a painting by Titian. 
 A PUEBLO Runge . . . . G. A. Bogert . . 568 
 
 From Cozzens. 
 PORTRAIT OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE Nichols .... 570 
 
 From Lodge's portraits. 
 
 DRAKE AND THE INDIAN KING . . Gary .... Smithwick & Fr. . 572 
 CALIFORNIA INDIANS AND THEIR SUM- 
 
 MKR HUTS Beech .... Clement . . .573 
 
 From Harriett's "Personal Narrative." 
 
 DRAKE'S DEPARTURE Gary .... Varley .... 574 
 
 SPANISH COAT OF ARMS ON THE ST. 
 
 AUGUSTINE FORT 577 
 
 From Fairbanks' " St. Augustine." 
 THE ORGAN MOUNTAINS, NEAR EL 
 
 PASO Beech .... Varley .... 579 
 
 From Bartlett's " Personal Narrative." 
 ACOMA T. Moran . . . McCracken . . 581 
 
 From a print. 
 INSCRIPTION ROCK G. A. Bogert . . 584 
 
 From the sketch in Bartlett. 
 
LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS. xxvii 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 
 ACAPULCO Warren . . . Bogert .... 586 
 
 From a print. 
 PORTKAIT OF PHILIP III. OF SPAIN . . A. Lawrie . . Nichols .... 587 
 
 From an old print. 
 
 THE MISSION INDIANS T. Moran . . . Gray . . . . . 589 
 
 INDIAN COUNCIL Winham .... 592 
 
 From La Hontan. 
 
 CALIFORNIA INDIANS CATCHING SAL- 
 MON Varley .... 593 
 
 From Bartlett. 
 
 JUNCTION OF THE GILA AND COLO- 
 RADO RIVERS Beech .... Wiuham .... 594 
 
 From Barllctt. 
 THE MISSION OF SAN XAVIER DEL 
 
 BAC Brightley . . .595 
 
 FroJn a print. 
 PORTRAIT OF CHARLES III. OF SPAIN . A. Lawrie . . . Langridge . . . 597 
 
 From a print after the painting by Velasquez. 
 EL PASO . T. Moran . . . Bogert .... 599 
 
 From a print. 
 SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS Vanderlioof . . Wardell .... 600 
 
 From a photograph. 
 THE YUCCA TREE OF NEW MEXICO Bookhout Bros. . 602 
 
 From Bartlelt. 
 
 * 
 
 LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS. 
 
 To face 
 
 Title. Page. 
 MAP OF SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND AND NEW YORK IN THE SEVEN- 
 TEENTH CENTURY 35 
 
 MAP OF THE LOWER DELAWARE 154 
 
 Fac-si mile from Campanius. 
 PLAN OF THE SIEGE OF FORT CHRISTINA 159 
 
 From Campanius. 
 MAP OF NEW NETHERLAND . 248 
 
 From the Map of Van der Donck. 
 MAP OF CAROLINA 285 
 
 Fac-simile from the copy of the " Description of Carolina " in the possession of 
 
 James Lenox, Esq., New York. 
 MARQUETTE'S MAP OF THE MICHIGAN AND WISCONSIN REGION .... 504 
 
 Fac-simile from Thecenot's copy. 
 PLAN OF OGLETHORPE'S ATTACK ON ST. AUGUSTINE 561 
 
 From "An Impartial Account of the Late Expedition to St. Augustine." 
 London, 1742. 
 
. 
 
 xxvin 
 
 LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS. 
 
 DRAKE'S PORT OF NEW ALBION 
 
 MAP OF THE COAST OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 HONDIUS' MAP OF DRAKE'S BAY 
 
 From a copy in the possession of Charles Deane, Esq. 
 MAP OF CALIFORNIA, ARIZONA. AND NEW MEXICO 
 
 571 
 576 
 577 
 
 582 
 

 THE MURDER OF LA SALLE. 
 

 
 Site of the Great Pequot Fort. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PEQUOT WAR. 
 
 HOSTILITIES BEFORE THE WAR. ENDICOTT'S EXPEDITION TO BLOCK ISLAND. ITS 
 SUCCESS. IVDIANS OF THE MAIN LAND ATTACKED. RETALIATION OX THE ExG- 
 Lisii PLANTATIONS. A GENERAL WAR RESOLVED ON. MASON'S EXPEDITION. 
 REDUCTION OF THE PEQUOT FORT. RESULTS OF THE SUMMER'S WORK. EXTINC- 
 TION OF THE PEQUOT TRIBE. CHARACTER OF THE INDIANS. RELIGIOUS BELIEF 
 AND MORAL ANI> INTELLKCTUAL QUALITIES. INFLUENCE OF THE PEQUOT WAR 
 UPON THE GROWTH AND PROSPERITY OF THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. 
 
 THE murder of Captain Oldham by the Indians of Block Island 
 aroused the most serious alarm throughout the feeble colo- 
 nies of New England. It seemed to be, in the light of other the Pe- 
 
 , . ., , , . . , , quot War. 
 
 acts ot similar atrocity, the final and conclusive evidence of 
 the impossibility of any peace with these savages. They meant, it 
 seemed, utterly to destroy the English. There was in the minds of 
 most of them hardly the glimmer of a reason for this deadly enmity 
 against the white men ; but instead of reason was the love of blood ; 
 the love of revenging some real or fancied wrong ; the love of plun- 
 der ; the love of the clash of war with the maddening music of the 
 groans of tortured men, the shrieks of women, and the cries of chil- 
 dren. The war-whoop, as it rang through the woods, found this quick 
 responsive chord in every savage bosom. But the more thoughtful 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 
2 THE PEQUOT WAR. [CHAP. L 
 
 among them believed their race stood in the presence of a terrible di- 
 lemma : either the intruders must be destroyed or driven to the ships 
 that brought them, or they must themselves turn their backs upon the 
 beloved land where the bones of their ancestors were buried, where 
 to every hill and rock and river clung the most cherished memories, 
 tender with romantic legend, reverent with superstition, or fierce with 
 inherited hate. Their deepest religious sense was in the love of the 
 land where from generation to generation the tribes had lived and 
 died, where the children never forgot to add day by day a stone to the 
 simple monuments that marked the graves or the deeds of the fathers. 
 Who were these pale-faced strangers that they should give up their 
 country to them ? should look their last upon that glorious sea out of 
 which the sun came to light up and warm their hunting-grounds? 
 should hide themselves in the deep shadows of those western forests 
 that had no end ? 
 
 Colonial statesmen were compelled to meet face to face, with such 
 wisdom and such strength as they could, this plain and well defined 
 Indian question not yet settled after the lapse of more than two cen- 
 turies could these people be subjugated, and the tribal distinctions, 
 which made them distinct nationalities, be obliterated ? Affairs wore 
 too stern an aspect for that lamentation to be remembered which the 
 good Robinson, twelve years before, had addressed to his Plymouth 
 flock : _" Oh ! how happy a thing had it been if you had converted 
 some before you had killed any." The problem was simplified, for a 
 time at least, to how these heathen could be most easily and most 
 effectually killed. 
 
 But milder measures were first exhausted. The murderers of Stone 
 and of Oldham were demanded of the Pequots with remuneration for 
 property destroyed. The demands were met with evasions, or with 
 promises made only to be broken. Savage cunning was more than a 
 match for the diplomatic arts of the civilized and wiser white men. 
 There was no solution left but force. 
 
 In August, 1636, five small vessels, carrying about a hundred men, 
 sailed from Boston to Block Island ; for it was the Indians 
 
 toBu>ck 0n f t na t island who had murdered Oldham and taken his ves- 
 
 ge j J hn Endicott of Salem was in command of the expe- 
 dition, and his orders from the magistrates of Boston were that he 
 should kill all the men, but should spare the women and children. 
 The hundred men had four captains beside the commander-in-chief. 
 " I would not," writes one of them John Underbill, " have the 
 world wonder at the great number of commanders to so few men, but 
 know that the Indians' fight far differs from the Christian practice." 
 And he explains that as the savages divided themselves into small 
 
1636.] ENDICOTT'S EXPEDITION TO BLOCK ISLAND. 3 
 
 bodies, so it was necessary to meet them with like detachments, the 
 honor of command remaining the same whether given to captains of 
 tens or captains of thousands. This Underbill, who showed himself 
 at other times a braggart, a bigot, a libertine, little given to shame or 
 scruple of any other sort, was sensitive on a point of rank and sol- 
 dierly reputation. 
 
 The wind blew hard, and the surf rolled in heavily on the rocky 
 shores of Block Island as the expedition approached it. A 
 landing was made in spite of a shower of arrows with which 
 the Indians attempted to repel the invaders a futile defence, for 
 
 Gov. Endicott landing on Block Island 
 
 only one Englishman was wounded. Another arrow recoiled harm- 
 less from the helmet of Underbill, and would, he writes, have slain 
 him, " if God in his Providence had not moved the heart of my wife 
 to persuade me to carry it along with me, which I was unwilling to 
 do." Whereupon he improves the occasion, after the fashion of the 
 time, by these pious and timely reflections : " First, when the hour 
 of death is not yet come, you see God useth weak means to keep his 
 purpose un violated ; secondly, let no man despise advice and counsel 
 of his wife, though she be a woman." Not that there was anything 
 remarkable in this evidence of how precious the life of John Under- 
 bill was in the sight of God, and how important to the success of 
 the expedition ; but it was marvellous that God should condescend to 
 
4 THE PEQUOT WAR. [CHAP. I. 
 
 an instrument to do his will so humble and usually so useless as a 
 woman. Another inference the captain drew even more distinctly. 
 It was the "clamor," he asserts, that New England men "usurped 
 over their wives ; " but John Underhill had been saved from death 
 because a woman's voice had not been unheeded ; and that should 
 make an end of this public calumny. 1 The calumny, perhaps, was 
 of Underbill's own invention to minister to his own vanity, for there 
 is no evidence of the existence of any peculiar hardship in the condi- 
 tion of the wives of the Puritans. 
 
 The Indians fled into the interior of the island and were followed 
 by the English. Two villages were found containing about 
 sixty wigwams, some of which seem to have been of the best 
 
 class of Indian habitations. Two hundred acres of land 
 were under cultivation, and the maize, already partly harvested, was 
 piled in heaps to be stored away for winter use. For two days the in- 
 vaders sought for the natives without success ; but the still standing 
 corn, the stacks, the wigwams with their simple furniture of mats and 
 baskets, the canoes, they burned to the last fragment. 2 The desolation 
 was complete ; the Indians whom they could not find to kill they left 
 to starve. 
 
 The Block Islanders were severely if not wisely punished for the 
 murder of Oldham. The Pequots of the mainland were next 
 to be dealt witli for the earlier murder of Stone. A band of 
 three hundred of this tribe Endicott found at the mouth of the Pequot 
 River now the Thames. He asked that Sassacus, the Pequot chief, 
 should be brought to him. Either the chief would not, or could not 
 come, and Endicott, believing that the Indians were trying to put him 
 off with excuses, landed his men. From behind rocks and trees the 
 savages shot harmless arrows to hinder their advance ; bullets on the 
 other side did better service, for a few of the Indians were killed and 
 wounded as they slowly retired before the English. The villages of 
 wigwams, which stood probably about where New London now stands, 
 were soon reached and burned, but the maize was here too green to 
 take fire. 
 
 The expedition was finished by coasting along the Narragansett 
 shores, burning wigwams and destroying crops wherever they could 
 be found. In less than a month the vessels were at anchor again in 
 Boston harbor. " They came all safe," writes Winthrop, u which was 
 
 " 
 
 1 Neu-es From America ; or A New And Experimental Discooerie of New England, Sfc. frc. 
 By Captaine John Underhill, a Commander in the Warres there. Reprinted in Mass. Hist. 
 Soc. Co'L, vol. vi., Third Series. 
 
 2 Wiuthrop's History of New England, Savage's edition, vol. i., p. 231. Underbill's 
 
 rom America, p. 7 
 
1636.] 
 
 PERILS OF THE SAYBROOK FORT. 
 
 a marvellous providence of God, that not a hair fell from the head of 
 any of them, nor any sick or feeble persons among them." What the 
 providence of God did for the two or three hundred Indians left on 
 Block Island without shelter, or food, or canoes in which to escape a 
 lingering death from cold and hunger, he does not tell us ; but these 
 were not members of Mr. Cotton's church. That God, however, did 
 not permit them all to perish miserably we are assured by later refer- 
 ences in contemporaneous narratives to the Indians of Block Island. 
 
 At the mouth of the Connecticut a fort had recently been built, 
 at that point since known as Saybrook, in honor of the 
 Lords Say and Brook, and the younger Winthrop had put fort at say- 
 in it a garrison of twenty men, under the command of Cap- 
 tain Lion Gardiner. Gardiner was too good a soldier to rush rashly 
 
 into fighting, and when Endicott made 
 the fort his rendezvous, on his return 
 from Block Island, he was no welcome 
 guest. The coming of the force was, 
 writes Gardiner, 1 "to my great grief, for, said I, you come hither to 
 raise these wasps about my ears, and then you will take wing and flee 
 away." He had all along counselled a conciliatory policy ; he and his 
 little garrison of probably less than a hundred persons, including the 
 women and children, had all they could do, he said, to fight " Cap- 
 tain Hunger," and the loss of their corn-field, two miles from the 
 fort, might be fatal. " You will keep yourselves safe, as you think, 
 in the Bay," he wrote, " but myself with these few, you will leave 
 at the stake to be roasted, or for hunger to be starved." 
 
 He was right. Winthrop hailed Endicott's return as "a marvellous 
 Providence of God," but it was, said Gardiner, the beginning of war 
 * Gardiner's Peguot Warre*. Mats. Hi*. Soc. Coll., Third Series, vol. iii. 
 
6 THE PEQUOT WAR. [CHAP. L 
 
 to the isolated garrison at his fort, and the feeble colonies on the 
 Connecticut. The Block Islanders, perhaps, were incapable of further 
 mischief for a time, but on the mainland the natives were aroused to 
 exasperation and revenge, not reduced to submission. They watched 
 for opportunities to waylay the English, to come upon them at unex- 
 pected times and places, resorting to all the stratagems and cunning 
 so well understood at a later period as the peculiar characteristic of 
 the North American Indian. A portion of Gardiner's corn only was 
 saved, and that at the expense of the lives of some of his men ; to cut 
 and bring in the hay from the neighboring meadows cost him still 
 more. The fort was beleaguered by a foe always present, and always 
 unseen, till he made himself known and felt by some sudden attack ; 
 to go beyond the defences for work or for sport, to bring in timber or 
 to seek for game, could be done only at peril of life or limb. Hos- 
 tilities extended to all the settlements. " We are Pequits," said the 
 Indians, in their usual boastful spirit, " and have killed Englishmen, 
 and can kill them as mosquetoes, and we will go to Conectecott and 
 kill men, women, and children, and we will take away the horses, cows 
 and hogs." a They were as good as their word. 
 
 Agawam (Springfield), where William Pynchon had planted his 
 colony, was threatened, and thought, at one time, to be de- 
 of thepiMi't? stroyed. Hartford and Windsor were in constant fear of at- 
 tack. Cattle were killed or stolen ; each settlement was a 
 camp ; to wander far from home was at the risk of immediate death, 
 or captivity and death by torture ; labor on week-days was, for the 
 most part, suspended, and on Sundays the men sat with arms in their 
 hands, their attention divided between the expounding of the Word by 
 the preacher and listening for the war-whoop of an approaching enemy, 
 wethersfleid At Wetliersfield a band suddenly fell upon a party of work- 
 attacked. men j n th e f^id,^ killed nine of them, men, women, and 
 children, and carried away two girls as captives. On their way down 
 the river, as they passed the fort at Saybrook, the Indians raised a 
 mast upon the canoe which carried the prisoners, hoisting in derision 
 as sails the shirts and petticoats of the men and women they had 
 murdered. A chance shot from the fort struck the canoe, where the 
 captives lay weeping in the bottom of the boat, but fortunately with 
 little damage. The girls themselves seem not to have been badly 
 treated by the savages; and they were afterwards redeemed by the 
 Dutch, who enticed some Pequots on board their vessel and holding 
 them as hostages threatened to drop them into the open sea unless 
 their demand for the surrender of the prisoners was instantly com- 
 plied with. But it was a case of special mercy ; other prisoners were 
 tortured and mutilated in the most cruel manner. 
 
 1 Gardiner's Peijitot Warns. 
 
1636.] 
 
 ROGER WILLIAMS AND THE PEQUOTS. 
 
 The very existence of the Colonies was, no doubt, seriously threat- 
 ened. The different Indian tribes which surrounded them could, if 
 they would act in harmony, bring into the field many more warriors 
 than there were English in the country, and it was by no means im- 
 possible that they might, by a concerted movement, exterminate the 
 strangers. Roger Williams was quick to discern this danger, 
 and did more than any other one man to avert it. He 
 was so well known to, and in such friendly relations with 
 the Indians, that he exercised much influence over them. They may 
 
 William:-'* 
 services. 
 
 The Captive Maidens. 
 
 even have understood that one cause of his banishment from the Bay 
 of Massachusetts was that he had maintained their rightful title to 
 the country as against all comers, to keep or to sell it as they pleased, 
 and this would specially secure for him their love and reverence. 
 Writing many years afterwards of this time, he said, " I had my 
 share of service to the whole land in that Pequod business, .... the 
 Lord helped me immediately to put my life into my hand, and scarce 
 acquainting my wife, to ship myself, all alone, in a poor canoe, and to 
 cut through a stormy wind, with gi*eat seas, every minute in hazard 
 of life, to the sachem's house. Three days and nights my business 
 forced me to lodge and mix with the bloody Pequod ambassadors 
 

 8 
 
 THE PEQUOT WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. 1. 
 
 whose hands and arms, methought, reeked with the blood of my 
 countrymen, murdered and massacred by them on Connecticut River, 
 and from whom I could not but nightly look for their bloody knives 
 at my own throat also." 1 
 
 Of the progress of these negotiations Governor Winthrop and his 
 associates were kept carefully advised ; nor did they disdain to accept 
 aid from the man they had not long before driven out from among 
 them because of some possibly extravagant, but certainly harmless, 
 abstract opinions. But amid the din of arms, or even the fear of it, 
 bigotry as well as law is silent. The early Puritans were never 
 
 Roger Williams going to the Sachem s House 
 
 lacking in the soundest common sense when common sense best served 
 their purpose. They could accept in time of danger welcome and 
 invaluable aid from one whose sentence of banishment from Massa- 
 chusetts they never, through his long and useful life, had the mag' 
 nanimity to revoke. 
 
 It was these efforts of Mr. Williams that, more than anything else, 
 secured those friendly relations with the Narragansetts which at this 
 period were of the utmost importance to the colonies. This tribe 
 and the Pequots were already enemies, but there was good reason for 
 apprehending that a common peril might unite them against a com- 
 mon enemy. The true policy of the English was to widen the breach 
 
 1 Letter to Major Mason, 1670. Mass. Hitt. Coll., First Series, vol. i. Publications of The 
 Narragansett Club, vol. ii. 
 
1637.] 
 
 CAPTAIN MASON'S EXPEDITION. 9 
 
 between them if peace could not be secured with both. The Pe- 
 quots were implacable after Endicott's expedition to Block Englilih 
 Island and along the Narragansett coast, but Williams per- pohcy - 
 suaded the Narragansett chiefs, Canonicus, an old man equally morose 
 and savage, he says morosus ceque ac barbarus senez, and Mian- 
 tonomo, who *' kept his barbarous court lately at my house," to join 
 their forces with the English in a war upon their rivals. Of a prelim- 
 inary expedition, proposed by Miantonomo to destroy the crops of 
 the Pequots, Williams wrote to Winthi-op : " If they speed it will 
 weaken the enemy and distress them, being put by their hopes : as 
 also much enrage the Pequots forever against them, a thing much 
 desirable." 1 
 
 The Massachusetts General Court, at their meeting in May, decided 
 to come to the aid of the sorely distressed and hai-assed plantations 
 of Connecticut, as well as to avert a danger that threatened all alike. 
 It was a common peril, and the Bay called upon Plymouth for aid. 
 But Plymouth held back. She had her grievances against the Massa- 
 chusetts government, who had refused to help her against the French 
 when, two years before, they had captured the Plymouth trading- 
 house on the Penobscot ; who had encouraged these marauding French- 
 men, on the Kennebeck, by selling them guns and provisions ; and 
 who had upheld the Dorchester people in taking possession of the 
 lands at Windsor which Plymouth claimed as hers by right of first 
 settlement. 2 
 
 Massachusetts and Plymouth could take time for debate ; no enemy 
 lay concealed in the long grass about their doorways, or watched in 
 the edges of the forest for the scalps of fathers and sons who should 
 venture out to labor in the fields. But the plantations on the Con- 
 necticut stood face to face with the constant terror of sud- 
 den death. In May a force of ninety men, forty-two from Mason'-.ex- 
 Hartford, thirty from Windsor, and eighteen from Wethers- 
 field, commanded by Captain John Mason, an experienced and able 
 soldier, sailed from Hartford for Saybrook Fort. 8 
 
 A body of Indians, under the Mohegan chief, Uncas, joined them at 
 this point, but the English were not quite sure that they would not 
 prove treacherous. The Rev. Mr. Stone of Hartford was chaplain of 
 the expedition, and he spent the night of their arrival at Gardiner's 
 fort in prayer for their success, and especially that God would vouch- 
 
 1 Letter to Vane or Winthrop, Mass. Hist. Coll., Fourth Series, vol. vi. Narrayansett Club 
 Publications, vol. vi. 
 
 3 Savage's Winthrop, vol. i., p. 260. Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation pp 352 
 et seq. 
 
 * Colonial Reco, ds of Connecticut. Mason's Brief History of the Pequot War, Mass. Hist. 
 Coll., Second Series, vol. viii. 
 
10 
 
 THE PEQUOT WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 safe to give them some token of the fidelity of these Indian allies. 
 But their fidelity was already proved in a fight with a band of Peqtiots 
 which Gardiner had ordered them to attack. Underbill had over- 
 heard the pious supplication of the chaplain, and " immediately," he 
 says, " myself stepping up, told him that God had answered his de- 
 sire, and that I had brought him this news, that those Indians had 
 brought in five Pequots' heads, one prisoner, and wounded one mor- 
 tally ; which did much encourage the hearts of all and replenished 
 them exceedingly, and gave them all occasion to rejoice and be 
 thankful to God." And, indeed, if that kind of answer was looked 
 
 Site of the Narragansett Fort at Fort Neck. 
 
 for, five such bloody tokens were significant enough. Nor is it much 
 to be wondered at that the prisoner, whose head unfortunately was 
 left upon his shoulders, was lashed to a post and torn limb from 
 limb with ropes, by the mere brute force of twenty Englishmen. 1 It 
 was a deed as unwise as it was cruel, if only meant as a retaliation of 
 the torture of English prisoners, but defensible as the punishment of 
 those whom God had declared his enemies. Some of the wisest and 
 best among the New England Puritans held that as certainly as they 
 were the special care of Heaven, so, as unquestionably, the Indians 
 were the children of the devil. And this particular Indian, God had 
 
 1 Savage's Winthrop, vol. i., p. 266. Trumbull, History of Connecticut, says that this In- 
 dian suffered torture and death from Uncas and his men. Vincent, History of the Pequot 
 War, agrees with Wiuthrop. 
 
1637.] 
 
 CAPTAIN MASON'S EXPEDITION. 
 
 11 
 
 delivered alive into their hands in answer to prayer. Was it not that 
 he might be tortured ? 
 
 The General Court at Hartford had ordered Mason to land at the 
 mouth of Pequot (the Thames) River, and invade the Pequot country 
 at the nearest point from the sea. But Mason was too good a soldier 
 to attack in front, where he knew he was expected and Magon , g 
 watched for, an enemy much superior in numbers to his own strate r - 
 command. Other officers hesitated to disobey positive orders, and this 
 question also was left to be decided by an answer to Mr. Stone's 
 prayers. The Lord, 
 Mr. Stone believed, 
 approved of the plan 
 proposed by Mason, 
 as decidedly as He 
 had pronounced on 
 the point of the 
 faithfulness of the 
 Mohegans and Nar- 
 ragansetts. Em- 
 barking his force 
 again, taking twenty 
 Massachusetts men 
 led by Underbill in 
 place of a like num- 
 ber of the least effi- 
 cient he had brought 
 from Hartford, Ma- 
 son left the river and 
 bore away for Nar- 
 ragansett Bay. It 
 looked like a retreat. 
 The anxious Pe- 
 quots along the coast 
 watched the reced- 
 ing vessels, and, 
 when they were no 
 longer in sight, re- 
 tired, relieved from a sense of danger, to their villages, to exult at the 
 cowardice of the enemy and their own bravery and good fortune. 
 
 But Mason came to anchor toward evening of the next day some- 
 where at the entrance, probably, of Narragansett Bay. 1 For two days 
 
 1 Precisely where he came to anchor is mere conjecture. Mason and Underbill both say 
 tne.r narratives that they sailed for and landed iu Narragaiwett Bay. A heavy sea, coa- 
 
 Porter's Rocks. 
 
12 
 
 THE PEQUOT WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 a heavy surf prevented a landing, but on the second evening the 
 He lands at whole force went ashore and, the next day, marched to a fort 
 ai e Naraffl^ f the Narragansetts, about eighteen or twenty miles distant 
 sett By. on tne p e q not frontier. 1 
 
 Here an interview was had with Canonicus and Miantonomo, who, 
 while they renewed their promises to be faithful allies to the Eng- 
 lish, were cold and distrustful, doubting if so small a body seriously 
 intended, or were able, to cope successfully with the formidable Pe- 
 juots. Mason, on the other hand, had so little faith in the word of 
 the savages that he surrounded their fort with a guard during the 
 night, lest they should betray his approach to the enemy. 
 
 The next day the little army, followed by several hundred of the 
 March into Indians, who still held back in fear and doubt, made a painful 
 the country raarcn through the woods, exhausted by fatigue and thirst 
 and heat, it was the 25th of May, forded the Pawcatuck River, 
 and encamped at night at a spot now known as Porter's Rocks, at 
 the head of the Mystic River, in the present town of Stonington. 
 The principal Pequot fort, which was rather a large Indian vilhige 
 surrounded with palisades than a fort, was two miles beyond upon a 
 hill. It was crowded with men, women, and children; and till late 
 into the night the sentinels could hear the sound of song and laugh- 
 ter, as, unconscious of the peril that lurked so near, they boasted that 
 the English had fled without daring to strike a blow even to revenge 
 the death of thirty of their people whose scalps hung in Pequot wig- 
 wams. 
 
 At break of day, when deep sleep had covered the Indian camp, 
 Mason aroused his men. Guided by Uncas, the Mohegan 
 the Pequot chief, and Wequash, a petty Pequot sachem who had de- 
 serted his tribe, they were led within a rod of the palisaded 
 village. Silently and cautiously they completely surrounded it, the 
 Indian allies forming another circle in the rear. So profound was the 
 sleep of the garrison that the first warning was given by the bark of a 
 dog, when a Pequot, springing to his feet, shouted " Owanux ! Owa- 
 nux ! " " Englishmen ! Englishmen ! " 
 
 There were two entrances to the village, at opposite sides ; Mason, 
 followed by his men, sprang in at one over a barricade of brush 
 heaps ; Underbill made his way in at the other. The assault was 
 irresistible ; the possession complete. Women and children, in the 
 
 tinuing two days, indicates that the place mu>t have been along the open coast outside the 
 bay. 
 
 'This fort is supposed to have been at a place now called Fort Neck. (Rhode Island 
 Hist. Coll. vol. iii., p. 24.) Mason says in his narrative lhat it was twelve miles from 
 Pitwcatuck River. A fort was afterward built uu this hill, the ruins of which still re- 
 main. 
 
 

 X 
 
 a 
 
 S 
 
 o 
 
 w 
 
 -5 
 
 U 
 
 a 
 

1637.] 
 
 CAPTAIN MASON'S EXPEDITION. 
 
 13 
 
 extremity of terror, sought either to hide themselves, like frightened 
 wild creatures, beneath anything that would cover them, or to fly to 
 the woods ; the men could only make some feeble show of fight. In 
 the dim morning twilight, in the confusion of a sudden awakening, 
 in the din of the terrible onslaught, there was little chance of either 
 escape or resistance. 
 
 But even guns and swords could not do the work fast enough for 
 the impatient and merciless assailants. "We must burn them!" 
 
 cried Mason. Snatching a brand 
 from some smouldering ashes he 
 thrust it into the dried branches 
 and withered leaves of the wigwams 
 and the mats with which they were 
 covered; others were quick to fol- 
 low his example ; the flames, as of a 
 
 Attack on the Pequot Fort. 
 
 huge bonfire, sprung into the air and lit up the glow of the coming 
 morning. " The Indians ran, as Men most dreadfully Amazed," says 
 Mason. " Indeed such a dreadful Terror did the Almighty let fall 
 upon their Spirits, that they would fly from us and run into the very 
 Flames where many of them perished." That the weakeV, the very 
 young, the very old, and the women should escape, was impossible; 
 the stronger, if not di'iven back to suffocation and torture in the 
 smoke and flames of their own homes, could only throw themselves 
 desperately upon the swords of the unyielding circle of steady Eng- 
 

 14 
 
 THE PEQUOT WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 lishmen, or meet beyond a still more impenetrable circle of their own 
 countrymen inexorable as death and more cruel than fire. 
 
 In a little more than an hour from the first moment of alarm the 
 rising sun shone upon the smouldering remnants of seventy wigwams 
 and the charred and bleeding bodies of six or seven hundred Indians. 
 Of the whole village only seven escaped and seven were taken cap- 
 tive. 1 " Thus," exclaims the exultant captain, " did the Lord judge 
 among the Heathen ! " Of the English two only were killed and 
 about twenty wounded. 
 
 
 
 Mason and his men were worn out with the fatigue of a long march 
 and the loss of sleep, and their provision and ammunition were well- 
 nigh spent. The mouth of Pequot River was the appointed rendezvous 
 of the vessels, and the men had yet before them a further march of sev- 
 eral miles. At no great distance was another Indian village, whence 
 a hundred and fifty of the men had been sent the day before to 
 reinforce the garrison that now lay dead upon the hill-side the 
 hundred and fifty dead with the rest. In this village, however, there 
 were still three hundred and fifty warriors, and thither the few who 
 had escaped from the Mystic fort had carried the news of the massa- 
 cre of the larger portion of their tribe. 
 
 Howling with rage and grief these were soon upon the trail of the 
 English, whom the treacherous Narragansetts, fearing this very result, 
 had already deserted. Uncas and the Mohegans still re- 
 to rejoin mained faithful, and were so far of use that they were in- 
 duced to render service in carrying the wounded. At least 
 a third of Mason's men were, from wounds and exhaustion, a mere 
 burden upon the rest ; but the pursuit was successfully repulsed, with 
 a good deal of loss to the Indians. 2 The vessels arrived at the river's 
 mouth in the course of the day. with a reinforcement of forty men 
 from Boston, and Mason and his force, before the night closed in, 
 were safe from further attack on board. 
 
 The war, however, was not yet quite finished, even by a slaughter 
 so disastrous as this. The enmity between the Pequots and 
 the other tribes of Massachusetts and Connecticut had grown 
 now to a deadly hatred, and there could be no peace between them. 
 While hostilities continued among the natives, there was little safety 
 for the English ; and they had, perhaps, no alternative but to join 
 with one party in the subjugation of the other. At any rate, to hesi- 
 tate at such a crisis would be ruin to the infant settlements, and 
 
 1 Thi> is Mason's account. Underbill says there were about four hundred in the fort 
 and only five escaped. 
 
 2 Underbill says that he, with thirty men, killed and wounded above a hundred of the 
 enemy. 
 
 The war 
 continued. 
 
1637.] 
 
 EXTINCTION OF THE PEQUOT TRIBE. 
 
 15 
 
 Mason, his force doubled by recruits from the Bay and from Plym- 
 outh, under Captain Stoughton, joined with the Narragansetts and 
 Mohegans in an active pursuit of the common enemy. 
 
 The summer was spent in skirmishes and ambushes as the Pequots 
 were driven through the forests from one hiding-place to another. 
 It was the Indians, not the English, who now gave the war its charaC' 
 ter, and it was as savage and merciless as Indian wars have always 
 been. There was little mercy shown, however, to prisoners, whether 
 the Pequots fell into the hands of the English or of their own coun- 
 trymen. To this day the point on- Long Island Sound, known as 
 Sachem's Head in Guilford, commemorates the beheading of two 
 
 Pequot sachems who were spared 
 a little while from a batch of pris- 
 oners in the hope of their proving 
 treacherous to their own people, 
 but were executed at this spot 
 when proved to be faithful. The 
 women and children indeed were not killed, but they were, for the 
 most part, while the hostilities continued, sent to the West India 
 Islands and sold as slaves. 
 
 In July the miserable remnant of the tribe was surrounded in a 
 swamp in the present town of Fail-field. The men fought with the 
 courage of despair, and sixty or seventy succeeded in forcing their 
 way through the ranks of their assailants; but about two hundred 
 were captured. Henceforth those who- were free were 
 hunted like wild beasts by the other Indians, and their HonTthV 
 heads were brought almost daily into Windsor and Hartford, ' 
 till in their extremity they prayed to the English for protection to 
 

 16 
 
 THE PEQUOT WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 their miserable lives. They were ready for the last humiliation, 
 which, next to absolute extinction, is the most terrible misfortune 
 that can befall an Indian. The very name they bore was to be 
 obliterated ; they were never more to be known as Pequots, but were 
 to be thankful if permitted to live as a part of those tribes which 
 they had so lately reproached as cowards and derided as women. 
 
 It was the fate of war. In accordance with that polity universal 
 among the North American savages, by which prisoners, whether indi- 
 viduals or tribes, were adopted into the families and nationalities of 
 their conquerors, rather than condemned to torture and death, the 
 surviving Pequots were permitted to become Mohegans or Narragan- 
 setts. Upon the English devolved the duty of umpire in this division 
 of new subjects ; and they assigned, beside the women and children, 
 eighty to Uncas, the same number to Miantonomo, and twenty to 
 Ninigret, a petty sachem of the Narragansetts. To the savages this 
 last act in the destruction of their tribal existence could not but be 
 humiliating and distressing ; even to the most careless consideration 
 it is not wanting in dignity and pathos, notwithstanding we are told 
 that Ninigret and his men having killed Edward Pomeroye's mare, 
 were allowed their share of Pequots only on condition that they should 
 give satisfaction for the death of that animal. 
 
 There were still to be accounted for about thirty of the most dreaded 
 Pequot warriors, who had escaped both death and captivity, 
 and fled to the Mohawks in the valley of the Hudson. They 
 were treacherously murdered by those among whom they 
 sought refuge, and the scalps of Sassacus, his brother, and five other 
 sachems, were sent to Governor Winthrop, in token of Mohawk fidel- 
 ity and friendship. 
 
 Within five months the Pequot war was begun and ended. The 
 English army had at no time, probably, numbered more than 
 war and Its two hundred men, or not one fourth of a modern regiment. 
 To these were added, perhaps, three times as many Indians, 
 all active, courageous, and cruel when the enemy was no longer to be 
 dreaded ; but most of them treacherous and cowardly, lurking in the 
 rear and leaving their allies to bear the brunt of the battle so long as 
 success was doubtful. To the sturdy handful of Puritans was due the 
 conquest of a tribe which sent to the field more than five times their 
 number of warriors to fight for freedom and for life. But the char- 
 acter of the war is to be measured rather by its results than its dimen- 
 sions, and those were of the last importance to the settlement and 
 growth of New England. 
 
 Whether the native population and the intruders upon the soil could 
 not have lived long together in peace and harmony, is not so much the 
 
 me fate of 
 
1637.] CHARACTER OF THE INDIAN. 17 
 
 question as that they did not. The wisest among the Indians looked 
 from the first with the gravest apprehensions upon the coining of the 
 white men, and doubted if there was room in the same land for their 
 own and another race which lived by the cultivation of the soil and 
 the arts of peace. The forest, which it was the first business of the 
 white man to destroy, was the Indian's home and his most precious 
 possession. Here only could the wild animals on which lie subsisted 
 live and flourish, and in its dark recesses and fastnesses only could he 
 lie in ambush for the enemy, whose bleeding scalp he longed to hang 
 at his girdle. 
 
 He was a beast of prey with some powers of reflection a tiger with 
 the gift of speech, and a wilderness was necessary to his Chaniicter of 
 existence. War was his pastime ; the chase his only serious the Induln - 
 occupation. He cultivated to the highest degree the sense of sight and 
 of hearing ; he aimed to surpass all other creatures in swiftness of foot ; 
 the instinct of the most timid animal was no match for the cunning 
 with which the savage could steal silently through the woods, leaving 
 no footsteps behind him, or track a beast to his lair, or an enemy to 
 his hiding-place, if either had left the most trifling or the dimmest 
 evidence of the path he had followed. To acquire these qualities he 
 would spare no pains or labor ; for these, with a power of endurance 
 that shrunk at no extremity of fatigue, of hunger, or of suffering, were 
 his virtues and his pride. All work that required only mere manual 
 force, and called for the exercise of neither moral nor mental power, 
 was beneath him. That he left to his women. They raised his maize, 
 cooked his food, carried his burdens, and bore the sons who were to 
 grow up into warriors and hunters. He was literally the lord of the 
 creation about him ; women and all other animals were made to be 
 the victims and the slaves of his wants and his passions. To call him- 
 self a man was his proudest boast ; no sarcasm was so keen, no re- 
 proach so humiliating as to tell his enemy or the coward who had dis- 
 graced his tribe that he was only a woman. 
 
 The divinest law he knew was the survival of the fittest ; the fittest 
 was he who was the most swift of foot, the keenest of sight and hear- 
 ing, the most cruel and unwearied in the pursuit of his enemy, who 
 could hang up the most scalps in his wigwam, and if such should be 
 the fortune of war, could laugh at torture. The God he most wor- 
 shipped was the devil, who he believed, was a bigger Indian than him- 
 self, and whose only trail was the thunder and the lightning, the tem- 
 pest and the pestilence, and who|was never visible. Of a God of love, 
 of mercy, and of peace he had little conception, for he recog- nisreiigioM 
 nized material force as the highest attribute, and the purpose conTictions - 
 of such force, as he understood and used it, was evil and not good. 
 
 VOL. ii. 2 
 
18 THE PEQUOT WAR. [CHAP. I. 
 
 Nature, indeed, was beneficent, for it gave him the forest and the 
 streams, the summer's heat and rains to grow maize and tobacco, the 
 deer, the beaver, the women, and other useful and pleasant creatures. 
 But nature, if not independent of a cause, if it was not simply a 
 growth and on this point his ideas were vague and mythical, was 
 not necessarily under the beneficent government of a supreme being, 
 all-wise and all-good ; while a power evil, omnipotent, and omnipres- 
 ent, waged a perpetual war with all the kindly forces of nature, per- 
 verting and thwarting them, withholding and destroying the fruits of 
 the earth, visiting the poor Indian with starvation and pestilence, sor- 
 row and death. This terrible being he continually tried to propitiate 
 by voluntary sacrifice of whatever was most precious in his own sight; 
 for he hoped that there might be, at least, some pity if the devil was 
 saved the trouble of helping himself. But he knew he could never 
 escape from the dreadful presence that ever surrounded and threatened 
 him though he should fly to the uttermost parts of the earth. Release 
 could only come when after death he should be welcomed, according 
 to his deserts in taking scalps and killing game in this world, to a 
 happier land, where perpetual summer reigned, where the hunting was 
 always good, where the maize and the tobacco crops never failed, and 
 where the devil could never enter with flood, or fire, or pestilence, to 
 make him afraid. 
 
 Not that the Indian was altogether wanting in qualities which are 
 supposed to belong more to civilized than savage life. Indeed in some 
 of these he rather excelled than otherwise, till the vices of civilization 
 crowded them out without planting in their stead any of its virtues. 
 As he was a child in knowledge and in judgment, in all things save 
 HIS moral war an ^ hunting, so also he had the simplicity and truthful- 
 quahties. ness which naturally belong to childhood. Lying, whether 
 in word or action, was a stratagem he might lawfully use to deceive 
 an enemy, but never to mislead a friend or one really entitled to his 
 friendship. If he gave his word, implicit trust might be placed in it, 
 as he made no real pretensions to a friendliness he did not feel. To his 
 foe only he was merciless, and he scorned to conceal his hatred except 
 the more certainly to bring about its gratification. Hypocrisy was 
 not among his vices, and he was never anything but what he professed 
 to be. When he circumvented an enemy, which he would do if he 
 could, it was as an enemy and not as a friend. He respected the 
 rights of others as he maintained his own : the person and the prop- 
 erty of his neighbor were sacred. His love for his wife and children 
 was tender and considerate, though the relation between the sexes was 
 almost as loose as that of animals. In the endurance of pain he was 
 impassable, and one from whom the extremest torture could extort a 
 
.- 
 
 1637.] INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIAN TEACHING. 19 
 
 sigh or a tremor was mourned for, not because he was dead, but that 
 he had ever been born. 
 
 Feeble as the Indians generally were in intellect, there were among 
 them men of exceeding shrewdness, of a common sense that Inte iiectuai 
 was almost genius, of powers of imagination, expression, and charact * r - 
 pathos that make the poet and the orator ; and though such men were 
 the exceptions, they were voluntarily accepted by their fellows as 
 their fitting and natural chiefs. The higher qualities of mind and of 
 character were more potent among them than even the arts of their 
 priests and the influence of superstition. They were inclined to re- 
 vere and confide in those whom they recognized as superiors ; and as 
 a childish vacancy of mind and simplicity of character peculiarly be- 
 longed to them, so much the more easily could they be led to a higher 
 moral and intellectual culture. They had little to unlearn, and they 
 received instruction implicitly from the strangers whom at first they 
 looked upon as superior beings ; but they were much more susceptible 
 to example than to precept. 
 
 In such a people there seems to have been good soil on which to 
 sow pure Christian seed. It was sowed, or what was meant for it, 
 diligently and devotedly, but with small success. Eliot, Gookin, Wil- 
 liams, Mayhew, and many others, both clergymen and laymen, were 
 glad to devote their lives to the salvation of these heathen. To save 
 them was held up as one of the most potent motives for colonization. 
 Pious people in England early formed themselves into a society for the 
 conversion of so benighted a race, and neither prayers nor money were 
 spared in so good a cause. But Christian propagandism was never 
 successful among them. The simplicity of the gospel, the beauty of 
 a virtuous life, forgiveness of injuries, returning good for evil, the 
 duty and wisdom of a cheerful submission to the divine will, were 
 doubtless impressed upon them by some of those who strove to lead 
 them out of a darkened and savage life. They saw, however, the 
 young settlements distracted with questions, a clear understanding of 
 which they were also taught was vital to the Christian faith. Their 
 untutored minds, trained rather to the observation of things than the 
 consideration of ideas, could not easily comprehend the mystery of the 
 personal union with the Holy Ghost, or enter into the subtleties of the 
 question, over which all Massachusetts Bay went mad, whether 
 justification came from a covenant of works or a covenant of grace. 
 
 But they could measure the morality of the white men with their 
 own ; and if the religion of the white men made them no bet- 
 ter, why, the Indians asked, should we accept it? It is not " 
 
 strange that they should fail to make a distinction between 
 theology and religion, which the Puritans themselves either would not 
 
20 
 
 THE PEQUOT WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 or could not always recognize. The white men were far wiser than 
 they, and sanctification and justification might be to them matters of 
 vast moment ; but for themselves they could not see what sxich ques- 
 tions 1. 1 to do with their being more truthful in speech or more just 
 and SOL.V:!' in action than they were already. They may, perhaps, have 
 even doubted whether it was worthwhile to understand these nice dis- 
 tinctions which led to the cruel persecution of men, however truthful 
 or good, who conscientiously maintained opinions which the majority 
 held to be erroneous. They killed their enemies, and so did the Eng- 
 lish killed them, indeed, in much greater numbers than they could 
 do ; but they never betrayed their friends, never stole from them, 
 never cheated them, never punished them except for actual crime 
 against the common weal. They had small aptitude for polemics ; 
 they could not even conceive that, if theological controversy was the 
 best part of Christianity, its blessings were poured upon New Eng- 
 land in overflowing abundance. But they never could get beyond the 
 narrow application of the doctrine of the sanctification of works, that 
 they did as well as they knew how ; and they could not understand the 
 teaching which was so intent upon what men believed, so compara- 
 tively careless as to how they lived. 
 
 Whether the fault was in the method by which the Puritans sought 
 to bring the Indians to a knowledge of the true faith, or whether 
 these people are by nature incapable of being anything but savages, 
 all attempts at their Christianization and civilization were, in the 
 main, futile. They had undoubtedly fewer vices and more virtues 
 when the country was first occupied by Europeans than they have 
 ever had since ; but after fifty years of labor with them under these 
 most favorable circumstances, of all the thousands of the New Eng- 
 land tribes, less than fifteen hundred, with their wives and children, 
 were numbered among the " Praying Indians." J Many more than 
 that number had meanwhile been destroyed in two Indian wars. The 
 work of killing was far more successful than that of converting, and 
 their utter extinction, though gradual, was certain. 
 
 But there was an interval of forty years between those wars. That 
 with the Pequots was so sharp and decisive a lesson that a 
 effect of*" the generation passed away, and there were none left to bear the 
 pequo ar. p e q uofc totem, ere t ne jealousy of the English overcame the 
 memory of their prowess, and led the Indians to venture upon another 
 attempt at extermination. That interval of repose was of the last 
 importance to the colonists. Without it, the history of the permanent 
 settlement of New England might have dated some scores of years 
 
 1 Letters of Governor Hinckley (1685), Mass. Hist. Coll., Fourth Series, vol. v., p. 132 
 Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, vol. i., p. 349. 
 
1637.] EFFECT OF THE PEQUOT WAR. 21 
 
 later. Whether Endicott's expedition to Block Island, reckless and 
 inconsiderate, as most of the acts of that precipitate and hot-headed 
 Puritan usually were, was justifiable or not, when considered in the 
 light of its possible, and even probable, immediate consequences, it 
 had only a happy result. It provoked a war at a time when the In- 
 dians, foolishly divided among themselves, were easily subdued by the 
 destruction of the most powerful and dangerous tribe among them, 
 while the weaker, who had blindly helped in that destruction, could 
 never again muster the courage or the strength to attempt, till it was 
 too late, to drive the invaders back to the sea whence they came. 
 That the result should be recognized as a signal evidence of the good- 
 ness of God was only in accordance with the Puritan faith that they 
 were peculiarly under the divine protection. " The Lord was pleased," 
 exclaims Captain Mason, with more force than elegance, at the close 
 of his narrative " the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in 
 the hinder Parts, and to give us their Land for an Inheritance." 
 
 Signature of John Mason 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 THE TOWNS ON THE CONNECTICUT RIVER. PREPARATORY GOVERNMENT. TUB 
 FIRST CONSTITUTION AND THE EARLIEST GOVERNORS. CIVIL AND SOCIAL CON- 
 DITION OF THE FIRST SETTLERS. NECESSITY OF STRINGENT UULE. CHARACTER 
 OF EARLY LEGISLATION. ANOTHER EMIGRATION FROM BOSTON. NEW HAVEN 
 AND ITS CHURCH OF SEVEN PILLARS. ESTABLISHMENT OF OTHER TOWNS AND 
 CHURCHES. DUTCH AND ENGLISH BOUNDARIES. DIFFERENCE OF PURPOSE IN 
 THE Two CLASSES OF SETTLERS. ENGLISH DIPLOMACY AT HOME. ENGLISH IN- 
 TRUSIONS UPON LONG ISLAND. CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE OF CONNECTICUT. 
 SETTLEMENT OF RHODE ISLAND. ROGER WILLIAMS'S COLONY AND ITS GOVERN- 
 MENT. HEATED CONTROVERSY IN MASSACHUSETTS. SEVERITY OF THE RULING 
 PARTY. TREATMENT OF THE ANTINOMIANS. SETTLEMENT OF RHODE ISLAND 
 AT ACQDIDNECK (PORTSMOUTH). CODDINGTON CHOSEN CHIEF JUDGE. DISCORDS 
 IK THE NEW COLONY. THE HUTCHINSONS AT ACQUIDNECK. HOSTILITY op 
 MASSACHUSETTS TO ACQUIDNECK. CODDINGTON'S PROPOSED ALLIANCE OF THE 
 COLONIES. THE NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. AGAMENTICUS AND ACQUIDNECK 
 EXCLUDED. 
 
 THE colonies on the Connecticut River, though that region was 
 Connecticut no ^ within the bounds of the Massachusetts charter, were 
 dependent 11 " ^ or * ne ^ rs ^ y ear under the government of commissioners 
 colony. selected from among their own people, but appointed by 
 the Massachusetts General Court. 1 The burden of the war had 
 fallen upon them, and with the necessity of self-reliance came also, no 
 doubt, the sense of independence. When on the first day of May, 
 1637, it " was ordered that there shall be an offensive war against the 
 Pequot," it was done by a General Court, convened at Hartford, con- 
 taining not only the commissioners appointed by Massachusetts, whose 
 term of office had just expired, but nine delegates committees they 
 were called from the three towns of Hartford, Windsor, and 
 Wethersfield. 2 The war brought its responsibilities as well as its 
 advantages. The colony was oppressed with debt ; so many of its 
 effective men had been called to military service that agriculture had 
 been neglected ; there was want of food and want of sufficient shelter 
 for many families. It would be easy to go to ruin if there were any 
 lack of vigorous measures. 
 
 1 These were Roger Ludlow, William Pincheon, John Steele, William Swaine, Henry 
 Smith, William Phelps, William Westwood, and Andrew Ward. 
 
 8 The Public Ktcords of the Colony of Connecticut, etc., etc., edited by J. Hammond 
 Trumbull. 
 
1639.] THE FIRST CONNECTICUT CONSTITUTION. 23 
 
 The General Court was equal to the occasion. The debt was pro- 
 vided for by a special tax of six hundred and twenty pounds ; though 
 corn and cattle had risen largely in price, they were gathered from 
 wherever they could be found, and the people were fed without any 
 serious distress till the season of another harvest. To guard against 
 further trouble from the Indians a thorough military organization of 
 all the towns was established, at the head of which Captain Mason was 
 placed as commander-in-chief. The young colony had already grown 
 too large to depend longer upon its older sister of the Bay ; the war 
 had thrown it upon its own resources ; within eighteen months from 
 the end of it the new government took a more positive form and 
 adopted a constitution. 
 
 " Well knowing," its preamble recited, " where a people are gathered 
 togather the word of God requires that to mayntayne the A 
 
 i . . , 1,1 iiii 11 tio 
 
 peace and union of such a people there should be an orderly less. 
 and decent Gouerment established according to God, to order and 
 dispose of the affayres of the people at all seasons as occation shall re- 
 quire ; doe therefore assotiate and couioyne our selues to be as one 
 Publike State or Commomvelth." It recognized no allegiance to any 
 other power, not even that of England ; it instituted a popular gov- 
 ernment in which all the freemen of the three towns were equal before 
 the law, entering " into Combination & Confederation togather to 
 mayntayne & presearue the liberty & purity of the gospell of our Lord 
 Jesus which we now professe, as also the disciplyne of the Churches, 
 which according to the truth of the said gospell is now practised among 
 us ; As also in our Ciuell Affaires to be guided & gouerned according 
 to such Lawes, Rules, Orders & decrees as shall be made, ordered, & 
 decreed." 
 
 The colony thus founded a Christian Commonwealth and a purely 
 democratic republic upon the first written constitution of any State in 
 America, if not indeed, in the world. And this, with such slight 
 changes in its practical provisions as the increase of population de- 
 manded, was the funda- - 
 mental law of Connecticut /^/ . (^7 ^ 
 
 for nearly two centuries. ^ "JC?\ *~f l^fL/l/ If/lfa 
 
 Its first governor, chosen / ^^^^^ ________ - / 
 
 in April, 1639, was John (^ / 
 
 Haynes, who had already Signature of John Haynes 
 
 been a governor of Mas- 
 sachusetts Bay ; its second, elected the next year, was Edward 
 Hopkins. 1 The constitution provided that the chief magistrate should 
 
 1 Edward Hopkins came to Boston with the New Haven company, iii the spring of 1637, 
 and was the son-in-law of Governor Eaton, of that colony. He returned to England after 
 
24 
 
 SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 Signature of Edward Hopkins. 
 
 be chosen for a single year only, and was ineligible for the year next 
 
 ensuing. The letter of the law was 
 observed while its spirit was not lost. 
 The people of Connecticut knew when 
 they had a good governor, and for many 
 years, with two or three exceptions at 
 the outset, Haynes and Hopkins were 
 alternately elected to that office. 
 
 The rule of the magistrate in the young Commonwealth was rigid. 
 The common welfare demanded implicit submission to a compact for 
 mutual protection. The virtuous and the orderly might be, as they 
 usually are, a law unto themselves; but there was special need of 
 watchfulness and restraint of the idle, the vicious, and the violent, 
 who, relieved from the accustomed rule of a long organized society, 
 would riot in the license of relaxed law. All the old bonds that hold 
 society together, and kept anarchy at arms-length, were loosened. The 
 habit of obedience to constituted authority needed to be reestablished 
 by fresh subjection and enforced discipline. In this respect the colo- 
 nies were all alike. Each had to work out for itself with such wisdom 
 and such vigor as it could command, the problem of self-government ; 
 and each addressed itself, first of all, to the question of self-preserva- 
 tion. Large considerations of the science of government concerned 
 them less at this early stage of their existence than the daily conduct 
 of each individual citizen. There was nothing in morals or 
 
 Character of. 111 i-i-i-ii 
 
 the govern- m manners, as to what men should eat and drink, and where- 
 
 ini-iit. 
 
 withal they should be clothed ; how they should dispose of 
 their time and their industry ; what their relations should be to each 
 other, to the state, to their wives, to their children ; in all the affairs 
 of life, whether small or great, there was nothing of which the law 
 did not take cognizance. It was needful to the preservation and good 
 order of society so newly organized that it should do so ; and if some- 
 times indeed very often the true and sole function of perfected 
 government, protection of person and property, was overstepped, and 
 intellectual freedom encroached upon in the attempt to regulate relig- 
 ious belief and coerce the conscience, such exercise of power is to be 
 pai'doned to the exigencies of the times. 
 
 There were not probably more than a thousand people in the three 
 Connecticut towns when the Pequot war was finished ; the first English 
 child l born on the banks of that river was at that time only eighteen 
 
 a residence of about fourteen years in Connecticut, and became a member of Cromwell's 
 Parliament of 1657, and a commissioner of the army and navy. (See note in Savages 
 Winthrop, vol. i., p. 273.) 
 
 1 David, son of Captain Lion Gardiner, born at Saybrook Fort, April, 1636. Life of 
 Gardiner, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Third Series, vol. x , p. 177. 
 
1639.] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 25 
 
 ^^ 
 
 Signature of Lion Gardiner. 
 
 months old. It was not difficult for the watchful eyes of the magis- 
 trates to scan carefully the life and conversation of each man and 
 woman. Nor could it be doubted that a community made up, in some 
 degree, of mere adventurers, 
 should have its vicious element, 
 though each settlement was at 
 
 first a church led in a body by J-KF" ^/ u\Ji i?*' r "^3p j 
 its pastor from three Massachu- **^ 7xT * *^* ^^ 
 
 setts towns Newton, Water- 
 town, and Dorchester. Even the 
 godly people of the Dorchester 
 church were led, Governor Brad- 
 ford said, by a " hankering mind " to the pleasant Connecticut meadows 
 on which Holmes's colony from Plymouth had already settled ; and 
 by shear weight of numbers and the influence of the stronger gov- 
 ernment behind them, they 
 dispossessed the first comers. 
 When such were the saints 
 what might not be looked 
 for from the sinners ? The 
 devil lurked even among the 
 churches of the Puritans, 
 and if he could not be got 
 rid of altogether at least he 
 could be watched with un- 
 ceasing vigilance. 
 
 And the vigilance was 
 unceasing. The records of 
 the proceedings of the Gen- 
 eral Court that chose the 
 first chief magistrate of the 
 new Commonwealth, also 
 show that by the decree of 
 that fountain of law one 
 Edmunds was to be whip- 
 ped at a cart's tail on a lecture day at Hartford ; that one Williams 
 was to stand upon the pillory from the ringing of the first bell to the 
 end of the lecture, and to be whipped at the cart's tail, both ^ veTity of 
 in Hartford and Windsor ; and that one Starke was to be the laws - 
 punished in the same way, to pay a heavy fine, and to have besides 
 the letter R branded upon his cheek. The crime of each and all 
 was wrong done one Mary Holt, such wrong that Starke was also 
 
 Supposed First Church in Hartford 
 
26 
 
 SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 condemned to marry her ; which, however, he probably never did. At 
 the next General Court, four months afterwai'ds, it was ordered that 
 Mary Holt herself be whipped for misconduct with a fourth paramour, 
 and be banished from the jurisdiction ; not that she was good enough 
 for Boston, but that Boston, perhaps, could better manage her. 
 
 But offences of this kind of the frequency and often most revolt- 
 ing character of which, notwithstanding the severity of the laws of the 
 Puritans, there is abundant evidence in the early records of all the 
 colonies were by no means the only ones which the magistrates 
 undertook at once to expose and to punish. Unseasonable and im- 
 moderate drinking, or even the suspicion of it ; any violence of lan- 
 guage or of conduct ; reflections upon the actions of the General 
 Court; "the sin of lying which,'' says the record (1640), "begins to 
 be practised by many persons in this Commonwealth ; " extravagance 
 in the fashion of apparel, " that divers persons of several ranks are 
 observed to exceed in ; " the selling of goods beyond reasonable prices ; 
 "a stubborn or rebellious carriage against parents or governors ;" 
 these and other offences of a like character, which in older societies 
 are usually left to the control of private conscience, or judgment, or 
 influence, were subjects of legislation, and brought upon the perpe- 
 trators prompt and severe penalties. 1 
 
 In other respects, however, the welfare of the community was as 
 carefully looked after as it was in these guarded against real or fan- 
 cied injuries. The rate of wages and the length of a working-day 
 eleven hours in summer-time and nine in winter of actual 
 labor were soon regulated by law, that no advantage 
 should be taken of the necessities of new settlers or of the scarcity of 
 laborers. Any possible want of food was provided for by making it 
 the duty of magistrates to ascertain the probable demand and to meet 
 it with a sufficient supply. Idleness was made inexcusable, and agri- 
 culture encouraged by allotments of lands and their compulsory culti- 
 vation ; and titles were made unquestionable by a register which the 
 law required should be kept in every town. That timber should not 
 be wasted, none could be cut or exported except by special license from 
 the Court, and no trees were permitted to be felled except after the 
 fall of the leaf. In 1640 it was enacted that each family should sow 
 at least one spoonful of English hempseed and cultivate it " in hus- 
 banly manner" for a supply of seed the next year. The importation 
 of cotton, which they could not raise, was provided for at the public 
 expense to find its way to the domestic spinning-wheels ; but the cul- 
 tivation of tobacco, which it was soon found would grow so well in 
 the rich bottom-lands of the Connecticut, was encouraged by a decree 
 
 1 Colonial Records of Connecticut. 
 
 Beneficent 
 legislation. 
 
1640.] JOHN DAVENPORT AND HIS CHURCH. 27 
 
 that whoever should after September, 1641, "drinke [smoke] any other 
 tobacco but such as is, or shall be, planted within these liberties," 
 should suffer the heavy penalty of a fine of five shillings for every 
 pound. Such laws foreshadowed some of the important industries and 
 future wealth of the State of Connecticut. 
 
 The supremacy obtained over the Indians by arms was confirmed 
 by law over those who survived the Pequot war. It was a penal act to 
 sell them arms, or even to mend those of which they were already 
 in possession. Theft, and intimidation for the sake of theft, the crimes 
 to which the savages were most inclined, were severely punished. If 
 they could not be made good citizens, and that was hardly at- 
 tempted, it was hoped, at least, that as vagabonds they might be 
 rendered harmless. The dealings of the colonists with them were so 
 far just that they paid for the lands they wanted, and permitted 
 the Indians to retain those the English did not want, provided they 
 were peaceful and kept within their own bounds. When these condi- 
 tions were not observed a raid upon their cornfields and wigwams re- 
 newed the lesson of the war. Whoever recognized the higher duty 
 of attempting to lead them to a knowledge of Christianity was quite 
 free to do so without interference from the State ; but their most effi- 
 cient teachers were the lives the Christians led, and the examples they 
 followed were naturally those which were most evil. 
 
 While the Pequot war was in progress a fresh colony from England 
 arrived in Boston and was looking for a place of settlement. 
 
 _,, ,, T1 . . TT ,. i . Settlement 
 
 Edward Hopkins, who soon after went to Hartford, was in of x ew 
 
 , . T i TN p Ilaven 
 
 this company ; John Davenport, a clergyman of some note 
 from London, was their pastor, and the leading man among them 
 was Theophilus Eaton, a merchant of reputation and of affluence. 
 It was a company of wealth and respectability, and the magistrates 
 of Massachusetts would have gladly retained them within their juris- 
 diction. 
 
 But there were two reasons, imperative with the new-comers, for 
 seeking a place for their future home without the bounds of Massa- 
 chusetts : there was too much theological controversy and not suffi- 
 cient harbor accommodation about the Bay. The banishment of 
 Mrs. Hutchinson was not the extirpation of heresy, and Mr. Daven- 
 port, it is said, was fearful lest his flock should be led astray by the 
 fatal doctrines of the Antinomians. Whatever other dangers might 
 lurk in the wilderness, the Indians would not, at least, unsettle men's 
 minds as to sanctification and justification. The other point was 
 equally clear : the farming lands near all the good harbors about the 
 Bay were already occupied. Agriculture must, of course, be their im- 
 mediate reliance ; but they hoped to found a commercial colony, and 
 
SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 John Davenport- 
 
 therefore sought for a commodious port where trade would grow, 
 while lands not too far off to be conveniently cultivated should yield 
 
 them a subsistence. Anoth- 
 er reason given was that 
 they wished to put them- 
 selves beyond the reach of 
 a general governor, should 
 one be appointed for all New 
 England ; but as this had 
 ceased to be probable, the 
 alleged fear of it could only 
 have been a thin disguise 
 for a more substantial pur- 
 pose a wish to escape the 
 jurisdiction of Massachu- 
 setts and have an independ- 
 ent govern ment of their own . 
 In the spring of 1638, the 
 whole company sailed from 
 Boston for Quinnipiack, 1 now New Haven, purchased the preceding 
 autumn from Momauguin, the Indian sachem, for twelve coats of 
 English cloth, twelve alchemy spoons, twelve hatchets, twelve hoes, 
 two dozen knives, twelve porringers and four cases of French knives 
 and scissors. 2 Several of their number had held possession through 
 the winter, but the first solemn and formal act of occupation was on 
 the 18th of April, the Sunday after their arrival. Then this new 
 band of Pilgrim Fathers assembled beneath the spreading branches 
 of a giant oak, and the pastor, Davenport, preached to them from the 
 text, Matthew iv. 1 : " Then was Jesus led up of the 
 gunday at Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." 
 " He had a good day," he said afterwards ; and doubtless 
 his hearers, who all looked up to 
 him with great reverence, were as 
 much edified with his expounding 
 of the temptations that were to 
 beset them in the wilderness, as he was satisfied with his own per- 
 formance. 
 
 Their undertaking was sanctified not long after by a day of fasting 
 and prayer, when they entered into a covenant that in all things, 
 whether in Church or in State, they would be guided by the rules 
 
 1 " Quinnepaca or Quinnepange rather," Niles's History of Indian and French Wars, 
 ifass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Third series, vol. vi. 
 
 2 2s'ew Haven liccords in Trumbuil's History of Connecticut. 
 
 Momauguin's Signature. 
 
5 
 
 w 
 2; 
 
 O) 
 
 H 
 cn 
 
 W 
 
 as 
 E- 
 
1639.] 
 
 SETTLEMENT OF NEW HAVEN. 
 
 Site of Nwman's Barn. 
 
 " which the Scripture held forth to them." The temptations of the 
 wilderness could not have been many or great to a community which 
 could live for more than a year without other government than this 
 simple compact. 
 
 But in June of the next year preliminary measures were taken for 
 a permanent political organization. These were of a remarkable 
 character, whether looked upon as an instance of the intense earnest- 
 ness of the religious convictions of the Puritans, or of the submissive 
 deference they were 
 accustomed to yield 
 to their spiritual 
 guides. The whole 
 community gath- 
 ered together in a 
 barn, 1 for want 
 of any other build- 
 ing large enough to 
 hold them and 
 the first business of 
 the assembly was 
 to listen to a ser- 
 mon of instruction 
 and exhortation from Mr. Davenport. His text was from Proverbs 
 ix. 1 : " Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven 
 pillars." Herein he found warrant and direction for the gathering of 
 a Church and the formation of a State. 
 
 The Church was to rest upon seven pillars and the foundation of 
 the State was the Church. The right and the duty to gather 
 the one and create the other were inherent, not derivative. O f LveiTpu- 
 There was no recognition of either hierarch or king. The 
 assembled people were to choose from among themselves twelve men 
 the most esteemed for their virtue and their wisdom, and these twelve 
 were to elect seven others who were to be the seven pillars. On the 
 pillars the Church was to be built ; the seven men, that is, were to 
 call about them such persons as they deemed fit to be members of the 
 Church, and these members were to form the state. For in the Scrip- 
 tures was to be found a perfect rule for the guidance and government 
 of men in all human affairs, in the family, in the commonwealth, in 
 the church. Church-membership was citizenship ; he who was not fit 
 for that, was unfit for this, for the state must be " according to God." 
 
 1 The tradition is that the barn belonged to Robert Newman, aiid it is supposed to have 
 stood at the corner of Grove and Temple Streets, on land afterwards occupied by the h<m>e 
 of Noah Webster, the lexicographer, New Havei). Bacon's Historical Discourses. 
 
30 SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. II. 
 
 Such was the drift of Mr. Davenport's sermon, and it was accept- 
 able to his hearers saving one only, and he it is supposed was a brother 
 clergyman. The assembly elected twelve men to whom should be en- 
 trusted the important duty of raising the seven pillars on which was to 
 rest a temple dedicated to the worship of God, but to be also a house 
 for the protection of man. What else could the twelve do but act in 
 conformity with the judgment of the whole community? Among 
 these twelve most worthy the most worthy seven must surely be found. 
 From their own number, therefore, they selected the seven pillars. 1 
 Around these the church was gathered, the question of fitness for mem- 
 bership resting, in the first instance, with them. 
 
 Two months later the people were again assembled ; again they 
 were exhorted and counselled by Davenport, with the Bible between 
 his hands. He was now, however, more than leader by weight of 
 character and respect for his learning ; the church had chosen him as 
 the pastor, content to accept him as consecrated to the duties of his 
 sacred office by the simple laying on of hands of two of their own 
 Formation number, indifferent to apostolic succession and the authority 
 of the state. o bi snO p S> He spoke, therefore, now with greater authority 
 than ever ; and under his guidance the popular church proceeded to 
 the organization of a popular government. 
 
 Theophilus Eaton was chosen its first governor. In its general pro- 
 visions as to the hold- 
 (~) ing of General Courts, 
 
 - C^GUtr~\rY\. ^ ie num ^ er an d choice 
 "* of magistrates, the ex- 
 ercise of legislative and 
 judicial power, the rights 
 of the citizen, and his re- 
 
 Signature of Theophilus Eaton. ., ... , , 
 
 sponsibihty to the Jaw 
 
 it was essentially the same as that of Connecticut in all outward form, 
 as in its purely democratic spirit. But after all it was democracy 
 with a proviso ; the right of self government in holding or in choosing 
 to office was restricted to those who were members of that church. 
 Others, who also assumed to call themselves Christians, were as com- 
 pletely shut out from any share in the government as a hundred and 
 fifty years later the Constitution of the United States excluded " In- 
 dians not taxed " and " persons held to service or labor." 
 
 On this model established at New Haven other churches were soon 
 gathered in other places, and each church was a town. Some were 
 within the boundaries of Connecticut, and sent their representatives 
 
 1 These were Thoophilus Katon, John Davenport, Robert Newman, Matthew Gilbert, 
 Thomas Fugill, Johu Puntleri-on, ami Jeremiah Dixon. 
 
1639.] 
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF TOWNS AND CHURCHES. 
 
 31 
 
 to the General Court at Hartford ; others were for some years entirely 
 independent, recognizing no civil rule outside of their own organiza- 
 tion. Among these last was Saybrook, to which a colony under 
 George Fenwick was sent by lords Say and Brook, and which was 
 already known by their combined names. Places like Guilford, Mil- 
 ford, Stratford, per- 
 petuating in their 
 names the tender 
 memories of old 
 English homes, were 
 planted on commo- 
 dious havens, or at 
 the mouths of navi- 
 gable streams, along 
 the inner coast of 
 Long Island Sound. 
 Thither fresh emi- 
 grants flocked from 
 Connecticut, from 
 Massachusetts Bay, 
 sometimes directly 
 from England. The 
 country, as it was 
 gradually occupied, was fairly purchased from the natives pur- 
 chased at insignificant prices, indeed, but large enough to pro^^of 
 create a title in fee-simple, while they were satisfactory to the En K llsh - 
 the original owners, who set small value upon limited tracts of that 
 wide wilderness which they claimed as their own. It was the avowed 
 policy of the State to deal justly with the savages, that offences might 
 be avoided ; and, on the whole, the rule was no doubt carefully ob- 
 served, from choice as well as from necessity. On the other hand, if 
 the savages were sometimes insensible to kindness, and incapable of 
 understanding principles of justice incompatible with their wild no- 
 tions of individual right, the lesson of the late war was not lost upon 
 them. If not always peaceable, and if often annoying, they were 
 rarely at this period dangerous neighbors. So these English villages 
 were left to take root and grow in strength and thrift when the storm 
 of savage warfare swept over and almost desolated the settlements of 
 their jealous rivals, the Dutch, throughout the boundaries of New 
 Netherland. 
 
 Nor could the claim of the Dutch West India Company to the 
 Fresh River the Connecticut by right of prior discovery and occu- 
 pation, though so pertinaciously urged, seriously hinder the steady 
 
 Old House in Guilford, 1639. 
 
32 
 
 SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 Encroach- 
 
 
 progress of the English along the shores of the Sound toward the 
 valley of the Hudson. From the time of the first settlement 
 
 __"' . . 
 
 at Hartford the advanced guard or the more energetic race 
 had pushed on, in spite of the protests and threats, the 
 rage furious but harmless of the Dutch. The quiet energy and 
 determination of the English were stronger than the loudest and most 
 indignant complaints ; for success lay naturally with the party that 
 acted rather than with the one that, for the most part, only talked. 
 The two peoples were moved, moreover, by totally different motives. 
 The Fresh River, and all the region it watered, the Dutch 
 
 The Dutch ..;-', . 
 
 in New looked upon only as a back country, rich in beaver skins, to 
 
 England. , J J . 
 
 be made tributary to the great trading station at New Am- 
 sterdam. It best served their purposes while it remained a hunting- 
 ground for the Indians, with here and there a half-military, half-trad- 
 
 Mouth of the Connecticut. 
 
 ing post, to regulate the traffic in the peltries which the Indians 
 gathered. When the Dutch wanted to colonize, if they went out 
 of the valley of the Hudson, or beyond the immediate vicinity of 
 their chief colony, it was to dispute with the Swedes the possession of 
 the beautiful shores that extended on the South River from the Capes 
 of the Delaware a hundred miles into the interior to the mouth of the 
 Schuylkill. They had no such designs of settlement along the coast 
 of New England, however much they coveted the possession of the 
 country for the sake of its trade. 
 
 But the English were moved by quite another spirit ; they wanted 
 homes. They laid the axe at the root of the forests which sheltered 
 and hid the Indian and his game. They cleared the ground for their 
 seed corn ; built their log-houses and barns ; gathered together in 
 churches, and founded commonwealths. The rude forts and mere 
 trading-posts of the Dutch were powerless against circumvallations 
 made with English ploughs ; and the New Netherland garrisons re- 
 
1642.] DUTCH AND ENGLISH BOUNDARIES. 
 
 luctantly, but inevitably, retired before a host armed with spades and 
 hoes, musical with the hum of women's spinning wheels and the 
 voices of happy children, led by Puritan generals in gown and bands, 
 whose orderly-book was the Bible, and whose word of command was 
 a prayer and an exhortation a host seeking to make the wilderness 
 blossom into homes, which laughed at threats of armed resistance, and 
 scouted claims of discovery not backed up by more permanent signs 
 of possession than a flag-staff and a sentinel. 
 
 There could be little doubt as to the result of such a conflict between 
 assumed title and actual possession ; nor was it possible to 
 change that result by appeals to the governments in Eng- 
 land and at the Hague to adjust the boundaries between the boundaries. 
 rival claimants. The representations of the case were lis- 
 tened to with impatience or indifference ; on the one side was want of 
 will, on the other want of power, for any efficient interference. Sir 
 William Bos well, the English ambassador at the Hague, discloses in 
 his official correspondence the policy of his government. 
 
 It would be well enough, he thought, that an act or declaration of 
 some kind should be passed either by both Houses of Parliament, or 
 by the Lower House, or, failing that, by a Committee of that House, 
 to show that " these businesses " relating to the American Colonies 
 were not altogether ignored or forgotten. Such act, or declaration, or 
 memorial, with its official sanction of some sort, it mattered very little 
 what, could then be sent to him with a letter from the Lords of 
 Council with some vague instructions. Provided with such a docu- 
 ment, he would present it when and how it should seem to him most 
 expedient when, he no doubt means, it was no longer possible to 
 escape a pretence of doing something either to the States General, 
 or to the West India Company, or to some other body political or com- 
 mercial, as should seem to him best, and should best serve his purpose 
 of doing nothing. And when these methods of diplomatic procras- 
 tination were thoroughly exhausted, there was still another crowning 
 act of dilatoriness in reserve to be resorted to his excellency could, 
 when further delay was no longer possible, make a report, which 
 would refer the question back again to his government for further 
 consideration, to be ground over again in the slow mill of parliament- 
 ary debate and subsequent reference to a parliamentary committee. 
 
 A little intimidation also, Sir William thought, could be brought 
 to the aid of this skilful diplomacy. The Dutch ambassador in Lon- 
 don, who was supposed, meanwhile, not to be idle, but to be pressing 
 the question of colonial boundaries and encroachments, should, he ad- 
 vised, be quietly approached by some persons of authority and per- 
 suaded of the certain injury and inconvenience that would befall the 
 
 VOL. II. 3 
 
34 
 
 SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 Dutch West India Company if these dissensions and difficulties be- 
 tween the distant and quarrelsome colonists should involve their re- 
 spective governments at home. 
 
 There was little likelihood of any adjudication of boundaries, 
 whether just or unjust, while the English government carefully 
 guarded against any approach to its serious consideration. It was 
 meant that it should be otherwise settled. The conclusion of Bos- 
 well's counsel is : " That in the mean tyme, tlf English there doe not 
 forbeare to put forward their plantacons, and crowd on, crowding the 
 Dutch out of those places where they have [occupied] but without 
 hostility or any act of violence." l 
 
 Not only was the " crowding " pushed along the shores of the 
 English mainland, but it crossed the Sound. In 1639, Lion Gar- 
 on'au'dm-'ir diner purchased of the Indians the island Manchonack 
 Long isianj. since known as Gardiner's Island near Montauk Point. 
 Shelter Island, still further up the bay, was taken possession of by 
 
 James Farrett, who 
 was sent out by 
 William, Earl of 
 Stirling, as his 
 jigent, he claiming 
 the whole of Long 
 Island under a deed 
 from the Plymouth 
 
 m 
 
 Company, made be- 
 fore its dissolution 
 by order of the 
 king. Farrett vis- 
 ited Manhattan, and was held for a short time under arrest by the 
 Dutch governor, Kieft, for asserting Lord Stirling's title. 
 
 The enterprising New Englanders, however, were not to be deterred 
 by such measures. In 1640 a company from Lynn, Massachusetts, 
 appeared, under the leadership of Captain Daniel How, at Cow Neck, 
 within the present town of North Hempstead, Long Island, and at- 
 tempted a settlement. They tore down the arms of the Prince of 
 Orange, which they found upon a tree, and carved in place of the 
 shield an absurd face, as their countrymen had done some years before 
 at Kievit's Hook, at the mouth of the Connecticut. The insult and 
 intrusion were resented by Kieft with spirit, and How and his com- 
 panions were compelled to retreat. But it was only toward the other 
 end of the island, where they settled South Hampton and East Hamp- 
 ton, at the eastern extremity. 
 
 l Colonial liecords of Connecticut, Truinbull, Appendix I. 
 
 Gardiner's Island. 
 

1650.] 
 
 DUTCH AND ENGLISH BOUNDARIES. 
 
 35 
 
 The same year some New Haven people took possession at Southold 
 on the Sound. The young colonies had not long to wait, when once 
 a firm foothold was gained, for accessions both from Old and New Eng- 
 land. Nor were the Dutch unreasonable, for they seemed quite willing 
 to share the island with the English, leaving them to take possession 
 of the eastern half unmolested. Ten years later indeed, in 
 1650, they made a treaty to this effect with the New Eng- 
 land colonies, by which a dividing line should be drawn from 
 the west side of Oyster Bay to the sea ; but in the mean while, they 
 had only insisted 
 that the English 
 plantations which 
 in the course of 
 that decade had 
 grown up west of 
 this line, should be 
 
 held to be within 
 the jurisdiction of 
 the West India 
 Company, and 
 should acknowl- 
 edge their alle- Montauk Point 
 giance to the 
 
 States General. Hempstead, Flushing, Jamaica, and Newtown, were, 
 therefore, Dutch towns, though settled by the English. But South 
 Hampton, East Hampton, Southold, Brookhaven, Huntington, and 
 Oyster Bay, were united at different periods, to Connecticut, till after 
 the surrender of New Netherlands to the English in 16t>4, when the 
 whole island came under the government of the Duke of York. 1 
 
 This migration of the English from Massachusetts Bay to the coun- 
 try of the Connecticut, thence westward along both shores of the 
 Sound, crowding in one direction almost as far as Hell Gate, pushing, 
 in another, almost to the banks of the Hudson, was not impelled by 
 any imperative necessity of outward circumstance, but rather by an 
 uncontrollable restlessness, a fever of change that gave them no quiet. 
 Full of energy, activity, curiosity, and a love of independence, politi- 
 cal and religious, they demanded above all things space enough for the 
 gratification of ambitions that sought to found thriving colonies and 
 open new avenues to wealth. 
 
 They were all Puritans, and as such were anxious to escape from a 
 real or apprehended thraldom in church or state. But there were, 
 perhaps, in these offshoots of the parent stock something more of a 
 
 1 A Sketch of the First Settlement of the Towns of Long Island, etc. By Silas Wood. 
 
36 
 
 SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 . II. 
 
 Character of 
 the Connect- 
 icut Puri- 
 tans. 
 
 worldly disposition, and something less of that spirit of fanaticism 
 which led the Boston brethren to welcome above all things a plunge 
 into the uproar of a theological controversy, and to subordinate all 
 else to the establishment of a uniformity of faith. That Puritan pru- 
 dence, which was careful to be out of the reach of the heavy hands of 
 the Bishops before the non-conformist ventured to expand into the 
 more perfect freedom of separatism, seems to have been carried into 
 all the other relations of life by these people who chose to find. their 
 abiding places without the jurisdiction of Massachusetts Bay. 
 
 They would not, indeed, have been Puritans had not the interests 
 f religion been with them paramount to all earthly consid- 
 erations ; but they were not therefore disposed to look upon 
 all merely material interests with comparative indifference. 
 It was not, perhaps, so much any essential radical difference of char- 
 acter between them and other New England emigrants of their time 
 and class ; but there was at least that fortunate difference of circum- 
 stance and opportunity which came with their escape from the 
 fierce polemics of Boston, and reluctance to live under magistrates 
 who, however excellent their rule in many respects, never willingly 
 assented to the admission of others to any share of it, while insisting 
 upon implicit obedience in all things which they decreed, whether re- 
 lating to this world or the next. The people who escaped from this 
 domination into Connecticut, if it were only that the ambitions of 
 leaders might have fuller play, and the consent of followers a larger 
 choice, gained, beside, more freedom than they sought. They were 
 led to take a wider view of the possibilities of the new country they 
 had found than as merely an arena for theological discussion where the 
 metes and bounds of religious liberty, however much enlarged into 
 the wider field of Puritanism, were just as arbitrary and as fixed as 
 ever. They saw that they might be prosperous without ceasing to be 
 pious, and that worldly thrift was not necessarily incompatible with a 
 due regard for the things of the everlasting life. They were too busy 
 in clearing forests, in planting crops, in building towns at the mouths 
 of all the rivers that seemed most promising for future commerce, to 
 permit themselves to be absorbed in attempts to find out the whole 
 counsel of God in dim and subtile distinctions of theological contro- 
 versy. 
 
 Not that they were unmindful of those things which made so large 
 an element in the intellectual and spiritual life of the time ; but that 
 other interests were with them of equal if not sometimes of greater 
 consideration. A steady compliance with the suggestions of worldly 
 wisdom, a prudent attention to the conditions of worldly thrift, not 
 less than an implicit obedience to the highest sense of religious duty, 
 
1637.] 
 
 CONNECTICUT AND RHODE ISLAND. 
 
 37 
 
 have ever characterized this branch of the family of New England 
 Puritans. Wherever they have gone they have carried with them 
 this profitable mixture of puritanic rectitude and wise worldliness. 
 However stern and rigid their piety, hand in hand with it have gone in- 
 dustry and prosperity ; the government of the people by the will of the 
 majority ; the free school ; the free church according to their standard 
 of religious freedom, and the common law of England. Of that hardy 
 race of pioneers whose indomitable courage, whose irrepressible 
 energy, whose restless love of change, neither chains of mountains, 
 nor gigantic rivers, nor lakes that are inland seas, nor arid deserts 
 could hinder in their march to the shores of another ocean there has 
 been no more fruitful root than that which was first planted in the rich 
 soil of the valley of the Connecticut. 
 
 Hooker's House at Hartford, 
 
 ^ There had been struggling into existence, meanwhile, another New 
 England colony, the stern and hard realities of whose early expe- 
 riences were touched with no play of that idyllic light and shadow that 
 give grace and romance to the first migrations from Massachusetts 
 Hay to the region of the Connecticut. Its feeble beginning was no 
 pleasant patriarchal journey like that of Hooker and Stone and 
 their followers from Newtown to Hartford. With these went flocks 
 and herds, and wagons laden with household stuff; and they travelled 
 leisurely through the hundred miles of forest in the early days; of June 
 when the woods, rich in the tender colors of the young foliage, let 
 
SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 the warm sunshine through upon the green, fresh-grown moss and the 
 dead leaves of past summers, flecked all over with flowers in blue 
 and white and gold the warm sunshine that stirred, at the same 
 time, into unwonted movement the hearts of the young Puritans, 
 youths and maidens and hilarious children, in whom not even the 
 watchful care and sombre presence of elder and deacons could sup- 
 press the quick and joyful sense of sympathy with the freedom, and 
 beauty, and delight, that filled all nature. 
 
 So Davenport and his company sailed out of Boston harbor in the 
 bright days of April, sailed on even keel and with gentle breezes 
 past the long beaches of the Bay ; past the white strands and sand- 
 hills of Cape Cod ; past the islands of the southern coast of New 
 
 \ 
 
 Coast of Massachusetts. Nantasket Beach. 
 
 England where the warm current of the Gulf Stream with a westward 
 sweep tempers the waters and the air ; and so at length they came 
 into Long Island Sound. The pastor meanwhile, no doubt gathering 
 the elder men about him on sunny days in the shadow of the sails, 
 held wise and sweet converse upon that stately temple of seven pillars 
 which should presently rear its fair proportions in the primeval soli- 
 tude where great oaks and elms cast their shadows over the rich 
 meadows that stretched down to the sea. 
 
 All these went forth with the God-speeds and good wishes of the 
 brethren of Massachusetts ; but not so with the founders of Rhode 
 
1638.] THE COLONY AT PROVIDENCE. 39 
 
 Island. Roger Williams fled out into the night and the winter's 
 storm, with the order of the General Court behind him, the officers of 
 the law in hot pursuit, and a ship waiting in the offing to bear him 
 into perpetual banishment across the sea. The shelter which Puritan 
 intolerance denied him he sought and found among savage friends. 
 As he, the next spring, with only five companions, paddled Ijandill _ of 
 his canoe along the shore of Providence Bay, their thoughts J}^ r a Y' l ~ 
 were less of hierarchies and of commonwealths, than where Provideuce 
 the sunniest slope could be found for a field of maize, the most shel- 
 tered and convenient nook for huts. 
 
 Mooshausick, as the place was called where Williams hoped to find 
 rest at last and which he named Providence, because, he said, " of 
 God's merciful providence unto me in my distress " he desired, also, 
 " might be for a shelter for those distressed in conscience." It was 
 not long ere such asylums were needed. Whether the exercise then 
 and there of the right of free thought and free speech was wise or 
 foolish, whether it was harmless or baneful either to church or state, 
 the attempt to suppress that right was altogether futile. 1 
 
 Roger Williams had not long to wait for companionship. Within 
 two years from the time of his landing upon Slate Rock such acces- 
 sions were made to his colony that "the lands on the 
 two fresh rivers, Wowasquatuckett and Mooshau- 
 sick," granted to him by Canonicus and Mianto- 
 nomo, he conveyed to twelve associates for thirty signature of 
 pounds. These incorporated themselves and all that nonno - 
 
 should be subsequently admitted, into a township, promising to render 
 " an active or passive obedience to all such orders 
 or agreements as shall be made for public good," by 
 the consent of the majority. But the submission was 
 to be " only in civil things." 2 Signature of 
 
 1 The popular defence of the intolerance of the early Boston Puritans for strange to 
 s-ay, they have their defenders is that the critical circumstances of their condition as an 
 infant colony with its peculiar relations to the parent state made it imperative that a uni- 
 formity of belief should he enforced for the sake of preserving the Puritan ascendancy both 
 in religions and civil affairs. And it is triumphantly asserted as the result that the character 
 of the Massachusetts of later times, and its influence upon the history of the whole country, 
 are due to the stern arid wise policy of the early fathers in their suppression of a liberty 
 that was running or had run into license. Whereas, the truth is that those bigoted elders 
 and magistrates, though they sometimes silenced the men, never suppressed the opinions 
 whether true or false. They only tried, and the more they tried the less they succeeded. 
 Ihe character of Massachusetts and the potent influence she has exercised upon the history 
 of the United States are due to the fact that neither bigots nor fanatics have ever, from the 
 time of Roger Williams to the present moment, been able to destroy the liberty of thought 
 and of speech within her borders. Her people have always been wise enough wiser always 
 than the Synod and the General Court to tolerate freedom of opinion, and, in the long run, 
 to reject that which was unwise and injurious and accept that which was true and good. 
 The twelve men to whom the conveyance was made were : Stukely Westcoat, Wil- 
 
40 SOUTHERN XEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. II. 
 
 This was the corner-stone of the Commonwealth laid by the banish- 
 ment of Roger Williams from Massachusetts Bav. He and 
 
 Character of 
 
 wiiimms - s his companions wore pronounced dangerous men because 
 
 Colonv. . 
 
 their doctrines were assumed to be subversive of the state 
 and the church. Their first act, so soon almost as there were enough 
 of them gathered together to make an agreement, was as a dozen in- 
 telligent Americans would do to-day if thrown together under similar 
 circumstances to enter into a compact for government by rule of the 
 majority, leaving to each the enjoyment of such religious belief as the 
 intelligence and conscience of each should dictate. Among the ear- 
 liest recorded actions of the town of Providence is one depriving 
 Joshua Verin of the privilege of voting because he had committed " a 
 breach of covenant in restraining liberty of conscience," inasmuch as 
 he had prevented his wife from going when she pleased to Mr. Wil- 
 liams's meetings. 
 
 To those whose presence in Massachusetts Bay the " Lords breth- 
 Hete<i con- ren " would not tolerate, or who could not submit to the 
 Masswciiu" despotic rule which these brethren sought to establish, the 
 country about Narragansett Bay soon came to be as a land 
 of refuge. There gathered there, no doubt, in the first few years a 
 heterogeneous and remarkable company ; some half crazed with those 
 teeming maggots of the brain which so breed in times of exasperating 
 religious controversy ; others possessed by harmless vagaries of illogi- 
 cal thought, which spring up in such seasons in some minds, and 
 which, if they have a meaning to those who cherish them, are incom- 
 prehensible to everybody else. Indeed, the wonder is, in our soberer 
 times, not that there were so many of these unhappy and infatuated 
 polemists, but that any clear exercise of sound judgment remained in 
 a community where the weight of wisdom and of character convened 
 as in the Cambridge Synod, could elaborate out of the controversy 
 on justification and sanctification eighty-two pestilent heresies worthy 
 of condign punishment. There were nevertheless many men, possibly 
 even a majority of the church in Boston, who in all this confusion of 
 tongues, preserved their intellectual balance unmoved and kept their 
 eyes firmly fixed on the everlasting truth. Many among them were 
 determined to preserve the one thing worth pi'eserving liberty of 
 thought and of conscience ; never losing sight of its supreme value, 
 sometimes, perhaps, abusing it themselves, suffering much oftener 
 
 liam Arnold, Thomas James, Robert Cole, John Greene, John Throckmorton, William 
 Harris, William Carpenter, Thomas Olney, Francis Weston, Richard Waterman, Ezekiel 
 Holliman. The thirtv pounds, however, seems not to have heen paid till the admission 
 subsequently of some new members into the body politic, when a new and fuller deed was 
 made by Mr. Williams and the first twelve were released from any payment. See Baek- 
 u's Hutoty <>f the American Haptigts, vol. i., pp. 92. 9-3. 
 

 1638.] TREATMENT OF THE ANTIXOMIANS. 41 
 
 from its abuse in others, but dreading, nevertheless, the danger of its 
 suppression far more than any evil likely to arise from its undue ex- 
 
 ercise. 
 
 Of these men, some who were wise and some who were foolish in- 
 stinctively turned their faces, when Massachusetts would tolerate them 
 no longer, to that shelter which Roger Williams had provided " for 
 persons distressed in conscience." The eighty-two heresies which the 
 Cambridge Svnod saw lurking in the doctrine that a covenant of 
 grace was the only way to salvation, and which were discovered to be 
 equally dangerous to church and state, must with the Lord's help, 
 be scattered to the winds of Heaven. The General Court, which was 
 essentially the synod under another name, had little mercy 
 
 J J 111,1 i Attitude of 
 
 upon the persons who held these dangerous opinions, upon the General 
 
 i Court to- 
 
 those who were assumed to hold them, or upon those even 
 who questioned the justice of punishing the real or the sup- 
 posed offenders. It was not only that the original heresy was pro- 
 nounced as deserving of punishment, but they were held no less 
 guilty who refused to acknowledge as legitimate whatever dangerous 
 deductions their opponents chose to draw from opinions conscientiously 
 and innocently believed in. And no less was it an offence against the 
 Commonwealth to maintain that one's carriage and behavior were 
 not necessarily dangerous and seditious because one's abstract faith 
 was pronounced to be heretical by elders and magistrates. 1 
 
 The party which Winthrop led in the General Court, both officially 
 and personally, and Wilson in the Synod, was content with no half 
 measures. . Vans was evidently glad enough, at last, to get back to 
 England on any .pretext after his defeat by Winthrop in the election 
 for governor ; 2 Cotton, whom poor Mrs. Hutchinson had followed to 
 New England, because of the soundness and purity of his faith, seemed 
 
 1 See Callender's Historical Discourse on The Civil and Religious Affairs of the Colony of 
 liltocle Island <$ Providence Plantations, 1739. For an admirable account of the Antino- 
 inian Controversy, see also Ellis's Life of Anne Iluicliiiuum in Sparks's American Bioynt- 
 jiny, vol. vi., new series. 
 
 2 How intense the party feeliug of the time was is evident in some significant incidents 
 related by Winthrop. When he was elected to succeed Vane in 1637, the two sergeants, 
 who?e duty it was to precede the governor on all public occasions, carrying halberds, re- 
 Hiscd to perform this office before Wiuthrop. One of the men was a son of Mrs. Hutch- 
 inson. Wiuthrop invited a young English lord Lord Ley on a visit to Boston, to 
 dinner, asking Vane, among others, to meet him. " Mr. Vane," says Winthrop, " not 
 only refused to come (alleging, by letter, that his conscience withheld him), but also, at 
 the same hour, he went over to Nettle's Island to dine with Mr. Maverick, and carried 
 the Lord Ley with him." One is not surprised to read that when, not long after, Vane 
 and Ley went down the harbor on their way to sea, although many persons were present 
 to do honor to the departure of the ex-governor, and salutes were fired from the castle 
 and elsewhere, the governor himself " was not come from the court, but had left order for 
 their honourable dismission." Such were the amenities that attended the controversy on 
 sauetincatiou and justification. 
 
42 SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. II. 
 
 to fall away from his friends, though, perhaps, he only saw how im- 
 possible it was for any man, in the full possession of his reason, to go 
 the whole length of either party. 1 One by one the Antinomians were 
 deprived of their strongest leaders. Wheelwright wandered away 
 northward, and stopped when he reached what seemed a 
 
 Trvatmcnt . . . * "'. -n 
 
 of tht- Anti- promising spot in the woods for a plantation now Exeter, 
 New Hampshire. The most shocking and disgusting cal- 
 umnies were, as we have already related, 2 visited upon Mrs. 
 Hutchinson, and were enough to drive her out into any wilderness, 
 however savage, even if Massachusetts had not decreed her banish- 
 ment after a trial which only needed thumbscrews and the rack to be 
 complete after its kind. 
 
 In Boston and its vicinity between seventy and eighty, most of 
 them men of character and influence, were compelled to surrender 
 their arms, with the added humiliation of carrying them with their 
 own hands to a certain place of deposit, as enemies of the common- 
 wealth. Many shared the sentence of Mrs. Hntchinson and her 
 brother and were banished ; others preferred voluntary exile, to re- 
 maining where they were objects of constant suspicion, and dreaded 
 as a dangerous and wicked faction. Whether there was any reason or 
 
 .' 
 
 not for apprehending that the defeated party would resort to arms, 
 there was good reason for fearing their strength. Though the min- 
 isters, and the magistrates who joined with them, were able to rule 
 with a high hand, the minority that was compelled to submit was a 
 very large one. 
 
 Many of these were driven by such persecutions to seek for a new 
 home outside the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. Nearly all of them 
 were of that number who were compelled to give up their arms. 
 k * I thought it not strange," wrote one of them John Clark " to 
 see men differ about matters of Heaven, for I expect no less upon 
 Earth : But to see that they were not able so to bear each with other 
 in their different understandings and consciences, as in those utmost 
 parts of the World to live peaceably together, whereupon I moved the 
 latter [his own friends], for as much as the land was before us and 
 wide enough, with the profer of Abraham to Lot, and for peace sake, 
 
 1 Eminent and good as John Cotton was, his course in this controversy, as well as on 
 other occasions, could hardly fail to give him the reputation of a man so candid that lie 
 cared nothing for consistencv, or else so vacillating as to be untriistworthv. A Mr. Ward, 
 
 ' 
 
 "once lecturer at St. Michael's, in Cornhill, London," probably the Rev. Nathaniel 
 Ward, " The Simple Cobbler of Agnwain," said of him : " Here is our reverend elder, 
 Mr. Cotton, who ordinarily preaclieth that publicly one year, that the next year he pub- 
 licly repents of, and shews himself very sorrowful for it to the congregation." Siniplici- 
 li<'s Deft-nee tiiiniimt .Setew lltadtd Policy, etc., etc. Kepublication in /?. /. Hist. Soc. Coll., 
 vol. ii., ]>. 1:22. 
 
 2 See vol. i., p. .">.">(>. 
 
1638.] SETTLEMENT AT PORTSMOUTH, R. I. 43 
 
 to turn aside to the right hand, or to the left." l Moved by a purpose 
 so peaceful and sensible, Wheelwright was first visited at Exeter ; 
 then Long Island and the. Capes of the Delaware were proposed, and 
 on the way southward Williams and the people of Plymouth, tole- 
 rant of schismatics and who knew from long and bitter experience 
 what exile for conscience' sake meant were visited. All concurred 
 in advising them to go no further, but to take possession upon the isl- 
 and of Aquetnet, or Acquidneck now Rhode Island. Their first 
 choice was Sowames a neck of land in the pi-esent town of Barring- 
 ton, but the Plymouth people claimed the latter as belonging to 
 them, holding it, they said, "to be the garden of their Patent, and the 
 flour in the garden," while the island was not within their bounda- 
 ries. 2 On this latter point, however, the Plymouth authorities changed 
 
 their minds 
 some years 
 afterward. In 1650, 
 when Coddington, the 
 governor of Rhode 
 Island, petitioned for a 
 
 patent, Edward Wills- The Cove. Portsmouth, Rhode Island. 
 
 low appeared on be- 
 half of the Plymouth people before the committee of the admiralty in 
 London, claiming that Acquidneck belonged to them under the grant 
 of 1620. 3 
 
 The island, however, was purchased from Canon icus and Mian- 
 tonomo, for " forty fathom of white beads," for Coddington and his 
 associates. It was done, writes Williams, " through that love and 
 favour which that honoured gentleman. Sir Henry Vane, and myself, 
 had with the great sachem, Myantonomy, about the league which I 
 
 1 /// Af icts from Nftc Km/hind: or a Nurrntii.-e of New Emjlund's Persecution, etc. By 
 John Clark, Physician of Rode Island in America. 1652. Kepublished in Mass. Hist. 
 Hoc. Coll., Fourth Series, vol. ii. 
 
 2 Clark's Xurrative. 
 
 8 (-\dendar of State Papirs, Colonial Scries, edited l>y W. Noel Salisbury, j>. 338. 
 
44 
 
 SOUTIIKRX XE\V ENGLAND. 
 
 [Cirxp. II. 
 
 procured between the Massachusetts English and the Narragansetts 
 in the Pequod war." 
 
 The purchase was made on the 24th of March, 1637-8. The new 
 srttinnvnt comers pitched tlieir tents at the northern extremity of 
 mouth* t ^ u> island, at Poo asset, now called Portsmouth, possibly 
 a?.!!" March soni(i days before. With a reverential reliance upon the 
 
 divine support, quite out of keeping with the supposition 
 that they were men too dangerous to society to be trusted with deadly 
 weapons, they had entered, on the 7th of the month, into a compact 
 rather of the character of a church than of a civil body. To incorpo- 
 rate themselves into a body politic they submitted their lives, persons, 
 and estates unto the " Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, and 
 Lord of Lords, and to all those most perfect and absolute laws of his, 
 given unto us in his holy word of truth, to be guided and judged 
 thereby." l Under this theocracy they proposed to live ; and Mr. 
 
 Coddington was at once chosen chief nidge, with, probably, 
 
 Coddington r. e . . 7 J ! 
 
 chosen chief the lunctions or an equity court, but without the power or 
 
 J 
 
 , . , . . 
 
 enforcing its decisions. 
 
 The experiment was a short one. " The perfect and absolute law " 
 
 of the Scriptures might have been 
 quite sufficient for the original asso- 
 ciates alone, but their numbers were 
 soon added to with such a result as 
 might have been looked for. Some 
 of those who came to the new settle- 
 ment were probably not saints ; some 
 of those who were may possibly have 
 been saints of a very pragmatical 
 and uncompliant disposition. Not a 
 year had passed when we find that 
 three persons were elected as elders 
 to assist Mr. Coddington, and two 
 of these three were not among the 
 original associates. Not long after 
 Governor Coddington. a constable was chosen to preserve 
 
 the peace and prevent unlawful meetings, and a sergeant elected to 
 keep a prison for the custody of those committed to his charge. 2 
 About the same time William Aspinwall, one of the most respectable 
 
 1 The associates were William C'oddinjjton, John Clark, William Hutchiiison, John 
 Coggeshall, William Aspinwall, Samuel Wilhore, John Porter, John Sanford, Edward 
 Hutehiuson, Jun., Thomas Savage, William Dyrc, William Frcehorne, Phillip Shearman, 
 John Walker, Hichard Carder, William Baulston, Edward Hutchiiison, Sen., Henry Bull. 
 Callender's Historical Discourse. Backus adds to the list the uame of liaudal Holden. 
 
 2 Wtode Island Colonial Record*. 
 
DISSENSIONS IN THE NEW COLONY. 
 
 and most conspicuous of those who had been banished from Massa- 
 chusetts, was proceeded against "as a suspected person for sedition 
 against the State." There are no surer evidences of civil government 
 than jails and constables. 
 
 It is easy to imagine the progress of events. The class to which, un- 
 der the category of " Persons distressed in conscience," Roger Williams 
 
 suggested that a shelter might be found about Narntgansett 
 
 ' . . , ,. Hi niffiouiti 
 
 Bay, is always sure to include some very disagreeable and of the new 
 
 very unreasonable, though unquestionably most upright and 
 worthy people. Some of this kind, probably, whose consciences were 
 very tender, as well as some who had no consciences at all, followed 
 to Rhode Island John Clark and his friends, whose earnest desire in 
 going was that they might be permitted " to live peaceably together." 
 There were penalties many and severe yet to be paid before liberty and 
 peace could dwell together undisturbed, as these people soon made man- 
 ifest. 
 
 
 is*^T^ '^- --^_ - --'_ H>^^" 
 
 Entrance to Newport Harbor. 
 
 It was thought in Boston, or, at 
 least, Governor Winthrop believed, 
 that Mrs. Hutchinson was at the bot- 
 tom of the troubles which broke out in 
 the new colony. In May, 1639, the 
 governor writes : " At Aquiday the 
 people grew very tumultuous, and put 
 
 out Mr. Coddington and the other three magistrates, and chose Mr. 
 Hutchinson only, a man of a very mild temper and weak parts, and 
 wholly guided by his wife, who had been the beginner of all the former 
 troubles in the country, and still continued to breed disturbance." l 
 
 This was, no doubt, so far true that Mrs. Hutchinson was not 
 likely to have been a silent listener to any discussions, espe- influence of 
 cially upon theological questions, and these could hardly 4' 
 have failed to arise among minds cut loose from all settled cortl 1 *" 
 beliefs by the Antinomian controversy, and hot and eager with 
 
 1 See Winthrop's Ifi'alon/, vol. i., p. 356, and Savage's note on this passage. Also, Pal- 
 fu-y's ///sf. of New Einjland, vol. i., pp. 512, 513. 
 
 
46 
 
 SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 novel theories, political and polemical. And out of such discussions 
 may well have been evolved the necessity of civil rule and a change 
 of rulers. But the spirit, nevertheless, in which John Clark spoke 
 
 influenced man v 
 
 j,. . 
 
 ,-_-- among them, remem- 
 
 bering the proffer of 
 Abraham to Lot, and 
 turning one to the 
 right hand and the 
 other to the left. 
 Coddington and his 
 friends removed 
 within two years to 
 the other end of the 
 island, at New- 
 port, but the colo- 
 nies were soon after 
 united under one 
 government, with 
 Coddington at its 
 head, and Hutchin- 
 son as one of his 
 assistants. s 
 
 Newport was settled by nine of the leading men of Pocasset or, 
 as it was this year named, Portsmouth including all its magistrates. 1 
 Of these, the first who built a house was Nicholas Easton, who, with 
 his two sons, Peter and John, arrived in a boat on the first of May, 
 perhaps a little in advance of his eight associates. He and his sons, 
 at any rate, were the first to provide themselves with a permanent 
 shelter. 2 At the first recorded meeting of the emigrants on the 16th 
 of May, the site of " the plantation now begun at this southwest end 
 of the island " is fixed as on both sides of the spring, " by the seaside 
 southward" ; this spring was on the west side of the present Spring 
 Street near the State House, its stream running to the harbor. The 
 town grew rapidly, and in five months numbered one hundred and one 
 persons. Winthrop says in his journal of that mouth : " They [at 
 Acquidneck] also gathered a church in a very disordered way; for they 
 took some excommunicated persons, and others who were members of 
 
 1 The nine were William Coddinyrton, Nicholas Kaston, John Cogjjeshall, William Bren- 
 ton, John Clark, Jeremy Clark, Thomas Hazard, Henry Bull, and William Dyre. 
 
 - The house was on the west side of Farewell Street, a little west of Friends' meeting- 
 house in the Newport of our day. Coddington's house was on the north side of Marlbor- 
 ouyh Street, fronting Duke Street. Arnold's History of Rhode Island. 
 
 Coddington's House, Newport. 
 
1642.] REMOVAL OF MRS. HUTCHINSON. 47 
 
 the church of Boston and not dismissed." He probably refers to a 
 gathering at Pocasset, but these nine founders of Newport must have 
 been its chief members, and were not likely to have lost their Christian 
 fellowship by their removal. The " disordered way " was ere long 
 the Baptist Church of Newport, with the Rev. John Clark as pastor, 
 to the Puritan mind " a confusion worse confounded." 
 
 Hutchinson died in 1642. Only the summer before a son and a 
 son-in-law of the family had been imprisoned and fined on a visit to 
 Boston, 1 and it is far more probable that Mrs. Hutchinson, longing 
 for peace and tranquillity, sought, after her husband's death, Mrs Hutch . 
 to escape persecution and calumny by removing to New ^."/^J^ 
 Netherland, out of the reach of her own countrymen, than land - 
 that it became intolerable to her, as her detractors would have us 
 believe, to live in any peaceful and well-ordered community. " She 
 and her party," says Winthrop, " would have no magistracy." But 
 there was no evil he was not willing to believe of that unhappy lady. 
 He even suspected her of witchcraft, and that she had bewitched 
 this young man Collins, who married her daughter ; for " it was cer- 
 tainly known," he says, with the utmost solemnity, that her " bosom 
 friend," one Hawkins's wife, " had much familiarity with the devil 
 in England." 
 
 In truth these Rhode Island people grew, from the beginning, to be 
 more and more intolerable to the Boston brethren. It was Hostility of 
 
 bad enough that they should obstinately maintain the rights 
 of independent thought and private conscience ; it was un- Aw i ui<ineck 
 pardonable that they should assume to be none the less sincere Chris- 
 tians and good citizens, and should succeed in establishing a govern- 
 ment of their own on principles which the Massachusetts General 
 Court declared were criminal. Even in a common peril the Massa- 
 chusetts magistrates could recognize no tie of old friendship hardly, 
 indeed, of human sympathy that should bind them to such men. 
 Opportunities for showing the bitterness and intensity of this feeling 
 were not long in coming. 
 
 The necessity still existed by whose fault may, perhaps, be ques- 
 tioned, but, at any rate, existed of the utmost vigilance lest the 
 hatred of the Indians should be again provoked, notwithstanding the 
 terrible lesson of the Pequot war, into open hostility. An alliance of 
 
 1 Collins, the son-iu-law, was fined .100, and Hutchinson .50, not with any expectation 
 that such tines could ever be paid, but that the men mijfht be detained in prison. Gov- 
 ernor Winthrop frankly acknowledges this and <*ives as an additional reason that the fam- 
 ily had thm-tofore been so troublesome. lu Collins's case this vicarious punishment was 
 inHicted upon a man who had not even been in the country a twelve month. When the 
 magistrates were satisfied with the length of the imprisonment the flues were remitted, and 
 the youuj,' men returned to Rhode Island. 
 
48 
 
 SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 colonies 
 agiiinst the 
 Indians. 
 
 all the English was, as that war had proved, the wisest precaution and 
 the surest defence. These later settlements, made meanwhile on Nar- 
 ragansett Bay, were not less sensible of the common danger, nor 
 doubtful as to how it could best be met. 
 
 Upon this subject Governor Coddington wrote in 1640, by order of 
 proposition the General Court, to the Governor of Massachusetts. The 
 Incr^'the character of the letter we only know from Winthrop's ac- 
 count of it. Though it came from Newport and not from 
 Providence, it was written in that humane spirit which Roger 
 Williams had always held should govern the treatment of the natives; 
 that the real safety of the English lay in a just recognition of the nat- 
 ural rights of the Indians. "They declared," says Winthrop, " their 
 dislike of such as would have the Indians rooted out, as being of the 
 cursed race of Ham, and their desire of our mutual accord in seeking 
 to gain them by justice and kindness, and withal to watch over them 
 to prevent any danger by them." 
 
 The magistrates of Connecticut and New Haven united with those 
 of Acquidneck in this reasonable and Christian proposition. 
 
 Refused by XT ...... -~ ~ 
 
 Massachu- Mor was it in itselt repugnant to the General Court or the 
 Bay. But however apprehensive they might be of a savage 
 outbreak, however much disposed to conciliate the Indians by justice 
 and kindness, they, in Boston, would neither bestow nor willingly 
 receive blessings in companionship with heretics. The resentment 
 which would seize such an occasion for its gratification seems almost 
 puerile. " We returned answer of our consent with them in all things 
 propounded," writes Winthrop, " only we refused to include those of 
 Aquiday in our answer, or to have any treaty with them." 1 The 
 official record is even more explicit. The letter, it was ordered, " shall 
 be thus answered by the governor ; that the court doth assent to all 
 the propositions laid down in the aforesaid letter, but that the answer 
 shall be directed to Mr. Eaton, Mr. Hopkins, and Mr. Hayues [of 
 New Haven and of Connecticut] only, excluding Mr. Coddington and 
 Mr. Brenton [of Newport,] as men not to be capitulated withal by us, 
 either for themselves or the people of the Island which they inhabit, 
 as their case standeth." 2 
 
 Nor was this an outbreak of a merely temporary feeling. Here was 
 the spirit which was to shape the future relations of the older and the 
 younger colony. It shut out all considerations of a common interest, 
 dulled the sense of a common danger, stifled the sympathies of a kin- 
 dred blood. The "case" of these m^ii in Narragansett Bay was that 
 they had been banished from Massachusetts, or had fled of their own 
 
 1 Savage's Witftktvp, vol. ii., p. 24. 
 
 2 Records of Massachusetts, vol. i., p. 305. 
 

 1643.] THE NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. 49 
 
 accord tli.it they might enjoy in peace the right of thinking for them- 
 selves. But that was a right which to the Puritans of Boston was 
 intolerable. It was not merely as is so often pretended on their 
 behalf that these Puritans sought to protect the house of refuge 
 they had built from any disturbing influences ; they were no less de- 
 termined that there should not be, if they could prevent it, anywhere 
 within their reach, a church or a state that was not formed upon their 
 model. 
 
 This proposition from the people of Rhode Island was only the re- 
 newal of an already familiar discussion. The question of a confed- 
 eration of the colonies had been annually brought up for consideration 
 from the close of the Pequot war to the spring of 1643 among the 
 magistrates of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Plymouth. From 
 year to year the project was deferred, the two smaller colonies fearing 
 lest, in the adjustment of the terms of alliance, too much power should 
 fall into the hands of the stronger colony of the Bay. One point, at 
 least, might now be considered as settled ; however willing Connecti- 
 cut and New Haven might be that Acquidneck should be included in 
 such a league, should it ever be formed, the assent of Massachusetts 
 could only be obtained by the exclusion of that colony. 
 
 In 1648, accordingly, a confederation was made embracing Massa- 
 chusetts, New Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven. 
 
 " The \ew 
 
 The same end and aim, the preamble recited, had brought England 
 
 ... PI- i i confederacy. 
 
 them into these parts ot America, " to advance the kingdom 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to enjoy the liberties of the gospel in 
 purity with peace." Their distance from each other was incompatible 
 with a single government for all these plantations , but their danger 
 was a common one from the " people of several nations and strange 
 languages " by whom they were surrounded ; they could not look for 
 protection from the home government because of " the sad distractions 
 in England ; " they entered, therefore, under the name of the United 
 Colonies of New England, " into a firm and perpetual league of friend- 
 ship and amity, for offence and defence, mutual advice and succor upon 
 all just occasions, both for preserving and propagating the truth and 
 liberties of the gospel, and for their own mutual safety and welfare." 
 
 The purpose of this federation was strictly defined and limited, and 
 its affairs were to be entrusted to a body of eight commissioners, two 
 troin each colony. The main object was an offensive and defensive 
 league in case of war, though the rendition of fugitive servants and 
 criminals was also provided for. In all things else each colony re- 
 served to itself the right of self government. Thus simple were the 
 terms of this federal union, so obviously the germ of the union of 
 States of the next century. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
50 
 
 SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 For six years, as we have already said, this question of confeder- 
 ation was a topic of anxious discussion. Though so strictly 
 theconfea- defined and limited, it was only with the utmost caution that 
 the several colonies consented to surrender the rights of self- 
 government even for so obvious a good as a sure protection against 
 their enemies. Perhaps the league would have been even longer de- 
 layed had not other than Indian wars been thought possible. The 
 people along the southern coast of New England had turned their 
 resolute faces and longing eyes towards New Netherland. The peo- 
 ple of Massachusetts, or, at least, the leaders among them, never lost 
 sight of the hope of absolute independence which first moved them to 
 transfer their company, with its charter, quietly and secretly from 
 London to Massachusetts Bay. They watched with absorbing in- 
 terest the progress of the Revolution in England, cautious of any rash 
 precipitancy, but ready for any emergency by which they might be 
 involved in that great struggle, and any event that might be turned 
 to their own advantage. That General Court of Massachusetts which 
 ratified the act of confederacy, also decreed that in the oath of alle- 
 giance taken by the Governor and magistrates they should omit " for 
 the present " the words " you shall bear true faith and allegiance to 
 our Sovereign Lord King Charles ; " for the king, they said, " had 
 violated the privileges of Parliament, and made war upon them." 
 But from this first New England confederacy with its immediate 
 purpose of defence and offence against the Indians, and the 
 possible purposes which time might bring forth Gorges's 
 colony at Agameiiticus (York) in Maine, and the planta- 
 tions on the Narragansett, were rigidly excluded. The Puritans 
 dreaded the state mid the church from which they had fled, and which 
 Gorges represented ; they hated the heretics who had escaped to 
 Rhode Island from the persecutions of the church and the state which 
 they sought to establish. 
 
 
 excluded. 
 
 Signature of John Davenport. 
 

 CHAPTER Hi. 
 
 THE BOSTON PURITANS. 
 
 ROGER WILLIAMS AND LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. BOSTON PURITANISM. ITS BIG- 
 OTRY. THE BELIEF IN A SPECIAL DIVINE PROTECTION. SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. 
 PURITAN INTERPRETATION OF DISASTERS AND MISFORTUNES. POPULAR AP- 
 PREHENSION OF LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. EARLY LAWS OF THE PURITANS. 
 REGULATION OF DRESS AND CUSTOMS. PATERNAL CHARACTER OF THE GOVERN- 
 MENT. RELATIONS OF THE SEXES. LAWS AGAINST LYING AND BLASPHEMY. 
 PUNISHMENTS. PURITAN SPIKIT AND ITS RESULTS IN PRACTICE. SAMUEL GOR- 
 TON. His ACTION AT BOSTON AND AT PLYMOUTH, AND HIS BANISHMENT. GOR- 
 TON AND HIS COMPANIONS AT ACQUIDNECK AND PAWTUXET. THE ATTEMPT TO 
 SEIZE WESTON'S CATTLE. INTERFERENCE OF MASSACHUSETTS. ARBITRARY 
 COURSE OF THE BOSTON MAGISTRATES. GORTON AT SHAWOMET. His LETTER. 
 
 " SLATE ROCK," as the spot is still called where Williams first 
 stepped on shore in search of a new home, marks a memorable event in 
 the history of New England. The wrongs he had suffered might 
 have passed into oblivion as evil so often does, had not their memory 
 been kept alive by the good which followed as a beneficent if 
 not an inevitable consequence. A man less sturdy in cour- 5? 
 age, or of a virtue less stern would have been crushed into 8Cience - 
 submission or frightened into retraction by the persecution with 
 which he was beset. But whether the assertion of the liberty of 
 thought and of freedom of conscience did or did not lead Roger Wil- 
 liams into errors, sometimes of thought and sometimes of action, the 
 right of private judgment and the sacredness of conscientious convic- 
 tion were still true ; and to him was given the strength to assert 
 and maintain, through much tribulation, the great principle, then 
 dimly understood, which lies at the foundation of all free government 
 and of all intelligent religious belief. 
 
 In the last analysis Puritanism meant freedom of thought and lib- 
 erty of conscience. But the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Bogton Puri . 
 limited it to that measure of truth by no means small in- t* m - 
 deed to which they had attained. It was, they believed, obedience 
 to the highest law of the human soul to go as far as they went ; it 
 was heresy to go beyond. They not only would not admit that free- 
 

 THE BOSTON PURITANS. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 doni of thought and of conscience could legitimately lead to any other 
 conclusions than those they had reached ; but they would not admit 
 that such freedom should go further and test the justice of those con- 
 clusions. More than this, they insisted that any conclusions differ- 
 ing from their own were full of dismay and disaster ; and they denied 
 the possibility of coming to any other result by any logical process of 
 thought whatever. 
 
 Slate Rock. 
 
 Accordingly they believed those deserving of the severest condem- 
 nation who maintained any doctrine which, according to the construc- 
 tion they chose to put upon it and the deductions they chose to draw 
 from it, was mischievous, however vehemently those holding that doc- 
 trine might repudiate such a construction and such deductions. They 
 assumed, therefore, not merely to punish the propagation of error 
 evidently or confessed as of evil intent ; they were no less eager to 
 visit with severe penalties any doctrine which others might hold to be 
 truthful and beneficent, but from which they by some ingenious intel- 
 lectual process could deduce a possible civil offence or a religious 
 heresy. 
 
1640.] 
 
 BOSTON PURITANISM. 53 
 
 It was to the last degree narrow-minded, and, as narrow-mindedness 
 always is, absurd. But these people were not the less sincere because 
 they were intolerant. Bigotry, though it be ever so cruel, is not neces- 
 sarily dishonest, and there can be no rational doubt that these Puritan 
 
 / 
 
 bigots were for the most part upright and conscientious. They had 
 braved the pains and perils of exile from homes and country most 
 dearly loved to secure their own inalienable rights, and they 
 
 J , Its bigotry. 
 
 felt to the very marrow of their bones the persecution troin 
 which they had fled. That which was gained was the more precious 
 for the price that was paid for it, and they could not intermit their 
 vigilance in guarding a possession that had cost so much. If the 
 weakness of passion sometimes blunted the finer sense of justice, this 
 is only to say that these men were human, that great suffering had 
 not taught them perfect charity. 
 
 But either they would not or could not recognize the fact that be- 
 cause they had gone so far and opened the way, others would inevita- 
 bly insist upon going further; that the limit to thought and to freedom 
 iu matters civil and religious which they set up would not be accepted 
 by others because they themselves were satisfied that only danger and 
 darkness lay beyond. There was reason enough in their own circum- 
 stances and in their relations to the mother country for the exercise of 
 the utmost care lest liberty should become license ; but it behooved 
 them of all men to make no mistake in drawing the dividing line be- 
 tween license and liberty. If they feared the harvest was to be of 
 thorns they should have remembered it was of the tree they planted; 
 and remembering this they should have doubted of such thorns ; they 
 should have reflected that if, Avhen the fruit be gathered, it should be 
 found not sharp and bitter, but of exceeding sweetness and whole- 
 someness, what madness it would have been to lay the axe at the 
 root of the tree that bore it. 
 
 No faith could be more profound none indeed more logical, if rest- 
 ing on a sure foundation than that of these Boston Puritans in their 
 own righteousness. They believed that the Almighty Power Belie{ in a 
 which created and governed the universe, unseen elsewhere ^"^ec- 
 and of other men, manifested itself visibly and unmistakably tion - 
 for their protection and in approbation of their lives and actions. 
 It was, perhaps, only the elect few who recognized in all its marvellous 
 majesty this impendency of the Divine presence ; to common people 
 yet subject to temptation and liable to sin, God may have seemed, as 
 He does always to ordinary mortals, afar off. But to those who did 
 see it, this visible imminence of the Almighty, manifested in incidents 
 that might otherwise seem trivial or fortuitous, as well as in great 
 events, had an awful meaning, and exercised over their existence an 
 
54 THE BOSTON PURITANS. [CHAP. III. 
 
 irresistible and commanding influence. Life must needs have been a 
 very stern and sombre thing to men who believed themselves to be 
 standing face to face with God, to have entered into his counsels, to 
 be joined with Him in the same work, to be justified in all they did by 
 constant revelations of His will, or warned by significant punishments 
 of His displeasure. They felt quite as intensely and devoutly as men 
 generally feel that the will and the law of the Infinite Creator gov- 
 erned everywhere and always omniscient in a universe without 
 bounds ; omnipresent in an eternity without beginning and without 
 end. But to them there was a sense of a personal Divine presence 
 which had another and even more overwhelming meaning : God him- 
 self was always and personally in Boston. 
 
 This belief in an immediate Providential government of the affairs 
 of New England, so often avowed by Winthrop and others of the lead- 
 ing Puritans, was more profound than any ordinary superstition ; it 
 was a fundamental religious faith. Incidents in themselves trivial 
 were " special Providences ; " events of larger moment and wider 
 consequence were "judgments of God." He before whom Moses hid 
 his face, and who said " I am the God of thy father, the God of Abra- 
 ham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," was again a real per- 
 sonal presence upon the earth, had again revealed himself to his own 
 peculiar people. Their wisdom was his wisdom ; their purposes were 
 his purposes ; their enemies were his enemies. He shielded them in 
 a thousand ways from trouble. If the wicked were visited with mis- 
 fortunes, it was because they were wicked in His estimation as well as 
 in theirs. If mishap sometimes befell the good it was to remind them 
 of their dependence upon God, or to rebuke them for a proneness to 
 forget that He was the source of all blessings. In either case it was 
 to testify His immediate presence, or His approval of all that they 
 thought and did believing it to be His will. Thus there was vouch- 
 safed to them a constant revelation, and by the wise its voice could 
 never be mistaken. 
 
 To incidents trifling in themselves there might be a tremendous im- 
 gpeciai port. Among a thousand books in a chamber where also 
 Providences. wag a s (; Ore o f corn< ] av a volume in which were bound up 
 
 together a Greek Testament, the Psalms, and the Book of Common 
 Prayer. It was a thing "worthy of observation," to the pious Win- 
 throp, that a mouse should have entered the garret, eaten the Prayer 
 Book, " every leaf of it," and left the rest untouched. Could this be 
 accident? Was it a mouse's discrimination ? It was so obvious as to 
 need only to be pointed out that by this humble instrument God had 
 chosen to testify his abhorrence of the stated prayers of an idolatrous 
 church. 
 
16-10.] 
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. 
 
 55 
 
 Could the Lord tolerate false doctrine ? There was no want of an- 
 swers. God followed Mrs. Hutchinson a " woman who had the 
 chiefe rule of all the roast, being very bold in her strange Revelations 
 and misapplications " and her family to New Netherland, where, 
 says Johnson, 1 the Indians " cruelly murthered her, taking one of their 
 daughters away with them, and another of them seeking to escape, is 
 caught, as she was getting over a hedge, and they drew her back 
 againe by the haire of the head to the stump of a tree, and there cut 
 off her head with a hatchet." But this was " the loud-speaking hand 
 of God against them." A barber was overtaken by a storm on Bos- 
 ton Neck the road still so called, and leading to the suburban towns 
 of Roxbury and Dorchester and perished. It was remembered of 
 him when his frozen 
 body was recovered 
 from the snow, that 
 he was one who " hav- 
 ing a fit opportunity, 
 by reason of his trade, 
 so soone as any were 
 set downe in his 
 chaire, he would com- 
 monly be cutting of 
 their haire and the 
 truth together." 2 In 
 the Hutchinson con- 
 troversy this unhap- 
 py man had been so 
 carried away by his 
 mistaken zeal, that his name is found among those whose arms were 
 taken from them. 4 That he should freeze to death was a testimony from 
 the Lord that an antinomian and contumacious barber, who for the 
 propagation of error, so misused his opportunities, was not fit to live. 
 
 Governor Winthrop called it a notable " judgment of God," that 
 twenty-one barrels of gunpowder should explode on board an English 
 ship in the harbor of Charlestown, killing the captain, nine or ten of 
 his crew, and some others ; for they were " profane scoffers," says the 
 
 1 Wonder-working Providence in New England, ti^Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. ii., et set/. 
 
 2 Johnson's Wonder Working Providence. 
 
 ! This house, of which an account is given in the Historical Magazine, second series, 
 vol. ii., p. 169 (number for September, 1867), stands on Miuot Street, iiear Chicatawbut 
 Street, in the part of Dorchester called Neponset, now annexed to Boston. It is called 
 the " Minot House," from the iiiime of its first owner ; and is asserted to be the oldest 
 \cooden house iu the United States. 
 
 * His name was William Diuely, and his infant son, born ten days after the father's 
 death, was baptized Fathergone. Savage's Winthrop. Note, vol. L, p. 345. 
 
 Ruins of the Oldest House now standing in Boston; built in 1633. * 
 
56 
 
 THE BOSTON PURITANS. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 Governor, " at us, and at the ordinances of religion here." Not that 
 they were irreligious or wicked men in any other sense, for the captain 
 had said, when questioned for his absence from a fast-day meeting in 
 the town, that " they had as good service on board as we had on shore." 
 It was a fatal assumption on behalf of the English Church ; only two 
 hours later God made the difference manifest by tearing ship and peo- 
 ple to atoms ; and it was the more significant that a shower of rain 
 and some other hindrances were sent to detain from the coming catas- 
 trophe some of the leading Puritans of Boston, who were on their way 
 to the vessel. The Lord protected His own, and sent his "judgment 
 upon those scorners of his ordinances and the ways of his servants." 
 
 So at home and abroad, in great things and in small things, in the 
 affairs of individuals, and in the affairs of the church and of the state, 
 the interference of Divine Providence was manifested, and always for 
 the protection of these His peculiar people, for the justification of their 
 wisdom and virtue in thought and deed, and for the punishment of 
 their enemies. It was " a special providence," Mr. Winthrop thought, 
 that set a neighbor's hens to cackling in the night time, and aroused 
 their owner to discover that the house of good Mr. Pelham at Cam- 
 bridge, was on fire. No foolish fowls or crowing cocks could so mis- 
 take the light of a conflagration for the break of day, except it were 
 to bring safety to a man so truly good. 
 
 But see a protecting care in larger measure to save the State. 
 DiTine inter- When one Captain Mason built in London a ship which was 
 to bring over the dreaded General Governor for New Eng- 
 land, it was the Lord who " disappointed and frustrated all 
 the designs " of its enemies by breaking the ship's back before she 
 had left the stocks. Mason himself, as a further evidence of the divine 
 displeasure, " soon after fell sick and died," not even death-bed repent- 
 ance availing him when he promised that " if he recovered to be as 
 great a friend to New England [to the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, 
 that is,] as he had formerly been an enemy." So also Sir Ferdinando 
 Gorges " never prospered," for he " also had sided with our adversaries 
 against us, but underhand, pretending by his letters and speeches to 
 seek our welfare." 
 
 Even some rash men, returning to England against all advice and 
 bearing thither no good report of the people and the country, were 
 beset with disaster, tossed up and down by tempests, reduced to 
 painful suffering for want of food, and only escaped shipwreck when 
 they " humbled themselves before the Lord, and acknowledged God's 
 hand to be justly out against them, for speaking evil of this good 
 land and the Lord's people here." Nor was disaster by sea the end 
 of their troubles. On shore, " some were exposed to great straits, 
 
 political' 11 
 
1640.] DIVINE INTERPOSITION. 57 
 
 and found no entertainment, their friends forsaking them ; " the 
 daughter of one of them soon went mad, and a worse fate befell 
 two of her sisters, who were debauched ; a schoolmaster, the worst of 
 these slanderers of the saints, who succeeded in gathering a school 
 about him, was ruined by the plague by which his pupils were dis- 
 persed and two of his own children taken away from him. 
 
 They saw the hand of the Lord raised over them in special protec- 
 tion, or in special rebuke in evidences like these many times, from 
 year to year, in many places in the old world and the new. Only a 
 few months before these evil-minded passengers were followed across 
 the Atlantic by the divine wrath, a mail carrier was overtaken by a 
 freshet on his way to Boston from the Isles of Shoals, where a ship 
 had just arrived from England. His companion was lost beneath the 
 ice, but he was permitted to escape, for " he had about him all the 
 letters from England which were brought in the ship, which sure were 
 the occasion of God's preserving him, more than any goodness of the 
 man." Again, " a special providence of God appeared " in the case 
 of a burning house in Roxbury, for some one remembered and gave 
 warning in season that there was a store of gunpowder within, and 
 though the explosion was like an earthquake, and burning cinders 
 were carried even beyond Boston meeting-house, yet was no man in- 
 jured. But the loss of the powder was the more observable, inasmuch 
 as the General Court had neglected to pay for it, and had refused to 
 lend a portion of it both to Virginia and to Plymouth, when those 
 colonies were in danger of an attack from the Indians, and were with- 
 out adequate means of defence. It was thus that Heaven chose to 
 remind its servants that neither commercial contracts nor the claims 
 of humanity could be ignored with impunity even in Boston. 
 
 Puerile as such incidents may seem to the robuster common sense 
 of later times, and easy as it is to bring to their interpretation the test 
 of reason, they had a tremendous meaning to the Boston Puritans. 
 Why, for example, should the Lord destroy the powder of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay at one time because it was not sent to the Virginians to 
 be used for their defence against the Indians, when the next year it 
 was the divine will that these Virginians, then no better and no worse, 
 should be destroyed by the savages ? But counsel was not taken of 
 human reason. In the later event Governor Winthrop could only see 
 in the desolation of Virginia, that " it was very observable that the 
 massacre came upon them soon after they had driven out the Puritan in . 
 godly ministers we had sent to them, and had made an order ^^^ 
 that all such as would not conform to the discipline of the disasters - 
 church of England should depart the country by a certain day, .... 
 and many were forced to give glory to God in acknowledging that 
 
58 
 
 THE BOSTON PURITANS. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 this evil was sent upon them from God for their reviling the gospel 
 and those faithful ministers he had sent among them." The essential 
 thing was, not whether the Virginians had or had not gunpowder ; 
 whether they could or could not defend themselves against the In- 
 dians ; but that Boston might be rebuked or justified in whatever 
 happened to them in which she had any concern. It was not that 
 God cared much about Virginia. 
 
 The sign sought for in any coincidence of events was always the 
 divine approval of the gospel according to the Puritans, and all that 
 the Puritans did to 
 establish that gos- 
 pel. Thus it was 
 because certain 
 men of Hingham 
 put out upon the 
 Bay with a raft of 
 timber, upon a fast 
 day, that a tem- 
 pest descended up- 
 on them, the tim- 
 ber was nearly all 
 lost, and the men 
 came near drown- 
 ing ; for they 
 scoffed at a fast 
 appointed by the 
 magistrates in Bos- 
 ton, following their 
 pastor, the Rev. 
 
 Peter Hobart " a Hingham Meeting House, built 1681.* 
 
 bold man, who would speak his mind," and who 
 had notions of his own, on things civil and eccle- 
 siastical. Winthrop notes this incident as " a 
 special providence of God, pointing out his dis- 
 pleasure against these profane persons." 
 
 And when not long after, intelligence was received of the loss by 
 shipwreck, on the coast of Wales, of Governor Kieft and eighty 
 other persons of New Netherland, the Massachusetts governor speaks 
 of it as " an observable hand of God against the Dutch at New Neth- 
 erlands, which though it were sadly to be lamented in regard of the 
 calamity, yet there appeared in it so much of God in favor of his poor 
 people here, and displeasure towaixls such as have opposed and injured 
 
 i This is the oldest Meeting House now standing in North America. 
 
1640.] CHARACTER OF PURITAN INTOLERANCE. 50 
 
 them as is not to be passed by without due observation and acknowl- 
 edgment." Quite as observable is it that his religious faith had not 
 overcome the natural man in the good governor, whose kindness of 
 heart speaks out in spite of his stern theology. 
 
 Men who had this abiding faith that they were under the special 
 protection of Providence in a way and to a degree that was not ex- 
 tended to the rest of God's creatures ; faith that God manifested, in 
 the events of every-day life, his approval in what they did and in what 
 they refrained from doing; faith in the divine sanction of all they 
 believed, of the divine condemnation of all which they held to be 
 error, making thus their limit to the freedom of thought God's limit 
 also ; men with such a faith, being human became intolerant, and 
 being intolerant, became persecutors. It was not merely, as they held, 
 that no further discovery was possible of moral or religious truth ; but 
 that the truth already discovered and established could not be trusted 
 to compete with error. They recognized the direct interposition of God 
 in arresting false doctrines and in punishing those who held and spread 
 them; what else could they do but follow the divine example ? There 
 was a singular and unquestioning confidence in their own righteous- 
 ness which seems inexplicable except by their unshaken conviction 
 that they were, even as the angels of heaven, at one with God, and 
 understood His will as it was given to no others to understand it. 
 
 " It is said," wrote a Puritan writer, whose seriousness and piety 
 were none the less because of his wit, and his authority and influence 
 none the less because of his pedantry and his affectation of p opu i arap _ 
 quaintness " It is said, That Men ought to have Liberty of f re iib"mof 
 their Conscience, and that it is Persecution to debar them of conscience - 
 it ; I can rather stand amazed than reply to this : it is an astonish- 
 ment to think that the braines of men should be parboyl'd in such 
 impious ignorance : Let all the wits under the Heavens lay their 
 heads together and find an Assertion worse than this (one excepted) 
 I will Petition to be chosen the universal Ideot of the world." 1 Not 
 a Puritan in Massachusetts, that Massachusetts could tolerate, but 
 would agree with this. For so surely as it was divine wisdom that 
 led the Puritan out of the Church of England, so it was not liberty 
 of conscience but license of the devil that would lead one inch beyond 
 the Church of Boston. 
 
 1 The Simple Cobler of Agtjawam in America, by the Rev. Nathaniel Ward of Ipswich, 
 Mass. This eminent Puritan clergyman exhausts the peculiarity of style which distin- 
 guishes him when writing of toleration. " How," he says, " all Religious should eiijov 
 their liberty, Justice its due regularity, Civil cohabitation moral honesty, in one and the 
 same Jurisdiction, is l>cyond the Artique of my comprehension. If the whole conclave of 
 Hell can so compromise, exadverse, and diametrical contradict ions, as to compolitize such a 
 niultimonstrous maufrey of hetcroclytes and quicquidlibets quietly ; I trust I may sav with 
 all humble reverence, they can do more than the Senate of Heaven." 
 

 60 
 
 THE BOSTON PURITANS. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 " We have been reputed," writes the same author, " a Colluvies of 
 wild Opinionists, swarmed into a remote wilderness to find elbow room 
 for our Phanatic Doctrines and practises ; I trust our diligence past 
 and constant sedulity against such persons and courses, will plead 
 better things for us. I dare take upon me, to be the Herauld of New 
 England so far, as to proclaim to the World, in the name of our 
 Colony, that all Familists, Anti-nomians, Anabaptists, and other En- 
 thusiasts shall have free Liberty to keep away from us, and such as 
 will come to be gone as fast as they can, the sooner the better." 
 
 Nor was this merely an expression of opinion ; it was the avowal 
 of a policy. Non-conformists in Old England who became 
 p^iiryof the Separatists almost before they were off soundings on their 
 voyage to New England, could hardly escape the suspicion of 
 encouraging the utmost latitudinarianism. Men who had secretly 
 provided that the royal charter should go with them to their new 
 home, 1 well knew that their purpose of self-government was very likely 
 to be construed into a purpose of independent government and free- 
 dom of religious opinion. There was suspicion to be done away with, 
 and a good reputation to be established even with that class of their 
 countrymen who might seek, as they had sought, to escape from the 
 imminent storm in England, and to find an asylum beyond the obser- 
 vation, if not actually beyond the reach, of king and bishops. Thev 
 could not, indeed, choose who should follow them to that place of 
 safety ; but they could show that it was a place of safety only to those 
 who, like themselves, believed neither too little nor too much. There 
 was no doubt in their minds that they apprehended the will of God 
 and did it ; but they were not so different from other men of other 
 times that their religious convictions were uninfluenced by mere worldly 
 considerations, by pride of opinion, by an imperfect compi'ehension of 
 avowed principles, by an impatient intolerance of all those who de- 
 clined to accept that measure of truth, no more no less, which they 
 maintained was the only correct measure. 
 
 The colony of Massachusetts Bay its founders meant should be a 
 virtuous, a happy, and a prosperous commonwealth ; but it was to' be 
 so strictly in accordance with their own notions of what constituted 
 virtue, happiness, and prosperity, and there was no welcome and no 
 toleration among them of any other opinions than their own. The 
 cause of civil and religious liberty they maintained as they understood 
 it, and up to that point which they had themselves reached ; and they 
 would have arrested all further progress at that point if they could. 
 But man only proposes. It was well for humanity, civilization, and 
 religion, that they were as good as they were, and did as much as 
 
 1 See vol. i., p. 521, at seq. 
 
16 41.] EARLY LAWS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 61 
 
 they did ; that they were no better and did no more was their loss, 
 not the world's. Where they stopped, others went forward. 
 
 But it is not to be forgotten that they were as rigid and uncom- 
 promising in their ideas of morality as in their religious prin- Puritan 
 ciples. If they aimed to measure and limit thought by a laws 
 standard which they believed God himself had prescribed, so they 
 were equally sincere and unwearied in their efforts to make men's 
 lives conform to the same rule of absolute right. Their whole method 
 of government, whatever they did and whatever they proposed to do, 
 can only be fairly considered in the light of their own understanding 
 of their responsibility, and wisdom, and righteousness. 
 
 The first code of laws drawn up at the request of the General Court, 
 by the Rev. John Cotton, was taken entirely from the Old Testament. 
 It was not, indeed, accepted, but another was substituted of which the 
 Rev. Nathaniel Ward, who 
 knew something of Roman 
 as well as Jewish law was 
 the author. 1 He was lawyer 
 enough to know that there 
 were necessities of society in Signature of Rev Nathaniel Ward 
 
 the 17th century which were not provided for in the laws of Moses. 
 But the idea of government, nevertheless, was largely formed from a 
 study of the Hebrew Scriptures. To exercise an immediate super- 
 vision over the conduct of every individual in the community, in all 
 his private as well as public acts and relations, was to govern men in 
 acccordance with the will of God. A glance at some of their laws 
 shows the spirit of their rule, and how infallible their belief was that 
 the world could be made perfect if it was only governed enough, and 
 governed in absolute accordance, nothing beyond it and nothing short 
 of it, with the Puritanism which they professed. 
 
 1 The code drawn up by Cotton was published in London in 1641, and entitled, " An 
 Abstract of the Laws of New England as they are now established." But they never were 
 the established laws of either Massachusetts or New England, though it was long believed, 
 as that publication asserted, that they were. The " Body of Liberties," which was the work 
 of Mr. Ward, and adopted in 1641, was in reality the first Constitution of Massachusetts, 
 and the foundation of subsequent constitutions. Mr. Ward preached the election sermon 
 that year, "a moral and political discourse," says Winthrop, " grounding his proposi- 
 tions much upon the old Roman and Grecian governments, which sure is an error." Laws 
 had better, the governor thought, be taken from the Bible, than " on the authority of the 
 wisdom, justice, etc., of those heathen commonwealths." Mr. Ward thought something 
 could be learned from Justinian as well as Moses. The first article of this code provided 
 that the rights of person and property in the citizen should l>c inviolate except by express 
 law, or in default of that by " the word of God." What might be just and requisite 
 under the " word " was to be decided by the General Court. See Savage's \Vintliro/>. 
 Hutehinson's History, and especially a paper on the " Abstract " of Cotton, and the " Body 
 of Liberties" of Ward, by F. C. Gray, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Third Series, vol. via. 
 
THE HOSTOX PURITANS. 
 
 [CHAP. 111. 
 
 The sale of everything was regulated by law, with such minuteness 
 Sumptuary as * reac ^ the cost f a meal at an inn, and even the price 
 regulations. o f a p O j. o b eer between meals. The law fixed tlie price of 
 all commodities, of all labor, and of all servants' wages. The use of 
 tobacco was early forbidden in all public houses and places ; and 
 though one might smoke it in his own house, it was unlawful to do so 
 before strangers, or for one person to use it in company of another. 
 Fashion in dress was the subject of much anxious and stringent legis- 
 lation. In the early days of the colony, all apparel which any man 
 or woman should make or buy was forfeited by law if it had upon it 
 
 Costumes about the Middle of the Seventeenth Century. 
 
 any lace, whether of gold, silver, silk, or thread ; the same penalty 
 attached to any garment with more than one slash in each sleeve, and 
 one in the back ; to all " cuttworks, embroidered or needle-work 
 capps, bands and rayles ; " to " golde or silver girdles, hattbands, 
 belts, ruffs, and beaver hats." The size of the sleeve in any dress 
 for women was limited to a width of half an ell, and none were to be 
 made " with short sleeves whereby the nakedness of the arm may be 
 discovered in the wearing thereof." 
 
 But to enforce laws in such matters was, the General Court at last 
 acknowledged, exceedingly difficult ; " in regard," they said, " of the 
 blindnes of mens minds and the stubbournnes of theire wills." So 
 difficult, indeed, did they find it, that in 1651 they gave it up so far 
 
1G41.] 
 
 SUMPTUARY LAWS. 
 
 63 
 
 as it concerned magistrates, civil and military officers, persons of edu- 
 cation and employment " above the ordinary degree," those who were 
 worth two hundred pounds, and those whose estates had been consid- 
 erable but had decayed all those, in a word, called of the better 
 class were exempted from these sumptuary laws. But the Court felt 
 itself called upon to declare the more emphatically their " utter detes- 
 tation and dislike that men or women of meane condition, educations, 
 and callinges, should take vpon them the garbe of gentlemen, by the 
 wearinge of gold or siluer lace, or buttons or poynts at theire knees, to 
 walke in greate bootes ; or women of the same ranke to weare silk or 
 
 Costumes about the Middle of the Seventeenth Century. 
 
 tiffany hoodes or scarfes, which, though allowable to persons of greater 
 estates, or more liberal education, yet we can not but judge it intol- 
 erable in persons of such like condition." Either something of the sim- 
 plicity of character that belonged to the early Puritans was lost in 
 the first quarter of a century, or resistance against the assertions of 
 rank and fashion was found to be useless. 
 
 Long hair in men was early prohibited, as " uncomely and preju- 
 dicial to the common good," and a few years later it was pronounced 
 as " sinful." The governor, deputy-governor, and magistrates formed 
 an association to suppress an evil so " contrary to the rule of God's 
 word ; " the elders were exhorted to testify against it from the pulpit, 
 and " to take care that the members of their respective churches be 
 not defiled therewith." 
 
64 THE BOSTON PURITANS. [CHAP. III. 
 
 The government aimed to be paternal. The selectmen of the towns 
 were required to have a special oversight of the education, behavior, 
 and occupations of the children within their jurisdiction. This power 
 of supervision extended to all families, and not merely to those who, 
 Paternal as * n a ^ communities, are unworthy, from poverty, or indo- 
 character j e nce, or vicious habits, to be trusted with the care of their 
 government. own offspring. The magistrates were to see that all young 
 people were not only taught to read, to understand the principles of 
 religion, and the character of the laws, but also to spin, to knit, and to 
 weave ; for a fixed quantity of " lining, cotten, or wooling " was re- 
 quired to be spun by each family, and the selectmen regulated the 
 sowing of flax and the raising of sheep. These officers were to take 
 care that boys and girls were not " suffered to converse together so as 
 may occasion any wanton, dishonest, or immodest behaviour ; " and to 
 further regulate the relations of the young people, it was provided by 
 law that " no person shall endeavour directly or indirectly to draw 
 away the affections of any maid .... under pi'etence of marriage, be- 
 fore he hath attained liberty and allowance from her parents or gov- 
 ernors," or, in the absence of these, from the court of the shire. When 
 this last was obtained the courting could go on under a magistrate's 
 warrant, but not otherwise. 
 
 This latter law was meant to correct an evil the prevalence of 
 which is the more remarkable among a people whose piety was so 
 fervid, and where any breach of morality was so rigorously visited. 
 " Marvilious it may be," exclaims Governor Bradford, " to see and 
 consider how some kind of wickednes did grow and break forth here," 
 notwithstanding the austerity of public opinion and the severity of the 
 law, both exceeding that of any place he ever knew or heard of, and 
 the latter so relentless as to be " somewhat censured by moderate and 
 good men." Of these wickednesses, " unclainnes " was one. No pen- 
 Relations of a lty even unto death, was left untried to keep the sexes 
 the sexes. . w jthi n decent bounds in their relations to each other, and to 
 restrain men from the most unnatural and beastly indulgence of pas- 
 sion. So common were such sins that Bradford suggests as one 
 reason for their frequency that " the Divell may carrie a greater spite 
 against the Churches of Christ and the gospell hear," and that " Satane 
 hath more power in these Heathen lands, as som have thought, then 
 in more Chi'istian nations, espetially over God's servants in them." 
 His more rational explanation, however, is that the very strictness of 
 the law defeated its purpose, and was, in some degree, responsible for 
 unrestrained outbreaks of lechery ; and that in a small community 
 it was the more difficult for crime to be hidden. 1 Among other laws 
 
 1 History of Plymouth Plantation, pp. 385, 386. 
 
- 
 
 1G41.] 
 
 LAWS AGAINST VARIOUS OFFENCES. 
 
 65 
 
 Th Pillory. 
 
 relating to this subject was one forbidding men and women, whose 
 wives and husbands were not with them, to remain in the countiy, 
 unless to prepare for new homes, or for 
 purposes of trade for a brief season. 
 
 Lying, whether intended to injure pri- 
 vate persons, or to deceive the public 
 "by false newes or reports," was pun- 
 ished by exposing the culprit in the 
 stocks or by public whipping. 1 License 
 of speech was never tolerated, though 
 the distinction between license and lib- 
 erty was not always recognized. " Re- 
 viling speeches," " uncomely speeches 
 and obscean," were often punished. Mr. 
 Shorthose, for example, it is recorded, 
 was sentenced " to have his tongue put 
 into a cleft stick and stand so by the 
 space of haulfe an houre," for swearing 
 by " the blood of God ; " and the un- 
 ruly member of the wife of Thomas 
 Aplegate, was subjected to similar dis- 
 cipline for " swearing, raileing, and revileing." Later, a fixed penalty 
 was adjudged for profane swearing " either by the holy name ^ WSSLffLiMt 
 of God or any other oath." To make this law more effective blM P hem y 
 it was afterward enacted that the fine should be doubled, or the cul- 
 prit whipped, if he swore more than one oath at a time. 
 
 In the fundamental law, the " Body of Liberties," it was provided 
 that whoever shall blaspheme the name of God, the Father, the Son, 
 or the Holy Ghost, should be put to death. Profane language, there- 
 fore, was not held to be necessarily blasphemous, however immoral. 
 But to deny that any one of the books of the Old or the New Testa- 
 ment was inspired by the Holy Ghost and contained the will of God, 
 was no less a crime than blasphemy. Whoever committed it, whether 
 on sea or land, was to be fined or severely whipt for the first offence, 
 and for the second, put to death. 
 
 Punishments were, in the earlier years of the colony, largely at the 
 discretion of the magistrates ; nearly twenty years passed Puni8h . 
 away before any penalty was provided by statute even for ments 
 
 1 Such a law may not have been without reason, if one who wrote of the manners and 
 character of the people of New England as late as 1686, was not himself a fair subject for 
 its penalties. Speaking of a friend in Boston, he says : " And this was a noted quality in 
 him, that he would always tell the truth ; which is a practice so uncommon in New Eng- 
 land, that I could not but value his friendship." Had this been said in Boston instead of 
 in London, the writer would have been set in the stocks. John Dunton's Journal, Mass. 
 Hist. Soc. Coll., Second Series, vol. ii. 
 
 n . 
 
THE BOSTON PURITANS. 
 
 [ClIAP. HI. 
 
 the crimes of burglary or violence against the person. 1 Subsequently 
 the punishment for burglary was branding on the forehead. Such 
 marks, indelible, or conspicuous for a certain period, to designate 
 criminals, to hold the culprits up to public terror and expose them to 
 public humiliation, may, perhaps, have been resorted to in the absence 
 of any safe place of confinement. Boston had her jail at an early 
 day, and so possibly had one or two others of the larger places ; but 
 it was not till 1655 that houses of correction were provided for each 
 county. At any rate, it was the punishment and not the reformation 
 of criminals which the magistrates and the court had in view when 
 they affixed upon the faces or the clothing of offenders, who were 
 allowed to be at large, marks of ignominy which must set them apart 
 from their fellow-men. 
 
 Thieves and drunkards were exposed to public scorn with placards 
 upon their breasts inscribed with capital letters to denote their of- 
 fences. Dunton saw an English woman in the streets of Boston, who, 
 for having admitted an Indian to some " unlawful freedoms," was 
 compelled to wear upon her right arm the figure of an Indian cut in 
 red cloth. 2 In a certain case where the general court and the jury did 
 not agree as to the evidence offered where the crime charged was blas- 
 phemy, the court decided that the accused should be severely whipped 
 in the market-place, then burnt in the forehead with the letter B, 
 and banished from the colony. The cognate offence of contempt of 
 the " word preached," or contemptuous behavior towards the preacher, 
 thus " making God's wayes contemptible and ridicules " was punished 
 in a manner meant to eradicate the crime by exposing the criminal to 
 peculiar ignominy. If the offence was a second time committed the 
 culprit was exhibited for " two houres openly upon a block 4 foote 
 high, on a lecture day, with a paper fixed on his breast with this, A 
 WANTON GOSPELLER, written in capital letters." In 1677 another 
 law was passed, intended not merely, probably not chiefly, for the vul- 
 gar Sabbath-breaker, but for the more contumacious citizen, the dis- 
 turber for conscience sake of public worship ; he was to be taken to 
 Boston, or any other town where such accommodation was provided, 
 and confined in a cage in the open marketplace till such time as the 
 
 1 The natural inference that such crimes were uncommon is not necessarily correct. It 
 is no proof that burglary was or was not common, but it is an incident worth noting as 
 indicating a rather unusual degree of lawlessness, that two young men of twenty years of 
 age, both students of Harvard, one a son of the Rev. Nathaniel Ward, the other a son of 
 an equally well-known clergyman, the Rev. Thomas Welde, of Roxbury, were detected 
 in robbing two houses at different times. They were first whipped by the president of the 
 college, and it was then ordered by the court that the punishment be doubled, or the young 
 men inipri>oneil. Sticaye's Wirtthrop. Coffin's History of Newbury. 
 
 2 John Dunton s Journal, \>. 100. 
 
1641.] 
 
 PURITAN SPIRIT AND PRACTICE. 
 
 67 
 
 magistrates should find it convenient to give him a trial. Notwith- 
 standing the severity of such laws, however, the " wanton gospeller " 
 has not been exterminated in Massachusetts even unto this day. 1 
 
 Such was the spirit of the religion and the laws of the Massachu- 
 setts Puritans. They were to govern in the name of God, 
 
 , . . , . ,. Puritan 
 
 who had there set up his kingdom in a peculiar manner. *piritand 
 
 ... T practice. 
 
 As they themselves, however, were not divine, but were 
 moved by human passions and limited by human weaknesses, it was 
 
 a natural, if not an in- 
 evitable consequence 
 that they should be in- 
 tolerant of opinions 
 which differed from 
 their own, and should 
 sometimes prosecute 
 
 those whose con- 
 duct did not square 
 with their idea of 
 what obedience to 
 God demanded and 
 
 A Wanton Gospeller 
 
 the good order of society required. 
 
 When, therefore, it turned out that the " wild opinionists," with 
 their "phanatic Doctrines and practises," their " multi-monstrous mau- 
 frey of heteroclytes and quicquidlibets," were swarming about Nar- 
 ragansett Bay, it was no wonder that Governor Winthrop and others 
 should believe and he used the words in literal faith that " at 
 Providence the devil was not idle." He was never busier, never doing 
 more fatal mischief, it was believed, than when he was exciting the- 
 ological controversy to its whitest heat. 
 
 1 For all these early laws see Massachusetts Records. 
 
THE BOSTON PURITANS. 
 
 [CHAP. 111. 
 
 Among the earlier settlers at Portsmouth, Rhode Island, was one 
 ?amuei GOT- Samuel Gorton, who soon proved himself to be a singularly 
 
 lull. 
 
 incomprehensible, obstinate disputant, and incorrigible citi- 
 zen ; " a man," says Hubbard, " of an haughty spirit, and very heret- 
 ical principles, a prodigious minter of exorbitant novelties, even the 
 very dregs of Familism." 1 The same author says that he left Boston 
 soon after arriving there because of a demand for an unpaid debt 
 which followed him from England. The charge would be hardly 
 worthy of belief even on better authority than that of Hubbard ; for 
 in all the acrimonious strife in which Gorton was involved for so many 
 years, and in all the persecution with which he was pursued, there was 
 no question of his integrity. " Whose ox or whose ass have I taken," 
 he said in a letter of defence and defiance, written in 1669 " or 
 when or where have I lived upon other men's labours, and not wrought 
 with my own hands, for things honest in the sight of men, to eat my 
 own bread ? " 2 No one gainsaid him, as some one of his opponents 
 would certainly have done had it been easy. For at a period remark- 
 able for the exceeding ingenuity developed among men to make them- 
 selves hateful to their fellows, Gorton showed himself to possess pre- 
 eminent ability; and his reputation for morality would have been as 
 it was for righteousness picked clean to the bone, had he ever laid 
 himself open to such an attack. 
 
 From Boston he went to Plymouth. Antinomianism was not neces- 
 sai'ily responsible for his first conflict with the Plymouth au- 
 thorities, as its occasion was his public defence of a servant 
 in his own family, who having permitted herself, unfortunately, to smile 
 in church, was declared by that token to be a heretic and a scoffer, 
 and unworthy to remain in a Christian community. 3 But he began 
 about this time to exercise his gift of preaching, persuaded that he had 
 " a call to preach the gospel of Christ, not inferiour to any minister in 
 this countrey, tho'," as he afterward said, " I was not bred up in the 
 schools of humane learning, and I bless God that I never was, least 
 I had been drowned in pride and ignorance." 4 He soon preached 
 himself out of Plymouth. The Fathers put him under bonds for his 
 Ha banish- g Of i behavior, punished him by a heavy fine, and gave him 
 ment - fourteen days to depart out of their jurisdiction. 5 Naturally 
 
 he turned his face towards Acquidneck, where he soon made himself 
 conspicuous. 
 
 1 General History of \ew England. 
 
 2 Letter from Samuel Gorton to Nathaniel Morton, in Ilutchiusou's History of Massachu- 
 setts, vol. i. Appendix. /'. /. Hist. Sr.. Coll., vol. ii. 
 
 8 Life of Gorton, iii Sparks's American Bioyraj>/iy. New Series, vol. v. Arnold's History 
 of Rhode Island. 
 * Let tf-r to Morton. 
 b Morton's AVio Enylund's Memorial, p. 143. IIutchiu.sou says he was whipped. 
 
 Gortonat 
 
1641.] SAMUEL GORTON. 69 
 
 Here us at Plymouth he soon got into trouble, and, as it appears, on 
 
 a somewhat like occasion. His maid assaulted another woman in a 
 
 quarrel about the pastur- f-r\ / . 
 
 age of a cow. Gorton ap- B u *7 3 i ' IL 
 
 peared in her defence and &nc~ + /y e 
 behaved so insolently to 
 the court, that he was ar- 
 
 j> 
 of 
 
 *J 
 
 rested and imprisoned. 1 
 
 TI A A- < i 
 
 The grand jury indicted 
 
 hill! as a nuisance, One Of Signature of Samuel Gorton. 
 
 the counts of the indictment being that he called the magistrates Just 
 usses ; another that he alleged in open court that they were lawyers. 2 
 In the affair of the maid servant his friends Holden and Wickes made 
 so much disturbance that an armed guard was called to suppress it, and 
 Wickes was put in the stocks. Gorton fared even worse at his trial. 
 Winthrop says there was much " tumult " at Acquidneck, and whether 
 right or wrong, Gorton seems to have been in the thick of it. " These 
 of the Island," says a contemporary writer, "have a pretended civill 
 government of their owne erection without the King's Patent. There 
 lately they whipt one master Gorton, a grave man, for denying their 
 power, and abusing some of their magistrates with uncivill tearmes ; 
 the Governour, master Coddington, saying in Court, You that are for 
 the king, lay hold on Gorton ; and he againe, on the other side, called 
 forth, All you that are for the king, lay hold on Coddington" 3 Cod- 
 dington's was the strongest party, and Gorton and his friends sought 
 an asylum in Providence. 
 
 Williams received them kindly, as was his wont. How could he, 
 who not long before had accepted re-baptism from Ezekiel IIe leaveg 
 Holliman " a poor man late of Salem " the founder of ^p^!* 
 the first Baptist Church in America, refuse a welcome to dence - 
 one who had just testified to the truth, as he believed it, by suffer- 
 ing an ignominious punishment ? 
 
 Gorton bought lands, in the latter part of the year 1641, at Paw- 
 tuxet now Cranston but within the bounds of Providence, and 
 was soon involved in disputes with his new neighbors. " Those of 
 Providence," says Winthrop, were all Anabaptists ; " some were only 
 against baptizing of infants ; others denied all magistracy and churches, 
 etc., of which Gorton .... was their instructor and captain." Wil- 
 
 Winslow's Hypocrisie nnmasked. 
 
 * Arnold's History of Rhode Island. 
 
 a Plain Dealing : or Newesfrom New-England. By Thomas Lechford, of Clement's Inne, 
 m the County of Middlesex, Gent., London, 1642. Republished in Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 
 I hint Series, vol. iii. See also Savage's Winthrop, vol. ii., p. 69. 
 
THE BOSTON PURITANS. 
 
 [ClIAP. III. 
 
 liams kept the peace among them for a little while, but controversial- 
 ists soon became combatants, and from words came to blows. 
 
 Gorton and his friends were 
 the stronger party. An attempt 
 was made to distrain upon the 
 property of one Francis Western 
 to satisfy a decision against him 
 in relation, probably, to real 
 estate. It is certain that one 
 portion of this community 
 claimed the right to take land 
 from the public do- 
 main, which the oth- 
 ers denied ; and 
 
 The Conflict over Weston's Cattle. 
 
 it may be that for an encroachment of this kind Weston was adjudged 
 by a board of referees which was the method adopted for the ad- 
 ministration of justice to make a payment into the public treasury. 
 The debt, at any rate, was a public one, and Weston refused to submit 
 to the judgment in a written reply, a copy of which he nailed to a tree 
 in the village, as well as gave to the authorities. The order was 
 given to levy upon his cattle, which Gorton and others resisted, with a 
 " tumultuous hubbub," and some blood was shed. A second attempt 
 was made, when, says the narrative, " Weston came furiously running 
 
1641.] THE GORTON PARTY AT PAWTUXET. 71 
 
 with a flail in his hand, and cried out, 'Help Sirs, Help Sirs, they are 
 
 to steal mv cattle,' and so continued crying till Randall 
 
 , . party resist 
 
 Holden, John Greene, and some others came running, and the Provi- 
 
 iiii- i mi deuce mag- 
 
 made a great outcry, and hallooing, and crying ' Ihieves, istrau-s. 
 Thieves, Stealing cattle, Stealing cattle;' and so the whole number 
 of their desperate company came riotously running, and so with much 
 striving in driving, hurried away the cattle, and then presumptuously 
 answered they had made a rescue, and that such should be their prac- 
 tice, if any men, at any time, in any case, attach anything that is 
 theirs." * 
 
 Benedict Arnold, 2 and a dozen others of the defeated party, ap- 
 pealed at once to Massachusetts for aid and counsel against these 
 " lewd and licentious courses " of persons who, they declared, had 
 openly proclaimed that they would " have no manner of honest order 
 or government either over them or amongst them ; " and who, un- 
 less brought to reason, would soon come " boldly to maintain licentious 
 lust, like savage brute beasts," and fail to recognize any " manner of 
 difference between houses, goods, lands, wives, lives." The exaggera- 
 tion of such a statement is self-evident. It was so much the habit of 
 the time to attribute all manner of immoralities, as a necessary con- 
 sequence, to any difference of opinion, that nothing was easier even 
 to those who had been sufferers from intolerance in others in a 
 dispute where feeling was warmly enlisted, or pecuniary interest 
 deeply involved, than to asseverate that he who maintained one side 
 of the question had, therefore, no more religion than an Indian, and 
 that he who maintained another must be bad enough to covet his 
 neighbor's goods, and was generally no better than a thief and a 
 murderer. 3 
 
 1 Petition of some of Providence Colony to the Government of Massachusetts ayainst Gorton 
 and Others. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 3d series, voL i. Rhode, 'island Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. ii. 
 
 2 The petition was in Arnold's handwriting. 
 
 3 In 1 664-65 the people of Warwick as Shawomet had come to he called petitioned 
 the King's Commissioners that satisfaction might be {riven them for the great losses they 
 had suffered from the Massachusetts government. The General Court of Massachusetts 
 cited in their defence the petition referred to in the text from the Providence people against 
 those of Shawomet. As nearly twenty-five years had elapsed since the event referred to 
 had occurred.it was clear enough that the consequences which the petition predicted 
 namely, that unless the Shawomet people were checked iu their evil courses they would 
 come to be like licentious, savage, brute beasts, holding all things, even their wives in com- 
 mon were completely falsified. A prophecy proved to l>e false in 1665 would be a poor 
 justification for Massachusetts to offer for her conduct in 1641. It therefore suited the 
 General Court to quote the Providence petition as stating thsvt Gorton and his compan- 
 ions were already the vile and dangerous men which the petitioners only said they might 
 become in a certain contingency. In other words, the court so garbles the petition as to 
 make it assert as an existing fact that which was only put as a possible consequence. How- 
 ever heretical it may seem, it is difficult to escape the suspicion that the Puritans some- 
 
72 
 
 THE BOSTON PURITANS. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 chu setts 
 
 To the appeal of the discomfited party, however, the magistrates 
 in Boston returned a cautious, and, at the same time, a suggestive 
 answer. They could not, they said, levy war without the action of 
 the General Court ; but then any aggrieved people would be sure of 
 protection if they subjected themselves to the jurisdiction of Massa- 
 chusetts. As all these people at Pawtuxet knew what it was to live 
 under the government of Massachusetts and had run away from it, 
 they were apparently not disposed to try it again immediately. 
 
 They were evidently not so disposed, for they did not " subject " 
 themselves. For a year nothing i% heard of any discord among them, 
 and when, after the lapse of that period of quiet another cry came to 
 Boston for help, it was not from the people of Providence at large ; 
 not even from the thirteen who had begged for interference the year 
 before ; now it was only four men who appealed to the Masachusetts 
 magistrates, and of these four two were new men. 1 
 
 These " four of Providence," writes Governor Winthrop, " who 
 
 could not consort with Gorton and that company, and there- 
 interference .,,.., , , -iii 
 
 fore were continually imured and molested by them, came 
 
 and offered themselves and their lands, etc., to us, and were 
 accepted under our government and protection." This was done, he 
 says, " partly to rescue these men from unjust violence, and partly to 
 draw in the rest in those parts, either under ourselves or Plymouth, 
 who now lived under no government, but grew very offensive." But 
 there was still another reason for this proposed interference with his 
 neighbors, and Winthrop is frank enough to avow it ; " the place," 
 he adds, " was likely to be of use to us." The good Governor, who 
 was so apt with Scriptural illustration, might have been reminded of 
 
 times showed signs of human weakness. See Memorial to the King's Commissioners, re- 
 published from Afass. Records in Coll. R. I. Hist. Soc., vol. ii. 
 
 1 The four were William Arnold and his sou, Benedict Arnold, William Carpenter and 
 Kobert Cole. Benedict Arnold and Carpenter were among the petitioners of the year be- 
 fore. Cole, during the ten previous years, had been more under the active jurisdiction of the 
 government, whose protection he now asked for, than most men. He was repeatedly pun- 
 ished for drunkenness and other misdemeanors, as the Massachusetts Records show. One 
 of these records is : " Robte Coles is ffincd X' & enioyned to stand w th a white sheete of 
 pap on his back, wherein a drunkard shalbe written in greate ires, & to stand therew* soe 
 longe as the Court thinks meete, for abuseing himselfe shamefully w* drinke, iutiseing 
 John Shotswell wife to incontinency, & oth r misdemean r ." Mass. Records, vol. i., p. 107. 
 And again : " It is ordered, that Robte Coles, for drunkenes by him cofnitted att Rocks- 
 bury, shalbe disfranchized, weare aboute his necke & soe to hange vpon his outward garm', 
 a D, made of redd cloath, & sett vpon white ; to contynue this for a yeare, and not to leave 
 it of att any tyme when hee comes amongst company, vnder the penalty of xl" for the first 
 offence, & V the second. & after to be punished by the Court as they thinke meete ; also, 
 hee is to weare the D outwards, & is enjoyned to appeare att the nexte Genall Court, & to 
 contynue there till the Court be ended." Ibid. p. 112. Even the austere magistrates in 
 Boston must have smiled to see Robert Coles in the attitude of plaintiff, and asking their 
 intercession for the establishment of an orderly and quiet government. 
 
1642.] INTERFERENCE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 73 
 
 that narrative in which it is related how " Naboth, the Jezreelite, 
 had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab 
 king of Samaria. And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me 
 thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is 
 near unto my house." 
 
 The grievance actually complained of related to the division of wild 
 lands, a question on which it was absurd to assume that one side was 
 necessarily in the right, and the other as necessarily in the wrong. 
 Massachusetts had not the shadow of authority for interference on 
 either side. But she wanted a pretext and found it in the petition of 
 the Arnolds and their two companions. It was natural enough to 
 covet the garden of the Narragansett -, it was not less natural that she 
 should wish to punish over again those whose banishment had led to 
 so pleasant a possession and not to pains and penalties. In addition 
 to these carnal motives, there was the desire to serve God, as they 
 proposed to do, by suppressing heresy. 
 
 Gorton was undoubtedly a pestilent and noisy fanatic, preaching 
 doctrines as incomprehensible as they were captivating to himself and 
 his illiterate hearers. But he does not seem to have been a bad citi- 
 zen, and probably would have been harmless enough had he been let 
 alone. But " a wanton gospeller " was of all men the most exasper- 
 ating to a Boston Puritan, a kind of human vermin which he felt 
 bound to extirpate. Williams had written to Winthrop the year be- 
 fore : " Master Gorton, having foully abused high and low at Acquid- 
 neck, is now bewitching and bemadding poor Providence, both with 
 his unclean and foul censures of all the ministers of this country (for 
 which myself have in Christ's name withstood him), and also deny- 
 ing all visible and external ordinances in depth of Familism, against 
 which I have a little disputed and written, and shall (the Most High 
 assisting) to death." l But the short and sharp punishment which 
 Coddington adjudged Gorton drove him speedily out of that colony. 
 It is probable that he was already becoming of little moment to the 
 Providence people, inasmuch as two only of the thirteen who the 
 year before asked for aid against him now joined with two others in 
 this second complaint. A year's experience had probably convinced 
 the rest that the man was a harmless enthusiast ; but whether he was 
 or not, Williams, however much he might disapprove of him, would 
 not be likely to ask the protection of that government the character 
 of whose mercy he so well knew. 
 
 There came presently a formal and formidable notice from the 
 Massachusetts magistrates, that, inasmuch as the two Arnolds, Cole, 
 and Carpenter had put themselves under their protection, they should 
 
 1 Winslow's Hyjtocrisie Unmasked. 
 
74 THE BOSTON PURITANS. [CHAP. HI. 
 
 " maintain them in their lawful rights. If," continued this remark- 
 able document, " you have any just title to any thing they possess. 
 Arbitrary [referring to the lands in dispute] you may proceed against 
 th" Bos'ton them in our court, where you shall have equal justice ; 
 authorities. k u jf y QU s j ia ][ proceed to any violence, you must not blame 
 us if we shall take a like course to right them." l That course, 
 indeed, was taken at once, and the case prejudged in favor of the four 
 complainants ; for these were immediately appointed " to keep the 
 peace in their lands," which only meant that they should have all 
 requisite force to crush their adversaries. In short the whole proceed- 
 ing was an act of sheer usurpation on the part of Massachusetts, done 
 on the flimsiest pretext, and for an unavowed purpose. 
 
 Their defence of it was that it was their right and duty to protect 
 any Indians who asked for protection ; that Plymouth claimed that 
 the lands in dispute were within the limits of the Plymouth patent, 
 and her magistrates assented to this interference on the part of 
 Massachusetts ; and that the commissioners of the United Colonies 
 justified her action by formal vote. But the real question at issue 
 was whether either Massachusetts or Plymouth had any such rightful 
 jurisdiction over these lands of Pawtuxet. The conduct of Massa- 
 chusetts, therefore, could not be justified by the assumption of that 
 right while it was still doubtful, nor could that conduct, if wrong, be 
 made right by the approbation of the Commissioners of the United 
 Colonies. The plea that the Indians needed any protection was a 
 pretext and not a reason. 
 
 The whole Gorton party seems to have been only about a dozen. 
 So far from assuming to be defiant or dangerous, except in words, 
 they immediately abandoned their houses and lands at Pawtuxet, 
 which put an end, of course, to any plausible pretext of the necessity 
 of interference from anybody and moved away, in search of a new 
 home. Whatever they may have done at other times, and in other 
 places, to provoke persecution, they were anxious now to get out of 
 the way of it. Though they did not mean to forego the right of 
 maintaining their religious convictions, they hoped, at least, to escape 
 from a jurisdiction where to those convictions was attached a penalty. 
 They might well call upon the woods to hide them from a government 
 which summoned them to appear as plaintiffs in a civil suit, that it 
 might try them as criminals, whose guilt admitted of no defence. 
 
 The place chosen for their new settlement was Shawomet after- 
 Gorton at ward called Warwick, about a dozen miles south of Provi- 
 shawomet. dence. All those who went, being of one mind, probably 
 hoped to escape further molestation from Massachusetts, as well as to 
 
 1 A'. /. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. ii., p. 53. 
 
1642.] 
 
 GORTON AT SHAWOMET. 
 
 be beyond the reach of the four new justices of the peace that Massa- 
 chusetts had put over them. So far as the land-titles at Pawtuxet 
 were concerned, the Arnolds had carried the day ; but the magistrates 
 at the Bay were greatly mistaken if they thought that any assump- 
 tion of territorial jurisdiction on their part could silence Gorton. 
 
 Before he and his companions fled to Shawomet they answered the 
 Boston magistrates in a letter of many pages. It covered Gorton - g i et _ 
 their whole body of theology as that was conceived and ter 
 brought forth, full grown, from the brain of Samuel Gorton ; it touched 
 upon civil things, 
 but only as they 
 had some theologi- 
 cal aspect ; it was 
 replete with Scrip- 
 tural illustrations ; 
 it abounded with 
 references to He- 
 brew history ; it 
 was illuminated 
 with copious anno- 
 tations ; it assumed 
 to be exhaustive as 
 to its logic ; as to 
 its inward spiritual 
 sense its depths were 
 unfathomable ; it 
 was red and hot and 
 angry with denunci- 
 ation, and had only the briefest and most perfunctory allusion to the 
 question of land titles. No doubt it meant a great deal to those who 
 wrote it, though we have never heard of anybody since that time who 
 has pretended to understand it ; and it is creditable to the intelli- 
 gence or the ingenuity of those to whom it was addressed that they 
 could find in it " twenty -six particulars, or thereabouts, which, they 
 said, were blasphemous," though to do this they had, the writers said, 
 to change the phrases, to alter the words and the sense, and in no 
 case take the true intent of the writing. 1 So taken, however, it an- 
 swered the purpose of those who received it ; here were fresh heresies 
 and blasphemies to denounce from the pulpits ; and the magistrates 
 and General Court of Massachusetts were incited to new watchfulness 
 to find a fresh pretext for the suppression of the schismatics whose ex- 
 istence troubled the Israel of New England. 2 
 
 1 Gorton's Simplicitie's Defence, iu R. I, Hist. Soc. Coll., ii. 
 
 2 The signers to the letter were John Wickes, Randall Houlden, Jolm Warner, Robert 
 
 
 Site of Gorton's Settlement at Shawomet (now Warwick). 
 
76 
 
 THE BOSTON PURITANS. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 For that pretext they had not long to wait. They seized it and 
 used it pertinaciously and remorselessly. However unworthy it was 
 of men so enlightened and so good as they unquestionably were ; how- 
 ever sincerely they may have believed they were suppressing evil, 
 not hindering the truth, they must be judged by their acts, rather 
 than their motives, by that abstract rule of right by which the 
 deeds of all men are to be measured. In no event of that period do 
 we see more clearly the spirit of that rule which the Puritans hoped 
 to establish, or a more marked illustration of the character of that 
 struggle for civil and religious freedom, and the abuses attending it, 
 which belong to the early history of New England. 
 
 Potter, Richard Waterman, William Waddle, Samuel Gorton, Richard Carder, John 
 Greene, Nicholas Power, Francis Westou, Sampsoii Shotton. These twelve men were the 
 purchasers of Shawomet. 
 
 ' 
 
 Ruins of Gorton's House at Shawomet (.Warwick, R. I.) 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE SHAWOMET PEOPLE AND THEIR INDIAN FRIENDS. 
 
 PURCHASE OF LANDS AT SHAWOMET. PROTEST OF TWO INDIAN CHIEFS, PUMHAM 
 AND SACONONOCO. SHAWOMET PEOPLE SUMMONED TO BOSTON. COMMISSIONERS 
 
 APPOINTED TO yiSIT THEM. THREATS AND PREPARATIONS FOR RESISTANCE. 
 
 FLIGHT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN-. THE MEN BESIEGED. NEGOTIATIONS FOR 
 PEACE. A HOLLOW TRUCE. THE MEN TAKEN PRISONERS AND CARRIED TO 
 BOSTON. THEIR TRIAL AND PUNISHMENT. THEIR RELEASE AND RETURN TO 
 RHODE ISLAND. APPREHENDED TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS. CHARGES AGAINST 
 MlANTONOMO. FEUD BETWEEN THE MOHICANS AND NARRAGANSETTS. UxCAS 
 
 BEFRIENDED BY THE COMMISSIONERS OF THE UNITED COLONIES. CAPTURE OF 
 
 MlANTONOMO BY UNCAS. HlS ASSASSINATION BY DIRECTION OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 THE lands at Shawomet upon which Gorton and his eleven com- 
 panions hoped they might live unmolested, were bought of Miantono- 
 ino. He gave a deed as chief sachem of the Narragansetts, and by 
 it conveyed possession " with the free and joint consent of the pres- 
 ent inhabitants, being natives, as it appears by their hands hereunto 
 [thereunto] annexed." Among these was Pumham, a petty sachem 
 of the place. The twelve men with their wives and children had fled 
 for the sake of peace into the wilderness ; for their lands they had 
 paid the owners in sound Indian currency of wampumpeage, one 
 hundred and forty -four fathoms, twelve fathoms to a man; and as 
 they had gone where they could do no harm to others, they only asked 
 that no harm be done to them. 
 
 But they were not left long undisturbed. Whether it was that the 
 controversy about the lands at Pawtuxet had aroused in Benedict 
 Arnold a personal animosity so bitter that nothing would satisfy him 
 but the ruin of his opponents ; or whether he was only anxious to 
 serve those with whom religious rancor was quite as inexorable as 
 private hate could be, whatever was his motive he again appeared 
 before the government of Massachusetts as a complainant against 
 the Shawomet people. 
 
 He was an Indian trader and interpreter, and as such possessed a 
 good deal of influence over the natives. Soon after Mian- An Indian 
 tonomo's deed was given Arnold went to Boston, and with against the 
 him were two chiefs, Pumham and Sacononoco. They pMn. 
 claimed that they were independent sachems ; that one of them 
 

 78 THE SHAWOMET PEOPLE AND THE INDIANS. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 Pumhani had been compelled by Miantonomo to part with his 
 lands at Shawomet, and affix his signature to the 
 deed conveying them to the Gorton people, for which 
 signature of he declined to accept any remuneration; and both now 
 Pumham. begged that they might be taken under the protection 
 
 of Massachusetts. 
 
 It is far more likely these Indians were induced by Arnold to 
 come forward with such a proposition, that a plausible pretext might 
 thereby be made for further proceedings against the Shawomet people, 
 than that the Indians should ask for any such interference between 
 them and another chief. The umpire whose good offices they would 
 have naturally sought, in case of any real grievance, was Williams. 
 And even if they did not owe allegiance to Miantonomo, which, as 
 he was the chief sachem of the Narragansetts, they probably did, the 
 protection of one Indian against another did not necessarily extend the 
 jurisdiction of Massachusetts over a country beyond the boundaries of 
 her patent. The colonies, great or small, were responsible to the gov- 
 ernment at home, and not to Massachusetts. The plea, nevertheless, 
 answered its purpose. Miantonomo was summoned to Boston, and 
 on the testimony of Arnold, an interested witness, and Cutshamake, 
 a petty sachem of Dorchester, who knew little about the matter, 
 the magistrates decided that Pumham and Sacononoco were indepen- 
 dent chiefs, whose lands Miantonomo had no right to sell. Pumham 
 and Sacononoco were thereupon told that they would be received " not 
 as confederates, but as subjects," to which they replied with true In- 
 dian frankness and indifference, that they knew the English had so 
 little respect for them that they expected nothing better. 1 
 
 That the new subjects might be properly protected the twelve men 
 
 i The two chiefs seem to have been but little impressed with the gravity of changing 
 their nationality. On the other side it was made a very solemn business, and the Saga- 
 mores were put through a rigid course of catechizing. Some of their replies were curious 
 and characteristic. They should wish, they said, to speak with reverence of the English- 
 man's God, for He did better by His people than their gods did by them. As to false 
 swearing, they knew nothing about it, as they did not know what an oath was. When 
 asked if they would refrain from unnecessary work on the Lord's day while in the towns, 
 they replied that it was easy to do that, for they had very little to do at any time, and 
 could forbear from work on thut day quite as well as any other. As to honoring superiors 
 so much was it their habit to do so, they said, that if the governor told them they lied 
 they should not resent it. Certain crimes which they were asked to refrain from, they said 
 with quiet sarcasm were no more allowed, though they were committed among them, than 
 stealing was stealing not having been mentioned by their catechizers. They would like 
 to know, they said, the " manners " of the English, when asked the comprehensive question 
 if they would permit their children to read God's Word that they might have a knowledge 
 of the true God, and worship Him in accordance with his will. In short, whether consciously 
 or unconsciously, they were guilty of literal contempt of court in their manner of treating 
 very serious matters. 
 
1643.] THE MASSACHUSETTS COMMISSIONERS. 79 
 
 of Shawomet were summoned to appear before the General Court at 
 Boston. 1 They answered that they were responsible for their actions, 
 not to Massachusetts but to the government in England which was 
 over both. A second message was sent a few days later, but The Gorton 
 with an indictment much enlarged. Wrong had been done, S^^tT" 
 it declared, not merely to th Indian sachems but to Eng- 
 lish and Indians generally within the newly found jurisdiction, and 
 more than this, even to the Massachusetts government itself. The 
 accused were notified that commissioners would at once proceed to 
 Shawomet for negotiation, taking with them, however, a sufficient 
 guard "for their safety against any violence or injury." But this 
 precaution for the protection of the commissioners had another pur- 
 pose ; for unless their demands were complied with " we must " 
 adds the letter, signed by the secretaiy of the General Court " right 
 ourselves and our people by force of arms," 2 the " force " of a pow- 
 erful colony against twelve men. 
 
 The handful of Shawomet men were nevertheless defiant. " If you 
 come to treat with us," they wrote to the commissioners, " in ways of 
 equity and peace (together therewith shaking a rod over our heads, 
 in a band of soldiers), be you assured, we have passed our childhood 
 and nonage in that point ; and are under commission of the great 
 God, not to be children in understanding, neither in courage, but to 
 quit ourselves as men. We straitly charge you, therefore, hereby, 
 that you set not a foot upon our lands in any hostile way, but upon 
 your peril ; and that if any blood be shed, upon your own heads shall 
 it be." But the peril was one that no brave words could avert. 
 
 The commissioners had with them a minister as well as a band of 
 soldiers, " certainly persuading ourselves," they said, " that we shall 
 be able through the Lord's help, to convince some of them at least of 
 the evil of their way, and cause them to divert their course, that so 
 doing they may preserve their lives and liberties, which otherwise 
 
 1 According to one of the Gorton letters, addressed " To the great and honored Idol 
 General now set up in the Massachusetts," an offence that was neither forgotten nor for- 
 given, these Indian chiefs had some reasons, not stated, for wishing to be released from 
 responsibility to the Shawomet people. They were both thieves, and Pumham having, on 
 one occasion, crept down a chimney and rifled a house in the absence of its owner, was 
 captured as he was attempting to escape by the same outlet. Perhaps the Massachusetts 
 magistrates were not insensible of the ridicule thrown upon them by the relation of this 
 incident in the It-tier, with the reflection, "indeed Pumham is au aspiring person, as 
 ... becomes a prince of his profession." 
 
 The commissioners were George Cooke, Edward Johnson, and Humphrey Atherton. 
 Johnson was the author of The Wonder-working Providence of Sion's Saviour in Xew 
 En<//and, published in London in 1654. In that book he speaks of Gorton as the "ring- 
 li-ader of the rout, full-gorged with dreadful and damnable errors " ; as he who " vomits 
 up a whole paper full of beastly stuff"; as "exceeding the Beast himself for blasphemy." 
 
80 THE SHAWOMET PEOPLE AND THE INDIANS. [CHAP. IV 
 
 must necessarily lead to eternal ruin of them and theirs ; . . . . but 
 if there be no way of turning them, we then shall look upon them as 
 men prepared for slaughter." 
 
 There was little opportunity, had there been any serious intention 
 of engaging in theological disputation, and this suggestion of persua- 
 sion was mere pretence. That point was long since passed, even if 
 Gorton had been a much more hopeful subject. The presence of a 
 clergyman only showed that the suppression of heresy was the true 
 object of the expedition, as it was of all the preliminary measures 
 that led up to it ; but the suppression was not to be by an appeal to 
 reason. 
 
 Though Gorton had been whipped from colony to colon} 7 , and he 
 and his followers must have been quite conscious that they were held 
 to be a very obnoxious and even dangerous people, this answer of the 
 commissioners to their brave words seems to have revealed to them, 
 for the first time, that they really were in danger of their lives. 
 Alarm at Alarm spread through the village. The women gathered 
 simwomet. tneir children about them to be ready for flight to the forest, 
 where they hoped to find refuge among the savages. The men pre- 
 pared themselves, few as they were, for fight, but without sufficient 
 means for any effectual resistance, if their own story be true, that the 
 magistrates of Massachusetts had, some time before, included them in 
 a prohibition of the sale of gunpowder to the Indians. 
 
 The commissioners were not far behind the announcement of their 
 determined purpose. The band of soldiers and Indians was seen 
 coming through the woods, and the alarm was hardly given before 
 they charged into the village. The affrighted women and children 
 fled before them as the brave troops of the Massachusetts General 
 Court levelled their muskets upon women great with child, upon 
 toddling children holding to their mothers' skirts. Some ran to the 
 woods for shelter ; others waded into the river to reach a boat where 
 some kindly Providence people, whose sympathies had brought them 
 to the place, were ready to give them a helping hand. None were 
 killed actually upon the spot, though some died afterwards in prema- 
 ture childbed, and others from the sufferings to which they were all 
 exposed. 
 
 The men, not thinking, probably, that they were leaving their 
 wives and little ones to any serious peril, had fortified them- 
 
 Gorton's ii- ri-it r* 
 
 people at- selves as best they could, in one of their log-houses. Gorton 
 
 tanked. 
 
 Their par- was the last to enter this citadel, having delayed that he 
 
 might help his wife it should have been the wife of another 
 
 man if he deserved his reputation to a place of safety. When the 
 
 soldiers had dispersed all who were incapable of resistance they con- 
 
1643.] 
 
 THE GORTON PARTY BESIEGED. 
 
 81 
 
 sented to a parley with those who could fight. It was only by the 
 persuasions of the Providence people, however, who hearing of the 
 coming of the commissioners were there to prevent bloodshed if 
 they could, that an immediate assault upon the log-house was pre- 
 vented. 
 
 The commissioners demanded an instant surrender. " They pre- 
 tended," says the Gorton narrative, " we had done some wrong unto 
 certain of their subjects, as 
 also that we held blasphe- 
 mous errors which we must 
 either repent of, or go down 
 
 to the Massa- , 
 
 chusetts,tobe 
 tried at their 
 
 The Gorton Party attacked. 
 
 Courts, or else they had commission to put us to the sword and to 
 pay themselves out of our goods for their charges in coming thither." 1 
 Possibly they may not have gone to the extremity of threatening in- 
 stant death, bat the statement of the alleged offences for which sur- 
 render was demanded is, no doubt, correctly given. 
 
 The besieged refused. They denied that they owed any allegiance 
 to Massachusetts, for they were not within her jurisdiction. They de- 
 clined to accept as their judges those who were their avowed enemies ; 
 
 1 Simplicitie's Defence ayainst Seven Headed Policy, p. 104, vol. ii., Coll. R. I. Hist. Society. 
 VOL. IT. 6 
 
82 THE SHAWOMET PEOPLE AND THE INDIANS. [CHAP. IV 
 
 but they were quite willing that the differences between them should 
 be submitted to the government at home. This proposition was met 
 with a peremptory refusal. 
 
 They then offered to submit the case to arbitration. Impartial 
 men, they proposed, should be chosen by both parties, and they prom- 
 ised to bind themselves by their goods, their lands, and their persons 
 to abide by any decision that should be given against them. This 
 was so far considered that a truce was agreed to till a reply to the 
 proposal could be received from the government in Boston. 
 
 It is clear enough that the Gorton people were only anxious 'for 
 peace ; equally clear that the other party only meant that they 
 should be punished. The truce on one side was a hollow pretence. 
 Before the messenger could return from Boston, the houses of the vil- 
 lage were broken open and pillaged ; their desks were rifled and their 
 papers stolen ; the soldiers helped themselves to all they wanted, 
 carrying beds and bedding to the trenches for their own comfort ; the 
 women and children venturing back from the woods to see the hus- 
 bands and fathers who they hoped would be for a little while unmo- 
 lested, were assaulted, and even fired upon as they approached. No 
 doubt it was as some pitying people in Providence wrote at the 
 time to Governor Winthrop, under the delusion that their intercession 
 and testimony might abate the rigor of that persecution no doubt 
 it was " a mournful spectacle," and one can only wish, as they did, 
 that these poor creatures so likely " to be left miserable," had but 
 been " able to write their own grief." 1 
 
 Affairs were still worse when the messenger arrived from Boston. 
 The proposition for arbitration was rejected at once. The real offence 
 was one for which there could be no compromise, and, with the Puri- 
 tans no palliation. " Besides the title of land," wrote Winthrop, to 
 the compassionate mediators of Providence, they " have subscribed 
 their names to horrible and detestable blasphemies, against God, 
 and all magistracy." Above all things was " the vindication of God's 
 honour," which the Boston people firmly believed was intrusted to 
 their keeping. And, moreover, to whom could all the questions in 
 the case be referred ? Not to you of Providence, said the Massachu- 
 setts governor, for you live too near and have too much pity for these 
 blasphemers, to be trusted ; and as to those people on Rhode Island 
 
 1 However much the people of Providence may have l>een vexed at the extravagances 
 of Gorton and his friends, they deprecated and protested ngainst the cruel treatment which 
 their vagaries brought upon them. Even had they of Providence cared nothing for liberty 
 of conscience, they knew how little reason there was to fear that any harm could come of 
 the preaching of an apostle who had gained, even with the rare advantage of two public 
 whippings and expulsion from every place where he had tried to find a home, only about a 
 dozen disciples. 
 
1643.] 
 
 THE GORTON PARTY BESIEGED. 
 
 83 
 
 we know them too well ! No ! There could be even no further nego- 
 tiation, much less arbitration. They must surrender or take the con- 
 sequences. 
 
 Gorton and his men, whatever else they were, were not cowards. 
 A discharge of musketry announced the return of the messenger, and 
 notice was given that the truce, which had been no truce, was 
 ended. They saw their goods despoiled, their cattle driven gi 
 off, or slaughtered ; their women and children were in they 
 knew not how great extremity ; they were a dozen men only shut up 
 in a log cabin ; the enemy was nearly four times their number, safely 
 
 entrenched in ditches, amply 
 provided with arms, with am- 
 munition, and with food, of all 
 which their own supply was 
 probably not abundant. It was 
 not easy to dislodge the be- 
 leaguered men, though their 
 resistance was rather passive 
 than active. For several days they withstood the siege, but without 
 firing a shot, for they would shed no blood if they could avoid it. 
 The soldiers in the trenches emptied their bandaliers of four hun- 
 dred bullets into the logs of the fortress ; they built fires in the night 
 time against the walls ; but all with no other result than the con- 
 
 The Gorton Party besieged In the Block-house. 
 
84 THE SHAWOMET PEOPLE AND THE INDIANS. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 sumption of much patience and powder. It was a special providence, 
 Mr. Winthrop thought, that nobody was hurt nobody, that is, on 
 his side ; the ungodly Gortonites perhaps thought that nobody was 
 killed because they preferred not to kill the enemy on the outside, 
 and on the inside kept themselves out of the range of the bullets. 
 But what could not be done by force was done at last by stratagem 
 
 if treachery be not the better word. Reinforcements were sent 
 for from Boston, and it was evident that defence much longer was 
 hopeless. It was agreed, therefore, that hostilities should cease, Gor- 
 ton and those with him consenting to go to Massachusetts, on condi- 
 tion, however, that they should go not as prisoners, but as " free men 
 
 and neighbors." So soon, however, as the soldiers gained 
 
 The Gorton & ' fo 
 
 party taken admittance to the house, the men were seized by order of 
 
 prisoners. ... , . , , 
 
 the captain, their arms taken from them, and the whole com- 
 pany marched off as captives. They were permitted to make no dis- 
 position of their property, which was left as a spoil to the Indians 
 after the commissioners and the soldiers had helped themselves to all 
 they thought worth taking. They had been, it is plain, too thrifty 
 and industrious a community to have been very bad citizens, for their 
 losses were fourscore head of cattle, besides swine and goats, corn 
 and other provisions, and their household goods. " Our countrymen," 
 
 is the simple but emphatic testimony, a few months afterward, of 
 some of the most respectable people of Providence, " were peacably 
 possessed of a plantation at Shawomet ; " they were " assaulted and 
 besieged by Captain Cooke and his company in warlike manner," 
 . . . . " their goods, cattle, houses, and plantations were seized upon 
 by the foresaid captain ;".... they themselves " were carried 
 captive through this town of Providence to the Bay of Massachu- 
 setts ;".... Their " wives and children were scattered in great 
 extremities, and divers since have died." 1 
 
 No glimmer of merciful relenting, no ray of pitiful compassion, 
 soften or relieve the cruel and sombre gloom of this page in the 
 history of Massachusetts. Making every possible allowance for the 
 strength of religious convictions, and for the sensitiveness of political 
 relations still inchoate and experimental, it is hard to find any other 
 excuse than that which may be given for any religious bigotry for this 
 persecution of a handful of harmless people, whose numbers were too 
 few to be dangerous, and whose doctrines were too abstruse, if not ab- 
 solutely too unmeaning, to admit of that number being ever seriously 
 increased. But it was enough that they were blasphemers against 
 God, because their supposed theological notions did not square with 
 those preached in the First Church of Boston ; that they were disbe- 
 
 i Coll. R. I. Hist. Soc., vol. ii., p. 117. 
 
1G43.] 
 
 THE CAPTIVES AT BOSTON. 
 
 85 
 
 lievers in all human governments, because they questioned the author- 
 ity of the magistrates of Massachusetts. 
 
 The unhappy prisoners were hurried on to Boston. Had they been 
 malefactors on their way to the gallows, malefactors on ^g ^p^g 
 whose garments the mob hope to see, and shudder at the atBoston 
 thought of seeing, the blood of the victims of their cupidity or their 
 hate, they could hardly have been received with more public emotion. 
 In some of the towns they passed through the clergymen called the 
 people to join in prayer, in the open streets, in recognition of the good- 
 
 Winthrop blessing the Soldiers. 
 
 ness of the Lord that he had given them the victory. In Dorchester 
 was a great gathering, and in the crowd were those worshipful minis- 
 ters, Master Cotton and Master Mather, whose presence gave special 
 solemnity to the volleys of shot that were fired over the heads of the 
 prisoners in token of the triumph of the expedition. In Boston the 
 public rejoicings were made even more significant. The troops were 
 drawn up in double file in front of Governor Winthrop's house, and, 
 at intervals of five or six soldiers, were placed these dreadful enemies 
 
86 THE SHAWOMET PEOPLE AND THE INDIANS. [CHAP. I\ 
 
 of the quiet of the Church, and the peace of the Commonwealth. 
 The commissioners entered the house, and in due form reported their 
 return ; and then came out to the military array the honored gover- 
 nor, who, passing between the lines, lifted up his hands and his voice 
 in welcome and in thanksgiving hat God had permitted their safe 
 deliverance and signal victory. And he took from each soldier his 
 name, that the General Court might be informed of their pains and 
 good carriage, and where such worthy instruments of its will might 
 be found when occasion should again arise for great services. 1 Then, 
 after a brief examination, the prisoners were committed to the com- 
 mon jail ; the governor again stepped forth to receive a salute of three 
 rounds of shot from the military, who then marched to the nearest 
 inn, the governor at their head, for a frugal banquet, before disband- 
 ing. There was peace in Massachusetts. 
 
 Trial and punishment came in due order, beginning with compul- 
 sory attendance upon Mr. Cotton's ministrations on the first Lord's 
 day after the arrival in Boston, a penalty, however, not without 
 mitigation, for Gorton took up the sermon of the learned clergyman 
 and answered it on the spot, point by point. For such an opportu- 
 nity of exhorting he and his followers would have been willing, 
 doubtless, to listen to Mr. Cotton daily, but we find no record of the 
 repetition of this particular discipline. It was clearly more prudent 
 that the elders should conduct these theological discussions within the 
 jail, rather than the meeting-house, lest some feeble brothers or sis- 
 ters, as was quite possible, should be deluded by the Evil One into 
 believing that Master Cotton or Master Wilson had the worst of the 
 argument. There was, at any rate, no lack of controversy till the 
 time of the public trial, and the most learned elders, and those most 
 distinguished for godliness, spent themselves in vain in labors with 
 the stiff-necked heretics. 2 
 
 1 Gorton, in the Simplicitie's Defence, and Winthrop, in his history, are perfectly in ac- 
 cord as to the details of this singular proceeding. 
 
 2 To grapple with a knotty theological problem was the delight of the learned and de- 
 vout Puritan, and it is easy to understand the complete satisfaction with which they came 
 to the encounter with so tough a disputant as Gorton, armed and equipped with such weap- 
 ons as these, we quote from Winthrop : "Gorton maintained (in a dispute in the prison 
 with one of the elders) that the image of God wherein Adam was created, was Christ ; and 
 so the loss of that image was the death of Christ, and the restoring of it in regeneration 
 was Christ's resurrection, and so the death of him that was born of the Virgin Mary was 
 but a manifestation of the former." The devout governor discovered flat blasphemy in 
 all this, but it is difficult to understand that such a thesis, however earnestly defended, 
 could threaten the safety of either Church or State. 
 
 Gorton's method of controversy was only a travesty of that of the time. That profes- 
 sedly minute and exhaustive analysis of texts of Scripture, in search of some profoundly 
 occult meaning, overlooking the obvious interpretation as puerile, because it was level to 
 the vulgar comprehension, this Gorton imitated and reduced to a fine absurdity. The 
 
1C43.J THE GORTON TRIAL. 87 
 
 They were brought at length before the General Court and put 
 formally upon their defence. The judicial proceeding was 
 characteristic of all that had gone before. The offences, for Gorton 
 which the accused were on trial, were theological rather than ' 
 civil, and therefore the elders were called to sit with the judges. As 
 to the claim of jurisdiction, including protection for the vagabond In- 
 dian chiefs, " we need not," said Winthrop, " question them [the 
 Shawomet people] any more about that ; " possession was gained, and 
 the Massachusetts " title appearing good," he said, they refusing to 
 prove a negative. They refused, because they were too wary to be 
 impaled upon the horns of a dilemma by appearing as defendants be- 
 fore a court whose jurisdiction they denied, where the question to be 
 tried was whether that court had jurisdiction. 
 
 " They were all illiterate men," says Winthrop ; " the ablest of 
 them could not write true English, no, not common words, yet they 
 would take upon them the interpretation of the most difficult places 
 of Scripture, and wrest them any way to serve their own turns." Pity 
 might have waited gracefully upon such contempt as this, and the 
 more, that these ignorant enthusiasts would not acknowledge, perhaps 
 were incapable of understanding, that the doctrines they preached 
 could bear any such interpretation as the court chose to put upon them. 
 But they stood before judges of a faith too inexorable to be moved by 
 compassion, and, as was fit, they to whose care that faith was specially 
 committed were the most unrelenting. 
 
 The trial lasted several days. A single incident shows the manner 
 in which it was conducted. Four questions were put to Gorton, in 
 
 difficulty was that the very elect were taken in by any such assumption of profound relig- 
 ious wisdom, because the presentation was after the approved method. They became in- 
 capable of relying upon the good sense of the people, who, when no appeal was made to 
 their sympathies by the persecution of obnoxious persons, would easily distinguish the false 
 from the true. To give an instance of Gorton's method : When in prison in Charlestown, 
 he wrote to the minister of the church, and proposed that he might have " liberty to speak 
 and express the word of the Lord " in public, either on Sunday or at the weekly lecture. 
 The Scripiure he proposed " to open and declare " was the ninth chapter of Revelations. 
 The first verse of that chapter is : And the fifth angel sounded, and 1 saw a star fall- from 
 heaven unto the earth ; and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. On this text the peo- 
 ple of Charlestowu were to be taught by Gorton 
 
 " 1 . What the sound of the trumpet is. 2. Who the Anjrel is. 3. Why the fifth. 
 
 " 1. What the star is that falls from heaven to the earth. 2. What the fall of it is. 3. 
 How it falls from heaven unto the earth. 
 
 " 1. What the key of the bottomless pit is. 2. To whom it is given. 3. The manner 
 how it is given. 4. How the pit is opened. 5. How it can be said to be bottomless, seeing 
 nothing can be without banks nml bottom, but the Lord himself." 
 
 He goes on to other verses of the chapter with the same drastic diffusiveness of verbal 
 criticism ; and were it not perfectly certain that Gorton was in most deadly earnest it might 
 be supposed that he was aiming to give an absurd caricature of Puritan preaching and 
 exegesis. See Simplicitie's Defence. Coll. R. I. Hist. Soc., vol. ii., p. 146. 
 
88 
 
 THE SHAWOMET PEOPLE AND THE INDIANS. [CHAP. IV 
 
 which he was called upon to answer, whether the Fathers who died 
 before Christ was born, were justified and saved only by his blood ; 
 whether the only price of i-edemption was not the death and suffer- 
 ings of Christ ; who 
 that God is whom, he 
 said, they, his persecut- 
 ors, served ; and, final- 
 ly, what he meant when 
 he said, " We worship 
 the star of our God Rem- 
 phan, Chion, Molech." 
 This body of divinity 
 he was at first required 
 
 Gorton's Dispute with Cotton. 
 
 to elucidate in writing, at peril of his life, in fifteen minutes ; but 
 the time was afterward extended to half an hour, and then to the 
 next morning. In the answers, no flaw could be found, but they were 
 none the more satisfactory on that account ; on the contrary, they 
 
i sen- 
 tence. 
 
 1643.] THE SENTENCE. 89 
 
 were on that account the more objectionable, inasmuch as they were 
 not what was expected, and did not agree, the court decided, with 
 what Gorton had written in his answer to the accusations of the 
 magistrates. There could be little of the spirit of justice in a court 
 that arraigned a man for alleged erroneous opinions, and then refused 
 to accept his defence because he denied that these opinions which his 
 judges accused him of holding were his. 
 
 The elders declared that the offence of these men was deserving of 
 death ; of the magistrates, all but three agreed with the elders ; but 
 the larger number of the forty delegates to the General Court repre- 
 senting the body of the people, where sound judgment and The , 
 love of justice had freer play, refused to sanction such a sen- 
 tence. But it was decided that the accused should be dispersed into 
 several towns, where each should be kept at hard labor, with irons 
 upon one leg, and commanded that they should " not, by word or 
 writing, maintain any of their blasphemous or wicked errors upon 
 pain of death." 1 
 
 The imprisonment lasted through the whole winter of 1643-4, and, 
 as not unfrequently happens, the purpose of the punishment was de- 
 feated by its severity. The poison of false doctrine was spread, not 
 suppressed ; for the fear of death with such men was as nothing com- 
 pared to the fear of offending their own consciences by base and sub- 
 missive silence. In the spring, the anxiety was as great to get rid of 
 them as it was in the autumn to bring them within reach of the heavy 
 hand of Massachusetts law. " The court," Winthrop frankly con- 
 fesses, " finding that Gorton and his company did harm in the towns 
 where they were confined, and not knowing what to do with them, at 
 length agreed to set them at liberty, and gave them fourteen days to 
 depart out of our jurisdiction in all parts, and no more to come into 
 it upon pain of death." Gorton, no doubt, was willing enough to be 
 released, but he parted unwillingly with the ' iron furniture " about 
 his leg. He would have been glad to drag that clanging witness at 
 his heels about the streets of Boston, as he boldly cried aloud against 
 the injustice of her magistrates, and proclaimed anew his own Gorton ex _ 
 heresies. But the people could no more be trusted to listen M^ch- m 
 than he to preach. Within three days of the order of re- sette - 
 lease, which gave them permission to remain a fortnight, Gorton and 
 
 1 Winthrop' s History, Savage's edition, vol. ii., p. 177. Mass. Records, vol. ii., p. 52. 
 ' Aud when the bolts and chains were made ready," says Gorton, in his Simplicitie's De- 
 fence, " they put them upon us in the prison of Boston, that so we might travel in them to 
 the several towns to which we were confined, some of us having fifteen miles, and some 
 thirty to go from Boston, only we were to stay till Master Cotton, his Lecture day, and then 
 were all brought to the congregation, in that our iron furniture for the credit of the sanc- 
 tuary, which had set the sword on work to such good purpose." Whatever Governor Win- 
 
90 THE SHAWOMET PEOPLE AND THE INDIANS. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 his companions were commanded " to depart out of the town before 
 noon this day," the day of the order. 
 
 Persecution in their case had clearly not been successful except 
 to inflict upon them needless suffering. As they turned their faces 
 back toward the road along which they had been brought as prison- 
 ers six months before, they evidently felt that the Lord had given 
 them the victory. " Was Captain Cooke a good captain ? " asked 
 some of them of an Indian chief at whose wigwam they were en- 
 tertained on their journey. "I cannot tell," he answered, "but In- 
 dians account of those as good captains, when a few dare stand out 
 against many." l They were quite willing to accept this tribute to 
 their own courage and this estimate of good soldiership. 
 
 For one night they stopped in their old homes at Shawomet, now 
 subsequent desolate and ruined. And it must have been in no slight 
 degree exasperating to the magistrates in Boston, when a 
 letter came from there asking if the prohibition to settle 
 upon any lands of Pumham and Sacononoco was meant to include 
 Shawomet? for they very well knew and knew that those magis- 
 trates knew that they knew that the only lands to which those 
 sachems had ever made any precise claim were the lands of Shawo- 
 met. They were not so out of the fashion of the times as to be given 
 to unseemly mirth ; but possibly they may have indulged in a quiet 
 smile when Winthrop, foolishly provoked into answering the ques- 
 tion, and betrayed by its impudence into unwonted anger, replied, 
 that not " upon peril of their lives," were they to intrude upon the 
 lands of those chiefs, " be the place called Shawomet or otherwise." 
 Surely never were a more exasperating people. 
 
 Nevertheless, Shawomet, in the end, again became their home. 
 They found refuge for two or three years in Rhode Island until they 
 were reinstated upon their lands by an order from the government in 
 England. For Gorton as a politician was by no means wanting in 
 sagacity, and the first use he made of his liberty was to avail himself 
 of, and probably encourage, a strong feeling of enmity existing for 
 a reason to be explained presently among the Narragansetts against 
 the Massachusetts colony. 
 
 / 
 
 These Indians, Gorton says, were puzzled to understand why the 
 
 Effect of magistrates in Boston, having had these Shawomet people 
 
 um the'i^. tne violent proceedings against whom the Indians witnessed 
 
 with their own eyes in their power, should have permitted 
 
 them to escape with their lives from a Massachusetts prison. They 
 
 tbrop may have thought of the power of these men to write " true English," this statement 
 could hardly be put in a style more forcible and picturesque. 
 1 Siuiftlicitie's Defence. 
 
1644.] 
 
 POLICY OF THE NARRAGANSETTS. 
 
 did not understand why an enemy, who was worth the trouble of 
 being captured, should not be killed. The explanation was an Indian 
 explanation. Rumors of a great war in England had reached their 
 ears. There must then be in England two kinds of people, the Wat- 
 taconoges as they called the English generally 
 and the Gortonoges; and the Gortonoges must be the 
 stronger, for here in Massachusetts, the Wattaconoges 
 were afraid to kill them. The policy the chiefs 
 
 , ,, T j. ,. ., , , Signature of Pessicus. 
 
 chose was the Indian policy ; it was to be on the 
 
 strongest side. Pessicus, Canonicus, and Mixan, the Narragansett 
 
 sachems, accordingly submitted themselves and their people, by sol- 
 
 The Messengers at the Tent of Canonicus. 
 
 ernn act and deed, to Charles the First, who at that moment stood 
 in great need of faithful subjects. 
 
 The government at the Bay were duly advised of this new aspect 
 of affairs, and the sachems were summoned to appear before the Gen- 
 eral Court. They declined to come ; whereupon messengers were 
 sent them with instructions to ask " by whose advice they had done as 
 
92 THE SHAWOMET PEOPLE AND THE INDIANS. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 they wrote, and why they would countenance and take counsel from 
 such evil men, and such as we had banished from us, and to per- 
 suade them to sit still and to have more regard to us than such as 
 Gorton." But Canonicus sulked in his tent ; for two hours he kept 
 the messengers waiting in the rain ; and when he admitted them to 
 his presence entertained them only with " a few froward speeches." 
 Pessicus was more amenable. The conference he granted to the mes- 
 sengers lasted through the night, and his speeches, though not " fro- 
 ward " were " witty." 1 The savage chieftain probably could not be 
 convinced why, if it were right that Pumham and Sacononoco should 
 ask the protection of Massachusetts, he/ and Canonicus and Mixan 
 should not declare allegiance to King Charles, the great chief, as they 
 considered, of the Gortonoges. Moreover he declared that the Nar- 
 ragansetts would presently go to war with Uncas, the Mohegan sa- 
 chem. 
 
 This avowal of hostility to the Mohegans is the real explanation of 
 Feud be- *^ e relation in which the Narragansetts stood to all parties. 
 The King of England, the government of Massachusetts, or 
 the handful of fanatics at Shawomet, were of little moment 
 its causes. j. Q fa em except so far as they might hinder or help their de- 
 signs of revenge upon their savage enemies. There had long been a 
 deadly feud between these two tribes, and the Narragansetts were at 
 this time in mourning for the death of their chief Miantonomo, whom 
 Uncas had caused to be treacherously murdered, the previous year, 
 with the connivance or rather by the counsel, of the United Colonies 
 of New England. 
 
 For several years before this act of useless and cruel perfidy, there 
 had been suspicions that the great sachem Miantonomo, jealous of the 
 growing power of the English, and alarmed at the result of the Pequot 
 war, was seeking secretly to unite all of his race in a league for the 
 utter destruction of the whites. He was represented as travelling 
 among the tribes from Massachusetts to Long Island, everywhere ap- 
 pealing to their patriotism, buying their consent with presents of 
 wampum, inciting them by his eloquence to protect their own interests 
 and to revenge the wrongs they had suffered. We, he is reported to 
 have said, are all Indians as they are all English, " so must we be one 
 as they are, otherwise we shall be all gone shortly. For you know 
 supposed our fathers had plenty of deer and skins ; our plains were 
 the'ewef full of deer, as also our woods; and of turkies; and our coves 
 MM,, full of fish and fowl. But these English having gotten our 
 land, they with scythes cut down the grass, and with axes fell the 
 trees ; their cows and horses eat the grass, and their hogs spoil our 
 1 Savage's Winthrop, vol. ii., p. 203. Wit in the sense of wisdom. 
 
1643.] MIANTONOMO AND THE GORTON CONTROVERSY. 93 
 
 clam banks, and we shall all be starved. Therefore it is best for 
 you to do as \ve, for we are all the sachems from east to west, both 
 Moquakues and Mohawks joining with us, and we are all resolved 
 to fall upon them all at one appointed day .... and when you see 
 the three fires that will be made forty days hence, in a clear night, 
 then do as we, and the next day fall on and kill men, women and 
 children ; but no cows, for they will serve to eat till our deer be in- 
 creased again." 1 
 
 This bit of Indian eloquence, which seems to have been the proto- 
 type of many Indian speeches since, was probably never made by 
 Miantonomo, but put into his mouth by some clever savage to work 
 him harm. Captain Gardiner, nevertheless, believed it to be his, and 
 reported an intended massacre of the English to Mr. Haynes at Hart- 
 ford, and Mr. Eaton at New Haven. Massachusetts was appealed to 
 for aid, and the sachem was summoned to Boston to answer the ac- 
 cusation. The only evidence against him was the hearsay testimony 
 of his enemies. 
 
 This evidence, .though accepted at Hartford, New Haven, and Ptym- 
 outh, was not believed by the Massachusetts magistrates. Twice (in 
 1640 and 1642) Miantonomo appeared before them, and by his digni- 
 fied and fearless bearing, his evident good sense and frankness, satisfied 
 them that, as Winthrop said, " All these informations might arise 
 from a false ground, and out of the enmity which was between the 
 Narragansett and Monhigen." 2 The plot had no other foundation 
 than the purpose of Uncas to provoke the English into hostilities 
 against the Narragansetts. 
 
 But the Gorton difficulty favored Uncas in an unexpected way, 
 and forced Miantonomo into an attitude which the United The ^^ 
 Colonies assumed to be hostile. He would not, with Pum- of Uncas - 
 ham and Sacononoco, repudiate the sale of the lands of Shawomet 
 to Gorton, nor ask, as they did, under the leadership of Benedict 
 Arnold, the protection of Massachusetts. During the progress of that 
 controversy, but before Gorton and his companions were taken pris- 
 oners to Boston, Uncas attacked and destroyed a Narragansett vil- 
 lage, and killed a number of its people. Miantonomo complained of 
 this outrage to the magistrates of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and 
 begged them not to be offended if he should revenge this wrong done 
 to his relatives and friends. Governor Winthrop replied: "If Onkus 
 [Uncas] had done him or his friends wrong, and would not give sat- 
 isfaction, we should leave him to take his course." 3 
 
 1 Gardiner's Pequot Warres. We follow the text of this supposed speech verbatim, but 
 making a few slight changes in the punctuation where the sense obviously requires it. 
 
 2 Savage's Winthrop, vol. ii., p. 100. 8 Ibid., vol. ii., p. 155. 
 
94 THE SHAWOMET PEOPLE AND THE INDIANS. |THAP. TV. 
 
 Confiding in this assurance of neutrality he went upon the war-path 
 
 against Uncas. The result was unfortunate, for he was taken prisoner, 
 
 the weight of the coat of armor, which, it is said, Gorton had given 
 
 him, preventing his escape by flight. That disgrace, no 
 
 Miantonomo r * i i < i i 
 
 taken pris- doubt, overwhelmed him, for he begged his enemies repeat- 
 edly to take his life, taunting them, perhaps, after the Indian 
 fashion, with his own deeds of prowess in the past, and how they had 
 fled like women before him at the sound of his war-whoop. But Un- 
 cas had learned to refine upon the crude methods of Indian revenge ; 
 he sent the great chief to Hartford to be lodged in the common jail. 
 
 How should so important a prisoner, falling thus into the hands of 
 the English, be disposed of ? The question was one, it seems, not 
 easily answered. The governor and magistrates at Hartford consented 
 to hold him in custody, but declared that it was not for them to decide 
 upon his final disposition ; there was no war, they said, between their 
 colony and the Narragansetts to justify their interference. That 
 decision, they thought, belonged to the commissioners of the United 
 Colonies. 1 
 
 A meeting of the commissioners, at which Governor Winthrop pre- 
 sided, was held in Boston in September, and the subject had 
 their most serious consideration. They well knew, they said, 
 ne am bitious design of Miantonomo " to make himself uni- 
 versal Sagamore or Governor of all these parts," and they believed he 
 had determined to exterminate the English ; but this knowledge and 
 belief, tbey declared should not influence their judgment in this case, 
 which was simply one between the two Indians. Their conclusion was 
 " that Uncas cannot be safe while Myantonomo lives, but that either 
 by secret treachery or open force his life will be still in danger. 
 Wherefore they thinke he may justly put such a false and blood- 
 thirsty enemie to death, but in his owne jurisdiccon not in the English 
 plantacons and advising that in the manner of his death all mercy 
 and moderacon be showed, contrary to the practise of the Indians who 
 exercise torture and cruelty." 
 
 This was their conclusion. The considerations that led them to it 
 were : That Miantonomo had made war upon Uncas without sub- 
 mitting his grievances to the English for arbitration, as had been pro- 
 vided by treaty : that a subject of Uncas had attempted to kill him 
 and then fled for protection to the Narragansetts, and that Mian- 
 tonomo instead of surrendering him as he had promised, had himself 
 cut off the culprit's head, " that he might tell no tales : " that Mian- 
 tonomo had attempted to destroy Uncas by " sorcery " : that it was 
 Sequasson and not Uncas who was the original aggressor in the quarrel 
 
 i Trumbull's History of Connecticut, vol. i., p. 131. 
 
1643.] 
 
 EXECUTION OF MIANTONOMO. 
 
 95 
 
 that led to the conflict between Uncas and Miantonomo : and, finally, 
 that Miantonomo had " suddainly without denouncing war " come 
 upon Uncas with superior numbers and relying upon those had de- 
 clined to settle their feud by single combat ; that the Mohawks were 
 now within a day's journey awaiting the issue of his capture, though 
 what they might do "whether against the English, or Uncas, or 
 both," the commissioners acknowledged, " is doubtful." 1 
 
 This formidable indictment, nevertheless, was not accepted, at once, 
 as conclusive. Winthrop's statement of the conclusion of the commis- 
 sioners is, that they, " taking into consideration what was safest and 
 best to be done, were all of opinion that it would not be safe to set 
 him [Miantonomo] at liberty, neither had we sufficient ground for us 
 to put him to death." 
 
 Here then was a dilemma. Was Miantonomo to be punished be- 
 cause he was the enemy of the English ? He was believed to be so 
 in Plymouth, New Haven, and Hartford, but hitherto Massachusetts 
 
 The Grave of Miantonomo. 
 
 had not believed it ; moreover, the delegates from those colonies de- 
 clared that was not the question now at issue. Was he to be pun- 
 ished because he had disregarded the treaty, as the commissioners 
 said, by neglecting to notify the English that he proposed to make 
 
 1 Hazard's State Papers, vol. ii., pp. 8, et seq. 
 
96 THE SHAWOMET PEOPLE AND THE INDIANS. [CHAP. IV 
 
 war upon Uncas ? But this was not true, according to Winthrop's 
 own testimony. Miantonomo, he had recorded in his journal, " sent 
 to Mr. Haynes (at Hartford) to complain of Onkus;" and Governor 
 Haynes had replied, " that the English had no hand in it, nor would 
 encourage them." " Miantonomo gave notice hereof also to our gov- 
 ernor" Winthrop himself continues the journal, and the chief 
 was told " to take his own course." Miantonomo took " his own 
 course." Was it a crime because the fortune of war was against him ? 
 " In this difficulty," says Winthrop, after giving the decision of the 
 commissioners " in this difficulty we called in five of the 
 
 Thcquestion . . . , . 
 
 settled by most -judicious elders, (it being the time of the general as- 
 
 five elders. i i < i i i x i 
 
 sembly ot the elders,) and propounding the case to them, 
 they all agreed that he ought to be put to death." 
 
 " It was now clearly discovered to us," says the governor, " that 
 there was a general conspiracy among the Indians to cut off all the 
 English and that Miantunnomoh was the head and contriver of it." 
 Apparently it was the judgment of the elders alone that revealed the 
 truth of what hitherto had not been credited, for there seems to have 
 been no new evidence. 
 
 Miantonomo was to die then by the sentence of the English, but 
 Uncas was appointed to be his executioner. The Mohegan chief was 
 by no means reluctant to take upon himself that pleasant office. The 
 prisoner was delivered into his hands and marched to a spot near 
 where he was captured, now known as Sachem's Plain, in Norwich, 
 Connecticut. It was ordered by the commissioners that the execution 
 should be without torture, and some Englishmen were present to see 
 that the order was obeyed. If the method chosen was 
 tion of MI- savage, it was, at least, merciful : one of Uncas's men 
 said to be his brother stealthily approached the prisoner 
 from behind, and with a deadly blow buried a hatchet in his brain. 
 Uncas sprang upon the body of his fallen enemy, and cutting a large 
 piece of flesh from the shoulder devoured it in triumph, exclaiming, 
 " it was the sweetest meat he ever ate, it made his heart strong." 1 
 
 1 Trumbull's History of Connecticut, vol. i., p. 135. Drake's Book of the Indians, p. 65. 
 Winthrop was probably wrong as to the place of this tragedy, notwithstanding Savage 
 (vol. ii., p. 162), in a note, maintains that he is right. Drake doubts if Uncas committed 
 the savage act attributed to him, but Trumbull is good authority for the tradition. A 
 monument has been erected to the memory of the great Sachem on Sachem's Plain in 
 Norwich. 
 
View of Providence, Rhode Island. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS. 
 
 THE SHAWOMET CONTROVERSY TAKEN TO ENGLAND. DECIDED IN FAVOR OF GORTON 
 AND HIS ASSOCIATES. CHARTER GRANTED TO PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS. CIVIL 
 LIBERTY AND RELIGIOUS TOLERATION PROVIDED FOR. VISIT OF CLARK, HOLMES, 
 AND CRANDALL TO BOSTON. PUNISHED FOR HOLDING AND PREACHING HETERODOX 
 OPINIONS. DISSENSIONS IN RHODE ISLAND. CODDINGTON APPOINTED GOVERNOR 
 FOR LIFE THE CHARTER GRANTED BY CHARLES II. ITS CHARACTER AND HIS- 
 TORICAL INTEREST. 
 
 DEEPLY moved with grief and indignation as the Narragansetts were 
 when they heard of the treacherous assassination of their young and 
 beloved sachem, it shows how little real fear there was of any retalia- 
 tion on their part, that a small guard was thought sufficient for the 
 protection of Uncas. " That the Indians might know," says Win- 
 throp, " that the English did approve of it, they sent 12 or 14 mus- 
 keteers home with Onkus, to abide a time with him for his defence, if 
 need should be." There was no need ; the Narragansetts understood. 
 
 They understood, they thought, so well that when a few months 
 later Gorton and his men came back rejoicing and confident 
 with not a hair the less upon their heads, it was, the Narra- turn to 
 gansetts believed, because the others were afraid. Gorton 
 looked, he told them, to the king for justice ; it was no hard thing to 
 persuade them to offer their allegiance to a power which, though so 
 far away, was feared by their enemies. If such subjects were of no 
 
 YOU ii. 7 
 
98 RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS. [CHAP. V. 
 
 use to Charles, and such a king no protection to such subjects, the 
 deed of submission was, at least, a good document for Gorton to have 
 in his hand when he appealed to the government at home. This he 
 did, and so successfully that within about two years, Randall Holden 
 and John Greene two of the Shawomet people arrived in Bos- 
 ton, with an order from the Commissioners of Foreign Plantations in 
 London, that they and Gorton should be permitted to pass unmo- 
 rhe English lasted through any part of New England, from which they 
 er^dediioii ^ af ^ been banished ; and ten days later these Commissioners 
 m his favor. j ssue( j an order that all those evicted from Shawomet 
 should be permitted to reenter upon and enjoy their possessions in 
 that place. The Earl of Warwick was the president of that Board of 
 Commissioners, and in gratitude to him the place was thereafter called 
 Warwick. 
 
 This happy result to their troubles was not, of course, brought 
 about without a struggle. Edward Winslow was sent by the govern- 
 ment of Massachusetts, to controvert in England the statements of 
 Gorton, and a lively controversy ensued between them before the Com- 
 missioners and a committee of Par- 
 liament, and in published letters 
 and pamphlets, which found lis- 
 teners, absorbing as the interest of 
 the English people was, at that 
 time, in their own affairs. Win- 
 slow was faithful to his trust, and 
 withstood with all his might a con- 
 troversialist, who thanking God that 
 he was bred in no " schools of hu- 
 man learning," must have been the 
 harder to grapple with ; but even 
 Gorton himself testified to his manly 
 Edward winsiow. fairness. 1 
 
 But Winslow only so far prevailed that a year later the order re- 
 storing their lands to the Shawomet people was so modified and ex- 
 plained by a committee of both houses of Parliament, and by the 
 Board of Commissioners of Foreign Plantations that the question of 
 jurisdiction should be left for future decision. Winslow claimed that 
 
 1 Edward Winslow, often governor of Plymouth, was deservedly one of the most hon- 
 ored and respected of the early New Englauders. No one went so often as lie as the 
 agent of the Colonies to England, and on one of these visits he was sent by Cromwell as 
 commissioner on the expedition to the West Indies, in 1654. He died, after the disgrace- 
 ful repulse at Hispaniola the next year, of fever; A Diary in the Memorials of Admiral 
 Sir William Penn says : " Taking conceit (as his man affirms) at the disgrace of the army 
 on Hispaniola, to whom be told, it bad broken his heart." 
 
1644.] THE QUESTION OF JURISDICTION. 99 
 
 the lands were within the Plymouth patent ; but however the colo- 
 nists may have persuaded themselves on this point, the Commissioners 
 still insisted that Gorton, Holden, and their friends should be per- 
 mitted to rest on the lands they had purchased from the natives. 
 
 For years the question continued to vex the colonies, and was a fre- 
 quent subject of discussion, and even of altercation, between ^^ phaseg 
 Plymouth and Massachusetts, between the Commissioners of toVque't 01 " 
 the United Colonies, and between them all and the people tion - 
 of Warwick. As a reason for insisting upon the exercise of the right 
 of jurisdiction over them the latter were accused of wrongs committed 
 against their neighbors both English and Indian, the ready rejoinder 
 to which accusation was that the injuries were from the other side 
 and were only withstood in self-defence. There seems to have been 
 little peace for them till 1658, when William Arnold and William 
 Carpenter, two of the four original instigators of the troubles of the 
 Shawomet people, petitioned with others of Pawtuxet that Mas- 
 sachusetts would discharge them from the jurisdiction of that colony. 
 This petition, however, is to be understood as one of the evidences that 
 Massachusetts had relinquished her claim and is not to be mistaken as 
 the cause of that change of policy. 
 
 Years before this Warwick had become a part of the colony of 
 " Providence Plantations," under a charter procured by Roger Wil- 
 liams in March, 1644. 1 This was granted to Providence, Portsmouth, 
 and Newport, Warwick not being named in it ; but when in May, 
 1647, the colony was organized, that plantation was admitted 
 to equal privileges with the rest. Thereafter any attempted charter, 
 exercise of power over her was an intrusion upon territory 
 protected by patent given under the authority of the English Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 Williams arrived in Boston with this charter in September, 1644, 
 and was allowed to land there on his way to Providence by virtue of 
 a letter from " divers lords and others of the parliament " to the 
 governor and assistants of Massachusetts. Not that there was any 
 growing disposition to tolerate him or his doctrines. 2 The letter 
 alone secured him a safe passage through Massachusetts and at the 
 same time informed its magistrates that he was the bearer of this char- 
 ter granted to him and his friends by both houses of Parliament. 
 
 1 There has been some controversy as to the date of this charter, the question being 
 whether it was March 14th or 17th. In Hazard's State Pa/>ers it is the 14th; Savage in 
 Winthrojt's Journal maintained that this was correct, while Eltou and Staples in R. I. Hist. 
 Coll., insist that it should be the 17th. But Sainsbury's Calendar of State Papers in the 
 State Paper Office, London, gives the 14th [0. S.], and this, therefore, must be the cor- 
 rect date. 
 
 2 Hubbard's General History ofNtw England, chap, xliii. 
 

 100 RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS. [CHAP. V. 
 
 The warmth of his welcome at home was as marked as the coldness 
 with which he was received in Boston. It was a little less 
 
 His return. . . . . , , 
 
 than eight years since he had evaded the sentence of the 
 law of Massachusetts and fled into the forest through which he now 
 again found his way. The people had heard of his coining ; at See- 
 konk the river was covered with canoes ; all Providence had come out 
 to hail the return of a benefactor and a friend. Surrounded by a 
 grateful people he made an almost triumphal entry into the colony 
 he had planted. 
 
 It is an interesting and important fact that there was, unknown 
 
 to Williams, though known 
 probably to the magistrates of 
 Massachusetts, another grant 
 
 Williams's Welcome. 
 
 in existence at that moment. 
 bearing the date of the preced- 
 ing December December 10, 
 1643 [O. S.] extending the 
 
 patent of that colony over the whole of the present State of 
 
 Existence of _-._..._._. 111 i 
 
 an earlier Khode Island. It is probable that the instrument had not 
 
 charter to,, ., i- n 
 
 then been received, for some reason, in Boston, for the first 
 allusion to it is found in the records of the 7th of October, 
 1045. Mr. Williams is then notified by an official letter to refrain 
 from exercising any jurisdiction over the lands about Narragansett 
 Bay and the tract " wherein Providence and the Island of Quidny 
 are included," the charter of which was " receaved lately out of Eng- 
 land," 1 giving that country to Massachusetts. 
 
 1 Records of Massachusetts, vol. iii., p. 49. 
 
 Rhode 
 
1645.] THE NARRAGANSETT PATENT OF 1C43. 101 
 
 Why should a charter which, if put in force, would settle defini- 
 tively so much that was vexatious because unsettled, have been re- 
 ceived only " lately " in October, 1645, when the grant was made 
 nearly two years before, in December, 1643 ? Why also Puziiing 
 
 .-ill 1M i questions in 
 
 when received, though so tardily, was not some further use regard to u. 
 made of it other than in this single instance to hold it up as a menace 
 to the Providence Plantations ? That is the sole use to which it was 
 ever put by the Massachusetts government, and in that case the warn- 
 ing was not thought worth heeding by those to whom it was sent or 
 followed up by those who gave it. 
 
 The patent was a month old when Gorton and his companions were 
 released from their sentence of confinement at hard labor in Massachu- 
 setts and dismissed with a new one of banishment beyond her bor- 
 ders. It was four months later when Governor Winthrop warned 
 these people that the General Court did not intend their sentence as a 
 " scarecrow " that it would be found real and effectual should it be 
 transgressed. Did he know at that very moment that these men were 
 still within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, and in proposing to set- 
 tle on Rhode Island were as much disregarding the order of the Gen- 
 eral Court, if this charter were valid, as they would have done by re- 
 maining in Boston ? It is of course, possible, though not probable, that 
 the Massachusetts agents in London, the Reverend Thomas Welde and 
 the Reverend Hugh Peters, had not informed the government of Massa- 
 chusetts that they had secured so important an addition to her domain 
 and her power. But even if this were true, for years afterward, when 
 the charter was certainly in Boston, no attempt was made to enforce it, 
 though its enforcement as a matter of absolute right would have set- 
 tled at once so many questions over which discussion, altercation, and 
 contention lasted through all those years. 
 
 Why then was so important an instrument permitted to lie in abey- 
 ance among the archives of Massachusetts ? Why should Winthrop, 
 whose journal of the events of that period is so minute, and therefore 
 so much more valuable than any other contemporary narrative, be 
 absolutely silent save in a single instance where it is alluded to by 
 way of illustration only upon this Narragansett patent? 
 
 Positive answers there are none to these questions, but many con- 
 jectures. 1 By some writers it is maintained that the charter S inguia 
 was fraudulent, procured in an irregular and illegal way by 
 Welde, and sent out by him to be used in Massachusetts 
 to sustain the unfounded claim of jurisdiction over Rhode e Ternment - 
 Island, assumed in the outset for the punishment and suppression of the 
 
 1 See a very thorough discussion of the subject by Mr. Charles Deane and Col. Thomas 
 Aspinwall in the volume of Proceedings of Mass. Hist.Soc.. 1862-1863. 
 
102 RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS. [CHAP. V. 
 
 heretics of Shawomet. Williams in a letter to Major Mason, written 
 in 1670, says that when Gorton made his complaint, in London, 
 against the action of Massachusetts, " the Lord High Admiral, Presi- 
 dent, [Warwick] said openly in a full meeting of the commissioners, 
 that he knew of no other charter for these parts than what Mr. Wil- 
 liams had obtained, and he was sure that charter, which the Massa- 
 chusetts Englishmen pretended had never past the table." 1 In a 
 petition presented by John Clarke and others on behalf of Rhode 
 Island and Providence Plantations to Lord Clarendon in 1665, the 
 charter is referred to as " that which Mr. Wells [Welde] got under- 
 hand " and as " never passed at Council table nor registered." 2 And 
 in 1662 President Brenton told Hutchinson, the Massachusetts agent 
 in London, that the Narragansett patent " was not fairly got ; " that 
 " there was no such thing upon record in any court of England, for 
 he had sent to search the records ; " and Hutchinson in a letter to 
 Secretary Rawson of Massachusetts, says, " find there theirs, but not 
 
 ours." 3 
 
 On the other hand, Sainsbury records the patent as in volume x. 
 of the State Paper Office in London. 4 But this record rather com- 
 plicates still further than clears up the question, for added to it are 
 the words "- Copy, attested by Edward Rawson, Secretary." Raw- 
 son was the Colonial Secretary of Massachusetts. Did he send back to 
 England an official copy of a charter obtained by fraud, that it might 
 
 * Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., First Series, vol. ii. R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. iii. 
 2 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Second Series, vol. vii. 
 
 8 Mass. Archives, cited by Aspinwall in the discussion with Deane. 
 
 * Sainsbury's Calendar of State Papers, p. 325. 
 
 *^JJ*J 
 
 *+*Jr& 
 
 4& 
 
 Reduced Fac-simiie of the Signatures and Closing 
 
1645.] 
 
 THE NARRAGANSETT PATENT OF 1643. 
 
 103 
 
 appeal", for sorne ulterior purpose, of record in the State Paper Office ? 
 Or, appearing there in due course, were the Earl of Warwick, John 
 Clarke, President Brenton of Rhode Island, and Edward Hutchinson 
 of Massachusetts, all in error as to its legality ? 
 
 It is neither agreeable nor charitable to suppose that the Massa- 
 chusetts magistrates would avail themselves of a patent Possible 
 which they knew to be obtained by trickery, even for so o^h tion8 
 pious a work as the suppression of heresy. They recognize pollcy - 
 its existence just often enough to show that they accepted it as legal 
 or accepted it at any rate while they refrained so completely 
 from maintaining any vested right under it, that it is plain they pre- 
 ferred, for some reason, to ignore it. Perhaps the most common- 
 place explanation of the enigma is nearest the truth, they did not 
 use the charter because it did not answer their purpose. For some 
 reason, which probably will never be explained, there were serious 
 doubts as to the genuineness of the document ; but in Boston, let ua 
 hope they knew it was legal, and nevertheless they put it aside among 
 the archives of the colony because it was of little practical value in 
 carrying out their policy in regard to Rhode Island. 
 
 For the jurisdiction Massachusetts wanted in that region of country 
 was not merely jurisdiction over land, but over people ; not merely 
 over that which was uninhabited, except by Indians, but that in which 
 dwelt their own countrymen. In each of the new settlements were 
 men already obnoxious to the laws of the General Court, and in each 
 could men still more obnoxious find an asylum. But the Narragansett 
 patent contained a reservation of all lands previously granted, "and in 
 
 4^-2**'ra 
 
 Sentences of the Narragansett Patent. 
 
 

 104 RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS. [CHAP. V. 
 
 present possession held and enjoyed by any of his majesty's Protes- 
 tant subjects." There had, indeed, been no grants of lands in the ter- 
 ritory in question, but there was " present possession " at Providence, 
 Portsmouth, Newport, and Shawomet, and the charter, therefore, con- 
 ferred upon Massachusetts no right of jurisdiction over these or their 
 inhabitants. Her authority, therefore, in that country would have 
 been only a divided authority, and would have failed precisely where 
 she most wished to exercise it. Rather than accept this she may 
 have preferred to await the decision she hoped for that the country 
 was embraced within the Plymouth patent, inasmuch as Plymouth 
 had conveyed her right of jurisdiction to Massachusetts. 1 But, how- 
 ever her course may be explained, the question still remains unsolved, 
 how came the Commissioners of Plantations to confer if they 
 did confer upon the Providence Plantations, in March, 1644, a 
 patent of precisely the same lands which three months before they 
 had granted to Massachusetts ? 
 
 The charter which Williams brought back from England was free 
 and absolute, giving to the people of Providence Planta- 
 
 Provisions & , \ r . , 
 
 of the grant tions " full power and authority to govern and rule them- 
 selves and such others as shall inhabit within any part of the 
 said tract of land, by such a form of civil government as by voluntary 
 consent of all or the greatest part of them shall be found most service- 
 able in their estates and conditions ; " and to that end it empowered 
 them to make and enforce such civil laws and constitutions as should 
 be necessary, provided only that they were in accordance with the 
 laws of England. And even this condition was so modified as to 
 provide that this conformity to the laws of the mother country need 
 be only so far as the nature and constitution of the colony admitted. 
 It was the freest colonial charter that had ever been given ; naturally, 
 for it was obtained at the solicitation of Roger Williams, through 
 the influence of Sir Henry Vane, and from a parliamentary com- 
 mission. 
 
 The first General Assembly which met under it at Portsmouth, 
 First AS- May 19, 1647, adopted a code of laws, in the preamble of 
 iaw s b under which it was declared : " sith our charter gives us to govern 
 Ser liams ourselves, and such other as come among us, and by such 
 1647 a form of civil government as by the voluntary consent, 
 
 etc., shall be found most suitable to our state and condition. It is 
 agreed by this present Assembly, thus incorporate, and by this present 
 act declared, that the form of government established in Providence 
 Plantations is DEMOCRATICAL, that is to say, a government held by 
 the free and voluntary consent of all, or the greater part of the free 
 
 1 See Arnold's History of Rhode Island, vol. i., p. 119. 
 
1647.] LIBERTY AND RELIGIOUS TOLERATION. 105 
 
 inhabitants." The personal rights of the citizen were guarded by 
 the declaration " that no person in this Colony shall be taken or im- 
 prisoned, or be disseised of his lands or liberties, or be exiled or any 
 otherwise molested or destroyed, but by the lawful judgment of his 
 peers, or by some known law, and according to the letter of it," rati- 
 fied and confirmed by the General Assembly. And that absolute 
 freedom of conscience should be secured, it was declared that " all 
 men may walk as their consciences persuade them, every one in the 
 name of his God. And let the saints of the Most High walk in this 
 Colony without molestation in the name of Jehovah, their God for 
 ever and ever." l 
 
 Five years before Portsmouth and Newport had declared in almost 
 the. same words, that such were the principles by which they meant to 
 be governed. Here was a new and wider union under the authority 
 of a charter. It laid down as the firm foundation of the State that 
 idea of civil and religious liberty, which every wise man among them, 
 who had followed Williams to an asylum for those distressed in con- 
 science, maintained to be its only true foundation. Whatever vicis- 
 situdes and trials they were called upon to meet, they kept carefully 
 in mind the great principles of their political faith. 
 
 There were dividing interests and dissensions in the several towns, 
 however, which the union under this charter could not recon- 
 cile. What these were is not, and cannot now, be accu- &>&& 
 rately known, but they were, no doubt, increased by division n1L7di^n^ 
 of feeling and opinion on affairs in England. Royalists and 
 parliament men no more loved each other in the colonies than at 
 home, though distance from the scene of the actual struggle softened 
 the political rancor enough to restrain them from open violence. But 
 whatever other differences there were, this one intensified them. Cod- 
 dington, a royalist, was the leader of one party, and one strong evi- 
 dence of the difference between the two was that he, with others, 
 asked on behalf of the island that they be admitted into the confeder- 
 ation of the United Colonies. He claimed that this was the wish of 
 a majority of the people of Portsmouth and Newport, and he may 
 have been right, for the island towns and the mainland towns seemed 
 to mark the division of parties. 
 
 The party feeling in the Rhode Island towns must have been in- 
 tense that could make any of them so forget the wrongs they had suf- 
 fered at the hands of Massachusetts, as to ask an alliance where hers 
 was the chief influence. The request of the petitioners was refused 
 unless they would acknowledge that the territory they occupied was 
 within the Plymouth patent. To accept such terms would have been 
 
 l R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. iv., p. 229. 
 
 
10(5 RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS. [CHAP. V. 
 
 to forego all the advantages of the possession of their own charter, 
 and to surrender themselves eventually to the jurisdiction of Massa- 
 chusetts. What that might be the people of Providence Plantations 
 had already been taught by some efficient lessons, and others were to 
 come. 
 
 In the summer of 1651 the Reverend John Clark, who was not 
 
 only one of the most influential and most respected citizens 
 missi on a to of Rhode Island, but the pastor of the Baptist Church at 
 
 Newport ; the Reverend Obadiah Holmes, who had gathered 
 a church of the same denomination at Seekonk, and one Crandall, 
 went together to Lynn, in Massachusetts, to visit a sick brother in 
 the chui-ch, one William Witter. 1 Clark was an eminent and public 
 offender inasmuch as he was a Baptist clergyman, and the leader of 
 that band of exiles who. banished from Massachusetts, found a home 
 on the island of Acqnidneck ; Holmes was also a Baptist clergyman, 
 had been excommunicated from the church at Seekonk, and bound 
 over to keep the peace by the authorities of Plymouth ; and Crandall, 
 to his other offence of being an Anabaptist, had added that of mar- 
 rying a daughter of Samuel Gorton. Three such criminals were not 
 to be permitted to come with impunity within the boundaries of Mas- 
 sachusetts, although the church of which all three were members had 
 deputed them to visit a brother member, sick and old and blind, who, 
 from his distant home, had asked for the consolation of a religious 
 visit. 2 
 
 On the Sunday after their arrival, " not having freedom in our 
 Arrest of Spirits," says Clark, "for want of a clear Call from God to 
 ciark and unto the Publike Assemblie to declare there what was 
 
 nie com pan- o 
 
 ions - the mind, and counsell of God concerning them," he " judged 
 
 it a thing suitable " to hold divine service in the house and with the 
 family of Witter, and four or five others who came in to join in their 
 worship. While thus engaged there came in two constables with a 
 warrant for their arrest. A request to finish the services was denied, 
 and " the erronious persons, being Strangers" whom the writ of Jus- 
 tice Bridges commanded should be brought before him in the morn- 
 ing, were marched off as prisoners bail being refused to the inn 
 for safe keeping. 
 
 The constables were more zealous than wise, for in the afternoon 
 they insisted upon taking the prisoners to the Meeting, notwithstand- 
 
 1 Witter was nearly seventy years of age and blind ; not being able to go to Newport 
 for the comfort of the ordinances in the church to which he belonged, he asked that he 
 might be visited, for he seemed to be near his end. Clark, Holmes, and Crandall were sent 
 as the representatives of the church at Newport, as appears by the records of the church, 
 as quoted l>y Backus. 
 
 2 Backus's History of the Baptists, vol. i., p. 215. 
 

 1G51.] 
 
 JOHN CLARK'S MISSION TO LYNN. 
 
 1U1 
 
 ing Mr. Clark's repeated protests and warnings that if compelled to go 
 there his conscience would constrain him to testify to his dissent both 
 by word and gesture from those with whom he could hold no religious 
 communion. And he was true to his word ; for in the Meeting he 
 
 kept his hat upon his head till 
 the constable removed it, and 
 at the close of the services 
 undertook to exhort the con- 
 gregation. It is no wonder 
 that such conduct exasperated 
 Justice Bridges, by whose or- 
 der they had been arrested, 
 and who now compelled the 
 preacher to hold his peace. 
 
 The Meeting at Witter's House. 
 
 The next morning the three were sent to Boston jail for safe-keep- 
 ing till the next sitting of the court, the charges against them being 
 that they had held a private religious meeting ; that they had dis- 
 turbed public worship ; that they had led others astray ; that they 
 
 ^ 
 
108 RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS. [CHAP. V. 
 
 were suspected of rebaptizing of one or more persons, and had failed 
 to give security that they would appear for trial. 1 
 
 They lay in jail for ten days before the Court, consisting of the 
 governor, deputy governor, and three assistants, was con- 
 
 Their trial. , , .? J j , , v r 
 
 vened, but there was no delay when they were once before 
 their judges. There were neither accusers nor witnesses summoned 
 against them ; no jury to try them, and no law either of God or man 
 cited to their condemnation. It was enough for the irascible Governor 
 Endicott to declare that they were Anabaptists ; the formalities of 
 trial evidently were of small moment with regard to criminals of that 
 sort. 
 
 Of course they were found guilty. They were Baptists ; the com- 
 mitment said they had held two meetings of worship at Witter's 
 house ; and when taken into the meeting-house of the town they had 
 kept on their hats. They were sentenced to be well whipt, or to pay, 
 Clark twenty pounds, Holmes thirty pounds, and Crandall five pounds. 
 Mr. Clark asked respectfully that he might be told under what law 
 they were condemned. He reminded them that by their Code no 
 man should be molested except under a law of the General Court, or, 
 failing that, the law of God ; and neither had been produced against 
 them. He hoped they were not less tender of the rights of the stranger 
 within their gates, than they were of the rights of their own people. 
 
 Endicott was equal to the occasion ; they denied infant baptism, he 
 shouted ; they ought to be put to death, and " he would not have such 
 trash brought into their jurisdiction." Holmes, more meek, said as 
 he turned to leave the court, " I bless God I am counted worthy to 
 
 suffer for the name of Jesus." 
 Whereupon he adds, "John 
 Wilson (their pastor, as they 
 call him) strook me before the 
 
 Signature of John Wilson. . i i 
 
 judgment seat and cursed me, 
 
 saying, the curse of God or Jesus go with thee." It was not much 
 that would put John Endicott in a towering passion at any time ; but 
 it must have been a lively and exciting occasion that could 
 move John Wilson though capable of being moved, for 
 we have seen him climbing a tree in a time of popular 
 clamor to harangue a crowd 2 that could so move him as to strike 
 and curse even a theological opponent in open court. 3 
 
 Endicott told Clark that it was only the weak to whom he ventured 
 
 1 /// Xeices From New-England : or A Narrative of New-Enr/lunds Persecution. By John 
 Clark. London : 1652. Reprinted ^fass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Fourth Series, vol. ii. 
 
 2 Vol. i., p. 554. 
 
 8 Holmes's Narrative in Backus ; and R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. vi. 
 
1651.] TRIAL OF CLARK, HOLMES, AND CRANDALL. 109 
 
 to present his doctrines, but that he could not sustain himself in a 
 controversy with the Boston ministers with brother Wilson, for ex- 
 ample, then and there present ready on the instant to pound the ob- 
 durate Holmes into a Christian state of mind. Nothing could be 
 more acceptable to the Newport clergyman than such a challenge ; 
 but though agreed to and the preliminaries arranged after much nego- 
 tiation, the proposal came to naught. It was not so much, probably, 
 that Messrs. Wilson and Cotton feared to meet Mr. Clark in debate as 
 that they dreaded the effect on the popular mind, all the more ready 
 to embrace new doctrines which it was unwisely attempted to sup- 
 press by the persecution of those who held them. 
 
 After some days of imprisonment both Clark and Crandall were re- 
 leased, their fines being paid by some judicious friends without their 
 knowledge. But with Holmes it fared otherwise. His conscience 
 would not permit him to pay for himself, or allow others to pay for 
 him, the sum adjudged as penalty. He struggled hai'd, he tells us, 
 to resist the temptation to escape a painful punishment, and on the 
 morning of its execution, " in consideration of the weakness of the 
 flesh to bear the strokes though the spirit was willing, I was," he adds, 
 * k caused to pray earnestly unto the Lord that he would be pleased to 
 give me a spirit of courage and boldness, a tongue to speak for Him, 
 and strength of body to suffer for His sake, and not to shrink or yield 
 to the strokes, or shed tears lest the adversaries of the truth should 
 thereupon blaspheme and be hardened, and the weak and feeble- 
 hearted discouraged." 
 
 Fortified with this spirit of resignation and endurance, he was led 
 out of the prison into the presence of the people. He tried 
 to speak that he might bear witness to them that he suffered 
 
 for " the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ." 
 If the punishment was just it was just that he should be silenced, for 
 it was for preaching that he was punished. " Fellow, do thine office," 
 said the magistrate to the executioner; "for this fellow would but 
 make a long speech to delude the people." To him there was nothing 
 ignominious in his position ; rather the glorification of martyrdom. 
 " I dressed myself," he says, " in as comely a manner as I could, hav- 
 ing such a Lord and Master to serve in this business." And these 
 comely garments had to be removed from him, for " I made," he de- 
 clares, " as much conscience of unbuttoning a button as I did of pay- 
 ing the 30/. in reference thereunto." To this disrobing he submitted 
 gently and unresistingly, as he did to his punishment ; " for in truth," 
 continues his narrative, " as the strokes fell upon me I had such a 
 spiritual manifestation of God's presence as the like thereto I never 
 had nor felt, nor can with fleshy tongue express, and the outward pain 
 
110 RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS. CCHAP. V. 
 
 
 
 was so removed from me that, indeed, I am not able to declare it to 
 you ; it was so easy to me that I could well bear it, yea, 
 and in a manner felt it not, although it was grievous, as 
 the spectators said, the man striking with all his strength, 
 (yea, spitting on his hand three times, as many affirmed), with a 
 three-corded whip, giving me therewith thirty strokes." Such was 
 his spiritual exaltation that when the ghastly spectacle was over and 
 his clothes were restored to him to cover his scored and bloody back, 
 
 Whipping of Obadiah Holmes. 
 
 he turned to the magistrates standing by and said, " You have struck 
 me as with roses." 
 
 When the scourging was finished a number of the bystanders 
 crowded around the sufferer to avow their pity for his condition, if 
 not their sympathy for his doctrines and their indignation at his per- 
 secution. Writs were immediately issued for the arrest of a dozen or 
 more of these persons, but only two were taken. These also would 
 have been publicly punished at the whipping-post, had not their fines, 
 which their consciences forbade their paying, been discharged by their 
 friends. 
 
 Whatever were the merits, and they were many, of the early Puri- 
 
1651.] PUNISHMENT OF OBADIAH HOLMES. Ill 
 
 tans of Massachusetts, candid and truthful history can neither wink 
 out of sight nor palliate the intolerance and cruelty which Thegp iritoi 
 they visited upon those who differed from them. Fortunately ^SJ! 
 for her, and for the whole country whose destiny she has tolerance - 
 done so much to influence, the efforts of her earliest rulers to stamp 
 her character with the indelible impress of their own narrow views 
 and purposes were not successful. In all those years there was among 
 the common people, particularly outside of Boston, a determined pur- 
 pose, which it was impossible altogether to suppress, not to submit to 
 the arbitrary will and narrow fanaticism with which the magistrates 
 proposed to govern in the name of religion and of law. The struggle 
 was long continued, continued, indeed, even down to our own time. 
 But that spirit which led some of the most enlightened of her people 
 to build up another colony on a foundation of religious toleration and 
 the equal civil rights of all men, has, in the long run, been triumphant 
 in Massachusetts also. The extravagancies in theological discursive- 
 ness which grew out of the intellectual and religious activity of the 
 age came, in the end, to harmless and sometimes rational conclusions ; 
 while the intolerant bigotry which knew no better way to meet the 
 vagaries of fanaticism than persecution became at length so intolerable 
 to all sober-minded people as to be looked upon with such abhorrence 
 as to defeat itself. 
 
 It is not at all impossible that these outrages in Boston upon two 
 well-known clergymen of Rhode Island may have had some 
 influence upon political events in that colony. Governor ton-s"om- 
 Coddington had, by a clever coup de main, obtained from the Rixnie isi- 
 Council of State in England a commission to govern Rhode 
 Island, with a council of six men, during his life. With this commis- 
 sion he returned home about the time of the visit of Clark to Massa- 
 chusetts ; and though there is no evidence of his having repeated his 
 overtures to the Commissioners of the United Colonies that Rhode 
 Island should be admitted to that Confederacy, there was, neverthe- 
 less, a good deal of alarm among the people at his success. Roger 
 Williams, as representative of the mainland towns, and John Clark, 
 on behalf of those of the Island, were sent soon after to England, 
 the one to procure the recall of the commission to Coddington, the 
 other to obtain a confirmation of the charter. The latter was prob- 
 ably thought desirable, as since that charter was granted Charles the 
 First had been brought to the block, England had been declared a 
 Commonwealth, and the government of the nation entrusted to the 
 Council of State appointed by parliament. The mission of the com- 
 missioners, however, was, in effect, the same to restore the govern- 
 ment of Providence Plantations, which had lapsed through the dis- 
 
112 RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS. [CHAP. V. 
 
 sensions of the several towns, and the repeal of the appointment of 
 Coddington as governor for life over those of Rhode Island. 
 
 The mission was successful. Williams and Clark presented their 
 petition to the Council of State the following spring; in the autumn 
 of 1652 the commission to Coddington was recalled, and a few months 
 later the towns were again united under one government, Williams, 
 who had meanwhile returned from England, being the first gov- 
 ernor. 
 
 Clark remained in England to watch over, during the next ten 
 momentous years of the Commonwealth, the interests of the 
 and charter Colony. On the restoration of Charles II. he devoted him- 
 self to obtaining a royal charter, which was granted in July, 
 1663, to the Colony under the new name of " Rhode Island and Prov- 
 idence Plantations." All the 
 rights granted in the earlier 
 patent were confirmed in this ; 
 the original title of the native 
 Indians for affirming which 
 as to the country of New 
 England Roger Williams was, 
 among other reasons, banished 
 from Massachusetts was rec- 
 cognized ; the rights of con- 
 science and of private judg- 
 ment, for which the people of 
 Rhode Island had suffered so 
 much at the hands of their 
 neighbors, were affirmed by 
 the declaration that " no per- 
 son within the said Colony, at 
 any time hereafter, shall be 
 anywise molested, punished, 
 disquieted, or called in ques- 
 tion, for any differences in 
 opinion in matters of religion, 
 
 that do not actually disturb the civil peace of our said Colony ; but 
 that all and every person and persons may, from time to time, and at 
 all times hereafter, freely and fully have and enjoy his and their own 
 judgments and consciences, in matters of religious concernments, 
 throughout the tract of land hereafter mentioned ; they behaving 
 themselves peaceably and quietly, and not using this liberty to licen- 
 tiousness and profaneness, nor to the injury or outward disturbance of 
 others " ; it empowered a general assembly " to make, ordain, constitute 
 
 Portrait of Charles II. 
 

 1663.] THE CHARTER OF 1663. 113 
 
 or repeal, such laws, statutes, orders and ordinances, forms and cere- 
 monies of government and magistracy, as to them shall seem meet, for 
 the good and welfare of the said Company, and for the government 
 and ordering of the lands and hereditaments hereinafter mentioned 
 to be granted, and of the people that do, or at any time hereafter 
 shall, inhabit or be within the same ; so as such laws, ordinances 
 and constitutions, so made, be not contrary and repugnant unto, but 
 as near as may, agreeable to the laws of this our realm of Eng- 
 land, considering the nature and constitution of the place and peo- 
 ple there " ; that in all matters of public controversy between this 
 and other colonies the appeal should be to the government in Eng- 
 land, and that to the inhabitants of Rhode Island there should be 
 perfect freedom to pass and repass without let or molestation into the 
 other colonies, and to hold intercourse and trade with such of their 
 people as were willing, " any act, clause, or sentence in any of the 
 said Colonies, provided, or that shall be provided, to the contrary in 
 any wise notwithstanding." This, no doubt, referred to the sentence 
 of banishment of Roger Williams and others from Massachusetts which 
 had never been repealed. 
 
 No charter so comprehensive and so radical as this had ever before 
 been granted to any English colony. It guaranteed to the 
 people of Rhode Island those great principles of civil and 
 religious liberty for which they had struggled so long and some of 
 them had sacrificed so much ; it anticipated in a royal grant the fun- 
 damental law of that great republic of which this colony is a part, 
 but which was waited for till more than another century of growth 
 and struggle had passed away ; and so broad and free it was that it 
 served as the constitution of that little commonwealth for the next 
 hundred and eighty years. Under it Benedict Arnold was the first 
 governor; among the names of those on whose behalf the king was 
 petitioned that such a patent be granted, were those of Samuel Gor- 
 ton, John Greene, Randall Holden, and William Coddington ; 1 and 
 the man to whom it owed its character and at whose importunity the 
 royal will was chiefly moved, was Dr. John Clark, who two years be- 
 fore barely escaped the whipping-post in Boston, where the magis- 
 trates were not ashamed to condemn to a punishment so ignominious 
 a venerable and estimable and learned clergyman whose offence was 
 one that this charter forbade to be called a crime, and maintained as 
 
 1 Those on whose behalf John Clark petitioned the king were : Benjamin Arnold, Wil- 
 liam Breuton, William Coddington, Nicholas Easton, William Boulston, John Porter, John 
 Smith, Samuel Gorton, John Weeks, Roger Williams, Thomas Olney, Gregory Dexter, 
 John Coggeshall, Joseph Clarke, Randall Holden, John Greene, John Roome, Samuel 
 Wildbore, William Field, James Barker, Richard Tew, Thomas Harris, and William Dyre. 
 VOL. n. 8 
 
 ter- 
 
114 RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS. [CHAP. V. 
 
 a precious right. As an historical document the instrument is full of 
 the gravest interest for the incidents and the men whose memory it 
 preserves ; for the events in the formation of governments of which it 
 was, in a certain measure, a prophecy ; and for the end which awaited 
 it when nearly two centuries later its form though not its spirit was 
 outgrown. 
 
 Roger Williams' Compass. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 NEW NETHERLAND UNDER PETER STUYVESANT. 
 
 STCYVESANT'S ARRIVAL AT MANHATTAN. HOPEFUL RECEPTION BY THE CITIZENS. 
 
 HE BEFRIENDS EX-GOVERNOR KlEFT. AliREST AND TRIAL OF KUYTER AND Mfi- 
 
 LYN. THEIR BANISHMENT AND DEPARTURE WITH KIEFT. WRECK OF THE PRIN- 
 CESS. DIFFICULTIES WITH NEW ENGLAND. SEIZURE OF THE ST. BENINIO. 
 THE CONSEQUENT QUARREL WITH NEW HAVEN. CONTROVERSY WITH THE COM- 
 MISSARY OF RENSSELAERSWYCK. DISCONTENT OF THE PEOPLE. APPEAL OF THE 
 CITIZENS TO HOLLAND. MELYN.'S RETURN. REVERSAL OF HIS SENTENCE. THE 
 REMONSTRANCE FORWARDED TO THE STATES-GENKRAL. VAN DER DOXCK AND THE 
 DELEGATES AT THE HAGUE. STUYVESANT'S CONTINUED ARROGANCE. 
 
 ON the 27th of May, 1647, Peter Stuyvesant, the new governor 
 who, the New Netherlander hoped, had come to remedy all 
 the evils which they had suffered under the administration stuyvesant's 
 of Kieft, arrived amid " shouting on all sides " and the burn- Manhattan, 
 ing of nearly all the powder in the town in salutes. 1 The 
 rejoicing was universal, and even Kieft himself was glad, probably, to 
 welcome a successor who was to release him from the cares of a vexa- 
 tious office. As the excited burghers gathered near the foi't upon 
 what is now known as the Battery, to look at the fleet anchored in 
 the harbor, they congratulated each other, no doubt, that an era of 
 peace, prosperity, and equitable rule had come at last. 
 
 The burghers forgot for the moment, if they had ever heard, that 
 the reputation of the new governor was not altogether un- IIig previous 
 sullied. It is said that in Holland he had been detected in career - 
 robbing the daughter of his host, and that he would have been pun- 
 ished for the act had he not been mercifully forgiven for the sake of 
 his father, who was a clergyman in Vriesland, and greatly esteemed. 
 The famous expedition against St. Martin, where Stuyvesant lost his 
 leg in place of which he ever after wore a wooden one, bound to- 
 gether with rings of silver, and therefore called his "silver leg," this 
 expedition, it was said, was unsuccessful because it was so badly con- 
 
 1 So extravagant was this demonstration of welcome " that they were obliged to send 
 to another place to buy powder for exercising and in case of need." The Breeden Raedt. 
 Extracts translated in Documentary History of New York, vol. iv., p. 69. 
 
116 NEW NETHERLAND UNDER PETER STUYVESANT. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 ducted ; for the commander wasted, in vainglorious salutes at sea, 
 nearly all his powder before he reached the fort ; and when he raised 
 the siege, which he had not ammunition enough to go on with, he left 
 behind him, not only his leg but much property, especially cannon. 
 But as the leg was really lost, it seems hai-dly probable that its owner 
 had acted the part of a coward, and other stories against him on the 
 same authority mav be as little likely to be true. 1 
 
 / / V 
 
 At any rate the enthusiastic people of New Amsterdam, when they 
 welcomed with shouts and all their powder this successor to Kieft, were 
 so full of pleasant excitement and hopeful anticipations of a happy 
 and prosperous future, that they failed to call to mind, if they had 
 ever heard of, any moral delinquencies of which the man might have 
 been guilty in far-off Holland, or of military failures which had be- 
 fallen him in the West Indies. 
 
 This popular enthusiasm, however, hardly outlasted the ceremony 
 of reception. Stuyvesant was a man of haughty as well as violent 
 temper ; more imperious in presence and in manners than Kieft whom 
 he came to displace, he was quite as despotic, and the more to be 
 feared for his ability and strength of purpose. When he landed he 
 marched into the town " like a peacock, with great state and pomp." 
 Some of the principal citizens met him bare-headed, and bare-headed 
 *' he let them wait for several hours, he himself keeping his hat on his 
 His recep- head as if he was the czar of Muscovy ; nobody was offered 
 Uon- a chair, while he seated himself very comfortably on a chair, 
 
 the better to give the welcomers an audience." 2 The picture is not 
 drawn by friendly hands, but it is not out of keeping with what we 
 know of Peter Stuyvesant. 
 
 But he did better presently when Kieft came forward to surrender 
 the government into the hands of his successor. As the retiring 
 governor stood for the last time before his fellow-citizens in his official 
 capacity, he wished, perhaps, to bury the memory of past animosities ; 
 at any rate he must have been anxious to step down gracefully from 
 his elevation, as he yielded the place to another. He thanked his 
 fellow-citizens with a natural if not pardonable exaggeration for the 
 fidelity they had shown him during his administration of affairs, 
 hoping, no doubt, that he would be met in a like conciliatory and 
 compliant mood, and his services acknowledged in terms that would 
 be complaisant if insincere. But the sturdy Dutchmen were not to 
 be cheated out of their resentments by any momentary enthusiasm or 
 
 1 Translations from The Breeden Kafdt, in Documentary Hist, of New York. 
 
 2 The Representation nf New Net/terland (1650). By Adrian van der Donck. Translated 
 by Henry C. Murphy. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., Second Series, vol. ii. The Breeden Raedt. 
 Documentary Hist. N. Y. 
 
1647.] 
 
 STUYVESANT'S PROMISES. 
 
 11: 
 
 ceremonial proprieties. On all sides went up a shout of loud dissent ; 
 as spokesmen for the rest, Joachim Kuyter and Cornelis Melyn, who 
 were of the old Board of " Eight Men," and had otherwise been con- 
 spicuous as opponents of Kieft, declared boldly that they had nothing 
 to thank him for and no approval to give. Such unexpected candor 
 marred the harmonies of the occasion, 
 and might have led to even more sig- 
 nificant demonstrations of popular feel- J^HiSf'i ~'.'\ \l' : ' / 
 
 I W / -->..'. Vi V I ? 
 
 had not Stuyvesant &X2 >M 
 
 stepped forward and stilled 
 the growing excitement by 
 
 declaring that " every one should have 
 justice done him. I shall govern you," 
 he said, "as a father his children, for 
 
 the advantage of the chartered West India Company, and these 
 
 burghers and this land." l 
 
 The crowd dispersed, quieted if not satisfied with these assurances 
 
 of the paternal intentions of the new governor, and almost forgot how 
 
 long they had stood bare-headed in the sun. 
 
 1 Breeden Raedt and Albany Records, cited by Brodhead, History of New York, vol. ii., 
 p. 433. 
 
118 NEW NETHERLANI) UNDER PETER STUYVESANT. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 There was not much delay, however, in testing his sincerity. Be- 
 fore many days had passed Kuyter and Melyn brought a formal com- 
 plaint against Kieft, and asked that a rigid inquiry be made 
 
 The citizens' . ' , ... J 
 
 complaint of into tlie alleged abuses of his government, and especially 
 of his treatment of the Indians which had led to the war. 
 The answer was as unexpected as it was unwelcome. Was it to be 
 accepted as his opinion that it was treason to petition against one's 
 magistrates, whether there was cause or not ? The denials of Kieft, 
 - he considered as of more weight than any evidence his antagonists 
 Vjpould bring to substantiate their charges. He would not, he declared, 
 recognize them officially as members of the late Board of " Eight 
 Men," nor as representatives of the citizens at large ; but only as " pri- 
 vate persons." He looked upon them, he said, merely as " pertur- 
 bators of the public peace," hardly worthy of a hearing. In all this 
 he was mindful of the force of precedent. " If this point be con- 
 ceded," he said to his council, " will not these cunning fellows, in order 
 to usurp over us a more unlimited power, claim and assume, in conse- 
 quence, even greater authority against ourselves and our commission, 
 should it happen that our administration do not quadrate in every re- 
 Poiicy of spect with their whims ? " His despotism was not without 
 stuyyesant. forethought. The council had no will and no opinions of 
 their own ; all its members, Van Dincklage, Van Dyck, Keyser, 
 Captain Newton, La Montague, and Van Tienhoven the provincial 
 secretary, hastened to agree with him, and the petition of Kuyter and 
 Melyn was not granted. 1 
 
 The wily Kieft saw his opportunity in this unexpected turn of 
 affairs, and embraced it promptly. The defendant became plaintiff, 
 and brought charges against Kuyter and Melyn, who, he declared, 
 were the authors of that appeal of the " Eight Men " to the chamber 
 of Amsterdam ; 2 that they had induced their colleagues, against their 
 better judgment, to join in that petition, all whose statements, he 
 affirmed, were false. The ex-governor was listened to where the 
 " private persons " had no standing in court. They were ordered to 
 answer the accusations within twenty-four hours. 
 
 Stuyvesant was only the more enraged when that answer was an 
 offer to produce the evidence of the truth of all the charges sent to 
 Amsterdam against Kieft, and to bring forward the four survivors of 
 the Eight Men to testify that they had voluntarily signed the docu- 
 ments containing those charges. 3 It was only an aggravation of the 
 
 
 
 1 See Stuyvesant's address on this subject in O'Callaghan, vol. ii., pp. 24, 26. 
 
 2 See vol. i., p. 462. 
 
 8 The Breeden Ratdt says that these survivors were induced by threats and promises to 
 testify that they had been bribed to sign the letters sent to Holland containing the charges' 
 against Kieft. 
 
1647.] TRIAL OF KUYTER AND MELYN. 119 
 
 offence, on the part of the accused, to propose thus to show their 
 innocence. The Director General ordered that they be at once in- 
 dicted ; a speedy trial followed, and a prompt conviction waited on 
 the trial. 
 
 Both were found guilty. Kuyter was condemned to three years' 
 banishment and to pay a fine of one hundred and fifty Arbitrarv 
 guilders. The sentence of Melyn was more severe. Per- 1^^* 
 haps there were additional charges against him ; perhaps the leaders 
 enmity of Kieft, who, says one authority, had resented Melyn's refusal 
 some time before to give him a share in the manor of Staten Island, 
 was more bitter. The patroon was at any rate declared guilty of trea- 
 son, of bearing false witness, of libel and defamation ; was sentenced 
 to forfeit all benefits of the Company, to pay a fine of three hundred 
 guilders, and to be banished for seven years. The Director was in 
 favor of severer punishment, but even his pliant council dissented 
 from his judgment, though he supported it by a violent speech, in 
 which he appealed to Scripture and the authority of the learned in 
 civil and criminal law with many a text and quotation. 
 
 When it was suggested to the triumphant Kieft that the result of 
 the trial might have been different in Holland, " Why should we," 
 said he, exultingly, "alarm each other with justice in Holland? 
 In this case I consider it only a scarecrow." Stuyvesant was even 
 more emphatic. Melyn, 
 he thought, deserved 
 
 death, and was threat- " nj 
 
 ened with it by the 
 
 Signature of Cornells Melyn. 
 
 Director. " If I was 
 
 persuaded," he said, " you would appeal from my sentences or di- 
 vulge them, I would have your head cut off, or have you hanged on 
 the highest tree in New Netherland." To another person he said, 
 " If any one, during my administration, shall appeal, I will make him 
 a foot shorter, and send the pieces to Holland, and let him appeal in 
 that way." 
 
 These servants of the West India Company had little fear, prob- 
 ably, of their masters, who cared little and did less for New Nether- 
 land, and who, already in a condition of bankruptcy, had neither the 
 power nor the will to regulate the affairs of the distant colony. 1 Had 
 it been otherwise, however, Stuyvesant would not have been likely to 
 put a bridle upon his tongue, for so transported was he with rage at 
 these daring attacks upon prerogative, that " the foam hung on his 
 beard " as he roared and raged against their perpetrators. " These 
 
 1 The West India Company : in Btbliajjraptieal and Historical Essays on the Dutch Books 
 iid Pamphlets relatin;/ to New Netherland. By G. M. Asher. 
 
120 NEW NETHERLAND UNDER PETER STUYVESANT. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 brutes," he said, " may hereafter endeavor to knock me down also, 
 but I will manage it so now, that they will have their bellies full for 
 the future." The people of New Amsterdam had good reason to be 
 amazed and alarmed at the words of this impetuous and irascible gen- 
 tleman, as well as at these first acts of the administration of a 
 governor who not long before, had declared " under the canopy of 
 heaven," that justice should be done in all New Netherland, and that 
 he was to rule over them as a father over his children. 
 
 But there was one man, at least, who was thankful for such a 
 Director ; and that was Kieft. Had he been the benefactor instead of 
 the oppressor of New Netherland he could hardly have retired from 
 its government with more triumphant complacency than that with 
 which he now hugged himself. On the 17th of August, less than 
 Kieffs ae- three months after the coming of Stuy vesant, Kieft embarked 
 parture. or j-[ o ii am | m tj ie sn jp Princess, carrying with him an am- 
 ple fortune, and taking on board with him, " like criminals torn away 
 from their goods, their wives, and their children," l the " two faithful 
 patriots," Kuyter and Melyn, who had ventured to impeach his admin- 
 istration, and who for their temerity were thus punished by banish- 
 ment, with the added humiliation of going as the prisoners of the man 
 they had hoped to humble. 
 
 But their humiliation and his triumph were not to last long. It 
 was on this voyage there came that "observable hand of God," of 
 which Winthrop speaks, and which he interpreted as " against the 
 Dutch at New Netherlands," and showing " so much of God in favor of 
 his poor people here [in New England] and displeasure toward such 
 as have opposed and injured them." For Kieft, he adds, " had con- 
 tinually molested the colonies of Hartford and New Haven, and used 
 menacings and protests against them upon all occasions, and had 
 burnt down a trading-! louse which New Haven had built upon Dela- 
 ware River." 
 
 Therefore it was that the hand of God was heavy upon him ; so 
 that when the Princess approached the English coast she lost her 
 reckoning, ran upon the coast of Wales, near Swansea, in- 
 - stead of up the English Channel, and was lost. Many saw 
 in it a judgment, who did not agree with the Massachu- 
 setts governor that Kieft was " a sober and prudent man," and who 
 believed that the providence of God sometimes had other purposes 
 than the punishment of the enemies of the Puritans of New England. 
 " I told Wilhelm Kieft," De Vries had written four years before, 
 " that I doubted not that vengeance for the innocent blood which 
 
 i This is the testimony of the Breetbn Ilaedt, a little colored, perhaps, by partisanship, as 
 it is certaiu that Melyn took a sou with him. 
 
1647.] 
 
 THE WRECK OF THE PRINCESS. 
 
 121 
 
 he had shed in his murderings, would, sooner or later, come on his 
 head." Kuyter and Melyn, and their friends, also, had, no doubt, 
 their reflections. To Kieft himself, whose life had been one of so 
 much turbulence and injustice, there came a sort of death-bed repent- 
 ance, as his ship lay pounding to pieces on the Welsh rocks ; for call- 
 ing his prisoners to his side, he said: "Friends, I have been unjust 
 towards you, can you forgive me ?" 
 
 So he perished, and with him eighty others among them Melyn's 
 son, and Bogardus, 1 the minister of the church of New Amsterdam, 
 who had been one of Kieft's most determined opponents. Twenty only 
 
 View on the Coast of Wales near Swansea. 
 
 were saved, and of these one was Kuyter, who was washed ashore in 
 
 a surf so heavy that it threw, at the same time, a cannon 
 
 upon the beach ; and another was Melyn, who escaped upon ami Melyn 
 
 d. T- i 1 1 i i i t in Holland. 
 
 a rait, rernaps their hardships aroused some sympathy for 
 
 them in Holland ; at any rate their grievances were listened to, the 
 
 1 The farm of Dominie Bogardus railed first the "Dominie's Bowery," afterward 
 " the Duke's Farm." " the Kind's Farm," "tlie Queen's Farm," as it was conveyed, in the 
 progress of events, from one proprietor to another became at length the property of 
 Irinity Church, New York, by letters-patent under the seal of the province. It is still, for 
 tlie most part, in the hands of that corporation, and produces an immense revenue. To the 
 conveyance of this farm to Governor Lovelace, in 1C71, by the children of Aunetje Jaiis, 
 'lie widow of Dominie Bogardus, Avho had been twice married, one of the sous was not 
 a party, and the property is claimed by his descendant*- 0'C-M.layhan. 
 
122 NE\V NETHERLAND UNDER PETER STUYVESANT. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 sentences against them reversed by the States-General, and Stuyvesant 
 had reason subsequently to regret that he had begun his ud ministra- 
 tion of the affairs of New Netherland by their persecution. 
 
 In the spirit and temper, however, with which lie had come to the 
 defence of Kieft, the Director-general continued to administer the 
 affairs of the colony after the departure of the Princess. He began 
 at once to enforce some burdensome taxes, particularly upon wine and 
 beer, which aroused the most bitter opposition ; and he showed it to 
 be clearly his policy to make the colony profitable to the Company 
 rather than that the rights of the colonists should be protected. If his 
 laws and their rigid enforcement were sometimes beneficial to the citi- 
 zens, as they sometimes unquestionably were, it was not so much that 
 Stuyvesant was anxious for their welfare, as because the laws were in 
 themselves judicious and wholesome for them as well as favorable to 
 the interests of the Company. He was accused of imposing restrictions 
 upon trade that he might have a monopoly in smuggling some partic- 
 ular article of commerce ; when the truth was that he was honestly 
 aiming to repress some illegal and injurious practice, the repression 
 of which would deprive his accusers of the monopoly which, they said, 
 he was prostituting his power to get into his own hands. Undoubt- 
 edly he was very much of a despot, had very little faith in popular 
 government, and very little respect for popular rights ; but he was 
 personally honest ; he conducted the affairs of the colony in a way 
 Feature* of which he sincerely believed was for the benefit of the Com- 
 duiiuistrti-* P anv > an( l ne ruled with a strong hand because he thought 
 tlon that was the only way the people could be governed. As a 
 
 natural consequence he had almost as little popular support in acts 
 that were judicious and for the good of the community, as in those 
 which were unwise and clearly against its best interests. 
 
 But he could not carry on the administration of affairs without 
 some sort of popular cooperation. Taxes were paid, if paid at all, 
 with reluctance and much grumbling ; the Indians were threatening 
 the fort, and the palisades around the town were in need of repairs ; 
 the church was only half finished ; trade languished, and there was a 
 general condition of danger, depression, and discontent. Stuyvesant 
 listened at last, though very unwillingly, to the advice of his council, 
 to admit the people to such share in the government as they were 
 accustomed to at home. A general election was ordered in the 
 autumn, at which the burghers of New Amsterdam, of Breuckelen, 
 on the other side of the East River, of Pavonia, and Amersfoort or 
 Flatlands on Long Island, were to choose eighteen delegates, from 
 whom the governor and council were to select a board of Nine Men 
 as the popular representatives of the colony. 
 

 1647.] THE BOARD OF NINE MEN. 123 
 
 By proclamation in September, the powers of this body were de- 
 fined. That the colony " and principally New Amsterdam, our cap- 
 ital and residence, might continue and increase in good order, justice, 
 police, population, prosperity, and mutual harmony, and be provided 
 with strong fortifications, a church, a school, trading-place, harbor, 
 and similar highly necessary public edifices and improvements ; " that 
 " the honor of God and the welfare of our dear Fatherland, 
 to the best advantage of the Company, and the prosperity of ** 
 our good citizens " be promoted ; that u the pure reformed 
 religion, as it is here and in the churches of the Netherlands," be pre- 
 served and inculcated, this Board of Nine Men was established. 
 
 These were to convene when called by the governor and council, 
 but were not to hold private meetings, the governor, whenever he 
 pleased, sitting with them as the presiding officer. Their duty and 
 powers were advisory, not legislative, as they were only to give advice 
 on such propositions as the governor and council thought fit to submit 
 to them. Three of them were to sit in turn at the council-board each 
 week, and to act as arbitrators in civil suits, the parties to which, 
 however, had the right of appeal to the council on payment of a fee. 
 Six of the nine were to retire annually, and six new members to be 
 appointed from twelve of "the most notable citizens." 1 Thus the 
 Nine Men were to nominate their successors, with the Director's help, 
 without recurrence again to a popular election ; and the Board was 
 to " continue until lawfully repealed," continue, that is, until the 
 Director and council saw fit to dispense with it. Its creation, never- 
 theless, was a concession, on the part of Stuyvesant, to the popular 
 will, 2 and its members sometimes were enabled to withstand and de- 
 feat the arbitrary acts of the Director and his Council. 
 
 Besides his difficulties at home the Director was soon involved in 
 trouble with his neighbors of New England. Kieft had left, 
 as he could hardly help doing, the questions of boundaries 
 and jurisdiction in the valley of the Connecticut in an un- 
 satisfactory condition, and an effort to come to some equitable settle- 
 ment with the commissioners of the United Colonies was among the 
 earlier acts of Stuyvesant's administration. He entered into cor- 
 respondence with the several colonies with a sincere desire, no doubt, 
 to reach an amicable understanding; but the policy of New England 
 was to come to no understanding whatever. There was no lack of 
 
 1 The proclamation or charter, as it is sometimes called is given in full from Albany 
 Records (vii. 72-84), by O'Callaghan, in his History of New Netherland, ii. 37-39. 
 
 2 The Nine Men first appointed were Augustine Ileeriiians, Arnoldns van Hardenburg, 
 and Covert Loockennnnns, merchants ; Jan Jansen Dam, Jacob Wolfertsen van Couwen- 
 hoven, and Hendrick Hendricksen Kip, citizens; and Michael Jauseu, Jan Evertseu Bout, 
 and Thomas Hall, farmers. 
 

 124 NEW NETHERLANI) UXDER PETER STUYVESANT. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 courteous words, and on his side an earnest purpose ; on the other, 
 fair words only covered up the determination to " keep crowding the 
 Dutch." Stuyvesant's proposition of a friendly conference Governor 
 Winthrop of Massachusetts accepted in vague terms ; that it might 
 take place at some proper time and place when his health permitted ; 
 but no conference followed. Stuyvesant suggested as the basis of 
 any settlement the right of the West India Company "to all that 
 land betwixt that river called Connecticutt, and that by the English 
 named Delaware." The New England commissioners, on their side 
 met the suggestion by complaints of the restrictions on trade estab- 
 lished by the Dutch, and of the selling of arms to the Indians to the 
 great danger of the English settlements. Energetic action, however, 
 suited the temper of the Dutch Director better than this sort of diplo- 
 matic correspondence which led to nothing. 
 
 What he would do when a practical case of disputed jurisdiction 
 presented itself he soon had opportunities of showing. Some years 
 before, as we have related in another chapter, 1 a company from Mas- 
 sachusetts, under Captain How, had made a settlement within the 
 territory of New Netherland, not only without the permission of the 
 Dutch, but in such evident contempt of their assumed proprietorship 
 as to pull down the Dutch escutcheon, and to carve in its place a 
 mocking effigy. These Englishmen had bought the lands of the 
 Indian owners by an agreement with one James Farrett, the agent of 
 the Earl of Stirling, who claimed the island of Matowack, or Long 
 Island, under a grant from the council of New England. 2 
 
 In September one Andrew Forrester appeared on Long Island and 
 at New Amsterdam, claiming to be as he no doubt really 
 Lord stir- was the agent of Lady Stirling, the widow of the earl, 
 to'Eong and asserting her right of proprietorship. 3 As Ivieft, in his 
 time, had dispersed the people who claimed the right of set- 
 tlement near Cow Neck by virtue of an agreement with Farrett, act- 
 
 1 See Chapter ii., p. 34. 
 
 2 Salisbury's Calendar of State Papers, p. 204. 
 
 8 Some confusion has crept into the books in relation to these two agents, Farrett and 
 Forrester, which is explained in a note to Murphy's translation of The JRfprescntatiou of 
 New Netherhwd. Wood, in the first edition of his Sketch of 0/1/7 Island, confounded For- 
 rester with Farrett, and this led Savage [ }Vinthrop's Journal, note, vol. ii., p. 6] to assert 
 that there was no such agent as Forrester. In the second edition [Furman Clul>] of Wood's 
 Sketch the error of the first is corrected, nud the agent of the Earl of Stirling, in 1640, 
 is properly named as James Farrett. Hubhard, in his History of New England, calls him 
 Forliead. As all that is of much value in Huhbard is copied from Winthrop, it is difficult 
 to account for his change of spelling on any other supposition than that Hulibard assumed 
 to correct Winthrop, who, he may have supposed, had written forehead,*.* the vulgar pro- 
 nounced it forrett which supposition, if correct, settled Hubbard's pronunciation rather 
 than Winthrop's spelling. The fact is that Farrett was the Earl's agent in 1640, and For- 
 rester in 1647. 
 
1647.] CONTROVERSIES WITH THE ENGLISH. 125 
 
 ing for the Earl of Stirling, so Stuyvesant now disposed of Forrester 
 when claiming to represent the widow of the earl as the owner of 
 the whole island. Forrester was arrested, and, though con- Arrestof 
 sideration enough was shown him to permit him to present Forrester - 
 the grounds on which, on behalf of his principal, he claimed the own- 
 ership of Long Island, he was kept in close confinement till he could 
 be put on board ship for Holland. He left the vessel, however, at an 
 English port, not without, perhaps, the consent of those who had 
 charge of him, and who cared little where he was so he was not in 
 New Netherland ; for it is plain the Dutch did not feel quite easy 
 about this Stirling patent. 
 
 The next case of disputed jurisdiction was not so easily disposed of, 
 but Stuyvesant had as little hesitation in dealing with it as Contegtwith 
 with Lady Stirling's agent. He learned that a Dutch ship New 1Iaven - 
 was at New Haven taking in a cargo without a permit from the gov- 
 ernment at New Amsterdam, or paying the legal duties. She was 
 pronounced a smuggler, and her seizure was determined upon, for the 
 Director claimed that New Haven was within the territory of New 
 Netherland. It happened that Mr. Goodyear, the Deputy Governor 
 of New Haven, had just purchased the Company's ship, the Zwol, at 
 New Amsterdam, to be delivered at New Haven, and the Director 
 took advantage of this transaction for a strategical rfiovement against 
 the other ship. The Zwol sailed in due course from New Amsterdam 
 to New Haven for delivery to her purchaser, but beneath her hatches 
 were concealed a company of soldiers under the command of one Cap- 
 tain Van der Grist, with orders to take the St. Beninio, the offending 
 vessel, and bring her to Amsterdam. The expedition was eminently 
 successful. Suddenly, "on the Lord's day," Van der Grist, with his 
 men, boarded the St. Beninio, made prisoners of one of the owners, 
 of her officers and crew, and before the astonished Englishmen had 
 time to come to the rescue, sailed out of the harbor. 
 
 Against this high-handed act Governor Eaton of New Haven pro- 
 tested, promptly and indignantly. " We have protested," he wrote, 
 " and by these presents do protest against you, Peter Stuyvesant, 
 Governor of the Dutch at Manhattans, for disturbing the peace be- 
 tween the English and Dutch in these parts .... by making unjust 
 claims to our lands and plantations, to our havens and rivers, and by 
 taking a ship out of our harbor, without our license, by your agents 
 and commission ; and we hereby profess that whatever inconveniences 
 may hereafter grow, you are the cause and author of it, as we hope to 
 show and prove before our superiors in Europe." But Stuyvesant 
 confiscated the ship and cargo, nevertheless, having asserted with 
 some considerable extension of his former claim that New Nether- 
 
126 NEW NETHERLAND UNDER PETER STU YVES ANT. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 land embraced the whole country from Cape Cod to Cape Henlopen, 1 
 and that the St. Beninio was legally seized within New Netherland 
 boundaries. 
 
 The correspondence was hot and furious. You write me neither 
 in Latin nor in English, " but in Low Dutch, whereof I understand 
 little, nor would your messenger, though desired, interpret anything," 
 wrote the angry Englishman. Stuyvesant refused at length to hold 
 further communication with 
 Eaton, and retorted by com- 
 plaining of him to Good- 
 year, the deputy governor, 
 as " ripping up, as he con- 
 ceives, all my faults, as if I 
 were a school-boy, and not 
 one of like degree with him- 
 
 Capture of the St. Benmlo. 
 
 self." The New Haven governor was sufficiently revenged tor the 
 
 Low Dutch, in exciting the Director to this childish display of anger. 
 
 And not only this; Eaton was presently able to retaliate in acts as 
 
 well as words. Three of the servants of the Dutch governor escaped 
 
 from New Amsterdam and fled to New Haven. Stuyvesant demanded 
 
 their rendition, addressing his letter, Winthrop says, to " New Haven 
 
 1 Stuyvesaut afterward explained that by Cape Cod he meant Point Judith. 
 
1647.] CONTROVERSIES WITH THE ENGLISH. 127 
 
 in New Netherlands." It was not wise to ask a favor with the air of 
 a sovereign. Eaton refused to return the fugitives, contrary 
 
 i , p w Progress of 
 
 to the advice of Winthrop, who considered that such an act thecontro- 
 
 ii'. , ... versy. 
 
 of courtesy, though asked tor in a way that was objection- 
 able, could be assented to without prejudice to the territorial title of 
 the English. 
 
 On receiving this reply Stuyvesant's conduct was characteristic. It 
 was of no little importance to all the colonies that fugitives from jus- 
 tice or from labor in any one of them should not find an asylum in 
 another. To retaliate in kind upon Governor Eaton was a most un- 
 popular proceeding even in New Netherland ; nevertheless, the Di- 
 rector issued a proclamation when Eaton's refusal reached him, every 
 word of which flashed with indignation, declaring that u if any person, 
 noble or ignoble, freeman or slave, debtor or creditor, yea to the lowest 
 prisoner included, run away from the colony of New Haven, or seek 
 refuge in our limits, he shall remain free, under our protection, on 
 taking the oath of allegiance." It was, at least, a bold act, if not a 
 masterly stroke of policy. Governor Winthrop lamented the more 
 that New Haven had not followed the advice of Massachusetts instead 
 of obstinately adhering to its own judgment, " in pursuit whereof this 
 damage and reproach befell them." 
 
 But it was as easy to recapture a prisoner as to cut out a ship, and 
 Stuyvesant was not a man to satisfy himself with proclama- StUTVesant , g 
 tions, or to let his actions lag behind his wrath. However N o, 
 loud he barked, his bite was always worse than his bark. eessfil1 
 He contrived to get letters conveyed to the refugees in New Haven 
 both from himself and from the dominie of New Amsterdam ; they 
 were assured of a full pardon for offences in the past, and plied with 
 promises of good treatment in the future. The Director was as suc- 
 cessful in his strategy as he was vigorous in his proclamation. The 
 men were persuaded by his assurances and returned to New Nether- 
 land. It was easy enough then to recall with dignity his offer of pro- 
 tection of offenders against the laws of New Haven, which he had 
 already explained to Massachusetts and Virginia was only meant to 
 apply to that colony. 
 
 These quarrels with the New Englanders were neither forgotten 
 nor forgiven, and the New Netherlanders had occasion a few 
 years later to regret, and the Director, possibly, to repent of menPa?" 
 them. Meanwhile his administration of the affairs of his 
 own colony was no less vigorous, sometimes judiciously so, and some- 
 times injudiciously and oppressively. It was not that he disdained to 
 take counsel of prudence, but that his prudential measures were often 
 carried out with a passion and vehemence that defeated his most cher- 
 
128 NEW NETHERLAXD UNDER PETER STUYVESANT. [CiiAP. VI. 
 
 ishecl purposes. The selling of arms to the savages, who might on 
 the smallest provocation, or with none at all, turn them against the 
 whites, was an evil so obvious, that the complaints of other colonies 
 were not needed to convince him of the necessity of its suppression. 
 He issued stringent orders upon the subject, and when certain persons 
 in New Amsterdam were suspected of disregarding this prohibition, 
 he brought them to trial, and they were sentenced to death. The 
 penalty was too severe, and so shocked the community that it was 
 commuted to milder punishment, and especially when it appeared 
 that there were grave doubts of the guilt of some of the accused. 
 
 The intention of the governor was certainly praiseworthy, and for 
 the real good of every citizen of the colony. But men are free-traders 
 by nature, and restrictions even upon a traffic so dangerous as to put 
 arms in the hands of those who may at any time become enemies, 
 may be made unpopular by undue severity. Stuyvesant's energy, in 
 the right direction, was almost sure to make itself offensive by harsh- 
 ness and arrogance, and his zeal made the recrimination all the more 
 bitter, when later it was suspected that nobody violated his own pro- 
 hibition in this matter so flagrantly as himself. The truth really was 
 that he only sparingly distributed arms and ammunition among the 
 Indians, by order of the directors in Holland, to bribe the savages to 
 keep the peace ; but either the distinction was not understood, or was 
 wilfully misinterpreted. The result, at any rate, was to unjustly 
 aggravate the unpopularity of the governor, which he was justly earn- 
 ing in other ways. 
 
 This question of trade with the Indians was probably one cause of 
 
 a conflict which soon arose between Stuyvesant and Brandt 
 
 ernorv con- van Slechtciihorst, the commissary of the young patroon of 
 
 van .siech- Rensselaerswvck at Beverswyck, Albany. The old patroon 
 
 tenhorst. ' . . 
 
 was dead and Van blechtenhorst was sent out by the guar- 
 dians of the son and heir, Johan van Rtnsselaer, as his representa- 
 tive, about the 
 
 ~ // / /? time that Stuy- 
 
 ' va^i. jfc^nwPtt^A^^,, vesant arrived 
 / at New Amster- 
 
 dam. The COm- 
 Signature of Johan van Rensselaer. 
 
 m i s s a r y was 
 
 quite as jealous of the prerogatives of the young patroon as the Di- 
 rector was of the rights of the Company. An opportunity soon arose 
 of testing the question, for when Stuyvesant proclaimed a fast Van 
 Slechtenhorst refused to keep it, on the ground that the Director 
 General of New Netherland had no jurisdiction within the domain 
 of the Patroon. 
 
1648.] 
 
 CONFLICT WITH VAN SLECHTENHORST. 
 
 Such a defiance of authority was certain to exasperate Stuyvesant, 
 and he unwisely determined to assert his authority in a more positive 
 way. He visited Fort Orange, about which the hamlet of Bevers- 
 wyck had clustered, and which certainly belonged to the West India 
 Company, and ordered, on a survey of the place, that certain houses 
 should be pulled down to permit of a better defence of the fort in case 
 of an attack from the Indians ; he commanded also that stone and 
 timbers should be taken from the Patroon's lands for the purpose of 
 repairing and adding to its fortifications. Van Slephtenhorst refused 
 to permit the houses to be destroyed, and forbade that depredations 
 should be made upon the Patroon's property. 
 
 Stuyvesant at Fort Orange. 
 
 The Director sent a squad of soldiers from New Amsterdam to en- 
 force his orders ; the commissary defied them to interfere with his 
 authority on his lordship's manor, and though they derided and al- 
 most assaulted him, the commander of Fort Orange was too prudent 
 to try the temper of the people of Beverswyck by any attempt to en- 
 force the Director's commands. Even the Indians shared in the ex- 
 citement, and wondered why " Wooden Leg " wanted to pull down 
 the houses of his own countrymen, and wei-e evidently ready if a 
 struggle ensued to take sides with those whom they looked 
 upon as their friends and who sold them guns and ammuni- teuhomthe 
 tion. The conflict of authority between the Company and a 
 patroon was one that was inevitable whenever an occasion for it should 
 
 VOL. ii. 9 
 
130 NEW NETHERLAND UNDER PETER STUYVESANT. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 arise, and this occasion was an unfortunate one. The commissary 
 stoutly and successfully maintained the rights of his lord ; the Director 
 was powerless to maintain those of the Company. Proclamations 
 
 were loud and long from both 
 parties; but the commissary car- 
 ried his point, while the Director 
 
 Signature of Brandt van Slechtenhorst. gained nothing, CXCCpt, pei'llflpS, 
 
 some loss of prestige for asserting a right which he had not the power 
 to maintain. 
 
 So far Stuyvesant had not proved a successful governor, nor been 
 to the people as he had promised, " as a father to his children." Dis- 
 content had followed increased taxation ; prosperity had diminished 
 rather than grown ; the vexed question of colonial boundaries re- 
 mained as unsettled and vexatious as ever, and in the confused con- 
 dition of affairs in England seemed likely to remain so ; trade was 
 driven from the port of New Amsterdam, for New England and Vir- 
 ginia vessels were afraid to venture into a harbor where, as in the 
 case of the St. Beninio, seized at New Haven, the governor did not 
 hesitate to confiscate ship and cargo if his demands were not complied 
 with ; and the fear of such acts was said to have been a loss of the 
 trade of twenty-five ships a year to New Netherland. Within t\vo 
 years the first board of Nine Men became dissatisfied and uncompliant, 
 and another was appointed. This second board proved as unman- 
 ageable as the first, and succeeded in doing what the first had at- 
 tempted to do without success, in sending a deputation to 
 the citizens the Hague to present to the States-General a statement of 
 the grievances of the colonists, and to complain of the gen- 
 eral mismanagement of the affairs of New Netherland by the West 
 India Company and its servants. Of this commission Adrian van der 
 
 Signature of Adrian van der Donck. 
 
 Donck was the head, as he was probably the author of the Vertocyh, 
 or Representation, presented to their High Mightinesses. 1 
 
 This important measure, however, was not carried without a strug- 
 gle with the imperious Director. When the Nine Men proposed it 
 they asked permission of Stuyvesant that they might confer with 
 their constituents in a popular meeting to be called to consider the 
 
 1 The Representation of New Netlierland- Translated by Henry C. Murphy, N. F. Hist. 
 Soc. CM., Second Series, vol. ii. 
 
1649.] MELYN'S RETURN. 131 
 
 condition of the colony, whether it would approve of sending a 
 delegation to Holland, and to provide means to defray the expenses. 
 The Director refused permission, saving that any such com- 
 
 J ill- Stuyvesanf* 
 
 immication with the people must he made through him, treatment of 
 
 t HP iii'it tt*r 
 
 and his directions followed. The next best thing the Nine 
 Men could do was to go from house to house to consult with their 
 constituents privately, and Van der Donck was appointed to keep a 
 record of the result of these private conferences. Stuyvesant, exas- 
 perated at this defiance of his authority, went to Van der Donck's 
 chamber, in his absence, seized all his papers, and the next day ar- 
 rested and imprisoned their author. That he might not be, however, 
 without some show of popular support he called a meeting of dele- 
 gates of the militia and the burghers. From these he secured an 
 approval of his course, and Van der Donck was expelled from the 
 board of Nine Men, and the demand that his papers be returned to 
 him refused. 
 
 While this struggle was going on between the Director and the 
 party opposed to him, Melyn returned from Holland, not 
 only with the sentence, pronounced against him by the Coun- turns from 
 
 * . . Holland. 
 
 cil of New Amsterdam, reversed by their High Mightinesses, 
 but bringing with him a mandamus requiring the Director to appear 
 at the Hague, either in person or by attorney, to answer to the charges 
 which Melyn and Kuyter had brought against him. The Patroon was 
 by no means disposed to carry his triumph meekly. He declared that 
 the decision in his favor ought to be pronounced as publicly in New 
 Amsterdam as, two years before, he had been publicly condemned. 
 This he demanded in a public meeting in the church soon after his 
 arrival. At this bold step the whole assembly was ablaze with excite- 
 ment. An excited and vehement debate followed ; but the motion to 
 read the mandamus was carried, and Van Hardenburg, one of the 
 board, was about to obey, when Stuyvesant, declaring that a copy 
 ought first to be served upon him, snatched the document from the 
 bands of the councilman. 
 
 All dignity and reserve were thrown aside at this violence of the 
 governor. The disputants forgot where they were and who Excitement 
 they were ; an unseemly struggle followed, in which, if the fiVnai^ te8 
 burghers did not knock each other down, they showered orders - 
 hard and angry words upon each other. One party tried to retain, 
 the other to regain possession of the paper, and in the snatching and 
 re-snatching the seal was torn from it. The tumult was at length 
 quelled by the intercession of some of the cooler and wiser by-stand- 
 ers, and the Director was persuaded to return the document, on Me- 
 lyn's promise that a copy should be given him. When the manda- 
 
132 NEW NETHERLAXD UNDER PETER STUYVESANT. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 mus was read, Stuyvesant said in answer, " I honor the States, and 
 shall obey their commands. I shall send an attorney to sustain the 
 sentence that was pronounced." Melyn demanded that a written 
 reply should be given, but this Stuyvesant refused. 
 
 The popular feeling was evidently in Melyn's favor, but that was 
 of no personal advantage to him, as Stuyvesant let no chance escape 
 him which could be used to annoy his enemy. But the governor's 
 conduct in this affair, his imprisonment of Van der Donck, and the 
 strong suspicion that he used his office to promote his own interests, in 
 shops which he owned and others kept for him, in farms cultivated, in 
 breweries carried on, in ships sailed wholly or in part on his account, 
 and in a monopoly of the sale of arms to the Indians, all these 
 charges, true or untrue, combined at this time to so arouse the public 
 indignation, that he did not venture to continue to throw obstacles in 
 the way of a popular delegation to Holland. 
 
 A memorial was prepared and signed by eleven persons who were 
 members of the second, or had been members of the first Board of 
 Nine Men, asking that the States-General would take the colony 
 under its own care ; that they would establish in it a Burgher Gov- 
 ernment, as much as possible like that of Holland ; that there should 
 be free trade, colonial commerce, with the encouragement of the fish- 
 eries ; that the boundaries of New Netherland should be definite!}' and 
 definitively determined, all for the " peace and quietness," and the 
 ' liberty " of the people. In the Remonstrance, or Vertoogh, which 
 The uemon- accompanied the memorial and which was signed by the 
 " same men, the gravest charges were brought against the ad- 
 ministrations of Kieft and Stuyvesant, and it was declared 
 that the colony could never flourish if left longer in the hands of the 
 West India Company. And this was not done in a corner, but in 
 the light of day. The haughty and irascible Director was brought 
 by the popular clamor to unwonted submission. He permitted the 
 departure of three of the signers of these documents, Van der 
 Donck, Couwenhoven, and Bout, as delegates to the States-Gen- 
 eral, one of whom he had, not long before, imprisoned, partly because 
 he was the author of this very Remonstrance. He dispatched Van 
 Tienhoven, the provincial secretary, however, to Holland, to meet his 
 accusers. 
 
 Van der Donck was zealous and able, and his efforts on behalf of 
 his constituents were well supported not only by his colleagues, but by 
 Melyn, who went out to Holland with them, and the Dominie Back- 
 Effortsot its erus i the clergyman of New Amsterdam, who left the colony 
 supporters. no j. l on g before. A strong popular feeling was soon aroused 
 in favor of the colony, for Van der Donck appealed to the people of 
 
1649.] 
 
 THE REMONSTRANCE IN HOLLAND. 
 
 133 
 
 Holland by publishing the Remonstrance, as well as to the States 
 General by his earnest representations. " The name of New Nether- 
 land," wrote the Amsterdam Chamber to Stuy vesant, " was scarcely 
 ever mentioned before, and now it would seem as if heaven and earth 
 were interested in it." 
 
 Van Tienhoven, the 
 secretary, on the other 
 side, was not less busy 
 nor less in earnest. He 
 put in a long reply to 
 the Remonstrance, de- 
 fending the Company, up- 
 
 The Delegates before the States-General. 
 
 holding the administrations of Kieft and Stuyvesant, denying, and, if 
 he spoke the truth, sometimes disproving the charges brought against 
 them, but resorting to the common line of defence, where the de- 
 fendant's cause is a weak one, of abusing the plaintiff's attorney. 
 And this he did with a good deal of bitterness and some humor. 
 "Those," he said, " who complained about the "haughtiness of Stuy- 
 vesant are such as seek to live without law or rule ; " those indebted 
 
134 NEW NETHERLAND UNDER PETER STUYVESANT. [CiiAr. VI. 
 
 to the Company were " angry and insolent " if payment was de- 
 manded, and " would be right glad to see that the Company dunned 
 nobody, nor demanded their own, yet paid their creditors ; " many 
 of them had been provided with provisions and clothing on arriving 
 from Holland, and " now when some of them have a little 
 
 Opposition . -11 
 
 of VHII Tien- more KOMI they can eat up in a day, the} 1 wish to be re- 
 
 hoven. 11. > p i i < 1-1 
 
 leased from the authority of their benefactors, and with- 
 out paying if they could ; a sign of gross ingratitude; " the place of 
 Dominie Backerus was now " supplied by a learned and godly min- 
 ister who has no interpreter when he defends the reformed religion 
 against any minister of our neighbors, the English Brownists ; " Van 
 der Donck had been in the service of the proprietors of Rensselaerwyck, 
 and there is the sting of an insinuation in the comment that he did 
 not remain long in that service ; Stevensen, another signer of the Re- 
 monstrance, had " profited iu the service of the Company, and endeav- 
 ored to give his benefactor the world's pay, that is, to recompense 
 good with evil ; " Elbertsen was indebted to the company, and "would 
 be very glad to get rid of paying ; " Loockermans, who from a " cook's 
 
 mate " had become a 
 prosperous trader, 
 -^-?___ ^ ** owed gratitude to 
 
 S^ --^- " "-V 
 
 the Company, next 
 "7" God, for his eleva- 
 
 Signature of Govert Loockermans. ^ ^ Qught ^ 
 
 advise its removal from the country ; " Kip was a tailor who had 
 never lost anything, which was only another way of saying he had 
 nothing to lose ; and Evertsen's grievance was that he had lost a 
 house and barn in the war with the Indians, though the land on which 
 they stood, and which cost him nothing, he had sold for a great price. 
 In short, the secretary, though he undertook to show that the in- 
 dictment of the Company and its servants could not be sustained, 
 hoped to strengthen his arguments and his assertions by showing or 
 insinuating that those who brought the charges were either interested 
 witnesses or not worthy of belief. It was unfortunate for his own 
 case that he proposed to test the truth of alleged facts by the char- 
 acter of those who stated them, for soon after making this appeal he 
 was brought to trial in Amsterdam and found guilty of seducing a 
 young woman under promise of marriage, he having a wife and chil- 
 dren residing in New Netherland. 
 
 Redress did not come immediately for the grievances com- 
 
 ProvUional ''''-''' -i i m v m 
 
 onitT of the plained ot, though some promise ot relier was given in a pro- 
 visional order of their High Mightinesses containing some 
 wise measures for the government of the colony, and commanding 
 
1650.] 
 
 PERSECUTION OF MELYN. 
 
 135 
 
 Stuyvesant's return to Holland. It was not accepted, however, by 
 the Amsterdam Chamber of the Company, and, when sent to Xew 
 Netherland, Stuy vesant refused to obey it. " He should do as he 
 pleased," he said, and in all such matters he was quite as good as 
 his word. In two successive years the board of Nine Men added 
 fresh delegates to their deputation in Holland, moved thereto, the sec- 
 ond year, by the Director's refusal to nominate new members to the 
 board, thus virtually dissolving it. In nothing would Stuyvesant 
 abate the arrogance of his temper, the rigor of his rule, or the bitter- 
 ness of his resentments. 
 
 No sooner, for example, was Melyn again within his reach than the 
 Director subjected him to new persecution. The Patroon returned in 
 
 1650, in a ship which was com- 
 pelled by stress of weather to 
 put into Rhode Island, and 
 when she arrived, some months 
 later, at New Amsterdam, the 
 
 Director Ordered her tO be Melyn's Manor at Staten Island. 
 
 seized for violation of a regulation of the company in trading without 
 a license, and brought Melyn to trial as her owner. He stuwe^m's 
 was only so far interested in her voyage that she brought a ^tion. a 
 number of settlers for his manor of Staten Island, and though the ship 
 and cargo were confiscated, there was no evidence that could hold him 
 responsible. 1 Failing in this Stuyvesant brought new charges against 
 the patroon, confiscated his property in New Amsterdam, and com- 
 pelled him to confine himself to his manor of Staten Island. Melyn 
 surrounded himself with defences, and establishing a sort of baronial 
 
 1 The Company was subsequently compelled to pay heavy damages to the rwnersof 
 tins vessel for this arbitrary act of the Director. O'Callaghan, vol. ii., p. 157. 
 
136 NEW XETHERLAND UNDER PETER STUYVESANT. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 court contrived for a while to live till Stuyvesant's persecutions drove 
 him, at length, out of the colony. 
 
 With Melyn, on Staten Island, Van Dincklage, the vice-director, 
 also found a refuge from the violence of Stuyvesant. The vice- 
 director busied himself in prepai'ing a new protest to the States-Gen- 
 eral on behalf of the colony, when Stuyvesant ordered that he be 
 expelled from the council. Van Dincklage refused to be thus dis- 
 posed of, on the plea that he held his commission not from the 
 Director but from Holland. Stuyvesant arrested and imprisoned 
 him for some days, and he felt that his life was not safe on Manhat- 
 tan Island. 
 
 Other leaders of the popular party were subjected to treatment 
 hardly less vindictive and arbitrary. " Our great Muscovy 
 of the pop- Duke (noster magnus Museovi Dux),'' Van Dincklage wrote 
 to Van der Donck, " goes on as usual, resembling somewhat 
 the wolf, the older he gets the worse he bites. He proceeds no 
 longer by words or letters, but by arrests and stripes." Van Dyck, 
 the fiscal, or attorney-general, who, with Van Dincklage, was detected 
 in drawing up the protest, was excluded from the council, and his duty 
 reduced to that of a mere scrivener. Sometimes he was " charged 
 to look after the pigs and keep them out of the fort, a duty which a 
 negro could very well perform ; " and if he objected the Director "got 
 as angry as if he would swallow him up ; " or if he disobeyed, " put 
 him in confinement or bastinadoed him with his rattan." ] Finally he 
 was charged with drunkenness, and removed from office. The secre- 
 tary, Tienhoven, was appointed in his place ; the " perjured secre- 
 tary,'' wrote Van Dyck, u who returned here contrary to their High 
 Mightinesses' prohibition ; a public, notorious, and convicted whore- 
 monger and oath-breaker ; a reproach to this country, and the main 
 scourge of both Christians and heathens, with whose sensualities the 
 Director has been always acquainted." " The fault of drunkenness," 
 he adds, " could easily be noticed in me, but not in Van Tienhoven, 
 who has frequently come out of the tavern so full that he could go 
 no further, and was forced to lie down in the gutter." 1 While the 
 Director was thus making life a burden to his enemies, he had, under 
 the pretext that his own person was in danger, four halberdiers to 
 attend him whenever he walked abroad. 
 
 1 Albany Records and Holland Documents, cited by O'Callaghan and Brodhead. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE DUTCH AND THEIR NEIGHBORS. 
 
 THE HARTFORD BOUNDARY TREATY OF 1650. ACTION OF THE STATES-GENERAL ON 
 THE NEW NETIIERLAND REMONSTRANCE. NEW ENGLAND TROUBLES. STUYVE- 
 8ANT ACCUSED OF CONSPIRING WITH THE INDIANS AGAINST THE ENGLISH. JOHN 
 UNDERHILL IN THE FIELD. POPULAR DISCONTENTS AT NEW AMSTERDAM AND os 
 LONG ISLAND. CONVENTION OF THE TOWNS. A RENEWED APPEAL TO HOL- 
 LAND. ENGLISH FEELING ON LONG ISLAND. HOSTILE PREPARATIONS IN CON- 
 NECTICUT. NEW ENGLAND ASKS AID FROM THE PROTECTOR AGAINST THE DUTCH. 
 
 AN APPROACHING CONFLICT PREVENTED BY THE TREATY OF PEACE IN EUROPE. 
 
 UNFAVORABLE REPLY TO THE CONVENTION'S APPEAL. NEW SWEDEN ON THE 
 DELAWARE. CONTESTS BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND THE SWEDES. STUYVESANT 
 VISITS THE SOUTH RIVER. FORT NASSAU ABANDONED AND FORT CASIMIR BUILT 
 BY THE DUTCH. GOVERNOR PRINTZ RETIRES. FORT CASIMIR TAKEN BY THE 
 SWEDES. RETAKEN BY THE DUTCH. DIVISION OF THE COLONY BETWEEN THE 
 W. I. COMPANY AND THE CITY OF AMSTERDAM. LIMITS OF NEW AMSTEL. DIS- 
 ASTERS AND DISSENSIONS. 
 
 STUYVESANT had a leaning toward the English, notwithstanding 
 his quarrels with Governor Eaton, of New Haven, and his altercations 
 with others of the New England colonies. Of all the people of New 
 Netherland, the English on Long Island were treated with the most 
 consideration, and in return they gave him the weight of their sup- 
 port against the opposition party among his countrymen. This was 
 not the smallest among the causes of his unpopularity, and it gained 
 new intensity and bitterness when in the midst of all these 
 other troubles the Director concluded an agreement with of the 
 New England in regard to the boundary. The two com- treaty of 
 missioners appointed by him to conduct the negotiation 
 were both Englishmen, Thomas Willett, a merchant of Plymouth, and 
 George Baxter, employed by Stny vesant 
 as his secretary. His opponents ex- 
 claimed at this loudly and vehemently, 
 
 as treacherous to the colony and an in- signature of Thomas wniett. 
 
 suit to the Dutch. 
 
 The articles of agreement between the contracting parties left the 
 question of jurisdiction on the South River, the Delaware, undeter- 
 mined ; but the boundary line on Long Island was fixed to run from 
 
138 THE DUTCH AND THEIR NEIGHBORS. [Caxp. VII. 
 
 the westernmost part of Oyster Bay straight to the sea, east of that 
 line to belong to the English, and west of it to the Dutch ; on the 
 mainland the point of departure was on the west side of Greenwich 
 Bay, about four miles from Stamford, the line to run thence up into 
 the country twenty miles, provided it did not come within ten miles 
 of the Hudson River, the Dutch agreeing not to build within six 
 miles of such line. The inhabitants of Greenwich were to remain under 
 the Dutch till some other arrangement was agreed upon which 
 agreement by a subsequent article of the treaty was modified by trans- 
 ferring them to the jurisdiction of New Haven, and the Dutch 
 were to retain only such lands in Hartford as they were in actual 
 poss- ssion of. 1 
 
 Here was ground for fresh complaints with the popular party of 
 New Amsterdam, inasmuch as the Director had first outraged his own 
 countrymen by intrusting so important a negotiation to Englishmen 
 on his behalf, and then by consenting to give away enough territory, 
 which the Dutch claimed as theirs, to make fifty plantations each four 
 miles square. It was the resignation of more than half of Long Isl- 
 and, and nearly the whole of the present States of Connecticut and 
 Rhode Island, even if the Dutch claim was limited to Point Judith. 
 Stuyvesant reported to his masters in Holland that he had made this 
 treaty with the English, and it did not meet with their approval ; but 
 as he sent no copy its precise terms were probably unknown there. 
 
 It was plain at last to the States-General that temporizing meas- 
 ures with a man of Stuvvesant's despotic temper, unscrupu- 
 
 The States- .111,1,... , i 
 
 General act lous will, and fearless disposition, were altogether useless, 
 Netheriand they only made him worse. Hitherto all the complaints of 
 
 the colonists, backed by the energetic efforts of Van der 
 Donck and his colleagues, were incapable of overcoming the influence 
 of the Amsterdam Chamber of the West India Company. But the 
 Chamber yielded in the spring of 1652, when it was evident that if 
 the desired reforms in New Netheriand were not made with their 
 consent, they would be made without. 
 
 After three years of delay the prayer of the people was listened to 
 
 in earnest. It was decreed that a " burgher government" 
 
 Their order. ,111 11-11 , *r i 
 
 should be established ; that the citizens or New Amsterdam 
 should have the right to elect their own municipal officers ; that those 
 officers should constitute a court of justice, with appeal to the supreme 
 court of the Director and Council ; that the export duty on tobacco 
 should be abolished ; that emigration should be encouraged by a 
 reduction in passage-money ; that the importation of negro slaves, 
 hitherto a monopoly of the Company, should be now free to all citi- 
 
 1 Hazard's State Papers, vol. ii. 
 
1653.] 
 
 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 139 
 
 zens ; and Stuyvesant was ordered to return home to give an account 
 of his administration of affairs in answer to the numerous complaints 
 that had been made 
 against him. This last 
 order, however, was 
 presently revoked, for 
 war was declared be- 
 tween England and Hol- 
 land ; Tromp and Blake 
 were sweeping up and 
 down the English Chan- 
 nel, and it was thought 
 not wise to remove a 
 governor who was, at 
 any rate, bold and ener- 
 getic, in the probable 
 contingency of an out- 
 break of hostilities 
 among the American 
 colonies. 
 
 These long-delayed 
 concessions were taken 
 to New Amsterdam by 
 Van der Donck himself, 
 and in accordance there- 
 with Stuyvesant pub- 
 lished a proclamation on the day of the Feast of Candlemas, the 
 2d of February, 1653. But none knew better than he how to keep a 
 promise to the ear and break it to the hope. The States-General 
 meant to bestow upon New Amsterdam the right of self-government 
 as it existed in their own city of Amsterdam ; in the election bv the 
 
 V V 
 
 people of a sellout or sheriff ; of two burgomasters, who were, in ef- 
 fect, the chief magistrates of the town ; and of five schepens. who 
 constituted a court of civil and criminal jurisdiction. Van der Donck 
 might well come home in triumph with this grant of municipal gov- 
 ernment, as the fruit of his three years' incessant labor in Holland, 
 and the people might well rejoice that they were at last to govern 
 themselves. It was, indeed, the beginning of popular government in 
 New Netherland ; for in the years to come new concessions to the 
 will and rights of the people followed as the inevitable consequence 
 of this first success. But even this first success the Director de- 
 feated for a time, by assuming the right to appoint where election 
 was ordered. Such appointments he at once made, and they were all 
 
 The Old Stadt Huvs of New Amsterdam. 
 
140 
 
 THE DUTCH AND THEIR NEIGHBORS. [CHAI-; VII. 
 
 action. 
 
 acceded to without objection, except that of Van Tienhoven as sellout. 
 Against him there was loud protest, but the rest were accepted, per- 
 haps, because they were unexceptionable, and the people 
 were weary of contest ; perhaps, because the fear that the 
 war between England and Holland might involve the colonies in se- 
 rious difficulties overshadowed, for the present, all internal dissension. 
 The apprehension, real or feigned, of coming trouble, existed on all 
 sides. Stuyvesant endeavored, and no doubt with sincerity, to avert 
 the danger, by assuring Virginia and the New England colonies of 
 
 The Building of the Palisades. 
 
 the continued good feeling of the Company and of the colony, not- 
 withstanding the war at home, and expressing the hoj-e that their 
 friendly relations would not be interrupted. At the same time he did 
 not neglect prudent preparations for defence, for New England he 
 heard was arming. The people of New Amsterdam for once agreed 
 with him, and submitted cheerfully to a tax for the digging of a ditch 
 from the North to the East River, and the erection of a breastwork 
 and palisades to secure the town from attack. 
 
1653.] AN ALLEGED INDIAN PLOT. 141 
 
 On the other hand the belief or at least the assertion among 
 the English, was that it was they who had cause for dread, 
 and that Stuyvesant was secretly preparing for their de- trouble with 
 
 TT -.1 n/ i. i.- e i j A.\, the English. 
 
 struction. Uncas, the cunning Mohegan chier, alarmed the 
 New England colonists along the Sound, with a story that the Dutch 
 had persuaded the Indians of that part of the country to conspire 
 for the massacre of the English people, and that the Sachems, Nini- 
 gret, Pessicus, and Mixam, were the leaders in this plot. Stuyvesant 
 had, indeed, said that he should avail himself, if possible, of an alli- 
 ance with the Indians in the event of hostilities between the Dutch 
 and the English, and this may have been the origin of the report of 
 Uncas ; or, perhaps, the wily chief hoped to benefit himself and his 
 tribe by stirring up strife among the whites. 
 
 But the story, no doubt, was untrue. Stuyvesant, when he heard 
 of it, promptly and indignantly denied that he had any s tuJ . Tegant 
 hostile intentions against his neighbors ; and the Indians ^"4^"^ 
 whom the story of Uncas implicated, when carefully cross- the Indi * n8 - 
 questioned by order of the commissioners of the United Colonies of 
 New England, denied any knowledge of 
 such a plot. " Do you think we are 
 mad ? " they said. They knew well 
 enough how much stronger the English 
 were than the Dutch. " Do not we 
 know," they declared, " the English are 
 not a sleepy people ? Do they think we 
 are mad to sell our lives and the lives of 
 our wives and children and all our kin- 
 dred, and to have our country destroyed 
 for a few guns, powder, shot, and swords ? 
 What will they do us good when we are 
 dead ? " Why, Ninigret asked, was he 
 ti'eated even with indignity by the Dutch 
 governor, if he had made a league with 
 him against the English, his friends? 
 He had made a visit recently to New 
 Netherland. " I stood," he said, " a great 
 part of a winter day knocking at the Portrait of Ninigret 
 
 governor's door, and he would neither open it, nor suffer others to 
 open it to let me in. I was not wont to find such carriage from the 
 English my friends." 1 
 
 Some of the Long Island Indians, nevertheless, confirmed the story 
 of Uncas, and consternation spread through the towns along the 
 
 1 Hazard's State Papers, vol. ii., pp. 207-209. 
 
142 THE DUTCH AND THEIR NEIGHBORS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 Sound and among the English of Long Island. A delegation from 
 the United Colonies sent to New Netherland, returned with this un- 
 favorable report, and the commissioners of Connecticut and New 
 Haven proposed that a force be raised at once and war declared 
 against the Dutch. But the Massachusetts magistrates were wiser 
 and more moderate. Perhaps it was because they were so far re- 
 moved from the scene of any possible danger that they could better 
 sift the character and weigh the value of Indian testimony ; at any 
 rate they did not believe in the existence of any plot, or that the 
 Dutch were so rash as to provoke hostilities from their stronger neigh- 
 bors. Massachusetts, therefore, refused to contribute her quota of 
 troops for such a war, maintaining the right of independent action, in 
 such a case, on the part of any one of the United Colonies. She was 
 strong enough to stand alone if need be, and the rest were not strong 
 enough to act without her. The fear of the Dutch was not, after all, 
 so great as the fear of a dissolution of the New England Confederacy. 
 
 In troubled waters no head was so sure to come to the surface as 
 that of John Underbill. He is soon heard of as being lodged 
 by r joim et in jail in New Amsterdam, for asserting within their own 
 towns, that the Dutch were in league with the Indians against 
 the English. He was soon released, however, without trial, perhaps 
 because his conduct had a kind of official sanction, inasmuch as Gover- 
 nor Eaton and the agents of the New England Confederacy had sent 
 him to Long Island to gather evidence of this alleged conspiracy. 
 The captain was not a man to waste his time in searching for facts to 
 justify violent measures when such measures could be provoked just 
 as well without the facts. If New England was not ready for a war 
 with the Dutch, that was no reason why John Underbill should not 
 declare it on his own account. He hoisted the colors of the Parlia- 
 ment at Flushing and Heemstede ; issued a manifesto in which great 
 crimes, such as the unlawful imposition of taxes, the appointment of 
 magistrates over the people without election, the violation of con- 
 science, the conspiring with the Indians to murder the English, the 
 hampering of trade, and other acts of tyranny, even to the striking 
 an old gentleman of his Council with a cane, were charged upon the 
 administration of Peter Stuyvesant ; and both Dutch and English were 
 called upon " to throw off this tyrannical yoke." It shows how far 
 Stuyvesant was from wishing to provoke a collision with the Eng- 
 lish, that instead of hanging Underbill for this second offence, he only 
 banished him. 1 
 
 As the other New England colonies had not admitted the Provi- 
 
 1 Underhill's Manifesto may be found in full in O'Callaghan, History of New Netherland, 
 vol. ii., pp. 225 et seq. 
 
1653.] UNDERHILL IN THE FIELD. 143 
 
 deuce Plantations into their confederacy, that colony was, perhaps, the 
 more willing to show its zeal for the Parliament in its war 
 
 . , _ . . , . Action of 
 
 with Holland. It was not, however, without some opposition Rhode 
 from the mainland towns, that the people of the island of 
 Rhode Island, whose interests were more commercial than maritime, 
 carried in the General Assembly a declaration of war against New 
 Netherland. In consideration of " the servile condition " which the 
 English on Long Island were " subjected to by the cruell tirannie of 
 the Dutch power at the Manathoes," and the danger, should the}- * be 
 cutt off and murdered," that would fall upon Providence Plantations, 
 the General Assembly issued commissions to Captain John Underbill, 
 to be commander on land, and to Captain William Dyre and Edward 
 Hull, to be commanders at sea, " to bring the Dutch to conformitie 
 to the Commonwealth of England." Some cannon and small arms 
 and twenty volunteers were provided to carry on the war, and a court 
 of admiralty was appointed for the trial of prizes which were to be 
 taken into Newport. 1 
 
 Underbill took the field. Marching to Fort Good Hope on the 
 Connecticut, once held by the Dutch, but now emptv, he 
 
 11 i TTTii'iir-T-n Underbill at 
 
 posted upon the door a notice that he, " lo. Underbill [didj Fort Good 
 seaze upon this hous and lands thereunto belonging, as 
 Dutch goods claymed by the West India Company in Amsterdam, 
 enemies of the Commonweal of England." Having done this much 
 for the Commonwealth and the conquest of New Netherland, the 
 commander-in-chief of the land forces of Rhode Island disbanded his 
 army of twenty volunteers. The conquered territory being about 
 thirty acres he sold, on his own account, first to one man for twenty 
 pounds sterling, and two months' later to another, giving a deed to 
 each. 2 
 
 Operations at sea were, at least, less farcical, but not much more 
 damaging to the enemy. Captain Hull captured a Frenchman, which 
 certainly did no harm to the Dutch, and served to aggravate Tneconfl jct 
 the difficulties already existing between Rhode Island and atsea - 
 Massachusetts. The latter complained, with some reflection upon 
 Parliament, that the act was illegal ; Rhode Island retorted by using 
 the reflection as lending strength to her other charges against Mas- 
 sachusetts. 3 One Thomas Baxter, 4 however, did better service. He 
 sailed under a letter of marque from Rhode Island, and actually took 
 
 1 O'Ciillaghan. Hazard. Arnold's History of Rhode Island. 
 
 - Hartford Records. 
 
 3 Arnold's Rhode Island. 
 
 * Arnold History of Rhode Island confounds him with George Baxter, who took 
 another way, as will appear presently, to show his enmity to the administration of Stuy- 
 vesant. 
 
144 
 
 THE DUTCH AND THEIR NEIGHBORS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 two or three Dutch vessels. But as he also captured English vessels, 
 under an expansive rule of his own making as to what constituted 
 contraband of war, it is questionable to which side he did the most 
 damage. 
 
 Perhaps it would have been better for Stuyvesant if the threatened 
 trouble from without had not been so easily and speedily dispelled. 
 The fortifications of New Amsterdam were not half completed when 
 the citizens, no longer afraid of an attack from the English, refused to 
 be further taxed to finish the work. The new officers, whom Stuyve- 
 sant had appointed, refusing to submit their selection to a popular 
 
 Underbill at Fort Good Hope. 
 
 election, arrayed themselves on the side of the citizens, and con- 
 strained the Director to share his power in some respects partic- 
 ularly with regard to the excise upon wine and beer with the 
 city. 
 
 The discontent on Long Island, both among Dutch and English, 
 took a more formidable shape. In the contest with Van der Donck, 
 Stuyvesant had had no more useful or zealous partisans than the Eng- 
 lish settlers of that portion of New Netherland. But now, alarmed 
 at the continuance of Indian hostilities, and disgusted at the want of 
 
1653.] A CONVENTION OF THE TOWNS. 145 
 
 prosperity generally, which they attributed to the arbitrary and un- 
 wise rule of the Director, they united with the popular party Affair9 on 
 in opposition to his administration. A meeting of delegates Lon 8 Iiilan ' J 
 under the leadership of two Englishmen, George Baxter and James 
 Hubbard, assembled at the Stadt Huys in New Amsterdam, in No 
 vember. On the plea of the necessity of devising some means for 
 the general welfare, Stuyvesant had been consulted with regard to 
 this meeting, and two of his council, La Montagne and Van Werck- 
 hoven, took seats in it, as the representatives of that body and the 
 Director General. But the presence of Van Werckhoven especially 
 was objected to. The delegates from the towns declared they would 
 have nothing to do with him, and that neither the Director- 
 general nor any of his council would be permitted to preside of the 
 over the convention. As the object of the meeting was to 
 provide for the common defence, they were willing to unite with the 
 municipal government of New Amsterdam which was also repre- 
 sented in the body and to continue under the rule of the States- 
 General and the Company ; but they would not submit to the Director 
 and Council who could not protect them. " We are compelled," they 
 said, " to provide against our own ruin and destruction, and there- 
 fore we will not pay any more taxes." 
 
 All this, Stuyvesant said, " smelt of rebellion, of contempt of his 
 high authority and commission," which certainly was true. Not that 
 he objected to an alliance of the towns for their mutual protection, 
 but in such an alliance all the towns, Dutch as well as English, should, 
 he thought, be included. To such a proposition there could be no 
 reasonable objection ; indeed, it seems to have come first from the 
 delegates themselves, and they determined, therefore, " that they 
 should meet on the tenth of next month ; he might then do as he 
 pleased, and prevent it if he could." 
 
 At the appointed time another convention assembled. There were 
 present representatives from the four Dutch towns, New Asecond 
 Amsterdam, Breuckelen, Amersfoort or Flatlands, and Mid- me * tin s- 
 wont or Flatbush; and the four English towns, Flushing, Middle- 
 burgh or Newtown, Heemstede, and Gravesend. Ten of these dele- 
 gates were Dutchmen, and nine were Englishmen ; but they were of 
 one mind. 
 
 The memorial in which they set forth their grievances was drawn 
 up by Baxter. Six years before he was the English secretary to the 
 colony, and it fell upon him to do that which he, better than anybody 
 else, was fitted to do. It was a good point, nevertheless, for Stuyvesant. 
 " Is there," he asked in his reply, " no one among the Netherlands 
 nation expert enough to draw up a remonstrance to the Director and 
 
 VOL. II. 10 
 
146 THE DUTCH AND THEIR NEIGHBORS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 Council .... that a foreigner or an Englishman is required to dictate 
 what ye have to say?" The Director was not wanting in skill to 
 play upon the prejudices of his countrymen. But it was useless ; the 
 burghers were too much in earnest to be moved by any such appeal. 
 To the memorial, which complained of the government as both arbi- 
 trary and incompetent, Stuyvesant could make no satisfactory answer, 
 and the end of the discussion that followed between him and the con- 
 vention was a denial, on his part, of the right of the people to self- 
 government, or even to hold a public meeting ; on the part 
 
 Renewed ap- , . . i -i . - , . 
 
 peal to Hoi- ot the convention a sturdy and persistent assertion of their 
 rights, and the dispatch of an agent to Holland with an ap- 
 peal to the West India Company for protection and redress. 
 
 The colonies of Southern New England, meanwhile, were living in 
 a state of perpetual agitation and dread of the Indians, persisting in 
 the assertion that the Dutch were at the bottom of these troubles, 
 and that the safety of the English lay in the conquest of New Nether- 
 land. There was, at least, this much ground for their fears, that 
 Ninigret and his band were all the while on the war-path against the 
 Indians of Long Island, who were in alliance with the English. The 
 savage thirst for blood might easily enough take a new direction, and 
 the frontiersmen, whether living in their isolated clearings in the 
 forest, or gathered into small and feeble hamlets, could feel no cer- 
 tainty that the appalling war-whoop of the Indian might not at any 
 moment come as the swift warning of sudden death to all their house- 
 holds. The terrible suspense in which these people lived is enough to 
 explain the intense feeling toward the Dutch. As reports of Indian 
 outrages on Long Island spread through the Connecticut 
 towns, it was almost inevitable that they should be supposed 
 to be instigated by the Dutch, and that the Connecticut 
 colonies were safe from such calamities only so long as Ninigret was 
 pi-evented from re-crossing the Sound. That safety, it was obvious, 
 would be permanent and absolute, if the Dutch themselves could be 
 brought into subjection to English rule. 
 
 So intense was this feeling in the border towns of Stamford and 
 Fairfield, that their people accused their own government of want of 
 courage and energy, and were almost at the point of open rebellion. 
 The general court at New Haven, although it had resolved that 
 "the Massachusetts had broken their covenant with them in acting 
 directly contrary to the articles of confederation," in the refusal to de- 
 clare war knew better, perhaps, than the affrighted people of the 
 border towns, how little real reason there was to apprehend any al- 
 liance between the Dutch and the Indians. It is quite possible that 
 the dread of a savage massacre was used to inflame animosity against 
 
1653.] 
 
 THE GATHERING AT FAIRFIELD. 
 
 147 
 
 the Dutch, and as a pretext for the invasion of New Netherland ; 
 and the real grievance on the part of the other colonies against Mas- 
 sachusetts was that she would not be led into a war of annexation 
 under a false pretence. 
 
 But Stamford and Fairfield were in deadly and earnest fear of the 
 Indians, to whose hostility they were more exposed than any 
 of the other towns along the Sound, and they firmly believed pamtions at 
 
 A.I, T\ L 1 J ..u n c u Fairfield. 
 
 the Dutch were as dangerous as the savages, tan-held es- 
 pecially had been alarmed by the appearance of two Dutch vessels sent 
 out by Stuyvesant in pursuit of Baxter during his cruise in the Sound, 
 though they were deterred from venturing within the harbor by a 
 proclamation of the New England Commissioners, prohibiting any 
 Dutch vessels from entering the ports of the English colonies. In the 
 autumn that town determined that there must be war, and that the 
 way to bring it about was to begin. One of the principal magistrates 
 
 The Gathering at Fairfield. 
 
 of the colony, Mr. Ludlow, was appointed commander in chief, and 
 volunteers were called for. The step was a bold one, and might have 
 been successful but for the lateness of the season ; for the govern- 
 ments of Connecticut and New Haven were compelled by this in- 
 subordination in the border towns to consider seriously whether they 
 would not declare war against the Dutch even without Massachusetts. 
 But the coming winter settled the question for the present, and in 
 the meantime they awaited an answer to an appeal that had been 
 
148 THE DUTCH AND THEIR NEIGHBORS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 made to the Protector and to Parliament for aid. A special agent 
 An appeal was sent to England on this errand, but Governor Hopkins 
 to England. Connecticut was then in London, and great reliance was 
 properly placed upon his diligence and ability as the representative 
 of New England interests. 1 
 
 Had the New Netherland been a Puritan colony, the Puritans would 
 have rejoiced to see how, in the events of the year, she was the evi- 
 dent object of the protection of a special Providence. In the begin- 
 ning of these troubles, had not Massachusetts so firmly refused to 
 unite with the other members of the confederacv in a declaration of 
 
 w 
 
 war, the province would probably have been thus early annexed to 
 New England, for the Dutch were altogether too weak to have suc- 
 cessfully resisted an attack from the combined power of the English 
 colonies. Had Fairfield and Stamford moved a little earlier, New 
 Haven and Connecticut would have been unable to resist the popular 
 hostility to the Dutch and the popular determination to acquire their 
 territory, aggravated and intensified now by an Indian panic. That 
 New England was dilatory was the salvation of New Netherland thus 
 far, when delay again averted a danger more threatening than any 
 that had yet menaced her. 
 
 w 
 
 The prayers of New Haven and Connecticut were listened to by 
 Cromwell, and he wrote to the governors of the colonies urging them 
 to zeal and activity, and promising the help of four well-manned ships. 
 All the colonies, except Massachusetts, responded. Connecticut was 
 to raise two hundred men, to be increased, if necessary, to five hun- 
 Eng- ^red ' New Haven promised a hundred and thirty-three ; 
 Plymouth promised fifty, to be under the command of the 
 old soldie^ Miles Standish, and that Captain Willetts, who 
 was one of Stuyvesant's commissioners on the boundary question four 
 years before. But Massachusetts declined to furnish her quota, though 
 she permitted a force of volunteers to be recruited in Boston. The 
 ships sent by Cromwell were to be under the command of one Major 
 Sedgwick and a Captain Leverett, and in good season they sailed from 
 England. Three of the four, however, consumed four months in a 
 voyage by way of the Western Islands, and news of the peace be- 
 tween England and Holland, concluded in May, 1654, received soon 
 after their arrival in New England, put an end to the proposed ex- 
 pedition. Its only result was the seizure of Fort Good Hope in 
 spite of Underbill's former capture, which was the final disposses- 
 sion of the Dutch of any territory on the Connecticut River. 
 
 Great were the rejoicings at the reception of this news at New 
 Amsterdam, where the formidable preparations in New England for 
 
 1 Trumbull's History of Connecticut. 
 
1654.] 
 
 FAILURE OF THE CONVENTION'S APPEAL. 
 
 149 
 
 an invasion of the Dutch colony had aroused such alarm as to bring 
 about some temporary harmony between Stuyvesant and his The ronflict 
 opponents, and had united them in some preparations for averted - 
 defence. The Director appointed a day of public thanksgiving. 
 " Praise the Lord," he said in his proclamation, " praise the Lord, O 
 England's Jerusalem ; and Netherland's Sion, praise ye the Lord ! 
 He hath secured your gates, and blessed your possessions with peace, 
 even here, where the threatened torch of war was lighted ; where the 
 waves reached our lips, and subsided only through the power of the 
 Almighty ! " i 
 
 
 Arrest of Baxter. 
 
 __ 
 
 There came at the same time other tidings hardly less gratifying to 
 the Director. The agent, Le Bleeuw, who was the bearer of the re- 
 monstrance to the West India Company, had been received with great 
 coldness and severity, and he was forbidden to return to New Nether- 
 land. The directors wrote to Stuyvesant that the complaints of the 
 citizens were unreasonable, and that they had nothing to object to in 
 his administration of affairs, except, indeed, that he was too lenient in 
 his dealings with these seditious persons ; that he " ought to have 
 acted with more vigor against the ringleaders of the gang, and not 
 1 Albuny and New Amsterdam Records, cited by O'Callaghau. 
 
150 THE DUTCH AND THEIR NEIGHBORS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 have condescended to answer protests with protests." They com- 
 manded him now to punish them as they deserved, and especially 
 The appeal those delegates from Gravesend, the Englishmen Baxter and 
 Tenondis- Hubbard. The only concession made by the chamber at 
 approved. Amsterdam to the popular party was that the offices of city 
 schout and provincial fiscal should not be held by the same person, 
 and a commission for the former office was sent to Kuyter, who, 
 more fortunate than his old companion, Melyn, had long before been 
 forgiven for his past offences. He had, however, been recently mur- 
 dered by the Indians somewhere on Long Island, and Stuyvesant per- 
 mitted his friend. Van Tienhoven, to still remain both schout and 
 fiscal without regard to the orders of the directors of the Company. 
 The other injunction for the punishment of ringleaders he observed 
 more faithfully, for he visited Gravesend and ejected Baxter and Hub- 
 bard from the magistracy. Baxter fled to New England, but returned 
 again within two months, and not long after he and Hubbard were 
 arrested in the act of raising the English flag and reading a pro- 
 clamation declaring Gravesend to be subject to the laws of the Re- 
 public of England. Van Tienhoven, who had gone from New Am- 
 sterdam to quell the disturbance, arrested both and tiirew them into 
 prison, where they remained for months. 
 
 During all these busy and turbulent years the Director-general had 
 had little leisure to bestow upon affairs on the South River. It was 
 not till 1651 that he took any decisive steps to exercise his power as 
 governor of New Netherland over the Company's territory on the 
 Delaware. Printz's Hall on Tinicum Island, at that time still knew 
 its lord and master ; its timbers still creaked under his massive tread, 
 and its windows rattled at his stentorian voice. But Printz returned 
 soon after to Sweden. There might have been some lively and enter- 
 taining passages of history had the two hot-headed and imperious 
 governors known each other earlier ; but it was only when peace be- 
 tween England and Holland released Stuyvesant, for a season, from 
 internal dissensions and perils from without, that events on the South 
 River demanded his active interference. 
 
 For years the few Dutch settlers of that region were left to an 
 
 almost hopeless contest with their neighbors. Their fort Fort 
 
 Nassau about four miles below the present city of Philadelphia, and 
 
 a little more above the mouth of the Schuylkill, 1 was too far up the 
 
 river to be of any practical use, even had its garrison been 
 
 on the larger than the usual number of about half a dozen men. 
 
 The only Indians whose trade was of much value were the 
 
 
 
 Minquas, and they were on the Schuylkill. But that river was com- 
 i A Dutch word signifying Hidden-creek or Skulk-creek. 
 
1654.] 
 
 THE DUTCH AND SWEDES. 
 
 151 
 
 manded by the Swedes by a fort built by Printz on an island near 
 its mouth, as well as by Fort Gottenburg on Tinicum Island, the 
 present quarantine station of Philadelphia, whence vessels could 
 sail to the Schuylkill by a short passage over meadows, then under 
 water, extending southward from the point now known as Bartram's 
 Botanical Garden. The fort on the Schuylkill was on a cluster of 
 rocks, at that time an island, near where a deep cut is made through 
 the bluff in front of Bartram's Garden for the Philadelphia, Wilming- 
 ton, and Baltimore Railroad. 1 The Dutch commissioner Hudde, who 
 commanded at Fort Nassau, complained that the Swedes had obtained 
 " command over the whole creek." For, he adds, " this kill or creek 
 is the only remaining avenue for trade with the Minquas, and without 
 this trade the river (*'. e. the Delaware) is of little value." 2 
 
 Mouth of the Schuylkill. 
 
 The Dutch were not numerous enough to dispute the possession of 
 the river with the Swedes with any success ; they were not even 
 strong enough to maintain the dignity of being held as Contentiong 
 enemies. The Swedes treated them as trespassers rather DutT^a 1 * 
 than as foes ; as troublesome neighbors rather than as the Swedes - 
 representatives of another nationality. Hudde put up a house near 
 the banks of the Schuylkill, which he called Fort Beversrede, that he 
 
 1 Ferris's Original Settlements on the Delaware, pp. 70. 71. 
 
 2 Hudde's Report. From the Dutch Colonial Records, rcpublished in J.V. Y. Hist. Soc. 
 ., New Series, vol. i. 
 
152 THE DUTCH AND THEIR NEIGHBORS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 might share in the trade with the Minquas ; the Swedes contented 
 themselves with cutting down the trees around it, including the fruit 
 trees which Hudde had planted, and built another house directly in 
 its front between it and the river. All such assertions of sovereignty 
 were treated with like contempt. Any attempt to erect a building 
 by the Dutch, the Swedes met by sending upon the ground sufficient 
 force to destroy the material, threatening the repetition of the offence 
 with " a sound drubbing." It was the power of the constable rather 
 than of the military arm, that was relied upon to sustain the right of 
 the Swedes to the territory. No severer measures than these threats 
 of personal chastisement were needed to keep the Dutch in sub- 
 jection. 
 
 Among all the early colonial governors none held more undisputed 
 sway than was exercised by Printz over the broad waters of the Dela- 
 ware, from the muddy banks at the mouth of the Schuylkill to the low 
 capes of Henlopen and May, where the vexed and shifting sands con- 
 tend in endless strife with the winds and waves of the Atlantic. It 
 was all New Sweden for a hundred miles along both banks 
 Swedish pos- of the noble river a rich and lovely country, its broad, 
 
 sessions. ii-n t ' i t e i 
 
 round hills covered with forests of great trees, the growth 
 of many centuries, sweeping down with gentle undulations to the 
 green meadows through which the quiet streams of many creeks 
 wound gracefully in tortuous channels on their way to the wide 
 waters of the Bay. " Printz's Hall " on Tinicum Island, was the 
 capital of this noble principality. Besides the fort New Gotten- 
 burg on that island ; another, not far off, at the mouth of the 
 Schuylkill; another Elfsborg, or Elsingborg at the mouth of 
 Salem Creek ; and still another, Fort Christina, were the strongholds 
 whereby the Swedish governor overawed the natives of the country, 
 and kept out intruders. 
 
 The Dutch, however, never forgot their claims, by right of prior 
 discovery, to the South River and the beautiful region watered by its 
 many affluents. Hudde, from his fort a mile below Gloucester Point, 
 could only watch the growth and progress of the Swedes, and by his 
 presence bear witness against their occupation of territory belonging 
 to the Company. If Stuyvesant could do little else for several years 
 than support his subordinate by protest, with such aid, at least, he 
 was always ready to sustain the title of the Dutch. But when, in 
 
 1651, he found leisure for a visit southward, his quick intel- 
 stuvvesantto licence and the eve of the soldier detected at once an error 
 
 South River. . 7 , ... 
 
 in the policy of the past, and where an advantage could he 
 gained in the future. Fort Nassau, he saw. was too far up the Dela- 
 ware, and was powerless against the Swedes, who, with wise fore- 
 thought, had taken possession of the mouth of the Schuylkill. 
 
1652.] FORT CASIMIR BUILT. 153 
 
 The trade of the country, even at that day, found its natural centre 
 at this confluence of the rivers. Printz was shrewd enough to see 
 this. To command and absorb this trade he built his forts on the 
 river and at Tinicum, and barred the approach to that point by his 
 forts further down the Delaware. The wisdom of the Swedish gov- 
 ernor has been justified by modern commerce, which concentrates at 
 Girard Point, at the mouth of the Schuylkill, the shipping trade of 
 Philadelphia, loading for all parts of the world from its elevators and 
 warehouses, the corn and wheat of the West, and the petroleum from 
 the central counties of Pennsylvania, while the products of her mines 
 are turned into iron ships in the yards of Newcastle, a little further 
 down the Bay. 
 
 Fort Nassau as too far out of the way for defence, where there 
 was nothing to protect, and too far out of the way for Fort Xassau 
 offence, where nobody came to be attacked Stuyvesant 
 ordered to be destroyed and abandoned. From the Indians, 
 who were always friendly to the Dutch, he easily purchased Dutch 
 all the land from the Christina to Boomtje's or Bambo Hoeck, now 
 corrupted into Bombay Hook. Within this territory, about four miles 
 below the mouth of the Christina, is a bold promontory, commanding 
 a wide view of the Delaware, both above and below, then named 
 Sandhuken. On this point, where now stands the town of New- 
 castle, the Dutch built a fort which they called Fort Casimir. 
 
 Printz protested against this act as an invasion of soil belonging to 
 the Swedes. But Stuyvesant apparently had brought force enough 
 with him to defy interference, otherwise it is not likely that the uni- 
 form policy of past years, the prompt suppression of any attempt 
 of the Dutch to gain some vantage-ground for offence and defence 
 on or below the Schuylkill, would have been pretermitted. Printz 
 certainly was not unmindful of the advantage he was losing. He no 
 longer commanded the Delaware, and his fort at the mouth TheSweJe8 
 of Salem Creek (Elsingborg) was abandoned as useless. It For"fcj n . 
 was pretended that it had become uninhabitable because of borg - 
 the mosquitoes, and that it was named therefore Myggenborg (Mos- 
 quito FortJ ; but the real reason was, no doubt, the absurdity of at- 
 tempting to blockade a river of which the Swedes were not strong 
 enough to hold possession. Both parties, moreover, dreaded the occu- 
 pation of the disputed territory by the English more than they feared 
 each other; and it was agreed, therefore, between Stuyvesant and 
 Printz, that they should not indulge themselves in hostilities, but that 
 they would "keep neighborly friendship and correspondence together, 
 and act as friends and allies." 
 
 Both, no doubt, meant to keep this compact till they were strong 
 
154 
 
 THE DUTCH AND THEIR NEIGHBORS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 Mp of the Lower Delkwtr* (after Campaniut). 
 
 enough to break 
 
 it. This fear 
 
 of the 
 
 The English 
 
 on the South iii 11 S- 
 
 River. . . 
 
 1 1 S ll 
 
 was not without 
 reason, for the 
 New Haven peo- 
 ple had not for- 
 gotten the pleas- 
 ant lands on the 
 South River, 
 the genial cli- 
 mate, the round- 
 ed hills and no- 
 ble forests, the 
 rich meadows on 
 the winding 
 creeks, the broad 
 bay of a hundred 
 miles in length, 
 where all the 
 ships in the 
 world could ride 
 in safety, from 
 which in Kieft's 
 time, a few years 
 before, the 
 Dutch and 
 Swedes had 
 united to drive 
 them away. 
 Only the au- 
 tumn preceding 
 the building of 
 Fort Casimir a 
 company of fifty 
 persons had left 
 New Haven de- 
 termined to re- 
 new the attempt 
 at an English 
 settlement OH. 
 
1G54.] THE ARRIVAL OF RYSINGH. 155 
 
 the Delaware. But stopping at New Amsterdam, to inform Stuyve- 
 sant in a friendly way of their purpose, and to secure his acquiescence, 
 he arrested them without ceremony, 1 and would only release them on 
 condition of their immediate return whence they came. 
 
 Printz, nevertheless, sent messengers to Sweden to complain of 
 the intrusion of the Dutch, and had he waited long enough would 
 have received the aid he asked for. But either tired of waiting, or 
 impelled by a growing unpopularity which his arbitrary rule had pro- 
 voked, he sailed himself for home late in 1653, before his 
 messengers could be heard from. Their mission, however, leaves New 
 was not unsuccessful. Before Printz reached Sweden a ship 
 was dispatched with a deputy governor on board, John Rysingh, 
 with a force of about three hundred men, whose first act was the 
 capture of Fort Casimir. 
 
 Rysingh was to supersede Printz in case Printz should wish to re- 
 tire, as he had asked leave to do. Having already gone to Sweden 
 there was no question of Rysingh's position, though Printz had left 
 his son-in-law, John Pappegoya, as his representative at Tinicum. It 
 seems, however, that Rysingh did not wait to communicate with his 
 countrymen before exercising his power ; for he found none of them 
 below Fort Casimir, as Elsingborg, on Salem Creek, had been aban- 
 doned. His instructions from the government at home were pacific ; 
 he was not to break the peace with the Dutch ; as to Fort Casimir 
 he was to leave it in their hands, unless there was danger of its falling 
 into the hands of the English a danger not imminent, as there was 
 hardly an Englishman then on the banks of the South River. 
 
 He paid no regard, however, to his instructions, not waiting even, 
 apparently, to learn the situation of affairs on shore, or that his supe- 
 rior, Printz, had gone to Sweden. " On the. last day of May," wrote 
 Gerrit Bikker, the commandant of Fort Casimir, to Stuyvesant, " we 
 perceived a sail, not knowing who she was or where from." On the 
 27th of May, 1654, Rysingh himself wrote to Stuyvesant: "I cannot 
 refrain giving you notice that a few days ago I arrived here safe in 
 the government ship the Aren, with a considerable number of people 
 from the kingdom of Sweden ; " and in his report to his own govern- 
 ment 2 he fixes the date of his arrival as " a few days before the 27th 
 of May." 
 
 Whatever the date of his arrival, which is thus left uncertain, the 
 fort was taken without resistance. Bikker sent messengers to the ship 
 to ask who she was and what was her purpose. Adrian van Tien- 
 
 1 See the petition for redress for this outrage of "Jasper Graine, William Tuttill, and 
 many other the inhabitants of New Haven and Sotocket." Hazard, vol. ii., pp. 192 et seq. 
 
 2 Holland Doc. cited in Hazard's Annals of Pennsylvania. 
 
156 
 
 THE DUTCH AND THEIR NEIGHBORS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 hoven a brother of the New Amsterdam fiscal reported on his re- 
 turn that she was Swedish, and that a new governor was on 
 taken by the board who demanded the surrender of the fort. Van Tien, 
 hoven and others counselled defence. " What can I do ? " said 
 Bikker, " there is no powder." There was no time for deliberation. 
 The captain of the ship immediately landed at the head of twenty or 
 thirty men, marched into the fort and, at the points of their swords, 
 compelled submission. Bikker " welcomed them as friends," he says, 
 and asked a parley ; but, he adds, " the soldiers were immediately 
 chased out of the fort, and their goods taken in possession, as likewise 
 my property, and I could hardly by entreaties bring it so far to bear 
 that I, with my wife and children, were not likewise shut out almost 
 naked." Van Tienhoveu hurried back to the ship to ask of Rysingh 
 his commission and the reasons for this summary proceeding. It was 
 by order of the Queen, the governor said, whose ambassadors at the 
 
 Hague had been 
 told by the States- 
 General and the 
 directors of the 
 West India Com- 
 pany that they had 
 not authorized the 
 erection of this fort 
 on Swedish terri- 
 tory, the directors 
 adding, " If our 
 people are in your 
 Excellency's way, 
 drive them off." It 
 was all a lie, no doubt ; but Rysingh slapped Van Tienhoven on the 
 breast, and said, with a hearty and confident familiarity, " Go, tell 
 your Governor that ! " l 
 
 The Swedes were again in undisputed possession on the South 
 River. All the Dutch in and about the fort were required either to 
 take the oath of allegiance to Sweden or to leave that part of the 
 country. To make the event the more significant the name of the 
 fort was changed to Trefalldigheet (Trinity fort) because it was taken 
 on Trinity Sunday, or more probably, because that festival of the 
 church was within a week of its capture. 2 
 
 When the news reached New Amsterdam the town rocked with 
 
 1 Hoi. Dor. cited in O'Callatrhan aiid Hazard's Annals. 
 
 2 It is usually said that the fort was so named because the capture was on Trinity Sun- 
 day. It was probably taken two or three days before Trinity Sunday. 
 
 Fort Trinity (fac-simile from Campanius). 
 
1654.] THE SWEDES VICTORIOUS. 157 
 
 excitement and indignation from the Battery to Wall Street. Stuyve- 
 sant seized an opportunity that occurred presently to re- 
 taliate, though it produced no other result than private in- of stujve- 
 jury. A Swedish ship, bound for the South River, ran into 
 the Kill behind Staten Island, and sent a messenger to New Amster- 
 dam for a pilot. Stuyvesant imprisoned the messengers and dis- 
 patched a file of soldiers to the vessel to seize her and her crew, to be 
 detained till Fort Casimir was restored. The captain lost ship and 
 cargo, but Rysingh was not moved thereby to give up his capture. He 
 disregarded all the messages from Stuyvesant, who invited him to New 
 Amsterdam, with the assurance of a safe conduct, that they might 
 come to terms in regard to the fort and the question of jurisdiction 
 on the Delaware. The Swedish governor preferred possession to ne- 
 gotiation, and declined to discuss the subject, either in person or by 
 deputy. Stuyvesant had nothing to do but wait, and his anger was 
 not of a kind that cooled by waiting. 
 
 But his indignation was no greater than that of the Company's 
 directors in Holland. In their letters to Stuyvesant they denounced 
 the surrender of Casimir as " infamous," as " scandalous," and as 
 " cowardly ; " the conduct of the commandant, Bikker, was declared 
 to be in that "shameful transaction," "unfaithful, yea, treacherous," 
 and his apprehension was earnestly insisted on ; and it was, they 
 urged, the Director's duty, "to exert every nerve to revenge that 
 injury, not only by restoring affairs to their former situation, but by 
 driving the Swedes from every side of the river as they did with us." 
 They were much in earnest, and meant to put it in the Director's 
 power to obey their orders. 
 
 Communication between the colonies and Europe was so slow and 
 infrequent that winter was near before Stuyvesant could hear from 
 Amsterdam, and all action was necessarily delayed. The Director 
 availed himself of this interval of quiet in the affairs of his govern- 
 ment to visit the West Indies, where he remained some months in the 
 hope of advancing the interests of the colony. But in this he was 
 thwarted by Cromwell's expedition under Sir William Penn. " We 
 have mett the Dutch governor of New Netherlands, with three ships 
 under his command," wrote the commissioner, Edward Winslow, from 
 Barbadoes. " This man's business was to settle a faire trade between 
 the Netherlands and this place ; but we spoiled the sport." In this 
 project Stuyvesant spent more than half a year, and had hoped great 
 things. So serious a disappointment, we may be sure, did not make 
 him the less inclined for another expedition in another direction, when 
 soon after his return a ship of war arrived from Holland with orders 
 that he should move against the Swedes on the South River. 
 
158 THE DUTCH AXD THEIR NEIGHBORS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 New Sweden was to be reconquered, and the Director set on foot 
 Preparations ^ ne mos ^ active preparations. The company had sent from 
 New C tf"% q e- er Holland a single ship, the Balance, a man of war ; such other 
 den - vessels as were needed were chartered, or impressed without 
 
 the consent of the owners ; and patriotic volunteers were invited to 
 join the expedition. Measures were taken to keep it secret, that the 
 enemy might be taken by surprise. The fleet numbered seven vessels, 
 and they were manned by a force of from six to seven hundred men. 
 It is not unlikely that many of these were volunteers attracted by the 
 alluring aspects of an expedition which might, after a pleasant voyage 
 of four-and-tAventy hours, appear before the stronghold of an enemy 
 unprepared for their coming, and whom they outnumbered probably 
 by ten to one. If there was no fighting, there might at least be a 
 chance of plunder, and there was the prospect of a charming excur- 
 sion. There was certainly nothing to fear, for all the people of the 
 South River counti-y, both Swedes and Dutch, scattered about in the 
 different forts and the neighborhoods, from the Schuylkill to the capes, 
 were not more than half the invading force. 
 
 It was, therefore, only a handful of men that on the 10th of Sep- 
 tember saw Stuvvesant's formidable fleet of seven vessels 
 
 Fort Trinity 
 
 taken by with six or seven hundred men on board come to anchor 
 
 the Dutch. 
 
 just above Fort Trinity. A force was landed : an earthwork 
 was thrown up ; a detachment was sent forward to command the road 
 from Fort Christina, four miles above ; and then a surrender was de- 
 manded. Resistance, of course, was useless, but the Swedisli com- 
 mandant, Swen Sehute, nevertheless, contrived to protract the parley 
 through the day and delay capitulation till the next morning. Then 
 he evacuated the fort with all the honors of war, and the Dutch 
 marched in. Such of the garrison as chose to take the oath of alle- 
 giance to " the high and mighty lords and patrons of this New Neth- 
 erland province " were permitted to remain as " Freemen on South 
 River." Twenty, two thirds of the whole number, accepted these 
 terms. " About noon," wrote Stuvvesant to the magistrates at New 
 Amsterdam, u our troops with flying colors marched into the fort;" 
 Domine Megapolensis, the New Amsterdam minister, who had come 
 as the chaplain of the expedition, preached a sermon " with our im- 
 perfect thanksgivings," continues the Director, " as God's hand and 
 blessing was so remarkably visible with us as well in the weather and 
 prosperous success, as in the discouragement of our enemies." And 
 as a day of fasting had been held in New Amsterdam before the fleet 
 had sailed, so now he directed that there should be a day of thanks- 
 giving set apart that " the all-wise and good God should be openly 
 thanked and praised " for granting him the victory. 
 
1655.] 
 
 THE EXPEDITION AGAINST NEW SWEDEN. 
 
 Io9 
 
 Rysingh, who was in command at Christina, could see the Dutch 
 ships at anchor between his fort and Trinity, and knew what he had 
 to expect. He had sent ten men to reinforce Schute, before he had 
 heard of the surrender, but these were met by the Dutch and all but 
 two taken prisoners. It was a serious loss, as it reduced the garrison 
 of Fort Christina to only about thirty men. Stuyvesant pushed for- 
 ward to its investment the day after Trinity capitulated. 
 
 Map of the Siege of Ft. Christina (from Camptnlui). 
 
 The fort was at the confluence of the Fishkill (now Brandywine) 
 and Christina Creek, on low land overlooked by all the neighboring 
 heights. Its builder had evidently thought that no enemy would 
 ever be so ungenerous as to take advantage of its situation and ap- 
 proach it on the land side from the rear, when the clear intent was 
 that it should only be attacked in front from the river. Stuvvesant 
 
 f */ 
 
 paid only so much deference to this confidence in the probable mode 
 of attack as to erect his first battery on the opposite bank of the 
 
lb'0 THE DUTCH AND THEIR NEIGHBORS. [CHAP.VIL 
 
 Christina ; then moving his vessels up the Brandywine he landed his 
 men and threw up four other batteries, one on Timber Island, another 
 directly in the rear of the fort, two more to the west of it, and all 
 commanding it. On each of these and on Rysingh's shallop, which 
 the Dutch had captured, they hoisted the flag of the States-General, 
 " all which hostile acts, injuries, and insults," says the indignant 
 Swedish commander, " we were to our great mortification compelled 
 to witness and suffer, being unable to resist them by reason of our 
 want of men and of powder, whereof our supplies scarcely sufficed for 
 a single round for our guns." 
 
 The siege lasted, nevertheless, for twelve days. Shots were once 
 or twice exchanged, one from the Swedes doing no other damage 
 than to frighten some of the Dutchmen into the woods, while those 
 from the batteries went wide over the fort. The time was consumed 
 not in fighting but in negotiation, though the invaders destroyed the 
 little village of Christinaham, where they planted a battery in the 
 rear of the fort, despoiled and razed to the ground the houses of the 
 Swedes, killed their cattle and swine, and abused their women. 
 These depredations were carried on as far up the river as New Got- 
 tenburg. where, among those robbed of their possessions was Printz's 
 daughter, the wife of the ex-governor, Pappegoya. Stuyvesant, per- 
 haps, was unwilling to shed blood ; Rysingh, evidently, could only 
 delay the inevitable result by protest and expostulation. When at 
 last, as he says, his " few and hastily collected people were getting 
 worn out, partly sick, and partly ill-disposed, and some had de- 
 serted," and all who were left were inclined to mutiny, then he sur- 
 rendered. 
 
 By the articles of capitulation the garrison was permitted to march 
 out of the fort " with beating of drums, fifes, and flying 
 Fort chris- colors, firing matches, balls in their mouths, with their hand 
 and side-arms ; " the property belonging to the Swedish 
 crown, the Swedish company, and to individuals was to be unmo- 
 lested ; and the Governor, Rysingh, and all who chose to go with 
 him, were to be transported, free of expense, to Europe. 1 Not that 
 there was any wish to expel the Swedes from the country, but only 
 to give facilities to those who chose to go. It was the order of the 
 Company that they should be permitted to retain possession of Chris- 
 tina on condition of taking the oath of allegiance to the States-Gen- 
 eral ; Stuyvesant made the offer to Rysingh, but he declined it. 
 
 This was the end of Swedish rule in America. Though the events 
 
 1 Attinni/ Records cited in Hazard and O'Callaghan ; Ferris's Original Settlement on the 
 Dtluwurf ; Campanius' Description of New Sweden ; Rysiugh's Report in New Yrk Hist. 
 Soc. CM., New Series, vol. i., and Hazard's Annals. 
 
1655.] THE END OF SWEDISH RULE. 
 
 we have related continued to be the subject of diplomatic correspond- 
 ence between Sweden and Holland for years afterward, and Rysingh 
 labored long and zealously to induce his government to reinstate him 
 in the possession of the South River, no measures were ever taken 
 to that end. 1 Some Swedes remained along the banks of the Dela- 
 ware ; and being devoted to agriculture, while the Dutch cared more 
 for trade with the Indians, they did much by their industry and thrift 
 to develop the best resources of that fertile region. 
 
 At the fall of Christina Stuyvesant returned to New Amsterdam, 
 and soon after appointed Johan Paul Jaquet as governor over the 
 southern territory of the West India Company. The undisputed pos- 
 session of that territory, however, was rather a burden than a benefit 
 to a corporation already embarrassed with enormous debts. 
 
 A portion of it, therefore, was conveyed to the city of Amsterdam 
 in consideration of advances its burgomasters had made the x ewA mstei, 
 Company. This Colony of the City, as it was called, ex- ^ e t he dt^ of 
 tended from the west side of Christina Creek to Bombay Amsterda ' m 
 Hook on the Delaware ; the remainder of the territory belonging to 
 New Netherland was known as the Colony of the Company. 2 
 
 The new colony was to be called Nieuwer Amstel (New Amstel) 
 
 1 Iii removing a portion of the foundation wall of the old Fort Christina in March, 
 1755, a hundred years after its capture by the Dutch, there was found buried a quantity 
 of cannon-balls, grenades, and other articles, which it was supposed were concealed there 
 by Rysingh with reference to his possible return. Acrelius. Ferris. 
 
 2 Acrelius (New Sweden, or the. Swedish Settlements on the Delaware ; New York Hist. 
 Soc. Coll., New Series, vol. ii.) reverses these boundaries, giving to the Colony of the Com- 
 pany the territory from Christina Creek to Bombay Hook, and to the Colony of the City 
 that extending from the creek to the extent of the Dutch settlement northward. Ferris 
 accepts this as correct notwithstanding it would include Fort Casimir, which was unques- 
 tionably ceded to the burgomasters of Amsterdam, within the bounds of the Colony of 
 the Company. It is undoubtedly wrong, strange as it is that Acrelins, usually so accurate, 
 should have made such a mistake, and that Ferris, who is always careful, should have fol- 
 lowed him. O'Callaghau, Brodliead, Bancroft, and others give the division we have 
 adopted in the text. There can be no question of its accuracy. Smith (History of Xew 
 York) quotes from the commission to Jacob Alricks who was sent out by the burgo- 
 masters of Amsterdam as director-general of their colony the limits of his jurisdiction 
 as " beginning at the west side of the Minquaa or Christina Kill, in the Indian language 
 Suspecough, to the mouth of the bay, or river, called Bompt Hook (now Duck Creek or 
 Little Duck Creek), in the Indian language Cauuaresse ; and so far inland as the bounds 
 aud limits of the Miuquans land with all the streams, etc., appurtenances and dependen- 
 cies." In the " transfer and cession " of the colony from Stuyvesant to Alricks (cited in 
 full from Albatiy Records, vol. xv., in Hazard's Annals) the boundaries are defined in almost 
 the same terms as " beginning at the west side of the Miuquas or Christinakil, named in 
 their language Suspencongh, to the mouth of the bay or river included, named Bompjes- 
 hock, (Trees Corner), in the Indian language Cannareses," etc., etc. The northern boun- 
 dary of New Amstel, then, was Christina Creek, and its southern at the island which 
 has been called Bompt Hook, Bomptjeshoeck, Boomtes Hook, Bambo Hook, hut is now- 
 known as Bombay Hook Island. 
 
 VOL. H. 11 
 
10-2 
 
 THE DUTCH AND THEIR NEIGHBORS. [CHAP. Vil. 
 
 from a suburb of the city of Amsterdam ; ? and Casimir, where a 
 town began to grow, to be known in later times as Newcastle, took 
 the name of the colony. Fort Christina became Altona, and New 
 Gottenberg the Island Kattenberg. The burgomasters of Amsterdam 
 were warmly interested in their new possession, and offered large in- 
 ducements to all who would emigrate thither. The directors of the 
 Company were full of confidence, and evidently looked upon the es- 
 tablishment of a new colony under such favorable auspices as the 
 
 Newcastle, Delaware. 
 
 assurance of fresh prosperity to themselves. The exiled Waldenses, 
 then numerous in Holland, it was thought, would be a large and val- 
 uable accession to New Netherland, and that there might be room 
 enough for the expected increase in population the directors ordered 
 Stuyvesant to " endeavor to purchase, before it can be accomplished 
 by any other nation, all that tract of land situated between the South 
 River and the corner of the North River," by which was meant, all 
 that portion of the present State of New Jersey whose coast line ex- 
 tends from Cape May to Sandy Hook. 
 
 But these sanguine anticipations were never to be fulfilled under 
 Dutch rule on the South River. The first company of emigrants sent 
 out from Amsterdam for the city colony, with Jacob Alricks at their 
 
 1 Brodhead. 
 
1656.] DISTRESS AT NEW AMSTEL. 163 
 
 head as director-general of New Amstel, were wrecked on the south 
 side of Long Island near Fire Island inlet a neighborhood where so 
 many good ships have since laid their bones. Though no lives were 
 lost, and the people, more than a hundred in number, were sent for- 
 ward, with others from other ships that arrived safely, to their new 
 homes, the misfortune was onty the first of many to follow. 
 
 The first two years were years of sickness, privation, and discon- 
 tent. The pleasant climate tempted the ignorant emigrants Digress in 
 to carelessness and exposure, while the virgin soil was as tbecolon y 
 rank with miasm as it was rich in fertility. The crops were full of 
 promise, but before the time of harvest came worms and other insects 
 devoured the ripening grains, and what they left the enfeebled settlers, 
 stricken with fevei's and with agues, were too weak to gather. Nature 
 resented, as she always does, the intrusion upon her savage solitude ; 
 to the ploughing of every field, to every encroachment of the clearing 
 upon the forest, she attached a penalty, and for every seed that was 
 sowed she provided an enemy ; if she could not destroy the intruders 
 by disease, she would drive them away by depriving them of the fruits 
 of their labor. In this inevitable strife of the pioneer with the forces 
 of nature the unhappy settlers were reduced to extremity. Many 
 died, among them the surgeon of the colony, the wife of Director 
 Alricks, and later the Director himself ; but the greatest mortality 
 was among the children. 
 
 To add to their other misfortunes it was announced, the second 
 year, when the sickness was at its worst, and the failure of the har- 
 vest had compelled them to use their seed-corn for food, that the 
 Amsterdam Company would no longer supply provisions, as it was 
 originally agreed they should, for a certain length of time, to all the 
 emigrants ; taxes on their lands, from which it was promised they 
 should be free, were exacted ; and restrictions upon trade, from which 
 they were to be exempt, for a term of years, were to be enforced at 
 an earlier period. The stimulus of hope for the future, which might 
 have sustained them in their present distress, was taken away ; dis- 
 content made hunger the harder to bear, and to sickness was added 
 despair. 
 
 William Beekman, one of the schepens of New Amsterdam, was 
 appointed vice-director over the colony of the Company. Perhaps 
 it was impossible that any administration of affairs should be satis- 
 factory with a people reduced to a condition so wretched ; at any rate, 
 between the governors there was no harmony, each accusing the other 
 of a want of wisdom, and the colonists sustaining the charges that 
 were made against each. Those who could returned to Now Nother- 
 
164 
 
 THE DUTCH AND THEIR NEIGHBORS. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 land or to Holland ; those who by their contracts with the companies 
 were bound to remain fled from evils they could bear no longer to 
 Maryland and Virginia, or wherever else they could find a refuge. 
 The burgomasters of Amsterdam more than once proposed to reconvey 
 to the Company their interest in a colony which had become a burden 
 and a reproach, for it was said of New Amstel that it gained " such 
 a bad name that the whole river would not wash it out." 
 
 Animals of New Netnerland ^ac-simile from Van der Donck's " Vertoogh.") 
 

 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 QUAKERISM IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS IN ENGLAND. GEORGE Fox. His LIFE, 
 CHARACTER, AND TEACHINGS. BELIEFS OF THE FRIENDS. THEIR MANNER OF 
 LIFE AND SPEECH. THE FRIENDS AND THE ESTAHLISHED CHURCH. ORIGIN OF 
 NAME " QUAKERS." ARRIVAL OF THE FIRST FRIENDS AT BOSTON. ACTION OF 
 THE BOSTON MAGISTRATES. THE PERSECUTION OF THE QUAKERS BEGUN. AC- 
 CESSIONS TO THEIR NUMBER. THE FIRST GENERAL LAWS AGAINST THEM. KE- 
 FUSAL OF RHODE ISLAND TO JOIN IN THIS LEGISLATION. MARY DYER. BAN- 
 ISHED FRIENDS RETURN TO BOSTON. INCREASED STRINGENCY OF THE LAWS. 
 
 PROCEEDINGS AT NEW HAVEN AND ELSEWHERE. THE DEATH PENALTY IN MAS- 
 SACHUSETTS. CASES OF PERSECUTION. MARY DYER AND HER COMPANIONS AT 
 BOSTON. THEIR TRIAL AND PUNISHMENT. OTHER TRIALS. INTERFERENCE OP 
 THE KING. END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 AFTER the Rev. John Clark and his companion Crandall had been 
 punished in 1651, for their visit to Lynn, and the Rev. A i ullin 
 Obadiah Holmes had been whipped for the same offence, the 
 church of Boston enjoyed rest for a season. Perhaps the 
 word enjoyment carries with it a flavor too positive to be associated 
 with the men whose temper tasted a fierce delight in controversy, 
 and who might therefore be imagined as pining while heresy was in- 
 active. At any rate they were not long left without a fresh and 
 peculiarly grateful opportunity. This came with the first 
 appearance of Quakerism in Massachusetts ; and the facts appear,, 'in 
 must be prefaced by a brief account of the origin and pur- ***. I* 
 port of that form of religion. 
 
 In the summer of 1051 Cromwell was getting ready to win the 
 battle of Worcester against Scotch Presbyterians, royalists, and 
 Charles Stuart. George Fox was lying in the House of 
 
 r\ TAI i ' T T-> i George Fox. 
 
 Correction at Derby, committed, as Justices Bennet and 
 Barton said, for the " avowed uttering and broaching of divers blas- 
 phemous opinions contrary to a late act of Parliament." While there 
 in durance he was pestered by Justice Bennett to enlist and take part 
 in the coming campaign. There seems always to have been a great 
 opinion of his steadiness, power of command, and sway over men. 
 The Parliament soldiers were once very angry with him because he 
 
 con- 
 troversies. 
 
166 
 
 QUAKERISM IX NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. 
 
 declined their offer of a colonelcy ; and it led to his being thrown into 
 a vile hole in a jail. But he would not purchase his liberty of Jus- 
 tice Bennett on those terms. " I told him that I was brought off 
 from outward wars. After a while the constables fetched me up 
 again, and brought me before the commissioners, who said I should 
 go for a soldier." Probably a general jail-delivery was going on at 
 this time of all promising subjects, debtors and otherwise, not abso- 
 lute malefactors, to recruit the army. " But I told them that I was 
 dead to it. They said I was alive." Truly, never was any man 
 more so, and more valiant with all the essential qualities of a soldier. 
 We shall see that disciples of his brought over his stiffness and heroic 
 patience to America. 
 
 t<-r. 
 
 Village Church at Drayton, Leicestershire. 
 
 George Fox was born at Drayton-in-the-Clay, in Leicestershire, in 
 ' 1624. His father's name was Christopher, and the neighbors 
 for good reason called him ' Righteous Christer." The son 
 George described himself as a grave and staid child, rather 
 disliking that lightness and gayety of demeanor which he was always 
 disposed to consider wanton. His youth was pure and righteous. 
 They tried to make a minister of him, but, like Jacob Behmen, he 
 became a cobbler. It was a habit of his to say " Verily " in all his 
 dealings ; so that people said, " If George says Verily, there Is no al- 
 
1643.] GEORGE FOX. 167 
 
 tering him." 1 At nineteen he was, with a cousin, drinking beer in a 
 company which insisted that he who refused to drink healths should 
 pay the whole score. Fox refused the wanton drinking, and retired, 
 and from that day he broke off all familiarity with his relations, old 
 and voting, and fell into great despondency and spiritual 
 
 11 i e T i -i His doubta 
 
 trouble which lasted for some time. " I went, he said, and despon- 
 " to many a priest to look for comfort, but found no comfort 
 from them." One of them advised him to get rid of his megrims by 
 singing psalms and smoking tobacco. But Fox had neither ear nor 
 voice, and took no pleasure in " drinking the shameful," as the 
 Wahabees style the custom which Raleigh imported into England. 
 He went to see a very experienced adviser in spiritual matters, and 
 " found him only like an empty hollow cask." Walking in the garden 
 with another minister, imparting the secret ailment to him, he hap- 
 pened to put his foot into a flower-bed, whereupon the man of God 
 fell into a great rage, and dispensed with the use of consolatory 
 phrases. Another minister thought he needed physic and blood-let- 
 ting, but Fox says that no blood could come out of him, so dried up 
 was his body with sorrow. He avoided Christmas gayeties and mar- 
 riage feasts, and began to seek out the company of widows and poor 
 persons, to minister to their low estate. 
 
 Walking in a field on a Sunday morning the Lord opened to him 
 that a man need not be bred at the University in order to be 
 a minister of Christ. It was a new idea to him ; as new as his new 
 it was to the great majority of Englishmen. It struck at the 
 whole hierarchy of ministers. At another time he was impressed that 
 God dwelt in people's hearts and not in the " steeple-houses." From 
 that time forward the sound of the Sunday bells struck at his life " at 
 the very hearing of it," and he obeyed its summons to go to church 
 for the purpose of clearing his conscience to the priest and the parish. 
 He fasted, wandered in solitary places, sat with his Bible in hollow 
 trees where it was too lonesome for mankind ; walked at night, and 
 gave himself up to the workings of that mingled imagination and 
 spiritual feeling which he perceived to be the direct working of the 
 Lord. " I saw the great love of God, and I was filled with admiration 
 at the infinitude of it." " When at any time my condition was 
 vailed " as it frequently was by the conflict between his old conven- 
 tional beliefs and this new spontaneity " my secret belief was stayed 
 firm, and hope underneath held me, as an anchor in the bottom of the 
 sea, and anchored my immortal soul to its Bishop, causing it to swim 
 above the sea, the world, where all the raging waves, foul weather, 
 tempests, and temptations are." 
 
 1 Journal of George Fox, edited by Wilson Armistead. 
 
168 QUAKERISM IN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 Then everything that was carnal and unrighteous was manifested 
 to him in this inner light which dawned beyond his ordinary morn- 
 ings. And he saw the mountains burning up, "and the rubbish, 
 the rough and crooked ways and places, made smooth and plain, 
 that the Lord might come into his tabernacle." People soon began 
 to come from far and near to listen to his prophecy. He 
 of^i 1 "' dealt largely in symbols, and seemed to be endowed with an 
 imagination like that of William Blake, the poet and artist, 
 who earned, in our time, the reputation of insanity by believing in 
 the external reality of his inward visions. Like Blake, Fox had an 
 eye which translated into instantaneous solidity the imagery of his 
 feeling. Sitting in a friend's house, he saw there was a great crack 
 about to split the eai-th, and "a great smoke to go as the crack 
 went," and a great shaking to follow the path of the crack. It was 
 the earth in people's hearts. Walking through the main street of 
 Litchfield he saw a channel of blood running down, and the market- 
 place a pool of blood. Once he met Cromwell riding into Hampton 
 Court, and before he came to him he saw a waft of death go forth 
 against him, " and when I came to him he looked like a dead man." 
 No doubt the Protector did so look, about a fortnight before his death 
 in 1658, when George Fox met him. 
 
 So John Woolman saw one day "a mass of matter of a dull, 
 gloomy color, between the south and the east," and was informed 
 that it was the misery of all human beings, and that he formed a 
 part of it. Afterward he heard a pure and ravishing voice, as of 
 an angel speaking to other angels, and saying, " John Woolman is 
 dead ; " but knowing perfectly well that he was alive, he greatly won- 
 dered what the heavenly voice could mean. But it meant, u I am 
 crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth 
 in me." It was the death and surrender of his own will. 
 
 No mystics of the Middle Ages ever believed more profoundly than 
 The Quaker ^ e early Quakers in that absolute self-abnegation and anni- 
 seiSbne^L- hilation of the individual which secured to the Divine will 
 tion a free com-se through their souls. This was a prime doc- 
 
 trine of Quakerism. In the strength of it they abjured all personal 
 preferences, hazarded the prejudice and wrath of their opponents, 
 breathed sweet air in the foulness of dungeons, where they had to lie 
 with the mouth close to the crack beneath their cell door, to keep the 
 beatified life in their bodies ; the doctrine dulled the smart of the 
 lash, made the hangman's noose sit lightty, and soothed the bruises of 
 stonings and cudgel lings. 
 
 With this lively outwardness of George Fox's imagination there was 
 combined a sense of inward discernment, a spiritual touch for the 
 
1G43.] 
 
 GEORGE FOX. 
 
 169 
 
 moral condition of the people whom he met, which could hardly fail 
 in his times to be regarded as having a supernatural origin. He per- 
 ceived that some persons in his congregations were possessed by un- 
 clean spirits. He told them so ; sometimes they left the 
 room, sometimes they were converted to a cleaner life. He of FOX'S 
 said that the Lord had given him a spirit of discerning. It 
 is certain that, as in the case of Heinrich Zschokke, the Swiss nov- 
 elist and historian, 
 who could recall, 
 without effort, and 
 very much to the 
 astonishment of the 
 persons implicated, 
 their words and 
 sometimes the inci- 
 dents of their lives, 
 never having seen 
 or heard of them 
 before, but never 
 laying claim in con- 
 sequence to any pre- 
 ternatural gift, 
 so Fox felt the veiled 
 presence of irregular 
 dispositions. " As 
 I was going to a 
 meeting," said Fox, 
 " I saw some women 
 in a field, and I dis- 
 cerned an evil spirit 
 in them ; and I was 
 moved to go out of 
 my way into the 
 field to them, and 
 declare unto them 
 their conditions." " There came also at another time another woman, 
 and stood at a distance from me, and I cast mine eye upon her, and 
 said, * Thou hast been an harlot,' for I perfectly saw the condition and 
 life of the woman." This is the test of a soul which is so chastely 
 separated from all evil that it detects the lines which evil etches upon 
 the face and person, and also feels an unwholesome effluence. It is 
 not at all strange that, in those days of witchcraft, and of delusion 
 concerning special providences, the people should accredit miracu- 
 
 Fox reproves the Women. 
 
1"0 QUAKERISM IN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 lous power to Fox, of whom certain stories of healing are also re- 
 ported. 
 
 Fox's journal, like Winthrop's, abounds with cases of judgments 
 that befell their enemies and withstanders. For it was a 
 
 Fox s belief . 
 
 in divine mental tashion of the times, belonging to the established 
 
 judgments. o o 
 
 church as well as to all the sectaries, though specially to 
 the Boston Puritans. A rude butcher had sworn to kill Fox, and was 
 accustomed to thrust out his tongue whenever a Friend passed him. 
 So it fell out that one day his tongue swelled, he never could draw 
 it in again, and died so. The judgments against Fox's enemies were 
 so many that they would " be too large to declare. God's vengeance 
 from heaven came upon the bloodthirsty, who sought after blood ; for 
 all such spirits I laid before the Lord, and left them to him to deal 
 with them, who is stronger than all." This is not more sombre and 
 inconsequent than the ordinary Puritan spirit of the times. 
 
 But the truly characteristic doctrine of the Friends exalts the intu- 
 itive feelings, and all spontaneous movements of the mind, above 
 scholarship, instruction, Scriptures, and ordinances. This is 
 
 The doctrine , T i iiiii r 
 
 of an inner the true Light which hghteth every man : if so, it antici- 
 pates all forms and texts, tries them all, interprets the 
 divine Word, and tests the customs of society. When this doctrine 
 was so consistently held, as by Fox, it became hostile to the sacra- 
 ments of the church, and to the church itself with its hierarchical scale 
 of paid clergy ; hostile to governments which rested upon force, hos- 
 tile to the application of force in any form. It is not at all wonderful 
 that Fox's courageous and persistent logic should have involved his 
 life in difficulties, and made it an almost unbroken career of impris- 
 onment and contumely. Hireling priests did not like to be withstood 
 in their own "steeple-houses;" justices of the peace could hardly 
 relish Fox's superb disdain for their authority, and the cool equa- 
 nimity of his answers as he stood before them with his hat on till 
 it was knocked off his head. Many a term in jail did he serve to 
 gratify the anger of judges excited by a demeanor which was all the 
 more aggressive because it was so imperturbable. And he did not 
 mince his English : his invective could assume all the power and au- 
 thority of Scripture. 
 
 Fox mentions that when he went to Whitehall to speak to Crom- 
 welTTthe Protector did not object to his hat. The early Friends 
 loved to use symbolic gestures and fashions. Even modest women 
 would sometimes violate their natural feeling and appear in a state 
 more or less like that of Godiva when she rode through Coventry, 
 because it was so borne in upon them from the Lord, that they must 
 protest against the nakedness of ordinances. But these were occur- 
 
1648.] WEARING THE HAT. 171 
 
 rences of rare fanaticism belonging rather to individuals than rep- 
 resenting: the whole body of Friends. There were only two 
 
 , r . ., , The resiet- 
 
 Or three such cases in Massachusetts, while, on the other anceotthe 
 
 hand, women when publicly whipped were stripped naked outward or- 
 to the waist " shall be stripped naked from the middle 
 upwards, and shall be openly whipped until his or her body shall be 
 bloody ; " were the words of the English law. The wearing of the 
 hat was a symbol of human equality with principalities and powers. 
 Even the Almighty could not be honored by uncovering the head. 
 Penn wrote, 1 " The first and most pressing motive upon our spirits 
 to decline the practice of these present customs of pulling off the hat, 
 bowing the body or knee, and giving people gaudy titles and epithets, 
 in our salutations and addresses, was that savor, sight and sense that 
 God, by his light and spirit, has given us of the Christian world's 
 apostasy from God, and the cause and effects of that great and lam- 
 entable defection." 
 
 That is the moral ground of the first protest of the Friends, and 
 the iust explanation of those habits and manners for the 
 
 ,.,.,, , , . , , ... , , . Their belief 
 
 sake of which they endured with humility such scorn and ill- as to wear- 
 treatment. Said Penn, " honor was from the beginning but 
 hat-respects, and most titles are of hate." George Keith, a contem- 
 porary of Fox, and for a time a disciple, till he lapsed and took 
 orders, ridiculing the fashion of uncovering the head, wrote, " The 
 preachers in Germany, and especially at Hamburgh which I have 
 seen with my eyes use such gross partiality in their salutations, that 
 commonly they have two caps under their hat ; and the poor, except 
 extraordinarily, they pass by without any notice ; to others they doff 
 the hat ; others more rich in the world, they salute with doffing 
 the hat and one of the caps ; and to those whom they most honor, or 
 rather flatter, they doff the hat and both caps. What degrees of par- 
 tiality are here ! " George Fox said, " Do not the very Turks mock 
 at the Christians in their proverb, saying that ' the Christians spend 
 much of their time in putting off their hats, and showing their bare 
 heads to each other.' ' 
 
 The plain garb and the plain speech well became the righteous 
 dissent of plain livers and spiritual thinkers from the Thei,.,!^ 
 world's hypocrisies. The Quakers assumed the plain garb and life - 
 of a uniform color in order to be clothed in a daily protest against the 
 gayly slashed doublet, the ribbon-knots, rapier, and trunk-hose which, 
 as it all went ruffling through the streets of England, seemed to them 
 to be an anti-symbol to their own, and to express the folly, dissolute- 
 ness, and subservience of the times. Samuel Fothergill wrote to a 
 
 1 No Cross No Crown, Am ed., pp. 83, 85, 91, 92. 
 
172 QUAKERISM IN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 young man " who had laid aside the dress of the Society, and with it 
 some of the moral restrictions which it imposed : ' If thou Inn 1st ap- 
 peared like a religious, sober Friend, those companions who have ex- 
 ceedingly wounded thee, durst not have attempted to frequent thy 
 company. If thou hadst no other inducement to alter thy dress, I 
 beseech thee to do it to keep the distinction our principles lead to, 
 and to separate thee from fools and fops. At the same time that by 
 a prudent distinction in appearance thou scatterest away those that 
 are the bane of youth, thou wilt engage the attention of those whose 
 company will be profitable and honorable to thee.' ' 
 
 Plainness of speech theeing and thouing was as tenaciously 
 held to as the plainness of apparel. 1 But Fox's suit of 
 
 Their 111:111- 
 
 ner of leather, which subjected him to so much ridicule, seems to 
 
 speech. - . . 
 
 have been assumed by lum in no spirit of ostentatious 
 meanness, but because he found it more convenient on those inces- 
 sant journeys which he took from place to place to deliver his mes- 
 sage. It was also a protection against the foulness and dampness of 
 the numerous cells which he tenanted ; for if there was one hole in 
 the jail more loathsome than the rest, the jailer might be depended 
 upon to put Fox in it, and not only Fox, but many a brave, pro- 
 testing woman, who had been delicately reared, to whom foul air was 
 as poisonous as hireling doctrine. 
 
 The Friends did not subject themselves to persecution merely 
 Reasons for because they insisted upon speaking in the established 
 churches. It was not unusual at that time, and the min- 
 i s k er would sometimes accord the favor even to women who 
 church. signified a desire to address his congregation after the close 
 of service. 2 Nor was an interruption of the sermon by some remark 
 
 1 This mode of address seemed to have some peculiar aggravation in it. People hated it 
 worse than the doctrine. They would cry, " T/ioti me ! thou my dog ! If thou thouest me, 
 I'll thou thy teeth down thy throat." (Penn's Preface to Fox's Journal.) And Fox wrote, 
 " Oh, the storm, heat, and fury that arose ; oh, the blows, punchings, beatings, and impris- 
 onments that we underwent, for not putting off our hats to men ! Some had their hats 
 violently plucked off and thrown away, so that they quite lost them. The bad language 
 and evil usage we received on this account is hard to be expressed ; besides the danger we 
 were sometimes in of losing our lives for this matter." 
 
 2 " But have there not been women among the Presbyterians, who have spoke in the pres- 
 ence of many, both men and women, of their experiences of the things of God ? I sup- 
 pose T. M. may have heard of Margaret Mitchelson, who spoke to the admiration of many 
 hearers at Edinburgh as concerning her experience, in the time of Henry Rogue, preacher 
 there, who is said to have come and heard her himself, and to have given her this testimony 
 (being desired to speak himself), that he was to l>e silent when his Master was silent (meau- 
 iug Christ in that Presbyterian woman). There is a relation of her speeches going about 
 from hand to hand among professors at this day ; and I myself have heard a Presbyterian 
 woman speak in a meeting of Presbyterians, which were a church or convention of men and 
 women. Yea, hath not T. M. in such meetings, and consequently in assemblies of churches, 
 invited some woman to speak and pray, and declared solemnly (whether he did it merely 
 
1643.] THE FRIENDS AND THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 173 
 
 of dissent unprecedented in those heated times when all men's minds 
 were so occupied with the discussion of religious matters ; and for this 
 an arrest was seldom made. The Puritan in America could not con- 
 sistently prevent that custom of speaking in meeting which he used to 
 indulge in the old country. But the trouble lay less in the desire of 
 the Quaker to free his conscience in the " steeple-houses " than in the 
 substance of the message. It was also frequently couched m Anglo- 
 
 Swarthmore Hall. Residence of George Fox. 
 
 Saxon of terrific emphasis. Ministers could hardly brook the invec- 
 tive, particularly when it was directed against the paying The QU^^ 
 of tithes. George Fox held a meeting of his own at Car- ^^u'hed 
 lisle one day, the Abbey having been granted to him for cler 
 the purpose. After the meeting, a Baptist pastor, " a high notionist, 
 and a flashy man, came to me, and asked me, ' what must be damned.' 
 I was moved immediately to tell him, 'that which spoke in him was 
 to be damned.' This stopped his mouth." 
 
 A vigorous episode to divine service occurred in a Yorkshire steeple- 
 house. The preacher had chosen a most unfortunate text for himself, 
 
 in his ordinary customary way of complimenting, that is Iwst known to himself) that he was 
 edified thereby ? And if some of those women formerly in that respect so much applauded 
 by T. M. be of those that now open their mouths in the Quakers' meetings, how comes it 
 now to be Popish and heretical, more than in the days of old when T. M. did use to fre- 
 quent the chamber conventicles, unless that he now bath forgotten these, because fear hath 
 made them out of fashion with him ? " George Keith's Quakerism no Popery. Excerpt in 
 Southey's Common-Place Book. 
 
174 QUAKERISM IN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath 
 no money, come ye, buy and eat ; yea, come, buy wine and milk, with- 
 out money and without price." Fox could not wait to hear the ser- 
 mon through. " Come down, thou deceiver ! Dost thou bid people 
 come freely, and take of the water of life freely, and yet thou takest 
 three hundred pounds a year of them ? Mayest thou not blush for 
 shame, etc." The preacher was so confounded at the closeness of this 
 message that he left the pulpit, went out, and Fox spoke to the peo- 
 ple. Such primitive evangelism touched the pocket too closely to be 
 long tolerated. 
 
 There was a meeting at Leicester for a dispute in the church, at- 
 tended by all kinds of sectaries, the minister of the parish being in 
 the pulpit. When he checked a woman who desired to speak, Fox 
 was wrapped up, " as in a rapture, in the Lord's power, and I stepped 
 up and asked the priest, ' Dost thou call this a church ? Or dost thou 
 call this mixed multitude a church ? ' For the woman asking a ques- 
 tion, he ought to have answered it, having given liberty for any to 
 speak. But instead of answering me, he asked me what a church 
 was ? I told him, the church was the pillar and ground of 
 
 Fox's defini- ' . .... & . . 
 
 tion of the truth, made up of living stones, living members, a spiritual 
 household, which Christ was the head of ; but he was not the 
 head of a mixed multitude, or of an old house made up of lime, stones, 
 and wood. This set them all on fire ; the priest came down out of 
 his pulpit, and others out of their pews, and the dispute there was 
 marred." That sentence furnishes us at once with the pith and the 
 offence of Quakerism. And here is one more paragraph to illustrate 
 the interior states and processes of the early Friends. " One morn- 
 ing as I was sitting by the fire, a great cloud came over me, and a 
 temptation beset me ; but I sat still. And it was said, ' all things 
 come by nature ; ' and the elements and stars came over me, so that 
 I was in a manner quite clouded with it. But as I sat still, and silent, 
 the people of the house perceived nothing ; and as I sat still under it, 
 and let it alone, a living hope arose in me, and a true voice, which 
 said, ' there is a living God who made all things.' And immediately 
 the cloud and temptation vanished away, and life rose over it all ; rny 
 heart was glad, and I praised the living God." 
 
 How pure and sweet is the tone, and so different from that of the 
 The Ranters Ranters of that period with whom the Quakers were unjust- 
 w < Hh a tht d ty identified. Of them but short notice need be given. 
 Quakers. Probably the reports of their extravagant and indecent do- 
 ings found their way over to Boston, and helped to confirm the minds 
 of elders and magistrates against the Quakers when they appeared. 1 
 
 1 " I have a collection of several Ranters' books in a thick quarto," says Leslie, " and 
 
1643.] FOX AND THE RANTERS. 175 
 
 But the Quakers disowned the Ranters. Fox said that he heard of 
 persons who were imprisoned on account of their religion. Fox Bnd ^ 
 Of course he went to visit them. " And as I walked toward Raatt ^ n - 
 the jail, the word of the Lord came to me saying, * My Love was al- 
 ways to thee, and thou art in my love.' And I was ravished with the 
 sense of the love of God, and greatly strengthened in my inward man. 
 But when I came into the jail, where the prisoners were, a great power 
 of darkness struck at me, and I sat still, having my spirit gathered 
 into the love of God. At last these prisoners began to rant, and va- 
 pour, and blaspheme, at which my soul was greatly grieved. They 
 said they were God ; but we (the Quakers) could not bear such 
 things. After I had reproved them for their blasphemous expressions, 
 I went away ; for I perceived they were Ranters." 
 
 Speaking at another time of some noted Ranters, he shows the true 
 sobriety of his own spiritual motions. " I was in a fast for about ten 
 days, my spirit being greatly exercised on truth's account ; for James 
 Milner and Richard Mye* went out into imaginations, and a company 
 followed them. This James Milner and some of his company, had 
 true openings at first, but getting into pride and exaltation of spirit, 
 they ran out from truth." 
 
 And here is his first notice of the notorious James Nay lor, who re- 
 vived in England some of the worst extravagances of Munzer and 
 the German Anabaptists. " The night we came to Exeter, I spoke 
 with James Naylor, for I saw he was out and wrong, and so was his 
 company." " The next day I spoke with James Naylor again ; and 
 he slighted what I said, and was dark, and much out ; yet he would 
 have come and kissed me. But I said, ' since he had turned against 
 the power of God, I could not receive his show of kindness.' " Al- 
 luding to another set of people who had been cast into jail, he said, 
 " though they were Ranters, great opposers of Friends* and disturbers 
 of our meetings, yet in the country where they came, some people 
 that did not know them, would be apt to say they were Quakei-s." 
 
 Fox's dealings with the deluded Ranters, and the explicit testimony 
 left by him and his closest followers, quite overcome the scandal 
 which migrated to America and set the minds of the chief men 
 against Quakerism. Ann Hutchinson, whose principles sprang from 
 
 though I am pretty well versed with the Quaker strain, I took all these authors to be Qua- 
 kers, and had marked some quotations out of them, to show the agreement of the former 
 Quakers with the doctrine which their later authors do hold forth ; till, showing this book to 
 a friend who knew some of them and had heard of the rest, he told me they were Ranters, 
 and that I could not make use of these quotations against the Quakers." This was writ- 
 ten frankly enough, by a determined and bitter foe of Quakerism. But, afrer conceding 
 the point, he hopes to cancel the concession by contradicting himself ; " but though I can- 
 not do it " i. e., make use of the quotations " in the sense I intended, yet it may serve 
 to better purpose, viz., to show the agreement 'twixt the Ranters and the Quakers " 
 
176 
 
 QUAKERISM IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 [HAP. VIII. 
 
 the same root as Fox's, had a fairer hearing. But the clearness of 
 Fox's tone on this vexed subject reminds us of his experience when 
 he was in jail at Carlisle under a brutal jailer. " While he struck 
 me, I was made to sing in the Lord's power ; and that made him rage 
 the more. Then he fetched a fiddler, and brought him in where I 
 
 Fox in Prison. 
 
 was, and set him to play, thinking to vex me thereby ; but while he 
 played I was moved in the everlasting power of the Lord God to sing; 
 and my voice drowned the noise of the fiddle, and struck and con- 
 founded them, and made them give over fiddling and go their way." 
 The Friends were first called Quakers by Justice Bennet of Derby, 
 in 1650, because Fox bade the people tremble at the word 
 of the Lord The first use of the epithet in the records of 
 parliament was made in the Journal of the House of Com- 
 mons for 1654. Whenever Fox appeared the cry went abroad, u The 
 
 Oriein of 
 the name 
 " Quakers." 
 
 
1656.] THE FIRST FRIENDS IN BOSTON. 177 
 
 man in leather breeches is come ; " and it was a grievous salute to the 
 ministers. 
 
 One of the most interesting notices which we have of Fox is con- 
 nected with his enforced visit to London in 1654 as a prisoner, when 
 he was lodged at Shakespeare's and Ben Jonson's old tavern of the 
 Mermaid, whence he wrote a paper to Cromwell against the drawing 
 of a carnal sword. It was a document of the principle of non-resist- 
 ance which has always been cherished by the Friends. Soon after he 
 was brought before the Protector at Whitehall, and made a F o* before 
 great impression by his speaking, Cromwell, it is said, being Cromwe11 - 
 moved to tears, and desiring to know him more intimately. Then 
 he was brought into a hall where the gentlemen of the palace were 
 gathered for the noonday meal, and was invited to dine with them. 
 " I bid them let the Protector know, I would not eat of his bread nor 
 drink of his drink. When he heard this, he said, ' Now I see there is 
 a people risen and come up, that I cannot win either with gifts, 
 honors, offices, or places, but all other sects and people I can.' It 
 was told him again, ' that we had forsaken our own, and were not 
 likely to look for such things from him.' " l 
 
 This was the style of the people whose sufferings symbolized the 
 same sentiment in New England. Even before they came, ArriTa i of 
 New England held them in dread. In May, 1656, the Gen- lkeat 
 eral Court of Massachusetts appointed a day of humiliation, Bogton - 
 " to seek the face of God " on behalf of England, " abounding with 
 erroi's, especially those of the Ranters and Quakers," whom they 
 thus confounded. Then there came two months later to Boston, Mary 
 Fisher and Anne Austin, having shipped for that port at Barbadoes. 
 This easternmost of the West India islands, first colonized by the Eng- 
 lish in 1625, seems to have been a refuge and starting-point for various 
 opinions. The Quakers were not molested there. Henry Fell, an 
 eminent minister of the Society, writing to Margaret Fell, who after- 
 Avards married George Fox, mentions the refreshing meetings that 
 were held freely over the island, and adds, " Truly Mary Fisher is a 
 precious heart and hath been very serviceable here : for here are many 
 
 1 Thomas Elwood, the loving friend of Johu Milton, describes himself as having once 
 been " free, debonair and courtly." But he became in habit and discipline a strict convert 
 of Quakerism. He fir>t copied out Fox's journal for the press. Here is his portrait of 
 Fox: " Graceful he was in countenance, manly in ]>ersonage, grave in gesture, courteous 
 in conversation, free from affectation in speech or carriage : a severe reprover of html and 
 obstinate sinners ; a mild and gentle admonisher of such as were tender and sensible of 
 their failings ; not apt to resent personal wrongs ; easy to forgive injuries, but zealously 
 earnest where the honor of God, the prosperity of truth, the peace of the church, were con- 
 cerned ; very tender, compassionate, and pitiful he was to all that were under any Fort of 
 affliction; the common butt of all apostates' envy; whose good, notwithstanding, he ear- 
 nestly sought." 
 
 VOL. II. 12 
 
178 
 
 QUAKERISM IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. VIIL 
 
 people convinced of the truth, who meet together in silence, in three 
 several places in the island." l 
 
 Mary Fisher was born in 1623. We find her convinced of Qua- 
 kerism, and addressing a congregation after service at Selby, 
 in 1652. For this she underwent imprisonment in York Cas- 
 tle for sixteen months. In the autumn of 1653 she, with a female 
 companion, preached to the Cambridge students " at Sidney College 
 gate. " The mayor interfered, and they were taken to the market- 
 cross and soundly whipped, because they despised the sacraments and 
 the ministry. Mary Fisher was the first member of the Society who 
 
 Mary Fisher be'ore the Sultan. 
 
 was publicly whipped. She was 
 three times imprisoned before 
 1655, when she found her way to 
 the West Indies. In 1660 she was 
 impressed to visit Turkey and have 
 an interview with the Sultan Mo- 
 hammed IV. She found him at 
 Adrianople, and was kindly received 
 by him, and was everywhere through the East well treated. Of her 
 numerous toilsome journeys by sea and land to bear her testimony we 
 need not speak. She was unmarried at the time of her arrival in 
 Boston ; but Anne Austin was the mother of five children, and well 
 advanced in years. 
 
 When it was known that Simon Kempthorn, master, had these two 
 pestilent women on board his vessel, Bellingham, the Dep- 
 uty Governor, Endicott being absent, refused to let them 
 land ; their baggage was searched and all their books and 
 tracts confiscated. And at a council which was held July 11, 1656, 
 
 1 Bowden's History of Friends in America, i., 37. 
 
 Action of 
 
 the Boston 
 
 magistrates, 
 
1656.] ACTION OF THE MAGISTRATES. 179 
 
 the following order was issued, which deserves to be put upon the his- 
 torical record : 
 
 " Whereas, there are several laws long since made and published in 
 this jurisdiction, bearing testimony against heretics and erroneous 
 persons ; yet, notwithstanding, Simon Kempthorn of Charlestown, mas- 
 ter of the ship Stvallow of Boston, hath brought into this jurisdiction, 
 from the island of Barbadoes, two women, who name themselves Anne, 
 the wife of one Austin, and Mary Fisher, being of that sort of people 
 commonly known by the name of Quakers, who upon examination are 
 found to be not only transgressors of the former laws, but to hold very 
 dangerous, heretical and blasphemous opinions ; and they do also ac- 
 knowledge that they came here purposely to propagate their said errors 
 and heresies, bringing with them and spreading here sundry books, 
 wherein are contained most corrupt, heretical and blasphemous doc- 
 trines, contrary to the truth of the gospel here professed among us. 
 The Council, therefore, tendei'ing the preservation of the peace and 
 truth, enjoyed and professed among the churches of Christ in this coun- 
 try, do hereby order : First, that all such corrupt books as shall be found 
 upon search to be brought in and spread by the aforesaid persons, be 
 forthwith burned and destroyed by the common executioner. Secondly, 
 that the said Anne and Mary be kept in close prison, and none ad- 
 mitted communication with them without leave from the Governor, 
 Deputy Governor, or two magistrates, to prevent the spreading their 
 corrupt opinions, until such time as they be delivered aboard some ves- 
 sel, to be transported out of the country. Thirdly, the said Simon Kemp- 
 thorn is hereby enjoined, speedily and directly, to transport or cause 
 to be transported the said persons from hence to Barbadoes, whence 
 they came, he defraying all the charges of their imprisonment ; and 
 for the effectual performance hereof, he is to give security in a bond 
 of .100 sterling, and on his refusal to give such security, he is to be 
 committed to prison till he do it." 
 
 This is the first legislation of Massachusetts against the first Qua- 
 kers who ever reached the colony. The root of heresy was the same 
 in all sectaries : it was an assertion of the individual conscience and 
 the right of private interpretation. Since the days of Ann Hutch- 
 inson of the nimble tongue and distracting wit, the magistrates in- 
 stinctively felt that any setting up of private reason was likely to turn 
 out so far irrational as to defy their politics as well as their religion. 
 But it was rather hard upon Simon Kempthorn, who innocently gave 
 passage to these two formidable women, and had to pay their expenses 
 in jail and carry them back again. It was a judicious hint to all 
 shipmasters to be more cautious in assorting their cargoes for the 
 future. 
 
180 
 
 QUAKERISM IX NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 The two women were transferred to Boston jail, and the window of 
 Anne Austin their cell was boarded up to prevent intercourse with the 
 FuherTm- inhabitants ; for the same reason they were deprived of 
 prisoned. writing materials. Their persons were stripped and exam- 
 ined for the supposed signs of witchcraft, but fortunately there was not 
 a birth-mark, scar, or mole to be discovered, otherwise they might 
 have gone the way of Governor Bellingham's own sister-in-law. 
 
 We know not for 
 
 what reason the 
 
 magistrates forbade 
 
 them to be fur- 
 nished with provisions. Not only the 
 
 jailer but the citizens were cautioned not 
 
 to feed them. But Nicholas Upshall, a 
 
 grave and righteous citizen of Boston, a 
 
 strict Puritan, but inclined to dispense 
 
 with the ceremonies of his own church, 
 
 was much attracted by the arrival of these 
 
 women. When the new law was proclaimed by beat of drum before 
 his door, he uttered a protest, desiring to wash his hands 
 of such a transaction. The magistrates cited him to appear 
 before them. He warned them to take heed lest they be 
 
 found fighting against God. For a conclusive reply to that they 
 
 fined him 20, imprisoned him four days, ordered him out of the 
 
 Upshall's Protest. 
 
 i>hai-8 
 
1656.] PERSECUTION BEGUN. 181 
 
 colony in thirty, and fined him 8 additional for each absence from 
 worship during that time. His real offence was in giving the jailer 
 privily five shillings a week to provide food for the prisoners. He 
 was a weakly and delicate old man. Late in the autumn he took wife 
 and children and proceeded on his exile, first to Sandwich in the Plym- 
 outh colony, whose magistrates, hoping to emulate the zeal of Boston, 
 forbade any one from receiving him. But the prescript of nature 
 proved stronger than the one that was issued by warrant, and for 
 awhile he found shelter and succor. The governor at Plymouth tried 
 to get him within his power, and issued a warrant for his appearance 
 there. Upshall pleaded ill health ; the inhabitants would not permit 
 the constable to take him on the warrant. When, however, the next 
 year opened, the Governor's pressure was so great that the good people 
 of Plymouth were forced to send him forth into the wilderness. At 
 last he found his way to Newport. While wandering the Indians fed 
 and sheltered him : one of them said " Come and live with me and I 
 will make you a good warm house." Another chief reflected, " What 
 a God have these English, who deal so with one another about their 
 God ! " 
 
 The Indians naturally pitied the men who were the victims of a 
 system which also encroached upon themselves. Apart from 
 
 , , ,. . - The Friend. 
 
 that, they always appear to have round some temper in the and the in- 
 
 f\ i i i 1*11* ( i 
 
 Quaker which enlisted their native sense of justice and 
 drew forth a feeling of brotherhood. When, for instance, Christopher 
 Holder and a companion " felt it required of them " to leave Rhode 
 Island for Martha's Vineyard, the Governor of that island hired an 
 Indian to take them away, to be paid for the service by the Friends 
 themselves. The Friends not having a clear call to do this, refused 
 to go. The Governor insisted that the Indians should remove them. 
 The natives declined this office of the constable, and kept the Friends 
 for several days during stormy weather, treating them with the ut- 
 most hospitality. The Friends offered to pay them, but they refused, 
 saying, " You are strangers we are taught to love strangers." So 
 John Taylor travelled alone among Indians, holding meetings with 
 them in the woods, exhorting and teaching, always welcomed with 
 kindness, and finding the best in the wigwams at his disposal. And 
 John Woolman, also, many years afterward, preaching to Indians in 
 Pennsylvania through interpreters, received kindly treatment and 
 hearing ; one of the chief men said, " I love to feel where words come 
 from." i 
 
 After five weeks' imprisonment Mary Fisher and her companion 
 were put on board the Swallow to be returned to Barbadoes, the 
 
 1 Fox's Journal, ii., 115, 169. Woolman's Journal, 1 12. 
 
182 QUAKERISM IN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 jailer confiscating their beds and Bibles for his fees. On the whole 
 this was good fortune for the women ; for Endicott, who was absent, 
 hearing of this comparative lenity, avowed, " If I had been there I 
 would have had them well whipped." l 
 
 Hardly was the Swallow out of sight when a vessel from London 
 
 came into the harbor, with eight Friends aboard: "four 
 other from London and four from Bristol ; pretty hearts ; the 
 
 blessing of the Lord is with them, and his dread goes before 
 them." 2 When, as usual, the captain submitted a list of his passengers 
 to the Governor, and it was learned that eight of them were Friends, 
 officers went on board with a warrant, " to search the boxes, chests, 
 and trunks of the Quakers for erroneous books and hellish pamph- 
 lets," and to bring the Quakers before the court. Four of them were 
 women. After a long examination upon their belief in God and the 
 Scriptures, they were sent to jail. The examination was renewed 
 the next day, the Friends declining to reply, and simply asking for 
 the reason of their arrest. Endicott only deigned to say, " Take heed 
 ye break not our ecclesiastical laws, for then ye are sure to stretch by 
 Their treat- a halter." They were sentenced to be returned by the 
 ment- same vessel which brought them, and to be kept in jail till 
 
 it was ready to sail. The jailer received an order to search their 
 baggage as often as he saw fit. The master of the vessel was ordered 
 to give bond in the sum of .500 to take them to England at his own 
 cost ! This at first he refused to do, not being conscious of any 
 infraction of law ; but he thought better of it after a few days in 
 prison. After lying in jail for eleven weeks, during which their 
 bedding and most of their effects were seized, to discharge the jailer's 
 fees, they were put thus stripped and unprovided for on board the 
 vessel. Some of the inhabitants, touched with pity and indignation, 
 redeemed their goods, so that they reached London in comparative 
 comfort. 
 
 All these proceedings were so clearly arbitrary and illegal, and the 
 
 discontent of the people was so marked, and even threaten- 
 generanaw ing, that the magistrates took measures to procure the sanc- 
 klrs n inNe^ tion of law for future proceedings. So in July a letter was 
 
 addressed to the commissioners of the four Confederate Col- 
 onies, who were about to meet at Plymouth, asking that they would 
 grant authority for framing a particular law against Quakers and 
 heretics. Procuring this, a law was passed at a General Court in 
 Boston, October 14, 1656, enacting that any master of any kind of 
 craft who should bring Quakers to New England should be fined 
 
 1 Bowden's History of Friends in America, i., 36. 
 
 2 Caton's collection of MS-, quoted by Bowden. 
 
1657.] MARY DYER AND ANNE BURDEN. 183 
 
 100, in default of payment to be imprisoned till the money was 
 forthcoming : that he should carry them back, or upon refusing be 
 imprisoned till he consent ; that any Quaker who might arrive should 
 be committed to the house of correction, be severely whipped, kept at 
 constant labor, and forbidden from communication and discourse with 
 any one ; that whoever should import Quaker books, or " writings 
 concerning their devilish opinions," shall be fined 5 for each book 
 or pamphlet ; that whoever should undertake to defend those writings 
 and opinions shall be fined for the first offence forty shillings, for the 
 second, 4 ; if they continue in that way they shall be put into 
 jail till there be an opportunity to convey them into banishment ; and 
 that whoever should revile the persons of magistrates and ministers, 
 after the fashion of the Quakers, shall be whipped, or pay 5. 
 
 This law was adopted by the four federate colonies, and Rhode Isl- 
 and was urged to do the same ; but the Assembly replied that they 
 could not undertake to punish any man for declaring his 
 mind with regard to religion ; that no doubt the Quakers and refusal 
 vere very inconvenient, and their doctrines disorganizing ; 
 but that they seemed to court controversy, and persecution, and that 
 the better policy would be to let them alone. " These people," they 
 said, begin to loathe this place for that they are not opposed by the 
 civil authority," a psychological law which was beyond the compre- 
 hension of the Massachusetts Puritans. Roger Williams afterwards 
 endeavored to get rid of Quakerism by challenging their Society to a 
 public disputation. It lasted several days, and ended to the satisfac- 
 tion of both parties, each being convinced of a triumphant refutation. 
 Williams wrote " George Fox digged out of his Burrow," and Fox 
 replied with " A New-England Firebrand quenched, being an An- 
 swer to a lying, slanderous Book by one Roger Williams, confuting 
 his blasphemous Assertions." 
 
 But the bit of parchment on which the law was engrossed could not 
 keep Quakers out of New England. Early in 1657, Mary 
 Dyer and Anne Burden sailed into the Bay. Mary Dyer 
 a woman "of a comely and grave countenance, of a good 
 family and estate, and a mother of several children" belonged to 
 Rhode Island, but came this time from England. So also did Anne 
 Burden, to collect some debts contracted in Boston to her husband 
 now deceased. They had both been disciples of Ann Hutchinson, and 
 banished on that account. Of course they were immediately arrested 
 and strictly confined. Anne Burden pleaded lawful business, but only 
 received for reply that she was a plain Quaker and must abide the 
 law. After three months of suffering she was transferred to ship- 
 board. Some pitying citizens collected a portion of the money due to 
 
 Burden 
 
184 
 
 QUAKERISM IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 her, and invested it in goods that would find a market in Barbadoes, 
 hoping that she might be carried thither. The magistrates refused 
 this, and sent her to England, advising the reluctant master to get his 
 pay out of her goods. He was bold enough to decline ; whereupon 
 the magistrates distrained her goods to cover her passage money, and 
 ordered that the remainder should not be shipped. This act of deli- 
 cate consideration robbed the widow of everything but six shillings, 
 
 which a debtor slipped into 
 her hand. Mary Dyer's hus- 
 band, William Dyer, the sec- 
 retary of Rhode Island, came 
 to take his wife home ; and 
 the magistrates held him in 
 a heavy sum not to stop with 
 her in any town of the colony, 
 and not to allow any person 
 to speak with her on the way. 
 Nothing but intense bigotry 
 could inspire such abject 
 dread. 
 
 While Anne 
 Burden was 
 thus sailing 
 back to Eng- 
 land, six of 
 the eight 
 Friends who 
 had been 
 banished 
 were fully 
 impressed 
 that their 
 duty was to 
 return. At 
 the same 
 
 time five others agreed to join them. Of these eleven persons four 
 were women. What conviction, deep as the human heart, must have 
 rested in these persons, who knew to a certainty the reception they 
 would meet. No vulgar love of notoriety, or itch to invite persecu- 
 tion, sent them beai'ing their testimony across stormy seas. " They 
 were," wrote William Dewsbury to Judge Fell's wife Margaret, " in 
 their measure, bold in the power of God : the life did arise in them." 
 The little, uncomfortable vessel sailed from London in April, 1657, 
 
 Departure of Anne Burden. 
 
1657.] BANISHED FRIENDS RETURN. 185 
 
 and in consequence of rude weather put into Southampton, whence 
 William Robinson also wrote to Margaret Fell : " Dear Sister, my 
 dear love salutes thee in that which thinks not ill, which was before 
 words were, in which I stand faithful to him who hath called us, 
 and doth arm us against the fiery darts of the enemy, even in the 
 fear and dread of the Almighty. I know thee and have union with 
 thee though absent from thee." 
 
 Robert Fowler, who built the little vessel and proposed to carry its 
 cargo of Quakerism across, has left an interesting account, 
 entitled, " A True Relation of the Voyage undertaken by me the banished 
 Robert Fowler, with my small vessel called the ' Woodhouse' ; 
 but performed by the Lord, like as he did Noah's Ark, wherein he 
 shut up a few righteous persons and landed them safe, even at the hill 
 Ararat. " His crew, besides himself, consisted of two men and three 
 boys. While he waited in Southampton for a fair wind, he says, " the 
 ministers of Christ were not idle, but went forth and gathered sticks, 
 and kindled a fire, and left it burning. " He was, of course, all 
 through the voyage in the mood to attribute his own tact and seaman- 
 ship to the Lord. Several escapes were due to divine intervention. 
 " The sea was my figure, for if anything got up within, the sea with- 
 out rose up against me, and then the floods clapped their hands." " We 
 see the Lord leading our vessel even as it were a man leading a horse 
 by the head." In two months the little vessel landed its passengers 
 at New Amsterdam, five of them waiting there, while the rest, taking 
 passage again, reached Rhode Island. Of these, Mary Clark felt im- 
 pelled to go to Boston. It is singular what keenness on the trail of 
 Quakerism the magistrates possessed. She was arrested, and impris- 
 oned after a severe whipping, inflicted with a three corded whip, " laid 
 on with fury." 
 
 We have already mentioned Christopher Holder, who went to Mar- 
 tha's Vineyard. He was one of Fowler's passengers. The Indians 
 put him ashore at Sandwich, much to the confusion and dismay of that 
 settlement. Thence he and a companion found their way to Plym- 
 outh. A warrant was issued against them " as extravagant persons 
 and vagabonds." A man at whose house they held a meeting was 
 fined ten shillings, and they were reconveyed to Rhode Island. 
 
 Now Boston became seriously alarmed at the influx of Quakers into 
 Rhode Island, which became a kind of port for repairing and 
 refitting, whence Quakerism could sally out to desolate the Boston at 
 land. Commissioners sent a remonstrance to the Governor of "Quaker*"" 
 of that colony, dated September 12, 1657. It contained a 
 vague menace in these words : " We apprehend that it will be our 
 duty seriously to consider what provision God may call us to make 
 
186 QUAKERISM IX NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 to prevent the aforesaid mischief." The General Assembly of Rhode 
 Island, meeting in January, 1658, returned a prudent reply, but it was 
 based upon the statement that " freedom of different consciences, to be 
 protected from enforcements, was the principal ground of our charter " 
 " which freedom we still prize as the greatest happiness that men 
 can possess in this world," and more noble words of like import, em- 
 bedded in which was the politic proposition to refer all diffi- 
 amianathe culties that might arise from the presence of Quakers to the 
 s- pro- supreme authority of England. A letter was also dispatched 
 
 to the agent of the colony in England, stating that " for the 
 present we have no just cause to charge them (Quakers) with the 
 breach of the civil peace." The agent was instructed " to have an eye 
 and ear open, in case our adversaries should seek to undermine us in 
 our privileges granted to us, and to plead our case in such sort as we 
 may not be compelled to exercise any civil power over men's con- 
 sciences, so long as human orders, in point of civility, are not cor- 
 rupted and violated, which our neighbors about us do frequently 
 practice, whereof many of us have large experience, and do judge 
 it to be no less than a point of absolute cruelty." Sweet and solid 
 words, showing that the Rhode Islanders were capable of appreciating 
 Friends, and fit to protect and entertain them. 
 
 In the mean time Holder and Copeland felt a call to go to Salem, 
 
 where they arrived in July, 1657. They made converts 
 go there, though when Holder attempted to speak after service 
 
 in the meeting house, he was held violently down by the hair 
 and a glove and handkerchief thrust into his mouth. A man, Samuel 
 Shattock, whose feelings were shocked into a conviction of the truth of 
 Quakerism, interfered. He was arrested with the two Friends and 
 sent to Boston. After the usual subtle and protracted examination, 
 the Friends were sentenced" to receive thirty lashes each. The execu- 
 tioner, with that notorious three-corded and knotted knout which was 
 used on these religious occasions, " measured his ground and fetched 
 They are I" 8 strokes with all his might." Then with lacerated flesh 
 they were sent to jail, without even straw to lie upon, and 
 kept for three days without food. There they remained nine 
 weeks. Shattock was released on bail to answer afterward. Two 
 other sympathizers, Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick, were also 
 arrested ; Cassandra was kept seven weeks in jail. Another member 
 of the party of eleven was discovered in Dedham : he received thirty 
 lashes and was sent to prison to join his friends. 
 
 During Holder's confinement he wrote a Declaration of Faith, and 
 also a paper setting forth the unscriptural nature of the persecution 
 against Friends. This so enraged the magistrates that, at the instance 
 
 
1657.] INCREASED STRINGENCY OF LAWS. 187 
 
 of Endicott, they resolved that all Quakers who were then in prison 
 should be soundly thrashed twice a week, to begin with fifteen lashes 
 and add three each time ! 
 
 But all this starving, this compendious brutality and nourishing of 
 whips, availed nothing. Already there were many secret converts. It 
 was plain that the first law of 1656 failed to keep foreign Quakers out 
 of New England, and threatened to create native ones. Then, with 
 curious short-sightedness, the men whose historical vista was crowded 
 with images of the pillory, the branding-iron, the whipping-post, the 
 ear-shears, from whose expansive cruelties they had escaped beyond the 
 sea concluded to repeat the experiment which they had proved to be 
 a failure by outliving and subduing it. Another law was AnewUw 
 passed in August, 1657, in effect as follows : that whoever ** 
 shall bring into the jurisdiction, or cause to be brought, any member 
 of the "cursed sect" of Quakers, shall forfeit 100, and be put in 
 jail till the money is paid : that whoever shall entertain or conceal a 
 Quaker, or other blasphemous heretic, shall forfeit forty shillings for 
 every hour of such entertainment, and be imprisoned till all the reck- 
 oned forfeitures are paid ; that every male Quaker who shall presume 
 after commitment by the previous law to come into the jurisdiction 
 shall have one ear cut off and be kept in jail till a chance occurs to 
 get rid him ; that for a second offence the other ear shall be cut off, 
 and he " kept at the house of correction as aforesaid ; " that every 
 woman Quaker, previously committed, who shall appear again, shall 
 be severely whipped, and kept in the house of correction till she can 
 be sent away " at her own charge ;" that every Quaker, " he or she," 
 who shall offend for the third time shall have the tongue bored with 
 a hot iron and then be kept at hard labor in the house of correction 
 until they can be got rid of " at their own charge. " And further- 
 more it is ordered, " that all and every Quaker, arising from amongst 
 ourselves, shall be dealt with and suffer the like punishment as the 
 law provides against foreign Quakers." " You are to take with you 
 the executioner " runs a warrant to the marshal, signed Edward 
 Rawson, Secretary, in pursuance of this law "and repair to the 
 house of correction, and there see him cut off the right ears of John 
 Copeland, Christopher Holder, and John Rons, Quakers." 
 
 Endicott's private and illegal luxury of having the imprisoned 
 Quakers whipped twice a week so shocked and excited the inhabitants 
 that the heretics had to be discharged. The new law was read to 
 them, and they were exiled from the colony. 
 
 A growing popular sympathy for the Friends appeared also in 
 Plymouth, and drove the magistrates into an imitation of the Boston 
 method. A law was passed that no person should entertain a Quaker 
 
188 
 
 QUAKERISM IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. VIIL 
 
 under a penalty of five pounds for each offence, or to be whipped 
 for it. If he could declare on oath that the person entertained was 
 not known by him to be a Quaker, he would be free of the penalty. 
 It would be superfluous to mention each individual case of suffering 
 and persecution of members of the Society, and to dwell upon 
 its features. In fact the cases were too numerous for that. 
 In New Haven a key was tied in Humphrey Norton's mouth 
 to prevent his speaking ; he was sentenced to be whipped in the stocks, 
 
 Proceedings 
 at New 
 
 1 1. -l veil. 
 
 Norton's Punishment. 
 
 
 to be branded in the hand with the letter H for heretic, to be fined 
 ten pounds, and to be banished. Every detail of this sentence was 
 carried out with an alacrity and heartiness that disgusted the bystand- 
 ers. Norton had no money, but a Dutch settler paid his fine and 
 prison fees. Afterwards Norton and a companion venturing to visit 
 Plymouth, the authorities, baffled in their efforts to convict them on 
 
1658.] THE DEATH PENALTY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 189 
 
 the charge of heresy, laid a trap by demanding of them to take the 
 oath of allegiance. This, George Fox would never do ; and no Friend 
 after him could be induced to recognize thus a carnal authority. Nor- 
 ton and Rous were both severely whipped. The barbarous action 
 made converts among the spectators. 
 
 And so the ineffectual work of the colonial authorities went on. 
 Women were stripped for a whipping ; one of them was whipped 
 with a lately born babe clinging to her breast ; the record of fining, 
 starving, imprisoning, banishing, and miscellaneous cruelty becomes 
 monotonous. The whole spirit and disposition of the sufferers were 
 so prayerful, so forgiving, so lifted apparently beyond the reach of 
 pain, yet so resolved to endure unto the end, that a pro- 
 found impression was made upon the people. But the mag- the Friend*' 
 istrates, though secretly alarmed at this, showed no sign 
 of relenting, but rather sought to stamp out the rising sympathy by 
 redoubled severity. Meetings of Friends sprang up in many towns, 
 and notably the largest gatherings were made in places where the 
 application of the law had been severest. And all these people refused 
 henceforth to attend the regular public worship. 
 
 Something more decisive must be done. The ministers, with John 
 Norton at their head, persuaded the magistrates to pass a The death 
 law holding the penalty of death over Quakers once banished. 
 The law, however, was only passed by the accident of the 
 absence of a deputy who was ill. He was a deacon, but 
 would have voted against it. Hastening to the Assembly 1658- 
 he besought that his vote might still be received. The magistrates, 
 however, had procured what they wanted, and were in no humor to 
 gratify the deacon. This Massachusetts law was passed October 20, 
 1658. It also included a provision for imprisoning sympathizers, pub- 
 lishers of Quaker opinions, truants from church assemblies, attendants 
 upon Quaker meetings, and also for banishing obstinate recusants upon 
 pain of death. 
 
 But what shall we say of the action of the General Court in the 
 case of the two children of Lawrence and Cassandra South- The case of 
 wick? Their parents had been banished under penalty of ^ckcuu 1 - 
 death. The children, who stayed behind in extreme poverty, dren 
 could not pay the fine levied on them for non-attendance upon regular 
 worship. That fine must somehow be paid ; and this was the way that 
 Massachusetts men expected to secure their pound of flesh, namely, 
 under this order : "Whereas, Daniel Southwick and Provided South- 
 wick, son and daughter of Lawrence Southwick, absenting themselves 
 from the public ordinances, having been fined by the courts of Salem 
 and Ipswich, pretending they have no estates, and resolving not to 
 
190 
 
 QUAKERISM IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 work, the Court, upon perusal of a law which was made upon account 
 of debts, in answer to what should be done for the satisfaction of the 
 fines, resolves, That the treasurers of the several counties are and shall 
 be fully empowered to sell the said persons to any of the English na- 
 tion at Virginia or Barbadoes, to answer the said fines. " This brother 
 and sister, it was hoped, might bring ten pounds each, and the treas- 
 ury incur no loss. But let it be remembered that there was not a 
 sea-captain in the port of Boston who would turn slave-dealer to suit 
 the General Court. One of them objected that such passengers 
 would spoil the ship's company. Of that the officer assured him he 
 need have no fear, for, he said, " They are poor, harmless creatures, 
 and will not hurt anybody." "And will you " was the sailor's 
 retort " offer to make slaves of such harmless creatures ? " So the 
 children lingered in their poverty till a more favorable opportunity 
 might offer. 
 
 Later an attempt was made to dispose of a mature person in the 
 same way, who was fined for non-attendance on public wor- 
 be sold as ship, and was too poor to discharge it. Again no vessel could 
 
 be found to transport him to a market. Notwithstanding 
 these hints of the popular displeasure, the General Court drafted its 
 intention into a law, as follows : " That all children and servants and 
 others, that for conscience sake cannot come to their meetings to wor- 
 ship, and have not estates in their hands to answer the fines, must be 
 sold for slaves to Barbadoes or Virginia, or other remote parts." 
 Thus the record stands. 
 
 But if death be a darker and more piteous fate than slavery we shall 
 now see the record darken. About the middle of April, 1659, Wil- 
 liam Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson arrived in Boston, under a 
 deep feeling of religious duty, to protest against the intolerance of rulers. 
 It was a day of public fast, and the two Quakers attended church and 
 tried to address the people. They were of course arrested and thrown 
 into prison. Two other Quakers, Nicholas Davis and Patience Scott, 
 who were in Boston at the same time, were also arrested and put in the 
 same prison. Davis came to Boston on business ; but Patience Scott, 
 a remarkable child, only eleven years old, had come from Providence 
 where her parents lived, thinking that she had a message of the Spirit 
 to bear. After an imprisonment of tln-ee months, at her examination 
 she conducted herself with such discretion, and a wisdom far above 
 her years, as quite to baffle the magistrates, who could not help admir- 
 ing her. It would not do to banish such a child, so the Court consid- 
 ering that " Satan is put to his shifts to make use of such a child, " 
 ordered her to be sent home. 
 
 In the guileless earnestness of children there was an appeal which 
 
QUAKERS IMPRISONED. 
 
 191 
 
 even those stern, hard men could not always resist. Mary Wright, 
 a child of thirteen or fourteen years, whose sister had been banished 
 from Massachusetts, found her way from Long Island to Boston that 
 she might warn the magistrates to desist from the persecution of the 
 innocent. She appeared before the court and delivered her message. 
 " This saying so struck them at first, that they all sate silent." 1 Per- 
 haps some of them were thinking when and where it was said 
 " of such are the Kingdom of Heaven." But Secretary Rawson was 
 quick to discern this unwonted mood. "What! " he cried out, "shall 
 we be baffled by such a one as this ? Come, let us drink a dram ! " 
 
 Mary Wright in Court. 
 
 Mary Dyer, who had 
 been turned out of Bos- 
 ton in 1657, hearing of 
 Friends in prison, felt 
 a divine call to visit 
 them. Very soon, by 
 
 a warrant for her arrest, they all met under one roof. Their 
 examination occurred in September, and they were sentenced arrest of 
 to banishment under the penalty of death. Robinson re- iier'baiiish- 
 buked the Court in terms so galling to its pride that he was 
 gagged with a handkerchief ; and when he persisted, the Court, in a 
 rage at his astonishing perversity, had him taken out, stripped to the 
 waist, and well whipped. 
 
 Davis and Mary Dyer went home. Robinson and Stevenson, under 
 an impression of religious duty, went to Salem, where they held meet- 
 ings in the woods, which many of the inhabitants attended. Thence 
 they went to Portsmouth. While this was going on, Mary Dyer 
 
 1 Scwel's History of the Quakers. 
 
192 QUAKERISM IN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 could have no peace of her soul unless she returned to Boston to visit a 
 Friend in prison. She was recognized and arrested. Soon Robinson 
 and Stevenson appeared in Boston ; coming through Salem a party of 
 Friends, four of whom were women, joined them, and the sad journey 
 was made. One of the women " brought linen to wrap the dead bodies 
 of those who were to suffer." The Salem people understood the tem- 
 per of Endicott. They were all arrested ; Robinson and Stevenson 
 were chained in a separate cell. " There were now," says Bowden, 
 " no less than seventeen persons in the jails of Boston for professing 
 Quakerism." 
 
 The three banished ones were brought before the General Court. 
 Great was the embarrassment of the magistrates, for indeed 
 
 of Robin- they shrunk from inflicting the death penalty. The prison- 
 son, Steven- .. i i , i 11- T 
 
 son, and crs all said that they returned in obedience to a divine call. 
 
 Mary Dyer. -n-i-ii -I-I-M-VT-I-I 
 
 tor that day they were remanded to jail. .Next day, how- 
 ever, John Norton preached, and gave the magistrates a piece of his 
 cruel and unrelenting mind ; and putting the cases of the Quakers on 
 the ground of the public danger and the damnable injury done to the 
 salvation of souls, he so stiffened up the Court that Endicott, still with 
 some misgiving which, it was said, was betrayed in his voice and on 
 his face, managed to pronounce sentence of death on the three. He 
 recovered his tone when the superb tranquillity of Mary Dyer nettled 
 him, and he cried, " Take her away." " Yea, joyfully shall I go," she 
 said. 
 
 The 27th of August, the day appointed for the execution, was a 
 sermon day in Boston ; and while John Wilson was keeping 
 up the spirits of his hearers to the standard of the gibbet, a 
 great crowd of amazed and sympathizing people gathered 
 at the prison. Robinson exhorted them from a window till an officer 
 came in and thrust all the Quakers down-stairs and locked them into a 
 room. A company of soldiers could not prevail upon the crowd to 
 disperse. 
 
 Now the procession starts for Boston Common, with a great force 
 of soldiers ; the drummers receive instructions to rattle vigorously if 
 the Quakers should try to speak, which several times they did. Said 
 Marv Dver Mary Dyer, " This is to me an hour of the greatest joy I 
 reprieved. ev er had in this world. No ear can hear, no tongue can 
 utter, and no heart can understand, the sweet incomes and the re- 
 freshings of the Spirit of the Lord which I now feel." Surely there 
 was nothing feigned or fantastic in her feeling. So lofty was the 
 strain of her soul that when at the last moment she was reprieved, 
 she seemed reluctant to accept the fresh lease of life. 
 
 Robinson was the first to suffer ; and even that penalty did not 
 
1660.] 
 
 MARY DYER. 
 
 193 
 
 
 exempt him from insult from Wilson, the minister. " We suffer," he 
 said, " not as evil doers, but as those who have testified and 
 manifested the truth." Wilson interrupted him, " Hold thy 
 tongue thou art going to die with a lie in thy mouth." 
 Then came Stevenson, who simply said, " Be it known unto you all, 
 this day, that we suffer not as evil doers, but for conscience sake." 
 How strange it is that the tone of these men did not remind magis- 
 trates of the early apostolic days. No those lay dead and buried 
 in their Bibles. 
 
 Mary Dyer stood by and calmly saw these bodies dangle, waiting her 
 turn. The rope was adjusted, her clothes tied around her feet, for the 
 
 Mary Dyer led to Execution. 
 
 General Court is decent. At the last moment the cry of her reprieve 
 came sounding across the Common, extorted by the pleadings of her 
 son ; and Wilson will have to wait awhile. The government would 
 not incur the expense for coffins ; the bodies were stripped and thrown 
 into a pit unburied, in spite of the remonstrance of many people. 
 
 Mai'y Dyer was only reprieved for two days. But at the end of that 
 time the magistrates saw that it would be more prudent to banish her 
 again, and she returned alone to Rhode Island. 
 
 The usual effect followed of a propagation of Quaker sentiment. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 13 
 
194 QUAKERISM IN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 Sevei-al people were fined, imprisoned, and whipped in consequence. 
 The other Quakers in the prison were also whipped and dis- 
 meas- charged. Some of them refused to pay their prison fees, 
 
 but there were plenty of aggrieved and compassionate citi- 
 zens to undertake that charge. 
 
 Then Mary Dyer returned again to Boston, as it was required of her, 
 she said, to finish her sad and heavy experience in that bloody town. 
 She came in March, 1660. " Are you the same Mary Dyer that was 
 here before ? " asked Endicott. " I am the same Mary Dyer," she 
 answered, " that was here the last General Court." A letter soon 
 followed from her husband, who was not a Quaker, to Governor En- 
 dicott. It contained a touching appeal that the life of his wife might 
 be preserved. " If her zeal be so great as thus to adventure, oh, let 
 your pity and favor surmount it, ana save her life." " I only say 
 this, yourselves have been, and are, or may be, husbands to wives : so 
 am I, yea, to one most dearly beloved. Oh, do not deprive me of 
 her, but I pray give her me once again. Pity me ! I beg it with 
 tears, and rest your humble suppliant." 
 
 But Endicott asked " You will own yourself a Quaker, will you 
 not ? " "I own myself to be reproachfully called so," was 
 retentenwi her answer. Then the Governor pronounced the sentence of 
 death against her before the General Court. " This," said 
 she, " is no more than thou saidst before." " But now it is to be ex- 
 ecuted : therefore prepare yourself for nine o'clock to-morrow." And 
 as she spake concerning the motives for her return, Endicott impa- 
 tiently ordered her away. So next day, with a strong body of sol- 
 diers, for fear of the people, and with drummers before and behind 
 to drown the dreadful, accusing voice, she reached Boston Common 
 again. There she refused to purchase her life at the expense of not 
 performing her present mission from the Lord. She declined the 
 prayers of any elder ; this was offered gratis to her. Wilson called 
 Her execu- ou ^ * uer no * * ^ e 8O deluded by the devil. " Nay, man, 
 Uon I am not now to repent," she answered. Some one taunted 
 
 her with having said that she had been in Paradise. " Yea, I have 
 been in Paradise several days," Then came the end. " She did 
 hang as a flag," said one of her judges scoffingly, "for others to take 
 example by." 
 
 In this year monthly meetings of the Society were set up in many 
 places in New England. Quarterly meetings were established a few 
 years later. 
 
 William Leddra was a banished Quaker who dared to return in the 
 same year. Early in 1661 he was brought before the Court, bound 
 with chains to a log which he dragged behind him. His examination 
 
 
1661.] END OF THE PERSECUTION. 195 
 
 swarmed with trivial questions and absurd replies to his responses. 
 But the court tried to persuade him to recant his opinions and save his 
 life. " What ! join with such murderers as you are ! Then Executioner 
 let every man that meets me say, Lo, this is the man that Leddr * 
 hath forsaken the God of his salvation." So on a day when a sermon 
 was to be delivered he was sentenced to be executed. After the con- 
 clusion of it he too found his way to Boston Common, and died there 
 as tranquilly as his predecessors. 
 
 This was the last execution in Boston for cause of religious opinion. 
 A great many Quakers were still languishing in prison ; 
 among them was Wenlock Christison, a returned banished weniock 
 
 Chrigtison. 
 
 Quaker, and liable to be hanged. He happened to return on 
 the day that Leddra was sentenced and entered the Court at the mo- 
 ment of pronouncing the sentence. His presence struck dumb the 
 magistrates. But he was soon brought to the bar, briefly questioned, 
 and sent to prison. On the day when Leddra was hanged, he was 
 brought to the bar again, the magistrates hoping to frighten him into 
 a recantation. They offered him that or death. He preferred the lat- 
 ter, in such a style of speech and sweetness of temper as greatly to con- 
 fuse his persecutors, which being noticed by Endicott much disturbed 
 him. He was remanded until the next General Court, when a strong 
 minority appeared against the death penalty ; but Endicott passion- 
 ately sentenced him. And he prophesied : " If you have power to 
 take my life from me, the which I question, I believe you shall never 
 more take Quakers' lives from them. Note my words." Sure enough ; 
 and they were notable ; for about this time the news of the Restoration 
 reached Boston, and there was no Cromwell of any name to 
 countenance the doings of the Puritan. This, coupled with tion. rt^ 
 the growing anger of the people, led to a general jail delivery Fnendare- 
 of Quakers, including Christison. A new law was passed, 
 substituting for the death penalty banishment on pain of a whipping 
 from town to town ; and several were so treated. Josiah Southwick 
 an elder brother of the two children who were sentenced to be sold 
 as slaves said, on hearing his sentence, " Here is my body ; if you 
 want a further testimony to the truth I profess, take it and tear it in 
 pieces ; it is freely given up ; and for your sentence I matter not. It 
 is no more terrifying to me than if ye had taken a feather and blown 
 it in the air." Then he was whipped through Boston, Roxbury, and 
 Dedham, and cast off into the wilderness. 
 
 It seemed advisable to enlighten Charles II. upon the opinions and 
 practices of the Quakers, to make it appear that they were of An ^1^ 
 such a nature as to justify the General Court in its exercise tothe King- 
 of the late severities. An address was prepared and sent to the King, 
 
196 
 
 QUAKERISM IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 setting forth the necessity of extreme measures against those enemies 
 of religion and government. The Friends in London furnished the 
 King with a counter-declaration which took up severally the charges 
 in the address, and showed how unlikely to be true they were, and 
 how contrary to the principles of the Society. A book, entitled " New 
 England Judged, written by a Friend, giving a minute account of the 
 persecutions in the colony," was also put into the hands of the King, 
 who was particularly struck by a passage that reported remarks by a 
 prominent enemy of the Society, to this effect : " This year ye will go 
 
 Shattock's Commission. 
 
 and complain to the Parliament ; and the next year they will send to 
 see how it is ; and the third year the government is changed." 
 Whether or not this was accurately repeated, it had a great effect 
 upon the King. " Lo, these are my good subjects of New England, 
 but I will put a stop to them." And when about this time the news 
 of the execution of William Leddra reached England, it was plain to 
 the Quakers that they might count upon the royal interposition. 
 
 At the personal solicitation of Edward Burrough, a prominent and 
 
1661.] THE KING'S ORDER. 197 
 
 influential member of the Society, the King put into his hands an 
 order " To our trusty and well-beloved John Endicott, Esq., charle i n - 
 and to all and every other the governor or governors of our j^^E^f^ 
 plantations," etc., commanding them to forbear to proceed Fnends 
 any further against their prisoners, but to send them over to England, 
 with the charges against them. With excellent policy and fine irony 
 the order was entrusted to Samuel Shattock, a Quaker, banished under 
 penalty of death ; the Society hired a vessel and sent him over with 
 dispatch. 
 
 It was a pardonable and not unnatural weakness in Shattock if he 
 felt some satisfaction when he came into the presence of En- 
 dicott with his hat on and that order in his pocket. The presents the 
 captain of the vessel, also a Quaker, accompanied him. En- to Endicott. 
 dicott ordered Shattock 's hat to be removed, and was pro- 
 ceeding to make the old brutal interrogations preparatory to sending 
 him to prison, when Samuel presented his credentials and the order. 
 A sight of the Governor's face at that moment might have atoned for 
 a good deal of persecution. In his amazement he handed back Shat- 
 tock 's hat to him, and took off his own in deference to the presence of 
 the King's authority, then slowly read the papers. He withdrew 
 awhile to collect himself, then took Shattock with him to the Deputy 
 Governor, Bellingham. After <* brief conference with him, Endicott 
 simply said, " We shall obey his Majesty's commands." 
 
 But should the prisoners be sent to England ? That would be to 
 send loud and swift witnesses against their own doings. How, then, 
 should the exigency be met ? Simply by not having any prisoners ! 
 William Salter, keeper of Boston jail, was at once ordered to release 
 and discharge all the Quakers in his custody. 
 
 When soon after John Norton, the minister, and Simon Bradstreet 
 were sent as commissioners to England to assure the King of Ml8Pion o{ 
 the loyalty of Massachusetts which there was good reason 
 for doubting the question of the treatment of the Quakers 
 was one pretty certain to confront and trouble them. They were met 
 in London by Friends, among them John Copeland, whose mutilated 
 ear was a swift witness against them of the trials and persecutions he 
 and his fellows had suffered in Boston. George Fox himself was pres- 
 ent at this conference, and questioned the Commissioners so closely 
 that they soon became confused. William Robinson's father, who 
 was not a Friend, might, it was suggested, institute an investigation 
 as to the death of his son. Some there were who proposed that the 
 Commissioners should be held personally responsible for the persecu- 
 tion of Friends in Massachusetts. When the Commissioners returned 
 to Boston and they were received with marked ill-favor because their 
 
 to 
 
198 QUAKERISM IN NEW ENGLAND. [CiiAi-. VIII. 
 
 mission was less successful than it was hoped it would be, the disap- 
 pointment and chagrin was supposed to have caused Norton's death. 
 At any rate he soon died suddenly, and this was of course accepted 
 by the Quakers as a judgment. 
 
 But when the magistrates found that the feeling against them was 
 seventies abating, and that no warrant would be likely to issue from 
 K?u"!a!. re- England, they revived their exercises against the Quakers, so 
 far as to have them whipped whenever they could be found 
 delivering their message. Men and women were tied to the cart's 
 tail and scourged from town to town ; and this happened also in New 
 Hampshire, which then belonged to the jurisdiction of the Bay. Three 
 women preaching in Dover were driven thus from constable to con- 
 stable through several towns, receiving ten lashes in each town. This 
 was in December, 1662, and the season was inclement also. Two 
 bystanders who expressed commiseration were clapped in the stocks. 
 In Cambridge a woman was thrown into the jail without food, and 
 nothing to lie upon. A Friend brought her some milk ; he was fined 
 five pounds and put into the same jail. The woman was whipped 
 through three towns. She returned several times to Boston, and was 
 whipped each time. The last occasion happened in 1665, on the day 
 when Endicott was buried. She attended the funeral, and making, 
 probably, some unpalatable remarks, was imprisoned. She was then 
 sixty-five years old. 
 
 The cases of these persecutions are too numerous to mention singly, 
 Further in- an( ^ they all have a revolting sameness. They lasted ten 
 from'th" 8 years, and did not come to an end until the King, offended 
 Kmg by the prohibition of Episcopacy and of the reading of the 
 
 Liturgy, issued sharp injunctions. To Massachusetts he said, " It is 
 very scandalous that any person should be debarred the exercise of 
 his religion, according to the laws and customs of England, by those 
 who were indulged with the liberty of being of what profession or 
 religion they pleased." To Connecticut he sent, " All persons of civil 
 lives might freely enjoy the liberty of their consciences, and the wor- 
 ship of God in that way which they think best." So it came to pass 
 that Quakerism conquered a life in New England. 
 
 " We own," wrote Penn from his cell in Newgate, " we own Civil 
 Government, or Magistracy, as God's Ordinance for the pun- 
 statement of ishment of Evil-doers and the praise of them that do well ; 
 
 Joctriue. ' i i i i 
 
 and though we cannot comply with those laws that prohibit 
 us to worship God according to our Consciences, as believing it to be 
 His alone Prerogative to preside in matters of Faith and Worship, 
 yet we both own and are ready to yield Obedience to every Ordinance 
 of Man relating to Human Affairs and that for Conscience-sake." 
 
1661.] PENN'S STATEMENT OF DOCTRINE. 199 
 
 Through long years of suffering and tribulation this was the unvary- 
 ing rule of the Friends. So even and self-possessed was their temper 
 that it was only in rare instances that outrage and hardship provoked 
 some ill-balanced disciple to extravagance and fanaticism. " To con- 
 ceit," wrote Penn when a prisoner in the Tower of London, " that 
 men must form their Faith of things proper to Another World by 
 the Prescriptions of mortal Men, or else they can have no right to 
 eat, drink, sleep, walk, trade, be at liberty, or live in This, to me 
 seems both ridiculous and dangerous." l Eminent common sense like 
 this was united, in them, with a noble courage and a power of en- 
 durance which nothing could overcome. They disobeyed human law 
 only in obedience, as they believed, to the divine law, taking the con- 
 sequences without resistance. Prisons, loss of worldly estate, scourg- 
 ings, mutilations, the rage of mobs, ruin and persecution in every form, 
 were visited upon them in the blindness of an intolerant age. But it 
 was only by the Puritans of Massachusetts that they were hanged. 
 
 1 Select Works of William Penn. 
 

 I 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND UNDER THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 , 
 
 RETURN OF SIR JOHN HARVEY TO VIRGINIA. His NEW ADMINISTRATION. SUC- 
 CEEDED BY WYAT. SIR WILLIAM BERKELEY APPOINTED GOVERNOR. THB 
 PURITANS AND ROYALISTS OF VIRGINIA. LAWS AGAINST THE FORMER. INDIAN 
 INSURRECTION IN 1643. DEATH OF OPECHANCANOUGH. GROWTH OF THE COLONY. 
 EMIGRATION OF CAVALIERS TO AMERICA. SURRENDER OF VIRGINIA TO THE 
 PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONERS. REDUCTION OF MARYLAND. CHARACTER AND 
 CAREER OF WILLIAM CLAYBORNE. ATTEMPTS OF LORD BALTIMORE TO RETAIN 
 MARYLAND. GOVERNOR STONE'S PROCEEDINGS. FIGHT ON THE SEVERN. THE 
 CONTROVERSY ENDED. RESTORATION OF BERKELEY IN VIRGINIA. NEW LAWS 
 UNDER THE ROYAL GOVERNMENT. SLAVERY. THE TOBACCO TRADE AND THE 
 NAVIGATION ACT. NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN INTERESTS. 
 
 WHEN in 1635 the Virginia Assem- 
 bly and Council moved thereto by 
 the troubles with Maryland sent Sir 
 John Harvey to England to answer for jfe turn of 
 the part he had taken in those troubles, ft^Jlo 
 the king declared that he should go back virginia 
 again to rule over the insolent colonists, if it were only for a day. 1 
 The threat was made good, and within two years Harvey returned, 
 bringing with him as colonial treasurer, Jerome Hawley, one of Cal- 
 vert's first councillors, and Richard Kemp as colonial secretary. 
 
 i Vol. i.. p. 504 
 
1642.] HARVEY, WYAT, AND BERKELEY. 201 
 
 Both men were fit coadjutors for Harvey, who showed in his con- 
 duct of affairs for the next two years the same overbearing temper 
 which before had made him so obnoxious. The records of his new 
 administration are meagre, for he permitted no assembly to be called, 
 and took all power into his own hands, except so far as he chose to 
 share it with the treasurer and secretary. In the differences between 
 Maryland and Virginia his sympathies were unchanged. Hawley, he 
 permitted, while still treasurer and councillor of Virginia, to sit as a 
 member of the Maryland Assembly of 1637-8, that Assembly which 
 tried Thomas Smith for piracy and murder, and condemned him to be 
 hanged for acting as second in command to Warren in the fight be- 
 tween him and Cornwallis ; l and which passed, at the same time, a 
 bill of attainder against Clayborne, and pronounced a forfeiture of all 
 his property in Maryland. 
 
 Kemp was also the friend of Lord Baltimore, and soon became 
 equally unpopular with Harvey and Hawley ; for there was no abate- 
 ment of feeling among the Virginia people as to the Maryland con- 
 troversy. The official acts, however, which made the secretary dis- 
 liked, are not so well remembered as that he built the best brick 
 mansion-house in the colony, and that it was " the fairest ever known 
 in this country for substance and uniformity." 
 
 Harvey's administration continued for about two years only, when 
 Sir Francis Wyat succeeded him for the two years follow- 
 ing. The best known of all the Virginia colonial governors, ce^ds HM- 
 whose occupation of that office was the longest, and the 
 events of his administration the most important and interesting of 
 that period, Sir William Berkeley, followed Wyat, arriving at 
 Jamestown early in 1642. 
 His appointment was popu- 
 lar and his reception enthu- 
 siastic, though there was 
 nothing in his instructions 
 
 Signature of Berkeley. 
 
 to warrant the hope of any 
 
 change for the better in the government of the colony. Indeed, so far 
 as the royal orders differed at all from those which had been given 
 to preceding governors, they were inimical to the best interests of the 
 colony in proposing some new regulations in regard to the trade in 
 tobacco. The Governor, however, seems not to have given offence by 
 any serious attempt to enforce a royal command, which, a few years 
 later, became an imperative law in the far more stringent and inju- 
 rious measures of the Navigation Act of the Long Parliament. 
 
 But no shadow of coming trouble darkened the beginning of Berke- 
 
 i Vol. i., p. 507. 
 
202 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 ley's administration. The Assembly was soon convened, and entire 
 harmony was assured between the royal governor and the 
 Berkeley colonial legislature. One of its first acts was to send a protest 
 to England against a project to revive the old charter and 
 reestablish the old Company. Against so unpopular a measure Gov- 
 ernor, Assembly, and councillors were cordially united. The proposi- 
 tion had been urged upon Parliament by George Sandys and others, 
 and a petition in its favor had even been sent forward from Virginia, 
 signed, however, by only a few persons. The Assembly remonstrated 
 with great earnestness, contrasting the condition of the colony when 
 under the rule of the Company, with its condition when delivered 
 from that rule. The king gave a prompt and positive assurance that 
 there should be no change. 
 
 Charles was at York when he sent this answer. The remonstrance 
 to which it was a reply was full of assurances of the loyalty of Vir- 
 ginia and of devotion to his own person. He was, at that moment, 
 arming for the struggle which was to cost him his throne and his 
 head, and this interchange of cordial feeling probably helped to con- 
 firm that fidelity to the royal cause which Virginia, alone of all the 
 colonies, maintained to the last. 
 
 There was, nevertheless, a growing Puritan, as well as a Royalist 
 party in Virginia, and hostility between the two soon made itself man- 
 ifest. In New England religious zeal had often determined purely po- 
 litical measures ; in Virginia the order was reversed ; political causes 
 produced the first decided action ever taken in the colony upon the 
 question of religious observance. Up to the time of Berkeley the laws 
 for enforcing conformity to the Church of England were practically a 
 dead letter. But the Puritan was now a political as well as a relig- 
 ious dissenter. A royalist province, ruled by a governor whose devo- 
 tion to the king had the earnestness of a religious faith, was ready to 
 resort to any measure for the punishment of disloyal citizens. 
 
 In March, 1643, the Assembly enacted that " for the preservation of 
 the purity of doctrine and unity of the church," . ..." all 
 ministers whatsoever, which shall reside in the colony, are 
 to be conformable to the orders and constitutions of the 
 Church of England and the laws therein established ; and not other- 
 wise to be admitted to teach or preach, either publicly or privately ; 
 and that the governor and council do take care that all non-conform- 
 ists, upon notice of them, shall be compelled to depart the colony with 
 all convenience." 
 
 In the preceding year a number of Puritans living in Virginia had 
 begged of the Boston elders that ministers might be sent to them from 
 New England. In accordance with this request three Massachusetts 
 
1643.] 
 
 PERSECUTION OF THE PURITANS. 
 
 203 
 
 clergymen had gone down to Jamestown, and had been settled over 
 goodly congregations in different parts of the province. This was 
 not without objection from the authorities, though they were com- 
 mended by the government of Massachusetts to that of the sister 
 colony. But it was enough for the preachers that they found " the 
 hearts of the people much inflamed with desire after the ordi- 
 
 nances. 
 
 It was upon these men and their churches that the Assembly's pro- 
 hibition, speedily reinforced by a proclamation from the Governor, fell 
 with its first force. Their congregations were broken up ; and though 
 for a time (according to Winthrop) " the people resorted to them in 
 
 Breaking up of a Puritan Meeting. 
 
 private houses to hear them," they 
 soon returned to Massachusetts. 
 The congregations themselves were 
 soon dispersed, some passing the 
 Maryland border to become there ere long a cause of serious dissen- 
 sions; others taking refuge in New Netherland. It was only the most 
 stout-hearted that remained, hoping for Parliamentary successes in 
 England to ameliorate their condition. Such successes, indeed, were 
 already near, and Marston Moor was soon to lend new courage to 
 American as well as to English Puritans. 
 
 Hardly a twelvemonth had passed, however, after the passage of 
 the Act of March, 1643, when there came upon Virginia 
 that sudden and terrible calamity of which Winthrop says, with the 
 many, even of Virginia, were forced to give "glory to God 
 in acknowledging that this evil was sent upon them from God for their 
 reviling the gospel and those faithful ministers he had sent among 
 
204 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 them." For twenty years the peaceful relations between the English 
 and the natives had been, for the most part, unbroken. But the 
 great massacre of 1622 was remembered as a fearful era in the history 
 of the colony, and the more exposed settlements never forgot to be 
 cautious nor ceased to be anxious at the approach of any large body of 
 savage guests or traders. Not long before the coming of Sir William 
 Berkeley, some Indian outrages upon some of the frontier farms, and 
 an increase of theft and treachery among the natives who hung about 
 the villages, increased the general apprehension and mistrust. The 
 Assembly, at length alarmed, as these signs of coming trouble grew, 
 declared in 1643, that " no peace " should be maintained with the 
 Indians, and that they should be treated as enemies. Thus made an 
 outlaw, a savage might anywhere be shot by the whites with im- 
 punity. 
 
 It was an ill-judged and cruel measure, certain to give fresh in ten - 
 insurrection S ^Y * ^ ie longing for vengeance among the Indians, already 
 6 alarmed and exasperated by the increasing encroachments 
 o ne w bite men upon their hunting-grounds. They knew 
 that a great war was waging among the English at home ; they saw 
 that the colonists were divided among themselves ; and their venera- 
 ble chief, Opechancanough over whose head had passed nearly a 
 hundred winters summoned them to rid the land of their hated 
 enemies. 
 
 On the 18th of April, 1644, 1 an attack planned with all the cunning 
 that had everywhere distinguished Indian massacres, was made upon 
 the outlying settlements, and from three hundred to five hundred of 
 the English slaughtered. For some unexplained reason, but prob- 
 ably the sudden recollection of the sharp vengeance that would be 
 sure to overtake them, the Indians were seized with a panic. The 
 massacre ceased when it had barely begun ; the savages hurriedly 
 retreated to the woods before even an attempt at resistance had been 
 made. 
 
 The blow was a terrible one ; yet in the condition the colony had 
 now reached, it was light as compared with the similar outbreak of 
 twenty-two years before. Such a calamity, in a province of more 
 than thirty years' standing, well-organized for defence and with rulers 
 prepared to act promptly, was a different matter from the annihila- 
 tion of a great part of a struggling settlement of scattered planters, 
 under the unpopular and inefficient government of a feeble Company. 
 Sir William Berkeley turned upon the savages with all the forces of 
 
 1 The date of the massacre is only guessed at by the older historians some of them 
 putting it in one year, and some in another ; but it is fixed by Winthrop's Journal, ii 
 165, and Savage's note, and by Hening's Statutes for 1645. See also Campbell, 203. 
 
1644.] 
 
 OPECHANCANOUGH. 
 
 205 
 
 the colony ; and after driving them from one point to another, severely 
 punishing all such as could be actually met in battle, he sue- He ig t^^ 
 ceeded, with a troop of mounted men, in capturing Opechan- P nsoner - 
 canough himself and bringing him in triumph into Jamestown. 
 
 The Indian king was altogether broken and enfeebled by his great 
 age. He hardly lived, except in that vigor of will and in that hostil- 
 ity to his English foes which could end only with his life. He could 
 no longer walk ; his captors carried him in a rough litter made of 
 branches. Partial paralysis had robbed him of his strength ; he could 
 not even unclose his eyes to look about him at the people who came 
 
 Death of Opechancanough. 
 
 crowding around his bed. Those who attended him were accustomed, 
 when he asked it, to lift up his eyelids so that his rapidly failing sight 
 could show him what was passing ; but, with true savage stoicism, he 
 seldom made the request, and passed the greater part of his time in 
 an apparent stupor. He was imprisoned in the town, and it was said 
 that Berkeley intended taking him to England, to show the English a 
 man who had been for years the terror of their colony. But he had 
 hardly been placed in confinement when one of his guards, perhaps 
 irritated by some remembered injury, wantonly shot the 
 wretched prisoner through the back, 1 giving a wound that 
 soon proved fatal, and saved the dying savage the misery of a death 
 away from his own country. As he lay dying the tradition runs 
 
 1 Beverley, 57. Bark, ii., 53, note. 
 
206 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 he asked for the last time that his eyelids should be raised ; and look- 
 ing dimly at the crowd about him, said indignantly to the Governor, 
 that had it been his fortune to have taken Sir William Berkeley pris- 
 oner, " he should not meanly have exposed him as a show to his 
 people." 
 
 Opechancanough was the last of the great chiefs who ruled in abso- 
 lute and undivided sovereignty over the confederation of Virginian 
 tribes which had formerly called Powhatan their king. His successor, 
 Necotowance, after two years of unavailing warfare, made formal sub- 
 mission to the whites by a treaty in the autumn of 1646. From that 
 time Virginia suffered, like other colonies, only from the hostilities of 
 scattered tribes, or from the sudden raids of independent bands, never 
 from a great organized attack of a whole savage nation, aroused, as 
 Opechancanough had aroused them, by the hope of a complete exter- 
 mination of the strangers. 
 
 In the early summer of 1644, Sir William Berkeley sailed for Eng- 
 land for a year's visit, and left Richard Kemp as his deputy in charge 
 of the province. It was a time when an Englishman of property and 
 influence at home a courtier and a soldier, as well as a member of 
 a family which had every interest at stake, could hardly sit quietly 
 in his colonial governorship, and watch from beyond seas the conflict 
 for life in which his king and his brothers were fighting. The storm 
 of the Civil War was sweeping over his own county of Gloucester- 
 shire when Berkeley reached it ; and before he returned again to 
 Virginia to which he seerns to have hurried back with the convic- 
 tion that he could serve the king better there than in the field, 
 the battle of Naseby had been fought, and the royal cause was lost. 
 There was little leisure now in the Parliament for any attention to 
 colonial affairs ; in the four years that followed, the American prov- 
 ince was left to govern itself in its own way. It could hardly have 
 had a better ruler than the vigorous cavalier Governor. 
 
 These four years saw an unusual addition to the population of the 
 Growth of colony unusual both in numbers and in character. At a 
 the colony, time when emigration to New England had greatly fallen 
 away, the English Puritans seeing a better day in their own land 
 and having few of the old motives to leave it, precisely opposite 
 reasons brought to Virginia companies of royalists whose fortunes the 
 war had wrecked, or who had with difficulty saved a little competence 
 from the impending ruin. They came by hundreds to the one spot 
 in the new world in which their king, their traditions, and their 
 church were still respected ; and they brought with them their old 
 way of life, the way of court and camp ; the careless luxury and the 
 careless morality which were abominations to their Roundhead adver- 
 
1649.] EMIGRATION OF CAVALIERS. 207 
 
 saries. The death of Charles sent many even of his most persistent 
 adherents to America; "for," writes one of them, Colonel Norwood, 
 " if our spirits were somewhat depressed in contemplation of a bar- 
 barous restraint upon the person of our king in the Isle of Wight, to 
 what horrors and despairs must our minds be reduced at the bloody 
 and bitter stroke of his assassination at his palace of Whitehall ? . . . . 
 The sad prospect of affairs in this juncture gave such a damp to ali 
 the royal party who had resolved to persevere in the principle which 
 engaged them in the war, that a very considerable number of nobility, 
 clergy, and gentry, so circumstanced, did fly from their native country 
 as from a place infected with the plague." 1 
 
 Cape Hatteras. 
 
 This Colonel Norwood left a narrative of his own and his compan- 
 ions' perilous and eventful voyage away from " so hot a con- The ,,. 
 tagion," that is as vivid and as entertaining as the story tlveofCo1 - 
 
 onel Nor- 
 wood. 
 
 of the wanderings of a new Ulysses. " The cavaliers changed 
 their clime but not their habits," 2 wrote a Virginian historian ; and 
 one sees how true this was in reading the adventures of this exiled 
 royalist, with his jollity in the midst of adversity, and his characteristic 
 mixture of bravery, sentiment, and cynicism. How the voyage began 
 merrily enough (after the ship had kept them waiting " until our 
 money was almost spent at Deal ") ; how they touched at Fayal for 
 water, and caroused there for days together over their Madeira and 
 " handsome plenty of fish and fowl ; " how they met with a wonderful 
 Portuguese beauty, whom Norwood describes with glowing eloquence, 
 and with whom they drank the health of their respective kings " with 
 thundering peals of cannon ; " how finally they sailed away westward 
 their ship barely escaping a water-spout which would have " made 
 her do the supersalt ; " all this is probably not unlike many another 
 
 1 Norwood's Voyage, in Force's Hist. Tracts, iii., 10th paper, p. 1. 
 
 2 "Ccdum non anhnum mutant 171/1 trans mare curriint." Horace. 
 
208 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 Virginian voyage. But as they neared the American coast their 
 troubles began. Escaping by a lucky chance from the Shoals off Hat- 
 teras, where they were aground for a little time, they beat to sea 
 again, only to be driven far out by " mountainous tow'ring northwest 
 seas " and a furious gale, their ship dismasted, their provisions and 
 water nearly exhausted. For nearly sixty days they beat about, until, 
 after many adventures, they came to anchor off the mouth of a creek 
 in an unknown region. 
 
 Here Norwood and a large party going ashore for water, were 
 basely abandoned by their comrades. They were in reality upon an 
 island on the coast of Virginia , though some distance from the main ; 
 and for ten days or more they endured the extreme horrors that 
 fall to the lot of shipwrecked men and women. The living de- 
 voured the bodies of those who had " the happiness to end their mis- 
 erable lives ; " and " terrible stoi'ins of hail and snow at northwest " 
 beat upon their wretched bodies in the bitter January weather. 
 Finally, about the tenth day, Indians came to them from the shore, 
 who proved friendly, took them to the main land, and brought them 
 to an Indian village where they were feasted royally. All manner of 
 strange things happened to them among the savages, no word of 
 whose language they could understand ; and they were almost doubt- 
 ing whether this friendliness was not a cover for intended treachery, 
 when suddenly an English trader from Jamestown appeared among 
 them. Norwood, from the beginning the acknowledged leader of the 
 party, who had held them together throughout with his unwearied 
 courage and readiness in expedients, now hurried southward with a 
 guide, to the hospitable settlements along the Chesapeake. He was 
 everywhere received with great hospitality as he went from planta- 
 tion to plantation, and on arriving at the house of Captain Wormly, 
 not far from York River, he found " feasting and carousing," his old 
 friends Sir Thomas Lundsford, Sir Henry Chichely, Sir Philip Honey- 
 wood, and several more, all recently come from England, but with 
 better luck than he. The next morning, on a good horse, he was on 
 his way to Jamestown, to his kinsman Berkeley. 
 
 Apart from the interest of his narrative there is no account of so 
 early a date, that gives so clear a picture of the class of men which, at 
 this time, went to Virginia. Each substantial manor was filled dur- 
 ing these years with guests enjoying the liberal hospitality of a time 
 when crops were plenty, and the abundance of fish and game had not 
 been diminished. 1 For a while the little capital of Jamestown was 
 lively with these shabby cavaliers, their pockets as empty, their swords 
 
 1 A Virginia law ordered that " if any inhabitant received any stranger Merchant, or 
 border into their houses, and did not condition in Writing with him or them so entertained 
 
1648.] 
 
 EMIGRATION OF CAVALIERS. 
 
 209 
 
 as ready in a brawl, their hands as averse to labor, and their spirits as 
 irrepressible as the most reckless and most worthless of their kind 
 at home. Some at length took up plantations for themselves, waiting 
 the more prosperous days of the Restoration, while others who were 
 altogether as ruined in purse as in reputation became dispersed 
 among the ordinary people of the province. 
 
 All the projects for the emigration of distressed cavaliers to Amer- 
 ica during these years of their adversity, were not conceived 
 
 & J Plowden's 
 
 11 
 
 upon a scale so modest as Tisit to the 
 
 
 but the 
 
 that of Colonel Norwood 
 and his few companions ; 
 more ambitious plans appear to 
 have miscarried. In or just be- 
 fore the year 1648, that somewhat 
 mysterious character, Beauchamp 
 Plantagenet (whose name is sup- 
 
 The Cavaliers at Wormly's house. 
 
 posed to be a pseudonym of Sir Edmund Plowden or Ployden) visited 
 Virginia and Maryland to look for a desirable site whereon the " New 
 Albion Company " could plant a colony ; but finding one spot too wet 
 and another too dry, one too exposed to savage attack and another 
 to diseases, he went further north to continue his search. 
 
 Widely different was the scheme of the English poet, Sir William 
 
 on what tearms he received them, it should be supposed an invitation, an no satisfaction 
 should be allowed or recorded in any Court of Justice." Leah and Rachel, in Force's 
 Hist. Tracts, iii., 14th paper, p. 15. 
 
 VOL. II. 14 
 
210 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 Davenant, for leading a colony to the one province which seemed to 
 him faithful to the king and cause for which he had suffered 
 proposed and been exiled. This was a true poet's scheme to take 
 out from France a little company of French artisans, vine- 
 growers, and silk makers, and to plant a new Arcadia, where there 
 should be no more noise of wars and overthrow of thrones, but peace, 
 and pleasant toil, and pastoral simplicity. He had, no doubt, thoughts 
 of a pure and patriarchal government, made up (to take a line from 
 one of his own old poems) from " the assembled souls of all that men 
 held wise." l The exiled royal family and the French government 
 aided him in carrying out his plan ; his company was brought together, 
 and the expedition sailed for America with high hope of success. But 
 a short distance off the coast the vessel was discovered by the English 
 fleet, captured, and taken to an English port. Davenant, well known 
 as a prominent and staunch royalist, would, it is said, have been con- 
 demned to death by the Puritan rulers, had it not been for the in- 
 tercession of Milton, who pleaded successfully for the lesser poet's life. 
 Virginians weffe by no means calm spectators of the bitter strife 
 among their countrymen at home, but the great body of the older 
 settlers, whose chief interests were in Virginia, did not let political 
 excitements interfere with the steady progress of the colony. Trade 
 was comparatively unrestricted, for there was laxity in enforcing regu- 
 lations while the rights of conflicting parties were in question. More 
 than thirty vessels annually brought out English goods and took back 
 cargoes of native products. Men did not cease to smoke Virginian 
 tobacco because they were passing through a great political convul- 
 sion ; and that continued to be the great staple of the colony, though 
 the price had sunk to threepence the pound. As the planters increased 
 in wealth they added to their plantations, and attached themselves to 
 their homes by building spacious mansions, and surrounding them with 
 all the appliances of generous and luxurious living at their command. 
 There was no lack of skilled labor, for among the fifteen thousand 
 English 2 who made up the population of the colony in 1648, there 
 were workmen in every branch, and new experiments were making 
 Condition of * n a ^ directions in smelting iron, in hemp and flax cul- 
 the colony. ^ ure? [ n vine-raising, in the making of indigo, and the manu- 
 facture of brick. There are few years in the early colonial history 
 of Virginia more marked by general activity and prosperity than 
 those four during which England was convulsed with civil war, and 
 the province was left practically to its own devices. 
 
 The Long Parliament turned, at length, when some signs of tran- 
 
 1 Davenant's Gondihert, book ii., Canto v. 
 
 2 A Perfect Description of Virginia, etc., in Force, ii. 
 
2 
 
 " 
 O 
 
 ai 
 3 
 en 
 
 a 
 

1652.] THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONERS. 211 
 
 quillity at home permitted, to the subjection of those distant colonies 
 which hitherto had remained faithful to the royal cause. Barba- 
 does, Bermuda, and Antigua had refused to recognize the govern- 
 ment of the Commonwealth ; the Assembly of Virginia had openly 
 denounced the execution of the king, and enacted a law, making it 
 treason to asperse his memory or question the lawful succession of 
 his son. The neighboring province of Maryland was looked upon 
 with suspicion, though Lord Baltimore had spared no effort to gain 
 the favor of the party in power. In October, 1650, Parliament had 
 decreed the prohibition of trade with the uncompliant colonies, and 
 appointed commissioners to bring them to obedience. 
 
 Sir George Ayscue was sent to the islands with a formidable fleet ; 
 soon after, in September 1651, Captain Robert Dennis was 
 ordered to sail with a smaller squadron to the Chesapeake. 
 The expedition carried a regiment of soldiers and a hundred to Vll inia 
 and fifty prisoners from the battle of Worcester, who were to be sold 
 as servants in Virginia. Dennis found Ayscue at Barbadoes, and with 
 his regiment, assisted by the prisoners, enabled him to take the island 
 where for two months his landing had been bravely resisted. 
 
 When the fleet arrived in the James River, early in March 1652, it 
 was under the command of Captain Edward Curtis, also a Surrendero f 
 commissioner, for Dennis in his ship the John had been Berkele >- 
 lost at sea, and with him Stagg, the third commissioner. Jamestown 
 was at once summoned to surrender. Berkeley, it is said, sought to 
 arouse his fellow-officials, but this is improbable, as such resistance 
 would have been useless, though perhaps the sturdy cavalier vented 
 his feelings in some last defiant speech to his more vacillating council. 
 At all events, the colony's submission was not long delayed, and on 
 the twelfth of March the Governor signed articles of capitulation, and 
 handed over the affairs of the province to the Parliamentary Commis- 
 sioners. 
 
 The terms of the surrender were liberal, including an act of amnesty 
 and oblivion for past offences ; liberty to the Governor and Council to 
 refrain for a year, if they desired to do so, from swearing allegiance to 
 the Commonwealth ; a confirmation of the right of assembly, and a 
 promise that no taxes should be imposed upon the province without its 
 consent ; and a provision that all land grants, deeds, debts, and rights 
 in private property, should be unimpaired by the change of govern- 
 ment. With a liberalit} r rare in Puritan dealings with religious mat- 
 ters, it was also set forth in the capitulation that "the use of the book 
 of common prayer " should be permitted for one year ensuing, pro- 
 vided that such parts as related to " Kingshipp " and the royal gov- 
 ernment should not be used in public. To Berkeley and his officers 
 
212 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. IX. 
 
 great courtesy was shown ; liberty was granted them to sell their 
 estates and remove from the colony whither they pleased within a 
 year ; meanwhile their property was exempted from examination or 
 seizure, and protection and " equal justice " were promised to them 
 under the new government. 
 
 Besides the commissioners who sailed from England in the fleet 
 Dennis, Stagg, and Curtis (or Courteis) were two others Rich- 
 
 ard Bennett, a Virginia Puritan 
 whom persecution, it is said, had 
 driven to England, and William 
 Clay borne, already distinguished 
 in the history of the colony. 
 Curtis probably soon returned in 
 his ship to England, and the 
 power and responsibility there- 
 fore devolved upon Bennett and 
 Clayborne, who established a pro- 
 visional government with Ben- 
 nett at its head. That both men 
 were highly esteemed by all the 
 colonists seems evident in the 
 ready acquiescence with which 
 their rule was accepted. 
 
 No Virginian was more deserv- 
 ing of such esteem, or more fit to 
 be entrusted by Parliament at 
 this time with the conduct of 
 affairs, than Clayborne. If his career had hitherto been turbulent, it 
 was so in the maintenance of the rights of the colony ; if he had been 
 unfortunate, it was because of the injustice of the king. His 
 family, of the county of Westmoreland, 1 was an ancient and 
 influential one, and was zealous, perhaps distinguished in 
 the north of England, in upholding the Protestant faith. It is neither 
 improbable nor impossible that there should have been enmity be- 
 tween such a family and that of the Calverts, of the neighboring 
 county of York, so devoted to the church of Rome. Clayborne cer- 
 tainly opposed the settlement of a colony of Catholics on Chesapeake 
 Bay, before any question arose as to the possession of Kent Island. 
 The desire to secure this small portion of his grant seems hardly an ad- 
 equate motive for the hostility which Baltimore showed to Clayborne. 
 
 1 He was the second son of Sir Edmund not Edward as Neill says in his English Col- 
 onization of America Cleiburne (or Clayborne) of Cleiburne Hall. The portrait is that of 
 William or his sou it is not quite certain which. 
 
 Supposed Portrait of William Clayborne. 
 
 
 
1652.] WILLIAM CLAYBORNE. 213 
 
 They may have simply hated each other with that fervor then thought 
 so becoming to all good Christians travelling different roads to 
 Heaven ; but there is, besides, the suspicion of a tenderer influence 
 in the conduct of Calvert. He had failed in his suit for the hand of 
 Agnes, the lovely daughter of the rich and powerful Sir Richard Low- 
 ther of Lowther, where Thomas Clayborne, William's elder brother, 
 was successful. 
 
 At any rate Clayborne's ancient grievance was well grounded. 
 Kent Island was within the boundaries of the patent of the Virginia 
 company ; he, who was the secr/etary of the colony, and its surveyor 
 general, had taken possession of this island and established there a 
 trading-post by virtue of a royal commission for trade and discovery, 
 and a similar permit from the Company. There was not only priority 
 of date in his favor, but he could enforce that plea afterward used 
 so successfully by the Dutch and the Pennsylvanians in relation to 
 the region on Delaware Bay that the grant to Lord Baltimore, 
 whatever might be its nominal boundaries, limited him to the pos- 
 session only of lands hitherto uncultivated hactenus inculta. In the 
 course of that long and bitter controversy the Governor and council of 
 Virginia had declared in 1634 that they were in duty bound to main- 
 tain their right to the Isle of Kent, and a royal order had decided 
 in Clayborne's favor and against Lord Baltimore. Whatever may 
 have been his motives, the influence of Baltimore at court was strong 
 enough to procure a reversal of this decision in spite of Clayborne's 
 complaint that the royal order was disregarded, and his offer to pay a 
 large rental for the lands which were his by right of discovery and 
 occupation. 1 
 
 It was not in Clayborne's nature to be a lukewarm partisan, even 
 if he had not had the remembrance of such wrongs, extending over a 
 period of nearly twenty years, to in- . ^~ 
 
 fluence him. But he was a Parlia- AA '/y^" / 
 ment man both from religious and ' V- \*_U;UV (mi 
 
 political Convictions, and not that Signature of William Clayborne. 
 
 he might gain his personal ends. That he did not permit his private 
 griefs to shape his public acts is clear from the moderation of his con- 
 duct now that Maryland was, in a measure, in his power. It was for- 
 tunate for both colonies that the conduct of affairs was entrusted to 
 two such men as he and Bennett, for the latter, as Governor of Vir- 
 ginia, seems never, for his part, to have remembered that under Sir 
 William Berkeley he had been compelled to escape persecution by 
 
 flight. 
 
 o 
 
 1 MS. notes upon Clayborne, collated in England by Mr. C. J. Hubbard of Portsmouth, 
 N. H. English Slate Papers. 
 
214 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 The commission from Parliament empowered them to reduce " all 
 the plantations within the Bay of Chesapeake," and there is nothing in 
 all the negotiations to which the subsequent troubles gave rise to 
 suggest that this commission was not meant to embrace Maryland. 
 The commissioners assumed that it did, and after the submission of 
 Jamestown they sailed on board the Guinea for Saint Mary's, the 
 capital of Maryland, and demanded of Governor Stone (the successor 
 of that Thomas Green whom Leonard Calvert had appointed on his 
 dentil-bed), 1 an oath of conformity to the laws of the Commonwealth. 
 If this were given, they declared, they would not interfere in any way 
 with the government of the Lord Proprietary or disturb his officers. 
 This, at first, Stone refused, and the Commissioners deposed him and 
 his council, and appointed a provisional council in their place. But 
 on a subsequent visit of the Commissioners the Maryland governor 
 reviewed his former decision, and was restored to office on condition 
 that he should issue his writs and other official papers " in the name 
 of the keepers of the liberties of England by authority of Parliament," 
 while he was still " to reserve and save to himself " his oath to Lord 
 Baltimore as proprietor of the province, till " the pleasure of the state 
 of England be further known." 
 
 It would have been impossible for the Commissioners to be more 
 moderate and considerate, and to have obeyed at the same time, in 
 any degree, the instructions, as they understood them, of Parliament. 
 Indeed, the advantage was on Stone's side, so far at least as to gain 
 time, for he held in reservation the right of Lord Baltimore. The 
 expedient, as might have been foreseen, led in due season to inevit- 
 able trouble. 
 
 Before those troubles came, however, one act of tardy justice was 
 done. At the first sitting of the court after the return of Stone to 
 his office of governor, a commission was appointed consisting en- 
 tirely of residents of Maryland with the exception of Governor Ben- 
 nett of Virginia to conclude a treaty of peace with the tribe of 
 Susquehanocks. Its first article conveyed to the English the country 
 from the Patuxent to the Susquehanna, on the west side of Chesa- 
 peake Bay, and from the Choptank to the Elke on the east side, 
 with the islands, rivers, creeks, etc., etc., " and whatsoever else to 
 the same belonging, excepting the Isle of Kent and Palmer's Island 
 which belong to Captain Clayborne." The acknowledgment may 
 have been an act of political expediency, but it was none the less 
 one of simple justice. 
 
 There were grievances and differences enough still remaining. Lord 
 Baltimore, when tidings of events in Maryland reached him, appeared 
 
 1 Vol. i., p. 514. 
 
1652.] 
 
 LORD BALTIMORE PROTESTS. 
 
 215 
 
 by petition, in August, 1652, before the Long Parliament, setting 
 forth his claims to the colony and asking for redress. 1 From ^^ IWU _ 
 that body he obtained little consideration, though he urged more P- 
 on his own behalf that while Virginia had adhered faithfully 
 to the king, Maryland, like New England, had not declared against 
 the Parliament. Humble as this submission was from one who had 
 been so devoted a friend to the late king, it availed nothing ; for 
 nearly eighteen months later (January, 1654) the Governor and As- 
 sembly of Virginia are advised by the Council of State that the Lord 
 Protector, to whom, with succes- 
 sive parliaments, the government 
 of the Commonwealth was now 
 intrusted, had taken upon himself 
 the settlement of the differences 
 between Lord Baltimore and the 
 Virginians. 2 
 
 It may be that the hope of re- 
 dress either from Parliament or 
 Cromwell, induced Lord Balti- 
 more to submit, for a while, to 
 the compromise which Stone had 
 made with the Parliamentary 
 Commissioners. As late as No- 
 vember, 1653, the Governor of 
 Maryland gives as the reason for 
 not holding a general court that 
 it was requisite that "some direc- 
 tions out of England touching 
 the government here," should be 
 received before there could be anything for a general court to do ; 3 
 and, he says, there had been no arrival of English ships. 
 
 Instructions from the proprietary \vere on the way. Satisfied, 
 no doubt, that however much he might abase himself he F reshm- 
 could gain nothing of the Long Parliament, nor of Cromwell 
 himself, when he had dispersed that body and assembled its 
 successor, Baltimore wrote to Stone, reproaching him for submitting 
 to the Commissioners, accusing him of cowardice, ordering him to re- 
 store the proprietary government, to issue all public papers in the 
 name of the lord proprietor, and to demand the oath of fidelity to him 
 from the land-holders of the province. In January, 1654, Stone 
 issued a decree in accordance with these instructions. 
 
 Oliver Cromwell. 
 
 1 Salisbury's Calendar of State Papers, p. 338. 
 
 2 Salisbury's Calendar, p. 412. 
 
 3 Boz man's History of Maryland. 
 
216 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 The unhappy Governor found it hard to serve two masters. Not 
 many weeks after he had thus reversed the order of affairs in obedi- 
 ence to Baltimore, tidings arrived of the dispersion by Cromwell of his 
 second Parliament. Thereupon Stone issued, early in May, another 
 proclamation acknowledging Cromwell as " the lord protector of the 
 Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the dominions 
 thereunto belonging," and declaring the government of Maryland 
 under the lord proprietary to be therefore "subordinate unto and de- 
 pendent upon " that commonwealth. In commemoration of this sol- 
 emn event he proclaimed a general pardon for all offences committed 
 in the province with certain exceptions. But these exceptions he 
 declared, before the month had expired, were beside murder, trea- 
 son, and unsatisfied forfeitures " rebellion, conspiracy, combination, 
 or endeavour used at any time heretofore by any person against the 
 lord proprietary's right and dominion over this province." 
 
 Such a declaration could only have been meant to be a defiance of 
 Bennett and Clayborne, the Parliamentary Commissioners. That 
 there should be no doubt, however, on this point, Stone issued, a 
 few weeks later, another proclamation relating to affairs in Calvert 
 County, where, by Lord Baltimore's express order, he had removed 
 the Puritan sheriff from office, in which he charged the Commission- 
 ers with leading the people into " faction, sedition, and rebellion " 
 against the lord proprietor. 
 
 Bennett and Clayborne, however, were not men to be frightened 
 by proclamations. They in their turn issued a manifesto, and by 
 authority of commands which, they declared, they had "lately re- 
 ceived " from Cromwell, brushed away with little ceremony all that 
 Stone had lately done on behalf of the proprietary government, re- 
 moved the Catholic officers, and appointed a board of commissioners 
 to govern Maryland in the name of the Protector. 1 Stone yielded 
 without resistance, though not without some " opprobrious and uncivil 
 language," and resigned his office. 
 
 Under the new Commissioners there followed some months of undis- 
 puted Puritan rule, and of that peace which Puritans so often secured 
 by tolerating no religious faith but their own. Lord Baltimore again 
 protested, however, when the tidings reached England, against this 
 infringement of his rights, again reproached Stone with faithlessness 
 and cowardice, and sent an agent to the colony to make this protest 
 and these reproaches the more emphatic. Stone, yielding as usual to 
 the influence last brought to bear upon him, resolved upon another 
 revolution. 
 
 In January, 1655, he issued military commissions and rallied his 
 
 l Neill's Terra Marice, p. 121. 
 
1655.] 
 
 GOVERNOR STOXE'S PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 217 
 
 Stone 
 
 forces. The Commissioners had removed the archives from St. Mary's 
 
 to their new capital, the house of a Mr. Preston on the Pa- MilitarT 
 
 tuxent. Stone's first object was to recover and bring them 
 
 back. At Preston's house there was deposited a consid- 
 
 erable quantity of arms and ammunition, which Stone also seized. It 
 
 is said 1 that he is- 
 
 sued at the same 
 
 time a proclamation 
 
 to persuade the peo- 
 
 ple of Patuxent and 
 
 of Providence 
 
 now Annapolis 
 
 that in restoring the 
 
 proprietary govern- 
 
 ment he had no un- 
 
 friendly purpose 
 
 toward them, who 
 
 were Puritans. He, 
 
 nevertheless, search- 
 
 ed other houses than 
 
 Mr. Preston's for 
 
 arms and ammuni- 
 
 tion, and when the 
 
 Commissioners sent 
 
 messengers to ask 
 
 the meaning of his acts he 
 
 them into prison. 
 
 His force in March had reached 
 the number of about two hundred 
 men, and then he abandoned all pre- 
 tence of a peaceful return to power. 
 He resolved to compel the Puritans of Anne Arundel County by arms 
 to submit to his government, and to that end embarked his men on 
 board twelve boats to go up Chesapeake Bay to the Severn opposite 
 Kent Island. It was in this neighborhood that the Puritan settle- 
 ments had chiefly been made, as those of the Catholics were about 
 St. Mary's. 
 
 The fleet of boats was met on its way up the Bay by messengers 
 who protested against this hostile approach, and declared, if 
 no terms of settlement could be agreed upon, that those who up the 
 sent them were ready to " die like men rather than live like slaves." 
 Stone seized these men and their boat, but a part of them escaped 
 
 1 Boziuaii. 
 
 *_-<;.- - 
 
 Stone at Preston's House- 
 
218 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. IX. 
 
 and returned to report the character of the expedition. Somewhere 
 on the Bay he chased and fired into a New England vessel. 1 At 
 Herring Creek he captured one of the Commissioners and detained 
 him as a prisoner. From this point or near it he sent forward one 
 
 Dr. Barber and a 
 Mr. Coursey, to de- 
 mand the surrender 
 of the Puritans and 
 to publish a procla- 
 mation to the peo- 
 ple of Anne Arun- 
 del County, declar- 
 ing that he came 
 with no hostile in- 
 tent, but that he 
 sought to reclaim 
 them by fair means 
 only. 2 Nevertheless 
 the fleet proceeded, 
 and on the 24th of 
 March, twelve days 
 after its departure 
 from St. Mary's, 
 anchored at the 
 mouth of the Sev- 
 ern. 
 
 In the Severn lay 
 a large merchant- 
 ship, the Golden Lion, and on her mainmast, William Durand, the 
 Puritan secretary of the Colony, had affixed an official order 
 requiring her commander in the name of the Protector to 
 aid in the defence of the people against the approach of 
 Stone. A shot from the ship met the advancing fleet as they came 
 into the outer harbor, and another fell among the boats as Stone or- 
 dered his men to land on Horn Point, a part of the present city of 
 Annapolis, between the Severn and a creek which is the southern 
 boundary of the peninsula. Stone took his vessels further up the 
 
 1 Papers relating: to Maryland in Thurloe's State Papers, vol. v. 
 
 2 Barber's letter to Cromwell iu Bozraan. Neill's Terra Mariie and English Colonization 
 in America. McSherry's History of Man/land. There are incongruities in the different 
 narratives which it is difficult to reconcile. It is said that Barber was promised the gov. 
 ernorship, if Stone did not obey the orders of Baltimore, while on the other hand he is 
 represented as beiujr a friend of Cromwell, as having been attached to his family, and 
 serving in the Parliament army. Apparently his sympathies were with Stone. 
 
 Posting the Notice on the "Golden Lion." 
 
 
1655.] BATTLE ON THE SEVERN. 219 
 
 creek, and landing his men marched inland, probably out of reach of 
 the guns of the Golden Lion, whose captain, Heamans, returned a de- 
 fiant answer to Stone's remonstrance. 
 
 The invading party were elate and confident, making their landing 
 "with drums and shoutings," calling out for the "Round-head dogs 
 and rogues,"' threatening them with " whole bagfuls of chewed Bullets 
 rolled in powder," and crying " The Devil take him that spares any." 1 
 But Stone had blundered. In the course of the night the Golden 
 Lion, with several smaller vessels, had sailed up the creek, and when 
 day broke they opened fire across the point upon Stone's force and 
 compelled them to march still further up the peninsula. 
 
 But when they had put themselves out of the reach of this attack 
 in the rear, they suddenly found themselves confronted by a hundred 
 and twenty men, who had marched out from Providence to intercept 
 their advance. Retreat was useless, even if it were possible in the face 
 of the fire from the ships, for one John Cutts, in a small New England 
 vessel, had taken possession of all their boats and the provision and 
 ammunition left on board. 2 The enemy confronting them on land 
 was under the command of Captain Fuller, the head of the board of 
 Puritan commissioners. He ordered his men, it is said, not to strike 
 the first blow. 3 But the first blow had been struck already when 
 Captain Heamans of the Golden Lion had fired upon Stone's men 
 and killed one of them. There seemed nothing else to do but fight 
 or surrender. Should they lay down their arms before a force they 
 outnumbered ? At least they were not cowards. 
 
 With the cry of " Hey, for St. Mary's ! " they rushed on the enemy. 
 The Puritans met blow for blow, and cry for cry, shouting " In the 
 name of God fall on ! God is our strength ! " The battle was furi- 
 ous while it lasted, but it did not last long. The Puritans were 
 always good fighters ; religious zeal was stronger than numbers. They 
 were inspired with a belief in " the glorious presence of the Lord of 
 hosts, manifested in and towards his poor oppressed people." 4 Against 
 men so inspirited the Catholics " could not endure, but gave back." 
 Fifty were slain and wounded; four or five only escaped by flight; 
 the rest were taken prisoners, and the whole field kt was strewed with 
 Papist beads." On the other side two only were killed in the fight, 
 and two died afterwards from their wounds. 
 
 This success was followed up with more vigor than mercy. A 
 
 1 Virginia and Maryland in Force's Tracts, vol. ii. 
 
 2 Leah and Rachel. Force's Tracts, vol. iii. 
 
 8 Bali/Ion's Fall in America, the fullest narrative of these occurrences. It was written 
 by Leonard Strong, who was one of Fuller's associates on the Board of Commissioners, 
 and meant to tell the best story possible for his own side. 
 
 * Ibid. 
 
220 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. IX. 
 
 court-martial was speedily summoned, and four of the leaders, one of 
 them a councillor, were sentenced to death, and so also was Stone. 1 
 The four were executed, but Stone's life was spared at the inter- 
 cession of some who had fought against him. The lives of the rest of 
 his councillors were saved by the petitions of the women and some 
 other friends. 2 
 
 The battle was fought, the Catholics were deposed, and Puritan 
 government firmly established in Maryland, before a letter was re- 
 
 The Battle at the Mouth of the Severn. 
 
 ceived from Cromwell, which, had it come sooner, might have pre- 
 vented these events. The Protector, moved by the entreaties and 
 Letter of representations of Lord Baltimore, had written in January 
 Govraor * ^ Governor Bennett of Virginia, forbidding any intercourse 
 Bennett. with the affairs of Maryland till all questions in regard to 
 the boundaries between Virginia and Maryland had been settled in 
 England. " We .... will and require you," said the latter, " to 
 forbear disturbing the Lord Baltimore, or his officers, or people in 
 
 1 Leah and Rachel. 
 
 2 Letter of Mrs. Stone to Lord Baltimore in Neill's Terra Maria, p. 124. 
 
1655.] MARYLAND AFFAIRS. 221 
 
 Maryland, and to permit all things to remain as they were before any 
 disturbance or alteration made by you, or by any other upon pretence 
 of authority from you." l 
 
 Though the question of boundaries was the point specially referred 
 to, it might be doubted whether the Commissioners had not been igno- 
 rantly acting against the wishes of the Protector. It was, no doubt, 
 to justify himself, and to explain the condition of affaire to the Pro- 
 tector, that Governor Bennett went to England, soon after the fight 
 on the Severn, as agent for Virginia with Captain Mathews. The 
 exigency was quite serious enough for a personal explanation. Eng- 
 lish subjects had been killed in battle ; officers appointed under Lord 
 Baltimore's patent had been ignominiously hanged ; the proprietary 
 government of Maryland had been completely subverted ; and all the 
 while a letter from the Lord Protector was on its way which perhaps 
 was intended to forbid any interference whatever in the affairs of that 
 colony. The turbulence of the times, indeed, might make such things 
 seem comparatively of little moment ; but disobedience to the orders 
 of one who had never brooked opposition to his will might well excite 
 the gravest apprehensions. It was for this reason, no doubt, that the 
 Council of Virginia made haste, after the departure of Bennett, to 
 disavow all responsibility for what had been done in Maryland. 
 
 Bennett, nevertheless, was so far successful in his mission that 
 Cromwell wrote in September another letter, explaining that of the 
 previous January. It was intended only, he said, "to prevent and 
 forbid any force or violence to be offered by either of the plantations 
 of Virginia or Maryland from one to the other, upon the differences 
 concerning their bounds," but did not mean to intimate that a stop 
 should be " put to the proceedings of those commissioners who were 
 authorized to settle the civil government of Maryland." That the 
 Commissioners had not exceeded the power entrusted to them to re- 
 duce " all the plantations within the Bay of Chesapeake " to obedi- 
 ence to the Commonwealth of England seems conclusively settled by 
 this letter. 
 
 But the civil government of Maryland was not settled, notwith- 
 standing the success of one party and the defeat of the other, for 
 a doubt still prevailed for a time as to the right of either. While 
 Bennett and Mathews were pleading their case before the Protector, 
 Baltimore sent out to Josias Fendall a commission as his deputy gov- 
 ernor. Fendall had been in the fight on the Severn, under Stone, 
 and the commission found him just released from prison, even if he 
 was not still within the walls of a jail. He made good use of his lib- 
 
 1 This letter, which Bozman thought woe lost, has been recovered, and is published by 
 Campbell. 
 
 
222 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 erty, however, when he gained it, and attempted, with more or less 
 success, to establish the authority of the proprietor, with the assist- 
 ance of Philip Calvert, an illegitimate son, it is said, of the first Lord 
 Baltimore, as secretary. On the other hand, Captain Fuller, on the 
 part of the Commissioners, asserted their jurisdiction, called a meeting 
 of the General Assembly, enacted laws, and assumed the control of the 
 affairs of the colony in the name of the Protector. The Puritans on 
 the Severn and the Patuxent recognized and obeyed one government; 
 the Catholics about St. Mary's recognized and obeyed the other. 
 
 Meanwhile the questions at issue were under consideration and 
 debate in England. Cromwell referred them to the Council of State, 
 and the Council of State handed them over to the Commissioners of 
 Trade. It was two years before any conclusion was reached ; but in 
 November, 1657, an agreement was entered into, in Eng- 
 of disputes land, between Lord Baltimore and the agents, Bennett and 
 
 between 
 
 Virginia and Mathews. This, in March following, was first modified and 
 
 Maryland. . 
 
 then ratified in Maryland by Fendall on the one side, and 
 Fuller and his council on the other, and the leading men among both 
 Catholics and Puritans, as the representatives of the people at large. 
 It was provided that all past offences be condoned ; that there never 
 should be, with the assent of Lord Baltimore, any interference with 
 the liberty of conscience ; that from those then resident in the colony 
 no oath of fidelity to his lordship should be required, but simply a 
 promise of submission to his authority, which was again paramount 
 as Lord Proprietor ; that land warrants should be granted, and acts 
 of past assemblies held to be legal, without regard to the differences 
 and disturbances of recent years. 
 
 When Bennett resigned the office of Governor of Virginia, in 1655, 
 
 to take that of agent in England, Edward Digges, who was 
 Digges also a member of the Parliamentary party, was chosen by 
 
 chosen gov- 11-1 TT " i n* 
 
 ernorof vjr- the Assembly to take his place. He remained in omce, how- 
 ever, only a year, when he also went to England as agent, 
 where his influence proved to be potent in bringing about the final 
 Succeeded settlement of affairs in Maryland. Mathews succeeded him 
 b> Mathews. ag g Overnori an( j continued in that office, it is supposed, till 
 his death, in 1659, though he seems to have been in England in 1657, 
 when his signature appears to the agreement between Lord Balti- 
 more and the Virginia agents. 
 
 For an interval of several years the colony has no history except in 
 Legislative * ne quiet enactment of laws which show, in their aim at 
 cts. regulating the ordinary conduct of the citizens, that no great 
 
 affairs of state engaged their attention. Thus the keeping of the 
 Sabbath was enjoined by law ; a penalty was pronounced upon those 
 
1660.] RESTORATION OF BERKELEY. 223 
 
 who invented or spread untruthful reports ; attorneys at law were 
 expelled from the courts and prohibited from taking fees ; the weight 
 and dimensions of a hogshead of tobacco were limited by statute, and 
 an export duty upon that staple levied when in foreign bottoms or 
 shipped to foreign ports ; the food, the clothing, and the good treat- 
 ment of servants were cared for ; servitude as a legal penalty was 
 abolished ; the right of suffrage was secured to all who paid taxes ; 
 the Indians were protected in the possession of their lands, and the 
 kidnapping of their children was prohibited. 1 Such legislation marked 
 a period of tranquillity and progress. 
 
 Puritanism, which had never made any very deep impression in 
 Virginia, gradually lost its influence and control after the DecUneof 
 death of Cromwell. A cause that was declining in its strong- Puntamsm 
 hold at home, could hardly gain in the colony where it had little 
 strength of its own. During the year in which England was pre- 
 paring itself for the restoration of the King by putting aside the new 
 Protector, Richard Cromwell, the assembling and dispersion of the 
 old House of Commons and the election of a new one, and the march 
 of Monk from Edinburgh to London, Virginia was without a gov- 
 ernor. From the death of Mathews, in the spring of 1659, till the 
 spring of 1660, the people awaited events at home. 
 
 In March the General Assembly, after declaring that as the state 
 in England had no acknowledged head, and that the gov- 
 
 , ,, , , . .. ., . , . , lr .,f! Sir William 
 
 ernment or the colony vested in itself, elected Sir William Berkeley re- 
 Berkeley governor, afterward confirmed by a commission 
 from the King. Though this was in some sense a triumph of his 
 party, the address of the old royalist was cautious and conciliatory. 
 " I do, therefore," he said, ," in the presence of God and you, make 
 this safe protestation for us all, that if any supreme settled power 
 appears, I will immediately lay down my commission, but will live 
 most submissively obedient to any power God shall set over me, as 
 the experience of eight years has shewed I have done." He candidly 
 confessed that he had unwillingly surrendered to the Parliament, 
 " God pardon me ! " he said, as he recalled it, and that he " would 
 not voluntarily have made choice " of those who had been set over him 
 " for his supremes ; " but he wished to make " this truth apparent," 
 that he had lived like a good citizen " under all these mutable gov- 
 ernments of divers natures and constitutions." That he would not 
 have held office under the Commonwealth, and would not now if it 
 continued, was the tenor of his speech ; but he left his hearers to 
 infer the unexpressed hope, which doubtless a considerable majority 
 of them shared, that the house of his " ever honored master " would 
 
 1 Hening's Statutes, passim. 
 
224 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. IX. 
 
 soon regain the throne. Two months later this wish was fulfilled, 
 and the news of the restoration of the King was welcomed generally in 
 Virginia, as it was received with joy by the Governor himself. 
 
 When the new commission was sent by Charles II. to Sir William 
 Address to Berkeley, the faithful cavalier in reply sent a delighted letter, 
 Charles ii. saying that he had only held office during the interregnum, 
 as one who had leaped " over the fold to save your Majesty's flock, 
 when your Majesty's enemies of that fold had barred up the lawful 
 entrance into it and enclosed the wolves of schism and rebellion.'' 
 The Assembly also voted an address to Charles ; and referred in bitter 
 terms to the Commonwealth that had governed them so well, as " that 
 
 Berkeley's Address to the Assembly. 
 
 execrable power that so bloodily massacred the late King Charles the 
 First of ever blessed and glorious memory " a memory that should 
 now be kept alive in the colony, as they decreed, by an annual fast 
 upon the thirtieth of January, the anniversary of his execution. Per- 
 haps the Puritans of the Assembly were reconciled to these proceed- 
 ings by the personal consideration that was otherwise accorded them. 
 Bennett, the late Puritan Governor, was first named in the Council of 
 State, and Clayborne, who had been secretary under Bennett, Digges, 
 and Mathews, was continued in that office by Berkeley. 
 
1661.] REVISION OF THE LAWS. 225 
 
 A considerable change in the character of the government of the 
 colony was, however, soon made apparent. The new As- 
 sembly of 1661, which was almost exclusively royalist, em- thenewgor- 
 powered the Governor and Council to levy taxes for three 
 years, dispensing, thei-eby, with the necessity of calling the House 
 together oftener, except in case of some unusual emergency. At the 
 same session the right of prorogation was granted, and as a conse- 
 quence there was for the next fifteen years no popular election. 
 Hitherto, the representatives had been paid by the counties that 
 elected them ; but the Assembly, which had provided for its own per- 
 manence, fixed also the rate of remuneration of its members at about 
 two hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco a day, or about nine dollars. 
 The salary of the Governor, which was in the same tobacco currency, 
 was not less exorbitant according to the money value of the time, and 
 was equal to the whole annual expenditure of the colony of Connecti- 
 cut. 1 The virtual monopoly of the trade with the Indians was also 
 given him by prohibiting any traffic in furs except under his commis- 
 sion. The colonial laws generally, were from time to time revised, 
 and on the third revision in 1662, under the direction of Francis Mor- 
 rison and Henry Randolph, it was ordered that all those which 
 " might keep in memory our forced deviation from his Majesty's obe- 
 dience " should be erased from the statutes. The laws relating to 
 the Indians, however, aimed more than any laws had hitherto done 
 to secure their well-being. Encroachment upon, or even purchase of 
 their lands was forbidden. None were to be sold as slaves, though 
 they could be indented as servants for a limited period, as the English 
 themselves were ; and while they were generally to be responsible to 
 the law, they were to be under its protection. 2 
 
 Legislation upon the slavery of the blacks had no such humane 
 purpose. The common law of England, that the children of 
 mixed parentage should follow the condition of the father, 
 -was reversed and the maxim of the Roman law adopted, that 
 the children should be bond or free according to the condition of the 
 mother partus sequitur ventrem. All of mixed blood, therefore, 
 and the hybrid race began to be manifest from the first introduction 
 of African women were born slaves for life. If there were any ex- 
 ception, it was in the case of the offspring of free white women and 
 slave fathers, and that may seem in our time too improbable to be 
 noticed. But it should be considered that the antipathy to the Afri- 
 can, no deeper naturally than that which always exists between 
 different races has been intensified by two centuries of servitude. 
 It exercised but little influence two hundred years ago, when whites 
 
 1 Bancroft. 2 Hening's Statutes. 
 
 VOL. n. 15 
 
VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 as well as blacks were slaves in Virginia, and where the larger propor- 
 tion of these white slaves were from the lowest dregs of English 
 society, from the gutters, the jails, and the brothels, and were 
 hardly more than half civilized. That the women of this large class 
 of the population should intermarry with negroes was not merely pos- 
 sible ; it was common enough to become in Maryland the subject of 
 legislation. It was provided in that colony, in 1663, that any free- 
 born English woman who should marry a slave should serve his mas- 
 ter during the life of her husband, and that all her issue should be 
 " slaves as their fathers were." 1 
 
 The spirit, if not the letter of the law, however, in regard to black 
 mothers, was undoubtedly the same then 'in the two colonies as it was 
 in later times in all the slave-holding portion of the country. Ser- 
 vitude was the penalty for any admixture of African blood on the 
 mother's side. Literally the sins of the fathers were heavily visited 
 upon the children, while it soon ceased to be a question whether there 
 could be any serious immorality in a relation which legislators were 
 careful, without condemning, to turn into a source of so much worldly 
 wealth. 
 
 By the revised code it was provided that the Church of England 
 be the established church of the colony. But there was at the same 
 time some pretence of toleration. It was declared that no man was 
 to be " molested or disquieted in the exercise of his religion, so he 
 be content with a quiet and peaceable enjoying it ; " yet the oaths 
 Ken -ou8 f obedience and supremacy those parts of which relating 
 intolerance. to tne establishment the Puritans could not conscientiously 
 take were exacted, and the non- conformist was not permitted to 
 teach even in private. 2 In 1662 a fine of two thousand pounds of 
 tobacco was imposed upon all " schismatical persons " who, " out of 
 their averseness to the orthodox established religion, or out of the new- 
 fangled conceits of their own heretical inventions," refused to have 
 their children baptized ; and those attending meetings of Separatists 
 were heavily fined for the first and second offence, and banished on 
 its repetition a third time. Such penalties had long been enforced 
 against the Friends, whose presence in Virginia had been no more 
 tolerable to the Puritans than it was now to the Established Church. 
 Many of these persecuted people were driven into North Carolina, for 
 the laws were enforced against them with much more severity than 
 against any other class of dissenters. 
 
 Much uneasiness and alarm was aroused when the news arrived 
 
 1 A Sketrh of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States in the United States. By 
 George M. Stroud, 1827. 
 
 2 Anderson's History of the Colonial Church. 
 
16G1.] 
 
 THE NAVIGATION ACT. 
 
 227 
 
 that the first Parliament of the restored king had made the Navi- 
 gation Act more than ever obnoxious to the interests of the The xavig*. 
 colonies, and that it was to be rigidly enforced. This was tlonAct - 
 a grievance about which Royalist and Puritan were of one mind. Sir 
 William Berkeley went to England in May, 1661, to represent how 
 seriously the prosperity of the colony was hindered by the enforce- 
 ment of such a law against its trade. He remained in England more 
 than a year, Francis Morrison acting as governor in his absence ; but 
 his mission, so far as the Navigation Act was concerned, was fruit- 
 less, though he was more fortunate in the advancement of his own 
 interests, for he obtained a grant for himself and others of that part 
 of Virginia territory afterward known as North Carolina. 
 
 Tobacco Ships in the James. 
 
 The interests of the colony, nevertheless, were stronger than acts 
 of Parliament, for its prosperity depended largely upon free 
 
 . ; Trade in and 
 
 trade in the one great staple, tobacco. Even without inter- cultivation 
 
 e r T- ! i * tobacco. 
 
 ierence from Parliament, there was enough to contend with, 
 for the supply of that staple usually exceeded the demand. To reg- 
 ulate its production to force by penalties the raising of more corn 
 and less tobacco was from the beginning of these settlements the 
 constant aim of legislation in Virginia and Maryland ; but the attempt 
 to set aside the natural law of political economy by statute was as 
 futile here as the attempt to prevent the trade to foreign ports when 
 the tobacco was ready for shipment. Equally futile was it to expect 
 
228 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. IX. 
 
 to create by legislative act towns into which the people should gather. 
 The people were planters, and, with their servants and slaves, were 
 scattered on the great plantations along the banks of the James and 
 other rivers. The planters with these large grants of land were com- 
 paratively few ; the slaves and servants many. To live in towns and 
 to be supported by diversified industry was impossible to such a peo- 
 ple, for slaves can be devoted only to unskilled labor. To raise to- 
 bacco, therefore, to be shipped directly from the river-bank usually 
 the water-front of the plantation was the chief employment and 
 support of the colonial plantei-s, and it was equally difficult to limit 
 production by local laws or to confine the foreign trade to an English 
 channel. 
 
 The last especially, it was found impossible to do, so long as the 
 Northern Dutch Colony of New Netherland offered every facility for 
 era intcr h a contraband commerce which English law could not reach, 
 *** and in which both English and Dutch vessels could so easily 
 
 engage. The grant to the Duke of York of the territory of the Dutch 
 was not merely a royal gift to the brother of the King. It was 
 meant to add to the revenues of the King himself, by making it pos- 
 sible to enforce the Navigation Act, and to control the tobacco trade 
 of Virginia. That the Dutch province on the Hudson should belong 
 to the English was sure in the end, whatever might be the ulterior 
 purposes of Charles, to be a benefit to New England. To the people 
 of Virginia, it was of no territorial advantage, but a direct interfer- 
 ence with their freedom of trade and an immediate injury to their 
 prosperity. It was the inevitable antagonism of free and slave labor. 
 
 The severitv of the laws in the early years of the restored royal 
 government, and perhaps, the evident intent of the colonial 
 
 Aplotdis- . . . ., , , , ,. 
 
 covered Assembly to grasp at irresponsible power, caused much dis- 
 cromweiuan content among the people. In 1663, after the return of 
 Berkeley from England, a plot was discovered to overthrow 
 the government. But as it seems to have been confined to some of 
 Cromwell's soldiers who had been sent out and sold as servants a 
 disposition of prisoners to which both parties resorted it had its 
 origin, probably, in a general political and religious discontent, rather 
 than in any special complaint of particular laws. It was suppressed, 
 however, without much difficulty, though it was thought to be serious 
 enough to warrant the execution by hanging of four of the ring-lead- 
 ers, and for setting apart the 13th of September, the day fixed for the 
 insurrection, as a day of annual thanksgiving. 
 
Governor's Island and the Battery. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 
 
 THE LATTEK YEARS OF NEW NETHEBLAXD. 
 
 AMSTERDAM INVADED BY INDIANS. DESTRUCTION OF PAVONIA. MASSACRE 
 AND DEVASTATION ELSEWHERE. JUDICIOUS POLICY OF THE DIRECTOR. CONTRAST 
 IN FRENCH AND DUTCH TREATMENT OF THE NATIVES. THE RESULT. THE ESOPUS 
 WAR. STUYVESANT'S DETERMINATION TO ESTABLISH RELIGIOUS UNIFORMITY. 
 PERSECUTION OF THE LUTHERANS AND QUAKERS. INDIFFERENCE OF THE DUTCH 
 TO RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. STUYVESANT REBUKED BY THE AMSTERDAM CHAM- 
 BER. CRUEL PUNISHMENT OF A QUAKER. BANISHMENT OF JOHN BOWNE AND 
 HIS TRIUMPHANT RETURN FROM HOLLAND. GROWTH OF NEW NETHERLAND. 
 
 A MORE prudent ruler than Stuy vesant would have hesitated to take 
 between six or seven hundred men from New Amsterdam, even for so 
 important a purpose as the reduction of New Sweden. However confi- 
 dent he might feel that the New Englanders would be faithful to the 
 terms of the recent treaty of peace, he would have known how little 
 reliance could be placed upon any promise of friendship from the In- 
 dians. It needed only the smallest pretext at any time to arouse the 
 savages, eager for plunder and thirsty for blood, to carry desolation and 
 death into the villages and farms of the whites ; and the more certain 
 they were that their victims would be defenceless, the shriller would 
 be their war-cry and the louder their boasts of their own prowess and 
 bravery. When Stuyvesant sailed for the South River with so large 
 
" r 
 
 230 THE LATTER YEARS OF NEW NETHERLAND. [CHAP. X. 
 
 a proportion of the fighting men of New Netherland, it does not seem 
 to have occurred to him how imminent a danger he left behind. 
 
 While he was busy before Fort Christina, New Amsterdam was 
 New \m- aroused one September morning to find its streets swarming 
 with nearly two thousand naked warriors, gathered of several 
 tribes from far up the North River, from the extremity of 
 Long Island, and from the mainland of Connecticut. All day they 
 roamed through the town, breaking into houses on the pretence of 
 seeking for northern Indians, and hinting at redress for the death of a 
 squaw whom Van Dyck, the late Attorney-general, had shot at his 
 farm on Staten Island, for stealing fruit from his garden. Persuasion 
 was wiser than resistance against so large a body, many of whom were 
 well armed, and the frightened bui-ghers with their wives and chil- 
 dren submitted for hours to insolence and outrage they did not dare, 
 or thought it more prudent not to resist. 
 
 The invaders agreed at last to leave the town at sunset, to paddle 
 over to Nutten (Governor's) Island, and there await the result of a 
 conference to be held between their chiefs and the magistrates. But 
 a conflict could only be delayed, not avoided, even if the savages 
 meant anything more by their promise than to gain time for the ad- 
 vantage of confusion in a night attack. Either the Indians grew 
 bolder or the Dutch less prudent, for a fight was begun by one side or 
 the other, and there was an end then of all talk of peaceful negotia- 
 tion. 
 
 Van Dyck was brought down with an arrow in the breast ; Captain 
 Van der Grist was cloven to the ground with an axe. Shouts of alarm 
 and cries of murder rung through the streets, and the timid and the 
 feeble ran to put themselves under the protection of the stronger and 
 bolder, or to hide themselves in some place of safety. The military, 
 who had been prudently ordered to the fort to be ready for an emergency, 
 marched to the rescue of the citizens. An organized attack was too 
 much for the savages ; they were driven to their canoes, but their de- 
 fence was so desperate that they left three dead warriors upon the 
 beach. In the assault, two of the Dutch were killed and three others 
 wounded. Mobs are dispersed now with results quite as serious ; it 
 was a respectable Indian fight in the seventeenth century that counted 
 even less than half a dozen dead. 
 
 The fleet of canoes pulled out into the stream. They did not go to 
 Nutten Island, and were lost to sight in the darkness, though over 
 the water came out of the. night their yells of vengeance and de- 
 fiance. The people of New Amsterdam, relieved from the terrible 
 fear of an immediate massacre, watched anxiously along the shore, 
 straining their eyes and ears to catch any sign of the purpose of the 
 enemy. They had not long to wait. 
 
1655.] 
 
 MASSACRE AND DEVASTATION. 
 
 231 
 
 Over Pavonia and Hoboken sprung a sudden light. Along the 
 beach of Manhattan Island the pitying people gathered, p aVO nia de- 
 dreading what next the night might bring forth, watching str . ved 
 the forked flames as they shot into the reddening sky, listening help- 
 lessly for the mingled shrieks of agony and despair, the whoop of 
 savage hate and fury, the crackling of the fire as it leaped from 
 house to house, the moans and cries of terror from maddened beasts. 
 Pavonia in a little while was a heap of burning coals and ashes ; not 
 a house was spared ; save in a single family not a man was left alive ; 
 the cattle were all dead, the crops destroyed ; with a rare mercy only 
 the women and children were spared and carried off as prisoners. 
 
 Destruction of Pavonia. 
 
 It would be easy to see from the shores of Staten Island, over whose 
 beautiful hills were scattered many pleasant boweries, the burning 
 village of Pavonia. But the cause of the fire may not j^^ upon 
 have been known. When its work w r as done, the savages, ^"JjJ^ 1 " 
 drunk with success and blood, sprung to their canoes and elsewhere - 
 paddled across the Bay straight for the Island. In the farm-houses on 
 the peaceful hill-sides slept ninety people, men, women, and children. 
 The paddles of between sixty and seventy canoes broke the silence of 
 the night ; the alarm was given in time for many to escape ; others 
 were too late or lost their lives in a vain attempt at defence. Twenty- 
 three were killed, and the morning sun rose upon the new silence 
 of death and desolation, upon ruined homes, on desolate hearth- 
 
232 THE LATTER YEARS OF NEW NETHERLAND. [CHAP.X. 
 
 stones, on dead cattle lying among the trampled grain, where the 
 night before smiled peace, and plenty, and content. 
 
 For three days bands of exultant savages harried the villages and 
 farms about the Bay and along the river. At Gravesend lived a 
 Lady Moody, an English lady whom religious intolerance had 
 driven out of Massachusetts more than a dozen years before, and to 
 whom Kieft had made a grant of lands for the bravery of her follow- 
 ers in defending themselves against the Indians in the war of that 
 period. Her house was now again attacked, though discrimination 
 usually was made in favor of the English, for it was the Swannekins 
 the Dutch who in the other English towns were threatened with 
 massacre ; a new settlement at Esopus, on the North River, was so 
 sore beset that its people abandoned all their possessions and fled to 
 New Amsterdam to escape from death ; on all Manhattan Island no 
 farm was safe, and their owners sought refuge in the town ; conster- 
 nation and ruin spread with this savage outbreak over all New Neth- 
 erland ; many plantations with their buildings, crops, and cattle were 
 destroyed ; three hundred of the people were reduced to want ; one 
 hundred were killed ; one hundred and fifty were taken prisoners. 
 
 A summons was sent to Stuyvesant to hasten back from the South 
 River to the defence of New Netherland. Prompt and energetic in 
 action, though often unwise and rash in judgment, he was always 
 ready to meet an emergency. His very presence inspired confidence 
 in the panic-stricken people. All who had not already sought refuge 
 in the town he ordered to leave their farms till peace could be restored. 
 The citizens were enrolled in a military organization ; new defences 
 were added to the fortifications of New Amsterdam ; military detach- 
 ments were sent out to meet and drive off the Indians wherever they 
 appeared most formidable, and effectual measures were taken to meet 
 the additional expense incurred by all these measures. 
 
 But when some of the more rash and hot-headed of the colonists 
 urged that war be declared against the tribes who had brought such 
 calamities upon the colony, the Director counselled moderation. He 
 advised that friendly relations be cultivated with the savages, while 
 the settlers should keep nearer together in villages, with a block-house, 
 capable of defence, to fly to in the event of an attack. It was better, 
 The savages ne thought, to subdue the Indians if possible, by kindly treat- 
 pacified. m ent, rather than exasperate them by declaring a war of ex- 
 termination, which the Dutch were not strong enough to bring to a 
 successful issue. So judicious was the course he pursued that in a few 
 months the unfriendly tribes again made promises of lasting peace, 
 and the prisoners taken in the recent raids were all released, though 
 heavy ransoms were paid for them in gunpowder and lead. 
 
1655.] THE FRENCH AND DUTCH AND THE INDIANS. 233 
 
 At Rensselaerswyck they did not wait for the suggestion of this 
 policy from Stuyvesant, and escaped, therefore, the calamity which 
 fell upon other parts of New Netherland. When the tidings of the 
 atrocities committed by the Indians in the neighborhood of New 
 Amsterdam reached the Patroon, his people looked at once to their 
 own safety. By timely gifts and promises they induced the Mohawks 
 to renew the old treaty of amity and peace which for many years had 
 been advantageous to the whole province of New Netherland and 
 profitable especially to themselves. It may have been because theirs 
 was the frontier settlement that the people of Van Rensselaer's 
 manor had always aimed to maintain friendly relations with the 
 powerful tribes who occupied that vast region on the west as yet 
 almost unknown to the white men. But whether the policy was one 
 of choice or of necessity, they determined to keep on good terms with 
 the savages for the sake of trade, and the result justified at least their 
 worldly wisdom. 
 
 Where the Dutch had succeeded in gaining and in keeping the 
 good-will of the Indians, the French, with a far higher pur- 
 pose to the same end, had signally failed. For years the ana the 
 missionaries of the French, sometimes singly, sometimes in 
 companionship, had sought the Iroquois in their remotest villages in 
 friendly contest for their friendship with the Dutch. The desire to 
 bring these benighted heathen within the pale of the church took 
 precedence of any political or commercial aim with the government 
 of Canada. It was not that trade and territorial acquisitions were 
 esteemed by them as of little value ; that treaties were not made to 
 secure both ; that well-appointed expeditions were not sent out to 
 gain a foot-hold within the territory of the present State of New York ; 
 but that it was above all and before all made almost a reason of state 
 that the cross should mark every advancing step of the white man, 
 and that the subjugation of the savages should be the triumph of 
 the Church. 
 
 But the trader was received as the missionary of peace and good 
 will where the servant of religion pi-ovoked only strife. The Five 
 Nations, whose domain was south of the St. Lawrence, extending from 
 the Hudson to Lake Erie, and whose most powerful tribe was the Mo- 
 hawk, 1 were in almost perpetual hostility with the French of Canada 
 through all the years that New Netherland was a Dutch province. 
 More than one of the gentle and devoted Jesuits died deaths of tor- 
 ture or privation in return for their zeal for the salvation of the souls 
 of their unrelenting enemies. In the little box in which Father 
 Jogues carried the simple furniture for an altar in the wilderness 
 
 1 Gallatin's Synopsis of the Indian Tribes, Coll. Am. Ant. Soc., vol. ii. 
 
234 
 
 THE LATTER YEARS OF NEW NETHERLAXD. [CHAP. X. 
 
 Fate of 
 Father 
 Jogues. 
 
 deatl 
 
 . 
 
 the savages believed the " black gown " concealed an Evil Spirit. 
 To save themselves from the dire disasters that would come 
 with its release, they tore the flesh from his arms in strips be- 
 fore they could be merciful enough to end his torments with 
 But they were slow to detect the devil in the brandy, the 
 
 gunpowder, and the lead which 
 the Dutch trader brought, and 
 they welcomed him as a friend. 
 The trader and his wares the 
 Indians understood; the crucifix 
 and the missal appealed only to 
 their superstitions and their 
 fears. At times the enthusiastic 
 missionaries were persuaded that 
 the light of the gospel had pene- 
 trated into the dark recesses of 
 those savage souls. No such 
 pious aspiration disturbed the 
 minds of the dealers in peltries. 
 The Dutch were careful to cul- 
 tivate the friendship of the 
 /- , Mohawks, to be kind to them 
 
 /y * I 
 
 I-/UVT* siA^ '. > j n j.j ie wa ^ Q strong waters and 
 e^- ^Vj. fire-arms, and the colony on 
 
 their borders on the upper Hud- 
 son increased in wealth and 
 strength. But the handful of 
 Frenchmen who at length, in 
 1655, clustered about the bark 
 chapel of the Fathers Chaumo- 
 
 not and Dablon, near the Salt Springs of Onondaga, were glad in less 
 than three yeai's to escape with their lives, leaving all their posses- 
 sions behind them, while the Indians, who had come to massacre 
 them, lay in a drunken sleep. 2 
 
 1 Father Jogues was treacherously murdered, in 1646, by the Mohawks in the Mohawk 
 Valley, called thenceforth in the annals of the Jesuits "The Mission of the Martyrs." 
 An interesting sketch of the singularly devoted and romantic life of this Father is given by 
 J. G. Shea in his edition of the JVouwm Belgium, written by Jogues, in 1644. He was the 
 first European, probably, to explore Lake George, which he named Saint Sacrament in 
 commemoration of the festival of Corpus Christi, the day on which he reached it. The 
 Indian name was Audiatarocte. 
 
 2 Le Moyne, a Jesuit Father, discovered the Salt Springs of Onondaga in 1654, and on a 
 visit to New Amsterdam four years later told the Dominie Megapolensis of a spring at the 
 source of a little lake which the Indians did not dare to drink, because, they said, there 
 
 a devil at the bottom of it. The Father tasted it and found it as salt as the water of 
 
 dTat/ 
 
 J( 
 
 Portrait and Signature of Father Jogues 
 
 
1658.] 
 
 THE ESOPUS WAR. 
 
 235 
 
 Totem or Tribe-mark of the Five Nations 
 (from La Hontan). 
 
 The conflict between Stuyvesant and the authorities at Rehsselaer- 
 wyck had little intermission till in the 
 latter years of his administration the su- 
 premacy of the company was acknowl- 
 edged in the payment of a fixed subsidy 
 in wheat by the Patroons. But the Di- 
 rector always had reason to be grateful 
 to them for their steady adherence to that 
 policy which preserved friendly relations 
 with the Five Nations. In 1658 trouble 
 again broke out with the river Indians, 
 which might have been far more disas- 
 trous had not the Mohawks remained 
 neutral. 
 
 The Director had persuaded the people of Esopus, when they re- 
 turned to their farms, after the massacre of three years be- The E^,,,, 
 fore, to find mutual protection in a compact village sur- war 
 rounded with defences. The confidence that very precaution gave 
 may, perhaps, have made them careless of provoking the hostility of 
 the savages. A band of these, who had been engaged to assist in the 
 harvest, were fired upon by the villagers, for no greater offence than 
 being noisy and offensive in a drunken revel for which the Dutch 
 themselves had supplied the means. Retaliation followed, and the 
 whites, as usual, suffered in the devastation of their farms and in loss 
 of life. 
 
 This Esopus war, as it was called, continued intermittently till 1664, 
 and might have been ruinous to the settlements along the banks of 
 the Hudson had not the Mohawks been persuaded to continue faithful 
 to the peaceful and friendly relations which had been so long main- 
 tained. Even without the aid of that tribe the Esopus Indians were 
 a formidable enemy. In the course of the war some of those who had 
 been taken prisoners by the Dutch were sent to the plantations of 
 Curac.oa as slaves. The wrong was one not to be forgotten nor for- 
 given. In June, 1663, the village of Wiltwyck or Wildwyck as 
 Esopus was then named was almost totally destroyed. Although 
 the ostensible cause of this particular attack was the building of a 
 new Ronduit, a little fort, at the neighboring village, thence known 
 ever since as Rondout, in every blow that fell from the tomahawks 
 of the savages was the memory of the slaves, their brothel's, across 
 the sea. 
 
 It was at high noon, while Stuyvesant was conferring, in the open 
 
 the sea. The Domiuie repeated this in a letter to the Classis iu Amsterdam, but adding 
 "whether ihis be true or whether it be a Jesuit lie, I do not determine." O'Caliayluin. 
 
236 THE LATTER YEARS OF NEW NETHERLAND. [CHAP. X. 
 
 fields outside the town, with the chiefs who had agreed to meet 
 
 on pretence of making a treaty, that the 
 
 warriors, scattering themselves through the 
 
 village apparently in friendly mood, sud- 
 
 denly fell upon the unsuspecting people. 
 
 The houses were plundered and set on fire ; 
 
 some were killed, and some were seized and 
 
 carried off as prisoners ; men at work in the 
 
 fields, hurrying in at the sight of the burn- 
 
 ing houses, to protect their wives and chil- 
 
 dren, were shot down from within their own 
 
 doorways. When, after a fierce and desper- 
 
 ate fight, the savages were driven off, they 
 
 left behind them a heap of ruins in which 
 
 were the charred bodies of twenty-one of 
 
 the murdered villagers, but they carried 
 
 away more than twice that number of women 
 
 and children as prisoners. It was, however, 
 
 the last event of the war ; the Indians were 
 
 vigorously pursued and punished ; and in 
 
 the course of the next few months a treaty 
 
 was concluded, the last ever made between 
 
 the Dutch and the Indians. 
 
 But notwithstanding these Indian wars 
 and massacres, from which no colony was 
 
 altogether free, New Netherland 
 
 slowly grew and prospered. At 
 
 New Amsterdam Stuyvesant yield- 
 ed, when longer resistance was useless, to 
 fresh innovations upon the prerogatives of 
 the Director-general, though none of them 
 took much from his power, or added much 
 to the power of the people. Whatever gain 
 there was to popular government came not 
 through any such well-defined purpose as ex- 
 isted in New England, of deriving the right 
 of governing from the will of the governed ; 
 but only that the privileges belonging to cit- 
 izenship in the fatherland should be pre- 
 served in the new home. So far as popular 
 freedom existed in Holland it was to be 
 maintained in the New Netherland ; but 
 wherever a limit or a barrier had been set 
 
 him 
 
 
1854.] PERSECUTION OF LUTHERANS. 237 
 
 up at home it was also to be set up in the colony. The burgher gov- 
 ernment, which was wrested from the unwilling hands of the com- 
 pany, was limited subsequently, by a division of burghers into Great 
 and Small, giving certain exclusive privileges to those who were rich 
 enough to buy admission into the first rank, and denying those priv- 
 ileges to the poor. It was the system of Amsterdam, and was there- 
 fore adopted by the colonists, though peculiarly burdensome to the 
 people of a new country ; it was not long, however, before it was 
 modified by an experience of its inevitable evils. 
 
 But whatever concessions Stuyvesant made to the popular will and 
 to the rights of the people he made upon compulsion, not 
 
 T , f. . .. r ,, The policy 
 
 convmcement. It was his most firm conviction that the of the w- 
 powers that be are ordained of God. He governed in that 
 belief, and his temper was not one to mitigate the severity of a rule 
 that appealed to such authority. Naturally he was as intolerant of 
 any approach to religious freedom as he was jealous of any encroach- 
 ment upon the authority and privileges of the company whose vice- 
 gerent he was. As a rigid and zealous Calvinist he was impatient and 
 scornful of any other doctrinal belief, or any other form of ecclesiasti- 
 cal government. No Boston Puritan could be more positive than he 
 that there was but one road to the Heavenly Kingdom, though he was 
 equally sure that the road the Puritan had chosen was the wrong one. 
 
 For the Lutherans the Dutch non-conformists of New Nether- 
 land, the Director had little mercy. Aided by the Dom- 
 inies Megapolensis and Drisius, he determined upon their of the LU- 
 suppression so soon as they asserted their difference of faith. 
 The right they asked for, of public worship among themselves, he 
 denied, not only because such worship was not in accordance with 
 that sounder belief and better rule which belonged to the Reformed 
 Church, but also because if the door were once opened to one set of 
 schismatics it would be hard to close it upon others. The Independ- 
 ents of the English towns would be only too glad to avail themselves 
 of a new pretext for insubordination. In religious as in civil affairs 
 there should be, the Director determined, uniformity and obedience 
 to the established order. 
 
 The duty of this uniformity and obedience he enforced upon the 
 Lutherans, so soon as they were numerous enough to attract attention, 
 by proclamations. He refused to grant them a meeting-house of their 
 own in New Amsterdam. When the more zealous among them pre- 
 ferred the dictates of their own consciences to the commands of the 
 Director, he punished them by fines and imprisonments. When they 
 sent to Holland for a minister of their own persuasion, he was soon 
 made to see that a proper discharge of his duties was impossible, and 
 he was driven out of the colony. 
 
238 THE LATTER YEARS OF NEW XETHERLAND. [CHAP. X. 
 
 This policy, however, was the policy of Stay vesant himself, and his 
 Disapproval allies, the New Amsterdam clergymen, rather than of the 
 st f enianf m ~ West India Company. In this, as on so many other occa- 
 chamber. s j onSi the Director-general ran before he was sent. The 
 Amsterdam Directors were governed by that spirit which had made 
 Holland an asylum for all, of whatever faith and whatever country, 
 who were sufferers and exiles for their religious convictions. Stuyve- 
 sant was rebuked by his superiors for his want of charity as well as for 
 his want of judgment. There might be, they thought, a "needless 
 preciseness " as to the formulary of baptism, which was the essential 
 point of difference between the Calvinists and the Lutherans, and 
 the Directors hinted that the Company would feel constrained to per- 
 mit the Lutherans to have a church of their own, if the harsh measures 
 toward them should be continued. 
 
 That zeal for religion which so absorbed the New Englanders had 
 far less power over the Dutch. Stuyvesant and his clerical advisers 
 were earnest enough and strong enough to prevent the Lutherans 
 from having a place of their own for public worship, so long as New 
 Netherland was a Dutch colony. But the fervor of the Director and 
 the clergymen seems to have had as little support in popular sympa- 
 thy as it had from the Company's Directors in Holland. The people 
 at large were not much disposed to the rigid method of enforcing uni- 
 formity of belief and religious observance in which Stuyvesant was 
 inclined to follow the example of the New England Puritans. This 
 difference between them and their New England neighbors was one of 
 race rather than the result of a more humane disposition or a wider 
 intelligence ; but to that difference it was due, no doubt, that there 
 were fewer heretics among them. A novel doctrine loses much of 
 its attractiveness if no penalty is attached to entertaining it, and the 
 preacher of that doctrine is sure to avoid a people among whom he 
 cannot command even attention enough to be controverted. 
 
 The outward observances of religious duty could hardly have been 
 of paramount interest among a people who did not build on 
 
 Dutch imlif- r *. 
 
 ferenw to all Long Island, for the first thirty years ot its occupation, 
 
 novel relig- . 
 
 ious doc- a single church, or settle among them a single minister of 
 their own faith. For that long period they were content to 
 depend, for such spiritual comfort and instruction as they required, 
 upon occasional visits to New Amsterdam, or occasional services in the 
 rural districts from her clergymen. Whether such a state of things 
 showed contentment or indifference, in either case it was plain that 
 this was stony ground for the sowing of the seed of new doctrine. It 
 was not so much, probably, that the Director feared the people might 
 be led away from a faith they professed so coldly, as from a sincere 
 
1657.] 
 
 PERSECUTION OF THE QUAKERS". 
 
 239 
 
 disapproval of what he believed to be error, that he visited heretics 
 with punishment. 
 
 The prohibition of public worship, meant at first for the Lutherans 
 only, was extended to others. At Flushing, among the English, in 
 1656, were a few Anabaptists. A poor shoemaker, from Rhode Island, 
 one William Wickendam, felt himself called upon to expound the 
 Word, and to give new baptism to his disciples in the river. William 
 Hallett, the sheriff, permitted his house to be used for the conventicles 
 of these people, where Wickendam preached and administered the 
 sacraments. Stuyvesant commanded that the ordinance be enforced 
 against them, and 
 both the sheriff and 
 the shoemaker were 
 fined and banished, 
 though Wicken- 
 dam, because of his 
 poverty, was per- 
 mitted to go with- 
 out payment of the 
 fine. 
 
 The next year a 
 ship arrived at New 
 Amsterdam, having 
 on board several of 
 the " cursed sect of 
 heretics " as they 
 were called in the 
 Massachusetts stat- 
 ute of Quakers. Some of this 
 company had been banished from 
 Boston the year before, and were now 
 on their way to Rhode Island, " where 
 all kinds of scum dwell," wrote the 
 Dominies Megapolensis and Drisius, &* ke ' Women P r <= hin in New Amsterdam. 
 " for it is nothing else than a sink of New England." l Among them 
 were two women, whose names, " after the flesh," as they 
 said, were Dorothy Waugh and Mary Witherhead. Both m xew 
 
 , . , i r> Netherland. 
 
 were of that number who, the autumn before, had been first 
 imprisoned in Boston, and then compelled to reembark for Barba- 
 does ; both, no doubt, had listened with stern approval to Mary 
 Prince, as from the window of the Boston jail she bore her testimony 
 against Governor Endicott, as he passed by in the street, crying unto 
 1 Letter to the Classis iu Holland, cited by Brodhead. 
 
240 THE LATTER YEARS OF NEW NETHERLAND. [CHAP. X 
 
 him, " Woe unto thee, thou art an oppressor " * When they landed 
 at New Amsterdam they emulated the example of that zealous 
 woman. They asked neither for a place of public worship nor for per- 
 mission to preach, but going from street to street, through the town, 
 they announced the new doctrine, and declaimed against the steeple- 
 houses, the hireling priesthood, and their pernicious teachings. To 
 many of the gaping, and probably amused crowd of Dutchmen who 
 followed them, they spoke in an unknown tongue, and upon questions 
 which gave them little concern, even if they could have understood 
 the preachers. But the preaching nevertheless was a defiance of au- 
 thority and law which the Dutch Director was as little disposed as any 
 Puritan governor to brook. The women were seized, and thrown into 
 separate prisons " miry dungeons " they are called infested with 
 vermin. After eight days' endurance of this punishment, their hands 
 were tied behind them, and they were sent back to their ship to finish 
 their voyage to Rhode Island. 2 
 
 With another of the company, Robert Hodgson (or Hodshone), it 
 
 fared still worse. He proposed to remain in New Nether- 
 of Robert land, and was welcomed at Heemstede by a few of his own 
 
 way of thinking, with whom he soon held a meeting. He 
 was arrested and word sent to Stuyvesant, who ordered him to be 
 brought to New Amsterdam. His knife and his Bible, the latter with 
 him the more dangerous weapon, were taken away from him. Tied 
 to the tail of a cart in which rode two young women, one with a baby 
 at her breast, offenders like himself, and under a guard of soldiers, 
 he was driven, pinioned, in the night-time and through the woods, 
 " whereby he was much torn and abused," to the city. On his arrival 
 the gentle Friend was led by a rope, like some dangerous criminal, to 
 the prison, " a filthy place full of vermin." 
 
 What was done with the young women does not appear, but not 
 being preachers they were probably dismissed without further punish- 
 ment. Hodshone's principal accuser seems to have been Captain 
 Willett, again apparently an influential adviser of Stuyvesant, though 
 three years before he was appointed to the command, with Standish, 
 of the Plymouth troops in the proposed invasion of New Netherland. 
 He " had much incensed the governor " against the prisoner, it is said, 
 though it is easy to conceive that Stuyvesant's rage would need no 
 prompting in an encounter with one of that sect who feared no wrath 
 but the divine wrath, and respected no authority but the authority of 
 
 1 Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts. 
 
 2 Notwithstanding her sentence of banishment from Massachusetts, Dorothy Waugh 
 went back to Boston, where she and Sarah Gibbons were imprisoned and whipped for 
 speaking in the meeting-house after the lecture. 
 
1657.] 
 
 PERSECUTION OF ROBERT HODSHOXE. 
 
 241 
 
 God. A prisoner who would not even remove his hat in the presence 
 of the court would seem to such a judge as the Director as hardly de- 
 serving of other consideration than that hat and head should come off 
 together. 
 
 The forms of law were of little moment with an offender of this kind. 
 No defence was permitted him, and his sentence was read to him only 
 in Dutch. Its meaning, however, was not long left in doubt ; he was to 
 pay a fine of six hundred guilders ; 
 for two years his home was to be a 
 loathsome dungeon ; his days were 
 to be passed at hard labor, with a 
 negro, chained to a wheelbarrow. 
 When he pleaded that he "was never 
 brought up to nor used to such 
 work," a negro beat him with a 
 tarred four-inch rope till, as the nar- 
 rative says, " Robert fell down." 
 
 Hodshone retired to the Lord. 
 
 " Thus he was kept all that day in the 
 heat of the sun, chained to the wheel- 
 barrow, his body being much bruised 
 and swelled with the blows, and he, 
 kept without food, grew very faint and 
 sat upon the ground with his mind re- 
 tired to the Lord, and resigned to his 
 will, whereby he found himself supported." 
 
 So " retired to the Lord," so resigned and so supported, he endured 
 such punishment for three days, the dungeon at night, the barrow 
 and its chains, the negro and his tarred rope, by day. Again he 
 was taken before the Director, less able than ever to work, as little 
 disposed as ever to submission. " What law have I broken ? " he 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 16 
 
242 
 
 THE LATTER YEARS OF NEW NETHERLAND. [CHAP.X. 
 
 demanded. He should work, he was told, or be whipped every day. 
 Again he was chained to the barrow and threatened with even worse 
 punishment if he dared to speak to any one. But the threats did not 
 move him ; " he did not forbear to speak to some that came to him, 
 so as he thought meet and convenient." The worse punishment fol- 
 lowed. Hung up by the hands, his feet tied to a log, his bare back 
 was torn with rods till he became almost insensible to torture. A 
 country-woman was permitted to enter his prison to wash and dress 
 his wounds and nurse him back to life ; others interceded with the 
 authorities on his behalf, for many even among the Dutch were moved 
 with pity. Some would gladly have paid his fine, but he refused 
 
 Friends' Meeting-house in Flushing. 
 
 mercy on such terms, lest it should be construed into an acknowledg- 
 ment on his part of conscious wrong. 
 
 When sentence was first pronounced upon him it was displeasing to 
 many of the Dutch, as "did appear by the shaking of their heads." 
 More scandalous and inhuman it seemed to many of them when, after 
 the cruel and repeated punishment of one whose sole offence was obe- 
 dience to his own conscience, he was again led out, still chained to 
 his barrow, to labor upon the public highway. Some openly expressed 
 their sympathy, at least for his sufferings if not for the cause for which 
 he suffered. Among those who exerted themselves on his behalf was 
 the widow Anna Bayard, a sister of the Director. She was full of 
 compassion, perhaps of indignation, and at her prayers and expostula- 
 
16 .61-] PERSECUTION OF THE QUAKERS. 243 
 
 tioris her stern brother relented. Hodshone was released at length, 
 and the fine remitted, but he was banished from the colony. 1 
 
 To the interference of the good Mrs. Bayard the Friends owed more, 
 probably, than the release of a single one of their number 
 from the severe treatment of the Director. No others of " M 
 that sect were subjected to such cruel persecution as had 
 been visited upon Hodshone, though meetings were held, and the ob- 
 noxious doctrines preached, at Jamaica, Flushing, Heemstede, and 
 Brooklyn, from the first appearance of Friends in New Netherland. 
 Neither imprisonment, fines, nor an act forbidding all persons to en- 
 tertain a Quaker for a single night under a penalty of fifty pounds, 
 could abate the. zeal or enforce the silence of these people. If nc 
 house was open to them, they assembled in the woods for worship after 
 their manner. They were willing to endure whatever should be in- 
 flicted upon them, for conscience' sake ; but happily after the release 
 of Hodshone, they seemed no more obnoxious to the Director than other 
 dissenters. In 1663. even the comparatively mild persecution of 
 enforcing the law against those who most persistently defied it ceased. 
 
 One John Bowne, of Flushing, had in that year become a convert 
 to the doctrines of Friends and had opened his house for 
 
 . . . ., , , . . Banishment 
 
 their meetings. I here was, perhaps, something more than of John 
 usually exasperating in the quiet and patient firmness with 
 which the sturdy English farmer endured three months' imprison- 
 ment, and refused to pay a fine, for the council ordered that he should 
 be sent out of the province by the first ship ready for sea. He went 
 as a prisoner to Holland, Stuyvesant writing to the Directors in Am- 
 sterdam that if others did not take warning by his banishment they 
 would be even more severely dealt with. 
 
 Bowne defended himself before the Amsterdam chamber with 
 complete success. So far from approving what Stuyvesant proposed 
 to do, the Directors rebuked him for his previous course. Though they 
 preferred that there should be neither Quakers nor any other dis- 
 senters in the colony, they doubted the wisdom of attempting to sup- 
 press them by vigorous measures. It was poor policy, they thought, 
 in a commercial colony to repel men by persecution for opinion's sake. 
 " Let every one," they said, " remain free as long as he is modest, 
 moderate, his political conduct irreproachable, and as long as he does 
 not offend others or oppose the government." This " maxim of mod- 
 eration " had been the rule of the magistrates of Amsterdam. " Tread 
 thus in their steps," they exhorted the Director, "and we doubt not 
 you will be blessed." Stuyvesant had the grace to accept this wise 
 
 1 Scwnll's History of the Quakers : An Abstract of the Sufferings nf the People called 
 Quakers for the Testimony of <i Good Conscience. London, 1733. 
 
244 
 
 THE LATTER YEARS OF NEW NETHERLAND. [CiiAi-.X 
 
 and humane counsel. The Friends were not again molested. Bowne 
 returned to New Amsterdam, and, when they met, the Director 
 " seemed ashamed of what he had done." 1 
 
 But these religious persecutions had little to do with the matei'ial 
 progress of New Netherland. They neither helped nor hindered it, 
 and they were rather individual than national less the outgrowth 
 of the character of the people than indications only that Stuyvesant 
 was as earnest and passionate on the religious as on other sides of his 
 nature. If the ordinary Dutchman cared little what his neighbors 
 might think or do about the affairs of the life to come, it was because 
 he was not prone to trouble himself very much about affairs of any 
 
 Bowne's House. 
 
 kind. His temperament led him to live, so long as he lived in this 
 world at all, a quiet, not over-anxious nor over-active life, and to ac- 
 cept without question and without much thought the teachings of es- 
 tablished authority. If he was more tolerant than his English neigh- 
 bor of differences of opinion on sacred as well as civil subjects, more 
 merciful in punishment when punishment seemed to be called for, it was 
 not so much that he was more just, but that he was less susceptible. 
 It came to pass therefore, that his own province of New Netherland 
 was indebted for whatever progress it made very much to the Eng- 
 lish, whose restless energy, much more than any diplomatic policy, 
 urged them to " keep crowding the Dutch." 
 
 1 Alii. Rec., cited by O'Callaphau and Brodhead. 
 

 1661.J GROWTH OF NEW NETHERLAND. 245 
 
 It was not till 1661 that any serious efforts were made to extend 
 the border settlement at Fort Orange. In that year the ura.iiiai 
 "Great Flat'' stretching from the fort to the Mohawk the colony, 
 country was conveyed to Arendt Van Curler, one of the earliest .set- 
 tlers of Rensselaerswyck, and the commissary and secretary of the 
 first Patroon. But it was three years later before the first settle- 
 ment was made upon the tract at Schaenhechstede, now Schenectady. 
 
 In the same year of this purchase by Van Curler, Melyn finally 
 parted with his manor of Staten Island, the whole of which became 
 the property of the West India Company. A new village still 
 called New Dorp soon sprung up a few miles south of the Narrows ; 
 grants of land were made in other parts of the island to some of the 
 French Waldenses who were among the earlier emigrants, and to Hugue- 
 nots from Rochelle, whose descendants have clung tenaciously from 
 generation to generation to the soil which their fathers first culti- 
 vated. In 1656, Jamaica a corruption of the Indian name, Jimeco 
 was settled by Englishmen, though the Dutch name was given it 
 of Rust-dorp, or Quiet Village. Westchester was reluctantly recog- 
 nized as Oost-dorp, or East village, for this also was settled by English- 
 men, between whom and Stuy vesant there was frequent conflict. One 
 Thomas Pell was the first English purchaser of land within the bound- 
 aries of the present Westchester County ; the tract he bought of the 
 Indians included the spot where Ann Hutchinson and her family 
 sought a last refuge from Puritan persecution and became the victims 
 of an indiscriminate savage ferocity. New Haerlem was large enough 
 in 1660 to be entitled to a village government. The next year two 
 new towns, New Utrecht and Boswyck now Bushwick were in- 
 corporated on Long Island, on the south side of the bay ; and on the 
 other side, the first municipality in the present State of New Jersey 
 was established at Bergen. Gradually the number of farms was 
 enlarged, and agriculture became a more important element in the in- 
 dustry of the province. Among a people with whom beer was a neces- 
 sary of life breweries were never wanting ; but to those other manufac- 
 tures had from time to time been added, especially of brick and 
 delft. In 1660 New Amsterdam contained three hundred and fifty 
 houses, which was an increase of two hundred in four years. 
 
 It was about this period that the trade in African slaves began to 
 assume some activity. A free trade in slaves was among the privileges 
 which the colonists had long thought the Company should grant them, 
 for only with such laborers was it deemed possible that agriculture 
 could flourish. A promise of aid of this sort had more than once been 
 given, but the number of negroes in the province, till after the middle 
 of the seventeenth century, was probably small. In 1648. an attempt 
 
246 
 
 THE LATTER YEARS OF NEW NETHERLAXD. [CHAP. X. 
 
 was made to encom-age an exchange of colonial products with Brazil for 
 slaves, apparently with small result. In 1652, permission was granted 
 for direct importation from the African coast ; but two ships only 
 seem to have availed themselves of this privilege. It was not, indeed, 
 till two years later that the trade became established, and the slaves 
 after that date were brought chiefly, if not entirely, from Cura<joa, 
 the principal Dutch depot for this traffic in the West Indies. The im- 
 portations to New Netherland were chiefly in the interest of the Com- 
 pany, though some share in them was granted to the municipality of 
 New Amsterdam. Those brought on account of the Company were 
 sold on arrival at public auction for beaver-currency, or its equivalent 
 in provisions, with the proviso that they should not be exported from 
 the colony. Stuy vesant was among the few who had the privilege 
 limited, perhaps, to official persons of importing slaves for his own 
 use. Director Beck of Cura^oa, writes him in August, 1659, that he 
 had purchased for him two boys and a girl, who, according to the bill 
 of lading, were shipped on the Spera MuncH, " all dry and well con- 
 ditioned, and marked with the annexed mark." In February of the 
 next year Beck writes again that he hopes soon to send him some 
 " lusty fellows." Four or five years later, ships counted their living 
 freight by hundreds. Though the Dutch were the first to bring the 
 African slave to this continent, 1 and the trade was thus successfully 
 established in their colony, 2 slavery was earlier made an important 
 element of their social system by the English in Virginia. 
 
 1 See vol. i., p. 302. 
 
 2 Voyages of the. Slavers St. John and Arms of Amsterdam, 1659, 1663 ; together vrith addi- 
 tional Papers illustrative of the Slave Trade under the Dutch. Translated from the Original 
 Manuscripts. By E. B. O'Callaghan. 
 
t CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE SURRENDER OF NEW NETHERLAND. 
 
 ENCROACHMENTS OF THE ENGLISH. THE SOUTH RIVER COLONY. LORD BALTI- 
 MORE'S CLAIM, AND CONTROVERSY WITH MARYLAND. A NEW PATENT GRANTED 
 TO CONNECTICUT. DISSATISFACTION OF NEW HAVEN. OTHER ENGLISH TOWNS 
 ACCEPT THE PROTECTION OF CONNECTICUT. CONFEDERACY OF LONG ISLAND 
 TOWNS UNDER JOHN SCOTT. His ATTEMPTS TO COERCE THE DUTCH. NEW NETH- 
 ERLAND AND PART OF NEW ENGLAND GRANTED TO THE DUKK OF YORK. THE 
 NICOLLS COMMISSION. NEW NEIHERLAND INVADED. ITS SURRENDER. NICOLLS 
 PROCLAIMED GOVERNOR. CHANGE OF NAMES. N T EW AlISTEL TAKEN BY THE ENG- 
 LISH. 
 
 THESE later years of Dutch rule in America were anxious years 
 to Stuyvesant. Notwithstanding the growing prosperity of Encroach . 
 his own province he watched with jealous eyes the encroach- * n ^ f the 
 ments and increasing influence and power of the English, 
 even if he had not actual prevision of their ultimate supremacy over 
 all New Netherland. Massachusetts, who claimed that her patent ex- 
 tended indefinitely westward, proposed to settle a colony on the 
 upper waters of the Hudson, and claimed the right of navigation 
 upon that river to reach her alleged possessions. The right was de- 
 nied on the ground of priority of discovery, but the claim was none 
 the less a source of anxiety to the Director. By the treaty of Hart- 
 ford a large proportion of Long Island was ceded to the English, and 
 both there and in Westchester they were pressing hard upon the 
 Dutch, with no very strict observance of boundary lines. " Place no 
 confidence," wrote the Director to the Amsterdam Chamber hi 1660, 
 " in the weakness of the English government and its indisposition to 
 interfere in affairs here. New England does not care much about 
 its troubles, and does not want its aid. Her people are fully convinced 
 that their power overbalances ours tenfold ; and it is to be appre- 
 hended that they may make further attempts, at this opportunity, 
 without fearing or caring for home interference." Nor was there 
 much in the relations of the mother countries to lead him to hope 
 that in colonial affairs the interests of his colony would be protected. 
 Holland was not left long in doubt as to how much reliance there 
 
248 THE SURRENDER OF NEW NKTHERLASD. [CHAP. XL 
 
 might be upon the acts of the restored king, Charles II., for the ful- 
 filment of the promises of an exiled prince. 
 
 On the South River the Director was beset by never-ceasing per- 
 plexity and anxiety, relieved by no perspective of general 
 
 Affairs on J . XT e 1 4-' t 
 
 the South prosperity. Wo increase of population, no extension or ag- 
 riculture, no growth of manufacturing industry cheered the 
 company and encouraged to fresh exertions on behalf of that colony. 
 The absence of all healthful energy and enterprise in that portion of 
 New Netherland was due to conditions under which all such energy 
 and enterprise were well-nigh impossible. A wilderness lay between 
 it and the capital of the colony, and none of the advantages which 
 might come from nearness to the seat of power could influence its 
 affairs. It was only the province of a province, governed or misgov- 
 erned by the deputy of a deputy, claimed now by one nation, now by 
 another, a bone of contention gnawed by each in turn. Half of the 
 community had almost always been in the wretched position of a 
 subjugated people. The strength and vitality without which the 
 work of the pioneer must be an irremediable failure were paralyzed 
 by contention, dependence, and uncertainty. 
 
 Not the least of the difficulties which Stuyvesant had to meet in 
 the management of the affairs of this portion of his government was 
 that which confronted him everywhere in fending off the English. 
 The enterprising New Englanders pitied, no doubt, the distresses and 
 hardships which beset the people on the South River, so far as they 
 came from natural causes. But they were not unmindful, neverthe- 
 less, of the good ch;inces for trade which those distresses opened to 
 them. Beeckman, whom the Director-general had appointed as gov- 
 ernor of the company's colony, purchased of the Indians the territory 
 south of the Boomtjes (Bombay) Hook to Cape Henlopen, and estab- 
 lished at Horekill a trading-post, putting in it a small garrison, near 
 the spot where De Vries and Godyn had planted their colony of 
 Swaanendael a quarter of a century before. This gave to the Dutch 
 a valid claim to the whole river from the capes to the Schuylkill ; but 
 the New Englanders gave no heed to the few Dutch soldiers who 
 guarded, or attempted to guard, the passage of the Delaware, and de- 
 fied the laws which prohibited their trading along its banks. Where 
 ships of all nations now ride safely at anchor off the quaint little 
 village of Lewes, under the lee of the Delaware breakwater, awaiting 
 orders for the great staples of American commerce, or seeking a 
 refuge from the storms outside the capes of Henlopen and May, more 
 than two centuries ago the little vessels of New England lingered 
 for wind and tide with their cargoes of peltries gathered along the 
 shores of the Delaware, and laughed at the handful of Dutch soldiers 
 
Sche jfunaihurifk 
 
 Matovancons 
 
 .j> gg 
 
 :ay#n 
 
 Barudegat 
 
 NEW NETHERLAXD 
 
 From the Map of 
 
 A, VAXDEEDONCK. 
 
 1656. 
 

1659.] CONTROVERSY WITH MARYLAND. 249 
 
 on the Horekill, who wei'e powerless to resent this infringement on 
 the territorial and commercial rights of the West India Company. 
 
 Trouble from another direction was even more threatening. The 
 rendition of the fugitives to Virginia and Maryland was de- contest with 
 manded by Stuyvesant as Director-general, and a contro- Mar > land - 
 versy was provoked which came near producing a quite unlooked-for 
 result. These people who had fled, not only from legal obligations, 
 which they considered unjust and oppressive, but from trials and 
 afflictions which were the natural consequences of their settlement in 
 a new country, must, nevertheless, have represented that country 
 as one worth possessing. The English from the southward began 
 quietly and gradually to encroach upon the Dutch boundaries, and in 
 reply to Stuyvesant's demand that the fugitives should be compelled 
 to return to the jurisdiction from which they had fled, Lord Balti- 
 more renewed his claim, that the whole South River region was in- 
 cluded within his patent, the northern boundary of which was the 
 fortieth parallel. 
 
 A delegation from Maryland, at the head of which was Colonel 
 Nathaniel Utie, appeared at New Amstel, with a summons from Gov- 
 ernor Fendall for the surrender of the province. The official gentle- 
 men had reason enough to be alarmed at such a summons, for there 
 were not more than twenty-five soldiers at their command in the 
 whole province, and two thirds of these were stationed at Horekill ; 
 but possibly the people had little share in these apprehensions. Worn 
 out with sickness and sullen with discontent, they were in a state of 
 mind to listen to Utie, whose instructions were to " insinuate unto the 
 people there seated " that they should have " good conditions," and 
 " have protection in their lives, liberties, and estates." 1 Alrichs, in 
 his letter to Stuyvesant, on the arrival of the Maryland delegation, 
 says " the citizens are few in number, and unwilling to fight, because, 
 as they say, the city has not kept its conditions, but curtailed them," 2 
 and he reports Utie as saying : " We [that is the Dutch] ought to 
 take hold of this opportunity, as our men had chiefly deserted us, and 
 they who are yet remaining will be of little or no aid ; therefore it is 
 our intention to take hold of this occasion, as we will not let it pass 
 by, convinced as we are of your weakness." 
 
 There was no hope in resistance, and the Dutch wisely resorted to 
 protracted negotiation, which they carried on with great skill. Al- 
 richs and Beeckman replied courteously much to Stuyvesant's dis- 
 gust when he heard of it but firmly to the Maryland envoys, repre- 
 senting that the right of the Dutch to the South River was founded 
 
 1 Proceedings of Council of Maryland; iu Hazard's Aiumi.-;, p. 257. 
 
 2 Albany Records, cited by Hazard. 
 
250 THK SURRENDER OF NEW NETHERLAND. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 on priority of discovery and occupation ; that such " procedures and 
 treatment by Christians and Protestant brethren " appeared " un- 
 expected and strange ; " that they were contrary to the peace and 
 harmony existing between the republic of England and the States 
 General ; that such a question should be submitted to their respective 
 rulers; and, finally, that they ought to have three weeks to communi- 
 cate with the Director-general at New Amsterdam. Utie acceded to 
 the latter proposition and returned to Maryland to await the event. 
 
 Stuyvesant's anger when he received the tidings from Alrichs and 
 Beeckman was more than usually intemperate. " I did see," he says, 
 " with no less regret than surprise .... the frivolous conclusion of 
 Nathaniel Utie, and your not less frivolous answer, and further pi-o- 
 ceedings with him on such a frivolous fabricated instructions .... 
 much more so yet, that you permitted the aforesaid Utie to sow his 
 seditious and mutinous seed among the community, .... who rather 
 deserved to have been apprehended as a spy and conducted hither, 
 than to have obtained an audience upon such a frivolous fabricated in- 
 struction without a commission." There was no limit to the absurdi- 
 ties into which his ungovernable temper would not hurry the Direc- 
 tor. He must have known that Utie's instructions were from Gover- 
 nor Kendall of Maryland ; that the mission was undertaken by oi-der 
 of Lord Baltimore himself ; that there was ample power behind it, 
 five hundred men, it was soon reported, being ready to move upon the 
 Dutch ; and, on the other side, he well knew that the whole force on 
 which Alrichs and Beeckman had to rely consisted of five and twenty 
 men, two thirds of whom were at a distance of seventy miles, and that 
 the colony generally, if they did not welcome a change of government, 
 would look upon it with the coolest indifference. But Stuyvesant's 
 anger was not merely absurd ; it became outrageous when, to punish 
 the governors of the South River for conduct which under the circum- 
 stances was altogether judicious, he insulted them by sending his 
 secretary, Cornelius Van Ruyven, and Captain Martin Kregier, to 
 take charge of affairs. 
 
 But, as usual, however unreasonable Stuyvesant was in temper, he 
 was rational in action. On the same day that he so berated his sub- 
 ordinates who received Utie, he wrote to the governor of Maryland, 
 and appointed two commissioners, Augustine Heermans and Resolved 
 Waldron, as bearers of the letter, and with power to enter into nego- 
 tiation upon the subject of Utie's mission. He WHS not so blinded by 
 anger as not to see that the only course open to him was precisely that 
 for adopting which he so blamed Alrk-hs and Beeckman. They knew 
 that if the claim presented on behalf of Lord Baltimore could be 
 defeated at all, it could only be by an appeal, not to arms, but to 
 
1G60.] 
 
 CONTROVERSY WITH MARYLAND. 
 
 2ol 
 
 reason and argument. Stuyvesant knew they were right, and, while 
 he humiliated them with reproaches he justified their conduct by re- 
 sorting, as they had done, to pretexts for delay and offers of nego- 
 tiation. Though he made a show of armed defence by sending sixty 
 soldiers to the South River with Captain Kregier, his real reliance 
 was upon his ambassadors, Heermans and VValdron, who were to push 
 on to Maryland, armed only with his letter of remonstrance. 
 
 The negotiation with the governor and council of that province was 
 conducted, on the part of the Dutch commissioners, with a 
 good deal of ability and tact. The invasion of the rights of 
 
 i/~i i ' 11 ii<- 
 
 the Company, they contended, was contrary to the law or 
 nations and to treaties existing between England and the States Gen- 
 eral ; that the colony of the city of Amsterdam, which Maryland spe- 
 cially claimed had intruded upon Lord Baltimore's patent, was a colony 
 
 
 
 The Maryland and New Netherland Ambassadors. 
 
 within the jurisdiction of New Netherland, and that the West India 
 Company had planted the colony in the South River region from 
 thirteen to fifteen years before any grant of lands along that coast was 
 made to Lord Baltimore ; and while they professed a strong desire to 
 live in peace and amity with their neighbors, they firmly avowed the 
 determination to submit to no wrong. 
 
 In the course of the discussion the Baltimore patent was shown to 
 the commissioners, who at once detected and fastened upon that 
 clause which limited the grant to lands a Jiactenus inculta" (hitherto 
 
252 THE SURRENDER OF NEW NETHERLAND. [CHAP. XL 
 
 uncultivated), and inhabited only by the Indians. On this point the 
 Dutch commissioners immediately presented a supplementary declara- 
 tion, confining themselves to the single argument that the South 
 River region was distinctly excluded from Lord Baltimore's patent by 
 its own terms, inasmuch as when the grant was made that country no 
 longer belonged to the Indians, but had been bought of them by the 
 Dutch, who were in possession of it, and had been for years, at the 
 date of Lord Baltimore's patent. 
 
 To this presentation of the case there seems to have been no 
 answer. It was unanswerable, indeed, as between the contending 
 parties, if the assumption of the Dutch was admitted, that early and 
 long occupation carried with it the title to the country. But one 
 party chose to ignore, and the other did not know or unaccountably 
 forgot, that if by possession something more than mere military tenure 
 was meant, there was still a third nationality whose right was better 
 than any that could be given by royal patent or company's charter. 
 
 It perhaps occurred to the Dutch commissioners that the English 
 might make use of the fact that the Swedes had so long maintained 
 jurisdiction over the South River as an argument against the claim of 
 the West India Company ; for the}' allude in their first declaration to 
 the Swedes as " Dutch Swedes," who in common with the Dutch had 
 settled in several places on that river, and when Governor Fendall of 
 Maryland asked what was meant by " Dutch Swedes, " the commis- 
 sioners answered that " they had been partners and associates residing 
 for a time under jurisdiction of the Company, or rather connived at, 
 but who became more insolent, so as at length, in a traitorous man- 
 ner, they surprised Fort New Amstel, before called Fort Casimir, by 
 which director-general and council in New Netherland were com- 
 pelled to cleanse that neighborhood of such a vile gang." 
 
 This ingenious misrepresentation of the order of events of more 
 than twenty years on the South River seems to have been accepted as 
 true by the English. Either they did not know or did not choose to 
 assert that the " vile gang " was still the larger though now a subject 
 portion of the people of the province, and that during the long ad- 
 ministration of John Printz at least, so far fi-om being "connived at " 
 as associates and partners under the jurisdiction of the Company, they 
 were the masters of the Dutch, whose presence they had hardly toler- 
 ated. The commissioners were as careful to present all the argument 
 in their own favor as they were to anticipate any possible rejoinder 
 on the other side. While they thus ignored the Swedes, whose juris- 
 diction could be used as a strong point against them, they reminded 
 the English of that Sir Edmund Plowden who called himself earl 
 palatine of New Albion, and claimed that New Albion was granted 
 
1660.] 
 
 CONTROVERSY WITH MARYLAND. 
 
 253 
 
 to him by James II., and extended from the North River to Virginia. 
 The title of Lord Baltimore to the Delaware was, they said, no better 
 than this of Plowden, who " in former time would make us believe he 
 hath unto, when it afterward did prove and was found out, he only 
 subreptiff and obreptiff hath something obtained to that purpose which 
 was invalid." It was a shrewd reminder to the Maryland people that 
 their own rights were not undisputed, and that among rival claimants 
 possession was the better title. 1 
 The difficulties of the ques- 
 tion, and the able presentation 
 of it by Stuyvesant's ambas- 
 sadors, quite confounded the 
 Maryland magistrates. The 
 subject was referred to Lord 
 Baltimore, then in England, 
 for further consideration. The 
 consideration was not want- 
 ing, but no adjustment of the 
 conflicting claims was ever 
 reached. In 1660 we hear of 
 Captain James Neal, the attor- 
 ney of Baltimore, demanding 
 of the College of XIX at Am- 
 sterdam the cession of New 
 Amstel, and of the reply of 
 the college that " they will use 
 all the means God and nature 
 have given to protect the in- 
 habitants." Two years later 
 Beeckman writes to Stuy vesant 
 
 J t Swedish Soldier of the Seventeenth Century- 
 
 that he hears of the arrival of 
 
 the son of Lord Baltimore in Maryland, and that "nothing further is 
 
 mentioned there of any intentions upon this district." 
 
 Apprehension of trouble from that quarter, nevertheless, increased 
 in the Amsterdam Chamber. In less than a year from the time of 
 Beeckman's hopeful letter, the Company transferred all their posses- 
 
 1 The Plowden patent has been the cause of a good deal of controversy. The truth 
 about it seems to be that Sir Edmund Plowden asked for a grant from King Charles of 
 the country from Virginia to the North River, to be called New Albion, but the request 
 was refused by the king, and a worthless patent was obtained from the viceroy of Ireland, 
 who had no authority to give it. A Description of the Province of New Albion, etc., etc., etc., 
 by Beauchamp Plantagenct (a supposed assumed nnme for Plowden). Hazard's Annals. 
 Note by Henry C. Murphy in his translation of the Vertoorjh, in N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 
 Second Series, vol. ii. 
 
254 THE SURRENDER OF NEW NETHERLANI). [CHAP. XI. 
 
 sion on the South River to the city of Amsterdam ; and the reason 
 given is that the colony m;iv be protected, without expense 
 
 Transfer of r 
 
 . 
 
 to the Company, against encroachments from the hughsh on 
 
 to the i-itv. r " & . . & 
 
 the south. For, from the English on that side, the Directors 
 declare, as little favor is to be expected as from the English on the 
 north, and that these "are continuing in their usurpations." It was 
 the shadow of the coming event. In less than a year thereafter New 
 Amsterdam became New York, and New Amstel, Newcastle, and the 
 Dutch, except for a brief subsequent interval, ceased to contend with 
 England for colonial power in North America. 
 
 But these later years of Dutch possession on the South River were 
 not otherwise years of prosperity or of peace. Alrichs died 
 
 riiitrh while the controversy was going on between Stuyvesant's 
 
 
 commissioners and the mngistrates of Maryland, and was 
 succeeded by D'Hinoyossa. The administration of this new 
 governor of the Colony of the City "was marked by little else than 
 quarrels with Beeckmau and intrigues against him. " He feels him- 
 self again pretty high," Beeckman writes of his rival, " and is strut- 
 ting forward in full pride. He is boasting that he will recover all the 
 effects of the deceased Alrichs, and sings already another tune." This 
 was when D'Hinoyossa was appointed Director, and the antagonism it 
 shows between the two men had from that moment no abatement. 
 A struggle for supremacy in the colony left little time to look after its 
 real interests ; industry was crippled by constant fear of Indian hos- 
 tilities : idleness and the want of a good example in the rulers led to 
 general immorality and lawlessness. 1 
 
 D'Hinoyossa, probably, as well as fear of the English, had some- 
 thing to do with the transfer of the South River to the city of Amster- 
 dam. The governor had sometime before gone secretly to Holland, 
 and when he returned it was as sole governor where hitherto he had 
 held only a divided command. But his triumph over Beeckman was 
 short-lived. 
 
 At the north events were hurrying on the inevitable conclusion. 
 A ,. ,,,r- After the restoration of Charles II., John Winthrop the 
 t'.'Y'm'iu'.rti- younger was sent by the general court of Hartford as the 
 cut agent of that colony to England, with instructions to procure 
 
 a new charter from the king, whom Connecticut had hastened to ac- 
 knowledge. Mr. Winthrop was successful. The boundaries of the 
 
 1 There could have been little respect for either law or justice where the wife of the 
 Swedish priest eloped with a young man, and when the priest broke into the young man's 
 room in search of the woman, was compelled by the authorities, because he took an inven- 
 tory "of a few old stockings." to assume all the debts which his wife's paramour had left 
 behind him. The priest sought consolation by marrying himself immediately to another 
 woman, though this was pronounced illegal till he had obtained a divorce. 
 
1662.] DISSATISFACTION OF XE\V HAVEX. -->o 
 
 original patent, conveyed by the Earl of Warwick to Lord Say 
 and Seal and others, which the colony had afterward purchased of 
 Fenwick, were confirmed in April, 1662, by new letters patent with 
 enlarged privileges. It gave to the patentees one hundred and twenty 
 miles from the Narragansett River along the coast ' toward the south- 
 west, west and by south," and from that line westward in its full 
 breadth to the Pacific, or, as it was then called, the South Sea, with 
 all the islands along the included coasts of both oceans. 1 
 
 New Haven and other English towns along the Sound and on Long 
 Island, which had hitherto been independent, were thus 
 brought under the jurisdiction of Connecticut. Some of faction of 
 
 New liaven. 
 
 them submitted cheerfully ; those, especially, near the bound- 
 ary line of New Netherland gladlv welcomed the protection of such a 
 union. But these were the weaker towns. New Haven, strong and 
 self-reliant, protested with vehemence against this disregard of her 
 rights by purchase and settlement. Her legislature called the act 
 " the great sin of Connecticut," as one " contrary to righteousness, 
 amity, and peace." The magistrates of that colony were accused of bad 
 faith in the measures they took to procure the new patent ; of treach- 
 ery in the course they pursued in arousing discontent and animosity 
 among the people, that New Haven might be disorganized and become 
 the prey of Connecticut. Whether the charges were true or not, 
 the assertion of jurisdiction was the source of perpetual trouble for 
 the two years that the controversy lasted ; it was so easv to evade 
 the payment of taxes within the boundaries of New Haven by the 
 plea that allegiance was due to the new government only. 
 
 Consanguinity and common interests were sure to heal such polit- 
 ical dissensions among the English in the end. It was quite other- 
 wise with the Dutch. The new patent covered not only Long Island 
 but all Northern New Netherland. Stuyvesant saw and compre- 
 hended the situation. Years before he had conceded the line of the 
 Hartford treaty to these encroaching English. Even within that line 
 
 1 At the time of Winthrop's presentation of the petition of Connecticut for a new 
 charter, Lord Say and Seal held the privy seal, and the Earl of Manchester, another warm 
 friend of the colony, was chamberlain of the royal household. Both, says Trunihnll (///.<- 
 ten/ of Connecticut) were instrumental in forwarding Winthrop's purpose. It is also said 
 that Winthrop presented to the king an extraordinary ring, -riven by Charles I. to Win- 
 throp's grandfather, which the kinjr was <rlad to recover. There is another tradition that 
 the king, Charles II., gave his miniature to Winthrop. The miniature, however, now 
 in the possession of Miss Elizabeth W. Winthrop, a descendant of the governor. is 
 undoubtedly the portrait, not of Charles, but of the Chevalier St. Georcre, the " Old Pre- 
 tender," who was not born till twenty -six years after this visit of Winthrop to Enirland. 
 Such traditions are to be received with caution. That about the ring may have as little 
 foundation as the story of the portrait. Adam Winthrop, John's grandfather, was a plain 
 country gentleman, unconnected with the court, who died before Charles I. became king. 
 
256 
 
 THE SURRENDER OF NEW NETHERLAND. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 there were English towns which he could only with the greatest 
 Embarrass- difficulty hold in subjection to Dutch rule. That difficulty 
 Gove'rnor now was immensely increased by the assertion of English 
 
 Stuyvesant. t j t ] e to the wnole Q f Long I s ] an( J au( J t h e North RlVCr 
 
 region by a new patent from the English king. The Dutch could 
 
 hardly fail to see the end 
 that was coming. 
 
 The right of those 
 towns on Long Island, 
 hitherto independent by 
 virtue of the Hartford 
 treaty of 1650, to accept 
 the protection of Connec- 
 ticut, could not be ques- 
 tioned, however much 
 their strength might be 
 increased and that of the 
 Dutch lessened by a union 
 with that colony. But 
 Stuyvesant was not the 
 man to submit without a 
 
 struggle to the assertion 
 which Connecticut has- 
 tened to make of such a 
 right, under the new pa- 
 tent, as belonging also 
 to other English towns 
 
 The English Agitators re-naming th Towns. 
 
 within the boundaries of New Netherland. For two years he carried 
 on a hopeless struggle, cheered sometimes by temporary success, but 
 on the whole gradually and certainly losing ground. A visit to Bos- 
 ton and a conference with the commissioners of the united New Eng- 
 land colonies availed him nothing ; he was defeated by that old policy 
 
1663.] JOHN SCOTT. 257 
 
 of delay with which the New Englanders had always met the Dutch 
 in any attempt at negotiation. He sent commissioners to Hartford 
 only to be baffled by a similar result. 
 
 Meanwhile, within the limits of his own province the English were 
 steadily aggressive. One Captain John Talcott was sent 
 from Connecticut, in the autumn of 1663, to Westchester ceedingsm 
 
 New Neth- 
 
 to encourage the people in their hostility to Dutch rule, eriand un- 
 He bettered his instructions by fostering discontent in all necticut 
 the English towns on the west end of Long Island. Two 
 months later Anthony Waters and John Coe, at the head of a con- 
 siderable force, marched from town to town, changed the names of 
 several of them, calling Flushing Newark, Newtown or Middelburgh 
 Hastings, Jamaica Crafford, and Oyster Bay Folestone ; deposed the 
 magistrates and appointed new ones ; and proclaiming Charles II. 
 king, declared these places to be part of his dominions. The Director 
 was glad now to accept the compromise which his commissioners had 
 rejected in Hartford only a few weeks before, that there should be 
 mutual forbearance, the Dutch and English towns to be free respect- 
 ively from interference from either government. 
 
 It was a virtual surrender on the part of Stuyvesant, but he had no 
 alternative. The treasury was empty ; help from the Company there 
 was none till it was too late ; an assembly of the people could devise 
 no remedy with which to arrest the encroachments of the English. 
 And it was while the Director was thus made almost desperate with 
 troubles from without, destroying the integrity and threatening the 
 existence of his colony, that he was called upon to defend the settle- 
 ments on the North River from the renewed attacks of the Esopus 
 Indians. 
 
 In the earlier differences between New Netherland and the New 
 England colonies, one John Scott had been conspicuous on 
 
 T i Attempted 
 
 Long Island in efforts to unite his countrymen of the Ens:- revolt of 
 
 1 * & John Scott. 
 
 lish towns against the Dutch, and had been punished by im- 
 prisonment. He claimed to have purchased of the Indians large 
 tracts of country, and returning to England at the restoration he pe- 
 titioned the king to bestow upon him the government of the whole of 
 Long Island. He was not without a valid claim to the royal favor, 
 for he had served in the army under Charles the First, and his father 
 had spent his fortune, and at last laid down his life, in the cause of 
 that unhappy king. The Committee of Foreign Plantations, to whom 
 his petition was referred, gave him a commission to return to America, 
 arming him with large powers, but in conjunction with George Bax- 
 ter, another well-known opponent of the Dutch, and Samuel Maver- 
 ick of Boston. 
 
 VOL. n. 17 
 

 258 THE SURRENDER OF NEW NETHERLAND. fCHAp. XL 
 
 The commissioners were instructed not merely to examine into 
 English titles upon Long Island ; they were ordered to look into the 
 question of the " intrusion " of the Dutch ; their power, commerce, 
 government; their disregard of English law, especially of the Navi- 
 gation Act, that early protective policy which proposed to shut out 
 all foreigners from trade with the English colonies ; and finally of the 
 means whereby this people could be brought most readily to submis- 
 sion, or failing that, to expulsion. As Scott bore royal letters of com- 
 mendation to the colonial governors, such instructions if carried out 
 would be almost tantamount to a declaration of war. 
 
 On his arrival, Scott was joined in a commission, with Talcott and 
 others from Connecticut, to annex all Long Island to that province. 
 To accept such an office seems hardly compatible with the instructions 
 from the Committee of Plantations ; but as he needed force to back 
 his pretensions, he was ready, perhaps, to accept aid from any quarter. 
 
 Circumstances favored him. The towns on the western side of the 
 Island, within the boundaries of New Netherland, had be- 
 
 Confederacy , , , ~ , . 
 
 of English come, by the agreement between Stuyvesant and the mag- 
 istrates at Hartford, free from allegiance either to Connecticut 
 or the Dutch. But the people were divided among themselves. They 
 were glad to be no longer counted as Dutch colonies ; but the Baptists, 
 Quakers, and other dissenters among them, dreaded coming under the 
 Puritan rule of New England. " Wee ware put," they wrote to Scott, 
 " uppon proclaiming the King by Capt. John Youngs, who came with 
 a trumpet to Heemstede, and sounded in our ears that Conecticot 
 would do great things for us." But the promise had been redeemed 
 by nothing but " if so bees and doubtinghs." On the other hand the 
 Dutch authorities threatened, some actually abused them, and they 
 appealed, therefore, to Scott to come to their aid. 
 
 He came, and came with the unexpected announcement that the king 
 had granted all Long Island to his brother the Duke of York. It was 
 welcome news to the English, and harmonized all differences. Heem- 
 stede, Gravesend, Flushing, Newtown, and Jamaica, at once united for 
 their mutual protection, choosing John Scott as their president, until 
 the Duke of York or the king should establish a permanent government. 
 At the head of a force of a hundred and fifty men, President Scott 
 took the field to reduce the Dutch towns to obedience to the English 
 king. At Breukelen he addressed the people, telling them they were 
 no longer Dutch subjects. He was asked to wait upon the Director- 
 general. "Let Stuyvesant come here with a hundred men," he an- 
 swered ; " I shall wait for him and run a sword through his body." 
 Perhaps he meant it, for turning round he gave a blow to a lad 
 
 1 O'Callaghan's New Nttherland. 
 
 
1664.] 
 
 JOHN SCOTT. 
 
 259 
 
 knocked off his hat, probably for refusing to uncover to the English 
 flag. %i He had better strike men, not boys," shouted one of the 
 crowd. The remark, however just, was ill-timed, and four of Scott's 
 men immediately fell upon the new offender and put him to flight. 
 The " usurper," as he was soon called, marched from town to town, 
 everywhere proclaiming Charles II. as the rightful sovereign of New 
 Netherland, and creating disorder wherever he went. 
 
 A.F 
 
 Scott at Breukelen. 
 
 It was disorder only, how- 
 ever, and not revolution. 
 Scott and his troopers har- 
 assed the Dutch through the 
 winter 1664 threaten- 
 ing to take New Amsterdam 
 in the spring. Stuyvesant 
 called a meeting of delegates, for such a threat was more serious than 
 any lawlessness in the outlying villages. The Stadt-Huys and the 
 fort of the capital in possession of the English, a Director-general and 
 his council overawed or imprisoned in the name of Charles II., would 
 be actual revolution. The emergency was met with promptness and 
 energy. Money was raised and measures taken for defence, though 
 there was hot dispute- whether the city was bound to do more than 
 take care of itself, leaving the rest of the province to the protection 
 of the Company. Scott's career, at any rate, was checked. A con- 
 ference was held between him and the Director, and affairs, it was 
 agreed, should be restored to the old order : the English towns to 
 remain under such government as they should deem fit, the Dutch 
 to be unmolested for a twelve-month, while the question of juris- 
 diction and boundaries should be referred to the home governments. 
 
 For a brief period it seemed to the Dutch that better days were 
 coming. In the spring the war with the Esopus Indians was brought 
 
260 
 
 THE SURRENDER OF NEW NETHERLAND. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 to a successful end, and Stuyvesant made with them that treaty of 
 peace and amity which proved to be his last. The commissioners, who 
 had been sent the autumn before to Holland, returned with assur- 
 ances of protection from the States-General, and letters to the Eng- 
 lish towns enjoining them to return to their allegiance to the Dutch. 
 But it was a deceitful lull in the storm. The magistrates at Hart- 
 ford imprisoned Scott, but it was for asserting his own au- 
 prisoned at thority and disregarding theirs, not for high crimes and 
 
 Uartford. . , J . , , , . , ~ ,. 
 
 misdemeanors in the peaceful province of an unottending 
 neighbor. The letters of their High Mightinesses of the States-Gen- 
 eral to their English subjects 
 were disregarded, in some 
 instances were not even 
 opened. The copies that 
 were sent to Hartford were 
 pronounced to be forgeries, 
 as a convenient way of pay- 
 ing no heed to them. Win- 
 throp openly visited the 
 English towns to induce 
 them to submit to the rule 
 of Connecticut, and in an 
 interview with Stuyvesant 
 and the burghers of New 
 Amsterdam firmly main- 
 tained that under the new 
 charter all Long Island be- 
 longed to her. By virtue 
 
 Portrait of the Duke of York, afterwards James II. Q f t } lat charter, Pell bought 
 
 of the Indians all the country lying between Westchester and the 
 North River, including Spuyten-Duyvil Creek, which the Dutch had 
 purchased fifteen years before. 
 
 The overwhelming calamity was already certain. In March the 
 king granted to his brother, the Duke of York and Albany, 
 
 Grant of ter- , c 11 
 
 ritorytothe a large portion of the province of Maine, and the country 
 York by the from the west side of the Connecticut River to the east side 
 of Delaware Bay. This grant included Martha's Vineyard, 
 Nantucket, all Long Island, and the whole of the territory of New 
 Netherland. The next month a fleet of four ships, with a force of 
 three or four hundred men, under the command of Colonel Richard 
 Nicolls, as the lieutenant-governor of the Duke, sailed for New Eng- 
 land. With Nicolls were joined as commissioners, Sir Robert Carr, 
 Sir George Cartwright, and Samuel Maverick, with extraordinary 
 
1664.] THE COMMISSIONERS OF THE DUKE OF YORK. 261 
 
 powers for settling all difficulties in the New England colonies, as 
 well as to take possession of the Dutch province and reduce its in- 
 habitants to obedience. 
 
 A rumor of the coming of this fleet, and its purpose, reached New 
 Amsterdam in July. Captain Willett was the first to hear it, and 
 he hastened to inform Stuyvesant, who proposed at once the most 
 energetic measures for defence. The fortifications were to be re- 
 paired and enlarged ; money was to be raised, ammunition to be 
 brought from New Amstel, provisions to be stored, and the city put 
 in a condition to withstand a siege. But before those preparations 
 could be made, dispatches came from the Company's directors in Hol- 
 land. It was, they said, to reduce the New England colonies to obe- 
 dience and uniformity in state and church, that the fleet was sent ; 
 New Netherland had nothing to fear. Willett, who had done so 
 much to arouse alarm, now did all he could to quell it. Stuyvesant, 
 with restored tranquillity, left the city for Fort Orange, on some offi- 
 cial business. 
 
 The Directors of the Company were so far right, that the commis- 
 sioners had almost plenary powers bestowed upon them in 
 regard to all the affairs of the New England colonies. The 
 English government had no doubt taken care that this theduke 
 should be well known in Amsterdam. But Nicolls and his associates 
 were also enjoined to reduce New -Netherland ; and though this was 
 not known in Amsterdam, the commissioners, on their arrival in Bos- 
 ton, were anxious to have 
 it understood that this part 
 of their mission was of pri- 
 
 mary importance. The con- Sienature of Nicolls . 
 
 quest of New Netherland 
 
 would be the easier, if the Dutch were kept carefully ignorant of such 
 a purpose. When New England was gratified by that conquest, it 
 would be time to develop the ulterior purposes in regard to those col- 
 onies. This astute policy was entirely successful so far as New 
 Netherland was concerned. She was not in the least prepared to 
 meet the impending calamity. The dispatches fi-om Amsterdam 
 allayed all fears and put aside all precautionary measures. 
 
 On the arrival of the commissioners in Boston, late in July, they 
 made known their designs against New Netherland to the govern- 
 ments of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and asked for their coopera- 
 tion. Connecticut was ready to render at once every aid in her 
 power ; but the Governor of Massachusetts, who probably knew that 
 the commissioners had a private letter of royal instructions as well as 
 the public letter which they presented, was less disposed to lend 
 
262 THE SURRENDER OF NEW NETHERLAND. [CiiAP. XI. 
 
 assistance. 1 Her people had never, like those of the other New Eng- 
 land colonies, been eager for the conquest of the Dutch province, and 
 if the Governor knew the character of the private instructions to the 
 commissioners he knew that Massachusetts had more to dread than to 
 hope from their visit. 
 
 There was a delay of nearly a month after the arrival of the fleet 
 An English at Boston before the expedition sailed for New Amsterdam. 
 bayVNew Some preparation for a resistance that would, at least, have 
 Amsterdam. Delayed the catastrophe, might in that interval have been 
 made had not the assurances of the Company's Directors removed 
 all sense of danger. The flag-ship was sailing up the bay before 
 Stuyvesant, who had been recalled by a hasty message, could reach 
 the city from Fort Orange ; he had been at home only three days 
 before the whole squadron was at anchor in Nyack Bay, just below 
 the Narrows on the Long Island side. The block-house on the 
 opposite shore of Staten Island was at once seized by the English ; 
 the harbor was effectually blockaded ; the people of the neighborhood 
 were forbidden to carry supplies to New Amsterdam ; and proclama- 
 tion was widely made that none should be molested who submitted 
 quietly and acknowledged allegiance to the king of England. 
 
 Stuyvesant met the emergency with his usual energy. Every third 
 man was ordered out to work upon the defences of the city ; 
 
 Stuyvesant^o . ... 
 
 resistance to additional guns were mounted ; a requisition was made upon 
 monafor Fort Orange for help, and all the soldiers were called in 
 
 surrender. i -i T-I ... -,-. .-. 
 
 from the outlying posts. But the requisition on tort Orange 
 was disregarded : the farmers on Long Island refused to come in 
 to the defence of the city, on the plea that their own homes were in 
 danger. The Director was left with only about a hundred soldiers 
 and the panic-stricken citizens of New Amsterdam to rely upon. 
 From the outset it was evident that there could be no effectual re- 
 sistance. 
 
 Nevertheless, on Friday, the 29th of August, a deputation was sent 
 to Nicolls, demanding his purpose, and by what authority he made 
 this invasion. The next day came a formal summons for the sur- 
 render of the town and all the forts belonging to it, with a proclama- 
 tion promising protection of life and property to all who would sub- 
 mit " to his majesty's government, as his good subjects ought to do." 
 
 It was with great reluctance that Stuyvesant consented that this 
 answer of the English commander should be made public. It would 
 " discourage the people," he said ; but the principal burghers and 
 other magistrates, and the officers of the guard had already met, and 
 had shown themselves to be utterly destitute of any manly courage. 
 
 i Palfrey's History of New England, vol. ii., p. 583. 
 
1664.] 
 
 THE ENGLISH BEFORE NEW AMSTERDAM. 
 
 263 
 
 The most spirited resolution to which they could bring themselves was, 
 that they would make some pretence of defence, in the hope that the 
 enemy would think it worth while to propose more favorable condi- 
 tions. But protection to life and property were already offered by the 
 proclamation ; what could be expected, if this were known, from a 
 populace ready to surrender even without that promise ? The Director 
 
 1 
 
 Stuyvesant and the English Letter. 
 
 i 
 
 was compelled to yield to the public clamor and give up the dis- 
 patches, but he must not, he said, be held " answerable for the calam- 
 itous consequences." 
 
 This conclusion had been reached on Monday, when Governor Win- 
 throp who had joined the fleet with a reinforcement of Connecticut 
 volunteers came up the bay under a flag of truce and presented 
 

 264 THE SURRENDER OF NEW NETHERLAND. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 another letter from Nicolls. Stuyvesant read it in the presence of 
 conflict be- tne council and the burgomasters. The terms it offered 
 DirectoJ'anii were still more favorable. Trade with Holland in Dutch 
 the people. Vegse i 8 W ould not be interfered with; emigrants from the 
 mother-country could come and settle in New Netherland as hitherto ; 
 the colony would be under English jurisdiction, instead of that of 
 the Company, but otherwise the condition of the Dutch colonists 
 would hardly be interfered with. Those who favored surrender were 
 all the more anxious that the people should see this second letter; 
 Stuyvesant all the more dreaded the effect it would have upon them. 
 The debate was hot and furious, till Stuyvesant in a rage ended it 
 by tearing the letter in pieces and scattering the fragments upon the 
 floor, " dilacerated " it, exclaimed the indignant and baffled burgo- 
 masters. 
 
 Hitherto there had been some show of labor upon the fortifications, 
 but now they were abandoned, and an exasperated mob surged about 
 the Stadt-Huys. They demanded to seethe Governor; to offer re- 
 sistance to such a force as threatened them would be, they said, " as 
 idle as to gape before an oven." When Stuyvesant appeared he was 
 greeted with shouts of " The letter ! the letter ! " Reproaches and 
 curses were showered upon him and the Company. Defeated and 
 helpless he returned to the council chamber ; the fragments of the 
 ** dilacerated " document were gathered up and put together, and a 
 copy delivered to the burgomasters to do with it what they would. 
 
 The question of surrender was, nevertheless, still in the hands of 
 the Director. He sent to Nicolls a long answer, defiant, didactic, and 
 argumentative. He defended the rights of the Dutch to the country 
 by discovery, settlement, and possession ; he protested against this 
 infringement of the treaty between England and the States-General ; 
 he urged the agreement between himself and Scott which was to 
 stand good for a twelvemonth : he feared no threats, and he trusted 
 in God, who could as well preserve with a small force as with a great 
 army. 
 
 Nicolls, nevertheless, though he may have been quite as pious as the 
 Preparations Director, had great reliance on superiority of force. A com- 
 Muu'oV'the P an y f regular cavalry and the Connecticut militia were al- 
 ity. ready encamped on Long Island just below Breukelen ; these 
 
 he ordered should be reinforced with all the troops of two of the ships, 
 in readiness for an attack by land and in the rear, while the two other 
 frigates were to sail up in front and bring their broadsides to bear upon 
 the town. 
 
 Standing on the walls of the fort, by the side of a gun, the gunner 
 ready with his lighted match, Stuyvesaut watched the ships as they 
 
1664.] THE FALL OF NEW AMSTERDAM. 265 
 
 came up the harbor, and then swung to their anchors in the channel 
 between Nutten (Governor's) Island and the fort. Had he ordered 
 the gunner to fire, the ships would at once have bombarded the city. 
 He gave no such order. Perhaps his own prudence restrained him, 
 for though a violent man, his good judgment as we have sometimes 
 seen often controlled his anger ; perhaps he was restrained by the 
 Dominies Megapolensis, father and son, who begged him not to be the 
 first to shed human blood in such a contest. At any rate he gave no 
 order, and no shot was fired. The city was quietly put under the 
 guns of the two ships, and Stuyvesant left the fort with a hundred of 
 the garrison to be prepared to resist a landing. The Directors of the 
 West India Company afterward reproached him that he permitted 
 himself to be influenced by the two clergymen and " other chicken- 
 hearted persons," and allowed himself " to be led in from the bulwarks 
 between two pi'eachers " while the hostile frigates passed the fort and 
 the mouths of twenty pieces of cannon. But he did, no doubt, the 
 best he could ; he alone could not serve the twenty guns ; and not 
 another man, save he, in fort or city, seems to have thought of resist- 
 ance. 
 
 Again he wrote to Nicolls, and again declared he should stand an 
 assault, but sending at the same time a deputation of magistrates to 
 come, if possible, to some agreement with the English commander. 
 Nicolls would listen to no proposal but that of surrender ; he should 
 come, he said, the next day with ships and soldiers, and he would be 
 a bold man who came on board unless the white flag was hung out 
 from the fort. 
 
 When this answer was known the utmost panic spread through the 
 town. The Director was beset with weeping women and StuVTegant 
 children ; in the City Hall a tumultuous assembly met, and a j^ 1 ^ tu . 
 remonstrance was adopted, signed by all the principal citi- mult- 
 zens among them Stuyvesant's son begging that the terms offered 
 by the English might be at once accepted. The fort, they said, could 
 not stand a three days' siege ; the offer of the enemy was generous ; 
 their conduct had been forbearing ; unless now there should be an im- 
 mediate surrender they could foresee nothing but " misery, sorrow, 
 conflagration, the dishonor of women, murder of children in their cra- 
 dles, the absolute ruin and destruction of about fifteen hundred inno- 
 cent souls." Still Stuyvesant declared " he had rather be carried a 
 corpse to his grave " than yield. 
 
 The situation was, in truth, desperate. The town dn the north 
 was defended only by an embankment three feet high, surmounted by 
 a fence of rotten palisades ; this was overlooked by the hills outside 
 within gunshot range commanding all the houses ; and on both sides 
 

 266 THE SURRENDER OF NEW NETHERLAND. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 the town was open to the rivers. The fort itself a council of war de- 
 clared was untenable ; there was not powder enough to last a day ; 
 there was no store of provisions for a lengthened siege. Moreover 
 and worse than all, the garrison was mutinous. " Now we hope," they 
 cried, " to pepper those devilish traders who have so long salted us ; 
 we know where booty is to be found, and where the young women live 
 who wear gold chains J " 
 
 Nicolls came as he said he would, yielding nothing of his conditions, 
 except that he promised the fort and city should be restored " in case 
 the difference of the limits of this province be agreed upon betwixt his 
 majesty of England and the high and mighty States-General," a 
 promise most safe to make. The terms of surrender, which were mer- 
 ciful to the Dutch the protection of life and property, a guaranty 
 of religious liberty, freedom of trade, of emigration, of the public 
 debt, of the laws of inheritance and contracts, and of a representative 
 government were agreed upon on Saturdaj' by a board of commis- 
 sioners. On Monday the articles were ratified by the Director- 
 general. 
 
 And on Monday morning, the 8th of September, 1664, there 
 marched out of Fort Amsterdam on the Beaver Street side, at 
 the head of the poltroons who knew where the young women 
 
 lived who wore gold chains, the stern old wooden-legged sol- 
 dier who would rather have been carried out a corpse to his grave. 
 As they went on board ship in the East River for Holland, six columns 
 of English soldiers filed through the streets of the city ; English sol- 
 diers mounted guard at the Stadt Huys and at the city gates, while 
 over the fort floated the English flag which a corporal's guard had 
 hoisted as Stuyvesant passed out from beneath the shadow of the 
 walls he would have so gladly defended. The obedient burgomas- 
 
 ters proclaimed Nicolls as Gov- 
 s /j si ernor; Fort Amsterdam was 
 
 named Fort James; New Am- 
 
 Bterdam was changed to New 
 
 York ; twelve days later Fort 
 
 Signature of Sir George Cartwrlght. .,. j " , ., , 
 
 Orange surrendered without 
 
 resistance to Sir George Cartwright, and the name of Albany, the 
 duke's second title, was given to it. 
 
 New Amstel was still to be reduced, and in the course of the month 
 Sir Robert Carr sailed with three ships and a body of troops for the 
 Delaware. This display of force only was necessary. On Sunday, the 
 New Amstei ^ rst ^ H Y ^ October, Fort Casimir surrendered, and though 
 taken. there was no resistance and almost no parley, there was less 
 consideration shown to the Dutch than there had been in New Am- 
 
9S 
 > 
 
 a 
 
 ^-s 
 
 z 
 
1664.] 
 
 SURRENDER OF NEW AMSTEL. 
 
 267 
 
 sterdam. Arms and amunition, live stock, stores, provisions, and 
 their crops were taken from the people. Some were permitted to 
 return to Holland ; others were seized as prisoners of war and sold 
 into bondage in Virginia. D'Hinoyossa, the Governor, was sent back 
 to Holland, but his estate consisting in part, if not wholly, of one 
 hundred and fifty acres of meadow-land on the Delaware near the 
 fort, and of an island called 
 Swarton Natton of about 
 three hundred acres at the 
 mouth of Christina Creek 
 was confiscated to the use of 
 Carr. Beeckman and others 
 went back to New York, 
 where he is afterward heard of as an alderman of the city. Many, 
 both Dutch and Swedes, remained in the colony, and the Swedes, 
 especially in and about Newcastle and Wilmington, long preserved 
 their national characteristics in language, habits, and religion, though 
 faithful in their allegiance to the English, as they had been peaceful 
 citizens before when finally brought under the rule of the Dutch. 
 
 Signature of Sir Robert Carr. 
 
 S-3al of New Amsterdam. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE CAHOLIXAS. 
 
 THE CAROLINA PATENTS OF 1663 AND 1665. THE PATENTEES. EARLIER GRANTS 
 AND PROJECTED SETTLEMENTS. FlRST SETTLERS ON Al.BEMARLE SOUND. NEW 
 ENGLAND MEN AT THE MOUTH OF CAPE FEAR RIVER. THE COLONY UNDER YEA- 
 MANS. ORGANIZATION OF THE ALUKMARLE COLONY. LOCKE'S "FUNDAMENTAL 
 CONSTITUTIONS." INDEPENDENT LEGISLATION AT ALBEMARLE. GOVERNORS AND 
 PROGRESS OF THE CAPE FEAR SETTLEMENT. JOSEPH WEST. DISSENSIONS IN 
 THE NORTH UNDER CARTEKET AND MILLER. THE PASQUOTANK INSURRECTION. 
 GOVERNOR SOTHEL. 
 
 BY the capture of New Netherland, that " New English Nation " 
 which Raleigh had hoped to see, stretched for the first time in an un- 
 broken line along the Atlantic coast, from James River, in Virginia, 
 to Nova Scotia. And nearly half a century had passed away, after 
 Raleigh was led to the scaffold, before a permanent colony was 
 planted in the more southern region, where his first attempts had so 
 unhappily failed. 
 
 Only the year before the King bestowed upon the Duke of York 
 that munificent gift of a province which not only was not 
 
 First grant 
 
 o| Carolina, his to give, but did not even belong to England, either by 
 right of possession or by right of discovery, the same gen- 
 erous monarch granted to some other gentlemen about the court a 
 patent of a wide tract of country south of Virginia. The grant ex- 
 tended from about the thirtieth to the thirty-sixth parallel of latitude, 
 or from the St. John's River, in Florida, to nearly the present 
 southern boundary of Virginia, and from the Atlantic to that vague 
 South Sea, still thought to be within reach of a moderate journey. 
 One of its early governors wrote of this region that " it was indeed the 
 very Center of the habitable Part of the Northern Hemisphere .... 
 lying parallel with the Land of Canaan .... not being pestered 
 with the violent Heats of the more Southern colonies, or the extream 
 and violent Colds of the more Northern Settlements." l And another 
 of its earliest historians says that from its latitude and situation Caro- 
 
 / 
 
 lina must needs be " a delicious country, being placed in that girdle 
 
 1 Description of that Fertile and Pleasant Province of Carolina, etc., etc. By John Arch- 
 dale. [London, 1707.] In Carroll's S. C. Hist. Coll., vol. ii. 
 
1665.] 
 
 THE PATENTS AND PATENTEES. 
 
 269 
 
 The Second 
 
 Charter. 
 
 1665. 
 
 of the world which affords wine, oil, fruit, grain, and silk, with other 
 rich commodities, besides a sweet air, moderate climate, and fertile 
 soil .... blessings that spin out the thread of life to its utmost 
 extent, and crown our days with the sweets of health and plenty." * 
 There is something of that love of hyperbole which belongs to the 
 writers of that period in these descriptions, something of an evi- 
 dent desire to attract emigration by means not unknown in later 
 times. Much may be pardoned to these influences, even as we pardon 
 the want of strict scientific accuracy in the author of the history we 
 quote from, who, in the list of " Insects " of Carolina, gives the first 
 place to alligators and rattlesnakes. 
 
 The first charter was dated (old style) the 24th of March, 1663 ; 
 
 two years later 
 this was amended 
 by a second, 
 June 30, 1665, which ex- 
 tended the boundaries a 
 degree southward, and a 
 half degree further north. 
 
 The patentees on whom 
 the king thus bestowed a 
 territory including Thepaten . 
 all of the present toe * - 
 States of North and South 
 Carolina and Georgia, with 
 its indefinite Western 
 boundary of the South Sea, 
 were Clarendon, then Lord 
 Chancellor; Monk, the 
 Duke of Albemarle, the 
 leader in the Restoration ; the Earl of Craven ; Lord Berkeley ; Lord 
 Ashley (later the Earl of Shaftesbury) Sir George Carteret ; Sir John 
 Colleton ; and Sir William Berkeley, of Virginia, Lord Berkeley's 
 younger brother. Shaftesbury was the leader in this enterprise, and 
 he was chiefly responsible for all that the proprietors did, or left un- 
 done. Home affairs occupied his associates ; but they never entirely 
 diverted him from the affairs of the colony. Almost every docu- 
 ment connected with it shows traces of his influence, and he hoped 
 to find in it an opportunity for carrying out those political ideas 
 which were otherwise impracticable in his time. 
 
 1 The History of Carolina, containing the Exact Description and Natural History of that 
 Country, etc., etc. By John Lawson, Geiit., Surveyor General of North Carolina. [Lon- 
 don, 1714-1 
 
 Portrait of Shaftesbury. 
 
270 THE CAROLIXAS. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 The territory thus defined as Carolina had not been altogether neg- 
 lected while colonies were planted in other places. As early 
 as 1630 > the attorney-general of England under Charles I., 
 settlements. gj r R o b e rt Heath, had secured a grant of almost the same 
 region, under the name of the Province of Carolana, on condition that 
 he should " in a reasonable time " colonize it, 1 " and Christianize the 
 native Indians." But neither he, nor Lord Maltravers (afterwards the 
 Earl of Arundel), to whom Heath transferred his title, succeeded in 
 making any permanent settlements. This claim, and another by the 
 heirs of Sir Richard Granfield, were revived when the grant of 1663 
 was made to Clarendon and his associates, but the patents were re- 
 called, on the ground that their terms had never been fulfilled. 2 
 
 Companies of adventurers had, at different times, scattered them- 
 selves along the coast and on the banks of rivers not far distant from 
 the parent colony of Virginia. Some of these were in pursuit of In- 
 dian trade ; others were restless spirits to whom even the lax disci- 
 pline of Jamestown and its neighborhood was irksome ; and some, 
 perhaps, were of those whose religious beliefs exposed them to annoy- 
 ance, if not persecution, in a region where the Established Church 
 was formally maintained. As early as 1609 there were outlying plan- 
 tations about the Nansemond River, and doubtless many unrecorded 
 expeditions, if not settlements, were made in the territory to the south 
 of this district, in the twenty years following, before the grant was 
 made to Heath. In the winter of 1621-2 John Pory, sometime Secre- 
 tary of Virginia, a great traveller, and the friend of Hakluyt, 3 ex- 
 plored as far as the Chowan, where he found "a very fruitful and 
 pleasant country, yielding two harvests in a year, and much silk 
 grass." 4 
 
 In 1643, the Virginia Assembly, without regard to Heath's patent, 
 made trading grants to a company which purposed to traffic along the 
 Roanoke ; though perhaps their design included only the upper part 
 of the stream, which was outside the patent, for they described it as 
 the river lying southwest of the Appomattox. 5 Later attempts and 
 grants of the same kind are also obscurely mentioned ; but there is 
 no record of their results, and it seems probable that nothing more 
 
 1 See vol. i., p. 487, note. 
 
 2 Letter of the Lords Proprietors to Sir William Berkeley, in Chalmers' Annals. 
 
 3 Pory visited Plymouth in 1622, and Bradford says of him, " Himselfe after his returne 
 (to England) did' this poore plantation much credite amongst those of no mean ranck." 
 He ^vas a scholar, and a man of a good deal of influence among the early adventurers, but 
 become at last a penniless and rather disreputable vagabond. See a sketch of him in 
 Neill's History of The Virginia Company. 
 
 * Smith's History of Virginia. 
 
 6 Hening's Virginia Statutes, i., 552. 
 
1653.] EARLY GRANTS AND SETTLEMENTS. 271 
 
 than a fair knowledge of the upper part of North Carolina was 
 gained through all of them until 1653. In Julv of that 
 
 _, j? J t 
 
 year, Roger Green, a clergyman, and a party from the Nan- 
 
 semond region, penetrated to Albemarle Sound, and a grant 
 of land was made by Virginia to Green himself of a thousand acres. 
 
 Similar grants were promised to all who would 
 
 plant upon that coast and the neighboring 
 
 i 
 rivers. 1 
 
 Others scattered themselves, about the same 
 time, along the northern side of the Sound. 
 A mong the earliest probably indeed the very 
 
 first was one George Durant, a Quaker ; 
 and " Durant's Neck," about midway be- 
 tween the Chowan and the sea, commem- 
 orates his name as one of the founders of 
 the State. That this was sometime before 
 
 1662 is shown by the records of the Court of Chancery of North Car- 
 olina. 
 
 A suit was tried in 1697 between the heirs of George Durant and 
 the heir of one Edward Catchmaid, for possession of the Probab ie 
 lands first occupied by Durant. Catchmaid, who was en- n/oxva'n^t- 
 trusted by Durant to procure for him a grant of these lands tlement - 
 from Governor Berkeley of Virginia, treacherously took out the patent 
 in his own name. The deed of restitution which he was compelled to 
 make, and which was produced in evidence on the trial, bore the 
 date of March, 1662 (new style, 1663). Catchmaid must there- 
 fore have been in the country for some time previous to that date ; 
 and the record further shows that when he came it was by Durant's 
 
 1 Heuing's Virginia Statutes, i., 380. 
 
272 THE CAROLINAS. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 invitation, who was then in the occupation of lands, having " come in 
 with the first seaters," and " did for the space of two years bestow 
 much labor and cost in finding out the said country." l By " first 
 seaters " were evidently meant the first in the province of Carolina, 
 not merely the first in that particular neighborhood; and it is. to 
 them, probably, that Lawson refers when he says : " A second settle- 
 ment [second, that is, after Raleigh's time] of this country was made 
 about fifty years ago, in that part we now call Albemarl County, and 
 chiefly in Chuwon precinct, by several substantial planters from Vir- 
 ginia and other plantations." Lawson's visit was in 1700. 
 
 There were probably few bays or rivers along the coast, from the 
 Bay of Fundy to Florida, unexplored by the New England- 
 ers, where there was any promise of profitable trade with 
 
 settlement -IT mi i e ti 11 
 
 byNewEng- the Indians. 1 he colonist followed the trader wherever un- 
 claimed lands were open to occupation. These energetic 
 pioneers explored the sounds and rivers south of Virginia in pursuit 
 of Indian traffic, contrasted the salubrity of the climate and the 
 fertility of the soil with that region of rocks where they had made 
 their homes, and where winter reigns for more than half the year. 
 In 1660 or 1661, a company of these men purchased of the natives 
 and settled upon a tract of land at the mouth of Cape Fear River. 
 Their first purpose was apparently the raising of stock, as the coun- 
 try seemed peculiarly fitted to grazing, and they brought a number 
 of neat cattle and swine to be allowed to feed at large under the care 
 of herdsmen. But they aimed at something more than this nomadic 
 occupation, and a company was formed, in which a number of adven- 
 turers in London were enlisted, to found a permanent colony. Dis- 
 couraged, however, either by the want of immediate success, or for 
 want of time to carry out their plans, or for some less creditable rea- 
 son, the settlement was soon abandoned. 
 
 On this point there is sufficient evidence. In 1663, some persons 
 from Barbadoes were on the coast in search of a suitable 
 mentor the place for the planting of a colony. They visited the spot 
 iand settle- where the New Englanders had been, and their report is 
 that they found " a writing left in a post at the point of 
 Cape Fear river by those New England men that left cattle with the 
 Indians there, the contents whereof tended not only to the dispar- 
 agement of the land about the said river, but also to the great dis- 
 couragement of all such as should hereafter come into those parts to 
 settle." 2 So, also, the London associates of this New England Com- 
 pany declared, at a meeting held in August, 1663, " that at the pres- 
 
 1 Hawks's History of North Carolina, vol. ii., p. 132. 
 
 2 Lawsou's History of Carolina. 
 
1663.1 
 
 THE NEW ENGLAND SETTLEMENT. 
 
 273 
 
 ent the undertaking of the plantation of the said Charles River lieth 
 under some obloquy, that hath given a check to it ; some that were 
 sent from New England thither, in order to the carrying on the said 
 settlement, being come back again without so much as sitting down 
 upon it ; and for the better justification of themselves in their return, 
 have spread a reproach both upon the harbour and upon the soil of 
 the river itself." J 
 
 Was there sufficient ground for this " reproach both upon the har- 
 bor and the soil ? " The explorers from Barbadoes, at least, did not 
 think so. " In answer to that scandalous writing," as they called 
 it, found affixed to the post, they affirm, " that we have seen, facing 
 both sides the river and branches of Cape Fair aforesaid, as good 
 
 Finding the Message of the New England Men. 
 
 land, and as well timbered, as any we have seen in any other part of 
 the world, sufficient to accommodate thousands of our English nation, 
 and lying commodiously by the said river's side." It was a quite 
 sufficient answer, as the future showed. 
 
 It is not impossible, however, that justification was sought for to 
 cover up the real reason for failure. Lawson, in comment- ReasonRfor 
 ing upon the report of the Barbadoes men, which he pre- ltsfailure - 
 served in his history, gives as a reason why the New Englanders 
 " did not only take off themselves, but also their stocks of cattle," 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 1 Hutchinson Pafters in Mass. Hist. 6"oc. Coll., vol. i., 3d series. 
 18 
 
274 THE CAROLINAS. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 that there were " irregular practices of some of that colony against the 
 Indians, by sending away some of their children (as I have been told) 
 under pretence of instructing them iu learning and the principles of 
 the Christian religion, which so disgusted the Indians, that though 
 they had then no guns, yet they never gave over till they had entirely 
 rid themselves of the English by their bows and arrows." Perhaps 
 this was the " obloquy " to which the London associates referred. 
 
 The New England Company, nevertheless, asserted their right to 
 the lands in question by virtue of their purchase from the Indians. 
 Their friends in London, at the meeting in August, 1663, just re- 
 ferred to, presented their views upon this claim for the consideration 
 of the new patentees. The New England colonies, they said, have 
 ever had "full liberty to choose their own govenours among them- 
 selves; to make and confirm laws with themselves; with immunity 
 also wholly from all taxes, charges, and impositions whatsoever, more 
 than what is laid upon themselves by themselves." But unless these 
 privileges were "preserved entire to them," it was "feared that all 
 thoughts of further proceeding in the said river will be wholly laid 
 aside by them." 1 
 
 A month later, September, 1668, the Proprietors wrote to Gov- 
 ernor Berkeley, informing him that they had received their 
 the Carolina charter from the King. They empowered him to appoint a 
 governor, or governors, for the people who, they understood, 
 were already settled on both banks of the Chowan. In response to 
 "a paper from persons that desired to settle near Cape Fear," by 
 which they meant the New England Company, the only proposals 
 they have to make with special reference to that company relate to 
 the allotment of land, declaring it to be " our resolution and desire 
 that you persuade or compel those persons to be satisfied with such 
 proportions as we allot to others." 2 
 
 The character of the government had already been decided at the 
 character of ^ l ' s ^ meeting of the Proprietors in the preceding May. There 
 was ^ ^ e ^ u ^ liberty of conscience ; the governor and assem- 
 jjjy were to be chosen by popular election ; and duties from 
 customs were not to be enforced. 3 In the proposals sent with this let- 
 ter to Berkeley in September, these conditions were repeated. This 
 repetition was intended, doubtless, for the instruction and assurance 
 of emigrants from New England, or anywhere else, who should choose 
 to avail themselves of such an offer. But that they were not a con- 
 cession to the demand of the New England claimants is manifest, as 
 
 1 Hiitrhinson Papers, as above. 
 
 2 Letter from the Lords Proprietors to Sir William Berkeley. Chalmers' Annuls. 
 
 8 Chalmers' Annals. Martin's History. Papers in State Paper Office, London; cited in 
 Coll. Hist. Soc. of South Carolina, vol. i. 
 
 
1664.] 
 
 COLONY OF SIR JOHN YEAMANS. 
 
 275 
 
 their remonstrance to the Proprietors could not at the time of this 
 meeting in May have been received, was not, probably, even writ- 
 ten. 1 
 
 Nothing more is heard of the New England Company. If any in- 
 fluence was exerted from that region upon the new province, it was 
 through individual citizens, who chose to make it their home. Of 
 these there were many in the early settlement of North Carolina, 
 more, however, probably upon the Chowan than the Cape Fear 
 River. " Make everything easy to the people of New England," 
 wrote the Proprietors to Sir John Yeamans, in 1665, " from which 
 the greatest emigrations are expected, as the southern colonies are 
 already drained." 2 
 
 Landing of Yeamans. 
 
 Yeamans came with a colony of several hundred persons, and 
 landed at Cape Fear River on the 29th of May, 1664. 3 The party 
 
 1 The abortive attempt to settle a Xcw England colony at the mouth of Cape Fear 
 River, and its influence upon the character of the constitution of the new province, have 
 been a source of much controversy and misunderstanding- The mistake in regard to it 
 seems to have originated with Chalmers, who, assuming that the " proposals " sent to Ber- 
 keley in September were made " at the desire of the New England people," overlooked the 
 fact that they were simply a repetition of the form of government decided upon by the 
 proprietors at their first meeting in May. Their charter then was only a little more than 
 a month old, and no protest in regard to it could at that time have reached England from 
 America. 
 
 2 Chalmers. 
 
 s A Brief Description of the Province of Carolina, on the Coasts of Florida. London, 166G 
 Republished in Hawks' History. The colonists landed on the 8th of June, new style. 
 

 276 
 
 THE CAROLINAS. 
 
 [CllAP. XII. 
 
 ony 
 
 sent from Barbadoes to explore the coast of Carolina, whose indig- 
 nation was so aroused by the warning put up by the New 
 under Yea- England herdsmen on the Cape Fear River, had bought of 
 the Indians a tract of thirty-two miles square, and the pro- 
 prietors were asked to confirm the purchase by a grant. Though this 
 was refused, the terms granted to the colonists were satisfactory. 
 Their settlement, which was "up the river, about twenty or thirty 
 miles" l they called Charles-town. The province or county of which 
 Yeainans was appointed Governor, was named Clarendon, and extend- 
 ed from Cape Fear to the St. John's, in Florida. 
 
 Meanwhile Sir William Berkeley, in accordance with the instruc- 
 tions given by the Proprietors in their letter of September, 
 - 1663, established a government on the Chowan. He ap- 
 pointed a governor William Drummond and a council 
 of six, who, with an assembly chosen by the people, were to enact 
 
 laws, subject to the approv- 
 al of the proprietors ; pos- 
 sessions of lands were con- 
 firmed, and new grants were 
 made, with an allowance of 
 three years for the payment 
 of quit-rents. In 1666, how- 
 ever, the Assembly protest- 
 ed against the payment of 
 these quit-rents, and prayed 
 that the tenure of lands 
 should be the same as that 
 established in Virginia. 
 The petition was granted 
 with regard to those who 
 then held possession, but the 
 rule was enforced upon all 
 subsequent entries. 2 An 
 Assembly was probably con- 
 vened as early as 1663, 3 
 though Albemarle County was not included within the boundaries of 
 Carolina till after the issue of the second charter, in 1665. 
 
 In the elaboration of a Constitution for the new province Lord 
 Shaftesbury called to his aid the great philosopher and statesman, John 
 Locke. It was not till 1669 that the first of these " Fundamental Con- 
 
 1 A Brief Description, etc. It was, Hawks says, " in Brunswick county, at or near the 
 junction of Old Town Creek with the Cape Fear." 
 
 Portrait of Locke. 
 
 2 Chalmers' Annals. 
 
 8 Hawks. 
 
BO- 
 
 bilit- 
 
 1669.] THE "FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONS." 277 
 
 stitutions " was finished. By it the eight Lords Proprietors were con- 
 stituted supreme rulers, the eldest to be Palatine of the 
 province, and upon his death the eldest of the survivors to MM 
 succeed him. The seven other offices, of admiral, chamber- mental con 
 lain, chancellor, constable, chief justice, high steward, and 
 treasurer, were to be divided among the others, the eldest always to 
 have choice of a vacant place. To the proprietor was given the priv- 
 ilege, until the year 1701, to relinquish or dispose of his proprietor- 
 ship to any other person. All his rights were hereditary in the male 
 line ; in default of direct male heirs, male descendants through the 
 female line succeeded, and after them " heirs general ; " in default of 
 any heirs, the surviving proprietors filled the place by election from 
 the next of the orders of hereditary nobility. Of these 
 
 ' . in . Officers and 
 
 orders there were two Landgraves and Cassiques, each rf(f rsof 
 Landgrave possessing four baronies, and each Cassique 
 two. The domains of the Proprietors, on the other hand, were called 
 seigniories ; and eight seigniories and eight baronies, with twenty-four 
 " colonies " which could be owned by " the people," made up a county. 
 Each seigniory, barony, and colony contained twelve thousand acres ; 
 each county, therefore, consisted of 480,000 acres, of which Dm giong of 
 twenty-four parts (or three fifths) were to be owned by the tb * countr y 
 people, and sixteen parts (or two fifths) by the hereditary nobility 
 " that so in setting out and planting the lands," say the constitutions, 
 " the balance of the government may be preserved." There would 
 thus be, of course, just as many Landgraves as counties, and only 
 twice as many Cassiques ; but every member of both these classes of 
 nobles was to be, " by right of his dignity," a member of the parlia- 
 ment, whereas every " colony " was not to have a member Tbe Parlia . 
 only every " precinct " which was still another division ment- 
 formed for convenience of six colonies. There were but four popular 
 members to a county, therefore ; and the further restriction was made, 
 that " no man should be chosen a member who had less than five hun- 
 dred acres of freehold within the precinct ; " while only those who 
 had fifty or more acres of freehold could take part in electing him. 
 The parliament thus chosen was to sit "all together in one room, and 
 have every member one vote." 
 
 The privileges thus given to the hereditary nobility were further 
 hedged about with provisions absolutely prohibiting the en- 
 trance of others into the titled class. The highest dignity manors and 
 attainable under them was the lordship of a manor, which 
 must consist of not less than three thousand, or more than twelve 
 thousand acres ; and even such a freehold could only constitute a 
 manor " by the grant of the Palatine's court." Under the nobility 
 

 278 THE CAROLINAS. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 and lords of manors were " leet-men," and these were " under the 
 jurisdiction of the respective lords of the said seigniory, barony or 
 manor, without appeal from him." " All the children of leet-men 
 shall be leet-men, and so to all generations." 
 
 There were to be eight supreme courts, the highest consisting of 
 the Palatine and the other proprietors, the others each of a 
 proprietor, six councillors, and a college of twelve assistants 
 chosen by the Palatine's court, and by Parliament from the nobility. 
 Nobles could only be tried by the chief justice's court. The Pala- 
 tine's court had a veto power over all parliamentary measures ; and 
 each of the other courts had its special controlling functions, the 
 chancellor's having power over land grants, treaties, etc. ; the chief 
 justice's over all civil and criminal appeals ; the constable's over mili- 
 tary matters ; the admiral's over matters of marine ; the treasurer's 
 over finance ; the high-steward's over public works, etc. ; the cham- 
 berlain's over " all ceremonies, precedency, heraldry, reception of pub- 
 lic messengers, pedigrees, the registry of all births, burials, and mar- 
 riages," and also over the regulation of " all fashions, habits, badges, 
 games, and sports ! " The happy province was to be governed even 
 down to the amusements of its children, and the fashion of its wom- 
 en's gowns. Finally, the proprietors, and the forty-two councillors of 
 the other courts, were to constitute a " Grand Council," or final court 
 of appeal, in case of any dissensions among the rest. 1 
 
 Of the hundred lesser offices, or of the detailed regulation of civil, 
 other pro- military, and judicial affairs, it is not necessary to speak ; 
 thTconsti- J e ^ some minor provisions still remain to be cited, without 
 tutions which no sketch of the Constitutions could be complete. 
 Lands, for instance, could not be subdivided even at the death of the 
 Proprietor, but must descend entire. Proprietors need not live in 
 Carolina to exercise their rights, but might, in carefully prescribed 
 ways, appoint their deputies, who could not, however, confirm laws, 
 or appoint Landgraves or Cassiques. A singular regulation pre- 
 scribed that " to avoid multiplicity of laws," all statutes should, " at 
 the end of an hundred years after their enacting," become null and 
 void , and to avoid " multiplicity of comments," the publication of 
 any commentary on the " Fundamental Constitutions " was pro- 
 hibited. In trials by jury a majority was to decide. It was for- 
 bidden to take pay for pleading in courts of law. " Absolute power 
 and authority over his negro slaves, of what opinion or religion what- 
 soever," was given to every freeman. 
 
 Finally there were some remarkable provisions as to religion and 
 
 1 Grahame, History of the United States (ii., 87), says the functions of this body were like 
 those of the Scotch " Lords of the Articles." 
 
1667.] INDEPENDENT LEGISLATION. 279 
 
 the liberty of conscience. They were singularly contradictory ; for, 
 against the. wishes of Locke, 1 some of the chief proprietors inserted, 
 in the second draft of the Constitutions, an article making the Church 
 of England alone entitled to maintenance, and pronouncing 
 it the " only true and orthodox " religion. Yet fortunately 
 his own provision was also left as he had written it ; and had the 
 form of his scheme of government been left unchanged, this would 
 undoubtedly have been the only reference to religious matters to be 
 found in it. " In the terms of communion of every church or pro- 
 fession," he wrote, " these following shall be three ; without which 
 no agreement or assembly of men, under pretence of religion, shall be 
 accounted a church or profession within these rules : 
 
 " 1. That there is a GOD. 
 
 " 2. That GOD is publicly to be worshipped. 
 
 "3. That it is lawful and the duty of every man, being thereunto 
 called by those that govern, to bear witness to truth ; and that every 
 church or profession shall, in their terms of communion, set down the 
 external way whereby they witness a truth as in the presence of GOD, 
 whether it be by laying hands on or kissing the Bible, as in the 
 Church of England, or by holding up the hand, or any other sensible 
 
 way No person above seventeen years of age shall have any 
 
 benefit or protection of the law," etc., " who is not a member of some 
 church or profession." 
 
 Even earlier in the Constitutions it had been prescribed that " no 
 man shall be permitted to be a freeman of Carolina, or to have any 
 estate or habitation within it, that doth not acknowledge a GOD, and 
 that GOD is publicly and solemnly to be worshipped." Locke re- 
 turns to this with frequent insistance ; yet this one point granted, he 
 concedes, in a long subsequent article, that all other distinctions form 
 no justification for the interference of the state ; and prescribes 
 further that 110 man shall interfere with or " use any reproachful, 
 reviling or abusive language against the religion of any church or 
 profession that being the certain way of disturbing the peace, and 
 of hindering the conversion of any to the truth." 
 
 It is a significant commentary on this complicated piece of political 
 machinery, that while it was assuming definite shape, the 
 people of Albemarle had taken the matter of law-making 
 for the new country into their own hands. All unconscious ple- 
 that they were to be only " leet-men," or at best " lords of manors," 
 amid a magnificent prospective population of seigniors, landgraves, 
 and cassiques ; and ignorant of the vast system of councils, courts- 
 
 1 Locke's Works, folio ed., vol. iii., p. 676, note, as cited by Grahame, ii., 89, and as 
 uuoted in note to Carroll, ii., 384. 
 

 280 THE CAROLINAS. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 leet and courts-baron which was to regulate their lives, amusements, 
 and dress down to the smallest detail, these practical pioneers had 
 quietly drawn up such simple regulations as their situation seemed to 
 need. 
 
 Since Berkeley's visit to the Albemarle region it had received sev- 
 eral additions, and now there were settlements all the way along the 
 north shore of the Sound. The original Virginian plantations had 
 been supplemented by several made by New-Englanders, and as 
 far east as the Pasquotank River a colony of Bermuda people had 
 taken up lands. Drummond had been succeeded in October, 1667, in 
 the governorship by Samuel Stephens, and the proprietors in Eng- 
 land, pending the completion of their great scheme, had authorized a 
 temporary government of a council of twelve, half of them to be 
 chosen by an assembly of the settlers. 
 
 It was such an assembly which now sent to London the simple 
 code which it believed to have become necessary for the 
 
 Character of. . .,. , .11, , i 
 
 the Aibe- increasing population or perhaps it should rather be said, 
 needful to secure its further increase. Exemption from tax- 
 ation for a year was secured to every new settler ; but, to guard 
 against a monopoly of lands by absentees, it was declared neces- 
 sary to live in the country two years before such land-grant should 
 form a complete title. The traffic with the neighboring Indians was 
 reserved to the people of the district ; stringent means were to be 
 used against the participation of traders from outside. In addition 
 to these inducements to emigration, the proposed laws gave to the 
 country the very questionable advantage of forming a virtual asylum 
 for runaway debtors ; no debt contracted outside of Albemarle could 
 be sued for within five years, nor could any colonist accept a power 
 of attorney to demand such a debt from another. A tax of thirty 
 pounds of tobacco on every lawsuit, while it provided for the ex- 
 penses of the Governor and Council, was also intended to check the 
 litigation so likely to arise in a new country where titles to land 
 were a source of frequent dispute. Marriage was de- 
 cerningmar- clared to be only a civil contract. Parties appearing be- 
 fore " the governor, or any member of the council, or a few 
 of their neighbors, and declaring their mutual consent, were declared 
 to be man and wife." It has been conjectured that such a law was 
 deemed expedient in the scarcity of clergymen, in a widely scattered 
 community. Perhaps it was also meant to encourage matrimony and 
 the emigration of women. A contemporary pamphlet, written in the 
 interest of the proprietors, holds out as an inducement to such an 
 emigration, that, " if any Maid or single Woman have a desire to go 
 over, they will think themselves in the Golden Age, when Men paid 
 
1669.] 
 
 GOVERNOR WILLIAM SAYLE. 
 
 281 
 
 a Dowry for their Wives ; for if they be but Civil, and under 50 
 years of Age, some honest Man or other will purchase them for their 
 Wives." 1 This sufficient constitution continued, with all its faults, 
 to regulate Northern Carolina for more than forty years, till in 1715 
 it was deliberately reenacted by the people. 
 
 The Duke of Albemarle was the first Palatine under the Consti- 
 tutions, and at his death the office passed to Lord Berkeley. p au> of the 
 But the "Fundamental Constitutions" never became the mentau'on- 
 law of the land. From the time they were first adopted by stitutions - - 
 the Proprietors, in 1669, till they were finally rejected by the Assem- 
 bly of South Carolina, in 
 1698, they were four times 
 amended, till their articles 
 were reduced from one hun- 
 dred and twenty to forty- 
 one. Their onerous and 
 impracticable provisions 
 were so ill adapted to the 
 condition of colonists in a 
 new country, that hardly 
 was respect enough paid to 
 them even to attempt their 
 serious enforcement. 
 
 The Proprietors had 
 made, meanwhile, their first 
 direct attempt to plant in 
 the province a colony of 
 their own. Albemarle was an off-shoot of Virginia ; Cape Fear of 
 Barbadoes ; the new settlement was to be supplied directly from 
 England, and furnished with means by the lords themselves. 
 
 In July, 1669, Captain William Sayle, who had already made ex- 
 plorations of the coast in the proprietaries' service, was com- 
 missioned governor of that part of Carolina "lying south 
 and west of Cape Carteret " or Cape Romain, 2 a region 
 which had been especially excepted from the jurisdiction of Yea- 
 mans. In 1670 Sayle and Joseph West, a commercial agent of the 
 proprietaries, set sail from England with two ships loaded with emi- 
 grants and stores. 
 
 They sailed in January. But they touched first at some port in 
 Ireland before they were fairly off on their long voyage for Carolina 
 
 1 A Brief Description of the Province of Carolina on the Coasts of Florida, etc., London, 
 1666. 
 
 2 Romain was its earliest name ; then it became Carteret ; now it is Romain again. 
 
 Portrait of George Monk, Duke of Albemarle. 
 
 
282 THE CAROLINAS'. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 by way of Barbadoes. It was months before they reached Port Royal, 
 to which they were ordered, no doubt because it was the best known 
 point on that coast. Whether they did more than enter that beauti- 
 ful bay is not certain, though some of the early writers think they at- 
 tempted a settlement. It is more probable that they thought a port 
 so accessible from the sea was less desirable for an infant colony than 
 a place more difficult of approach. At any rate, they did not remain 
 at Port Royal, but before the year was out, Sayle, who knew the 
 coast, sailed up the present harbor of Charleston, and landed his 
 people about three miles above the mouth of the Ashley River. The 
 place they named Charles-town. 
 
 Sayle before long fell a victim to the climate, and Sir John Yea- 
 Death of nians, who had been made a landgrave, succeeded him as 
 Yeam'aM governor by virtue of that rank, though West would have 
 governor. b een preferred by the people. For several years the colony 
 was in a languishing condition ; nor did the Proprietaries conceal 
 their discontent at the steady drain it kept up upon their treasury, 
 while the possibility of its becoming self-sustaining seemed to grow 
 no nearer. New emigrants were sent out, but, like the first settlers, 
 they appear to have been of the class least likely to make successful 
 pioneers. The climate discouraged Europeans from the only kinds 
 of planting which could have proved profitable, and the hard labor of 
 clearing and tilling was in great part done by negro slaves, a few of 
 whom had been sent from Barbadoes, or brought thence by Yeamans 
 and his companions to Cape Fear. 1 There was a small number of 
 industrious and experienced men from the northern colonies, 2 and 
 apparently there were a few English emigrants of more spirit and 
 persistency than the rest ; but the great majority was made up from 
 the broken-down and vicious class which was drawn upon so largely 
 by all the proprietary colonies. 
 
 The proprietors, not without grumbling, continued for some time to 
 respond to the calls for supplies, for which no return was 
 of made in colonial products. But no provision could be made 
 
 for the proper distribution of what was sent, and supplies 
 were furnished to idle and industrious alike ; the founders of the col- 
 ony found themselves supporting a majority of useless paupers, where 
 they had relied upon returns which the minority of hard-workers 
 was not strong enough to secure. By the beginning of 1674 a heavy 
 debt some thousands of pounds had accumulated on account of 
 the plantation. Sir John Yeamans who appears to have taken ad- 
 vantage of his position to direct what little export trade there was 
 toward Barbadoes, where he could turn it to his own profit was 
 
 1 Htwit, in Carroll's Hist. Coll. 2 Chalmers. 
 
1674.] 
 
 JOSEPH WEST. 
 
 283 
 
 removed, and, much to the general satisfaction, Joseph West was 
 appointed governor in his place. 
 
 Yeamans, broken in health by the climate, but with a large for- 
 tune acquired during the years of his administration, retired We8t gOTer . 
 again to Barbadoes, and the popular and prudent West soon nor> 167 *' 
 changed the condition of affairs for the better. Emigrants were now 
 willing to go to the province " at their own expense. Men of estate 
 ventured where they were assured of fair dealing," says one of the 
 older historians, and all accounts concur in representing the confidence 
 in the new Governor as giving an immediate impetus to the settle- 
 ment and progress of the place, while his management seems also to 
 have checked for the time the complaints of the proprietaries. The 
 colonists, it is true, did not pay the large indebtedness already con- 
 tracted, nor even the Governor's salary, as they promised when his 
 
 View of Charleston Harbor. 
 
 administration began. But this latter point was settled, in 1677, by 
 the Proprietors' assignment to West of all their stock, un- Improve . 
 used supplies, and overdue debts in the province, thus giving {^oLyVaf- 
 him a new motive, for the improvement of the colony. For fair8- 
 themselves, they doubtless considered it a favorable state of things if 
 even the drain on their treasury was stopped. The idea of large 
 profits must have been given up by this time even by the most san- 
 guine " seignior " among them, while the more fortunate landgraves 
 and cassiques, some few of whom had been appointed, must have re- 
 joiced that their barren honors had been so cheaply purchased. 
 
 This prosperity, which was to last for several years, was hardly es- 
 tablisfied, when the condition of affairs in their northern colony de- 
 
284 THE CAKOLINAS. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 manded the attention of the vexed Proprietors. The people of Albe- 
 
 marle had become thoroughly discontented. The code of 
 i Alto- temporal-) 7 laws sent to them had been openly disregarded, 
 
 and the Assembly seems to have gone on without paying at- 
 tention to any other code than its own. All manner of disquieting ru- 
 mors had been spread abroad concerning the intentions of the propri- 
 etors regarding this particular settlement, how they intended to 
 give it to Sir William Berkeley for his own, separating it from the 
 rest of the province, or how they favored their own colony at the 
 south at the expense of the north. In 1674, to make confusion worse, 
 Stephens, the Governor, died ; and Carteret, chosen in his place pend- 
 ing advices from England, proved indifferent to or dissatisfied with 
 his duties, and sailed for home after an administration of little more 
 than a year. 
 
 In 1675 the fear of the colonists as to the dismemberment of the 
 
 province, and Berkeley's dreaded rulership over it, led to 
 the Propri- an address to the Proprietors. Their prompt denial of the 
 
 rumor, and their acknowledgment that they had " neglected 
 Albemarle," did not check the excitement. At the same time one 
 
 Thomas Miller was the object of great suspicion, and was 
 
 The case of T - . . . i i i- TT 
 
 Thomas Mil- sent to Jamestown tor trial, charged with sedition. He was 
 
 Icr 
 
 acquitted by a Virginian jury ; but this did not allay the 
 popular discontent. That, probably, was increased by the fact that 
 he was taken out of the colony for trial. 
 
 In 1676 the Assembly decided to send an intelligent representative 
 
 to England, to lay before the Proprietors the disorderly con- 
 
 Eastchurch . J , r . . J ' 
 
 sent to Eng- dition of the colony, to ask redress for various grievances, 
 and to secure a governor who should understand their neces- 
 sities, and satisfy their reasonable wants. Thomas Eastchurch, the 
 speaker of the Assembly, was chosen for the duty ; and about the time 
 of his setting out, Miller also sailed for England, to demand redress 
 for the injuries done him. 
 
 Eastchurch succeeded so well in his mission as to secure his own 
 Hi success appointment to the governorship, with a set of instructions 
 SentaTGoT- which he thought would quiet dissension and satisfy the 
 ernor. people. But though Eastchurch was made Governor, Miller 
 
 was no less successful in obtaining redress for his private grievances. 
 The Proprietors acknowledged that he had been wronged in being 
 taken to Virginia for trial, even if there was any ground for the trial 
 itself. He who had been foremost in denouncing their rule in the 
 colony, now became their servant. He was made collector of the cus- 
 toms, secretary, and Lord Shaftesbury's deputy in Carolina. Nor was 
 this all ; for, when the two newly-appointed officers sailed together 
 
u 
 
 x 
 
 a 
 
 I 
 
 u 
 

1677.] DISSENSIONS IN THE NORTH. 285 
 
 for the colony, and landed first in the West Indies, Eastchurch fell 
 in love with a Creole heiress in Nevis Island, and sent his compan- 
 ion to rule at Albemarle, with full powers as his deputy, M iiierDcpu- 
 "till the chain that bound him proved too weak to hold tyw*- 
 him, or strong enough to enable him to draw the beauty who had im- 
 posed it." Miller probably did not object to this arrangement, but 
 proceeded promptly to the colony, where, on his arrival in July, 1677, 
 the people received him, no doubt with deep disgust, but with out- 
 ward signs of submission. 
 
 Albemarle had now a population of fourteen hundred " taxables," 
 or persons between sixteen and sixty years of age, one third of them 
 being women, negro slaves, and Indians. How these colonists had 
 been ruled during Carteret's absence does not appear ; probably 
 chiefly by their own Assembly, with perhaps an executive named by 
 the Council, whose name has not been recorded. One thing seems 
 certain, however, that the fourteen hundred colonists had proved 
 themselves as difficult of tranquil government as many populations of 
 ten times their numbers. Affairs had been left " in bad order and 
 worse hands," said the Proprietors ; and Miller found the o ontinile( i 
 place full of all the elements of turbulence that a combina- dlsorder - 
 tion of plantation and trading-post could furnish. A degree of an- 
 archy must inevitably have resulted from the uncertainty caused by 
 attempts to enforce first one and then another code of laws ; but 
 apart from this, the population was made up of the most diverse 
 classes, among whom quiet would have been impossible. Puritan 
 New Englanders, not feeling themselves at ease under ultra-royalist 
 proprietors of a kind whom all their traditions led them to oppose ; 
 adventurers, who saw in any kind of strong government the prospect 
 of taxes and restrictions on their profits ; refugees from the political 
 troubles in Virginia, finding safety in a province which refused to 
 give them up, all these mingled with the original colonists to make 
 up a people peculiarly difficult to control. The principal trade was 
 with New England, and the men who carried it on added to the dis- 
 order by a systematic evasion of the English customs-dues, which 
 were perhaps unjust enough, yet which the proprietary governors 
 were instructed to enforce. 
 
 It was on the question of this trade that the first open conflict 
 arose between Miller and the colonists. As collector for the king, 
 he assessed a duty of one penny on every pound of tobacco exported 
 to other American colonies. By this tax he collected in the first six 
 months thirty-three hogsheads of tobacco and more than five thousand 
 dollars. 1 The indignation was great, particularly among the New 
 1 Martin. See also Williamson and Hawks. 
 
286 THE CAROLIXAS. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 England trading-captains. Every device of smuggling and conceal- 
 ment was resorted to in order to evade the law. 
 
 In December, a northern trader named Gillam, commanding an 
 armed vessel from New England, was arrested for violation of the 
 law, and was bound in a thousand pounds to abide his trial. He 
 threatened the people that he would bring them no more supplies at 
 insurrection such risk. In the district of Pasquotank, where the arrest 
 1 took, place, the people rose at once, and the insurrection was 
 almost immediately joined by the planters of other districts. 
 Miller and several of the Proprietors' deputies were imprisoned by 
 the insurgents led by one Culpepper, a man who had already been 
 prominent in agitations on Ashley River. The funds of the revenue 
 officers some three thousand pounds were seized, and a popular 
 assembly was called, new courts established, and all matters of ad- 
 ministration taken under the control of the successful rebels. 
 
 The people of Pasquotank published a proclamation or " remon- 
 strance," addressed " to all the rest of the County of Albe- 
 
 " Remon- F 
 
 gtrance"of marie," in i ustification of their conduct. Miller was accused 
 
 the Pasquo- J 
 
 tank peo- of preventing a free election, which deprived them of a free 
 parliament whereby their grievances could be made known to 
 the Lords Proprietors. The chief of these grievances was that the 
 tax on tobacco was enforced, and that trade was interfered with ; and 
 they relate with an almost ludicrous pathos the circumstances of Gil- 
 lam's arrest who had come " with three times the goods he brought 
 last year," which, of course, he meant to dispose of in a contraband 
 trade, in tobacco of Miller's boarding his vessel " with a brace of 
 pistols," and presenting one of them at George Durant's breast, whom 
 he seized as a traitor. 
 
 The grievance in truth was serious enough. Their chief produc- 
 tion was tobacco. The tax was a heavy burden upon colonists in- 
 evitably poor ; and the enforcement of the Navigation Act was to 
 shut them off from a trade with New England upon which they were 
 dependent almost for the necessaries of life. The arrest of Gillam 
 was the one thing needed to make a crisis. " Three times as many 
 goods as the year before," but safely under hatches in Gillam's vessel, 
 and not to be exchanged for the tobacco on which, nevertheless, the 
 tax was inexorably levied here was palpable oppression to be borne 
 no longer. The insurrection was completely successful. 
 
 When Eastchurch arrived having won his bride at last in the 
 West Indies he found that the delay had cost him his 
 Eastchurch. governorship. He appealed to Virginia for aid, but before 
 he had time to put his plans into operation, he died. 
 
 The colonists, however, had no intention of setting the Proprietors 
 
1679.] STATEMENT OF THE PASQUOTAXK PEOPLE. 
 
 287 
 
 altogether at defiance. But it was nearly two years before they 
 thought fit to offer any justification of their conduct in deposing one 
 officer and refusing obedience to another. In 1679, Culpepper and 
 Robert Holden were sent as commissioners to England to lay their 
 grievances before the Proprietors. Miller and his companions in im- 
 prisonment succeeded in escaping and in securing passage 
 on a homeward-bound vessel, and appeared in London not the propri*- 
 long afterward. The majority of the Proprietors seem to 
 have been much puzzled by the contradictory accounts thus simulta- 
 taneously brought 
 before them. But 
 Lord Shaftesbury, 
 finding that the 
 commissioners were 
 willing to yield 
 every thing to the 
 proprietaries if 
 only Miller should 
 be permanently 
 displaced and the 
 insurgents par- 
 doned ; feeling also, 
 perhaps, that the 
 colonists really had 
 grievances which 
 should be redress- 
 ed ; but especially 
 seeing, no doubt, 
 that the successful 
 rebel was much 
 more of a man than 
 the governor he 
 had deposed, used 
 his influence in Cul- 
 pepper's favor. No 
 
 thought seems to have been entertained of returning Miller to the 
 government. A commission as governor of Albemarle had been pre- 
 viously issued to Seth Sothell, who had lately become a proprietor 
 by purchasing the share of Lord Clarendon. 
 
 Sothell started for the colony probably late in 1678, or early the 
 next year. But he was captured by the Turks on his outward voy- 
 age, and taken into Algiers. The Proprietors consequently decreed 
 
 Arrest of Ourant. 
 
288 THE CAROLINA^. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 that a temporary government should be continued under one John 
 Harvey, to whom a commission for the time being seems 
 
 Sothell P- , , . 
 
 pointed goy- to have been granted previously perhaps because he was 
 already in Carolina, and in a position to govern till a new 
 officer's arrival. 1 But the expedient proved unsuccessful ; his power 
 Governors was derided because it was known that it was to last but a 
 ad inttnnt \{ft\ e time. Indeed, he seems to have been virtually deposed 
 in the summer of 1680, one John Jenkins succeeding him for a 
 few months. In February, 1681, still another governor was com- 
 missioned pending Sothell's coming Captain Henry Wilkinson, 
 whose credentials call him "governor of that part of the province of 
 Carolina lying five miles south of the river Pamlico, and thence to 
 Virginia." 
 
 In the mean time Culpepper, when he was about to reembark for 
 Arrest of tb- e colony after having apparently gained all his ends, had 
 cmpepper. b een arrested, at the instigation, it has been suggested, of 
 the proprietors opposed to Shaftesbury, 2 and brought to trial by the 
 commissioners of customs, for unlawfully acting as collector in the 
 colony, and for high-treason. He begged in vain to be tried in Caro- 
 lina, where the act was committed ; this was refused him on the 
 ground that " by a Statute of Henry VIII., foreign treason may be 
 either tried by special commission or in the King's Bench by a jury of 
 the county, where that court sits." 3 He would undoubtedly have been 
 convicted and sentenced by the King's Bench, had not Shaftesbury 
 pleaded for him that there never had been a regular government in 
 His acquit- Albemarle, and that the rebellion had therefore been only a 
 tol> quarrel between factions of the colonists. Culpepper was 
 
 acquitted. This trial occurred in Trinity Term, in the summer of 
 1680, that is, some months after Sothell's appointment, departure, 
 and capture ; and there is obviously no ground for the general as- 
 sumption that Sothell was sent to the colony as a consequence of Cul- 
 pepper's acquittal. 
 
 In the province itself dissensions were far from ended ; nor did the 
 conciliatory measures which the Proprietaries now adopted do much 
 good. Instructions were given to the Governor to "pardon" the in- 
 surgents ; a measure which naturally seems to have been laughed at 
 by a faction which was almost as strong as the one now nominally in 
 power ; and as naturally disregarded by the Governor himself, who 
 knew that to keep his place at all he must rule with a strong hand. 
 
 1 State Papers cited in Coll. Hist. Soc. ofS. C., vol. i., p. 102. 
 
 2 Graharae, ii., 107. 
 
 3 Ventris's Reports, 349. Cited by Chalmers. 
 
1683.] 
 
 GOVERNOR SOTHEL. 
 
 289 
 
 Severe measures of punishment, on the one hand, and of retaliation on 
 the other, appear to have kept Albemarle in constant anarchy during 
 a period too turbulent to have left us any clear records ; and when 
 Sothell, who had escaped from captivity, arrived in Carolina in 1683, 
 he had every reason to find affairs in as bad a state as ever. 
 
 VOL. II 
 
 Seal of the Proprietors of Carolina. 
 19 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 VIRGINIA UNDER BERKELEY. 
 
 CONDITION OF VIRGINIA IN 1670. ABUSES AND POPULAR GRIEVANCES. THE GRANT 
 TO ABLINGTON AND CULPEPPER. INDIAN HOSTILITIES AND THEIR RESULTS. IN- 
 EFFICIENCY OF BERKELEY. INDIGNATION OF THE COLONISTS. NATHANIEL BACON 
 TAKES THE FlELD IN DEFIANCE OF THE GOVERNOR. His INDIAN CAMPAIGN. 
 BERKELEY PROCLAIMS HIM A REBEL. POPULAR UPRISING. CONCESSIONS FORCED 
 FROM THE GOVERNOR. BACON'S ARREST, SUBMISSION, AND ESCAPE. HE CAPTURES 
 JAMESTOWN. SECOND INDIAN CAMPAIGN. RENEWED ATTEMPTS OF BERKELEY 
 TO SUPPRESS THE POPULAR MOVEMENT. BACON'S RETURN. HE SEIZES THE GOV- 
 ERNMENT. FLIGHT OF BERKELEY. THE CONVENTION. AIMS OF THE BACON 
 PARTY. REVIVING FORTUNES OF THE DEPOSED GOVERNOR. BACON AGAIN CAP- 
 TURES AND BURNS THE CAPITAL. ILLNESS AND DEATH OF BACON. CLOSE OF THE 
 
 REBELLION. PUNISHMENT OF THE REBELS. ARRIVAL OF ENGLISH COMMISSION- 
 ERS. RECALL AND DEATH OF BERKELEY. 
 
 IN the year 1670, the Commissioners of Foreign Plantations, in 
 London, asked of Sir William Berkeley a report upon the condition 
 of his colony. Apart from mere statistics, more may be inferred from 
 his response than he saw fit to tell, more, perhaps, than he really 
 knew. But even the facts he gives are valuable. 
 
 There were forty thousand people in Virginia at this period : of 
 condition of these, only two thousand were negro slaves ; but there were 
 six thousand white servants bound to service for a term of 
 years. It is not a violent supposition that these were not 
 contented subjects. The best of them had been soldiers of the Com- 
 monwealth, men who had risked their lives for the sake of political 
 and religious liberty, and were not likely now to submit quietly to 
 personal servitude. Others were of an even more dangerous class, 
 for the Assembly of that year had listened to complaints, from mem- 
 bers of the Council and other gentlemen, of the dangers that threat- 
 ened the colony by the introduction of felons. The annual importa- 
 tion of white servants was fifteen hundred ; the Assembly hoped at 
 least to mitigate the evils of such an emigration by prohibiting the 
 landing in Virginia of convicts from the English jails. Upon these 
 indented servants and the negro slaves the colony depended for its 
 labor. That their lives were held cheaply is plain, for four fifths of 
 
 Virginia in 
 1670. The 
 people. 
 
1670.] CONDITION OF VIRGINIA. 291 
 
 them died when put upon new plantations. It was cheaper to buy 
 new servants than to keep old ones alive by sanitary measures. 
 
 Virginia owned but two small vessels of her own, though eighty 
 ships came yearly from England to take away her tobacco The coloniftl 
 and bring in exchange those commodities of luxury or neces- tl ' ade 
 sity that her people could not do without. Nothing could be ex- 
 ported except to the king's dominions, and nothing, therefore, of much 
 value, could be imported from anywhere but England. No improve- 
 ment could come, the Governor thought, to the trade of Virginia till 
 she was allowed to sell her tobacco, her staves, her timber, and her 
 corn in the best market, and buy what she wanted in return where it 
 could be bought cheapest. In 1671, she exported sixteen thousand 
 hogsheads of tobacco, on which the export tax was two shillings a 
 hogshead. The price in London ruled the price at which it was put 
 on board the English vessels at the river-banks of the plantations, 
 the planters taking goods in pay. The price of the tobacco was at 
 the lowest, that of the goods at the highest, to which monopoly could 
 bring them. The merchant made an enormous profit on both. More 
 than one old writer says that the remuneration to the planter would 
 hardly find him in clothes ; but it was, no doubt, the four fifths of 
 the servants who died that went without the clothes, and not the 
 planters on their great estates, with their generous living and large 
 hospitality. 
 
 The militia of the province could muster eight thousand men. On 
 the James were two forts ; on the Rappahannock, the York, 
 
 , _. , ,, The militia. 
 
 and the Potomac, one each. Ihey were meant, however, 
 less for protection than as ports where ships should load and unload, 
 that the restrictions upon trade might be the easier enforced than 
 when cargoes were discharged and received at the plantations. For 
 a year only, however, was that regulation obeyed. The great fire in 
 London in 1666 reduced the number of ships that came out that sea- 
 son ; and the fear that the plague which followed it might be introduced 
 into the colony and spread by the aggregation of people at these ports, 
 scattered the ships again along the rivers wherever a market could 
 be found. But the forts were kept up, and the taxation for that pur- 
 pose was a grievous burden for which there was no return. 
 
 The religious condition of the colony did not altogether suit Berke- 
 ley ; with him religion meant conformity to the Established R^J,,,,,, a{ . 
 Church, and the church a form of prescribed belief and wor- fairs 
 ship with which the constable should have as much to do as the 
 priest. He hated non-conformity and dreaded any appeal to or re- 
 liance upon the human reason. He believed devoutly in authority, 
 and every Puritan that went back to New England, every Quaker 
 
292 VIRGINIA UNDER BERKELEY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 that sought refuge in Carolina, was a good riddance to a ruler who 
 recognized the perfection of human government under Charles I. 
 and Charles II. There were forty-eight parishes in the colony, and 
 in these, Berkeley said, " our ministers are well paid ; by my consent, 
 should be better, if they would pray oftener and preach less. But as 
 of all other commodities, so of this, the worst are sent us, and we 
 have had few that we could boast of, since Cromwell's tyranny drove 
 divers men hither." But some of these parishes were sixty or seventy 
 miles in length, and better authority, perhaps, than the Governor's, 
 asserted that many of them were for years without pastors. Nor 
 were clergymen, when employed, held in much esteem, in many 
 cases were not deserving of it. Parishioners were often indifferent 
 whether the parsons prayed or preached most, or whether they did 
 neither. Not unfrequently a lay reader was employed at the lowest 
 possible wages for which a substitute for a minister could be hired. 
 This saved a clergyman's salary, and filled at the same time the Gov- 
 ernor's requirement of religious teaching, no preaching and more 
 prayer-book. 
 
 But if the Governor was a little doubtful as to the religious state 
 of the colon} 7 , he had no misgivings of the perfectly health- 
 ful condition of the merely secular mind of his people. To 
 this consideration he turns with the keenest satisfaction. " But," he 
 adds, " I thank God there are no free schools, nor printing, and I 
 hope we shall not have these hundred years ; for learning has brought 
 disobedience into the world, and printing has divulged them and libels 
 against the best governments. God keep us from both." 
 
 From 1660 to 1676 there was no election of representatives to the 
 Assembly of Virginia. That body preserved its power from year to 
 year by prorogation, and rendered any interference with it the more 
 difficult by restricting the right of suffrage. Industry was paralyzed ; 
 the taxes were enormous ; official tyranny was intolerable ; monopoly 
 absorbed all trade ; the people had no voice in the government. In 
 1673 the whole territory, occupied already by nearly forty 
 thousand Englishmen, was given by the king to two of his 
 favorites, the Earl of Arlington and Lord Culpepper, the 
 former the father-in-law of the king's bastard son, the Duke 
 of Grafton, by the profligate and beautiful Lady Castlemaine, after- 
 ward the Duchess of Cleveland. The grant was a new source of tax- 
 ation to the oppressed colonists, who were compelled to pay heavily 
 for the support of agents in London in vain efforts to procure the 
 restoration of their homes to the rightful owners. The condition of 
 the colony seemed well-nigh hopeless, and only some pretext for re- 
 volt was needed to arouse the people to resistance. In 1674 some 
 
1675.] 
 
 INDIAN HOSTILITIES. 
 
 293 
 
 disturbances, which promised to become a revolution, were with diffi- 
 culty allayed by a proclamation from the Governor and the inter- 
 cessions of some influential citizens of his party. 
 
 But the insurrection, which so many causes combined to make pop- 
 ular and inevitable, was only postponed for about a year. Ind i anh os- 
 The Indians on the frontier either the local tribes insti- tUlt "~ 
 gated by Senecas from the north, or the Senecas themselves be- 
 came so troublesome that the forts were put in a condition of de- 
 fence, and Sir Henry Chicheley, the Lieutenant-governor, prepared 
 to march, in the spring of 1675, against the enemy at the head of five 
 hundred men. There was 
 promise of a vigorous cam- 
 paign ; the laws against 
 providing the Indians with 
 guns and ammunition 
 
 Gathering of the Virginia Planters in 1674. 
 
 were much more 
 stringent ; set- 
 tlers were warned 
 
 to take their arms to church ; days of fasting were ordered, and the 
 whole colony seems to have been animated with the hope that some- 
 thing was at length to be done whose end was the common good. But 
 when Chicheley and his little army were ready to move, an unac- 
 countable and unexplained order to disband was received from Gov- 
 ernor Berkeley. 
 
 Whether this was done in the interest of the Indian traders, 
 which was Berkeley's own interest, or whether the Governor sin- 
 cerely believed that the danger from the Indians was exaggerated, 
 and would disappear if let alone, the effect upon the colonists was 
 
294 VIRGINIA UNDER BERKELEY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 unquestionably exasperating. If the Governor would not defend 
 them, they determined to defend themselves. 
 
 The occasion was not long in coming. One Sunday morning, in 
 Murder of the summer of that year, some persons in Stafford County, on 
 Hen - their way to church, found lying at his own door, wounded 
 
 and dying, a man named Hen, and near him a friendly Indian, quite 
 dead. Hen lived long enough to tell his friends that the Doegs were 
 the murderers. 
 
 Alarm was spread through the neighborhood, and thirty men 
 started at once in pursuit. For twenty miles up the Poto- 
 of the mu mac the trail was followed, till, crossing the river, it divided 
 into two paths. The force separated to follow both, one 
 party under Captain Brent, the other under Colonel Mason. Brent 
 soon came upon a wigwam, which he surrounded with his men. A 
 chief came out at the Captain's summons, who accused him of having 
 murdered Hen, and, as he attempted to fly, shot him down. His com- 
 panions within the wigwam made some show of defence, and then, as 
 they rushed out to escape, ten of them fell before the fire of the Vii-- 
 ginians. They were of the Doeg tribe, and, very likely, the mur- 
 derers. 
 
 The other party, who also reached a wigwam in the woods, waited 
 Attack on a f r no parley. The Indians, aroused by the noise of the 
 nock'wi'g- 11 firing of Brent's men, rushed to the door, and, as they ap- 
 wam ' peared, fourteen of them were shot dead before the assail- 
 
 ants could be made to understand that these were not Doegs, but 
 Susquehannocks. But the murder of Hen was fully avenged. The 
 sun had risen but once over his grave, before as the Indians be- 
 lieved twenty-four of their people followed him into the valley of 
 darkness. 
 
 Retaliation was inevitable. Susquehannocks, Doegs, Senecas, Pis- 
 cataways, all the Indian tribes of the region were aroused by the 
 slaughter in a single day of so many warriors. Two of these tribes 
 mourned for their own ; the third was accused of the act that had 
 brought upon them so terrible a calamity. All had now cause to 
 hate the whites ; some of them perhaps all proved by new atroci- 
 ties how eagerly they accepted the lesson. In Maryland and Vir- 
 ginia alike, the isolated planters knew that at any moment they 
 might stand face to face with death. 
 
 The two colonies united in an expedition, and a thousand men 
 Expedition were sent out under Colonel John Washington, George 
 sSlrueh^n- Washington's great-grandfather, of Virginia, and Major 
 nocks. Thomas Truman, of Maryland. The Susquehannocks had 
 
 taken refuge with their women and children in a strong foil on the 
 Piscatawav, and this the combined force surrounded. 
 
 
1675.] 
 
 MURDER OF INDIAN ENVOYS. 
 
 295 
 
 Six of their chiefs were summoned from the fort, that negotiations 
 might first be tried. They denied that their people were guilty of any 
 hostile acts against the whites, and charged them to the Senecas, who 
 had already fled northward. Truman accepted their explanations, 
 and promised them protection, but the Virginians were not satisfied. 
 
 The next morning, a detachment brought into the camp the muti- 
 lated bodies of one Hanson and some members of his family 
 who had been recently murdered. The act was known be- theindun 
 fore, and was one of those now under consideration. But 
 when this visible evidence of Indian atrocity was laid before the 
 
 whites, their rage was be- 
 yond control. Whether 
 with or without the consent 
 
 of the two commanders, five of 
 the chiefs, who had again come 
 out of the fort for a parley, and The K '" ing f the Chiets 
 
 who, under the rules of war, were entitled to protection, were in- 
 stantly bound and led out to execution. 
 
 The act was too atrocious to be sustained even by the pubh'c opin- 
 ion of that time. Truman was brought to trial by the Legislature of 
 Maryland, and found guilty in that he did " in a barbarous and cruel 
 manner cause five of said Indians to be killed and murdered, contrary 
 to the laws of God and of nations." How he was punished does not 
 appear, for the records are lost. 1 When Colonel Washington re- 
 turned to Jamestown, and took his seat in the Assembly, Berkeley 
 said, in his opening address, "If they [the Susquehannocks] had 
 killed my grandfather and my grandmother, my father, my mother, 
 
 1 For the fullest narrative of all these transactions, see a lecture before the Maryland 
 Historical Society, by S. F. Streeter, published in Hist. May., voL i. 
 
296 VIRGINIA UNDER BERKELEY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 and all my friends, yet, if they had come to treat in peace, they 
 should have gone in peace." 
 
 This public rebuke was Washington's only punishment. Their 
 Indian re- revenge the Indians took into their own hands. Though 
 taiiation. j.} ie f or j. on fo e Piscataway was strong and capable of de- 
 fence, they had laid in no provisions for a long siege. In the night, 
 while the camp without slept unsuspicious of danger, the Susquehan- 
 nocks, with their women and children leaving behind only a few old 
 men crept out silently among their enemies, killing ten of them as 
 they went, and escaped to the forest. 
 
 Arousing other tribes, they spread dismay along the Rappahanock 
 and the James. Through the following winter they spread through 
 Virginia, almost to Jamestown itself. Their object was rather re- 
 venge than plunder. "In these frightful times," says a narrative 
 written a few years afterward by one of the planters who related 
 what he saw, 1 " the most exposed small families withdrew into our 
 houses of better numbers, which we fortified with pallisadoes and 
 redoubts ; neighbours in bodies joined their laborers from each plan- 
 tation to others alternately, taking their arms into the ffields and set- 
 ting centinels ; no man stirred out of door unarm 'd, Indians were 
 (ever and anon) espied, three, 4, 5, or 6 in a party, lurking through- 
 out the whole land ; yet (what was remarkable) I rarely heard of 
 any houses burnt .... or other injury done besides murders, except 
 the killing a very few cattle & swine." Sixty of the colonists, be- 
 fore the spring came, had fallen victims to this savage warfare along 
 the York, the James, and the Rappahannock. 
 
 In this season of dire distress Berkeley was strangely inefficient or 
 inefficiency unpardoiiablv indifferent. Even the Susquehannocks, sat- 
 of Berkeley. i s g e( j w jth their bloody work, made overtures of peace, to 
 which they received no answer ; the colonists appealed to him for 
 protection, but he was moved neither by their sufferings nor their 
 prayers. The time had come when they must depend upon them- 
 selves for safety. In securing that, came the opportunity to redress 
 much other wrong. 
 
 Among the owners of plantations on the James was young Na- 
 Natnaniei tlianiel Bacon, the cousin and heir of a rich and well-known 
 Bacon. Jamestown citizen of the same name. Although he was 
 not yet thirty, and had joined his relative in Virginia less than three 
 years before, he was already of sufficient mark in the province to 
 have been appointed member of the council, and to have gained an 
 influence among his neighbors that implied unusual qualities in so 
 
 1 The Beginning, Progress, and Conclusion of Bacon's Rebellion. By T. M. Republished 
 ill Force's Tracts, vol. i. 
 
1676.] 
 
 INEFFICIENCY OF BERKELEY. 
 
 297 
 
 young a man. He lived upon an estate called Curies, on the river, a 
 little distance below Richmond ; but he also owned a plantation near 
 the falls of the James, perhaps where the place called " Bacon 
 Quarter Branch " still keeps his name. 1 Here, in the late winter or 
 early spring of 1676, a band of savages stole into the clearing, a^d 
 killed two persons, a servant, and Bacon's overseer, whom he held 
 in high esteem. 2 
 
 Bacon Quarter Branch. 
 
 The young man had been already greatly excited by the distresses 
 of the people about him, and it needed only this appeal to personal 
 interest and feeling to move him to action. His neighbors, one and 
 all, looked to him as their leader ; and he and they had " sent often- 
 times to the Governor, humbly beseeching a commission to go against 
 those Indians at their own charge." But no commission came. " The 
 misteryes of these delays were wondered at," and the minds of the 
 people, bitter with other grievances, were filled with " surmizes and 
 rnurmurings." The climax came when Bacon himself, struck at last 
 in his own family, swor-e that he would avenge his overseer's death, 
 
 1 Campbell's History of Virginia. 
 
 2 There are several contemporary accounts of Bacon's Rebellion. The so called " Bur- 
 well Account," found among the papers of Captain Nathaniel Burwell, of Virginia, and 
 published in Mass. Hist. Sor. Coll., Second Series, vol. i., is incomplete. That by "T. M." 
 in Force's Hist. Tracts, i., is the fullest. See also An Account of our Late Troubles in Vir- 
 ginia, by Mrs. An. Cotton, of Q. Creeks, in Force, i., 9th paper; *4 List of those Executed 
 for the Late Rebellion in Virginia, etc., ibid., 10th paper ; and the documents in the appm- 
 dix to chap. v. in Burk's History of Virginia, vol. ii. 
 
298 VIRGINIA UNDER BERKELEY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 and that should news of another murder reach him, he would march 
 out against the savages, " commission or no commission." 
 
 Such news was but a little while in coming ; and he kept his word. 
 A force whose numbers are differently stated at ninety, three hun- 
 dred, and even six hundred men, 1 gathered about their leader. But 
 even on the eve of their march, they sent once more to Berkeley for 
 authority, warning him that should he not send it by a certain day, 
 Bacon takes they would go without it. It did not come, and at the 
 appointed time the expedition moved. It had gone only a 
 short distance, before it was overtaken by a messenger, bearing in hot 
 haste a proclamation from the Governor, denouncing all as rebels who 
 did not disperse and return to their homes before a given date. This 
 was decisive, and the line must be drawn at once between such as 
 would brave the final threat of the authorities and such as would turn 
 back while it was yet possible. Fifty-seven of his company kept on 
 into the wilderness with Bacon ; "those of estates," who feared their 
 confiscation, returned with discontented obedience to save their prop- 
 erty. 
 
 Bacon and his party had not accomplished that most difficult and 
 dangerous part of Indian warfare, the finding of the enemy, when 
 their supplies began to run low. Coming upon the fortified village 
 of a friendly tribe, they asked the savages for provisions, with offers 
 of pay. If the white men would wait till the next day, they should 
 have what they asked, was his answer. It shows what was the pop- 
 ular opinion of the Governor, that a suspicion at once arose among 
 the Bacon party that these Indians were acting by his direction. It 
 was absolutely necessary that food should be had. Wading " shoulder 
 deep " through the creek that ran before the palisades, they 
 
 Attack upon , . . . , , 
 
 friendly in- pressed their request. A shot, coming from some unseen 
 enemy as night was falling, killed one of the troop, and 
 aroused a suspicion that the Indians were reenforced. An attack was 
 made, the fort taken and burned, and, according to Bacon's own 
 account, one hundred and fifty Indians were put to the sword. It 
 was the annihilation of the tribe of Susquehannocks. That, it was 
 thought, must put an end to all further trouble from the savages, 
 and the colonists dispersed. 
 
 The supposed collusion of Sir William Berkeley and the Indians 
 Berkeley in l ia d this much color of probability, that the Governor, so 
 Barn's ' soon as ne was satisfied of the determined purpose of Bacon 
 force. an( j n j g men? na( j taken a troop of horse and set out in pur- 
 
 suit. He did not reach them ; but his desertion of the capital, at 
 
 1 Biirk, ii. 164, says six hundred; Burwell, p. 10, says "about seventy or ninety per- 
 sons ; " T. M., p. 11, says three hundred men. 
 
1676.] 
 
 POPULAR UPRISING. 
 
 209 
 
 this critical moment, proved an ill-judged step. No sooner was lie 
 well away, than a revolt broke out among the planters to the south. 
 In the absence of the Governor, the Assembly hesitated and tem- 
 porized, and allowed the rebellion to gain headway. Hurry- Popu i ar di8- 
 ing back, Sir William found the country everywhere in n"rkeey : s 
 such commotion that he was compelled to make concessions. conet '' 
 Among the first demanded was the abolition of taxes for the useless 
 f or ts, their uselessness now doubly shown, and the dissolution of 
 that long Assembly which had not 
 been changed for fifteen years. 
 The scanty records tell us little 
 of the details ; but both points were 
 yielded, and for the moment a de- 
 ceptive quiet was restored. 
 
 Bacon's Troops crossing the Creek. 
 
 The elections to the new Assembly, for which writs were imme- 
 diately issued, resulted almost everywhere, as might have xeweiec- 
 been expected, in favor of the popular party. A great ma- tlon8 ' 
 jority of the delegates were men pledged to demand redress of the 
 people's grievances. Bacon, whose great popularity was increased by 
 his action in the Indian matter, was among the new members. Not- 
 withstanding his recent defiance of the Governor, he did not hesitate 
 to start for Jamestown on the day appointed. This audacity even a 
 weaker man than Berkeley might have resented. As Bacon sailed 
 down the river from his home at Curies, on his way to the Assembly's 
 session, his sail-boat was brought to by an armed vessel, and he was 
 carried to the capital under arrest. "Mr. Bacon,'' asked the Thc arrest of 
 old Governor, as the culprit was brought before him, " have Bacon - 
 you forgot to be a gentleman ? " " No, may it please your honor." 
 
300 
 
 VIRGINIA UNDER BERKELEY. 
 
 [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 " Then," said the old soldier, with a courtesy not forgotten in se- 
 verity, " I will take your parole ; " and the popular leader took his 
 seat unhindered among the burgesses. 1 
 
 The burgesses met on the morning of the 5th of June ; and when 
 they had chosen a speaker, the Governor summoned them before him. 
 In " a short, abrupt speech," as we have already related, he rebuked 
 
 Bacon's Submission. 
 
 Colonel Washington for the murder of the Susquehannock chiefs. 
 Then, after seating himself for a moment, he rose and surprised the 
 house by saying, " if there be joy in the presence of the angels over 
 Bacon's sub- one sinner that repenteth, there is joy now ; for we have a 
 minion. penitent sinner come before us. Call Mr. Bacon." " Then," 
 says an eye witness, " did Mr. Bacon, upon one knee at the bar, de- 
 
 1 T. M.'s Narrative. 
 
1676.] BACON'S ESCAPE. 301 
 
 liver a sheet of paper confessing his crimes and begging pardon ot 
 God, the king, and the governor." There was a brief silence broken 
 by Berkeley's saying, with real emotion, " God forgive you I for- 
 give you." 1 
 
 There seems to have been in the veteran officer a warm personal 
 regard for the brilliant young man before him. A moment after 
 pronouncing his forgiveness, he started up again from his chair and 
 said, " Mr. Bacon, if you will live civilly but till next quarter court 
 
 but till next quarter court I'll promise to restore you again to 
 your place there," pointing to Bacon's vacant seat in the council. 
 " And in th' afternoon," says the narrator of the incident, " passing 
 by the court door in my way up to our chamber, I saw Mr. Bacon on 
 his quondam seat .... which seemed a marvellous indulgence to 
 one whom he had so lately proscribed as a rebell." 2 
 
 It is not easy to credit the assertion that all this action on Sir 
 William Berkeley's part was treacherous ; that his kindness and his 
 emotion were both feigned ; and his reception of Bacon a mere de- 
 vice to conciliate the excited planters. Yet Bacon and his adherents 
 believed this, or at least, doubted that Berkeley meant to heed their 
 just complaints. A few days later, while the Assembly was still en- 
 gaged in a stormy debate upon the Indian question, " one morning 
 early a bruit ran about the town ' Bacon is fled Bacon is fled! '" 3 
 
 The rumor speedily proved true. Leaving no other excuse for 
 breaking his parole, than the insufficient one that he be- 
 lieved he was meeting treachery with treachery, " having 
 information that the Governor's generosity .... [was] no other than 
 previous weadles to amuse him and his adherents and to circumvent 
 them by stratagem," the young man had left Jamestown to rejoin 
 his neighbors. Some said his cousin had given him " timely inti- 
 mation to flee for his life ; " for that the Governor " seeing all 
 quiet," and noticing that the turbulent country people who had come 
 to the capital had dispersed again on seeing justice apparently done 
 to their favorite, had issued " private warrants to take him againe." 
 But it should not be forgotten that the contemporary narratives, on 
 which we must rely for the details of these events, are not impartial 
 and may, therefore, be unjust to Berkeley. Narrow-minded, arbitrary, 
 and destitute of any regard for the rights of the common people, and 
 
 as he soon showed himself to be careless of human life, the 
 whole career of the Governor hardly justifies the belief that he would 
 stoop to gain his ends by deceit and treachery. That Bacon, however, 
 believed him capable of it, is the only justification of his own conduct. 
 
 1 " Thrice repeating the same words," says T. M. 
 
 2 T. M.'s Narrative. * Ibid. 
 
302 VIRGINIA UNDER BERKELEY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 Bacon's adherents of course accepted his conclusions, and all hope, 
 therefore, of a peaceful solution of the troubles ended with his arrival 
 among his friends. 
 
 Only a few days of excitement and alarm had passed since his es- 
 cape, when news reached Jamestown that the rebel was 
 marches on marching thither at the head of " an army " of four or five 
 
 Jamestown. <f 
 
 hundred men, who had mustered some thirty miles or more 
 up the river. With almost every hour expresses reached the capital 
 with news of his approach. Berkeley tried vainly to collect the 
 militia for defence ; but many of them were already with the in- 
 surgents, and no sufficient body could be gathered. On the fourth 
 day after the first news of their coming, the horse and foot under 
 Bacon entered the town without resistance. They were bivouacked 
 upon the green close by the state-house, and the proper disposition 
 made of them to hold all the streets. This done, they disarmed all 
 the inhabitants, and would permit none to enter the town without 
 giving up his weapons. 
 
 Amid this confusion the Assembly was called together by beat of 
 
 drum. Barely had its session been begun, when Bacon, 
 Tiew with with a double file of fusileers, took up a position near the 
 
 corner of the state-house. The members of the Assembly 
 crowded to the windows, while the Governor and Council went out to 
 treat with the rebel leader. It was a scene of wild confusion ; in the 
 midst of " the hubbub " Bacon raged up and down between his files 
 of men, " with his left arm on Kenbow, flinging his right arm every 
 way ; " the crowd about him clamoring with such violence that, says 
 the narrator, "if in this moment of fury that enraged multitude had 
 fain upon the Governor and Council, we of the Assembly expected 
 the same immediate fate." Berkeley, as excited as Bacon, thrust 
 himself between the lines of troops, and baring his breast to their 
 weapons, cried " Here shoot me ! 'Fore God, fair mark ! Shoot ! " 
 To which the rebel, still commanding his temper, as it seemed, an- 
 swered, " No, may it please your honor we will not hurt a hair of 
 your head, nor of any other man's ; we are come for a commission to 
 save our lives from the Indians, which you have so often promised ; 
 and now we will have it before we go ! " The Governor turned, and 
 walked toward his private apartments, followed by the Council ; and 
 Bacon, now losing his self-command entirely, followed him with "out- 
 rageous postures," " often tossing his hand from his sword to his hat," 
 and seeming like one delirious with rage. " Dam my bloud ! " he 
 shouted, " I '11 kill Governor, Council, Assembly, and all, and then 
 I '11 sheathe my sword in my own heart's bloud ! " and turning to 
 his men he ordered them to point their fusils at the windows filled 
 with anxious faces. 
 
1676.] BACON AND THE ASSEMBLY. 303 
 
 For a moment there was wild excitement ; the people clamored for 
 the commission with shouts of " We will have it ! we will 
 
 ., , i i i Excitement 
 
 have it! and the fusileers cocked their pieces; when a among the 
 person at the window waved a handkerchief, and called out 
 that they should be satisfied. " 'T was said," continues the narra- 
 tive, "Bacon had given a signall to his men .... that if he 
 should draw his sword, they were on sight of it to fire and slay us ; so 
 near was the massacre of us all that very minute, had Bacon in that 
 paroxism of phrentick fury but drawn his sword before the pacifick 
 handkercher was shaken out at window ! " 
 
 Excited as the people were, both they and the fusileers, as well as 
 Bacon himself, had recognized the person who waved the handker- 
 chief as one of the most influential citizens, and believed that lie had 
 both will and power to keep his promise. The soldiers lowered their 
 arms, and Bacon, after a moment's consultation, marched 
 
 ...... T i. Bacon ad- 
 
 them away to the main body of his troops. In an hour he dreads the 
 came back alone, and going into the Assembly's room, ad- 
 dressed that body vehemently, demanding that the commission be is- 
 sued to him at once. A large majority favored his request, but no 
 one dared to act decisively. Bacon's own colleague, Bruce, hesitat- 
 ingly said, " it was not in their province or power," or any one's save 
 the Governor's. No one else spoke ; Bacon retired " dissatisfied," and 
 for the rest of the day comparative quiet reigned. 
 
 The anxious night that followed seems to have produced a change 
 of policy on the part of both Berkeley and the burgesses. 
 The former saw himself at last forced to another compro- the Bur- 
 mise, and the majority of the Assembly came together the 
 next morning with no sign of the hesitancy of the day before. The 
 only difficulty was to restrain the motions for the redress of popular 
 grievances long enough to permit the all-important Indian question 
 to be finally disposed of. Bacon's commission was speedily passed, 
 and was promptly confirmed by Governor and Council. But, in the 
 altered state of feeling, this was not by any means enough. The 
 house was in perfect accord and sympathy with the people, and its 
 boldness increased with every concession. It next passed an Act of 
 amnesty toward Bacon and his followers, and directed the prepara- 
 tion of a letter to the King justifying their action. A letter written 
 by the Governor, in which he complained to His Majesty that he was 
 " encompassed with rebellion like waters," was submitted, and received 
 by the burgesses with due respect ; but it was doubted, nevertheless, 
 that " his hono'r sent all he wrote." Other versions of affairs, how- 
 ever, than that of the Governor's, were sent to England by several 
 delegates. 
 
304 VIRGINIA UNDER BERKELEY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 Then followed rapidly a multitude of reformatory measures. The 
 Reformatory franchise was again extended to all freemen. The county 
 measures. magistrates, who had long had local taxation in their own 
 hands, were now compelled to associate with them a board of dele- 
 gates elected by the people. The privileges of members of the Coun- 
 cil were curtailed. No one was to be appointed to an office who had 
 not for three years resided in the country. Propositions possibly 
 never carried out were made for an examination of the colonial ac- 
 counts. The Governor's fees in certain cases were restricted ; his vir- 
 tual monopoly of the fur trade was abolished. The majority, now 
 altogether under the influence of Bacon and his chief advisers, Law- 
 rence and Drummond, effected in a few days more radical reforms 
 than the boldest would have believed possible a week or two before. 
 That they should be bitterly opposed by the minority, and only con- 
 firmed by the Governor under the pressure of necessity, was a matter 
 of course. Some of the debates upon them were very stormy ; and 
 party feeling ran so high that, according to one historian, it founded 
 feuds of a century's duration between members of the different fac- 
 tions. The whole time occupied by all this legislation was barely a 
 week, and at the end of it Berkeley succeeded in dissolving an Assem- 
 bly which had suddenly become so formidable, the hasty dissolution 
 probably meeting with but little opposition, because it was felt that 
 all that could be done at the moment had been accomplished. 
 
 Bacon who had meanwhile been occupied in organizing the thou- 
 sand men allowed him by the act, and in wisely appoint- 
 onaTndia^ ing as his subordinates men who were already known as 
 officers in the regular militia now set out for a vigorous 
 campaign against the Indians ; and, in a short time after the breaking 
 up of the Assembly, was hotly engaged in the Pamunkey country, 
 driving the savages successfully before him. No sooner was he at 
 a safe distance, however, than events showed that the acquiescence 
 he had extorted from the Governor in measures of reform was to be 
 but short-lived. By a petition which came to him from the people of 
 Gloucester and Middlesex counties (on the peninsula between the 
 Rappahannock and the York), Berkeley was led to believe that the 
 people of that region were still loyal to him, and opposed to the in- 
 Renewed surgent party. He crossed the York, and called a muster of 
 Br- th e militia of the peninsula. Twelve hundred men col- 
 lected ; and relying upon their adherence, he once more de- 
 clared Bacon a rebel, and called upon them to join in a march against 
 him and his army. He was speedily convinced of his mistake. Im- 
 mediately " arose a murmuring before his face, k Bacon ! Bacon ! 
 Bacon ! ' and all walked out of the field, muttering as they went, 
 
1676.] 
 
 BACON SEIZES THE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 4 Bacon, Bacon, Bacon,' leaving the Governor and those that came 
 with him to themselves." 
 
 Bacon was approaching the head of York River when news came 
 that Berkeley had again proclaimed him an outlaw, and was Bacon-* r 
 seeking volunteers to pursue him. Answering angrily " that yj nt o{ 
 it vexed him to the heart that while he was hunting wolves Berkele y- 
 which were destroying innocent lambs," the Governor and his follow- 
 ers should seek to put him " like corn between two mill-stones," he 
 turned his army instantly and hurried across country. It was the un- 
 lucky Berkeley, and not the rebel, who now found himself likely to be 
 
 Berkeley and the Gloucester Men. 
 
 "ground to powder." Failing 
 completely in his efforts to gain 
 
 popular support, he fled precipitately to Accomac, across the Chesa- 
 peake, and left the province at the mercy of his opponent. 
 
 Bacon was now virtually the Governor of Virginia, and the first 
 uses made of his power justified the popularity that he en- 
 joyed. Marching his force as rapidly as possible into 
 Gloucester County, where, in spite of Berkeley's failure ' 
 to arouse the people at large, there was still a party in his favor, 
 he deployed a large detachment to patrol the country, and to arrest 
 Berkeley's adherents. These were put under parole ; but they suf- 
 fered in no other way, and his whole course seems to have been gen- 
 erous and conciliatory. He is credited with offering to spare the life 
 of a spy captured by his men, provided a single voice out of the whole 
 
 VOL. II. 20 
 
306 VIRGINIA UNDER BERKELEY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 . 
 
 little army should be raised in his behalf ; l " which no man appear- 
 ing to do," the prisoner duly suffered death. And it was said that 
 during the whole course of the rebellion this was the only man put 
 to death in cold blood by the insurgents, while not a single house, 
 even of the Governor's immediate and most obstinate adherents, was 
 plundered or molested. 
 
 When Bacon issued a call for a convention of the leading men of 
 the province to meet him at Middle Plantation, fifteen miles 
 
 Conyention e t -11 
 
 of the coio- from Jamestown, it was very widely responded to. A large 
 assemblage gathered in the month of August, and listened 
 to propositions for the reorganization of the government. An oath 
 was to be administered to the people, without distinction. Those who 
 took it were to promise to aid Bacon in a war against the Indians ; 
 to oppose Berkeley in any attempt to interfere with them in so doing ; 
 and to resist any force which might arrive from England, 
 oath of ai- until its leaders should grant such terms as would include a 
 hearing in England of the popular complaints against Berke- 
 ley's administration. The first two clauses were agreed to without 
 hesitation ; but to the third, as an act of flat rebellion against the 
 Mother country, there was a determined opposition, and a "bloudy 
 debate " of twelve hours followed. 
 
 It is said to have been turned in Bacon's favor, after he had elo- 
 quently contended in vain against his opponents, by an unlooked- 
 for incident. While the discussion was at its height, a gunner arrived 
 from Fort York, to report that the Indians had made a raid under the 
 very walls, as it were, of that post ; that several persons had been 
 killed ; and that others had thronged into the works for protection. 
 Bacon's point was instantly and forcibly made ; he asked the gunner 
 how it could be that this threatening aspect of affairs could exist close 
 by the strongest work in that part of the province ? The reply was 
 that Berkeley, sailing into the York, had on the very day before the 
 murders removed all the powder from the fort into his own vessel. 
 This turned the scale, and the majority consented to Bacon's oath at 
 once. A clause was inserted in the preamble to the oath setting forth 
 that " Sir William Berkeley, Knight, Governor of the Country," hav- 
 ing sought to divert the country's army from its pursuit of the In- 
 dians, and having failed therein, had "withdrawn himself, to the 
 great astonishment of the people ; " and then followed an explana- 
 tion of the calling of the convention. Thus introduced, and signed 
 by the members of that body, including some of Berkeley's govern- 
 ment, and many of the leading men of the whole province, it was 
 published immediately to the citizens at large. Writs for an Assem- 
 
 i T.M. 
 
J676.] AIMS OF THE BACON PARTY. 307 
 
 bly were issued, under the names of four members of the Council who 
 took part in the convention's proceedings, and had sided throughout 
 against the Governor. 
 
 The feeling among the leaders who had taken upon themselves the 
 responsibility of these decisive measures was that of men S p ir itand 
 who had begun a war of independence. There was no tell- JConU!rty 
 ing to what lengths they might be called upon to go. Their leaders - 
 talk was earnest, resolute, and grave, a forecast of that which, just 
 a century later, was to be heard at Philadelphia in a greater cause, 
 Richard Lawrence and William Drummond, the former governor of 
 Carolina, who appears to have been the brain of the enterprise of 
 which Bacon was the right hand, saw clearly whither their action 
 tended, and guided each step with prudent firmness. Beside them, at 
 a council of which record is preserved, stood Drummond's wife, taking 
 part, with an influence rarely given to a woman of that day and 
 place, in their debates upon the future. The spirited words she spoke 
 seemed half prophetic. " The child that is unborn shall have cause 
 to rejoice for the good that will come by the rising of the country," 
 she said; and to a cautious gentleman, who warned them of "a greater 
 power from England," that would certainly prove their ruin, she an- 
 swered, " I fear the power of England no more than a broken straw." 
 "Now we can build ships," she added, "and, like New England, 
 trade to any part of the world." If all she uttered was not to be ful- 
 filled in her own time, her great-grandchildren were to see it carried 
 out with a broader significance. 
 
 Berkeley, meanwhile, was gathering at Accomac such of his people 
 as could reach him in his disadvantageous position ; but, at Berkeley at 
 the best, the force which he could collect was a very small Acconuic 
 one, and his prospects seemed almost hopeless until the coming of aid 
 from England, when suddenly accident and the bravery of one of his 
 followers changed the whole current of affairs. The first direct act 
 of hostility which the insurgents attempted against him resulted in 
 giving him the very means he wanted to make head against them. 
 
 Giles Bland, collector-general of the royal customs in Virginia, 
 was one of Bacon's warmest partisans, besides being a per- Blanirsex _ 
 sonal enemy of the Governor. In the zeal which grew out p**"" 011 
 of both these relations, he suggested, and was appointed to carry out, 
 a plan for Berkeley's capture. Taking advantage of his office, he was 
 to board the ship of a certain Captain Laramore, that lay near the 
 mouth of the York River, and, while pretending to examine her cargo, 
 was to put his men in possession and take her commander prisoner. 
 Accompanied by a smaller vessel, under one Captain Carver, he was 
 then to sail for Accomac, where the defenceless Governor could easily 
 be captured and returned to Jamestown. 
 
808 VIRGINIA UNDER BERKELEY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 The plan worked admirably as far as the seizure of the vessel went, 
 and Bland, with his armed men, soon had her captain shut up in his 
 cabin, while they and the captured crew weighed anchor and made 
 ready to set sail. But Laramore, feigning complete submission, as- 
 sured Bland of his willingness to take part in the expedition, pro- 
 claimed himself an enemy of Berkeley, and so won Bland's confidence 
 that he was again put in charge of the ship, and forthwith made him- 
 self conspicuous in furthering the preparations. Followed by Carver's 
 vessel and a sloop, all manned by more than two hundred men, the 
 collector or the lieutenant-general, as Bacon had commissioned him 
 bore away for Accomac. In the bay he compelled another sloop 
 to accompany his fleet, and so arrived at the eastern shore as the 
 admiral of four well-armed craft. 
 
 On the news of the arrival of this hostile force, Berkeley despaired 
 fleet ^ defence, and proposed to surrender. But while he was 
 debating with his companions, a message was brought to 
 ley's hands. |jj m wn i t j, changed the aspect of affairs. Laramore had suc- 
 ceeded in smuggling ashore a note, in which he promised, if the Gov- 
 ernor would send a force to aid him, to deliver Bland, Carver, and 
 their men, into his hands, and to put the vessels and their crews at 
 his disposal. There was a moment's hesitation, for Laramore 's repu- 
 tation was not of the best, and it was thought that he might be 
 merely acting the decoy. But Philip Ludwell, one of Berkeley s 
 warmest adherents, decided the doubtful question by offering to take 
 charge of the force Laramore proposed, and thus insuring success if 
 the captain were acting honestly, or making at least a stubborn fight 
 if he were treacherous. 
 
 At midnight, Ludwell and a company of twenty-six picked men 
 pulled silently alongside the ship. Laramore proved faithful, and 
 the sleeping men on board, waking in confusion and seeing an armed 
 party pouring over the sides, were overpowered before they knew the 
 weakness of their captors. It was only needful to turn the guns of 
 the larger vessel upon her smaller tenders ; and without the firing of 
 a shot the formidable little fleet was taken. Berkeley emphasized 
 his triumph by hanging Carver a few days afterward, upon the shore 
 of the bay ; and why Bland and the other leaders escaped a similar 
 fate is not clear. Perhaps the Governor who, while the Laramore 
 plot had been maturing, had sent for Carver under a safe-conduct, 
 and tried to bribe him to desert the Baconites owed the stout 
 sailor a grudge for turning a deaf ear to all his arguments. 
 
 The hesitating loyalists, who had kept prudently aloof while Berke- 
 ley was altogether without defence or resources, now rallied, reani- 
 mated by Ludwell's exploit. Fourteen sloops and other small craft 
 
1676.] 
 
 BACON AGAIN IN THE FIELD. 
 
 were soon added to the four captured vessels, and, with six hundred 
 men ready to follow him, Berkeley found himself at the 
 
 J , J Rally of the 
 
 head of a formidable force. Crossing the bay, he took pos- ' 
 
 session of Jamestown, on September IT, without meeting Jamestown 
 
 1 recaptured. 
 
 any attempt at resistance, and at once proceeded to restore 
 his friends to their offices, to reestablish his old government, and to 
 issue a new proclamation proclaiming Bacon and his followei's, for the 
 third time, traitors, rebels, and outlaws. 
 
 The Governor's sudden movement caught his opponents for a mo- 
 
 ment at a disadvantage. Ba- 
 con had conducted a short, 
 decisive campaign against the 
 .Indians, marching from near 
 Petersburg to the Roanoke 
 river, driving all before him, 
 and ending at one blow all 
 
 Taking of Bland's Fleet. 
 
 possibility of any formidable Indian war for years to come. His work 
 thus thoroughly accomplished, and regarding Berkeley as now alto- 
 gether powerless, he returned to the neighborhood of the James and 
 disbanded the main body of his men ; and as nearly all of them were 
 planters, they quickly scattered to their homes. He was in this posi- 
 tion when the news of the capture of Jamestown reached him through 
 Drummond and others of his adherents who had fled from the place ; 
 but acting with his usual energy, he turned at once to the offensive. 
 
310 VIRGINIA UNDER BERKELEY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 Gathering a small force, to which he added as he marched, he came 
 rapidly across the country, and appeared before, the capital 
 before the just as the Governor had finished his hurried preparations 
 for defence by running a palisade across the neck of James- 
 town peninsula. Before the besieged enemy knew his whereabouts, 
 for he had moved " with a marvellous celerity, outstripping the 
 swift wings of fame," they heard his trumpet blown from the high 
 ground near the town, and the cannon shot with which he warned 
 them of his presence. It was at sunset that he appeared before the 
 palisades ; and by the morning his men were sheltered behind earth- 
 works, which they had finished in apparent carelessness of the " 3 
 grate guns " the Governor had planted on his ramparts, and of the 
 ships, lying " almost close aborde the shore .... with their broade 
 sides, to thunder upon him if he should offer to make an onslaute." 
 
 An account hostile to Bacon avers that he made up for " the paucity 
 of his numbers " by a stratagem that was anything but creditable. 
 Sending some of his horse to scour the country near at hand, he or- 
 dered them to take and bring to him certain gentlewomen living near 
 by, whose husbands were in the town, that he might hold hostages, 
 as it were, to secure the granting of all his demands. When they 
 arrived, he " sends one of them to inform her owne and the others 
 Husbands, for what purposes he had brought them into the camp, 
 namely, to be placed in the fore frunt of his men at such time as those 
 in town should sally forth upon him." According to the writer of this 
 story, which is not elsewhere confirmed, " these Ladyes white Aprons " 
 naturally " became of grater force to keep the besieged from falling 
 out, than his works (a pitiful trench) ; " and either u these considera- 
 tions or some others .... kep their swords in their scabbards." 
 Yet he goes on to say that the gentlewomen were after all soon taken 
 out of danger, but that a party sent out by Berkeley to make an 
 attack on Bacon's works, " went out with heavie harts, but returned 
 home with light heels ; " were, in short, driven back disgracefully 
 by the Baconites, to the disgust of the Governor, " which he exprest 
 in som passionate terms." 
 
 The next day, when Bacon mounted three guns upon his works, ac- 
 tually to begin the reduction of the place, Berkeley and his adherents 
 gave up all hope of a successful defence. Before the rebels had fired 
 a single damaging shot, the fleet dropped silently down the river, 
 under cover of the darkness, carrying Governor, officials, troops, 
 townspeople, and even their household goods, and leaving Jamestown 
 a mere collection of empty houses. 
 
 When Bacon entered, the next morning, he found a deserted capital, 
 the guns spiked, and nothing left but a few horses, " two or three 
 
1676.] BACON RECAPTURES AND BURNS JAMESTOWN. 
 
 311 
 
 sellers [cellars] of wine, and some small quantity of Indian Come 
 with a grate many tanned hides." No army could subsist upon 
 such plunder ; nor would it have profited Bacon to hold the 
 
 i -i iii 11 i Jamestown 
 
 empty place. A council was called ; and though among his taken and 
 people there were many property-holders of the town, it was 
 decided to destroy it, that it might not serve again as a harbor for the 
 enemy. Lawrence and Drummond applied the torch to their own 
 houses, at nightfall ; and that night Sir William Berkeley, lying at 
 anchor twenty miles below, saw the dark sky lighted by the flames 
 of the first English town built in America, the historic settlement 
 of Smith, Newport, and Wingfield. The destruction was complete, 
 "not so much as sparing the church and the first that ever was in 
 Virginia." Nor was the place ever rebuilt. 
 
 Bacon and the Jamestown Gentlewomen. 
 
 Crossing the long peninsula between the James and York, Bacon 
 now established himself at Gloucester Point, expecting to be ^^ again 
 attacked there by Colonel Brent, who was known to be ap- in P wer - 
 preaching from Northern Virginia, at the head of a thousand men. 
 But this attack, says a contemporary, " like the hoggs the devill 
 sheared, produced more noyse than wool ; " for Brent's men nearly all 
 deserted before they came in face of the enemy advancing to meet 
 them, and left their leader " mightily astonished." Bacon was thus 
 left free to attempt once more the organization and quieting of the 
 province ; and began it by calling a convention of the uncertain peo- 
 
312 
 
 VIRGINIA UNDER BERKELEY. 
 
 [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 pie of Gloucester County, to whom he administered the oath before 
 resolved upon. Then, yearning to make his Indian victories even- 
 more final and complete, he began to plan another expedition into the 
 interior. 
 
 While thus engaged, a trifling illness which he had neglected in the 
 
 restless energy of his cam- 
 paign, began to gain upon 
 him. In the high tide of his 
 success he suddenly found 
 himself sinking rapidly ; and 
 
 Burning of Lawrence's House at Jamestown. 
 
 despite all the efforts of his people, nothing checked the course of 
 his disease. And so, says his hostile biographer, not with- 
 out an unholy exultation, " all his strengtli and provissions 
 
 being spent, [he] surrendered up that Fort he was no longer able 
 
 Death of 
 Bacon 
 
1676.] CLOSE OF THE REBELLION. 313 
 
 to keepe, into the hands of that grim and all conquering Captaine, 
 Death." He died on the first day of October, 1676, in the house of 
 Dr. Pate, near Gloucester. His burial-place was kept a secret that 
 has never been revealed. 1 
 
 The command of Bacon's forces passed into the hands of his lieuten- 
 ant-general, Joseph Ingrain ; but the dead leader had left ^g ,,,.. 
 no one behind who was precisely fitted to take his place. ^ t huta 
 Lawrence and Druminond, wise advisers as they had proved leader - 
 themselves, had not the influence of their more active associate over 
 his followers ; and the loss of the energetic and brave commander dealt 
 the revolution a blow from which it could not rise. The speedy cap- 
 ture and execution of several leading insurgents, by a party of Berke- 
 ley's adherents, served to intensify the despondency and panic that 
 prevailed among the great body of the Baconites ; and in the country 
 at large the rebellion suddenly died. A large part of the insurgents 
 scattered quickly to their homes, following the impulse to Thedosing 
 save themselves from the fate of a lost cause ; and only the 8Cenes - 
 leaders, the men who had the courage of their convictions, or for 
 whom pardon was believed to be impossible, were left with a small 
 fon:e to make a final struggle. 
 
 Ingram established himself at West Point, on the upper York 
 River, a place which Bacon himself had designed to make his " prime 
 Randevouze, or place of Retreat," because of its natural facilities for 
 
 1 The grief of Bacon's friends and the joy of his enemies have each left a rhymed epi- 
 taph, that show the fervor with which he was both loved and hated, and correspond to the 
 two views that have been and are still taken of his action and his restless life : 
 
 " Death why soe crewill I what, no other way 
 To manifest thy splleene, but thus to slay 
 Our hopes of safety ; liberty, our all 
 Which through thy tyrany, with him must fall 
 To its late caoss ? 
 
 . . . . Now we must complaine 
 Since thou, in him, hast more than thousand slain, 
 Whose lives and safetys did so much depend 
 On him there lif, with him their lives must end. 
 
 While none shall dare his obseques to sing 
 In desarved measures ; uutill time shall bring 
 Truth crowned with freedom, and from danger free 
 To sound his praises to posterity. 
 
 Here let him rest ; while wee this truth report 
 Hee 's gone from henre unto a higher Court 
 To plead his Cause where he by this doth know 
 Whether to Ceaser bee was friend or foe." 
 
 In the other epitaph is lavished a flood of abuse on " his flagitious name " : 
 
 ' The braines to plot, the hands to execute 
 Projected ills. Death Joyntly did nonsute 
 At bis black Bar. And what no Baile could save 
 He hath committed Prissoner to the Grave : 
 From whence there 's no reprieve. Death keep him close, 
 We kave too many DirtUs still _'0 loose." 
 
314 
 
 VIRGINIA UNDER BERKELEY. 
 
 [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 defence. Here the principal insurgents gathered ; but there were 
 smaller bodies at Greenspring, a place belonging to Berkeley himself, 
 somewhat further down the river ; and at an estate belonging to Ba- 
 con's cousin, probably in the same neighborhood. The whole insur- 
 gent force remaining under arms to garrison these three final strong- 
 holds probably numbered not more than four hundred men ; while 
 in the region about them now that the death of Bacon led to the 
 appearance of a host of concealed adherents of the Governor, and 
 time-servers who wished to seem so there were at least as many en- 
 emies as friends. 
 
 Berkeley lost little time in taking advantage of the new turn of 
 
 West Point, Virginia. 
 
 affairs. His first step, when the news of Bacon's death had reached 
 him, had been the sending out of that party which, as already men- 
 tioned, had captured and executed several leading revolutionists. But 
 he was making preparations to return in person when he dispatched 
 this preliminary expedition, "a winged messinger, to see if hap- 
 pily the Delluge was any whit abated." Then he ventured out from 
 his " Ark " at Accomac, and appeared in the York River with four 
 ships and " two or three sloops," carrying a force of some one hundred 
 and fifty men. From the people along the lower York he met with 
 no resistance ; his return appeared to be taken as a matter of course ; 
 and his adherents in Gloucester County volunteered in large numbers 
 
1676.] 
 
 PUNISHMENT OF THE REBELS. 
 
 315 
 
 to help him drive out the still troublesome " vermin " from " their 
 warm Kennil." A proclamation of amnesty followed, from which, 
 however, most of the Baconite leaders still in resistance to his author- 
 ity were excepted, while the bitterness of his enmity to Lawrence and 
 Drummond was shown by a special mention of them. 
 
 Driving out the last stubborn rebels did not prove easy work. 
 They again and again defeated parties sent against them, F j nalgup _ 
 until at last their stronghold at West Point was lost through {^^"on' 
 treacheiy. Two accounts are given of its surrender : one, VBTty - 
 that the Governor sent a messenger, one Grantham, who by argu- 
 ments and promises 
 persuaded Ingram 
 'to deliver up the 
 place ; the other, 
 that he wrote to 
 Wakelet, Ingrain's 
 second in command, 
 offering him pardon 
 and a reward for 
 the same betrayal 
 of his comrades. 
 Ingram escaped in 
 safety, and Wakelet 
 appears to have re- 
 ceived his pay, so 
 that it is probable 
 both were con- 
 cerned in the mat- 
 ter. But, at all 
 events, the position 
 was given up to 
 Berkeley's officers, 
 
 together With the Drummond before Berkeley. 
 
 less important strongholds at Greenspring and at Bacon's house. As 
 an organized insurrection, the rebellion was at an end ; it lived only 
 in the embittered spirit of the great majority of the people, who had 
 at one time or another been engaged in it, and who, though wanting 
 courage and persistence to carry it on after the death of their leader, 
 etill adhered in secret to the cause which he had so nearly made suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 Of the other chief actors, Lawrence escaped into the wilderness : 
 but Drummond, seeking safety by hiding himself for a time in the 
 ewamp of the Chickahoininy, was captured there in the dead of 
 
316 VIRGINIA UNDER BERKELEY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 winter, overcome by cold and hunger. On the 20th of January, the 
 Fate of the day after his capture, he was brought before Berkeley at 
 Bacon's house, the former station of one of the smaller bands 
 of insurgents. The old Governor's triumph had come. This man and 
 Lawrence were regarded by him as his bitterest enemies, and he 
 hated them with a positive ferocity. He greeted the prisoner with 
 a low bow. kt Mr. Drummond," he said, " you are very welcome ; I 
 am more glad to see you than any man in Virginia. Mr. Drummond, 
 you shall be hanged in half an hour." Drummond answered with 
 courage and dignity, " What your honor pleases ; " and when, three 
 hours later, his sentence was carried out at Middle Plantation, he met 
 death bravely. He was, says one of the narratives, a sober Scotch 
 gentleman of good repute, and he left a name which few even of his 
 enemies treated with disrespect, except in the one matter of his polit- 
 ical action. 
 
 . 
 
 Berkeley used the power that victory gave him without mercy. 
 For a time there was in Virginia an actual reign of terror, 
 
 Punishments 
 
 inflicted by and no man knew when he might be seized, condemned, and 
 executed. Druminond's little plantation was seized, and his 
 wife and five children were driven from it " to wander in the woods 
 and desarts till they were ready to starve." It was proposed to ex- 
 pose the bones of Bacon hung in chains upon a gibbet ; but his body 
 had been so carefully concealed that all attempts to find it proved 
 useless. Punishments of all kinds fine, confiscation, imprisonment, 
 banishment, and many ingenious minor penalties were inflicted 
 right and left, until even the Governor's friends expostulated. Their 
 counsel would perhaps have been in vain, had not a sudden check of 
 a more powerful sort been put upon the angry knight's revenge. 
 
 At the end of January, 1677, the tardy assistance sent from. Eng- 
 Arrirai of land, in reply to Berkeley's petition of many months before, 
 ere m from ion ~ arrived in the James River. But it did not come precisely 
 England. m t j, e f orm which the Governor's party wished. In the 
 small fleet that anchored below the ruins of the capital was Colonel 
 Herbert Jeffreys, armed with a commission to succeed Sir William in 
 his office, while he, as well as Sir John Berry, the admiral, and 
 Colonel Morrison, who had been Berkeley's substitute for awhile in 
 1661, brought appointments as commissioners to investigate the causes 
 of the rebellion, and to attend to the settlement of affairs after its 
 suppression. Berkeley was, it is true, to aid them in this work ; but 
 in reality his own conduct was under examination, and he found him- 
 self at once in the attitude of a defendant. The instructions of the 
 commissioners authorized them to grant amnesty to those who should 
 submit and give bonds for future good behavior, excepting Bacon, 
 
1677.] 
 
 THE ROYAL COMMISSIONERS. 
 
 317 
 
 whose death was not known, of course, when the fleet left England ; 
 but still, a discretionary power to punish other leaders and those espe- 
 cially obnoxious was left in their hands. 
 
 The English officials put a speedy end to the system of drum-head 
 courts-martial, by which the Governor had brought so many 
 of his enemies to execution. From the time of their arrival 
 (soon after which an Assembly met at Green Spring) the 
 trials of Baconite prisoners were conducted with due form and caution 
 
 The punish- 
 
 menu 
 
 checked. 
 
 by the civil power, 
 still suffered death, among 
 whom was Giles Bland, 
 whose conspiracy to take the 
 Governor was so patent that 
 all the influence exerted in 
 his behalf was powerless to 
 save him ; but the general 
 
 reign Of persecution and CrU- Berkeley's Departure. 
 
 elty ceased with the Commissioners' interference. Local courts winked 
 at the means sometimes ludicrously ingenious by which the spirit 
 of ignominious punishments was generally evaded, even when the 
 letter was carried out. John Bagwell and Thomas Gordon wore 
 "small tape," and William Potts "Manchester binding." instead of 
 the halters with which they were ordered to appear in public. Some 
 fifty persons were excepted from the amnesty, including those al- 
 ready executed or banished, and acts of attainder were passed against 
 twenty ; but it does not appear certain that all the measures decided 
 
318 
 
 VIRGINIA UNDER BERKELEY. 
 
 [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 The Com- 
 missioners' 
 report. 
 
 upon were at all rigidly carried out. In their report, Jeffreys, Mor- 
 rison, and Berry spoke in the severest terms of Berkeley's 
 course in trying men by martial law after peace had been 
 reestablished ; and their investigation of the charges which 
 the people made against him seems to have been made with a positive 
 leaning toward the side of his accusers. Gradually the country be- 
 came quieter. Protected by the presence of the Commissioners, the 
 Assembly took a more independent tone, and the Vii'ginians, encour- 
 aged for a moment to believe that they had gained something of that 
 redress for which they had hoped, gradually settled back into the quiet 
 life of their plantations. Bacon's rebellion had cost the col- 
 the rebel- ony a hundred thousand pounds, the loss of many lives, and 
 months of anarchy ; but it had shown the people their own 
 power, and had developed an independence that was to bear fruit 
 long after. When, in October, 1677, the royal Commissioners seized 
 the Assembly's journals for investigation, and that body indignantly 
 protested that " such a power had never been exercised by the King 
 of England, and could not be authorized even by the great seal," they 
 virtually asserted the principle of colonial legislative rights for which 
 their descendants fought a hundred years later. 
 
 When the fleet of the Commissioners returned to England in April, 
 Berkeley went with it, leaving Jeffreys Governor. The old cavalier 
 was ill and broken in spirit. The bitter outbreak of his revenge 
 was possibly, as it was urged on his behalf, a result of the "peevish- 
 ness " and irritability of age. He had one longing left, 
 to justify his conduct in the eyes of the King, whose approval 
 would have consoled him for all else. But he seems to 
 have been altogether disappointed. Opinion both in Parliament and 
 at court he found to be bitterly against him. It is said by one writer 
 that he was received by Charles with kindness ; but it was generally 
 believed that he was treated with entire neglect, and did not see the 
 King at all, sinking rapidly from the time of his arrival, until, in 
 a few weeks, he died broken-hearted and disgraced. There came back 
 to Virginia one who had been his servant on his voyage and till his 
 iii* iiinew death, "from whom a report was whispered about, that the 
 and death. King did say, * that old fool has hanged more men in that 
 naked country than he had done for the murther of his father." 
 This speech, says the gossiping writer who records it, coming to the 
 old Governor's ears, hastened his death : So that " he dyed soon 
 after without having seen his Majesty ; which shuts up this tragedy." 
 
 Berkeley 
 returns to 
 Kngland. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 QUIET BEGINNING OF THE ENGLISH ROLE. THE ADMINISTRATION OF NICOLLS. 
 THE NEW JERSEY GRANT. ARRIVAL OF CARTERET. SETTLEMENT OF NEWARK 
 AND ELIZABETH. THE CONNECTICUT BOUNDARY. THE NAMES AND DIVISIONS 
 OF THE PROVINCE. THE " DUKE'S. LAWS." ENGLISH OFFICIALS. THE WAR 
 BETWEEN ENGLAND AND THE NETHERLANDS. DISCONTENT IN LONG ISLAND. 
 NEW YORK AND CANADA. THE FRENCH AND THE MOHAWKS. THE PEACE or 
 BREDA. ADMINISTRATION OF LOVELACE. PROGRESS OF THE PROVINCE. THB 
 TOWN OF NEW YORK. RENEWED WAR IN EUROPE. THE RE-CONQUEST OF TEW 
 NETHERLAND. COLVE'S ADMINISTRATION. NEW NETHERLAND CEDED TO ENG- 
 LAND BY THE PEACE OF WESTMINSTER. 
 
 THE people of New Amsterdam 
 learned, almost as soon as the garrison 
 of the fort had disappeared down 
 Beaver Street, and the English flag 
 
 view in the Kills. was recognized as flying from its flag- 
 
 staff, that the change which had taken place was not, to their dull sen- 
 sitiveness, a very essential one. Stuy vesaut, no doubt, when Qujet 
 he had seen his troop safely embarked for Holland, stumped J^"^ 
 back into the town in profound depression. But depres- nUe - 
 siou may have turned to rage as he met the cheerful burghers who 
 had insisted on his surrender, and who could congratulate themselves, 
 
 the 
 

 320 NEW YORK. [CHAP. XIV, 
 
 and almost reproach him, upon the faithfulness with which the Eng- 
 lish were observing its terms. There was no plundering, no disorder; 
 the Connecticut men, whom the Dutch had the most reason to fear, 
 were kept on the other side of the river ; private property was every- 
 where respected ; the property of the Company was protected from 
 molestation ; the course of trade was no more interrupted than in any- 
 other brief interval of unusual excitement ; and the ordinary affairs 
 of life returned almost immediately to their usual channel. Nicolls 
 wisely acted as if he were receiving a repentant province that had fer 
 a season forgotten its true allegiance, rather than as taking possession 
 of one he had conquered. Perhaps the Dutch made no very nice dis- 
 tinctions ; but they could remember some heavy grievances under the 
 rule of the Company ; this new power promised, at least, that things 
 should be no worse, and it was clearly meant that the promise should 
 be kept. 
 
 A provincial government of Englishmen was presently organized, 
 but it was chiefly of those who had not before had to do 
 with New Netherland affairs, and had no prejudices. Cap- 
 tain Matthias Nicolls was made secretary ; Captains Need- 
 ham and Delavall, of England, and Thomas Topping and William 
 Wells, of Long Island, were counsellors, two of the former Dutch 
 officers also being sometimes called into consultation. But, as the 
 articles of surrender provided, the municipal government was un- 
 changed ; and the municipal court met and transacted current busi- 
 ness on the very day after English occupation. At Fort Orange 
 now Albany and at Esopus the same general course was pursued; 
 at Rensselaerswyck Jeremias van Rensselaer was only compelled to 
 renew his patent under the Duke of York, his people taking the oath 
 of allegiance to England. This oath was also required of the Dutch 
 The oath of i New York ; and although it excited some opposition at 
 allegiance. fi rs t b ec;iuse it was no t prescribed in the articles of capitula- 
 tion, it was taken in October by all the leading Dutch inhabitants. 
 Even Stuyvesant and his immediate followers consented to this when 
 satisfied that it did not affect the terms of capitulation. Nor was this 
 frank acceptance of a new allegiance the only evidence of the general 
 content ; the city magistrates sent an address to the Duke of York 
 avowing their warm approval of the new Governor, and of their hopes 
 of prosperity under his rule. 
 
 No sooner was the province fairly in English hands than new names 
 Grants to were given to different portions, its boundaries were as far as 
 Englishmen. p Oss ibi e defined, and grants of land were made to English- 
 men. That region lying between the Hudson and the Delaware was 
 named Albania, and grants and purchases were made within its boun- 
 
w 
 
 C/3 
 
 a: 
 w 
 
 w 
 fc 
 
 fc 
 
 
 
 w 
 
 ^ 
 
 u 
 
 i. 
 
1665.] 
 
 THE NEW JERSEY GRANT. 
 
 321 
 
 daries from Sandy Hook to the mouth of the Raritan, and from the 
 Raritan to the Achter Cul, now Newark Bay. 1 But before Nicolls, in 
 the name of the Duke of York, had taken possession of all New Neth- 
 erland, the Duke, in anticipation of that event, granted in June, 
 1664, the whole country, from the Hudson to the Delaware, and from 
 latitude 41 40' to Cape May, to two favorites of the court, Lord 
 Berkeley and Sir George Carte- 
 ret. Thus New Netherland, be- 
 fore it passed into the hands of 
 the English, had been divided 
 into two provinces, and the divis- 
 ion, it is supposed, was made at 
 the instigation of that Captain 
 John Scott, who, not long before, 
 and on doubtful authority, had 
 attempted to wrest Long Island 
 from the Dutch. To the new 
 province the name of New Caesa- 
 rea, or New Jersey, was given, 
 in commemoration of Carteret's 
 defence of the Channel island of 
 Jersey against the forces of the 
 Commonwealth in 1649. 
 
 Of this grant, however, Nicolls knew nothing till June, 1665, when 
 Captain Philip Carteret arrived as governor of the new Thegranto f 
 province. There was, of course, no alternative but to re- New Jenf *- 
 ceive with courtesy one coming armed with such credentials, though 
 Nicolls represented to the Duke that he had hastily given away the 
 fairest portion of his dominions. " But I must charge it upon Cap- 
 tain Scott," he wrote, " who was born to work mischief as far as he 
 is credited, or his parts serve him." 2 
 
 A storm had driven Carteret's ship, the Philip, into Chesapeake 
 Bay, but in July she arrived at New York, and a few days ArriTa i of 
 later anchored off the point now known as Elizabethport, c** 6 """ 
 New Jersey, and landed her thirty emigrants. At the head of these 
 people, Carteret, with a hoe over his shoulder, marched to the spot he 
 had chosen for a settlement, two or three miles inland, and to which, 
 in honor of the Lady Elizabeth, the wife of Sir George Carteret, he 
 gave her name. He found at the point where he and his people 
 
 1 Achter Cul, or Kol = the cul achter (behind) the great Bay ; corrupted into After Cul, 
 and then Arthur Kil, and now applied to Staten Island Sound. 
 
 2 Letter of Nicolls to the Duke of York in the State Paper Office, cited by Chalmers 
 and others; also Letter to the Earl of Clarendon. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll. 1869. 
 
 VOL. ii. 21 
 
 Seal of the Carterets. 
 
322 NEW YORK. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 landed four families who had taken possession of lands under the 
 grant which had been made by Nicolls. 1 The new-comers brought 
 with them the title of a new English province, and, though more 
 than one settlement had been earlier made by the Dutch on this side 
 the Bay of New York, this was the actual beginning of the State of 
 New Jersey at Elizabeth. 
 
 Four years before, the West India Company had discerned and 
 sought to take advantage of the discontent and apprehension 
 
 Previous ne- , , 
 
 fe'""^ 18 of ^ e ^ "}' so man y f the English, both at home and in the col- 
 Havenpeo- onies, at the restoration of Charles II. The Directors in- 
 
 ple regard- . . 
 
 ingNewjer- vited them to settle on the Raritan, or in its neighborhood, 
 and offered them most favorable terms. Three of the mag- 
 istrates of New Haven, where this discontent was very general, 
 Matthew Gilbert the Deputy Governor, Benjamin Fenn, and Robert 
 Treat, entered into negotiation with Stuyvesant upon this subject, on 
 behalf of some New Haven people, and found no difficulty in getting 
 from the Dutch governor the promise that a hearty welcome would be 
 given and religious freedom be secured to any Puritan colony that 
 should plant itself within the Dutch jurisdiction. But the English 
 asked also for political independence, and the negotiations were sus- 
 pended. The question of civil relations Stuyvesant felt must be re- 
 ferred to his superiors at home. 
 
 Even that concession, he was instructed, the Directors were disposed 
 to make to almost any degree, provided that Dutch supremacy was 
 acknowledged in the last appeal. The New Haven people were the 
 more eager to set up anew for themselves when the Winthrop charter 
 brought them within the jurisdiction of Connecticut, and they would, 
 perhaps, had there been time enough, have yielded somewhat in their 
 demands. But while diplomacy hesitated events made no halt. Be- 
 fore any agreement could be reached, satisfactory to both parties, New 
 Netherland ceased to be a Dutch colony, and the Duke of York had 
 granted to its new proprietaries the whole region from the Hudson to 
 the Delaware. 
 
 Treat and his friends, nevertheless, were not turned from their pur- 
 Their design pose. They could at least free themselves from obligations 
 unde^ctr- an< ^ ties that had become intolerably irksome, though new 
 teret ' ones had to be made. But the constitution Carteret brought 
 
 with him was as liberal as a proprietary government could be ; relig- 
 ious liberty was guaranteed, with the usual reservation providing 
 
 1 In the litigation which arose out of these conflicting claims, it was asserted on behalf 
 of the first settlers, that the place was named for Queen Elizabeth. But this was an after- 
 thought. Curteret undoubtedly called the place Elizabeth, in honor of bis brother's wife. 
 East Jersey under the Proprietary Governments, by William A. Whitehead. 
 
1666.] 
 
 NEWARK, NEW JERSEY. 
 
 323 
 
 against license and civil disturbance, but granting to all the ministra- 
 tions they preferred ; a popular Assembly was to have its share of 
 power ; the grants of lands to actual settlers were liberal. 1 
 
 In the spring of 1666 the site of Newark WHS purchased of the In- 
 dians, and possession taken by a party from Milford, Connecticut, 
 led by Treat. 2 In the autumn others joined them from Guilford 
 and Branford. A preliminary agreement had been entered into be- 
 tween Carteret and Treat, but its precise character is not settlement 
 known. 3 That it secured, however, to the new colony self- of Newark - 
 government, independent of the proprietaries and their promise of 
 
 View of Newark, New Jersey. 
 
 religious freedom to all comers, is probable. For the Branford people 
 made it a condition of their joining the company that none should be 
 admitted as freemen, or should have the right to hold office, or to vote, 
 who were not members of a Congregational Church. To this the 
 emigrants from Milford assented. Abraham Pierson was chosen min- 
 ister of the first church, and the place was named Newark in his 
 
 1 Gordon's History of New Jersey. 
 
 - The price paid for the tract purchased of the Indians which included the present 
 villages of Bloomfield, Belleville, Orange, and Caldwell wns " fifty double hands of 
 powder, one hundred barrs of lead, twenty axes, twenty coats, ten gun-, twenty pistols, ten 
 kettles, ten swords, four blankets, four ban-els of beer, two pairs of breetches, fifty knives, 
 twenty hoes, eight hundred and fifty fathoms of wampum, two ankers of Liquors, or 
 something equivalent, and three troopers coats." 
 
 8 Whitehead's Historical Memoir of Newark. Coll. N. J. Hist. Soc., vol. vi. 
 
324 NEW YORK. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 i *- 
 
 honor, as he came from that place in England. 1 Pierson came to the 
 new settlement at tho head of nearly all his parishioners, for Bran- 
 ford whose church was the town refused to be annexed to Con- 
 necticut under the Winthrop charter, to which New Haven and other 
 towns had by this time assented. 2 
 
 In later years the title of Berkeley and Carteret to lands occupied 
 Questions as by Elizabeth and Newark was disputed. In both cases they 
 M<uteriw-' 8 na< l been purchased of the Indians, at Newark by consent 
 ley'" title - of Governor Carteret ; at Elizabeth, before Carteret's arri- 
 val, and under warrant from Governor Nicolls. To the division of 
 the province he was appointed to govern, Nicolls had no alternative 
 but to submit. The Duke, his master, was as much the source of 
 power in New Jersey as in New York. 
 
 Elsewhere, however, there was room for anxiety and negotiation. 
 
 New Haven and the other towns along the Sound, 'which 
 
 N"W i ilven had strenuously resisted annexation to Connecticut under 
 
 Duke-* 8 the Winthrop patent, ceased all opposition to that measure 
 
 when confronted by one far more to be dreaded. The grant 
 
 to the Duke of York included all the country from the west side of the 
 
 Connecticut River to the Delaware. Local differences were put aside 
 
 to meet this common danger. Puritan New England could hardly 
 
 conceive of a greater calamity than to come under the rule of the 
 
 popish brother of the king. 
 
 No feeling of this kind, however, was permitted to interfere with 
 the friendly reception given to Nicolls. He had, as we have seen, the 
 cordial cooperation of the Connecticut people in the subjection of 
 New Netherland. It was only Massachusetts that held back. There 
 was little sympathy in Boston with the impatience felt in the colonies 
 along the Sound at the presence of the Dutch. But there was un- 
 ceasing vigilance lest the government at home, whether king or par- 
 liament, should interfere with that independence which Massachusetts 
 always aimed at and so often abused. While that colony, therefore, 
 from the outset received the commissioners with coldness and distrust, 
 Connecticut, New Haven, and their neighbors, gladly gave their aid 
 against the Dutch, and then combined to preserve the integrity of 
 their own territory against the claim of the Duke of York. 
 
 The General Assembly of Connecticut voted that five hundred 
 
 bushels of corn should be presented to the English commis- 
 
 in cotfnecfi- sioners. A further gift of horses was made when Governor 
 
 Winthrop with six associates went to New York to enter 
 
 upon negotiation with regard to the boundaries. In our less austere 
 
 1 Whitehead's Memoir. 
 
 - Trumbull's History of Connecticut. 
 
THE CONNECTICUT BOUNDARY. 
 
 age such offerings would have been presented on the one side, and re- 
 ceived or rejected on the other, as a bribe. The result in this case 
 justifies no such suspicion. Both parties seem to have been disposed 
 to make an honorable compromise between conflicting claims. The 
 Connecticut patent and the grant to the Duke of York covered the 
 same territory. Connecticut had, besides her patent, the right of 
 possession. Should she be deprived of this, gained by so much toil 
 and sacrifice, by virtue of a sheet of parchment and a royal seal ? 
 But the Duke had wrested by force of arms a portion of his grant 
 from a foreign power. What just claim could Connecticut offer to 
 territory she had never occupied though covered by her patent ? 
 
 Meeting of the Connecticut and New York 
 Commissioners. 
 
 To these considerations 
 due weight, apparently, was 
 given. The Connecticut del- 
 egates conceded that all Long 
 Island, which was granted 
 expressly by name to the Duke, and much of which was a part of New 
 Netherland, properly belonged to New York. 
 
 But in the settlement of the boundary on the mainland a singular 
 want of knowledge of the topography of the country was D i8CU8Sion 
 shown on both sides, unless there was, as has sometimes been Syq^" n " 
 suggested, a sharp advantage taken by one side of the ig- tk>n - 
 norance of the other. The line, it was understood in general terms, 
 should be run about twenty miles east of the Hudson River. That 
 agreed upon was to start at tidewater on the Mamaroneck creek and 
 
326 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 run thence north-northwest to the southern boundary of Massachu- 
 setts. But the mouth of Mamaroneck creek is much less than twenty 
 miles from the Hudson, and a line drawn from it north-northwest 
 would cross that river within fifty miles of New York. 
 
 This boundary would give to Connecticut a large, and the, most 
 valuable, portion of the late province of New Netherland: 
 That Winthrop and his associates understood this, and pur- 
 posely imposed upon the ignorance of the English Commissioners, is 
 incredible. They were anxious to retain the territory they already 
 occupied ; they were willing to release all claim to Long Island if 
 
 The settle- 
 ment. 
 
 Mouth of Mamaroneck Creek. 
 
 they were not disturbed on the mainland; and they were neither 
 knaves nor fools. As a blunder l it was very soon exposed, as it was 
 
 1 That the beginning was twenty miles from the Hudson was clearly a mistake. It is 
 not quite so clear that the commissioners did not understand that the Hue crossed the 
 river and agreed to it with their eyes open. Nicolls in a letter to the Earl of Clarendon 
 (see Clarendon Papers, N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 1869, p. 76), writes :" Your L d PP will allsoe 
 perceiue by this inclosed determinacfm, betweene the Comission witli the Governo r & 
 councell of Conecticutt that those Townes upon the maine to the Eastward of N. Yorke 
 did properly belong to their precedent patient, soe that there remayncs only, One small 
 Towne to his Royall highnesse of all that tract of land from Conecticnt Hi tier to Hudsous 
 Kiuer which is all the North part, and soe cold that few or none will bestow their Lalxnirs. 
 Only one Towne is seated wt Planters to which or very neare the Indenture readieth. 
 aboue that 70 myles is Albany seated, who are noe planters but only atowne of Trade, with 
 the Indians, Thus the extent of the Dukes Pattent is described to yo r Ldpp." 
 
 By the one town " to which or very near the Indenture reacheth," seventy miles below 
 Albany, the Governor must have meant Esopus. A line from the mouth of the Mamaro- 
 neck running north-northwest and touching Esopus would necessarily if produced cross the 
 river at that point. Believing this " north part so cold that few or none will bestow their 
 labors" upon it, he may have thought it of little consequence to which jurisdiction the 
 
1665.] "THE DUKE'S LAWS." 327 
 
 certain to be even had it been a fraud. What was done in haste was 
 considered at leisure, and the Duke of York refused his assent to the 
 agreement. Twenty vears later, a new line was drawn and surveyed 
 beginning at Bvrain River, which is essentially the present boundary 
 of the States of New York and Connecticut. 
 
 To Long Island, thus made, as it has ever since remained, a part of 
 New York, the name of Yorkshire was given. That, with the neigh- 
 boring country, was afterward divided into three judicial districts or 
 ridings, in each of which a court was to sit three times a year. The 
 present Queen's County (excepting the town of Newtown) and West- 
 chester formed the North Riding ; Newtown, the present 
 King's County and Staten Island made the West Riding; ionland'" 
 the present Suffolk alone was the East Riding. There Duke's tem- 
 was, however, some question whether Staten Island be- 
 longed to New Jersey or New York, which was not settled till 1068, 
 and seems to have been referred to the proprietary in England. Sam- 
 uel Maverick, one of the commissioners, writing in February, 1669, to 
 Governor Winthi'op, says, on the authority of a letter from Nicolls 
 who returned to England the previous autumn : " Staten Hand is 
 adiudged to belong to N: Yorke." It is, he says in another letter, 
 " the most commodiosest seate and richest land I haue seene in Amer- 
 
 The Indians parted with it so reluctantly that the Dutch had been 
 compelled to make repeated purchases ; but the chiefs gave a final 
 and lasting title in 1670 to Governor Lovelace, Nicolls's successor, 
 receiving as recompense four hundred fathoms of wampum and a 
 number of guns, axes, kettles, and watch-coats. 
 
 The King in his grant to the Duke of York had empowered him to 
 make all laws for his new territory, with the usual proviso 
 that these be not contrary to the laws of England. The Duke Duke** 
 in turn had granted this power to Nicolls as his deputy. 1 * W8 -' 1 
 Having settled the boundaries of New York for the time, renamed its 
 different parts, put English garrisons and officers at Albany, Esopus, 
 and elsewhere, and brought the affairs of the distant Delaware region 
 into proper train, the Governor assumed the duties of a legislator. 
 He took for his guidance the Codes of the New England colonies in 
 civil affairs, but disregarded their severe provisions relating to religion. 
 
 " The Duke's Laws " as the code prepared by Nicolls and his 
 
 territory belonged. But as if doubting the wisdom of this settlement of the boundary he 
 adds : " I humbly begg your L d Pi'- to take the whole matter into serious consideracon. for 
 if the Duke will improove this place to the vtmost, Neither the trade, the Riuer, nor the 
 Adjacent lands must bee devided from this Collony, but remayne Entire." 
 
 1 Maverick's Letters in the Winthrop Papers. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Fourth Series. 
 vol. vii. 
 
328 NEW YORK. CHAP. XIV. 
 
 councillors was called were promulgated at a meeting of delegates 
 from the towns of Yorkshire, held at Hempstead on Febru- 
 isiandpeo- ary 28, 1665. The people of these towns alone the great 
 nowTegisia- majority being Englishmen seem to have felt much inter- 
 est in the character of the new government about to be 
 established. For this reason, no doubt, they only were summoned to 
 send representatives. Certainly the code had been drawn up more 
 with a view to their wants, as Nicolls understood them, than to those 
 of any other portion of the province. Being emigrants from New 
 England, the Long Islanders especially hoped for the concession of 
 all the popular rights which the people of Massachusetts and Con- 
 necticut enjoyed. They did not gain them ; it was not within Nic- 
 olls's power to grant them, indeed ; but they received, with consider- 
 able grumbling and discontent, the next best system as wise and 
 liberal a code, perhaps, as it was possible for the deputy of a propri- 
 etary government to bestow. 
 
 The Duke's Laws prescribed the annual holding, on the last Thurs- 
 day in September, of a court of assizes at New York, which 
 the Duke's should be the court of highest resort in the province ; the 
 holding of courts of sessions, next in rank, in each of the 
 Yorkshire " ridings " thrice a year ; arbitration was allowed in tri- 
 fling cases, but a local court of a constable and six overseers might be 
 held for the trial of cases involving less than five pounds. The exec- 
 utive power in Yorkshire was in the hands of a high sheriff appointed 
 annually by the Governor, the three ridings in turn furnishing the 
 candidate. Each town had eight overseers, chosen by the freeholders, 
 the freeholders selecting one of the eight to act as constable. The 
 town officers made the assessments for taxes. Old land grants were 
 to be looked upon as valueless unless submitted to the provincial 
 authorities and confirmed by new patents issued by the Governor in 
 the Duke's name. Trade with the Indians was restricted that in 
 arms, ammunition, liquor, and furs being permitted only under spe- 
 cial license. Disputes between Indians and whites were to be fairly 
 adjusted by the authorities as if between Christians. Slavery was 
 recognized as legal, as there were many negro slaves already in the 
 province ; but kind and humane treatment for them and for servants 
 was enforced by penalties. The militia law included all persons over 
 sixteen years old, the militia expenses to be equitably shared by all 
 the towns. One form of blasphemy ("denying the true God"), 
 treason, murder, some offences against nature, the striking of parents 
 in case the offender were over fourteen, and kidnapping, were capital 
 crimes. A very great number of regulations provided for all minor 
 matters of discipline, for licenses, trading and shipping laws, and so 
 
1665.] 
 
 ENGLISH OFFICIALS. 
 
 329 
 
 on. Trial by juries was provided for ; but, except in capital cases, 
 the jury was not to exceed seven men. No person who ** professed 
 Christianity " was to be molested for minor differences of opinion. 
 There were a few regulations about church matters, applying equally 
 to all sects, but no Indian was to be permitted " to po\vo\v, or per- 
 form outward worship to the devil." 
 
 Nicolls enforced this code immediately and thoroughly in Yorkshire 
 only, leaving the changes to be very gradual in New York Thec< xi e i n 
 and along the river, where the Dutch could not conform New YoA - 
 at once to English ways. In the city there was for a little while 
 loud complaint that the English official titles of mayor, alderman, and 
 
 Inauguration of the First English Municipal Government at the Stadt Huys. 
 
 sheriff were substituted for the old Dutch terms of schepen, burgo- 
 master, and schout ; and when, in June, 1665, Thomas Willett was 
 appointed mayor, and other Englishmen were put upon the board of 
 aldermen, Nicolls was accused of disregarding the articles of capitu- 
 lation. Such complaints the Governor met by pointing to his instruc- 
 tions, which required him to conform to English custom in his rule 
 of the province. In the appointment of Englishmen to office EngUgh offl . 
 his wish was, he declared, to provide for the peace and quiet Cl * u ' 
 of the whole community by having in office men of both nations. The 
 discontent was speedily allayed, for no fault could be found with the 
 selection of officers made among the English. The mayor, Willett, 
 
330 NEW YORK. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 especially, was greatly esteemed among the Dutch, whom more than 
 once he had served in important trusts in the time of the late gov- 
 ernor. Moreover, there could he little real fear of injustice, for the 
 sheriff, or schout, and the majority of this new board of aldermen, 
 were still Dutch. 
 
 Only on the day before the inauguration of this first municipal 
 Breaking government in the town so lately called New Amsterdam, 
 warbLfwlen tne Dutch and English at home were fighting the great 
 fh n e g x"ther n - d avjl1 battle off Lowestoft in the North Sea. The furious 
 cannonading was heard on the banks of the Thames in Eng- 
 land almost in London. While Nicolls peacefully debated with the 
 burghers in the Stadt Huys, the Duke of York was face to face with 
 Dutchmen in quite another way, and one that came well-nigh giving 
 to the Governor a new master ; for as the Duke, who was in com- 
 mand of the English fleet, stood on the deck of his flag-ship, the 
 Royal Charles^ three of his officers were shot down at his side, so that 
 their blood "flew in the Duke's face." 1 
 
 The war had at length come, to which the disturbed relations of 
 the two governments had been gradually leading since the restoration 
 of Charles, and which now the conquest of New Netherland made 
 inevitable. Angry competition on the coast of Africa had given rise 
 to actual conflicts, and the English had driven the Dutch out of the 
 forts they had built. In the East, the Dutch East India Company 
 and the English merchants were virtually at war. The news from 
 Africa and from Manhattan had reached England in the same week, 
 to be received with open approval at court. Carte ret told Pepys that 
 " the king did joy mightily at it," but asked him, laughing, " How 
 shall I do to answer this to the embassador when he comes ? " 2 He 
 answered it by the insolent claim of priority of ownership of the 
 New Netherland territory, and the English ambassador at the Hague 
 treated the matter with an equally high hand. De Witt, the Grand 
 Pensionary of Holland, answered sharply for the States General that 
 the American province must be given back ; at the same time the 
 Dutch admiral, De Ruyter, was secretly ordered to retaliate upon 
 the English on the Guinea coast which he did effectually a short 
 time after. The English seized such Dutch vessels as were in their 
 poi;ts, and thus the two nations were already at war, though this was 
 only December, 1664, and no formal declaration was made till the 
 fourth of March following, after considerable further negotiation on 
 Holland's part had proved fruitless. 
 
 It was in this war that the battle off Lowestoft had been the first 
 though a useless English victory. These events belong to Euro- 
 
 1 Pepys's Diary. Ibid. 
 
 
1666.] THE FRENCH AND THE MOHAWKS. 331 
 
 pean, rather than to American history, except that by the treaty of 
 Breda 1667 the possession of New York was confirmed p rogreRgof 
 to the English. The only immediate effect of the declara- the war 
 tion of war upon that province was to compel Nicolls to take all pos- 
 sible measures for its defence, lest De Ruyter should come that way 
 on his mission to "inflict .... as much damage and injury as possi- 
 ble " * upon the English. The apprehended attack, however, never 
 came. There were no dissensions between the old and new masters 
 of New Netherland, and through the summer and autumn of 1665 
 Nicolls was left unmolested to quietly bring the whole province into 
 obedience to his rule. 
 
 The next spring, however, brought the necessity of quelling some 
 disturbances in eastern Long Island, where there was still 
 much dissatisfaction because the Duke's code denied the peo- in Lung 
 pie the popular elements of New England, especially of Con- 
 necticut, government. When the Governor had quieted these disor- 
 ders by tempering vigorous measures against the chief offenders with 
 indulgence to the rest, new trouble arose in the same region in resist- 
 ance to the enforcement of the law of renewal of patents a matter 
 requiring the wisest management. The Court of Assizes decreed in 
 September that the neglect of the Long Island towns and of individ- 
 uals to renew their land grants under the Duke of York could be no 
 longer tolerated. It required all Nicolls's skill and firmness to carry 
 out the measure, accompanied as it was by the exaction of fees and 
 quit-rents. After much discontent, however, all the towns of conse- 
 quence, except Southold and Southampton, yielded, and these com- 
 plied with the conditions a year or two afterward. 
 
 Though the war in Europe left Nicolls thus free to establish order 
 in his new government, it was not to pass away without dis- xewTork 
 turbance to the American colonies. The alliance of Louis and0anad * 
 XIV. with the Dutch against England, in January, 1666, had of 
 course made enemies, nominally at least, of those colonies and the 
 French in the new world. King Charles sent out letters in Febru- 
 ary directing his American subjects to begin whatever hostile meas- 
 ures they could against Canada, doubtless expecting that New Eng- 
 land and New York would undertake at once a vigorous campaign 
 against their northern neighbors. But he little understood the com- 
 parative indifference to European affairs felt by the colonists. His 
 instructions were received with little enthusiasm, and the only meas- 
 ures taken were some attempts to excite the Mohawk Indians to 
 enmity against the French settlers. Massachusetts, Connecticut, and 
 Nova Scotia agreed that it would not be wise to undertake an expe- 
 dition against the French settlements in Canada. 
 
 1 Dutch documcut cited in Brodhead, ii., 58. 
 
332 NEW YORK. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 Before any news of the French declaration of war had reached 
 America, however, indeed, before it had been formally 
 of cour- made, Courcelles, the Governor of Canada, had started 
 from Quebec with some five hundred men, and marched into 
 the Mohawk country, to reduce that powerful tribe to the subjection 
 which several of the other Indian nations beyond the great lakes had 
 already acknowledged. The Canadians did not yet know that New 
 Netherland had passed from Dutch into English hands. But when 
 Courcelles reached Schenectady (which the French called "Cor- 
 laer," from a settlement the Dutch commissary Arendt Van Curler 
 had formerly made there), he was met, to his great surprise, by del- 
 egates from Albany, who had been sent out, on a report from the 
 Mohawks, to know the purpose of Courcelles' invasion. 
 
 Though he already knew the probability of a war between France 
 and England, the Canadian governor did not dare to make 
 
 Hiareception ., . *i 
 
 by the AI- any hostile demonstration against the comparatively strong 
 
 bany people. . " . J 
 
 Albany garrison. He declared that his purpose was only to 
 subdue the Mohawks, and the Albany people charitably gave succor 
 to his wounded men, and supplied provisions to his worn-out troops, 
 who had suffered terribly from the long winter's march through deep 
 snows. Beyond a few indecisive skirmishes with his Indian foes, most 
 of whom kept out of sight, he did nothing, and soon after began his 
 homeward march, about the time that news of his expedition reached 
 Nicolls at New York. The Governor, though he expressed some indig- 
 nation at the inroad, fully approved of the friendly reception given 
 French ne- * Courcelles at Albany, and even exerted himself in com- 
 wit'h t'heMo- mon with them to bring about a treaty of peace between 
 hawks. ^g ]? renc }j an( j Mohawks. This was at last so far success- 
 ful that the Indians expressed their desire for peace to the wounded 
 French left behind at Albany, and letters were sent announcing this 
 to the officers at Quebec, certain Oneida chiefs undertaking to 
 carry and deliver the important news. 
 
 This was toward the end of March, but the slow messengers did 
 not reach Canada till the beginning of July. Meanwhile another 
 expedition of four hundred men had marched against the Mohawks. 
 But this was now recalled, and messengers were sent by Tracy, the 
 French commander at Quebec, with a treaty to be ratified by the In- 
 dians. 
 
 This friendly deputation had been gone a few daj's only when they 
 
 also were recalled to Quebec. The Mohawks had shown 
 
 French ex- that their offers of peace and friendship meant nothing. A 
 
 hunting party of French officers had been surprised by an 
 
 Indian band on or near Lake Champlain, who treacherously murdered 
 

 1666.] 
 
 THE FRENCH AND THE MOHAWKS. 
 
 333 
 
 several of them, of whom one was a nephew of Tracy, the Sieur 
 de Chazy, and had carried off the rest as prisoners. A fresh force 
 of three hundred men started at once to carry destruction into the 
 Mohawk country. 
 
 The exasperated Frenchmen had almost reached the Mohawk vil- 
 lages when they were met by an Indian deputation. They begged 
 for peace. The attack upon the hunting party, they declared, was 
 neither ordered by nor approved by their chiefs and people ; the cap- 
 tives, they promised, should be 
 restored, and reparation made for 
 n J7 ft - i II I III those who were killed. The ex- 
 
 planation was accepted, and the 
 troops returned quietly to Que- 
 bec, taking the Indians with them. 
 
 It was only to find that they had Arrest of Chazy ' s Murderer 
 
 again been overreached by savage treachery and cunning. It was one 
 of these very Mohawk ambassadors who had buried his 
 tomahawk in the brains of Tracy's nephew. The boastful of the v- 
 spirit of the savage, aroused probably by drink, led him to 
 avow at Tracy's own table that it was he who split the head of that 
 young officer. He was seized and hanged on the instant, and his com- 
 panion thrown into prison. 
 
 Tracy, thus repeatedly betrayed and baffled, wrote bitterly to the 
 Albany authorities who had sent him the first overtures of peace, 
 
334 NEW YORK. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 complaining that they had deceived him intentionally. A few weeks 
 re- later he set out in person at the head of twelve hundred 
 whites and a hundred Indian allies, passed down Lake Cham- 
 plain in fleet of boats and canoes, and in the month of October 
 marched through the Mohawk country, burning the villages, which 
 were generally deserted at his approach, and setting np the arms of 
 France in the chief fort. Returning to Quebec, he now sent by his 
 prisoners such terms of peace as he would grant to the tribe, which 
 they had till the next summer to consider. 
 
 In this expedition the French had made no hostile demonstrations 
 against Albany, though the question of doing so had been 
 ence be- debated before the march was commenced. Indeed, Nicolls 
 andThe had written in a moderate and friendly spirit to Tracy in 
 reply to his letter accusing the Albany officers, and had told 
 him that he should always prefer the " European interest" as against 
 the " heathen," provided the English possessions were not invaded, as 
 in the case of Courcelles' expedition, at which he again expressed sur- 
 prise. The Albany authorities also wrote to explain their conduct in 
 the matter of the Mohawk proposals for peace. Tracy answered both 
 letters civilly in the spring, acknowledging that he had judged too ' 
 hastily. Friendly relations were thus again apparently restored be- 
 tween New York and its northern neighbor. 
 
 Nicolls, however, not knowing how far the French were to be 
 trusted, could neglect no precaution, and was kept in a state 
 rice to the of constant anxiety. After strengthening the river garri- 
 sons, he advised the Mohawks, who sought counsel at Albany 
 in regard to the French terms of peace, that they should stipulate for 
 the destruction of the posts the Canadians had planted along Lake 
 Champlain ; and should declare that they (the Mohawks) acknowl- 
 edged English rule, and would make no peace unless it should be 
 agreed that no more armed forces should enter the English territory. 
 Many were the debates held with the Indians during the winter. 
 The English wei-e earnest in their assurances of protection ; eloquent 
 in portraying the advantages an alliance with them would be against 
 a common enemy. But with the Indians, the memory of recent 
 calamity was more vivid than any promise of future good. They re- 
 called their dismantled "castles" and burning villages; their women 
 and children flying to hide themselves in the forest ; their stores of corn 
 destroyed or eaten by the French, while they were left to starve; 
 their young men lying dead with only the leaves of autumn to cover 
 them. Then their ears were closed to the words of the English ; it 
 was wiser, they thought, to be friends with these terrible Frenchmen 
 who could fight better than an Indian, and were quite as much at 
 home in the woods as he. 
 
1667.] 
 
 THE PEACE OF BREDA. 
 
 335 
 
 When the summer came a deputation of Mohawk and Oneida chief- 
 tains appeared at Quebec, with promises of submission. The war in 
 Europe had recalled Tracy to France, where the services of the brave 
 old man were more needed than in Canada, and Courcelles had suc- 
 ceeded to the command at Qu'ebec. The Indians brought their fami- 
 lies with them as pledges of their sincerity, and the new French 
 Governor had no difficulty in securing a treaty by which [^o'" 1 
 they promised allegiance to the King of France, and con- ha " ks 
 sented to accept the teachings of the Catholic priests. It was a treaty 
 meant to be kept, and for many years the English, whose whole north- 
 ern frontier was now left exposed, had reason to remember it. 
 
 Submission of the Mohav 
 
 The peace of Breda, between 
 England and Holland The ^^ 
 negotiations for it having of Breda - 
 been long in progress was signed 
 on the last day of July, 1667 ; and 
 a separate treaty of the same date closed the war with France. To 
 the colonists in America, whose intercourse with England was se- 
 riously interrupted while the war continued, this seemed a sudden 
 as it was a welcome termination of the struggle. To those at home, 
 however, disgusted with the subserviency of their own King to the 
 King of France, the profligacy of the court and the corruption of the 
 government, it brought little satisfaction. Englishmen found no 
 pleasure in a treaty which gave up two colonies in the East Indies, 
 and Nova Scotia in America, and secured in return only New Neth- 
 erland, the value of which was as yet but little understood. In 
 Northern New England, at least, it was a question, whether such an 
 acquisition was not dearly paid for by the surrender of Nova Scotia, 
 
336 NEW YORK. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 which brought the Canadian frontier so much nearer to their outlying 
 settlements. 
 
 However, the war was over, and immediate danger was past ; and 
 if this news was welcomed with pleasure anywhere outside of Hol- 
 land, it was among both Dutch and English in New York, 
 peace in On the first of January, 1668, Nicolls caused the glad tidings 
 to be proclaimed throughout the province. The English had 
 good reason to rejoice that the question of jurisdiction was now set- 
 tled by treaty. The Dutch were quite reconciled by the judicious 
 rule of Nicolls to the change of masters ; but they heard with satisfac- 
 tion, that for seven years a limited trade with Holland would be per- 
 mitted. For this they were indebted to their old governor, Stuyves- 
 ant, which made it, no doubt, the more generally acceptable. He had 
 returned in the spring of 1665, to Holland, to answer for his conduct 
 at the time of the surrender, for which the directors of the West India 
 Company were disposed to blame him without measure. 
 Holland But the treaty ended all discussion of that point. Stuyves- 
 
 conceded 
 
 to the ant thoroughly understood the wants of the colony, and be- 
 
 fore returning thither for he meant it should still be his 
 home he secured in England this concession of trade for the benefit 
 of the colonists, to whose comfort certain kinds of goods from the 
 Fatherland were indispensable. 
 
 Nicolls had more than once asked that he might be relieved from 
 
 his government and permitted to return home. After the 
 
 ceeded by loss of New Jersey, he seems to have thought the remainder 
 
 of the grant to the Duke of York hardly worth possessing 
 
 much less governing. His request was at length listened to, and 
 
 Colonel Francis Lovelace was appointed to succeed him. 
 
 Lovelace was not unfamiliar with affairs in America, and had been 
 both in New Netherland and Virginia. He arrived in New York in 
 the spring of 1668. But he and Nicolls spent the summer in arrang- 
 ing the affairs of the government which was about to be transferred 
 from one to the other ; and it was not until the end of August that 
 the freemen of New York mustered under arms and in military order 
 at the lower part of the town, to bid a ceremonious as well as a heart- 
 felt farewell to the Governor, who had ruled them so justly that he 
 left no enemies behind. For four years (his fellow-commissioner 
 services of Maverick wrote) he had served in the province " with great 
 Nicoiis. reputation and honor." He had done " His Majesty and 
 his Royal Highness very considerable service in these parts," indeed, 
 " having, by his prudent management of affairs, kept persons of dif- 
 ferent judgments and of diverse nations in peace and quietness, dur- 
 ing a time when a great part of the world was in warrs." He had 
 

 1668.] 
 
 DEPARTURE OF GOVERNOR XICOLLS. 
 
 337 
 
 brought the "several nations of the Indians" .... "into such a 
 peaceable posture and faire correspondence " as had never been known 
 before. 
 
 On the 28th of August he left New York, bearing with him an 
 address from the people to the Duke, setting forth his good HU depurt . 
 service and the peacefulness of the province, and leaving ure 
 behind a name which stands preeminent among the royal governors 
 in America for moderation, justice, and wise forbearance. He had 
 
 spent much of his own means 
 in promoting the welfare of his 
 and had once at least 
 
 Departure of Nicolls 
 
 been obliged to pledge his personal credit to secure funds for the de- 
 pleted provincial exchequer. 
 
 The province had now reached the period most favorable to the 
 growth of a new state. The hardships of the first years of 
 settlement, the trials of early misgovernment, the dimcul- thcproT- 
 ties of a change of masters, and the perplexities attending 
 a new code of laws, had all been in great measure overcome. The 
 individual citizen felt secure in person and property. Sixty years of 
 slow but constant growth had brought the " village at the Manliat- 
 toes " to a size and importance which almost entitled it to its new 
 name of " city " ; " the best of His Majesty's towns in America," as 
 Nicolls had called it on his arrival, was beginning to give tokens of 
 its future leadership in commerce a fact, said its Governor, of 
 which " the brethren of Boston were very sensible." 
 
 The little sea-port, in this time of its transition under the earlier 
 VOL. a. 22 
 
838 % NEW YORK. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 English governors, had characteristics not belonging to any other of 
 the colonial towns peculiarities arising partly from its singular min- 
 gling of races, and partly from the reproduction of the manners and 
 customs of another nationality. Looked back upon through two cen- 
 turies, the life of New York in these first days of its English name 
 has a picturesque quaintness that is sharply marked against the colder 
 background of New England. 
 
 Though a good deal of English energy and activity had already 
 begun to pervade its streets and wharves, yet its customs 
 city of New long remained those which its first settlers had brought with 
 them out of the Dutch fatherland. Its architecture, most 
 of its local names, and even its more common speech, were Dutch. 
 Its domestic and social life was regulated by the customs of Hol- 
 land. If it was simple and somewhat heavy, it was at the same time 
 healthy, virtuous, and full of kindliness and hospitality. If the stout 
 burghers moved slowly, thought only of the practical side of things, 
 and went to bed at nine o'clock, they also worked steadily, governed 
 their households wisely, and persecuted nobody. If they introduced 
 for a brief period into their new home the law they brought from Hol- 
 land, of the great burgher-right and the lesser burgher-right, those 
 who received the former were worthy of the dignity, and those who 
 were confined to the latter valued their citizenship and educated their 
 children none the less carefully. The town that now occupied the 
 lower end of Manhattan Island, with its substantial brick houses and 
 its clean streets, had been their work. It is worth while to recall 
 what kind of city they left to their successors as the nucleus of a 
 metropolis. 
 
 During the decade between 1660 and 1670 New York covered that 
 Topography P ar * ^ the island which lies below the present Wall Street, 
 of the town. wn j c h still commemorates by its name the line of stout pal- 
 isades that there formed the northern limit of the thickly settled por- 
 tion of the town. 1 A gate in the palisade the "Land-gate," which 
 the city watchmen shut at nightfall gave entrance to the wide 
 road called the " Heere Wegh " without and the " Heere Straat " 
 within the wall. This was the thoroughfare that has become the 
 Broadway of the present city, its name preserving a literal translation 
 of the old Dutch title. The "compact und oval " group of houses in 
 which the burghers lived was divided into two nearly equal parts 
 by this street. Altogether there were about four hundred buildings ; 
 ** the meanest house therein," says one old writer, " being valued at 
 one hundred pounds," 2 so that they must have been solid and well 
 constructed, "much after the manner of Holland." They were " built 
 
 1 VoL i., p. 462. 2 Josselyn's Two Voyages to New England, 1672. 
 
1670.] THE TOWN OF NEW YORK. 339 
 
 with Dutch brick, alla-modema" " covered with red and black tile," l 
 and their gable-ends faced the streets after the fashion of the father- 
 land. 
 
 Solid citizens, men of much consideration, occupied the greater 
 part of this, the town proper, the majority of the poorer class of colo- 
 nists being scattered on farms 
 or in hamlets outside. Yet 
 there was a distinction be- 
 tween the west side of the 
 Heere Straat, where all the 
 land was good, and the east 
 side, where were all sorts of 
 disadvantages which modern 
 New York long ago covered 
 up, so that they have left no 
 traces but in local names. 
 On the west, from the Wesr 
 India Company's great gar- 
 
 , , , . , , , , , Old House in New York, built 1668 
 
 dens (which stretched from 
 
 the Heere Straat to the Hudson, and covered the ground where Trinity 
 Church now stands), 2 to the fort just below the Bowling Green, were 
 the dwellings of the leading men, and their great gardens and orchards 
 that often stretched across all that half of the town and overlooked 
 the water. Here was the churchyard, 3 and the Dominie's house, and 
 the schoolmaster's ; and along a part of the river-bank behind the 
 Company's ground were " the locust trees," 4 shading a path which 
 was a favorite resort for all classes, and an admirable outlook over 
 the river and the bay. 
 
 The region between the Heere Straat and the East River, on the 
 contrary, was covered with marshes and a tangle of water- Theeagtern 
 courses, of which the city of to-day shows no trace what- < i uarter 
 ever. A group of little hills, hardly more than knolls, surrounded a 
 low boggy pasture, the " Company's Valley," or " the sheep pas- 
 ture," which of itself might have made the quarter untenantable 
 for any but true Hollanders. But they contented themselves by par- 
 tially draining it by a ditch along the Bever-graft (Beaver Street), 
 and one along the upper part of the present Broad Street, the 
 lower part of which was occupied by something still more character- 
 istic of the fatherland, a canal from tidewater, extending up to Ex- 
 change Place. The busy place was then traversed chiefly by the cattle 
 coming up from the meadow, marking out the future street by their 
 
 1 Denton's Description of New York, 1670. 2 Gerard's Old Streets of New York. 
 
 8 But it was not so used after 1677. Gerard, 20. * Ibid. 
 
340 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 muddy trail. Between the Heere Sti-aat and the Company's Valley 
 the ground was high ; and the boys of New Amsterdam used, in the 
 winter, to bring out their sleds to the " Verlettenberg," and slide 
 down hill directly over the site of the New York Stock Exchange ; 
 while in summer they ran down the slope to drive home the cows that 
 fed where the custom-house stands, or collect the sheep that pastured 
 where the vaults of the sub-treasury now undermine the street. 
 
 The central point of commercial matters was, however, then as 
 The business now S i n this neighborhood ; for Governor Lovelace, to facili- 
 centres. ^g ^ Q business of the town, ordered in 1670 that the 
 bridge over the canal, at the corner of Bridge and Broad streets, 
 should be a meeting-place an Exchange, or a kind of Rialto for 
 
 _ .^^^ the New York mer- 
 
 chants. There they 
 met every Friday, 
 between eleven and 
 twelve o'clock, to 
 discuss and to trade. 
 Near them were the 
 chief warehouses, 
 the five stone build- 
 ings of the West 
 India Company on 
 the Winckel Street, 
 which ran from 
 Bridge Street to 
 what is now Pearl 
 Street, but what 
 was then a road 
 along the edge of 
 the East River, 
 from which a stout 
 planking defended 
 
 View of Wall Street. its Outer Side. This 
 
 was " T'Water," or " Waterside ; " l but some parts of it had dif- 
 ferent names, from one of which Paerel Straat the present 
 title comes. On Bridge Street so near the "Exchange" as to 
 overlook it lived many of the merchants and traders ; and close by 
 were the most prosperous industries of the little town, the breweries, 
 enough to give their name to a street Brouwer Straat, now Stone 
 Street, the tannery, and the shops of smiths and shipwrights. 
 
 But though the exchange had its one busy day, the real centre of 
 
 * Gerard, 36, 37. 
 
1670.] THE TOWN OF NEW YORK. 341 
 
 bustle and activity was only reached when one had passed the stone 
 house of the Governor, built by Stuyvesant to replace the one for- 
 merly used in the fort, and called by the English " the Whitehall " 
 whence Whitehall Street, and had come to the Marckvelt the 
 market-place of the town. This included a large space just east of 
 Whitehall Street, and south of Beaver ; and here the farmers, when 
 they had left their wagons ranged side by side, and their horses 
 picketed to graze on the Common (now the Bowling Green), spread 
 out their goods for sale. Some came by boats which they brought up 
 the Broad Street canal and tied to the bridge ; others came only so 
 far as the single dock which New York then had, on the East River, 
 a little below the mouth of the canal, where was a smaller market 
 and a weigh-house. 1 Barter went on briskly, but little coin changed 
 hands ; wampum and beaver skins were the currency, and their value 
 varied with the supply. 
 
 Ovei-looking all this busy quarter was the fort Fort Amsterdam 
 under the Dutch, and Fort James under their successors. 
 Bridge, Whitehall, and State streets, and the Bowling 
 Green, now bound the square which it occupied with its imposing, if 
 not very formidable walls. It was " capable to lodge three hundred 
 soldiers and officers ; " it had " four bastions, and forty pieces of can- 
 non mounted ; " and was " of stone, lined with a thick rampart of 
 Earth ; well accommodated with a spring of fresh water, always fur- 
 nished with arms and ammunition against accidents." 2 Within it was 
 the stone church, the one which Kieft had built, with double 
 roof, and a little tower between the two gables at the end toward the 
 bay. 3 The old brick mansion of the Governor also was within the 
 walls, and houses for the garrison. In one bastion towered a wind- 
 mill ; though the chief windmill was probably outside, near the Hud- 
 son, about the foot of Battery Place. As a structure the fort lent 
 considerable dignity to the little island town. But as a fortification 
 it was almost ludicrously useless, and its garrison might have been 
 picked off with pistol bullets from the high ground near by. A block- 
 house would have been as good defence against the Indians as its elab- 
 orate bastions and stone-faced walls ; how useless they were against 
 a civilized foe there was evidence enough on two occasions. 
 
 " His Majesty's town of New York," which thus covered the point 
 of Manhattan lying below the line of palisades, was hardly Theenyiron. 
 more quaint than its surroundings. Along the Heere Wegh of the citT- 
 toward the upper end of the Island the houses and bouweries stood 
 close together for "a little distance outside the wall. Then came 
 the thickly-wooded and wilder region to the north. The pleasant 
 i Gerard, 22. 2 Ogilby. 8 Ibid. 
 
342 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 valley-road called the Maagde-Padtje Maiden Lane ; the deep, still 
 pond surrounded by green hills, which lay where the prison of the 
 Tombs now stands; the "Flats" or "Common," covering the site 
 of the City Hall and its park; the "Kissing Bridge" about the cor- 
 ner of Chatham and Roosevelt streets over which no right minded 
 young Hollander suffered his buxom companion to pass unsaluted; 1 
 all these were near enough to be favorite resorts of the burghers and 
 their English fellow-townsmen. Then came the farms ; and after a 
 long interval of partly cleared land, the "Great Bouwerie" (from 
 which the present Bowery takes its name) of Governor Stuyvesant. 
 Here the old Dutch Governor retired after his return from Holland 
 and England, to take no part in government matters under the Eng- 
 lish, but to live for a few years in quiet, until, in 1672, he died 
 
 at the ripe age of 
 eighty, and his 
 towns-people buried 
 him in the little 
 chapel he had built 
 here upon his farm. 
 The Governor's 
 house must have 
 stood near Tenth 
 Street of modern 
 New York, and a lit- 
 tle east of Third 
 Avenue. Beyond 
 it stretched swamps, 
 woods, and clear- 
 ings, interspersed 
 with outlying plan- 
 tations, over the rest of Manhattan, to New Haarlem, a little village 
 at the junction of Harlem and East rivers. 
 
 From the Westchester villages along the Sound, the people al- 
 ways reached New York by water, preferring to the woods 
 and marshes, the terrible perils of Hell-Gate. The old de- 
 scriptions of this dreaded strait show careful observation. 
 " A place called Hell Gate," one calls it ; " which being a narrow 
 passage, there runneth a violent stream, both upon flood and ebb, and 
 in the middle lieth some Islands of Rocks, which the Current sets so 
 violently upon that it threatens present shipwreck ; and upon the 
 flood is a large Whirlpool, which continually sends forth a hideous 
 roaring, enough to affright any stranger from passing any further, and 
 
 1 Gerard, passim. 
 
 The Bowling Green. 
 
 Hell-gate 
 and East 
 River. 
 
1670.] 
 
 OTHER TOWNS AND SETTLEMENTS. 
 
 343 
 
 to wait for some Charon to conduct him through ; yet to those that 
 are well acquainted little or no danger ; yet a place of great defence 
 against any enemy coming in that way, which a small Fortification 
 would absolutely prevent, and necessitate them to come in at the West 
 end of Long Island by Sandy Hook, where Nutten Island doth force 
 them within 
 command of the 
 Fort at New- 
 York, which is 
 one of the best 
 Pieces of De- 
 fence in the 
 North parts of 
 America." 1 
 
 Witli the near- 
 Hen Gate (from an Old Dutch Print). 
 
 est part of Long 
 
 Island, the communication was by a ferry near the present Peck Slip, 
 
 where such passengers as would cross might summon the 
 
 ferryman by blowing a horn that hung to a neighboring island 
 
 tree. The ferryman's boat carried its passengers to Breuke- 
 
 len, described as a village with " a small and ugly church standing in 
 
 the middle of the road ; " whence the traveller might turn to the 
 
 right to go to Gouanes Gowanus, to 't Vlacke Bos Flatbush, 
 
 to Rust-dorp Jamaica, Heemsteede, and the hamlets and 
 farms beyond. 
 
 Along the bank of the Hudson, and kept in communication with 
 the capital by the little shallops of the settlers, or the larger 
 vessels that constantly passed up and down with goods and mentsouthe 
 
 . . Hudson. 
 
 peltries, were scattered farms and little settlements ; while 
 Esopus, Rensselaerswyck, and Albany were garrisoned places the 
 latter already beginning to present some evidences of rapid growth. 
 To the northwest of Albany, on the beautiful Mohawk, lay the very 
 outpost of civilization, the hamlet of Schaenhechstede Schenectady, 
 
 which had been laid out in 1664 by Arendt van Curler, the former 
 manager of Rensselaerswyck, and who was so popular with the 
 Iroquois that they called the governors of New York " Corlaers " 
 from his name. Regretted by Hollanders, English, French, and In- 
 dians alike, he met his death in a storm on Lake Champlain, in 1667, 
 while on his way to Quebec as an ambassador from Nicolls. 
 
 It was long before the English conquest made any essential impres- 
 sion upon the aspect or character of these Dutch towns. The col- 
 onists were faithful to the customs, the traditions, and the habits of 
 
 1 Dentoii's Description of New York, 1670. 
 
344 NEW YORK. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 the Fatherland. Everywhere was the same Dutch picture. It has 
 Domestic been often enough described. The Hollander, and his son, 
 Du e tu cul- an d h' s son's son after him, for generations, sat by the same 
 xens. large tiled fire-place ; in his hand was his long clay pipe ; 
 
 the floor about him was strewn with clean sand swept into curves and 
 figures, and the low-studded room scrupulously clean with frequent 
 scouring ; his garden was filled with tulips and hyacinths ; over the 
 Dutch gable of his house swung the traditional weather-cock; the 
 porch or stoep had its benches, where the family collected on summer 
 evenings. Within, in the living room, the settle and straight-backed 
 leather chairs, the great glass-doored cupboard for delft and p ate, 
 the huge linen-chest, the ponderous curtained bed shut into its alcove 
 or closet, replaced in the poorer houses by the mere " banck " or bunk 
 along the wall, all recalled the furniture of Holland, whence, in- 
 deed, most of it had been brought. The pages of Knickerbocker's 
 History rather reproduce than caricature these homes of the early 
 Dutch colonists. Hospitality was boundless ; and with the hard work 
 of every-day life was mingled a good deal of jovial festivity. In the 
 winter were the quaint tea-parties for the elder people, and the balls 
 for both young and old at the town tavern afterward the Stadt-Huys 
 
 on Paerel Straat, from five until the watch made their round at nine 
 and warned all to go home. Even the staid city and provincial offi- 
 cials had their times of unbending. " There is good correspondence 
 kept between the English and Dutch," wrote Commissioner Maverick 
 in 1669 ; " and to keep it the closer, sixteen (ten Dutch and six Eng- 
 lish) have had a constant meeting at each other's houses in turns, twice 
 every week in winter, and .... in summer once. They meet at six 
 at night, and part about eight or nine." l And other authorities speak 
 of the " Fiall, Passado, and Madeira," to say nothing of punch, both of 
 brandy and of West India rum, which the Dutch called " kill-devil." 
 There were out-door sports in the day-time on the snow and ice. If 
 they had not the canals of Holland, New Amsterdam was a place 
 of ponds, and the undisturbed waters of the two rivers and the bay 
 were no doubt much oftener covered with solid ice than now. " Its 
 admirable," wrote the English chaplain of the fort, " to see Men and 
 Women as it were flying upon their Skates from place to place, with 
 Markets upon their Heads and Backs." 2 
 
 In the summer were excursions to gather peaches and strawberries 
 
 the trees of the villages of the rich virgin soil about New York 
 being literally borne down with the former fruit, and the ground 
 covered with those that had fallen. As for the strawberries, on Long 
 
 1 Quoted in Brodhead, ii., 153. 
 
 2 A Two Years' Journal in New York, by Charles Wooley, 1679. 
 
1670.] 
 
 GOVERNOR LOVELACE. 
 
 345 
 
 Island there was such abundance " that the fields and woods are died 
 red : Which the country-people perceiving," says an old writer, " in- 
 stantly arm themselves with bottles of wine, cream and sugar, and, 
 instead of a coat of Male, everyone takes a Female upon his horse 
 behind him, and so rushing violently into the fields, never leave 'till 
 they have disrob'd them of their red colours, and turned them into 
 the old habit." l 
 
 Contrasting the simplicity, the contentment, the easy-going in- 
 dustry, and the love of harmless amusement in these Dutch com- 
 munities with the 
 restless character 
 which belonged to 
 the Southern colo- 
 nies, and with the 
 bitter theological 
 and political con- 
 troversies which 
 shook those of New 
 England, it is plain 
 that New York 
 must have been at 
 this time the hap- 
 piest, though not 
 the most progress- 
 ive of the American 
 provinces. Love- 
 lace's rule was ju- 
 dicious and for the 
 most part quiet. 
 But some disputes 
 between the Eng- 
 lish and Dutch at 
 Albany called for the sending of commissioners thither in the spring of 
 1670, and their report was followed by the dismissal of the 
 English commander, Captain Baker. There was some dis- adminutr- 
 content in the Long Island towns, several of which refusing 
 to contribute to renew the New York fortifications, Lovelace ordered 
 their votes to be publicly burned. This arbitrary measure, however, 
 was only a temporary disposition of a question which was a source 
 of subsequent trouble. On the northern and northwestern borders of 
 the province, the movements of the French and their great progress 
 in the exploration and occupation of the country also gave the Gov- 
 
 1 Deutuii's A'ett.' York. 
 
 Burning the Votes. 
 
346 NEW YORK. [CHAP. XIV 
 
 ernor some uneasiness, though less, perhaps, than they caused in New 
 England. But there was neither opportunity nor excuse for action in 
 the matter, and he contented himself with reassuring the Albany 
 people that it was very improbable that when there was no war in 
 Europe, Courcelles would begin one in America. On the whole, the 
 few disquieting matters of Lovelace's administration may be said to 
 have happened on the frontiers, while at the capital all went well, 
 and the province daily grew in strength and numbers. 
 
 Recommendations from England to be prepared against all attacks, 
 which reached Lovelace in February, 167*2, were followed during the 
 next month by explicit instructions from the King to erect an addi- 
 tional battery in New York, and to see that ships going to Europe 
 should sail in companies for safety. Excepting vague rumors, this 
 was the first news that reached the colony, that war had broken out 
 again between England and Holland. 
 
 Charles II. had shamelessly abandoned the famous Triple Alliance oy 
 which, in 1668, the plans of Louis XIV. had been thwarted, 
 
 New com- 
 plications in and England had joined with its Dutch rival in one of the 
 
 Europe. i . . t -, . n 
 
 strongest combinations ever formed against a European 
 power. The league had been entirely successful in its objects, and 
 WHS universally popular; in the House of Commons it had been called 
 " the only good publick thing that hath been done since the King 
 come into England ; " l yet Charles's heart had never been in it, 
 nor had he ceased for a moment to treat secretly with the French 
 king. In May, 1670, he concluded with Louis the infamous treaty 
 of Dover, according to which, in consideration of large subsidies 
 and military aid from France, Charles was to declare himself a 
 Roman Catholic, and use his utmost endeavors to change the " state 
 of religion in England for a better ; " 2 while France and England 
 were to join in a war against Holland. The opposition of Par- 
 liament was the only remaining bar to the carrying out of the latter 
 design, which was to precede the fulfillment of the other ; but a way 
 was found by which Parliament was deceived. A large appropriation 
 was asked of it, ostensibly to strengthen the fleet for the purposes of 
 the Triple Alliance; and no sooner was this subsidy obtained than 
 parliament was prorogued (April, 1671). Charles, with character- 
 istic effrontery, openly declared that he meant to keep it apart for 
 nearly a year. Then, for the sake of additional supplies, followed 
 
 the iniquitous measure of closing the exchequer. The King's 
 
 Renewed i-n i-r-riiiii 
 
 wr aiding object was attained. France and England declared war 
 against the Netherlands on March 17, 1672, and the first 
 battles, both by sea and land, followed soon after. In the first naval 
 1 Pepys. 2 Green's Short History of the English People. 
 
1673.] THE DUTCH BEFORE NEW YORK. 347 
 
 conflict, in the Solebay in Suffolk, where De Ruyter attacked the 
 French and English ships, Richard Nicolls was standing near his 
 master, the Duke of York. In the midst of the action he was shot 
 down by a cannon ball from one of the Dutch fleet. 
 
 The news of the war, and the explicit instructions that came with 
 it, might well excite the anxiety of Lovelace. But he did not foresee 
 indeed he had no reason to look for the serious consequences that 
 were to follow to his own province. The remainder of the year 1672 
 passed away quietly enough, but in the spring of 1673, when the 
 Governor was temporarily absent, his lieutenant, Manning, sent for 
 him in haste to come back to New York, for a rumor had reached 
 the town that a Dutcli fleet was already on its way northward from 
 the West Indies. The Governor thought fit to " slite " the intelli- 
 gence, and characterized it as " one of Manning's larrums." 1 But 
 he nevertheless concentrated a considerable force at New York, only 
 to be dispersed again when the rumor came to nothing. Only about 
 eighty men were left in the dilapidated Fort James. The blow was 
 coming, and was to fall upon the English with even more sudden- 
 ness than theirs had fallen on Stuyvesant nine years before. 
 
 On the seventh of August, 1673, twenty-three Dutch ships, carry- 
 ing sixteen hundred men, under command of Cornelis Evert- 
 sen and Jacob Binckes, anchored in the outer bav of New fleet before 
 
 New York 
 
 York, just below Staten Island. The fleet was last from 
 Virginia, where it captured a number of English merchantmen, some 
 of which were burnt, and others added to their own force. The ships 
 were in need of wood and water, and would have run, could pilots 
 have been procured, into Delaware Bay. It was accident, therefore, 
 rather than design, which took them to New York ; for though they 
 were assured by one of their English prisoners that the place was 
 incapable of defence, another declared that there were a hundred and 
 fifty guns mounted at the fort, and that five thousand men could be 
 mustered in three hours. The necessity of recruiting compelled the 
 Dutch to seek the nearest port, and they entered the bay, " rather 
 afraid," says a contemporary writer, " of receiving some disturbance 
 from New Yorke than giving any to it." 2 
 
 The Dutch on shore hailed the arrival of their countrymen with 
 delight, and soon made them acquainted witli the real state of things. 
 The fort was garrisoned by only seventy or eighty men : the guns 
 were either dismounted or their carriages rotten ; the Governor was 
 absent, and no efficient commander was in his place ; and the people 
 generally were discontented with English rule. Encouraged by such 
 
 1 Manning's answer to charges against him. Documentary Hist. ofN. Y., vol. iii., p. 57. 
 8 Letter of Richard Wharton (contributed by George H Moore), Hist. Mag., Second 
 Series, vol. i., p. 297. 
 
348 NEW YORK. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 intelligence, the fleet was taken within the Narrows and anchored off 
 Staten Island. 1 
 
 Manning, meanwhile, was not idle. Messengers were hurried off to 
 Attempts at recall Lovelace ; orders were issued to the military captains 
 of the towns to hasten to New York with their companies ; 
 the drums were beaten through the streets for volunteers ; the smith 
 was set to work to repair the arms ; the commissary was sent out to 
 gather provisions to victual the fort in case of siege ; and to gain 
 time, a deputation was dispatched to the fleet to demand the meaning 
 of the approach of this hostile force. Manning it was afterward 
 granted, when courts sat in judgment of his acts was not a coward, 
 and, no doubt, he did all that any man could do under the circum- 
 stances in discharge of his duty. But his efforts were in vain ; there 
 was not time for the Governor to get back from Connecticut ; the 
 militia of the country towns refused to rally, even where as was 
 the case in only two or three instances their captains responded to 
 the summons from Manning ; the drums stirred no martial ardor in 
 the breasts of the citizens ; the labors of a single smith on firelocks 
 could avail but little in a fort where nobody would come to use them, 
 where six only of the large guns were on platforms, and to the whole 
 there were only four sponges and four ladles. Even his attempt to 
 gain time by sending a flag to the fleet probably only betrayed weak- 
 ness and fear to the enemy. The next day their guns were frowning 
 upon Fort James from as many ships as the stream in front could con- 
 veniently float. 
 
 To the repeated demand for surrender Manning could only ask a 
 New York little more time. The Dutch commanders would give at last 
 surrendered. ^^ thirty minutes, and turned over an hour-glass to mark 
 the time. As the last sand ran out they opened fire, and some in the 
 fort were killed and some wounded. Any defence, of course, was 
 utterly hopeless, though the fire seems to have been returned ; but at 
 the same time a force of six hundred Dutch landed on the banks of 
 the Hudson in the rear of the present Trinity Church in Broadway, 
 and moved to the assault. There was nothing left but immediate 
 capitulation. Just as the sun went down the Dutch troops marched 
 into the fort out of which Stuyvesant had stumped nine years before 
 at the head of his men. How happy would he have been could he 
 have lived to see that sight ! 
 
 Again with a change of rulers came a change of names. The 
 
 province of New York was once more New Netherland ; 
 
 and other Fort James received its third designation, and became Fort 
 
 changes. 
 
 William Hendrick, in honor of the Prince of Orange ; the 
 
 town itself, a few days later, was declared to be for the future New 
 
 i Colden's Letters. N. Y. Hist. Soc. CM., 1869. 
 
1673.] 
 
 RE-CONQUEST OF NEW NETHERLAND. 
 
 349 
 
 Orange, instead of New Amsterdam, as it had been under the rule of 
 the West India Company. Mayor, aldermen, and sheriff, gave place 
 in name as well as officially, and burgomasters, schepens, and sellouts, 
 were again hailed as magistrates. Dutch supremacy was asserted, 
 and Dutch influences were again felt to be paramount in all the rela- 
 tions of society. 
 
 But the affairs of every-day life soon resumed their usual channels. 
 Personal hostilities, perhaps, may have seized such an opportunity for 
 their indulgence, but now, as nine years before, there seems to have 
 been little disturbance of the neighborly harmony and friendship ex- 
 isting between the two peoples. Here, indeed, was then no large 
 
 The Dutch Ultimatum. 
 
 city ; no dangerous class was hidden away in dark cellars and ob- 
 scure attics, to swarm in unexpected numbers, ready for bloodshed 
 and plunder at the first sign of temporary anarchy. But, neverthe- 
 less, the capture of New Amsterdam by the English, and the recap- 
 ture of New York by the Dutch, are among the most remarkable in- 
 stances in history of peaceful revolutions. There was the confisca- 
 tion of public property, and its conversion to the use of the victorious 
 party, which, if not absolutely necessary, is not surprising. But the 
 private suffering seems to have been hardly enough to be counted as 
 an act of war. It is doubtful if any private property was molested, 
 except that the houses of Lovelace and Manning were plundered ; and 
 to this which was done by some disorderly soldiers a stop was 
 speedily put. Thus in those times as in ours, it seems almost to have 
 
 
350 NEW YORK. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 been accepted as a decree of Providence that New York should always 
 be open to occupation by any alien race that thought it worth its while ; 
 and that any rule should be acceptable to its citizens, provided there 
 was no personal outrage, and that robbery should be disguised under 
 the form of municipal government. 
 
 The Dutch had retaken New Netherland ; and the two command- 
 prov- ers wno had accomplished the conquest, after they had ap- 
 pointed Anthony Colve to be temporary governor, and is- 
 gue( j provisional instructions to him pending advices from 
 the Hague, leaving him two ships of war for protection, sailed away 
 at the end of September with the two departments of their fleet 
 Evertsen for the West Indies, and Binckes for home. Colve issued 
 provisional instructions to his new subjects. The towns on the Hud- 
 son had submitted without resistance to a small force sent against 
 them ; New Jersey and Delaware had quietly acknowledged, through 
 delegates from the chief towns, the Dutch restoration. The six 
 towns at the western end of Long Island had done the same ; others 
 had submitted upon being sharply summoned ; and finally, even those 
 at the eastern end were forced to yield. Lovelace imprudently ven- 
 tured back to New York after some parley, and arrived there three 
 days after the surrender. He was kindly treated, and not held as 
 a prisoner by the commanders and their council of war ; but though 
 the hand of military law spared him, he had been only three days 
 in the town when he was arrested for debt ; and during all the rest 
 of the Dutch negotiations he remained virtually a captive among 
 the new masters of the province. A few days before their depar- 
 ture, the commanders, after some consideration, issued a decree con- 
 fiscating all the property they had formerly attached ; and 
 tionnof the unfortunate Lovelace, thus stripped of his last guilder, 
 was quietly told that if he would now pay what he owed, he 
 would in six weeks be permitted freely to leave the country. But 
 though the property of his subordinate officers and of some other 
 Englishmen was taken, and the right of confiscation against all Hol- 
 land's enemies in America was assumed, it was declared that "for 
 sufficient reasons " that of " actual inhabitants " of New England, 
 Virginia, and Maryland, might be for the present exempt. 
 
 At the end of September Governor Colve found himself left in 
 undivided authority over the mixed population of New Or- 
 ange ; the " Achter Col " (such was the new name of New 
 Jersey); the Hudson River villages, with " Willemstadt " 
 (Albany), and Esopus; Westchester and Long Island ; and all the 
 rest which had made up the ancient domain of New Netherland un- 
 der his Dutch predecessors. He might well assume the state of "a 
 coach and three horses;" yet he and his compatriots, exultant as they 
 
1673.] COLVE'S ADMINISTRATION. 351 
 
 were over the restoration of its lost jewel to the Fatherland, trembled 
 when they thought of their weak condition, surrounded by and min- 
 gled with the enemies over whom they had achieved their victory. 
 Reinforcements, which the schout and schepens of New Orange had 
 already written for, must be sent out at once, and Holland must 
 take them under its especial protection ; for it was not to be ex- 
 pected that the few thousands of subjects which the States had in 
 America could long withstand the anger and the retaliation of the 
 French and English, by whom New Netherland was surrounded. Sec- 
 retary Van Ruy ven, sailing for home in September, had been charged 
 with these urgent appeals ; but his vessel, having almost suffered 
 shipwreck, had to put into Nantucket, whence the secretary, to the 
 surprise and disappointment of every one, made his reappearance in 
 New Orange during the following November. The news he carried 
 was destined to reach Holland by other hands. Would it arrive in 
 time to secure the province from the possibility of English recapture ? 
 New England was naturally both indignant and alarmed to hear 
 that the Dutch were again established on its borders. The 
 
 commissioners of its colonies met at Hartford early in Sep- recapture 
 
 received in 
 
 tember, less than a month after Evertsen s easj r conquest, New Eng- 
 and passed a recommendation that each member of the New 
 England confederation make preparations for defence against a possi- 
 ble Dutch attack. Nor were those wanting who urged upon the meet- 
 ing a more aggressive policy. But want of union, and a natural 
 disinclination for war, prevented. Massachusetts refused to take ad- 
 vantage of the offer of an English captain, whose ship lay at Boston, 
 to retake New York with no other aid than that of supplies and a 
 reinforcement. Unless the conquered region could be annexed to 
 her own territory, that colony did not care to engage in any efforts for 
 the recapture of New York. Plymouth was indifferent in the mat- 
 ter, so long as freedom from Dutch interference with her coasters was 
 secured. Connecticut resolved to do what she could to re- 
 tain eastern Long Island, at all events. The authorities at tween the 
 Hartford sent a threatening letter to Colve, by a special English"- 
 
 j ,, ,. . . thority. 
 
 messenger ; and. at the same time two commissioners were 
 appointed to visit the island, ascertain the state of affairs, and warn 
 such Dutch authorities as they might find there of the possibility of 
 extreme measures. To the letter Colve replied sharply that it was 
 " impertinent and absurd," and that he could hardly credit its coming 
 from Winthrop. The commissioners were met off the Long Island 
 coast by three officers whom Colve had previously sent out to visit 
 the eastern towns, and receive their submission. Treating each other 
 civilly, the two parties of commissioners went together to Southold, 
 
352 NEW YORK. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 where the Englishmen triumphed in so far as to find the inhabitants 
 almost unanimously in their favor, so that Colve's men retired with- 
 out accomplishing anything. The Connecticut messengers returned 
 to Hartford and reported, and some volunteers were sent over to help 
 the Long Islanders. But no conflict followed, and the whole matter 
 went over quietly until it was swallowed up in the more important 
 events which were soon to follow. 
 
 So also passed a momentary prospect of direct conflict with Mas- 
 sachusetts, excited by Colve's prompt confiscation of four Massachu- 
 setts coasters, in retaliation for the carrying away of the wreck of 
 Van Ruyven's vessel from Nantucket, as the prize of an English 
 privateer. Massachusetts fitted out a war vessel, and made some 
 preparations for reprisals. But she did nothing moi'e ; nor did Plym- 
 outh, in spite of the urging of Connecticut. Rhode Island not be- 
 longing to the New England confederacy looked after her own de- 
 fence. The year 1673 closed with the rivals in America occupying 
 this position of passive hostility ; but it was threatening enough to 
 the Dutch at New Orange to make them long the more anxiously for 
 aid from home. 
 
 Once more, as in the past, the course of events in Europe was to 
 Rumors of decide the fate of New Netherland without the knowledge of 
 of e xtw ion i ts people or its neighbors. During the first few days of 
 Netheriana. 7yj ay 167 ^ Mvh\\e Colve and his officers were hard at work 
 at the labor which had chiefly occupied their minds throughout the 
 spring the strengthening of the town against a possible " New Eng- 
 land army," two men came to Manhattan from Connecticut, de- 
 spite an edict forbidding the coming of New Englanders without pass- 
 ports, and brought the first rumor of a treaty restoring the Dutch 
 province to the English crown. So enraged were the citizens of New 
 Orange at the mere report, that they arrested and punished these 
 bearers of evil tidings. They collected in excited groups in the 
 streets, cursing the rulers at home who would give up so readily the 
 greatest colony of the Fatherland. One of the messengers, returning 
 to Connecticut, declared there that the New Netherlander vowed in 
 their wrath that no demand or authority " of the States or Prince " 
 should make them surrender again ; but that they would keep their 
 territory " by fighting, so long as they could stand with one leg and 
 fight with one hand." 
 
 This warlike ardor cooled with time, however, and the rumor proved 
 New Nether- to true - On tne sixth of March, the treaty of Westminster 
 gtvenX'to h ac * been proclaimed at London, and at the H;igue, whereby 
 England. New Netherland was surrendered to England. On the 
 eleventh of July, the Governor gave official notice at the Stadt Huys 
 
1674.] 
 
 NEW NETHERLAND CEDED TO ENGLAND. 
 
 353 
 
 that peace was made between England and Holland, and that on 
 duly authorized demand he must give up the province over which he 
 had ruled for less than one short year. 
 
 The events which brought about the Peace of Westminster are 
 familiar passages of English history. In the hot conflict be- E Tent gs n , 
 tween King Charles and his party on the one hand, and the ] 
 Commons and people of England on the other, over questions that 
 were believed to 
 involve the safety 
 of Protestantism in 
 the kingdom, 
 Charles had been 
 for the moment 
 worsted. At first 
 forced into recall- 
 ing his " Declara- 
 tion of Indul- 
 gence," whereby all 
 " penal laws on 
 matters ecclesiasti- 
 cal against what- 
 ever sort of Non- 
 conformists or re- 
 cusants " were suspended, 
 
 he had 
 
 Old House. Southold, Long Island. 
 
 at once closely pressed by the passage 
 in Parliament of the " Test Act," which 
 compelled all holding civil and military 
 office under government to take an oath 
 which was impossible to Roman Catho- 
 lics. This compelled the resignation of 
 the Duke of York as Lord High Admiral of the fleet, of Sir Thomas 
 Clifford as a cabinet minister, and of many others. Some of the cab- 
 inet would have carried resistance to this act to any length ; but the 
 King, once driven to yield, refused his support. He only turned sav- 
 agely upon his chancellor and most able minister, Lord Shaftesbury, 
 who had aided the Parliament, demanded from him the seals, and so 
 drove his strongest adviser into a determined opposition. The effect 
 of this was quickly seen in the increased bitterness and strength of 
 the Protestant measui'es now pressed by Parliament. The war against 
 the Protestant Prince of Orange and his nation, which even in a mil- 
 itary point of view had been unsuccessful, grew more unpopular every 
 day. Defeated at home by the masterly use made by Shaftesbury of 
 the opposing elements, discouraged by events abroad, and unable to 
 
 VOL. ii. 23 
 
354 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV- 
 
 New York 
 
 rule 
 
 sufficiently repair his exhausted resources even by his old shameless 
 means of a resort to France, Charles was driven into a third surren- 
 der. He adopted a policy of concession and conciliation at home ; and 
 he consented to make peace with Holland. 
 
 These were the events which had unexpectedly reacted on the fate 
 ^ the Dutch province in America. New York was to re- 
 mam in English hands from this time forth ; and though 
 virtually winners of a peace on their own continent, the 
 Dutch were to give up for it their only stronghold on this. A new 
 patent to the Duke of York was issued in June, 1674. He ap- 
 pointed as his governor Major Edmund Andros, an officer of dis- 
 tinction, whom the King had already in March appointed to receive 
 the surrender of New Orange under the treaty ; and on the first of 
 November the British frigates Diamond and Castle made their 
 appearance at the anchorage off Staten Island. 
 
 On the ninth of the month, Colve, who had asked a week's delay to 
 make all final arrangements, absolved the city officials, in solemn con- 
 clave at the Stadt Huys, from their oaths of allegiance to Holland ; 
 and on Saturday, the tenth, " the New Netherland and dependances" 
 were formally given over to "Governor Major Edmund Andros on 
 behalf of His Britannic Majesty." The English names were restored, 
 the English laws reestablished, as they had been under Nicolls and 
 Lovelace. A great number of the provincial and local officers were 
 reinstated ; the Mayor's Court was again convened at New York ; the 
 routine of public business and private life went on as before. The 
 few months of Dutch occupation had hardly left a trace on the gov- 
 ernment which Nicolls had been the first, since the settlement of 
 Manhattan Island, to bring into a really smooth, continuous course of 
 prosperity. 
 
 gjBplBjffl 
 
 une 
 
 PETRUS STUYVESANT 
 Captain Gencrd^GovernorinChiefofAmstertCa 
 
 InNewNefherland now caJIed.New^ York 
 DutchWesft IndialsIandsDieJ.AD.l6r 
 
 Tomb ( Stuyvesant 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 CHARLESTON FOCNDBD. WAR WITH THE INDIANS. GOVERNOR MORETON. JO- 
 SEPH BLAKE. LORD CARDROSS'S SETTLEMENT AT PORT ROYAL. PIRACY AND 
 SPANISH HOSTILITY. CARDROSS'S COLONY DESTROYED. SOTHEL DEPOSED AND 
 
 BANISHED FROM ALBEMARLE. HE LEADS A REVOLUTION IN THE SOUTH. HlS 
 
 CAREER. THE COLONIES UNDER ONE GOVERNOR. INTRODUCTION OF RICE. 
 JOHN ARCHDALE GOVERNOR. PROSPERITY OF THE COLONIES UNDER HIS RULE. 
 
 WHILE northern Carolina had been passing through a time of 
 such disturbance and adversity, the people at the south had 
 
 i J ' * J A- J The South. 
 
 enjoyed a period of quiet and comparative prosperity under em coion- 
 the skilful rule of Joseph West. Not that the settlements 
 at Cape Fear and Ashley River were free from the troubles which 
 disturbed every American colony differences of religion, and feuds 
 between the Puritans of New England and the Royalists who had 
 come out under the Proprietors' patronage ; but these were held in 
 check by the Governor, and were little interruption to the general 
 course of affairs. There was a steady flow of emigrants from Eng- 
 land ; and Huguenots from France sought a refuge from persecution 
 at home in a region whose pleasant climate had for them a peculiar 
 attraction. In April, 1679, the King gave a token of favor to the 
 Proprietaries and the new colony in sending out at his own expense 
 two vessels with a band of Frenchmen skilled in vine growing and 
 silk-producing, who brought with them vine-slips and silkworms' eggs 
 for the establishment of those industries. 
 
 During the years that had passed since their first settlement, the 
 Ashley River people had not failed to see their mistake in settling so 
 far up the stream. Some, indeed, seem not to have made this error at 
 all ; for the old records speak of people both from the Ashley settle- 
 ment and from Cape Fear, " resorting to Oyster Point " from the 
 earliest times of the colony ; and, doubtless, dwellings had been built 
 there at the same time that the town had been founded on the more 
 inland bluff. This " Oyster Point " was at the junction of the Ashley 
 and Cooper Rivers ; and the tendency to resort thither had grown so 
 strong by the beginning of 1680 that the authorities yielded to it. 
 

 356 
 
 NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 [CHAP. XV. 
 
 as they should have done long before. The old town was abandoned 
 Charleston altogether in the spring of that year, and the foundations of 
 founded. a new Charles Town the present city of Charleston were 
 laid on what had from the beginning been pointed out by nature as 
 the proper site for the colonial port. 
 
 The new town was judiciously planned. A visitor, in the first 
 year of its existence, described it as " regularly laid out into large 
 and capacious streets, which to Buildings is a great Ornament and 
 Beauty. In it they have reserved convenient places for Building of a 
 Church, Town House, and other Publick Structures, an Artillery 
 Ground for the Exercise of their Militia, and Wharves for the Con- 
 venience of their Trade and Shipping. At our being thei-e was judged 
 
 in the Country a 
 1000 or 1200 souls ; 
 but the great Num- 
 
 . . . Abandonment of Old Charles Town. 
 
 bers ot families 
 from England, Ireland, Berbadoes, Jamaica, and the Caribees, which 
 daily Transport themselves thither, have more than doubled that 
 Number" [that is, between the visit, 1680, and the publication, 
 1682] . l The extreme unhealthfulness of the place soon passed away, 
 a " fortunate revolution " which " men of discernment .... attrib- 
 uted to the dispersion or purification of the noxious vapour by the 
 smoke issuing from the numerous culinary fires." 2 
 
 Contemporary testimony does not give the most favorable account 
 of the discipline and manners which prevailed in the promising new 
 
 1 A Compleat Discovery of the Stale of Carolina, by T. A., Gent., London, 1682. 
 
 2 Chalmers. 
 
 
1680.] 
 
 WAR WITH THE INDIANS. 
 
 35T 
 
 1 It was the 
 story of 
 
 town ; and the looseness and turbulence which ruled there, though 
 not of a kind to make political disturbance, brought upon 
 
 ., , ., , . \ . ,. ,, i-i Character of 
 
 the colony an evil which for a time threatened seriously the chariex- 
 
 to check its progress. " The most desperate Fortunes first 
 
 ventured over to break the Ice," explains one chronicler, in account- 
 
 ing for the character of his fellow-settlers, " which being generally 
 
 the Ill-livers of the pretended Church-men, altho' the Proprietors 
 
 commissionated one Colonel West their Governour, a moderate, just, 
 
 pious, and valiant person ; yet having a Council of the loose princi- 
 
 pled Men, they grew very unruly, that they had like to have Ruin'd 
 
 the Colony by 
 
 Abusing the Indi- 
 
 ans, whom in pru- 
 
 dence they ought 
 
 to have obliged in 
 
 the highest de- 
 
 gree. 
 
 usual 
 
 abuse in trade, the 
 
 taking of the In- 
 
 dian women, and 
 
 the oppressive 
 
 punishment of tri- 
 
 fling offences often 
 
 brought about by 
 
 rum or ignorance ; 
 
 and the Westoes, 
 
 the tribe of the 
 
 neighborhood, 
 
 were a warlike 
 
 people, and not 
 
 slow to retaliate. 
 
 After a series of 
 
 petty raids, actual war broke out with them in 1680, the first year 
 
 of the new seaport. 
 
 Fortunately for the colony, it was comparatively strong, well-armed, 
 and, above all, well led by West ; and the war was a vig- 
 orous and short one, the savages gladly making peace within 
 a year after its beginning. But the conflict had worse results than 
 the actual fighting. To obtain the money for carrying it on, West 
 and his Council had adopted the plan of offering a price for every In- 
 
 1 A New Description of That Fertile and Pleasant Province of Carolina, etc. By John 
 Archdale, late Governor. London, 1707. la Carroll's Historical Coll., vol. ii. 
 
 An Indian sent into Slaver 
 
 the lndians - 
 
358 NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 dian captive, and then selling all who were brought in to West Indian 
 slave -traders, who again disposed of them profitably in the Islands. 1 
 The war had thus changed, before its close, from one of defence to 
 one of pure greed. The colonists gained money with every captive 
 they sold to the authorities ; the authorities, with eveiy one they sold 
 to the traders ; and this flourishing traffic went on uninterrupted until 
 it was brought to the notice of the Proprietors, who for once inter- 
 fered promptly and successfully. 
 
 Expressing their strong disapprobation of " this barbarous prac- 
 tice," 2 and sharply pointing out the necessity of concili- 
 ating the Indians by just treatment, they gave strict orders 
 pressed. against the kidnapping of any savages, now that peace had 
 been concluded, and appointed a commission of four members to try 
 all causes of dispute, and to do full justice to any on either side who 
 might wrong the other. 3 But these measures were not enough. The 
 Council openly supported the continuance of a traffic which had 
 proved so profitable ; and even West, contrary to his usual modera- 
 tion and wisdom, opposed his superiors in this. The enemies he had 
 made among the turbulent but influential church-party in the colony, 
 took advantage of the attitude he thus assumed to turn the Proprie- 
 tors against him ; and in 1683 he was removed by their order, after 
 nine years of successful administration, and Joseph Moreton was ap- 
 pointed Governor of Southern Carolina in his place. 
 
 Moreton not only had the old dissensions to quiet, in attempting 
 which he had little success, but he was almost immedi- 
 ately confronted by new troubles. West had held a " par- 
 uities. liament " at Chai-lestown in 1682, which had made a few 
 disciplinary laws, and organized a militia ; and soon after his appoint- 
 ment Moreton called a similar one, to organize further the affairs of 
 the province. The Proprietors had now made Charleston the capital 
 of Southern Carolina, or at least had ordered elections and parlia- 
 ments to be held there ; and all the southern part of the province had, 
 in 1682, been divided into three great counties, Craven, including 
 much of that formerly called Clarendon ; Berkeley, the region imme- 
 diately surrounding Charleston ; and Colleton, the country to the 
 south, extending to the region about Port Royal. It had been ordered 
 that the lower house of the parliament for there was still an attempt 
 to make that body somewhat resemble that prescribed in the " Grand 
 Model " should consist of twenty members ; and it was with regard 
 to the election of these that the colonists met the first of a long series 
 of legislative difficulties. 
 
 It is evident that a large number of scattered settlers had by this 
 1 Chalmers. Oldmixon. 2 Chalmers. 8 Oldmixon. 
 
1682.] REPRESENTATION AND LEGISLATION. 359 
 
 time established themselves along the coast to the southward, or in- 
 land at some distance south and southwest of the capital. For al- 
 though Craven County was considered to have so few inhabi- Cho0 g in g 
 tants that it was not worth while for' it to elect deputies at all, tt^Pwiia 1 - 
 yet Colleton County was allowed to choose ten of the twenty ment 
 members of the new Parliament, the rest representing Berkeley. It 
 was this allotment which caused the trouble. The Berkeley people 
 would not permit their scattered neighbors to have a delegation equal 
 to that of the crowded town, and quietly took the matter into their 
 own hands by choosing themselves all the twenty members. There 
 may have been other reasons for this action than the alleged one of 
 inequality of population. The people of the inland country may not 
 have been willing to support the people of the port in the traffic in 
 Indian slaves, the retaliation of the savages having naturally more 
 terrors for them than for the inhabitants of a town. Whatever was 
 the cause, the usurpation of power by the capital was suc- 
 cessful ; the twenty Berkeley delegates met, and made laws the Berkeley 
 which were approved by Moreton and his Council. Nor 
 would they dispei-se at the command of the Proprietors, who indig- 
 nantly ordered them to do so, and not to meet again until they should 
 have obeyed instructions. Not this Parliament only, but subsequent 
 ones, seem to have utterly disregarded the proprietary orders ; until 
 at last, apparently in despair, the Proprietors gave the Berkeley peo- 
 ple their own way, and the one-sided system of representation con- 
 tinued till the inhabitants of other counties grew numerous enough to 
 take the matter into their own hands, and put a stop to it. 
 
 The laws passed by the Parliament were of little moment, save one 
 following the example of Albemarle by suspending " all 
 prosecutions for foreign debts." So indignant were the Pro- 
 
 prietaries at the passage and signature of such an Act, so 
 "contrary to the King's honor," being "in effect to stop the course of 
 justice," that they ordered all officers to be "displaced, who had 
 promoted it." 1 It was probably for this, among other things, that 
 Moreton, like West before him, was made a scapegoat. He seems to 
 have tried honestly to carry out the Proprietors' wishes, to have 
 checked the Indian slave traffic, and to have made himself unpopular 
 on this account ; while there is no evidence that he was in any sense a 
 " promoter " of the acts of a Parliament which was too strong for 
 him. Whether he resigned because of popular enmity, or Wefttagain 
 was deposed by his superiors, he ceased to govern within Governor 
 a year after his appointment, and the Council made West governor 
 again until a new officer should be sent out from England. 
 
 1 Chalmers 
 
360 NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 Meanwhile the colony received additions, promising better for the 
 future than did the original settlers. In 1683 Joseph Blake, the 
 i of brother of the famous English admiral, and a dissenter of 
 
 great influence, led a new company to Southern Carolina. 
 
 They were of his own way of thinking men who be- 
 lieved " that the miseries they endured " in their native Somersetshire 
 " were nothing to what he [Blake] foresaw would attend the Reign 
 of a Popish successor." 1 " Many honest substantial Persons "were 
 among these emigrants, who must have found themselves strangely 
 at variance with the turbulent people of Charleston, in and near 
 which they seem to have made their homes. A company of Irish- 
 men, who came out about the same time under the leadership of one 
 Ferguson, and who " instantly mingled with the mass of the inhabi- 
 tants," were more welcome. 
 
 During West's brief second administration, the county of Colleton 
 Lord card- a ' so received an important accession of good colonists a 
 e"nt 8 atPort" company of Scotch Presbyterians who, under the leadership 
 * ya *- of Lord Cardross, afterward the Earl of Buchan, made a set- 
 tlement at Port Royal, in 1684. They understood that their agents 
 had secured beforehand from the Proprietors in London the same 
 rights and privileges that had been granted to the government at 
 Charleston that they were to be an independent colony. But 
 they found on such a question the people of the country more 
 powerful than the Proprietors, and that assent to so divided a juris- 
 diction would never be given. Cardross left the colony in disgust, 
 but his companions were compelled to accept a condition which they 
 had not the means to escape from nor the strength to resist. 
 
 During these two years governors Kyle, Moreton, West, Quarry 
 
 followed each other in rapid succession, none of them re- 
 change of maining long enough in office to influence essentially the 
 
 history of that period either for good or evil, or influencing 
 it only so far as they fell in with the temper of the times though with- 
 out controlling it. The western Atlantic, and especially the region 
 about the West Indies, had been for years infested with adventurers 
 who had in most cases begun as privateers, but who continued their 
 
 depredations after the wars had ceased. They preyed 
 
 chiefly upon Spanish commerce, and while this assured 
 them of immunity from the English government, they were certain of 
 the sympathy if not the cooperation of the southern English colonists, 
 to whom fear of Spanish incursion was familiar. 
 
 The Spaniards had not abandoned their ancient claim to all the 
 territory which the English had included in the region of Southern 
 
 1 Oldmixon. 
 
u 
 
 c 
 
 OS 
 
 O 
 
 H 
 
 W 
 
 u 
 
 S5 
 < 
 
 Oi 
 
 C 
 

1684.] 
 
 THE BUCCANEERS. 
 
 361 
 
 Carolina. In 1670 an expedition started from St. Augustine to root 
 out the settlement just made on Ashley River ; but, having gone only 
 so far north as Stono Inlet, returned on learning that the 
 
 . ' 
 
 English were prepared to receive them. Ihreats of a more 
 serious invasion were often made. In Charleston there 
 was a hearty welcome for Buccaneers who preyed upon 
 Spanish commerce. The port was a convenient recruiting station ; 
 the pirates were lavish of their ill-gotten gains ; the love of adventure 
 
 SpanUh hos- 
 
 tint) creates 
 
 sympathy 
 
 
 Pirates in Charleston. 
 
 appealed to the lawless ; the hope of the capture of Spanish ships laden 
 with treasure excited the cupidity of the more sober-minded. Piracy 
 of this sort did not want for encouragement directly from the reck- 
 less sailors about the wharves, indirectly even from governors and 
 councils. 
 
 Not only the Proprietaries but the King took immediate notice of 
 
362 NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 this spirit in Carolina, as soon as it was openly manifested under the 
 administrations of West and Quarry. As early as April, 1684, " a 
 law against pirates " or their encouragement had been sent out with 
 the most stringent directions of the Propi-ietors that it must be at 
 once obeyed. But this, like repeated instructions which followed 
 later, and like the removal of Quarry, and other measures of suppres- 
 sion, proved altogether unavailing. The difficulty was not to be 
 ended during Charles II.'s reign ; and it was not until James II., in 
 1687, sent a fleet to put down the pirates with a stronger hand than 
 that of written law, that the Carolinians were frightened into 
 obedience. 
 
 One sharp and unexpected act of retaliation on the part of the 
 The Port Spaniards struck, perhaps, the least blameworthy of all the 
 Royai coio- Carolina settlements. In 1686, a year after Moreton's re- 
 
 ny destroyed . . , 
 
 by the span- appointment, three Spanish galleys suddenly appeared be- 
 fore Lord Cardross's little colony of Scotchmen at Port 
 Royal. The crews landed, and meeting but little resistance from the 
 settlers, " killed and whipped a great many, after taken, in a most 
 cruel and barbarous manner ; " and having destroyed the place, took 
 ship again and sailed up the coast. Landing again at an outlying 
 settlement called Bear Bluff, on Edisto River, a little south of Charles- 
 ton, they sacked the place, and took prisoner Governor Moreton's 
 brother, the leading colonist there. The}' would have gone farther, 
 perhaps to venture on an attack in the immediate neighborhood of 
 the town, but were prevented by a hurricane, in which one of their 
 galleys was driven ashore so far that she could not be got off. So 
 that, " the Country being by that Time sufficiently Alarmed, they 
 thought proper to make a Retreat ; but first set Fire to that Galley 
 on board which Mr. Morton was actually then in Chains, and most 
 inhumanly burnt in her." 1 
 
 Naturally enough the Carolinians proposed an immediate return 
 for this injury, and preparations were made at once for an 
 toJ forbid 6 " expedition against St. Augustine, which they do not seem to 
 have doubted their ability to take. But the Proprietaries 
 promptly forbade it. " Every rational man,' ? they wrote, " must 
 have foreseen that the Spaniards, thus provoked, would assuredly 
 retaliate; .... the clause in the patent that had been relied on 
 to justify the measure" (the section permitting the colonists "to 
 make war and pursue the enemies aforesaid," etc.), " meant only 
 a pursuit in heat of victory, not a deliberate making war on the 
 King of Spain's subjects within his own territories: nor do we 
 claim any such power : No man, however, can think that the depen- 
 
 1 Introduction to Oglethorpe's Report on the Expedition against St. Augustine. 
 
1686.] 
 
 SPANISH HOSTILITIES. 
 
 363 
 
 dencies of England can have power to make war upon the King's 
 allies, without his knowledge or consent." 1 The Charleston peo- 
 ple yielded, and abandoned the enterprise, though whether owing 
 to these persuasions or to the difficulties of the proposed expedition, 
 must remain a matter of doubt. At all events, the authorities re- 
 ceived a rather grim congratulation from their superiors, who wrote, 
 " We are glad you have laid aside your project, as, had it proceeded, 
 Moreton, Godfrey, and others might have answered it, perhaps, with 
 their lives. 2 Furthermore, they received the somewhat aggravating 
 
 Burning of the Spanish Galley. 
 
 instruction to write a " civil letter " to the St. Augustine commander, 
 inquiring by what authority he had acted. Whether the letter was 
 " civil " or not, it is not surprising that all the older chroniclers of 
 Carolina date from this time a rooted animosity between the colony 
 and its southern neighbors. 
 
 In spite of the reproof of the Proprietors Moreton certainly seems 
 to have had as good intentions and to have tried as hard to Mopeton de _ 
 rule the southern province well, as any governor they had f e ^n' Go veil 
 sent out. An intelligent and honest man, in sympathy with nor - 
 the better element among the settlers, married to the sister of the 
 generally respected colonist Blake, and throwing his whole influence 
 on the side of law and order, he appeared as good an officer as could 
 1 Chalmers. 2 Chalmers and State Papers. 
 
364 NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 have been chosen for turbulent Chai'leston. But either because he 
 could not control the worse part of its people, or because his enemies 
 persuaded the Proprietors that he was acting against their designs, he 
 was deposed, after a governorship of but little more than a year, and 
 his successor, James Colleton, was instructed to punish him and his 
 council for disobedience. 
 
 As well might one man, without any physical force to aid him, have 
 been told to punish the whole population of the province. For 
 though Moreton had been unpopular so long as he tried to enforce the 
 proprietary decrees, the anti-proprietary party, grown strong beyond 
 control, promptly espoused his cause, now that he was in opposition. 
 If Moreton had tried to keep them under during his rule, they 
 laughed at a successor for whom they appear to have had much less 
 respect. The Proprietors, weak enough in any case, were now, that 
 James II. had become King, more feeble than ever, fearing that their 
 charter should go the way of the New England patents. They 
 could give their Governor but little help. 
 
 Surrounded by factions, "as rampant" says Oldmixon, "as if the 
 people had been made wanton by many ages of prosperity," Colleton 
 called a Parliament in the autumn of 1686. But he no sooner at- 
 tempted to organize it than the majority of its members refused obe- 
 dience to the Constitutions, basing their objection on the pretext that 
 Determined * ne completed version was different from the original draft 
 ^Proprie^ an d tne temporary laws sent over long before. They then 
 tors proceeded to draw up a code for themselves, though they 
 
 were formally excluded from the house by the Governor ; and even 
 sent their version under the title of " standing laws of Carolina " l to 
 the Proprietaries for approval. It was indignantly rejected, but this 
 did not check the opposition party, which grew daily stronger. A 
 new Parliament was called in 1687. Its members were instructed to 
 41 oppose whatsoever the Governor requested; insomuch that they 
 would not settle the Militia Act, tho' their own security (in a Natural 
 way) depended on it." 2 Grievances and complaints poured in from 
 every quarter. The measures of the Governor were in the highest 
 degree injudicious, though honestly intended to secure their just po- 
 litical and financial dues to the Proprietors ; and finally, seeing him- 
 self surrounded by threatening factions on every side, Colleton took 
 the rash step of declaring martial law in a colony where the only 
 soldiery were the people. 
 
 All that the discontented party among the colonists had hitherto 
 wanted, in order to completely overthrow the government they op- 
 posed, was a leader ; and as the southern settlements had formerly 
 
 1 Oldmixon in Carroll, vol. ii., p. 412. 2 Archdale. 
 
1690.] SETH SOTHELL. 365 
 
 given a chief, in the person of Culpepper, to the insurgents in the 
 north, so Albemarle, at this critical moment, returned the favor by 
 contributing an organizing head to the revolutionary movement at 
 Charleston. 
 
 Seth Sothell had no sooner assumed the government of Northern 
 Carolina, in 1683, than he proved equally false to Proprie- 
 
 _ ... i i i i i e i Discontents 
 
 tors and settlers. Deliberately disobeying the orders ot the int 
 
 i j 11- -11 j em 
 
 former, who appear to have desired to deal impartially and 
 leniently with the people lately in rebellion, and neglecting the col- 
 lection both of the customs and the proprietary revenue, he used his 
 official power merely as a means of enriching himself. For five years 
 he kept up an administration under which every class of settlers in 
 Albemarle suffered from his injustice and rapacity, until, at the end 
 of that time, the unconcealed indignation of the people took effect in 
 stronger measures than the appeals they had made to England. By 
 an insurrection, even more decisive and unanimous than that under 
 Culpepper, they deposed and arrested Sothell in 1688, and 
 
 11* T i i c i Arrest and 
 
 prepared to send him to London with agents or their own, trial of 
 to defend himself before the Proprietors for his abuse of 
 power. But the delinquent Governor feared his superiors more than 
 the colonists, and begged for mercy, declaring his willingness to un- 
 dergo trial by the Albemarle Assembly on any charge the people 
 would make against him. His trial was a long one ; thirteen specifi- 
 cations appeared in the indictment against him, and on all of these he 
 was found guilty. Sentenced to perpetual disqualification from office, 
 and to banishment from the province for one year, it was supposed 
 that he had been made powerless for further evil, when suddenly he 
 was heard of in South Carolina, just as affairs there were ripe for an 
 outbreak, claiming authority by his rights as a palatine, and every- 
 where gaining the adherence of the dissatisfied, who were ready to 
 accept a leader with even the flimsiest pretence to official position. 
 
 Sothell, in 1690, seized upon the government, and, calling together 
 a Parliament made up entirely from his own followers, de- 
 manded the trial of Colleton for various imaginary and outbreak in 
 
 t . rn-, -, i . the South. 
 
 real crimes. Ihe same sentence was passed upon him 
 which had driven Sothell from Albemarle, and many of his Council 
 and fellow-officials shared his condemnation and punishment. Wide- 
 spread confiscation of their property filled the new Governor's cof- 
 fers, and these acts of rapacity began gradually to open the eyes of 
 the Charleston people to the character of the ruler they had put 
 over them. As was natural, the real nature of the man soon put an 
 end to his temporary popularity. A year after his usurpation he was 
 hated as heartily in Southern Carolina as he had been in Albemarle. 
 
366 
 
 XORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 [CHAP. XV. 
 
 But he went on steadily piling up additions to his great fortune by 
 the most shameless extortion and injustice. The clamor about him 
 probably mattered little to the hardened adventurer, so long as he 
 was able to keep in his pay men enough to defend his person. 
 
 The unfortunate Proprietaries, perplexed and disheartened with 
 these rapid changes and conflicting reports from the col- 
 
 Sotheland .,..'. . , . .. 
 
 the Proprie- ony, had in vain written with mild expostulation to Sothell 
 
 after the Albemarle affair. Though they had heard that the 
 
 people had risen against his alleged injustice and oppression, yet they 
 
 Sothell and his Followers seizing the South Carolina Government. 
 
 were unwilling to accept the accusations as true. Still, they thought 
 it necessary to suspend him from office, and appointed Colonel 
 Philip Ludwell in his place till an impartial examination should be 
 made. It was only with the failure of their summons to him to ap- 
 pear in England that their eyes were opened to his treachery toward 
 themselves ; but even after this, and after they heard of his first 
 doings at Charleston, they wrote with extraordinary mildness not 
 to say weakness. They had received his letters, they said, under date 
 of October 10, 1690 ; for it seems he had quietly written to them, even 
 perhaps consulting them about taking charge, under his palatinate 
 rights, of the southern colony. They were pleased, they feebly added, 
 
1691.] LUDWELL GOVERNOR OF BOTH COLONIES. 367 
 
 to find that he would submit to their instructions ; but no single Pro- 
 prietor, they reminded him, had any right to the government, nor to 
 take jurisdiction upon himself without the others' consent ; and to do 
 so would be high misdemeanor and treason. They hoped that it 
 was not true that Mr. Joseph Blake had been put out of his office 
 of deputy. Touching the protestation of the deputies, with a list of 
 the misdemeanors in thirteen particulars alleged against him, his im- 
 prisonment by the people of Albemarle, his after-submission and com- 
 pulsory abjuration of the government, and the proceedings of the 
 people, all these were " highly prejudicial, both to the royal pre- 
 rogative and to the dignity of the Proprietors ; " they " did not ap- 
 prove " of his conduct, but had no intention of acting otherwise than 
 uprightly toward him ; still, they " would not be imposed upon." l 
 
 Only when they heard of the actual usurpation, does a little energy 
 seem to have infused itself into their councils. A series of letters, 
 increasing from comparative mildness to the sternest severity, then 
 began to come in upon Sothell. From the first his claim to be allowed 
 to retain the governorship on the ground of his vested rights in the 
 province, and his being the only resident representative of the pro- 
 prietary class, was disallowed. His "pretended act, purporting to 
 disable James Colleton " was sharply reproved, and he was ordered 
 to nullify it : the acts of his Parliament were declared void ; and 
 finally, on November 8, 1691, a peremptory order suspended him from 
 all power in Carolina, 2 and added the threat that a royal mandamus 
 should compel him to come to England and stand trial, if he did not 
 at once submit. This last order overcame his audacity. Enjofgoth- 
 Amid the rejoicing of all the people he slunk back to the el ' 8rule - 
 Albemarle region again, where he was suffered to end his days as a 
 private citizen. In 1694 he died. 
 
 And now the Proprietors did what prudence should have dictated 
 long before. They appointed one governor for all the prov- 
 ince, north and south ; fixing his residence at Charleston, eii go i- 
 
 _... - . ... ertior of 
 
 and allowing mm to appoint, subject to confirmation, a dep- both coio- 
 uty or deputies for other quarters. Philip Ludwell, whom 
 they had at first intended to substitute for Sothel in the government 
 of Albemai'le alone, now became the first General Governor. His 
 lack of all previous connection with Carolina, and the confidence 
 placed in him by the people of Virginia, gave the Proprietaries great 
 hope that he would be able to restore tranquillity. 
 
 But Carolina needed a Governor of more than ordinary ability and 
 energy ; and this Ludwell did not prove to be, though, like several 
 of his predecessors, he apparently assumed his duties with the best 
 
 1 State Papers in Coll. Hist. Soc. S. C., vol. i. 2 State Papers. 
 
368 
 
 NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 [CHAP. XV. 
 
 intentions. His attempt to carry out his superiors' instructions, by 
 allowing the franchise and equal privileges to the French Protes- 
 tants, who now formed a large element in the population of the prov- 
 ince, was the signal for a new outbreak of discontent. When he 
 further ventured to carry out the law by the arrest of a crew of 
 pirates, he found himself confronted by opposition as determined as 
 that which had made the government impossible to Moreton or to 
 
 Acquittal of the Buccaneers at Charleston. 
 
 Colleton. The pirates were 
 acquitted ; and from this time 
 forward the Proprietors found 
 Ludwell unable to carry out a 
 single measure that opposed in 
 any way the popular will. 
 Disgusted at this renewed failure, they removed him in 1692, and ap- 
 pointed in his place one of the Carolina planters themselves, Thomas 
 Smith "a wise, sober, well-living man." 1 
 
 Though his wisdom, soberness, and other good traits 
 availed no more than the efforts of his predecessors toward 
 preserving order, yet Smith's brief administration of two 
 years was noteworthy for three substantial benefits. In 1693, the 
 year after his appointment, the Proprietaries, worn out at 
 toe "con- last with their useless attempts to enforce even a few of its 
 complicated provisions, went through the form of abolishing 
 " Grand Model." 
 
 Governor- 
 ship of 
 Thomas 
 Smith. 
 
 John Locke's 
 
 As the " fundamental constitutions " 
 
 1 Archdale aud Oldmixon. 
 
1694.] INTRODUCTION OF RICE. 369 
 
 had never existed in Carolina, save on paper, their repeal was hardly 
 a necessary formality. Yet for men who for more than twenty years 
 had talked in glowing terms of these laws that should " endure for- 
 ever," it was a significant concession when they confessed that the 
 people of the settlements knew their own needs best. " As the peo- 
 ple," they wrote, " have declared they would rather be governed by 
 the powers granted by the charter without regard to the fundamental 
 constitutions, it will be for their quiet, and the protection of the well- 
 disposed, to grant their request." * From this time forth the popular 
 legislative body in the province was called an Assembly instead of A 
 Parliament ; 2 even the little consideration previously shown it, ceased 
 to attach to the title of landgrave ; the people ceased to have an ex- 
 cuse for disputing with the Governor, and the Governor no longer took 
 advantage of the pretext of higher rank to justify arbitrary meas- 
 ures. But except these trifling changes nothing marked the down- 
 fall of Shaftesbury's and 
 Locke's ideal code, that was 
 to have been the admiration of 
 all future ages. 
 
 A Carolina Rice-field 
 
 The second fortunate event of Smith's administration seemed a 
 trifle at the time, yet its consequences were of lasting benefit Introduc . 
 to the province. In 1694, rice was introduced into Carolina, [j^jj* 
 An English vessel touched at Charleston in that year, on lita ~ 
 the way home from Madagascar, and its captain gave to Governor 
 Smith a quantity of seed-rice, which the latter and his friends planted 
 as an experiment. Thriving beyond measure in the marshes along 
 the rivers, it was the origin of one of Carolina's greatest products. A 
 few years later a writer could say of the province that it exported in 
 very valuable quantities " rice the best of the known world." 
 
 Smith's greatest benefit to the country, however, came with the end 
 of his short rule ; for when he grew " uneasy in the government, by 
 reason that he could not satisfy the people in their demands," he 
 
 1 Quoted from State Papers by Chalmers. 2 Grahame. 
 
 VOL. ii. 24 
 
370 NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 " writ over " to the Proprietors a much wiser and more candid exposi- 
 tion of the state of affairs than had before reached them ; and at the 
 same time that he confessed his own inability to improve matters, he 
 suggested a way in which this could be done. It was useless, lie 
 showed them, to try any longer to govern by deputy ; " it was impos- 
 sible to settle the Country, except a Proprietor himself was sent over 
 with full power to Heal their Grievances." J The Proprietaries saw 
 at last the wisdom of this proposal ; and with their adoption of it be- 
 gan the first period of quiet that Carolina had ever known. 
 
 The man first chosen from their number to undertake this mission 
 
 was Lord Ashley, Shaftesbury's grandson. But when he 
 ment of begged his colleagues to excuse him because his father's af- 
 
 fairs compelled his presence in England, the choice fell upon 
 
 John Archdale, a Quaker, who had bought out the interest 
 of one of the older Proprietors, and who was considered most 
 rightly, as the event proved to be a wise, moderate, liberal, and 
 far-seeing man. 
 
 Archdale arrived in Charleston in August, 1695 ; and no sooner 
 was his arrival known, and the almost unlimited power given by his 
 commission fairly understood, than " every faction apply 'd them- 
 selves " to him " in hopes of Relief." He " appeased them," he says 
 in his account, " with kind and gentle Words ; " and as soon as pos- 
 sible after his landing, he called an Assembly, to which he made a wise 
 and kindlv address. 
 
 tf 
 
 " I believe I may appeal to your Serious Rational Observations," he 
 said, " whether I have not already so allayed your Heats, as 
 the AS- that the distinguishing Titles thereof are so much withered 
 away ; and I hope this Meeting with you will wholly extin- 
 guish them, so that a solid Settlement of this hopeful Colony may 
 ensue, and by so doing your Posterity will bless God for so Happy a 
 Conjunction And now you have heard of the Proprietors In- 
 tention of sending me hither, I doubt not but the Peoples Intentions 
 of Choosing you were much of the same nature ; I advise you there- 
 fore, to proceed soberly and mildly in this weighty Concern ; and I 
 question not but we shall answer you in all things that are reasonable 
 and honourable for us to do. And now Friends, I have given you the 
 reason of my Coming, I shall give you the Reasons of my calling you 
 so soon, which was the consideration of my own Mortality, and that 
 
 such a considerable Trust might not expire useless to you I 
 
 hope the consideration hereof will quicken and direct you into a speedy 
 conclusion of what the People may reasonably expect from you ; and 
 I hope the God of Peace will prosper your Counsels herein." 
 
 1 Archdale. 
 
1696.] 
 
 JOHX ARCHDALE GOVERNOR. 
 
 371 
 
 The Assembly replied in a similar conciliatory vein, yet " after this 
 fair Blossomin Season to produce Peace and Tranquilitv to 
 
 1 J Good mflu- 
 
 the Country, some endeavour'd to sow Seed of Contention, en f 
 
 f ' Archdale. 
 
 thereby to nip the same ; insomuch that they sat six Weeks 
 under Civil Broils and Heats," till at length they " recollected their 
 Minds into a cooler Frame of Spirit," the Governor's " Patience being 
 a great means to overcome them ; so that in the conclusion all Mat- 
 ters ended amicably." " The Acts of grace you have so seasonably 
 condescended unto," wrote the popular representatives to their new 
 ruler at the close of the session, ' have removed all former Doubts, 
 Jealousies and Dis- 
 couragements of us 
 the People ; and 
 hath laid a firm and 
 sure Foundation on 
 which may be erect- 
 ed a most glorious 
 Superstructure to 
 
 the Honour of the >8SBI ^^MOK .^- ^*^v^MKHW~ 
 Lords Proprietors 
 and you our Gov- 
 ernor ; which we do, 
 and forever shall be 
 obliged most heart- 
 ily to own as the 
 Production of the 
 Wisdom, Discre- 
 tion, Patience and 
 Labour of the Hon- 
 ourable John Arch- 
 dale^ Esq." 
 
 For once it seems 
 as if this flourish of 
 compliments, to 
 
 which Mr. " Jonathan Amery, Speaker," subscribed on behalf of the 
 delegates, was really richly deserved. Forgiveness of arrears of quit- 
 rent; careful inquiry into cases of individual grievance; the selection of 
 a council from among the citizens most trusted by the people, these 
 were some of the conciliatory measures which had gained for Archdale 
 the esteem and attachment of "every faction ; " while his energy in 
 matters that required a strong hand was no less conspicuous and disin- 
 terested. Of the hostile Indians he made warm friends ; yet he did 
 not, though a Quaker, abate for a moment his attention to the defence 
 
 Archdale s Address. 
 
372 
 
 NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 [CHAP. XV. 
 
 of the colony ; and the militia was never better trained than during his 
 governorship. He exempted those of his own faith from military 
 Prosperity service, provided they could show that they objected to it 
 
 from conviction, and not from cowardice ; but, for himself, 
 
 j ie i oo k e( j carefully to every detail of military matters. 
 North Carolina accepted his rule as gladly as the southern settlements. 
 One of his daughters married a Pasquotank planter, and the many 
 Quakers at Albemarle seconded his efforts warmly ; so that not even 
 a hint of sedition or discontent came in his time from this quarter of 
 the colony. Even the Spaniards at St. Augustine gratefully acknowl- 
 edged his justice and kindness to some Christian Indians, their pro- 
 tege's, who had been captured, and were about to be sold as slaves by 
 a Carolina tribe. Every where in the province tranquillity and prosper- 
 ity were established, when Archdale, having accomplished all his ob- 
 jects to the mutual benefit of Proprietors and people, set sail for home 
 at the close of 1696. 
 
 He left as his successor, whom he had the right to appoint, Joseph 
 
 Blake, the son of the first emigrant of the name, and a man 
 Biake GOT- who resembled his father in ability and merit. During the 
 
 four remaining years of the century he ruled quietly and 
 well over the now prospering colony. No dissension worthy of notice 
 disturbed his Governorship ; and the chief event that appears on the 
 record of his time, is his successful and liberal support of the relig- 
 ious interests of Charleston. In 1698, John Cotton, a son of John 
 Cotton, of Boston, settled there l with the Governor's hearty support 
 and patronage ; while at the same time, with rare impartiality, for he 
 was a dissenter, he procured the passage of an Act giving 150 a 
 year, and a house, to the Episcopal clergyman of the town. 
 
 1 Savages' Genealogy. 
 
 Signature of John Archdale. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE POLITICAL POLICY OF THE PURITANS. 
 
 THE FIRST MASSACHUSETTS CHARTER. TEMPORIZING POLICY OF THE COLONIAL 
 AUTHORITIES. THE GOVERNMENT AT HOME BAFFLED. REVOLUTION IN ENG- 
 LAND. THE LONG PARLIAMENT AND THE NEW ENGLAND PURITANS. APPEAL 
 TO CROMWELL. His SCHEMES. THE REGICIDES. CHARLES IL AND THE CHAR- 
 TER. THE ROYAL COMMISSIONERS. NEW DANGERS TO MASSACHUSETTS. ED- 
 WARD RANDOLPH. THE CHARTER REVOKED. GOVERNOR ANDROS'S ARBITRARY 
 GOVERNMENT. CONCEALMENT OF THE CONNECTICUT CHARTER. DEPOSITION AND 
 ARREST OF ANDROS. COURSE OF KING WILLIAM. A NEW CHARTER. GOV- 
 ERNOR PHIPS. EXPEDITION AGAINST CANADA. OPPOSITION TO PHIPS. His 
 RECALL. 
 
 THE political anxieties of Massachusetts, through all the earlier 
 years of her colonial life, were not less constant, while they 
 were much more reasonable, than the theological dissen- fat in Maa- 
 sions which, as we have seen in former chapters, she so took 
 to heart. Such anxieties seemed, indeed, to the earnest Puritans, of 
 importance, mainly because, through the achievement of a certain 
 political purpose, there might come the realization of a religious end. 
 They aspired to political independence, so far as a colony could be 
 independent, perhaps even further, that the Commonwealth which 
 they planted and nurtured might become a commonwealth in which 
 there should be no citizenship, hardly even the right to live, except to 
 those who were of their own faith. But that fervid zeal, while it 
 failed, in the long run, to limit the rights of conscience and of private 
 judgment, established, year by year and step by step, that civil liberty 
 to which the world owes so much. 
 
 The original charter of Massachusetts, which had been transferred 
 from England to Boston, and which was procured with that 
 intent, 1 was an object of continual hostility and of continual 
 solicitude. A quo warranto was soon issued whereby the 
 colonists were called upon to show upon what authority they held that 
 patent. The jealousy of Gorges, and the fear that he might assume 
 the governor-generalship over Northern New England, had their root 
 in the dread of an interference with chartered rights as well as of the 
 
 1 See vol. i., pp. 524, 525, 526. 
 
 ter ' 
 
374 THE POLITICAL POLICY OF THE PURITANS. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 establishment of the episcopacy from which the colonists had fled. 
 They saw with apprehension how carefully they were watched in 
 England by the vigilant eyes from which they hoped they had escaped. 
 Charles changed his mind, that it would be good policy to rid his 
 kingdom of the Puritans ; and then emigration was interfered with. 
 Among some passengers who were ordered to disembark after having 
 taken ship for New England, were, it is said, and there is good rea- 
 son for believing the story to be true, the two men whose staying 
 at home, if he could have looked into the future, the King had the 
 most cause to dread, John Hampden and Oliver Cromwell. 
 
 Orders of the 
 Koyal Com- 
 missioners 
 evaded. 
 
 Cape Elizabeth. 
 
 In 1637, the lately appointed commissioners for New England sent 
 ou ^ a c Py ^ a commission to the magistrates of Massachu- 
 setts empowering them to exercise the functions of govern- 
 ment only until further orders. This was on the pretext 
 that they were governing without authority. To this order the 
 magistrates gave no heed ; contenting themselves with the plea that 
 nothing but a copy of the commission had been served upon them, 
 while the original in London had not as yet as they learned from a 
 friend on the spot received the royal seal. About the same time an 
 adroit attempt was made under the commission granted to Gorges to 
 schemes of en g a g e * ne General Court in the government of his eastern 
 Gorges. province of New Somersetshire, which extended from Cape 
 Elizabeth to the Sagadahoc. To have accepted this charge would 
 
1638.] THE FIRST MASSACHUSETTS CHARTER. 375 
 
 have been equivalent to the acknowledgment of his prior patent. Win- 
 throp merely says in his journal that it " was observed as a matter of 
 no good discretion, but passed in silence." They knew as well when 
 to be silent as when to speak. 
 
 A year later a peremptory demand was made, in accordance with 
 the quo warranto, for the surrender of the charter and that 
 it be sent at once to England. The General Court replied mand for 
 
 _, , , i f ii i i tlle surren- 
 
 m September, tempering their evasion of the order with as- derof the 
 surances of loyalty. They referred to the royal encourage- 
 ments which had attended the early emigrations ; they reminded the 
 King of the venture they had made of lives and fortunes in extending 
 his dominion in those distant and inhospitable regions ; they proposed 
 to continue in that obedience to his will which they had always shown ; 
 but they did not send back the charter. Again the next year the de- 
 mand was renewed, with the assurance that the regulation, not the 
 subversion of their liberties, was intended. But their liberties, they 
 thought, were safer in their own hands than in the hands of a royal 
 commission. The General Court gave to this second summons also 
 their serious consideration. Their conclusion was that as the order 
 came this time in a private letter and not by an accredited messenger 
 they were under no obligation to send any answer whatever. 
 
 Space and time did them good service. It was a long voyage to 
 England and back again ; orders and replies were a long while in 
 coming and going ; still a longer while passed in waiting for replies 
 that never came. The magistrates were kept carefully advised by 
 friends in England of the condition of public affairs, and of every step 
 taken by their enemies to their prejudice. Explanations were always 
 ready ; and if they were not always ingenuous, never was there a time 
 when the plea could be more justly urged that much may be par- 
 doned to the spirit of liberty. Meanwhile much might happen of 
 which the colony might have the benefit. 
 
 And much did happen. The King soon had other affairs on his 
 hands of more moment than to bring to immediate obedience Ag^n, j n 
 these self-willed colonists on the other side of the Atlantic. En lMld - 
 His subjects nearer home were in insurrection. In 1640, the Scotch 
 entered England ; the " Short Parliament " was called, to be speedily 
 dispersed again when Charles found that redress of grievances must 
 precede any vote of money. The Puritans of England hailed the 
 promise of a brighter future in the events of this period, and they 
 were less anxious to leave the country. Emigration to New England 
 fell off ; but Massachusetts was consoled with the reflection that 
 neglect by the government at-home was much more her gain than her 
 loss. Increase of population was less desirable than to be let alone. 
 
376 THE POLITICAL POLICY OF THE PURITANS. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 All fear of any interference with the charter was allayed when the 
 The Long news came of the meeting of the " Long Parliament " in 
 parliament. November, 1640. The Puritans of England in resisting the 
 King were taking up arms in the cause of the colony as well as in 
 their own. Fifteen months after the meeting of that Parliament the 
 House of Commons declared that " the plantations of New England 
 have by the blessings of the Almighty had good and prosperous suc- 
 cess without any public charge to this State, and one now likely to 
 prove very happy for the propagation of the Gospel in these parts very 
 beneficial to the kingdom and nation." For their " better advance- 
 ment and encouragement," therefore, it was decreed that all trade 
 between Old and New England should be unrestricted by " any cus- 
 tom, subsidy, taxation or other duty." Not long after came a letter 
 
 Fac-simile of the First Lines 
 
 
 signed by Warwick, Say and Seale, Cromwell, Harding, and other 
 leading men, declaring that both houses united in a wish for the pres- 
 ence of Mr. Cotton, Mr. Hooker, and Mr. Davenport to come over 
 with all possible speed, all or any of them, if all cannot." " You will 
 find opportunity enough," they added " to draw forth all that healpe- 
 
 fullness that God shall affoard by you Onely the sooner you 
 
 come theHBettar." l 
 
 The invitation was not accepted, perhaps prudently. '* Had the 
 churches of New England," says Hutchinson, " appeared there by 
 their representations, or any of the principal divines appeared as mem- 
 bers of the Assembly [at Westminster] greater exception might have 
 been taken to their building after a model of their own framing." 
 That model was Congregationalism. The next year, adds the histo- 
 
 1 Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, vol. i. 
 
1651.] 
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH AND THE CHARTER. 
 
 377 
 
 rian, some persons from England " made a muster to set up Presby- 
 terian government, under the authority of the assembly at Westmin- 
 ster ; but a New England assembly the General Court, soon put them 
 to rout. 1 ' They believed with Milton that, 
 
 " New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ large." 
 
 But whether for personal reasons or for public considerations the 
 three invited clergymen declined to accede to the wish for CourBeof 
 their presence and counsel in England, the relations between J^{ 
 the colonists and the revolution were intimate and influen- Puntan8 - 
 tial. Hugh Peters and Thomas Welde went to England at the re- 
 quest of Connecticut and Massachusetts ; others followed or preceded 
 them ; Sir Henry Vane was already there. 1 
 
 of the Massachusetts Charter. 
 
 Nevertheless when in 1651, after the battle of Worcester, the power 
 of Parliament had become firmly established, and Charles I. had been 
 dethroned and beheaded, a demand was made upon all the colonies 
 to recognize its supreme authority. The charter of Massachusetts was 
 again threatened. Her magistrates were ordered to transmit 
 
 ....... TI New danger 
 
 it to England, and receive in return a new patent. In this to the cfiar- 
 emergency, instead of denying the right of Parliament to thecom- 
 revoke the charter as might justly have been done on the 
 ground that it was an extemporized body of men expressing a new 
 kind of authority not dreamed of in the first days of emigration and 
 of the charter the General Court, declining this dangerous argu- 
 
 1 For a thorough discussion of the influence of the New England Puritans upon affairs 
 in England at this period see The Historical Relation of New England to the English Com- 
 monwealth, by John VVingate Thornton. 
 
378 THE POLITICAL POLICY OF THE PURITANS. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 
 M A M tt 3 S- E 
 WUNNEETUPANATAMWB 
 
 UP-B1BLUM GOD 
 
 NANEEJWE 
 
 NUKKONE TESTAMENT 
 
 XAH WONK 
 
 WUSKU TESTAMENT. 
 
 ment, recurred to its old policy of simply baffling without incensing 
 arbitrary power. Instead of the patent, a memorial was sent home ; 
 it reviewed the proceedings under the late King and the reasons for 
 leaving England when liberty could not exist there; it rejoiced in the 
 cause of the people ; it renewed the colony's allegiance to Parliament, 
 and prayed that they might not be worse off than when they lived 
 under a king. 
 
 A judicious letter which the General Court drew up and sent to 
 An appeal Cromwell proved more efficacious than the memorial; for it 
 to croniweii. seeme( j to revive the personal interest of the General in the 
 brave old pi-otesting sentiment which once set him, with other repub- 
 licans, afloat for America, when perhaps, as the report survives in 
 history, Cromwell himself had land in Massachusetts which he meant 
 to occupy. It was due, no doubt, 
 to the influence of Cromwell 
 that the independence of Mass- 
 achusetts was respected, while 
 the other colonies were frequent- 
 ly embroiled with Parliament. 
 
 Cromwell's protection, how- 
 cromweii's ever, resulted from 
 plans. mixed motives. H e 
 had a scheme for strengthening 
 his government and pacifying 
 Ireland by removing the whole 
 colony thither, and settling it 
 upon lands which were to be 
 ceded to it. Of course the Gen- 
 eral Court was not in the least 
 likely to desert its flourishing es- 
 tate, and at such cost to remove 
 so near to the source of possible 
 
 Oppression. It laid great Stress Reduced Fac-simile of the Title-page of Eliot's Bible. 
 
 in its reply upon the prospects of converting and civilizing the IndiaYi, 
 for at that time John Eliot, Thomas Mayhew, and many 
 devoted associates, were engaged in laboring among the In- 
 dians, both on the mainland and among the islands as far 
 as Nantucket. Though the first Indian church at Natick 
 was not founded till 1660, Eliot's Indian Bible was printed at Cam- 
 bridge in 1664. His influence among the Indians was wonderfully 
 persuasive, and his civilizing efforts did really promise permanent 
 results. He domesticated them and revolutionized their manners, in 
 spite of the jealousy and opposition of the native priests. Cromwell 
 
 
 
 SI 
 
 fit qocfhkiowmdli tu(b|n Wotiinotumob (HRI&T 
 nob ifowrfii 
 
 JOHN ELIOT- 
 
 6 6 J 
 
 IS 
 
 
 Euot knd 
 
1660.] 
 
 THE REGICIDES. 
 
 379 
 
 might well have been interested at this attempt to propagate the 
 Gospel in the spirit of his own reading of it. But his ambition, and 
 a certain fantastic impulse which ran in his blood, seemed to sway 
 him when in 1655, after the conquest of Jamaica, he proposed to 
 Massachusetts to remove to that island, and undertake the conversion 
 of all neighboring Catholics, with various arguments of interest urging 
 them to assist thus in the consolidation of his power. 
 
 It would have been fortunate, probably, for Jamaica could Crom- 
 well have had his way, but the genuine Massachusetts would The Jamaica 
 have vanished forever. 1 The General Court represented the srheme - 
 magnitude of the difficulties of such a step, in a manner so sober and 
 yet so devoted to his 
 service, that Cromwell 
 did not take ill their 
 refusal , and never 
 withdrew his counte- 
 nance from his favored 
 people. 
 
 It was fortunate 
 that no General Court 
 could ever be prevailed 
 upon to put the colony 
 under the protection of 
 Parliament. The 
 prospect of advantages 
 which friends in Eng- 
 land urged for this act of virtual submission was no temptation against 
 the certain good of holding back from entangling alliances. The 
 same advice was renewed after the death of Cromwell, and 
 without effect. Then came, in the summer of 1660, a vessel Cldes ' 
 with the two regicides on board, Whalley and Goffe, to announce the 
 accession of Charles II. Massachusetts was in no hurry to proclaim 
 
 1 The Englishmen who were successively sent to that island languished and died in great 
 numbers, yet Cromwell kept a stern determination to hold it at all hazards and make it a 
 Protestant colony in the very heart of the " Spanish Domdanicl." He wrote to the Gov- 
 eruor of Barbadoes instructing him to remove his colony, saying, ' We have also sent to 
 the colonies of New England like offers with yours, to remove thither, our resolution being 
 to people and plant that island." In another letter to Jamaica : "We have sent Commis- 
 sioners and instructions into New England, to try what people may l>e drawn thence." 
 [Carlyle's Life of Cromwell.} In fact, a large number of colonists were inflamed by Crom- 
 well's ambition " to strive with the Spaniard for the mastery of all tho>e seas." Notably 
 a party from Salem, incited by wilder spirits, were preparing to go, when the General 
 Court interposed and quashed the enterprise. Still, it was the per>istency of Cromwell in 
 sending relays of good and bnd, and a thousand Irish girls, to the island, which eventually 
 made it a colony. They were led by Venner. a Fifth Monarchy man, that is, one who be- 
 lieved that the four great monarchies of the world "vould be succeeded by a universal one 
 
 Regicides' Cave, ne-.r New Haven, a supposed Hiding-place of 
 Whalley and Goffe. 
 
 The Regi- 
 
380 THE POLITICAL POLICY OF THE PURITANS. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 its adhesion to the new King: it cordially protected Whalley and 
 Goffe, and when the orders for their surrender arrived, with emi- 
 nent tact connived at their escapes and various concealments. 
 
 At the next General Court an address was drawn up to be pre- 
 The Restore- sented to Charles II., filled with protestations of loyalty, 
 tion - allusions to the fact that he had been a fugitive like them- 
 
 selves, and exposures of the heresy of the Quakers as a vindication of 
 the treatment they had received. " We distinguish between churches 
 and their impurities " they said ; therefore would the King protect 
 their liberty of worship and civil government ? The King was at the 
 
 beginning of his reign in a 
 forgiving temper: he re- 
 turned a gracious answer, but 
 it was balanced by a peremp- 
 tory order for the surrender 
 of the two regicides. 1 It was 
 no doubt chiefly in conse- 
 quence of the protection af- 
 forded to them, and of the 
 connivance of magistrates at 
 their escapes, that the King's 
 mood changed, and he lent 
 a readier ear to the enemies 
 of the colony. Again came 
 alarming rumors over the 
 water, threats of commer- 
 cial I'estriction, of governor 
 general, and, worse than all, 
 the withdrawal of the beloved original charter. 
 
 In May, 1661, Simon Bradstreet, a magistrate, and John Norton, 
 
 a Boston minister, were sent over in obedience to an order 
 
 setts agents of the King that the complaints against the colony should 
 
 in England. & r ^ . , ^ in 
 
 be met and cleared up. In the meantime the Oreneral Court 
 recognized the authority of the King, issuing an address to explain 
 
 with Christ for king:. He was a cooper by trade, and indulged in preaching. In London 
 his chapel was in Coleman St., where he instigated his followers to a rising against Crom- 
 well, April 9, 1657. But instead of the coming of the expected king, there came a troop of 
 horse which dispersed the monarchy. Venner was afterwards released, and attempting the 
 same thing two years subsequently with Charles II., was tried and executed. 
 
 1 The discussion of the fate of Col. Whalley has lately been renewed. Thomas Robins, 
 of Philadelphia, in a letter to the Historical Society, states that his ancestor of the same 
 name married, in 1736, Leah Whalley, a daughter of Elias, youngest son of Col. Edward 
 Whalley. The latter found his way from a hiding-place in Connecticut to Virginia, where 
 he joined his family who had arrived there from England. Thence he went into Maryland 
 and settled upon a remote point of laud in the easternmost county, where he lived safely 
 died, and was buried on his farm. The grave is well known. 
 
 w 
 
 Portrait of Simon Bradstreet. 
 
1664.] THE ROYAL COMMISSIONERS. 381 
 
 upon what grounds they did it. The original patent was the founda- 
 tion of their Commonwealth : it entitled them to form a government 
 of freemen ; to conduct their own municipal affairs ; to protect them- 
 selves by their own laws, if not repugnant to those of England. 
 
 The deputies departed with instructions to insist upon the loyalty 
 of the colony, to explain the causes of false accusations, to watch 
 the enemy, and above all, do nothing that might be prejudicial to the 
 existence of the charter. Supported by the powerful influence of 
 friends near the Court, they succeeded in procuring a royal confirma- 
 tion of the charter. But the grace was disfigured by distasteful con- 
 ditions ; every ordinance passed during the interim of the Common- 
 wealth should be pronounced invalid ; all such as contravened royal 
 authority should be repealed ; all persons should take an oath of al- 
 legiance ; members of the Church of England should be free to sustain 
 public worship according to its usages ; all freeholders should have 
 the right of suffrage irrespective of religious opinions, and judicial 
 proceedings should be conducted in the King's name. 
 
 These were demands which might have been expressly premeditated 
 to develop colonial resistance. By obeying them the past 
 would have been sacrificed and the future made still more 
 
 insecure. The General Court published them according to the'Geneni 
 royal command, but at the same time postponed obedience 
 save on the last point, on the ground that they could not be adapted 
 to the state of the colony without grave deliberation. A delay of two 
 years was thus secured. 
 
 But in 1664 the royal commissioners Carr, Nicolls, Cartwright, and 
 Maverick, appeared in Boston, duly accredited to hear com- 
 plaints against the administration of the colony and to en- 
 force the modification of the charter. True, the ostensible 
 object of this commission was the conquest of New Nether- 
 land ; but the second and not less important purpose was to bring all 
 the New England colonies into complete subjection to the King. 
 
 After the capture of New Amsterdam the Commissioners returned 
 to New England. Affairs wore to the General Court a most serious 
 and threatening aspect the more threatening that one of the board, 
 Maverick, was among the earliest settlers of Boston, and thoroughly 
 understood the motives and policy of her magistrates. But the Court 
 was quite able to hold its ground. The conflict that followed was 
 conducted with no little skill on both sides, the Commissioners, on 
 their part, maintaining the prerogatives of the King, while professing 
 .that there was no intention of trenching upon the liberties of the 
 colony ; the colonists, on the other hand, taking their stand upon the 
 reserved rights of the charter, with, at the same time, the most ear- 
 
382 THE POLITICAL POLICY OF THE PURITANS. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 nest protestations of loyalty. In the end the Commissioners were 
 baffled in every attempt to force from the General Court an admission 
 of their authority ; their acts of assumed jurisdiction were pronounced 
 invalid ; the General Court acknowledged allegiance to the King 
 under the protection of the charter, and that was all its conscience 
 could allow. 
 
 It is noticeable how singularly events seemed to conspire with the 
 temporizing policy of the Colony to postpone the designs of 
 
 The fire and . . *\, J . _, , *, & 
 
 plague of its enemies. Wot only England s engagement with Euro- 
 pean politics, but occurrences at home interfered to divert 
 
 the King and council from their attempts upon the charter. In 1666, 
 
 just after the re- 
 turn of these Com- 
 missioners from 
 their fruitless er- 
 rand, and the re- 
 fusal of Massachu- 
 setts to send over 
 deputies to meet 
 their complaints 
 before the King, 
 the Great Plague 
 of London broke 
 out, and this ca- 
 lamity was speed- 
 ily followed by the 
 Great Fire. 
 
 The General Court took advantage of all England's critical mo- 
 ments to earn a character for loyalty and obedience. If the 
 
 . , i -t *. 
 
 motive was merely politic, the result was tne same as it it 
 had arisen solely from patriotic affection, to win a de- 
 gree of consideration and forbearance from the government at home. 
 Thus when England was occupied with the Dutch war of 1664-66, 
 Massachusetts assumed the government of Maine and New Hamp- 
 shire ; but at the same time she furnished from the Maine forests 
 great store of shapely spars, which were sent over to the King ; the 
 freight alone amounted to over 1,600. The West India fleet was 
 completely revictualled at the expense of the colony ; and after the 
 Great Fire of London the General Court encouraged the colonies to 
 contribute to the utmost extent of their means for the relief of their 
 distressed countrymen. 
 
 w 
 
 The colony had never been in so prosperous a condition as in the 
 few years immediately following the departure of the Nicolls Com- 
 
 The Cradock House at Medford, built about 1639. 
 
 Aid from 
 
 
1671.] THE BOARD OF TRADE AND PLANTATIONS. 383 
 
 mission. Its jurisdiction over New Hampshire and Maine was, for 
 the time being, firmly established. Commerce was active and profit- 
 able, for, notwithstanding the navigation laws, the merchants traded 
 where they would, and in what they pleased, without let or hindrance, 
 for there was no custom-house or customs officers. It was a condition 
 which most excited anxiety in England, for it was difficult to see how 
 a people outwardly prosperous, and inwardly determined and rebel- 
 lious, could best be dealt with. 
 
 John Evelyn one of the Board writing of a meeting of the 
 Commissioners of Trade and Plantations in May 1671, says : Acti onof 
 " But what we most insisted on was to know the condition xrade^nj f 
 of New England, appearing to be very independent as to Plantation - 
 their regard to Old England or his Majesty, rich and strong as they 
 now were, there were greate debates in what style to write to them, 
 for the condition of that colony was such that they were able to con- 
 test with all other plantations about them, and there was feare of 
 
 their breaking from all dependence on this nation Some of 
 
 our council were for sending them a menacing letter, which those who 
 better understood the peevish and touchy humor of that colonie, were 
 utterly against." A month later, on the receipt of fresh intelligence, 
 there was again long debate upon " the best expedients as to New 
 England," and " at length 'twas concluded that, if any, it should be 
 only a conciliating paper at first, or civil letter, till we had better in- 
 formation of the present face of things, since we understood they were 
 a people almost upon the very brink of renouncing any dependence 
 on the Crowne." And when in August of the same summer the 
 Board resolved to advise the King to send commissioners again to 
 Massachusetts, the necessity was debated " of seacret instructions to 
 informe the council of the condition of those colonies, and whether 
 they were of such power as to be able to resist his Majesty, and de- 
 clare for themselves as independent of the Crowne, which we were 
 told, & which of late years made them refractorie." l 
 
 The Commissioners of Plantations were not unreasonably anxious. 
 There was, no doubt, a certain vagueness in the Massachusetts mind as 
 to the exact degree of political independence of the mother-country 
 which Massachusetts wanted. But on the whole it came perhaps to 
 this, that she would be dependent when it suited her and at all other 
 times free of control. She would make her own laws, agreeing that 
 they should be in accordance with the laws of England ; but the 
 laws of England should be of no effect and void within her borders ex- 
 cept it pleased her to give them her voluntary respect. But as to 
 religious matters she was never in doubt. England and her hiei-archy 
 
 1 Evelyn's Diary and Correspondence. 
 
384 THE POLITICAL POLICY OF THE PURITANS. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 she had left behind her ; the theocracy she had established with God's 
 help she would maintain against the world. The depth of her relig- 
 ious fervor, though it so often made her a bigot, gave her also a ro- 
 bust political constitution which would do its own work in good time. 
 
 The question of the charter was suspended only, not dismissed 
 during this period. Fortunately for New England the government 
 at home permitted it a still longer rest, calling only upon Mas- 
 sachusetts to defend her assumption of jurisdiction over New Hamp- 
 shire, and leaving her free from the old anxiety while the war with 
 Philip gave a serious check to her prosperity. The King determined 
 at length upon rigorous measures. The Council of Trade and Plan- 
 tations was dissolved and its duties devolved upon a committee of 
 the Privy Council which brought the affairs of the colonies more 
 under the direct supervision of the King. 
 
 The controversy in regard to New Hampshire had brought to New 
 Edward England one Edward Randolph, whose part in affairs was 
 Randolph, thenceforth, for some years, a conspicuous and important 
 one. It was said of him by the people that he " went up and down 
 seeking to devour them." It was true enough in a sense, for his official 
 zeal seems to have been almost a passion. From year to year this 
 man went back to England, carrying each time some fresh complaint 
 against the colonies and returning always with some additional official 
 ordei's. From the bearer of the King's letter he became an inspector 
 of the customs; from an inspector he rose to the control of all the 
 customs-revenue of New England. It was impossible that so zealous 
 a servant of the crown should faithfully serve his master in England 
 and not become at the same time obnoxious to the colonists. He 
 could not fail to see that some ordinances had by long immunity been 
 rendered inoperative ; that others, the colonists deliberately set aside 
 when found to be inimical to their welfare, or an infringement upon 
 their rights. Though overbearing in temper, hesitating at no measure 
 however arbitrary, strengthening his resolution and his zeal by yearly 
 visits to England, the collector, nevertheless, still found himself 
 powerless, in a great measure, to cope witli the steady, sagacious, 
 as well as stern spirit of independence in which the colony managed 
 its affairs. 
 
 Among his accusations against Massachusetts was one of entire 
 disregard of the Act of Navigation. The General Court acknowl- 
 edged its truth ; but such laws they declared were " an invasion of 
 the rights, liberties and properties " of the colonies, " they not being 
 represented in parliament" an early protest against the doctrine of 
 taxation without representation to be fought out a hundred years 
 later. The laws of England, they said, did not reach America, but 
 
1671.] THE "PINE TREE" COINAGE. 385 
 
 still as the King had signified that these acts relating to trade should 
 be observed in Massachusetts, they would provide for it by an act of 
 their own. So Randolph laid his commission as collector before the 
 General Court and asked their aid in enforcing the laws ; they paid 
 no regard to him. He informed the public, by notice posted in the 
 town-house, of his appointment and the 
 requisitions of the law ; the marshal, by 
 order of the Court, or some of its members, 
 tore the notice down. He appealed to the 
 Governor ; but that magistrate who was 
 that year Bradstreet, one of the more mod- 
 
 . Pine Tree Sixpence 
 
 erate party seems to have given no 
 
 heed to the complaint. Randolph carried his grievance to the King, 
 and to the rebuke that followed there was in reply a general denial 
 so far as that served the purpose, a general promise of future acqui- 
 escence quite as vague, with a decided intimation that these appeals 
 from their authority ought not to be listened to by the King. 
 
 Randolph also complained that Massachu- 
 setts coined money, which was a mark of sover- 
 eignty. It was not the first time that 
 the charge had been brought against 
 the colony. In 1652, in the time of T 
 pine tree Threepence t h e Commonwealth, a mint had * 
 been established which continued in operation till 1684, issuing silver 
 coins of the value of a shilling, sixpence, threepence and two pence. 1 
 These formed the currency of the country, in large part, remained in 
 circulation for nearly a century, and were shipped sometimes as bul- 
 lion to England in the course of trade. It is related that when Sir 
 Thomas Temple, who had been residing for 
 some years in New England, returned to Eng- 
 land after the Restoration, he was sent for by 
 the King to learn from him something of the 
 affairs of Massachusetts. Charles, it is said, 
 
 , , , i , . . . ... Pine Tree Twopence. 
 
 snowed a good deal 01 irritation against her, 
 
 and among other things declared that her magistrates had encroached 
 upon his prerogative by coining money. Temple took some of these 
 coins from his pocket and handed them to the King with the assur- 
 ance that they had been issued by the colonists for their own use, and 
 
 1 Hutchiusou, vol. i. See Discussion of the " Pine Tree " coinage of Massachusetts in 
 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., First Series, vol. vii. ; Second Series, vol. ii. ; Memoir of John Hull ; 
 Arch&ologia Americana, vol. iii. ; Hist. May., vol. iii. ; John Hull was the master of the mint, 
 ami received a remuneration of one shilling out of every twenty that he coined. John 
 Hull's daughter Hannah married Samuel afterward Judge Sewall, and the tradition 
 is that at the marriage her dowry was paid in the " Pine Tree " coin, the bride being bal- 
 vou n. 25 
 

 Pine Tree Shi 
 
 386 THE POLITICAL POLICY OF THE PURITANS. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 without any intention of infringing upon the law, of which, he said, 
 they knew little. The King inquired what tree was represented upon 
 the coin. " Sir Thomas, artfully taking hold of that circumstance," 
 says the narrator of the story, " informed His Majesty it was the 
 Royal Oak. The Massachusetts people, says he, did not dare to put 
 your Majesty's name on their coin, and so put the oak which pre- 
 served your life. The King was put into a fit of good humor, said 
 they were a parcel of honest d gs, and was disposed to hear favor- 
 able things of them." l 
 
 There is no official authority for calling the tree of this coinage a 
 pine tree, though that supposition has given it its popular designa- 
 tion. The motive for its issue 
 was undoubtedly the public 
 convenience and not an inten- 
 tion of usurping a sovereign 
 right. While the imports of 
 the country largely exceeded 
 the exports little of the coin 
 of the realm would remain in 
 the country, and there was 
 absolute necessity of some domestic currency to satisfy the wants of 
 the people. Wampum was generally resorted to, but its inevitable in- 
 flation soon made it valueless. At one time in the early days of Massa- 
 chusetts (1634-5) it was decreed, " that muskett bulletts, of a full 
 boare, shall pass currantly for a farthing a peice, provided that noe 
 man be compelled to take above xijd att a tyme in them." 2 Various 
 expedients of paper money were from time to time resorted to, de- 
 pending sometimes on public credit, and sometimes on mortgages 
 upon real estate. A large amount of the pine tree money was coined 
 how much is not known which long continued in circulation, and 
 was unquestionably a firm basis, as far as it went, for sound and pros- 
 perous trade. 
 
 But these various complaints and complications all tended to the 
 inevitable revocation of the charter. In accordance with its temporiz- 
 ing and procrastinating policy, the colony had neglected to send dep- 
 uties to England to answer the various charges made against it. In 
 
 anced in one scale against an equal weight of coin in the other. Hutchiuson says her 
 dowry was 30,000, the weight of which iu shillings or sixpences would have been 
 about three tons and three quarters. But Judge Sewall's ledger (see Memoir of John 
 Hull; Arch. Am., vol. iii.) shows that he received witli his wife 500. It is not impossible 
 that Miss Hull may have been weighed against this sum, in shillings, which would have 
 been about 120 pounds, Troy. 
 
 1 Letters from Andrew Eliot to Thomas Hollis. Mass. Hist. Soc. CM., Fourth Series, 
 vol. iv. 
 
 2 Records of Massachusetts, vol. i. 
 
1685.] GOVERNOR ANDROS. 387 
 
 1681 there came a peremptory letter from the King that such dep- 
 uties should be sent with authority to tender the unqualified sub- 
 mission of the colony. Delay was no longer safe, and Joseph Dudley 
 and John Richards were sent to England in answer to the summons. 
 
 Dudley belonged to the moderate party, and he went with a disposi- 
 tion to compromise ; but he also carried a letter of the Gen- 
 eral Court of a tone so inflexible that the King's patience 
 gave way. Again a writ was issued against the colony, to 
 show by what warrant it held its charter. Judgment was Colon >- 
 pronounced against it in 1684, and an official copy served upon the 
 General Court on the 2d of July, 1685. 
 
 Events now moved rapidly against the liberties of Massachusetts. 
 Colonel Kirke was appointed Governor of that province together with 
 New Plymouth, New Hampshire, and Maine. His commission was con- 
 firmed a few months later by James, and he was about to sail for the 
 colonies, when, fortunately for them, his services were required to aid 
 in the suppression of the insurrection in Scotland under Argyll, and 
 in the West of England under Monmouth, which immediately chal- 
 lenged James's succession to the throne. 
 
 Charles II. died in February, 1685, and James was proclaimed in 
 Boston the following April, before judgment on the charter had been 
 officially announced. By the advice of Randolph the temporary con- 
 trol of affairs was given to a provisional commission, at the head of 
 which was put Dudley, who had taken care while in England to in- 
 gratiate himself with the party inimical to the colony. The General 
 Court contented itself with a protest. " The subjects," 
 they said, " are abridged of their liberty as Englishmen, both the General 
 in the matter of legislation and in laying of taxes." They 
 urged the Commissioners to consider whether such a commission " be 
 safe for you or for us ; " but, they added, if the members of the 
 Board were satisfied to assume the government, " although we cannot 
 give our assent thereto, yet we hope we shall demean ourselves as true 
 and loyal subjects to his Majesty, and humbly make our addresses 
 unto God, and in due time to our gracious prince, for our relief." 
 Yes ; " in due time ; " they knew how to wait. 
 
 The provisional government was short-lived, doing little harm and 
 no good, when Sir Edmund Andros arrived in Boston in j^^i of 
 December, 1686, with a commission as Governor of all New Andros 
 England, the governor-general that Massachusetts had dreaded, and 
 planned against, and been almost ready to fight against for half a cen- 
 tury. As Governor of New York Andros had made himself familiar 
 with colonial affairs ; the consolidation he was now to rule over he 
 had long before advised ; his character, and his faithful adherence to 
 
388 THE POLITICAL POLICY OF THE PURITANS. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 the principles by which the King proposed to govern his kingdom, 
 pointed him out as a fit instrument to carry out the royal purposes. 
 
 Andros was a proud and ostentatious man, who regarded his official 
 relation to the King more than all things else. He found himself 
 among men proud, but not vain-glorious, highly comfortable with this 
 world's goods, and a fund of sanctifying grace. His drinking bouts 
 were especially distasteful, for even healths were no longer drunk 
 by the Puritans. He was more irritable ; they were quietly and 
 provokingly tenacious of purpose. At that time New England easily 
 
 supported a population of more 
 than 130,000 : a dozen years be- 
 fore his coming it could furnish 
 16,000 fighting men. Fifteen 
 merchants were worth 50,000 
 each : five hundred persons about 
 3,000 each. The country around 
 Boston, in which town there were 
 about fifteen hundred families, 
 was thickly settled with these men 
 who in the last resort would insist 
 upon having their own way, as 
 they did. 
 
 The new Governor began his ad- 
 ministration by announcing that 
 all the laws then in force were to 
 be respected, if not found to be 
 inconsistent with the laws of Eng- 
 land. There was little satisfaction 
 in this, for the colonists maintained that it was for them to decide 
 what laws they needed, whether inconsistent with those of 
 England or not. A tax was levied of a penny in the pound 
 on all estates real or personal ; of twenty pence a head as poll-tax ; 
 of a penny in the pound on all imports ; and an excise beside on all 
 liquors. The taking away of the charter had abolished the General 
 Court, and this taxation was without the consent of the people or 
 their representatives. To enforce it the severest measures were re- 
 sorted to, for the resistance was everywhere determined. Then the 
 obnoxious Randolph was appointed licenser of the press, and other 
 officers were brought from New York who soon made themselves quite 
 as unpopular as he. 
 
 But these were civil affairs ; Andros touched more dangerous 
 ground when he issued an order that no marriage could be solemnized 
 save by a clergyman of the Church of England. Civil marriages by 
 
 Portrait of Sir Edmund Andros. 
 
 New taxes 
 and laws. 
 
1688.J DESPOTIC GOVERNMENT OF ANDROS. 389 
 
 magistrates had for a long time been common among the people, 
 and they clung to the habit. But the Governor ordered that 
 persons to be married should enter into bonds with sureties, JtsTfTn- 
 to be forfeited in case any impediment might be after- 
 ward shown. He had no respect for Puritan principles, and was always 
 menacing the Congregational style of worship. He demanded the use 
 of the Old South meeting-house during a part of the Lord's Day for 
 celebration of the Episcopal service. The reading of the service for 
 the dead at the grave frequently created a disturbance. Then a for- 
 mality, repugnant to the people, of swearing by the Book, instead of 
 holding up the right hand, was introduced. 
 
 His administration, as it went on, became more and more intolera- 
 ble. He levied taxes, not as he at first promised, according to the pre- 
 vious rates, but by a rate of his own ; but this came in, partly in conse- 
 quence of the Indian wars in which he became involved in 1688. All 
 the judges, elected from the council, charged high fees. Various 
 other arbitrary proceedings served to exasperate the people. Here is 
 an example, he denied the writ of habeas corpus to Rev. John 
 Wise, of Ipswich, who had advised his people from the pulpit to re- 
 sist his system of taxation without representation. Said Andros, 
 " Did they really think that Joe and Tom may tell the king what 
 money he may have?" That is just what Joe and Tom did think, 
 even then, much more thoughtfully afterwards. On another occa- 
 sion he said : " The scabbard of an English Red-Coat shall quickly 
 signify as much as the Commission of a Justice of the Peace." 
 
 Andros preserved the trial by jury, but was accused of using in- 
 trigue to pack it for some special trial. But he gave the rudest touch 
 to the colonial nerve when he summoned the land-owners to give up 
 their titles for examination. When some of them showed their deeds 
 from the Indians, signed or marked by them, he threw them aside 
 contemptuously. " They are not worth the scratch of a bear's paw,*' 
 he said. No doubt, from the absence of a strict surveying system, 
 and from the loose habits of early squatting, many of the farmers 
 could not define their land. But the chief objection with Andros 
 was that all the titles held their validity under a charter which no 
 longer existed. This excited the bitterest reflections. Andros offered 
 to renew titles if the proprietors would acknowledge their invalidity, 
 and pay a quit-rent. Those who refused these conditions were threat- 
 ened with writs of intrusion, which occasionally were issued. 
 
 Despotic as the rule of the new Governor seemed, he was only car- 
 rying out the will of his master. He thoroughly and honestly be- 
 lieved, no doubt, that both in civil and religious affairs such govern- 
 ment was righteous and wise. Conceding his honesty, he is not to be 
 

 390 THE POLITICAL POLICY OF THE PURITANS. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 blamed for his energy, for he only discharged with vigor the duty that 
 devolved upon him. Out of the struggle between a royal despotism 
 and a Puritan oligarchy came, in due season, the government of the 
 people. 
 
 Andros was as firm and unyielding elsewhere as he was in the 
 colony of Massachusetts Bay. Thomas Hinckley, the Gov- 
 ernor of New Plymouth complained with good reason that 
 
 Acts of 
 Antiros in 
 
 regard to 
 
 other coio- jus people were compelled to pay taxes more burdensome 
 
 tries. 
 
 than they had ever known before. Rhode Island willingly 
 accepted a change which promised to end her struggle with her Puri- 
 
 View of the Harbor of Castine. 
 
 tan neighbors. In New Hampshire the new Governor established 
 his authority with little difficulty : in Maine, he had, or thought he 
 had more to fear from the interference of the French than any unwil- 
 lingness on the part of the English to submit to his rule. At the 
 mouth of the Penobscot, the Baron Vincent de Saint Castin had 
 established himself as the lieutenant of the French governor of Aca- 
 dia; had encroached upon the territory of the Duke of York; had 
 won the favor of the Indians by adopting their habits, and taking 
 several of their women as his wives, and had gained so much influ- 
 ence over them as to be made one of their chiefs. When the con~ 
 dition of affairs in Massachusetts permitted, Andros made a visit to 
 New Hampshire and Maine, and an important part of his errand was 
 to bring Castin to submission. The baron did not wait for an inter- 
 
1G87.] 
 
 THE CONNECTICUT CHARTER. 
 
 301 
 
 view, but fled with all his retainers. Andros entered his house, or 
 fort, took possession of the arms, ammunition, and some other prop- 
 erty ; but left the little popish chapel and its furniture untouched. 
 The plunder, he sent word to Castin, should be restored on his sub- 
 mission to the English King. The only result was the exasperation 
 of Castings friends, the Indians, which in due time had its results. 
 
 Connecticut, like Massachusetts, was deprived by a quo warranto 
 of its Charter, in spite of its protests and its prayers. In October, 
 1687, Andros appeared in Hartford at the head of a troop of soldiers, 
 while the General Court was in session. He demanded the surrender 
 
 Securing the Charter. 
 
 of the charter, declaring that the government under it had come to 
 an end. He seems, nevertheless, to have permitted the subject to be 
 debated, Governor Treat defending their right to the charter, recount- 
 ing the hardships the early settlers had suffered in making a home in 
 the wilderness, and asserting that they had had no sufficient hearing 
 in England. 1 The arguments were not new, and not likely to influ- 
 ence Andros, however courteously he may have listened to them. 
 The charter, meanwhile, lay with its box upon the table. 
 
 The debate continued till evening, and candles were lighted. An 
 excited crowd had collected in and about the building. Discussion 
 
 1 Trumbull's History of Connecticut. 
 
392 THE POLITICAL POLICY OF THE PURITANS. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 came to an end, and Andros ordered the charter to be returned to its 
 box and delivered to him. Suddenly the lights were put out. Nat- 
 urally there must have been some confusion and some delay 
 in relighting the candles. When this was at length done, 
 the charter was not to be found. It had disappeared in the 
 darkness. The instrument, at least, was safe, and the royal Governor 
 so far baffled. Other resistance, however, was useless, even if any 
 was thought of, for Andros had at his back sixty obedient soldiers. 
 The General Court submitted, for they could do no otherwise. Enter- 
 ing upon their records a minute of the meeting, they wrote at the end 
 
 
 The Charter Oak. 
 
 
 the significant word " FlNIS." The crowd dispersed, sorrowfully no 
 doubt, but quietly. The beloved parchment was safe in a hollow oak 
 on the grounds of Samuel Wyllys, one of the magistrates, where it 
 had been put by Captain Wadsworth of Hartford, and where it 
 long remained. 
 
 Connecticut was now only a part of the royal province of New 
 England. A few months later Andros received a commission as gov- 
 ernor, also, of New York and New Jersey. 
 
 When the rumor came creeping up in April, 1689, from Virginia, 
 
 of the landing of the Prince of Orange in England the pre- 
 
 Engiinh vious November, the inhabitants of Boston could hardly 
 
 Revolution. . .,.,. .. ,. 
 
 fail to look upon it as a providential interposition. The 
 young man who brought the news John Winslow was impris- 
 
THE DEPOSITION OF GOVERNOR ANDROS. 
 
1689.] GOVERNOR ANDROS DEPOSED. 393 
 
 oned, and Andros issued a proclamation against the Prince's cause. 
 But the people could not be restrained by that, nor by the hesitating 
 policy of some of their own leading men. The reports and sus- 
 picions which usually spring up in such critical moments, filled the 
 air of Boston, and needed no electric wire to thrill the adjacent towns. 
 Was there a plot for a massacre of the people by the Governor's 
 Guards ? Was the town to be fired at one end by traitors on shore, 
 while Captain George from the Rose frigate set it on fire at the other 
 end by bombardment ? 
 
 The popular excitement was soon beyond control. The North End 
 heard that the South End was in arms ; at the South End came swift 
 rumors that the North End was up and on the march. The tar-barrels 
 blazed up on Beacon Hill. From the country round about the people 
 came raging into Boston by land and by water on the 18th of April. 
 Drums beat through the town ; where the signals had blazed on 
 Beacon Hill by night, a flag was raised by day. Up King, now State, 
 Street marched a company of Boston soldiery under Captain Hill, 
 escorting a number of the former magistrates, whom the crisis had 
 called together at noon. These gentlemen appeared on the balcony 
 of the Town House overlooking King Street, and to the expectant 
 and excited crowd below was read a " Declaration of the Gentlemen, 
 Merchants and Inhabitants of Boston and the Country adjacent." 
 It rehearsed the oppressive acts of Andros's administration ; the ille- 
 gal appointment of the Dudley Commission ; the wrongful 
 
 c ^ -f. i -1 J ..u r .1 Deposition 
 
 suppression of the charter ; it hailed the accession of the am arm* 
 Prince of Orange to the throne, and justified the arrest 
 and imprisonment of '"those few ill men which have been (next to 
 our sins) the grand authors of all our miseries." Cotton Mather is 
 supposed to have been the author of this address. 
 
 Some of the most obnoxious of the citizens, official and otherwise, 
 had already been arrested. Captain George of the frigate Rose was 
 met on the street and arrested. A boat was sent by his lieutenant to 
 rescue Andros, who was in the fort on Fort Hill, but was captured by 
 the soldiers. Finding escape impossible, he went to the Town House 
 with others, and was put under guard in a private house, to be re- 
 moved a day or two later to the fort. Several members of the coun- 
 cil were arrested with him. Randolph was thrown into the common 
 jail. Dudley, who was absent on his judicial duties he had been 
 made Chief Justice was arrested a few days later. The next day 
 the fort was surrendered. The Rose, it was agreed, should strike her 
 topmasts and send her sails ashore, and so lie helpless in the stream 
 under the guns of the fort. The revolution was complete and with- 
 out the shedding of a drop of blood. A provisional government was 
 
394 THE POLITICAL POLICY OF THE PURITANS. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 organized under the name of a " Council for the Safety of the Peo- 
 The council P^ e an ^ Conservation of the Peace." The venerable Simon 
 of safety. Bradstreet, now eighty-seven years of age, was appointed 
 president, and a number of the old assistants were called to his aid 
 as a council. 
 
 Twice Andros escaped from confinement ; the first time by dis- 
 guising himself in the clothes of a woman. He passed two of the 
 guards in safety, but his shoes betrayed him to the third, and he was 
 
 Governor Andros s Atien.pt at Escape. 
 
 taken back to the fort. The second attempt was inoi-e successful. 
 His servant plied the sentinel with liquor and took his master's place. 
 On the 5th of August he was recognized in Newport, arrested the 
 same day, and returned to Boston. 1 
 
 The overthrow of the Andros government was as complete in the 
 other colonies as in Massachusetts. Rhode Island remained without 
 a governor ; but Connecticut at once restored her old magistrates. 
 
 1 For a complete history of the Andros administration, see The Andros Tracts, in Pul> 
 licatious of the Priuce Society. 
 
1689.] COURSE OF KING WILLIAM. 395 
 
 The revolution in New York, with its tragic consequence, requires a 
 chapter by itself. Andros was at length sent back to England, but 
 his career in America, did not debar him from further favors, and he 
 subsequently returned to the country as Governor of Virginia. 
 
 Representatives of the people from fifty-four towns of Massachu- 
 setts assembled after the fall of Andros, and though the feeling was 
 strong that the ancient charter might be resumed, it was decided to 
 suspend all action under it until it was restored. On May 26, the 
 news arrived that the new King had been invested with the crown, 
 and on the 29th, William and Mary were proclaimed in Boston. 
 
 For once the colonists had been deceived in their expectations, 
 They relied confidently upon that clause in the Prince's 
 Declaration to the people of England, that he came in order {{J, c y ?J the 
 that " all magistrates who have been unjustly turned out, 
 shall forthwith reassume their former Imployments, and the English 
 corporations return to their ancient prescriptions and charters." For 
 James II., in order to neutralize the Whig and Dissenting interest, im- 
 itated the action of Charles I. after the Rye-House Plot, deprived more 
 than a hundred boroughs of their charters, and put Tory magistrates 
 in the places of incumbents. New charters had been granted which 
 reserved a power to the King of dismissing magistrates. Under the 
 new Charter of London more than eight hundred prominent citizens 
 had been turned out of office at one stroke. 
 
 But William's ministers explained that the English charters had 
 been taken away for different cause from those of the colonies ; on 
 the new political grounds they might be restored. The colonial char- 
 ters had violated the Navigation Acts, and threatened the interests of 
 English trade and manufactures. The King and his advisers, Lord 
 Halifax alone strenuously urging the return of the original charter, 
 though not disposed to imitate the ruinous policy of the late reign, 
 were unwilling to let the opportunity slip for putting some restraint 
 upon colonial independence, and maintaining a foothold here for the 
 royal authority. Therefore the Massachusetts deputies could only gain 
 permission to use the old charter until a new one could be framed. 
 
 To make this proceeding more palatable to the colonists, the 
 designation of a governor, who would be acceptable to the 
 people, was left to the agents of the colony. One of these was 
 Increase Mather, the President of Harvard College, who 
 had been sent to England when the affairs of the colony 
 were considered in the most critical condition. He had not suc- 
 ceeded either in saving the old charter or in procuring a new one 
 which would satisfy the people ; but his influence was sufficient to 
 secure the appointment, as governor, of Sir William Phips, who was 
 then in London. 
 
 
Portrait of Increase Mather. 
 
 The new 
 Charter. 
 
 396 THE POLITICAL POLICY OF THE PURITANS. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 Phips was a native New Englander, a successful adventurer who 
 had made a large fortune for himself and others, had achieved some 
 euccess, as well as met with seme disaster, in military expeditions in 
 
 Nova Scotia and Canada, and 
 whose popularity at home was 
 sure to make him acceptable as 
 the chief magistrate. Mather's 
 confidence in him was, perhaps, 
 all the greater that he knew him 
 to be a member of his son Cotton 
 Mather's church. The Governor 
 was not likelv to be in want of 
 
 */ 
 
 plenty of counsel, and the elder 
 Mather, no doubt, thought it 
 would be as good as it was sure 
 to be plentiful. 
 
 Phips arrived in Boston with 
 the new charter in May, 1692. 
 By this instrument a new Province was created including Massachu- 
 setts, Plymouth, Maine, and Nova Scotia. New Hampshire 
 begged hard to be included, but the inheritors of the Mason 
 claim had interest enough tD prevent it. 1 The Governor, Deputy, 
 Secretary, and Admiralty officers were to be appointed by the crown. 
 A General Court, or House of Assembly, was provided by election of 
 two persons from each town, to frame laws which were to be subject 
 to the royal approval. Under its common seal, in the King's name, 
 judges, justices, sheriffs, and civil officers could be appointed ; mili- 
 tary officers could only be appointed by the Governor ; the danger- 
 ous power was also conferred upon him of annulling the appoint- 
 ment of other officers. Citizenship was no longer to be restricted to 
 church-members, liberty of worship was free to all but Catholics. All 
 laws were to be transmitted to England, and if not approved within 
 three years were to be void. This prerogative which the King re- 
 served, of rejecting any laws and acts of the Province, was the sharp 
 point of the new charter ; but the General Court felt constrained to 
 adopt it, and it remained substantially in force, with but few and 
 slight amendments, till the American Revolution. The first law 
 which the King rejected was one passed by the Assembly exempting 
 the colonists from all taxes except those which were imposed by then 
 own representatives. 
 
 1 Edward Randolph, the obnoxious Collector, married Jane Gibbon, whose brother Rich- 
 ard married Anne Tnfton. sister of Kol>ert Mnson (Tnfton), ;ind grand-daughter of the old 
 proprietor, Captain Johii Mason. All his colonial interests waited upon the success of thi 
 family claim to lauds in New Hampshire. 
 
1692.] 
 
 SIR WILLIAM PHIPS. 
 
 397 
 
 Phips as a governor was not successful ; as a picturesque figure in 
 the history of Massachusetts he is distinguished. He was at 
 this time only forty-two years of age, having been born at ch^ter of 
 Woolwich, on the Kennebec, in Maine, in 1650. His father 
 and mother were the parents of twenty-six children, twenty-one of 
 whom were boys. Till he was eighteen years old William's occupation 
 was that of tending sheep, and in after life he took pleasure as most 
 men do in such early associations in pointing out the fields where 
 he had followed his flocks. Afterwards he passed four years in a 
 ship-yard and be- 
 came a skilful ship- 
 carpenter. He went 
 to Boston as 
 country boys of New 
 England have done 
 ever si nee, to seek 
 his fortune. He 
 found it befote the 
 year was out in 
 learning to read and 
 write, and in marry- 
 ing a sensible and 
 good woman. She 
 was a widow, some 
 years older than 
 himself, and pos- 
 sessed of some for- 
 tune. Her money 
 gave him a fresh 
 start in his career, 
 and her good sense 
 as well as his ener- 
 gy and courage, 
 no doubt, made a most important element of his future success. 
 
 The young man built himself a vessel and engaged in commerce. 
 But he wanted a quicker turn of fortune than carrying lumber would 
 bring him. He determined to do what so many have tried and so 
 few have succeeded in to recover treasures lost in a wrecked ship. 
 Somewhere at the bottom of the sea in the West Indies there were 
 such treasures in bullion, plate, and coin in sunken Spanish vessels, if 
 one could but find them. One such vessel he found, but the return 
 was small. But he heard of another, and he only wanted, he be- 
 lieved, sufficient means to certainly recover her. 
 
 Phips raising the Spanish Treasure. 
 
398 THE POLITICAL POLICY OF THE PURITANS. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 He went to England, and so succeeded in arousing the King's in- 
 terest in his proposed adventure that a man-of-war, well appointed, 
 was given him. He was gone on his first voyage two years, and 
 came back without any treasure, but the certain knowledge, he 
 thought, of the exact spot where it could be found. But he also 
 brought back a high reputation as a naval commander, for he had 
 shown great skill and courage in quelling a formidable mutiny among 
 his men. 
 
 That he should have been able to induce a company to second him 
 in another attempt is an evidence of the irrepressible energy of the 
 man. And this time he succeeded. The sunken Spanish ship was 
 found and she was filled with treasure. 
 
 About 300,000 were recovered in bullion, coin and plate. Phips's 
 share of this was .16,000 and a gold cup of the value of 1,000, 
 which was given to his wife by the Duke of Albemarle, the patron 
 of the expedition. But he was otherwise rewarded, for the King 
 knighted him, and the young man who a few years before was hewing 
 ship-timber in a Boston ship-yard, and learning at odd times to read 
 and write, was wealthy and famous. 
 
 He returned to New England in 1688, with the appointment of 
 sheriff, the duties of which office, however, he found it impossible to 
 discharge under Andros. Two years later both Andros and his 
 master having been meanwhile disposed of, and war having broke out 
 between France and England Phips was appointed by Governor 
 Bradstreet to lead an expedition against Port Royal. In this he was 
 successful. The fort was destroyed, the town plundered, the French 
 governor and others taken prisoners and carried to Boston. On his 
 return Sir William landed at various points along the coast, and the 
 whole of Acadia was reduced to English rule. 
 
 Soon after his return from this successful expedition, a larger and 
 more important one was undertaken, for the reduction of 
 Canada, which had been planned and decided upon at a 
 Congress of the colonies which met at New York at the call 
 of Governor Leisler. A land-force of New York and Con- 
 necticut troops, under John Winthrop and Robert Livingston, were 
 to invade Canada and threaten Montreal, while a naval expedition 
 under Phips, with Major Walley of Plymouth as commander of the 
 troops on board, was to take Quebec. The fleet, which sailed in 
 August, 1690, consisted of thirty-two vessels and carried two thousand 
 and two hundred men. 
 
 The expedition from New York met with nothing but disaster. 
 Disputes before starting between New York and Connecticut in rela- 
 tion to commanders caused delay and neglect of measures essential to 
 
1692.] SIR WILLIAM PHIPS GOVERNOR. 399 
 
 success. When the troops reached the lakes no boats had been pro- 
 vided for their transportation. A inarch through the wilderness 
 seemed impossible, and the army turned back. Phips meanwhile had 
 sailed leisurely along the coast and up the St. Lawrence, so leisurely 
 that Frontenac had time to hear of his coming and to move down from 
 Montreal to Quebec and to prepare for defence. When at length the 
 fleet reached the fortress, the attack was so clumsily conducted 
 owing partly to Phips's inexperience in military affairs, and partly to 
 Walley's cowardice and inefficiency that repulse was inevitable. 
 Men were landed at the wrong time and in wrong places ; ammunition 
 was wasted in useless bombardments of works on which no impression 
 could be made ; useless exposure brought on fatal sickness ; cold 
 weather set in and caused a good deal of suffering. A second attempt, 
 in which it was hoped some of these blunders might be corrected, was 
 prevented by a storm which dispersed the fleet. The ships found 
 their way back to Boston as best they could ; several were so long at 
 sea that they were given up for lost ; one was never again heard of ; 
 another was burnt at sea, and a third was wrecked, though the crew 
 was saved. No booty was brought away to help pay the cost of the 
 expedition, which was large enough to impair seriously the finances 
 of the colony ; some of the artillery was left be'hind in the hands of 
 the French, and the loss of life though Phips denied this was said 
 to have been two hundred men. 
 
 To meet the exhaustion of the colonial exchequer, caused by this 
 unfortunate expedition, a resort was had to an issue of paper money. 
 The soldiers were paid off in a currency which soon fell to a discount 
 of about thirty-three per cent. It is greatly to Phips's credit, that 
 feeling himself in a large measure responsible for this public disaster, 
 he redeemed with his own money the depreciated bills which his sol- 
 diers had been compelled to accept. 
 
 Owing probably in part to this generous act, the credit and popu- 
 larity of Sir William were little impaired by his military failure. In 
 1691 he again went to England to interest the King in fresh projects 
 for destroyiug the French power in Canada, in bringing to an end the 
 Indian raids under French guidance upon the eastern settlements, 
 and to aid the agents in London in obtaining, if possible, the restora- 
 tion of the old Charter. He returned with a new Charter and as Gov- 
 ernor, as we have already said, in May, the next year. 
 
 The stubborn friends of the old Charter soon organized themselves 
 into a party in watchful opposition to Governor Phips. It opposition 
 was, no doubt, a factious opposition, so far as there could be to phlps 
 any real expectation of restoring the old rule of Puritanic government. 
 But Phips was not a man of much wisdom, of much dignity of char- 
 

 400 
 
 THE POLITICAL POLICY OF THE PURITANS. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 acter, nor of that experience in political affairs which sometimes suffices 
 in the absence of higher qualities. He made an expedition to Maine 
 against the Indians, which had no brilliant result, while the fort he 
 ordered to be built at Pemaquid was costly, of little use, and gave 
 rise to bitter complaints of the taxation it involved. He was some- 
 times indolently or ignorantly good-natured, leaving the General Court 
 to follow the bent of its own inclinations without check ; and he was 
 sometimes so choleric in temper as to assert what he conceived to be 
 his official privileges, in a way better fitted to the deck of a ship and 
 a disorderly crew than the peaceful citizens of a quiet city. For ex- 
 ample, he disputed the authority of the Collector sent from England ; 
 and when that officer declined to obey the Governor's order for the 
 release of a ship and cargo, Sir William went down to the wharf, fell 
 upon the Collector and gave him a beating. He had a dispute with 
 a Captain Short, of a British frigate, and on meeting him in the street, 
 upbraided and abused him and finally fell upon him and " broke his 
 head with a cane." 
 
 One incident of his administration, however, had political import- 
 ance. It was common in the country towns of Massachusetts to choose 
 their representatives to the General Court from among the citizens of 
 Boston. The inevitable result was a preponderating influence which 
 usually enabled a few men in Boston to manage affairs to suit them- 
 selves. Phips was popular in the country, where probably little was 
 known of his overbearing temper and his ignorance of affairs of state. 
 In 1694, a movement for his removal had gathered so much strength 
 that his friends in the' General Court proposed an address to the King 
 against it. The motion was carried, but it was only by a vote of 
 twenty-six to twenty-four, and in the minority were all the members 
 chosen from Boston. A law was immediately enacted requiring that 
 no town should be represented in the General Court by a non-resident. 
 
 But Phips's enemies at length prevailed, and he was ordered to 
 England to answer the charges made against him. He went in 1694, 
 and about a year after died of malignant fever in London. 
 
 Box in which the Connecticut Charter was kept. 
 

 Mount Hope. 
 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 PHILIP'S WAR. 
 
 OUTBREAK OF PHILIP'S WAR. ITS CAUSES. PHILIP'S EARLIER RELATIONS WITH 
 THE ENGLISH. INDIAX ATTACKS AT SWANSEA, TAUXTOX, AND ELSEWHERE. 
 WILLIAM BLACKSTOXE. THE FIGHTS AT BROOKFIELD AND HADLEY. THE AM- 
 i-.rsn AT BLOODY BROOK. EXPEDITION INTO THE NARRAGAXSETT COUNTRY. 
 THE SURPRISE AT TURNER'S FALLS. PHILIP ATTACKED AXD KILLED NEAR 
 MOUNT HOPE. 
 
 THE conduct of affairs in Massachusetts devolved, when Phips 
 went to England, upon William Stoughton, the Lieutenant- 
 governor. The Indian hostilities, which, as the next chap- 
 
 11 i 1111 > i Stoughton. 
 
 ter will relate, had broken out again in the eastern prov- 
 inces, soon gave him sufficient occupation, and he was wanting 
 neither in energy nor ability to meet the exigency. But he is better 
 remembered as a benefactor of Harvard College, where a hall still 
 makes his name familiar to each successive generation ; less pleas- 
 antly remembered as one of Andres's judges in the Ipswich and other 
 trials, where the people resisted the despotic Governor ; while as the 
 Chief Justice of the province in the witchcraft persecution, which 
 marked the period of Phips's administration, the distinction he 
 achieved was that of a cruel magistrate in whom superstition over- 
 came all sense of justice. 
 
 Before, however, that gloomy page in the history of Massachusetts 
 is turned, it is necessary to revert to a previous bitter experience 
 the last great war in New England with the Indians, an account 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 26 
 
 

 402 PHILIP'S AVAR. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 of which, in chronological order, would have interrupted the con- 
 secutive narrative of events relating to the charters. 
 
 The origin of this war, which broke out in 1675 and lasted for two 
 years, was, of course, in that hidden but inextinguishable 
 Philip" hatred which the red man felt for the white intruder, a 
 hatred that might, at any moment, be lit by a single spark 
 and blaze up at once into a mighty flame. Philip, the chief of the 
 Wampanoags, or Pokanokets, who was at the head of this decisive 
 struggle, did not, perhaps, premeditate a war until the temper of his 
 tribe made it inevitable ; even when his intentions were suspected, 
 there was no wish, perhaps, for a conflict with the Indians, on the 
 part of the colonists, but rather a dread of it, while the memory of 
 the fate of the Pequots, it was hoped, would deter the savages from 
 so desperate a measure. But there came the inexorable point of time 
 and circumstance where race and interest, civilization and savage 
 freedom, clashed, and forced the bloody conclusion. 
 
 If it were easier to disentangle the web of Indian politics in New 
 England through the last two thirds of the seventeenth century 
 from the settlement of New Plymouth to the time when the native 
 tribes were subdued or annihilated, it would be possible, perhaps, 
 to trace events to their immediate causes, to understand that sudden 
 outbreak of relentless hate which blazed through the provinces from 
 Narragansett Bay to the extreme northern and eastern borders. But 
 causes of ^ }ls we know, the very presence of the whites was a prov- 
 the conflict. oca tion ; instinct alone soon taught the savages that civili- 
 zation must crowd them out of lands which were useless except they 
 remained a wilderness. Purchase, so far as they understood what 
 purchase meant, was no equivalent for the loss of the hunting-grounds 
 from which they mainly drew the means of existence ; practically an 
 exchange of a cart-load or two of clothing and trinkets, a few guns 
 and a little ammunition, for hundreds of square miles, was as much 
 an infringement of the Indians' right to the soil as it was for the 
 whites to take possession of the lands by violence. Purchase meant 
 to the Indian, in the first place, only toleration of a joint occupancy ; 
 but when in the course of time it was plain that joint occupancy was 
 impossible, that to the whites there came absolute possession, to 
 themselves absolute expulsion, then the purchase, which they had 
 misunderstood, was as much a robbery as if no price had been paid. 
 Herein was the bitter root of deadly hostility. 
 
 Other provocations there were, known and unknown. Personal 
 wrongs and outrages were committed on one side and the other, im- 
 possible to be avoided in frontier settlements, however peaceful in 
 theory and even in practice may have been the policy of the state. 
 
IC75.] 
 
 CAUSES OF THE WAR. 
 
 403 
 
 Chiefs and tribes became involved in controversies and in the conflict 
 of interests between different colonies. The Indian balance of power 
 would sometimes be thrown in on one side or the other as a prepon- 
 derating influence; the Indian himself would make use of an alliance 
 with the whites to feed fat some ancient grudge against a rival tribe. 
 So Uncas avenged himself in the death of Miantonomo when Massa- 
 chusetts involved them in her quarrel with Gorton and his people. 
 So Pumham and Sacononoco were used by the magistrates of Boston 
 to give them a pretext for jurisdiction over the heretics of Shawomet. 
 
 
 It is impossible now to separate and trace all these personal wrongs, 
 these political expedients, these jealousies of tribes, intensified 
 always by hatred of race, which led, at length, to the war 
 under Philip. If the outbreak seemed sudden and inexpli- and his 
 cable, it was only because the real causes were sometimes 
 remote and often unseen. Who could tell what influence may have 
 been exercised over the mind of Philip by the memory of a fend be- 
 tween his father and Pumham, when Pumham was a tool in the 
 hands of the Masssachusetts Puritans ? What was the measure of 
 all the outrages which Uncas for years inflicted upon other Indians, 
 under the protection of his close alliance with the English ? Philip 
 had no stronger ally than Xanuntenoo, and he was hardly less 
 
404 PHILIP'S WAR. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 dreaded than Philip himself. Could this chief of the Narragansetts 
 forget that he was the son of Miantonomo ? In 1661, Philip's elder 
 brother, Alexander, was taken and compelled to go as a prisoner to 
 Plymouth on suspicion of hostile designs, in conjunction with the 
 Narragansetts, against the English. This accusation may have been, 
 or may not have been, true ; the proof was not forthcoming. On the 
 way the chief was taken suddenly ill and in a few hours was dead, 
 died, his captors said, of a fever, into which he was thrown by rage 
 and mortification. His young wife was the squaw sachem Weetamoo, 
 whose camp or fort was on the Pocasset shore, now Tiverton. She 
 believed the English had poisoned her husband. Were her suspicions 
 forgotten when, fourteen years later, she joined with Philip ? She 
 brought to the king three hundred warriors. One }ear later, but 
 twenty-six were left, when all were surprised and taken prisoners on 
 the banks of the Mattapoisett, she alone evading capture. She was 
 drowned in attempting to swim the river, and when, soon after, her 
 poor naked body was found washed up upon the bank, the head was 
 cut off and set up in Taunton. When the prisoners, the feeble rem- 
 nant of her late followers, saw this sight, " they made," says Mather, 
 'a most horid and diabolical lamentation, crying out that it was 
 their queen's head." ; The spirit that prompted the act, and this 
 contemptuous comment, were not the growth of a single year. 
 
 Massasoit, the sachem of the Wampanoags or Pokanokets, the 
 
 early and steadfast friend of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, 
 
 lationVwith lived till 1660. Three or four years before his death, he 
 
 took two of his sons, Mooanam, known also as Wamsutta, 
 
 and Metacomet, also called Pometacom, to Plymouth, and asked 
 
 that both should receive English n;imes. Thenceforth the first was 
 
 known as Alexander, and the second as Philip. How Alexander 
 
 came to his death, soon after he succeeded his father as sachem, we 
 
 have just related. From that time Philip was the head of the tribe. 
 
 Philip was watched, as his brother had been, with anxiety and 
 suspicion. In the intervening years, before war actually broke out, 
 there were on both sides provocations enough to keep up the angry 
 irritation of the old wounds, which were never closed, however hid- 
 den. In 1671, some strolling Indians murdered a white man near 
 Dedlmm in Massachusetts. The connivance, if not the instigation 
 of Philip, was suspected ; but an Indian, the son of a Nipmuck 
 sachem, was tried and executed. Boston called upon Philip to ex- 
 plain his position, and to allay if he could the jealousy which was 
 created by the rumor that he was preparing arms of all kinds, and 
 collecting ammunition. Taunton Green was designated as the place 
 
 1 Increase Mather's Brief History of Philip's War. Drake's Book of the Indiant. 
 
1675.] 
 
 PHILIP PREPARES FOR WAR. 
 
 405 
 
 for an interview. His party approached in war-paint and fully 
 armed ; but, perceiving that the Boston party was large and also 
 armed, they paused on the ridge of a hill. The English hesitated to 
 go further, and insisted that Philip should advance to the appointed 
 spot. They could only overcome the distrust of the natives by leav- 
 ing hostages with them during the interview, which, it was The confer- 
 mutually agreed, should take place in the meeting-house. the e indians 
 One half of the sanctuary was filled by the painted war- tTaunton 
 riors, with feathered crests and beaded trappings, sombre, silent, 
 wary. On the other side was the counter- 
 foil of Englishmen in broad hats, muskets 
 slung in bandoliers, cuirasses, and long ra- 
 piers, a picture from the age of Crom- 
 well. Never before or since did the plain 
 roof of a New England meeting-house 
 cover a contrast so highly colored in cos- 
 tume and idea. In those pews, Boston 
 compelled Philip to promise to deliver up 
 all the English arms in the possession of 
 his tribe. Slowly and reluctantly they 
 came in afterward, and the compulsion 
 rankled sorely. To the feeling of the na- 
 tives it seemed an aggression which they 
 were always trying to match in various petty ways. It was clear 
 to Philip, in 1674, that he must begin to look around for allies. 
 
 There was an Indian of the name of Wussausmon, who was one 
 of Eliot's disciples. His name was pronounced Sausamon 
 by the English. John Sausamon went freely to and fro paiU P for re ~ 
 among the Indians, and was even trusted by Philip. John 
 observed the inevitable drift of the native feeling, and warned the 
 Plymouth men. For this, it was supposed, he was murdered in the 
 winter of 1675, near Middleborough Pond, and his body thrust into 
 a hole in the ice. His trappings were left lying near the edge, and 
 conveyed at first the impression that he had fallen through. But 
 when the body was recovered, marks of violence were found upon it. 
 Three Indians were caught, tried by a jury of six white men and six 
 Indians, and executed for this deed. Apparently there was some rea- 
 son for doubting that there had been any murder, or, if there had been, 
 that the real murderers had been discovered. " Many wish," wrote 
 Roger Williams, " that Plymouth had left the Indjans alone, at least 
 not to put to death the 3 Indjans vpon one Indjan's testimony." 
 Whether Philip meditated war or not, the anger of the Indians could 
 have hardly failed now to push him into one. 
 
 Philip's Chair. 
 

 
 
 406 
 
 PHILIP'S WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 
 Accordingly, on June 24, 1675, a day that had been appointed for 
 The attack a ^ as ^ that the horrors of war might be averted, the unsus- 
 at Swansea. p ec tj n g p eO ple of Swansea, who were just going home from 
 the meeting, were attacked. One man was killed, and others wounded ; 
 the two men who were despatched for a surgeon were killed. Six 
 other men near the garrison were killed and horribly mutilated. 
 Some barns and houses were burned. 
 
 At this time the New England villages were scattered over a large 
 area. Emigrants had gone from Connecticut as far as Deer- 
 field; the remotest western settlement was Westfield. Ha- 
 verhill was on the frontier; Lancaster and Brookfield were 
 isolated settlements. Leverett was governor of Massachusetts, Wins- 
 
 low of PI v m- 
 
 / 
 
 o u t h , John 
 Winthrop of 
 Connecticut 
 and New Ha- 
 ven. At first 
 the war was 
 confined to the 
 Plymouth Col- 
 ony. At Mid- 
 dle b o r o u g h, 
 Taunton, Dart- 
 mouth, Reho- 
 both, and else- 
 w here much 
 property was 
 destroyed and 
 many were 
 killed. Reho- 
 both was most 
 unfortunate, 
 
 for its houses, barns, and mills were all burnt. Its vicinity to Mount 
 Hope, the home of Philip, may have made it peculiarly the object 
 of hostility, for five times in the course of the war its homes were 
 made desolate. Rhode Island, though not approving the war, was 
 nevertheless involved in the general calamity. Houses were burned 
 and several persons killed at Pocasset now Tiverton in July; 
 a few days before eighteen houses were destroyed in Providence. It 
 was probably then that the savages laid waste the place of 
 William Blackstone, on the banks of the Seekonk, a few 
 miles from Providence. Here, on the spot which he named " Study 
 
 Philip's Seat at Mount Hope. 
 
 William 
 Blackstone. 
 
1675.] 
 
 THE FIGHT AT BHOOKFIELD. 
 
 407 
 
 Hill," the first white settler of the peninsula of Boston as well as of 
 Rhode Island, had built a house and planted an orchard and found a 
 refuge for his old age from the turmoils of the time and the " lords 
 brethren" of Massachusetts. His rest was undisturbed by the sav- 
 ages, for he had died a few weeks before and been laid in a quiet 
 grave still to be seen among his apple trees. 
 
 In August the General Court proposed to negotiate a peace with 
 the Nipmucks or Nipmets who lived on the northern Thefight at 
 tributaries of the Thames. The result was a disastrous Brookfield 
 fight at Brookfield, near which the conference was to be held. No 
 Indians were to be found at the place appointed, and Captain 
 
 Blackstone's Study Hill. 
 
 Wheeler with twenty troopers went .in search of them. They had 
 not gone far when they fell into an ambush ; eight of the twenty 
 were shot down, either killed or wounded, and among the latter was 
 the captain. Those who escaped regained Brookfield by a circuitous 
 path, and gave the alarm. 
 
 There was hardly time to hurry the people, men, women, and chil- 
 dren, to the number of seventy, into the one house capable of defence, 
 when the village was filled with three hundred yelling savages. 
 They set fire to every house and its surroundings, save only the one 
 in which the English had taken refuge. That needed to be ap- 
 proached with more caution. 
 
 The attack was begun. It was furious, determined, and incessant 
 for two days and nights. Shot were poured in from all sides ; against 
 the walls of the house fires were kindled ; crevices and projections 
 were sought for with fire-brands tied to poles ; roof and walls were 
 

 408 
 
 PHILIP'S WAR. 
 
 [CHAP XVII. 
 
 pierced with arrows around which were wound burning rags filled 
 with sulphur. But every attempt to get into the house, or to drive 
 out its brave garrison, was met and baffled. By sorties the most 
 threatening tires against the walls were put out ; water was poured, 
 in spite of risk, upon the burning sulphur as fast as it fell upon the 
 roof ; every stratagem was met with some more cunning device ; the 
 savages were glad of the shelter of the forest against the desperate 
 bravery of men who were fighting for their wives and children. 
 
 On the third day a new and most alarming stratagem was resorted to 
 by the assailants. They contrived a sort of cart on which were piled 
 bundles of flax, and hay and hemp and any other combustible mate- 
 rial on which they could lay their 
 hands ; and this machine, all ablaze 
 with mounting flames, they thrust 
 with long poles against the build- 
 ing. The strait was desperate. 
 Either the besieged must submit 
 to cruel death by fire, or face the 
 hardly less cruel alternative of 
 fighting hand to hand, surrounded 
 by women and children, with 
 their savage enemy who outnum- 
 bered them more than three to 
 one. But fortunately before they 
 were compelled to make their 
 choice between these desperate 
 measures, a sudden and heavy 
 shower of rain extinguished the 
 fires, and made a repetition of the experiment impossible. 
 
 Before the day was over Major Simon Willard of Boston, who, 
 on the march westward, had been intercepted by a messenger the be- 
 sieged had contrived to send off, dashed into the town with between 
 fifty and sixty men. They attacked the Indians with spirit, and be- 
 fore day-break the next morning, they had all disappeared. Not 
 only were the Brookfield people saved, but so successful had been 
 their defence that eighty of the Indians were killed and wounded. 
 
 The emissaries of Philip were ubiquitous. They stirred up the 
 spread of Indians of the Connecticut valley, and even at length suc- 
 thewar. ceeded in influencing the baptized Indians, for blood is 
 thicker than Avater. Men went to meeting with their arms ; ammu- 
 nition was stored in the meeting-houses ; each man furnished himself, 
 under a penalty of two shillings for each neglect, with at least five" 
 charges of powder and shot. Flint locks were in general use here 
 
 Blackstone's Grave 
 
1675.J THE FIGHT AT HADLEY. 409 
 
 before they were known in England, the new exigency of Indian war- 
 fare turning the matchlock into a musket. 
 
 Hadley on the Connecticut was an important frontier post, and a 
 place of deposit for military supplies. On the first of Sep- HaUley at . 
 tember, a montli after the burning of Brookfield, the Indians t * eked - 
 took advantage of the absence of most of the garrison, to attempt its 
 destruction. It was a fast-day, and the people were in the meeting- 
 house when the alarm was given. The men seized their arms, which 
 were ready to their hands ; but even the hands of men as brave and 
 determined as they were may have trembled a little, when they 
 looked at their women and children huddled together in a building 
 which was incapable of any defence from within, and when they 
 listened to the war-whoops of savages more pitiless than wild beasts. 
 It seemed to them, it may be, that they could only die ; that with 
 such odds against them there could be no hope of repelling the en- 
 emy ; that the sight of their helpless families unnerved rather than 
 inspirited them. They defended rather than attacked ; they looked 
 over their shoulders at the cowering figures behind as often as at the 
 savages who pressed nearer and nearer in front. They wavered and 
 fell back ; upon the action of a moment of time hung the result of 
 the fight and the fate of the whole village. 
 
 Suddenly there stood among them a man almost aged, but of a 
 soldierly bearing and commanding presence. He drew his s uddenap . 
 sword as one who knew how to use it ; he put himself at the 5^ n t h e e of 
 head of the men as his natural and proper place. Whether Re 8 lclde - 
 he spoke or not, words were hardly needed, for he marched forth as 
 a captain. There was the quick response of men who did not want 
 courage but needed leadership. They rallied, as certain now of driv- 
 ing back the savages as before they were doubtful of successful de- 
 fence. It was defence no longer, but attack. Under the impulse 
 of vigorous command sprung hope and energy in place of despair. 
 Wherever this calm and brave soldier would lead they would fol- 
 low. There was much, no doubt, in the strangeness of this sudden 
 apparition of a captain when all would be speedily lost without one ; 
 there must have been still more in the commanding aspect, the con- 
 fident assumption of power, the quiet intrepidity of the man, that 
 made him at once accepted and obeyed. 
 
 The tide of fight was turned. The savages fell back, then fled, 
 the impetuous English pursuing them to the woods. When the 
 sound of the retreat had died away, the men gathered together again 
 in the village ; but he who had led them to victory was not among 
 them ; he had gone as suddenly as he had come ; whence he came 
 none knew, and none saw him go away. 
 
410 
 
 PHILIP'S WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 Such is the story as tradition has handed it down. There is no 
 reason for doubting its essential truth, though the imagination of 
 successive narrators may have made a romance of a natural though 
 effective incident. The regicide, Colonel Goffe, was at that period 
 concealed in the house of Mr. Russell at Hadley, and the old soldier 
 certainly would not see the villagers getting the worst of the fight 
 with the Indians if his presence and bravery could prevent it. He 
 
 Goffe at Hadley. 
 
 may have seemed to his countrymen almost a supernatural visitor 
 when he appeared so suddenly among them, and the impression 
 would be deepened when he as suddenly vanished. That Goffe was 
 concealed in Hadley was probably unknown to the people, for though 
 there was, perhaps, no wish on the part of the magistrates to surren- 
 der the regicide, had the place of the retreat of himself and Whalley 
 been publicly known, there would have been a legal obligation for 
 their capture not easily evaded. 
 
 September was a fatal month. At Deerfield, on the same day that 
 Hadlev was attacked, several houses and barns were burnt, and two 
 
 */ 7 
 
1675.] 
 
 DEERFIELD AND BLOODY BROOK. 
 
 411 
 
 men killed. The block-house at Northfield was besieged after a dozen 
 men had fallen and the dwelling-houses were burned. Cap- 
 
 . . ,. Renewed at- 
 
 tain Beers, going with thirty men to its relief, was ambus- tack on 
 
 caded and killed with twenty of his men. Deerfield was 
 again attacked ; the people were fired on as they were going to meet- 
 ing, and their houses burned. The farmers in their flight had left a 
 quantity of grain unthreshed. A company of eighty picked men. the 
 flower of Essex, under the command of Captain Lathrop of Ipswich, 
 
 The Ambush at Bloody Brook. 
 
 was detailed from Had ley to 
 complete the threshing, and load 
 the grain in wagons. Captain 
 Moseley was left at Deerfield 
 with a company to protect their 
 rear. Early on September 18, Captain Lathrop, returning to Had- 
 ley, halted his command in a fair grove watered by a brook, a few 
 miles from Deerfield ; the men broke their ranks and loitered to 
 and fro, thrown off their guard by the allurements of the cool and 
 pleasant spot. 
 
 The savages had been all night upon the trail, waiting for such an 
 opportunity. Seven hundred of them, sheltered by the trees, deliv- 
 ered a fire so destructive that Lathrop and all but seven of his men 
 
412 
 
 PHILIP'S WAR. 
 
 [CHAR XVII. 
 
 were killed. By this massacre the clear brook acquired its name of 
 Bloody. 
 
 While the savages were hilariously engaged in scalping the troops, 
 Captain Moseley, who had heard the firing, hurried to the spot, 
 charged the savages repeatedly, going through them with great 
 slaughter, and maintaining his ground against the superior numbers, 
 from eleven o'clock till evening, when Major Treat arrived with one 
 
 hundred men and sixty 
 Mohegans, and the In- 
 dians were driven off 
 with great loss and pur- 
 sued for some distance. 
 All day long Captain 
 Moseley lost only two 
 men and eleven wound- 
 ed. 1 
 
 After this disastrous 
 autumn it was resolved 
 to strike the headquar- 
 ters of the Indians in 
 the country of the Nar- 
 ragansetts, who were se- 
 cret allies of Philip. 
 Massachusetts furnished 
 five hundred and twenty 
 men, Plymouth one hun- 
 dred and fifty-nine, and 
 Connecticut three hun- 
 dred : there were in ad- 
 dition one hundred and 
 fifty Mohegan Indians. 
 Governor Winslow of Plymouth was appointed commander of the 
 expedition. 
 
 The fort of the Narragansetts was in South Kingston, Rhode Island. 
 It Avas built upon five or six acres of dry ground, encircled by a 
 swamp, and was very formidably defended with palisades and a 
 chevaux-de-frise, a rod in thickness, of felled trees. The troops 
 
 1 Athwart the terror of those years there falls a single gleam of grotesque humor from 
 Bloody Brook. When Captain Moseley came up with the Indians as they were collecting 
 spoils it ml sculps, lie coolly took off his periwig .-ind stuffed it into his breeches, to be in 
 better fighting trim. This action startled the Indians, one of whom exclaimed, " English- 
 man got two heads ? Me cut off one, he got uoder, put it on beter ! " Drake (Old Indian 
 Chronicle) has the report that some of the Indians disappeared in consequence of this oc- 
 currence. But Moseley's freh muskets were more demoralizing than a head that was too 
 indefinite to vield a scalu. 
 
 The Monunx-nt at Bloody Brook. 
 
1675.] 
 
 EXPEDITION AGAINST THE NARRAGANSETTS. 
 
 413 
 
 marched through a deep snow, reaching the vicinity of the fort early 
 on December 19, and attacking it at four in the afternoon. 
 There was but one entrance, and to reach it the men had }?a 
 to get over a log breast high, under fire from a block-house countr >- 
 or shelter. The fire was so heavy that the Massachusetts men, who 
 were first to enter, were obliged to retreat. At this time Captains 
 Johnson, Davenport, and Gardiner, of Massachusetts, and Gallop, 
 Seely, and Marshall, of Connecticut, were killed. By another des- 
 perate onset, a party, under Captain Benjamin Church, managed to 
 get into the rear, which was not so elaborately defended, and en- 
 tered the place, Church receiving three bullets. Then it became a 
 
 Attack on the Narragansett Fort. 
 
 driving hand-to-hand fight, the six hundred wigwams were set on 
 fire, a blunder, however, against which Church in vain protested, 
 for they were filled with corn. The savages were driven out through 
 the swamp into the open country, after a desperate and bloody con- 
 test. About seven hundred Indians were killed, including twenty 
 chiefs. Of a great number of wounded, three hundred died. Many 
 old men, squaws, and children perished, some of them in the flames. 
 All the utensils and great store of corn were burnt. That winter's 
 day had a lurid sunset. The Connecticut troops alone lost eighty 
 men. 1 It was a great blow, but not a decisive one, for Philip was 
 yet al've. 
 
 1 Connecticut Historical Collections. 
 
414 PHILIP'S WAR. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 - The next year the war was again transferred to the interior of 
 The war in Massachusetts. Lancaster was attacked in February, 1676, 
 settT h Mrs. ^y * ne Wachusett Indians. One of the sachems had mar- 
 Rowianason. r j e( j t ] ie s } s t er o f Philip's w if e , and also had another squaw, 
 
 who was the widow of Wamsutta. The Lancaster tragedy was made 
 memorable by the story of Mrs. Rowlandson's captivity. Her 
 youngest girl, six years old, was wounded in the attack upon the 
 garrison house, and died on the eighth day. The brave woman had 
 toiled through the snowy swamps and forests with her child in her 
 arms, subsisting upon ground nuts, acorns, old bones, horses' ears and 
 entrails, frogs and rattlesnakes, compelled to witness the stealthy 
 and ferocious attacks on other places, returning finally to Mount 
 Wachusett, where she was redeemed for 20. 
 
 The Indians had taken possession of the deserted acres of Deer- 
 field and were planting them. A large body of them was camped 
 Turner's around the falls, which earned a name from that Captain 
 Expedition Turner who here made himself famous. When this news 
 was brought in by escaped captives, Turner, who had succeeded to 
 the command of the forces in the valley, gathered one hundred 
 mounted men at Hatfield for a night ride of twenty miles across 
 the country through Whately and Deerfield. An Indian lodge 
 was roused from sleep by hearing the noise of their march, but 
 discovering no hoof prints at the ford, which Turner had avoided, 
 concluded that a herd of moose had crossed the river. The sound 
 of Turner's approach was deadened by the sound of the rapids 
 which were four miles further up the stream. He found the main 
 encampment, therefore, fast asleep, close to the overhanging rocks, 
 just at daybreak of May 10. The horses had been left in a ravine 
 below, and the troops marched a mile or two to gain the rear of 
 the Indians, who had neglected to post a guard. The surprise was 
 complete. Many of them took to their canoes, but left the paddles 
 behind and went over the falls. Many were shot in attempting to 
 cross the river. Many hid among the rocks and were killed by 
 the sword. After the fight one hundred Indians lay dead, one hun- 
 dred and forty were counted as they went over the falls, all of whom 
 but one perished. Over three hundred Indians had been destroyed. 
 Turner's loss was a single soldier. 
 
 But another party of Indians, not far off, heard the noise of the 
 fight and were soon on Turner's tracks. Then commenced a dis- 
 astrous retreat. A panic seized the troops, on a rumor that Philip 
 was at hand with a thousand men. Captain Holyoke took command 
 of the rear-guard and checked the pursuit. Turner was killed ; a 
 large number of his men were cut off ; but Holyoke reached Hatfield 
 
167C.] 
 
 PHILIP DRIVEN FROM THE VALLEY. 
 
 safely with the main body. The excitement and fatigues of that day, 
 however, cost him his life, as he died not long after. 
 
 Among the earliest of the Indian chiefs to turn against his old 
 friends, and take part with Philip, was Pumham. In this fight at 
 Turner's Falls, he was conspicuous in the pursuit of the English for 
 his bravery and great strength. Two months later, he was found 
 lurking, half starved, with a few followers, in the Dedham woods, 
 near Boston, where he was killed, fighting desperately after he was 
 mortally wounded. 
 
 This disaster at Turner's Falls was a great blow to Philip, for it 
 broke up his fishery at that place, by which he intended to pi-ovide 
 himself for the winter. Many of his best sachems had been slain. 
 
 Turner's Falls. 
 
 He attempted reprisals by an attack upon Hatfield. but a reinforce- 
 ment from Hadley defeated the savages, killing twenty-five of them. 
 Hadley was again beset by a band of seven hundred In- Further 
 dians, but they were repulsed with heavy loss. Captain HklViev.!! 
 Henchman at one place, and Major Talcot at another, were tl "* liw - 
 equally successful in defeating and killing a number of the Indians. 
 
 The garrison at Northampton was largely reinforced, and it became 
 clear to Philip that he could not hold the valley. The war was again 
 shifted to the south. Seekonk, Plymouth, Bridgewater, Scituate, 
 and many other places, were partly sacked and burned. Through the 
 spring and summer all Southern Massachusetts, and the contiguous 
 settlements in Connecticut and Rhode Island, were kept in constant 
 alarm. The settlers knew that the savages might at any moment be 
 
416 
 
 PHILIP'S WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 lurking in the woods about their homes, with a tread as stealthy and 
 still as that of a tiger, and thirsting, as tigers thirst, for blood. By 
 night and by day, in the field, at the work-bench, in the meeting- 
 house pew, the thing nearest to each man's hand was his musket. 
 The peculiar qualities which gave the Indian a certain superiority as 
 a hunter and a warrior, were his no longer. Stem necessity had com- 
 pelled the white man to learn from his enemy and improve on what 
 was taught. And the women were as brave as the men, as fertile in 
 resources, as quick in defence, as enduring in captivity, when captiv- 
 ity happened to be their lot. Thrilling stories of defence, escape, res- 
 cue, stratagem, still make the legendary lore of that whole region. 
 
 Site of the Squaw Sachem Magnus's Fort. 
 
 m 
 
 In this spring and summer 
 of 1676, the colonies called into 
 active service almost every man 
 who could handle a musket. All 
 who could be spared from home- 
 defence were sent out upon ex- 
 peditions through the country. 
 Notwithstanding the superiority 
 of the whites, the aspect of affairs was sometimes almost desperate, 
 for there was more than one signal disaster. Thus Captain Wards- 
 worth, going to the relief of Sudbury, in Massachusetts, which had 
 been partly burnt, was entrapped in an ambush, and he, and about 
 sixty of his company of eighty men, were killed. The fate of Cap- 
 tain Pierce's company of fifty Englishmen and twenty friendly In- 
 dians was even worse. The enemy surprised them, and only one of 
 the Englishmen and but a few of the Indians escaped. There was 
 as little mercy on one side as on the other. Nanuntenoo, the son of 
 Miantonomo, was almost as much feared as Philip himself. Great 
 was the rejoicing when the news was spread abroad that he who it 
 
1676.] COLONEL CHURCH AND KING PHILIP. 417 
 
 was supposed had led in the attack on Pierce, had been taken pris- 
 oner and immediately executed. " I like it well," said the brave 
 chief ; " I shall die before my heart is soft, or have said anything 
 unworthy of myself." But on neither side was there an act of more 
 signal vengeance than that of Major Talcot, who, with a force of 
 three hundred mounted men, English and Indians overtook a 
 body of nearly the same number of Narragansetts in a swamp in 
 their country. Those who were not killed in the first assault were 
 made pi'isoners, and ninety so taken were put to death. Among 
 them was the Squaw Sachem Magnus, whose fort was on a hill in 
 the present town of North Kingston, Rhode Island. 
 
 The Indians themselves were the first to show that the strain was 
 too much for them. Plymouth had put the conduct of military 
 affairs almost exclusively into the hands of Colonel Church, and his 
 uniform success had ^ 
 
 aroused a dread of him 
 among the Indians, as 
 
 much as it inspired the Church . s Sword 
 
 confidence of his own 
 
 people. He was more than a match for the Indian in cunning as 
 well as courage; could meet him and beat him where he thought 
 himself strongest ; detect him in ambush, or lead him into one ; 
 overcome him by strategy, or defeat him when hand to hand in 
 open fight. When the savage doubts and hesitates, he is lost. If 
 success ebbs, there is no returning flood. The loss in chiefs and war- 
 riors weakened and disheartened the Indians, and large expeditions 
 were abandoned. To distract pursuit, they broke up into small par- 
 ties, and continued only a predatory warfare. Philip himself re- 
 treated to the hill and isthmus of Mount Hope. 
 
 The chief was at last in desperate strait. Twice within a few 
 weeks he had barely escaped capture or death. On one of these oc- 
 casions his uncle was shot down at his side, the English soldier not 
 recognizing Philip, who had cut off his hair to disguise himself; at 
 another time, he avoided capture by a precipitate flight, abandoning 
 his wife and children. Now he had reached his own home, hoping 
 there to find concealment and safety. 
 
 Church was at Tiverton, when a savage, whose brother had just 
 been killed by Philip for counselling submission to the English, came 
 and offered to betray his chief. He and his men, the deserter said, 
 were on a bit of upland at the south end of the swamp at the foot 
 of Mount Hope. The place was well known to Church. When this 
 intelligence reached him he started at once for Mount Hope, arriving 
 there about the middle of the night. His arrangements were all 
 
 VOL. ii. 27 
 
418 
 
 PHILIP'S WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 quietly and speedily made ; so far as the number of his men permit- 
 ted, every outlet from the swamp was guarded ; then a company was 
 sent in to arouse the camp. 
 
 The Indians were sleeping in tranquil security. One at length 
 awoke, and was fired at ; then a volley was poured into the camp. 
 Philip jumped to his feet, and, seizing only his gun, sprang forward 
 at his utmost speed. His flight was directly toward the spot Avhere 
 two of Church's men an Englishman and an Indian lay in am- 
 bush. Both raised their guns ; the Englishman's missed ; the Indian 
 fired, and Philip fell forward dead in a pool of the swamp. 
 
 Essentially this was the end of the war, though some of the In- 
 dians, in small parties, held out a little longer. It had lasted for 
 more than a year. Thirteen towns had been destroyed ; six hundred 
 buildings burned, countless numbers of stock of all kinds were lost; 
 six hundred men killed in fights or murdered, and great numbers 
 disabled by wounds. There was hardly a family without its scar of 
 sorrow. But the power of the Indians in all Southern New England 
 was destroyed for ever. Some escaped by flight into the western 
 wilds where the white man had not penetrated ; but many small 
 tribes were obliterated; whole families had pei'ished ; many Avho 
 were captured were sent to the West Indies, and dragged out the re- 
 mainder of their miserable lives as slaves. 
 
 Ruins of Colonel Church's House. 
 
THE DEATH OF PHILIP. 
 
Portsmouth Harbor. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE MAINE AND NEW HAMPSHIRE SETTLERS. KITTERY GORGE- 
 ANA. THE NORTHERN COLONIES ABSORBED BY MASSACHUSETTS. EARLY NKW 
 HAMPSHIRE CHURCHES. THE ISLES OF SHOALS. HISTORY OF MASON'S NKW 
 HAMPSHIRE GRANT. THE CLAIMS OF HIS HEIRS RESISTED. NEW HAMPSHIRE 
 GOVERNORS. INDIAN HOSTILITIES. ATTACKS AT SACO, BERWICK, AND ELSE- 
 WHERE. THE TREATY AT CASCO. WAR RENEWED. DOVER ATTACKED. Mrn- 
 DER OF WALDRON. CLOSE OF THE WAR. 
 
 THE settlers who came out to New Hampshire and Maine, under 
 the patronage of Gorges and Mason, 1 were mainly royalists and adhe- 
 rents of the Church of England. The principal men were 
 disposed to favor those feudal notions of manors, seignories, 
 and ecclesiastical sees, which the two proprietors entertained. 
 Captain Francis Champernoon, who bought of Gorges Gerrislfs and 
 Cutts's islands, near the mouth of the Piscataqua, and the place of 
 whose burial upon Cutts's is still marked by the simple cairn of 
 stones which he dii'ected for his monument, was a distinguished roy- 
 alist, whose ancestor, Richard, was a stout adherent of Henry 
 VII. in his struggle with Richard II. The favor of the 
 family at court is shown by an extant petition of Arthur 
 Champernoon to Charles I., in 1634, about the Priory of Plimpton, 
 which belonged to him in tail male, and which, in default of male 
 
 i VoL i., i>. 333. 
 
 Maine 
 
 ! 
 
420 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 The 
 
 issue, would have reverted to the crown. He prayed fur a grant of 
 reversion to himself, and the petition bears the king's consent. The 
 island, afterwards called Gerrish's, was at first called Dartington by 
 his son Francis, from the name of a family castle upon the River Dart 
 in Devonshire. 
 
 Another place upon that English river was Kittery, which, in 1652, 
 
 The town of became the name of a town in New Hampshire, originally 
 
 called Piscataqua, at a time when it included Eliot, South 
 
 Berwick, and Berwick, which are on the eastern bank of the river, 
 
 and now in Maine. 
 
 In 1036, there were a few settlers at Agamenticus, as the territory 
 was called, between the mountain of that name and the sea, which is 
 now tne township of York. Here an incorporated city was 
 f onnc i e( i j n 1641, on the old English plan, with a mayor and 
 aldermen, and pompous revival of antique usage. It was called 
 Gorgeana. The occupants of the land were to be subject to the 
 
 proprietors as their ten 
 
 ,*? *._:'. ants at will. Mason and 
 
 Gorges did their best to 
 transplant to America 
 foreign fruits and the 
 feudal manor. But of 
 i hem all the grapes and 
 t he manor failed to ef- 
 fect a lodgment. The 
 aristocratic principle 
 could not take root and 
 become New English 
 any more than the va- 
 rieties of slips which 
 were intended for vine- 
 
 yards. But the English apple liked the soil, where it improved in 
 size and flavor till it became the hardy symbol of New England. 
 One of the apple trees which were brought over in tubs, in 1629, to 
 start an orchard in York, has borne fruit ever since, till the year 1875, 
 when it was cut down. 
 
 Many of the settlers, who came over to improve their fortunes, 
 favored no prerogative but the personal one of earning their 
 living. They did not relish any transfer of old abuses to the 
 scene of their new venture. The proprietors were baffled and 
 discouraged, because the popular opinion among men, who 
 were bold and hardy enough to venture here, was decidedly hostile 
 to privilege. The settlers were always trying to establish :i system 
 
 Champernoon's Cairn. 
 
 of 
 
 Ne Eug- 
 
1641.] THE NORTHERN COLONIES AND MASSACHUSETTS. 421 
 
 of governing that should meet their local wants and circumstances, 
 with the least possible encroachment from delay or vested rights. Ma- 
 son aspired to be Lord of the Manor. The settler wanted to own his 
 farm and fishing-stage. The dissensions which arose from the collis- 
 ion of the two interests, finally led a great number of the settlers, in 
 1641, to petition the General Court of Massachusetts to be included 
 under its government ; a popular tendency which, of course, was skil- 
 fully fostered by agents of the Puritans, who longed to exer- 
 
 J , . . ,. . Northern 
 
 cise authority over the region where their enemies in religion colonies 
 and politics ruled, and all the disaffected sectaries took ref- Massachu- 
 uge. For Gorges and Mason were tolerant in religious 
 matters, though staunch royalists and intensely feudal. They had, 
 of course, no objection to the expectation that fishing and trading 
 
 View of Kittery, N. H. 
 
 might pay the expenses of colonizing and serve as an inducement to 
 colonists. But while they were profoundly loyal to their own relig- 
 ious convictions, and to the customs of public worship which belonged 
 to them, they were well disposed to welcome all men with freedom 
 to worship God in their own way. 
 
 Richard Gibson, an Episcopalian, was the first minister of the Pis- 
 cataqua parish at Portsmouth ; and the people at Odiorne's Point 
 came over the water between there and Strawberry Bank 
 
 * Firet church 
 
 as Portsmouth was first called to hear him preach. A at Port - 
 
 * mouth* 
 
 chapel was built for him in 1638. This appeared to be no 
 religion at all to the Massachusetts men, who were prone to accuse 
 
422 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 their neighbors of cultivating tolerance solely for the sake of trade. 
 Gibson, Winthrop said, " did scandalize our government, oppose our 
 title to those parts, and provoke the people, by way of arguments 
 to revolt from us." Therefore, they had him up before the General 
 Court in Boston, extorted from him an acknowledgment of his offence ; 
 but, as he was about to leave the country, dismissed him " without 
 any fine or other punishment." Mr. James Parker of VVeymouth, 
 " a godly man and a scholar," took Mr. Gibson's place. Parker was, 
 of course, a Puritan, or Winthrop could not have thus commended 
 him. He adds that the new minister was invited to come to Ports- 
 mouth by more than forty of her people, whereof " the most had been 
 very profane, and some of them professed enemies to the way of our 
 churches." Even so godly a man as Mr. Parker could do little with 
 
 View of Exeter, N. H 
 
 so perverse and backsliding a generation. The Governor bewails that 
 " most of them fell back again in time, embracing this present world," 
 fell back, that is, into the slough of a non-Puritan church. 
 
 When John Wheelwright was driven, in 1638, out of Boston for 
 wheel- Antinomian opinion, he founded at Squamscot Falls, Exeter, 
 tiement 8 aT t " a church, and at the same time a body politic, upon a purely 
 Exeter. democratic basis. Every man, without respect to his theolog- 
 ical bias, had a voice in choosing rulers annually, and two assistants to 
 each ruler. A similar social system was founded and prevailed at 
 Dover. Two elements from the old country appear to have met in 
 
1641.] EARLY NEW HAMPSHIRE CHURCHES. 423 
 
 New Hampshire. The settlers from London and Bristol seem gener- 
 ally to have favored the Church of England ; those from the West 
 Country were more inclined to non-conformity. There are traces of 
 certain jealousies between the two parties, as when the agent of the 
 Dover people claimed a point of land at Newington, and was resisted 
 by the agent of Portsmouth. When the affair threatened to be 
 serious, the employers of the agents had recourse to arbitration, and 
 the point was amicably settled, though to this day it is called Bloody 
 Point from the unsanguinary nature of the quarrel there. 
 
 When New Hampshire came under the jurisdiction of Massachu- 
 setts, in 1641, Wheelwright's policy was respected ; he had the tri- 
 umph of seeing the rights of his freemen without regard to their 
 religion allowed by the colony which banished him. But he would 
 not remain under its jurisdiction. He retired to Wells, in Maine ; 
 afterward he was permitted 
 to preach at Winnicumett / 
 
 (Hampton). During Crom- tf r" 
 well's protectorate he went to / 
 England, was admitted to an 
 
 . ,, Signature of Wheelwright. 
 
 audience of his old college 
 
 mate, the Protector, who received him with much consideration. 
 Turning to the persons standing near, Cromwell said, " I remember 
 the time, gentlemen, when I have been more afraid of meeting Wheel- 
 wright at foot-ball than of meeting any army since in the field." 
 Wheelwright returned to New Hampshire, and died at Salisbury, in 
 1680. 
 
 Wheelwright was a stiff Calvinist. The men who exiled him held 
 Calvinistic doctrine with a silent modification in favor of practical 
 religion, and lived, as he said, mainly under a covenant of works. 
 But he was a pure supporter of a Covenant of Faith. To his mind 
 the doctrines of Election and Foreordination were absolute ; they 
 claimed his homage so entirely that he seemed to undervalue justifica- 
 tion by works. 
 
 Notwithstanding the strong predilection for the Church of England, 
 which the proprietary settlers brought with them, the principles of 
 the Puritans soon prevailed in the colony, and fortunately brought it 
 into greater sympathy with the Colony of the Bay. Winthrop and 
 the rest used to regard the Piscataqua as another Rhode 
 
 Puritanism 
 
 Island, that is, only a sink for Massachusetts, into which all > New 
 
 t i- -i ci Hampshire. 
 
 malcontents, fanatics, royalists, and miscreants drifted. Some 
 persons of a bad moral quality did indeed find it safer to go there, but 
 also safer eventually to leave it. The colony was not so jealous of its 
 strict brethren of the Bay as to countenance moral irregularities. 
 
424 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 *"" 
 
 The spirit of antagonism was kept alive partly by the pretensions of 
 Gorges and Mason, and partly by these theological differences. But 
 the early Episcopalians of the Piscataqua were quite as sincere, and 
 of a motive as honest as any other people in New England, though 
 the man who should have said so in 1642, in Boston, would have been 
 haled before the General Court. 
 
 We find, as everywhere else in New England, a great deal of early 
 Early letfu- legislation applied to church matters and customs. It was 
 ordered, in 1662, that a cage be made by the selectmen; 
 " to punish such as sleepe, or take tobacco on the Lord's 
 Day out of the meeting in the time of publick exercise." The usual 
 
 custom prevailed of 
 seating the people 
 in the meeting- 
 house according to 
 rank and conse- 
 quence. When Mr. 
 Moody was or- 
 dained, Captain 
 John Pickering was 
 appointed, on ac- 
 count of his great 
 strength and com- 
 manding manner, 
 to reserve seats for 
 the distinguished 
 guests and keep the 
 congregation in or- 
 der. But he let all 
 the people in before 
 service time on the 
 ground that all men 
 were equal in a 
 house of God. 1 
 
 The early records contain an order in town-meeting that "one 
 householder or more walk every Sabbath day in sermon time with the 
 constable to every Publick House in y e town to suppress ill order, and 
 if they think convenient, to private houses also." It is also ordered, 
 " for the prevention of fire or other dangers which may happen by 
 smoking in the Meeting House, that every person soe smoking at any 
 meeting in the Meeting House be fined." This alludes to the town 
 meetings which were held in the early times in the single meeting- 
 1 Rev. James De Normandie's Historical Sketches. 
 
 The Sabbath Inspection of Taverns. 
 
1662.] 
 
 THE ISLES OF SHOALS. 
 
 425 
 
 house belonging to the town. The names of common drunkards were 
 furnished by the selectmen to every inn holder, who was then fined 
 for selling liquor to them. A vote was passed that all persons should 
 go over the ferry free upon the Sabbath. If strangers remained in 
 town more than a day or two, they were obliged to give their names 
 to the selectmen. 
 
 Cases of intolerance were quite rare in New Hampshire ; they 
 seem to have occurred chiefly while the colony was under the jurisdic- 
 tion of the Bay. It was in 1662 that an occurrence already alluded 
 to took place. Three Quaker women were sentenced to be publicly 
 whipped at the cart's tail through several towns. The punishment 
 was applied in two or three, when Walter Barefoot interfered, and 
 prevailing upon the constable to surrender the warrant to him, re- 
 
 The Isles of Shoals. 
 
 leased them. In 1656 there were several enactments against "a 
 cursed sect of hereticks lately arisen up in the world, which are com- 
 monly called Quakers, who take upon themselves to be immediately 
 sent of God." 
 
 The Isles of Shoals, a group of seven rocky islets lying about nine 
 miles southeast of the mouth of the Piscataqua, had in the Tbe^egof 
 seventeenth century an importance now hardly conceivable. s ^ oals - 
 These islands had been seen and visited quite early, but received no 
 particular description. In 1610 Samuel Argall was driven by a storm 
 upon the coast of Maine, and returned thence to Virginia with a cargo 
 of fish which were caught in these waters, and perhaps cured upon 
 the rocks of the Shoals. But we have definite accounts of them in 
 1614, by Capt. John Smith, whose opinion of them was slightingly 
 
426 NEW HAMPSHIRE. , [CHAP. XVIIL 
 
 expressed afterwards when they fell to his share in a division of ter- 
 ritory under a patent of Gorges. He says, " No lot for me but 
 Smith's Isles, which are a many of barren rocks, the most over- 
 growne with such shrubs and sharpe whins you can hardly pass them ; 
 without either grass or wood, but three or four short shrubby old 
 Cedars." l These scrubby trees gave the name to Cedar Island ; but 
 John Winthrop had no other cause to write in his journal, " the Isles 
 of Shoals are woody." 2 
 
 The name would indicate that the group is encircled by shoals, like 
 those which lie off Nantucket and in the neighborhood of Cape Cod ; 
 but there are only three or four outlying ledges which are distinctly 
 marked by the breaking water. The sea deepens quite abruptly 
 around all the islands, and it is evident that Captain Smith laid down 
 upon his map several ledges as if they had been islands, making three 
 or four out of Duck Island, for instance ; so that perhaps the name 
 of the group was derived from this number, as of a shoal of islets. It 
 is more likely that the abundant shoals of fishes which attracted ves- 
 sels thither gave it the name. But there is one authority which claims 
 that the word Shole, in some dialect of the west coast of England, 
 means cod-fish. 
 
 The group was first included in a patent which Gorges obtained 
 
 from the King in 1620 ; under it they belonged to Maine till 
 
 of the 1652. It was in 1621 that the Council of Plymouth was 
 
 Islands. * 
 
 summoned to the bar of the House of Commons, upon the 
 charge that its charter for the settlement of New England was based 
 upon a monopoly of fishing and trading, and included the right to lay 
 taxes upon other parties ; as Captain Smith complained, " those pat- 
 entees procured a Proclamation, that no ship should goe thither to 
 fish but pay them for the publike, as it was pretended, five pound 
 upon every thirty tuns of shipping, neither trade with the natives, 
 cut downe wood, throw their balast over bord, nor plant without 
 commission, leave and content to the Lord of that division or Man- 
 nor : some of which for some of them I believe will be tenantlesse this 
 thousand yeare." 3 
 
 Politics and interest combined to make an effective, national griev- 
 ance of this fishing question ; and the principal fishing station was the 
 Isles of Shoals. The Islands gradually lost their importance : new 
 ports upon the coast were opened, trade became diverted to more 
 thriving settlements, and vessels from Malaga and the West Indies 
 sought safer harbors. When, in 1679, New Hampshire became a sep- 
 
 1 Smith's Advertisements for Unexperienced Planters (Veazie's reprint), p. 39. 
 
 * Savage's Winthrop's Journal, ii., p. 418. 
 
 * Smith 's Advertisements for Unexperienced Planters, p. 39. 
 
1620.] GORGES AND MASON'S GRANT. 427 
 
 arate Royal Province under the Presidency of John Cutts, the group 
 was divided by a line running through the middle of the roadstead : 
 then the northerly islands, Appledore, Smutty Nose and Duck re- 
 verted to Maine, the others came under the government of New 
 Hampshire. This was the old partition agreed upon between Gorges 
 and Mason, when the latter occupied the Piscataqua ; and the divis- 
 ion remains undisturbed to-day. 1 
 
 The history of Captain John Mason's proprietorship, by virtue of 
 which he and his heirs claimed the ownership of all New Captain 
 Hampshire which lay west of the Piscataqua, with power ^1 
 to extort rent and taxes from the actual settlers, is interest- grant - 
 ing because it furnishes a most striking example of the way in which 
 municipal and republican usage were developed in America. It must, 
 however, be briefly told, because it was protracted clear through the 
 seventeenth century. 
 
 In 1620 Gorges obtained a comprehensive patent, which covered all 
 New England, described as then existing between the fortieth and 
 forty- eighth parallels of latitude. This was not only the basis of all 
 the supplementary patents which were issued to different individuals, 
 and empowered them to occupy their grants or claims, but it also 
 furnished Gorges and Mason with their authority to assume, as they 
 did afterwards, the control over the whole territory of the Mas- 
 sachusetts Bay and the Piscataqua. It provided for a General Gov- 
 ernor, who should be a royalist, and for a form of worship after the 
 ritual of the Church of England. As often as this scheme recurred 
 it was of course vigorously resisted by the Massachusetts men. They 
 viewed with dismay such a prospect of consolidating New England in 
 the interest of royalism. But the charter clearly justified Gorges and 
 Mason in the attempt to transfer their favorite scheme of govern- 
 ment and religion to the New World. It was therefore that the Mas- 
 sachusetts people viewed it as a divine interposition when Captain 
 
 1 Appledore is chiefly remembered as the place where William Peperell, a fisherman, 
 first settled. Removing to Kittery, he became the father of Sir William, the hero of 
 Louisbourg, and the first and only native New Englander (except possiblv his own grand- 
 son) upon whom a baronetcy was conferred while the colonies belonged to England. Sir 
 George Downing, who was also made a baronet, was not a native of New England ; Sir 
 William Phips was only a knight ; Sir John Davie inherited his baronetcy ; also Sir John 
 Stewart ; Sir John Wentworth was made a baronet after the separation of the colonies from 
 England. Sabine's American Loyalists. Hist. Magazine, vol. i., p. 150. It is claimed also 
 (Hist. Mag., p. 286), that Sir William Peperell's grandson, born a Sparhawk, whose name 
 was changed to Peperell when he became the baronet's heir (a son having died), was created 
 a baronet in 1774. 
 
 William Peperell did not relish the rough life at the island, and it is related that he and 
 his friend Gibbous agreed to leave it in the direction which their canes took in dropping 
 from the hand. Peperell's cane pointed toward Kittery, and Gibbous's toward Maine, 
 whither he went and settled on land which was afterward covered by the Waldo Patent. 
 
428 NEW HAMPSHIRE., [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 John Mason, who had been appointed Vice Admiral of New Eng- 
 D^th of land in 1635, died during the same year. Then, as Win- 
 Mason, throp said in his Journal, " all the business fell on Sleep." 
 If the growing independence of New England had been checked by 
 such a scheme in the interest of monarchy, the restraint would have 
 only lasted until the English Commonwealth arose. Then its repub- 
 lican politics would have interfered to restrain the ambition of royal 
 proprietors, and to confirm the Puritan tendency of New England. 
 
 But the heirs of Gorges and Mason clung tenaciously to the pro- 
 claims of prietary claim. In 1676 New Hampshire was still under 
 huhein. the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. In that year the heirs 
 perceived their opportunity, in the jealousy of Charles II. which 
 had been long nursed against the independence of New England, to 
 renew their claim under the old patent issued by the Council of 
 Plymouth. When Charles II., who had been waiting several years 
 for a pretext to interfere with the affairs of New England, sent Ed- 
 ward Randolph to Boston, the General Court was ordered to appear by 
 deputy in England to defend its pretensions, on peril of judgment 
 in case of disobedience. No remonstrance or delay could serve their 
 cause ; the deputies were obliged to repair to London. There it was 
 decided that the Council of Plymouth never had the right to convey 
 to Gorges and Mason, under a simple grant of territory, any absolute 
 jurisdiction over New Hampshire. No municipal jurisdiction existed, 
 thei-efore, that could be transferred to Massachusetts. It 
 
 New Hamp- . -i i i 
 
 BhireaRoyai remained vested in the crown ; a royal commission for the 
 
 Province. .... 
 
 CuttsGov- government of New Hampshire was issued, which restrained 
 Massachusetts from its exercise of jurisdiction. John Cutts 
 was appointed in 1679 the President of a council of nine to govern 
 this royal province for one year. 
 
 But at the same time it was decided that the heirs of Mason might 
 claim the ownership of all the land which had been granted to Cap- 
 tain John Mason, in 1629, and occupied ever since by numerous ten- 
 ants. These had purchased their estates from previous holders, had 
 put toil and money into them, and therefore were in no humor to pay 
 rent to a new claimant, or to take leases of him. 
 
 When a grandson of Captain John Robert Mason, who had 
 
 dropped his father's surname of Tufton, and assumed his 
 
 son in New maternal grandfather's came from England, and claimed 
 
 Hampshire. . . . . . . , . , . 
 
 proprietorship, proposing to issue titles, receive back-rents, 
 and extort sixpence in the pound upon all the improvements that had 
 been made by the settlers for more than forty years, there followed 
 endless complaints, great bitterness of feeling, and obstinate litigation. 
 His stewards demanded rents with threats to sell the occupant's prem- 
 
1679.] CLAIMS OF MASON'S HEIRS RESISTED. 429 
 
 ises over his head if the demands were not complied with. Sheriffs 
 attempted to serve writs of ejectments, but the colonists united every- 
 where in the 
 sturdiest resist- 
 ance. There was f>e ^ , 
 
 little respect for yLSft~~~y f~~o 
 proceedings at \L x~~^ 
 law, and quite as ^^- 
 
 little paid to per- Signature of Robert Ma ' on - 
 
 sons. Mason, in despair, returned to England to solicit a change in 
 the administration of the Province, under which he hoped to renew 
 his claim more successfully. Edward Cranfield was ap- 
 pointed Lieutenant-governor, with a council at whose head Lieutenant- 
 sat Mason, who undertook to contribute to Cranfield's sup- 
 port in office by mortgaging the province to him as security for an 
 annuity of 150. Cranfield came out with the resolution of a Roman 
 proconsul to make the province bleed. 
 
 His preliminary proceedings, looking to the interest of the claim- 
 ant, were so arbitrary, and inflamed the popular discontent to such 
 a degree that riots broke out at Hampton and Exeter, started by 
 Edward Gove, a hot-headed member of the Assembly which Cranfield 
 had just illegally dissolved. No persons of importance joined him. 
 He was arrested, tried, and condemned to death, as if his offence 
 had involved high-treason. The Governor, fearing to execute the 
 sentence, sent him to be put to death in England. This monstrous 
 spectacle of the King's government carrying out the sentence of a 
 provincial magistrate was prevented, partly, it is said, by the inter- 
 ference of Cranfield himself, who felt that his rule was too unpopular 
 to be much longer tolerated. 
 
 As a few of the settlers consented to take leases of Mason, the 
 Governor and Council concluded that among them a sufficient number 
 of jurymen and sheriffs could be found willing to try cases for Mason 
 and serve his writs. His law suits began ; a dozen cases were some- 
 times disposed of in a day ; but Mason could do nothing with the 
 estates that lapsed to him. Cranfield's tax-bills developed General 
 even more resistance than Mason's writs of ejectment. Mascm-" * ^ 
 Under provocation from these arbitrary measures, the peo- demands - 
 pie sometimes lost their temper, and opposed "swamp law to parch- 
 ment law." The hard-worked women were as little disposed as the 
 men to acknowledge Mason's bit of parchment as a needed title-deed, 
 where the right had been won by the hard fight with a savage wilder- 
 ness. They heated spits and prepared scalding water for a suitable 
 ovation to the renegade settlers who had turned officers. One sheriff, 
 
430 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 who incautiously attempted to make an arrest during divine service, 
 was floored by a damsel who brought the collective word of God to 
 bear in one blow with a folio Bible ; the whole parish joined the 
 Church Militant upon the spot, and Cranfield's posse was dismissed. 
 
 The influence of non-conforming clergymen over public opinion 
 was conspicuous during New Hampshire's royal episode. Cranfield 
 
 The Sheriff Resisted. 
 
 wrote to England that allegiance was impossible while the clergy- 
 men had the liberty of speech. Among them the figure of 
 popular Moody, the Puritan minister of Portsmouth, stands stoutly 
 forth in resistance to the politics of the Governor, who en- 
 deavored to silence him by enforcing the act against non-conformity. 
 Cranfield issued an order that the ministers should admit all persons 
 of moral life to the Sacraments of the Lord's Supper and Baptism, 
 and notified Moody that he should appear at the Lord's table the next 
 Sunday, with the expectation that the Communion would be admin- 
 
1685.] CLAIMS OF MASON'S HEIRS RESISTED. 431 
 
 istered to him according to the liturgy of the Church of England. 
 Cranfield knew that Moody would refuse. The minister was put 
 upon trial, and notwithstanding the valid defence he made that he 
 had not been episcopally ordained, sentence went against him, his 
 living was forfeited, and he was sent to prison. Being afterwards 
 banished from the province, he preached in Boston till 1692, when he 
 could return to Portsmouth. 
 
 Cranfield was given leave of absence in 1685, and Captain Walter 
 Barefoot was appointed Deputy Governor during his absence. His 
 efforts, on behalf of the assumed proprietor, were quite as earnest as 
 Cranfield's, but quite as futile. Mason was a lodger in Barefoot's 
 house, and that intimate relation was unfortunate for both. Two 
 sturdy yeomen, Thomas Wiggins and Anthony Nutter, called to see 
 Mason one day, probably to expostulate with him upon the legal pro- 
 ceedings to substantiate his claims, by which they, in common with 
 the colonists generally, were threatened with the loss of their long 
 years of hard labor in making homes for themselves and their fam- 
 ilies. 
 
 There was evidently little ceremony in the approach of these men 
 even to a Deputy Governor and the assumed owner of all New 
 Hampshire. Wiggins declared that neither he nor others cared " one 
 rush" for Mason's claim; that he had no business in the province; 
 that he had not a foot of land there, and never should have; and 
 " did give " says Mason, in an affidavit " very abusive and pro- 
 voking language." Both Barefoot and Mason ordered Wiggins to 
 leave the house, and Mason, unfortunately, undertook to enforce the 
 order. Wiggins seized him and tossed him into the fire ; not only 
 tossed him into the fire, but sat upon him ; not only sat upon him, 
 but grasped " his wind-pipe in high contempt of his majesty's royal 
 authority, and against the peace of our sovereign lord the King," 
 and " almost choked him." Barefoot rushed to the rescue ; but 
 him also Wiggins seized and tossed into the embers out of which 
 Mason was crawling, and sat upon him so hard that he broke two of 
 his ribs. Mason called for his sword, which, before he had time 
 to draw, was taken away from him by Nutter, who had stood by 
 hitherto laughing at the way in which his companion handled the 
 official gentlemen. The maid screamed for assistance ; the neighbors 
 rushed in, but only, it seems, to snatch the Deputy Governor's velvet 
 cap from behind the back-log, and to pick the live coals from his 
 breeches, for clothes and periwigs were burning. 1 It was in this 
 temper that the settlers met the assertion of right under a royal 
 
 1 Affidavits in Provincial Papers of New Hampshire, vol. i. Compiled and edited by 
 Nathaniel Bouton, D. D., Secretary of N. H. Hist. Society. 
 
432 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 patent against the claim of personal ownership, bought with their 
 own sweat and blood. How easy it is to discern in these encounters 
 the fountain of that spirit of independence which, in another century, 
 would break into a flood. 
 
 Robert Mason left his odious land-title to two sons, who sold it out 
 to Samuel Allen, of London, who received a commission to 
 govern the province. William of Orange appointed Allen's 
 son-in-law, John Usher, Lieutenant-governor of New Hamp- 
 shire, to act during the absence of Allen. Usher was amiable, and 
 
 Usher 
 Lieutenant- 
 governor. 
 
 The Assault on Mason and Barefoot. 
 
 disposed to conciliate the province ; but he was pledged to Allen, and 
 the old distraining processes of Mason had to be renewed, but so 
 ineffectually that Allen could not pay to Usher the annuity which 
 had been promised to him. Usher had greatly excited the people 
 by removing from his council two prominent men who were hostile 
 to Allen's claim. During a visit which Usher made to Boston, the 
 people privately dispatched an influential merchant, William Part- 
 ridge, to London to solicit, in their name, the office of Lieutenant- 
 governor. Partridge was successful, owing to private interest exerted 
 in his behalf ; and the councillors who were obnoxious to Usher re- 
 sumed their seats at the council board. 
 
1689.] NEW HAMPSHIRE GOVERNORS. 433 
 
 Usher, at the beginning of his administration, found the actual 
 possessors of land as unwilling to be ejected by writs issued 
 under Allen's derived title as under Mason's original one. difficulty as 
 
 ! . to titles. 
 
 They were, at the very moment, defending their homes, with 
 
 loss of life and property, against the attacks of the Eastern Indians. 
 
 Smarting under the griefs 
 
 and hardships of that 
 
 warfare, living in con- 
 
 stant uncertainty and 
 
 dreading fresh outrages, 
 
 Jr\j? Signature of John Usher. 
 
 they naturally resented 
 this legal onset upon possessions which they could hardly hold against 
 the savages. While the exposed settlements saw their barns and 
 dwellings disappear in smoke, their kindred vanish into captivity, and 
 precious lives laid down to maintain a colony, this fire in the rear was 
 opened upon them by the official persons in Portsmouth. 
 
 It was important for Usher to obtain possession of the papers which 
 preserved all the business connected with Mason's suits. They had 
 been taken by force from the clerk who legally held them, and car- 
 ried over to Kittery, to be concealed there. This was done in 1689, 
 
 after the people in Bos- 
 ton had deposed An- 
 
 king and a change of 
 
 Signature of William Partridge. -\ ... .. T i 
 
 administration. L slier 
 
 attempted to recover them from the person who was prominent in 
 their removal ; but he, though imprisoned, refused to deliver them 
 up except upon an order of the Assembly. It does not appear that 
 such an order was issued ; but Usher did at length get possession of 
 the papers, which were restored to the custody of the clerk. 
 
 But while Usher was in Boston, and when the party which was 
 hostile to Allen's claim had put Partridge into office, the Assembly 
 ordered the papers to be placed in the hands of a newly appointed 
 recorder. 
 
 Allen, who was the actual Governor, came over in 1698, and as- 
 sumed office ; Partridge continued in his place as Lieuten- Arrival of 
 ant-governor, notwithstanding the remonstrance of Usher, Allen- 
 who produced a letter from the Lords of Trade which directed him to 
 hold his office till the arrival of the Earl of Bellomont. But Par- 
 tridge's commission was held to be valid. The Earl had been lately 
 created Governor of New York and the New England Provinces. He 
 went first to New York and spent a year there, during which Allen's 
 
 VOL. ii. 28 
 

 434 NEW HAMPSHIRE. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 administration only served to embitter the popular feeling ; it was ex- 
 pressed in the resistance which the Assembly made to some of his 
 measures, and so stubbornly that he dissolved it. The people hailed 
 the appearance of the Earl in the summer of 1699, for they had then 
 a Governor whose private interest was not involved in the proprietary 
 The Eari of title. He was able to entertain impartially the complaints 
 Beiiomont. o j^^ p art j es> jje advised the Assembly to reconstitute 
 the courts which had been presided over by judges who were disposed 
 to favor Allen's claim. Their commissions had been vacated. Now 
 the Assembly passed an act reestablishing the superior and inferior 
 courts, and Partridge, as acting Governor in the absence of the Earl, 
 appointed the judges. 
 
 When the question came before the new courts, it was found that no 
 Progress of record of any judgments in favor of Mason, and no trace of 
 tion'ovCT his taking possession under them, was in existence. New 
 Alien's title. g^g were brought, therefore, to test the claim of Allen, 
 who did not succeed in winning one of them. Consequently he ap- 
 pealed to the King through the court. But the court held the Massa- 
 chusetts doctrine that, under the old charter, no appeal through the 
 court to the King was admissible. Allen was obliged to petition the 
 King to grant him an appeal. 
 
 It would prove monotonous to recount at length the varying for- 
 tunes of this legal strife, so important to a large portion of New Eng- 
 land. The King died, and Allen's appeal came before Queen Anne. 
 Thus the great quarrel passed into the eighteenth century. Juries 
 refused to find a verdict for the plaintiff. But the people were dis- 
 turbed at the prospect, that litigation might at any time be renewed at 
 A gettiement * ne w ^ ^ the representatives of Allen's claim. Therefore, 
 proposed. through a meeting of deputies of actual settlers, a scheme 
 for settlement was drawn, by which the inhabitants of townships 
 should hold their lands absolutely free by quitclaim from Allen and his 
 
 heirs, upon payment of .2,000, 
 to be assessed upon inhabitants 
 of townships, and an allotment of 
 sundry acres of common land in 
 the several townships. 
 
 Signature of Samuel Allen. Tl . i i i ,1 A 11 i 
 
 It is probable that Allen, whose 
 
 means had been all swallowed up in lawsuits and expenses of agents, 
 would have accepted this composition ; but he died before it could be 
 presented to him. Of his assets falling to his son there was nothing 
 but an opportunity to renew the litigation if the prospect pleased him. 
 It was renewed in 1706 by a fresh writ of ejectment brought against 
 Waldron, who was one of the largest landowners on the popular side, . 
 
 

 1675.] 
 
 THE INDIANS. 435 
 
 and had been brought prominently forward, as his father was be- 
 fore him, to resist the title of Mason. Losing the suit, Allen ap- 
 pealed to the Superior Court, when a last supreme effort was made 
 by both parties, and all the conflicting documents were displayed, 
 including that famous and doubtful deed which four Indian Sa- 
 chems, it was said, had made in 1629, to Rev. John Wheelwright 
 and others, under which Wheelwright settled Exeter. Settlers of 
 other places also held their land 
 directly from the original native 
 proprietors. Waldron's father thus 
 
 , , . T-. T Signature of Waldron. 
 
 possessed lands m Dover, it is 
 
 riot necessary to review the charters, grants, and decisions which 
 supported the proprietary title, nor the arguments employed by 
 the counsel on both sides. The jury found for the de- End o{ the 
 fendant, Waldron, a confirmation of the judgment of the < 
 inferior court; an appeal was made as usual; but before it could 
 reach a hearing in council Allen died in 1715, and the memorable 
 contest never was renewed. 1 
 
 The Indians who lived on the Piscataqua, the Merrimac, and around 
 Lake Winnipiseogee, speaking a kindred dialect with the 
 Abnaki tribes of Maine, were called Tarratines by the Mas- wre i* P 
 
 i . . Jiuns. 
 
 sachusetts Indians. At some former period one original 
 Algonquin language probably prevailed all along the coast of New 
 England ; but at the time of the white man's coming it had fallen 
 apart with various modifications, influenced by the movements of 
 separate tribes, by distance, isolation, and the fortunes of war. From 
 the river St. George to the Piscataqua, and perhaps to the Merrimac, 
 the tribes appear to have been once under the sway of the chief of 
 the Wavvenocks, the famous Ba&heba, a word that was either a title 
 
 1 Belknap's History of New Hampshire. 
 
 Mason's direct heirs were so reduced in fortune that we find a Tufton Mason living with 
 his mother obscurely in Boston, in 1713. One day the son, rummaging in an old cabinet 
 hit upon a secret drawer in which a signet ring was concealed, that bore the arms and 
 motto of the Tufton family. The head of the Tufton branch was the Earl of Thanet, 
 and the young man determined to earn money enough to take him to England, that he 
 might there prove his connection. He went to sea as a common sailor and worked his way 
 up to be the mate of a ship. Finding himself in an English port, with a respectable out- 
 fit, he inquired his way to the Earl's mansion, and bade the porter announce him as an 
 American. Upon being admitted, he said, " My Lord, I am one of your Lordship's kin- 
 dred," and produced the ring, which bore the motto, " Ales volat propriis," the bird flies to 
 its kind. The Earl accepted the claim which was thus made upon his relationship, became 
 interested in Mason, procured his education, and then a commission in the army. He was 
 a major of marines at the taking of Senegal from the French, was made a colonel for gal- 
 lantry, and then Governor of Senegal. He presented to St. John's Church, in Portsmouth, 
 the beautiful font which was found among the French spoils. In this form the tradition of 
 the old territorial Proprietor was gracefully transmitted by one of his landless descendants. 
 MS. of John L. Hayes, Esq., Traditions of a Royal Province. 
 
436 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 of some prominent chief, or his name which became a title. His head- 
 quarters were on the Sagadahoc. The Penobscots had attacked the 
 tribe and destroyed the supremacy which it exercised both to the east- 
 ward and westward. Then the different sachems found themselves 
 
 unmolested in their 
 local authority over 
 their respective 
 tribes; but though 
 independent of the 
 Eastern Indians 
 they were still ex- 
 posed to raids, and 
 dreaded the restless 
 and warlike temper 
 of the Penobscots. 
 The Mohawks also 
 frequently attacked 
 the New Hampshire 
 Indians, and a great 
 defeat, which was 
 sustained by the 
 Penacook Indians 
 near the present 
 Concord, was re- 
 membered with 
 dread. 1 
 
 The four sachems 
 
 mentioned in Rev. John Wheelwright's deed as sellers of land to him 
 were Passaconaway of Penacook (" place of the ground-nut," 
 named in now Concord), Runawit of Pentucket (at the falls of the 
 
 View on Lake Winnipiseogee. 
 
 Merrimac), Wahaugnonawit of Squamscot, now Exeter, and 
 Rowls of Newichawannock, now Berwick. Of these sachems 
 Passaconaway was the most influential ; the other sachems and the 
 natives around Lake Winnipiseogee deferred to his counsels. He was 
 a great medicine-man, skilled in all the charms and occult practices of 
 
 1 The Indians loved to settle around falls and profitable fishing places. They named 
 parts of rivers rather than their whole length. Merrimac means the Place of Swift Water, 
 and was applied to the rapids below Amoskeag. The latter word means fishiug-place. 
 Pawtucket means the Place of Deer. Piscataqua means Big-Deer Place, because deer were 
 found in great numbers around the river in the interior. The elements of the word also 
 enter into Pautuckaway. " When the inhabitants in that district became numerous enough 
 to petition for an act of incorporation as a town, they sent a large deer as a present to the 
 Governor, Benning Wentworth, who thereupon signified his wish that the new town should 
 be called Deer-field." Wamesit was at the junction of the Concord and Merrimac rivers, 
 Naumkeag was the fishing-place at the Falls. Ballard's Geographical Names. 
 
1675.] RELATIONS WITH THE INDIANS. 437 
 
 the Indian, and used them with great effect to preserve ascendency 
 over the native mind. Some of the feats which were told of him have 
 all the color and flavor of East Indian jugglery. Years afterward, 
 when he was an old man, he confessed at a great feast that he had 
 often tried his strongest spells against the white man, with a view to 
 hinder his increase in the country ; but as they invariably failed he 
 had made up his mind that war would be a failure also, and coun- 
 selled his young men not to engage in it. His influence, which pre- 
 served the early settlements from attack, may be partly credited to 
 John Eliot " the Apostle," who came into his country on a mission- 
 ary tour with Mayhew, and impaired his belief in the native sorcery, 
 chiefly by convincing him of the efficacy of English drugs in the 
 treatment of disease. In 1642, the settlements became alarmed to 
 find Indians in the woods who were hunting with fire-arms, and a 
 force visited the old chief to discover his intentions. But the alarm 
 was groundless, except that the unwelcome discovery was made that 
 a trader from Weymouth had been furnishing guns and powder to the 
 natives. In fact they were provided with arms before 1628. 
 
 The Pequot war was waged at too great a distance to agitate the 
 Eastern Indians. No common ground of offence then existed, no 
 emissaries tampered with them. The New Hampshire set- 
 tlements enjoyed immunity till 1675. Wonnelauset, the 
 son of Passaconaway, was then the chief, though the old 
 man was still alive ; he lived, in fact, to be over one hun- ho8tilitie8 
 dred years of age. Eliot conversed with the son at Pawtucket, now 
 Lowell, Massachusetts, and found him well disposed toward the new 
 doctrine. He said to Eliot that he was " quite willing to leave his 
 old canoe and embark in a new canoe." But on the breaking out of 
 Philip's war he fell under suspicion of the English, and a hundred 
 men, under Captain Moseley, were sent to his village, at Penacook. 
 At their approach the natives withdrew and hid in the woods, to 
 avoid offence and collision. The soldiers wantonly burned the wig- 
 wams and their contents. But Wonnelauset did not undertake to 
 retaliate for this injury. He withdrew all his people to the head- 
 waters of the Connecticut that they might not be led into war. 
 
 It is doubtful if Philip did anything to excite the Eastern Indians 
 to hostilities. He had no need to lift his hand for that, because it 
 was diplomatically fomented by French priests and officers. The old 
 story of wanton outrage, remembered by the native while he bided 
 his time, was repeated. Various kidnapping operations had not been 
 forgotten. Supercilious acts were frequent enough ; and a disparag- 
 ing behavior galled the native pride. One day some sailors upset the 
 canoe of the sachem Squaiido, in. which were his squaw and an in- 
 
438 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 The betfn- 
 
 fant, as they said, to see if the child had a natural gift of swimming. 
 The frantic mother succeeded in rescuing the child, but it 
 
 & 
 
 ^**^ ^ ^ ie s ^ oc ^- Quite naturally Squando made a note of 
 it. The English annalists affect to talk about the malignant 
 
 influence of this sachem, but outrages similar to this one, and a num- 
 
 ber of petty treacheries which did not reach the length of murder, 
 are quite sufficient to account for the promptness with 
 which the Indians availed themselves of the moment of 
 phiiip's war< There suddenly appeared a chance for bring- 
 
 ing the white man to a reckoning when he was deeply involved in 
 
 other directions. 
 
 The Indians around the Kennebec struck the first blow when their 
 
 English neighbors, who dreaded the effect of the news from Philip, 
 
 The New 
 
 Hostilities 
 begun. 
 
 The Sailors upsetting Squando's Canoe 
 
 attempted to make them surrender their arms. Then a case or two 
 of plunder and assault broke the long truce, and sufficed to bring on 
 hostilities. The savages tasted their first blood at Falmouth, 
 where an old man and seven of his family were killed and 
 most barbarously mutilated, and two grandchildren carried off. When 
 the Indian temper was thus aroused, and every pretence of accommo- 
 dation thrown aside, devastation spread slowly but surely from place 
 to place. 
 
 The tactics of the savages were the same as in Massachusetts. 
 They lay in wait for laborers in the field, for isolated parties that 
 strolled out of the garrison-houses. They skulked behind people who 
 were returning to a fortified place, and slipped in with them. At 
 Saco they attempted to set fire to a garrison house by the same strat- 
 
1675.] INDIAN HOSTILITIES. 439 
 
 agem which Philip's men tried at Brookfield. Screened behind a 
 wagon filled with combustibles, they pushed it up to the log-walls. 
 Botli attempts failed : the wagon in one case getting hopelessly mired, 
 and in the other jerking suddenly into a rut and exposing the savages 
 to the fire of the besieged. They seldom persisted in attacks which 
 promised to be long and obstinate. Like the tiger, if the first spring 
 missed the victim, they slunk away to make fresh attempts elsewhere. 
 Fire and blood blazed their path as far as Exeter and Do- i n< . i( i,. ntg O f 
 ver. At Newicha wan nock (Berwick), a servant-maid of thewar - 
 eighteen who observed a party of Indians approaching Richard To- 
 zier's house, bravely held the door till the rest escaped to the garrison- 
 house : fifteen women and children were within. The Indians hacked 
 down the door, and with it the girl, left her for dead, and pursuing 
 the rest, caught two little children who could not get over a fence, 
 and killed them. The girl recovered and lived to be quite old. A 
 hundred Indians attacked this place again in October, when three 
 soldiers were surprised and killed. Brave Roger Plaisted, going out 
 with a cart and twenty men to recover the bodies, fell into another 
 ambush. All his men and the frightened team ran back ; he and two 
 sons stood fighting and were slain. The example of their heroism 
 made a wholesome impression upon the savages, who went on more 
 cautiously, scoring their fury as far as Kittery ; but by the end of 
 1675 as many as fifty settlers had been murdered, and many barns, 
 mills, and houses burned. 
 
 A severe winter with a great fall of snow compelled the Indians to 
 suspend their designs. Hunger, too, proved to be an excellent peace- 
 maker, for they had grown dependent upon the English for various 
 supplies. Therefore, a treaty was made and all captives restored. 
 But the bitter feelings only smouldered, and blazed out again, prin- 
 cipally in Maine, where some of Philip's men who were dispersed by 
 his death retreated and mingled with the Eastern Indians. 
 
 Massachusetts was not unmindful of the dangers which threatened 
 the remote settlements of New Hampshire. She sent one 
 
 ..... _ , . Aid from 
 
 hundred and thirty men to Dover to join the force of Major >iasachu- 
 Waldron who commanded there. This was in the summer 
 of 1676. Under orders to seize all Indians who had been guilty of 
 murder, he invited those who were disposed for peace to come in to 
 him under a flag of truce. They came without any guaranty of pro- 
 tection. Among them were a number of Philip's men, and the Mas- 
 sachusetts soldiers insisted that an indiscriminate seizure 
 should be made of all. To effect this without bloodshed, iron's strt- 
 Major Waldron invited the Indians to participate in a mock 
 training, and when, at the command to fire, all their muskets were 
 
440 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 emptied, the troops closed round and took all prisoners save two or 
 three. The Major intended to release the well-disposed, among whom 
 were Passaconaway's son and the Penacook Indians who had returned 
 from the Connecticut ; but so little discrimination was used that 
 many of them were included in the two hundred who were removed 
 to Boston and subsequently sold as slaves, " sent into other parts of 
 the world, to try the difference between the friendships of their neigh- 
 bors here, and their service with other masters elsewhere ! " The sav- 
 ages stored up the recollection of this stratagem and its benign results ; 
 
 for they considered that Philip's men 
 had fled to them for protection and 
 
 hospitality. The deeds of violence Waldron , s Shim . fight 
 
 were renewed. Seven Massachusetts 
 
 men were surprised and killed at Falmouth, and an entire settlement 
 of forty persons in a remote place was destroyed ; many 
 
 Retaliation , , . , . 
 
 of the were murdered under tortures and the rest carried into cap- 
 tivity. At Cape Neddock l a woman, and her infant at the 
 breast, were murdered in a most barbarous manner. 
 
 Captain Hathorne was detailed with one hundred and thirty men, 
 in the fall of 1676 to pursue the Indians ; but he never succeeded in 
 coining up with them. In November there appeared at Portsmouth a 
 famous sachem of the Eastern Indians named Mugg or Mogg, to make 
 another treaty. He was sent to Boston to confer with the magistrates, 
 and concluded with them a treaty providing for cessation of hostili- 
 ties, restoration of prisoners, and a prohibition to purchase arms and 
 powder except from an agent of the government. 
 
 1 Meaning " cleared laud," a neighborhood where the Indians had some cultivated fields, 
 and many of their implements are still turned up by the plough. Bollard's Geographical 
 Names. 
 
 
1677.] MAJOR WALDRON'S EXPEDITION. 441 
 
 Mogg carried this treaty to Madockawando, the sachem of the 
 Penobscot, who was his chief ; lie signed it in behalf of his MofK 
 tribe, and doubtless in good faith. But Mogg, under pre- Trcatv 
 tence of visiting other tribes to persuade them to release their Eng- 
 lish prisoners, did not return, and fomented the hatred of the natives. 
 This policy was suspected at Portsmouth, and the alarmed inhabi- 
 tants prevailed upon the government to forestall the treachery of the 
 natives by some prompt action of its own. Consequently in February, 
 1677, Major Waldron, with a force of English and Natick Indians, 
 sailed for the Kenuebec and Pemaquid. 
 
 At the latter place an interview with the natives looking to some 
 amicable arrangement was broken up by the discovery that Hostilities 
 they had brought arms ; at least one lance was found con- renewcd - 
 cealed in a canoe. In the quarrel that ensued, several Indians were 
 killed ; and hostilities were renewed with the opening spring. Seven 
 men were killed near York, nine at the mouth of the Kennebec. 
 Mogg was killed in leading an attack upon Black Point, but at the 
 same place a week after ninety soldiers were caught in an ambush 
 and sixty slain. The natives became so adventurous that they en- 
 gaged in sea-fights, by boarding from their frail canoes fishing ves- 
 sels that lay at anchor off the coast in various places, sometimes 
 between the Isles of Shoals and York. If these vessels were care- 
 lessly guarded, the savages always got possession of them, killed the 
 crew and destroyed the cargo. Up and down the Piscataqua con- 
 tinual alarms travelled. Houses were burned and people slain in 
 Wells, Kittery, and within the limits of Portsmouth, at a place now 
 called Greenland. 
 
 The General Court of Massachusetts sent Major Pynchon of Spring- 
 field and Richards of Hartford into the country of the Mo- 
 hawks to stir up their ancient animosity against the Eastern wmTt'h" 01 
 Indians and direct it toward the protection of the settle- 
 ments in New Hampshire and Maine. This mission was so far suc- 
 cessful that some parties of Mohawks appeared in the neighborhood 
 of Dover and Wells. In the former place they made the mistake of 
 attacking some of Major Waldron's friendly Indians, so that it be- 
 came rumored abroad among the natives that the English had treach- 
 erously imported Mohawks to slay indiscriminately all Indians. The 
 native suspicion was kept alive by this unhappy mistake and this 
 injudicious policy of setting Indian to fight Indian. The immediate 
 results were not important, but subsequently the French adopted 
 that policy when they wanted to combine the natives against the 
 English. 
 
 At length commissioners, one of whom was Captain Champernoou 
 
442 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 of Kittery, were appointed to meet the various sachems at Casco and 
 endeavor to effect a permanent treaty. Thither Squando went, sated 
 of vengeance, and Madockawando, the father-in-law of Baron Castin, 
 by him instructed how to meet the advances of the English. It was 
 the Baron who had supplied the arms and powder for this three years' 
 
 war. 
 
 The most aggressive tribes were represented at this council. A 
 A treaty of treaty which closed hostilities, but only for a few years, was 
 ****** here made, which promised to return all captives and to 
 
 refrain from future attacks upon the settlers, who were to be allowed 
 to reoccupy their desolated lands. The English, on their part, en- 
 
 View of Dover, N. H. 
 
 
 gaged to pay one peck of corn annually for every English family 
 settled between the Piscataqua and Penobscot. This was regarded 
 by the Indians not only as tribute but symbol of acknowledgment of 
 their original proprietorship of the soil. But the annual payments 
 were very irregularly made. The treaty was concluded in April, 
 1678. 
 
 Governor Cranfield in 1684, laid a tax upon the people without 
 their consent. When the council demurred he adroitly 
 availed himself of reports that the Eastern Indians meditated 
 new disturbances in the coming spring, and the tax was 
 agreed to on the ground of the common defence. His project of en- 
 listing the Mohawks against the Eastern Indians, and paying their 
 
 action in 
 Indian af- 
 fair-. 
 
1684.] GOVERNOR CRANFIELD AND THE INDIANS. 443 
 
 services out of the money raised by the tax, increased his unpopular- 
 ity. The friendly Indians became alarmed, for it was understood that 
 the Mohawks made no distinction among New England Indians : they 
 were all traditional enemies. In the summer of 1685 the Penacook 
 and Saco Indians, after gathering their corn, began to remove their 
 families from the English neighborhood, under the impression that 
 the Mohawks were about to invade them. The English in their 
 turn became alarmed at the movement ; but inquiries led to a good 
 understanding, and a treaty of mutual defence and reparation of in- 
 juries was made, which lasted about four years. 
 
 Signature of Champernoon. 
 
 The chief of the Penacooks at that time was Kancamagus, a nephew 
 of Wonnalauset, who went by the English name of Hogkins or Haw- 
 kins. He wrote to and visited the Governor, but there was a want of 
 that personal attention so grateful to an Indian, and a disregard of 
 the appeals made by him and his people. The chief was converted 
 into an implacable foe, and is supposed to have planned the subsequent 
 attack upon Dover. 1 
 
 1 Hogkins wrote the following curious letter to Cranfield : " Honour Governor my 
 friend, you my friend I desire your worship and your power Because I hope you can do 
 som great matters this once I am poor and naked and I have no men at my place because 
 I afraid allways mohogs he will kill me every day and night if your worship when please 
 pray help me you no let mohogs kill me at my place at Malamaki [Merrimac] River called 
 Panukkog and Nattukkog I will submit your worship and your power and now I want 
 powder and such allmiuish shott and guns because I have forth at my horn and I plant 
 theare. 
 
 " This all Indian hand but 
 
 pray you do consider your humble Servant 
 
 JOHN HOGKINS." 
 
 SIMON BETOGKOM 
 
 JOSEPH + TRASKE 
 
 KING -}- HARY 
 
 SAM -f- LINIS 
 
 WAPEGWANAT -(- TAGNACHCWA8HAT 
 OLD ROBIN -j- 
 MAMANOSQUES -(- ANDWA 
 PETER -f- ROBIN 
 
 MR. GORGE -|- RODDUNONUKGCS 
 MR. HOPE -|- BOTH 
 JOHN + TONEH 
 JOHN -f- CUNOWA 
 JOHN -f- OWAMOSIMMIN 
 NATONILL -f- INDIAN 
 
444 NEW HAMPSHIRE. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 In 1688, the Eastern Indians were again in motion, at the instiga- 
 tion of Castin, whose house had been plundered by Andros. 
 di"n out- A few raids in Maine during the summer were only prelim- 
 inary to the outbreak of 1689 which so seriously affected 
 New Hampshire. Major Waldron's mock training bore mortal con- 
 sequences after thirteen years of brooding vengeance. Some of the 
 natives who were sent to Boston and sold into slavery escaped, and 
 found their way back. They easily inflamed numbers of Philip's 
 men who were still harbored by the Penacook and Fryburg Indians ; 
 and the resentment spread to the tribes who were nominally friendly. 
 Castin's agents were also at work to effect a hostile combination 
 against the English. 
 
 There were five garrison-houses in Dover to which the inhabitants 
 The Indians retired at night. They were strongly built, surrounded by 
 tall palisades, and capable of making an effective defence. 
 Anxiety concerning the Indians had subsided. Waldron himself felt 
 entirely secure. The watch at these garrison-houses was carelessly 
 kept, and the Indians went freely to and fro among the inhabitants. 
 Some of the settlers fancying that the natives were observing the 
 situation more closely than usual, became alarmed. There was re- 
 newed dread of coming trouble, but Waldron told the people to 
 mind their pumpkin-planting. Though the town was fuller of Indians 
 than usual, Waldron professed to divine instinctively their disposition, 
 and lightly rallied the concern of the people. 
 
 On the 27th of June, toward evening, two squaws applied at each 
 garrison-house for permission to pass the night, as they had frequently 
 done before. They were admitted to all but one of them. A chief 
 accompanied the two squaws who went to Major Waldron's house. 
 They were received with hospitality. Said the squaws to the Major, 
 many Indians will come to trade to-morrow. Said the chief, " Brother 
 Waldron, what would you do if the strange Indians should come ? " 
 " If I lift my finger I can summon a hundred men," said the Major. 
 
 So profound was the confidence in their perfect safety which Wal- 
 dron had inspired in his people that when the gates were 
 Murder of ' secured, the squaws were instructed how to undo the fasten- 
 ings, on their intimation that they might wish to go out 
 during the night. At a signal from their confederates outside the 
 squaws unbolted the gate, the Indians entered and found their way to 
 an inner room where Waldron slept. The old man of eighty seized 
 his sword and drove the savages out from room to room, but a blow 
 from a hatchet stunned him and he fell. 
 
 Now came the hour of triumph. It was not for a sham-fight that 
 they picked up the old man and set him in a chair upon a table, cry- 
 
THE MURDER OF MAJOR WALDRON. 
 
1689.] DOVER ATTACKED. 445 
 
 ing " Now judge Indians." Then they deliberately helped themselves 
 to food, compelling the other inmates of the house to serve them. 
 After the meal they gathered round the Major and each one slitting 
 some part of his body with a knife, said, " That's my account I 
 cross it out." One savage cut off his nose, another his ears ; another, 
 calling for the scales used in barter to weigh beaver skins, cut off his 
 right hand and threw it in, saying, " We '11 see if it does weigh a 
 pound," for there was a saying among the Indians that in selling 
 beaver a white man's hand weighs a pound. To their terror and as- 
 tonishment it weighed a pound exactly. Then the old man sinking 
 from the loss of blood, they held his sword so that he might fall upon 
 it and be transfixed. 
 
 The house was pillaged and set on fire. Another was served in the 
 same way after the men had been killed and the women set Incidenta of 
 aside for captivity. The barking of a dog saved another just theatt ck - 
 as the Indians were entering. A man cast himself on the ground 
 to avoid the bullets which the savages began to fire through the 
 door and held it with his feet till the inmates were aroused. One 
 house belonging to a man against whom the Indians bore no grudge 
 escaped with pillaging ; they made him throw his coin among them 
 while they scrambled for it. He was the father of the man who had 
 refused admittance to the squaws. They took him to the house and 
 threatened to kill him if the son would not surrender. These two 
 families were reserved for captivity, but in the confusion managed to 
 escape. 
 
 Elizabeth Heard, with three sons and a daughter, belonged to the 
 house which was saved by the dog. She was coming with them up 
 the river from Portsmouth that night, and hearing the noise she sus- 
 pected trouble, and the party landed and went to Waldron's house. 
 Not procuring admission, a young man scaled the palisade, and saw 
 an Indian with a gun waiting at the inner door. The woman was so 
 overcome by the news that she sunk to the ground, and only begged 
 her children to leave her and escape. Toward morning an Indian 
 came toward her with a pistol, looked at her and walked away. He 
 returned, and she spoke to him. He recognized the voice and ran 
 away with loud exclamations. He was one of the Indians who es- 
 caped from Major Waldron's stratagem in 1676, took refuge in her 
 house, and was harbored by her. He promised then that he would 
 never do harm to her and her family. Thus one act of gratitude re- 
 lieved the horrors of that night. 
 
 Twenty-three persons were killed and twenty-nine were taken to 
 Canada, 1 and sold to the French, who brought the children up as 
 Roman Catholics. Several houses and mills were burned. 
 
 1 The Saco starts in Crawford's Notch. 
 

 446 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 Massachusetts despatched a few companies, and Captain Church 
 was sent from Plymouth. The name of the conqueror of Philip was 
 a terror to the Indians. Along the Androscoggin, the Penobscot, 
 and the Kennebec, he made several campaigns, never fighting without 
 success, but often unable to overtake the savages, who fled on hearing 
 of his approach, leaving behind them only the ashes of their villages 
 and their stores. But the blow of the enemy always fell upon places 
 
 where it was least expected. At Oyster River the Indians 
 
 waited till the garrison 
 went out to work, then slipped 
 between them and the house, 
 and killed all but one. Two 
 boys defended the house bravely, 
 
 Other raids 
 
 Elizabeth Heard and the Indian. 
 
 
 till it was set on fire, and even then refused to surrender, save on 
 
 condition that the lives of the women and children should be spared. 
 
 The promise was broken : one of the little children was impaled 
 
 before the eyes of the mother. 
 
 In 1690 the French were at war with England. The Governor 
 f Canada organized expeditions of French and Indians, 
 against various points of the colonies in New England and 
 
 New York. Fifty-two men attacked Salmon Falls on the morning 
 
 Later-Indian 
 hostilities, 
 
- 
 
 ment- 
 
 1690.] THE FRENCH AND INDIANS. 447 
 
 of the 18th of March. The inhabitants made a brave but vain re- 
 sistance. Thirty were killed and the rest surrendered. Twenty- 
 seven houses and two thousand head of cattle in the barns were 
 destroyed. 1 This party was pursued by one hundred and forty men, 
 and warmly engaged, but made good their retreat with little loss, 
 carrying off the women and children, some of whom were treated 
 with great cruelty. The incident of dashing a babe's brains out 
 against a tree, which is told of various places, occurred upon this 
 journey through the woods to Canada. It was more economical to 
 slay the weaker captives, because each scalp brought a premium when 
 presented before some French officer. 
 
 The details of every fight in this war need not be told. Casco was 
 destroyed, Exeter was attacked, houses were burned, and people 
 killed in the field in various directions. Twenty persons were killed 
 and captured at Rye Beach in 1691. York was destroyed the pre- 
 vious year. In 1694, a body of two hundred and fifty Eastern In- 
 dians under French guidance, and with a French priest to shrive the 
 dying, made an attack upon the settlement at Oyster River. Attack on 
 Twelve of the houses were fortified, but they were badly 
 watched and ill provided for defence. Many of the people 
 lived carelessly, in ordinary houses. How easily the edge of bitter 
 experience grows dull in a frontier life, where Nature's sense of secur- 
 ity seems to be shared by human beings. An important element of 
 success in these enterprises of the savages was the short memories of 
 the victims. 
 
 On this occasion the party divided into small groups, one being 
 detailed to each house on either side of the river. The first gun fired 
 was to be the signal for a simultaneous assault, but a man drew the 
 first shot prematurely by appearing at the door of his house. The 
 attacking parties were not all in readiness, so that only five of the 
 garrison-houses were taken, but nearly all the other houses were de- 
 stroyed, a great many people killed, with the usual barbarities. Per- 
 sons who surrendered on a promise that their life should be spared 
 were instantly butchered. A woman with child was ripped open ; a 
 little boy of nine was made to run down a lane of the Indians, who 
 pelted him with tomahawks till he was killed. Thomas Bickford, 
 who was alone in his house, managed to repel an assault by frequently 
 changing his hat and dress, :ind issuing orders as to a number of men. 
 While the massacre was going on the French priest got into the 
 meeting-house, and amused himself by scrawling the tenets of his faith 
 with a piece of chalk on the pulpit. About a hundred persons were 
 
 1 Charlevoix is quoted with some incredulity by Belknap's Hist, of New Hampshire, i., 
 207. 
 
448 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 [CHAP. XVI II. 
 
 killed and captured. One woman during the succeeding winter was 
 delivered of a child in a violent snow-storm. The Indians killed it. 
 She lived fourteen days on a decoction of bark and water, became 
 senseless from the cold, was revived by the usual Indian remedy of 
 warm water poured down her throat, remained in brutal captivity four 
 years, rejoined her husband, had fourteen children, and died at eighty- 
 nine ! l Of such stuff were made the matrons of those perilous times. 
 About three miles up the river from Portsmouth, Madame Ursula 
 Cutts, widow of John Cutts, the first royal President, lived upon her 
 farm. The affair at Oyster River did not scare her into town. She 
 insisted upon staying in the country till all her hay was in the barn. 
 Some Indians lay in ambush as she was in the field directing her 
 laborers. She was shot and scalped, and her fingers were cut off for 
 
 Rye Beach. 
 
 the rings. Colonel Richard Waldron and his wife were going up the 
 river in a boat to dine with the old lady when the tidings of her death 
 intercepted them. 
 
 In the summer of 1696 the Indians crossed from York to Rye 
 Beach in canoes, and made an attack upon some houses near Little 
 Harbor, killing fourteen people and firing the houses. They were 
 pursued, but reached their canoes and put to sea. Some boats that 
 were sent to intercept them, delivered fire too soon, and they escaped 
 by going round the Isles of Shoals. Fort William Henry at Pema- 
 quid, which the Indians had captured six years before, was the scene 
 of a serious disaster. Sir William Phips had rebuilt and fortified it 
 at great expense contrary to the advice of Church, who believed that 
 
 1 Belknap's Hist, of New Hampshire, i., 216-220. 
 
1697.] THE CLOSE OF THE WAR. 449 
 
 in Indian warfare such places were only " nests of destruction." It 
 was a constant provocation to the French of Canada, who were de- 
 termined to take and destroy it. A force of two ships of war, with 
 two companies of soldiers, under Iberville, to be reinforced by Baron 
 Castin with Indians, was sent against it. On the way Iberville en- 
 countered two English ships of war, the Newport and the Sorling*, 
 and a cutter belonging to the Province of Massachusetts. The New- 
 port he took, the others escaped in a fog. At the mouth of the Pen- 
 obscot Castin joined the expedition with two hundred savages in a 
 fleet of canoes. This formidable force invested Pemaquid, and sum- 
 moned it to surrender. The fortress had a garrison of a hundred 
 men, ammunition and food enough to stand a siege, and mounted fif- 
 teen guns. The first summons was rejected ; but in the night the 
 French set up a battery on shore, and on the second day threw shot 
 and shell into the town and fort. Castin threatened that if the place 
 was taken by storm it should be given up to the plunder of the sav- 
 ages. Captain Chubbs, the commander, yielded, and threw open his 
 gates. The garrison was only saved from massacre by being taken 
 to an island in the harbor and put under a guard of French marines. 
 But the fort was demolished and the town plundered. Chubbs may 
 have only meant to save the lives of his men, but he was, neverthe- 
 less, tried for cowardice on his return to Boston, and cashiered. 1 At 
 Dover three persons were killed returning home from divine service. 
 Belknap relates the remarkable escape of Exeter in the summer of 
 1697. A number of Indians were concealed near the town waiting 
 for an opportunity. By a stroke of foolish good luck some women and 
 children took that very time to go into the fields for strawberries, and 
 would not be prevented. Somebody in town fired a gun to scare them 
 back , but the report scared the Indians also, who retreated, suppos- 
 ing that they had been discovered. But on the 4th of July Endo the 
 of that year they killed Major Frost, at Kittery, thus clos- war 
 ing a piteous list of massacres, and making the circle of their re- 
 venge complete by the death of an officer who was concerned in 
 Major Waldron's sham-fight at Dover. This, probably, was the last 
 Indian shot fired in New Hampshire during the war. In 1698 the 
 Peace of Ryswick restrained the Indians from further hostilities. 
 Many of the captives were returned, but a good many preferred to re- 
 main, and thus started a race of half-breeds to be most dangerous ene- 
 mies in future wars. 
 
 1 Sewall's Ancient Dominions of Maine. Annals of Salem. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
Witches' Hill,Slem. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION. 
 
 OUTBREAK OF THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION. ITS EARLIER HISTORY. CAUSES OF 
 THE EXCITEMENT IN NEW ENGLAND. WITCHCRAFT CASES IN SALEM. SAMUEL 
 PARRIS. THE EARLIER TRIALS. RETURN OF PHIPS. A SPECIAL COURT 
 CREATED FOR WITCHCRAFT CASES. FURTHER PROSECUTIONS. EXPOSURE AND 
 END OF THB DELUSION. WITCHCRAFT IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. THE BELIEF 
 FINDS FEW ADHERENTS OUTSIDE MASSACHUSETTS. "STONE-THROWING" AT 
 GREAT ISLAND. THE CASE OF GEORGE BURROUGHS. 
 
 THE important and interesting political events ending with 
 Phips's return from England with the new charter following the 
 close of Philip's War, had hardly ceased to agitate the colonies, 
 when there came, especially upon Massachusetts, a dispensation more 
 gloomy and terrible than marked any other period of the century. 
 It cannot, indeed, be said that the witchcraft panic, which broke out 
 in 1692, was a result of Puritan theology, or due to the sombre and 
 intolerant temperament which its doctrines nourished. The belief in 
 a diabolical possession is coextensive with and as old as the human 
 
1484.] ITS EARLIER HISTORY. 451 
 
 race. Its superstitions, it is true, have been colored by the culture 
 of different epochs, and by different developments of the religious 
 sentiment. But no religion has ever succeeded in so filtering the 
 popular mind as to let the so-called facts of witchcraft drop as dregs 
 to the bottom. If the Puritanism of New England was as powerless 
 as other religious systems to enlighten the ordinary intelligence, its 
 faith, nevertheless, in the intimate nearness of the supernatural, made 
 its followers peculiarly susceptible to the delusion which, under the 
 name of witchcraft, so overwhelmed the colony. It may, however, 
 be said on their behalf that never yet has the belief of a supernatural 
 interference in the affairs of men, distinct from the omnipotent and 
 omniscient rule, been rooted out of the human mind. It lurks even 
 now, not merely among half-civilized peoples, but in the habits and 
 practices of the most cultivated nations, wherever the inevitable com- 
 bination of credulity and ignorance invites it. 
 
 Certain obscure facts of a physico-nervous character have always 
 drawn the attention of mankind, and suggested thoughts of super- 
 natural causes. Whenever the accidental and abnormal traits of 
 the human organization are not understood, they are invariably inter- 
 preted in a preternatural sense. The sufferers are victims of invis- 
 ible agencies; the names which have been invented for these run 
 along a whole gamut from heathen and classical times to the medi- 
 aeval imps and the modern Satan. It is not at all surprising that peo- 
 ple should endeavor to protect themselves against something uncanny 
 which they do not understand. 
 
 Perhaps the modern animosity against reputed witches was first 
 fomented by the Bull of Pope Innocent VIII., in 1484, to 5^^^ his . 
 arrest persons suspected of witchcraft. In 1485 forty-one witchcraft 1 " 
 old women were burnt in Burlia, denounced for something delusion - 
 that was only crabbedness of disposition, oddity of habit, repulsive- 
 ness of appearance, traits which perhaps they used to threaten or 
 to affright. These marks have always sufficed to send odd and lonely 
 old women to the stake or gallows. Massachusetts did not invent 
 mankind's great trepidation. One hundred persons were condemned 
 by one inquisition in Piedmont, and forty-eight in Ravensburg. In 
 1515 five hundred were executed at Geneva in the space of three 
 months. These are merely random specimens of the mediaeval tem- 
 per. It was the same in all other countries, and under Protestant 
 as well as Catholic religions. If Luther, worn out by too protracted 
 study, could conjure the Devil out of the air of his apartment, what 
 must have been the visions and frights of peasants and burghers ? 
 Probably no amount of ink thrown at that dark personage will ever 
 expel him from the fancy. 
 
452 THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 It was in the twelfth century that the notion of a witch, as a 
 woman who had made a secret compact with Satan, who gave her 
 power to ride through the air to attend a witch's meeting, first ap- 
 peared. This survived to be the chief modern qualification of a 
 witch. She could perform various other preternatural feats, vex, 
 blast, blight, and kill. Her genius was always guided by malice, 
 but the aeronautic faculty was her distinction. People suspected of 
 this were sacrificed in Europe by thousands, so deep a terror had 
 seized hold of the popular mind. The more sensitive woman, sub- 
 ject to hysteria, to religious and epidemical influences, to obscure 
 affections of the nerves, was the principal sufferer, always the Joan 
 of Arc of the popular ignorance. 
 
 In the reign of Henry VIII. there were a few executions for witch- 
 witchcraft craft in England, under a law of 1541, which was soon re- 
 in England, pej^ed. Ever since the reign of King John there had been 
 trials for witchcraft, and probably executions. In 1537, Lady Glam- 
 mis of the Douglas family was burnt alive as a witch ; but, as in the 
 case of Joan of Arc, political motives were mixed up in the act. 
 Scotch witchery was connected with the use of herbs, salves, reme- 
 dies, and charms : attempts at unbinding, that is, healing, were pun- 
 ishable. In Aberdeen, in 1597, one man and twenty-three women 
 were burnt. In the same place there was an outcry of witchcraft in 
 1617, and twenty-seven women were burnt in that year. In 1559 
 the English Parliament passed a law against witchcraft, and again in 
 1563, which remained in force till it was repealed in 1736. Bishop 
 Jewel, in a sermon before Queen Elizabeth, who used to frequent Dr. 
 Dee's conjuring shop for consultation, informed her that witches and 
 sorcerers were marvellously increased in her realm. In 1575 many 
 were hung at Barking ; in 1579, three at Chelmsford, four at Abing- 
 don, two at Cambridge ; in 1582, thirteen at St. Osith's, and so on, 
 with melancholy frequency. Matthew Hopkins, in 1644-1646, under- 
 took the function of Witchfinder. He laid down rules and reduced 
 the hunting of witches to a science, while Harvey, Wallis, Wilkins, 
 Boyle, were founding the Royal Society. It is pleasant to know that 
 he found too many witches : the people became disgusted and 
 alarmed, and mobbed him into obscurity. His most lucrative witch- 
 year was 1645, when about ninety were hanged. The trials were held 
 before Sir Matthew Hale, a devout believer in witchcraft. So were 
 Dr. More and Sir Thomas Brown. Hobbes was undecided. Cud- 
 worth used to listen to reputed witches, to test them by their ability 
 to recite the Common Prayer and the Apostle's Creed. The Lord's 
 Prayer was a later test. Lord Bacon prescribed the ingredients for 
 a witch's ointment. Even Selden, famous lover of liberty, said that 
 
1661.] ITS EARLIER HISTORY. 453 
 
 if witchcraft were a delusion, still crimes of the imagination might 
 be punished with death, because realities were not more deadly in 
 their consequences. Boyle inclined to a belief in it; Archbishop 
 Cranmer put a witch-clause into his Articles of Visitation. In 1 593 
 the income of .40, derived from the confiscated property of three 
 persons executed for witchcraft, was appropriated for an annual lec- 
 ture upon its enormity, to be preached by a Doctor or Bachelor of 
 Divinity, of Queen's College, Cambridge ; and the custom continued 
 for one hundred and twenty-five years. 1 
 
 A class of witch-finders was created by the popular demand who 
 were very active. Like judges, they used to go on the cir- Witch . find . 
 cuit ; the town-crier would make proclamation and order ere- 
 up the witch-cases before them. Finders realized so much per head 
 on all persons convicted, and free passage to and fro. It was the 
 best speculative business of the time, when a man like Edward Fair- 
 fax, the translator of Tasso, whose children were subject to fits, pros- 
 ecuted six of his neighbors for bewitching them. In 1655 Dalton's 
 " Country Justice " lays down the legal signs by which the victim 
 may be held for trial. The witch-names used by Shakespeare were 
 found in the Manual of W. W., which was printed in 1582. In 
 1693 a great many trials were held before Chief Justice Holt. He 
 kept a clear brain through the business, and was the first public man 
 in office who protected the accused. 2 Then the superstition began 
 to decline in England: the last capital trial occurred in 1712. But 
 in Scotland it was 1727 before the last witch was burned. Perhaps 
 the worst time in England for witches was in 1661, the year after 
 the Restoration. Fourteen commissions were issued for trying them, 
 
 1 Jndd'a History of Hadley. The general subject is indebted to Michelet's La Sorcitre ; 
 Lecky's History of Rationalism ; Smedley, Thompson, Rich, and others, Occult Sciences ; 
 Drake's ed. of Calefs Witchcraft Delusion in New England ; South Meadows, or the Days 
 of Witchcraft, by E. T. Disoway ; Upham's Salem Witchcraft ; Thomas Brattle's Account, 
 Mass. Hist. Coll.: Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World; Hutchinson's Historical Essay ; 
 Thomas Wright's Narrative of Sorcery and Magic. 
 
 2 " I told the Bishop of Worcester that his diocese is infected with notions about witches ; 
 he intends his clergy shall rectify their mistakes in that particular. He told me some of 
 the topics he would have argued. He don't much controvert the power of devils in the 
 Gentile world, and their extraordinary operations may still take place among the Pagans- 
 He is inclinable enough to believe what some authors have writ of the strange effects in 
 such places ; but he thinks the Gospel, as far as it reaches, lias destroyed the works of the 
 devil, and those who are in the covenant of grace can receive no hurt from the infernal 
 powers, either in their persons, children or goods ; that a man may be so profligate as to 
 give himself to the devil, but he can have no assistance from him to hurt anybody else in 
 a supernatural way. I think we may assent to this latter part, and leave the devil and 
 the Gentiles to argue the rest among themselves." Letter of James Vernon, King Wil- 
 liam's Secretary of State, to the Duke of Shrewsbury, written in June, 1699. But at that 
 time even Englishmen of broad intelligence and unsectarian feeling could go no further 
 than this. The common clergy of all sects were advocates of witchcraft. 
 
454 
 
 THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION. 
 
 [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 and one hundred and twenty victims were hanged. In 1662 fourteen 
 additional commissions were issued. In Sweden, 1670, children 
 charged seventy persons with bewitching them ; many confessed and 
 were executed. Then fifteen children confessed and were executed. 
 Fifty others were whipped every Sunday. 
 
 Certainly Massachusetts did not enter upon a novel and untried 
 Literature of path. During all the European epochs of the delusion a 
 witchcraft. yast literature upon the subject sprang up ; out of it all only 
 three books of consequence undertook a refutation of witchcraft. It 
 was a dangerous thing for an author's good repute and sometimes 
 for his person. All the other books, tracts, pamphlets, were more or 
 
 General View of Salem, Mass. 
 
 less elaborate defences of the reality of witchcraft. What could be 
 expected when all the leading men of society, politics, religion, 
 firmly pledged their faith to its reality ? When such a man as Baxter 
 could write the " Certainty of the World of Spirits," and thank Cot- 
 ton Mather for information of fresh cases and for his zeal in the 
 cause, and grow very angry when some Sadducee disbelieved, a thriv- 
 ing crop of books might be expected. They performed an awful 
 work in propagating the delusion. They came over to New England 
 and were perused with creeping awe in farm-houses and towns. 
 Clergymen made a point of procuring them in order to learn how to 
 resist the wiles of the adversary ; no gentleman's library was com- 
 
1692.] ITS ORIGIN IN NEW ENGLAND. 455 
 
 plete without them. The Rev. Samuel Parr is, of Salem, had these 
 books where his children and neighbors could get at them. One of 
 them was a book by William Perkins, preacher at St. Andrews, 
 Cambridge, entitled kk Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft," 
 written toward the close of the sixteenth century. Sir Matthew 
 Hale's " Trial of Witches," 1661, enjoyed a great authority in both 
 countries, because it was based upon the Old and New Testaments. 
 Indeed it was enough for a Puritan to fall back on the clear letter of 
 Holy Writ. First, find your witch, and then, " thou shalt not suffer 
 a witch to live." 
 
 A few sporadic cases of witchcraft had previously occurred in Xew 
 England. Margaret Jones was hanged at Charlestown in 
 
 1648. Mrs. Hibbins, although she was a sister of Deputy pr..swutions 
 
 r J for \\ itch- 
 Governor Bellingham, suffered in 1656, upon no other t-raftmXew 
 
 ground that can be discovered than that of knowing a great 
 deal more than her neighbors, and of venting it with a sharp and 
 cynical tongue. Her husband had been a prominent merchant, and 
 was an agent of the colony in England. He died in 1654. How 
 strange it is that the woman could not have been saved from such a 
 fate ! John Norton, the Boston clergyman, hinted that she knew too 
 much, that she was too subtle in her perception of what was occur- 
 ring around her. Michelet, in treating of the mediaeval sorcery, 
 shows that the possession of any unusual talent or knowledge was 
 enough to turn a woman into a witch. Several accusations followed 
 hers, but none of them terminated fatally, for Philip's War was too 
 definitely diabolical to admit any play for a metaphysical Satan. 
 
 Great despondency reigned throughout the colony in 1692. The 
 wounds of Philip's War still smarted, another Indian war Evpnt(lprp _ 
 seemed impending at the eastward, several murders had al- o^' 
 ready occurred, the beloved Charter was lost, and there was 
 nothing but uncertainty for the future. Four times the lhu: - ctts 
 small-pox had raged along the coast, carrying off a great many peo- 
 ple in Boston and the vicinity : the last time in 1690. Six great 
 fires had laid waste the city ; the last two in 1690 and 1691. All 
 these calamities, by reducing the tone of the public temperament, 
 made it susceptible to fears and suspicions, and ripe for any epidemic. 
 
 In 1688, a daughter of John Goodwin, of Boston, was offended 
 by an Irish washerwoman named Glover, and in childish Th e(iooa . 
 spite, accused the harmless creature of bewitching her. w " li '* sc - 
 Forthwith she fell into the conventional tricks and spasms, crying out 
 whenever the Irishwoman was near, and falling to the ground. Three 
 other children caught the infection. The poor woman was tried and 
 hanged. Cotton Mather, who believed devoutly in witchcraft, took 
 
456 
 
 THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION. 
 
 [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 Portrait of Cotton Mather. 
 
 the girl into his family to make a study of the phenomena. She 
 could not bear to hear the Assembly's Catechism, or Cotton's " Milk 
 for Babes," but could read the " Oxford Jest Book " with impunity. 
 She flew violently at the Doctor when he proposed domestic wor- 
 ship, but always managed to stop short of striking him. She fell 
 into the use of incoherent language, was "struck dead "by day, but 
 slept peacefully at night. She had committed herself to the trick, 
 and succeeded in deceiving Mather. When the woman was exe- 
 cuted, she managed to recover. 
 The excitement of such repeated 
 performances will generally estab- 
 lish a half conscious impression 
 in the actor's mind that they have 
 a basis of reality ; they are not 
 thrown off in cold-blooded hypoc- 
 risy. The person is really pos- 
 sessed by Ins own deceit ; if physi- 
 cal weakness or nervous disorders 
 conspire with this mood, there is a 
 sense in which the person has be- 
 witched himself. And such, to a 
 considerable degree, was the case 
 with the children and young people in Salem Village, now Danvers, 
 with whom the delusion there originated. 
 
 The parish in Salem Village had been set off from the First 
 Beginnings Church of Salem. Its people had never been harmonious ; 
 bickering and heart-burnings disturbed its councils and 
 nourished animosities which mingled fearfully in the ap- 
 proaching tragedy. There was great opposition to James Bayley, the 
 first minister, and eventually he was not settled. His wife was a 
 Mary Carr, whose sister Ann married Sergeant Thomas Putnam. 
 Ann had a good deal of influence, was a clever woman and of a high 
 temper. Perhaps she remembered the bitter feud in regard to her 
 brother-in-law when afterward she, her son, and especially her daugh- 
 ter, were swift and bitter witnesses against some accused of witch- 
 crafts. 
 
 Deodat Lawson, a learned and eloquent man, was settled in 1684, 
 but left the parish before 1690, and went to Scituate. Then 
 came Samuel Parris, a merchant of Barbadoes, who did 
 not cast off the tricks of his trade when he put on the surplice. 
 For a year, while he seemed to be reluctant to settle, his native 
 sharpness was employed in bargaining with the parish. His terms 
 were accepted in 1689. The first ministerial duty which he exer- 
 
 of the first 
 cases at 
 Salem. 
 
 Samuel 
 Parris. 
 
1692.] 
 
 SAMUEL PARRIS AND HIS FAMILY. 
 
 457 
 
 cised, was to get hold of the parochial property. Great was the 
 indignation when he was labored with to give it up, and refused. The 
 parish split into two parties, and Rebecca Nourse's family were in 
 the opposition. Parris loved all the power he could get, a most ob- 
 stinate man, incapable of accepting the broadest hint, and not thor- 
 oughly scrupulous in his methods. 
 
 His daughter Elizabeth was nine years old ; a niece living in the 
 family was eleven ; a frequent visitor and neighbor was Ann, the 
 daughter of Thomas Putnam, Sergeant and Parish Clerk, who was 
 
 Tituba and the Children. 
 
 twelve years old. Parris had two slaves, John Indian and his wife 
 Tituba ; she was half negro, half Indian, and was learned in the 
 practices of sorcery. In the winter of 1691-92, the Parris children, 
 and three or four neighbors, whose ages ranged from twelve to twenty, 
 met at his house to form a circle for practising various tricks, some 
 of which were suggested by Tituba. 1 They had learned from Cot- 
 ton Mather's account the performances of the Goodwin girl and the 
 other children, and soon the entertainment took the form of an imi- 
 
 1 One is tempted to note that her mime is the imperative of a Latin verb, aud means 
 " tip.' 
 
458 THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 tation. By the contagion of intercourse, during these forbidden ex- 
 ercises, the girls became thoroughly infected with their own fancies. 
 Elizabeth was a precocious girl. Mary Walcot, seventeen years old, 
 when quite young was in the family of Rev. George Burroughs. Per- 
 haps Parris, who hated his old rival, though he lived in 
 
 The children r ' to 
 
 of the Parris Wells, made a note of that. By this time their strange ac- 
 
 family de- . . 
 
 ciared be- tions and contortions had plainly established a hysterical 
 condition ; but when the doctors were called in they pro- 
 nounced that they were bewitched. 
 
 This hint was enough for young people in a condition of morbid 
 excitement. The Rev. Mr. Lawson, preaching for Parris, was inter- 
 rupted by them during the service, with grotesque remarks. The 
 parish was profoundly moved. The fresh temptation set in when 
 they were asked who was bewitching them. Did Parris foment this 
 trouble for purposes of his own ? Perhaps not, at first ; but he 
 managed to direct it in the path of his own dislikes. The children 
 began to name individuals. 
 
 On March 1, 1692, they pitched upon Sarah Good, against whom 
 sarah Good some popular prejudice existed. She was brought before 
 Corey ac^ Justices Hathorne and Curwen, and sent to prison. These 
 cused. |. wo justices and Marshal G. Herrick did a thriving business 
 in sending people to jail. There were some remarkable circumstances 
 in the case of Giles Corey, a man eighty-one years old, odd, unconven- 
 tional, irascible, and very positive in his ways and opinions. Many 
 stories were afloat concerning him, which now-a-days would be mainly 
 traceable to his manner. He beat a farm laborer, who soon after- 
 wards happened to die, and Corey was arrested for murder. In de- 
 fault of evidence, he was discharged upon paying a fine. He was again 
 arrested for arson, but clearly proved an alibi, - a much suspected 
 man upon the slenderest grounds. He was the kind of person whom 
 it would be safe to denounce. He seemed to incline to a belief in 
 witchcraft. His wife was an obstinate skeptic, and tried to keep 
 him from the examinations ; but he would attend them. So one day 
 the children fell into convulsions at his presence, and writhed on the 
 floor in agony. Corey was made to approach, so that they might 
 touch him, for this was a test of bewitching, the children gi-owing 
 calm, as if by the touch the maleficent fluid were discharged. When 
 Corey was brought to trial he refused to plead, and manfully kept 
 his mouth shut, appai'ently with the hope of escaping a conviction 
 Corey exe- f r witchcraft, of whatever else he might be found guilty, 
 cuted. an( j ^i, e consequent forfeiture of estate. But the justices 
 
 killed him all the same for contumacy, sentencing him to the terrible 
 punishment of peine forte et dure ; he was pressed to death, the 
 
1692.] 
 
 THE SPECIAL COURT. 
 
 459 
 
 first and only time of this infliction in New England. When the 
 brave old man's tongue lolled out, the sheriff thrust it back with his 
 cane. 
 
 When Sir William Phips returned and assumed the office of gov- 
 ernor, he organized a special court of over and terminer for 
 
 .-, . 1 - f . / . , . A special 
 
 these trials ; in fact, a commission consisting of seven magis- court organ- 
 trates, among whom were the implacable Stoughton, Judge witchcraft 
 Sewall, and Saltonstall. This was an illegal proceeding on 
 the Governor's part, as all the cases properly should have gone before 
 
 Trial of Giles Corey. 
 
 the Supreme Court. No notice, however, was taken of this at the 
 time, so deep was the preoccupation of the public mind. Simon 
 Bradstreet, the acting Governor superseded by Phips, was no believer 
 in witchcraft. As the trials went on. a few other persons were cour- 
 ageous enough to resist the tide, and declare their disbelief : among 
 clergymen, Willard, Increase Mather, and the staunch old Puritan 
 Moody ; among laymen, Thomas Danforth, Thomas Brattle, and 
 Robert Calef, the merchant who wrote down his opinion that some pf 
 
460 
 
 THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION. 
 
 [CHAP. XIX 
 
 . 
 
 the cases, like that of Margaret Rule, were simply attacks of delirium 
 tremens. Two or three of the Massachusetts justices were also 
 much dissatisfied. Men who talked in this wav carried their lives in 
 
 / 
 
 their hands. Saltonstall soon became disgusted, and left the bench ; 
 the rest sat through the tragedy, among them Judge Sewall, who af- 
 terwards read a public recantation in the Old South Church, bowed 
 down with mortification and sorrow. Annually he shut himself 
 
 up for a day of penance and 
 fasting, to keep alive the 
 memory of his sad complic- 
 ity. Not so did Deputy 
 Governor Stoughton, who 
 never forgave his colleagues 
 when they began to waver 
 in the matter of convic- 
 tions ; and when he per- 
 ceived the public opinion 
 was falling away from sus- 
 taining the bench, he re- 
 signed his seat in a passion 
 on occasion of a reprieve. 
 
 A statute against witch- 
 craft, passed in the reign 
 of that superstitious king, 
 James I., seems to have 
 been the basis of these col- 
 onial proceedings. The 
 
 doctors were frequently called in to examine the bodies of the ac- 
 cused, to discover the witch's marks, the teat at which sometimes the 
 apparitions of two black pigs were suckled, sometimes Satan himself 
 sought refreshment there. Any mole or callosity served the doctors 
 to pronounce upon the witch's mark. 
 
 Francis Nourse and his wife Rebecca were living happily in a house 
 that was built in 1636. Unfortunately he had a quarrel with the 
 Endicotts about the occupation of his farm. Jealousy and 
 hostile feeling, that drew in other people, had for some time 
 existed. The children " cried out " one day against Re- 
 becca Nourse ; the usual display of hysterics, fits, possessions, took 
 place, terrible to the overwrought feelings of the spectators. A cler- 
 gyman, named Lawson, delivered a most exciting discourse on March 
 24, which put the witchcraft trials upon Scripture grounds and con- 
 firmed all minds. A blameless life and a sweet demeanor at her trial 
 could not save Rebecca. The jury were forced to believe her inno- 
 
 Portrait of Saltonstall. 
 
 JJ^ 
 
1692.] 
 
 REBECCA NOURSE AND BRIDGET BISHOP. 
 
 461 
 
 cent, but were sent out till they consented. She went the way of all 
 the rest to Witclus' Hill, and her body was thrown into the common 
 pit provided as a dishonored last resting-place for these unhappy vic- 
 tims. It is easy to imagine that piteous midnight search of Rebecca's 
 pious children and husband, braving possible detection, to recover the 
 motherly body and give it a more tender burial in the little burial 
 ground near the old homestead. 
 Before she was executed, she was 
 led up the broad aisle of the meet- 
 ing-house, that the minister Parris 
 might excommunicate and thrust 
 her out of the communion. 1 When 
 Parris afterwards preached a de- 
 nouncing sermon, Sarah Cloyse, sis- 
 ter of Rebecca, got up and left the 
 meeting. To leave the public ser- 
 vice under any circumstances was 
 an unpardonable offence to the 
 forefathers of Massachusetts, but 
 doubly so in this case, because the 
 sister sided with a witch. The 
 children promptly denounced her. 
 Bridget Bishop, in 1680, was a 
 gay and pleasant woman, anti-puritan in her style and opinions. She 
 used to appear in a black cap, black hat, and a " red-par- Briaget 
 agon boddice." If a woman wore a scarlet petticoat it went Buthop - 
 hard with her if she did not become suspected. 2 Red was Satan's 
 favorite mediaeval color. Bridget's dress and manner led to gossip- 
 ing, and it was thought she was going "the primrose way to the 
 everlasting bonfire." An accusation of witchcraft was made and she 
 was tried, but at that time it was more difficult to convict. In the 
 present temper of the people much less was required for the manu- 
 facture of a witch. A woman walking from Amesbury to 
 Newbury, in bad weather, came into a kitchen and boasted 
 that her shoes and clothes were not wet. That was clearly impos- 
 sible, save by preternatural means. She was denounced. As another 
 woman was crossing a marshy place, a will-o-wisp was noticed to be 
 near her, like an imp dancing attendance. That too was fatal. A 
 
 1 A few of her descendants lately met in Boston to form a " Nourse Monument Asso- 
 ciation," charged with the duty of erecting a monument to her memory. For once let an 
 epitaph record the unvarnished truth. 
 
 2 A Portsmouth witch " had on her head a white linen hood tied under her chin, and her 
 waistcoat and petticoat were red, with an old green apron, and a black hat upou her head 
 and she vanished away iii the shape of a cat." 
 
 Portrait of Lieut. -governor Stoughton. 
 
 Other cases. 
 
462 
 
 THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION. 
 
 [CiiAP. XIX. 
 
 man named Jacobs was accused ; he said, contemptuously, " You tax 
 me for a wizard, you may as well tax me for a buzzard." All sorts 
 of personal piques and private grudges, says Upham, many of them 
 of long standing, now began to influence these transactions. When 
 Burroughs was denounced, a strong charge against him was that he 
 possessed a witch's trumpet, which he used to summon his pai'tners 
 whenever he desired a conference. Cotton Mather stood by to see 
 Burroughs hanged, and when the people seemed impressed by his 
 sweet and lofty words, he explained that Satan often transformed 
 himself into an angel of light to delude men's souls. On occasion of 
 the execution of eight at one time, the Reverend Mr. Noyes stood 
 
 "7i 58*4** % fitfafA 
 t3L.affi.il "fr "# 1 
 
 A commute 
 
 .K . , -^- - - *- - F**^^ 
 
 Fac-simile of Sheriff's Return of Bridget Bishop's Execution. 
 
 by and said to the people, " What a sad thing it is to see eight 
 firebrands of hell hanging there ! " 
 
 A committee of vigilance was appointed, and the citizens were 
 organized for the purpose of finding and prosecuting witches. Any 
 man wno na( ^ a g 1 ' 11 ^? 6 f ound opportunity now to put his 
 eneni y j n ^ o ]?i\\.. The children had a very precise way of 
 imitating, half automatically no doubt, the gestures of accused per- 
 sons, their way of shaking the head, lifting the eyes, shifting the 
 attitude. This was attributed to supernatural domination. But this 
 consummate acting was not a mere histrionic display ; the hysteric 
 passion was too much implicated for that. It was a contagion that 
 extended to all persons whose state of health and nervous condition 
 invited it. Several other children were thus bewitched. At length 
 one of them, Mary Warren, who found she was dissembling, im- 
 peached the other children. There began to be suspicions of a con- 
 spiracy. The accused children turned upon her and denounced her 
 for a witch to recover their own credit. 
 
 But now the end was approaching, for the children, under the 
 stimulus of the popular madness, began to fly at higher game. Per, 
 
1692.] 
 
 ITS DECLINE. 
 
 463 
 
 sons of too great importance were implicated in their accusations, 
 and opinion was manifestly affected by the admirable record 
 and demeanor of the denounced. Mrs. Hale, wife of the ure of the 
 minister at Beverly, was too fine and good. As soon as its quick de- 
 they mentioned her name their occupation began to wane. 
 She was probably selected because her husband believed in witch- 
 craft. 
 
 Captain Alden Denounced. 
 
 It appears that the inhab- 
 itants of the inland towns 
 were less affected by the de- 
 lusion. Captain Partridge of 
 Hatfield had a man served 
 with ten stripes who came to 
 him to accuse a neighbor of 
 witchcraft. The children denounced some excellent per- Caitesin 
 sons in Andover, who were protected by the people. Sev- other townB - 
 eral actions for slander were commenced. A few persons of impor- 
 tance who were imprisoned in consequence of denunciations, were 
 assisted to escape. Among them was Captain John Alden, belonging 
 to a Duxbury family. He was sent for by the magistrates The ctLge of 
 to be examined. The children went through with their JohnAlllen - 
 usual performances but when asked to point out the person who was 
 afflicting them, one of them selected the wrong man, till one who 
 was standing near her stooped down and whispered something : then 
 she cried out, kt It is Aldeii." Said the magistrate, u Did you ever 
 
464 THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 I 
 
 see him ? " " No, but the man just told me so." Instead of dismiss- 
 ing the case, the infatuated magistrates ordered a ring to be formed 
 in the street with Alden in it: the child was secretly instructed by 
 the man, who was probably an enemy ; so when told to point out 
 Alden she did so, crying, " There stands Alden, a bold fellow, with 
 his hat on, sells powder and shot to the Indians." He was committed. 
 The children prudently cried that it was his sword which afflicted 
 them, and it was taken away. Alden was a prominent man, and the 
 magistrates carried him into the meeting-house and put him on a 
 chair in full view of the people, where of course he begun to pinch 
 the children. He was asked to confess and give glory to God. Al- 
 den replied " that he hoped he should always give glory to God, 
 but never would gratify the devil." Then he asked the magistrate 
 why his looking upon him did not strike him down as well as his 
 accusers. The only answer to that plain bit of common sense was 
 his commitment to prison. He proposed to stand his trial, but 
 was prevailed upon to be aided to escape. He went to Duxburv, 
 and entering the house of a relative, " saluted them with the cheer- 
 ful assurance ^ that he was come from the devil and the devil was 
 after him." l 
 
 After the illjudged accusation of Mrs. Hale several trials occurred, 
 
 but nearly all of the persons were acquitted. When, in 
 
 ing of the May, 1693, the children began to whisper the names of the 
 
 Governor's wife and of some relatives of Increase Mather, 
 
 Phips took decisive measures. Even Cotton Mather surmised that 
 
 Satan had become confused. The General Court, at the instance of 
 
 numerous petitions from victims still shut up in jail, had superseded 
 
 Phips's Special Commission. Now he ordered a general jail-delivery. 
 
 The huge and baleful bubble had collapsed. 
 
 Compared with European epidemics of the mental kind, this Amer- 
 ican experiment was brief, but bitterly sharp while it lasted. A mo- 
 ment came when the excitement ran so high it turned to froth ; it 
 was a moment of collapse and not of increase. But twenty innocent 
 persons, and two dogs suspected of being witches' familiars, had been 
 executed. Two persons, and perhaps many more, died in jail : a 
 good many broke jail, and were not recaptured ; one hundred and 
 fifty prisoners were released by Phips. Several hundred had suffered 
 for this delusion. Persons who were acquitted were obliged to re- 
 main in jail till they had paid all charges, board, jailer's fees, court 
 charges. Many were too poor to do this, and would have lingered in 
 confinement save for the Governor's discharge. The motive which 
 influenced fifty-five of the victims to confess, was partly a hope of 
 
 1 Winsor's History of Duxbwry. 
 
1693.] 
 
 INCIDENTS. 
 
 465 
 
 self-preservation and partly a suspicion, growing out of their theo- 
 logical conception of Satan and his influence, that it might be true 
 that their singular sensations were really consequences of bewitch- 
 ment. 
 
 Only one special pardon was granted by the Governor during all 
 the convictions. The in- 
 tention to secure safe con- 
 victions grew to be almost 
 a mania. Frequently false 
 depositions were procured 
 after the trial, and secretly 
 interpolated among the pa- 
 pers to make the case seem 
 more complete. Two theo- 
 ries were propounded in the 
 court ; one, that the Devil 
 used the spectres of the 
 persons who were in league 
 with him, in order to tor- 
 ment others ; the other, that 
 the spectres of any persons, 
 whether in league with the 
 Devil or not, might be em- 
 ployed by that personage 
 for the same object. The 
 Chief Justice ruled that the first theory was the more rational one 
 and in harmony with legal precedents. 
 
 During the excitement there were some curious incidents, the re- 
 ports of which assume to be authentic, involving the spon- 
 taneous movement of objects, the throwing of stones, the 
 opening of doors, and the freaks of different utensils, spec- 
 tacles, rolling-pins, books, tubs, all engaged in a promiscu- 
 ous excursion. A person who was trying to write an account of 
 these phenomena was interrupted by the attempts of his hat to rub 
 out the page ; he held it tight, but could not prevent it from getting 
 away. There is a remarkable similarity in the narratives which 
 cluster around different periods of nervous excitement. Occurrences 
 like these are not unusual even now. But they excite only a mo- 
 mentary curiosity, and the belief in them as supernatural phenomena, 
 if it exists at all, is limited to the few to whom they are otherwise 
 inexplicable. 
 
 It must be recorded greatly to the credit of the New Hampshire 
 settler that he did not take kindly to the delusion of witchcraft. 
 
 Chief Justice Sewall. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 30 
 

 466 THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 This is sometimes attributed to the more liberal sentiment which 
 The delusion belonged to adherents of the Church of England, whose 
 influence in Portsmouth was so considerable. When how- 
 evel ^ the delusion broke out at Salem, the most vigorous de- 
 nouncer of it was the Puritan Moody; and Portsmouth became a place 
 of refuge for persons who were accused in Massachusetts, or who had 
 reason to fear that they would be selected. The settlers on the Pis- 
 cataqua, without distinction of ci'eed, indulged sparingly in bigotry 
 and persecution. A stern and unrelenting discipline did not there 
 involve, as in Massachusetts, the safety and existence of the colony. 
 Many of the people were refugees for opinions' sake ; many were 
 liberal livers and thinkers who retreated from the too nipping and 
 eager air of Plymouth and the Bay ; and many of the most promi- 
 nent men were easily tolerant, but not from sheer indifference, of sen- 
 timents which were not their own. But on the point of witchcraft 
 there was a quite general public opinion that a belief in it should not 
 prevail. 
 
 Every now and then there was an opportunity to test the feeling 
 of the people. In 1658, Susanna Trimmings, who lived at Little 
 Harbor, met Goodwife Walford, who asked her the loan of a pound 
 of cotton. Susanna said that she had but two pounds and would not 
 lend any to her own mother. Whereupon the Goodwife said that 
 she would rue it, and that she was going on a long journey and never 
 would return. With this threat a clap of fire struck Susanna on the 
 back, and the Goodwife vanished in the shape, to her apprehension, 
 of a black cat. Then also the woman wore the red petticoat which 
 was the regular thing for witches. Susanna went home, and was soon 
 found by her husband ill and moping by the fire. An action was 
 brought against Goodwife Walford, and several persons testified that 
 she had done strange things. The case was not decided against her, 
 but she was bound over to appear at the next court. At the next 
 term the case was dropped. Then she brought an action for slander 
 against her accusers, laying damages at 1,000, and succeeded in re- 
 covering 5. She was wife of a church-warden, and it has been 
 hinted that the charge of witchcraft originated in the enmity that 
 existed between the Independents and the Episcopalians. Now and 
 then an accusation would be brought against prominent individuals, 
 who promptly answered with actions for slander, and thus broke up 
 such prosecutions. 
 
 It is the more strange that there was no popular excitement, for 
 Great Island, now Newcastle, was the scene of an incident supposed 
 to be preternatural, and the people ought in all decency to have been 
 profoundly moved by it. Salem would have been delirious with appro- 
 
1682.] 
 
 IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 46T 
 
 bation of such proof of Satanic agency. Dr. Mather would have dipped 
 his credulous pen in the blackest ink to record it. The The" stone- 
 story is told by Richard Chamberlain, justice of the peace, J.t t g 
 in a pamphlet entitled " Lithobolia, or the Stone Throw- l8Und 
 ing Devil. Being an exact and true Account of the various actions of 
 infernal spirits or (Devils incarnate) witches, or both." etc. This 
 
 Susanna Trimmings and Goodwife Walford. 
 
 rare pamphlet was printed at London in 1698, five years after the 
 terrible delusion at Salem had passed away ; but the incidents re- 
 corded in it happened in 1682, ten years before the troubles at Salem. 
 In the summer of that year, Chamberlain was living in George Wal- 
 ton's family, "a sojourner in the same family the whole time (about 
 three months) and an ocular witness of those diabolical inventions." 
 They consisted of the throwing about by an invisible hand of stones, 
 
468 THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 bricks, hammers, iron crows, spits and other kitchen furniture, just 
 as it happened to come " into their hellish minds." And these 
 objects seemed to have a personal spite against the inmates of the 
 house. When Chamberlain undertook to dissipate his alarm by play- 
 ing upon some instrument, a big stone rolled into his room, not 
 attracted by his playing, as he says, for he was 110 Amphion. The 
 windows of the house were broken by stones which seemed to be 
 hurled from the interior ; one stone lodged in the hole which it made 
 in the glass, and was taken from it. Stones gambolled on the grass 
 of the neighboring field, and hopped up to hit those passing by. A 
 pile was made of the stones which thus saluted them in the open day- 
 light, but it disappeared soon after, although no one had been noticed 
 near it. One day Walton was returning from Portsmouth in a boat 
 when his anchor leaped overboard and stopped it. When working 
 supposed i n the fields, men found their sickles bent by blows from 
 e- the stones hurled by some invisible agent. All these disturb- 
 ances by night and day were attributed to a neighboring 
 woman who had accused Walton of appropriating a piece of her land 
 and fencing it into his own lot. The fence was thrown down, and 
 when some men undertook to replace it, they were pelted with above 
 a hundred stones. These incidents were witnessed by a number of 
 prominent persons who testified to them. Among their names we 
 find Woodbridge, the minister, Jeffrey, a merchant, the Governor of 
 West Jersey, and the Deputy Governor of Rhode Island. And 
 Chamberlain declares that he who would doubt the facts and disbe- 
 lieve in their Satanic origin, " must temerariously unhinge or under- 
 mine the best Religion in the world ; and he must disingenuously 
 quit and abandon that of the three Theologick Virtues or Graces to 
 which the great Doctor of the Gentiles gave the precedence, Charity, 
 through his unchristian and uncharitable incredulity." 
 
 But the people had little charity for his preternatural theory. 
 The phenomena ceased about the time that the Council called wit- 
 nesses, and began to take notice of the affair. Walton's head was 
 broken by a stone as he was on the way to be examined ; and it 
 appears to have been the last stone thrown. No charge was sus- 
 tained against any person ; the incidents, instead of creating a panic 
 and fostering delusion, seem to have been neglected and forgotten. 
 There was, indeed, as late as 1769, a place called "Witches' Creek," 
 half way between Great Island and Portsmouth ; perhaps it was 
 where Walton's anchor concluded to come to a mooring. 
 
 There is another place in New Hampshire, to this day called 
 " Witch Trot," that painfully connects the State with the dread affair 
 at Salem. Parris, the Salem minister, in whose family the first symp- 
 
1692.] CASE OF GEORGE BURROUGHS. 469 
 
 toms of the delusion appeared, and who eventually availed himself of 
 it to destroy his rivals, or enemies, hated the Rev. George Burroughs 
 and drove him away from Salem. He retired to Wells, in Maine, and 
 settled there with his family. Parris had influence enough, Am ,,, tand 
 in the height of the witch trials, to have Burroughs ar- ofo*^ 
 rested for witchcraft and brought to Salem. It seems in- Burrou s hs - 
 credible that it could have been done ; but he had left many enemies 
 behind when he went to Wells. The accusation was based upon some 
 commanding personal qualities which Burroughs possessed. He was 
 a man of great stature and uncommon strength. His personal 
 presence carried control and infected people with the magnetism 
 of a superior nature. His look was very daunting. His knowl- 
 edge of the mysteries of wood-craft, and forest life seemed to many 
 people an uncanny endowment. When at his trial he happened to 
 look backward, all the persons fell down whom he was supposed 
 to be afflicting. He was charged with lifting a barrel of cider, 
 with holding out a heavy musket at arms' length. No man, it 
 was thought, without preternatural aid could perform such feats. 
 He explained that he grasped the musket just behind the lock. It 
 was said that he lifted a barrel of molasses by just putting his fin- 
 gers into the bung-hole. This he denied. He was asked if his house 
 in Wells was not haunted ; he denied this, but was willing to own, 
 he said, that there were toads. Alas, the house in Wells was haunted 
 by wife and children filled with agony and dread, as they Hig execu . 
 waited so long for him ; but he did not return. Parris tion - 
 managed to have him hanged. He was a spotless man, and pos- 
 sessed a ruling intelligence. 
 
 It was supposed that the enterprise to arrest him would be a dif- 
 ficult one, so an elder and two constables were sent to bring him to 
 Salem. When they arrived and stated their errand, he promptly 
 replied, " Oh, yes," and left his family, who were cheered, no doubt, 
 with the reflection that a charge so preposterous could not for a 
 moment be sustained. As the party started about nightfall, it was 
 the more desirable to take the shortest route. Burroughs conducted 
 them along a stretch of country leading through Berwick to the 
 upper waters of the Piscataqua. There was no direct road ; the 
 track lay through an unbroken forest. The constables demurred at 
 the prospect ; Burroughs said that he knew the way ; they dreaded 
 him, but had to follow, as they afterwards declared, because they 
 were under a spell. He knew the desolate forest as well as his own 
 acres, for it was favorite ground of his. In the depth of it they were 
 surprised by a storm which began with a pitchy darkness and a 
 great hush. The men trembled with the suspicion that Burroughs 
 
470 
 
 THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION. 
 
 [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 was evoking supernatural aid They watched and shuddered with 
 fear. Then came the powerful wind, bending and breaking trees, 
 the rush of rain and the crashing thunders. The horses were mad 
 with terror, and started at a furious pace over the ground that is 
 now called Witch Trot. The party came out at length upon the 
 river safely, and Burroughs with them, who had no desire to escape ; 
 but the constables on the day of his trial added their testimony to 
 
 Burroughs and the Sheriffs. 
 
 his familiarity with the 
 powers of air and dark- 
 ness, and always believed 
 that he raised the storm. 
 
 In 1720, an attempt was 
 
 made in Littleton, Massachusetts, to revive the witchcraft 
 tempts to delusion, but it proved abortive. But the old Scotch ordeal 
 witchcraft for discovering witches by throwing the accused into the 
 water, when the innocent one would sink, not much to her 
 personal advantage, was tried in the eighteenth century at an inlet 
 of Lynnhaven Bay, Virginia, called " Witch-Duck." 
 
 When the curtain had fallen upon the Salem tragedy, Cotton 
 Mather undertook to sum up the matter and vindicate his share in 
 it. This superficial and ambitious divine wrote thus : " It may be 
 
1692.] 
 
 COTTON MATHER'S VINDICATION. 
 
 471 
 
 that errors on both sides have attended them [the troubles] which 
 will never be understood until the day when Satan shall Mathe r-8 
 be bound after another manner than he is at this day ; but Tmdicatlon - 
 for my own part, I know not that ever I have advanced any opinion 
 in the matter of witchcraft, but what all the ministers of the Lord 
 that I know of in the world, whether English or Scotch, or French or 
 Dutch, are of the same opinion with me." 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 COLONIZATION BY FRIENDS. 
 
 PROGRESS OF NEW JERSEY. INSURRECTION UNDER JAMES CARTERET. CHANGES IN 
 THB NEW JERSEY TITLES. THE " QUINTIPARTITE DEED." DIVISION INTO EAST 
 AND WEST JERSEY. PROSPERITY OF WEST JERSEY UNDER QUAKER RULE. 
 CONFLICTS OF JURISDICTION. THE QUAKERS BUY EAST JERSEY. EARLIEST 
 CONNECTION OF WILLIAM PENN WITH AMERICAN COLONIZATION. LIFE AND 
 CHARACTER OF PENN. THE GRANT OF PENNSYLVANIA. EARLY SETTLERS. 
 PENN IN AMERICA. PHILADELPHIA FOUNDED. THE TREATY AT SHACKAMAXON. 
 PBNN'S RETURN TO ENGLAND. PROGRESS OF THE COLONY. PENN AGAIN AT 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 THE new Proprietors of New Jersey had no reason to complain of 
 Progress, of any want of progress and prosperity in their colony for the 
 New jersey. fl rg f. ew y ears after it came into their possession. The 
 constitution of government which they had established was accept- 
 able to the people ; the climate and the soil were attractive ; the 
 vicinity to older colonies made it easy to supply the wants of those 
 who should settle in it, exempt from the privations and hardships 
 which necessarily attend a settlement in an isolated wilderness. Such 
 representations brought emigrants from England ; the enterprising 
 and discontented in New England, whether desirous of more room, 
 or restless for political or religious reasons, saw, or thought they 
 saw, that they could better their condition by a removal to the new 
 province. The first towns grew rapidly ; others were begun. The 
 axe and the plough, in the hands of sturdy farmers, everywhere en- 
 croached upon the primeval forests and the virgin soil. 
 
 But when, in 1670, the first quit-rents were demanded by the Pro- 
 prietors, there came a check to all this prosperity. Titles 
 to lands led to inevitable and bitter disputes. Some had 
 purchased from the Indians ; some claimed under the origi- 
 nal Dutch owners ; others had received grants from Nicolls ; fewer 
 still held deeds from the Proprietors at that time, Berkeley and Car- 
 teret. Bergen and Woodbridge were among the latter, and acknowl- 
 edged their liability to the payment of these rents ; but Elizabeth, 
 Newark, and isolated farmers here and there, who had settled upon 
 
 Trouble 
 OYer rents 
 and titles. 
 
head of the 
 insurrec- 
 tion. 
 
 1673.] CHANGES OF GOVERNORS AND TITLES. 473 
 
 their lands before the country had come under the jurisdiction of the 
 English, united in resisting the demands of the proprietary govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Resistance, at length, came to be absolute insurrection. A leader 
 only was wanted, and it was not long before one was provided. 
 About a year after the demand for the quit-rents was made, James 
 Carteret, the second son of Sir George, arrived in the colony on his 
 way to Carolina, of which he was one of the landgraves. A dissolute, 
 unscrupulous, and ambitious man, he was ready to take advantage 
 of any fortune that chance threw in his way. He put him- captain 
 self at the head of the movement against his cousin, Philip 
 Carteret, who held his commission from James's father, Sir 
 George. In the spring of 1672 the insurrectionary party 
 called an assembly at Elizabethtown, formally deposed Philip Carte- 
 ret, and elected James to be Governor in his stead. 
 
 Philip made little further attempt to contest the matter on the 
 spot, but, appointing a deputy TO represent him, took ship in the early 
 summer and sailed for England, to lay the whole matter before his 
 superiors. It was his wisest course. Unaided, he could do nothing 
 against an unwilling people ; and possibly he believed that his cous- 
 in's government would be to the malcontents a most salutary les- 
 son. Such, at least, was the result. James showed himself to be ut- 
 terly incompetent. By the time orders were received from the Duke 
 of York, the insurgents were ready to submit. Captain Berry, Philip 
 Carteret's deputy, was acknowledged without further trouble The proprie- 
 in May, 1673 ; l and James Carteret sailed for Virginia ten ment G r^ em 
 days afterward. 2 There was no further interruption of the 8tored - 
 proprietary government until the Dutch reconquest of New Nether- 
 land in the autumn of that year ; and even then, though New Jersey 
 received the new name of Achter Col, and ostensibly passed once 
 more under the Netherland rule, the real change was but slight, and 
 internal tranquillity was almost undisturbed. 
 
 New Jersey was placed in a new position when by the treaty of 
 Westminster New Netherland was restored to England. 
 The Duke of York's title to New York had been entirely Jersey after 
 extinguished by the conquest of the territory by a foreign >stmm- 
 power, and its subsequent passage to the crown by treaty ; 
 and he required a new grant from the King, in order to be again 
 the rightful proprietor of the province. How much more, then, it 
 
 1 Whitehead, pp. 58, 59. 
 
 2 He came back to New York afterward, where he was seen in 1679, "running about 
 among the farmers, and staying where he can get most to drink, and sleeping in barns on 
 the straw." Journal of the Labadists. 
 

 474 
 
 COLONIZATION BY FRIENDS. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 was argued and it was an argument the Duke was willing enough 
 to listen to was the title of his grantees, Berkeley and Carteret, 
 in the province of New Jersey destroyed. James saw that he had 
 an opportunity, under cover of this theory, to possess himself again 
 of the territory he had parted with so rashly ; and he availed himself 
 of it without delay. He gave to Andros, after he had taken pos- 
 session of the government of New England, a commission to govern 
 all his property in America, New Jersey included, assuming that the 
 grant to Berkeley and Carteret was void. 
 
 In the meantime, however, Sir George Carteret had hastened to 
 do all in his power, not only to protect his own title, but 
 
 sir ueorge to absorb that of his partner as well. He had gone to the 
 His title King at once ; and Charles, before he sealed his new grant 
 
 confirmed. 
 
 to the Duke, had been induced to assure Carteret by let- 
 ter that he was " seized of the Province of New Caesarea, or New 
 
 Entrance to Barnegat Inlet. 
 
 Jersey," and that he had " the sole power, under us, to dispose of 
 the said country, upon such terms and conditions as he should think 
 fit." Berkeley, whose title had been equal with that of Carteret, 
 had, in the spring of this year (1674) 1 , conveyed his " un- 
 gmnt to divided half " to John Fenwicke in trust for Edward Byl- 
 
 Fenwieke ,. , i -i i i i i 
 
 and Byi- linge, but both his right to grant and his grantees were 
 
 utterly ignored in this new royal document. 
 
 This step on the part of Carteret, interfering alike with the in- 
 terest of all parties, led to a compromise. A short time after the 
 issue of Andres's commission, a new grant was made (Au- 
 gust 8, 1674), to Carteret, in severalty, of that part of New 
 Jersey lying northeast of a line drawn from Barnegat Inlet to Ren- 
 
 1 Proud says (History New Jersey, i., 136), "in or about 1675;" but there is no doubt 
 it was ou March 18, 1674. 
 
 Anew 
 
1676.] THE " QUINTIPARTITE DEED." 475 
 
 kokus creek ; but in conveying this the Duke did not give, as he had 
 done before, "the full power and authority to rule and govern," nor 
 did he vary the terms of Andros's appointment to be Governor over 
 all the Duke's possessions in America. For a time all went well once 
 more, and in the beginning of the next year Philip Carteret returned 
 as Governor, made liberal concessions on the part of his cousin, and 
 was quietly accepted by the people. But just as his government was 
 thoroughly restored, the successors of Berkeley's grantees proposed 
 another compromise, the consequences of which were momentous. 
 
 A quarrel had sprung up between Fenwicke and Byllinge with re- 
 gard to their respective rights in their new purchase. It 
 
 i i i Fenwiek* 
 
 was against the tenets of their faith both were members 
 of the Society of Friends to go to law with one another, 
 and they had decided to settle the matter by the arbitration of one 
 of their own number. The dispute was referred to William Penn, 
 already one of the most eminent members of their sect in England ; 
 and his decision, after some argument with Fenwicke, was made 
 satisfactory to both. Fenwicke in person, with a few companions, 
 set sail for America to found a colony ; but Byllinge, overwhelmed 
 by debts, was compelled to make an assignment for his creditors ; 
 and the greater part of his right and title in New Jersey was handed 
 over to Penn, to Gawen Laurie and Nicholas Lucas the latter being 
 two of those to whom Byllinge was most deeply indebted. 
 
 The matter had now become so complicated that all who were in- 
 terested saw the necessity of an exact division of the province; for 
 Berkeley had disposed of his share as an undivided half ; while Sir 
 George Carteret's pretensions, as the Duke of York's secretary 
 wrote to Andros, had not yet been so adjusted that he could disregard 
 the claims of others. Carteret evidently thought it better to nego- 
 tiate directly with those whose rights were at least equal with his 
 own, than to trust to the Duke's last grant, or even to the docu- 
 ments that had preceded it ; while Penn, Laurie, and Lucas were anx- 
 ious to make Byllinge's property of immediate avail, if possible, and 
 perhaps also to carry out another plan of colonization, the outlines 
 of which had just been considered among them. On the first of July, 
 1676, old style, therefore, after much preliminary negotia- 
 tion, a " quintipartite deed " was completed, and signed by tipartite 
 Carteret on the one side, and Penn, Laurie, Lucas, and Ea*tknd 
 Byllinge on the other, which divided the whole province of 
 New Jersey into two great portions. " East New Jersey " included 
 all that part northeast of a line drawn from Little Egg Harbor to 
 a point on the most northern branch of the Delaware River, in north 
 latitude 41 40'. " West New Jersey " comprehended all the rest of 
 

 476 
 
 COLONIZATION BY FRIENDS. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 subdivision 
 
 
 the territory originally granted by the Duke. East New Jersey was 
 the property of Carteret ; West New Jersey passed into the hands 
 of the associates ; and the Quintipartite Agreement marked the 
 first great purchase made by Friends in the New World, where they 
 were to found a powerful State. 
 
 The four managers of the newly defined territory now proceeded 
 * ma ^ e tln equitable division of it among the persons in- 
 terested. Dividing it into one hundred parts, and setting 
 aside ten for Fenwicke, who had already made (in June, 
 1675) the first settlement at Salem on the Delaware, they ar- 
 ranged to administer or dispose of the other ninety in the interest of 
 
 Byllinge's creditors. And since, to 
 make the scheme profitable, it was nec- 
 essary, first of all, to attract more col- 
 onists than the few who had joined the 
 Salem settlers, they drew up a set of 
 " concessions and agreements," which 
 should at the same time provide for the 
 future government of their province, 
 and, by its liberality, draw emigrants 
 to the province. Like the constitution 
 of New Jersey under Berkeley and 
 Carteret, these " concessions " provided 
 for taxation by the people themselves, 
 through an annual assembly having one delegate from every " pro- 
 priety ; " but the new instrument went farther. It pro- 
 vided for a secret ballot, " whereby every man may freely 
 choose according to his own judgment and honest intention," instead 
 of the u common and confused way of cries and voices ; " and every 
 colonist could vote and was eligible to the position of a delegate. 
 Each delegate was to be paid for his services at the rate of a shilling 
 a day during the Assembly's sitting ; each was to be known as the 
 "servant of the people." Religious freedom, it need hardly be said, 
 was secured in the fullest sense. Imprisonment for debt was abol- 
 ished, and a sensible bankrupt law substituted. Trial by jury and 
 the rights of the English common law were secured to every settler. 
 These liberal provisions were published in England in the begin- 
 ning of 1677. The proprietors invited and urged Friends to remove 
 to a country where they would be secure from persecution, and cer- 
 tain of prosperity. Several hundred persons went over that year. 
 In March a company of two hundred and thirty had collected and 
 embai'ked on one vessel. As their ship, the Kent, lay at anchor in 
 the Thames, about ready to sail, King Charles passed by in his 
 
 Seal of East Jersey. 
 
 Its Laws. 
 
1677.] 
 
 THE FRIENDS IN WEST JERSEY. 
 
 477 
 
 barge. The crowded decks attracted his attention, and he came 
 alongside. He asked her destination ; he inquired if all on board 
 were Friends, for, probably, he had heard of an enterprise in which 
 so much interest had been aroused all over England. It certainly 
 excited his curiosity, perhaps something more, for he wished them 
 a good voyage and gave them his blessing. It did them no harm 
 if it did them no good, though, perhaps, there was not another man 
 in the kingdom less capable than Charles of comprehending the 
 character and the principles of the people to whom he gave his 
 benediction. 
 
 The Kent reached New York in 
 August. The commissioners on board, 
 to whom the management of The Quak . 
 affairs had been entrusted by " ^"ind 
 the proprietors, reported the Andr08 - 
 arrival to Andros. Recent events in 
 the colony had not been of a charac- 
 New jersey. ter to dispose the Governor to welcome 
 
 their coming. Fenwicke, who had now been two years at Salem, 
 had denied the legality of the Duke of York's customs-duties and 
 other taxes, and in the January preceding the arrival of these new 
 emigrants had been arrested, brought to Xew York and thrown into 
 prison. He was still confined in Fort James, and when the com- 
 missioners came before Andros, his first question was, what evidence 
 had they to produce of title from the Duke. They had none. The 
 successive grants from the Duke to Berkeley, and from Berkeley to 
 others, gave, they asserted, right of government as well as title to the 
 soil. This, the Governor declared, it would be as much as his head 
 was worth to grant without orders from his master; but if they "had 
 but a line or two from the Duke, he would be as ready to surrender 
 it to them as they would be to ask it." As he laid his hand on his 
 
478 COLONIZATION BY FRIENDS. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 sword in confirmation of his purpose to hold his government over all 
 the Duke's territory till further commands from England, the Friends 
 saw themselves obliged to yield thus far ; and agreeing to consider 
 Tneques- themselves only as magistrates under him until other in- 
 d\cHon J "I struetions came, they were suffered to proceed upon their 
 promised. voyage. Fenwicke was permitted at the same time to go 
 upon his own recognizance, and directed to report in the following 
 autumn at New York, for the final decision on his case. 
 
 The Kent arrived at Newcastle on the Delaware on the sixteenth 
 of August. It was three months later, however, before a place of 
 permanent settlement was fixed upon. This was the present town 
 of Burlington. It was first named New Beverley ; but this was 
 soon changed to Bridlington corrupted into Brellington, then 
 Burlington a parish in Yorkshire, England, whence many of the 
 emigrants had come. " Here is a town," wrote one of them, John 
 Crips, to a friend in England, " laid out for twenty proprieties, 
 and a straight line, drawn from the river side tip the land, which is 
 to be the main street, and a market-place about the middle. The 
 Yorkshire ten proprietors are to build on one side, and the London 
 ten on the other side ; and they have ordered one street to be made 
 along the river side, which is not divided with the rest, but in small 
 lots by itself, and every one that hath any part in a propriety is to 
 have his share in it. The town lots for every propriety will be 
 about ten or eleven acres." 1 
 
 The new village was prosperous from the beginning, and as 
 shipload after shipload of colonists arrived, other settlements sprung 
 up along the river and its tributaries, until the Proprietors saw their 
 plantation increasing more rapidly in two or three years, than other 
 colonies had done in ten, and this almost entirely through the 
 exertions of Friends alone. 
 
 The greatest drawback to the complete success of the undertaking 
 Renewed was * ne question of jurisdiction. Taxes were still assessed 
 ^"unv on behalf of the Duke of York. In East New Jersey Philip 
 diction. Carteret and Sir Edmund Andros were in open opposition. 
 Carteret had proclaimed, with the hearty support of the Assembly, 
 that all vessels coming directly to the province should be free from 
 duties. Andros intercepted a ketch bound to Elizabethport with a 
 cargo of rum, and compelled her captain to pay duties at the New 
 Conflict be- Y r k custom-house. A proposal for a friendly meeting of 
 d^Mand" the two governors on Staten Island was declined by Car- 
 carteret. teret. Andros warned him to forbear exercising any jurisdic- 
 tion ; and announced that he should erect a fort " at Sandy Point " 
 
 1 Letter in Proud's History qf Pennsylvania. 
 
1678.] 
 
 CONFLICT OF JURISDICTION. 
 
 479 
 
 to aid in the enforcement of his authority. Carteret declared that 
 this should be resisted ; and when Andros went to New Jersey, a 
 month later, seeking a peaceful conference, Carteret met him with a. 
 military force to oppose his landing. As Andros came without troops 
 he was permitted to land, but the conference came to nothing. The 
 
 Arrest of Carteret. 
 
 crisis soon came. A few weeks after Andros's visit, Carteret was 
 taken from his house at Elizabethtown by New York sol- Arrestof 
 diers, in the night ; and taken to the city, where he was put Carteret - 
 in the sheriff's hands like a common criminal. He was tried at a 
 special term of the Court of Assizes, in May, and, though Andros sent 
 the jurors out three times, acquitted. He was compelled, however, 
 to give security that he would not again assume any authority in New 
 
480 COLONIZATION BY ERIENDS. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 Jersey. As some atonement for this ill-treatment, Andros escorted 
 him back to Elizabethtown. The Assembly was asked to accept the 
 " Duke's Laws," but they maintained their own, while at the same 
 time they accepted the government of Andros. Carteret transferred 
 the dispute to England, where it was presented by the widow of Sir 
 George Carteret who had died the year before for the decision of 
 the Duke himself. 
 
 The Friends of West Jersey had been even earlier in presenting 
 their complaints against Andros. They succeeded in having their 
 case referred to the Duke's commissioners in September, 1679 ; and 
 Wegt Penn and his associates came forward with a masterly argu- 
 
 freed from" meiit which secured their end. It was a bold and striking 
 
 the Duke ... P IT. 
 
 c f n' OI t' s P m ***** * P o P u J ar liberty ; and the commissioners, 
 advised by Sir William Jones, decided that James's grant 
 had reserved no jurisdiction, and that none could be rightly claimed. 
 The Duke accepted the decision. In August, 1680, he executed a 
 new deed, relinquishing all rights over West Jersey ; and in October, 
 Carteret's friends secured a similar document with regard to their 
 portion of the province, and a deed confirming it to Sir George 
 Carteret, the grandson of the original grantee. But East New 
 Jersey had never been a profitable property ; and now, while its 
 neighbor grew apace, it seemed to lose rather thnn to gain. Philip 
 Carteret imprudently brought forward again a question already once 
 decided the ownership of Staten Island, and thus came once 
 more into conflict with the representatives of the Duke of York. At 
 the same time his home administration was disturbed by quarrels 
 with a new Assembly, which he at last arbitrarily dissolved in the 
 autumn of 1681. The proprietors at home were discouraged. The 
 The Quakers watchf ul Friends, whose own undertaking had been so suc- 
 New^leVsev cessful, now saw an opportunity to extend it further. Pro- 
 1682 - posals were made to the trustees of Carteret's estate, which 
 
 the latter were only too glad to close with ; and in February, 1682, 
 the eastern territory was sold to ten of the West Jersey proprietors, 
 among whom was William Penn. 
 
 William Penn was the son of Admiral Sir William Penn, a distin- 
 guished naval officer born at Bristol in 1621, of a family 
 wintam 8 * that had preserved an honorable station and record foi 
 fourteen generations. Sir William, the father, was pecu- 
 liarly fitted for a life of enterprise, and had a capacity for command- 
 ing men, which was, however, signally baffled when he 
 Admiral undertook to bend his Quaker son to his own notions of 
 preferment and court life. He became a Captain at twenty- 
 one, Rear Admiral of Ireland at twenty-three, Vice Admiral at 
 
1681.] WILLIAM PENN. 481 
 
 twenty-five, and Vice Admiral of England at thirty-one years of age. 
 When Cromwell planned his expedition against the Spanish West In- 
 dies, he was appointed, in 1654, Admiral of the fleet that was destined 
 to cooperate with the land forces under General Venables. Unfortu- 
 nately the Protector sent on board civil commissioners charged witb 
 some control over the actions of the officers. This, and the climate, 
 and a disagreement or failure of cooperation between the sea and land 
 forces, resulted in a disastrous failure, and the Admiral, on his re- 
 turn, fell into temporary disgrace and was lodged in the Tower. 
 But we find him returned for Parliament from Weymouth, in 1655, 
 and, what is more important, a commander under the Duke of York 
 in a great fight against the Dutch fleet in 1665, when he rendered 
 such important service to the Duke that Charles II. made it a special 
 point in the patent which he issued to his son for the government of 
 Pennsylvania, partly to conciliate the Duke, who had some preten- 
 sions to the territory and was opposed to Penn's claim. 
 
 The Admiral died in 1670. His turn for public affairs, and a 
 certain vivacity of temper and sense of humor, were inherited 
 by his son William, who was born in London, October 14, *> 
 1644, of a pious and high-minded mother. She very early 
 began to impart her religious feeling to her son, and to awake the 
 instinct which he had plainly inherited from her. When he was 
 five years old she asked him a great question. " Who made you, 
 William?" " Sure enough," said the eager boy, "was it not God?" 
 "But, how do you know?" "You have told me so a hundred times." 
 " But suppose I had not told you, could you have found it out for 
 yourself ? " "I don't know." " Why, William, nothing is easier." 
 " Tell me, mother." " Do you see that stone lying there ? " " What 
 of it, mother ? " " It is something, is it not ? " " Yes." " But how 
 do you know ? " " Why I see it, I can feel it, and lift it." " Then do 
 you think it made itself?" " I don't see how ; it is a senseless thing, 
 and no thing can make itself." Many and sweet must have been the 
 colloquies between mother and son upon high matters, while perhaps 
 the Admiral was on the seas, or tempting the unstable element of 
 courts. 
 
 The boy was sent to school at Chiswell in Essex. One day in his 
 eleventh year he perceived an exceeding glory in his room, 
 and great comfort and emotion flowed through his soul, uooaand 
 
 '1-1 11 n youth. 
 
 inis experience was not traceable to any external influ- 
 ence ; he had as yet held no communication Avith Friends who ex- 
 pected and cherished these mental states. But this first touch of 
 the divine presence did not impair the buoyancy of his youth. He 
 loved sports and manly exercises, was overflowing with animal spirits, 
 
 VOL. II. 31 
 

 482 
 
 COLONIZATION BY FRIENDS. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 and was fond of a joke. At fifteen, he was so advanced as to enter 
 Oxford, where he associated with noblemen of rather discursive 
 habits. 
 
 But there came to Oxford one Thomas Lee, an eminent preacher 
 of the Society of Friends. Penn heard him and was greatly impressed 
 with the new doctrines. Gradually he began to stay away from the 
 inclines to Anglican worship because of his love of hearing any Friend 
 Quakerism. S p ea k w ho came to town. For this he was fined in 1660. 
 When, under Charles II., a mandate came up to Oxford, restoring the 
 habit of the surplice to the students and making its use imperative, 
 Penn, collecting a few of his spirited comrades, attacked the students 
 
 Wanstead, Essex, Home of William Perm's Childhood. 
 
 who appeared in surplices and tore them over their heads. This led 
 EX lied to his expulsion, to the extreme disgust of the Admiral, who 
 from oxford, cherished views of propriety and advancement for his son. 
 In a fit of anger, in spite of the protesting mother, he turned young 
 Penn out of the house. Repenting at leisure of this undomestic pro- 
 cedure, and alarmed at Penn's increasing tendency to the peculiar 
 lie is sent to views of sectaries, he was summoned back and despatched 
 Pans. t- p ar i s j n 1662, well provided with money ; the father 
 
 hoping to divert his mind by gayety and to change his habit of life. 
 
 Penn did not dislike it ; all his senses were keen and vital, and he 
 liked to taste the humor of things. He was engaged once in a street 
 fight, but he acquired fine manners and a more easy accommodation 
 to circumstances. The delighted Admiral presented him at court, 
 
1681.] WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 then sent him to Dublin to look after some family property. Here 
 he led a gay life, till one day he saw a placard announ- Penn j s(icil t 
 cing that a Friend " would preach in the Market House." to Dublin 
 He was impressed to go and listen. The preacher was his old friend, 
 Thomas Lee, who taught him at Oxford to despise ordinances and 
 cherish the Spirit. His heart was turned back to the old genuine 
 affections of his nature, and he became again the school-boy who 
 had felt a presence in his room. 
 
 The decisive moment of his life had arrived. He doffed the 
 courtly garb and adopted the ordinary costume of the 
 Friend of that period ; but the courtly eloquence and suav- "i^'y em - 
 
 * braces the 
 
 itv of manner which nature had bestowed upon him he *'<i' 
 
 * doctrines. 
 
 could not dispense with. There remained too the inextin- 
 guishable force and vivacity of his nature, which still sometimes 
 led him into a broadness of speech and contemptuous allusion. Im- 
 mediately surrendering his old habits of living he became a constant 
 attendant upon the meetings of Friends. And it was upon one of 
 these occasions in Cork that he was arrested, taken before the mayor, 
 and for the first time committed to prison. His father, though dis- 
 gusted at the change in his son's opinions, continued to be useful in 
 getting him out of prison, whenever his boldness lodged him there. 
 He was recalled home in 1666, and subjected to the father's argu- 
 ments and threats. A severe struggle took place in his heart be- 
 tween his paternal duty and the new light which had risen within 
 him. The light prevailed, and the angry father again dismissed him 
 from the house. 
 
 Now he began to speak in Friends' meetings, and to employ a 
 sprightly pen in defence of the new doctrines. In 1668, Pcnnim . 
 after an abortive discussion with some Presbyterian minis- Jinf^!" 
 ters, he wrote his " Sandy Foundation Shaken," which Ing8- 
 gave such offence that he was committed to the Tower on the charge 
 of heresy. Here he solaced confinement with industrious writing ; 
 among other treatises composing his famous " No Cross No Crown," 
 of which he said, " It is a path God in his everlasting kindness 
 guided my feet into, in the flower of my youth, when about two and 
 twenty years of age." And we find the key-note of the whole 
 Quaker practice in England and America in this sentence : " To say 
 that we strain at small things, which becomes not people of so fair 
 pretensions to liberty and freedom of spirit, I answer with meekness, 
 truth and sobriety ; first, nothing is small that God makes matter of 
 conscience to do or leave undone." He was kept in the Tower for 
 seven months, and at length released in consequence of his clear and 
 positive religious statements in a treatise called " Innocency with her 
 open Face." 
 
484 COLONIZATION BY FRIENDS. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 The father's temper had " like to break his heart when things 
 went wrong," but he underwent a hard conflict to set them right. 
 A partial reconciliation between him and the son led gradually to a 
 complete one before his death in 1670. Then Penn inherited great 
 estates, which he lavishly used and encumbered in his important en- 
 terprises. 
 
 But meantime the persecutions of the Quakers attained unusual 
 Persecution severity. Although Charles II. had enjoined the Boston 
 other'o'uX 1 magistrates to suspend their cruelties against the Friends, 
 ers and had manifested a spirit of toleration in England, he 
 
 subsequently, when under the influence of his ministers, issued fresh 
 orders to New England to suppress the sect, and allowed the statutes 
 to be enforced at home. Mayors and Recorders took advantage of 
 this mood and revived the municipal statutes against dissenters' 
 meetings and preaching. When the King recovered from his tem- 
 porary mood of reaction and began to have considerable regard for 
 leading Quakers, it did not affect the popular prejudice. The 
 prosecutions went on, and the King made no active interference. 
 The usual outrages prevailed through the kingdom. Meetings were 
 mobbed, hats pulled off and trampled on, Friends were beaten, 
 robbed, given over to any ruffianly treatment, thrown into loath- 
 some jails, and if they had any money were fined, in some cases at 
 the rate of '20 a month. 
 
 Penn was arrested for preaching in 1670, and his trial at the Old 
 Bailey occurred in September. He and his friend, William 
 Mead, a linen-draper who knew how to quote Latin in his 
 plea, were arraigned on an indictment that absurdly charged them 
 with gathering a tumultuous assembly in Grace Church Street with 
 force and arms to the disturbance of the King's peace, and did there 
 preach to the great terror and disturbance of many of his liege sub- 
 jects. We have Penn's own report of this trial, published in Howell's 
 " State Trials " and in his Works. On September first, the accused 
 simply pleaded not guilty, and were remanded till the third. On that 
 day, as they entered the court, some official rudely pulled their hats 
 off, whereupon the Mayor rebuked the officer and made him put on 
 their hats again. At this the Recorder magnified his office by fining 
 each forty marks for contempt of court, though the order for repla- 
 cing their hats came from the bench. So, said Penn, it is not we, but 
 the bench which ought to be fined. When the Recorder said that the 
 indictment was founded upon the common law, Penn asked him what 
 was that law ; to which the testy and virulent Recorder replied that 
 he had jiot time enough to explain the cases which made the common 
 law ; and Penn rejoined, " If it be common it should not be so hard 
 
1681.] 
 
 WILLIAM PEXN. 
 
 48o 
 
 to produce." Penn's retorts were so sharp that the tolerably well 
 disposed Mayor ordered him into the hail-dock, a felon's dirty place in 
 the purlieus of the court room ; and Mead conducted himself with 
 such steadiness that he soon followed. The iurv, though vigorously 
 
 J / / 
 
 bullied by the Recorder, brought in the simple verdict, " Guilty of 
 speaking in Grace Church Street." Sent out again, they soon returned 
 with the same verdict. But this did not suit the court. The jury 
 was shut up and watched overnight, without meat, drink, fire, or any 
 
 Trial of William Penn. 
 
 other accommodation. The next morning it returned the same ver- 
 dict. Again it was angrily sent out. only to return with the original 
 verdict. This happened twice more, the trial lasting till September 
 fifth, and Penn and Mead being transferred to Newgate while it was 
 pending, and the oostinate jury being shut up without food or drink. 
 When at last the original verdict was rendered, each juror was fined 
 forty marks for folk wing his own opinion, and Penn and Mead sent 
 to Newgate till each paid his forty marks for having his hat i 
 
486 COLONIZATION BY FRIENDS. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 upon his head. Such was the tolerated spite and injustice of that 
 interval of persecution. 1 
 
 Soon after the trial at the Old Bailey, Penn's father died, as it ap- 
 pears under great concern of mind at a tardy recognition of his son's 
 courage and virtue. After taking the final leave of the household, 
 iv-ath of the ne sai d : " Son William, I charge you do nothing against 
 your conscience : if you and your friends keep to your plain 
 uay of preaching, and keep to your plain way of living, you will 
 make an end of the priests, to the end of the world." 
 
 In 1671, Penn was again in Newgate for six months for being pres- 
 ent at a Friends' meeting. After his release, he went on a religious 
 mission to Holland and Germany, with Robert Barclay, author of the 
 famous " Apology," and George Fox. His interviews with the sus- 
 ceptible Princess Elizabeth of Germany are memorable in the annals 
 of Quakerism. 
 
 Among the effects of his father, Penn had inherited a claim against 
 penn-R <-iaim ^ ne Crown for arrears of the Admiral's pay, and for various 
 c^wn tthe loans to the Admiralty. What with principal and interest, 
 ii is proposal. it amoimtet i { n iQ$\ t o 16,000, a sum which, in the 
 
 money value of to-day, would be a very large one. Penn proposed 
 to the government to liquidate this debt by a grant to him of terri- 
 tory in America. Those members of the Privy Council who were 
 hostile to the views of Quakerism relative to the Church and State, 
 strongly opposed the grant. But even the Duke of York, with whom 
 he had been lately in controversy, favored his petition, mindful per- 
 haps of the Admiral's great service to him in the tight pinch of the 
 naval battle. The Duke might have preferred to extend his own 
 province of New York farther to the southward. 
 
 Penn was well skilled in the methods of courts, and knew when to 
 wait, when to persist, how smoothly to deal with the men of influence, 
 in order to prefer his claim. The treasury also was empty, and the 
 King thought he would be well rid of a debt of 16,000 for many 
 square miles of wilderness peopled only by Indians. The Lords' Com- 
 mittee of Colonies, the Board of Trade, were quite contemptuous 
 
 1 Eighty years later, on June 7, 1753, a Quakeress managed to get into the- House of 
 Lords, and reprehended the Peers on aecount of some fashionable excesses in dress and 
 amusements. The Mont/i/i/ Rtrietr said: " She was indulged with the attention of the 
 House." During the French Revolution, a Quaker preferred to keep on his hat in the 
 trihime when lie wa< present at a sitting of the Council of Ancients. It was the Presi- 
 dent's opinion that the Council, hy allowing him to remain with it on, would give a proof 
 of its rcs|tect for the freedom of religious opinions. But the order of the day w:is carried 
 upon a verv sensible remark by Rousseau, who .-aid : " He may come with his coat but- 
 toned after the fashion of the Quakers, if he pleases, lint let him take off his hat or stay 
 away. If the delicacv of his conscience cannot yield to his curiosity, let him make Ins 
 curiosity yield to the delicacy of his conscience." 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 
 (from tltf (-OIHJ lnj IVncf <it lite Xationul 
 

 
1681.] THE GRANT OF PENNSYLVANIA. 487 
 
 over the idea of establishing over Indians, and amid foreign rivalries, 
 a set of non-resistants. Hut a very cogent address in Council by 
 Penn's chief advocate, clearing up the anti-governmental, anti-priest, 
 and anti-royal principles of the Friends, prevailed. Chief Justice 
 North was appointed to draw up a charter, with specifications of 
 boundaries, which was signed March 4, 1681. In considera- 
 tion of two beaver-skins annually, and a fifth part of all the of i'cnn>.yi- 
 gold and silver that might be mined, the King granted to 
 Penn a territory of forty thousand square miles. This monarch was 
 nothing if not merry ; he must be allowed his sport. " Here," said 
 he, " I am doing well in granting all these coasts, seas, bays, etc., to 
 such a fighting man as you are. But you must promise not to take 
 to scalping. And will you practise entire toleration toward all mem- 
 bers of the Church of England ? " To which, of course, Penn readily 
 assented. As regards the scalping, a striking decline from the prin- 
 ciples of his father was shown by the grandson of Penn, who pro- 
 claimed in July, 1764, that for every male Indian above the age of 
 ten who was captured, a bounty of $150 should be paid ; for every 
 male killed and scalped, $ 134 ; for every one thus served under ten, 
 $130 ; for every female killed and scalped, $50. But Penn's descend- 
 ants had then long ceased to be Friends, and the frontier influence 
 of the French among the Indians was of the most murderous kind. 
 
 The King had called the new territory, thus granted, Pennsylvania. 
 But Penn, whose family originated in Wales, had intended 
 to call it New Wales. In the conference with the Secre- t*iritn 
 tary, who handed him the charter, he objected to the King's 
 designation, and tried to prevail upon the Secretary to substitute his 
 own, even offering him, when he proved stubborn, twenty guineas to 
 alter it. But the Secretary could not overcome his sense of duty. 
 Upon referring the matter to the King, with the compromise of Svl- 
 vania, the King said, " No. I am godfather to the territory, and will 
 bestow its name." 
 
 Penn's proprietary jurisdiction thus made secure, he issued a far- 
 sighted and liberal advertisement of the inducements for 
 emigration, which particularly addressed the Quaker dispo- f^Vto' " 
 sition. His scheme of administration is too long to repro- 
 duce entire : but two or three special traits of it deserve emphasis. 
 He declared that he wished to establish a just and righteous govern- 
 ment in his province, that others might take example by it. In Eng- 
 land there was not room for such a holy experiment. Government 
 is a part of religion itself, a thing sacred in its institution and end. 
 Any government is free to the people under it, whatever be the frame, 
 where the laws rule, and the people are a party to those laws. Gov- 
 
488 COLONIZATION BY FRIENDS. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 ernments depend upon men, not men upon governments. The first 
 principle of Perm's new code recognized liberty of conscience ; all 
 persons acknowledging the one Eternal God, living peaceably and 
 justly, were not to be molested or prejudiced in matters of faith and 
 worship. 
 
 Penn went further than this ; with the sad example of New Eng- 
 land experience in his thought, he added that nobody shall be com- 
 pelled at any time to frequent or maintain any religious worship, 
 place, or ministry whatsoever. Only murder and treason were to be 
 punishable by death. That, at least, was insisted upon by Chief Jus- 
 tice North. But while Penn lived, no gallows was erected in his 
 province. He said that a prison must be converted into a school of 
 reformation and education ; that litigation ought to give way to some 
 regularly appointed arbitration ; that an oath was a superfluity ; so, 
 also, were cock-pits, bull-baiting, card-playing, theatres, and drunken- 
 ness. Lying was punishable as a crime. This, indeed, went to the 
 root of the matter, for all nations from the earliest times have acknowl- 
 edged that a lie is the parent of a horde of vices. Trial by jury was 
 established, and in all cases which involved an Indian, the jury must 
 be composed of six whites and six natives, and whenever a planter 
 conceived that he was injured in person or property by a native he 
 must not take the law into his own hands, but apply to a magistrate, 
 and the latter must confer with the native's sachem. The person of 
 the Indian was declared to be sacred. 
 
 Penn advertised the land in his province at forty shillings per 
 hundred acres, and even servants could hold fifty acres in fee simple. 
 " Still," said he to the Friends, eager to enter upon their new homes, 
 " let no one move rashly, but have an eye to the Providence of God." 
 So great was his reputation in Europe that he attracted many emi- 
 grants from its countries, mainly from Germany, and recruited from 
 the soberest and thriftiest kind. A German Company, under the 
 guidance of Franz Pastorius, 1 bought fifteen thousand acres. 
 
 Three vessels came over in 1681. One of them was frozen in at 
 Early set- Chester, and the passengers could get no further. They 
 tiers. were obliged to dig caves in the river bank and live in them. 
 
 This was a common expedient with the earliest settlers, and at a later 
 period Penn complained of the liquor drinking and excesses in the 
 caves. It had always been his object to live in his province and 
 manage his affairs. When the ship in which he intended to embark 
 
 1 See a German pamphlet in the library of Harvard College, by Fr. Daniel Pastorius, "a 
 geographical statistical Description of the Province of Pennsylvania." It contains the 
 events which occurred from 1683 to 1699. At the time of writing it he was chief magis- 
 trate at Gerinautuwn. 
 
. 
 
 1682.] 
 
 PENN'S VOYAGE. 
 
 was nearly ready, he requested an audience of the King. Said 
 Charles, "It will not be long before I hear that you have p enn and 
 gone into the savages' war kettle: what is to prevent it?" 
 " Their own inner light," said Penn. " Moreover, as I intend equitably 
 to buy their lands, I shall not be molested." "Buy their lands; 
 Why, is not the whole land mine ? " " No, your majesty, we have 
 no right to their lands ; they are the original occupants of the soil." 
 " What ! have I not the right of discovery ? " " Well, just suppose 
 that a canoe full of savages should by some accident discover Great 
 Britain. Would you vacate or sell?" The King was astonished at 
 the retort, and no less at the policy which soon bore such admirable 
 
 
 Chester, Pennsylvania. 
 
 fruit that was unfertilized by blood. New England began by trying 
 to convert the Indian, taking in the mean time his land in the name 
 of the Gospel. Penn began by paying for the land and solemnly 
 treating with the Indian that he might thus possibly convert him. 
 
 After his visit to the King, Penn passed a day with his family at 
 Worminghurst, engaged in devout exercises and domestic converse. 
 He left there a truly Christian document in the form of a letter to 
 his family, which was at the same time an address to all who professed 
 the opinions of Friends. On September 1, 1682, he set 
 sail in the ship Welcome, a name as propitious as May- >ojagto 
 flower, with a hundred passengers, nearly all of whom 
 were Friends from his own county of Sussex. Robert Greenaway 
 
490 COLONIZATION BY FRIENDS. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 was the commander. The uncomfortable voyage lasted six weeks, 
 during which thirty of the passengers died of the small-pox. One 
 day the captain saw a ship which appeared to be in pursuit of his 
 own, and took her to be an enemy. He made every preparation for 
 resistance, and manned his guns. Then addressing the non-resistant 
 Quakers, he advised them to take refuge in the cabin. Penn and the 
 rest did so, excepting James Logan, his private secretary. Logan 
 stayed on deck and took his station at a gun. When the strange sail 
 came near it proved to be a friendly one. Penn came on deck and 
 severely rebuked Logan for remaining to fight. Said Logan, " I 
 being thy secretary, why didst thou not order me to come down ? 
 But thou wert willing enough that I should stay and help to fight 
 the ship when thou thought there was danger." 
 
 At length the Delaware was reached, and a landing was made at 
 Newcastle on the 27th of October. The Dutch and Swedes 
 
 The landing 
 
 at New- gave the heartiest welcome to their new Governor. His 
 
 castle. 
 
 first act was to naturalize all these inhabitants of the prov- 
 ince. They were summoned to the court-house and addressed by 
 Penn on the true nature and functions of government. The commis- 
 sions of all the existing magistrates were renewed. Then he went 
 up the river to Upland, now Chester, and met the delegates who had 
 been already selected by his Commissioners to compose the first As- 
 sembly. Their first session, held in the Friends' Meeting House, 
 lasted only four days, much time being saved by the admirable rule 
 which was adopted, that " none speak but once before the question is 
 put, nor after, but once ; and that none fall from the matter to the 
 person, and that superfluous and tedious speeches may be stopped 
 by the Speaker." So the Quaker principle of freedom of utterance 
 as the spirit prompted, was judiciously balanced. No four days of 
 Plenty and legislative work were ever more harmoniously spent in lay- 
 552*5**" ing the foundations of society. Penn's own sincere tem- 
 vanui. p er was i m p ar ted to all. " As to outward things we are 
 
 satisfied ; the land good, the air clear and sweet, the springs plentiful, 
 and provision good and easy to come at ; an innumerable quantity 
 of wild-fowl and fish ; in fine, here is what an Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob would be well contented with." l 
 
 1 The wild turkeys sometimes turned the scale at forty -six pounds ; one of thirty pounds 
 sold for :t shilling, a deer for two shillings. One settler bought a fat buck for two gills of 
 guujxnvder. Wild pigeons could be killed with sticks, apparently too numerous to get out 
 of the wav. Six rock-cod cost twelve pence, salt fish three farthiugs' a pound. " Peaches 
 by cart-loads," said one letter writer: "the Indians bring us seven or eight fat bucks a day. 
 Without rod or net we catch abundance of herrings, after the Indian manner, in pcnfolds." 
 There were plenty of swans, and oysters six inches long. But all this was true of nearly 
 all the more southern settlements in the earlier years. 
 
1682.] 
 
 PHILADELPHIA FOUNDED. 
 
 491 
 
 In good years the farmer gathered twenty or thirty bushels of wheat 
 for every one he sowed. A native grape grew in great abundance, 
 and yielded an excellent wine. The woods and meadows swarmed 
 with all kinds of wild berries ; and the settlers soon had their various 
 fruit trees and bushes, melons planted, their presses started, and perry, 
 cider, etc., running from them. The natives were always hospitable, 
 well inclined to barter because never overreached. Great plenty 
 ruled in this province from the beginning. If the Dutch and Swedes 
 had suffered from hunger and 
 want on the banks of the Dela- 
 ware, it was their own fault. 1 
 
 At first Penn instructed his 
 Commissioners who 
 
 
 Penn's Address at Newcastle. 
 
 1681, to examine the neighborhood of Upland to find a suitable site 
 for a town ; but when he went up the river he pitched upon Phi i s( i el phi 
 the broad peninsula that lay between the Delaware and the founded - 
 Schuylkill. Here he projected a city upon a great scale of squares, 
 streets with avenues of trees some of which still preserve the names 
 
 1 A planter, writing before 1696, gave the following rates of wages : Carjieuters, brick- 
 layers, and masons, six shillings a day ; shoemakers, two shillings on each pair ; journey- 
 men tailors, twelve shillings a week and their diet ; weaver>, ten pence a yard ; wool-comb- 
 ers, twelve pence a pound ; ]>otters, sixteen pence for a pot which cost in England only four 
 pence; brick makers, twenty shillings per thousand of bricks ;it the kiln; hatters, seven 
 shillings for a hat ; all other trades, of which every conceivable kind was pursued in the 
 province, making it quite independent of the mother country, were rewarded in the aiu<- 
 proportion. All kinds of food were much cheaper than in England ; and the Barbadoes 
 furnished a constant market for corn. Laboring men earned fourteen pounds a year, with 
 meat, drink, washing, and lodging ; maid-servants ten pounds a year. Floating mills for 
 grinding corn took advantage of the river's current, and on the laud horse-mills were used- 
 

 492 
 
 COLONIZATION BY FRIENDS. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 of the original trees and houses to be surrounded with gardens. 
 Before houses could be built the settlers lived in huts, and in caves 
 which were excavations in the river bank arched over with branches 
 and sodded. The chimneys were built of clay strengthened with 
 grass. One house was in process of building by a man with the 
 happy name of Guest. Penn's first landing was made at Dock Creek 
 opposite this unfinished house, which was afterwards known as the 
 Blue Anchor Tavern. The first keeper of the tavern was Guest, and 
 a long line of hospitable Friends succeeded him. Beyond Guest's 
 house, ten others were soon built in the old English fashion, of frames 
 
 Letitia Cottage, Philadelphia, supposed First Residence of Perm. 
 
 filled in with brick, and called " Budd's Long Row." The tavern 
 "was but about twelve feet front," says Watson in his copious 
 " Annals," " on Front Street, and about twenty-two feet on Dock 
 Street, having a ceiling of about eight and a half feet in height." A 
 little cottage, built by one Drinker, who settled on this site alone 
 several years before the arrival of Penn, was the first habitation on 
 the site of Philadelphia. Pe'nn meant to convey to the settlers by 
 the name of his new city the disposition which he hoped would pre- 
 vail within its walls. 
 
 In this year of Penn's landing twenty-three ships filled with col- 
 onists came up the Delaware. In less than a year eighty houses and 
 cottages were built, three hundred farms laid out, and bounteous crops 
 
1682.] 
 
 TREATY WITH THE INDIANS. 
 
 493 
 
 secured. In 1684, there were three hundred and fifty-seven houses, 
 " large and well built, with cellars," and fifty townships had 
 been settled. In 1685, there were six hundred houses. In crew* of 
 one year ninety ships brought more than seven thousand 
 people into his province. 
 
 A treaty had been made with the Indian tribes of the neighbor- 
 hood, which only required to be ratified before the Governor. A 
 scene, October 14, 1682, which history has made memor- 
 able, took place under the spreading branches of an Ameri- Indian 
 can elm, at Shackamaxon, or Sakimaxing, " place of kings," 
 an old resort for Indian councils. The Indians met Penn at "the 
 half-way house," that is, at noon. They were tribes of the Lentil 
 Lenape, a nation 
 which long ago 
 had its seat beyond 
 the Alleghanies, 
 whence it migrated 
 to the Hudson and 
 Delaware. Their 
 tribal names were 
 derived from the 
 creeks and rivers of 
 their territory, as 
 Raritan, Assunpink, 
 Mingo, Navesink. 
 They were of a war- 
 like disposition, and 
 falling into frequent 
 fights with Indian 
 neighbors. Penn described them well, with a few strokes: k * They 
 are tall, straight, tread strong and clever, and walk with a lofty chin. 
 Their custom of rubbing the body with bear's fat, gives them a 
 swarthy color. They have little black eyes. Their heads and coun- 
 tenances have nothing of the negro type, and I have seen as comely 
 European-like faces among them as on your side the sea. Their lan- 
 guage is lofty, yet narrow ; like short-hand in writing, one word servetli 
 in the place of three, and the rest are supplied by the understanding 
 of the hearer. I have made it my business to understand it, that I 
 might not want an interpreter on any occasion. In liberality, they 
 excel ; nothing is too good for their friend ; give them a fine gun, 
 coat, or other thing, it may pass twenty hands before it sticks ; light 
 of heart, strong affections, but soon spent. The justice they have is 
 pecuniary. In case they kill a woman, they pay double, and the 
 
 --*:.>' 
 
 The Treaty Ground at Kensington, before the Fali of the " Treaty Tree." 
 
494 
 
 COLONIZATION BY FRIENDS. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 The scene at 
 
 
 reason they render is, that she breedetli children, which men cannot 
 do. It is rare that they fall out, if sober ; and if drunk, they forgive 
 it, saying, it was the drink and not the man that abused them." 
 
 On this occasion, Penn had an interpreter. The chief sachem, 
 Taminent, sat in the middle of a semi-circle, composed of old men 
 and councillors. At a little distance behind, "the young fry," in 
 the same order. The sachem deputed one to address Penn, during 
 whose harangue no one whispered or smiled. Penn's com- 
 
 , . -n i i 
 
 puny advanced to this meeting without arms ; he was only 
 distinguished by a blue silk net-work sash. The sachem 
 wore a kind of chaplet, with a small horn projecting from it as a 
 symbol of sovereignty. When he put it on all the natives threw 
 down their arms ; it was a signal that the place was inviolate. 
 
 The confirmation of the treaty 
 was engrossed upon a roll of parch- 
 ment. Penn's address, with its em- 
 phasis of the Great Spirit, must have 
 sparkled with a peculiar sincerity, 
 because of his personal belief in a 
 direct intercourse with the source 
 of all power. He told the Indians 
 that every thought of the heart was 
 known above ; that the desire of 
 his own heart was to live in per- 
 petual amity with them ; that he 
 and his friends came unarmed be- 
 cause they never used weapons. 
 Then the conditions of the purchase 
 were read, and in addition to the 
 stipulated price he presented them with various articles of merchandise. 
 The treaty concluded upon this pacific basis, without the exhibition of 
 a single weapon of modern warfare, and expressly disclaiming a resort 
 to force, was faithfully kept by those barbarians for sixty years. 
 
 While Penn was allotting land to purchasers, he reserved a tract 
 of a thousand acres for his friend George Fox. Land was frequently 
 purchased of the Indians by paying for as much as the purchaser 
 could comprise in a walk. When some of the best English pedestri- 
 ans were detailed for this new style of measurement, they covered so 
 much ground that the Indians were mortified at the unequal bargain. 
 Then an additional present of merchandise set the matter right. 
 Thus the peace was always kept in politic fashion, and the Indian 
 could entertain no cause for feud. Only one alarm ever occurred pur- 
 porting to come from an Indian quarter, when one day in 1688, some 
 
 The Treaty Monument, Kensington. 
 
1683.] PROGRESS OF THE COLONY. 495 
 
 women came running in with the tidings that a large body of Indians 
 were coming down to massacre. This was dire news to the defence- 
 less Friends. But instead of sending out scouts to reconnoitre, who 
 were willing to bear arms, a commissioner was despatched, who, upon 
 arriving at the place indicated, found an old Indian chief lying all 
 alone upon the grass nursing his lame leg, and a number of squaws at 
 work in the field. No other man was in sight. The old chief said 
 the women ought to be hanged for spreading so false a report. 
 
 Penn used every lawful art of intercourse to conciliate the Indians. 
 " He walked with them," at one of their earliest meetings, sat with 
 them on the ground, and ate with them of their roasted acorns and 
 hominy. At this they expressed their great delight, and soon began 
 to show how they could hop and jump, at which exhibition William 
 Penn, to cap the climax, " sprang up and beat them all." We cannot 
 imagine the fathers of New England jumping in rivalry with savages. 
 Their methods seldom raised a smile. 
 
 In October, 1683, one Enoch Flower what pleasant Quaker 
 symbolism in the name began to teach boys and girls in 
 a dwelling made of pine and cedar planks. His terms were, and reiig- 
 "To learn to read, four shillings a quarter; to write, six shil- ten m ^hit- 
 lings ; boarding scholars, to wit : diet, lodging, washing, and 
 schooling, ten pounds the whole year." A printing-press was set up 
 soon after. From the time of the first settlement of New Netherland 
 it was seventy years before any book or paper was printed there. 
 
 In 1683, among the emigrants who came over was James Claypoole, 
 author of several books and pamphlets, an admired friend of Penn. 
 He was an uncle of the Lord John Claypoole who married Cromwell's 
 favorite daughter, Elizabeth. He was one of the Friends to whom 
 Penn addressed a touching religious exhortation, just before his re- 
 turn to England in 1684, to be read at all Friends' Meetings in the 
 province. The first Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia was held in 
 July, 1683. 
 
 One reason for Penn's return to England was the necessity for de- 
 termining the boundary line between his own province and 
 that of Maryland. Lord Baltimore had already gone on this mums t 
 business, reasserting the right, under his patent, to the 
 country along the west side of the Delaware, from Philadelphia to 
 Cape Henlopen, which he had so persistently maintained against the 
 Dutch in Stuyvesant's time. On this vexed question, after many 
 delays, Penn succeeded in getting a decision from the Committee 
 of Trade and Plantations against Lord Baltimore. Baltimore, the 
 Dutch had contended, had no title to this country, because it was 
 settled by their people at the time his patent was issued, and that 
 
496 
 
 COLONIZATION BY FRIENDS. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 patent only entitled him to lands uncultivated and inhabited by sav- 
 ages. The King had conquered the country from the Dutch and 
 granted it to the Duke of York, and the Duke had conveyed it to 
 William Penn. The title, therefore, was now vested in Penn, as 
 against Baltimore, by Order of Council. 1 
 
 But he was moved to go to England by another motive. He had 
 heard of the accusations which were rife against him, that he was 
 working with Jesuits to secure the supremacy of James II., who 
 would have been glad to reintroduce the Roman Catholic religion 
 into England. The only ground for the absurd report seems to have 
 been the favor in which he had been held by Charles II., and still 
 enjoyed from James II. To his care the elder Penn whom James 
 had so much reason for holding in affectionate remembrance had 
 warmly commended his son. Surely that sou is not to be blamed 
 
 that he retained the 
 King's esteem by his 
 admirable bearing, 
 his conciliatory tem- 
 per, and his un- 
 flinching integrity. 
 The influence he ac- 
 quired he used for 
 the benefit of all who 
 were in need, espe- 
 cially for hundreds 
 of his own sect who 
 still suffered in pris- 
 ons all over England. 
 If he sought to re- 
 tain that influence 
 for his own purposes, 
 it was only on behalf of that commonwealth he had founded, which 
 he so loved, and for which he spent his own life and estate. If his 
 principles of toleration found favor with James, it was not because 
 of any leaning, on Penn's part, to the Catholic Church. It is impos- 
 sible not to believe that his numerous avowals against idolatries and 
 ordinances were sincere ; impossible not to accept as true his many 
 disclaimers of any sympathy with the Church of Rome. The " No 
 Cross, no Crown," is thoroughly anti-papal. 2 
 
 1 The line fixed by this decision was the present boundary between Maryland and Del- 
 aware. The final line between Maryland and Pennsylvania continued a question of 
 dispute till settled by the running of " Mason and Dixon's Line," by Charles Mason and 
 Jeremiah Dixon, in 1762. 
 
 2 Were we professing to give a complete biography of William Penu, it would be nec- 
 
 The Penn Mansion, later Residence of the Penn Family in Philadelphia. 
 
1694.] TROUBLES IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA, 497 
 
 But his enemies, and the haters of Quakerism, could not tolerate 
 the favor which his diplomatic disposition, combined with his remark- 
 able independence, won for him at court. They were less p ennin 
 the foes of Jesuits. Penn thought it right to use all the in- En 8'* nd - 
 fluence he could command for the benefit of his American province, 
 and to have the new persecutions against the Quakers abated. He 
 succeeded in both purposes. Before leaving America he appointed 
 a Provincial Council to act for him during his absence ; but it was 
 not long before disputes arose which caused him much anxiety. He 
 could not succeed in prevailing upon the Assembly to restrain the use 
 of spirituous liquors, and to withhold them altogether from the Indi- 
 ans. His officers committed many extortions in the sale of his lands. 
 He experienced great difficulty in collecting his quit-rents, and was 
 seriously embarrassed by the great outlay which he had made : " Six 
 thousand pounds out of pocket," he said repeatedly. 
 
 At the revolution of 1688, he fell under serious suspicion of aiding 
 in the plots for the return of James II. Once he was arrested and 
 brought before the Lords of Council, and, at his own request, was 
 taken before the King. A letter had been written him by James, 
 and when examined in regard to it, he could not, he said, prevent 
 him from writing to him ; but if that brought him under a suspicion 
 of plotting for a restoration, it did not compel him to violate his duty 
 to the state. The King seemed satisfied with his defence, and he was 
 not again molested. It did not seem to him proper, however, to 
 leave the kingdom while under such suspicion, and he remained in 
 England. 
 
 During this time he was pained by the accounts sent to him of the 
 dissensions in his province. The three lower counties on the 
 Delaware, called the " Territories," had insisted on a sepa- 
 rate government, and to this he reluctantly assented. Other torehi P- 
 difficulties occurred, relating to the religious doctrines of Friends. 
 These were chiefly fomented by George Keith, who had been ap- 
 pointed the principal of the Friends' public school in Philadelphia, 
 which was established in 1689. The court took advantage of these 
 disturbances to depose Penn from the government of the province, and 
 another governor was sent out, who administered affairs till Penn was 
 reinstated in 1694, having shown the hollowness of the charges 
 against himself and reestablished old feelings of amity with the sus- 
 
 essary to meet the various charges brought against him by Macaulay, in his History of 
 England. A complete refutation of them may be found in a Preface to Clarkson's Life 
 of Penn, by William E. Forster, the English statesman ; in The Life of William Penn, by 
 Samuel E. Janney ; in a Defence of William Penn, by Henry Fairbairn ; and in Dixon's 
 Life ofPfnn, which on this point, at least, may be considered as an authority. The evi- 
 dence is ample, and would be accepted in any court of justice. 
 
 VOL. II. 32 
 
498 
 
 COLONIZATION BY FRIENDS. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 picious party in the Society. The new Governor, Fletcher, who was 
 also Governor of New York, had, in the meantime, with the usual 
 fatal facility of royal governors, quarrelled with the Assembly and 
 retired in disgust to New York. 
 
 Penn made his defence and explanation before the Council in 1693 ; 
 His restora- n ^ s reinstatement in the proprietary government took place 
 tion. i n August, 1694. While he was preparing to return he 
 
 appointed his cousin, Colonel Markham, Deputy Governor of the 
 province, his friend Thomas Lloyd, who had been his Deputy for some 
 time, having recently died. Markham's administration was, on the 
 whole, satisfactory, and there was little for several years to disturb 
 the tranquillity and prosperity of the colony, which already contained 
 20,000 people. Penn permitted his private affairs to retain him in 
 England till 1699, when he once more sailed for America with his 
 family, with the firm intention of remaining there for the rest of his 
 days. 
 
 UIIMMMUMIIII i i iiiiiuiimiuKiiimiiiiimiiiiiiiuiiuiuiuimuiii i mmmimiuimimi in 
 citiiiiiKiiiitu i i luiiiiiiiiiiiiuiumiiaiiiiiiiiuiuiiiiimmiiuuii i uumwttumuciuii uu 
 IIHIHIMIMHI i immimiiiiimiiiimiiumi uuiiumiuuumui i mmiiimuiuuuiiu inn 
 NMWNIIIHI i i (iiiuiiumiuiH imtiiuu iiuiituiimiumii i iiuiuiiuuimnuuii mm 
 [fHdiiutili ( I iiimuniiHiimu iimuimii miumaumuim i iimiiuiiuuiuuipsi mnu 
 [ttiiuuuii i i mmititiiiiiiKc i nun iiiiiummui i iiiiuiuuiimmuir* nniiii 
 
 muiuuK i i iNMnwwilKiic i i item u ti iiiniuiiiiii i iiuiituiuifuctmu 
 mwHin i i iiiimuiniiwiut c [( iru in it iiiiiuuiuii i iiiiii:umuuuium 
 uuiictu i i iMimuinuiiuicci c in i tit; r miiumu i iiimimuiiituKuii 
 rttuiui I [ HWIWHWHIINUI [ in in : ii iiniiiutii i iiimniiiiiiuiiicuu i 
 
 iicitti e t tttmummuiuiiiimi i uiiiiiuii i tuuiuuiiii i uuiuiiiiiiiumui i 
 
 mill i i iiimniiiiiiiiiiciiiutut i iiiiiiuii t iiiuiuini i I iiliiiiiiniiiililiiii i 
 
 men i iiiiiuiiutiiiiiuiiiiiuiii i [iiiiiiuii i aiiiiiim i I iiiiitiaaiiiiitiiui i Lwiuiunm 
 
 tin i i [iimuaiiiUKiuiiiitiui [ iiifiati i iitiuin i i iiiiiiiuiiiititKini i inV, niiinm; 
 
 tit i i cu[uctc(U(iti[uii([i[i([(c([(itiiitiiimtitiiuiiiiui i i innuiiiiaiiiuuK i HI .Viiiiiumi 
 
 ! i i luuumiuuuuiimiuLiutuitiimuuauiuuiuii i 
 
 lUUtHIMtHtUI 
 
 (I ( iiiinKuiniiiiiiiiuiiiuutnatuiiiiuiiuiiutfiiut i i titiienmiiuiiuHi i (iiiiiiiununiu 
 
 Wampum received by Penn in Commemoration of the Indian Treaty. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
 
 THE EXPLORATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE SETTLEMENT OF LOUISIANA. 
 FRENCH MISSIONARIES AND HUNTERS. DISCOVERY OF OHIO, INDIANA, AND OTHER 
 NORTHWESTERN STATES. THE POLICY OF COLBERT AND TALON. DISCOVERY OF 
 THE UPPER LAKES. CONGRESS OF NATIVE TRIBES AT MACKINAC. MARQUETTE 
 AND JOLIET SAIL FOR THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. FRENCH COLONY OF 
 1699. D'lBERVILLE AND HIS BROTHERS. BlLOXI AND POVERTY POINT. WAR 
 OF SUCCESSION. PENSACOLA. MINES. CROZAT'S GRANT. 
 
 THE English and Dutch settlers, to whose history this volume has 
 thus far been for the most part devoted, never showed any disposition 
 to make permanent homes with the aborigines. Their efforts to 
 Christianize them were made loyally, but did not include life in their 
 wigwams or villages. Even the hunter or trapper of English blood, 
 who brought furs from the frontier to the sea, was not a man who had 
 carried on his hunting or trapping in league with the natives. He 
 had lived in a solitary hut, or he had made his excursions from a fron- 
 tier village. 
 
 From the very beginning, however, a 
 different disposition showed it- Tendency ot 
 self in the French colonies of 
 Acadie and of Canada. When 
 the white population of Canada ture - 
 was not more than three hundred per- 
 sons, a considerable number of those per- 
 sons were living in the villages of the 
 Hurons, 1 whose homes were then further 
 to the east than that great lake which 
 
 Totem of the Hurons (from La Hontan). ,-1 o ... 
 
 now preserves their name. Some of these 
 Frenchmen were traders for furs, some were priests, at first of the 
 
 1 The handful of Wyandots, now in Kansas, represents the great tribe of Hurons. The 
 spelling Ycndat is the earlier form. See Gallatin's Synopsis. The word " Huron " is 
 itself not Indian but French, derived from the French word hure, meaning a rough mane 
 or head of hair. 
 

 
 500 
 
 THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 Re'collet order, afterwards of the fraternity of Jesuits. It was by such 
 traders and missionaries that several of the western States of the 
 American Union were first opened to the knowledge of Europe. 
 
 The great Champlain, from whom the real history of Canada be- 
 gins, arrived in Quebec on the 3d of July, 1608, only a year after the 
 French pio- settlement at Jamestown. 1 In 1615 he discovered Lake On- 
 neers. tario, and Lake Nipissing. He pressed his explorations 
 westward, and recent research has shown that as early as 1634, Jean 
 Nicollet, a Frenchman who had become an Indian in all his habits, 
 visited, in the course of his western travels, the region which we now 
 know as Wisconsin. These were pioneer adventures. Nicollet was 
 himself a sincere Catholic. He and other pioneers were followed, as 
 early as the year 1640, by the Fathers Chaumonot and Bre"boeuf, who 
 
 Island of Mackinac. 
 
 coasted along the northern 
 shore of the State of Ohio, 
 and the eastern shore of 
 Michigan as far as the 
 Straits of Mackinac. In 
 1659, two young traders, 
 who pushed their explora- 
 tions farther west, joined a tribe of Indians, with whom they went so 
 far west upon Lake Superior, that they heard for the first time of the 
 great tribe of the Sioux, whose conflicts against the whites occupy the 
 journals even as late as our day. At that time, the Sioux appeared to 
 these travellers a powerful nation, of more gentle manners than the 
 eastern Indians, whom they had known before. The Frenchmen re- 
 ported that they were not cruel to their prisoners, and that they wor- 
 
 i See vol. i., p. 321. 
 
1660.] 
 
 FRENCH MISSIONARIES. 
 
 501 
 
 
 shipped one God. 1 These pioneers returned to Montreal in the spring 
 of 1660, with sixteen canoes packed with furs. In these movements, 
 dictated now by adventure, now by religious zeal, and often by both 
 combined, our States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, 
 and Minnesota, were first visited by the whites. Perhaps it would 
 be too much to say, in all cases, that those who made these explo- 
 rations were what we should call civilized men. 
 
 In the summer of 1660 Father Mesnard took with him some In- 
 dians of the Aigonkin race, and founded a new mission. He 
 
 Mesnanl's 
 
 established himself at first at a point on the southern shore 
 
 of Lake Superior which is still 
 known as Chagwamegan, 2 the name it then 
 bore. Mesnard, however, on the invitation 
 of the Hurons, returned to the western bay 
 of Lake Huron, where he lost his life in 
 some unknown way. In 1665, Father Al- 
 louez established a mission at the same point, 
 and was able to preach in the Aigonkin lan- 
 guage to twelve or fifteen different tribes. 
 The same language is still used by the Chip- 
 peways of that region. 
 
 Tot.m of the S,ou* (from La Hont.n) ^ Jesuit writera gay that the fame Q 
 
 Father Allouez extended even to the Sioux, and that they Other mig _ 
 told him of the prairies on the banks of the Mississippi. BionB - 
 Father Dablon, another missionary, learned of the Mississippi from a 
 map which the Sioux drew for him, and as early 
 as 1669 proposed to himself an expedition to 
 discover it. With Father Allouez he went as 
 far as the Fox River, and learned that the Wis- 
 consin River, of the present State of Wisconsin. 
 was one of the affluents of the Mississippi. 
 
 Meanwhile the genius of Colbert in France 
 had apprehended the value of the French es- 
 tablishment in Canada. He was beginning to 
 undo the unfortunate results of the narrower 
 policy of Cardinal Richelieu. In pursuance of 
 this policy, Jean Talon, who had gained the Totem of the Foxes (from La 
 favor of the king in France, was entrusted 
 with the oversight of commerce in Canada. He arranged a great coun- 
 
 1 The Sioux call themselves Dahcotahs. 
 
 2 Chagwamegan means " on the long, narrow point of land, or sand-bar." For this, and 
 many similar interpretations, we are indebted to Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, the learned 
 master of the Indian tongues. 
 

 502 
 
 THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 cil of Indians at the Sault Ste. Marie, at the foot of Lake Superior, in 
 1671. Nicolas Perrot, who knew their languages and customs, 
 
 iin OMB- convened the assembly. It is in the report of this council that 
 
 M. de St. 
 
 cil. 
 
 the name " Chicago " first appears in literature. 
 Lousson represented Louis XIV. He found here the chiefs of tribes 
 as distant as Hudson's Bay on the east, and the head of Lake Supe- 
 
 rior and Lake Michigan on the west 
 and south. In the joint hyperbole of 
 French genius and the Indian dialect 
 he described the glories of Le grand 
 Monarque. The chiefs declared that 
 they asked for no other father than 
 t i ie great On nont Jiio J of the French. 
 A cross was erected, to which the Arms of France was fastened, and 
 possession was assumed in the name of the French crown. 
 
 of joiiet. 
 
 View on the Fox River. 
 
 Louis Joiiet had been sent from 
 France to Count Frontenac, the 
 governor of Canada, as a proper 
 person to attempt the discovery, 
 overland, of the Pacific Ocean. 
 Talon had already suggested in 
 
 
 France, the appointment of Poulet, a captain of Dieppe, for an ex- 
 ploration of the Pacific by way of the Straits of Magellan. Father 
 
 1 The name lingers among the Indians of the St. Lawrence. In the deposition of Charles 
 Soskonharowane, of Caughnawaga, taken to determine whether Rev. Eleazer Williams 
 should or should not be known as King Louis XVII., son of Louis XVI., this Indian 
 says, " Many incidents of his youth would remove the thought of his being the son of the 
 great Anonthica." Sworn to April 16, 1853. 
 
1673.] 
 
 MARQUETTE'S VOYAGE. 
 
 508 
 
 Marquette, who had already gone as far as Wisconsin as a missionary, 
 joined Joliet, and, in 1673, they started on the expedition in Marquette - s 
 which, so far as we know, the source and course of the Mis- T0 - va s e - 
 sissippi were discovered by Europeans. Of the discovery of its mouth 
 by the adventurous Spaniards, and part of the region above, the his- 
 tory is already told in an earlier chapter. 1 
 
 In this eventful voyage, the first in which civilized men navigated 
 a large part of the course of a river, which has since become the high- 
 way of half a nation, Marquette and 
 Joliet descended the Mississippi as far 
 as the mouth of the Arkansas River. 
 They satisfied themselves that they 
 were in the neighborhood of the Gulf 
 of Mexico, and wishing to avoid any 
 collision with the Spaniards returned 
 to Canada. We have a charming ac- 
 count of the enterprise by Marquette 
 himself, which was published in Paris 
 in 1681. The voyagers passed up 
 Green Bay, and the Fox River. Near 
 the head of the Bay was the most ad- 
 vanced French station, and here they <C^ 
 bade their compatriots good-by. The 
 Indian village there was made up of 
 Miamis, Mascoutins, and Kickapoos, 
 of whom the priests rated the Miamis 
 most highly for civility. The travel- 
 lers saw, with pleasure, a cross, which had been erected in the vil- 
 lage, and was adorned by the devotion of the natives. 
 They addressed the assembly of them, explained their on FOX 
 object, and enlisted two Miami guides, who should show 
 them the difficult passage by which to cross from the Fox to the Wis- 
 consin River ; from the waters of the St. Lawrence to those flowing 
 into the Gulf of Mexico. The channel of the river was so choked 
 with wild rice, that the Frenchmen could not have found its course 
 without such help. A passage of little more than a mile brought the 
 explorers to the waters of the Wisconsin. The two guides there left 
 the party of seven Frenchmen alone on these strange waters, five or 
 six hundred leagues from Quebec, according to Marquette's calcula- 
 tion, to take the stream which would bear them into lands wholly 
 new. Marquette's own map preserves, with curious accuracy, their 
 route in Wisconsin, through the county of Portage, which takes its 
 
 1 See chapter vii., vol. i. 
 
 The Wild Rice. 
 
504 
 
 THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 name from the easy transfer here made between the two great systems 
 of American waters. 
 
 They seem to have crossed the portage on the 10th of June. A 
 week was sufficient for the voyage of forty leagues, according to their 
 estimate, which brought them to the Mississippi, which they entered 
 
 Marquette's Map. 1 
 
 with inexpressible joy. They estimated the latitude of the point 
 where the Wisconsin joins it at 42 degrees, about half a degree 
 farther south than it is placed by the more modern observations. 
 
 1 The map here given is a part of that published in Paris by Thevenot as " Marquette's 
 Map." It differs from the original manuscript, which is still preserved, in the spelling of 
 a few of the words, prol>ably only through an error of the engraver. 
 
1673.] 
 
 RECEPTION BY THE ILLINOIS. 
 
 505 
 
 For eight days the navigators floated down the river, without seeing 
 men or signs of men. The herds of buffalo, which they called by the 
 Indian word Pisikiou, were new to them, and are carefully described. 
 For fear of surprise, the explorers made but little fire, spent the night 
 in their canoes, anchored a little distance from the shore, and always 
 kept a sentinel on the alert. At last, on the 25th of June, a well 
 worn path on the shore indicated the presence of men, and 
 Marquette and Joliet, warning their crews not to be sur- wuL'tfe in- 
 prised in their absence, followed up the trodden trail to com- 
 municate with the natives. These proved to be Illinois ; and they re- 
 
 %, 
 
 Marquette's Reception by the Illinois. 
 
 cei\ed the Frenchmen cordially. The chief of the village came forth 
 naked from his wigwam to welcome them, with his hands raised to 
 the sun ; others flourished the pipe of peace. To these pipes they 
 gave the name " calumet," 1 now so familiar to us, which was, how- 
 ever, new to the voyagers. While the formalities of smoking were 
 
 1 Marquette notes the fact that the calumet was made of red stone. The Indians of the 
 Northwest still use the Pipe Rock for their calumets, which has acquired a sacred value. 
 It is found in the ridge between the Missouri and the Mississippi. It appears to be the only 
 locality now known in the world, for that almost precious stone which antiquaries know as 
 Rosso Antic". 
 
606 
 
 THE FRENCH IX THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 going on, an invitation arrived from the great chief of the Illinois 
 that the strangers should visit him at his village, and they did so. 
 They found him standing between two old men in front of the cabin, 
 which served him for a palace, all three naked. The chief held a 
 calumet turned towards the sun. After felicitating the strangers on 
 their arrival, he invited them into his cabin, and received them, as 
 Marquette says, " with the usual caresses." After a feast, and a sort 
 of triumphal procession in which the strangers saw the town, which 
 consisted of three hundred cabins, more than six hundred persons ac- 
 companied them to their canoes, assuring them of the pleasure which 
 their visit had given. They gave to Marquette a calumet, which 
 proved valuable to him afterwards. 
 
 Leaving their hospitable friends they continued their voyage. They 
 The Painted recognized the rocks known long afterward as the Painted 
 Rocks, on which the designs were so striking that Marquette 
 thought the best painters in France would scarcely have done so well. 
 Traces of these paintings have been made out within 
 the present century. 1 They struck the Missouri, 
 to which they gave the name of Pekitanoui. 2 Their 
 description of its mighty flow, of its muddy water, 
 and the distinctness of its current from that of the 
 Mississippi, notes the points which every traveller 
 first observes, to this day. Marquette says in his 
 journal that he hoped by means of it to make the 
 discovery of the Red Sea or Gulf of California, both 
 these names being given in his time to the same gulf, 
 which we know only by the latter title of the two. 
 
 In this hope he was encouraged by his Indian 
 The Mis- friends, who told him that by going up the 
 eouri River. ]v|j S8O uri, f or fi ve or s i x days, he would come 
 to a beautiful prairie twenty or thirty leagues long ; 
 that he could carry his canoes easily across this 
 prairie to the northwest, where he would find a little river. By this 
 river he could descend ten or fifteen leagues till he came to a little 
 lake, the source of another deep river " which flows to the west and 
 discharges into the sea.'' All this imaginary geography may have had 
 little foundation, but it excited Marquette's hopes of visiting the 
 Pacific. From the course of the Missouri, and these narratives of the 
 
 1 See Dr. Shea's paper, Wisconsin Hist. Trans., vol. viii., p. 116. The painting last pre 
 served could be made out, even from the other side of the river. It was called the Piasa 
 Bird. We have found no representation of it sufficiently accurate to copy. It was de- 
 stroyed iu quarrying, within the memory of the present generation. 
 
 2 For Pekitauoni is the misprint of the French printer. 
 
 Totem of the Illinois. 
 (From La Hontan.) 
 
1673.] 
 
 THE OHIO RIVER. 
 
 507 
 
 Indians, he was already satisfied that he should find that the Missis- 
 sippi discharged itself into the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 He and his companions fixed the latitude of the mouth of the Ohio 
 at 36 north, supposing themselves two degrees farther south than 
 they were. They give the name of Ouabouskigou to this river. The 
 name Wabash, which is the modern form of this word, is now 
 confined to the stream which makes part of the western bor- 
 der of the State of Indiana. 1 The travellers here speak of the Shaw- 
 nee Indians, resident on the banks of the Ohio, as a peaceful race, 
 
 The Ohio. 
 
 Mouth of the Ohio. 
 
 who suffered shamefully 
 from the inroads of the 
 cruel Iroquois. It is to 
 be observed that French 
 hunters seem to have 
 come down the Ohio, 
 almost to the point of 
 its union with the Mississippi, before Marquette's voyage, for he al- 
 ludes to their account of iron mines upon the river. In a memorial 
 of the date of 1677, La Salle, of whom we are soon to speak, claims 
 
 1 Onabachioui, or Wabashiwi, in the Illinois dialect, means " silver.'' Some romantic 
 red man may have called the stream a " silver stream," as so many other ]>oets, of other 
 races, have called other rivers. But Father Du Marest mentions the report, which would 
 grow naturally from the name, that silver mines had been found near it. This report has 
 not been confirmed, nor is it likely to be. In the Chippeway, " Wabashkiki " means 
 " swampy " or " marshy." So certain is it, that one man's silver is another man's dirt- 
 But there seems no reason why Chippeways should have named a river of the Illinois, or 
 Sliawnees. Our name Ohio, is from the Iroquois, in allusion to the beauty of the stream. 
 It is so said on a MS. map of 1673, in Mr. Parkmau's possession." 
 
608 THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XXI 
 
 that he discovered the Ohio. Its upper waters are not far from his 
 post on Lake Erie. 
 
 Passing the junction of the Ohio, Marquette notes the canebrakes 
 and the mosquitoes, peculiarities of the Mississippi which two centuries 
 have not changed since his time. The discoverers were fain to surround 
 themselves with mosquito nets as they sailed. As they floated down, 
 
 they saw on shore savages, armed with guns, who invited 
 tribes along them to land, and regaled them with buffalo beef, bear's 
 
 grease, and " white plums." l Their hosts assured them that 
 they bought their guns, powder, knives, hatchets, and cloths from 
 Europeans on the eastern coasts ; that these men had images and hats 
 and played on instruments, and that a voyage of ten days was enough 
 to bring the travellers to the sea. And they seem to have given to 
 Marquette the impression that they themselves had found European 
 traders at the mouth of the Mississippi. On this news he eagerly 
 resumed his voyage. 
 
 At a point not far from the site of the city of Helena he found a 
 village named Mitchigamea. The name seems to show that its people 
 had strayed thus far from the north. 2 These savages had no guns, but 
 they appeared hostile until they saw the calumet. By an old man who 
 spoke the Illinois language, communication became possible, and these 
 people took the strangers as far as to the next tribe, of which the chief 
 town was ten leagues further down. It was named Akansea, as the 
 French travellers spelled it, 3 and here they met the tribe known to us 
 till lately, as the Arkansas Indians. They have since recovered their 
 original name of Quapaws. 4 Here the Frenchmen were hospitably 
 entertained, a good interpreter was found, and the natives heard with 
 wonder what Marquette told them of the mysteries of faith, and 
 showed a great desire that he might give them further instructions. 
 As to his voyage to the gulf, however, they dissuaded him. It was 
 possible to make it in five days. But the tribes whom he would meet 
 were hostile. They cut off from the Arkansas all commerce with 
 Europeans, and they were so much in the habit of plying to and fro 
 on the river, that the voyagers would be, according to these Indians, 
 in great danger. 
 
 1 The prunus Americana of Michaux. Its range is as wide as from the Saskatchewan to 
 Texas. Its colors vary, and, while Marquette calls the plums Wanes, they are sometimes 
 yellow, and sometimes red. 
 
 2 See Dr. Shea, loc. cit., p. 116. 
 8 Or their French printer. 
 
 4 See Dr. Shea, loc. cit., p. 116. Mr. Gallatin suggests that they are the Pacachas of De 
 Soto. Touty calls them Cappas. Mr. Gallatin says: "The superiority of this race of 
 Indians struck the French, who called the Arkansas 'Beaux Homines.' Their men are 
 (said to have exceeded in height the average of the Europeans." 
 
1673.] THE ILLINOIS RIVER. 509 
 
 This friendly reception by the Arkansas was not to be wholly 
 relied upon. The same evening the chiefs held a council to The Arkan . 
 decide whether they should not knock the Frenchmen on the 8a8- 
 head and take their goods. But the great chief forbade, assured the 
 travellers of his protection, and even gave to them, as a token, his own 
 calumet. 
 
 Joliet and Marquette, however, decided that it was time for them 
 to return. They knew that they were near the Gulf of Mexico. In- 
 deed they mistook its real boundary, and expected to find it at a point 
 a hundred miles farther north than New Orleans. They supposed 
 themselves to be in the latitude of forty-four degrees, and in this 
 supposition they were nearly correct, for the site of the village of 
 Dakansea, or Akansea, 1 was nearly opposite the mouth of the Arkan- 
 sas River. They reflected that if they fell into the hands of the 
 Spaniards all the results of their expedition would be lost. They 
 therefore turned on their course on the 17th of July. But, when 
 they reached the Illinois River, they took that beautiful stream, and 
 made one of the portages, since so well known, into Lake Michi- 
 gan. Of the Illinois Valley Marquette writes: "We have voyage up 
 seen nothing equal to this river for the goodness of land, the Illlno18 - 
 prairies, wood, cattle, deer, goats, wild cats, bustards, swans, ducks, 
 parroquets, and even beaver; there are many little lakes and little 
 rivers." A chief of the Illinois guided their return to Green Bay, 
 and here they arrived in the end of September. 
 
 In this voyage our States of Missouri and Kentucky were discov- 
 ered, so far as we know, to Europeans. There can be no doubt that 
 Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi, which were now visited by 
 Marquette, had been traversed in some parts by De Soto and his fol- 
 lowers. 2 
 
 Marquette, whose simple and devout narrative makes the reader 
 love the adventurer, remained two years among the Miamis. 
 On his way in his canoe to Mackinac in 1675, he stopped ute of Mar- 
 on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan to raise an altar and 
 celebrate the mass. He then asked his companions to leave him alone 
 for a little while. They did so, and when they returned they found 
 him dead. Joliet, his companion in adventure, had returned to Mon- 
 treal in 1674. On his way thither his canoe upset, he lost his papers 
 and his journal, and some curiosities from the discovery. A little 
 
 1 Marquette gives one name on his map and the other in the text. 
 
 2 See vol. i., p. 165. Coxe. in the appendix to the " Carolana," a book written to show 
 that the valley of the Mississippi bdoijgs to the English crown, says that the first redis- 
 covery of the great river after De Solo's was made by adventurers from New England. 
 But Coxe's memorial was dated in 1699, and we have no earlier mention of Col. Wood. 
 
510 THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 boy, of ten years old, who had been given to him, was also lost. 
 Joliet himself was four hours in the water, and, as he says, rescued 
 only by miracle. He reported, on his arrival, to Count Frontenac, 
 the governor, and he relates the success of the expedition in a de- 
 spatch to Colbert of the 14th of November, of the year after it was 
 completed. 
 
 When Joliet returned with the tidings of the success achieved by 
 this modest expedition, Robert Cavelier de la Salle, a Nor- 
 euerdeia man gentleman, was living in Canada. He had been trained 
 by the Jesuits in early life, and was determined both to 
 make a reputation and a fortune. He had come to Canada eager to 
 seek a passage to Japan and China, and at this moment had a trading 
 house at Lachine, above Montreal. It is said that the name "La- 
 chine " is taken from that of China. When the news of Marquette's 
 discovery was made known, La Salle waited upon Count Frontenac, 
 and represented that the time had come for an expedition to the 
 Pacific. So little interest had been taken in France in these dis- 
 coveries, that as late as April 16, 1676, Louis XIV. writes to Fronte- 
 nac, in a letter which still exists in manuscript, " With regard to new 
 discoveries you will not address yourself to them excepting in a great 
 necessity." This was not encouraging. But Frontenac gave La Salle 
 a good introduction at court, and he obtained from the Marquis of 
 Seignelay, who had succeeded Colbert as Minister of Marine, all that 
 he asked for. 
 
 He sailed from Rochelle for Canada, in the summer of 1678, with 
 thirty men, and with the stores proper for equipping the vessels which 
 he meant to build upon the lakes. Arriving at the head of Lake 
 Ontario, he made the portage by Niagara Falls to Lake Erie, and on 
 Niagara River began to build a ship of forty-five tons, which he called 
 the Griffin. On the 7th of August, 1679, she sailed on her western 
 voyage, and on the 28th of that month arrived at Mackinac. The 
 appearance of a vessel of her size, armed with seven cannon, waking 
 on occasion with their thunders the echoes of the wilderness, amazed 
 the natives, who had, till now, never seen the servants of their great 
 Onnonthio, Louis XIV., but in the humbler garb and equipage of 
 trappers and missionaries. La Salle proceeded in state to hear mass 
 at the chapel of the Ottawas at Mackinac, and then continued his 
 Voyage of vova g e prosperously to the settlement of Green Bay, where 
 the Griffin. j ie arr j ve( j j n September. Freighting the Griffin with furs, 
 he proceeded to St. Joseph at the head of Lake Michigan, at the 
 mouth of the river which still bears that name, nearly opposite the 
 river Chicago. Here he built a fort, and here he expected the Griffin, 
 which did not return, however, and was in fact never again heard of. 
 
1679.] 
 
 LA SALLE AND FATHER HENXEPIX. 
 
 511 
 
 Anxious though he were, he pushed his explorations westward, and 
 somewhere at the head of the Illinois River, probably in the very 
 county which bears his name, he established Fort Creve-Coeur, which 
 took its name from his depression of spirits in the calamities of that 
 sad winter. No tidings came of the Griffin, and La Salle determined 
 to return by land to Niagara. 
 
 He first detached Father Hennepin, a missionary, with one com- 
 panion, to trace the Illinois to its mouth, and then to ascend n ennep j ns 
 the Mississippi in search of a route to the Pacific. This J urnc - v - 
 Hennepin did. He appears but meanly as a narrator, or as a voyager, 
 in comparison with the modest and unselfish Marquette. He availed 
 himself of the " local colouring " which he 
 thus acquired, to give probability to a ly- 
 ing narrative, which he published in France 
 some years afterward, in which he claimed 
 for himself the honor, which belongs to La 
 Salle alone, of tracing the river to the Gulf 
 of Mexico. There is no better instance in 
 literary history of the danger of such an at- 
 tempt, or the certainty that it will furnish 
 the means within itself to disprove its own 
 statements. What Hennepin did was to sail 
 down the Illinois to its mouth, and then to 
 ascend the Mississippi as far as the falls of 
 St. Anthony. Here he was taken prisoner 
 by the Sioux, who permitted him to return 
 to his countrymen, on condition that he would revisit them in the 
 next year. 
 
 La Salle had left his companion Henri de Tonty l in charge at Crve- 
 
 Coeur while he went back to Niagara. At this 
 time however the Iroquois, always hostile to the 
 French, and excited, as La Salle thought, by his 
 personal enemies, attacked the Illinois, among 
 whom the fort was situated. 2 Tonty's whole 
 
 Signature of Tonty. garr i son was fi ve mell . He found himself 
 
 obliged to evacuate Creve-Coeur and to return. While he passed 
 down Lake Michigan on its west side, La Salle passed up on the other 
 with reinforcements. His heart must have quailed again La^n,,,. 
 when he came to Creve-Coeur to find it deserted. After this r * turu - 
 failure, he could only do his best to secure alliances with the Indians, 
 
 1 He was son of Lorenzo Tonty, who invented the Tontine. 
 
 2 Mr. Parkmnn lias identified the site of the great town of the Illinois. It is near Utioa, 
 La Salle County, Illinois. 
 
 Sioux Chief (from Catlin). 
 
512 
 
 THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 and then returned to Montreal. Here he had to compound with 
 his creditors, for the loss of the Griffin left him unable to meet his 
 pecuniary obligations. He said, himself, that with the exception of 
 the governor, Count Frontenac, it seemed as if every man in Canada 
 were opposed to his adventure. He succeeded, however, in bring- 
 ing together the resources for his undertaking, and started once 
 more, on the expedition which proved successful, in the summer of 
 1681.1 
 
 The party embarked on Lake Erie at the end of August, and ar- 
 rived at the port at St. Joseph early in November. La Salle there 
 
 Site of Chicago 
 
 
 chose for his party twenty-three Frenchmen and eighteen Indians, of 
 the Abnakis and Mohegans, New England tribes, which had put 
 themselves under his protection. Daniel Coxe, in his memorial to 
 William III., cited above, says that these native New Englanders 
 were chosen, because they had in the year before accompanied a con- 
 siderable number of adventurers from New England to the Missis- 
 sippi. The statement is probable enough, but the narrative to which 
 Coxe refers has not yet been found in the Massachusetts archives. 
 The Indians took with them ten of their wives and these women had 
 three children. The whole party thus consisted of fifty-four persons, 
 among whom were the Chevalier Henri de Tonty, Father Zenobe, of 
 
 1 We have his own narrative, written in the third person, recently discovered in the ar- 
 chives in France, and printed in Thoniassy's Geology of Louisiana. We have also Jou- 
 tel's narrative, and that of the Chevalier Tonty. 
 
1682.] LA SALLE'S SECOND EXPEDITION. 618 
 
 the Recollet Order, and Dautray, the son of the procureur general of 
 Quebec. 
 
 They crossed the lake to the Chicago River, to which they had 
 given the name of the Divine River. 1 Time has preserved the native 
 name, of which the derivation is not savory, and, as time will, has 
 forgotten the piety of the discoverers. This river proved 
 
 ,, i rii i 111 111 Second ex- 
 
 to be frozen, and lonty, who commanded the advance, had 
 
 to build sledges for the party and its boats. They left the 
 site of the present city of Chicago on the 27th of January, 1682, and 
 were obliged to haul their luggage and provisions eighty leagues. On 
 this march they passed the chief village of the Illinois, but the tribe 
 wintered elsewhere. At the widening of the river where Fort Creve- 
 Coeur stood, which they called Lake Pimedy, they found the ice 
 melted. Here they were able to launch their canoes, and in them 
 they arrived at the mouth of the Illinois on the 6th of February. 
 La Salle placed this point at 38 of north latitude. In this calculation 
 he was a degree too far south. 
 
 The ice of the Mississippi detained them for a week, when they 
 sailed. The next day, on the fourteenth, they passed the village of 
 Tamaroa, but here, also, they found no inhabitants, and they con- 
 tinued their voyage for more than a hundred leagues without meeting 
 any person. On the first of March, having lost one of his hunters, 
 La Salle established a fort on shore, and ordered several excursions in 
 hope of finding him. In one of these two natives were taken prison- 
 ers, who said that they were Sicachas. They were probably of our 
 tribe of Chickasaws. 2 They said their town was distant a day and a 
 half's journey. But, after La Salle had accompanied them for that 
 time, the town proved to be still three days off, and he refused Lo 
 go farther. One of them returned with him, and the other said 
 he would bring the chiefs to the river. La Salle returned to his boats, 
 the lost hunter had meanwhile been found, 3 and on the 3d of 
 March he continued his voyage. 
 
 On the 13th, after sailing forty-five leagues, the sound of drums 
 and war-cries gave notice that the savages had discovered 
 them, and on the right bank of the river their village could with the 
 be seen. La Salle established himself at once on the left 
 bank and in an hour's time built a fort on a point of land there. The 
 Indian chiefs sent across a canoe, the occupants of which received 
 the calumet of peace, and pleasant relations were at once opened 
 
 1 La Salle's text i distinct. " Pour aller vere la riviere Divine, appelee par les Sauvages 
 Chicagou." On many of the maps the name Divine is given to the Illinois. 
 
 2 Their name is mentioned in the narratives of De Soto. 
 
 8 The hunter's name was Prudhomme, and was given to a fort at this place, which re- 
 tained that name long after. 
 
 VOL. I! 33 
 
614 
 
 THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 between the parties. La Salle remained with his hosts three days, 
 and, when he left, they provisioned him from their stores. He no- 
 ticed, at once, the difference between them and the northern Indians. 
 ' These are better formed," he says, u free, courteous, and of a gay 
 humour. The northern Indians are all triste and of severe disposi- 
 tion." 
 
 This village is described as opposite the mouth of the Ohio. " Many 
 kinds of fruits and peaches were already formed on the trees." La 
 Salle planted a cross there, with King Louis's arms, and on his re- 
 turn, he found they had surrounded the cross with a palisade. They 
 also gave him provisions, and interpreters to communicate with their 
 allies, the Taensas, eighty leagues further down. 
 
 The Taen- 
 
 as. 
 
 Wisconsin Indians gathering Wild Rice. 
 
 On the 22d he came to the Taensas, whom he found living in eight 
 villages. He had passed, without stopping, the villages of 
 the Arkansas. He describes the houses of the Taensas as 
 built of walls of mud and straw, the roof of canes, which form a dome 
 ornamented by painting. " They have bedsteads and other furniture 
 and embellishments. They have temples in which they bury the 
 bones of their chiefs, and they are clothed- with white robes, made of 
 the bark of a tree, which they spin." The whole account shows rela- 
 tionship to the Natchez and, probably, to Mexican or other Southern 
 tribes. Their chief received De Tonty hospitably, La Salle having 
 
1682.] 
 
 LA SALLE'S GREAT DISCOVERY. 
 
 515 
 
 sent him as his ambassador. Continuing feheir navigation, the French 
 opened communication with the Natchez, who told them that they 
 were still ten days from the sea. On the 2d of April they were 
 for the first time attacked by Indians, who belonged to a tribe called 
 Quinipisa. 1 The French had offered them the calumet, but the sav- 
 ages fired their arrows and fled. La Salle did not pursue them, but 
 kept on his course. On the 6th the river divided into three branches. 
 La Salle took the west, he sent De Tonty to the middle, and Dautray 
 to the left. Two leagues farther and the water was salt, a little 
 moi*e, and the sea appeared, and the great discovery was made ! 
 
 On the 9th of April, La Salle planted a cross with the arms of 
 France. They sang the hymn Vexilla Regis and the Te Lasaiiemt 
 Deum, and in the name of King Louis he took possession of of e theMi*- 
 the river and all the streams which fall into it, and all the S18S1 PP' 
 countries which belong to them. This act of possession has been sub- 
 stantially respected ever since. It 
 is under this act that France held 
 her rights to the great province 
 known as Louisiana, and, there- 
 fore, it is under this act that the 
 United States holds the State of 
 Louisiana, and all its territory 
 north of the line of Texas and 
 west of the Mississippi to the 
 Rocky Mountains, to this day. 
 It must be remembered, that, un- 
 til 1803, the name LOUISIANA ap- 
 plies to the whole Mississippi 
 valley. 
 
 La Salle's provisions were 
 nearly exhausted. The party 
 found some dried meat near the 
 mouth of the river, and were 
 glad to satisfy their hunger with 
 it, till the suspicion was started 
 that it was the flesh of men. On this the whites left it to the savages, 
 who declared it was delicious. 2 On the 10th of April, La Salle 
 began his return ; and, until they came to the Quinipisa In- 
 dians, the party had to live on alligator's flesh and potatoes. He suc- 
 
 1 On the map, as drawn by Franquelin, this is spelled Kennipesa, the same as were after- 
 wards spelled Colapissas, and Aqiieloupissas, "Those who hear and see." 
 
 2 See report of Father Zenobe, of which the original is in possession of M Dooz, of 
 Baton Rouge. 
 
 Portrait of Louis XIV. 
 
616 THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 ceeded in capturing four women of the Quinipisa ; he explained to them 
 that his intentions were peaceable, and by their means purchased maize 
 and other supplies from the tribe. He was well received by the Taen- 
 sas and Arkansas, arriving at the villages of the latter on the 17th of 
 May. When he was a hundred leagues below the Illinois River he 
 fell dangerously ill. He was therefore obliged to intrust his dispatches 
 to De Tonty, who went on in advance. La Salle himself was detained 
 forty days by his illness. He arrived at St. Joseph at the end of Sep- 
 tember, but the approach of winter prevented his return to Quebec. 
 " He thus finished," he says in closing his report, " the most important 
 and difficult discovery which has ever been made by any Frenchman, 
 without the loss of a single man, in the same country where Jean 
 Ponce de Leon, Pamphile de Narvaez, and Ferdinand de Soto per- 
 ished unsuccessful, with more than two thousand Spaniards. No 
 Spaniard ever carried through such an enterprise with so small a 
 force, in presence of so many enemies. But he has gained no advan- 
 tage for himself. His misfortunes and the frequent obstacles in his 
 way have cost him more than two hundred thousand livres. Still he 
 will be happy if he has done anything for the advantage of France, 
 and if his endeavors may win for him the protection of Monseigneur." 
 
 Father Mambre* took to France La Salle's report of his great dis- 
 His report covery. Unfortunately for the great explorer, Count Fron- 
 u> France, tenac had been replaced by M. de la Barre, who had con- 
 ceived a dislike of La Salle. He had written home, charging him 
 with the Iroquois war ; and he afterwards represented that La Salle 
 was a mischief-maker among the Indians, who perverted his royal 
 commission for the purposes of mere trade. But so soon as La Salle 
 himself was able to report in person at Paris, he swept away any in- 
 jurious impressions which had been thus made. The French mon- 
 archy was never at a higher point of success or ambition. The peace 
 of Nimeguen in 1678 had given to Louis almost all he could ask for. 
 Seignelay, the Minister of Marine, listened with pleasure to La Salle's 
 narratives. 1 He sent directions to La Barre to restore Fort Fron tenac 
 (now Kingston) to his agents ; and to La Salle himself he gave large 
 powers for the colonization of Louisiana. 
 
 In the memoir, which is still preserved, which La Salle addressed 
 to the Marquis Seignelay, he proposes to establish a colony sixty 
 leagues above the mouth of the river. This would have been, accord- 
 ing to his own map, not far from the point where the Atchafalaya 
 makes a separate course from the Mississippi to the sea, and it is 
 probable that he intended at that point to establish his colony. With- 
 
 1 On Franquelin's map, made in 1684, under La Salle's direction, the Mississippi is 
 named the " Colbert," and the Red River is named the " Seignelay." 
 
1685.] .LA SALLE'S VOYAGE TO TEXAS. 517 
 
 out any disguise, he proposes, as the principal object of this colony, 
 such an attack on the back of the Spanish possessions, as was to open 
 to the French their thirty silver mines in New Biscay. And he coolly 
 remarks, that if the peace of Europe makes it necessary to postpone 
 such designs, it will be well to be prepared for them in the event of a 
 war. He says that Spain makes six million crowns yearly by these 
 mines, and that, with superior ease of transport of silver, France will 
 make much more. La Salle is truly enough called a representative 
 of the spirit of chivalry, and to the real spirit of the chivalrous ages 
 such a proposition as this not unfitly belongs. 
 
 Seignelay and the King gave him more than he asked for. The 
 colonists sailed from Rochelle on the 24th of July, 1684, ad- LBSaUe - g 
 mirably well equipped, in four vessels, a part of a fleet "^P** 
 of twenty-five, of which the others were bound to the French West 
 Indies and to Canada. But the passage across the Atlantic was then 
 long. Much time was consumed in stopping at San Domingo, and the 
 year had almost ended before the squadron of La Salle was near the 
 mouth of the Mississippi. By a terrible misfortune, due to the diffi- 
 culty of rightly calculating longitude in those times, 1 they passed the 
 true mouth of the great river. 
 
 On the 1st of January, 1685, La Salle landed, perhaps on the 
 southern shore of our State of Louisiana, near the Sabine, but he 
 could learn nothing from the Indians, and continued west for a 
 fortnight longer. When they found the coast trending south, they 
 were sure of their own error. But the captain of the fleet, Beatijeu, 
 refused to return along the coast, and after an altercation between him 
 and La Salle, the vessels entered Matagorda Bay, which they called 
 the Bay of St. Bernard. Here the stores of the colony were 
 landed, and here Beaujeu, who had been at cross-purposes, Matagorda 
 left them. By such a series of misfortunes did it happen 
 that the State of Texas was the earliest, after Florida, of the States 
 which we call Gulf States, to be colonized by Europeans. Beaujeu 
 left the party on the 12th of March, 2 under circumstances of cruel 
 desertion. On his return to France he made the most unfavorable 
 report, and to him, and possibly to Jesuit hatred, may it be attributed 
 that no relief was sent out to the great explorer. 
 
 To the stream which flows into Matagorda Bay from the northwest, 
 La Salle gave the name Les Vaches, from the buffaloes he found 
 
 1 A quarter of a century after, Sir Cloudesley Shovel and his fleet were lost on the coast 
 of Cornwall, because their longitude was more than a degree out of the way. 
 
 2 He left among other stores eight cannon, which the King had given to the colony. 
 They were lately to be seen at Goliad, identified by having Louis XIV.'s mark upon 
 them. 
 
618 
 
 THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 there. Near the same spot, the town of Lavaca retains the name, 
 the only name given by La Salle to his establishments in Texas which 
 has been preserved. The name St. Louis was given to the new settle- 
 ment. The Indians, whom he found in Texas, were of the 
 same great race as the tribes he had met on the Mississippi. 
 They had large and populous villages, with well-built cabins, said to 
 
 The Texas 
 Indians. 
 
 La Salle's Landing in Texas (reduced fac-simile from Hennepin). 
 
 be sometimes forty and fifty feet high. 1 They had traded with the 
 Spaniards for horses, clothing, spurs, and silver spoons, and knew what 
 money was. La Salle found them gentle and hospitable. Among 
 such tribes he was to pass what little was left of his adventurous life. 
 
 1 Father Douay's narrative- It is supposed that the name Texas is from the Spanish 
 Tejas, in allusiou to these covered houses. 
 
1687.] LA SALLE'S OVERLAND JOURNEY. 519 
 
 His colony once sufficiently established, he left it on the 1st of No- 
 vember, 1685, on an expedition of discovery, always hoping to find, 
 what Joutel, his second in command, learned to call " his unfortunate 
 river." Once and again from such expeditions, in which he trav- 
 ersed Texas far in different ^^ 
 routes, he returned to the set- ( 
 tlement, always to hear some y 
 new story of misadventure. ^ 
 But his own buoyant and easy 
 temper would restore the spirits 
 
 ft- 11 11,1 Signature of Beauieu. 
 
 of his men, and he would find 
 
 new resource in every difficulty. At last, at the end of 1686, he de- 
 termined to lead a party across to Canada to obtain succors from 
 France for the colony, for which, thanks to Beaujeu's treachery, no 
 supplies had arrived in two years' time. 
 
 On the 7th of January, 1687, this hero, who combines in his own 
 character so much that would have challenged regard in a 
 chevalier of the days of Philip Augustus, and would com- 
 
 i* i i i* 
 
 mand respect in the vigorous enterprises of to-day, left 
 the wretched colony, on what was to prove his last adventure. For 
 want of better material, the clothing which he and his men wore was 
 made from the sails of the little vessel which had been lost. He was 
 to lead his party nearly two thousand miles overland. The same 
 journey may be made to-day by railroad, and the traveller if he 
 chooses, takes his ease. But even now, no man thinks the journey a 
 trifle. Poor La Salle and his companions were to make it with little 
 guidance beside that which the compass gave them, and must trust to 
 their weapons or their address, to secure their passage among hostile 
 tribes. 
 
 He had bought five horses from the Indians, who had already 
 learned the use of horses from the Spaniards. These beasts were 
 used as pack-horses for the party. Twenty of the colonists, among 
 whom were seven women and girls and some children, were to remain 
 behind under Barbier, a hunter, who had been married since their ar- 
 rival in America, and who was appointed governor in the place of 
 Joutel. La Salle made them a farewell address in his own engaging 
 way, and all who were to stay, while they felt the necessit} 7 of his 
 journey, wei'e melted to tears. Yet, doubtless, they felt that their 
 dangers were less than his. 
 
 The travelling party consisted of about twenty also. La Salle and 
 his brother Cavelier, the priest, with their two nephews, LaSaiie's 
 Joutel and Father Anastasius, Duhaut and Liotot, the sur- com P auions - 
 geon, were those who seemed the most distinguished of the party. 
 

 520 THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XXL 
 
 Beside them were a man named Hiens, who had been a buccaneer, 
 and was sometimes known as English Jem, and Nika, a faithful 
 Shawnee Indian. 
 
 In that climate, there is no real hardship in travelling in January, 
 
 and had the party been better provided, 
 it would have made rapid progress, com- 
 pared with what proved possible. But 
 
 Signature of Cavelier. x ., , 
 
 they lacked shoes, until they could sup- 
 ply their place with buffalo-hide and deer-skin. The rivers were 
 swollen, and they were obliged to make boats from hides to ferry 
 them. Thus they crossed the Brazos, and in two months' time, they 
 approached Trinity River. Nothing but the scantiness of their equip- 
 ment, and the fullness of the streams and rivers, accounts for the slow- 
 ness of their progress. Meanwhile the members of the party were 
 not on good terms. La Salle appeared reserved and anxious, and 
 Liotot and Duhaut had quarrelled with young Moranget, his nephew 
 
 On the 15th of March, La Salle sent a party from camp to find 
 some provisions which he had left on his last expedition. They found 
 the provision spoiled, but they killed two buffaloes, and sent to La 
 Salle for horses to bring the meat. La Salle sent Moranget and two 
 others with the horses. They found the successful hunters, among 
 whom were Duhaut, Liotot, and Heins, already curing the meat. 
 Moranget, hot-headed boy as he was, broke into rage with them, be- 
 cause they had put by for themselves some part of the meat, to 
 which the customs of hunting entitled them. It was not the first of 
 Mutiny in Moranget's outbursts of rage. Duhaut was so angry, that 
 the camp. jj e cons pi re( j with the others to kill Moranget, and, as he 
 knew the fidelity of Nika the Indian, and Saget, La Salle's servant, 
 their death also was determined. Night came, the three victims each 
 served his watch in turn. So soon as they slept, Duhaut and Heins 
 stood by with their guns cocked, and Liotot, with an axe, killed the 
 three sleeping men. La Salle was six miles away. 
 
 They did not dare join him. When the others had been absent two 
 days, La Salle sought them in his anxiety, accompanied by the friar 
 Anastasius. As they walked he talked with the priest on religious 
 themes, and of his gratitude to God for his safety in twenty years' 
 peril. Suddenly he was overcome with profound sadness, and was so 
 much moved that Father Anastasius scarcely knew him. They came 
 near Duhaut's camp, and La Salle noticed two birds of prey hovering 
 above. He saw on the ground a piece of bloody clothing. He fired 
 Mur,i.>r of his two pistols to summon the hunters. They heard the 
 La saiie. shots, and crossed a little river to meet him. La Salle asked 
 for his nephew. One of them replied insolently, that " Moranget 
 
1687.] FATE OF LA SALLE AND HIS COLONY. 521 
 
 was along the river." La Salle rebuked him. Duhaut fired his gun 
 in reply, and La Salle fell dead, shot through the brain. 
 
 "There you are, great pashavv," 1 this was the contemptuous cry 
 of the false surgeon. Such was the death of one of the noblest heroes 
 of France, when he seemed at the very prime of his life. He was 
 only forty-three years old. Had he lived, with his spirit and power 
 of command, to carry out the enterprise lie had planned, the history 
 of Louisiana must have been different. By his death, the valley of 
 the Mississippi was left for nearly twenty years more to be the home 
 of savages. 
 
 After his death, the first history of his colony, which had left France 
 in such high hope, sinks into the separate effort of the colonists to 
 escape with their lives from a wilderness. In a quarrel Deathof 
 among the murderers, Duhaut, who had himself fired the fa- Duhaut - 
 tal shot which killed La Salle, was himself killed, and the little com- 
 pany afterwards broke in pieces. Joutel, Father Anastasius, the two 
 relatives of La Salle, and four others, made a separate party, which 
 persevered towards Canada. They had horses, which they had ob- 
 tained from the natives, and, by following a northeast course, from 
 the country of the Caddos, above the lake of that name on Red River, 
 they came out, to their delight, on the 24th of July, upon a cottage 
 built in the French fashion, and a cross upon the northern side of the 
 Arkansas River, just above the place where it unites with the Missis- 
 sippi. 
 
 The cottage was the home of two Frenchmen, Charpentier and De 
 Launay, both of the city of Rouen, whom De Tonty, La Salle's old 
 companion, had left at the junction of the Arkansas and Mississippi, 
 in the spring of 1685. De Tonty had gone down the river, in vain, 
 in hopes to meet his old chief there. The names of these Frenchmen 
 deserve permanent record, as those of the persons who established the 
 first permanent post of Europeans south of the Illinois River, in the 
 valley of the Mississippi. 
 
 From this point the friends of La Salle went home by routes now 
 familiar to the French. The fate of the twenty colonists left at St. 
 Louis, in Matagorda Bay, is not clear. A Spanish officer, dispatched 
 to find them in 1689, found only the deserted settlement. Two of the 
 
 1 " Te voila, grand bacha, te voila." Joutel's narrative. There are three narratives by 
 members of this wretched expedition : Father Cavelier, Joutel's, and that of Father Anas- 
 tasius. We have followed Mr. Parkmau's thrilling narrative. The spot is not determined. 
 The Texan historian supposes it to have been near the Neches River where the old Indian 
 trail crosses that stream. Yonkum's Hist, of Texas, i. 38. But the old map of De Lisle 
 places it distinctly at a point about seven miles west of Trinity River, in the county of San 
 Jaciuto, not very far from the field of the critical battle known by that name. 
 
522 THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CiJAP. XXI. 
 
 murderous party were arrested by the same officer, and were even- 
 tually condemned to the Spanish mines. Thus the first French effort 
 to colonize the southwest left no sign, in 1689, but the cottage of the 
 two Frenchmen who were established at the mouth of the Arkansas, 
 with the addition of a third from La Salle's party. 
 
 The successful colonization of Louisiana, and from Louisiana up- 
 wards, of the valley of the Mississippi, was due not to the spirit of 
 chivalry, so far as that was represented by La Salle, or to his chival- 
 rous plans for seizing the Spanish silver mines, but to more modern 
 developments of the spirit of mercantile adventure. 
 
 It is probable that the long and successful enterprises of La Salle 
 Canadian an ^ his companions were the first steps which led to the edu- 
 expiorers. ca tion of a race of men still existing, known as the Cana- 
 dian Voyageurs. In all the great river adventures of North America 
 from those days down, these voyageurs have taken their part, humble, 
 but none the less essential. The names of such men are in the nar- 
 ratives of Hearne and Mackenzie, of Lewis and Clarke, of Franklin, 
 Back, and the Simpsons. The nomenclature which they have created 
 is still in use on all the American rivers between New Brunswick 
 and California, and their readiness to undertake any of the hardships 
 of a campaigner's life makes them favored volunteers in the compo- 
 sition of any expedition of adventure. From the time when De Tonty 
 went down the river in 1686, in unsuccessful hope of meeting La 
 Salle, there was, perhaps, not a single year that some of these voy- 
 ageurs did not " try the adventure " of the Mississippi in whole or in 
 part. 1 
 
 But it was not for ten years after La Salle's death that the French 
 Crown made any effort to renew the colonization of the Mississippi 
 valley. The work was then put into competent hands. 
 
 The Sieur Lemoyne d'Iberville was the third of eleven brothers, 
 sons of Charles Lemoyne, Baron Longueuil, of Canada. To him was 
 intrusted the oversight of an expedition fitted out by the King to plant 
 a colony. Two frigates conveyed the colonists, of which 
 of X D^ibe'r- n D'Iberville himself commanded the larger, so that the evils 
 of a divided command, which had broken the strength of 
 La Salle's effort, were avoided. A third vessel joined at Saint Do- 
 mingo, and on the 25th of January, 1699, the expedition arrived at 
 the island of St. Rosa, just below Pensacola. At this point the 
 Spaniards had established themselves more than a month before. 
 
 1 It has been said that a party went to the mouth of the Mississippi as early as 1686 
 No sucli party made a permanent establishment; this statement is derived from some recoj 
 lectiuii of De Toiity's expedition. 
 
1700.] D'IBERVILLE AND BIENVILLE. 523 
 
 D'Iberville spent some weeks in exploring the coast, and on the 2d 
 of March entered the Mississippi River. He had with him Father 
 Anastasius, who 
 had accompanied 
 La Salle, and who 
 found no difficulty 
 
 . . . Signature of D'Iberville. 
 
 in recognizing its 
 
 turbid waters and its majestic flow. Evidence more convincing to 
 D'Iberville was found, when, forty leagues up the river, they found 
 the Bayagoula Indians, who brought out cloaks which La Salle had 
 given them, a breviary which Father Anastasius had left in 1682, and 
 a letter which De Tonty had left in 1686. They called it "a speaking 
 bark." 1 DTberville's first post was at Biloxi Island, in Mobile Bay. 
 He returned to France, and was again despatched to the river. He 
 founded his second post at a point on the Mississippi, now known as 
 Poverty Point, about thirty-eight miles below the present city of New 
 Orleans. 
 
 The settlement at Biloxi was within the limits of the present State 
 of Alabama, and was the first establishment of whites there. 
 It was abandoned after a year for a station further up on mentatBi- 
 the Mobile River, about eighteen leagues from the sea. The 
 settlement at Poverty Point was the first settlement made in Lou- 
 isiana. It was established in 1700. By this time D'Iberville had the 
 assistance of a Canadian colony to meet him by the way of Lake Erie 
 and the Miami portage. 
 
 While D'Iberville was absent in France, his brother Bienville fell 
 in with an English ship, commanded by Captain Barr, which was 
 twenty-eight leagues up the river, having been sent out to explore 
 and take possession of the Mississippi. Bienville boldly told him 
 that the Mississippi was farther west, that this river was a depend- 
 ency of Canada of which he had taken possession, and Barr went 
 in search of the great river, just where poor La Salle had looked 
 for it so vainly. The reach of the river where this interview took 
 place is still known as the " English turn." The expedition thus ar- 
 rested was a private expedition sent out by Coxe, an Englishman, 
 who held a charter given by Charles I., for a supposed province of 
 Carolana or West Florida. Our only other account of this expedi- 
 tion is by Coxe's son, and was published twenty years after. He 
 complains that the captain of one ship deserted the other, but says 
 that one of the two ascended the river one hundred miles. 2 
 
 1 " Ecorce parlante." 
 
 2 The younger Coxe's map is drawn to show that all of southern Louisiana, except the 
 
524 
 
 THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 During the war of succession, in the earlier part of the eighteenth 
 century, Spain and France were in alliance, and the Spanish governors, 
 
 both of Mexico and of 
 Florida, rendered one and 
 another service to the in- 
 fant French colony which 
 D'Iberville,and his brothers 
 Bienville and Serigny, re- 
 quited as they could in their 
 weakness. 1 The history of 
 the infant State is but little 
 more than that of a small 
 garrison, whose enterprising 
 commanders were making 
 alliances with the neigh- 
 boring savages. Communi- 
 cation was constantly kept 
 up with Canada, and in 
 1700, Le Soeur, an explorer 
 of mines, went so far as 
 Lake Superior, and re- 
 turned, with what the 
 chronicler says was two 
 hundred thousand pounds 
 of copper ore. 2 It must be 
 doubted whether any such 
 quantity was carried across the Portages of Wisconsin or Minne- 
 sota, especially as Le Sceur's journal says that it was in three ca- 
 noes. 
 
 The pacification of Europe resulting from the Treaty of Utrecht, 
 gave the signal for an enlargement of the little colony. At that time 
 the military force in Louisiana did not exceed one hundred French 
 soldiers, and seventy-five Canadians. There were perhaps three hun- 
 
 very months of the Mississippi, was included in the charter of "Carolana," that is, was 
 north of 31 north latitude. The line of 31 is the northern line of our State of Florida, 
 and the southern of the greater part of Mississippi. Coxe claims the river for England on 
 the frround that his father's ship was the first to enter it from the sea It probably was, 
 but the claim of discovery is absurd. Still, had William the Third lived longer, he might 
 have followed up this claim. 
 
 1 Archiv de la Marine. No. 9, No. 458 in Mr. Forstall's list. 
 
 2 La Harpe's narrative, preserved in MS. in the Philosophical Society's Library. The 
 text is, " Monsieur Lc Sueur arriva avec 2000 quint" de terre bleue y verte, venaut des 
 Scioux." The narrative, in an English translation, has been published by Mr. Trench in 
 the Louisiana Historical Transactions. 
 
 Portrait and Signature of Bienville 
 
1713.] CROZAT'S GRANT. 525 
 
 dred whites beside, and twenty negroes held as slaves, scattered over 
 
 the enormous territory known as Louisiana. So soon as the 
 
 peace came, the King granted the whole territory to Antoine ilouisiann 
 
 /-I e ^ C. U 1 to Crozat. 
 
 Crozat, one of those great financiers who play so curious a 
 part in the French history of those times. The grant says specific- 
 ally, that in consequence of the war there had been no possibility of 
 reaping the advantages which might have been expected. It says 
 also that Crozat's zeal, and singular knowledge in maritime commerce, 
 encourages hope for as good success as in his former enterprises, 
 " which have procured great quantities of gold and silver to the 
 kingdom in such conjunctures as have rendered them very accept- 
 able." 
 
 In the grant, the great rivers are thus named: "The river St. 
 Louis, heretofore called Mississippi, the river St. Philip, heretofore 
 called Missouri, the river St. Jerome, heretofore called Ouabache." 
 But these names have lasted as little as the other special CrOMt - S go T - 
 privileges granted to Crozat. The grant cedes all territo- ernmellt - 
 ries watered by the Mississippi. Crozat appointed as his governor, 
 La Mothe Cadillac, a soldier, in place of Le Muys, who had died on 
 his passage home. Le Muys had been the governor-general named by 
 the King. 
 
 Cadillac arrived at the colony in May, 1713, bringing the news of 
 peace, the news of the grant to Crozat, and of his own appointment. 
 With him came several officers of administration. D'Iber- 
 ville had died, but his influence in the colony was inner- 
 ited by his brother, Bienville, so long celebrated in the thepolon y- 
 history of Louisiana. Naturally enough altercations grew up between 
 the new officials and Bienville and his friends, which were the basis 
 of parties extending well down into that century. In a colony where 
 there were not a hundred persons resident at any one point, and 
 at this time not more than four hundred persons in all, such alter- 
 cations were, doubtless, all the more bitter. Crozat's plans were 
 based on the hope of commerce with the Spaniards. But the Span- 
 ish government changed its policy, and fell back on a system of exclu- 
 sion, which had originated with Philip II., and which generally char- 
 acterized its rule of its colonies, until it brought that rule to an end. 
 Cadillac remained in the country but two years. He made some per- 
 sonal explorations, and ordered an expedition into Texas, which 
 will be best described in our chapter on the early history of that 
 State. 
 
 His successor was M. de L'Epinay. Bienville was appointed King's 
 Commandant, while De L'Epinay was Governor-general. There was 
 
626 
 
 THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 no less dissension between these two than between Bienville and 
 Cadillac. But the fortunes of the colony were not dependent on as 
 trivial motives as the discords of local commanders. With the death 
 of " Le grand Monarque " in 1715, and the accession of the Regent 
 Duke of Orleans to the sway of France, a new destiny awaited Lou- 
 isiana. It came through the spirit which was given to emigration by 
 the enterprise, so disastrous in Europe, of the famous John Law, 
 known in history as the Mississippi Scheme. 
 
 
 Indians in a Canoe (fac-simile from La Hortan). 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 John Law. 
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. 
 
 JOHN LAW. THE REGENT ORLEANS. LAW'S BANK. THE WESTERN COMPANY. 
 RENEWED EMIGRATION. THE INDIAN COMPANY. SPANISH WAR. NEW ES- 
 TABLISHMENTS. FAILURE OF LAW'S PLANS. RUIN OF SPECULATORS. MIS- 
 SIONS IN LOUISIANA. THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS. ESTABLISHMENT AT 
 NATCHEZ. RELATIONS WITH THE INDIANS. CUSTOMS OF THE NATCHEZ. CHO- 
 PART'S FOLLY. ITS RESULTS. CAMPAIGNS AGAINST THE NATCHEZ AND CHICKA- 
 8AWS. BlENVILLE HE-APPOINTED. HlS ILL-SUCCESS AS A MILITARY LEADER. 
 VAUDREUIL AND KERLEREC. 
 
 JOHN LAW was born in Edinburgh in April, 1671, the son of a gold- 
 smith of considerable fortune. The goldsmiths of that day 
 were the bankers of the world, and all the social privileges 
 of a banker of to-day belonged to this Scotch goldsmith then. John 
 Law was but fourteen years old when his father died. He was edu- 
 cated with care, but did not choose to embrace his father's calling, 
 preferring a life of pleasure 
 and travel. He left his 
 mother at the age of twen- 
 ty, and went first to Lon- 
 don, where, like many other 
 adventurers, he applied his 
 knowledge of finance and 
 mathematics to the calcula- 
 tions of the gambling table, 
 without more success than is 
 usual. His mother paid his 
 debts and saved his estate. 
 For himself he became pop- 
 ular in London ; but the 
 fortune of Louisiana was 
 changed, as it happened, on 
 the 9th of April, 1694, when 
 in a duel in Bloomsbury Square, he killed on the spot a gentleman 
 named Edward Wilson, " commonly called Beau Wilson." For this 
 
 John Law. 
 
528 
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. 
 
 . XXII. 
 
 offence be was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, but was par- 
 doned by the King. He was, however, thrown into prison on some 
 charge connected with the duel, bat he effected his escape and fled to 
 the continent. 
 
 At Amsterdam he became a clerk of the English Resident, in order 
 in* cnreor ^ study the system of the celebrated Bank of Amsterdam ; 
 ana finan- an( j at thirty years of age he returned to Scotland. About 
 schemes. j.] )e y ear 1700, he presented in print a plan for what we 
 should now call The National Bank of Scotland, far in advance of 
 
 the financial wisdom of the day, 
 and, indeed, only differing from 
 the systems now in use in the 
 European national banks, so far 
 as it included the system, then 
 universal, of monopolies of com- 
 merce and of farming out the 
 revenue. Another plan of his, 
 at this time, that for a land bank, 
 has been often brought forward 
 since, but never reallv tried. 
 
 / 
 
 Neither Scotland nor England 
 was prepared for his financial 
 schemes, and, returning to the 
 continent, he engaged himself 
 in the not uncongenial occupa- 
 tion of gambling, managing 
 faro banks with profit. This 
 occupation brought him into 
 acquaintance with the Duke of 
 Orleans, an acquaintance which afterwards proved so important. On 
 the close of the war of the succession he urged his financial plans on 
 of the French government, which was already bankrupt. But 
 Louis XIV. rejected them, not so much because the plans 
 were not good, of which nobody in France was a judge, as 
 because the author of them was a Protestant. Law went to offer 
 them to Victor Amadeo at Turin, and to the Emperor of Germany. 
 Both these sovereigns declined to try his experiments. But at their 
 courts and elsewhere, lie won two million livres at gambling, and 
 this he carried to Paris, where it became the nucleus of his after 
 fortunes. 
 
 Louis XIV. died. His ambition, his selfishness, and in especial, the 
 war of the succession, had brought France to bankruptcy. It is not 
 fair to ascribe this bankruptcy to John Law. The truth is, that he 
 
 The Regent Orleans. 
 
 th 
 
1715.] JOIIX LAW. 529 
 
 postponed for a few years the inevitable catastrophe. To borrow the 
 language of the modern exchange, he flew the great kites, which, 
 for a little while, promised to carry France over an abyss. When 
 the King died the royal stocks were at a discount of from seventy to 
 eighty per cent. A treasury report of September 20, 1715, shows 
 that the annual expenses were one hundred and forty-eight million 
 livres. 1 All the receipts of the year were pledged in advance, except 
 three millions. Seven hundred and ten millions of stocks were due 
 in the current year. The troops were not paid, commerce was ruined, 
 and whole provinces were depopulated. The Regent was urged to 
 proclaim the crown bankrupt. The Regent declared that he should 
 be dishonored, and that France would be dishonored, by such a course. 
 In place of it he attempted every half way measure known in his 
 time, or indeed, since, to insolvent states or failing merchants. When 
 it is remembered, that in fourteen years the expenses of the monarchy 
 had been two billions of livres more than the revenue, and that this 
 amount had been borrowed ; that the arrears, when the King died, 
 were seven hundred and eleven millions, and the deficit on the year 
 then current was seventy-eight millions ; when it is also remembered 
 that Law's plans, such as they were, maintained the credit of the 
 crown for five years ; the injustice will be seen of that sweeping 
 charge, which says that the public bankruptcy of France was the 
 consequence of those schemes. 
 
 When the Regent came into power he had placed the Duke <! 
 Noailles at the head of the department of finance. To this 
 department he referred Law and his plans. Law proposed <-..ptanoc in 
 a public bank, which should collect the revenues, carry on 
 the great monopolies, issue bills current as money, and discount notes 
 of merchants and others who wished to borrow. The Council of 
 Finance rejected this proposal, and Law substituted a private bank 
 of discount, on a basis which seems modest to later times. The cap- 
 ital was six million livres, divided into twelve hundred shares. It 
 was authorized to discount merchants' notes, and to issue bills re- 
 deemable in coin. The Duke of Orleans accepted the title of Patron 
 of the bank, which was opened in Law's own house. 
 
 So necessary were these simple bank facilities, in the disordered 
 commerce of France, that the bank at once became popular IIiKtory 0{ 
 and acquired credit. At the end of a year Law's predic- LaW8Bank 
 tions were fulfilled, and he was able to take a second step. The gov- 
 ernment, also, could give him its countenance, by a decree ordering 
 
 1 The value of a livre varies, from time to time, especially as it is a paper livre or made 
 of silver. But the reader of our time may remember to advantage, that, in 1700, the word 
 represented, in substance, what the word " franc " stands for now. 
 
 VOL. n. 34 
 
530 
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. 
 
 [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 public officials to receive the notes of the bank, as if they were coin. 
 From this time, of course, they answered all purposes of exchange 
 within the kingdom. With such facilities the notes instantly gained 
 value, the deposits of gold and silver increased, and the bank was on 
 the high road of prosperity. Its notes even commanded one per cent, 
 more than specie, at times, for the government was not above tam- 
 pering with specie ; but the bank redeemed its notes in the coin it 
 received. The trade of the country felt the benefit to commerce of 
 such a currency. Taxes were paid cheerfully, and branches of the 
 bank, in accordance with Law's original plan, were established in five 
 provincial cities. 
 
 A second feature of Law's great scheme had been the management 
 of the great commercial monopolies, which made, at that time, a part 
 
 N / /L & r^y s Cent Itvrej Tournou 
 
 -Li A ^ANQUE promet payer au Porteuri vlie Cent Ifvrcs Toumois 
 en Efpec d'jAr^ent , valeur receuc A Pans le premier Janvier mil 
 
 ^C^aKF^irs^u^^. 
 l^J/frHtM ^ -> 
 
 Fac-simile of Bank-note issued by Law- 
 
 
 of the commercial system of all the great nations. He was now 
 tempted to engraft this part of that plan upon his private bank. 
 And it is from that temptation, and the plans made in consequence, 
 that Law became the founder of New Orleans, and, practically, the 
 person who directed the French settlement of the valley of the Mis- 
 sissippi. Crozat, who had obtained the grant of the Missis- 
 sippi trade for twelve years, had not been successful in his 
 plans, for reasons which have been stated. He asked per- 
 mission to give up his privilege, and Law gladly became his successor. 
 It seems as if Crozat had attempted commerce only, with hopes of 
 success in mining, while Law, with a broader view, expected to make 
 
1717.] THE WESTERN COMPANY. 531 
 
 the colonists at least support themselves by agriculture. The con- 
 tract for the trade in beaver in Canada expired in 1717. Law, there- 
 fore, asked permission to form a company, which should unite all the 
 commerce of Louisiana with the fur trade of Canada. The Regent 
 granted all that he asked, in an edict issued in August, 1717. 
 
 The company thus formed received the name of the Western 
 Company." The grants made to it were for twenty-five years. The 
 sovereignty over all Louisiana was granted to it, on the condition of 
 homage to the king of France, and of a gold crown at the beginning 
 of every new reign. This token of vassalage indicates the nature of 
 the hopes with which it was undertaken. The capital was nominally 
 one hundred million livres. But subscribers were permitted to pay 
 three fourths of their subscriptions in royal bonds, which were still at 
 the old discount of seventy or eighty per cent. Only one fourth of 
 the subscription was asked for in coin. It will be seen, therefore, that 
 the real capital paid in was about fort} 7 million livres. 
 
 New Orleans in 1719 (from an old Map). 
 
 With this capital Law and his associates went to work with spirit 
 in the details of colonization. We can still refer to the little 
 emigration tracts which they circulated through France and ti!mTrcoi- 
 Germany to collect emigrants. Vessels were armed, troops 
 sent forward, and colonists enlisted. The great feudal cultivators of 
 France did not encourage the emigration of peasants. The emigrants, 
 therefore, were not so often as might have been wished, persons used 
 to agriculture. They were indeed enlisted largely bv the 
 
 l c 11 11 
 
 nope or collecting gold, then, as now, the nope most 
 tempting to a poor and discouraged people. M. tie L'Ep- ii-nt .i \-- 
 inay was recalled, and Law showed his .good sense and 
 knowledge of the position by appointing Bienville Governor-general of 
 Louisiana. Bienville was also instructed, probably by an echo of ad- 
 vice given by himself, to select a new site for the capital. With the 
 
582 THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 knowledge he had acquired of the geography of his dominions, he 
 chose the admirable site of New Orleans, commanding the approaches 
 to the sea by the river and by Lake Pontchartrain, and here in Feb- 
 ruary, 1718, he left fifty persons to clear the ground and to build. 
 Through the year different vessels arrived with colonists for diffei'ent 
 landowners, in one party alone eight hundred persons. 
 
 The next year two of Bienville's brothers arrived with news of the 
 short Spanish war, set on foot by the folly of Alberoni. With great 
 promptness Governor Bienville moved against the Spanish port of 
 Pensacola, and took it. It was soon retaken by a superior force, but 
 Avas again captured by a French squadron in September. Mean- 
 while, without check from the war, John Law was going forward 
 with apparent success in his great schemes. The Western Com- 
 pany, as the charter called his corporation, had not at first attracted 
 much public attention. But its shares gradually rose to par, that is, 
 to a money par, though they had been largely paid for in reduced 
 securities. In May, 1719, he was strong enough in public confi- 
 dence to obtain from the Regent power to join with it the East India 
 Company of France. The exclusive right of trading beyond the 
 Cape of Good Hope was given to it. Its name was changed to 
 that of " The Indian Company," and, for its new purposes, it was 
 authorized to issue fifty thousand new shares at a par of five hundred 
 livres. 
 
 But the company was already so prosperous that it refused even to 
 The Indian issue these new shares at less than five hundred and twenty 
 company. livres, fifty livres down, and the remainder in twenty equal 
 monthly payments. Nor was any person permitted to take one new 
 share who did not exhibit four old ones. Old shares, therefore, rose 
 rapidly under the new enthusiasm. This condition brought them 
 from three hundred livres up to seven hundred and fifty livres, 
 that is, they rose from sixty per cent, of their nominal value to fifty 
 per cent, above it. 
 
 It w*is at this crisis, when the Western Company became the 
 Indian Company, that it really won the bad name which from 
 that moment to this has hung around the " Mississippi Scheme," so 
 called. 1 A capital of forty million livres was not an extraordinary 
 sum with which to develop the fur trade of Canada, and all the re- 
 sources of the Mississippi Valley. The methods of the Company for 
 its legitimate business, even in the midst of stockbroking in Paris, 
 were judicious, though they were not so considerable as its capital 
 would have justified. Concessions of land, as they were called, were 
 
 1 Which has seemed to attend subsequent financial transactions which bore the same 
 name. 
 
1719.] THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. 538 
 
 made to adventurei-s under the Company, and these adventurers sent 
 out settlers, as the Company itself did. In 1718, seven ves- Progressof 
 sels were sent out with stores and emigrants, numbering in emi s ratlon - 
 all, perhaps, fifteen hundred persons. The year 1719 sent eleven 
 ships, besides those ships of war belonging to the crown, which as- 
 sisted in the operations against Pensacola. Meanwhile new establish- 
 ments for trade were opened on the Red River, the Missouri, and the 
 Upper Mississippi. 1 In this year five hundred negroes from the 
 Guinea Coast were brought in, and another cargo arrived the next 
 year. A terrible epidemic, contracted at St. Domingo, where the ves- 
 sels always stopped, swept through the emigrants of 1720. From 
 one vessel, one man, who was set on shore at his own request, was 
 the only person who ever arrived ; the ship itself was never heard 
 of again. In 1721 nearly a thousand white emigrants arrived, and 
 thirteen hundred and sixty-seven slaves were brought from Guinea, 
 not three quarters of the poor wretches who were embarked for the 
 voyages. In this year the Garonne, belonging to the Company, with 
 supplies and three hundred German emigrants, was taken by pirates 
 near St. Domingo. 
 
 This year, however, the most active of the operations of the Com- 
 pany, as far as Louisiana was concerned, was the last of its prosperity 
 at home. The popularity gained by the union of the East and West 
 India Companies in August, 1719, was so great, and the demand so 
 flattering for the consolidated stock, that Law was able to advance 
 another step towards his original design, and to undertake, by the 
 Company, the payment of a considerable part of that ter- 
 rible public debt, with which the Regent's administration siippi 
 had found itself saddled by the later wars of Louis the Mag- 
 nificent. In exchange for the privilege of collecting the revenue of 
 France, he proposed to take up, by the issue of company stock, gov- 
 ernment stock to the amount of more than fifteen hundred millions, 
 a considerable part of which was approaching maturity. The plan 
 was gigantic, but it oft'ered unquestionable advantages. If so large 
 an enterprise could have been carried out with the privacy and deli- 
 cate handling necessary, it seems to have rested on an intelligible and 
 practicable basis. In fact the new shares which Law issued, of which 
 nine tenths were to be paid in government stock, were sought with 
 overwhelming eagerness. This means, partly, that the French people 
 went crazy. But it also means, partly, that people trusted John Law 
 and his business-like methods of administration more than they did 
 
 1 In the Yazoo country, at Baton Rouge, at Bayagoula, at Ecores Blaucs, at Point Cou- 
 pee, at the Black River, at Pascagoula, and amoiig the Illinois. All these plantations 
 proved permanent. 
 
634 
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. 
 
 [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 the Regent Orleans and the men around him. For the real question 
 was, whether the holders of government securities would or would not 
 exchange them for his securities, when they could do so, if they would 
 add a payment of one ninth of the amount in cash, for all which they 
 would receive his bonds, or those of his company. The speculators 
 and the capitalists of France alike, chose to make the change. And 
 this is the cause of the frenzy, in which all France combined to give, 
 for a moment, an exaggerated value to the bonds of the India Com- 
 pany. It was not the possession of the whole valley of the Missis- 
 sippi. Land is as valueless in itself in any market, as is the ocean 
 
 A Caricature of the Time of the " Mississippi Bubble.' 
 
 or the clouds. It needs the occupancy of men men who know how 
 to subdue the earth before it has a money value. If the Indian 
 Company could have given this element of value to their empire on 
 the Mississippi, it would have been worth the whole debt of France a 
 hundred times told. But such inhabitancy, or such a population, is 
 not to be gained by any inducements which such companies can offer. 
 For the moment, however, the public enthusiasm supplied the place 
 of more substantial values. Three hundred thousand new shares were 
 applied for, where there were but fifty thousand to distribute. The 
 enlargement of currency, accompanied by universal confidence, quick- 
 
1719.] SPECULATION AT ITS HEIGHT. 585' 
 
 ened every form of industry. The annual taxes were reduced by 
 fifty-two million livres in the year 1719, while thirty-five 
 
 Momentary 
 
 millions had been taken off before, since the Regent's acces- effect* of the 
 
 plan. Law 
 
 sion to power. The rate of interest fell, lands rose in price, at the height 
 
 r x of power. 
 
 labor found its reward, and plenty appeared everywhere. 
 The author of such wonders was hailed as a demi-god ; the crowds fol- 
 lowed him, the nobility courted him, the Regent honored and obeyed 
 him. To John Law, the Scotch goldsmith's son, poor France owed 
 the one gleam of prosperity which she had enjoyed for twenty years. 
 
 It is said that in the three years of its power in Louisiana, the 
 Indian Company expended twenty-five million of francs. It would 
 probably be impossible to say what this immense sum was expended 
 for. La Harpe, a very competent authority, testifies that eight million 
 francs only were expended on supplies and transportation for the col- 
 ony, and he avers that this sum brought no return to France. He 
 says that convicts and prostitutes were sent out as colonists ; that 
 inexperienced clerks were put in chai'ge of the stores and plundered 
 them openly ; that the Company did not hold to its contracts with 
 Swiss and German companies, and with miners ; that these contracts 
 themselves were unfortunate ; that it was always making places for 
 adventurers, and al\va} T s quarrelling with Bienville. All this is said 
 more simply, when we say that a company of directors in Paris under- 
 took to rule a colony in America. Napoleon has taught us TlleCom . 
 that two good generals are worse than one bad one. When j^oui' 6 
 a directory of generals is on one side of the world, and their lana 
 army is on the other,- its ruin is certain. It is a curious question, 
 whether under a careful management, that part of the capital of the 
 Company which was subscribed for the develop- 
 ment of Louisiana, could, in these days, have 
 been made productive. An annual income of 
 four per cent, would have satisfied the share- 
 holders. Their privilege ran for twenty-five 
 years, and when it reverted to the crown, the 
 separate holders could take lands to represent 
 the principal. It is certain that the furs of 
 Canada and of Louisiana would not amount to Arms of the western company. 
 an annual value of one million six hundred thousand livres. Indeed, 
 the Company relied, not so much on furs, as on mines and tobacco. 
 They never found any mines of value, and the product of tobacco 
 was inconsiderable. So far their empire in the West yielded them 
 but little. If, however, the Company had been willing to do as 
 Winthrop and his associates did, go themselves with their charter 
 to the province of which it made them masters, it could not have been 
 
536 THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 hard to make that province worth forty millions francs before 1742. 
 But no man of the stockholders, though the examples were before 
 them of Winthrop, of Champlain, of Penn, and other colonists, had, 
 at any moment, any such idea. 
 
 Whatever may have been the legitimate basis on which Law's 
 earlier plans were founded, all recollection of it was swept 
 
 Wild specu- -iniir i f i 
 
 lation in the a way and all thought ot any basis was forgotten in the 
 whirlwind of excitement which swept over France, when all 
 men tried to join in the successes of those whose early investments in 
 Indian stocks had proved fortunate beyond the wildest hope. Under 
 this wild excitement shares issued at 500 livres eventually sold at 
 5,000 livres, and even more. In its five issues, the Company put out 
 624,000 shares, which at the nominal par amounted to 312,000,000 
 livres. To pay four per cent, interest on these, would have required 
 12,480,000 livres annually. It is an interesting fact that its income 
 was more than six times this amount, being 80,500,000 livres annu- 
 ally. The Company was therefore amply able to make good its tech- 
 nical obligations. But, of course, persons who had bought for 5,000 
 livres a share nominally worth 500, would not be satisfied with a 
 miserable annual income of twenty livres for that investment. The 
 price of shares was merely fanciful. It could not be held at the ficti- 
 tious level. And the moment the decline began, nothing would arrest 
 it. These statements are due to the memory of John Law. He un- 
 doubtedly made the grossest errors in his efforts to arrest the fall of 
 these securities. But it was, in the first instance, not the audacity 
 of his proposals, but their success, which caused his ruin. 
 
 Ruin came. So soon as the holders of shares began to buy with 
 them houses and castles and jewels, and did not buy other 
 company shares, so soon as they ceased to speculate and began to 
 invest in real securities, so soon the price of bonds fell. All 
 the ingenuity and all the audacity of Law, all the willing help of the 
 unscrupulous Regent could not arrest the fall, more than they could 
 make water run up hill. In one year from the greatest success of the 
 " system," as this rash adventure was called, it had wholly disap- 
 peared. In that time thousands had become rich who were poor, 
 thousands were poor who had been rich. Law fled from Paris, and 
 all his estates were sequestered. 1 This was in November, 1720. 
 News of his fall and flight arrived in Louisiana on the 15th of April, 
 1721. The year 1721, however, saw the largest accession yet made 
 of emigrants to the colony. 
 
 1 For au admirable account of all Law's transactions, examined in the light of modern 
 financial scii-nce, such as it is, see M. Thiers's chapters, translated into English with illus- 
 trations, bv Frank S. Fiske. 
 
1721.] 
 
 VOYAGE OF FATHER CHARLEVOIX. 
 
 537 
 
 As the " system " rolled on, adding one extravagance to another, it 
 was announced that Law had become a Roman Catholic. Whatever 
 may have been the sincerity of this conversion, it was followed by his 
 appointment as minister of finance, and men said he had become a 
 Catholic that he might become a minister. It was perhaps this con- 
 version which gave rise to the first measures of the Company for assist- 
 ing the religious missions in Louisiana, missions to which, in the out- 
 set, France owed even her knowledge of the river. Pierre Francois 
 Xavier de Charlevoix, the writer to whom we have since voyage of 
 owed our most interesting history of New France in that ' 
 century, who was indeed the diligent historian of Jesuit enterprise 
 
 View on the Arkansas River. 
 
 through the world, embarked at Rochelle, in July, 1720, to visit the 
 Canadian Missions. He was at Kaskaskia, in our State of Illinois, in 
 November 8, 1721. The brethren of his order had already established 
 a post here, six miles from the Mississippi. He went from this point 
 down the river in a canoe made from a long walnut tree. Thirty 
 miles above the mouth of the Arkansas he found the village already 
 in ruins where Law was to have established, on his own concession, 1 
 nine thousand Germans from the Palatinate. All who came were 
 discouraged, and eventually planted what is now known as the kt Ger- 
 man Coast " above New Orleans. No part of the world shows more 
 beautiful homes and farms than those made there by these exiles who 
 were then thought to be abandoned to misery. Charlevoix found that 
 
 1 The concession was twelve miles square. 
 
588 THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 the small-pox was already ravaging tribes which La Salle had found 
 numerous. He arrived at Natchez, on the loth of December, and at 
 New Orleans on the 31st. It is amusing now to see, that the little 
 circle of critics in New Orleans thought, that, if he had chosen, he 
 could have found his way to the Western Ocean. 1 That enterprise 
 was reserved to Lewis and Clarke, nearly a hundred years after, and 
 occupied them then more than two years. The Jesuit missionary 
 proved his own good sense, and made good his Christian profession, 
 by reconciling Bienville the Governor, and Hubert, one of the other 
 officers, who were in one of the chronic quarrels which embittered life 
 in the petty colony. 
 
 Charlevoix, like the other early explorers, sent home accounts of 
 the resources and geography of the country, which are amus- 
 " ing when read by the light of our modern knowledge. We 
 
 have seen that La Salle proposed to establish his colony as 
 an easy method by which the French could attack the Spanish silver 
 
 mines. La Harpe, one of the most 
 valuable officers who served under 
 Bienville, in a report which he pre- 
 sented at home, urged the necessity 
 of keeping the English away from 
 these same silver mines of New 
 Mexico. And in Charlevoix's first 
 letter describing the resources of the 
 new colony, the two productions 
 which he describes with most enthu- 
 siasm are the " apalacchine " and 
 the wax of the candleberry. The 
 first of these is already wholly for- 
 gotten. It is the Hex Cassine of 
 the botanists, and, at the time 
 Charlevoix wrote, had a reputation 
 as a substitute for tea, and even as 
 dispelling the emotion of fear. 
 lie* cassine (Yaupan). There will be many, even among the 
 
 American readers of these lines, who have never heard of candleberry 
 wax, which Charlevoix supposed was to be an important article of 
 foreign export. Those who ever have made a candle from it, will 
 sympathize with the " fiv.e or six slaves," who being unfit for ordi- 
 nary duty, were thought by the good father sufficient to gather a 
 shipload of wax every year. 
 
 i By a curious parody on this criticism, the biographical dictionaries, French and Eng- 
 lish, sav that Chateaubriand, at the end of the eighteenth century, crossed from the Mis- 
 sissippi to the Pacific, an impossible journey in the period of his tour. 
 
1721.] THE FRENCH AND INDIANS. 539 
 
 The city of New Orleans, so named in honor of the Regent, was 
 regularly laid out on paper when Charlevoix visited it, on 
 
 i i i T rr\ in Founding of 
 
 the convenient plan made by La lour and ranger, but it NewOr- 
 Avas still a city on paper. There were two hundred people 
 encamped there, who were to carry out the plans of the engineers. 
 To each applicant a lot was given sixty feet in front by twice that 
 depth. Each landholder was directed to fence in his lot and to leave 
 a vacant space, three feet wide, for open drains which should carry 
 off superficial water. These ditches were connected, and a dyke or 
 levee of earth made on the river side. The seat of government was 
 removed thither in the same year, and the names of the two hundred 
 settlers whom Charlevoix found there, are preserved. Bienville's is 
 first upon the roll. 
 
 The result in America of the work of the Western Company, or 
 the Indian Company, had been the establishment of a few thousand 
 emigrants in a climate to which they were not accustomed, on soil of 
 whose capacities they were ignorant, with hopes which could not be 
 gratified. A staff of officials, larger than would be appointed now 
 for the same region, though its population is counted for millions, 
 quarrelled among themselves, but regularly drew their salaries. The 
 common-sense and practical intelligence of Bienville were the most 
 cheerful element in the horoscope of the infant state. 
 
 The French establishment at Natchez was the most flourishing of 
 the trading establishments on the river. The massacre by 
 the Natchez Indians of almost all its male inhabitants, was ment of * 
 the first terrible event which broke the course of the de- 
 velopment of the colony, and the vengeance taken upon that tribe was 
 the first great effort made by the colonists against the natives. 
 
 The policy of La Salle had been to conciliate the natives of all 
 tribes. He would not permit his men to fire upon them, except under 
 extreme provocation, and he would not adopt the easy policy, which 
 was a favorite policy with the Spaniards, of taking one side or an- 
 other in their mutual feuds. DTberville and Bienville seem to have 
 been willing to continue in a policy of conciliation. But, from the 
 beginning, it was the custom of the French to supply the Indians 
 with guns, powder, and shot. They relied on the Indians of the 
 north for hunting, as the supply of furs to Europe made the largest 
 element in their trade, and they boldly took the risk that such arms 
 might be used against themselves. 
 
 So long as the charge of the outposts was entrusted to officers of 
 humanity or discretion, this hazardous policy, which armed the In- 
 dians as well as the whites, brought few disastrous consequences. All 
 parties regarded themselves as adventurers, and the loss of one life, 
 
540 
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. 
 
 [CHAP. XXII 
 
 more or less, in a brawl with savages was not regarded so seriously 
 as it would have been in the earlier settlements of New 
 ley towud England. As early as 1716, some Indians of the Natchez 
 tribe, or allies of theirs, had killed some voyageurs coining 
 down the river. Bienville suspected that they had been instigated to 
 this atrocity by English traders from the Carolinas. He took resolute 
 measures. He seized on some of the Natchez chiefs, and gave the 
 tribe to understand that he would take the lives of these men if the 
 heads of the murderers were not sent to him. After some intrigue 
 and wavering, caused partly by their doubt of his firmness perhaps, 
 and partly by real inability to meet so hard an order, it was complied 
 with in full. From this moment the Brother of the Sun, as the chief 
 of the Natchez was called, must have felt that he had a master. This 
 transaction is known in the colonial history as the first Natchez war. 
 
 View of the Mississippi at Natchez. 
 
 So far as we can see, the Natchez might have been retained, as a 
 useful ally of the French, for an indefinite period, but for the folly 
 and selfishness of one French commander, named Chopart. The tribe 
 The Natchez was more c om P act ly organized than most of the Indian 
 tribe. tribes. It understood subordination to its chiefs, and, in- 
 
 deed, in many other regards, showed a higher civilization than that 
 of most of the Indian nations. The conjecture has always seemed 
 probable that it was an off-shoot from that superior Mexican race, the 
 civilization of which, as described in the exaggerated accounts of the 
 
1722.] THE NATCHEZ INDIANS. 541 
 
 companions of Cortez, is still one of the problems and wonders of his- 
 tory. The Natchez worshipped the sun. His temple was of oval 
 shape, built of clay, without windows, and arched in a dome. It was 
 about one hundred feet in circumference, and, to defend it from the 
 rain, was covered with three layers of woven mats. Above it were 
 three wooden eagles, one red, one white, one yellow. No person was 
 permitted to live in it, but the Guardian of the Temple had a little 
 shed without, where he lodged. The whole was surrounded by a 
 palisade on which were exposed the skulls which had been brought 
 back from battle. In this temple a perpetual fire was kept, supplied 
 from time to time by the Guardian of the Temple. It was his duty 
 to feed the fire with logs, to see that they did not blaze, and that the 
 fire did not go out. 
 
 The palace of the great chief, who took the name of the Brother of 
 the Sun, was similar to the temple. It was raised on an 
 artificial mound, that he might the better converse with his emmentand 
 brother in the heavens every morning. The door of the 
 palace fronted the east, and, when the sun arose, his brother saluted 
 him with howls, ordered that his calumet should be lighted, offered 
 to him the three first puffs of smoke, and raising his hands, and 
 turning from east to west, directed his course for that day through 
 the heavens. 
 
 On the death of the supreme chief his sister's son succeeded. The 
 princesses of the blood espoused none but men of obscure family, and 
 had the right of dismissing a husband whenever they pleased. The 
 power of the Brother of the Sun was absolute ; no man would refuse 
 him his head if he asked for it, and if he appointed a guard to wait 
 upon the French, none of these men were permitted to receive any 
 wages. He had a sort of body-guard, or personal staff, appointed even 
 at his birth. For, so soon as an heir presumptive was born, a certain 
 number of infants was chosen from the infants of the tribe near his 
 age, and these were assigned for the service of the young prince. 
 They hunted, fished, planted, and farmed for him, they were his 
 servants, and they furnished his table. That they might serve him in 
 another world, they all sacrificed themselves to follow him, when he 
 died. In a religious rite of great solemnity they were strangled that 
 they might go at once to be his servants in the world of spirits. All 
 these customs, and many others, described in the early writers, are 
 analogous to those ascribed in the Spanish writers to the Mexican 
 tribes. Charlevoix observed bas-relief carvings, " not so badly done 
 as one expects," among the chiefs of a neighboring tribe. 
 
 The Natchez were not disposed to make war, but for some reason, 
 perhaps because of the small-pox which their new friends gave 
 
542 THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 them, their numbers diminished rapidly after the arrival of the 
 French, or were supposed to do so. It was thought that they were 
 more numerous in La Salle's day than when Iberville landed ; and, 
 in 1722, Charlevoix thought they had diminished in six years from 
 four thousand to two thousand fighting men. They were fond of the 
 French, and the French found them very useful. Opposite to their 
 town, the French had established a post which bore the name of 
 Rosalie, a name still preserved. It was given by Bienville in compli- 
 ment to Mad. la Duchesse de Pontchartrain. The convenience for 
 trade, the excellence of the soil, and the beauty of the situation, which 
 is exquisite, called up a very considerable number of whites, and, 
 as has been said, this was the most successful settlement in the valley. 
 After the "first Natchez war," for nearly ten years this beautiful 
 village showed every sign of external prosperity. But for the folly 
 and selfishness of Chopart, the commander, this prosperity might have 
 continued. 
 
 Chopart formed the idea, which seems almost insane, that he should 
 chopart's ^^ e the s ^ e f the great village of the Natchez for his own 
 madness home, and that the fine plain about it would be an admi- 
 rable plantation for himself. He had the effrontery to send for the 
 Brother of the Sun, and to tell him that the great chief of the French 
 had ordered the Natchez to leave this village, as he needed it. The 
 chief and council refused indignantly. They said that the nation had 
 long possessed this territory, and that it was sacred. The very ashes 
 of their fathers were buried beneath the temple. They reminded him 
 that till now all the points occupied by the French in their territory 
 had been given in token of regai'd, or had been bought and paid for. 
 Chopart was deaf to their arguments. He insisted that in two months' 
 time they must be ready to remove. The wily Natchez pretended, 
 after deliberation, to assent to his mad demand. Chopart even made 
 them agree to pay an indemnity in compensation for the extension of 
 time. 
 
 In fact, however, the Natchez agreed, in secret council, that they 
 
 would by one fell stroke get rid of the French, and that 
 plans""" forever. They sent messengers to the other Indian tribes 
 
 to bind them to the same work of destruction. Nor did any 
 tribe refuse so far as to betray them. The Choctaws joined eagerly 
 in the plan, and took, as their part, the destruction of the French on 
 the lower part of the river. To make sure that the massacre should 
 take place on the same day, at all the lower settlements the Choctaw 
 chief and the Natchez chief exchanged parcels of little sticks, in each 
 of which were as many twigs as would indicate the number of days 
 before that appointed for the butchery. This had been fixed at the 
 
 
1729.] THE NATCHEZ INDIANS. 643 
 
 time when Chopart had directed the abandonment of the village and 
 the temple. 
 
 The fatal night came on without any preparation on the part of the 
 French to oppose the Indians. Women from the Natchez tribe, more 
 faithful to their French lovers, or to those who are so called, than to 
 their race, warned them of their danger. Some of these men com- 
 municated the warning to Chopart, but he ridiculed their fears, ar- 
 rested them and put them in irons. He had just returned from a 
 visit of state to the Brother of the Sun. The Indians had well kept 
 their horrible secret, all parties had drunk and revelled together, and 
 it was not till three in the morning that Chopart returned, received 
 the report of danger, ordered the men to be ironed who brought it, 
 and then retired to 
 sleep off the effects of 
 his debauch, warning 
 
 Chopart and the Indian Envoys. 
 
 the sentinel not to call him till nine in the morning. This was on 
 the 28th of November, 1729. 
 
 Morning came. There was not a settler's house but had in it one 
 or more Indians, who came in on one pretence or another. 
 The great chief set out from his village, attended by his t 
 
 warriors, beating the drum of ceremony, and bearing the 
 calumet aloft. The calumet, as La Salle had seen, may be a cal- 
 umet of war as well as of peace. The pretence of the procession 
 was that they might bring to Chopart the tribute exacted in pay- 
 ment for delay. They reached his house and wakened him. He 
 came out in his robe de chambre, and bade the cortege enter. They 
 did so and offered their tribute. They then proceeded to the river, 
 where a galley just up from New Orleans was unloading valuable 
 stores. Everv Indian in the train picked out his man among those 
 
544 THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 at work on the galley, fired, and killed him. The discharge was the 
 signal agreed upon. All through the settlement the Indians closed 
 on the French, and in an hour's time more than two hundred 1 French- 
 men were killed. Of the garrison, which consisted of one small com- 
 pany, only one soldier escaped. Most of the women and children were 
 spared, to be held as slaves. But some of the women were killed in 
 the effort to defend their husbands. 
 
 Chopart was among the last to be killed. He saw the slaughter, 
 Death of but SJIW ^ t l a t e He fled to his garden, not so much as 
 chopart. seizing a gun. He whistled for his soldiers, but, they 
 were not left to hear. He was surrounded by Indians. But no 
 Natchez would lay hands on him. He was a dog, they said, unworthy 
 to be killed by a brave. A Puant chief was called, who killed him 
 with a club. 2 
 
 Had the simple arithmetic of the Natchez and Choctaws proved as 
 accurate as they expected, that day would probably have been the last 
 of the whole colony. But if, in the best calculations of the greatest, 
 a little dog may do more mischief than he can conceive, what must 
 not be expected in the computations of ignorant savages ? It hap- 
 pened that one day when the Natchez chief burned his fatal stick in 
 the temple, his little son stood by. While the father's attention was 
 engaged elsewhere, the boy, with a child's passion for imitation, burned 
 two sticks, as he had seen his father burn one, without being observed. 
 In consequence of this accident, the Natchez pounced upon their prey 
 two days earlier than the day fixed upon in their solemn treaty. 
 
 With all the facilities of modern skill, the traveller is a long day in 
 descending the Mississippi, even on the flood, from Natchez to New 
 Orleans. The distance, in a direct line, is more than a hundred miles, 
 and, by the winding of the river, it is twice as far. The poor fugi- 
 tives from Natchez had no means of carrying the intelligence of the 
 massacre to New Orleans in the fatal two days which were left to that 
 post. When, therefore, on the appointed day, the first of December, 
 six hundred of the Choctaws assembled in force by the Lake of St. 
 Louis, Perier, the governor, had no notice of what had taken place 
 above. The Choctaws sent to him a delegation, saying that they had 
 come to present to him the calumet. Perier was alive to the advan- 
 tage of conciliating this important tribe ; but he was too good a sol- 
 dier to admit them inside his fortifications. He sent a civil message, 
 that he would gladly receive the chief with thirty of his warriors. 
 This answer disconcerted the Choctaws, and seems to have been enough 
 
 1 This number corresponds best with what we know of the colony. But Dumout says 
 seven hundred. 
 
 2 The Puants were Indians from Green Bay, now in Wisconsin. 
 
1729.] 
 
 THE EXPEDITION AGAINST THE NATCHEZ. 
 
 546 
 
 to avert an immediate attack. They sent a delegation to the Natchez 
 to present the calumet to the great chief. The delegation was not 
 received with such honor as was expected. They soon learned that 
 the Natchez had made their attack two days befoi-e that agreed upon. 
 What was worse, perhaps, in the presents which they received, from 
 the plunder then taken by " the Brother of the Sun," there were no 
 guns, powder, or balls. The Choctaws were indignant at all this, and 
 turned their rage against the Natchez. They accused them of selfishly 
 anticipating the assault, that they might gain all the benefits. They 
 forbade them to kill any of their captives, lest they should have to 
 account for such lost lives to the Choctaws. 
 
 Meanwhile, on the third of December, fugitives who had escaped 
 the slaughter, arrived at New Orleans. Perier acted with 
 
 rr- i . The news 
 
 promptness. He sent an omcer to communicate with the atNewOr- 
 Choctaws, and, before long, bad succeeded in engaging these 
 fickle savages on his side. He formed a little army, and, with his 
 new allies, moved 
 against the Nat- 
 chez. The nego- 
 tiations and prepa- 
 rations consumed 
 the months of De- 
 cember and Janu- 
 ary, but, in Feb- 
 ruary, the Choc- 
 taws ' arrived at 
 Natchez, sixteen 
 hundred in num- 
 ber. The French 
 contingent joined 
 them in March, 
 and the fort of the 
 Natchez was in- 
 vested. They did 
 not stand a siege 
 in which cannon 
 were to be served against their palisades. They agreed to surren- 
 der their prisoners and to make peace on those terms. Loubois, the 
 French commander, on the spot, acceded to these terms, without 
 meaning to keep them, having a theory that he was not bound to 
 keep faith with them, more than they would with him. The next 
 morning, therefore, after he had received the prisoners, he prepared 
 to renew the siege. But he found that the Natchez did not trust him 
 
 VOL. II. 35 
 
 Costumes of French Soldiery early in the Eighteenth Century. 
 
546 THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. [CHAP. XXIL 
 
 any more than be deserved, and that they had abandoned their 
 town. 
 
 The main body of the tribe kept together, and, after one or two 
 efforts to surprise the fort at Natchez, moved up the Red River, and 
 made an attempt on that at Natchitoches. But St. Denis, the com- 
 mander, was too watchful for them. The same summer, Perier, find- 
 ing himself reinforced by three companies of marines from France, 
 made a final movement up the river. He found the Natchez in their 
 last retreat, attacked them and compelled them to surrender. In 
 truth, two hundred of them, of whom most were women, were taken 
 prisoners, and were sold as slaves to the plantations at St. Domingo. 
 Three hundred escaped, and found asylum among the tribes which 
 hated the French. At this day, among the Creek Indians, who now 
 cultivate the fertile lands reserved to that tribe in the upper valleys 
 of the Washita River, there are three hundred or more good citizens 
 who speak the Natchez language, and trace their descent back to the 
 vassals of the " Brother of the Sun." l 
 
 The poor Natchez, however, in their untimely insurrection, achieved 
 more than they knew. For when the news of the destruction of the 
 only promising post on the river reached Paris, the Western Com- 
 pany, quite discouraged, represented to the king their loss, and returned 
 to him their unprofitable right in the colony. The king, very wisely, 
 appointed Bienville its governor again, in the place of Perier, and 
 Bienville's last administration began. He arrived at New Orleans in 
 1734 ; Perier, who had been promoted to be lieutenant-general, resigned 
 the government and returned to Europe. 
 
 The surrender by the Western Company marks the miserable fail- 
 Failure of ure f ^ ne ^ system of giving the business of colonization 
 c^np^r over i 1 ^ the oversight of favored boards of men who did not 
 system. mean to emigrate. After thirty years of nursing, after all 
 the energy of Law's movements, and the large sums of money which 
 had been expended on the colony, its population, when it was returned 
 to the king, was estimated at only five thousand. Of these, nearly 
 two thousand were negroes. The whole number was scattered among 
 eleven posts. Fourteen years later, a careful census showed even a 
 smaller number, so that this estimate of five thousand, even, was 
 probably exaggerated. In 1745, there were but seventeen hundred 
 white men, fifteen hundred women, and two thousand and twenty 
 slaves, of whom the Illinois had about three hundred white men, the 
 Missouri posts two hundred, and Natchez, which had been the most 
 attractive settlement of all, only eight white men and fifteen negro 
 slaves. It must be remembered, therefore, that we are still tracing 
 1 See Gallatin's Synopsis, Arch. .4m., vol. ii., p. 114. 
 
1736.] 
 
 BIENVILLE'S EXPEDITION. 
 
 547 
 
 chronicles which derive their interest only from the results which were 
 to grow from petty beginnings, and not from the numbers engaged, 
 or, indeed, even from the personal characteristics of most of the 
 actors. 
 
 Bienville probably wished to show, that if he had been commander, 
 the savages would not have come off so well as they did Bienville >g 
 under Perier's administration. He demanded of the Chick- Jj^^tthe 
 asaws that they should surrender the Natchez. The Chick- Chlcka8aWB 
 asaws had by this time cemented alliances with the English of Caro- 
 lina, they were confident of their own power, and they sent back 
 word to Bienville that the Natchez and they now formed one nation, 
 and that they should not comply with his demand. Bienville then 
 determined to attack the Chickasaws. He sent orders to D'Artag- 
 nette, who commanded the fort at Kaskaskia, among the Illinois, to 
 
 Bienville's Army on the River. 
 
 meet him in person on the 10th of May, 1736, in the Chickasaw 
 country, with the largest army he could muster from Illinois Indians, 
 French troops, and settlers. Bienville himself proposed to lead an 
 army from New Orleans and Mobile. The expedition thus set in 
 motion was by far the most formidable which the little colony ever 
 attempted. Bienville's contingent made its rendezvous at Mobile. 
 On Easter Day, the 1st of April, it moved up the Mobile River in 
 a fleet of thirty piraguas and as many batteaux. On the 20th he 
 reached a point which he called Tombecbe, which is the Jones's 
 Bluff of the Little Tombigbee River of the Alabama geography of 
 to-day. Hither he had sent an advance guard, the year before, to 
 

 548 THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 build a fort. The Choctaws met him there with the calumet, and 
 received the tribute, for so they began to regard it, in considera- 
 tion of which they served as auxiliaries. On the 4th of May, the 
 Hisexpe- armv thus reinforced, reembarked and proceeded slowly up 
 dition. tfte r i veri an( j ? on ^ e 24th disembarked for the last time, 
 and then began the construction of a palisade and shed for the pro- 
 tection of its stores. 
 
 The enemy was in a stockade fort, seven miles distant, built upon 
 a hill, surrounded by the cabins of an Indian village. The fort was 
 built of heavy timbers a foot in diameter : it was circular in shape, 
 with three rows of loop holes. The Chickasaws were not only pro- 
 tected by the logs, but stood in pits or trenches which covered all but 
 the upper parts of their bodies. They kept silence, and let the French 
 come within good musket shot before they fired. As the French ap- 
 proached they saw Englishmen whom they supposed to be allies of 
 the Chickasaws. The stockade proved to be quite too strong to be 
 taken by storm, as Bienville had proposed. After a loss of nearly 
 one hundred and twenty, very severe for so small a force, he was 
 obliged to withdraw his men, without producing the least effect on the 
 enemy. 1 He spent the night in his camp, but on the next day he had 
 the grief of seeing that his men, who had been left dead on the field, 
 had been cut to pieces by the Chickasaws, who had exposed the quar- 
 tered bodies on the palisades in derision. A rumor was spread that 
 The French D'Artagnette, with the Illinois contingent, was approach- 
 repuiued. j n g g u |. Bi env ille had no such good fortune. He returned 
 to his camp on the Tombigbee, not much molested on his retreat. 
 His attack was made on the 26th of May. 
 
 Poor D'Artagnette had, in fact, with military precision, arrived in 
 time to make the junction contemplated in his orders. He reached 
 the Chickasaw country on the 9th of May, and waited within sight 
 of the enemy till the 20th, but heard no news of Bienville. His 
 Indians murmured, and wished either to retreat or attack. D'Artag- 
 nette chose to attack, and did so successfully, but while driving 
 the Chickasaws from a second village he was himself wounded. His 
 Indians abandoned him, but a loyal company of forty-eight French- 
 men held by him. This force was so small, that he was compelled to 
 surrender, and he and they were prisoners of the Chickasaws at the 
 time when Bienville made his rash and unsuccessful attack. The 
 whole Illinois detachment had been 396 men, of whom 130 were 
 Fat* of the French, 38 Iroquois, 38 Arkansas, and 190 Illinois and Mi- 
 prisonere. amis. So soon as Bienville retreated, the savages took their 
 French prisoners to a plain, tied all but one of them to stakes and 
 
 1 This estimate of the loss is that of Du Tortre in a despatch sent to Paris. Dumont's 
 account says the French loss was thirty-two killed, and at least.sixty wounded. 
 
1740.J A SECOND EXPEDITION. 649 
 
 burned them to death by a slow fire. The whole expedition was a 
 wretched failure, of which the blame seems to rest with Bienville. 
 The Chickasaws never lost the prestige which their success gave them. 
 The historian of Alabama says of them : " The Chickasaws have never 
 been conquered." l 
 
 In 1740 Bienville led another expedition against them by way of the 
 Mississippi river. He moved with thirty-six hundred men, of whom 
 one third were whites and the rest negroes and Indians, from Fort 
 Assumption, which stood near the site of our city of Memphis. This 
 was the largest army which the colony had ever put in the field. The 
 unconquered Chickasaws were frightened, end offered to make peace 
 on condition of surrendering all their white slaves. Bienville assented. 
 He received from them two English prisoners, satisfied himself that 
 they had no French in their hands, and with this concession, withdrew 
 his expedition. The Chickasaws pretended, and the French believed 
 what was probably true, that the Natchez had, for the time, so far 
 withdrawn from their confederacy, that a war against the former tribe 
 did not serve the purpose of vengeance against the latter. The two 
 campaigns certainly did not add to the reputation of Bienville as a 
 military leader. But he retains the reputation of a successful admin- 
 istrator of a colony, who had to act often on his own responsibility, 
 who was always separated from his metropolitan masters by an ocean 
 of slow navigation, and often by the frequent wars. He dismissed his 
 auxiliaries with presents. Fort Assumption was razed, and no new 
 military works were erected on its site for one hundred and twenty 
 years. After an absence of more than ten months the army returned 
 to New Orleans. Bienville himself returned to France the next year, 
 and was succeeded by the Marquis de Vaudreuil. Bienville never re- 
 turned to America. He died in 1767. 
 
 In truth Louisiana had succeeded as a royal colony no better than 
 it succeeded under the Western Company. Its officers and garrisons 
 in Bienville's time entailed on the Crown an annual expense of five 
 hundred thousand livres, not a very large sum in current money, 
 but not inconsiderable in the pinched finances of the latter part of the 
 reign of Louis XV. If the figures could be relied on, with which the 
 Western Company gave back their charter to the King in June, 1731, 
 its population was then five thousand on the Mississippi 
 and all its affluents, beside two thousand slaves. A census campaign of 
 taken fifteen years later showed a population of only four 
 thousand whites, of whom eight hundred were the troops in the gar- 
 risons. These figures would show even a decrease in the years of the 
 Royal administration. Twenty years later, under the careful admin- 
 
 1 Pickett's Alabama. 
 
550 
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. 
 
 [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 Louis XV. 
 
 istration of Ulloa, a census showed a population of 5,526 whites, and 
 about as many blacks. It was not unnatural that Louis XV. should 
 
 care but little for his namesake, 
 which, after half a century of 
 nursing, had shown such incon- 
 siderable growth, and gave so 
 little visible promise of im- 
 provement. An army of eight 
 hundred men to protect four 
 times their number of settlers 
 gave indeed but little hope for 
 any permanent establishment of 
 value. 
 
 The Marquis de Vaudreuil was 
 appointed Bienville's successor, 
 and he filled the post of Royal 
 Governor at New Orleans for 
 eight years, whence he was 
 transferred to Canada. He 
 was in fear that the English 
 would attack him by sea, as 
 through the Choctaw allies of the Carolinians and Georgians they 
 threatened him by land. Under more vigorous lead the English would 
 have done so. But no English fleet attempted to force his petty for- 
 tifications. By land, his people were, again and again, in terror of 
 attack from the Choc taws of the English party. At one time Vaud- 
 reuil was inspecting his post at Mobile, so that the colony at New 
 Orleans was without its chief. On the German Coast so called, on 
 ^ ne river, and indeed close to the little city, the Choctaws 
 killed one and another Frenchman. Vaudreuil returned to 
 g n( j j. ne c }{.y j n dj srnav< Jj e sent out detachments of re- 
 gulars, militia, and friendly Indians, on every side. His strategy was 
 successful, and was rewarded by the capture of the whole Choctaw 
 army, excepting two men. The others, only eleven in number, 
 were brought prisoners to the city, and the Marquis's satisfaction for 
 such a victory was of course chastened by his mortification for the 
 terror of his subordinates. 
 
 In 1750 that part of the Choctaws who were attached to the French 
 interest obtained a series of crushing victories over the smaller party 
 who were in the English interest, and, by what was known as the 
 Grand Pre Treaty, extorted such hard terms as to secure for a time 
 peace from their most dreaded enemy. The Chickasaws offered 
 peace also. But Vaudreuil wrote to his government that he did 
 
 conflicts 
 with the 
 
1752.] PRODUCTIONS OF THE COLONY. 551 
 
 not want to make a treaty with them till he had conquered them. 
 In this desire, he was never gratified. 
 
 In 1751, so great was Vandreuil's consideration at Court, and so 
 desirous was the Court to maintain Louisiana against the English, that 
 he had under his orders two thousand soldiers, a force more than 
 one third of the whole white population of that immense region. 
 With such a force the expenses of the colony of course increased also, 
 and in the last year of his administration they were 930,767 livres. 
 On the 9th of February, 1753, he gave up his place to Capt. Kerlerec 
 of the Navy, and took the command of Canada. The petty victory 
 over the Choctaws which we have mentioned, a series of 
 anxious discussions about the paper currency of a handful 
 
 of traders, and the well sustained memoirs in which a large auctions of 
 staff of officers explain how the river should and how it 
 should not be defended, make up the voluminous annals of the col- 
 ony during his administration. Meanwhile that conquest of the soil 
 and climate made progress which is so seldom recorded in history, 
 but on which all history of course depends. That commerce in the 
 wax of the candleberry to which Charlevoix had called attention, 
 still attracted interest. One year the king bade Vaudreuil pur- 
 chase the whole crop on his account at the rate of ten or twelve 
 livres a pound. A dispatch of a later year says that one planter 
 raised six thousand pounds of the wax, a handsome crop for those 
 days at the rate named. The report says that this is the only lu- 
 minary used by the inhabitants. Another report of the year 1752 l 
 speaks of the difficulties of the cotton culture, resulting from the 
 amount of labor necessary to separate seed from fibre, and alludes 
 to a gin which M. Dubreuil, the same planter who had succeeded best 
 with the wax, had invented for that purpose. This unsuccessful gin 
 antedates Eli Whitney's by forty-one years. The manufacture of 
 sugar, sufficient for the needs of the few colonists, was introduced, but 
 afterwards declined. Indigo was cultivated, and eventually became 
 an article of export. There can be no doubt that while the expenses 
 of the crown doubled in the period of Vaudreuil's stewardship, the 
 real prosperity and wealth of the planters were increasing in a larger 
 proportion. Full memoirs preserved in the French Archives show 
 that intelligent men, even then, foresaw in a small degree some part of 
 the immense value which the valley of the Mississippi had in store for 
 the world. It is interesting to see that at a period of scarcity in New 
 Orleans the Illinois farms were already productive enough to supply 
 the distant seaport with bread-stuffs. The culture of silk and tobacco 
 
 1 No. 241. Portfolio No. v. Archives de ta Marine, Sept. 22, 1752. M. Michel to the 
 minister. 
 
652 
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. 
 
 [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 is eagerly recommended, and the development of the mines of copper 
 and lead in the northwest, the existence of which was perfectly well 
 known to the officers of the crown. 
 
 The administration of Kerlerec, as governor, covered ten years. At 
 the end of that time he was recalled to France, and thrown into the 
 Bastile. He was a captain in the French navy, who had distinguished 
 himself in battle. But in the colony he was constantly quarrelling 
 with Rochemore, the intendant of commerce, and his arrest was caused 
 by charges of mal-appropriation of ten millions of livres in four years 
 under the pretence of preparation of war. He held office during the 
 most of the French war of George II.'s reign, and for long periods 
 of that time was left without any direct dispatches from France ; for 
 the English cruisers, who never attacked him directly, were successful 
 in cutting off all his communications. Kerlerec's administration began 
 with high hopes of conciliating the Choctaws. But he soon lost con- 
 fidence in them, and his reports home, regarding the under officers of 
 the crown, and indeed most of the people, with whom he had to 
 do, were anything but flattering. The army itself was recruited from 
 such worthless material as to give Kerlerec quite as much trouble 
 as the savages whom it was to keep in order. 
 
 Coins struck in France for the Colonies. 
 
The Old Fort at Saint Augustine 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 SPANISH COLONIZATION. 
 
 SPANISH FOOTHOLD IN THE UNITED STATES. SUCCESSIVE ACQUISITIONS BY THE 
 UNITED STATES. THE FORTUNES OF FLORIDA. BORDER WARS WITH CAROLINA 
 AND GEORGIA. OGLETHORPE'S EXPEDITIONS. FLORIDA CEDED TO ENGLAND. 
 ITS POPULATION. DISCOVERY OF CALIFORNIA. ORIGIN OF THE NAME. 
 ROMANCE OF ESPLANDIAN. FATHER NICA'S PRETENDED DISCOVERIES. CORO- 
 NADO'S EXPLORATION IN ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO. DRAKE IN CALIFORNIA. 
 His RECEPTION BY THE INDIANS. LOCALITIES OF HIS DISCOVERIES. 
 
 THE destiny of the United States has passed so far under the em- 
 pire of institutions which have an English origin, that it is easy to 
 forget how large a portion of her territory has in other times be- 
 longed to the Spanish crown. The prevalence of the English lan- 
 guage as the language of public procedure in every State and Territory, 
 and the sway, in a very large degree, of English law and the habits 
 of English administration, are enough to keep out of view the fact, 
 that, at one time or another, more than half the present Extent of 
 territory of the United States has been, on the map at least, dominion in 
 subject to the King of Spain. The Spanish claim to Mex- America, 
 ico and the regions north of it, was pressed indefinitely northward. 
 Somewhere on the coast of what we call Oregon, Drake saw the 
 shore in 1579, and he took possession of the country in California for 
 
564 SPANISH COLONIZATION. [CHAI-. XXIII. 
 
 the English crown as New Albion. But England scarcely asserted 
 her rights under this discovery for centuries. 
 
 At one and another time since she seized the port of Astoria in 
 1813, she has made one and another claim to this territory, running 
 back to her rights under Drake's discovery. But the decision which 
 gave to the United States, holding under the Spanish claim, the 
 region south of the line of 49 north latitude, states, quite correctly, 
 the average opinion of the older geographers. 1 On the seacoast of 
 The Pacific ^ e Pacific the Spanish claim resulted from a series of dis- 
 siop* coveries and explorations, beginning, as will be seen, when 
 
 Hernando Cortez discovered California in 1536. In the interior the 
 eagerness for silver early established colonies of which Santa F in 
 New Mexico was the most important of those far to the northward. 
 It is generally supposed, that the droves of wild horses now found 
 through the whole of Western America, as far north as the climate 
 will permit, were of Spanish origin. So far as the natives received 
 any supplies from the workshops of civilization, it was from Spanish 
 traders ; and, to this hour, some fragments of the Spanish language, 
 acquired at a very early period, will be found in their dialect. 
 
 Eastward of the Rocky Mountains, the Spaniards showed no dispo- 
 spanishpoi- sition to extend their dominion, after the expeditions of De 
 the Rocky Soto and Ponce de Leon had seemed to prove that no treas- 
 Mountains. ure o f g()1( j or s ii ver was to be found there. The Spanish 
 
 government made no protest when, under Louis XIV., the French 
 claimed a right to the whole valley of the Mississippi, founded upon 
 the discoveries of Joliet, Marquette, and La Salle. On the ground, 
 an irritable commander of a Spanish post in Texas might quarrel 
 with an impetuous French officer in a garrison on the Red River. 
 But at home the policy of Spain was well defined ; and if the King 
 of France were willing to keep a line of defence between the English 
 colonies and the Spanish mines, the King of Spain made no objec- 
 tion. It was not until the treaty of Paris, in 1763, that the King 
 of France showed that he was tired of this expensive good-nature. 
 He then gave this immense territory to his well-beloved brother of 
 Spain, who showed himself, indeed, somewhat coy about receiving 
 the magnificent but costly present. Twenty years afterward, the 
 Spanish crown gave it back to France, only to learn, in a few months, 
 that France had sold it to the young Republic of America. 
 
 Florida, from which so much was hoped in the days of Ponce de 
 Leon, had remained in the possession of Spain, after the cruel mas~ 
 
 1 This claim was reinforced by Gray's discovery of the Columbia River, and Lewis & 
 Clarke's exploration of it. These discoveries pave to the United States precisely the same 
 sort of right as that which La Salle's gave to France, for the valley of the Mississippi. 
 
1819.] FLORIDA. 555 
 
 J 
 
 sacres which have been already described. 1 But no discoverer had 
 found gold, or silver, or the fountain of life in Florida. 
 
 ..... The Span- 
 
 The Spanish posts, therefore, were simply military positions, iardsin 
 held to insure the command of the Gulf of Mexico. On the 
 eastern side St. Augustine, without trade, and with but a small civil 
 population, was held by Spain until 1762, when it was ceded to Eng- 
 land, to be restored in 1783. By Spain it was ceded to the United 
 States in 1819. On the other side, Pensacola, as has been seen, once 
 and again fell into the hands of the French. Afterwards, with East- 
 ern Florida, it fell to the English. But no settlement of Florida 
 followed from either of these establishments. The territories, nomi- 
 nally Spanish, thus added to those which were colonized under the 
 flag and protection of England, or under titles derived from her, 
 cover rather more than half of the superficial area of the United 
 States, with the exception of the province of Alaska, recently pur- 
 chased from Russia. Of the several parts of this immense domain, 
 the earliest to come under the dominion of the United States, was 
 the western part of the valley of the Mississippi, which was that 
 which came latest under the Spanish flag. In 1819 the United 
 States acquired Florida from Spain, and all her rights on the west- 
 ern shore of the continent north of 42 north latitude, comprising 
 the State now known as Oregon, and Washington Territory. In 
 1845, by a joint resolution, the Congress of the United States an- 
 nexed Texas to the Union, and this decision was confirmed by the 
 arbitration of war. The question whether Texas were a part of 
 Louisiana or not, had always been an open question between France 
 and Spain, but it had practically been yielded by France, and in 
 the treaty of 1819 the United States had acquiesced in that decision. 
 By the treaties with Mexico of 1848 and 1853, the dominion of the 
 United States was extended by the acquisition of California and the 
 region now covered by the territory between that State and Texas. 
 
 We recur now to the earlier history of the Spanish possession of 
 these regions. 
 
 The reader has already been told 2 of the destruction of the oldest 
 town in the United States, St. Augustine, by Sir Francis 
 Drake, on his return from his expedition to the Spanish Drake s 
 Main. The Spanish Armada occupied the attention of Eng- 
 
 land too intensely, when Drake returned, for any effort to be 
 made, either to follow up his victory in Florida, or to renew the 
 English establishment at Roanoke. The Spaniards who had fled 
 from his arms in Florida, returned to the ruins of their fort and 
 reestablished it. The Menendez, who has earned the right to be 
 
 1 Vol. i., p. 208. * Vol. i., p. 222. 
 

 556 
 
 SPANISH COLONIZATION. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 called " great " by his cruelty and falsehood, had died. But the 
 government of St. Augustine was made hereditary in his family l 
 until the year 1655. The history of the colony, meanwhile, is scarcely 
 more than that of an insignificant garrison, elevated occasionally to 
 general interest in the events of a general war. 2 
 
 In 1593 twelve brothers of the order of St. Francis were sent to 
 Florida, to continue such missions as had been established 
 among the natives. By their efforts and those of other 
 brethren sent to continue and enlarge their work, many missions were 
 
 Missions in 
 Florida. 
 
 General View of St. Augustine. 
 
 established in the course of the next hundred years. Of these, the 
 most important was at first at the island of Guale. But the chief of 
 the savages in this neighborhood excited his people against them, in 
 a severe attack which resulted in the murder of five priests, and the 
 cruel injury of another. The Governor avenged them by burning the 
 granaries and dwellings of the Indians. In the years 1612 and 1613, 
 thirty-one missionaries of the same brotherhood were sent to Florida, 
 and the name of St. Helena was given to it as a religious province of 
 that order. 3 Twenty missions were now established, and the brethren 
 
 1 In Buckingham Smith's collection of Florida papers is the will of one of the smaller 
 Menendez governors. 
 
 2 It has been admirably treated, in its detail, by Mr. Fairbanks in his history. The 
 South Carolina Historical Collections give orijrinal authorities on the " wars " with Carolina 
 
 8 This name must not he confounded with the name of St. Helena on the shore of South 
 Carolina, though both had the same origin. 
 
1678.] THE SPANIARDS AND THE ENGLISH. 657 
 
 preached to the natives with success in their own language. In 1638, 
 a war broke out between the colony and the Apalachee Indians. 
 Such Indians as were captured were reduced to slavery ; 
 
 , - i . Slow growth 
 
 the tribe was so far overcome as to be kept for the time of the coi- 
 within its own limits. Meanwhile the growth of the colony 
 was so small, that in 1647, eighty-two years after Menendez founded 
 the colony, the number of families in St. Augustine was but three 
 hundred, and this was almost the whole of the settlement. There 
 were also fifty Franciscan friars domiciled in the city. When it is 
 remembered that Menendez took with him two thousand six hun- 
 dred and fifty colonists from Cadiz, it will be seen that the his- 
 tory of Florida, thus far, had been a history of decline and not of 
 progress. 
 
 With the colonists of Virginia and other northern colonies the 
 Spaniards had little intercourse, peaceful or otherwise. So 
 soon as Charles II. gave a charter for the settlement of English a 
 Carolina, which was in 1663, jealousies arose on both sides, 
 and the hatred of Englishmen for Spaniard, and Catholic for heretic, 
 was enough to keep the little colonies suspicious of each other, even 
 when nominal peace united their sovereigns at home. In 1665 an 
 expedition under Captain John Davis, a buccaneer, made a descent 
 "on St. Augustine and ravaged the town. In 1667, however, Charles 
 II. of England concluded a treaty with Spain, 1 in which Spain con- 
 ceded to England all colonies which Charles and his subjects " then 
 possessed." On the other hand, Charles agreed to cut off all future 
 protection from the buccaneers, who, till this time, had considered 
 Spanish property to be fair prize if found in the Pacific, and were 
 not distressed if they seized it in the other great ocean. No Eng- 
 lish settlement was in fact made in Carolina, under Charles's charter, 
 until 1670. But, in the diplomacy of the two nations, it was virtually 
 agreed that the English claim to that region was good, and the line 
 of the St. Mary's River was eventually agreed on as the line of the 
 separation between the English and Spanish dominions. It is there- 
 fore, to this day, the dividing line between the State of Georgia, which 
 bears an English name, and that of Florida, which retains the Spanish 
 name given it by Ponce de Leon. 2 
 
 The Spaniards, on their side, attacked the English colonies in 1670 
 and 1686, but without other success than burning and ravaging the 
 homes of a few settlers on the coast. Such raids, of course, kept up 
 the feeling of mutual hatred, strong enough at the very best. But 
 
 1 Each king was Charles II. Charles II. of England reigned from 1660 to 1685. Charles 
 II. of Spain reigned from 1665 to 1700. 
 
 2 See vol. i., p. 147. 
 

 558 
 
 SPANISH COLONIZATION. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIH. 
 
 for the rest of the seventeenth century, there was no exploit on 
 either side which deserves the name of war. 
 
 Menendez had been authorized, at the very beginning of the col- 
 ony, to introduce five hundred negro slaves. So many laboring men 
 pressed themselves upon him in Spain, that he made no use of the 
 concession. But in 1687 one hundred negroes were introduced as 
 slaves, and for nearly two centuries Florida suffered under the dis- 
 advantage of slave labor. Cabrera, who was governor in 1681, un- 
 dertook the enterprise of removing the Indians not Christianized to 
 the islands of the coast. The result was simply an insurrection of 
 these tribes, who took refuge within the limits of Carolina. In a sub- 
 sequent incursion, these Indians attacked the Tomoquas, a Christian 
 
 Pensacol*. 
 
 tribe, friendly to the Spaniards, whose name is still preserved in the 
 Tomoka River. They killed a large number of the Tomoquas, and 
 carried the other prisoners to the colony of St. Helena, where their 
 Christianity did not protect them so far but that they were reduced 
 into slavery. 
 
 Meanwhile, on the western coast of the peninsula of Florida, the 
 Spanish government established a fort at Pensacola, in the 
 
 The settle- 
 
 Pensacola. 
 
 year 1696. The name of the place, spelled by them Pen- 
 cacola, is that of a tribe of Indians who once resided there. 
 The Spaniards were stimulated by the efforts of the French to settle 
 at the mouth of the Mississippi, and, indeed, had only just founded 
 Pensacola when the French colony under D'Iberville arrived. A 
 square fort, known by the name of Charles, the king of Spain, a 
 church, and other public buildings, were erected. Andres d'Arriola 
 was the first governor. Within two years D'Iberville touched at the 
 new post, nor was it long before his brother was attacking it, in the 
 War of the Succession. Before that time, however, new opportunities 
 
1700.] WAR WITH CAROLINA. 55S 
 
 for carnage and ravage had been found by English and Spaniards on 
 the eastern shore. 
 
 Near the close of the year 1700, on the death of Governor Blake of 
 Carolina, James Moore had been chosen as his successor. With the 
 poor object of personal gain from the traffic in Indian slaves, he 
 granted commissions for the capture of Indians with power to sell 
 them as slaves ; and, on the outbreak in Europe of the war with 
 Spain, he undertook an expedition against St. Augustine with the 
 same object in view. He embarked with this purpose in September, 
 1702, having arranged that Daniel, an officer of spirit, should make a 
 descent upon the town by land, while Moore himself block- En g ligh ex . 
 aded the harbor by sea. The Spaniards, under their gov- |^AU^ 
 ernor Cuniga, had heard of the movement, and retired with tine 
 their effects into their castle. When Moore arrived, he found his 
 guns too weak to assault them, and sent Daniel to Jamaica for heavy 
 artillery. While Daniel was absent, two Spanish ships, one of 
 twenty-two guns and one of eighteen, appeared off the harbor, and 
 so terrified the English that they raised the siege. Moore retired 
 by land to Charleston, without losing a man, burning the town of 
 St. Augustine and his own transports. Daniel, on his return with 
 the mortars and guns for which he had been sent, hardly escaped 
 capture. 
 
 The Spaniards retaliated for this foolish assault in exciting the 
 Apalachee Indians, their allies, to attack the English set- g^utR,,. 
 tlements. The Apalachees marched, nine hundred in num- tallatlon 
 ber, but fell into an ambush of the Creeks, who were always the 
 firm allies of the English, and were routed by them. In reward for 
 this service, all who survived of the Indians who had been held as 
 slaves in St. Augustine and those who had been taken since 1640, 
 were now set free by Cuniga, under a promise that they should return 
 to work on the fortifications whenever they were needed. Cuniga 
 urged the government at home to send him the means to make five 
 new posts on his frontiers. Before any such aid reached him, Moore, 
 with a thousand Creeks and about fifty of the Carolina militia, at- 
 tacked the Indian allies of the Spaniards and defeated them. He 
 carried away three hundred slaves, most of the people of seven 
 Indian towns. 1 He burned San Luis and Ayaralla, and took the 
 church plate and vestments, and everything else of value. These 
 Indians had, before this time, made some progress in civilization it 
 was, perhaps, the loosening of the habits of savage life which made 
 them so easy a prey to the untamed savages who attacked them. 
 This incursion was followed by others, frequent enough to forbid the 
 1 South Carolina Report in Carroll's Collections, ii. 353. 
 
660 SPANISH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XXHI. 
 
 recolonization of the wasted country before the end of the war. So 
 enraged were the Indians that the Carolinians were obliged to put 
 up forts for their frontier defence, one of which was established at 
 Apalachicola, close to the limits of the State of Florida. 1 The Ye- 
 massees, who had been driven out from Carolina into Florida, kept 
 up an unremitted warfare on the frontiers. 
 
 So soon as Bienville, Governor of Louisiana, learned in 1719, that 
 war existed between Spain and France, he took Pensacola by 
 
 Capture and . r . . J 
 
 recapture of surprise. The Spaniards retook it at once, in the same 
 way. But, in September of the same year, Bienville took 
 it again. This time the French commander destroyed the fortifica- 
 tions and the town, leaving only a small battery and a handful of 
 men. In 1722, the Spaniards reoccupied the harbor, and built a 
 town on Santa Rosa island, near where Fort Pickens now stands. 
 But the settlement was gradually transferred to the northern side of 
 the bay, where the present city of Pensacola stands ; the point taken 
 on the island having proved particularly sandy and barren. 
 
 In 1732, Oglethorpe's settlement of Georgia pressed even closer 
 than Carolina had done on the frontiers of Florida. Oglethorpe 
 Hostilities claimed that the Altamaha was the southern boundary of his 
 d province. The English fort, King George, erected on the 
 banks of that river, had already given umbrage to the Span- 
 iards, and in 1736, the Spanish government ordered Oglethorpe to 
 evacuate all territory south of St. Helena Sound. The Governor 
 brought three companies of foot with him to Frederica, the most 
 northerly Spanish settlement, the place still known by the same 
 name on the sea-coast of Georgia. Oglethorpe went at once to Eng- 
 land for aid. At that moment the people of England were indig- 
 nant with Spain for other reasons, and Oglethorpe returned, with the 
 commission of major-general, and a regiment of men. The Span- 
 iards strengthened St. Augustine in their turn. In October, Wai- 
 pole's pacific policy was abandoned, war was declared, and the Eng- 
 lish sent a squadron under Admiral Vernon to the West Indies, with 
 directions to aid Oglethorpe, who at once set on foot operations 
 against St. Augustine. He succeeded in cementing the alliance be- 
 tween the English and the Creeks, who hated the Spaniards with a 
 very perfect hatred. 
 
 The officers of the navy having agreed to cooperate in the attack 
 on St. Augustine, Oglethorpe appointed a rendezvous on the Florida 
 side of the St. John's River and moved on the 9th of May, 1740, with 
 
 1 This is not at the site of the present town of Apalachicola. The point was farther up 
 the river of that name, not far from Chattahoochee. The fort known as Savanas was still 
 farther up, and must not lit- confounded with the site of Savannah. 
 
1740.] 
 
 WAR WITH GEORGIA. 
 
 561 
 
 four hundred whites and a large party of Indians. The next day he in- 
 vested a Spanish outpost called Diego, belonging to a Spaniard, named 
 Spinosa, reduced and garrisoned it. He then returned to his rendez- 
 vous, and with his whole command two thousand men, regular 
 troops, provincials, and Indians, moved against Fort Moosa, two miles 
 from St. Augustine. The Spaniards abandoned this post and retired into 
 the town, which he had given them time to provision by driving in 
 cattle, while he was occupied with Fort Diego and his counter-marches. 
 He was compelled to blockade the harbor and invest the town. He left 
 
 Oglethorpe's Attack on St. Augustine (from " An Impartial Account of the Late Expedition to St. Augus- 
 tine." London, I742}. 1 
 
 ninety-five Highlanders and forty-two Indians at Moosa, to intercept all 
 supplies of cattle for the town. This was all the force he left on the 
 land side. He sent Colonel Vanderdussen, with the Carolina regiment, 
 to take Point Quartelle on the water side, about a mile distant from 
 the castle, and build a battery. With his own regiment and most of 
 the Indians he landed on the island of Anastasia. One of the ships 
 was stationed to the southward to block up the Matanzas passage, and 
 the others blockaded the harbor. Batteries were erected on Anastasia. 
 Having made these dispositions, Oglethorpe summoned the Spanish 
 
 l KEY TO THE MAP. 1. The Town. 2. The Castle. 3. A Batter)-. 4. Moosa or Negro Fort. 5. The Look- 
 out. 6. Small Fort abandoned by the Spaniards. 7. A Battery of one mortar, and three six-pounders. 8. 
 A Battery, one mortar, two eighteen-pounders, and one nine-pounder. 9 Six half galleys at anchor (Span- 
 ish). 10. A Battery, two mortars, four eighteen-pounders, and one nine-pounder. 11. Harbor " where 
 our vessels lay." 12. Carolina Regiments, first Camp on Pt. Quartelle. 13. Sailor's Camp. 14. Carolina 
 Regiments, Second Camp on Pt. Quartelle. 15. Carolina Camp upon Anastasia. 16. The Volunteers' Camp. 
 17 Gen Oglethorpe's Camp after he went from Anastasia. 
 
 VOL. II 36 
 
562 SPANISH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 garrison ; to receive from the Governor the cheerful answer that he 
 should be glad to kiss his hands in the fort. Oglethorpe then began 
 his attack by throwing shells into the town, which were returned by 
 the fort and six half galleys in the harbor. Little execution was done 
 on either side. Captain Warren of the English navy offered to lead 
 a night attack against the Spanish galleys, but a council of war de- 
 clared this impracticable. On the other hand, the Spanish com- 
 mander sent out a detachment against Colonel Palmer in his isolated 
 post at Moosa, and broke it up, killed him and sixty-eight of his 
 men, and took many prisoners. A party of Chickasaws coming to 
 the English camp, cut off a Spaniard's head and brought it to Ogle- 
 thorpe. He showed his indignation, called them barbarous dogs and 
 bade them begone. The proud " unconquered Chickasaws " were 
 offended, and said the French would not treat them thus, had they 
 carried in an English head, which was probably true. These allies, 
 thus rebuffed, deserted the English camp. The vessel at the Matan- 
 zas passage was not a sufficient guard on the south. For, by the 
 Mosquito inlet, which runs parallel to the sea, supplies from Cuba 
 were received by the garrison. The master of the vessel at Ma- 
 tanzas Inlet could see them pass, beyond his range of prevention. 
 Some Spanish prisoners, who were carried to Oglethorpe, told him 
 that the reinforcements were seven hundred men, with a large supply 
 of provisions. All prospect was thus lost of starving the garrison. 
 Retreat of The naval commander of the English feared hurricanes, and 
 the English. ^^ jj e mus ^ withdraw. The Carolinian troops withdrew 
 without asking leave. And poor General Oglethorpe himself, sick of 
 a fever, was obliged to withdraw his own regiment, and reached Fred- 
 erica early in July. 
 
 So disgraceful a defeat of a force so considerable greatly elated the 
 Spaniards. When their supplies arrived from the Havana, they had 
 but three days' bread, and they piously ascribed their relief to St. 
 Rosana, the Virgin of the Apalachees. The Carolinians, who had 
 expended men and money freely in the expedition, were indignant, 
 and charged Oglethorpe with utter incompetency, nor were the officers 
 of the English army and navy of another opinion. 
 
 Monteano, the Spanish Governor, who had defended his post so well, 
 expected a renewal of the attack in the autumn, which would have 
 been a much more favorable season for his enemies. He begged for 
 reinforcements, and received eight companies of infantry. But no 
 second attack came. He was tempted to retaliate. A terrible fire 
 had devastated Charleston, and he urged the Governor at Cuba to 
 make an attack on the place at the moment of its exhaustion. His 
 advice was not taken in 1741, but in the next year a fleet of thirty- 
 
1762.] 
 
 FLORIDA CEDED TO ENGLAND. 
 
 563 
 
 six sail with two thousand men was sent to him. He added a force 
 of one thousand men, took the command, and sailed for the harbor of 
 St. Simon's, better known now, perhaps, as the harbor of Brunswick. 
 This movement, however, was, in its turn, unsuccessful, and Monteano 
 returned as much mortified as Oglethorpe the year before. 
 
 In March of the next year, Oglethorpe took the aggressive, and 
 marched to the very walls of St. Augustine, with such celer- continued 
 ity, that his Indian allies killed forty Spanish soldiers before hostilitie8 - 
 they could enter the fort. But, failing to draw out the Spaniards 
 for an encounter in the field he again retired, and in 1748, peace at 
 home closed these miserable hostilities on the frontier. The garrison 
 
 Old Gate at St. Augustine. 
 
 at St. Augustine was so reduced that in 1759 the whole force was but 
 five hundred men. When in 1762 hostilities broke out again be- 
 tween England and Spain, an English fleet seized the Havana, and, 
 on the negotiation of peace, Spain was glad to cede Florida to regain 
 Cuba. This measure indeed was necessary to the tripartite 
 diplomacy between England, Spain, and France, in which Fiona* to 
 eastern Louisiana was ceded to England. For, where east- 
 ern Louisiana began and where Florida ended, had never been de- 
 termined. Spain gained by that treaty all western Louisiana, and 
 could well afford to give up Florida to the victorious English, who 
 thus carried to the Gulf the frontier of that colonial empire which 
 was to be theirs for so few years. The English government named 
 
 
564 SPANISH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 General Grant Governor of East Florida, and he received the post from 
 the Spaniards. A t the period of the evacuation the whole population 
 amounted to 5,700 persons, including a garrison of 2,000 men. Many 
 condition of ^ e ^ * ne place never to return. Three years afterward, a 
 fnd^rfter 1 traveller speaks of Picolata, a small fort and garrison on 
 the cession. tne g t j o h n> Mr R o n e ' s settlement, twenty-five miles above, 
 and Mr. Spalding's trading house, fifteen miles farther up, as the only 
 stations on this magnificent river. 1 The greater part of the popu- 
 lation of Florida consisted of a mixture of the remnants of the 
 Cowetas, Talipoosas, Coosas, Apalachees, Cussetas, Ockmulgees, Wee- 
 tumkas, Pakanas, Taensas, Chaesihoomas, Abekas, and other tribes, 
 who had organized in a confederacy under the name, since well known 
 and formidable, of Muscogees. From this confederacy the Seminoles 
 afterwards parted ; their name Isty-Semole, wild men, indicates that 
 they were hunters, rather than farmers. In 1773, Bartram speaks of 
 the Seminoles as but a weak people in respect of numbers ; he sup- 
 poses all of them would not people one of the Muscogee towns. As 
 civilization advanced, and the Indian towns were broken up, the 
 " wild men " must have gained accessions from their former kindred. 
 Bartram " ventures to assert that no part of the globe so abounds 
 with wild game or creatures fit for the food of man " as the territory 
 which they then inhabited. The population of this Muscogee confede- 
 racy, sixty years after, was twenty-six thousand. 2 The population of 
 Indians and whites in 1762 was probably larger than that of whites 
 and negroes in 1830, when there were only about fifteen thousand of 
 each of those races, reported in the census of the United States. 
 
 While the kings of Spain followed up thus languidly the expedi- 
 tions of Ponce de Leon and of Hernando de Soto, in Florida and the 
 other eastern regions traversed by those adventurers, their viceroys and 
 other officers in Mexico showed more eagerness both in discovery and 
 in colonization to the northward, and their enterprises, both by sea and 
 by land, come within the range of the historian of the United States. 
 Hernando Cortez himself, as early as 1534, sent out an expedition 
 of discovery under Hernando de Grijalva on the Pacific coast, 
 i in which that commander first discovered the peninsula of 
 California. Not long before, a Spanish author, 3 who had 
 with very inferior genius attempted to write a sequel to Lobeira's in- 
 imitable romance of Amadis of Gaul, had invented a pagan queen of 
 
 1 Bartram found only the same settlements in 1773, three more trading-posts were to be 
 established in that year. His map shows the sites of " Hollestown " and Spalding's post. 
 
 2 Roman's Florida. Gallatin's Synopsis, p. 101. 
 8 Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo. 
 
1534.] 
 
 CALIFORNIA." 
 
 565 
 
 Amazons, who brought from the " Right hand of the Indies " her 
 allies to the assistance of the infidels in their attacks on Constanti- 
 nople. In this romance which 
 bore the name of " Esplandian," 
 the Emperor Esplandian, the 
 imaginary son of the imaginary 
 Amadis, appears as the Greek 
 emperor, living in Constantino- 
 ple. The imaginary Amazo- 
 nian queen is Calafia, and to 
 her imagined kingdom, blazing 
 with gold and diamonds and 
 pearls, the author had given the 
 name " California," a name per- 
 haps derived from the word 
 Calif, which in the mind of the 
 children of crusaders was con- 
 nected with paynim lands. This 
 romance, which would now be 
 forgotten but for this name 
 California, and from a single 
 reference to it in Don Quixote, 
 was a comparatively new novel in the days of Cortez, the first edition 
 having been issued from the press only in the year 1510, and the sec- 
 ond in 1519. Both Grijalva and Cortez were still deluded 
 by the universal impression of their time that they were on name oaii- 
 the coast of Asia or in its neighborhood ; and, having discov- 
 ered this region near the latitude of Constantinople " on the right 
 hand of the Indies," they were not unwilling to engage the interest 
 of the romance-reading world by giving to their discovery the name 
 of the gold and diamond bearing region of Amazons. 
 
 This unknown country, which by this accident gave the name to 
 the country which proved to be the richest gold-bearing region in the 
 world, was thus described by the exuberant fancy of the romancer, 
 twenty-five years before Grijalva discovered the peninsula of Califor- 
 nia, and at least thirty years before the discovery of that part of the 
 mainland which has yielded to the world its untold millions of gold. 
 
 " Know that on the right hand of the Indies there is an island 
 called California, very close to the side of the Terrestrial Paradise, 1 
 and it was peopled by black women without any man among them, 
 
 1 In the cosmogonv of that time it was supposed, as it had been supposed in Dante's 
 time, that the Terrestrial Paradise was opposite to Jerusalem. Compare Mr. Hale's paper, 
 Am. Ant. Soc. Transactions, April, 1872. 
 
 Portrait of Cortez 
 
666 SPANISH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 for they lived in the fashion of Amazons. They were of strong and 
 hardy bodies, of ardent courage, and great force. Their island was 
 the strongest in all the world, with its steep cliffs and rocky shores. 
 Their arms were all of gold, and so was the harness of the wild beasts 
 which they tamed and rode. For in the whole island 1 there was no 
 metal but gold. They lived in caves wrought out of the rock with 
 much labor. They had many ships with which they sailed out to 
 other countries to obtain booty." In another part of the romance it 
 is said coolly that precious stones are to be found in California like 
 stones of the field for their abundance. 
 
 The imperious and impetuous Cortez was dissatisfied with the slow 
 Expedition progress of Grijalva, and embarked himself, in hope of more 
 of cortez. SUC cess, with four hundred Spaniards and three hundred 
 slaves in 1535. He had, before this, sent a small expedition north by 
 land, of whose fate he never heard a word. He now coasted both 
 sides of the Gulf of California, then called the Gulf of Cortez, but 
 known for nearly two centuries afterwards as the Red Sea. 2 During 
 his stay in the bay of Santa Cruz he learned the distressing news of 
 the arrival of the Viceroy Mendoza. The appointment of this officer 
 by the Emperor Charles left to the great conqueror no civil adminis- 
 tration, and restricted him to his duties as military commander. So 
 eager was he, however, for the further prosecution of discovery at the 
 north, that he sent Francisco de Ulloa to continue it, and in the 
 course of two years Ulloa traced the coasts of California nearly to the 
 mouth of the Colorado River of the West. 
 
 The very first exploration of the Gulf of California resulted in the 
 discovery of pearls, and from that day to this the pearl fishery has 
 been prosecuted there. In the excited notions of that day, it was 
 taken for granted that a country which produced pearls would pro- 
 duce gold and diamonds ; and it can hardly be doubted that a re- 
 flected glory from the romance of " Esplandian," and the gorgeous 
 description there of the imagined California, hung over the unex- 
 plored parts of the namesake of that province. Spaniards are pro- 
 verbially ready for building castles in the air ; and, although the 
 voyages of Grijalva, of Cortez, and of Ulloa, brought back no diamonds, 
 and no gold, yet they brought pearls enough to awaken popular 
 interest and curiosity. As it happened, also, these reports gave birth 
 to another romance hardly second in absurdity to the fables of Esplan- 
 dian. Mendoza, the viceroy, was disgusted when he found that his 
 rival Cortez still insisted on his right to send out explorers. When 
 
 1 It is possible that this reference to the island gives the reason why, in face of all ex- 
 plorations, the geographers so long marked the peninsula of California as an island. 
 
 2 So called by Marqnette in his Narrative. 
 
1540.] FATHER NIA AND CORONADO. 567 
 
 Cortez sent out Ulloa, Mendoza borrowed money with which to send 
 out Vasquez de Coronado in the same direction. Coronado sent in 
 advance a Franciscan friar named Marco de Ni^a, who had 
 with him a negro, one of the four men who had crossed the of Marco de 
 continent from the perilous expedition under Narvaez. 1 This 
 Father Marco showed a facility in narrative, which belongs only to 
 the master of that " lie with a circumstance " which is said to be the 
 most deceptive lie of all. Returning to Coronado he announced the 
 discovery of seven cities, whose number alone suggested the famous 
 " seven cities " of the island of the old legend. 2 To the capital of 
 these Seven Cities the name Cibola, or Cevola, was given. He gave 
 a description of the city of Cibola, as he finally arrived there after 
 thirty days of travel from St. Michael in Culiacan. 3 
 
 According to his story, Stephen Dorantes the negro, who had 
 served as in some sort a guide, and whom he had sent before him 
 had been killed by the jealous inhabitants of this city. Niga himself, 
 however, determined to see it with his own eyes ; and thus came 
 near enough for the mountain prospect which he describes. He then 
 fled back with his story to St. Michael in Culiacan, " with more fear 
 than victuals," as he says. 
 
 In sharp contrast with his tales of gold and silver and turquoises 
 and diamonds, is the business-like report of Vasquez de Expedit ioa 
 Coronado, who with a little army followed up the father's " d c ^ rt 
 traces. On the 22d of April, 1540, they left St. Michael, nado 
 and on the 23d of June, had arrived, by travelling in a northern 
 and northeasterly direction, on the confines of a desert country of 
 which Niga had warned them. Through the desert " is a most 
 wicked way, at least thirty leagues and more because they are inac- 
 cessible mountains." After the thirty leagues, however, they found 
 pleasant country, with rivers and grass, and, in a day more, they met 
 Indians who at first seemed friendly. But a day or two more showed 
 that the natives meant to defend their passes, but brought Coronado 
 to a town, which he called Grenada, and which, however unlike the 
 Cibola of Father Marco's description, he was willing to accept for it. 
 
 " To be brief," he writes, " I can assure yotir honour that the friar 
 saith truth in nothing that he reported, but all was quite the con- 
 trary." Still the names of the cities proved to be correct, and al- 
 though the houses were not wrought with turquoises nor lime nor 
 brick, they proved to be " very excellent good houses " of three or 
 four lofts high, with good lodgings and fair chambers and ladders 
 
 1 See vol. i., p. 156. 
 
 2 See vol. i., pp. 13, 35. Compare note xxiv. in Appendix to vol. iii., Irving's Columbus, 
 8 See vol. i., p. 192. 
 
568 
 
 SPANISH COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XXIIL 
 
 instead of stairs. The seven cities were within four leagues of each 
 other and all together made the kingdom of Cibola. 
 
 Of turquoises, Coronado found none, though he thought some had 
 been carried away in fear of his arrival ; of emeralds he found two, 
 which were lost on his way home ; and of gold none. This was the 
 sorry result of the monk's story and of the expedition founded upon 
 it. The natives wore cotton dresses, though Coronado thought the 
 country too cold for cotton. 1 He said they ate the best cakes that he 
 
 A Pueblo restored (from Cozzens). 
 
 ever saw, and had the best way of grinding One woman of Cibola 
 would grind four times as much meal as four Mexican women. They 
 brought their salt from a lake only one day's journey from their city. 
 But they had no knowledge of the Northern Sea, nor of the Western 
 Sea, at which ignorance Coronado did not wonder, for he believed 
 himself one hundred and fifty leagues from the Western Ocean. He 
 describes what we must suppose to be buffaloes, as " sheep as big as a 
 horse, with very great horns and little tails, with their horns so big 
 that it is a wonder to behold their greatness." 
 
 Here ends Coronado's own narrative, which deserves respect and 
 credence. He would not return without doing something nor with 
 empty hands, and as he was told that the country was better and 
 better he went on. Cardenas with a company of cavalry continued 
 
 1 It afterwards proved that these dresses were made from the thread of the maguey. 
 
1543.] CABRILLO. 569 
 
 westward till he came to the sea. Coronado went to Tiguex and 
 there had news of the long-sought Quivira. After sieges and battles 
 and other adventures, he found a region which he accepted as worthy 
 of that name. But in place of the hoary headed King Tatatrax 
 whom he was to find here, who was girt with a Bracamart and 
 worshipped a cross of gold with the image of the Queen F ateofCor- 
 of Heaven, Coronado found a naked savage, with a jewel of ouado 
 copper hanging from his neck, " which was all his riches." After 
 two vears of such misadventures, Coronado fell from his horse and 
 
 m 
 
 went mad. The rest of his party, excepting one or two stragglers, 
 returned to Mexico. 1 
 
 They represented Quivira as in the latitude of forty, with grass, 
 plums, mulberries, nuts, melons, and grapes, but without cotton. 
 The people dressed in ox-hides and deer-skins. They reported, 
 Gomara says, that they had seen ships on the coast, with golden 
 albatrosses or pelicans on their prows, the seamen of which made 
 signs that their voyage had been thirty days. 
 
 The narrative of Gomara is entitled to little historical regard, that 
 of Father Nic,a to none. But the manly letter of Coronado commands 
 respect, and his narrative was unexpectedly confirmed nearly half a 
 century after, by a new discovery which enables us to fix with some 
 precision the site of Cibola and the "seven cities." Coronado's re- 
 port displeased Mendoza, who had spent large sums in the expedition. 
 But Coronado insisted that the country was poor and too far from suc- 
 cor, and therefore no establishment was made there. An after narra- 
 tive gives a more particular description of the buffalo, and alludes to 
 the custom of the natives of burning the buffaloes' dung. These no- 
 tices are alone sufficient, in a degree, to locate Quivira. But his tale of 
 dogs, trained as beasts of burden, has not yet been confirmed by 
 other writers. With the introduction of the horse, the Indians may 
 have abandoned such use of those animals. Meanwhile, upon the coast, 
 after various failures, a voyage was made in 1543, which resulted in 
 the discovery of the sea-coast of that part of California, Vo .vaeof 
 which is now so important a State. Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo Cabrill - 
 sailed with two ships from the port de Navidad, on the 27th of June 
 in that year. 
 
 Touching near the point of the peninsula, he coasted it on its ocean 
 side as far as the latitude of 44. Here he found extreme cold in 
 March of 1543-44, and returned. He gave names to different points, 
 which have not been retained, with the exception of Cape Mendocino, 
 which he named in honor of the Viceroy Mendoza, who had sent 
 him. He described it as a large cape between mountains covered with 
 
 1 Gomara, cited in Ilukluyt, iii. p. 454. 
 

 570 
 
 SPANISH COLONIZATION. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 snow. This cape subsequently became the point best known upon 
 that coast, because the Spanish fleets took their departure from it on 
 their way to the East Indies, and it was made the object of the 
 fleets eastward bound. Cabrillo placed it about the latitude of 40 
 north ; it lies, in fact, a few minutes northward of that parallel. Like 
 all other Spanish voyagers of that time, Cabrillo missed the remark- 
 able Bay of San Francisco, the entrance to which is no*t easily 
 discerned. Near its parallel he described some hills covered with trees, 
 which he called the Point of San Martin. 
 
 In the next year Juan Rodriguez repeated this voyage, by sail- 
 ing as far as Cape Mendocino ; but it was reserved for Sir Francis 
 Drake, the great English seaman, to discover a seaport in California. 
 He spent some weeks on shore, and took possession in the name of 
 Queen Elizabeth. He was engaged in his celebrated voyage round 
 the world. With his little fleet, consisting of the Pelican of one hun- 
 dred tons, the Elizabeth and the 
 Marigold each of eighty, Drake 
 had passed the Straits of Ma- 
 gellan, and entered the Pacific 
 Ocean on the 6th of Septem- 
 ber, 1578. On the 30th, he lost 
 sight of the Marigold in a gale, 
 and never saw her again. On 
 the 8th of October, the Eliza- 
 beth deserted him ; and he was 
 left to pursue his voyage of ad- 
 venture and discovery in the 
 Pelican alone. He was for the 
 rest of that year and the begin- 
 ning of 1579 the terror of the 
 Spanish ports in the South Seas. 
 Having left the port of Gua- 
 tulco on the Mexican coast, on 
 the 16th of April, he went di- 
 rectly to sea, and having first 
 sailed west and afterwards north, he ran as far north as the parallel 
 of 43, or, according to other accounts, of 48 north latitude, where 
 they were all dismayed by exceeding cold. Six men could hardly do 
 the work of three, so stiff was the rigging from ice, and this as late 
 in the year as the month of June. On the 5th, they made land, and 
 anchored in a bay much exposed to winds and flaws, and, " when they 
 ceased, there instantly followed thick stinking fogs, which nothing but 
 the wind could remove." If this land, the first seen by Drake on the 
 
 Sir Francis Drake. 
 
1579.] 
 
 DRAKE IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 571 
 
 coast north of Mexico, were indeed under the parallel of 42, as one 
 account implies, it is the shore of Pelican Bay, which has p^^ in 
 been rightly named from his ship, at the line which divides CaUforni - 
 Oregon from California. But, although the accounts are confused, 
 Drake seems to have seen the coast as far north as 43 30' of north 
 latitude, and indeed the claim was made that he saw it at 48 . 1 This 
 latitude corresponds best of all with the accounts of the severe cold. 
 But Robert Dudley, a son of the Earl of Leicester, himself an explorer, 
 and well acquainted with the survivors of these voyages, says : " The 
 reason why Drake sought and found the port of New Albion, was 
 that having passed beyond Cape Mendocino in latitude forty-two and 
 a half, in seeking for water as far as forty-three and a half, he found 
 the coast so cold in the month of June that his people could not bear 
 it." 2 Dudley gives the same latitudes to Drake's discoveries on his 
 map, and it seems probable that the parallel of 43 SO* 
 marks the northern limit of Drake's discovery. Discouraged of New AI- 
 by the cold, Drake ran down the shore toward the south- 
 east, and on the 17th of June, " it pleased God to send us into a fair 
 and good bay with good wind to enter the same." In this bay, which 
 he called the Port [ i,p 
 of New Albion, he 
 lay for more than 
 a month, having 
 landed his men, 
 while he refitted 
 his vessel, and built 
 a little fort on 
 shore. 
 
 The next morn- 
 ing after their ar- 
 rival an Indian ap- 
 peared in a canoe 
 making tokens of 
 respect and submission. He brought with him a little basket of 
 rushes filled with an herb called tabak, which he threw into Drake's 
 boat. Drake tried to recompense him, but in vain, he took noth- 
 ing but a hat thrown into the water. Then and afterwards, the ship's 
 company of the Pelican thought that these natives reverenced them 
 as gods. Drake proceeded to land his stores, by way of preparation 
 for repairing his ship. As he landed, a large company of the Indians 
 
 1 Humboldt evidently thought so. See Humboldt's New Spain, ii. 337, et eq. 
 
 2 Early maps, and a note on Robert Dudley in The Proceedings of the Am. Antiq. Soc. 
 Oct. 21, 1873. 
 
 Drake's Port of New Albion. 
 
572 
 
 SPANISH COLONIZATION. 
 
 [CHAP. XXTTI. 
 
 approached, and, to the end of his sojourn, the most friendly relations 
 were maintained between them and the Englishmen. Drake exerted 
 himself, probably not without success, to remove the impression that 
 he and his were gods. But he took the precaution of fortifying his 
 camp with care against too eager advances. 
 
 On the 26th of June, the news of the arrival of the strangers hav- 
 ing been widely dispersed, a greater number of people as- 
 
 An embassy , . , i i 
 
 from the in- sembled, among them the king himself, a man of goodly 
 stature, with many other tall and warlike men, and a guard 
 
 of a hundred strong. He sent two messengers in advance, to say that 
 
 the Hioh, or king, was 
 coming. One of the am- 
 bassadors spoke in a very 
 low tone, and the other 
 
 Drake and the Indian King. 
 
 repeated the message verbatim, very loud, in a ceremony which lasted 
 half an hour. They then asked for a present in token of friendship, 
 which Drake gladly gave. On their return to the king he and hia 
 train appeared in pomp. In front of him marched a tall man with 
 the sceptre or mace of black wood, a yard and a half long. Upon it 
 hung two crowns, one larger than the other, with three long chains of 
 bone. Such chains were regarded as marks of honor, the links in each 
 were almost innumerable. The king was clothed in a dress of rabbit 
 skins, this being a distinction which the others might not claim. 
 The guard were dressed in other skins. The great body of the people 
 
1579.] 
 
 DRAKE'S RECEPTION BY THE INDIANS. 
 
 573 
 
 were almost naked. Those about the king's person wore feathers as 
 a sign of honor, and had " cawls of feathers " covered with a down 
 growing on an herb, exceeding any other down for fineness, and only 
 to be used by those around the king. The common people were almost 
 naked, but their hair, also, was tied with feathers, arranged in a 
 different way. 1 
 
 Drake received them cordially but with precaution. The sceptre- 
 bearer and another 
 officer then spoke for 
 half an hour, one re- 
 peating very loudly 
 what the other said 
 in low tones. This 
 ceremony was fol- 
 lowed by a dance, 
 in which the women 
 joined. After this 
 they asked Drake to 
 sit down, and the 
 king and others were 
 then understood by 
 the Englishmen to 
 ask him "to become 
 the king and gover- 
 nor of their country," to whom they were most willing to resign 
 the government of themselves and their posterity : and more fully 
 to declare their meaning, the king, singing with all the rest, set the 
 crown upon Drake's head, and enriched his neck with all their chains. 
 They saluted him by the title of ffioh, and in a song and dance con- 
 gratulated themselves that now he was their king and patron they 
 were the happiest people in the world. 
 
 Drake having half a continent offered him in this manner, thought 
 best to accept it, not for himself, but for his queen. " In 
 the name and for the use of Queen Elizabeth, he took the king by the 
 Sceptre, Crown and Dignity of that Land upon him, wishing 
 that the riches and Treasures thereof, wherein the upper parts abound, 
 might be as easily transported to England as he had obtained the 
 sovereignty thereof." When the ceremony was finished, the common 
 
 1 La Perouse and Laugsdorff observed their fondness for feathers, as late as the end of 
 the eighteenth century. " The feathers are twisted together into a sort of ropes, and then 
 these are tied close together, so as to have a feathery surface on both sides." Langsdorff 
 counted in one feather bandeau four hundred and fifty tail-feathers of the golden-winged 
 woodpecker. Each woodpecker furnishes but two feathers. See Forbes's California, 
 p. 183. 
 
 .** 
 
 California Indians and their Summer Huts. (From Bartlett.) 
 
574 
 
 SPANISH COLONIZATION. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 Expedition 
 into the 
 interior. 
 
 people eagerly offered sacrifices to the strangers with shrieks and 
 weeping, tearing the flesh from their faces with their nails. The 
 English vainly attempted to dissuade them, by lifting their hands and 
 eyes to heaven. During their stay the people generally brought sac- 
 rifices every third day, till they at last understood how much the 
 English were displeased by them. 
 
 As soon as the English had finished the repairs upon their ship, 
 Drake and some of his company made a journey into the in- 
 terior. He found the Indians living in villages. The houses 
 were made by digging round holes in the earth, covered by 
 poles of wood, which met in the centre " like a spired steeple," the 
 
 whole being covered 
 with earth. The door 
 " made slopous like 
 the scuttle of a ship " 
 was also the chim- 
 ney. 1 The people 
 slept in these houses 
 on rushes on the 
 ground, around a fire 
 in the middle. The 
 country was very dif- 
 ferent from the bar- 
 ren sea-shore. It was 
 fruitful, and fur- 
 nished with all nec- 
 essaries. The ad- 
 venturers saw thou- 
 sands of deer in a 
 |i herd, and were much 
 interested by the ground 
 squirrel, which they describe 
 as a peculiar " coney." The 
 whole country was a warren 
 of them. Their bodies were 
 as big as the Barbary coneys, 
 their heads as the heads of the 
 English, the feet like the feet 
 of a want, and the tail long 
 like that of a rat. The coney had on each side of the chin a bag 
 into which to gather such food as he did not need to eat. 
 
 Returning to his port, Drake took possession of the country in the 
 
 1 Captain Beechey found similar houses as late as 1827. 
 
 Drake's Departure. 
 
1579.] LOCALITY OF DRAKE'S DISCOVERIES. 576 
 
 name of Queen Elizabeth. He erected a monument which was, like 
 so many other monuments of possession, only a wooden post with a 
 copper plate upon it. On this he inscribed an assertion of the right 
 of Queen Elizabeth and her successors to that kingdom, with the 
 time of his own arrival, and a statement of the free resignation of the 
 country by the king and people into her hands. Her picture and 
 arms, and Drake's arms, were also engraved on this remarkable plate, 
 which must have done credit to the amateur engraver from the crew 
 of the Pelican. 
 
 After this ceremony of possession, the ship sailed for the Moluc- 
 cas, to the great grief of the native king and his followers, 0,^-6 de _ 
 who lighted fires on the cliffs as if to cheer them on their P ftrture - 
 way. 
 
 It is a curious question, not yet decided by geographers, what was the 
 bay where Sir Francis Drake repaired his ship, and on the 
 shore of which he encamped and took possession. The va- Drake - y 
 rious accounts differ about the highest north latitude attained 
 by Drake, but when driven back by cold weather he came south, they 
 agree u it was within thirty-eight degrees toward the line." " In 
 which height it pleased God to send us into a fair and good bay with 
 good wind to enter the same." Was this bay the Bay of San Fran- 
 cisco, of which the opening, by the Golden Gate, is in 37 49' N. 
 latitude, or is it the open bay just above this, marked on the maps 
 as Sir Francis Drake's Bay, or is it Bodega Bay, where the latitude of 
 the anchorage is 38 19 7 ? l Within so narrow a range it would be 
 idle to infer anything from Drake's general statement that the good 
 bay which God led him into was in 38. Either of them is near 
 enough to meet that definition. 
 
 The maps annexed will enable the reader to understand this diffi- 
 culty. The more modern one represents the coast substantially as it 
 has been drawn by the accurate hydrographers of our own time. The 
 other was drawn early in the seventeenth century by Robert Dudley, 
 son of the great Earl of Leicester, himself a navigator and the son-in- 
 law of Cavendish, one of the explorers of the South Seas. Drake's 
 port of New Albion will be found on this, so drawn as to represent 
 sufficiently well the double bay of San Francisco. If this were the 
 only authority it would probably be granted that Drake's port was 
 San Francisco Bay. But it is quite certain that the Spaniards, who 
 eagerly tried to rediscover the port, with this map in their possession, 
 did not succeed until near two hundred years after. Long before 
 they did discover it, they were seeking for it, calling it the Bay of 
 San Francisco that name probably having been taken from no less a 
 1 These latitudes are those of Captain Beechey's survey. 
 
576 
 
 SPANISH COLONIZATION. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 saint than the heretic, Sir Francis Drake. In 1769, a land party dis- 
 covered the great bay which runs south from the entrance, now called 
 
 the Golden Gate. But it was not until 
 1776 that this inland sea was connected 
 by the Spaniards with the ocean. 
 
 It is urged on the one side, that Sir 
 Francis Drake would never have called 
 " Jack's Bay," which is the Sir Fran- 
 cis Drake's bay of the maps, " a fair 
 and good bay," nor thanked God as 
 for a special providence for the wind 
 which took him into that open road- 
 stead, which under the circumstances, 
 he could hardly have kept out of. If 
 indeed, he did land, and unload his ship 
 there, repair her, and take in his cargo 
 again, lying for five weeks there, he is 
 the last shipmaster who has done so. 
 Having done so, that he should have 
 drawn the bottle-shaped bay, which 
 appears on the charts of his time, seems 
 impossible. For such reasons, high 
 authority : concedes that he entered 
 the Golden Gate and the Bay of San 
 Francisco, now known by that name. 
 On the other hand, it is urged that 
 the physical distinctions of the Golden Gate and the present San 
 Opinions of Francisco Bay are so marked that Drake or his historian 
 
 geographers. 
 
 Map of a Part of the California Coast. 
 
 is not language as strong as should be used of that matchless harbor, 
 and that once discovered, it could never be forgotten. The weight 
 of California!! opinion at this time seems to be that Sir Francis 
 Drake never entered the Golden Gate. In one of the early narra- 
 tives of his voyage, in Hondius's voyages, the annexed map of the 
 bay, unfortunately with no scale, is given in the margin. It bears 
 this inscription in very bad Latin : " The inhabitants by terrible 
 frequent laceration of their bodies deprecate the departure of Drake, 
 now twice crowned, from this harbour of Albion." But it is clear 
 enough, from an examination of the copy of a small part of the Bay 
 of San Francisco, from Captain Beechey's survey, that the draughts- 
 man of Hondius's 2 map, had no knowledge of that great estuary. 
 
 1 So Davidson in the Coast Pilot, and Mr. Grcenhow. 
 
 2 For the copy of Hondius's very rare map, we are indebted to Mr. Charles Deane. 
 
1579.] 
 
 LOCALITY OF DRAKE'S DISCOVERIES. 
 
 677 
 
 It is equally sure, however, that his map represents no other bay on 
 the coast, and that it must, therefore, be taken as merely imaginary. 
 
 Dudley also says that 
 Drake found manv wild 
 
 */ 
 
 horses at the northward, 
 at which he wondered, 
 because the Spaniards had 
 never found horses in 
 America. It is customary 
 to account for the immense 
 herds of American horses 
 on the assumption that the 
 Spaniards introduced 
 them. Drake's visit, how- 
 ever, to Port New Albion 
 was but thirty-eight years 
 after Coronado's visit to 
 Cibola, which, as we now know, was at least five hundred miles 
 away. It is difficult to believe that a few stray horses from Coro- 
 nado's troop, should, in so few years, have multiplied into large herds 
 observed by Drake on the distant seaboard of Oregon. Coronado had 
 but few horses, would have had fewer brood mares, and would have 
 been apt to mention any loss of a large number of auxiliaries so 
 essential. 
 
 corf.arvmL ai-etatme (ScrttrrS in ten fiiusfacri/ict/s /><t-JiiS 
 
 Hondius's Map of Drake's Bay. 
 
 Spanish Coat of Arms on the St Augustine Fort. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 SPANISH EXPLORATIONS AND COLONIZATION. 
 
 FATHER AUGUSTIN RUYZ. Rio DEL XORTE. CUNAMES. ACOMA. ZUNI OB Ci- 
 BOLA. JUAN DE OSATE. EL PASO. "Ei. MORO." INSCRIPTIONS. VISCAINO. 
 EUSEBIO FRANCISCO KINO. SALVATIERRA. ARIZONA PABLO QUIHUE. 
 FATHER AUGUSTIN DE CAMPOS. EXPULSION or THE JESUITS. LA SALLE. 
 DE LEON. ST. DENIS. DON MARTIN D'ALARCORNE. TEXAS. 
 
 Two years after Drake's departure a land expedition on the other 
 side of the Sierra brought the lost cities of Cibola to light again. 
 
 In the year 1581, the Franciscan Father, Augustin Ruyz, inter- 
 Bxpedition ested by the report of some Conchos Indians, undertook an 
 of Ruyi. expedition northward, which resulted in the re-discovery of 
 Quivira and some certainty as to the location of the Cibola of Coro- 
 nado. Eager to save souls, Ruyz obtained leave to travel thither, and 
 started with two brethren of his order, and eight soldiers. Leaving 
 the mines of Santa Barbara in Northern Mexico, in the southern part 
 of the present province of Chihuahua, four hundred and fifty miles 
 from the capital, they began their journey northward ; but one of 
 the friars having been killed by Indians, the soldiers deserted the 
 others, and left them to go forward alone. When at Santa Barbara 
 the soldiers reported the plight in which they had left these holy 
 men, a spirited gentleman of St. Bartholomew, a station in the neigh- 
 borhood, named Antonio de Espejo, raised a company for their relief, 
 journey of an< ^ started, in November, 1582; with a caravan of one hun- 
 Espejo. <jred and fifteen horses and mules and some Indian guides. 
 They travelled northward through various tribes, and soon struck the 
 Conchos River, which flows into the Rio del Norte. Here they found 
 natives who seemed to have some knowledge of the symbols of Chris- 
 tian faith, and when asked how they obtained it, they said that three 
 Christians and a negro had passed that way, and had instructed them. 
 
 The Spaniards believed these missionaries to have been Cabeca de 
 Vaca, Dorantes, and Castillo Maldonado, with their negro whose es- 
 cape from the wreck of Narvaez's party has been described. 1 Con- 
 
 1 Vol. i., p. 156. 
 
1582.] ESPEJO IN THE VALLEY OF THE RIO DEL NORTE. 57P 
 
 tinuing northward, the explorers met men, willing to trade with them, 
 who wore cotton garments, made of stuffs striped with white and 
 blue. 1 They could only converse with them by signs. But they saw 
 among them the precious metals ; they learned that these were ob- 
 tained from a place at five days' journey westward. After travelling 
 together for some days, probably along the foot of the Organ 
 Mountains they found a Concho Indian whose language they could 
 
 The Organ Mountains, near El Paso. 
 
 in part understand. He told them that fifteen days westward there 
 was a large lake, and that, after passing this, they would come to 
 large towns with houses of three or four stories high, whose inhab- 
 itants were well clothed. He even offered to conduct them thither. 
 The adventurers were not able to follow his directions, because they 
 were still pressing to the north in pursuit of the two priests whom 
 they hoped to succor. 
 
 Travelling up the valley of the Rio del Norte they passed for fifteen 
 days together a forest of pines, " such as men see in Cas- 
 tile," without meeting any inhabitants. Eighty leagues far- of th 
 ther they came to a little village, whose inhabitants surprised 
 them by the skill with which they tanned their leather, which was 
 of as fine quality as that of Flanders. After two days' stay with 
 them, still following the river, of which they found both banks cov- 
 
 1 The impression of later travellers is that this cloth was that made from the maguey 
 fibre. 
 
 
680 SPANISH EXPLORATIONS AND COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 ered with poplars, varied sometimes by nut trees and vines, a journey 
 
 of two days brought them to villages containing ten thousand persons, 
 
 where they were well received. The houses were well built, four 
 
 stories high, with good chambers, most of them having fire-places 
 
 for winter. The people were well dressed in cotton and leather, with 
 
 good shoes and boots, such as the Spaniards had not seen among tlie 
 
 natives before. To this country they gave the name of New Mexico. 
 
 After remaining with them for four days the travellers went on to 
 
 another tribe called the Tiguas, of sixteen towns. Here it 
 
 The Tiguas. 
 
 was that the missionary had been killed, and here in a town 
 named Poala, they obtained news of the murder of the two other 
 fathers whom they were seeking, Lopez and Ruyz. The Indians see- 
 ing the interest taken in these men by so large a company, fled from 
 their houses and could not be persuaded to return. Espejo deter- 
 mined to establish a camp here, and with only twelve companions to 
 prosecute the further discovery. In two days more he came to a 
 country of eleven towns, of which the natives said the population was 
 more than forty thousand. Espejo believed that this country was 
 next to the famous Cibola. He was cordially received and found the 
 appearance of rich mines, and observed that, in the houses where the 
 idols were, there were pieces of silver. After this expedition he re- 
 turned to his camp. Here he obtained news of the province of the 
 
 Quires, six leagues from the Del Norte. He visited them, 
 
 The Quires. . 
 
 and found five towns, with a population of fifteen thousand 
 people. The Spaniards were pleased to find a pye in a cage, " as 
 you may see in Castile," and umbrellas, like those of China, on which 
 were painted sun, moon, and stars. At this point Espejo fixed his 
 latitude and found it 37 north. If this observation were correct, he 
 was in the limits of the present State of Colorado ; but this must have 
 been an error of more than two degrees. 
 
 Fourteen leagues further he found the Cunames, who had five 
 
 towns, with a population of twenty thousand people. Their 
 names, the houses were built of stone and lime and were the best he 
 
 Amejeg, and . 
 
 the town of had seen. 1 hey also had the precious metals. Next to 
 them were the Amejes, thirty thousand in number ; fifteen 
 leagues westward, the travellers found the town of Acoma, inhabited 
 by six thousand people. This town is still in existence, probably with 
 the same race of inhabitants. It was on a high cliff, which has more 
 than fifty platforms in height, and could only be ascended by steps 
 cut out of the rock itself. At this the Spaniards greatly wondered. 
 All the water was in cisterns. The people met the Spaniards cor- 
 dially and brought them presents of clothes. Their arable land was 
 two leagues away and was watered by artificial means from a little 
 
1582.] 
 
 ESPEJO'S EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 581 
 
 river in the neighborhood. Here the Spaniards spent three days, and 
 were entertained by a solemn ball. 
 
 This curious spot is perfectly known. Similar cave dwellings in 
 other regions have been identified, described, and pictured by the 
 recent surveying parties of the United States government. The de- 
 scription of Acoma is so distinct that it is clear that at some point 
 Espejo must have left a little while before what we call the Del 
 Norte, and come on the waters of the Puerco River. 1 
 
 Twenty-four leagues further west, Espejo and his men came to the 
 province known as Zuni by the natives, and Cibola by the ^ 
 Spaniards, which Coronado had entered half a century before reaches w- 
 from the Gulf of California. They found the crosses planted 
 by him and other tokens of his presence, among others three baptized 
 
 -- 
 
 Acoma. 
 
 Indians, who served them as interpreters. These men apprised them 
 of a great lake sixty days further on, where were great cities with 
 much gold. The province of Zuni still retains its name. The Zuni 
 
 1 Judge Cozzens thus describes Acoma in 1860: "It stands upon the top of a rock at 
 least three hundred and fifty feet above the surrounding: plain. The Pueblo can only be 
 reached by means of a staircase containing three hundred and seventy-five steps, cut in the 
 solid rock. At the upper end of this is a ladder eighteen feet long, made from the trunk 
 of a tree, in which notches have been cut for the feet." The Marvellous Country, p. 287. 
 
 A narrative by Mr. Holmes of similar residences now in ruins, further west, describes 
 such edifices where Spanish civilization has not followed on that of the natives. The rem- 
 nant of the cave dwellings may still be trnced. The openings are arched irregularly 
 above, in a soft and friable shale, a hard stratum serving as a floor. In many instances, 
 this gave a platform by which the inhabitants passed from one house to another. Frag- 
 ments of mortar still show that the houses were plastered. They probably had doors and 
 windows. 
 
 A drawing by Mr. W. H. Holmes, who visited a series on the San Juan, in 1875, shows 
 their appearance at that time. In another drawing, Mr. Holmes gives his impression of 
 their appearance when occupied, as Espejo may have seen them. 
 
682 SPANISH EXPLORATIONS AND COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 people still live there, and maintain at their altars the worship of the 
 days of Espejo. 
 
 Espejo was disposed to go still farther on his adventures. But, 
 finding the religious men and most of the party unwilling, he went on 
 with nine soldiers only. After travelling twenty-eight leagues, they 
 came to the city Zaguato. After some suspicion, they were hospita- 
 bly welcomed. Espejo, after a few days' stay, went with five compan- 
 ions forty-five leagues farther. Here he found the mines of which he 
 
 Map of California, Arizona, and New Mexico. 
 
 had been told. With his own hand he took ores which contained a 
 great quantity of silver, of which he could see that the vein was 
 very large. The Indians of the neighborhood received him kindly. 
 They told him that on the other side of their mountains was a river 
 eight leagues wide. They showed by signs that it flowed to the 
 Northern Ocean, and on its banks the towns were so large and so 
 many that their own were nothing but hamlets in comparison. With 
 this intelligence Espejo returned to Zuni, or Cibola. Unfortunately 
 the account does not tell in what direction Espejo travelled from the 
 site of the Zuni. Their pueblos are placed by the surveyors of the 
 United States government about latitude 35 north, and longitude 
 
1595.] OCCUPATION OF NEW MEXICO. 583 
 
 109 west. 1 The city of Zaguato, twenty-eight leagues distant, is 
 not easily identified. The interesting tribe of Moquis are now at 
 about that distance to the northwest of the Zuni. 
 
 When Espejo rejoined his party the greater part of his people deter- 
 mined to return to Santa Barbara. But he himself, with 
 eight soldiers, undertook the further exploration of the River piorations of 
 del Norte. Having returned to the Quires, he found, twelve 
 leagues west of them, the Hubates, twenty-five thousand in number, 
 who received him kindly. Their houses also were four or five stories 
 high, and their hills covered with pine and cedar. Next to this tribe 
 were the Tamos, who were not friendly ; and Espejo, rather than 
 risk a conflict with them, returned home by another valley, of a river 
 which he called the River of Cows, so many did he find there. This 
 stream brought him to the Conchos River, by which he returned to 
 the valley of St. Bartholomew, whence he had departed. He found 
 that the other part of his party had preceded him. The expedition 
 had lasted nearly two years. 2 
 
 The interest excited in Spain by these discoveries must have been 
 very great, although with the policy which then prevailed 
 at Madrid, no official publication was made of them. It these discor- 
 seems to be by accident that the narrative of Espejo was wired in 
 printed in connection with the history of China, from which 
 the vigilance of Hakluyt at once reproduced it for English readers. 
 Orders were given from Madrid that New Mexico should be occupied, 
 and as early as 1594 we have the thanks of the king to the company 
 of Jesuits for their success in planting missions there. In that year it 
 was attached to the ecclesiastical charge of Father Martin Pelez of 
 Cinaloa, the most northerly station till then held, and on the other 
 side of the Sierra. In 1595, the Viceroy of Mexico, the Count of 
 Monterey, sent Juan de Onate into New Mexico, and under his di- 
 rections colonies were planted in the valley of the Rio Grande. 3 One 
 of Onate's settlements was near Santa Fe\ which may probably, there- 
 fore, claim to be settled before Jamestown, and to be, after St. Au- 
 gustine, the oldest town built by whites in the United States. Acoma 
 is an older town. The original settlement by Ouate was made with 
 
 1 It is in section 77 of the Harden Survey. 
 
 2 This narrative is preserved by Gonzales de Mendoza, the author of the "History of 
 China " and the " Itinerary to the New- World." It is perhaps embellished by exaggera- 
 tions. But it carries with it, in many of the local descriptions which were not verified 
 for nearly three centuries by other narrators, evidence that Espejo went over the ground 
 which he described. He may be considered, therefore, as the discoverer of New Mexico, 
 and the valley of the Gila, above the points where it had been explored by Coronado. It 
 is probable that in the word Tiguas we have the origin of the name Texas, which next 
 appears in the form Latekas, used by La Harpe. 
 
 8 Allegre, Hist. Jesuits, vol. i., p. 325. Mexican edition of 1842. 
 
684 SPANISH EXPLORATIONS AND COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 one hundred soldiers and five hundred settlers, and it is not proba- 
 ble that the establishments in New Mexico largely exceeded these 
 numbers for a century. A bloody massacre by the Indians in 1640 is 
 alluded to by the Jesuit historians, and in 1680, by a successful union 
 of the pueblos, they drove all the Spaniards from the upper river and 
 compelled them to take refuge in El Paso. Successive expeditions 
 against the Indians from that point proved unsuccessful till 1692, 
 when Diego de Bargas regained possession of the valley for the 
 Spanish garrisons. 1 The town of El Paso, on the Mexican side of 
 the frontier of the United States, where the western boundary de- 
 termined by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo begins, was proba- 
 bly founded by Onate. 
 The Piro Indians had 
 a village called Sinecu, 
 which still exists with- 
 in the precincts of the 
 town. From the mis- 
 sionary establishment 
 there, it is probable 
 that the town of El 
 Paso sprung. The 
 signs of Moorish archi- 
 tecture may be still 
 noticed in the public 
 buildings of El Paso, 
 as in other mission 
 buildings of Mexican 
 or Spanish origin in that region ; and the venerable church itself is 
 supposed by the worshippers to have been built in the earlier part of 
 the seventeenth century. 
 
 From this time, with various reverses, the valley of the Rio Grande 
 inscription was ne ^ ^Y Spanish priests and officials, with some set- 
 Rock, tiers. Inscription Rock, a remarkable rock on the west 
 side of the Sierra Madre, not far from the pueblo of Acoma, records, 
 not insufficiently, the history of this outlying province, in the auto- 
 graphs, or autoglyphs, of the men who belonged to the time. For 
 two hundred and ten feet of its height this rock has a natural pol- 
 ish. At a distance it perfectly resembles a Moorish castle, so that 
 the Spaniards called it " El Moro." Indians and Spaniards have 
 used it as a monument rock ; and when Lieut. Simpson saw it in 
 
 1 The dates given by Pike, Allegre, and Venepas are confused, hut those in the text 
 are furnished for Lieutenant Simpson by Don Donaciano Vigil, Secretary of State for 
 New Mexico, and may probably be relied upon. 
 
 !r 
 
 Inscription Rock. 
 
1603.] THE SEARCH FOR "PUERTO FRANCISCO " 
 
 1849, he found a large number of inscriptions still visible. Some 
 were mere savage carvings of hands or animals, but many were in 
 Spanish or a sort of Latin. 1 
 
 On the western coast, the news of Drake's discovery stimulated the 
 court of Spain to make some new efforts to save the land, Action of 
 whose natives had given it to the heretic queen. Under the 
 king's own orders Viscaino, an officer of ability, was again 
 despatched on the survey of the coasts of California. After 
 one voyage on the gulf, which resulted in disaster, he sailed from 
 Acapulco for a second on the 5th of May, 1602, and went as far as 
 the parallel of 42 north. He rediscovered the harbors of San Diego 
 and Monterey, and gave to them those names. He reported that the 
 natives on the coast were docile, clothed with the skins of sea-wolves, 
 but with abundance of hemp, flax, and cotton. The Indians all 
 told him, he said, that in the inland were large towns, silver, and gold. 
 Viscaino's manuscripts have not been brought to light. His second 
 voyage was not finished until 1603. It appears that his instructions 
 were to put into " Puerto Francisco," and see if anything was to be 
 found of the ship San Augustin, which in 1595, had been sent from 
 the Philippine Islands to survey that coast, and had been lost there. 
 
 1 With praiseworthy accuracy Lieutenant Simpson copied these curious records, and in 
 his Report fac -similes of them vrere published. There are thirty-eight inscriptions in his 
 list, ranging from the 16th day of April, 1606, when some officer " passed this place with 
 despatches," down to 1836. It seems to have become a custom with the Spanish officers 
 to leave here a brief account of their mission. As the other records of New Mexico before 
 1680 were burned by the Indians in that year, the earlier of these inscriptions supply 
 names and dates not elsewhere accessible. The character of them may be understood from 
 such examples as these : 
 
 "Passed this place with despatches 16th day of April, 1606." 
 
 "J. Apaulla, 1619." 
 
 " Bartolome Narsso, Governor and Captain General of the provinces of New Mexico, for 
 our Lord, the King, passed by this place on his return from the pueblo of Zuni, on the 29th 
 of July, of the year 1620, and put them in peace at their petition, asking the favor to 
 become subjects of His Majesty ; and anew they gave obedience. All which they did with 
 free consent, knowing it prudent, as well as very Christian. 
 
 " To so distinguished and gallant a soldier, indomitable and famed, we love " 
 
 (The rest of this inscription is illegible.) 
 
 " Here passed General Don Diego de Bargas to conquer Santa Fe' for the royal crown, 
 New Mexico, at his own cost, in the year 1692." 
 
 Judge Cozzens, in 1860, found and copied an earlier inscription: "Don Joseph de Ba- 
 zemzalles. 1526." Judge Cozzens rightly says, that such an inscription could only be 
 truly carved by one of the lost officers whom Cortez sent north in a quest for the lands of 
 silver. Of that band of twenty men there is no history since they left Cortez, excepting 
 on this silent stone. 
 
 But, among Lieutenant Simpson's inscriptions, there appears, perfectly distinct, on 
 another part of the rock, " Por aqui pazo el Alferez D n Joseph de Payba Basconzelos el 
 ano que tugo el Canildo del Reyno a su costa a 18 de feb de 1726 Anos." Tugo is some 
 misspelling of the stone-cutter, but the meaning is that this officer, whose rank was 
 that of lieutenant, passed here in an expedition undertaken at cost of the council of the 
 kingdom. 
 
586 SPANISH EXPLORATIONS AND COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 She was under the direction of Sebastian Rodriguez Cermenon. 
 Her pilot, Volanos, was chief pilot of Viscaino's squadron. Having 
 passed the latitude of Port Francisco, they returned to look for it, 
 and anchored under La Punta de los Keys. This is the westerly 
 point of "Jack's Bay." They did not land, and Viscaino having 
 parted from his tender, continued his voyage in search of her. He 
 thus lost his opportunity of discovering the great Bay of San Fran- 
 cisco. He ran up the coast, as far north as 42, and then, because his 
 whole company were sick with a terrible distemper, they returned to 
 Acapulco. The tender persevered as far as 43. Here her coin- 
 
 Acapulco. 
 
 mander found a river whose banks were covered with ash trees, wil- 
 lows, and other Spanish trees. But he had passed farther than his 
 orders directed, and he returned to Acapulco also. No such river 
 exists in that latitude. The Columbia is as far north as 48. 
 
 Philip III., of Spain, or some minister of his, on the reception of 
 order of * n ^ s report, issued a very interesting order, of the greatest 
 Philip in. stringency, that the search for a harbor should be renewed, 
 and that Monterey should be occupied. But the fatality of inaction, 
 which governed both Mexico and Spain, prevailed. Viscaino died as 
 he was preparing for the expedition ordered, and the occupation of 
 Northern California was reserved to another century. Men, widely 
 differing from those who discovered California, acting under another 
 class of motives, undertook the colonization which for a century and 
 a half had been neglected, since it proved that she had no cities of 
 gold and turquoises. The Spanish court, meanwhile, had changed as 
 
1670.] 
 
 MISSIONS IN CALIFORNIA AND ARIZONA. 
 
 587 
 
 much as the adventurers in Mexico had changed ; and the appeals to 
 Charles the Second of Spain rested on different motives from those 
 which had swayed the Emperor Charles, who from his distant throne 
 lifted Cortez or put him down at his will. 
 
 After one and another inefficient scheme for the conquest, as it was 
 called, of California, a royal order came from Mexico to Spain that 
 all enterprises in that direction should be laid aside. At this mo- 
 ment the Jesuit body, hardly yet declining from the maturity of its 
 power, was urged by the persons 
 in command in Mexico to take 
 the charge of California. The 
 Viceroy offered to the Jesuits the 
 necessary sums, to be paid out of 
 the king's treasury, if they would 
 undertake the enterprise. The 
 Mexican chapter of the society 
 was convened for the considera- 
 tion of the proposal, and answered 
 that while the society would un- 
 dertake the spiritual duty of fur- 
 nishing missionaries, they saw 
 great inconveniences in undertak- 
 ing the temporal charge of such an 
 enterprise, and declined. Thegen- 
 eral council urged it again, but 
 again the society refused. The 
 last of these refusals was in 1686. 
 
 Eusebio Francisco Kino, a brother of the Jesuit Society, who had 
 come from Ingoldstadt in Bavaria, in pursuance of avow made 
 
 , 1 j.u * j i i 11 Father Kino 
 
 when seemingly at tne point of death, undertook, almost sin- in caiifor- 
 gle-handed, the regeneration of the peninsula of California. 
 To his efforts, as it proved, the first settlement was due of those parts 
 of California and Arizona which now belong to the United States. It 
 is said that as early as 1658 he had been connected with the explora- 
 tions of Arizona. 1 He had afterwards been engaged in the examina- 
 tions of the peninsula of California made by order of the government. 
 In 1686 he left the city of Mexico, as superior of the province of So- 
 nora, the Mexican province immediately south of Arizona. 1 In 1670, 
 with other priests, he set out on a mission on the Gila. In 1672, he 
 began a mission among the Yaquis. Before 1679 he and his compan- 
 ions had established five missions among Yaquis, Opotes, and Papa- 
 
 1 Cozzens's Wonderful Land (Arizona), p. 32. Mr. Cozzens refers to MSS- in the mon- 
 astery of Dolores. Kino accompanied Admiral Otondo as early as 1 648. 
 
 Portrait of Philip III. of Spain 
 

 588 SPANISH EXPLORATIONS AND COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 goes. 1 On the left bank of the Gila, he established Encarnacion and 
 San Andres. In San Andres he describes one of the "great houses," 
 four stories in height, which recall the memories of Cibola. His 
 wishes for California were not accomplished until 1697, when Father 
 Salvatierra was appointed to make collections for a mission in Lower 
 California, and at length sailed from Hiagui in that service on the 
 10th of October. 
 
 The sedulous efforts by which he and his companions attempted to 
 civilize and Christianize the savages of that peninsula, do 
 
 The Califor- . . ' .' 
 
 nian Mis- not belong to this narrative. But as a consequence ot these 
 plans, a series of missionary efforts grew up, which resulted 
 in the first civilization of the State known as California of the Ameri- 
 can Union, the limits of which correspond nearly with those of the 
 province of Upper California, as it is described in the narratives of 
 Mexico. The friendly relations of Father Kino in Sonora on the 
 eastern side of the Gulf of California, with Father Salvatierra on 
 the west side, led constantly to mutual offices of kindness and help ; 
 and the history of the two regions is substantially one history of two 
 provinces, administered in the same spirit and under the same gen- 
 eral system. In one expedition of Salvatierra, he passed to the head 
 of the gulf, and satisfied himself that California was indeed a pen- 
 insula. " This discovery," he says, " we owe to the holy virgin of 
 Loreto ; " and he adds, " these are the steps by which within a few 
 years California may come to be the soul of this kingdom, the main 
 source of its opulence, the scene of cheerful industry ; and accord- 
 ingly I conclude that you will charge all persons that they continue 
 to assist us in these missions of Nuestra Senora de Loreto de Cali- 
 fornias." 2 There was only this external distinction between the 
 missions of California and those of Sonora : that in California a hand- 
 ful of soldiers was in each mission placed under the direction of 
 the Fathers. In Sonora, the garrisons, if garrisons there were, were 
 directed immediately by the viceroy. But scarcely any difference in 
 result seems to have arisen from this distinction. It must be under- 
 stood that the word Sonora, in the history of that country at that 
 time, includes what is known to our geographers as Arizona. 
 
 Having selected a point for a mission, the fathers began immediately 
 to invite and induce the Indians to attend the daily religious services. 
 As soon as they themselves acquired the language of the country, 
 they taught the natives the catechism in that language. By way of 
 rewarding those who attended on the services, the fathers served out 
 rations to them, and attempted in the same way to wean all the 
 
 1 Noticias Estadicas del Estado de Sonora, by Jose Francisco Velasco. Mexico, 1 850. 
 
 2 Venetjas, vol. i., p. 307. English translation. 
 
JESUIT MISSIONARIES IN CALIFORNIA. 
 

1G97.] 
 
 MISSIONS IN CALIFORNIA AND ARIZONA. 
 
 589 
 
 savages from the habits of wanderers. In California all who at- 
 tended divine service were wholly supported by the mission. Every 
 morning and night they received an allowance of " atole," a sort oi 
 hominy ; at noon they were served with boiled Indian corn, called 
 pozoli, 1 and with fresh or salt meat and vegetables, according as the 
 mission provided. All the sick, aged, and children from six to twelve, 
 and the Indian governor of the village, were also thus provided with 
 food. Beside these, a weekly allowance of the same amount, was 
 made to such Indians of the rancherias as came to be catechised and 
 as attended the divine service on Sunday. The missionary priest also 
 
 The Mission Indians. 
 
 clothed all his parishioners with 
 coarse cloth from Old Spain, and 
 provided cloaks and blankets. 
 Meanwhile they were instructed 
 in managing the fields and in 
 irrigation ; and as they would 
 not save the crops, Venegas says, 
 
 the fathers preserved them for their regular use. Wine, which was at 
 an early date produced in the Californian missions, was the only 
 product withheld from them, the fathers early learning that such 
 was the only method to save them from drunkenness. 2 
 
 The effect produced by such a system would not immediately ap- 
 pear. But, after a generation, a body of children had grown Effectof the 
 to be men and women, without any habits of the chase or of Ml88ions 
 war, and with the habit of farm labor and regular attendance on the 
 
 1 Cozzens's Wondfrfid Land, 37. 2 Veneyas, i. 432. 
 
690 SPANISH EXPLORATIONS AND COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 rites of the church. The missions were, in many instances, very small 
 establishments. One father with one soldier might be all the white 
 population. The father then appointed one Indian as governor of the 
 village, one to the charge of the church, and a third to be the catechist 
 of those who were undergoing instruction. So simple a system was 
 considered sufficient. In the absence of the father the soldier acted 
 as his vicegerent, having " an eye to everything " as is the expressive 
 phrase of Venegas. 1 He could seize delinquents, and mildly punish 
 them, " unless in capital cases," which were referred to the captain of 
 the garrison. The minor punishments were more or less lashes ; the 
 severer punishment was imprisonment in the stocks. The first care 
 in every mission was for the education of the children. Some of them 
 were selected from every Californian mission to be sent to Loreto, the 
 chief station. They were instructed in reading, writing, and singing, 
 and in the Spanish language, and afterwards as they showed ability 
 were promoted to be church wardens or catechists in the several 
 " rancherias." 
 
 It is mentioned as an exceptional instance in these plans, that, on 
 the peninsula of California, Father Ugarte taught his Indians to spin 
 wool and weave it, himself making the distaffs, wheels, and looms. 
 He added the industry of making sail-cloth from hemp. This was a 
 violation of the whole colonial system of Spain, which attempted to 
 compel the colonies to obtain all their manufactures from Europe. 
 Venegas, the Jesuit historian, is eloquent in his description of the 
 ruinous effects of this policy in the province of Sonora. The cause of 
 the poverty of Sonora, he says, is its want of almost all necessary 
 manufactures and trades. While other European nations encourage 
 these in their colonies, Spain depresses them. But the immediate con- 
 sequence of manufacture, he says, is the promotion of agriculture, for 
 the providing of the raw material and for feeding the artisan. The 
 policy of Cortez, therefore, was to encourage manufacture, and this 
 policy was continued by some of his successors. But his policy hav- 
 ing been overturned, poor Sonora must receive from Mexico the cloth 
 which had been bought in Cadiz, after it had been carried thither 
 from Holland. 
 
 As the expense of the Jesuit ^missions involved the feeding and 
 Their sup- clothing of all the converts, neophytes, and catechumens, it 
 P 01 *' was of course considerable, and, so long as any mission was 
 
 in its infancy, it must be supplied by contributions from the faithful 
 all over the world. At this point the literary ability of the Jesuit 
 brethren was called upon, and the attractive histories of their mis- 
 sions, published through Europe, assisted their indefatigable collections 
 
 1 Venegas, vol. i., 435. 
 
1705.] ARIZONA. 591 
 
 of money. The Fathers never founded a new mission unless some 
 benefactor had endowed it with ten thousand dollars. This sum 
 furnished, at five per cent, interest, five hundred dollars, which was 
 allowed for the support of the missionary and his unavoidable ex- 
 penses with the Indians. A royal grant of three hundred dollars for 
 each missionary seems to have provided in part for other missions. 
 Venegas, the historian of Jesuit missions, explains still farther, that 
 the funds for the first seven missions were invested in farms near the 
 city of Mexico, and that the necessary supplies of cattle and of corn 
 were furnished from these farms. To the agent who had these farms 
 in charge the king's payment was made, of eighteen thousand dol- 
 lars a year for the payment of the garrisons and of the seamen em- 
 ployed by the missions. From these funds, and from the products of 
 the farms, were paid everything necessary for worship, for the build- 
 ing and repair of the church and for the maintenance not of the 
 priest only, but of his people. It is interesting, at this time, to ob- 
 serve, that in Salvatierra's report of the 25th of May, 1705, he says, 
 " in those parts of the country that are conquered and discovered 
 there are very promising appearances of mines." 
 
 These anticipations were fully confirmed as that century went on. 
 The acquisitions from mines in Arizona, as we now call it, and from 
 Sonora cannot be accurately distinguished. But it is certain that 
 Arizona well earned its name, which is derived from Arizuma, a 
 name said to be given by the king himself to denote its richness in 
 silver. As early as 1683, the attorney of the king brought a suit in 
 Sonora to recover a mass of virgin silver weighing twenty-eight hun- 
 dred pounds, which he claimed as a " curiosity," although it was 
 found in the mine of an explorer named Gandera. 1 A wide desert 
 separated the silver- bearing parts of Arizona from the Pacific. A 
 long transport by land separated them from the Gulf of Mexico. But 
 the traces of old mining operations and the records of the viceroyalty 
 of Mexico alike show, that in face of these discouragements, very 
 large mining operations were conducted in the seventeenth and eight- 
 eenth centuries in the frontier provinces which are now States and 
 Territories of the United States. 
 
 The tranquil arrangements of the Jesuits, which attempted to sub- 
 stitute for savage life the proprieties and decorum of pueblos Difficu itie 8 
 of men and women trained to act like obedient children, were by C thc n Mi7-* 
 constantly broken in upon by savage uprisings, which the sionarie8 - 
 fathers considered as so many triumphs of the devil. As early as 
 1695 the Janos, Jocomes, and Apaches were at war. The Conchos 
 Indians joined in the fray, which was for the time suppressed by 
 
 1 Cozzens, as above, p. 41. 
 
592 SPANISH EXPLORATIONS AND COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 the energetic efforts of Antonio de Solis, the military commandant. 
 But none the less on all sides of the frontier were there fears of a 
 general rising. An Indian called Pablo Qujhue was considered the 
 head of a conspiracy. He had been the governor, under the scheme 
 just now described, of the mission of Santa Maria Basieraca, but he 
 now proved faithless to his masters. He told all the natives that in 
 the last sixty years they had gradually given away all their lands 
 to the Spaniards ; that the fathers, instead of acknowledging such 
 gifts gratefully, had seized the lands and enslaved the people. Lands, 
 flocks, herds, houses, women, and children were all at the disposal 
 of the priests. " Do they tell you that their soldiers protect you ? 
 Do they tell you that they will defend you ? Do they tell you that 
 you live in true religion, in obedience to the king and in peaceful 
 life? So they told us when they came, and we, like fools, received 
 them as men who came from heaven to bless us. What has come 
 of these magnificent promises ? You can see. The Apaches, the 
 Jocomes, the Janos, have for years desolated our fields and stolen our 
 flocks. Have the fathers protected us ? Have their soldiers helped 
 
 us ; have they not been our ruin ? 
 Have more Sonoras, Pimas, Tarau- 
 mares, and Conchos fallen under the 
 arrows of the Apaches, than have 
 perished under the cruelty of the 
 Spaniards. At the least alarm, they 
 charge us, whom they have enslaved,, 
 with being apostates, traitors to God 
 and to the king, enemies of our coun- 
 try and allies and accomplices of the 
 Apaches ! They show more enmity 
 Indian council (from La Hontn). to U8 than to them ! Do they treat 
 
 them as cruellv as they treat us ? Have the Apaches ever seen their 
 faces ? And have they ever hurt us so much, as these protectors of 
 ours?" Such is the remarkable speech, which Allegre, a Jesuit histo- 
 rian, is frank enough to put into the mouth of this rebel. 1 
 
 So well founded were his arguments, so imposing the outside force 
 of the Apaches, and so hateful the Spaniards, that his hopes 
 might have been crowned with success, but that, by an ac- 
 cident so often repeated in savage annals, the conspiracy' 
 broke out too early in one quarter. The Cuquiarachi, Cuchuta, and 
 Teurcicatzi broke into rebellion before his plans were ripe. The peo- 
 ple of these places seized the ornaments of the churches and fled with 
 them into the mountains. This precipitancy disarranged all the plans 
 
 1 Allegre, iii., 93 : Mexican edition. 
 
 iion. 
 
1697.] 
 
 INDIAN INVASIONS. 
 
 593 
 
 of Quihue. The rebellion was suppressed ; and the fathers were able 
 to praise the loyalty of many of the pueblos, whose people joined with 
 the Spanish soldiery in the movements necessary, and in one case sus- 
 tained a battle which lasted from day to night, without their assist- 
 
 ance. 
 
 In 1697 new invasions from the Apaches and Jocomes wasted So- 
 nora; and again the suspicions of the Spaniards were roused 
 
 against the people of their own flocks, including Pimeria, 
 r r 
 
 . , TT i The 
 
 as the missions among the .r imos began to be called at that re- 
 
 time. It was true that the Pimos suffered as much as the 
 
 Spaniards, or more, but they, fell under the suspicion which in all col- 
 
 onies, English, Spanish, or French, has always hovered over con- 
 
 verted Indians. An inspection by a Spanish officer wholly relieved 
 
 them from this suspicion. It proved that they had beaten the 
 
 Apaches in fight, as 
 
 they do to this day, 
 
 ;ind were in no way 
 
 entangled with 
 
 them. His report 
 
 estimates the num- 
 
 bers of the Opas and 
 
 Maricopas as about 
 
 4,000. He speaks 
 
 of their aqueducts 
 
 and fertile land, 
 
 their crops of wheat 
 
 and houses of adobe, 
 
 much as a traveller 
 
 of to-day might do. 
 
 But it must be re- 
 
 membered that they 
 
 then occupied a site lower down the Gila River than that which they 
 
 live upon to-day. 1 At length, on the 30th of March, the chief of the 
 
 Quiburi, one of the " reduced " or converted tribes, struck a fortu- 
 
 nate blow with his people upon the marauders and wholly defeated 
 
 them. By this blow, rather than from any action of the Spanish 
 
 troops, as would appear, the tranquillity of the missions was for 
 
 some time assured. In a pastoral visit made to the northern stations 
 
 at this time Father Kino made an observation of latitude at St. Ra- 
 
 fael de Actun, which fixes that place as in the parallel of 32 30' 45" 
 
 north. He frequently alludes in his letters to the certainty that Cal- 
 
 ifornia is a peninsula, as it had been pronounced by Cortez and his 
 
 1 Emory's report, on the authority of Kit Carson. 
 VOL. ii. 38 
 
 California Indians catching Salmon. 
 
594 SPANISH EXPLORATIONS AND COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 contemporaries. The later geographers, for a long time, insisted on 
 marking it as a long island ; and it was long before the intelligent 
 assertions of the Jesuit Fathers, though founded on personal observa- 
 tions, were attended to by the map-makers. In January, 1699, on 
 one of these tours of inspection, Fathers Kino and Gilg met five hun- 
 dred Yumas, Opas, and Cocomaricopas at a point three leagues above 
 the junction of the Gila and Colorado. These people had traditions 
 of the arrival of Spaniards from the east, which probably referred to 
 the party of Onate. They told of a visit from a white woman whom 
 the Fathers supposed to be an enthusiast named Maria de Jesus Agre- 
 da, who had gone out alone as early as 1630, among the savages. 
 
 Junction of the Gila and Colorado Rivers. 
 
 
 These people also said that at the north there lived white men who 
 wore clothes, who at times came armed to the Colorado, and brought 
 goods in exchange for skins. This can only allude to some expedition 
 of French traders, of which we have no account, or possibly to the 
 expedition from Boston, already alluded to, which is said to have pre- 
 ceded by a year the expedition of La Salle. 
 
 So far at least, as their written history goes, the flourishing condi- 
 tion of the Pimeria, which was the result of the Jesuit 
 labors in Arizona, ended with the death of Father Kino in 
 the year 1711. This remarkable man, one of the most suc- 
 cessful and enterprising of apostles, had been a professor of math- 
 ematics in the University of Ingolstadt in Bavaria. By a divine call 
 
 Death of 
 
 Father 
 
 Kino. 
 
1711.] DECAY OF THE JESUIT MISSIONS. 595 
 
 he was led to abandon his professorship and to enter on the work of 
 preaching the gospel to the heathen. His indomitable spirit, his cour- 
 age and adventure, led him to such successes, as have been described. 
 His zeal constantly outran the slower notions of the Mexican Vice- 
 roys, and he was frequently in conflict with them and with other au- 
 thorities. It was only after long delay that his plans for the reduc- 
 tion, as it was called, of California, were adopted ; and he was fre- 
 quently held back in his undertakings in his beloved Pimeria. It 
 is said that he himself baptized more than forty thousand infidels, 
 and that he would have baptized many thousand more had the zeal of 
 the church behind him been sufficient to provide them with teachers 
 and ministers. San Xavier del Bac, as it now appears, gives an idea 
 of the external appearance of the churches he founded. The people of 
 
 
 The Mission of San Xavier del Bac. 
 
 Arizona believe this building to be the very same which was erected 
 under his direction. In this temple the worship of the Catholic church 
 is still maintained by a handful of Papajo Indians. 
 
 His successor was Father Augustin de Campos. But he could not 
 prevent the decay of the missions. Probably the enthusiasm Decay of the 
 of Europe and Mexico had been turned in other directions, Ml8S10DS - 
 and it was impossible to provide ecclesiastical chiefs for these frontier 
 settlements. The slow death settling upon Spain, attributed by 
 most students of history to the inevitable lethargy attendant on Jesuit 
 counsels, hindered the aid which the Spanish monarchs themselves 
 often tried to give the missions. Nothing is more amusing, if it were 
 not at the same time pathetic, than the narrative by Venegas of the 
 ingenious ways in which the officials of the crown resisted and de- 
 feated the pious orders of their kings. For many years, the Jesuit 
 historian tells us, the people of the villages maintained their crops and 
 built their houses in a civilized way. But as time passed, they fell 
 
596 SPANISH EXPLORATIONS AND COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 back toward the habits of savage life. Many of the villages had 
 no Spanish ministers till 1731, when a sudden revival for a mo- 
 ment filled the posts anew. Dolores and Remedies were entirely 
 unpeopled, and many others suffered from the invasions of the 
 Apaches. 
 
 In 1740 a rebellion broke out, more critical than any before, led by 
 an " apostate " Indian named Muni, one of the Yaquis, 
 dian rebel- another named Baltazar, and another named Juan Calixto. 
 Succeeding in Mayo they passed to Cedros and Bayorca. 
 Muni was at one moment taken prisoner, but having been liberated 
 he was so far encouraged that with his Yaquis he continued his rav- 
 ages. So efficient was this rebellion that the villages of the valley of 
 the Gila were wholly cut off from Mexican inspection, and, indeed, 
 they have remained in much that condition ever since. In 1744 
 Father Keeler, who attempted to revisit them, was permitted to pass 
 no farther than the first village of the Moquis. A second revolt in 
 1750, under one Luis, did still more to break up the missions of the 
 southern part of Sonora, which now constitutes the Mexican state of 
 that name, and well-nigh completed the isolation of Pimeria in 
 the valley of the Gila. The authority of Luis over the Pimeria was 
 not broken until the year 1753, when a new governor seized him and 
 put him in prison, where he soon died of " melancholy." His relative 
 took refuge with the Seris, a barbarous tribe on the Gulf of Califor- 
 nia, always their enemies till now. Some fathers were despatched, 
 after this success, to renew the abandoned missions ; but it would ap- 
 pear that their decay could not be arrested. 
 
 Their history is at the bottom the same as that of the Jesuit mis- 
 sions in Paraguay, which have attracted more of the attention of stu- 
 dents of social order. By these experiments it is proved possible to 
 The lesson educate savages in a state of tutelage, and to maintain the 
 fhef<? h aN V outward external aspects of exquisite order and simplicity, 
 tempts. The i over O f tranquillity, delighted with such social order- 
 when he sees it contrasted with the strifes of a more active world, 
 describes the pretty scene as an Arcadia, if he be of a classical 
 bent ; or as the kingdom of heaven on earth, if he be trained in 
 another school. But the moment a storm comes, or the moment the 
 mild tyranny of the spiritual father is removed, it proves that this 
 people, so gentle and so simple, have not been educated to the care 
 of themselves. They have been taught to obey, in a false school, 
 which has not taught them either to direct or to command. And the 
 lovely village, so charming to the traveller who sees it from the 
 outside for a day or two, is swept away, like a vision of the night, 
 and leaves almost as little trace behind. 
 
1767.] 
 
 EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS. 
 
 597 
 
 
 For the missions of Pimeria and of Upper California, the final blow- 
 was struck, so far as Jesuit supervision went, on the 
 25th of June, 1767. "A little before the break of day," 
 says the historian, with a certain pathos, "the decree for 
 the expulsion of the Jesuits went forth, with the great seal itself, 
 from the council chamber of Charles III." In the endless intrigues, 
 in which the history of the com- 
 pany of Jesuits is involved, per- 
 haps from its own nature, the 
 balance had gone against it heav- 
 ily, at that moment, in the dying 
 court of Spain. King Charles was 
 so eager to secure the execution 
 of his decree that by an autograph 
 letter to the viceroy of Mexico 
 he notified his will, and the ex- 
 pulsion of the Jesuits from Mex- 
 ico followed with much more ra- 
 pidity than had attended the ex- 
 ecution of many of the decrees 
 in their favor. The accounts 
 given by the Jesuit writers and 
 their enemies as to the origin of 
 this decree, belong rather to the 
 history of Europe than to that of 
 Pimeria. It was due to the in- 
 fluence of Choiseul and Aranda, who seem to have succeeded in con- 
 vincing Charles that the Jesuits had circulated slanders regarding his 
 own birth. Certain is it that the blow was sudden and unexpected. 
 
 Portrait of Cnarles III. of Spain. 
 
 When, in 1683, the French explorer, La Salle, addressed to the 
 king of France his memoir on the foundation of a colony in New Me ju CO 
 Louisiana, the silver mines of New Mexico were so well es- auUTexa8 - 
 tablished, that the prime reason suggested by him for his enterprise, 
 was the ease with which the French might seize the product of those 
 mines, and bring it down the Red River. After two hundred years, 
 that route is not yet taken by the silver of New Mexico and the 
 neighboring regions. But it may yet prove true, that by a railway 
 through the valley of the Red River these stores of silver, the magni- 
 tude of which has deranged the balance of the coinage of the world, 
 may find their way to their market. The Spanish government \vas 
 as quick as La Salle to note the danger to their mines from his enter- 
 
598 SPANISH EXPLORATIONS AND COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 prise. When his unfortunate colony landed, in fact within the limits 
 of our State of Texas, 1 in Matagorda Bay, which they called the Bay 
 of St. Bernard, the nearest Spanish positions on the gulf were the 
 port of Panuco, near the present Tampico, more than two hundred 
 leagues distant, and El Paso on the Rio Grande. The Spanish settlers 
 had been driven from New Mexico by the rising of 1680, nor was 
 possession regained until 1695. Early in 1686 the viceroy of Mexico, 
 Laguna, was informed of the French expedition of La Salle. But 
 its destination was unknown ; and the historian of Texas believes that 
 the Spaniards learned from the Camanche Indians of the colony in St. 
 Bernard's Bay. A council held in Mexico determined on an expedi- 
 tion of discovery and repression, and to this expedition Captain Alonzo 
 de Leon was appointed, under the title of Governor of Coahuila. 
 
 De Leon arrived at Fort St. Louis on the 22d of April, with his 
 Expedition command of one hundred men. He found there the wreck 
 of De Leon. Q ^ ne un f O rtunate French colony ; and, learning from the 
 Indians that there were French stragglers among the Cenis, he visited 
 them and found two of the murderers of La Salle, whom he took pris- 
 oners. They were sent to Mexico and thence to Spain, and then sent 
 back to Mexico and condemned to the mines. 
 
 De Leon made a favorable report as to Texas, and it was determined 
 to establish a mission at Fort St. Louis. In 1690 this was done. The 
 king approved of this proceeding, saying it was of importance for the 
 security of his dominions in New Mexico. Venegas, the historian of 
 California, expresses a mild regret that the necessities of the crown 
 diverted to this enterprise treasure which he is sure could have been 
 well used on the Pacific shore. But the French were too near for 
 delay. It would indeed seem as if, till this time, the policy of Spain 
 had been that ascribed to the ancient Persian prince, who kept a por- 
 tion of desert three days journey in width between his own empire 
 and many others. But Texas was then a desert far more than three 
 days wide. If such were the policy, it gave way before the danger 
 that other colonists might inhabit the desert. In 1691, Don Domingo 
 Teran was appointed governor of Coahuila and Texas, and with fifty 
 soldiers and seven lay friars, proceeded to establish missions and mili- 
 tary posts. These they began, but in 1693 they were all abandoned, 
 in face of hostile Indians, and the king approved of the abandonment. 
 At the beginning of the eighteenth century, therefore, Spain had no 
 posts in Texas. On the west side of the Rio Grande, the posts still 
 known as Presidio del Norte and El Paso were maintained as stations 
 on the road to New Mexico. 
 
 When in 1712, Louis XIV. gave to Antoine Crozat a grant of 
 
 1 See chap. xxi. 
 
1714.] 
 
 ATTEMPTS TO COLONIZE TEXAS. 
 
 Louisiana, it was so phrased as to extend his boundaries to the Rio 
 Grande on the west. In 1714, he sent out Huchereau St. Expedition 
 Denis, a young man of noble family, on an expedition to Ofst - Dems - 
 the western part of his new domain. Leaving Natchitoches on the 
 Red River, where a trading post had already been established, St. 
 Denis crossed Texas, and in August reached the mission of St. John 
 Baptist on the Rio Grande, where he was hospitably received by the 
 commander. But, so soon as Don Gaspardo Anaya, the Governor of 
 Coahuila. heard of his arrival he arrested St. Denis and one of his 
 
 companions and sent them to Mexico, where they were imprisoned for 
 six months. After two years, however, he returned to Mobile, having 
 escaped or been released. He married the daughter of Villeseas, the 
 governor of St. John Baptist, and from that day began a system of 
 smuggling between the Mexican territories and those of Louisiana, 
 which has continued to this time. 1 
 
 Those movements alarmed the Spaniards again, and the Duke of 
 Linares, now Viceroy of Mexico, made new efforts to prose- Spani8h at _ 
 cute the colonization of Texas. A new mission was estab- JX^J 
 lished in the Bay of St. Bernard, and one among the Adaes, Texas - 
 only fifteen miles from Natchitoches. It was therefore within the pres- 
 ent line of the State of Louisiana. A mission called Dolores was 
 
 1 Yoakum, Hist. Texas, vol. i., 48. American State Papers, vol xii. Mr. Gayarre lias 
 made a romance from these adventures. 
 
600 SPANISH EXPLORATIONS AND COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 established west of the Sabine, and San Antonio de Valero was placed 
 on the right bank of the San Pedro, about three fourths of a mile 
 from the present church at San Antonio. The present position of 
 San Antonio was soon after chosen instead of the first, for reasons 
 which recommend themselves to every visitor to that beautiful city. 
 Soon after, a mission was established near the present town of Nacog- 
 doches, and a sixth near San Augustine. The establishment of these 
 missions was intrusted to a captain named Don Domingo Ramon. 
 When he was at the Adaes he visited San Denis at Natchitoches, and 
 was hospitably received. 
 
 San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 XT' 
 
 The Texan missions were 
 from the first in the hands of 
 Franciscan fathers. But the 
 methods of these fathers were 
 not materially different from 
 those which we have described as practised by the Jesuits. At each 
 preside or mission there was a garrison, with a military commandant ; 
 but T&ese garrisons were sometimes very small. A plaza de armas, 
 surrouflded by the church, barracks, storehouses, and other public 
 buildings? was the centre of the establishment. Around these huts 
 were built for the " reduced " or converted Indians. 
 
 After the declaration of war of 1718 between France and Spain had 
 conflict*, be- been heard of on this distant frontier, the little garrisons 
 made an attempt to imitate the contentions of their masters 
 in E U rop e- The Frenchmen, La Harpe and St. Denis, broke 
 up the Spanish posts and drove the garrisons from the lesser stations 
 to San Antonio. The Marquis de Aguayo, the Spanish Governor 
 of New Estremadura, collected five hundred men to drive them back, 
 but they had already retreated, and Don Aguayo reestablished the 
 garrisons 1 which they had put to flight. 
 
 1 Am. Slate Papers, vol. xii. 
 
 spaui*h. 
 
1728.] THE SPANIARDS IN TEXAS. 601 
 
 In the same year Don Martin d'Alarcone had been appointed 
 Governor of Texas. After the success of Aguayo's expedition, a larger 
 jinny was fitted out against the French settlements on the Upper Mis- 
 sissippi. The Spaniards lost their route, and falling in with the Mis- 
 souri Indians, mistook them for Osages. They had relied on the as- 
 sistance of the Osages against the French. Now, the Missouris were 
 the firm allies of the French. The Missouris had the address to 
 encourage the mistake, till they had received from the Spaniards pis- 
 tols, sabres, hatchets, and what the narrator speaks of as fifteen hun- 
 dred muskets, a number which is incredible. With these arms, how- 
 ever, the Indians massacred all the Spaniards except the priest, and 
 this misfortune ended the Spanish claims on the Upper Mississippi. 1 
 The French home government, in the meanwhile, ordered Bienville to 
 establish a new post in Matagorda Bay, which he did. But the de- 
 tachment was soon withdrawn on account of the hostility of the 
 Indians. 
 
 A royal order of 1721 directed the Spanish authorities to attempt 
 no further hostilities against the French, but to fortify the 
 
 Fiirthpr 
 
 bay of St. Bernard and other important posts. A garrison pro&re*. of 
 
 II T t f T ? i i ii-ii Texa under 
 
 called "our Lady of Loretto was accordingly established spankh 
 at St. Bernard. In the next year the four garrisons which 
 defended Texas, consisted of one hundred men at the Adaes Mission, 
 twenty-five at the Neches, ninety at the bay of St. Bernard, and fifty- 
 three at San Antonio. There were no colonists, excepting the fathers, 
 at the missions, but Aguayo, before returning to his own department, 
 recommended the introduction of colonists. So soon as he departed, 
 the forbidden trade between French and Spanish frontiersmen began 
 again, and when, in the war of 1726, France and Spain were in alli- 
 ance, this trade gained new activity. 2 
 
 In 1728 the Spanish government ordered the transportation of four 
 hundred families from the Canary Islands to Texas. The garrisons 
 were reduced to one hundred and fifty-three men in the whole prov- 
 ince. Of the four hundred families ordered, thirteen arrived at San 
 Antonio, and this new population was a stimulus to the missionary 
 efforts. In 1732 the Spanish troops defeated the Apaches, and this 
 victory gave security to the colony. In 1734 Sandoval took the place 
 of Cevallos as governor, and again checked the depredations of the 
 savages. While he was Governor, St. Denis removed the French gar- 
 rison of Natchitoches to a point west of the Red River. Sandoval 
 having been charged with conniving with this, a long litigation took 
 place, with the interminable slowness of Spanish procedures, in 
 
 1 Gayarre's Hist, of Louisiana, vol. i., p. 264. 
 
 2 Yoakum, i., 77. 
 
802 SPANISH EXPLORATIONS AND COLONIZATION. [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 which he and Franquis, his successor, were engaged. In 1740 Sando- 
 val was thrown into prison, in one of the consequences of this charge, 
 but with the arrival of a new governor, he was liberated. 
 
 In 1744 the European population of Texas did not exceed fifteen 
 hundred, divided mostly between Adaes and San Antonio ; a few 
 were at Bahia, and a few at San Saba. The settlements to the south 
 of Texas made but very little progress, and the old policy of Spain, to 
 leave a desert between her provinces and her neighbors, was in no way 
 violated. 
 
 The Yucc* Tree of New Mexico 
 
TABLE OF DATES. 
 
 1540. Coronado's expedition in search of Cibola. 
 1579. Drake on the California Coast. 
 1582. Espejo's expedition on the Rio del Norte. 
 1602. Voyage of Viscaino on the coast of California. 
 
 1636. Endicott's Expedition to Block Island. 
 Providence founded by Roger Williams. 
 
 1637. The Pequot War. 
 
 Sir John Harvey returns as Governor of Virginia. 
 
 1638. New Haven founded. 
 
 Settlement of Rhode Island at Portsmouth. 
 
 A quo warranto issued against the Massachusetts charter. 
 
 Exeter, New Hampshire, founded. 
 
 1639. First Constitution of Connecticut adopted, and a Government 
 
 formed. 
 
 1640. Explorations of Fathers Chaumonot and Bre'bceuf, in Ohio and Michigan. 
 
 1641. The Body of Liberties adopted in Massachusetts. 
 
 New Hampshire passes under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. 
 '1642. Sir William Berkeley Governor of Virginia. 
 
 1643. The Confederation of New England Colonies formed. 
 Trial of the Gorton Party at Boston. 
 
 Issue of the Narragansett Patent. 
 Murder of Miantonomo. 
 
 1644. The Charter for Providence Plantations granted to Roger 'Williams. 
 Indian massacre in Virginia. 
 
 1647. Stuy vesant arrives at New Amsterdam as Governor of New Nether- 
 land. 
 Stuyvesant's controversy with the popular party at New Amsterdam. 
 
 1650. Boundary Treaty between Connecticut and New Netherland concluded at 
 
 Hartford. 
 
 1651. Clark, Holmes, and Crandall tried in Boston. 
 
 1652. Surrender of Jamestown to the Commissioners of the Common- 
 wealth. 
 
 A mint established in Massachusetts. 
 1653. Elective municipal government established at New Amsterdam. 
 
 Rhode Island declares war against New Netherland. 
 
 First Settlements in North Carolina, on Albermarle Sound. 
 1655. The Dutch take possession of New Sweden. 
 
 Establishment of the Colony of New Amstel. 
 
 VOL. II 
 
304 TABLE OF DATES. 
 
 Conflict in Maryland between the Puritans and Roman Catholics. 
 Indian massacres at Hoboken, Pavonia, and elsewhere. 
 
 1656. The First Quakers arrive in Boston. 
 
 1657. Persecution of Quakers in New England. 
 
 1659. Execution of Quakers at Boston. 
 
 1660. Berkeley reelected Governor of Virginia, 
 
 (Or 1661), Settlement of New England men at Cape Fear, S. C. 
 
 Execution of Mary Dyer at Boston. 
 
 Father Mesnard founds a Mission on Lake Superior. 
 
 1661. Charles II. checks the persecution of Quakers in New England. 
 
 1663. Charter of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations granted by 
 
 Charles II. 
 First Grant of Carolina. 
 
 1664. Grant of New Nether land to the Duke of York, and its Surrender to 
 
 the English. Named New York. 
 Tending of the Colony under Yeamans at Cape Fear. 
 Government of North Carolina established. 
 Grant of New Jersey to Berkeley and Carteret. 
 First settlement of Central New York at Schenectady. 
 
 1665. Second Grant of Carolina. 
 
 Arrival of Philip Carteret as Governor of New Jersey. Elizabeth 
 
 founded. 
 
 The " Duke's Laws " adopted in New York. 
 1666. Newark, New Jersey, founded. 
 
 1668. Lovelace, Governor of New York. 
 
 1669. Completion of John Locke's "Fundamental Constitutions for Carolina." 
 
 1671. Great Indian Council at Sault Ste. Marie. 
 
 1672. Anti-rent insurrection in New Jersey. 
 
 1673. Recapture of New York by the Dutch. 
 Marquette explores the Mississippi. 
 
 1674. Treaty of Westminster confirms New York to England. New 
 
 Patent issued to the Duke of York. 
 Andros Governor of New York. 
 Fenwicke's and Byllinge's Purchase of West New Jersey. 
 
 1675. Outbreak of Philip's War in New England. 
 Indian War in Virginia. 
 
 1676. Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia. 
 
 The " Quintipartite Deed " for the Partition of New Jersey. 
 
 Close of Philip's war. 
 1678. Royal Commissioners arrive in Virginia. Berkeley's recall and death. 
 
 Emigration of Friends to West Jersey. 
 
 Insurrection in the district of Pasquotank, N. C. 
 
 Indian Treaty concluded at Casco, Me. 
 
 1679. New Hampshire made an independent Royal Province. 
 1680. Hennepin's Voyage on the Mississippi. 
 
 Charleston, S. C., founded. 
 
 1681. The Grant of Pennsylvania signed. Emigration begun. 
 
 1682. The Friends buy East Jersey. 
 Penn sails for America. 
 Philadelphia founded. 
 Penn's Indian Treaty. 
 
 
TABLE OF DATES. 
 
 605, 
 
 La Salle's Voyage on the Mississippi. 
 
 1684. Lord Cardross's Colony founded at Port Royal, S. C- 
 Judgment against the Massachusetts Charter. 
 Penn returns to England. 
 
 1685. La Salle's colony founded in Texas. 
 
 1686. Andros Governor-general of New England. 
 
 1687. Andros attempts to seize the Connecticut charter. Its concealment in the 
 
 Charter Oak. 
 Murder of La Salle. 
 
 1688. Indian War renewed in Maine and New Hampshire. Massacres at Dovei 
 
 and elsewhere. 
 1689. Deposition and Arrest of Andros at Boston. 
 
 William and Mary proclaimed. 
 1690. Sothell seizes the government of South Carolina. 
 
 French and Indian expeditions into New Hampshire. 
 1692. Phips Governor of Massachusetts under the new Charter 
 
 Outbreak of the 'Witchcraft Panic at Salem, Mass. 
 
 1694. Rice introduced into South Carolina. 
 
 1695. Archdale Governor of South Carolina. 
 
 1696. Spanish fort established at Pensacola, Florida. 
 
 1699. Penn returns to America. 
 
 1 700. Iherville establishes a settlement at Poverty Point, La. 
 Attack by the Carolinians on St. Augustine. 
 
 1712. Louisiana granted to Crozat. 
 
 1717. Law's " Western Company " established. 
 
 1718. New Orleans founded. 
 
 1719. Law's " Mississippi Scheme." 
 Capture of Pensacola by Bienville. 
 
 1720. Charlevoix's voyage to visit the Jesuit missions in America. 
 
 * O 
 
 1722. Recapture of Pensacola by the Spaniards. 
 1729. Massacre of French by the Natchez. 
 174O. Oglethorpe's Attack on St. Augustine. 
 
L I E> RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 Miss Ethel Bicker 
 
 from the 
 
 Library of her Father 
 Nathan Clifford Bicker 
 Head of the Department of 
 Architecture, 1873-1911 
 
 373 
 
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 The person charging this material is re- 
 sponsible for its return on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. 
 
 Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books 
 are reasons for disciplinary action and may 
 result in dismissal from the University. 
 
 University of Illinois Library 
 
 APR-61! 
 
 L161 O-1096 
 
SCRIBNER'S 
 
 POPULAR HISTORY OF 
 THE UNITED STATES 
 
- s 
 

SCRIBNER'S 
 
 POPULAR HISTORY OF 
 THE UNITED STATES 
 
 FROM THE EARLIEST DISCOVERIES OF THE WESTERN 
 HEMISPHERE BY THE NORTHMEN TO THE PRESENT TIME 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 
 
 SIDNEY HOWARD GAY 
 
 NOAH BROOKS 
 
 WITH MORE THAN SIXTEEN HUNDRED 
 ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS 
 
 VOLUME III 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1896 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1879, 1881, 1896, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 RIGHT OF TRANS LA T/ON RESERVED 
 
 Press of J. J. Little & Co. 
 -Astor Place. New York 
 
' 
 
 - 
 
 <3 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 NEW YORK UNDER THE ENGLISH. 
 
 PAGI 
 
 CONDITION OF NEW YORK ON THE ARRIVAL OF ANDROS AS GOVERNOR. COM- 
 PARISON WITH NEW ENGLAND. ANDROS VISITS CONNECTICUT. His RECEP- 
 TION BY CAPTAIN BULL AT SATBROOK. COMPLAINED OF BT LADY CARTERET, 
 AND OTHERS. HlS RECALL TO ENGLAND. NEW PROPRIETORS OF EAST JtR- 
 SEY. THOMAS DONGAN APPOINTED GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK. GENERAL AS- 
 SEMBLY ORDERED BY THE DUKE OF YORK. CHARTER OF LIBERTIES ADOPTED. 
 
 ASSEMBLY DISSOLVED BY JAMES. DONGAN'S ADMINISTRATION. ANDROS 
 AS GOVERNOR-GENERAL. ACCESSION OF WILLIAM AND MARY. AFFAIRS UN- 
 DER LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR NICHOLSON. His COUNCIL-MEN, PHILLIPSE, VAN 
 CORTLANDT, AND BAYARD. CAPTAIN LEISLER ASSUMES COMMAND, AND ACTS 
 AS GOVERNOR. SUPPORTED BY A COMMITTEE OF SAFETY AND RECOGNIZED 
 BY THE COLONIES. His DIFFICULTIES. TROUBLES WITH THE FRENCH AND 
 INDIANS. CONTEST WITH CAPTAIN INGOI.DSBY. SURRENDERS THE GOVERN- 
 MENT TO COLONEL SLOUGHTER. TRIAL AND EXECUTION 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ROYAL GOVERNORS UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY. 
 
 COLONIAL POLICY OF WILLIAM AND MARY. GOVERNOR FLETCHER OF NEW 
 YORK. His VISIT TO CONNECTICUT. RENEWAL OF HOSTILITIES WITH THE 
 FRENCH AND INDIANS. SCHUYLER'S EXPEDITION. ADMINISTRATION OF THE 
 EARL OF BELLOMONT. PREVALENCE OF PRIVATEERING AND PIRACY. CAP- 
 TAIN KIDD'S ADVENTURES. LORD CORNBURY, GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK AND 
 NEW JERSEY. EAST AND WEST JERSEY UNITED AND PROPRIETARY GOVERN- 
 MENT ENDED. CONTROVERSY BETWEEN CORNBURY AND THE NEW JERSEY AS- 
 SEMBLY. GOVERNORS LOVELACE, INGOLDSBY, AND HUNTER. PORT ROYAL 
 
 TAKEN BY THE ENGLISH. PROPOSED INVASION OF CANADA. NOVA SCOTIA 
 CEDED BY THE FRENCH. ADMINISTRATION OF GOVERNOR BURNET .... 25 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 VIRGINIA AT THE CLOSE OF BERKELEY'S ADMINISTRATION. PHILIP LUDWELL 
 AND GOVERNOR JEFFREYS. ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CULPEPPER. WRETCHED 
 VOL. in. 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CONDITION OF THE COLONY. OVER-PRODUCTION OF TOBACCO. THE "PLANT- 
 CUTTERS." INFLATION OF THE CURRENCY BY THE GOVERNOR. LORD EFFING- 
 HAM SUCCEEDS Cri.PEPPER. A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER UNDER GOVERNOR 
 
 NICHOLSON. WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE. NICHOLSON REMOVED TO MARY- 
 LAND. AFFAIRS IN THAT COLONY. LORD BALTIMORE DEPRIVED OF POLIT- 
 ICAL POWER. MARYLAND A ROYAL PROVINCE CHURCH OF ENGLAND ES- 
 TABLISHED ISY NICHOLSON. EDMUND ANDROS, GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA. 
 SUCCEEDED IIY NICHOLSON. Mis SECOND ADMINISTRATION, AND CACSES OF 
 HIS RECALL. GOVERNOR SPOTSWOOD. His EXPEDITION OVER THE BLUE 
 RIDGE. SETTLEMENT OF THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY. GREATER RELIGIOUS 
 TOLERATION. PROGRESS AND PROSPERITY OF VIRGINIA. SUCCESSIVE GOV- 
 ERNORS, TILL THE ARRIVAL OF DINWIDDIE 51 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CAROLINAS. 
 
 GOVERNOR MOORE'S MILITARY EXPEDITIONS AND THEIR RESULTS. TROUBLES 
 UNDER THE ADMINISTRATION OF SlR NATHANIEL JOHNSON. REPULSE OF A 
 FRENCH AND SPANISH INVASION. DISSENSION IN NORTH CAROLINA. CON- 
 TEST BETWEEN CAKY, GLOVER, AND HYDE FOR THE GOVERNORSHIP. INTERFER- 
 ENCE OF GOVERNOR SPOTSWOOD. INDIAN OUTBREAK IN NORTH CAROLINA. 
 THE YEMASSEE WAR IN THE SOUTHERN PROVINCE. INDIFFERENCE OF THE 
 PROPRIETORS. THE BUCCANEERS OF THE CAROLINA COAST. THEIR SUP- 
 PRESSION, AND DEATH OF THE PIRATE-ADMIRAL, BLACK BEARD. REVOLUTION 
 IN SOUTH CAROLINA. DEPOSITION OF GOVERNOR ROBERT JOHNSON. SIR 
 FRANCIS NICHOLSON PROVISIONAL GOVERNOR. PURCHASE OF THE CAROLINAS 
 BY THE CROWN. ROBERT JOHNSON REAPPOINTED AS ROYAL GOVERNOR. 
 CONDITION OF THE PROVINCE 81 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE ROYAL GOVERNORS IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS A ROYAL PROVINCE. THE TROUBLES OF RHODE ISLAND. 
 ARBITRARY INTERFERENCE OF LORD BELLOMONT. ADMINISTRATION OF DUD- 
 LEY. INDIAN HOSTILITIES. ATTACKS ON DEERFIELD AND OTHER PLACES. 
 WAR IN MAINE. CAPTURE OF PORT ROYAL. MASSACHUSETTS EARLY IN THE 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. INOCULATION FOR SMALL-POX. GOVERNOR SHUTE 
 IN MASSACHUSETTS AND NEW HAMPSHIRE. THE ROYAL PREROGATIVE IN 
 FORESTS. FINANCIAL POLICY OF THE COLONIES. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND 
 THE "Xuw ENGLAND COURANT." SETTLEMENTS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE AND 
 MAINE. 109 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 GEORGIA. 
 
 PROPOSED SETTLEMENT SOUTH OF THE SAVANNAH. THE MARGRAVATE or 
 Ax i i.i A. THE SETTLEMENT OF GF.ORGIA. SKETCH OF JAMES OGLETHORPE. 
 ARRIVAL OF THE COLONISTS. BUILDING OF SAVANNAH. SPEECH OF TOMO 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 
 CHICHI. THE HIGHLANDERS AND SALZBURGERS. THE PILGRIMAGE OK THE 
 SALZBUKGERS. THE "GKAND EMBARKATION." THE BROTHERS WESLEY. 
 GEORGE WHITEFIELD AND HIS ORPHAN HOUSE. SLAVERY AND THE IMPORTA- 
 TION OK RUM PROHIBITED IN GEORGIA. LAND TENURE. Oo LETHOICPt'S 
 
 JOURNEY TO THE INTERIOR. SLAVE INSURRECTION IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 GEORGIA INVADED BY THE SPANIARDS. GALLANT ACTION OF OGLLTHORPE. 
 THE ROAD TO FREDERICA. SLAUGHTER OF THE SPANIARDS IN A DEFILE. 
 OGI.ETHORPE'S STRATAGEM. RETREAT OF THE SPANISH FLEET. OGLE- 
 THORPE'S RETURN TO ENGLAND. THE LATTER YEARS OF HIS LIFE. SUR- 
 RENDER OF THE CHARTER. THE HALF-BREED QUEEN MARY. SUPPRESSION 
 
 OF THE BOSOMWORTII INSURRECTION. GEORGIA A ROYAL PROVINCE. ITS 
 
 SLOW PROGRESS . 140 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 PENN'S RETURN TO AMERICA. ASPECT OF PHILADELPHIA AT THAT TIME. 
 BIRTH OF HIS SON JOHN. PENN'S SEAT AT PENNSBCRY MANOR. RELATIONS 
 TO THE INDIANS AND HIS NEIGHBORS. RETURN TO ENGLAND. FRIENDS AND 
 SLAVERY. THE EARLIEST ABOLITIONISTS. NEW CHARTER GRANTED. JOHN 
 EVANS APPOINTED DEPUTY-GOVERNOR. PENN'S TROUBLES WITH THE FORDS, 
 AND HIS ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT. NEGOTIATIONS FOR SALE OF THE 
 PROVINCE TO THE CROWN. TROUBLES IN PENNSYLVANIA. OPPOSITION PARTY 
 UNDER DAVID LLOYD. RESISTANCE TO TAXATION. COMPLAINTS AGAINST 
 JAMES LOGAN. CONDUCT OF WILLIAM PENN, JR. DEATH OF THE PROPRI- 
 ETOR. GOVERNOR GOOKIN ON MILITARY REQUISITIONS AND OATHS. SIR 
 WILLIAM KEITH'S ADMINISTRATION. VISITS OF THE YOUNGER PENNS. 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 170 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 NEW ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH. 
 
 THE THIRD INDIAN WAR IN NEW ENGLAND. NEW HAMPSHIRE A SEPARATE 
 PROVINCE. GOVERNOR BENNING WENTWORTH. ADMINISTRATION OF GOV- 
 ERNOR BELCHER OF MASSACHUSETTS. FINANCIAL CONDITION OF THE COLONY. 
 APPOINTMENT OF GOVERNOR SHIRLEY. GEORGE WHITEFIELD'S FIRST VISIT 
 TO NEW ENGLAND. THE REVIVAL PERIOD. WAR AGAIN DECLARED BETWEEN 
 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. THE SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF LOUISBURG. COLONEL 
 WILLIAM PEPPERELL. LOUISBURG RESTORED TO FRANCE. AN ENGLISH 
 PRESS-GANG IN BOSTON. THE TOWNHOUSE ASSAULTED. INSURRECTION 
 SKILFULLY AVERTED . . . 192 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 GOVERNOR COSBY'S ADMINISTRATION. CONTROVERSY WITH VAN DAM. THE 
 ZENGER LIBEL SUIT. STRUGGLES OF POLITICAL PARTIES. GEORGE CLARKE, 
 LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR. THE NEGRO PLOT OF 1741. GROWTH OF THE COL- 
 
 i 
 
vm 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 ONY IN A HALF CENTURY. EARLY SETTLEMENTS ON THE MOHAWK AND SUB- 
 
 QUEHANNA. TlIE ClTY OF NEW YORK AT SEVERAL PERIODS. KlNO's COL- 
 
 LEGB ESTABLISHED. POSITION OP THE COLONY BY THE MIDDLE OF THE 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. APPOINTMENT OF GOVERNOR CLINTON. THE PER- 
 PLEXITIES OF HIS ADMINISTRATION. PREPARATIONS FOR A DOUBLE EXPEDI- 
 TION AGAINST CANADA. THE TREATY OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. SIR DANVERS 
 OSBORN'S INAUGURATION AND DEATH CHIEF JUSTICE DE LANCEY SUCCEEDS 
 AS LlEUTENANT-GOVERXOK . 222 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 OPENING OF THE FRENCH WAR. 
 
 CONTEST BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE FOR TERRITORY IN AMERICA. 
 FRENCH MOVEMENTS INTO THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. LINE OF FRENCH 
 FORTS AT THE WEST. PROGRESS OF ENGLISH SETTLEMENT WESTWARD. 
 THE OHIO COMPANY. MAJOR WASHINGTON. His FIGHT WITH JUMONVILLE. 
 
 SURRENDER AT FORT NECESSITY. CONVENTION AT ALBANY AND PLAN FOR 
 COLONIAL UNION. ARRIVAL OF GENERAL BRADDOCK. His EXPEDITION. 
 FRANKLIN'S ADVICE. BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT AND DEATH. OPERATIONS IN 
 NOVA SCOTIA. THE QUESTION OF BOUNDARIES. SETTLEMENT OF HALIFAX. 
 
 EXILE OF THE ACADIANS .... . 254 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE FRENCH WAR. 
 
 PROPOSED OPERATIONS UNDER SHIRLEY AND JOHNSON. BATTLE OF LAKE GEORGE. 
 WAR DECLARED BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. LORD LOUDOUN CoM- 
 MANDER-IN-CHIEF IN AMERICA. MONTCALM IN CANADA. LOSS OF FORT Os- 
 WEGO. LOUDOUN'S PLANS AND FAILURE. FORT WILLIAM HENRY TAKEN BY 
 THE FRENCH. MASSACRE OF THE GARRISON. DISCOURAGEMENT IN THE COL- 
 ONIES. THE WAR AT THE SOUTH. GENERAL CONDITION OF THE COLONIES 
 AND OF CANADA. WILLIAM PITT. AMHERST SUPERSEDES LOUDOUN. CAP- 
 TURE OF LOUISBURG. DEFEAT OF ABERCROMBIE. CAPTURE OF FORTS FRON- 
 TENAC, Du QUESNE, AND NIAGARA. TlCONDEROGA TAKEN BY AMHERST . . 282 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CONQUEST OF CANADA. PONTIAC'S WAR. 
 
 FALL OF QUEBEC AND MONTREAL. RENEWAL OF INDIAN HOSTILITIES. PON- 
 TIAC'S CONSPIRACY. SIEGE OF DETROIT. BATTLE OF BLOODY BRIDGE. 
 DEATH OF DALZELL. ATTACK ON SANDUSKY. TAKING OF FORTS ST. JOSEPH. 
 MlAMI, AND OUATANON. MASSACRE AT MlCHILIMACKINAC. FlGHT AT PRESQU* 
 ISLE. BURNING OF FORT LE B<EUF. FORTS VENANGO, LIGONIER, AND AU- 
 GUSTA REDUCED. FORT PITT BESIEGED. BOUQUET'S EXPEDITION. BATTLE 
 OF BUSHY RUN. THE PAXTON MEN. ADVANCE ON PHILADELPHIA. DEATH 
 OF PONTIAC. SUBMISSION OF THE INDIANS 304 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ALIENATION FROM ENGLAND. 
 
 DEBTS OF ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES. WEALTH OF AMERICA. THE NAVI- 
 GATION ACTS. THE WRITS OF ASSISTANCE. PLAN OF TAXING AMERICA FOB 
 THE ROYAL EXCHEQUER. GEORGE GKENVILLE'S RESOLUTION. THE KING 
 AND THE KING'S FRIENDS. GHENVILLE AND THE COLONIAL AGENTS. THE 
 SUGAR ACT. COLONIAL PROTEST AGAINST TAXATION. OTIS'S LETTER ANU 
 BOOK. PASSAGE OF THE STAMP ACT. REPLY OF THE COLONIES. FIRST 
 CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. THEIR RESOLVES. RESOLVES OF VIRGINIA. 
 OTHER MEASURES OF OPPOSITION. THE STAMPS REFUSED. MOB IN BOS- 
 TON. THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT. WILLIAM PITT. THE STAMP ACT RE- 
 PEALED. THE DECLARATORY ACT. CONFUSION IN ENGLISH COUNSELS. 
 JOY FOR THE REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT. FRANKLIN BEFORE THE HOUSE 
 OF COMMONS 329 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 END OF COLONIAL RULE. 
 
 MEASURES FOLLOWING THE REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT. IGNORANCE OF AMER- 
 ICA IN ENGLAND. QUARTERING TROOPS IN BOSTON. CONSEQUENT ILL- 
 FEELING. IMPRESSMENT AND RESISTANCE OF SEAMEN. QUARRELS BETWEEN 
 CITIZENS AND SOLDIERS. THE BOSTON MASSACRE. REMOVAL OF THE MILI- 
 TARY. "SAM. ADAMS'S REGIMENTS." TRIAL AND ACQUITTAL OF CAPTAIN 
 PRESTON. VERDICT AGAINST Two SOLDIERS. EFFORTS OF THE DUKE OF 
 GRAFTON AT RECONCILIATION. CONDUCT OF THE EARL OF HILLSBOROCGH 
 LORD NORTH'S MINISTRY. THE TEA TAX. THE WHATELY LETTERS. 
 FRANKLIN INSULTED BY WEDDERBURN. ARRIVAL OF THE TEA SHIPS IN 
 AMERICA. DISPOSITION OF THE TEA IN VARIOUS PLACES. BOSTON PORT 
 BILL. GAGE APPOINTED GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS 351 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BEGINNING OF THE WAR. 
 
 LOYALTY OF THE AMERICANS TO THE CROWN. OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES. 
 COLONEL LESLIE'S MARCH TO SALEM. THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE MASSACRE. 
 ALTERCATIONS WITH THE TROOPS. EXCURSION TO JAMAICA PLAIN. THE 
 COMMITTEE OF SAFETY. COLONEL SMITH'S MARCH TO LEXINGTON. SIGNAL 
 LIGHTS IN NORTH CHURCH BELFRY. THE FIRST SHOT. CONCORD AND 
 CONCORD BRIDGE. THE FIGHT AT LEXINGTON. THE ENGLISH RETREAT. 
 LORD PERCY AND HIS REENFORCEMENT. THE SIEGE BEGINS. ARRIVAL OF 
 MORE TROOPS FROM ENGLAND. SKIRMISHES IN BOSTON HARBOR. BUNKER 
 HlLL FORTIFIED BY THE AMERICANS. THE BATTLE. RESULTS OF THE 
 BATTLE . 377 
 
x CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. 
 
 WASHINGTON APPOINTED COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. MAJOR-GENERALS COMMISSIONED 
 BY CONGRESS. WASHINGTON'S ARRIVAL AT CAMBRIDGE. SCARCITY OF POW- 
 DER. WEAKNESS OF THE ARMY. RELATIVE POSITIONS OF THE CONTENDING 
 FORCES. HECALL OF GAGE. CONDITION OF BOSTON. PROPOSED INTERVIEW 
 BETWEEN BURGOYNE AND LEE. MEASURES FOR SUPPLIES OF AMMUNITION. 
 NAVAL PREPARATIONS. MISREPRESENTATIONS OF THE CAUSE OF THE AMERI- 
 CANS IN EUROPE. BURNING OF FALMOUTH IN MAINE. CAPTURE OF AN ENG- 
 LISH VESSEL WITH SUPPLIES. TREACHERY OF DR. BENJAMIN CHURCH. 
 
 HOWE'S DIFFICULTIES AND PROPOSALS TO THE MINISTRY. CONGRESS SUG- 
 GESTS THE DESTRUCTION OF BOSTON. DORCHESTER HEIGHTS FORTIFIED. 
 THE TOWN COMMANDED BY THE AMERICANS. EVACUATED BY THE BRITISH. 
 THE AMERICAN ARMY TAKES POSSESSION . 407 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 
 
 THE NORTHERN CAMPAIGN OF 1775. 
 
 THE DISPUTE CONCERNING THE TERRITORY OF VERMONT. THE GREEN MOUN- 
 TAIN BOYS. ALLEN'S EXPEDITION AGAINST TICOXDEROGA. ARNOLD CLAIMS 
 COMMAND. CAPTURE OF TICONDEROGA AND CROWN POINT. EXPEDITION 
 DOWN LAKE CHAMPLAIN. RICHARD MONTGOMERY. SIEGE OF ST. JOHN'S. 
 EXPEDITION TO FORT CHAMBLY. CAPTURE OF MONTREAL. ARNOLD'S EXPE- 
 DITION THROUGH MAINE TO CANADA, AND ITS SUPPOSED IMPORTANCE. ITS 
 UNEXPECTED DIFFICULTIES. OPERATIONS BEFORE QUEBEC. DEFEAT AND 
 DEATH OF MONTGOMERY. WOOSTER TAKES COMMAND. THE FINAL FAIL- 
 URE . 430 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1776. 
 
 PARLIAMENT SUPPORTS THE KING. EFFORTS TO INCREASE THE BRITISH FORCES. 
 EMPLOYMENT OF MERCENARIES. MILITARY IMPORTANCE OF NEW YORK 
 CITY. THE PROVINCIAL CONGRESS OF NEW YORK AND THE COMMITTEE OF 
 SAFETY. THE SONS OF LIBERTY. EXPLOIT OF MARINUS WILLETT. ZEAL 
 OF ISAAC SEARS. LEE TAKKS COMMAND. FORTIFICATIONS OF BROOKLYN 
 AND NEW YORK. LORD STIRLING. THE SOUTHERN EXPEDITION. BATTLE 
 OF MOORE'S CREEK BRIDGE. ARRIVAL OF PARKER'S FLEET. SOUTH CARO- 
 LINA ADOPTS A TEMPORARY CONSTITUTION. THE BRITISH ATTACK THE DE- 
 FENCES OF CHARLESTON, AND ARE REPULSED 
 
CONTENTS. xi 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 GROWTH OF THE IDEA OF INDEPENDENCE. PAINE'S "COMMON SENSE." THE 
 MENDON RESOLUTIONS. THE SUFFOLK RESOLUTIONS. THE CHESTER RESO- 
 LUTION. THE MECKLENBURG RESOLUTIONS. ACTION OF THE SEVERAL COL- 
 ONIES, AND OF THE CONTINENTAL, CONGRESS. I.KK'S RESOLUTIONS. TlIK 
 
 COMMITTEE TO DRAFT A DECLARATION OF REASONS. INDEPENDENCE DE- 
 CLARED. JEFFERSON'S DECLARATION. THE SLAVE-TRADE CLAUSE. RECEP- 
 TION BY THE PEOPLE. FORMATION OF THE STATE CONSTITUTIONS. SOME OF 
 THEIR PECULIARITIES 470 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 LOSS OF LONG ISLAND AND NEW YORK. 
 
 THE MILITARY SITUATION OF NEW YORK. ARRIVAL OF THE ENEMY. Scu- 
 MARY OF THE FORCES. THE HOWES ATTEMPT PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. THE 
 BRITISH CROSS THE BAY DEFENCES OF BROOKLYN. BATTLE OF LONG 
 ISLAND DETAILS OF THE ACTION. THE LOSSES. RETKEAT OF THE AMER- 
 ICANS. THEY CROSS TO NEW YORK. THE QUESTION OF DESTROYING THE 
 CITY. ENTRANCE OF THE ENEMY. BATTLE OF HARLEM HEIGHTS. NEW 
 YORK OCCUPIED BY THE BRITISH. A GREAT FIRE IN THE CITY. EXECU- 
 TION OF NATHAN HALE. HOWE'S SECOND ATTEMPT TO NEGOTIATE FOR PEACE. 
 
 BATTLE OF WHITE PLAINS. SURRENDER OF FORT WASHINGTON .... 490 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE NEW JERSEY CAMPAIGN. 
 
 CONDITION OF THE ARMY. RETREAT THROUGH NEW JERSEY. HOWE'S PROCLA- 
 MATION OF AMNESTY. WASHINGTON CROSSES THE DELAWARE. CONDUCT or 
 GENERAL LEE. His CAPTURE. OUTRAGES BY THE FOREIGN TKOOPS TUB 
 HESSIANS SURPRISED AND CAPTURED AT TRENTON. WASHINGTON RECROSSES 
 THE DELAWARE. BATTLE OF PRINCETON. WINTER QUARTEKS AT MORRIS- 
 TOWN. RESULTS OF THE CAMPAIGN. SUFFERINGS OF AMERICAN PRISONERS 
 IN THE HANDS OF THE BRITISH. THE QUESTION OF EXCHANGE. WASH- 
 INGTON'S POSITION 520 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 THE NEW ARMY. FRENCH ASSISTANCE. THE BEADMARCHAIS TRANSACTIONS. 
 
 SYMPATHY OF THE FRENCH COURT. SPAIN'S ATTITUDE. OPENING SKIR- 
 MISHES OF THE CAMPAIGN IN NEW JERSEY. BURNING OF DANBURY, CON- 
 NECTICUT. MEIGS'S SAG HARBOR EXPEDITION. GENERAL HOWE SAILS FROM 
 NEW YORK. APPEARS IN THE DELAWARE, AND THEN IN THB CHESAPEAKE. 
 WASHINGTON MARCHES TO MEET HIM. BATTLE OF BRANDT WINK. DEFEAT 
 OF THE AMERICANS. WAYNE SURPRISED AT PAOLI. PHILADELPHIA OCCU- 
 PIED BY THE BRITISH. BATTLE OF GERMANTOWN. A VICTORY LOST . . . 543 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 * 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 BURGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN. 
 
 BURGOYNE SUPERSEDES CARLETON. PLAN OF A NORTHERN' CAMPAIGN. EM- 
 PLOYMENT OF INDIANS. DEATH OF JANE McCREA. Loss OF TICONDEROGA. 
 
 BATTLE OF HUBBARDTON. ST. LEGER'S EXPEDITION INTO THE MOHAWK 
 VALLEY. BATTLE OF ORISKANY. DEATH OF GENERAL HERKIMER. BATTLE 
 OF BENNINGTON. MILITARY JEALOUSIES. GATES DISPLACES SCHUYLER. 
 BATTLE OF FREEMAN'S FARM. CLINTON'S EXPEDITION UP THE HUDSON RIVER. 
 
 FALL OF FORTS MONTGOMERY AND CLINTON. SECOND BATTLE OF STILL- 
 WATKR, OR BEMUS'S HEIGHTS. BURGOYNE'S SURRENDER 566 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. PROPOSALS FOR PEACE REJECTED. 
 
 THE WINTER AT VALLEY FORGE. THE CONWAY CABAL. BARON VON STEU- 
 BEN. ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE NORTH'S PROPOSITIONS FOR PEACE. LA- 
 FAYETTE AT BARREN HILL. EVACUATION OF PHILADELPHIA. BATTLE or 
 MONMOUTH. LEE'S CONDUCT. TRIED BY COURT-MARTIAL. THE RHODE 
 ISLAND CAMPAIGN. ARRIVAL OF A FRENCH FLEET WITH TROOPS. THE TORY 
 AND INDIAN WARFARE IN CENTRAL NEW YORK. THE PIONEERS OF TENNES- 
 SEE AND KENTUCKY. COLONEL CLARK'S EXPEDITION TO ILLINOIS. OPERA- 
 TIONS BEGUN AT THE SOUTH. LOSS OF SAVANNAH. PARTISAN WARFARE. 
 
 NAVAL AFFAIRS. FIGHT BETWEEN THE " BON HOMME RICHARD" AND THE 
 
 "SEHAPIS" 3 593 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, VOLUME III. 
 
 STEEL PLATE. 
 Title. Engraver. To face 
 
 PORTRAIT OF GEORGE WASHINGTON Charles Burt . Title 
 
 By permission, from the^original painting by Gilbert Stuart, in the possession 
 of Dr. William F. Channing, Providence, R. I. 
 
 WOOD ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 To face 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. page 
 
 INDEPENDENCE HALL F. B. Schell . . J. Karst ... 1 
 
 THE TRAIN-BANDS SIGNING LEISLER'S 
 
 DECLARATION A. Fredericks . E. Clement . . ir> 
 
 THE REBURIAL OF LEISLER . . . . E. A. Abbey . . J. G. Smithwick 32 
 SPOTSWOOD'S EXPEDITION OVER THE 
 
 BLUE RIDGE W. L. Sheppard . Andrew ... 74 
 
 PORTRAIT OF JAMES OGLETHORPE . . 142 
 
 After a contemporary engraving. 
 
 THE SURRENDER OF LOCISBURG . . . A. R. Waud . . E. A. Winham . Zl't 
 THE EMBARKATION OF THE ACADIANS . E. Bayard . . Hildibrand . . 280 
 AN INDIAN GAME OF BALL J. Ruugc . . . Leggo Bros. . . 322 
 
 After Catlin. 
 PORTRAIT OF JAMES OTIS . . 332 
 
 After the portrait by Blackburn. 
 PORTRAIT OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN . . 368 
 
 After the portrait by Duplessis in the Boston Public Library. 
 
 THE RETREAT FROM CONCORD . . . C. S. Reinhart . J. G. Sraithwick 392 
 THE ATTACK ON FORT SULLIVAN . . J. E. Kelly . . J. W. Evans . . 469 
 PORTRAIT OF THOMAS JEFFERSON . . 484 
 
 After a portrait by Stuart. 
 
XIV 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT. 
 
 To face 
 page 
 
 . 487 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. 
 
 THE READING OF THE DECLARATION . A. B. Frost . . E. Clement 
 
 WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELA- 
 WARE W. L. Sheppanl . J. Hellawell 
 
 PORTRAIT OF LAFAYETTE 
 
 After a contemporary portrait, 1789. 
 
 FIGHT BETWEEN THE BON HOMME 
 
 RICHARD AND THE SERAPIS . . J. O. Davidson . E. Heinemann . 619 
 
 528 
 554 
 
 Titlr. Desitjner. En graver. Pttrje. 
 
 NEW YORK IN 1673 Runge . . . . H. East mend . . 1 
 
 From a print in A slier' s " New Netherlands* 
 
 ISLAND OF NANITCKKT G. Perkins . . . Bogert .... 3 
 
 AXDROS AT SAYBROOK Fredericks ..*. . Winliani ... 5 
 
 PERTH AMBOY Warn! Winham ... 7 
 
 From a nkeU-h. 
 
 SEAL OF NEW ENOI.AXD Range .... Clement ... 9 
 
 SIGNATURE OK DONT.AX Lggo .... 11 
 
 From Valentine's "Manual.'' 
 LEISI.ER'S HOUSE Rungc .... Clement ... 14 
 
 From a print in Valentine's " Manual," from a drawing 
 
 ma<le in 1679. 
 SIGNATURE OF FROXTEXAC Leggo .... 16 
 
 From Shea's Charleroix's " New France. 1 ' 
 
 THE ATTACK ox SCHEXKCTADY . . Reinhart. . . . Hitchcock ... 18 
 INGOLDSBY'S ATTACK ON THE FORT . Cary H. Karst ... 21 
 
 Sl.OUGHTER SIGNING I,EISLER'S DEATH- 
 WARRANT Reinhart . . . Juengling ... 23 
 
 SIGNATURE OF JACOB LEISLER Leggo .... 24 
 
 From Va'entine's " Manual. 1 " 
 
 SIGNATURE OF FI.KTCIIKR Leggo .... 25 
 
 From Valentine's " Manual." 
 
 KING WILLIAM Beech .... Pierson . . . . 2C 
 
 From tie " National Portrait Gallery.'' 1 
 
 QUEEN MARY Beech . . . . J. Karst .... 27 
 
 From the " National Portrait Gallery." 
 
 THE READING OF FLETCHER'S COM- 
 MISSION Sheppanl . . . Bogert .... 28 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xv 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. P<njt. 
 
 SCHUYLER AND THE SCOUTS .... Gary Clement ... 31 
 
 ARHEST OF KIDD Fredericks . . . Bobbett .... 30 
 
 QUEEN ANNE Beech Meeder & Chubb 38 
 
 From a prin' of a painting by Sir G. Kneller. 
 CORNBURY Hosier .... Wilson .... 41 
 
 From a print now in the South Kensington Museum. 
 AUTOGRAPH OF LOVELACE Li'ggo .... 43 
 
 From Valentine's "Manual." 
 THE FOUR IROQUOIS CHIEFS SENT TO 
 
 ENGLAND 
 
 Ho NEE YEATH TAN No RON . . Beech .... Bobhett ... 44 
 
 TEE YEE NEEN Ho GA RON . . " ....> . . . 45 
 
 SA GA YEATH QUA PIETH TON . " . . . . " ... 46 
 
 ETON OH KOAN " .... " ... 47 
 
 From contemporary English prints in the Library of the Amer- 
 ican Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass. 
 SIGNATURE OF HUNTER Leguo .... 48 
 
 From Valentine's ' Manual." 
 
 COLONIAL TABLE Waud Clement ... 50 
 
 THE OLD CAPITOL AT ANNAPOLIS . Warren .... Langridge ... 51 
 
 From a photograph for this work. 
 GOVERNOR CULPEPPER Sheppard . . . . J. Karst ... 54 
 
 From the painting at Richmond. 
 
 PLANT-CUTTING Frost Davis . . . . 50 
 
 WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE . . . Sheppard . . . Kilburn .... 60 
 
 From a sketch for this work. 
 CHARLES, SECOND LORD BALTIMORE . Mayer .... Jansen .... 63 
 
 From the portrait in the Maryland Historical Society's 
 
 rooms, Ballimore. 
 PRESIDENT BLAIR Sheppard . . . Jansen .... 67 
 
 From a contemporary portrait. 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF ANNAPOLIS . . . Warren .... Meeder & Chubb 68 
 
 From a photograph for this work. 
 RUINS OF PRESIDENT'S HOUSE, WIL- 
 LIAM AND MARY COLLEGE . . . C. Mente . . . G A. Bogert . . 71 
 
 From a sketch. 
 GOVERNOR SPOTSWOOD Sheppard . . . H. Karst ... 72 
 
 From the Portrait at Richmond. 
 LAWRENCE WASHINGTON Beech .... Kilburn ... 70 
 
 From a copy of the Mount Vernon Portrait. 
 FREDERICK, LAST LORD BALTIMORE . Mayer .... Potter .... 79 
 
 From the portrait in the Maryland Historical Society's rooms. 
 GRANVILLE AND ARCHDALE . . . Reinhart . . J. Karst 84 
 
XVI 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. 
 THK FRENCH MKSSEXGER AT CHARLES- 
 TON Kappes .... Heiiifinann 
 
 CARY BEFORE HYDE'S HOUSE . . . Perkins .... Winham . 
 LAWSON AND DE GRAKKENKIED . . Sheppard . . . J. P. Geratv 
 THE "BLOODY STICK" Cary Juengling . 
 
 Page. 
 
 . 86 
 
 . 88 
 
 . 92 
 
 . 94 
 
 . 95 
 
 . 99 
 
 . 102 
 
 . 106 
 
 Carv Davis 
 
 108 
 
 109 
 
 110 
 
 Warren 
 Warren 
 
 Meeder & Chubb 113 
 Meeder & Chubb 114 
 
 . 116 
 
 SAXUTE AND MRS. ERASER .... McCutcheon . . J. P. Davis 
 
 MAYNARD'S RETURN Sheppard . . .II. Karst . 
 
 THE MUSTER AT CHARLESTON . . . Fredericks . . . Bobbett . 
 
 JOHNSON'S RETURN Cary Clement . 
 
 MEDAL STRUCK IN 1736 TO COMMEM- 
 ORATE THE SEPARATION OF NORTH 
 
 AND SOUTH CAROLINA Mente Eastmead 
 
 From Johnson's " Revolutionary Traditions." 
 FAC-SIMILE OF THE INVITATION TO 
 
 PHIPS'S FUXERAL Leggo . . 
 
 From an engraving in the Massachusetts Historical Society's 
 
 Proceedings. 
 
 HANNAH. DUSTIN'S ESCAPE . . 
 MOUTH OF THE PAWCATUCK . . 
 
 From a sketch made for this icork. 
 WICKFORD, RHODE ISLAND . . 
 
 From a sketch for this toork. 
 ESTHER, THE LAST OF THE ROYAL NAR- 
 
 RAGANSETTS Runge .... Treat 
 
 From an ambrotype from life. 
 
 MAP OF RHODE ISLAND Russell & Struthers 118 
 
 GOVERNOR DUDLEY F. Merrill . . . Andrew . . .121 
 
 From a portrait in the Massachusetts Historical Society's 
 
 rooms. 
 WILLIAMS HOUSE, DEERFIELD, MASS. Runge . . . .Hitchcock. . .122 
 
 From an old drawing. 
 PLAN- OF PORT ROYAL, NOVA SCOTIA. Runge .... Leggo .... 125 
 
 From Shea's Charlevoix. 
 THREE-SHILLING MASSACHUSETTS BILL 
 
 OF 1741 Photo-Eng. Co. . 131 
 
 Photographed from the Massachusetts Historical Society's 
 
 collection. 
 TWO-PENCE, 1722 " " -132 
 
 From the same collection. 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE BILL OF FORTY 
 
 SHILLINGS, 1742 " " . 133 
 
 From the same collection. 
 AUTOGRAPH OF VAUDREUIL Leggo . . . .133 
 
 From Shea's Charlevoix. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xvn 
 
 Title. Designer. Ew/rarfr. Paijt. 
 
 SIX-PENCE, 1744 Photo-En;,'. Co. . 134 
 
 Photographe I from the Massach usetls Historical Society's 
 
 collection. 
 BIRTHPLACE OF FRANKLIN .... Garrett .... Andrew . . .136 
 
 From an old print. 
 FAC-SIMILE OF THE HEADING OF THE 
 
 BOSTON NEWS LETTER Leg-^o . . . .137 
 
 From "American Historical and Literary Curiosities." 
 MRS. DUSTIN'S MONUMENT .... Mente .... Gilmore . . .139 
 
 From a photograph 
 SAVANNAH Runge . . . . F. Karst . . . 140 
 
 From a print of 17^1. 
 THE MARGRAVATE OF AZILIA . . . Runge .... Hitchcock . . . 142 
 
 From the print in Force's Tracts. 
 FAC-SIMILE FROM A NOTE OF OGLE- 
 THORPE'S Leggo . . . .144 
 
 From Harris's " Memorials of Ogletftorpe." 
 
 THE LANDING AT SAVANNAH . . . Waud McCracken . . 146 
 
 TOMO CHICHI Runge .... Hitchcock . . . 147 
 
 From the print in " Xachrichten der Salzburyer Kmigranten," 
 
 taken from a portrait marie from life, in London. 
 
 THE SALZBURGERS AT FRANKFORT . . Walter Shirlaw . Heinemann . .149 
 JOHN WESLEY Beech .... Wolf .... 152 
 
 From an old print. 
 BOLZIUS Runge .... Winham . . . 155 
 
 From the picture in "Das amerikanische Ackerwerk Gottes." 
 MAP OF THE GEORGIA COAST . . . Runge .... Photo-Eng. Co. . 156 
 
 From Stevens' s " History of Georgia." 
 ADMIRAL VF.RNON Beech J. Karst . . .158 
 
 From a copy of the picture at Mount Vernon. 
 
 FIGHT OF THE GALLEYS Davidson. . . .11. Kurst . . . 159 
 
 THE SPANIARDS SURPRISED .... Waud Geraty . . . .163 
 
 OGLETHORPE IN 1785 Runge .... Photo-En<r. Co. . 165 
 
 cr O 
 
 From Ireland's sketch and etching from life. 
 SEAL OF THE GEORGIA TRUSTEES . . Runge .... Eastmead . . . 169 
 
 From White's " Georgia Historical Collections." 
 THE SLATE-ROOF HOUSE Schell .... Schoonuiaker . . 171 
 
 From a sketch made just before its demolition in 1868. 
 
 PENN AND REBECCA WOOD .... Reinhart . . . Hellawell . . .173 
 PENNSBURY MANOR Schell .... Pierson . . . .174 
 
 From a sketch for this work. 
 ANDREW HAMILTON Beech .... Gilmore . . .178 
 
 From the portrait photographed in Eytinge's " Independence 
 Hall." 
 
xvni LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. litsiyner. Engraver. 
 
 PASSING NEW CASTLE Davidson . . . Knapp . . . .181 
 
 .1 \MI s LOGAN Will Hitchcock . . . 182 
 
 From the portrait in Armour's " Governors of Pennsylvania" 
 
 RtscoMBE Warren .... Hellawcll . . . 184 
 
 THK GKAVE OF PENN " .... " ... 185 
 
 From prints made for " Sat tain's Magazine." 
 SIR WILLIAM KKITII Will Mceder & Cliubb 186 
 
 Frum the portrait in Armour's " Governors of Pennsylvania." 
 KKITH'S MANSION HOUSE AT GR.EME 
 
 PARK, NEAR PHILADELPHIA . . . Schell . . . . J. Karst . . . 18" 
 
 From a sketch for this tcork. 
 PATRICK GORDON Will Piorson .... 189 
 
 From the portrait in Annour's " Governors of Pennsylrania." 
 
 FRANKLIN ENTERING PHILADKLPHIA . Reinhart . . . . J. Karst . . . 190 
 PENN'S BREWING JAR Waud .... Clement . . .191 
 
 From a sketch for this icork. 
 CAPE CANSO Cary Geraty . . . .192 
 
 From a sketch. 
 DEATH OF FATHER RASLE .... Shirlaw .... Davis .... 195 
 
 ROBBINS'S LAST SHOT McCutcheon . . H. Karst . . . 196 
 
 GOVERNOR BEXNING WENTWORTH . Beech Knapp . . . .198 
 
 Fnm a painting at Portsmou'h. 
 WEXTWORTH'S HOUSE Hosier .... Varley . . . .199 
 
 From a painting by W. Allan Gay, Esq. 
 GOVERNOR SHIRLEY Merrill .... Kilburn .... 202 
 
 From an engraring in the JMMflMMN of Francis S. Drake, 
 
 Esq., from a painting in England. 
 GEORGE WUITEFIELD Beech Wolf .... 206 
 
 From an old print. 
 DEFENCES AT LOUISBCRG .... Runge .... Leg<ro .... 210 
 
 From a contemporary map copied in Shea's Charlecoix. 
 SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL .... Merrill .... Andrew . . .211 
 
 From an engrat'ing taken from a painting by Smybcrt, in the 
 Massachusetts Historical Society's rooms. 
 
 RAISING THE RKD COAT Davidson. . . . McCracken . . 213 
 
 ATTACK ON THE TOWN-HOUSE . . . Reinhart . . . . Smithwick . . . 219 
 RIP VAN DAM Beech Pierson .... 228 
 
 From the /tortrait in the New York Historical Society's rooms. 
 VIEW IN BROAD STREET, ABOUT 1740 Warren .... Bookhout . . . 225 
 
 From Valentine's "Manual." 
 FERRY- HOUSE ON EAST RIVER, 1746 Runge D.Nichols. . . 227 
 
 From Valentine's ''Manual." 
 MRS. EARLE AND THE NEGROES . . Reinhart .... Juengling . . . 229 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xix 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. 
 
 SIGNATURE OF HORSMAXDKN .......... Leggo .... 230 
 
 From Valentine's " Manual." 
 MARY BURTON BEFORK THE GRAND 
 
 JURY ............ Fredericks . . . Bobbett. . . .231 
 
 THK MEAL MARKET, NEW YORK . . Runge .... Meeder & Chubb 232 
 
 From Valentine's "Manual." 
 
 THE NEGROES SENTENCED .... Reinhart .... Davis .... 235 
 TRINITY CHURCH IN 1741 ..... Runge .... Winhaiu . . . 237 
 
 From Valentine's " History of Broadway." 
 THE MOB DEMANDING THAT QUACK 
 
 BE BURNED ......... Reinhart .... Juengling . . . 239 
 
 EI.LIS'S ISLAND ........ Warren . . . . H. Karst . . . 242 
 
 From a sketch made for this work. 
 FORT GEORGE IN 1740 ...... Mente ..... Davis .... 245 
 
 From an old print copied in Valentine's " Manual." 
 NEW YORK IN 1746, EAST SIDE . . Runge .... Winliain . . . 246 
 
 From Valentine's "Manual." 
 CADWALLADER COLDEN ..... Beech ..... Jansen .... 249 
 
 From the portrait belonging to the New York Chamber of 
 
 Commerce. 
 SMITH'S VLY ......... Cary ..... Pierson .... 251 
 
 From Valentine's "Manual." 
 EAST RIVER SHORE IN 1750 .... Runge ..... Foster .... 253 
 
 From Valentine's "Manual." 
 BRADDOCK'S FIELD ...... Warren .... Meeder & Chubb 254 
 
 MAP SHOWING THE POSITIONS OF 
 
 FRENCH AND ENGLISH FOISTS, ETC ....... Russell & Struthers 256 
 
 WASHINGTON ON HIS JOURNEY TO 
 
 THE FRENCH FORTS ...... Cary ..... Jueng'ing . . . 259 
 
 PLAN OF FORT Du QUESNE ........... Leggo ... . 260 
 
 From the "American Pioneer." 
 OLD BARRACKS, FREDERICK .... Warren .... Winhain . . . 264 
 
 From a sketch made for the " Riverside Magazine." 
 BRADDOCK'S ROUTE, MAP .... Hosier .... Leggo .... 265 
 
 MAP OF BRADDOCK'S FIELD " " 266 
 
 BEAUJEU'S ADVANCE ...... Cary ..... Geraty .... 268 
 
 BRADDOCK WOUNDED ...... Kappes .... Kilburu .... 269 
 
 EARL OF HALIFAX ....... Beech ..... Gilmore . . . 272 
 
 From the portrait in Entick's " History of the Late War." 
 LIEUTENANT-COLONEL WINSLOW . . Merrill .... Knapp .... 276 
 
 From the original portrait in the possession of Isaac Window, 
 
 Esq. , of Hingham, Mass. 
 WIN-SLOW READING THE DECREE OF 
 
 EXPULSION .......... Frost ..... Smithwick . . .278 
 
 EMBARKING THE YOUNG MEN . . Reinhart . " . 279 
 
X.X 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 
 BRADDOCK'S GKAVK Warren .... Meeder & Chubb 281 
 
 From the " Kit-entitle Magazine." 
 VIEW ON LAKK GEOKGE F. S. Church . . Varley .... 282 
 
 From a sketch made fur " Scribner's Magazine" 
 MAP OK LAKE GEORGE AND PART OK 
 
 LAKE CHAM PLAIN I^ggo .... 284 
 
 BLOODY POND Church .... Varli-y . . . .286 
 
 From a sketch made for " Scribner's Magazine." 
 PLAN OF FORT GEORGE, OR WILLIAM 
 
 HENRY Leggo .... 288 
 
 VIEW FROM OLD FORT, LAKE GEORGE Church .... Varley .... 293 
 
 From a sketch made for " Scribner's Magazine." 
 WILLIAM PITT Beech D. Nichols . . 297 
 
 From a print of the portrait by J. Hopner. R. A. 
 FIELD OF ABERCROMBIE'S DEFEAT . Warren . . . . J. Karst . . . 299 
 
 FORT TICONDEROGA Mente Geraty .... 302 
 
 GENERAL WOLFE Will Knapp . . . .305 
 
 From a contemporary print by Houston. 
 QI-KBEC IN 1730 Runge .... Otto 307 
 
 From an old print in Popple's " American Atlas." 
 
 LANDING OF WOLFE Sheppard . . . Hellawcll . . . 309 
 
 MONTCALM Hosier .... Varley . . . .311 
 
 From a contemporary print. 
 SCALP- DANCE Runge .... Leggo . . . .314 
 
 From Catlin's " North American Indians." 
 
 THE FIRE-RAFTS IN DETROIT RIVER . Davidson . . . Davis .... 319 
 SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON'S HOUSE . . Warren .... ' .... 327 
 
 From an engraving in Stone's " Life." 
 BOUQUET'S REDOUBT AT PITTSBURG . Beech Winham . . . 828 
 
 From an engraving in Day's " Pennsylvania Historical Collec- 
 tions." 
 THE PROVINCE HOUSE is BOSTON Andrew . . . 329 
 
 From an old print. 
 GEORGE III Beech .... Pierson 334 
 
 From the portrait by Sir William Beechey. 
 FANUEIL HALL IN 1879 Andrew. . . . 335 
 
 From a sketch made for this work. 
 A ROYAL STAMP Runge .... Leggo .... 339 
 
 From a paper in the New York Historical Society's collection. 
 PATRICK HENRY Beech Nichols . . .340 
 
 From the portrait in Wirt's " Life." 
 OLD CITY HALL, WALL STREET, NEW 
 
 YORK, WHERE THE FlRST CONTINEN- 
 TAL, CONGRESS MET Mente G. A. Bogert . . 341 
 
 From Valentine's "Manual." 
 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xxi 
 
 Title, Designer. Engraver. P'"J f - 
 
 BUKNING THE STAMPS Frost Clement . . . 344 
 
 EDMUND BURKE Beech H. Karst . . . 347 
 
 From the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 
 LIUERTY-POLE FESTIVAL Fredericks . . . Clement . . . 349 
 
 CASTLE WILLIAM, BOSTON HARBOR . Garrctt .... Dana .... 355 
 
 From an old print. 
 THE BEACON, BEACON HILL, BOSTON . Mente . . . . F. Karst . . . 356 
 
 From an old print. 
 JOHN HANCOCK Jansen .... 358 
 
 From the painting by Copley in Faneuil Hall, Boston. 
 BOSTON MASSACRE ....... Photograph . . . Leggo .... 360 
 
 From the engraving by Paul Revere. 
 SAMUEL ADAMS Beech .... Potter .... 362 
 
 From the painting by Copley. 
 LORD NORTH Beech Pierson .... 365 
 
 From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE Andrew . . . 371 
 
 From sketches made for this work. 
 HUTCHINSON'S COUNTRY-SEAT, MIL- 
 TON HILL, MASS Garrett .... Dana . . . .372 
 
 From a sketch made for this work. 
 CAPTAIN O'CONNOR'S COAT-SKIRTS 
 
 NAILED TO THE WHIPPING-POST . Waud Langridge . . .374 
 
 PROFILE VIEW OF THE HEIGHTS OF 
 
 CHARLESTOWN Leggo .... 377 
 
 From a print in Frothingham's " Siege of Boston." 
 SALEM BRIDGE Vanderhoof . . . H. Karst . . . 379 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
 WARREN'S ORATION Reinhart . . . E. Clement . . 381 
 
 SIGNAL LANTERNS IN NORTH CHURCH 
 
 BELFRY Merrill .... Andrew . . . 385 
 
 LEXINGTON GREEN Perkins .... " ... 387 
 
 .From a sketch made for this work. 
 CONCORD BRIDGE Yendell .... " ... 390 
 
 From a sketch made, for this icork. 
 GENERAL GAGE Will Wolf .... 395 
 
 From the painting in the possession of the family, copied in 
 
 Sumner's " History of East Boston." 
 ARTEMAS WARD Andrew . . . 397 
 
 From a portrait taken in 1 795. 
 
 PLAN OF BUNKER HILL Runge .... Leggo .... 399 
 
 BUNKER HILL BATTLE " .... 401 
 
 From a contemporary print. 
 
XX11 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. /Designer. Knijraver. Paije. 
 
 JOSKPH WARREN Merrill .... Wilson .... 404 
 
 From the portrait by Copley. 
 
 Hot'SK FORMKRLY OCCl'PIKD BY THE 
 
 PRKSIDEXTS OF HAI:VAKI>, WASH- 
 
 IXGTOX'S FIRST CAMBKIDGK HEAD- 
 QUARTERS Varloy .... 408 
 
 From a sketch made for " Scribner's Magazine." 
 WASHINGTON' ELM. CAMBRIDGE " .... 410 
 
 From ' Scribner's Magazine." 
 GEXEKAL HOWE Beech Karst . . . .412 
 
 From A ndrcw's " History of the A mericttn War. ' ' 
 THE CRAIGIE HOUSE. WASHINGTON'S 
 
 HEADQUARTERS AT CAMBRIDGE . . R. Swain Gifford 41 
 
 From a sketch made for " Scribner's Magazine.'" 
 
 THE UNION FLAG Hosier .... Potter .... 420 
 
 THE PINE-TREE FLAG " . . . . " .... 420 
 
 THE RATTLESNAKE FLAG .... " .... " .... -121 
 DRAGGING CAXXON OVER THE GREEN 
 
 MOUNTAINS ox THE WAY FROM 
 
 TICOXDEROGA TO BOSTOX . . . Reinhart .... Meeder & Chubb 424 
 NORTH END OF BOSTOX Leggo .... 426 
 
 By permission, from reprint from Recere's Drawing in Mr. 
 H. W. Holland's " William Daires, and Jtis Ride with 
 Paul Reeere." 
 WASHINGTON'S MEDAL Garrett .... ' .... 429 
 
 From the original in the Massachusetts Historical Society's 
 rooms. 
 
 CITADEL OK QUEBEC Mente .... Winham . . . 430 
 
 ALLEN CAPTURING DELAPLACE . . Rcinhart . . . Heinemann . . 436 
 RICHARD MONTGOMERY Beech . '. . . J. Karst . . . 439 
 
 From the portrait by Peale. 
 MAP OF ARNOLD'S ROUTE .... Mente .... Loggo . . . .441 
 
 ARNOLD'S MARCH Shirlaw .... Davis .... 443 
 
 ATTACK ON QUEBEC. DEATH OF 
 
 MONTGOMERY Frost .... Bogert . . . .447 
 
 MONTGOMERY'S MONUMENT IN ST. 
 
 PAUL'S CHURCH, NEW YORK . . . Mente . . . . H. Karst . . . 450 
 BRITISH AND HESSIAN SOLDIERS . . Warn! & Hosier . Knapp . . . . 453 
 
 BURNS'S COFFEE-HOUSK, HEADQUAR- 
 TERS OF THE SONS OF LIBERTY . . Mente .... Langridge . . 456 
 From Valentine's "Manual." 
 
 MARINUS WILLETT'S EXPLOIT . . . Abbey .... Smithwick . . 457 
 From a drawing made for " Scribner's Magazine." 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xxiii 
 
 Title. Dtsiyncr. Engravir. 
 
 HEAD OF RIVIXGTOX'S GAZETTEER . . Runge . ... Leggo .... 409 
 
 Frnm a copy in I lie New York Historical Society's room*. 
 GENERAL CHARLES LEE ..... Beech .... Knapp .... 460 
 
 BIJ permission, fn>m Mr. Georye Moore's "Treason of 
 Charles Lee." From a Caricature by Barham Rush- 
 brooke. 
 LORD STIRLING ......... Beech ..... ' .... 462 
 
 From the engraving in Duer's " Life." 
 ISRAEL PUTNAM ............... Nichols .... 40:5 
 
 Front the portrait by Trumbull. 
 
 MOORE'S CREEK BRIDGE PLAN . . Hosier .... Leggo .... 465 
 THE LIBERTY BELL, AS IT NOW HANGS 
 
 IN INDEPENDENCE HALI ...... Schell .... Varley .... 470 
 
 From a sketch maile for this work. 
 PORTRAIT OF THOMAS PAINE . . . Beech .... Pierson .... 471 
 
 Frn.n the print in Rickman s ' Life." 
 COXGRKSS HALL ........ Schell . . . . J. Karst . . .481 
 
 From a sketch made for this work. 
 
 HOUSE IN WHICH THE DECLARATION 
 
 WAS WRITTEN ........ " .... Hoev .... 483 
 
 From a sketch made for this work. 
 
 TAKING DOWX THE KING'S STATUE . Frost ..... Davis .... 486 
 MAP OF MANHATTAN ISLAND ix 1776 . Hosier . . . Russell & Strut hers 491 
 ROSE AXD CROWN TAVERN .... Mente .... Langridge . . .492 
 HEADQUARTERS, Xo. 1 BROADWAY . Warren .... Pierson . . . 495 
 
 From a sketch made for this work. 
 PASSAGE OF THE TROOPS TO LONG 
 
 ISLAND ....... . . . Wand . . . . H. Karst . . . 497 
 
 HOWE'S HEADQUARTERS, BEEKMAN 
 
 HOUSE ...................... 503 
 
 From a sketch made for "Scribner's Magazine." 
 JUMEL MANSION. WASHINGTON'S 
 
 HEADQUARTERS ....... Gary .... Pierson . . . 505 
 
 From a sketch made for this trork. 
 MRS. MURRAY AND GENERAL HOWE. Abbey .... Xichols . . . 507 
 
 From a drawing made for " Scnbner's Magazine." 
 HARLEM PLAINS ........ Mente .... McCrackeii . . 509 
 
 From an old print in Valentine's ' Manual." 
 RUINS OF TRINITY CHURCH ix 1776 . AVarren . . . . G. A. Bogert . . 510 
 
 From Valentine's " History of lirnadtcay." 
 THE BILLOP HOUSE ....... Mente . . . . J. Robinson . . 512 
 
 From a sketch made for f/.t< work. 
 CHATTERTON'S HILL, WHITE PLAINS Bonwill . . . . H. Karst . . . 514 
 
 From a sketch made for this work. 
 
XXIV 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 
 SHIPS PASSING FORT WASHINGTON . . Davidson . . . Andrew . . . 516 
 WASHINGTON AT WASHINGTON 
 
 HEIGHTS " ... Clement . . .517 
 
 VIEW OF FORT LEE Bon will .... Smart . . . .521 
 
 From a sketch made for Ihia tcork. 
 
 CAPTURE OF GENERAL LEE .... Sheppard . . . Langridge . . . 524 
 VIEW OF TRENTON Mente .... Meeder & Chubb 529 
 
 From a sketch made for this tcork. 
 
 THE STOLEN MARCH J. C. Beard ... " 533 
 
 OLD SUGAR HOUSE, LIBERTY STREET. Mente .... Langridge . . . 537 
 
 From Valentine's " Manual." 
 MIDDLE DUTCH CHURCH " .... Pierson . . . 539 
 
 From Disosway's "Old Churches." 
 RHINELANDER'S SUGAR HOUSE ... <l .... Langridge . . . 540 
 
 From Valentine's " Manual." 
 NORTH DUTCH CHURCH " . . . . J. Karst . . . 541 
 
 From Di$o*tcay. 
 THE CHEW HOUSE AT GERMANTOWN . Runge .... " ... 543 
 
 From ait old drawing. 
 DOOR OF WASHINGTON'S HEADQUAR- 
 TERS AT MORRISTOWN Mente . . . . F. Karst . . . 544 
 
 From a drawing by Mr. Bassett Jonex, architect. 
 WOOSTER'S SIGNATURE " .... Leggo . . . .547 
 
 From the "National Portrait Gallery.'" 
 MEIGS'S EXPEDITION TO SAG HAR- 
 BOR Reinhart 549 
 
 WASHINGTON'S HEADQUARTERS AT 
 
 HARTSVILLE Schell .... Knapp . . . 551 
 
 From a sketch made for this tcork. 
 LAFAYETTE'S STATUE, UNION SQUARE, 
 
 NEW YORK Mente .... Jansen . . . 552 
 
 From a sketch made for this tcork. 
 
 'SQUIRE CHENEY BRINGING THE NEWS . Frost Kilbnrn . . . 555 
 
 HOWE'S HEADQUARTERS, CADWALLA- 
 
 DER HOUSE Schell .... Knapp . . . 558 
 
 From a sketch made for this work. 
 FORT MIFFLIN ' .... Meeder & Chubb 563 
 
 From a sketch made for this work. 
 DONOP'S GRAVE " .... Anthony . . . 565 
 
 From a sketch made for this work. 
 PORTRAIT OF BURGOYNE Beech . . . . H. Karst . . . 567 
 
 From Fonblanque's " Burgoyne." 
 DEATH OF JANE McCREA Beard Geraty . . .570 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xxv 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. 
 
 RUINS OK OLD Four AT CROWN POINT . Mente .... Andrew . . . 572 
 FAC-SIMILE OF HERKIMER'S ORDER ........ Photo. Eng. Co. 577 
 
 From the original in the Historical Society's rooms at Utica. 
 HERKIMER AT THE BATTLE OF ORIS- 
 
 KASY ............ Beard ..... Heinemann . . 579 
 
 GENERAL JOHN STARK ...... Beech ..... J. Karst . . . 581 
 
 From the portrait by Trumbull. 
 
 BATTLE-FIELD OF BENNINGTON . . . Warren .... Geraty . . . 583 
 GENERAL HORATIO GATES ..... Beech ..... Potter .... 586 
 
 From the portrait by Gilbert Stuart. 
 FRASER'S BURIAL ........ Frost ..... Clement . . . 591 
 
 VALLEY FORGE ......... Schell ..... Andrew . . . 595 
 
 From a sketch. 
 SIGNATURE OF LAURENS ............ Leggo .... 596 
 
 From the " National Portrait Gallery." 
 BARON VON STEUBEN ....... Beech .... Potter .... 598 
 
 From Knapp's "Life." 
 MAP OF NEW JERSEY ........... Russell & Struthers . 602 
 
 JOSEPH BRANT ......... Beech ..... J. Karst . . . 608 
 
 From Stone's "Life." 
 
 SURRENDER OF FORT VINCENNES . . Fredericks ... " ... 612 
 CHARLESTON IN 1780 ....... Beech ........... 614 
 
 By permission, from the old print in Moore's " Diary of the 
 
 Revolution." 
 STONY POINT .......... Mente .... Jansen . 616 
 
 i 
 
 From a sketch made for this work. 
 JOHN PAUL JONES ........ Beech ..... Knapp . . .619 
 
 From the portrait by Peale. 
 JOHN PAUL JONES'S MEDAL .... Mente .... Karst . . . 622 
 
 FULL-PAGE MAPS AND FAC-SIMILES. 
 
 To face 
 Title. Page . 
 
 OSWEGO 48 
 
 From an old print copied in O'Callaghan's "Documentary History of New 
 York." 
 
 THE BOSTON WATER-FRONT 218 
 
 From an old drawing in the Massachusetts Historical Society's collections. 
 
 THE BATTLES OF LAKE GEORGE 288 
 
 From an old print copied in 0' Callaghan's " Documentor!/ History of New 
 York." 
 
xxvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 " A VIEW OF PART OK THE TOWN OF BOSTON, IN NEW ENGLAND, AND 
 
 BRITISH SHIPS OF WAR LANDING THKIK TROOPS, 176*." 356 
 
 From an old print copied in Frothing/tain's " Sieye of ttostoii." 
 
 MAP OF BOSTON AND ITS EVVIRONS, 1776 426 
 
 From Ellin's u Evacuation of Boston," 
 
 REDt'CKD FAC-SIMILE OK THE BROADSIDE OF THE DECLARATION, DIS- 
 TRIBUTED THROUGH THE COUNTRY IN 1776 484 
 
 From an original preserved in Boston. 
 
 
INDEPENDENCE HALL. 
 
New York in 1673. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 NEW YORK UNDER THE ENGLISH. 
 
 CONDITION OF NEW YORK ON THE ARRIVAL OF ANDROS AS GOVERNOR. COMPARI- 
 SON WITH NEW ENGLAND. ANDROS VISITS CONNECTICUT. His RECEPTION BY 
 CAPTAIN BULL AT SAYBROOK. COMPLAINED OF BY LADY CARTERET, AND OTHERS. 
 
 His RECALL TO ENGLAND. NEW PROPRIETORS OF EAST JERSEY. THOMAS 
 DONGAN APPOINTED GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK. GENERAL ASSEMBLY ORDERED 
 BY THE DUKE OF YORK. CHARTER OF LIBERTIES ADOPTED. ASSEMBLY DIS- 
 SOLVED BY JAMES. DONGAN'S ADMINISTRATION. ANDROS AS GOVERNOR-GEN- 
 ERAL. ACCESSION OF WILLIAM AND MARY. AFFAIRS UNDER LIEUTENANT-GOV- 
 ERNOR NICHOLSON. His COUNCIL-MEN, PHILLIPSE, VAN CORTLANDT, AND BAYARD. 
 
 CAPTAIN LEISLER ASSUMES COMMAND, AND ACTS AS GOVERNOR. SUPPORTED 
 BY A COMMITTEE OF SAFETY AND RECOGNIZED BY THE COLONIES. His DIFFI- 
 CULTIES. TROUBLES WITH THE FRENCH AND INDIANS. CONTEST WITH CAPTAIN 
 INGOLDSBY. SURRENDERS THE GOVERNMENT TO COLONEL SLOUGHTER. TRIAL 
 AND EXECUTION. 
 
 WHEN Edmund Andros first arrived in America, fifteen years 
 before the catastrophe, already related, that overtook him 
 in Boston, 1 the colony of New York which he was to gov- under GOT. 
 ern contained only about six or seven thousand people. The 
 population of New England is computed to have been at that time 
 not less than one hundred and twenty thousand. Striking as the con- 
 
 1 See vol. ii., p. 393, et seq. 
 
 VOL. HI. 1 
 
2 NEW YORK UNDER THE ENGLISH. [CHAP. I. 
 
 trast is between these colonies of nearly the same age, it is not diffi- 
 cult to account for it. The colonial commerce of that period had no 
 need to seek out the most commodious, or the most accessible of har- 
 bors ; the small or inconvenient ports, whose selection was deter- 
 mined by some other exigency than that of trade, answered all com- 
 mercial necessities. The superiority of soil and of climate, the easy 
 access from the sea, the navigable inland waters, and the central po- 
 sition of New York, so certain to insure the future supremacy of the 
 State, were not yet taken advantage of with that stern purpose and 
 restless energy through which the hardy people of New England so 
 outstripped their slower and duller neighbors of another race. 1 
 
 From the accession of the English, however, there came, with Eng- 
 CondiHon of ^$\ l ideas and English entei-prise, an increase of prosperity 
 the province an( j ft more rapi( | g rowt h to ^ew York, although the influ- 
 ence of the Dutch, especially in the social character of the people, was 
 long felt. Within four years of Andros's arrival there was an addi- 
 tion of probably a third to its population. Besides the natural in- 
 crease, which prosperity would stimulate, there was some emigration 
 from England, still more, perhaps, from other colonies. 
 
 The eastern part of Long Island, from its relations to Connecticut, 
 felt this new impulse moi'e sensibly and rapidly than any other part 
 of the colony. Whaling soon became an important industry on that 
 shore, and Southampton was deemed worthy of mention with New 
 York by Andros as one of the two principal places of trade. Nan- 
 tucket, settled in 1659 by Thomas Macy and his family, 2 which, 
 with Martha's Vineyard, made a county of New York, was also at this 
 early period engaged in the whale-fishery along the coast ; but it was 
 a far more important industry at the eastern end of Long Island than 
 anywhere else in any of the colonies. Albany continued the centre 
 of the Indian trade, and was of importance as the place of negotiation 
 with the Indians, and with the French. These negotiations, involv- 
 ing the question of whether the Iroquois or Five Nations should be 
 
 1 Even a century later the population of New England was nearly three times as great 
 as that of New York, though the area exclusive of Maine, which was still largely a wil- 
 derness was less. It was not till within the last fifty years that the natural advantages of 
 New York were able to overcome the superiority which New England had so long held, 
 and which was largely due to difference of character in the founders of the colonies. 
 
 2 The first proprietor of Nantucket was Thomas Mayhew. who bought the island of 
 Jaiues Torrett, the agent of the Earl of Stirling, in 1041. Mayhew conveyed nine tenths of 
 it to nine others, namely : Tristram Coffin, Thomas Macy, Hichard Swain, Thomas Barnard, 
 Peter Coffin, Christopher Hussey, Stephen Greenleaf, John Swain, and William Pile. 
 Pile sold his tenth to Kit-hard Swain, and the nine proprietors then took as partners 
 John Smith, Nathaniel Starbuck, Edward Starbuck, Thomas Look, Hobcrt Barnard, James 
 Coffin, Kobert Pike, Tristram Coffin, Jr., and Thomas Coleman. Thomas Macy was the 
 first to settle, with his family, upon his lauds. Others soon followed. A Short Journal of 
 the First Settlement of Nantucket, etc. Bv Zaccheus Macy. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. iii. 
 
/678.] 
 
 GROWTH AND CONDITION OF NKW YORK. 
 
 controlled by French or English, a question on which peace or war so 
 often depended, occupied much of the time and attention of Andros 
 and his immediate successors. 
 
 In a report upon the condition of his colony in 1678 Andros says 
 that he could muster two thousand militia men ; the fort in New York 
 James-Fort mounted forty-six guns ; that at Albany twelve 
 guns, and the fortifications at Pemaquid in Maine seven guns. In 
 each of these the garrisons were victualled for a year. Within two 
 years twenty thousand acres had received new settlers. The colony 
 contained twenty-four towns or villages ; it exported yearly about 
 sixty thousand bushels of wheat, besides provisions, fish, tobacco, 
 peltries, lumber, and even horses ; and the valuation of its estates was 
 ,150,000. A merchant was thought a substantial citizen who was 
 worth a thousand or even five hundred pounds ; the standard of wealth 
 in a planter was only half as high. 
 
 Island of Nantucket. 
 
 The annual export trade of the province was carried on in fif- 
 teen vessels of an average measurement of a hundred tons. 
 Of these one third belonged to New York, and some were th"proT- n 
 built there. Occasionally there was an arrival from En*;- 
 
 / 
 
 land, the yearly value of the imports amounting to 50,000 : but 
 most of these small vessels must have been engaged in a coastwise 
 trade, the most important of which, no doubt, was bringing tobacco 
 their single staple from Virginia and Maryland, and exchanging 
 
4 NEW YORK UNDER THE ENGLISH. [CHAP. I. 
 
 for it bread-stuffs and provisions. No law, however severe, could 
 induce their planters to raise for themselves sufficient food for their 
 slaves so long as a crop of tobacco returned a profit. 
 
 There were slaves also in New York, but not enough to influence 
 the system of labor. As Andros said, they were " but very few." 
 Beggars there were none ; the poor who could not support themselves 
 were taken care of easily taken care of, no doubt, as there could 
 not have been many. The manufacture of flour soon became an im- 
 portant industry ; and more than one attempt was made by legislation, 
 which for some years succeeded, to give a monopoly of it to the city 
 of New York. Ministers, Andros said, were " scarce," and " religions 
 many." The Catholic Duke, his master, could tolerate all sects so 
 long as the law of England proscribed his own. 
 
 This, briefly, was the condition, two hundred years ago, of the 
 little town destined in the lapse of time and events to become one of 
 the foremost cities of the world. To Andros the province seemed, 
 doubtless, of small value, as it had to Nichols, unless he could retain 
 New Jersey and the country on the Delaware within his jurisdiction, 
 and extend it also over that portion of New England embraced within 
 the Duke of York's patent. One of the earliest acts of his adminis- 
 tration was to assert this claim, seizing as the occasion information 
 sent him by Winthrop of the breaking out of Philip's war. He was 
 " very much troubled," he wrote to the Connecticut Governor, " at the 
 Christians' misfortunes and hard disasters in those parts, being so 
 overpowered by such heathen." But, he added, " I intend, God will- 
 ing, to set out this evening, and to make the best of my way to Con- 
 necticut River, His Royall Highnesses bounds there." 
 
 The Connecticut authorities were alarmed at this plain intimation 
 of the purpose of the new Governor to maintain the Duke's 
 
 Andros vis- x J . . , , 
 
 itsconnecti- claim to their province. I he General Assembly was con- 
 vened, and one Captain Bull was sent to Fort Say brook with 
 a hundred men to resist this violation of their chartered rights. An- 
 dros was not permitted even to i-ead the Duke's patent to the people, 
 and, after declining to submit the question in dispute to a commission, 
 he yielded to the evident determination to be rid of him, which he 
 could not resist, and reembarked for New York. The rebuff may 
 have irritated him, but if the tradition preserved by Trumbull be 
 true, it amused him no less. This Captain Bull, he said, was a bull 
 whose horns should be tipped with silver. He hardly could have 
 failed to remember this first reception in Connecticut when twelve 
 years later he came to Hartford as Governor-general, to demand the 
 colonial charter. He could then compel submission, but he was met 
 with the same spirit of defiance, which could still baffle if it could not 
 rout him. 
 
1682.] 
 
 ANDROS RECALLED. 
 
 5 
 
 Though his efforts to retain New Jersey were unsuccessful ; l 
 though the distant settlement at Pemaquid, in Maine, where he 
 built a fort, was an expensive and almost useless acquisition ; and 
 though he failed to bring Connecticut under the jurisdiction of New 
 York, his administration of the affairs of his immediate government 
 was judicious. He inaugurated the policy which aimed to detach 
 the Five Nations from an alliance with the French, and to secure 
 
 for Albany the exclusive control 
 of the trade with that powerful 
 confederacy ; and he sought to 
 check in general the progress of 
 the French at the West. But Andros at Saybrook 
 
 he saw that the position of New York was, in comparison with other 
 colonies, one of insignificance, and he believed it would remain so 
 unless all the northern provinces were united under a single gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 He urged this policy upon the Duke of York, and it is quite possi- 
 ble that he did not regret being recalled as he was in jj^,, of 
 1680 when complaints from Lady Carteret, the widow of Andros - 
 Sir George, of unwarrantable interference in the affairs of New 
 Jersey, required that he should return to England. Some charges of 
 misgovernment were also made against him by others between whom 
 and himself differences, more or less serious, had arisen, particu- 
 larly by Christopher Billop of Staten Island, whom Andros had sent 
 as his deputy to the Delaware and then recalled for misconduct. 
 These accusations fell to the ground, and events disposed of those of 
 Lady Carteret. Andros, who, on a visit to England three years be- 
 
 1 See chap, xx., vol. ii. 
 
6 NEW YORK UNDER THE ENGLISH. [CHAP. I. 
 
 fore, had been created a knight, was now further rewarded by being 
 made a gentleman of the king's bed-chamber. 
 
 The Carteret interest in East Jersey ceased, soon after the recall of 
 Andros as has been already shown in another chapter 
 ' by the sale of the young Sir George's patent to Perm and 
 
 reey ' his associates. In March, 1682-83, these twelve proprie- 
 tors associated with themselves twelve others, most of whom were 
 Scotch. 1 The Governor of the province was Robert Barclay of Ury, 
 a distinguished member of the Society of Friends, a favorite of the 
 Duke of York, and the author of that Quaker classic : " An Apology 
 for the True Christian Divinity, as the Same is Preached and Held 
 Forth by the People, in scorn called Quakers." The Scotch interest 
 in East Jersey induced, from time to time, a large emigration from 
 Scotland, many seeking in the new colony an asylum from both re- 
 ligious and political persecution at home. At Ambo Point, at the 
 mouth of the Raritan, a new city was founded at this time and called 
 Perth now Perth Amboy in honor of the Earl of Perth. This 
 became ere long the capital of the province, in place of Elizabethtown, 
 and for a while was a successful rival even of New York in commerce. 
 On leaving the colony Andros had appointed Anthony Brockholls 
 or Brockholst as Commander-in-chief of the Militia and 
 as Lieutenant governor. But he neglected to renew the 
 order for collecting the customs-duties, which had expired 
 
 by limitation, and Brockholst was at once involved in a con- 
 troversy with the merchants. They refused to pay these duties, and 
 William Dyre, formerly of Rhode Island, who was collector of the port 
 as well as mayor of the city, seized a cargo of goods. The merchant 
 brought a suit against the collector ; his act was pronounced illegal, 
 Pavmentof ant ^ an indictment found against him for treason in usurping 
 dutiTre- power over the people. Brockholst and his council sus- 
 fueu. tained the decision of the court, and the city seal and his 
 
 commission were demanded of Dyre. He refused to surrender them, 
 disputed the authority of the court, summoned specially for his trial, 
 on the ground that their power and his emanated from the same 
 collector authority, the Duke of York, and one could not be re- 
 fnracquu- sponsible to the other where there was a common master. 
 ted- He was hereupon arrested and sent to England for trial, 
 
 where, in due time, it was decided that he was guiltless of any offence. 
 
 1 The twenty-four proprietors of East Jersey, a majority of whom were Friends, were, 
 James, Earl of Perth, John Drummoiid, Robert Barclay, David Barclay, Robert Gordon, 
 Arent Sonmaus, William Penn, Robert West, Thomas Rudyard, Samuel Groome, Thomau 
 Hart, Richard Mew, Ambrose Rijrp, John Haywood, Hugh Hartshorne, Clement Plum 
 stead, Thomas Cooper, Gawen Lawrie, Edward Byllinge, James Braine, William Gibson, 
 Thomas Barker, Robert Turner, and Thomas Warue. 
 
1683.] GOVERNOR DONGAN. THE NEW CHARTER. 7 
 
 For some months there was entire free trade in the colony, for cus- 
 toms-duties are never a free-will offering; but a more important result 
 of the controversy was that the Court of Assizes, which attempted 
 the trial of Dyre, represented to the Duke that arbitrary taxation, 
 without regard to the wishes and interests of the people, was a griev- 
 ous burden, and that a remedy for this and other evils could only be 
 found in the right of self-government through a General Assembly 
 chosen by popular vote. " The 
 people," wrote Brockholst, 
 " generally cry out for an As- 
 sembly." "Authority and j 
 
 Magistracy," he said, "is 
 grown so low that it 
 can scarce maintain the 
 public peace and quiet 
 of the government." 
 The Duke promised 
 that the prayer should 
 be granted. 
 
 A few months later 
 Perth Amboy ' in the summer of 1683 
 
 a new governor, Colonel Thomas Dongan, the younger son of an 
 Irish baronet, was sent out to supersede Brockholst. He 
 brought orders to issue writs for the election of eighteen itongan. 
 representatives of the people, who were to constitute a Gen- 
 eral Assembly to be, with the Governor and Council, the government 
 of the colon}'. Their acts were to be subject to the approval of the 
 Governor, and finally of the Duke. The Governor and Council, 
 whose appointment still remained with the Duke, were to grant lands, 
 establish courts and custom-houses, control the militia ; but no tax 
 was to be levied without the consent of the Assembly. No man was 
 to be punished except by due course of law ; a grand jury of inquest, 
 and trial by jury, were decreed ; martial law and the billeting of sol- 
 diers in private houses were declared illegal ; the right of dower, in 
 
8 NEW YORK UNDER THE ENGLISH. [CHAP. I. 
 
 one third of the real estate of the husband, was secured to widows ; 
 religious freedom was guaranteed to all professing Christians who did 
 not disturb the public peace ; the right of suffrage was given to every 
 freeholder and freeman in any corporation ; the Assembly was to 
 meet every three years with the right of meeting and adjourning as 
 it saw fit during the session ; and the members and their servants 
 if not more than three were for that time free from arrest 
 
 The Charter , . 
 
 of Liberties or any legal action, except in cases ot treason or felony. 
 
 anil 1'rivi- i -i i i . . J ,W 
 
 leges pro- An Act embodying these franchises, under the title of " The 
 Charter of Libertys and Privileges " was passed by the As- 
 sembly, at its first meeting in October, 1683, and sent to the Duke 
 of York for his approval. 
 
 The new form of government was quite as liberal as that accorded 
 by royal charter to any of the colonies. But it was not to last long. 
 The Duke gave no formal assent to the Act of the Assembly, and 
 within less than two years from the time of its first meeting Charles 
 II. died and his brother succeeded to the throne. The new policy, 
 begun with New England, of uniting the crown colonies under a 
 single governor, soon embraced New York. 
 
 When the first troubles, which awaited the King at home, were 
 GOT- disposed of, James had leisure to give his serious attention 
 to colonial affairs; a new commission with fresh instruc- 
 tions was then given to Dongan, and Andros was sent out 
 as Governor-general of New England. In these the King declared it 
 to be his will and pleasure that the recent " Charter of Franchises be 
 repealed, determined and made void." New England was first to be 
 reduced to obedience ; New York, meanwhile, was to be held in sub- 
 jection as a royal province, its government invested in a governor 
 and council of the King's appointment without regard to the popular 
 will. James objected to the phrase, " The People, met in Gen- 
 eral Assembly." The motto upon the great seal of New England, 
 delivered to Andros,. was more to his mind : " Nunquam Libertas 
 gratior extat," * Liberty is never more agreeable than under a pious 
 King." i 
 
 Dongan was faithful to his master but not less faithful to the in- 
 Dongan's terests of his colony. He followed the policy of Andros in 
 policy. unwearied efforts to conciliate the Five Nations, to secure 
 their trade for his own countrymen, to cripple the influence of the 
 
 1 The whole sentence iu Claudian's De Laudibus Stilichonis, from which the motto is 
 taken, is : 
 
 .... fiunquum libertas gratior extat, 
 Quarn sub rei*e pio. . . . 
 
 It was probably assumed that the loyal subject would remember, or evolve from his own 
 consciousness, the latter portion of the passage in looking at the figure of the King on the 
 
1685.] 
 
 NEW YORK AND ITS NEIGHBORS. 
 
 French over the native tribes, and to repel French intrusion upon the 
 territory south of the St. Lawrence and the chain of the great lakes. 
 In these efforts he was the more successful because he was a Catholic, 
 could call English Jesuits to his aid, and satisfy the religious senti- 
 ment in the Indian, which inclined to the symbols of the Church of 
 Rome, so far as he was moved at all by Christian teaching. 
 
 No former governor saw more clearly than Dongan how much the 
 wealth and importance of the province would be enhanced if its juris- 
 diction could include the territoi-y south and east, originally covered 
 by the Duke of York's patent. Penn had planted his vigorous com- 
 monwealth at the south, taking from New York the rich lands of the 
 Delaware ; East Jersey, under its successive Lieutenant-governors, 
 for Barclay remained in England, Rudyard, Lawrie, Lord Neill 
 Campbell, and Andrew Hamilton, ha,d in ten years doubled in popu- 
 lation. If the prosperity of his neighbors did not excite the jealousy 
 of Dongan, it at least made him the more anxious that his own colony 
 should have the advantage of it. He proposed that Pemaquid too 
 far off to be of any 
 value to New York 
 should be given 
 to Massachusetts, 
 and in lieu thereof 
 Connecticut and 
 Rhode Island be an- 
 nexed to New York. 
 That any part of 
 Connecticut should 
 go to Massachusetts 
 would be, he said, 
 '* the most unpropor- 
 tionable thing in the 
 world, they having 
 already a hundred 
 times more land, 
 riches, and people 
 than this Province, 
 and yet the charge of 
 this government more than that." He complained that New Jersey 
 robbed New York of her trade and her people ; that Pennsylvania was 
 encroaching upon New York territory on the Susquehanna; that Con- 
 necticut was, as always, grasping, tenacious, prosperous at her neigh- 
 bor's expense, of evil influence over the New York towns of Long 
 Island, whose "refractory" people would carry their oil to Boston and 
 
 Seal of New England. 
 
10 NEW YORK UNDER THE ENGLISH. [CHAP. I. 
 
 their whalebone to Perth, rather than to their own capital. In 1687, 
 while on Long Island they were already complaining of the want of 
 land, the Governor wrote that he believed there had not come into his 
 colony, within seven years, twenty English, Scotch, or Irish families. 
 The population, he added, had increased by Dutch and French 
 Huguenot emigration ; but this fact he used only as an additional 
 argument for annexing the nearest English colonies to his own; 
 " that a more equal ballance may be kept between his Mat y " naturall 
 born subjects and Foreigners, which latter are the most prevailing 
 part of this Government." 
 
 He hardly did justice, however, to the growth of New York, in his 
 . ardent desire to extend its dominion. In the first fourteen 
 
 Prosperity 
 
 under Don- years of English occupation its population had trebled. Yet 
 he acknowledged that " the people [were] growing every 
 day more numerous," and as a reason for suggesting the necessity 
 of more forts, he said, they were " generally of a turbulent disposi- 
 tion." He gave them credit for great vigor, for, he said, " the men 
 that are here have generally lusty strong bodies ; " and of the other 
 sex he had an equally high opinion, for this is his representative 
 woman : " In this country there is a woman yet alive from whose 
 Loynes there are upwards of three hundred and sixty persons now 
 living." 
 
 But the old pleas were powei-less now. The policy of the Duke, 
 
 the provincial Proprietary, was not the policy of the King, who meant 
 
 to take away all charters and unite the colonies in a single royal 
 
 province. In only one case did Dongan succeed in effecting any 
 
 change in colonial relations, it was agreed to end the long 
 
 The Con- , & 
 
 necticut and vexatious controversy as to the boundary line between 
 
 boundary. . 
 
 Connecticut and New York by fixing its starting-point, where 
 it has ever since remained, on the Bynun River instead of the Mamar- 
 oneck. Another early act of his administration makes it memorable: 
 the province was subdivided into twelve counties with new names to 
 some of them, which names, though not the boundaries, remain unal- 
 tered. Ulster was so called for the Irish earldom of the Duke of 
 Naming of York ; Orange, for his son-in-law, William of Orange ; Rich- 
 counties. m ond, probably, for his illegitimate son by the Duchess of 
 Portsmouth ; Duke's, which comprised Nantucket, Martha's Vine- 
 yard, Elizabeth Islands, and No Man's Land, was so named, no doubt, 
 for the Duke himself, as Duchess was either for his wife or his mis- 
 tress. Suffolk took its name from an English county, and so also did 
 Cornwall, which included Pemaquid and the rest of the Duke's pos- 
 sessions in Maine. 1 
 
 1 The twelve counties were: The City and County of New York, Richmond, Queen's, 
 King's, Suffolk, Uuke's, Westchestcr, Ulster, Orange, Duchess, Albany, and Cornwall. 
 
1688.] ANDROS, GOVERNOR-GENERAL. 11 
 
 The new government of the " Territory and Dominion of New 
 England " was enlarged by the addition of New Jersey and New York, 
 and a new commission issued to Andros as Governor-general in 1688. 
 Though many may have rejoiced at the removal of the Catholic Gov- 
 ernor, Dongan, the act by which he was superseded was by no means 
 popular. To merge New York in New England was not to New York 
 annex New England to New York in the way that had New 6 !^- 10 
 been so long wished for. The greater would now swallow land 
 the less in fact as in name. The independence of the colony was sac- 
 
 Signature of Dongan. 
 
 rificed to the policy of the King. They might be reconciled to this 
 in the eastern part of Long Island, where they were chiefly New Eng- 
 landers, but elsewhere the feeling was one of humiliation and chagrin. 
 
 Andros, nevertheless, was received in New York with military 
 pomp and civic honors. The seal of the province was formally 
 broken in pieces and that of the Dominion of New England presented 
 as its substitute. Whatever the popular feeling might be, official 
 gentlemen had much to expect from the new Governor ; and he on his 
 part was not slow to reward his old favorites, the more readily that 
 every office whose duties were to be discharged in Boston, the pro- 
 posed seat of government bestowed upon a New Yorker, not only 
 served a friend but mortified an enemy. He visited New Jersey ; at 
 Albany he called a council of the chiefs of the Five Nations, and ex- 
 changed with them high-sounding phrases on the inferiority of the 
 French, who had recently consented, under a general pacification, 
 to abandon the fort built the year before on the site of La Salle's old 
 Fort de Conty on the superiority of the Iroquois, and their willing- 
 ness to be considered, not the children, but the brothers, of the English. 
 After a sort of vice-royal progress through his southern provinces, 
 the Governor-general returned to Boston, taking with him the most 
 important of the official records of New York. Francis Nicholson, a 
 lieutenant in the army, remained as Lieutenant-governor. 
 
 We have sketched already the character of the administration of 
 Andros, and the heavy hand that Boston laid upon him in return 
 
12 NEW YORK UNDER THE ENGLISH. [CHAP.!. 
 
 when the opportunity came to her. 1 William of Orange landed in 
 England only about a month after Andros returned to New 
 in England England from New York. In another month James had 
 tk.n orAn- fled to France ; in February, 1689, William and Mary were 
 proclaimed in London King and Queen of England. All 
 winter, tidings of the progress of the revolution had crossed the Atlan- 
 tic ; in February they knew in New York that the Prince of Orange 
 was at Torbay. The news was sent by Nicholson and his Council to Sir 
 Edmund both by land and by water, and they ordered, at the same 
 time, that the King's money should be placed in the fort, a fact that 
 shows that even at the outset they were apprehensive of some popular 
 outbreak. A more timid or a wiser man than Andros would have 
 taken prompt measures to anticipate an event which, he should have 
 foreseen, would be sure to follow in the colonies any serious disas- 
 ter to the King in England. But he sent no instructions to his New 
 York Council till nearly three months later, when he was already a 
 prisoner in the hands of the Boston Committee of Safety. 
 
 The government of New York was left in the hands of Nicholson, 
 the Lieutenant-governor, Frederick Phillipse, Stephen van Cortlandt, 
 and Nicholas Bayard, the three more active members of the 
 Hon in 6 New Council. 2 These men were to work out their difficult prob- 
 lem with such wisdom as they had, wisdom which, as it 
 happened, would have been insufficient for an exigency of much less 
 moment. The popular mind was governed by other though not less 
 efficient influences, than those which moved the people of Boston. 
 The Dutch inhabitants naturally sympathized with the Prince of 
 Orange and hoped for his success. There were in New York more 
 Romanists than in all New England ; the Protestant population were 
 alive to the fear of Popery, quickened by the apprehension that Don- 
 gan not without power, though out of place and Nicholson were 
 both under Jesuit influence. Dongan was frankly and openly a Cath- 
 olic ; Nicholson, it was suspected, only pretended to be a Protestant. 
 
 But neither the people on one side, nor the Council on the other, took 
 anj' action until the 26th of April, when news came from Boston of 
 the revolution there on the 18th, and Colonel Nicholson called to- 
 gether his Council and read to them the formal declaration of " the 
 
 1 See vol. ii., p. 387, et seq. 
 
 8 Brodhead says (History of the State of New York) that Phillipse was remarkable only 
 for being the dullest and the richest man in the town. Van Cortlandt had made himself 
 ridiculous a few months before at a celebration of the birth of the Prince of Wales, when 
 he " both sacrificed his hat, peruke, etc." (Letter from Leisler, N. Y. Col. Doc.), and it 
 was remembered against him. Bayard, the most efficient of the three, was a wealthy and 
 respectable merchant, but a hot-headed militia captain, quite unfit, as his own letters show, 
 for important command in a time of emergency. 
 
1689.] NEW YORK AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 13 
 
 gentlemen merchants and inhabitants of Boston." l To him and his 
 associates in the Government this was a " great surprizall." Action of 
 Being but four in number, as they said, they took the 
 usual refuge of weak men in conditions of unexpected re- 
 sponsibility, and called together the mayor, the members of Counci1 
 the common council, and all the officers of the militia. It was agreed 
 to fortify the town against the French, with whom England was now 
 at war, and, as the merchants were already sensitive about paying 
 import duties to the old officers, it was agreed that all such duties 
 should be expended on the new fortifications. For some time the 
 little town assumed the aspects of a camp. 
 
 On the first of May the Council wrote an ingenious letter in dupli- 
 cate to be sent to Boston, one copy to Sir Edmund An- 
 
 . r T J r. The Council 
 
 dros, to ask him to return the Kecords of the rrovince write to BOS- 
 which he had with him, the other to Governor Bradstreet 
 and the other leaders of the popular movement, in which the request 
 for the Records is changed into a request that Andros himself may be 
 forwarded to them. But the Massachusetts Committee of Safety de- 
 clined to release the Governor, and Colonel Nicholson and his three 
 friends were again left to face their own difficulties. 
 
 Meanwhile to mention a straw which showed the wind the 
 chaplain at the fort prayed regularly for the infant Prince of Wales, 
 and that the dethroned king might be " victorious over his enemies." 
 No proclamation of William was made. The anxious Council Avrote 
 to the Secretary of State, whoever he might be, and the Board of 
 Trade, whoever they might be, explaining how doubtful their posi- 
 tion was, and how fortunate it was that New York was not more 
 closely united with Boston. A few days after a verbal message ar- 
 rived from Andros, asking that Hamilton and Smith, two of his coun- 
 cilmen, might be sent on to him. But both these gentlemen had 
 troubles enough at home, and declined mixing in his affairs. This 
 was on the 22d of May. On the 6th of June Nicholson had deter- 
 mined on what was certainly the course of prudence, to leave his 
 jurisdiction ; on the 10th of June his administration ceased, though 
 he did not sail till the end of the month. But the power, and the 
 duties of government, had already passed into other hands. 
 
 The transfer of power had really taken place when this imbecile 
 Council called together the officers of militia, and with their advice 
 embodied the military force. At a time when some one must take 
 command, it followed, almost of course, that those who in arms sup- 
 ported the little state took the place for which the Council showed it- 
 self wholly incompetent. Among the captains of the militia Jacob 
 1 The Bostoines, as a despatch of the time calls them. 
 
14 
 
 NEW YORK UNDER THE ENGLISH. 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 Leisler appeared as the most prompt and courageous man, willing to 
 take responsibility. While the temporizing policy of the Council 
 waiting for more news exasperated the great body of the people ; 
 while terrors of French invasion kept the little army on the alert, 
 everybody asked why William was not proclaimed. A foolish speech 
 of Nicholson's gave rise to a rumor that he had threatened to burn 
 the town. When Leisler's turn came to guard the fort with 
 ier takes his company, he gave notice that he should call all the train- 
 bands on parade, and ask the inhabitants to unite to defend 
 the Protestant religion. A rumor spread that the French fleet was 
 
 Leisler's House. 1 
 
 below. Leisler's critics afterwards said that he started this rumor; 
 certainly he improved it. He gave the signal agreed upon, and the 
 train-bands met. The captains of some companies ordered them to 
 disperse, but they refused ; and at Leisler's direction they all signed a 
 declaration, by which they said they held and should hold the fort for 
 his Royal Highness the Prince of Orange, on behalf of such person as 
 he had appointed Governor. Six captains and four hundred men 
 signed this document. 
 
 Within a very short time news arrived that William and Mary had 
 for the present confirmed in office all Protestants holding commissions 
 
 1 Leisler's house was on Whitehall Street, south of Pearl Street, and was the first brick 
 house in New York. The picture taken from the Corporation Manual is from a draw- 
 ing made in 1679. Leisler's house is marked L. 
 
O 
 
 P 
 
 < 
 
 - 
 
 Q 
 c/5 
 
 
 c 
 So 
 
 - 
 z 
 < 
 
 - 
 z 
 
 K 
 H 
 

 : 
 
 
1689.] LEISLER ASSUMES THE CONDUCT OF AFFAIRS. 15 
 
 in the colonies. Had Nicholson possessed the confidence of the people 
 at all, or, indeed, had he been a man of resource, he might even now 
 have resumed authority under this order. But Leisler was in com- 
 mand. Almost all the counties, except New York, had thrown off all 
 allegiance to Nicholson already. And thus, as we have seen, he noti- 
 fied the Council on the 6th that he should leave for England. They 
 approved of his departure, and Leisler at the head of his train-bands 
 was thus left the only commander of the city. Comparing his posi- 
 tion with Bradstreet's in Massachusetts, it is impossible to say that 
 Leisler was more a usurper than Bradstreet. In the case of the New 
 York interregnum, the Governor who held under James was per- 
 mitted to depart in peace ; while in Boston he was put NichoUon 
 under close watch and ward. Had Leisler's assumption jg"" f r 
 
 Hmffl&UUi 
 
 gone no further than this, he would probably have received, 
 
 in the end, not even a momentary censure, but the constant favor 
 
 of the new monarchs. 
 
 Leisler thus became leader of the Protestant movement, which 
 happened to be the Dutch movement, which happened also to be 
 the popular or plebeian movement in the little city, all of whose peo- 
 ple, of every shade of politics and religion, did not number more than 
 three thousand. It was at the same time the " country " movement, 
 to adopt a convenient phrase, often used in English politics, and some- 
 times in the politics of America, to express the sentiments of the 
 rural districts, where they differ from those of the merchants, or other 
 men of cities. Leisler, however, was not himself a Hollander, or of 
 Dutch origin. He was born at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and had come 
 to New York thirty years before as a soldier. But for many years he 
 had been a merchant, and, of late years, a prosperous merchant. He 
 first appears in the records of recent dissensions as receiving a cargo 
 of wines, on which the duties, amounting to a hundred pounds, he re- 
 fused to pay to a revenue officer, who was still serving under King 
 James's commission and claimed no other authority. 
 
 Connecticut proclaimed William and Mary on the 13th of June, 
 and delegates from Connecticut, who had the printed Eng- 
 
 Vi . . . j ,. ii- . William and 
 
 Iisn proclamation of the accession, delivered this to Leisler. Mary pro- 
 On the 22d he made the formal proclamation. The fact 
 that the Connecticut delegates recognized him as the actual Governor 
 instead of going to the " rump " of a Council, excited the indignation 
 of the Councillors. The King's proclamation, confirming all Protes- 
 tants in office, was made public by them ; but this was but a half tri- 
 umph on their side, as it compelled them to dismiss Plowman, the 
 Collector, who was a Catholic, and who had most aroused the indigna- 
 tion of the Protestant party. Leisler appointed Peter de la Noye Col- 
 

 16 NEW YORK UNDER THE ENGLISH. [CHAP. I. 
 
 lector in his place, turning out the three commissioners appointed by 
 the other party. Bayard took alarm at the audacity of Leisler's pro- 
 Flight or the ceedings, and on the 28th fled to Albany, leaving Phillipse 
 council. an( j y an Q or tl an( Jt the only representatives of the Council. 
 Van Cortlandt soon followed, and from this time, for a year and a 
 half, Leisler was practically at the head of the government. 
 
 In imitation of the proceedings in Massachusetts, and in London, 
 he invited the counties and towns to meet in convention. The call 
 committee was obeyed, and the delegates assembled on the 26th of June. 
 pointed y id '^ ne meet ig consisted of twelve members, of whom two 
 ogn^eYas" withdrew after the first session. The others signed a paper 
 commander, appointing Leisler to be Captain of the Fort, and constitu- 
 ting themselves a Committee of Safety. Under this authority Leisler 
 assumed from this time to be the governor of the province. 
 
 This unskilled, self-taught merchant, into whose hands the conduct 
 of affairs had fallen at a dangerous and critical moment, was beset 
 with difficulties from without as well as within. King James, who 
 had commissioned Nicholson and his council of three, was at this mo- 
 ment the guest and ally of Louis XIV. That king, on the 7th of 
 French ho- June, in the very week in which Leisler took command of 
 the fort, gave these instructions to Frontenac, Governor of 
 Canada, with regard to the whole Province of New York : " If 
 among the inhabitants of New York there are any Catholics whose 
 fidelity can be assured, they may be left in their homes after they have 
 sworn fidelity to King Louis. From the other inhabitants, artisans 
 and people necessary for agriculture may be kept at work as prisoners. 
 All officers, and all the principal inhabitants, will be kept in prison till 
 they are redeemed by ransom. With regard to all others who are 
 not French, they will be transported to New England, Frauce, or other 
 
 places. But all French- 
 
 /^\ f A-S\-^SJ ^sy stst sit men, especially those of 
 
 C? J^s(/7vJr^LL^ the pretended reformed 
 
 ^ religion, will be sent to 
 
 Signature of Frontenac. T-. .< rrn 
 
 t ranee. 1 liese were 
 
 a part of the direct orders for an invasion of New York. And at 
 
 this very moment the Jesuit body, at once servants and masters of 
 
 this French king, were carrying on, on the frontier, those intrigues 
 
 which in this and the following years resulted in the mas- 
 
 Indian mas- ' 
 
 sacreaonthe sacres of Pemaquid, of Schenectady, of Salmon Falls, and 
 
 of Wells' River. Of these massacres the cruelties were due, 
 
 in the first instance, not to savage ferocity, but to the counsels of men 
 
 who took the name of Jesus for their own. 1 At such a time Leisler 
 
 1 Compare, for the details, Parkmau's Life of Frontenac. 
 
1689.] LEISLER'S ADMINISTRATION OF THE PROVINCE. 17 
 
 found one of the few Roman Catholics in his province a governor of 
 Albany on the frontier, and another the collector of the king's rev- 
 enue in New York. He would not have been justified, either as the 
 representative of King William, or as governing the province for its 
 own best good, had he consented to serve, on equal terms, with these 
 Catholic officers. 
 
 The city and county of Albany was the only part of the province 
 which for a time refused to recogtiize his authority. Albany was prob- 
 ably strengthened in its independence by Colonel Bayard, and not un- 
 willing to resent New York interference. She had called her own 
 convention, and intrusted all public affairs to her own magistrates. 
 She had declined to send delegates to Leisler's convention. This quasi 
 independent attitude would probably have excited little attention in 
 history, but that the news of the butcheries of Pemaquid and at 
 Dover 1 arrived at this time in Albany. The frontier village now felt 
 its weakness. She sent for aid to the city whose ruler she had de- 
 fied, asking for help. Leisler would not recognize the Al- 
 
 & & Albany re- 
 
 bany government, and they wrote to Connecticut and to fuses u>re- 
 
 UTI i f f ognize Leis- 
 
 Massachusetts asking for a garrison for the fort. They ap- lerasGover- 
 pointed Schuyler to its chief command, displacing Sharp, 
 against whom as a Catholic there were " jealousies." Leisler sent up 
 a company under Milborne, but he was refused admission to the fort. 
 He returned, and the fort and outposts at Schenectady were garri- 
 soned by Connecticut men. 
 
 Had Nicholson dared to remain in New York he would have re- 
 ceived a commission from King William broad enough and strong 
 enough to relieve him from all difficulty. For, all through these con- 
 fusions William showed no fondness for any revolutions but such as 
 he made himself On the 30th of July, while Nicholson was yet on 
 the ocean, an order issued at Whitehall to appoint him 
 Lieutenant-governor, enclosing instructions from the King ceived't^m 
 and Queen. The letter was addressed to him, and, in his EngUmd 
 absence, " to such as for the time being take care for preserving the 
 peace and administering the laws." It is said that Nicholson arrived 
 in London before the letter Avas started, and it has been conjectured 
 that no alteration was made in the address because it was supposed 
 that Phillipse, Cortlandt, and Bayard would open it. But Nichol- 
 son must have told the authorities that a convention had been sum- 
 moned, and that Leisler was in actual command. It is probable 
 either that the despatches were beyond correction, or that the Eng- 
 lish authorities were willing to avail themselves of the doubt hidden 
 under the address. In point of fact at the moment they were writ- 
 
 1 See vol. ii., pp. 444, et seq. 
 VOL. in. 2 
 
18 
 
 NEW YORK UNDER THE ENGLISH. 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 ten, Bayard and Cortlandt had both fled from New York, and there 
 was no government there but that of Leisler. Nor did the Council, 
 which was thus reduced to Phillipse alone, make any pretence of exer- 
 cising authority. 
 
 The letter did not arrive till the 9th of December, when Bragge, 
 who brought it, came by way of Boston. He delivered it to Leisler, 
 who claimed it as " the person who administered the laws and pre- 
 served the peace." When Cortlandt, who had returned, and Phil- 
 lipse claimed the despatches, the messenger prudently said he would 
 not be hanged for any of them. With this addition to his authority 
 Leisler continued his administration and again proclaimed William 
 
 The Attack on Schenectady. 
 
 and Mary, " Scotland being formerly omitted." Cortlandt and Phil- 
 lipse sent a protest to the King against his claim, but made no pre- 
 tence of assuming the duties of governor themselves. 
 
 The duties of the post to which Leisler found himself called might 
 well have appalled him. Frontenac on the north, one of the ablest 
 rulers over hunters, Jesuits, and savages, who ever served France, 
 was taking advantage of the declai-ation of war to pounce upon the 
 exposed frontier. In February, 1689-90, the blow came. He formed 
 three war parties of picked men, who were to attack Albany, New 
 Hampshire, and Maine. The first gathered at Montreal, made up of 
 ninety-six Christian Iroquois, so called, and more than a hundred 
 French coureurs du lots. They were led by three of the Le Moynes, 
 
1690.] WAR WITH THE FRENCH AND INDIANS. 19 
 
 of the same blood as Iberville and Bienville who founded Louisiana, 
 of the distinguished family to whom France owed so many victo- 
 ries in the years of her American rule. 
 
 These leaders were destined to meet one cruel disappointment. 
 After the party had crossed Lake Champlain on the ice, a council 
 was called in which the Le Moynes named Albany as the point of at- 
 tack. " How long," said the sullen Indians, " since the French have 
 been so bold ? " The Frenchmen answered that since their War with 
 late misfortunes, honor required them to take Albany or die. the French - 
 The Indians had no such notion of honor, and at the Hudson, where 
 the tracks then and now diverge one for Albany and one for Sche- 
 nectady they took the path to Schenectady. The French were 
 obliged to acquiesce. A thaw had softened the snow and ice, and it 
 was nine days more before they came near the fated village. About 
 dark on the 8th of February, they reached the river Mohawk, a little 
 above the village. Sunset has a peculiar marvel at that spot, which 
 even savages have observed. The range of southern mountains on its 
 western side is so curved that the red ball of the sun, seen through 
 the mists of the river, seems to roll slowly down the ridge to its re- 
 pose. But in this fatal twilight and bitter storm there was little 
 thought of nature's beauty or of savage legend. The scout, sent for- 
 ward, saw nobody. The cold was so bitter that they feared to dis- 
 pense with fires, while their prey was so near that they dared not 
 make them. Nor was delay needed. Some village festival was just 
 finished and the whole town was asleep soon after nightfall. Tal- 
 madge of Connecticut, with eight or nine of his militia, was in the 
 block-house, and only two snow images stood as sentinels at the gate 
 of the palisades of the town, in fatuous derision of danger. In two 
 bands the invaders entered, without opposition, having failed to close 
 the Albany gate so as to shut in the fugitives. One band marched 
 to the right, one to the left, till the sleeping village was surrounded. 
 The signal was then given, they " screeched the war-whoop together," 
 and fell to their horrid work. No resistance was made but at the 
 block-house. In two hours of carnage sixty persons were killed, 
 men, women, and children, and eighty or ninety captives 
 were secured. A few escaped through the storm to Albany, of 
 The village was fired, and at noon it was in ashes. Four tady ' 
 hundred thousand livres' worth of property was destroyed, says the 
 French report, with a curious precision. 
 
 The Albany commander, Schuyler, learned from prisoners whom he 
 took in pursuit, that Frontenac meant to attack Albany in the spring. 
 He sent messengers to Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, and 
 Virginia, urging them to relieve him, and even to " the civil and mili- 
 
20 NEW YORK UNDER THE ENGLISH. [CHAP. I. 
 
 tary officers at New York." Connecticut gave him sound advice in 
 suggesting that this was no time for quarrel with New York, and this 
 advice prevailed. Leisler renewed and pressed the urgent demands 
 made by the Albany government, upon the other provinces ; Albany 
 received the ree'nfon-ements, and sent delegates to the House of As- 
 sembly which he summoned to meet on the 24th of April. An ex- 
 pedition was concerted against the French, and to form plans for this 
 Leisler invited the other colonies to send delegates to New York. 
 
 Seven delegates attended this first Colonial Congress, which was 
 in session on the 1st of May. The names of all have become histor- 
 ical in the annals of this and the next century. They were Stough- 
 ton, Sewall, Gold, Pitkin, Walley, Leisler, and De la Noye. They 
 agreed that New York should provide four hundred men, Massachu- 
 setts one hundred and sixty. Connecticut one hundred and thirty-five, 
 and Plymouth sixty. Maryland had promised one hundred. It was 
 agreed that Leisler should appoint the commander. 
 
 With the energy which merchants or other men of affairs often 
 show when some accident throws them into the administration of 
 government, and with the eager and terrified zeal of the burghers and 
 sea-faring men of New York to back him, Leisler rebuilt the fortifica- 
 tions of that city, which had fallen into decay in the preceding peace- 
 ful years. Hearing of French cruisers at sea he sent out privateers, 
 some of considerable force, to capture them ; and he was able to offer 
 some assistance also to the ill-fated New England expedition against 
 Canada. The year 1690, for the whole of which he was the sole 
 Governor of New York, was a year of spirited military and naval 
 enterprise. And the occasional arrival of a prize showed that neither 
 the dangers nor the rewards of the seas had been over-estimated. 
 
 His foreign was more successful than his domestic policy. At 
 home there was no lack of complaint; and probably many of those 
 who had found fault with the imbecile languor of King Log, found 
 fault now with the activity of his successor. When the royal Governor 
 arrived, who had been fifteen months in coming, he found a hotbed of 
 sedition and bitter complaint ready to welcome him. Walley, the 
 Plymouth delegate to the Congress, not unfriendly to Leisler, had 
 characterized his temper well enough when he said, " He is a man 
 that carries on some matters too arbitrary." 
 
 Still, had King William at this juncture appointed any competent 
 person governor of New York, the troubles which followed, with the 
 cruel tragedy which they involved, would have been prevented. But, 
 with the recklessness which has not yet been outgrown in the admin- 
 istration of colonies. William considered the needs of the candidate for 
 office rather than the need of the colony which was to be governed. 
 
1691. J 
 
 INGOLDSBY'S ATTACK ON THE FORT. 
 
 21 
 
 Soon after the letter was sent, under which Leisler continued his rule, 
 but long before it arrived, William appointed Col. Henry Sloughter, 
 a personal favorite of his own, to represent the crown in si 
 New York. Even now, had Sloughter with any promptness 
 assumed his office, he would have arrived in New York as XewYork - 
 soon as the paper which served Leisler for a year as his commission. 
 In fact, however, Sloughter, who was commissioned November 14, 1689, 
 did not sail until December 1, 1690, after a year of inexplicable de- 
 lay, and then went by way of Bermuda. Unfortunately again, Rich- 
 
 Ingoldsby's Attack on the Fort. 
 
 ard Ingoldsby, who sailed at the same time with Sloughter as a cap- 
 tain of a company of grenadiers, arrived in New York on the 29th 
 January, 1691, a few weeks before his Governor. Finding 
 Leisler in command of the fort, he ordered him to deliver captain in- 
 it. He had no civil commission ; he had no warrant from ' 
 Sloughter to hold the fort ; he had no commission whatever but that 
 of major in the King's army. No officer of any rank, superior to In- 
 goldsby's, would have obeyed such a command, unless special orders 
 were given him by a superior. Leisler offered to Ingoldsby every 
 courtesy, and quarters for the troops, but declined giving up the fort 
 until Sloughter or some one commissioned by him, should arrive. On 
 
22 NEW YORK UNDER THE ENGLISH. [CHAP. I. 
 
 this Ingoldsby proceeded to mount cannon against the fort, and actu- 
 ally fired upon it. The fort returned the fire. There was after- 
 He attacks wards a collision of testimony as to which began this combat. 
 Fort James, jj^ fc j g ce rtain that almost all the injury and loss of life 
 were caused by Ingoldsby's party, who maintained a fire against the 
 fort for some hours. At the utmost but a few men, most of them 
 soldiers, were killed. 
 
 In this state of half war, Leisler maintained the fort for some 
 weeks, until on the 19th of March, Sloughter, the long looked-for 
 Governor, arrived, for whom all along he said he had been waiting. 
 Here, on the after trials, testimony differed again. Leisler's son said 
 that his father, as soon as he had notice of S lough ter's arrival, al- 
 though late at night, sent two gentlemen to congratulate him on his 
 arrival, and offer the fort and government to him as their Majesty's 
 Governor, but that they, without being heard, were committed to the 
 common jail ; that the next morning Captain Leisler sent a letter to 
 the Governor desiring him to send some persons to receive the fort, 
 which he did, but immediately caused said Leisler and others to be 
 committed to prison. 1 Colonel Sloughter, in his official report to the 
 King, says he sent Major Ingoldsby to demand the fort, to whom 
 Leisler replied that he would own no Governor without orders from 
 the King directed to him. Sloughter also says that Leisler sent a man 
 out that night to identify him and make sure that he was Colonel 
 Sloughter; that he then demanded the fort from Leisler a second 
 time, and that he refused it ; that only when preparations were made 
 to storm it, did Leisler send out the two persons spoken of to surren- 
 der it. 
 
 Ingoldsby marched into the fort. Some of Leisler's men threw 
 The fort down their arms, and without further opposition he relin- 
 tosiougbT 1 quished the command. Sloughter issued a commission at 
 ter- once for the trial of him and his Council for murder and 
 
 treason. The trial immediately followed. It has become one of the 
 celebrated cases in our history. Six of the prisoners pleaded in form. 
 Leisler and Milborne, his son-in-law, refused to plead until the court 
 would decide whether the King's letter of July 30, 1689, had not given 
 Leisler formal authority. The court would not go into this question, 
 but referred it to the Governor and Council. They replied that the 
 King's letter and the papers with it gave no power or direction to the 
 Leisler. Leisler and Milborne still refused to plead, 
 a ^ ter a tr i & l f eight days, they and six others of Leis- 
 triai. j er ' s Council were found guilty and sentenced to death. 
 
 Dudley, a Massachusetts man, whom the king had made judge, pre- 
 1 Administration of Leisler. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Collections, 1868. 
 
1691.] 
 
 EXECUTION OF LEISLER. 
 
 23 
 
 sided at the trial and pronounced sentence. The Governor, by the 
 advice of the judges, I'eprieved all the prisoners until the king's 
 pleasure was known. 
 
 This was on the 20th of April, 1691. The whole picture is a 
 wretched web-work woven by men who were wild with the excite- 
 ments of religious bigotry and the hot rivalries of race, in the narrow 
 confines of a petty seaport, far from their chiefs, and jealous of 
 their privileges. The histoi-ian who traces it feels all along that 
 even thus far it might all have dropped into the oblivion to which the 
 most of such wretch- 
 ed broils belong, but 
 for the terrible blun- 
 der made a few 
 weeks later. 
 
 Sloughter called, 
 as he had been bid- 
 den, the first regu- 
 lar Assembly sum- 
 moned by a royal 
 governor. The prov- 
 ince was more wild 
 than ever in its dread 
 of the papists, under 
 the horrible lessons 
 taught on the fron- 
 tier. But the As- 
 sembly was chosen 
 wholly in the inter- 
 est of the-party 
 whom Leisler had 
 ousted ; and it had 
 captured, as a mod- 
 ern phrase has it, In- 
 goldsby and Slough- 
 
 ter. All the men 
 
 Sloughter signing Leisler's Death-warrant. 
 
 whom Leisler had 
 
 deposed from authority were now ready to take their revenge. On 
 the one hand petitions for Leisler's pardon were pressed on the 
 Governor. Counter-petitions for his execution came in, some of 
 them even from women. Bayard, of kin to Leisler by marriage, 
 pressed Sloughter, who was his guest, to carry out the sentence. 
 " Tradition says that when no other means could prevail with him, 
 a sumptuous feast was prepared, to which Colonel Sloughter was 
 

 24 NEW YORK UNDER THE ENGLISH. [CHAP. I. 
 
 invited. When his reason was drowned in his cups the entreaties 
 sioughter f tne company prevailed on him to sign the death-warrant, 
 and before he recovered his senses the prisoners were exe- 
 cuted." 1 This was on the 16th of May, 1691, nearly two 
 years after Leisler had assumed the government. On that day Leisler 
 and Milborne were hanged, and their bodies were then beheaded, in 
 the presence of a crowd of indignant people. 
 
 Sioughter himself died suddenly on the 23d of July. There were 
 suspicions that he had been poisoned, but a medical examination gave 
 no color to them. It is not difficult to account for the sudden death 
 of such men. Within three years, on the application of Leisler's son 
 at London, the whole question as to his father's guilt was argued be- 
 fore a committee of the House of Lords, the attainder pronounced on 
 him was reversed by Parliament after full discussion, and such repa- 
 ration as money could give was made to his family, for the 
 
 verged by charges which his private estate had met in his conduct of 
 Lords. the administration. Bellomont, who succeeded him after 
 some years as Governor of New York, made no scruple in saying that 
 the evidence on the trial convinced him that Leisler was murdered 
 judicially. That he would have been more prudent had he surrend- 
 ered his command to Ingoldsby, the event has proved. That he 
 should have yielded to Sioughter, at the moment he knew who 
 Sioughter was, is certain. That he was unjustly charged with mur- 
 der and treason was the decision of the English Parliament, and such 
 will probably be the verdict of history. 2 
 
 1 Smith's History of New York. 
 
 2 The student interested in Leisler's rule and in his fate must read iiot only the papers in 
 the Colonial Documents, but the invaluable collection in the New York Historical Society's 
 Collections for the year 1868. 
 
 "3 1 . ts >: 
 
 Signature of Jacob Leisler. 
 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 ROYAL GOVERNORS UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY. 
 
 COLONIAL POLICY OF WILLIAM AND MARY. GOVERNOR FLETCHER OF NEW 
 YORK. His VISIT TO CONNECTICUT. RENEWAL OF HOSTILITIES WITH THE 
 FRENCH AND INDIANS. SCIIUYLER'S EXPEDITION. ADMINISTRATION OF THE 
 EARL OF BELLOMONT. PREVALENCE OF PRIVATEERING AND PIRACY. CAPTAIN 
 KIDD'S ADVENTURES. LORD CORNIH;RY, GOVERNOR OF NEW YOKK AND NEW 
 JERSEY. EAST AND WEST JERSEY UNITED AND PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT 
 ENDED. CONTROVERSY BETWEEN CORNBURY AND THE NEW JERSEY ASSEMBLY. 
 GOVERNORS LOVELACE, INGOLDSBY, AND HUNTER. PORT ROYAL TAKEN BY THE 
 ENGLISH. PROPOSED INVASION OF CANADA. NOVA SCOTIA CEDED BY THE 
 FRENCH. ADMINISTRATION OF GOVERNOR BDRNET. 
 
 SLOUGHTER had been governor only four months at the time of his 
 death. Except for the melancholy tragedy which marked his adminis- 
 tration, it is remem- 
 bered only for a visit 
 to Albany and the 
 Mohawk River, 
 when he renewed 
 
 the treaties of friend- Signature of Retcher 
 
 ship with the Iro- 
 
 quois, and succeeded in detaching the Mohawks from the French. 
 The Chief Justice, Dudley, would have been his temporary successor, 
 as the senior member of the Council, had he not been ab- Appoint . 
 sent in the West Indies. Captain Ingoldsby for a brief J^bOTM 
 period discharged the duties of that office, but was relieved K Terilor - 
 in August, 1692, by the arrival of Benjamin Fletcher from England 
 with a commission from the King. 
 
 The Whig party, and William and Mary whom that party led to 
 the throne of England, understood as Avell as any people in the world 
 of that day, how to use those phrases which denounced tyranny and 
 asserted the rights of Englishmen. But, as has been often remarked, 
 this oligarchy for it was nothing more was quite as willing 
 to use the results of the tyranny of the Stuarts, as if that tyranny 
 had been their own. When Mather and Phips were in England, 
 pleading for the restoration of the charter of Massachusetts, Somers 
 

 26 ROYAL GOVERNORS UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY. [CHAP. II. 
 
 was as ready as any Tory lawyer would have been, to instruct them 
 that the crown could take no steps backward. In his gov- 
 ernment of the new province of New York the new King 
 did as his predecessor would have done. The Governor 
 was instructed to send home all laws for approval ; he was 
 directed to introduce the Book of Common Prayer among Presbyte- 
 rians, Huguenots, and Dutchmen, where perhaps James II. would 
 have been glad to introduce a mass-book ; he was to take a salary 
 of .600 a year from the colony revenue, accepting no gift from the 
 Assembly unless the King permitted ; and he was to send to the 
 
 King a list of prominent persons 
 from whom the Governor's Council 
 would be named. The Stuarts 
 would hardly have found any- 
 thing to change in this scheme for 
 colonial administration. 
 
 William and Mary's first ap- 
 pointments, also, were such as re- 
 flected little credit on their advis- 
 ers. It must be remembered that 
 New York Avas more distant in 
 time from England than any of her 
 colonies are to-day ; that the pop- 
 ulation of the city was hardly four, 
 thousand ; that besides the city 
 were '' only Long Island and some 
 other small islands, Zoptis, Albany, 
 
 and the limitts thereof," to borrow from one of the Council's dec- 
 larations of its weakness. If one considers how little care is given 
 at this time by the most careful ministry to the selection of a co- 
 lonial governor for ten thousand people on the other side of the 
 world, it is easy to understand why the new-created Whig monarchy 
 of William and Mary was as indifferent as it seemed to be in the 
 choice of its representative in New York. 
 
 No more striking proof, for example, could be given of the careless- 
 ness with which colonial affairs were managed than the power be- 
 stowed upon Fletcher, who was not a man of more than ordinary 
 ability, and of rather less than ordinary good character. His commis- 
 sion gave him the command of the militia of the New England colo- 
 nies as well as his own. But Sir William Phips, when appointed 
 Governor of Massachusetts, was also, by his commission, made com- 
 mander-in-chief in Connecticut and Rhode Island. Yet both these 
 colonies were under governments of their own in accordance with their 
 
1693.] 
 
 GOVERNOR FLETCHER OF NEW YORK. 
 
 27 
 
 charters, and neither of them was likely to submit quietly to any 
 assumption of authority within their borders by either Phips Conflict of 
 or Fletcher. It was thought necessary, for the safety of all a ^^y 
 the colonies against the hostility of the Indians, that there provincial 
 
 ''"' i uui militia. 
 
 should be somewhere exclusive command over the whole 
 body of provincial militia. The heedless appointment of two com- 
 manders-in-chief would have necessarily defeated that purpose, even 
 had Connecticut and Rhode Island been disposed to submit to the 
 orders of any other governor than their own. Phips and Fletcher 
 quarrelled with each other, and both quarrelled with Treat of Con- 
 necticut. That colony sent General 
 Fitz-John Winthrop to England to 
 complain to the King of the vio- 
 lation of their rights under the 
 charter. So strong was the feeling 
 of her people, that twenty-two 
 hundred of her three thousand 
 freemen assembled to give pop- 
 ular sanction to Winthrop's mis- 
 sion. Rhode Island was no less 
 determined to withstand Phips's 
 attempt to displace her militia of- 
 ficers, and also sent an agent 
 Mr. Almy to England with a 
 protest against this assumption of 
 power b)i the Massachusetts Gov- 
 ernor. 
 
 But Connecticut was quite capable of defending her own rights 
 without waiting for help from the King. Fletcher appeared 
 in Hartford in October, 1693, and ordered the militia under Twits con- 
 
 , T , , 111111 necticut. 
 
 arms. He assured the Assembly that he had no intention 
 of exercising any undue authority over the colony, and in proof he 
 offered the command of the troops to Governor Treat, as his lieuten- 
 ant. The Assembly were equally determined that he should exercise 
 no authority at all, whether he intended it or not ; and Treat declined 
 to be appointed second in command where he was already commander- 
 in-chief. 
 
 The grim humor of the sturdy Puritans of Connecticut again 
 showed itself as it had more than once before in recent years in 
 resisting usurpation, or what they believed to be so. The militia 
 were allowed to muster at Hartford, apparently to give to Fletcher's 
 pretences a practical answer which could not be misunderstood. He 
 ordered his commission and instructions to be read to the troops. 
 
 Queen Mary. 
 

 28 ROYAL GOVERNORS UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY. [CHAP. II. 
 
 Captain Wadsworth was in command in front of the ranks, and, as 
 some there remembered, he was not afraid of governors. When the 
 reading began, he gave the order, "Beat the drums!" Their rattle 
 completely drowned the voice of Captain Bayai'd, Captain Nicholas 
 Bayard, of New York. Governor Fletcher commanded silence. The 
 reading recommenced, when Wadsworth shouted, lk Drum ! drum ! T 
 say." " Silence ! silence ! " cried the Governor. " Drum ! drum ! 
 
 The Reading of Fletcher's Commission. 
 
 
 
 I say," repeated the captain. Then, turning to Fletcher, he added, 
 with a fine disregard of the present facts, but a keen perception of his 
 duty to Connecticut, " If I am interrupted again, I will make the 
 sun shine through you in a moment ! " No further attempt was 
 made to resume the reading, and such was the evident spirit of the 
 crowd, that the Governor and his suite thought it prudent to quit 
 Hartford with what dignity was still left them. 
 
 Fletcher and Phips both claimed Martha's Vineyard, and with 
 equal heat promised each other to meet there in arms in the spring 
 
1693.] HOSTILITIES WITH THE FRENCH AND INDIANS. 29 
 
 of 1693 ; but when the spring came, each was otherwise engaged. 
 Fletcher's principal occupation, according to Bellomont his successor, 
 was rifling the revenue, and in particular, dealing with privateers and 
 pirates, to whom he sold licenses, quite indifferent how they were 
 used. Under his sway New York became, as Bellomont says, " a nest 
 of pirates." 
 
 The Governor, however, did not altogether neglect his public duties. 
 So long as Count Frontenac was governor of Canada, no Eng- Renewed 
 lish colony on the border had leisure to rest for an instant J^"an and 
 without alarm. He was every inch a soldier, and even in his ho8tllltie8 - 
 old age, active and adventurous. The savage attacks made on the 
 New England frontier have been described in another chapter. 1 The 
 Mohawk villages, and Albany itself, were to renew the terrors of the 
 capture of Schenectady. 
 
 On Wednesday, the 8th of February, 1693, three years after the 
 massacre of Schenectady, the settlers of that village were aroused by 
 the report that an expedition of French and Christian Indians had ar- 
 rived on the upper Mohawk. The news was sent at once to Albany, 
 and the next day Schenectady was reinforced by a troop of horse, 
 soon followed by Major Peter Schuyler, who took command. On his 
 arrival he sent messengers to warn the nearest Mohawk fort ; but 
 these returned without being able to cross the river. On Friday a 
 party of observation brought the news that two of the three Mohawk 
 towns were already in the hands of the French. On Saturday an 
 advance party of fifty was sent out to feel the enemy and build a 
 fort of observation. They heard firing at the nearest Mohawk town. 
 When the news that the enemy were so near came to Albany, the 
 commander there collected a hundred men and sent them on Sunday 
 to Schenectady. With these and the Schenectady detach- 
 ment, in all about three hundred men, Major Schuyler 
 marched on Monday afternoon, but too late to help the two Mohawk 
 towns. These had been surprised by their Christian kinsmen on 
 succeeding nights, and the inhabitants killed or captured, men, 
 women, and children. It is said that the French tried to keep their 
 Indians to a promise they had made of killing all their prisoners, but 
 that, more humane than faithful, they refused. 2 
 
 After burning the towns the allies had turned to a jubilant, victo- 
 rious return to Canada. Schuyler by a quick night march reached, 
 early on Tuesday morning, the block-house built on Saturday; the 
 enemy, it was said, were within eight miles, and a large party of 
 friendly Indians were coming from the upper river. He sent out 
 scouts towards the enemy and also a demand to Albany for more sup- 
 
 1 See voL ii., chap, xviii. 2 Parkmun's Frontenac. 
 
30 ROYAL GOVERNORS UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY. [CHAP. II. 
 
 plies to feed the reinforcements. These scouts, apparently without 
 the knowledge of Sclmyler, gave the enemy the surprising information 
 that peace had been declared, and that Schuyler wanted only to par- 
 ley. At this the Indians refused to go further, despite the prayers 
 of the French, but built themselves a log fort where they prepared to 
 wait for the overtures of peace. The French, unwilling and afraid to 
 desert them, were constrained to stay as well. 
 
 On Wednesday Schuyler was joined by his reinforcement of about 
 three hundred Indians, men and boys, and, in the afternoon, he cau- 
 tiously inarched ten miles on the track of the enemy, without meet- 
 ing them. The next morning he marched ten miles further, when 
 one of the Oneidas met him who had been sent by the French to gain 
 over the Mohawks to their side. He told Schuyler of the encamp- 
 ment of the French. Sending back information of this to Schenec- 
 tady, Schuyler again pushed on two miles, when the news was con- 
 firmed by an escaped prisoner. Advancing to a favorable position he 
 built a fortified camp where he passed the night. On Fri- 
 overtakes day morning his scouts brought him information that the 
 
 the enemy. 
 
 enemy were but a mile distant. Breaking camp he marched 
 forward till he came in sight of them. At this he gave orders to 
 engage, risking his five hundred and fifty men against the rumored 
 seven hundred protected by a log fort. But here his Indians failed 
 him. They insisted on building a counter-fort, and he, like his French 
 opponent, was compelled to assent. 
 
 The French, not receiving the promised overtures of peace, sallied 
 out three times against him, to be repulsed each time. It then be- 
 gan to snow, and both parties retired to their fortifications, and passed 
 the night in great discomfort, the Albany troops suffering from hun- 
 Retreatof g er as well as from cold. The next morning a deserter 
 theFreuch. b rou gb.t, in news that the enemy were packing up for flight, 
 and scouts venturing up to the fort announced that they were gone. 
 Schuyler wished to march immediately in pursuit, but his men refused 
 to move till provisions should arrive. He therefore remained in camp 
 all day, merely sending out a party of observation. 
 
 On Sunday, at ten, the convoy arrived, and when the men had been 
 served with their biscuits they were sent after the enemy. They 
 inarched quickly, and at four the news was sent from the front that 
 the} 7 had come up with them. No\v again, however, the Indians re- 
 fused to move, their reason being that the French threatened to kill 
 all the prisoners if they were attacked. After an hour's pleading 
 they were persuaded, but too late ; the enemy had crossed the Hud- 
 son on a " flake " of ice and were beyond pursuit. 
 
 Schuyler would have followed still, but the men were worn out and 
 
1698.] 
 
 FLETCHER RECALLED. 
 
 31 
 
 hungry, and the Indians still mutinous. He therefore turned back, 
 and reached Schenectady on Tuesday, a fortnight after the 
 first alarm. Here he found Governor Fletcher, who had schuyier's 
 heard the news at New York on Sunday, the 12th, and had ' 
 immediately collected one hundred and fifty men and set sail up the 
 river. The voyage had taken three days, and he arrived too late. 
 
 After this raid Frontenac's party 
 were not successful. Their provis- 
 ions, left in de"p8t on Lake Cham- 
 plain, were spoiled, 
 and the ice failed 
 them. They broke 
 into small parties, 
 and in dreadful 
 straits for food, re- 
 turned to Canada 
 only after severe 
 hardships. 
 
 Fletcher's laurels, 
 such as they were, 
 earned in this expe- 
 dition, were all that 
 belong to his admin- 
 istration. Its after 
 history, till 1698, is 
 merely the record 
 of his intrigues for 
 money, and his quar- 
 rels with assemblies. 
 He was recalled that 
 year to answer many 
 charges of m a 1 a d- 
 ministration brought 
 against him. 
 
 The Earl of Bellomont succeeded him. His appointment, with en- 
 larged powers, had been talked of for two or three years. A 
 party of some strength, comprising men of influence in Eng- 
 land and the colonies, had urged a consolidated government 
 of all the northern provinces, like that which had existed un- New 
 der Andros. But it was found difficult, if not impossible, shire - 
 to reconcile all their rival interests. Connecticut and Rhode Island, 
 governing themselves under their recovered charters, were peculiarly 
 hard to deal with. Jealous of their rights, which agents in London 
 
 Schuyler and the Scouts. 
 
 The Eari of 
 
 
32 ROYAL GOVERNORS UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY. [CHAP. II. 
 
 carefully watched over, they never willingly submitted to any law 
 meant to be of general application ; much less were they patient and 
 obedient when conformity implied subordination. In matters of trade 
 they consulted their own intei'ests, without much regard to the interests 
 of other colonies, or to royal regulations. They bought where they 
 could buy cheapest, and sold where they could sell dearest, without 
 asking leave of either Boston or New York, or consulting always the 
 orders of the Board of Trade. When military aid was needed for de- 
 fence against the Indians on other frontiers than their own, both col- 
 onies reserved the right of judging for themselves of their ability to 
 meet such requisitions. It was in deference, probably, to their char- 
 tered rights and independent spirit, that Bellomont, who was ap- 
 pointed Governor of New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, 
 was only made Captain-general over the military foi'ces of the two 
 other New England provinces and of the Jerseys. 
 
 The new Governor found awaiting him in New York every kind of 
 irregularity which had grown up under Fletcher's administration, 
 frauds upon government, systematic violations of the Navigation 
 Laws, and the whole population of the city divided by a bitter feud 
 between the Leisier and anti-Leisler factions. He came with a deter- 
 mi nation to break up piracy, reestablish legitimate com- 
 merce, and enforce an honest collection of the revenue. To 
 these objects he devoted himself with great energy and zeal during 
 the three years of his administration. 
 
 Bellomont's sympathies were known, before he was appointed a 
 provincial governor, to be with the Leisier party. As a member of a 
 Parliamentary Committee he had heard all the testimony in regard to 
 ins B.vmpa- tne execution of Leisier, and had said emphatically, that "he 
 [ ?1 *j. th tbe was murdered, and barbarously murdered." The new Gov- 
 party- ernor used his influence at once over the New York Assem- 
 
 bly to procure an act of indemnity for the family of that unfortunate 
 victim of party hate ; and within a few months of Bellomont's arrival 
 the bodies of both Leisier and Milborne which had been interred 
 in private ground were taken up and reburied, with public solem- 
 nities, in the Dutch Church, and their hatchments hung upon its 
 walls. 
 
 The adherents of the murdered Governor were those who had ear- 
 nestly believed in the wisdom of that revolution which had called 
 William and Mary to the throne ; it was their aim to maintain relig- 
 ious freedom, and to secure for the people the right, as far as possible, 
 of popular government. Bellomont's decided course in favor of the 
 popular party meant, perhaps, more to them than he intended. But 
 he could have done nothing more certain to secure the applause of 
 
THE RE-RURTAL OF LETSLER 
 
1698.] ADMINISTRATION OF THE EARL OF BELLOMONT. 33 
 
 the larger portion of the people than this support of the Leisler party. 
 It justified the popular abhorrence of a tyrannical and cruel act, and 
 was hailed as the promise of a just and tranquil government. 
 
 The great object of Bellomont's administration, and to this he 
 devoted himself with almost passionate zeal, was the sup- 
 pression of that form of piracy which in the guise of priva- 
 teering had almost supplanted honest commerce in nearly all the 
 colonial seaports. The success of the English privateers in the long 
 wars with France bred a race of men the successors to the bucca- 
 neers who cruised in all latitudes, and became quite indifferent 
 whether the unfortunate ship which they captured was of one coun- 
 try or another. The ease with which commissions were granted for 
 privateering increased the evil. The governor of a province like 
 New York, when it had not ten thousand inhabitants, had no doubts as 
 to his right to commission a rover who might never return to the 
 harbor of New York, and might be a terror in all seas. 
 
 It was under such a system of naval lawlessness that New York be- 
 came a " nest of pirates." The name of William Kidd or Kyd Captaln 
 has become prominent among these because political rancor Kljd ' 
 in England seized on his association with some of the great Whig 
 leaders. But Kidd was only one of a class, a man whose guilt 
 was probably less than that of other men of his calling ; but he is re- 
 membered where others are forgotten, because he confided too much 
 in his great associates. His name first appears in the troubles of 
 New York, in the midst of the excitement when Leisler held the 
 fort against Ingoldsby. Then " this blaspheming privateer " as he is 
 called, apparently with approval, brought his vessel up to the town. 
 to assist Ingoldsby's party, and in their despatches lie is commended 
 for it. For this timely service he afterwards received a grant of a 
 hundred and fifty pounds from the anti-Leisler Assembly. 
 
 In 1695, Col. Robert Livingston of New York appeared before 
 the Commissioners of Trade in London, to press against Governor 
 Fletcher a charge for overawing the elections in New York. Kkl(1 rom . 
 Among the witnesses against Fletcher called by Livingston 
 was Captain Kidd, who was then in London. Livingston's P irates - 
 confidence in him was such that he recommended him to Bello- 
 mont as a proper person to be commissioned against pirates; the 
 English government being already eager to break up the system of 
 piracy, and Bellomont having been already suggested as Governor of 
 New York. 
 
 Bellomont acceded to the proposal and a joint-stock company* as 
 we should now call it, was formed for the outfit of the Adventure 
 Galley to be placed under Kidd's command. Seiners, Halifax, 
 
 VOL. III. 3 
 
 the 
 
34 ROYAL GOVERNORS UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY. [CHAP. II. 
 
 Shrewsbury, Romney, and Bellomont, were among the chief sub- 
 scribers ; and the King himself was to receive one tenth part of the 
 profits of the adventure. The agreement provides that Kidd should 
 sail in search of pirates who had left America with intent to cruise 
 in the Red Sea and elsewhere. Bellomont and his friends were to 
 provide a proper ship for Kidd's use, paying four fifths of the cost, 
 while Kidd and Livingston paid one fifth. The crew was to be en- 
 listed on condition of receiving for their service not more than one 
 fourth of the prizes taken from pirates. If nothing were taken, Kidd 
 and Livingston were to return the cost of the galley before March 21, 
 1697. Of the three fourths prize money after the crew were paid, 
 Bellomont for the subscribers was to receive four fifths and Kidd and 
 Livingston the remaining fifth. The King's tenth was to be paid by 
 the stockholders. Kidd was bound in an obligation of twenty thousand 
 pounds, and Livingston in a similar obligation of ten thousand, to 
 fulfil their part of the agreement. The royal commission authoriz- 
 ing the adventure finally passed the great seal on the 26th day of 
 January, 1695-96. 
 
 Beside giving leave to cruise against the French, the commission 
 instructed Kidd to seize certain notorious pirates, Tew, Ireland, Wake, 
 and Maze. There can be no doubt that his expedition was supposed 
 to be fitted out against them. 
 
 Captain Kidd sailed for New York in April, 1696, with a crew of 
 lie sails for eighty men, taking on the voyage a French ship. In New 
 NOW York. York he advertised for volunteers, and enlarged his crew to 
 about one hundred and fifty men of so bad repute that, after the issue 
 of his adventures, people remembered it was said that Kidd would 
 never be able to control so desperate a company. 
 
 He is next heard of at Madagascar, then a noted rendezvous for 
 pirates, where they made themselves secure and lived in barbaric lux- 
 ury. Kidd had cruised about for nine months without falling in with 
 a single one of the sea-roveis whom he was commissioned to suppress. 
 It was disobedience of orders to leave American waters for this dis- 
 tant latitude, but in Madagascar he hoped for such good fortune as 
 would condone his disregard of instructions. 
 
 But not a single pirate-vessel was there in the ports of Madagascar. 
 Then Kidd sailed for the western coast of Hindostan, almost in de- 
 spair at his bad luck, aggravated now by scarcity of provisions. He 
 soon fell in with the wreck of a French vessel with some coin on 
 board, and with this he made purchases that relieved his immediate 
 necessities. But still not a pirate was overtaken. Many richly laden 
 Eastern ships were met with which the eager crew urged Kidd to 
 take. He resisted until they fell in with a Mogul fleet under Dutch 
 
1699.] CAPTAIN KIDD'S ADVENTURES. 35 
 
 and English convoy ; one of the largest of the merchantmen he at- 
 tacked, was roughly handled and repulsed. His position He turns 
 now was worse than ever ; he had virtually fired upon the piwte 
 English and Dutch flags, and that offence must be atoned for by suc- 
 cess at any hazard. He was now a pirate by force of circumstances, 
 and his own inability to resist their pressure. 
 
 In August, 1698, when he was first heard from in New York, news 
 came that he had taken an East Indiaman, called the Quedagh Mer- 
 chant, and transferred his stores from the Adventure to that ship, burn- 
 ing his old vessel. Other piracies he also committed ; many of his crew 
 nevertheless deserted him for service more to their minds, Kidd still 
 professing to act under the King's commission, and to reserve a large 
 share of his plunder for the noble subscribers, through whose 
 influence he hoped that his offences would be overlooked, sued for his 
 But the East India Company had already given notices of his 
 several piracies, particularly of the Quedagh Merchant, and orders had 
 been issued for his arrest. 
 
 In May, 1699, he was heard from at Nevis. Soon after he was 
 in Delaware Bay with forty men in a sloop ; thence he "sailed into 
 the Sound of New York and set Goods on Shore at several Places 
 there, and afterward went to Rhode Island." From Block Island, 
 where his sloop lay, he sent a message to the Earl of Bellomont, who 
 was at Boston. He told him that he had left the Quedagh Merchant 
 in a creek in Hispaniola, with goods of great value. On board his 
 own sloop he had, he said, goods worth .10,000. As to the ci'imes 
 alleged against him of these, he said, he could prove his innocence. 
 Bellomont showed this letter to the Massachusetts Council. With 
 their approval, he wrote to Kidd " assuring him that if he would 
 make his innocence appear, he might safely come to Boston." 
 
 The audacity of Kidd's appearance in Boston is wholly accounted 
 for .by the existence of this safe conduct from Bellomont. 
 Robert Livingston came to Boston also. He demanded from Boston and 
 Bellomont the surrender of his bond for 10,000, and said 
 that unless this were given up Kidd would never bring in the Queddgh 
 Merchant and the wealth she contained. Bellomont says he construed 
 this as a threat, and on the 6th of June, six days after Kidd's arri- 
 val, he arrested him at the Council Board. Kidd drew his sword, but 
 was secured and sent to the Boston jail. While in jail he offered to 
 Bellomont to go, as a prisoner, to the West Indies, and bring back 
 40,000 of treasure which would else be lost. But Bellomont refused 
 the offer. 
 
 The Admiralty received the news of Kidd's arrest in September, 
 and on the 12th sent a vessel for him and his crew. She was driven 
 
36 
 
 ROYAL GOVERNORS UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY. [CHAP. IT. 
 
 back by stress of weather, and Kidd did not finally arrive in England 
 Kidd tken a prisoner until April, 1700. The delay was thought to be 
 tri5nS d> inten tional by the critics of the Whigs. He was kept in 
 hanged. p r i son a year. On the 15th of April, 1701, when the great 
 Tory prosecution against Somers, the Whig Chancellor, was begun 
 in the House of Commons, one of the charges against him was his 
 
 Arrest of Kidd. 
 
 connection with Kidd. Those 
 charges never came to trial. 
 But under the same govern- 
 ment and with a pertinacity 
 which belonged to the same 
 scheme, Kidd was tried for 
 murder, and another bill was 
 found for piracy against him and several of his crew. 
 
 The report of his trial is one of the melancholy instances of 
 the unjust administration in those days of English criminal law. 
 The evidence brought against him justifies no sentence but one of 
 manslaughter, resulting from the death of Moore, his gunner, from a 
 blow given in a brawl, in which there could have been no previous 
 intention to kill, so far as appeared from the testimony. But Kidd 
 was found guilty of murder. The trial for piracy followed. Kidd 
 claimed that the Quedagh Merchant was sailing under a French com- 
 mission when he took her, and that her capture was, therefore, justi- 
 fied. But this commission, if it existed, was among Bellomont's 
 
1701.] CAPTAIN KIDD'S SENTENCE. 37 
 
 papers, and Kidd could not produce it. The government was deter- 
 mined to have him hanged, and he was hanged. 
 
 One of the most popular of seamen's ballads l has preserved his 
 name, while those of Tew and Bradish and Bellamy are well-nigh 
 forgotten. If a man is innocent unless he is proved at law to be 
 guilty, Kidd must be regarded, in the light of the present 
 
 , . i i TI i Injustice of 
 
 legal ruling, as innocent when he was hanged. But his stay Kicurssen- 
 in the East was extended long after the period when he 
 promised to return. The capture of the Quedagh Merchant in no 
 sense fulfilled the object for which he was sent, and the stealth and 
 concealment of her treasure cannot have been the acts of innocent 
 men. On the other hand Bellomont's correspondence, now fully made 
 public, is consistent all through. He unquestionably believed that 
 the original purpose had been abandoned, and he did not dare, there- 
 fore, to sully his hands with the treasure which Kidd gained by that 
 course. 
 
 Had such a French commission existed as Kidd pretended, the seiz- 
 ure of the Quedagh was lawful, and four fifths of .40,000 of treasure 
 belonged to Bellomont and his associates. It is hard to believe that, 
 without a motive, the Governor sacrificed an innocent man, and gave 
 up wealth which was large to him, merely in obedience to the pres- 
 sure of political enemies. The true verdict is, probably, that Kidd 
 deserved to be hanged, though never found guilty by a fair trial. 
 It is to be observed that at the time no one pretended that Kidd was 
 innocent. The utmost that the critics of the trial maintained was 
 that Bellomont and his friends were also guilty. 
 
 Lord Bellomont died in March, 1701, having passed about one half 
 his term of office in New England. To his administration of Death of Lord 
 
 the affairs of that portion of his government we shall recur 
 
 in subsequent pages. At the time of his death Nanfan, the Lieuten- 
 
 ant-governor, was absent from New York ; and the party known as 
 
 the "White People" the "Black People" and the " White Ooutestbe . 
 
 People" had become the designations of the Leisler and 
 
 anti-Leisler factions seized the opportunity for an attempt 
 
 to regain possession of power. The timely return of Nan- New York- 
 
 fan, however, defeated this purpose, and the leaders were signally pun- 
 
 ished. Edward Livingston, who was one of them, was the collector 
 
 of customs and receiver of quitrents. The Assembly demanded his 
 
 accounts. Whether disposed or not to obey this order it was out of 
 
 1 Strangely enough, in the ballad, even in the early editions, his name is made " Robert 
 Kidd." William Moore the guimer is rightly named, as the song is sung in the forecastle 
 to this day : 
 
 " I murdered William Moore, 
 
 As I sailed, as I sailed." 
 
38 ROYAL GOVERNORS UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY. [CHAP. II. 
 
 his power to do so, for his papers were in the hands of Lord Bello- 
 mont's widow, who had gone to England. The Assembly thereupon, 
 whether justly or not, declared him a defaulter, and confiscated his 
 property. 
 
 Against Bayard, who had had so much to do with Leisler's death, 
 the feeling was even more bitter than against Livingston. An act, 
 
 passed while Sloughter was 
 Governor, making it treason 
 " to disturb the peace, good, 
 or quiet of the province by 
 force of arms or otherwise/' 
 was largely Bayard's work. 
 To this law he now made him- 
 self liable by sending to Eng- 
 land complaints of Nanfan's 
 conduct of affairs. He was 
 brought to trial and found 
 guilty. And he would cer- 
 tainly have been punished 
 under the act of his own con- 
 triving, had not a new Gov- 
 ernor, Lord Corn bury, arrived, 
 whose character and associa- 
 tions led him into immediate 
 affiliation with what in our 
 Queen Anne. time would be called the con- 
 
 servative party. Bayard and his friends were again in the ascen- 
 dency, and Atwood, who had presided at Bayard's trial, rather with 
 the zeal and asperity of a prosecuting attorney than the cool impar- 
 tiality of a judge, thought it prudent to leave the province for his 
 own safety. 1 
 
 The new Governor, Lord Cornbury, was the cousin of Queen Anne 
 
 who came to the throne at the death of William in 1702 and the 
 
 grandson of Hyde, Lord Clarendon. He was simply a dis- 
 
 bury GOV- reputable profligate, and so overwhelmed with debt that he 
 
 eruor. 111 11 11-1 i 
 
 could only escape a jail by quitting the kingdom. As he was 
 to be provided for, his worthless character was not considered a dis- 
 qualification for a colonial governorship. The summer of his arrival 
 was marked by a dreadful mortality from yellow fever, introduced 
 
 1 A tradition is preserved that Bayard was respited from time to time by the payment of 
 money to Lieutenant-governor Naufau. But his children, tired at last of these costly ap- 
 peals to their filial piety, expostulated with their father for not consenting to be hanged, as 
 the cost of saving him would come to be, they feared, their pecuniary ruin. Da Simitiere, 
 N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 1868. 
 
1702.] LORD CORNBURY. 39 
 
 from the West Indies, and in ten weeks' time more than five hundred 
 of the population were swept away. Among them were some of the 
 most distinguished citizens, but the Governor escaped by retiring to 
 Jamaica on Long Island. 
 
 Cornbury was by no means singular among colonial governors, in 
 that he regarded his office as given him solely that he might 
 
 i_ i_- IJT TT J -i. j i.- -ii. j.i Hischaracter. 
 
 enrich himself. He entered upon its duties, with that pur- 
 pose, with enthusiasm and success. The Assembly was persuaded to 
 appropriate < 1,500 under a pretence of fortifying the Narrows at the 
 entrance of New York harbor, in anticipation of a French invasion. 
 The Narrows remained unfortified and the Governor was the richer 
 by < 1,500. The lesson was not lost on the Assembly, and they ap- 
 pointed a Treasurer of their own, who was to see that future appro- 
 priations were spent in accordance with their intentions. The Gov- 
 ernor resented this reflection upon his conduct and interference with 
 his will, and an appeal was made to the Crown. It was a substantial 
 gain to the cause of popular rights that the royal authority sustained 
 the action of the Assembly. The incident is one of many to point 
 the truth of the reflection, that it was ultimately to the advantage of 
 America, that the government in England sent profligate and worth- 
 less men to be colonial governors. 1 
 
 Though destitute of any sense of public or of private virtue, Corn- 
 bury was not the less zealous on behalf of the Church. It was a zeal, 
 however, not for religion but for the established Church of England 
 as a part of the State. A dissenter was to him intolerable as a politi- 
 cal freethinker who was disloyal to the State, and with whom there 
 was no need of keeping terms of either justice or mercy. When driven 
 from New York to Jamaica by the prevalence of yellow fever, he ob- 
 tained by the courtesy of Mr. Hubbard, the Presbyterian Pergecutloll 
 minister, possession of the parsonage, the best house in the of Dissentere 
 town. When no longer needed for his own residence he delivered it 
 to the few Episcopalians of the village, and the glebe attached was 
 leased for the support of their church. He subsequently forbade that 
 any clergyman or school teacher should preach or teach except by 
 special license. By his persecution of two Presbyterian preach- 
 ers, McKenzie and Hampton, he elevated them into martyrs, and 
 aroused a resentment which appealed to the love of religious free- 
 dom throughout the colonies. 
 
 No royal governor ever made himself more obnoxious to the whole 
 country. The ambitious and unscrupulous Dudley, who was at this 
 time chief magistrate of Massachusetts, was using all the power 
 which his office gave him, and all the influence he possessed in Eiig- 
 
 1 Bancroft's History of the United State*. 
 

 40 ROYAL GOVERNORS UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY. [CHAP. II. 
 
 land, to destroy the charter governments. He found a willing ally in 
 Dudley and Cornbury. Both professed to wish for a union of all the 
 uniteaj V inst northern colonies under a single governor. Cornbury wrote 
 and'wiode 1 * nome "that he was satisfied this vast continent which might 
 island. k e ma( j e very useful to England, if right measures were 
 taken, would never be so till all the proprietary and charter govern- 
 ments were brought under the crown." The immediate purpose, how- 
 ever, of the two Governors was that Rhode Island should be annexed 
 to Massachusetts and Connecticut to New York ; and it was only by 
 the utmost diligence of Sir Henry Ashurst, the agent in London of 
 Connecticut, and of William Penn, who then represented Rhode Isl- 
 and, that the design was defeated. 
 
 The Proprietors of East and West Jersey had united, in 1702, in a 
 voluntary surrender to the Queen of their right of civil gov- 
 
 Surrenderof J , , , = . 
 
 Proprietary eminent. Cornbury was appointed by a separate commis- 
 in the jer- siou Governor of that province as well as of New York, for 
 the Jersey Proprietors did not intend, in consenting to re- 
 ceive a governor from the crown, to surrender their provincial inde- 
 pendence. Each province retained its own Assembly and was governed 
 by its own laws. But Cornbury resided in New York, making only 
 occasional visits to Perth Amboy or Burlington. Even a governor 
 conscientious in the discharge of his official duty, could hai'dly have 
 failed, in thus neglecting the inferior province, to sacrifice its inter- 
 ests. Cornbury, who was not conscientious, and who looked upon 
 official duty as only a means for the furtherance of personal ends, 
 considered New Jersey merely as an outlying possession to be farmed 
 for his benefit. Ingoldsby was his lieutenant-governor, and he and 
 other favorites ruled New Jersey in their own and their master's in- 
 terest, without the smallest regard to the rights and welfare of the 
 people. 
 
 In New Jersey, as in the other colonies, the popular party, if not 
 the stronger, was the abler party. It was led by wise and bold men, 
 chief among them Samuel Jenings, a Quaker pi'eacher, who had 
 been Governor of West Jersey, and Lewis Morris, afterwards 
 Governor, a nephew of Richard Morris, of the Manor of Morrisania, 
 near New York. Of Jenings, Cornbury said, he " had impudence 
 enough to face the Devil." l He never hesitated to face Cornbury, 
 whether in or out of the Assembly, of which he was for some time 
 Speaker, with calm and fearless dignity. 
 
 If Cornbury was able to enforce submission to harsh and arbitrary 
 rule, the steady resistance of such men as these did not permit the 
 rights of the people to be lost sight of. It was easy to dissolve an 
 
 1 Smith's History of New Jersey. 
 
1707.] 
 
 THE GRIEVANCES OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 41 
 
 obstinate Assembly, and not impossible to create another more com- 
 pliant to the Governor's will, by interfering with the free- Cornbury 
 dom of elections, and excluding, on one pretext or another, "t 'jersey 
 members who could not be relied upon to do his bidding. Assembl >- 
 But the large minority, who were really the popular representatives, 
 could be neither corrupted 
 nor silenced. The long and 
 sharp controversies be- 
 tween Cornbury and the 
 Assemblies are a significant 
 evidence of the spirit of the 
 people, and the insolent con- 
 tempt with which their just 
 and dignified remonstrances 
 were met by a royal gov- 
 ernor. 1 
 
 In an address of the As- 
 sembly of 1707 it is said : 
 " It Avere to be wished the 
 affairs of New York would 
 admit the Governor oftener 
 to attend those of New Jer- 
 sey, he had not then been 
 unacquainted with our Cornbury.' 
 
 grievances; and we are in- 
 clined to believe they would not have grown to so great a number." 
 These grievances are recounted, among them the want of 
 a due administration of justice, and the pardon or permitted ances of 
 escape of convicted murderers : the exorbitant fees of courts, 
 and the exaction of illegal fees generally ; the want of an office of the 
 Secretary of the Province, and of a Court of Probate, in the Eastern 
 Division, whereby one half the people were compelled to take long 
 journeys on business of constant occurrence ; the keeping of the pro- 
 vincial records, which contained all the evidence of titles to estates, 
 by a person who was not even a resident of the colony, and had given 
 no security for the faithful discharge of his trust ; the assumption by 
 the Governor of the right of granting land-warrants, which belonged 
 to the Proprietors ; the evasion of quit-rents, and the alleged payment 
 of large sums of money to the Governor for a dissolution of the Assem- 
 
 1 See papers relating to these controversies iu full in Smith's History. 
 
 2 Lord Cornbury was iu the habit of appearing on public occasions, and even, it is said, 
 in the streets of New York, dressed as a woman. He declared that it was proper he should 
 be so clothed the more fittingly to represent his sovereign mistress. The picture in the text 
 is from an original portrait in the Kensington Museum, London. 
 
 
42 ROYAL GOVERNORS UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY. [CHAP. II. 
 
 bly to that end; the granting of an exclusive privilege history has 
 repeated herself in our time in this form of New Jersey grievance 
 to cart goods across the province between Burlington and Amboy, 
 then the only practicable route between New York and Philadelphia ; 
 and, add the remonstrants, ik we cannot but be very uneasy when we 
 find by these new methods of government, our liberties and proper- 
 ties so much shaken, that no man can say he is master of either, but 
 holds them as tenant by courtesy and at will, and may be stript of 
 them at pleasure," and therefore it is that they seek some relief from 
 their manifold burdens. " For," they reflect, " Liberty is too valuable 
 a thing to be easily parted with." 
 
 Such men might have been conciliated ; they could not be fright- 
 ened. " I don't know of any grievances," replied Cornbury, u this 
 province labours under, except it be the having a certain number of 
 people in it who will never be faithful to, nor live quietly under any 
 government, nor suffer their neighbours to enjoy any peace, quiet, or 
 happiness, if they can help it." This was ill-judged insolence. They 
 were " apt to believe, upon the credit of your Excellency's assertion," 
 replied the Assembly, that there are a number of people of this kind 
 in the Province ; but, they add, " such people are pests in all govern- 
 ments, have ever been so in this, and we know of none who can lay 
 a fairer claim to these characters than many of your excellence's 
 favorites." 
 
 In the Assembly were many who were members of the Society of 
 Friends besides Jenings, the speaker. In reply to the respectful re- 
 quest that the Secretary of the Province should have more than one 
 office, and that there should be more than one place where wills could 
 be admitted to probate, the Governor said : " Of all the people in the 
 world, the Quakers ought to be the last to complain of the hardships 
 of travelling a few miles upon such an occasion, who never repine 
 at the trouble and charges of travelling several hundred miles to a 
 yearly meeting, where, it is evidently known, that nothing was ever 
 done for the good of the country, but on the contrary continual con- 
 trivances are carried on for the undermining of the government both 
 in church and state." " It is the General Assembly of the Province," 
 rejoined that body, " that complains, and not the Quakers, with whose 
 persons (considered as Quakers) or meetings we have nothing to do, 
 nor are we concerned in what your excellency says against them." 
 Perhaps Friends might think themselves called upon to vindicate 
 their meetings from the irrelevant aspersions which his excellenc)' so 
 liberally bestowed upon them. But those of them who were members 
 of the House, now " begged leave in behalf of themselves and their 
 friends, to tell the Governor they must answer him in the words of 
 
1708.J LOVELACE AND IXGOLDSBY. 43 
 
 Nehemiah to Sanballat, contained in the 8th verse of the 6th chapter 
 of Nehemiah, namely, ' There is no such thing done as thou sayest, 
 but thou feignest them out of thine own heart." 
 
 But rebukes were unheeded, as grievances were unredressed. The 
 Assemblv determined, as they told the Governor, to appeal Corn h urv 
 to the Queen for protection. Like complaints went up to j^pril^ned' 1 
 the throne from all the colonies, and Cornbury was recalled inXewYork - 
 in 1708. He did not, however, immediately leave New York, for so 
 soon as it was known that he was no longer Governor he was arrested 
 for debt. He remained in jail till, by the death of his father, he suc- 
 ceeded to the Earldom of Clarendon, when he was released by the 
 privilege of rank. 
 
 Lord Lovelace, who succeeded Cornbury as Governor of the same 
 provinces, came attended by that good fortune which belongs Ix)ve i ace 
 to all new dynasties when following bad ones. People were Governor - 
 sure that nothing could be so bad as that which they had just seen. 
 He arrived on the 18th of December, 
 1708, and was received with enthu- 
 siasm. The Assembly, in its address 
 to him, said : " Our wishes are that 
 measures may be taken to encourage 
 the few inhabitants left to stay in the Autograph of 
 
 provinces, and others to come." Unwilling to quarrel with a new 
 Governor they voted to him 1,600 for that year, reserving 
 
 ,, -Mr e ,, T,, , & His death. 
 
 the privilege of renewing or refusing the grant. Before 
 
 Lord Lovelace could protest against the restriction he died, on the 
 
 very day when the bill passed the house. 1 
 
 In the interregnum, before the arrival of his successor, Governor 
 Hunter, the administration was in the hands of that Col- 
 onel Richard Ingoldsby. who had held the government while covei* 
 Fletcher was waited for, and was more latelv the lieutenant 
 and the tool of Cornbury in the Jerseys. The long war between 
 Queen Anne and King Louis was still in progress, and the colony 
 was greatly excited by a new project for the invasion of Canada. 
 In this juncture the first bills of credit, which New York ever issued, 
 were put out, the treasury being wholly empty. But the failure of 
 the English fleet, which was to attack Canada by the St. Lawrence, 
 broke up the whole expedition, to the great mortification of all who 
 engaged in it. 
 
 The conquest of the French province, however, was too important 
 
 to the colonies to be abandoned. The Eastern Indians were easilv 
 
 j 
 nu-ited at any moment, to fall upon the exposed frontiers of New 
 
 1 May 5, 1709. 
 
44 ROYAL GOVERNORS UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY. [HAI>. II. 
 
 England. At the least rumor of war the little villages and scattered 
 Indian chiefs fai'iiis, from the Connecticut to the Penobscot, trembled at 
 
 in England. eve ,.y unusu;l l SO uild from the forest lest the WHl'-wllOOp of 
 
 the savage should break its silence. The friendship or the subjection 
 of the Five Nations could never be relied upon so long as the French 
 were behind them on the banks of the St. Lawrence. They were the 
 
 allies of the English now, and the 
 advantage was too great not to be 
 made use of at once. Colonel 
 Schuyler sailed for England, taking 
 with him five distinguished chiefs 
 of the Confederacy. With these 
 living witnesses to the promised 
 faithfulness of their nation lie 
 hoped to give irresistible weight to 
 his arguments upon the necessity 
 of the conquest of the French. 
 
 It was a hundred years since 
 Wey mouth's two New England 
 savages had stalked about the 
 streets of London ; almost a hun- 
 dred since Pocahontas and her com- 
 panions were brought over from 
 Virginia. These Iroquois chiefs 
 from New York 1 were regarded 
 with no less curiosity by the crowds 
 that followed them than Wey- 
 mouth's stolen savages ; were received with no less ceremony and 
 distinction at Court than had awaited the Virginian princess. They 
 made a speech, or a speech was put into their mouths, wherein 
 they avowed their devotion to the Queen of England, their hostility 
 to their French. 
 
 1 No. 50 of Thf Spectator Friday, April 27, 1711 is an essay suggested l>y the visit 
 of those Indian chiefs to London, and the essay, in its turn, may possibly have suggested 
 to Macaulav his famous New Zealandcr, who, in the distant future, from a broken arch of 
 London Bridge, is to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's. " When the four Indian Kings," wrote 
 Addison, " were in this country about a twelvemonth ago, I often mixed with the rabble 
 and followed them a whole dav together, beinj; wonderfullv struck with the sight of every- 
 thing that is new or uncommon." Pretending then to have found at their lodgings, after 
 their departure, a bundle of papers, he gives some extracts from the "abundance of very 
 odd observations which I find this little fraternity of kings made during their stay in the 
 i>le of Great Britain." Golden in his letters on Smith's History of New York (see N. Y, 
 Hint. Soc. Coll., 1868), declares these Indians were not chiefs, though passed off as such by 
 Schuyler and Nicholson, and so accepted in England. (See also Mwj. Am. Hist., vol. ii.) 
 
 The portraits are taken from copies in the Hooms of the Antiquarian Society, in 
 Worcester, Mass., of large engravings, published in 1710. 
 
1710.] 
 
 ROBERT HUNTER GOVERNOR OF XE\V YORK. 
 
 45 
 
 Sclmyler gained his end, ;ind the results were more important, per- 
 haps, than he had hoped for. It was not difficult to convince the 
 ministry how great an influence further operations in America might 
 have upon the conduct of the war in Europe. Ships and men were 
 provided for another expedition, and, though the brilliant achieve- 
 ment which crowned it the capture of Port Royal, related in an- 
 other chapter was mainly the 
 act of New England men, Nichol- 
 son and Schuyler had good reason 
 to be proud of their share in it. 
 
 Six months before the taking of 
 Port Royal Ingoldsby had been su- 
 perseded by Robert Hunter as Gov- 
 ernor of New York. He and the 
 Assembly agreed on one point, 
 though disagreeing on almost all 
 others, that no effort was to be 
 spared to carry on the war against 
 the French in America. Perhaps 
 they were emulous of the success 
 of New England in the conquest of 
 Nova Scotia ; at any rate, a fresh 
 expedition against Canada, ordered 
 by the home government, received 
 their hearty cooperation. N e \v 
 York supplied six hundred nu-n, in 
 addition to six hundred Iroquois, 
 brought into the field by the influence of Colonel Schuyler, as her 
 proportion of the colonial contingent; and another issue of Ro bertiiuu- 
 10,000 in paper money was resorted to for their support, ernorof 
 The other colonies were not less energetic. Connecticut Nt ' w York- 
 and New Jersey added sixteen hundred men to the army of four thou- 
 sand which Nicholson mustered at Albany for an expedition 
 
 . l . Preparations 
 
 against Montreal. Massachusetts had nine hundred men in to invade 
 readiness to embark on board the English fleet of sixteen 
 men of war and forty transports which arrived in Boston in the sum- 
 mer of 1711 for an attack upon Quebec. Of this fleet Sir Hovenden 
 Walker was the admiral, and the land force on board, when it sailed 
 for the St. Lawrence in July, was under the command of General 
 Hill, a brother of Mrs. Masham, the favorite of the Queen. Seven 
 English regiments and the Massachusetts reenforcement numbered al- 
 together nearly seven thousand men. 
 
 The incompetence of Admiral Walker and the ignorance of the pi 
 
46 ROYAL GOVERNORS UNDER WILLIAM AND WARY. ' [CHAP. II. 
 
 lots brought inevitable disaster. The fleet had sailed only ten leagues 
 up the St. Lawrence when, by some fatal mismanagement, 
 
 Dispersion . * 
 
 of aiker-s ten or eleven of the ships drifted upon the rocks, where they 
 
 went to pieces, and a thousand men perished. 1 
 
 Nicholson, meanwhile, had marched from Albany with his army of 
 Retreat of four thousand men to attack Montreal. Taking the route 
 Nicholson. o f j.j le expedition of the year before, and that under Win- 
 throp in 1691, by way of Wood's Creek and Lake Champlain, he had 
 
 only gone so far as the Lake, when 
 he received the news of the disas- 
 ter to the fleet. De Vaudreuil, 
 the Governor of Canada, relieved 
 from all fears of an attack upon 
 Quebec, was now free to meet the 
 invasion by land. Nicholson had 
 no alternative but to fall back to 
 Albany. Then the failure of this 
 new attempt at the conquest of 
 Canada the most formidable 
 that had yet been undertaken 
 was complete. 
 
 Complete, that is in its direct 
 aim ; indirectl}', the gain was 
 great to England. De Vaudreuil 
 feared that France would soon 
 cease to hold a rood of soil on the 
 American continent if an army of 
 ten thousand Englishmen should, 
 at the same moment, summon Mon- 
 treal and Quebec to surrender. Every Frenchman at his command 
 he kept in Canada for a desperate resistance. Castin, the Governor 
 of Nova Scotia, begged in vain for aid to recapture Port Royal. DC. 
 Vaudreuil understood its importance ; the French minister regretted 
 its loss and was anxious for its recovery. But the delay, which the 
 invasion of Canada at first made imperative, was soon past remedy. 
 France was exhausted by the war ; the Whig party the party of 
 peace had attained to power in England ; a few months 
 Nova Scotia later Marlborough was deposed and disgraced, and the war 
 was at an end. By the treaty of Utrecht Nova Scotia was 
 ceded to England ; the first substantial success in that long strug- 
 
 1 Charlevoix (History of New France) says that the Ixxlics of three thousand men were 
 found upon the beach, but this is unquestionably an error. Duulap (History of New York) 
 repeats it. 
 
1720.] 
 
 NOVA SCOTIA CEDED TO ENGLAND. 
 
 47 
 
 gle for supremacy on the American continent, and which was only to 
 cease with the complete expulsion of the French which this acquisi- 
 tion of so large a territory foi'eshadowed. 1 
 
 When Hunter retired in 1719 the improved condition of the people 
 justified the congratulatory address he made to the Assembly. His 
 relations were more amicable with 
 that body when the necessities of 
 war no longer strained the resources 
 of the colony. But, notwithstand- 
 ing his avowal of the hope that 
 "as the very name of faction or 
 party seems to be forgotten, may it 
 ever be in oblivion," he left to his 
 successor, Burnet, the son of 
 Bishop Burnet, causes enough 
 for dissension. 
 
 As the friend and correspondent 
 of Hunter, Burnet had the benefit 
 of his experience, and had become, 
 when he assumed the government 
 in 1720, familiar with the affairs 
 of the colony. That he failed to 
 make himself acceptable to the 
 people was not from any want of 
 devotion to its interests. He 
 adopted the doctrine of the states- 
 men of the time that the presence of the French on the northern 
 border was a perpetual and a dangerous menace to all the 
 English colonies. Where war had failed, other measures, Burnet and 
 he hoped, might be more successful. The French, he rea- 
 soned, drew their chief support from trade with the Indians ; and as 
 their commerce with Europe was small, from the long and difficult 
 voyage up the St. Lawrence, they were largely dependent upon the 
 English at Albany for supplies for traffic with the native tribes. To 
 starve out a troublesome neighbor, and to secure, at the same time, 
 complete control of the Indians, Burnet conceived to be the wisest 
 
 1 One of the political scandals of the time was that the attempted invasion of Canada 
 under Hill and Nicholson, which cost the lives of a thousand men and plunged the colonies 
 into debt, was a job of St. John's, Lord Bolingbroke, the Secretary of State. In the 
 bitter controversies of parties uo story was deemed too mons-trous for belief. Recent re- 
 searches prove that St. John was grossly wronged by this charge, and that he was exceed- 
 ingly anxious for the conquest of Canada, believing it would greatly strengthen his admin- 
 istration and perpetuate his power. See Palfrey's History of New England, vol. iv., p. 281, 
 note. 
 
?7*~ 
 
 48 ROYAL (H)VERNORS UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY. [CiiAr. II. 
 
 policy. He proposed to prohibit, therefore, all commercial intercourse 
 between his own province and the French of Canada. In this he had 
 the support of the Assembly which he found and, for a time, con- 
 tinued in office. 
 
 But selfish interests were 
 stronger than law. The trade 
 with Canada continued not- 
 withstanding a prohibitory act. 
 A strong party was soon ar- 
 rayed against the policy of the 
 Governor on this subject, led 
 by men who would no doubt 
 
 Signature of Hunter. ' 
 
 be ready enough to fight the 
 
 French if occasion offered, but who were not to be deterred by law 
 from a profitable trade with the worst enemies. The party in opposi- 
 tion was strengthened by a growing hostility to the Court of Chan- 
 cery, established by Hunter without the consent of the Assembly, and 
 declared to be injurious to the rights of the people. Personal unpop- 
 ularity, with which politics had nothing to do, increased the number 
 of the Governor's opponents. His impulsive temper led him into dif- 
 ficulties which a more prudent ruler would have avoided ; he thus lost 
 friends and gained enemies by becoming involved in a bitter con- 
 troversy among the members of the French Church in New York, 
 which led to its division. 
 
 His administration, however, was notable in that it did much to 
 strengthen the English alliance with the Indians and to weaken that 
 of the French. A fort was built and a trading-post established at 
 Oswego ; advantage was taken of the exasperation of the Indians at 
 the encroachments of the French at Niagara. The Five Nations 
 were induced to convey their country to the English King ; the trade 
 with other native tribes was enlarged and extended, and deputations 
 of the Miamies from the Upper Mississippi, and of the Michilimacki- 
 nacks from the Great Lakes, were attracted to Albany. 
 
 The Five Nations at this time had become the Six Nations by the 
 addition of the Tuscaroras from the south. 1 They understood, quite as 
 
 1 In 1689 the population of the Five Nations was estimated at 2,550 men; ten years 
 afterward in 1699 it had fallen to 1,230. At the period of the Revolution it wns com- 
 puted that all the men, women, and children of the Six Nations numbered 9,050. Tlie.se 
 had decreased in 1845, according to Mr. Schoolcraft's estimate, to 6,942, of whom only 
 aliout one half remained in New York. The politics of this powerful confederacy became 
 of less and less importance as New York grew to be something more than a trading depot 
 for heave r skins and elk skins. Remnants of this as well as of many other of the earlier 
 Indian tribes still linger in the Atlantic States. On the western slope of the continent 
 they still, in uudiiniuishcd numbers, though under new names, remain as a factor in na- 
 
3 
 
 3 
 
1727.] GOVERNOR BURNET. 
 
 well as either the French or the English, how important they were to 
 both, and that their true policy was to play off their powerful 
 
 rr( . i. it i Confederacy 
 
 neighbors against each other. To this policy they adhered of the six 
 
 .,*,., . Nations. 
 
 with what may be called a savage cunning, but which was m 
 fact wise statesmanship, till half a century later, when France was no 
 longer a power in America, and all that was left to England was the 
 comparatively little she had acquired from France. 
 
 The opposition aroused by Burnet's measures was strong enough to 
 effect his removal. The royal assent was withheld to the act prohibit- 
 ing trade with Canada. A new Assembly was chosen, a major- 
 
 6 -i i /-. i i Death of 
 
 ity of which was hostile to the Governor, and he was trans- <;.>vernor 
 ferred in 1727 to Massachusetts Bay. 1 He died in Boston 
 two years afterward from fever brought on by falling into the water 
 when thrown from his carriage on a causeway in Cambridge. 
 
 Governor Burnet said of himself, that his genius did not bud till 
 late; that his father, Bishop Burnet, despaired till he was twenty 
 years of age, whether he would make any figure in life. To the 
 reader, in an age which has wholly forgotten him, the bishop's doubt, 
 through his son's boyhood, seems well founded. But, as compared 
 with other royal governors, it can be well understood how many of 
 the people of New York and of Massachusetts looked back on him 
 with a certain respect. To write poor commentaries on the book of 
 Revelation, as he did, is an occupation more worthy of the lieutenant 
 of the King, than, like Fletcher, to sell licenses to pirates, or, like 
 Cornbury, to steal appropriations made for fortifications. These com- 
 mentaries, however, were not thought unworthy of condemnation 
 that highest evidence sometimes of worth. If we may believe Smith, 
 the New Jersey historian, an act was proposed in the Assembly of that 
 province with special reference to the Governor's book. Its title was 
 " An Act against denying the divinity of our Saviour, Jesus Burners aa- 
 Christ, the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, the truth of the in"^^!/"" 
 Holy Scriptures, and spreading Atheistical Books." But no M - 
 other mark appears of an} 7 want of harmony between him and the 
 people of that portion of his government. Under him, as under most 
 of the Governors of the viceroyalty of New York and New Jersey, the 
 smaller province was neglected for the larger, and thrived with neglect. 
 
 tional 'politics, .-till righting, with their backs to the Pacific, inch by inch for possession of 
 their hunting-grounds. 
 
 1 He was received at the Hhode Island boundary line by a delegation and escorted to 
 Boston with unusual marks of welcome. It is said that he was annoyed bv the long graces 
 before meat, and a>ked when these lengthy ceremonies would come to an end. Colonel 
 layler of Boston, one of his escort, replied : " Please your honour, the graces will iucivase 
 in length until you come to Boston ; after that they will shorten till you come to your gov- 
 ernment of New Hampshire ; there you will rind 110 grace at all." 
 VOL. in. 4 
 
50 ROYAL GOVERNORS UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY. [CHAP. II. 
 
 c.overnor 
 
 John Montgomerie, Burnet's successor, probably owed his appoint- 
 nient to the personal favor of George the Second, to whom 
 Montgomcnc. j je ] ia j h een groom of the chamber. He is said to have re- 
 fused to act as chancellor, as his commission bade him, until specially 
 ordered to do so. He arrived on the loth of April, 1728. His ad- 
 ministration was short and uneventful, and he died on the first of 
 July, 1731. After an interregnum of thirteen months in which Mr. 
 Kip Van Dam, as senior member of the Council, acted as governor, 
 Colonel Cosby, who arrived August 1, 1732, succeeded to the office. 
 
 Colomel Table 
 

 The Old Capitol at Annapolis. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 VIRGINIA AT THE CLOSE OF BERKELEY'S ADMINISTRATION. PHILIP LCDWELL AND 
 GOVERNOR JEFFREYS. ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CULPEPPER. WRETCHED CON- 
 DITION OF THE COLONY. OVER-PRODUCTION OF TOBACCO. THE " PLANT-CUT- 
 TERS." INFLATION OF THE CURRENCY BY THE GOVERNOR. LORD EFFINGHAM 
 SUCCEEDS CULPEPPER. A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER UNDER GOVERNOR NlCHOL- 
 SON. WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE. NICHOLSON REMOVED TO MARYLAND. 
 AFFAIRS IN THAT COLONY. LORD BALTIMORE DEPRIVED OP POLITICAL POWER. 
 MARYLAND A ROYAL PROVINCE. CHURCH OF ENGLAND ESTABLISHED BY NICHOL- 
 SON. EDMUND ANDROS, GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA. SUCCEEDED BY NICHOLSON. 
 His SECOND ADMINISTRATION, AND CAUSES OF HIS RECALL. GOVERNOR SPOTS- 
 WOOD. His EXPEDITION OVER THE BLUE RIDGE. SETTLEMENT OF THE SHEN- 
 ANDOAII VALLEY. GREATER RELIGIOUS TOLERATION. PROGRESS AND PROSPER- 
 ITY OF VIRGINIA. SUCCESSIVE GOVERNORS, TILL THE ARRIVAL OF DINWIDDIE. 
 
 THE suppression of Bacon's Rebellion did not necessarily bring 
 tranquillity to Virginia. The leaders on both sides Bacon 
 and Berkeley were dead, and a heavy retribution had 
 fallen upon many who had vainly hoped that in an appeal 
 to arms they would find a redress for all their grievances. There was 
 rather sullen acquiescence than cheerful submission in the restoration 
 of order ; for many who were too prudent or too timid to give to 
 
 Conditionof 
 
 
 U 
 
 li.t 
 
 " 
 
52 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. ' [CHAP. III. 
 
 Bacon their open support, no doubt regretted that nothing was gained 
 by the Rebellion. 
 
 As in other colonies, the attitude of the Assembly indicated the 
 popular temper. That attitude was one of watchful determination to 
 maintain, within the law, the rights of the people, and resist, so far 
 as it was prudent or possible, their infringement by royal governors. 
 When Berkeley asked that the Assembly would bestow some mark of 
 distinction upon Accomac County for the loyalty of its citizens at the 
 most trying period of the Rebellion, the Speaker, Colonel Warner, an- 
 swered, no doubt as truly for his colleagues as he did frankly for him- 
 self : " He knew not," he said, " what marks of distinction his honor 
 could have sette on those of Accomack, unlesse to give them ear- 
 marks or burnt marks for robbing and ravaging honest people, who 
 stay'd at home, and took care of the estates of those who ran away, 
 when none intended to hurt 'em." 1 The Governor could hardly have 
 failed to understand that beneath the sneer was concealed some sym- 
 pathy for the rebels as well as a rebuke of himself. 
 
 It was this Assembly whose remonstrances against his cruel perse- 
 cution of the late insurgents drove Berkeley at length to seek refuge 
 in England. It was this Assembly also which refused to comply with 
 the demand of the royal commissioners for its journals, notwithstand- 
 ing the evident disposition of those officers to deal mercifully with 
 the partisans of Bacon. The members conceived it to be incompati- 
 ble with their honor and their rights, as the representatives of the 
 people, to submit their proceedings to the representatives of the King, 
 and they boldly protested against the act when the journals were for- 
 cibly seized by the commissioners. 
 
 The royalists, not unnaturally, presumed upon the success of their 
 continue,! cause, and were everywhere avaricious and overbearing. Ac- 
 beTwwlTthe comae County claimed exemption from taxes for twenty 
 parties. years, in return for those services upon which Colonel War- 
 ner, the Speaker, put so small a value. Sir Herbert Jeffreys one of 
 the King's commissioners, and, after Berkeley's departure, Lieutenant- 
 governor found it no easy task to divide the line of truth and jus- 
 tice between the malcontents on both sides. One of the chief of these 
 was that Philip Ludwell who by his daring and zeal had served the 
 loyal cause so effectually, at a critical moment in Bacon's Rebellion, 
 by the capture of Bland and his fleet in the Chesapeake, 
 of Philip' In spite of the amnesty granted to the late rebels, he sued 
 one of them George Walklate for alleged damages done 
 to his property in some rebel raid. The Governor granted protection 
 to Walklate, and refused the writ which Ludwell demanded. " The 
 
 1 Burk's History of I'iryinia. 
 
1680.] LORD CULPEPPER. 53 
 
 Governor was a worse rebel than Bacon" was Lud well's loud and 
 angry complaint "for he had broke the laws of the country, which 
 Bacon never did .... that he was perjured .... that he was not 
 worth a groat in England .... and that, if every pitiful little fel- 
 low, with a periwig, that came in Governor to this country, had 
 liberty to make the laws, as this had done, his children, nor no man's 
 else, could be safe in the title or estate left them." 
 
 It' laws are silent in time of war, no less true is it that morals and 
 manners are loosest when war is over. Ludwell, indeed, was brought 
 before the Council to answer for this invective against the Governor ; 
 the offence was pronounced treasonable, and it was ordered that the 
 proceedings be sent to the King and Privy Council, that due pun- 
 ishment might be awarded him. But the General Assembly decided, 
 on his appeal to that body, that the defence as well as the accu- 
 sations should go to England, which was all he could in justice ask. 
 Perhaps the death of Jeffreys in 1678 may have put an end to the 
 suit ; perhaps the Lords in Council thought it wiser to lay it and 
 leave it on their table, for Ludwell seems to have gone unpunished. 
 On the other hand his defiance of a royal governor was welcomed ap- 
 parently as the espousal of the cause of the people, and he is next 
 heard of, a few years later, as the agent of the colony in England to 
 seek a redress of grievances which had grown meanwhile more and 
 more burdensome grievances, however, which Jeffreys seems to 
 have been sincerely disposed to remove, while they made an ardent 
 patriot of Ludwell only when he found that by patriotism he could 
 best subserve his private interests. 
 
 But the incident is of little moment except that it shows how se- 
 rious were the differences that divided parties in Virginia, and how 
 little even an appeal to arms had done to reconcile them. The ad- 
 ministrations of Jeffreys and Sir Henry Chichely, who soon suc- 
 ceeded Jeffreys as Lieutenant-governor did little for the colony, 
 except that they secured peace by a treaty with the Indians, brought 
 about chiefly by the influence of New York with the Five Nations. 
 Something more was hoped for from the coming of Lord 
 Culpepper, who, since 1675, had held a commission as Gov- 
 ernor for life over the province which, two years before, had 
 been granted to him and the Earl of Arlington for thirtv-one years. 
 Culpepper had preferred to remain in England, but the King insisting, 
 at length, that he should assume the duties of his office, he arrived in 
 Virginia in 1680. He brought a proposal for general amnesty and ob- 
 livion for past political offences, but only for this one act of mercy from 
 the Crown had the people reason to welcome his coming. kk The Lord 
 Culpepper," says a writer of that period, " had a singular dexterity in 
 
 tratlou - 
 
54 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 making use of all advantages to his own interests; " l and being "one 
 of the most cunning and covetous men in England," he induced the 
 King to suggest that the salary of the Governor be doubled hitherto 
 1,000, and its perquisites increased to almost as much. This was 
 no slight additional burden to an already over-taxed and impoverished 
 colony. Still harder to accept was another proposed law, that the 
 duties on tobacco and other merchandise, heretofore levied from year 
 to year and the proceeds disbursed as the Colonial Assembly should 
 judge for the public welfare, should now be made perpetual and under 
 the exclusive control of the King. But these and other laws of less 
 consequence, the drafts of which Culpepper brought from England, 
 
 the Assembly was constrained to 
 accept in consideration of the act 
 of general pardon which came 
 with them. 
 
 Culpepper returned to Eng- 
 land in a few months, leaving be- 
 hind him these, with the other 
 fruitful causes of discontent of 
 an older growth. The colonists 
 were oppressed with the weight 
 of fresh taxes while at the same 
 time the price of their single 
 staple product tobacco was 
 constantly falling. The old rem- 
 edies were resorted to, with the 
 old I'esults. Fresh attempts were 
 made to regulate the production 
 of tobacco by agreements with 
 Maryland and Carolina to limit 
 
 %j 
 
 the planting, agreements so 
 Governor Culpepper. easv j o niake and so sure to be 
 
 disregarded. It was proposed to encourage the settlement of towns 
 by enforcing the law which forbade that ships should pick 
 U P their cargoes by going from plantation to plantation along 
 t ] ie k an k s O f t) ie r ivers, but should load only at designated 
 points, where, it was hoped, the towns would soon grow. No towns 
 sprung up, for the industrial necessities for their existence were want- 
 ing ; but many a planter was compelled to add a new item of expen- 
 diture to the cost of his tobacco, or, if the distance to the shipping- 
 
 1 An Account of the Present Stale and Government of Virginia. Written, proUably, within 
 the last ten yenrs of the seventeenth century, auil first published from the original MSS. 
 in vol. v. of Cull, of Mass. Hist. Svc. 
 
 tobacco. 
 
1681.] OVER-PRODUCTION OF TOBACCO. 55 
 
 point was too great, to leave it to rot at home. Discontent was again 
 growing to desperation. The one fact that everybody could see was, 
 that because there was too much tobacco its price was ruinously low, 
 but that the planter must sell at that price or he and his people 
 starve ; the fact nobody would see was, that because the laborers 
 were slaves, the crop most easily raised on great estates was tobacco, 
 and the true remedy was a reform in the tenure of lands and the 
 system of labor. 
 
 Another rebellion seemed imminent and would, no doubt, have 
 broken out had another Bacon appeared to lead it. Petitions were 
 sent to the King, praying that the overproduction of tobacco might be 
 prohibited by royal proclamation ; Chichely, the acting Governor in 
 Culpepper's absence, was besought to apply, meanwhile, some remedy 
 to the correction of that evil. He would have gladly found one, but 
 he could devise nothing better than to convene the Assembly. The 
 Assembly, fresh from the people, could talk of nothing but the peo- 
 ple's wrongs of misgovernment, of rights withheld, of poverty, of 
 want for which they had no alleviation. 
 
 But, as in all times of popular distress and turbulence, there were 
 men who thought themselves wise enough to discern and ap- .. Plant<ut . 
 ply the remedy. The way, they said, to stop the over-pro- tmg- 
 duction of tobacco was, to stop it. Putting themselves at the head 
 of the more violent of the population, they went from plantation to 
 plantation, destroying the young plants when too late for a second 
 growth that season. This earliest American " strike," like most of 
 those of modern times, only brought fresh distress upon those it 
 was meant to aid. The " plant-cutters," as they were called, were 
 too few to damage essentially the staple production of three colonies, 
 but they were enough to bring serious calamity upon themselves and 
 upon all those whose plantations they laid waste. 
 
 It was in the midst of these troubles that Culpepper returned from 
 England, and his method of dealing with them was characteristic of 
 the colonial rule of that period. His first measure of conciliation was 
 to hang the leading "plant-cutters," whose grievance was the com- 
 mon one, however little sympathy the planters may have had with the 
 violent conduct of those misguided men ; and his first measure of relief 
 was to inflate the currency by permission of the King, declaring silver 
 coins crowns, rix-dollars, and pieces of eight of the cur- cuipe PP T 
 rent value of five shillings, should be legal tender for six shil- vafu<fof 'the 
 lings, the fractional coins to be rated in like proportion. curreuc J'- 
 But the burden of the change was to fall upon the people alone ; the 
 five shillings, which were to pass for six in transactions among them- 
 selves, were still to be reckoned at five shillings only in the payment 
 
56 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 [ClIAP. III. 
 
 of the Governor's salary, in payment of the heavy tax on 
 
 v ' *f / 
 
 and all other taxes, and in payment of bills of ex- 
 change. The indignant Burgesses remonstrated. 
 They demanded that there should be equaliza- 
 tion in the vulne of money not one value 
 fur the debtor and another for the creditor. 
 They were not unreasonable in asking that 
 the six shillings they were compelled 
 to accept as legal tender in the sale 
 of their tobacco should be six shillings 
 still, and not five only when they paid 
 their taxes; nor were they irrational 
 in complaining that they got only 
 five shillings' worth of English 
 merchandise for six shillings, 
 while the price was enhanced ->-;f 
 by the increase in the rate 
 of exchange. The Governor 
 answered by driving the As- 
 semblymen out of their chain- 
 
 . 
 
 her. Though the cur- 
 
 rency was afterward re- 
 stored to its normal value. 
 
 
 
 " Plant-cutting." 
 
 it was evidently not from any def- 
 ' y i^ -^L ' y^- ' ' * 
 
 ' ' ' erence to the will of the House 
 
 of Burgesses or the rights and interests of the people. 
 
1684.] LORI) EFFINGIIAM SUCCEEDS CULPEITER. 57 
 
 The Governor also brought from England the severest condemnation 
 of the Assembly for its spirited refusal to surrender its journals for 
 examination to the King's commissioners. Beverley, the Clerk, who, 
 like Ludwell, had distinguished himself for his services on the royal 
 side in the late Rebellion, was imprisoned now for the zeal 
 with which he defended the independence of the Assembly, tnm mwis. 
 The next, more direct, attack upon the individual citizen, 
 was to take away the privilege of appeal from the decisions of the 
 General Court that is, the Governor and Council to the General 
 Assembly, except in cases involving only a small sum of money. 
 
 Culpepper ceased to be Governor when he ceased to be Proprietary 
 in 1684 on the surrender of the patent, which had become vested 
 in him alone, in consideration of a sum in hand and a pension of 
 000 a year for twenty and a half years. l Virginia was so far the 
 gainer, that it became once more a royal province, with a promise 
 that its revenues should be used, in part at least, for its own benefit. 
 The last act of Charles II. relating to the affairs of the colony was the 
 appointment of Lord Howard of Effingham as Culpepper's successor. 
 
 Hut the change of rulers was not a change of policy ; it was only 
 to turn loose upon the flock another wolf whose hunger was 
 
 ... ~ , . Lord Effing- 
 
 still to be appeased. Culpepper was mercenary, despotic, imm, Gover- 
 cruel, indifferent to the welfare of the colon}' as he was ig- 
 norant of its true interests. Effingham, if not Culpepper's rival in 
 these qualities, was at least his pupil, and bettered his instruction. 
 Those of the ignorant "plant-cutters" whom one had spared, the 
 other hanged. New duties were levied ; new fees exacted ; The oppres . 
 new perquisites contrived ; new pretences invented for fresh ooimw con- 
 oppression. The struggle between Governor and Assembly tmuea - 
 was continued, and the measures resorted to by Effingham were more 
 arbitrary than those of any of his predecessors. James had among 
 all his colonial servants no one more swift to catch the spirit of his 
 rule than this Virginia viceroy. Ostensibly by royal authority he re- 
 pealed laws, or revived those that had been repealed by the Assem- 
 bly ; the members of that body he bought by bribes when that was 
 possible ; when that was impossible he coerced them by threats or im- 
 prisonment ; and when all other measures failed to bend them to his 
 will, he would prorogue or dissolve that branch of the government. 
 Of the Council, always obedient and subservient, he made a Court of 
 Chancery, that he might add to his power as Governor that of a High 
 
 1 The colony, however, was not altogether rid of Cnipepper. In 1671, Charles II. had 
 granted to the Earl of St. Albans, Lord Berkeley, and others, a patent for the Northern 
 Neck, the region between the Kappuhannock and the Potomac, which Culpepper after- 
 wards purchased, and the right was confirmed to him by letters-patent from James II. in 
 1685. 
 
58 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. III. 
 
 Chancellor. More than once, in the course of four years, he was 
 called upon to suppress incipient rebellion ; once a slave insurrection 
 threatened the lives of the white masters. The number of the white 
 servants of the colony was increased by the exportation from England 
 to Virginia of many of those prisoners taken with Monmouth at Sedge- 
 moor, but whose lives were spared when Jeffreys made his Bloody 
 Circuit ; and these added new strength to the more discontented and 
 turbulent of the population, although the General Assembly pru- 
 dently neglected to obey the orders of the King to pass a law denying 
 them all power of redemption from servitude for at least ten years. 
 Philip Ludwell was sent to England to represent to the King and 
 Council the condition of the province under Effingham's 
 rtstVi, pro- rule. He arrived, fortunately, about the time of the land- 
 
 test of tin 1 . fir** e s\ i ill i * f 
 
 colonists to in<* of the 1 rince or Untnige. and was enabled to obtain from 
 
 VI I 
 
 William and Mary the hearing which James II. would no 
 doubt have refused. Ludwell was so far successful that Effingham 
 who was also in England never resumed the duties of his office, 
 though he was permitted to retain both the title and the salary for 
 several years longer. 
 
 The accession of the new sovereigns excited small enthusiasm in 
 n Virginia, when it was known that Effingham still held his 
 )"J. commission and that lie was to rule by deputy. Colonel 
 fin'.'h!iu> f Francis Nicholson was appointed Lieutenant-governor. He, 
 indeed, would have much preferred to return to New York 
 as its chief magistrate, and all the influence he could command was 
 used to procure him that position. It would, however, have been 
 hardly prudent, hardly even decent, to impose him upon a colony 
 where he had so recently, either from want of moral courage or 
 from feebleness of judgment, made a popular revolution almost in- 
 evitable. But the political amenities, then as now held to be of so 
 much more moment than considerations of mere fitness for office, 
 made him Lieutenant-governor of Virginia. 
 
 He showed himself, however, anxious to discharge the duties of his 
 post creditably to himself and for the good of the colony. Perhaps 
 he thought he should best commend himself to the new sovereigns 
 by making his administration as wide a contrast as possible to those 
 which had preceded it ; perhaps his late experience in New York had 
 really taught him wisdom, and he had learned to respect the rights 
 of his fellow-citizens. It was, at any rate, a new thing to see a gov- 
 ernor in Virginia who thought it worth his while to visit every part 
 of his province that he might observe with his own eyes the condition 
 of the people ; who invited them to meet him in familiar intercourse ; 
 who gave festivals and established athletic sports to improve and 
 
1692.] WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE. 59 
 
 modify their social relations ; who proposed a public post-office, and 
 made a great public road through the most populous portion of the 
 province ; who encouraged other industries than that of tobacco- 
 planting, especially the growing of flax, the manufacture of leather, 
 and an unrestricted trade with the Indians in furs, in skins, and other 
 commodities ; and who cooperated heartily with the Legis- 
 
 i e t r I m P roT <*l 
 
 lature in the enactment of laws for the purity and peace of condition of 
 
 -i a ffllirs - 
 
 society, making drunkenness a misdemeanor with a pecuni- 
 ary penalty or punishment in the stocks, and enjoining in other re- 
 spects such as " swearing, cursing, profaning God's holy name, 
 Sabbath profaning, attending meetings outside the parish, or travel- 
 ling on that day" a rigid rule of life more in accordance with the 
 Puritanical government of New England than that of the Established 
 Church in Virginia. 
 
 The two Assemblies which passed these laws were called by Nich- 
 olson, notwithstanding Effingham's injunction that he should not 
 permit the popular representatives to come together. So satisfied 
 was that body with his rule, that at its first session it gave him 
 300, in addition to his salary; and so anxious was the Lieutenant- 
 governor for the public welfare, or so diligent to gain the public 
 approbation, that he gave one half this sum to aid in the establish- 
 ment of William and Mary College. The real founder of that col- 
 lege the second in the colonies, Harvard being the first was the 
 Rev. James Blair, the Commissary of the Bishop of London, and the 
 head, therefore, of the Established Church in Virginia. But his suc- 
 cess was undoubtedly due, in large measure, to the influence used 
 by Nicholson in its favor. 
 
 The charter for this seminary originally intended mainly for the 
 education of young men meaning to be clergymen, and for Foundatiou 
 the instruction of Indian children was granted in Febru- ^"j{a* T m 
 ary, 1692, by William and Mary, and by them the college College - 
 was liberally endowed. Sir Christopher Wren was the architect of 
 the first college building; Blair was the first president, having under 
 him six professors, for the training of a hundred pupils or more; and 
 the college was entitled to one representative in the House of Bur- 
 gesses. The opposition to the scheme was persistent, often contempt- 
 uous and bitter. Seymour, the Attorney -general of England, ex- 
 pressed a common feeling, though with more frankness than courtesy, 
 when ordered to draw up the charter for the college. He declared 
 that it was useless, and protested against the royal endowment as ex- 
 travagant. Mr. Blair maintained its necessity, especially as it was in- 
 tended to relieve the religious destitution of the colony in training 
 young men for the ministry. He begged the Attorney-general to re- 
 
60 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 member that the people of Virginia, quite as much as the people of 
 other parts of the world, had souls to be saved. "Souls!'' was the 
 answer "Damn vour souls! Make tobacco! ' 
 
 m 
 
 Nicholson remained in Virginia only about two years ; but why he 
 
 should have retired from office is not quite clear. Nor is it, 
 Retirement ....... 
 
 <.f Nirhoi- indeed, of much importance, except that the reason given by 
 
 Beverley, and accepted by later historians, rather suggests 
 doubts on other subjects than explains this. It is asserted that the 
 Governor became suddenly unpopular for opposing settlement in 
 towns "cohabitation," as the term of the time was which, at 
 
 William and Mary College. 
 
 first, he had favored. But he could hardly have rendered himself 
 obnoxious for opposing that which nothing could have hindered the 
 people of Virginia from doing if they saw fit, and which they had 
 obstinately refused to do for years. If there really were any differ- 
 ence of opinion between him and them on this subject, there must 
 be some other explanation for the slow and painful growth of the col- 
 ony than the Avant of towns, the isolation of planters upon grants of 
 immense tracts of land, and the system of labor and cultivation which 
 grew up with such settlements. 
 
 It is more probable that Nicholson returned to England with the 
 hope, perhaps with the promise, of promotion. Before he left Vir- 
 ginia a revolution in Maryland had deposed the government of Lord 
 
1692.] AFFAIRS IN MARYLAND. 61 
 
 Baltimore, and that colony had also become a royal province. Sir 
 Lionel Copley was appointed Governor' in 1690. Nicholson may have 
 hoped to supersede him ; he was, at any rate, appointed in his place 
 on the death of Copley in 1692. 
 
 Charles Calvert, the Lord Baltimore who by this revolution was 
 deprived of all political power in his American inheritance, Affnirs in 
 was the son of the second Lord Baltimore, who died in 167f>. Mar - vland - 
 The fortunes of that family had changed with the changing dynasties 
 of England from the death of Cromwell to the accession of William 
 and Mary. The prosperity of the state is not always perhaps not 
 often measured by the struggles of political parties, and Maryland 
 was not an exception to this obvious truth. Sometimes the Catholics, 
 sometimes the Puritans, through these eventful years, gained the as- 
 cendency. Fendall, whom Cecil, Lord Baltimore, had made a Gov- 
 ernor, turned against his master and put a Puritan Assembly into 
 power ; Philip Calvert, Cecil's brother, reestablished the authority 
 of the Proprietary, and made the way smooth and pleasant for his 
 nephew ; and through all these bitter contentions and vicissitudes, 
 however important they might be to individual fortunes and the po- 
 litical ambition of a few men, the progress of the colony was steady 
 and its prosperity undisturbed. In the ten years from 1660 to 1670 
 the population increased from twelve to twenty thousand. Under 
 the mild rule of the Baltimores, and the spirit of tolerance which, 
 notwithstanding their religious differences, had become the habitual 
 temper of the people of Maryland, the province was a place of refuge 
 for the persecuted of whatever faith. Had the first proprietors of 
 that beautiful, salubrious, and fertile region been so fortunate or so 
 wise as to make it an asylum of political and social, as well as relig- 
 ious liberty, it might have become in time the central seat of the 
 power and the commerce of a great empire. 
 
 But the inevitable changes came at last. While on a visit to Eng- 
 land, Thomas Notely acting in his absence as Lieutenant-governor, 
 Baltimore met and successfully rebutted all complaints brought 
 against him by the opposing party in the colony. But more Catho i icg 
 serious trouble awaited him on his return in 1681 ; for the t^tf^aln 
 restless Fendall, with the aid of one Coode, a disreputable inconaict - 
 clergyman of the Church of England, was almost successful in arous- 
 ing the Protestants to armed resistance to the Catholic government. 
 Both the leaders were arrested in 1681, tried, and Fendall, at least, 
 convicted of treason, though neither was punished. 
 
 The remaining years of Baltimore's administration of the affairs of 
 his province were, nevertheless, years of great anxiety and continual 
 contention. In Maryland the Protestant party was diligent and 
 
62 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. III. 
 
 watchful for an opportunity to seize the government ; in England 
 their friends were not less active on their behalf, and all the more 
 that this struggle between religious parties in Maryland could be used 
 to strengthen the anti-Catholic party at home. Even the King, who 
 cared little for the religious faith of any of his subjects, was quite 
 willing to listen to the suggestion that his own revenue from the 
 colony was diminished under Baltimore's rule. 
 
 Threatened on all sides, Baltimore again returned to England, 
 Baltimore's leaving his infant son, Benedict Leonard Calvert, nominally 
 shiTin'jaii- Grovemor, but committing the province to the care of a 
 ger - Council of Nine, of which William Joseph was president. 
 
 Charles II. died before the Proprietary reached England, and he prob- 
 ably looked for more favor from the Catholic successor to the throne. 
 But James did not mean to make Maryland an exception in the 
 policy he proposed to adopt for the government of the American 
 colonies. The quo warranto which Charles had threatened, moved 
 thereto by Baltimore's enemies, James soon ordered to be issued in 
 accordance with his own general purpose. Whatever his sympathy 
 might be with Baltimore as a Catholic governor in a struggle with 
 Protestant opponents, he had small consideration for him as a colonial 
 proprietary. 
 
 Through the few years of James's reign Baltimore was held in that 
 worst of all conditions, a condition of uncertainty ; for neither could 
 he get the quo warranto against him withdrawn, nor were the pro- 
 ceedings under the writ brought to a conclusion. To him any change 
 was a chance, however desperate, and when William and Mary landed 
 in England he was prompt in offering them his recognition and alle- 
 giance. Orders were sent to his deputies in Maryland to proclaim the 
 accession of the new sovereigns ; but either these orders were delayed 
 in the passage, or the Council unwisely neglected to obey. Perhaps 
 the result would have been the same in any event ; but the delay 
 gave the Protestant party an advantage which they eagerly seized. 
 Rumors were industriously spread, or sprang up naturally and spon- 
 taneously, that the Catholics would remain loyal to James and defy 
 the revolution. It may have been only to guard against a popular 
 outbreak, and to be in a position to safely wait events, that Balti- 
 more's adherents made preparations to arm and defend the forts. It 
 was the best thing to do, if they did anything, having committed the 
 first mistake of neglecting to proclaim the accession of the new King 
 and Queen. But it made little difference in the end. The prepara- 
 tions for defence on this side were made the pretext of attack on the 
 other, and had this pretext been wanting, another would have been 
 found. The losing cause in England could not be the winning on& 
 in Maryland. 
 
1692.] 
 
 ANDROS GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 63 
 
 The Protestants, once more under the lead of John Coode, concen- 
 trated their strength in an Association to maintain the Prot- 
 
 ... 11 i r ifT-ii- i -\* IT- A new rev- 
 
 estant religion and the rights of William and Mary as King oiutionin 
 
 . 11 r 1- 1 J r> J V Marv land. 
 
 and Queen over all English dominions. Coode, an Episco- 
 pal clergyman, though a man of doubtful character, possessed, never- 
 theless, the energy which makes 
 revolutions successful. Balti- 
 more's adherents were driven 
 out of the capital ; Fort Matta- 
 pany, the Government House 
 where they took refuge, was be- 
 sieged and soon compelled to 
 surrender; and the Proprietary's 
 government was in a few weeks 
 utterly overthrown. In August 
 (1689) a popular Assembly was 
 convened at St. Mary's. A re- 
 port of late events was prepared 
 and sent to England for the ap- 
 proval of the King, and mean- 
 while, till a response could be 
 received, the Assembly took 
 upon itself the direction of the 
 affairs of the colony. 
 
 The royal approbation came 
 
 in due time, to be followed soon after by a royal governor. This 
 was Sir Lionel Copley, who, dying within a year, was sue- 
 ceeded by Nicholson. Lord Baltimore had been compelled 
 at last to answer to the quo ivarranto before the Privy Coun- etorsh 'P- 
 cil, and except that he was permitted to retain the revenue from 
 the lands of Maryland, was deprived of all his proprietary rights. 
 
 Since his return to England, Sir Edmund Andros, after his dis- 
 charge from arrest and virtual exculpation for his conduct as 
 Governor of New England, had busied himself in the affairs c.'-?* 
 of Virginia. If it was with the hope of being rewarded with 
 a commission as Governor of that colony, he gained his end. He was 
 appointed in Effingham's place and assumed the duties of his office 
 about the time of Nicholson's return to England. If the King thought 
 him not unworthy of being made again the Governor of an American 
 Colony, the Virginians may have reflected that it was not for them 
 to question his fitness. At any rate, they welcomed him heartily for 
 his recent services, and many of them, no doubt, thought none the 
 worse of him because the Boston Puritans had deposed and imprisoned 
 
 Charles, Second Lord Baltimore. 
 
64 VIRCIXIA AND MARYLAND. [CiiAP. HI. 
 
 him as the friend of James, and an enemy of the revolution that 
 seated Mary and William upon the throne. His loyalty, however, could 
 not now be questioned. If not a better, he was a wiser man with 
 William's commission in his pocket than when he imprisoned Win- 
 slow for promulgating in Boston the news of the landing of the Prince 
 of Orange in England. 
 
 It mav have been partly because he served a new master that 
 
 +> / 
 
 Andros now remembered that a colonial governorship had its duties 
 as well as its privileges. That he was less arrogant and overbearing 
 may have been the result, in some measure, of his past painful expe- 
 rience ; and then a more congenial atmosphere than that of Puritan 
 New England had, no doubt, a softening influence upon his temper. 
 Like Nicholson, he came a new man with new things. 
 
 He brought with him the charter of William and Mary College, 
 in which he professed the strongest interest. Nicholson 
 
 Character of . . . l 
 
 his a<iiuini- had already done something to establish post routes and 
 offices. Andros completed the work in aiding Thomas Neale, 
 who held from the crown a patent for establishing a postal service to 
 connect all the colonies. It is Andros to whom Virginia should be 
 grateful that he caused to be collected and preserved all the records 
 of the colony not already destroyed. Nor was he unmindful of the 
 material needs of the people. He encouraged, not without some 
 success, domestic manufactures ; that less tobacco might be raised, 
 he introduced the cultivation of cotton, and it was not his fault, but 
 the fault of the climate, that the attempt was a failure. 
 
 For the first year or two Andros was a popular Governor, and de- 
 served to be, though popular applause was clearly not his motive of 
 action, however much he may have come to believe that the welfare 
 of the people was worth consideration. He disregarded much grum- 
 bling Avhen he sent out vessels to suppress the contraband trade along 
 the coast, and he codified English statutes and promulgated them as 
 the law of Virginia, without paying the slightest heed to appeals to 
 charters, to precedents, to common justice, or to common sense. 
 
 His position, however, was unquestionably one of great difficulties. 
 The best intentions and the most vigorous rule, even if 
 the colony directed by a wiser man than Andros had ever shown him- 
 self to be, could not, in four or five years, correct the evils 
 which, with the misgovernment of three quarters of a century, had sunk 
 deeply into the social and political structure. " It is astonishing," 
 says a writer of that period, " to hear what contrary characters are 
 given of the country of Virginia, even by those who have often seen 
 it. and know it very well ; some of them representing it as the best, 
 others as the worst country in the world. Perhaps they are both in 
 
1896.] CONDITION OF VIRGINIA. 60 
 
 the right. For the most general true character of Virginia is this : 
 that as to the natural advantages of a country it is one of the best; 
 but as to the improved ones, one of the worst of all the English planta- 
 tions in America." " As it came out of the hand of God, " the writer 
 holds, no region ever had more prospect of becoming a great state. 
 14 But .... if we inquire for well-built towns, for convenient forts 
 and markets, for plenty of ships and seamen, for well- improved trades 
 and manufactures, for well-educated children, for an industrious and 
 thriving people, or for an happy government in church and state, 
 .... it is certainly for all these things, one of the poorest, misera- 
 blest and worst countries in all America that is inhabited by Chris- 
 tians." 
 
 This acute observer was quite able to discern some of the causes of 
 the want of prosperity in the colony, that, for example, the grant- 
 ing of lands in large tracts was a hindrance to the settlement of the 
 country, and that the cultivation of a single staple was an unwise em- 
 ployment of industry. But it was no more revealed to him than to 
 anybody else of that period, hardly even yet, indeed, is it under- 
 stood as an axiom of political economy by the Southerner of average 
 intelligence that beneath these ostensible causes lay the fatal mis- 
 take of a reliance upon slave-labor, an evil that no political devices 
 however wise, and no government however well administered, could 
 ever I'emedy. 2 
 
 There was, nevertheless, marked improvement in the condition and 
 character of the people. A growing jealousy of arbitrary rule by a 
 royal Governor soon made itself visible. It was only a few years since 
 Berkeley had thanked God that there was neither a free school nor a 
 printing-press in the colony ; and Culpepper aud Effingham had for- 
 
 1 "An Account of the Present State and Government of Virginia." J/ass. Flint. Soc. 
 Coll., vol. v. 
 
 ' 2 Slavery was the curse of every colony where it gained a permanent foothold ; and this 
 came to be as evident to sagacious men, by the middle of the eighteenth century, as it is 
 held, in the nineteenth, to be a self-evident fact. Said the Rev. Jonathan Boucher, in 
 1763, Hector of St. Anne's Church in Annapolis and at one time tutor of Mrs. George 
 Washington's sou by her first husband : " Were an imparti.il and comprehensive observer 
 of the state of society in these middle colonies asked, Whence it happens that Virginia aud 
 Maryland, which were the first planted, and which are superior to many colonies, and infe- 
 rior to none in poiut of every natural advantage, are still so exceedingly behind most of 
 the other British American provinces in all those improvements which bring credit and 
 consequence to a country ? He would answer : They are so because they are cultivated 
 by slave*." Five and twenty years later, when the American provinces had censed to be- 
 long to Great Britain, William Pinkney, chief among the distinguished men of Maryland, 
 exclaimed : " Eternal infamy awaits the abandoned miscreants, whose selfish souls could 
 ever prompt them to rob unhappy Afric of her sons, and freight them hither by thou- 
 sands to poison the fair Eden of liberty with the rank weed of individual bondage ! " 
 Cited in Xeill's Terra 31arias. 
 
 VOL. III. 5 
 
66 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. III. 
 
 bidden that any printing should be done except for the publication 
 of laws by express permission, in certain cases. The establishment 
 of a college was the fulfilment of those fears which Berkeley hoped 
 would not be accomplished for another hundred years. It was an evi- 
 dence of increasing intelligence, as well as a promise of future cul- 
 ture, that a seminary of learning should be so soon asked for, even 
 with a limited purpose. It was inevitable that the more it flourished 
 the more certain it was to come into collision with men like Andros, 
 
 whose idea of government was at bottom the same as that of 
 nor ana the Berkeley and his immediate successors. The Governor was 
 
 certain to claim an authority over the affairs of the college 
 
 which a president like Blair was sure to resist. One con- 
 tended for his prerogative ; the other for the true interests of the in- 
 stitution over which he presided. Though the question at first was 
 one of ecclesiastical precedence between a royal Governor and a com- 
 missary of the Bishop of London, it widened into a controversy which 
 gave new strength to the cause of popular government, and finally 
 cost Andros his office. To punish and overcome the firmness of Blair 
 
 as president of William and Mary College, the Governor ar- 
 caiied, and bitrarily removed him as a member of the Council. The 
 again ap- political issue thus created went by appeal to England. An- 
 
 dros was defeated and recalled, and Nicholson transferred 
 from Maryland to take his place. 
 
 Nicholson had earned this promotion by his diligence and zeal dur- 
 ing the four years of his administration of the affairs of the smaller 
 colony. The substitution of the Church of England for the Catholic 
 Church appears to have been his chief business, but that may have 
 seemed to be no easy task. It was not a field ready for the reaper, 
 over which fruitful seed had been cast with lavish hands. Only five 
 years before Baltimore was compelled to surrender all his rights as 
 Proprietary save only his pecuniary rights a petition to the King 
 set forth that Maryland was " without a Church or any settled min- 
 istry." l A church of the regular Establishment, of course, is meant, 
 for Presbyterians and Quakers had liberty of conscience and of woi-- 
 ship, under Catholic rule, and of forming religious organizations after 
 their kind. That there were no " churches," was because of the few- 
 ness or lukewarmness of churchmen. To bring the new royal prov- 
 ince within the pale of the Established Church of England ; to do 
 away with the assumed evil of toleration ; to establish religion by 
 Litany and Prayer-book ; this was the policy of the King, and the 
 first duty of the Governor. 
 
 One of the earliest acts of the Assembly, after the arrival of Cop- 
 
 1 The Emjlish Colonization of America. By Edward D. Neill. 
 
1694.] 
 
 NICHOLSON IN MARYLAND. 
 
 6T 
 
 ley, was a law for the establishment of the Protestant religion, and 
 for dividing the ten counties of Maryland into twenty-five Ilu ,g OV ern. 
 parishes. The Friends and the Catholics were, however, M^ryUnd 
 sufficiently numerous to disregard the act for a while with reviewed - 
 impunity. Plainly, the want of churchmen was a serious difficulty 
 in the way of building up the Church. When Nicholson came, how- 
 ever, he brought with him 
 six clergymen; in two 
 years their number was in- 
 creased to fifteen ; public 
 worship was forbidden to 
 the Catholics ; five or six 
 church edifices were built 
 in various places ; and all 
 that law and intolerance 
 could do was done to force 
 the Established Church of 
 England upon an unwill- 
 ing or an indifferent peo- 
 ple. The more rigid of 
 the Puritans, to whom any 
 recognition of Episcopacy 
 was a necessity very bitter 
 and hard to bear, had, at 
 least, the consolation of 
 seeing their old enemies, 
 the Catholics, suffer, perhaps aiding in their persecution when it 
 could be done consistently with their own professions of non-con- 
 formity. 
 
 This enforcement of a state religion upon the colony brought with 
 it some advantages. Nicholson caused a law to be passed for the es- 
 tablishment of a school in each county of the province. This, it was 
 declared, was to secure a perpetual provision of clergymen for the 
 churches ; but the design, no doubt, was broader, or would almost in- 
 evitably become so. King William's School, as that opened at Annap- 
 olis which in 1694 was made the capital was named, received 
 from Nicholson material aid and countenance, and may have served 
 as a model for others. There, " arithmetic, navigation, and all useful 
 .earning " were to be taught, as well as theology. This, at least, was 
 an improvement on the times of the Baltimores, when there was no 
 provision for schools of any kind. Such a measure could not be with- 
 out marked influence in the progress of society. It was not long be- 
 fore every one of the thirty parishes had a small parochial library, 
 
 President Blair. 
 
68 
 
 VIRCJIXIA AND MAKYLAXI). 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 averaging about fifty volumes each, exclusive of that of Annapolis, 
 which contained about eleven hundred volumes. Twenty-five hun- 
 dred well-chosen books, accessible to every person in the community, 
 would be an important fact in any American province in the begin- 
 ning of the eighteenth century. 
 
 But of Nicholson's long career in America, the five or six years of 
 iiisM-i-nn.i ms second term of office in Virginia are the least creditable. 
 l Something of the reputation attending that administration 
 must be attributed to the evident prejudice of his contempo- 
 rary, Beverley, the historian of Virginia, whose assertions have been 
 
 tion. 
 
 General View of Annapolis. 
 
 accepted for the most part by later writers. Much, nevertheless, of 
 all alleged against him must be true. He was self-willed, and oppo- 
 sition may have often led him to be overbearing and violent. That 
 his sense of duty as a royal Governor, should have sometimes clashed 
 with the true interests of the colony and the determination of its 
 
 tt 
 
 leading men to maintain them, does not, however, necessarily imply 
 that Nicholson was a bad or an unscrupulous man. Virginia had 
 become second in importance of till the colonies; her House of Bur- 
 gesses represented a population of -40,000 ; these representatives did 
 not readily yield their own convictions, and there could be a perfectly 
 honest difference of opinion between them and the Governor, which 
 might, nevertheless, lead to bitter contention. 
 
 It was the policy of the King, and the interest of all the colonies. 
 
1703.] NICHOLSON'S DEVOTION TO THE CHURCH. 69 
 
 that there should be unity of action for defence against the French 
 and Indians. The Virginians felt that they had little to fear now 
 from the tribes upon their own borders, and declined to contribute 
 anything for the building of forts for the protection of the Northern 
 provinces. Nicholson disagreed with the Burgesses on this point, and 
 visited New York to consult with the Northern Governors, declaring 
 that he would pay the Virginia quota from his own means rather than 
 the colony should be disgraced by refusal. The Burgesses were ob- 
 stinate, and the Governor made arrangements to fulfil his promise. 
 Beverley intimates that, if the contribution was made at all, it was 
 done at the cost of the King's revenue. Then the breach between the 
 House and the Governor was widened when he openly avowed that 
 the colonies ought to be united in a single confederation, under a sin- 
 gle governor, with a standing army. More than one royal governor 
 had warmly urged this policy in earlier years ; nowhere could it 
 arouse more indignation than in Virginia, where the House of Bur- 
 gesses was rapidly growing in power and influence, as the representa- 
 tive of a people growing more and more tenacious of their rights. 
 
 Nicholson's devotion to the Church involved him in a controversy 
 which did much to add to his unpopularity, and finally cost Q,, arrel , 
 him his place. Though he had not, as in Maryland, to ehu'reh'ves- 
 establish the State Church, he proposed to increase its tncs 
 strength. The clergyman in Virginia was entirely dependent upon 
 the vestry of his parish, who controlled his stipend, and bestowed or 
 withheld it by an annual vote. Whether wisely exercised or not, it 
 was then and there a wise limitation of the tenure of the clerical 
 office. 
 
 The ordinary clergyman of the Established Church, at that period, 
 even in England, was not a very reputable character. Intel- character of 
 lectually he was but little, if at all, superior to those over rf'^^. 
 whom he was set to teach ; if he were free from the contain- ll!ih churcl1 - 
 ination of worldly vices, it was more from want of means than want of 
 inclination ; socially he was rather beneath the farmers who tilled the 
 land of the great proprietors, and hardly above the servants who served 
 at their tables ; his wages were wages of service and not a return for 
 productive industry, though over the household servant who jostled 
 him as he approached their master he had this one advantage that 
 his wages, though small, were permanent and not dependent upon the 
 caprice of anybody. 
 
 But in Virginia he neither had nor deserved this advantage. Low 
 as the clergy were as a class in England, the clergy of the colony 
 were generally the mere refuse of the order. Bankrupt in purse they 
 could not be, for that would imply that somebody had once trusted 
 
70 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. III. 
 
 them ; but most of them were bankrupt in everything else that could 
 have made them respectable at home, and they sought in Virginia an 
 asylum for freedom to serve the devil with as much zeal as ever moved 
 Puritan to fly to the wilderness for freedom to worship God. It was 
 well that those wolves, to whose care the flocks were intrusted, could 
 always be held in some restraint by the will of the vestry. 
 
 When Nicholson proposed that this power should be taken away 
 from tlu> vestries, the disgust was almost universal. The clergymen, 
 on their part, gave a lively and characteristic evidence of their sense 
 of the favor to be bestowed, and their fitness to be trusted uncon- 
 trolled with parochial duties. Most of them met together at a public 
 banquet and got uproariously drunk and broke each other's heads in 
 honor of an ecclesiastical reform. There were a very few decent men 
 among them, however, who were unselfish enough to oppose a meas- 
 ure which could only do harm, and at the head of these was the 
 Bishop's Commissary, the President of the College, Mr. Blair, and 
 a Rev. Mr. Fouace. 
 
 Complaints were sent to England against the Governor. An error 
 of judgment, grave as his conduct was on this subject, might, perhaps, 
 have been overlooked. But other charges of neglect of official duty, 
 misuse of official power, and of private misconduct, were brought 
 agninst him. A scandal in relation to a Miss Burwell, whom he 
 wished to marry, was made great use of, and probably not without 
 good reason. This lady and her friends had rejected the suit of the 
 Governor ; he nevertheless persisted in it, threatening the lives of her 
 father and brothers, involved himself in a quarrel with the clergyman 
 of the parish Mr. Kouace and with Mr. Blair, and pursued with 
 bitter enmity for years all who opposed him. The matter became of 
 sufficient importance in the colony to be the subject of a long memo- 
 rial to the government at home ; and as it was the subject of many 
 bitter private animosities, so it undoubtedly had much to do with 
 intensifying the acrimony on public questions. 
 
 Nicholson gave to Virginia, as he had given to Maryland, a new 
 A nw capi- capital. Jamestown had never recovered from its almost 
 complete destruction by Bacon and his adherents after the 
 flight of Berkeley ; the malaria of the surrounding lowlands had al- 
 ways made it tin wholesome, and to abandon it was a wise measure. 
 The Governor chose Middle Plantation, where the college was built, 
 for the new seat of government. The town was laid out in the form 
 of a W, an arrangement which convenience, however, soon over- 
 ruled, and was named Williamsburg in honor of the King. The 
 second year of its settlement was commemorated by the first Com- 
 mencement 1700 of William and Mary College an event of so 
 
1710.] 
 
 AVJLLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE. 
 
 71 
 
 mi-ncvim-nr 
 
 of William 
 
 much interest that planters in their coaches with their wives and 
 daughters, surrounded by negro servants on horseback, came from 
 all parts of the colony; visitors came by sea from other colonies to 
 do honor to the occasion; and here and there, mingled in the crowd, 
 giving color and picturesqueness to the novel spectacle, was many 
 an Indian in the bravery of his brightest paint and most 
 brilliant and graceful feathers. It was a pleasant picture of 
 colonial prosperity and progress in this oldest of the Ameri- vaiiEuj 
 can colonies; but a reflective spectator could hardly have 
 failed to remember that it was nearly sixty years since the first Com- 
 mencement-day at 
 Harvard College in 
 Massachusetts was 
 celebrated, or fail to 
 remark in that fact 
 the essential differ- 
 ence in the charac- 
 ter of the peoples of 
 the two leading colo- 
 nies. 
 
 Virginia was 
 about to begin a 
 h a p {> y perhaps 
 the happiest pe- 
 riod in her colonial 
 history. On the re- 
 call of Nicholson in 
 1705, the governor- 
 ship of the colony 
 was given as a sine- 
 cure to the Earl of Orkney. The appointment of governors and a por- 
 tion of the salary were his ; but beyond the enjoyment of these perqui- 
 sites he interfered no further in the affairs of the province, and his dep- 
 uties were called, and really were, the governors. For five years it so 
 happened that the colony was left to manage its own affairs under the 
 Council, of which the presiding member was Edward Jenings, for 
 Edward Nott, Orkney's first nominee, died a few months after his ar- 
 rival in Virginia, and the second, Robert Hunter, never arrived at all, 
 being taken by a French cruiser on his outward passage. With the 
 exception of a few months, therefore, there were five years of tran- 
 quillity and self-government, which prepared the Avay for a wiser and 
 more prosperous administration than Virginia had ever known under 
 any of her royal governors. 
 
 Ruins of President's House, William and Mary College. 
 
72 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 colonel 
 
 The new Governor was Colonel Alexander Spotswood, who arrived 
 in June, 1710. It was accepted as a happy augury of his 
 rule that he was ordered to extend to Virginia the privilege 
 of the writ of Habeas Corpus, which had hitherto been with- 
 held. The great satisfaction with which this was received by the 
 people, and possibly the evident necessity of such a protection to their 
 rights, may have turned the attention of the Governor to the condi- 
 tion of the laws. It is, at any rate, remarkable that he, a young 
 man, bred to arms from his boyhood, should have at once introduced 
 much-needed reforms in the constitution of the courts, in the general 
 
 administration of justice, in the 
 character of the revenue laws, 
 and in the collection of taxes. 
 
 In all these measures he had 
 the hearty cooperation of the 
 Assembly and the commenda- 
 tion of the people. Both were 
 wanting when he overstepped 
 the boundary line between royal 
 prerogative and popular rights. 
 Five years of popular govern- 
 ment had greatly strengthened 
 the House of Burgesses, and that 
 body was always ready to with- 
 stand, firmly and unhesitatingly, 
 any encroachment of the Gov- 
 ernor upon their privileges. In 
 the second year of his adminis- 
 tration the House refused to 
 provide the means he asked for, to aid in repelling an apprehended 
 invasion of the French from Canada ; compelled him to 
 
 Differences . . 
 
 between the ask tlie government in England tor assistance in the prep- 
 
 (jovernor . 1-111 i 11 i i 
 
 and the AS- anitioiis winch he thought necessary and they thought use- 
 less, for defence against the Indians ; and declined to con- 
 cur with his proposals for the discharge of the public debt, except 
 by a tariff upon British merchandise and discriminating taxes 
 against British ships and in favor of Virginian vessels. Notwith- 
 standing these and other less important differences between him 
 and the people and their representatives, his popularity for years was 
 undiminished. He proved his sincere interest in the welfare of the 
 colony by his exertions on behalf of the college ; by assisting to raise 
 a large fund for its support, and by restoring the building, which was 
 burnt several years before his arrival and left in ruins ; by establish- 
 
 Governor Spotswood 
 
1716.] EXPEDITION OVER THE BLUE RIDGE. 73 
 
 ing a school for the education of Indian children ; by insisting upon 
 a rigid economy in all the offices under his control, and by giving a 
 hearty support to every measure conducive to the general prosperity. 
 Spotswood's ardent curiosity about this new country in which he 
 had come to live, led him into long expeditions that he might 
 
 ii /* e Expedition 
 
 learn more of its extent and character. One of these was over the 
 to explore the way to the country beyond the Blue Ridge 
 Mountains of the great Appalachian chain. He started in August, 
 1716, from German town, on the Rappahannock, with a company of 
 gentlemen well-mounted and armed, led by Indian guides, surrounded 
 by a troop of white hunters, rangers, and servants leading horses 
 laden with provisions and all other things necessary for such an expe- 
 dition. These extraordinary preparations were a safe-guard against 
 any of the perils or hardships of the adventure. But none were 
 encountered. No savages dared, even if they were disposed, to at- 
 tack a party so well appointed. The spoils of the chase were enough 
 for their support. The march by day was a hunt; for the first time 
 the solemn forest resounded, and the mountain peaks echoed and re- 
 echoed with the clang of trumpets and the sound of guns. There was 
 no want of song and laughter and merry-making around the camp- 
 fires at night as they cooked their suppers of game, and drank of 
 " white and red wine, usquebaugh, brandy-shrub, two kinds of rum, 
 champagne, canary, cherry punch, and cider," which were among 
 the stores they took to beguile the weariness of the way. No enemy, 
 whether man or beast, ventured to approach with hostile intent this 
 hilarious invasion of the wilderness. 
 
 The most elevated summit they reached was named Mount George, 
 where they drank health to George the First and the royal family. 
 The next in height was called either Mount Spotswood or Mount 
 Alexander, in honor of the Governor. They crossed the dividing 
 ridge of the mountains where the waters parted, one stream running 
 westward, the other to the east ; they descended the western slope, 
 marched seven miles into the valley beyond, and crossed a fordable 
 stream which they named the Euphrates. On its farther bank, with 
 such ceremony as their resources permitted, the firing of salutes, 
 the blowing of trumpets, the free use of that extraordinary list of 
 liquors with which the expedition was provided, possession was 
 taken of the country in the name of George the King, and a bottle 
 was buried containing a written attestation to that possession. It 
 was, probably, the number of empty bottles that suggested this certain 
 method of concealing the fact from any future explorers. 
 
 The expedition occupied six weeks, and the distance travelled was 
 more than two hundred miles. About the middle of September the 
 
74 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. III. 
 
 party returned to Williamsburg and rode triumphantly into the town, 
 preceded by its own trumpeters, and welcomed by the towns-folk. 
 To commemorate the event, Spotswood instituted a Tramontane Or- 
 der, to encourage future expeditions, presenting to each of his com- 
 panions a small golden horseshoe, to be worn as a badge, choosing 
 that emblem, it is said, because of the number of horseshoes little 
 used in the soft loam and sand of the lowlands of Eastern Virginia 
 required for that mountainous journey. 
 
 The adventure was altogether picturesque and spirited, but that was 
 all. No migration immediately followed in its trail. The Tramon- 
 tane Order could not exist long on a single past achievement ; and 
 the golden horseshoe, which no one was entitled to wear who had 
 not drunk the King's health on the top of Mount George, soon came 
 settlement t be only a pretty memento, well enough to have won, but 
 amioaVvai- no ^ wor th the winning anew. Sixteen years more passed be- 
 le> - fore the axe of the settler was heard in the Shenandoah Val- 
 
 ley, and then, first, not where Spotswood and his jolly companions 
 had entered it, but near its northern extremity. In 1732, one Joist 
 Hite took up forty thousand acres of land near the present town of 
 Winchester, and entered upon possession with a colony from Penn- 
 sylvania. Others soon followed to the same region, some pushing 
 farther west over the mountains till they descended into the valley of 
 the Monongahela. John Lewis, an Irishman with a Scotch wife, and 
 their children, founded Staunton, the oldest town in the Shenandoah 
 Valley ; and one Burden, an agent of Lord Halifax, following him, 
 obtained a grant of five hundred thousand acres of land, on condition 
 that he should settle upon them a hundred families. These and more 
 he brought out from the north of Ireland, Scotland, and the border 
 counties of England. In the course of ten years, from 1730 to 1740, 
 Friends, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, and Germans from Pennsylvania, 
 as well as emigrants to Virginia direct from Germany and Ireland, 
 scattered themselves through this rich and beautiful valley from its 
 northern to its southern extremity. 
 
 In 1744 the Six Nations consented, in consideration of the sum of 
 four hundred pounds, to relinquish their title to all that 
 with the country lying between the western boundary of Virginia 
 and the Ohio River. Twenty-two years before, Spotswood 
 had secured a treaty with those tribes whereby they bound themselves 
 to abandon all the region east of the Blue Ridge and south of the 
 Potomac. Both treaties prepared the way for this steady and irre- 
 sistible progress of colonization westward, to be pushed a few years 
 later into the valley of the Ohio. 
 
 In the year of this treaty 1722 Spotswood ceased to be Gover- 
 
SPOTSU'OOD'S EXPEDITION OVER THE BLUE RIDGE. 
 
1722.] CONFLICTS WITH GOVERNOR SPOTSWOOD. 75 
 
 nor ; but he lived for eighteen years longer as a private citizen of Vir- 
 ginia, and must have seen with gratification the enlargement of the 
 area of the province, which was the object of his expedition across 
 the mountains. It was a continuation of that prosperity to which his 
 long administration had given so strong an impulse. The welfare of 
 Virginia was sincerely his aim, and his efforts were often successful, 
 notwithstanding the serious conflict of purpose and opinion between a 
 royal Governor and a provincial Assembly, so sure to manifest itself 
 in the course of a dozen years. The Burgesses were slow and cautious, 
 often obstinate, sometimes stolid, but always honest. The Governor, 
 conscious of his own integrity, and slow to see that there could be 
 any legitimate conflict between royal prerogative and popular right, 
 was very often imperious and contemptuous. The people had made 
 a mistake, he said to the House of Burgesses on one occasion, in the 
 choice " of a set of representatives whom heaven has not generally 
 endowed with the ordinary qualifications requisite to legislators," and 
 who put at the head of standing committees men who could neither 
 " spell English nor write common sense." The statement of fact no 
 doubt was true ; but neither that nor the terms used to convey it were 
 pleasant to hear, or likely to have a conciliatory influence. Patriotism 
 would not be less stern and uncompromising in men treated with such 
 hearty contempt, and they often made the Governor understand that 
 bad English and a poor style were not at all incompatible with a 
 clear comprehension of their rights and a vigorous defence of them. 
 They took the ground specially with relation to postal laws, but as 
 a general principle that Parliament could not enforce a tax in the 
 colony without the assent of the Assembly ; and the essential thing 
 was, not that they were not able always to carry out this doctrine 
 against the Governor, but that they should assert and maintain it as 
 a fundamental rule of conduct. Taxation without representation was 
 a phrase to remember for near three quarters of a century, though it 
 might be forgotten that when first loudly asserted in Virginia it was 
 provoked, perhaps, by a colonial governor declaring that the House of 
 Burgesses was a house of blockheads. 
 
 Of all the conflicts, however, in which Spotswood was involved, 
 none was more earnest and bitter than the old one in regard to 
 church patronage. The Governor, like his predecessors, claimed that 
 the presentation to pastoral livings was a privilege of his office, and 
 that any interference by the vestries was mere usurpation. There 
 was just as little disposition now as in the time of Andros and 
 Nicholson to relinquish the control of the individual churches over 
 their clergymen. As in former years, the Reverend Mr. Blair came 
 forward to lend the weight of his character and ability to the cause 
 
VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 removed. 
 
 of the vestries ; and, as in former years, the victory was with them. 
 With the aid of this controversy the enemies of Spotswood 
 prevailed against him, and he was removed in 1722. 
 As an influential private citizen he was, perhaps, of more service to 
 the colon}' than he had ever been as its governor. On his domain of 
 forty thousand acres he found beds of iron ore, established a furnace 
 and foundry, and gave to Virginia a new and important industry. 1 
 This identity with the interests of the colony, from his long residence 
 in it, brought him at length to juster and more liberal views of the 
 rights of the colonists. In ceasing to be Governor, however, he did 
 not retire altogether from public life. From 1730 to 1739, he was 
 
 Deputy Postmaster-general of 
 the colonies, and through him 
 Benjamin Franklin was ap- 
 pointed postmaster of the Prov- 
 ince of Pennsylvania. When 
 Virginia was called upon to 
 furnish troops in 1740 to aid 
 in the expedition against Car- 
 thagena, Spotswood was called 
 upon to take command, and 
 he died at the age of sixty- 
 four years while attending 
 to the active duties of the em- 
 bar kation at Annapolis. 
 Lawrence Washington a 
 half-brother of George Wash- 
 ington was a captain in 
 this expedition, and he after- 
 ward named his family-seat in 
 Virginia Mount Vernon, in 
 honor of the admiral under whom he served. 
 
 From the beginning of the century to about the end of Spots- 
 Progress of wood's administration, the population of Virginia doubled. 
 the colony, jj. Doubled a g a i n within the next five and twenty years, 
 a period through which Hugh Drysdale first after Spotswood and 
 William Gooch, from 1728 to 1749, were governors. This increase 
 was inevitable in the addition of a third to the settled area of the 
 province by the occupation of the region beyond the Blue Ridge. 
 Of still more moment was it that the emigrants attracted to that 
 
 1 He did not, however, as has been stated, introduce the manufacturing of iron into the 
 colonies. Two brothers, named Leonard, were the first manufacturers in the town of 
 Raynham, in Massachusetts, in 1652. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. iii. 
 
 Lawrence Washington. 
 
1736.] GREATER RELIGIOUS TOLERATION. 77 
 
 lovely valley, differed in many respects from those who first settled 
 upon the bottom lands of lower Virginia, and from their descendants 
 who still lived there. There were fewer among them who came to 
 America with the hope of acquiring fortunes ; more who came that 
 they might find permanent and peaceful homes ; fewer who sought 
 for large tracts of land for plantations ; more who were content with 
 enough to give them prosperous farms ; fewer who depended upon 
 the labor of slaves and servants ; more who tilled the earth with their 
 own hands, and were willing to eat their bread in the sweat of their 
 own faces ; fewer who prided themselves on gentle blood ; more who 
 were satisfied to remember that they came of the stock of English 
 yeomen, and that neither they, nor their fathers, nor their mothers, 
 were among those raked out of the prisons of England, and the gut- 
 ters and stews of London, to be sent to grow tobacco in Virginia ; 
 fewer who from habit trusted for spiritual guidance to the rollick- 
 ing parsons of the Established Church as the respectable religion of 
 the time ; more who had broken away from a formal worship which 
 seemed to them to be without sincerity or vitality, and who cherished, 
 instead, profound religious convictions, acquired by long and earnest 
 reflection, and made the rule of life. 
 
 The dissent which began at this period to assume a bolder tone in 
 the older part of the province, must have been strengthened by the 
 influence of the Quakerism and Presbyterianism of these later emi- 
 grants. But as the prosperity of the colony increased, some portion 
 of the new element was absorbed by Eastern Virginia as its popula- 
 tion slowly crept up the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge from the 
 alluvial region between that and the sea. Greater freedom of thought 
 and a larger religious toleration went step by step with the material 
 progress of the colony. Governor Gooch was much more troubled in 
 the later years of his administration with the frequency of itinerant 
 preaching, and the gathering of dissenting churches, than with the old 
 question of the power of vestries in the Established Church. What 
 was the purpose of a pulpit, and what manner of man should occupy 
 it, came to be questions of more moment than how a man should be 
 put into a pulpit which the state had built. Whitefield was as 
 warmly welcomed on his first visit to Virginia as among the Puritans 
 of the northern colonies, not because he was in orders, but because of 
 his power as a field-preacher. The New Lights were a terror to the 
 soul of Governor Gooch ; but commissary Blair invited the founder of 
 the Methodist Church in America to preach at Williamsburg. 
 
 At Williamsburg, that which Berkeley had so deprecated, and Cul- 
 pepper and Effingham would not tolerate, had already come to pass. 
 A printing-press was set up in 1736, and William Pai'ks published a 
 
78 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. III. 
 
 weekly newspaper. The growing wants of a growing people found 
 New towns their own remedy. Towns which legislation had tried so 
 
 tien. j on g j n va j n ^ Q crea t e , sprung up where they were needed. 
 Increasing commerce wanted new ports ; increasing production new 
 centres of traffic. Norfolk was incorporated near the entrance to 
 Chesapeake Bay ; Fredericksburg and Fal mouth at the head of tide- 
 water on the Rappahannock ; at the Falls of the James, partly upon 
 land that once belonged to Nathaniel Bacon, William Byrd, an 
 eminent and wealthy citizen, laid out a town to be called Richmond, 
 and on the Appomattox another to be called Petersburg. New 
 counties were made, among them Albemarle, so called from the 
 Earl of Albemarle, who was appointed the titular Governor on the 
 death of Orkney in 1737, and in these, the convenient neighbor- 
 hood of two or three log-houses, as at Winchester and Staunton, 
 speedily grew to county-seats and market towns. 
 
 Gooch relinquished his office in 1749 and returned to England. 
 
 Three successive presidents of the Council, John Robin- 
 
 Govemor son, Thomas Lee, and Lewis Burwell, discharged the duties 
 
 Dinwitldie. 
 
 of Governor till the arrival of Robert Dinwiddie in 1752. 
 Under his administration Virginia, in extending her rule still farther 
 westward, was led into new and momentous relations to the general 
 welfare of the American colonies. 
 
 For the first twenty years of this century there had been little 
 change in the neighboring province of Maryland, except that it was 
 restored once more to the Baltimore family. Charles, Lord Balti- 
 more, died in 1714 ; his son, Benedict Leonard Calvert, had surren- 
 dered his Catholic faith, had accepted a pension from Queen Anne, 
 and had educated his children as Protestants. He died not long after 
 his father, and to his son, Charles, then a child, were restored those 
 political rights as Proprietary which had been taken from his grand- 
 father at the accession of William and Mary. John Hart, the last 
 royal Governor, was continued in office as Baltimore's lieutenant for 
 twelve years. Except for two years, the Proprietary governed his 
 colony by deputies, till, at his death, Frederick, his son, succeeded 
 him in 1751. This, the sixth and last Lord Baltimore, left the prov- 
 ince, by will, to his natural son, Henry Harford, in 1771. 
 
 The rule of the Protestant Baltimores was as gentle and as just 
 as that of their Catholic predecessors had been, and it is sometimes 
 remarked that the prosperity of the colony seemed suspended under 
 the royal governors. But, in truth, as no marked difference in the 
 character of the government of Catholic and Protestant Baltimores 
 is visible, so no lasting influence can be traced in the administra- 
 tion of proprietary and royal governors. Maryland, like Virginia, 
 
1733.] 
 
 PAPER MONEY IN MARYLAND. 
 
 79 
 
 like the other colonies at a certain period, emerged from the time of 
 struggle and dependence to enter upon another of ease and strength ; 
 and Mai'} land, more, perhaps, than any other colony, was left free to 
 grow and achieve prosperity, while the rule of royal governors was 
 too brief to permit of any serious innovation upon that popular inde- 
 pendence which the Proprietaries had submitted to, and had, in some 
 measure, permitted and encouraged. 
 
 There was, indeed, here as elsewhere, the same contention between 
 Governor and Assembly, but it belonged to both royal and proprietary 
 government. This, however, though it might delay, was not a se- 
 rious bar to the progress of 
 the colony. If very often 
 the colony would have been 
 happier without any gov- 
 ernor, so, no doubt, it could 
 sometimes have well spared 
 an Assembly. That, for ex- 
 ample, which in 1733 pro- 
 vided by a single act for the 
 issue of ninety thousand 
 pounds of paper money, in- 
 flicted upon the colony an 
 injury not easily recovered 
 from. It was more than a 
 pound to every inhabitant 
 of the province, and it was 
 distributed among them 
 partly by expenditures upon 
 public buildings, and partly 
 by loans. The bills, ere 
 long, sunk to one half their 
 nominal value, and, to pro- 
 vide a fund for their ulti- 
 mate redemption, the colo- 
 nists were compelled to submit to a heavy export tax upon their great 
 staple, tobacco. But Maryland was not singular in the committal of 
 this financial blunder. There was not a colony that did not believe, 
 and act upon its belief, that a pound and a paper promise to pay a 
 pound were of equal value ; not a colony that did not find the belief 
 a fallacy when the time came to pay the pound. 
 
 But for all this Maryland flourished. By the middle of the century 
 her people numbered about a hundred and thirty thousand; her aver- 
 age annual export of tobacco was thirty thousand hogsheads, and she 
 
 Frederick, last Lord Baltimore. 
 
80 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. III. 
 
 sent abroad also largely of wheat, and flour, and Indian corn. A 
 number of furnaces and forges were in successful operation, notwith- 
 standing the effort of the British Government to cripple this industry 
 by offering a bounty on the importation of English iron a measure 
 met by the Maryland Legislature by granting a hundred acres of land 
 to any one establishing a furnace or a forge. There were manufacto- 
 ries also of woollen and of linen, and tanners, shoemakers, and smiths 
 were encouraged by an export duty on the raw material of their 
 trades. One third of the people, however, were slaves, and their un- 
 skilled labor was inevitably forced into the over-production of a single 
 staple. Baltimore was laid out in 1729, on lands belonging to Charles 
 Carroll, and Frederick was founded sixteen years later. Other towns 
 were projected, but were of slow growth where they grew at all ; for, 
 as in lower Virginia, large plantations and slavery enforced a rural 
 population and a restricted industry. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CAROLINAS. 
 
 GOVERNOR MOORE'S MILITARY EXPEDITIONS AND THEIR RESULTS. TROUBLES 
 UNDER THE ADMINISTRATION OF SlR NATHANIEL JOHNSON. REPULSE OF A 
 FRENCH AND SPANISH INVASION. DISSENSION IN NORTH CAROLINA. CONTEST 
 BETWEEN GARY, GLOVER, AND HYDE FOR THE GOVERNORSHIP. INTERFERENCE OF 
 GOVERNOR SPOTSWOOD. INDIAN OUTBREAK IN NORTH CAROLINA. THE YEMAS- 
 SEE WAR IN THE SOUTHERN PROVINCE. INDIFFERENCE OF THE PROPRIETORS. 
 THE BCCCANEERS OF THE CAROLINA COAST. THEIR SUPPRESSION, AND DEATH OF 
 THE PIRATE-ADMIRAL, BLACK BEARD. REVOLUTION IN SOUTH CAROLINA. DEP- 
 OSITION OF GOVERNOR ROBERT JOHNSON. SIR FRANCIS NICHOLSON PROVIS- 
 IONAL GOVERNOR. PURCHASE OF THE CAROLINAS BY THE CROWN. ROBERT 
 JOHNSON REAPPOINTED AS ROYAL GOVERNOR. CONDITION OF THE PROVINCE. 
 
 THE unfortunate expedition of Governor Moore of South Carolina 
 against St. Augustine, related in another chapter, 1 had conse- Effects O f 
 quences of more moment than belonged to it as a merely 
 military disaster. It fastened a public debt of 6,000 upon a ^ 
 colony of only about five thousand people, created by the first issue of 
 paper currency, in that province, in the usual form of bills of credit; 
 and this was followed, in due time, by the inevitable depreciation and 
 consequent distress which, sooner or later, always attended that des- 
 perate expedient in every one of the colonies. The creation of this 
 debt was a question of grave difference of opinion among the people, 
 and this divided them into two parties, whose hostility grew more bit- 
 ter from year to year, as new occasions and new opportunities arose 
 to widen the breach and strengthen either one side or the other. 
 
 An administration that entailed such results as the issue of ambi- 
 tion or imbecility, might well be called an unmitigated evil, had not 
 Moore, after his return from Florida, undertaken that other and more 
 fortunate enterprise, by which a new southern frontier was Cam p a ign 
 gained at the expense of the Spaniards, and more territory "oS'them Un- 
 secured for future colonization. But even this service did dl1118 ' 
 little to reconcile the opposition. Moore was accused, and probably 
 with justice, of serving his own private ends on this expedition, by 
 
 1 See vol. ii., p. 559. 
 VOL. in. 6 
 
82 THE CAROLINAS. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 holding his Indian prisoners as slaves on his plantation, and in ex- 
 porting them for sale to the West Indies. It was not forgotten that 
 he had, not long before, dissolved an Assembly for withstanding his 
 attempt to get the whole trade with the Indians into his own hands, 
 that he might, it was said, the more easily kidnap or buy the savages 
 for that foreign slave-market. Perhaps he was not so bad as he was 
 painted ; but so little harmony was there, at any time, between him 
 and the representatives of the people, that Charleston was for several 
 days given over to riot when the question of raising funds to meet the 
 expense of the unsuccessful expedition against St. Augustine came 
 before the Assembly. 
 
 This confusion was still worse confounded when Sir Nathaniel 
 Johnson was appointed to office in Moore's place, at the ac- 
 
 Sir Nathan- . 
 
 iei Johnson cession of Queen Anne. Of this man Johnson, John Arch- 
 dale, the former Quaker Governor and a Proprietor, said, 
 that he "by a Chimical Wit, Zeal and Art, transmuted or turn'd this 
 Civil Difference into a Religious Controversy." l It was a religious 
 controversy, however, only so far as religious differences could be used 
 to compass a political end. 
 
 The official party, the friends and servants of the Lords Proprie- 
 tors, were of the Established Church ; their opponents, who were 
 largely country people, were dissenters. Dissent, however, was with 
 many of them more a matter of tradition than conviction. The gen- 
 eration then native of the soil, and living upon isolated plantations, 
 had grown up in ignorance, destitute of schools and of churches, but 
 inheriting a feeling that no church at all was better than the Church 
 of England. Many, it is said, went farther than this, and had lost 
 all religious faith. Ostensibly to punish these unbelievers, Johnson's 
 first Assembly passed an act depriving of their civil rights all who 
 blasphemed the Trinity, or questioned the Divine authority of the 
 Bible, and condemning them to three years' imprisonment. 
 
 It is hardly credible that there could be many in the province ob- 
 Actsofthe noxious to this law. Infidelity is not often an intellectual 
 a^in'^lL. conviction or assertion with the merely ignorant; they cling 
 senters. rather to a religious belief of some sort, though their faith 
 may be little better than an unreasoning superstition. If, however, 
 the act of the Assembly was meant as a blow sit the opposition party, 
 it evidently failed of its purpose, and was therefore speedily followed 
 up by another, which was more effectual. This law required that 
 any citizen chosen as a member of the Assembly should conform to 
 the religion of the Church of England, and should partake of the 
 sacrament of the Lord's Supper in accordance with the rules of that 
 
 1 Aix-hdale's New Description, etc. Republished in Carroll's Hist. Coll. of S. C., vol. ii 
 
1704.] TROUBLES UNDER GOVERNOR JOHNSON. 83 
 
 church. The act was passed by a single vote ; the election to the 
 Assembly of many of the majority was disputed as carried by corrupt 
 and arbitrary measures ; yet, by this law, every dissenter in the 
 colony was virtually disfranchised, and the popular party which 
 embraced all the dissenters, and far outnumbered their opponents 
 was left completely at the mercy of the minority who represented the 
 Lords Proprietors, and who governed the colony, not for the good of 
 the people, but for their own profit. 
 
 The disfranchised party sent an agent John Ashe to England 
 to represent their grievances to the Proprietors. He escaped with 
 some difficulty, when his errand became known, from Carolina; and 
 he might as well have remained there, so far as any redress awaited 
 him in London. Archdale, in his place at the Board of Pro- 
 prietors, maintained the rights of the colonists with the same the Proprie- 
 zeal and integrity that he had shown when their governor. 
 But the majority was against him, and Lord Granville, the " Pala- 
 tine," cut short the debate by exclaiming : " Sir, you are of one opin- 
 ion, I am of another; our lives may not be long enough to end the 
 controversy. I am for the bills, and this is the party I will head and 
 support." 
 
 Granville was a bigoted churchman, and cared much more for the 
 religious than the political aspect of the question. A proposal to build 
 a parish church in each county of the province, and to compel the peo- 
 ple to worship therein, would with him condone a multitude of polit- 
 ical sins, even if, in his estimation, the political purposes concealed 
 beneath the religious pretense were sins at all. The Governor re- 
 ceived the assurance that the Lords Proprietors approved of the " un- 
 wearied and steady zeal " with which he had prosecuted a " great 
 and pious work " for " the honor and worship of Almighty God." 
 With this success the zeal of Johnson and his party was redoubled. 
 Churches were to be built and pastors provided, and lest this last 
 duty should be neglected, the ecclesiastical government of the colo- 
 nial church, which rightfully belonged to the Bishop of London, was 
 vested in a commission of twenty laymen to be appointed by the Gov- 
 ernor. The quarrel, in this aspect of it, was essentially the same 
 as that which, about the same period, agitated Virginia, and ousted 
 three governors successively from their seats. 
 
 The dissenters, who were about two thirds of the population, had 
 been contending chiefly, thus far, for the right of keeping s uccesrful 
 in the Assembly ; they were now forced to contend also for fhe'dusent- 
 the right of keeping out of the parish church, if it so pleased ere- 
 them. A new agent Joseph Boone was sent to England, but this 
 time to look for redress in higher quarters than from the Proprietors. 
 
84 
 
 THE CAROLIXAS. 
 
 [ClIAP. IV. 
 
 The appeal was made directly to the House of Lords. That body 
 condemned in terms positive and emphatic the act relating to religious 
 worship, and that which excluded dissenters from the Assembly ; and 
 they referred the petition of the complainants to the Queen, with a, 
 prayer that their wrongs might be righted, and that those persons 
 
 Granville and Archdale. 
 
 should be punished who were, guilty of so flagrant and oppressive 
 a misuse of power. Anne responded by declaring the objectionable 
 laws to be null and void, and forthwith ordered the law officers of the 
 Crown to take immediate steps for the revocation of the charter. 
 
 The issue of a writ of quo warranto and the proceedings under it 
 were never, as we have so often seen in the case of other provinces, 
 
1706.] FRENCH AND SPANISH INVASION. 85 
 
 measures rapidly disposed of. Lord Granville died a few months 
 after the Queen's decision, and Lord Craven, a man of less arbitrary 
 temper and of better judgment, stepped into his place as Palatine. 
 A few months afterward, toward the close of the year 1708, Colonel 
 Edward Tynte was appointed Governor in Johnson's place. He 
 came with instructions from Craven so conciliatory and considerate 
 that differences were reconciled and animosities subdued for 
 
 An interval 
 
 several years. It was only for a few years, however. The of i uiet - 
 seeds of dissension sown in Johnson's administration had taken too 
 deep a root to be easily eradicated. They bore fruit an hundred fold, 
 as we shall see presently, and Carolina ceased to be a proprietary 
 colony. 
 
 Before Johnson's removal, however, one opportunity occurred to 
 him of showing that, at least as a soldier, he was worthy of being 
 entrusted with the command of a province. Intelligence reached 
 him that an attack was to be made upon Charleston by the 
 French and Spanish, partly as a war measure against the south caro- 
 power of England on the American continent, partly in sup- 
 port of the old Spanish claim to Carolina. His preparations to meet 
 the threatened invasion were prompt and vigorous. Fort Johnson 
 still standing, and under the same name was built on James Island 
 in Charleston harbor ; redoubts were thrown up on that exposed front 
 of the city since known as the Battery ; and a corps of observation 
 was placed on Sullivan's Island to give the earliest possible notice, by 
 signal fires, of the approach of an enemy. 
 
 The invading fleet consisted of a frigate and four smaller vessels, 
 under the command of a Captain Le Feboure, a Frenchman. He sailed 
 from Havana in August, 1706, touching at St. Augustine to take on 
 board some Spanish recruits, and in due time appeared in Charleston 
 harbor. The Governor had ordered all the militia of the province 
 under arms, reinforced by all the friendly Indians within reach ; guns 
 and ammunition were hurried on board six merchant vessels in the 
 harbor, and these put under the command of William Rhett as admiral. 
 Everything was done that could be done by a prudent and brave com- 
 mander. When Le Feboure sent a flag to demand a surrender, the 
 summons was received with defiance ; the messenger was taken blind- 
 folded from fortification to fortification, to be shown a well-appointed 
 force in each. The men were quietly marched from one point to 
 another, in advance of the unsuspicious Frenchman, who supposed 
 that he was brought face to face with a new company whenever his 
 e} - es were uncovered. Every attempt of Le Feboure to make 
 good a landing was repulsed. Rhett's little fleet of mer- 
 chantmen were handled like men-of-wai, and the end was that the 
 
86 
 
 THE CAROLIXAS. 
 
 [CHAP. IV. 
 
 French retired in a few days, completely baffled and disheartened, and 
 a ship with ninety men on board, sent to reinforce Le Feboure, which 
 arrived soon after he left, remained as a prize in the hands of the Caro- 
 linians. 
 
 In 1704, Henderson Walker, who as President of the Council was 
 acting Governor of North Carolina, died, and Johnson was directed 
 North caro- by Lord Granville to appoint some one to take that office, 
 ima affairs. jj e name( j Colonel Robert Daniel, who, it may be remem- 
 bered, was engaged with Moore in his unlucky expedition against St. 
 Augustine. Daniel, like Johnson, was a churchman ; whatever John- 
 son did to secure supremacv for the pro- 
 
 , _ i s^t " 
 
 prietary party in South Carolina, Daniel 
 
 The French Messenger at Charleston. 
 
 was equally eager to do, so far as 
 it was necessary to gain the same 
 end, within his jurisdiction. When, 
 therefore, John Ashe passed through North Carolina on his way to 
 Virginia, to find a passage to England, he was received with open 
 arms by the Quakers and other dissenters of the province, who felt 
 that the cause which he represented was theirs also. They accord- 
 ingly empowered one Edmund Porter, a Friend, to join Ashe in his 
 mission to England, to represent to the Lords Proprietors how griev- 
 ously they were wronged by this new Governor whom Johnson had 
 appointed to rule over them. 
 
1707.] AFFAIRS OF NORTH CAROLINA. . 87 
 
 For some reason, not now apparent, Porter was more successful 
 than his colleague, and the Board of Proprietors directed 
 Johnson to remove Daniel and make a new appointment. He 
 selected Thomas Gary, who soon became as obnoxious as nhern 
 Daniel had been, and especially so to Friends, whom he 
 would not admit to seats in the Assembly, or to any other office, with- 
 out exacting an oath, to take which was forbidden both by their con- 
 sciences and the discipline of their society. Porter was once more 
 dispatched to England, to ask redress, and was once more listened to 
 with favor. Archdale's influence with the other Proprietors was suf- 
 ficient not only for the removal of Gary, but to take from Johnson all 
 the power that had been left in his hands as Governor-general of the 
 two provinces, and to give to the Council of North Carolina a body 
 nominated by the Lords Proprietors the right to elect a chief mag- 
 istrate for that colony. 
 
 The Council to which several new members had been appointed, 
 some of whom probably, through Archdale's influence, were Rcmova i and 
 Friends assembled when Porter returned, and elected J^aJJ^b" 
 William Glover Governor. But Glover was also a church- the Council - 
 man, and no more disposed than his predecessor to admit Friends to 
 office without the legal formality of the oath. The Council thereupon 
 reassembled, deposed Glover, and elected Gary. The natural conclu- 
 sion is, that a compromise had been made between Gary and the 
 Friends, inasmuch as Gary, when in office before, had insisted upon 
 the oath, while now Friends were permitted to affirm instead of swear- 
 ing. 
 
 But the important question was, who was the rightful Governor? On 
 one side it was asserted that Glover's election had been illegal be- 
 cause the Council had come together before the time appointed for 
 their meeting ; on the other, it was declared that Gary had no right to 
 the office, because some of the old delegates, who had been superseded 
 by new appointments, had been admitted to the meeting which elected 
 him and deposed Glover. There is no conclusive evidence now attain- 
 able from which a positive judgment can be pronounced on this ques- 
 tion ; but it is a case where testimony as to previous character has great 
 weight. So far as that may influence the verdict, the Gary party were 
 in the right. Whatever may have been his motives, those of the 
 Friends were pure ; for they at least were contending for religious 
 toleration, freedom of conscience, and their civil rights ; and Disputes 
 there is nothing in the history of that sect, either in North %? by 
 Carolina or anywhere else, to justify the supposition that chan s e8 - 
 they would condescend to any dishonest measures to attain an end, 
 however just and desirable. That the end does not justify the means 
 
TIIK CAROLTXAS. 
 
 [CHAP. IV. 
 
 is a fundamental principle of their faith, and one to which as a so- 
 ciety they have been generally true. The result, nevertheless, was 
 disastrous. Both Glover and Gary assumed to be the legitimate Gov- 
 ernor ; the Council was divided between them, and both assumed, 
 with their adherents, to represent the Proprietors ; and both issued 
 writs for the election of representatives to a new Assembly. 
 
 Here, however, Gary proved to be the stronger ; the people were 
 on his side ; the Assembly, when it came together, recognized him 
 
 and his Council, and repudiated 
 Glover. A bitter contest followed, 
 which lasted two or three years, 
 leading to violence and even blood- 
 shed, till Glover and his immediate 
 associates fled for refuge to Virginia. 
 This civil contention, injurious to a 
 
 Gary before Hyde's House. 
 
 colony still struggling for existence, was the prelude, perhaps in some 
 degree the cause, of still further disaster. 
 
 It was not till 1710 that the Lords Proprietors in England gave any 
 sign of consciousness of the strife with which this poi'tion of their do- 
 - minion was torn. Then they appointed Edward Hyde as 
 t. Governor, and sent orders to Tynte at Charleston, as titular 
 Governor-general, to issue a commission to him. When Hyde arrived 
 Tynte was dead ; the only proof, therefore, of his appointment that 
 the new Governor could exhibit was that contained, it was said, in 
 
1710.] CONTEST FOR THE GOVERNORSHIP. 89 
 
 some private and unofficial letters from individual Proprietors. Gary 
 at first hesitated, and then refused, to accept this as sufficient evi- 
 dence. How far he was justified in this course it is impossible to 
 judge now, as we know nothing of the character and the number of 
 the alleged letters. That Hyde had no official commission, and Gary, 
 therefore, acted within the law, is acknowledged. He seemed to 
 apprehend violence, and fortified his house against a possible attack ; 
 then, growing more confident, as he found that his own party did not 
 fall away from him, he armed two vessels, filled them with soldiers, 
 sailed into Chowan Sound, and attempted to land at a place where 
 Hyde and his Council were assembled, apparently with the purpose of 
 seizing Hyde. Baffled in this, he retired to Pamlico and proposed to 
 make a stand at the house of one Roach. This Roach was a trader 
 recently arrived from England, and the agent of a commercial house 
 in which John Danson was a partner. The fact has its significance, 
 for Danson was a son-in-law of Archdale's, to whom Archdale had 
 two years before conveyed all his right and title as a Proprietor of 
 Carolina. 1 From Roach Gary received material aid in arms Cary op . 
 and ammunition, as well as a welcome to his house. The P se8him - 
 trader understood, probably, the wishes and the interests of his em- 
 ployers, and in aiding Cary in Carolina represented truly the Quaker, 
 or non-conformist, element in the Board of Proprietors in England. 
 
 In this crisis of affairs Hyde repeatedly appealed to Spotswood of 
 Virginia for help. It was finally granted, for Spotswood was a royal 
 Governor, and to him all who arrayed themselves, for whatever cause, 
 against constituted authority were only a " mutinous rabble." His 
 Council agreed with him in the necessity of suppressing an " insur- 
 rection " which might prove of evil influence among the discontented 
 of their own colony ; even the House of Burgesses assented to his in- 
 terference, while they showed that they were not without sympathy 
 for the popular party by refusing to grant all the men and money that 
 he thought the occasion demanded. But for this, perhaps, he would 
 not have condescended to negotiation. 
 
 Negotiation, however, was first tried ; naturally nothing but delay 
 came of it. Both parties had gone too far to yield to anything but 
 force. The Governor of Virginia then called out the militia of the 
 border counties to march into Carolina, and bring that force to bear 
 upon Cary ; but the militia did not respond to this summons. The 
 people of those counties were almost all Friends, and if they 
 
 fj -i Spotswood 
 
 could at any time be induced to take up arms, it certainly interferes in 
 
 J , J the dispute. 
 
 was not now, when they were to be used against their own 
 brethren. Spotswood asked that a sufficient force from some naval 
 
 1 Hawks's History of North Carolina, vol. ii. 
 
90 THE CAROLINAS. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 vessels, which just then happened to be in Virginia, might be put 
 under his orders ; but their commanders refused, on the plea that such 
 a service was beyond the line of their duty. There was one other re- 
 source left to the Governor : he ordered out the marines on board the 
 guard-ships of Virginia, and sent them to Carolina. Their number 
 must have been small, but they proved to be sufficient. At their ap- 
 pearance, Gary and the few followers by whom he was surrounded 
 dispersed without a blow. When it came to a question of serious 
 armed resistance or submission, he knew that he had no alternative 
 but to submit. 
 
 Why ? Not because the party which had sustained him were cow- 
 ards, but because they were Friends. In numbers they far exceeded 
 their opponents ; Gary and his immediate associates, it is plain, were 
 ready enough to lead them to the utmost extremity of armed revolt ; 
 the successful issue of such a revolt was by no means hopeless. But 
 cary-ssub- Gary knew that he and his half dozen followers could not 
 mission. carry on a civil war alone ; he knew that to their ambitious 
 personal aims if they had any the great body of the people who 
 had thus far sustained him were utterly indifferent; he knew that 
 that support was given for the cause of religious freedom as the 
 Quakers understood it ; but not even for that cause would these peo- 
 ple take up arms in violation of their profoundest religious convictions 
 There seems to be no other rational explanation of this sudden col- 
 lapse of a promising rebellion. It entered upon a new stage with the 
 appearance of troops who represented a government determined ta 
 suppress it by force of arms. In that last resort the Friends had 
 no response to make ; the weapons with which they fought the good 
 fight were not carnal weapons. 
 
 What this may have had to do with subsequent events it is impos- 
 sible, from the meagre records of the time, to tell. Gary and two or 
 three others were arrested and sent to England as prisoners by Spots- 
 wood, but they were never brought to trial. A universal pardon was 
 proclaimed for all except the half dozen leaders, but even these seem 
 to have escaped punishment. In 1714 we hear of Gary residing in, 
 or visiting, North Carolina, 1 unmolested. This forbearance may have 
 been due, in some measure, to the indifference of the Proprietors to 
 the affairs of a colony which it was more profitable to let alone than 
 to care for. But it is also probable that the conciliatory spirit of 
 Friends, prompting them rather to suffer than to do evil, was not 
 without influence. All, at any rate, that they could have gained by 
 violent resistance was soon accorded them. In 1713 Charles Eden 
 
 1 " Colonel Gary is gone for the West Indies but intends in again this Fall." Letter 
 from Governor Pollock to Governor Spotswood. Cited by Hiiwks from Polloc'k MSS. 
 
1711.] INDIAN OUTBREAK IN NORTH CAROLINA. 91 
 
 was appointed Governor by the Proprietors, and from his time, 
 though the Church of England was established by law, relig- 
 ious freedom was also acknowledged as the right of every of the 
 man, and the affirmation of a Quaker was accepted in place 
 of an oath. 
 
 Among the accusations made against Gary was one which, if true, 
 should have brought him to condign punishment, but which, as he 
 was not punished at all, was probably known to be an invention of 
 partisan animosity. Hyde was hardly in quiet and undisputed pos- 
 session of his office when he was called upon to meet a new and more 
 terrible calamity. An Indian war suddenly broke out and swept 
 over the colony. Gary, it was said, had sent emissaries among the 
 Tuscaroras and incited them to hostilities to create a diversion in hia 
 favor. It is far more likely that the savages, observing the anarchy 
 resulting from the dissensions among the colonists, hoped that an op- 
 portunity had come for their annihilation. 
 
 Gary and his adherents had dispersed early in July, 1711 ; the 
 appointed day of the massacre planned by the Indians was not till 
 September. To suppose that Gary could have had anything to do 
 with it, is to assume that he could resort to measures simply diaboli- 
 cal to satiate his vengeance upon political enemies. 
 
 The Tuscaroras had induced all the smaller tribes to unite with 
 them in a general conspiracy against the English ; the half- Warwith 
 tamed savages who lived in the neighborhood of the whites, ^^"xoS 
 and those who were servants in their houses, agreed to join Carolina - 
 in the work of slaughter at the hour appointed. And they kept their 
 word. From every dwelling where these trusted servants had their 
 homes came the signal war-whoop, at break of day, to the bands who 
 the night before had concealed themselves in the vicinity of every 
 settlement of whites along the Roanoke, the Neuse, and the Pamlico. 
 Hundreds were slain within an hour, and those who escaped fled 
 from their burning houses to seek a shelter in the woods. 
 
 XT 11 iir i I'll- Massacres 
 
 .None of the sudden outbreaks of savage hate which from along the 
 
 >iii i ii- Roanoke. 
 
 time to tune had burst upon the several colonies was ever 
 more furious or more fatal than this. For three days it swept un- 
 checked over the province from its southern to its northern extremity, 
 and then only ceased for the want of more victims when not a man, 
 woman, or child was to be found outside of the shelter of a house 
 garrisoned for a siege. 
 
 Among those who suffered most were a company of Swiss and Ger- 
 mans whom persecution had driven from the Palatinate to England, 
 and thence to find new homes in Carolina, The leader of these peo- 
 ple was the Baron De Graffenried, a Swiss gentleman from the Canton 
 
 : 
 
92 
 
 THE CAROLINAS. 
 
 [CHAP. IV. 
 
 The Swiss 
 
 of Berne, and in his honor the town in and near which they settled 
 was called New Berne. A few days before the outbreak, De 
 Graffcnried and John Lawson, the Surveyor-general of the 
 Kate colony and its earliest historian, had gone up the Neuse to 
 andc* of- learn how far it was navigable, and to select and survey lands 
 fenried. or new settlements. They were taken prisoners by the 
 Indians, and Lawson was soon put to death with horrible tortures. 
 Had their captivity been known, it would have been a warning to the 
 colonists of the hostile purposes of the savages; but the baron was not 
 
 released for several weeks, and then only on 
 condition of entering into a treaty with the 
 Tuscaroras and Cores, binding his people to re- 
 main neutral in the war, and to take possession 
 of no lands without the consent of those tribes. 
 
 Lawson and De Graffenried. 
 
 He was faithful to this agreement, and was enabled thereby to save 
 the remnant of the Palatines whom the massacre had spared ; he was 
 better able, moreover, to serve the colony at large by the information 
 he gained, while the war continued, from friendly Indians, than if he 
 had taken up arms. 
 
 Meanwhile Governor Hyde appealed to Virginia and South Caro- 
 lina for aid. The generous and impulsive Spotswood was restrained 
 by the cautious Burgesses, and was compelled to content himself with 
 

 1713.] END OF THE WAR IN NORTH CAROLINA. 93 
 
 interceding with the Indians. But more immediate help came from 
 Governor Craven of South Carolina. Colonel Barnwell, at 
 the head of a small body of militia and several hundred of south CMO- 
 the Yemassees, made a toilsome march through the wilder- 
 ness from Charleston to the Neuse, and there joined the small force 
 Governor Hyde had gathered to await their coming. The Tuscaroras 
 had built a fort about twenty miles from Newbern, and had retired 
 there in great numbers. Here they gave Barnwell battle in the open 
 field, but lost three hundred killed, and a hundred taken prisoners ; 
 the rest were driven back to their fortifications, with many wounded. 
 
 But this did not happen till within a day or two of the end of 
 January. For more than a third of a year the North Carolinians had 
 been shut up in their garrison houses. Their crops were lost ; their 
 farms and villages, through the southern portion of the province, 
 were destroyed ; in almost every family there was the sound of lamen- 
 tation for dead relatives or friends ; the living were reduced to pov- 
 erty, even to absolute suffering for the want of food ; it was a long 
 winter of sorrow, of terrible fear, of continual privations, that this 
 victory of Barnwell's broke in upon, and without that relief the 
 colony would have soon ceased to exist. 
 
 The siege of the Tuscarora fort was not a long one. Barnwell was 
 wounded ; he found it difficult to feed his men ; his Indian allies were 
 restless and impatient, as Indians always are of any work requiring 
 steady and quiet persistence. He raised the siege, made a treaty, and 
 returned to South Carolina. The North Carolinians bitterly com- 
 plained that he had abandoned them ; for the Tuscaroras broke the 
 treaty, renewed hostilities, and sought an alliance with the Senecas, of 
 the Five Nations, to carry on the war. The summer was spent by 
 both parties in preparations for a renewal of the struggle. 
 
 In the autumn Hyde died, and Colonel Pollock, a man of more 
 energy, was chosen Governor. A general Indian war was 
 
 i i i TT- < Pollock Gov- 
 
 dreaded in all the southern colonies ; the Virginia House of emor. The 
 
 _ , ~ -, Indian war 
 
 iJurgesses gave a more hearty support to opotswood s meas- ended in the 
 lives of defence, and South Carolina sent a larger force, 
 under the command of Colonel James Moore, to the relief of the 
 northern province. Pollock, meanwhile, sowed division among the 
 Tuscaroras, and seduced Tom Blunt, an influential chief, from his alle- 
 giance. Moore overtook the remainder of the tribe, with others who 
 had entered into alliance with them, in a fortified camp near the pres- 
 ent village of Snow Hill, on an affluent of the Neuse, in March, 1713. 
 His attack was so vigorous that the war was then and there virtually 
 ended. A large number of the enemy were slain, and eight hundred 
 were taken prisoners, most of whom the southern Indians carried back 
 
94 
 
 THE CAROLIXAS. 
 
 [CHAP. IV. 
 
 to South Carolina as slaves. A remnant of the Tuscarovas fled north- 
 ward, and the Five Nations from that time became the Six Nations by 
 the absorption of the tribe. The submission of all the Indians remain- 
 ing in North Carolina was absolute. They had staked everything 
 on this final contest. But if affairs with them were desperate, they 
 were hardly less so with the English. An estimate of the resources 
 
 of the colony, made 
 a few days after the 
 battle, showed that 
 there were but thir- 
 ty-two barrels of 
 meat and eight 
 hundred bushels of 
 corn in the whole 
 province. 
 
 The force led to 
 the suppression of 
 this Indian war iu 
 North Carolina, 
 first by Barn well 
 and then by Moore, 
 was composed al- 
 most entirely of 
 Yemassees. Could 
 these Indians have 
 looked forward for 
 only two years, and 
 acted on that fore- 
 sight, it is quite 
 possible that not a white man 
 would have been left south 
 of the Virginia boundary. An 
 alliance between the Tuscaroras 
 and the Yemassees would have been 
 too formidable to be met with any 
 hope of successful resistance. But 
 when the destruction and dispersion of the Tuscaroras made such an 
 alliance impossible, then the Yemassees undertook to do alone that 
 which they had just prevented the northern tribe from doing, that 
 which by their combined strength could have been so easily accom- 
 plished. 
 
 For, in the spring of 1715 the southern Indians sent the " bloody 
 stick," as a signal for war, from Cape Fear to the St. John's River, 
 
 The " Bloody Stick." 
 
1715.] 
 
 THE YEMASSEE WAR IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 95 
 
 erenee. 
 
 carrying dismay through South Carolina from the frontier to the coast. 
 In a single instance only was there any warning of the calamity. 
 Sanute, a Yemassee chief, had become warmly attached to a 
 Scotch settler on the frontier, named Fraser, and to his wife, of the Ye- 
 a beautiful woman whom the Indian regarded with great rev- 
 To both he had sworn eternal fidelity, confirming his oath by 
 
 the ceremony usual, 
 among his people, of 
 washing their faces 
 with water scented 
 with certain herbs, 
 and vowing with his 
 hands upon his breast 
 that whatever came 
 to his knowledge 
 should be toldto 
 them. True to his 
 vow, he came secretly 
 to Mrs. Fraser, an- 
 nounced to her that 
 the " blood v stick" 
 
 / 
 
 had been sent from 
 tribe to tribe, and that 
 
 Sanute and Mrs. Fraser. 
 
 they must flee for their lives. It may have been a part of the agree- 
 ment that any secret communicated by the Indian to his friends 
 should not be revealed to others ; at any rate, though the Frasers 
 accepted the warning for themselves, and fled to the coast, they gave 
 no hint of the coming danger to the scattered settlers, whose houses 
 they passed in their flight. 
 
 For a few days even Charleston trembled for its safety, as the few 
 who escaped the sudden outbreak fled to the town from the outlying 
 
96 THE CAROLINAS. [CuAP. IV. 
 
 plantations. The massacre, however, soon ceased, for the want of de- 
 fenceless victims. The Indians were now compelled to meet an organ- 
 ized force led by Governor Craven, who defeated them in a general 
 fight near Port Royal. The victory was so complete that the savages 
 were driven through the wilderness across the Florida border, and the 
 province relieved altogether from a people far more to be feared than 
 trusted, notwithstanding their past services. They left behind them 
 the ashes of hundreds of homes, and the bodies of more than four 
 hundred of the victims of their barbarity and hate. The outbreak 
 was supposed to be instigated by the Spaniards ; but whether this was 
 true or false, the savages were received with welcome and applause in 
 Florida, and encouraged in future raids. These, however, were suffi- 
 ciently guarded against by two or three military outposts along the 
 southern frontiers. 
 
 Two years only had passed away since the existence of North Caro- 
 lina seemed merely a question of hours. Both colonies, had 
 
 Final defeat . . -i . i i 
 
 of the their enemies united, might have been destroyed between 
 
 Indians. . ' J 
 
 sunrise and sunset. Now, rather through savage fatuity than 
 the prowess of the whites, these remained in quiet possession of that 
 broad domain, while the powerful tribes who claimed it as theirs 
 were scattered north and south, separated from each other by almost 
 half the length of the continent. The beautiful forests, the lovely 
 islands, the noble mountains, of their old homes, above all the graves 
 of their fathers, were to be to them henceforth only a tradition. In 
 all the colonial history of North America there is no more remark- 
 able instance of how events, not brought about by the English, but of 
 which, nevertheless, they knew how to take advantage, served to dis- 
 possess the Indians of their country and give it into the hands of 
 a new people. 
 
 In all these years the Proprietors in England had left the colonies, 
 for the most part, to prosper or to perish, as events, which they made 
 little or no effort to control, should determine. Or rather, if an 
 earlier historian l is right, the Proprietors did far worse by the colo- 
 nists than to neglect them ; for their affairs were left to the manage- 
 ment of a secretary, so far as they were managed at all, and this man 
 was moved in all that he did by Nicholas Trott, of South Carolina. 
 Trott was Chief Justice for years, Judge at the same time of the 
 Vice-admiralty Court, President of the Council, sometimes acting 
 Course of Governor, always in office, always using the proprietary 
 tor* 'Turing" secretary for his own purposes and those of his party. But 
 this period so ar as t ] ie Proprietors acted at all, of their own volition, 
 in the affairs of the colonies, it was to neglect them where their inter. 
 
 1 Hewit's History of the Rise and Progress of the Colony of South Carolina. 
 
1717.J THE CAROLINA BUCCANEERS. 97 
 
 ference would have been a help, to interfere when neglect was ot 
 all things to be most desired. They were left to defend themselves as 
 best they could against their savage enemies ; to reconcile the strife 
 of factions ; to stagger under the load of debt which war created, a 
 burden added to by the attempt to relieve it by the issue of bills of 
 credit. But any scheme for adding to the revenue of the Proprietors 
 by an increase of taxes was certain of their approbation ; any op- 
 pressive measure contrived by their officers they were sure to sustain. 
 To acts of the Assembly of South Carolina to regulate trade with the 
 Indians, and to secure a free and general election of representatives 
 both of imperative necessity for the public welfare the Proprietors 
 refused their assent. When the lands vacated by the Yemassees were 
 taken possession of by the colony, and opened to the use of settlers, 
 they were seized by the Proprietors for their own use, and hundreds 
 of new emigrants ruined by demands, for rent and purchase-money, 
 impossible to meet. Craven's successor, Robert Johnson, a son of the 
 former Governor, Sir Nathaniel Johnson, received instructions that 
 took from the Assembly almost, all voice in the government of the 
 colony, the Proprietors declaring that all legislation should be sub- 
 mitted to them, and that they should reject and repeal all laws as they 
 saw fit. A royal order in Council was about the same time received, 
 requiring the repeal of an act levying ten per cent, on all British 
 goods imported, from which came alrn'ost the only revenue for the sup- 
 port of the colony, except direct taxation. 
 
 The public debt was augmented soon after Johnson's accession, 
 by a necessary public service, and this added burden fell, as usual, 
 upon the colonists. The pirates who had always, more or 
 less, lurked along the Carolina coast, had become so bold the Carolina 
 that they could be tolerated no longer. The island of Provi- 
 dence, one of the Bahamas, had long been a convenient rendezvous 
 for these buccaneers, but driven thence by an expedition under Cap- 
 tain Woodes Rogers, who took possession of the island in the name 
 of the King, they had found convenient hiding-places in the sounds 
 and inlets of the Carolinas, particularly about Cape Fear. They were 
 the ruin of all legitimate commerce, and the terror of all honest sail- 
 ors. So well armed and manned were their vessels that they did not 
 hesitate to capture merchantmen within sight of the town of Charles- 
 ton, and extort a ransom from the government for any prisoners of 
 note that fell into their hands. The admiral of these rovers, one 
 Teach or Thache, but universally known by the more romantic name 
 of Black Beard, hoisted his flag upon a ship of forty guns, and the 
 squadron under his command consisted of six vessels. Three of his 
 
 VOL. III. 
 
98 THE CAKOLIXAS. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 captains, Vane, Worley, and Steed Bonnet, were as well known, and 
 almost as much dreaded, as himself. 
 
 The harbor of Charleston was kept under constant blockade by one 
 or more of these vessels, in turn, from the convenient station in the 
 month of Cape Fear River. Hardly a merchantman bound in or out, 
 could escape them, and so serious was the injury to the commerce of 
 the port that Johnson determined to put an end to it at all hazards. 
 He sent out a ship under command of William Rhett, and Steed Bon- 
 net awaited him outside the bar at the mouth of the harbor, till he 
 saw that the enemy was stronger than he dared encounter, 
 locution of Then he sailed for the station at Cape Fear. Thither Rhett 
 
 Steed Bonnet 
 
 followed, attacked and took the pirate with a crew of thirty 
 men. Returning with these to Charleston, they were speedily tried, 
 and twenty-nine of the thirty as speedily hanged. 
 
 Worley, another of the pirate captains, soon afterward appeared 
 in defiance at the mouth of the harbor, and the Governor, taking 
 command of his ship in person, went out to meet him. Worley 's 
 sloop carried six guns and was ready for battle. The engagement was 
 desperate ; no quarter was asked or given ; every man on board the 
 pirate, save the captain and one of the crew, was killed, and these two 
 refused to surrender, though they could fight no longer. Johnson 
 sailed back to town, in sight of which the battle was fought, and lest 
 And of wor- n ' s ^ wo wounded prisoners should cheat justice by dying of 
 their wounds, they were hanged immediately. 
 
 The loss of two vessels, of two of his bravest captains, and of so 
 many men, so crippled and alarmed Black Beard that he went with 
 twenty of his comrades before Governor Eden, of North Carolina, and 
 took advantage of a royal proclamation made some time before, prom- 
 ising pardon to all pirates who would surrender. He remained for a 
 while on shore, living a riotous life upon his ill-gotten gains, finding 
 among his neighbors on Pamlico Rivera young woman who consented 
 to be his thirteenth wife. This rural leisure and domestic bliss 
 though probably his wives were numbered with the ports where he 
 refitted he soon relinquished, and took to the sea again. For a 
 while he kept within the law, by bringing in vessels, found, he said, 
 deserted at sea, for condemnation in the court of admiralty. There 
 were grave suspicions that in this sort of salvage the Governor, the 
 secretary of the colony, and the admiralty judge had a share of the 
 profits. But even this pretence of an honest employment of his time 
 by Black Beard was soon abandoned, and he returned to his old 
 ways. 
 
 Either because Governor Eden wanted the strength or wanted the 
 will, to undertake the suppression and punishment of these bold buc- 
 
1718.] 
 
 SUPPRESSION OF THE BUCCANEERS. 
 
 cancers, Governor Spotswood was asked to send a naval force to the 
 relief of the North Carolinians. The Virginia Governor offered a 
 large reward for the pirate captain's head, and two armed sloops, un- 
 der the command of Lieutenant Maynard of the royal navy, were 
 ordered to Pamlico River. It WHS intended to take the pirate by sur- 
 prise, but Black Beard was informed of their coming, and was pre- 
 pared to fight if he could not escape. On board his vessel were twen- 
 ty-five desperate men. When Maynard overtook them, the pirates 
 opened the battle with a broadside, swearing that they would neither 
 give nor take quarter. Maynard's vessel, unfortunately, ran aground, 
 and, unable to manoeuvre, was so exposed to the fire of the enemy 
 that twenty men were shot down at a single broadside. Then Black 
 
 Beard boarded, not knowing that May- 
 nard had a reserve of men below. These 
 sprang upon deck as the pirates poured 
 over the bulwarks. In the. desperate 
 hand-to-hand fight that followed, 
 the two captains led; they dis- 
 charged their pistols at each 
 
 Maynard's Return. 
 
 other's heads without harm ; then each rushed upon the other with 
 his dirk and fought with skill, courage, and desperation till Teach 
 fell. The boarding-party had numbered seventeen ; nine, besides the 
 pirate captain, lay dead upon the bloody deck ; the other seven were 
 mortally wounded. Then Maynard, in his turn, boarded the pirate 
 vessel, made prisoners of the rest of the crew, and was just in time to 
 seize a negro who stood with a firebrand at the magazine, with orders 
 from the captain to blow up the ship in case she should be taken. 
 
100 THE CAROLINAS. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 So the victory was complete, and the law erelong gave the pirates 
 who survived the fight to the gallows. There is hardly a more con- 
 spicuous figure of that time in all the colonies than that of the brave 
 young lieutenant, as he sailed through Pamlico Sound and into Chesa- 
 peake Bay, with the ghastly head of the dreaded pirate Black Beard 
 dangling at the end of his bowsprit. 
 
 South Carolina's share in the extermination of this formidable band 
 of buccaneers cost her ten thousand pounds, a serious increase of her 
 public debt a serious addition to the tangle of difficulty and discord 
 to be cut by the sword of revolution. The conduct of Trott, the 
 Chief Justice, had become so intolerable that the Governor and Coun- 
 cil united with the bar and the Assembly in demanding his removal, 
 and one of the Council, Francis Yonge, was sent to England 
 
 A new mis- . & fo 
 
 sion to Eug- to represent the condition of the colony to the Proprietors. 
 The mission was a failure. If no redress could be obtained 
 on the representations of an officer of the government, it was plain 
 that the popular party had nothing to hope from any further remon- 
 strance. In the dispatches which Yonge brought back, the Governor 
 was rebuked for being too lenient to the colonists ; he was ordered 
 peremptorily to enforce the prerogatives of the Proprietors ; to dis- 
 solve the Assembly, to repeal their objectionable laws, to insist upon 
 the payment of taxes, to increase the number of councillors, to forbid 
 any increase of the popular representation in the Assembly, in short, 
 to enforce with more severity than ever the rule which the colonists 
 believed would prove their speedy ruin. 
 
 The point was reached at which almost any public exigency would 
 be sure to bring about a collision between the government and the 
 people. It came with the apprehension of a Spanish invasion which 
 the Governor learned was in preparation at Havana. He called the 
 Assembly together, represented to them the exposed condition of the 
 province, and asked for means of defence. The Assembly declared 
 that the tax upon imports was sufficient to meet the emergency. The 
 Governor replied that the Proprietors had repealed the law. The 
 repeal, the Assembly said, would be disregarded, and whoever refused 
 to pay the duties would be compelled to obey the law. Thereupon 
 Chief Justice Trott pronounced judgment in advance, by declaring 
 that in any such suits brought in his courts he should decide in favor 
 of the defendants. The crisis had come in which one party or the 
 other must yield absolutely. 
 
 Governor Johnson, however, that there might be some preparation 
 to repel the expected invasion, ordered out the militia regiments of 
 the province for review, and appointed a day for general inspection. 
 The members of the Assembly, on their part, quietly held meetings 
 
 
 
1719.] REVOLUTION IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 101 
 
 in different places in the country, formed an association, and prepared 
 for revolution. At the appointed time the militia regiments mus- 
 tered ; the revolutionary leaders seized the opportunity, produced the 
 articles of association to the soldiers, and they were eagerly signed by 
 almost every man in the colony capable of bearing arms. Happily 
 there was no Spanish invasion, but the Lords Proprietors, neverthe- 
 less, then and there lost a province. 
 
 For Johnson himself there was the utmost respect The revolt was 
 not against him, but against his masters. The members of the As- 
 sembly, resolving themselves into a convention of the people, issued 
 a declaration of reasons for what they had done, declined to recognize 
 the proprietary government under the Governor and his ille- 
 
 5T . i ir ' a? Contest be- 
 
 gal Council, but besought Mr. Johnson to remain in omce as tweenGover- 
 
 r*. i -11 f i TT-- tit i norjohnson 
 
 royal Governor until the will of the King could be known, anathecon- 
 He refused, addressing to the Convention a long and able 
 message, setting forth the rights of the Proprietors, his own duty 
 under their commission, and the illegality of the proceedings of the 
 Convention. "We beg leave to tell you," replied the Convention, 
 " that the paper your honor read and delivered to us we take no 
 notice of, nor shall we give any further answer to it, but in Great 
 Britain." But they assured him " that it is the greatest satisfaction 
 imaginable to us to find throughout the whole country that univer- 
 sal affection, deference, and respect the inhabitants bear to your hon- 
 or's person, and with what passionate desire they wish for a continu- 
 ance of your gentle and good administration," and therefore they 
 again earnestly desired and entreated him to remain as Governor "iu 
 his majesty's name, till his pleasure shall be known." True to his 
 sense of duty the Governor was unmoved. 
 
 But however great their respect for his private character, the Con- 
 vention now owed it to the people to be firm in their disregard of 
 the Governor's authority. He issued a proclamation dissolving the 
 House ; the representatives would not permit it to be read, and or- 
 dered it to be torn from the hands of the marshal. A new Governor, 
 Colonel James Moore, was elected, and the day on which Johnson 
 had previously ordered the militia to assemble in Charleston was 
 selected by the Convention as a fitting time for the inauguration of 
 Moore. Johnson had subsequently directed the commander of the 
 military, Colonel Parris, to countermand his order, but this, Parris, 
 who was on the popular side, had neglected to do. On the appointed 
 day Johnson, coming into Charleston from his plantation, found the 
 town alive with preparations for the celebration of a joyful event. 
 The colors were flying from the flagstaffs of the fort ; every bit of 
 bunting at their command decked the vessels in the harbor; the peo- 
 
102 
 
 THE CAROLINAS. 
 
 [CHAP. JV. 
 
 pie had culled out a holiday, and put on their best attire, and in the 
 great square in the middle of the town were drawn up in imposing 
 array the citizen-soldiers of the whole province. 
 
 Astonished, indignant, but not in the least intimidated, the ex-gov- 
 ernor faced this unexpected situation. Seeking out the leading men, 
 he expostulated quietly but earnestly with some who, he believed, 
 were honestly pursuing a mistaken course ; others he accused of basely 
 abandoning their duty, and forgetting their oaths. These he threat- 
 ened with punishment. Of Colonel Parris he demanded how he dared 
 appear there at the head of his 
 troops in disobedience of positive 
 orders ; and he commanded him 
 to disperse his men at once. The 
 
 colonel replied that he was there in 
 obedience to the commands of the 
 Convention, and as the ex-governor 
 approached with angry, perhaps 
 
 The Muster at Charleston. V . ' r 
 
 with some threatening gesture, the 
 
 ti-oops were ordered to present their guns, and he was warned that he 
 came nearer at the peril of his life. 
 
 Charleston at that early and rude period of her history was used 
 to riots as the easiest way to carry an election or suppress 
 a party, and either there must have been at this juncture 
 unusual self-restraint exercised by the people, or the affec- 
 tion they bore their late Governor was his efficient protection. For, 
 he stood alone, looking into the faces of the soldiery ; not one of 
 
 BMMA 
 
1721.] SIR FRANCIS NICHOLSON, GOVERNOR. 103 
 
 the officers of the proprietary government toward whom, perhaps, 
 there would have been less forbearance came to his side ; in the 
 multitude around him there was not one personal enemy, but among 
 them all he saw not one who was a friend to his cause. Persuaded, 
 at length, that farther contention, under such circumstances, was use- 
 less, he consented to retire, and was led away courteously and kindly 
 by one of the gentlemen of the opposition. The interest of that gala 
 day an interest all the greater that it was unexpected faded 
 away as he turned his back upon the soldiers into the muzzles of 
 whose guns he had looked without flinching. It was the Governor 
 deposed, not the Governor proclaimed, who had become the central 
 figure of that celebration. It so often happens that it is more effect- 
 ive to be dramatic than to be right. 
 
 This was in December, 1719. Thenceforward South Carolina was 
 in fact a royal province, though Johnson for a year or more longer 
 endeavored by one device and another to maintain his authority. 
 His last desperate effort was made in the winter of 1721, when two 
 men of war were ordered to Charleston to repulse another appre- 
 hended Spanish invasion. Relying on the aid of these ships, whose 
 captains brought their guns to bear upon the town, Johnson took 
 the field at the head of a hundred men. Two shots over their heads 
 dispersed them, and it was plain at last, even to him, that the cause 
 of the Proprietaries was hopeless. 
 
 Meanwhile both parties sent representatives to England. A revo- 
 lution so serious and so complete could not be ignored there. The 
 Proprietors were charged with having forfeited their charter 
 by misgovernment, and the Attorney-general was once more 
 instructed to take the proper steps to test the question, 
 A provisional Governor of the province was appointed, and GoTemor - 
 soon after Johnson's final attempt to reinstate the proprietary gov- 
 ernment, Sir Francis Nicholson arrived as the representative of the 
 King. 
 
 It was Nicholson's good fortune to be sent to Carolina, as he had 
 previously been sent to Virginia and Maryland, at the moment when 
 the colony was about to emerge from the long and bitter struggle with 
 hardship, poverty, ignorance, and misgovernment, and was in a condi- 
 tion to enter upon a new ei-a of success and prosperity. It was his own 
 good sense and sound judgment that enabled him to see the necessities 
 of the people, and to understand what measures were requisite to 
 take advantage of new conditions. The presence of a royal gov- 
 ernor ended all immediate strife between the contending parties, 
 and with the consciousness of royal protection came a pei-iod of 
 tranquillity, content, and hope throughout the colony. War had 
 
THE CAKOLINAS. [CkAP. IV. 
 
 ceased between England and Spain, and Nicholson's first care was to 
 avail himself of the peace to deliver the colony from the fear of 
 Indian hostilities. He sought and secured peaceful relations with 
 both the Spaniards and the Yemassee tribe in Florida. With the 
 powerful nations of the Cherokees and the Creeks on the western and 
 southwestern borders of the province he concluded treaties of peace 
 and of commerce, guarantying to them the possession of their own 
 hunting-grounds, and receiving a promise in return that the English 
 settlements should be unmolested, agreements kept like all Indian 
 treaties, so long as the reasons for keeping were stronger than the 
 reasons for breaking them. 
 
 Nicholson, if not a devout man in his private life, was too wise a 
 statesman to underrate the value of religious influences. No other 
 American colony was so destitute of churches as South Carolina, and 
 nowhere else was there so marked an absence of any sense of relig- 
 ious feeling and responsibility. When heretofore it had showed it- 
 self at all, it took on, as we have seen, a political aspect, and was 
 made to play an important part in the strife between the Proprietary 
 party and its opponents. The robe of the saint was stolen only to 
 serve the devil in. But the new Governor, through the four years of 
 his administration, labored with great zeal to relieve a destitution 
 which if he deprecated it for no other reason he felt to be an 
 obstacle to the welfare and growth of the state. He laid down the 
 boundaries of parishes; encouraged and aided the people to build 
 church edifices ; and interceded with the Society in England for the 
 Propagation of the Gospel, to provide them with pastors. The 
 church he labored for was, of course, the Established Church ; there 
 was hardly religious feeling enough in the province, at that period, to 
 seriously suggest any question of conformity or dissent. 
 
 Whether it was that the people were irreligious because they were 
 ignorant, certainly ignorance and irreligion went hand in hand among 
 them. Nicholson was equally earnest in his efforts to overcome both. 
 There was not a single public school in the province at the time of 
 his arrival. He aroused the people to some sense of the importance 
 of education, and aided them to secure it for their children with his 
 private means as well as with the weight of his official influence and 
 authority. 
 
 It is strong evidence of the excellence of his administration that, 
 for the four years it lasted, the Proprietors seem to have submitted 
 without a murmur to their loss of authority. But both they and 
 their party in Carolina showed signs of life again when Nicholson re- 
 turned to England, leaving his office in the hands of Arthur Middle- 
 ton, the President of the Council. The writ against the charter had 
 
1729.] SEPARATION OF THE CAROUNAS. 105 
 
 not been issued ; in the colony the strife of parties, which had begun 
 to show itself before Nicholson left, had become threatening. The 
 Proprietors assumed the right of appointing a Governor, and Purchage of 
 named Colonel Samuel Horsey for that office ; if other offi- {Jf^ 1 "* 
 cers were appointed by the Crown, they claimed that the nom- Crown - 
 inations should be submitted to them for their approval. But the 
 contest was too unequal to be long sustained on their part, and they 
 offered to surrender their proprietary interest for a pecuniary consid- 
 eration. The prayer was granted, and in 1729 both the northern and 
 southern colonies were purchased by the Crown including territory 
 and arrearages of quit rents for twenty-two thousand five hundred 
 pounds sterling. To this agreement, however, Lord Carteret was not 
 a party. A one-eighth interest in the property was retained by him, 
 which about twenty years later was set apart from the rest by giving 
 him all the territory from 34 35' to the boundary line of Virginia, 
 and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 From the date of the purchase of the colony by the Crown, North 
 and South Carolina became in law, as they had long been in fact, two 
 separate provinces. Thenceforward there was no pretence of the au- 
 thority of a governor-generalship to be exercised over the northern 
 colony by the governor of the southern, an authority which, for 
 many years, had been merely nominal, or only exerted at times by 
 special order of the Proprietors for some special purpose. The last 
 proprietary Governor of North Carolina was Sir Richard Ev- 
 erhard, who had displaced George Burrington. Burrington, Carolina 
 in his turn, as the first royal Governor, displaced Everhard. 
 The years of the official tenure of these men were marked by little 
 else than their personal quarrels. Burrington was evidently a ruffian 
 of a low order, and was indicted by the grand jury for an assault 
 upon Everhard while he was Governor. The indictment gives many 
 of the terms of obloquy and defiance which Burrington publicly hurled 
 at his opponent : that " he was no more fit to be governor than a 
 hog " ; that he was a "' calve's head ; " that " I (the said George 
 himself meaning) will scalp your damned thick skull (the said Sir 
 Richard's head meaning) " ; and other equally " scandalous, oppro- 
 brious, and malicious words," which even then seem to have been con- 
 sidered as hardly compatible with the dignity of an ex-governor. He 
 was nevertheless reappointed when the province passed to the Crown, 
 for his family, it is supposed, was in favor at Court. As royal Gov- 
 ernor his conduct was so outrageous that he thought it prudent to 
 leave the province, and he was murdered not long after, in a drunken 
 brawl in London. Gabriel Johnston, who was appointed in 1734 as 
 Governor of North Carolina, remained in office for the next twenty 
 years. 
 
106 
 
 THE CAROLINAS. 
 
 [CHAP. IV. 
 
 apppointed 
 Governor of 
 South 
 Carolina. 
 
 It was a singular testimony to the estimation in which Robert 
 Johnson was held, both in England and in South Carolina, 
 that the Governor whom revolution had deposed should be 
 sent back with a royal com- 
 mission, and that his return 
 should be welcomed with universal 
 satisfaction. That welcome, when he 
 arrived in Charles- 
 ton, in December, 
 1730, was the 
 warmer that he i| 
 
 Johnson's Return. 
 
 brought with him six Cherokee chiefs returning from England. So 
 important was the friendship of that powerful nation held to be by 
 the government, that almost its first act after the purchase of the 
 colony was to send an embassy, under Sir Alexander Gumming, to 
 
1730.] CONDITION OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 107 
 
 these Indians. Six of their chiefs he had taken back with him to 
 England, a sight of the Tower of London and the King on his throne 
 being thought then as certain to soothe the savage breast, and in- 
 duce the warrior to turn his tomahawk into a reaping-hook, as it is 
 now believed these pleasant consequences come from a sight of the 
 Capitol at Washington and of a President in the White House. 
 These fallacious hopes were not, indeed, of long duration. Beyond 
 the Cherokee and Choctaw countries were the French on the Gulf 
 and the Mississippi ; and whether in trade or in war, the Indians 
 knew too well ho\v important their position was between the rival 
 powers. There were, however, more immediate dangers requiring the 
 presence of a governor in South Carolina. Johnson's report, a few 
 months after entering upon the duties of his office, was that no taxes 
 had been collected, and not a court of justice had been held in the 
 province for four years, not, in other words, since Nicholson's de- 
 parture. 1 To restore harmony and order where discord and anarchy 
 reigned was the work to which he addressed himself, with a large 
 measure of success, for the four remaining years of his life. 
 
 But it was no easy task. In no other colony was there so mixed a 
 population, including English, French, Scotch, Irish, and Spanish, un- 
 used for years to much restraint from either law or gospel, 
 and too ignorant to be safely left to be a law to themselves. 
 There were from six to seven thousand of these white people, ' 
 and in addition to them about twenty-two thousand African slaves. 
 This heterogeneous population lived, for the most part, upon isolated 
 plantations of large tracts of land ; here the labor of the slaves was 
 chiefly devoted to the production of a single staple, rice, though to 
 this the cultivation of indigo was soon added. The laboring whites 
 were indented servants, and, with labor degraded and cheapened by 
 slavery, their condition was quite hopeless. To their servitude there 
 came in time an end, but the degradation of their class has been per- 
 petuated in the " poor whites," who are even yet a distinctive feature 
 in the society of South Carolina and Georgia. The colony, moreover, 
 was overwhelmed with debt, and the repeated issue of bills of credit 
 had borne its legitimate fruit in the depreciation of the value of cur- 
 rency. That value was necessarily brought to the test of exchange on 
 England, and it required about this period seven hundred and fifty 
 pounds of South Carolina currency to buy a bill on London for one 
 hundred pounds. 2 It had been the policy of the Proprietors to escape 
 the burden of a great public debt by limiting the issue of these 
 bills of credit ; the people, on the other hand, both to provide a 
 
 1 Papers in State Paper Office, London. Coll. of Hist. Soc. of S. C., vol. i. 
 
 8 The condition of the currrency iu the several colonies in 1748, as measured by the rate 
 
108 
 
 THE CAROUNAS. 
 
 [CHAP. IV. 
 
 revenue for the support of government and to check the increase of 
 slaves, had insisted that a heavy duty should be levied upon their 
 importation. Unhappily, in the struggle of parties both measures 
 were nullified, either of which would have been a blessing to the com- 
 monwealth. 
 
 The establishment of the royal government under Johnson, how- 
 ever, gave a new impulse to the energies of the colonists, and fresh 
 interest was aroused in England in the domain south of Carolina, 
 the only region along the Atlantic coast now unoccupied by Euro- 
 peans. The Governor was ordered to lay out eleven new townships 
 on the banks of several rivers, to be divided into small farms as an 
 inducement to the emigration of poor but industrious persons. The 
 project was defeated, at least in the southern part of the province, by 
 the preoccupation of the lands in large tracts by planters, who found 
 an abundant supply of labor in the increasing importation of slaves. 
 But this southward movement of the Carolinians was soon checked by 
 a project to plant a new colony on the further side of the Savannah 
 River. 
 
 of exchange on London, is tabulated in Douglass's Summary, Historical and Political, etc., 
 of the British Settlements in North America, as follows : 
 
 For 100 New England currency . . 1100. 
 
 New York ' . 190. 
 
 East Jersey ' 190. 
 
 West Jersey . .180. 
 
 ' Pennsylvania 180. 
 
 Maryland 200. 
 
 Virginia 120@ 125. 
 
 ' ' North Carolina 1000. 
 
 ' " South Carolina , "50. 
 
 Medal Struck in 1736 to commemorate the Separation of North and South Carolina. 
 
YOUaredefired to Accompany the Corps 
 of Sir William. Phipps t Knight, from 
 Suiters Hall in Swithins Lane, to the Parifh- 
 Church of St. Maty Woolnoth, ia Lumbard- 
 flreet : On Thurfday fhe 2 iff. of February, 
 169*. At Five of fhe Clock in the After- 
 noon precifely : And bring this Ticket with 
 you. 
 
 /v 
 
 Fac-simile of the Invitation to Phipi's Funeral. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE ROYAL GOVERNORS IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS A ROYAL PROVINCE. THE TROUBLES OF RHODE ISLAND. ARBI- 
 TRARY INTERFERENCE or LORD BELLOMONT. ADMINISTRATION OF DUDLEY. IN- 
 DIAN HOSTILITIES. ATTACKS ON DEERFIELD AND OTHER PLACES. WAR iv 
 MAINE. CAPTURE OF PORT ROYAL. MASSACHUSETTS EARLY IN THE EIGHTEENTH 
 CENTCHY. INOCULATION FOR SMALL-POX. GOVERNOR SHUTE IN MASSACHUSETTS 
 AND NEW HAMPSHIRE. THE ROYAL PREROGATIVE IN FORESTS. FINANCIAL 
 POLICY OF THE COLONIES. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND THE ''NEW ENGLAND Cou- 
 RANT." SETTLEMENTS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE AND MAINE. 
 
 THE charter which was brought back by Sir Williams Phips con* 
 verted Massachusetts into a royal province. The first Par- 
 
 
 liament which assembled in the reign of William, manifest- 
 
 ed a willingness to pass a bill restoring to the colony its orig- 
 
 inal charter, but this intention was defeated by the Court. The par- 
 
 tial discontent which met Phips in the colony when he returned as 
 
110 
 
 THE ROYAL GOVERNORS IN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. V. 
 
 Governor under the new charter was considerably increased by the 
 hostility of persons who had been connected with the witchcraft 
 trials. When he died at London, it became necessary to select an- 
 other royal Governor. The appointment was neglected, however, 
 in the more imperative necessities of the new reign ; for three years 
 the unpopular S tough ton acted as Governor, and party feeling be- 
 came much embittered. A fresh distraction came in the renewed at- 
 tacks of the Indians upon frontier towns, stimulated by the French, 
 with whom England was at war. 
 
 New Hampshire and the Province of Maine suffered this time more 
 
 severely than Massachusetts. An attack upon Haverhill was 
 hostilities, memorable for the subsequent exploit of Hannah Dustin, 
 Pustin of who, with an infant only a few days old, a boy named Samuel 
 
 Leonardson, and another woman, was carried off to an In- 
 dian camp on an island in the Merrimack, near Concord, N. H. The 
 
 Hannah Dustin's escape. 
 
 infant, as usual, was killed against the trunk of a tree. The sight of 
 this prepared the mother's heart for her bloody reprisal. One day 
 when the boy was at work chopping for the Indians, he casually asked 
 one of the savages how and where he struck a man with a hatchet. 
 The Indian, pleased to show that bit of sylvan skill, told him. That 
 night the three captives with hatchets slew the ten sleeping guards, 
 and Hannah, remembering her infant, scalped them. Then they 
 dropped down the river in a canoe to Haverhill. 
 
1699.] AFFAIRS IN RHODE ISLAND. Ill 
 
 Joseph Dudley, the Puritan courtier of the King, had been sent 
 with Andros to England, where the King released him. To appease 
 somewhat his hunger for official station, he was appointed Chief Jus- 
 tice of New York. Tiring of this contracted sphere, he returned to 
 England and was made Lieutenant-governor of the Isle of 
 Wight. In the mean time Lord Bellomont had been ap- mont, GOT- 
 pointed Governor of New York, Massachusetts, and New 
 Hampshire. There was nothing in the brief period of the Earl's ad- 
 ministration of fourteen months to mar the cordiality with which he 
 was welcomed in Boston, in 1699. His High-Church principles were 
 overlooked in the deference he paid to the Congregationalism of New 
 England ; but the General Court abated nothing, notwithstanding 
 the esteem in which he was held, of their jealous care for their 
 chartered rights. They refused to vote him a fixed salary, while they 
 made the liberal appropriation of nearly ten thousand dollars in little 
 more than a year for his use. 
 
 Rhode Island, however, was less fortunate during his administra- 
 tion than those colonies of which he was the actual Governor. 
 He was only the commander-in-chief of her militia ; but he Rhode ii- 
 evidently did not forget that she also would have been un- 
 der his rule had the discussion upon making him Governor-general 
 of all the northern colonies, which so long delayed his coming, been 
 decided the other way. The unfortunate condition of Rhode Island 
 gave him the opportunity for the exercise of an authority over that 
 colony which his military commission did not warrant ; his zeal for 
 the suppression of privateering and piracy and the enforcement of the 
 Navigation Laws, supplied a motive. 
 
 Circumstances, quite as much as choice, had made Rhode Island a 
 maritime community. Her undisputed possessions were 
 nearly limited to the island within the waters of Narrasran- ti 
 
 sett Bay, for on the mainland she was met by rival claimants 
 on all sides. The harbor of Newport was more open to the sea than 
 either that of New York or Boston. And it was never closed. When 
 the tortuous channel and shallow flats of Boston harbor were covered 
 with miles of solid ice, and the bay of New York was a firm roadway 
 from Fort George to Staten Island, the mighty current of the Gulf 
 Stream, sweeping in upon the Narragansett coast, tempered the cold 
 currents from the north with the warm waters of a southern climate. 
 This advantage of situation, when commerce was chiefly carried on ir> 
 small coast-wise vessels, made Newport always an easy port of ret 
 uge, while from its central position it was a convenient point of trade, 
 Lawful privateers in time of war could find nowhere else a plac& 
 where they could so easily refit, where they could so easily run in 
 
112 THE ROYAL GOVERNORS IN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. V. 
 
 with their prizes or land their plunder ; and when peace turned priva- 
 teers into pirates, courts of admiralty were not always mindful of nice 
 inquiries as to manifests and bills of lading, even if the legal exist- 
 ence of the court itself was beyond question. 
 
 The interests of the people were marine, and that made them sail- 
 ors. Block Island, now only known as a pleasant resort for summer 
 visitors, was toward the end of the seventeenth century famous as a 
 rendezvous for sea-rovers, who put in there to recruit, or hovered off 
 shore to intercept some ship, worth taking, bound in or out. And 
 more than once, during those years, when a Frenchman was seen in 
 the offing, a well-manned ship hurried out of Newport harbor in pur- 
 suit, and, after a gallant fight, sailed back again with a prize in tow. 
 
 So for many years, in the uncertainty of her territorial domain, 
 Newport, with the tribute which Newport drew from the sea, was the 
 chief reliance on which Rhode Island depended for prosperity and 
 wealth. Massachusetts had never forgiven her for presuming to exist 
 Rhode isi a ^ all, and the boundary between the two colonies was a 
 dry b queV- source of perpetual conflict till the middle of the eighteenth 
 tions. century. A similar controversy existed with Plymouth, 
 
 and this lost none of its acrimony when that colony became a part 
 of Massachusetts during the administration of Sir William Phips. 
 
 But the question of the western boundary was still more serious, 
 for it involved all that portion of the present State of Rhode Island 
 which lies between Narragansett Bay and Pawcatuck River, and south 
 of the latitude of Warwick. This came to be known as the King's 
 Province because of that solemn act of submission of the Narragan- 
 sett chiefs to the King which Gorton and Holden took to England in 
 1644. 1 The territory was claimed both by Connecticut and Rhode 
 Jsland as covered by their respective patents. And in fact it had 
 been granted to both, though the grant to Connecticut was a blun- 
 der. 
 
 It was one of the frequent blunders of that early period arising 
 partly from geographical ignorance, partly from carelessness 
 in the administration of colonial affairs. The patents secured 
 by John Winthrop for Connecticut in 1662, made the Nar- 
 ragansett River the eastern boundary of the colony. 2 John 
 Clarke of Rhode Island was then in England soliciting a charter 
 for his people, and he exposed the wrong that would be done them by 
 this encroachment upon territory which they claimed as theirs un- 
 der the older patent. So obviously just was his protest that Winthrop 
 was finally convinced of it, and when Clarke, the next year, sent home 
 the Rhode Island charter granted by Charles II. Winthrop acceding 
 i See vol. ii., p. 91. 2 Vol. ii., p. 254. 
 
1733.] THE RHODE ISLAND TROUBLES. 113 
 
 to it as the Connecticut agent it made the Pawcatuck River the 
 western boundary of Rhode Island, expressly reciting that " the sayd 
 Pawcatuck river shall bee alsoe called alias Narragansett river ; and 
 to prevent other disputes, that otherwise might arise thereby, forever 
 hereafter shall be construed, deemed and taken to bee the Narraganset 
 river in our late graunt to Connecticut Colony mentioned as the 
 easterly bounds of that Collony." 
 
 Nothing could be plainer ; the Pawcatuck had been mistaken for 
 the Narragansett, and the Rhode Island charter corrected and limited 
 
 m 
 
 Mouth of the Pawcatuck. 
 
 that given the 
 year before to 
 Conn ecticut. 
 Connecticut, nev- 
 ertheless, refused 
 
 to abide by that limitation, and continued, for many years, to maintain 
 her title to the King's Province as part of her territory, and at the 
 later period claimed as far north as Providence. Winthrop, she de- 
 clared, had ceased to be her agent and had no right to acquiesce in 
 such a compromise. But it was the King who had granted the pat- 
 ent, not Winthrop. Rhode Island accused her neighbor of securing 
 a charter by " underhand " measures ; Winthrop exonerated himself 
 by acknowledging that a wrong had been done ; if those he repre- 
 sented had not committed a fraud, they proposed, at any rate, to take 
 advantage of a blunder which supreme authority had attempted 
 to correct. 
 
 Nor was this the only territorial complication which embarrassed 
 and impoverished the Rhode Islanders. A company, called the Ath- 
 erton Company, from that Humphrey Atherton who was one of 
 
 VOL. III. 8 
 
114 
 
 THE ROYAL GOVERNORS IN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. V. 
 
 the Massachusetts commissioners sent to break up the Gorton settle- 
 ment at Shawomet in 1643 l had purchased large tracts in 
 
 The Ather- r , 
 
 ton com- the Narragansett country on the Bay about " Smith's trading 
 
 house," now Wickford, from the Indians. Another company 
 
 had taken possession of lands, under authority from Massachusetts, 
 
 who claimed them by right of conquest of the Pequot country, on 
 
 settlement 
 
 Wickford, R. I. 
 
 both sides of the Pawcatuck River at its mouth. The township laid 
 out by them was called Southertown, now Stonington. Its 
 eastern division on the east side of the Pawcatuck was with- 
 \\eateriy. j n ne ii m its o f the Rhode Island patent, and some Newport 
 men settled upon it and called it Westerly. Thenceforth raged a 
 feud, always bitter and sometimes bloody, between the two settle- 
 ments. 
 
 It is an interesting fact, worthy of passing notice, that in that part 
 Indian Res- f *- ms o ^d town of Westerly, now called Charlestovvn, reside 
 chaM " in *& that are l eft > in New England, of the tribe of Narra- 
 town. gansett Indians, though there is not among them one of pure 
 
 Narragansett blood. In numbers they are about one hundred and 
 twenty persons. In condition they are reduced to dependence upon the 
 State, which provides for their wants when the fruits of their own toil, 
 as common laborers and as basket-makers, are not sufficient for their 
 subsistence. The land they live upon is reserved for their special occu- 
 
 1 See vol. ii., pp. 79 et seq. 
 
1662.] THE LAST OF THE NARRAGANSETTS. 
 
 pation ; and when portions are conveyed to individuals for their sole 
 use, as is sometimes done, the title passes by the ancient ceremony of 
 presenting to the new owner a bit of turf and a twig from the land. 
 The tribal government is still preserved, their local affairs being man- 
 aged subject to the Legislature of the State by a council chosen 
 yearly from among themselves. 1 A republic has displaced the line of 
 kings, the royal dynasty ceasing, probably about a century ago, with 
 King Tom a rather disreputable monarch and much given to drink 
 and his Queen, Esther. The burial-place of the royal family is on 
 a hill, within the reservation, where the pensive Indian may recall 
 if he remembers them the traditions of his race as he looks out over 
 many miles of lovely landscape, once happy Indian hunting-grounds ; 
 over, as far as Montauk point, the blue waters of the Bay, whose sur- 
 face, not many generations ago, was never disturbed save by the swift 
 canoes of savage fishermen and warriors. On the horizon, seaward, 
 rises the rocky coast of Block Island where Endicott landed, in spite 
 of wind and waves, to punish the natives and to destroy their corn, 
 their wigwams, and their boats; near by, inland, within the reserva- 
 tion of the tribe, rises Fort Neck, where Mason passed the night and 
 held counsel with the famous Narragansett chiefs, Canonicus and Mian- 
 tonomo, on his way to the destruction of the Pequot Fort and tribe. 
 It is historic ground. Does the half-breed pauper, standing upon the 
 graves of the kings of his race, ponder upon departed glories? Do 
 no old savage instincts stir his blood as he turns from the sight of his 
 home of civilized penury to look upon thriving villages and mills and 
 farms ; upon the sea dotted with the glistening sails of commerce ; 
 upon the smoky pennants streaming across the sky from passing 
 steamers ? No scalps now hang in his wigwam ; no squaw pounds 
 his corn ; no deer bounds through the forest to fall by his swift 
 arrows ; no enemy lurks in its recesses to be followed with stealthy 
 tread and brought to sudden death. The wigwam of fragrant boughs, 
 gay with many-colored deer-skins, is a board shanty : the squaw, 
 once picturesque in scanty garment and untrammeled limbs, a play- 
 thing and a slave, is a hard-worked woman weaving wicker bas- 
 kets ; in the woods and swamps the son of the warrior and the hun- 
 ter cuts cedar posts 2 and fire-wood. There are only the Thelll gtof 
 graves on the quiet hill-side to remind him of the past. But 
 that one spot, at least, is sacred ; no common dust is permit- 
 ted to mingle there with the dust of kings, and even tradition fails to 
 preserve the memory of the last burial. The blood of this royal race 
 
 1 MS. notes of Mr. S. H. Cross, Indian agent of the State of Rhode Islaud. 
 
 2 The best cedar posts in Rhode Island come from this Indian reservation. Mr. Cross's 
 MS. 
 
 sett8 ' 
 
116 
 
 THE ROYAL GOVERNORS IX NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. V. 
 
 flows now only through the veins of one living person Esther, an 
 old woman in Westerly, living apart from her people, the only repre- 
 sentative of the ancient Narra- 
 gansett chiefs, and though not 
 quite of the pure blood, the 
 purest living of the Narragansett 
 tribe. 
 
 But to resume the history of 
 the boundary question " under- 
 handed " certainly were the meas- 
 ures sometimes resorted to, that 
 Rhode Island might be deprived 
 of territory which was justly 
 hers, and her colonial power b(^ 
 limited to the narrowest bounds. 
 The animosities engendered in 
 those earlier times when Massa- 
 chusetts banished Williams, rav- 
 aged Shawomet, and carried Gor- 
 ton and his companions trium- 
 phantly to Boston, imprisoned 
 Clarke and punished Holmes with many stripes, for the manifold 
 heresies intolerable to the Puritans, those bitter memories had, no 
 doubt, much to do with this later hostility to the struggling little 
 colony. That questionable Narragansett patent of 1643, 1 whereby 
 Massachusetts might have set up a claim to all Rhode Island, was 
 sometimes, though cautiously, appealed to as an argument in defence 
 of the Atherton purchase. 
 
 The Atherton Company was composed of some of the most influen- 
 tial men of Massachusetts and Connecticut ; but its affairs were chiefly 
 managed by that Edward Hutchinson who was among the earliest 
 settlers of Rhode Island, but afterward returned to Massachusetts and 
 was restored to favor. Perhaps he bore no good will to the early as- 
 sociates whom he abandoned ; at any rate, he seems to have been more 
 considerate of the interests of his Company than scrupulous of the 
 rights of the colony, of a portion of whose domain the Company pro- 
 posed to take possession. 
 
 Hutchinson found a facile tool in that Captain John Scott who was 
 captain 8Oon afterward conspicuous in the affairs of New Netherland 
 just before its surrender to the English Commissioners, 2 and 
 
 Esther, the last of the Royal Narragansetts. 
 
 pJlny'taEng- ^ wuom Governor Nicolls said two years later when the 
 1 *" d Duke of York conveyed New Jersey to Berkeley and 
 
 1 See vol. ii., pp. 100 tt seq. 
 
 2 See vol. ii., pp. 257 et seq. 
 
1663.] CAPTAIX SCOTT'S MANAGEMENT. 117 
 
 Carteret "I must charge it upon Captain Scott, who was born to 
 work mischief as far as he is credited, or his parts serve him." 
 
 Captain Scott was in England acting as Hutchinson's agent, when 
 Winthrop and Clarke were soliciting charters for their respective gov- 
 ernments. That to Connecticut was granted in April, 1662 ; that 
 to Rhode Island in July of the following year, after the points of dif- 
 ference between these agents had been discussed and an attempt at 
 settlement made by a board of referees. One of the points pronounced 
 upon by that board was, that the Narragansett people the company 
 was now called the Narragansett Company, Major Atherton having 
 been killed by a fall from his horse the year before should choose 
 for themselves to which of the two governments they would be at- 
 tached. 
 
 If the eastern boundary of Connecticut was to remain as provided 
 by its blundering charter, on Narragansett Bay, this proposed 
 compromise was unnecessary, for the Narragansett people were, in that 
 case, already under the jurisdiction they preferred. But the transfer 
 of that boundary to Pawcatuck River " alias Narraganset," 
 would leave these people, where they did not wish to be, within the 
 bounds of Rhode Island. Connecticut accepted their offered submis- 
 sion, while she rejected the new boundary of the Rhode Island charter 
 on the ground that her agent had no longer power to act ; accepted, 
 that is, as much of the compromise as suited her ; Rhode Island de- 
 clined to surrender to another government jurisdiction in the very 
 heart of that country which the new charter decided to be hers. The 
 
 / 
 
 terms of this charter unquestionably were the only legal and proper 
 basis of settlement, and those most interested knew it. 
 
 About three weeks after the meeting in London of the referees who 
 thought they had settled this vexed and troublesome question, Captain 
 Scott wrote a letter to Mr. Hutchinson, for the first time published a 
 few years since by Mr. Arnold in his admirable history of Rhode 
 Island. 1 Mr. Winthrop, he writes, was "very averse to my prosecut- 
 ing your affairs, he having had much trouble with Mr. Clarke, whiles 
 he remained in England." Perhaps he meant that Winthrop, having 
 already brought the affair to a satisfactory conclusion, was impatient 
 of any interference ; and certainly, if he was at all aware of 
 
 Scott's proposed method of interference, he, as an honorable SCOH-S man- 
 agement. 
 
 man, might well be " very averse " to any such companion- 
 ship. For so soon as Scott was assured that Winthrop had fairly left 
 England, he took, he says, " into the Societye a Potent Gentleman," 
 sent in a petition against Clarke and his associates of Rhode Island, 
 and did not doubt " of effecting the premises in convenient tyme." 
 
 1 Arnold's History of Rhode Island, vol. i., chap, ix., appendix. 
 
118 THE ROYAL GOVERNORS IN NEW ENGLAND. {CHAP. V. 
 
 srtt Coin- 
 
 And his method " in order to accomplish the business " was this : " I 
 have bought" he wrote, "of Mr. Edwards a parcel of curiosityes to the 
 value of .60, to gratifye persons that are powerfull, that there may 
 be a Letter filled with Authorizing Expressions to the Collonyes of 
 the Massachusetts and Connecticut," who should thereby " joyntlye 
 or severallye have full power to doe us Justice to all intents as to our 
 Naraganset concernes." The u potent gentleman " made good use of 
 A Mter the sixtv pounds' worth of curiosities to be given to powerful 
 
 from the , , i 
 
 King in fa- persons, and in return came a royal letter addressed to the 
 United Colonies of New England, commending the Narra- 
 
 , i i i i i mi i 
 
 gansett people to their kindness and protection. 1 Ihe letter 
 thus procured, and signed by the King probably in ignorance and in- 
 difference alike of the fresh difficulties in which it might involve his 
 
 subjects in Rhode 
 Island, was granted 
 only seventeen days 
 before the new char- 
 ter was issued to 
 her. That charter 
 was dated the 8th 
 of July ; the agree- 
 ment in regard to 
 it between Win- 
 throp and Clarke 
 was concluded on 
 the 7th of April ; 
 "I cannot deeme," 
 wrote Scott to 
 Hutchinson, "those 
 termes Mr. Win- 
 throp made with 
 Clarke any way to 
 answere your de- 
 sires, were there a 
 
 certaintye in what Clarke hath granted." Here was the motive for 
 procuring the mandate of the King to the United Colonies Rhode 
 
 1 In the letter of the Kiiig, as published in the Collections of the Rhode Islmd Historical 
 Society, vol. iii., the iiame of this "potent gentleman" is given as Thomas Chissick. In 
 the discussion 011 the Narra^ansett Patent before the Massachusetts Historical Society (Pro- 
 ceedings, June, 1862), Colouel Aspiuwall says he was Thomas Chiffinch, " the Court pimp; 
 the willing abettor of every vile Court intrigue ; the man who to furnish assurance of the 
 royal sanction, contrived the interviews between Charles II. and DangerHeld, the assassin 
 from Newgate, hired to murder the discarded Premier Shaftesbury ; and who afterwards 
 stealthily admitted the Catholic confessor to the dying monarch." 
 
 Map of Rhode Island, showing the disputed Boundaries. 
 
1703.] DECISION OF THE BOUNDARY QUESTION. 119 
 
 Island, it will be remembered, was excluded from that Union for 
 the protection of the Narragansett Company ; and it was necessary to 
 bribe some persons about the King to secure his signature to a letter 
 in direct collision with the Rhode Island charter, decided upon a few 
 days before, and signed a few days afterward. Thus harassed on all 
 sides at Southertown, by the Narragansett Company, and along the 
 boundary lines of Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut for 
 years the colony could assert no authority, nor collect a dollar of rev- 
 enue, without dispute or resistance, anywhere beyond her little island. 
 
 Implicit obedience to imperial authority was by no means a colonial 
 habit, and it did not in the least avail Rhode Island that in the course 
 of successive years that authority was exercised on its behalf. Two 
 of the royal commissioners, Carr and Maverick, decided in its favor, 
 and declared the Atherton purchase of the Indians null and void ; 
 Andros was equally positive as to the justice of the cause of Rhode 
 Island, although he suspended her charter ; in 1694 the Board D^^g of 
 of Trade in London, by advice of the Attorney General, sus- 
 tained all the claims which the province insisted upon under 
 that charter which at the fall of Andros had again become Island 
 its constitution of government ; and the same Board decided against 
 the claim of the heirs of the Duke of Hamilton to the Narragansett 
 country, notwithstanding it took precedence of all others, as it was 
 founded upon a purchase made of the old Plymouth Company early 
 in the century. 
 
 But all this availed nothing ; there were conflicting decisions enough, 
 meant to be authoritative, to keep the question an open quarrel ; and 
 it was not till 1703 that Connecticut consented to accept the Pawca- 
 tuck as her eastern boundary, and not till nearly half a century later 
 that Massachusetts would agree to any compromise whatever. 
 
 These protracted disputes were a source of perpetual anxiety to the 
 colony, hindering her growth as well as interfering with her freedom 
 of action. It was an encroachment upon her rights under the charter 
 to give to Phips, and to Stoughton of Massachusetts, and to Fletcher 
 of New York, the command of her militia. The case was still worse 
 when the same power was given to Bellomont, who was Gov- Bellomont -, 
 ernor of two other colonies, and Captain-general also of the a^ds^hode 
 forces of Connecticut and the Jerseys. He was the repre- Island - 
 sentative of the party who believed it to be for the interest of the 
 Crown that all the northern colonies should be united as a single 
 
 o 
 
 province, and his conduct was not likely to be questioned if he went 
 beyond the letter of his commission. Should he see fit to exceed his 
 legitimate powers by interfering with civil affairs in Rhode Island, 
 she had small capacity of resistance. 
 
120 THE ROYAL GOVERNORS IN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. V. 
 
 He did interfere, to her great alarm and injury, by upholding the 
 pretensions of her opponents. To carry out his purpose in the sup- 
 pression of piracy and privateering, and the enforcement of the Navi- 
 gation Laws, he needed more power over Rhode Island than his mili- 
 tary commission gave him. This question of boundaries was a weapon 
 he did not hesitate to use. When she declined or neglected to obey 
 his military requisitions, whether because she could not, or because 
 she would not, he forbade her to levy taxes or exercise any other au- 
 thority within the disputed territories. Though received at Newport 
 with cordiality and such hospitality as the people could command, his 
 attitude was hostile, and his judgment severe. In a letter to Eng- 
 land he declared her government to be " the most irregular and illegal 
 in their administration that ever any English government was." Her 
 worthy chief magistrate, Samuel Cranston, he denounced as " con- 
 niving at pirates, and making Rhode Island their sanctuary." 
 
 It was not that the little colony was so much worse than her neigh- 
 bors, but that being driven to the sea for a subsistence, she made the 
 most of it. That one is a good sailor is not, indeed, a good reason 
 for being privateersman or pirate ; but surely that favorite argument 
 so often urged on behalf of the Puritan that he was not the less 
 a most estimable man and exemplary Christian when hanging Quak- 
 ers, or drowning witches, or whipping Anabaptists, because such was 
 the fashion of his time may palliate those evil-doings of the Rhode 
 Islanders. Of New York, Bellomont said : " The people have such an 
 appetite for piracy and unlawful trade that they are ready to rebel as 
 often as the government puts the law in execution against them." 
 The Governor may have thought that because of the weakness and 
 friendlessness of Rhode Island she, at least, might be easily brought 
 to obedience and good behavior. His accusations, at any rate, were 
 unsparing, and were met with difficulty by her agent in England ; and 
 had the Earl lived long enough to push them to a conclusion, Rhode 
 Island might have been compelled to answer to a quo warranto, and 
 have lost her charter. 
 
 After the death of Bellomont, Stoughton again became acting Gov- 
 ernor, but he too died in four months and left an oppor- 
 tunity for Dudley which he was not slow to seize. Cotton 
 Mather warmly espoused the cause of a man who in Eng- 
 again active. j an( j cultivated piety and Puritanism so sedulously as to 
 win the Congregational heart. Dudley's active party was chiefly in 
 England ; Massachusetts had not forgotten his subservience to An- 
 dros, and his complicity in the composition of the new charter. His 
 intrigue was so skilful and persevering that the King was prevailed 
 upon to appoint him Governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. 
 
1703.] 
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF DUDLEY. 
 
 121 
 
 This happened just before William's death. The appointment was 
 confirmed by Queen Anne, and Dudley came to Boston, satisfied at 
 reaching the point of an ambition which was inspired partly by patri- 
 otic and partly by personal considerations. 
 
 The first token of his unpopularity appeared when, according to 
 instructions from the Court, he demanded that the province should 
 vote permanent salaries to the Governor, his deputy, and the IIi9 ^^ 
 Crown judges. Massachusetts refused, insisting upon its Ilor8lu P- 
 custom of annual grants, and the General Court voted Dudley about 
 one half of the sum which was paid to Bellomont. 
 
 In May, 1695, a Board of 
 Trade had been organized 
 in London, for the regula- 
 tion of colonial commerce. 
 Its function lasted until the 
 American Revolution, and 
 being inspired chiefly by pri- 
 vate interests, it was a con- 
 stant source of vexatious in- 
 terference. The old laws of 
 trade were revived, and Ran- 
 dolph was sent out as Sur- 
 veyor-general. 
 
 Dudley, besides favoring 
 the Board of Trade, under- 
 took to carry into effect the 
 most unpopular article of 
 the new charter, that, name- 
 ly, which clothed the gov- 
 ernor with authority to re- 
 ject the nominations of the 
 General Court, or Assembly, for members of his council. He also, 
 without a shadow of authority, endeavored to put creatures of his 
 own into the Speaker's seat. He even went so far as to express 
 hostility to all charters. His son wrote to England : " this country 
 will never be worth living in for lawyers and gentlemen till the char- 
 ter is taken away. My father and I sometimes talk of the Queen's 
 establishing a court of chancery here." A strong party, headed by 
 Cotton Mather, who was not so influential with Dudley as he expected 
 to be, and including the leading clergymen of the province, was 
 formed, and made persistent but unavailing attempts to oust Dudley 
 from office. But he skilfully created a party of his own, and kept it 
 in active cohesion by catering to the interests of its members. Au- 
 
 Governor Dudley. 
 
122 
 
 THE ROYAL GOVERNORS IN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. V. 
 
 thorities accuse him of conniving at the illicit trade of his party dur- 
 ing the war with France, and he was suspected of sharing in its 
 profits ; for Dudley was a lover of money for the sake of the power 
 which it could buy. 
 
 The Peace of Ryswick, which was transmitted to the colonies in 
 October, 1697, put an end for a time to French and Indian hostilities. 
 But when, in 1702, after the death of William, Louis XIV. 
 determined to espouse the cause of James's son, the Preten- 
 der, England declared war. Indian atrocities of a frightful 
 kind, directed and stimulated by the French, were wreaked upon 
 Massacre at Massachusetts and New Hampshire. De Rouville, with 
 three hundred French and Indians, came down from Canada 
 by the Connecticut valley to surprise Deerfield. That village, con- 
 
 Queen 
 
 Anne's 
 War. 
 
 Williams House, Deerfield. Mass 
 
 taining about two hundred inhabitants, suspected an attack and was 
 vigilant. But one morning in February, 1704, the savages, hiding in 
 the woods till the sentries retired at daylight, surprised the half- 
 awakened people. Fifty persons were killed, and a hundred prisoners, 
 including women and children, were taken and carried off to Canada. 
 It was the policy of the Jesuits to get hold of as many children as pos- 
 sible, in order to rear them in the principles of Romanism. Many of 
 
1704.] WAR WITH THE FRENCH AND INDIANS. 123 
 
 them thus became Catholics, and some of the women, married to In- 
 dians, began the race of half-breeds which, together with the unions of 
 Frenchmen and Indian women, filled Canada and the Northwest 
 with able guides and trappers. 
 
 Among the Deerfield captives were the minister, Williams, his wife, 
 and five young children. The youngest had been only a few days 
 born ; and while the poor mother, finding that she was too weak to 
 travel through the snow, knelt down in prayer, an Indian tomahawked 
 her. Some twenty years after, a woman in an Indian dress walked 
 into Deerfield. The people did not recognize a daughter of Wil- 
 liams, who had married an Indian in Canada and refused to desert 
 her children. The minister ordered a public fasting and prayer that 
 her resolution might be changed ; but the new ties were more relig- 
 iously observed than the old ones, and she returned. Indeed, many 
 children made captives in this manner, who afterwards came back to 
 the settlements, could not submit to the restraints of civilized life, 
 and declared that the Indian way was the best. 
 
 In the course of the year Lancaster met a similar fate. The war, 
 with the French element of subtle intelligence to guide, was At ^^ 
 even more barbarous than Philip's. The colonists, in scat- Ca8ter- 
 tered parties, sought to defend a long frontier against an enemy who 
 knew how to avoid striking till the stroke promised to be fatal. 
 
 The French, claiming the whole coast of Maine as far as the Ken- 
 nebec, had established, not long before, a trading and missionary post 
 among the Norridgewock Indians on the upper waters of that river. 
 The Indians, ever the warm allies of the French, were ready always 
 to oppose any settlement of the English east of the Kennebec, while 
 the French men-of-war seized every English fisherman who was found 
 in Acadian waters. The province was equally stimulated by hostility 
 to the French and dread of the Indians, and Dudley recognized the 
 importance of protecting the frontier against both. He went to Casco 
 and induced the representatives of various Eastern tribes, including 
 the Norridgewocks, to meet him in council. French advisers had care- 
 fully instructed the chiefs to assume a spirit of neutrality. The 
 Governor was presented with the customary belt of wampum and 
 assured that an intention to go to war was as distant from their minds 
 as the sun was above the earth. Then two cairns of stones were piled 
 up, both parties assisting, in token of amity and fraternity. All this 
 time a plot existed among them to seize the Governor and his suite 
 and turn them over to the French ; and it was only frustrated by the 
 failure of a French party to arrive in time. 
 
 In less than six weeks after this scene of pretended sincerity, at- 
 tacks were made upon the settlements between the Kennebec and the 
 
124 THE ROYAL GOVERNORS IN NEW ENGLAND. [CiiAi>. V. 
 
 Piscataqua, and the whole region was filled with terror. Families 
 took refuge in garrison houses, and no work in the fields 
 
 Hostilities 
 
 in the could be done without armed protection. Detachments of 
 
 northeast. . * 
 
 troops were sent out to intercept the savages, but they were 
 not to be found. Winter expeditions, undertaken upon snow-shoes, 
 were no more successful. 
 
 Colonel Church was sent, in 1704, from Massachusetts with over 
 five hundred men to succor these harassed settlements on the eastern 
 frontier. He destroyed some villages, and met and killed some of 
 the enemy, both French and Indian, on the Penobscot, but with no im- 
 portant result. In the winter an attack was made by New Hampshire 
 men upon Norridgewock, and the wigwams and French chapel were 
 burned. These reprisals only exasperated the savages. They struck 
 back with terrible and cruel blows wherever they found the English 
 off their guard. That year and the next, Haverhill, York, Exeter, 
 Dover, Sudbury, Groton, and other places in Maine, New Hampshire, 
 and Massachusetts, were fallen upon and some of them destroyed. 
 The savage enemy was so successful in attacking where there was no 
 chance of defence, or, where defence was made, in eluding pursuit, 
 that it was computed each Indian slain cost the provinces a thousand 
 pounds. 1 Scalps were at a premium. Massachusetts offered fifteen 
 pounds for the hair of any male Indian who was over twelve years 
 of age ; eight pounds was offered also for each child or woman cap- 
 tured. 2 The French also attempted to stimulate their Indian allies 
 by offering a scale of bounties for English scalps ; but the savages 
 generally preferred to take prisoners and transport them to Canada, 
 partly inclined to this by the Jesuit priests, who desired to make con- 
 verts of Protestants, and partly by the pleasure which they felt in 
 finding that a good many youthful captives were disposed to adopt 
 their mode of life and to intermarry with their own young women. 
 Thus the years of Queen Anne's War, glorious to England in the 
 great campaigns of Marlborough and Peterborough, the splendid vic- 
 tories of Blenheim, of Barcelona, of Ramillies, of Oudeuarde, were to 
 the colonies years of inglorious Indian warfare and savage onslaughts 
 upon the peaceful homes of women and children, inglorious, but 
 often heroic in brave deeds and braver endurance of torture and be- 
 reavement. 
 
 Through all, the colonial authorities held steadily to the purpose of 
 the conquest of Canada and the expulsion of the French from their 
 
 1 Pcnhallow's Indian JFars. 
 
 2 This scale of bounties for scalps advanced so rapidly that when Lovewell's volunteers 
 took the war-path in 1724, a man's scalp was worth one hundred pounds, and one of a 
 child or woin:m brought fifty pounds to persons in the public service, and the double of 
 each sum to volunteers. 
 
1710.] 
 
 CAPTURE OF PORT ROYAL. 
 
 125 
 
 northern borders. In 1707, Dudley sent a force of a thousand men, 
 under Colonel March, raised in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and 
 Rhode Island, to reduce Port Royal. In two campaigns, 
 
 .,,,.. 7 Expeditions 
 
 extending through the winter into the following spring, agiut Port 
 the thousand men were reduced to less than two hundred, 
 chiefly by hardship and disease, and the fort was not taken. Nichol- 
 son's first campaign from New York, though not so disastrous, was 
 quite as unsuccessful ; but neither these nor other misfortunes, the 
 uncertainty of the friendship of the Five Nations, the certainty of 
 the hostility of all the Eastern savages, abated the courage or deter- 
 mination of the colonies. 
 
 In 1710, however, the place was taken by the aid which Schuyler 
 and Nicholson had induced the ministry to give to the war in Amer- 
 ica. In September, a fleet of six ships of war and about thirty 
 
 FORT ROYAL 
 
 ,._ oLuiftlAiccjuLte 
 
 ApptUc *yi*r fl*riu AmjJmu 
 
 ANNAPOLIS ROYAL* 
 
 """! J~ ' EchelUa. 
 
 ~ . . ^_ f JJeiyrmtlU jruAfnt efmtfjii 
 *^ ' **"_- . j** A* *jy# /*/# j 
 
 ,__ ~- - - V^ -- f^ 2itrueM*ri*& i*fr*iie t! *.A*.j 
 
 * ~ ~ ~~ y* >, ^ 
 
 Plan of Port Royal, Nova Scotia 
 
 transports, carrying five regiments of troops, sailed from Boston har- 
 bor. Five of the war vessels belonged to the English navy, the 
 sixth, a galley, to Massachusetts. Two of the five regiments were 
 New England men ; the fifth was a regiment of English marines. 
 General Nicholson of New York was the commander-in-chief. Sir 
 Charles Hobby and Colonel Taller of Massachusetts, Colonel Whiting 
 of Connecticut, and Colonel Walton of New Hampshire, led the troops 
 of their respective colonies. 
 
 Port Royal named afterward Annapolis Royal in honor of the 
 
126 THE ROYAL GOVERNORS IN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. V. 
 
 Queen was still under the command of Subercase, who had so suc- 
 cessfully repulsed March and Wainright, two or three years before. 
 With less than three hundred men, he could make little defence against 
 the formidable force which now approached. The people outside the 
 fort opposed the landing of the English troops, and killed a few of 
 it sur- them ; but Subercase yielded when summoned to surrender, 
 render. Q ne transport was wrecked on entering the harbor, and twen- 
 ty-six men were lost ; fourteen or fifteen were killed in the advance to 
 the fort ; but at this cost of only forty lives Nova Scotia became an 
 English province, for the capture of Port Royal was virtually the 
 conquest of all that portion of New France. The proposed invasion 
 of Canada by land and sea at the same time, under Hill and Nichol- 
 son, which failed so signally the next year, prevented as we have 
 shown in a previous chapter the sending of any aid to Castin, and 
 the treaty of Utrecht gave to England the province which the New 
 England troops had conquered. 
 
 With the accession of George I., August 1, 1714, to the throne, the 
 doctrine of passive obedience which the Tories maintained against 
 the Whigs was understood to have been defeated. At the same time 
 the friends of Governor Dudley, who were principally Tories, lost 
 their influence, and it was easy for his enemies to procure his re- 
 moval. For twelve years he had, for the most part, misgoverned Mas- 
 sachusetts, planting in the soil seeds of enmities which grew to have 
 a protracted life. Cotton Mather, who expected to make of him a 
 supple instrument, was foiled by his own weapons in the hands of 
 an adroiter man ; he became, therefore, an implacable foe, and carried 
 great numbers of the clergy with him. They sympathized with the 
 accession of Whiggery to power, because it was understood, though 
 mistakenly, to be more favorable to provincial principles. Their 
 Dudley re- f 1'iends at court were strong enough to procure the removal 
 moved. o DucUey^ when the Massachusetts Assembly declared, soon 
 after the death of the Queen, that the office of governor was vacant. 
 
 In New Hampshire Dudley was less unpopular than in Massachu- 
 setts, for he espoused the cause of the actual settlers upon the land 
 against the Mason claim. This was still the paramount question to 
 the people of that province, and anxious to win over to their side the 
 influence of the Crown, they voted the permanent salaries which Dud- 
 ley was instructed to exact, but which Massachusetts refused to grant. 
 When, therefore, the Crown allowed Allen, the representative of the 
 Mason claim, to take possession of all common and unin- 
 shkeAf- m closed land, and he summoned Dudley to appear at the trial 
 on writs of ejectment to sustain the royal instructions, the 
 Governor managed on various pretexts to delay his journey and not to 
 
1721.] CONDITION OF MASSACHUSETTS. 127 
 
 reach Portsmouth at all. So it was easy for him on several occasions 
 to persuade that province to send addresses on his behalf to the Queen. 
 One of these was sent to George I., in 1715, earnestly praying for 
 Dudley's continuance in office. 
 
 f 
 
 Massachusetts then contained about 94,000 inhabitants, and of these 
 2,000 were Negro slaves, and 1,200 civilized Indians. The popula- 
 tion of Boston was probably about 10,000. As early as 1690, Indians 
 were employed as field-hands at one shilling a day and their 
 
 , i mi XT u- a r. i .LI Population 
 
 board. ihe .Negroes were cnieny house-servants in the andcondi- 
 larger towns. The price of a slave in provincial currency sactmsetts 
 was equivalent to about $80 of our money. If the slaves 
 ran away, which occurred but seldom, for their servitude was not se- 
 vere, Indians were employed for their recapture. The labor of white 
 workmen was worth two shillings a day. 1 
 
 The province owned at that period 190 vessels of various kinds and 
 of 8,000 tons in all, sailed by 1,100 men. There were employed 
 in the fisheries 150 smacks, with crews in all of 600 men. A few 
 manufactories of hats and cloths existed, which were a perpetual 
 source of jealousy to England, whose exports in English products to 
 all American ports were valued at 1,000,000 sterling. Exports 
 from all American plantations were valued at 800,000. During a 
 period of great commercial activity, from 1714 to 1717, Boston cleared 
 for the West Indies alone 518 vessels, and for all the ports of her trade 
 1,247 vessels ; and 232 vessels were cleared at Salem. 2 The colonial 
 policy of self-protection was in continual struggle with the English 
 policy of restriction which affected everything, iron-work, hats, wool- 
 ens, and linen. 
 
 The scourge of this colony was small-pox. Four times it had been 
 epidemic in Boston at different periods, and it appeared 
 again in the spring of 1721. Nearly six thousand persons, and inocu- 
 more than one half the population, were attacked, of whom 
 nearly nine hundred died. Inoculation was introduced at this time in 
 America by Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, and its efficacy was proved in the 
 next serious visitation from this pestilence, thirty years later, when 
 out of the 5,544 who took the disease the natural way, 514 died, while 
 
 1 In England at that time the rates of wages were as follows: cook-maids and dairy- 
 maids 2 10 a year; mowers of corn and grass 1 s. 2 d, a day without meat and drink, and 
 only 6 d. with food ; male haymakers 10 d. a day without food, 5 d. with ; female hay- 
 makers 6 d. ; rough masons, carpenters, ploughmen, bricklayers, plasterers, and tilers 
 I s. 6 d. from Lady Day to Michaelmas, and 1 s. from Michaelmas to Lady Day. If they 
 were fed they had only 8 d. a day all the year round. Gardeners and thatchers were paid 
 at the same rate. Tailors earned 6 d. a day with food, 10 d. without; spinners earned only 
 4 d. daily without food. This schedule of wages lasted into the reign of George L 
 
 2 Barry's History of Massachusetts, Part ii., p. 107. 
 
128 THE ROYAL GOVERNORS IN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. V. 
 
 of the 2,113 who were inoculated only 31 died. The remedy was 
 first used in England by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who had ob- 
 served its effect at Adrianople, and had the courage to try it upon a 
 child of her own. The medical faculty were bitterly opposed to it. 
 The clergy preached against it from their pulpits and advised the peo- 
 ple to hoot at her as an unnatural mother who had put the life of her 
 child in peril. The four physicians who were appointed by the gov- 
 ernment to watch the experiment upon her daughter were so rancor- 
 ously hostile, so maliciously incredulous, that she never left them 
 alone with the child. As in old England, so in New ; the hatred of 
 innovation was stronger than the fear of the most loathsome of dis- 
 eases and the strong probability of death. 
 
 Cotton Mather who was somewhat of a lay practitioner of med- 
 icine was warmly interested in this bold attempt to mitigate human 
 suffering, and became, in consequence, so obnoxious that his house 
 was assaulted and an attempt made upon his life. Increase Mather, 
 his father, then a very old man, published a tract in favor of the 
 remedy, in which he quoted the Negro slaves as averring that it had 
 always been practised with success in Africa, whence, perhaps, the 
 Turks had obtained their knowledge of it. About two hundred 
 and fifty persons were safely inoculated by Dr. Boylston, seven 
 only dying who began with his own children and servants. The 
 brave man stood almost alone in his own profession ; but among the 
 clergy, though the opposition was general and bitter, the Mathers 
 were supported by some of the more eminent of the brethren, as 
 the Rev. Drs. Colman of Boston, Walter of Roxbury, a son-in-law of 
 Increase Mather, and Wise of Ipswich. 1 
 
 Dudley's successor was nominally one Colonel Burgess, chiefly 
 known and esteemed as a soldier. He valued his appointment, how- 
 ever, so little that he was easily persuaded to surrender his commis- 
 sion for 1,000, raised by subscription among friends of the provinces 
 who doubted his fitness for the office of governor. It was given then 
 to Samuel Shute, also a soldier ; but till his arrival the duties of the 
 office were discharged by Colonel Tailer, who had been made Lieuten- 
 ant-governor in reward for his services in the capture of Port Royal. 
 
 Governor Shute was fated to discover that party spirit could 
 
 rage as violently as an epidemic. Before he became -in- 
 
 hip of Sam- volved in a controversy which arose from the depreciation of 
 
 the currency, he got into trouble from a zeal like that of 
 
 Dudley's to promote the prerogative of the Crown. In fact, much to 
 
 the surprise and disappointment of the province, he was disposed to 
 
 favor Dudley's old party. This first dispute turned upon the en- 
 
 1 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., passim. 
 
1722.] THE EXPORT OF TIMBER. 129 
 
 forcement of the acts of Parliament on the right to the forests, and 
 the exportation of naval stores from the colonies. 
 
 When the Earl of Bellotnont came out as Governor, nearly twenty 
 years before, his instructions upon this subject were very positive. It 
 was believed that the colonies could be made to contribute largely to 
 the support of the royal navy and relieve England from its depend- 
 ence upon Norway for ship timber and other stores. But the supply 
 was to be enforced by arbitrary and inconsiderate acts of Parliament, 
 not as the result of a legitimate commerce. The Earl had faithfully 
 devoted himself to the fulfillment of his instructions. He died before 
 his plans were so matured as to influence his own popularity ; but 
 they were so definitely fixed, and were so confirmed by subsequent 
 laws that his successors had only to enforce an established policy. 
 
 The vast primeval forests along the Atlantic coast had become to 
 the colonists a source of commerce with Spain and Portu- 
 gal. This profitable trade was interdicted, that England 
 might pick and choose the choicest timber for the wooden ber- 
 walls of the royal navy " to be the mast of some great ammiral " 
 and in so doing little regard was paid to the rights of private own- 
 ers. The assertion of a royal privilege first bred discontent, then 
 violent resistance. It was not easy to prevent the shipping of tim- 
 ber to foreign countries a trade which the hardy lumberers of 
 Maine and New Hampshire maintained as a right wrested from na- 
 ture herself by toil and privation. Quite as difficult was it to prevent 
 the farmers from felling trees on lands to which they had a legal title 
 by grant or purchase their own trees which the King's surveyors 
 marked with a broad arrow that they might be reserved for the 
 King's use. The curious explorer in those eastern forests may even 
 now find occasionally upon pine trees which the centuries have spared, 
 these arrow-marks cut more than a hundred years ago the King, 
 his mark, upon a domain to which the Revolution secured a quit- 
 claim deed. 
 
 John Bridger was, as he had long been, Surveyor-general when 
 Shute assumed his office. Wherever the surveyor and his men saw 
 fit, they carved the emblem of royal ownership. The settlers resisted 
 this assertion of a right over lauds held by titles which should be 
 good even against the King, and for which they had risked their 
 scalps, and endured the extremity of hardship, that this savage wil- 
 derness might be turned to the uses of civilization. The loss of their 
 tallest and most shapely trees moved them to righteous anger ; hardly 
 less did they resent the act of Parliament which denied a trial by 
 jury on any question of ownership that it was thought worth while to 
 listen to, but left it to the decision of a judge of admiralty appointed 
 
 VOT,. III. 
 
130 THE ROYAL GOVERNORS IN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. V. 
 
 by the Crown. The products of the soil they owned were theirs, they 
 maintained, to do with as they would, to use or to sell to sell even 
 to the King, if he wanted their tar and timber. Still the surveyors 
 went on carving the broad arrow-heads with indifference or con- 
 tempt. Every stroke of the axe in the clearings was a blow in the 
 long conflict between provinces and Crown. 
 
 Remonstrance and indignant complaint against Bridger found their 
 way to Portsmouth and Boston, and the Governor sided with the sur- 
 veyor. Elisha Cooke, a member of the Massachusetts Council, showed 
 the justice of the settlers' claims, and the irascible old soldier deprived 
 him of his office. Thereupon the General Court sent a remonstrance 
 to the Governor which he forbade them to print. They printed it 
 nevertheless, establishing thereby a parliamentary privilege, never 
 again questioned, of printing what they pleased. 
 
 The General Court offended the Governor still further by electing 
 Cooke as Speaker. Shute stood upon his prerogative, refused to con- 
 firm their choice, and dissolved the Court. When compelled to call a 
 second, that body declined to grant certain appropriations he asked 
 for. He indignantly prorogued them also. A third voted him an 
 insignificant sum, but, at the same time, they patiently and firmly 
 thwarted his obnoxious measures. The old quarrel was fastened 
 upon him when he attempted, like Dudley, to have a fixed salary at- 
 tached to his office. To manifest its rooted policy upon this point, 
 the Assembly quietly reduced year by year the annual grant which it 
 allowed him, and voted a sum so small to Lieutenant-governor Wil- 
 liam Dummer that he disdained to accept it. 
 
 All this time another cause of bitter variance flowed out of the 
 deplorable financial condition of the province, which was suffering all 
 the evils of gambling speculation that belong to periods of paper 
 Paper money and depreciated currency. The infection of specula- 
 
 money. j.j on kad some thing of the virulence of John Law's Missis- 
 sippi scheme and the subsequent English South Sea Bubble, though 
 these manias did not directly implicate the provinces. Queen Anne's 
 War was responsible for a resort to a financial policy which so readily 
 buys immediate supplies, and so fatally contracts a public debt for 
 another generation to repudiate or pay at heavy cost. The provinces 
 were drained of gold and silver ; and as a desperate remedy recourse 
 was had to a fresh supply of paper money. It was called currency, 
 but nothing could make it current. Land and merchandise increased 
 nominally in value, but actually depreciated. 
 
 The province was divided into three heated parties, one that pro- 
 posed a speedy return to gold and silver ; another, much larger, that 
 sought to defeat resumption by the establishment of a private bank 
 
1722.] 
 
 FINANCIAL POLICY. 
 
 131 
 
 for the issuing of unlimited paper ; and a third that perceived the 
 necessity for a public bank that should steadily labor to pay the 
 public debt, and issue paper but restrain the abuse of it. There was 
 great agitation in every town and village. The acrimony of theologi- 
 cal difference was never more bitter than this discussion over a ques- 
 tion of finance which was little understood. It divided Financial 
 parishes and families like a civil war. At length the project P r J ects - 
 of a public bank was successful. It was a great misfortune, the re- 
 sult of unreasonable neglect and parsimony on the part of England, 
 that the provinces, which had lavished their life and treasure upon 
 various wars, were left, thus impoverished, to pay the bills. Under 
 this ingratitude of the mother country, for whose continental policy 
 the provinces bled as well as for their own welfare, they may be 
 pardoned for finding no resource save in the frequent issue of bills 
 of credit. 
 
 The Council generally, from 1710 downward, favored a public bank ; 
 but the Assembly was pretty evenly divided. Boston, being a lively 
 centre for speculative operations, 
 was eager for a private bank. 
 When the project for a public bank 
 finally prevailed in 1721, a loan of 
 50,000 in bills of credit was 
 placed with a board of trustees for 
 five years at five per cent., and one 
 fifth of the principal was to be paid 
 in yearly. Colonel Burgess, who 
 sold out his appointment as Gover- 
 nor, was among those who asked 
 for the establishment of a private 
 bank ; its supporters were highly 
 incensed when they discovered that 
 Governor Shute favored the public 
 bank. But no financial plan could 
 resist the demoralizing effect of 
 frequent issues of bills of credit. 
 When the five years had expired 
 in which the principal was to have 
 been paid, the issue of these bills had increased to .100,000. In that 
 year, 1727, 60,000 more were voted by the Assembly, and when 
 Dummer, who was acting Governor till Burnet arrived, vetoed the 
 measure, the Assembly simply refused his grant of money until he 
 signed the bill. 
 
 In 1722 bits of paper representing five pounds were struck off for 
 
 Three-Shilling Massachusetts Bill of 1741. 
 
132 THE ROYAL GOVERNORS IN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. V. 
 
 small change. The penny was round, the two-pence square, and the 
 three-pence angular. In 1728, 340 in this fractional currency was 
 issued ; in 1730, 380, the specie value of which was only 100. In 
 1733, by a vote of the General Court, bills to the amount of 75,500 
 
 were issued to pay the public debts ; and 
 in 1737, 20,000 of the new tenor "to 
 exchange for old bills at the rate of one 
 new for three old." 
 
 Governor Belcher, who was opposed 
 to all the schemes which steadily depre- 
 ciated the currency, stated, in 1740, 
 that the issue of bills up to that time 
 amounted to 260,000, of which 70,- 
 000 were yet unredeemed. 1 In the pre- 
 vious year a number of private individ- 
 
 Two-peoce, 1722. ' * 
 
 uals undertook to establish a land bank 
 
 with a capital of 150,000. Notwithstanding the popularity of this 
 step, it failed to procure the sanction of Parliament, and the company 
 dissolved. The different parliaments of the eighteenth century which 
 eagerly voted enormous sums to sustain England's continental wars, 
 The colonies cou ld seldom be influenced to reimburse the colonies for their 
 ex- heavy expenses incurred in expeditions against France and 
 t | )e Yy est j n( ji es . When in 1741 England was organizing 
 an expedition against the island of Cuba, the American provinces were 
 called upon to furnish 3,600 men, with the bounties, provisions, and 
 transports. The quota of Massachusetts was five hundred men; their 
 outfit and transportation cost 7,000, not a shilling of which was 
 ever reimbursed. Five years after the fall of Louisburg in 1745, the 
 expenditure of the colonies in that expedition was remitted to Boston 
 by the home government in specie, and this was the beginning of a 
 return to specie payments. But in 1748 the existing currency could 
 only purchase one eighth the value which the same nominal sum 
 would buy in 1700, and exchange on London stood at 1,100 cur- 
 rency for 100 sterling. A measure toward resumption which stead- 
 ily grew popular in spite of all interested opposition, was in two years 
 confirmed by an act of Parliament commanding the colonies to call in 
 all their bills of credit and to issue no more that were not to be dis- 
 charged within a year. And no further issue of paper money was to 
 be made save in extraordinary emergencies. 
 
 Specie was at one time so scarce in New Hampshire that paper 
 currency was issued for half a crown, and an ordinance was passed 
 to allow the payment of taxes in tar that was rated at twenty shil- 
 
 1 Felt's History of Ipswich, p. 105. 
 
1722.] 
 
 PAPER CURRENCY. 
 
 133 
 
 lings to the barrel. 1 The soldiers who were engaged in the various 
 campaigns against the French and Canada after 1755 were paid in 
 paper bills that were issued on the 
 plea of emergency. A bill bear- 
 ing the face of fifteen shillings 
 was worth a dollar. Of this 
 money the soldiers received ,13 
 10s. a month, and as the paper 
 steadily depreciated their pay 
 stood in the course of the same 
 year at 15, in 1756 at 18, in 
 1757 at 25. But sterling money 
 soon recovered its status as the 
 standard, and the paper value 
 followed the price of silver in all 
 contracts and exchange. This di- 
 gression will serve to group the 
 financial interests of the province 
 for a considerable period. In 
 other colonies similar measures of 
 a resort to the issue of paper 
 money to meet public exigencies 
 had like results. 
 
 The Indian difficulties during the administration of Governor Shute 
 became another source of serious embarrassment. With the 
 
 /~i TT i M i /-i (-/-til Indian diffl- 
 
 connivance of Count Vaudreuil, then Governor of Canada, the cuities dur- 
 
 . i i ir i 11 >i ing Shute's 
 
 t rench secretly stirred up the half-slumbering ill-will of the Governor- 
 Indians, in spite of the treaty, on the pretext that France pos- 
 sessed the coast of Maine as far as the Kennebec. It was not diffi- 
 cult to inflame the temper of the savages when they observed the in- 
 evitable encroachments of 
 the English upon domains 
 which had been purchased 
 
 from them. They did not Autograph of 
 
 at first foresee the practical effect upon themselves, upon their hunt- 
 
 1 The Provincial Papers of New Hampshire con fain frequent records of legislation against 
 the counterfeiting which can be so easily practised in an era of paper currency. One day 
 in January, 1756, 95 of counterfeit hills were brought into the Assembly, and there 
 ordered to be burnt in the presence of the members. This was done with sufficient solem- 
 nity. At one time the counterfeiters got possession of unfilled blanks of currency, left over 
 from the printing, and proceeded to imitate them at their leisure. Then each officer of the 
 government and each member of the Assembly was furnished with such blanks, that they 
 might be compared with the bills in circulation. In 1730 the punishment for counterfeit- 
 ing in Pennsylvania was death ; but that proved to have little deterring power, and a con- 
 viction was seldom obtained. 
 
 New Hampshire Bill of Forty Shillings, 1742. 
 
134 
 
 THE ROYAL GOVERNORS IN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. V. 
 
 ing, fishing, and planting, of the more elaborate and persistent meth- 
 ods of the white man, who was not very scrupulous in observing the 
 bounds of the tracts which had been ceded to him for an insignificant 
 remuneration. Naturally all this civilizing movement began to be 
 clear to them, and the French made it clearer. Claims and counter 
 claims, disputes, ill-blood, quarrels, were inevitable. The Governor 
 had an excellent plan of building trading-houses in the eastern ter- 
 ritory to supplant the French by direct traffic with the Indians for 
 
 their furs. These trading- 
 posts were to have been under 
 the direct control of the pro- 
 vincial government. The con- 
 stant turmoil of provincial 
 politics prevented their estab- 
 lishment ; so that the private 
 traders as usual, then and at 
 present, fleeced the Indians 
 and made their business ope- 
 rations easier by the demoral- 
 izing effect of liquor. The 
 Governor anticipated that 
 trouble would result from the 
 complication, and endeavored 
 to arrive at some friendly 
 understanding with the chiefs. 
 He made, however, the mis- 
 take of pressing upon them a 
 Puritan minister to reside 
 among them, hoping thus to 
 observe and counteract the Jesuit intrigues. The Indians favored the 
 religion of France as well as its politics, and no minister was allowed 
 to settle where a Jesuit ruled. 
 
 When the war impended, the General Court gave additional um- 
 brage to Shute by encroaching upon his power as comman- 
 dei'-hi-chief of the provincial forces. The officers who were 
 attached to the first expedition were instructed to commu- 
 nicate, not with the Governor, but with the General Court 
 as the representative of the people who were taxed to support the 
 war. This was clearly an illegal measure, which provoked bitter 
 wrangling, and the Governor found himself involved in a fresh dis- 
 pute. 
 
 The provincial temper exhibited such an increase of animosity 
 toward the royal government that Shute sailed for England in disgust 
 
 Six-pence, 1744. 
 
 tween the 
 
 GoTenior 
 
 
1727.] GOVERNOR SHUTE AND THE GENERAL COURT. 135 
 
 He spent the time there in explanation of his course and in urging a 
 decisive policy against the province. As the result of his activity, a re- 
 monstrance was sent to the General Court in 1723 ; it enumerated the 
 complaints brought by the Governor of interference with his preroga- 
 tive, and demanded explanations. At first the General Court treated 
 the charge with an aggravating nonchalance, contenting itself with 
 a vote that an agent should be appointed to manage the vindication 
 of its conduct. When the Provincial Council stoutly non-concurred 
 with this, the General Court undertook the more prudent course of 
 returning specific answers to the complaints. The provincial agents 
 found the Court obstinately bent upon enforcing the provisions of the 
 royal charter, especially on the points of cutting timber, the Gov- 
 ernor's power to negative the selection of Speaker, and interference 
 with military operations. 
 
 The judgment of the Board of Trade and the law-officers of the 
 Crown was clearly against the province. A supplementary The TesuH 
 charter intended to enforce the most important points at ment^ ple ~ 
 issue was sent to Boston in August, 1725, and laid before charter - 
 the Genei-al Court. After some preliminary discussion and voting, 
 during which a great deal of popular opposition was developed, this 
 explanatory charter was finally accepted by a majority upon a joint 
 vote of the House and Council. 
 
 Governor Shute was now confirmed in his power to negative the se- 
 lection of Speaker of the House, and he proceeded to work for another 
 concession, that of a permanent salary for the Govei-nor and Lieu- 
 tenant-governor. Put off and disappointed, he was on the point of 
 returning in 1727, greatly to the discontent of the province, whose 
 affairs had been judiciously administered by the Lieutenant-governor, 
 William Dummer. Just at that crisis George I. died ; new intrigues 
 sprang up under a new reign ; new men came into prominence ; new 
 favorites clamored for office and had to be provided for. In conse- 
 quence of this, Shute was pensioned, and the government of Mas- 
 sachusetts and New Hampshire was conferred upon William Bur- 
 net. 
 
 It is worth noting that the disposition of the clergy of Massachu- 
 setts had been slowly softening in matters of theology. Theolo g ical 
 Even the intolerant Cotton Mather preached a tolerant dis- 
 course on the occasion of the establishment of a Baptist 
 Church in Boston during Shute's administration. It was within the 
 memory of living men that the whipping-post or the stocks was thought 
 to be the proper place for those who doubted the efficacy of infant 
 baptism ; in a controversy of half a century before upon the rightful- 
 ness of admitting to baptism the children of those who were not mem- 
 
 setts - 
 
136 
 
 THE ROYAL GOVERNORS IN NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. V. 
 
 bers of the Church, the father and the grandfather of Cotton Mather 
 had taken different sides. The times had greatly changed. They 
 had changed still more since Roger Williams said that Cotton was 
 the high priest of Boston, when the priest was the head of the State 
 as well as of the Church. In country towns the clergyman was still 
 
 indeed chief among 
 men ; looked up to 
 as fittest of all to 
 guide in worldly as 
 in spiritual affairs ; 
 as absolute in the 
 town-meeting as in 
 the pulpit ; always 
 revered and often 
 beloved by those of 
 mature age, and al- 
 ways feared by the 
 young, who would 
 fly from before his 
 face and hide from 
 that austere and 
 reverend presence. 
 But in larger places 
 the influence of the 
 growth of political 
 freedom asserted 
 itself more r a p- 
 
 idly ; the clergy had come to be less and 
 less a power in the state ; liberty of thought 
 had grown to be less and less a civil of- 
 fence ; religious differences were more tol- 
 erated, and free discussion of all subjects was beginning to be possi- 
 ble. Journalism, with something of the meaning which later times 
 attach to that term, made its appearance. 
 
 The first newspaper was printed in Boston, in the autumn of 1690, 
 and was meant to be a monthly, with occasionally more fre- 
 
 Newspapcrs . ,1111 i i 
 
 established quent issues, should the demand warrant it. A single number, 
 however, only appeared. In 1704, the " Boston News Letter " 
 was established, a weekly paper which long held its own, but which 
 never, till a rival appeared, was anything but a mere digest of news. 
 In 1719, the " Boston Gazette" was started, of which James Franklin 
 was the printer. Two years later August, 1721 Franklin estab- 
 lished the u New England Courant," partly, it was thought, because the 
 
 of Franklin. 
 
1722.] BEXJAMIN FRANKLIN. 137 
 
 printing of the " Gazette " had been taken from him. 1 The publisher 
 of the " Gazette," Philip Musgrave, was also postmaster, and in 
 the first number of the "Courant" Franklin attacked him for of- 
 ficial incapacity. Of the " News Letter " the " Con rant " said it 
 was only " a dull vehicle of intelligence." The new journal was 
 evidently to be a thing as yet unheard of a paper in which politics 
 and religion, morals and manners, were to be freely discussed. Its 
 editor indeed soon wrote himself into prison, and in about six years it 
 
 JJl. 6. Humb. i. 
 
 TheBofton News Letter. 
 
 From,S8onba?3prili7.to 2flonbae April 2 -. 
 
 38offon Printed \)yGrecn> Sold byMcfioIasBaotUfiltysSbop nearrfieoldMeefinjHoufe 
 
 Fac-simile of the Heading of the " News Letter." 
 
 was discontinued ; but its appearance and its character mark an era 
 in intellectual progress and in the freedom of thought and speech in 
 Massachusetts. A club of gentlemen contributed essays on various 
 subjects, and these writers were called by conservative people, some- 
 times " Free Thinkers," sometimes the " Hell Fire Club." Benjamin 
 Franklin was the younger brother of James, and wrote paragraphs 
 as well as set type for the paper. He was about sixteen n^min 
 years of age, having been born opposite the Old South Franklin - 
 Church on January 6, 1706. He was the carrier of the paper, and 
 wrote the earner's addresses. Curiously enough, the paper opposed 
 inoculation, and perhaps its popularity in this respect, especially with 
 the physicians, who had the free use of its columns, procured tolera- 
 tion for its more offensive matter. 
 
 The paper was only a year old when the publisher was bound over 
 to be of good behavior, in the sum of 100, in consequence of " many 
 passages .... published, boldly reflecting on His Majesty's Govern- 
 ment, the Ministry, Churches, and College." It was at the same time 
 ordered that no number of the paper should be printed till it had been 
 submitted to the Secretary of the Council, and permission granted. 
 When afterward the elder Franklin was imprisoned for continued 
 contumacy, the management of the paper fell into young Benjamin's 
 hands. When James was ordered to cease the publication he obeyed, 
 
 1 Benjamin Franklin probably shared his brother's resentment against the proprietor of 
 the Gazette. In his autobiography he ignores its existence, and asserts that the Courant 
 was the second newspaper established in America, the News Letter being the first. 
 
138 THE ROYAL GOVERNORS IX NEW ENGLAND. [CHAP. V. 
 
 so far as his own name was concerned ; but the paper came out, nev- 
 ertheless, with Benjamin as publisher. There was no abatement of 
 the freedom of comment upon public affairs, while the journal com- 
 mended itself for family reading by a selection of the best hymns of 
 one Dr. Watts. James seems to have been jealous of his younger 
 brother's success, and they quarrelled. Then Benjamin ran away ; 
 and the loss to Boston was a gain to Philadelphia, till the whole 
 country claimed the services of one of the wisest and best of her 
 sons. 
 
 Shute was no happier in his administration of the affairs of New 
 Hampshire than of those of Massachusetts. The Assembly 
 
 New H.-iinp- * 
 
 shire under would never vote him a permanent salary, and this standing 
 
 Shute's ad- ' ' 
 
 grievance of the royal governors in all the colonies precluded 
 
 the possibility of any cordiality of feeling between him and 
 the popular representatives. He removed several members of the Coun- 
 cil and appointed others, who represented the local interests of Ports- 
 mouth, to the prejudice, the country people thought, of their own. 
 He called the Assembly to a conference with the Council, regarding 
 the issue of bills of credit, but without condescending to inform its 
 members of his reason for convening them. When the two Houses 
 resented this treatment, he dissolved them. On one point, how- 
 ever, they agreed ; the Assembly supporting him in the suspension of 
 Vaughan, the Lieutenant-governor, who assumed the exercise of su- 
 preme authority during Shute's absence in Boston. The removal of 
 Vaughan was justified also by the Crown, and John Wentworth was 
 appointed in his place. 
 
 The emigration of some Scotch Presbyterians to New Hampshire, 
 
 in 1718, while Shute was Governor, was much more impor- 
 by'terians "' tant in her history than these political quarrels. These 
 London- people, who undertook to better their condition in America, 
 
 were descendants of the colonists who had been transferred 
 by James I. to the North of Ireland, where their condition, from 
 penal laws against Protestants and from local taxation, had become 
 intolerable. Arriving first in Boston, they dispersed in various direc- 
 tions ; but sixteen of the families, holding together, settled upon lands 
 a few miles northwest of Haverhill. The boundary between New 
 Hampshire and Massachusetts had not, at this time, been determined, 
 though the two provinces had more than once appointed commis- 
 sioners to draw it, who could not agree. Massachusetts informed 
 these new settlers, when they applied for a grant, that they were out 
 of her jurisdiction. In New Hampshire the disputed title to the land 
 gave them some trouble, but under the protection of Wentworth 
 they remained upon the spot of their choice, and, being joined from 
 
1723.] SETTLEMENTS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE AND MAINE. 139 
 
 time to time by other families, they called their place Londonderry, 
 in 1722. 
 
 Their minister, MacGregor, informed Governor Shute how offensive 
 it was to them to be confounded with the Irish against whom they 
 had fought always for the defence of Protestantism. But the New 
 Hampshire people were jealous of these new-comers, who entered into 
 quiet possession of the soil at a time when their own lands were 
 threatened with litigation. These Presbyterians did the province the 
 
 good service of introducing the 
 manufacture of linen by the 
 spinning-wheel, and the cultiva- 
 tion of the potato. That vege- 
 table was first planted at An- 
 dover, whose inhabitants began 
 with boiling the balls instead of 
 the bulbs, wondering, when the 
 result was served up at their 
 simple tables, that a potato was 
 considered to be an esculent. 
 
 The prosperity attending 
 these new colonists led other wtt)e . 
 other people to peti- ment8 
 tion for grants of land for town- 
 ships. They took possession 
 before their charters were made 
 out, and began to fell the trees, 
 incurring the usual dispute with 
 
 Mrs. Dustin's Monument, Concord, N. H. ^ j^^ surveyon J n 17 OO 
 
 charters for four townships, Chester, Nottingham, Harrington, and 
 Rochester, were drawn up, including a reservation during the pen- 
 dency of Allen's suit, and signed by Governor Shute, which was his 
 last official act in the province. From 1713 to 1720 some attempts 
 were also made to settle tracts of land in Maine. On Shute's depart- 
 ure for England in 1723, Wentworth became acting Governor of 
 New Hampshire. 
 
Stvannah, from Print of 1741 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 GEORGIA. 
 
 PROPOSED SETTLEMENT SOUTH OF THE SAVANNAH. THE MARGRAVATE OF AZILIA. 
 THE SETTLEMENT OF GEORGIA. SKETCH OF JAMES OGLETHORPE. ARRIVAL OF 
 THE COLONISTS. BUILDING OF SAVANNAH. SPEECH OF TOMO CHICHI. THE 
 HIGHLANDERS AND SALZBURGERS. THE PILGRIMAGE OF THE SALZBURGERS. 
 THE "GRAND EMBARKATION." THE BROTHERS WESLEY. GEORGE WHITEFIELD 
 AND HIS ORPHAN HOUSE. SLAVERY AND THE IMPORTATION OF RUM PROHIBITED 
 IN GEORGIA. LAND TENURE. OGLETHORPE'S JOURNEY TO THE INTERIOR. 
 SLAVE INSURRECTION IN SOUTH CAROLINA. GEORGIA INVADKD BY THE SPANIARDS. 
 
 GALLANT ACTION OF OGLETHORPE. THE ROAD TO FREDEIUCA. SLAUGHTER 
 OF THE SPANIARDS IN A DEFILE. OGLETHORPE'S STRATAGEM. RETREAT OF THE 
 SPANISH FLEET. OGLETHORPE'S RETURN TO ENGLAND. THE LATTER YEARS OF 
 HIS LIFE. SURRENDER OF THE CHARTER. THE HALF-BREED QUEEN MARY. 
 SUPPRESSION OF THE BOSOMWORTH INSURRECTION. GEORGIA A ROYAL PROVINCE. 
 
 ITS SLOW PROGRESS. 
 
 Proposed 
 
 It was proposed as early as 1717 by Sir Robert Montgomery, a 
 Scotchman, to plant a colony on the Savannah River, and 
 *t ls quite possible that the failure of his plan was partly due 
 fc the revolution in South Carolina. Adventurers may have 
 been deterred from trying their fortunes in the vicinity of 
 a colony torn at that time with internal dissensions, and the more 
 
 1'rt >ioi!t- b 
 
1717.] THE MARGRAVATE OF AZILIA. 141 
 
 exposed, therefore, to attacks from their Spanish and Indian enemies 
 on the southern border. Perhaps it was better, however, for the fut- 
 ure settlement of the beautiful region between South Carolina and 
 Florida that it should be left a while longer to its virgin solitude, 
 rather than be made the scene of the fanciful schemes of this vision- 
 ary Scotchman. 
 
 Montgomery purchased the territory of the Proprietors on condition 
 that he should occupy it within three years. " My Design," he said, 
 in a " Discourse " commending it to public attention, " arises not from 
 any sudden Motive, but a strong Bent of Genius I inherit from my 
 Ancestors," one of whom, a century earlier, had been interested in 
 some plans of colonization in Nova Scotia. " The Humour, however," 
 he continues, " Descended and ran down with the Blood : For my 
 Father was so far of this Opinion, that together with Lord Cardross, 
 the late Earl of Buchan, and some other Gentlemen, he entered into 
 Measures for Establishing a Settlement on Port Royal River in South 
 Carolina, and Lord Cardross went thither in Person." l 
 
 The projector of the new colony pi'oposed to call it by the grandi- 
 sonous title of the " Margravate of Azilia." It was generally agreed, 
 he said in his " Discourse," that " Carolina, especially in its Southern 
 Bounds, is the most amiable Country of the Universe ; That Nature 
 has not bless'd the World with any Tract which can be pref- The Mantra _ 
 erable to it; that Paradise with all her Virgin Beauties, may Tateof Azllia 
 be modestly suppos'd at most but equal to its Native Excellencies." 
 His fanciful plan of colonization was not dependent upon any proposed 
 community of labor or of property ; and it paid no heed to the prac- 
 tical difficulties in the way of contiguous blocks of farms laid out for 
 cultivation, regardless of soil or situation, as city blocks are planned 
 for residence and trade. The country was to be divided into districts, 
 as population increased, each district to be twenty miles in length and 
 width, surrounded by a square of fortifications. These were to be de- 
 fended by garrisons who should maintain themselves and the Mar- 
 grave by the cultivation of a strip of land one mile in width running 
 around the square within the walls. Inside of this another strip, two 
 
 1 See vol. it., p. 360. The " humour descended and ran down with the blood " also in 
 the Erskiue family. The great-grandson of the Lord Cardross here alluded to the 
 eccentric sixth Earl of Buchan, whose faith in metempsychosis was so profound that he 
 believed all his ancestors lived in his own person, and who might have said, " when I was 
 at Port Royal," as he would say, " when I was at the battle of Agincourt," this descend- 
 ant of Lord Cardross was deeply interested in America, and his sympathies warmly enlisted 
 on behalf of the colonists in the American Revolution. He entered into correspondence 
 with some of the leading men, and sent them his engraved portrait. One of these, 
 presented by the Earl to James Otis, is in the possession of the author, and bears the 
 autograph inscription, " As a mark of my attachment to the cause of Liberty and its 
 friends." 
 
142 
 
 GEORGIA. 
 
 [CHAP. VI. 
 
 miles in width, was to be reserved to furnish these defenders with farms 
 of their own, rent free for life, after their term of service should be 
 over. Of the remaining land, the most was laid out in one hundred 
 and sixteen smaller squares of one mile each, " bating only for the 
 highways which divide them ; and in the centre of each square should 
 
 The Margravate of Azilia 
 
 stand its owner's dwelling : " these are the estates belonging to the 
 Gentry of the District." Finally, in the middle of the whole there 
 was a large square for a city, and at the corners there were others for 
 great parks each four miles square in which were to be kept the 
 stocks of cattle and of game. Like a holy of holies, at the city's 
 central point was to be built the Margrave's house his constant res- 
 idence. 
 
 But this ingenious scheme of a great rural city, portrayed by picture 
 
JAMES OGLETHORPE. 
 (After a contttujjorary engraving.) 
 
1732.] JAMES OGLETHORPE. 148 
 
 as well as described in words, failed to excite the admiration and en- 
 thusiasm its designer hoped for. Not an emigrant offered Failureof 
 to avail himself of the beauties and advantages of the prom- the sche n>- 
 ised "Paradise." The provisional three years expired, and the 
 Proprietaries resumed their ownership of the country. For fifteen 
 years longer it remained a sort of debatable land between the English 
 and the Spaniards of Florida, a hunting-ground and refuge for a few 
 hundred Indians, till, purchased by the Crown of the Proprietors, it 
 was once more selected as the site of a colony. 
 
 A humane movement about this time for the reformation of Eng- 
 lish jails where, it was notorious, the most shocking abuses A newmoTe- 
 existed enlisted the sympathies and the energies of James Inellt - 
 Oglethorpe, a member of Parliament. His experience as a member 
 of a parliamentary committee, appointed with reference to this sub- 
 ject, led him and others to wider observation and reflection upon the 
 condition of the poor generally, and his committee suggested, in a 
 report to the House, that " there were great numbers of indigent 
 persons burthensome to the public, who would be willing to seek a 
 livelihood in any of his Majesty's plantations in America, if they were 
 provided with a passage and means of settling there." They asked 
 that lands might be given them, as Trustees, in the southern part of 
 South Carolina, for the planting of such a colony. The subject was 
 deliberately and carefully discussed for two years after the report was 
 made, and on the 9th of June, 1732, a charter was granted to twenty 
 Trustees, for the benefit of the poor of the kingdom, and for the pro- 
 tection of the southern frontier of the American colonies, of all that 
 region between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers. 1 The new colony 
 was to be called Georgia, in honor of the King, George II. 
 
 Oglethorpe was at this time little more than forty years of age, and 
 his life had been full of action and adventure. His family had been 
 well known in courts and camps for generations. His great-grand- 
 father and his grandfather had held positions in the royal household ; 
 and his father that Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe referred to in a par- 
 agraph of " Guy Mannering : ' as one who " held orgies with the wicked 
 Laird of Ellangowan " had been a well-known general under James, 
 but at the time of the Georgia founder's birth, in 1688, had retired to 
 live as a quiet country gentleman in Surrey. Oglethorpe was sent to 
 Oxford at sixteen ; and at twenty-one entered the army as an ensign. 
 He subsequently took service under the great Prince Eugene, was 
 
 1 The Trustees were Lord Percival, Edward Dighy, George Carpenter, James Ogle- 
 thorpe, George Heathcote, Thomas Tower, Rol>ert Moor, Robert Hucks, Roger Holland, 
 William Sloper, Francis Eyles, John Laroche, James Vernoii, William Behtha, John Bur- 
 ton, Richard Bundy, Arthur Benford, Samuel Smith, Adam Anderson, and Thomas 
 Coram. 
 
144 GEORGIA. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 made an officer of his staff, and for several years shared in the most 
 'a f amous fighting f the time, serving at Petervvardein and at 
 
 Belgrade, and not returning finally to England until peace 
 rope - was made with the beaten Turks in 1718. This military 
 
 experience was not the least among the qualifications that fitted him 
 for the post of governor of a frontier colony. 
 
 The project of the Georgia Trustees was received with a good deal 
 Settlement f enthusiasm. Subscriptions on its behalf were numer- 
 of Georgia. oug Parliament made generous grants, and the Bank of 
 England and other public institutions led long lists of contributors. 
 All the Trustees themselves gave money, besides gratuitous service. 
 They adhered rigidly to their original design ; selecting their first 
 body of colonists cai-efully from the destitute inhabitants of large 
 cities ; from deserving insolvent debtors, whose creditors were gener- 
 ally willing to forego their worthless claims on the payment by the 
 company of a small sum ; and from well-disposed laborers out of em- 
 ployment. Their aim was to exclude from the company all idlers 
 and vicious persons, and all married men who were disposed to leave 
 their families behind. 
 
 On the 17th of November, 1732, Oglethorpe sailed from Gravesend 
 in the ship Anne, with the first company of emigrants, thirty-five 
 families, containing in all one hundred and fourteen persons. On the 
 13th of January she arrived in the lower bay of Charleston, where she 
 Arrival of remained only a day, while Oglethorpe went up to the town 
 emigrants. to con f er w ft n Governor Johnson. Then the Anne sailed for 
 Beaufort, and the people were landed to recruit after their long voy- 
 age; but Oglethorpe, accompanied by Mr. Bull of Charleston, sub- 
 
 Fac-simile from a Note of Oglethorpe, ordering Provisions. 
 
 sequently the Governor of South Carolina, went up the Savannah 
 River to select the place for their future home. The city of Savannah 
 now stands on the spot he thought best adapted to his purpose. 
 
 He rejoined his people at Beaufort, and the next Sunday was ob- 
 served as a day of thanksgiving. " There was," says a contemporary 
 narrative, " a great resort of the Gentlemen of that neighborhood and 
 
1733.] THE BUILDING OF SAVANNAH. 145 
 
 their families ; and a plentiful Dinner provided for the Colony, and 
 all that came, by Mr. Oglethorpe ; being 4 fat hogs, 8 turkies, besides 
 fowls, English Beef, and other provisions, a hogshead of punch, a 
 hogshead of beer, and a large quantity of wine; and all was so dis- 
 posed in so regular a manner, that no person was drunk, nor any dis- 
 order happened." 1 In the course of the week the company, charmed 
 with their first experience of the new country, and full of cheerful- 
 ness and hope, were taken to the place their leader had selected. 
 Oglethorpe's first care was to obtain the consent of the nearest Indian 
 chief, one Tomo Chichi, to his occupation of the land. In this he was 
 aided by Mary Musgrove, the half-breed wife of an Indian trader 
 whose post was in the neighborhood. This woman, who acted as 
 interpreter, persuaded the Yamacraw chief that the settlement of an 
 English colony at that spot would be an advantage to his people, and 
 he agreed to use his influence with the Creeks, to whom the territory 
 belonged. 
 
 For the first week the people were employed in landing their goods. 
 When this was done they were divided into three parties : one to pre- 
 pare land for cultivation ; another to fell the trees on the proposed 
 site of the town, Oglethorpe, however, wisely sparing some of the 
 finest of them ; a third to build palisades. Their poor shelter, and 
 exposure to the malaria from the low banks of the river, caused 
 some sickness, but their progress was rapid. All worked with a will ; 
 " there are no idlers here," wrote a visitor from Charleston ; "even the 
 boys and girls do their part." " Our people still lie in tents," Ogle- 
 thorpe wrote to the Trustees on the 10th of March, " there being only 
 two clapboard houses built, and three sawed houses framed. Our 
 crane, our battery, cannon, and magazine are finished. This is all 
 that we have been able to do, by reason of the smallness of our num- 
 ber, of which many have been sick, and others unused to labor ; though, 
 I thank God, they are now pretty well, and we have not lost one since 
 our arrival here." 
 
 With the aid of Captain Bull, of Charleston, who had returned 
 thither and brought back hired laborers and settlers, Oglethorpe laid 
 out the place on that symmetrical and excellent plan which makes 
 the present city of Savannah so beautiful. The broad avenues, with 
 little parks at the alternate crossings, still bear witness to ^vingout 
 Oglethorpe's good taste and judgment, and many of the Savanuah 
 streets retain the names Bull, Drayton, Whi taker, Abercorn 
 which he then gave them from his associates, or from American or 
 English patrons of the enterprise. Several months later, when the 
 
 1 A Brief Account of the Establishment of the Cobny of Georgia, etc., a contemporary nar- 
 rative first published in Force's Tracts, vol. i. 
 
 VOL. III. 10 
 
146 
 
 GEORGIA. 
 
 [CHAP. VI. 
 
 number of the colonists was increased by fresh arrivals from England, 
 the four wards of the town received the names of Percival, Derby, 
 
 The Landing at Savannah. 
 
 Heathcote, and Decker, 
 from Lord Percival, the 
 president of the com- 
 pany, and three of its 
 leading benefactors ; 
 and at the same time 
 names of other Trustees 
 were given to the " ti th- 
 ings " into which these 
 wards were subdivided. 
 The divisions and their names were officially announced on July 7, 
 a day specially set apart for the establishment of the local government, 
 and kept by all the people as a holiday. 
 
 In May a council of the chiefs of all the nearer Indian tribes was 
 Savannah, and the treaty first made with Tomo Chi- 
 ^ W as confirmed. Oglethorpe assured them that he did not 
 mean to dispossess, or to injure their people in any way, and that what- 
 ever land they would grant for the convenience of the English should 
 be fairly paid for. " We are persuaded," said a sachem of the Lower 
 Creeks, ' that the Great Spirit who dwells above and around all has 
 sent the English hither for our good ; and therefore they are welcome 
 to all the land we do not need." " When these white men came," 
 said Tomo Chichi, " I feared that they would drive us away, for we 
 were weak ; but they promised not to molest us." Then in acknowl- 
 edgment of corn and other supplies which the Englishmen had given 
 
 Treaty with 
 
1733.] 
 
 TOMO CHICHI. 
 
 147 
 
 them, he offered presents in return, and besought the strangers for 
 continued kindness. " Here," he went on with that figurative elo- 
 quence in which the North American Indian has always so Speec b O f 
 loved to clothe his speech " Here is a buffalo skin Tomo Chichi - 
 adorned with the head and feathers of an eagle. The eagle signifies 
 speed, and the buffalo strength. The English are swift as the eagle, 
 and strong as the buffalo. Like the eagle, they flew hither over great 
 waters, and like the buffalo, nothing can withstand them. But the 
 feathers of the eagle are soft, and signify kindness ; and the skin of the 
 buffalo is covering, and signifies protection. Let these, then, remind 
 them to be kind and protect us." l 
 
 Between the new colony and its nearest English neighbor there 
 was the utmost harmony. South Carolina came to Ogle- Progregsof 
 thorpe's help with large public and private subscriptions, thecolon y- 
 and on a visit to Charleston he cordially and feelingly acknowledged 
 these in an address to its Assem- 
 bly. At Savannah the first rude 
 shelter of boughs of trees, and the 
 clapboard houses, were soon dis- 
 placed by substantial dwellings. 
 A public garden was planted as a 
 nursery, with many kinds of fruit 
 trees, and especially with mul- 
 berry trees ; for it was proposed 
 to make the manufacture of silk 
 a principal industry of the colony, 
 and for this purpose some skilled 
 workmen from Italy were sent 
 out among the earliest emigrants. 
 On Tybee Island, near the mouth 
 of the Savannah, a light-house to 
 be ninety feet in height was be- 
 gun ; on the river bank below the 
 town, a battery was built for its protection. On the Ogeechee River, 
 Captain M'Pherson with a company of Highlanders built a fort and 
 called it Fort Argyle, as a defence against the Spaniards. When 
 Oglethorpe returned to England after fifteen months' stay, he left his 
 colony in a prosperous and promising condition. He had brought to 
 it a little more than one hundred persons; in the first year and a half 
 it increased to very nearly five hundred. 
 
 Every ship that had come from England had brought small parties 
 of emigrants, most of them of that class for whose benefit especially 
 1 The English found the buffalo in immense numbers iu Georgia. 
 
 Tomo Chichi. (A Portrait painted in London. 
 
148 GEORGIA. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 the colony was projected. Not all, however ; Highlanders came from 
 Scotland under their petty chiefs, who, at different times, 
 land emu settled at Fort Argyle and at Darien on the Altamaha, 
 men well-trained, by their lives at home, for the new life 
 of the wilderness, whose love of arms and the hunt, whose picturesque 
 garb and the wild music of their bagpipes commended them to the 
 enthusiastic admiration and warm friendship of the natives. And in 
 absolute contrast to these was still another class who, like the Fathers 
 of Plymouth the century before, were truly Pilgrims, fleeing from re- 
 ligious persecution, and who prized above all earthly things freedom of 
 belief and of worship ; a devout, humble, long-suffering, and indus- 
 trious people, certain to remain as a distinct community apart from 
 the general population with whom they had so little in common. 
 
 These were the Salzburgers, descendants of those Piedmontese Wal- 
 denses who, as early as the twelfth century, were, as Pope Inno- 
 cent III. lamented, " carried along by an immoderate desire of know- 
 ing the Scriptures," and who came, therefore, under the ban of the 
 church. Through the centuries, down to the time of the 
 Reformation, persecution followed them, and then, as they 
 became distinguished for their adherence to the tenets of 
 Luther, the church determined that they should be exterminated from 
 the face of the earth. They were hunted like wild beasts ; some were 
 scourged till they died ; some were burnt to death in the flames of 
 their own houses ; some were blown up with gunpowder. Ingenuity 
 was exhausted in devising methods of pain and terror ; their minis- 
 ters were tortured till death released them ; the head of one of their 
 most beloved teachers, Anthony Brassus, was nailed in mockery to 
 the pulpit from which he had preached. But they were not quite de- 
 stroyed ; a remnant escaped and fled to the valley of Salzburg, then a 
 province of Bavaria. 
 
 Here, in obscurity, they found safety. They had preserved their 
 organization and, though without ministers, kept alive their religious 
 zeal, holding their meetings in the depths of the forests and in the 
 dark recesses of mines. For three quarters of a century they were 
 unnoticed and unmolested, handing down from generation to genera- 
 tion an inheritance of the memory of centuries of wrong and suffering, 
 and of the steadfast faith which had sustained their fathers, and 
 would sustain them. 
 
 As their numbers increased, the eyes of the church searched them 
 out, and again the church stretched out its hands against 
 of the saiz- them. Their belief was denounced and derided, and their 
 worship forbidden. They were summoned before ecclesias- 
 tical courts for trial; many were left to languish in prisons, their limbs 
 
1728.] 
 
 THE SALZBURGERS. 
 
 149 
 
 loaded with chains, while their souls were vexed with priests who 
 labored to confound their belief and frighten them into apostasy; 
 others were driven from their homes, their possessions seized or de- 
 stroyed, husbands and wives separated, the children taken from both 
 to be nurtured in the bosom of the church. It was only by the 
 protests of Protestant Germany, and especially of Frederic William, 
 the Elector of Brandenburg, that there came, toward the end of the 
 
 The Salzburgers at Frankfort. 
 
 seventeenth century, some mitigation of tlmr many trials and sorrows, 
 and the wretched Lutherans were left for a season in peace. 
 
 But it was only for a season. In 1728, Leopold, the Archbishop of 
 Salzburg, alarmed at the spread of heresy within his diocese, deter- 
 mined that it should be suppressed. He renewed the persecution of 
 the unhappy people with a resolute will and a relentless spirit, and sue- 
 
150 GEORGIA. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 ceeded in three or four years in driving thirty thousand of them into 
 exile. Twenty thousand found a refuge in Prussia ; the other third 
 fled to Holland, to England, anywhere where their faith and their 
 sufferings entitled them to sympathy and welcome. 
 
 Nowhere was there a warmer interest aroused on behalf of this peo- 
 ple, who had endured so long and so much for conscience' sake, than 
 in Protestant England. In Oglethorpe's scheme for planting a colony 
 in America, the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge 
 saw the opportunity for providing an asylum for some of those wjio 
 were still exposed to persecution. Arrangements were made to pro- 
 vide the necessary aid to a limited number, and a proposition to emi- 
 grate to Georgia was accepted by about fifty families of the village of 
 Berchtesgaden, a few miles south of Salzburg. 
 
 The way was toilsome and long through Germany to the northern 
 coast. But in the autumn of 1733 the villagers started, 
 
 Their pil- . . 
 
 in most of them on toot, carrying only the young and inhrm 
 
 with their household goods in rude carts. At Augsburg 
 they remained awhile to rest, though the Catholic authorities at first 
 refused them entrance even to the town. As they dragged on through 
 their weary journey, they were scoffed at and sometimes maltreated, 
 when in Catholic districts ; but among Protestants they found every- 
 where hospitality and kindness, the peasants taking the tired women 
 and children in their arms to carry them from one village to the next. 
 At Frankfort-on-the-Main the citizens came forth to meet them aud 
 led them into the city in a sort of triumphal procession, to the music 
 of Lutheran hymns. Here their long march ended, as they took boat 
 upon the Main. Here, also, they were met by two clergymen, Bolzius 
 and Gronau, who were to lead them as their pastors to the promised 
 land. 
 
 It was not till March of the next spring that these way-worn pilgrims 
 Arrival in by ^ an( ^ an( ^ ty sea reached Charleston, their voyage alone 
 Georgia. having taken more than a hundred days. Oglethorpe was 
 on the eve of departure for England, but he gladly turned back with 
 them to Savannah. They came without wealth ; their only arms 
 were their Bibles and prayer-books, for the non-resistance to violence, 
 which discretion had so long taught a hopeless minority, had grown to 
 an abhorrence of all violence ; but Oglethorpe well knew that these vir- 
 tuous, harmless, and industrious people, long acquainted with priva- 
 tion, self-denial, and submission, must needs be a valuable acquisition 
 to a new colony. Lands were given them on the Savannah, selected 
 by themselves because the hills and valley bore some remote resem- 
 blance to the home they would never see again. The place they 
 called Ebenezer, for, they said, " Hitherto hath the Lord helped us ; ' 
 and the name was retained when two or three years afterward they 
 
1735.] THE GRAND EMBARKATION. 151 
 
 removed a little farther inland, retained by their descendants ever 
 since. 
 
 In the winter of 1735-6 Oglethorpe returned from England, where 
 the report of the first success of the colony, and the pres- 
 
 -~, .1. i , , T -I- i p i The Grand 
 
 ence ot Toino Chichi and several other Indian chiefs whom Embarka- 
 he had taken with him, had renewed the public enthusiasm. 
 He brought an addition of about three hundred persons, a few of whom 
 were of a better class than the beneficiaries of the Trustees ; some 
 were Salzburgers, others were Moravians, with the Baron von Rick 
 and Captain Hermsdorf, from Germany, at their head. Charles Wes- 
 ley came as the Governor's secretary ; the elder brother, John, was 
 sent by the Trustees as a missionary to the Indians. This second 
 voyage is known as the Grand Embarkation, from its importance to 
 the colony, and the distinction is not misapplied. Hermsdorf, as a 
 brave soldier, was of signal service in the contests with the Spaniards 
 which soon threatened the existence of the colony ; the Wesleys, 
 though then young and unknown men, whose stay in Georgia was short, 
 made in this visit the first step that led to important results in the 
 religious history of the country. 
 
 Charles Wesley quarrelled with Oglethorpe, promulgating a scan- 
 dalous story which it was base to repeat if he did not be- 
 
 The We^- 
 
 lieve it ; and if he did believe it, the cordial friendship of leys in 
 subsequent years is not creditable to Wesley. His stay in 
 Frederica was short, and judicious people had quite as much reason to 
 rejoice at his departure as he had in going. The career of his brother 
 John at Savannah was longer and his course even more reprehensible. 
 He permitted his disappointment in a love affair to influence his con- 
 duct as a clergyman ; he showed more zeal than charity or good judg- 
 ment in censorious criticism (from the pulpit) of public affairs and 
 public men ; "he drenched them," says Southey, " with the physic of 
 an intolerant discipline." ! Perhaps it was not altogether his own 
 fault that he failed to commend Christianity to the Indians, though 
 he might have succeeded better had he sought them outside of the 
 English settlements ; for, when he strove with Tomo Chichi to lead 
 him to a new faith, the clear-sighted savage, who measured precept 
 by practice, said "Why, these are Christians at Savannah ! Those 
 are Christians at Frederica ! Christians get drunk ! Christians beat 
 men! Christians tell lies! Me no Christian !" 
 
 But the Wesleys were young men then, and the zeal and ardor of 
 youth ran before knowledge. This episode in their lives would have 
 been forgotten had there not come in after years the abounding grace, 
 the eloquence that moved multitudes to bow before it as the forest 
 
 1 Southey's Life of Wesley, vol. i. 
 
152 
 
 GEORGIA. 
 
 [CHAP. VI. 
 
 bends before the storm, the wisdom that could lay deep and strong the 
 foundations of a great ecclesiastical organization to rule millions, which 
 made them among the most marked and most influential men of their 
 century. It may be that the painful experience of failure in positions 
 whose duties were then beyond their strength fitted them for other 
 and higher duties which, had they remained in a young and feeble 
 colony, they would never have found. But their departure prepared 
 the way for the coming of another whose immediate influence upon 
 his time was equal to if it did not exceed theirs, both in England and 
 America. 
 
 This was George Whitefield, who was sent to take John Wesley's 
 George place at Savannah. Wesley had left there in secrecy, shaking 
 whitefleid. Q ^ as j je gj,^ the dust of his feet against it ; for, there was 
 an indictment for libel hanging over his head on complaint of the 
 
 husband of the woman 
 whom he, at one time, 
 had hoped to marry. 
 To him Savannah had 
 become not a pleasant 
 place to live in, and it is 
 to be presumed that he 
 was truthful enough and 
 humble enough to know 
 that this was, in part at 
 least, his own fault. 
 How else could he urge 
 Whitefield to take the 
 place he had run away 
 from, and in such terms 
 as these ? " Do you 
 ask me what you shall 
 have ? Food to eat, and 
 raiment to put on, a 
 house to lav your head 
 
 / / 
 
 in such as your Master 
 had not, and a crown of 
 glory that fadeth not 
 away." He surely could 
 not have meant to de- 
 ceive his friend. For it was no common tie that bound them togeth- 
 er ; even the bitterness and acrimony of theological difference and 
 nothing will make men hate each other so cordially failed in later 
 years to separate them permanently. They had been fellow-students 
 
 John Wesley. 
 
1738.] CONCERNING RUM AND SLAVERY. 153 
 
 at Oxford ; had suffered together, with a few others, ridicule and per- 
 secution for a religious enthusiasm incomprehensible to those about 
 them. The more they were divided from the world in those days, 
 the more closely they were bound together, and in behavior and belief 
 alike they had set themselves apart. It was to this Oxford time that 
 Whitefield alluded once when he said "I myself thought that Chris- 
 tianity required me to go nasty." And it was also of that time, or 
 soon after, that the father of the Wesleys, himself a clergyman, said 
 of his son John "I sat myself down to try if I could unravel his 
 sophisms, and hardly one of his assertions appeared to me to be uni- 
 versally true." These " sophisms " were beginning to be a puzzle to 
 many by the time Whitefield came to Georgia in 1738. On his ar- 
 rival at Charleston, the Rev. Alexander Gordon, the Episcopal clergy- 
 man, warned his people against this disturber of the peace of the 
 church, preaching from the text "Those who have turned the world 
 upside down are come hither also." Whitefield answered him, and 
 his text was "Alexander the coppersmith hath done me much evil; 
 the Lord reward him according to his works." 
 
 At this second coming to Georgia, Oglethorpe brought with him 
 two acts of Parliament of a novel and radical character. It would be 
 a subject of curious speculation what the future history of the country 
 would have been, could these acts have been permanently enforced. 
 But as both were from the outset evaded ; and as it was difficult, 
 probably impossible, under the circumstances of time and situation, 
 to build up a commonwealth from such foundations ; they remain only 
 as a remarkable instance of failure to establish a purely moral gov- 
 ernment. One of these acts prohibited the introduction of spirituous 
 liquors into the colony ; the other forbade the holding of slaves. In 
 the one case the Trustees hoped to encourage and aid dependence upon 
 free white labor, which they believed, and believed truly, 
 
 could never flourish in competition with the labor of slaves ; of 
 in the other case they knew that a free traffic in rum led prtation"of 
 to drunkenness, and that this was an unmitigated evil to 
 rough emigrants necessarily freed, in large measure, from the ordinary 
 restraints of law in older communities, and an exterminating curse to 
 the savage tribes by which they were surrounded. But appetite and 
 avarice were far stronger than acts of parliament or local laws. The 
 most profitable trade in Carolina was the trade in rum ; such wealth 
 and prosperity as Carolina had, she derived from the use of slave 
 labor. The law was powerless to keep rum out of Georgia, where on 
 one side of an imaginary line were a people determined to buy, and 
 on the other side a people determined to sell. Equally futile was it 
 to attempt to keep out slavery. For a brief period the prohibition 
 
154 GEORGIA. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 of the ownership of slaves was evaded by hiring them in gangs from 
 South Carolina,. But even this soon ceased to be necessary. 
 
 For a time, also, there was another grievance which was a real 
 and serious injury. This was the descent of lands to sons only. 
 The tenure Widows and daughters were debarred by law from any share 
 in the real estate of husband and father, who had no right of 
 devise of lands to any person whatever. The tenure was strictly and 
 inalienably in tail male. The Trustees, however, were wise enough 
 to see at an early period, that such a system in a new colony was 
 impracticable and ruinous. But the progress of the colony was seri- 
 ously interfered with from these various causes. It had besides to 
 contend with the hostility of the Charleston tradesmen, who were dis- 
 gusted with Oglethorpe's determination to control the traffic with the 
 Indians within the boundaries of Georgia. The Governor was quite 
 willing to grant licenses, but it was on condition that no rum should 
 be sold to the natives. The trader looked upon this as a double 
 wrong ; not only was he deprived of his best customer for rum, but 
 he also lost the advantage, when he in his turn became a customer for 
 peltries, of having a drunken Indian to deal with. The merchants 
 of Charleston were at a loss for words to express their indignation 
 and contempt for such an interference with free trade. In Georgia 
 the malcontents and the friends of the Trustees gave and took hard 
 blows in a skirmish of pamphlets. In one of these, in a dedication 
 to Oglethorpe, it was said with what was meant to be fine irony : 
 " The valuable Virtue of Humility is secured to us by your Care to 
 prevent our procuring, or so much as seeing, any Negroes (the only 
 human Creatures proper to improve our Soil) lest our Simplicity 
 might mistake the poor Africans for greater slaves than ourselves : 
 And that we might fully receive the Spiritual Benefit of those whole- 
 some Austerities, you have wisely denied us the Use of such Spiritu- 
 ous Liquors as might in the least divert our Minds from the Con- 
 templation of our Happy Circumstances." l 
 
 Whitefield, on one of his early visits to the colonies, says, in a let- 
 ter to the people of Maryland, Virginia, and Carolina : " I was sen- 
 sibly touched with a fellow feeling for the poor Negroes." 'He won- 
 ders " they have not more frequently risen up in arms against their 
 owners." " And though I heartily pray God," he adds, " they may 
 never be permitted to get the upper hand, yet should such a thing be 
 permitted by Providence, all good men must acknowledge the judg- 
 ment would be just." But this "fellow feeling," unhappily, did not 
 last long. The clamor for the introduction of slavery into the colony 
 carried him along with it. 
 
 1 A True and Historical Narrative of the Colony of Georgia, etc. Republished in Forces 
 Tracts. 
 
1738.] 
 
 WHITEFIELD'S ORPHAN HOUSE. 
 
 155 
 
 In accordance with a plan of Oglethorpe's and Charles Wesley's, 1 
 he had established near Savannah an orphan house, and in all his 
 wanderings and preachings through America and Great 
 
 n -.L i e 1. t I U -i VI e Whitefield's 
 
 Britain he never forgot to beg of the charitable for means orphan 
 to support his Georgia orphans. But he cut off from one 
 end of his mantle of charity to piece out the other. He discovered 
 what clear gain it was to rob the poor of their wages ; how safe and 
 expedient a thing to do if the law would sanction it ; how much 
 easier to support those poor orphans, the constant theme of his elo- 
 quence, if there was nothing to pay for the labor on which they de- 
 pended. The law forbade it in Georgia ; but there was nothing to 
 prevent his holding slaves in Carolina. He bought a plan- Whitefle i d 
 tation there for that purpose, and, while thanking God that onslaTer - T - 
 the investment was profitable, he complained in pathetic terms to the 
 Trustees of the inconvenience of that law which compelled him to 
 have his slaves and his orphans in separate provinces. It is a piti- 
 able record of inconsistency and weakness. Before he was himself 
 tempted to become a slaveholder, he had, in his expostulation with 
 the colonists, reminded them of 
 " God's taking cognizance, and 
 avenging the quarrel of the poor 
 slaves ; " that " God is the same 
 to-day as He was yesterday, and 
 will continue the same forever. 
 He does not reject the prayer of 
 the poor and destitute, nor disre- 
 gard the cry of the meanest ne- 
 groes. Their blood which has 
 been spilt for these many years 
 in your respective provinces, will 
 ascend up to Heaven against you. 
 I wish I could say it would speak 
 better things than the blood of 
 Abel." Now his eyes were blind- 
 ed, and he could not see that the 
 blood was on his own hands. So far as the influence of his character 
 and example went, no man did more than he to fasten slavery upon 
 Georgia. 
 
 The destination of the larger portion of the Grand Embarkation 
 under Oglethorpe, was to build a new town upon the Island Xew towns 
 of St. Simon's, at the mouth of the Altamaha. Darien, built - 
 farther up that river, the new Ebenezer of the Salzburgs, and 
 
 1 Life and Travels of George White field. By J. P. Gledstone, London, 1871. 
 
 Bolzius. 
 
156 
 
 GEORGIA. 
 
 [CHAP. VI. 
 
 Augusta botli on the Savannah were begun at about the same 
 time, but it was to Frederica, on St. Simon's Island, that the Governor 
 gave his chief attention. The town itself and the approach to it 
 were defended with military prevision by forts and batteries at differ- 
 ent points on St. Simon's and Cumberland Island, for, as Georgia 
 was to be the protection of Carolina against the Spaniards of Flor- 
 ida, Frederica was 
 to be so formidable 
 that no Spanish 
 force would venture 
 to leave it in their 
 rear, should an in- 
 vasion of the settle- 
 ments north of it be 
 undertaken. The 
 Governor made it 
 his base in the un- 
 fortunate expedi- 
 tion against St. Au- 
 gustine, already 
 related in the chap- 
 ter on Spanish colo- 
 nization. 1 But this 
 was not till after he 
 had made a second 
 visit to England, 
 and returned, for 
 the third time, with 
 a military commis- 
 sion which included 
 South Carolina as 
 well as Georgia. 2 
 
 That he was en- 
 abled to hold, after 
 his repulse from 
 Florida, all the 
 
 Map of the Georgia Coast. ! -i i j r. -li. 
 
 places he had built 
 and fortified on the southern frontier, was due largely, if not alto- 
 
 1 See vol. ii., p. 560, et seq. 
 
 2 His commission was that of colonel, and not major-general, as we inadvertently said 
 in the account referred to, though he was called by courtesy General. He went through 
 the various gradations of military rank on his final return to England, till he was for years 
 the senior general of the British army. His last military service was in the suppression of 
 the Rebellion of 1 745 under Charles Edward, the Pretender. 
 
1739.] OGLETHORPE'S JOURNEY TO THE INTERIOR. 157 
 
 gether, to the friendly relations he had established with the Creeks, 
 Choctaws, and Chickasaws. He learned, in the summer of 1739, that 
 the Spaniards were making overtures to these tribes, and attempting 
 to alienate them from the English ; and that their success was not im- 
 possible, as many of the chiefs were exasperated by the disorder cre- 
 ated among their people by the introduction of rum by traders from 
 Carolina, who had gone among them without licenses. A grand coun- 
 cil was to be held in August at the Indian town of Coweta, three hun- 
 dred miles northwest of Savannah, and Tomo Chichi and other chiefs 
 begged Oglethorpe to attend it. 
 
 With only three or four attendants he made this arduous journey 
 through the unbroken wilderness, into which, except for the first few 
 miles, not a settler had penetrated, making his way through forests 
 and swamps, crossing rivers, when wading or swimming was impos- 
 sible, upon rafts built for the emergency, exposed by day 
 
 ,, 1 t ,, & , . , , j Oglethorpc-s 
 
 to the heat of a southern summer, by night to dangerous journey into 
 malaria, sleeping upon the ground without shelter, or upon 
 heaps of branches where the ground was wet. It was a journey of 
 nearly a month each way ; and so completely did the party pass out 
 of the sight and out of the reach of their countrymen, that either 
 they would bring back the tidings of their own safety, or never again, 
 in all probability, be heard of. The courage to encounter, the energy 
 to overcome the difficulties of such an enterprise, and the complete 
 reliance upon the good faith of the Indians evinced in undertaking 
 it, were virtues certain to command the enthusiasm and admiration 
 of the savages. Chiefs of various tribes, who together could bring 
 into the field 7,000 warriors, met Oglethorpe at Coweta. The per- 
 sonal influence he gained over them was of the utmost importance to 
 him so long as he remained in Georgia, and to the colony long after 
 he had surrendered its care into other hands. 
 
 It was not Indians only, however, whom the vigilant and deter- 
 mined enemy of the English, the Spaniards, endeavored to 
 
 stil* up against them. The slaves of Carolina were encour- ?" 
 
 in- 
 surrection 
 
 South 
 
 aged to escape to Florida, where they were organized into Oarolma 
 military companies, and to their officers were given the same rank, 
 the same uniform, and the same consideration that distinguished the 
 officers of Spanish regiments. It was fortunate for the five or six 
 thousand whites of Carolina that their forty thousand slaves had no 
 allies in Geoi-gia at this critical period, when Spain was determined 
 upon the conquest of these English provinces. Oglethorpe had 
 scarcely recovered from the fatigue and serious illness which followed 
 his long journey to the West, when tidings of a formidable servile 
 insurrection in South Carolina reached him. The number of the in- 
 
158 
 
 GEORGIA. 
 
 [CHAP. VI. 
 
 surgents constantly increased as they took up their march toward 
 Florida, devastating plantations and killing the whites as they made 
 their way southward. But they were without discipline or organiza- 
 tion. Giving themselves up, at last, to a carouse upon the liquor 
 which they had brought away from some of the houses they had plun- 
 dered, they were surrounded by a body of militia, attacked, some 
 killed, some taken prisoners, and the rest dispersed. Oglethorpe 
 issued a proclamation for the arrest of any fugitives who should be 
 found in Georgia, and for any Spanish emissaries discovered in the 
 
 province, and sent 
 out a body of troops 
 to enforce his or- 
 ders. The wide 
 frontier of free ter- 
 ritory between the 
 Savannah and the 
 Altamaha, thus 
 vigilantly guarded, 
 was an efficient 
 protection to slave- 
 holding Carolina 
 against the designs 
 of the Spaniards. 
 
 How efficient, was 
 to be made evident 
 when in the sum- 
 mer of 1742, two 
 years after Ogle- 
 thorpe's failure to 
 take St. Augustine, 
 the Spaniards in 
 their turn, as we 
 Admiral v er non. have briefly related 
 
 in a former chap- 
 
 ter, determined to invade the English provinces. Don Manuel de 
 Montiano, who was still Captain-general of Florida, having 
 been reenforced from Havana, appeared off St. Simon's Isl- 
 and with a fleet of more than thirty vessels and a force of five 
 thousand men. 1 Reports of this proposed invasion had reached Ogle- 
 thorpe some weeks before, and he had sent dispatches, asking for aid, 
 
 1 A Memoir of General Oylethorpe. By R. Wright. A Sketch of the Life of General 
 Junes Oylethorpe. By Thomas Spalding. Hewit, in his Historical Account of South Car- 
 olina and Georgia, estimates the force at three thousand. 
 
 
 
 
1 742.] 
 
 SPANISH INVASION. 
 
 159 
 
 to the Governor of South Carolina, and to Admiral Vernon in com- 
 mand of the English fleet in the West Indies. But no assistance came 
 in time from either. He called in his Highland troops from Darien ; 
 summoned those of his Indian allies who were within reach ; released 
 indented servants, and so mustered a force of about eight hundred 
 men. There appeared first eleven galleys, probably in what is now 
 
 Fight of the Galleys. 
 
 called St. Andrew's Sound, between Jekyl and Cumberland islands. 
 It was necessary to reenforce Fort William on the southern extremity 
 of Cumberland Island, and to do this Oglethorpe started with three, 
 boats carrying two companies of men. As they crossed the Sound 
 the Spaniards bore down upon them, and one of the three boats, un- 
 der Lieutenant Folson, was driven back. But Oglethorpe, with the 
 other two boats, pushed on through the fleet of galleys, delivering his 
 shot right and left as he passed, with such effect that four of them 
 afterward foundered, and the rest were seriously disabled. Pulling 
 to leeward of the smoke of the battle, he escaped without the loss of 
 
160 GEORGIA. fCHAp. Vf. 
 
 a man, while those who had watched the engagement from St. Simon's 
 
 Island supposed as Folson htvd also reported that he and his men 
 
 were utterly destroyed. He landed at Fort William, how- 
 
 Vrtff Wil 
 
 iiam ree& ever, the troops requisite for its defence, removed thither the 
 men and guns from St. Andrew's Fort, at the upper end 
 of Cumberland Island, and then returned in safety to bis fleet in 
 St. Simon's Sound. This gallant action, and the immediate arrest of 
 Folson for cowardice, aroused an enthusiasm and determination in his 
 little army without which their situation would have been desperate 
 and hopeless. 
 
 The enemy's fleet of thirty-two vessels, a few days later, ran into 
 St. Simon's harbor with a brisk breeze, and were received with a heavy 
 fire from the batteries on shore. To meet them on the water, Ogle- 
 thorpe had only a merchant-vessel of twenty guns, on board which he 
 put one hundred and ten men, and two schooners of fourteen guns and 
 eighty men each, all with springs on their cables. On eight " York 
 sloops " in the harbor he put one man each, with orders to sink or run 
 them ashore in case they were likely to be taken. The object of the 
 Spaniards was to get up the river, rather than destroy these vessels. 
 Twice, however, they attempted to board the larger ship, the Suc- 
 cess, and one of the schooners, but were repulsed with a loss of 
 twenty men after four hours' fighting. Oglethorpe was 
 
 Approach of , A i i 11 
 
 the Spanish everywhere at the right moment; sometimes on the vessels 
 encouraging his men, sometimes on shore directing the bat- 
 teries. When this hot work was over, and the Spanish fleet had 
 fought their way through the fire of the batteries and the resistance 
 of the three English vessels, then Oglethorpe ordered his troops 
 ashore, thanked the sailors for their brave conduct, and ordered them 
 to escape to Charleston. That nothing might be left behind to fall 
 into the hands of the Spaniards, he dismantled his shore-batteries, 
 spiked their guns, destroyed all the provisions, and fell back upon 
 Frederica in good order. 
 
 The military skill with which the defences of Frederica had been 
 laid out now became apparent. The town, well fortified, was at the 
 head of a bay of difficult navigation ; at one point, called the Devil's 
 Elbow, no ship could pass without " going about," and batteries were 
 so planted that as she made that manoauvre, she could be raked at 
 once from three directions for three quarters of a mile. The Span- 
 iards lacked the courage to expose themselves to so formidable a fire, 
 and the fleet came to anchor at a point, about four miles below the 
 town, called Gascoin's Bluff. Here the \vhole force of about 5,000 
 men was set ashore, that the attack might be made by land and in 
 the rear. 
 
1742.] THE DEFENCES OF FREDERICA. 161 
 
 But neither here had Oglethorpe's prevision been wanting. The 
 road running southward from the town reached, at a dis- The roadto 
 tance of two or three miles, a marsh, along the edge of JrrtUenca - 
 which it continued, with an impassable morass on one side and a dense 
 and tangled wood on the other. A mile or two farther on, this road 
 took a crescent shape with a width of only about sixty feet, making a 
 defile dangerous to be caught in, with an enemy concealed at the inlet 
 and outlet, and in the wood on one side, while over the morass, on the 
 other, escape was impossible. 
 
 This crescent terminated in a wood, where Oglethorpe, when he 
 fell back the day before to Frederica, had left a small de- 
 
 i T T 11- j e The Span- 
 
 tacihment of troops with some Indian allies. At dawn or ianis re- 
 day the Spaniards attacked this handful of men, and drove 
 them through the woods to the entrance of the crescent. Speedy in- 
 formation was sent to the General, who, with such force as he could 
 rally on the instant, galloped to the front, met the Spaniards and at- 
 tacked them with such impetuosity that he drove them through the 
 wood into the open ground beyond. Then placing areenforcement to 
 resist any farther advance of the enemy, he hurried back to Frederica, 
 apprehensive that this movement in his rear might be a feint to distract 
 his attention and draw off his men from an attack on the town by the 
 fleet. 
 
 There was no movement, however, from the ships, and he moved 
 down the road again with a larger force to meet the Spaniards in case 
 of another advance in that direction. Before reaching the crescent 
 he met the troops which he had left in the woods beyond, in disorderly 
 retreat. The Spaniards veteran troops selected from the army and 
 brought from Cuba for this important service outnumbered the 
 English, probably six or seven to one. Oglethorpe's men, knowing 
 how perilous their position would be should the enemy be able to get 
 possession of the pass and cut off their retreat, swept through it in 
 too great a panic to remember that they might make a successful 
 stand there against their pursuers. They had already left it a mile 
 or two behind when Oglethorpe met, rallied, and turned them back. 
 They, as well as he, knew that should the enemy once pass through 
 the crescent and up the road to the open prairie in the rear of Fred- 
 erica, the chance of a successful resistance of 800 men against 5,000 
 was hopeless. 
 
 The Spaniards had pursued the panic-stricken Englishmen into the 
 pass and marked by the retreating footsteps that they had fled precip- 
 itately through the farther entrance. The victory seemed complete, 
 and the road beyond open to an advance at the pursuers' leisure. Their 
 present position could be easily held against any attack in front, and 
 
 VOL. III. 11 
 
162 GEORGIA. [(CHAP. VI. 
 
 from the rear there was, they thought, no possibility of danger. On 
 one side they observed the perfect protection of the impassable mo- 
 rass ; on the other, what seemed to be an impenetrable wood. Con- 
 fident in security, and exultant in success, the tired and hungry sol- 
 diers stacked their arms, threw themselves upon the grass for rest, and 
 prepared to break their fast, for they had not as yet that day taken 
 food. There were within the curve of the road probably from two to 
 three hundred men. 
 
 When the English had fled in utter confusion before the Spaniards 
 into the defile, the rear guard was a company of Highland- 
 
 The defile - , , T *, -, r i /-. i 
 
 heia by the ers under the command of Lieutenants McKay and Souther- 
 land. They followed without being in the least touched by 
 the panic which had seized their fellow-soldiers in advance, and when 
 in the bend of the road they swept out of sight of the pursuit, the 
 Highland lieutenants halted their men. A brief and hurried con- 
 sultation resulted in a rapid movement. Before the Spaniards had 
 again come in sight, every Highlander, and a few Indians with them, 
 had sprung silently into the dense woods bordering one side of the 
 road, and disappeared. Not the flutter of a single plaid, not the 
 rustle of a single footstep upon the dried leaves of the forest, revealed 
 to the Spaniards that they were leaving behind them a detachment of 
 the troops whom they had seen only a few moments before in rapid 
 retreat. 
 
 Stealthily and silently the Highlanders and Indians crept through 
 the underbrush. McKay and Southerland placed their men 
 fhespan- r so as to command both ends of the pass, and the whole of 
 the sweep of the crescent. Without impatience, motionless 
 as the trunks of the trees which hid them, they watched the move- 
 ments of the enemy. When the arms were stacked and the Span- 
 iards were dispersed in groups taking the needed food and rest, hi- 
 larious at success achieved, buoyant with the hope of success to come, 
 there appeared suddenly, among the green foliage, the concerted signal 
 of two Highland caps, raised in the air at different points. Instantly 
 a volley of bullets was poured in among the Spaniards ; then another 
 and another. The wildest panic seized all who were not killed by 
 these first discharges. Some plunged into the woods, only to be cut 
 clown by the broadswords of the Highlanders ; some fled to the en- 
 trances, to be met there by death from an unseen foe. On one side 
 were a few men, cool, collected, out of sight ; on the other, there were 
 many more, but in the open roadway, crazed with fear, unarmed, 
 hopeless of escape, falling with every shot. The disparity of numbers 
 counted for nothing. Oglethorpe was near enough to hear the din of 
 battle, but not near enough to take part in it. The firing had ceased 
 
1742.] 
 
 SLAUGHTER OF THE SPANIARDS. 
 
 163 
 
 before he reached the defile ; as he rode rapidly into it at the head of 
 his men, he was received with the shouts of the victorious and trium- 
 phant Highlanders and the yells of the Indians, who stood wiping 
 swords and tomahawks, surrounded by the dead and dying Spaniards, 
 of whom hardly a man had escaped. 
 
 No further attempt to approach the town by land was made by the 
 Spaniards, and an advance two or three days afterwards, by water, in 
 boats, was easily repulsed by the batteries, and by a judicious disposi- 
 tion of men along the shores of the bay. Disaster produced dissen- 
 sion among the invaders ; the Havana troops separated from those of 
 Florida and encamped 
 by themselves. Ogle- 
 
 thorpe with his small | ^ ^SBIS.. "^"^^^^^^^^^ 
 but active force har- 
 assed both and kept 
 both upon the defen- 
 
 The Spaniards surprised. 
 
 sive. A proposed assault upon one of them with six hundred men at 
 the dawn of day, was defeated by a Frenchman, who gave the alarm 
 by a premature discharge of his gun and made his escape into the 
 Spanish camp. The misfortune was the greater that the man knew 
 exactly the condition and resources of the English, and it was of the 
 last importance that of these the Spaniards should be kept in igno- 
 rance. By the boldness and energy of Oglethorpe they were persuaded 
 that he was much stronger than he really was ; he might be over- 
 whelmed by mere force of numbers, should the Spanish commanders 
 know that their fleet of thirty-two vessels and force of 5,000 men 
 were opposed by only 800 men. To meet this new emergency he re- 
 sorted to a desperate bit of strategy, suggested by the treachery of 
 this Frenchman. 
 
164 GEORGIA. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 He immediately wrote a letter of instructions to the French deserter 
 Oglethorpe -a which assumed him to be a spy sent into the Spanish camp. 
 stratagem. jj e or( j ere( j \ } \ m t o (J o a ]l i n his power to persuade the Span- 
 ish commander that the English could muster only a few hundred 
 men, and that Frederica was really almost defenceless ; and he was to 
 offer to pilot the fleet up the river that it might thereby be detained, if 
 only for three days longer. For, the spy was to let drop no hint of the 
 immediate approach of reinforcements of 2,000 men from Charles- 
 ton, according to dispatches which, it was declared, had been received 
 since his departure ; nor that an English fleet was off the coast bound 
 to Frederica, and that Admiral Vernon was on the way to attack St. 
 Augustine. Should the Frenchman strictly and skillfully obey these 
 directions, he was assured that the reward already paid him should be 
 doubled. This dispatch was put into the hands of a Spanish prisoner, 
 who was liberated and heavily bribed on condition that he would 
 faithfully deliver it to the Frenchman on his arrival in the camp of 
 the enemy. This man, as Oglethorpe had presumed he would be, 
 was taken before the Spanish commander when he reached the 
 Spanish lines, was questioned as to his escape, and, on giving some 
 confused account of himself, was searched and the letter taken from 
 him. 
 
 Desperate as the expedient was, it happened to be well-timed and 
 successful. A stratagem was suspected, but so much credence was 
 given to the intercepted letter that the Frenchman was put in irons, 
 and the Spaniards delayed all movements, awaiting further tidings. 
 Meanwhile, in the course of two or three days, some passing vessels 
 were seen off the coast, which the Spaniards at once believed to be 
 the advance guard of that English fleet which, as the letter hinted, 
 was approaching. The Spanish general permitted himself to 
 
 Retreat of , , J r . i i i l. J U J 1 
 
 the span- doubt no longer ; his whole army was hurried on board his 
 vessels ; all sail was crowded for St. Augustine ; Ogle- 
 thorpe, audacious to the last, chasing them out of the sound with his 
 few boats too few and too small to venture upon an attack. 
 
 So the formidable invasion came to this sorrv and almost ludicrous 
 
 w 
 
 conclusion. But the brave and skilful defence of Frederica, never- 
 theless, had saved two provinces to the British Crown, and while it 
 covered the Spanish commander with disgrace and ridicule, it gave 
 great military renown to the English general. It was the last serious 
 attempt of Spain to establish her assumed right to territory north of 
 the Altamaha River, though for the twenty years longer that Florida 
 remained a Spanish province, hostilities occasionally broke out as 
 when in 1743 Oglethorpe again carried the war to the very walls of 
 St. Augustine. 
 
1744.] 
 
 OGLETHORPE'S RETURN TO ENGLAND. 
 
 165 
 
 A year after that expedition he returned to England recalled by 
 his own request. Calumnies had gone before him from ene- 
 mies in Charleston ; one Cook, whom he had made a lieu- final return 
 tenant-colonel at Frederica, but who had deserted his com- 
 mand on the plea of illness just before the late invasion, had followed 
 with accusations which jealousy and malice had at length formulated. 
 The General's pecuniary affairs also demanded his personal presence 
 in London, as they, not through any fault of his own, but through the 
 official stupidity at the war-office, had become entangled. 
 
 That there was nothing in all these complications that he could not 
 and did not satisfactorily answer, is plain enough from the fact that 
 Cook was dismissed 
 from the service when 
 his accusations were 
 brought before a board 
 of generals, and that 
 Oglethorpe in the 
 course of two years 
 was raised to the rank 
 of major-general and 
 two years later to that 
 of lieutenant-general. 
 He did not again re- 
 turn to Georgia, but 
 his warm interest in 
 the colony, to the end 
 of his long life of 
 ninety-six years, nev- 
 er wavered. And to 
 the very end of his 
 days he preserved the 
 vigor of character 
 which always distin- 
 guished him, though 
 he gradually retired 
 from public life. Not long before his death Horace Walpole wrote 
 of him : " His eyes, ears, articulation, limbs, and memory would suit 
 a boy, if a boy could recollect a century backwards ; " and added 
 " two years and a half ago he challenged a neighboring gentleman 
 for trespassing on his manor." This vigorous old man was often a 
 
 1 The inscription on the old print from which this is copied, states that the sketch was 
 made at the sale of Dr. Johnson's library, Feb. 18, 1785, " where the Gent-nil was reading 
 a book he had purchased, without spectacles." 
 
 Oglethorpe in 1785. From a Sketch from Life. 1 
 
166 GEORGIA. [CHAI-. VI. 
 
 conspicuous figure in the literary society of London in the last quarter 
 of the eighteenth century ; and it is an interesting fact that the ven- 
 erable Samuel Rogers, the poet, whom many living persons knew, 
 remembered that when a young man he met General Oglethorpe, the 
 founder of the last English colony on the Atlantic coast of America, 
 at the sale of Dr. Johnson's library. 
 
 After Oglethorpe's return to England the Trustees appointed a 
 president, William Stephens, who had been the colonial secretary, 
 with a council of four for the government of Georgia. The popu- 
 lation at this time numbered only about fifteen hundred persons, and 
 these were,, for the most part, poor and not prospering. If their 
 energy and industry had not been misdirected in the attempt to make 
 condition of s ^^ an( ^ wine the staple products of the country, they were 
 the colony. at j eagt di sa pp O i n ted and depressed at the failure of the 
 experiment. No great degree of prosperity, moreover, was possible 
 so long as the settlers were harassed with a constant dread of their 
 Spanish and Indian neighbors, and were so frequently engaged in 
 active warfare. The tenure of land, though the laws of the Trustees 
 were modified from time to time, continued unwise and burdensome ; 
 and the discontent was almost universal at the prohibition of the use 
 of slave labor, which was so obviously a source of wealth in the 
 neighboring province. There was little agriculture, almost no com- 
 merce, an impoverished people, and a feeble government. The bril- 
 liant promises of the early days, if they were still promulgated, were 
 no longer believed in, and few new emigrants sought homes in a 
 colony where, though prosperity was possible, it was certain that a 
 struggle with many difficulties awaited them. 
 
 In 1752, the Trustees, convinced at length, by an experience of 
 surrenderor twenty years, of their inability to govern profitably for them- 
 the charter. se i ves or w i s ely for the colonists, voluntarily surrendered the 
 charter to the Crown. An incident had occurred, however, five years 
 before, at Savannah, which came near making this surrender a barren 
 concession. A new claimant appeared to a portion, if not the whole, 
 of the territory of Georgia, and had the title been established the 
 province would, probably, have passed out of the control of the 
 Trustees. 
 
 That Mary Musgrove, the half-breed Indian whom Oglethorpe had 
 AD Indian made his interpreter on his first arrival, had, after losing 
 insurrection, successively two English husbands, John Musgrove, Jr., 
 and Jacob Mathews, married the Rev. Thomas Bosomworth, a 
 clergyman of the Church of England, at one time a missionary of the 
 Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, and a chaplain 
 tc Oglethorpe. He relinquished these clerical duties for the more 
 
1752.] THE HALF-BREED QUEEN MARY. 167 
 
 profitable calling of the propagation of cattle, and ran in debt for 
 large herds in South Carolina. The islands of Ossabaw, St. Cather- 
 ine's, and Sapelo, and some portion of the mainland, had been re- 
 served to the Creeks by treaty. Bosomworth induced the Indians 
 to cede these lands to him for the accommodation of his herds. But 
 the enterprise was a failure, and it is conjectured that he then re- 
 sorted to a desperate measure to relieve himself from debt. It is 
 quite as likely, however, that the acquisition of so much influence 
 over the Indians as to induce them to part, for a trifling consideration 
 in merchandise, with three islands, extending nearly half the length 
 of the coast of Georgia, suggested the more ambitious scheme to be 
 accomplished by their help. 
 
 Mary Musgrove, Mary Mathews, Mary Bosomworth, as she was 
 known by the surnames of her successive husbands, was a woman 
 of mark, as an interpreter and a trader, and had acquired, in both 
 callings, great power over the Indians. She had as well, it seems, 
 the respect and confidence of Oglethorpe, who, on leaving Georgia, 
 presented her with a diamond ring. Apparently she was quite con- 
 tent for years to act as the common friend of both races, being allied 
 to both by blood, serving one by selling it peltries, the other by 
 selling it rum. 
 
 But as the wife of Bosomworth, and probably at Bosomworth's 
 instigation, she aspired at length to higher things. She was, or pre- 
 tended to be, descended from a royal race of Creeks, and, calling the 
 chiefs of that nation together, she persuaded them to acknowledge 
 her as their queen. She asserted her sovereign right to all the Queen 
 territory of the Upper and Lower Creeks ; she disavowed all Mary - 
 allegiance to the King of England, whose equal she assumed to be ; 
 and she sent a messenger to Savannah demanding from President 
 Stephens a recognition of her claims, and threatening, in case of re- 
 fusal, the extirpation of the colony. 
 
 If all this had, at first, a ludicrous aspect, it became serious enough 
 when Mary approached the town at the head of a large body of 
 Indians. The whole militia of the province which numbered, how- 
 ever, only a hundred and seventy men had been hastily called to- 
 gether. A company of horse was sent out to meet the invaders, who 
 were so far overawed by the determination of the English that they 
 agreed to lay down their arms before entering Savannah. But the 
 approach of this Indian host, though unarmed, was quite enough to 
 excite the utmost apprehension among the people. At the head of 
 this formidable procession marched Bosomworth, in his canonical 
 robes, and Mary the queen. These royal persons were followed by 
 the principal chiefs of the Creek nation ; and behind them came the 
 tumultuous, hideous, howling, raging mob of naked savages. 
 
168 GEORGIA. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 The courage and sagacity of President Stephens and his council 
 were sufficient for the emergency. No signs of fear were seen in 
 Captain Jones and the provincial militia as, drawn up in the public 
 square, they received the warriors, who so many times outnumbered 
 them, with an artillery salute of fifteen guns. It is questionable, 
 however, whether a general massacre could have been long averted 
 had not the savages been induced to lay down their arms at the out- 
 set. In the course of the negotiations, which continued for several 
 days, there were moments of exasperation and fury, when Bosom- 
 worth, enraged at imprisonment, and Mary, wild with drink, could 
 easily have led their followers, had they been armed, to carry out the 
 threat of extermination. But the leaders were separated, as much as 
 possible, at first by persuasion and then by force, from the chiefs, and 
 these at length were brought to a calmer and more rational state of 
 mind. A judicious use of presents is never without influence upon 
 the contemplative Indian, and Stephens brought it to bear with great 
 skill upon the Creek chieftains. Then he reminded them of what 
 they must have known even better than he that there was no 
 strain of royal blood in the veins of Mary, but that this daughter of 
 some common squaw by some obscure white man was, when " in a 
 poor, ragged condition, neglected and despised by the Creeks," raised 
 into consideration by Oglethorpe, as an interpreter. Bosomworth 
 stormed and threatened when he saw his followers fall away from 
 him ; Mary, in a drunken rage, stamped upon the ground which, she 
 swore by her Maker, was all hers ; she cursed Oglethorpe 
 rection S 8 up- and his treaties, and devoted to speedy death all these white 
 intruders. More than once there was imminent danger 
 that the Indians, inflamed by these appeals, would put the threats 
 in execution ; but the chiefs, at last convinced that the claims of this 
 half-breed impostor to be their queen were preposterous, and that 
 her husband was a liar and a cheat, consented to disperse. 
 
 The province remained in the hands of the English without fur- 
 ther molestation from the Bosomworths, who, however, seem to have 
 been, in later years, persons of some consideration, notwithstanding 
 their attempt to set up a throne for themselves within the dominions 
 of the King. It is quite possible that they still retained so much 
 influence over the Creeks as to be too formidable for punishment, 
 while the colony remained too feeble to risk a struggle. 
 
 The growth of the colony was slow even for ten years after it be- 
 came a royal province. When, in 1754, a convention of delegates 
 from the several colonies assembled at Albany and resolved to form 
 a union, Georgia was not represented ; and in the apportionment of 
 representation in the proposed Congress under that plan, no members 
 
1754-1762.] 
 
 GROWTH OF THE COLONY. 
 
 169 
 
 were assigned to that province. It was only, probably, because the 
 colony was too insignificant for recognition. It was not till at the 
 Peace of Paris, in 1762, when Florida was ceded to England, and 
 Georgia relieved from the presence of a dangerous neighbor, that it 
 gave much promise of prosperity. 
 
 Seal of the Georgia Trustees. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 PENN'S RETURN TO AMERICA. ASPECT OF PHILADELPHIA AT THAT TIME. BIRTH 
 OF HIS SON JOHN. PENN'S SEAT AT PENNSBURY MANOR. RELATIONS TO THE 
 INDIANS AND HIS NEIGHBORS. RETURN TO ENGLAND. FRIENDS AND SLAVERY. 
 THE EARLIEST ABOLITIONISTS. NEW CHARTER GRANTED. JOHN EVANS 
 APPOINTED DEPUTY-GOVERNOR. PENN'S TROUBLES WITH THE FORDS, AND HIS 
 ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT. NEGOTIATIONS FOR SALE OF THE PROVINCE TO 
 THE CROWN. TROUBLES IN PENNSYLVANIA. OPPOSITION PARTY UNDER DAVII> 
 LLOYD. RESISTANCE TO TAXATION. COMPLAINTS AGAINST JAMES LOGAN. 
 CONDUCT OF WILLIAM PENN, JR. DEATH OF THE PROPRIETOR. GOVERNOR 
 GOOKIN ON MILITARY REQUISITIONS AND OATHS. SIR WILLIAM KEITH'S AD- 
 MINISTRATION. VISITS OF THE YOUNGER PENNS. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 WHEN William Penn returned to his colony in December, 1699, 
 it was after an absence of fifteen years. The Meetings of 
 "* Friends in England parted from him with the warmest as- 
 surances of their respect and affection, and on his arrival in 
 the colony he was received with enthusiasm. It was not thought too 
 trifling an incident by a Friend l to record in his journal that some 
 young men belonging, no doubt, to the world's people deter- 
 mined to salute the arrival of the Governor at Chester by the firing 
 of cannon. So unseemly a demonstration was forbidden by the mag- 
 istrates ; the salute, nevertheless, was made with two small field- 
 pieces, but done so clumsily that the premature discharge of one of the 
 guns so mutilated the young man who was loading it that he after- 
 ward died. It is an evidence of the paternal relations which Penn 
 maintained with his people, that in the Proprietary Cash Book of that 
 period are several entries of sums paid "for B. Bevan, of Chester, 
 who lost his arm," closing with one of " April 20th, for his funeral 
 charges." 
 
 The colony was not yet nineteen years old. Penn was thinking of 
 it as he last saw it, when, before embarking in England, he said he 
 was about to return to "the American Desart." But he found a prov- 
 ince of more than twenty thousand inhabitants, " a noble and beau- 
 
 1 Thomas Story's Journal. 
 
1699.] 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 171 
 
 ' 
 
 . 
 
 pbU 
 
 tiful city " of " above two thousand houses, and Most of them stately 
 and of Brick, generally three stories high, after the Mode 
 in London." There were " curious wharfs," as " Chestnut 
 Street Wharf, High Street Wharf, Mulberry Street Wharf, 
 Vine Street Wharf," and from one of these the goods were carted 
 into the city " under an Arch over which part of the street is built." 
 There were many lanes and alleys leading from Front Street to Sec- 
 ond Street ; and 
 some of the princi- 
 pal streets were 
 named Walnut, 
 Vine, Mulberry, 
 Chestnut, Sassa- 
 fras, " taking their 
 names from the 
 abundance of those 
 Trees that former- 
 ly grew there." 1 
 Those familiar 
 with Philadelphia 
 will observe how 
 accurately names 
 and localities have 
 been preserved for 
 nearly two cen- 
 turies. Penn took 
 
 , , . The "Slate Roof House," 
 
 tor niS tOWn reSl- as it appeared j ust before its demolition in 1868. 
 
 dence the " Slate 
 
 Roof House," as it was called, in Second Street, at the southeast 
 corner of Norris's Alley. In this house was born John, the Birth of 
 oldest son of his second wife, Hannah Callowhill, the only John Penn - 
 one of his children born in this country, and called therefore, by way 
 of distinction, "The American." But his principal residence, to which 
 he removed in the spring, was his country-seat, Pennsbury Manor, 
 four miles above Bristol, on the Delaware River. 
 
 Eighteen years before, during his first visit, a mansion had been 
 built at this place, spacious and well appointed, and worthy p ennsbury 
 of its surrounding domain of about six thousand acres. Here Manor - 
 he lived in a style to which, as an English country gentleman, he 
 was accustomed, and here he exercised the large hospitality and in- 
 fluence becoming a provincial proprietor and governor. From the gen- 
 
 1 An Historical ami Geographical Account of the Province and Country of Pennsylvnniit, 
 etc. By Gabriel Thomas. 
 
172 PENNSYLVANIA. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 tie eminence on which the house stood, an avenue of poplars led from 
 the broad porch down a terraced bank to the river ; the grounds were 
 laid out in lawns and gardens ; here and there were planted trees 
 from other parts of the country, not indigenous to Pennsylvania ; 
 there were nurseries of carefully selected fruit and forest trees, and 
 shrubs imported from England to enrich the native flora ; and the 
 most beautiful of the native flowers were gathered together in beds. 
 Only a few acres of the surrounding land were cultivated, and the old 
 woods were preserved, except where it was necessary to cut a road, or 
 where some added charm could be given to the landscape by opening 
 a vista to a stretch of the river, or to a distant view. In the river, at 
 the foot of the poplar avenue, swung with the current the barge of 
 the Governor. Near the house were buildings for all the convenient 
 offices of such a residence, a detached kitchen and larder ; a wash- 
 house ; a brewery, that there should be no want of the national Eng- 
 lish beverage, of more universal use at that period, at all meals, than 
 tea and coffee are now ; stables for imported blooded horses, and Eng- 
 lish carriages. In the spacious rooms of the mansion, where Hannah 
 Penn described as "a delicate, pretty woman, sitting beside the 
 cradle of her infant " l bore gentle sway, were signs of luxurious 
 living not then quite common in the colonies, in satin-covered and 
 plush-covered cushions, in damask and camblet curtains, in silk blan- 
 kets, in plate and Tunbridge ware, and blue and white china, and in 
 damask table-cloths and napkins, in high-backed chairs and spider- 
 legged tables of solid oak. 2 Everywhere, without and within, were the 
 evidences of cultivated tastes, and, combined with them, the purpose 
 was apparent of so using wealth that it should conduce to the enjoy- 
 ment and the good of others. For, there was no ostentation and no as- 
 sumption of superiority. In the great hall of the house were always 
 standing long tables, at which a hearty welcome awaited all comers, 
 ins hospi- whites or Indians, whether of high or low degree. There is 
 taiity. a tradition of one entertainment given to the Indians, when 
 
 they were so numerous that it was necessary to lay the tables out-of- 
 doors, in the great poplar avenue, and one hundred roasted turkeys 
 were provided as a part only of the ample bill of fare. 3 When among 
 the Indians, in their own villages, Penn ate of their simple food with 
 as much heartiness as he entertained them at his own more elaborate 
 feasts. Nor did he disdain, on such occasions, to join in their sports, 
 to try a fall with their athletes in a wrestling match, or to put his agil- 
 ity against theirs in a contest in running or jumping. No English- 
 
 1 Logan MSS. cited in Januey's Life of Penn. 
 
 8 Private Life of William Penn. By J. F. Fisher. Memoirs Hist. Soc. of Pa. 
 
 3 Fisher's Private Life. 
 
1699.] PENN'S RELATIONS WITH INDIANS AND NEIGHBORS. 173 
 
 man ever so gained their good-will, affection, and respect, and there 
 
 was no more affectation or condescension in the familiarity 
 
 with which he associated with them, than there was want wuiTthe'iS? 
 
 of sincerity in the uniform policy of absolute justice which 
 
 he made the rule of all his dealings with the natives. A perfectly 
 
 sincere simplicity in all his social intercourse was a marked trait of 
 
 Penn's character. He was, apparently, incapable of comprehending 
 
 that mere worldly position made any difference between him and his 
 
 fellow-men. So well was this understood among those who saw bis 
 
 Penn and Rebecca Wood. 
 
 daily life, that only a stranger would remark upon it, as a thing 
 worthy of notice, that Penn i*ode up to the Darby Meeting with a 
 young girl, Rebecca Wood, whom he had picked up on the way, 
 sitting behind him on the bare back of the horse, her naked legs and 
 feet dangling down by the well-clothed limbs of the Governor. Yet 
 he was by no means indifferent to personal appearance and Personal 
 presence ; the ladies at Pennsbury Manor wore silk gowns h blts - 
 and jewelry ; its master was careful of the texture of his garments, 
 
174 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 [HAP. VII. 
 
 and, if his coat was plain, it probably fitted nicely to his shapely 
 figure ; he did not think it essential to the purity of the inner man 
 that the outer man should be clothed in the leather breeches of 
 George Fox ; in one year, while in America, he bought four wigs, at 
 a cost of twenty pounds. 
 
 Pennsbury Manor he, no doubt, sincerely hoped would be his per- 
 Retnrn to maneiit home for the rest of his days, and that there he could 
 England. devote himself to the government of his province, and the 
 development of its resources. Within two years, however, he was 
 
 Pennsbury Manor. 
 
 recalled to England, where his presence was absolutely necessary to 
 defend his proprietary rights against a proposition introduced by bill 
 in the House of Lords, to bring all the provinces under the direct 
 government of the Crown. "My heart is among you," he said, in a 
 speech to the Assembly, " as well as my body, whatever some people 
 may please to think : and no unkindness or disappointment shall (with 
 submission to God's providence) ever be able to alter my love to the 
 country, and resolution to return and settle my family and posterity 
 in it." But now, he thought, he could best serve the colony and him- 
 self on the other side of the ocean. It was, however, a final leave- 
 taking. He never again saw his beloved Pennsylvania ; anxiety, per- 
 plexity, and pecuniary embarrassments vexed the remainder of his 
 days, and of the last twenty years of his life he doubtless looked back 
 to the two years passed at Pennsbury Manor, as the only happy ones. 
 
1701.] PENN'S RETURN TO ENGLAND. 175 
 
 Nor did he ever cease, so long as disease left him the power of volition, 
 to long for a return to that tranquil residence on the banks of the 
 Delaware, and to hope that he might escape to it from the cares and 
 vexations which beset his declining years. 
 
 He left the colony late in October, 1701, and, though his visit had 
 not been long, he had reason to reflect with satisfaction, upon the 
 good that had resulted from it. Many laws were passed at his sug- 
 gestion, which were directly conducive to the welfare of the people, 
 and where his influence was less direct, it was not less permanent. 
 A minute of the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting in 1700, says : " Our 
 dear friend and Governor laid before the meeting a concern that hath 
 laid upon his mind for some time, concerning the negroes and Indians." 
 He had, in the spring of that year, attempted to procure the passage 
 of a law, which the Assembly rejected, for regulating the mar- 
 riage of negroes ; for his theory seems to have been, that a care for 
 the moral well-being of the slave was the imperative duty of the 
 master a theory which was the high-road to doubting whether the 
 relation of master and slave was not itself immoral. That it was 
 absolutely unchristian, inhuman, and impossible of existence in a 
 high state of civilization, had no more occurred to Penn, as a self-evi- 
 dent proposition, than to anybody else a hundred and eighty years ago. 
 He was himself an owner of slaves ; the very possibility of p enna 
 such a relation, however, seems to have impelled him, in- 8laTeholder - 
 stinctively and irresistibly, to be rid of it. In a will, written just 
 before he sailed for England, he gives freedom to his blacks, but from 
 the phraseology in which the bequest is conveyed, it is apparent that 
 it was meant, not to confer a new benefit, but to guard one already 
 bestowed. The benefit of the doubt, in his mind, if he had only 
 come to the point of doubt, as to the morality of slave-holding, he 
 gave to his slaves. 1 
 
 Twelve years before this date, the German Friends about German- 
 town had sent to the Monthly Meeting a strong though quaint Friends and 
 remonstrance against " the traffic of men-body." " We slaTer y- 
 hear," they said, " that the most part of such negroes, are brought 
 hither against their will and consent, and that many of them are stolen. 
 Now, though they are black, we cannot conceive there is more liberty 
 
 to have them slaves, as [than] it is to have other white ones 
 
 But to bring men hither, or to rob and sell them against their will, 
 
 we stand against Pray, what thing in the world can be 
 
 done worse toward us, than if men should rob or steal us away, and 
 sell us for slaves to strange countries ; separating husbands from their 
 wives and children. Being now this is not done in the manner we 
 
 1 See Janney's Life of Penn. 
 
176 PENNSYLVANIA. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 would be done at, therefore, we contradict, and are against this traffic 
 of men-body." The memorial was referred to the Quarterly Meeting, 
 and by that to the Yearly Meeting of Philadelphia. This body de- 
 clined to give a positive judgment upon the question of the "unlaw- 
 fulness and lawfulness of buying and keeping negroes." 
 
 Discussion, however, was not silenced. Eight years afterward 
 1696 in response to the remonstrances of subordinate meetings, 
 the Yearly Meeting advised, " that Friends be careful not to encour- 
 age the bringing in of any more negroes ; and that such as have 
 negroes be careful of them, bring them to meeting, and have meetings 
 with them in families, and restrain them from loose and lewd living, 
 as much as in them lies, and from rambling abroad on first days [Sun- 
 days]." So also about the same time the schismatics who followed 
 George Keith, charged Friends that " they should set their negroes at 
 liberty, after some reasonable time of service." 1 
 
 The minds and the consciences of Friends had been thus prepared 
 for a further consideration of the condition of the Africans, 
 
 Growth of 
 
 opposition when the subject was again brought before the Yearly Meet- 
 ing and the Assembly by Penn. It may have been partly 
 because there was no precedent for such legislation as he proposed, 
 that the Assembly declined to accede to his wishes. The good seed, 
 nevertheless, did not perish, though it was of slow growth. It was 
 observed by Clarkson, that when, in later years, the preponderating 
 influence in the Assembly was on the side of the Proprietary and the 
 Friends, legislation leaned to mercy. 2 But so long as Pennsylvania 
 remained an English colony, every attempt to interdict the importation 
 of African slaves was promptly suppressed by the English government. 
 
 The convictions of Friends, however, and their action in Yearly 
 Meetings, were beyond the reach even of the Crown. For the next 
 half century these bodies " bore their testimony ; " first, upon the 
 responsibility of those Friends who were slaveholders, for the moral 
 condition of their slaves ; then, against any increase of their number 
 by importation or purchase ; and finally, in 1755, a rule of discipline 
 was adopted for the disownment of all members of the Society who 
 persisted in the practice of buying negroes. Three years afterward, 
 Friends were advised to manumit their slaves ; in 1776 this advice 
 was enforced by discipline, and Friends were no longer permitted to 
 retain their membership if they continued slaveholders. 
 
 To this final and conclusive step, the Society was gradually led by 
 
 1 The Friend, vol. xvii. Bettle's Notices of Negro Slavery. Mem. Hist. Soc. of Pa., vol. 
 v. Janney's Life of Penn. Moore's Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts the 
 fullest and most thorough history of the progress of the anti-slavery sentiment in this coun- 
 try in the eighteenth century, that has ever been written. 
 
 2 History of the Slave Trade. 
 
1701.] EARLY ABOLITIONISTS. 177 
 
 the persistent and earnest preaching and writing, through many years, 
 of Burling, Sandiford, Lay, Woolman, Benezet, and other earnest 
 persons, though the forerunner of them all was William Southeby, a 
 Roman Catholic, of Maryland, who wrote against slavery before 1700, 
 and in a petition to the Assembly, in 1712, prayed for the 3^ Abo _ 
 abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania. It may be that others Iltloni6te - 
 preceded or followed Friends in that humane work, but, as a religious 
 society, they were the earliest Abolitionists. It was impossible, more- 
 over, that the agitation among them, which continued for three quar- 
 ters of a century, till a Quaker could no longer be a slaveholder, 
 should not influence the character of the people at large, and the 
 legislation of the province. As the feeling against slavery grew 
 stronger year by year in the Yearly Meeting, so from time Abo ution of 
 to time hostility to the slave trade showed itself in the As- 
 sembly ; and at length in 1780, Pennsylvania, first of all 
 the States, passed an act for the gradual emancipation of all the 
 slaves within its jurisdiction. 
 
 But if generations of the unfortunate Africans were to perish be- 
 fore the benevolent purposes of Penn bore perfect fruit, his 
 policy in regard to the Indians was firmly established before traty with 
 he left for England. A new treaty was made in April, 
 1701, with the assembled chiefs of all the leading Indian tribes within 
 his territory, securing to them and all their subjects the protection 
 and the privileges of the colonial laws, without restriction. " That 
 the said Indians," it promised, " shall have the full and free privileges 
 and immunities of all the said laws, as any other inhabitant ; they 
 duly owning and acknowledging the authority of the Crown of Eng- 
 land and government of this province." And " that if any of the 
 said Indians, by means of evil-minded persons and sowers of sedition, 
 should hear any unkind or disadvantageous reports of the English, 
 .... such Indians shall send notice thereof to the said William 
 Penn, his heirs or successors, or their lieutenants, and shall not give 
 credence to the said reports till by that means they shall be fully 
 satisfied concerning the truth thereof; and that the said William 
 Penn, his heirs and successors, or their lieutenants .... do the like 
 by them." The immediate cause of this treaty was a question as to 
 the title of lands on the Susquehanna which Penn had purchased of 
 the Five Nations, through Governor Dongan, of New York. The 
 Susquehanna and the Conestoga Indians denied the right of the Five 
 Nations to sell these lands ; but by this treaty Penn's title was con- 
 firmed, and a bond of friendship established between these tribes and 
 the Pennsylvanians, which remained unbroken for more than half a 
 century. 
 
 VOL. in. 12 
 
178 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 [CHAP. VII. 
 
 Before his departure, the Governor gave to the colony a new char- 
 A new chr- ^ er under which it continued to be governed till it ceased to 
 *** be a proprietary province. It gave to an annual Assem- 
 
 bly, consisting of four persons out of each county, power to propose 
 bills, a privilege hitherto belonging to the Governor, to judge of the 
 qualifications and elections of their own members, and to " sit upon 
 their own adjournments," with " all other powers and privileges of an 
 Assembly, according to the rights of the free-born subjects of Eng- 
 land, and as is usual in any of the King's plantations in America." 
 With great reluctance, Penn affixed to this new constitution his con- 
 sent that the province and the territories the lower coun- 
 ware coun- ties, now the State of Delaware should have separate leg- 
 islatures, in case they should not afterward "agree to join 
 together ; " but he made one last effort, just before his going, to rec- 
 
 oncile the two, and sent to the 
 representatives of both an ap- 
 peal which was as strong as it 
 was brief. 
 
 " Friends," he wrote, " your 
 union is what I desire ; but your 
 peace and accommodating one 
 another is what I must expect 
 from you : The reputation of it 
 is something ; the reality, much 
 more. And I desire you to re- 
 member and observe what I 
 say : Yield in circumstantials to 
 preserve essentials; and being 
 safe in one another, you will 
 always be so in esteem with me. 
 Make me not sad, now I am 
 going to leave you ; since it is 
 for you, as well as for your Friend and Proprietary and Governor, 
 William Penn." 
 
 One more act remained before his leaving the grant of a special 
 municipal charter to the town of Philadelphia. This done, 
 and Andrew Hamilton appointed deputy, with Penn's warm 
 friend, James Logan, who had come with him from England, 
 as secretary, the founder of Pennsylvania sailed down the Delaware 
 as the first year of the new century drew to a close, and looked his 
 last upon the field of his " Holy Experiment." 
 
 It was December when he reached home. In February the King 
 died, and with the reign of Anne, the daughter of the man who had 
 
 Andrew Hamilton. 
 
 tertop 
 
1702.] PENN'S TROUBLES. 179 
 
 never been false to Penn, whatever treachery he showed to others, 
 the Quaker came again into court favor. The proceedings against his 
 charter were soon put aside ; and had political opposition at home 
 been all he had to fight against, he would have gone back to America 
 completely victorious and prosperous. 
 
 But he had still worse things to face. New tidings reached him 
 continually of the dissensions which had been renewed in 
 Pennsylvania as soon as he had left it. The old dispute be- from Pe 
 
 tween the legislatures broke out still more violently ; and, 
 besides this, he was overwhelmed with complaints from the people of 
 petty grievances. The new municipal government of Philadelphia 
 did not work well ; there was great opposition to the payment of the 
 quit-rents now falling due ; Deputy-governor Hamilton died at the 
 end of 1702, and was succeeded the next year by John Evans, whose 
 earlier administration proved eminently unsatisfactory ; in John Evang 
 brief, for several years Penn heard little else than bad news Governor - 
 from the province, or from Philadelphia, or from personal friends ; 
 while his private affairs prevented his returning to restore the pros- 
 perity his presence might have brought about. 
 
 For, from a long accumulation of causes, his private property was 
 found to be embarrassed almost beyond remedy. The steward, Philip 
 Ford, to whom he had intrusted his affairs in England, had died just 
 after Penn's arrival at home, and out of the confusion in which the 
 property was left, it soon became clear that Penn had been defrauded 
 of large sums. But the worst feature of the matter only appeared 
 when Ford's widow apparently a woman with as few scru- Penn , g 
 pies as her husband brought forward a lien on the Ameri- | f I jth b the 
 can province, which Penn had given her husband as security Fords- 
 for money advanced at the time of the second voyage to America. 
 This indebtedness Penn had paid off by installments, but these Ford 
 had carefully refrained from crediting in the accounts, while the ap- 
 parent indebtedness had been increased to X 12,000, by computations 
 of compound interest every six months, at six and eight per cent. The 
 accounts, which Penn had carelessly received without examination, 
 would not wrote Thomas Callowhill, a merchant of Bristol, and 
 Penn's father-in-law "had they been corrected in time, have 
 amounted to a tenth part of what they now are." But evidence of 
 Penn's payments was wanting, and when the widow and the son of 
 Ford brought an action against the proprietor, judgment was given in 
 their favor. Penn was arrested, and lodged in the Fleet Pennin 
 Prison, where he remained for nine months. The object of Fleetprison - 
 the Fords was to get possession of the province, but despairing of 
 that after several hearings before the Lord Chancellor, they consented 
 
180 PENNSYLVANIA. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 to a compromise. To meet the payment of the sum agreed upon 
 which was nearly eight thousand pounds Penn mortgaged 
 
 Proposes to . , r i < i 
 
 sen his prov- the pi'ovince to several 01 his friends, and entered into nego- 
 tiations for its sale to the Crown. These dragged on for 
 several years, and were about to be concluded, when an attack of pa- 
 ralysis, from which he never recovered, though he lived several years 
 longer, rendered him incapable of business, and the negotiations came 
 to an end. 
 
 The disappointments and anxieties of this period, which covered the 
 last vigorous years of Penn's life, were aggravated by the 
 
 Administra- . L J ... , && * 
 
 tionofGov- unsatistactory condition of affairs in the colony. Evans s ad- 
 
 ernor Evans. ... . " 
 
 ministration was unwise and oppressive. He refused to pass 
 a reasonable judiciary bill, presented by the Assembly ; he undertook 
 to enroll a militia force, and foolishly aroused the people of Phila- 
 delphia by a false alarm of the approach of a French fleet, keeping 
 the town under arms for two nights, and pretending that the conster- 
 nation of the inhabitants was the best proof of the necessity for mili- 
 tary preparations ; he imposed burdens upon commei-ce, by compel- 
 ling all vessels to report at New Castle, and those inward bound to pay 
 an impost duty ; he granted a commission for privateering ; and finally 
 he brought reproach upon the colony by the scandals of his private 
 life. A vigorous opposition party was aroused against him, of which 
 An opposi- David Lloyd, a Quaker lawyer, was the able, but not always 
 tion party. scru p u l ous leader. He united all who were not Friends, and 
 many who were, against the proprietary party under Evans. And it 
 was a Quaker who resisted and effectually put an end to the Lieu- 
 tenant-governor's attempt to raise a revenue by subjecting vessels 
 coining up the Delaware to a tonnage duty. 
 
 Richard Hill, who was one of the Council, determined to test the 
 question, and went down the river in a vessel of his own, bound to 
 Barbadoes. As he approached the fort at New Castle, two of his 
 friends, Isaac Morris and Samuel Preston, who had embarked with 
 him to carry out his purpose both also Quakers, and merchants of 
 great respectability went on shore and informed the commander, 
 John French, that Hill's vessel was standing out to sea, and would re- 
 fuse either to report to him or to submit to the fine for not reporting. 
 
 French attempted to bring the vessel to by opening fire from 
 the Deia- his guns, and a shot tore through her mainsail. But Hill 
 
 himself had taken the helm, and the Philadelphia stood 
 steadily on her way. French threw himself into an armed boat and 
 pursued her, and as he came alongside, Hill ordered a rope to be 
 thrown him. As the commander stepped on deck he was secured 
 and taken to the cabin as a prisoner, and his boat was cut adrift. 
 
1702.] 
 
 TROUBLES ON THE DEL AAV ARE. 
 
 181 
 
 French begged to be released, and appealed to Hill's pity by declar- 
 ing he was ill. "If that be the case," answered the Quaker, "why 
 didst thou come here ? " 
 
 From the fort, Evans himself had witnessed this defiance of his au- 
 thority, and in great rage 
 gave chase in another boat. 
 At Salem he overtook the 
 Philadelphia, where Hill had 
 come to anchor, and taken 
 French on shore. It hap- 
 
 Passing New Castle. 
 
 pened that Lord Cornbury of New York was at that place, who, as 
 Governor of New Jersey, claimed to have jurisdiction over the waters 
 of the lower Delaware. The parties appeared before him, and his de- 
 cision, that the free navigation of the river should not be interrupted, 
 was submitted to, because it could not at the moment be resisted. 
 Logan, the secretary of the province, afterward waited upon him, and 
 he wrote to Penn, " I entered fully into the matter, and protested, in 
 thy name and behalf, against these proceedings, as being not only 
 against thy inclinations, but evasive of thy rights. I found he had 
 resented the matter to our Governor, and will resent it home to the 
 Lords of Trade." But Hill's summary method of resentment had 
 already settled the question. Others followed his example. He, with 
 a large number of the merchants of Philadelphia, waited upon the 
 
182 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 [CHAP. VII. 
 
 Assembly, and that body unanimously adopted an address to the 
 Governor, in which they declared that the " arbitrary actions and 
 oppressions complained of," were an abuse of the Queen's authoi-ity, 
 an open defiance of the royal grant, that they "obstruct our lawful 
 commerce, and invade our liberties, rights, and properties, and under 
 the pretence of fortifying the river for the service of the Queen, com- 
 mit hostilities and depredations upon her liege people." The Dela- 
 ware was henceforth free of any exactions from Governor Evans. 
 
 " These are very cloudy times indeed, and to us a day of severe 
 complaints trial," Logan wrote to Penn. The secretary was a man of 
 j^lefLo- great integrity, and too wise to approve in all things of the 
 gan- course and character of Evans. But his official relations to 
 
 the Lieutenant-governor, and his efforts to maintain the rights of the 
 
 Proprietor, made his position one 
 of great difficulty. He was ac- 
 cused of having aided Evans in 
 his senseless scheme of spreading 
 the alarm of the approach of a 
 French fleet, when the inhabi- 
 tants of Philadelphia were thrown 
 into so great a panic that many 
 abandoned their houses to escape 
 into the country, injuring and 
 destroying their household goods 
 in attempting to conceal them. 
 For this and other wrong-doings 
 of Evans, Logan was made the 
 scape-goat. An indictment was 
 found against him, and though 
 nothing came of it in the end, it 
 was a cause of great vexation 
 both to him and his warm friend, the Proprietor. But though the 
 " cloudy times " pervaded all this period of Penn's life, there were 
 intervals of sunshine. The conduct of the opposition sometimes pro- 
 Lloyd's let- duced reaction, and the proprietary party would attain again 
 tertoPenn. a ma j or ;ty j n the Assembly. Tims, David Lloyd overshot 
 the mark when he sent to England to Penn and other Friends there 
 a memorial setting forth the real grievances of the colonists with 
 great exaggeration and more bitterness ; and this he signed as Speak- 
 er of the Assembly, though it had never been submitted to that body. 
 It had been proposed to send an official remonstrance to the Proprie- 
 tor, and to ask for the redress of certain wrongs ; but when it became 
 known that Lloyd had taken advantage of this purpose to address 
 
 James Logan. 
 
1702.] WILLIAM PENX, JR. 183 
 
 Penn in a tone that the facts did not justify, and with an assump- 
 tion of authority that did not belong to him, the revulsion of feeling 
 was very great, both in England and in Pennsylvania. 1 
 
 But through all this period, Penn's heaviest trial was, doubtless, a 
 private grief, a private grief, however, that carried with it 
 
 mi < Conduct of 
 
 much public scandal. Ihis was the conduct of his eldest wiiiiam 
 son, William, whom, two or three years after his return to 
 England, he had sent to America. This youth had given great prom- 
 ise of future worthlessness at home, but his father hoped that new 
 associations and surroundings, and a removal from old temptations, 
 might work a change in him. He changed his skies, but not his mor- 
 als. The sober influence of Logan and other friends of his father in 
 the colony weighed nothing with young Penn, while, for his name's 
 sake, he received for a while more tender consideration than should 
 have been accorded him in his many offences against society. 'In the 
 Lieutenant-governor, Evans, he found a boon companion after his 
 own heart, and a useful friend in bringing him safely through many 
 an awkward dilemma. Strange and disgraceful stories were told of 
 his conduct women in men's dress in the streets ; midnight orgies ; 
 his increasing following and evil influence among the young men of the 
 town until at last he was engaged in a tavern brawl, and arrested 
 for beating a constable. Evans was his companion on this occasion, 
 and getting the worst in the fight, sought safety by declaring his rank. 
 His assailant had already recognized him, but pretending that he did 
 not believe the assertion, beat him all the more for scandalizing the 
 Governor by suggesting the possibility of his being engaged in such 
 disgraceful proceedings. Evans, however, managed to escape, and 
 attempted afterward to rescue Penn by proposing to exercise his 
 official authority over the court. But the court disregarded this, and 
 brought an indictment against Penn. The young man, in a rage, de- 
 clared he would have nothing more to do with Quakers or with Penn- 
 sylvania ; he renounced the Quaker doctrines ; he denied the right of 
 the provincial magistrates to try him ; and shortly afterward was al- 
 lowed probably very willingly by those who loved his father to 
 sail for home, leaving creditors everywhere behind him, and selling, 
 before his departure, all the property his father had given him in the 
 colony. 
 
 1 Great use is made in the Historical liecieic of Pennsylvania attributed to Franklin 
 of this assumed memorial or letter of the Assembly. No intimation is siven that Llovd 
 had put his name as Speaker to a document of his own writing, which the Assembly had 
 never seen, which had, indeed, no existence till after the House was dissolved. Yet it 
 seems hardly possible that the author of the Rerieiv should not have known that the docu- 
 ment, so far as it pretended to have any other authority than that of Lloyd aloiie, was little 
 better than a forgery. 
 
184 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 [CHAP. VII. 
 
 
 Ruscombe. 
 
 Penn lived till 1718, but the last six years of his life were passed 
 in a childlike tranquillity, on his estate at Ruscombe, his mind seri- 
 ously impaired and his physical vigor almost destroyed by 
 iand the show progress of disease. By his will he left all his 
 property in England and Ireland to his son, William, in 
 spite of his misconduct; but the proprietorship in the American col- 
 
 <;4s*' /** onv he left to 
 
 j. _ _ ~dh th ; ee trustees< 
 
 "to dispose 
 thereof to the 
 Queen, or any 
 other person, to 
 the best advan- 
 tage they can ; " 
 and to pay over 
 the proceeds to 
 still other trus- 
 tees, for the ben- 
 efit after the 
 payment of all 
 
 debts and the conveyance of some land to each of William's children 
 of his children by his second wife. To her he left his personal 
 property, and made her sole executrix. As might have been expected, 
 William entered on a contest of the will ; and the whole matter, 
 going into chancery, resulted ultimately in the confirmation to the 
 younger branch not only of the part the will had left to them di- 
 rectly, but of the right of government as well, which had been left to 
 be disposed of to the Crown. The proposal to surrender the prov- 
 ince was never seriously revived again ; and John, Thomas, and Rich- 
 ard Penn, the heirs, and their mother, the executrix, became pro- 
 prietors in the political as in the ordinary sense, till the American 
 Revolution dispossessed the survivors. 
 
 The colony, meanwhile, had grown in prosperity and numbers, 
 Politic^ dis- a growth never seriously checked by the political dissensions 
 Pe"i'u"i- of between Governor and Assembly, which continued, not only 
 TBUW. so j on g as p enn Jived, but till his sons Avere old men and 
 
 Pennsylvania became a State. These dissensions had their root in 
 differences hard to reconcile, the vital principles of Friends in re- 
 gard to oaths and the lawfulness of war, and the conflicting interests 
 of Proprietaries and people. The conflict was more or less deter- 
 mined, more or less successful on one side or the other, as the Quaker 
 element was sometimes stronger or Aveaker in the Assembly, or as the 
 Governor might possess strong powers of persuasion, or command re- 
 
1709.] 
 
 POLITICAL DISSENSIONS. 
 
 185 
 
 spect and obedience by weight of intellect or will. Evans possessed 
 none of these qualities, and it was a relief to the colonists when 
 Charles Gookin succeeded him in 1709. His administration was, at 
 least, without scandal, but the differences to which we allude marked 
 it from its beginning to its close. 
 
 The Governor was uncompromising in character, uncompliant in 
 temper. In obedience to the Queen, he made, soon after his Governor 
 arrival, a requisition upon the Assembly for the quota of ^t"^. 8 
 the province in men, to be used against the French, or their re i u > SItlons - 
 equivalent in money. The Assembly, with every assurance of their 
 devotion and 
 loyalty to the 
 Crow n, were 
 constrained, i n 
 obedience to 
 the religious 
 scruples of the 
 larger portion of 
 the people of the 
 province, to de- 
 cline contribut- 
 ing directly for 
 the support of 
 war ; but they 
 were willing, on 
 
 their part, to make a present to the Queen. By this, or some similar 
 device, the colony continued to do its part in support of war meas- 
 ures, for many years ; but any Governor with a weakness for casuistry 
 could find in the subject, as Gookin did, an opportunity for contro- 
 versy which could be made to last, if he chose, a man's natural life. 
 " We did not see it," said Isaac Norris, " inconsistent with our prin- 
 ciples to give the Queen money, notwithstanding any use she might 
 put it to, that not being our part, but hers." There was little of this 
 conciliatory spirit and common-sense view of the subject on the Gov- 
 ernor's part; he demanded more than the Assembly thought the prov- 
 ince could afford to give, and his demands were always an unpleasant 
 reminder to Friends that he was asking them to violate their princi- 
 ples, and not merely to contribute to the support of government. 
 
 He raised subsequently a more serious question, by refusing to ac- 
 cept an affirmation instead of an oath from Quakers. No- 
 where in the whole range of history could a moot-court find tionof 
 a question with so many points for the exercise of ingenuity, 
 with so many unanswerable arguments on both sides, and one so abso- 
 
 Grave of Perm. 
 
186 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 [CHAP. VII. 
 
 lately impossible of settlement by any process of reasoning on either 
 one side or the other. The charter granted by Charles II. ; acts of 
 Parliament in the seventh and eighth of William III. ; orders of 
 the Queen in council under Anne ; act of Parliament in the first of 
 George 1. ; acts of the Colonial Assembly of Pennsylvania ; decisions 
 by the Governor and the Chief Justice of New Jersey, from all 
 these sources were drawn arguments, precedents, confirmations, in- 
 consistencies, and incompatibilities, by a judicious and skilful use of 
 which it could be shown that one side was perfectly impregnable till 
 
 the other side was shown to be 
 equally so, and that neither, ac- 
 cording to the laws, had a leg to 
 stand upon. As a question of con- 
 troversy, moreover, it had this 
 great charm : practically it was 
 of the smallest consequence, if let 
 alone, but, if meddled with, its 
 capability of mischief could only 
 be measured by the possibility of 
 its interminable discussion. Goo- 
 kin fortunately retired in 1717, 
 silenced, though not convinced, by 
 the last message on the subject 
 from the Assembly. Sir William 
 Keith, the next Governor, had 
 the good sense not to reopen it ; 
 Friends went on quietly as before, affirming instead of swearing, when 
 an oath was required as a qualification for any civil position ; and in 
 1725 the question was once more taken up, but only to be settled for- 
 ever by a positive act of the Assembly, confirmed by an act of Par- 
 liament, permitting affirmation, and releasing Friends from oaths. 
 
 Keith, either because his sympathies were really with the Friends, 
 or because he thought it politic to govern his conduct in accordance 
 with the known wishes of a majority of the people, yielded gracefully, 
 rather than contended, on these vexed questions. For, that Friends 
 Avould yield nothing on a question of conscience, they gave him to 
 understand at the outset of his administration. The Assembly joined 
 with him, at his accession, in an address to the King, which was writ- 
 ten in the style used by subjects when speaking to a sovereign. But 
 they were also careful to note upon their minutes, that, though they 
 agreed " as to the matter and substance of the said address," they ex- 
 cepted to " the plural term you ; " they would have preferred to say, 
 41 thy most dutiful subjects," rather than " your Majesty's ; " " may 
 
 Sir William Keith. 
 
1723.] 
 
 SIR WILLIAM KEITH'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 187 
 
 it please thee to know," rather than " may it please your Majesty." 
 The Governor clearly had not forgotten this significant evidence of 
 the sturdy persistence of Friends, when, some years afterward, the 
 Quarterly Meeting sent him a remonstrance upon an incident in the 
 Court of Chancery. He had ordered the hat to be lifted Adhe renee 
 from the head of John Kinsey an eminent Quaker law- tofl3rS 
 yer, and afterward Chief Justice before he was permitted P nncl P les - 
 to address the court. Keith had the good sense to see that ceremony 
 had better yield to conscience, and thereupon ordered, in response to 
 the memorial of the Quarterly Meeting, that 
 Friends might wear their hats where they would, 
 " as an act of conscientious liberty, of right, ap- 
 pertaining to the religious 
 pei-suasion of said peo- 
 J v . pie." The deter- 
 mined and inde- 
 pendent spirit 
 shown in these af- 
 fairs of compara- 
 tively small mo- 
 ment, marked the 
 character of the 
 people in the long 
 and almost mo- 
 notonous struggle 
 of later years be- 
 
 / 
 
 twee n successive 
 Governors and Assemblies. The time came when the province had 
 little other history than the constant demand of chief magistrates for 
 means to aid in the general defence of the colonies in the French and 
 Indian wars, and the firm purpose of the Assemblies to contribute to 
 that end in their own way, and to compel the Proprietaries to bear 
 their share of the burden. 
 
 That struggle began during Keith's administration, in a proposi- 
 tion from him to raise money by the issue of a paper cur- Paper 
 rency, in 1723. The project was discussed with great thor- Uloue y- 
 oughness, and its possible consequences wisely foreseen. It was diffi- 
 cult in the then condition of the colonies to avoid a resort to this 
 measure, and still more difficult, when the first step was taken, to 
 avoid the inevitable evil consequences. The Assembly of Pennsyl- 
 vania was cautious. " It was provided," says a report made to the 
 Crown fifteen years later, and after several other issues had been made 
 on the same plan, " that a real estate, in fee simple, of double the 
 
 Keith's Mansion House Graeme Park, near Philadelphia. 
 
188 PENNSYLVANIA. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 value of the sum lent out, should be secured in an office created for 
 that purpose ; and that the sums so let out should bu annually repaid 
 into the office, in such equal sums or quotas as would effectually sink 
 the whole capital sum of forty-five thousand pounds within the time 
 limited by the aforesaid acts." In 1739, when this report was made, 
 the amount of these bills that had been issued was altogether about 
 87,000, of which some 80,000 were outstanding in the province; 
 yet so favorably did they stand in comparison witli some other colo- 
 nial paper money, that the 80,000 of provincial currency had a 
 value of 50,196 in sterling money. This comparative value, how- 
 ever, steadily decreased in later years with the additional issues of 
 paper currency. 
 
 Keith was removed from the office of Governor in 1725, but he re- 
 Keith'src- maiiied a citizen of the province, and was chosen a repre- 
 sentative to the Assembly. If he had lost the confidence of 
 the Proprietoi's, the people seem to have believed that his administra- 
 tion of the affairs of the colony was for its good. 
 
 It was a period of great prosperity, so great that it does not seem 
 
 to have been retarded by an act passed in the fifth year of 
 
 of I'enusyi- Patrick Gordon's administration, which succeeded Keith's. 
 
 vania. T- i i 
 
 By this act it was attempted to impose restrictions upon im- 
 migration, 1 by taxing every immigrant five shillings on his settlement 
 in the province. It was ostensibly designed " to prevent poor and 
 impotent persons from being imported," but is said to have been dic- 
 tated by alarm at the large numbers that arrived from Ireland and 
 from Germany, and seriously threatened the supremacy of the Friends 
 in the colony which they regarded as especially their own. That the 
 prosperity of Pennsylvania was great enough to bear' without injury 
 this check to population, appears from a statistical account published 
 this year (1731). "That Pennsylvania," the writer says, 2 "which 
 has not any peculiar staple (like Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland), 
 and was begun to be planted so late as 1680, should at present have 
 more white inhabitants in it than all Virginia, Maryland, and both 
 the Carolinas, is extremely remarkable. And although the youngest 
 colony on the continent, they have by far the finest capital city of all 
 British America; and the second in magnitude ;" and adds, after 
 a long enumeration of the colony's products and profitable industries : 
 " The Pennsylvanians build about 2,000 tons of shipping a year for 
 sale, over and above what they employ in their own trade, which 
 may be about 6,000 tons more. They send great quantities of corn 
 to Portugal and Spain, frequently selling their ships as well as cargo; 
 and the produce of both is sent thence to England, where it is always 
 
 1 Grahaine, vol. Hi., pp. 134 aud 135. * Cited by Proud, vol. ii., p. 203. 
 
1732.] 
 
 VISITS OF THOMAS AND JOHN PENN. 
 
 1 *i 
 
 laid out iu goods and sent home to Pennsylvania They receive 
 
 no less than 4,000 to 6,000 pistoles from the Dutch isle of Curac.oa 
 alone, .... and they trade to Surinam, .... and to the French part 
 
 of Hispaniola as also to the other French sugar islands From 
 
 Jamaica they sometimes return with all money and no goods 
 
 And all the money they can get .... is brought to England, .... 
 which has not for many years past been less than 150,000 per an- 
 num." The Pennsylvania trade with the other colonies this writer 
 estimates at 60,000 a year. 
 
 In 1732, Thomas Penn, the founder's second son by his second 
 marriage, arrived in Philadelphia ; but, though the people 
 
 . , i ,. .. . , Visit, of the 
 
 received him cordially', HIM he lived tor years among them, younger 
 he was never popular, and had but little personal influence. 
 The case was very different with his elder brother John the senior 
 Proprietor who came in 1734. 
 His personal magnetism, cordial 
 interest in the province, and ex- 
 ceptional ability, recalled his fath- 
 er; but a renewed attempt by the 
 Baltimores to revive the old claim 
 to Delaware, called him again to 
 England, as William Penn had 
 once been called, after a year's 
 residence, and he did not return. 
 In the year after his departure 
 (1736), Governor Gordon died ; 
 and after an interval, during which 
 the venerable Logan acted as chief 
 magistrate, George Thomas fol- 
 lowed in the governorship in 1738, 
 beginning a nine years' admin- 
 istration, which, while it showed his own ability to be inferior to 
 Gordon's, was not more eventful or less quietly prosperous. 
 
 If the general annals of the province yield but little which it is of 
 interest to trace, much happened in the Quaker city " the finest 
 capital of British America" during these quiet years, that was as 
 important as though it had come under the head of political events. 
 One of the foremost characters in American history was coming into 
 public notice, and beginning his career in ways as various Ben j alllin 
 as his abilities. Benjamin Franklin, whose first visit to the f.^ 1 "^ 
 town had been made when his quarrel with his elder brother "'* 
 at Boston had sent him out, a printer's-boy of seventeen, to seek his 
 fortune, had returned to Philadelphia in 1726, and made it his 
 
 Patrick Gordon. 
 
190 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 [CllAP. VII. 
 
 home. The story of his first short stay there is familiar ; his arrival 
 on a Sunday morning in 1723, and his traditional walk through the 
 streets eating his breakfast of a roll of bread ; his unprosperous en- 
 gagement with the printer Keimer; his encouragement by Governor 
 Keith, and his voyage to London, only to find there that he had been 
 deceived by the Governor's promises. His second arrival in the Penn- 
 
 __ ^ sylvania capital was 
 
 very different. He 
 
 9 
 
 came with employ- 
 ment assured him ; 
 and from this time 
 nil that lie did pros- 
 pered. In 1728 he 
 was a partner in 
 establishing the 
 " Pennsylvania Ga- 
 
 tl 
 
 zette," a newspaper 
 which had a life 
 of a hundred and 
 twenty years. He 
 sprang almost im- 
 mediately into 
 
 
 
 prominence. His ac- 
 tivity was ceaseless ; 
 he improved the 
 printing press, and 
 printed paper-mon- 
 ey for his own and 
 other provinces ; he 
 founded a cheap li- 
 brary ; and wrote 
 usefully on all man- 
 
 Frar.klin entering Philadelphia. ner Q f su ljj ec t s . He 
 
 published the first edition of the famous " Poor Richard's Almanac " 
 in 1732. The Assembly appointed him its clerk in 1735 ; and under 
 Thomas's administration he was the provincial postmaster. What 
 Philadelphia owed to his sound sense and public spirit, can hardly 
 be over-estimated. Every part of the city administration profited by 
 his suggestions. He founded the American Philosophical Society in 
 1744; and two years afterward began the series of experiments in 
 electricity which led him to such great achievement. From his elec- 
 tion to the Assembly four years later, his political life belongs to 
 other chapters of the history of the time ; and to those greater strug- 
 
1748.] 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 191 
 
 gles on which his adopted colony was now, like the rest, about to 
 enter. 
 
 The history of Pennsylvania begins to merge into the history of 
 that colonial union which the events of the next ten years so thoroughly 
 cemented. James Hamilton, a native of the colony, and the son of 
 Andrew Hamilton, Penn's former deputy, succeeded Thomas in the 
 fall of 1748 ; and by the close of his administration, the shadow of a 
 coining war had forced the Quaker province, like its neighbors, into 
 active preparations for defence. 
 
 Penn s Brewing-jar. 
 
Care Canso 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 NEW ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH. 
 
 THE THIRD INDIAN WAR IN NEW ENGLAND. NEW HAMPSHIRE A SEPARATE PROV- 
 INCE. GOVKRNOK BENNING WENTWORTII. ADMINISTRATION OF GOVERNOR 
 BELCHER OK MASSACHUSETTS. FINANCIAL CONDITION OF THE COLONY. APPOINT- 
 MENT OF GOVERNOR SHIRLEY. GEOKGE WHITEFIELD'S FIRST VISIT TO NEW ENG- 
 LAND. THE REVIVAL PERIOD. WAR AGAIN DECLARED BETWEEN ENGLAND AND 
 FRANCE. THE SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF LOUISBURG. COLONEL WILLIAM PEP- 
 PERELL. LOUISBURG RESTORED TO FRANCE. AN ENGLISH PRESS-GANG IN BOS- 
 TON. THE TOWN-HOCSE ASSAULTED. INSURRECTION SKILFULLY AVERTED. 
 
 The twra 
 
 land - 
 
 IN the third Indian war, which broke out in 1722, in the Northern 
 provinces, the strife was most deadly and the destruction 
 Hiost complete along the Eastern border, in the disputed ter- 
 ritory claimed both by the English and the French and their 
 Indian allies. But it was not confined to that region. Bands of sav- 
 age warriors crept along the frontiers of Maine and New Hampshire, 
 watching with unwearied vigilance for a chance to fall suddenly upon 
 some sleeping village or defenceless farm-house, disappearing again 
 like the shadows of the night, before the next day's sun arose upon 
 heaps of mangled bodies and the smouldering ashes of desolated 
 
1723.] THE THIRD INDIAN WAR. 193 
 
 homes. In 1723, Dover, New Hampshire, and its vicinity, suffered 
 from the over-confidence of the inhabitants, who were careless in re- 
 tiring at night-fall to their garrison -houses. Many narratives of heroic 
 conduct belong to this period. For instance, Aaron Rawlins, at New- 
 market, had a daughter twelve years old ; her mother saw her own 
 father killed by the Indians in 1704, and the recollection mingled with 
 the blood of this daughter. Late in August, 1723, the house of Raw- 
 lins was attacked by a band of eighteen Indians. His wife and two 
 children, going out by chance, were seized, the father and the young- 
 est daughter being left within. He barred the door, and both made 
 such a defence by rapid firing that the people in the garrison-house 
 were afraid to send assistance, concluding by the frequent 
 
 , T ,. . , i , , Fate of the 
 
 reports that the Indians were in great torce. At length the luwiins 
 father was killed, and his daughter's head cut off. The cap- 
 tive son was adopted by the Indians, and never cared to resume the 
 English life; and the captive daughter married a Frenchman. 
 
 In 172-1 a few persons were killed, but the vigorous movements of 
 scouting parties prevented great disasters. In Dover, there were sev- 
 eral Quakers, who would neither use arms for the defence of their 
 families, nor avail themselves of the shelter of the garrison-houses. 
 The Indians could neither understand nor respect their scruples ; a 
 few were killed, and the families taken to Canada. These outrages 
 led to the expeditions of the two provinces of Massachusetts and New 
 Hampshire, against Father Rasle and his Eastern Indians. If it be 
 true, as Belknap says, that a half-breed son of the priest was killed at 
 Oyster River in the summer of 1724, his bitter plotting against the 
 English involved a personal feeling. 
 
 Father Sebastian Rasle had lived among the Indians for thirty- 
 seven years, accommodating himself with the usual French Father 
 facility to their habits of life, building his own wigwam, R * sle ' 
 planting curn, and preparing his meals in their method, adopting their 
 language, and devoting himself to their temporal and spiritual im- 
 provement. He was a polished scholar, who had surrendered all the 
 preferments of the Church to occupy this outpost in the wilderness. 
 Age and privation had not blunted a single faculty of his intelligence, 
 and he devoted it, together with a rare diplomatic talent, to the ser- 
 vice of Rome and of France. A truly remarkable pioneer, a perfectly 
 unselfish man, as the Jesuits generally were, a man whose delight 
 was in the commanding influence which he had fairly earned, his 
 record has been not altogether appreciated by the men whose hate he 
 naturally incurred. In him the Governor of Canada found an agent 
 more potent than his troops. 
 
 The first act of violence was committed by the Indians upon some 
 
 VOL. III. 13 
 
194 NEW ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 tradei-s at Canso, in August, 1720 ; their goods were plundered, and 
 The flwt several persons were killed. Then the Eastern Indians, 
 hostilities. w j lo k e g an t o ni uster with fresh threats against the frontier 
 towns of New England, were again met by Governor Shute's agents, 
 and with difficulty dissuaded from their purpose of attempting to re- 
 cover, as they said, the territory which by natural right belonged to 
 them. Their abandonment of the attempt was a sore disappointment 
 to Father Rasle and Vaudreuil, the Governor of Canada, who had 
 hoped to reanimate the hostility of the Indians. This intrigue was 
 suspected, and a demand was made upon the Indians at Norridgewock 
 to deliver up their favorite priest. Their consent ought not to have 
 been expected ; but, on their refusal, Colonel Westbrook was sent 
 with a party of men to arrest the priest, who had notice in time to 
 escape, but his flight was so precipitate that he left behind the com- 
 promising correspondence with Vaudreuil. This was in 1722. The 
 plunder of their village and attempt upon the Father so enraged the 
 Norridgewock Indians that they led the other Eastern tribes in fresh 
 attacks upon the frontier, and plunged the provinces into a serious 
 and costly defence. 
 
 The Indian settlement at Norridgewock had greatly flourished un- 
 der the supervision of Father Rasle. Every political and 
 
 The settle- , . . . * . . . , , . . , \ , 
 
 mentatNor- theological motive inspired the provinces with iealousv and 
 
 ridgewock. -, , f ^- -V .1 
 
 dread of this success at civilizing their worst enemies, and 
 of the establishment of a frontier post which would be a constant 
 menace. Two attempts had been made to break up this settlement 
 by the capture of its master-spirit. On the 12th of August, 1724, a 
 third attempt succeeded. 
 
 The place was surprised by an expedition of two hundred men, at 
 its capture a time when few Indian fighters were at home. The sur- 
 and pillage. v j vors o f the attack fled into the forest with their wives, and 
 Father Rasle was slain in advancing toward the English in order to 
 divert their attention from his flock. The victors pillaged the chapel, 
 and tore down the crucifixes and other symbols of worship which the 
 Indians had learned to reverence. When they returned to their de- 
 vastated village, the beloved priest was found all hacked with wounds, 
 scalped, and with mud crammed into the persuasive mouth. It is said 
 that strict orders had been issued to capture but not injure the father; 
 but that when a soldier summoned him to surrender, he refused, and 
 was slain. The body of the priest was buried underneath the altar 
 at which he had ministered to his converts, with savage vows of ven- 
 geance for a funeral service. 
 
 In the same year, Captain John Lovewell, with a company of vol- 
 unteers numbering eighty-seven, made a successful expedition against 
 
1725.] 
 
 THE EXPEDITION TO PEQUAWKETT. 
 
 195 
 
 a party of Indians who were coming from Canada, well equipped with 
 snow-shoes and moccasins for the captives whom they ex- ^^^11^ 
 pected to carry back. Stimulated by this success, by the ex P edItlon - 
 lai'ge bounty offered for scalps, and by the liberal pay, it was easy 
 for the Captain to organize another expe- 
 dition. Each man received two shillings 
 and sixpence a day during his term of 
 volunteering. Starting in April, 
 1725, Lovewell determined to strike 
 the Pequawkett (Pigwacket) 
 Indians, whose village was near . 
 a pond in the present township 
 of Fryeburg, Maine, a small 
 
 Death of Father Rasle. 
 
 sheet of water two and a half miles long and a mile wide. When they 
 reached Ossipee Pond, a stockade was erected, to afford a place of shel- 
 ter in case of a reverse. Here eight men were left ; the rest pushed for- 
 ward about twenty miles, and came to the pond, where they encamped. 
 The next morning, May 8, an Indian who was hunting ducks dis- 
 turbed them by the report of his gun. They left their packs on the 
 ground and pursued him, expecting to come upon a bod)' of the en- 
 emy ; he was killed, and the men, finding no trace of other savages, 
 returned to their camping-ground. In the mean time a party of In- 
 dians, under a noted sachem, Paugus, came upon Lovewell's track, 
 
196 
 
 NEW ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH. [Ciixr. VIII. 
 
 and, counting the packs, discovered that his own force was superior in 
 numbers. He placed an ambush, and when the men returned for 
 their packs they received a fire which instantly killed Lovewell and 
 eight more, and wounded three. The rest, only twenty-three in num- 
 ber, retreated to a pine grove upon a point which ran into the pond. 
 Here they maintained themselves all day without food, and delivered 
 so deadly a fire that the savages, toward nightfall, retreated, carrying 
 away many of their dead and wounded. 
 
 Only nine of the men remained unhurt. They, and the wounded 
 
 who could walk, be- 
 gan their retreat 
 toward the stockade, 
 leaving on the well- 
 fought field the mor- 
 tally wounded, one 
 of whom Lieuten- 
 ant Robbins asked 
 that a musket be left 
 with him, hoping to 
 have one more shot 
 before he died. They 
 had struggled to the 
 stockade with incred- 
 ible suffering, only 
 to find it deserted ; 
 for a man who had 
 run away at the first 
 volley had so alarmed 
 the little garrison 
 with his report that 
 they fled. In the 
 m arch homeward, 
 three wounded men 
 died. The survivors 
 were amply honored 
 and rewarded, for 
 
 Robbins's Last Shot. . . . / i , t , i 
 
 this right of theirs 
 
 was the most determined and audacious recorded in the earlier Indian 
 warfare. Paugus was killed, and the tribe had suffered so severely 
 that the remnant deserted the spot, and went to settle on the head- 
 waters of the Connecticut. 1 
 
 1 There was a legend connected with this fight, long believed but now somewhat discred- 
 ited, that John Chamberlain and Paugus went down to the water to clean out their guns, 
 
1725.] A TREATY WITH THE EASTERN TRIBES. 197 
 
 It was liigh time that the provinces should attempt to restrain this 
 deadly warfare in a time of peace, by proceeding to the Englilih 
 headquarters in Canada of the French instigation. Vau- "M"^"" 
 dreuil was at Montreal, where he received the provincial treal 
 commissioners with a deal of blandness and courtesy, and professed 
 to be surprised at their charge of his intrigue through Father Rasle. 
 Whereupon the commissioners quietly produced his correspondence, 
 at the sight of which he was struck with mortification and a sense 
 of guilt at having disturbed the relations established by treaty be- 
 tween France and England. But he was still so much swayed by the 
 influence of the Jesuit priests who were around him, that the com- 
 missioners found difficulty in bringing him to any terms. They no- 
 ticed that, whenever a priest was present at their conferences, the 
 Governor was stubborn; but when they addressed him alone, he was 
 disposed to consider the justice of their complaint. At length he did 
 interfere so far as to procure the release of several captives at a mod- 
 erate ransom, and to promise to counsel the Indians to cease hostili- 
 ties. After a while, the Eastern tribes did solicit peace, when they 
 discovered that the provinces were preparing to pursue them still more 
 vigorously. A treaty was made with them at the close of Atreatyof 
 1725. The English set up trading-posts on the St. George, P** 06 ' 
 Kennebec, and Saco, toward which they succeeded in attracting the 
 Indians by underselling the French. The policy was not fimmcially 
 profitable, and the posts had to be sustained by special appropriations, 
 but the period of tranquillity that was thus secured lasted, with few 
 interruptions, till the war between England and France which began 
 in 1755. 1 
 
 which had become fouled by firing. In this process, each gesture which they made was 
 simultaneous, as they taunted each other and threatened death ; but the musket of the 
 Englishman had a habit of self-priming, and while Paugus was filling his pan, Chamber- 
 lain shot him. True or false, the story is a happy hint of the benefit of that shortening 
 of method attained in the modern revolver. If the story he true, Chamberlain's gun, 
 probably, only had the trick of priming itself not uncommon, as sportsmen know, with 
 the old-fashioned musket from an enlargement of the vent in the pan. But it is a curious 
 coincidence that something like the modern revolver had already been invented in Boston. 
 Pen hallow [Inilian Wnrs], speaking of the reception given there to some chiefs of the Six 
 Nations, a few months before Lovewell's fight, says : "They were entertained with the cu- 
 rious sight of a gun that was made by the ingenious Mr. Pirn, of Boston ; which, although 
 loaded but once, yet was discharged eleven times following with bullets, in the space of 
 two minutes, each of which went through a double door at fifty yards distance." 
 
 1 The coast of Maine and its rivers were very sparsely settled by the English, notwith- 
 standing this accommodation with the Indians, for their treachery was held in lively re- 
 membrance, and a well-defended trading-post offered the only security. From George's 
 River to the St. Croix, there was not one white habitation till the first permanent settle- 
 ment was made by Governor Pownall, of Massachusetts, on Penobscot Bay, in 1759. At 
 that time, hardly six hundred of the once dreaded Peuobscot Indians remained. Belfast 
 was first settled by Scotch Presbyterians from Londonderry and Antrim, in Ireland, in 
 1769. 
 
198 
 
 NEW ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 liiciitpnant- 
 
 governor 
 
 Wentworth. 
 
 eminent. 
 
 The counsel of Wentworth, the Lieutenant-governor of New Hamp- 
 shire, through these years of border warfare, was us saga- 
 
 . , . , , - ,, . . , 
 
 cious as were Jus measures tor oetence. 1 he province prized 
 
 . . . , ... i i 11 i i r 
 
 his executive ability, and gladly voted him grants ot money. 
 During his administration, New Hampshire first acquired the royal 
 assent to an act establishing a limited local self-government. He fa- 
 vored the popular movement for triennial Assemblies, for fixing the 
 qualification of an elector at real estate worth <50, and of a repre- 
 sentative at a freehold estate worth 300, though he was not bound 
 to be a resident in the town which voted for him. The selectmen 
 ami the moderator of the town meeting were to decide if a candidate 
 were properly qualified, but their decision was subject to an appeal 
 to the House of Representatives. 
 
 The controversy between Shute and Vaughan, on the question of 
 otums of Absentee governors, had widened till it divided the prov- 
 i" ce i nto two parties: one proposing that New Hampshire 
 s l, on ld be absorbed by Massachusetts ; the other, that it 
 should have a governor and administration of its own. But the prov- 
 
 ince was still poor. Its ex- 
 port trade was chiefly con- 
 fined to fish and lumber, and 
 though that in lumber was 
 profitable, it was small and 
 precarious, and trammelled 
 ever by royal regulations. 
 An independent adminis- 
 tration could not yet be 
 maintained, but the provin- 
 cial politics tended decidedly 
 in that direction. It was 
 partly from this motive that 
 New Hampshire steadily 
 pushed its claim to town- 
 ships over which its neigh- 
 bor had pretensions. A great 
 deal of acrimony attended 
 this controversy over the 
 boundary-line. New Hamp- 
 shire sent its agents to England, who well knew how to inflame the 
 Territorial jealousy which coutiiiuully exist.ifl between the Crown and 
 Massachusetts. Belcher, who succeeded Burnet in 1780, was 
 especially anxious to preserve harmony between his two provinces. 
 each of which was a desperate claimant for territory. It might have 
 
 Went worth. 
 
1740.] WENTWORTH GOVERNOR OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 109 
 
 been foreseen that the Privy Council would favor New Hampshire. 
 In 1740, its final decision took from Massachusetts a tract of territory 
 fourteen miles in width and fifty in length, which was more than New 
 Hampshire had ever asked for. The persistent effort of one province 
 to have this decision modified, and of the other to have it maintained, 
 bore such fruits of ill-feeling, and of embarrassment to the Crown, 
 that it yielded to the party which desired a separate administration," 
 at the same time reaffirming the decision of the Council. 
 
 Thus New Hampshire at length took the administration of affairs 
 into her own hands, and attained to the dignity of a Gov- 
 ernor of her own. Benning Wentworth, a son of the Lieu- 
 tenant-governor, was the first incumbent of the office, and 
 in his hands it lost none of the importance attached to a thing so long 
 
 
 
 Wentworth's House. 
 
 and so earnestly desired. The Governor was fond of display. His 
 splendid coach, surrounded by a troop of guards, became a feature of 
 Portsmouth; and in the panelled rooms of his ample house he affected 
 an almost vice-regal state. There were not wanting, however, those 
 who charged .corruption upon his administration, and accused him of 
 appointing his own relatives and friends to office, with little regard 
 to their qualifications. 1 
 
 1 In his domestic service was a pretty girl, the daughter of one Shortredge, whom he 
 desired to marry after the death of his first wife. When her father objected to the match, 
 the Governor had him press gauged aud sent to seu. When Shortredge returned, he told 
 
200 NEW ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH. [CiiAP. VIII. 
 
 When Shute retired in disgust from the perplexities and dissen- 
 sions which had beset his term of office leaving Boston for 
 
 Lieutenant- r^iii i r rr 
 
 governor Lnglaim almost in secrecy the administration of affairs 
 
 Dumuior. ITT-M- TV 
 
 devolved upon William Dummer, the Lieutenant-governor. 
 Of a more conciliatory temper than some of his predecessors, he had 
 less trouble with the General Court, and the more leisure, therefore, 
 to devote to that Indian warfare upon the, Eastern border, the main 
 incidents of which we have just related. Burnet, who relieved him 
 in 1728, was less fortunate. If he indulged in illusions fed by his flat- 
 tering reception, they were dissipated when he came into collision 
 with the House upon the old variance i-especting a permanent salary. 
 The House steadily adhered to its policy of voting an an- 
 nua l gi'ant, of a sum strictly calculated upon the Governor's 
 popularity. Burnet refused to accept the first grant which 
 was voted by the House ; whereupon that body expressed 
 its regrets and quietly dispersed at the end of the session. Then a 
 formidable meeting of the citizens took place, and Boston approved 
 the act of the Assembly. This so nettled Burnet, that when the next 
 House assembled, whose members manifested an increased aversion to 
 fixed salaries, he did not dissolve it, but resorted to a measure which 
 he thought would bring it less dangerously to terms ; he adjourned it 
 to Salem, and then refused to sign a warrant for the payment of its 
 expenses there. This did not improve its temper. The expenses 
 were paid by private subscriptions, and Burnet wrote to England he 
 could do nothing with the representatives. They retorted that Bur- 
 net's measures were arbitrary and unconstitutional, and that he was 
 eager to extort money. He was, indeed, deeply in debt when he first 
 left England, and was always scheming how to repair his broken 
 fortunes. When the next House assembled, he recurred to his last 
 unfortunate expedient and adjourned it to Cambridge. 
 
 But the disposition of the General Court was not affected by this 
 change of place. The House at length sent two agents to explain its 
 attitude to the King. Frederick Wilkes, a merchant, and Jonathan 
 Belcher, hardware merchant and member of the Council, were selected. 
 But when the House voted a grant to defray the expenses of its agents 
 in London, the Council refused to concur, so that resort was had 
 again to a private subscription. When the agents arrived in London 
 they found, of course, that the Board of Trade supported the Gov- 
 
 the odious story of his disappearance, and it was remembered against Wentworth in the 
 dawning of the Revolution. The girl persisted iu saying No for the three years of her 
 father's absence, having left the Governor's service. Finally she married him. Mr. Long- 
 fellow's charming poem celebrates the circumstances of the wedding. Shortredge was cap- 
 tain of the first company raised at Portsmouth for the Continental army. Hayes's MS. 
 Traditions. 
 
 \ 
 
1739.] BELCHER GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS. 201 
 
 ernor's measures, particularly in that matter of the salary. The 
 House was not discouraged, but stood out obstinately for the policy of 
 annual grants. So this opposition to the Governor went on till he 
 died, September 7, 1729. 
 
 Dummer became again the acting Governor till the appointment 
 of Jonathan Belcher, who was a Boston man and personally Governor 
 popular. He arrived in August, 1730, with the old instruc- Belcher 
 tions to insist upon the salary, which he did most faithfully. The 
 House, with equal pertinacity, proposed its annual grant. Belcher re- 
 fused to accept it, and dissolved the House. The next one which as- 
 sembled proved so refractory that Belcher resorted to bribing the 
 more accessible members, and succeeded by various influences in get- 
 ting a measure of compromise introduced, to the effect that a bill for 
 an annual grant of .1,000 sterling, or some fixed sum, should pass, 
 with the understanding that it should continue annually, provided 
 that no future House should be bound to the bill as a precedent. 
 The friends of the Governor were not powerful enough to secure the 
 passage of this bill. The King had instructed Belcher to leave the 
 province and return to London in case of the failure of the House to 
 vote the required salary; but he preferred to remain and exercise 
 what influence he could command, till he succumbed at the failure of 
 his last measure, when he addressed the King with a frank statement 
 of the difficulties of his situation, explained the temper of the people, 
 and said the resolution of its representatives would never, in his opin- 
 ion, be overcome. He asked for a modification of his instructions. 
 The House backed his solicitation with an address, drawn up Settlement 
 at his own request, praying the King to permit the Governor "Jyljtiesi" 
 to accept such grants of money as might be voted. This the t10 "' 
 Court prudently yielded. It was an important victory for Massachu- 
 setts, involving graver interests than that of payment of money, be- 
 cause it threw the administration of the royal governors more directly 
 upon the appreciation or dislike of the people, and secured a measure 
 of deference. On the other hand, it confirmed a spirit of liberty ; dis- 
 tance and the difficulties of intercourse alone postponed the epoch of 
 the Revolution. 
 
 The conciliating action of Governor Belcher in the contest upon the 
 salary procured for him a considerable degree of popularity, Financ j a i 
 until he began to oppose the financial scheming which broke 
 out in 1739. He had received strict instructions to permit 
 no further issue of bills of credit for any term beyond 1741, which 
 was the limit in time for those already in circulation. The Land 
 Bank, which was started in 1739, was a scheme of speculators to evade 
 this prohibition of the Crown. The Governor's hostility to their proj- 
 
 8etts - 
 

 202 
 
 NEW ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH. ['CHAP. VIII. 
 
 Belcher re- 
 pal leil 
 Governor 
 Shirley. 
 
 ect threw many <>f them into the arms of his old enemies, who were 
 secretly plotting for his removal. Conscious of the general excellence 
 of his administration, which he had conducted without one sordid mo- 
 tive, and in a spirit of as much impartiality as any man at the time 
 could exercise between an obstinate Crown and an unconciliating 
 province, he took no measures of defence, but relied upon his record. 
 Certain intrigues among the dissenters in England who had been led to 
 believe in his hostility to Congregationalism, in connection with other 
 grievances, procured his recall in 1741. He went to England, and 
 completely reinstated his character, but it was too late to receive the 
 thorough vindication of a return to his government, for another person 
 had been appointed, the Court not being willing to face his provincial 
 unpopularity. But he was made Governor of New Jersey in 1747, 
 where his administration was prosperous. 
 
 He was succeeded in Massachusetts by William Shirley, an English 
 lawyer who had lived eight years in Boston. One of his 
 earliest measures, which at least showed a prudent and 
 adaptive policy, was to neglect the royal instructions forbid- 
 ding any issue of fresh bills of credit after 1741. This he was con- 
 
 strained to do by the evident 
 reluctance of the General 
 Court to tax the province in 
 order to take up the old bills 
 of credit. Perhaps he was 
 flattered by the action of 
 that body in voting that his 
 annual grant should never 
 fall below a thousand pounds 
 sterling. He was the first 
 of the royal governors who 
 established a fair under- 
 standing between himself 
 and the province, helped in 
 this by a spirit of modera- 
 tion and a just estimate of 
 the old difficulties which 
 might recur. 
 
 The great religious awak- 
 ening which began in 1740 with the labors of George Whitefield in 
 New Enland, continued into Shirle's administration. The 
 
 Governor Shirley. 
 
 i" xelv 'ing- most brilliant events of the reign of George II., whether of 
 
 war or of peace, yield in importance, some wise men think, 
 
 to that rejigious revolution in England, begun by the preaching of 
 
1740.] WHITEFIELD IN NEW ENGLAND. 203 
 
 the Wesleys and of Whitefield. 1 But except that the preaching of 
 Whitefield laid the foundations of a sectarian Church, to become, in 
 the course of a century, the largest in the United States, this revival 
 was less remarkable and of less moment in this country than in Eng- 
 land. It was not compelled to encounter that frank skepticism 
 which, Priestley says, was so prevalent in France that every philo- 
 sophical person he was introduced to in Paris was an unbeliever in 
 Christianity, or even an atheist, some of whom told him that lie 
 "was the only person they had ever met with of whose understanding 
 they had any opinion, who professed to believe in Christianity."' 
 This want of religious faith prevailed hardly less in England, at that 
 period, but it was the result of indifferentism rather than of A religious 
 philosophy. John Wesley and his followers appealed to revolutlon - 
 men dissatisfied with negations, weary with the coldness of unbe- 
 lief, eager to welcome any reaction, even one which would dispel 
 doubt by mere force of bold and fervid assertion. They preached 
 also to hearts numb and almost desperate and dead with suffering, 
 arousing a sense of a divine love and care, and holding out a promise 
 of compensation for the utter wretchedness of this life. But in Amer- 
 ica there was little absolute infidelity, and there was not then, any 
 more than now, that brutish lower order so wretched from poverty, 
 so degraded by the want of any social consideration, so cut off from 
 all opportunity of intellectual culture, as to be hardly responsible for 
 its ignorance of moral law, and its insensibility to any obligation of 
 religion. In New England Whitefield had only to breathe upon the 
 slumbering fires of Puritanism to fan them into a flame ; and in the 
 middle colonies, and, to a certain degree, farther south, he was sure 
 of I'eady and sympathizing listeners among those whose religious life 
 was a protest against the formalism, the worldliness, and the want of 
 spiritual emotion in the Established Church. Successful as that i - e- 
 markable religious movement was in England, it Avas accomplished 
 through enormous exertion, much tribulation, and many perils, which 
 it was not compelled to encounter in America. No wonder that 
 Whitefield loved to return again and again to that comparatively 
 peaceful field of evangelical labor, as he did more than a dozen times, 
 where at length his brief and eventful life ended. 
 
 There had been, nevertheless, a great falling off in New England 
 from the rigid religious discipline of the earlier times, which punished 
 in this world, as well as threatened punishment in the next, for any 
 departure, mental or material, from an established rule of faith and 
 conduct. Generations had come and gone since the ministers of the 
 
 1 See the admirable chapter on " The Religious Hevival " in the second volume of Lecky's 
 Eiiyland in the Eighteenth Century. Also Gletlstone's Life and Travels of George Whitejield, 
 
204 NEW ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH. [CiiAr. VIII. 
 
 churches had ceased to be the chief power in the State, and since only 
 church-members in good standing were thought worthy of political 
 enfranchisement. Diverse sects had crept in with every wave of emi- 
 gration, and had established the right to freedom of opinion. Of later 
 years many new comers from England had brought with them the 
 laxity of thought and observance upon religious subjects which were 
 there so general. Godliness had been displaced by indifference, or at 
 least by a worldliness which was more concerned with present pros- 
 perity than so to live and believe as to prepare for and deserve a life of 
 eternal happiness in the world to come. This unregenerate condition 
 was observed and lamented as almost hopeless. When, " on the night 
 after the Lord's day, October 29th, 1727," says Trumbull, " the 
 Almighty arose, and so terribly shook the earth through this great 
 continent," though many men sought the ministers and the meeting- 
 house, it was more " from fear than conviction, or through change of 
 heart." Six and seven years later, when an epidemic, called the throat 
 
 distemper, prevailed throughout the colonies, though most 
 N^'Kiig 1 - ' n severely in New England, even the frightful ravages of that 
 
 disease, carrying off, sometimes, whole families of children in 
 a few days, produced, it was remarked, no religious change in the peo- 
 ple. 1 Professors continued lukewarm, young people were so " loose and 
 vicious " as to seek amusement in social intercourse on Sunday evenings 
 and the evenings of lecture-days ; the Thursday lectures were thinly 
 attended ; there was great want of strictness in the keeping of the 
 Sabbath, neighbors greeting each other and indulging in conversation 
 upon worldly matters in the intermissions of divine service ; many of 
 the clergy were known to be content with inculcating from the pulpit 
 the duty of leading pure and virtuous and unselfish lives, while they 
 neglected to enforce the inherent depravity of all born of women, and 
 salvation by the grace of God. 2 The good time had passed away 
 when all things were subordinated to religious belief; when life here- 
 after was surely eternal damnation, and life here was hardly worth 
 having, and hardly permitted, to him convicted of heterodox notions 
 upon sanctification, justification, and a covenant of works. 
 
 It was believed that the Lord had permitted the sowing of such seed 
 
 1 The throat-distemper, as it was called, prevailed as an alarming epidemic in many 
 places, at intervals of about thirty years, throughout the last century. The modern diph- 
 theria is unquestionably the Mime disease, as the characteristics, course, severity, and age 
 most liable to attack, are precisely the same iu both. So f;ir as the few bills of mortality 
 of those ]>enods show, the disease is quite as fatal now as it was then. Medical science, 
 however, IIMS discovered that it i- the result of bad drainage, and not a special evidence of 
 divine wrath. (See Belkuap's History of New Ham/is/iire.) 
 
 2 Edwards's Narrative, and Prince's Christian History, as cited iu TrmnbuH's History of 
 Connecticut. 
 
1740.] THE REVIVAL PERIOD. 205 
 
 * 
 
 that there should be a harvest of revivifying grace. For such a harvest 
 the laborers were ready. For the first quarter of the eighteenth 
 century, Northampton in Massachusetts had been, under the ministry 
 of the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, a central point of occasional revivalism. 
 Moved by the influence of that example, the flame of religious excite- 
 ment broke out at times in various places in New England, like signal- 
 fires, to warn the church of its lukewarmness, and to arouse its zeal. 
 Not long before the death of Mr. Stoddard, his grandson, Jonathan 
 Edwards, became his colleague. The mantle of the older prophet fell 
 upon the younger and stronger shoulders, and in 1733, and Kciigiom 
 the two following years, a revival, more remarkable than any revivals - 
 that had preceded it, came in the language of that time as in "a 
 rain of righteousness," and as " the dews of heaven " upon Northamp- 
 ton and the neighboring towns. A "Narrative of Surprising Con- 
 versions," written by Mr. Edwards, and published both in Boston and 
 London, was widely read, arousing everywhere a deep religious fervor, 
 and preparing the way for a fresh revival in 1740. Even sober Rhode 
 Island did not escape the universal excitement. As, for example, it is 
 related that in Westerly, where " there was not one praying family," 
 where they treated " even with scorn and ridicule " the doctrines of 
 the total depravity of the human heart, of regeneration, and of justifi- 
 cation by faith, there was soon gathered a church of thirty or forty 
 members. So in other places the tranquillity of all alike, whether 
 devout or indifferent, was broken up, sometimes to good purpose, 
 sometimes to not so good. The churches were stirred as they had 
 never been before, and have never been since ; new ones were gathered ; 
 old ones were increased, and the pious rejoiced that though New Eng- 
 land was the centre of this movement, its influence extended even to 
 the remotest southern colonies. 
 
 But this rejoicing had its limit. There were some who indeed 
 from the beginning had questioned the healthfulness of this Reaction 
 emotional outbreak ; had doubted whether, in the long run, follo "' s - 
 the cause of religion did not receive more harm than good from sudden 
 conversions brought about by sympathetic and uncontrollable excite- 
 ment rather than by calm appeals to reason and conscience. These, 
 however, were a small minority, and they were silenced, if they were 
 not convinced, by being denounced as enemies of the true faith, and 
 as Arminians, a term then so obnoxious as to be almost a sentence 
 of banishment from the society of pious people. But events justified 
 the judgment of these doubters in some degree, even with many of 
 the most zealous of the revivalists. The movement at length got be- 
 yond the control of the more rational of the clergy in many places, and 
 its progress was marked with extravagances and excesses, over which 
 
206 
 
 NEW ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH. [ChAp. VIII. 
 
 the judicious grieved and the scoffers triumphed. Not only were the 
 phenomena of uncontrollable emotion, of bodily contortions, of epileptic 
 prostrations, of hysteric weeping and wailing, common in this as in all 
 epidemics of religious revivalism ; but there came divisions in the 
 churches. Lay preachers, men and women, took the work of grace 
 out of the hands of ordained ministers. Fanaticism and extravagance 
 sometimes crept out of the pews, and up the pulpit stairs, and clergy- 
 men led their parishioners into the devious ways of the " New Lights." 
 To the churches of Connecticut, where the movement spread the 
 
 widest, and struck its 
 roots the deepest, it was 
 a time of p e c u 1 i a r 
 trouble. Ecclesiastical 
 trials divided ministers 
 and peoples, and social 
 relations were disturbed 
 past all patience and for- 
 bearance. It came at 
 length to be questioned 
 more and more by many 
 good people whether 
 this work was the work 
 of God or of the devil. 
 
 The influences which 
 had such consequences 
 were already at work 
 when Whitefield arrived, 
 in the autumn of 1740, 
 at Boston. There were 
 at that time, in the town, 
 nine Congregational 
 churches, three Episco- 
 pal, one Baptist, one 
 French, and one Scotch Presbyterian. The stated lectures were thinly 
 M-iiit-iu-ur.s attended, and the ministers generally complained of the 
 preaching, lukewariuness of their congregations. Whitefield, whose 
 fame as a preacher had preceded him, was warmly welcomed. His 
 power of oratory has probably never been surpassed in the world : 
 not so much for what he said, as for the way in which he said it. He 
 had strong emotional force, and marked dramatic ability, which some 
 training as a strolling actor in early life had, no doubt, helped to per- 
 fect. Over his voice, which was rich and musical, he had perfect 
 command ; his gestures were frequent, but always graceful, and every 
 
 George Whitefield 
 
1740.] THE PREACHING OF WHITEFIELD. -07 
 
 motion of the head, every sway of the body, was a gesture. His 
 imagination, probably, was rather redundant than rich, for his im- 
 agery seems commonplace, and his thoughts do not appear to have 
 been either profound or original. His mastery was a mastery over 
 words and the way of using them. Garrick used to say that he could 
 plunge an audience into tears by merely varying his pronunciation 
 of Mesopotamia. Chesterfield, decorous, self-possessed, cynical, ske|>- 
 tical, as he heard Whitefield describe a sinner as an old man, blind, 
 trembling, staggering upon the brink of a precipice, over which in a 
 moment he would be dashed into pieces, was so lifted out of him- 
 self and out of reality, that he sprang forward with t'he cry, " Good 
 God ! he is gone ! " When lie preached on Boston Common, it was 
 to audiences of fifteen to twenty thousand people. Franklin was once 
 cool enough, as he listened to him in Philadelphia, to walk backward 
 till he was out of the reach of distinct hearing, and then, by calcula- 
 tion of distances and the number of persons who could stand in the 
 given area, he came to the conclusion that that rich and powerful 
 voice could be made to penetrate through the open air to thirty thou- 
 sand persons. Nor was the philosopher himself proof against its per- 
 suasive tones. His judgment did not approve of that Orphan House 
 in Georgia which was so dear to Whitefield, and he went to a meet- 
 ing where its claims were to be urged upon the audience, determined 
 to give nothing. His pocket was full of money copper, silver, and 
 gold. His determination soon yielded so far as to gain his own con- 
 sent to give the copper ; then, as the preacher went on, he was willing 
 that the silver should follow the copper ; before the sermon was over, 
 copper, silver, and gold were all emptied into the contribution-box. 
 But Franklin thought it was a mistake to publish Whitefield's ser- 
 mons. They were nothing if not heard. 
 
 Wherever Whitefield preached, he aroused the deepest feeling. As 
 he went through New England, he did not hesitate to proclaim that 
 many of the ministers were unconverted men, and ought to be de- 
 serted ; yet they flocked to hear him nevertheless, and he found no 
 such admiration from clergymen in any part of the country as in Bos- 
 ton. But at the annual convention of the clergy of Massachusetts in 
 1743, the tide turned, and a " Testimony against the Disorders in the 
 Land " was framed and printed. The revivalists rallied at a meeting 
 of their own in Cambridge, and issued a counter-testimony, which de- 
 clared that the converts were " epistles of Jesus Christ, written not 
 with ink, but by the Spirit." In 1744, Harvard College appeared 
 with a testimony against the errors of Whitefield, signed by every 
 member of the Faculty. When, in 1745, the ministers who still sup- 
 ported the revival called another meeting, only twenty-eight were 
 
208 NEW ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 present. The result of so decided a reaction in the public mind was 
 to strengthen the uncalvinistic tendencies, against which the clergy 
 hoped to make Whitefield their instrument. 
 
 The Peace of Utrecht, which had been continually disturbed in the 
 war be- colonies by French Canadian intrigue, was definitely broken 
 France and by a declaration of war in the spring of 1744, resulting 
 England. f rom the hostile continental politics of France and England. 
 The news of this reached Duquesnel, the Governor of Cape Breton, 
 before it was known in the colonies, and he took advantage of it to 
 strike an unexpected blow. The French viewed with jealousy the 
 settlement of fishermen on the island of Canso, whose small garrison 
 might be captured by a surprise, and perhaps the fishing interest of 
 the English in those waters might be broken up by attacks on other 
 places. The undertaking was intrusted to Duvivier, who was sent 
 from the fortress of Louisburg with nine hundred men. He was suc- 
 cessful at Canso, captured all the inhabitants, and sent them to Louis- 
 burg, but he failed at Placentia ; and at Annapolis, after a desperate 
 fight, he was forced to retreat, for Shirley had reenforced the garrison 
 just in time. Although the French were not yet in condition to fol- 
 low up the first attacks, their privateers took many prizes, especially 
 of fishing vessels, all of which were brought into Louisburg, and the 
 fishing business was completely paralyzed. 
 
 These operations of the French roused the indignation and alarm 
 of New England, and a corresponding zeal for war animated the in- 
 habitants. Governor Shirley was found to be adequate to the emer- 
 gency. First taking vigorous measures to protect the frontier, he 
 sought to organize and direct the earnest popular conviction that Lou- 
 isburg, a formidable neighbor and perpetual threat to the interests of 
 New England, must be captured. From fishermen who had been re- 
 leased, and from other sources, he drew sufficient information about 
 the fortress to perfect a plan for taking it ; but as the success of it 
 shiriey-s depended upon secrecy, he desired the House then in session, 
 proposal. January, 1745, to receive a private message from him, under 
 an oath not to divulge it. Fully confiding in Shirley's patriotism, 
 the House consented. 
 
 The plan was of such magnitude, involving so many difficulties and 
 such expense, that the members at first brought little but amazement 
 to its discussion. It was considered to be an undertaking beyond the 
 means at their command, even if all the provinces should unite. The 
 information which Shirley communicated, regarding its feasibility, did 
 not seem to the House so conclusive as it did to the ardent Governor. 
 It was discussed for a few days, then referred to a committee, who 
 reported adversely, and the report was accepted. One of the mem- 
 
1745.] SHIRLEY'S EXPEDITION AGAINST LOUISBURG. 209 
 
 bers who favored the enterprise was a bold deacon who made it a sub- 
 ject of family prayers. His startled and curious listeners gave him 
 no peace till he explained the design for which he invoked the divine 
 blessing, waiving his oath as a legislator to his peace as a family 
 man. The Governor's purpose was soon made known to everybody, 
 and received the popular approbation. Petitions, signed by promi- 
 nent merchants and ship-owners, were sent in to the House The expedi- 
 from various places. The public opinion thus bearing on EUuVbE!^' 
 the members, they became more evenly divided, and a reso- decldedon - 
 lution in favor of the enterprise passed by the casting vote of Speaker 
 Hutchinson. 
 
 In some respects, the time was favorable. Duquesnel, an officer of 
 great ability, had died, and his successor was old and a man of medi- 
 ocrity. The officer who captured Canso had returned to Europe to 
 solicit help for the garrison in troops and supplies. It had been re- 
 ported to Shirley that the men were ill-fed and in no temper to make 
 a protracted defence. The winter was unusually mild ; the harvest 
 had been abundant, and provisions were plenty ; the unemployed fish- 
 ermen were eager to enlist. In the autumn, a French ship, that was 
 hastily fitting out to relieve the starving and discontented garrison, 
 was broken in launching. Shirley also counted upon the coopera- 
 tion of the English fleet in the West Indies. He had petitioned the 
 ministry, without broaching to them his scheme, to send Commodore 
 Warren to Boston to protect the fisheries and the general interests of 
 England. He had, in the mean time, solicited the Commodore for aid, 
 who declined for want of orders ; but the day after this refusal, instruc- 
 tions from the ministry to repair to Boston reached him. On his way 
 a vessel gave him the news that the provincial ships had sailed for 
 Canso, whither he shaped his course, and arrived just in time. 
 
 But Louisburg, under every temporary disadvantage, was a formi- 
 dable place, and was styled the Gibraltar and the Dunkirk 
 of America. A much stronger power than a dependent fences of 
 colony might well hesitate to attack it. Shirley's secret, 
 though well kept from France, was scented by the Indians, who com- 
 municated it to the French in Canada, where it was received with ridi- 
 cule and general incredulity, so confident were the people that the 
 fortress was impregnable. The place had been twenty-five years in 
 building, and had cost France thirty millions of livres. In 1713 a 
 walled town was begun at the southeastern extremity of Cape Breton, 
 two miles and a half in circumference, with a stone rampart over 
 thirty feet high behind a ditch that was eighty feet wide wherever 
 the place was liable to an attack. The entrance of the harbor was 
 defended by a battery of thirty twenty-eight-pouuders upon a small 
 
 VOL. III. 14 
 
210 
 
 NEW ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH. [CnAP. VIII. 
 
 island. Just opposite, on the harbor's inner edge, was a formidable 
 battery of twenty -eight forty-two-pounders, and two eighteen-pound- 
 ers. The entrance to the town was over a drawbridge which a cir- 
 cular battery of thirteen twenty-four-pounders commanded. The 
 batteries and six bastions could mount one hundred and forty-eight 
 cannon : sixty-five of this number were mounted, and sixteen mor- 
 tars. The town was laid out in squares, and contained valuable mag- 
 azines of naval stores. Many of the houses were substantially built 
 of stone. This was the rugged nut that Shirley meant to crack. 
 
 g5j ^ ./ , ^ 
 
 
 The Xew 
 England 
 forces. 
 
 Defences at Louisburg, from a contemporary French Plan. 
 
 He addressed circulars to every American province, asking for its 
 aid. Every one out of New England shrunk from the formidable en- 
 terprise. But New England possessed fourteen armed vessels mount- 
 ing two hundred and four guns, and nearly a hundred sail of trans- 
 ports. The quota of troops was 3,200 for Massachusetts, including 
 150 New Hampshire men ; 300 for Rhode Island ; 350 for 
 New Hampshire, and 500 for Connecticut. The New Hamp- 
 shire regiment, under Colonel Samuel Moore, sailed in trans- 
 ports belonging to that province, directly for the rendezvous at Canso. 
 They were under convoy of an armed sloop carrying thirty men, com- 
 manded by Captain John Fernald, and this vessel afterward did good 
 service as a cruiser. The Rhode Island troops did not reach Boston 
 till after the fleet had sailed, but they arrived in Louisburg in July, 
 just in time to relieve those who by that time had captured the place. 
 
 Colonel William Pepperell, a merchant of Kittery, New Hampshire, 
 was appointed to command the expedition, but he naturally hesitated. 
 
1745.] 
 
 COLONEL WILLIAM PEPPERELL. 
 
 211 
 
 
 Sir William Peppered. 
 
 He sought counsel of Whitefield, who was then lodging at his house, 
 and who told him that the scheme did not look promising ; if it should 
 not succeed, the widows 
 and orphans of the slain 
 would reproach him, and if 
 it should succeed, he would 
 become an object of envious 
 hostility. He must there- 
 fore undertake it with a 
 motive so pure and strong 
 as to deserve success. When 
 Pepperell yielded to the so- 
 licitations of Shirley's mes- 
 sengers, Whitefieldgave him 
 as a motto for his flag, NIL 
 
 DESPERANDUM, CHRISTO 
 DUCE. The great revival- 
 ist was urged to countenance 
 the enterprise, that his fol- 
 lowers might be encouraged 
 to enlist ; accordingly a 
 great enthusiasm arose among them at this dedication of a standard, 
 and the expedition put on something of the aspect of a crusade. One 
 clergyman armed himself with a hatchet wherewith to smite the 
 Romish images. Old Parson Moody, the famous preacher of York, 
 whom Pepperell made chaplain, when there was a call made 
 in that place for volunteers, stepped to the drum-head and put down 
 his name. None held back after that example. From Berwick and 
 Kittery the male inhabitants, almost to a man, followed Pepperell. 
 Besides his services he gave to the expedition Xo^OO. 1 His second 
 in command of the expedition was Roger Wolcott, the Lieutenant- 
 governor of Connecticut. 
 
 It is remarkable that the French should not have suspected the pur- 
 pose of all these preparations. But every province refrained from 
 sending vessels in the direction of Louisburg. Not a copy of Shirley's 
 order to the captains of train-bands was allowed to be taken. In 
 eight weeks four thousand three hundred men were enlisted, and all 
 
 1 Governor Wentworth of Ne.w Hani|liirc was ambitious and did not relish Governor 
 Shirley's preference of Pepperell for the command of the troops destined for Lotiisburg. 
 After Pepperell had accepted, Shirley sought the cooperation of Wentworth by writing to 
 him ti po'itic letter to the effect that it would have been a great satisfaction to all, and a 
 great advantage to the expedition, had not the gubernatorial gout prevented him from 
 taking the command. Whereupon Wcntworth denied the gout and offered his services. 
 Shirley was then compelled to acknowledge that he had giveii the command to Pcppercll. 
 
 i 
 
212 NEW ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 the preparations were complete, New York loaning a few cannon, and 
 Ne\v Jersey and Pennsylvania contributing some provisions and 
 clothing. 
 
 The fleet collected at Nantasket Roads ; a day of fasting and prayer 
 was ordered through the province, and one evening each 
 
 The rendez- i r i rm i -, * i 
 
 vousat week lor special prayer. Ihen the Massachusetts vessels 
 sailed, March 24, for Canso. The New Hampshire troops 
 were already there ; those from Connecticut arrived about April 10. 
 The ice around the shores detained the fleet till April 29, when it 
 weighed anchor for Cabarus Bay at Cape Breton. Not a French ves- 
 sel of observation was encountered ; the appearance of a numerous 
 fleet, the following morning, was actually the first advertisement of 
 Pepperell's destination which reached the garrison. This element of 
 surprise was very effective. A feint of landing at one place favored 
 the putting ashore of a detachment at another, where a tardy attack 
 was easily repulsed. The French retreated within their lines ; half 
 the troops were landed, and the rest upon the two following days. 
 Some large warehouses filled with inflammable stores and spirits were 
 set on fire, the smoke of which as it drifted inland so alarmed the 
 French that they spiked the guns of the powerful battery at the 
 bottom of the harbor, threw the powder into a well, and retreated in 
 boats to the town. 
 
 The next morning Colonel Vaughan, a soldier of admirable con- 
 duct, reconnoitering with thirteen men, discovered that the batteiy 
 was deserted, took possession, and sent to Pepperell for reinforcements 
 and a flag. Meantime a soldier went up the flagstaff with a red 
 coat in his teeth, and nailed up the symbol of possession. The French 
 soon attacked Vaughan with a hundred men under cover of a fire 
 from the city, but his thirteen held out till reenforcements arrived, 
 and the French gave up the attempt. Ample war material was found 
 in the battery ; the guns were unspiked and did good service against 
 the town during the siege. 
 
 By May 5, Pepperell had thrown up three batteries by night, the 
 third being only seven hundred vards from the city. 1 The 
 
 The siege. J 
 
 labor of bringing up guns and munitions was great ; every- 
 thing had to be dragged by hand through morasses, consuming four- 
 teen days. A fourth fascine battery was thrown up within two hun- 
 
 It is worth noting that the man to whom Pepperell entrusted the planning of his bat- 
 teries was the Colonel Gridley who marked out the lines of the redoubt on Bunker Hill in 
 which Warren fell. Many of the bravest officers of the Revolution served under Pepperell 
 at Louisburg, where New England men l>egau to have a salutary contempt for their ene- 
 mies' lines. " When Gage was erecting breastworks across Boston Neck, the provincial 
 troops sneeringly remarked that his mud wajts were nothing compared with the stone walls 
 of old Louisburg." Parsons's Life of Pepperell. 
 
1745.] 
 
 THE SIEGE OF LOUISBURG. 
 
 213 
 
 dred and fifty yards of the drawbridge. It was evident that to 
 capture tlie island battery the fleet must come into the harbor. This 
 dangerous movement was not popular among the volunteers ; and so 
 much dissatisfaction reigned that a council of war thought best to 
 postpone it. On May 20, Commodore Warren, who, under great dis- 
 comforts, was cruising outside, 
 captured the Vigilant, of sixty- 
 four guns, having on board six 
 hundred men, and military stores. 
 This stroke of luck raised the 
 spirits of the volunteers, and pro- 
 portionally depressed the French 
 when Pepperell managed to con- 
 vey intelligence of it to them. 
 
 But the Commodore was anx- 
 ious to have the island battery 
 taken out of his way. Pepperell, 
 
 on the other hand, inclined to 
 rely upon the strong impression 
 which his fascine batteries were 
 making upon the enemy's works. 
 The Commodore's prisoners hap- 
 pened to let out the fact that a number of war vessels were nearly 
 due ; his crews were falling sick, and no fresh provisions could be pro- 
 cured. So Pepperell consented to a night attack, which was made 
 by four hundred men with scaling-ladders ; but the boats were ob- 
 served and fired upon, the muskets of the men were wetted in land- 
 ing, and the attack was repulsed with the loss of sixty killed, and one 
 
214 NEW ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 hundred and twelve, with the wounded, taken prisoners. Amid con- 
 siderable depression the regular business of the siege was resumed, 
 under volleys of cheering from the French which were more galling 
 than their fire. 
 
 Pepperell maintained a constant communication with Governor 
 Shirley, from which we learn that he was frequently short of ammu- 
 nition, and there were not trained gunners enough to man his bat- 
 teries. He borrowed powder of the Commodore, hoping to turn 
 against the enemy several French cannon, found under water; but 
 these, for want of balls corresponding to their calibre, wei'e useless. 
 His largest mortar and one or two cannon burst. He could do little, 
 for want of ammunition. By the first week in June fifteen hundred 
 men were on the sick list, and a call for reinforcements followed that 
 for powder. 
 
 Meantime, while French war ships were expected, the garrison kept 
 vigorously pounding away at the works of the besieging forces. The 
 fog also settled down upon the batteries and disturbed the effective 
 use of their guns and communication with the fleet outside. 
 
 Yet even in June the French in Quebec were utterly incredulous 
 as to any expedition against Louisburg ; so uncertain was the water 
 intercourse of those days, and so watchful were the English cruisers. 
 But the Commodore's fleet, though strengthened by the arrival of 
 several ships, could not venture past the island battery to make with 
 the land forces a joint attack upon the town. During the siege the 
 provincials were shelterless, and many died of fever, while the French 
 were snugly ensconced beneath their roofs. The French, however, 
 who were trained soldiers and began by underrating this little army 
 of tradesmen, fishermen, backwoodsmen, and mechanics, had omitted 
 from their reckoning one element of the temper of a New Englander, 
 that when he is the worst baffled he is the most obstinate and dan- 
 gerous. So Pepperell grimly held on to all his positions, and threw 
 up another battery, which got the range of the dreaded island battery 
 and seriously annoyed it. He had also succeeded in silencing all the 
 guns except three in the drawbridge battery, and that was nearly a 
 heap of ruins. 
 
 Under these circumstances a combined attack seemed to the Com- 
 modore more practicable. Every arrangement to that effect had been 
 made, his fleet was drawn up in line, eleven ships of forty guns each ; 
 the land forces were in position to attack, and Pepperell and the Com- 
 modore, and no doubt Parson Moody also, were stirring them up with 
 Thesur- appeals to their courage and sense of duty. It was the fif- 
 teenth of June, 1745. Governor Duchambou rapidly sur- 
 veyed his prospects. No French vessel could enter the harbor; his 
 

1745.] THE CAPTURE OF LOUISBURG. 215 
 
 island battery was dominated ; several breaches had been made in his 
 bastions ; his soldiers, worn out by the incessant strain by niglit 
 and day for seven weeks, could only feebly stand to their guns. 
 Pepperell's forces outnumbered by five times his own. 
 
 In the afternoon he concluded to ask for terms of capitulation. 
 During a suspension of hostilities the island battery was delivered up 
 to the Commodore, and his fleet entered the harbor. Honorable terms 
 were offered and accepted by the Governor, and although the articles 
 of capitulation were not signed till the 19th, Pepperell disregarded 
 the formality, as if to anticipate a memorable date. On the seven- 
 teenth of June he entered the fortress at the head of his volunteers. 
 Shirley's nut was cracked, and the troops who did it were astonished 
 to discover the strength of the shell. Shirley soon arrived, and re- 
 ceived the keys from Pepperell. Six hundred and fifty regular troops, 
 thirteen hundred militia-men, six hundred sailors, and two thousand 
 inhabitants were sent to France. Cannon, stores, provisions, and prop- 
 erty to an enormous amount were taken, for which the English paid by 
 the death of only 130 men. The French lost 300. All the bells in the 
 provinces rang their joy-peals when the event was known; all Eng- 
 land broke into illuminations and bonfires ; and Europe, not s urpriR ein 
 excepting France, was astonished. General Pepperell became Europe - 
 the first American baronet; he and Shirley were commissioned as 
 Colonels in the British army ; Warren was promoted to be an Ad- 
 miral. Still further honors awaited Pepperell ; within the next three 
 years the city of London presented him a silver table and a service of 
 plate, and the King made him, at Pitt's suggestion, a Lieutenant- 
 general. 1 
 
 While Louisburg was garrisoned for a year by New England troops, 
 the other provinces, which had declined to share in the expedition, 
 manifested a noble spirit of gratitude and admiration towards those 
 who had taken the place, and sent abundant store of necessaries to 
 the troops. The news of its fall was carried to France by Duvivier, 
 who was on his way in July, with a squadron of seven ships, for the 
 recovery of Nova Scotia. When in mid-ocean he learned from a cap- 
 tured vessel on board which was ex-Lieutenant-governor Clarke of 
 New York that Louisburg was in the hands of the English. He 
 
 1 After the surrender, Mr. Moody preached a sermon in a Jesuit chapel. At a dinner 
 given by Pepperell, Moody was the senior chaplain, and therefore entitled to say grace. 
 The officers dreaded to annoy the guests with one of his long-winded addresses, but no one 
 dared to counsel the rather irritable parson. He seemed on this occasion to be anxious for 
 his dinner, and the grace was simply, " O Lord, we have so many things to thank thee for, 
 that time will be infinitely too short to do it ; we must therefore leave it for the work of 
 eternity. Bless our food and fellowship upon this joyful occasion, for the sake of Christ 
 our Lord. Amen." 
 
216 XKW ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 returned to bear the evil tidings to France, abandoning his design 
 against Nova Scotia, which now seemed hopeless. 
 
 France was aroused to fresh and more extensive preparations to 
 recover all it had lost, and to add to its dominion in Amer- 
 
 Viporous . . . ... ., . . 
 
 I,,.-:.-...-,-, of ica. It contemplated the possibility even of conquering the 
 
 Hi,. Kr.-n.-li. , i- -vr /-. 1 xl. 
 
 whole country from Maine to Georgia, and the utmost alarm 
 spread through the colonial seaports as rumors reached them, from 
 time to time, of the designs of the French. The next summer a fleet 
 of eleven ships of the line, with thirty smaller vessels of from ten to 
 thirty guns each, and transports carrying over 3,000 troops, sailed from 
 K'M-helle. To these were to be added four ships from the West Indies ; 
 and an army of nearlv two thousand Canadians and Indians was al- 
 
 V . 
 
 ready in arms to join the land force on its arrival. 
 
 The colonists trusted to the fleet at Louisbnrg and to reinforcements 
 Th.-irfaii- fi' () m England which did not come to meet the French 
 
 ure. 
 
 on the coast. On land, preparations were made, under the 
 energetic leadership of Shirley, to counteract the French invasion by 
 a fresh attempt upon Canada, and troops were collected from the 
 several provinces to that end. Hut the naval expedition of the French 
 was from the beginning attended with disaster. The ships were 
 separated at sea by storm ; some were disabled and abandoned, or 
 returned to France. The Admiral, the Duke d'Anville, soon after 
 his arrival in the bay of Chebucto, in Nova Scotia, suddenly died. 
 The Vice-Admiral, D'Estournelle, worn with anxiety at the non-arrival 
 of many of the fleet, and by a fatal sickness which broke out among 
 the men, himself fell ill of fever, and in a fit of delirium ran his sword 
 through his body. Jonquiere, the Governor of Canada, who had 
 joined the expedition, succeeded to the command, and set sail for an 
 attack upon Annapolis, though half the men were already dead. But a 
 storm overtook and dispersed his fleet ; the enterprise was abandoned, 
 and the ships made their way back to France. 
 
 More than a year had passed, and with the signs of approaching 
 peace, there was relaxation of effort on both sides. The one 
 brilliant result of the war in America was the capture of 
 Louisbur : but it was after all a barren victor to the 
 
 e 
 
 provinces, save that it taught them a well-remembered les- 
 son, that the rough colonial life was no bad school for the training 
 of soldiers who would be a match for the best of regular troops. No 
 share of the prize money of ,600,000 from captured French ships, 
 which the expedition threw into the hands of the English fleet, fell 
 to the army on shore. Notwithstanding Pepperell's just claim, War- 
 ren and his sailors took the whole of it. When peace was made be- 
 tween England and France, in April, 1748, Cape Breton was restored 
 
1749.] NEW ENGLAND FINANCES. 217 
 
 to France by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. The people of New 
 England had expended costly lives and much treasure in the capture 
 of Louisburg, and they saw with disgust this cession, for which no 
 equivalent was received that benefited either England or the colonies. 
 Pepperell had hoped that Cape Breton and its dependencies would be 
 annexed to the Crown, and converted into an American colony. 
 
 When the New England regiments which garrisoned Louisburg 
 were disbanded in consequence of this peace, Sir William was obliged 
 to send money to the troops for the payment of debts and to trans- 
 port them to their homes. He forwarded 1,420 silver dollars, and sil- 
 ver was so scarce that he could only procure it by paying from fifty 
 to fifty-two shillings in currency for each dollar. But the Provinces, 
 who saw the dearly bought Cape Breton taken from them, could now 
 demand more earnestly, and with the more reason, the reimbursement 
 of their expenses. In the summer of 1749, Parliament voted the sum 
 of 183,649 sterling to liquidate this demand. In consequence of the 
 urgent representations of prominent merchants who were opposed to 
 the existing paper currency and desired to retire it, that sum was 
 transmitted in metal. Six hundred and fifty-three thousand ounces of 
 silver and ten tons of copper were landed at Long Wharf, in Boston, 
 more coin than was ever seen there before. It was divided 
 between the four New England Colonies. Massachusetts land 
 
 received the greatest share, and that of New Hampshire afu-rthe 
 amounted only to -$16,000. Before tins arrival the paper 
 currency of Massachusetts stood at the rate of eight to one in silver; 
 it was now redeemed at one fifth less than the current value. The 
 colony had learned from hard experience that a promise to pay was 
 not paying; that the increment of promises was only an increment of 
 debt. It profited by that lesson, and now proposed to make real 
 money, not a fluctuating paper substitute for money, the measure of 
 values. To this end it prohibited the circulation, within its own 
 jurisdiction, of the paper currency of neighboring provinces, while it 
 redeemed its own. The wholesome result of this wise policy was the 
 sound financial condition and consequent prosperity of Massachusetts 
 till in the struggle for independence she again resorted to a paper 
 currency and accepted bankruptcy as a part of the price to be paid 
 for civil libertv. 
 
 if 
 
 The colonies were compelled, at this period, almost to exhaust their 
 resources and energies to defend themselves and to secure to 
 England her American possessions. They were left, for the B^iudMt 
 most part, to fight their own battles, to work out their own 
 safety, with little or no aid from the parent government. American 
 affairs were, not altogether without reason, of secondary importance 
 
218 NEW ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 to England. Deeply involved in a war in which all Europe was en- 
 gaged, and harassed by the machinations of the Pretender, Charles 
 Edward, whose claim to the throne was a perpetual menace to the 
 peace of the kingdom, till his disastrous campaign in Scotland, in 
 1745, the difficulties and the dangers of the distant colonies were 
 of comparatively small moment. The sense of neglect and the feel- 
 ing of resentment though often from opposite causes were not new 
 moods in the colonial temper; but they were strengthened quite as 
 much by indifference to the welfare and safety of the colonies as they 
 had ever been by any seeming or real attack upon them. With this 
 discontent, however nurtured, grew the spirit of independence, ready 
 to show itself on any provocation. 
 
 A provocation came in Boston in 1747. A number of sailors had 
 deserted from some English men-of-war, then in that harbor, under 
 the command, of one Commodore Knowles. To supply their places 
 the Commodore ordered, as he would have done in England, that a 
 press-gang should take from merchant vessels and on the wharves of 
 Boston, as many men as were needed. He did not know, perhaps, 
 or, if he did know, did not care that a law of the realm, passed in the 
 reign of Anne, forbade impressment in the colonies, except of deserters 
 from naval vessels. But certainly he could not have understood that 
 
 H 
 
 no man in Boston, however humble, could be made against his will to 
 serve even the King. 
 
 When it was known, one day in November, that Knowles's boats 
 
 had come up early in the morning from the fleet in Nantas- 
 
 pras-gang 1 ket Roads, had visited all the vessels in the harbor, had 
 
 in Boston. < i i i 
 
 taken the crews even or those just ready tor sea, bad swept 
 the warehouses and the wharves of laboring men and mechanics, 
 then the town broke out into a blaze of excitement and fury. A mob 
 armed with clubs and stones, and whatever other weapons they could 
 suddenly lay their hands upon, filled the streets. The Governor's 
 house, where some of the officers of the English ships happened to be, 
 was soon surrounded by an angry crowd. An assault was threatened, 
 and the officers armed themselves to defend their lives. Influential 
 citizens mingled with the mob, exhorting them to refrain from violent 
 measures. A deputy sheriff, more courageous than prudent, ordered 
 them, in the name of the law, to disperse. Him they seized, bore off 
 in triumph, and set in the stocks. The ludicrous spectacle of his dis- 
 comfiture turned angry oaths and cries, for a while, into jibes and 
 laughter, and served to lure the crowd from the Governor's house. 
 Tumult in ^ ll ^ ^ was on ly a diversion. When evening came, the 
 
 people swarmed into King (now State) Street from all parts 
 of the town, defiant, irresistible, determined that the wrong should 
 
1747.] 
 
 AX ENGLISH PRESS-GANG IN BOSTON. 
 
 219 
 
 be righted. The Town-House at the head of the street, where the 
 General Court was in session, was surrounded, and that body ap- 
 pealed to with shouts, with, 
 no doubt, impatient impreca- 
 tions, and when these were un- 
 answered, stones, sticks, and 
 brickbats crashed through the 
 windows of the Council Cham- 
 ber. The Governor and other 
 official gentlemen replied to this 
 unmistakable summons by ap- 
 pearing upon the balcony. The 
 crowd was besought to be pa- 
 tient till the General Court 
 could act; it was assured that 
 the Governor would make ev- 
 ery possible effort for the re- 
 
 Attack on the Town-house. 
 
 lease. of the men, whose kidnapping he disapproved of, while, at the 
 same time, he deprecated these violent outbreaks. But even so popu- 
 lar a man as Shirley talked in vain ; deeds, not words merely, were 
 wanted; " it was thought adviseable," says Hutchinson, "for the Gov- 
 ernor to withdraw to his house/ 
 
 The citizens demanded that every officer in town, belonging to the 
 
220 NEW ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 fleet, should be seized and held till the kidnapped men were released. 
 In the course of the evening a rumor that a barge had come up the 
 harbor from the fleet spread through the crowd. A rush was made to 
 the waterside, a boat was seized, only it happened to be the wrong 
 one, dragged to the front of the Governor's house, then to some 
 more open place, and burnt. The blood of the town was up, and it 
 was fearfully in earnest. 
 
 The next day the Governor ordered out the militia by beat of 
 
 drum; but the drummers were silenced by orders more po- 
 
 pectofat- tent than the Governor's, and the militia-men refused to 
 
 fairs. ,, . . . re . 
 
 appear. Inis was giving to affairs so serious an aspect, 
 that Shirley retired to the Castle in the harbor, not, probably, in fear, 
 but as the most serious and dignified protest he could make against 
 the riotous subversion of civil authority. 
 
 From the Castle he appealed to Commodore Knowles, protesting 
 against the outrage which had been perpetrated by his orders and had 
 thrown the town into a state of insurrection. The Commodore would 
 accept no terms and offer none, except this : that unless his officers, 
 who had been arrested and detained in Boston, were set at liberty, he 
 would bombard the town. Whether he would really have proceeded 
 to that extremity, or thought the threat would be enough, he was sup- 
 posed to be in earnest, and several of his ships weighed anchor and 
 sailed up the bay. 
 
 Things had come to that pass that a settlement of some sort was in- 
 evitable. Though the General Court continued in session, for three 
 days the naval officei-s had been held in custody, or on parole, by no 
 other authority than that of rioters. Though these rioters were labor- 
 ing men and mechanics, it was thought that they were instigated and 
 upheld by many influential people. It WHS seriously discussed whether 
 the Governor's retreat to the Castle was not an abdication; whether 
 Massachusetts Bay had any longer a government. 
 
 Thereupon the General Court passed a series of Resolutions. These 
 tumultuous and riotous proceedings, they declared, tended to the de- 
 struction of all government and order ; it was incumbent on the civil 
 and military officers to suppress them " whensoever they may hap- 
 pen;" and that the house would "stand by and support with their 
 lives and estates his excellency the Governor and the executive part 
 of the government;" but they were also careful to add that "this 
 house will exert themselves by all ways and means possible in redress- 
 ing such grievances as his Majesty's subjects are and have been under," 
 which were the cause of those recent disturbances. A town meeting 
 was also held, where it was resolved that the General Court should 
 be sustained. 
 
1747.] INSURRECTION AVERTED. 221 
 
 All this, of course, was eminently proper ; and care had been taken 
 that it should also be eminently safe. The militia were now Order re . 
 again called out, and the summons was obeyed with great 8tored ' 
 alacrity. Governor Shirley, under the assurance that government 
 was to be supported, returned from the Castle in great state and dig- 
 nity, and was received with military honors. The British naval offi- 
 cers were released, and permitted to return to the fleet unmolested. 
 Had there been then, after all, only a riot of depraved and misguided 
 persons, demanding an unreasonable thing in an outrageous man- 
 ner, who were only to be put down? Negotiations of state are not 
 always recorded, and history is left to guess from events by what 
 solemn agreements they may have been brought about. The peace 
 and order which had fled before riot, were restored with much osten- 
 tation ; but at the same time the sailors, the ship-carpenters, the sail- 
 makers, and the laborers, who had been seized and carried on board 
 the British vessels, quietly returned to their homes with none to hin- 
 der. All Boston hurried down to the wharves to huzza lustily as 
 Commodore Knowles's fleet got under way and sailed out 
 of Nantasket Roads for England, for there was not one of the inci- 
 Boston boy on board. The General Court ordered the win- 
 dows of the Council Chamber to be mended, and asked no further 
 questions. Commodore Knowles, no doubt, made due report at the 
 Admiralty Office in London of the indignity put upon the King's 
 colors and uniform; but evidently it was thought best not to reopen a 
 dispute with a people who had not been moved in the least by a threat 
 to knock their town about their ears, had abated nothing of their as- 
 sertion of the sacredness of personal liberty, had gained all they asked 
 for, and in return had given nothing. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 GOVERNOR COSBY'S ADMINISTRATION. COXTROVKRSY WITH VAN DAM. THE ZEN- 
 GER I. mi i. Srir. STRUGGLES OF POLITICAL PARTIES. GEORGE CLARKE, LIEU- 
 TKNANT-GOVERNOR. THE NEGRO PLOT OF 1741. GROWTH OF THE COLONY IN A 
 HALF CENTURY. EARLY SETTLEMENTS ON THE MOHAWK AND SLSQUEHAXNA. 
 THE CITY OF NEW YORK AT SEVERAL PERIODS. KING'S COLLEGE ESTABLISHED. 
 POSITION OF THE COLONY BY THE MIDDLE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. AP- 
 POINTMENT OF GOVERNOR CLINTON. THE PERPLEXITIES OF HIS ADMINISTRA- 
 TION. PREPARATIONS FOR A DOUBLE EXPEDITION AGAINST CANADA. THE 
 TREATY OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. SIR DANVERS OSBORN'S INAUGURATION AND 
 DEATH CHIEF JUSTICE DE LANCEY SUCCEEDS AS LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR. 
 
 COLONEL COSBY, who arrived in New York in August, 1732, came, 
 like others who had preceded him, to make a fortune from 
 
 Arrival of ........ . . 
 
 Governor orhcial service. He entered at once into a controversy with 
 Van Dam, the acting Governor, demanding an equal parti- 
 tion of the salai'y and perquisites received by that gentleman in the 
 interval between Cosby's appointment and arrival. The result was 
 a suit in equity, in which not only all the lawyers of the colony, but 
 most of the people, were deeply interested. The popular party sym- 
 pathized with Van Dam ; the aristocratic party, with the Governor. 
 Out of this suit grew that trial of John Peter Zenger for libel, 
 which is so distinctive a mark in the history of American jurispru- 
 dence. 
 
 Zenger was the publisher of a newspaper, "The New York 
 Weekly Journal," and he made it the mouth-piece of the 
 opposition to the Governor and his supporters. It was or- 
 dered by the Council that four obnoxious numbers of the paper, to- 
 gether with two printed ballads which were considered libellous, be 
 publicly burned by the common hangman, or the whipper at the pil- 
 lory ; and the magistrates of the city were required to preside at that 
 ceremony. The magistrates refused, but the order to burn the pa- 
 pers was, nevertheless, obeyed. Zenger was afterwards arrested and 
 brought to trial. 
 
 His counsel, at a preliminary hearing, filed objections to the legal- 
 
 
173G.] 
 
 THE ZENGER LIBEL SUIT. 
 
 223 
 
 ity of the warrant, and to the trial of the case before Judges De Lan- 
 
 cey and Philipse, inasmuch as they held their places by appointment 
 
 from the Crown. " You have brought it to that point," said Chief 
 
 Justice De Lancey, " that either we must go from the bench or you 
 
 from the bar." And the 
 
 lawyers were dismissed from Mfe; 
 
 the bar, the court assigning 
 
 in the case before them 
 
 counsel of their own choos- 
 
 ing. 
 
 Rip Van Dam. 
 
 The defendant, however, 
 engaged Mr. Andrew Ham- 
 ilton, an eminent lawyer of 
 Philadelphia, to appear on 
 his behalf. The case came 
 before a jury. Hamilton 
 boldly took the ground that 
 the defence might prove the 
 truth of the libel in justifi- 
 cation, and that the jury 
 were to determine both the 
 law and the fact. The pub- 
 lication was acknowledged ; 
 but " you will have," said 
 Hamilton, "something more to do, before you make my client a li- 
 beller ; for the words themselves must be libellous, that is, false, 
 scandalous, and seditious." " Our constitution," he said, " gives us 
 an opportunity to prevent wrong by appealing to the people." The 
 jury followed this reasoning, and responded to the appeal. The pris- 
 oner was acquitted ; the people approved the verdict ; the corporation 
 presented Hamilton with the freedom of the city in a gold box, and 
 when he left the town, to return home, a salute was fired in his honor. 
 The trial gave the last blow, in public estimation, to the Exchequer 
 Court, and objections were again raised, such as had been made 
 against Montgomerie, to the Governor's sitting as Chancellor. 
 
 Cosby died in March, 1736, soon after his defeat in this memora- 
 ble trial. Van Dam, who had given him so much trouble, 
 
 .,., 11- 111 Death of 
 
 claimed by right to be his temporary successor as the oldest ovnor 
 member of the Council. He had, however, absented him- t 
 self for some time from the meetings of that body, a majority of which 
 were the partisans of the Governor. It was declared, moreover, that 
 Cosby, not long before his death, had removed Van Dam from the 
 Council, and the Board thereupon recognized George Clarke as the old- 
 
224 NEW YORK. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 est member, and appointed him Lieutenant-governor. The popular 
 feeling was warmly in Van Dam's favor, and nothing was expected 
 from his opponent but a continuation of the arbitrary and selfish policy 
 which had made Cosby 's administration so obnoxious to the people. 
 George The contest was warm and bitter ; both men assumed the 
 l-olut^Hiov- functions of the office, and Clarke, who held the Fort, took 
 
 measures for its defence. The struggle, which seems to 
 have risen nearly to the dignity of a rebellion, was only ended when 
 Clarke's claim was confirmed by a commission from England. 
 
 The political tranquillity of his seven years' government shows that, 
 
 if there was not much to blame him for, so there was little 
 
 Character of . . -r i i t i i i i 
 
 his aduiiuis- reason for praise, remaps he had less disposition than some 
 other colonial rulers to encroach upon the rights of the peo- 
 ple ; perhaps he was only wise enough to understand that the people 
 would not tolerate encroachment. * We beg leave to be plain with 
 your honor, and hope you will not take it amiss," said the first Assem- 
 bly he met, " that you are not to expect that we will either raise sums 
 not fit to be raised, or put what we shall raise into the power of a 
 Governor to misapply, if we can prevent it." They assured him fur- 
 ther that they would only make up such deficiencies as seemed to them 
 just ; that such revenue as they thought fit to raise would be provided 
 from year to year, and that they did not " think it convenient to do 
 even that, until such laws are passed as we conceive necessary for the 
 safety of the inhabitants of this colony." 
 
 Each successive Assembly showed a similar spirit, which was not to 
 be shaken by the remonstrances of the Governor, even when he warned 
 one of them of "the jealousy prevailing in Great Britain that the 
 colony wished to be emancipated from the Crown." Perhaps it was 
 because he knew what serious ground there was for that " jealousy," 
 that he was so careful not to try the impatience of the people by any 
 other provocation than reproaches, and sometimes by an adjournment 
 of the Legislature. 
 
 During his administration, however, occurred an event which marks 
 TheXeTo tlu era in t' 16 history of New York, as sombre with tragic 
 Plot of 1741. j n terest as that given to the annals of Massachusetts by the 
 Quaker and witchcraft persecutions of the previous century. But 
 New York went mad in a senseless panic, and burned negroes at the 
 stake eighty years after the last Quaker was hanged on Boston Com- 
 mon, and half a century after it was believed in Massachusetts that 
 an old woman, accused of witchcraft, would drown when thrown into 
 a pond, if she was innocent, but would float like a cork, if she was 
 guilty, to be saved only to suffer death at the hands of the public exe- 
 cutioner. 
 
1741.] 
 
 THE NEGRO PLOT. 
 
 225 
 
 The origin of this tragedy was almost contemptible. In February, 
 1740-41, one Mrs. Hogg, who kept a small shop in Broad 
 Street, was robbed of some goods and money. A few days 
 before, she had heedlessly opened a drawer containing some silver 
 coin, in the presence of a young sailor of the name of Wilson. This 
 Wilson was in the habit of frequenting a low ale-house on the North 
 River, kept by one John Huglison, a place of resort, probably, of dis- 
 solute persons of all sorts, but especially of idle servants among the 
 negro slaves. To three of these, Caesar, Prince, and Cuft'ee they 
 had no other names, but were known as Vaarck's Csesar, Auboyneau's 
 Prince, and Philipse's Cuffee to these three Wilson told how he 
 had seen the money in Mrs. Hogg's drawer, how easily the shop could 
 
 Vi3w in Broad Street, about 1740. 
 
 be entered in a way he knew of, and the prize secured. On this hint, 
 the burglary was committed ; but, whether Wilson repented of his 
 share in it, or whether he hoped to secure impunity for himself by 
 betraying his comrades, he, a few days afterward, assured Mrs. Hogg 
 that he had seen a square piece-of-eight, described as among the stolen 
 coin, in the hands of Caesar, at John Hughson's dram-shop. 
 
 This evidence was confirmed bv Marv Burton an indented ser- 
 
 *. */ 
 
 van t of John Hughson's, a girl of fifteen years who con- 
 fessed to a neighbor that she knew who committed the rob- ton's evi- 
 bery, and showed a piece of the stolen money, which she said 
 the negro Caesar had given her. On further examination, she im 
 plicated one " Margaret Sorubiero, alia* Salingburgh, alias Kerry^ 
 commonly called Peggy, or the Newfoundland Irish beauty," a dis- 
 reputable young woman of one or two and twenty, who lodged at 
 
 VOL. III. 
 
 15 
 
226 NE\V YORK. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 Hughson's house, and was reputed to be the kept mistress of Vaarck's 
 Caesar. Then some of the goods were found under the kitchen floor 
 of Vaarck, the baker Caesar's master to which access could be 
 had from a low drinking-place, next door, kept by John Romme. 
 Romme fled on this discovery, and the assumption was, that he was an 
 Am-Mof accomplice in the burglary. The other persons accused, 
 ".This" including Hughson and his wife, were arrested, Hughson 
 family. acknowledging that he had received and concealed some of 
 the stolen goods. It was a commonplace crime, and there was no 
 lack of evidence to convict the criminals. The incident would have 
 been soon forgotten, had not unexpected events presently given his- 
 torical interest to the dram-shops of Hughson and Romme, to the 
 negroes Caesar, Prince, and Cuffee, and to the young white women of 
 questionable character, Mary Burton and the Irish beauty, Peggy. 
 
 A fortnight after the accused persons were committed to prison, a 
 Fire in the ^ re broke out in the roof of the Governor's house, within 
 fort the Fort, about one o'clock in the afternoon. The house, 
 
 the adjoining chapel, the barracks opposite, and the secretary's office 
 over the gate of the fort, were all burned to the ground. The furni- 
 ture of the government house and the colonial records, kept in the 
 office of the secretary, were saved ; and it was thought most fortunate 
 that the fire occurred in the daytime, as therefore, probably, it did not 
 spread beyond the walls of the fort. There was naturally for a few 
 days a good deal of excitement in the town, rather, however, from the 
 character of the buildings burned, than from the extent of the fire or 
 any doubt about its origin. A plumber had been engaged upon the 
 roof of the Governor's house during the morning, in soldering the 
 leaden gutter between it and the chapel, carrying with him from 
 place to place a furnace of hot coals. The wind was very high ; the 
 roofs of the two buildings were covered with wooden shingles ; with 
 such a concatenation of circumstances, the result was almost inevitable. 
 At first there was no thought of any other than this obvious explana- 
 tion ; and again, but for subsequent events, an incident of no great 
 moment would have soon ceased to be of the slightest interest to any- 
 body. 
 
 About a week afterward, also in the middle of the day, a fire broke 
 other fires ou ^ in the roof of Captain Warren's house near the bridge 
 in the town. i n t i ie southwestern part of the town. Sparks from afoul 
 chimney had caught upon old and dry shingles. It was put out with 
 little difficulty, and there was no doubt about the cause of it while 
 men's minds were cool. 
 
 On the East River side of the town, was an old wooden storehouse, 
 belonging to Mr. Van Zandt. It was filled with boards and hay, and 
 
1741.] 
 
 THE NEGRO PLOT. 
 
 227 
 
 was burnt down about a week after the fire at Warren's. This also 
 happened in the daytime. The proximity to the river made it easy 
 to prevent the flames from spreading ; and everybody believed that 
 the carelessness of a smoker, known to be within the building, who 
 dropped sparks from his pipe among the hay, was the origin of the tire. 
 These two fires, following within a week of each other, kept up the 
 excitement which that at the Fort had caused. The town, which con- 
 tained about twelve thousand people, was compactly built, still cover- 
 ing only that end of the peninsula below Wall Street. Three fires, 
 two of which were serious, within so short a period, were, no doubt, 
 unusual, and prepared the way for the panic that presently followed. 
 
 Ferry House on East River, 1746. From an Old Print. 
 
 The day after the burning of Van Zandt's warehouse, some hay 
 was found to be on fire in a cow-stable, belonging to one Quick, on 
 the east side of the town. This was easily suppressed ; but it was 
 scarcely done, when another alarm was sounded from the west side, 
 where smoke was seen coming from the kitchen-loft of Ben. Thomas's 
 house near the city market and "next door to Captain Sarby." It 
 was traced to two beds between which fire had been put, and which 
 was the sleeping-place of a negro. 
 
 Early the next morning on Sunday some coals were found 
 under a hay-stack near John Murray's stables in Broadway. But 
 the) 7 had gone out without doing any damage. The next forenoon an 
 alarm came from Serjeant Burns's house, opposite Fort Garden ; but 
 if there was any cause for it, it was only the burning of a foul chim- 
 ney. An hour or two later it was discovered that the roof of Mrs. 
 
 / 
 
 Hilton's house which adjoined Sarby's on the east side, as Thomas's 
 
228 NEW YORK. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 did on tlie west was on fire. Here was pregnant matter for suspic- 
 ion, and it grew into fnry when some flax was found near by, which, 
 it was thought, was used to kindle the flames. Then a cry arose in 
 the streets "The Spanish negroes! the Spanish negroes! Take 
 up the Spanish negroes ! *' 
 
 There was, as it happened, a Spanish negro in Captain Sarbv's 
 house, whom he had recently purchased, and who was one of 
 
 Spanish HP- . i i < i i i 
 
 jrrors appn- nineteen belonging to a Spanish vessel taken at sea and 
 
 brought not long before into Xew York as a prize. A Court 
 
 of Admiralty had condemned them as slaves, in spite of their protest 
 
 that they were freemen in their own country. It is evident that these 
 
 f V 
 
 unfortunate blacks had not quietly submitted to their fate ; had proba- 
 bly complained angrily, and perhaps threatened ; for, this first public 
 outbreak of panic pointed to them as men who had a motive for 
 some signal act of vengeance. Sarby's servant was at once seized, and 
 orders were given for the arrest of all who came in the same ship. 
 
 In hot haste the magistrates came together at the City Hall. Sarby's 
 negro was still under examination when again the alarming cry of 
 fire was heard. Looking from their windows, Mayor Cruger and the 
 rest saw a streak of flame running up the roof of Colonel Philipse's 
 storehouse the work, this time, possibly of an incendiary, for there 
 was no chimney in the building. It was hardly extinguished which 
 was done speedily when the crowd was turned in a new direction 
 by a fresh alarm, which seems, however, to have been groundless. 
 But soon after some chips were found burning in a baker's cellar ; 
 and trifling as this common incident was, it served to feed the popu- 
 lar excitement. 
 
 A negro was seen to jump from a window of Philipse's ware- 
 house. He may have been there for no unlawful purpose 
 certainly not to kindle a fire that was already extinguished. 
 But frightened men do not stop to reason. A shout arose "The 
 negro! the negro! the negroes are rising!" then, "Cuff Philipse! 
 Cuff Philipse ! " A frantic rush was made for Philipse's house, where 
 Curt' was found quietly sitting in the kitchen. He was seized upon, 
 nevertheless, and hurried to jail ; an order was issued that all negroes 
 in the streets should be arrested. There were many about who had 
 been diligently assisting in passing buckets of water in the line with 
 the whites ; but this circumstantial evidence of the absence of any evil 
 purpose among them seems not to have been thought of. To be black 
 was prima facie evidence of being a conspirator. 
 
 The air was heavy with rumors. Only the day before Mrs. Earle 
 had seen, from the window of her house in Broadway, three negroes 
 on their way to Trinity Church. As they passed, one of them ex- 
 
1741.] 
 
 QUACO. 
 
 229 
 
 claimed : " Fire, Fire ! Scorch, Scorch a little ! damn it ! By and 
 by!" then he "threw up his hands and laughed." At these terrible 
 words and alarming 
 gestures, "the 
 woman conceived 
 great jealousy," and 
 repeated them to 
 her next-door neigh- 
 bor, Mrs. George. 
 They watched for 
 the return of the 
 negroes from church, 
 and Mrs. George 
 recognized the man 
 whom Mrs. Earle 
 pointed out, as Mr. 
 Walter's Quaco. 
 The two women 
 went to an alder- 
 man, and the alder- 
 man went to the 
 other magistrates, 
 and Quaco was soon 
 under lock and key. 
 
 Quaco said on ex- 
 am i n a t i o n and 
 brought the other Mrs ' Earle and the Negroe8 ' 
 
 negroes to prove it that they were talking of Admiral Vernon's 
 capture of Porto Bello the news of which had just been received 
 and what he would do by and by to the Spaniards. The man's ex- 
 planation, confirmed by his companions, was accepted then, and he was 
 I'eleased, though he was hanged not long afterward. But the story, 
 nevertheless, flew like wild-fire about the town. The magistrates as 
 yet had not taken leave of their senses, but everybody else believed 
 that it was New York Quaco was talking about ; that it was only 
 "scorched " a little now, but "damn it by and by M it was to be laid 
 in ashes ; witli other dreadful things, as it appeared later. 
 
 The jail a part of the City Hall was soon full of terrified ne- 
 groes, and among them were Hughson with his wife and daughter, 
 Mary Burton his servant, Peggy the prostitute, who had lived in 
 his house, and one Arthur Price, a thief, under arrest for stealing at 
 the fire in the Fort, who was to play an important part in the coining 
 tragedy. The Governor issued his proclamation offering rewards for 
 
230 NEW YORK. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 any disclosure that should lead to the detection of incendiaries to 
 whites, money ; to free negroes, money and pardon ; to slaves, money, 
 pai'don, and freedom. On a day appointed, the troops were called out 
 to patrol the city, while the aldermen and councilmen, attended by 
 constables, ransacked every house of their respective wards for stolen 
 goods and concealed strangers. Neither were found in a single in- 
 stance. Yet, it was confidently said, that the panic-stricken people, 
 as they moved from place to place to escape the neighborhood of 
 threatened fires, had been plundered without mercy of their house- 
 hold goods. The goods, it was plain, were not in the possession of 
 the negroes, but there was no pause to consider of how much weight 
 that fact was worth, nor whether the stolen property could be any- 
 where else than in the houses of the blacks. Mercy had already fled ; 
 men had lost their reason. 
 
 The Supreme Court was convened; 1 a grand jury was summoned; 
 every member of the bar, without a single exception, volunteered his 
 services on behalf of the government, leaving the accused, who, 
 
 from their ignorance and 
 friendlessness, Avere pecul- 
 iarly in need of counsel, 
 without the possibility of 
 
 Signature of Horsmanden. , . , - 
 
 making a defence/ As we 
 
 have said, the first outbreak of frenzy was directed against the Span- 
 ish negroes, the few poor fellows whom the Admiralty Court had re- 
 duced to slavery. Next came the vague, thoughtless, but terrible fear 
 of a negro insurrection, terrible in the dread of vengeance for the 
 innumerable and unutterable wrongs suffered by a slave, but of which 
 the slave himself is so often less conscious than he who inflicts them. 
 Not only did the negroes in prison deny all knowledge of any plot, 
 that they would have done in any case, but there seems to have 
 been a destitution of any evidence against them, in their conduct at 
 home or abroad, an absence of all signs of any unusual conscious- 
 ness of discontent, a want of any appearance of exaltation as at 
 some coming, longed-for period of freedom and happiness. They hud- 
 dled together in the jail, appalled, despairing, helpless ; outside of it, 
 
 1 It is to a Justice of this court, Dauiel Horsmanden, that we are indebted for a 
 complete and curious record of these events. He sat on the bench at most, if not all of the 
 trials, a position for which he was eminently unfit, from his ludicrous narrow-minded- 
 ness, timidity, and want of sound judgment. His book is entitled The New York Conspiracy, 
 or History oj 'the Negro Plot. It is a scarce work, of nearly four hundred pages; minute, 
 entirely one-sided, and reflects faithfully the credulity and abject fear which, for months, 
 overcame the common sense and manliness of the people. 
 
 2 New Yorkers will be interested to kuow the names of the lawyers of the city a hun- 
 dred and thirty-eight years ago. They were Messrs. Bradley, who was Attorney-gen- 
 eral, Murray, Alexander, Smith, Chambers, Nichols, Lodge, and Jameson. 
 
17-11.] 
 
 MARY BURTON. 
 
 231 
 
 they were in continual dread of accusation which might fall any- 
 where, and against which innocence was no defence. 
 
 The robbery of Mrs. Hogg's shop had occurred on the last day of 
 February ; but it was not till toward the end of April that 
 
 . , , , Commence- 
 
 the case came on for trial, at the moment when the town mem of the 
 luid gone wild with affright at the repeated fires and ru- 
 mors of insurrection. There was an interval of weeks between the 
 robbery, concerning which Mary Burton was the principal witness, in- 
 deed the only witness, for Wilson seems to have disappeared, and 
 
 Mary Burton before the Grand Jury. 
 
 the first fire. In all this time Mary had given no hint of any knowl- 
 edge of a plot. But now, whether instigated by others, or impelled 
 by the hope of a reward of 100, and release from her term of servi- 
 tude, she insinuated that she could tell as much about the fires as 
 about the burglary. Of course she was urged to tell the truth ; but 
 the truth assumed was, that the negroes had entered into a horrible 
 conspiracy to burn the city, to rob and to murder the inhabitants, and 
 to commit any other atrocities that the most heated imagination could 
 conceive of. "The grand jury," says Judge Horsmanden's narra- 
 tive, "was very importunate and used many arguments with her, 
 
232 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 [ClIAP. IX. 
 
 in public and private, to persuade her to speak the truth, and tell 
 all she knew about it." When she hesitated, apparently 
 te?L*fr from fear of evil consequences to herself, she was promised 
 protection ; she was reminded of "the heinousness of the 
 crime she would be guilty of if she was privy to, and could discover 
 so wicked a design," and would not ; that " she would have to an- 
 swer for it at the day of judgment," and that "a most damnable sin 
 would be at her door." 
 
 No wonder that an ignorant child of fifteen years yielded, at last, to 
 such importunities and arguments, in the official and solemn presence 
 of seventeen of the most respectable gentlemen of the town. On the 
 one hand, her gain would be great; on the other, she had little to 
 fear now from her late master and mistress, John Hnghson and his 
 wife, or from her late companion, Peggy, whose certain punishment, 
 even she could see, was a foregone conclusion. 1 
 
 The Meal Market. From an Old Print. 
 
 The wonder is, rather, that seventeen sensible and sober men could 
 heed her story. Even on the robbery, her testimony conflicted with 
 that she had at first given, and if either statement were true the other 
 was false. But the stealing of Mrs. Hogg's spotted linen and pieces- 
 of-eight was of trifling moment compared with the revelations of a 
 conspiracy that the witness now made. 
 
 She said that Caesar, Prince, and Cuffee were not merely thieves 
 but arch-conspirators, and their common talk was of burning 
 the Fort, and of going to the Vly and burning the whole 
 town. They were to do this in the night, and as the white 
 people came to put out the fires, the three negroes were to put them 
 all to death. To this plot John Hughson and his wife assented and 
 
 1 The Grand Jury was composed of seventeen gentlemen, all decimated us merchants. 
 Amoug them are names well known at this day in New York, and held in the highest es- 
 teem. They were : Hubert Watts, Jeremiah Latouche, Joseph Head, Anthony Rutgers, 
 John McEvers, John Cruger, Jr., John Merritt, Adoniah Schuyler, Isaac I)e Peyster, 
 Abraham Ketelta.ss, David 1'ruvoost, Kene Ilett, Henry Beekman, Jr., David Van Home, 
 George Spencer, Thomas Duncan, and Wiuau Van Zaudt. 
 
 
 
1741.] CAUSES OF THE PANIC. 233 
 
 promised to give their aid. It was "in their common conversation" 
 that when all this was done, Ca?sar was to be Governor, and Hughson 
 was to be King. Sometimes, she declared, there were large meetings 
 of twenty or thirty negroes at her master's house, who would not 
 dare, the three leaders declared, to disobey their orders. But there 
 were no white people she said then except the Hughsons and 
 Peggy at any of those consultations ; and the preparations made for 
 the insurrection were eight guns and some swords, three pistols 
 and four swords, she added afterward. 
 
 All this, meagre, inconclusive, and absurd as it was, we are told by 
 Judge Horsmanden, " was most astonishing to the grand jury," and 
 44 could scarce be credited." It was not that so incredible a tale 
 should be invented, and men in their sober senses be asked to accept 
 it as true, that astonished them ; but that " white people could con- 
 federate with slaves in such an execrable and detestable purpose." 
 The gross absurdity of the story, that three black men and one 
 white, with a doubtful following of about twenty more, without even 
 arms enough for the leaders alone, had conspired to destroy a city of 
 twelve thousand inhabitants, only a sixth of whom, bond and free, 
 were negroes, that one of the conspirators might be made a Governor 
 and another a King, the absurdity of such a story told by a child 
 of fifteen years, whom seventeen grave gentlemen had alternately 
 tempted by rewards, and frightened by threats of terrible punishments 
 in this world and the next, seems to have occurred to nobody. 
 
 But the fear of insurrection is an ever-present terror wherever slav- 
 ery exists. This dread had been touched to the quick by the Cauf . es o{ 
 rapid succession of alarms of fire; rumors, none too absurd th *p* nic - 
 for belief, fed the popular excitement. There was war with Spain, 
 and in the town wei-e a score of Spanish negroes held as slaves, but 
 who claimed to be freemen ; the jail was full of blacks, arrested, not 
 because they were, but because they might be, dangerous ; fear was 
 lashed into frenzy, and demanded victims ; here at hand was a band 
 of thieves ; what more likely than that they should be a band of 
 conspirators also, contriving riot and arson, murder, rape, and all con- 
 ceivable atrocities, proposing the conquest of a province and to make 
 of their leaders kings, and governors, and captains ? The Grand Jury 
 believed in all this wickedness and folly, from the tale of a foolish or 
 a cunning child, and went with it to the grave judges of the Supreme 
 Court. They also listened and believed. The whole bar of the city 
 was summoned in consultation in so serious an emergency ; it was 
 determined that the trials should be conducted in the highest court, 
 and the Governor was asked for a special order to prolong the session, 
 about to close, for that purpose. 
 
234 NEW YORK. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 There came forth presently another swift and artful witness Price 
 The witness under indictment for stealing goods saved from the Gov- 
 rrice. ernor's house at the fire in the Fort. He was right if he 
 believed that his own crime would soon be forgotten, could he help fix 
 the far more monstrous crime of premeditated insurrection upon any 
 of his fellow-prisoners. It was easy for the inmates of the ill-con- 
 trived and over-crowded jail to hold intercourse with one another, and 
 Price was soon ready to repeat real or invented conversations. 
 
 The first of these was with Peggy, Hughson's lodger ; the second, 
 a few days later, with Sarah, Hughson's daughter. These people were 
 absolute sti-angers to Price, yet Peggy if he was to be believed 
 had twice come voluntarily to the wicket in his door, and, in the 
 most extraordinary way, reposed in him entire confidence. Except 
 that the language, which he said the woman used, was to the lust 
 degree profane and vile, and might, therefore, well have been hers, 
 the internal evidence in his statement shows its falsehood. But it 
 was ingenious; as in Mary Burton's testimony, there was the innu- 
 endo indirect about the fires, substituted for the proof direct about 
 the robbery ; and while it was assumed that this was true, it was 
 suggestive of the wildest suspicions of the truth of the other. He 
 made no pretensions of having obtained any information from Sarah 
 Hughson by voluntary confession ; on the contrary, she denied, he 
 said, all knowledge of any plot ; but in the expression of her fears of 
 what might befall her parents and herself, and in her comments on 
 the fires, when induced to talk of them, she betrayed or was repre- 
 sented as betraying how intimate her knowledge of a plot was. 
 
 If Mary. Burton had told the truth, here was the most remarkable 
 confirmation of her story, coming at exactly the right time; on the 
 other hand, if the imagination of the child had been stimulated by 
 persuasions the most tempting, and by threats the most appalling, this 
 suspicious story was clearly an invention, suggested by hers and told 
 with a selfish purpose. It was certainly clumsy, contradictory, and 
 incredible ; it was related by a thief who, unless he could commend 
 himself to mercy in this way, was certain of heavy punishment ; was 
 certain, if he could so commend himself, of reward as well as pardon. 
 
 From so slight a beginning of wrong-doing, first made fortuitously 
 conspicuous, then tortured into something that it was not by low 
 cunning, transparent falsehood, and intense credulity, there grew a 
 strange scene of terror and outrage. For its disregard of all rules 
 of legal evidence, for its prostitution of the forms of law for the per- 
 petration of cruelty, for popular credulity and cowardice, for the 
 abnegation of all sense of mercy, for the oppression of the weakest and 
 most defenceless, it was without precedent, and has had no parallel in 
 
 
1741.] 
 
 FATE OF THE ACCUSED. 
 
 235 
 
 any civilized community. There were, indeed, Judge Horsmanden 
 acknowledges, "some wanton, wrong-headed persons amongst us, who 
 took the liberty to arraign the justice of the proceedings, and set up 
 their private opinions in superiority to the court and grand jury," and 
 who "declared with no small assurance (notwithstanding what we 
 saw with our eyes, and heard with our ears, and every one might have 
 judged of by his intellects, that had any) that there was no plot at 
 all ! " But these were only a wretched minority. The popular mind 
 was not in a state to weigh nice points of evidence, or even points 
 that were far from nice, to detect motives in cunning and interested 
 witnesses, to consider probabilities calmly. Except by the few, the 
 tales of Mary Burton and Price were caught up with avidity and 
 accepted without question. The man Hughson, Peggy, and the three 
 
 The Negroes Sentenced. 
 
 negroes were speedily brought to trial, convicted, and sentenced to be 
 hanged. They were tried, indeed, for the robbery the 
 negroes for committing the act, the whites for receiving the of csar 
 stolen goods ; but when Ca?sar and Prince were brought 
 up for sentence, the judge exhorted them to discover their confede- 
 
236 NEW YORK. - [CHAP. IX. 
 
 rates " in designing or endeavouring to burn this city and to destroy 
 its inhabitants," as he was " fully persuaded " it was in their power to 
 do if they would. But there was no delay in their execution, in the 
 hope that their speedy punishment might bring others to confession. 
 To the last they denied that they knew of any conspiracy. 
 
 The Hughsons and Peggy were spared a little longer, to be in- 
 dicted for the plot. Peggy had stoutly and indignantly denied, up to 
 this time, that there was any truth in Price's story. But now, in the 
 Peggy's con- hP e of saving her life, she made a pretended confession. If 
 fession. what she said was true, Mary Burton's tale was false, for 
 she shifted the headquarters of the plot from Hughson's to Romme's, 
 charging him with being a receiver of goods stolen by negroes, with 
 inciting them to insurrection, and promising to take them all, when 
 enough had been stolen, to another country. She said nothing of the 
 two negroes who had just been hanged, but she implicated a number 
 of others, all of whom were immediately arrested. 
 
 The 13th of May, designated a month before by Lieutenant-gov- 
 A public ernor Clarke as a day of public fasting and humiliation, 
 Fast ordered. was &o o b servec | with great solemnity. The excitement 
 grew more intense, sanctioned thus by religious observance, and the 
 highest example in the State, and fed with constantly new revela- 
 tions. At Hackensack, on the other side of the Bay, in New Jersey, 
 some barns had been burnt, and suspicion fell, of course, upon the 
 negroes. Two were apprehended and tried, confession was extorted 
 from one of them, and both were burnt at the stake. 
 
 The Burton child was equal to any demands that could be made 
 upon her. With that " remarkable glibness of tongue," which even 
 Judge Horsmanden who, no doubt, would have cheerfully burned 
 any negro in the colony was compelled to acknowledge, distin- 
 guished her, she could confirm any accusation brought against any- 
 body. Romme, she now remembered, was intimate with Hughson, 
 and often conferred with him ; the negroes whom Peggy accused, 
 Mary had frequently seen at Hughson's house. When, soon after, 
 with Hughson and his wife, Peggy was hanged, declaring, with her 
 last breath, that there was not a word of truth in her previous con 
 fession, and that she was totally ignorant of any plot, having hoped 
 only to save herself by accusing others, Mary's testimony which 
 that pretended confession had suggested was still held as conclusive 
 by the Court. 
 
 And so in all subsequent proceedings, the trembling slaves wild 
 character of with fright sometimes when arrested on mere suspicion, 
 theevideuce. or wnen standing at the foot of the gallows, or about to be 
 bound to the stake where the ready fagots were piled to consume 
 
1741.] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE PLOT. 
 
 237 
 
 presently their living flesh, were only too eager, as the frenzy 
 grew, to confess to anything, to avow the wildest and most improbable 
 designs, to impute to others the most horrible purposes, that so they 
 might appeal to the mercy of the Court, and save their own wretched 
 lives. To Mary Burton any new revelation was a fresh impulse to 
 her own recollections, and her evidence was always forthcoming in 
 proof of anything that needed confirmation. Price, within the walls 
 of the jail, was equally useful, so long as the unsuspicious negroes 
 would consent to hold intercourse with him. That he might lead his 
 victims into unwary talk, to be turned against them, the authorities 
 furnished him with liquor, that he might first make them drunk. 
 
 No stories, however absurd, were held by the Court or by the people 
 as incredible. None of 
 these confessions ex- 
 torted by fear, some- 
 times at the gallows' 
 foot, or at the stake in 
 the hope of reprieve, 
 and often recalled when 
 hope was no longer pos- 
 sible, none of these 
 pretended to any con- 
 certed plan, which could 
 secure success to an in- 
 surrection, or prevent its 
 immediate suppression 
 by the most ordinary 
 method of preserving 
 the peace. There was 
 only the vague purpose 
 of burning and killing, 
 for which the provision Trinit y church. 1741. 
 
 of arms was the eight guns, three pistols, and four swords which Mary 
 Burton declared were concealed at Hughson's. 
 
 This baldness of detail, and the evident poverty of imagination 
 which gave no heed even to probabilities, showed that the 
 mere abjectness of fear prompted these confessions, while no the alleged 
 outside evidence supplied the essential element of proof. 
 It was accepted as true that there was an understanding between 
 Hnghson and Ho mine who supplied negroes with liquor and received 
 their petty thievings and the Spanish Government for the capture 
 of the city, and this ridiculous supposition was suggested no doubt by 
 the presence of the score of Spanish negroes probably held unlawfully 
 
238 NEW YORK. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 as slaves. It was seriously believed that a few negroes meant to 
 watch at the doors of Trinity Church with the expectation that the 
 congregation, as it came out from service some Sunday morning, would 
 quietly submit to be killed one by one ; that a handful of discontented 
 blacks meant to murder their musters and take their mistresses for 
 their wives, in the expectation that their fellows would at once follow 
 their example when a few should begin the work of murder and ra- 
 pine that thus a small minority of the population, ignorant, de- 
 graded, unorganized, and unarmed, could compel the most servile sub- 
 mission from a community, intelligent, well-ordered, strong in civil 
 and military government, outnumbering these besotted insurgents 
 even if they were joined by every negro in the city five to one ; 
 and that in such a community there could be grave reason for fearing 
 that one of the vilest of the lowest class of whites had seriously pro- 
 posed to make himself King, his wife Queen, the slave Caesar Gov- 
 ernor, with the prostitute Peggy as the head of a governor's house- 
 hold. 
 
 In the great dread that all these absurd and impossible things were 
 impending, the Supreme Court, countenanced and aided by the whole 
 bar of the city, applauded and urged on by the most enlightened and 
 influential citizens, in the course of two or three months, imprisoned 
 more than a hundred and fifty negroes four of them women; con- 
 victed over a hundred of these as conspirators ; burnt twelve of them 
 alive at the stake ; hanged eighteen, and transported seventy-two 
 some of whom were probably freemen to be sold as slaves in other 
 countries. The accused were in all cases without counsel ; whenever 
 their masters appeared on their behalf to give testimony as to their 
 good character, or to show by alibi, or other circumstances, that 
 the accusations were necessarily false, the evidence was disregarded. 
 That a conspiracy existed, was assumed to be true ; accusation was 
 accepted as proof, and this was held to be none the less conclusive 
 although the so-called confession on which it rested was subsequently 
 declared to be false by him who had made it with the hope of saving 
 his own life, because he repented of having borne false witness against 
 the innocent. 
 
 One instance may be given of the method pursued in the trials 
 and the character of the confessions that obtained credence. 
 
 T> i/-vi i I'll- e \ 
 
 Koosevelt s Quack was charged with being one or the con- 
 
 spirators, and with having set fire to the Governor's house. 
 When bound to the stake, the hope of a pardon was held out to him, 
 if he would tell all he knew. With the fagots piled about the wretched 
 negro, what else could he do but confess anything that was charged 
 against him? The essential point was, did he set fire to the Gov- 
 
1741.] 
 
 JOHX URY. 
 
 239 
 
 ernor's house ? He declared that he did ; that the night before, he 
 took a brand from the kitchen fire and placed it on a beam beneath 
 the roof. But as nothing came of it, he, the next day twelve or 
 thirteen hours afterwards went again to the garret, quickened the 
 still burning brand with his breath, and the fire caught the roof. The 
 confession was accepted as true, nobody, apparently, observing its 
 
 The Mob demanding that Quack be burnt. 
 
 evident absurdity, and nobody remem- 
 bering that on that morning a plumber 
 had been employed upon the roof in a high wind, with an open furnace 
 of live coals. But it was too late to save his life ; the mob howled 
 for his execution, and the fagots piled about the stake to which he was 
 bound were soon ablaze. 
 
 But among the accused were some who were not black, besides the 
 Hughson and Romme families. As the panic spread, there Arrest0 f 
 sprang up the fear of Papacy. The town was searched for ^"a, 1 ^ 
 Catholic priests ; none were found ; but an obscure school- Ury- 
 master, one John Ury, was arrested on suspicion. Extorted confes- 
 sions, after his arrest, were made to implicate him as one of the con- 
 
240 NEW YORK. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 spirators at John Hughson's house. Sarah, Hughson's daughter, who 
 was repeatedly reprieved and finally pardoned, had become a swift 
 and willing witness against any prisoner whose conviction was deter- 
 mined on. Ury, hitherto unheard of, and about whom many who had 
 gone to their deaths had said no word, appeared now as a chief insti- 
 gator of the plot. It was he who presided at banquets at Hughson's ; 
 he who kept a list of the conspirators ; he who swore them to secrecy 
 by drawing a circle on the floor with chalk, into winch each negro put 
 his foot as he took the oath ; he who administered the sacrament and 
 absolved from all sins confessing Peggy among the rest, who was 
 often, it was said, his bed-fellow. Mary Burton, who was never want- 
 ing, who at first swore she had seen no white persons at Hughson's 
 house, except themselves, but who remembered Rom me as soon as he 
 was arrested, now also remembered Ury. She had witnessed these 
 ceremonies ; had seen the chalk-circle, and '* black things " the ne- 
 groes' toes, it was conjectured going in and out ; had been offered 
 absolution by Ury. All this, forgotten before, was now recalled 
 vividly by this swift and willing witness. 
 
 Ury was hanged. All testimony from those who knew him well, 
 and who showed him to be a harmless and humble teacher, was re- 
 jected. He protested, on the gallows, with an appeal to God, that he 
 '* never knew Hughson, his wife, or the creature that was hanged with 
 them;" that he "never saw them living, dying, or dead;" that he 
 " never knew the perjured witnesses but at his trial ; " that he " never 
 had any knowledge or confederacy with white or black as to any 
 plot; " and he declared that he was not a Catholic, but a non-juring 
 minister of the Church of England. 
 
 On his trial was produced a letter from Governor Oglethorpe to 
 Governor Clarke, in which the writer said he had received 
 
 Governor .... , . n , e 
 
 Oglethorpe-* " some intelligence of a villainous design ot a very extraor- 
 dinary nature and, if true, very important." It was that 
 " the Spaniards had employed emissaries to burn all the magazines 
 and considerable towns of North America," and that for this purpose 
 " many priests were employed who pretended to be physicians, dan- 
 cing-masters, and other such kinds of occupations." It was thought 
 certain that Ury was one of these priests. Then there was one 
 Corry, a dancing-master, already in custody, suspected of being a 
 Catholic whom Mary Burton, of course, recognized at once, as one 
 of the company at Hughson's, when Corry "stoutly denied it and 
 declared he had never seen her before, at which the girl laughed." 
 There was also great search for one Holt, another dancing- master 
 and supposed Catholic, but he, fortunately for himself, had left the 
 town. Oglethorpe's letter produced a profound sensation, though it 
 
1741.] REVULSION OF FEELING. 241 
 
 does not seem to have been observed that he closes it by saying that 
 he had no faith in these rumors and failed to find any confirmation 
 of them from Spanish prisoners. They firmly believed, in New York, 
 in pretended schoolmasters and dancing-masters, who were Catholic 
 priests in disguise, and who were conspiring with slaves to burn 
 American cities. 
 
 Some soldiers stationed at the Fort were also taken into custody, 
 apparently on no other ground than the suspicion that they , 
 were Papists. One of them was frightened into a confes- supposed 
 
 , ,. , . Catholics. 
 
 sion, and his testimony was much relied upon to convict 
 Ury. The Burton child professed to know all about these men also 
 to know so much, indeed, that she had often been sent, she said, 
 to bring a dozen soldiers at a time to Hughson's house. 
 
 But it seems to have been suspected, at last, that these stores of 
 knowledge, held in reserve by this ingenious young person, might 
 become embarrassing. She talked of many white persons coming to 
 Hughson's house, and " some in ruffles ; " that these ruffled gentle- 
 men would often send letters to Hughson, with money in them, which 
 she judged, by the feeling, to be "milled Spanish pieces-of - eight :" 
 she gave " the names of several white persons beyond the vulgar 
 who sometimes resorted at Hughson's ; " and she said that attempts 
 had been made to bribe her to silence by offers of silk dresses and 
 promises of gold. Of all this, Judge Horsmanden, who sat upon all 
 the trials, says, " the Recorder did not care to be over-solicitous, for 
 
 some reasons." 
 
 But Judge Horsmanden was himself the Recorder. His solicitude 
 for the extreme punishment of negroes and obscure Catholics had 
 been intense, and there can be little doubt as to his reasons for hesi- 
 tating to enter upon the wider field of exploration to which Mary 
 Burton was ready to lead the way. The fervor of the persecution 
 was burning itself out ; the opinion of those " wanton, wrong-headed 
 persons " who, as Judge Horsmanden said, always declared 
 
 ... Revulsion 
 
 " there was no plot at all, was making its way among sen- of popular 
 sible people ; the testimony of the infatuated and evil- 
 minded child whose story had grown so rapidly from the imputation 
 of some vague talk of insurrection by two or three thieves and the 
 receiver of the stolen goods, to a plot including gentlemen of stand- 
 ing, with wealth at their command, and in which soldiers by the score 
 had already enlisted such testimony would prove too much, if ac- 
 cepted, and would presently make everybody ridiculous who lent an 
 ear to it. The natural revulsion of a panic came at last. Of the 
 twenty white persons committed, four were hanged and others ban- 
 ished from the colony. But with Ury the tragedy ended ; the town 
 
 VOL. in. 16 
 
242 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 [CHAP. IX. 
 
 Tha 
 
 recovered from its insane and cowardly terror by the end of summer ; 
 though for months timid people heard in every alarm of fire a threat- 
 ened conflagration, and so long after as March of the next spring, a 
 futile attempt was made to revive the belief in insurrection by hang- 
 ing a negro idiot accused of arson. As the proceedings 
 began with a Fast, so now the Governor and Council ap- 
 pointed the 24th of September as a day of public Thanks- 
 giving to God for his mercies in delivering the colony from " this 
 horrible and execrable conspiracy." To many persons the presence 
 of an avenging Providence had been visible in a miraculous manner, 
 in that the body of Hughson, which had been hung in chains, was 
 believed to have turned black, and the body of Caesar also hung in 
 chains on Ellis's Island, in New York harbor to have turned white. 
 
 Ellis's Island. 
 
 This melancholy exhibition of the unmanly and abject fear which 
 may seize upon an intelligent and vigorous community in the presence 
 of a servile race, ignorant and powerless, seems to have been confined 
 chiefly to the city. There were two or three cases of the punishment 
 of blacks for some alleged connection with the plot one we have 
 already mentioned on the Jersey side of the Hudson in the vicinity 
 of New York ; but everywhere, except in the town, the proportion 
 of blacks to whites was probably too small to admit of any serious 
 apprehension of a negro insurrection. 
 
 The population of this province had increased, in the half century 
 between Leisler's death and the accession of Clinton, who succeeded 
 Clarke as Governor, from ten thousand to more than sixty thousand 
 people. " We are," said a memorial of the Council to the Govern- 
 
1704.] GROWTH OF THE COLONY. 243 
 
 raent at home in 1692, " the key and centre of all their majesties' 
 plantations in this main." Although, as the memorial com- Growth o{ 
 plained, "the East and West Jerseys, Pennsylvania, the theprov- 
 lower counties on the Delaware, and that part of Connecticut 
 which is to the westward of the Connecticut River, were lopped off," 1 
 the province was large enough and its advantages obvious enough 
 to attract emigrants. Presbyterians from Ireland, and Protestants 
 from France, came in considerable numbers towards the end of the 
 century. In 1710 three thousand of the Protestants who had fled to 
 England at the invasion of the Rhenish palatinate by Louis XIV., 
 crossed the ocean, and many of them planted new homes along the 
 upper waters of the Mohawk and Schoharie Creek. In 1737 several 
 hundred Dutch families made their way to the valley of the Mohawk. 
 Within the next two years Scotch and Scotch-Irish, under the leader- 
 ship of John Lindesay, pushed over the hills which border the Mo- 
 hawk on the south, and settled on the banks of Cherry Valley Creek 
 upon a grant of land made by Governor Clarke to four associates 
 among them his own representative. 2 These hardy pioneers 
 brought with them the best elements of civilization, and were as 
 robust and vigorous of character as they were strong to encounter 
 the hardships of the wilderness. By them were built the first church 
 and school-house in which the English tongue was spoken and taught 
 west of the Hudson. 3 Among the earlier settlers in the Mohawk 
 Valley was William Johnson afterward Sir William who came 
 as the manager of his uncle, Admiral Sir Peter Warren, to whom a 
 large land-grant had been made in that region. So along the Sus- 
 quehanna and the Mohawk and their tributaries was scattered from 
 time to time through the first half of the eighteenth century, the seed 
 that was to bloom in later years into the rich harvest of Central and 
 Western New York. 
 
 In the interminable records of disputes which royal governoi-s 
 maintained with their councils and assemblies, the reader vainly 
 searches for some glimpse of the life of the men and women who were 
 unconsciously building up an empire through the uneventful detail of 
 their daily duties and pleasures. But a bit of a journal from the pen 
 of an adventurous woman who went on horseback from Bos- 
 ton to New York in 1704, to collect some debts due to the ** 
 estate of her husband, supplies a little picture of domes- M**t* 
 tic life in that prosperous hamlet by the seaside, which has 
 now become a city of a million inhabitants. " The City of New 
 
 1 See Documents Relating to the Colonial I/istori/ of the State of \ew York, vol. iii., 836 
 
 2 New York Colonial Documents, vol. vi. 
 
 3 Centra) New York in the Revolution. By Douglass Campbell. 1878. 
 
244 NEW YORK. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 York," she says, "is a pleasant, well-compacted place, situated on a 
 
 Commodious River which is a fine harbor for shipping The 
 
 Bricks in some of the Houses are of divers Colors, and laid in Check- 
 The houses ers 5 being glazed, look very agreeable. The inside of them 
 lescribed. are nea fc O admiration, the wooden work, for only the walls 
 are plastered, and the Lumoners and Joist are planed and kept very 
 
 white scoured, as so is all the partitions if made of Boards 
 
 The hearths and staircases were laid with the finest tile that I ever 
 see, which is ever clean, and so are the walls of the kitchen, which had 
 
 a Brick floor They are Generally of the Church of England, 
 
 and have a New England Gentleman l for their minister, and a very 
 fine church, set out with all Customary requisites. There are also a 
 Dutch and Divers Conventicles, viz. : Baptists, Quakers, &c. They 
 are not strict in keeping the Sabbath as in Boston and other places 
 where I had been, But seem to deal with great exactness, as far as I 
 
 can see or Deal with The English go very fashionable in their 
 
 dress. But the Dutch, especially the middling sort, differ from our 
 Female cos- women in their habit, go loose, wear French muches, which 
 are like a Cap and head-band in one, leaving their ears bare, 
 which are set out with Jewels of large size and many in number, and 
 their fingers hooped with Rings, some with large stones in them of 
 many Colors, as were their pendants in their ears, which you should 
 see very old women wear as well as young. 
 
 " They have Vendues very frequently, and make their Earnings very 
 well by them, for they treat with good Liquor Liberally, and 
 the Customers Drink as Liberally and Generally pay for it 
 as well, by paying for that which they Bid up Briskly for, after the 
 sack has gone plentifully about, though sometimes gcod penny- 
 worths are got there. Their Diversions in the Winter is Riding 
 Sleighs about three or four Miles out of Town, where they have 
 Houses of entertainment at a place called the Bowery, and some go 
 to friends' Houses, who handsomely ti'eat them." 
 
 In 1724, when Benjamin Franklin was returning from his first visit 
 Anecdote of ^ Boston, after he had made his home in Philadelphia, the 
 Frankim. captain of the sloop which brought him to New York spread 
 the intelligence that his passenger had " a trunk full of books." So 
 large a cargo of an article so rare excited surprise, and in consequence 
 the printer lad received a message from Governor Burnet that he 
 would be glad to see him, and Franklin accordingly waited on the 
 Governor. A long narrative of the interview is preserved, which 
 closed with a cordial invitation from the Governor to Franklin to 
 visit him again. This incident is valuable as showing the utter sim- 
 
 i Mr. Vesey. 
 
1740.] 
 
 GROWTH OF THE COLONY. 
 
 245 
 
 plicity of life in the colonial seaport, where books and men who had 
 read them were so few that the King's representative was glad to 
 hold an hour's literary conversation with a printer's boy. 
 
 The Governor lived within the lines of the Fort, near the upper end 
 of what is now the Battery, and his official residence was The GoTCT . 
 called Fort George. It was burned down, with tragic con- nor " hou * e " 
 sequences, as we have already related, in the fire of 1740. The Gov- 
 ernor's report of that date shows that it was roofed with cedar shingles. 
 Most of the large buildings at that time were covered with tiles, and 
 it is said that no roof in New York was slated till after the beginning 
 of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Fort George in 1740. 
 
 An amusing passage in one of Governor Clarke's despatches shows 
 how far the city, in 1738, had drifted from the decorous pre- pe^-of 
 tences of loyalty. He complains that many of the principal lo - valt y- 
 people of the town refused to follow his example in putting on 
 mourning for the death of Queen Caroline, "pretending that they 
 had made themselves the joke of the town for doing it on the late 
 king's death." 
 
 The population of New York city, which was hardly 3,000 in 1689, 
 was about 12,000 in 1756. In the face of the perpetual difference, 
 common to all the colonies, produced by the desire of the governors 
 to make their own salaries a permanent charge on the colonial rev- 
 enue, the matchless advantages of the seaport asserted themselves 
 
246 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 [CHAP. IX. 
 
 in a growth so quiet and steady as 
 to be hardly noticed. Their corn- 
 Growth of Points that their territory 
 the city. had b een diminished, to 
 
 the advantage of Connecticut and 
 the Jerseys, showed their ignorance 
 of the laws of trade ; for the prod- 
 ucts of those provinces came to New 
 York as steadily as ever. New Jer- 
 sey, as we have seen, hoped to make 
 of Perth- Am boy the most import- 
 ant provincial seaport. But natural 
 laws are stronger than legislation, 
 and it is difficult now to believe 
 that the pretty seaside village on 
 the Jersey coast could ever have 
 been supposed to be a formidable 
 rival to the great commercial city 
 of our time. 
 
 As the trade in furs became less 
 important, the exportation 
 of naval stores increased. 
 But down to 1740 the attempts to 
 manufacture potash now one of 
 the products most readily furnished 
 by forest regions in America had 
 not been successful. Dreams of 
 making a wine country of the val- 
 leys of the Hudson and Mohawk 
 appear in some of the governors' 
 despatches. Some iron was made 
 from the rich bog ores ; but neither 
 the people of New York nor the 
 grantees of Pennsylvania knew the 
 value of the coal which was yet to 
 be found on the upper waters of the 
 Delaware and Susquehanna. In 
 general, it may be said that the 
 manufactures of the province were 
 unimportant. That colonial policy 
 of England which Chatham suc- 
 cinctly stated when he said he 
 would not have a hob-nail made in 
 
 Manufac- 
 tures. 
 
1743.] HEALTHY PROGRESS. 247 
 
 the colonies, had full sway. In 1700 " a coarse pair of yarn stock- 
 ings," which cost 9d. in London, cost 3s. 6d. English in the city of 
 New York ; and a pair of shoes which cost 3 a. 6 d. in London, cost 
 7 . 6 d. in New York. But ship-building flourished steadily, and ves- 
 sels were sent abroad loaded with provincial products, and sold at once 
 in foreign harbors. 
 
 Cadwallader Golden, the Surveyor-general, who was one of the few 
 American men of science at that time, in attempting to show 
 the existence of a feasible route for trade to the Mississippi, negation 
 
 scheme. 
 
 finds it by the upper waters of the Susquehanna, which he 
 proposed to reach by Cayuga Lake, thence through the Juniata by 
 portages to the Alleghany River, and so through the Ohio. 
 
 As early as 1703 a delegation waited on Lord Cornbury to ask in 
 what part of the " King's farm " he wished to have the col- Talk of a 
 lege [King's, now Columbia] built. The King's farm in- college - 
 eluded all the region west of Broadway, and north of Cortland Street. 
 But no happy answer of Cornbury founded a university by a grant 
 out of that princely domain. In 1738 Lieutenant-governor Clarke 
 sent home " an act for the further encouragement of public schools 
 for the teaching of Latin, Greek, and mathematics." The encourage- 
 ment was the appropriation for this purpose of a tax on peddlers and 
 hucksters. 
 
 From a perusal of council records, or governors' reports, of the con- 
 dition of the colony during the first half of the eighteenth 
 
 1J U 1 U J- Healthy 
 
 century, one would suppose it was shaken by disease in every growth of 
 limb, and only preserved each year from instant death by 
 the most heroic stimulants. But in truth it was gaining with that 
 sturdy health which a temperate climate, a matchless system of water 
 communication, boundless forests, fertile soil, and a frugal, religious, 
 and industrious people almost compelled. Before the half century 
 was over, which began when Sloughter, in a drunken fit, hanged 
 Leisler, the representative of popular rights, the people of New York 
 had discovered their own real power, and in their own quiet way had 
 asserted it. The misdeeds of the King's governors did little toward 
 arresting the healthy growth of material prosperity. Education and 
 the ornaments of civilization followed, perhaps with somewhat unequal 
 step, on the accumulation of wealth, and before the middle of the cen- 
 tury the province had established itself as " the key of the system of 
 American colonies." Though it did not know it, New York was 
 already well forward on the path of empire. 
 
 Since 1737 Lord Delaware had held the sinecure office of Governor- 
 general over New York and New Jersey ; but in 1743 a separate ju- 
 risdiction was established in each, George Clinton being appointed 
 
248 NEW YORK. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 Governor of the former, and Lewis Morris of the latter province. Clin- 
 ton was the second son of the Earl of Lincoln, and an ad- 
 tonGov- " miral in the British navy. He remained in office ten years ; 
 and if, as has been charged against him, he carried back to 
 England eighty thousand pounds as the fruit of his ten years' service, 
 he may have thought himself sufficiently compensated for an official 
 career of more than ordinary trials and vexations. If the post was 
 bestowed upon him through family influence, rather than because of 
 any personal fitness, he served his royal master at least with zeal, 
 even if he gained small credit for ability. 
 
 His administration was one long struggle in defence of the royal 
 prerogative. The result was an enforced concession to the 
 D" il e nc C ey colonists of rights for which they had long contended, but 
 which by previous governors had been in some measure suc- 
 cessfully withstood. Clarke, the late Lieutenant-governor, had retired 
 from office worn out with contention with the popular party, and the 
 most influential leader of that party was James De Lancey, the Chief 
 Justice. This able man Clinton, nevertheless, at his accession took 
 for his adviser, and for the rest of his term repented of his weakness. 
 It had long been a vital point with the party which De Lancey rep- 
 resented, that the Governor should be under the control of the Assem- 
 bly, by making his salary depend upon an annual appropriation. 
 Hunter had in his time defeated this policy, by inducing or constrain- 
 ing the Assembly to extend the limitation to five years, and this had 
 held good through the administrations of successive governors to the 
 time of Clarke, Clinton's predecessor. In the contest with Clarke the 
 popular party had been successful; the rule was changed, and the 
 salaries of the Governor and other official persons were to be deter- 
 mined from year to year by the will of the Assembly. 
 
 De Lancey persuaded Clinton to continue this concession ; to ac- 
 cept, that is, the precedent lately established under Clarke, 
 an d not to insist upon that which several preceding govern- 
 bly - ors had made the rule. He took a still greater advantage 
 
 afterward of the Governor's ignorance of civil affairs, by persuading 
 him to consent to another and more serious innovation. The Assem- 
 bly sent the Governor an appropriation bill, in which, instead of 
 appropriating certain sums for the salaries of incumbents of certain 
 offices, they provided that those salaries should be paid to certain per- 
 sons named who then held those offices. The Governor signed the 
 bill, and the advantage once gained the Assembly never relinquished. 
 They had reduced him at the outset to pecuniary dependence, by get- 
 ting into their own hands the power of making his salary what they 
 pleased from year to year, or even of withholding it altogether ; and 
 
1743.] PERPLEXITIES OF GOVERNOR CLINTON. 249 
 
 he practically surrendered the appointing power when he permitted 
 them to bestow a salary upon a person named in the appropriation 
 bill ; for the pay expired with his term of office, and the next incum- 
 bent was without pay till the Assembly saw fit to provide it. It was 
 a short step from refusing to pay anything to an officer nominated by 
 the Governor, to dictating whom they chose to have him nominate. 
 
 Experience soon taught the Governor how skillfully he had been 
 led to put himself almost entirely under the control of the Assembly. 
 His letters to the Government at home are filled, from the first year of 
 his administration to the end of it, with complaints of encroachments 
 upon the royal prerogative by an insolent, malicious, and flagitious 
 "faction," which aimed at getting the whole power of government 
 into its own hands, and would be satisfied with nothing less than 
 making the colony independent 
 of the Crown. Whether from 
 want of regard to the man, or 
 indifference as to the affairs of 
 the colony, and incredulity as 
 to the growth of this popular 
 spirit, the Board of Trade and 
 the Secretary of State seem to 
 have given little heed to these ;;' 
 constant and bitter complaints 
 of the Governor. He soon quar- 
 relled with De Lancey, and took 
 Cadwallader Golden as his chief 
 adviser ; the result was only to 
 add to the hostility of the Assem- 
 bly the hostility of the Council. 
 When the war with France was 
 over and the public exigencies 
 were lessened, he attempted to 
 
 r Cadwallader Golden. 
 
 retrieve his early errors, by re- 
 fusing to sign money bills till the Assembly would consent to make 
 the support of the Governor permanent, and to attach sala- C iinton' 
 ries to offices and not to officers named. But the Assembly weakness 
 was quite as firm as he, and could afford to refrain from appropriat- 
 ing money much longer than he and the Government could afford to 
 do without it. A dead-lock of two years ended in his unconditional 
 submission, and he signed the bills at last with their objectionable 
 features unchanged. He prorogued Assemblies and removed coun- 
 cillors, but the faction did not abate in the slightest degree its oppo- 
 sition to him and his plans and policy. The Government at home 
 

 250 NEW YORK. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 paid so little heed to his complaints, that it sent out to De Lancey a 
 commission as Lieutenant-governor. Clinton put it in his pocket and 
 kept it there for a year or two, making the while pathetic appeals to 
 Government that he might not be compelled to submit to the humilia- 
 tion of appointing his bitterest enemy to a place of trust second only 
 to his own, a humiliation, nevertheless, which he was compelled to 
 submit to when he left for England, and was constrained, on the eve 
 of departure, to install De Lancey as his successor. 
 
 This bitter contest between Clinton and the Assembly, underlies all 
 the public events of this period of ten years in the history of New 
 York, a contest not merely personal, remarkable as it was in that 
 respect, but between the incongruous forces of arbitrary rule and the 
 rights of the people. 1 The renewal of war between France and Eng- 
 land was known in New York in July, 1744, and Clinton was at that 
 war with time in Albany making preparations in expectation of that 
 France. event. The treaty with the Six Nations was renewed ; cir- 
 cular letters were sent to the governors of the other provinces, that 
 measures might be concerted for the common defence, and the Governor 
 some time before had ordered a double garrison to Oswego, which the 
 traders had deserted, to hold that important post. He was already 
 face to face with the difficulties which were for years to perplex and 
 harass him. The Assembly was urged by repeated messages to pro- 
 vide for the safety of the province, but he writes to the Duke of New- 
 castle, Secretary for the Colonies, to whom he sends his messages 
 and the replies, u Your Grace will see how backward they are in 
 their deliberations, and that it is with the utmost difficulty to bring 
 them to any tolerable resolution for the service of the publick." The 
 Assembly chose to judge for itself, of the necessities of the occasion ; 
 the treasury was under their control ; they would not sub- 
 mit to dictation from the Governor, and they were largely 
 
 influenced by the jealous caution, common to all the colo- 
 nies, lest their expenditure for defence should be of more benefit 
 to some other province than their own. It was a question, moreover, 
 with many persons whether the wiser policy was not for the colonies 
 to maintain neutrality in the war, and thus be safe from attack from 
 either French or Indians; and from this came the most serious accu- 
 sation which Clinton made, as year by year the difference between 
 him and his opponents grew wider and deeper, that there was a strong 
 party at Albany with whom the trade in peltries and rum was of far 
 more moment than their allegiance to the King or the safety of the 
 colony, an accusation which was hardly thought worthy of contra- 
 diction. 
 
 1 New York Colonial Documents, vol. vi. 
 
1746.] PREPARATIONS FOR THE INVASION OF CANADA. 251 
 
 The next year Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts, asked for aid in 
 his proposed expedition against Louisburg. It was, Clinton Aid to ex . 
 thought, of quite as much importance to New York as to ^j^t n 
 New England that this attempt should be successful. But ^"M"*- 
 the Assembly did not agree with him. They refused to send men, 
 and in money appropriated only .3,000. Even this was done with 
 great deliberation and evident reluctance, while they were not in the 
 least moved to emulation when the Governor sent off at his own ex- 
 pense some cannon to assist in the siege. They turned a deaf ear to 
 his earnest demands for active measures of defence and offence, till at 
 length, wearied with a hopeless struggle, he dissolved the House, and 
 ordered a new election. Though the news of the probable success of 
 the siege of Louisburg induced this body to vote 5,000 additional in 
 aid of that enterprise, it soon showed itself as uncompliant as its pre- 
 decessor. "The dispatch of business," wrote the Governor, is 
 
 Smith's Vly. From an Old Print. 
 
 "greatly neglected by the Assembly." " They are selfish, and jealous 
 of the power of the Crown, and of such levelling principles that they 
 are constantly attacking its prerogative." That his complaints were 
 not altogether unreasonable, is plain enough. 
 
 In November of this year the fort and twenty houses at Saratoga 
 were destroyed, thirty persons killed, and sixty made captives by the 
 Indians. 
 
 Crown Point on Lake Champlain was a position of great impor- 
 tance to both French and English, as it commanded the frontier line 
 and the ordinary road of communication between Canada and Albany. 
 In 1746 orders came from England for the capture of Canada, in ac- 
 
252 NEW YORK. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 cordance with Shirley's plan, to follow up the taking of Louisburg ; 
 and all the colonies, as far south as Virginia, were to furnish 
 of " troops for that purpose. An advance was to be made from 
 
 Louisburg against Quebec, and another from Albany towards 
 Montreal by way of Crown Point. The Six Nations again promised to 
 take up the war hatchet against the French, and that they would not 
 permit their priests to come among them any more, declaring, "on 
 the contrary, should any now dare to come, we know no use for him 
 or them but to Roast them." As the rendezvous of the troops was at 
 Albany, within the jurisdiction of Governor Clinton, the command 
 devolved upon him, when Lieutenant-governor Gooch, of Virginia, 
 who had been appointed to that position by the commissioners of the 
 several provinces, declined to accept it. 
 
 Clinton called to his aid William Johnson, who was already well 
 wniiam known for his knowledge of the Indians and his influence 
 Johnson. over ^ nem> fhe Mohawks made him one of their chiefs, 
 and he had married an Indian woman, the sister of Joseph Brant, who 
 was the head of that tribe. Through Johnson's efforts the alliance with 
 the Six Nations was confirmed, and other tribes in Pennsylvania and 
 New England had promised to go upon the war-path. But all these 
 formidable preparations were destined only to involve the unfortunate 
 Governor in fresh difficulties. D'Anville's fleet off the coast of Nova 
 Scotia arrested the movement from Louisburg. General St. Clair, 
 who was to be commander-in-chief of the expedition against Canada, 
 did not come with the promised reenforcement of British troops. 
 Delay was inevitable ; the Indians, disgusted with inactivity, began 
 to disperse. The colonial troops remained idle, without pay, and 
 poorly fed, at Albany, through the autumn and winter. The Assem- 
 bly, in spite of Clinton's appeals and protests, refused to make any 
 appropriation for their pay, and the Council, with the exception of 
 Mr. Golden and one or two other members, sustained the Assembly. 
 The troops clamored and broke out at last into open mutiny, and the 
 Governor was only able to extricate himself from serious difficulty by 
 drawing upon England for large sums. Johnson attempted to take 
 Crown Point with an inadequate force and failed, and then came ad- 
 vices from England that the expedition against Canada was abandoned, 
 to be followed soon after by a general peace and the treaty of Aix-la- 
 Chapelle. 
 
 When the news reached the Governor that the offensive movement 
 against the French was given up, and that the troops were to be dis- 
 banded, he proposed to put his own province upon the defensive. He 
 deemed it necessary that a force of eight hundred men should be re- 
 tained and sent to the frontier, but the Assembly refused to provide 
 
1753.] DE LANCEY LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR. 253 
 
 the means, and declined to do anything further for the support of the 
 Indians. The Governor thereupon ordered the colonels of the militia 
 of the several counties to hold themselves in readiness to 
 
 ... . Disregard of 
 
 march at a moment s notice. He called out the regiment Clinton's or- 
 and independent companies of the city of New York to 
 parade, and his order was read at the head of the ranks. " But," 
 he writes to the Duke of Newcastle, " every man unanimously re- 
 fused to obey any orders from the Crown, unless an Act of Assembly 
 
 East River Shore, 1750. From an Old Print. 
 
 was passed in the Province for that purpose ; which shows how well 
 my opinion of their levelling, and the republican principles, has been 
 grounded from time to time." And he adds pathetically in a post- 
 script " nothing has encouraged y* faction so much as this, that I 
 have not been able to obtain any thing to show to them, signifying 
 His Majest 8 approbation of my conduct, or displeasure of theirs." 
 It was not his fault that he was compelled for several years longer to 
 endure these humiliations, for he asked repeatedly, but in vain, to be 
 recalled ; and the final mortification the necessity of giving to De 
 Lancey his commission as Lieutenant-governor was, no doubt, the 
 keener that he had hoped to escape it when Sir Danvers Osborn ar- 
 rived in 1753, to supersede him as Governor. But that 
 gentleman, who was in a condition of morbid mental depres- s^Dan^ers 
 sion, took his own life two days after his inauguration ; and 
 Clinton had then no alternative but to deliver formally to De Lancey 
 the commission which he had so long withheld, and had so repeatedly 
 urged the Government in England to recall. 
 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 OPENING OF THE FRENCH WAR. 
 
 CONTEST BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE FOR TERRITORY IN AMERICA. FRENCH 
 MOVEMENTS INTO THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. LINE OF FRENCH FORTS AT THE 
 WEST. PROGRESS OF ENGLISH SETTLEMENT WESTWARD. THE OHIO COMPANY. 
 MAJOR WASHINGTON. His FIGHT WITH JUMONVILLE. SURRENDER AT FORT 
 NECESSITY. CONVENTION AT ALBANY AND PLAN FOR COLONIAL UNION. AR- 
 RIVAL OP GENERAL BRADDOCK. His EXPEDITION. FRANKLIN'S ADVICE. 
 BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT AND DEATH. OPERATIONS IN NOVA SCOTIA. THE QUES- 
 TION OF BOUNDARIES. SETTLEMENT OF HALIFAX. EXILE OF THE ACADIANS. 
 
 THE treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle 
 settled nothing of the great con- 
 test between France and England 
 for supremacy in America ; it 
 merely announced a truce, during 
 which both parties, recovering from their exhaustion, made provision 
 against an inevitable and decisive conflict. In America petty hostil- 
 
1748.] THE DISPUTED TERRITORY. 255 
 
 ities on the border were scarcely interrupted between the date of the 
 treaty (1748) and the resumption of open war in 1755. As we have 
 seen, Governor Clinton, of New York, thought it absolutely neces- 
 sary, though the Assembly did not agree with him, that on the 
 disbanding of the troops in 1748, a force of eight hundred men should 
 be in readiness to march at a moment's warning to the defence of 
 the frontiers. The Governors of other provinces sympathized witli 
 Clinton's apprehensions, and not without reason. 
 
 The two centres of interest for both nations were the country about 
 the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the valley of the Ohio. In 1749, De 
 Celoron, the French commander at Detroit, made an expedition to the 
 Ohio River, claimed the country as belonging to the French King, 
 commanded all English traders to leave it, and wrote to the Governor 
 of Pennsylvania that if such " traders should thereafter make their 
 appearance on the Beautiful River, they would be treated without any 
 delicacy." Some who did not obey were afterward arrested near the 
 lake of Otsanderket (Sandusky) and were detained as prisoners. A 
 few months later, several Mohawk chiefs assembled at the house of 
 Colonel Johnson, and asked of him an explanation of a leaden tablet 
 which was to have been buried on the banks of the Ohio, but had 
 been taken by some of their tribe from a French interpreter. It bore 
 a Latin inscription claiming ownership of all that region of coun- 
 try for France. 1 The French built a fort at a commanding point 
 above Niagara Falls, the Governor of Canada maintaining their right 
 to encroach thus upon the lands of the Iroquois, who, he declared, 
 were not subjects of England, but, if subjects at all, of France. 
 There were constant alarms of bodies of Frenchmen making their 
 way southward from the lakes to the Ohio valley; and of their de- 
 termination to possess and hold that region, there was no room for 
 doubt. The aim of both nations was the same, to be com- French and 
 passed, however, for different purposes and in different ways, p,"*"*} 1 ,, the 
 The French meant, by a series of fortifications, to connect West- 
 the St. Lawrence with the Gulf of Mexico ; the English proposed the 
 establishment of colonies westward of the Alleghanies, which should 
 be outposts of defence for the seaboard settlements, and bases for 
 
 1 Translation: In the year 1749, during the reign of Louis XV., King of France, we, 
 Celoron, commander of a detachment sent by Monsieur the Marquis de la Galissoniere.com- 
 mander-in-ehief of New France-, for the restoration of tranquillity in some villages of In- 
 dians of these districts, have buried this plate at the confluence of the Ohio and Tchada- 
 koiu, this 29th July, near the River Ohio, otherwise Beautiful River, as a monument of the 
 renewal of possession which we have taken of the said River Ohio, and of all those that 
 therein fall, and of all the lands on both sides, as far as the sources of the said rivers, as 
 enjoyed or ought to be enjoyed by the preceding kings of France, and as they therein have 
 maintained themselves by arms and by treaties, especially by those of Riswk k. of Utrecht, 
 and OL" Aix-la-Chapelle Lhcunitnts Relating to Colonial History of New York, vol. vi. 
 
256 
 
 OPENING OF THE FRENCH WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. X. 
 
 further advances into the unknown western country. Each put forth 
 claims resting upon discovery or purchase, but each knew also that 
 possession was the strongest title, and it was inevitable that the 
 struggle for possession should come first upon those who actually 
 stood upon the disputed territory. 
 
 The course of the French can be traced by the successive posts 
 which they established along the chain of great lakes and upon the 
 
 Map showing the Positions of French and English Forts and Settlements 
 about the beginning of the French War. 
 
 highways of the river system. As early as 1670 and 1671 the Jesuits 
 established missions at the outlet of Lake Superior, at the head of 
 Green Bay, and upon the northern shore of Lake Michigan ; and the 
 Sault Ste. Marie, La Baye, and Michilimackinac became centres of 
 Indian trade, rendezvous for the coureurs de bois, and garrisons for 
 French troops. A little later, a line of forts was established, guarding 
 the passages of the great lakes, Frontenac, where the St. Lawrence 
 issues from Lake Ontario, Niagara, and Detroit. These places be- 
 came by degrees the centres of little settlements that grew up under 
 the protection of their walls, but military occupation continued to be 
 the chief aim. Then the access to the Mississippi was controlled by 
 Fort St. Joseph near one of the sources of the Illinois, and still more 
 by the older fort at Green Bay, on the Wisconsin River. The valleys 
 of the Miami and the Wabash were held by Fort Miami and Fort 
 
1748.] THE OHIO COMPANY. 257 
 
 Ouatanon, a little below the present site of Lafayette, Ind., while 
 the southern shore of Lake Erie was guarded by Forts Presqu' Isle, 
 Le Bocuf, and Sandtisky. Along the natural highways to the Mis- 
 sissippi and the Ohio were stockade settlements at Vincennes, at 
 Kaskaskia, at Cahokia ; and on the banks of the Mississippi were 
 solitary stations marking the course of French arms and trade. 
 Coming closer to the frontier of British settlements, communica- 
 tion was open from Fort Niagara to Presqu' Isle, on the site of the 
 present town of Erie, thence to Fort Le Boeuf on a branch of the 
 Allegliany, from which there was direct passage by water to Venango, 
 and to the entrance of the Alleghany into the Ohio, where stood the 
 farthest outpost of the French, in this quarter, Fort Du Quesne. It 
 will thus be seen that the French could march their troops by natural 
 highways from the stronghold in Canada, at the back of the New 
 York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia settlements, and were rapidly get- 
 ting control of that great artery, the Mississippi itself. 
 
 The English, on the other hand, were pushing their colonies from 
 the Atlantic coast westward, by irregular lines, across the rugged 
 Alleghanies, with little help from river courses. From those moun- 
 tains and from the country on the farther side, incursions from Indians 
 were always threatened, and it was early seen that there was need of 
 establishing settlements upon that frontier country which should serve 
 as a protection to the thinly scattered homes lying between the moun- 
 tains and the sea-coast. But the English life was that of settlers, not 
 of traders and hunters, and the measures taken were for occupation of 
 the country, not for simple military control. It was partly the move- 
 ments of the French that suggested to Spotswood of Virginia the 
 extension of the Virginia settlements westward, to intercept the com- 
 munication between Canada and Louisiana ; and three years later 
 Governor Keith of Pennsylvania urged upon the Lords of Trade the 
 erection of a fort on Lake Erie. From time to time, during the next 
 thirty years, warning voices were raised by sagacious observers, and 
 plans suggested for the systematic action of the government. 1 
 
 The first organized attempt at possession, was the formation of 
 the Ohio Company in 1748, by an association of gentlemen The0 hio 
 in Virginia and Maryland, with a representative in London. Com P au - v 
 Thomas Lee, one of his Majesty's Council in Virginia, was the original 
 projector ; and Lawrence and Augustine Washington, elder brothers 
 of George, were largely interested in the enterprise. Five hundred 
 thousand acres of land were granted to the Company by the King, to be 
 
 1 These considerations, with others, were set forth at a later date by Franklin in his de- 
 fence of the Walpole Grant, which asked for an immense tract of country south of the 
 Ohio, for purposes of settlement. 
 VOL. in. 17 
 
258 OPENING OF THE FRENCH WAR. [CHAR X. 
 
 taken chiefly on the south side of the Ohio, between the Monongahela 
 and Kanawha rivers, and west of the Alleghanies. One of the princi- 
 pal objects of the Company was to make use of the river communica- 
 tion by the Potomac and the eastern branches of the Ohio, and thus 
 connect the new country with Virginia and Maryland, rather than 
 with the rival colony of Pennsylvania. The road over the mountains 
 from Cumberland to what is now Pittsburg, was laid out by Colonel 
 Cresap, one of the Company, chiefly through the agency of a friendly 
 Indian, Nemacolin. Exploring parties were sent out in 1750 and 1751 
 under Christopher Gist, and Gist himself, who had been appointed 
 surveyor of the Company, formed a settlement, with eleven other fam- 
 ilies, in the country between the Monongahela and Youghiogheny 
 rivers. 
 
 But the country which the Ohio Company proposed to occupy, 
 though granted by George II., had other owners. When Penn made 
 his first settlement, he found on the banks of the Delaware the Lenni 
 Lenape (Original Men), known by the English then and afterward 
 as the Delaware Indians. They had been reduced to submission by 
 the Iroquois, and they afterward sold their lands to Penn, and lived 
 amicably by the side of the settlers. But little by little the whites 
 crowded back the Indians, Penn's successors not always dealing with 
 them according to his precept and example, till the Delawares were 
 driven to the western slopes of the Alleghanies and the adjacent val- 
 leys. The Shawnoes, who had also been subdued by the Six Nations, 
 were their neighbors. 
 
 The Ohio Company petitioned the government of Virginia to invite 
 the Indians to a treaty. A meeting was called at Logstown, 
 a tmding-post about seventeen miles from the present site 
 
 of Pittsburg, on the north side of the Ohio. The traders 
 and the French alike threw obstacles in the way of a good understand- 
 ing between the government and the Indians, and it was not until a 
 second call was given in 1752, that Mr. Gist, as agent of the Com- 
 pany, Colonel Fry, and two other commissioners from Virginia, met 
 the Indians and effected a treaty, by which the Indians agreed not to 
 molest any settlements that might be made on the southeast side of 
 the Ohio. But the Indians were careful even now to refuse to recog- 
 nize any English claim to the land. The Company constructed a fort, 
 built some roads, and brought goods for trading ; a few families set- 
 tled about Gist's place, but before the country had been fairly occupied, 
 their vigilant adversaries, the French, had pushed southward from 
 Lake Erie by the highway of the Alleghany, and were preparing to 
 establish themselves, not by colonies, but by forts, in the heart of the 
 disputed territory. In the autumn of 1753 they had intrenched 
 
1753.] MAJOR WASHINGTON. 250 
 
 themselves tit Venango (now Franklin, in Venango County, Pennsyl- 
 vania). When this was known in Virginia, it was determined to send 
 a commissioner to investigate the proceeding, since Venango was on 
 territory claimed by that colony. Governor Dinwiddie selected for 
 this duty a Virginia surveyor, about twenty-two years of age, r , earKe 
 who had already shown a marked capacity for dealing with 
 Indians and for backwoods life, and whose brothers had been 
 closely identified with the movements of the Ohio Company, pan>- 
 Major George Washington. The young commissioner, accompa- 
 nied by Mr. Gist and a few attendants, set out from Fredericksburg, 
 October 30, 1753, and making friends at Logstown with some Dela- 
 ware chiefs, took them with him to Venango, which he reached early 
 in December. The officers whom he found there sent him on to the 
 
 Washington on his Journey to the French Forti. 
 
 commander at Fort Le Boeuf, to whom he delivered the letter of 
 Governor Dinwiddie. He brought back an evasive reply, but the 
 object of his expedition was really accomplished in his observations of 
 the movements and plans of the French and their dealings with the 
 Indians. 
 
 The report made by Washington on his return, Jannarv 1>, 1754, 
 led to prompt action on the part of Virginia. The Assembly voted 
 10,000 for fitting out an expedition, which was to erect necessary 
 fortifications at the confluence of the Alleghany and the Monongahela 
 to protect the Ohio Company in its operations. The provinces of 
 North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were called upon for aid, 
 but the jealousy between the provinces, and the disputes between the 
 people and Proprietary in Pennsylvania, prevented any very vigorous 
 
260 
 
 OPENING OF THE FRENCH WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. X. 
 
 begun by 
 
 assistance, so that the main burden fell upon Virginia. Washington 
 was made second in command, under Colonel Joshua Fry, and the 
 active work of organizing the little army at Alexandria was mainly 
 his. Meanwhile, in advance of the action of the Burgesses, a com- 
 pany of men under Ensign Ward had been sent forward in haste to 
 secure the position. Washington, in command of the main body, had 
 reached the camp at Will's Creek, near Cumberland, when he learned 
 that the French under Contrecceur had appeared in force 
 before the works which Ward and his men had begun, and 
 had demanded an immediate surrender. On the 17th of 
 April, 1754, Ward surrendered, and that date has been taken as the 
 
 beginning of actual hostilities 
 in this final struggle of the 
 French and English for su- 
 premacy in America. Ward 
 himself brought the intelli- 
 gence to Washington, who at 
 once sent expresses to the 
 Governors of Pennsylvania, 
 Maryland, and Virginia, ask- 
 ing for reinforcements, and 
 then pressed forward with his 
 men, without waiting for Col- 
 onel Fry, who had not yet ar- 
 rived. Contreco3ur proceeded, 
 after Ward's surrender, to 
 complete the works which 
 the English had begun, and 
 named the place Fort Dn Quesne, in honor of the Governor of Canada. 
 It was Washington's plan to proceed to the junction of Red Stone 
 Creek with the Monongahela, thirty-seven miles from the French 
 position, and there intrench while waiting for reinforcements ; but 
 before he reached that point he learned, at a place called Great Mead- 
 ows, not only that the French force had been increased, but that a 
 party was in the woods approaching him. He took advantage of 
 the night to surprise the scouting party in advance of the main body, 
 and captured more than half their number. In the attack M. de 
 Jumonville, the commander, was slain. Washington then hastily 
 erected earthworks at Great Meadows, naming the place Fort Neces- 
 sity, and waited anxiously for the reenforcements which he 
 had been told were on the way. Before these came, how- 
 ever, on the 3d of July, he was attacked by a large body of 
 French and compelled, after a gallant struggle, to capitulate, upon 
 
 Plan of Fort Du Quesne. 
 
 Washing- 
 ton's sur- 
 render. 
 
 
1754.] CONVENTION AT ALBANY. 261 
 
 terms which, through the ignorance or duplicity of the interpreter, 
 proved to be less favorable than was at first supposed. 
 
 The French seized upon this affair as a pretext for diplomatic nego- 
 tiation, behind which they concealed more active measures. 
 The English pushed forward their preparations with less res toward 
 diligence. The government had already sent instructions to 
 the colonies not to permit encroachments by the French, which was 
 precisely the course Virginia had been pursuing, to form a confed- 
 eracy for mutual support, and directed the Governor of New York to 
 call a Council of Indian chiefs, to conciliate them by presents, and 
 win them to the British interest. The imminent peril in which the 
 colonies found themselves was a powerful auxiliai'y to these instruc- 
 tions, and on the 19th of June, 1754, twenty-five delegates from seven 
 northern colonies, assembled at Albany, and there met delegates from 
 the Six Nations. 
 
 Franklin, who was sent from Pennsylvania, relates, in his " Auto- 
 biography," that, on the way to Albany, he drew up a plan for a 
 union of all the colonies under one government, and found, on his 
 arrival, that several of the commissioners had done the same thing. 
 There was a general belief in the necessity of such a union for the 
 better defence of the colonies, and the subject was discussed 
 with great deliberation. The plan finally adopted, based union oi the 
 upon that proposed by Franklin, provided for a federal 
 government, consisting of a President-general and a Grand Council. 
 The President was to be appointed by the Crown, with a veto power 
 over the acts of the Council ; the Council was to be a popular Congress, 
 composed of a designated number of delegates chosen by the Assem- 
 bly of each colony. The Congress was to meet annually, and oftener 
 if summoned by the President, and the term of service of members 
 was to be three years. 1 This constitution of government was submit- 
 ted in due time to the Board of Trade in England, and to the Assem- 
 blies of the several provinces, but was rejected by both. In England 
 it was thought to give too much power to the people ; in America the 
 fear was that too much was granted to a royal President. 
 
 1 The delegations of the several provinces were fixed as follows, and they show the 
 relative impoitnncK uf each at that time : 
 
 Massachusetts Bay 7 Pennsylvania '.6 
 
 New Hampshire 2 Marvlaiid . 4 
 
 Connecticut 5 Virginia .7 
 
 Rhode Island 2 North Carolina 4 
 
 New York 4 South Carolina . .... 4 
 
 New Jerseys 3 
 
 Nova Scotia and Georgia were not included in the plan. For a full report of the Con- 
 vention, see New York Colonial Documents, vol. vi. 
 
262 OPENING OF THE FRENCH WAR. [CHAP. X. 
 
 The Convention, however, devoted itself with great zeal to strength- 
 ening the alliance with the Indians, and impressing upon them how 
 disastrous it would be to their welfare, should they permit the French 
 to build forts upon the Ohio. The Indians replied : " The Governor 
 of Virginia and the Governor of Canada are both quarrelling about 
 lands which belong to us, and such a quarrel as this may end in our 
 destruction." 
 
 In September, 1754, Edward Braddock was commissioned as Com- 
 mander-in-chief of all the forces in North America, and witli 
 General him, as next in command, were associated Governor Shirley 
 and Sir William Pepperell of Massachusetts. It was the 
 design of the government to make a fourfold movement against the 
 French possessions. The French forts in Acadia were to be taken ; 
 expeditions were to proceed against Crown Point and Niagara; and 
 Braddock himself was at once to dislodge the French from Fort Du 
 Quesne and the other forts in the Ohio valley. After reducing those 
 places, he was to move on to Niagara and join the expedition which 
 was at the same time to attack that stronghold. The provision made 
 for this comprehensive plan was liberal. Six thousand troops were 
 provided by the Crown, equipped for service, and large sums were 
 placed at the disposal of the provinces, which were encouraged to raise 
 a provincial army. Braddock himself arrived with his expedition in 
 Hampton Roads, in February, 1755. The French, after reenforcing 
 Fort Du Quesne, in expectation of an early attack, had withdrawn 
 their troops during the winter, and there were now not over two hun- 
 dred men, French and Indian, in occupation. But the movements of 
 the English were speedily known, and the commander of the fort, on 
 guard against surprise, was able to summon something less than a 
 thousand men from the neighboring forts. Two months after Brad- 
 dock landed in Virginia, a formidable squadron sailed from Brest, car- 
 rying three thousand men to Canada. It seems almost as if the Eng- 
 lish had become befogged by their own diplomatic manoeuvres, when, 
 instead of attacking at once an armament whose destination and pur- 
 pose were unequivocal, they sent Admiral Boscawen, with a force half 
 that of the enemy's, to lie in wait for the squadron off the Banks of 
 Newfoundland, and some time after sent an insufficient reinforcement 
 to support him in the face of another powerful detachment of the 
 French fleet. Mirepoix had declared that the first gun fired 
 
 \\ ar begun. 
 
 at sea in a hostile manner should be taken as a declaration of 
 war. Boscawen captured only two French ships, and war was now 
 opened in dead earnest. 
 
 The Commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America was 
 a soldier of acknowledged training and personal bravery, but a self- 
 
1755.] BRADDOCK'S EXPEDITION. 263 
 
 confident and obstinate man, a martinet who held in high esteem the 
 traditions of the Coldstream Guards, of which lie had been Lieutrn- 
 ant-colonel. Upon his arrival he called a convention of the Governors 
 of the different colonies to meet him for conference, and urged upon 
 them, in the same letter, the formation of a common fund with which 
 to assist in carrying on operations. The convention met on April 14, 
 at Alexandria, and the intervening months were spent by the General 
 in discovering the difficulties which lay in his way. He found himself 
 representing the British power, but unable to overcome the obstinacy 
 or indifference of Assemblies and Governors. The affair of the Ohio 
 lands had been taken up by Virginia, and Virginia, therefore, showed 
 most alacrity in supporting the English General ; Pennsylvania was 
 dilatory, not from want of interest, but because of the interminable 
 quarrel between the Governor and the Assembly as to the amount of 
 money to be raised and the best way of raising it. The Bra , Ho( . k -g 
 most direct road led through that province, and contempoi'ary ex '' eij 
 as well as later judgments unite in deploring the error which led 
 Braddock to make Virginia, rather than Pennsylvania, his starting- 
 point; l but the choice was not singular, when Virginia had been all 
 along the moving colony, and the previous expeditions had followed 
 the road that had been blazed from Hill's Creek. 
 
 At the meeting of Governors, General Braddock earnestly urged 
 those points in the campaign which formed the basis of his instruc- 
 tions. He called for the establishment of a common fund ; but they 
 replied that they had in vain endeavored to persuade the several As- 
 semblies to take measures for this. He proposed that a treaty, with 
 presents, should be made with the Six Nations, and that Colonel John- 
 son should negotiate it. They assented to this, promised to raise eight 
 hundred pounds for presents, and also agreed to place the expedition 
 against Crown Point under Johnson's command. He proposed the 
 reenforcement of the fort at Oswego, and the building of two vessels 
 on Lake Ontario, to which they also agreed; and after full instructions 
 to Johnson, who was at first reluctant to accept his trust as pleni- 
 potentiary to the Six Nations, because of the lack of faith heretofore 
 shown toward the Indians, but finally was persuaded to accept in con- 
 sideration of Braddock 's known integrity, the council broke up, and 
 the armv began its movements. 
 
 V 
 
 On the 24th of April Braddock was at Frederick, Maryland, impa- 
 tiently awaiting the arrival of the wagons which he had ordered for 
 
 1 Eutick, i. 142. Franklin's Autobiography, in Bigelow's -Life <>f Benjamin /-'funk/in, 
 written by himself, i. 317. The Oldt-n Time, ii. 540. "It was computed at the time that 
 had he lauded at Philadelphia, his inarch would have been shortened by six weeks, and 
 40,000 wou'd have been saved in the cost of the expedition. Sargent's Bfid<lu<-k-, pp. 
 161, 162. 
 
264 
 
 OPENING OF THE FRENCH WAR. 
 
 [CllAl-. X. 
 
 transporting his stores. In the old barracks, still standing, he received 
 Washington, whom he had invited to join his military family as aid- 
 de-camp, and Franklin, who at this time was Postmaster-general of the 
 colonies. Franklin gave him immediate and important aid. When 
 the efforts to procure wagons had signally failed, he came forward 
 with a proposal to obtain them from Pennsylvania, and by a most 
 adroit advertisement and address, added to his personal influence, the 
 necessary conveyances were promptly secured. He might have been 
 of far greater service if Braddock could have been prevailed upon to 
 take warning from the words of this shrewd American. The English 
 General, who had already discussed with the naval commander the 
 Braddock's best course to be pursued with the French whom he should 
 plans ' capture at Fort Du Quesne, and had laid out his journey 
 through the backwoods as confidently as if expecting to march from 
 London to Greenwich, said to Franklin, in an off-hand way, that he 
 
 should only stop a 
 day or two at Fort 
 Du Quesne, and 
 then go on to Niag- 
 ara and Frontenac. 
 Franklin ventured 
 only to say : " To 
 be sure, sir, if you 
 arrive well before 
 Du Quesne with 
 these fine troops, so 
 well provided with 
 artillery, that 
 place, not com- 
 pletely fortified, and, as we hear, with no very strong garrison, can 
 probably make but a short resistance. The only danger I apprehend 
 of obstruction to your march is from ambuscades of Indians, who, by 
 constant practice, are dexterous in laying and executing them ; and 
 the slender line, near four miles long, which your array must make, 
 may expose it to be attacked by surprise in its flanks, and to be cut 
 like a thread into several pieces, which, from their distance, cannot 
 come up in time to support each other." " He smiled at my ignor- 
 ance," adds Franklin, "and replied: 'These savages may, indeed, be a 
 formidable enemy to your raw American militia, but upon the King's 
 regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible they should make 
 any impression.' I was conscious of an impropriety in my disputing 
 with a military man in matters of his profession, and said no more." 1 
 
 1 Bigelow's Life of Franklin, i. 324, 325. 
 
 
 
 Old Barracks, Frcdcr ck. 
 
1755.] 
 
 BRADDOCK'S EXPEDITION. 
 
 265 
 
 The same fatuous reliance on " regular troops " led Braddock to 
 receive so coldly and disdainfully the overtures of Croghan, the in- 
 terpreter, and his hundred Indians, that they fell off from him. 
 Washington knew the value of these men, and urged them upon the 
 General ; but though he seems to have been drawn to the young Vir- 
 ginian, he was incapable, as Washington himself says, " of giving up 
 any point he asserts, be it ever so incompatible with reason or com- 
 mon sense." 
 
 The rendezvous for all the forces was at Fort Cumberland on Will's 
 Creek, and here, on the 7th of June, Franklin's wagons and 
 horses having been gathered, the expedition made its final 
 start. It consisted of 1,000 regulars, brought over by Braddock, 30 
 sailors, and 1,200 provincials, be- 
 sides a train of artillery, and with 
 them, at the start, were a number of 
 friendly Indians. The road fol- 
 lowed was that originally made by 
 Nemacolin, over which Washington 
 had passed, now slowly widened by 
 the axes of the advance guard. 
 On the third night after starting, 
 the encampment was only five miles 
 beyond Fort Cumberland. A week 
 later, when they had effected the 
 crossing of the Great Savage Moun- 
 tain, they entered upon the gloomy 
 tract known as the Shades of 
 Death. Dense woods of enormous 
 white pines covered this region, 
 and the stillness of the forest only 
 sharpened the ear more intently 
 for the sudden crack of the Indian's 
 rifle. 
 
 When the expedition emerged 
 from this> at Little Meadows, where 
 an advance detachment had thrown 
 up some rude fortifications, a council 
 was held, to consider how best to 
 meet the growing difficulties. Wash- 
 ington's urgent advice was, to push 
 on with twelve hundred men, lightly 
 equipped, leaving about half the men and all the baggage and horses 
 that could be spared. His advice was taken, and again the army 
 
 Braddock's Route 
 
266 
 
 OPENING OF THE FRENCH WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. X. 
 
 His march. 
 
 moved forward, now more compact, but growing worn and exhausted 
 by the unwonted labors. 
 
 Now began also, as they plunged deeper into the wilderness, deser- 
 tions of the Indian allies, the picking off of stragglers by 
 hostile savages hovering on the flanks of the train, and sud- 
 den apparitions of dusky forms at night. The tactics of the army were 
 still those of European warfare. They halted, as Washington impa- 
 tiently declares, " to level evei'y mole-hill and to erect bridges over 
 every brook, by which means we were four days in getting twelve 
 miles." It was with difficulty that Braddock could persuade any of 
 the Indians still remaining with him, to act as scouts, while his own 
 movements were constantly watched and reported to the French 
 commander. At length on the 8th of July the army encamped two 
 
 miles from the Monongahela, 
 near what is known as Crooked 
 Run. They were on the same 
 side of the river as the Fort, but 
 the passage for two miles was 
 by a narrow defile, having the 
 river on the left, and a high 
 ridge on the right. It was de- 
 termined, therefore, to take ad- 
 vantage of two fords on the 
 Monongahela; to cross at the 
 first ford not far from the camp ; 
 then, proceeding along the south 
 side, to recross at the other, at 
 the mouth of Turtle Creek, dis- 
 tant, as the crow flies, from Fort 
 > u Q ue sne, only about eight 
 miles ; thence to march upon the fort and invest it. 
 
 The progress of Braddock's march had been reported from day 
 to day to Contrecosur, the commander at the fort. The 
 number of the army, whose line extended sometimes four 
 miles, was greatly exaggerated, and Contrecoeur, looking upon his 
 feeble garrison, not a thousand in number, of which four fifths were 
 Indians encamped about the walls, resolved not to hazard a battle, 
 but to seek an honorable surrender. The Indians shared his appre- 
 hensions ; but one of the captains of the regulars, De Beaujeu, well 
 versed in Indian warfai-e, begged to be allowed to lay an ambuscade 
 and intercept the British on their march. To do this, the consent 
 of the Indians had to be obtained, and it was only upon the morn- 
 ing of the 9th, when a runner brought word that the army was in 
 
 s F.e'd. 
 
 Action of 
 the French. 
 
1755.] BEAUJEU ATTACKS BRADDOCK. 267 
 
 motion again, that Beaujeu could bring them to resolution. Ap- 
 pearing at their council, he burst out, " I am determined to go out 
 and meet the eneiny. What ! will you suffer your father to go out 
 alone ? " From timidity and unfeigned reluctance they passed sud- 
 denly to fierce confidence and headlong haste. In a moment the war- 
 paint was on, and the whole body of French and Indians were frantic 
 for action. 
 
 Braddock broke camp early on the morning of the 9th, and hav- 
 ing sent detachments to hold both fords, moved his army across the 
 river. He ordered the march to be made as if on dress parade, and 
 in this manner, with splendid uniforms, colors flying, and martial 
 music, the soldiers eagerly looking forward to the end of their toil, 
 the whole army passed along the southern bank from the first ford 
 to the second, the sunlight falling on the brilliant colors and gleam- 
 ing steel. 1 Washington and Gates, Gage, Morgan, and Mercer, 
 names that were to be famous in another war, were there. 
 
 By two o'clock most of the troops had crossed the second ford. 
 From the gentle slope of the river bank, covered with an open wood 
 of walnut trees, the land rose abruptly into high hills from which fell 
 off three deep ravines, dense with a rank growth of trees and under- 
 brush. The inarch was over these rounding hills and diagonally to 
 the ravines which now began to disclose themselves. Suddenly, when 
 the troops were separated by the nature of the ground, one of the engi- 
 neers, who was marking out the road, looked up and saw a man, 
 gayly dressed in a fringed hunting-dress, wearing a silver gorget on 
 his breast, come leaping down the hill-side. It was Beaujeu. Be- 
 hind him, following with bounding steps, the motley array of French 
 and Indians came pressing on. He stopped, and swung his Theambug _ 
 hat about his head, when suddenly the savages disappeared, cade 
 the French only remaining in sight and pouring a murderous fire upon 
 the English. In a moment from the ravines on either side came vol- 
 leys accompanied by unearthly yells and shrieks such as never before 
 had saluted the ears of the regulars. Gage's men, who held the ad- 
 vance, stood their ground and were presently reenforced by St. Clair's 
 working party. They returned the fire of the French, and Beaujeu fell 
 dead. 
 
 The Indians began to fly, but Dumas and De Ligueris, compan- 
 ions of Beaujeu, rallied the savages, and from their posts behind the 
 trees rapidly picked off the regulars, who continued to fire with great 
 noise and fury into the forest, which now seemed transformed into a 
 
 1 " Washington was often heard to say. during his lifetime, that the most beautiful spec- 
 tacle he had ever beheld was the display of the British troops ou this eveutful morning." 
 Sparks's Washington, ii. 469. 
 
268 
 
 OPENING OF THE FRENCH WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. X. 
 
 troop of devils, each tree sending its murdei-ous bullets into the ranks 
 of the regiment. Scarcely a man was to be seen, but the deadly fire 
 was unerring and incessant. Braddock, who was with the rear still 
 at the river bank, hearing the engagement, sent forward the bulk of 
 his forces, leaving four hundred to protect the baggage at the river. 
 They had formed and were advancing, when Gage's party fell back 
 upon the advance, and the mass of men, struggling in confusion, be- 
 came almost a mob, into which the French and Indians, hovering 
 about as if in the branches of the trees, plunged their deadly fire. 
 In vain Braddock, rushing hither and thither, sought to rally his 
 
 Beaujeu's Advance. 
 
 men and form them ; in vain he urged them forward. Four horses 
 were shot under him ; he mounted a fifth, and with his officers flung 
 himself in advance to inspirit his men. But they could not be ral- 
 lied. The provincials, indeed, who throughout maintained more cool- 
 ness than the regulars, better understanding the nature of the warfare, 
 quickly took positions behind trees. Washington urged Braddock to 
 
1755.] 
 
 BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 
 
 260 
 
 give the word for the men to adopt this method, but instead, the in- 
 fatuated commander himself drove men from out of their skulking- 
 places, as he thought them, and insisted that the battle should be waged 
 according to established rules. In the confusion the men fired upon 
 their own comrades. Braddock himself was wounded, but while lying 
 upon the ground he continued to give orders, and the army, trained to 
 obedience, while it could not advance, could at least stand and be 
 shot down. 
 
 At length, when they were surrounded and even the baggage was 
 attacked, and all hope of victory was gone, he ordered the 
 drums to beat a retreat. In a moment, the retreat became 
 a panic, and it was only by the bravery of a few devoted men that 
 Braddock himself was borne off the field. The men threw aside guns 
 and accoutrements, and rushed across the 
 river. Here Braddock made an effort 
 to bring his demoralized army to a stand, 
 for the savages did not follow them be- 
 
 yond the bank ; but the rout was com- 
 plete, and though a stand was made, 
 every soldier stole away from his post. 
 The straggling remnant pushed back 
 
 Braddock wounded. 
 
 advanced, and on the llth the camp of reserves was reached. The 
 army was utterly disorganized, and no effort was made to save any- 
 thing. The stores were destroyed, and the straggling troops fell back 
 at last to Fort Cumberland. 
 
 Braddock continued giving orders so long as strength remained to 
 him, but kept utter silence otherwise. On Sunday, the 13th, as the 
 shattered army lay at Great Meadows, he gave his final orders, and 
 
270 OPENING OF THE FRENCH "WAR. [CHAP. X. 
 
 committed affairs to Washington, for whom he had formed a strong 
 attachment. During the retreat he is said to have spoken only to 
 give his commands. Now, his sole allusion to the terrible discom- 
 fiture which had broken up his army and destroyed his military repu- 
 tation, was in the half-muttered words, "Who would have thought 
 it! Who would have thought it!" He turned to Orme, his faithful 
 lieutenant, and said, " We shall better know how to deal with them 
 another time." But Braddock's one chance had been lost through 
 his own obstinacy and wrong-headed ness. He died, and was buried 
 at Great Meadows, where his grave is still pointed out. The ai'my, 
 under Dunbar, finally reached Philadelphia at the end of August. 
 
 The miserable conclusion of an expedition which had set out so 
 vaingloriously, brought a train of evils in the devastation of 
 Braddock's the back country of Virginia and Pennsylvania by the In- 
 dians, who had no fear of this defeated enemy ; it brought 
 also one unsuspected good in the knowledge that regulars were not 
 invincible, and the British power not blindly to be relied upon. The 
 conduct of the provincials in the fight, showed clearly the mettle of 
 the country troops, and their superiority in fighting methods. The 
 breaking down of the foreign army led at once to the creation of a 
 militia organization, and out of Braddock's defeat grew that confi- 
 dence in themselves which sustained the Americans in the subsequent 
 conflict with Great Britain. The immediate effect, nevertheless, upon 
 the minds of English and Americans was one of bitter chagrin and 
 disappointment. 
 
 In Nova Scotia, the news of the disaster was received at a moment 
 so critical to operations in that quarter, that imperative orders were 
 given to prevent its reaching the French inhabitants. The English 
 occupation of that province since its cession by France in the treaty 
 of Utrecht, in 1713, had been very meagre, and such population as 
 the peninsula held was mainly French, while the boundaries of the 
 province were the subject of long and minute controversy, a contro- 
 versy only ended by the conquest of Canada itself. 
 
 The question of boundaries was considered for more than three 
 
 years at Paris by a Board of Commissaries. The range of 
 
 of Nova the discussion included the consideration of ancient limits 
 
 and the identity of Nova Scotia and Acadia, and conclusions 
 
 differed widely. But both governments practically recognized the 
 
 popular understanding that Nova Scotia or Acadia corresponded with 
 
 the present limits of the peninsula. The French acknowledged that 
 
 the people about the Basin of Minas were British subjects, and the 
 
 English confined their efforts at colonization to Nova Scotia proper. 
 
 The importance of the peninsula, and the necessity of planting it 
 
1749.] CONDITION OF NOVA SCOTIA. 271 
 
 with Englishmen, if it was to be anything more than nominally Eng- 
 lish, were beginning to be seen. Scarcely any organized effort had 
 been made by the English to occupy the country, while the French 
 settlements about Annapolis Royal and the Basin of Minas had 
 grown into compact communities who were rapidly accumu- 
 
 XT T i i * Condition of 
 
 latmg wealth. JNot the nationality only, but the religion of the Acadian 
 these French settlers held them together and made them a 
 foreign body, all the more dangerous in the eyes of Englishmen that 
 they were both French and Roman Catholic. " The zeal and attach- 
 ment of these Nova Scotians to the Romish faith," writes a vigorous 
 pamphleteer of that day, 1 "will always prevent the settlement of 
 Protestants in the country, unless it be done in compact bodies and 
 under the cover of fortifications ; but till this is accomplished, it can 
 no more be said that the Province belongs to the Crown of Great 
 Britain, because it is possessed of Annapolis Royal, than of the king- 
 dom of Spain from our possession of Gibraltar. It is therefore abso- 
 lutely necessary for the safety and interest of the Northern colonies 
 that some speedy and effectual measures are taken to put these Nova 
 Scotians on a definite footing, or to remove them ; the last cannot 
 well be done, and the first in nothing better than by encouraging 
 a considerable number of foreign Protestants and others to settle 
 amongst them." 
 
 This encouragement was soon given. An advertisement in the Lon- 
 don " Gazette," dated at Whitehall, 7th March, 1749, was Inducement9 
 issued by the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Planta- teu'e^'in 
 tions, offering special inducements to recently dismissed offi- XoTaScoti * 
 cers and privates of the army and navy, as also to carpenters, ship- 
 wrights, smiths, masons, joiners, brickmakers, bricklayers, " and all 
 other artificers necessary in building or husbandry," by which pas- 
 sage was given to Nova Scotia, grants of land made, and subsistence 
 promised for a year. So popular was the enterprise and so prompt 
 the movement that, early in May of the same year, Colonel Edward 
 Cornwallis uncle to that Lord Cornwallis whose name occupies so 
 conspicuous a place in the annals of the American Revolution led 
 an expedition of about twenty-five hundred persons into Chebucto 
 Harbor in Nova Scotia. 2 
 
 The name of Halifax was given to the settlement which was then 
 begun, in honor of the President of the Lords of Trade and Planta- 
 tions, Lord Halifax, who was exceedingly interested in the success 
 
 1 Tlie Stale of Trade in the Northern Colonies considered : with an Account of their Produce, 
 and it particular Description of Nova Scotia. By Otis Little. 
 
 - Haliburton's Historical and Statistical Account of Noca Scotia makes the number much 
 larger ; but Akins's Selections from the Public Documents of Nova Sdftia gives a list of 
 those who came with Cornwallis. 
 
272 
 
 OPENING OF THE FRENCH WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. X. 
 
 Halifax 
 founded. 
 
 of the enterprise. The country about Chebucto Harbor was densely 
 wooded, and the nearest settlement was that of the French 
 about the Basin of Minas, twenty miles distant, but a cattle- 
 path already connected the two points. Cornwallis at once set his 
 colonists to work, clearing the ground in preparation for the winter, 
 and at the end of four months could report " there are now three 
 hundred houses covered in at Halifax, which I hope will be tolerably 
 comfortable for the winter." The removal of the garrison from Lou- 
 isburg added both to the force and to the stores of the young colony, 
 and French and Indians were hired to labor upon the public works. 
 
 Cornwallis had the poorest 
 possible opinion of the mili- 
 tary resources at Annapolis. 
 " My Lord," he writes to 
 the Duke of Bedford, who 
 had now become Secretary 
 for the Colonies, " these 
 Companies are as prepared 
 for service as a Regiment 
 raised yesterday. The 
 whole management in this 
 Province, both with regard 
 to the Inhabitants and these 
 Companies, has been such 
 that 't is scandalous the 
 Crown should be so served. 
 It has been called an Eng- 
 lish Province these thirty- 
 four years, and I don't be- 
 lieve that the King had one 
 true subject without the Fort of Annapolis. I cannot trace the least 
 glimpse of an English Government.'' He wrote repeatedly of the 
 way in which the French were inciting the Indians to make 
 war upon the colony, openly and by stealth : " The French 
 have not only set on the Indians, but have acted in conjunc- 
 tion with them ; they have entered and took possession of 
 part of the Province, drove off the Inhabitants, forced them to swear 
 allegiance to the French King, and in short acted with as much vigour 
 and done as much harm to us as they could have done in open war." 
 
 There was hardly a pretence, indeed, of a cessation of hostilities. 
 A French settlement had recently been made at the mouth of the 
 St. John, and an expedition had been sent to occupy the isthmus 
 between Nova Scotia and the mainland. Throughout the whole win- 
 
 Earl of Halifax 
 
 Relations of 
 
 colonists 
 with the 
 French. 
 
1749.] THE ACADIAX PROBLEM. 273 
 
 ter Halifax was in constant apprehension of attack, and was inces- 
 santly annoyed by predatory bands of French and Indians. To 
 strengthen the Province, Cornwallis believed first of all in military 
 measures ; but he recommended also the introduction of foreign Prot- 
 estants, especially from among the Swiss, whose influence over the 
 French Catholics, he hoped, would be beneficial. 
 
 But some more direct interference with the inhabitants seemed 
 necessary.' The troubles of the colonists could be traced di- 
 
 . ... PL- i Tll<> proliU-m 
 
 rectly to the machinations or certain priests and intriguing of dealing 
 men amongst them; and in event of an open war with Fr.-nri.in- 
 France, which was steadily becoming more probable, there 
 could be little doubt that the French settlers would, openly or secretly, 
 side with the French cause. To banish them from the Province was 
 only to turn them into open enemies and increase the strength of Can- 
 ada and Cape Breton. That peril had been early foreseen, and re- 
 peated allusions to it recur in the correspondence between Cormvallis 
 and the home government. On the other hand, there was no time, 
 in the face of the gathering storm, to make English citizens of them. 
 The introduction of French Protestants was an experiment which 
 might easily work in the opposite direction from what was intended, 
 and fan the flame of religious hatred. 
 
 In tracing the relations between the English and French which led 
 to the deportation of the Acadians, it becomes necessary to 
 note how constantly the English government, both at home of the w 
 and in the Province, were reminded that the persons with 
 whom they were dealing held but a paper loyalty to them. By the 
 terms of the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, the French residents in Aca- 
 dia, then ceded to the English, were allowed a year in which either 
 to take the oath as British subjects, or to leave the country. But 
 while the French in Canada urged them to remove, and threatened 
 them with the fate of rebels if they did not, the English were aware 
 that not only would their removal greatly increase the importance 
 of the rival colony of Cape Breton, but leave Nova Scotia almost 
 entirely depopulated. It was hoped, moreover, that in process of 
 time the descendants would become Anglicized by intercourse with 
 English emigrants. But English emigrants came slowly, while the 
 French remained, assuming the position of Neutrals, a name, indeed, 
 which was frequently applied to them. They claimed that to the 
 oath of allegiance, which they finally took, there was a reservation 
 which exempted them fcom taking up arms against their own blood. 
 Like all neutrals, they were suspected by both sides by the French, 
 because they owed allegiance to the English; by the English, because 
 their blood, their sympathies, and their religion were French. 
 
 VOL. III. 18 
 
274 
 
 OPEXIXG OF THE FRENCH WAR. 
 
 [CllAT. X. 
 
 From the settlement of Halifax in 1749, to the outbreak of the 
 war in 1755, the French Acadians, either personally or by delegates, 
 were repeatedly summoned to meet the English authorities, and the 
 one condition imposed upon them, of taking the oath of allegiance 
 without reserve, was evaded or refused with an ingenuity which con- 
 firms the common judgment of the English at that time that behind 
 these simple people were French emissaries, especially the priest Le 
 Soutre, who used them with great dexterity for their own purposes. 
 When every other argument failed, the Aeadiaus would announce 
 their resolution to leave the country ; but that was precisely what the 
 English were bent on preventing, although the project of removing 
 them began to present itself as the only satisfactory method of solv- 
 ing the problem. The position which the English claimed for them- 
 selves is very forcibly set forth in the reply which Cornwallis made 
 to the deputies of the French district, when, at the beginning of his 
 rule as Governor, the}' appeared before him and presented a letter 
 signed by one thousand persons, having in it this clause : "The in- 
 habitants in general, Sir, over the whole extent of this country, have 
 resolved not to take the oath which Your Excellency requires of us ; 
 but if Your Excellency will grant us our old oath which was given at 
 Minas to Mr. Richard Phillips, 1 with an exemption for ourselves and 
 for our heirs from taking up arms, we will accept it. But if Your 
 Excellency is not disposed to grant us what we take the liberty of 
 asking, we are resolved, every one of us, to leave the country." In 
 his reply, Colonel Cornwallis said, with great emphasis : 
 " Gentlemen, you allow yourselves to be led away by people 
 who find it to their interest to lead you astray. They have 
 made you imagine it is only your oath which binds you to the English. 
 They deceive you. It is not the oath which a king administers to 
 his subjects that makes them subjects. The oath supposes that they 
 are so already. The oath is nothing but a very sacred bond of the 
 fidelity of those who take it." 
 
 The crisis seems to have been reached in the summer of 1755, when 
 memorials were presented from the people of Minas and Pisiquid (now 
 Windsor), praying for the restoration of the arms which had been 
 
 1 This oath, given in 1727-28, was the oath of allegiance, qualified by the insertion of a 
 clause in the margin that the Aeadiaus were not to be obliged to take up arms against 
 France. There is no evidence that Governor Phillips tendered such an oath, but it does 
 appear that Governor Armstrong in 1727 allowed the modification in certain cases, and 
 was severely reprimanded by the home government for so doing, and that Ensign Wroth 
 repeated the blunder the next year in other cases. He tlso was summoned before the 
 Council and reprimanded, on the ground that " the articles and concessions " granted by 
 him were " unwarrantable and dishonorable to H. M. government and authoritv, and con- 
 sequently null and void." See Akins, p. 78. The Acadians clung to this modified oath 
 with the greatest persistency. 
 
1755.] A CRISIS IN NOVA SCOTIA. 275 
 
 taken from them, and for exemption from the required oath. These; 
 memorials were offered at a time when it w;is rumored that a 
 French fleet was in the Bay of Fundy, and the commander 
 in charge at Minas reported an immediate change of temper in the 
 people from submission to insolence. The deputies who presented 
 the memorials were brought before the Council, July 3, 17oo, and a 
 long conference was held, at the close of which the deputies asked 
 permission to return and consult the body of inhabitants; but the 
 request, clearly to gain time, was refused, and they were required to 
 give, a definite answer to the demands of the Council the next da) r . 
 
 The next day came, and the deputies refused to take the oath, where- 
 upon they were ordered into confinement. The Governor l now issued 
 an order for all the French inhabitants to send at once to Halifax 
 new deputies with the " general resolution of the said inhabitants in 
 regard to taking the oath, and that none of them should for the future 
 be admitted to take it after having once refused so to do, but that 
 effectual measures ought to be taken to remove all such recusants out 
 of the Province." Two hundred and seven inhabitants of Annapolis 
 River sent thirty deputies, with instructions to contract no new oath ; 
 one hundred and three inhabitants of Pisiquid, Minas, and the river 
 Canard, presented a memorial by deputies, utterly refusing to take 
 any but the reserved oath, and asking that those who had been de- 
 tained at Halifax be set at liberty; two hundred and three inhabi- 
 tants of Minas and the river Canard clung to the oath which they 
 believed they had taken under Governor Phillips, and called for the 
 release of the prisoners in Halifax. The deputies presenting these me- 
 morials appeared before the Council and refused the oath. " Where- 
 upon," says the record of the Council, " they were all ordered into 
 confinement. As it had been before determined to send all the 
 French inhabitants out of the Province, if they refused to take 
 the oaths, nothing now remained to be considered but what meas- 
 ures should be taken to send them away, and where they should be 
 sent to." 
 
 The force requisite for this purpose was at hand. Besides the small 
 body of troops in the Province, a regiment of two battal- A forco t( . nt 
 ions, consisting in all of two thousand men, had been en- toAcadi!l - 
 listed in Massachusetts by Lieutenant-colonel John Winslow, of 
 Marshh'eld, great-grandson of Edward Winslow, one of the founders 
 of the Plymouth settlement. This expedition, sailing from Boston 
 on the 20th of May, had arrived at Annapolis Harbor five days later, 
 and on the 1st of June moved forward in a fleet of forty-one vessels 
 
 1 Cornwallis had been succeeded by Peregrine Thomas Hopson in 1752, :ind he by 
 Charles Lawrence, as Lieutenant-governor, iu 1754, and Governor-iu-chief in 1756. 
 
276 
 
 OIKXIX<; OF THE FRKXCII WAR. 
 
 [ClIAP. X. 
 
 to Chiegnecto, the district now known as Cumberland, where a nar- 
 row isthmus separates the waters of the Hay of Fundy from North- 
 umberland Strait, and connects the peninsula of Nova Scotia with the 
 continent. Here the French had established themselves in three for- 
 tified places, with a view 
 to command the land 
 connection and give free 
 passage into the district 
 occupied mainly by the 
 French Acadians. Wins- 
 low's force was enlarged 
 by the addition of three 
 hundred regulars, with a 
 small train of artillery, 
 
 v * 
 
 and the whole expedition 
 was under the command 
 of L i e u t e n a n t-colonel 
 Monckton. The success 
 of the expedition was un- 
 equivocal. The French 
 fortifications were taken ; 
 the garrison of Fort 
 Beau Se/jour were sent 
 to Louisburg on condi- 
 tion of not bearing arms 
 in America for six 
 months; the Acadians and Indians were disarmed, the Acadians be- 
 ing pardoned, in one instance at least, as having been pressed into 
 the service. 
 
 It was this force on which Governor Lawrence now relied for the 
 deportation of the Acadians. The whole number for which 
 ram-in!: provision was to be made was about three thousand. 1 In a 
 KrViich coi- letter to Colonel Monckton, Governor Lawrence had already 
 advised that the whole affair should be conducted as a strat- 
 agem : " It will be necessary to keep this measure as secret as possible, 
 as well to prevent their attempting to escape, as to carry oft' their cat- 
 tle, etc. ; and the better to effect this, you will endeavor to fall upon 
 some stratagem to get the men, both young and old (especially the 
 heads of families), into your power, and detain them till the trans- 
 
 1 Minot's I/ixlon/ of Massachusetts savs : " The whole number of persons collected at 
 Grand 1're finally amounted to 48.'$ men and 337 women, heads of families, and their sons 
 anil daughters to 527 of the former, and 576 of the latter, making in the whole 1,923 
 souls." 
 
 Lieutenant-colonel Winslov 
 
1755.] EXILE OF THE AC ADIAXS. -~~ 
 
 ports shall arrive, so as that they may be ready to be shipped off ; for 
 when tliis is done, it is not much to be feared that the women and 
 
 children will attempt to go away and carry off the cattle As 
 
 their whole stock of cattle and corn is forfeited to the Crown by their 
 rebellion, and must be secured and apply'd towards a reimbursement of 
 the expense the government will be at in transporting them out of 
 the country, care must be had that nobody make any bargain for 
 purchasing them under any colour or pretence whatever ; if they do, 
 the sale will be void, for the inhabitants have now (since the order in 
 Council) no property in them, nor will they be allowed to carry away 
 the least thing but their ready money and household furniture." 
 
 The mode of procedure being left to Colonel Winslow and Captain 
 Murray, they agreed upon the issuing of a proclamation to call the 
 people together, which should be ambiguous in statement, but posi- 
 tive in its object. The paper was accordingly drawn up and dis- 
 tributed in the several communities. It ordered all the inhabitants, 
 ** both old men and young men, as well as all the lads of ten years of 
 age, to attend at the church at Grand Pre, on Friday the fifth instant, 
 at three of the clock in the afternoon, that we may impart to them 
 what we are ordered to communicate to them ; " declaring that no 
 excuse will be admitted on any pretence whatever, on pain of forfeit- 
 ing goods and chattels, in default of real estate. 
 
 The purpose of this meeting does not seem to have been suspected 
 by the inhabitants, for it was not the first time they had been sum- 
 moned to appear before their rulers to discuss their relations to the 
 government. At any rate, they assembled at the appointed time, to 
 the number of four hundred and eighteen able-bodied men, in the 
 church at Grand Pre. The church was put under guard, and was 
 continued thenceforth as a guard-house. They were not kept long in 
 suspense as to the meaning of this reception. Colonel Winslow, sur- 
 rounded by his officers, took his place in the centre of the Assembly. 
 They were called together, he told them, to hear "his Majesty's final 
 resolution " in regard to a people who " for almost half a century had 
 had more indulgence granted to them than any of his subjects in any 
 part of his dominions,'' though, he added. " what use you have made 
 of it, vou vourselves best know." The duty that had devolved upon 
 him, he continued, " though necessary, is very disagreeable to my nat- 
 ural make and temper, as I know it must be grievous to you ; " but 
 his business was to deliver "his Majesty's orders and instructions, 
 namely that your lands and tenements, cattle of all kinds, and live 
 stock of all sorts, are forfeited to the Crown, with all other your 
 effects saving your money and household goods." So far as the ca- 
 pacity of the transports permitted, they were to be allowed to carry 
 
278 
 
 OPENING OF THE FRENCH WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. X. 
 
 their household goods with them ; families, it was promised, should 
 be kept together, and the removal should be as easy to them as it was 
 possible to make it. He concluded with 
 the expression of a hope " that, in -what- 
 ever part of the world you 
 may fall, you may be faith- 
 
 Winslow reading the Decree of Expulsion. 
 
 fill subjects, a peaceable and 
 happy people." 
 
 They were surrounded by the troops, and 
 escape was impossible. But they begged that 
 
 certain of their number might be retained as hostages, leaving the rest 
 free to attend to their families and make the necessary provision for 
 removal. Colonel Winslow would not grant this, but he permitted 
 ten to be absent at a time, and, as the ten returned, others took their 
 
 ' 
 
1755.] 
 
 EXILE OF THE ACADIANS. 
 
 279 
 
 places. But even this privilege he was soon compelled to deny them. 
 He saw, or fancied he saw, some suspicious movement among the 
 prisoners. The transports had not arrived, and it was determined 
 that other vessels in the harbor should be used, instead of the church, 
 as a temporary place of detention. Orders were given for the re- 
 moval to these vessels, first, of all the young unmarried men, and then 
 of the young married men, leaving on shore only the old and feeble. 
 The scene of the separation was one of great lamentation. At first 
 
 Embarking the Young Men. 
 
 the young men refused to march, but the prick of the bayonet, and 
 Colonel Winslow's personal handling of the foremost, brought The parting 
 them into line, and they filed down to the boats, weeping, sceue8 - 
 praying, and singing hymns, while a great company of women and 
 children knelt by the way, and added their cries to the voice of the 
 men. It was many weeks yet before the transports arrived which 
 were to remove the families, and meanwhile the cares of Colonel 
 Window increased. He was not inhuman nor even needlesslv severe 
 
280 OPEXIX(i OF THE FREXCH \\'AR. [CHAP. X. 
 
 in the performance of tlie task imposed upon him ; but he was a man 
 of decision, and the delays fretted him. "It hurts me," he writes, 
 September 2t>, "-to hear their weeping, wailing, and gnashing of 
 teeth ; " and on the same date he expresses an ardent wish " to be 
 rid of the worst piece of service that ever I was in." 
 
 The transports did not arrive until the 10th of October, but, in an- 
 ticipation of their arrival, Colonel Winslow, on the 6th, ordered the 
 families to be in readiness for embarkation. " Even then," he says, 
 " I could not persuade them I was in earnest." Meanwhile twenty- 
 four of the young men deserted from the vessels, but twenty-two of 
 these returned. On the 21st of October, the transports were filled 
 with their unhappy passengers, and ready to sail. Orders were given, 
 in accordance with Winslow's promise, that families should not be 
 separated ; but in the confusion of embarkation, and from the prelim- 
 inary dispersion of the younger men among the vessels of the harbor 
 for safe-keeping, the rule was sometimes disregarded, though not by 
 design. 1 
 
 The exiles were scattered through the several colonies, and their 
 names are found in many places to this day. though often sadly cor- 
 rupted. Many were merged in time in the English population. Two 
 separate villages, however, near Bordeaux, in France, are filled with 
 descendants of Acadian exiles who found their way thither. Some 
 families went to Guiana ; ten years later, enough of them retained 
 their social and religious relations to plant a colony in the western 
 parishes of Attakapas and Opelousas, in Louisiana, where the cor- 
 rupted name of " Cajeans," and the primitive habits and simplicity 
 of the people, still testify to their pure descent from the Acadians of 
 Nova Scotia. 
 
 The larger portion of these exiles were sent to Massachusetts, 
 where they were distributed among the several towns. The two vol- 
 umes of records in the State House at Boston 2 contain varied testi- 
 mony respecting the unfortunate exiles. They were often subjected 
 to harsh treatment. Their children were forcibly taken from them ; 
 the provision for their support was denied ; and they were shifted 
 impatiently from town to town. The tenacity with which they clung 
 
 1 The number of persons expelled from Acadia has commonly been set down as about 
 7,000. This is the estimate of Haliburtun, Grnhain, Parkman, and others. Probably the 
 origin of the statement is in the circular letter from Governor Lawrence to the governors 
 of the several colonies to which the exiles were sent : " As their numbers amount to near 
 seven thousand persons," he writes, " the driving them off, with leave to go whither they 
 pleased, would have doubtless strengthened Canada with so considerable a number of in- 
 habitants." Seveii thousand probably represents with sufficient accuracy the total French 
 population of Acadia in 1755, but the entire number of those exiled did not exceed, if 
 Minot be correct, two thousand, of whom many subsequently returned to Acadia. 
 
 '- French Neutnds, 23, 24. 
 
1755.] 
 
 THE ACADIAN EXILES. 
 
 281 
 
 to their faith seems to have annoyed their persecutors. One town 
 sends in its bill for "keeping three French pagans." There were 
 instances, however, of friendly protection shown by individuals, and 
 the more generous sentiment found expression in a report, though it 
 was not accepted, by a committee appointed to consider certain com- 
 plaints of ill usage, wherein the selectmen of the towns complained 
 against are " expected to show common acts of humanity." In Penn- 
 sylvania, a somewhat similar disposition of the exiles was made in a 
 distribution among the country towns, and provision was made for 
 them from time to time, amounting in all to' about < 7,500. l 
 
 Until they ceased to continue as a distinct body in the several 
 colonies, there is almost unvarying witness to their submission and 
 gentleness. The whole body of testimony regarding them deepens 
 the sense of their harmlessness, and when the poet sang of their 
 wrongs, he at once touched the latent feeling regarding them when 
 two or three generations had removed their history from the arena of 
 war and politics. 
 
 1 See Hon. W. B. Reed's paper, " The Acadian Exiles, or French Neutrals in Pennsyl- 
 vania," Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, vol. vi., 1858, in which he clearlv 
 refutes Judge Haliburton's charge that the Acadians were offered for sale in Pennsylvania- 
 
 Braddock's Gray*. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE FRENCH WAR. 
 
 PROPOSED OPERATIONS UNDER SHIRLEY AND JOHNSON. BATTLE OF LAKE GEORGB. 
 
 WAK DECLARED BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. LORD LoUDOUN CoMMANDER- 
 
 IN CHIEF IN AMERICA. MOSTCALM IN CANADA. Loss OF FORT OSWEGO. 
 LOUDOUN'S PLANS AND FAILURE. FORT WILLIAM HENRY TAKEN BY THE FRENCH. 
 MASSACRE or THK GARRISON. DISCOURAGEMENT IN THE COLONIES. THE 
 WAR AT THE SOUTH. GENERAL CONDITION OF THE COLONIES AND OF CANADA. 
 WILLIAM PITT. AMHERST SUPERSEDES LOUDOUN. CAPTURE OF LOUISBURG. 
 DEFEAT OF ARKRCROMIME. CAPTURE OF FORTS FRONTENAC, Du QUESNE, AND 
 NIAGARA. TICONDEKOGA TAKEN BY AMHERST. 
 
 BRADDOCK'S 
 ill-starred expe- 
 dition was only 
 part of a gen- 
 eral scheme for 
 establishing the 
 supremacy of 
 the British in- 
 terests in North America. The move- 
 ments in Acadia had been successful by 
 the reduction of Beau Se*jour, and by the 
 silence of the depopulated and wasted vil- 
 lages about the Minas Basin and Annapolis Royal. We have seen 
 that Braddock purposed, after capturing Du Quesne, to push on 
 and join the forces sent to take Niagara. Albany was the rendez- 
 vous for the two expeditions, the one against Niagara under General 
 Shirley, and the other against Crown Point under General 
 
 The expeili- . ri-.ii j 
 
 tjon against Johnson, and in June an army ot nearly six thousand men, 
 raised by the northern provinces, was assembled there and 
 in the neighborhood. They were mainly provincials, ill-disciplined 
 and impatient of delay, and Indians, who never could be brought 
 under even the ordinary rules of the camp. It was Shirley's plan 
 to take his forces to Oswego, by way of the Mohawk River and 
 Oneida Lake, and thence to Niagara. There was delay in the ar- 
 rival of the troops ; and when, at the end of July, the last regiments 
 were embarking at Schenectady, the news of Braddock's defeat ar- 
 
 Vicw on Lake George. 
 
1755.] INDECISION OF GENERAL SHIRLEY. 283 
 
 rived, and so discouraged the men, already dispirit^ by^-the evident 
 lack of generalship, that great numbers deserted, and many of the 
 batteau men especially, on whom the expedition was so dependent, 
 refused to go farther. It was the 18th of August before Shirley 
 reached Oswego, and another month before he could make sufficient 
 pi'ovision for the attack upon Niagara. The stormy season then set 
 in, and after waiting nearly a fortnight, and seeing the force reduced 
 steadily by sickness and by desertion, it was determined in council to 
 abandon the attack this year, to leave Colonel Mercer with a garrison 
 of seven hundred men at Oswego, and that General Shirley should 
 return with the rest of the army to Albany. 
 
 There was another reason why Shirley hesitated to attack Niagara, 
 and determined instead to strengthen Oswego, though it would have 
 moved a man of more martial zeal to prosecute his first purpose with 
 greater activity. Intelligence had reached him of an intended move- 
 ment against Oswego. The French expedition which had sailed from 
 Brest in the spring had lost six hundred men and two ships of war in 
 a dash made by Admiral Boscawen; but it had substantially increased 
 the military resources of Canada by landing a thousand men at Louis- 
 burg, and fourteen hundred at Quebec. The first duty imposed on 
 Baron Dieskau, in command of these forces, was the reduction of Os- 
 wego. Forts Frontenac and Niagara commanded the two 
 extremities of Lake Ontario, but so long as Oswego was movement 
 held by the English, the communication between Canada ostvego 
 and the Ohio Valley was always liable to interruption, teim 
 Moreover, the capture of General Braddock's papers had 
 disclosed the plans of Shirley. Accordingly, Dieskau, proceeding to 
 Montreal, prepared at once for a movement up the river to Fort 
 Frontenac. It was a rumor of this movement chat came to Shirley, 
 and he hesitated, when he should have taken active measures either 
 for a vigorous attack or a prudent defence. 
 
 But when Dieskau was on the eve of moving, information reached 
 Montreal that the other expedition, designed to reduce Crown Point, 
 had already been put in motion, and Dieskau was importuned to aban- 
 don his original intention and meet this more imminent danger. He 
 consented with reluctance, and led his troops, numbering about two 
 thousand men, up Lake Champlain to Fort St. Frederick at Crown 
 Point, and there awaited the arrival of the English. 
 
 The forces collected at Albany for the northern campaign were sent 
 forward, without artillery or batteanx, under General Ly- En lish 
 man, early in July. These were occupied in building Fort exp *n S 'tT" 
 Lyman, afterward Fort Edward, on the east bank of the conder K a 
 Hudson, until General William Johnson should arrive with the neces- 
 
284 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE FRENCH WAR. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 sary equipments and provisions. It was the 8th of August before 
 Johnson set out and joined Lyman at the fort, which was at the be- 
 ginning of the " carry " 
 of fourteen miles, to Lake 
 St. Sacrament named 
 soon afterward, by Gener- 
 al Johnson, Lake George, 
 in honor of the King, 
 George II. 
 
 Marching leisurely 
 northward, he encamped 
 at the south end of the 
 lake in a strong position, 
 covered by swampy ground 
 and woods on the sides not 
 protected by the lake. 
 Here he proposed waiting 
 for his batteaux, building 
 a fort meanwhile, when he 
 would proceed to Ticon- 
 deroga, fifteen miles below 
 Crown Point, a strong mil- 
 itary position not yet oc- 
 cupied, to make that his 
 base of operations against 
 Fort St. Frederick. He 
 expected to be joined here 
 by a large number of war- 
 riors from the Six Nations, 
 and was mortified and dis- 
 appointed that they did 
 not come. The old chief, 
 Hendrick, attributed this 
 to Shirley, who, he de- 
 clared, had spoken with 
 great contempt of Johnson 
 to the Indians, and had 
 urged them to go with 
 him to Oswego, and not 
 to Crown Point. This, no doubt, was true, for there was no cor- 
 diality between the two generals. Johnson had already complained 
 to the Board of Trade of Shirley's attempts to undermine his influ- 
 ence with the Six Nations, and his unwarrantable interference with 
 
 Map of Lake George and part of Lake Champlain. 
 
1755.] FIRST BATTLE OF LAKK (JKOIIGK. 28o 
 
 him as their superintendent, to which post Johnson had been ap- 
 pointed by Braddock. The Indians, however, came in day by day. 
 though in small companies, and took an active share in the campaign. 
 
 Dieskau, leaving a large force at Crown Point, pushed on with six 
 hundred Indians, seven hundred Canadians, and two hundred regulars, 
 by way of Lake Champlain to South Bay, now Whitehall. Here he 
 learned from an English prisoner that the fort which Lyman had built 
 was without cannon, and that Johnson, in his camp, was also almost 
 without artillery. The French commander then proposed by a sud- 
 den movement to seize Fort Lyman, thus cutting off John- 
 son from his supplies, and to occupy a position from which marches on 
 he could either descend upon Albany and intercept the com- 
 munication with Oswego, or attack the New England border. The 
 scheme seemed perfectly feasible. Dieskau marched his army to 
 within a short distance of the fort, on the road leading directly to 
 Lake George, where he halted and sent a party of Indians to recon- 
 noitre. They quickly returned, bringing word that Johnson had 
 learned of their approach, and had sent warning to the fort. John- 
 son was indeed aware of the imminent peril in which both his little 
 army and the fort were placed. Early in. the morning of the 7th of 
 September a council was held, in which it was decided to despatch a 
 thousand troops and two hundred Indians on the road to the fort, to 
 meet the enemy. Hendrick, the Iroquois Sachem, alone dissented 
 from the decision. " If they are to fight," he reasoned, " they are 
 too few ; if they are to be killed, they are too many." But he was 
 overruled. The march was begun, the provincials headed by Colonel 
 Williams, the Indians by Hendrick himself, whose weight compelled 
 him to ride. 
 
 Meanwhile Dieskau, whose aim it was to capture the fort first, 
 found himself balked by the reluctance of his Indians, who had a 
 terror of fortified places, and believed that the fort was supplied 
 with the dreaded cannon. They refused to make the attack, but were 
 ready to march against Johnson's camp. Dieskau accepted the situa- 
 tion, and at once moved toward Lake George, encamping near the 
 southern spur of the French Mountain. On the 8th, learning of the 
 approach of the English, he prepared an ambuscade in a 
 defile of the road less than four miles from Johnson's camp. 
 On his left, where his line extended half a mile, a natural 
 breastwork, covered with trees and shrubs, concealed the men from the 
 road ; the right line bent like a hook across the road for a quarter of 
 a mile to where swampy ground covered with a thick growth of trees 
 and brush afforded perfect concealment. The ambush formed thus a 
 horse-shoe-shaped trap, and if the enemy should enter it, it would be 
 
280 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE FRENCH WAR. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 possible, by bringing round the long left line, to enclose the whole body 
 and open an attack on the rear. 
 
 Into tliis trap marched Colonel Williams and Hendrick with their 
 men. Williams had halted two and a half miles from the camp, near 
 the entrance of the defile, to wait for the other divisions, but by a 
 strange neglect in so experienced an officer, had not sent forward 
 scouts. The Indian, Hendrick, now took the lead, and the division 
 pushed forward. The old warrior had advanced beyond the extremity 
 of the shorter line of the ambuscade when he was suddenly hailed by 
 
 Bloody Pond. 
 
 an Indian who appeared near him. " Whence came you?" was the 
 challenge. " From the Mohawks. Whence came you? " "From Mon- 
 treal." At this a musket-shot, fired, contrary to orders, by some im- 
 patient man before the entire division had entered the fatal 
 c ' rc ' e ' brought on the engagement. From the thick woods 
 on e jther side, and in the rear, volley after volley fell upon 
 the entrapped soldiers. The old Indian chieftain was one of the 
 first to fall, shot through the back. Williams also fell, 1 and the 
 1 Colonel Ephraim Williams, a bravo soldier and earnest patriot, by his will founded 
 
 of 
 
 wnuams. 
 
1755.] SECOND BATTLE OF LAKE (iEORGE. 287 
 
 command devolved upon Lieutenant Whiting. The men, who fought 
 bravely, rushed to the right of the road where Dieskau's long left was 
 hidden behind the natural breastwork. The French and Indians rose 
 suddenly and fell upon them, doing great execution. But the men fell 
 back, notwithstanding, in good order, till another stand was made 
 near a small pond, 1 where reinforcements, sent forward by Johnson, 
 gave them new confidence and covered the retreat to the camp. 
 
 Arrived at the camp, they clambered over the hasty barricade of 
 fallen trees which Johnson had begun to raise after sending out Col- 
 onel Williams's party in the early morning. He had also dragged up 
 his cannon from the lake, and had disposed them where they could l>e 
 most serviceable in case of attack. Dieskau following the retreating 
 soldiers came into full view of the camp, and the sight of the cannon 
 at once damped the ardor of the Indians, who skulked into the woods. 
 The quarter-hour which was spent in bringing back the stragglers and 
 forming his lines, was a breathing-time for the English, who were 
 now behind their slight defences and under the command of their 
 officers. 
 
 Johnson's camp was protected in the rear by the lake; in front the 
 hastily thrown-up breastwork afforded a slight bulwark. Three guns 
 were posted in front of the road which led to the camp from Ly man's 
 fort, and other cannon were placed near the ammunition close by the 
 lake. It was half after eleven o'clock. Down the road came 
 the regulars of the French army, forming in line as if for on the 
 parade, their white uniforms gleaming and sharp bayonets 
 glistening ; on either flank the Indians and Canadians had dispersed 
 themselves in the swamps. The Mohawks at the first alarm had fled 
 with their squaws and pappooses to their own camp, and had not re- 
 turned when the battle opened. 
 
 These New England and New York men had known little of fight- 
 ing in the presence of solid ranks of trained soldiers. Dieskau halted 
 the regulars, who opened tire by platoons, while the Canadians and In- 
 dians kept up a sharp rattle on the flanks. The three guns at first only 
 made reply ; but presently the provincials, finding themselves as yet 
 unhurt, regained their courage and began, from behind their breast- 
 work, picking oft' the regulars before them. Unable to hold their po- 
 sition in this cleared place, the regulars took to the woods like the 
 savages. Dieskau led his men to Johnson's left, but without effect, 
 and then passed to the right, where the Indians had done the fiercest 
 fighting. Johnson, wounded at the outset, had been carried to his tent, 
 
 Williams College, iu Massachusetts. The Alumni of the College have erected a monument 
 over his grave 
 
 1 Bloody Pond, still pointed out as holding in its depths the bones of the men who fell 
 in i hat tight. 
 
288 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE FRENCH WAR. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 and Lyman took command, placing himself in the most exposed posi- 
 tion and showing the utmost bravery. The Mohawks had returned 
 and engaged in the fight, which now became a hand-to-hand contest 
 over the breastwork. The provincials, no longer in fear, fought, as 
 Dieskau said, like devils, and leaping the breastwork, clubbed their 
 muskets and dashed furiously at the enemy. The guns at the same 
 time were brought to bear upon a party of Canadians and Indians 
 concealed in the morass, and did such execution that the enemy was 
 dislodged from a position of much advantage. The Indians and Cana- 
 dians were scattered right and left ; the regulars were speedily over- 
 come at close quarters with the provincials, who struck at them as 
 with sledges, and pounded them to death, so that scarcely one escaped. 
 The retreat was a disorderly flight. Dieskau, who had already 
 Retreat of been severely wounded, was shot by one of his own men 
 the French. ag tnev j e fc ^ Q fiyjj . ne was carr { e( j j n to the general's 
 
 tent, and treated with consideration. Lyman was for pursuing the 
 enemy, but Johnso'i gave orders to call back the men. But the gar- 
 
 rison at Fort Lyman had heard the noise 
 of the engagement, and had sent a detach- 
 ment of two hundred New Hampshire troops 
 to the field. These suddenly came upon the 
 remnant of the French army at dusk, rest- 
 ing by Rocky Brook, where, half-starved, 
 they were making a hasty supper. Lyman's 
 men fell upon them, and completed the rout, 
 capturing the baggage and ammunition. Of 
 the English forces, the loss during the day 
 was ^twccn two hundred and three hun- 
 dred. The French lost, by different estimates, not far from a third of 
 their number, or about five hundred. 
 
 That the whole expedition was not captured, was due apparently to 
 the extreme caution or hesitation of the wounded general, Johnson. 
 But the success was otherwise so complete, and the news of it so in- 
 spiriting, after Braddock's defeat two months before, that the colonies 
 rang with rejoicings. Johnson, besides being rewarded with a gift of 
 5,000 from the English Government, was made a baronet. His part 
 in the fight was not to be overlooked, but in his own account of it he 
 seems to have slighted General Lyman's services. 1 The escape from 
 peril was a real one, and the danger was even more imminent than 
 from the defeat of Braddock ; for, had Dieskau captured Fort Lyman 
 and defeated Johnson, he would have been able to march at once upon 
 Albany, and leave behind him an open road to Canada. 
 
 1 See Livingston's Review, and Dwiyhfs Travels, iii. 
 
 Fort George, or w.ii.am Henry. 
 
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175G,] THE MARQUIS DE MONTCALM. 289 
 
 While the English built a strong fort at the south end of Lake 
 George after Dieskau's repulse, Fort William Henry or g^ ]iartie8 
 Fort George, and garrisoned that and Fort Edward, as fortlf - v 
 Fort Lyman was re-named, the French took possession of the im- 
 portant pass at Ticonderoga, and at once proceeded to fortify it. Af- 
 ter the death of Braddock, Governor Shirley was at the head of the 
 English army in America. He called a council in the autumn of this 
 year (1755), in which the campaign for the ensuing spring and sum- 
 mer was laid down upon precisely the lines adopted for the late cam- 
 paign. That is, Fort Du Quesne and Crown Point were to be the ob- 
 jects of attack; Oswego was to be reenforced, and Niagara ghir i cv - 8 
 and Frontenac to be assailed from that point. Ticonderoga cam i >a| 8 n - 
 was to have been attacked in front from the fro/en lake, but this 
 project was defeated by the mildness of the winter. In the almost 
 palsied condition of the British administration of that day, all action 
 seemed perpetually waiting upon some special movement which, after 
 all, was not of vital importance. War had been actually Thed-iar- 
 declared at length by the British Government on the 17th tionofwiir 
 of May, 1756, and by the French Government on the 9th of June 
 following. The campaign in America now waited on the Lord Ix)U . 
 arrival of the new Commander-in-chief, Lord Loudoun, and m^ii'der-in- 
 Lord Loudoun waited for somebody else. He was " a mere chl<;f 
 
 */ 
 
 pen-and-ink man," as the Earl of Shelburne styles him, 1 one of the 
 Duke of Cumberland's school, forever getting ready to start. 2 
 
 A very different man was at the head of the French forces. Louis 
 Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm de Saint Veron, had arrived in Montcalm in 
 Canada with three thousand men and abundant stores with Canatla - 
 which to prosecute the war. The management of military affairs in 
 Canada had not been of the best, but the French rarely lacked men 
 ready to seize the opportunity, and Montcalm brought great ability and 
 experience to his task. While the English were waiting and hesitat- 
 ing, or quarrelling about rank and precedence, the French were ac- 
 tively engaged in cutting off the supplies intended for Oswego, in mak- 
 ing dashes at the English, capturing small forts and taking prisoners, 
 and in winning the Six Nations so far as they could from the English 
 alliance. The siege of Oswego was early determined upon, and a strong 
 corps of observation was posted by Montcalm at what is now Six- 
 Town Point, in Henderson, Jefferson County, New York, on the shore 
 of Lake Ontario. Fort Niagara also was strengthened and reenforced. 
 
 1 Fitzmauricc's Life of William, Earl of Shfl/mrne, i. 81. 
 
 2 Franklin, who was vexed at Loudoun's indecision, quotes a witty characterization of the 
 Earl by one Innis : " He is like St. George on the signs, always on horseback, and never 
 rides on." Autobiography in Bigelow's Life of Benjamin Franklin, vol. i., p. 356. 
 
 VOL. III. 19 
 
290 CONTINUATION OF THE FRENCH WAR. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 On the 3d of July, when Colonel Bradstreet, who had been charged 
 with the conduct of a convoy of provisions and stores down the 
 Onondaga to Oswego, was I'eturning to Schenectady, he was suddenly 
 attacked about ten miles from Oswego, and had a sharp skirmish with 
 a body of Canadians and Indians, followed by a more serious engage- 
 ment, in which Bradstreet routed the enemy, but was unable to follow 
 up his advantage. From one of the prisoners the movements of the 
 French against Oswego were learned, and promptly reported to General 
 Abercrombie, who, awaiting Lord Loudoun's arrival, was commanding 
 at Albany and Fort William Henry a force of about ten thousand men. 
 The General ordered a regiment of regulars to the relief of Oswego ; 
 but before they could be moved, Lord Loudoun appeared, and through 
 his dilatory action it was the 12th of August before the relief set out 
 from Albany. 
 
 On that verv day the last of the forces intended for the invest- 
 
 / / 
 
 Oswego be- nient of Fort Oswego arrived in camp, and Montcalm at 
 sieged once opened fire upon Fort Ontario, on the right bank of 
 
 the river. The garrison was under the command of Colonel Mer- 
 cer. As the enemy brought their batteries nearer and nearer, Colonel 
 Mercer, whose ammunition was already expended, spiked his guns, 
 destroyed his provisions, and ordered a retreat across the river to Fort 
 Oswego, distant four hundred and fifty yards. Here a brisk fire was 
 opened upon the fort he had just abandoned. A portion of his force, 
 however, had ascended the river four and a half miles to a hill, where 
 Colonel Schuyler was intrenched, whence they could have harassed the 
 enemy ; but Montcalm perceived the manoeuvre, and while keeping up 
 an active fire on the fort, sent a large body of Canadians and Indians 
 to cut off communication between it and the hill. On the 13th Colo- 
 And cap- ne ^ Mercer was killed by a cannon ball, and the garrison 
 tured. gave up the struggle, and surrendered to Montcalm, 1 though 
 
 the common soldiery were still ready to continue the fight. The 
 French loss was trifling. The English lost as prisoners of war sixteen 
 hundred men, including eighty officers, one hundred and twenty-one 
 pieces of artillery, and a great store of ammunition, together with 
 seven armed ships and two hundred batteaux which had been pre- 
 paring for a descent upon Niagara and Frontenac. The forts at 
 
 1 Montcalm was a little surprised at the quickness with which he had accomplished his 
 object. " The celerity of our operations in a soil which they considered impracticable, the 
 erection of our batteries, completed with so much rapidity, the idea these works gave them 
 of the number of the French troops, the movements of the corps detached from the other 
 side of the river, the dread of the savages, the death of Colonel Mercer, commander of 
 Chouaguen [as the French called Oswego |, who was killed at eight o'clock in the morning, 
 doubtless determined the besieged to a step which we had not dared to expect so soon.' 
 Montcalm's Journal of the Siege of Oswego, in New York Colonial History, x. 443. 
 
1756.] LOUDOUN'S PLANS AND FAILURE. 291 
 
 Oswego had been built in the territory of the Six Nations. Several of 
 these Indians were present at the battle, and Montcalin, immediately 
 upon the surrender, destroyed the forts in the presence of the Indians ; 
 an act which had a two-fold significance, as marking the superiority of 
 the French to the English and the friendliness of the French to the 
 Indians. 
 
 General Webb, meanwhile, with his reinforcements, was slowly 
 making his way to Oswego, and had reached the great portage, when 
 he heard the news of the capture of the forts. The great portage 
 was now the most advanced post held by the English in the Iroquois 
 country, and as if to aid the French in their schemes, General Webb 
 proceeded to destroy the fortifications which had been begun there in 
 a naturally strong position, and to retreat with the garrison Webb . s re- 
 and his own men to Schenectady and Albany. The English "** 
 had now apparently abandoned the Six Nations as well as lost the key 
 to Lake Ontario. 
 
 There still remained an opportunity to turn the forces assembled at 
 Albany against Crown Point, and so retrieve the ill-fortune. But the 
 paralysis of inaction continued. In the long delay the seven thousand 
 men who had been collected had dwindled by desertion and sickness 
 to four thousand ; the success of Montcalm, instead of quickening the 
 English, seemed to discourage them, and the expeditions against Ti- 
 conderoga and Du Quesne were abandoned. Forts William Henry 
 and Edward were strengthened, and the grand campaign which had 
 been planned was turned into an ignoble defence. Montcalm, antici- 
 pating an attack on Ticonderoga, hurried thither from Oswego : but 
 no enemy appearing, he strengthened the fortifications there and re- 
 turned to Montreal for the winter. 
 
 The campaign for the next year was begun by assembling another 
 council of generals and governors. With more men and with a 
 naval armament, Lord Loudoun proposed to confine active Lo U< i oun , a 
 hostilities to a single expedition. The posts already held pbuis ' 
 were to be strongly fortified, and a combined attack by land and sea to 
 be made against Louisburg, a place which New England coveted above 
 all others. It was partly on this account, doubtless, that a requisition 
 for four thousand men was readily complied with. New York and New 
 Jersey added their quota, and in July Admiral Holbourne arrived at 
 Halifax with a squadron and a reenforcement of five thou- A fiagco at 
 sand troops. Halifax was the rendezvous, and Loudoun Louisbur 8 
 arrived there from New York with six thousand regulars. There he 
 learned that Louisburg was held by six thousand regulars, in addition 
 to the provincials, was guarded by seventeen line-of-battle ships in the 
 harbor, and a French fleet that had lately sailed from Brest was looked 
 
292 CONTINTATION OF THE FRENCH WAR. [('HAI>. XL 
 
 for daily. It was quite in accordance with liis usual method to return 
 to New York with the Admiral the last of August, putting off the 
 capture of Louisburg for a year. 1 
 
 When Montcalm learned that Loudoun had left New York for 
 Louisburg he proceeded to carry into execution the plan which he had 
 formed for attacking Fort William Henry. The French had been 
 unceasing in their efforts to win over the Indians of the Six Nations 
 to their side, and the repeated defeats of the English, together with 
 the policy of the French emissaries, had at length produced so strong 
 an impression upon the Indians that by parties and tribes they deserted 
 the English and attached themselves to the successful and more sympa- 
 thetic French. The fort which had been erected on the spot where 
 Johnson and Lyman had repulsed Dieskau was badly placed on the 
 Fort wii- shore of Lake George, with low land all about it, and over- 
 iiam iicnry. } O() ^ et | foy \i\]] s O n the west and northwest, by one of which at 
 least it was perfectly commanded. At this time it was garrisoned by 
 two or three thousand regulars under the command of Colonel Monroe, 
 while at Fort, Edward was stationed an army of four thousand men 
 under General Webb. At both forts a descent from the upper waters 
 was constantly looked for, and this summer had already brought with 
 it several warnings. As early indeed as March 18, an attempt had 
 been made by Rigaud to surprise Fort William Henry, and though he 
 was obliged to return to Ticonderoga he succeeded in destroying more 
 than three hundred batteaux, several buildings, and a quantity of pro- 
 visions. A skirmish had taken place near the end of July at Harbor 
 Island, a little south of Sabbath Day Point ; a raid almost to the walls 
 of Fort Edward had resulted in the loss of thirty-two of the English 
 and Indians ; and a few days later a party sent from Fort William 
 Henry to reconnoitre fell into an ambush, and almost the entire 
 party of three hundred were either killed or captured, twelve only 
 escaping. 
 
 Montcalm, with fifty-five hundred Canadians and regulars, and six- 
 teen hundred Indians, was now making his way from the rendezvous 
 
 1 How these performances were viewed in England, which was fretting under the gross 
 mismanagement of affairs, may be inferred from Walpole's letters. "Shortly after came 
 letters from the Earl of Loudoun, the commander-in-chief in North America, stating that 
 he found the French twenty-one thousand strong, and that, not having so many, lie could 
 not attack Louisburg, but should return to Halifax. Admiral Holbourne, one of the 
 sternest condemners of Byng, wrote at the same time that he having but seventeen ships 
 and the French nineteen, he dared not attack them. Here WHS another summer lost! Pitt 
 expressed himself with great vehemence against the Earl ; and we naturally have too lofty 
 ideas of our naval strength to suppose that seventeen of our ships are not a match for any 
 nineteen others." Walpole's George //..vol. ii., p. 231. Eutick (ii.,392) declares that there 
 was no such formidable force at Louisburg, but that the enemy adroitly managed to let 
 the English capture some tictitious despatches, giving these impressions. 
 
1757.] 
 
 SIEGE OF FORT WILLIAM HENRY. 
 
 293 
 
 View from Old Fort, 
 Lake George. 
 
 at Ticonderoga across 
 the portage to the up- 
 per waters of Lake George. Here a division 
 was made. De LeVis, with twenty-two hun- 
 dred French and Canadians, escorted by six 
 hundred Indians, toiled by land down the 
 narrow trail at the west of the lake ; the rest, 
 with all the baggage, were transported in 
 batteaux and canoes. The Indians had been 
 brought together from wide distances. On 
 the morning of the 3d of August the be- 
 sieging army landed on the west side of the 
 lake, about two miles from the fort. The 
 guns were immediately placed in The fort be . 
 position, and Montcalm despatched 6 ' eB d ' 
 a letter to Colonel Monroe, calling upon him 
 to surrender, and intimating that he might 
 not be able to restrain his Indians in 
 case the English resisted and the 
 fort should be taken. But the 
 English commander relied not 
 alone upon his own forces. 
 General Webb, at Fort Ed- 
 ward, was only fifteen miles 
 
294 CONTINUATION OF THE FRENCH WAR. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 distant with four thousand men, and Monroe replied briefly that he 
 would not surrender. Montcalm's approach was not unknown to 
 Webb. Sir William Johnson also had heard of the movement as soon 
 as the French General left Ticonderoga, and at once hastily gathered 
 Indians and militia, and marched to Fort Edward, which he reached 
 on the second day of the siege. Israel Putnam, making a reconnois- 
 sance on the lake with a body of rangers, discovered Montealm's ap- 
 proach, and had, it is said, notified Webb, urging him to oppose the 
 landing; Webb, who was near Fort William Henry, enjoining secrecy 
 upon Putnam, hastily returned to Fort Edward. 
 
 In the investment of the fort, De Le"vis occupied the right and held 
 the road leading to Fort Edward. On the 4th of August, the second 
 day of the siege, a messenger from the fort to Colonel Monroe was 
 intercepted, and a letter found from the imbecile Webb, advising 
 Monroe to surrender, as he dared not send any reinforcements until 
 he should himself receive aid from below. The messenger was sped 
 on his way. Johnson did come, apparently that same day, and begged 
 to be allowed to take volunteers to the support of Monroe. Webb 
 gave consent reluctantly, but when the entire body of provincials 
 sprang forward ready to follow Johnson, he withdrew his consent, and 
 left Monroe to his fate. 
 
 The siege lasted six days, when Monroe, with half of his guns use- 
 Ana cap- l ess an ^ nearly all his ammunition expended, hung out a flag 
 tured. o f truce and obtained liberal terms from Montcalm. But 
 the confidence which he placed in the French General's word that the 
 English should march to Fort Edward under guard of a detachment, 
 was not justified. Montcalm, in the terms of surrender, stipulated 
 that a hostage should be held by him until the safe return of the es- 
 cort from Fort Edward. The peril did not lie with them, but with the 
 unhappy men whom they escorted, for scarcely had they begun their 
 march when the Indians, wild with liquor and the hope of plunder, fell 
 Massacre of u P on the English soldiers, and killed them, without mercy. 
 the gammon. ^ panic seized the English. Some fled to the French for pro- 
 tection, others took to the woods, and many were held captive by the 
 Indians. Montcalm, like other commanders in similar situations, had 
 sown the wind, and the whirlwind was reaped. It was easier to excite 
 the Indians to a pitch of frenzy than to control them when thus ex- 
 cited, and it has been necessary ever since that day to defend a general 
 whose fault lay not in a deliberate connivance with his savage allies, 
 but in his reckless use of material which served his purpose in war. 
 When the news of this massacre was spread through the country, the 
 provincials flocked to the defence of the frontier. But Montcalm, 
 after burning the fort, returned to Canada with the stores. 
 
1757.] REVIEW OF AFFAIRS. '295 
 
 The close of the year 1757 marked the most discouraging period in 
 the contest of the colonies with France. At the extreme 
 
 i-ii n t . KovifW of 
 
 south indeed there was peace and moderate prosperity. A affairs in 
 firm hand held the government in Georgia, where Governor 
 Ellis, finding the colony distracted, factious, and disordered, speedily 
 succeeded in restoring good feeling, protecting the coast and frontier, 
 effecting amicable relations with the Creek Indians, and making the 
 colony a refuge for many families that fell back from the dangerous 
 frontiers farther north. To South Carolina, also, there had been an 
 exodus of families from Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, after 
 Braddock's defeat ; but here the often-repeated story of English mis- 
 management of the Indians was approaching a terrible conclusion. 
 In 1753, Governor Glen had made a treaty with the Cherokees, by 
 which that tribe had agreed to keep the peace with the Creeks, and 
 also to concede large tracts in the upper country to the English. At 
 least, this was the English interpretation of the treaty, and. amid the 
 murmm'S of a people among whom the French had already begun to 
 intrigue, they proceeded to build forts, notably Fort Prince George 
 near the headwaters of the Savannah, and Fort Loudoun, at the head of 
 navigation on the Tennessee, about thirty miles from Knoxville. 
 
 The French had already penetrated to the centre of East Tennessee, 
 and had trading-houses convenient to the over-hill Cherokees, and 
 these Indians, like the other tribes, were vacillating between the 
 two powers, uncertain which was the more deadly enemy. These 
 forts, meanwhile, though far removed from the base of supplies, gave 
 encouragement to settlers in the back country and in the western 
 parts of the two Carolinas. But farther north, the country west of the 
 Blue Ridge had been rendered uninhabitable for whites. The Indians 
 and French had carried fire and sword up and down the valley. Fort 
 Loudoun, at Winchester, was the chief protection of the western fron- 
 tier. Dinwiddie, the somewhat visionary and capricious Governor of 
 Virginia, had urged on the Board of Trade the erection of a cordon 
 of forts from Crown Point to the country of the Creeks, and Wash- 
 ington had advised that Virginia should erect forts along her frontier 
 at distances of fifteen miles ; but the cries of families flying before 
 the Indians continued to be heard, and the military resources of Vir- 
 ginia had been reduced by the policy of Loudoun in drawing off sol- 
 diers for his great and utterly ineffective army. Fort Du Quesne was 
 still in the hands of the French, and the English had lost Oswego. 
 Acadia was still in their possession, but a powerful armament at Lou- 
 isburg threatened not only Halifax, but the New England colonies. 
 Bitter conflicts in the management of internal affairs were distract- 
 ing Pennsylvania and New York, and although the people everywhere, 
 
200 CONTINUATION OF THE FRENCH WAR. [CHAP. XT. 
 
 especially on the frontier, made vigorous by the hard experience of 
 life in a new country, were equal to any emergency, there was no one 
 in England or America who so commanded the universal respect and 
 confidence as to be able to unite for any common purpose the separate 
 strength inherent in all the colonies. 
 
 The French, on the other hand, though Canada was suffering from 
 gross official peculation and was brought to the verge of a distressing 
 poverty, appeared at this time singularly strong and victorious. They 
 had achieved almost uninterrupted military success ; they had been for- 
 tunate in their commanders ; and, though the history of that province 
 had been the history of a military and ecclesiastical despotism, there 
 was a concentrated force now under control which could strike quickly 
 and effectively. But New France, nevertheless, was approaching a 
 point of exhaustion. The very advantage which it held as a military 
 power carried with it the disadvantage of having no allies in an agricul- 
 tural and self-reliant people. The base of supplies was in France, not 
 in the colony, and thus, as the war continued, the gathering force of 
 the English and American resources began to tell. In the long run the 
 English would have worn out the French ; the wavering line of fron- 
 tier settlements would have been slowly pushed forward from behind. 
 But the issue was to come quicker, and the disadvantages under which 
 the colonies had labored were to give way before the genius of a sin- 
 gle man. 
 
 Pitt had been forced upon the King by his own impetuous nature 
 wiiiiam an d by the complaints of a disappointed people. The Sec- 
 Pitt retary of State, who was one of the Council, became substan- 
 
 tially prime minister. His measures for prosecuting the war in Amer- 
 ica met at once the obstacles which before had stood in the wav of 
 
 if 
 
 success. He had faith in the men of the colonies, and he dealt with 
 them frankly and honestly. England should furnish arms, ammuni- 
 tion, and all necessary equipments ; the colonies were to raise, clothe, 
 and pay the men. England would furnish from her trained soldiers 
 the generals and upper officers ; but the colonial troops might choose 
 their own colonels and subordinate officers, and these should rank 
 with English officers of the same grade. To Pitt's policy at this time 
 is largely due not only the success in arms but the independent spirit 
 of the colonies. They responded at once to -the call for men and 
 money. 
 
 The objective points in the coming campaign were the same as 
 
 they had always been Louisburg, Ticonderoga and Crown 
 pjjgnof Point, Du Quesne, these were the keys of the French 
 
 military system. Instead of Admiral Holbourne and the 
 
 *. V 
 
 Earl of Loudoun, who had been recalled, Admiral Boscawen and Sir 
 
1758.] 
 
 CAPTURE OF LOUISBUKG. 
 
 297 
 
 Jeffery Amherst were placed in command of the naval and land forces 
 
 which were to attack Louisburg. On the 2d of June, 1758, the com- 
 
 bined forces, acting in perfect harmony, arrived before Louisburg, and 
 
 on the 8th, the first favorable day, landed in the face of the enemy, 
 
 making their way through heavy surf and up steep acclivities. The 
 
 decisive work was done with the landing ; after that it was a question 
 
 of time, as the English parallels rapidly advanced. On the raptureof 
 
 25th of July the garrison surrendered upon demand, threat- Lou "' bur B- 
 
 ened by a final assault, for which preparations had been made with 
 
 great vigor. Nearly six thousand prisoners were taken, and sent to 
 
 England and France, and 
 
 the victory was not only 
 
 complete, but left a substan- 
 
 tial result in the possession 
 
 of the coveted fortress, 
 
 which at once became a 
 
 standing menace to Quebec. 
 
 The moral effect of the cap- 
 
 ture was in every way im- 
 
 portant. New England was 
 
 awakened to new enthusiasm 
 
 by the recapture of a place 
 
 which she had once taken, 
 
 and whose restoration to 
 
 France by England she had 
 
 never ceased to regret. The 
 
 brilliancy of the assault, in 
 
 which B r i g a d i e r-general 
 
 Wolfe played a conspicuous 
 
 part, revived the sinking 
 
 spirits of men who had seen action paralyzed under the feebleness of 
 
 Loudoun and Webb. 
 
 While Amherst was prosecuting the siege, General Abercrombie, 
 who had succeeded Loudoun upon his return to England, 
 
 , , t . e . , . 
 
 was aiming at the second great object or the campaign 
 the capture of Ticonderoga. The officer next in command, 
 Lord Howe, was the ruling spirit of the army. Before Abercrombie 
 reached the camp, Howe had sent Rogers with his rangers, who, win- 
 ter and summer, had scoured the woods and lakes of the country, on 
 a reconnoissance, and thus had secured a plan of the French works at 
 Ticonderoga, and a survey of the neighboring district. The fortified 
 town and camp of Carillon, as the French called the place, was upon 
 a point of land washed on the north, east, and south by the waters 
 
 William Pitt. 
 
 Attack on 
 
298 CONTINUATION OF THE FRENCH WAR. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 of Wood's Creek, the entrance to Lake Champlain, and the entrance 
 to Lake George. On the west only was there approach by land, and 
 here, on either extremity, was low, wet land, while the country occu- 
 pied by the French was hilly and broken. Montcalm was in com- 
 mand, with about three thousand effective soldiers, and De LeVis, 
 who had been sent to relieve Fort Frontenac, which was threatened, 
 was hastily recalled, as the news came that the English, twenty-five 
 thousand strong, were setting out for Carillon. The fortifications of 
 the place were not very strong, but the ground to be passed over by 
 an investing force offered excellent opportunities for defence. Here, 
 therefore, intrenchments were hastily made, with an abattis of felled 
 trees. Yet Montcalm, even on the day of the attack, hesitated 
 whether to attempt to hold it or retire to Crown Point. He finally 
 decided that he would await the attack of the enemy who were 
 before him, since if they could not carry the works by storm there 
 would needs be two or three days before they could bring up the ar- 
 tillery. 1 Abercrombie had not twenty-five thousand, but only fifteen 
 thousand troops, regulars and provincials. 
 
 It was the 5th of July when he left his camp at the foot of Lake 
 George and ascended the lake with batteaux and rafts, a brilliant 
 spectacle, made more picturesque by the bright plaids of his High- 
 landers. Two bodies of French troops had been sent out to dispute 
 the landing of the English ; but when, the next day, the enemy 
 appeared in force, they at once retreated ; one division went safely 
 back ; the other, making a detour, became involved in the tangled 
 woods, and suddenly came upon a body of English troops, equally be- 
 wildered. It was the centre column, headed by Lord Howe, and the 
 two parties at once began firing upon each other. The provincials 
 with Howe fought bravely, and almost the whole French detachment 
 Death of of three hundred and fifty men was slain; but Howe fell 
 llowe- at the first fire, and his loss was irreparable. Abercrombie 
 
 knew nothing of fighting but by rule ; he refused the advice of the 
 provincial leaders ; he showed caution when dash would have suc- 
 ceeded, and was obstinate in attack when obstinacy was failure and 
 defeat. The French labored incessantly at their defence, cheered by 
 Montcalm, who worked with the i-est. De LI vis arrived, and gave 
 them fresh courage. Meanwhile the English lost precious time in 
 securing a position which was unnecessary, whether they were to suc- 
 ceed or to fail. 
 
 The attack was made on the 8th. Abercrombie, ignorant of the 
 formidable character of the abattis, though warned by Stark, of New 
 
 1 Pouchot's Mnnoir upon the Late War in North America, translated by Franklin B 
 Hough, 1866, i. 115, 116. 
 
1758.] 
 
 DEFEAT OF ABERCROMBIE. 
 
 299 
 
 Hampshire, sent his obedient regulars again and again to the attack. 
 For five hours the battle raged ; the English were dogged and obedi- 
 ent, the provincials cool and alert. They tried now the centre, now 
 the flanks ; they hurled themselves against the sharp, ugly barrier, 
 and could scarcely see the shouting line behind that poured a murder- 
 ous fire into their ranks. A French officer hung a red handkerchief 
 on the end of a musket, and beckoned the enemy on. Some thought 
 it a flag of truce, and rushed up crying quarter. The French, seeing 
 them come with their arms held against their breasts, were at first 
 puzzled, and then fired furiously at the intrepid men who were break- 
 ing through the hedge. 
 
 
 Field of Abercrombie's Defeat. 
 
 At sunset the hopeless attempt was abandoned, and the troops 
 withdrew to the lake. But the final confession of failure, 
 with the terrible scenes of the day, broke down the spirits 
 of the men, and those who had made the attack without flinching at 
 last took to precipitate flight. The darkness of the night and the igno- 
 rance of the French saved them from pursuit, and the shattered force 
 encamped again on the ruins of Fort William Henry, having lost 
 more than two thousand men, and left the dead and wounded along 
 their track. 
 
 Immediately after the ill-starred attack on Carillon, Bradstreet, with 
 a detachment of three thousand men, nearly all provincials, 
 marched rapidly to Oswego, and, taking passage to Fort 
 Frontenac, quickly reduced it, and captured its little garri- 
 
300 CONTINUATION OF THE FRENCH WAR. [CHAP. XL 
 
 son and abundant stores. He destroyed the fort and the vessels that 
 lay there, and returned to Albany to join the main army. 
 
 Meanwhile the remaining expedition, for the recovery of Fort Du 
 Quesne, succeeded through the weakness of the French, and almost 
 in spite of the English commander. It had been placed under the 
 command of Brigadier-general Joseph Forbes, who, with nearly seven 
 thousand men, was five months in crawling to the Ohio, and was even 
 abandoning the object at the last moment, when a happy fortune dis- 
 closed the weakness of the enemy. General Forbes had left Phila- 
 delphia with his command early in July, and listening to Penn- 
 sylvania advisers, who were suspected of wishing to secure a new 
 road, determined not to use Braddock's road, but to make another, 
 which would be shorter, from his rendezvous at Raystown, now Bed- 
 ford. Colonel Washington joined him with the Virginia troops at 
 Bedford, greatly dissatisfied with the course which had been pursued. 
 He WHS sent forward in advance of the main army to take command 
 of a division employed in opening the road, against which, as a use- 
 less waste of time, he had vainly protested. 
 
 At Turtle Creek, twelve miles from the Ohio, a council of war was 
 called, on the 24th of November, for the situation seemed well-nigh 
 desperate. Provisions were almost exhausted, and the general opinion 
 was, that a retreat was imperative. Forbes, who from his unbending 
 will had earned the name of the Head of Iron, swore that he would 
 take Du Quesne or die in the attempt. But that night clouds of smoke 
 were seen above the fort, and the sound of a heavy explosion reached 
 the camp. It was conjectured as Forbes soon knew from his scouts 
 was the fact that the French were abandoning the place. In the 
 morning the army moved cautiously forward ; no enemy opposed 
 them ; in a few hours they entered the fort, but it was only to take a 
 heap of ruins. 
 
 The French had retreated down the river, and the Indians had 
 dispersed. That the works had been destroyed, was of little moment ; 
 the important thing was, that the valley of the Ohio was recovered 
 to the English. But it might, perhaps, have been done at less cost 
 had Forbes been as sagacious as he was undoubtedly brave. A rapid 
 march by the old road would have led to the same result and would 
 have precluded one disaster. While the army halted at Raystown, 
 waiting for the new road to be made, the General sent Bouquet with 
 two thousand men to occupy the Loyalhanna (now Ligonier, Pennsyl- 
 vania). Here Bouquet entrenched, and sent forward Major Grant 
 with eight hundred men, as a preparatory movement toward taking 
 the fort, which he believed he could do without waiting for Forbes. 
 On a hill still called Grant's Hill overlooking Du Quesne, Grant 
 
1758.] CAPTURE OF FORT NIAGARA. 301 
 
 was surprised by a sally of seven or eight hundred Frenchmen, with a 
 host of Indians, and, though he fought with great bravery, his com- 
 mand was almost destroyed. It consisted chiefly of Highlanders ; and 
 as, on the 2oth of November, their countrymen under Forbes moved 
 through an Indian path in approaching the fort, their rage and their 
 grief were beyond control when they saw the remains of their old 
 comrades exposed to every indignity that savage ingenuity could 
 invent. To bury these, as he had already buried the whitening 
 bones that still strewed the field of Braddock's fight, Forbes es- 
 teemed a sacred duty. 
 
 Pitt, aware of the growing weakness of Canada, was pouring men 
 and material into America, in preparation for a campaign 
 which it was hoped would be final. Amherst had displaced im-nts from 
 Abercrombie, and was to mass his forces in an attack upon 
 Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and then proceed by the northern 
 route. Wolfe, who had shown his skill and counige at Louisburg, 
 was to conduct an expedition up the St. Lawrence against Quebec, 
 and General Prideaux, in command mainly of provincials and Indians, 
 was to lay siege to Fort Niagara, and then, descending the St. Law- 
 rence, meet the other two armies before Montreal. 
 
 Fort Niagara was being strengthened by Pouchot, who had been sent 
 in command, and who complained bitterly of the inadequate support 
 given him. He was going to a distant post in the midst of Indians 
 who were fast coming under the control of the English, and onlv about 
 a hundred and fifty men were allowed him. He intimates that M. de 
 Vaudreuil, Governor of Canada, was so sure the place would be cap- 
 tured, that he withheld a larger body from him. Nevertheless, he pro- 
 ceeded on his errand, and even entertained the project of retaking and 
 destroying Fort Du Quesne. He reached Niagara on the 30th of 
 April, and busied himself in repairing the fort, in communicating with 
 the other posts, and in using every exertion to detach the Indians 
 from the English alliance. 
 
 General Prideaux's division, inarching rapidly to Oswego, embarked 
 at once, and appeared before Niagara on the 6th of July. 
 The work was pushed forward with great vigor, but Pri- For't U Niag- 
 deaux was killed by the carelessness of one of his soldiers 
 very early in the siege, and the command devolved on Sir William 
 Johnson. Pouchot summoned to his aid the forces from Detroit, Ve- 
 nango, and Presqu' Isle ; for it was clear that the fort could not stand 
 a long siege, and that their only hope lay in a repulse of the Eng- 
 lish. That hope was speedily destroyed. About nine o'clock in the 
 morning of July 24, the garrison heard distant firing and saw a com- 
 
302 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE FRENCH WAR. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 motion which they could not understand. It was explained to them 
 shortly by the arrival of a messenger, bringing a summons to surren- 
 der, and the intelligence that the little army sent to raise the siege 
 had been met, and in a spirited battle of an hour had been completely 
 routed. Pouchot refused to believe the calamity, but when it was 
 made clear the garrison surrendered. 
 
 Meanwhile the centi-e division was encountering the delays which 
 
 seemed to attend every movement on Lake George. On 
 taken by the the 22d of July, after n month's delay, for disaster had 
 
 inculcated prudence, Amherst appeared with an army of 
 about eleven thousand men before Ticonderoga, and occupied the outer 
 lines which had been abandoned by the French. Four days later, 
 
 when he was ready to open his 
 batteries, an explosion an- 
 nounced that the besieged had 
 blown up the magazine and evacuated the fort. Amherst took pos- 
 session of the works, and, still cautious, groped his way to Crown 
 Point, only to find that Fort St. Frederick had also been aban- 
 doned, and that the French had retreated to the Isle aux Noix, at 
 the northern extremity of Lake Champlain. He spent the rest of 
 the season in strengthening Ticonderoga and building massive works 
 at Crown Point, which consumed millions of money, apparently only 
 to give pleasure to the idle tourists who now saunter about the ruins. 
 Amherst indeed made preparations for a flotilla which should com- 
 mand the lake and give means for attack on the French army ; he 
 opened a road also to the Connecticut River, and he sent the daring 
 
1758.] ACTION AND INACTION. 303 
 
 Rogers on an expedition against the Indian village of St. Francis, an 
 expedition marked by some of the most exciting passages of the ran- 
 ger's perilous life. But the army which had been gathered with so 
 much care remained inactive, while Wolfe was conducting his part of 
 the campaign before Quebec with untiring energy. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 COXQTEST OF CANADA. TOXTIAC's WAR. 
 
 FALL OF QL-KHEC AND MONTREAL. RENEWAL OF INDIAN HOSTILITIES. PONTIAC'S 
 CONSPIRACY. SlEGE OF DETROIT. BATTLE OF BLOOHY BRIDGE. DEATH OF 
 DALZEI.L. ATTACK ox SAXDIJSKY. TAKIXG OF FORTS ST. JOSEPH. MIAMI, AM> 
 OUATAXON. MASSACKE AT MICHILI.MACKIXAC. FIGHT AT I'UESQU' ISLE. 
 BURNING OF FORT LE BCEUF. FORTS VEXAXGO, LIGONIKR, AXI> AUGUSTA RE- 
 DUCED. FORT PITT HESIEGED. BOUQUET'S EXPEDITION. BATTLE OF BUSHY 
 Hex. THE PAXTOX MEN. ADVAXCE ON PHILADELPHIA. DEATH OF PONTIAC. 
 
 SUBMISSIOX OF THE IXDIAXS. 
 
 
 
 AFTER the capture of Louisburg, Wolfe bad returned for a season 
 to England, but, with all bis bodily Aveakness, be bad the 
 tvoife un- invincible spirit of a soldier, and a loyalty which borrowed 
 the rupture pathos from a presentiment of death in the field. Louis- 
 burg was the rendezvous for the land and sea forces, amount- 
 ing to about eight thousand, with which Wolfe undertook the capture 
 of Quebec. He was ably seconded both by Admirals Saunders and 
 Holmes, and by the three Brigadiers Monckton, Townsend, and 
 Murray. They left Louisburg toward the end of June, 175 ( J, and 
 dropped anchor in the St. Lawrence, below Quebec, making the prin- 
 cipal camp on the Isle d'Orleans, but presently occupying also the 
 promontory of Point Levi, on the southern shore of the river and 
 nearer Quebec. Montcalm had been advised of the approach of the 
 enemy, and gathering all the forces which could be spared from Mont- 
 real, Three Rivers, and the fields of the starving Canadians, had dis- 
 posed them in such a way as to fortify those approaches to the citadel 
 The city and not then deemed naturally impregnable. The city, rising 
 it s defences. w ^ n)cky fl . ont between the St. Lawrence and the St. 
 Charles, had been unapproachable by the Indians, who for a hundred 
 years and more had scalped their victims almost at its base ; it had de- 
 fied the formidable squadron under Sir William Phips, and it seemed 
 now to need only abundance of provision and a few disciplined sol- 
 diers to hold out against a siege until the hard northern winter should 
 again encircle it with the protection of frost and storm. 
 
 But Canada was assailed by more dangerous enemies than the Eng- 
 
1759.] 
 
 THE SITUATION AT QUEBEC. 
 
 305 
 
 lish, and when the great fleet with its profusion of resources lay be- 
 fore Quebec, Montcalm must have grown bitter ov r the corruption 
 which had eaten away the strength of the place. He had lined the 
 shore, from the St. Charles to the Falls of the Montmorenci, with 
 fortified camps, containing, with the garrison in the city, about thir- 
 teen thousand men of varying degrees of military discipline and with 
 unequal equipment. A boom had boen built across the St. Charles, 
 with vessels sunk be- 
 hind it, and barges in 
 front. On the south 
 side of the city, the 
 land fell off precipi- 
 tously to the St. Law- 
 rence, here a rapid 
 river, a mile wide, 
 the ascent of which 
 was guarded by the 
 small naval force, 
 consisting of two frig- 
 ates under Captain 
 Vauquelin. Steep 
 paths led from the 
 shore to the plains 
 above, and small 
 bodies of troops 
 stationed here could 
 serve easily as pickets 
 in a place so admi- 
 rably fortified by na- 
 ture. Wolfe planted 
 his batteries along 
 the opposite shore, 
 and began a severe 
 cannonading on the 
 
 city walls harmless as regarded the citadel, but rendering the lower 
 town almost uninhabitable. His forces were not equal to Montcalm's 
 in numbers, and it was evident that he must gain the advantage either 
 by strategy or by the powerful assistance of the fleet. The French 
 maintained the defensive, except that they made two futile attempts, 
 one to destroy the enemy's fleet by fire-rafts, the other to dislodge 
 Monckton, shortly after he had taken up his position at Point Levi. 
 Wolfe resolved to attack Montcalm's extreme left, which rested on the 
 banks of the Montmorenci. He had already occupied the left bank of 
 
 General Wolfe. 
 
 VOL. III. 
 
 20 
 
306 CONQUEST OF CANADA. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 that river, and he had there the advantage of overlooking the lower 
 right bank, with the French intrenehments. Below and 
 HI.- French above the Falls were ford ing-places; by these Wolfe proposed 
 to send detachments, while a division from Point Levi, cross- 
 ing in barges, was to land on the strand, west of the Falls, where the 
 lauding was to be covered by the Centurion, a sixty-gun ship anchored 
 below. 
 
 The day chosen for the movement was the 31st of July, and the 
 basin swarmed with barges bearing Monckton's detachment, and fly- 
 ing back anil forth between the several camps. It was a sultry day, 
 and the movement did not begin until after noon. De L6vis, in com- 
 mand of the extreme left of the French army, had disposed his troops 
 at the two fords, and, having the inside, could readily mass the defence 
 at either point. It was Wolfe's intention that the three parties, after 
 landing and crossing the river, should meet upon the Courville 1'oad, 
 and immediately advance upon the French redoubt, and it was an im- 
 portant part of his plan that the landing and the two crossings should 
 be made simultaneously, in order to divide the enemy's defence. 
 There was a redoubt near the point where Monckton's division was to 
 land, and not far from the lower ford, and when this was taken the 
 ranks were to form for an attack upon the intrenehments behind. 
 
 The plan was intricate and bold, and there was no lack of courage 
 in the assailants. There was, however, apparent lack of discipline 
 and concentration. At the upper ford the British were driven back, 
 and De Levis's men, accomplishing this, made haste to reenforce those 
 who were awaiting the attack of the troops which, landing on the 
 strand, were now hurrying pell-mell across the ground from the re- 
 doubt that had been immediately evacuated, toward the intrenehments. 
 There was irregularity and want of concert both in the landing and in 
 the attack. The abandonment of the redoubt may have^ misled the 
 English into a contempt for the enemy. But they were quickly unde- 
 ceived. The Canadians, waiting behind the intrenehments, suddenly, 
 as the troops came rushing upon them, opened fire, so sure and so 
 rapid that the attack was arrested. At that moment a thunder-storm 
 burst overhead. Over the slippery ground the English fled precipi- 
 tately to their boats, their retreat hidden by the blinding rain. When 
 the storm cleared, the Canadians saw the enemy bearing their wounded 
 to the boats, a part recrossing the lower ford and regaining their in- 
 trenehments on the left bank of the Montmorenci, and part returning 
 in the barges to the camp at Point Levi. The victorious Canadians 
 harassed the retreating soldiers with their guns, while their Indian al- 
 lies hovered about them with their tomahawks. The British kept up 
 their cannonading all night, but the expedition was a sorry failure. 
 About five hundred men had been lost by the attacking party. 
 
1759.] 
 
 THE SIEGE OF QUEBEC. 
 
 307 
 
 The siege was prolonged for another month, and an expedition was 
 sent up the river, but with little effect, except, it may be, to familiar- 
 ize the officers with that side of the city which was now to witness 
 the triumph of the British army. Wolfe, sick and discouraged, called 
 a council of his officers and invited new plans for the capture of 
 Quebec. The plan proposed by the council involved the reembar- 
 kation of the army, to be conducted up the river to the south side, 
 above the town, where they should cross, gain the rear of the works, 
 and compel Montcalm to meet them, while at the same time they 
 cut off his communication with Montreal. The preparations for this 
 new approach excited great uneasiness in the city, and Montcalm was 
 urged to anticipate the movement by a new disposition of his troops. 
 But he was confident that a handful of men could defend the ap- 
 
 Quebec in 1730. From an Old Print. 
 
 proach to the city in the narrow passes leading to the river, and more- 
 over he had strong doubts that the enemy intended anything more 
 than a feint, as demonstrations were still continued at the mouth of 
 the Montmoreuci. However, Bougainville with a body of men was 
 stationed up the river, and was now ree'n forced, while the guards along 
 the steep bank were cautioned to be on the lookout. 
 
 Wolfe, lying almost helpless in his chamber, caught at a plan 
 which commended itself to his own courageous spirit, and the troops 
 were transferred to the fleet. A detachment was sent forward to 
 reconnoitre during the 7th, 8th, and Oth of September, and news \vas 
 brought by two deserters from the French that a. convoy of provis- 
 ions was to arrive from up the river, and seek to gain the port in the 
 darkness of the night of the 12th-13th. The city was much dis- 
 tressed from lack of provisions, which were slowly brought with great 
 
308 CONQUEST OF CANADA. [CiiAr. XII. 
 
 difficulty by land, and it had been determined to run the risk of 
 dropping barges noiselessly down the river with the flood. Wolfe 
 seized upon the fact to further his own purposes. Holmes's fleet 
 had passed the town, receiving a fire from the fortress, which it could 
 not return, and was now anchored above the port. A detnchment 
 had been sent beyond Cape Rouge in order to hold Bougainville's 
 attention, while a show of operations was still kept up at the Mont- 
 morenci, to engage the vigilance of De Ldvis. There was no moon 
 on the night of the 12th, but the air was clear and the sky was 
 the success- bright with stars. Wolfe rose from his sick-bed and led the 
 fui assault, perilous expedition in person. In the depth of the night, 
 some thirty boats, bearing sixteen hundred soldiers, fell silently down 
 the river toward the little cove which had been chosen for the de- 
 barkation. As they floated down the stream, Wolfe repeated in a low 
 voice stanzas from Gray's "Elegy," one verse of which, it has been 
 often remarked, was so appropriate to the fate about to befall him : 
 
 " The boast of heraldry, the ]>onip of power, 
 
 And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
 Await alike the inevitable hour : 
 
 The paths of glory lead but to the grave." 
 
 "Gentlemen," he said to the officers who had listened to him, "I 
 would rather have written those lines than take Quebec to-morrow." 
 
 The boats drew near the landing place beneath the ovei'hanging 
 wooded heights. The sentinel, peering out from the darkness, heard 
 rather than saw the objects in the water. " Qui vive ? " he called. 
 " La France ! " replied a Highlander in the foremost boat, plans hav- 
 ing been laid for those familiar with French to answer the demands. 
 "A quel regiment?" continued the sentinel. "De la Reine," was the 
 reply, the name of a regiment under Bougainville's command. This 
 boat and others, being under too much headway, shot beyond the 
 landing-place. Again one of the barges was challenged. " Qui 
 vive ? " " Ne faites pas de bruit, ce sont les vivres," (" Hush I the 
 provisions,") was the half-whispered rejoinder. Then some of the 
 boats grated on the beach at the cove, and the Highlanders of Fra- 
 ser's regiment sprang ashore. Wolfe had turned his boat back, and 
 was one of the first to land. A guard-house stood at the head of the 
 cove, and a narrow path led up the steep from this point. The guard 
 was instantly surprised, and the Highlanders sprang up the path, 
 catching at bushes and roots and trees to help them. A small guard 
 was at the head of the pass, commanded by an officer who had already 
 shown himself unworthy, and who now was in bed. These made a 
 hasty defence, but were overpowered by the foremost Highlanders, 
 while up the path, hastened by the sound of musket-shots above, 
 
1759.] 
 
 WOLFE ON THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM. 
 
 309 
 
 men came crowding and pushing one another. The pass was held, 
 and in the breaking day the men could see the ships coming to anchor 
 opposite the cove, now known as Wolfe's Cove, when fresh troops 
 clambered up the path. As the sun rose, the English army stood 
 
 in battle array on the Plains of 
 Abraham, which stretched in a 
 great table-land behind the city. 
 The attack upon the guard, 
 some of whom had escaped into 
 the city, aroused the garrison, 
 and word was instantly sent to 
 Montcalm. He re- 
 fused at first to be- 
 lieve in the whole 
 extent of the dan- 
 ger, but, taking a 
 body of 4,500 men, 
 marched over the 
 bridge of boats cross- 
 
 Landing of Wolfe. 
 
 ing the St. Charles, and passed through the city to the Plains beyond. 
 It was eight o'clock in the morning, and Montcalm, fearful lest the 
 British should intrench themselves, as indeed they had already be- 
 gun to do, determined, against the advice of his generals, to make an 
 immediate assault. The enemy had been able to bring up but one 
 gun, and in case of defeat would inevitably be subjected to terrible 
 punishment, for there could be no orderly retreat from the position 
 

 310 CONQUEST OF CANADA. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 they had taken, while Bougainville's division, which had been ordered 
 np at once, would receive them in rear and Hank. Montcalm was 
 driven to desperation as he saw the British in a position which he 
 had first declared it was impossible for them to take, and that to 
 take it was of the greatest peril to the city. He ordered an attack, 
 and the Canadians, crouching in the corn and copse, kept up a brisk 
 lire, while the regulars began to advance rapidly in three divis- 
 ions, the English still maintaining an unbroken front. The French 
 advance was broken and irregular, the men already fatigued by their 
 march to the city, but it was quick and resolute, and the platoons 
 delivered a determined fire as they pushed forward. Still the Brit- 
 ish line did not reply. When at length the French were only forty 
 yards distant, the word was given to fire, and in an instant the mus- 
 kets, doubly charged, mowed down the French ranks, so that these, 
 already disorderly, became confused and irresolute. Wolfe saw his 
 opportunity. He flung himself before the grenadiers, and charged 
 upon the amazed Frenchmen. They turned and fled, and the shout- 
 ing Englishmen leaped after them, driving them headlong and fell- 
 ing them to the ground. In the first rush of this impetuous charge 
 a ball pierced Wolfe in the side. He staggered forward, when an- 
 other struck his breast, and he fell. He was borne to the 
 wnite niui rear and laid on the grass. The charge was still tumul- 
 tuous, and one of the officers excitedly cried out, " See how 
 they run ! " 
 
 "Who run?'' asked Wolfe, who had lain as if in a deadly swoon, 
 but roused himself now. 
 
 "The enemy, sir ; they give way everywhere." 
 
 "Then,"' said Wolfe, "tell Colonel Burton to march Webb's regi- 
 ment down to Charles River, to cut off their retreat from the bridge. 
 Now, God be praised, I shall die in peace." And turning on his side, 
 he passed into the shadow at the end of the path of glory. By a 
 tragic coincidence, Montcalm also fell at the head of his troops, as he 
 sought to rally them after the first fierce attack. He was borne to 
 the hospital, and refused to give any more orders. He had words for 
 the bravery of his opponents, and for the last offices of religion, but 
 the fight he gave up instantly. He had a soldier's burial, at his own 
 desire, in a cavity of the earth formed by the bursting of a bomb- 
 shell. 
 
 The French were driven behind the walls of Quebec. Within a few 
 days, terms of capitulation were proposed, which General Townsend 
 acceded to, and on the 18th of September the British entered the 
 city. The winter passed in enforced inactivity on both sides, the 
 French withdrawing their troops to Montreal, and the English send- 
 ing away a portion of their army in the fleet. 
 
1762.] 
 
 CAPITULATION OF THE FRENCH. 
 
 When the river opened in the spring, De Levis, with an army of 
 about seven thousand men, moved down from Montreal, General 
 Murray had not three thousand men in garrison, but lie sallied out at 
 once to meet the enemy, and a second welWought battle upon the 
 Plains of Abraham followed. The English, however, were repulsed, 
 and the French made immediate preparations for a siege. Both com- 
 manders were hoping for speedy reinforcements, and in May they 
 came, but to the English only. De Levis threw his heavy guns into 
 the river and retreated. Vauquelin withstood an attack, but, after a 
 stout defence, was com- 
 pelled to leave his two 
 frigates in the hands of the 
 enemy. 
 
 It was plain that the 
 French could do little now 
 but await events. The ap- 
 proach to Montreal was 
 guarded at the Isle anx 
 Noix by Bougainville ; the 
 rapids above were held by 
 a small force, as were those 
 on the upper St. Lawrence. 
 Fresh reinforcements to 
 the English were looked for 
 by all these routes. From 
 the south came Colonel 
 Haviland, with an army 
 from Crown Point; Am- 
 herst, with his own divis- 
 ion of ten thousand regulars 
 and provincials, reenforced 
 at Oswego by a thousand 
 Indians under Sir William 
 Johnson, came from Lake Ontario ; and these, with General Murray 
 from the east, met before Montreal. On the 8th of September the 
 city surrendered, and in the terms of capitulation were included De- 
 troit, Michilimackinac, and other posts held by the French farther 
 west. The French fleet, which arrived upon the coast soon after, but 
 too late, was met by a British squadron and completelv destroyed. 
 New France was soon wiped out from the map of America. 
 
 Peace, indeed, was not definitively concluded between France ami 
 Great Britain till the autumn of 17(32, when Canada, Nova Scotia. 
 and Cape Breton were ceded to Great Britain. France retaining 
 
 Montcalm. 
 
312 CONQUEST OF CANADA. [CHAI>. XII. 
 
 New Orleans and the region west of the Mississippi, which she imme- 
 con.mions diately conveyed to Spain. The contest, meanwhile, was 
 continued in America, not by the French, but by the Indians, 
 who foresaw the certainty of their own subjugation when they could 
 no longer command the friendship and protection of one of the two 
 great powers. A few months after the surrender of Quebec, Major 
 Robert Rogers, a native of New Hampshire, a noted ranger, was sent 
 by General Amherst to carry the news of the capitulation to Detroit, 
 and take possession of that and other western posts on the fron- 
 tier. In November, 1760, they encamped at the mouth of the Cuya- 
 hoga, where the city of Cleveland now stands, to wait for fair weather. 
 Here they were visited by a party of Indians, 1 who announced that 
 they came from Pontiac, the chief who claimed all that country, and 
 whose orders were, that the English should proceed.no farther till they 
 had received his permission. A few hours later he entered the camp 
 in person. 
 
 Pontiac was chief of the Ottawas, whom he was said to have com- 
 manded at Braddock's defeat, and in 1746 he and his war- 
 riors had defended the French at Detroit against an attack 
 by some of the northern tribes. His mother was an Ojibwa, and the 
 Ojibwas and Pottawotamies were in alliance with the Ottawas, he 
 being the principal chief of the three tribes. He was now nearly or 
 quite fifty years of age, and is described as unusually dark in complex- 
 ion, of medium height, of powerful frame, and of haughty bearing. 
 Subtle, patient, cruel, with much more than the ordinary capacity of 
 his race, he possessed all of their few good qualities and most of their 
 many bad ones. 
 
 Pontiac demanded of Major Rogers his reasons for being at that 
 place, and why he presumed to pass through the country without his 
 permission. He was told in reply of the conquest of Canada by the 
 English, that the party were on their way to receive the surrender of 
 Detroit, and that it was hoped a general peace and friendly relations 
 might immediately follow. Pontiac took a night for the considera- 
 tion of intelligence with which probably he was already familiar, and 
 the next day in a second speech declared that he wished to be at peace 
 with the English, and would let them remain in the country so long 
 as they treated him with due consideration. He was, perhaps, at that 
 moment sincere. His old friends, the French, were conquered, and 
 he may have hoped, by an early declaration of friendship for the 
 
 1 In the relation of the Indian warfare of this period, the historian has only to follow 
 faithfully and gratefully The Conspiracy of Pontiac, by Francis Parkinau, one of the 
 most exhaustive, as well as interesting and instructive monographs, that have ever beeu con- 
 tributed to American history. 
 
1762.] POXTIAC. 
 
 English, to secure an influence that would give him a complete ns- 
 cemlency over the other tribes. His good-will was further n is friol) .i. 
 shoAvn when Rogers and his two hundred rangers arrived at ' 
 Detroit River, where four hundred Detroit Indians were lying in am- 
 bush. They were persuaded by Pontiac to relinquish their design of 
 cutting off the English. 
 
 The Indians who witnessed the surrender of Detroit. November 29, 
 1700, marvelled that the stronger garrison should tamely lay down 
 their arms to a force so much inferior, and could only account for it 
 by attributing to the English a superhuman prowess. No such be- 
 lief, however, found lodgment in the mind of their wiser chief. He 
 hated the English, and did not believe them to be invincible ; he 
 dreaded their supremacy, and feared that they meant to conquer his 
 own race, as thev had conquered the French, and would drive them 
 from their hunting-grounds or make them slaves. His eai"S were open 
 to idle tales which soon reached him from the Canadian traders that 
 his father, the French King, was old and had been asleep, but that 
 he had aroused himself, and a great army was coming to the help of 
 his dusky children ; his fleet of great canoes, it was rumored, was on 
 its way up the St. Lawrence River. He took counsel, therefore, of 
 his thirst for vengeance, and not of any fear of the prowess or the 
 numbers of the hated enemy. He pondered over these things for 
 months alone in the depths of the forest, or in the silence of 
 
 ... . i '." t < Pontiac's 
 
 his wigwam, where none dared to interrupt the thoughts of plan of ex- 
 
 trniiinutinn. 
 
 the grim and melancholy savage. His plans, at length, were 
 fixed. In a single day all the forts should be attacked and their gar- 
 risons put to the sword; all the frontier settlements should be laid 
 waste ; then, with the aid of the French, he would move upon the 
 older ones, and the English should be exterminated or driven across 
 the sea. 
 
 Near the close of 1762, Pontiac sent ambassadors to the several 
 nations, to lay his plan before them and propose the next 
 spring as the time for its execution. These ambassadors, tt 
 
 bearing a red-stained tomahawk and a wampum war-belt, 
 visited every tribe between the Ottawa and the Lower Mississippi. 
 The only nation of the Iroquois that joined in the conspiracy was the 
 Senecas, the others being restrained through the influence of Sir Wil- 
 liam Johnson. But all the Algonquins, with few exceptions, the 
 Wyandots, and some of the Southern tribes, entered into it. as well 
 as the three immediately under the control of Pontiac. The time was 
 fixed at a certain change of the moon in May. Each tribe w;is to dis- 
 pose of the garrison of the nearest fort, and then all were to turn 
 upon the settlements. 
 
314 
 
 PONTIAC'S WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. XII. 
 
 
 Although within two years several smaller conspiracies of this 
 nature had been discovered and thwarted, most of the commanders of 
 
 the forts appear to have been almost stupidly unsuspicious 
 e*" and negligent. In March, Ensign Holmes, commanding 
 
 Fort Miami, where Fort Wayne, Indiana, now stands, was 
 informed by a friendly Indian that the neighboring tribe had received 
 a war-belt and were preparing to capture his post. He at once called 
 them together, and accused them of it. They confessed the truth, 
 pleaded that they had been over-persuaded by another tribe, and re- 
 newed their old protestations of friendship. Holmes wrote to Major 
 Gladwyn, the commander at Detroit, saying: " Since my last letter to 
 
 Scalp-Dance. 
 
 
 you, wherein I acquainted you of the Bloody Belt being in this vil- 
 lage, I have made all the search I could about it, and have found it out 
 to be true. Whereon I assembled all the chiefs of this nation, and 
 after a long and troublesome spell with them, I obtained the Belt 
 with a Speech as you will receive enclosed. This affair is very timely 
 stopt, and I hope the news of a peace will put a stop to any further 
 troubles with those Indians who are the principal ones of setting mis- 
 chief on foot. I send you the Belt with this packet, which I hope you 
 will forward to the General." Gladwyn did send the information to 
 Amherst, but said lie believed it to be a trifling matter which would 
 soon blow over. 
 
 Pontiac called a great council, at a point on the river Ecorces, not 
 
1763.] PONTIAC AT DETROIT. 315 
 
 far from Detroit, which was held on the 27th of April, 1763, and was 
 very fully attended. He delivered a long oration, in which r ollt ia c 's 
 he recounted the wrongs and indignities that the Indians couucl1 - 
 had suffered at the hands of the English. The French, he told them, 
 were their friends, and he repeated the stories he had heard 
 
 , -,.. < 1-1 11 -i o T His speech. 
 
 that the King or b ranee would soon sail up the ot. Law- 
 rence with his great war-canoes to assist his children. Above all he 
 pointed out to them the probability that unless something was done, 
 their extermination was inevitable. Then he told them of a tradition, 
 which he could hardly have invented, that a Delaware Indian had 
 been admitted to the presence of the Great Spirit, who told him his 
 race must return to the customs and weapons of their ancestors, throw 
 away the implements they had acquired from the white man, abstain 
 from whiskey, and take up the hatchet against the English, " these 
 dogs dressed in red, who have come to rob you of your hunting- 
 grounds and drive away the game." 
 
 The time fixed for the insurrection was the 7th of May. Pontiac 
 
 / 
 
 was to lead in person the attack on Detroit. On the 1st he visited the 
 fort with forty warriors, and danced the calumet-dance before the offi- 
 cers. A few days later he called a final council of a hundred T^ plan at 
 chiefs, and laid before them his specific plans. With weapons Detroit 
 concealed in their blankets, they were to go to the fort and demand a 
 council with the commandant. Being admitted, Pontiac was to make 
 a speech, and when he presented the wampum-belt wrong end fore- 
 most, it was to be the signal for the chiefs to fall upon and slaughter 
 the officers. At the sound of this, the Indians who waited at the gate, 
 or lounged about the streets, were to massacre the soldiers and citizens. 
 On the oth the wife of a settler, visiting an Ottawa village to buy 
 maple sugar and venison, observed many of the warriors 
 cutting off the barrels of their guns with files. When she 
 returned home and reported this, the blacksmith of the post remem- 
 bered that the Indians had recently come to his shop to borrow files 
 and saws, refusing to tell the purpose for which they wanted them. 
 Those who understood the native character, knew at once that this 
 could only mean that the guns were to be shortened for easier con- 
 cealment beneath their blankets, and this could only be for some 
 
 / 
 
 treacherous purpose. But Gladwyn was not convinced till the next 
 day, when he received a visit from his mistress, an Ojibwa girl, said 
 to be very beautiful, whose unusual manner, and reluctance to depart 
 when the gates were about to be closed, led him to question her. 
 After considerable hesitation she revealed the plot with all its par- 
 ticulars. 1 
 
 1 Turkman traces the fate of this girl. She was probably seized bv the Indians aud 
 
31 1) POXTI AC'S WAR. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 The fort at this time consisted of a square inclosed by -A palisade 
 Description twenty-five feet high, with a wooden bastion at each corner 
 <>t -tin- fort. nK)Un tin<r ;i few light pieces of artillery, and block-houses 
 over the gateways. Within were barracks, a small church, and about 
 a hundred houses, mostly of wood, divided from one another by nar- 
 row streets, but all separated from the palisade by a wide space. The 
 garrison consisted of one hundred and twenty men, and there were 
 about forty others capable of bearing arms. Two armed schooners 
 were anchored in the river. Estimates of the force under Pontiac 
 vary from six hundred to two thousand. When, at ten o'clock on the 
 morning of the 7th, the great chief entered the gate with his sixty 
 chosen warriors, all plumed and painted, and closely wrapped in gaudy 
 blankets, he saw at once that his design was known. The garrison 
 Pontmc was ""der arms and posted in readiness for immediate or- 
 ders, while every officer had a sword and two pistols in his 
 belt. "Why," said the chief, "do I see so manv of mv father's young 
 
 tf " v w 
 
 men standing in the street with their guns?" Gladwyn answered 
 carelessly that he had ordered them out for exercise. With many 
 misgivings, knowing what they themselves would have done had they 
 discovered such treachery on the part of pretended friends, the Indians 
 took the seats assigned them, and with much embarrassment Pontiac 
 began his speech. He appeared to debate in his own mind whether 
 it would not be best, even now, to attempt carrying out the plot. 
 Once he seemed about to lift the wampum-belt, when a slight gesture 
 from Gladwyn was instantly answered by the rattle of urnis at the 
 door, and the warning roll of a drum. Pontiac seemed confounded at 
 this evidence of the discovery of his purpose, and that the English 
 were in readiness to resist the proposed onslaught, was silenced, and 
 sat down. After a pause, Gladwyn made a short reply, assuring the 
 warriors of his friendship so long as they deserved it, but telling them 
 that instant vengeance would be taken for any hostile act. The conn- - 
 cil presently broke up, and the discomfited conspirators were con- 
 ducted to the gate. 
 
 The next day Pontiac and three of his chiefs returned to present 
 Major Gladwyn with a calnmet, and to assure him that " evil birds 
 had sung lies in his ear." He knew that Gladwyn knew it was he 
 HC declares wno l' e( l anc ^ when, the following day, he came with a large 
 crowd of warriors, he found the gates barred, and was told 
 that he alone might enter. Then he made instant declaration of war. 
 His followers gave the war-whoop, and running to the houses of two 
 
 taken before Poutiac, who punished her with his own hands, beating her with a kind of 
 racket dub which the natives used in their bull-play. But her life was spared. She lived 
 to be an old woman, and was at last scalded to death in a kettle of boiling maple-sup into 
 which >he fell when drunk. 
 
1763.] THE SIEGE OF DETROIT. 317 
 
 or three defenceless English outside the palisades, murdered them and 
 shook their bleeding scalps at the soldiers of the fort. 
 
 Pontiac ordered the Ottawa village to be moved across the river to 
 the Detroit shore, where it was pitched at the mouth of Par- Th( , sifge 
 ent's Creek (afterward called Bloody Run), a mile and a bf UD - 
 half northeast of the fort. He had been joined by the Ojibwas, and 
 on the 10th established a determined siege. From behind barns, 
 fences, and trees, and from inequalities in the ground, the savages 
 opened fire, and kept it up for six hours. This was returned when- 
 ever one of the dusky forms could be seen. A group of outbuildings 
 which sheltered a large number of them was set on fire with red-hot 
 spikes shot from a cannon, and burned down. When the day closed, 
 no impression had been made upon the fort, except that five of the 
 garrison were wounded. 
 
 Gladwyn greatly underrated the extent and seriousness of the plot, 
 and on the llth he opened negotiations with the Indians, 
 
 /-v T TM i e Campbell 
 
 through an interpreter and two Canadians, llie cliiet re- ami MOD., <\- 
 
 ,. i , 'it 111 ! i T* i* i gal bi-trayeJ- 
 
 plied that he wished to hold a council with the English, 
 and asked that Major Campbell, who was second in command, be sent 
 to him. The Major went, accompanied by Lieutenant McDougal, 
 rather against Gladwyn's will, however, and both were detained as 
 prisoners. McDougal escaped a few weeks later, but Campbell was 
 afterward murdered by a savage to revenge the death of his nephew, 
 who had been killed in a skirmish. 
 
 On the 12th, Pontiac compelled the Wyandots to join him, and 
 renewed the siege. By midnight sallies and other expedients, the 
 
 / 
 
 garrison gradually removed all buildings, fences, and orchards that in- 
 terfered with the sweep of their guns, or gave shelter to the enemy in 
 their approaches to the fort. The cannon-shot, of which, in common 
 with all Indians, they had great dread, kept them at a distance ; but 
 they could still shoot their arrows tipped with burning tow upon the 
 roofs of the houses within the palisades. The supply of water was 
 inexhaustible, but it needed unwearied watchfulness to guard against 
 this terrible danger. Every man in the fort was constantly under 
 arms ; no possible precaution was overlooked ; the provisions were 
 wisely husbanded ; and friendly Canadians across the river brought 
 over considerable supplies under cover of darkness. On the other 
 side, the assailants, who had expected a speedy victory, had ex- 
 hausted their scanty stores of food, and they sought to replenish 
 them by robbing the Canadian farmers of the neighborhood. 
 When these complained to Pontiac, he replied that he was coinmissa- 
 fighting for their interests no less than his own. Theft, 
 he promised them, should be stopped, but he substituted for it regu- 
 
318 PONTIAC'S WAR. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 lar requisitions upon them for supplies, and gave them in payment 
 promissory notes drawn on birch bark, and signed with the figure of 
 an otter, all of which, it is said, were redeemed. 
 
 Gladwyn kneAv that reinforcements and supplies for his own and 
 other posts were on their way up Lake Erie, and one of the schooners 
 was sent to meet the boats and hurry them forward. Unfortunately 
 she missed them, and they approached leisurely along the shores of 
 the lake till they reached the mouth of the Detroit River, quite unsus- 
 picious of any danger. While they were making preparations to encamp 
 for the night, a band of Wyandots surprised and routed the party. 
 About sixty men were killed or taken prisoners, two only of the boats 
 escaping, in one of which was Lieutenant Cuyler, the commander of 
 the expedition, and about forty men. The other boats the Indians 
 compelled their prisoners to row to Detroit, where their appi'oach was 
 hailed with delight till it was discovered that they were filled with 
 savages. They had concealed themselves in the bottoms of the boats, 
 and had hoped to enter the fort by stratagem. The disappointment 
 in the fort was almost unbearable, when they discovered, by a fight 
 in one of the boats between an Indian and a white soldier, that the 
 whole convoy had been captured, and that the hoped-for relief was 
 only so much additional strength to the savages, in arms, ammuni- 
 tion, and provisions. 
 
 When Cuyler reached Niagara and told his story, another expe- 
 dition of relief was started in Gladwyn's schooner, which had 
 on g a arrived at that place in safety. On the 23d of June she 
 
 came in sight of Detroit, but for lack of a breeze was com- 
 pelled to drop anchor. That night the Indians, in their canoes, at- 
 tempted her capture ; but when they came within a few yards of the 
 prize, a broadside of grape-shot, with a shower of musket-balls, tore 
 through the fleet of birch bark, killing fourteen Indians, wounding as 
 many more, and scattering the remainder. Several days afterward 
 she succeeded in ascending to the fort, giving the Wyandot village a 
 broadside of grape as she passed, and came to anchor beside her con- 
 sort. Besides food, ammunition, and reinforcements, she brought news 
 of the Treaty of Paris. 
 
 Hut Pontiac still clung to his purpose, gained a few recruits among 
 the floating and adventurous population of the Canadian villages, and 
 pushed the siege. The schooners were a serious annoyance to the 
 Indians, as their fire swept the approaches to the fort, and their guns 
 were frequently turned upon the camp of the besiegers. Several 
 attempts were made to destroy them by means of fire-rafts, but with 
 no success. 
 
 The Wyandots and Pottawotamies now sued for peace, and ex- 
 
1763.] 
 
 THE BATTLE OF BLOODY BRIDGE. 
 
 319 
 
 changed prisoners with Gladwyn ; but the Ottawas and Ojibwas still 
 watched the fort and kept tip a desultory fire. Meanwhile Two tribes 
 a reenforcement of two hundred and eighty men, with artil- s" 6 * 01 "!** 06 
 lery and supplies, was coming from Niagara in twenty-two barges, 
 under command of Captain Dalzell. On the morning of 
 
 The > 
 
 July 29, favored by a heavy fog, they ascended the river ; continu,-.i i.y 
 
 i i -,i p i iiT i th Ojibwas. 
 
 but as they passed the villages ot the W yandots and Potta- 
 wotamies a heavy fire was opened upon them and fifteen men were 
 killed or wounded. 
 
 Dalzell, whose arrival was hailed as a promise of salvation to the 
 exhausted garrison, soon proposed a rash plan for a night attack on 
 Pontiac's camp. Gladwyn, who better knew the numbers and re- 
 
 The Fire-rafts in Detroit River. 
 
 sources of the Indians, consented only with great reluctance and many 
 misgivings. At two o'clock on the morning of July 31, two hundred 
 and fifty men, led by Dalzell, left the fort and marched silently along 
 the shore toward the Indian camp, which was on the farther bank of 
 Parent's Creek. They were accompanied by two large batteaux, each 
 
320 PONTIAC'S WAR. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 carrying a swivel gnn in the bow. But some Canadians had learned 
 of the intended attack and betrayed it to Pontiac, and the Indians 
 had made the mile and a half of road that lay between the fort and 
 the camp one long ambuscade. They were behind every tree and 
 fence and house, silently watching their victims as they unsuspect- 
 ingly marched by. No resistance was offered till the van reached the 
 bridge over the creek, when a destructive fire was opened in fi'ont, 
 and half of the advance guard fell. Dalzell, conspicuous for 
 
 Battle of ... , , , 
 
 Bloody his bravery and coolness, prevented a rout and led on his 
 men through the darkness. But no enemy was to be found 
 in front ; the English knew nothing of the ground beyond this point, 
 and a retreat became inevitable. Then from every shelter along the 
 roadside flashed the guns of the hidden savages, and the whole retreat, 
 though marked by many acts of brave devotion, became little more than 
 a sickening detail of helpless slaughter. Those who straggled or fell 
 were quickly scalped as the exultant enemy closed in upon the retir- 
 ing column. Dalzell, already twice wounded, turned back to rescue a 
 Death of wounded sergeant, and was shot dead. Major Rogers with 
 a strong party covered the retreat by taking possession of 
 a strong house, which was already crowded with refugees, the cellar 
 being full of women and children, and the aged master of the house 
 standing upon the trap-door that led to it, to. keep out the hardly 
 less frightened soldiers. Here, while the remainder of the troops 
 reached the fort, Rogers and his men were besieged by two hundred 
 Indians till the batteaux, which had gone down laden with the 
 wounded, returned and drove off the assailants by a fire from ths 
 swivels that swept the whole ground about the house. In this battle, 
 known as the fight of Bloody Bridge, the English lost fifty-nine men 
 killed or wounded ; the Indians probably not more than twenty. 
 One of the schooners, sent down to Niagara with despatches, was 
 returning with a crew of ten men, besides the captain and 
 mate, when she was attacked in Detroit River, on the night 
 of August 4, by more than three hundred Indians, who 
 silently surrounded her in their canoes, and were clambering up the 
 sides with their knives between their teeth, when the alarm was 
 given. The crew sprang to the gunwales with spears and hatchets, 
 and despatched more than a score of the assailants. But the captain 
 was killed, several of the crew disabled, and the vessel in the posses- 
 sion of the savages, when the mate roared out an order to fire the 
 magazine and blow her up. A few of the Indians knew enough Eng- 
 lish to understand this order, and in an instant more the whole party 
 leaped overboard and swam off in every direction. 
 
 Notwithstanding the supply of provisions brought by the schooner, 
 
1763.] ENGLISH POSTS TAKEN BY THE INDIANS. 321 
 
 it was soon necessary to place the garrison on short allowance. But 
 now the Indians, whose own provisions were failing, began to tire of 
 the siege, and were further discouraged by news that strong reent'orce- 
 ments from Niagara were coming to the relief. But this expedition, 
 under command of Major Wilkins, was overtaken by a disastrous 
 storm on the lake. Seventy lives were lost, besides all the stores and 
 ammunition, and the survivors returned to Niagara. 
 
 On the 12th of October, all except the Ottawas sued for peace. 
 Gladwyn replied that he had no power to make peace, but would grant 
 a truce. This was finally accepted, and he took advantage of it to 
 gather in a good supply of provisions for the winter's use. The Otta- 
 was maintained their hostile attitude till the 30th of October, when 
 a French messenger arrived with a letter from M. Neyon, com- 
 manding Fort Chartres on the Mississippi, in which Pontiac was in- 
 formed that he could have no help from the French, as they were 
 now at peace with the English, and he was advised to discon- The giege 
 tinue hostilities at once. Pontiac sullenly i-aised the siege, ralsed - 
 and went off into the country bordering the Maumee, where he vainly 
 endeavored to organize another movement. 
 
 Though the originator of this plan of extermination had failed to 
 carry out his own part in it, his allies who attacked the other Attack on 
 English posts were almost uniformly successful. On the Sandusk y- 
 16th of May, seven Indians appeared at Fort Sandusky, commanded 
 by Ensign Paully, and asked for a conference. They were admit- 
 ted, and, at a signal, seized Paully and bound him. At the same 
 instant, shots and shrieks were heard without, and in a few min- 
 utes the fort was in the hands of a band of savages, and most of the 
 garrison were slain. They burned the fort, and carried off Paully 
 with the intention of torturing him to death ; but an aged Indian 
 widow offered him the alternative of marriage, which he accepted, 
 and after a time made his escape. On the 25th of May, a large party 
 of Pottawotamies appeared before Fort St. Joseph, on the 0nSt Jo . 
 southeastern shore of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of St. seph- 
 Joseph River. This little work was held by Ensign Sehlosser with 
 fourteen men. The Indians, crowding in under pretences of friend- 
 ship, suddenly fell upon the garrison, and in less than two minutes 
 killed all but Sehlosser and three men, quickly plundered the fort, 
 and carried its commander to Detroit. At Fort Miami, on May 27, 
 Ensign Holmes was decoyed from the fort by a story of a 
 sick woman in the Indian village who wanted medical assist- 
 ance. On arriving there, he was shot dead. The fort was then sum- 
 moned to surrender, with a promise of mercy if no resistance was 
 made. Discouraged by the loss of their commander and the numbers 
 
 VOL. III. 21 
 
322 POXTIAC'S WAR. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 of the Indians, the garrison made haste to surrender. Fort Ouata- 
 non, on the Wabash, near the present site of Lafayette, was 
 
 Ouatanon. - , A 
 
 also captured by stratagem ; but the lives ot Lieutenant Jen- 
 kins and his men were spared through the intercession of some French 
 traders. 
 
 At Michilimackinac the Chippewas assembled in great numbers, 
 
 but aroused no suspicion of the purpose of their visit, so 
 
 harmless at first was their behavior, and so earnest their 
 protestations of friendship to the English. On the 4th of June, 
 these were invited to witness their game of ball on the plain in front 
 of the fort. The whole garrison looked out upon the sport, from 
 open doors and windows, and were thrown entirely off their guai'd by 
 the eagerness with which the savages followed the ball, intent appar- 
 ently to drive it either to one goal or the other. The game continued 
 from early morning till noon. Just outside the gate stood Captain 
 Etherington and Lieutenant Lester, careless and unsuspicious of any 
 sinister design. Hut the savages, in all their racing and shouting, 
 were warily watching for the favorable moment. At length, about 
 noon, the ball was throAvn near the gate as if by accident ; there was 
 a sudden rush, the two officers were bound and hurried away, and 
 the savages poured into the fort. Their squaws were already there, 
 with weapons concealed in their blankets, which the warriors snatched 
 from their hands. So sudden was the movement that the scattered 
 and unprepared soldiers were incapable of defence. Seventeen were 
 instantly killed, and the five or six w r ho were taken prisoners, were 
 only reserved for a more cruel death. All the English traders were 
 robbed of their goods and they themselves led away into captivity. 
 But there was no molestation of the French, who had calmly wit- 
 nessed, and, for the most part, probably approved of the massacre. 
 
 At Presqu' Jsle, near the site of the present town of Erie, Pennsyl- 
 Attack on vania, was an unusually strong block-house commanded by 
 *squ -ie. ns jg n Christie, with a courageous and skillful garrison. 
 On the morning of June 15, it was surrounded by two hundred 
 Indians, most of whom had come from Detroit. The garrison at once 
 retired to the block-house, where thev held out against an assault that 
 
 tt 
 
 had no cessation for two days and a half. The Indians threw fire- 
 arrows and balls of flaming pitch, and again and again the house was 
 set on fire, but amid showers of bullets the flames were extinguished 
 by the cool courage of the soldiers. Rude breastworks were piled up 
 bv the savages on a ridge that commanded the fort, whence they 
 could fire in comparative safety. Some of them, growing bold, at- 
 tempted to cross an open space and take shelter under the walls, but 
 were shot down in the attempt. Then they resorted to mining ; and 
 
1763.] FORT PITT. 323 
 
 while this work was going on the water in the fort became exhausted, 
 and the soldiers, the well in the parade-ground being out of their 
 reach, dug a new one inside the fort. The mine reached the house of 
 the commanding officer, which the assailants at once set on fire, nearly 
 stifling the garrison with the smoke and heat, for it was close to the 
 block-house. Through the night and all the next day the intrepid 
 garrison fought without a moment's rest against fire, and the incessant 
 and fierce assaults of the enemy. When it was evident that the mine 
 had reached a point beneath their feet, and that further resistance was 
 hopeless, they surrendered, but only on condition that they should be 
 permitted to depart unmolested. The promise, however, was broken ; 
 they were all bound and taken prisoners to Pontiac's camp, whence 
 Christie soon escaped and found refuge in the fort at Detroit. 
 
 Three days after this attack on Presqu' Isle, Fort Le Boeuf, a 
 dozen miles south of it, was surrounded and set on fire. 
 
 frv * n ii- r i 11 Burning of 
 
 Ensign Price and his garrison of thirteen men cut a hole Fort Le 
 
 Boeuf. 
 
 through the rear wall of the block-house, and silently es- 
 caped, while the howling savages in front believed them to be per- 
 ishing in the flames. About half of them reached Fort Pitt, the re- 
 mainder dying of hunger by the way. Fort Venango, still farther down 
 the Alleghany, was captured by a band of Senecas, who 
 gained admittance on some friendly pretext. They butchered 
 the entire garrison at once, tortured Lieutenant Gordon to death by 
 slow process, and then laid the whole work in ashes. Soon afterward 
 the same band made a futile demonstration against Niagara. Fort 
 Ligonier, forty miles southeast of Fort Pitt, was attacked Lig0) , ier a nd 
 by a strong force, but was successfully defended till relieved A " usta 
 by the advance of Bouquet's expedition. Fort Augusta, at the forks 
 of the Susquehanna, was only threatened perhaps because of its sit- 
 uation so far east. 
 
 At Fort Pitt, where Captain Ecuyer commanded three hundred and 
 
 thirty soldiers, traders, and woodsmen, when news of some 
 
 IT Fort Pitt - 
 
 ot these disasters arrived, the most vigorous measures were 
 
 taken for defence. The walls of the fortification were repaired and 
 strengthened, a larger supply of water provided for, and an efficient 
 though rude steam-engine was built. On June 23 a few Delawares 
 appeared, called a parley, and with the usual professions of friendship, 
 said that six great Indian nations had captured all the other forts, and 
 were now marching against this. "You must leave this fort,'' snid 
 their chief, " with all your women and children, and go down to the 
 English settlements, where you will be safe. There are many bad 
 Indians already here, but we will protect you from them." Ecuyer, 
 who was quite as cunning as the Indians, thanked them warmly, but 
 
324 PONTIAC'S WAR. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 declined to go. He told them, he said, " in confidence," as a return 
 for their kindness, that an English army of six thousand men was on 
 its way thither, while another of three thousand had gone to attack 
 the Ottawas and Ojibwas, and a third, on the frontiers of Virginia, 
 would be joined by the Cherokees and Catawbas, " who are coining 
 here to destroy you. Therefore take pity on your women and chil- 
 dren, and get out of the way as soon as possible." The frightened In- 
 dians withdrew for a time, but returned on the 26th of July, and re- 
 peated their proposition, but were defied. At night they began the 
 attack, many of them digging holes in the river bank, where they could 
 shelter themselves and fire at every soldier who appeared. 
 
 Colonel Henry Bouquet, by birth a Swiss, an able and experienced 
 Bouquet's soldier, who had entered the English service and was now in 
 expedition, command at Philadelphia, was ordered to march to the relief 
 of Fort Pitt, with all the force he could muster. With five hundred 
 men, mainly Highlanders, he set out, and about the 1st of July 
 reached Carlisle, where he found the population in a state of terror. 
 Many of the settlements in Western Pennsylvania had been laid 
 
 / v 
 
 waste, and those of the settlers who had escaped the tomahawk were 
 crowding into the villages farther east. There were more in Carlisle 
 than could be sheltered, and they were encamped in the fields all 
 around it. About the 18th, Bouquet was ready to leave Carlisle, and, 
 sending forward thirty chosen men to Fort Ligonier, he took both 
 that and Fort Bedford on his line of march, and dispersed the Indians 
 who had gathered about and beleaguered them for weeks. Thence 
 he passed on over the ground traversed by Braddock eight years be- 
 fore. But Bouquet was as familiar with the Indian character and 
 Indian methods of warfare as Braddock had been ignorant. The vig- 
 ilance of his men, on the march or in camp, was never relaxed for a 
 moment ; on such perpetual watchfulness he knew that safety de- 
 pended, and that he could best encounter Indians with Indian tactics. 
 At one o'clock on the 5th of August, they had reached within a 
 Battle of ni il e f a small stream called Bushy Run, by the side of 
 uusuyKun. w hj c ii jt was proposed to encamp and give the needed rest to 
 troops who had been on the march since daybreak. Bouquet was not 
 taken by surprise when suddenly a fierce attack was made upon his 
 advanced guard. Sending forward troops to their support, he brought 
 together his horses, cattle, and wagons, to secure their safety, sur- 
 rounding them with a reserved corps. As the battle in front evi- 
 dently grew more furious, he led forward this force, who, with rapid 
 discharges from their guns and at the point of the bayonet, drove the 
 Indians before them and relieved their comrades. Then came fresh 
 assaults upon both flanks, and upon the convoy in the rear, and the 
 
1763.] THE BATTLE OF BUSHY RUN. 325 
 
 troops fell back to meet the tide of battle from these unexpected 
 quarters. The little army was surrounded ; the woods were full of 
 Indians, who, fighting from behind trees and under-brush, poured a 
 deadly fire into the troops collected in one spot. The maddened 
 horses, there were nearly four hundred of them in the inclosed 
 space, bewildered and unmanageable with fright at the firing and 
 the yells of the savages, plunged about wildly and created inextricable 
 confusion. But the men stood firm. They delivered their fire with 
 precision, or charged steadily with the bayonet, whenever a chance 
 was offered to strike a blow at the enemy ; though the chances were 
 few, for the Indians fled to their hiding-places at every charge, to ap- 
 pear again from all sides, and to pour in again their deadly fire, as the 
 soldiers fell back into line. So the conflict continued all the after- 
 noon, till the friendly darkness hid assailants and assailed alike. 
 
 The situation seemed desperate, and Bouquet wrote that night to 
 Amherst in a tone that showed, though he had not lost courage, he 
 had little hope that he and his command would survive the next day's 
 battle. Already he had lost sixty men, and many were wounded. 
 The camp was on a hill, and they had no water. The suffering, espe- 
 cially of the wounded, from thirst was almost intolerable, " more 
 intolerable," wrote Bouquet, " than the enemy's fire." But they had 
 only to wait through the long night, weary and faint with waiting and 
 watching, for what another day would bring forth. Any attempt to 
 move the camp in the face of the enemy would be fatal. They must 
 conquer or die where they were. 
 
 The day renewed the fight. With the first light, the forest re- 
 sounded with the yells of the savages ; through the branches and 
 leaves bullets rattled like hail. It was a question of hours only, as to 
 how long it would be before every soldier would be shot down, as all 
 stood, a conspicuous target to enemies who surrounded them on all 
 sides, and who took a deadly aim, each man from his own particular 
 hiding-place. To return their fire was to fire at shadows ; to charge 
 was to charge upon dusky phantoms who flitted singly from tree to 
 tree, or faded out of sight in the dim light of the forest. Bouquet was 
 hopeless of any successful resistance, unless he could bring these scat- 
 tered and agile opponents into one compact body, to remain so long 
 enough to receive the crushing blows he knew the English could deal 
 them. To do this, he resorted to a stratagem which completely an- 
 swered his purpose. He feigned a retreat. Two companies of light 
 infantry were ordered to fall back into the circle which was Bouquet's 
 central point of defence. On the right and left the troops opened their 
 tiles to receive them, and then closed up in their rear as if to cover the 
 
PONTIAC'S WAR. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 retreat of the central circle. Two other companies drew up as if in 
 aid of this proposed retreat, when the Indians, completely deceived by 
 these skilful and careful movements, and fearing that their prey was 
 about to escape them, rushed headlong, wild with rage, and that 
 which the English so longed to see in a compact body, to the at- 
 tack. It was a fierce, a terrible and destructive onslaught, as it must 
 needs have been ; but out of it came safety. Had the Indians watched 
 more warily, they would have seen there were movements from, as 
 well as toward, the central circle. Two companies, under cover of 
 the hill, were so placed that, as the savages threw themselves on the 
 main body, determined to destroy it by one united and concentrated 
 blow, these two companies poured in upon their flanks, dealing death 
 by bullet and bayonet upon the foe at last within their reach. As the 
 Indians turned to fly, two other companies met them in front, and the 
 rout of the few who were left alive was complete. No savage had 
 time to fire his gun more than once ; he was either dead or flying for 
 his life before he could load a second time. The Indians who were 
 on the other flank made no attempt to help those on whom such swift 
 ArriTnint destruction had fallen, but fled with the utmost precipita- 
 tion. The English lost, in the two days, eight officers and 
 one hundred and fifteen men, and the Indian loss was somewhat 
 smaller. The march was resumed; the enemy made but one attempt 
 to interrupt it, which was easily repulsed, and on the loth of August 
 the troops entered Fort Pitt. 
 
 There came, not long afterward, general submission and universal 
 peace. Bradstreet, along the lakes, and Croghan and Bou- 
 1766 at o- quet, in the valley of the Ohio, had pacified the most war- 
 like of the tribes, compelled the surrender of all English 
 prisoners, and induced the chiefs Pontiac among them to assemble 
 at Oswego to meet Sir William Johnson, where a treaty was con- 
 cluded in the summer of 1766. 
 
 But for many months, along the borders of all the midland colonies, 
 the people lived in perpetual fear of savage incursions, subjected often 
 to atrocities that seem almost incredible, and retaliating with as little 
 mercy when the chance was offered them. Two thousand of the 
 whites were killed, and as many families were driven from their 
 homes. It is hardly to be wondered at that the peaceful tenets of the 
 Friends who would not believe that all the fault was on the side of 
 the untutored savages, who were fighting for the lands which had be- 
 longed to them and their fathers exasperated the backwoodsmen 
 whose life was a perpetual warfare. Some of these on the Susque- 
 hanua who came to be known as the kt Paxton Men," from the name 
 
1766.] 
 
 THE PAXTON MEN. 
 
 izi 
 
 of their settlement were restrained by no considerations of mercy 
 or of justice. Believing that some Indians at Conestoga were more 
 faithful to their own people than to the Christians whose faith they 
 had accepted, the Paxton Men forced an entrance into a The raxton 
 house Avhere these Indians had been put for safety, and mur- Men 
 dered them in cold blood. When others were taken to Philadelphia 
 for protection, the borderers inarched on the city, swearing vengeance 
 on Quakers and Indians alike. For a day or two the city was almost 
 in a state of siege from a mob of several hundred of these rough men, 
 who had gathered at Germantown, and peaceful Friends took up arms, 
 turning their meeting-house into barracks, in defence of the innocent 
 and helpless. The frontiersmen were at length induced to disperse 
 and return to their 
 homes. Much of 
 their exasperation 
 was undoubtedly 
 due to the inter- 
 minable dispute be- 
 tween the Proprie- 
 tary Governors and 
 the Assemblies, 
 in which there was 
 usually a large Qua- 
 ker element. the 
 latter always stur- 
 dily maintaining 
 their right to tax 
 themselves in their 
 own way, and that 
 an equitable por- 
 tion of that taxa- 
 tion should be borne 
 by the Proprietaries. And this difference was also aggravated by the 
 jealousy of the Presbyterians of the influence of Friends. 
 
 Pontiac's conspiracy had failed in its grand object. But it had re- 
 sulted in the capture and destruction of eight out of the 
 
 11 i f Result*"! 
 
 twelve fortified posts attacked, generally by the massacre ot tiiecoupir- 
 their garrisons ; it had inflicted upon the English the wreck 
 of several costly expeditions, and had carried terror and desolation 
 into some of the most fertile valleys on the frontiers of civilization. 
 This able chief afterward succeeded in rallying some of the tribes of 
 the Illinois country, and was joined by a considerable number of 
 French traders ; but his followers gradually fell away, and in 1766 
 
 Sir William Johnson's House. 
 
POXTIAC'S WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. XII. 
 
 he gave in his formal submission to Sir William Johnson. In 1769. a 
 Kaskaskia Indian, being bribed by an English trader with a 
 barrel of liquor and a promise of additional reward, followed 
 
 the great chief into the forest, where East St. Louis now stands, and 
 
 assassinated him. 
 
 Death of 
 Pontiac. 
 
 Bouquet's Redoubt at Pittsburg. 
 

 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ALIENATION FROM ENGLAND. 
 
 DEBTS OF ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES. WEALTH OF AMERICA. THE NAVIGA- 
 TION ACTS. THE WHITS OF ASSISTANCE. PLAN OF TAXING AMERICA FOK THK 
 ROYAL EXCHEQUER. GEORGE GRENVILLE'S RESOLUTION. THE KING AND THK 
 KING'S FRIENDS. GRENVILLE AND THE COLONIAL AGENTS. THE SUGAR ACT. 
 COLONIAL PROTEST AGAINST TAXATION. OTIS'S LETTER AND BOOK. PASSAGE OF 
 THE STAMP ACT. REPLY OF THE COLONIES. FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 
 
 THEIR RESOLVES. RESOLVES 
 OF VIRGINIA. OTHER MEAS- 
 URES OF OPPOSITION. THK 
 STAMPS REFUSED. MOB IN 
 BOSTON. THE ENGLISH GOV- 
 ERNMENT. WILLIAM 
 PITT. THE STAMP ACT 
 REPEALED. THE I)E- 
 
 . CLARATORY ACT. CoN- 
 
 FUSION IN ENGLISH 
 COUNSELS. JOY FOR 
 THE REPEAL OF THE 
 STAMP ACT. FRANK- 
 LIN BEFORE THE HOUSE 
 OF CoMSIONS. 
 
 THE end of war 
 is, of course, a pe- 
 riod of universal 
 congratulation : 
 yet all nations have 
 1 e a r n ed that it 
 brings with it a series of changes 
 in social, financial, and com- 
 mercial arrangements, in- 
 
 , . ,.,.. ,,. Results of 
 
 volvinggreat dimculties even tiie peace of 
 after victory. The peace of 
 1763 was attended with such results both in England and in America. 
 True, France was humbled and disgraced, and there were court flat- 
 terers enough in England to say that her power was broken forever. 
 But the wise Count de Yergennes, one of the ministers of France, 
 
 The Province House in Boston. 
 
330 ALIENATION FROM ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 read the future well enough to see and to say that the loss of Canada 
 by France involved the loss to England of her American colonies. 
 Since the event, many similar prophecies have been found in the 
 words of Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Americans of that time. 
 
 Both countries over-estimated the immediate value, to either crown, 
 value of f tne province which was lost and won. The French Gov- 
 Franoea'nd eminent did not know how to administer colonies. It had 
 England. given away the whole valley of the Mississippi to the King 
 of Spain, for mere want of skill to make it worth the trifle which it 
 cost the French exchequer. Canada, though longer held, was not 
 more profitable. For the bureaux of administration, under all dynas- 
 ties, have a foolish way of valuing possessions or departments accord- 
 ing as they are a charge on the treasury or yield it a profit. To Eng- 
 land, Canada was of value, because its possession secured peace to the 
 English colonies, but hardly for its own sake. Even under the 
 false " Colonial System " it could hardly be claimed that the furs or 
 timber or naval stores of Canada were any more valuable to English 
 trade than those which could be obtained in her other colonies. 
 
 What was perfectly clear, however, both in the colonies and in 
 England, was, that the first duty of peace was, to pay the expenses of 
 war. The American governments, fortunately for themselves, had 
 had so little credit in Europe that they had not attempted to borrow 
 largely there. But their home debts were considerable. That of Mas- 
 sachusetts alone was nearly 200,000, not funded, a large sum for 
 those days, and the province had determined on a system of tax- 
 ation which should repay it in five years. In other colonies, the em- 
 barrassments caused by debt, in especial by paper currency, were con- 
 siderable. The national debt of England, almost doubled by the war, 
 was now 145,000,000. 1 What had been gained by the war? Safety 
 to the American colonies, and additional territory. True, the new 
 territory had but a few hundred thousand inhabitants, and much of it 
 
 */ 
 
 was inaccessible wilderness. But on the map, at least, it doubled the 
 English dominions in America, and the thought was naturally sug- 
 gested that America must pay a part of the enormous debt, to justify 
 which American provinces were the largest visible acquisitions. 
 
 A habit had grown up, indeed, of justifying the subsidies paid to 
 German powers, and the other expenses of war upon the Continent of 
 Europe, by saying that England could " conquer America in Ger- 
 many." It was not simply the cost of the campaigns of Braddock, 
 Abercrombie, and Wolfe, which was to be repaid ; it was those more 
 doubtful expenditures which had left the memories of Minden and 
 
 1 Private correspondence of that time is full of terrors regarding it, and a belief that 
 the nation is bankrupt is constantly expressed. 
 
 
1760-1775.] TRADE OF THE COLONIES. 
 
 Fontenoy, that were to be met, if possible, by the colonies now freed 
 from the dread of French rivalry or of savage war. The money grants 
 made to all the American colonies in the war were only a little over a 
 million pounds. 1 But the charge of the army and the navy, it was 
 said, should be borne in part by them. The colonists considered that 
 they had borne their share in maintaining their own contingents of 
 troops, and they had lost nearly thirty thousand of their young men 
 in the war. 
 
 Meanwhile, the rapid increase of the American colonies, both in 
 numbers and in wealth, was forced upon the attention even w -eithof 
 of the most careless. It is said that, between 1765 and canco" 
 1775, two thirds of the foreign commerce of Great Britain nies - 
 was that which she conducted with America. Between 1700 and 
 1760, the value of property in England increased fifty per cent., and 
 Pitt declared this was wholly due to the American colonies. Speak- 
 ing in 1766, he said, " The profit to Great Britain from the trade of 
 the colonies is two millions a year. This is the fund that carried you 
 triumphantly through the last war. You owe this to America." Let 
 it be remembered that Great Britain supplied three millions of peo- 
 ple in America with almost every manufactured article which they 
 needed ; that she received from her colonies the tobacco and much of 
 the fish, indigo, rice, naval stores, and other productions which she 
 required ; that, with her growing strength in the West Indies, she 
 used her colonies on the main land to feed her islands, and it will 
 be understood that English merchants and those who had to deal with 
 them in England conceived high ideas of the wealth to be derived 
 from America. From 1760 to 1775, Great Britain sent to New Eng- 
 land, New York, and Pennsylvania alone, goods amounting in value 
 to about 2,000,000 annually. The exports of the thirteen colo- 
 nies to Great Britain alone, as appeared from the public statistics, 
 were often more than a million pounds a year. In 1773 they were 
 as much as .1,369,232. The comparison supplies us with an estimate 
 of the result of the trade of the colonies with the West Indies and 
 the Mediterranean, from which trade by bills of exchange, or other 
 methods, the English merchants were paid what the direct exports 
 did not provide. There was a constant drain of specie, which com- 
 pelled the colonies to resort to the issue of paper currency as a cir- 
 culating medium among themselves, and in its turn increased their 
 burdens. Sir Robert Walpole said he supposed that if the colonies 
 should gain 500,000 in trade, half of it would, in two years, pass by 
 indirect channels into the English exchequer. There were sound 
 commercial, as well as political, reasons for colonial resistance to any 
 taxation in the benefits of which they were to have no share. 
 
 1 The precise sum was 1,031,006 13s. 4d. 
 
332 ALIENATION FROM ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 In the vast enlargement of the commerce of England and of the 
 The Naviga- colonies, and in the movements of armies and navies in the 
 tion Act. war ^ ne strictness of the " Navigation Act " sustained many 
 severe strains. Exceptions were made to its principles by statute. 
 In particular, such exceptions permitted direct commerce with Cath- 
 olic countries, which the colonies supplied with fish for Lent, and with 
 the islands of the West Indies. More than this, however, the reve- 
 nue officers had been permitted, and were even expected, to overlook 
 violations of the act in certain classes of trade, where the national 
 interest seemed to require its relaxation. But on the whole these 
 laws were sustained, and with the return of peace a greater stringency 
 was observed. Every province felt it, and the annals of every state 
 contain accounts of popular indignation against the officers of the cus- 
 toms. In Boston, they were ordered to procure from the Supreme 
 Court general warrants authorizing them to search where they would 
 for smuggled goods. The collector directed his deputy at Salem to 
 obtain one of these Writs of Assistance, as they were called. The 
 question of legality was raised, and the Superior Court decided to 
 hear argument before granting the writ. James Otis, Jr., 
 ' was Advocate-general, and it was his duty officially to ap- 
 pear on behalf of the Crown. He refused, resigned his office, and at 
 the trial in Boston, in February, 1761, appeared, with Oxenbridge 
 Thacher, a leading lawyer, on behalf of the popular side. " Then 
 and there," says John Adams, " American Independence was born." 
 " Otis was a flame of five. With a promptitude of classical allusions, 
 a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, 
 a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance into futurity, and a 
 rapid torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried away all before him. 
 
 American independence was then and there born Every man 
 
 of an immense, crowded audience, appeared to me to go away as I 
 did, ready to take arms against writs of assistance." In this case, the 
 court took time to consult the English practice, which, as it proved, 
 permitted the issue of the general warrants. But the warrants, 
 though granted, were never used. 
 
 In the interval between the petition for the writ and the hearing 
 before the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Sewall, who had doubts of 
 the legality of granting the power of search, died. Hutchinson, who 
 was Lieutenant-governor, a member of the Council, and a Judge of 
 Probate, was also appointed Chief Justice, as Sewall's successor, by 
 Governor Bernard. There was little doubt what the decision of the 
 Court would be under this new Chief Justice. The appointment was 
 made, it was supposed, to secure a decision in favor of the Crown ; 
 and the indignation and disgust were the greater that the .choice 
 
 
JAMES OTIS. 
 (After the jtortrait by Blackburn.) 
 
. 
 
1764.] PLAN OF TAXING THE COLONIES. 333 
 
 should have fallen upon one who already held three other important 
 offices. In reply to the bitter animadversions upon such an appoint- 
 ment, it was retorted that Otis had resigned his position as Advocate- 
 general, not from any patriotic motive, but because the office of Chief 
 Justice was not given to his father, James Otis, a distinguished lawyer 
 of Barnstable, and a member of the Provincial Assembly. The cal- 
 umny was a baseless invention, and John Adams afterward expressed 
 his surprise, in writing upon these events, that anybody should " have 
 swallowed that execrable lie, that Otis had no patriotism." 1 
 
 When the popular hatred had driven Lord Bute from the ministry 
 in 1763, George Grenville succeeded him as prime minister. GrenviUe < g 
 On the 10th of March, 1764, Grenville moved, on an amend- . 
 ment to the Sugar Act, a resolution which contained these tles< 
 words : " It may be proper to charge stamp-duties on the colonies and 
 plantations." The issue of these fatal words has been so important, 
 that every effort has been made to trace the origin of the suggestion. 
 As early as 1734, Governor Cosby, of New York, had proposed to the 
 Assembly "a Duty upon Paper to be used in the Law, and in all 
 Conveyances and Deeds," as a convenient method of taxation ; but the 
 Assembly did not accept the proposition, though it was intended as a 
 colonial measure. That such a tax should be levied by act of Par- 
 liament, seems to have been first suggested ten years later by Lieuten- 
 ant-governor Clarke, of New York. In December, 1744, Governor 
 Clinton wrote to the Duke of Newcastle : " Mr. Clarke, the 
 Lieu 1 Governor, lately showed me two printed scheimes tion oT fhe*~ 
 which he said were sent him from England." One was of a ' 
 general character in relation to trade ; but the other was a proposal 
 '? for establishing by Act of Parliament dutys upon stamp papers and 
 parchment in all the British and American Colonys." " I must beg 
 leave," adds the Governor, " to make a short observation upon them," 
 and it was the wisest observation he ever made. " The People in 
 North America," he continues, " are quite strangers to any duty, but 
 such as they raise themselves, and was such a scheim to take place 
 without their knowledge, it might prove a dangerous consequence to 
 His Majesty's interest." 2 The next reference to the project is found 
 in the English Archives, under date of July 5, 1763, in a note from 
 Hugh McCulloh, a treasury clerk, in which he says the stamp-duty 
 on vellum and paper in America would produce upwards of .60,000 
 a year. The plan must have been considered, therefore, immediately 
 after Grenville took the reins. For the Earl of Bute had resigned on 
 the 8th of April, 1763. 
 
 1 Tudor's Life of James Otis. 
 
 2 Documents Relating to the Colonial History of New York, vol. vi. 
 
334 
 
 ALIENATION FROM ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 The King 
 and " the 
 King's 
 
 friend*." O f t j ie Continent. 
 
 According to an anecdote of a later period, told on the authority of 
 Benjamin West, George III., when he came to the throne, 
 wished to have a new palace, which might rival the palaces 
 
 It is said that the ground for this new 
 Versailles was selected in Hyde Park, and that nothing was needed 
 
 but the money to build it. 
 To obtain for the treasury 
 a larger revenue became 
 thus a personal wish of the 
 King and the courtiers, and 
 to gratify that wish also the 
 scheme of a revenue from 
 the colonies was determined 
 on. There is probably some 
 foundation for this story. It 
 is not necessary, however, to 
 go far to find the reasons 
 why the ministers of great 
 nations wish to increase the 
 receipts of the treasuries 
 they control. This is cer- 
 tain, that the knot of 
 courtiers who, at this time, 
 took the name of " The 
 King's friends," always fa- 
 vored, as the King himself did, all proposals for taxation. 
 
 The cautiously worded clause introduced by Grenville into a sugar 
 Gnmviiie bill only committed Parliament to what might be necessary, 
 colonies' an< l attracted but little observation in London, except among 
 agents the agents of the colonial Assemblies. The custom had be- 
 come general for each Assembly to maintain an agent constantly 
 in London, who represented its interests. This custom illustrates the 
 relations of the colonies to the Crown, and shows how little the As- 
 semblies trusted their own Governors as mediators between them and 
 England. The agents instantly told Grenville that any scheme for 
 internal taxation would be intolerable to America. He replied that he 
 should have carried through the measure that year, instead of indicat- 
 ing it by a resolution, if he had not himself thought it advisable that 
 the Assemblies should have notice of the intention, and an opportu- 
 nity of proposing another mode of contributing to this charge, if any 
 other should be more agreeable to them. 1 
 
 1 There was afterwards much discussion, even in Parliament, how far this overture of 
 Grenville's to the agents went. A comparison of the statement in Franklin's letters, and 
 
 George III. 
 
1764.] 
 
 THE SUGAR ACT. 
 
 335 
 
 The Sugar Act, which, by Grenville's amendment, obtained a place 
 so important in American history, was first enacted in the The Sugar 
 sixth year of the reign of George II. (1734). In order to Act 
 protect the English sugar colonies, a duty, so high as to be practically 
 prohibitory, was laid upon all sugar and molasses from foreign colo- 
 nies introduced into American ports. This act expired in 1764. In 
 renewing it, Grenville wished to make it remunerative instead of pro- 
 hibitory, and accordingly changed both text and title. The old title 
 was, " An act for the better securing the trade of his Majesty's sugar 
 colonies in America;" the new one 
 was, "An act granting duties in 
 the colonies of America." The 
 duty on foreign molasses was 
 changed from sixpence a gallon to 
 three pence, and new duties were 
 imposed on coffee, pimento, East 
 India goods, and wines from Ma- 
 deira and the West- 
 ern Islands. Impor- 
 tations direct from 
 these islands to the 
 colonies were permit- 
 ted, by one of the nu- 
 merous exceptions to 
 the Navigation Act. 
 The colonies had con- 
 ceded the right of the 
 government to pro- 
 tect trade with a pro- 
 hibitory tariff; but 
 when the preamble Faneuil HaM - l879 - 
 
 of the new bill declared that it was "just and necessary that a revenue 
 should be raised there," and it was proposed that this be done by a 
 tax virtually direct, which would burden almost every business trans- 
 action in the daily life of the citizens, it aroused a storm of universal 
 indignation. It was an assumption by Parliament of a power which 
 
 Hutchinson's account of Bollan's advices to Massachusetts, shows that the fact is as 
 given above. Hutchinson's statements are always open to suspicion, because he wrote after 
 the result. But in this case, the Assembly's letter in reply to that of their agent. Jasper 
 Mauduit, makes it certain that Hutchinson rightly represents its contents. That letter 
 was written by James Otis, June 13, 1764. It says distinctly : " The kind offer of suspend- 
 ing the stamp-duty, in the manner and upon the condition mentioned, amounts to no more 
 than this, that if the Colonies will not tax themselves as they may be directed, the Parlia- 
 ment will tax them." 
 
336 ALIENATION FROM ENGLAND. [CHAP. X11I. 
 
 the Colonial Assemblies had long maintained was inherent in the 
 colonies themselves, and considerations of private interest now gave 
 strength to a principle of public policy. 
 
 When the news reached Boston that it was proposed to impose a 
 stamp act upon the colonies, a meeting was called in Faneuil Hall, 
 and instructions to the representatives of the town in the General 
 Court written by Samuel Adams were adopted. "There is," 
 said this paper, " no more room for delay. We therefore expect that 
 you will use your earliest endeavors in the General Assembly that 
 such methods will be taken as will effectually prevent these proceed- 
 ings But what still heightens our appi-ehensions is, that these 
 
 unexpected proceedings may be preparatory to more extensive taxa- 
 tions upon us. For if our trade may be taxed, why not our lands ? 
 Why not the produce of our lands, and in short everything we possess 
 or make use of? .... If taxes are laid upon us in any shape, without 
 our having a legal representative where they are laid, are we not re- 
 duced from the character of subjects to the miserable state of tributary 
 slaves ? " And the instructions concluded with this suggestion, the 
 germ of the union of the provinces, that " as his Majesty's other 
 North American Colonies are embarked with us in this most impor- 
 tant bottom, we further desire you to use your endeavors that their 
 weight may be added to that of this Province ; that by the united 
 applications of all who are aggrieved, all may obtain redress." 
 
 This document the House adopted essentially as its own, and sent 
 it, with James Otis's pamphlet on the " Rights of the Colonies," as 
 instructions for the guidance of Mauduit, the Massachusetts agent in 
 London. About the same time, a committee to correspond with other 
 colonies " upon measures which concerned their common interest " was 
 appointed, as Adams's original report to the town meeting had sug- 
 gested. 
 
 The letter to Mauduit, the English agent, undoubtedly drawn by 
 James Otis, was explicit. It set forth the expenses which Massachu- 
 setts also had sustained in these wars, carried on for the benefit of the 
 empire. " Granting the time may come, which we hope is far off, 
 when the British l Parliament shall think fit to oblige the North 
 
 1 Once for all in these pages, it may be said here that the use of the word "British" 
 was the custom of the time on both sides of the water. After the union with Scotland, it 
 had been made a fashion, which had at last taken root every where. In literature, in Par- 
 liament, and in correspondence, the " British army," the " British Parliament," and the 
 " British Constitution " were spoken of, of course correctly, if the feelings of Scotland 
 were to be considered. This habit has died out in England, and the custom of to-day 
 speaks of the " English Parliament " and the " English Army." Readers of Sir Walter 
 Scott will remember how unwilling he was to yield to this habit. Ignorant Englishmen, 
 as ignorant of the literature of their own country as of everything else, have come to 
 regard the use of the word " British " in American writers as a provincialism. The truth 
 
1764.] PROTESTS AGAINST TAXATION. 337 
 
 Americans not only to maintain civil government among themselves, 
 but to support an army to protect them, can it be possible that the 
 duties to be imposed, and the taxes to be levied, shall be assessed with- 
 out the voice of an American parliament ? If all colonists Colonilll 
 are to be taxed at pleasure, without any representation in i >rotests - 
 Parliament, what will there be to distinguish them, in point of lib- 
 erty, from the subjects of the most absolute prince ? If we are not 
 represented, we are slaves." 
 
 This is the same ground which the House of Representatives had 
 taken two years before, in a remonstrance also prepared by Otis. In 
 that case, Governor Bernard, in a recess of the Assembly, had incurred 
 a small expense, and made a contract for the future, which he asked 
 the Assembly to assume. The House of Representatives then replied 
 that their most darling privilege was the right of originating all taxes. 
 They said, " It would be of little consequence to the people whether 
 they were subject to George or to Louis, the King of Great Britain, 
 or the French King, if both were as arbitrary as both would be, if 
 both could levy taxes without Parliament." 1 
 
 Other colonies were not less alarmed, and some of them not less 
 emphatic in their protests against the proposed tax. In October, the 
 General Assembly of New York addressed a memorial to the House 
 of Commons, in concluding which they said they had " no desire to 
 derogate from the power of the Parliament of Great Britain ; but they 
 cannot avoid deprecating the loss of such rights as they have hith- 
 erto enjoyed, .... the deprivation of which will dispirit the people, 
 abate their industry, discourage trade, introduce discord, poverty, and 
 slavery." And they also at the same time appointed committees to 
 correspond with the agent of the province in London, and with the 
 Assemblies, or their committees, in the other colonies. Rhode Island, 
 Connecticut, and Virginia instructed their agents to ask for a hearing 
 before the House of Commons, and Pennsylvania sent a moderate but 
 firm protest to Franklin, to be presented to Grenville. 
 
 On the llth of August, however, the Earl of Halifax had sent in- 
 structions to all the Governors in the colonies, that they should at 
 once transmit to him "a list of all instruments made use of in public 
 transactions, law proceedings, grants, conveyances, securities of land 
 or money, within your government, with proper and sufficient descrip- 
 tions of the same ; in order that, if Parliament should think proper 
 to pursue the intention of the aforesaid resolution, they may thereby 
 
 is, the American writers follow the custom of the period when their ancestors were still the 
 subjects of the " Best of Kings." 
 
 1 Adjourned session, September, 1762. 
 VOL. in. 22 
 
338 ALIENATION FROM ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 be enabled to carry it into execution in the most effectual and least 
 burdensome manner." 
 
 So soon as the Massachusetts Assembly received these tidings, it 
 prepared an address, drawn up by Hutchinson, to the King, Lords, 
 and Commons. There was much difficulty in framing it so that it 
 should be acceptable at once to the people, who were represented in 
 the Assembly, and to the more courtly Council, which had been se- 
 lected by the Governor from the candidates sent up by the House. 
 At last, however, an address was agreed upon. When it arrived in 
 England, the Board of Trade seems at first to have refused to forward 
 it to the King. 1 Edmund Burke and Governor Hutchinson both speak 
 of the refusal to receive this and other memorials. But at the end 
 of the year, perhaps in response to some unofficial instructions, this 
 memorial, with Otis's pamphlet and the New York protest, was sent 
 to the King by the Board of Trade, with the letter of the Massachu- 
 setts Assembly to Mauduit, their agent. The Board said, " We hum- 
 bly conceive that in this letter the Acts and Resolutions of the Legis- 
 lature of Great Britain are treated with the most indecent disrespect, 
 principles of the most dangerous nature and tendency openly avowed, 
 and the Assemblies of other colonies invited in the most extraordi- 
 nary manner to adopt the same opinions. We think it our duty 
 humbly to lay these votes before your Majesty, together with a book 
 referred to therein, printed and published in Boston, and since re- 
 printed and published in London." 
 
 The Legislature of Virginia met so late in the year that its resolu- 
 tions were not among those thus coolly condemned by the Board which 
 sent these memorials to the King. When it met, in November, 1764, 
 a memorial was drawn by Pendleton or Bland, which remonstrated 
 with Parliament against taxation without representation. The lan- 
 guage was moderate in comparison with that of after years, but it did 
 not lack for distinctness in its assertion of the principle for which her 
 sister colonies were contending. 
 
 With such warnings, Grenville introduced the Stamp Act, which 
 The stamp was passed on the 22d of March, 1765. It was debated 
 Act> hotly, and was opposed earnestly in a full House ; but the 
 
 majority for the measure was very large 294 to 42. By this act, 
 every business document was declared illegal and void unless written 
 on paper bearing the government stamp. The cheapest stamp was 
 one shilling, and for the more important documents the prices ranged 
 upward from this sum. 
 
 1 Judge Marshall says the ground was taken that petitions against money bills interfered 
 with the privilege of the House of Commons. Neither Burke nor Hutchinson alludes to 
 this excuse. If it was made, the claim was extraordinary. 
 

 1765.] THE STAMP ACT. 339 
 
 The colonies had been wholly prepared for this by the intimations 
 of the previous year, and their indignation was all the greater because 
 their remonstrances were unnoticed. Protests against parliamentary 
 interference in taxation, which for a century and a half had been 
 made on separate occasions, were now called forth at the same mo- 
 ment by one act, of which for a year they had had warning. Every 
 colony spoke in reply, and with no uncertain sound. The news arrived 
 in Massachusetts before the annual " election day " in May. The 
 House of Representatives did not so much as compliment the Gov- 
 ernor by an answer to his speech, but sent letters, 
 in the name of the House, to every Assembly as F 
 far as South Carolina, proposing a general con- 
 gress to consult on the circumstances of the colo- 
 nies, and the difficulties to which they would be 
 reduced by parliamentary taxation, and to "con- 
 sider of a general, united, dutiful, loyal, and hum- 
 ble representation to the King." The day pro- 
 posed was the first Tuesday in October. In 
 Rhode Island, where the Governor was elected 
 
 A Royal Stamp. 
 
 by the people, Ward, who held the office, refused 
 
 to swear to carry out the act. In Connecticut, the Governor, Fitch, 
 
 took the fatal oath, fell from popular favor at once, and was never 
 
 reelected. 
 
 The Legislature of Virginia had also met in May. According to 
 Patrick Henry's recollections, when he was an old man, there H enry' 
 was a certain aversion on the part of the leading members to re 801 " 00118 
 come forward. Observing this, he wrote, on the blank leaf of an old 
 law-book, four resolutions which became celebrated. The third and 
 fourth are in these words : 
 
 " Resolved, That the taxation of the people by themselves, or by 
 persons chosen by themselves to represent them, who can only know 
 what taxes the people are able to bear, or the easiest method of rais- 
 ing them, and must themselves be affected by every tax laid on the 
 people, is the only security against a burdensome taxation, and the 
 distinguished characteristick of British freedom, without which the 
 ancient constitution cannot exist. 
 
 " Resolved, That his Majesty's liege people of his most ancient and 
 loyal colony, have without interruption enjoyed the inestimable right 
 of being governed by such laws respecting their internal polity and 
 taxation, as are derived from their own consent, with the approbation 
 of their sovereign or his substitutes, and that the same has been con- 
 stantly recognized by the King and people of Great Britain." 
 
 These resolutions were opposed, with great earnestness, by all the 
 
340 
 
 ALIENATION FROM ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 more prominent members. They said the same thing had been ex- 
 pressed in more conciliatory form, in the resolutions of the previous 
 year, to which no answer was yet received. Henry supported his res- 
 olutions with all the fire of his eloquence. It was in the midst of 
 this debate that he exclaimed, " Csesar had his Brutus, Charles the 
 First his Cromwell, and George the Third " (" Treason ! " cried 
 the Speaker. " Treason ! treason ! " echoed from every part of the 
 house.) Henry faltered not for an instant, but rising to a loftier atti- 
 tude, and fixing on the Speaker a look of determination, finished his 
 sentence with the firmest emphasis ''may profit by their example. If 
 this be treason, make the most of it." 
 
 The resolutions passed by a very close vote ; the last of the series 
 
 by one majority only. It 
 was afterwards remembered 
 that the messenger who car- 
 ried to Massachusetts these 
 resolutions of Virginia, 
 passed on the way, and con- 
 versed with, the messenger 
 who carried to Carolina and 
 Virginia the invitation of 
 Massachusetts to a Conti- 
 nental Congress. 
 
 The resolutions of Virginia 
 were passed on the 29th of 
 May, 1765. The Massachu- 
 setts Assembly met the same 
 week. As the summer passed, 
 the arrival of bales of stamped 
 Patr.ck Henry. paper and the commissions 
 
 for the new officers who were to sell the stamps, was the signal in 
 each seaport for the expression of popular indignation. The col- 
 lectors were hung in effigy ; they were " waited on " by mobs, and 
 compelled to decline. As successive Assemblies met, they pronounced 
 the Stamp Act illegal. And nine Assemblies appointed their dele- 
 gates, in answer to the invitation of Massachusetts, to the First Con- 
 tinental Congress. It met in the city of New York on the first 
 Tuesday of October, 1765. Twenty-eight delegates constituted the 
 congress of Assembly. They chose General Timothy Ruggles, of Massa- 
 htidnu e New chusetts, President. 1 This Congress was composed of some 
 York- of the most distinguished men in the colonies. They had 
 
 been chosen, also, with the wish to have the colonies fairly repre- 
 
 1 He did not concur in the conclusions of the Congress. 
 
1765.] 
 
 THE FJRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 
 
 341 
 
 sented. On the roll are found the names of some who, in the final 
 issue, sided with the Crown. But their resolution was decided ; it 
 satisfied the most eager ; it surprised the royal Governors ; it prob- 
 ably surprised the government in England. The resolves Theirpro. 
 which the Congress agreed upon should be studied for a pre- ***** 
 cise view of the position in which at that moment the country stood, 
 now united for the first time. They are in the following words : 
 
 " The members of the Congress, sincerely devoted, with the warm- 
 est sentiments of affection and duty, to his Majesty's person and gov- 
 ernment, inviolably attached to the present happy establishment of 
 the Protestant suc- 
 cession, and with 
 minds deeply im- 
 pressed by a sense 
 of the present and 
 impending misfor- 
 tunes of the British 
 Colonies on this con- 
 tinent, having con- 
 sidei-ed, as maturely 
 as time will permit, 
 the circumstances of 
 the said colonies, es- 
 teem it our indis- 
 pensable duty to 
 make the following 
 declaration of our humble opinion respecting the most essential rights 
 and liberties of the colonies, and of the grievances under which they 
 labour by reason of several late acts of Parliament. 
 
 " I. That his Majesty's subjects in these colonies owe the same alle- 
 giance to the Crown of Great Britain that is owing from his subjects 
 born within the realm, and all due subordination to that august body, 
 the Parliament of Great Britain. 
 
 " II. That his Majesty's liege subjects in these colonies are entitled 
 to all the inherent rights and liberties of his natural-born subjects 
 within the Kingdom of Great Britain. 
 
 " III. That it is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people, 
 and the undoubted right of Englishmen, that no taxes be imposed on 
 them but with their own consent, given personally or by their repre- 
 sentatives. 
 
 " IV. That the people of these colonies are not, and from their 
 local circumstances cannot be, represented in the House of Commons, 
 in Great Britain. 
 
 Old City Hall, Wall St., where the First Continental Congress met 
 
342 ALIENATION FROM ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 " V. That the only representatives of the people of these colonies 
 are persons chosen therein by themselves, and that no taxes ever have 
 been or can be constitutionally imposed on them but by their respect- 
 ive legislatures. 
 
 " VI. That all supplies to the Crown being free gifts of the people, 
 it is unreasonable and inconsistent with the principles and spirit of 
 the British Constitution, for the people of Great Britain to grant to 
 his Majesty the property of the Colonists. 
 
 " VII. That trial by jury is the inherent and invaluable right of 
 every British Subject in these Colonies. 
 
 " VIII. That the late act of Parliament, entitled ' An Act for 
 granting and applying certain stamp duties, and other duties in the 
 British Colonies and plantations in America, etc.,' by imposing taxes 
 on the inhabitants of these Colonies, and the said act, and several 
 other acts, by extending the jurisdiction of the Court of Admiralty 
 beyond its ancient limits, have a manifest tendency to subvert the 
 rights and liberties of the colonists. 
 
 " IX. That the duties imposed by several late acts of Parliament, 
 from the peculiar Circumstances of these Colonies, will be extremely 
 burthensome and grievous, and from the scarcity of specie the pay- 
 ment of them is absolutely impracticable. 
 
 " X. That as the profits of the trade of these Colonies ultimately 
 centre in Great Britain to pay for the manufactures which they are 
 obliged to take from thence, they eventually contribute very largely 
 to all supplies granted there to the Crown. 
 
 " XI. That the restrictions imposed by several late acts of Parlia- 
 ment on the trade of these Colonies will render them unable to pur- 
 chase the manufactures of Great Britain. 
 
 " XII. That the increase, prosperity, and happiness of these Colo- 
 nies depend on the full and free enjoyment of their rights and liber- 
 ties, and an intercourse with Great Britain, mutually affectionate and 
 advantageous. 
 
 "XIII. That it is the right of the British subjects in these Colo- 
 nies to petition the King, or either house of Parliament. 
 
 " Lastly, that it is the indispensable duty of these Colonies to the 
 best of sovereigns, to the mother country, and to themselves, to en- 
 deavour by a loyal and dutiful address to his Majesty, and humble 
 applications to both houses of Parliament, to procure the repeal of the 
 act for granting and applying certain stamp duties, of all clauses of 
 any other acts of Parliament, whereby the jurisdiction of the Admi- 
 ralty is extended as aforesaid, and of the other late acts for the restric- 
 tion of American commerce." 
 
 Similar resolves were passed in many of the Colonial Assem- 
 

 1785.] OPPOSITION TO THE STAMP ACT. 343 
 
 blies, Virginia taking the lead in a series which encouraged all the 
 others. 
 
 Among the measures already taken in the colonies to resent the 
 proposal of taxation, were agreements by which the asso- Me(lfiure(tof 
 ciates bound themselves not to import English goods, and "I'l" 1011 - 
 orders that had gone forward were countermanded. Retail traders 
 agreed not to buy and sell such goods if they were brought into the 
 country ; and in New York a fair was opened for the exhibition and 
 the encouragement of domestic manufactures. It was agreed not to 
 put on mourning apparel, as the required stuffs were English. That 
 the growth of wool might be encouraged, it was determined that lambs 
 should not be used as food. The royal Governors, in that delusion 
 which ruled them through the whole, spoke with contempt of these 
 compacts. But they were so powerful as to govern the whole course 
 of the year's trade, and were sufficient to appall some of the largest 
 manufacturing towns in England. Manchester first appears in the 
 parliamentary history as a place of importance at this crisis, when 
 the petition of her manufacturers asserts that nine tenths of their 
 workmen are unemployed. 
 
 It was soon found that it would be impossible to enforce the use of 
 stamped paper, though the refusal suspended the whole busi- p opu i arhos . 
 ness of the country. Mr. Oliver, the agent for its distri- J^y^* 
 bution in Massachusetts, was compelled to resign, and after- tnbutors 
 ward required by a mob to renew his resignation in public. His win- 
 dows were broken and his house entered, in the violence of the trans- 
 action. Gaining courage by the quiet with which this outrage was 
 received, the mob attacked the house of his brother-in-law, Lieuten- 
 ant-governor Hutchinson, which was entered, and everything in it 
 thrown into the street and destroyed or carried away. 1 The Mob8 in 
 local authorities called out the militia, and offered rewards Boston - 
 for the arrest of the ringleaders. But when some persons were ar- 
 rested, another mob released them. 
 
 In other colonies, violent measures or peaceable agreements were 
 resorted to with the same result. Except among those holding office 
 under the Crown, there was but one feeling. The newspapers 
 whose influence then was less through editorial comment upon public 
 affairs, and more in letters from private citizens led public opinion 
 in warm appeals to patriotism, as well as in dispassionate essays upon 
 the rights of the people. In New York, an association called the 
 Sons of Liberty a took upon itself the direction of the opposition. 
 
 1 The estimate of the damage was 2,500, which may he taken as the value of the fur- 
 niture and other property in one of the most elegant establishments in Boston, at that time. 
 * When the Stamp Act was passing through Parliament, Charles Townsheud spoke of 
 
344 
 
 ALIENATION FROM ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 Similar associations were formed in other provinces, and a committee 
 of correspondence gave to that opposition the strength of mutual and 
 
 concentrated purpose. Lieu- 
 tenant-governor Golden made 
 military preparations for 
 resistance, and was only 
 prevented by General 
 ** Gage, the commander- 
 in-chief, from firing 
 upon the people when 
 they gathered about 
 
 Burning the Stamps. 
 
 the Fort and demanded that the stamps 
 
 should be surrendered. Golden was 
 
 burnt in effigy; the house of Major' 
 
 James was sacked, and its contents completely destroyed. He had 
 
 made himself peculiarly obnoxious by declaring that " he would cram 
 
 the colonies as planted by the care of England. It was then that Colonel Barre broke out 
 in that brilliant and indignant defence of the colonies, where in the French War he had 
 
1765.] POPULAR EXCITEMENT. 345 
 
 the stamps down their throats with the end of his sword;" that "if 
 they attempted to rise he would drive them all out of the town, for a 
 pack of rascals, with four and twenty men." Golden was at length 
 compelled, by the popular excitement and violence, to pledge himself 
 not to use the stamps, and to deposit them with the city Goveniment 
 for safe-keeping. When a vessel arrived in the harbor of New York 
 with stamps on board for use in Connecticut, the vessel was boarded, 
 the packages seized, taken on shore, and a bonfire made of them. In 
 Philadelphia, the stamp-distributor, one Hughes, made haste publicly to 
 resign his office when informed that his rather tardy deliberation would 
 be aided by a visit from the Sons of Liberty. In Maryland, the dis- 
 tributor, Hood, was burnt in effigy, and when he fled to New York, a 
 deputation from the " Sons " visited him at Flushing, demanded and 
 received a formal resignation of his office, and an oath that he would not 
 resume it. In every province, the stamp-distributor was compelled to 
 resign his office. In New Hampshire, the commission of that officer 
 was carried in procession upon the point of a sword ; the newspaper 
 of Portsmouth came out in mourning, and an effigy of the Goddess 
 of Liberty was carried to an open grave. In South Carolina, the 
 Stamp Act was publicly burnt, while the bells of Charleston tolled, 
 and the flags on the ships in the harbor were hung at half-mast. 
 
 The Constitution of England was by no means yet adjusted on its 
 present basis, or on what were then called " constitutional The E^;,^ 
 principles." George III. had steadily carried forward his B OTemment - 
 notions of a possible royal prerogative, such as his predecessors, George 
 I. and George II., had been content to yield. The Earl of Bute, the 
 favorite of the young King's mother, and the head of his household 
 when he was a prince, had indeed ceased to rule ; but the popular 
 indignation suspected, however unjustly, that his influence still con- 
 trolled the government when Grenville was crowded out of power 
 before the year closed, chiefly from the feeling that he was Bute's tool 
 and appointed successor. Under the powerful patronage of the Duks 
 
 served as a soldier. " They planted by your care ! " he exclaimed. " No, your oppres- 
 sions planted them in America They nourished up by your indulgence ! They grew 
 
 by your neglect of them. As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exer- 
 cised in sending persons to rule them in one department and another, who were perhaps 
 the deputies of deputies to some mem!>er of this House, sent to spy out their liberties, to 
 misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon them ; men whose behaviour on many occa- 
 sions has caused the blood of those sons of Utterly to recoil within them." The speech was 
 reported by Jared Ingersoll, the agent of Connecticut, and was probably widely and grate- 
 fully read in America before the Sons of Liberty in New York had formed their association 
 and given it a name. "I am happy to hear of your success the American day," wrote the 
 Earl of Shelburne to Barre. "It must give your friends in America the greatest pleas- 
 ure." Fitzmaurice's Life of Shelburne. Mr. J. Hammond Trumbull has shown that the 
 phrase "sons of liberty "had been used many years before in Connecticut. But it had 
 then been applied to freedom from ecclesiastical rather than political tyranny. 
 
346 ALIENATION FROM ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 of Cumberland, a new cabinet, which was really independent of the 
 Earl of Bute, came into being, headed by the Marquis of Rocking- 
 ham. This Rockingham ministry was so much engaged in home poli- 
 tics, and in securing its own existence, that when it became necessary 
 to call Parliament together, in December, 1765, it had come to no 
 understanding ou its course regarding America ; the King's speech 
 simply referring to the importance of the news received from there. 
 Grenville, enraged by this news, moved an amendment to the address, 
 full of indignation. The Ministers were not yet reflected to Parlia- 
 ment, and, with some difficulty, Grenville, in deference to them, with- 
 drew his motion. But after the recess the storm came. 
 
 Strange to say, however, even in the recess, the Ministry could not 
 agree on their course. Nor had they agreed when the necessity of ac- 
 tion was forced upon them. Then ensued one of the most dramatic 
 scenes that Parliament ever witnessed, and the debate of January, 
 1766, which is one of the most memorable in history. 
 
 It was a year since William Pitt had appeared in the House. The 
 wiiiiam formal debate on the address to the King came on. A 
 
 young member, whom the world did not know, but who has 
 since given us the most vital history of this whole business, Edmund 
 Burke, made his maiden speech. Pitt rose immediately after him, 
 the whole House eager to hear the voice of the oracle. He began by 
 congratulating Parliament and Burke's friends on the value of the 
 acquisition of such a member, and then went on to speak doubtfully, 
 even sarcastically, of the Ministry. At last he came to speak of 
 
 America : " When the resolution was taken in the House 
 fence of to tax America, I was ill in bed. If I could have endured 
 
 America. , . .. . . . r . , 
 
 to be carried in my bed, so great was my agitation or mind 
 for the consequences, I would have solicited some kind hand to have 
 laid me down on this floor to have borne my testimony against it. 
 .... Since I cannot depend upon health for any future day, I will 
 now say thus much, that in my opinion this kingdom has no right to 
 lay a tax upon the colonies Taxation is no part of the gov- 
 erning or legislative power. At the same time, on any real point of 
 legislation, I believe the authority of Parliament to be fixed as the 
 Polar Star, fixed for the reciprocal benefit of the mother country and 
 her infant colonies. They are the subjects of this kingdom, equally 
 entitled with yourselves to all the natural rights of mankind, and the 
 peculiar privileges of Englishmen, and equally bound by its laws. 
 The Americans are the sons, not the bastards, of England." J 
 
 1 It was in this speech that Pitt made his celebrated prophecy thnt the " rotten part of 
 the Constitution" by which he meant the "rotten borough" system would not con- 
 tinue a century. 
 
1765.] 
 
 MEMORABLE LANGUAGE OF PITT. 
 
 347 
 
 At the close of this speech a long pause ensued. Then General 
 Con way rose, the leader of the Ministry in the House. He was 
 one of the few men who had voted against the Stamp Act. He said 
 lie agreed with almost every word which Pitt had uttered, and he be- 
 lieved the Ministers did ; and he disclaimed distinctly the charge 
 which Pitt had made in the speech, that the Earl of Bute still had an 
 influence in the royal councils. 
 
 George Grenville, of course, could not bear silently such attacks on 
 his policy. He defended the Stamp Act ably. He said the origin 
 of the American hatred to it 
 was to be found in the fac- 
 tions of the House. When 
 he ceased speaking, Pitt rose 
 to answer him, though to 
 speak twice was forbidden 
 by the rules. But the House 
 cried, "Go on !" and Pitt 
 went on. " The gentleman 
 tells us America is obsti- 
 nate, America is almost in 
 open rebellion. Sir, I rejoice 
 that America has resisted ! 
 Three millions of people so 
 dead to all the feelings of 
 liberty as voluntarily to sub- 
 mit to be slaves, would have 
 been fit instruments to make 
 slaves of all the rest." 
 These words, perhaps, more 
 than any others in those celebrated addresses, endeared Pitt to the 
 Americans. It would be hard to find other words more widely re- 
 peated, even by school-boys in their declamations, for more than a 
 hundred years. 
 
 The address to the King determined nothing. But Pitt's speeches 
 fixed the minds of the wavering ministers. He had given 
 
 i i- i iii -11 The results. 
 
 them a policy, and they were sure it would be sustained by 
 the House. In compliance with his ideas, they brought in a bill re- 
 pealing the Stamp Act, and another declaring the supreme power of 
 Parliament over the colonies. They also laid on die table large ex- 
 tracts from the American correspondence. The House heard at its 
 bar witnesses acquainted with the subject, among others, Dr. Frank- 
 lin. 1 This examination closed with these questions and answers : 
 
 1 The full report of the examination, all alive with Franklin's \\isdum and wit, is iu 
 Sparks's Franklin, vol. iv., p. 192, and iu earlier editions of Franklin's Works. 
 
 Edmund Burke. 
 
348 ALIENATION FROM ENGLAND. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 " Q. What used to be the pride of Americans ? 
 
 " A. To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain. 
 
 " (J. What is now their pride ? 
 
 " A. To wear their old clothes over again." 
 
 If the final result of Pitt's eloquence, of Conway's conviction, of 
 Franklin's wit and wisdom, and the apparent wish of the majority of 
 the House, seems to us a confused medley, we are no worse off than 
 they were who participated in it. Pitt wrote to his wife, confiden- 
 tially, on the llth of February, "The whole of things is inexplicable." 
 Lord Chesterfield wrote to his son the same day, " Perhaps you ex- 
 pect from me a particular account of the present state of affairs. If 
 you do, you will be disappointed, for no man living knows what it is." 
 In truth, the ministers were disappointed in their effort to state, in 
 resolutions, the doctrines which Pitt had laid down. The Stamp Act 
 could be repealed ; but the law officers would not consent to 
 
 Conflict of ........ i-i i> 
 
 opinions any statement of his favorite doctrine that the right to legis- 
 
 aniong Eng- , _' ' TI/~II 
 
 luh states- late and the right to tax were distinct. Lord Camden un- 
 derstood, and maintained the distinction. But Lord Mans- 
 field ridiculed it, and, when the bill was to be drawn, he would not 
 hear of it. Pitt and Camden both said that taxation and legislation 
 were separate. Pitt's statement had been, " that we may bind their 
 trade, confine their manufacture, and exercise any power, except only 
 that of taking their money from their pockets without their own con- 
 sent.'' But the Declaratory Act, as drawn by the law advisers of the 
 Crown, instead of saying this, said that the power of Parliament was 
 supreme over the colonies, and extended to all cases whatsoever. It 
 always happens that a body like Parliament prefers the larger defi- 
 nition of its own authority, and Pitt writes to his wife, in the same 
 letter which has been cited, " We debated long on various resolu- 
 tions relating to America, and finally ended in a good deal of agree- 
 ment.'' It seemed to him, as to all men eager for a solution of the 
 immediate difficulty, that the repeal of the Stamp Act was the great 
 practical object. 
 
 Meanwhile the Ministry were embarrassed on another side. They 
 were embarrassed, as those who dealt with George III. often were, by 
 finding they had misconceived his wishes. Before the debate was 
 over, the leaders in the House found they were speaking and voting 
 against " the King's friends." But this misunderstanding was ex- 
 plained, and, at the moment, wrought them no mischief. 
 'General Conway brought in the resolution for the repeal of the 
 Stamp Act on the 17th of February, 1766. After another re- 
 the i stamp markable debate in March, in which Grenville and Pitt both 
 spoke, the vote in its favor was 275 to 167. Describing this 
 
1766.] REJOICINGS IN THE COLONIES. 349 
 
 occasion, eight years after, Burke said : " I remember, Sir, with a mel- 
 ancholy pleasure, the situation of the honorable gentleman (General 
 Conway) who made the motion for the repeal ; when the whole trad- 
 ing interest of this Empire, crammed into your lobbies, with a trem- 
 bling and anxious expectation, waited, almost to a winter's return of 
 light, their fate from your resolutions. When at length you had de- 
 termined in their favor, and your doors, thrown open, showed them 
 the figure of their deliverer, in the well-earned triumph of his impor- 
 tant victory, from the whole of that grave multitude there arose an 
 involuntary burst of gratitude and transport. They jumped upon 
 
 him like children upon a long-absent father. 
 
 All England, all America, joined to his ap- 
 
 plause. Nor did he seein 
 insensible to the best of al! 
 earthly rewards, the love 
 and admiration of his fel- 
 low-citizens. Hope elevated, and joy bright- 
 ened his crest. I stood near him ; and his 
 face, to use the expression of the Scripture 
 of the first martyr, k his face was as if it had Liberty-Pol. Festival. 
 
 been the face of an angel.' .... I did hope that that day's danger 
 and honor would have been a bond to hold us all together forever. 
 But, alas ! that, with other pleasing visions, is long since vanished." 
 
 The joy described with so much spirit by Burke, extended itself 
 through all the mercantile and manufacturing towns in Eng- Jovatthe 
 land. In America it was unbounded. The people had re P**' 
 hoped ; but the news, when it came, was more than they had dared 
 
350 
 
 ALIENATION FROM ENGLAN 7 D. 
 
 [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 to hope for. Genei-al Con way, who had been the consistent friend of 
 the colonies, accompanied the repealing act by a conciliatory letter, 
 and, for the moment, it seemed as if the bone of contention was out 
 of the way and a new era had come in. Full-length portraits of Con- 
 way and of Barre were ordered to be hung up in Faneuil Hall in 
 Boston. The Assembly of Virginia voted to erect a statue of George 
 III.; and a similar honor to Pitt was proposed in Maryland. But 
 nowhere was the enthusiasm greater than in New York. The inhab- 
 itants petitioned for, and the Assembly decreed, the erection of statues 
 both of the King and of Pitt ; l on the King's birthday, which oc- 
 curred not long after the news of the repeal of the Stamp Act was 
 received, the people assembled in the Fields (now City Hall Park) 
 and with rejoicings and festivities set up a Liberty Pole, at the foot 
 of which the King's health was drunk in hogsheads of punch. 
 
 But it was a perishable monument of the restoration of peace and 
 harmony. Before the summer was over, in only a little more than 
 two months from the time of its erection, the Pole was levelled to the 
 ground by the soldiers of the Fort. Thenceforward it became for sev- 
 eral years a rallying-point of contention between the soldiers and the 
 people. It was repeatedly cut down, or blown up with gunpowder, 
 and as often replaced at once by a new one ; and in these contests, 
 where hard blows and sometimes serious wounds were given and 
 taken, the spirit of resistance was kept alive and active. 
 
 1 The statues were not finished for four years. In August, 1770, that of George III., 
 which was of lead, was set up in the Bowliug Green, and that of Pitt, iu marble, at the 
 corner of Wall and Smith (now William) Streets. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 END OF COLONIAL RULE. 
 
 MEASURES FOLLOWING THE REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT. IGNORANCE OF AMERICA 
 IN ENGLAND. QUARTERING TROOPS IN BOSTON. CONSEQUENT ILL-FEELING. 
 IMPRESSMENT AND RESISTANCE OF SEAMEN. QUARRELS BETWEEN CITIZENS AND 
 SOLDIERS. THE BOSTON MASSACRE. REMOVAL OF THE MILITARY. "SAM. 
 ADAMS'S REGIMENTS." TRIAL AND ACQUITTAL OF CAPTAIN PRESTON. VERDICT 
 AGAINST Two SOLDIERS. EFFORTS OF THE DUKE OF GRAFTON AT RECONCILIA- 
 TION. CONDUCT OF THE EARL OF HILLSBOROUGH. LORD NORTH'S MINISTRY. 
 THE TEA TAX. THE WHATELY LETTERS. FRANKLIN INSULTED BY WKDDER- 
 BURS. ARRIVAL OF THE TEA SHIPS IN AMERICA. DISPOSITION OF THE TEA is 
 VARIOUS PLACES. BOSTON PORT BILL. GAGE APPOINTED GOVERNOR OF MASSA- 
 CHUSETTS. 
 
 THE repeal of the Stamp Act was, after all, only a concession for 
 the sake of present expediency, not an acknowledgment of 
 an exclusive and inherent right in the colonial subjects to power ow 
 tax themselves. It was accompanied by a Declaratory Act >- i-ariia- 
 asserting the power of Parliament over the colonies " in all 
 cases whatsoever;" which might well arouse, as Lord Shelburne after- 
 ward wrote to Pitt it did, "an unfortunate jealousy and distrust of 
 the English Government throughout the Colonies." The Mutiny 
 Act, also, not long before, had been extended to America, and one of 
 its provisions was, that the Colonial Assemblies should pro- The Mutiny 
 vide quarters, with '"fire, candles, vinegar, salt, bedding, Act- 
 utensils for cooking, beer or cider, and rum," for the support of troops. 
 Parliament, moreover, accompanied the repeal of the obnoxious act 
 by a resolution recommending that the Assemblies of the several 
 provinces should compensate all those who had suffered loss the year 
 before in the stamp riots. That the Sugar Act should still remain 
 the law, without modification, would have been enough to keep alive 
 distrust of the home government ; but when, to the negation of any 
 essential change of policy, there was added so much positive proof 
 that the policy was unchanged, there was quite sufficient reason for 
 the most jealous watchfulness on the part of the Americans. 
 
 Meanwhile the Rockingham Ministry was dissolved, and, though 
 Pitt accepted the Privy Seal, the changes in the Cabinet indicated 
 
352 END OF COLONIAL RULE. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 that a spirit of aggression rather than of conciliation would rule in 
 the affairs of the colonies. Pitt, moreover, to the surprise of 
 the English all England, and, indeed, of all Europe, chose to go into the 
 House of Lords as the Earl of Chatham, at the sacrifice of 
 his influence as well as of his popularity. That mysterious illness of 
 his which has been a cause of so much speculation, which was be- 
 lieved by many to be akin to madness, by others the exaggeration of 
 peculiar eccentricity, and, in our time, perhaps, would be covered un- 
 der the more charitable and comprehensive term of nervous prostra- 
 tion was now at its height. Whatever it was, it led him, unfortu- 
 nately both for England and America, into almost complete 
 of Town"-* isolation, leaving Charles Townshend free from all restraint. 
 He had accepted office under Pitt, while opposed to his pol- 
 icy in regard to the affairs of the colonies. He had acceded to the 
 
 / 
 
 repeal of the Stamp Act, only because it was inexpedient to attempt 
 to enforce it. Military garrisons, he now insisted, should be kept up 
 in the large colonial towns, to be supported by colonial taxation ; a 
 colonial revenue must be exacted; and he ridiculed the distinction 
 between internal and external taxes. This distinction was one at first 
 strenuously insisted upon by the Americans ; but had Townshend, who 
 died in the autumn of 1767, lived a little longer, he would have seen 
 how completely his own measures changed their opinions on this point. 
 Taxation of the colonies was to be resisted, let it take what form it 
 would, if only the purpose was plainly seen that taxation was in- 
 tended. 
 
 The intrigues and strife of parties, and the determination of the 
 landed interest in England to lighten its own burden, favored Towns- 
 hend's polity. It was proposed to reduce the land-tax of four shil- 
 lings in the pound to three shillings, and Townshend was quite willing 
 to see the defeat of his own party on this question, as it enabled him 
 to insist upon making up the deficiency in the revenue by colonial 
 taxation. But the colonies were of one mind ; they would submit to 
 no infringement upon their rights by Parliament, though, as events 
 ordered, it was upon New York and Massachusetts that the duty de- 
 volved of taking the lead in defence of those rights. 
 
 When Sir Henry Moore, the Governor of New York, sent a mes- 
 sa g e * n J l '" e > 1768, to the Assembly, requiring them to make 
 provision for troops, then on their way to that colony, in ac- 
 cordance with the Act of Parliament, the Assembly refused. 
 They were willing to bear a proportionate share in the support of 
 troops on the march through the province, as they had always done, 
 and of their own free will. But the quartering of soldiers in the col- 
 ony at the colony's expense, as this act provided, was the imposition 
 
1768.] CIRCULAR LETTER OF MASSACHUSETTS. 353 
 
 of a tax without their consent. In the spring, Parliament ordered 
 that the legislative functions of New York should be suspended till 
 the law was complied with. In the debate on this measure, Pownall, 
 formerly Governor of Massachusetts, but now a member of Parlia- 
 ment, was exceedingly frank in his animadversions upon the conduct 
 of the House. It had seen fit to assume that New York alone had 
 revolted against this assumption of power. " Believe me," said Mr. 
 Pownall, whose experience and sound judgment should have com- 
 mended his words to those men who ought by this time to have begun 
 to see that they were attempting to ride a storm and guide a whirl- 
 wind, " Believe me, there is not a province, a colony, or a planta- 
 tion that will submit to a tax thus imposed, more than New York 
 will." 
 
 Other colonies, where like requisitions were made for the support 
 of troops, were careful, in granting them, to avoid seeming 
 
 ..... , vr r 1 Sustained 
 
 to do so in obedience to the act. sympathy with .New York, by the other 
 as the target of ministerial displeasure, extended to them 
 all, and that deepened to indignation when the Mutiny Act was ex- 
 tended for another ) r ear, and it was determined to impose port duties 
 on wines, oil, and fruit, if shipped direct from Spain and Portugal, 
 and upon glass, paper, lead, colors, and tea. The revenue to be raised 
 from these duties was to be at the disposal of the Crown, and to be 
 used for the support of the civil officers of the colonies. 
 
 This was justly considered a blow at the very root of their consti- 
 tutional rights. The one thing above all others which the colonists 
 had never lost sight of, and had never ceased to contend for, as the 
 history of the colonial period shows, was, to provide for the necessi- 
 ties of government in their own way, and to keep those to whom the 
 affairs of government were intrusted, dependent upon the Colonial 
 Assemblies. In this emergency, the General Court of Massachusetts 
 addressed a circular letter to the Assemblies of all the other colo- 
 nies, suggesting that they should unite in supplications to the King 
 for relief. 
 
 The acts of Parliament, they said in this letter, ' imposing duties 
 on the people of this province, with the sole and express 
 
 , . . .... i: ,. Circular Lt-t- 
 
 purpose oi raising a revenue, are infringements or their nat- terot Ma*- 
 ural and constitutional rights ; because, as they are not rep- 
 resented in the British Parliament, his Majesty's Commons in Britain 
 by those acts grant their property without their consent." And they 
 submitted it to the consideration of their countrymen, "Whether any 
 people can be said to enjoy any degree of freedom, if the Crown, in 
 addition to his undoubted authority for constituting a Governor, 
 should appoint him such a stipend as it shall judge proper, without 
 
 VOL. in. 23 
 
354 END OF COLONIAL RULE. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 the consent of the people, and at their expence ; and whether, while 
 the judges of the land, and other civil officers, hold not their commis- 
 sions during good behavior, their having salaries appointed for them 
 by the Crown, independant of the people, hath not a tendency to sub- 
 vert the principles of equity, and endanger the happiness and security 
 of the subject." With one accord the other colonies united in hearty 
 approbation of this letter. But when it reached England, the Earl 
 of Hillsborough, who had succeeded Shelburne as Secretary of State 
 for the Colonies, wrote to Governor Bernard of Massachusetts to order 
 the General Court u to rescind the resolution which gave birth to 
 the letter, and to declare their disapprobation of and dissent to that 
 rash and hasty proceeding ; " and if they refused, the Governor was 
 to dissolve the Court. The other colonies were ordered to take no no- 
 tice of the letter, and were also threatened with dissolution of their 
 Assemblies in case of disobedience. 
 
 It is a remarkable evidence of the utter ignorance that prevailed in 
 
 England of American affairs and American character, that 
 
 ignorance of Hillsborougli could have sent such a message to a body 
 
 America. ? i c 
 
 whose leading men, when measured with the worthiest ot 
 the public men of England, were in every sense their peers, and in 
 some sense their superiors. The General Court replied with great 
 dignity to the minister's insolent demand, and by a vote of ninety-five 
 to seventeen declined to comply with it. In truth, no other result was 
 probable, or hardly possible. The older colonies had been essentially 
 self-governed for a century and a half, and were virtually indepen- 
 dent. Almost all of the inhabitants, except in Georgia, were born 
 upon the soil. The circumstances of their lives had created habits of 
 thought as well as methods of living, and no " Be it enacted," pro- 
 nounced three thousand miles away, could stand if brought in conflict 
 with this native self-reliance and inborn belief in their own rights. 
 To ministers in England it seemed that to dissolve an Assembly was 
 a final and decisive step. In Boston it only showed the people that 
 the time had come for town meetings. An appeal from Faneuil Hall 
 was responded to by every town in the province, and committees of 
 correspondence and of safety laid deep and strong the foundations of 
 a new state. It was easy to impose taxes on imports by bills in Par- 
 liament, and to appoint revenue officers for their due collection. If 
 not quite so easy to do, it was more to the purpose when done, to 
 determine neither to order nor to receive importations. If the Minis- 
 try supposed that the colonists were to be overawed by the presence 
 of troops, they misjudged the circumstances and character of the 
 people in this as in everything else. Their appeals had been to the 
 clemency of a King to whom they avowed the most loyal allegiance ; 
 
1768.] 
 
 QUARTERING TROOPS IN BOSTON. 
 
 to the justice and reason of ministers who, they were slow to believe, 
 intended to take from them the rights they had always maintained, 
 and the loss of which would reduce them to political slaveiy. If the 
 final arbitration must be by force of arms, they would be as ready 
 for that as they had been to meet all other questions ; but they were 
 reluctant to admit that the necessity for such arbitration could ever 
 
 arise. 
 
 When, therefore, under the King's new system of government, four 
 regiments of soldiers from the Crown establishment were 
 quartered in the town of Boston, every prejudice of that teringo* 
 
 _ . troops. 
 
 community was shocked ; every man felt that this was an 
 insult to the good fame of the town ; and every man, whatever his 
 
 station, asked him- 
 self what these sol- 
 diers were doing, 
 and what they were 
 there for. 1 The 
 answer was clear 
 enough, that they 
 \vere doing nothing. 
 The King was pay- 
 ing them for doing 
 nothing, in a little 
 town in which the 
 [ whole population of 
 able - bodied men, 
 not more than three times as numer- 
 ous as these soldiers, were engaged in 
 the most active industry. Worse 
 than this, the soldiers and their offi- 
 cers introduced habits in the last de- 
 gree exasperating in a Puritan town. 
 The army of England at that time was recruited from the lowest 
 dregs of the English population. And here, \>\ way of bravado, four 
 regiments were introduced in the midst of a community where men 
 had not been used to see a professional soldier once in a generation, 
 and where public morals, and the outward forms of society, had been 
 pushed by the leaders of the government to the very verge of asceti- 
 cism. Had any enemy of King George counselled him as to the best 
 method by which he could alienate his subjects here, such an enemy 
 
 1 Ten years after, when the Count Rochambeau commanded the French army in Amer- 
 ica, he was asked in Connecticut, to his great amusement, " What he did when he was at 
 home ? " 
 
356 
 
 END OF COLONIAL RULE. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 Castle Wil- 
 liam. 
 
 could not have suggested a plan more ingenious than that of quar- 
 tering a considerable body of troops in Boston. To quarter so many 
 troops in a provincial town of England would, perhaps, have been 
 thought a favor. The habits of society, the gayety, and the other 
 stimulants to intercourse and trade, had long since blotted out in 
 England the old prejudice against a standing army. But all the 
 larger colonies had been formed while that prejudice still existed. 
 All the old political writers of England, on whom the colonists greatly 
 relied, regarded any standing army as an instrument of tyranny. 
 And, as has been said, the experience of all their history had shown 
 that in such states as theirs, at least, no standing army was neces- 
 sary for order or tranquillity. 
 
 Up to the year 1767, the presence of English troops was unknown 
 in New England, excepting in time of war ; and even then, 
 such troops were moved as soon as possible to the frontier. 
 In the spring of 1768, in the midst of bitter irritation between the 
 Governor and the Massachusetts Assembly, the newly- 
 appointed Commissioners of the Customs had been com- 
 pelled to remove to Castle William, about three miles 
 below Boston, in the harbor, where the garrison then 
 consisted of a detail from the militia of the neighbor- 
 hood. The Governor was so far dissatisfied with this 
 garyison, that he requested General Gage, the English 
 Commander-in-chief at New York, to order one or two 
 regiments of the King's troops from Halifax to hold 
 the fort. He also moved three vessels of war down 
 the harbor so as to cover it. Before his orders could 
 be executed, the government in England, of their own 
 movement, had anticipated them and sent their orders 
 for quartering troops in the town. Early in Septem- 
 ber, an officer arrived to prepare their quarters. His 
 errand was at once known, and the popular indignation 
 was shown by the immediate provision of a tar-barrel, 
 which was hauled up by night into the frame, long 
 empty, of the beacon which gave its name to Beacon 
 Hill, the highest of the three hills of Boston. In 
 preparation for such a purpose, the selectmen of the town had re- 
 paired the beacon. It may be doubted whether this beacon 
 na( ^ been used since it summoned the people of the ccmn- 
 trv to tne overthrow of Andros. 1 It had been established 
 in the very earliest days of the colony. 
 
 The town meeting of Boston sent a committee to the Governor, 
 
 1 See vol. ii., p. 393. 
 
 The Beacon. 
 
 digntition in 
 Boston. The 
 
1768.] QUARTERING TROOPS IX BOSTON. 357 
 
 asking him to issue precepts for a General Assembly, to take meas- 
 ures for the preservation of their civil rights and privileges. The 
 Governor refused, and the committee of the town of Boston pro- 
 ceeded, on its own warrant, to summon an Assembly for the purpose 
 named. The town meeting then voted that every inhabitant should 
 be requested to provide himself with fire-arms for sudden danger in 
 case of a war with France. As no war was probable, the design of 
 this vote was evident. Meanwhile the Council declined to provide 
 barracks for the ti'oops in Boston. They said there were barracks for 
 a thousand men at Castle William, and that these would accommo- 
 date all the troops expected from Halifax. The act of Parliament 
 requiring them to prepare quarters for troops had provided that 
 where barracks already existed, they should be used. 
 
 In the midst of this irritation the Convention met, and addressed 
 the Governor. They asked him to convene the General TroopSKent 
 Assembly. The Governor refused to receive their petition, to Boston - 
 but addressed a paper to them admonishing them instantly to sep- 
 arate. They remained in session nine days. Their moderation seems 
 to have disappointed everybody, of both parties. The troops finally 
 arrived off the harbor on the 28th of September, the Convention ad- 
 journed on the 29th, and on the 1st of October the troops landed. 
 Even the regiment which was intended for the castle was brought up 
 to the town. One regiment encamped on the Common, and the other 
 was quartered in FaneuilHall and the Town House. The local au- 
 thorities still refused to provide barracks, and the commanding officer 
 hired quarters for them and purchased supplies at the charge of the 
 Crown. The Irish regiments in addition arrived on the 10th of No- 
 vember, and were quartered in a similar way. A fleet of eight men- 
 of-war, with an aggregate of more than a hundred and eighty guns, 
 was anchored off the town. 
 
 The justification made by the home government for sending a gar- 
 rison to Boston was the news of a riot on the 8th of July. Riot8 the 
 A schooner, laden with molasses, had been seized for viola- P retext - 
 tion of the customs. Thirty men entered her at night, confined the 
 keepers, and carried off the cargo. The selectmen restored the 
 molasses, but Governor Bernard, in reporting the matter to the gov- 
 ernment, said, with a sneer, u We are not without a government, only 
 it is in the hands of the people of the town." This occurrence, and 
 a similar riot in which some wines were landed from the sloop Lib- 
 erty, belonging to John Hancock, seem to have given the motive to 
 the English administration for severer measures than they had at- 
 tempted before. A large garrison once in the town, there occasionally 
 broke out the annoyances which might be expected after such circum- 
 
358 
 
 END OF COLONIAL RULE. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 nprincon 
 
 stances of irritation. So soon as the General Court met, in May, it 
 proved that the result of this irritation was a stronger ma- 
 
 Removal of * . . ,/-, IIP * 
 
 the troops iontv against the Governor than before. A committee was 
 
 demanded. J J . 
 
 at once appointed to ask for the removal of the troops. The 
 Governor answered that he had no authority over them. The Gen- 
 eral Court replied that it was only owing to exaggerated reports that 
 the troops had been sent. They said there had been no dis- 
 turbances which bore any proportion to similar tumults in 
 the General the best regulated cities of Europe. Any disturbances here 
 were far from being carried to that atrocious and alarming 
 length to which riotous assemblies had been carried in Great Britain, 
 
 " at the very gates 
 of the palace, and 
 even in the royal 
 presence." They 
 refused to proceed 
 to business while 
 surrounded with 
 soldiers. Governor 
 Bernard met this 
 refusal by remov- 
 ing the General 
 Court to Cam- 
 bridge, where was 
 no garrison ; and 
 the House pro- 
 ceeded to business 
 there, under a pro- 
 test. On the 27th, 
 they voted a peti- 
 tion to the King 
 for Governor Ber- 
 nard's removal, 
 who, as it hap- 
 pened, had the 
 mortification of 
 communicating to 
 them the next day the King's orders that he should return to England 
 to lay before him the state of the province. He had received these 
 orders as early as April. The General Court asked to see the King's 
 order, and it was laid before them. The Court replied that they 
 " cheerfully acquiesced in the command of their sovereign for his re- 
 turn to Great Britain, and the order for a true statement of the 
 
 John Hancock. 
 
1770.] ATTEMPTED IMPRESSMENT OF SEAMEN. 359 
 
 affairs of the province gave them peculiar satisfaction." On the 
 departure of Bernard, Hutchinson, the Chief Justice of the Prov- 
 ince, a gentleman of old New England blood, became acting Gov- 
 ernor. 
 
 Such are, perhaps, the more important external signs of constant 
 irritation which appear on the public records after more 
 than a century. But, as a matter of course, the occasions sources of 
 of personal and private irritation, occurring almost with every 
 hour, did more to alienate the people from the Crown than any for- 
 mal passages, however bitter. Such were the daily parade of regi- 
 ments, and their military instruction in the heart of the town, duels 
 between officers, and between officers and citizens, the ridicule with 
 which a body of English officers would regard the antiquated and 
 provincial customs of the little sea-port, and, worst of all, the quar- 
 rels, more and more frequent, between ignorant and brutal privates 
 and the people of the lowest class of the town, equally ignorant and 
 equally brutal. Of the population of Boston, which would not count 
 more than four thousand able-bodied men, a large portion were sea- 
 faring men, with the habits of adventure and violence which are not 
 unusual with sailors in all countries. Under such conditions, alterca- 
 tions constantly took place, of which the local annals are full. One 
 of the most exasperating was the impressment by the offi- 
 
 , ,, D e e r w i i Attempted 
 
 cers or the Hose man-or-war or some seamen from a Marble- 
 
 
 head brig. The seamen resisted, defied the English officer 
 in command, and killed him. On the trial of the guilty person, he 
 was acquitted by the Admiralty Court, which was wholly in the 
 King's interest, on the ground that he acted in self-defence. It also 
 proved that the statute which gave the right of impressment specially 
 excepted the American coast from its execution. 
 
 Such altercations and bitterness culminated, after a year and a half, 
 in an occurrence which at the time received the exaggerated name of 
 the " Boston Massacre," a name which it has never lost. In the ex- 
 perience of places always accustomed to quarrels between soldiers and 
 civilians, this transaction would have been considered trifling. Its im- 
 portance in this instance is due to the fact that it brought to a crisis a 
 long series of annoyances in a community wholly unused to a garrison. 
 
 On the 3d of March, 1770, by mutual agreement, a party of soldiers 
 and rope-makers had an encounter with clubs, near mid- TheBostoll 
 night, and several men on each side were badly wounded. Ma8sacre - 
 The next night, a renewal of the fight was prevented with some diffi- 
 culty. On the evening of the 5th of March, two young men under- 
 took to pass a sentinel at the foot of Cornhill, 1 without answering 
 
 1 The name " Cornhill " then applied to a part of what is now Washington Street. 
 
360 
 
 END OF COLONIAL RULE. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 his challenge. A struggle ensued, in which some of the soldiers from 
 the neighboring barracks turned out, one armed with a pair of tongs 
 and another with a shovel, and the offending citizen was driven back 
 through the alley-way which he had attempted to pass. This en- 
 counter, trifling in itself, was sufficient to call out the soldiers in de- 
 fence of the sentry, and the people of the neighborhood as well. 
 
 T h e assembly of 
 people was, of 
 course, much the 
 larger. The offi- 
 cers succeeded in 
 drawing the sol- 
 diers into the bar- 
 racks ; but the 
 mob was now large 
 enough to turn its 
 attention to an- 
 other sentinel, who 
 stood not far off, in 
 front of the Custom 
 House. 1 A boy 
 
 / 
 
 pointed him out as 
 a soldier who had 
 lately knocked him 
 down, and some 
 twenty young men 
 attacked him with 
 missiles. The man 
 loaded his gun, and 
 tried to retire with- 
 in the building, but, 
 finding the door 
 
 Boston Massacre. From an Engraving by Paul Revere. locked Called fd* 
 
 the main guard, whose station was within hearing. The officer in 
 command sent a sergeant with six men to his relief, and also sent 
 
 When that name gradually absorbed the names of the short streets which run from south to 
 north through Boston, the name of " Cornhill " lapsed. It was taken up and used again 
 for the street which now bears it. As it happens, the altercation named in the text was nt 
 the foot of each Cornhill. It was in a narrow alley which pas-ted from what was then 
 the end of Washington Street, to Brattle Square. The opening of what is now called 
 " the new Washington Street" swept away all local monuments of that spot, which is now 
 a part of the great thoroughfare. 
 
 1 In State Street, then King Street, where the building stands now occupied by the 
 (Juiou aud State Buuks. 
 
1770.] THE BOSTON MASSACRE. 261 
 
 a messenger for Captain Preston, the officer of the day, who was at 
 an entertainment in Concert Hall. 
 
 Meanwhile an immense mob was gathering, perhaps with the in- 
 tention on the part of their leaders of attacking the main guard. 
 But if this were so, that intention was diverted, when they saw this 
 wretched little file in front of the Custom House. The bells had 
 been set ringing, as if for fire, and the crowd constantly increased. 
 The soldiers had found time to charge their pieces without orders. 
 They were joined by Captain Preston, with six more men. By way 
 of defence, they only presented their bayonets, falling back in a 
 curved line in front of the Custom House. Their caution is shown, 
 from the fact that there was time to send to Concert Hall for Preston, 
 their commander, and for him to come down to the main guai'd and 
 join them. He knew perfectly well, and the mob knew, that, by Eng- 
 lish law, his men must not fire without the order of a civil magistrate. 
 Preston seems to have behaved with moderation and judgment to the 
 last. The mob challenged the soldiers to fire. " Come on, you 
 bloody-backs ! " " Come on, you lobster-backs ! " Such allusions to 
 the red coat were, for ten years, favorite epithets of derision. " Fire 
 if you dare ! " " Damn you, why don't you fire ? " At last a sol- 
 dier received a severe blow from a club. He stepped aside a little, 
 levelled his piece, and fired. Immediately after, seven or eight more 
 of the men fired, and the mob fled. Three men lay dead on the 
 ground, two others wei'e mortally wounded, and six slightly. 
 
 The drums beat to arms, the Twenty-ninth formed in King Street, 
 and an immense concourse of people also assembled, among whom 
 were some of the most distinguished citizens. Governor Hutchinson 
 addressed the people from the balcony of the State House. He 
 promised that a full investigation should be made in the morning, and 
 the crowds retired. A citizens' guard of a hundred men took charge 
 of the streets, and peace was restored. Before daybreak, Preston had 
 surrendered himself for trial, and was committed to jail, and the sol- 
 diers who had fired upon the people were committed also. 
 
 With the morning, the selectmen of Boston waited upon the Gov- 
 ernor and Council. They said that, unless the troops were 
 removed from the town, terrible consequences must be ex- 
 
 pected. A town meeting was called, which convened at once. 
 It sent a committee of fifteen to demand the removal of troops ; but 
 the Governor replied that he had no power to remove them. He said 
 the troops were under the command of General Gage at Xew York, 
 but that Colonel Dalrymple was ready to withdraw the Twenty-ninth 
 Regiment to the Castle, that being the regiment whose soldiers had 
 had fights with the rope-makers, and had fired upon the people. The 
 
362 
 
 END OF COLONIAL RULE. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 committee reported this answer to the town meeting at the Old South 
 Church, and the meeting voted it unsatisfactory. A smaller com- 
 mittee was sent to say that nothing would satisfy the meeting but 
 a total and immediate removal of all the troops. Samuel Adams was 
 the chairman. Hutch inson, having consulted Colonel Dalrymple in a 
 whisper, said aloud that one of the regiments should be sent away. 
 Adams replied with unhesitating promptness, " If the Lieutenant-gov- 
 
 ernor or Colonel Dalrymple, or 
 both together, have authority to 
 remove one regiment, they have 
 authority to remove two ; and 
 nothing short of the total evacu- 
 ation of the town by all the reg- 
 ular troops will satisfy the pub- 
 lic mind and preserve the peace 
 of the province." 1 
 
 The Governor gave way. He 
 was ridiculed in England for 
 his compliance, and the colo- 
 nists considered it a triumph. 
 But there is no doubt that he 
 had to give way ; and his com- 
 pliance postponed the outbreak 
 of the war five years. A promise 
 was given, and the first orders 
 for the removal of the troops 
 were issued. Some of the officers 
 
 were very indignant, and expresses were sent to General Gage, in the 
 hope that he would recall the orders. Another town meet- 
 
 " Sam Ad- . .. . ._ .. 
 
 Regi- ing was called to quicken the movement. On application to 
 Dalrymple, the Twenty-ninth Regiment was removed, and 
 the next day the Fourteenth. Both were afterwards called by Lord 
 North " Sam Adams's Regiments." The final removal took place on 
 the 10th and llth of March. 
 
 From this time until the arrival of Gage in 1774, no troops were 
 quartered in Boston. The mistake had been made, however. To a 
 people not yet unwilling to recognize the authority of the Crown, the 
 worst symbol of that authority was foolishly displayed in a most ex- 
 asperating way. 2 
 
 1 Governor Hutchinson says this remark was made to Colonel Dalrymple. But it is 
 clear that all present heard it. 
 
 2 In all the tumults of ten years before the war, there appear to have been seven lives 
 lost. One was the English officer of the Hose. The others were Attucks, a half-breed 
 
 Samuel Adams. 
 
 
1770.] GRAFTON AND HILLSBOROUGH. 363 
 
 Preston, the officer in command on the night of the " Massacre," 
 was tried for murder. He was defended by Josiah Quincy 
 and John Adams, lawyers of the highest reputation among Praton-s 
 the patriots, and was acquitted. The soldiers were also ac- 
 quitted, excepting two, who were found guilty of manslaughter, and, 
 by the inhuman law of that time, were sentenced to be branded in 
 the hand. Hutchinson, the Governor, excuses himself for permitting 
 this sentence to be executed, because the remission would have had 
 a tendency to irritate the people, and, "being of little consequence to 
 the prisoners, it was thought most advisable not to interfere." 
 
 The history of America, however, was not to be decided on Amer- 
 ican soil. The fickle and wayward behavior of successive English 
 ministries behavior which could not be called a policy swayed 
 the course of events more than any decisions made in America. 
 While the Duke of Grafton supposed that he directed affairs in Eng- 
 land, as the head of King George's Cabinet, a Cabinet meeting was 
 called on the first of May, 1769. Grafton urged on this occasion the 
 remission of all the American duties ; but in opposition to his opin- 
 ion and to that of Camden, Granby, Conway, and Hooke, tea was 
 still retained as a subject of taxation. The Cabinet agreed, however, 
 that the circular to the Colonial Governors should " contain words as 
 kind and lenient as could be proposed by some of us, with encourag- 
 ing expressions." l These were distasteful to other members, among 
 whom was Hillsborough, the Secretary for the Colonies. When, there- 
 fore, Hillsborough drew up the instructions, which we now have, all 
 these "encouraging expressions," whatever they were, disappeared. 
 There is nothing conciliatory in the despatch, excepting the statement 
 that his Majesty's present administration had at no time intended to 
 lay any further taxes on America, and that the duties on Ren , igsion 
 glass, paper, and colors are to be remitted. The Duke of of duties - 
 Grafton says that Hillsborough not only garbled the minute in the 
 Council Records, but accompanied it with a circular letter, which 
 Grafton terms " unfortunate and unwarrantable, calculated to do all 
 mischief, while our real minute might have paved the way to some 
 good." In his manuscript Memoirs, he distinctly charges that Hills- 
 borough made these changes at the instance of the King. 
 
 It is one of the curious questions of history how far such a remis- 
 sion of all duties as the Duke of Grafton proposed, if made at this 
 early period, might have affected the subsequent course of events. 
 
 Indian negro, Can- an Irishman, and three Americans, Gray, Caldwell, and Maverick, 
 killed in the Boston Massacre, and u German boy, Snyder, killed by a soldier a short time 
 before. 
 1 These arc the Duke's words. 
 
364 END OF COLONIAL RULE. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 On the other hand, this is certain, that where the administration of a 
 nation was thus the prey of jealousies and intrigues, when the re- 
 sponsible minister was thus foiled by the " King's friends," no pol- 
 icy which deserves that name was possible. Indeed, he best reads 
 the history of America, for that period which proved so critical, who 
 understands that, on this side the water, her affairs were directed 
 with substantial unanimity by thoughtful men not unused to govern, 
 who had earned the confidence of the great majority of their country- 
 men, and who, for all the years of this crisis, were never without a 
 specific plan to which they gave unbroken attention. The same 
 reader must understand that, in England, American affairs were ad- 
 ministered by men quite ignorant of the country with which they 
 dealt, jealous of each other, and mixed up in every sort of personal 
 intrigue, taking office or leaving it according to the event of certain 
 local controversies, and all the time liable to be thwarted by a King 
 who was very lukewarm in his love of constitutional government, and 
 always hoping for accessions to his personal power. Let this reader 
 remember also that an ocean three thousand miles wide separated the 
 two countries ; that all the disadvantages of this separation accrued 
 to England, and all the advantage to America. He will then under- 
 stand that, in the impending controversy, England, though she had 
 an arm} r , a navy, and an organized government, stood no real chance 
 of subduing the United Colonies. Seven million people in England, 
 indifferent to the subject, ignorant as to the real matters of contro- 
 versy, and as to the place where it was carried on, contended, at every 
 disadvantage excepting those of numbers and wealth, with three mil- 
 lion people, substantially united, who maintained institutions to which 
 they had always been accustomed, in the country to which they were 
 born. 
 
 The King met Parliament rather earlier than usual at the begin- 
 TheKinRs nin S f 1^70. Even in England, the opening of the royal 
 speech. speech amused people, so inadequate did the etiquette of 
 the occasion seem to be to the requisitions of an empire. At a mo- 
 ment when a rupture with France was imminent, when Hyder Ali 
 was in the flush of his success in India, and when America was wait- 
 ing, eager for a decision as to the policy which was to govern her, 
 the King began by saying, " My Lords and Gentlemen, it is with 
 much concern that I find myself obliged to open the session of Parlia- 
 ment with acquainting you that the distemper among horned cattle 
 has lately broke out in this kingdom." 1 Neither House was in any 
 
 1 Junius, whose central passion was hatred of the Duke of Grafton, says : " Instead of 
 the firmness and decision of a King, you gave us nothing but the misery of a ruined gra- 
 zier." 
 
1770.] 
 
 LORD NORTH'S MINISTRY. 
 
 365 
 
 
 . 
 
 mood to be satisfied with talk about diseases of cattle. Lord Chat- 
 
 ham himself moved an amendment to the Address, promising atten- 
 
 tion to the nation's discontent, discontent arising from the ejection 
 
 of Wilkes from the House of Commons. After Chatham's speech, 
 
 Lord Camden rose from the woolsack, and in so many words said he 
 
 had been trammelled too long " by his Majesty, I beg par- 
 
 don, by his Ministers." Camden, Conway, and Gran by at 
 
 once withdrew from the Cabinet. With them vanished the 
 
 last real hope of any policy conciliatory to America. The Duke of 
 
 Grafton resigned on the 28th 
 
 of January, and Lord North 
 
 became Prime Minister. The 
 
 "King's friends" had tri- 
 
 umphed, and their laurels, such 
 
 as they were, are in the history 
 
 of the next twelve years. Lit- 
 
 tle credit is it to Lord North, 
 
 that he personally disapproved 
 
 of much of the policy to which 
 
 for those twelve years he lent 
 
 himself ; that it was the King's 
 
 policy, and not his. No Eng- 
 
 lish nobleman should have found 
 
 himself long in any such false 
 
 position. It is his excuse that 
 
 he knew already the nature of 
 
 the King's malady, which was 
 
 still a secret to all but a very 
 
 few. 
 
 As Lord North appeared at the time, and, indeed, as he has been 
 represented in history, he has shown few of the traits which 
 we associate with the hero of tragedy. A commonplace 
 man, with a certain knack at affairs, who had the absolute confidence 
 of a foolish King, and who used that confidence till he lost half that 
 King's empire, this is what appears at first, and it may be said to 
 be the true verdict of history regarding him. But a tragic poet might 
 go further, and, by introducing us into the secrets of his distresses and 
 his decisions, might show that poor Lord North's position was one of 
 the most pathetic in history. His world was indeed "out of joint," 
 nor was it for such as he to " set it right." Whenever he proposed to 
 abandon the enterprise, as it is easy to say he should have done, 
 this poor, half-witted King, was ready with the appeal, " If you leave 
 ine, where shall I go ? " And the helpless Minister, without the possi- 
 
 Lord North. 
 
 Lord North. 
 
366 END OF COLONIAL RULE. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 bility of advising with any human being, had to consider what would 
 come to England, if, in the sudden shock of his resignation, his King 
 should go mad, as he had every reason to suppose he would. Such a 
 position would be tragic, indeed, if one of the really great men of his- 
 tory were placed in it. It is perhaps more tragic, certainly more pa- 
 thetic, when such questions are to be solved by the unadvised wisdom 
 and the uninstructed conscience of a man second-rate in everything. 
 And such a man was Lord North. 
 
 The student of American history, reading the interesting 1'ecord of 
 the three years with which Lord North's administration began, searches 
 with curious interest for whatever beginnings he may find of the 
 policy which made the United States an independent nation. He fol- 
 lows thus the history of John Wilkes, of the prosecution of the print- 
 ers and the beginning of reported debates; he studies the letters of 
 Junius ; he reads of the birth of the East Indian Empire of England ; 
 he follows the outbreak about the Falkland Islands ; he is involved in 
 the tragedy of the Queen of Denmark, and in the matrimonial alli- 
 ances of the King's brothers. But these events and these scandals, 
 while they intensely excite the people of Great Britain, seem to have 
 no concern with the fortunes of America. On the other hand, the 
 fortunes of America, through those years, seem to have no interest 
 for the people or the statesmen of England. The votes on American 
 affairs are taken in houses not full, and the views of the Ministry are 
 always sustained by very strong majorities. 
 
 In the session of 1770, an effort was made to repeal the tea duty. 
 But Lord North carried it by a majority of seventy-two. 
 repeal the Dr. Franklin thought the House would have agreed to the 
 motion but for what he called " lying letters," which asserted 
 that the non- importation agreements were no longer favored in Amer- 
 ica, and that the zeal of the patriots was chilled. Two years after- 
 wards Franklin won a personal triumph, and the colonies a substantial 
 one, in the removal of Lord Hillsborough from the post of Colonial 
 Secretary. The reader has seen that he was not friendly to America, 
 in the trial of strength between the Duke of Grafton with his friends 
 and Lord North with the King's friends. As time passed, Franklin 
 brought forward his plan for a company for the settlement of Illinois, 
 and secured the interest of three members of the Privy Council. But 
 when the petition was referred to the Board of Trade, Hillsborough 
 reported against it. He even took the ground that this would be a 
 place of refuge for offenders, and would draw away too many people 
 from Great Britain. Franklin replied in detail. When the petition 
 came before the Privy Council, they granted it, setting aside Lord 
 Hillsborough's report. Hillsborough resigned, thinking, perhaps, that 
 
1773.] THE TEA TAX. 367 
 
 his resignation would not be accepted. But his colleagues were glad 
 to get rid of him. Lord Dartmouth, who was really a friend 
 
 ' * Ilillsbor- 
 
 of the colonies, succeeded him. Dr. Franklin thought, and oughuc- 
 
 ceeUed by 
 
 had reason to think, that such an incident and such an Dartmouth, 
 
 . as Secretary. 
 
 appointment were good omens tor the colonies, Governor 
 Hutchinson notes that the government even proposed to withdraw the 
 fleet from Boston to Halifax, which had been formerly the naval sta- 
 tion. Other signs seemed favorable. " A general state of quiescence," 
 wrote Arthur Lee, " seems to prevail over the whole empire, Boston 
 only excepted." * But these hopes were illusive. At the same time 
 a negotiation was in progress which, as the event has proved, made 
 vain all such omens of peace. True, America seemed better satisfied. 
 The removal of the regiments from Boston had been followed by the 
 tranquillity which had been promised. But any hope of a permanent 
 good understanding, or of a gradual forgetfulness of the causes of 
 issues, was swept away at once by a blunder of Lord North's. This 
 belongs to the poor tricks which James the First used to honor by the 
 name of " king-craft," and it resulted in the dismemberment of the 
 empire. 
 
 For better or for worse, the Crown of England was allied to the 
 East India Company, which even then was important, and 
 which afterwards became imperial. This Company, at the 
 end of a series of bad years, of which the misfortunes were due in 
 part to the refusal of the Americans to import tea from England, 
 found itself burdened with 17,000,000 pounds of tea in its English 
 storehouses. It was necessary for the Government of the nation to 
 save the company from bankruptcy by lending it a million and a half 
 of money. The proposal was therefore matured, that the Company 
 might export to America as much tea as it wished, and receive back, 
 as drawback, the tax of sixpence a pound which the teas had to pay 
 into the English exchequer. The teas would then have to pay in 
 America only threepence a pound, the one remaining tax left, after 
 eight years of dissension. 
 
 Lord North probably thought that in this way he should please two 
 parties not easy to please. He served the East India Company, and 
 he seemed to grant to the Americans what they wanted, a virtual sus- 
 pension of the Navigation Act, so far as teas were concerned. For 
 this plan he obtained the permission of Parliament. The wiser di- 
 rectors of the East India Company distrusted the gift. They knew 
 men better than Lord North. They begged to be permitted to pay 
 to the exchequer the sixpence duty in England, and to land the teas 
 free in America. But this Lord North refused, probably at the King's 
 
 1 To Reed, February 18, 1773. 
 
368 END OF COLONIAL RULE. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 direction. " There must be one tax," said the poor King, " to keep 
 The duty on U P tne right." Lord North, therefore, with fatal resolution, 
 t refined. j )e j ( j to tne p r i,, c ipi e involved. He confessed that the whole 
 revenue obtained would be, at the best, but twelve thousand pounds. 
 The. East India Company consented at last to the scheme, and, as the 
 summer passed, freighted several ships for America, on their own ac- 
 count, consigning them to merchants in the different sea-ports. In- 
 formation as to these consignments began to arrive in America in 
 September. 
 
 Franklin's hopes of peace from Lord Dartmouth's appointment, or 
 
 whatever other cause, were rudely dispelled by another incident, of 
 
 which the germ showed itself in this same year, 1773. Confidential 
 
 as his relations were with many members of Parliament 
 
 The Hutch- i c i /< 
 
 inM>i) Advice and ot the Government, it was mentioned to him one day, 
 
 Letter*. 
 
 apparently as no secret, that the Government had been 
 guided, in quartering the troops in Boston and in its other severe 
 measures, by the advice of Americans born, men of character and 
 position. Franklin said he did not believe this. To satisfy him, 
 twelve letters were brought him, written by Hutchinson, the Governor, 
 and Oliver, the Lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts, both natives 
 of that province. These letters confirmed to the full the statement 
 which had been made to him. They proposed the introduction of 
 troops, and one of them proposed the establishment of a " patrician 
 order." In one letter, which was particularly outspoken, Hutchinson 
 said there must be an abridgment of what are called * English lib- 
 erties." He said he doubted whether it was possible that the people 
 of a colony should enjoy all the liberty of the parent state. 
 
 Franklin obtained permission to send the originals of the letters to 
 
 America, on condition that they should not be copied or 
 ton hy printed, and sent them in his official letter, as Agent of the 
 
 House of Assembly, to the chairman of their Committee of 
 Correspondence. They might, he said, be read to that committee and 
 a few other gentlemen. So soon as they arrived in Boston, they awak- 
 ened a storm of indignation against Hutchinson. He had been affect- 
 ing a conciliatory part. In the midst of the contest between him and 
 the Assembly, which was eager that the colony should pay his sal- 
 ary in accordance with the ancient usage, he had affected to be, 
 not indeed a champion of the extreme views, but a mediator between 
 the colonies and the Crown. Here came evidence that in all such af- 
 fectation he was a liar. The colonists were wounded by a man who 
 should have been their friend. A Governor of their own religion, of 
 their own blood, born in their chief town, and educated among them, 
 had turned against them. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 (After the jtortrait by />ujtle*xix in the liotton Public Liltmry.) 
 
1774.] FRANKLIN INSULTED BY WEDDERBURN. 369 
 
 Echoes of the storm which rose in Boston soon resounded in Lon- 
 don. A duel between Mr. John Temple and Mr. Whately, 
 brother of the gentleman to whom these letters were ad- 
 
 dressed, made the matter one of universal interest. The 
 Privy Council itself was so far moved that it took up the petition of 
 the Massachusetts Assembly for the removal of Hutchinson and Oli- 
 ver, a petition which, under ordinary circumstances, would have been 
 left to sleep. There followed a most exciting meeting of that great 
 body of state, a body which in our time acts only on occasions of 
 mere form. It was the fullest meeting of the Council which Edmund 
 Burke remembered. Everybody of note was there. The petition 
 was read, with the resolutions of the Assembly, and the letters on 
 which those resolutions were founded. John Dunning, afterward 
 Lord Ashburton, supported the petition as counsel, and supported it 
 temperately and ably. Then followed what was called at the time a 
 " bull-baiting." Wedderburn, a lawyer whom Lord North's favor 
 had hurried forward, and who was afterward Lord Chancellor, under 
 the title of Lord Lough borough, spoke, as Solicitor-general, in opposi- 
 tion to the petition. He spoke for three hours, largely in violent 
 personal attack on Dr. Franklin, who of course was present. 
 He charged Franklin with stealing the letters of Hutchinson intuit/ ' 
 and Oliver, and said that men would hide their papers from 
 him in future. In a classical allusion, he called him " a man of three 
 letters," by which the Romans meant a thief, and charged him with 
 intriguing to make himself Hutchinson's successor. His triumph was 
 complete. "No speech was so much applauded," says Hutchinson, 
 " since those of Cicero against Anthony." The Council pronounced 
 the petition of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts ground- 
 less and scandalous. In the method which the Council took to do 
 this, it had insulted the great American who was the admiration of 
 half England and of all Continental Europe. The scene excited public 
 criticism everywhere. The wit of Wedderbunvs address was highly 
 praised ; but the dignity of Franklin's manner made him new friends. 1 
 Afterward, William Pitt the younger, in the House of Commons, al- 
 luded to this scene in the "Cockpit." 2 He bade the House recollect 
 how the future Chancellor of England had called the future plenipo- 
 
 1 On the interview iu the Council Chamber, Horace Walpole wrote this epigram : 
 
 " Sarcastic Sawney, swollen with spite and prate, 
 On silent Franklin poured his renal hate : 
 The ralin philosopher, without reply, 
 Withdrew, and gave his country liberty." 
 
 2 The Cockpit and Tennis Court. These two appendages to the palace at Whitehall 
 had been built by Henry the Eighth, close to St. James's Park. The Treasury now occu- 
 pies the site of the Cockpit, and the Privy Council Office the site of the Tennis Court. 
 
 VOL. in. 24 
 
370 END OF COLONIAL RtLE. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 tentiary of the United States " a hoary-headed traitor," and how, as 
 they walked away, men were ready to toss up their hats and clap their 
 hands for joy, as if they had obtained a triumph. " Alas, sir, we 
 paid a pretty dear price for that triumph afterwards." What they 
 paid is shadowed in Wedderbu rn's own speech : " How will it here- 
 after sound in the annals of the present reign, that all America, the 
 fruit of so many years of settlement by this country, the fruit of so 
 much blood and treasure, was lost to the Crown of Great Britain in 
 the reign of George the Third ? " 
 
 This incident took place on the '29th of January, 1774. It was, in 
 the last degree, an outrage upon Franklin, but was not in itself singu- 
 larly important, for the result arrived at could have been easily pre- 
 dicted. It became, however, a visible, or dramatic exhibition of the 
 conflict, which had thus far been somewhat concealed in despatches or 
 debates. But this conflict had already passed such limits. The Eng- 
 land which applauded the speech of Wedderburn as nothing had been 
 applauded since Cicero, was waked now by a sudden shock, to feel 
 that the real contest Avas not a "bull-baiting" in "the cockpit," as 
 the hall of the Privy Council was aptly called. It was to be on an- 
 other continent and on a larger scale. 
 
 On the 27th of January arrived in England the first news of the 
 reception of the vessels which had been sent out with the East India 
 Company's tea. The people of America understood very well who 
 made this great consignment. Although the patriots had winked at 
 trifling private imports from England, so that, in certain cases, men 
 had paid the duty, they did not therefore close their eyes when the 
 Government of England, by the agency of the East India Company, 
 invited them to give way on the matter of principle. The offer of a 
 drawback for the Company's benefit and a consequent reduction of 
 the price, was only an insult to such men, as Lord North might have 
 known it would be. The Committees of Correspondence provided 
 for the occasion long before the teas arrived. They must be sent 
 back. In most instances they were. But in Boston Hutchinson 
 refused to give a permit for the return of the ships, acting with that 
 happy obstinacy about trifles which distinguished all his administra- 
 tion. The tea was at the wharf, and the town meeting of Boston 
 was called to consider the crisis. 
 
 The Dartmouth, the first of the tea vessels, arrived on the 28th 
 Arrival of ot November. A town meeting was called the next da}-, 
 theteashii*. an( j b ecause Faueuil Hall was not large enough it adjourned 
 to the Old South Meeting-house, which was so often used for such 
 purposes, that it gained the name from an English Governor of being 
 the " seed-bed of rebellion." In twenty days from the arrival of the 
 first ship the Collector would make a formal demand for duties. 
 
1774.] 
 
 THE TEA IN BOSTON HARBOR. 
 
 371 
 
 In the town meeting Samuel Adams himself moved the action, 
 which, as chairman of the Committee of Correspondence, he had sug- 
 gested to the other colonies, " that the tea should not b ^ landed, that 
 it should be sent back in the same bottom, to the place from which 
 it came, at all events ; and that no duty should be paid on it." This 
 resolution passed unanimously, and the owner and master were di- 
 rected at their peril neither to enter the tea at the custom-house, nor 
 suffer it to be landed. A watch was set on the ship, and six post- 
 riders were appointed to notify the country towns of any effort to 
 land it by force. 
 
 While negotiations were going forward between the Committee of 
 the town and the consignees, two more tea ships arrived. By direc- 
 tion of the Committee, they were anchored near the Dartmouth, that 
 one guard might be enough for all. This Committee, which took the 
 whole direction of the controversy on the part of the people, was made 
 up of the Committees of Correspondence of Boston and from neigh- 
 boring towns, which "like a little senate, "said 
 Hutchinson, met daily at Faneuil Hall. 
 
 The excitement increased from day to day. 
 At last the twentieth day had come. Every- 
 thing was at a dead-lock. The Governor's 
 Council was unanimous in accepting a report 
 which said that to land the tea would Not a ,i owed 
 be to accede to unconstitutional tax- tobelanded - 
 
 ation. The Commit- 
 tee would not permit 
 the landing of the 
 tea. The Governor 
 would not give a pass 
 which should enable 
 the ship to go by 
 the Castle on her way 
 back to London. 
 The Admiral had 
 placed ships of 
 war to guard the 
 channels, that 
 no vessel with- 
 out a pass should 
 go to sea. The 
 
 meeting of the people was held again at the Old South, which was 
 crowded. It was no longer a town meeting. A citizen of Weston, 
 Jonathan Williams, was chosen moderator, as if to show that the coun- 
 
 LOU-SOUTH 
 
 CHURCH GATHERED 1669 
 
 FIRST HOUSE BUILT It, 
 L ,f~ ii ' 
 
 1 THIS HOUSE BUILT I7< 
 
 CRMTD BYBHITISH TROOPS I77S 
 
 Old South Meeting-house. 
 
 TAQLET IN TH TOWEK 
 
372 
 
 END OF COLONIAL RULE. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 try and the town were together. When it had been kept waiting all 
 A public day, tl messenger came from the Governor's country seat on 
 
 Milton Hill, at a quarter before six, announcing his refusal 
 to grant a pass. Samuel Adams said, " This meeting can do nothing 
 more to save the country." There was a moment of silence. A voice 
 in the gallery cried, " Hurrah for Griffin's wharf." The meeting in- 
 stantly dissolved, and the immense throng proceeded to the point 
 where the ships lay. Two bodies of young men, whose faces were 
 blackened, and who were otherwise so disguised that they should not 
 be known, were all ready for the exigency. 
 
 Passing to the shore, at the wharf they took possession of the ships. 
 They bade the captain and crew furnish hoisting-tackle, and 
 thrownover- they obeyed. The chests were lifted on deck and split open, 
 and the tea poured into the water. The great majority of 
 the men of Boston, standing on the shore, watched the business, as, 
 through the moonlight of a winter's night, the chests were emptied 
 into the silent bay. The business was conducted without noise or 
 disorder. When every box was destroyed, the working party with- 
 drew their sentinels, 
 and the town was at 
 peace. It was well 
 nigh dawn. 
 
 It was evident 
 that the most care- 
 ful preparation had 
 been made bv the 
 
 if 
 
 leaders for the crisis. 
 It was equally clear 
 that their orders 
 were well obeyed. 
 Even in the tradi- 
 tions of Boston, not 
 more than two or 
 three names can be 
 certainly given of 
 those who made up 
 the working party. 
 
 Hutchinson's Country Seat. 
 
 the act. But not more than fifty, at the most, joined in the work. 
 They kept their secret, which had probably the sanction of an oath. 
 It is believed that a list of the actors was preserved for more than 
 half a century, but this list probably exists no longer. 1 
 1 So well was this great secret kept, that, with two or three exceptions, it is certain that 
 
1775.] DISPOSITION OF THE TEA. 373 
 
 Attempts were made by some of the spectators to carry off small 
 portions of the tea, but probably with little success. The descendants 
 of one of the party on board the vessel long preserved as a sacred relic 
 perhaps still preserve a few leaves which their ancestor found in 
 his shoes on returning home. A heavy bank of the tea leaves was 
 thrown up on the Dorchester shore. One Captain O'Connor, it is 
 related, filled his capacious pockets, but was seized as he jumped 
 from the vessel, and left the skirts of his coat in the hands of the 
 person who attempted to stop him. O'Connor was a well known 
 resident of Charlestown, and his coat-tail was the next day nailed 
 to the whipping-post in that town, a ludicrous but effective penalty 
 for his want of patriotism. 1 
 
 How earnest and wide-spread the feeling was on this subject, is 
 shown by the public records in other places besides Boston. In Fred- 
 erick County, Md., in Norfolk, Va., in Piscataqua, X. H., and in 
 other places, petty dealers who had clandestinely received a few 
 pounds wei'e haled before public committees and forced to confess 
 their misdeed and deliver up the tea for destruction. At Stamford, 
 Conn., in June, 1775, one Sylvanus Whitney appeared before the 
 Committee of Observation, and confessed that he had been " guilty 
 of buying and selling Bohea tea, since the first of March last past, 
 whereby I have been guilty of a breach of the Association entered 
 into by the Continental Congress ; and sensible of my misconduct, do, 
 in this publick manner, confess my crime, and humbly request the 
 favor of the publick to overlook this my transgression." " Where- 
 upon," says the official record, " the committee passed sentence 
 against him, agreeable to the direction of the Continental Congress. 
 His punishment being greater than he was able to bear, he requested 
 the liberty to advertise himself, and offering to deliver up the unfortu- 
 nate tea to be burnt, the committee were of the opinion that it would 
 satisfy the publick, who are requested to accept of the following con- 
 cession as a satisfaction for his crime." In the evening the tea was 
 hung upon a gallows erected for the purpose, in the presence of a 
 great crowd of citizens, and finally a large bonfire was built under it, 
 "as it was thought dangerous to let the said tea hang all night, for 
 fear of an invasion from our tea-lovers." 2 
 
 A meeting of citizens in New York compelled the consignees to 
 decline receiving the cargo sent thither, and when the ship arrived, a 
 
 if a man's descendants say "he was certainly on the tea-party, for he always said so," that 
 man was not of the working party, but was only a bystander. If on the other hand a per- 
 son who was questioned in old age declined to say whether he was of that partv, there is 
 a possibility that he was. 
 
 1 Memoirs of George It. T. Hewes, etc. 
 
 - Force's American Archives, Fourth Series, vol. ii., page 920. 
 
374 
 
 END OF COLONIAL RULE. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 vigilance committee took possession of her, and after some days she 
 sailed again for England with all her tea on board. The 
 orttTin captain was inclined to be stubborn ; but after being es- 
 corted to the town, he was convinced that any attempt to 
 land his cargo would only insure its destruction. Another ship had 
 brought a few chests as a private venture, and when the fact was dis- 
 covered, a mob threw them into the river. The ship sent to Phila- 
 delphia was stopped before she reached the city, and when her captain 
 heard what had happened to the cargoes in Boston harbor, he wisely 
 
 Captain O'Connor's Coat skirts nailed to the Whipping post. 
 
 turned her prow toward home. The tea sent to Charleston was 
 landed, but, purposely perhaps, was stored in damp cellars, and in a 
 short time was found to be useless. 
 
 Intelligence from Boston reached England at the moment when 
 Wedderburn was uttering his new philippics. The Government, which 
 had seriously entertained the project of withdrawing the fleet, heard of 
 this act of defiance in the harbor where that fleet lay. The King was 
 prompt in taking up the quarrel. On the 7th of March a royal mes- 
 The Boston sa g e was sent to Parliament with the principal documents 
 Port BUI. received from America. On the 14th of the same month Lord 
 North brought in the measure which proved, in the event, to be the 
 
1775.] THE BOSTON PORT BILL. 375 
 
 declaration of war, which is generally known as the Boston Port 
 Bill. 1 This bill, by way of punishing Boston as the hot-bed of rebel- 
 lion, provided that after the 18th of June, no persons should load or 
 unload any ship in that harbor. The customs and com- Ma5!iac i,u. 
 merce, it was hoped, would be transferred to Salem. An- e^'j" 
 other measure, called "the Massachusetts Government Bill," Ul " 
 revised the charter. The Council was to be appointed by the Crown, 
 and the magistrates by the Governor. A third bill provided for the 
 trial in England of persons engaged in the late disturbances, and 
 a fourth provided for the government of Quebec. All these bills 
 were opposed by the most liberal members, who were regarded as the 
 friends of America, and Pownal and Johnston, who had been Royal 
 Governors, and generally voted with the ministry, spoke against the 
 Port Bill. Pownal said boldly that, in Hutchinson's case, he would 
 have called on the troops without the consent of the Council, for 
 Hutchinson had excused himself by the Council's backwardness. He 
 had withdrawn some companies from Castle William and posted them 
 in neighboring towns, not, however, in Boston. But the truth there 
 was, that " Sam Adams's regiments " were nothing as against the array, 
 not of a mob, but of an organized force which the Committees could 
 have brought against them. It is in Johnston's speech on this occasion, 
 that the statement occurs, for which he doubtless had good war- 
 rant: "If you ask an American who is his master, he will tell you 
 he has none, nor any Governor but Jesus Christ." The bills all 
 passed by large majorities. The Quebec bill was opposed with most 
 energy. It has proved in a hundred years the source of great diffi- 
 culties in the civilization of Canada. 
 
 These acts were received in the colonies with even 7 token of dis- 
 gust and rage. The people of the sea-port towns of Massachusetts 
 were eager to show that they would not profit by the losses of Boston. 
 The people of other colonies were eager to show that they were ready 
 to go as far as Massachusetts. The Port Bill was printed with black 
 lines about it, as if it described a tragedy, and with the title, "A bar- 
 barous, cruel, bloody, and inhuman murder." On the back of one of 
 the editions was printed a private letter from London, without a name, 
 which contained these words : " I can assure you that the commander 
 has private orders not to fight unless they can prove you to be aggres- 
 sors, nay, they have orders not to commence hostilities without or- 
 ders." 
 
 1 It is not the only instance where a law generally resisted has retained the title of a 
 " Bill," as if it had never passed from that embryo condition to become an ' act." Thus the 
 Fugitive Slave Law, which was law for many years in America, is still sometimes called 
 the "Fugitive Slave Bill." 
 
376 
 
 END OF COLONIAL RULE. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 The sympathy of the other colonies had been promised in advance. 
 The Virginia Assembly, in March, 1773, had formed a colo- 
 the Virginia nial Committee of Correspondence, and had invited all the 
 Assemblies "on the continent" to join them. Printed cop- 
 ies of their resolution were sent by the Massachusetts Committee of 
 Correspondence to every town in their province. Connecticut, Rhode 
 Island, and New Hampshire joined in the appointment of legislative 
 committees, and a second Continental Congress was proposed. Curi- 
 ously it happened, that, at the moment when the English Ministry 
 dismissed Franklin from his place as Postmaster-general, the colonists 
 were planning a post-office of their own. 
 
 The Port Bill provided that the trade of Boston might be recovered 
 on proper apology, and, in particular, if the tea were paid for. But 
 a meeting of the towns around Boston, held in Faneuil Hall, urged 
 that no attention should be given to this offer ; they prepared to join 
 their suffering brethren of Boston in every measure for relief. They 
 drew a circular letter proposing general cessation of trade with Eng- 
 land. Other colonies resolved to assist the people of Boston. " Don't 
 pay for an ounce of the damned tea ! " is the pointed phrase with 
 which Christopher Gadsden accompanied a generous contribution 
 from South Carolina. 
 
 Had Lord North advised diligently as to the measures best fitted to 
 unite the colonies, he could not have done better than he 
 pointed did. To carry out those measures in Boston, he appointed 
 Massachu- General Thomas Gage Governor in Hutchinson's place. Af- 
 ter a very short passage of twenty-four days only, Gage 
 arrived, immediately after the news of the passage of the bill, which 
 would close the harbor on the first of June. 
 
jM- ks* 
 
 Narrow Pass. Bunker Hill. Breed's Hill. Moulton's Point. 
 
 A Profile View of the Heights of Charlestown. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BEGINNING OF THE WAR. 
 
 LOYALTY OF THE AMERICANS TO THE CROWN. OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES. COLO- 
 NEL LESLIE'S MARCH TO SALEM. THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE MASSACRE. AL- 
 TERCATIONS WITH THE TROOPS. EXCURSION TO JAMAICA PLAIN. THE COMMIT- 
 TEE OF SAFETY. COLONEL SMITH'S MARCH TO LEXINGTON. SIGNAL LIGHTS IN- 
 NORTH CHURCH BELFRY. THE FIRST SHOT. CONCORD AND CONCORD BRIDGE. 
 THE FIGHT AT LEXINGTON. THE ENGLISH RETREAT. LORD PERCY AND HIS 
 REENFORCEMENT. THE SIEGE BEGINS. ARRIVAL OF MORE TROOPS FROM 
 ENGLAND. SKIRMISHES IN BOSTON HARBOR. BUNKER HILL FORTIFIED BY THE 
 AMERICANS. THE BATTLE. RESULTS OF THE BATTLE. 
 
 A CENTURY after the outbreak of the war which parted the United 
 States from any political dependence on England, the recurrence of 
 the anniversary of every battle of that war was enthusiastically cel- 
 ebrated by the people of every place concerned. Tradition yielded 
 its doubtful authority ; contemporary records gave up from the dead 
 their living testimony ; and orators and poets became historians, to 
 make real the finest details of the past to the imagination of the chil- 
 dren's children of the actors. In such eager study of every detail of 
 history, it is certain that the springs of movement and the precise 
 facts are better known to us than they were to those who were envel- 
 oped in the dust and smoke of action. The time has come when the 
 history of those days can be written with near approach to accuracy. 
 
 When the year 1775 opened, it found the colonies exasperated to 
 the last degree by the persistent efforts to subject them to 
 the arbitrary rule of the King. Unwilling to give up the ft 
 traditions of loyalty by which, for two generations, the 
 House of Brunswick had been regarded as the apostles, not to say 
 martyrs, of Liberty, the popular writers and orators in America 
 charged the violations of their rights and customs, not on the King, 
 but on the Ministry of the time. They were undoubtedly sincere in 
 this use of language. The unpopular acts were spoken of as the 
 " Ministerial Acts," and the army which was sent to enforce them 
 was the " Ministerial Army." The revelations of a century have 
 proved that this loyal effort to palliate the conduct of George III. was 
 
378 BEGINNING OF THE WAR. [C HA p. XV. 
 
 all wrong. He was the centre of the whole scheme of American tax- 
 ation. In a certain wrong-lieadeclness which was perhaps the first 
 symptom of his insanity, he imagined that in the colonies, at least, he 
 might play the part of an absolute monarch. The satire of another 
 generation has called him at this period a " Brummagem Louis XIV.," 
 and that phrase perhaps sufficiently describes his relations to Amer- 
 ican history. 1 
 
 In this aspect of affairs, with a little English army stationed at 
 A conflict Boston, and a handful of royal troops at other capital towns 
 in the colonies, it was a question of time only, a question 
 even of clays and hours, when the bolt should fall. And, since it has 
 proved that a new empire was born on the day of the first open col- 
 lision between the colonists and the authorities of the Crown, every 
 place in America which can present any claim to that honor has 
 urged it eagerly at the bar of history. 
 
 It is thus that the people of Salem, in Massachusetts, on every fit 
 
 occasion, are proud to remind their countrymen that on 
 
 meetingat Sunday, the 26th of February, 1775, they met the English 
 
 ?*nlt'in. Mass. , _ _ * _ f 
 
 troops in arms, and met them successfully, .Nav, more, it 
 seems certain that, when an English infantry soldier used his bayonet 
 against a Salem boatman, the first blood of the Revolution was shed 
 there. But, fortunately or unfortunately, as the reader may judge, the 
 royal commander withdrew his troops without battle ; and the very 
 success of the preparations of the people of Salem and Essex County, 
 the very promptness with which the Essex regiment under Timothy 
 Pickering stood to its arms that day, has deprived Salem, in the mind 
 of the American people, of the honor of beginning the American 
 Revolution. 
 
 At the request of some friends of the royal government in Marsh- 
 field, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, General Gage had sent a small 
 detachment to that town, to protect them from insult. This detach- 
 ment had landed there, and had taken up its quarters without resist- 
 ance from the people. It was, perhaps, because he was encouraged by 
 this slight success that Gage struck next at Salem. He had heard 
 there were some cannon there. He sent out Colonel Leslie, with a de- 
 
 1 A passage in a speech of Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton, denouncing Lord 
 North's hill for the government of Massachusetts Bay, intimates a feminine influence in the 
 Crown counsels. " When I talk of the Minister, I mean to speak with all due respect to 
 the uohle Lord, though I do not consider him as the immediate actor of all this. I know 
 not the age, the person, or the sex ; but, that I may not he wrong, I will use the language of 
 Acts of Parliament, which I imagine will comprehend, and will say, he, she, or they, to 
 that person or persons alone do I mean to nddress myself." Speech in House of Commons, 
 May 2, 1774. The allusion is to the King's mother. Wai pole speaks of "that cool dis- 
 simulation in which he had been so well initiated by his mother, and which comprehended 
 almost tin; whole of what she taught him." 
 
1775.] 
 
 COLONEL LESLIE AT SALEM BRIDGE. 
 
 379 
 
 tachment, to seize them, on Sunday, February 26, 1775. The party 
 landed at Marblehead in the morning, while the people Losses ex _ 
 were at meeting, and set out by land for Salem. The news ^ 
 had been sent from Marblehead before them, and the Salem people 
 were not surprised. The detachment marched through the town of 
 Salem ; but when they reached the " North Bridge,'' they found the 
 drawbridge up, and the commander was then told by the assembled 
 people that really this was a private way, and that neither Colonel 
 Leslie nor any one else could use it without the owner's permission. 
 Colonel Leslie seems to have recognized that they had the law on 
 
 Salem Bridge. 
 
 their side, but in answer he appropriated two scows or " gondolas," 1 
 and began to embark his men. On this, the owners of the u Salem 
 scows leaped into them with the soldiers, and began to scut- Bnd s e - 
 tie the boats. Here Colonel Leslie's respect for private right gave 
 way, and the owners were expelled with bayonet-thrusts. This was 
 the first bloodshed of the Revolution. 2 
 
 But Leslie did not follow up this advantage. One of the Salem 
 ministers, Rev. Thomas Barnard, had proposed a compromise, which 
 he accepted. The bridge was lowered, and the troops marched over, 
 and fifty yards beyond. Then the Colonel shook hands with the miu- 
 
 1 " Gondola," the Italian word, was in use in English literature as early as Spenser's 
 time. "Scow" is a local phrase in New England for a large flat-bottomed boat, gener- 
 ally towed from place to place, or propelled across shallow water by poles. " Gondola," 
 pronounced "gundalo," is still familiarly used in New England, as a synonym for " scow," 
 by people who never heard of Venice. 
 
 2 But before this a man had been hanged in the Hampshire Grants, now Vermont, for 
 resisting the Crown authority. 
 
380 BEGINNING OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 ister, and marched his command back over the bridge. As he left 
 Salem, the Danvers company of minute-men, the "flank company" 
 of the Essex regiment, arrived. But their services were not needed. 
 Colonel Leslie continued his retreat to Marblehead and Boston with- 
 out seizing the cannon he was sent for. 
 
 On the oth of March, Dr. Warren delivered the fifth annual ora- 
 tion on tne Boston Massacre, in that town. It was his sec- 
 on( j ora tion on this subject. The church was crowded with 
 people of both parties. Even the steps of the pulpit were covered 
 with British officers. So dense was the crowd, that Warren and his 
 friends entered the church by a ladder through the pulpit window. 
 There was no disturbance while the orator spoke. The oration was 
 pointed and vehement, but always carefully avoided anything which 
 could be called treason. This passage hints to the gentlemen around 
 him what Warren and his friends were learning: "Even the sending 
 troops to put these acts in execution is not without advantages to 
 us. The exactness and beauty of their discipline inspire our youth 
 with ardor in the pursuit of military knowledge. Charles the Invin- 
 cible taught Peter the Great the art of war. The battle of Pultowa 
 convinced Charles of the proficiency Peter had made." He said, 
 as had been said before, that he and his friends were not seeking 
 independence. But there were men in that house who were. " But 
 if these pacifick measures are ineffectual," he said, "and it appears 
 that the only way to safety is through fields of blood, I know you 
 will not turn your faces from your foes, but will undauntedly press 
 forward until tyranny is trodden under foot, and you have fixed your 
 adored Goddess Liberty fast by a Brunswick's side on the American 
 Throne." 
 
 George III. and Liberty, on an American throne, seated side by 
 side, like William and Mary, probably made their last appearance 
 then, even in prophecy. The oration ends with these words : " Hav- 
 ing redeemed your country, and secured the blessing to future gen- 
 erations, who, fired by your example, shall emulate your virtues, and 
 learn from you the heavenly art of making millions happy with 
 heart-felt 303% with transports all your own, you cry, The glorious 
 work is done ! Then drop the mantle to some young Elifiha, and 
 take your seats with kindred spirits in your native skies." 
 
 As Warren spoke, an officer of the Welsh Fusileers, who sat on 
 the pulpit stairs, drew from his pocket a handful of bullets and held 
 them out in his hand for the rest to see. Warren dropped a white 
 handkerchief over them. 
 
 The theme of the orators on all these occasions was the danger to 
 liberty and order when standing armies are quartered in towns. 
 
1775.] 
 
 ANNIVERSARY OF THE BOSTON MASSACRE. 
 
 381 
 
 With the return of the garrison to Boston, the necessity of this lesson 
 returned. That King George quartered soldiers among the people, 
 became one of the indignant complaints of the Declaration of Inde- 
 
 Warren's Oration. 
 
 peridence. Only a week after Warren's address, appeared an illus- 
 tration of the danger he described. 
 
 A man named Ditson, from Billerica, had bargained with a soldier 
 for a gun. As soon as he had paid his money he was seized by half-a- 
 
382 BEGINNING OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 do/en of the soldier's comrades for breach of the act against trading 
 with soldiers. They kept him locked up all night, and the next 
 Arrest of morning the officers condemned him without a hearing, to 
 
 be tarred and feathered. The soldiers were only too glad 
 to execute this punishment, and then paraded him through the 
 streets with a placard inscribed "American Liberty, or a Specimen 
 of Democracy." 
 
 The Billerica selectmen remonstrated to General Gage, in a pap r 
 which ends with ominous words: " May it please your Excellency, 
 we must tell you we are determined, if the innocent inhabitants of 
 our country towns must be interrupted by soldiers in their lawful in- 
 tercourse with the town of Boston, and treated with the most brutish 
 ferocity, we shall hereafter use a different style from that of petition 
 and complaint." 
 
 There is something of real pathos in such protests from the gov- 
 ernment of little country towns, which, but for the result, would seem 
 ridiculous. That in "-town meeting" a town which had not fifty 
 voters, should vote money to buy powder and flints with which to make 
 war against a King who, within fifteen years, had humbled the French 
 monarchy, seemed absurd. But the history is full of such declarations. 
 And when the selectmen of Billerica sent their warning to that 
 King's Lieutenant-general in America, the illustration of what they 
 meant was at hand. 
 
 To try the country, and at once to display his little army and to 
 
 exercise it after a winter cramped in quarters, General Gage 
 
 sent out on the 30th of March, a large body of troops on what 
 was called " an excursion." Earl Percy, afterwards Duke of North- 
 umberland, then a young officer of high rank in Gage's army, com- 
 manded the party, which consisted of five regiments. " It marched to 
 Jamaica Plain, a village about four miles south of Boston, then 
 crossed the country to Dorchester, a town nearer the sea, and so re- 
 turned to Boston, after a march of about ten miles. The season was 
 early, and it was said that the gardens and fields of the farmers were 
 unnecessarily injured by the soldiers. 
 
 It was to check just such " excursions " that the " Committee of 
 
 Safety," since celebrated, had been created by the Provin- 
 mittee .n cial Congress of Massachusetts as early as February 9 of this 
 
 year. This committee, consisting of five men, was a per- 
 manent executive. Its " business and duty " were, to "alarm, muster, 
 and cause to be assembled with the utmost expedition, and com- 
 pletely armed, accoutred, and supplied, such and so many of the militia 
 of the province as they shall judge necessary, and at such place and 
 places as they shall judge proper." Such levy was to be made when 
 
 ex- 
 
1775.] THE EXPEDITION TO CONTORT). 
 
 the committee should think an attempt w;ts made by force to cany 
 out the " Boston Port Bill." The committee did not judge that such 
 an occasion was presented by Percy's "excursion" to Jamaica Plain. 
 It had no military objective. "It marched without baggage and with- 
 out artillery," says Warren in a letter written at the time. " But," 
 he adds, " had they attempted to destroy any magazines, or to abuse 
 the people, not a man of them would have returned to Boston." 
 
 The Provincial Congress of Massachusetts had been collecting at 
 several points such stores, both of arms and of provisions, as their 
 means permitted. One of the most indignant outbursts in the Eng- 
 lish Parliament, the year before, was in ridicule of the audacity with 
 which the General Court of Massachusetts had sent for the royal 
 approval a bill for the purchase of twelve brass cannon. Many stores 
 had since been purchased without King George's approval. The 
 towns kept theirs in their own magazines; those which belonged to 
 the province were at Concord and Worcester, the county towns of 
 Middlesex and Worcester counties. Concord is about twenty miles 
 northwest of Boston. General Gage first sent two officers in dis- 
 guise to reconnoitre each of these places and the routes to them, 1 and 
 on Tuesday evening, the 18th of April, he sent a detachment of about 
 eight hundred men to seize and destroy the guns, munitions, 
 
 J 
 
 , . . .- , . ex- 
 
 and stores at Concord. To insure a surprise, his troops pMiition to 
 were to march at night. Under the command of Colonel 
 Smith, they left Boston in the boats of the squadron at the water 
 edge of the Common, 2 landed at Lechmere's Point, now East Cam- 
 bridge, and marched across the salt marshes, so as to strike the road 
 to Menotomy, or West Cambridge. The night was clear and frosty. 
 
 Meanwhile the country was alarmed, and the patriot leaders in 
 Boston were well informed of every step taken by the General and his 
 troops. 
 
 Legend and poetry have illustrated every minute of that night ; but 
 no imagination can make incidents more dramatic than the precise 
 facts as they come out in their purity, after all the tests of the stern- 
 est examination. Dr. Warren had returned to Boston from a meet- 
 ing of the Provincial Congress at Concord. It was as early as the 
 10th, when Gage gave warning of his plans, by launching the boats 
 of the transports, which had been laid up all winter. On Sunday, the 
 10th, Warren sent Paul Revere from Boston to Lexington, to tell 
 Hancock and Adams that the boats were launched. Paul Revere 
 
 1 It was not a hundred years, since Worcester had received that name in direct insult to 
 Andres, in memory of the Worcester where the son of the Kiug of England fled for his 
 life before the army of Cromwell. 
 
 ' 2 Near what is now Park Square. 
 
384 BEGINNING OF THE WAR. [CHAI-. XV. 
 
 was a coppersmith and engraver. He was one of thirty "North End" 
 mechanics who through the winter had made it their business to patrol 
 the streets of Boston at night, in order to note every movement of the 
 English troops. Revere took his message to Hancock, and returned 
 through Charlestown. At Charlestown, on the night of the 16th, he 
 agreed with " Colonel Conant and other gentlemen that if the British 
 went out by water, we would show two lanthorns in the North Church 
 steeple, and if by land one, as a signal." Returning to Boston, he 
 reported his arrangements to Warren. 
 
 On Monday and Tuesday General Gnge did nothing; but the two 
 Committees of Safety and Supplies were preparing for him at 
 Concord. They passed more than twenty votes relating to the removal 
 and disposition of cannon, ammunition, and stores. Tuesday evening 
 Warren discovered in Boston that the troops were to move at once. 
 He sent in great haste for Revere, and begged him to set off for Lex- 
 ington. This he did, first calling as his own narrative relates 
 " upon a friend," and desiring him to hang out the two signal lan- 
 terns from the tower of North Church. 1 He took his coat and 
 boots for his ride, and, in his boat, which was in readiness, was rowed 
 over by his men to Charlestown. When he came into the little town, 
 he found that Colonel Conant and others had already seen his signals. 
 Here he met also Richard Devens, who had just returned from a meet- 
 ing of the Committee of Safety, and who told him he had met ten 
 British officers riding towards Lexington from Cambridge. These 
 were a party who had dined at Cambridge, in the futile hope that 
 by disposing themselves on the road to Lexington after night-fall, 
 they might cut off all news of the advance. 
 
 Revere found a good horse in Charlestown, he says; the night was 
 pleasant, and at eleven o'clock he started on the eventful ride which, 
 in Longfellow's version of it, has made him immortal. The moon 
 was already up. He had scarcely left Charlestown, and was passing 
 "where Mark was hung in chains," when two English officers on 
 horseback tried to take him. But Revere and his horse were too 
 quick for them. In Medford he waked the captain of the minute-men. 
 From Medford to Lexington he alarmed almost every household. He 
 came to Lexington about midnight, and gave his news to Hancock and 
 
 1 " I left Dr. Warren, called upon a friend, and desired him to make the signals," is 
 Revere 'a statement (Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. v.). Who the "friend" was is a disputed 
 point, on which there is no evidence except family tradition. The descendants of Robert 
 Newman claim that he, who was the sexton of Chri.t Church, at Revere 's request made 
 the signals. The descendants of John Pulling declare that he was the intimate friend of 
 Revere, and that it has been handed down in their fumily from generation to generation 
 that it was he with whom Revere had an agreement to hang out the lanterns. It is not 
 even certain which of the North churches was used, though that learned body, the mayor 
 and aldermen of Boston, have decided that it was Christ Church. 
 
1775.] 
 
 THE ALARM IN MIDDLESEX. 
 
 385 
 
 Adams, who were at Rev. Mr. Clarke's house. Here he was joined by 
 William Dawes, whom 
 Warren had sent out by 
 land, over Boston Neck. 
 And after a little stay with 
 Dawes and Dr. Prescott, 
 "a high son of liberty," he 
 started for Concord between 
 one and two in the morning. 
 Prescott, who was thus pre- 
 ordained to take the torch 
 when it fell from the hand 
 of the first messenger, had 
 lingered thus late, on that 
 critical night, with his 
 sweetheart, a young lady of 
 Lexington, whom he after- 
 ward married. The three 
 rode on together toward 
 Concord. On the way, 
 while Dawes and Prescott 
 stopped to alarm a house, 
 Revere was surrounded by 
 four English officers. Pres- 
 cott escaped, and reached 
 Concord with the news. 
 Revere was taken prisoner, 
 and carried back by the 
 English officers and the 
 other six of their party to 
 Lexington, where he arrived 
 a little before the column of 
 whose movements he had 
 given information. 
 
 The Provincial Commit- 
 tee of Safety had adjourned 
 from Concord to Menot- 
 omy. 1 On the sudden ar- 
 rival of the troops, in the 
 middle of the night, they 
 were awakened, and, with- 
 out dressing, ran into the 
 
 VOL. III. 
 
 Signal Lanterns in North Church Belfry. 
 
 1 Afterwards West Cambridge, now Arlington. 
 25 
 
386 BEGINNING OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 fields to escape. These were Orne, Lee, Gray, and Heath. Dr. 
 Warren, the lit'th member of the committee, was in Boston, watch- 
 ing what passed there. He remained till about seven in the morning, 
 when he left Boston, forever, as it proved, with the words: " They 
 have begun it ; that, either party can do ; and we '11 end it ; that, only 
 one can do." 
 
 Colonel Smith, as has been seen, had made every effort to arrest 
 any person who could alarm the country, but had wholly failed. 
 Conscious of his failure, he sent back for a reinforcement. Gage 
 received his message at five o'clock. He had anticipated it, and at 
 four o'clock had ordered out the first brigade, under Lord Percy. 
 But by a series of those petty blunders and delays which befall armies 
 unused to war, it was nine o'clock before this brigade was ready in 
 Tremont Street, in Boston. The boats could not be used, because 
 they were at Cambridge, and Percy marched by the circuitous land 
 route through Roxbury and Brookline. Smith, meanwhile, pushed 
 forward six companies of his light infantry with a body of marines, 
 under Major Pitcairn, of the Marine Corps, directing him at the 
 earliest moment to take possession of the bridges over the Concord 
 River at Concord. This was a military precaution against attack 
 from the militia north or west of that little stream. On Major Pit- 
 cairn, therefore, and his immediate command, was thrown the respon- 
 sibility, which soon proved so critical, of the outbreak of the war. 
 
 The sun had not yet risen when Pitcairn, hurrying on his men, ap- 
 Pitoaim nt preached Lexington Common. This was a little green in 
 Lexington. f ron t o f t ne meeting -house. Obedient to the alarm, the 
 Lexington minute-men had formed some time before. They had sent 
 scouts down the silent road, who had returned saying there was no 
 enemy, so slow had been Smith's progress. On this announcement 
 the men had withdrawn into the meeting-house and other houses 
 around the green. At a second alarm they paraded again. They 
 were under the command of John Parker, a veteran of the French 
 war. As the column under Pitcairn approached, each party could 
 observe the numbers of the other. Parker saw that his command was 
 wholly outnumbered, and directed his men to retire. Pitcairn, at the 
 same moment, rushed forward, with the words, which were long after 
 repeated in every household, 
 
 ' Disperse ! rebels, disperse ! " 
 
 On each side there was the most eager wish that the responsibility 
 of the first shot should be thrown upon the other party. The Con- 
 tinental Congress had indicated this wish earnestly. The Provincial 
 Congress, anxious to conform to its directions, had cautioned the town 
 committees to use the utmost forbearance. On the other side there 
 
1775.] 
 
 THE FIRST SHOT. 
 
 was equal caution. General Gage went to the verge of pusillanimity, 
 in directing his officers not to assume the offensive. Colonel Leslie 
 had been ridiculed, not in print only, but in song and talk, for retir- 
 ing without a struggle at Salem, and yet he had simply obeyed Gage's 
 instructions. 
 
 Each party, in a word, wanted to show that the other struck first. 
 And it has long been one of the mooted questions of this great 
 struggle, whether the English or the Americans fired the first shot. 
 Major Pitcairn, in command on the one side, and Captain John Parker, 
 who commanded on the other, declared that their orders were strict, 
 that no man should fire till he was fired upon. But that somebody 
 fired, a war of seven long years was the evidence. 
 
 Lexington Green. 
 
 Sifting to the very bottom the testimony which has accumulated on 
 both sides, it seems that the witnesses, Avho spoke with can- The erst 
 tion, all spoke the truth. Pitcairn probably gave no order "'"" 
 to fire, even commanded his men not to fire, as he always said. It 
 is admitted on all hands that at the last moment he struck his sword or 
 staff down, as a signal to them to forbear firing. Parker ordeivd his 
 men to disperse, and not to fire, very properly declining to attack 
 with seventy men, not even in array, a column of six companies of 
 royal infantry. But Pitcairn also says lie saw a "flash in the pan" 
 on the other side. What happened was probably this : One of Par- 
 ker's men. without order, drew trigger, and his gun missed lire. The 
 
 - 
 
388 BEGINNING OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 powder flashed in the pan. Some English soldiers, without order 
 also, considered this to be, as it certainly was, a sufficient signal that 
 war had begun, and fired some irregular shots in return. These shots 
 hurt no one ; but a general discharge from the English line followed, 
 in which many of the Lexington party were killed and wounded. 
 They then returned the fire, and the war was begun. 
 
 Had the unknown Protesilaus lived, the flash of whose disobedient 
 musket, in the gray of the morning, precipitated at that moment the 
 certain storm, he would afterward have told the story. It was not a 
 moment to be forgotten, nor to be ashamed of. It must be that lie 
 was one of the seven men who were found by their wretched wives 
 
 / 
 
 and mothers dead on Lexington Common, after the English column 
 had passed by. 1 
 
 It is true, then, that the Americans did not fire first. It is also 
 true that one unknown Lexington soldier tried to fire and failed. It 
 is true that the English commander and his men did not mean to fire 
 first. It is also true, that as events were ordered, they fired the first 
 shot, and took the first lives lost in the war. In the return fire of 
 Parker's men, one English soldier was killed, and one or two wounded. 
 Of Parker's little force one fourth were killed or wounded by one 
 volley. 
 
 The English troops fired another volley, in triumph, on the Com- 
 The march mon, and pressed on to Concord. As has been already said, 
 tagton to Colonel Smith knew that the country was alarmed, and had 
 concord. gent b^]- f or reenforceinents. From Lexington to Concord, 
 as they marched, is about eight miles, by a road which, as they must 
 have noticed then, could be easily obstructed by an adverse force. It 
 was still early morning, and they arrived at Concord without further 
 interruption. They had already made what a prudent officer would 
 consider a good day's march, and had been without sleep through 
 the night. The General's intention must have been that they should 
 take position for that day and the next night, at least, at Concord. 
 
 But the whole country was now alarmed, and the towns showed 
 what they meant when they defied King George. The arrangements 
 made by the committees of correspondence and the Provincial Con- 
 gress, to carry information of any emergency, worked wonderfully 
 well. To this hour there are traditions in northern Middlesex and 
 Worcester counties of the "man on the white horse," who passed 
 through before daybreak, to say that the English had left Boston, and 
 
 1 Ten men more were wounded, seventeen in all, out of seventy, disabled by one volley. 
 This fact is a sufficient evidence that their military array was not considerably broken, and 
 that the firing was at very close range. Such a proportion of loss would be remarkable at 
 the end of a battle. 
 
1775.] CONCORD AND CONCORD BKIIXiK. 
 
 that the war hail begun. Nay, it would not be hard to find those who 
 have heard that this message came before mortal horse could have 
 reached the spot where it was heard, and that no man can tell who 
 this fatal messenger was, or whither lie went. Without supposing 
 that any Castor or Pollux of the eighteenth century brought the 
 fatal tidings, it is certain that they advanced with a celerity till then 
 unknown. The reader has been told that Colonel Smith had notified 
 General Gage that he should need reinforcements. This was before 
 four o'clock in the morning. But long before the tardy forms of the 
 officials in Boston had sent off Percy's brigade to him, the minute- 
 men of the colony, for thirty miles around, had been summoned hy 
 the prompt prevision of the patriot authorities, and were on the inarch. 
 
 Thus the Concord minute-men had formed, and some of their 
 neighbors from Lincoln, the next town, had joined them before Pit- 
 cairn and Colonel Smith arrived there. Some of the companies 
 marched down the road toward Lexington, far enough to see that 
 they were quite outnumbered, and then withdrew. They formed on 
 a bold hill eighty rods behind the village. Here Barrett, their Colo- 
 nel, joined them. He had been engaged, under personal and secret 
 orders from the Provincial Congress, in concealing musket-balls and 
 removing provisions which the colony had collected there. These 
 were beef, flour, molasses, rum, and candles. Barrett found that he 
 was outnumbered, and withdrew his whole force across the Concord 
 River, where he held them watching the English column in their na- 
 tive village. Colonel Smith, the English commander, attended to the 
 duty assigned him. He broke off the trunnions of three new can- 
 non, which Barrett had not been able to remove ; he destroyed some 
 wooden spoons and trenchers, and other articles in the humble com- 
 missariat provided for the army which his march of that day was 
 calling into the field. But this did not last long. Shots at the North 
 Bridge told all men, if any man had doubted before, that war had 
 begun. 
 
 The Concord and Lincoln companies, on the hill above the North 
 Bridge, were joined by different companies of minute-men 
 from the towns of northern Middlesex. They could see OMM& 
 smoke, which showed that the English were firing houses or 
 goods. The court-house was in flames. They could see at the bridge 
 three companies of English troops, who were under an officer named 
 Laurie. It was when these men began to take up the bridge that 
 the little army of militia acted. 
 
 The Lincoln minute-men volunteered to clear the bridge. Captain 
 Davis, of Acton, made the remark, now a proverb, " There is not a 
 man in my company that is afraid." Colonel Barrett commanded the 
 
300 
 
 I? KG INNING OF TIIK WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. XV. 
 
 column to pass the bridge without firing ; but, if fired upon, to return 
 the fire. The New England passion for law appears in the language 
 of his order. " It is the King's highway, and we have a right to 
 inarch on it if we march to Boston. Forward, march ! " They 
 marched to the quickest air their fifes could play the " White Cock- 
 ade." 
 
 Laurie, who commanded the detachment of English, recrossed the 
 bridge. Major Barrett, in command of the .attacking party, hurried 
 upon it. When they were within a short distance, the English fired 
 three distinct volleys, and Davis and Hosmer were killed. The Con- 
 cord minister, Mr. Emerson, was nearer to the English than either of 
 
 Concord Bridge. 
 
 them, on the Concord side of the river. He wrote in his diary that 
 night that he " was very uneasy till the fire was returned." When 
 Davis and Hosmer fell, the militia returned the fire. The English 
 retreated. The minute-men crossed the bridge, and some of them 
 ascended the bold hill where the Concord men had formed in the 
 morning. Another party of English, with Parsons in command, re- 
 turning from Colonel Barrett's house, crossed the bridge from the 
 northern side, and were allowed to join the main force undisturbed. 
 
 In this encounter at the bridge, the American militia first attacked 
 the King's troops. The English lost here one soldier killed and sev- 
 eral wounded. Colonel Smith now abandoned any idea of posting 
 himself at Concord. As soon as he could collect proper carriages to 
 
1775.] RETREAT OF THE BRITISH. 391 
 
 carry his wounded, he started on his return. Meanwhile, from every 
 quarter, the minute-men were pouring down. They did 
 
 . . ,, T , , The r<-tr--:it. 
 
 not know what was the true "objective. oat they meant 
 to be in time, and they were in time. The whole country between 
 Boston and Concord was aroused. The Provincials, knowing every 
 inch of it, chose their own best places to attack the King's troops. 
 So soon as these had passed, their unseen enemies would take some 
 cross-road and attack again. " They are trained to protect themselves 
 behind stone walls," writes General Gage. "They seemed to drop 
 from the skies," says an English soldier. Smith and his men, after 
 their hard march of nearly thirty miles, came back to Lexington ex- 
 hausted. Smith himself was wounded. They had marched from 
 Concord, nearly eight miles, in two hours. 
 
 "A number of our officers wei*e wounded," says Bernicre, an Eng- 
 lish eye-witness, "so that we began to run rather than retreat in order. 
 The whole behaved with amazing bravery, but little order." 
 
 A little beyond Lexington Common, at about three o'clock, Smith 
 and his hard-pressed party, as they approached Boston, met the re- 
 enforcement under Lord Percy, so long desired. Lord Percy had 
 
 / 7 / 
 
 moved at nine in the morning, in a direction almost directly p erry - g 
 opposite that of Lexington, because he was obliged to leave column 
 Boston by land. It was remembered afterwards, that as he passed 
 through Roxbury, his bands played " Yankee Doodle," and that a 
 prophetic boy insulted him by crying out, "You march to Yankee 
 Doodle; you will come back to Chevy Chase." This allusion to the 
 " wof ul hunting" so celebrated in literature in the history of his 
 house, appeared again and again in the pasquinades of the time. At 
 Cambridge he had to cross Charles River, and the Committee of 
 Safety, or Colonel Heath, one of their number, had directed that the 
 planks should be taken from the bridge. Percy was thus still further 
 detained. As soon as possible he pressed forward with his troops, 
 leaving the train of stores to follow when the bridge should be more 
 firmly repaired. The officer in command of this convoy lost his way, 
 and to the inquiries he made in Cambridge, such false answers were 
 given that with only scant military escort, he fell into the hands of 
 some West Cambridge "exempts/' led with intelligence and success 
 by a negro soldier who had served in the French war. 
 
 Lord Percy, without his train, pressed on in time, as has been said, 
 to meet Smith just below Lexington, about two or three Th er,.turu 
 o'clock. His field-pieces are always spoken of as awing toBo>t0 "- 
 the militia. The exhausted columns rested a while, "the men's 
 tongues hanging from their mouths, like dogs;" such was the tradition 
 repeated for generations. The united force then took up the march 
 
302 BEGINNING OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 to Boston, and mot with the same resistance everywhere, from a 
 force constantly increasing. At last, as the sun was going down, the, 
 head of the column crossed Charlestown Neck. Beacon Hill, in 
 Boston, was covered with people, watching for their return, and, as it 
 darkened, one could see thence the musket-flashes on the road from 
 Cambridge to Charlestown. Percy had to use his field-pieces again. 
 At West Cambridge, Dr. Warren, while exposing himself to the 
 enemy's lire, had the pin on his earlock shot away. Bv this time 
 Colonel Heath, of the Committee of Safety, was in some sort com- 
 manding. The English had just reached Bunker Hill in Charles- 
 town, when one of Colonel Pickering's aids rode up to Heath with the 
 MOWS that the Essex regiment was just behind him, on the road from 
 Salem. The Danvers companv had marched direct to Menotomy; the 
 rest of the regiment had gone straight to Charlestown. But Heath 
 thought it too late for any further offensive operations. The Eng- 
 lish posted sentries on their side of Charlestown Neck ; Heath placed 
 his sentries on the other side, and ordered the militia to lie on their 
 arms at Cambridge. 
 
 The loss of the English in the march and retreat was reported by 
 Gaffe as Bixtv-five killed, one hundred and seventy-eiffht 
 
 The results. ... i . 
 
 wounded, and twenty-six missing, a very large loss from 
 a force of eighteen hundred men. The loss of the Americans was 
 forty-nine killed, thirty-six wounded, and five missing. 1 
 
 All that night the march of the minute-men from ever}' town in 
 TUP FithiT- Massachusetts, from Rhode Island, from Connecticut, and 
 
 from New Hampshire, kept the country towns awake. Be- 
 
 Ainoriraii 
 militia. 
 
 fore morning on the 20th, before Gage's tired troops were 
 ferried back from Charlestown to their barracks, an American army 
 was at Cambridge. The intelligence had flown over the land, that the 
 English troops had fired on the Lexington militia, and with it had 
 gone the news that the column had been driven back to Boston. The 
 story grew as it went from province to province. By the time it came 
 into western Connecticut,, it took a form which was carried by ex- 
 press to New York, and was there relied upon as in some sort an offi- 
 cial narrative. In that form the New York Committee of Safety 
 despatched it southward, and so it sped to Charleston, S. C., rousing 
 a country. No fiery cross ever stirred a nation to more eager enthu- 
 siasm. That despatch is therefore worth copying now, although, in 
 literal fact, every material statement in it was untrue. It was in 
 these words : 
 
 1 These figures are taken from Gage's return, and from Fhinucy's History. 
 
1775.] THE NEWS CARRIED SOUTHWARD. 393 
 
 " WAI.LINGFORD [Conn.], Monday 24th, 1775. 
 
 " DEAR SIR : Colonel Wadsivorth was over in this place most of yes- 
 te i\l ay, and has ordered twenty men out of each Company in i^kwood-g 
 his Regiment, some of which had already set off, and others lett< ' r 
 go this morning. He brings accounts, which came to him authenti- 
 cated, from Thursday in the afternoon. The King's troops being reen- 
 forced a second time, and joined, as I suppose, from what I can learn, 
 by the party who were intercepted by Colonel Gardner, were then 
 encamped on Winter Hill, and were surrounded by twenty thousand 
 of our men who were intrenching. Colonel Gardner''* ambush proved 
 fatal to Lord Percy, and another General Officer, who were killed on 
 the spot the first fire. To counterbalance this good news, the story 
 is, that our first man in command (who he is I know not) is also 
 killed. It seems they have lost many men on both sides ; Colonel 
 Wadsivorth had the account in a letter from Hartford. The Country 
 beyond here are all gone, and we expect it will be impossible to pro- 
 cure horses for our wagons, as they have and will, in every place, em- 
 ploy themselves all their horses. In this place they send a horse for 
 every sixth man, and are pressing them for that purpose. I know of 
 no way, but you must immediately send a couple of stout, able horses, 
 who may overtake us at Hartford possibly, where we must return 
 Mrs. Noyess, and Meloy's if he holds out so far. Remember the 
 horses must be had at any rate. 
 
 " I am in the greatest haste, your entire friend and humble servant, 
 
 " JAMES LOCKWOOD. 
 
 "N. B. Colonel Gardner took nine prisoners, and twelve clubbed 
 their firelocks and came over to our party. Colonel Gardner's party 
 consisted of seven hundred men, and the Regulars one thousand eight 
 hundred, instead of one thousand two hundred, as we heard before. 
 They have sent a vessel up Jit/stick River, as far as Temple's farm, 
 which is about half a mile from Winter Hill. These accounts being 
 true, all the King's forces, except four or five hundred, must be en- 
 camped on Winter Hill." 1 
 
 This curious mixture of the account of personal need for horses and 
 of the outbreak of a civil war, is hardly intelligible when compared 
 with the facts. History has not known better than James Lockwood 
 who was " the first man in command '' on the American side. The 
 rumor of his death probably rose from the death of Captain Davis, of 
 Acton, in the attack on Concord Bridge. The account of Percy's 
 being intercepted at Winter Hill is an instance where the wish was 
 father to the thought. For a generation after, Colonel Pickering was 
 
 1 Preserved at Charleston, S. C. Published in Marshall's Remembrancer. 
 
394 BEGINNING OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 blamed unjustly, because be did not effect this consummation with 
 the Essex regiment. 1 
 
 With the twentieth of April, therefore, the "Siege of Boston" 
 The siege of De g^- The patriots had studied, through the whole win- 
 Boston. |. er ^ a p]. in f or withdrawing all the inhabitants from Boston, 
 which Gage, naturally enough, had resented. But, with the shock of 
 battle, the departure of the inhabitants came of course ; and, eventu- 
 ally, when Gage found he was really besieged on the land side, he did 
 not oppose iti 
 
 As the minute-men arrived, they were posted in that part of 
 Cliarlestown (now Somerville) which is outside Charlestown Neck, in 
 Cambridge, and in Roxbury. Works were thrown up on Charles 
 River and on the salt marshes, to prevent any movement of English 
 troops by boats. The only egress from the city by land was over Bos- 
 ton Neck, by which Percy had marched out. This passage was com- 
 Gener.il Ar- m-uided completely b'y a strong fort on the highland above 
 tcmas Wara - the Roxbury Meeting-house. 2 General Artemas Ward, of 
 Shrewsbury, was the senior officer in command of the Massachusetts 
 troops, and a deference was yielded to him by Spencer, of Connecti- 
 cut, Greene, of Rhode Island, and Folsom, of New Hampshire. These 
 were the senior officers of the contingents from those colonies. But 
 his orders to them take the form of requests. And his own commis- 
 sion as General and Commander-in-chief of the Massachusetts troops 
 was not given him till the 20th of May. The works which have been 
 alluded to were planned, and well planned, by Henry Knox, a young 
 Boston bookseller, who had interested himself in military studies, and 
 by Gridley, who had served in the French War. During all this pe- 
 riod, there was a wretched deficiency of powder in the stores of this 
 suddenly enlisted army. The Provincial Congress, in fear of a bold 
 attack by Gage, which very probably would have resulted in their de- 
 feat, made provision for securing their records and stores, such as they 
 were, in case of the necessity of a retreat. 
 
 As early as the 26th of April, 3 a letter from Dr. Warren to Gage 
 proposed that the people of Boston be allowed to leave the 
 
 The exodus _, r T . 
 
 from BOS- town. Gage agreed, but said their arms must be given up ; 
 
 and on the 27th a great number of arms were deposited at 
 
 Faueuil Hall. The military habit of the time appears in the fact that 
 
 there was almost one weapon for every grown man. At first, Gage 
 
 1 " And vanquished Percy, to complete the tale, 
 
 Had hammered stone for life iu Concord jail." LOWKU.. 
 
 2 Now a little ornamental square, in which is the stand-pipe of the Boston Water Works. 
 
 The " Meeting-honso " was that made famous l>y the ministry for half a century of Eliot, 
 
 " the Apostle to the Indians." See vol. i., p. 539. 
 
 a Not the 20th, as printed hy mistake in Force's Archives. 
 
1775.] 
 
 THE NEWS SENT TO ENGLAND. 
 
 395 
 
 allowed the inhabitants to depart on the condition that only thirty 
 wagons should leave the town daily. But so large a number left that 
 the Tories in Boston, remembering the patriot plans of the last win- 
 ter, took alarm, and compelled Gage to rescind his permission. On 
 the day of the expedition to Concord, almost two hundred Tories were 
 enrolled under General Ruggles, of Hardwick, said to be the best sol- 
 dier in the colonies. 1 Fearing that, unless the inhabitants should re- 
 main in the town, it would be burned by the American army, they 
 told Gage that they would leave the town themselves if the emigra- 
 tion were not stopped, and he was obliged to yield. 
 
 The Provincial Congress, immediately after the events of Lexing- 
 ton and Concord, prepared an account of the battles, con- New _, of the 
 firmed by depositions from the principal actors. These they SJSJj^. 
 entrusted to Captain John Derby, of Salem, with the order '"" d 
 to sail to some convenient port of Ireland and thence to hasten to 
 London, and deliver his pa- 
 pers to the agent. With 
 these orders Captain Derby 
 started, and outsailed every 
 other vessel on the way. 
 Captain Brown, in the 
 Sukey, with Gage's de- 
 spatches, had sailed before 
 him ; but Captain Derby 
 reached London eleven days 
 before any other news ar- 
 rived. This early announce- 
 ment of the outbreak, which 
 naturally enough took the 
 view most favorable to the 
 patriots, produced an imme- 
 diate effect in England, such 
 as the government depre- 
 cated. The impression, of course, gained ground every day that they 
 had news which they dared not publish. 
 
 On the 8th of May, so distinct a rumor was circulated at Cam- 
 bridge that Gage intended to march out, that the minute- Moveuiea u 
 men of the towns near Boston were called into service. J,* u "|!, 
 Gage had another opportunity to see how large was the re- Bo * to - 
 serve force at the service of his enemy. On the 13th, Israel Put- 
 nam who, when the news of the fight at Lexington and Concord 
 reached him, left his plough in the field at Pomfret, Conn., mounted 
 1 The same who had presided ai the first Continental Congress, ten years before. 
 
 General Gage. 
 
306 BEGINNING OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 his horse, and the next morning was in Concord marched a little 
 army of two thousand three hundred men from Cambridge to Charles- 
 town Neck, and through Charlestown to the ferry there. Had any 
 permanent works on Bunker Hill been intended by Ward and the 
 American officers, that was the better time, before Gage was reen- 
 forced. On the 27th, a skirmish, in which Putnam led, took place at 
 Hog Island, northeast of Boston, in the harbor. Besides the sheep 
 and cattle which were the object of the raid, the English lost a sloop, 
 twelve swivels, and several men. An exaggerated account of the ex- 
 ploit gave to it at the south the character of a battle ; and it was to 
 this affair that Putnam owed a certain prominence at the time, which 
 helped in securing the i - ank given him in the Continental army a few 
 weeks afterward. 
 
 Several skirmishes of this character, which generally resulted to the 
 advantage of the Americans, gave confidence to the new levies, and 
 showed that they held the English at disadvantage. They were the 
 result of an order of the Committee of Safety, passed on the 14th, 
 that such live stock should be removed from the islands, and they 
 prepared the way for the action at Bunker Hill. Gage did not seem 
 to understand how soon he should need the provisions thus taken 
 from him. In two of these affairs alone, thirteen hundred sheep, 
 which he might have used, were lost. 
 
 On the 25th of May, Generals Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne ar- 
 i of rived with large reinforcements. As they entered the har- 
 bor, t ne . v hailed a tender bound to Newport, and asked the 
 ne \vs. When told that Boston was surrounded by ten thou- 
 sand men in arms, they asked how large was the English force, and 
 were told it was five thousand men. " Ten thousand peasants keep 
 five thousand king's troops shut up ! Let us get in, and we '11 soon 
 find elbow-room." The story was circulated everywhere, and the 
 nick-name " Elbow-room " was applied to Burgoyne all through the 
 war, never with more sting, of course, than at the period of his own 
 reverses. 
 
 The highest hill on the peninsula of Charlestown commands the 
 The English "orthern part of Boston and the northern part of Boston 
 harbor. The hills on the southeast of Boston, now part of 
 South Boston, but then called Dorchester Heights, on Dor- 
 towu chester Neck, command the southern part of Boston and 
 
 all the harbor. Of course both parties saw the evident necessity of 
 immediately occupying both Charlestown and Dorchester Heights. 
 General Burgoyne, in a letter to Lord Stanley, says it was absolutely 
 necessary that the English should occupy these heights, and that it 
 was thought best to begin with Dorchester. He says he has never 
 
1775.] 
 
 BOSTON BESIEGED. 
 
 397 
 
 differed from Clinton and Howe, and they, with General Gage, 
 formed the plan. The troops under Howe were to land on the point 
 of Dorchester Neck now known as City Point, Clinton's in the cen- 
 tre, while Burgoyne cannonaded from Boston Neck, if necessary, to 
 keep clear the line of approach from the American forces in Roxbury. 
 These operations were to take place on Sunday, June IS. The Pro- 
 vincial Congress and General Ward knew all this in advance, as ap- 
 pears from their Report made to the Congress at Philadelphia. 1 
 
 " June 20, 1775. 
 
 " We think it an indisputable duty to inform you that reenforce- 
 ments from Ii-eland, both of horse 
 and foot, being arrived (the num- 
 bers unknown), and having intel- 
 ligence that General Gage was 
 about to take possession of the 
 advantageous posts in Charles- 
 town and on Dorchester Heights, 
 the Committee of Safety advised 
 that our troops should prepossess 
 them, if possible." 
 
 It must be remembered that in 
 this disturbed state of affairs the 
 Committee of Safety was the only 
 executive of the insurgents. This 
 report to the Continental Congress 
 is made simply for their informa- 
 tion. Under an order of the Com- 
 mittee of Safety, General Ward formed a detachment to take posses- 
 sion of the hill above Charlestown. It was made up of Prescott's, 
 Frye's, and Bridge's regiments, under Colonel Prescott, and Measures 
 a party of Connecticut men drafted from several companies [^"uJjii. 
 under Captain Thomas Knowlton, of General Putnam's caus 
 regiment. They were ordered to furnish themselves with packs, 
 blankets, intrenching implements, and provisions for twenty-four 
 
 1 Major Wemyss, who served under Gage, has left iu his manuscript papers the follow- 
 ing frauk notice of this general, which probably contains an explanation of the way in which 
 news leaked out from his counsels. " Lieut.-General Gage, a commandcr-in-chief of mod- 
 erate abilities, but altogether deficient in military knowledge. Timid and undecided iu 
 every emergency, he was very unfit to command at a time of resistance and approaching 
 rebellion to the mother country. He was governed by his wife, a handsome American ; her 
 brothers and relations held all the staff appointments in the army, and were, with less abil- 
 ities, as weak characters as himself. To the great joy of the army, he went to England 
 soon after the disastrous attack at Bunker Hill " Mrs. Gage was a daughter of Stephen 
 Kemble, of New York. 
 
 Artemas Ward. 
 
398 BEGINNING OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 hours. Colonel Gridley's company of artillery, with two guns, made 
 part of the command. The expedition started from Cambridge at 
 nine o'clock on the evening before the 17th, crossed Charlestown 
 Neck, and reached Bunker Hill, the highest point of Charlestown, 
 about ten. From the English battery on Copp's Hill to Bunker Hill 
 is about one mile ; from Beacon Hill, in Boston, to Bunker Hill is 
 Bunker nearly a mile and a half. At that time Beacon Hill was 
 
 one hundred and thirty-eight feet above sea-level; Bunker 
 Hill was one hundred and ten, and Copp's Hill about sixty feet. If 
 the object of fortifying Bunker Hill was to command the harbor, 
 a redoubt there would hardly carry out the design, because a spur 
 projecting southward from the hill, making an eminence of about 
 sixty-two feet above the sea, rose between the top of Bunker Hill and 
 the sea, and would protect the shipping to some extent. On the other 
 hand, if the design was merely to keep the English from seizing the 
 heights, both Bunker and the southern eminence, afterwards called 
 Breed's Hill, 1 should be fortified at the same time. If the Provincials 
 had contented themselves with fortifying the higher part of Bunker 
 Hill only, the English troops might have formed under cover of the 
 lower hill ; or their commanders might have intrenched themselves on 
 the south side of that hill, where they could not be reached by firing 
 from Bunker Hill, from any guns in use at that time. 
 
 When the American officers found themselves on the crest of Bun- 
 ker Hill, about ten in the evening, Prescott called the field-officers 
 around him, and showed them his orders. They deliberated for a long 
 time as to whether it would be more advisable to fortify the top of 
 Bunker Hill, or take the lower eminence from which they could with 
 greater ease harass the English fleet. After some time it was deter- 
 mined to proceed to the lower hill, half a mile nearer to Boston, and 
 
 take post there. General Putnam, who was present, strongly 
 
 advocated intrenching the upper hill as well as the lower one. 
 
 The Committee of Safety, after the event, said that forti- 
 fying a point so near Boston was a mistake. But it is justified by 
 the highest military, authority, for the reasons which we have given. 
 Colonel Gridley, the engineer officer, insisted on some decision being 
 made without furthtr loss of time, and when it was resolved to fortify 
 the lower hill, lie marked out the lines of a redoubt there. This re- 
 
 1 The height on which the battle was fought had no distinctive n;me before that time, but 
 was known as pastures belonging to different men, Breed being one of them. After the 
 battle the hill was called Breed's Hill ; but as the detachment was sent to put up fortifica- 
 tions on Bunker Hill, that designation clung to the fight. Hence the confusion of names 
 which puzzles every reader out of Massachusetts. Though many insist upon calling the 
 hill on which the tall monument stands, to commemorate the battle, Breed's Hill, the monu- 
 ment itself is called Bunker Hill Monument. 
 
1775.] 
 
 THE AMERICANS OX I5UXKEU HILL. 
 
 doubt was skilfully planned. It measured eight rods on its longest 
 side, which fronted Charlestown. The other two sides were not quite 
 so long. The side toward Bunker Hill was lower. A breastwork 
 extended for about a hundred yards to the north, and stopped at a 
 marshy place at the north side of the hill. This work was begun at 
 midnight and continued till nearly eleven o'clock on the morning of 
 Saturday, when the intrenching-tools were sent back to General Put- 
 nam, that he might use them to throw up fortifications on Hunker 
 Hill strong enough to hold that height as well as the other. 
 
 It was a clear moonlight night. But so quiet was the working 
 
 Plan of Bunker Hill. 
 
 party, that it attracted no attention till morning. It was after day- 
 break when Linzee, the commander of the Lively frigate, which lay 
 in the stream opposite where the navy-yard now is, saw the new for- 
 tification and opened fire upon it, waking the town to the bold enter- 
 prise of the night. 
 
 It was the morning of St. Botolpli's day, the festival day of the 
 saint from whom Boston derives its name. 
 
 Colonel Gridley returned Linzee's fire from his field-pieces, and the 
 fire from the ship was soon suspended by Gage's order. He was 
 roused from his repose, and on conference with his officers determined 
 to attack the works before they could be strengthened. 
 
400 BEGINNING OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 The English and American accounts of the battle which followed, 
 differed, at the time, as if two scenes had been described. 
 of Hunker The best English account published in London, when the 
 news arrived there, was General Burgoyne's, in a letter to 
 Lord Stanley. 1 He says that, seeing that the enemy had fortified 
 the heights of Charlestown during the night, the English generals 
 thought it necessary to attack that side instead of seizing Dorchester 
 ---; Heights, as it had been proposed to do on the next day. 
 . General Howe, and under him General Pigot, with about 
 two thousand men, landed at Moulton's Point (where the navy-yard 
 now is) and advanced up Bunker Hill where the strength of the 
 enemy lay. " Howe's disposition was exceedingly soldier-like." As 
 the first force advanced up the hill, " they met a thousand impedi- 
 ments from strong fences, and were also injured by a musketry-fire from 
 Charlestown." Howe sent back to Burgoyne on Copp's Hill, in Bos- 
 ton, to set Charlestown on fire, which was instantly done by a number 
 of red-hot shot from the batteries which afterward, together with the 
 shipping, kept up a vigorous fire upon the heights. In this published 
 letter, Burgoyne owns that Howe's left was staggered, and that reen- 
 forcements were sent. They remained upon the beach, however, not 
 knowing where to march. Immediately General Clinton, without 
 waiting for orders, crossed in a boat to command them, and arrived 
 in time to be of service. 
 
 Burgoyne closes his letter by saying: "The day ended with glory, 
 and the success was most important, considering the ascendency it 
 gave the regular troops ; but the loss was uncommon in officers, for 
 the numbers engaged." 
 
 On the other hand, the Committee of Safety published an account 
 by Rev. Peter Thacher, who saw from the eastern side of 
 
 The Amer- i 111 i 
 
 icanac- Mystic luver, what could be seen by a spectator there. 
 This was sent to Arthur Lee, and others, in London, as a 
 correction of the report made by General Gage in a circular letter 
 to the governors of the other colonies. 
 
 This account says in substance, that about noon several barges ap- 
 proached Charlestown and landed on the beach westward of the 
 American works. The troops formed upon landing, and waited till a 
 second detachment arrived from Boston, when they took up their 
 march to the redoubt. They moved slowly, with large flanking 
 parties. At this instant, smoke and flames arose from Charlestown, 
 which had been set on fire by the enemy, either that the smoke might 
 cover their attack, or to dislodge one or two regiments of provincials 
 which had been placed in the town. But the wind, shifting suddenly, 
 blew away the smoke. 
 
 1 The letter already referred to p. 396. 
 
1775.] 
 
 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 
 
 401 
 
 Meanwhile, according to this account, the Americans, within their 
 intrenchments, waiting impatiently for the enemy, reserved their lire 
 until they were within ten or twelve rods, and then delivered a ter- 
 rible discharge of small arms. The enemy faltered, stood still a 
 minute, and then ran with great precipitation towards their boats, 
 some even seeking refuge in the boats themselves. Here, the specta- 
 tors on the opposite shore could see the officers run down to them 
 and urge the men forward with passionate gestures, even goading 
 them on with their swords. As soon as they had rallied, they marched 
 up towards the intrenchments, apparently with great reluctance. 
 Again the Americans waited until they were within six or seven 
 rods, and then fired, and again put the regular troops to flight. 
 
 A. Boston Battery. B. Charlestown. C. British Troops attacking. I). Provincial Linn. 
 Bunker Hill Battle. 
 
 From a Contemporary Print, entitled "View of the Attack on Bunker's Hill, with the Burning of 
 
 Charlestown, June 17th, 1775." 
 
 The officers, making greater exertions than ever, once more urged 
 on the men to a third assault. This time they brought cannon to 
 bear upon the breastwork, raking it from one end to the other, so 
 that the provincials retired within their redoubt. The "ministerial 
 army " now made a great effort. The ships and batteries redoubled 
 their fire, the officers increased their exertions, and the redoubt was 
 attacked on three sides at once. The breastwork outside the fort 
 had been abandoned ; the ammunition of the provincials was ex- 
 hausted, and there were but very few bayonets. Not until the re- 
 doubt was half filled with the British was the word given to retire. 
 The retreat must have been cut off, however, had not the flanking 
 party, whose place it was to attack the rear of the fort, met with a 
 body of provincials, who kept them from advancing farther than the 
 
 VOL. III. 
 
402 BEGINNING OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 beach. These two parties fought with the utmost vigor, and not until 
 the provincials saw that the main body had left the hill, did they 
 retire. Such is the official account as published by the Committee of 
 Safety. 
 
 There is no doubt that Thacher's statement that there were three 
 attacks is correct, although neither Gage in his despatches, nor Bur- 
 goyne, says anything about them. 
 
 While Pigot with the left wing was attacking the main body of the 
 Americans, General Howe, with the right, marched along 
 Hank move- the Mystic River, to try to turn the American flank on 
 its left. Against him Colonel Preseott had sent Captain 
 Knowlton with his Connecticut men, and two field-pieces. Knowl- 
 ton had taken his place behind a fence on the southern slope of 
 Bunker Hill proper, extending northeasterly toward the water. 
 This fence, which was made of stones, with rails of wood above, he 
 strengthened by a parallel line of fence, filling the spaces between 
 with new-mown grass. While he was doing this, reinforcements of 
 New Hampshire troops under Stark arrived. 
 
 On the firmness of this body of men on the American left, event- 
 ually depended the retreat of the whole party. As Howe advanced, 
 Colonel Callender opened fire on him with his field-pieces, which were 
 between the redoubt and the fence. Knowlton 's men at the rail fence 
 held their fire until the enemy were within fifteen rods. When they 
 did fire, the English retreated, terribly cut up, at about the same time 
 that Pigot was repulsed before the redoubt. 
 
 In the second attack, Howe's guns were charged with grape. 
 Tli rough the whole action they had no proper balls. 1 They moved 
 up on a road running between the redoubt and the rail fence nearly 
 as far as the breastwork. The design was, to rake the redoubt. This 
 time, also, Howe was on the right of his attack before Stark and 
 Knowlton. At the rail fence and at the redoubt the Americans held 
 their fire till even a shorter distance intervened. 
 
 In both cases the English broke and retreated. It was at this 
 period of the action that Clinton arrived from Boston with reenforce- 
 ments, as narrated by Burgoyne. The havoc at the attack thus made 
 by Howe in person was even more terrible than that at the redoubt ; 
 the annals of war have, perhaps, no pai-allel to it. One light com- 
 
 1 Thanks to the " dotage of an officer of high rank, who spends all his time with the 
 school-master's daughters." This is the verdict of an English writer of the day. The offi- 
 cer was General Cleavelaud, " who was enamored of the beautiful daughter of Master 
 Lovell," and in order to gain favor with her had given her young brother an appointment 
 in the ordnance department, for which he was not fitted. The beauty of the lady has 
 been handed down to later generations by transmission more sure than that of verbal 
 tradition. 
 
1775.] THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 403 
 
 puny of the Fifty-second Regiment had every man killed or wounded. 
 Howe himself bore a charmed life, but every officer of his staff was 
 killed or wounded. It was to the accuracy of the marksmen, whether 
 at the redoubt or at the fence, that the terrible carnage of the day 
 was due, and around these volleys have clustered the most frequent 
 traditions of the fight. The efforts made by American officers who 
 had been under fire before, to restrain the eagerness of young troops, 
 are recollected in a hundred stones. "Fire low," "Aim at the 
 handsome coats," " Aim at the waistbands." And there is no boy in 
 America who does not believe that Putnam and Preseott bade 
 their men wait, till "they could see the whites of the eyes" of the 
 English. This order was probably familiar to the officers, who had 
 studied with eagerness the memoirs then fresh of the wars of Fred- 
 erick. It was recorded that Prince Charles, when he cut through the 
 Austrian army in retiring from Jagendorf, gave this order to his in- 
 fantry : " Silent, till you see the whites of their eyes." This was on 
 the 22d of May, 1745. And this order, so successful tliat day, was 
 remembered twelve years after at the battle of Prague, when the 
 general Prussian order was, " By push of bayonets, no firing till 
 you see the whites of their eyes." 
 
 In the third attack the English artillery gained their position and 
 drove the defenders of the breastwork into the fort. Most of the 
 Americans had now only one round of ammunition, and few had more 
 than three. But Prescott bade them hold their fire, and they did 
 so until the enemy were within twenty yards. The English, taught 
 by experience, did not attack in platoons, but were drawn up in col- 
 umn. The column wavered under the fire, but the men rushed on 
 with the bayonet ; and Clinton's and Pigot's men, on the south and 
 east, reached the walls. At Prescott's order, those who had no bay- 
 onets retired to the rear of the redoubt, for their ammunition was all 
 gone. The men in the front rank, as they scaled the walls, were all 
 shot down. But these were the last shots, and as the English leaped 
 over the parapet, Prescott unwillingly gave his order to retreat. 
 His retreat was covered, as Thacher's account explains, by the firm- 
 ness with which Stark and Knowltoii held the rail fence. The Ameri . 
 The gap between the breastwork and the rail fence had been can retreat - 
 enfiladed by Howe's artillery. The whole action had lasted about 
 two hours of a hot summer afternoon. The English once in the 
 redoubt had little spirit to follow the enemy. On the other hand, 
 General Putnam, at the other work, on the crest of Bunker Hill, 
 found it impossible to hold the retreating parties there. 
 
 As the party in the redoubt left it. General Warren, as he is that 
 day called for the first time, was killed. He had been, till this ino- 
 
404 
 
 BEGINNING OF THE WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. XV. 
 
 ment, the efficient leader of the popular movements in Massachusetts 
 since Samuel Adams had left for the Congress in Philadelphia. He 
 drew out the popular enthusiasm as no other leader had done. He 
 had shown eloquence, energy, and wisdom. He was brave so brave 
 as to throw away his life. But the records of the Committee of 
 Safety, and his own letters, show that he knew how to be prudent. 
 Only three days before the battle he had been made a major-general 
 by the Provincial Congress, to hold command second to Ward. His 
 
 commission had not been 
 issued, and on the day of 
 the battle he served as a 
 volunteer. But his pres- 
 ence alone, when he arrived 
 at the redoubt late in the 
 day, was everything to the 
 exhausted men there. His 
 death was regarded as a na- 
 tional calamity. 
 
 Colonel Prescott, who 
 from first to last had com- 
 manded the movement, and 
 who ordered the retreat, es- 
 y caped unhurt. But he was 
 enraged that he was obliged 
 to leave the ground which 
 he had so well maintained. 
 Joseph warren. When he returned to head- 
 
 quarters, he offered to take both sets of works again, if he might only 
 have fifteen hundred men. But General Ward very wisely refused. 
 Prescott could probably have done what he promised ; but there was 
 no military object worth the attempt. 
 
 Through that day, and afterwards, it was suggested that Ward 
 might have reenforced the working-partv more efficiently 
 
 Ward's ac- ... =* r . " _ . . J 
 
 tion re- than he did. But the criticism is unjust. It was impossi- 
 
 viewed. 
 
 ble that Ward could believe that his enemy would attack 
 the works in front and on the eastern flank only. It was entirely in 
 Gage's power to cut off the Bunker Hill party from their base by 
 landing a party on Charlestown Neck, under the protection of the 
 men-of-war. He did use the fire of the ships to enfilade the Neck, 
 and materially to retard all movement in each direction. He also 
 kept up, all day, a heavy fire on Boston Neck from his works. General 
 Ward had every reason to suppose that the British leaders would 
 thus attempt to divide his army, instead of taking the resolution 
 
1775.] RESULTS OF THE BATTLE. 405 
 
 which proved so nearly fatal to them, of attacking Prescott's works 
 in front. General Ward knew, also, what he would not tell, even 
 to save his reputation, that on the day of the battle he had, for the 
 use of his whole army, only sixty-three half-barrels of powder (sixty- 
 nine hundred pounds), hardly half a pound for every soldier in his 
 command. General Ward had been overruled, as the event has 
 proved, wisely, in the council which ordered the fortification of 
 Bunker Hill. He had himself opposed this measure, as Warren had 
 done, which had been ordered by the Committee of Safety in oppo- 
 sition to them. He now decided, and decided rightly, not to risk 
 more than a reenforcement comparatively small in the attempt to 
 hold the hill. As it was, he had men enough there, could he only 
 have supplied them more fully with ammunition. Prescott even re- 
 ported that with bayonets he should have successfully resisted the 
 final charge of the English left ; and at his instance two thousand 
 spears were at once made for the army. But all the bayonets in the 
 world would not have protected Prescott's men after the gap between 
 the redoubt and Knowlton had been passed by the English. That 
 gap was already covered by Howe's field-pieces when Prescott ordered 
 the retreat. A fair review of the day shows that that retreat was 
 oi-dered at the proper moment, not too late and not a moment too 
 early. 
 
 The loss of the Americans in this battle was one hundred and fifty 
 killed, two hundred and seventv wounded, and thirty taken 
 
 ~ . , . , , , The losses 
 
 prisoners. Gage s return of his loss was two hundred and b> the bat- 
 twenty-four killed, and eight hundred and thirty wounded. 
 According to his own statement of the English engaged about two 
 thousand men, this was more than half the attacking force. But 
 the British force was, in fact, somewhat larger than that estimate. 
 Of his total loss of one thousand and fifty-four, one hundred and fifty- 
 seven were officers. In some parts of the field the havoc was without 
 precedent. Howe is said to have exclaimed, " They may talk of their 
 Mindens and their Fontenovs, but there was no such fire there ! ' 
 
 9 
 
 The remark is true, whether Howe made it or not. And it is certain 
 that the impression made upon Howe and Clinton on that day, gov- 
 erned their lead of the British armies for the next seven vears. 
 
 */ 
 
 They were wary of leading troops against inti'enched men. 
 
 At the moment, and for many years after, the memory of Bunker 
 Hill carried with it, in the minds of New Englauders, especially of 
 those in the army, a bitter feeling of annoyance, as if ki some one had 
 blundered ; " as if a victory well earned had become a disgraceful 
 defeat. The implication was freely made that some American officers 
 misbehaved, an implication never sustained by evidence. Courts- 
 
406 
 
 BEGINNING OF THE WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. XV. 
 
 martial were held, to try some of tlie most seriously accused. Colonel 
 Callender was degraded from his command, for inadequately serving 
 the wretched artillery. But in seven years of faithful service after- 
 wards, this misused gentleman amply retrieved his reputation. From 
 the recent publication of Burgoyne's letters, we now know that the 
 English officers thought their privates misbehaved. 1 This was never 
 publicly intimated at the time, either in published dispatches, or by 
 courts of inquiry or courts-martial. The charge of cowardice made 
 by officers hot under disappointment, does not need to be challenged 
 by men proud of the English reputation for bravery. It will be re- 
 membered that the English privates were, in general, as new to actual 
 war as their enemies. The critic who reads that one company of the 
 Fifty-second Regiment had every man killed or wounded in the bat- 
 tle, will not ask many questions as to the bravery of the survivors. 
 
 As time has pnssed, and both sides of the picture have been opened 
 to examination, it has become certain that that battle was the decisive 
 battle of the war. From that moment the English generals under- 
 stood that they were contending with soldiers. 2 From that moment 
 the Home Government had really no permanent policy but in offers 
 of conciliation, more and more liberal till they granted the whole. 
 From that moment there was no possibility of a return to a colonial 
 position. And though more than seven years of battle followed be- 
 fore the last serious conflict, this battle of the beginning, the most 
 bloody of all, and the most sharply contested, has proved to be, also, 
 the most critical. 
 
 1 Bnrgoyne to Lord Rochford. He says there is a melancholy reaon for the disparity of 
 the loss of officers, that not only were they left unsupported by their men in the attack, 
 hut that "all the wounds of the officers were not received from ihe memy." He begs 
 Rochford that this shall not pass "even in a whisper" to any but the King. He says he 
 trembles as he writes. 
 
 2 "The men in all the corps having twice felt the enemy to he more formidable than they 
 expected, it will require some training under such Generals as Howe and Clinton, before 
 they can prudently be intrusted in many exploits against such odds." Burgoyne to 
 Rochford. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. 
 
 WASHINGTON APPOINTED COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. MA.IOR-GENF.RALS COMMISSIONED 
 BT CONGRESS. WASHINGTON'S ARRIVAL AT CAMHRIDGK. SCARCITY OF POWDER. 
 
 WEAKNESS OF THE AKMY. RELATIVE POSITIONS OF THE CONTENDING FORCES. 
 
 HECAI.L OK GAGE! CONDITION OF BOSTON. PROPOSED INTERVIEW BETWEEN 
 
 BUKGOYNE AND L.EE. MEASURES FOR SUPPLIES OF AMMUNITION. \AVAL 
 
 PREPARATIONS. MISREPRESENTATIONS OF THE CAUSE OF THE AMERICANS IN 
 EUROPE. BURNING OF FALMOUTH IN MAINE. CAPTURE OF AN ENGLISH VKS- 
 SEL WITH SUPPLIES. TREACHERY OF DR. BENJAMIN CHURCH. HOWE'S DIFFI- 
 CULTIES AND PROPOSALS TO THE MINISTRY. CONGRESS SUGGESTS THE DESTRUC- 
 TION OF BOSTON. DORCHESTER HEIGHTS FORTIFIED. THE TOWN COMMANDED 
 BY THE AMERICANS. EVACUATED BY THE BRITISH. THE AMERICAN ARMY 
 TAKES POSSESSION. 
 
 ON that hot Saturday in June, while the battle was fought at Bun- 
 ker Hill, the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, all un- Waf , hin g ton 
 conscious of what was passing, unanimously appointed George ^j|j er . 
 Washington, of Virginia, to be General and Commander-in- 1D - chlef 
 chief of the armies raised for the maintenance of American Liberty. 
 They appointed Artemas Ward, of Massachusetts, his First Major- 
 general, Gates, of Virginia, his Adjutant-general, with the Appoint . 
 rank of Brigadier-general, and Charles Lee, an English 
 half-pay officer, the Second Major-general. Two days after- ernls 
 ward, Schuyler and Putnam were also appointed Major-generals. 1 
 
 The nomination of Washington had been pressed upon Congress 
 by the leaders of opinion in Massachusetts, and by no man more than 
 by Warren himself, till this moment the popular leader of Massachu- 
 
 1 The following is the list of the appointments made by the Continental Congress iu 
 June : 
 
 George Washington, Esq., General and Commander-in-chief of all the forces raised or 
 to be raised for the defence of American Liberty ; Artemas Ward, Esq., First Major-general ; 
 Charles Lee, Esq., Second Major-general ; Philip Schuyler, Esq., Third Major-general ; 
 Israel Putnam, Esq., Fourth Major-general ; Seth Pomerov, Esq., First Brigadier-general ; 
 Hichard Montgomery, Esq., Second Brigsidier-peneral ; David Wooster, Esq., Third Brijja- 
 dier-general ; William Heath, Esq., Fourth Brigadier-general ; Joseph Spencer, Esq., Fifth 
 Brigadier-generni ; John Thomas, Esq., Sixth Brigadier-general ; John Sullivan, Esq., 
 Seventh Brigadier-general; Nathanael Greene, Esq., Eighth Brigadier-general; Horatio 
 Gates, Esq., Adjutant-general, with the rank of Brigadier-general. 
 
408 
 
 THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. 
 
 [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 setts. On the day, and perhaps at the hour, when the direction of 
 the war passed from his hands, his great successor was appointed. 
 The nomination of Ward, 1 who was actually in command, as the sec- 
 ond general, was almost a matter of course. The other appointments 
 of this day, those of Gates and Lee, were suggested by the natural 
 feeling that the great deficiency of the national army would be mili- 
 tary skill. Here were two Englishmen, who had attained a certain 
 rank in the English army. They never hesitated about proclaiming 
 their own merits. And the appointments had at the moment the ad- 
 vantage that they gave no preeminence to one colony over another. 
 
 They were well 
 received by the 
 people; but, in 
 the end, both 
 appointments 
 proved signally 
 un fortunate, 
 and intensified 
 the national dis- 
 like of every- 
 thing English. 
 Washington 
 and Gates pro- 
 ceeded almost 
 immediately to 
 Cambridge. At 
 New York they 
 met the news 
 of the battle of 
 Bunker Hill. 
 A well authen- 
 
 ticated anecdote says that Washington expressed his joy at learning 
 that the American soldiers had stood as firmly as they did. 
 But he was still six days from the army, and the danger 
 that the English officers might follow up their success was 
 imminent. He, his aid, Mifflin, and his military secretary, Joseph 
 Reed, with General Lee, travelled together. The eagerness of the 
 towns through which they passed to receive the little party with 
 honor, somewhat delayed their progress. But on Sunday noon, the 
 
 - It is one of the mo*t pathetic bits of satire in American history, that the name of the 
 first commander of the Continental army should now be remembered by nine people in ten, 
 only as that of an imagined humorist, half philosopher, half showman. Even the mis- 
 spelling " Artemus " of the showman will be found in Judge Marshall's reference to the 
 Major-general. 
 
 House of the President of Harvard College. Washington's first Cambridge 
 
 Headquarters. 
 
 I****" 
 
1775.] WASHINGTON TAKES COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 409 
 
 2d of July, 1 they arrived at Cambridge, where they were received 
 for a few days in the house of Langdon, the president of H isarr iviii 
 the college. On the 4th of July, with appropriate cere- ^, a s f s "ire P " 
 mony, his commission was read in the presence of a detach- comiuana 
 ment of the army, and of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, 
 and he assumed the command. Nothing is more interesting than 
 the careful deference with which, all along, he treated the local au- 
 thority, such as it was, and, on the other hand, the equal deference 
 with which the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts regarded his 
 wishes. They had carried o~n their affairs without any chief long 
 enough to feel the need of one in war. He was too wise to trespass, 
 in the least, on an authority which was so freely conceded. He was 
 somewhat disappointed at the lack of military precision condition of 
 which he found in the army that had been called into exist- an 
 ence in a little more than two months, and was greatly alarmed phes ' 
 at the deficient supply of what came to be called in correspondence 
 " a necessary article." By this circumlocution men tried to conceal the 
 fact that powder hardly existed in the thirteen States in sufficient 
 quantity for the use of one general action. 2 Even the material for 
 manufacture could not be obtained in large quantities. Thus the 
 apothecaries' shops in New York were searched for saltpetre, and, in 
 the correspondence of the leaders of the time, the discovery of a hun- 
 dred pounds of that article is spoken of as if it were indeed a price- 
 less treasure. 
 
 The three other appointments made on the day with Washington's 
 were not unfavorably received in the army ; but the selec- 
 tion of officers afterward made was not such as altogether to pointmenu 
 satisfy either him or the officers of highest rank who were ac- 
 tually in the field. In addition to his other difficulties, Washington had 
 the care of persuading officers whom he wanted to remain in service, 
 and of inducing Congress to revise their estimate of others. He ap- 
 pointed Joseph Trumbull, of Connecticut, Commissary -general, and 
 named John Trumbull one of his aids. He afterwards recommended 
 Henry Knox to the command of the artillery. After-experience indi- 
 cated the profound wisdom of these appointments. In one word, it 
 may be said that Washington instantly acquired the enthusiastic 
 
 1 Not the 3d, as by an oversight Washington himself said in the letter usually cited. 
 
 2 At the battle of Bueua Vista, in the Mexican war, 300,000 rouuds of ammunition for 
 musketry were used by the American army, and 3,750 pounds of powder by the cannon. 
 This is a consumption of four tons for the battle, in which 5,000 Americans engaged 20,000 
 Mexicans. Colonel Baylor, of the American army, finds on observation of the war of the 
 Rebellion, that the average use of a cannon in position is forty-two rounds a day, for a 
 battle. The amount of powder is about one quarter the weight of the ball, in artillery. 
 Washington's stock on the 3d of August was 9,937 Ibs., a little less than five tons. 
 
410 
 
 THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. 
 
 [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 love of New England, though the men of New England were sup- 
 posed to be so widely unlike his own Virginians ; and that love he 
 never lost. 
 
 For many weeks, all military men in the American army lived in 
 expectation, it would be fair to say in dread, of an at- 
 
 N umbers of . . -., .. . _. 
 
 the opposing tack iroin the English lines. A return or the number of 
 
 the army, which Washington obtained in the week after he 
 
 arrived, showed a total of sixteen thousand seven hundred and sev- 
 
 Washington Elm, Cambridge. 1 
 
 enty-one New Englanders, 2 of whom nearly two thousand were sick, 
 furlonghed, or absent on duty. A council of the American generals, 
 held on the 9th, determined that at least twenty-two thousand men 
 were needed to defend the lines. Their estimate of the force of the 
 English, including their sailors and marines, was eleven thousand five 
 hundred, which has proved to be correct. The English generals could 
 make their choice of Charlestown Neck, or Boston Neck, for a place 
 of egress, if they chose to attack the American lines. These extremi- 
 
 1 This tree, under which Washington's commission was read to the army, is still stand- 
 inp. 
 
 2 From Massachusetts, 11,689; from Connecticut, 2,333; from Rhode Island, 1,085; 
 from New Hampshire, 1,664. 
 
1775.] RECALL OP GENERAL GAGE. 411 
 
 ties of what may be called the American right and left wing, are 
 many miles from each other, by circuitous routes, separated also 
 by Charles River, over which the Americans had but one 
 
 ,., T i it i 11 Their rela- 
 
 poor bridge. It was clear, therefore, that in any attack the tiveposi- 
 Arnerican army might be outnumbered. Washington had, 
 however, the resource of which he availed himself when he needed 
 of calling in the minute-men from the neighboring towns, who 
 were always ready for duty, and moved with a promptness worthy 
 of their name. 1 
 
 But the English generals made no movement, not even a menace. 
 The truth was, their loss at Bunker Hill had been more severe than 
 the Americans at first suspected. As has been seen, it had affected the 
 morale of their men, and made the commanding officers much more 
 cautious. In the heat of the summer the wounded fared ill. The 
 report from England, of the way in which the news of Lexington and 
 Concord was received, was not encouraging to men in command. Gage 
 was removed from his bed of thorns, and recalled to England 
 by a despatch of August 2d. He was virtually disgraced, and 
 no other command was ever offered to him. The command command of 
 of the army was given to Howe, and was retained by him 
 for three years, when he in turn was removed. The departure of 
 Gage from Boston, in October, was regarded by the patriots as in 
 some sort a victory. " Through this pane of glass," wrote Josiah 
 Quincy, with a diamond, on his window, "I saw Gen. Gage sail out of 
 the harbor of Boston." 
 
 The government were certainly justified in removing Gage. They 
 never had any reason for appointing him, but that he had served in 
 America, and that he had an American wife. General Burgoyne 
 charges on this handsome wife the unintentional communication of 
 all Gage's secrets to the enemy. 
 
 Boston suffered also, all through the summer, from the lack of fresh 
 provisions. In August, Gage was willing enough to renew the 
 arrangements which he had quashed before, and to permit the 
 
 egress of the inhabitants. They were sent out, day after 
 day, by way of Winnisimet, and on their arrival, became, in manv in- 
 stances, a charge on the generous charity of the people of the country 
 towns. While the population diminished, death was as frequent as 
 it had ever been in the most populous days of Boston. A well in- 
 formed native of the city says that the reinforcements received by 
 
 1 This recourse was so considerable, that Hilliard d'Auberteuil, a French author of 
 matchless absurdity, coolly doubles Washington's force in his statements, saying, simply, 
 that one half was not kept in the field, but was occupied in cultivating the land ! He thus 
 gives Washington, what perhaps he would have been glad to have, an army of CO.OOO. lu 
 similar style he gives Howe 50,000 in Boston. 
 
412 
 
 THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. 
 
 [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 Mtedto 
 
 the army, before September, had not made up the losses caused by 
 battle and disease. 
 
 Such were the reasons, so far as we can state them, why the English 
 officers in command did not move upon Washington's army at the ter- 
 rible period when it had not powder enough even for a few hours' 
 fighting. The news of Gage's recall was received early in September. 
 In the despatches then sent, Lord Dartmouth, Secretary for the Colo- 
 nies, distinctly intimated that it would be better to make 
 no further inroads into the country. He suggested that it 
 would be better to leave Boston altogether, and take post at 
 New York. If this were impossible, he asked if the army could not 
 be divided between the ports of Halifax and Quebec. 
 
 To this despatch Howe replied, on the 2d of October, that nothing 
 could be gained, except reputation, by a march into the interior. He 
 
 considered that 
 New York should 
 be taken and held ; 
 that the "founda- 
 tion of the war 
 should be laid " by 
 having troops in 
 force there, large 
 magazines and 
 stores, and the 
 whole well fortified 
 and secured. He 
 savs that as Castle 
 
 
 
 William in Boston 
 Harbor is of no use 
 to him, he had de- 
 stroyed the shore 
 batter}', and mined 
 the fort so as to de- 
 stroy it when Bos- 
 ton should be evac- 
 uated. He also ad- 
 vised the seizing of 
 the island of Rhode Island. Nothing is now said of merely reducing 
 a rebellion. It is the "foundation of war" which is to be laid. Nor 
 is a word now said about punishing Boston for its factious persistency, 
 or reducing New England, as an example to the rest. The drift of the 
 letter is, that it will be better to operate where there is less opposi- 
 tion. In truth, New England, by her unyielding firmness in the 
 
 General Howe. 
 
1775.] THE SUPPLY OF AMMUNITION. 413 
 
 beginning of the war, earned for herself the exemption, almost com- 
 plete, from its presence, which she enjoyed for the last six years be- 
 fore the peace. The pressure of an enemy's army was to be chiefly 
 felt in those very regions which the Crown officers thought at first least 
 infected by the contagion of rebellion. 
 
 Soon after General Lee arrived at the American camp, from Vir- 
 ginia, General Burgoyne, who had served with him in the 
 English army, wrote him a long letter from Boston, such as interview 
 he was fond of writing. He proposed an interview at an inn Burgovue 
 on "Boston Neck," 1 with the hope of bringing about some 
 adjustment of grievances. He did not misapprehend his man. They 
 were men of much the same type, conceited and arrogant, with 
 little skill in words, but thinking they had much, and with far less 
 skill in arms than in words. Lee sent Burgoyne's letter to the Pro- 
 vincial Congress of Massachusetts, and asked their instructions, say- 
 ing, at the same time, that he should wish some American gentlemen 
 to accompany him to the interview. The Congress consented, and 
 appointed Elbridge Gerry to accompany Lee ; but the language of 
 their reply to him was so cool that he abandoned the project. 
 
 All through this period of apparent quiet, the utmost efforts were 
 made in every quarter, by the American authorities, to provide pow- 
 der, lead, flints, clothing, tents, and other material for a campaign. 
 Even the smallest quantity of powder or of saltpetre was begged for. 
 General Cooke, of Rhode Island, Governor Trumbull, of 
 Connecticut, Robert Livingston, of New York, and Frank- tion of am- 
 
 _**' COP r-n -i iii munition. 
 
 lin, now acting on the Committee of Safety in 1 hila<lelphia, 
 appear prominent among those most active. Livingston established 
 a powder-mill, and did it so secretly that the English agent who had 
 charge of the government stock of saltpetre was in ignorance of 
 its existence till a bold raid on his stores emptied them, and taught 
 him its value. The Committee of Safety in Georgia got hold of a 
 supply of powder intended for the Florida Indians. A bold push into 
 the Gulf of Mexico brought back a hundred barrels from a trading 
 vessel there. An attack on Bermuda brought off a considerable 
 quantity from that island. Far away, in Orleans, in Louisiana, 
 Oliver Pollock, an American citizen, was making arrangements to 
 send the precious commodity up to Pittsburg by the river. So 
 soon as the English cruisers were withdrawn in the autumn, Governor 
 Cooke sent a fast sailing vessel of eighty tons to Bordeaux, to pur- 
 chase powder on the account "of the Continent." By this proud 
 name, which should never have been given up, was the new nation 
 
 1 The inn was the " George." It was buriied before the evacuation, but reappeared as 
 the " George Washington." 
 
414 THE SIKGE OF BOSTON. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 beginning to call itself. Lead was obtained from the mines of Con- 
 necticut, wliich had been little worked in times of peace. 
 
 Meanwhile, and partly in connection with this terrible necessity, a, 
 little navy was coming into existence. As early as the 5th 
 
 The genii of -~L J " . 
 
 mi Auicri- ot May the people ot ^c\v Bedford and Dartmouth, in Buz- 
 
 can navy. , T 
 
 znrus Bay, southwest of Cape Cod, indignant at the in- 
 cursions of the Falcon, one of the British sloops of war, fitted out 
 a vessel with which they attacked and recaptured one of her prizes, 
 with fifteen prisoners, in the harbor where she had taken refuge in 
 Martha's Vineyard. This was the first naval victory of the war. 
 
 On the l:Mi of June a plan was formed in Machias, in Maine, for 
 taking the Margoretta^ an armed sloop in the service of the Crown, 
 then lying at that port. This scheme was carried out with success ; 
 the Margaretta^ another King's sloop, and a sloop that was loading 
 with lumber under her protection, being taken. Her captain and one 
 of her crew were killed, and five wounded. The armament of the 
 Mnrgaretta was then transferred to another vessel, which was placed 
 under the command of Jeremiah O'Brien. He was soon afterwards 
 made marine captain by the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, 
 and sent to intercept vessels bringing supplies to the troops in Boston. 
 Many other affairs similar to that in which the Margaretta was cap- 
 tured took place on various parts of the coast. So soon as Washing- 
 ton's attention was called to the possibility of cutting off the supply 
 vessels of the English, as they entered Massachusetts Bay, he com- 
 missioned officers in command of vessels, to take such supplies. 1 
 Their instructions were to avoid fighting, even if they were of equal 
 force with their enemy, the object being to seize supplies. The 
 Massachusetts Provincial Congress at once legalized such captures. 
 Washington supplied armaments and money from the Continental 
 treasury, and, with little delay, six small vessels were commissioned, 
 the Lynchi Franklin, Lee, Warren, Washington, and Harrison. 
 Rhode Island had at sea a vessel under Whipple, who went as far 
 as Bermuda, where he found the inhabitants friendly to the Ameri- 
 can cause, but terrified by Gage's threats of vengeance for the loss of 
 the powder stored there. Connecticut had a small vessel in service 
 also. 
 
 A petty war on sheep and oxen on the coasts was kept up by the 
 smaller British vessels, that Boston might be provisioned. Yet Gage 
 hardly brought in more animals by such raids, which embittered 
 Destitution a ^' tne seaboard against him, than he had permitted the 
 at Boston. Americans to carry off from under his own eyes in Boston 
 Bay. So severe was the destitution of his troops that on the 4th 
 1 The first of these commissioiis dated September 2, 1775. 
 
1775.] 
 
 CONDITION OF THE TWO ARMIES. 
 
 415 
 
 of September, after the royal cruisers had brought in more than a 
 thousand sheep and oxen, the cattle brought, at a public sale in Bos- 
 ton, prices ranging from fifteen to thirty-four pounds, and the sheep 
 thirty shillings and upward. 1 
 
 While the English army was thus confined, and reduced by sick- 
 ness, the forces under Washington were steadily enlarging. Re- 
 cruiting officers were bringing up the numbers of the regiments more 
 nearly to the complement, and furloughs were granted more charily. 
 
 The Craigie House, Washington's Headquarters at Cambridge. 
 
 A return of August 19th shows a total on paper of 10,060, an in- 
 crease of 2,390, in six weeks since Washington took the command 
 Among the recruits were several companies of riflemen from Vir- 
 ginia, one of them under the command of Captain Daniel Morgan, 
 who at the news of the battle of Bunker Hill had started on the 
 long march to Boston. These skilful marksmen, who, while rapidly 
 advancing, could hit a target of seven inches at a distance of two 
 hundred and fifty yards, were posted along the lines and were espe- 
 cially dreaded by the enemy. But the American army, as well as the 
 
 1 A camp song of the period asks : 
 
 " And what have you got, by all your deigning, 
 But a town without dinner to sit down and dine in ? " 
 
416 THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 English, suffered from sickness. Thus, at the end of August, more 
 than a quarter of the Connecticut contingent were returned as sick 
 and unfit for active service. 
 
 With the first moment of relief from the terrible lack of powder, 
 
 Washington displayed that spirit of enterprise which was 
 
 pushes on an essential trait of his character. He advanced his works 
 
 his works. 
 
 on his extreme left by fortifying Ploughed Hill ; though he 
 supposed this might bring on an action, as the fortifying of Bunker 
 Hill had done. The enemy did not move, however. Indeed, their 
 only victory of the summer was an extraordinary paper victory. In 
 two issues of the " Public Advertiser " in London, full detailed ac- 
 counts were published of an attack led by General Howe in person, 
 on the rebel works in Roxbury. These works were stormed and 
 taken, and Generals Putnam and Lee were made prisonei-s, with 
 twenty-five hundred of inferior rank. The English loss in this wholly 
 fictitious victory was one hundred and fifty killed. For all this detail 
 there was not the slightest foundation. Later intelligence, of course, 
 showed that the readers of London had been imposed upon. It is 
 but one of many such stories, which we must pass without mention, 
 although they engaged public attention in their day, and had their 
 share in influencing the opinion of the world. On the Continent 
 such fictions were not so easily exposed as in England. Their cir- 
 culation resulted in the most extraordinary notions of the contest, 
 absurd to any well-informed person, but not the less received be- 
 cause absurd. Such notions and the fictions from which they are 
 formed, are not yet wholly eradicated from the popular impressions 
 of Europe. 1 
 
 Until October, the English naval force, under Admiral Graves, had 
 made no attack upon any point on the coast, except for the 
 
 English at- . . _ , " . . . . . 
 
 taok on seizing of sheep or oxen for the army. But in that month, 
 Graves, having consulted with Gage, before he left, sent the 
 Canceau, Captain Mowatt, and an armed transport, the Cat, with two 
 other vessels, to destroy Cape Ann (by which Gloucester is meant) 
 and Falmouth, now Portland, in Maine. In Howe's despatch to the 
 ministry, describing the result, he seems to wish to throw the re- 
 sponsibility upon Graves. The only excuse offered for burning the 
 towns is, that they were distinguished for their opposition to Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The selectmen of Falmouth speak of the affair as Captain Mow- 
 
 1 No more ridiculous illustrations of such exaggerations can be found than in Hilliard 
 d'Auberteuirs Essays, already alluded to. Under the pen of this well-meaning writer, the 
 forests of America, being as old as she is, furnish no wood young enough for the building 
 of large ships ! Charles Lee appears as the orator whose eloquence created the Revolution, 
 which he then passed to Washington's more prudent hand. 
 
1775.] THE BURNING OF FALMOUTH. 417 
 
 att's personal retaliation on them, because he had been seized by 
 some provincial troops soon after the battle of Lexington. He had 
 been released at that time, but the town had refused to give up their 
 guns or to send away the troops. Notice had afterwards been sent to 
 Falmouth, that unless they permitted Captain Coulson, who had a 
 ship there, to sail for England, their town should be "beat about their 
 ears." This threat was accomplished by burning it on the 17th of 
 October. Captain Mowatt offered at the last to spare it if the town 
 would give up their cannons, small arms, and ammunition. But this 
 was refused. One hundred and fifty houses were burned, 1 with all 
 the churches and other public buildings. 
 
 This attack on an open town which offered and could offer no re- 
 sistance, was the real declaration of war by England against America. 
 Up to this time there had been a lingering notion among the Ameri- 
 cans that the army in Boston was the objective, and that war existed 
 only in Boston Bay. The royal commanders, not unnaturally, did 
 not choose to be confined by any such understanding. Finding no 
 enemy in arms anywhere else, they had nothing to attack but de- 
 fenceless towns. General Greene says, in a letter from Cambridge of 
 this date, " we are at loggerheads here, but at other places only spar- 
 ring." The conflagration at Falmouth showed the country that war 
 was war, lawless and cruel. The coi-respondence and journals of 
 the time all show that in this event a step and a long step was taken. 
 So much further was reconciliation put out of the question. 
 
 The destruction of Falmouth proved the imperative necessitv of 
 measures to meet the enemy on the sea as well as on the Be( ,i ni ij n g f 
 land. Connecticut and Rhode Island had been peculiarly auaT y- 
 exposed, during the autumn, to incursions from the enemy. It was 
 the sufferings of their people, probably, that moved the delegates of 
 the latter province in Congress to suggest the formation of a navy, of 
 which Esek Hopkins was appointed commodore. The frigate Rose, 
 under the command of Captain Wallace, was, with a number of other 
 vessels, stationed along the southern coast of New England, and their 
 depredations upon the people were for months unceasing. Newport 
 was seriously threatened in October, and many of her people fled with 
 their household property to the surrounding country in the midst of 
 a violent storm. Wallace consented to spare the town only on con- 
 dition of being supplied with fresh pi'ovisions. Bristol fared even 
 worse, for the town was bombarded, and many houses destroyed. At 
 Jamestown, on the island of Conanicut, opposite Newport, a force 
 landed in December, burnt houses and barns, plundered the people, 
 and carried off all their live stock. Governor Cooke called out all the 
 
 1 Howe, in his despatch to England, says five hundred. 
 VOL. in. 27 
 
418 THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. [CiiAi-. XVI. 
 
 minute men of the province, and asked of the commander-in-chief 
 that a regiment of the line might be sent for its protection. The 
 request was complied with, though it came at that critical moment 
 when Washington was reorganizing the army around Boston, and not 
 long after the troops from Connecticut, whose term of enlistment had 
 expired, were in a state of mutiny. General Lee was sent to New- 
 port at the head of eight hundred men. 1 He so disposed them as to 
 give protection to the inhabitants in that neighborhood ; and he sup- 
 pressed with a strong hand those among the Tories who encouraged 
 the enemy and gave information which made the depredations upon 
 their neighbors easy, and at the same time insured their own pro- 
 tection. 
 
 The equipment of the little fleet of the New England colonies was 
 slow, and its operations were insignificant, till, late in November, by 
 a fortunate stroke, Manly, in the Lee, took the brigantine Nancy, 
 bound from London, with military stores, which were most acceptable. 
 "Two thousand muskets," "one hundred and five thousand flints," 
 " sixty reams of cartridge-paper," thirty-one tons of musket-shot," 
 "three thousand round-shot for 12-pounders, four thousand for 6- 
 pounders." Such were some of the heads of the invoice of her stores 
 as it opened before the delighted eyes of the general officers and their 
 hard-pressed chief of engineers, who not long before had prepared a 
 list, not dissimilar, of the necessities of the army. For the rest, the 
 naval service was not yet organized. Washington says, bitterly, in a 
 private letter, in November, " Our privateersmen go on at the old 
 rate, mutinying if they cannot do as they please." Such has 
 proved to be the habit of privateersmen in most wars. 
 
 1 Lee exacted an oath from the Tories, which Washington sent to Hancock as " a speci- 
 men of his abilities in th;it \v:iy." This " irou-clad " oath, Arnold (History of Rhode Isl- 
 and) gives in full, ns follows : 
 
 " I, John Bours, here, in the presence of Almighty God, as I hope for ease, honor, and 
 comfort in this world, and happiness in the workl to come, most earnestly, devoutly, and 
 religiously swear, neither directly nor indirectly to assist the wicked instruments of minis- 
 terial tyranny and villany, commonlv called the Kind's troops and navy, by furnishing them 
 witli provisions or refreshments of any kind, unless authorized by the Continental Congress 
 or the Legislature, as at present established in this particular colony of Rhode Island. I do 
 also swear by the same tremendous and Almighty God, that I will neither directly nor indi- 
 rectly convey any intelligence, nor give anv advice to the aforesaid enemies so described, and 
 that I pledge myself, if I should, by any accident, get the knowledge of such treason, to in- 
 form immediately the Committee of Safety. And as it is justly allowed, that when the 
 *acred rights and liberties of a nation are invaded, neutrality is not less base and criminal 
 than open and avowed hostility, I do further swear and pledge myself, :is I hope for eternal 
 salvation, that I will, whenever culled upon by the voice of the Continental Congress, or 
 that of the Legislature of this particular colony, under their authority, take arms and sub- 
 ject myself to military discipline in defence of the common rights and liberties of America. 
 So help me God. Sworn ut Newport, December 25, 1775. 
 
 "JOHN BOURSE." 
 
1775.] TREACHERY OF DR. CHURCH. 419 
 
 The attention and anxiety of the army, and of the Continental 
 Congress, as well as the Congress of Massachusetts, were excited in 
 the autumn by the discovery that Dr. Benjamin Church, a member 
 of the House in Massachusetts, was communicating secretly with his 
 brother-in-law in Boston. Church had been a prominent patriot, 
 the friend of Warren and of the other Boston leaders. On the dis- 
 covery of a letter in cipher from him to his brother-in-law, he was 
 arrested. The letter was deciphered, and proved to contain accounts 
 of the force of the Americans, with disparaging allusions to their 
 commanders. Church was expelled from the Massachusetts Assem- 
 bly. In his defence he said the letter was written not long after the 
 battle at Bunker Hill. " Was there a man," he said, " who church - 8 
 regarded his country, who would not then have sacrificed treacherv - 
 his life to obtain a tolerable accommodation ? " He called attention 
 to his exaggeration of the resources of the American army, and af- 
 fected to have carried on the correspondence in the true interest of the 
 country. But it was clear enough that his conception of that interest 
 was not that of men who were now committed to open war. The 
 Continental Congress took his case as their own, and put him in close 
 confinement. 1 
 
 The Continental Congress was still urging an attack upon Boston, 
 ** to break up the nest there," as Washington says. He held a coun- 
 cil of general officers on the 18th of October, to consider the subject. 
 They decided unanimously that such an attack was impracticable. 
 Meanwhile the army itself was near its end. The enlistments did 
 not hold the men, except in a few instances, beyond the close of the 
 year. A committee, consisting of Franklin, Lynch, and Harrison, 
 came from Philadelphia to Cambridge, to make the best arrangements 
 for its renewal. But this renewal was attended with end- condition of 
 less care and anxiety for all parties concerned. The orig- i 
 inal idea, to make an army in which there should be no 
 regard to colonial lines, proved impracticable. Even if the officers 
 assented, the men would not enlist unless they knew who was to com- 
 mand them. The abolition of the old colonial systems, which gave 
 small regiments in some colonies and large ones in others, made 
 another difficulty. A general order for the enlistment of the new 
 army was issued as early as October 22d, but on the 28th of November 
 only 3,500 men had enlisted on " the new establishment," as it was 
 called. The change enabled the generals to drop officers of the lower 
 grades, who had in any way forfeited confidence, and in the end it 
 greatly improved the condition of the army. Yet to disband one 
 
 1 He remained in prison for some months, and was then permitted to sail for the West 
 Indies. The vessel in which he took ] assage was never heard of afterward. 
 
420 
 
 THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. 
 
 [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 Union Flag. 
 
 army and recruit another in the face of an enemy, was, as Washing- 
 ton often said, a matter for the most serious anxiety. Changes, how- 
 ever, were absolutely necessary, and a great point was gained when, 
 by the first of the year, the reorganization was complete, though the 
 army was reduced in numbers. 
 
 " The day [January 2, 1776] which gave being to the new army," 
 The Amen- Washington wrote to Reed, " but before the proclamation 
 can Flag. canie to hand, we had hoisted the Union Flag, in compli- 
 ment to the United Colonies.'" It happened that the King's speech 
 
 had just been received in Boston, and copies of it 
 were sent out to the Am'erican camp. The raising 
 of this flag, and the discharge of thirteen guns 
 that saluted it, were, not unnaturally, supposed 
 by the British officers to be a token of rejoicing 
 at the King's speech ; for the flag itself, though 
 it contained the thirteen stripes emblematic of the 
 thirteen colonies, still retained the union of the 
 British standard, the Crosses of St. George and 
 St. Andrew. The Americans, when they leai*ned 
 of the misunderstanding of the English, indig- 
 nantly made a bonfire of the royal speech, and it was in allusion to 
 this incident that Washington wrote to Reed the words we have just 
 quoted. 
 
 Previous to this time there had been no national flags. "Union 
 Flags," as they were called, were sometimes used, but they were sim- 
 ply the British Standard, with the legend, "Liberty and Property," 
 or " Liberty and Union," inscribed upon the field. It is not certain 
 that there was any American flag displayed at the battle of Bunker 
 Hill, though tradition says that one floated over Prescott's redoubt 
 emblazoned with the words " Come if you Dare ! " 1 A month after 
 the battle, however, when the Declaration of the Continental Con- 
 gress, setting forth the causes and necessity of 
 taking up arms, was publicly read in the camp 
 on Prospect Hill, a red flag, sent from Connecti- 
 cut to General Putnam, was raised, on which 
 were inscribed the words, " Qui transtulit, sus- 
 tinet," 2 and "An Appeal to Heaven." The flag 
 of Massachusetts was white, with a pine tree in 
 the centre, also bearing the motto, "An Appeal 
 to Heaven," words taken from the closing paragraph of the " Address 
 of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts to their brethren in Great 
 
 1 Frothingham's History of the Sieye of Boston. 
 
 2 This is the motto of Connecticut. 
 
 Pine Tree Flag. 
 
1775.] CRITICAL CONDITION OF GENERAL HOWE. 421 
 
 Britain." This flag was on all the floating batteries, was borne by New 
 
 Hampshire as well as Massachusetts regiments, and was suggested 
 
 in October by Reed as the flag of all naval vessels. A blue flag with 
 
 a white crescent was raised over the fortifications in South Carolina 
 
 the same year, and the first naval flag was yellow, with a rattlesnake 
 
 in the act of striking, and beneath, the motto, u Don't tread on me ! " 
 
 But the first recognized Continental standard was 
 
 that alluded to by Washington in his letter to 
 
 Reed, as raised in the camp around Boston on the 
 
 2d of January, 1776. This was superseded by a 
 
 resolution of Congress, on the 14th of June, 1777, 
 
 declaring " that the flag of the thirteen United 
 
 Colonies be thirteen stripes, alternate red and Rattiesn.ke Fi e . 
 
 white, and the union be thirteen stars, white in 
 
 a blue field, representing a new constellation." With the addition 
 
 of stars, this has continued to be the national standard. 
 
 But General Howe, shut up in Boston, was in a condition even more 
 critical than that which gave Washington so much anx- Howe!g con . 
 iety. It was easy enough to say in England that he had com- dltlon - 
 mand of the sea. But, in truth, the naval force was crippled, or the 
 officers said it was, for want of seamen ; and Howe writes earnestly 
 that more may be sent out. So weak was it, that he could not even 
 provision his little army from the raids on the shores of a continent 
 which his vessels should -have commanded for a thousand miles. 
 There was also a serious misunderstanding between Howe and Ad- 
 miral Graves. Provisions of every kind, not only salt meats and 
 flour, but corn, butter, potatoes, and eggs, were shipped to Howe from 
 England and Ireland, sometimes, alas ! to fall into the hands of the 
 insignificant American cruisers in Boston Bay. Even live oxen, sheep, 
 and hogs were sent from England in great numbers. But the vessels 
 met bad weather at the outset. An exaggerated account, published in 
 English journals at the time, says the English channel was covered 
 with the bodies of sheep which had been thrown overboard. It is now 
 known that not one animal from this extraordinary shipment ever ar- 
 rived in Boston. That the Government made it, was a concession 
 that their cause was desperate. How could they expect to regain a 
 continent on which a little army of ten thousand men could not find 
 enough provisions to keep them alive? 
 
 At this period public opinion continued to declare itself in England 
 bv the generous offerings of private subscriptions, either to 
 
 J , , r English aid 
 
 solace the army by national sympathy, or to rebuke the to Howe's 
 
 Government by charities to those whom it was oppressing. 
 
 "The King's friends," through all England, were not satisfied with 
 
422 THK SIEGE OF BOSTON. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 addresses formally presented, and subscribed liberally for comforts to 
 be sent to the soldiers and sailors in Boston. On the other hand, when 
 the news of the repulse at Lexington was received in England, friends 
 of America placed one hundred pounds in Franklin's hands for the 
 widows and orphans of the men killed by the troops that day. After- 
 wards, even to the end of the war, money was thus raised by subscrip- 
 tion for American prisoners. 
 
 General Howe found difficulty even in providing barracks for his 
 troops for the winter season. In summer many of them were en- 
 camped on Boston Common and on Bunker Hill. On the 26th of 
 November, he wrote a despatch to Lord Dartmouth, explaining that 
 he must winter in Boston, because he had not transports sufficient to 
 move the force, as Dartmouth had suggested. For this purpose, he 
 supposed that 35,000 tons of shipping were needed, and the whole 
 force at his command was not 26,000 tons. Unwillingly, therefore, 
 he stayed through the winter. He pulled down one meeting-house 
 for fuel. He even mined coal in Cape Breton for the use of his army 
 in Boston. As late as the 27th of November, some of his regiments 
 were still under canvas. At this period he sent out to the Americans 
 three hundred more of their countrymen, mostly women and children. 
 These were provided for in Hampshire County, in western Massachu- 
 setts. 
 
 To amuse the officers and men, theatrical entertainments, almost 
 Amuse- f r ^ ne ^ rs ^ time in Puritan Boston, were given in Faneuil 
 
 Bo"ton fthe Hall. Up to this time General Burgoyne's reputation had 
 garrison. \)Qen that of a man of letters rather than a soldier. Indeed, 
 his military fame rested on a success in Portugal which, according to 
 modern notions of war, can scarcely be called a skirmish. For the 
 present purpose Burgoyne wrote a little play called "The Siege of 
 Boston." While the play went on, a sergeant rushed upon the 
 scenes, and announced that the Yankees were on Bunker Hill. The 
 audience laughed, regarding the announcement as a part of the per- 
 formance. But in a moment more the officers were ordered by Gen- 
 eral Howe to repair to their posts, and the audience broke up in the 
 utmost confusion and alarm. One of Knowlton's Connecticut com- 
 panies, by a bold raid, had crossed the Neck and had fired the bakery 
 of the English contingent at Charlestown. In the midst of the sever- 
 ities of the campaign and the summer, Howe reports, with just pride, 
 that he had lost but thirty-three men by desertion, in seven months 
 after the battle of Lexington. 1 Burgoyne gave up his literary and 
 
 1 This report gives a good test of the accuracy of our materials for history. It would 
 not be difficult, from the American reports, to say at what dates most of the>e men de- 
 serted. Indeed, we have the accounts which many of them brought in. At a later period 
 the desertions from the English force weakened it sorely. 
 
1775.] AN ATTACK SUGGESTED. 423 
 
 military duties for the moment, and returned to England at the end 
 of November. He had been six months in Boston, and had not yet 
 made " elbow-room." 
 
 In a despatch of this date, General Howe confirms the ministry in 
 a plan they had already determined on, for raising mercena- Gerniim 
 ries in Hanover and Hesse. He says that the only recruits SrTheEilg'- 
 they can send from Great Britain will be men of the worst llshan "- v - 
 kind. Six or seven thousand will be needed, " who will be Irish 
 Roman Catholics, certain to desert if put to hard work, and, from 
 their ignorance of arms, not entitled to the smallest confidence as 
 soldiers." To obviate this difficulty, lie suggests incorporating with 
 each English regiment one hundred trained soldiers from Hanover or 
 from Hesse. Such were the reasons for Howe's inactivity during the 
 critical period when Washington was renewing his army. The loss 
 of the storeship Nancy brought another source of anxiety, which hung 
 on him for three months more. 
 
 On the 3d of December, in a letter to Lord Dartmouth, he says : 
 " The brigantine Nancy has been taken with four thousand 
 stand of arms. 1 The circumstance is unfortunate, as it puts foran attack 
 
 , 'iii r i /? on Boston 
 
 in the enemy s hands the means of setting the town on tire, as 
 the vessel contains carcasses and other materials of like nature." 
 Howe wrote as a soldier, and contemplated such a mode of attack as 
 it might have been his duty to pursue under like circumstances. Had 
 Washington acted only as a soldier, he would very probably have fired 
 the town. The policy of doing so was openly considered in the Amer- 
 ican councils. On the 22d of December, the Continental Congress 
 resolved, " That if General Washington and his council of war should 
 be of opinion that a successful attack may be made on the troops in 
 Boston, he do it in any manner he may think expedient, notwithstand- 
 ing the town and property in it may be destroyed." In communi- 
 cating this resolve, President Hancock wrote : " You will notice the 
 resolution relative to an attack upon Boston. This passed after a 
 most serious debate in a committee of the whole house, and the exe- 
 cution was referred to you. May God crown your attempt with suc- 
 cess. I most heartily wish it, though individually I may be the great- 
 est sufferer." 
 
 But Washington's intention was to cross on the ice, so soon as the 
 Charles River, and what was known as the "Back Bay," 2 
 should freeze. In most winters, this bay, at least, was frozen xerkiaid 
 over. But this winter proved unusually mild, and no such 
 opportunity offered itself until the middle of February. Washington 
 then called a council of war, as was the fashion in all armies at 
 
 1 An over-statement, as the reader has seen. 
 a Now covered with streets and houses. 
 
424 
 
 THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. 
 
 . XVI 
 
 that time, and as lie was re- 
 quired to do by his commission. 
 To his disgust, lie was outvoted 
 in council, and the plan of attack 
 over the ice was pronounced 
 too hazardous. General Howe, 
 meanwhile, availed himself of 
 the severe weather to send over 
 a party on the ice, on the 13th of 
 February, to Dorchester Neck. 
 A party under Colonel Les- 
 lie, from the forts, and another 
 of grenadiers and light infan- 
 try, destroyed every house and 
 
 
 '/ 1 
 
 Dragging Cannon over the Green Mountains. 
 
 all other "cover" on that pen- 
 insula. They also took prison- 
 ers the American guard of six 
 men. 
 
 In his despatch announcing 
 this success l Howe says he had 
 ascertained that the enemy in- 
 tended to take possession of Dor- 
 chester Point. The reader has al- 
 ready seen that he and the Eng- 
 lish generals had the same inten- 
 
 1 In all instances, we quote from Howe's manuscript despatches, now preserved in the 
 English State Paper Office. Only a part of them have been printed in full. 
 
1776.] DORCHESTER HEIGHTS FORTIFIED. 425 
 
 tion as early as June of the preceding year. Why they did not 
 seize these heights, after they were reenforced, it is difficult to say. 
 Washington had refrained, not simply for want of powder, but from 
 lack of heavy artillery. This lack was now supplied by the capture 
 of the Nancy and the arrival of a train brought as never cannon 
 had been brought before from Ticonderoga. So soon as the snows 
 of winter served, the heavy guns needed for the American lines were 
 brought, under the admirable direction of Henry Knox, now at the 
 head of the artillery, on forty-two sleds, drawn by long teams of oxen, 
 through the passes and over the ridges of the Green Mountains, and 
 down through the hill country of New England, over roads which 
 never bore a cannon before and have never borne one since. Their 
 arrival at Cambridge was welcomed with enthusiasm. Had Howe 
 only known it, with that arrival his easy winter was ended. 
 
 Washington asked the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts to call 
 out the militia of the neigh borhood, and this was imme- 
 diately done. Ten regiments of soldierly men came in at can move- 
 once, and so far reenforced his army. Ward, who commanded Dorchester 
 at Roxbury, was intrusted with the oversight of the move- 
 ment upon Dorchester Heights, and the immediate direction of it was 
 intrusted to John Thomas, also of Massachusetts, one of the briga- 
 dier-generals, an officer whose early death, before this year was ended, 
 was a serious loss to the American cause. The earth was frozen hard, 
 so that such works as were thrown up on a summer's night at Bun- 
 ker Hill were impossible. Fascines were collected, and what the mil- 
 itary language of that day called " chandeliers," which were a kind 
 of foundation for fascines. 
 
 On the night of Saturday, the 2d of March, 1776, a vigorous can- 
 nonade was begun from the American works to the north of Boston, 
 and it was maintained through the nights of the 3d and 4th, to 
 divert the attention of the English. At the least, the noise of the can- 
 nonade might overpower the sound made by Thomas's long train as it 
 passed over frozen ground. As soon as this firing began on Monday 
 evening, he moved from Roxbury with twelve hundred men, and took 
 possession, without discovery, of the higher hill, that farthest from 
 Boston, which at that time commanded Nook's Hill, nearer to the 
 town. Four hundred yoke of oxen drew the materials for the works, 
 and this train passed unnoticed by the English sentries, hardly a mile 
 away on Boston Neck. When Thomas was fairly intrenched, a heavy 
 reenforcement joined him. The movement corresponded precisely to 
 what the movement on Bunker Hill would have been had the party 
 intrenched the higher summit there. The men worked with energy, 
 and by morning a respectable defence and battery were constructed, 
 
4:26- 
 
 THE SIEGE OF BOSTOX. 
 
 >. XVI. 
 
 wholly to the surprise of the English officers. The work was planned, 
 as was that so well tested at Hunker Hill, by the veteran Gridley, 
 who had the assistance of Colonel Putnam. Howe was astonished. 
 He wrote to the minister that this must have been the work of 
 twelve thousand men. One of his officers said the suddenness of the 
 whole recalled the wonderful eastern stories of enchantment and in- 
 visible agency. Howe knew, of course, and the Admiral immediately 
 notified him, that the fleet could not remain in safety under the fire 
 of these guns. That evening,. Howe sent three thousand men, under 
 Lord Percy, to Castle William, which is on an island about a mile 
 from the extreme point of Dorchester Neck, most distant from the 
 town. 
 
 North End of Boston. From an Old Print. 
 
 Percy's instructions were, to attack the newly-built works on their 
 washing- eastward or southern side, where it must have been supposed 
 ton's plans. t j )at t | )ev were nO {; so strong as [ n f rO nt. But a violent 
 
 storm that night and the next morning broke up his plan of attack, 
 and that day was lost. Washington, of course, expected such an 
 attack. He relied on Thomas and his party to repel it, from works 
 which were much stronger than those on Bunker Hill. While it 
 engaged the enemy, Putnam was to attack the town on the western 
 side, where Greene's and Sullivan's brigades of four thousand men 
 were in readiness. Greene was to have landed with his men near the 
 ground now occupied by the gardens of the Massachusetts Hospital. 
 Sullivan was to land a little farther south, not far north of the 
 present line of Beacon Street. Had they succeeded, they would have 
 moved south on the English works at Boston Neck, to admit the 
 American troops at Roxbury. Three floating batteries were pre- 
 pared, which should move in advance of the troops, and clear the 
 ground for their landing. 
 
' -' - - 
 
 1j 
 I 
 
1776.] THE BRITISH EVACUATE BOSTON. 427 
 
 We shall never know what would have been the success of this bold 
 plan, bold enough to redeem Washington from the imputation, 
 sometimes thrown at him, of excessive caution. He thought well of 
 it. His officers thought well of it. The men were in high spirits and 
 well led. The 5th of March, when he supposed it would be executed, 
 was the anniversary of the Boston Massacre. Only a year before 
 Warren had told Knox and others of those men in the Old South 
 Meeting-house, of the dangers of standing armies. Only a, year ago 
 he had painted that touching picture of George and Liberty seated 
 together on an American throne. Everything had happened since 
 that commemoration ! 
 
 But the English did not move on the new works, which with 
 every hour's delay grew stronger. Washington now prepared to ex- 
 tend them, and to seize Nook's Hill, closer to Boston, immediately 
 opposite it, indeed. To continue the comparison with the other pen- 
 insula, Nook's Hill was for Dorchester Neck what Breed's Farm, the 
 site of Prescott's redoubt, was for Bunker Hill. On the night of the 
 9th he would have intrenched that hill. But on the 8th a flag of 
 truce from Howe appeared, with a note from the selectmen of Boston, 
 giving information that General Howe was determined to leave Bos- 
 ton with the army under his command. They said that he had as- 
 sured them he would not destroy the town unless his troops were 
 molested in their embarkation. They said their fears were quieted 
 with regard to General Howe's intentions ; and they begged 4t that 
 they might have some assurance that so dreadful a calamity might not 
 be brought on by any measures from without." 
 
 Howe was not unwilling to adopt this indirect way of communica- 
 tion with his enemy, for which he had no lack of precedents 
 in the etiquette of the wars of Frederick. Washington uatos Bos- 
 would not receive the message, which was not, indeed, ad- 
 dressed to him. But it answered every purpose, and without other 
 official communication on either side, Howe was permitted to embark 
 his forces without molestation. He had abandoned the plan of as- 
 saulting Thomas's works, and had determined to evacuate Boston. 
 
 On the nights of the 9th, 10th, and llth, Washington continued the 
 bombardment, and the enemy replied. But these were the last move- 
 ments of offence or of defence. All Saturday night the explosions 
 were heard, by which Howe destroyed the property he could not take 
 away. On the morning of Sunday, the 17th of March, he sailed with 
 his whole army, hastened, as it appeared, by the work on Nook's Hill, 
 which Washington had at last fortified. It was just three months 
 since he had notified the English minister that he had not transports 
 sufficient for more than two thirds of his force. Not a vessel had 
 
428 THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 joined him in the interval. But under the spur of necessity the navy 
 and the transports proved sufficient. General Putnam immediately 
 marched into Charlestown, and took the English fort on Bunker Hill, 
 which was held by two wooden sentries. General Ward sent a party 
 from Roxbury across the Neck, and the siege of Boston was ended. 
 
 The selectmen notified Wan! that the small-pox was in the city, and 
 Entry of the advised that those of the army not "protected" should not 
 Americans. en t (>r> \} u t on Monday the great body of the army marched 
 in. The returns of Howe's force, on the day he left, show that he 
 had in all eight thousand nine hundred and six officers and men. 
 They sailed in seventy-eight ships and transports. With him he 
 took about eleven hundred loyalists, either old residents of Boston or 
 others who had come into the town from the country to escape the 
 persecutions of their neighbors. Many of these never returned to 
 their native land. A large number of them settled in Nova Scotia, 
 and were a valuable addition to the population of that colony. 1 
 
 The larger part of Howe's squadron proceeded directly to Halifax. 
 The naval ships loitered in the outer harbor of Boston, and elsewhere 
 in Massachusetts Bay, to give notice to vessels from England, that 
 they might not fall into the hands of the American army. But " the 
 continent," from Canada to Florida, was freed from the royal army. 
 Less than one year of vigorous assertion of the rights under which 
 they had lived from the beginning, had, for the moment, given such 
 an answer to the repressive measures of the English Crown. The 
 joy was universal. The handful of residents left in Boston received 
 the army as liberators. Washington entered the town with ceremony 
 which is still remembered in tradition. The long street by which he 
 came, yielded in time its historical names to his. "The Neck," which 
 was the local name of the Isthmus, " Orange Street,'' which commemo- 
 rated the Liberator of England, " Newbury Street," which told the tale 
 jf Charles's disgrace, " Marlborough Street," named in honor of the 
 conqueror of Blenheim, and " Corn Hill," which fondly recalled mem- 
 jries of London, all these names gave way, that "Washington 
 Street'' might remind the town of him who freed it from the first 
 army of strangers that ever stood within its borders. Congress or- 
 dered a gold medal struck, to be presented to him. It is the first 
 in the numismatic history of independent America, and bears the 
 proud motto, "HosTiBUS PRIMO FuGATis." 2 
 
 " As I passed through the town." wrote one who entered it the day 
 after the evacuation, 3 " it gave me much pain of mind to see the 
 
 1 See, for details, Sabine's American Loyalists. 
 
 - The original medal, in the fortunes of an expiring family, and afterward of civil war, 
 came into the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 
 8 Diary of Ezekiel Price, published iu Proceedings of Mass. Hist. S<>c., November, 1863 
 
1776.] 
 
 CONDITION OF THE CITY. 
 
 429 
 
 havoc, waste, and destruction of those houses, fences, and trees in the 
 town, occasioned by those sons of Belial, who have near a year past 
 had the possession." The Old South Church had been used as a 
 riding-school for the soldiers: the West Church and the church in 
 Hollis Street, at the South End, had been used as barracks ; the Old 
 North had been taken down and used as fire-wood, in revenge, it 
 was said, of the signal 
 lanterns hung in its 
 belfry on the eve of 
 the movement on Con- 
 cord. Faneuil Hall 
 had been made a 
 play-house. But the 
 wonder is that there 
 had not been more 
 destruction of private 
 and of public prop- 
 erty, when it is re- 
 membered that this 
 town, beleaguered 
 for nine months, was 
 in possession of the 
 enemy. If Howe 
 made use of public 
 buildings, and permit- 
 ted the destruction of some old buildings for fuel, let it be said that 
 he used all his authority to restrain wanton destruction and robbery. 
 There was much of it in the last week of British possession, but he 
 threatened death to the perpetrators. 
 
 It had been known ever since October, that English expeditions 
 were proposed to seize Hudson River and New York. To arrange 
 the resistance to these, General Lee had been stationed at New York, 
 and extensive works of fortification had been planned. Now, when 
 Howe left Boston, Washington believed that New York was the des- 
 tination of his fleet and army. He immediately sent forward General 
 Heath with the whole bodv of riflemen and five battalions, and Gen- 
 eral Sullivan with six battalions, to meet this expected invasion. 
 General Putnam was ordered to New York to take command, and to 
 carry out, so far as he thought advisable, Lee's plans of defence, till 
 the Commander-in-chief should arrive and assume the direction of 
 affairs. 
 
 BOSTOMIUM RECUPERATUM 
 
 MARTI: 
 MDCCUOCVI 
 
 Washington's Medal. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE NORTHERN CAMPAIGN OF 1775. 
 
 THE DISPUTE CONCERNING THK TERRITORY OF VERMONT. THE GREEN MOUNTAIN 
 BOYS. ALLEN'S EXPEDITION AGAINST TICONDEROGA. ARNOLD CLAIMS COM- 
 MAND. CAPTURE OF TICONDEROGA AND CROWN POINT. EXPEDITION DOWN LAKE 
 CHAMPLAIN. RICHARD MONTGOMERY. SIKGE OF ST. JOHN'S. EXPEDITION TO 
 FORT CHAMBLY. CAPTURE OF MONTREAL. ARNOLD'S EXPEDITION THROUGH 
 MAINE TO CANADA, AND ITS SUPPOSED IMPORTANCE. ITS UNEXPECTED DIFFI- 
 CULTIES. OPERATIONS BEFORE QUEBEC. DEFEAT AND DEATH OF MONTGOM- 
 ERY. WoOSTER TAKES COMMAND. THE FlNAL FAILURE. 
 
 Citadel of Quebec. 
 
 THE country now 
 known as the State of 
 Vermont was at this 
 time a wilderness, just 
 beginning to be occupied, and was the scene of intercolonial strife. 
 The Vermont " The Grants " was the popular name for a tract first set- 
 dispute. t j e( j fry eni jg rall ts from New Hampshire, who held the title 
 to their lands under grant of the Governor of that State. But New 
 
1775.] THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS. 
 
 York claimed a prior right to the territory as far east as the Connect- 
 icut River. In 1749, the township of Bennington, the first in the 
 territory, was granted under a patent from Governor Benning \Vent- 
 worth, of New Hampshire ; and although New York remonstrated, 
 successive grants continued to be made until 1704, when an appeal 
 to the Crown brought the decision that the Connecticut River, north 
 of the Massachusetts line, was the boundary between New York and 
 New Hampshire. It would have made little difference to the settlers 
 in this new country, who had come not only from New Hampshire, 
 but from the western districts of Massachusetts and Connecticut, under 
 which colony they held title to their land, but the New York govern- 
 ment, under this decree of the Crown, began to grant new patents 
 covering the property already occupied and improved, and requiring 
 fees and other charges to secure New York titles. The colonists, al- 
 most without exception, resisted these claims, and a warm conflict fol- 
 lowed. The colonists were without regular government ; condition of 
 they had no town, for it was not till after 1780 that Ben- the countr - v - 
 nington had even a country store. There were no wagon-roads, and 
 scarcely even foot-paths through the wilderness ; but blazed trees 
 marked the thin lines of routes that were afterward to become high- 
 ways. At first the action of the New York government was resisted 
 in the courts of Albany, and that proving of no avail, the colonists in 
 the Grants formed a league for mutual protection, and received the 
 officers of the Crown, who came with writs of possession, in a manner 
 that was termed rebellious by the authorities, and self-defensive by 
 the mountaineers. Under the name of Green Mountain Boys, 
 
 .I,,, i i Thp fireen 
 
 they held a rude military organization, and resistance to the Mountain 
 
 processes of law was so far formal and combined that a 
 
 price was set on the heads of the leaders, and the} 7 were treated as 
 
 outlaws. 
 
 The nearest military posts were Ticonderoga and Crown Point. 
 From the former, especially, officers of the Crown came with 
 their demands to the farms that lay scattered on the slopes of Ticonde- 
 of the Green Mountains, and the fort was looked upon as 
 the gateway to the Grants from New York. At this time (1775), it 
 was falling out of repair, and was garrisoned by about fifty men, but 
 contained a considerable supply of military stores. It held at once 
 the outlook toward Canada and the nearest approach to the unruly 
 people of the Grants. To western New England it was the best 
 known fortified post, and the one most identified with the frontier 
 life, while in the East it had a wide fame through its recent history. 
 To this point, therefore, many eyes were turned when the difficulties 
 with Great Britain began to reach open warfare. The Green Moun- 
 
432 THE NORTHERN CAMPAIGN OF 1775. [Cn.u>. XVII. 
 
 tain Boys, by a succession of individual encounters, had become ac- 
 customed to the idea of fighting, and there were no such restraints 
 upon them as held back the people of more conservative and law-abid- 
 ing sections. The first tidings of war found them eager to act on the 
 offensive, especially toward the point which represented to them the 
 only British tyranny they had known. 
 
 In the winter of 177o, John Brown, of Pittsfield, a lawyer and an 
 John ardent patriot, who was in the counsels of the Boston com- 
 
 nUsslmAo mittee, made a journey through the Grants to Canada, to 
 
 discover the temper of the Canadians towards the British 
 Government, and to secure, if possible, assurances of organized aid 
 for the other colonies. In his letter from Montreal to the Committee 
 of Correspondence in Boston, Adams and Warren, dated March 
 29, 177o, he informs them that he has established a channel of com- 
 munication through the New Hampshire Grants, which may be 
 depended upon, and adds : " One thing I must mention, to be kept a 
 profound secret. The Fort at Ticonderoga must be seized as soon as 
 possible, should hostilities be committed by the King's troops. The 
 people on New Hampshire Grants have engaged to do this business, 
 and, in my opinion, they are the most proper persons for this job." 
 It does not appear that the Massachusetts Committee took, at the 
 time, any steps to accomplish this object. But when the news of Lex- 
 ington was spread abroad, both Massachusetts and Connecticut were 
 
 alive with volunteers hurrying to the camp at Cambridge, 
 
 Kffect of the , ., , , ^ J . , _.. 5 
 
 Battle of while delegates to the Congress, about to assemble at Plnla- 
 
 Lexingtou. IT,. . i ,1 , , 
 
 delphia, were passing through the country, consulting with 
 patriots on the road. In Connecticut and western Massachusetts, the 
 first thought was at once of Ticonderoga ; its stores were coveted, and 
 its undefended condition was known. 
 
 Colonel Parsons, of Connecticut, wa,s on his way from Oxford to 
 Hartford, when he fell in with Captain Benedict Arnold, who was 
 harrying from New Haven over the same road to Watertown. Capr 
 tain Arnold's intention was to obtain a commission from the Provin- 
 cial Congress at Watertown, that he might raise a company for the 
 capture of Ticonderoga. Parsons reached Hartford on the morning of 
 the 27th of April, immediatelv consulted with five other 
 
 Action of . . " .,,... 
 
 parsons ana gentlemen, communicating to them Arnolds information, and 
 
 Arnold. 
 
 proposed that thev should at once take secret measures for an 
 expedition against the fort. Procuring 300 from the treasury on 
 their own responsibility, they sent off two men, Romans, who had 
 been an engineer in the British service, and Noah Phelps, of Simsbury, 
 on their way to the Grants, apparently, for no positive information 
 exists on this point, with instructions to put means in the hands of 
 
1775.J THK EXPEDITION A(,AL\sT TICOXDEROGA. 
 
 the Given Mountain Boys to carry out their plans. 1 On Friday, the 
 28th, Captain Edward Mott, arriving in Hartford, saw Lellingwell, 
 one of the gentlemen who had engaged with Parsons. In answer t<> 
 inquiries respecting affairs at Boston, he said that the great lack of 
 military stores could be best remedied by a sudden attack D eHi(?n!lon 
 upon Ticonderoga. Leflingwell, consulting with Parsons and 
 Silas Deane, determined that Mott should take live or six men with 
 him, overtake Romans and Phelps, and act in concert with them ; his 
 instructions being to proceed at once to the Grants, and there enlist 
 men for the expedition. 
 
 Mott overtook Romans and Phelps at Salisbury on the ohh. and 
 the party, consisting now of sixteen men, held on together northward. 
 At Sheffield they sent two men, Halsey and Stephens, to Albany, to 
 discover the temper of the people there, and proceeded to Pittsh'eld, 
 which they reached on the first day of May. Here they lodgt-d at 
 Colonel Easton's, and fell in with John Brown. Their instructions 
 had been to keep their own counsel, and not to enlist men until they 
 reached the Grants ; but Brown, who knew the country well, and 
 was already a prominent patriot, at once won their confidence, and, 
 with Easton, strenuously advised them to raise a portion of their 
 forces in the more closely-settled country in which they then were. 
 Both Easton and Brown joined them, and the former assisted Mott 
 in enlisting men in Williamstown and Jericho, now Hancock. At 
 Bennington there was a rendezvous, and two men Hickok and 
 Phelps made an excursion to Ticonderoga to get exact informa- 
 tion of the condition of the fort. Phelps, disguising himself, en- 
 tered the fort as a countryman who desired to be shaved, and, while 
 hunting for the barber, asked questions and kept his eyes open, piny- 
 ing the part of an ignorant rustic. Men were sent out on all the 
 roads leading to the lake, to intercept passers and prevent knowledge 
 of the movement reaching the fort, and the whole company was in- 
 structed to meet at Castleton for a final rendezvous. Here 
 Allen, with his Green Mountain Boys, was ready for the * 
 attack, and the command of the principal body of troops was given 
 to him. On the 8th of May the final plans were laid. Allen, with 
 one hundred and forty men, was to go to the lake by way of Shore- 
 
 1 Romans and PhelpVs expedition became at once merged in Mott'*. whose course is 
 clearly laid down; but in Bernard Romans'* account with the Colony of ronnccticut for 
 moneys expended in the capture of Ticonderoga, there is this itnn : " Paid llnmut A/lm >/<,- 
 iiiff e.r/,ress after Ethan Allen, 120 milts, .2. 16s." (Her. PnfHrn. vol. iii. p. :>;.) Heman 
 Allen was a brother of Ethan, living in Salisbury, Conn., and Ethan's acknowledged lead- 
 ership of the Green Mountain Boys indicates that Romans's first business was to send with 
 despatch to the leader of the forces that were relied upon to take Ticonderoy;a. Some- 
 thing, moreover, of the nature of these first orders may be inferred from the s 
 orders given to Molt. 
 
 VOL. in. -28 
 
434 THE NORTHERN CAMPAIGN OF 177.J. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 ham, opposite Ticonderoga. Thirty men, under Captain Herrick, 
 were to advance to Skenesborough and capture Major Skene and his 
 party, and then drop down the lake to join Allen, carrying boats from 
 Skenesborough to assist in transporting the troops. 
 
 Allen had gone forward to Shoreham on the 8th, and the party 
 
 under orders for Skenesborough was in readiness, when suddenly 
 
 an officer appeared through the woods, attended bv a ser- 
 
 Arnold over- ' . * * 
 
 vant, and hurrying to the camp. It was Benedict Arnold, 
 
 ,/-< i i tir 
 
 who had remained in Cambridge and U atertown only long 
 enough to lay his plans before the Committee and to receive a com- 
 mission as " colonel and commander-iu chief over a body of men not 
 exceeding four hundred," to be enlisted for the reduction of Ticonder- 
 oga. He had set out at once for western Massachusetts to raise men 
 for his command, and there learning that a party from Connecticut 
 had just been over the same ground, he left a few officers to enlist 
 troops, and made all haste to Castleton. Presenting himself before 
 
 Mott and Easton, he announced the action of the Massachu- 
 
 And claims 
 
 the com- setts Committee, and asserted his right to command the forces. 
 
 maud. 
 
 They showed him their plans and took him into their counsels, 
 but he declared they had no proper orders, and insisted upon his own 
 superior rank and commission. The movement on their part was in- 
 deed voluntary, appointed by a self-elected committee in Connecticut, 
 and associated with an outlaw military organization. Arnold's claim 
 was strong, if the Massachusetts Committee had legal authority, with 
 the right to punish for contumacy ; but then Mott and Easton had the 
 men whom they had engaged, and had promised they should be com- 
 manded by their own officers. The}' refused to surrender the com- 
 mand to Arnold. He was not to be put down, but the next morning 
 set off to overtake and supersede Allen. 
 
 He came up with Allen apparently some time before nightfall of 
 the same day, when the advance party was at Hand's Cove, on the 
 eastern shore of the lake, preparing to cross. Here he found himself 
 in the midst of men making ready for action. With them he took 
 part in the crossing of the lake, which, owing to the difficulty of pro- 
 curing boats, was not wholly effected when day broke on the morning 
 of the 10th of May. Allen was impatient of delay, and fearful lest 
 if they waited for the entire body to cross they should lose the golden 
 opportunity of surprising the fort, he addressed his men, eighty-three 
 in number, telling them of the hazard of the enterprise, and calling for 
 volunteers to follow him in an immediate attack. Not one of the men 
 drew back. A lad living near by, familiar with the approaches, was 
 their guide, and Allen gave the word to advance. Arnold again 
 stepped forward and claimed the command. He was a reckless, daring 
 
1775.] ETHAN ALLEN CAPTURES TICONDEROGA. 435 
 
 man, and the adventure exactly suited his nature, but it was an adven- 
 ture where he must lead and not follow. Allen, having his own men 
 behind him, was no less courageous and was naturally enraged at this 
 interference. He was for putting Arnold under guard ; but one of his 
 friends, seeing the peril of the enterprise, if the dispute continued, 
 proposed that the two men should march side by side. The compro- 
 mise was accepted, and the column advanced quickly to the wicket-gate. 
 A sentry posted there snapped his fusee, but it missed fire, Surpri >of 
 and as Allen rushed upon him, he retreated with a shout thefort - 
 through the covered way within the fort. The assailing party fol- 
 lowed at his heels, Allen and Arnold vying in the race for leadership. 
 The fort was surprised, and the victory was already won without a 
 blow, as the Green Mountain Boys set up a shout on the parade facing 
 the barracks. 
 
 It was so early that the garrison was still asleep. Allen forced one 
 of the sentries to show him the commanding officer's quarters, and 
 standing at the entrance he called on Captain Delaplace to come forth 
 and surrender his garrison. The Captain sprang out of bed, and, half 
 dressed, made his appearance at the door: "By what authority?" 
 he said. " In the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental 
 Congress ! " 1 was Allen's answer. Delaplace, seeing the uncouth 
 figure before him, was ready to dispute the commission ; but Allen, 
 with his sword, was an unequal disputant. The commander yielded, 
 and ordered his men to be paraded without arms. The surrender 
 threw into the hands of the Green Mountain Boys one captain, one 
 lieutenant, and forty-eight subalterns and privates, exclusive of women 
 and children, all of whom were sent to Hartford. The capture of 
 stores and military material included a hundred and twenty pieces of 
 cannon. 2 The first surrender of the British was on the dav of meet- 
 
 */ 
 
 ing of the second Continental Congress. 
 
 While these events were occurring in the fort, Colonel Setb Warner 
 
 1 This swaggering demand rests upon Allen's own narrative, and has been called in 
 question by those who, looking closely, perceive that Allen was a disteliever in Jehovah 
 as having anything to do with American affairs, and that the Congress, though called, 
 had not actually assembled. It is quite possible that Allen has glorified himself some- 
 what ; but the phrase was possible to him, for, though a vain, he was a genuinely brave 
 man. 
 
 2 The authorities for the movement against Ticonderoga are chiefly to be found in Cap- 
 tain Mott's Journal, with illustrative documents, published in Conn. Hitt. Soc. Coll., vol. i., 
 pp. 163-188, Ethan Allen's narrative of the capture of Ticonderoga, and the correspond- 
 ence and newspaper reports collected in the appendix to Hon. L. E. Chittenden's address 
 before the Vermont Historical Society, October 2, 1872, published by the society. See, 
 also, Governor Hiland Hall's paper, read before the same society, October 19, 1869, and 
 other contributions to the controversy by B. F. De Costa in The Galaxy magazine for De- 
 cember, 1868, Prof. George W. Benedict, in the Burlinyton Free Press, and J. Hammond 
 Trumbull, in the Hartford Courant. 
 
436 
 
 THE NORTHERN CAMPAIGN OF 1775. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 of 
 
 and 
 
 was bringing the rear guard across the lake, and was immediately de- 
 spatched with about one hundred men to take possession of 
 ^ l ' own Point, which was garrisoned only by a sergeant and 
 twelve men. The capture was effected without difficulty, 
 a hundred cannon were secured. The party sent to Skenes- 
 
 bo rough sm % - 
 prised Major 
 Skene, and 
 brought away 
 also a schoon- 
 er and several 
 batteaux to 
 Ticonderoga. 
 
 Allen capturing Delaplace. 
 
 
 An armed force was now in possession of these two strongholds, 
 with considerable material of war and transports. The quarrel for 
 
1770.] ARNOLD AND ALLEN ON LAKE CIIAMPLAIN. 437 
 
 command was at once i-enewed by Arnold. He wrote letters stating 
 his grievances to tlie Massachusetts committee ; but Allen was the 
 accepted leader of the men, and Massachusetts, upon an understand- 
 ing of the situation, complimented Arnold, but referred him for orders 
 to Connecticut, since that colony had actually planned the expedition. 
 Connecticut was in no mind to prefer Arnold to Allen. 
 
 Meanwhile, the operations went on, and Arnold and Allen carried 
 on a species of off-hand f reebooting together, for Arnold's Mjnor oper . 
 audacity, and a knowledge in certain directions superior to atlou8 - 
 Allen's, made him a useful ally. There was a sloop-of-war lying at 
 St. John's, and it was proposed to take the schooner and batteaux 
 already captured, get possession of the sloop, and make a descent 
 upon the garrison. This done. Lake Champlain would be entirely 
 in the hands of the patriots. Arnold, as the better seaman, was 
 placed in charge of the schooner, while Allen followed with the bat- 
 teaux. On the evening of the 17th of May, Arnold, being within 
 thirty miles of St. John's, and becalmed, took to the batteaux, reached 
 the sloop in the night, surprised it, captured a few men, and hastened 
 back to Ticonderoga, without possessing himself of the place, since he 
 learned that reenforcements were on the way from Montreal. On his 
 return, he met Allen a little below, who undertook to form an ambus- 
 cade and intercept the reenforcements ; but his men were fatigued, 
 and when in the morning they were attacked by a superior force, they 
 retreated to the batteaux and returned to Ticonderoga with a trifling 
 loss in prisoners. 
 
 Allen urged vehemently the immediate use of Lake Champlain as 
 a basis of operations against Canada; but it was a month Timidity0 f 
 before the importance of the position was clearly seen, and ^"S"* 8 - 
 meanwhile the Continental Congress, fearful lest these operations 
 should bring them into difficulty, were half disposed to avoid respon- 
 sibility, and required a complete inventory of the captured stores to 
 be taken, against a possible restoration of them to Great Britain in 
 event of an adjustment of the differences. Arnold, unable to accept a 
 second place in any command, took up his quarters at Crown Point, 
 where he was left to himself by Allen and Easton. When a commit- 
 tee arrived from Massachusetts to settle the disputes which Arnol(ril 
 had arisen, he instigated his few followers to mutiny, and P* 1 *'* 16110 *- 
 threatened a withdrawal of the vessels which he controlled to St. 
 John's, for the purpose of delivering them and his command to the en- 
 emy, if he could not carry out his own plans. Colonel Hinman, with 
 a thousand men, had been appointed by Connecticut to take posses- 
 sion of Ticonderoga, and the difficulty was finally settled by the res- 
 ignation of Arnold on June 24. 
 
438 THE NORTHERN CAMPAIGN OF 1775. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 When it became known to Congress that General Carleton, Gov- 
 ernor of Canada, was fortifying St. John's, building boats, and pre- 
 The inva- paring to re-occupy Crown Point and Ticonderoga, a reso- 
 STwo.**" lution was adopted (June 27) instructing General Schuyler 
 posed. re p a j r without delay to Ticonderoga, and " if lie found it 
 practicable, and it would not be disagreeable to the Canadians, imme- 
 diately to take possession of St. John's and Montreal, and pursue 
 any other measures in Canada which might have a tendency to 
 promote the peace and security of these colonies." The attitude of 
 the Canadians towards the belligerents was one of great uncer- 
 tainty. Governor Carleton thought the gentlemen, the clergy, and 
 most of the bourgeois faithful to the King ; but he was scarcely able 
 to raise a company of militia, although large bounties of land were 
 offered to volunteers. Schuyler, on his part, found it hard to secure 
 any trustworthy intelligence from Montreal and Quebec. There were 
 sympathizers with the American party in each place, and a com- 
 mittee of correspondence at Montreal ; but exact information as to 
 the active cooperation which might be expected from the people was 
 not easily to be had. The general impression was, that the common 
 people would at least maintain a neutrality, and, in event of the 
 success of the Americans, would range themselves on their side. 
 The attitude of the Indian tribes gave still greater anxiety. The 
 powerful influence exerted by Sir William Johnson over the New 
 York Indians had, after his death (1774), passed into the hands of 
 The Indian ^ s son-in-law and nephew, Guy Johnson, now Indian Agent, 
 element. ail( j ^is 8O1[l ^ gj r J o hn Johnson, both of whom were bitter 
 Tories. At first covertly, afterward openly, they estranged the In- 
 dians of the Mohawk Valley from the Americans, and brought about 
 an active alliance with the authorities in Canada. Schuyler sent 
 Ethan Allen and Major John Brown into the country lying be- 
 tween Lake Champlain and Montreal, to discover the true condition 
 of affairs there, and if possible to persuade the Canadians and the In- 
 dians of that country to ally themselves with the Americans. 
 
 Meanwhile volunteers came in slowly, and the absence of any con- 
 trolling authority not only caused a conflict between the Provincial 
 and Continental Congresses, but rendered the soldiers insubordinate and 
 quarrelsome. Supplies and ammunition came slowly and irregularly, 
 so that it was the middle of August before Schuyler was in any de- 
 gree prepared to move his troops. At this time Major Brown re- 
 turned and reported that there were seven hundred regular troops in 
 Canada, three hundred of whom were at St. John's, and that Sir John 
 Johnson was at Montreal with three hundred Tories and some Indians, 
 endeavoring to persuade the Caughnawagas to take up the hatchet 
 
1775.] 
 
 SCHUYLER AND RICHARD MONTGOMERY. 
 
 439 
 
 for the King. In a few days came intelligence that Carleton was 
 about to move up the lake to attack Ticonderoga. 
 
 At length the expedition of about twelve hundred men, which had 
 waited for a favorable wind, sailed down the lake. The 
 
 Expedition 
 
 whole force fell short of two thousand. Schuyler's chief sub- down ijike 
 
 Chauiplain 
 
 ordinate officer was General Richard Montgomery, an Irish- 
 man, who had been in the British service, and was with Amherst in 
 the campaign of 1759 when Wolfe captured Quebec, but had sub- 
 sequently settled in New York and married into the Livingston family. 
 He was a tall, handsome, spirited man, who drew to himself 
 the admiration of the soldiers and the confidence of his Montgom- 
 
 cry. 
 
 fellow-officers. Upon him the command shortly fell ; for 
 Schuyler, disabled by illness, was compelled to return to Ticon- 
 deroga by the middle of Sep- 
 tember, before, any very positive 
 advance had been made. 
 
 At the Isle aux No'ix a boom 
 was thrown across the channel 
 to prevent the passage of the 
 enemy's sloop - of - war, and an 
 armed camp was formed. One 
 or two skirmishes occurred, in 
 which the insubordination and 
 cowardice of the soldiers almost 
 completely disheartened Mont- 
 gomery. " I am," he writes to 
 his wife, " so exceedingly out of 
 spirits and so chagrined with 
 the behavior of the troops, that 
 I most heartily repent having 
 undertaken to lead them .... 
 Such a set of pusillanimous 
 wretches never were collected. 
 Could I, with decency, leave the army in its present situation, I 
 
 would not serve an hour longer We were so unfortunate as to 
 
 have some Canadians witnesses of our disgrace. What they will think 
 of the brave Bostonians, I know not." l Montgomery proceeded to 
 invest St. John's, while Schuyler, remaining at Albany, used his 
 utmost exertions to forward men and supplies. 
 
 The siege, which lasted nearly two months, was a severe test of the 
 raw, undisciplined troops. Sickness prevailed, and homesickness was 
 
 1 Biographical Notes concerning General Richard Monti/ornery, tnytthtr with hitlttrto un- 
 published Letters. By L. L. H. 1876. p. 11. " Bostouiiiiis " was a term frequently ap- 
 plied to the American forces. 
 
 Richard Montgomery. 
 
440 THE NORTHERN CAMPAIGN OF 1775. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 almost as potent, while the insubordination was so great that it was 
 st. even a matter of policy at times to submit important move- 
 
 John's. ments to the vote of the rank and file. The independence 
 and self-assertion of the soldiers showed itself in other ways. Ethan 
 Allen, on his way to Montgomery's camp, with about eighty Canadi- 
 ans whom he had enlisted, fell in with Major Brown at the head of 
 two hundred Americans and Canadians. Brown, who was almost as 
 much of a free lance as Allen, proposed that they should make a 
 sudden attack with their united party on Montreal, where he declared 
 there were not more than thirty men in garrison, and where the 
 townspeople were largely American in their sympathies. Allen 
 eagerly accepted the proposition. The plan was, to cross the St. 
 Lawrence with their respective forces above and below the 
 
 Abortive at- . . 111 .1 
 
 tack on city in tne night, and at daybreak, upon a given signal, to 
 make a simultaneous attack. The night was blustering, and 
 the passage of the river dangerous and tedious; but by early dawn all 
 of Allen's band stood upon the shore, waiting anxiously for the huz- 
 zas from Brown's party. They waited in vain. Brown had failed 
 to keep his agreement, and Allen's forces, too weak to effect the sur- 
 prise of the city alone, were set upon by the garrison, and, after a 
 brave defence, in which some forty of the Americans fell, were over- 
 powered and made prisoners. Allen was among them, and was sent to 
 England. 
 
 This affair was not approved by Montgomery, though not unknown 
 to him ; but he was still powerless to exercise that complete control 
 over his ill-assorted troops which was essential to military discipline 
 and success. 
 
 But an expedition against the fort at Chambly was more success- 
 ful. The fort was taken with the aid of some of the inhab- 
 
 Kxpedition . p i i i i p 
 
 to Fort itants of the district, and its large stores or ammunition and 
 
 Chambly. . . . . , . , . , 
 
 provisions were of material aid to the army encamped un- 
 der the walls of St. John's. Carleton made an effort to relieve the 
 garrison there, but was repulsed, and at length, on the 2d of Novem- 
 ber, Major Preston, in command at St. John's, hearing of Carleton's 
 Surrender of impulse, and seeing no chance of relief, surrendered the fort 
 st. Johns. an( j j e( j ou j. ],j g t roO p Si already in peril of starvation. Nearly 
 five hundred regular troops, the greater part of the British army in 
 Canada, thus fell into the hands of the Americans. 
 
 The road was now open to Montreal, and Montgomery, advancing to 
 Sorel, ordered a detachment to cross the St. Lawrence. He 
 posted his forces to prevent any communication between 
 
 Montreal and Quebec, and established batteries upon both 
 banks ot the river. Carleton was in the town, but he was surrounded 
 
1775.] 
 
 ARNOLD'S EXPEDITION THROUGH MAINE. 
 
 441 
 
 by a timid and half-hearted populace, who were chiefly fearful lest 
 their property should be destroyed. He left them to their fate, tak- 
 ing the little garrison with him, and on the 13th of November Mont- 
 gomery marched into the town. 
 
 While these events were in progress, a supporting column had set 
 out for Canada by another route, almost simultaneously Expedi (i on 
 with Montgomery's departure from Ticonderoga, and had through 1 * 
 fought its way against natural obstacles more serious than Maine 
 the forts which lay in Montgomery's path. While Schuyler was per- 
 fecting his plans for the northern 
 campaign, he heard rumors that a 
 portion of the British fleet had left 
 Boston for the St. Lawrence. He 
 wrote to General Washington for 
 information, and was assured that 
 no such movement had taken place. 
 Whether or not Schuyler's letter 
 started the project in Washing- 
 ton's mind, Washington, wrote 
 again, five days after the assurance 
 had been given, outlining an expe- 
 dition which was to ascend the 
 Kennebec River, cross the high- 
 lands that divide it from the Chau- 
 die"re, and descend that stream to 
 where it enters the St. Lawrence, 
 nearly opposite Quebec. Such a 
 movement he conceived would 
 have one of two results. Either 
 it would recall Carleton from the 
 defence of Montreal, and so facilitate Schuyler's plans, or it would 
 find Quebec unprepared, and the division, uniting with Schuyler's 
 forces, could at once take that place and complete the conquest of 
 Canada. The design was in all probability suggested to Washington 
 by Benedict Arnold, into whose hands had fallen the journal of Colonel 
 Montresor, an officer of engineers in the British service, who, fifteen 
 years earlier, had conducted an exploring expedition from Quebec into 
 the interior of Maine, covering a portion of the route. At any rate, 
 Arnold was selected to take command of a detachment num- Arnold in 
 bering about 1,100 men, drawn from the army about Boston. commaml - 
 From the nature of the country they were to traverse, it was impos- 
 sible to carry field-pieces, but it was hoped that the two rivers would 
 afford a water highway most of the distance for the transportation of 
 
 Map of Arnold's Route 
 
442 THE NORTHERN CAMPAIGN OF 1775. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 men and provisions. The order to draft the men was given on the 
 1st of September, and a week later the troops set out across the 
 country to Newburyport, where they were to be transported to the 
 mouth of the Kennebec. On the 14th, Washington addressed a letter 
 Hisinstruc- to Arnold, with specific instructions, in which he enforced 
 the necessity of so conducting the expedition as to respect 
 religiously the neutrality of the Canadians, and to win them if possible 
 to the American cause. Property was to be held sacred ; religious 
 scruples were to be tenderly considered ; and death was to be the 
 penalty for any injury to person or property of Canadian or Indian. 
 A handbill, written by Washington, was printed for distribution 
 amongst the Canadians, setting forth the friendliness felt by the 
 Americans for them, and declaring that the armies sent into the 
 country were to protect, not to injure them. They were earnestly 
 solicited to join the cause of liberty, and to take advantage of the 
 presence of the armies on their soil to rise against the tyranny of the 
 British. 
 
 From the letters and papers of the day it is evident that gi'eat im- 
 portance was attached to the movements in Canada. That 
 country had been the scene of conflict within the memory 
 movement, o j.j ie men w ho W crr now throwing off the authority which 
 then they fought to extend. The splendid river St. Lawrence, with 
 the rocky fortress of Quebec, and the fertile lands that stretched to 
 Montreal, appealed to their imagination, and the frontiersmen who 
 had penetrated the northern forests knew that no natural boun- 
 dary separated them from the vast country beyond. The fortified 
 places which once had been centres of French trade were now threat- 
 ening posts of the British enemy, and every interest suggested the 
 necessity of possessing them. Yet the people of Canada had little in 
 common with the colonists, and their prevailing religion was distrust- 
 ed and hated by the Americans. Great caution and address, there- 
 fore, were used in making the invasion of Canada an act of hostility 
 only to the British government, and one of emancipation to her peo- 
 ple. Nor were the chances of war despicable. There was only one 
 weak battalion of British troops in all Canada, and there was good 
 evidence that the people, where they were not openly sympathetic and 
 ready, were at least entirely indifferent to the continuation of British 
 rule. Schuyler's army was moving, and Arnold's detachment, which 
 reached Fort Western, the present Augusta, on the Kennebec, 
 the 23d of September, was expected to be twenty days making its 
 inarch of about two hundred miles. Indeed, there was some solicitude 
 lest Arnold's army, reaching Quebec long in advance of Schuyler's, 
 should be in danger of repulse for want of support. 
 
1775.] 
 
 UNEXPECTED DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 443 
 
 It would seem almost as if Arnold's enthusiastic and fiery temper 
 
 had got the better of Washington's 
 caution. Montresor's expedition 
 had indeed been effected in three 
 weeks, but that was in the middle 
 of summer, and consisted An <n tS diffl- 
 of only a handful of men, """"'^ 
 lightly equipped. To move a col- 
 umn of eleven hundred men in the 
 short days of autumn, when winter 
 was coming on, proved to be a dif- 
 ferent matter. It was sixty days 
 before the little army, reduced by 
 
 Arnold's March. 
 
 that time about one half, reached the St. Lawrence. They left the 
 last white family at Norridgewock, on October 3, and were nearly a 
 
444 THE NORTHERN CAMPAIGN OF 1775. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 month making their way to the headwaters of the ChaudieYe. Their 
 batteaux were swamped in the rocky, boiling river ; they sank to 
 their waists in vast bogs ; they were forced to make wearisome port- 
 ages, and to cross and rtcross the same ground, to carry their loads ; 
 they lost their way : " this was the third day," writes a surgeon of 
 the party, " we had been in search of the Chaudidre, who were only 
 seven computed miles distant the 28th. Nor were we possessed of 
 any certainty that our course would bring us either to the lake or 
 river, not knowing the point it lay from where we started. However, 
 we came to a resolution to continue it. In this state of uncertainty 
 we wandered through hideous swamps and mountainous precipices, 
 with the conjoint addition of cold, wet, and hunger, not to mention 
 our fatigue, with the terrible apprehension of fainting in the des- 
 ert." 1 Their provisions failed them, so that they ate dogs, candles, 
 shaving-soap, pomatum, and lip-salve, and boiled their moccasons in 
 hopes of extracting some glutinous nourishment from them. They 
 fought like beasts for succulent roots which they discovered and 
 grubbed from the sand ; great numbers fell sick and were left behind ; 
 some perished by the way, and Colonel Enos, with the whole rear 
 division, amounting to a third of the force, when near the Canada 
 line, being instructed by Arnold to provide for the return of the sick, 
 called a council of his officers, in which it was resolved to return 
 in a body to the coast, lest their provisions should utterly give out. 
 Enos was court-martialled for his desertion of Arnold, and though 
 acquitted, never regained his standing. Arnold himself pushed for- 
 ward, after reaching the Chaudie're, to send back cattle and other sup- 
 plies to his famished followers. When the men received them, they 
 fell upon them like wolves, and gorged themselves so that many sick- 
 ened and some died. 2 
 
 On the 4th of November the straggling band reached the first house 
 in Canada. It was a month since they had left the last house 
 
 ( M Ji;ii l.'t / 
 
 reached. j n ]Vi ame . Their progress now was comparatively easy, and 
 it was perhaps owing to the exhausted condition of the men that the 
 last thirty miles occupied ten days. Yet that delay may be regarded 
 Quebec re . as causing the failure of the expedition. On the 5th of No- 
 eniorced. vember, when Arnold, with a portion of his army, was at St. 
 Mary's, thirty miles from Quebec, a vessel from Newfoundland reached 
 that place, carrying a hundred men, chiefly carpenters. They found 
 
 1 Senter's Journal, p. 21. 
 
 2 The details of this march, which long left its frightful memory in the minds of men, 
 are preserved in several narratives of members of the expedition, chiefly those of John 
 Joseph Heury (Albany, 1877) ; Joseph Ware, in N. E. Hist, and Gen. Reg., April, 1852; 
 Isaac Senter, Bulletin of Penn. Hist. Soc., 1846 ; Return J. Meigs, Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 
 vol. ii., 2d series ; James Melvin, Franklin Club, Philadelphia. 
 
1775.] ARNOLD BEFORE QUEBEC. 445 
 
 not a single soldier, we are told, in the city, 1 but immediately set to 
 work repairing the defences and making platforms for the cannon. 
 On the 12th Colonel Maclean arrived with a hundred and seventy 
 men, enough to make a protracted defence. The next day Arnold 
 brought his forces to the opposite bank of the river. It was 
 
 T i i i Arnold r- 
 
 intended that the expedition should surprise the town, and rives before 
 Washington had urged Arnold to use great precaution to 
 prevent news being carried by sea from the Kennebec ; but Arnold 
 himself had unfortunately given intelligence of his movements, by 
 a letter sent on the 13th of October to General Schuyler, which was 
 intrusted to an Indian, who proved faithless. While at St. Mary's 
 Arnold opened communication with General Montgomery, and the 
 junction of the two armies now became a matter of the liveliest con- 
 cern. 
 
 On the evening of the 13th of November, just as Montgomery had 
 entered Montreal, Arnold began, under cover of darkness, to 
 transport his troops across the St. Lawrence, and again at 
 daybreak the sentinels on the walls of Quebec looked out 
 upon an army on the Plains of Abraham. Arnold had followed pre- 
 cisely the path which Wolfe had taken, and, as Wolfe had done, of- 
 fered battle with three fourths of his entire force, five hundred and 
 fifty men. But Lieutenant-governor Cramahd, in command, having 
 perhaps Montcalm's misfortune in mind, did not accept the challenge. 
 Moreover, Arnold's hope was, that the appearance of an American 
 army would be a signal for a revolt within the city, and that the ap- 
 prehension of it would be a check upon the commander of the town. 
 The Americans shouted triumphantly, but the walls of Quebec did not 
 fall flat, though some of the people within responded. A few harm- 
 less shots were fired, and a formal demand was made for surrender. 
 Arnold had neither the means to make a breach in the walls, nor the 
 force to storm them, and he could only invest the place. But his own 
 position was perilous. Carleton had escaped from Montreal, and was 
 on his way to Quebec. The garrison had been reenforced, and Arnold 
 learned that he was shortly to be attacked. Accordingly, 
 
 * , J But retreats. 
 
 he soon broke camp and withdrew to Point aux Trembles to 
 
 await Montgomery. Montgomery sirrived on the 1st of December 
 
 and assumed command. On the 5th the army, now three thousand 
 
 men, with six field-pieces and five light mortars, encamped before 
 
 Quebec. 
 
 The ground was frozen to the depth of many feet, and buried deep 
 in snow. To construct earthworks was practically impossible ; gabions 
 and fascines, therefore, were set up and filled with snow, over which 
 1 Allen's account of Arnold's expedition, in Maine Hist. Soc. Coll., i. 403. 
 
446 THE NORTHERN CAMPAIGN OF 1775. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 water was poured and an ice-battery formed, glittering and formidable 
 to the eye, but in reality brittle and easily destroyed. At the first 
 cannonading from the walls it broke in pieces. Three weeks wore by, 
 during which Montgomery begged for reinforcements, but Schuyler 
 was powerless to raise them ; the men were growing exceedingly rest- 
 less and mutinous, and there was no sign of any weakening of the 
 town. At Christmas an immediate attack was decided upon, to take 
 place the first stormy night. One column, led by Arnold, was to ad- 
 vance by the low ground between the St. Charles and the Heights of 
 Abraham, and penetrate the lower town at a point where a gate 
 communicated with the upper town, unprotected by any ditch or 
 drawbridge. Another column, led by Montgomery, was to advance 
 between the St. Lawrence and the rocky heights of Cape Diamond, 
 push into the lower town, and take advantage there of an easy com- 
 munication with the upper town. It was expected that once in pos- 
 session of the lower town, the merchants within the city would compel 
 Carleton to give up the place to prevent further destruction of prop- 
 erty. Aaron Burr, eager to take a conspicuous part in the attack, 
 headed a forlorn hope which was to scale the Cape Diamond bastion, 
 and he drilled his men and prepared his ladders with great care. 
 
 The night of the 30th of December, chosen for the assault, was, as 
 the assailants hoped it would be, dark and stormy. While Colonel 
 Livingston and Major Brown made a feint on the upper town to dis- 
 tract the garrison, Montgomery and Arnold were to advance upon the 
 points selected for assault. Montgomery's column, taking the road 
 along the river bank, made its way over blocks of ice and through the 
 heavy drifts of snow, till it reached the first barricades under Cape 
 Diamond. These were passed without difficulty ; but beyond was a 
 block-house, pierced for muskets, and defended by two small field- 
 pieces. The enemy had fled after the first ineffectual fire; but as 
 Montgomery advanced at the head of his men, exhorting them to fol- 
 low, with the words, "Push on, brave boys, Quebec is ours!" a shot 
 from the block-house struck and killed him instantly. His aid, Cap- 
 tain Cheeseman, Captain M'Pherson, and two privates were killed 
 by the same discharge ; the advance was checked, and then fell back 
 in confusion and flight. 
 
 Arnold's division, almost at the same moment, had advanced in 
 single file, along a narrow path between the precipice and the shore 
 of St. Charles Bay, the men covering their guns under their coats 
 from the driving storm. The town was now awake ; bells were ring- 
 ing ; an uproar of confusion filled the air, from the rapid firing from 
 batteries and barricades. The darkness and the storm favored the 
 assailants, who pushed on rapidly past isolated houses to the Palace 
 
1775.] 
 
 DEFEAT AND DEATH OF MONTGOMERY. 
 
 447 
 
 Gate. At the first barricade Arnold was wounded and carried to the 
 rear. The command devolved upon Captain Daniel Morgan, who, 
 at the head of his Virginia riflemen, scaled the barricade with ladders, 
 Morgan himself being the first to mount. As his head appeared 
 above the palisades a discharge knocked him down, the powder burn- 
 
 on Quebec. Death of Montgomery. 
 
 ing his face, one ball passing through his hat and another through 
 his hair at the side of his head. He mounted again, calling to his men 
 to follow, and the barricade was carried, and the enemy driven to the 
 houses on both sides of the narrow streets. In these the fight con- 
 tinued, at intervals, for hours, and had Morgan's men been properly 
 seconded, the town might have been taken. But no reinforcements 
 came. The advance party were cooped up between the two barricades, 
 
448 THE NORTHERN CAMPAIGN OF 1775. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 . where they made a desperate but unequal fight, seeking in their turn 
 protection in the houses. From the Palace Gate a sortie had been 
 made, and Captain Dearborn, with a column of two hundred men, had 
 been taken prisoner. Morgan tried to cut his way back. He had lost 
 probably not less than sixty men among them Captain Hendricks 
 of the Pennsylvania riflemen, Humphreys, Morgan's first lieutenant, 
 and Lieutenant Cooper of Connecticut. The men were discouraged ; 
 further resistance was seen to be futile, and the whole party, four 
 hundred and twenty-six in number, surrendered. The remainder of 
 Arnold's party, who were in the rear as a reserve, retreated to camp. 1 
 
 The victorious Englishmen found the body of Montgomery and gave 
 it a soldier's burial within the city. Forty-two years afterwards it was 
 removed to New York with distinguished honors, and placed beneath 
 a monument in front of St. Paul's Church. As the boat bearing it 
 passed slowly down the Hudson, the aged widow sat alone upon the 
 porch of her house at Rhinebeck, watching the mournful pageant. 2 
 
 The command of the wrecked army fell now upon Arnold, who mus- 
 tered his forces and disposed them for a blockade, hoping meanwhile 
 that Schuyler, to whom he dispatched a messenger, would reenforce 
 the little army. Schuyler earnestly besought Congress to send for- 
 ward troops, and in the course of the winter about 3,000 were sent 
 to his relief. Carleton made no attempt to drive Arnold away. He 
 could not afford to risk the chances of a battle, and he knew that 
 when spring opened he should receive help from England. The Ca- 
 nadians continued their neutrality, and though a few engaged on 
 either side, so that families were divided against one another, there 
 was a general loss of confidence in the American cause. Congress 
 
 1 Major general Sir James Carmichael Smyth, in his Precis of the Wars in Canada, 
 characterizes the enterprise as soldier-like, but thinks Montgomery should have reversed 
 his plan, making the real assaults upon the points which were selected for the fiint, aud 
 false attacks only on the lower town. " There was no necessity upon the present oc- 
 casion to move, w'itli narrow columns, into confined streets and lanes, to become masters 
 of the lower town ; having subsequently the upper town, separated from the lower town 
 by a line-wall with flanks in it, to acquire. It would surely have been better policy to have 
 assaulted the upper town at once, and to have endeavored to escalade, at the same moment, 
 several of the bastions In endeavoring to penetrate by the lower town, he re- 
 quired to be successful in two operariotis. Had he determined to assault the upper towu, 
 he would only have had to have escaladcd a wall of eighteen feet high, and the place was 
 his." p. 116. 
 
 2 " At length," she wrote, " they came by, with all that remained of a beloved husband, 
 who left me in the bloom of manhood, a perfect being. Alas ! how did he return ? How- 
 ever gratifying to my heart, yet to my feelings every pang I felt was renewed. The pomp 
 with which it was conducted added to my woe ; when the steamboat passed with slow and 
 solemn movement, stopping l>efore my house, the troops under arms, the dead march from 
 the muffled drum, the mournful music, the splendid coffin canopied with crape and crowned 
 with plumes, you may conceive my anguish. I cannot describe it" Bioyrnjjhicijl Notes 
 concerning General Richard Montgomery, p. 129. 
 
1775.] GENERAL WOOSTER IN COMMAND. 449 
 
 was anxious to attach the provinces, and still believed it possible to 
 do politically what had not yet been done by the sword. Additional 
 proclamations were sent forward, and a commission consisting of 
 Franklin, Chase, and Carroll, to which was added Carroll's brother, a 
 Jesuit priest, afterward Archbishop of Baltimore, was appointed to 
 visit Canada and organize if possible a political union. Scarcely had 
 they reached Montreal when news was brought of the arrival of a 
 British fleet at Quebec, and Franklin hastened back to Philadelphia, 
 at the instance of his colleagues, to urge the imperative need of im- 
 mediate reinforcements. 
 
 In March Arnold was displaced by General Wooster, who arrived 
 with fresh troops. He remained in command about two months, but 
 could make, though he attempted it, no impression upon the fortifica- 
 tions of Quebec. Of his courage and high character there was no 
 question, but he wanted military experience. He was, perhaps, too 
 old to learn, and his conduct of affairs had aroused much dissatisfaction 
 and criticism. He was accused of partiality to the troops from his 
 own State Connecticut but so bitter were sectional jealousies, 
 both in Congress and in the army, that such an accusation was always 
 sure to be made wherever enmity existed, and was certain to be ac- 
 cepted, no matter how unfounded. The difficulties, moreover, with 
 which Wooster had to contend, his successors found equally insur- 
 mountable till Canada was at length abandoned. 
 
 When Major-general Thomas, who superseded Wooster, reached the 
 army early in 'May, and found that he could hardly bring into the 
 field a thousand men, he determined to retreat. Even this he was not 
 permitted to do unmolested ; the garrison of Quebec had been largely 
 reenforced, and Carleton attacked the American position, routed 
 Thomas's force, and captured a hundred prisoners and most of the 
 stores and provisions. He retreated first to Descham Vault and then 
 to the Sorel a wretched march of a disorganized, disheartened, half- 
 starved, and rapidly decreasing force. Their miseries were aggra- 
 vated by small-pox, brought into the camp by a girl who had been a 
 hospital nurse, and at the mouth of the Sorel, on the 2d of June, 
 General Thomas died of it. 
 
 The British were equally successful at other points. Major Butter- 
 field, with nearly four hundred men, held a fortified post at a place 
 called the Cedars, on the St. Lawrence, about forty miles above Mon- 
 treal. This was captured on the 18th of May by Captain Foster with 
 a detachment of regulars and Canadians, and a large body of Indians. 
 The next day Major Sherburne, on his way to relieve Butterfield, was 
 attacked in the woods by a part of Foster's force, and was compelled 
 to surrender. Arnold, who followed a few days later, was unsuccess- 
 
 VOL. in. 29 
 
450 
 
 THE NORTHERN CAMPAIGN OF 1775. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 ful in an attempt to dislodge the enemy from their strong position at 
 Vaudreuil and Perrot Island. 
 
 Brigadier-General John Sullivan succeeded Thomas and arrived at 
 Sorel early in June. Ignorant of the condition of the army, he was 
 over-confident, and wrote to Washington that he could " put a new 
 face upon affairs here." In the interval of four days between Thomas's 
 death and Sullivan's arrival General Thompson was in command, and 
 had ordered a forward movement to Three Rivers. Sullivan approved 
 it, and putting the expedition under the command of Thompson, 
 ordered him with two thousand men, under Colonels Wayne, Maxwell, 
 and Irvine, to join Colonel St. Clair, who was already at Nicolet. 
 On the evening of the 7th the combined forces crossed the river at 
 Point Du Lac, and found themselves in the morning on the beach, con- 
 fronted by Fraser, with artillery and a force three times their own, 
 exposed to the fire of the ships in the river, and their advance impos- 
 sible. One hundred and fifty were taken prisoners, and the rest re- 
 gained their boats. Sullivan resumed the retreat which Thomas had 
 begun, falling back upon Ticonderoga and Crown Point. The Canada 
 campaign was at an end in June, the British holding Isle aux No'ix as 
 their advanced post. 
 
 I fj^mBiagHpr 
 
 Monument to Montgomery in St. Paul's Churchyard, New Yor*. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1776. 
 
 PARLIAMENT SUPPORTS THE KING. EFFORTS TO INCREASE THE BRITISH FORCES. 
 EMPLOYMENT OF MERCENARIES. MILITARY IMPORTANCE OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 THE PROVINCIAL CONGRESS OF NEW YORK AND THE COMMITTEE OF SAFETY. 
 THE SONS OF LIBERTY. EXPLOIT OF MARINUS WILLETT. ZEAL OF ISAAC 
 SEARS. LEE TAKES COMMAND. FORTIFICATIONS OF BROOKLYN AND NEW YORK. 
 LORD STIRLING. THE SOUTHERN EXPEDITION. BATTLE OF MOORE'S CREEK 
 BRIDGE. ARRIVAL OF PARKER'S FLEET. SOUTH CAROLINA ADOPTS A TEMPO- 
 RARY CONSTITUTION. THE BRITISH ATTACK THE DEFENCES OF CHARLESTON, AND 
 ARE REPULSED. 
 
 THE ministerial plan of operations in America had been gradually 
 maturing since the reception of the news of the Battle of 
 Bunker Hill, which had touched the pride of the nation at supports the 
 the most sensitive point. Parliament, in the autumn of 1775, 
 voted the King and Ministry all the men and material the) r called for. 
 It mattered little that the friends of America in that body again raised 
 their voices for concession and conciliation. The vigorous appeals 
 and arguments of Burke, Fox, Barre", Wilkes, and Conway in favor 
 of colonial rights, still found unwilling ears, or were listened to only 
 as the vindictive tirades of the "opposition." The ministerial party 
 blindly clung to the policy of coercion first and concession afterwards, 
 and, in their address to the King, expressed the hope that they should 
 be able, " by the blessing of God," to put such means into his Majes- 
 ty's hands as would soon defeat and suppress the rebellion, and enable 
 him to accomplish his " gracious wish of reestablishing order, tran- 
 quillity, and happiness " throughout his empire. The disorders in 
 America, the King said in his speech, " must be put down by the most 
 decisive exertions." Wisdom and clemency, he told the Commons, 
 alike demanded this course. 1 
 
 The army to be sent for the subjection of the colonies was to be in- 
 creased to nearly forty thousand men, supported by a formi- RecrtlitinK 
 dable fleet, manned by over twenty-two thousand seamen. '" E "K land - 
 If the parliamentary majority which sustained the ministerial policy 
 1 King's speoch at the opening of Parliament, October 26, 1775. 
 
452 OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1776. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 had reflected the feeling of the nation at large, there would have been 
 no difficulty in obtaining the additional troops required. But the calls 
 met with a feeble response. The necessary complement at home to 
 fill the old and depleted regiments could not be secured ; and the gov- 
 ernment, even before it resolved on extreme measures, found itself 
 forced to draw upon its garrisons in the West Indies, Ireland, and 
 Gibraltar. The King, as Elector of Hanover, could do as he pleased 
 with Hanoverian troops, and by putting these in places garrisoned by 
 English soldiers, he was able to add about twenty-three hundred men 
 to the army in America. The opposition in the House of Commons 
 seized upon the evident lack of popular sympathy with the King's 
 measures. The Ministry, compelled to find an explanation, replied 
 that the general prosperity among all classes, and the large numbers 
 enrolled in the militia, who could not be called upon for foreign ser- 
 vice, was a sufficient explanation of this apparent apathy. 1 It was 
 an excuse, however, rather than an explanation, and one in which, 
 pi-obably, they did not themselves believe ; it certainly was not satis- 
 factory to those statesmen who were opposed to the war. 2 
 
 The King cared nothing for English sympathy, and was equally 
 indifferent as to whether the war was carried on with Eng- 
 fiTses "o aid lish or with foreign soldiers. It was a question of pounds 
 and thalers, not of flesh and blood. Soldiers could be bought 
 at a fixed price per head, and, while that was so, it was the English 
 treasury, not the English people, that need be consulted. George, 
 from his relations to Holland, had no doubt of her friendly aid. In 
 an autograph letter to the States General, he asked for permission to 
 employ their Scotch brigade. He was refused. " Our troops," said 
 the Baron van der Capellen, " would be employed toward suppressing 
 what some please to call a rebellion in the American Colonies ; for 
 which purpose I would rather see janissaries hired than soldiers of a 
 free state. Such a measure must appear superlatively detestable to 
 me, who think the Americans worthy of every man's esteem, and look 
 on them as a brave people, defending, in a becoming, manly, and relig- 
 ious manner, those rights which as men they derive from God, not 
 from the legislature of Great Britain." 
 
 The ministers, with hardly less doubt of a favorable answer, turned 
 to Russia. The Eastern question of that day had brought the Empire 
 under obligations to Great Britain for aid against the Turks. In re- 
 
 1 Speech iu Parliament, November 3, 1775, by Lord Harrington, of the War Office. 
 
 a In the early part of 1775, Lord Camden expressed the belief, founded on observation, 
 that the merchants, tradesmen, and common people were generally opposed to a war, while 
 the landed interest supported the government. At the opening of the campaign of 1776, 
 the King probably had a stronger support than Camden allowed him the year before. But 
 the war, nevertheless, was not popular. 
 
1775.] 
 
 ATTITUDE OF THE GREAT POWERS. 
 
 453 
 
 turn, Catherine would now, perhaps, have helped the English King 
 with twenty thousand troops, but for the interference, both x oh eipfrom 
 open and secret, of the other powers. For more than a dozen "^1*' or 
 years France had been anxiously watching the growing alien- 1>ru "' a - 
 ation between Great Britain and her American colonies. De Font- 
 
 British and Hessian Soldiers. 
 
 leroy and De Kalb had been sent, after the French war, to travel in 
 America, to observe her resources, and stud} 7 the causes of dissen- 
 sion which even at that time had begun to show themselves ; and 
 now, when hostilities had actually broken out, so far as France had 
 influence with other European powers, it was sure to be exercised, 
 directly or indirectly, in favor of the revolting colonies. Nothing could 
 be expected from Prussia. Said Frederick to a party of Englishmen : 
 " If you intend conciliation, some of your measures are too rough ; and 
 if subjection, too gentle. In short, I do not understand these mat- 
 ters ; I have no colonies. I hope you will extricate yourselves advan- 
 tageously ; but I own the affair seems rather perplexing." And as to 
 European sentiment generally, John Moore, an English physician, 
 
\ 
 
 454 OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1776. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 travelling through the principal cities in 1775, wrote from Vienna: 
 European " At present, the inhabitants of the Continent seem as impa- 
 opimon. tient as those of Great Britain for news from the other side 
 of the Atlantic ; but with this difference, that here they are all of one 
 mind, all praying for success to the Americans, and rejoicing in 
 every piece of bad fortune which happens to our army." 1 
 
 But there were no large political considerations to influence the 
 Aid from decisions of the petty German princes of Hesse-Cassel, Bruns- 
 G > e e rnn y wick, Hanau, and others, when England asked for their as- 
 statcs. sistance. It was simply a question of the purchase of so 
 much war material, and negotiations depended upon nothing but price, 
 and the skill of buyer and seller. As early as the summer of 1775, Sir 
 Joseph Yorke, who had been instructed to look into the condition of 
 these markets, reported that men enough could be had if the price 
 could be agreed upon. In due time, when it was determined that the 
 most vigorous measures should be taken for the campaign of 1776, 
 Colonel William Fawcett was sent to conclude with these needy princes 
 the purchase of their subjects, to carry on a foreign war for the sub- 
 jection of a free people. There was little or no voluntary service, 
 except among officers; men were compelled to enlist, and a stipulated 
 price per head was paid by England to the potentates who claimed 
 the right to dispose of their people as suited their own purposes. 
 
 Even George III. had grace enough to feel some compunction at 
 a transaction disgraceful to the England of the eighteenth century. 
 " To give," said the King, when offers were made to the English 
 agent to open recruiting offices, " German officers authority to raise 
 recruits for me, is, in plain English, neither more nor less than to 
 become a man-stealer, which I cannot look upon as a very honorable 
 occupation." But the offices were opened, the men were forced to en- 
 list, and the princes were paid by England. The Duke of Brunswick, 
 who was surrounded by mistresses, who gave the manager of his 
 opera an annual salary of thirty thousand thalers, and his librarian, 
 Lessing, three hundred, sent off his quota of men with insufficient 
 clothing, without overcoats, with no supply of shoes and stockings ; and 
 their commander, Baron Riedesel, was compelled to borrow in England 
 five thousand pounds to meet their most common wants. 2 The first 
 division of these German troops sailed from England for Quebec in 
 April, 1776. Others followed, in the course of the summer and au- 
 tumn, for New York. 3 Months before the evacuation of Boston, it 
 
 1 A View of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland, and Germany. By John Moore, 
 M. D. (London, 1786.) Letter 96. 
 
 2 See The German Element in the War of Independence. By George Washington Greene. 
 8 The whole number of German troops sent to America is thus given by Dr. Kapp, 
 
 after a careful collation with the statements in the State Paper office in London : 
 
1776.] MILITARY IMPORTANCE OF NEW YORK CITY. 455 
 
 had become clear that the base of future operations must be at some 
 other point along the coast. To increase the army there, and attempt 
 to break up the siege, promised no gain which would compensate for 
 the loss that must inevitably follow. Moreover, the rebellion was 
 gathering force ; and it was evident that it had already assumed di- 
 mensions so formidable that it was no longer possible to crush it by 
 a single blow at a single point, as was at first supposed might be 
 done. 1 
 
 It was determined, therefore, that the central point of military move- 
 ments for 1776 must be New York. Here was an unequalled 
 harbor, with the Sound on one side and the Hudson on the a base of 
 
 . i> , i T i 111 operations. 
 
 other, both strategic lines for the British, who had com- 
 mand of the sea. On land the army could control New York and the 
 Jerseys, and break up all concert of action between New England and 
 the more southern provinces. This was the English view of the situa- 
 tion, and it was so obvious that Washington assumed New York to be 
 Howe's objective point on evacuating Boston, and took his own meas- 
 ures accordingly. 
 
 In New York, as in some other colonies, the functions of the Pro- 
 vincial Congress had devolved upon a Committee of Safety 
 of a hundred members. There were Tories upon this com- York PTO- 
 
 . vincial Con- 
 
 mittee ; or rather, to speak with entire accuracy, there g* and 
 
 J _, . the Corn- 
 
 Were conservative members who afterwards became Tories. mitteeof 
 
 Things had gone very far before that hard and fast line was 
 drawn which made the impassable barrier between Whig and Tory. 
 To this party belonged many of the best and the wisest of the colo- 
 nists. John Adams put them at about one third of the whole people. 
 Their names are often found attached to those earlier protests and 
 remonstrances with which it was hoped to avert the despotic purposes 
 of the King and his ministers. They held to the hope of conciliation 
 and compromise, long after their neighbors had seen that there was no 
 choice but absolute submission or resistance to the death. There were 
 
 Brunswick .... 5,723 Waldeck 1,225 
 
 Hesse-Cassel . . . 16,992 Anspach 1,644 
 
 Hesse-Hanau . . . 2,422 Auhalt-Zerbst ... 1,1 CO 
 
 Total 29,166 
 
 Of these, 17,313 returned home, leaving 11,853 to be accounted for. 
 
 1 A change of base was talked of as early as July, 1775, as appears from what Burgoyne 
 wrote to Lord Rochford, Secretary for the colonies : " General Gage seems to be not dis- 
 inclined to an idea of evacuating Boston, if he can make himself master of New York, and 
 of taking up his winter quarters there ; and there is much solid reasou iu favor of it. The 
 pot, in a military view, is much more important, and more proper to begin the operations 
 of next year's campaign. In political consideration, yet more might be said for it, and in 
 regard to general supply, the neighborhood of Long Island, and other adjacent Islands, 
 would afford some assistance that we want here." Foublauque's Burgoyttt, p. 181. 
 
456 
 
 OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1776. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 many of this class in New York ; some of them belonged to the Com- 
 mittee of One Hundred, and they took advantage of their position to 
 aid the royal cause on the plea of preserving the peace. 
 
 But there was a committee within the Committee, composed of that 
 The sons of c l ass f men the "Sons of Liberty" who had little 
 Liberty. faith in Prince or Parliament, who had a strong belief in 
 the inherent right of self-government, and were quite ready to stake 
 
 everything upon 
 that issue; who 
 were quick to see 
 and ready to resent 
 any encroachment 
 of arbitrary power. 
 If the One Hundred 
 were too cautious, 
 the smaller number 
 were always ready 
 for any emergency; 
 if these sometimes 
 were regai'dless of a 
 wise prudence, and 
 Head- their actions tended 
 to precipitate a con- 
 test without sufficient preparation, the larger number by their very 
 inertness staved off catastrophe. If one party hastened slowly, there 
 was no lack of watchfulness in the other, no abatement of activity to 
 keep up the movement of steady and uncompromising resistance to 
 evei-ything that threatened the popular cause. 
 
 When the news of the engagements at Lexington and Concord 
 reached New York, immediate steps were taken to prepare 
 
 New York , ., . r ,,. ,. 7, , 
 
 prepares for for war, it war was to come. A public meeting assembled 
 in the City Hall, and all the arms and munitions in the 
 arsenal, which was a part of that building, were secured. A com- 
 pany, led by John Lamb and Isaac Sears, two of the most active of 
 the " Sons of Liberty," arrested all the British vessels in port about 
 to sail for Boston ; a vessel loaded with rum, to which the Collector 
 had refused a permit, because the rum Avas supposed to be for the use 
 of the insurgents, was taken possession of, and her cargo discharged ; 
 the keys of the custom-house were demanded of the Collector, and 
 the building closed. A military company was formed, the arms taken 
 from the arsenal were put into their hands, cannon were collected, 
 and measures promptly but quietly taken to put the city in a state of 
 defence. The imperative need was arms and munitions of war. At 
 
 Burns's Coffee-house, Broadway, opposite Bowling Green, 
 quarters of the Sons of Liberty. 
 
1776.] 
 
 THE SONS OF LIBERTY. 
 
 457 
 
 Turtle Bay, on the East River, was a deposit of military stores be- 
 longing to the King. Lamb, with some of his associates, approached 
 it by night from the river, surprised the guard, and carried off every- 
 thing of value. So, when the British garrison were ordered to join 
 the army in Boston, they were not permitted to take with them any 
 
 Marinus Wiilett's Exploit. 
 
 arms except those they carried in their hands. It was agreed that 
 they should embark unmolested, and this was one of those acts of 
 prudence, on the part of the Committee of One Hundred, of which 
 their more ardent compatriots did not approve. The intention un- 
 doubtedly was, to avoid a collision, which, as General Wooster was 
 already in camp outside of New York with an army of volunteers 
 from Connecticut, might have been easily provoked. It was believed, 
 
458 OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1776. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 on the one hand, that the whole garrison could have been taken prison- 
 ers ; on the other, it was thought best not to run the risk of a bombard- 
 ment of the town by the naval vessels in the harbor. The decision 
 of the Committee was acquiesced in, but the acquiescence went only 
 wmett'sex- to the letter of the agreement. As the troops marched at 
 vloit - noon down Broad Street, preceded by five carts loaded with 
 
 arms, they were met at the corner of Beaver Street by Marinus 
 Willett, who boldly seized the first horse by the head and brought the 
 whole line to a halt. A crowd instantly gathered, among them the 
 Mayor, Whitehead Hicks, and Gouverneur Morris. The command- 
 ing officer demanded the reason of this interruption. Willetb an- 
 swered that permission was given only that the troops should embark 
 unmolested, not that they should take away arms. Hicks and Mor- 
 ris expostulated. " You are right ! " shouted John Morin Scott, 
 an eminent Son of Liberty. Willett jumped upon the cart, and de- 
 clared the arms should not be taken to be used against their " Brethe- 
 ren in Massechusettes." If the soldiers, he said, desired to " Join the 
 Bloody business which was transacting near Boston, we were ready to 
 meet them in the Sanguin field," but if any of them "felt a repug- 
 nance to the unnatural work," and would leave the ranks, they should 
 be protected. He then led the first cart into Beaver Street out of 
 the line of march, and the rest followed, the officers making no at- 
 tempt to stop him, and no reply to his appeal. Only one of the sol- 
 diers, however, accepted his invitation to desert, and marched off with 
 the carts, cheered and protected by the crowd. 1 
 
 A few weeks later the Continental Congress made a requisition 
 The cannon "P on New York for cannon, to be placed at several points 
 fhJETthe on ^e Hudson for the defence of the course of that river. 
 Battery. -p ne Provincial Congress ordered the Battery to be dis- 
 mantled, and the enterprise was entrusted to Captain Lamb with a 
 military company, and Sears at the head of a band of volunteers. 
 The English line-of-battle-ship Asia lay at anchor not far distant ; 
 she sent a boat ashore, and in an encounter between her crew and 
 the men at the Battery, several of the sailors were wounded, and one 
 was killed. The Asia opened fire upon the fort, but all the mounted 
 guns were nevertheless removed. 2 
 
 The situation grew every month, almost every week, more critical. 
 
 1 MarittHS Willftt's Narrative. In a volume of original papers published by the Mercan- 
 tile Library Association, of New York, under the title : New York City During the Revolu- 
 tion, with a valuable introduction by Henry B. Dawsou. 
 
 2 Six months afterwards General Lee removed the remaining puns which were not 
 mounted, from the fort, without opposition from the ships. " Indeed," he says, in a letter 
 to the President of Congress, " I even consider their menaces to fire upon the town as idle 
 gasconade." Lte Pajters, vol. i., N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coil. 
 
1776.] ZEAL OF ISAAC SEARS. 459- 
 
 Between Whigs and Tories, the difference was irremediable ; neither 
 could allow that one might be mistaken without being wick- The feeling 
 ed ; and as both held the opinions of the other side to be fe- whT^Tand 
 lonious, persecution was inevitable wherever one side was Tories 
 stronger than the other. The patriots were the stronger in and about 
 New York; but the Tories were strong enough to make a determined 
 fight, hoping to gain the ascendency if sufficiently reenforced from 
 England. " Rivington's New York Gazetteer " was their mouth-piece, 
 and was bold and aggressive. It was determined to suppress it, and 
 
 THURSDAY Nov. 23, l?7- [ NT i6l 
 
 RIVINGfO Si's 
 
 N 
 
 Connecticut, Hudfou's River, K^**^ Iraffi^v^ Newjerfev, and Quebec 
 
 W E E K L ADVERTISER. 
 
 PRINTED nl his OPEN an* UNINFLUENCED PRESS fronHiis HANWER-SqcxRE . 
 Head of Rivington's Gazetteer. 
 
 for that purpose Isaac Sears, who had removed to New Haven, visited 
 New York at the head of more than a hundred men. On OWM.^^ 
 the way they burned a sloop at Mamaroneck. Entering the ',' ^ ng ' 
 city, they rode in perfect order down Broadway and Wall ettcer -" 
 Street, at the foot of which was Rivington's office. This they com- 
 pletely sacked, carrying away the type to cast into bullets, and offered 
 to give Rivington, in return, an order on Lord Dunmore, of Virgin- 
 ia, for a new supply, he having seized and confiscated a printing-office 
 in Norfolk which belonged to a Whig. 
 
 Sears was never so happy as when suppressing Tories, several of 
 whom he captured on this expedition, and took back with 
 him to New Haven. Some months later Lee made him an 
 Adjutant-general, with the rank of Lieutenant-colonel. " He is," he 
 wrote to Washington, " a creature of much spirit and publick virtue, 
 and ought to have his back clapped." Sears's first duty in his new 
 office was to suppress the Tories of Long Island. In a report to Lee, 
 he wrote : " I arrived at Newtown, and tendered the oath to four of 
 the grate Tories, which they swallowed as hard as if it was a four 
 pound shot that they ware trying to git down." This was the " iron- 
 clad " oath which Lee had forced upon the Tories of New Haven. 
 
 When Lee was ordered by Washington to take command at New 
 York, the Committee of Safety were greatly alarmed lest his 
 appearance should provoke Try on who had fled to one of command at 
 the men-of-war in the harbor to put in execution his 
 threat to bombard the town. The Committee pleaded the defenceless 
 
460 
 
 OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1776. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 condition of the place, and especially their want of powder ; but the 
 more ardent patriots, who, by such actions as we have just related, 
 
 had kept up the enthusiasm 
 of the people, welcomed the 
 news of Lee's coining. Lee 
 himself wrote the Com- 
 mittee that they might be 
 " perfectly easy." " If," 
 he said, " the ships of 
 war are quiet, I shall be 
 quiet ; but I declare sol- 
 emnly that if they make a 
 pretext of my presence to 
 fire on the town, the first 
 house set in flames by their 
 guns shall be the funeral 
 pile of some of their best 
 friends." He should only 
 bring into the cit} 7 enough 
 men to protect it ; but " If 
 Mr. Try on and the Captains 
 of the ships of war are to 
 prescribe what numbers are, 
 and what numbers are not, 
 to enter the town, .... 
 the condition is too humiliating for freemen to put up with." 
 
 But the ample bay, the two navigable rivers, and the waters of 
 t ne Sound beyond, were important features in the question 
 o f ^ e f ence . Clearly, whoever commanded the sea had an 
 important advantage, for New York could be surrounded by a fleet. 
 The width of the North River appeared, to Lee at least, to render 
 its obstruction to the passage of ships impossible ; and on the other 
 side, the Sound was open to them as far as Hell Gate. A hostile 
 squadron could thus take up a position on the flanks and in the rear 
 of Manhattan Island, and with the assistance of land forces, compel 
 the evacuation of the town. The General saw this at a glance, and 
 so reported to Washington ; but at the same time he believed the 
 position offered an opportunity for delaying and embarrassing an 
 
 1 This picture, reproduced iu Moore's Treason of Charles Lee (from which we copy it), 
 was originally engraved for a work written by Dr. Thomas Girdlestone, to prove that Lee 
 was the author of the Junius Letters. It is from a likeness taken when Lee returned from 
 Poland, in his uniform as aid-de-camp to King Stanislaus. Girdlestone says : " Though 
 designed as a caricature, it was allowed, by all who knew General Lee, to be the only suc- 
 cessful delineatiou, either of his countenance or person." 
 
 General Charles Lee. 1 
 
 New York. 
 
1776.] FORTIFICATIONS OF BROOKLYN AND NEW YORK. 461 
 
 enemy ; that if it could not be converted into a permanent military 
 base for the Americans, it could be made a costly capture for the Brit- 
 ish ; and on this theory he proceeded to construct a system of de- 
 fences, to turn New York into what he termed " a disputable field of 
 battle." 
 
 He proposed first to make it secure, at least against a direct attack 
 in front, presenting as bold a face toward the sea as the sit- 
 
 . i T ..., . Works on 
 
 nation admitted. The salient point he judged to be the Brooklyn 
 present Columbia Heights on the Brooklyn side of the East 
 River, for the reason that it commanded the city and the river. 
 There he laid out an intrenched camp with strong redoubts, one of 
 which was thrown up on the edge of the bluff, at the foot of the pres- 
 ent Clark Street, and nearly opposite a point on the New York side 
 between Fulton and Wall Street ferries, where its guns could sweep 
 the channel or bombard New York, should the enemy succeed in 
 landing within the town limits. This work was named Fort Stirling, 
 and was the most important in Lee's plan. Several batteries Andin x ew 
 were erected on the New York side of the river, from the York 
 ship-yards to Whitehall Slip, which, in conjunction with Fort Stirling, 
 were expected to make the passage of men-of-war along that chan- 
 nel a hazardous venture. To prevent their coming down the Sound, 
 a fort was built by Colonel Drake's Westchester County militiamen, 
 at Horn's Hook, opposite Hell Gate. 
 
 For the protection of the west side of the city, nothing was at- 
 tempted beyond the erection of works at various points below Canal 
 Street, to keep the ships out of the river. No attempt was made to 
 fortify the Jersey side. 
 
 At Fort George and the Grand Battery at the foot of Broadway 
 the works were strengthened ; but the General had little confidence in 
 their ability to withstand a vigorous bombardment. That the enemy, 
 however, might not obtain a foothold there, he tore down the rear of 
 Fort George, threw up a parallel across Broadway, at Bowling Green, 
 to command its interior, and had the streets in the vicinity barricaded. 
 In a word, he sought to turn New York into a fortified military 
 camp. 
 
 The work had only been begun, when, on the 6th of March, Con- 
 gress divided the southern and middle colonies into two 
 
 3 ... , , T , I/mlStir- 
 
 military departments, and transferred Lee to the command 
 of the former, leaving Lord Stirling to carry out the plan his 
 predecessor had adopted. Nothing was lost by the change, for the 
 new commander hurried on the work with the utmost energy. Wash- 
 ington's orders, now that he saw the siege of Boston near its end, 
 were imperative that no time should be lost in preparing for what he 
 
462 
 
 OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1776. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 knew the spring would bring. Stirling J recruited troops on every side, 
 and ordered out all the male inhabitants that had remained in town, 
 black and white alike, to dig on the fortifications. The slaves were 
 to work every day. On the Brooklyn side the scattered residents 
 were directed to report with spades, hoes, and pickaxes, to Colonel 
 Ward, whose Connecticut regiment had been stationed there. The 
 
 troops under Stirling at this 
 point consisted, about the mid- 
 dle of March, of the two Con- 
 necticut regiments that Lee 
 brought with him, New York 
 militia from Westchester, Or- 
 ange, and Dutchess counties, 
 under Colonels Drake, Swart- 
 wout, and Van Ness, Stirling's 
 New Jersey Continentals, and 
 other small detachments, which, 
 with the two city " independ- 
 ent" battalions, made up an ir- 
 regular force of about four thou- 
 sand men. The city military 
 companies were composed of 
 citizens of means and influence, 
 under Colonels John Lasher and 
 William Heyer, and in time of 
 peace attracted attention by their varied and showy uniforms. Many 
 of them were now found true to the colonies, and remained in the 
 ranks. One of their number, afterwards Major, Nicholas Fish, 
 tells us of their working on the redoubts, though " it did not agree 
 well with the tender hands and delicate textures of many," and doing 
 their part with " amazing agility and neatness." 
 
 The joyful news of the success at Boston reached the busy gar- 
 wa.hington r i son while matters were in this condition. Washington 
 ?or"7*o" s did not lose a moment, after Howe's evacuation, in hur- 
 NewYork. rying the New England army to New York. The Penn- 
 sylvania and Virginia riflemen had already been sent on, when Gen- 
 erals Heath, Sullivan, Spencer, and Greene reached the city with their 
 forces twenty-two regiments at intervals during April. The 
 artillery was under Knox, and Putnam took the chief command till 
 the arrival of Washington. Colonel Rufus Putnam, the chief engi- 
 
 1 This officer, who henceforth was to be identified with the fortunes of Washington's 
 army to the close of the war, was a native of New York, became afterwards a resident of 
 New Jersey, and claimed the title to an earldom through his Scotch descent. His name 
 was William Alexander. 
 
 \ 
 
 Lord Stirling. 
 
1776.] 
 
 NEW YORK A MILITARY CAMP. 
 
 463 
 
 neer, was also sent, with instructions to stop on his way at Provi- 
 dence and Newport, and lay out such further defences as might be 
 required at either place. Last of all followed the Com- 
 mander-in-chief, who left Cambridge on April 4th, passed arrives m 
 through Providence, and arrived at New York on the 13th. 
 Here he fixed his headquarters temporarily at a house in Pearl Street, 
 at the foot of Cedar Street. 
 
 If the town had been like a busy camp in February and early 
 March, it was now, with its great garrison, altogether given 
 over to the hurry of military preparation. Families has- a military 
 tened into the country ; often, in their fear, leaving the city 
 in the worst of weather, and abandoning their dwellings to the sol- 
 diery. As early as April 9th, 
 Major Fish was impressed 
 with the change that had 
 already occurred, and wrote 
 to a friend that the society 
 of the town had been aban- 
 doned by "most of its mem- 
 bers, especially the fair ; " 
 the barricading of the 
 streets, and other military 
 matters were, he said, his 
 "current employment." 
 Some of the troops were 
 quartered in houses at the 
 foot of Broadway, and mnde 
 sad havoc with their inte- 
 riors, to the great grief and 
 loss of their Tory owners. 
 The few merchants who re- 
 mained raised their goods 
 to an enormous price. Rum, sugar, and cotton, went up immoderate- 
 ly ; some articles could not be had at all. One writer notes that there 
 was quite a panic about "pins." In every way this lately flourishing 
 centre of colonial trade suffered the evils of a military occupation. 
 One Jacob Harsin told the whole story when he added, in a postscript 
 to a letter to a friend, " We are now a City of Waar." 
 
 While there was such strained activity here at the central point, 
 the British plans had other ends in view than the capture of 
 
 The South- 
 
 the metropolis, and in one quarter at least these plans were 
 already working. The expedition to the southern colonies 
 was the King's favorite project. Dumnore and Martin, the royal g<>v- 
 
 Israel Putnam. 
 
 
464 OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1776. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 ernors of Virginia and North Carolina, had made such sanguine rep- 
 resentations of the ease with which both colonies could be brought 
 
 O 
 
 to submission, that great things were hoped for in that quarter the 
 moment the Governors were provided with a small force to back their 
 authority. The seven regiments sent for this purpose had been se- 
 lected by the King himself. They were led by Earl Cormvallis, and 
 the fleet was commanded by Admiral Peter Parker ; but Clinton, 
 who, as we have seen, had been detached from the force at Boston, 
 met them near Wilmington and assumed the general command. The 
 work done for it was believed it would be short, the generals had 
 orders to return north, and Cornwallis was to go at once to Canada. 
 
 Dunmore and Martin misunderstood the popular sentiment of their 
 colonies. Dunmore had already exasperated the Virginians with his 
 threats, and forays, and attempts to incite insurrection among the 
 slaves. Martin, in North Carolina, issued a proclamation on the 10th 
 of January denouncing the " daring, horrid, arid unnatural rebellion " 
 existing in the province, and calling upon all faithful subjects to erect 
 his Majesty's standard and unite in its support. He was sure of 
 gathering a large force of loyalists, and it was this that determined the 
 destination, in the first instance, of Cornwallis's expedition. The set- 
 tlers along the upper part of Cape Fear River, round about Cross Creek 
 (the present Fayetteville), were chiefly Highlanders, who had emi- 
 grated from Scotland after the defeat of the Pretender, at Culloden, 
 thirty years before ; and were now, out of gratitude and by an oath 
 of allegiance, bound to take up the King's cause in America. Among 
 their lenders were the McDonalds, the McLeods, and the Stuarts, 
 and to them Martin issued commissions with authoritv and orders to 
 
 V 
 
 muster their men at Brunswick on the 15th of February, and then 
 march to the coast to cooperate with Clinton and Cornwallis. Donald 
 McDonald, as colonel, quickly gathered a force fifteen hundred strong, 
 mostly Scotchmen and old " regulators," and prepared to carry out 
 Martin's instructions. But the Governor's January proclamation also 
 had another response. The Highlanders and the disaffected were no 
 more prompt to obey, than the patriotic party were to disobey it. 
 The resolute and conscientious Scotch-Irish Presbyterians in the back 
 counties, and the majority of the inhabitants along the coast, took up 
 arms, but it was against the King; Martin, frightened from his head- 
 quarters at Newbern, was compelled to issue his commands from on 
 board the sloop-of-war Scorpion, anchored off Wilmington. 
 
 When the mustering of McDonald's elans and " banditti " was 
 The militia heard of, the provincial militia were called out, to prevent 
 rilMJ them from reaching the Governor. Brigadier-general James 
 
 Moore, of New Hanover, with his regiment of five hundred State 
 
1776.] 
 
 BATTLE OF MOORE'S CREEK BRIDGE. 
 
 465 
 
 troops, and some others, marched to Rockfish Bridge, within seven 
 miles of the Scotchmen's camp at Fayetteville. On the 19th he was 
 joined by Colonel Lillington with Wilmington minute-men, Colonel 
 Kenon with Duplin volunteers, and Colonel Ashe with independent 
 rangers. Among these soldiers were "men of the first fortunes" in 
 the State, who, to encourage others, "footed it the whole time." 1 
 Moore's force was still one or two hundred less than McDonald's. 
 On the 20th, the latter moved within four miles of Moore, and gave 
 him until noon of the next day to join the royal standard. Moore 
 returned the Highlander's consideration by allowing him exactly the 
 same time to lay down his arms and be received as a friend and coun- 
 tryman of America. Otherwise, he should be treated as an enemy. 
 
 That night McDonald gave the Americans the slip, and, passing 
 them by a rapid march, headed for the coast. Moore in- Mc D, ma i d 
 stanllv sent expresses in all directions for troops to gather eluj 8them - 
 at certain points to intercept the Scotchmen. Colonel Richard Cas- 
 well, a trusted citizen of 
 Lenoir County, was coming 
 up with eight hundred mi- 
 litia from Newbern ; and 
 to him Avord was sent to 
 find and " by every means 
 in his power distress, har- 
 ass, and obstruct " the en- 
 emy on their way, while 
 Colonel Lillington made a 
 forced march to Widow 
 Moore's Creek Bridge, 
 twenty-five miles above 
 Wilmington, near the South 
 
 River aCrOSS which AIcDon- 
 
 aid would have to move. All these detachments, directed by General 
 Moore, made extraordinary exertions to overtake the enemy. Lilling- 
 ton reached the bridge on the 26th, some hours before the loyalists, 
 and was joined in the afternoon by Caswell, who took command, tore 
 up the planks, and erected a breastwork across the road on the lower 
 side. The lo\ r alists came on early the next morning. McDonald, 
 their chief, who had fought at Culloden, had been taken ill and re- 
 mained in his tent, leaving the command to Colonel McLeod, a vete- 
 ran of the same field. In the ranks were the husband and son of 
 Flora McDonald, who had won the affection of these people by help- 
 ing Charles Edward, the Pretender, to escape in disguise, and who 
 
 1 Letter in Force's. American Archives, Fourth Series, vol. v., p. 959. 
 30 
 
 Moore ' s Creek Bridee - 
 
 P sition8 of the Lo.v* 1 ' 8 ** ; 3, 4, positions of the Americans. 
 
 VOL. m. 
 
466 OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1776. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 now, an emigrant to North Carolina, stood faithful to King George 
 in return for her pardon. 
 
 When the enemy reached the bridge to attack, Caswell's post on the 
 The fight at opposite side appeared to them to be abandoned. McLeod, 
 with Captain Campbell following, charged across the still 
 standing timbers, and, with part of the force, rushed within 
 thirty paces of the American intrenchment, when Caswell's and Lill- 
 ington's men rose from their cover and delivered a terribly destruc- 
 tive fire, killing the two leaders, and wounding or killing nearly forty 
 others. Twenty balls pierced McLeod, who had almost reached the 
 breastwork. " In a very few minutes," as Moore reported, " their 
 whole army was put to the flight," and numbers were captured, among 
 whom was McDonald. The victory was complete. Eight hundred 
 and fifty were taken prisoners, disarmed, and discharged, and fifteen 
 hundred excellent rifles were secured, besides a box of money and 
 chests of medicines. Colonel Moore reached the ground at the close 
 of the battle, and the united provincial force, which had but two men 
 wounded in the action, slept that night on the field. 
 
 This affair determined the fate of Toryism in North Carolina, break- 
 ing Martin's power and blasting his hopes. Within two weeks, nearly 
 ten thousand men were in arms in the State to resist the threatened 
 invasion. For four years after, until Cornwallis reappeared in 1780, 
 North Carolina enjoyed comparative quiet, and lent her aid to other 
 colonies. 
 
 All this took place while Clinton was at Wilmington, and while 
 Parker's ^ ne ships of the British expedition were one by one arriving 
 
 fleet arrives. tQere but j fc not unt jl tne 33 Q ^aV t | mfc Admiral 
 
 w 
 
 Parker reached Cape Fear from Cork with the last of his fleet. The 
 fifty-gun ship Bristol, with Cornwallis on board, had been eighty- 
 one days on the voyage. Gales and calms delayed them. Finding 
 what had happened in Martin's government, Cornwallis wrote to 
 Germain : " I must still more lament the fatal delays that pre- 
 vented the armament from arriving in time in this Province." Noth- 
 ing remained but to make an attempt on Charleston, and thither 
 the expedition sailed during the last days of May. 
 
 South Carolina stood ready to bear her share in the struggle. Her 
 Prepara- early sympathy with Massachusetts, and now with the com- 
 insouh War mon Continental cause, had culminated in the most active 
 Carolina. preparation for the defence of her own borders. Much had 
 already been done. Colonel Christopher Gadsden had been appointed 
 to command the first regiment on the Continental basis, and Wil- 
 liam Moultrie the second. William Thompson led a regiment of 
 rangers or riflemen, all approved marksmen, the Colonel being the 
 
1776.] THE DEFENCES OF CHARLESTON. 467 
 
 best shot among them ; and the militia were organized to be ready 
 at the earliest call. The large disaffected part of the population was 
 watched, and prevented from disturbing the measures for meeting 
 the enemy at the sea. The militiamen on the North Carolina border 
 were notified to march to the assistance of their sister colony on the 
 first alarm ; but now that the danger had passed in that quarter, 
 North Carolina had already sent a regiment without waiting for the 
 summons. 
 
 The safety of the colony depended in the present emergency upon 
 the security of Charleston harbor. Without the cooperation of the 
 men-of-war, Clinton would be powerless ; and without the possession 
 of the harbor the ships could not cooperate. To hold it from the 
 enemy, accordingly, the military authorities of the State exerted their 
 best energies. The defences begun in 1775 were pushed on Defences for 
 rapidly. At the entrance to the harbor on the north side charleston - 
 lay Sullivan's Island, a long, low, marshy, and wooded strip of land ; 
 and opposite, on the south side, James Island, much larger, was prac- 
 tically a part of the main coast. Here Gadsden was stationed, while 
 Sullivan's Island was intrusted to Moultrie and Thompson. On the 
 north side, nearer the city, at Haddrell's Point, Brigadier-general 
 Armstrong, whom Congress had sent down from Pennsylvania, took 
 command. The city itself was subjected to much the same treatment 
 as New York. Along the water-front, batteries and breastworks were 
 thrown up. Valuable storehouses were torn down at the docks, to 
 give room for the play of the cannon ; the streets were barricaded ; 
 the leaden weights of the windows of the churches and houses were 
 moulded into bullets, and boats, wagons, and horses impressed. Lee 
 arrived on the 4th of June to assume command, and was constantlv 
 active in providing further means of defence. 
 
 The point of greatest importance in the harbor defences was the 
 fort which Colonel Moultrie and his men had been building on Sul- 
 livan's Island, where the channel ran nearest to the shore. This was 
 Fort Sullivan, and in shape and size it resembled Fort George at the 
 Battery in New York, a square with four bastions, large enough 
 to hold a thousand men. Night and day the soldiers and carpenters 
 worked on it, and yet, says Moultrie, it was not nearly done when 
 the enemy attacked. Only the two faces fronting the channel were 
 complete, and on these thirty-one guns were mounted. But the best 
 material was ready to their hands. The palmetto logs which entered 
 lai-gely into the construction of the work, with their tough and spongy 
 fibre, were hardly less serviceable than a mail of iron, and there was 
 plenty of sand to support them. The walls were sixteen feet thick, 
 and the centre of the fort was a swamp. 
 
468 OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1776. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 The enemy made their appearance in the offing on the 31st of May. 
 Though expected, the news startled Charleston. President 
 fleet a\>- Rutledge and his Council immediately sent expresses through- 
 out the State to hasten the march of the militia to the coast. 
 Citizens packed off their families into the country. Everybody went 
 to work more vigorously on the defences, slaves and masters alike. 
 Lee showed distrust in the ability of Moultrie and his fort to keep 
 back the fleet, and once he recom mended abandonment of the post. 
 At all events, he urged the immediate building of a bridge of boats 
 between Sullivan's Island and the main. But Moultrie had no thought 
 of turning back. One day, when Lee visited him, he took him aside 
 and asked, ''Colonel, do you think you can maintain this post?" 
 "Yes, I think I can," was Moultrie's reply. When finally the ships 
 came over the bar, his temper was again tested. " Well, Colonel," 
 said Captain Lamperer, an old sailor, " what do you think of it now?" 
 " I think we shall beat them." " Sir, when those ships come to lie 
 alongside of your fort, they will knock it down in half an hour." 
 "Then we will lie behind the ruins and prevent their men from land- 
 ing, " replied Moultrie. 
 
 After long delay, the British advanced to the attack, on the morn- 
 ing of the 28th of June. The land forces had debarked 
 on Long Island, lying north of Sullivan's but a short dis- 
 tance ; and they were to attack Thompson first and then Moultrie, in 
 the flank and rear, while the fleet should bombard the fort in front. 
 Between ten and eleven o'clock the men-of-war sailed up the channel 
 opposite to Moultrie's palmetto work, and the action opened. There 
 were two fifty-gun ships, the BrutottatA Experiment; the frigates 
 Actfemi, Active, Solebay, Sphynx, and Syren, of twenty-eight guns 
 each ; the mortar-ship Thunder Bomb, and two smaller vessels. Two 
 hundred guns were here to be trained on the devoted post. The 
 Solebay led the squadron, with the Bristol, flying Admiral Parker's 
 pennant, third in line. As they approached within range, the Amer- 
 ican? opened fire on the leading vessels, but no reply was made until 
 the fleet had come to anchor close to the fort. The bombardment 
 now began, and was sustained in " one continual blaze and roar." 
 Deserters reported that Moultrie's first fire killed a man in the Bris- 
 tol's tops, whereupon the Admiral ordered the tops to be cleared. 1 
 Shot poured against the side of the fort, but they sank into the logs, 
 without splintering or dislodging them ; the shells that fell within 
 plunged mostly into the marsh or deep sand, and seldom exploded, so 
 that the ships' fire proved less damaging than might have been in- 
 ferred from the sound of the repeated and simultaneous discharges. 
 
 1 Gadsden to Moultrie. Force. 
 
u 
 
1776.] THE BRITISH REPULSED. 469 
 
 Moultrie's men withstood the ordeal with unfailing courage and 
 discipline. The Colonel, who was suffering from the gout, smoked 
 his pipe with his officers. Their guns were well aimed, and the balls 
 tore through the ships with fatal effect. All through the long and 
 hot afternoon the bombardment was kept up, and neither side showed 
 signs of yielding. Once the flag of the fort, a blue banner with a 
 silver crescent, bearing the word " Liberty," was shot away, but Ser- 
 geant William Jasper boldly leaped the parapet, and re- j asper - gex . 
 placed it securely on the bastion in the hottest of the fire. ploit- 
 On the other hand the Bristol's cables were cut by the shot, and 
 as she swung around, bringing her decks within range of the American 
 guns, they poured in a deadly fire. The ship and her crew suffered 
 terribly. Captain Morris was taken below, wounded in several 
 places, and his arm shot away. Every man on the quarter deck was 
 either killed or wounded, the Admiral standing alone at one time in 
 the thickest of the shot. He escaped with his clothes torn and a 
 slight wound. The Experiment suffered hardly less than the Bristol. 
 " Mind the Commodore ! " " Mind the fifty-gun ships ! " was Moul- 
 trie's order ; and their death-roll showed how effectively the artil- 
 lerists did their work, these two ships alone suffering a loss of sixty- 
 three killed and one hundred and forty-seven wounded. Three of 
 the other ships attempted to take position westward of the fort, but 
 all ran aground. The Actceon next morning was abandoned and 
 burned. By seven in the evening, the ships' fire slackened, and at nine 
 they slipped their cables and withdrew two miles from the Island. 
 Clinton, with the land forces, had attempted to cross from Long 
 Island to Sullivan's Island, but the fire from Thompson's Thefinal re . 
 battery, and the depth of the ford, frustrated his plans. pulse- 
 
 The victory was complete. Congratulations poui-ed in upon Moul- 
 trie. His regiment was presented with a pair of beautiful banners. 
 Lee, who had visited the fort during the engagement, and pointed some 
 of the guns himself, wrote to Washington of Moultrie's men : " The 
 cool courage they displayed astonished and enraptured me, for I do 
 assure you, my dear General, I never experienced a hotter fire. 
 Twelve full hours it was continued without intermission. The noble 
 fellows \vho were mortally wounded, enjoined their brethren never to 
 abandon the Standard of Liberty." 1 The garrison lost ten 
 men killed, and twenty-nine wounded. From that day the 
 fort was known as Fort Moultrie. The decisive character of this ac- 
 tion convinced the British of the improbability of success in that 
 quarter, and the expedition sailed for New York. 
 
 i The Lee Papers. N. Y Hist. Soc. Coll. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 GROWTH OF THE IDEA OF INDEPENDENCE. PAIXE'S " COMMON SENSE." THE MEN- 
 DON RESOLUTIONS. THE SUFFOLK RESOLUTIONS. THE CHESTER RESOLUTION. 
 THE MECKLENBURG RESOLUTIONS. ACTION OF THE SEVERAL COLONIES, AND OF 
 THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. LEE'S RESOLUTIONS. THE COMMITTEE TO DRAFT 
 A DECLARATION OF REASONS. INDEPENDENCE DECLARED. JEFFERSON'S DEC- 
 LARATION. THE SLAVE-TRADE CLAUSE. RECEPTION BY THE PEOPLE. FORMA- 
 TION or THE STATE CONSTITUTIONS. 
 
 UP to the autumn of 1775, the growth of 
 the feeling in favor of proclaiming independence had been 
 very slow. But after the royal proclamation had severed all 
 relations except those between 
 
 a government and rebels who have 
 
1776.] 
 
 GROWTH OF THE IDEA OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 471 
 
 "traitorously levied war" against it, the sentiment spread through 
 the country. As Hancock said, affairs were "hastening fast 
 to a crisis." Views which a twelvemonth before would have iudepoiid- 
 beeii denounced as treasonable and dangerous, were now 
 freely expressed in conversation, in letters, and in pamphlets that had 
 a wide circulation. Franklin, who in March, 1775, personally assured 
 Lord Chatham that, although he had travelled widely in America, he 
 never had heard, " in any conversation from any person, drunk or 
 sober," the least expression in 
 favor of independence, wrote to 
 a friend in Holland, at the close 
 of the year, that American inde- 
 pendence was likely to be de- 
 clared before long. When Con- 
 gress assembled in May, 1775, 
 the Massachusetts delegates 
 were suspected of leaning tow- 
 ard separation, which even the 
 most active Sons of Liberty in 
 Philadelphia were unprepared 
 for, and they said to Adams 
 on his arrival, " You must not 
 utter the word independence, 
 nor give the least hint or insin- 
 uation of the idea, either in 
 Congress or in any private con- 
 versation ; if you do, you are 
 undone, for the idea is as un- 
 popular in Pennsylvania, and all the Middle and Southern States, as 
 the Stamp Act itself." Early in 1776 Adams wrote that scarcely a 
 newspaper was issued which did not openly vindicate the opinions so 
 recently denounced. 
 
 The publication which had the widest influence at this juncture was 
 undoubtedly Thomas Paine's "Common Sense." Paine was 
 an Englishman, with literary tastes and ambition, who, at "common 
 the age of thirty-seven, came to America in December, 1774, 
 taught pupils in Philadelphia, and edited the " Pennsylvania Maga- 
 zine." He was befriended by Dr. Benjamin Rush, and at his sugges- 
 tion wrote, under that famous title, a pamphlet which presented a 
 strong and original plea for independence. It appeared anonymously 
 in January, 1776, and had a wide circulation. Everybody read it, and 
 nearly everybody was influenced by it. "All men, whether in Eng- 
 land or America," wrote Paine, "confess that a separation between 
 
 Thomas Paine. 
 
472 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 the countries will take place one time or other. To find out the very 
 
 time, we need not go far, for the time hath found us There is 
 
 something absurd in supposing a continent perpetually governed by 
 
 an island Britain is the parent country, say some ; then the 
 
 more shame upon her conduct A government of our own is 
 
 our natural right We have boasted the protection of Great 
 
 Britain without considering that her motive was interest, not attach- 
 ment ; that she did not protect us from our enemies on our account, 
 but from her enemies on her own account, from those who had no 
 quai-rel with us on any other account, and who will always be our ene- 
 mies on the same account." 
 
 The Colonial Declaration of Independence, which was soon to fol- 
 The Mendon 1 W ' was to some extent anticipated by the action of various 
 Resolutions. towns an( j cou nties. The first of them all, probably, was 
 the town of Mendon, Worcester County, Mass., which in 1773 adopted 
 these resolutions : 
 
 " Resolved, That all men have an equal right to life, liberty, and 
 property. Therefore, 
 
 " Resolved, That all just and lawful government must originate in 
 the free consent of the people. 
 
 " Resolved, That a right to liberty and property (which are natu- 
 ral means of self-preservation) is absolutely inalienable, and can never 
 lawfully be given up by ourselves or taken from us by others." l 
 
 Here are three of the fundamental propositions of the great Dec- 
 laration, that all men have an equal right to life and liberty ; 2 that 
 this right is inalienable ; and that just government must originate in 
 the free consent of the people. Following these were the Suffolk Res- 
 The Suffolk olutions, adopted by the delegates for Suffolk County, Massa- 
 Kesoiutions. cnuse tts, in a meeting at Milton, September 6,1774, bearing 
 a similar resemblance to the Colonial Declaration, especially in the cat- 
 alogue of grievances. Dr. (afterward General) Joseph Warren was 
 chairman of the committee that reported them, and is believed to 
 have been their author. The preamble declares that " the power but 
 not the justice, the vengeance but not the wisdom of Great Britain, 
 which of old persecuted, scourged, and exiled our fugitive parents from 
 their native shores, now pursue us, their guiltless children, with un- 
 relenting severity," and that " if a boundless extent of continent, 
 swarming with millions, will tamely submit to live, move, and have 
 their being at the arbitrary will of a licentious ministry, they basely 
 yield to voluntary slavery." It also recites some of the more flagrant 
 
 1 Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, April 27, 1870. 
 
 2 The addition of " the pursuit of happiness " is mere rhetoric, that idea being already 
 included in "liberty." 
 
1774.] THE SUFFOLK RESOLUTIONS. 473 
 
 causes of complaint, such as the mutilation of the charter, the pres- 
 ence of ships of war, military murders in the streets of Boston, and 
 the law designed to shield the murderers. The first resolution ac- 
 knowledges George III. as the rightful sovereign. The second de- 
 clares it the indispensable duty of the colonists to preserve civil and 
 religious liberty. The third denounces the Boston Port Bill and kin- 
 dred acts, and the fourth declares that no obedience to those acts is 
 due from this province. The fifth declares that, so long as the jus- 
 tices of the several courts hold their places by any other tenure than 
 that which the charter and laws direct, no regard ought to be paid to 
 them by the people ; and the sixth pledges the county to support and 
 bear harmless all officers who refuse to execute the orders of the 
 courts, at the same time recommending that disputes between citizens 
 be referred to arbitration. The seventh advises collectors of taxes to 
 retain the public moneys till the civil government is placed on consti- 
 tutional ground. The eighth denounces those who have accepted 
 seats at the council board by virtue of a mandamus from the King, 
 and calls upon them to resign, or be considered enemies of the prov- 
 ince. The ninth expresses alarm at the new fortifications on Boston 
 Neck.. The tenth advises that all qualified citizens use the utmost dil- 
 igence to acquaint themselves with the art of war, and meet for that 
 purpose at least once a week. The eleventh declares a purpose to act 
 merely on the defensive, so long as that is consistent with self-preser- 
 vation, and assigns " affection to his Majesty " as the reason for this. 
 The twelfth suggests that if any citizens who have been conspicuous 
 in contending for violated rights are arrested, the unconstitutional 
 office-holders should be seized as hostages. The thirteenth declares 
 the necessity for a Provincial Congress ; and the fourteenth promises 
 respect and submission to the measures of the Colonial Congress for 
 the restoration of civil and religious rights. The fifteenth counsels 
 order, respect for the rights of property, and "a steady, manly, uni- 
 form, and persevering opposition, to convince our enemies that, in a 
 contest so important, in a cause so solemn, our conduct shall be such 
 as to merit the approbation of the wise and good, and the admiration 
 of the brave and free, of every age and every country." l These res- 
 olutions were sent to the Continental Congress, which approved them 
 on September 17, and resolved that the whole continent ought to 
 support Massachusetts in resisting the unconstitutional change in her 
 government, and that whoever accepted office under the altered state 
 of affairs should be considered a public enemy. 
 
 The committee of Chester County, Pennsylvania, on May 31, 1775, 
 
 1 The resolutions may be found in the appendix to Bradford's History of J/assacAu- 
 setts. 
 
474 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. [CiiAP. XIX. 
 
 adopted a resolution asking the citizens to pledge themselves to "learn 
 The Chester the military exercise," and that " we will, at all times, be 
 Evolution, in readiness to defend the lives, liberties, and properties of 
 ourselves and fellow-countrymen, against all attempts to deprive us 
 of them." 1 Other counties took similar action. On the 6th of June, 
 ]77o, the County of Cumberland, New York (now Southern Ver- 
 mont), passed unanimously a series of resolutions, the first of which 
 declared that the late revenue acts of the British Parliament were 
 "unjust, illegal, and diametrically opposite to the Bill of Rights;" 
 and the second " That we will resist and oppose the said Acts of 
 Parliament, in conjunction with our brethren in America, at the ex- 
 pense of our lives and fortunes, to the last extremity, if our duty to 
 God and our country require the same." 2 
 
 On the 31st of May, 177.5 (the very day that Chester County, 
 Pennsylvania, passed its resolution), the committee of Meck- 
 lenburg lenburg County, North Carolina, adopted a series somewhat 
 
 Kesolutious. ... i "o o> n i i IP mi 
 
 similar to the outiolk resolutions of the vear before. Hie 
 
 tf 
 
 preamble founds this action upon " an address presented to his Maj- 
 esty by both Houses of Parliament in February last," wherein "the 
 American colonies are declared to be in a state of actual rebellion." 
 From this circumstance the Committee say they "conceive that all 
 laws and commissions confirmed by or derived from the authority of 
 the King and Parliament, are annulled and vacated, and the former 
 civil constitution of these colonies for the present wholly suspended." 
 The first resolution declares all commissions granted by the Crown to 
 be void. The second declares that no legislative or executive power 
 exists, except in the Provincial Congress of each province. The third 
 to the fifteenth are devoted to a code of procedure for civil disputes 
 and the collection of taxes. The sixteenth declares that " whatever 
 person shall hereafter receive a commission from the Crown, or at- 
 tempt to exercise any such commission heretofore received, shall be 
 deemed an enemy to his country," and the seventeenth denounces 
 as equally criminal any person who refuses obedience to the above 
 rules. The eighteenth pronounces these rules to be in force till the 
 Provincial Congress shall provide otherwise, " or the legislative body 
 of Great Britain resign its unjust and arbitrary pretensions with re- 
 spect to America." The nineteenth provides for the arming of the 
 county militia, and the twentieth for the purchase of powder, lead, 
 and flints. 3 The resolutions bear the signature of Dr. Ephraim Bre- 
 vard as Clerk of the Committee, and he is believed to have been their 
 
 1 Printed in Force's American Archives, Fourth Series, vol. ii , p. 859. 
 
 2 Force's American Archives. Fourth Series, vol. ii., p. 918. 
 8 Wheeler's History of North Carolina, p. 235. 
 
1775] THE MECKLENBURG RESOLUTIONS. 475 
 
 author. As soon as they were adopted, they were read from the steps 
 of the Court House in Charlottetown, and a copy was sent by special 
 messenger to the Congress at Philadelphia. They were published in 
 the " South Carolina Gazette " of June 13, 1775, and a copy sent to 
 Earl Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the Colonies, by Governor 
 Wright of Georgia, is still in the State Paper Office, London. In 
 a note accompanying it, Governor Wright said : " By the enclosed 
 paper your lordship will see the extraordinary resolves by the people 
 in Chavlottetown, Mecklenburg County ; and I should not be surprised 
 if the same should be done everywhere else." It required no great 
 sagacity to surmise that the same would be done everywhere else, in- 
 asmuch as it had been done already in so many other places. One 
 month later, Governor Martin, of North Carolina, writing from Fort 
 Johnston to the Secretary, says : " The minutes of a council held at 
 this place the other day, will make the impotence of Government 
 here as apparent to your Lordship as anything I can set before you. 
 .... The situation in which I find myself at present, is indeed, my 
 lord, most despicable and mortifying The resolves of the com- 
 mittee of Mecklenburg, which your Lordship will find in the enclosed 
 newspaper, surpass all the horrid and treasonable publications that 
 the inflammatory spirits of the continent have yet produced." The 
 horrified Governor assigned this bad preeminence to the Mecklenburg 
 resolutions, not because of their intrinsic character, for they were 
 less audacious and forcible than some of the others quoted above, but 
 because they were uttered in his own province, and in them lie rend 
 his own deposition from power. They do not appear to have attracted 
 any attention in Congress, or even to have been officially received 
 there, perhaps because similar ones (notably those of Suffolk 
 County) had already been received and acted upon. 1 
 
 1 The Mecklenburg resolutions of May 31 had entirely passed from memory, when in 
 1819 the Raleigh, N. C., Register published a series of five which, according to :in ac- 
 companying statement purporting to have been written at the time, wei-e adopted by the 
 people of that county on the twentieth day of May, 1775. Portions of these resolutions liore 
 a striking likeness to the most familiar parts of the Colonial Declaration of Independence 
 so striking as to render it morally certain that one must have l>een taken from ihe other. 
 This was especially true of the third: " That we do hereby declare ourselves a free and 
 independent people, and of right ouu'ht to be a sovereign and self-governing association, 
 under the control of 110 power other than that of our God and the general government of 
 the Congress; to the maintenance of which independence we solemnly pledge to each other 
 our mutual cooperation, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honour." The accom- 
 panying statement declared that a copy of the resolutions was sent to the North Carolina 
 delegation in Congress, and the messenger on his return reported that they " were individ- 
 ually approved by the memlrers, but it was deemed premature to lay them before the 
 House." The original manuscript was said to have been burned on the 6th of April. 1SOO, 
 but a copy had been sent to Dr. Hugh Williamson, who was writing a history of North 
 Carolina, and another to General W. li. Davie. But William>ou does not mention them 
 
476 DECLARATIOX OF INDEPENDENCE. [CHAI-. XIX. 
 
 By the spring of 1776, the uppermost thought in men's minds, all 
 over the country, had come to be independence of England, 
 
 Prepare- , . . l ii-i 
 
 tious for in- a more pertect union of the colonies, and the establishment 
 of a local government for each. John Adams, in the previ- 
 ous November, had written a letter to Richard Henry Lee, in which 
 he says : " It is a curious problem, what form of government is most 
 readily and easily adopted by a colony upon a sudden emergency." 
 In this, and in another letter, written the following January, he 
 sketched a plan for the guidance of a -people seeking " to get out of 
 the old government into a new one." l The desire to read the second 
 letter, which was the more elaborate, was so great, and the ap- 
 plication for copies so frequent, that it was printed, but without the 
 author's name, and its influence was felt both in and out of Con- 
 gress. 2 
 
 in his history, and the Davie copy was accompanied by a certificate, dated September 3, 
 1800, which expressly declared it to be compiled solely from memory, and that it "might 
 not literally correspond with the original record." On the publication of this document in 
 1819, Jefferson pronounced it " a very unjustifiable quiz," and pointed out the weakness 
 of its claim to authenticity. John Adams expressed surprise that he had never heard of it 
 before, and wrote to William Bentley, August 21, 1819: "I was on social friendly terms 
 with Caswell, Hooper, aud Hewes (delegates from North Carolina in the Continental Con- 
 gress), every moment of their existence in Congress ; with Hooper, a Bostonian and a son of 
 Harvard, intimate and familiar. Yet from neither of the three did the slightest hint of these 
 Mecklenburg resolutions ever escape : " and to Jefferson he wrote : " You know that if I had 
 possessed it I would have made the hall of Congress echo and reecho with it fifteen months 
 before your Declaration of Independence." Furthermore, it has been shown that in Au- 
 gust, 1775, the members of the North Carolina Provincial Congress, including four of the 
 reputed signers of the Declaration of May 20, subscribed their names to a test of loyalty 
 to the British Crown. The controversy that arose upon this question caused the Legislature 
 of North Carolina, in 1830, to appoint a committee to investigate it. In 1838 Peter Force, 
 compiling his American Archives, came upon an abbreviated copy of the genuine resolu- 
 tions of May 31, and in 1847 Dr. Joseph Johnson found the entire series in the South 
 Carolina Gazette, while about the same time George Bancroft discovered the copy in the 
 London State Paper Office. The probable explanation then becomes obvious, namely : that 
 the compiler of the disputed series did remember the circumstance of certain resolutions hav- 
 ing been passed, though making an error of eleven days in the date, and in attempting 
 to reproduce them was influenced by an unconscious remembrance of the far more striking 
 expressions of the Colonial Declaration of July 4, 1776. For a conclusive discussion of 
 this whole subject, see an article by Dr. James C. Welling, in the North American Review 
 for April, 1874. 
 
 1 See Appendix to vol. ii. of Sparks's Writings of Washington, and vol. iv. of Works of 
 John Adams. 
 
 2 Among the Warren Papers, in the possession of Mr. Winslow Warren, of Boston, is 
 a letter from John Adams to James Warren, the larger portion of which is devoted to 
 " the rise and progress " of this pamphlet on the formation of State governments. It is 
 interesting and valuable, as showing how much the earliest State constitutions were formed 
 upon the suggestions made by Mr. Adams. The pamphlet referred to is in Works of John 
 Adams, vol. iv., but this letter has never been published, and is much fuller than anything 
 heretofore discovered in relation to a subject of so much interest in the life of Mr. Adams, 
 and iu the constitutional history of the States. Mr. Adams says: .... "Inclosed you 
 have a little Pamphlet, the rise and progress of which you shall be told. Mr. Hooper and 
 
1776.] ACTION OF THE SEVERAL COLONIES. 477 
 
 On the 26th of March, the General Assembly of South Carolina, 
 the judges of her courts refusing to exercise their func- 
 tions, adopted a Constitution for the government of that south car- 
 Province. It was intended, however, only as a temporary 
 measure, to " continue to the 21st of October next and no longer," 
 or, as its preamble recited " until an accommodation of the un- 
 happy differences between Great Britain and America can be ob- 
 tained, an event which, though traduced and treated as rebels, we still 
 earnestly desire." North Carolina next took up the ques- ^ Xorth 
 tion on the 12th of April and her action was restrained Carolma - 
 by no avowed expectation of possible conciliation. The Congress of 
 that Province voted that her delegates " in the Continental Congress 
 be empowered to concur with the delegates of the other colonies in 
 declaring independency, and forming foreign alliances," reserving at 
 the same time, in which her example was followed by other prov- 
 inces, the right " of forming a Constitution and laws for this col- 
 ony." 
 
 Rhode Island, a little later, went further. On the 4th of May she 
 declared that as George III., regardless of the compact be- Of Rhode 
 tween him and his colonial subjects, was endeavoring to Island - 
 compel them " to submit to the most debasing and detestable tyr- 
 anny," it therefore " becomes our highest duty to use every means 
 which God and nature have furnished us, in support of our invaluable 
 
 Penn, of North Carolina, received from their friends in that Colony very pressing instances 
 to return home and attend the Convention, and at the same time to bring with them every 
 hint they could collect concerning government. 
 
 " Mr. Hooper applied to a certain Gentleman acquainted with the tenor of his letters, and 
 requested that Gentleman to give him his sentiments upon the subject. Soon afterwards 
 Mr. Penn applied to the same Gentleman, and acquainted him with the contents of his let- 
 ters, and requested the same favor. 
 
 " The time was very short. However, the Gentleman thinking it an opportunity, provi- 
 dentially thrown in his way, of communicating some hints upon a subject which seems not 
 to have been sufficiently considered in the Southern Colonies, and so of turning the thoughts 
 of gentlemen that way, concluded to borrow a little time from his sleep, and accordingly 
 wrote with his own hand a sketch, which he copied, giving the original to Mr. Hooper and 
 the copy to Mr. Penn, which they carried with them to Carolina. Mr. Wythe, getting a 
 sight of it, desired a copy, which the Gentleman made out from his memory as nearly as 
 he could. Afterwards Mr. Sergeant, of New Jersey, requested another, which the Gentle- 
 man made out again from his memory, and iu this he enlarged and amplified a good deal, 
 and sent it to Princeton. After this, Colonel Lee requested the same favor, but the Gen- 
 tleman, having written, amidst all his engagements, five copies or, rather, five sketches, 
 for no one of them was a copy of the other which amounted to ten sheets of paper pretty 
 full and iu a fine hand, was quite weary of the office. To avoid the trouble of writing any 
 more, he borrowed Mr. Wythe's copy, and lent it to Colonel Lee, who has put it under types 
 and thrown it into the shape you see. It is a pity it had not been Mr. Sergeant's copy, for 
 that is larger and more complete, perhaps more correct. This is very incorrect, and not 
 truly printed. The design, however, is to mark out a path and put men upon thinking. 
 I would not have this matter communicated." 
 
478 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. [CiiAP. XIX. 
 
 rights and privileges, to oppose that power which is exercised only for 
 our destruction/' It was then enacted that the " Act, entitled ' An 
 Act for the more effectually securing to his Majesty the allegiance of 
 his subjects in this his colony and dominion of Rhode Island and 
 Providence Plantations,' be, and the same is, hereby repealed; " and 
 it was provided that in all commissions for officers, in all writs, and 
 in all processes of law, " wherever the name and authority of the 
 said King is made use of, the same shall be omitted, and in the room 
 thereof, the name and authority of the Governor and Company of 
 this colony shall be substituted ; " that the courts of law be no 
 longer entitled nor considered as the King's courts ; and that no in- 
 strument in writing, of any nature or kind, whether public or private, 
 shall in the date thereof, mention the year of the said King's reign." 
 At the end of this session of the Assembly, the records which, says 
 Arnold, 1 had always closed with the formula, " God save the King," 
 ended now with the words, "God save the United Colonies." Thus 
 the first colony to declare her absolute independence of the Crown was 
 Rhode Island. 
 
 Massachusetts was not far behind, though her first official action, 
 of Masoa- like that of South and North Carolina, was prospective 
 ehusetts. ratner than positive. On the 10th of May her House of 
 Representatives called upon the people to assemble in town meetings 
 and instruct their representatives " Whether, if the Honorable Con- 
 gress should, for the safety of the said colonies, declare them inde- 
 pendent of the Kingdom of Great Britain, they, the said inhabitants, 
 will solemnly engage, with their lives and fortunes, to support them 
 in the measure." A month later, James Warren wrote to Elbridge 
 Gerry that one half the members of the House had received affirma- 
 tive instructions, and that probably all would have been so instructed 
 had the resolution reached them sooner. " Thus, it appears to me," 
 he adds, "the sentiments of our colony are more united on this great 
 question than they ever were on any other ; perhaps ninety-nine in a 
 hundred would engage, with their lives and fortunes, to support Con- 
 gress in the matter." One town only in the Commonwealth seemed 
 to hesitate. The vote of the majority in Barnstable the birth- 
 place of James Otis was in the negative ; but the same record bears 
 the protest of the minority, headed by Joseph Otis, a younger 
 brother of James, and their protest was made more emphatic, and 
 with added numbers, in a second public meeting the next day. Pitts- 
 field undoubtedly represented the feeling of the whole province, in 
 instructing its representative that he should " on no pretence, what- 
 ever, favor a union with Great Britain," and that he should use all 
 
 1 History of Rhode Island. 
 
1776.] ACTION OF THE SEVERAL COLONIES. 479 
 
 his influence with the House to assure the Congress that this whole 
 Province are waiting for the important moment which they in their 
 great wisdom shall appoint for the declaration of Independence and a 
 free Republick." 
 
 May, indeed, was a month of unusual agitation. Five days after 
 Massachusetts had called upon her towns to sanction by Action of 
 formal vote the undoubted determination of the people, nentarcdn- 
 eleven days after Rhode Island had declared herself an inde- gress ' 
 pendent Commonwealth, the Continental Congress, on the loth, 
 recommended to all the colonial assemblies to form such governments 
 as should " best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constit- 
 uents in particular and America in general ; " for, the preamble to 
 the resolution declared, the people being excluded by Act of Parlia- 
 ment from the protection of the Crown, " it is necessary that the 
 exercise of every kind of authority under the said Crown shall be 
 totally suppressed, and all the powers of government exerted under 
 the authority of the people of the colonies." 
 
 The country was ready for this final and conclusive step. Those 
 colonies that had not already spoken, directly, as Rhode Island, 
 North Carolina, Massachusetts ; indirectly, as South Carolina had 
 done, avowed, with a single exception, in the course of the next six 
 weeks, their determination to unite in declaring their independence. 
 The one exception was New York, whose Assembly hesitated on a 
 technicality, giving at the same time constructive assent. 
 
 Virginia had not waited for the suggestion from the Continental 
 Congi-ess of the 15th of May. On that same day her Con- 
 vention which had displaced the Provincial Assembly 
 instructed the Virginia delegates in Congress to urge it " to de- 
 clare the United Colonies free and independent States, absolved from 
 allegiance to, or dependence upon the Crown or Parliament of Great 
 Britain ; " and at the same time a committee was appointed to pre- 
 pare " a Declaration of Rights, and such a plan of government as will 
 be most likely to maintain peace and order in this colony, and secure 
 substantial and equal liberty to the people." 
 
 On the 14th of June the Connecticut Assembly resolved unani- 
 mously that the delegates of that colony to the Provin- Of Connect . 
 cial Congress, be instructed to propose to that body "to lcut 
 declare the United American Colonies free and independent States, 
 absolved from all allegiance to the King, and to give the assent of 
 this colony to such declaration, when they shall judge it expedient 
 and best." So, on the same day, the Delaware House of Representa- 
 tives took up the congressional resolution of May 15, and gave it 
 their unqualified and unanimous approval. 
 
480 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 New Hampshire was one day only behind Connecticut. A joint 
 of Xew committee of the Council and Assembly were appointed to 
 Hampshire, draw U p H declaration of opinion, which, on the loth, was re- 
 ported and unanimously adopted. It pronounced New Hampshire 
 " free and independent of the Crown," and instructed its delegates 
 in the Continental Congress to support a measure for the indepen- 
 dence of the thirteen colonies, with the usual reservation of local 
 government. 
 
 Whatever immediate influence may have been exercised in Phila- 
 ot Pennsyi- delphia itself by the presence of Congress, it was not suffi- 
 vaiiia. cient to dispel the doubt as to the policy which the Province 
 of Pennsylvania might insist upon maintaining. Religious convic- 
 tions, with Friends, overruled all political considerations; with them 
 no wrongs justified an appeal to the sword. The Proprietary interest 
 was still of great weight, and these combined influences tempered the 
 ardor of the most determined patriotism to that degree, at least, that 
 moderation and caution guided and checked the popular movement. 
 But they did not control it. When the advisory Resolution of Con- 
 gress came before the Assembly, it was determined that the instruc- 
 tions given to their delegates the previous November should not be 
 changed. " We strictly enjoin you," said those instructions, " that 
 you, in behalf of this colony, dissent from and utterly reject any 
 propositions, should such be made, that may cause or lead to a separa- 
 tion from our mother country, or a change of the form of this gov- 
 ernment." But to repeat this order was almost the final act of Pro- 
 prietary rule in this Province. On the 20th a large meeting of the 
 people of Philadelphia convened in the State-house yard. It de- 
 clared that the government was no longer " competent to the exigen- 
 cies of our affairs ; " that " a Provincial Convention ought to be chosen 
 by the people, for the express purpose of carrying the said resolve of 
 Congress into execution ; ? ' and directed the committee of the city 
 to call a conference of the committees of every county in the Prov- 
 ince. 
 
 The Conference assembled on the 18th of June ; on the 19th it 
 resolved that the Resolution of Congress of the 15th of May was 
 fully approved ; that the present government of Pennsylvania was 
 incompetent, and that a Provincial Convention be called to form a 
 new one. On the 24th a committee, appointed for that purpose, re- 
 ported a declaration which, after an explanatory preamble, declared 
 that "We, the Deputies of the people of Pennsylvania, assembled in 
 full Provincial Conference for forming a plan for executing the Re- 
 solve of Congress of the 15th of May last, for suppressing all author- 
 ity in this Province derived from the Crown of Great Britain, and for 
 
1776.] 
 
 ACTION OF THE SEVERAL COLONIES. 
 
 481 
 
 establishing a government upon the authority of the people only, now, 
 in this publick manner, in behalf of ourselves, and with the approba- 
 tion, consent, and authority of our constituents, unanimously declare 
 our willingness to concur in a vote of the Congress declaring the 
 United Colonies free and independent States, provided the forming 
 the government and the regulation of the internal police of this Col- 
 ony be always reserved to the people of the said Colony." 
 
 Congress Hall. Room where the Declaration was signed. 
 
 On the 30th of May, Governor Franklin, of New Jersey, a son of 
 Benjamin Franklin, issued a proclamation calling upon the O f \ewjer- 
 Congress of that Province to meet on the 20th of the next sey- 
 month. That body, however, assembled on the 10th of June, full 
 charged with zeal and courage in the common cause. On the 16th it 
 declared that the Governor, in his proclamation, had " acted in direct 
 contempt and violation of the Resolve of the Continental Congress 
 of the 15th day of May," and that he had " discovered himself to be 
 an enemy of the liberties of his country." Within a day or two he 
 was arrested, and soon after sent to Connecticut, where, the House 
 
 VOL. in. 31 
 
482 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 said, " he would be capable of doing less mischief than in New Jer- 
 sey." On the 21st it was determined to form a new government in 
 accordance with the recommendation of Congress ; and two days after- 
 ward five delegates were chosen to represent the Province in the Con- 
 tinental Congress, with authority "to join with them in declaring the 
 United Colonies independent of Great Britain." 
 
 New York and Maryland moved more slowly than the other colo- 
 otMary- ies ; but it was rather from the tardy caution of legislative 
 liind action than any want of popular enthusiasm. In both there 
 
 was a strong Tory party. Maryland had first to rid herself of a royal 
 and proprietary Governor. Early in April correspondence between 
 the Ministry and Governor Eden had been intercepted, and more nat- 
 urally than reasonably, for he was the representative of the King, 
 and the colonies, however good their cause, were in rebellion, had 
 aroused great indignation. General Lee, then in command of the 
 Southern Department, wrote to Samuel Purviance, the Chairman of 
 the Baltimore Committee, urging Eden's immediate arrest. " The 
 sin and shame," he said, in his impulsive and dictatorial way, " be on 
 my head. I will answer for all to the Congress." It was not, how- 
 ever, a question of sin and shame, but only of expediency, and wiser 
 men than Lee thought that Eden at liberty in England would be 
 much less likely to do harm than an imprisoned Governor in Mary- 
 land with a party behind him. The Convention advised him to de- 
 part, and in June he put himself out of reach, on board an English 
 frigate. On the 9th of that month the Committee of Safety called 
 upon the Convention to meet on the 20th, and that body resolved, 
 when it came together, that the writs issued, in the name of the Pro- 
 prietary, for a new election of members of the Assembly, should not 
 be obeyed. It further resolved, on the 25th, "that the representatives 
 of the colony in Congress, or a majority of them, or any three or 
 more of them, be authorized and empowered to concur with the other 
 United Colonies, or a majority of them, in declaring the United Col- 
 onies free and independent states." 
 
 On the 24th of May the New York Congress appointed a committee 
 of New to consider and report upon the Congressional Resolution of 
 York - the 15th. After several reports, the conclusion reached, on 
 
 the 31st, was, that inasmuch as the existing Congress came into exist- 
 ence under the old government, which was dissolved by the hostile 
 acts of the King, and by the abdication of Governor Tryon, the ques- 
 tion of a new government must be decided by the people ; and there- 
 fore there should be an election of a new Congress, to meet not later 
 than the second Monday of the next July. The delegates in the Con- 
 tinental Congress, therefore, were left without instructions. What 
 
JrT 
 
 fU'^^T-lfcl*; 
 
 ^jj^^j^l^^^i^^l^i^ 
 
 WOK" 
 
 cS^?a 
 
 : ' '-; 
 .-<:.' 
 
 HEN in the rcratfeofrnimanEverus.it becomes 
 t for one People to diflblve the Political Bands which have con- 
 J nefled iheo with another, and'To affume among tin Powers 
 : f the Earth, the federate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature 
 /.arnd.bf Nature's God entitle them, a decent Refpecl to the Opinions of* 
 Mankind requires that they (hould declare the Ciufe? which impel them 
 ';to the feperaticri. .' --.-.':. J : A.- /";". ,:.^;'/ : --' -' ' . .^ : . 'il 
 i hold thefe Troths t MMf-evideiit. thai aU Men ire 'created 
 
 For cjuartfiug l*ry Bodies <n u mcu TiOo^'afootM us ? -.* ' * ' \,_ *_ 
 for protecting than, by a mock Trial, from Putuuaieat for roy Hip* ' 
 jsa^hktnbeir-lbould commit oo the Inhibitors of these Stales : -'..,., 
 For cutting off our Trade with all Pans of the Wojiii-r.C.ii '"' 
 for impvung Tales en us without our Coafeot : 
 For depriving us, in many Gales, of .the Benefits of Trial i 
 Tor tranfporttog us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended C 
 For aboliuitng the free fyiiem of Englilh Laws to a nci^hbojring Province,* 
 
 ^^lt is the alight of the People to alter or to abolifh it, and to inltitule new. .: p cr fLfpcadieg our own Legiflatures. 
 
 ' s, and organizing its %> ,h Power to leuflatc for us in aU Cafes wharfocKT. 
 to egea their 
 
 . cftablifts 
 
 ,'. and accord 
 'poTed to 
 
 wife bufaC 
 
 _ the Forrqs to which they are accuftomed. But when k>nS''pbai the Worts of Death, Defouiion i 
 
 .Train of Abufcs and Ufurpations, purfuinj invariably the lame Objea, arcutcfiances of Crodty and Perfidy fcarccly paralleled' in t 
 wnces i DeCgn to reduce them suder abfolute Deipotifn. it a iheit -..., AgKj ,) loal | .oworthy the Head of a cmtoei K 
 R. E r,t, it is their Duty, to throw off fuch Covernment, and to provide ; He ^ cooflnjo.,! fcUow Gl ;. cnl ' ttto c^,,: ^ y-J, e^,, , 
 jKwC.uards i for their future Security. Suclthas been toepatient Suf- bar Arms aninft ttxir Coimiry, lo become tte &teculiaom o< cbclr Frieoas 
 
 * f tiefe Colonies, and Ijch is now *e Neceflity which con- >nd B rethrenVor to fall themrelTcs hy their Hands. "'-; '..'." L 
 
 em to alter ihcirformer Synems of GovcrntnenT.. The Hiftorj Ht hlj ^^ DomtKc infarrcaions amongll us, ind hat en4cavarc4 ' 
 fent King of Grejt-Bmatn is . y iftorispf repea-ed ln;unes and , w M lbc Tatoyan,, of , frontiers, the mcrcjci IndUn Savs-erf r 
 
 ^'S^z^^32^*^^!"*i* < *"<>" " .'^^^.p^q^y-a- 
 JS^s^d^^,^^^^^^.^^^ 
 
 ', -5 Impornnce. unlefs 
 
 4 -r 'to then. 
 
 H hai refafed to 
 
 in their Operation till bra Aflent mould' , 
 f jTpcnded, be has tttterty 
 
 rX-... p -'f' ; i: '.'. i f 
 
 _. Co oar BriiiA i/j^hr.'s. W 
 
 v . -raroed them from Time to Time of Attctrpu by tir ieg'^imre i 
 
 extend an unwarrantable Jarifdklxw over ttt. We hcr tnrird^ ibem < 
 
 of Co,.'.'iCg:iiaiiv. 
 
 ftanttromtlKDVntoryrftr^lMl^iUewdsJfaftJiefoW ec Vo, of Jal 
 .t, S ui ns ,h.n,intrCoc,Jli,ncewi;rrhi,MerfuiT.. ' ^fStS^^^Kf!f^.^n=ZJS^C'rZl 
 
 ^Hlhj diOol^RepretoiariveHoufes repeatedly; for opooCmj wiU( Jj^" 1 " "* . taU lb< ""S^ . ""^ EaC B * Wa ;". Pn 
 
 !e. ... - We,therefore.'OieReprereiiiaiiiesertt:UK;;. ET Jlt-AVES O 
 
 
 i JUKI uvouHmonxi) iw LZUIC tnacri , ... i. _ , ' . -, L, !-'. 
 
 ?owers, ineapableof Annihilation, AMER ' C *, 1 G J"."" 52!i"J aTetmJcv^riwatatr to 
 lave returned to the people at Urgt lor' their enrciie ; the State remain- ?. u P raDI! Judge of :bc World for the RetbtaJr of_oor IisjeLeoi, do SB the * " 
 
 *ppror.mtii>r,r o: Ljndr- , ..-.-.. <v A .<. M. ..u " ri* ABB i"r-iciT STATCT, ntj ajve. 
 
 V, Ht'lusobf.raAc.-i the Adminiftaation of TqKcej by refunag his AAeCto .'? W "' eoadude Peace, carsaAltxrii,e;la:-:;a Co.-nmo 
 
 'cKwi for efUbUlhiu,; Judiciary Powers. - : allo^AasMd Things si:cal,, si , rK t ? .r_:* i r*r! 
 
 . I- Ht ou made Jadjtsi.fei.ietK oa his Will alone, for tWTemuc of their-- tS~JS^K^ d *' Rc!t!300 ",', "I" " ra '^ :n ? 
 rtfft^ .^i ,1,.^ A~;.._, j p .. .ru..:. e.i.L_ trAaoBCf I^staeProvitkzce. ve tLuraaliV nleo>.e so (adi och 
 
 'ft Commerce, ad to "tau- 1 
 
 . Offices, uvj the- Amottnt aad Paymeaf of their SaUHea* .* ^ - ' r 
 
 \- Hcte; ercctciTa! icultirjde of new Offices, nod fine timer Swarms of 
 
 .Officers tc hirnfs our Peopt;, ar.d eat-oirt their Subftsoce. . ' '" '-'| 
 
 - h K u w iLept auong us, ic. Tines of Peace, Sanding Armies, without tie 
 
 Coafcnt of cut Leuflararc*. . ,. ': .-.:.- . - : . .' - '^ . >^'.j : 4- 
 
 , V.Mr.'hKafleed to rcaiet the Military independeat of and fiperior ' 
 
 b pie civil Power. - - ^_ v -; -.-...-.;,. .--:' 
 
 e Providccce, t e ouraal'v pled-c so atcn ether < 
 1 our lacrcU Hoacr. .'.:,' 
 
 I' 
 
 KEDUCED FAC-SIMILE OF THE BROADSIDE DISTKIBU J ED 
 THROUGH THE COUNTRY. 
 

1776.] 
 
 RICHARD HENRY LEE'S RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 483 
 
 these instructions would be, when the people should manifest their 
 wishes, there was no doubt, and the event justified the expectation. 
 
 Congress, meanwhile, was preparing for that last step which should 
 trample out all hope and all possibility of any reconciliation. 
 On the 7th of June, Richard Henry Lee, of the Virginia iution in 
 delegation, offered the three following resolutions, which 
 John Adams seconded : 
 
 " That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and 
 independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the 
 British Crown ; and that all political connection between them and 
 the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. 
 
 " That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures 
 for forming foreign alliances. 
 
 " That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the 
 respective colonies for their consideration and approbation." 
 
 Action upon these resolutions was postponed to the next day, Satur- 
 da}*, and again, on 
 that day, to Mon- 
 day, the 10th. On 
 Monday, it was 
 voted in Committee 
 of the Whole, that 
 consideration of the 
 first resolution be 
 postponed to Mon- 
 day, the 1st day of 
 July ; and in the 
 meanwhile, that no 
 time be lost, " in case 
 the Congress agree 
 thereto, that a com- 
 mittee be appointed 
 to prepare a Decla- 
 ration to the effect 
 of the said first res- 
 olution." This com- 
 mittee was chosen the following day, the llth of June, and its five 
 members were, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, 
 Roger Sherman, and R. R. Livingston. On the 12th, committees 
 were appointed to carry out the other two resolutions, that on a plan 
 of confederation being made up by one member from each Province. 
 
 The Continental Congress and the Colonial Assemblies, under 
 whatever name, marched together, deliberately and firmly, step by 
 
 House in which the Declaration was written. 
 
484 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. [CHAF. XIX. 
 
 step. Neither hurried, neither hindered the other. The Congress 
 waited while the colonies deliberated, and while all who had not al- 
 ready reached it, were coming to the same inevitable conclusion, Jef- 
 ferson was at work upon the great Declaration. Congress moved 
 with the dignity and formality becoming to the work before it. On 
 Friday, the 28th of June, the Committee reported the first draft of 
 the Declaration, which was read, and ordered to lie upon the table, 
 and the House adjourned to Monday, the 1st of July, the day ap- 
 pointed three weeks before for its consideration. On Monday, after 
 the dispatch of other business, the resolution relating to Independence 
 was referred to the Committee of the Whole, and the House then 
 resolved itself into Committee. When the House resumed its ses- 
 sion, Mr. Harrison, from the Committee, reported a resolution, and 
 on this being read, action upon it was postponed till the next day 
 at the request of one of the colonies, South Carolina On 
 encc de- the 2d the resolution was passed, " That these United 
 Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent 
 States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British 
 Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State 
 of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." Every col- 
 ony voted in its favor, except New York, whose delegates, being still 
 without instructions, did not vote at all. 1 
 
 Of the debates of these two days there is no record ; but that on the 
 Debate on ^ rs ^ day, when the question was carried in Committee of 
 tion I of elara the Whole, was the fuller and more conclusive. In a letter 
 Reasons to Samuel Chasp, John Adams said of it : " The debate took 
 up most of the day, but it was an idle mispense of time, for nothing 
 was said but what had been repeated and hackneyed in th.at room be- 
 fore a hundred times for six months past." But from other letters 
 of his, and from contemporary writers, it is plain that the debate, 
 however wearisome it may have been to himself, who bore the chief 
 burden of the day, was of great importance. There were delegates 
 who were opposed to the resolution, or hesitated to take the responsi- 
 bility of voting for it, notwithstanding the instructions of those they 
 represented. The new members from New Jersey were of the latter 
 class and were anxious to hear what arguments could be advanced in its 
 favor. To satisfy these, Mr. Adams was put forward, and he replied 
 with great power to Mr. Dickenson, of Pennsylvania, who represented 
 the cautious policy of a large party in that colony. Mr. Adams's 
 
 1 Henry Wisner was one of the delegates from New York, and Thomas McKean, a dele- 
 gate from Delaware, declared, in several letters written at different times in subsequent 
 years, that Wisrier voted for independence. But as the vote was taken by colonies, his in- 
 dividual vote could not be counted if the rest of the delegation refrained from voting. 
 
THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 (After a jxirtmit by Stuart. 
 
1776.] INDEPENDENCE DECLARED. 485 
 
 speech convinced the New Jersey delegates, and probably carried, if it 
 did not convince, others. All the members, in the end, signed the Dec- 
 laration, but wrote Mr. Adams many years afterward in 1813, 
 "as far as I could penetrate the intricate, internal folding of their souls, 
 I then believed, and have not since altered my opinion, that there were 
 several who signed with regret, and several others with many doubts 
 and much lukewarmness." It is an interesting fact, mentioned by 
 him in the same letter, that although North Carolina was the first 
 colony to instruct its members to vote for independence, a majority 
 for the measure hung at one time upon the vote of Mr. Hewes, a del- 
 egate from that colony, who had voted against it. A member, one day, 
 showed by documents from all the colonies, that public opinion was 
 everywhere in favor of the measure, when Mr. Hewes "started sud- 
 denly upright, and lifting up both his hands to Heaven, as if he had 
 been in a trance, cried out : ' It is done ! and I will abide by it ! ' 
 
 Of the event itself, Adams said in a letter to his -wife : " But the 
 day is past. Tlie 2d day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable 
 epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be 
 celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. 
 It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn 
 acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with 
 pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and 
 illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this 
 time forward, forevermore." Thus far, into the beginning of a second 
 century, the event has been commemorated in precisely the way that 
 Adams said it should be, but commemorated like the Landing of 
 the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth on the wrong day. For, it will 
 be observed, the resolution passed on the 2d day of July was the for- 
 mal declaration of the independence of the colonies the actual sev- 
 erance of all ties of allegiance to the British Crown ; the Declaration 
 adopted two days later the 4th was the declaration of the reasons 
 for establishing an independent government. 
 
 This statement of reasons for the declaration of independence was 
 not so easily agreed upon as the resolution to declare it. The com- 
 mittee, on the 3d, asked leave to sit again after a second day's debate. 
 Changes had been made in Jefferson's original draft by his colleagues 
 on the committee appointed for its preparation ; still others were 
 made by the House ; but none were so important or so significant as 
 the omission, in deference to the South, of the following pas- 
 
 . i TT I The slave- 
 
 Sage relating to the slave trade: " He has waged cruel war trade clause 
 
 against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights 
 of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never of- 
 fended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another 
 
486 
 
 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. 
 
 .This piratical war- 
 fare, the opprobri- 
 um of INFIDEL pow- 
 ers, is the warfare of 
 the CHRISTIAN king 
 of Great Britain. 
 Determined to keep 
 open a market 
 where MEN should 
 be bought and sold, 
 he has prostituted 
 his negative for sup- 
 pressing every legis- 
 lative attempt to 
 prohibit or restrain 
 this execrable com- 
 merce. And that 
 this assemblage of 
 
 I horrors might want 
 no fact of distin- 
 guished dye, he is 
 now exciting those 
 very people to rise 
 in arms among us t 
 and to purchase that 
 liberty of which he 
 has deprived them, 
 by murdering the 
 people on whom he 
 also obtruded them ; 
 thus paying off for- 
 mer crimes commit- 
 ted against the LIB- 
 ERTIES of one peo- 
 ple, with crime* 
 which he urges them 
 to commit against 
 the LIVES of anoth- 
 er." 
 
 But the great 
 
 .body of the docu- 
 the King', statue ment was left as 
 
a 
 
 a 
 
 2 
 
 y 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 U) 
 
 PC 
 
1776.] THE STATE CONSTITUTIONS. 487 
 
 Jefferson had written it. Finally, late on the afternoon of July 4, it 
 was approved and passed, and ordered to be printed. At T h e i>eciar- 
 the same time is was " resolved, that copies of the Declara- j,* g 
 tion be sent to the several assemblies, conventions, and com- ad P ted 
 mittees or councils of safety, and to the several commanding officers 
 of the Continental troops ; that it be proclaimed in each of the United 
 States, and at the head of the array." 1 
 
 It was not till the 8th that there was any public celebration in Phil- 
 adelphia, perhaps because the printed copies of the Declara- 
 tion were not ready earlier. The Committee of Safety or- tion promui- 
 dered that the sheriff of Philadelphia should read, or cause 
 it to be read and proclaimed on that day at 12 o'clock. At that hour 
 the Committee of Safety and of Inspection, the officers of the city 
 government, and many members of Congress, filed out in procession 
 from the State House into the yard, where a great concourse of people 
 gathered around the observatory, and the Declaration was read from its 
 balcony by John Nixon, a member of the Committee of Safety. The 
 day was given up to public festivity, and the great bell in the tower 
 of the State House led the rejoicing peal of all the other bells of the 
 city, to "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhab- 
 itants thereof," in accordance with the legend inscribed thereon. 
 
 Throughout the country, in the army and in town meetings, from 
 time to time, as the Declaration was received, it was accepted with 
 similar manifestations of jubilation, tending sometimes to acts of ex- 
 travagance. As in Philadelphia the people tore down and burned all 
 symbols of royal authority in public offices, so in New York a mob 
 pulled down the gilded leaden equestrian statue of King Pu , lin(? 
 George that stood in the Bowling Green. The head was K ^'g- g tlie 
 taken off and placed in a wheelbarrow and wheeled to the 8tatue - 
 Governor's house. There was so much excuse for this act, that lead 
 was greatly needed. Ladies at Litchfield, Conn., principally of Oliver 
 Wolcott's family, moulded the remainder of the statue into forty-two 
 thousand bullets, to be shot at the soldiers of the King. 
 
 Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and 
 North Carolina adopted State constitutions in 1776 ; New York, 
 South Carolina, and Georgia, in 1777 ; Massachusetts in 1780, and 
 New Hampshire in 1781. Connecticut and Rhode Island continued 
 to use their royal charters as the fundamental law of the State, the 
 former till 1818, the latter till 1842. All of these State constitutions 
 
 1 The romantic tradition that as soon as the adoption of the Declaration was decided 
 upon, a little boy on the pavement clapped his hands and shouted "King! ring!" to the 
 old sexton in the tower, who thereupon seized the tongue of the Liberty Bell and pro- 
 claimed the momentous tidings to a waiting crowd, and that the Secretary of Congress 
 hastened to read the pnper from the steps, seems to be without foundation. 
 
488 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. [CHAI-. XIX. 
 
 have since undergone amendment, and several have been entirely re- 
 modelled. As first drawn and adopted, they contained arti- 
 
 Adoption of ' 
 
 state cousti- cles which show that the voung States, so boastful of their 
 
 tun. .11-. * 
 
 new fledged civil liberty, the principles of which they set 
 forth with admirable force and clearness, had not yet fully compre- 
 hended the no less important necessity for religious liberty. 
 
 The Constitution of South Carolina provided that all persons and 
 societies who acknowledged one God and a future state of rewards 
 and punishments should be " freely tolerated," and that " the Chris- 
 tian religion shall be deemed, and is hereby constituted and declared 
 to be, the established religion of this State." No church could be 
 incorporated until its membei-s had subscribed to five articles of belief 
 specified in this Constitution ; these were to the effect that there is 
 one God, and a future state of rewards and punishments ; that He is 
 to be publicly worshipped ; that the Christian religion is the true 
 religion ; that the Scriptures are divinely inspired, and that it is the 
 duty of every man, being thereunto called by those that govern, to 
 bear witness to the truth. In accordance with these provisions, it is 
 further stipulated that a qualified voter must acknowledge the being 
 of a God and a future state of rewards and punishments, and that 
 " no person shall be capable of any place of honour, trust, or profit, 
 under the authority of this State, who is not a member of some 
 church of the established religion thereof." 
 
 The Constitution of New Jersey forbade the establishment of any- 
 one religious sect in preference to another, and provided that "no 
 Protestant inhabitant shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil right 
 merely on account of his religious principles," and that any person 
 who professed " a belief in the faith of any Protestant sect " might 
 be elected to office. 
 
 The Constitution of Pennsylvania required every member of the 
 Legislature, before taking his seat, to declare his belief in the existence 
 of a God who is "the rewarder of the good and punisher of the 
 wicked," and that the Scriptures are " given by Divine Inspiration." 
 The seventh section of the second chapter, solemnly considered and 
 adopted with the rest, can scarcely be read in our day without excit- 
 ing a smile. It provided that " the House of Representatives of the 
 freemen of this commonwealth shall consist of persons most noted for 
 wisdom and virtue, to be chosen by the freemen of every city and 
 county of this commonwealth respectively." The thirty-second sec- 
 tion prescribed a penalty for any elector " who shall receive any gift 
 or reward for his vote, in meat, drink, monies, or otherwise;" and 
 the thirty-sixth declared that " whenever an office, through increase 
 of fees or otherwise, becomes so profitable as to occasion many to ap- 
 
 
1776.] THE STATE CONSTITUTIONS. 489 
 
 ply for it, the profits ought to -be lessened by the Legislature.'' The 
 final section provided for the election, every seventh year, of a Coun- 
 cil of Censors, whose duty should be, " to enquire whether the Consti- 
 tution has been preserved inviolate in every part, and whether the 
 legislative and executive branches of the government have performed 
 their duty as guardians of the people, or assumed to themselves or 
 exercised other or greater powers than they are intitled to by the Con- 
 stitution." 
 
 The Constitution of New Hampshire provided that members of its 
 Legislature must be " of the Protestant religion," and this clause was 
 not formally repealed till 1877, though for many years it had been 
 disregarded by common consent. The Constitution of Massachusetts 
 provided, in its forty-first article, " that sumptuary laws against lux- 
 ury, plays, etc., and extravagant expenses in dress, diet, and the like, 
 suited to the circumstances of the commonwealth and the spirit of the 
 Constitution, shall be established with all convenient speed." Ju- 
 ries were to consist of fifteen freeholders, the agreement of twelve of 
 whom was sufficient for a verdict. Every minister or public teacher 
 of religion was required to subscribe to the Constitution, and to read 
 it once a year to his congregation. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 LOSS OF LONG ISLAND AND NEW YORK. 
 
 THE MILITARY SITUATION OF NEW YOKK. AUKIVAI. OF THK ENEMY. SUMMARY 
 OF THK FOHCES. TllE HoWKS ATTEMPT 1 J EACE NEGOTIATIONS. THE BRITISH 
 CKOSS TIIE BAY DEFENCES OF BROOKLYN. BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND DETAILS 
 OF THE ACTION. THE LOSSES. RETREAT OF THE AMERICANS. THEY CROSS 
 TO NEW YORK. THE QUESTION OF DESTROYING THE CITY. ENTRANCE OF THE 
 ENEMY. BATTLE OF HARLEM HEIGHTS. NEW YORK OCCUPIED BY THE BRITISH. 
 A GREAT FIRE IN THE CITY. EXECUTION OF NATHAN HALE. HOWE'S SECOND 
 ATTEMPT TO NEGOTIATE FOR TEACE. BATTLE OF WHITE PLAINS. SURRENDER 
 OF FORT WASHINGTON. 
 
 THE opinion held by Lee sis to the impracticability of making New 
 Lee pushes York absolutely defensible, does not appear to have been 
 wk"t shared by Washington and many of his officers who came 
 New York. w jj|, j.j, e 3 os t on army. New works were laid out by the 
 engineers, and new points occupied. Washington dearly proposed to 
 hold New York permanently. Lee's plan was judicious, so far as it 
 went, and it was now enlarged. General Putnam, soon after his ar- 
 rival, decided that Governor's Island, at the entrance to the East 
 River, was a point of great importance. Should the enemy, he said, 
 " get post there, it will not be possible to save the city, nor could we 
 dislodge them without great loss." Taking a thousand men, he seized 
 it on the night of the 8th of April, and immediately threw up breast- 
 works to protect his parry against attack from Tryon's ships. The 
 point of Red Hook on Long Island, just below, was occupied at the 
 same time, and in a few weeks Paiilus Hook, on the Jersey side of 
 the Hudson, nearly opposite, Cortlandt Street, was also fortified. 
 Should a fleet, therefore, attempt to sail up the East River, it was 
 believed that the batteries at Red Hook, Governor's Island, and Fort 
 Stirling, on Long Island, with those on the New York side, could 
 damage it materially. Transports with troops, at all events, could 
 not safely pass them. As a further defence, hulks were sunk later in 
 the season, in the channel between Governor's Island and the Battery. 
 
 On the Hudson River, ten miles farther up, at what is now known 
 as Fort Washington Point, the river narrowed between the lowering 
 
1776.] 
 
 DEFENSIVE WORKS AROUND NEW YORK. 
 
 491 
 
 Palisades on the Jersey 
 side, and the rugged 
 heights of nearly equal 
 elevation on Manhat- 
 tan Island. Upon the 
 Palisades a strong 
 work was begun dur- 
 ing the summer, at first 
 known as Fort Consti- 
 tution, and subse- 
 quently as Fort Lee ; 
 and on the New York 
 side, where is now One 
 Hundred and Eighty- 
 third Street, stood 
 the formidable work, 
 Fort Washington. 
 From these positions a 
 plunging fire could be 
 thrown upon vessels 
 brought to a stop by 
 hulks and chevaux-ds- 
 frise placed in the 
 channel of the river. 
 Three water-batteries 
 were also built along 
 the shore from lied 
 Hook to Fort Lee. By 
 the month of June, 
 eighty pieces of cannon 
 a n d mortars were 
 mounted or ready to 
 be mounted, bearing 
 upon the bay and the 
 two river channels. 
 
 To carry <ut the en- 
 gineers' plans, the ut- 
 most diligence was 
 necessary, for Howe's 
 arrival was expected 
 daily. Colonel Rufus 
 Putnam, the engineer, 
 relates how busily he 
 
 MAP OF 
 
 MANHATTAN ISLAND 
 . in 1776, 
 
 Showing the 
 
492 
 
 LOSS OF LONG ISLAND AND NEW YORK. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 Much work 
 accom- 
 plished. 
 
 was employed from daylight in the morning until night, besides some- 
 times going in the night by water from New York to Fort 
 Washington. The most exposed points were the first at- 
 tended to ; and large fatigue parties were sent every day to 
 Governor's Island, Red Hook, the Battery, and other forts. Besides 
 the water-batteries around the city, a chain of strong redoubts was ex- 
 tended just north of it, along the line of Grand Street. The largest 
 Kortific*. was " Bayard's Hill Redoubt," near the corner of Centre 
 arouVo'the" 1 Street. This hill was the highest in the vicinity, with a 
 Clt) commanding range, and its summit, once covered with cedars, 
 
 was cut away and leveled for the fortification. Several other eleva- 
 tions on the west side, as far up as Tenth Street, were also fortified. 
 The city itself was literally converted into an intrenched camp. All 
 the streets leading to the water were barricaded. The City Hall Park 
 was surrounded with barriers. 1 Fort George and the Grand Battery 
 were greatly strengthened from within. Works stood behind Trinity 
 Church, around the old Hospital at Duane Street, at the ship-yards 
 on the East River, and wherever a landing could easily be made. 
 
 It was not until the closing days of June that the long expected 
 Arrival of enemy arrived. A thousand things had delayed them. They 
 the enemy. j ia( j ^0 ^ r j n g everything they needed provisions and mu- 
 nitions. The first to arrive was the General himself, Sir William 
 
 Howe, in advance 
 of his Boston army, 
 now on its way 
 from Halifax. He 
 reached Sandy 
 Hook in the frigate 
 Greyhound on the 
 25th of June, and 
 was warmly wel- 
 comed by Governor 
 Tryon and ** many 
 gentlemen, fast 
 friends of govern- 
 ment." The troops 
 followed in one hun- 
 dred and thirty 
 ships, and were all in the bay by the 29th of June. Howe's first in- 
 tention was, to land on Long Island; but learning that the Americans 
 occupied strong positions there, the troops were debarked at Staten 
 Island. " Will Hicks's Mansion House " was the General's head- 
 
 1 Sec John Hills' Chart of New York in 1782. 
 
 Rose and Crown Tavern. 
 
1776.] ARRIVAL OF THE ENEMY. 493 
 
 quarters. 1 Then came Admiral Howe, Sir William's brother, with 
 troops from England, and finally, on the 12th of August, the Hes- 
 sians arrived. 
 
 These forces numbered altogether nearly thirty-two thousand men, 
 of whom not quite twenty-five thousand were fit for ser- strength of 
 vice. This was six thousand more than Washington could theirarm >'- 
 show upon his rolls. There were .four battalions of light infantry, 
 the flower of Howe's army, under Brigadier-general Leslie, and four 
 more of grenadiers, under Major-general Vaughan, which formed a 
 part of the reserves under Cornwallis. Brigadier-general Cleaveland 
 commanded the artillery, three brigades, with at least fifty field-pieces. 
 The main body of infantry included twenty-seven regiments of the 
 regular line, formed into eight brigades under Generals Robertson, 
 Pigot, Jones, Grant, Smith, Agnew, Erskine, and Matthews. The 
 command of the last named consisted of two battalions of the King's 
 Guards, which held the right of the line. A few troops of dragoons 
 and two or three companies of American loyalists completed the Brit- 
 ish forces. Second in command stood Lieutenant-general Clinton, and 
 next in rank Lieutenant-general Earl Percy. Among Howe's aids 
 were Captain John Montressor, an engineer, who had lived in New 
 York, and owned the present Randall's Island; and Major Cuyler of 
 the family of Albany loyalists of that name. There were also subor- 
 dinate officers who distinguished themselves later in the war Maw- 
 hood, who did good service at Princeton ; Musgrave, who thwarted 
 the American plans at Germantown ; the brave Monckton, who fell at 
 Monmouth ; and the accomplished Webster, who ended his career 
 with Cornwallis in the South. 
 
 Hardly, if at all, inferior to the English were the eight thousand 
 Hessian "allies." De Heister, their General, was an old The Hesgian 
 man, and a veteran of many European campaigns. The te- tro P s - 
 dious passage of thirteen weeks from Spithead had sorely tried him, 
 for he had run out of tobacco. As finally arranged on Staten Island, 
 his command was divided into four brigades under Generals Von 
 Stirn and Mirbach, and Colonels Donop and Lossberg. Donop had 
 the famous Yagers, or sharpshooters, and the grenadiers under Min- 
 gerode, Block, and Linsingen. Among the Colonels, Rahl was one 
 of the ablest commanders, up to the affair of Trenton, where his con- 
 tempt for Washington's army brought death to himself and disaster 
 to Howe. The private soldiers had many of them seen service. Most 
 of them, no doubt, had come against their will, and some had actu- 
 
 1 So wrote a British officer on July 9, whose letter was published in the London Chron- 
 icle. Local tradition says, that the " Rose and Crown " tavern a house lately standing 
 on the Richmond Road, near New Dorp was Howe's headquarters. Will Hicks may 
 have been the inn-keeper. 
 
494 LOSS OF LONG ISLAND AND NEW YORK. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 ally been kidnapped. They were, however, good soldiers, and were 
 soon dreaded and hated alike in the American army. 1 
 
 The best that could be said for Washington's army was, that it 
 contained good material. As a whole, it was little else than 
 
 Strength .<! 
 
 and comii- a posse ot armed citizens, tor the most part brave and de- 
 
 tion of the . , . . . . . 
 
 American termuu'd men, but lacking effective organization and disci- 
 pline, and most of them without experience. 
 
 This force was made up of the most diverse material. There 
 were men and officers from ten of the thirteen States from New 
 Hampshire to Virginia, with no uniformity in arms, dress, discipline, 
 or manners. Those known as the Continental regiments were en- 
 listed in the first instance under the regulations of the Continental 
 Congress, and served in its pay and under its authority. They cor- 
 responded to our modern " regulars," though at that date their term 
 of service was only a year. They were mainly from New England, 
 having reenlisted during the siege of Boston to serve through 1776. 
 But there were two regiments from New York, and two from Penn- 
 sylvania, making not over twenty-five in all, and numbering less than 
 nine thousand men. The forty-five other regiments and detachments 
 were State troops, raised for the campaign under calls from Con- 
 gress, and militia which in some of the States had been first organized 
 under the Colonial governments. The soldiers represented all classes 
 of society. Among officers and men were clergymen, lawyers, physi- 
 cians, planters, merchants, farmers, mechanics, tradesmen, and labor- 
 ers, mostly native Americans, of good English blood, with a sprinkling 
 of Germans, Scots, and Irishmen. Most, of them were indifferently 
 equipped. The old flint-lock piece was the common arm; bayonets 
 were scarce, and so also were uniforms. The two regiments which 
 made perhaps the best appearance on parade were Smallwood's Mary- 
 landers and Haslet's Delawares. The Delaware men wore blue uni- 
 forms, looking not unlike the Hessians ; those from Maryland were 
 clothed in scarlet coats turned up with buff. The Pennsylvania and 
 Maryland riflemen, on Washington's recommendation, wore long hunt- 
 ing-blouses and pantaloons, some in white, some in black, and still 
 others in green. But the larger number of the troops were in citi- 
 zen's clothes. The officers were distinguished by different colored 
 sashes and cockades. Washington wore blue and buff, and was al- 
 ways neatly and often elegantly dressed. 
 
 The organization of the army changed with the coming and going 
 
 1 Dunlap, the historian of New York, describes the Hessian as wearing "a towering 
 brass-poiutcd cap : moustaches colored with the same material that colored his shoes, his 
 hair plastered with tallow and flour, and tightly drawn into a long appendage reaching 
 from the back of his head to his waist, and his blue uniform almost covered by the broad 
 belts sustaining his cartouch-box, his brass-hiked sword, and his bayonet." 
 
1776.] 
 
 THE AMERICAN OFFICERS. 
 
 495 
 
 Tlie 
 
 ami 
 
 of troops during the campaign, but at the beginning of its active work 
 in August, it consisted of eleven brigades in five divisions. 
 
 T-> > T ' 'lit f x 
 
 Putnam s division included troops from New York under 
 Brigadier-generals James Clinton and John Morin Scott, 
 and from Massachusetts under Fellows. General Heath's division 
 consisted mainly of New York and Pennsylvania men under Gener- 
 als Mifflin and George Clinton ; Spencer's division of two Connecticut 
 brigades under Generals Parsons and Wadsworth ; Sullivan's division 
 of Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New York troops under 
 Generals Stirling and McDougall ; Greene's division of Massachu- 
 setts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Long Island men under Gen- 
 erals Nixon and Heard. General Oliver Wolcott had temporary com- 
 mand of a body of Connecticut militia, and the artillery regiment 
 from Massachusetts was under Colonel Henry Knox, of Boston. 
 
 Washington's aids at this time were, Colonel William Grayson, of 
 Virginia, Lieutenant-colonels Richard Gary, of Massachu- Bashing- 
 setts, Samuel B. Webb, of Connecticut, and Tench Tilgh- ton ' saids - 
 man, of Philadelphia, who acted as a volunteer, but subsequently took 
 rank as Lieutenant- 
 colonel, and fought 
 with his chief to the 
 close of the war. 
 Alexander Hamil- 
 ton was captain of a 
 New York artillery 
 company, and his 
 post was at the Bat- 
 tery. Aaron Burr, 
 with the rank of 
 Major, acted as aid 
 to Putnam. Mercer, 
 of Virginia, com- 
 manded the militia 
 in New Jersey, and 
 watched the enemy 
 at Staten Island from that side. During most of the season the Gen- 
 eral's headquarters were at the Mortier House, overlooking the Hud- 
 son, just above the line of Houston Street, near Varick. In later days 
 the place was better known as Richmond Hill, where Aaron Burr re- 
 sided. 1 
 
 Admiral Howe, and his brother, General Howe, who had been 
 
 1 The old " town headquarters " were the Kennedy house, No. 1 Broadway, still standing, 
 or perhaps oue of the houses above it. There is some uncertainty in regard to this. 
 
 Headquarters. No. I Broadway. 
 
496 LOSS OF LONG ISLAND AND NEW YORK. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 instructed to enter upon negotiations for peace, sent, on the 14th 
 of July, a flag of truce up the bay, bearing a letter to 
 peac!Tnt>go- the Commander-in-chief . Adjutant-general Reed and Lieu- 
 tenant-colonel Webb were sent down in a boat to meet 
 it, but observing the letter to be addressed to " George Washington, 
 Esq.," they refused to receive it, Reed saying, " We have no person 
 in our army with that address." After the boats had parted, the 
 British officer, putting about again, asked by what title Washington 
 was to be addressed. " You are sensible, sir," answered Reed, " of 
 the rank of General Washington in our army," and the conference 
 was ended. 1 On the 20th another flag of truce was sent up. The 
 bearer, Colonel Patterson, Howe's Adjutant-general, was escorted to 
 Colonel Knox's headquarters, now No. 1 Broadway, where Washing- 
 ton received him and listened to his proposals. The subject of ex- 
 changing prisoners was discussed ; but Washington replied to the 
 propositions for peace by pointing out the fact that Howe was not 
 empowered to acknowledge American independence, and the Ameri- 
 cans would treat for peace on no other basis. A subsequent inter- 
 view between Lord Howe and a committee of Congress proved equally 
 fruitless. 
 
 On the 22d of August the British troops were transferred from 
 Staten Island to Gravesend Bay, on Long Island. Four frigates, with 
 bomb-tenders, took their station close in shore, ready to protect the 
 
 1 Immediately after the battle of Bunker Hill, Samuel B. Webb was appointed aid-de- 
 camp to General Putnam, and on the 21st of June, 1776, then twenty -two years of age, he 
 was appointed private secretary and aid-de-camp to General Washington, with the rank of 
 Lieutenant-colonel. From an original journal now in the possession of his son. General J. 
 Watson Webb, we make the following extract, which gives the details of this incident : 
 
 "New York, July 14, 1776. A flag of truce from the fleet appeared, on which Colonel 
 Reed and myself went down to meet it. About half way between Governor's and Staten 
 Islands, Lieutenant Brown of the Eatjle offered a letter from Lord Howe, directed, GEORGE 
 WASHINGTON, ESQ. : which, on account of its direction, we refused to receive, and parted 
 with the usual compliments. 
 
 "New York, 17th July, 1776. A flag from the enemy, with an answer from General 
 Howe about the [letter] sent yesterday, directed George Washington, Esq., etc. which 
 was refused. 
 
 "New York, 19th \Iuly, 1776. A flag appeared this morning, when Colonel Reed and 
 myself went down. An aid-de-camp of General Howe met us, and said, as there appeared 
 an insurmountable obstacle between the two Generals, by way of compounding, General 
 Howe desired his Adjutant-general might be admitted to an interview with his Excellency, 
 General Washington ; on which, Colonel Reed, in the name of General Washington, con- 
 sented, and pledged his honor for his being safely returned. The aid-de-camp said the 
 Adjutant-general would meet us to-morrow forenoon. 
 
 "New York, 20th July, 1776. At 12 o'clock we met the flag, took Lieutenant-colonel 
 
 Patterson of the Regiment into our barge, and escorted him safe to town to Colonel 
 
 Knox's quarters, where his Excellency, General Washington, attended by his suite and life 
 guards, received and had an interview of about an hour with him. We then escorted him 
 back in safety to his own barge. In going and coming, we passed in front of the guard 
 battery, but did uot blindfold him ; social and chatty all the way." 
 
1776.] 
 
 THE BRITISH CROSS THE BAY. 
 
 497 
 
 movement. When the ships were fairly in position, nearly ninety 
 batteaux and flat-boats, filled with the best troops of the 
 
 The enemy 
 
 army, the light infantry and grenadiers, four thousand " Mthe 
 strong, with gay uniforms and glittering arms, pushed off 
 from the Staten Island beach, and were rowed by sailors from the 
 
 men-of-war to the Gravesend shore. 
 The flotilla moved across the Narrows 
 in ten divisions ; and following it came 
 transports with eleven thousand more 
 troops and forty pieces of artillery. All 
 were debarked before noon. These fif- 
 teen thousand men took possession of 
 the roads, and occupied the Dutch vil- 
 lages of Utrecht, Gravesend, and Flat- 
 
 Passage of the Troops to Long Island. 
 
 lands; while Cornwallis, with the reserves and Donop's Hessian ya- 
 gers and grenadiers, drove back Hand's Pennsylvania riflemen, who 
 had been patrolling this coast since May, and advanced as far as Flat- 
 bush. 
 
 The American plan of defence, in case of attack on this side, had 
 been well matured. Greene, who was in command on Long Island, be- 
 lieved in earthworks, and his brigade of Varnum's and Hitchcock's 
 
 VOL. III. 
 
498 LOSS OF LONG ISLAND AND .NEW YORK. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 Rhode Islanders, Little's Massachusetts men, and Hand's riflemen, 
 worked well here through the trying summer, and protected 
 Greene ami themselves witli forts and intreiichinents thrown up in what 
 ie- is now the heart of Brooklyn. The main line ran from 
 
 t?! 1 *. 
 
 Wallabout Bay, the present Navy Yard, on the left, to what 
 was then known as the Goxvanus Creek and marsh on the right. 
 Its length was less than a mile and a half, and it included, at varying 
 distances, five strong redoubts. That on the right, near the marsh, 
 which extended up from Gowanus Hay as far as the line of the pres- 
 ent Baltic Street, was named Fort Box, after the Brigade- major, 
 Daniel Box, an old British soldier and capital drill- master ; next stood 
 Fort Greene, largest of all, south of the present Fulton Avenue, not 
 far from Bond Street ; then, on the left of the avenue, was the " Ob- 
 long Redoubt," and some distance fan her along, Fort Putnam crowned 
 the hill which has since been transformed into Washington Park. A 
 little redoubt on its left completed the line in front ; while the short 
 flank to the Wallabont was protected by breastworks and abatis. 
 Not more than twenty guns were mounted in the works, from one end 
 to the other. 1 
 
 Between the Brooklyn lines and the coast at Gravesend Bay runs 
 Topography }l continuous ridge of hills, from the harbor, below the pres- 
 of the fieia. en t Greenwood Cemetery, easterly through Jamaica to the 
 end of the island. The cemetery and Prospect Park lie upon the 
 crest and slopes of this ridge, which in 1776 was covered with thick 
 woods and underbrush. From the other side of the hills to the sea 
 stretched the broad, level plain on which stood the villages of Utrecht, 
 Gravesend, Flatlands, and Flatbush, where the British had encamped 
 after their landing. The distance from the ridge to the lines varied 
 from a mile and a half to four miles, and west of Jamaica it was in- 
 tersected by four roads, all joining the King's highway which led to 
 the ferry. The highway itself crossed the hills four miles from the 
 lines, half way to Jamaica; from it branched two roads to Flatbush, 
 one through Bedford village ; and down near the harbor ran the Gow- 
 anus road to the Narrows. Here was a strong natural barrier, which 
 the enemy must penetrate from the plains below before reaching the 
 Brooklyn works, and here Washington now purposed to hold the en- 
 emy in check as long as possible. He made the ridge his outer line 
 of defence, and, as the enemy could advance in order only through 
 the roads and passes, three of these were covered with strong guards, 
 and the fourth the distant Jamaica pass on the left was watched 
 by patrols. 
 
 1 The Gowaiius and Wallabout marshes set in so far that the land west towards New 
 York became a peninsula. It was across the neck that Greene formed his defensive line. 
 
1776.] THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND. 499 
 
 On the announcement that the British had landed, six regiments 
 from Stirling's, Scott's, and Wadsworth's brigades were or- Putnam and 
 dered to cross at once from New York to reenforce the fommlndon 
 Brooklyn wing. The prevailing fever, which had deprived LonB 1 * lHnd - 
 the army of the services of many of its officers, had most unfortu- 
 nately prostrated General Greene ; and at the moment when he could 
 least be spared, it became necessary to relieve him and to give the 
 command to General Sullivan. The change occurred on August 20, 
 and four days later Sullivan was in turn relieved by General Put- 
 nam ; but he remained with the Long Island forces as second in com- 
 mand. 
 
 The battle opened on the road leading from the Narrows. Very 
 early on the morning of the 27th, the American guards sta- The action 
 tioned beyond the Red Lion, or about half a mile west of the be 8 |n8 - 
 southwest corner of the present Greenwood Cemetery, were unexpect- 
 edly attacked by Grant's column. It was not yet daylight, and in 
 the confusion of the moment the pickets retreated rapidly, leaving 
 their commanding officer, Major Edward Burd, of Reading, Penn., a 
 prisoner in the enemy's hands. Brigadier-general Parsons, who was 
 the field-officer of the day, hurried down the road, rallied 
 a few of the scattered guard, and waited until General Stir- marches to 
 ling, whom Putnam had ordered forward on the first alarm, 
 could follow with reinforcements. Stirling was advancing with three 
 regiments, a company of riflemen, and a battery of two guns. 
 
 The first step in the plan of defence, which was to hold the Gow- 
 anus road near the Red Lion, was lost by this flight of the guards. 
 Stirling's duty was to check the enemy at the next most defensible 
 point. This was on the ridge, afterward known as Wyckoff's Hill, 
 which stretched up from the shore. Along the crest of this hill, about 
 on the line now marked by Nineteenth or Twentieth Street, he placed 
 his men. He had already sent forward Atlee, with his two hundred 
 Pennsylvania musketeers, to skirmish with Grant's vanguard at a 
 marsh half a mile in advance. Although his men had never before 
 been under fire, their commander was a veteran of the old French 
 war, and he so held them to their work that the advance of the enemy 
 was delayed while Stirling formed his line from the water-side up the 
 hill to its top. On the left of this line, Atlee drew up his men in 
 good order when -compelled to fall back. 
 
 It was nearly seven o'clock when Grant formed his line of battle 
 within easy cannon-shot of Stirling. Near the road he massed his 
 Fourth Brigade in two lines, and continued the Sixth in one line 
 toward and probably within the limits of the present Cemetery of 
 Greenwood. In addition, he had with him the Forty-second High- 
 
500 LOSS OF LONG ISLAND AND NEW YORK. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 landers, two companies of New York loyalists, and ten field-guns; 
 against Stirling's seventeen hundred raw troops, he brought up fully 
 six thousand veterans. Along the QowMina road, against Stirling's 
 right, he sent forward a body of light troops. From an orchard near 
 by, and from behind hedges, these men opened a brisk fire, and a 
 sharp fight followed between them and the American riflemen. The 
 old Bennett farm-house, which remained for many years after the war 
 at the corner of Twenty-first Street, bore the marks of cannon-balls 
 and bullets received in this engagement, and near by were pointed out 
 the graves of English soldiers who fell here. 
 
 The advance upon the left, at the same time, threatened to overlap 
 the American line, and Stirling at once ordered up Parsons 
 
 Parsons and -ITT i i mi 
 
 Atioe in with Huiitmgtoii s and Atlee s men. Ihree times an assault 
 was made by Grant's regiments; but Parsons held his posi- 
 tion, probably on the spot now known as " Battle Hill " in Green- 
 wood Cemetery. Among the killed were Lieutenant-colonel Parry, 
 of Atlee's regiment, and Lieutenant-colonel Grant, of the Fortieth 
 British foot. 
 
 But while Stirling was thus making a successful defence on the 
 
 Narrows road, Howe and his flanking column four brig- 
 
 flankinj; ades, the light infantry, grenadiers, guards, dragoons, and 
 
 manoeuvre. ... "... , , . 
 
 artillery, with thirty guns were elsewhere in motion. 
 With the advance rode Clinton ; following him came Cornwallis, 
 then Earl Percy, with Howe. The column had left Flatlands at nine 
 o'clock, the night before, and, guided by Tories, marched east to- 
 ward the hamlet of New Lots. Leaving the Jamaica road on their 
 left, they struck across the country, and at about two o'clock in the 
 morning reached Howard's Half- way House on the Jamaica road, a 
 little east of the pass where it cut through the hills. Thence the road 
 ran nearly straight through Bedford Village, four miles, to the Brook- 
 lyn lines. 
 
 The American plan of defence had not included the holding of 
 the Jamaica pass by any considerable force, on account of its dis- 
 tance. On the night of the 26th, the patrol there consisted of five 
 mounted officers from New York regiments. While they were look- 
 ing out for the enemy beyond the pass, the British appeared across 
 the fields in their rear, and all five were captured. Learning from 
 
 these men that the pass was unguarded, they pushed through 
 an impor- after a brief rest, and reached Bedford between eight and 
 
 nine o'clock on the 27th, where they were as near as the 
 American troops were to the Brooklyn works. The successful ex- 
 ecution of this flank move decided the day. 
 
 An attack was now made upon the American outposts facing Flat- 
 
1776.] RETREAT OF THE AMERICANS. <">01 
 
 bush, while a part of the column continued down towai'ds Brooklyn. 
 The extreme left of the outer line was watched by Miles's Pennsyl- 
 vania battalion, and at the Bedford and Flatbush passes were Wylly's 
 and Chester's Connecticut men, Hitchcock's Rhode Islanders, Little's 
 Massachusetts, and Johnston's New Jersey men. A line of sentinels 
 along the ridge through Prospect Park and Greenwood connected 
 with Stirling. By some fatality, Miles did not observe that And sur . 
 Howe had marched around him, until he was well in his 
 rear. More than half his two battalions, therefore, fell into 
 the enemy's hands. The other troops just named, finding themselves 
 thus surprised on the left, turned to reach the Brooklyn camp before 
 they should be intercepted. Sullivan, who had gone out 
 
 . , , f Surrender of 
 
 to reconnoitre, was with them. As they retreated, many ot *uiiivanani 
 them fought, and fought well. The enemy captured three coiooei 
 guns on the Flatbush road, only by a desperate fight with 
 the artillerymen. Sullivan with his men held out till noon, when 
 the General was captured. Colonel Philip Johnston, of New Jersey, 
 fell at the head of his regiment. 
 
 The Hessians had been ordered to remain passive, but prepared, un- 
 til they should be assured of Howe's presence on the left. 
 At the first sound of the conflict, they marched rapidly and ian? move 
 with flying colors, from Flatbush, along the eastern sec- 
 tion of the present Prospect Park. Spreading through the woods, 
 they attacked and dispersed the broken detachments in retreat. Thus, 
 at about ten o'clock, ten thousand British and four thousand Hessians 
 were in pursuit of not quite three thousand Americans in rapid flight 
 through the woods and over the hills just outside the Brooklyn lines. 
 No assistance could be sent them, but much the greater number suc- 
 ceeded in getting within the works. 
 
 Stirling, and Parsons on his left, were now the only officers with 
 an organized force in the field. During all this rout and 
 confusion in their rear, they still faced Grant .in good order, forced to re- 
 till Stirling, hearing the noise of the battle behind him, and 
 finding that no orders could reach him, fell back along the Gowanus 
 road. But this was already in possession of Cornwallis, who held it 
 at the Cortelyou House, near the upper end of the Gowanus marsh. 
 Nothing remained for Stirling but to attempt to cross the marsh at 
 the moirfh of the creek. It was high water, and fording was diffi- 
 cult ; nor could this be attempted in the presence of the spirited con- 
 enemy without great loss. He determined, therefore, to at- jurjiLd 1 - 6 
 tack Cornwallis with a small force, while the rest of the ' 
 
 command should wade or swim the creek. Taking half the Marvland 
 
 j 
 
 battalion, he marched boldly upon the enemy, aud charged them re- 
 
Siege of 
 
 o02 LOSS OF LONG ISLAND AND NEW YORK. [CiiAi-. XX. 
 
 peatedly. But before overwhelming numbers, success was out of the 
 
 question ; they retreated to the woods, and were all taken. 
 r. (: nera\ Stirling surrendered to the Hessian commander, De Heis- 
 
 ter. Parsons's and Atlee's men were also captured, though 
 Parsons himself succeeded in hiding at night and escaping to camp 
 at dawn next morning. 
 
 By two o'cloi-k in the afternoon, the engagement was over. Th;> 
 
 enemy had captured between eight hundred and one thou- 
 
 sand prisoners, at a loss to themselves of three hundred and 
 sixty-seven officers and soldiers. The American loss in killed and 
 wounded was probably less than three hundred. 1 
 
 During the progress of the engagement Washington had crossed 
 to Brooklyn, but could, of course, send no relief from the main lines 
 while the British threatened them. To repair his losses he promptly 
 sent for more troops, and on the morning of the 28th had nearly ten 
 
 thousand men on the Long Island side. The British ad- 
 Brook- vanced their intrenchments to within range of Fort Put- 
 
 nam by dawn of the 29th. The ground favored them, and 
 in twenty-four hours more their superior artillery would be playing 
 heavily on the Brooklyn works. Eighteen thousand troops were 
 ready to storm them when the guns should be silenced, while in the 
 rear of the American army was the East River,. wider than now, by 
 a thousand feet, at its narrowest part. But it rained almost con- 
 stantly during the 28th. and 29th ; and beyond some smart skirmish- 
 ing along the picket lines, nothing occurred. Washington, however, 
 knew that every hour was full of danger, and he was almost con- 
 stantly in the saddle, moving along the lines, giving orders, and cheer- 
 ing the men. 
 
 Late in the afternoon of the 29th, a council of the general officers 
 
 met at Philip Livingston's mansion, and it was determined 
 
 lounoil of ' ill IIT i . 111 11 
 
 war decides to retreat from Lon<j Island. V\ aslungton had already be- 
 
 to retreat. . nil i 'iii 
 
 gun preparations by sending tor all the boats that could be 
 
 found anywhere on Manhattan Island, and by the exertions of Heath, 
 Quartermaster Hughes, and Hutchinson's men from Salem, who rowed 
 the boats down from Fort Washington, every variety of craft had 
 been collected at the Brooklyn ferry by eight o'clock in the evening. 
 Glover's men from Marblehead manned the sail and row-boats, and 
 the retreat began. 
 
 For twelve hours, with interruptions that almost proved fatal, the 
 troops were ferried across. The regiments, as they marched down to 
 
 1 The quostiou of the losses at this battle is discussed in The Ctiiiifiaign of 1776 Around 
 New York and Brooklyn, recently issued by the Long Island Historical Society, p. 202. 
 The total loss for the Americans is there put at about ouc thousand. 
 
K7G.] 
 
 THE AMERICANS CROSS TO XE\V YORK. 
 
 the ferry, did not understand the movement. General orders that 
 afternoon had informed them that Mercer was expectid from The tr 
 New Jersey with reinforcements. The sick had previously c '"'p : " 
 
 v * ijiLTiir 
 
 been sent to New York on the plea that they were an incuin- Nt " Y " rk 
 brance, and that the quarters they occupied were needed for troops 
 without shelter. 
 
 During the early hours of the night the storm of wind and rain was 
 violent, and the passage across the river exceedingly difficult. M< - 
 Dougall, who had the transportation in charge, once gave it up, and 
 sent word to Washington that its accomplishment was not to be hoped 
 for. Not finding the General, McDougall took no responsibility, but 
 went on with the work as best he could. "But," adds the historian 
 Gordon, "about 
 eleven the wind 
 died a way, and 
 soon after sprung 
 up to southwest, 
 and blew fresh, 
 which rendered the 
 sail-boats of use, 
 and at the same 
 time made the pas- 
 sage from the island 
 to the city, direct, 
 easy, and expedi- 
 tious." l 
 
 For a covering 
 party to occupy the 
 works to the last, 
 Washington had detached Mifflin with six regiments, with orders to 
 remain until they were sent for. By some mistake, Scammell. one of 
 Washington's aids, brought the order about two o'clock in the morn- 
 ing for the entire body to march to the ferry. The lines were accord- 
 ingly deserted, and Mifflin's men well on their way to the ferry, when 
 the Commander-in-chief came upon them in the darkness. A 
 dreadful mistake!" he exclaimed; and all were marched back again 
 to their posts. Fortunately, the enemy were still unsuspicious. Still 
 more fortunately, as Gordon writes, " Providence further in- 
 terposed in favor of the retreating army, by sending a thick 
 fog about two o'clock in the morning, which hung over Long 
 Island, while on the New York side it was clear, fnder cover of this 
 
 Howes Headquarters. Beexman House. 
 
 A (It'll*)' log 
 
 Ulovriiiriit. 
 
 1 Gordon obtained his particulars from Colonel Glover's letters, Dr. R'Hlytrs's Thunks<i'iK- 
 iny Sermon, and persons who were present. 
 
504 LOSS OF LONG ISLAND AND NEW YORK. [CIIAI-. XX. 
 
 fog Mifflin's men finally, about sunrise, withdrew in order and crossed 
 safely. Last of all followed the Commander-in-chief. 
 
 There were three points to be settled immediately, consequent on 
 shaii New this retreat from Long Island. Shall the defence of New 
 melted York City be continued ? If evacuated, shall it be burned ? 
 Bud bumcd? aiu ^ j n t j mt case? w hat position shall the American army 
 take next ? The slow movements of the British gave the generals 
 and Congress two weeks to decide. The enemy moved to the site of 
 the present Astoria, to Newtown, and along the East River, threaten- 
 ing to cross to West Chester County above. They could easily have 
 bombarded the town from Brooklyn Heights, and from Governor's 
 New Island, of which the}' had taken possession on the 30th. 
 Hut U ()We refrained from destroying a place which he hoped 
 soon to capture. Greene and some others, expecting that it 
 would fall into the hands of the enemy, wished, for that reason, that 
 it should be destroyed. Congress, to whom the question was referred, 
 decided that no harm should be done to it, influenced by the same 
 motive that governed Howe, that its possession, at some future time, 
 would be of far greater service than its destruction. Thus both par- 
 ties agreed that it should remain uninjured. 
 
 Washington would have attempted the city's defence even now, had 
 not his faith in the soldierly qualities of the majority of his troops 
 been shaken by recent experiences. The militia were, as he said, 
 "dismayed, intractable, and impatient of return," and after the re- 
 treat from Long Island large numbers went back to their homes 
 in squads, in companies, almost by regiments. Discontent bred in- 
 subordination, and the wisdom, vigilance, and energy of Washington 
 were taxed to the. utmost to maintain the semblance of an army. The 
 men were, no doubt, dispirited by the disasters of the last few days; 
 but they were still more discouraged by privations and difficulties for 
 which there seemed to be no remedy. They were, as General Scott 
 frankly told the New York Congress, " badly paid and wretchedly 
 fed." No wonder that many of them despaired of being either bet- 
 ter paid or sufficiently fed, for the real difficulties of the situation 
 were quite as apparent to them as they were to their superiors. Fresh 
 recruits, however, came in to take the place of the home-sick men who 
 left, and the improvement in the condition of the army, though slow, 
 A\as steady. On the 2d of September, however, it numbered, accord- 
 ing to official returns, less than twenty thousand men. 
 
 It was decided in a council of war on the 6th that the city should 
 be held, contrary to the judgment of \Vashington, Greene, Putnam, 
 and perhaps others. On the 10th, Congress voted to leave the ques- 
 tion to the Commander-in-chief, who had, however, on the same day 
 
 
1776.] 
 
 POSITION OF THE TROOPS. 
 
 505 
 
 made preparations for leaving, and two days later a council reversed 
 the decision of the week before. The evacuation was to be made on 
 the loth, and the utmost activity prevailed on the two previous days. 
 Howe was aware, of course, of this movement, and meant to prevent 
 it. Several ships of war were moved up the North and East rivers, 
 and the larger portion of the American army was posted at Harlem 
 and King's Bridge to repel any attempt of the enemy to cross from 
 Long Island in their rear. The troops left below were p osifion of 
 Colonel Silliman's brigade of Connecticut militia, and levies thetro P s - 
 in the city, General Parsons's Connecticut and Massachusetts Conti- 
 nentals at Corlear's Hook, at the foot of Grand Street on the East 
 River ; General Scott's New York State brigade on the Stuy vesant 
 estate, about Fourteenth Street on the river; General Wadsworth's 
 
 J umel Mansion. Washington's Headquarters. 
 
 Connecticut levies at Twenty-third Street; and at Thirty-fourth Street, 
 at Kip's Bay, Colonel Douglas, with more Connecticut militia. All 
 these troops lay behind lines thrown up along the river front to repel 
 a landing, and on the 15th were to fall back with the rest of the army 
 to Harlem Heights. 
 
 The five British men-of-war in the East River had anchored in Wal- 
 labout Bay, and behind Blackwell's Island, with flat-boats and trans- 
 ports. On Sunday morning, the 15th, they drew up in line close to 
 the shore at Kip's Bay, opposite Douglas and his militiamen. About 
 ten o'clock, these ships suddenly opened their broadsides on Douglas, 
 
506 LOSS OF LONG ISLAND AND NEW YORK. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 making a " thundering rattle," as a Hessian officer wrote, and drove 
 the Americans in confusion from behind the low works, 
 t Kip's which could afford them but slight shelter. Under protec- 
 tion of this fire a body of light infantry and grenadiers, with 
 Donop's Hessians, crossed from the mouth of Newtown Creek in 
 eighty-four flat-boats. Landing without opposition just above Thirty- 
 fourth Street, they chased the fugitives in disorderly flight over the 
 fields to Murrav Hill. 
 
 v 
 
 Washington, who on the 14th had moved his headquarters to the 
 mansion of Colonel Roger Morris, on Harlem Heights, 1 hastened, at 
 the first sound of the cannonade, to the front. At Murray Hill, 
 near the residence of Robert Murray, about the line of Thirty-sixth 
 Street and Fourth Avenue, he attempted to arrest the retreat. It was 
 impossible to rally the militia. Those from Massachusetts followed 
 the example of Douglas's men, and the older troops of Parsons were 
 carried away with them. Washington, Putnam, Parsons, and Fel- 
 lows rode in among the men, doing their best to bring order out of this 
 confusion and arrest their flight. The Commander-in-chief 
 ton's au'iti-r was worked up to the highest pitch of indignation. Gordon, 
 the historian, heard that he drew his sword and threatened 
 to run the fugitives through. Greene wrote that in his disgust and 
 wrath he sought "death rather than life," and was among the last to 
 leave the ground. Tilghman, Washington's aid, adds that he " laid 
 his cane over many of the officers who showed their men the example 
 of running." He drew his sword, snapped his pistols, brandished his 
 cane, dashed his hat to the ground, and exclaimed, " Are these the 
 men with whom I am to defend America!" But for one of his at- 
 tendants seizing his horse's reins and turning him toward Harlem 
 Heights, it is said the General would have fallen into the enemy's 
 hands. 
 
 Putnam, hastening down to New York, gathered up Silliman's com- 
 mand, and by extraordinary exertions, assisted by Aaron 
 his division Burr, his aid, marched up the west side of the island through 
 the woods, and at dark reached Harlem Heights in safety. 
 Howe was in close pursuit of this column, and there seems no good 
 reason for doubting the story of his being delayed by Mrs. Murray. 
 The General and his staff stopped at her door to ask how long since 
 Putnam had passed, and was assured by that lady that he must be 
 already beyond successful pursuit. She then urged the officers to dis- 
 mount. The day was " insupportably hot," and the invitation of this 
 charming Quaker lady and a not less charming daughter was irresist- 
 
 1 The present Jumel Mansion at One Hundred and Sixtieth Street, east of Tenth 
 Aveuue. 
 
1776.] 
 
 THE AMERICAN ARMY OX HARLEM HEIGHTS. 
 
 507 
 
 ible. " Mrs. Murray," says Tliacher, in his military journal, "treated 
 them with cake and wine, and they were induced to tarry two hours 
 or more, Governor Tryon frequently joking her about her American 
 friends." Those American friends, when Howe and his staff dis- 
 mounted at her gate, were only ten minutes ahead. 
 
 Mrs. Murray and General Howe. 
 
 The American army rested at length on the broken ground and 
 along the southern crest of Harlem Heights. Many of the men slept 
 without shelter, in clothes drenched by a rain that fell at evening ; 
 cannon, baggage, stores, and provisions were lost, and lost through 
 their own want of obedience, of discipline, and of courage. But 
 the next morning, the 16th, a well fought action at the front put 
 fresh spirit into both officers and men. A body of not quite one hun- 
 dred and fifty rangers, from the Connecticut and other New England 
 regiments, had recently been organized under the command of Lieu- 
 tenant-colonel Thomas Knowlton, who did such brilliant service as the 
 
508 LOSS OF LONG ISLAND AND NEW YORK. [CHAI-. XX. 
 
 captain of the Connecticut troops at the battle of Bunker Hill. 
 His corps was intended for scouting duty along the enemy's front. 
 Rttti ( Early on the morning of the 16th he cautiously approached 
 iiari.-in the point on the Bloomingdale road where the enemy were 
 
 Heights. * 
 
 supposed to have encamped on the previous evening. They 
 were soon found, a little over a mile from the American lines. Their 
 van, as usual, consisted of the light infantry brigade, and when 
 Knowlton's party was discovered hovering in the woods in front of 
 them, the second and third battalions were ordered out to chase the 
 rebels back. Knowlton and his men received them with a discharge 
 of eight or nine rounds from behind a stone fence, before their num- 
 bers compelled him to retreat. As they pressed him in front and 
 flank, lie drew back toward the Heights, the infantry following. 
 
 A report of the skirmish reached Washington, and he rode at once 
 to that point. In a short time Knowlton and his rangers came in 
 and reported that the detachment in pursuit was about double his 
 own force, or three hundred strong. The ground favored an at- 
 tempt at the capture of the whole party, and Washington gave his 
 orders accordingly. Harlem Heights rose abruptly from the plain, 
 with the extreme southern point reaching the present One Hun- 
 dred and Twenty-sixth Street east of Ninth Avenue. Opposite, not 
 half a mile distant, were the Bloomingdale Heights, of lower eleva- 
 tion, and the vale between them, at the western end of which lies 
 Manhattanville, was known in the army as the "hollow way." The 
 British infantry had followed Knowlton to the edge of the Blooming- 
 dale Heights, nearly opposite to the rocky point of Harlem Heights, 
 where Washington was directing the movements. Halting there, 
 their bugler sounded the " Tally-ho v of a fox-chase, and they sat 
 pun of the down to rest themselves. The plan of capture was, to make 
 engagement. a (ji vers i on j n their front, while a detachment should gain 
 their rear and prevent retreat. This movement was entrusted to 
 Knowlton's rangers reenforced by three companies of Weedon's Vir- 
 ginia regiment under Major Andrew Leitch. In front were chiefly 
 Rhode Islanders from Nixon's brigade, under Lieutenant-colonel 
 Crary ; as these advanced, the British ran down from their position 
 to a rail fence, and opened fire. Knowlton's flanking force, concealed 
 by the bushes, made a detour around the enemy's right, but by some 
 mistake they began their attack upon the flank of the infantry. Find- 
 ing themselves in danger of being surrounded, the enemy gave way, 
 and ran up the hill again, with the Americans in pursuit. The flight 
 continued over the Bloomingdale Heights, through a piece of woods, 
 and to a field beyond, where the infantry, being reenforced by the 
 Forty-second Highlanders, made a stand. 
 
 
1776.] 
 
 BATTLE OF HARLEM HEIGHTS. 
 
 509 
 
 To drive the regulars in the open field was a new experience for 
 Washington's men, and this success would doubtless have 
 been followed up but for the fall of the two brave leaders Leitehand 
 
 T . , Knoxvlton. 
 
 of the flanking party, Knowlton and Leitch, as they came 
 
 up. " I do not care for my life," said Knowlton to the Captain on 
 
 Harlem Plains. 
 
 whom the command now devolved, "if we do but win the day;" 
 and he ordered him to press forward. 1 
 
 Washington immediately sent forward detachments from the Mary- 
 land brigade, and from Nixon's and Sargent's, which swelled 
 the number engaged to over fifteen hundred. The British driven ..v.-r 
 infantry being also reenforced by the Forty-second High- dale"" 
 landers, two field-pieces, and Donop's yagers, a sharp fight 
 followed of an hour's duration, at a buckwheat field, east of the pres- 
 ent Bloomingdale Asvlum. Putnam, Greene, George Clinton, Heed, 
 and members of Washington's staff, all joined in the affair, holding 
 the men well up to their work, until the enemy, surprised to find such 
 opposition, again retreated through an orchard towards Bloomingdale. 
 The Americans pursued ; but Washington feared an advance in force 
 by the enemy, and sent Tilghman, his aid, to bring back the troops, 
 who returned in high spirits. 
 
 Knowlton was buried the next day, with military honors, near the 
 
 1 Letter from the Captain, whose name is not given, in the Connect i'->tt GazttU-, Sep- 
 tember 27. 
 
510 
 
 LOSS OF LONG ISLAND AND NEW YORK. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 roadside, not far, it is supposed, from the intersection of Tenth Ave- 
 IXKWS on nue a "d One Hundred and Forty-fifth Street. Leitcli died 
 either side. on j.j ie jgf. o f October. Resides these two leaders the party 
 lost two other officers Captain Gleason, of Massachusetts, and 
 Lieutenant Allen, of Rhode Island and about seventy-five pri- 
 vates in killed and wounded. The loss of the enemy was variously 
 estimated, at the time ; Howe reported that his loss was fourteen 
 
 killed and seventy 
 wounded. Coming 
 so immediately upon 
 the panic of the day 
 before, the action 
 was important in its 
 influence upon the 
 men. " This af- 
 fair," Washington 
 wrote to Congress, 
 " I am in hopes, 
 will be attended 
 with many salutary 
 consequences, as it 
 seems to have great- 
 ly inspirited the 
 whole of our troops." It was this, rather than any importance in 
 the movement itself, that aroused the anxiety of the generals, and 
 led so many of them to take part in it. "I suppose," wrote Adju- 
 tant-general Reed, " many persons will think it was rash and impru- 
 dent for so many officers of our rank to go into such an action, but 
 it was really to animate the troops, who were quite dispirited, and 
 would not go into danger unless their officers led the way." De- 
 spondency and discontent, however, still prevailed; many deserted, 
 and those whose enlistments expired went home during the next four 
 weeks, in which there was little to do except to strengthen the 
 Heights. 
 
 \ et there was no want of exciting events in this interval of ces- 
 sation from fighting. The town was taken possession of 
 
 Xrw York . 
 
 urcnpitMi b.v by the hostile armv, with much "military display, and not a 
 
 the British. ,.,... J .. / J 
 
 little rejoicing among the loyalists, who gave to Governor 
 Tryou an enthusiastic welcome. These demonstrations were hardly 
 over, when the calamity which both sides had hoped might be 
 averted fell upon the town. On the 21st it was well-nigh 
 destroyed by a fire, which, breaking out, from some un- 
 known cause, at Whitehall Slip, swept through Stone, Beaver, and 
 
 Ruins of Trinity Church. 
 
 A great fire. 
 
!776.] EXECUTION OF CAPTAIN NATHAN HALE. 511 
 
 Broad Streets, up Broadway to Barclay Street, and along the North 
 River to King's College, which was saved with difficulty. Five 
 hundred buildings, among them Trinity Church and the Lutheran 
 Church, were destroyed. Several women and children, it was sup- 
 posed, were burnt to death, and their shrieks, wrote the Moravian 
 pastor, Shewkirk, " joined to the roaring of the flames, the crash of 
 falling buildings, and the widespread ruin which everywhere appeared, 
 formed a scene of horror great beyond description." There were no 
 bells in the churches to give a timely alarm, these having been re- 
 moved by order of the Provincial Congress ; the fire-engines were out 
 of order, and buckets were almost useless in arresting the progress 
 of the flames. That there should be suspicions of incendiarism was 
 inevitable. " Numbers of people," says the Moravian pastor, " were 
 carried to jail on suspicion to have had a hand in the fire, and to have 
 been on the rebels' side, it is said about two hundred ; however, 
 on examination, the most men were as fast discharged." 
 
 In the excitement of the destruction of a large portion of the city, 
 and the arrest of so many suspected rebel incendiaries, it is Exe( . ut j 0n 
 not likely that the hanging of a single spy in the neighbor- ^f..'^^* 111 
 hood of the town attracted much attention. It is, neverthe- lule- 
 less, the more marked incident of the two, both from the character of 
 the man who suffered death, and as a precedent which no doubt influ- 
 enced Washington when subsequently he was called upon to deride 
 the fate of a spy. The morning after the fire, Captain Nathan Hale, 
 of Connecticut, was hanged near the corner of East Broadway and Mar- 
 ket Street. From the purest motives of patriotism he had volunteered 
 to go within the British lines on Long Island, and obtain information, 
 indispensable to the Commander-in-chief, of the disposition of the 
 forces of the enemy. He was arrested on his return, and taken to 
 Howe's headquarters, the Beekman mansion at Turtle Bay, on the 
 East River. The papers found upon his person were the evidence of 
 his purpose, which, indeed, he made no pretence of denying. No trial 
 was granted him ; it is said that he was not permitted to see a clergy- 
 man, or to have the use of a Bible in his last hours, and the pro- 
 vost martial to whom, after a single night's confinement, he was deliv- 
 ered up for death, destroyed the letters he had written to his mother 
 and sisters. " I only regret," he said, as he was about to die, "that 
 I have but one life to give for my country." His burial-place is un- 
 known, and no monument has been erected to him bv the nation in 
 
 , 
 
 whose service he met an ignominious death. Like Andre, he was a 
 gentleman of education and high character ; if, by the laws of war, 
 both equally merited the death, the risk of which they took, there is 
 this marked difference in their fates, that to Andre was given a fair 
 
512 
 
 LOSS OF LONG ISLAND AND NEW YORK. [HAP. XX. 
 
 tempt at 
 reconcilia- 
 tion. 
 
 
 and impartial trial upon the evidence, and that his countrymen re- 
 membered, after the lapse of a century, to give his body a grave and 
 his memory a monument among the most honored of England's dead. 
 During this interval of comparative quiet, the attempt at recon- 
 A econa at- ciliatioii, with which Howe was in a certain degree in- 
 trusted, was renewed. General Sullivan, three days after 
 his capture on Long Island, went on his parole to Congress 
 at Philadelphia, bearing a message from the English Admiral that he 
 desired to confer on the subject with some of their members in a 
 private capacity. Congress declined to treat with him in any other 
 way than as the representatives of America; but consented to send a 
 
 committee to ascer- 
 tain what powers he 
 possessed as a civil 
 commissioner. 
 Franklin, Adam s, 
 and Rutledge met 
 him on the llth of 
 September, at the 
 Billop House, on 
 Staten Island, op- 
 posite Amboy ; but 
 the conference only 
 brought out the fact 
 that Lord Howe had 
 no authority to ne- 
 gotiate with the 
 rebels as an inde- 
 pendent people, and 
 that the committee 
 had no intention of 
 treating with him on any other basis. Gordon reports that the latter 
 managed the matter " with great dexterity, and maintained the dig- 
 nity of Congress." 
 
 It was not until the 12th of October that Howe was prepared to 
 renew the offensive measures against Washington. The position of 
 the American army at Harlem Heights was too strong to be assaulted 
 in front, and the British commander was now compelled by the neces- 
 sities of the situation, rather than of choice, to follow out his favorite 
 tactics and again move on his opponent's flank and rear. Washing- 
 ton, on his part, had made such preparations that he was not for the 
 third time to be taken by surprise. Howe decided now to do that 
 which he might have done immediately after the battle of Long 
 
 The Billop House. 
 
1776.] MOVEMENTS OF GENERAL HOWE. 513 
 
 Island, to land in Westchester County, march across toward the 
 Hudson, and cut the American communications. But in- 
 stead of landing well along the coast, at a point where he could in westrhM- 
 
 i ITT i i i ter County. 
 
 quickly seize the main roads in Washington s rear, Ins ad- 
 vance division, which started from New York on the 12th, and passed 
 through Hell Gate in flat-boats under cover of a fog, stopped at 
 Throg's Neck, six miles distant, which then had no strategical im- 
 portance whatever. It was simply a projecting tongue of land, con- 
 nected with the main land by a causeway, which the Americans had 
 already obstructed and covered with works. Here the British wasted 
 five days waiting for provisions and stores, and Washington improved 
 the time by preparing for the next attempt upon his flank. 
 
 This evident design on the Westchester roads prompted the calling 
 of a council in the American camp on the 16th. It was decided that 
 Harlem Heights would be untenable should Howe move upon them, 
 and preparations, therefore, should be made to evacuate the whole of 
 that position, with the exception of Fort Washington. That post, 
 the council, persuaded chiefly by Greene's opinion of its importance 
 and impregnability, decided to retain with a sufficient garrison. Ac- 
 cordingly, the Commander-in-chief gradually withdrew his troops 
 along the hills west of the Bronx River, which runs through West- 
 Chester nearly parallel to the Hudson, and thus held the army well in 
 hand to face the enemy wherever they appeared. 
 
 On the 18th Howe left the Neck, and debarked again at Pell's 
 Point, a short distance below New Rochelle. Glover's bri- 
 gade, consisting of Reed's, Shepherd's, and Bailey's Massa- towards New 
 
 i i i i- i < f i Rochelle 
 
 chusetts men, opposed the light infantry from behind stone 
 walls, with an effective fire, and then fell back slowly. The enemy 
 advancing took post in the vicinity of New Rochelle, where they de- 
 layed again until the 22d, giving Washington ample time to place 
 himself at White Plains, where he held the roads leading up the 
 Hudson and to New England. If Howe's movement was merely to 
 compel the evacuation of Harlem Heights, it was successful ; if the in- 
 tention was to hern in the whole American force south of White Plains, 
 it was a signal failure. On the evening of the 27th the two armies 
 were only four miles apart. Washington's line of woi'ks 
 part of the distance a double line ran along hilly ground white 
 within the village of White Plains, in a southwesterly direc- 
 tion, the left resting on broken ground near a hollow and mill-pond, 
 and the right on a curve of the Bronx, which protected flank and 
 rear. Just across the Bronx rose Chatterton's Hill, a little in ad- 
 vance of the main line, and presenting a steep front. Behind the in- 
 trenchments lay the four divisions of the army, mustering about thir- 
 
 VOL. HI. 33 
 
514 
 
 LOSS OF LONG ISLAND AND NEW YORK. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 teen thousand men. Chatterton's Hill had not been fortified, and 
 Colonel Putnam, the engineer, had gone out to it to mark a line of 
 defence. 
 
 The British moved up from Scarsdale, and, driving in the outpost 
 parties under Spencer, reached Washington's position about ten o'clock. 
 They marched in two columns, Clinton on the right, De Heister on 
 the left, in numbers 'about equal to the Americans, or, according to 
 Stedman, " thirteen thousand effective men." The purpose seemed 
 
 Chatterton's Hill. 
 
 to be, at first, to attack in front, and a company of dragoons ap- 
 proached Heath on the left to reconnoitre, but were checked by a 
 battery. Instead of attempting a direct assault, however, the enemy 
 filed off to the left and extended their lines in the plain some distance 
 in front of Chatterton's Hill. Here the main body halted, and the 
 soldiei's sat down on the ground, while a column four thousand strong 
 proceeded to cross the Bronx and move up the hill. The design evi- 
 dently was, to attempt the capture of that point as preliminary and 
 necessary to subsequent movements. One body, under General Leslie 
 and Colonel Donop, forded the stream in front, and Rahl, with part 
 of his Hessians, crossed farther down. To cover the movement, fif- 
 teen or twenty pieces of artillery opened a rapid fire on the Ameri- 
 cans opposite. 
 
 At the time of Howe's approach, Washington was riding in 
 
1776.] BATTLE OF WHITE PLAINS. 515 
 
 company with Lee, Heath, and other officers, examining a stronger 
 position for defence farther to the rear. 1 An orderly brought 
 word of what might be expected, and the generals galloped chatter-ton's 
 back to their posts. Colonel Brooks's Massachusetts militia 
 were sent to Chatterton's Hill, and Haslet, with his Delaware men, 
 soon followed. These formed in good positions, the militia consider- 
 ably to the right, where they were shortly reenforced by McDougall's 
 brigade of Continentals, including his own, Ritzema's, Smallwood's, 
 and Charles Webb's. Captain Alexander Hamilton brought up his 
 two field-pieces. This disposition of the troops was hardly made along 
 the brow of the steep declivity, when the enemy came on, clambering 
 straight up the difficult ascent. The situation was not unlike that at 
 Bunker Hill. Captain William Hull, of Webb's regiment, describes 
 the scene as exceedingly imposing, with the entire British army in full 
 view, and the attack in front, combined with the heavy cannonade, aa 
 an ordeal which, under the circumstances, might have tried the nerves 
 of older soldiers. McDougall's men poured a hot fire into Leslie's 
 ranks, before which they recoiled, and sought shelter. A second 
 charge up the slope was met with an equally determined resistance, 
 especially from Smallwood's and Ritzema's men in the centre. For 
 fifteen minutes the enemy were held in check, when Rahl and his 
 Hessians appearing on the American right, drove the militia from 
 their posts. This break on the right made it impossible for McDou- 
 gall to maintain his position, and he was compelled to retreat. As 
 the fire in front increased, and Rahl was now on their flank, the 
 Americans gave way, at first in some confusion ; but a portion of 
 them kept up a fire from behind trees and fences, and the whole 
 force succeeded in retiring to the main line across the Bronx. The 
 loss was about thirty prisoners and less than one hundred and fifty 
 killed and wounded. The enemy's loss was nearly a hundred greater. 
 In the course of the next two or three days, Washington removed 
 his army to an impregnable position on the Northcastle 
 Heights. It was useless to follow him, and Howe, after sev- takes posi n 
 eral days' delay, inarched to the Hudson to the reduction of xonh^stie 
 Fort Washington. All the evils of war were visited upon 
 the people of the neighborhood ; the British troops lived upon the 
 country, and the court-house and a part of the village of White Plains 
 were burnt bv the Americans after the enemv left it. 
 
 / *J 
 
 Whether Fort Washington should, if possible, be held, was an anx- 
 ious question, both in Congress and with the generals in Fort , ragh _ 
 the field. Congress wished to hold it at any cost, to guard in ton - 
 the Hudson. Greene, who believed that Howe contemplated, as his 
 
 1 Heath's Memoirs. 
 
516 
 
 LOSS OF LONG ISLAND AND NEW YORK. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 next move, a descent upon New Jersey, still urged that it be retained, 
 to compel the enemy to leave part of their force in its vicinity, and 
 thus distract their future Operations. Washington was far more anx- 
 ious as to the probable transfer of the campaign to New Jerse) r , and 
 a move ou Philadelphia. The fort, he thought, even if it should be 
 possible to repulse such a force as Howe could place before it, had 
 already ceased to serve 
 the purpose for which it 
 was originally intended. 
 Two of the enemy's ships, 
 on the 7th of November, 
 in spite of attempts to 
 set them on fire, and in 
 
 Ships passing Fort Washington. 
 
 defiance of the cannonading from the fort, had broken through the 
 impediments placed in the channel, and ran up the river; and, only 
 two nights before the final attack, thirty or forty flat-boats had passed 
 up into Spuyten Duyvil Creek, unobserved from either shore. Wash- 
 ington accordingly wrote to Greene that, under the circumstances, he 
 did not think it u prudent to hazard the men and stores at Mount 
 Washington," but at the same time left it discretionary with him to 
 give the necessary orders for its evacuation. 
 
 The commander of the fort was Colonel Robert Magaw, a lawyer 
 of Philadelphia. He was regarded as a good officer, and had had 
 
1776.] 
 
 THE SIEGE OF FORT WASHINGTON. 
 
 sonie experience as Major of Hand's riflemen at the siege of Boston. 
 The twenty-seven hundred or more troops composing the Co i onPl Ma . 
 garrison were chiefly Pennsylvanians. Rawling's Maryland jI u '^n'. n ' 
 riflemen and Bradley 's Connecticut levies were together less ' 
 than five hundred of the number. Howe demanded a surrender on 
 the 15th, threatening that if he were compelled to take the fort by 
 assault, the garrison should be put to the sword. Magaw replied 
 that to propose such an alternative was unworthy an officer of the 
 British nation, and that, for himself, he should defend the fort to the 
 last extremity. 
 
 Washington had been absent for some days, with several of his 
 
 Washington, at Washington Heights. 
 
 principal officers, making preparations for any movement farther up 
 the river and on the west side, to secure the important pass of the 
 Highlands by sufficient fortifications. On his return to Fort Lee, ou 
 the Jersey side, nearly opposite Fort Washington, he was surprised 
 to find that this post was still occupied. On the 16th, he crossed the 
 
518 LOSS OF LONG ISLAND AND NEW YORK. [CEIAP. XX. 
 
 river with the purpose of coming to a final and positive decision, upon 
 the spot, of the question of defence or evacuation. But it was already 
 decided. Howe had begun the attack, retreat was impossible, and the 
 garrison had no choice but defence or surrender. " As the disposition 
 was made," wrote Greene, "and the enemy advancing, we durst not 
 attempt any new disposition ; indeed, we saw nothing amiss. We all 
 urged his Excellency to come off. 1 offered to stay. General Put- 
 nam did the same, and so did General Mercer; but his Excellency 
 thought it best for us all to come off together, which we did, about 
 half an hour before the enemy surrounded the fort." 
 
 The British directed their attack from three sides, under cover of a 
 Howe s line furious cannonade from Fordham Heights on the east bank 
 of attack. o f ^ e jj ar } em> Magaw had stationed his men in the outer 
 lines, some distance above and below the fort. Lieutenant-colonel 
 Cadwallader, with Shee's Pennsylvanians, commanded at the lowest 
 of the triple line of works across the island. Towards King's Bridge, 
 on the high ground near Inwood, Rawling and his Marylanders were 
 posted. On his right, Colonel Baxter's Pennsylvania Rifles occupied 
 Laurel Hill on the Harlem, near where Tenth Avenue terminates. 
 The rocky and precipitous side of the river, north and south of the 
 present High Bridge, was watched by small parties. The distance on 
 this defensive line, between Cadwallader below and Rawling and Bax- 
 ter above, was two and a half miles. 
 
 The enemy advanced in three columns. One came up from 
 Bloomingdale and Harlem Plains, led by Lord Percy, who was accom- 
 panied by Howe. Knyphausen moved down the road from King's 
 Bridge, and with him marched Rahl and his men, only a little nearer 
 the Hudson. The third force, under General Matthews, supported 
 by Cornwallis, appeared in boats on the upper Harlem, heading tow- 
 ard Baxter. The fighting began everywhere nearly at the same time, 
 Percy leading off. He attacked Cadwallader, and carried a small re- 
 doubt ; but as Cadwallader had the middle and a much stronger line 
 to fall back to, and could probably hold Percy well in check, Howe 
 ordered a body of Highlanders, led by Lieutenant-colonel Sterling, to 
 move up in boats, and land above Cadwallader. Magaw, observing 
 this movement, sent out an opposing force ; but the Highlanders clam- 
 bered up the hill-side in spite of the destructive fire that tore through 
 their ranks, and, reaching the top, took a hundred and fifty prisoners, 
 besides compelling Cadwallader to beat an immediate retreat to the 
 fort. On the north side, the Hessian columns met in Rawling and 
 his riflemen a stubborn enemy. The woods resounded with the 
 shouts and volleys from either side, until the Americans were pushed 
 back by sheer weight of numbers. Baxter fell on Laurel Hill, where 
 
.- 
 
 1776.] WASHINGTON'S POSITION. 519 
 
 Matthews attacked him, and the entire American force was soon hud- 
 dled within the fort. Knyphausen then demanded an immediate sur- 
 render. Further resistance would only be to incur great loss of life in 
 a work now crowded with nearly three thousand men. Ma- s urrenderof 
 gaw, therefore, surrendered on honorable terms. The cap- theKort 
 ture cost the enemy nearly five hundred men in killed and wounded. 
 The American loss beyond prisoners was hardly a third of this number. 
 New York City and Island, from the Battery to King's Bridge, 
 were now in the possession of the British. Two days afterward 
 Cornwallis passed up the river, and at a point nearly opposite Yonkers, 
 landed with six thousand men. Fort Lee could be held no longer in 
 the presence of such a force; it was, therefore, abandoned, ETa< , uation 
 and the American army withdrew to the other side of the ofFortLee - 
 Hackensack River. Howe considered the reduction of these two forts 
 of vital importance, as they commanded the entrance to the Hudson, 
 or, at least, made it perilous for the passage of English ships ; and 
 so long as Fort Washington was held by the Americans, the commu- 
 nication of New York with the open country beyond could never be 
 safe and uninterrupted. His objective point in the campaign, there- 
 fore, was so far gained. His reasons for reducing Fort Washington, 
 were, on the other hand, precisely the reasons which Greene, and 
 those who agreed with him, had urged for its defence. The real dif- 
 ference of opinion among the American generals, was not so much 
 whether it was desirable, but whether it was possible to maintain 
 that position. If it could be done, it ought to be done ; if it could 
 not, then the attempt to do it only involved a loss of life and muni- 
 tions. The further question whether its voluntary abandonment 
 without fighting, or its surrender after an unsuccessful defence, would 
 have the more dispiriting effect upon the army and the country 
 was a question that, however important, could not be permitted to 
 govern the final decision. There could be no doubt that the loss of 
 the fort was most serious ; it is equally certain that in the existing 
 state of things, the loss, and the method of losing it, were governed 
 by the inevitable necessities of the case. Washington was not strong 
 enough to hold it, nor had he authority sufficient to compel 
 its evacuation without a fight, decided as his own judgment tpnsposi- 
 was, that that was the wiser thing to do. Congress hampered 
 him ; and affairs had not yet reached that point where he could demand 
 implicit obedience from his Major-generals, instead of suggesting 
 measures in which he asked their cooperation. That time came the 
 sooner, probably, that he was not in haste to assert and assume the 
 power that should properly belong to the Commander-in-chief. 
 

 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE NEW JERSEY CAMPAIGN. 
 
 CONDITION OF THE ARMY. RETREAT THROUGH NEW JERSEY. HOWE'S PROCLAMA- 
 TION OF AMNESTY. WASHINGTON CROSSES THE DELAWARE. CONDUCT OF GEN- 
 ERAL LEE. His CAPTURE. OUTRAGES BY THE FOREIGN TROOPS. THE HES- 
 
 SIANS SURPRISED AND CAPTURED AT TRENTON. WASHINGTON RECROSSES THE 
 
 DELAWARE. BATTLE OF PRINCETON. WINTER QUARTERS AT MORRISTOWN. 
 RESULTS OF THE CAMPAIGN. SUFFERINGS OF AMERICAN PRISONERS IN THE 
 HANDS OF THE BRITISH. THE QUESTION OF EXCHANGE. WASHINGTON'S POSI- 
 TION. 
 
 LITTLE doubt remained in Washington's mind that the British 
 would follow up their successes about New York by an im- 
 
 Washington . . J . 
 
 apprehends mediate move upon Philadelphia. This was the opinion of 
 
 a move on * . * 
 
 the council of war at White Plains when Howe relinquished 
 further operations in Westchester County. Washington, 
 therefore, left Lee at Northcastle, and Heath in the Highlands, tak- 
 ing Putnam, Greene, Stirling, and Mercer with him southward. 
 Something over four thousand men composed his entire force, and 
 many of these were to leave in December. 
 
 Washington wrote to Governor Livingston, of New Jersey, to be 
 prepared for the invasion of his province. He suggested that the mi- 
 litia be in readiness for instant service, and recommended the people, 
 in the strongest terms, to remove their " stock, grain, effects, and car- 
 riages," for the enemy in their progress would leave them nothing. 
 " They have treated all here," he wrote from Westchester, " without 
 discrimination ; the distinction of Whig and Tory has been lost in one 
 general scene of ravage and desolation." What could not be re- 
 moved, he advised, should be burned " without the least hesitation." 
 
 The condition of his army still gave him great anxiety. By the 1st 
 condition of f December he would have only about two thousand Con- 
 nisarmy. tinentals on the Jersey side, to oppose Howe's entire force. 
 The several legislatures were exceedingly slow in raising their addi- 
 tional quotas, and Congress still adhered to the policy of short enlist- 
 ments. 
 
 The first necessity now was reinforcements. Adjutant-general Reed 
 
1776.] 
 
 RETREAT THROUGH NEW JERSEY. 
 
 521 
 
 was sent to appeal to the New Jersey Legislature for help, and Mifflin 
 was despatched on a like errand to Congress at Philadelphia. Being 
 a popular and able speaker, he addressed meetings in that city, roused 
 the war spirit afresh, and by the middle of December had contributed 
 much toward raising new troops in both town and country. The 
 Philadelphia " associators," or home-guards, turned out in large num- 
 bers. General Schuyler sent down from the Northern Department 
 seven eastern regiments under Gates and St. Clair. 
 
 The enemy had renewed operations only four days after the cap- 
 ture of Fort Washington, and Fort Lee was evacuated so hastily by 
 the Americans that the kettles were on the fire, and a thousand bar- 
 
 
 View of Fort Lee. 
 
 rels of flour, three hundred tents, and a number of mounted cannon 
 fell into the hands of Cornwallis. As Washington reached Hacken- 
 sack bridge, the British van appeared in sight on the road above. By 
 the 22d the whole American army had fallen back to Newark. On 
 the 28th, as Washington was leaving Newark at one end of the town, 
 Cornwallis entered at the other. 
 
 Northern New Jersey was thrown into a panic at this invasion. 
 Taking advantage of the alarm, the two Howes, as Peace 
 Commissioners, issued a proclamation on the 30th, i'n which tionofam- 
 they offered pardon to all who had taken up arms against 
 the King, if they returned quietly to their homes, the offer holding 
 good for sixty days. Many in New Jersey and Pennsylvania accepted 
 
522 THE NEW JERSEY CAMPAIGN. [CiiAr. XXI. 
 
 it. Among these wits Joseph Galloway, of Philadelphia, a member 
 of the first Continental Congress. 1 
 
 From Newark Washington fell back to Brunswick on the Raritan. 
 Most of the flying camp, Jei'seymen and Pennsylvanians, went home, 
 their term of enlistment having expired. The British came on through 
 Elizabethtown, Uniontown, Woodbridge, and other places, impressing 
 cattle, horses, and wagons. On December 1st, Washington retreated 
 by a night march to Princeton, where he left Stirling and 
 
 Washington * ...... i -i i -i 
 
 reaches the Stephen, ot Virginia, to watch the enemy, while he moved to 
 Trenton with the other half of his force to transfer stores 
 and baggage across the Delaware. Howe unaccountably ordered 
 Cormvallis to halt at Brunswick. In the lull of the pursuit, Wash- 
 ington urged Congress to raise a permanent army and " have nothing 
 to do with militia except in cases of extraordinary exigency." That 
 he might, in case of necessity, make a safe retreat into Pennsylva- 
 nia, he had boats in readiness at Trenton, and to prevent pursuit he 
 ordered every sort of craft removed from the Jersey side for seventy 
 miles up and down the Delaware. He gave special orders that the 
 Durham produce-scows should be secured, as any one of them was 
 large enough to transport a whole regiment. Cornwallis. on the 8th, 
 suddenly pushed on again, and nearly surprised Stirling, while the 
 and crosses entire American force, less than three thousand, crossed the 
 Delaware as the British were marching into Trenton. Sted- 
 man, who was in Howe's army, criticises the easy pace of the pur- 
 suit. To him it seemed as if Howe " had calculated with the great- 
 est accuracy the exact time necessary for his enemy to make his 
 escape." 
 
 As the two armies moved southward, the panic in Jersey and Penn- 
 sylvania increased. Congress thought it unsafe to remain 
 in Philadelphia, and adjourned early in December to meet 
 at Baltimore. Oliver Wolcott, a delegate from Connecticut, wrote 
 that " it was judged that the Council of America ought not to sit in 
 a Place liable to be interrupted by the rude Disorder of Arms." Put- 
 nam and Mifflin were ordered there to put that city in a state of de- 
 fence. 
 
 As Washington fell back slowly through New Jersey, warily watch- 
 ue-gcon- ' in S ever j movement of the enemy, he had repeatedly and ur- 
 gently ordered Lee to join him with his whole force. But 
 that General chose to construe those orders as conditional, and not im- 
 perative. This was in accordance with his settled purpose to acquire a 
 
 1 Howe subsequently made him superintendent of the post at that city, but lie appears 
 at the close of the war as a witness in Kngland against the British General who had par- 
 doned him, who was accused of conducting a very sluggish campaign iu the Jerseys. 
 
 
1776.] CONDUCT OF GENERAL LEE. 523 
 
 separate command ; more than this, as he had hoped the year be- 
 fore that the supreme command would be bestowed upon him, so lie 
 still hoped, undoubtedly, that he might supersede Washington. He 
 assumed to instruct the New England Governors, and even Congress, 
 upon the construction of the army, and the measures which should be 
 adopted for the conduct of military affairs. In November he wrote to 
 the President of the Massachusetts Council, James Bowdoin, that 
 " before the unfortunate affair of Fort Washington, he was of opinion 
 that the two armies that on the east and that on the west side of 
 North River must rest each on its own bottom; that the idea of 
 detaching .... from one side to the other was chimerical ; but to 
 harbor such a thought in our present circumstances is absolute insan- 
 ity." When Washington ordered him to move, he saw fit to act upon 
 his own judgment rather than to obey the orders of his superior, and 
 directed General Heath to cross the river and join the main army, in- 
 stead of himself. Heath refused to obey, properly conceiving that 
 his movements were to be governed by the Commander-in-chief. 
 " The Commander-in-chief," was Lee's reply, " is now separated from 
 us ; I, of course, command on this side the water : for the future I will 
 and must be obeyed." When, at last, he leisurely took up his line 
 of march to join the main army, where the aid of his troops was so 
 imperatively needed, he wrote that he was "in hopes to reconquer the 
 Jerseys, which were really in the hands of the enemy before my ar- 
 rival." In a letter to General Gates, two days later, he says, " En- 
 tre nous, a certain great man is most damnably deficient. He has 
 thrown me into a situation where I have my choice of difficulties 
 if I stay in this Province, I risk myself and Army, and if I do not 
 stay, the Province is lost forever .... I must act with the great- 
 est circumspection . . . . as to what relates to yourself, if you think 
 you can be in time to aid the General, I would have you by all means 
 go." Even Gates, he thought, should be governed by his own discre- 
 tion, rather than obey positive orders ; and while he hesitated whether 
 he should stay or not stay in Jersey, Washington had four times writ- 
 ten him within ten days " hasten your march as much as possible, 
 or your arrival may be too late to answer any valuable purpose : "' : 
 " the sooner you join me with your division, the sooner the service 
 will be benefited : " " march and join me with all your whole force 
 with all possible expedition:" ''push on with every possible suc- 
 cor you can bring." ! 
 
 On his march through Jersey he compelled the inhabitants to fur- 
 nish his men with clothing, of which they were, like all the army, 
 
 1 See Treason of ^[ajo>-general Charles Lee, by Georjjo H. Moore. Lee Paptrs, X. Y. 
 Hist. Soc. Coll., 1872. 
 
524 THE NEW JERSEY CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 greatly in need, promising that the public should pay for it. 1 He did 
 not cross the Hudson until the 3d of December, sixteen days after he 
 tu^ p ~ WaS directed to marc h- On the 12th he was no farther 
 than Vealtown, and on the next day was taken prisoner. 
 The previous evening, he had pushed on with his staff and about a 
 dozen^guards to Baskingridge, and put up at a tavern. " A rascally 
 Tory," according to one account, noticed Lee's exposed position, and 
 
 Capture of General Lee. 
 
 galloping away at high speed, gave the information that night to a 
 British scouting-party under Lieutenant-colonel Harcourt, twenty 
 miles distant. Harcourt arrived at Baskingridge, with fifty of his 
 dragoons, about ten o'clock on the morning of the 13th. Lee had 
 
 1 Tliis order, recently discoverer!, directs Colonel Chester and a party to proceed to Har- 
 ring-on township and collect all the serviceable horses and spare blankets they can find, 
 Irsiving " a sufficient number to cover the people ; " and they are to gather shoes and great 
 coats, "to serve as Watch Coats." "The people from whom they are taken," continues 
 thy order, " are not to be insulted either by language or actions, but told that the urgent 
 necessity of the troops obliges us to this measure, that, unless we adopt it, their liberties 
 mu>t perish." 
 
. 
 
 THE CROSSING OF THE DELAWARE. 
 

 
 
1776.] DISTRIBUTION OF THE BRITISH TROOPS. 525 
 
 sent for liis horses, was about to mount, and would have been gone in 
 ten minutes. The dragoons approached cautiously and surrounded 
 the house. Some resistance was made, and a shot cut off the ribbon 
 of Colonel Harcourt's queue. In the attempt to escape, several of 
 the Americans were wounded, and two were killed. Captain Brad- 
 ford, Lee's aid, evaded the enemy by changing his clothes, and Major 
 Wilkinson hid in safety behind a door. Lee was placed on horseback, 
 bound hand and foot, and hurried off beyond successful pursuit. 
 
 The command of his troops fell to Sullivan, who lost no time in obey- 
 ing the orders Lee had so long disregarded, and reported at headquar- 
 ters on the 20th. The strictest watch was now kept upon the enemy 
 across the river ; scouts were sent to ascertain their position and 
 movements, and particularly whether they were building boats. The 
 critical state of affairs urged Washington to aggressive measures. 
 Bold as any attempt whatever on the enemy might seem, the situa- 
 tion demanded it. Something must be done to offset Howe's sweep- 
 ing progress ; something to cheer the troops ; something to assure the 
 country that the army, at least, had not despaired of the cause, and 
 only required vigorous support at home to crown it with success. 
 Washington appears to have contemplated a move of this nature as 
 early as the 14th, when he wrote to Governor Trumbull of the effect 
 "a lucky blow" might have in rousing the spirits of the peo- 
 ple, which he knew were quite sunk by late misfortunes, surprise 
 The favorable opportunity soon offered. On the 23d of De- 
 cember he wrote: "Christmas-day at night, one hour before dav, is 
 the time fixed upon for our attempt on Trenton." 
 
 Confident in their strength, and believing that the end of the rebel- 
 lion was near, the British distributed their forces in New 
 Jersey at different points until the freezing of the Delaware o 
 should enable them to cross into Pennsylvania and continue 
 their inarch to Philadelphia. They spread themselves over as much 
 territory as possible, to afford the loyal portion of the inhabitants 
 "protection," as well as to keep recruits from joining the American 
 army. At Brunswick, they collected stores and provisions, guarded 
 by cannon and six or eight hundred men ; at Cranberry a camp for 
 Tory recruits was established. Cornwallis fixed his headquarters at 
 Princeton. Donop with two thousand Hessians commanded in Bur- 
 lington County, where a scout found his men u scattered through all 
 the farmers' houses, eight, ten, twelve, and fifteen in a house, 
 and rambling over the whole country;" Rahl, with twelve hundred 
 more, occupied Trenton. The people everywhere were given over to 
 plunder. 1 The British posts were hardly within easy supporting dis- 
 1 A letter bearing date December 12, 1776, gives a vivid picture of the conduct of these 
 
526 THE NEW JERSEY CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 tance of each other; indeed, Rahl, at Trenton, to show his contempt 
 for the Continentals, would have no supports, and refused to throw 
 up a single defensive work. Cornwallis, even, was so far convinced 
 that the campaign was over, that he had obtained leave of absence to 
 return to England, and had gone from Princeton to New York, leaving 
 Grant in command in lower Jersey. That officer, equally unsuspect- 
 ing, assured Donop, on the edge of the river, that while he and Rahl 
 should be on the watch, there was nothing to apprehend from the 
 rebels. 
 
 Ascertaining the exact position of the enemy, Washington deter- 
 mined to cross the Delaware at night above and below Trenton, fall 
 upon Rahl and his Hessians, surround and capture them, and recross 
 before he could be overtaken. The plan required the cooperation of 
 all the troops that could be mustered. To engage Donop's attention 
 below Trenton, a body of militia, under Colonel Griffin, from Phil- 
 adelphia, skirmished at Burlington and Mount Holly, and succeed- 
 ed so far as to draw off part of his force eighteen miles southeast of 
 Rahl. General John Cadwallader was directed to cross at Bristol with 
 a force of Pennsylvanians, 1 and General Ewing had been ordered to 
 
 foreign troops, and suggests anew the question whether there can be any such thing as 
 civilized warfare. The writer says the progress of the British and Hessian troops through 
 New Jersey was attended with such scenes of desolation and outrage as would disgrace the 
 most barbarous nations ; and he cites half a dozen incidents which he declares well authen- 
 ticated. William Smith, of Smith's farm, near Woodbridge, hearing the cries of his 
 daughter, rushed into the room and found a Hessian officer attempting to ravish her. " In 
 an agony of rage and resentment, he instantly killed him ; but the officer's party soon 
 came upon him, and he now lies mortally wounded at his ruined, plundered dwelling." 
 They entered the house of Samuel Stout, Esq., in Hopewell, and destroyed his deeds, 
 papers, furniture, and effects of every kind, except what they plundered. They took away 
 every horse, and left his house and farm in ruins. " injuring him to the value of two thou- 
 sand pounds in less than three hours." Old Mr. Philips, his neighbor, they pillaged in 
 the same manner, and then cruelly beat him. " On Wednesday last," says this writer, 
 " three women came down to the Jersey shore in great distress ; a party of the American 
 Army went and brought them off, when it appeared that they all had been very much 
 abused, and the youngest of them, a girl about fifteen years of age, had been ravished that 
 morning by a British officer." Sixteen young women in Hopewell, flying from the enemy, 
 took refuge on the mountain near Ralph Hart's ; but information being given of their 
 retreat, they were soon carried down into the British camp, '' where they have been kept 
 ever siuce." The settlements of Maidenhead and Hopewell were broken up ; " no age nor 
 sex have been spared ; the houses are stripped of every article of furniture, and what is 
 not portable is entirely destroyed. The stock of cattle and sheep are drove off ; every ar- 
 ticle of clothing and house-linen seized and carried away. Scarce a soldier in the Army 
 but what has a horse loaded with plunder. Hundreds of families are reduced from com- 
 fort and affluence to poverty and ruin, left at this inclement season to wander through 
 woods without house or clothing." Force's Archives, Fifth Series, vol. iii., p. 1 188. 
 
 1 Adjutant-general Reed was sent by Washington to Cadwallader to cooperate with and 
 aid him in the proposed movements across the Delaware. Some years after the peace, a 
 controversy sprang up between Reed and Cadwallader, which was embittered bv, if it did 
 not originate in, political differences, and has been kept alive in the present century in more 
 than one history of the Revolutionary period. The essential point of this controversy is 
 
1776.] WASHINGTON'S BOLD DESIGN. 527 
 
 make a similar attempt opposite Trenton. The Commander-in-chief 
 proposed to lead the main column himself from McConkey's Ferry, 
 nine miles up the river. The movement was to begin on Christmas 
 night, and every preparation was made to insure success. 
 
 But the condition of the river threatened to defeat this bold design. 
 When Cadwallader attempted to cross from Bristol he found the ice 
 so piled up on the Jersey shore as to prevent the landing of artillery. 
 He could do nothing, and relinquished the attempt in despair. Ew- 
 ing was equally unsuccessful. These two cooperating parties, who 
 were to have cut off communication between Rahl and Donop, being 
 thus effectually baffled, the chances of the success of the main force 
 were proportionately lessened. Washington determined, neverthe- 
 less, to push on at all hazards, though without support. He could at 
 least trust the troops under his immediate command. The best gen- 
 eral officers then in the service were to go with them ; Greene, 
 who had shared his chief's hopes and anxieties through the cam- 
 
 a charge against Reed of meditating a treacherous abandonment of the cause of his coun- 
 try, and a determination to go over to the enemy. Evidence as to the alleged words and 
 acts of the Adjutant-general, while at Bristol, were gathered together and have been re- 
 peatedly published to substantiate the charge, and he and his friends particularly his 
 grandson, the late William B. Reed have been called upon to prove a negative. For 
 the discussion of this question we have neither space nor inclination. At the same time, 
 we do not hesitate to say that the difficult task of proving a negative was never, perhaps, 
 more completely accomplished, were it not that no evidence could be given to offset the 
 direct, positive, and unbiassed testimony found, a few yenrs ago, in the manuscript journal 
 of the Hessian Colonel Donop, or one of his staff. In this it was charged that Reed had 
 " received a protection," and " had declared that he did not intend any longer to serve," 
 that is, in the American army. It is true, that Mr. W. B. Reed, having got sight of 
 the original Hessian journal, showed that this, which was made to appear as the assertion 
 of a fact by a mutilation of the journal, was, in reality, the assertion of a rumor only, and 
 one among others so confused that the writer of the journal " would not listen any more 
 to them." But before this was made to appear, the first published extract had done its 
 work, and had been accepted as an absolute confirmation of the original charge of dis- 
 loyalty made against Reed by Cadwallader. 
 
 But even with this'satisfactory discovery of the grandson that the alleged assertion of a 
 fact was the assertion only of a rumor, the existence of such a rumor, recorded in a con- 
 temporary Hessian journal, while it could not prove the charge afrainst his grandfather to 
 be true, was, at least, very damaging collateral evidence of the truth of that charge. By 
 a fortunate incident, however, it appears, at last, that even the rumor reported by the Hes- 
 sian was a blunder, and that it referred, without doubt, not to Adjutant-general Reed, but 
 to another officer with a similar name. In 1876, William S. Stryker, Adjutant-general of 
 New Jersey, found in the archives of his office a report of Colonel Donop, made to the 
 British Major-general Grant, ou December 21, 1776, in which he says that Colonel Reed 
 had received a protection, and declared to General Miffiin that he would serve no longer, 
 whereupon he was carried off a prisoner by Mittiin. Donop knew no English ; the com- 
 mander at the time and place referred to was Colonel Griffin not Mifflin ; the Colonel 
 Reed, then and there arrested, was not Joseph Reed, Washington's Adjutant-general, but 
 Colonel Charles Read, of the Burlington militia, who, the Memorandum Book of the Phil- 
 adelphia Council of Safety shows, was still in custody a month later in that city, " taken 
 in New Jersey." With this discovery of Adjutant-general Stryker, the whole case against 
 Joseph Reed may, in legal phrase, be put out of court. 
 
528 THE NEW JERSEY CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 paign ; Stirling and Sullivan, both good soldiers ; Stephen, who had 
 The general been with Washington in the French war; Mercer, rising in 
 officers. reputation ; St. Clair from the Northern Department ; Knox, 
 Hand, and Glover, Poor, Stark, and Patterson, soon to be Brigadier- 
 generals. Gates was offered the command of one of the parties farther 
 down the river, but he preferred to gallop off to Philadelphia to discuss 
 some question of rank before Congress. Twenty-four hundred men 
 composed the expedition, nearly all of whom had seen service at 
 Bunker Hill, in Canada, on Long Island, at Harlem Heights, and 
 at White Plains ; men from every province, from New Hampshire 
 to Virginia. 
 
 The swift current of the river was filled with cakes of floating ice. 
 The difflcui- A driving storm of snow and sleet pelted the half -clad troops, 
 ties - benumbed them with cold, and threatened to render both 
 
 guns and ammunition useless. But officers and men alike were insen- 
 sible to these difficulties ; they knew they had everything to win, that 
 failure would be no disgrace, defeat a less misfortune than to go back, 
 and that victory would be hailed with enthusiasm by the whole coun- 
 try. As they entered the boats, they were inspirited by the calm and 
 resolute bearing of their chief. Knox shouted his orders in a voice 
 whose loud and cheerful tones encouraged the troops ; and none doubted 
 of the safe passage of the river, when Glover, with his Massachusetts 
 fishermen, as good sailors as they were soldiers, stepped forward 
 to man the oars. 
 
 It was four o'clock in the morning before troops and cannon were 
 all safe on the Jersey side, when, by the original plan, they should 
 have been there by midnight. " This," says Washington, " made me 
 despair of surprising the town, as I well knew we could not reach it 
 before the day was fairly broke ; but, as I was certain there was no 
 making a retreat without being discovered and harassed on repassing 
 the river, I determined to push on at all events." Despite the slip- 
 pery road which made quick marching difficult at first, and although 
 many of the men were almost barefoot, the column moved on in good 
 order, without a murmur, and in profound silence. But they were 
 nearly all hardened troops, and could march well ; the Eastern regi- 
 ments, under St. Clair, had just come down from Ticonderoga, four 
 hundred miles distant ; the troops under Lee and Sullivan had been 
 on the road three weeks, and the rest had found rapid travelling their 
 only safety in the Jersey retreat. Only those had remained behind 
 who were too foot-sore or too destitute of clothing to leave their 
 quarters. 
 
 When Birmingham village was reached, the force divided ; one 
 column, under Greene, taking the Scotch or upper road ; the other, 
 
1776.] 
 
 THE HESSIANS SURPRISED AT TRENTON. 
 
 529 
 
 under Sullivan, following the parallel river road a mile to the south. 
 With Greene, were Stephen's, Mercer's, Stirling's, and De Fermoy's l 
 brigades, in advance; with Sullivan, Glover's, Sargent's, and St. 
 Glair's followed. Washington took the upper road with Greene. The 
 march now was easier and swifter, as they had turned their backs 
 to the storm. Then the discovery was made that the priming for 
 the muskets had become in many cases too wet to use. Sullivan 
 promptly reported this to Washington ; Washington replied that they 
 must fight with fixed bayonets. 
 
 At eight o'clock precisely, Greene's advance guard, headed by Cap- 
 tain William Washington, of Virginia, and guided by David The He .ins 
 Lanning, of Trenton, came upon the enemy's outposts on 8ur P n8ed - 
 the skirts of the town. The young Hessian lieutenant in charge had 
 
 just time to turn his men 
 out and deliver one fire, 
 when Captain Washington 
 and Lieutenant James 
 Monroe afterward Presi- 
 ' dent dashed after them 
 view of Trenton. with the American van, and 
 
 followed the Hessian pickets rapidly into Trenton. Three minutes 
 later, firing was heard on the lower road, and Washington was as- 
 sured that Sullivan's wing was up and at work. Stark's New Hamp- 
 shire men led the advance there, and had fallen upon the enemy with 
 a shout and a rush. Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, the 
 
 1 A French officer, lately commissioned a brigadier by Congress. His regiments were 
 Hand's riflemen and Hausegger's German battalion from Pennsylvania. 
 VOL. in. 34 
 
 
530 THE NEW JERSEY CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 surprise was complete. Both American columns moved straight on in 
 support of their advance parties. Two streets running through the 
 town (then King and Queen, now Warren and Greene) converged 
 where the upper road entered. At this junction, Captain Forest 
 planted six guns, and Washington in person directed their fire down 
 King Street, in which the Hessians were attempting to form. The 
 street was quickly cleared. The enemy then brought two field-pieces 
 to reply to Forest, but the column under young Washington and 
 Monroe charged on the gunners, drove them off, and disabled the 
 guns, both officers receiving slight wounds. No chance was given the 
 enemy to rally. 
 
 Many of the Hessian officers had been engaged through the night 
 in Christmas festivities, and among them Rahl. He was not, prob- 
 ably, in a condition to meet an emergency, and the suddenness of the 
 attack helped to bewilder him. His orders were wild and confused, 
 though he boldly faced the situation. But the American fire was so 
 close and severe from behind houses, fences, and other points of van- 
 tage, that the Hessians, brave and veteran soldiers as they were, fled 
 like raw recruits for their lives. A part attempted to break through 
 to Princeton ; but Hand's riflemen took post on the left, and checked 
 them in that quarter. Sullivan's attack was as well sustained as 
 Greene's, and a party of British troopers and yagers, instead of fall- 
 ing back fighting, retreated in haste across the bridge over the 
 Assanpink Creek, which runs through the eastern part of Trenton, 
 and made their way towards Donop's camp. But Sullivan's men 
 held the bridge, and when one of Rahl's regiments attempted to 
 escape over it, they were compelled to surrender. The whole force, 
 They sur- now surrounded and thrown into confusion, were soon corn- 
 render, pelled to lay down their arms. They had been driven back 
 to a field east of the town, where Rahl fell, mortally wounded. Sup- 
 ported by two sergeants, he gave up his sword to Washington. 
 
 The Americans took nine hundred and fifty prisoners, six guns, and 
 many small arms and trophies, besides killing seventeen and wound- 
 ing nearly eighty of the enemy. Their own loss was two killed and 
 four wounded. Washington recrossed the Delaware that evening 
 with all his prisoners, and the next morning warmly thanked his 
 troops for their steady and brave conduct. 1 
 
 1 Captain William Hull, of Webb's Continentals, who distinguished himself subse- 
 quently during the war, wrote, January 1, 1777, of the action at Trenton : " The Resolu- 
 tion and Bravery of our Men, their Order and regularity, gave me the highest sensation 
 of Pleasure. Genl. Washington highly congratulated the Men on next day in Genl. Or- 
 ders, and with Pleasure observed that he had been in many Actions before, but always per- 
 ceived some misbehaviour in some individuals, but in that action he saw none What 
 
 can't men do when engaged in so noble a cause 1" Mrs. Bonney's Legacy of Historical 
 Gleanings, vol. i.. D. 57. 
 
1777.] WASHINGTON RECROSSES THE DELAWARE. 531 
 
 When Donop, at Burlington, heard of what had happened, he at 
 once abandoned lower New Jersey, and Cornwallis went back to 
 Princeton. A party of British hurried down to reconnoitre, but only 
 to find Trenton empty of both Hessians and Americans. Washing- 
 ton crossed the river again on the 30th, and mustered his whole force 
 in the neighborhood of Trenton. The New England regiments, 
 whose term of service expired with the close of the year, were per- 
 suaded to remain six weeks longer, and these, with a considerable 
 number of Pennsylvania militia, recruited mainly in Philadelphia, 
 increased the army to about six thousand men. 1 Early on Xew 
 Year's morning, Robert Morris, the wealthy and patriotic Philadel- 
 phian to whom Washington had applied for money to pay 
 the troops, was busy borrowing funds from his friends. He money for 
 raised fifty thousand dollars in specie, and sent it to camp. 
 On the same date, Washington wrote to Congress : " We are devising 
 such means as I hope, if they succeed, will add as much, or more, 
 to the distress of the enemy than their defeat at Trenton." But his 
 plans were largely contingent on the movements of the enemy, and 
 these were speedily developed. 
 
 Hearing that Washington had again crossed the Delaware, Corn- 
 wallis prepared to meet him and blot out the Trenton dis- Wa . ehington 
 grace. Concentrating all his available force at Princeton, %^. 
 seven thousand men, British, Highlanders, Hessians, and again 
 Waldeckers, he marched on the 2d of January, 1777. De Fermov, 
 with Hand's and Hausegger's regiments, was sent to check this 
 advance. Hand's men, as usual, behaved well ; but Colonel Hau- 
 segger was made prisoner, and is said to have proved himself a traitor 
 by a voluntary surrender. Some other troops under Greene also 
 harassed Cornwallis on his march, and prevented his reaching Tren- 
 ton until evening. Washington, meanwhile, drew up his army on the 
 east bank of the Assanpink Creek, covered the crossing at the bridge 
 with artillery, and guarded all the fords above. The enemy came 
 on, driving back the advance, and passing through Trenton, were on 
 the point of storming the Assanpink Bridge, when thirty pieces of 
 cannon opened upon them, as Knox said, " with great vociferation 
 and some execution," and compelled them to withdraw out of range. 
 
 1 There were " bounty-jumpers " in those days. In a general order, issued from his head- 
 quarters at Morristown in February, 1777, Washington called attention to the "frauds 
 and abuses committed of late by sundry soldiers, who, after enlisting in one regiment and 
 receiving the bounty allowed by Congress, have deserted, enlisted in others, and received 
 new bounties." The Commander-in-chief, who was a strict disciplinarian and never in- 
 clined to be merciful to wrong-doers, proceeded to declare that " this offence is of the most 
 enormous and flagrant nature, and not admitting of the least palliation or excuse ; who- 
 ever are convicted thereof, and sentenced to die, may consider their execution certain and 
 inevitable." 
 
532 THE NEW JERSEY CAMPAIGN. [Ciix'p. XXI. 
 
 Hardly had the two armies posted their pickets and lighted their 
 fires along either bank of the Assanpink, when Washington called a 
 council of his officers to discuss their position. Obviously it was crit- 
 ical. The Delaware was between him and Pennsylvania, and filled 
 with floating ice. Its passage in the presence of the enemy, at any 
 point below Trenton, was out of the question. Retreat in that direc- 
 tion was impossible. To cut his way back to McConkey's Ferry, or 
 beyond, would undoubtedly have involved the ruin of his army, and 
 that, he knew, would be the end of the war then and there. He 
 might be able to hold the Assanpink front against Cornwallis, but the 
 stream above could be crossed, and his right flank turned. If he fore- 
 saw as it is to be assumed he did the possibility, or even the prob- 
 ability of placing the army in so hazardous a position, he voluntarily 
 encountered a great risk by the return to New Jersey. It was to as- 
 sume the offensive with his eyes open to the possible consequences. 
 
 From Princeton to Trenton the main highway ran nearly in a 
 straight course through the village of Maidenhead, and it was along 
 this that Cornwallis had advanced. There was still another and less 
 travelled route between the two places, known as the Quaker road, 
 which followed a roundabout line east of the Assanpink. By this 
 road, the distance to Princeton from Washington's camp was about 
 seventeen miles. It was proposed at the council to take this unfre- 
 quented route, make a night march to Princeton, reverse the situa- 
 tion, and find a safer position beyond. The feasibility of this " most 
 extra manoeuvre," as Knox describes it, was demonstrated, all the 
 generals approved it, and orders were issued to carry it out imme- 
 diately with great secrecy and precaution. 1 
 
 About one o'clock at night the march was begun. St. Clair di- 
 rected the details of preparation. The baggage was first 
 
 for sent to Burlington, for no encumbrance on the road could be 
 
 Princeton . .... 
 
 permitted. Along the front appearances were maintained as 
 of an army quiet in its encampment. A party left behind relieved 
 the guards as usual through the night, and fence-rails and dry wood 
 were piled on the camp-fires along the bank of the Assanpink, about 
 which the pickets gathered closely as the cold increased. Others 
 were at work with picks and shovels on a breastwork near the bridge. 
 
 1 In his brief narrative reviewing his military cureer, General St. Clair claims the credit 
 of having proposed this move to the Council. "The General," he says, "summoned a 
 Council of the general officers at my quarters, and after stating the difficulties in his way, 
 the probability of defent, and the consequence that would necessarily result if it happened, 
 desired advice. I hud the good fortune to suggest the idea of turning the left of the enemy 
 in the night, gaining a inarch upon him, and proceeding with all possible expedition to 
 Brunswick. General Mercer immediately fell in with it, and very forcibly pointed out both 
 its practicability and the advantages that would necessarily result from it, and General 
 Washington highly approved it ; nor was there one dissenting voice iu the Council." 
 
1777.] 
 
 THE MARCH TO PRINCETON. 
 
 533 
 
 So far as the pickets of the enemv could see, or conjecture, the Amer- 
 icans were resting quietly in their camp all the night through, while 
 the troops, ignorant of their destination, were quietly set in motion 
 along the Quaker road toward Princeton. The ground, which had 
 been muddy during the day, was hard from a sudden frost, and the 
 artillery was moved without difficulty. As the men pushed on, in 
 silence and perfect order, though sometimes stumbling over rocks 
 and stumps, and shivering in the keen northwest wind, they discussed 
 among themselves what the General meant to do. 1 All night tin- 
 pickets piled high the fires in front of the deserted camp, and when 
 morning broke they also stole quietly away on the line of march. 
 
 The Stolen March. 
 
 St. Glair's brigade of New Hampshire and Massachusetts troops 
 moved at the head of the column. Captain Isaac Sherman, of Con- 
 necticut, son of that Roger Sherman who signed the Declaration of 
 Independence, led the advance guard. 2 In the van, also, were Captain 
 Thomas Rodney with an independent company from Delaware and 
 the " Red Feather company of Philadelphia Light Infantry," which 
 alone of all the troops pretended to be in uniform. The column moved 
 on all night " in the most cool and determined order," though once 
 the cry was raised in the rear that the Hessians \\ere upon them, and 
 
 1 .foiima/ <>/ C'li/itiint I Ituiuus liuduty, oj 
 '- Wilkinson's Memoirs. 
 
534 THE NEW JERSEY CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 some of the inilitia took fright and fled toward Burlington. Washing- 
 ton, as usual, kept with the van. The only cavalry that he could use 
 for guards, couriers, and patrols was a company of twenty-one "gentle- 
 men of fortune " from Philadelphia, who volunteered their services 
 and paid their own way. 
 
 It was a little after daybreak when the troops neared Princeton. 
 At Prince- The morning was bright, serene, and extremely cold. Wash- 
 ton, ington's plan was to leave the main column with Sullivan's 
 division in advance, wheel to the right and surprise the town on the 
 flank, while Mercer should keep straight on, at the same time detach- 
 ing a party to break down the bridge over Stony Creek on the main 
 road, to retard the enemy's pursuit from Trenton. Thus at sunrise 
 on the morning of January 3d, the situation was directly the reverse 
 of what it had been on the previous morning. Cornwallis was at 
 Trenton, Washington at Princeton. Cornwallis was outgeneralled, 
 and the American army once more saved from threatened ruin. 
 
 Some serious work, however, remained to be done before the suc- 
 cess of the manoeuvre was completely assured. Three British regi- 
 ments, the 17th, 40th, and 55th, with three companies of dragoons, 
 had been left at Princeton as a rear guard. Two of them had been 
 ordered to join Cornwallis, and before sunrise this morning they were 
 on the road, the 17th, under Lieutenant-colonel Mawhood, and the 
 dragoons twenty minutes in advance of him. After crossing Stony 
 Creek, a mile below the town, Mawhood discovered the Americans on 
 the Quaker road half a mile to his left. Unable to account for their 
 appearance there, he nevertheless promptly faced about and recrossed 
 the creek to reconnoitre, and, if necessary, show fight. " You may 
 judge of the surprise of the British," says Knox, " when they saw such 
 a large column marching up. They could not possibly suppose it 
 was our army, for that, they took for granted, was cooped up near 
 Trenton. They could not possibly suppose it was their own army re- 
 turning by a back road ; in short, I believe they were as much aston- 
 ished as if an army had dropped perpendicularly upon them." 
 
 Mawhood, believing that some advantage could be gained by 
 attacking and delaying the Americans, hastened to take position just 
 off the road, on a hill near the house and barns of a Quaker named 
 Clark. It so happened that Mercer, with a small Continental brigade 
 composed of the remnants of Smallvvood's and Haslet's regiments, 
 and a detachment of Virginians under Captain Fleming, about three 
 hundred in all, on seeing the British returning, aimed for the same 
 Battle of point, reached it first, and formed behind a fence. As the 
 Princeton. enem y came up, Mercer's men poured a volley into their 
 ranks, which was immediately returned. Major Wilkinson, of St. 
 
1777.] THE BATTLE OF PRINCETON. 535 
 
 Glair's staff, recollected that the smoke from the discharge of the two 
 lines mingled as it rose and went up " in one beautiful cloud." Maw- 
 hood, riding on a little brown pony, with two favorite spaniels bound- 
 ing in front of him, 1 directed the movements of his small force, which 
 he held under thorough discipline and now brought to the field in 
 the best fighting condition. Preserving its line, the Seventeenth fol- 
 lowed up its fire with one of those irresistible charges for which the 
 British regular has been famous since the days of Marlborough in 
 Europe and Wolfe in America. Despite the efforts of their officers 
 to keep them to their ground, Merger's men, who had but few bay- 
 onets, took to flight. General Mercer himself was unhorsed at the 
 outset and, refusing to surrender, struck out with his sword, only to 
 be bayoneted on all sides and left for dead. The brave Colonel 
 Haslet, of the Delawares, while endeavoring to rally his men, Colonel 
 Potter, Captain Fleming, Captain Neal of the artillery, and other 
 officers, were also killed. General Cadwallader's militia brigade, 
 which had been sent to support Mercer, then gave way before Maw- 
 hood. 
 
 But fortunately, Captain Moulder's volunteer artillery from Phila- 
 delphia, and Captain Rodney's men, firing under cover of the barns 
 and stacks of hay in the vicinity, temporarily checked the enemy and 
 enabled Washington, who was now at the front, to take measures 
 against further disaster. He sent word to Nixon's brigade of the New 
 England Continentals, then commanded by Colonel Daniel Hitchcock, 
 of Providence, to come up on the enemy's right, while Hand's veteran 
 riflemen threatened their left. The Commander-in-chief then rode 
 in among Mercer's and Cadwallader's routed troops, regardless of 
 personal danger, and succeeded, with others, in re-forming the greater 
 part of them, and again drew them up in front of the British. Both 
 sides opened fire. Hitchcock, Hand, and Cadwallader pushed on, and 
 Mawhood, finding himself in danger of being surrounded, was com- 
 pelled to retreat. His men had thus far fought bravely, but now 
 they sought safety in flight, and throwing down their arms, scattered 
 down the road, up the creek, and over the fields, pursued by the 
 shouting Americans. The danger was over. The army moved on to 
 Princeton and drove the other British regiments, who had posted 
 themselves in the College building, out of the town. The exhausted 
 troops encamped that night at Somerset Court House, fifteen miles 
 beyond. The intention of making a push for Brunswick, where Wash- 
 ington had hoped to capture the British stores, had to be abandoned, 
 
 1 Wilkinson's Memoirs. Wilkinson was St. Clair's Brigade-major, afterward General- 
 in-chief of the American army, and gives many particulars in his account of the battles of 
 Trenton and Princeton. 
 
536 THE NEW JERSEY CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 for the men, "having been without rest, rum, or pi-ovisions for two 
 nights and days, were unequal to the task of marching seventeen miles 
 farther." * 
 
 In the fighting of this day, the British lost over sixty killed, and 
 
 many wounded, besides two hundred and fifty prisoners. 
 
 The American loss was about thirty killed, and a propor- 
 
 tionate number of wounded ; but among them was the gallant Mer- 
 
 cer, who died a day or two later, and Haslet, whose services had been 
 
 valuable from the beginning of the campaign. Hitchcock, who was 
 
 thanked by Washington in person for his conduct in the battle, died 
 
 ten days later from the hardships of the campaign. 
 
 When Cornwallis discovered that the enemy was beyond pursuit, 
 he at once marched his troops to Princeton, and entered the place 
 an hour after the Americans had left. They came on, it was said, 
 "in a most infernal sweat running, puffing, and blowing, and swear- 
 ing at being so outwitted." 2 Washington, however, could not be 
 overtaken. On the 6th, the army reached Morristown, and 
 
 at preparations were immediately made to go into winter quar- 
 
 Morristown. ,. . ,, , , 
 
 ters. Ihe campaign was virtually over for that winter, 
 though Heath and Lincoln made a demonstration toward New York a 
 few days later, and summoned Fort Independence to surrender. The 
 movement served, perhaps, to alarm Howe for the safety of New York, 
 but was otherwise so far from answering the purpose intended, that 
 the generals in command were rebuked for its failure. They -permit- 
 ted themselves to be driven from the investment of the fort by a sortie 
 of the garrison. "Your summons," wrote Washington to Heath, "as 
 you did not attempt to fulfil your threats, was not only idle, but far- 
 cical, and will not fail of turning the laugh exceedingly upon us." 
 With the general result of the campaign, however, the Commander- 
 
 in-chief had every reason to be satisfied, as the country had 
 
 every reason to be satisfied with the Commander-in-chief. 
 
 The wisdom of trusting him with almost irresponsible power 
 was made manifest, as it became plainer every day that he knew how 
 to use and would not abuse supreme authority. In about six month* 
 he had completely changed the aspect of affairs. Successive disasters 
 the loss of Long Island, the evacuation of New York, the surrender 
 of Fort Washington, the retreat through New Jersey to the banks of 
 
 1 Captain Rodney, mentioned above, was from Dover, Delaware, and was a brother of 
 Hon. Caesar Rodney, delegate in Congress from that State. Writing on the evening of the 
 fight, he says of Princeton : " This is a very pretty little town on the York road twelve 
 miles from Trenton ; the houses are built of brick, and are very elegant, especially the 
 College, which has 52 rooms in it; but the whole town has been ravaged and ruined by 
 the enemy." 
 
 2 Kiiox, in letter of January 7, 1777. 
 
1777.] 
 
 RESULTS OF THE CAMPAIGN. 
 
 the Delaware, the apparently impending fall of Philadelphia had 
 made the most sanguine almost despair of the war. But the main 
 army was now safely and firmly seated in the very heart of Xew Jer- 
 sey ; anxiety for New York had compelled Howe to abandon, at least 
 for the present, his designs upon Philadelphia; Brunswick and Am- 
 boy were the only towns that he could really call his own in all that 
 province, which, a little while before, he and his troops believed thev 
 could overrun at will ; he had been outgeneralled by the rebel chief 
 whom he affected to despise, and his veteran, disciplined, and weli 
 appointed troops had been out-fought by raw militia, just taken from 
 the plough and the workshop, and about to return there, half-starved, 
 half-clothed, almost shoeless in the winter weather, almost without 
 any of the ordinary 
 appliances of the 
 camp, short of am- 
 munition, short of 
 arms, short of 
 everything but an 
 invincible determi- 
 nation to fight to 
 the end, and an in- 
 telligent under- 
 standing of what 
 they were fighting 
 for. Trenton and 
 Princeton had 
 shown that at the 
 head of such an ar- 
 my was a great soldier, one who knew how to wait, who could never 
 be hurried, who could never be put to fear ; with the mental re- 
 sources of foresight, of combination, and of concentration that make 
 military genius. The English Ministry and European statesmen rec- 
 ognized in the New Jersey campaign the character of the American 
 Revolution and the certain coming of a new nation. 
 
 Meanwhile the penalties of war were exacted in full measure. The 
 sufferings of the American soldiers who had fallen into the suffering* of 
 hands of the British, and were held as prisoners in New P ri8oners 
 York, were notorious at the time, and have long been famous in the 
 annals of cruelty, 
 
 " Since man first pent his fellow men 
 Like brutes within an iron den." 
 
 A writer in the New London "Gazette" gave an account of their 
 treatment, writing it down from the recitals of some of the prisoners 
 
 Old Sugar-House, Liberty Street. 
 
538 THE NEW JERSEY CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 themselves. As soon as they were taken, they were robbed of their 
 baggage, money, and clothes. Some of them were put on board the 
 prison-ships and thrust down into the hold, where they were so 
 crowded together that they were in a constant perspiration ; and from 
 here they were suddenly transferred to some of the churches in New 
 York, where, without any covering or a spark of fire, they suffered 
 from the other extreme of temperature, " and the consequence was, 
 that they took such colds as brought on the most fatal diseases, and 
 swept them off almost beyond conception." The food that was given 
 them for three days was scarcely enough for one day, " and in some 
 instances they went for three days without a single mouthful of food 
 of any kind." " For the bread," says this writer, " some of it was 
 made out of the bran which they brought over to feed their light- 
 horse ; and the rest of it was so mouldy, and the pork was so damni- 
 fied, being soaked in bilge-water in the transportation from Europe, 
 that they were not fit to be eaten by human creatures." Sick and 
 well were thrust in together in the churches, than which no buildings 
 could be more unfit for the confinement of men who must eat and 
 sleep there ; and " many lay for six, seven, or eight days in all the 
 filth of nature and of the dysentery, till death, more kind than the 
 Britons, put an end to their misery." It was said that the English 
 officers were continually cursing the prisoners as rebels, and threaten- 
 ing to execute them as such, and that at one time they ordered each 
 man to choose his halter, out of a parcel offered, wherewith to be 
 hanged. And many of them were hanged, the executions taking 
 place at night on a permanent gallows in what is now Chambers 
 Street, New York. Out of about five thousand prisoners, fifteen 
 hundred died in captivity, and many others scarcely survived to reach 
 their homes when they were released. 
 
 The buildings used for prisons in New York were Van Cortlandt's 
 sugar-house, at the northwest corner of Trinity church-yard ; Rhine- 
 lander's sugar-house, corner of William and Duane Streets ; another 
 sugar-house in Liberty Street, a short distance east of the old Post 
 Office ; the North Dutch Church, still standing in William Street ; 
 the Middle Dutch Church, of late years the Post Office, at the corner 
 of Liberty and Nassau Streets ; the Brick Church, formerly at the 
 head of Nassau Street ; the New Jail, now the Hall of Records in 
 City Hall Park ; and the New Bridewell, in the same park, which has 
 been demolished. Eight hundred prisoners were packed into the 
 North Dutch Church. 
 
 The prison-ships were mainly devoted to the confinement of Amer- 
 ican sailors. The principal ones were the Good Hope, anchored in 
 the North River, and the Scorpion, the Falmouth, the Stromboli, the 
 
1777.] 
 
 THE BRITISH PRISON-SHIPS. 
 
 539 
 
 Hunter, and afterward the Jersey, anchored in Wallabout Bay, the 
 present site of Brooklyn Navy-yard. As the agreement con- p,.^,,. 
 cerning prisoners only provided for exchanges in kind, those 8hlps- 
 on the prison-ships were left much longer in confinement than the 
 other captives of war, since they were mostly privateers, and the pri- 
 vateering vessels were accustomed to parole their prisoners instead 
 of bringing them into port, the Americans thus being left without 
 sailors to exchange for sailors. At one time the British authorities 
 offered to exchange these seamen for soldiers ; but the Americans re- 
 fused, as that would only fill up the ranks of the enemy, with no cor- 
 responding benefit to their own. The Jersey was an old sixty-four- 
 gun ship, dismantled, and moored about twenty rods from shore. 
 Her port-holes were closed up, 
 and two tiers of holes twenty 
 inches square, barred with iron, 
 were cut in her sides. For a 
 long time the average number 
 of prisoners on board was one 
 thousand. Their allowance of 
 rations was two thirds the quan- 
 tity issued to British seamen, but 
 with no fresh vegetables of any 
 kind. The rations were mostlv 
 
 / 
 
 cooked in an immense boiler 
 called "the Great Copper," the 
 meat being boiled in sea-water, 
 which corroded the copper and 
 rendered the food poisonous. 
 There was some relief, however, 
 for those of the prisoners who 
 happened to possess any money. 
 An old woman known as " Dame 
 Grant" came alongside on alternate days, in a boat rowed by two 
 boys, and sold fresh bread, vegetables, and other dainties, prudently 
 requiring that the cash be placed in her hand before the goods were 
 delivered. The prisoners had no means of washing their linen, ex- 
 cept by dipping it in sea-water and then laying it on the deck and 
 treading on it. No light or fire was furnished, and every night there 
 was a struggle for the places nearest to the small, grated openings. 
 The prisoners lost almost every feeling of humanity for one another ; 
 and the principal anxiety of the volunteer nurses seemed to be to 
 claim their perquisites by robbing the dead and dying of their cloth- 
 ing. "Death has no relish for such skeleton carcasses as we are," 
 
 Middle Dutch Church. 
 
540 
 
 THE NEW JERSEY CAMPAIGN. 
 
 [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 said an emaciated prisoner to Captain Dring, as he went on board ; 
 " but he will now have a feast upon you fresh-comers." The Captain, 
 finding there were several cases of small-pox on board, at once inocu- 
 lated himself, using a common brass pin for a lancet. The Rev. 
 Thomas Andros, who was confined on the Jersey, says an armed guard 
 was necessary in the well-room, to compel the prisoners to work the 
 pumps enough to keep the hulk from sinking, and they would not use 
 the buckets, brushes, and vinegar which were furnished for the cleans- 
 ing of the ship. The highest privilege that any prisoner could aspire 
 to was to go ashore as one of a burying-party. General Johnson, 
 who lived near Wallabout Bay, estimated the number of deaths on 
 the prison-ships anchored there at eleven thousand five hundred. No 
 estimate puts it lower than ten thousand. 1 
 
 Finally a cartel for a general exchange was agreed upon, and was 
 The question at once carried out by Howe, who had everything to gain 
 of exchange. an( j nothing to lose by it. He gave up men so broken down 
 by close confinement, short rations, and barbarous treatment, that 
 
 they could be of lit- 
 tle further use as sol- 
 diers, and expected 
 to receive in return 
 an equal number of 
 well-fed red-coats 
 and Hessians who 
 could resume their 
 places in his army 
 at once. In no other 
 way could he get re- 
 cruits for that army, 
 except by bringing 
 them three thousand 
 miles across the sea. 
 A writer of the time, 
 
 in a letter dated Morristown, January, 1777, remarked that General 
 Howe had " discharged all the privates who were prisoners in New- 
 York : one half he sent to the World of Spirits for want of food ; the 
 other he hath sent to warn their countrymen of the danger of falling 
 into his hands, and to convince them, by ocular demonstration, that 
 it is infinitely better to be slain in battle than to be taken prisoners 
 by British brutes." 
 
 1 See Recollections of the Jersey Prison-ship. From the original manuscript of Captain 
 Thomas Dring. Third edition, edited by Henry B. Dawson. 1865. The Americans also 
 had a prison-ship, the Retaliation, moored near New London, Conn., for captured British 
 sailors. But it was never crowded, and presented no such scene of wretchedness. 
 
 Rhinelander's Sugar-Mouse 
 
1777.] 
 
 THE QUESTION OF EXCHANGE. 
 
 541 
 
 In April, 1777, General Howe demanded of Washington a return 
 for a considerable number of officers and twenty-two hundred privates 
 whom he had released and sent within the American lines. Washing- 
 ton refused to make the return by releasing an equal number of Brit- 
 ish prisoners; his argument in support of this refusal being, that 
 though the enemy had kept the letter of the contract, they had delib- 
 erately violated its spirit and nullified its purpose. He would not 
 hold himself bound, he told Howe, "either by the spirit of the agree- 
 ment or by the principles of justice, to account for those prisoners 
 who, from the rigor and severity of their 
 treatment, were in so emaciated and lan- 
 guishing a state at the time they came out, 
 as to render their death almost certain and 
 inevitable, and which, in many instances, 
 happened while they were 
 returning to their homes, 
 and in many others after 
 their arrival." The Ameri- 
 can commander proceeded 
 at considerable length to 
 lay down the principles ap- 
 plicable to the case, and to 
 charge Lord Howe in the 
 most direct manner with 
 purposely disabling the 
 prisoners in his hands. 
 " The object of every cartel 
 or similar agreement," he 
 said, " is the benefit of the 
 prisoners themselves and 
 that of the contending 
 powers. On this footing, 
 it equally exacts that they 
 should be well treated as 
 that they should be ex- 
 changed ; the reverse is therefore an evident infraction, and ought 
 to subject the party on whom it is chargeable to all the damage 
 and ill consequences resulting from it. Nor can it be expected that 
 those unfitted for future service by acts of severity, in direct violation 
 of a compact, are proper subjects for an exchange. In such a case, to 
 return others not in the same predicament, would be to give without 
 receiving an equivalent, and would afford the greatest encouragement 
 to cruelty and inhumanity." The circumstances that called for an 
 
 North Dutch Church. 
 
542 
 
 THE NEW JERSEY CAMPAIGN. 
 
 [CHAP. XXL 
 
 application of these principles were as forcibly stated as the principles 
 themselves. Washington declared that he was " compelled to consider 
 it a fact not to be questioned, that the usage of our prisoners whilst in 
 your possession, the privates at least, was such as could not be justi- 
 fied. This was proclaimed by the concurrent testimony of all who 
 came out ; their appearance sanctified the assertion ; and melancholy 
 experience, in the speedy death of a large part of them, stamped it 
 with infallible certainty." He proclaimed his purpose to retain and 
 care for these released prisoners, as an act of humanity, but not to 
 consider them exchanged, and not to return for them an equal num- 
 ber of able-bodied British soldiers. 
 
 Howe admitted the justice of the principles laid down, but denied 
 that they were applicable to him. He claimed that the prisoners had 
 been supplied with the same food, in quantity and quality, that was 
 issued to the King's troops not on service; that the sick had been 
 received into British hospitals, and that he was entirely at a loss to 
 account for the great mortality among them. After an interval of 
 nearly two months (June 10, 1777) Washington sent him a long re- 
 joinder, going over the ground with great particularity and specifying 
 the methods and means of ill-treatment which had been pursued. He 
 closed by declaring that he would not recede from his position on the 
 question, but was extremely anxious for a general exchange on equita- 
 ble principles. 
 
The Chew House at Germantown. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 THE NEW ARMY. FRENCH ASSISTANCE. THE BEAUMARCHAIS TRANSACTIONS. 
 SYMPATHY OF THE FRENCH COURT. SPAIN'S ATTITUDE. OPENING SKIRMISHES 
 OF THE CAMPAIGN IN NEW JERSEY. BURNING OF DANBURY, CONNECTICUT. 
 MEIGS'S SAG HARBOR EXPEDITION. GENERAL HOWE SAILS FROM NEW YORK. 
 APPEARS IN THE DELAWARE, AND THEN IN THE CHESAPEAKE. WASHINGTON 
 MARCHES TO MEET HlM. BATTLE OF BRANDYWINE. DEFEAT OF THE AMER- 
 ICANS. WAYNE SURPRISED AT PAOLI. PHILADELPHIA OCCUPIED BY THE BRITISH. 
 BATTLE OF GERMANTOWN. A VICTORY LOST. 
 
 THE work of the winter, after the troops were placed in winter 
 quarters at Morristown, was the formation of a new army in A new army 
 preparation for a new campaign. Congress had decided in raised - 
 August, 1776, that eighty-eight battalions be raised, to take the place 
 of the regiments in the field upon the expiration of their terms of 
 service, and that they should be apportioned to the several States 
 in accordance with their relative populations. The appointment of 
 officers, except the Generals, was given to the State Assemblies, but 
 the commissions issued from Congress. The power of removal and 
 appointment of all officers below the Generals was, however, subse- 
 quently given to Washington. To raise this army and put it into the 
 field, was an exceedingly slow, vexatious, and laborious process. Even 
 in March, Washington had not four thousand men on his muster rolls. 
 
 Indeed, the whole number of men called for by Congress was never 
 recruited by the States. The strain upon the population 
 
 j ,.1. f e i u c j-o: Thediffi- 
 
 was severe, and the question of length or service was a dim- euity with 
 
 cult one to deal with. On the one side, it was contended 
 
 that an effective and well-disciplined army could never be organized 
 
544 
 
 THE CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA. [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 with men whose terms would expire in a year; on the other, it was 
 declared that the northern farmers and mechanics would enlist with 
 alacrity for that length of time, and keep the army full, but could not 
 be induced to leave their farms and workshops for a period so long 
 that it was practically their ruin. The difference of opinion marked 
 the difference between North and South. The Northerner, with his 
 quick intelligence and active habits, required but little time to become 
 a good soldier ; and he was not willing to sacrifice all that he had ac- 
 quired, or all his hopes for the future, by a long enlistment, though 
 he might make repeated short ones. The social condition of the 
 South, on the other hand, produced men whose lack of education, and 
 
 whose smaller in- 
 telligence, required 
 long and severe 
 training, and to 
 whom a long term 
 of service was little 
 or no sacrifice, for 
 their stake in so- 
 ciety was small, as 
 they left neither 
 farms nor work- 
 shops behind them. 
 It was only one of 
 those questions 
 which, growing 
 out of disparity of 
 race and social con- 
 ditions, and the 
 consequent differ- 
 ence of civilization, 
 have always, from 
 the first moment 
 of the political 
 union of the States, 
 made that union 
 precarious. But 
 when the summer 
 campaign fairly began, Washington had under his immediate com- 
 mand seven thousand three hundred Continentals. The army south 
 of the Hudson was divided into ten brigades, under Generals Con- 
 way, De Haas, Berre, Maxwell, Muhlenberg, Scott, Small wood, 
 Wayne, Weedon, and Woodford. 
 
 Door of Washington's Headquarters at Morristown. 
 
1777.] FRENCH ASSISTANCE. 545 
 
 From the first outbreak of hostilities in 1775, to the opening of the 
 campaign of this year, the difficult}' of procuring munitions Scareity of 
 of war was quite as serious as that of procuring men to use munitions 
 them. The supply of gunpowder depended partly upon what could 
 be picked up in the West Indies and on the coast of Africa, and 
 partly upon the capture of English vessels by the privateers. But so 
 limited and uncertain was this resource, that powder-mills were estab- 
 lished in several places ; every possible encouragement was given to 
 the domestic production of saltpetre, and the thrifty farmer turned 
 his barn-yard into a laboratory. Arms, at first, were equally scarce, 
 till the government provided for that want, in part, by establishing 
 manufactories in Massachusetts at Springfield, and in Pennsylvania 
 at Lancaster. But for the relief of this dire poverty in all Aid from 
 that made the continuance of war possible, the reliance was France - 
 largely upon the friendly, though secret, aid of France. In the spring 
 of 1776, Beaumarchais, an agent of Vergennes, proposed to Arthur 
 Lee, then in London, to provide arms, ammunition, and even money, 
 for the use of the Americans. The negotiations were, of course, with- 
 out any apparent sanction of the French government, as they were 
 in violation of its treaty obligations to Great Britain ; but the ar- 
 rangement was finally concluded with Silas Deane, at Paris. Beau- 
 marchais fulfilled his engagements under the commercial style and 
 name of Roderique Hortales & Co. Large supplies of powder, cannon, 
 and field equipage were shipped from France in spite of the protesta- 
 tions of the English minister in Paris. The French government, in 
 reply, regretted that any of its subjects should be so regardless of 
 treaty obligations, denied all responsibility for such illegal acts, pre- 
 tended to interfere, but let the ships slip out to sea without hindrance. 
 
 But in January, 1777, France took a more positive position, when 
 the Commissioners Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur 
 Lee, whom Congress sent to Europe asked the King to recognize 
 the independence of the United States. This decisive step the King 
 was not prepared to take ; but, he said, in his reply to the Commis- 
 sioners "to prove his good wishes towards the United States, he 
 had ordered two millions of livres to be paid to them by quarterly 
 payments, which should be augmented as the state of his finances 
 would permit." At the same time the commissioners were to be at 
 liberty to make purchases of military stores and forward them as pri- 
 vate merchandise. A year was yet to pass before France was quite 
 ready to avow publicly the sympathy which her people felt in the 
 cause of the Americans, by the recognition of the new Republic, 
 though Vergennes had shown for a dozen years his anxiety that the 
 old enemy of France should be crippled by the loss of her colonies. 
 
 VOL. in. 35 
 
546 THE CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA. [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 An effort was made to enlist Spain on the side of America. Lee 
 spain-s atu- started for Madrid in February, but the Spanish Court 
 would not admit him to an interview. Yet it secretly joined 
 with France in aiding the colonists to the extent of a million livres. 
 This course was dictated purely by policy. Spain desired to be on 
 good terms with France; but the independence of the English colonies 
 in America she dreaded rather as a mischievous example for her own, 
 than approved of it as a struggle for the liberties of a people which 
 should command her respect and sympathy. 
 
 Frederick of Prussia was too closely bound to England to encourage 
 Frederick's openly the revolt of any portion of her subjects. But he 
 opinion. wag no j. wan t,j n g m frankness of speech. He spoke of Parlia- 
 ment as acting " like an infuriated fool in the American business." 
 "I like those brave fellows," he said of the American soldiers; "and 
 cannot help secretly hoping for their success." He exacted the pay- 
 ment of an impost duty on the German legionaries, hired by England, 
 when they passed through his dominions to a port of embarkation, for, 
 he said, " they are cattle exported for foreign shambles." If England 
 cared for the approbation of Europe in her efforts to subjugate Amer- 
 ica, she found little anywhere except among the petty princes whose 
 soldiers she purchased. 
 
 At Morristown, N. J., Washington's headquarters were at the 
 
 Freeman Tavern, a house which is still standing. The 
 
 town, from its elevated position, conld be easily defended, 
 
 and was a convenient point from which to observe the movements of 
 
 the enemy during the winter. The army, reduced to a mere handful, 
 
 took up quarters in log huts, and at intervals engaged in skirmishes 
 
 with the English, who had drawn in their posts close to Staten Island 
 
 and New York. 
 
 A party of New Jersey militia, under Colonel Oliver Spencer, at- 
 tacked an equal number of Waldeckers at Springfield on the 
 in New 5th of January, two days after the battle of Princeton, and 
 routed them, taking thirty-nine prisoners. On the 20th, 
 General Philemon Dickinson, of Trenton, at the head of three hun- 
 dred New Jersey militiamen, with two independent companies of Con- 
 tinentals, raised under Captains Ransom and Durkee in the Wyoming 
 Valley, defeated an English foraging party sent out from New Bruns- 
 wick to seize the flour in a mill near Somerset Court House. The 
 enemy had loaded their plunder in wagons, and were about to carry 
 it off, when Dickinson's men waded Millstone Creek, waist-deep, and 
 fell upon the foragers with so much spirit that he compelled them to 
 fly, leaving wagons and flour behind them. 
 
 Later in the spring, the British also organized raids against points 
 
1777.] BURNING OF D ANBURY, CONNECTICUT. 547 
 
 where American stores had been collected. Peekskill, on the Hud- 
 son, was a general depot for cattle, provisions, and other sup- j^d,,^ the 
 plies for the troops. Here General McDougall was posted, En s lish - 
 with less than three hundred effective men. On the 22d of March 
 the enemy appeared off the town with a fleet of ten sail, from which 
 a body of five hundred regulars, under Colonel Bird, landed to attack 
 McDougall. That officer, fortunately, had been apprised of Bird's ap- 
 proach in time to withdraw the garrison and a considerable part of 
 the stores. The English destroyed all that remained, and burned two 
 or three houses. Some skirmishing occurred on their retreat, in which 
 they lost nine killed, and the Americans one. 
 
 A far more destructive incursion was that of April 26th, into Con- 
 necticut, under Ex-governor Tryon. With two thousand n^my 
 men, Tryon, who had been made a Major-general of pro- buraed 
 vincials, sailed down the Sound from New York, and on the 25th, late 
 in the evening, debarked his force on the east bank of the Saugatuck 
 River. The distance from this point to Danbury was about twenty 
 miles. Tryon, keeping on the east side of the Saugatuck, marched 
 with but slight opposition toward Danbury, where he arrived at two 
 o'clock the next day. 
 
 The neighboring country was speedily alarmed, and General G. S. 
 Silliman, of Fairfield, started in pursuit with five hundred militia. 
 Major-general Wooster, of the State troops, Brigadier-general Arnold, 
 Lieutenant-colonel Oswald, of the artillery, and other officers, were at 
 New Haven, sixty miles distant, and they rode with all speed toward 
 Danbury. A heavy rain on the afternoon of the 26th prevented 
 any considerable numbers of the militia from reaching the village of 
 Bethel, two miles southeast of Danbury, until near midnight. The 
 American plan was, to intercept the enemy as they returned to their 
 vessels in the morning. 
 
 Tryon rapidly accomplished the object of his expedition, destroying 
 over sixteen hundred tents a loss the Americans could ill sustain 
 and other stores, and after burning all the buildings belonging to reb- 
 els, set out on his return. Finding 
 the militia in force on the road by . 
 
 which he had come, he turned west- f '^l& 
 erly toward Ridgefield, intending to 
 
 reach his ships by another route. wooster's signature. 
 
 Wooster, Arnold, and Silliman di- 
 vided their forces to meet this movement. By a forced march, Ar- 
 nold reached Ridgefield before noon on the 27th, in advance of 
 Tryon. Wooster was in pursuit with a small body. If his courage 
 had ever been doubted before, he proved it now. Urging his men to 
 
548 THE CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA. [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 follow him to the attack of the enemy, he fell, mortally wounded, and 
 was carried from the field upon his sash. 
 
 At Ridgefield, Arnold attempted, with his usual daring, to check 
 Arnold's ^e enemy, but could effect nothing with his small handful 
 bravery. o men Here he had a horse shot under him, and the tra- 
 dition is, that while he was struggling to release his feet from the 
 stirrups, a Tory from New Fairfield, named Coon, advanced and called 
 to him, " Surrender ! " " Not yet," returned Arnold, who at that 
 moment, having extricated himself, drew a pistol, shot the Tory, and 
 dashed into the woods amid a shower of bullets. He presently reap- 
 peared and renewed the attack. 
 
 Unable to check the retreat of the enemy, the militia gathered at 
 Saugatuck Bridge on the morning of the 28th, where Arnold, Silliman, 
 and Colonel Huntington, with a small party of Continentals, prepared 
 to make a final stand. Lieutenant-colonel Oswald and Colonel Lamb, 
 of the artillery, had guns posted advantageously ; but the enemy 
 crossed the stream above, and passing down the east side before they 
 could be attacked, reached Compo and their vessels. Their loss was 
 forty killed, and many wounded ; on the other side eighty were 
 wounded, and twenty killed, among them Dr. David Atwater of New 
 Haven, and Lieutenant-colonel Gold. 
 
 Other marauding expeditions followed this, on both sides. On the 
 21st of May, Colonel Return J. Meigs, of Parsons's brigade, 
 peiiition to then at New Haven, embarked a detachment in thirteen 
 whale-boats for a descent on Long Island ; a gale compelled 
 them to put in at Guilford, but on the 23d, reembarking with one 
 hundred and seventy men, he crossed the Sound under convoy of two 
 armed sloops, and landed at Southold, on the northern shore of Long 
 Island, at six o'clock P. M. Finding that the enemy's troops at that 
 point had marched for New York two days before, the Colonel de- 
 termined to surprise the detachment guarding stores at Sag Harbor, 
 fifteen miles distant, on the south side of the island. 
 
 Taking one hundred and thirty men, and eleven boats, which were 
 carried across the strip of land to the broad bay on the other shore, 
 he reached a point four miles from Sag Harbor about midnight. Con- 
 cealing his boats in the woods, he led his men, with bayonets fixed, to 
 the assault of the barracks of the enemy who were chiefly American 
 loyalists. The attack was made at five different points at the same 
 moment ; at the first alarm an armed schooner, carrying seventy men 
 and twelve guns, lying within a hundred and fifty yards of the shore, 
 opened a brisk fire of grape and round shot. The action continued 
 for nearly an hour, but Meigs succeeded in capturing the whole of the 
 Tory guards, in burning twelve brigs and sloops, one of them armed 
 

 1777.] 
 
 THE CAPTURE OF GENERAL PRESCOTT. 
 
 549 
 
 with twelve guns, and in destroying more than a hundred tons of hay, 
 large quantities of grain, ten hogsheads of rum, and other stores. Be- 
 fore night he was in his quarters again at New Haven, without having 
 lost a man. For this exploit Congress voted him a sword, with an 
 assurance of its high sense of " the prudence, activity, enterprise, and 
 valor," displayed in the expedition. 
 
 But the destruction or capture of military stores was not always the 
 object of these raids. On the night of July 20, Lieutenant- Co i one i Bar- 
 colonel William Barton, of the Rhode Island militia, entered " u ) a p | tures 
 upon an adventure of another character, for which the corn- Prescott 
 mander also was presented a sword by Congress. The British Major- 
 general Prescott was in quar- 
 ters on the west side of the 
 island, about half way between 
 Newport and Bristol Ferry, 
 and Barton determined to 
 make him prisoner. With a 
 
 Meigs's Expedition to Sag Harbor. 
 
 party of forty men in five whale-boats he pulled through the British 
 fleet without being discovered, landing in the night about a mile from 
 the house where Prescott lodged. The surprise was complete ; the 
 English General was not even awakened till a negro with Barton 
 came head foremost, as the easiest way of forcing it, through a panel 
 
550 THE CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA. [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 of the door into the bedchamber. The capture of Prescott was con- 
 sidered as an offset to that of Lee, and Washington, as well as Con- 
 gress, hoped that they might be exchanged for each other. 1 
 
 That Lee should be restored to the army was considered at that 
 L^g time, by most people, desirable by many, as absolutely 
 
 treason. necessary ; yet it was four months before, in March, 1777, 
 that he, the second Major-general in the American army, had volun- 
 tarily drawn up that plan of a campaign for the Howes by which, he 
 believed, Washington and his army could be isolated, and the Middle 
 States cut off from all aid from the North and from each other, and 
 then, one by one, reduced to submission, so that, as he said, " I will 
 venture to assert with the penalty of my life, if the plan is fully 
 adopted, and no accidents (such as a rupture between the powers of 
 Europe) intervene, that in less than two months from the date of the 
 proclamation [of pardon] not a spark of this desolating war remains 
 unextinguished in any part of the Continent." " The country," he 
 said, " has no chance of obtaining the end she proposes to herself ; " 
 to continue the war was to waste blood and treasure on both sides ; 
 he put it upon his conscience " to bring matters to a conclusion in the 
 most compendious manner and consequently the least expensive to 
 both parties." And the conclusion he proposed was, the subjugation 
 of the people who were struggling for their liberties, who had lav- 
 ished upon him their confidence and regard, and whose cause he 
 meant to betray by giving to their enemies the benefit of his assumed 
 knowledge of how that cause could be most easily and most speedily 
 ruined. His conduct was none the less base, that, unlike Arnold, the 
 enemy did not think him worth heeding or buying. 2 
 
 The summer months had come before Howe developed his proposed 
 operations, which Lee had hoped to influence. To watch him 
 breaks" 8 more closely and be in a position to follow his movements 
 rapidly, Washington, on the 28th of May, broke camp at 
 Morristown and marched a short distance southeast to Middlebrook, 
 on the Raritan, ten miles from New Brunswick. His force now num- 
 bered seven thousand Continentals. The English General made no 
 
 1 Congress bestowed upon Barton, besides the usual honor of a sword, a tract of land in 
 Vermont. He was distinguished for his services later in the war, and attained to the rank 
 of colonel. When Rhode Island adopted the Federal Constitution Colonel Barton was the 
 special messenger sent to announce the fact to Congress. Later in life he was unfortunate, 
 and was imprisoned for debt growing out of some irregularity in the transfer of a portion 
 of his laud in Vermont. Lafayette, on his visit to the United States in 1825, heard of the 
 unhappy fate that had befallen the veteran, with whose services he was probably familiar, 
 paid the claim against him, and he was released. 
 
 2 The remarkable document in which Lee set forth his plan of a campaign for the 
 Howes, was discovered by George H. Moore about twenty years since, and published in full 
 and in fac-simile in his Treason of Major-general Charles Lee. 
 
1777.] 
 
 HOWE SAILS FROM NEW YORK. 
 
 551 
 
 iwe s ma- 
 noeuvres. 
 
 move until the 12th of June, when he pushed out Cornwallis to sur- 
 prise Sullivan at Princeton. Failing to overtake Sullivan, who fell 
 back to Flemington, or to disturb Washington in his strong Ho , 
 position at Middlebrook, Howe retired toward Staten Island 
 Sound, and the Americans advanced to Quibbletown (the present 
 New Market) with Stirling's division in the front at Metuchen. Find- 
 ing Washington at some distance from his old and well fortified camp, 
 the English General, on the 26th of July, again moved out in force 
 to bring him to action or get in his rear ; but Washington 
 
 e -i i Crosses to 
 
 thwarted both plans by a timely retreat to his former ground, suten 
 Cornwallis, however, encountered Stirling, and took from 
 him three cannon and about two hundred prisoners. On the 30th the 
 English again withdrew, this time crossing in a body to Staten Island. 
 From this moment, for six weeks, the movements of the enemy 
 were veiled in so much secrecy that Washington at times was &JU from 
 totally at a loss where to post himself most advantageously. New York ' 
 His anxiety was partly dispelled when, on July 23d, Howe set sail 
 from New York 
 with about eighteen 
 thousand men, leav- 
 ing six thousand in 
 the city under Clin- 
 ton. His destina- 
 tion was concealed, 
 but on the 30th the 
 fleet appeared in the 
 Delaware, and 
 Washington quickly 
 put his army in mo- 
 tion. But Howe, 
 finding the Dela- 
 ware so obstructed 
 that he could make 
 no landing above 
 Christiana Creek, 
 again put to sea. 
 Washington had en- 
 camped on the Neshaminy Creek, about twenty miles north of Phila- 
 delphia, in the vicinity of the present village of Hartsville, where, 
 for two weeks, he awaited events in great anxiety. 1 To venture far 
 
 1 Washington made his headquarters here at the two-story dwelling still standing on 
 property owned by the heirs of William Bothwell. At the time of the Revolution it was 
 of the best finished houses in the neighborhood. W. J. Buck in Penn. Mag., i. 275. 
 
 Washington's Headquarters at Hartsville. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN* IX PENNSYLVANIA. [Cuxr. XXII. 
 
 from Philadelpbui would have been hazardous, and yet if the enemy 
 should sail to New England, and a junction be made there with 
 Bnrgoyne. they would gain valuable time and be many days' march 
 in advance of the American army. Greene wrote that Howe's move- 
 ments were so strange they ''exceeded all conjecture." When ten 
 days had passed without tidings from the fleet, and Washington was 
 persuaded that Howe's objective point was not Philadelphia, he 
 
 called a council of war. The 
 unanimous opinion of this 
 body was, that as the enemy 
 had in all probability sailed 
 for Charleston, and would 
 arrive there long before any 
 succor could reach the place, 
 it would be advisable to make 
 a retrograde movement to- 
 ward the Hudson. There 
 the army would be in a posi- 
 tion to threaten New York 
 or resist Burgoyne, if he 
 should succeed in defeating 
 Gates and move southward. 
 
 But fortunately before 
 there was time to carry out 
 this intention tidings arrived 
 that the British fleet had 
 been seen off the capes of the 
 Chesapeake. This intelli- 
 gence was confirmed the next 
 day by a despatch from one 
 William Bardly, dated the 
 afternoon of August 21st, 
 announcing that one hundred ships had anchored off the river Pa- 
 tapsco, and that their number was continually increasing. 
 the ehesa- As the tide was running a strong ebb at that hour, Bardly 
 was unable to report whether the enemy would land at Bal- 
 timore or farther up the bay. 1 The despatch did good service ; it was 
 evident that Howe had not relinquished his designs upon Philadel- 
 phia, and orders were immediately given to break camp and move to 
 meet the enemy. While the soldiers were busy with their prepara- 
 tions, the cheering news of Stark's victory at Bennington was brought 
 to them. 
 
 1 Manuscript letter in Collections of Mass. Hist. Soc. 
 
 Lafayette's Statue, Union Square, New York. 
 
1777.] BATTLE OF BRANDY WINE. 553 
 
 At the camp on the Neshaminy, Washington's army was joined by 
 several of those foreign officers who subsequently rendered efficient 
 and distinguished service to the American cause. Lafayette, a young 
 Frenchman, of noble descent, then twenty years of ag', first learned 
 of the war in America and its character while stationed at Metz as 
 a captain of dragoons, and he determined to offer it his personal aid. 
 As Franklin was unable to provide a vessel to transport him 
 
 , . 111 i lafayette 
 
 to the American coast, he purchased one on his own ac- join* UMh- 
 count, not without opposition both from his friends and at 
 court. He secretly set sail from the Spanish port of Passage, early 
 in 1777, and arrived at Georgetown, S. C., in April. With him were 
 twelve other officers, among them Baron John De Kalb. Congress at 
 first declined to commission Lafayette, on his arrival at Philadelphia ; 
 but when he explained that he came as a volunteer, and wished to 
 serve in the army without pay, that body, on the 31st of July, gave 
 him the honorary rank of Major-general. He immediately reported 
 to Washington, and was made a member of his military family. 
 
 De Kalb was by birth a German, but held rank in the French 
 army. Some years before the war as we have elsewhere 
 
 De K&lb 
 
 mentioned he, as well as a M. de Fontleroy, had travelled 
 through the American Colonies, by direction of the French minister 
 Choiseul, to learn the character and resources of the people, the ex- 
 tent of the disaffection to the mother country, and the probabilities of 
 success in case of a revolt. De Kalb executed his commission with 
 ability, and had since watched with deep interest the progress of rev- 
 olution in America. In September Congress gave him also a com- 
 mission as Major-general. He remained with Washington till he was 
 detached in 1780 to serve in the southern campaign, where he fell on 
 the field of battle. 
 
 Washington marched his army in good order through Philadelphia 
 on the 22d of August, and proceeded to Wilmington. On 
 the 28th, Howe reached the head of the Elk, fift-four miles 
 
 from Philadelphia, and on the 10th of September, after skir- 
 mishing with General Maxwell's advance corps, concentrated his force 
 at Kennett Square, six or seven miles south of the Brandy wine River. 
 Here Washington determined to oppose his farther progress. 
 
 Howe's position on the right bank of the Brandy wine was excellent 
 for defence. By commanding the principal fords, he left his ^ nlf of 
 antagonist the choice of assaulting him at a disadvantage in B * nd J win - 
 front, or marching circuitously to the right. The crossing on the line 
 of the main road to Philadelphia was known as Chads's Ford. Bren- 
 ton's, Jones's, and Wistar's fords were above, at intervals of three or 
 four miles, and a few miles beyond, where the river forked, there were 
 
554 THE CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA. [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 fords on each branch. The American army lay mainly opposite the 
 middle fords, a position selected by Greene. At Chad's, Wayne 
 was posted with his division and artillery. Greene's was some distance 
 to his right, and still farther on were Stephen's, Stirling's, and Sulli- 
 van's divisions, forming the right wing of the army, commanded by 
 Sullivan, the senior Major-general on the field. This main line 
 stretched along the thickly wooded bank of the river for three miles, 
 and the farthest crossings on the right, which it did not cover, Sulli- 
 van was instructed to watch. 
 
 Early on the morning of the llth, the English flanking division, 
 under Howe and Cornwallis, marched for the upper crossings at the 
 forks of the river, with the intention of moving down upon Sullivan 
 on the other side and turning his flank. Although conducted in broad 
 daylight, and occupying nearly eight hours in its execution, the ma- 
 noeuvre was successful. The Americans were distracted by conflicting 
 intelligence, or rather failed to assure themselves of the enemy's 
 position. To ascertain what Howe was about, Colonel Theodoric 
 Bland, under Washington's instructions, crossed the Brandywine at 
 Jones's Ford. He sent word back to Sullivan and the Commander- 
 in-chief that Cornwallis was certainly aiming for the upper fords in- 
 telligence which was confirmed by a later courier. Washington imme- 
 diately decided to cross the river with his own force, and attack the 
 division of the enemy under Grant and Knyphausen opposite Chad's 
 Ford. Sullivan and Greene were sent to engage Howe's flanking col- 
 umn. This bold move on the part of Washington promised success, 
 and a part of the troops had already forded the river, when Major 
 Spear, who had gone in the direction of the Brandywine forks, re- 
 ported to Sullivan that there were no signs of the enemy in that 
 quarter. Sullivan accordingly, on his own responsibility, halted his 
 column and sent word to Washington at Chad's Ford, three or four 
 miles away, that the first report of Howe's flanking movement must 
 be erroneous, since nothing had been seen of it by the scouts who had 
 just come in from the right. Surprised at this, as he believed the 
 first reports to be true, the Commander-in-chief, nevertheless, decided 
 to abandon his proposed attack upon Grant and Knyphausen on the 
 other side of the river. 
 
 At about one o'clock in the afternoon, however, 'Squire Thomas 
 
 Cheney, of Thornbury township, galloped into Sullivan's 
 
 flank camp with a report that the English had crossed the forks of 
 
 movement. . n j__s j TV i 4.- 
 
 the Brandywine and were nearing Birmingham meeting- 
 house, on Sullivan's right. To make sure that his information reached 
 headquarters, Cheney rode on and informed Washington of the ene- 
 my's approach. Washington hesitated for a moment to accept tidings 
 
MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE. 
 (After a c<nittmi>orary jiorfralt, 1780.) 
 
1777.] 
 
 BATTLE OF BRAXDYWINE. 
 
 555 
 
 so directly in conflict with Sullivan's latest report. " If you doubt my 
 word," said Cheney promptly, "put me under guard until you can ask 
 Anthony Wayne or Persie Frazer if I am a man to be believed ; " 
 and then turning to some of the General's staff, who were less in- 
 clined to believe him than their chief, he indignantly exclaimed : " I 
 
 'Squire CHeney bringing the News. 
 
 would have you to know that I have this day's work as much at heart 
 as e'er a blood of you ! " l 
 
 Cheney's report, however, was presently confirmed by direct intel- 
 ligence from the right, and Washington set his troops in motion to 
 meet the enemy. Sullivan, when fully assured of the presence of the 
 British at Birmingham meeting-house, ordered the right wing, con- 
 sisting of Stirling's, Stephen's and his own divisions, to take up u 
 1 Historical Address by J. Smith Futhey, Ptnn. May. nf Hist., vol. i., j>. 2'.3. 
 
556 THE CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA. [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 position across the line of the enemy's march. In the hurry and ex- 
 citement of the movement, Sullivan's division, while manoDiivering to 
 get into the general line on the left, was attacked, and, after a brief 
 struggle, forced to retreat. The divisions under Stirling and Stephen 
 offered better resistance ; but the defection on the right confused the 
 entire line, and in spite of Sullivan's personal efforts and the brave 
 stand made by Conway's brigade, the whole front was forced back by 
 Howe's vigorous assault. 
 
 To recover this reverse, Washington hurried Greene's division to the 
 support of the right wing. But after a forced march of four miles 
 across the country, it could do no more than cover the retreat. Wee- 
 don's Virginia brigade succeeded in checking the enemy until dark ; 
 and the entire column under Sullivan kept on toward Chester. Wayne, 
 in the mean time, had been attacked by Knyphausen and Grant at 
 Chads's Ford, and forced back with the loss of some cannon. 
 
 In this action Lafayette distinguished himself, and received a wound 
 in the leg which confined him to his quarters for two months. 1 The 
 American loss was nearly three hundred killed, five hundred wounded, 
 and ten field-pieces. The English lost something less than six hun- 
 dred in killed and wounded. 
 
 The worn and broken columns of the American army found rest 
 that night at Chester, and on the following day retreated 
 toward Philadelphia and Germantown. On the 15th of 
 September, it crossed the Schuylkill, and on the 16th drew up in 
 position near Goshen meeting-house, on the Lancaster road. Howe 
 advanced, and skirmishing opened, with Wayne in the American ad- 
 vance. A stubborn pitched battle appeared to be imminent, when a 
 storm of extraordinary violence set in and compelled the cessation of 
 all field movements. The rain so damaged the arms and cartridges 
 that Washington retired to French Creek, in Warwick township, to 
 repair damages, but detached Wayne, with fifteen hundred men and 
 four field-pieces, to threaten and harass the enemy's flank and rear 
 whenever opportunity offered. 
 
 On the 19th, Wayne was at Paoli, and in the forenoon was able to 
 Wayne's approach within half a mile of Howe's encampment without 
 movement. \> e i n g observed. He reported to Washington that the en- 
 emy were then quiet, " washing and cooking," too compactly massed 
 to be openly attacked by his small force, but in a position to be struck 
 a heavy blow if the Commander-in-chief should come to his aid with 
 the whole army. Howe, he learned, was about to take up his line of 
 march, and though his pickets and patrols were thrown well forward, 
 
 1 The U. S. frigate in which Lafayette returned to France at the close of his visit to 
 this country in 1825, was appropriately named the Brandywine. 
 
1777.] ALARM IN PHILADELPHIA. 557 
 
 Wayne hoped that by a skilful and rapid movement, the next night, 
 he might surprise the enemy and do some damage. " Here we are, 
 and there they go ! " was the watchword in Wayne's camp that night, 
 where it was believed that Howe was completely ignorant of the 
 movement against him. But some vigilant Tories were keeping the 
 British General exactly informed of Wayne's position and his prob- 
 able purpose, and he, on his part also, had a surprise in store for his 
 opponent. 
 
 General Grey was sent out, with three regiments of infantry and 
 some dragoons, toward Paoli, under Tory guides. The men were or- 
 dered not to fire a gun, but depend altogether upon the bayonet. 
 About midnight, two hours before the time fixed by Wayne for his 
 own movement, the British had silently approached, and surprised 
 his pickets, killing some and driving the rest upon the main body. 
 Wayne instantly ordered his men under arms, but before they could 
 form, the enemy rushed upon the camp, cutting down and bayonetting 
 the men, now thrown into utter confusion. Then followed, wrote 
 an English officer who was present, "a dreadful scene of havoc." 
 The Americans were easily distinguished by the light of the camp- 
 fires, as they fell into line. It offered to Grey's men an advantage 
 which quickened their movements. The charge was furious, and all 
 Wayne's efforts to rally his men were useless. They were driven 
 through the woods for two miles, and nearly one hundred and seventy 
 were killed. It was the chance of war that one side did what the 
 other hoped to do, but the action, nevertheless, is recorded as the 
 " Paoli Massacre." 
 
 The steady advance of the English upon Philadelphia threw that 
 city into great panic. It was one o'clock at night on the Philadelphia 
 19th, when Aid-de-camp Alexander Hamilton rode into aUrmed 
 town with a message from Washington to Congress that the enemy 
 had crossed the Schuylkill, and could be in the town in a few hours. 
 The members were roused in their beds and told of their danger. Nat- 
 urally they stood not upon the order of their going. One sedate del- 
 egate, according to a diary of the time, rode off bare-back. Congress 
 had already adjourned to Lancaster. 
 
 Late as it was, the news spread rapidly. Thomas Paine, then sec- 
 retary of one of the committees of Congress, describes the fright and 
 confusion into which the town was thrown. " It was a beautiful, still, 
 moonlight morning," he wrote to Franklin, " and the streets as full of 
 men, women, and children as on a market-day." Some moved away 
 at once, but a considerable portion of the inhabitants, especially the 
 Tories and the non-combatant Friends, many of whom were Tories, 
 remained in their homes. The excitement and terror were greatly 
 
558 
 
 THE CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA. [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 pi.-sthe 
 
 Olt V 
 
 increased by the fear that the town would be set on fire, as was done, 
 whether accidentally or purposely, in New York, the year before. 
 For several nights the streets were patrolled to guard against this 
 possible danger. 
 
 Howe marched leisurely down from Swede's Ford, and did not oc- 
 cupy the city until the forenoon of the 26th. On the even- 
 ins; before, he assured the inhabitants that those who re- 
 inained peaceably at their homes should not be molested in 
 person or property. In the forenoon Cornwallis, with his division of 
 English ;ind German troops, entered the city. The Tory citizens re- 
 ceived them with loud cheers, as they marched down Second Street, 
 in gay uniforms and brilliant array, to their allotted quarters at the 
 Alms House and the State House. For his own residence, Howe 
 first occupied the house of General Cadwallader, on Second Street, 
 
 below Spruce, and 
 afterwards the man- 
 sion on Market 
 Street where Wash- 
 ington lived during 
 his Presidency. 
 
 From two inter- 
 cepted letters it was 
 learned, a few days 
 later, that Howe 
 had sent down a 
 small detachment 
 to reduce the Amer- 
 ican forts on the 
 Delaware. It took 
 little from his 
 strength, but when 
 added to the several 
 battalions under 
 
 ~ IT T-I -i 
 
 L/ornwalhs in Phil- 
 adelphia, four miles from the main camp, the decrease in Howe's 
 force was sufficient to invite an attack from a watchful opponent. 
 Washington determined to seize the opportunity. 
 
 Howe's army was encamped in nearly a straight line from the 
 Schuylkill, across the main street of Gennantown, to a point called 
 Luken's Mill, near the old York road. There were four approaches to 
 this line of the enemy: the Manatawny road near the river ran in on 
 their extreme left; the Reading road, or Germantown Street, pierced 
 the centre ; the Lime-kiln road at Luken's Mill was at the right, 
 
 Howe's Headquarters. Cadwallader's House. 
 
1777.] BATTLE OF GERMANTOWN. 559 
 
 and the York road, still farther to the right, was guarded by patrols 
 and Simcoe's Rangers. Washington's plan was to advance on all 
 these four roads, and engage the enemy along the whole line at the 
 same moment. His orders were, that the attack should be made every- 
 where at " precisely five o'clock " on the morning of the 4th of Octo- 
 ber. That such accuracy in the movements of four separate columns 
 would be observed in the then condition and discipline of the Ameri- 
 can troops, was hardly to be expected ; but if the plan should be only 
 partially carried out, it promised success. The main reliance was on 
 the two central columns of Continental troops. That which was to 
 move direct upon Germantown, along the Reading road, was under 
 Sullivan's command, and was composed of his own and Wayne's di- 
 visions, and of Con way's brigade on the flank. The column next to 
 the left, marching by a longer route along the Lime-kiln road, was 
 under Greene, and included his own and Stephen's divisions, flanked 
 by McDougall's brigade. These two bodies numbered about nine 
 thousand good troops, inclusive of Nash's and Maxwell's brigades, 
 which formed a corps de reserve under General Stirling. The remain- 
 ing two columns on the right and left were militia, without artil- 
 lery, commanded respectively by Generals Armstrong and Smallwood. 
 Armstrong was ordered to move down the Manatawny road by Van 
 Deering's mills, to turn the enemy's left, while Smallwood and For- 
 man, with Maryland and New Jersey militiamen, were to attempt to 
 turn the right. Washington's purpose was to take the English off 
 their guard in front and flank, and by a determined attack, break and 
 rout their line before reinforcements could arrive from Philadelphia. 
 
 About eight o'clock on the evening of the 3d, the army left its 
 encampment on Metuchen Hill, and, marching all night, j ulliran -g 
 reached the points aimed at about daybreak on the 4th. attack - 
 Sullivan's column, having the shortest and easiest route, reached 
 Chestnut Hill, where lay the centre of Howe's main line, and ad- 
 vanced to the attack before the other columns arrived. The enemy's 
 pickets were posted on this road at Mount Airy, a mile or more below 
 Chestnut Hill. On Mount Pleasant, a short distance farther, lav their 
 supports, which consisted of the Second Light Infantry Battalion. 
 Nearly half-way between them and the main line, Colonel Musgrave's 
 Fortieth Regiment was stationed, opposite the stone mansion known 
 by the name of its late occupant, as the kt Chew house." 
 
 The night had been dark, and the morning broke in clouds and 
 mist. The precautions taken by the Americans ;igainst giving an 
 alarm on the march had succeeded, and they were on the outposts of 
 the enemy before their approach was known. The American advance 
 guard, under Captain McLane, of Delaware, charged upon the pickets 
 
560 THE CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA. [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 at Mount Airy without firing, killed the sentries, and drove the others 
 back to the light infantry. Sullivan detached a Maryland and a Penn- 
 sylvania regiment to follow rapidly in support, and then formed his 
 division in line on the right of the road. The British infantry held 
 their ground for a few minutes, but gave way before superior n um- 
 bers. Wayne's division then came up, and Sullivan formed it on the 
 left of the road, while Conway's brigade was transferred to the right 
 of both divisions. Thus aligned, Sullivan's and Wayne's troops pushed 
 forward on both sides of the road, driving before them both the in- 
 fantry and the Fortieth Regiment, which had come to their relief. 
 Wayne's men rushed eagerly after the Second Infantry, and sought to 
 revenge, at the point of the bayonet, 1 the bloody work of that battal- 
 ion at the " Paoli Massacre." 
 
 It was an auspicious and animating opening of the battle for the 
 Hoe under Americans. When Howe heard the unexpected firing on his 
 front, he mounted his horse and dashed up the road, where his 
 men were falling back hurriedly before the steady advance of their as- 
 sailants. " For shame, light infantry ! " he shouted : " I never saw you 
 retreat before." But, warned by the heavy volleys that the enemy 
 was upon him in force, he turned back to the main line to prepare for 
 a general battle. 2 Sullivan's and Wayne's columns pressed on, im- 
 peded, however, by the many fences in the outskirts of Germantown, 
 through which they were compelled to break their way. It was not 
 many minutes before they had forced their way to within half a mile 
 of the British line, steadily driving the enemy before them. 
 
 But here an unlooked-for obstacle interfered with the forward 
 chews movement. In retreating before Sullivan, Colonel Musgrave 
 house. an( j s j x companies of the Fortieth Regiment threw them- 
 selves into the Chew house, which stood a short distance from the 
 road, and, barricading the lower story, converted the strong build- 
 ing into a temporary citadel. Sullivan and Wayne passed this man- 
 sion without observing that Musgrave occupied and was prepared 
 to defend it ; but this was seen when Stirling came up with the re- 
 serve. Washington, Knox, Reed, Pickering, the 'Adjutant-general, 
 and other officers of the staff, rode with Stirling's troops, and a con- 
 sultation was held as to the propriety of attacking this stronghold. 
 Knox insisted that it was against all military rule to advance with a 
 
 1 Lieutenant Hunter, of this battalion, writing a few days afterward, says : " When the 
 first shots were fired at our pickets, so much had we all Wayne's affair in our remem- 
 brance, that the battalion were out and under arms in a minute Just as the bat- 
 talion had formed, the pickets came in and said the enemy were advancing in force. They 
 had hardly joined the battalion when we heard a loud cry, ' Have at the bloodhounds ! Re- 
 venge Wayne's affair ! ' ' 
 
 2 Moorson's Historical Record of the Fifty-second Regiment, " Lieut. Hunter's Diary." 
 
1777.] BATTLE OF GERMANTOWN. 561 
 
 fort in one's rear, and it was accordingly decided to send a flag to 
 Musgrave, demanding his immediate surrender. Major Caleb Gibbs, 
 of Washington's guard, had in the first instance offered to carry the 
 flag, but his offer was then declined. Upon the final decision, Lieu- 
 tenant-colonel Matthew Smith, of Virginia, an accomplished officer, 
 acting as Assistant Adjutant-general, volunteered to make the de- 
 mand; but when near the house, he was fired upon and received a 
 wound from which he afterward died. Maxwell's brigade of the re- 
 serves was then called up and ordered to attack the place. Four light 
 field-pieces no large ones having been brought with the army 
 opened upon the building, but it effectually resisted bombardment. 
 No impression could be made upon its walls. The musketry-fire was 
 even less effectual. Brave as Maxwell's men were, the garrison with- 
 stood them quite as bravely. The defence was as vigorous as the 
 assault was fearless. The house was riddled with bullets, as may 
 be seen to this day ; the chivalric Duplessis and Lieutenant-colonel 
 Laurens recklessly exposed themselves in futile attempts to set it on 
 fire ; so hard pushed were the besieged that an officer had his horse 
 shot under him within three yards of the building ; in two New 
 Jersey regiments alone the loss was forty-six officers and men. 1 
 
 For more than an hour this hot contest continued, making itself the 
 pivotal point of the battle, not so much from any importance attach- 
 ing to the possession of the house, as from the effect of the struggle on 
 the general movement. It arrested at this point all Stirling's reserve 
 force on their way to the support of Sullivan and Wayne ; and not 
 only that, but it alarmed and confused Sullivan's and Wayne's men in 
 the centre, who did not understand this noise of an engagement in 
 their rear ; and it misled Greene's forces on the left, as to the position 
 of the enemy. General Stephen, on the Lime-kiln road, hearing the 
 firing, and believing that he should find the enemy in that direction, 
 left his own line of march and was presently engaged in a warm fight 
 with the rear of Wayne's troops, each mistaking the other for Brit- 
 ish. The fog and the smoke of the battle made the early morning 
 almost as dark as night. Wayne, in a letter written two days after- 
 ward, says his forces were already in possession of the whole camp of 
 the enemy, when they became involved in this blunder. Victory, he 
 thought, was already within his grasp, when his men, under this attack 
 from a quarter where they had no reason to look for it, fell back two 
 miles in confusion. Greene's column was to have come up on Sulli- 
 van's left and have formed a continuous line directly in Howe's front. 
 The advance was retarded by fences, hedges, and thickets ; the heavy 
 fog rendered every movement uncertain ; but all these difficulties 
 
 1 Pennsylvania Magazine of History, vol. i. 
 VOL. in. 36 
 
562 THE CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA. [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 might have been surmounted but for Stephen's blunder, and possibly 
 Stephen would not have blundered but for the attack on Chew's house. 
 It was shown afterward, before a court-martial, by whose sentence 
 Stephen was dismissed the service, that he was drunk, and nothing 
 can be predicated on the possible conduct of a drunken man. 
 
 As it was, however, the battle was lost. Howe had time to form 
 The Ameri- ' An & to make, first, a vigorous defence, and then to assume 
 cans retreat. t j ie o ff ens i ve . Washington ordered a retreat, and the Amer- 
 ican army regained its position on Metuchen Hill, with a loss in killed, 
 wounded, and prisoners of about a thousand men. On the other side 
 the loss was about half that number. Howe was afterward accused 
 of having received, the night before the battle, information of Wash- 
 ington's design. If this were true, he made no preparation to meet it; 
 and it remains, therefore, an open question, whether Washington's 
 good generalship would have equally availed for the salvation of his 
 army had Howe been prepared for him. It is not a question, if the 
 charge were true, that Howe's besetting sin of unreadiness came near 
 proving his own destruction. 
 
 Howe soon withdrew his army from the open country into the city, 
 Howe re- as a sa ^ e retreat from the operations of his active and ener- 
 Phiudei- getic opponent, as well as to find comfortable quarters for 
 phia- the winter. That those quarters should be comfortable, 
 
 however, one thing was requisite. On the land-side communication 
 with the country was cut off by the presence of the American army, 
 which constantly intercepted supplies, and it was absolutely neces- 
 sary, therefore, that there should be free access to the city by the Del- 
 aware River. So long, moreover, as it was commanded by the Amer- 
 icans, Howe was isolated from his fleet, and he was, in a measure, 
 subjected to some of the inconveniences of a beleaguered position, and 
 to its possible dangers. 
 
 The navigation of the river was impeded by sunken obstructions, 
 and until these were removed, no vessel of war could pass 
 a- above the mouth of the Schuylkill. To attempt their re- 
 moval was difficult and dangerous, for about them hovered 
 a fleet of galleys of light draught of water ; on one side of the river, 
 just below the mouth of the Schuylkill, was Fort Mifflin, on Mud 
 Island; on the opposite shore, at Red Bank, was Fort Mercer; and 
 at different points, along the shore, were several floating batteries. 
 Colonel Christopher Greene, of Rhode Island, commanded at Fort 
 Mercer, and Lieutenant-colonel Smith, of Baltimore, at Fort Mifflin, 
 and each had been reenforced by Washington till their garrisons 
 numbered four hundred men. Colonel Sterling had taken possession 
 of Billingsport, farther down the Delaware on the Jersey side, on the 
 
 
 
1777.] 
 
 OPERATIONS ON THE DELAWARE. 
 
 563 
 
 1st of October, before Howe had fallen back upon Philadelphia. The 
 occupation of Billingsport enabled the British men-of-war to break 
 through the chevaux-de-frise placed in the channel at that point, and 
 pass farther up the river. Sterling, observing the importance of the 
 position at Red Bank, then feebly garrisoned by the Americans, pro- 
 posed to take that also ; but Howe, with his usual procrastination, de- 
 layed his consent, till Washington, with his usual promptness, took 
 advantage of the blunder, and filled the fort with a strong garrison. 
 Three weeks later Howe recognized the soundness of Ster- ^ tcnfe ot 
 ling's advice, and the Hessian Colonel Donop was sent with Fort Mcrcer - 
 twelve hundred men to reduce Fort Mercer. The exterior works 
 
 Fort Mifflin. 
 
 were in too unfinished a condition to be defended, and the garrison 
 withdrew into the interior lines, but not, as Donop supposed, from 
 any doubt of their ability to hold the place. The assault was incau- 
 tious to rashness, in the confident expectation of immediate success ; 
 and it was a fatal mistake. Donop and his Lieutenant-colonel, Min- 
 nigerode, both fell with mortal wounds ; the loss altogether was four 
 hundred of the twelve hundred Hessians who made the attack, and 
 in less than an hour the remainder were in retreat to Philadelphia. 
 Two British ships which moved as far up the river as the obstruc- 
 tions would permit, to aid in the assault, ran aground ; one was 
 blown up by the fire from the fort, the other was burnt to escape 
 capture. 
 
564 THE CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA. [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 The next attempt to open the river was better managed and more 
 nd of Fort successful. Fort Mifflin was invested by the British fleet on 
 
 fflm - the 10th of November, and some heavy guns brought to bear 
 upon it from a neighboring island. The garrison made a determined 
 fight so long as there was, any hope of repelling their assailants. But 
 it was impossible to hold out long against the heavy metal of so many 
 vessels, surrounding the fort at so short a distance that hand-grenades 
 could be thrown over the walls from their decks, and sharp-shooters 
 in their tops could pick off the gunners as fast as they could man the 
 guns. The fight was not given up, however, until the principal offi- 
 cers were disabled, and two hundred and fifty men out of the four 
 hundred of the garrison were either killed or wounded. The place 
 was therefore evacuated at night, the men taking refuge on the other 
 side of the river, in Fort Mercer. 
 
 But Fort Mercer could be maintained only a few days longer. 
 Both forts Cornwallis moved into New Jersey at the head of so large a 
 evacuated. f orce that the fort was cut off from all relief in case of an 
 attack, and it was wiser to save the garrison by abandoning the post 
 to the enemy. The Americans, at the same time, burned their galleys, 
 except a few that contrived to escape to Bristol, and the Delaware 
 below Philadelphia was completely under the control of the British 
 fleet. 
 
 On the 4th of December the American army then being encamped 
 at White Marsh, about twelve miles from Philadelphia, and 
 ctfestnut" reenforced by twenty-two hundred men Howe moved out 
 as far as Chestnut Hill with fourteen thousand men, to feel 
 the enemy, and in the hope of provoking him to battle. Washington 
 was quite ready to be provoked if Howe would attack him in po- 
 sition ; he was not disposed to gratify his antagonist by going out 
 to meet him where the advantage of position would be on his side. 
 On the 5th an attack was made on the American right ; and though 
 there was some sharp fighting, the loss was small on either side, and 
 Washington, with the main army, remained immovable. An at- 
 tempt on the 7th to bring about a general action was equally un- 
 successful. An attack was made at Edge Hill, on the American left, 
 which was met by Colonel Gist with the Maryland militia, and by 
 General Morgan with his corps of Virginia riflemen, who had recently 
 arrived from the northern army. They gave the enemy a warm re- 
 ception, but were compelled at length to retire, Morgan and his men, 
 however, doing great execution upon the enemy with their unerring 
 marksmanship and pursuing them through the woods. But the retreat 
 of the Maryland militia released their opponents to reenforce those in 
 Morgan's front ; and he also was compelled to retreat. The loss on 
 
1777.] 
 
 WINTER QUARTERS AT VALLEY FORGE. 
 
 565 
 
 the American side was certainly inconsiderable ; but as more than 
 eighty wagons were reported as going into Philadelphia filled with 
 dead and wounded, the Virginia rifles must have made great havoc 
 among the British soldiers. 
 
 Howe, discouraged by the result of this attempt to bring on a gen- 
 eral battle, retired the next day to Philadelphia. Washing- u - inter 
 ton, a few days later, moved to his chosen winter quarters at vaihsy 1 *" 
 Valley Forge, and the inarch of his army over the frozen Forge- 
 ground might have been tracked, from the want of shoes and stock- 
 ings, "from White Marsh to Valley Forge by the blood of their 
 feet." 1 
 
 1 Gordon, in his History of the American Revolution, says: "General Washington men- 
 tioned it to me when at his table, June, 3, 1784." 
 
 Donop's Grave. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 BURGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN. 
 
 BURGOYXE SUPERSEDES CARI.KTOX. PLAN OF A NORTHERN CAMPAIGN. EMPLOY- 
 MKNT OK INDIANS. DEATH OK JANE MC("REA. Loss OF TICONDEROGA. BAT- 
 TLE <>K Hl'BHAHDTON. ST. LEGKll's EXPEDITION INTO THE MoiIAWK VALLEY. 
 
 BATTLE OF OKISKANY. DEATH OK GENERAL HKRKIMER. BATTLE OK BENNING- 
 TON. MILITARY JK VLOUSIES. GATES DISPLACES SCHUYLER. BATTLE OK FREE- 
 MAX'S FARM. CLINTON'S EXPEDITION UP THE HUDSON RIVER. FALL OF FOUTS 
 
 MoXTGOMERY AND Cl.lNTON. SECOND BATTLE OF STILLWATER, OR BlCMUS's 
 
 HEIGHT*. BUHGOYNE'S SURRENDER. 
 
 AT the close of the campaign of 1777 the year which the Tories 
 loved to call the year of three gibbets the British were in quiet pos- 
 session of two of the three principal cities of the new Republic, one of 
 them its capital; the national legislature was a fugitive body; the 
 national army, after successive defeats, had marched with naked, 
 "bloody feet," to winter quarters, where, neglected by Congress, they 
 were for months to suffer with hunger, to shiver for want of cloth- 
 ing through the long and dreary winter, and many, when the power 
 of endurance was exhausted, to lie down and die of privation or dis- 
 ease. Yet, notwithstanding these gloomy and threatening clouds hung 
 over the dawn of the new year, the fading light of the year that was 
 passing away was ruddy and warm with the glow of one great suc- 
 cess a golden sunset that gave promise of a glorious to-morrow. 
 
 While at the South, Washington had been able only, in the face of 
 enormous difficulties, to avert overwhelming catastrophe and 
 .-in cam- hold up the war against the splendid army and inexhaustible 
 resources of Howe, at the North the plans of the ministry 
 had come to naught, and such disaster had followed as, all things con- 
 sidered, had never before befallen the arms of England. 
 
 For reasons chiefly personal, there was no cordiality between the 
 Secretary of State for the colonies and the Governor of Canada. 
 Germain disliked Carleton. Carleton had great contempt for Ger- 
 main. "That there is great prejudice," wrote the King to Lord 
 North, in December, 1770, kk perhaps not unaccompanied with rancor, 
 in a certain breast against Governor Carleton, is so manifest to who- 
 
'.777.] 
 
 PLAN OF A XOHTIIKirX CAMI'AKIX. 
 
 567 
 
 ever lias heard the subject mentioned, that it would be. idle to say any 
 more than that it is a fact. Perhaps Carleton may be too cold, and 
 not so active as might be wished, which may make it advisable to 
 have the part of the Canadian army which must attempt to join Gen- 
 eral Howe led by a more enterprising commander ..... Burgoyne 
 may command the corps to be sent from Canada to Albany." 
 
 Burwovne, on his return to England about this time, after .seeing 
 
 O / 
 
 the end of the American campaign in Canada, submitted to Blirgoj - ne -g 
 
 the Ministry his "-Thoughts for conducting the war from the pla "- 
 
 side of Canada." At a Council held in March it was determined to 
 
 give him the command, and 
 
 at the same time it was pro- 
 
 vided that a force under 
 
 Lieutenant-colonel St. Leger 
 
 should make a diversion on 
 
 the Mohawk River. The 
 
 instructions addressed to 
 
 Carleton, acknowledging 
 
 that ' this plan cannot be 
 
 advantageously executed 
 
 without the assistance of 
 
 Canadians and Indians," 
 
 bade him furnish both ex- 
 
 peditions with "good and 
 
 sufficient bodies of those 
 
 men." Carleton at once 
 
 tendered his resignation of 
 
 the governorship, yet did 
 
 his utmost to assist Bur- 
 
 goyne. But this utmost, it 
 
 appears, was not much, for 
 
 Hurgoyne describes the Ca- 
 
 nadians aS " ignorant Of the 
 
 use of arms, awkward, disinclined 
 Against the Indians none of these objections, at least, could be urged; 
 but Burgoyne understood well enough the more serious objections to 
 their employment. 
 
 Burgoyne's plan assumed that the object of an expedition from Can- 
 ada would be to obtain possession of Albany, control the Hudson 
 River, cooperate with Howe, and thereby enable that General to act 
 with his whole force to the southward. 1 This, in the main, was the 
 
 1 I3nr(joyt''s Plan of th<> Cn //><(/>/" from ili<! SiJi j <>t C<unl>i, with tin- Rrmuflc* ikeretm oj 
 George the Third. Fonblanque, p. 483. 
 
 General John Burgoyne. 
 
 to the service, and spiritless." 
 
568 BURGOYXE'S CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 old project which had been broached and in part attempted the year 
 before, to divide New England from the other States, and thus reduce 
 the rest with greater case. In the prosecution of the plan, Burgoyne 
 would have been glad to be allowed a certain latitude and discretion, 
 such as a deviation from his line of march into Massachusetts and down 
 the Connecticut ; but his final orders, which were precise and imper- 
 ative, left him no choice but to march straight upon Albany and 
 "force a junction" with Howe. Singularly enough, it nowhere ap- 
 NO instruo- P ears tnat an y sue ' 1 obligation was put upon Howe to meet 
 li'owt-'""" to l* ljr gy ne ' an d, as vents proved, Howe felt no such obliga- 
 tion. In this respect the scheme was fatally weak in execu- 
 tion. Cooperation was absolutely enjoined on the one General, but 
 not upon the other. 1 
 
 Bnrgoyne's army concentrated at St John's, on St. John's River, the 
 Burgojncs outlet of Lake Champlain, on the 12th of June, and a day 
 or two later embarked. A little less than eight thousand 
 men composed the force, half of whom were British regulars and Ca- 
 nadian volunteers, and half Hessian contingents under General Riede- 
 f.el. Forty pieces of artillery the finest train in America made 
 the column especially formidable. Burgoyne's subordinate officers 
 were experienced and skilful soldiers, including Generals Phillips, 
 Riedesel, Fraser, Specht, Hamilton, and Earl Balcarras and Major 
 Acklund, who respectively commanded the two choice corps of light 
 infantry and grenadiers. The English fleet on the lake, consisting of 
 nine vessels carrying one hundred and forty-three guns, and manned 
 by six hundred and forty seamen, received its orders from Captain 
 Lntwidge of the Royal George, acting as Commodore. 
 
 Encamping, about the 17th, at the river Bouquet, on the western 
 shore of the lake, the English General at once prepared for active 
 operations against Ticonderoga. During his delay at this point he 
 addressed his Indian allies in an intensely rhetorical speech which be- 
 came the subject of ridicule with Americans and opposition members 
 
 1 The Earl of Shelhurne thus explains the origin of this fatal blunder. In writing of 
 Lord George Germain's incapacity, he says: "Among many singularities lie (Germain) 
 had a particular aversion to being put out of his way on any occasion ; he had fixed to go 
 into Kent or Northamptonshire at a particular hour, and to call on his way at his office to 
 sign the despatches, all of which had been settled, to both these Generals. By some mis- 
 take, those to General Howe were not fair copied, and upon his growing impatient at it, 
 the office, which was a very idle one, promised to send it to the country after him while they 
 dispatched the others to General Burgoyno, expecting that the others could be expedited 
 before the packet sailed with the first, which, however, by some mistake, sailed without 
 them, and the wind detained the vessel which was ordered to carry the rest. Hence came 
 General Burgoyne's defeat, the French declaration, and the loss of thirteen colonies. It 
 might appear incredible if his own secretary and the most respectable persons in office had 
 not assured me of the fact ; what corroborates it is, that it can be accounted for in no other 
 way." Fitzmaurice's Lift, of Shelburne, vol. i. 
 
1777.] DEATH OF JANE McCREA. 569 
 
 in Parliament. The employment of savages in the expedition, sug- 
 gested first by Burgoyne and then sanctioned by the King, 1 i nd i an g M 
 had been defended in the House of Lords upon grounds of allies- 
 necessity, and also as permissible on principle. "It is perfectly justifi- 
 able," said Suffolk, " to use all the means that God and nature has put 
 into our hands." But Lord Chatham, astonished and shocked at the 
 proposition, expressed his indignation in the strongest terms. There 
 were many officers in the service who were opposed to having the red 
 men as companions in arms. 
 
 Burgoyne himself appears to have appreciated the possible disgrace 
 that the cruelties of these forest allies might bring upon his army, and 
 in his address he invited them to fight for the King's cause, only on 
 condition that they kept to the King's code. " I positively forbid 
 bloodshed," he told them, " when you are not opposed in arms. Aged 
 men, women, children, and prisoners must be held secure from the 
 knife or hatchet, even in the time of actual conflict. You shall re- 
 ceive compensation for the prisoners you take, but you will be called 
 to account for scalps. In conformity and indulgence to your customs, 
 which have affixed an idea of honor to such badges of victory, vou 
 
 * v 
 
 will be allowed to take the scalps of the dead when killed by your 
 fire or in fair opposition; but on no account or pretence or subtlety 
 or prevarication are they to be taken from the wounded or even from 
 the dying, and still less pardonable will it be held to kill men in that 
 condition." 2 
 
 The unhappy fate of Jane McCrea, which was indirectly due to 
 the employment of the savaejes by the English, excited everv- 
 
 . f, , , j. , * Death of 
 
 where the deepest horror and indignation, not merely against 
 
 the Indians though that could hardly be increased but 
 against the invaders who had made of these savages their allies and 
 instruments. The manner of her death was at first uncertain; but as 
 the horrible story sped far and wide through the country, the romance 
 of personal considerations gathered about a tragic incident of war. and 
 the feeling aroused was universal and intense. The certain facts ap- 
 pealed to the tenderest sympathies; so much was known to be true, 
 that none thought of asking if anything could be false. She was 
 young ; she was beautiful ; she was gently nurtured and of high 
 
 1 The King's memorandum on Burgoyne's plan contains the sentence : " Indians must 
 be employed, and this measure must be avowedly directed." 
 
 2 In ridicule of this appeal, Burke indulged in an illustration which delighted the House 
 of Commons. "Suppose," he exclaimed, "there was a riot on Tower Hill. What would 
 thei keeper of his Majesty's lions do? Would he not fling open the dens of the wild 
 beasts, and then address them thus: ' My gentle lions my humane bears my tender- 
 hearted hyenas, go forth ! But I exhort you, as you are Christians, and members of civil- 
 ized society, to take care not to hurt any man, woman, or child ! ' " 
 
570 
 
 BURGO Y X K'S C AMP AIGX. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 social position ; she was betrothed and about to be married to a 
 young loyalist officer ; she met her sudden death when in the hands 
 of two Indians, and the long and beautiful hair, torn from her head, 
 was shown afterward at Burgoyne's headquarters. So much was true, 
 and it was enough to excite universal execration, even if the stories 
 that were told of the manner of her death were untrue. It was nat- 
 ural enough that exaggeration should be accepted where there could 
 be no doubt of so much that was sad and pitiful. 
 
 Though all that was told was not true, the incident exercised as 
 
 Death of Jane McCrea. 
 
 deep an influence then, and has ever since in its various forms 
 as if it were. But Jane McCrea was not killed by the Indians, though 
 she was their captive. A Mrs. McNeal, at whose house she was visit- 
 ing, near Fort Edward, had received warning that there were Indians 
 in the neighborhood, and she must take refuge at Fort Miller. Lieu- 
 tenant Palmer with twenty men was sent by General Arnold as an 
 escort for the family. AVhile waiting for the household goods to be 
 packed, Palmer made a reconnoissance in the neighborhood, fell into 
 an ambuscade of savages, and twelve of his men, with Palmer himself, 
 
1777.] THE BRITISH BEFORE TICOXDEROGA. -~>71 
 
 were killed at the first (ire. The Indians then rushing to the house, 
 seized Mrs. McNeal and Miss McCrea, mounted them on horseback, 
 and started to escape, before their flight should be intercepted by as- 
 sistance from the fort. The soldiers, however, were in time to fire 
 upon them before they were quite out of reach, and by this fire Jane 
 McCrea fell. She alone, sitting upright, was killed, as the Indians 
 stooped at the fire, one of them exclaiming, " Um shoot too high for 
 hit!" One of the Indians, though in rapid flight, paused long enough 
 to seize her long hair and scalp her, exasperated, probably, at the loss 
 of the reward offered by Hurgoyne for white prisoners. " I never saw 
 Jenny afterward," said Mrs. McNeal, who arrived the next day at 
 the British camp, and related the facts, " nor anything that apper- 
 tained to her person, until my arrival in the British camp, when an 
 aid-de-camp showed me a fresh scalp-lock which I could not mistake, 
 because the hair was unusually fine, luxuriant, lustrous, and dark as 
 the wing of a raven." Miss McCrea was buried the next day by the 
 soldiers who attempted her rescue, and who had heedlessly caused her 
 death. Three bullet-holes were found in her body, but no other 
 wounds, according to the testimony of Colonel Morgan Lewis, under 
 whose direction the interment was made. When many years after- 
 ward the remains were disinterred, the skull was unbroken ; no savage 
 tomahawk had ever been ." sunk " in it, as had been so long believed. 1 
 After a brief stay at Crown Point the British army appeared be- 
 fore Ticonderoga on the 1st of the month, and im mediate! v in- 
 vested the fortress. This stronghold, the key of the North, as it was 
 then assumed to be, it was confidently expected would prove a serious 
 obstacle to Burgoyne's farther advance. The possibility of its c;ip- 
 ture or a necessity for its surrender was not contemplated by the 
 Americans, and this over-confidence in the strength of the position led 
 to that careless negligence common with inexperienced soldiers. Gen- 
 eral Arthur St. Glair, of Pennsylvania, was now in command of the 
 post, with a force of three thousand men, and this he believed quite 
 strong enough to hold it. His early messages had been so assuring 
 that even Washington had no misgivings. Major-general Schuyler, 
 who had superseded Gates in the command of the Northern Depart- 
 ment, made all possible haste to strengthen the chain of posts from 
 Ticonderoga to the Hudson and Albany. He called upon the gover- 
 nors of contiguous States which this invasion immediately threatened, 
 for speedy assistance ; Putnam, who was in command on the Hudson, 
 
 1 The evidence on this subject setMiis conclusive. Mrs. McXeal was a cousin of General 
 Fmser, and in his tent she told the story to General Burgoyue the day after her own escape 
 and the death of Jane McCrea. It was related to Judge Hay, of Saratoga, who verified 
 it fully by the evidence of other contemporary witnesses. All the testimony is carefully 
 collated in an article in the (j'alnxy mag.imic for January, ISO", l>y William L. Stone. 
 
572 
 
 BURGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 was asked to send up regiments from Peekskill ; the several Commit- 
 tees of Safety were urged to diligence to provide against the common 
 danger, and word was sent to General Herkimer, up the Mohawk, to 
 be prepared for the enemy on the western frontier. But responses to 
 these appeals came in slowly, and Schuyler's resources for meeting the 
 emergency were altogether inadequate. Moreover, neither lie nor St. 
 Clair had fully fathomed Burgoyne's designs. They did not know 
 whether his move upon so strong a post as Ticonderoga was simply a 
 feint to cover an extended flank manoeuvre, or whether he would 
 march directly from that point into New England. St. Glair's force 
 was too small to cover every exposed point, and to save some of his 
 
 Ruins of Old Fort at Crown Point. 
 
 outpost detachments 
 
 he withdrew them. 
 
 One of those he was 
 
 compelled to abandon 
 
 was the commanding eminence of Mount Hope. Tliis the English 
 
 General Fraser promptly took possession of, and mounting heavy guns 
 
 there cut off the communication of the Americans with Lake George. 
 
 The unexpected occupation of another point, made the enemy masters 
 
 of the position and brought to their opponents disaster that, at the 
 
 moment, seemed irremediable. 
 
 South of the American fortress a steep, wooded height rose more 
 than six hundred feet above the level of the lake, and over- 
 looked every fortified elevation in the vicinity. It was known 
 as Sugar Loaf Mountain, and because of its supposed inaccessibility 
 had been neglected in former wars, and thus far in this. The pos- 
 sibility of dragging cannon to its summit had been admitted by ofli- 
 
 Fort De 
 fiance. 
 
1777.] LOSS OF TICOXDEROGA. 573 
 
 cers in the American camp, but it was not supposed that the enemy 
 would attempt it, and St. Clair, even had he occupied it, had not suffi- 
 cient force to hold more ground than had already been fortified. 
 Burgoyne's engineers, however, were men of skill and energy. No- 
 ticing the importance of this eminence, they secretly made a path 
 over which artillery could be hauled to the top, and, on the morning 
 of the 5th, surprised the Americans with a line of nearly completed 
 works whose fire could not be endured by the garrison of Ticon- 
 deroga for an hour. The aspect of affairs was suddenly and com- 
 pletely changed. 
 
 From Fort Defiance, as the enemy called their new position, a ter- 
 ribly destructive cannonade would undoubtedly be opened 
 
 ... , ill' r Evacuation 
 
 within twenty-four hours, and to the plunging shot from that of Ticomie- 
 elevation there could be no return. A council of war was 
 hastily summoned, and it was decided that Ticonderoga should be 
 evacuated that night, though it was hardly hoped that it could be 
 done without great loss. It was the only rational thing to do. The 
 capture of the place was inevitable, and resistance would be mad- 
 ness; there was just a chance of saving the garrison, and this St. 
 Clair and his officers wisely concluded to attempt before it was too 
 late. 1 That the purpose should not be suspected by the enemy, firing 
 was kept up as usual through the day, but at dusk the guns were 
 spiked, tents were struck, and the women and the sick were sent up 
 the lake with the stores in boats to Skenesborough, under the charge 
 of Colonel Long's regiment. At three o'clock in the morning of the 
 6th the troops marched out of the Ticonderoga forts and moved 
 toward Castleton, nearly thirty miles southeast. All had safely Ic-ft 
 the place without giving the alarm, when suddenly the house which 
 General De Fermoy had occupied as his headquarters burst into 
 flames, having been set on fire contrary to orders. Its blaze discovered 
 the Americans on the retreat, and immediate preparations were made 
 for pursuit. 
 
 Generals Fraser and Riedesel pushed after St. Clair, while Burgoyne 
 and Phillips, with the fleet and right wing of the army, 
 breaking through all obstructions, sailed up the lake, or t 
 South River, in chase of Colonel Long and the American 
 flotilla. Long and his party reached Skenesborough about three 
 o'clock in the afternoon, and at once marched to Fort Ann, eleven 
 miles southward. Here Colonel Long, determined to retreat no far- 
 
 1 The subordinate generals at the post were Poor, of New Hampshire, Paterson, of Mas- 
 sachusetts, and De Fermoy, a French officer. The troops were composed of 2,500 Continen- 
 tals, poorly clothed and armed, and about 900 militia. Both Schuyler and St. Clair were 
 tried by courts-martial, as being responsible for the supposed disaster, but both were honor- 
 ably acquitted. 
 
574 BURGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 tlier without a fight, faced about. The next day, three miles north 
 of Fort Ann, at Wood's Creek he met the Ninth regulars under 
 Lieutenant-colonel Hill, whom he handled so severely that hut for 
 the arrival of a party of Indians the enemy would have been dis- 
 persed, if not captured in a body. Gathering his wounded, Long 
 abandoned Fort Ann, and fell back to Fort Edward, thirteen miles 
 below. 
 
 St. Clair was less fortunate. He retreated all day through the 
 Battle of woods, leaving a part of his force at Hubbardton, and march- 
 iiubbardton. j ng w i t h t | )e regfc tQ Castleton. Fraser followed promptly on 
 
 their heels, with ten companies of light infantry, ten of grenadiers, 
 and two companies of the Twenty-fourth regiment in all, eight hun- 
 dred men. 1 On the morning of the 7th he attacked the detachment 
 St. Clair had left at Hubbardton, of about thirteen hundred men, 
 under the New Hampshire Colonels Warner, Francis, and Hale. A 
 sharp engagement followed, in which the Americans held their ground 
 for a while, in spite of the defection of Hale's regiment, which aban- 
 doned the field. But Fraser was reenforced by Riedesel with fresh 
 troops, who by a spirited bayonet -charge turned the right wing and 
 compelled a retreat. Warner and Francis, however, had made a good 
 fight. The American loss was about three hundred and fifty ; forty 
 officers and men among them Colonel Francis were killed ; the 
 rest were wounded or taken prisoners. The subsequent capture 
 of Colonel Hale and many of his men increased the loss in prisoners 
 to more than three hundred. The British also suffered severely, 2 
 though victory remained on their side. The American force dis- 
 persed through the woods. On the 12th inst. General St. Clair, after 
 making a circuitous march of more than a hundred miles, reached 
 Fort Edward with the remnant of the army which he had led from 
 the fort. 
 
 The loss of Ticonderoga and the reverses that followed it, excited 
 universal alarm. The whole Northern Department seemed at the 
 mercy of the enemy. The inhabitants along the upper Hudson be- 
 lieved that nothing could hinder Burgoyne from rapidly advancing to 
 Albany, and, that point gained, the junction with Howe would be all 
 but accomplished. " The evacuation," wrote Washington, when the 
 news reached him, " is an event of chagrin and surprise not appre- 
 hended, "nor within the compass of my reasoning. This stroke is severe 
 
 1 Diary of Joshua Pell, Junior, sin officer of the British army in America, 1776-1777 
 Magazine of Am. Hist., vol. ii., p. 107. (1878.) 
 
 2 According to Pell's diary, ante, the enemy's loss was : Major Grant, 1 Captain, and ? 
 Lieutenants killed ; Majors Balcarras and Ackland, 4 Captains, and 8 Lieutenants wounded 
 Two Sergeants and 24 men killed ; 10 Sergeants and 104 men wounded. The Hessians 
 lost two killed and one Lieutenant and 22 men wounded. 
 
1777.] SCHUYLER REENFORCED. 575 
 
 indeed, and has distressed us much." When the news reached Eng- 
 land, it was received there with as much exultation as it aroused de- 
 spondency in the States. As the first important and successful step in 
 the campaign, it was hailed as an evidence of the wisdom of the Min- 
 istry, as well as a proof of the weakness of the colonists. In the first 
 moment of triumph on one side, and of disappointment on the other, 
 the fact was overlooked that the loss, on one side, and the gain on 
 the other, of even a commanding position, involved no question of the 
 general efficiency of either. There was undoubtedly an error of judg- 
 ment, and if Ticonderoga was of the importance so long attached to 
 it a very serious error; but it ought to have been remembered that 
 the scientific soldier on one side could see the possibility and importance 
 of a move, which the civilian lately turned soldier on the other side 
 would be utterly blind to. Had either Schuyler or St. Clair had a 
 military training, he perhaps would have seen the strategic importance 
 of Sugar Loaf Mountain, and the absolute necessity of preventing its 
 being occupied by the British. This certainly ought to have been 
 done, though there were those who were by no means disposed to look 
 upon the loss of Ticonderoga as an irremediable misfortune. " It is 
 predicted" wrote Thacher, in his "Military Journal," under date of 
 July 14th " by some of our well-informed and respectable charac- 
 ters, that this event, apparently so calamitous, will ultimately prove 
 advantageous by drawing the British army into the heart of our coun- 
 try, and thereby placing them more immediately within our power." 
 But this was a blind trusting in Providence without regard to the 
 condition of the powder. 
 
 All the troops that General Schuyler could muster at Fort Edward 
 by the middle of July numbered barely five thousand, militia and 
 Continentals. Again he called for assistance. Washington sent him 
 Nixon's and Glover's brigades and Morgan's unequa-lled rifle- Rei ; n{orcin g 
 men, besides guns, ammunition, and tents which he could Schu . vler - 
 ill spare from his own army. General Arnold and General Lincoln, 
 of Massachusetts, were also ordered to report to Si-huyler. Bur- 
 goyne's delay gave time for the arrival of these reinforcements, and 
 by the 6th of August the Americans numbered six thousand, two 
 thirds of whom were tolerably well armed Continentals. 
 
 Schuyler, on retreating from Fort Ann to Fort Edward, tore up 
 the roads, felled trees, destroyed all the bridges, and drove off the 
 cattle, to the great disgust and delay of Burgoyne's soldiers, who 
 had hoped that their recent successes would insure them an easy 
 
 march to the Hudson River. 1 They were seriously delayed, moreover, 
 
 .' j j 
 
 1 Colonel John Trumbull, Schuyler's Adjutant-general, wrote on July 25 as follows: 
 " Our little army are now returned to Moses Kill, two or three miles below Fort Edward. 
 
576 BURGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 by the tardy arrival of their provisions, which had to be brought from 
 Canada by a long and tedious route through the lakes and over diffi- 
 cult portages. The month of July had almost gone before they 
 reached the i-iver at Fort Edward. Schuvler abandoned this fort on 
 
 / 
 
 the 22d, to take a better position on Moses Creek, three miles be- 
 low. Thence he fell back a few days later to Saratoga, then to Still- 
 water, and finally to Van Schaick's Island, where the Mohawk runs 
 into the Hudson. 
 
 Burgoyne's plan of the campaign included a cooperating force to go 
 up the St. Lawrence to Oswego, and through the Mohawk Valley 
 to Albany, there to join the main body. The purpose was, to distract 
 the Americans on their flank, crush out rebellion in the valley, secure 
 the active cooperation of the large Tory element in its population, 
 and thus bring all western New York completely under control of the 
 English by the time the British army should reach Albany. The 
 force sent upon this expedition to the Mohawk Valley was composed 
 of seven hundred white troops of all arms, including regulars, Sir John 
 Johnson's Loyal " Greens," many of whom had their homes along 
 <u Lexer's * ne Mohawk, and about one thousand Indians under Joseph 
 expedition. p, ran t, the chief of the Mohawk tribe. Barry St. Leger, 
 Lieutenant-colonel of the Thirty-fourth Regiment of the British army, 
 to whom the preference was given, both by Burgoyne and the King, 
 had the chief command. His corps, rather less than eighteen hundred 
 strong, reached the vicinity of Fort Stanwix on the 3d of August. 
 
 This old fortification, built in the previous war, on the Mohawk 
 Fort schuv- Ri ver i a f ew niiles east of the present village of Rome, was 
 ier invested. now b e ^ er known as Foi't Scliuyler. Recognizing the im- 
 portance of the post, the Americans had garrisoned it with about 
 seven hundred and fifty New York and Massachusetts Continental 
 troops under Colonel Gansevoort, of New York, who had served in 
 Montgomery's expedition to Canada. He had put the place in an ex- 
 cellent condition for defence, and St. Leger's summons for surrender 
 was met with a prompt refusal. 
 
 The patriotic people of the valley, warned in time of the approach 
 of the enemy, and yielding neither to panic nor despair, were ready to 
 
 All the houses, barracks, stores, etc., at the latter place, are burned and destroyed. It 
 seems a maxim to General Schuvler to leave no support to the enemy as he retires ; all 
 is devastation and waste when he leaves. By this means the enemy will not be l>le to 
 pursue, so fast as they could wish ; want of carriages, I am told, will be a great hindrance 
 to their progress ; they were not provided, it seems, from Canada Ten days or a fort- 
 night, I faucv, will put our people into a situation to stand, if we can obtniii that time from 
 the enemy, and in that time are reenforced from below with 2,000 or 3,000 Continental 
 
 troops I wish General Washington could see our situation ; am sure he would give 
 
 us a reinforcement." MS. letter. Trumbull Papers, in the possession of ihe Massachu- 
 setts Historical Societv. 
 
1777.] 
 
 ST. LEGER AND GENERAL HERKIMER. 
 
 577 
 
 throw themselves in St. Leger's path, and save the fort, their farms, 
 and their homes. At the earliest alarm, the militia turned out, eight 
 hundred in number, and hurried forward to the relief of Gansevoort, 
 with the veteran General Nicholas Herkimer at their head. IIerkinierg 
 This old soldier, an energetic German, had so heartily iden- ^J^e 
 tiffed himself with the popular cause, was so well known fort - 
 through central New York, and so highly esteemed among his neigh- 
 bors, that his leadership was in itself an element of strength. On the 
 4th of August, the militia crossed the Mohawk where Utica now 
 stands, and the following day Herkimer sent word to Gansevoort of his 
 approach, and proposed that the garrison should meet him at an ap- 
 
 Fac-simile of an Order by General Herkimer. 1 
 
 pointed time by a sortie. This plan, however, was defeated by some 
 delays in the march. 
 
 St. Leger had heard of Herkimer's approach, and had taken meas- 
 ures to intercept it. Having failed in his first purpose, Herkimer 
 would have moved slowly and with caution ; but permitting his bet- 
 ter judgment to be overruled by the reproaches of younger officers 
 especially of Colonel Parris, one of the Committee of Safety, and of 
 Colonel Cox, who accused him of want of energy and spirit he or- 
 
 1 Explanation: SIR, You will order your battalion to march immediately to Fort 
 Edward, with four d;iys' provisions, and ammunition fit for one battle. This you will 
 disobey [at] your peril. From [your] friend, NICOLAS HERCIIHEIMEK. 
 
 To Colonel PETER BELLINGER, at the Flats, October 18, 1776. 
 VOL. in. 37 
 
578 BURGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XXI II. 
 
 dered a rapid advance. The militia of the Mohawk Valley, whose 
 experience of Indian warfare should have taught them better, marched 
 carelessly along the bends of the river and through ravines, till a deep 
 wooded hollow was reached near Oriskany. At one end of this the 
 Battle of British regulars lay in ambush, and the Indian allies were in 
 oriskany. concealment on both sides. When Herkimer and his men 
 were fairly within this defile, a destructive fire was opened upon them 
 by the hidden enemy ; the rear guard was cut off from the main body, 
 driven back, and dispersed, many being taken prisoners, and the pro- 
 vision train captured. Herkimer was mortally wounded, and his horse 
 shot under him. Seating himself upon his saddle at the foot of a tree 
 where he could overlook the field, he continued to give orders while 
 he calmly smoked his pipe. To all remonstrances, urging him to re- 
 tire, he said, " I will face the enemy." His men, as brave now as 
 they had been rash before, determined to fight to the last. In groups 
 of two or three, from behind trees, or any point of advantage that the 
 nature of the ground afforded, they met or assailed the enemy ; men 
 encountered each other in hand-to-hand fights with clubbed rifles, with 
 tomahawks, with knives. Captain Gardener killed three men in quick 
 succession with his spear. Captain Dillenback, attacked at once by 
 three men, brained the first, shot the second, and bayonetted the third. 
 Henry Thompson rested long enough to take his lunch, as he sat upon 
 the body of a dead soldier, and then resumed his fighting. 1 Thirty 
 men of Johnson's Greens, who rushed into the midst of the fight under 
 the pretence of reenforcing the Americans, were fallen upon and in- 
 stantly killed. For five hours the desperate battle continued, till the 
 ground was covered with the dead and wounded, nearly two hundred 
 being killed on each side. 
 
 At length the welcome sound of firing was heard in the direction 
 of Fort Schuyler. The messengers sent forward the day be- 
 Fortschuy- fore, had reached the fort, and immediately Gansevoort or- 
 ganized a sortie composed of two hundred and fifty New 
 York and Massachusetts men under Lieutenant-colonel Willett, of 
 New York. The party made a rapid dash into the enemy's camp, 
 where only a few troops remained, captured flags, baggage, stores, and 
 papers, and by their firing relieved Herkimer of the enemy on his 
 front and flanks. 
 
 The Indians, having lost many of their Avarriors, were the first to re- 
 treat at the sound of Willett's musketry, and the whole British force 
 soon followed, leaving the Americans in possession of the field. It was 
 a complete check to St. Leger's proposed movement, though he still 
 persisted in the siege of the fort. When, however, soon after, rumors 
 
 1 Address at the Centennial Anniversary of the Battle of Oriskani/. By Ellis II. Roberts, 
 
1777.] 
 
 THE REPULSE AT ORISKAXY. 
 
 579 
 
 reached him of the approach of Arnold with a second relief party of 
 Continentals, whose numbers were magnified by couriers sent design- 
 edly into the enemy's camp, the Indian allies became alarmed, and 
 compelled St. Leger to abandon the siege and hurry back in the di- 
 rection from which he came. 
 
 To the memory of Herkimer, who, ten days after the battle, died 
 " like a philosopher and a Christian," Congress ordered a monument, 
 which has never been erected ; to Willett it presented a sword, and 
 to Gansevoort its thanks. It was not an over-estimate of the impor- 
 tance of this repulse of the British invasion of the Mohawk Valley. 
 Burgoy ne's plan of the campaign was in one essential part entirely 
 
 Herkimer at the Battle of Onskany. 
 
 frustrated, while soon after fresh disaster met his advance in another 
 direction. 
 
 At Benningion, Vt,, then known as the "Hampshire Grants," 
 twenty-five miles east of Burgovne's line of march, the , 
 
 ? / Isattle of 
 
 Americans had established a depot of horses and stores, Bcnni g' 
 which, in the destitute condition of his armv, was much coveted b\ 
 
 
 
580 BUHGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 the English commander. His provisions were giving out, and a timely 
 supply from Canada was doubtful. On the 6th of the month there 
 was hardly enough on hand for the consumption of two days. En- 
 couraged by the statements of Philip Skene, the principal loyalist in 
 that region, and of scouts and deserters, Burgoyne organized a secret 
 expedition, not only to capture the Bennington depot, but to demon- 
 strate toward the Connecticut Valley, overawe the country, and then 
 to return by a circuitous march to Albany. For the leader of the 
 raid he selected Lieutenant-colonel Baume, an accomplished and 
 trusted German officer, and gave him for his command a select corps, 
 about five hundred strong, consisting of Hessians, dragoons, English 
 light infantry under Captain Fraser, and a party of loyalist rangers. 
 About one hundred Indians also hung upon the column. Receiving 
 minute instructions from his commander-in-chief as to what he was to 
 do in any possible emergency, and to exercise the utmost caution, 
 Baume left the main army on the llth, and on the afternoon of the 
 13th reached the township of Cambridge, sixteen miles distant. On 
 the next day, writing " on the head of a barrel," he sent word back 
 to Burgoyne, that the rebels were now apprised of the expedition, but 
 that the Tories were flocking in to him ; that his Indians were uncon- 
 trollable, ruining or taking everything they pleased ; and that reports 
 made the strength of the American militia at Bennington about eight- 
 een hundred, all told. On receiving this information, Burgoyne or- 
 dered forward, on the 15th, Colonel Breyman and five hundred Bruns- 
 wick chasseurs, to reenforce Baume. 
 
 In the old farming town of Dunbarton, Merrimack County, New 
 stark leads Hampshire, still stands the venei-able mansion from which 
 ihuivpshire John Stark hurried with the farmers to Boston, at the news 
 men- of the fight at Lexington, and which he had now again left 
 
 to meet this marauding expedition sent against his own neighbors. 
 At Bunker Hill and Trenton the veteran colonel had already gained 
 high reputation, and in this exigency he was the man above all 
 others to lead whatever troops might gather at Bennington. All 
 that region would answer his call. Why he was not with Schuyler 
 and the main American body at this time, is to be explained by the 
 unfortunate jealousies existing in that department, and his own con- 
 viction that he had been neglected in the last promotion of general 
 officers. But his patriotism was unimpeached, and at such a moment 
 he was ready for action. Burgoyne's approach had aroused all New 
 Hampshire to renewed efforts to do her duty in the defence of the 
 country. "I have," said John Langdon, President of the Assembly, 
 " three thousand dollars in hard money ; my plate I will pledge for 
 as much more. I have seventy hogsheads of Tobago rum, which 
 
1777.] 
 
 BATTLE OF BENNINGTON. 
 
 581 
 
 shall be sold for the most they will bring. These are at the service 
 of the State. If we succeed, I shall be remunerated ; if not, they will 
 be of no use to me." The State promptly ordered out the militia, and 
 gave Stark the command. 
 
 The men answering to the summons came from the best class of 
 people in the " Grants." Stark's brigade consisted of fifteen hundred 
 militia under Colonels Nichols and Stickney, while Colonels Seth 
 Warner, Herrick, and Williams reported with companies of Green 
 Mountain boys. The entire force which gathered to resist invasion 
 was not far from twenty- 
 two hundred. On the morn- 
 ing of the 14th the greater 
 part of it reached Benning- 
 ton, Warner's men march- 
 ing all night in the rain from 
 Manchester, Vermont. 
 Stark had heard of Baume's 
 approach, and he marched 
 instantly to support Lieu- 
 tenant-colonel Gregg, who 
 had been detached the day 
 before to skirmish with and 
 delay the enemy. During 
 the forenoon of the 14th 
 the forces came within sight 
 of each other, and Baume 
 at once took up a command- 
 ing position overlooking a 
 bend in the Walloomscoik 
 River. 
 
 A heavy rain prevented 
 movements on the loth. 
 On the 16th Stark moved to attack the enemy on three sides at once. 
 Colonels Nichols and Herrick, with about five hundred men, made their 
 way through the woods to his left and rear, their approach frightening 
 the Indians off the field. Colonels Stickney and Hubbard engaged 
 some detached parties, while Stark with the main body attacked Baume 
 in front. Tradition runs that, as soon as the General came in sight 
 of the enemy, he exclaimed, "See there, my men! there are the 
 red-coats ! Before night they 're ours, or Molly Stark 's a widow." x 
 For two hours the fight continued, the Americans pressing upon 
 
 1 The tradition may be wrong, however, as tradition so often is. Mrs. Stark's name was 
 neither Molly nor Mary, but Elizabeth. 
 
 General John Stark. 
 
582 BURGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 the enemy with the steadiness and cool persistency of men used to 
 battle, at times dashing up the hill at the earthworks, in spite of 
 the warm reception given them. Surrounded nearly on all sides, by 
 this determined conduct of the militia, the British finally gave way, 
 and attempted to escape by their only road of retreat ; but in this 
 they were foiled, and the entire body surrendered. Baume was mor- 
 tally wounded. 
 
 Greatly elated by their success, the militiamen scattered to plunder 
 the abandoned camp. In this disregard of discipline and loss of order, 
 they came near losing all the advantage they had gained by their 
 courage and previous good behavior. Colonel Breyman arrived upon 
 the field with reinforcements, and all that had been won would have 
 been lost had not Stark, who was prompt to see it, met this new emer- 
 gency, and sent Colonel Warner with a fresh regiment to the rescue of 
 the almost discomfited and disordered men. Breyman was driven 
 back by Warner with considerable loss. When night closed, victory 
 for the Americans was assured. They had taken four cannon and 
 nearly seven hundred prisoners, with a loss to themselves of less 
 than a hundred in killed and wounded. 
 
 This new disaster to Buvgoyne, following so closely upon the re- 
 pulse in the Mohawk Valley, gave a new and cheerful aspect to 
 affairs in the Northern Department. New England was full of en- 
 thusiasm, and volunteers hastened from all quarters to strengthen the 
 American army. "Pray let no time be lost," wrote General Glover 
 to James Warren in the Massachusetts Legislature, to urge the send- 
 ing on of men ; " a day's delay may be fatal to America. Let the 
 body be as large as can possibly be collected." In Connecticut 
 hundreds of the militia pressed forward. As an evidence of the gen- 
 eral enthusiasm, Noah Webster records that his father, his two 
 brothers, and himself shouldered their muskets and marched to the 
 field, leaving their mother and sisters alone to carry on the farm. 
 The militia in northern and central New York turned out with equal 
 alertness. 
 
 Rivalries and disputes as to precedence and the right of promotion 
 were among the fruits of the want of discipline which ex- 
 the North- isted in the Revolutionary armies, and sometimes, no doubt, 
 interfered with the efficiency of military operations. But 
 party spirit and sectional jealousies not nnfrequently governed Con- 
 gress in the choice of major-generals ; and both Arnold and Stark had 
 been passed over, early this year, and their juniors preferred to them 
 from other considerations than those of military merit. Arnold never 
 recovered from this wound to his pride and self-love ; and if the vin- 
 dictiveness it engendered did not lead him to treason, it made it easier 
 
1777.] 
 
 MILITARY JEALOUSIES. 
 
 583 
 
 for him to be a traitor. Stark was of different stuff. It was his self- 
 respect, not his self-love, that was wounded, and though lie retired 
 from the army where his past services entitled him to recognition 
 which he did not receive, no man could be quicker than he to take the 
 field again, as we have just seen, when it was clear that his services 
 were again needed. Nowhere had jealousy and misunderstanding bred 
 so much mischief and bitterness as in this Northern Department. One 
 general after another had been displaced, and each had been exposed to 
 reprehension where each had probably done the best that circumstances 
 would admit of. Wooster, Thomas, Sullivan, Schuyler, Gates, had 
 followed each other in rapid succession, till the autumn of 1770, when 
 Schuyler by an appeal to Congress had procured his reinstatement. 
 
 Battle field of Bennington. 
 
 Both he and Gates had strong friends and bitter opponents. Schuyler 
 had little confidence in the New England troops, and the New England 
 troops and their representatives in Congress had just as little confi- 
 dence in him. Both were wrong : there were no better soldiers in the 
 army than those from New England ; there was no more devoted 
 patriot, nor a braver soldier in the country than Schuyler. Pro- 
 vincial jealousies, as old as the French and Indian wars, had much 
 to do with the feeling of mutual mistrust ; and Schuyler's misfortunes 
 rather than his faults, in the conduct of the campaign thus far, could 
 be easily used as effective weapons against him by those who sincerely 
 doubted his military ability, or who resented his avowed contempt 
 
584 BURGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 of the New England troops. When Ticondevoga was lost, it was at- 
 tributed to his want of generalship, and befoi'e that was atoned for by 
 Gates in ^' ie subsequent successes under his command, Gates, who was 
 command. a h e ^ er politician than soldier, had induced Congress to give 
 him Schuyler's place at the very moment when he had nothing to do 
 but reap the advantage of Schuyler's successful movements. Con- 
 gress had not heard of Herkimer's and Stavk's victories when they 
 reinstated Gates at the head of the northern army. 1 
 
 As September advanced, the distance between Gates and Burgoyne 
 decreased. On the 12th, the former moved his camp from the mouth 
 of the Mohawk and took position on Bemus's Heights in 
 Bemuds the town of Stillwater, twenty-five miles north of Albany. 
 The site, which was commanding, and capable of easy de- 
 fence, had been selected by Arnold and Kosciusko, and under the di- 
 rection of this Polish engineer was strengthened by a line of breast- 
 works and redoubts. With the right resting on the Hudson, the left 
 on ridges and woods, and the front made impregnable by a ravine 
 and abatis, Gates felt himself secure against direct assault. To con- 
 tinue his march to Albany, Burgoyne must first crush this obstacle. 
 
 The difficulties encountered by the British in bringing up supplies, 
 fatally delayed their progress. Recognizing the absolute necessity of 
 pushing on, they attacked the Americans on Bemus's Heights as 
 soon as they reached that point. Both sides had their entire force 
 in hand. The strength of Gates's army was about nine thousand. 
 On the right, where he himself commanded, were posted Nixon's, 
 Glover's, and Patterson's Continental brigades, all Massachusetts 
 troops; in the centre, Learned's brigade, mainly from the same State; 
 and upon the left, where Arnold was assigned the command, lay Gen- 
 eral Poor's brigade of the three New Hampshire Continental regi- 
 ments under Colonels Cilley, Scammell, and Hale; the third and 
 fourth New York, under Colonels Van Courtlandt and Henry Liv- 
 ingston, and two large Connecticut militia regiments under Colonels 
 Thaddeus Cook, of Litchfield, and Jonathan Latimer, of New Lon- 
 don County. Attached to Arnold's wing, but usually operating at the 
 front, were the famous rifle corps 2 under Colonel Daniel Morgan, 
 
 1 " Gen. Gates is a happy man to arrive at a moment when Gen. Schuyler had just 
 paved the way to victory ; he has not taken any measures yet, and cannot claim the honor 
 of anything that has as yet happened." MS. tetter from Col. Varick, Albany, Any. 23, 1 777. 
 N. Y. Mercantile Library. 
 
 4 This corps, which rendered conspicuous service in the engagements with Burgoyne, 
 was made up of good marksmen chosen from the regiments which composed Washington's 
 army at Morristown in the spring. They were nearly all from the Middle and Southern 
 States. Morgan's seconds in command were Lieutenant-colonel William Butler of Penn- 
 sylvania, and Major Morris of New Jersey. Washington organized the corps for his own 
 campaign, but sent it to Gates, upon the latter's urgent request for reinforcements. 
 
 
1777.] BATTLE OF FREEMAN'S FARM. 585 
 
 of Virginia, and a body of about three hundred Continental light in- 
 fantry, detailed for the campaign and commanded by Major Henry 
 Dearborn of New Hampshire. 
 
 Skirmishing on the 18th warned the enemy that parties for forage 
 could go out safely only in force. A party of soldiers gathering po- 
 tatoes, a mile from camp, were attacked, and killed or captured by the 
 Americans. Burgoyne immediately issued an order threatening in- 
 stant death to every man who ventured beyond the advanced sentries. 
 No useless exposure was permitted. " The life of the soldier," he 
 declared, " is the property of the King." 
 
 On the 19th serious work began. Breaking camp at Swords' Farm, 
 on the river bank, five miles north of Gates's position, Bur- 
 govne moved forward to the attack in three columns. Gen- stuiwater, 
 
 . . or Free- 
 
 erals Phillips and Riedesel followed the main road along m nR 
 the Hudson, with the artillery ; the centre, which Buvgoyne 
 accompanied, moved toward Freeman's Farm, about opposite the Amer- 
 ican left; while General Fraser took a more westerly route, with the 
 design of turning Gates's left flank. 
 
 The intentions of the enemy being evident, the regiments of Arnold's 
 wing were successively ordered out to face Fraser and Burgoyne, 
 while the brigades on the right remained at their posts within the 
 works, awaiting events. Fraser's advance consisted of Canadians and 
 Indians, and the engagement opened towards noon, about a mile from 
 the lines, between them and Morgan's riflemen and Dearborn's in- 
 fantry. The enemy's skirmishers were at first driven back, but on the 
 approach of Fraser's supports, Morgan was compelled to The engage- 
 retreat in some confusion, with the loss of a captain and ""^'op 6118 - 
 twenty men taken prisoners. Rallying his corps, however, with his 
 powerful voice and the call of his shrill whistle, Morgan was soon in 
 position again. Scammell's and Cilley's New Hampshire regiments 
 had been already sent out to support him, and in a short time nearly 
 the whole of Poor's brigade was in line to resist the advance of the 
 enemy on that flank. 
 
 By this time, between one and two o'clock, Burgoyne's central col- 
 umn had reached Freeman's Farm, and with Fraser on the right pre- 
 sented a determined front. The left column was still advancing along 
 the river. But as Morgan and Poor's brigade had now concentrated 
 in front of Burgoyne, Fraser could not have continued his independ- 
 ent flank movement without exposing the centre, and the two columns 
 were soon compelled to join their fronts as a continuous line. 
 
 Thick woods, interspersed with occasional clearings and ravines, 
 covered the battle-ground. Taking advantage of this protection, the 
 contending lines could approach each other within close range. As 
 
586 
 
 BURGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 the New Hampshire men came up to reenforce Morgan, and the action 
 was renewed, the firing steadily increased in volume and effect, con- 
 tinuing until sunset. For some distance between the two lines lay a 
 hollow, and the attempt on each side to drive the other from its posi- 
 tion was invariably followed with serious loss. When Cilley first be- 
 came engaged, so many of his men fell in twenty minutes that he 
 could save himself only by falling back on reinforcements. With 
 these the regiment went into the fight again with great spirit, and 
 fought till night. Colonel Scammell fearlessly led his regiment 
 where the fire was the hottest. Lieutenant-colonels Adams and Co- 
 burn, of the Second and Third New Hampshire, fell dead in the heat 
 of the battle. The two New York regiments, which were sent out 
 during the action, became hotly engaged, especially the Second under 
 
 Colonel Courtlandt. Cook's and 
 Latimer's Connecticut militia- 
 men also distinguished them- 
 selves by their steadiness and 
 courage, Cook's losing fifty men 
 killed and wounded, or more 
 than any other regiment except 
 Cilley's. Major William Hull, 
 of Massachusetts, lost nearly 
 half of three hundred men under 
 his command. For four hours 
 the battle continued in the 
 woods, without a decisive re- 
 sult. The enemy fought with 
 desperation, under the lead of 
 their gallant officei'S. Their four 
 pieces of artillery the Ameri- 
 cans having none on the field 
 became at one time the central 
 point of the contest. A party 
 of New Hampshire men charged upon and seized a twelve-pounder, 
 only to be driven from it by a larger body of the enemy. Again it 
 was taken by the Americans, and again they were forced back. 
 Private Thomas Haines, of Concord, sat astride the muzzle of the 
 piece when the enemy last came up, and killed two men with his 
 bayonet before a bullet struck him down. 1 Thirty-six out of the 
 forty-eight British gunners in this desperate struggle were either 
 killed 01 wounded. 
 
 Later in the afternoon Learned's brigade entered the field, and Ar- 
 
 1 Journal of Lieutenant Thomas Blake. 
 
 General Horatio Gates. 
 
1777.] RESULT OF THE BATTLE. 587 
 
 nold's entire wing was thus engaged. The General himself was pres- 
 ent during at least a portion of the afternoon, not only issuing orders, 
 but keeping the troops up to the fight by his daring example. 1 From 
 the nature of the ground, however, and as the troops were sent into 
 action at intervals by regiments, the movements were conducted 
 mainly by the colonels. At sunset the firing ceased, the Americans 
 withdrew to their fortified line, and the enemy were left in possession 
 of the field. In a military point of view, it was a drawn battle ; but 
 it had checked Burgoyne's advance and was in reality a decisive suc- 
 cess for the army under Gates. 2 
 
 The British fortified the ground they held from the river to Free- 
 man's Farm. Their loss had been heavy, especially in officers, the 
 total being over six hundred and fifty, 3 while the American loss was 
 sixty-five killed, two hundred and eighteen wounded, and thirty-eight 
 missing, or less than half the enemy's. Of the Twentieth and Sixty- 
 second British regulars, scarcely fifty men and five officers survived 
 the battle. 
 
 Eighteen days elapsed before there was any further movement. In 
 the interval Gates grew stronger, Burgoyne weaker. The action of 
 the 19th and its result were hailed with joy throughout the country. 
 Militia continued to march northward. General Ten Broeck joined 
 the army with over two thousand men from New York; Lincoln 
 brought in as many from Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Gen- 
 eral Oliver Wolcott, of Connecticut, went up with three hundred 
 volunteers, the majority of the militia from that State being retained 
 
 1 Geueral Wilkinson, Gates's Adjutant-general, asserts in his Memoirs that no general of- 
 ficer was on the field ou the 19th, and this statement is adopted by Mr. Bancroft and oth- 
 ers, who insist that Arnold took no part in the fight. Beyond the authorities which have 
 been quoted to the contrary, we have the Memoirs of Major Hull and the diary of Colonel 
 Courtlandt, both of whom say they received orders from Arnold in the field. General Car- 
 ringtou, in his recent Battles of the Revolution, properly observes that it would be utterly in- 
 consistent with Arnold's nature and the position he occupied to suppose that he remained 
 quietly in camp while his entire division was out fighting the enemy. 
 
 2 General Glover briefly described the action as follows, in a letter of September 21 : 
 ' The battle was very hot till half-past two o'clock ; ceased about half an hour, then re- 
 newed the attack. Both armies seemed determined to conquer or die. One continual blaze, 
 without any intermission, until dark, when by consent of both parties it ceased ; during 
 which time we several times drove them, took the ground, passing over great numbers of 
 their dead and wounded. The enemy in their turn sometimes drove us. They were bold, 
 iutrepid, and fought like heroes, and I do assure you, sirs, our men were equally bold and 
 courageous and fought like men fighting for their all." Essex Institute Hist. Coll., vol. v. 
 No. 3. 
 
 8 The enemy's loss on the 19th has heretofore only been estimated. From Pell's diary, 
 already quoted, we get the details, namely : 4 captains, 9 subalterns, 11 sergeants, 219 
 rank and file, killed. Two lieutenant-colonels, 2 majors, 7 captains, 13 subalterns, 6 ser- 
 geants, 400 rank and file, wounded. The American loss is given by Gordon, who took it 
 from the report of the Board of War. 
 
588 BURGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 at Peekskill under Generals Putnam and Silliman. Stark threatened 
 Burgoyne's communications at Fort Edward. Colonel John Brown, 
 of Pittsfield, with five hundred men, made a dash at Ticonderoga, and 
 took prisoners and guns. 
 
 Around the enemy a net was forming, which they must break 
 through at one end or the other, or be captured. One gleam of hope 
 remained for them. Operating in dense woods, with uncertain means 
 of communication with New York, Burgoyne had for weeks been in 
 total ignorance of the progress of events elsewhere. He had advanced, 
 expecting every hour to hear that a cooperating column was moving 
 up the Hudson to Albany, which would compel Gates to fall back 
 Clinton's co- both to save that point and to save his army. As time 
 operation, passed, the hope of this relief grew stronger. On Septem- 
 ber 21st intelligence came from Sir Henry Clinton that an expedition 
 would sail up the Hudson in about ten days, for the purpose of at- 
 tacking Forts Clinton and Montgomery, a few miles below West Point, 
 and thus create a diversion which must be in Burgoyne's favor. 
 
 Clinton kept his promise, and succeeded in doing much damage and 
 
 creating much alarm along the Hudson. On the 3d of October he 
 
 left New York, moving with a large force by land and water, 
 
 Capture of 
 
 Forts ciin- and on the nth reached Verplanck's Point, forty miles up the 
 
 ton ami . T-I i i -11 
 
 Montgom- river. B roui this point a large detachment was sent in 
 boats, convoyed by ships, toward Peekskill, as a feint to 
 cover the crossing of the main body early on the 6th, to King's Ferry 
 on the west side of the Hudson. A heavy fog favored the move. 
 General Putnam, in command at Peekskill, was deceived \>y this ma- 
 noeuvre and took no precautions against the advance at King's Ferry. 
 Following a circuitous route around Dunderberg mountain, Clinton 
 appeared in the afternoon before Forts Montgomery and Clinton, and 
 carried both by assault. Governor George Clinton of New York ex- 
 erted himself to save the posts, and General James Clinton received a 
 bayonet-wound. The American loss was about three hundred, of 
 whom sixty or seventy were killed and wounded. The British dis- 
 mantled the forts, burned two American frigates, destroyed stores, and 
 Kingston ended their incursion by marching to Esopus (now Kings- 
 burned. ton) and laying it in ashes. Putnam, who could send no 
 assistance to the forts in time, retreated farther up the river, aban- 
 doning the fortified points, and took post at Fishkill. The Hudson 
 was thus left open to the fleet of the enemy, who, satisfied with their 
 success, returned to New York. A court of inquiry relieved Putnam 
 from responsibility for these reverses in his department, serious as 
 they were, and disastrous as they might have been. 
 
 Burgoyne's situation was becoming more and more critical. His 
 
1777.] BATTLE OF BEMUS'S HEIGHTS. 89 
 
 provisions were giving out, and it was necessary either to advance or 
 to retreat. He determined to advance, and on the 7th of October 
 moved with a select detachment of fifteen hundred regulars and ten 
 guns to turn the American left. His best general officers were with 
 l,i m Phillips, Riedesel, and Fraser. Taking position in open ground 
 within less than a mile of the American works, his advance sought to 
 reach the American rear. 
 
 No sooner was Gates apprised of Burgoyne's appearance than he 
 ordered out Morgan and his riflemen " to begin the game." 
 The fighting was even more desperate and decisive than that tie of smi- 
 of the 19th of September. The enemy's advance was driven nrmus'g 
 in, and Morgan made his way to Burgoyne's right, where 
 Fraser was in command. Poor's and Learned's brigades were ordered 
 to attack the left, while other troops were held in readiness to enter 
 the action where needed. As Poor and Learned advanced, they were 
 met by a sharp but ineffectual volley from Ackland's grenadiers, to 
 which they replied with close and telling discharges. The attack 
 soon proved decisive, and the grenadiers and artillerymen fled from the 
 field, leaving Ackland wounded and a prisoner. Nearly at the same 
 moment Morgan and Dearborn fell upon the right of the enemy and 
 routed it with serious loss. The centre held its ground until driven 
 back by further reinforcements from Gates's lines, including Ten 
 Broeck's New York militia. Scarcely one hour after the British gave 
 battle, their whole line was retiring in disorder towards their camp. 
 
 At this juncture Arnold appeared upon the field. Personal differ- 
 ences with Gates had led to his removal from command since Arnoldand 
 the battle of the 19th, but he had remained in camp. When Gates- 
 this action opened, he joined his old division, now hotly engaged, and 
 assumed control of its movements, notwithstanding his removal. On 
 hearing of this defiance of his authority, Gates sent an aid to recall 
 him ; but Arnold, keeping out of the way of the messenger, placed 
 himself at the head, now of one brigade and now of another, and led 
 them to the attack at different points with good judgment and un- 
 daunted courage. His conduct roused the troops to enthusiasm, who 
 cheered and followed wherever he led. As he entered the field the 
 British line was already breaking. Under his impetuous assaults, first 
 with Patterson's and Glover's brigades, and then with Learned's, 
 the enemy gave way everywhere in confusion. Even when driven 
 to their intrench men ts, at dusk, the vigorous charge of Arnold and 
 Morgan on the extreme right, broke through the line of works and 
 forced the Germans to abandon their position. In this last ArnoW 
 charge Arnold was wounded as he was entering the sally- woulllled 
 port. In his report of the action, Gates had the magnanimity to men- 
 
590 BURGOYXE'S CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 tion Arnold's services, and Congress at once promoted him to the 
 rank of major-general. 
 
 The loss on the side of the Americans in this well-fought field was 
 remarkably small ; not over fifty were killed, and about one hundred 
 were wounded. On the other side the loss was much heavier, their 
 killed alone outnumbering all the casualties of their opponents. 1 
 Their heaviest blow was in the fall of General Fraser. Quite as 
 Death of brave and almost as reckless as Arnold, his example was no 
 less inspiriting to the troops he led, and to him more than to 
 any other British officer was duo their desperate resistance. Morgan 
 saw the contagion of his example ; and, if tradition may be trusted, 
 pointed him out to three of his unerring riflemen as a proper object 
 for their aim. When he fell, mortally wounded, the tide of battle 
 turned. Not even Burgoyne, who also exposed himself wherever his 
 presence seemed needed, could save the day. Shot through the hat 
 and waistcoat, he narrowly escaped a fate like Eraser's, and only re- 
 turned to his camp when driven back with his troops. His principal 
 aid, Sir Francis Clerke, was mortally wounded, and died next day a 
 prisoner in Gates's tent. Lieutenant-colonel Breyman, commanding 
 the Germans on the right, was also killed. Eight of the guns brought 
 into the field were lost. 
 
 This signal defeat of the enemy on the 7th was decisive. Gates 
 was i.ow more than twice as strong as his antagonist. Oon- 
 scions of the danger of his situation, Burgoyne, on the night 
 of the 8th, abandoning everything not immediately needed, quietly 
 retreated to Saratoga, and encamped on the north side of the Fish- 
 kill. On the morning of this day, General Lincoln, while reconnoiter- 
 ing the enemy's position, received a severe wound. In the evening, 
 Fraser was buried with military honors in a redoubt near the Hud- 
 son. Burgoyne, Phillips, and other general officers, with their start's, 
 were present at these last services over the grave of their comrade, 
 where the requiem was the fire of American cannon aimed at a group 
 easily distinguished by the artillerymen, but who were unconscious of 
 the purpose of that sad and solemn gathering. 2 
 
 Gates followed the enemy, making such disposition of his troops 
 
 1 British loss on October 7 Pell's Diary: One General, 1 lieutenant-colonel, 2 cap- 
 tains, 7 subalterns, 5 sergeants, 160 rank and file killed. [No return of wounded.] Two 
 majors, 2 captains, 8 subalterns, 16 sergeants, 7 drums, 234 rank and file, prisoners. Esti- 
 mating their wounded at 250, their total loss was nearly half of the select body they 
 brought into the field. 
 
 2 The wives of several officers accompanied Burgoyne's expedition, notably those of 
 General Riedesel and Major Ackland, and suffered all the hardships of the campaign. 
 Madam Riederiel, in her Memoirs, describes the burial of Fraser under fire of the Ameri- 
 can artillery. 
 
1777.] 
 
 THE SURRENDER. 
 
 591 
 
 as to surround them. General Fellows, with Massachusetts militia, 
 severed their line of retreat by holding the crossing of the Hudson. 
 Morgan, Poor, and Learned threatened their rear on the west. Nixon, 
 Patterson, and Glover remained in their front, and, in attempting to 
 advance beyond the Fishkill on the 10th, narrowly escaped collision 
 with the entire British force, which had not yet, as supposed, left 
 its position. On the 12th Burgoyne had but five days' rations in 
 
 jfe, i^-- >:> 
 ' 
 
 * 
 
 V 
 
 r | '- 
 
 I 
 
 ^ 
 
 \ \ 
 
 ~ J 
 
 Fraser's Burial. 
 
 camp, and on the 13th his desperate situation compelled him to 
 summon a council, and propose the question of capitulation. 
 
 His officers unanimously declared that in consideration of all that 
 the army had already suffered, and its present critical pm,^!,, of 
 position, proposals for surrender could be made without dis- 8urrender - 
 honor, and a flag was accordingly sent to the American commander. 1 
 
 1 "On the 12th frequent cannonading and skirmishing ; conimandiiiir officers of regi- 
 ments were sent for by General Burgoyue, to know what a face their regiments bore. The 
 
502 
 
 BURGOYXE'S CAMPAIGN 
 
 [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 caj.it 
 
 On the 17th, after the negotiation was once on the point of being 
 broken oft', Bnrgoyne receiving information which led him to hope 
 for reinforcements from the south, the articles of capitulation, or 
 " Conventions," as they were officially designated, were signed by Gates 
 and Burgoyne. It was agreed that the British army should march 
 out with all the honors of war, and have free passage to England, 
 upon condition of not serving again during the war. Five 
 thousand seven hundred and sixty-three officers and men 
 were included in the surrender. On the forenoon of the 
 17th, they marched out from their camps, and laid down their arms 
 in a field near Old Fort Hardy, in the presence only of Majors 
 Wilkinson and Lewis of General Gates's staff. Burgoyne presented 
 himself to Gates, with the remark that the fortune of war had made 
 him his prisoner ; and for several days after the English officers were 
 received and treated with every mark of consideration due to worthy 
 foes. 
 
 The surrender of Burgoyne's army on the 17th of October was, up 
 to this time, the most important event of the war; and the battles of 
 September 19th and October 7th are counted among the decisive bat- 
 tles of the world. The whole country was jubilant, not only that so 
 much had been gained where so little had been hoped for, but that in 
 that gain they saw the promise of greater things to come. In Eng- 
 land the tidings of disaster and defeat were received with bitter dis- 
 appointment, and reproaches were heaped upon the General for the 
 failure, of a campaign in the plan of which the King and his minister 
 had blundered. Congress presented to Gates a medal for completing 
 the work which others had begun and made possible if not inevitable; 
 but the people did not forget to be grateful to the brave officers and 
 men who in battle after battle had wrested victory from as brave an 
 army as England could send to the field. 
 
 nnswer of the British, they would fight to a man. The German officers returned to their 
 regiments to know the disposition of their men ; they answered : ' Nix the money, nix the 
 rum, nix fighten.' The British regiments being reduced in number to about nineteen 
 hundred, and having no dependence on the Germans, General Burgoyne, on the 1 3th Oc- 
 tober. opened a treaty with Major-Geul. Gates." Pell's Diary. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. PROPOSALS FOR PEACE REJECTED. 
 
 THE WINTER AT VALLEY FORGE. THE CONWAY CABAL. BARON vox STEI:BEX. 
 
 ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. NORTH'S PROPOSITIONS FOR PEACE. LAFAYETTK AT 
 BARREN HILL. EVACUATION OF PHILADELPHIA. BATTLE OF MONMOUTII. 
 LEE'S CONDUCT. TRIED BY COURT-MARTIAL. THE RHODE ISLAND CAMPAIGN. 
 
 ARRIVAL OF A FRENCH FLEET WITH TROOPS. THE TORY AND INDIAN WAR- 
 FARE ix CENTRAL NEW YORK. THE PIONEERS OF TENNESSEE AND KENTUCKY. 
 
 COLONEL CLARK'S EXPEDITION TO ILLINOIS. OPERATIONS BEGUN AT THK 
 SOUTH. Loss OF SAVANNAH. PARTISAN WARFARE. NAVAL AFFAIRS. FIGHT 
 
 BETWEEN THE " BOX HOMME HlCHARD " AND THE " SfiRAPIS." 
 
 THE camp at Valley Forge was laid out in parallel streets of log 
 huts, built by the soldiers with timber found in abundance 
 in the neighboring woods. Each brigade was encamped by went t vai- 
 itself ; the quarters of the officers were opposite their respec- 
 tive regiments and companies; in each hut measuring fourteen by 
 sixteen feet were lodged twelve privates. The headquarters of the 
 Commander-in-chief were at the house of Isaac Potts, the proprietor 
 of the forge which gave a name to the locality, and near by were 
 those of Greene, Steuben, Lafayette, and other officers of rank, 
 "small barracks," wrote Lafayette to his wife, " which are scarcely more 
 cheerful than dungeons." The camp was protected by forts and in- 
 trenchments ; in advance of the lines Morgan and his riflemen were 
 stationed, and more distant points were guarded by outposts of dra- 
 goons and militia. 1 
 
 The army was well sheltered, for a log house is a comfortable dwell- 
 ing, and the woods near by afforded plenty of fuel. But in every- 
 thing else there was absolute impoverishment. Had food been abun- 
 dant in the surrounding country, there were no horses and wagons to 
 draw it to camp ; even had there been no lack of these, the roads 
 were almost impassable for any beast of burden or any carriage. Pro- 
 
 1 " General Washington keeps his station at Valley Forge. I was there when the army 
 first began to build huts. They appeared to me like a family of beavers, every one busy, 
 some carrying logs, others mud, and the rest plastering them together. The whole was 
 raised in a few days, and it is a curious collection of buildings in the true rustic order." 
 Letters from Thomas Paine to Dr. Franklin. Penn. Mag. of Hist., voL ii. 
 VOL. in. 38 
 
594 ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 visions of all kinds were scarce and poor, and wliat there were the men 
 themselves were compelled to transport, " who, without a murmur," 
 a Congressional Commission reported, " patiently yoke themselves to 
 
 little carriages of their own making, or load their wood and 
 ings of the provisions on their backs.'' They would have been cheerful 
 
 as well as patient had they been in a condition for such 
 work, for work in itself is no hardship. But they were weak from 
 the want of sufficient and proper food ; they went to their labor in 
 thin and tattered clothing and with uncovered feet ; and when they 
 sought for rest and vigor in sleep, it was on the bare earth that made 
 the floors of their huts, for they were without even loose straw for 
 their beds. This last necessitv Washington endeavored to relieve, 
 and at the same time to secure provisions, by issuing an order to 
 farmers within seventy miles to thrash out all the grain in their barns 
 and deliver the straw in camp before the 1st of March, under the 
 penalty of having " all that shall remain in sheaves after the period 
 above mentioned seized by the commissaries and quartermasters of 
 
 the armv and paid for as straw/' Bv the 1st of February the want 
 
 t/ .< 
 
 of clothing was so absolute that about four thousand men in their 
 
 huts were necessarily relieved from duty on this account. From des- 
 
 * / 
 
 titution came sickness, and the death-rate increased thirty-three per 
 cent, from week to week. " Nothing," said the report addressed to 
 the President of Congress, referred to already, " Nothing, sir, can 
 equal their sufferings, except the patience and fortitude with which 
 the faithful part of the army endure them." There were, however, 
 the unfaithful also, whose patriotism was not proof against hunger 
 and cold and pestilence, and they deserted in large numbers. In 
 February there were in camp only about five thousand effective men. 
 Congress was at York, Pennsylvania. If it was not powerless to 
 relieve the poverty which was so sorely trying the army, then it was 
 indifferent to the welfare of the men on whom the safety of the coun- 
 try so largely depended. Both propositions, probably, were, in a 
 measure, true. Washington was authorized to take supplies wher- 
 ever he could find them within seventy miles, for which he was to 
 pay in money, if he had it, if not, in certificates. But Congress 
 failed to provide for the redemption of these certificates, even in the 
 depreciated paper money, which, poor as it was, at least, was a little 
 better than nothing at all. There was then, as there is now, 
 of procuring a considerable portion of the rural population of Pennsyl- 
 vania slow to understand, and slower still to accept, new 
 ideas, and reconcile themselves to new relations. These were either 
 still loyal to the King, or, if favorably disposed to the new govern- 
 ment, their devotion was moderate and not animated with any very 
 
1778.] 
 
 THE WINTER AT VALLEY FORGE. 
 
 595 
 
 deep sense of the spirit of self-sacrifice. In Philadelphia, where the 
 British army passed the winter in gayety and almost riotous plenty, 
 the farmers, if they could get there, were paid in gold for their prod- 
 uce. The ardent patriotism that would lead them to Valley Forge 
 instead, to receive, in place of gold, certificates that were absolutely 
 worthless, was a patriotism not in daily use. 
 
 Before the winter was over, it was a question whether the army 
 would break up in mutiny or be dissolved for want of the neces- 
 
 
 Valley Forge. 
 
 saries of life. The burden of anxiety and responsibility was heavy 
 upon the Commander-in-chief, and perhaps for that reason his ene- 
 mies thought it a good opportunity to bring about his overthrow. 
 The success of the northern campaign had added greatly to Gates's 
 reputation. Easy as it is to see now, at the distance of a hundred 
 years, that the laurels which he gathered should have been bound 
 upon the brows of others, the credit he had acquired stimulated his 
 own ambition and made him the central figure in the opposition to 
 
596 ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. [CHAP. XXTV. 
 
 Washington, both in Congress and in the army. He was made in the 
 autumn President of the Board of War ; Mifflin was one of its mem- 
 bers; Conway by birth an Irishman, but by adoption a Frenchman, 
 a colonel in the French army, and one of the officers whom Silas 
 Deane had sent to America was made a Major-general over the 
 heads of his seniors in commission, and was appointed Inspector-gen- 
 eral. He was at the head of a secret movement by which it was 
 intended to remove Washington and put Gates in his place. 
 
 This was, as it has ever since been called, the " Conway Cabal," and 
 The " con- Conway spent the winter at York intriguing with Mifflin, Lee, 
 way cabai." w ho had been exchanged and some members of Con- 
 gress, to bring about the removal of Washington. An intrigue of this 
 sort could not long remain a secret, for it was necessary to its success 
 that various influences should be brought to favor it. The correspond- 
 ence between Gates, Mifflin, and Conway, reflecting upon Washington, 
 became known through the indiscretion of Wilkinson, who had seen 
 one of the letters and repeated its purport to Stirling. The unfavor- 
 able impression produced by this discovery was not removed when 
 Gates, with some bluster, first demanded of Washington to know 
 who had tampered with his letters, and then denied that Conway had 
 written the letter whose words had been quoted. It was hoped to 
 secure the alliance of Lafayette by offering him the command of a 
 new invasion of Canada, which came to nothing ; he would only 
 accept it on condition that he should report to Washington as 
 Commander-in-chief. Anonymous letters to Patrick Henry, Governor 
 
 of Virginia, and to Henry 
 Lauren s, President of 
 Congress, were at once 
 forwarded by those gen- 
 
 Sign.ture of Henry Lauren,. tlemeil to Washington 
 
 himself. Attempts to influence State legislatures proved equally 
 abortive, and when the purpose of the "Cabal" became known to the 
 country and to the army, it met with universal condemnation. 1 The 
 scheme was not only completely frustrated, but its principal instiga- 
 tors either repented of their share in it, or were deprived of the power 
 of attempting further mischief. Gates and Mifflin both ceased soon 
 after to be members of the Board of War. Gates was ordered in the 
 spring to take charge of the fortifications on the Hudson. Mifflin was 
 brought to trial for mismanagement in the affairs of the quartermaster's 
 
 1 Captain Selden, of Connecticut, writing from Valley Forge, in the spring, undoubtedly 
 reflected the feeling of the army. He says : " I am content if they remove almost any 
 General except his Excellency. The country, even Congress, are not aware of the Con- 
 fidence the Army Places in him, or motions never would have been made for Gates to take 
 the Command." Manuscript fatter. 
 
1778.] BARON VON STEUBEN. 597 
 
 department, in which, however, nothing was proved against him but 
 incapacity and confusion in the accounts. He resigned his commission 
 as Major-general, but acquired some distinction afterward as a member 
 of Congress. The next campaign brought Lee before a court-martial. 
 Conway, who was also sent in March to the Northern Department, 
 offered his resignation to Congress, which, contrary to his expectation 
 and wishes, was accepted. Not long afterward he was shot in a duel 
 by General Cadwallader, who accused him of cowardice at the battle 
 of Brandy wine. Supposing himself fatally wounded, he wrote a con- 
 trite letter to Washington, and on his recovery returned to France. 
 
 But notwithstanding the hardships and threatened disasters of 
 the winter at Valley Forge, there came to the army in that encamp- 
 ment one signal advantage which told in all the future military op- 
 erations of the war. This was the arrival of Frederick 
 William von Steuben, a veteran Prussian General, who had Baron Ton 
 learned the art of war under the great Frederick, and whose 
 experienced eye saw beneath the tattered clothing and worn frames 
 of the men the material for excellent soldiers. He proposed to in- 
 troduce the Prussian system of minor tactics, and, beginning on a small 
 scale, he gradually brought the whole army to an admirable condition 
 of drill and discipline. Congress appointed him to the office of In- 
 spector-general, and adopted the regulations he had drawn up for the 
 American service 1 regulations which were rather an adaptation of 
 the Prussian system to the character of the men before him, and the 
 needs of the army, than a rigid adherence to its tactics. 
 
 The soldiers were quick enough to see that this new Inspector- 
 general, unlike the man for whom the office was created Conway 
 put his heart into his work, and was moved by no pei-sonal ambition, 
 but by a deep interest in the struggle for which they were suffering 
 so much, and a sincere desire to tit them to achieve success. His 
 very roughness of manner and quickness of temper were to them an 
 evidence of his sincerity. The grim Prussian veteran appealed irre- 
 sistibly, without perceiving it, to the sensitive American humor when, 
 having exhausted his vocabulary of German oaths upon an awkward 
 squad at drill, he would cry out to his aid, " Come and swear for 
 me in English ; these fellows will not do what I bid them ! " When 
 in after battle-fields these men manoeuvered with the precision and 
 coolness of a grand parade, simply because they knew they were 
 parts of a great machine, whose effectiveness defended upon the 
 method of its movement, and the adaptation of the parts to the 
 
 1 For details of the special services and their importance to the Revolutionary War, see 
 Life of Steuben, by Frederick Ifctpp ; and The German Element in the War of Independence, 
 b G. W. Greene. 
 
598 
 
 ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. 
 
 [CiiAP. XXIV. 
 
 with France. 
 
 whole, then they remembered and blessed the Baron von Steuben, 
 and the way he hammered tactics into them with his big, strange 
 oaths. In other respects his military knowledge was of immense 
 value in various ways, and of all the European officers who sought 
 service under the new Republic, he did more than any other in aid 
 of its complete establishment. 
 
 The effect in Europe of Burgoyne's surrender was not long in mani- 
 festhig itself. It gave strength to the opposition in Eng- 
 \ iin ^ which was shown at the opening of the next session of 
 Parliament ; but far more important than this, it decided the policy of 
 France. It was easy, under the new aspect which the annihilation of 
 
 one army in the North, and the 
 vigorous campaign of Washing- 
 ton at the South, gave to the 
 war, for the French Minister and 
 the American Commissioners in 
 Paris to come to terms. On the 
 6th of February a treaty was 
 concluded, providing that if war 
 should break out between France 
 and England, during the exist- 
 ence of that with the United 
 States, it should be made a com- 
 mon cause ; that neither of the 
 contracting parties should con- 
 clude either truce or peace with 
 Great Britain without the formal 
 consent of the other first ob- 
 tained ; and they agreed not to 
 lay down their arms until the in- 
 dependence of the United States should have been formally or tacitly 
 assured by the treaties that should terminate the war. The news of 
 this important step reached the United States in April ; on the 2d 
 of May the treaty was ratified by Congress ; and nowhere were the 
 tidings received with more satisfaction than at Valley Forge, where a 
 day was set apart for public rejoicing with all the demonstrations that 
 an impoverished military camp could afford. 1 
 
 The impending event in Paris was no secret in England. The op- 
 
 1 M. Capellan, the patriotic Hollander, who made a speech in the popular House of the 
 Dutch government, against loaning troops to England in 177576, wrote this letter 
 hitherto unpublished to Franklin on the conclusion of the French alliance : 
 
 ZWOLLI, 28 April, 1778. 
 
 "SiR : As I have been the first, or s:iy better, the only one of all the members of our 
 State who has dared himself to declare openly for y e American Cause, and that in a 
 
 Baron von Steuben. 
 
1778.] NORTH'S PROPOSITIONS FOR PEACE. 599 
 
 position in Parliament sought to open negotiations with the American 
 Commissioners to avert the French alliance, but this came to nothing. 
 Lord North, knowing that, if a treaty were made, war be- 
 
 * English at- 
 
 tween France and England was sure to follow, was reduced trmptsat 
 
 .. . . conciliation. 
 
 to a humiliating position without being certain that even 
 humiliation would keep him in office. In February he brought into 
 Parliament two conciliatory bills, which were passed in March. The 
 plan proposed yielded all that England had been contending against 
 the right to tax the colonies and Congress was recognized as a legal 
 representative body, by the appointment of Commissioners to treat with 
 it. But that which the insurgents contended for was not conceded 
 their right to be entirely independent of the British Crown. The 
 scheme was sure to come to the ground, would have come to the 
 ground, even had there been no alliance with France, but it was 
 North's best as it was his last card. 
 
 A part of the opposition, had they had the power, would have con- 
 ceded independence to the revolted colonies. Others would, if they 
 could, have come to some compromise, not essentially differing from 
 that proposed by North, but which would have left the question of 
 independence in abeyance, to be settled afterward when peace was 
 once restored. There was faith enough in such a policy futile as 
 it would have proved to have overthrown North, and restored 
 Chatham to office, had it not been for the obstinacy of the King. 
 He hated Chatham with the intensity that belongs to unsettled 
 reason, and refused to admit him to his presence. " I solemnly 
 declare," he said, " that nothing shall bring me to treat personally 
 with Lord Chatham." There still lurked in his clouded mind the 
 belief that the colonies could yet be subdued. Chatham, he said, 
 would insist on a total change. 
 
 But Chatham's plan, it is known, involved the idea that the States 
 could still be retained as English colonies. He would have rescinded 
 all obnoxious laws, withdrawn all the troops from America, leaving 
 garrisons only in a few strongly fortified places, and concentrated all 
 the strength of England upon a struggle with France. When that 
 was ended and no Englishman could permit himself to doubt what 
 the end would be he would trust to the common ties of race, of 
 language, of religion, and of interest, to bring back the Americans to 
 
 problematical time, Congratulate you out of the bottom of my heart of the happy success 
 with which providence has crowned America. 
 
 " The joy I fe!d on the news of the talking the army of General Burgoyne, which will 
 shine iu the annalls of America ami its Liberty, surpassed with a greater joy which occa- 
 sioned the Treaty concluded with France, and by which the U. S. of America see them- 
 selfs placed amongst the Independent Poweis in the world." MS. in Trumbull Paptrs, 
 in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 
 
600 ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 their allegiance. "The moment," said Shelburne who thoroughly 
 understood Chatham's views "that the independence of America 
 is agreed to by our Government, the sun of Great Britain is set, and 
 we shall no longer be a powerful or respectable people." 1 
 
 North's scheme of reconciliation was, after all, no more impracticable 
 than those devised by rival statesmen. Chatham's plan, whatever it 
 was, he could not have carried out, had he again come into power, for 
 he died on the llth of May. When he fell in the House of Lords a 
 month before, stricken unto death, he was about to reply to the Duke 
 of Richmond, who had moved a resolution for an address to the Crown, 
 asking the King to withdraw his fleets and armies from the revolted 
 provinces, and "to effectuate conciliation with them on such terms as 
 might preserve their good will," by which the duke meant that 
 their independence should be acknowledged. The resolution was lost 
 by a majority of only seventeen, notwithstanding the dying words of 
 the great statesman were against it. 
 
 The Commissioners, with Lord North's proposals for peace, arrived 
 in June. Their credentials were immediately presented to Congress, 
 who received them on one day, and gave on the next an answer, curt, 
 conclusive, and almost defiant. Nothing, they said, but "an earnest 
 desire to spare the effusion of human blood, would have induced them 
 to read a letter that so reflected upon their ally, the King of France ; 
 that they were ready, however, to enter upon the consideration of 
 peace whenever the King of Great Britain should show that he had 
 any "sincere disposition for that purpose;'' and that the only evi- 
 dence of that sincerity would be "an explicit acknowledgment of 
 the independence of these States, or the withdrawing his fleets and 
 armies." 
 
 It was near midsummer before this point in the history of the year 
 was reached. Arms had rather waited upon diplomacy. For though 
 through the spring there were some military movements, there were 
 none of much moment. When made, they were less to gather glory, 
 Raids in an( ^ HI ore to gather corn and cattle. Two such expedi- 
 New jersey. tj ons we re made into New Jersey in March, and twice, near 
 Salem, at Quinton's Bridge and at Hancock's Bridge, the militia were 
 called out to resist such raids upon their fields and barn-yards. A 
 like attempt at plunder was made at Montgomery, in Pennsylvania, 
 on the 1st of May. To check these incursions, and, at the same time, 
 to have a force near by in case Philadelphia should be abandoned -~- 
 of which already there was some expectation Washington ordered 
 Lafayette, with* about two thousand men, to take a position at Bnr- 
 ren Hill, half way between Valley Forge and the city. This move- 
 
 1 Fitzmaurice's Life of the Earl of Shelburne. 
 
1778.] EVACUATION OF PHILADELPHIA. 601 
 
 ment Howe determined to defeat, and he sent out Grant with five 
 thousand men to surround and capture this force under Lafayette. 
 When apprised of his danger, Lafayette made a feint of at- 
 tacking Grant, and then by a rapid inarch crossed the i^"*n 
 Schuylkill at Matson's Ford before he could be intercepted. 
 Tiie affair ended with little loss on either side, and at the time was 
 considered a brilliant piece of manoeuvring on the part of Lafayette. 
 To the enemy it was a source of chagrin and disappointment. 
 
 The British had occupied Philadelphia for more than eight months 
 with a force superior to Washington's, but had failed to establish 
 themselves in the State at large. With the Peace Com- 
 
 -I XT ir i rri The British 
 
 missioners came orders to return to JSew York. The con- in- c phiia- 
 centration of their forces had become of greater importance 
 than the occupation of territory. On the 18th of June the move- 
 ment was begun, hastened, doubtless, by a report that a French fleet 
 under D'Estaing was on its way to blockade the English in the Dela- 
 ware. Between the hours of three and ten o'clock A. M., the entire 
 army had been ferried across the river, and immediately took up the 
 march northward through the Jerseys. All told, it numbered about 
 fourteen thousand effective men, under Sir Henry Clinton, Howe hav- 
 ing been relieved of his command, with a baggage and provision train 
 eight or ten miles long, which included officers' luggage, and plunder 
 from Philadelphia in carriages, saddle-horses, servants, women, and 
 " every kind of other useless stuff." The heat was oppressive, rains had 
 made the roads difficult of travel, and the way before them was long. 
 During this tedious march, between six hundred and eight hundred 
 Hessians deserted in safety. 
 
 V 
 
 The moment Washington was positively informed of Clinton's 
 start, he broke camp at Valley Forge and followed in pur- Was 
 'suit. Maxwell's brigade was pushed forward to join Dick- P ursues 
 inson's militia, to aid in the destruction of bridges, and delay the 
 enemy. On the 21st, the American army crossed the Delaware at 
 Coryell's Ferry, the present Lambertville ; on the 26th, reached 
 Kingston, twenty miles west of Freehold ; and on the 28th it struck 
 the rear of Clinton's columns, and the battle of Monmouth Court- 
 house followed. 1 
 
 A council of war, held at Hopewell on the 24th, expressed a divided 
 opinion as to the advisability of bringing on a general engagement with 
 Clinton. Six generals, including Lee, advised that the enemy should 
 be followed up and harassed by separate and cautious attacks, at vari- 
 
 1 Clinton's first intention was to march to Araboy ; but hearing at Allentowu that Wash- 
 ington was nearing him, and might dispute the passage of the Raritau, lie turned eastward 
 to Sandy Hook, ciu Freehold or Monmouth Clinton's Report. 
 
02 
 
 ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 ous points, upon the retreating columns. Six of the generals, among 
 whom were Greene and Lafayette, proposed more vigorous measures. 
 Washington himself was clearly unwilling to permit the enemy to 
 cross New Jersey without receiving an effective blow. As he ap- 
 proached Clinton, strong, select, and ably-led detachments were sent 
 in advance of the main army. In the van was a corps about five 
 thousand strong, exclusive of Dickinson's militia on the left, and 
 Morgan's riflemen, who were ordered to threaten the enemy's right 
 
 Bah way 
 Quibbletown 
 
 RARITASBAT 'sandy Hook 
 
 S E Y 
 
 NEW 
 
 Princeton 
 
 Long Branch 
 oFreeholft / 
 
 Map of New Jersey. 
 
 flank. The command of this force was given first to Lafayette, but 
 finally to Lee, as he claimed it on the ground of rank. 
 
 A little after noon on the 27th, Inspector-general Steuben recon- 
 noitred the enemy in person, and reported that they lay encamped 
 on the main road by Monmouth Court-house, in a strong position. 
 Washington instructed Lee, in case Clinton resumed his march the 
 next morning, to attack him at once. The distance between the two 
 armies on the night of the 27th was only five miles, the American 
 advance corps being at the little village of Englishtown, west of Mon- 
 

 
 1778.] BATTLE OF MONMOUTH. 603 
 
 mouth. Although requested by the Commander-in-chief to unite 
 upon some plan of action with the generals in his command, Lee 
 failed to name anything definite, preferring, he said, to be governed 
 by circumstances. During the night, several hundred men were 
 moved to points nearer the enemy. 
 
 At five o'clock on the morning of the 28th, word came to head- 
 quarters that the enemy were moving. Knyphausen marched with 
 the baggage train and its strong convoy, while Clinton, with his best 
 troops, followed about eight o'clock. Washington sent word to Lee 
 to hasten in pursuit and bring on an engagement, unless some urgent 
 reason to the contrary existed. The main army, leaving its packs, 
 moved forward to support the advance corps. 
 
 General Dickinson's militia first engaged the enemy, between seven 
 and eight o'clock in the morning, and, supposing himself to ^ uleot 
 have encountered the advance of the returning British, when Monlnouth - 
 in fact it was merely a small flanking party, he sent for aid, while 
 holding his ground, and the British presently fell back. At this time 
 conflicting reports were brought to General Lee, some of the scouts 
 thinking that the enemy were, and others that they were not, return- 
 ing in force. Hence there was much marching and countermarching, 
 and it was not until after nine o'clock that it was certainly known 
 that the British were continuing their march toward Middletown. 
 In this uncertainty, the opportunity for striking the left flank, accord- 
 ing to Washington's plan, was lost. 
 
 The second skirmish took place between Colonel Butler and a small 
 party of the enemy's horse, which was quickly driven through the 
 village, Colonel Butler following with artillery and occupying a slight 
 eminence while the other brigades came up. Here the British light 
 dragoons charged vigorously, but were repulsed by Colonel Butler. 
 
 Up to this point the advantage was on the side of the Americans. 
 The several regiments were well posted, in spite of the absence of 
 any general leadership in the morning's movements, and a determined 
 advance would have taken Knyphausen 's column at great disadvan- 
 tage. At this stage of the conflict, Lee sent orders to Wayne to 
 move to the right, and capture the enemy's rear-guard. The other 
 commanders, who were without orders, understood this movement to 
 be a retreat, as they saw that the enemy was moving and apparently 
 threatening their connection with Wayne. They abandoned their po- 
 sitions, and had fallen back some distance when, too late, orders came 
 from Lee to stand fast. By this time the entire division was in re- 
 treat. By half-past eleven, the British had discovered the confusion 
 attending these various movements, and had turned back in consider- 
 able force. Lee watched the retreat of his detachments across a ra- 
 
604 ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 vine, remained to see the last of his men safely over, and then followed 
 them, to find that Washington had come up with the main army and 
 assumed command in person. 
 
 The change of command was instantly felt among the troops who 
 were retreating, and many of them at once rallied and formed a line. 
 The regiments of Colonels Stewart, of Pennsylvania, and Ramsay, of 
 Maryland, which were nearest at hand, Washington posted on the 
 left of the road, with two guns, saying, " Gentlemen, I depend upon 
 you to hold the ground until I can form the main army." On the 
 right of the road he placed Wayne, Varnum, Oswald, and Living- 
 ston. The other retreating regiments, broken, but by no means 
 panic-stricken, passed through the new line to re-form, many of them, 
 however, voluntarily joining the troops already in position. 
 
 With the last of the retreating force came Lee, and that remark- 
 able interview with Washington followed, in which he showed that 
 " sublime wrath " to which he sometimes gave way, and which was 
 not incompatible with his equally sublime patience and usual self- 
 command. As Lee approached him, he instantly expressed his as- 
 washi ton tonislimeiit at the unaccountable retreat. " I wish to know, 
 rebukes Lee. gj^" ]j e exclaimed, "what is the reason why this dis- 
 order and confusion ? " Overawed by Washington's manner and sting- 
 ing rebuke, Lee could only reply that he saw no other confusion than 
 might naturally arise from disobedience of orders. 1 Washington may 
 have understood, even then, that the confusion was not from diso- 
 bedience of orders, but from the want of them, and that Lee was 
 throwing upon others the responsibility for disaster which was the 
 result of his own incapacity or treachery. The tradition is, that the 
 commanding General was so moved that ordinary language did not 
 suffice to express the depths of his indignation, and that he cursed 
 Lee with emphasis and heartiness. Whether he did or did not some- 
 times lapse, when angry, into a manner of speech more common in 
 that century than in this, is a question that can never be settled now 
 by any positive evidence. He had more than one human weakness, 
 givat and good man as he was, and it is not at all improbable that 
 swearing, under great provocation, was one of them. But when the 
 storm, on this occasion, had blown over, Lee offered to bring the 
 troops into some order in the front, and finally, being greatly fatigued, 
 took command of the various bodies that had made their way to the 
 rear. This was the end of his military career, as he was soon after 
 
 1 This, substantially, is the version of the famous meeting, as Lee gave it himself in his 
 written defence before the court-martial which tried him for disobedience. The proceed- 
 ings of the court, and the testimony of officers, out of which alone can a correct account of 
 the battle be unravelled, have been published in different forms, and most recently in the 
 Lee Papers, published by the New York Historical Society. 
 
1778.] ARRIVAL OF A FRENCH FLEET. 605 
 
 brought to trial before a court-martial, found guilty of disobedience 
 to orders, misbehavior before the enemy, and disrespect to the Com- 
 mander-in-chief, in two letters written after the battle, and sentenced 
 to suspension from command for a year. 
 
 Colonels Ramsay and Stewart soon felt the British advance, and 
 their resistance brought on the general engagement of the day. Both 
 stood firm until compelled to fall back before superior num- 
 bers. Ramsay held his ground desperately, and refused to lumxay-s 
 yield, until he was wounded and taken prisoner. 1 Lafay- 
 ette formed a second line just in time to prevent Clinton with his 
 main body from out-flanking the position on both sides. The sharp- 
 est fighting took place near the road where Washington first checked 
 the retreat. Here Lieutenant-colonel Monckton, of the Royal Gren- 
 adiers, was killed, and his body remained in the hands of the Ameri- 
 cans. Firing continued until five o'clock in the afternoon, when the 
 British, failing to make any impression, fell back. The losses of the 
 two armies were nearly equal. Clinton reported 355, and 
 Washington 362, killed, wounded, and missing; but on the 
 side of the Americans there were many stragglers who had been over- 
 come with the heat, and afterward reported to their respective regi- 
 ments. 
 
 Clinton continued his march to New York without further molesta- 
 tion, Washington following and taking his position at White Plains, 
 to be in readiness for future movements. All eyes were soon directed 
 towards Rhode Island, where, late in July, the Count D'Es- Arriva i f 
 taing arrived with a squadron of twelve ships, carrying four D ' K?taln s 
 thousand French troops. This fleet was intended to relieve Philadel- 
 phia, but did not reach the Delaware till after that city was evacu- 
 ated. There was not depth enough of water, D'Estaing believed, to 
 admit the ships into New York harbor, and he therefore passed on to 
 Newport. At his approach, twenty-one English vessels, large and 
 small, were burned to avoid capture. 
 
 Large hopes and eager curiosity waited upon this appearance of a 
 French fleet with a French army as the first fruit of the new alliance. 
 The disappointment was great that D'Estaing could not find his 
 
 1 " While his men were on the retreat he [Ramsay] was attacked by one of the enemy's 
 dragoons, who charged him very briskly. The Colonel w:is on foot. It was for some time 
 between them a trial of skill and courage. After the horseman fired his pistol, the Colonel 
 closed in, and wounded and dismounted him. Several dragoons now came up to support 
 their comrade ; the Colonel engaged them cominus ease, giving and receiving very serious 
 wounds, till at length, attacked in his rear, and overpowered by numbers, he was made 
 prisoner. General Clinton paid a proper attention to such uncommon prowess, and gen- 
 erously liberated the Colonel the following day on his parol." Revolutionary Letter, Mag. 
 of Am. Hist.. June, 1879. 
 
606 ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. ' [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 way into New York bay, capture or destroy the smaller English fleet 
 there, and blockade Clinton in his principal stronghold. It was 
 thought that something else was wanting besides depth of water on 
 the bar at the mouth of the harbor ; but this was soon forgotten, when 
 the English burnt their vessels at Newport, and the reduction of that 
 place, which General Pigot held with six thousand British and Hes- 
 sians, seemed a certain and speedy event. Sullivan was in command 
 of ten thousand men militia and Continentals in Rhode Island, 
 with Greene and Lafayette as division commanders, Varnum and 
 Glover as brigadier-generals. 1 
 
 The French and American armies were to cooperate in an attack 
 upon Newport, to be made on the 10th of August. Sullivan, to 
 take advantage of the abandonment of the north end of the island 
 by the enemy, moved before the time agreed upon. He neglected 
 to notify D'Estaing of his change of purpose, and out of this misun- 
 DUasterto derstanding came delay which, in the end, defeated the en- 
 hu fleet. terprise. When, on the 9th, the French were ready to co- 
 operate, a fleet of thirty-six vessels, under Lord Howe, from New 
 York, appeared in the oifing. D'Estaing reembarked his men, gath- 
 ered his ships together, and put to sea. A northeast wind gave him 
 the weather-gage of the Englishmen, who declined battle. A furious 
 storm followed, which scattered both fleets. For ten days they were 
 at sea, when Howe returned to New York, and D'Estaing to New- 
 port, his ships so shattered by the storm that he determined to take his 
 fleet to Boston to refit. 
 
 Sullivan had pushed on, notwithstanding the absence of the French 
 troops. He had compelled the enemy to withdraw within their lines 
 of intrenchments stretching from Newport harbor to Eaton's Pond, 
 and covered his own men by earth-works at various points, while 
 waiting for D'Estaing's return. That the fleet needed to refit, there 
 could be no doubt ; the orders of the government were that in such 
 an emergency D'Estaing should go to Boston, and that was the best 
 port for his purpose. The public disappointment, nevertheless, was 
 keen and bitter. It was easy to understand that sails and rigging 
 might need to be replaced ; that hulls and spars must be repaired ; 
 that water-butts should be refilled, and the stock of provisions be 
 replenished. It was not easy to understand why four thousand sol- 
 diers should remain on board to watch the progress of this refitting. 
 There was a prevalent feeling that these troops might have been left 
 on Rhode Island to do a little fighting, and that the ship-car- 
 penters, stevedores, calkers, and riggers in Boston would have done 
 
 1 In Varnum's brigade was a negro regiment, organized with Washington's approval, 
 composed of slaves emancipated on condition of enlisting. 
 
1778.] THE RHODE ISLAND CAMPAIGN. 607 
 
 quite as well without their presence. But D'Estaing gave little heed 
 to such reasoning as this. He seemed to think that his ships and his 
 soldiers were not to be separated ; that together they formed an expe- 
 dition which would be broken up if either acted independently of the 
 other. The Frenchman was very polite but very persistent, and went 
 to Boston ships, sailors, and soldiers. The American general was 
 more frank than polite, when he said in General Orders, that Amer- 
 ica might " be able to procure that by her own arms which her allies 
 refuse to assist in obtaining." The popular feeling was on his side ; 
 Frenchmen were not always safe in the streets of Boston while the 
 ships lay in that harbor, and one officer was killed in a brawl. Con- 
 gress and the Commander-in-chief did all that could be done to 
 soothe the wounded feelings of the French officers, that there should 
 be no disturbance of the cordiality between the two governments. 
 
 Sullivan determined to attack on the 29th. If anything was to be 
 done, it must be done quickly, for the volunteers, doubtful 
 of success without the assistance of the French, were return- Hhode 1*1- 
 
 &ud. 
 
 ing to their homes in large numbers. The roads leading to 
 the town, and the hills near it, known as Quaker, Turkey, and Butt's, 
 were taken possession of by the Americans. The British advanced 
 from their works, and attacked at several points with great vigor, but 
 were repulsed with equal steadiness. The fighting was desperate for 
 several hours, though of Sullivan's five thousand men only fifteen hun- 
 dred had ever before seen the smoke of battle. None behaved better 
 than the raw troops of Greene's colored regiment, who three times re- 
 pulsed the furious charges of veteran Hessians. The Americans were 
 driven, at length, from some of their positions, but their loss in killed, 
 wounded, and missing was only a few more than two hundred, while 
 that of the other side was over a thousand. 1 
 
 A dispatch from Washington the next day warned Sullivan that 
 Pigot was about to be reenforced by Clinton with five thousand men. 
 To risk a battle and attempt to hold the open country against supe- 
 rior numbers, would have been little else than madness. A retreat 
 was begun, and in the course of the night the whole army crossed to 
 the mainland at Tiverton in safety. It was just in time ; the reen- 
 forcements, on board a hundred English vessels, were in Newport 
 harbor the next morning. As Sullivan had escaped, Clinton recon- 
 ciled himself to that disappointment by burning New Bedford and 
 Fairhaven, and all the vessels at their wharves. Howe sailed for 
 Boston, and challenged D'Estaing to battle, who was not yet ready 
 for sea. When his fleet was refitted, he sailed for the West India 
 station, without any further attempt then to aid the Americans. 
 
 1 Arnold's History of Rhode Island. 
 
608 
 
 ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 In other j'.arts of the country there were, in the course of the sum- 
 Tories and iner an ^ autumn, military movements having no immediate 
 Sew connection with those along the coast, but which were nev- 
 ertheless of great interest to those immediately concerned, 
 and sometimes of general importance. Through all the West the 
 Indians were instigated to hostility, in New York by Sir John 
 Johnson and other leading Tories, and in more distant regions by the 
 English governors at Niagara and Detroit. The battle of Oriskany, 
 
 the year before, where more 
 than a hundred warriors had 
 been sped on their way to 
 the happy hunting-grounds, 
 had aroused in several tribes 
 of the Six Nations a thirst 
 for vengeance not easily sat- 
 isfied. Joseph Brant was 
 the most powerful of all 
 their chiefs, and education 
 among the whites, in failing 
 to change his savage nature, 
 had given him the added 
 power of a cultivated mind. 
 His relations to the Johnson 
 family Brant's sister hav- 
 ing been the mother of sev- 
 eral of Sir William John- 
 son's children attached 
 him to the Tory interest, 
 and to that interest, stronger 
 Joseph Brnt. in Central New York than 
 
 in any other part of the country, he was a formidable ally. His 
 name was a terror among the Whig population, for wherever he ap- 
 peared, death and devastation were sure to follow. 
 
 From July to November, from the valley of the Susquehanna north- 
 ward through the country west of Albany, then called Tryon County, 
 a merciless warfare was carried on by the Tories and Indians, in 
 which the Tories were sometimes even more savage than their savage 
 allies. Whole settlements were given to the flumes, and as little 
 mercy was shown to old women, and to infants in the cradle, as to 
 men with arms in their hands. At Wyoming 
 
 " On Susquehanna's sid3 ; fair Wyoming ! " 
 
 on the last days of June, two of the forts were taken, and many of 
 the inhabitants of the valley compelled to fly for refuge to a third, 
 
1778.] TORY AND INDIAN WARFARE IN NEW YORK. 609 
 
 called " Forty Fort." The garrison was under the command of Colo- 
 nel Zebulon Butler, who, overruled by rash counsel, led his men to 
 battle against a superior force of Tories and Indians under Attllckon 
 Colonel John Butler. The result was a disastrous defeat, > min 
 in which only about sixty of the three hundred American soldiers 
 escaped. As the news spread through the valley, those who had not 
 already left their homes fled to the woods and mountains, or sought 
 safety in Fort Wyoming. This, in a day or two, was weakly surren- 
 dered by Colonel Dennison, with a stipulation that the settlers should 
 be permitted to return to their farms and be unmolested. The stipu- 
 lation was disregarded in the destruction of property, and many per- 
 sons were killed, though it is questionable whether a general massacre 
 followed. 1 Nor is it certain that Brant was engaged on this expedi- 
 tion. 
 
 In others, however, he was the chief actor. He had, a few days 
 before, entered the settlement of Springfield, on Otsego Jogeph 
 Lake, and burnt every house excepting one, in which he had Brant 
 placed the women and children in safety. Indian scouts and scnlping- 
 parties roamed through the summer along the banks of the Schoharie. 
 Late in August or early in September, Brant, with a large body of 
 followers, laid waste the settlements on German Flats, in the valley 
 of the Mohawk, leaving for ten miles not a house, a barn, or a stack 
 of grain of the lately gathered harvest, standing, and driving off all 
 the cattle. This act, however, was fully avenged a few days later in 
 the destruction of the Indian towns of Unadilla and Oghkwaga by 
 Colonel William Butler, with a Pennsylvania regiment and a detach- 
 ment of Morgan's riflemen, who had been sent for the protection of 
 the harassed people. 
 
 More pitiful than all was the fate that befell Cherry Valley early 
 in November. Walter N. Butler, a son of the Tory Colonel TheMas . 
 John Butler, who had been a prisoner at Albany, had re- ^^f 
 cently escaped, and, as a signal act of vengeance, he deter- Valle >- 
 mined to destroy a village noted for the refinement and virtue of its 
 inhabitants, as well as for their devotion to the revolutionary cause. 
 Lafayette, when at Albany, the year before, to prepare for that abor- 
 
 1 Stone, in his Life of Brant, denies it. Dr. Thacher, in his Military Journal, gives some 
 stories current at the time, which are almost incredible. See also Moore's Diary of the 
 American Revolution, for contemporary rumors. Weld, in his Travels through the States of 
 North Amtrica during the Years 1795,1796,1797, visited Wyoming then Wilkesharre 
 
 and says: "It was here the dreadful massacre was committed Several of the 
 
 houses in which the unfortunate victims retired to defend themselves, on beiujr refused all 
 quarter, are still standing, perforated in every part with balls ; the remains of others that 
 were set on fire are also to be seen, and the inhabitants will on no account suffer them to 
 be repaired." 
 
 VOL. m. 39 
 
610 ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 tive expedition against Canada which he was to lead, had ordered that 
 a fort be built at Cherry Valley, the command of which was given to 
 Colonel Ichabod Alden, who knew nothing of the Indian ways. He 
 had warning of the approach of Butler and Brant, but took no pre- 
 cautions. He assured the villagers that there was no reason for appre- 
 hension, and they remained in their houses till they were startled by 
 the savage war-cry. Alden himself was outside the fort, and was pur- 
 sued by an Indian as he ran with all his speed to get within the gates. 
 He turned and snapped his pistol, as he ran, again and again at his 
 pursuer, who, before the fort was reached, came near enough to bury 
 his tomahawk in the head of the unfortunate Colonel. Nearly fifty 
 persons were killed in the course of the day, and all but sixteen of 
 these were women and children. There were cases of peculiar atrocity, 
 even for Indian warfare ; the savage Butler or the savage Brant, either 
 by choice or chance, marked the massacre to be remembered by the 
 murder of women venerable in character and years. The fort was 
 not taken, but most of the buildings in the village were burned. 
 The only mercy shown was to release most of the women and chil- 
 dren taken prisoners ; Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Moore, with their chil- 
 dren, being still detained because their husbands were leading Whigs. 
 The motive of Butler's clemency, the motive of the attack on the 
 village, it may be, was the fact that his mother and several of her 
 children were prisoners at Albany, and these taken at Cherry Valley 
 were offered in exchange. 1 
 
 But this Indian warfare was not confined to Central New York, 
 western Though the war so absorbed the resources, the interest, and 
 pioner. ^ e energies of the people between the mountains and the 
 sea, in the western valleys the pioneer of civilization was fighting his 
 way into the wilderness, not much concerned about the higher con- 
 test that was going on behind him. In 1775 Daniel Boone had made 
 his first " blazed trace "in the wilderness west of Virginia, soon to be 
 known as Kentucky ; the territory of the present State of Tennessee 
 was organized in 1776 as the County of Washington in North Caro- 
 lina ; Ohio was known as the District of West Augusta ; in 1777 Ken- 
 tucky had three military stations, Boonesborough, Logan's Fort, and 
 Harrod's Station, on the "dark and bloody ground," the common 
 hunting-fields of the northern and southern Indians ; Boone, Logan, 
 Harrod, Kenton, Patterson, Galloway, Montgomery, and many others, 
 were names known and dreaded by the Indian tribes, as they pen- 
 etrated through all this unbroken wilderness, men who have left 
 behind them memories of mighty hunters and of mighty fighters, 
 whose lives were filled with romantic adventure, with deeds of daring 
 
 1 Stone's Life of Brant. Campbell's Central New York in the Revolution. 
 
1778.] CLARK'S EXPEDITION TO ILLINOIS. 611 
 
 and endurance, which have no parallel in the history of the settlement 
 of any other part of the continent. 
 
 For, it was not merely that these pioneers encountered the jeal- 
 ousy and fears of natives dreading the encroachment of the white 
 men upon their lands. To that natural dread the war lent a new 
 and intense incitement. The commanders of the English posts at 
 the west and northwest were diligent in arousing the hostility of 
 the tribes to the Americans, and many an Indian expedition was in- 
 stigated at Detroit, at Vincennes, and at Kaskaskia, on the river of 
 that name, two miles from the left bank of the Mississippi. Colonel 
 George Rogers Clark, one of the hardy and brave pioneers Clark . gex 
 of Kentucky, determined to strike at the source of this evil, *j. g to 
 and on making known his bold plan to Governor Patrick 
 Henry, received his approbation and aid. To his success it was due, 
 that in the negotiations for peace between the powers in 1782, the 
 Mississippi River, and not the Alleghany range, was made the western 
 boundary of the United States. 
 
 In May, 1778, Clark went down the Ohio with only a hundred and 
 fifty men. At Corn Island, at the Falls of the Ohio, he remained a 
 few days to receive additions to his company, and to build a block- 
 house as a depot of provisions. Here he left five men, who, after he 
 had gone, removed to the mainland, made clearings, and built log 
 cabins where Louisville was to be. At the mouth of the Tennessee 
 Clark left his boats and marched across to the Kaskaskia. On the 
 evening of the 4th of July he crossed that river, and surrounded and 
 took the town, whose inhabitants were not aware of the approach of 
 an enemy. The Governor, Rocheblave, he sent prisoner to Virginia ; 
 the people he pacified by lenient treatment, and exacted from them 
 an oath of allegiance to the United States. Cahokia, farther up the 
 river, was then taken in the same way, and afterward Vincennes on 
 the Wabash. In the autumn the county of Illinois was recognized 
 and a civil commandant appointed. 
 
 Governor Hamilton of Detroit soon recovered Vincennes, where 
 Clark had left only two men in the fort; 1 but late the following 
 winter, Clark marched from Kaskaskia, through a country much of 
 which, at that season, was under water, retook the fort, and sent 
 Hamilton as a prisoner of war to Virginia. This signal success, and 
 the judicious as well as brave conduct of Clark, so influenced the In- 
 dian tribes of the Illinois, that from bitter enemies they became either 
 
 1 Governor Hamilton approached the fort with eight hundred men and demanded a sur- 
 render. Captain Helm with his one soldier refused till he knew the terms. Hamilton, 
 not knowing the weakness of the garrison, conceded the honors of war : the eight hundred 
 men were drawn up to receive with proper ceremony the retiring garrison. 
 
612 
 
 ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 friends of the Americans, or, at worst, neutrals in the war. It was 
 more by skilful management, however, than by any display of ma- 
 terial force which was not at his command that Clark brought 
 about this result. He gave the savages, he says, " harsh language 
 to supply the want of men, well knowing that it was a mistaken no- 
 tion in many that soft speeches was best for Indians ; " he assured 
 them " they would see their great father, as they called him, given to 
 the dogs to eat." l 
 
 Capture of Fort Vincennes by Governor Hamilton. 
 
 
 Operations 
 at the south. 
 
 Towards the close of the year the war was shifted to the South, 
 where the ministry made its final move for the subjection 
 o f fa e rebellious colonies. Lieutenant-colonel Campbell was 
 sent, as the initial step, with two thousand men to reduce Savannah. 
 General Robert Howe, of North Carolina, was in command at that 
 point with from twelve to fifteen hundred men. With a lagoon in 
 front, a morass on his right, the swamps of the river on his left, and 
 the works of the town in his rear, he thought himself safe from as- 
 sault. But Campbell soon discovered that a path through a swamp 
 had been left unguarded, over which, led by a negro, a detachment 
 
 1 A letter of Colonel Clark, iu which he gives a narrative of his expedition to Illinois, 
 and the journal of his second in command, Major Bowman, both documents belonging 
 to the Kentucky Historical Society, were published for the first time a few years since, 
 with notes by Mr. Henry Pirtle of Louisville. 
 
1779.] PARTISAN WARFARE AT THE SOUTH. 613 
 
 gained and turned Howe's right. A simultaneous attack was made 
 in front, and the Americans, taken by surprise, fell back through the 
 town, losing, in a confused retreat, over five hundred men in killed, 
 wounded, and as prisoners, with their baggage and artillery. The 
 loss on the other side was trifling, and Savannah was the prize of their 
 victory. A few days later General Prevost advanced from St. Augus- 
 tine, taking Sunbm-y on his way. By the end of January, Campbell 
 was in possession of Augusta, and the royal rule seemed, for tho 
 moment, once more restored over the whole of Georgia. 
 
 But only seemed. Throughout that State, and in South and Nortli 
 Carolina, there broke out a partisan warfare which had had Partisiin 
 no parallel in any other part of the country. The loyal and warfare - 
 the patriot parties were so nearly equally divided that each was confi- 
 dent of gaining the ascendency, and the bitterness of personal detes- 
 tation intensified to cruelty the evils of ordinary war. A district 
 of country remained loyal or patriot so long as it was occupied by 
 the troops of either one side or the other. Citizens served as militia 
 when organized militia operations promised success ; when success 
 seemed hopeless, or protection was no longer afforded by the presence 
 of regular troops, they fled to the swamps and woods and cai'ried on a 
 murderous and predatory warfare against their neighbors who were 
 on the other side. Soon after Augusta was taken, a Colonel Boyd 
 marched with a body of Tories from the back counties of Carolina to 
 join Campbell. Colonel Andrew Pickens gathered together a band 
 of patriots from the district of Ninety-Six, intercepted and defeated 
 Boyd, took seventy of his men prisoners, tried them for treason, and 
 five were hanged. The next month, in March, Colonel Ashe, with 
 fifteen hundred North Carolina militia, was ordered by General Lin- 
 coln who had taken Howe's place to move down the Savannah 
 toward the enemy, who had left Augusta. At Briar Creek Ashe had 
 a strong position, but, exposing his camp on one flank, he was sur- 
 prised by the enemy, two hundred of his men were either killed or 
 wounded, and his command disappeared like a mob that had been fired 
 upon, almost all of them returning to their homes, a hundred or two 
 only rejoining Lincoln's army. These two instances are fair indica- 
 tions of the nature of the contest at the South. Nowhere else, except 
 to a limited degree in Central New York, was the war so entirely a 
 desperate civil war, where neighbor was arrayed in deadly hatred 
 against neighbor, each holding his life at the price of sleepless vigi- 
 lance, each knowing that the death of the other was his only real se- 
 curity. Little reliance could be placed upon the aid of militia, where 
 at any moment the troops might turn their backs upon the command- 
 ing officer and hasten home to the protection of their own firesides 
 
614 
 
 ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 against personal enemies. This condition of things gave an adven- 
 turous and romantic aspect to the partisan warfare in that region, 
 and rendered all military movements uncertain. 
 
 Through the spring, Lincoln and Prevost moved from point to 
 point in the open country, each striving to out-manoeuvre 
 the other, without any important result. On the llth of 
 May, the English commander was before Charleston, and 
 summoned it to surrender. Some of the civil authorities were quite 
 willing to compound for the safety of the town, by agreeing that 
 
 Movements 
 at the 
 South. 
 
 Charleston in 1780. 
 
 the State should remain neutral ; but neither would Governor Rut- 
 ledge, Moultrie, and other military leaders consent to abide by such 
 an agreement, if made, nor would Prevost accede to it. Lincoln at- 
 tacked the works of the enemy at Stono Ferry, without success and 
 with considerable loss. But Prevost at length fell back upon Savan- 
 nah, and the belligerents, by the middle of summer, were in about the 
 same relative positions as at the beginning of the year. 
 
 Expeditions were sent out in the course of the spring and summer 
 by Clinton, more for the purpose of plunder and of distressing the 
 people, than with any hope of conquest. General Matthews, with 
 twenty-five hundred men, landed in Virginia, destroyed large quan- 
 tities of merchandise at Norfolk and Portsmouth, burned or carried off 
 the tobacco along the shores of Chesapeake Bay, destroyed many 
 
1779.] RAIDS IN CONNECTICUT. 615 
 
 houses and a hundred and fifty merchant vessels, and broke up thou- 
 sands of barrels of pork, pitch, and turpentine, inflicting distress and 
 ruin upon a population hitherto exempt from the evils of war. 
 
 On the 5th of July, General Tryon landed at New Haven with 
 three thousand men, where there was no force to oppose him. f^ idg i n 
 The people, nevertheless, bravely defended their homes. Connectlcut 
 The Yale students formed themselves into a military company under 
 Captain James Hillhouse ; the Reverend Dr. Daggett, President of 
 the College, after sending his daughters to a place of safety, shoul- 
 dered his musket, and with his sons went out to fight the invaders. 
 He was taken prisoner. The townspeople tore up the planks of West 
 Bridge, and with a few field-pieces checked the advance in that direc- 
 tion. They took advantage of every commanding point about the 
 town, of every bit of wood where an ambush could be made to annoy 
 the troops and to impede their progress. But the British and Hes- 
 sian soldiers overran the town ; women were outraged, and men were 
 murdered; houses were ransacked for plate, watches, jewelry, and 
 clothing, and what could not be carried off was recklessly destroyed. 
 It was a scene of robbery and debauchery disgraceful to civilized sol- 
 diers, doubly disgraceful to Tryon and the other officers of his com- 
 mand. It was a mere raid for the purpose of plunder, and the next 
 morning the drunken soldiers were marched, or driven, or carried on 
 board the ships, to sail for Fairfield. This fared even worse than 
 New Haven. It'was first given over to rapine, and then its eighty- 
 five dwelling-houses, two churches, fifty or sixty barns, and a court- 
 house were burned to the ground. Green's Farms and Norwalk were 
 next visited, and the same pitiless destruction inflicted upon both. 
 Houses, churches, barns, and vessels were given to the flames. 
 
 Before these raids, Clinton had made a purely military movement up 
 the Hudson, and captured the half-finished forts at Verplank's Land- 
 ing and Stony Point, then held by small garrisons. Washington 
 inarched at once to cover West Point, making his headquarters at 
 New Windsor, determined to recapture both places. The first at- 
 tempt was upon Stony Point, and was eminently successful. The 
 details were planned by the Commander-in-chief, and their execu- 
 tion intrusted to General Wayne, whose courage and dash especially 
 fitted him for so difficult an enterprise. His attacking column con- 
 sisted of four regiments, under Colonels Febiger of Virginia, Butler 
 of Pennsylvania, and Meigs of Connecticut, and Majors Hill and 
 Murfree of Colonel Putnam's regiment. The attack was to be made 
 at midnight on July 15 ; and at eight o'clock that evening, Wayne, 
 who had made that day with his men a difficult march over the moun- 
 tains from Fort Montgomery, was within a mile and a half of the fort. 
 
616 
 
 ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 After a careful reconnoissance in person, he divided his force into two 
 columns and moved forward. The men were to depend on the bay- 
 onet alone, and an order was issued that the nearest officer should in- 
 stantly cut down any soldier who took his gun from his shoulder before 
 the word was given. That they might distinguish each other in the 
 darkness, a bit of white paper was fastened to their hats, and they 
 were to shout, " The fort 's our own ! " as they entered the works. 
 
 The neck of land leading to the Point was covered by a high tide 
 capture of with two feet of water. The delay in crossing this gave 
 stony Point, tj me to the enemy to discover the movement, and fire was 
 opened upon the advancing columns by the pickets. The whole gar- 
 
 stony Point. 
 
 rison were immediately at their posts. Wayne's men were more than 
 twenty minutes in scrambling up the steep ascent, under heavy but 
 random firing, climbing over, where they could not tear down, the 
 abatis, but not firing a shot. Shouts came says a contemporary 
 account from the fortifications of " Come on, ye damn'd rebels ; 
 come on!" to which the assailants answered, "Don't be in such 
 a hurry, my lads ; we will be with you presently." l Lieutenant- 
 colonel Fleury first scaled the parapet and struck the British colors ; 
 the right column poured in after him ; Wayne was struck down by a 
 ball in the forehead, but soon recovered, and was carried in by his 
 
 1 Moore's Diary of the Revolution. 
 
1779.] NAVAL AFFAIRS. 617 
 
 men. The capture was complete in less than half an hour from the 
 firing of the first shot, with a loss of fifteen killed and eighty-three 
 wounded. Nearly five hundred prisoners, fifteen pieces of cannon, 
 and large quantities of stores and ammunition were the prizes of the 
 victory. 1 
 
 The works at Stony Point were destroyed, and the place aban- 
 doned, to be again occupied soon after by the British. Preparations 
 to attack the fort at Verplank's Point, on the other side of the river, 
 were given up, as Clinton moved to its support. These hostile dem- 
 onstrations, however, and especially so signal an exploit as that of 
 Wayne's, induced Clinton to postpone indefinitely a movement upon 
 Connecticut, to support which he had moved a portion of his troops 
 to Mamaroneck. Of the danger of leaving so active an enemy be- 
 hind him, by undertaking any distant expedition, he received an- 
 other warning the next month by the surprise of the post at pauiugHook 
 Paulus Hook, now Jersey City. Before daylight on the sur P nsed 
 19th of August, Major Henry Lee, with five companies of Southern 
 troopers, carried the place by assault without firing a shot, took 
 a hundred and fifty prisoners, and retired in safety, though hotly pur- 
 sued by reinforcements from New York. 
 
 In a naval expedition sent out by Clinton in August, the success 
 was altogether on the side of the English. Massachusetts 
 sent a militia general, Lovell, with a thousand men, to re- 
 duce a British post within her territory on the Penobscot. 
 With Lovell went three ships of the Continental navy, three of the 
 Massachusetts navy, with thirteen privateers, altogether carrying 
 three hundred guns, under the command of Commodore Saltonstall. 
 The fort was too strong, or the investment was mismanaged, and re- 
 enforcements were sent for. But the delay gave time for aid to be 
 sent to the besieged. Admiral Collier arrived in the bay with five 
 ships, which Saltonstall saw fit to run away from instead of fighting. 
 Several of his vessels fell into the hands of the enemy, but the rest 
 he burned. The troops made their way back to Massachusetts as 
 best they could through the wilderness, and for a while no question 
 was so warmly discussed in that State as which of the leaders, Lovell 
 
 1 Wayne wrote at 2 A. M. that morning to Washington : " The fort and garrison, with 
 Colonel Johnston, are ours. Our officers and men behaved like men who are determined 
 to be free " The same day Colonel Febiger wrote to his wife : 
 
 "Mv DEAR GIRL : I have just borrowed pen, ink, and paper to inform you that yester- 
 day we marched from Fort Montgomery, and at 12 o'clock last night we stormed this con- 
 founded place, and, with the loss of about fourteen killed and forty or fifty wounded, we 
 carried it. I can give you no particulars as yet. A musqnet-ball scraped my nose. No 
 other damage to ' Old Denmark.' God bless you. Farewell. FEBIGER.'' 
 
 [From original MS. in possession of Col. Geo. L. Febiger, U. S. A., New York city.] 
 
018 ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE.' [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 or Saltonstall, was the more responsible for the disaster, and had 
 more completely covered himself with disgrace. 
 
 Within one day of this disaster, John Paul Jones sailed from the 
 coast of France. A month later he fought a battle without parallel 
 in naval history, and, in its consequences, more important than any 
 other event of the year. Hitherto the contest upon the sea had been 
 mainly a predatory warfare of privateers, aimed at the destruction of 
 commerce and the plunder of merchant vessels. The young republic 
 was without a navy proper. " To talk of coping suddenly with G. 
 B. at sea, would be Quixotic indeed," wrote John Adams in 1775. 
 " The only question with me is, can we defend our rivers and har- 
 bors?" But to the work of forming a navy Congress early ad- 
 dressed itself, and no one more earnestly than John Adams himself. 
 
 Five frigates and a number of smaller vessels were built or bought, 
 Naval in the course of four years, by Congress, but two of the 
 
 affaire. frigates never were sent to sea, being burned in port to save 
 them from the enemy ; each province had a squadron of small ves- 
 sels, and, though they could none of them cope with the heavier 
 British ships, they were always ready to meet those of their own 
 weight of metal. The foreign commerce of the country was destroyed 
 by the war, and capital and men sought remuneration for its loss in 
 privateering. How successful they were in helping, in this way, both 
 themselves and their country, is shown by the commercial reports. 
 Thus, two hundred and fifty British vessels in the West India trade, 
 with cargoes of the aggregate value of ten million dollars, were cap- 
 tured by the American cruisers before the 1st of February, 1777. In 
 the course of that year the number taken was four hundred and sixty- 
 seven ; of the two hundred engaged in the African trade, only forty 
 escaped ; thirty-five only were left of the fleet of sixty vessels that 
 traded directly between Ireland and the West. Indies ; and in Mar- 
 tinique, where many prizes were carried, the market was so over- 
 stocked that silk stockings could be bought for a dollar a pair, and 
 Irish linen at two dollars the piece. 
 
 Paul Jones was one of the most daring of these cruisers. He had 
 made many prizes in British waters, and his name was a 
 terror all along the coast. Among the earliest recollections 
 Richard. o f gj r \v a i(- er Scott was the excitement aroused by the en- 
 trance of Jones by night into the harbor of Whitehaven, seizing the 
 sentinels and spiking the guns of the fort, burning some of the ship- 
 ping, while a fleet of more than two hundred colliers escaped destruc- 
 tion only by chance. To the "pirate Jones" as the English called 
 him for retaliating, in a mild way, on the coast of England, the atroci- 
 1 Letter to James Warren, iu Warren manuscripts. 
 
FIGHT OF THE BON HOMME RICHAUU AM) THE SERAPIS. 
 
1779.] 
 
 JOHN PAUL JONES. 
 
 619 
 
 ties committed on the coast of America the King of France gave 
 an old Indiaman, to be fitted out as a man-of-war. In compliment 
 to Dr. Franklin's " Poor Richard," Jones called her the Bon Humme 
 Richard, and in her put to sea on the 14th of August. 
 
 After a cruise of more than a month along the west coast of Ire- 
 land and the north of Scotland, on the 22d of September, the Richard, 
 with two consorts, the Alliance and Pallas, came in sight of a fleet of 
 merchantmen under convoy of the frigate Serapis, of fifty guns, and 
 the Countess of Scarborough, of 
 twenty -two, off Flam borough 
 Head, on the coast of Yorkshire. 
 Jones gave signal for pursuit, 
 though his own men were di- 
 minished by drafts to man prizes, 
 and his prisoners on board were 
 two thirds as numerous as his 
 crew. Landais, the commander 
 of the Alliance, who through- 
 out the cruise had been insub- 
 ordinate and regardless of the 
 Commodore's orders, intimated 
 that their duty was to escape. 
 Speaking the Pallas, he told 
 her commander that if the Eng- 
 lish vessel were a fifty-gun ship 
 they had nothing else to do. 
 The Serapis was a new frigate, 
 built that spring. She was 
 rated at forty-four guns, but carried fifty. She had twenty guns on 
 each of her decks, main and upper, and ten lighter ones on her quarter 
 deck and forecastle. The Richard had six ports on each side of her 
 lower deck, but only six guns there, which were intended to be used 
 all on the same side. On her proper gun-deck, above these, she had 
 fourteen guns on each side twelves and nines. She had a high 
 quarter and forecastle, with eight guns on these. She was of the old- 
 fashioned build, with a high poop, and was thus much higher than the 
 Serapis, so that her lower deck was but little lower than her antag- 
 onist's .main deck. 
 
 It was an hour past sunset, under a full moon, when the Richard 
 came within hail of the Serapis. Captain Pearson spoke Fightwith 
 her twice. Jones did not answer, but opened fire, to which the Sera P u - 
 the Serapis instantly replied. At the first fire of the Richard, two 
 of the heavy guns on her lower deck burst. The men on this deck 
 
 John Paui Jones. 
 
620 ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. ' [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 who were not killed by the explosion went up to the main deck, and 
 the guns on the lower deck were not fought afterward. 
 
 After his first broadside, Jones caught the wind again, and closed 
 with the Serapis, striking her on the quarter just after her second 
 broadside. He grappled their vessel, but, as he could not bring a 
 gun to bear, he let them fall off. Captain Pearson asked if he had 
 struck. Jones answered, " I have not begun to fight ! " The Eng- 
 lish sails filled, Jones backed his top-sails, and the Serapis wore short 
 round. As she swung, her jib-boom ran into the mizzen-rigging of 
 the Richard. It is said that Jones himself then fastened the boom 
 to his mast. Somebody did, and it did not hold, but one of her 
 anchors caught his quarter ; and so they fought, fastened together, 
 each ship using its starboard batteries. 
 
 On board the Serapis, the ports were not open on the starboard 
 side, because she had been firing on the other. As they ran across 
 and loosened those guns, the men amidships found they could not 
 open their ports, the Richard was so close. They therefore fired 
 their first shots through their own port-lids, and blew them off. 
 
 The fire from the eighteen-pounders on the main deck of the Sera- 
 pis, though it was probably that which sank the Richard the next 
 day, passed for nothing so far as immediate execution went, for there 
 was no one on the lower deck of the Richard, and her main deck 
 was too high to be in danger. The main deck was a match for the 
 upper deck of the Serapis, and her upper guns did execution, while 
 those of the Serapis had too little elevation. On the quarter deck, 
 Jones had dragged across a piece from the larboard battery, so that 
 he had three nine-pounders almost raking the Serapis. There was 
 very little musket-practice in the smoke and darkness. 
 
 Thus the firing went on for two hours, neither side trying to board, 
 till an incident occurred to which both Jones and Pearson ascribed 
 the final capture of the Serapis. The men in the Richard's tops 
 were throwing hand-grenades upon the decks of the Serapis, and 
 one sailor worked himself out to the end of the main-yard, carrying 
 a bucket filled with these missiles, lighted them one by one, and 
 threw them down her main hatchway. Here, in the centre of the 
 deck, stretching the whole length of the ship, was a row of eighteen- 
 pounder cartridges, which the powder-boys had left there when they 
 went for more. One of the grenades lighted the row, and the flash 
 passed fore and aft through the ship. Some twenty of the men amid- 
 ships were blown to pieces. There were other men who were stripped 
 naked, leaving nothing but the collars of their shirts and their wrist- 
 bands. Farther aft there was not so much powder, perhaps, but the 
 men were scorched and burned more than they were wounded. 
 
1779.] CAPTURE OF THE SERAPIS. 621 
 
 Soon after this an attempt was made to board the Richard. About 
 ten o'clock, an English officer, a prisoner on board the Richard, 
 scrambled through one of the ports of the Serapis. He told Captain 
 Pearson that the Richard was sinking ; that they had had to release 
 all her prisoners from the hold and spar-deck, himself among them, 
 because the water came in so fast ; and that if the English could hold 
 on a few minutes more the ship was theirs, all of which was true 
 excepting this last. 
 
 On this news, Pearson hailed Jones again, to ask if he had struck. 
 He received no answer, for Jones was at the other end of his ship, on 
 his quarter, directing the fire of his three nine-pounders. Pearson 
 then called for boarders ; they formed hastily, and dashed on board 
 the Richard. But she had not struck, though some of her men had 
 called for quarter. Her crew were ready under cover. Jones himself 
 seized a pike and headed them, and the English fell back again. 
 
 This was their last effort. About half-past ten Pearson struck. 
 His ship had been on fire a dozen times, and the explo- surrender of 
 sion had wholly disabled his main battery, which had been the *"*"* 
 his chief strength. But so uncertain and confused was it all, that 
 when the cry was heard, "They've struck!" many in the Serapis 
 took it for granted that they had taken the Richard. In fact, 
 Pearson had struck the flag with his own hands, as the men, half of 
 whom were disabled, would not expose themselves to the fire from 
 the Richard's tops. For his victory Jones was largely indebted to 
 the ability of his subordinate officers, especially Lieutenant Richard 
 Dale, who was severely wounded, but kept his post to the last, and 
 at one time was left entirely alone at the guns below. 
 
 When Pearson delivered his sword to Jones, he is reported to have 
 said, " I cannot, sir, but feel much mortification at the idea of surren- 
 dering my sword to a man who has fought me with a rope round his 
 neck." To which Jones, returning the sword, replied, " You have 
 fought gallantly, sir, and I hope your king will give you a better 
 ship." Afterward, when Jones heard that Pearson had been knighted 
 for his gallant though unsuccessful action, he remarked, " He deserved 
 it! and if I fall in with him again, I will make a lord of him." 
 
 The morning after the battle, the Richard was found to be in a 
 horrible condition. She was still on fire, and wherever her antag- 
 onist's main battery could reach she had been torn to pieces. There 
 was a complete breach from the main-mast to the stern. For the 
 Serapis, the jib-boom had been wrenched off, at the beginning, the 
 main-mast and mizzen-top fell as they struck, and at daybreak the 
 wreck was not cleared away. First, all the wounded were removed 
 to the Serapis, then all the crew, and at ten the Richard went to 
 the bottom. 
 
6-22 
 
 ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 While this desperate fight was in progress, the Pallas had engaged 
 and taken the Countess of Scarborough. Landiiis in the Alliance had 
 occupied himself between both vessels. Once and again her shot 
 
 wounded men on board the 
 Richard, so that some of her 
 people supposed the Alliance 
 was in English hands. It was 
 even charged that she had de- 
 liberately poured more than one 
 broadside into the Richard. 
 Jones took his prize into Hol- 
 land, when the Serapis and 
 Scarborough were transferred to 
 the French government. In or- 
 der to relieve the Dutch from 
 diplomatic difficulties, Jones 
 took command of the Alliance, 
 and went to sea. Landais sub- 
 sequently sailed in the Alliance 
 for America, but on his return 
 was deposed from his command 
 for insanity, and afterward was 
 expelled from the navy. Jones 
 also returned to America in the 
 Ariel; and, after an absence 
 of three years, reached Phila- 
 delphia on the 18th of February, 
 1781. Congress had given him 
 a vote of thanks, and the King 
 of France had presented him 
 with a sword. 
 
 The effect produced by 
 Jones's exploits may be judged 
 from the statistics of trade. 
 
 The number of vessels that left Newcastle for foreign trade that 
 
 year was little more than half the number in 1777. The coasting 
 
 trade diminished almost as much. To defend the coast, 
 
 Popular in- . 
 
 donation in volunteer bodies were organized m every district. The 
 
 England. IT . i 
 
 popular discontent with naval management had shown 
 itself in the spring, in the strong vote for Mr. Fox's motion, con- 
 demning the government for sending out Admiral Keppel with an 
 insufficient fleet. Keppel himself had given most damaging testi- 
 mony as to the inefficiency of the arrangements of the Admiralty. 
 
 John Paul Jones's Medal. 
 
1781.] THE FLEET OF PRIVATEERS. 623 
 
 Fox's motion was defeated in a full house by a majority of only thirty- 
 four, a majority secured by Lord North's assuming the responsi- 
 bility, which, in those days, might have been left for the Admiralty 
 alone to bear. 
 
 The action between the Serapis and the Richard was the last im- 
 portant action between English and American ships in the war. The 
 French fleet was relieving the American Government from the ex- 
 pensive necessity of meeting at sea 1 the greatest naval power in the 
 world. And the various reverses of five years of hard fighting had 
 reduced the American fleet to a very small establishment. Early 
 in 1780, the Providence, the Queen of France, the Boston, and the 
 Ranger fell into the hands of the English at the capture of Charles- 
 ton. But few frigates now remained to the United States. Massa- 
 chusetts still had the Protector and the Defence, besides merchant 
 vessels employed as has been described. The fleet of privateers 
 was perhaps larger than ever. What their number was, it is now 
 impossible to say. But the Admiralty Court of the Essex district 
 in Massachusetts the largest of the three Admiralty districts 
 had condemned eight hundred and eighteen prizes in 1780. In the 
 single month of May, 1779, eighteen prizes were brought into New 
 London. In 1781, the privateer fleet of the port of Salem alone 
 was twenty-six ships, twelve of which carried twenty The prjv;i . 
 guns or more, sixteen brigs, and seventeen smaller ves- teerfleet 
 sels. Here was a fleet of fifty-nine vessels, which carried nearly 
 four thousand men, and mounted seven hundred and forty-six guns. 
 It is true that the guns were light. But so were those of the enemies 
 with whom they had to contend. So small was the public force of 
 the Americans after so severe losses, that for the remainder of the 
 war most of the naval actions were those of these privateers. 
 1 The English estimates for 1779 provided for 87,000 seamen and marines. 
 

TABLE OF DATES. 
 
 1659. Settlement of Nantucket. 
 1678. Jeffries, Governor of Virginia. 
 1680. Culpepper, Governor of Virginia. 
 
 Brockholst, Lieutenant-governor of New York. 
 
 1683. Dongan, Governor of New York. 
 
 First popular Assembly in New York. 
 
 1684. Effingham, Governor of Virginia. 
 
 1688. Boundary Line between New York and Connecticut fixed. 
 
 1689. AVilliam and Mary proclaimed. 
 Nicholson, Lieutenant-governor of New York. 
 Leisler Revolution. 
 
 Revolution in Maryland. 
 
 War with the French and Indians. 
 
 1690. Destruction of Schenectady. 
 First Newspaper in Boston. 
 Nicholson, Lieutenant-governor of Virginia. 
 Copley, Governor of Maryland. 
 
 Church of England established in Maryland. 
 
 1691. Sloughter, Governor of New York. 
 Execution of Leisler. 
 
 1692. Nicholson, Governor of Maryland. 
 Andros, Governor of Virginia. 
 William and Mary College chartered. 
 Fletcher, Governor of New York. 
 
 1693. Expedition against the French under Schuyler. 
 1696. Kidd sails from New York. 
 
 1698. Bellomont, Governor of New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. 
 
 1699. Penn returns to Pennsylvania. 
 Dudley, Governor of Massachusetts. 
 
 1701. Kidd hanged. 
 
 Andrew Hamilton, Governor of Pennsylvania. 
 
 1 702. Cornbury, Governor of New York and New Jersey. 
 Nathaniel Johnson, Governor of South Carolina. 
 Government of New Jersey surrendered to the Crown. 
 
 1 703. Boundary Line between Connecticut and Rhode Island fixed. 
 John Evans, Governor of Pennsylvania. 
 
 1704. Indian War in New England. 
 VOL. in. 40 
 
626 TAI5LE OF DATES. 
 
 1706. French invade South Carolina. 
 
 1708. Lovelace, Governor of New York. 
 
 1709. Gookin, Governor of Pennsylvania. 
 
 1710. Port Royal taken. 
 Revolution in North Carolina. 
 Hunter, Governor of New York. 
 Spotswood, Governor of Virginia. 
 
 1711. Indian War in North Carolina. 
 Expedition against Canada. 
 
 1713. Five Nations become Six by the addition of the Tuscarora Tribe. 
 Eden, Governor of North Carolina. 
 
 1714. Proprietary Government restored in Maryland. 
 
 1715. Indian War in South Carolina. 
 
 1717. Proposed Settlement of the " Margravate of Azilia" in Georgia. 
 Robert Johnson, Governor of South Carolina. 
 
 Keith, Governor of Pennsylvania. 
 
 1718. William Penn died. 
 
 Suppression of Piracy on the Carolina Coast. 
 Scotch Presbyterians settled in New Hampshire. 
 
 1719. Revolution in South Carolina. 
 
 1 720. Burnet, Governor of New York. 
 Nicholson, Governor of South Carolina. 
 
 1 722. Third Indian Wai in New England. 
 
 Benning Wentwortli, Governor of New Hampshire. 
 
 Drysdale, Governor of Virginia. 
 1725. Gordon, Governor of Pennsylvania. 
 
 1728. Gooch, Governor of Virginia. 
 Montgomerie, Governor of New York. 
 
 1729. The Carolinaa purchased of the Proprietaries by the Crown 
 Baltimore laid out. 
 
 1730. Belcher, Governor of Massachusetts. 
 
 1732. Charter of Georgia granted. 
 Cosby, Governor of New York. 
 Trial of Zenger for libel. 
 
 Spencer Phips, Lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts. 
 
 1 733. Oglethorpe's Colony settles in Georgia. 
 
 1734. Salzburgers settle in Georgia, 
 
 Gabriel Johnston, Governor of South Carolina. 
 1 736. First Printing-press established in Virginia. 
 
 Clarke. Lieutenant-governor of New York. 
 1 73<> Robert Johnson, reappointed Governor of South Carolina. 
 
 1740. George Whitefield's first visit to New England. 
 
 1741. Negro Plot in New York. 
 Shirley, Governor of Massachusetts. 
 
 1 743. Lewis Morris, Governor of New Jersey. 
 Clinton, Governor of New York. 
 
 1 744. War between England and France. 
 
 1 745. Capture of Louisburg. 
 
 1747. Belcher, Governor of New Jersey. 
 
 1748. Ohio Company formed. Louisburg restored to France. 
 
 1749. Settlement of Halifax, N. S. 
 
TABLE OF DATES. 627 
 
 1752. Dinwiddie, Governor of Virginia. 
 
 1 753. DeLancey, Governor of New York. 
 
 1 754. Colonial Congress at Albany, and Proposed Union. 
 
 1755. Braddock's Defeat. 
 Battle of Lake George. 
 Banishment of the Acadians. 
 
 1 756. Fort Oswex> surrendered to the French. 
 
 O 
 
 1757. Massacre of Fort William Henry. 
 Pownall, Governor of Massachusetts. 
 
 1 758. Defeat of Abercrombie at Fort Ticonderoga. 
 Fort Ticonderoga taken by Amherst. 
 Recapture of Louisburg. 
 
 Capture of Fort Niagara by the English. 
 
 1759. Wolfe captures Quebec. 
 
 1 760. Bernard, Governor of Massachusetts. 
 
 1761. Attempt to enforce Writs of Assistance in Massachusetts. 
 Golden, Lieutenant-governor of New York. 
 
 1763. Pontiac's War. 
 
 1764. Passage of the Stamp Act. 
 
 1 765. Meeting of First Continental Congress. 
 
 1766. Repeal of the Stamp Act 
 1768. British Troops quartered in Boston. 
 
 1770. Boston Massacre. 
 
 British Troops re-moved from Boston. 
 
 1771. Hutchinson, Governor of Massachusetts. 
 
 1773. Tax on Tea exported to the Colonies by the East India Company. 
 Destruction of Tea in Boston and elsewhere. 
 
 1774. Boston Port Bill passed. 
 
 Gage, Governor of Massachusetts. 
 
 1775. February 26, Troops sent to Salem, Mass., to seize Cannon. 
 April 19, Fight at Lexington and Concord. 
 
 May 10, Capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point. 
 
 June 15, Washington appointed Commander-in-chief. June 17, Battle of 
 
 Bunker Hill. Siege of Boston begins. 
 October 1 7, Burning of Falmouth. 
 
 November 13, Montreal taken by Montgomery. Arnold's March to Quebec. 
 December 30, Death of Montgomery. Daniel Boone settles in Kentucky. 
 
 1776. Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Caro- 
 
 lina, adopt Constitutions. 
 
 County of Washington, N. C. (Tennessee), organized. 
 
 January 2, Union Flag raised at Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 February 27, Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge. 
 
 June, Arrival of British Fleet in New York Bay. June 28, Attack on Fort 
 Sullivan, Charleston, S. C. 
 
 July 2, Declaration of Independence by Congress. 
 
 August 27, Battle of Long Island. 
 
 September 15, Americans abandon New York. September 16, Battle of Har- 
 lem Plains. September 21, Burning of New York. 
 
 October 28, Battle of White Plains. 
 
 November 16, Surrender of Fort AVashington. 
 
 December 13, Capture of General Lee. December 26, Battle of Trenton. 
 
628 TABLE OF DATES. 
 
 1777. New York, South Carolina, and Georgia adopt Constitutions. 
 January 3, Battle of Princeton. 
 April 26, Tryon's Attack on Danhury, Conn. 
 May 21, Meigs's Attack on Sag Harbor. 
 June 14, Flag of Stars and Stripes adopted by Congress. 
 July 6, Burgoyne captures Ticonderoga. July 23, Howe's Army sails from 
 
 New York for Chesapeake Bay. 
 
 Auyust 6, Battle of Oriskany. Auyust 1C, Battle of Bennington. 
 September 10, Battle of Brandywine. September 19, " Paoli Massacre." 
 
 First Battle of Still water. 
 October 4, Battle of Germantown. October 6. Forts Clinton and Montgomery 
 
 taken by the British. October 1, Second Battle of Stillwater. October 
 
 17, Surrender of Burgoyne. Howe occupies Philadelphia. 
 
 1778. Con way Cabal. 
 
 Commissioners sent to Congress by Lord North with Proposals for 
 
 Peace. 
 
 Alliance with France. 
 May, Clark's expedition to Illinois. 
 June, Attack on Wyoming. June 18, British leave Philadelphia. June 28, 
 
 Battle of Monmouth. 
 July, Trial of General Lee by Court-martial. Arrival of French Fleet under 
 
 D'Estaing. July 29, Battle of Rhode Island. 
 November, Attack on Cherry Valley. 
 December 29, Savannah taken by the British. 
 
 1779. May 11, Charleston, S. C., threatened by the British. 
 
 July 5, Try on attacks New Haven and other towns. July 15, Capture of 
 
 Stony Point. 
 
 August 19, Assault on Paulus Hook. 
 September 22, Fight between the Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis. 
 
1 '/ 
 
L I B RAR.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 Miss Ethel Ricker 
 
 from the 
 
 Library of her Father 
 Nathan Clifford Ricker 
 Head of the Department of 
 Architecture, 1873-1911 
 
 973 
 B84 P 
 
 1896* 
 v.4 
 
Return this book on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. 
 
 University of Illinois Library 
 
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 L161 1141 
 
SCRIBNER'S 
 
 POPULAR HISTORY OF 
 THE UNITED STATES 
 
SCRIBNER'S 
 
 POPULAR HISTORY OF 
 THE UNITED STATES 
 
 FROM THE EARLIEST DISCOVERIES OF THE WESTERN 
 HEMISPHERE BY THE NORTHMEN TO THE PRESENT TIME 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 
 
 SIDNEY HOWARD GAY 
 
 NOAH BROOKS 
 
 WITH MORE THAN SIXTEEN HUNDRED 
 ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS 
 
 VOLUME IV 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1896 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1880, 1881, t8g6, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 RIGHT Of TRANSLATION RESERVED 
 
 Press of J. J. Little & Co. 
 Astor Place, New York 
 
fc-ff 
 
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SULLIVAN'S EXPEDITION. FALL OF CHARLESTON. ARNOLD'S 
 
 TREASON. 
 
 PAG* 
 
 WASHINGTON'S OPPOSITION TO THE INVASION OF CANADA. SULLIVAN'S EXPE- 
 DITION IN CENTRAL NEW YORK. THE BATTLE OF NEWTOWN. INDIAN 
 SETTLEMENTS LAID WASTE. BRODHEAD'S EXPEDITION. BRANT'S REVENGE. 
 
 SPAIN DECLARES WAR AGAINST ENGLAND. OPERATIONS IN THE SOUTH- 
 WEST. CONDITION OF THE AMERICAN AND BRITISH FORCES. ATTACK ON 
 SAVANNAH. SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF CHARLESTON. A SEVERE WINTER. 
 RAIDS IN NEW JERSEY. SPRINGFIELD BURNED. ARRIVAL OF ROCHAMBEAU. 
 
 ARNOLD'S TREASON. CORRESPONDENCE WITH ANDRE. IMPORTANCE OF 
 WEST POINT. THE CONFERENCE BETWEEN ARNOLD AND ANDRE. ANDRE'S 
 CAPTURE AND ARNOLD'S ESCAPE. ANALYSIS OF THE AFFAIR 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SOUTHERN CAMPAIGN. 
 
 THE EFFECTS OF ARNOLD'S TREASON. BUFORD DEFEATED ON THE WAXHAW. 
 
 CORNWALLIS MISCALCULATES HIS TASK. ACTIONS AT ROCKY MOUNT AND 
 HANGING ROCK. PARTISAN WARFARE. GATES ASSUMES COMMAND IN THE 
 SOUTH. THE MILITARY SITUATION. BATTLE OF CAMDEN. SKIRMISHES. 
 BATTLE OF KING'S MOUNTAIN. GREENE SUPERSEDES GATES. His PLAN. OF 
 CAMPAIGN. BATTLE OF COWPENS. CONDITION OF GREENE'S ARMY. His 
 RETREAT. RECEIVES REINFORCEMENTS. BATTLE OF GUILFORD COURT- 
 HOUSE. CORNWALLIS RETREATS TO WILMINGTON 30 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 END OF MILITARY OPERATIONS. 
 
 ARNOLD'S EXPEDITION TO VIRGINIA. MUTINY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA LINE. 
 ITS CAUSE. LAFAYETTE SENT SOUTHWARD. CORNWALLIS'S PLANS. DISAP- 
 PROVED OF BY CLINTON. LAFAYETTE ADVANCES FROM MARYLAND. JOINED 
 BY WAYNE AND STEUBEN. His CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. CORNWALLIS AT 
 WILLIAMSBURG. FIGHT AT JAMES ISLAND. GREENE'S CAMPAIGN IN SOUTH 
 CAROLINA. BATTLE OF HOBKIRK'S HILL. RAWDON ABANDONS CAMDEN. 
 FORTS MOTTE AND GRANBY, ORANGEBURG AND AUGUSTA, TAKEN BY GREENE. 
 
 SIEGE OF NINETY-SIX. ABANDONED BY THE BRITISH. HANGING OF COLO- 
 NEL II AVNE. BATTLE OF EUTAW SPRINGS. GREENE'S GENERALSHIP. MOVE- 
 
 VOI.. IV. 
 
. 
 
 VI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 MI: NT OF THE ALLIED ARMIES. OPERATIONS AOAIKST NEW YORK ISLAND. 
 THEY MARCH SOUTHWARD. ARNOLD'S EXPEDITION TO NEW LONDON. AR- 
 RIVAL OF ENGLISH AND FRENCH FLEETS FROM THE WEST INDIES. ALLIED 
 ARMIES IN VIRGINIA. CORNWALLIS BESIEGED AT YOHKTOWN. His SDH- 
 RENDER 49 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FIRST YEARS OF PEACE. 
 
 EFFECT OF THE SURRENDER. ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF INDEPENDENCE. A 
 TREATY OF PEACE NEGOTIATED AND SIGNED. THE VERMONT QUESTION. 
 ITS FINAL SETTLEMENT. CONDITION AND TEMPER OF THE ARMY. THE 
 NEWBDRGH ADDRESSES. CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES. EVACUATION OF NEW 
 YORK. WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL. INDEPENDENCE ACKNOWLEDGED. RE- 
 LATIONS OF THE FEDERAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS. NECESSITY FOR UNION. 
 
 COMMERCIAL POLICY. THE ARMY. THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. THE 
 ORDINANCE OF 1787. THE QUESTION OF REVENUE. SHAYS'S REBELLION . 75 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION. INAUGURATION OF WASHINGTON. MANNERS 
 OF THE TIMES. ADJUSTMENT OF PUBLIC DEBTS. GROWTH OF POLITICAL 
 PARTIES. THE NATIONAL BANK. PROTECTIVE TARIFF. CULTIVATION OF 
 COTTON. CONSTITUTIONAL COMPROMISE WITH SLAVERY. GENERAL EDUCA- 
 TION. WESTWARD EMIGRATION. DEFEAT OF HARMAR AND ST. CLAIR. 
 WAYNE'S CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE INDIANS. THE WHISKEY INSURRECTION. 
 
 FRIES'S INSURRECTION. HAMILTON AND JEFFERSON. FRENCH INFLUENCE. 
 
 GENET. JAY'S TREATY. POPULAR DISSATISFACTION WITH IT 100 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ADMINISTRATIONS OF ADAMS AND JEFFEBSON. 
 
 THIRD ELECTION OF PRESIDENT. NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN JEALOUSY. THE 
 CHIEF OF ONE PARTY THE SUCCESSOR TO THE CHIEF OF THE OTHER. SEN- 
 SITIVENESS OF PUBLIC MEN AND VIRULENCE OF THE PRESS. ALIKN AND 
 SEDITION LAWS. THE CARRYING TRADE OF THE WORLD. FRANCE AND 
 AMERICA. ENGLAND AND AMERICA. THE CONDESCENSION OF FOREIGNERS. 
 
 ENVOYS TO FRANCE. THE X. Y. Z. CORRESPONDENCE. NAPOLEON'S AC- 
 CESSION TO POWER. YELLOW FEVER IN AMERICA. WASHINGTON'S DEATH. 
 
 THREATENING OF WAR WITH FRANCE. PREPARATIONS AGAINST SPAIN. 
 NAVIGATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI. WILKINSON'S CORRUPT INTRIGUES. SPAIN'S 
 DREAD OF THE UNITED STATES. HAMILTON AND MIRANDA. FOURTH ELEC- 
 TION OF PRESIDENT. THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA. AARON BURR'S EXPE- 
 DITION. His TRIAL FOR TREASON 127 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 JEFFERSON AND MADISON. 
 
 THE BARBARY STATES. WAR WITH TRIPOLI. THE IMPORTANCE OF LOUISI- 
 ANA. INCREASE OF POPULATION AND WEALTH. JEFFERSON'S CREED AND 
 

 CONTENTS. vii 
 
 HIS POLICY. SETTLEMENT OF THE WEST. LEWIS AND CLARKE'S EXPEDI- 
 TION. FOBEIGN COMMERCE AND ITS DIFFICULTIES. THE BERLIN AND MILAN 
 DECREES, AND THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL. CONDITION OF THE NAVY. THE 
 AFFAIR OF THE "CHESAPEAKE." THE EMBARGO. MADISON'S ACCESSION. 
 THE "PRESIDENT" AND THE "LITTLE BELT." BATTLE OF TIPPECANOE. 
 CLAY AND CALHOUN. PREPARATIONS FOR WAR, AND ITS DECLARATION . . 154 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 MESSAGE AND REPORT ON WAR WITH ENGLAND. DIVISION OF PARTIES ON THE 
 WAR. RIOT IN BALTIMORE. HULL'S SURRENDER OF THE NORTHWEST. 
 FIRST CAMPAIGN ON THE NIAGARA. NAVAL BATTLES OF THE FIRST YEAR. 
 WAR ON THE LAKES. DESTRUCTION OF YORK. PERRY'S VICTORY. HARRI- 
 SON'S INVASION OF CANADA. TERRITORY OF MICHIGAN RECOVERED. WIL- 
 KINSON'S DISASTERS ON THE ST. LAWRENCE. SECOND CAMPAIGN ON THE NIAG- 
 ARA. INDIAN WAR IN THE SOUTH, JACKSON'S CAMPAIGN. NAVAL BATTLES 
 OF THE SECOND YEAR 185 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 V 
 
 NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. JACKSON'S MOVEMENTS AT THE SOUTH. THIRD 
 CAMPAIGN ON THE NIAGARA. BATTLE OF LUNDY'S LANE. BATTLE OF PLATTS- 
 BURG. CAPTURE OF WASHINGTON. EXPEDITION AGAINST BALTIMORE. NA- 
 VAL BATTLES OF THE THIRD YEAR. BITTERNESS OF PARTY FEELING. THE 
 REMEDY OF DISUNION. THE HENRY CONSPIRACY. THE HARTFORD CONVEN- 
 TION. DEFENCE OF NEW ORLEANS. THE TREATY OF GHENT 209 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 THE NEWS OF PEACE. ITS EFFECT UPON THE HARTFORD MOVEMENT. CHAR- 
 ACTER OF THE TREATY OF GHENT. RESULTS OF THE WAR. THE ALGERINE 
 WAR. CONDITION gfc THE UNITED STATES FINANCIAL QUESTIONS. EFFECT 
 OF THE TARIFF UPON NEW ENGLAND CITIES. CHARACTER OF MADISON. 
 ELECTION OF MONROE. THE FIRST SEMINOLE WAR. REASONS FOR ANNEX- 
 ING FLORIDA. THE AFFAIR AT AMELIA ISLAND. JACKSON'S CAMPAIGN. 
 His EXECUTION OF PRISONERS. His DISPUTE WITH MONROE. CESSION OF 
 FLORIDA 238 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 THE MISSOURI QUESTION. EXTENSION OF SLAVERY. DOMESTIC SLAVE-TRADE. 
 INCREASE OF THE SLAVE POWER. THE COMPROMISE LINE OF 36 30'. A 
 NORTHERN MEASURE. CONGRESSIONAL STRATEGY. No ADMISSION OF FREE 
 STATES WITHOUT SLAVE STATES. RANDOLPH'S "DOUGH-FACES." COMPRO- 
 MISES IN CONGRESS AND CABINET. LIMITED MEANING OF FOREVER. CLOS- 
 ING YEARS OF MONROE'S SECOND TERM. THE TARIFF. INTERNAL IMPROVE- 
 MENTS. STEAM ON THE LAKES. FIRST OCEAN STEAMER. THE "MONROE 
 DOCTRINE." ELECTION OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS TO THE PRESIDENCY . . . 260 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ADAMS AND JACKSON. 
 
 THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING. ADMINISTRATION OF JOHN QDINCY ADAMS. THE 
 PROPOSED CONGRESS OF SOUTH AMERICAN STATES. OPPOSITION OF THE SLAVE- 
 HOLDERS. POLITICAL EDUCATION, NORTH AND SOUTH. A SOLID SOUTH. 
 INDIAN TROUBLES AND STATE SOVEREIGNTY IN GEORGIA. THE TARIFF MADE 
 A SECTIONAL QUESTION. THE BLACK HAWK WAR. JACKSON'S CHARACTER, . 
 AWD HIS POPULARITY. HE ESTABLISHES THE SYSTEM OF REMOVALS FROM OF- 
 FICE. THE EATON SCANDAL. THE CONTEST OVER THE UNITED STATES BANK. 
 REELECTION OF JACKSON. ANTI-MASONRY. NULLIFICATION. PREPARA- 
 TIONS FOR WAR IN SOUTH CAROLINA. THE COMPROMISE BILL. THE PUBLIC 
 LANDS. MATERIAL PROGRESS. INCREASING USE OF STEAM-POWER. THE 
 FIRST RAILROADS. EARLY MANUFACTURING 282 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY. 
 
 A NEW ERA. THE MODERN ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT. GARRISON AND " THE 
 LIBERATOR." His EARNESTNESS AND DETERMINATION. DEBATE ON SLAVERY 
 IN VIRGINIA. THE SOUTHAMPTON INSURRECTION. PANIC AT THE SOUTH. 
 THE SOUTHERN IDEA OF GOVERNMENT. SLAVERY MET ON A NEW ISSUE. THE 
 ABOLITIONISTS. THE ATTEMPTS TO SUPPRESS THEM. PENAL LEGISLATION 
 PROPOSED. THE RESORT TO VIOLENCE. THE REIGN OF MOBS. INFLUENCE 
 OF SLAVERY ON MORALS, MANNERS, LITERATURE, AND COMMERCE 316 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PROGRESS OF SOUTHERN RULE. 
 
 THE SECOND SEMINOLE WAR. REMOVAL OF THE CHEROKEES. COST OF A SLAVE- 
 HUNT. TROUBLE ON THE CANADIAN FRONTIER. BURNING OF "THE CARO- 
 LINE." TRIAL OF McLEOD. THE LOG-CABIN CAMPAIGN OF 1840. DEATH OF 
 PRESIDENT HARRISON. SUCCESSION OF VICE-PRESIDENT TYLER. HE BREAKS 
 WITH THE WHIGS. His SOUTHERN POLICY. THE ASHBDRTON TREATY. 
 EASTERN AND NORTHWESTERN BOUNDARIES. THE DORR WAR OF RHODE 
 ISLAND. THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. THE MANNER AND PURPOSE OF IT. 
 ELECTION OF JAMES K. POLK. WAR WITH MEXICO. ITS RESULTS. ANNEX- 
 ATION OF CALIFORNIA . . 350 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 - 
 
 THE COMPROMISES OF 1850. 
 
 ELECTION OF TAYLOR TO THE PRESIDENCY. CALIFORNIA. DISCOVERY OF GOLD. 
 THE COMPROMISES OF 1850. THE NEW FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. ADMINIS- 
 TRATION OF FlLLMORE. ELECTION OF PlERCE. DOUGLAS'S KANSAS-NEBRASKA 
 
 BILL. REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. SETTLEMENT OF KANSAS. 
 MASSACHUSETTS EMIGRANT AID SOCIETY. REEDER APPOINTED GOVERNOR. 
 INVASION OF KANSAS BY " BORDER RUFFIANS " . . . . 
 
 387 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE KANSAS STRUGGLE BUCHANAN. 
 
 THE FRAUDULENT ELECTIONS IN KANSAS. THE TERRITORIAL LEGISLATURES. 
 THE KANSAS CODE. BORDER RUFFIANS AIDED FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. SACK 
 OF LAWRENCE. JOHN BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE. DISPERSION OF THE TOPEKA 
 LEGISLATURE. ELECTION OF BUCHANAN. LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION AND THE 
 ENGLISH COMPROMISE. THE MORMONS. WALKER'S EXPEDITION. ATLANTIC 
 TELEGRAPH CABLE. JOHN BROWN'S INVASION OF VIRGINIA. His CAPTURE AND 
 EXECUTION. ELECTION OF LINCOLN 410 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 OPENING OF THE WAR. 
 
 THE SECESSION IDEA NOT UNFAMILIAR IN THE SOUTH. ACTS OF SECESSION LED 
 BY SOUTH CAROLINA. ORGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. PROPOSED PEACE 
 COMPROMISES. SEIZURE OF UNITED STATES FORTS AND ARSENALS. TWIGGS'S 
 SURRENDER. INDECISION IN WASHINGTON. FEDERAL OCCUPATION OF FORT 
 SUMTER. INAUGURATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. SECRETARY SEWARD OUTLINES 
 A POLICY FOR THE NEW ADMINISTRATION. THE GUN AT SUMTER. SECESSION 
 OF SOUTH CAROLINA AND VIRGINIA. THE FIRST CALL FOR TROOPS. SECESSION 
 MOB IN BALTIMORE. FIGHT AT BIG BETHEL. MILITARY OPERATIONS IN WEST 
 VIRGINIA. BATTLE OF BULL RUN. MCCLELLAN IN COMMAND . . 435 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE FIGHT FOR THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
 
 INSURGENT OPERATIONS TO HOLD VICKSBURG. ATTEMPTS TO CAPTURE ST. Louis. 
 FAILURE OF THE PLANS OF CLAIBORNE F. JACKSON. CAPTAIN LYON CAPTURES 
 THE INSURGENT CAMP JACKSON. CIVIL WAR BEGUN IN MISSOURI. OUTBREAK 
 OF GUERILLA WARFARE. PRESIDENT LINCOLN ENTREATED TO AID THE NORTH- 
 WESTERN STATES TO HOLD THE MISSISSIPPI. FREMONT IN COMMAND. DEATH OF 
 GENERAL LYON. CIVIL TROUBLES IN MISSOURI. FREMONT'S EMANCIPATION AND 
 REPRISAL PROCLAMATION. His SUBSEQUENT REMOVAL. GENERAL HALLECK IN 
 COMMAND. THE STRUGGLE IN KENTUCKY. THAT STATE BECOMES THE BATTLE- 
 GROUND OF THE WAR IN THE SOUTHWEST . . 472 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 EXPANSION OF THE FEDERAL NAVY. 
 
 DISPERSION OF THE UNITED STATES FLEET FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE REBELLION. 
 A GREAT NAVAL CONTINGENT IMPROVISED. EXTENT OF THE LINE TO BE BLOCK- 
 ADED. GUNBOATS REQUIRED ON WESTERN RIVERS. CAPTURE OF PORT ROYAL 
 ENTRANCE. THE TRENT INCIDENT. BURNSIDE'S EXPEDITION TO NORTH CARO- 
 LINA. ROANOKE ISLAND. THE FIGHT OF THE IRON-CLADS IN HAMPTON ROADS . 489 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. 
 
 CAPTURE OF FORT PULASKI. GKNBRAL HUNTER IN SOUTH CAROLINA. His 
 TREATMENT OF THE NEGRO QUESTION. ANOTHER PROCLAMATION OF EMANCI- 
 PATION OVERRULED. McCLELLAN'S MOVEMENT TO THE PENINSULA. THE SlEOE 
 
 OF YORKTOWN. THE CONFEDERATE RETREAT. ON THE CHICKAHOMINY. 
 "STONEWALL" JACKSON IN THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY. ALARM IN WASHINGTON. 
 BATTLE OF SEVEN PINES. R. E. LEE IN COMMAND OF THE CONFEDERATES. 
 J. E. B. STUART'S RAID AND RECONNAISSANCE. THE SEVEN DAYS' FIGHTING. 
 McCLELLAN'S CHANGE OF BASE. I.KK.'s SUPERIOR STRATEGY. BATTLE OF 
 MALVERN HILL. THE FLIGHT OF THE FEDERALS TO HARRISON'S LANDING. 
 END OF THE CAMPAIGN. DEVELOPMENT OF MCCLELLAN'S POLITICAL AMBITIONS . 509 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA UNDER POPE. MCCLELLAN'S RELUCTANCE TO LEAVE THE 
 PENINSULA. EXPOSTULATIONS FROM THE ADMINISTRATION. POPE FIGHTS AND 
 LOSES THE SECOND BATTLE OF BULL RUN. A GREAT DISASTER. MCCLELLAN 
 
 ONCE MORE IN COMMAND OF THE ARMIES. LEE'S INVASION OF MARYLAND. 
 
 BATTLE OF ANTIETAM. MCCLELLAN DECLINES TO MOVE. His REMOVAL FROM 
 COMMAND. BURNSIDE IN COMMAND OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. THE 
 BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG. ANOTHER NATIONAL DISASTER. BURNSIDE'S 
 FUTILE ATTEMPTS TO RETRIEVE. "FIGHTING JOE HOOKER" AT THE HEAD OF 
 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC . . . 547 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, VOLUME IV. 
 
 STEEL PLATE. 
 
 Title. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN . . 
 From a photograph from life by Brady. 
 
 Engraver. 
 
 Charles Burt 
 
 To face 
 
 Title 
 
 FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 Title. 
 
 Designer. 
 
 T. de Thulstrup 
 A. R. Waud . . 
 A. B. Frost . 
 
 Sngraver. 
 
 H. Karst . 
 J. P. Davis 
 
 J. Earst 
 
 To face 
 page 
 
 1 
 
 . 24 
 
 72 
 
 THE FIRST GUN FROM FORT SUMTER 
 CAPTURE OF MAJOR ANDRE . . . 
 THE SURRENDER o* CORNWALLIS 
 PARTING OP WASHINGTON AND HIS 
 
 OFFICERS W. L. Sheppard . J. Karst ... 89 
 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN ADAMS . . 128 
 
 After a portrait by Stuart, about 1800. 
 PORT OF BUFFALO IN 1815 W. H. McCrackcn 211 
 
 From a contemporary print in the Port Folio. 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN C. CALHOUN . . 244 
 
 From the portrait by King at the Corcoran Art Oallery. 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS . . 284 
 
 From a portrait by Stuart. 
 PORTRAIT OF ANDREW JACKSON . . 300 
 
 After a daguerreotype. 
 
 EMIGRANTS TO THE WEST W. M. Gary . . P. Meeder . . 310 
 
 PORTRAIT OF HENRY CLAY . . 368 
 
 After a daguerreotype. 
 
 PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FIRST CABINET . . 444 
 
 JEFFERSON DAVIS'S VICE-PRESIDENT AND CABINET . . . . 445 
 
 HARPER'S FERRY Caroline A. Powell 462 
 
 From a war-time photograph. 
 THE SHOOTING OF COLONEL ELLSWORTH, 
 
 AT THE MARSHALL HOUSE, ALEXANDRIA G. W. Peters . . . 492 
 THE MERRIMAC RAMMING THE CUMBER- 
 LAND J. M. Burns . . . . 502 
 
 PRESIDENT LINCOLN WITH GENERAL MCCLERNAXD AND 
 
 ALLAN PINKERTON AT ANTIETAM, IN OCTOBER, 1862 . Caroline A. Powell 568 
 
 From a photograph by Jirady. 
 
XII 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT. 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 
 MOHAWK VILLAGK IN CENTRAL NEW 
 
 YOKK Warren . . . J. P. Davis ... 1 
 
 PORTRAIT OF GENERAL SULLIVAN Knapp 2 
 
 From the painting by Trumbull. 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF INDIAN VILLAGES . Waud .... Pierson .... 5 
 PORTRAIT OK GKNERAL LINCOLN Jansen .... 9 
 
 From the original, in the possession of Isaac Winslow, Esq., 
 
 Hinyham, Mass. 
 FALL OF SERGKANT JASPER .... Kappes . . . J. Clement ... 11 
 
 JAMES AND ARDESOIF Reinhart . . . Meeder .... 14 
 
 PORTRAIT OF BENEDICT ARNOLD . . Beech. . . . Cozzens .... 17 
 
 From the portrait by Du Simitier. 
 ROBINSON'S HOUSE Bonwill . . . Smart 19 
 
 From a sketch for this work. 
 FAC-SIMILE OF ANDREWS PASS . . . Runge .... Leggo 23 
 
 From ' ' A ndriTs Trial. ' ' 
 
 ARNOLD'S ESCAPE Waud. . . . Hellawell. ... 27 
 
 SIGNATURE OF NATHAN HALK Leggo 29 
 
 From a manuscript in the New Haven Historical Society's 
 
 Collections. 
 SIGNATURE OF SUMTER Leggo 32 
 
 From an original letter in the possession of Samuel Wilde, 
 ES<J , New York. 
 
 MARION IN CAMP Sheppard . . . Geraty .... 33 
 
 SIGNATURE OF MARION Leggo 34 
 
 From an original letter in the possession of Samuel Wilde, 
 Esq., New York. 
 
 DE KALB WOUNDED Shelton . . . E. Clement . . . 37 
 
 A WOMAN RECONNOITRING .... Reinhart . . . E. Clement ... 39 
 PORTRAIT OF DANIEL MORGAN. . . Beech. . . . Knapp 41 
 
 From the painting by Trumbull. 
 ENCOUNTER BETWEEN TARLETON AND 
 
 COLONEL WASHINGTON Gary .... Annin 44 
 
 PORTRAIT OF GENERAL NATHANAEL 
 
 GREENE Beech .... Treat 47 
 
 From the painting by Trumbull. 
 NEW YORK AT THE TIME OF THE 
 
 REVOLUTION; SEEN FROM THE REAR 
 
 OF COLONEL RUTGER'S HOUSE, EAST 
 
 RIVER J. Karst .... 49 
 
 After a contemporary prwl. 
 MUTINY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 LINE Taylor .... Winham .... 51 
 
 FRENCH AND AMERICAN UNIFORMS . Waud , . J. Karst .... 55 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Designer. \ Engraver. Page. 
 PORTRAIT OF LORD CORNWALLIS X_ . Treat 57 
 
 From a painting by Hoppner. 
 
 PREPARING TO BURN FORT MOTTE . Kappcs. . . . J. Clement ... 59 
 WATER-CARRIERS OF NINETY-SIX . . Sheppard . . . Hellawell .... 61 
 THE WEBB MANSION (KOCHAMBEAU'S 
 
 HEADQUARTERS), WETHERSFIELD, 
 
 CONN Filler .... Holsey .... 65 
 
 From a photograph for this work. 
 NEW LONDON Runge ... Leggo 68 
 
 Fac-simile from an original sketch in 1776. 
 " LORD, NOW LETTEST THOU THY 
 
 SERVANT DEPART IN PEACE" . . Fredericks . . Pierson .... "0 
 " ELIZABETH TOWN STAGE WAGON. 
 
 Two DAYS TO PHILADELPHIA " . . Runge .... Leggo 74 
 
 From a newspaper advertisement, 1781. 
 PORTRAIT OF COUNT DE VERGENNES Nichols .... 76 
 
 From a painting by Callet, 1786. 
 
 SCENE IN THE GREEN MOUNTAINS . Gibson . . . J. Hellawell ... 79 
 PORTRAIT OF Gov. GEORGE CLINTON Nichols .... 81 
 
 From the painting by Ames. 
 HEADQUARTERS AT NEWBURGH . . . Filler . . . . H. Karsl .... 84 
 
 From a sketch for this work. 
 SIGNATURE OF ARMSTRONG Leggo 87 
 
 From an original letter. 
 FRAUNCES'S TAVKRN Hosier . . . . J. Minton ... 90 
 
 From a picture in Scribner's Magazine. 
 A NEW ENGLAND FARMHOUSE, 1790 . Warren . . . Winham .... 92 
 
 A PLANTER'S RESIDENCE, 1790. . . Sheppard. . . Rae 93 
 
 A LUMBERING SCENE Taylor . . . Bogerl .... 94 
 
 THE FRANKLIN PENNY, FIRST UNITED 
 
 STATES COIN Cary .... Leggo 96 
 
 From a specimen in the possession of the author. 
 DOLLAR OF 1794 Cary .... Leggo 97 
 
 From Dickeson's Numismatic Manual. 
 
 A SCENE IN SHAYS'S REBELLION . . Taylor .... Winham .... 98 
 THE PRESIDENT'S CHAIR Wand .... Clement .... 100 
 
 From a fketch for this work. 
 PORTRAIT OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON Heinemann . . . 102 
 
 From an engraving by Rogers of the Talleyrand miniature. 
 CELEBRATING THE ADOPTION OF THE 
 
 CONSTITUTION Fredericks . . J. Karsl . . . .104 
 
 SIGNATURE OF RICHARD HENRY LEE Leggo 106 
 
 From a fac-similf. of the signatures to the Declaration. 
 
 THE COTTON PLANT Warren . . . T. Hellawell . .108 
 
 FORT WASHINGTON, CINCINNATI . . Murphy . . . Foy Ill 
 
 From a painting in the Council Chamber at Cincinnati, 
 
 copied from a contemporary sketch. 
 THE INDIANS' ROCK, NEAR PORTS- 
 MOUTH, ON THE OHIO Warren . . . J. Hellawell . . . 113 
 
 From a photograph for this work. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF GENERAL ARTHUR ST. 
 
 CLAIR Beech .... Pierson . . . .115 
 
 From a print. 
 PORTRAIT OF GENERAL ANTHONY 
 
 WAYNE Treat 117 
 
 From the painting by Herring. 
 
 A MOUNTAIN STILL Kappes . . . Heinemann . . .119 
 
 VIKW OF PITTSBURG IN 1790 . . . Cary .... Heinemann . . .120 
 
 From the print in the Memoirs of the Historical Society of 
 
 Pennsylvania, vol. vi. 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN JAY Beech .... Treat 124 
 
 From Gilbert Stuart's Painting. 
 FRANKLIN'S GRAVE IN PHILADELPHIA Hosier. . . . Maurice .... 126 
 
 From a picture in Scribner'y Magazine. 
 PORTRAIT OF CHIEF JUSTICE MAR- 
 SHALL D. Nichols . . .133 
 
 From a drawing by AVwxam from Inman's painting. 
 PORTRAIT OF ELBRIDGK GERRY E. Clement . . .135 
 
 From the painting by Vanderlyn. 
 THE BEGINNING OF THK CAPITOL. . Runge. . . . H. Karst . . . . 136 
 
 From a contemporary print by Birch. 
 MOUNT VERNON IN 1797 Warren . . . Knapp .... 137 
 
 From a print in Weld's " Travels in North America. 1 ' 
 PORTRAIT OF AAROX BURR Treat 142 
 
 From the picture by Vanderlyn. 
 FLAT-BOAT GOING DOWN THK MISSIS- 
 SIPPI Taylor .... Meeder .... 148 
 
 VIEW ON BLENNERHASSETT'S ISLAND Gibson . . . Andrew .... 150 
 
 From a photograph for this icork. 
 
 PARADE OF BURR'S FORCE .... Taylor .... Langridge . . . 152 
 TRIPOLI Warren . . . Annin 155 
 
 From a print in the Tour du Monde. 
 PORTRAIT OF STEPHEN DECATUR Bross 157 
 
 From the painting by Sully. 
 
 DECATUR AND THE TURK Davidson . . . Heinemann . . . 159 
 
 THE SUGAR PLANT Warren . . . T. Hellawell . . 1C2 
 
 WHITNEY'S COTTON-GIN Warren . . . F. Karst .... 164 
 
 Sketched for this work from the original model in the pos- 
 session of Eli Whitney, Esq. 
 
 MONTICELLO, THE HOME OF JEFFER- 
 SON E. Clement . . .167 
 
 COURT-HOUSE AT CHILLICOTHE, OHIO. Warren . . . Holsey .... 168 
 From an old print. 
 
 FULTON'S FIRST STEAMBOAT . . . Warren . . . Heinemann . . . 169 
 From an old print. 
 
 GATE OF THE MOUNTAINS, ON THE 
 
 UPPER MISSOURI Cary .... Knapp . . . .171 
 
 From a sketch. 
 
 TAKING DESERTERS FROM THE CHESA- 
 PEAKE Fredericks . . E. Clement . . .176 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xv 
 
 Title. Designer. Entjrttver. Page. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF JAMES MADISON . . . Beech . . . . J. Karst . . . .178 
 
 From the painting by Stuart. 
 PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM HENRY HAR- 
 RISON Beech .... Knapp .... 182 
 
 From the picture by Lambdin. 
 BATTLE-FIELD OF TIPPECANOE . . . Warren . . . Heinemann . . .183 
 
 From a recent print. 
 THE TOMB OF WASHINGTON .... Warren . . . Edwards .... 184 
 
 From a photograph. 
 DETROIT IN 1815 H. Karst .... 185 
 
 From an old print. 
 
 BATTLE OF CHICAGO Sheppard. . . McCracken . . . 189 
 
 MAP OF NIAGARA RIVER Servoss . . . .191 
 
 BATTLE OF FORT STEPHENSON . . . Gary .... Knapp . . . .195 
 SACKETT'S HARBOR, 1814 Warren . . . Laugridge . . . 197 
 
 From the Port Folio for 1815. 
 PORTRAIT OF COMMODORE O. H. 
 
 PERRY Beech .... Treat 199 
 
 From the painting by Jarcis. 
 PORTRAIT OF TECUMSEH Beech .... Treat 200 
 
 From the drawing by Pierre Le Dru. 
 
 SIGNATURE OF RICHARD M.JOHNSON Leggo 201 
 
 THK CANOE FIGHT Shirlaw . . . J. P. Davis . . . 204 
 
 THE GRAVES OF THE CAPTAINS, 
 
 PORTLAND, MAINE Warren . . . Schultz .... 208 
 
 From a photograph for thin icork. 
 
 MILLER'S CHARGE AT LUNDY'S LANE. Bolles .... Hellawell . . .212 
 PLATTSBURG . Warren . . . Meeder . . . .215 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
 STONINGTON BOMBARDED Waud .... Annin. . . . .217 
 
 COCKBURN IN THE CHAIR Fredericks . . J. Karst .... 221 
 
 FORT McHENRY Mayer. . . . Annin 223 
 
 THE ARMSTRONG AT FAYAL .... Waud .... Andrew .... 224 
 OLD STATE HOUSE, HARTFORD F. Karst .... 230 
 
 From a photograph for this work. 
 JACKSON'S HEADQUARTERS, NEW OR- 
 LEANS Warren . . . Pierson . . . .234 
 
 From an old picture. 
 WASHINGTON Warren . . . E. Bookhout . . 238 
 
 From a sketch made about 1880. 
 
 DECATUR AND THE DEY OF ALGIERS . Waud .... Mollier .... 243 
 THK OLD UNITED STATES BANK, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA Scliell . . . . F. Karst . . . .245 
 
 From a sketch. 
 PORTRAIT OF DANIEL D. TOMPKINS Treat 247 
 
 From the painting by Jar via. 
 
 INDIANS IN AMBUSH Bolles . . . . J. Hellawell . . .250 
 
 AMELIA ISLAND Waud .... Varley . . . .251 
 
 From a print. 
 CAPTURE OF INDIAN CHIEFS .... Cary .... McCracken . . .254 
 
 VOL. IV. b 
 
xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF JAMES MONROE J. Karst .... 257 
 
 From a portrait by Vanderlyn. 
 
 CHOTEAU'S POND, 1820, NOW IN ST. 
 
 Louis Warren . . . Clement ... .263 
 
 From a painting in the possession of O. W. Collett, Esq., 
 St. Louis. 
 
 A SLAVE-COFFLE PASSING THK CAPI- 
 TOL Taylor .... Langridge . . .266 
 
 A SUGAR PLANTATION Sheppard . . . Winliam .... 269 
 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN RANDOLPH Pierson .... 271 
 
 From a print. 
 
 LOCKS AT LOCKPORT, N. Y Warren . . . McCracken ... 273 
 
 STEAMBOAT WALK-IN-THE-WATEU Heinemann . . . 275 
 
 From an old print preserved in Detroit. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM H. CRAW- 
 FORD Treat 277 
 
 From a painting by Jarvis. 
 
 THE ADAMa MANSION, QUINCY, MASS. Warren . . . Langridge . . .283 
 From a photograph. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF HENRY CLAY J. Karst .... 287 
 
 From a print by Ritchie, after a daguerreotype. 
 
 NORTHERN INDUSTRY Share . . . . J. Karst .... 292 
 
 SOUTHERN INDUSTRY Taylor .... Pierson .... 293 
 
 BATTLE OF BAD AXE Cary .... Heinemann . . . 296 
 
 THE HERMITAGE RESIDENCE OF 
 
 GENERAL JACKSON Warren . . . Mollier .... 298 
 
 From a print. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF ROGER B. TANEY Knapp .... 302 
 
 From a print of a portrait from life. 
 
 A HICKORY POLE ELECTION .... Bolles .... McCracken . . . 304 
 
 MAKING COCKADES Beech .... Varley .... 307 
 
 FIRST LOCOMOTIVE BUILT IN AMER- 
 ICA Warren . . . Bookhout. . . . 314 
 
 From a print after a contemporary drawing. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF SAMUEL SLATER Treat 315 
 
 From a portrait in the possession of the family. 
 
 HKAD OF " THE LIBERATOR," FAC- 
 SIMILE Photo-Eng. Co. . 316 
 
 PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM LLOYD GAR- 
 RISON J. Karst . . . .317 
 
 From a daguerreotype. 
 
 DISCOVERY OF NAT TURNER. . . . Shelton . . . Clement .... 321 
 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN C. CALHOUN Treat 323 
 
 From a print after a miniature by Blancliard. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF WENDELL PHILLIPS Knapp .... 326 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
 THE DOMESTIC SLAVE-TRADE . . . Gary . . . . Leggo 32D 
 
 From the Anti-slavery Record, 1835. 
 
 THE ALTON RIOT Warren . . . Bookhout .... 330 
 
 From the Alton Trials, by W. S. Lincoln, New York, 
 1838. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xvn 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Pagt. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN G. WHITTIER J. Karst .... 331 
 
 From a portrait taken in 1838. 
 RUINS OF PENNSYLVANIA HALL . . Warren . . . Heinemann . . . 333 
 
 From a print in the History of Pennsylvania Hall. 
 BURNING MAIL-MATTER IN CHARLES- 
 TON Sheppard . . . H. Karst. . . .337 
 
 PORTRAIT OF CINQUK Heinemann. . . 343 
 
 From a portrait from life by Jocelyn. 
 THE NEGRO-PEW Andrew .... 348 
 
 From a sketch made in the old Church at Hingham, Mass. 
 
 OSCEOLA AT THE COUNCIL .... Shirlaw . . . . Heinemann. . . 351 
 A CUBAN BLOODHOUND Beard . . . . J. Karst .... 353 
 
 From a sketch. 
 PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM J. WORTH Knapp .... 354 
 
 From a print published during the Mexican War. 
 PORTRAIT OF MARTIN VAN BUREN Treat 358 
 
 From a print after a daguerreotype. 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN TYLER F. Karst .... 359 
 
 From Dick's print from a daguerreotype by Morand. 
 THE ALAMO Warren .... Holsey .... 362 
 
 From a print published during the Mexican War. 
 PORTRAIT OF SAM HOUSTON Langridge . . . 364 
 
 From an etching after a drawing from life. 
 PORTRAIT OF JAMES K. POLK J. Karst. . . . 368 
 
 From the painting by Healy. 
 PORTRAIT OF SANTA ANNA Treat 371 
 
 From a print published during the Mexican War. 
 PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF BUENA VISTA Leggo .... 374 
 
 From Colonel Mansfield's Map. 
 
 VERA CRUZ Warren .... Britt 376 
 
 PORTRAIT OF WINFIELD SCOTT F. Karst .... 380 
 
 From the painting by Weir. 
 CHAPULTEPEC Warren .... Pierson .... 382 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
 THK PLAZA OF THE CITY OF MEXICO . Taylor .... Holsey .... 385 
 SITE OF SAN FRANCISCO, IN 1848 . . Cary McCracken . . 387 
 
 From an engraving published in 1855. 
 SUTTER'S MILL Cary H. Karst .... 388 
 
 From an engraving published in 1855. 
 PORTRAIT OF ZACHARY TAYLOR. . . Beech . . . . J. Karst .... 390 
 
 From a print published during his Presidency. 
 PORTRAIT OF DANIEL WEBSTER J. Karst .... 393 
 
 From a 'daguerreotype. 
 ADVERTISEMENTS OF FUGITIVE SLAVES Warren . . . Photo-eng. Co. . 395 
 
 Copied from newspapers of the time. 
 PORTRAIT OF MILLARD FILLMORE J. Karst .... 397 
 
 From a print published during his Presidency. 
 
 RENDITION OF ANTHONY BURNS . . . Taylor . . . . J. Karst .... 401 
 PORTRAIT OF FRANKLIN PIERCE . Knapp .... 404 
 
 From the print by Ormsby. 
 
xviii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 
 PORTRAIT OK STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS Langridge . . . 407 
 
 From a photograph. 
 LAWRENCE, KANSAS Parsons . H. Karst . . . 409 
 
 From a print. 
 
 SOUTH CAROLINA TROOPS IN MISSOURI Share .... Held 412 
 
 JOHN BROWN'S LOG HOUSE .... Parsons. . . . Pierson .... 413 
 
 From a print. 
 
 BORDER RUFFIANS INVADING KANSAS Share . . . . J. Karst. . . . 414 
 PORTRAIT OF CHARLF.S SUMNER Heineman . . . 419 
 
 From a daguerreotype. 
 PORTRAIT OF JAMES BUCHANAN J. Karst. . . . 423 
 
 From a daguerreotype. 
 SALT LAKE CITY Hosier .... Lauderbach . . 427 
 
 From a picture drawn for Scribner's Magazine. 
 FAC-SIMII.E OF CHARACTERS OF THE 
 
 MORMON PLATES Photo-eng. Co. . 428 
 
 JOHN BROWN J. Karst .... 429 
 
 From print of a portrait taken from life in Boston about 1858. 
 
 ARSENAL AT HARPER'S FERRY . . . Parsons. . . . Winham . . . . 430 
 JOHN BROWN'S PIKE Warren .... Le<rgo .... 431 
 
 In the possession of Albert G. Browne, Jr., New York: 
 LINCOLN'S EARLY HOME, ELIZABETH, 
 
 KENTUCKY Warren . . . Meeder .... 433 
 
 From a drawing. 
 ON THE PARAPET AT FORTRESS MONROE Verbeek 435 
 
 Fr<nn a tear-time photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF HENRY A. WISE Kruell .... 437 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF JACOB THOMPSON " .... 438 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN B. FLOYD " .... 439 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF JEFFERSON DAVIS " .... 441 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS " .... 441 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT 'OF JOHN J. CRITTENDEN " .... 446 
 
 From a photograph . 
 THE INTERIOR OF FORT MOULTRIE IN 1861 Powell .... 449 
 
 From a photograph. 
 AN INTERIOR VIEW OF FORT SCMTER IN 
 
 1861, SHOWING HOW THE WALLS WERE 
 
 STRENGTHENED " .... 450 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF G. P. T. BEAUREGARD Kruell .... 452 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF ROBERT ANDERSON " .... 452 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xix 
 
 Title. Designer* Engraver. Page. 
 
 THE EXTERIOR OF FORT SUMTER, SHOWING 
 
 THE CHEVAUX-DE-FRIBE Powell .... 453 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF EDMUND RUFFIN Kruell .... 454 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF AHNKK DOUBLEDAT " .... 455 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN B. MAORUDER " .... 457 
 
 From a photograph. 
 FORTRESS MONROE Powell .... 459 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER Kruell .... 460 
 
 From a photograph. 
 A. NEGRO FAMILY ARRIVING WITHIN THE 
 
 UNION LINES Verbeek 461 
 
 From a war-time photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF IRWIN MCDOWELL Kruell .... 463 
 
 From a photograph. 
 BLACKBURN'S FORD, BULL RUN. ON 
 
 JULY 4, 1862 Fenn 464 
 
 From a photograph. 
 RUINS OF THE STONE BRIDGE ACROSS 
 
 BULL RUN ON THE WARRENTON TURN- 
 PIKE Fenn 465 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF ROBERT E. PATTERSON ....... Kruell ...... 467 
 
 From a photograph by Gutekunst. 
 PORTRAIT OF GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN " .... 468 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF EDWARD D. BAKER " .... 469 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PIVOT GUN BATTERY ON THE BLUFFS 
 
 AT VICKSBURG Kausotu 473 
 
 From a photograph hitherto unpublished. 
 PORTRAIT OF NATHANIEL LYON Kruell .... 475 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
 A TYPICAL ROADSIDE SCENE NEAR VICKS- 
 BURG, Miss Peters 476 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OP LEONIDAS POLK IN HIS 
 
 BISHOP'S ROBES Kruell .... 477 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF GIDEON J. PILLOW " .... 479 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN C. FREMONT " .... 480 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title Designer. Engraver. Page. 
 
 TYPICAL CONTRABANDS Ransom 481 
 
 * From a photograph hitherto itnpiMitthed. 
 PORTRAIT OF SIMON B. BUCKNER Kruell .... 484 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF FELIX K. ZOLLICOFFER " .... 484 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON " .... 480 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF BERIAH MAGOFFIN " .... 487 
 
 From a photograph. 
 \ TYPICAL CONFEDERATE BLOCKADE 
 
 RUNNER, THE TEAZER Ransom 489 
 
 From a photograph . 
 U. S. STEAMER PITTSBURO " 490 
 
 From a photograph. 
 U. S. STEAMER CAIRO " 491 
 
 From a photograph . 
 PORTRAIT OF ELMER E. ELLSWORTH Kruell .... 492 
 
 From a photograph. 
 A VIEW ON THE SMITH PLANTATION AT 
 
 BEAUFORT, S. C., SHOWING FIVE GEN- 
 ERATIONS OF A NEGRO FAMILY . . . Perard 494 
 
 From a photograph in March, 1862. 
 BUILDING A PONTOON BRIDGE ACROSS 
 
 PORT ROYAL RIVER AT BEAUFORT. S. C. Ransom 495 
 
 From a photograph in March, 1862. 
 PORTRAIT OF CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS Kruell .... 496 
 
 /' '/</ m a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF SAMUEL F. DUPONT " ... 497 
 
 From a photograph 6y Outektinst. 
 PORTRAIT OF CHARLES WILKES " .... 498 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF JAMES MURRAY MASON " .... 499 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN SLIDELL .... " .... 499 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
 BUGLER AT FORT MACON H. Pyle . . . Closson . . .501 
 
 JOHN ERICSSON Kruell .... 502 
 
 From a plu.1 ograph. 
 DECK VIEW OF THE MOIWTOR LOOKING 
 
 FROM THE Bow Perard 503 
 
 From a photograph in July, 1862. 
 CREW ON DECK OF THE MONITOR 504 
 
 From a photograph. 
 COMMANDER WORDEN AND THE OFFICERS 
 
 OF THE MONITOR 505 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
LIST OP ILLUSTRATIONS. xxi 
 
 Title. Detigner. Engraver, Page. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF FRANKLIN BUCHANAN Kruell .... 506 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN L. WORDEN " .... 506 
 
 From a photograph. 
 THE MONITOR'S CREW ON DECK Powell .... 507 
 
 From a photograph. 
 THE INTERIOR OF THE MONITOR DURING 
 
 THE FIGHT WITH THE MERRIMAC . . Davidson . . . H. Karst . . . 508 
 YORKTOWN Parsons . . . Annin .... 509 
 
 From a print published in 1862. 
 PORTRAIT OF EDWIN M. STANTON Pierson . . . 510 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF DAVID HUNTER Kruell .... 512 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF RUFUS SAXTON " .... 512 
 
 From a photograph. 
 QUAKER GUN IN THE CONFEDERATE 
 
 FORTIFICATIONS AT CENTREVILLE,VA. Fenn 515 
 
 From a photograph made in March, 1862. 
 BATTERY No. 1 IN FRONT OF YORKTOWN Powell . . . .516 
 
 From a photograph. 
 BATTERY No. 4 IN FRONT OF YORKTOWN " ... 517 
 
 From a photograph. 
 SERVANTS AT HEADQUARTERS, ARMY OF 
 
 THE POTOMAC, MAY, 1862 .... Fenn 518 
 
 From a photograph. 
 THE FRENCH OFFICERS OF MCCLELLAN'S 
 
 STAFF AT YORKTOWN, MAY, 1862 519 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
 EXPLODED GUN IN CONFEDERATE BAT- 
 TERY AT YORKTOWN Fenn 521 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF PHILIP KEARNEY Kruell .... 522 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
 PANIC IN RICHMOND Sheppard . . . Andrew . . . 523 
 
 PORTRAIT OF THOMAS J. ("STONEWALL") 
 
 JACKSON Kruell .... 524 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF SAMUEL P. HEINTZELMAN " .... 525 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS D. KEYES " .... 525 
 
 From a photograph. 
 ROBERTSON'S BATTERY NEAR FAIR OAKS, 
 
 VA., IN JUNE, 1862 Verbeek 526 
 
 From a photograph. 
 BATTLE-FIELD OF SEVEN PINES Powell . . . 527 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
xxii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Page, 
 
 FLYING ARTILLERY BENSON'S BATTERY, 
 
 2o U. S. MOUNTED ARTILLERY NEAR 
 
 FAIR OAKS, JUNE, 1862 Peters 528 
 
 From a photograph. 
 FIELD HOSPITAL AT SAVAGE'S STATION 
 
 AFTER THE BATTLE OF JcNE 27. 1863 . Ransom 529 
 
 From a photograph. 
 LOWE'S MILITARY BALLOON AT GAINES'S 
 
 MILLS, VA Verbeek 530 
 
 From a photograph. 
 INFLATING THE BALLOON AT G'AINES'S 
 
 MILLS, VA Verbeek 531 
 
 From a photograph. 
 BATTLE-FIELD OF MALVERN HILL Powell .... 532 
 
 From a photograph. 
 THE WHITE HOUSE NEAR YORKTOWN, 
 
 MCCLELLAN'S BASE OP SUPPLY . . . Parsons . . . Pierson . . . 535 
 
 From a print published in 1862. 
 MILITARY BRIDGE ACROSS THE CHICKA- 
 
 HOMINY Cary . . . . J. Karst . . . 537 
 
 From a photograph. 
 HANOVER COURT HOUSE Fitter .... Langridge . . 538 
 
 From a sketch made during the War. 
 COLD HARBOR Waud .... Andrew . . . 541 
 
 From a sketch. 
 
 GUNBOATS AT MALVERN HILL .... Taylor .... Knapp .... 543 
 WET WEATHER ON THE CHICKAHOMINY . Waud . . . . H. Karst . . . 544 
 A TYPICAL SLEEPING-TENT. LIEUT. S. 
 
 W. OWEN, PA. CAVALRY, AT WESTOVER 
 
 LANDING, AUGUST, 1862 546 
 
 From a photograph. 
 FREDERICKSBURG Warren . . . Winham . . . 547 
 
 From a picture puldished in 1862. 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN POPE Eruell .... 548 
 
 From a photograph . 
 PORTRAIT OF HENRY W. HALLECK " .... 549 
 
 From a photograph. 
 THE BATTLE-FIELD OF CEDAR MOUNTAIN . Harper 550 
 
 From a photograph in August, 1862. 
 THE HOUSE IN WHICH GENERAL WINDER 
 
 WAS KILLED AT CEDAR MOUNTAIN . Ransom 552 
 
 From a photograph. 
 CEDAR MOUNTAIN Waud .... Bogert. . . . 553 
 
 From a sketch. 
 
 STUART'S RAID UPON CATLETT'S STATION 
 ON THE NIGHT OF AUGUST 22, 1862 . Gary .... 1 1 dn em an n . . 555 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xxiii 
 
 Title. Designer. Engraver. Paje. 
 
 CONFEDERATE WINTER QUARTERS AT 
 
 MANASSAS Fenn 557 
 
 from a photograph. 
 FUGITIVE NEGROES CROSSING THE RAP- 
 
 PAHANNOCK AFTER POPE'S RETREAT 
 
 IN AUGUST, 1862 ........ Ransom 558 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF FITZ-JOHN PORTER Krucll .... 559 
 
 From a photograph. 
 ANTIETAM CREEK Waud .... Langridge . . 561 
 
 From a sketch made during the War. 
 THE BRIDGE OVER THE ANTIETAM, 
 
 LOOKING NORTHWEST Fenn 562 
 
 From a photograph. 
 A SIGNAL STATION ON ELK MOUNTAIN, 
 
 NEAR ANTIETAM Verbeek 565 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF J. E. B. STUART Kruell .... 567 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM B. FRANKLIN ...... " .... 569 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF EDWIN V. SUMNER " .... 569 
 
 From a photograplt. 
 THE WEST SIDE OF THE HAGERSTOWN 
 
 ROAD AFTER THE BATTLE OF ANTIE- 
 TAM, SEPTEMBER, 1862 . Powell .... 570 
 
 From a photograph. 
 LINCOLN AND MC'LELLAN AT ANTIETAM 
 
 IN OCTOBER, 1862 . . . , " .... 573 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF JAMES LONGSTREET Kruell .... 575 
 
 From a photograph. 
 CULPEPPER COURT HOUSE Warren . . . Pierson . . . 577 
 
 From a photograph. 
 PORTRAIT OF AMBROSE E. BURNSIDE Kruell .... 578 
 
 From a photograph. 
 THE WALL AT FREDERICKSBURG AFTER 
 
 THE BATTLE Davidson . . . Bookhout . . 579 
 
 From a photograph taken the next day. 
 PORTRAIT OF CONRAD F. JACKSON Kruell .... 580 
 
 From a photograph. 
 A TYPICAL INCIDENT OF THE WAR IN 
 
 VIRGINIA A FAMILY LEAVING THE 
 
 OLD HOMESTEAD Perard 581 
 
 From a photograph. 
 
xxiv 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 FULL-PAGE MAPS AND P AC-SIMILES. 
 
 Title. 
 
 To face 
 page 
 
 SIGNATURES TO THE TREATY OF PEACE (1783) . 1)0 
 
 />';/ permission, from the original in the Deportment of State at Washington. 
 
 SIGNATURES TO THE TREATY OF GHENT 241 
 
 By permission, front the original in the Department of State at Washington. 
 
 MAP SHOWING TREATY BOUNDARIES 258 
 
 A PAGE FROM THE LOG-BOOK OF THE STEAMER SAVANNAH 276 
 
 From the original, by permission of Mrs. .S. A. Ward, Xew York. 
 
 MAP OF THE PENINSULA OF VIRGINIA , .... 520 
 

A Mohawk Village in Central New York, about 1780. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SULLIVAN'S EXPEDITION. FALL OF CHARLESTON. ARNOLD'S 
 
 TREASON. 
 
 WASHINGTON'S OPPOSITION TO THE INVASION OF CANADA. SULLIVAN'S EXPEDITION 
 IN CENTRAL NEW YORK. THE BATTLE OF NEWTOWN. INDIAN SETTLEMENTS 
 LAID WASTE. BRODHEAo's EXPEDITION. BRANT*S REVENGE. SPAIN DECLARES 
 WAR AGAINST ENGLAND. OPERATIONS IN THE SOUTHWEST. CONDITION OF THE 
 AMERICAN AND BRITISH FORCES. ATTACK ON SAVANNAH. SIEGE AND CAPTURE 
 OF CHARLESTON. A SEVERE WINTER. RAIDS IN NEW JERSEY. SPRINGFIELD 
 BURNED. ARRIVAL OF ROCHAMBEAU. ARNOLD'S TREASON. CORRESPONDENCE 
 WITH ANDRE. IMPORTANCE O*F WEST POINT. THE CONFERENCE BETWEEN 
 ARNOLD AND ANDRE. ANDRE'S CAPTURE AND ARNOLD'S ESCAPE. ANALYSIS OP 
 THE AFFAIR. 
 
 IT was not without difficulty that, through the winter of 1778-79, 
 Washington persuaded Congress that its favorite plan for the Waghington 
 conquest of Canada and Nova Scotia was unwise. That he ^San he 
 advanced many arguments, and urged them with earnest- scUeme - 
 ness and warmth ; that they were listened to with impatience, and 
 acceded to at last with reluctance, we know. The wisdom and pru- 
 dence of the Commander-in-chief on this subject seem in nowise re- 
 markable. It would seem rather that the military judgment of a 
 corporal should have been sufficient to decide upon the absurdity of 
 
 VOL. IV. 1 
 
2 
 
 SULLIVAN'S EXPEDITION. 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 such a movement under the existing circumstances, and that a Con- 
 gress that proposed it must have been composed of members quite 
 unfit for the conduct of a great war. 
 
 But Washington so far yielded to a scheme which he could not 
 wholly defeat, as to approve of a proposal to take the British fort at 
 Niagara. It was not, however, that he thought the capture of the 
 fort of so much moment, as that an expedition against it must in- 
 clude another object which he considered of greater importance. This 
 was the protection of the people of the frontier from the hostilities 
 
 of the Indians, who were 
 encouraged and aided by 
 the British from Canada. 
 Preparations were made 
 early in 1779 for carry- 
 ing the war into Central 
 New York and Western 
 Pennsylvania, with so 
 much vigor that it was 
 hoped the power of the 
 savages, and their hardly 
 less savage allies, would 
 be completely broken, 
 and tranquillity secured 
 by their extermination 
 or expulsion. 
 
 The command of this 
 expedition was offered to 
 Gates, who declined it in 
 a letter which the Com- 
 mander-in-chief justly 
 considered as little less 
 
 General Sullivan. 
 
 than insolent. It was 
 
 then given to Sullivan, who went to work with his usual energy, 
 suiiivan's though, perhaps, quite conscious that the task he had under- 
 xpedition. ta ]. en was niore useful than glorious. The ostensible object 
 was, at least in part, the capture of the fort at Niagara ; but the real 
 and essential purpose was the punishment of the Six Nations. Had 
 both been feasible, both, no doubt, would have been done ; but one 
 only was possible with the means and force at command, and Sulli- 
 van did not approach within seventy-five miles of Niagara River. 
 Washington's judgment in opposing the still more hazardous and 
 expensive project of an invasion of Canada was, as usual, uner- 
 ring. 
 
1779.] THE PLAN. 3 
 
 None knew so well as the Commander-in-chief the difficulty of even 
 holding the army together, and how impossible it would be Illsu i >oril j. 
 to provide the men and means for aggressive measures be- x* t w > "M>y 
 yond the boundaries of the States. When, early in May, tTO v*- 
 the New Jersey Brigade was ordered to move from winter quarters at 
 Elizabethtown, the officers of an entire regiment sent in their resig- 
 nations. They were impoverished for want of pay ; their families 
 at home were suffering for the necessaries of life ; they would not 
 abandon those who were dependent upon them, and their repeated 
 appeals to the Legislature for relief were unheeded. Such insubor- 
 dination, by military law, was deserving of punishment. Washington 
 preferred rather to appeal to the patriotism of the men and their 
 pride of character, and the New Jersey Legislature was moved at 
 length to relieve their necessities. Troubles like these, though inev- 
 itable from the poverty of the people, were aggravated by the diffi- 
 culty of carrying on a war conducted by a confederation of States, 
 each giving or withholding, for a common purpose, as suited their 
 own convenience or inclination, but without mutual submission to a 
 common will. 
 
 The expedition was to move in three divisions, the centre, under 
 Sullivan himself, from Wyoming ; the right wing, under 
 General James Clinton, from the Mohawk ; the left, under 
 Colonel Daniel Brodhead, from Pittsburg, all to be under Sullivan 
 when the forces were united. It was no fault of Sullivan's that the 
 spring and summer were consumed in preparations, from early in 
 May till late in August, for his commissary department was so tardily 
 and so wretchedly supplied that he luid neither food nor clothing for 
 his men. His complaints and remonstrances were, at length, listened 
 to, but his frankness raised up enemies against him in Congress, and 
 made him unpopular in Pennsylvania. In that State, a large party 
 was opposed to the expedition, partly because the Friends denied the 
 necessity of hostile measures against the Indians, and partly because 
 Pennsylvania was expected to assume a large share of the burden of 
 protecting her western territory. 
 
 Clinton was at the outlet of Otsego Lake, where it flows into the 
 Susquehanna River, early in July, with 1,700 men. Here clintons 
 he awaited orders for about a month, but occupied the time moT * ment - 
 in building a dam across the head of the river, to store water enough 
 to float his boats down the stream, in case of a summer drouth, when 
 the advance should be made. The lake was raised three or four feet 
 in height ; on the 9th of August the dam was broken, and the lib- 
 erated waters filled the bed of the river to its brink, bearing along 
 the two hundred and twenty boats upon its full tide, to the astonish- 
 
4 SULLIVAN'S EXPEDITION. [CHAP. I. 
 
 merit and alarm of the Indians at this sudden flood. Near the pres- 
 ent village of Union the division was met by a detachment from Sul- 
 livan, under General Poor ; and on the 20th of August the com- 
 bined forces moved from Fort Sullivan on Tioga Point, now the 
 village of Athens, in Pennsylvania. 
 
 The long and elaborate preparations for the campaign had not been 
 unheeded by the English and the Indians. As early as April, a detach- 
 ment from Fort Schuyler of six hundred men, under Colonel Van 
 Schaick, had entered the Indian country and destroyed a town of the 
 Onondagas. In July, the enemy, alarmed at the progress of the army, 
 had attempted to divert it from its purpose by an attack upon a fort 
 on the Susquehaima, and on the settlements in Orange County and 
 on the Laekawaxen River. Sullivan, early in August, had destroyed 
 the Indian village of Chemung, not without resistance, and with some 
 loss. 
 
 A few miles above this point, on the Chemung River, was the In- 
 Battieof dian village of Newtown, now Elmira. Here Sullivan found 
 New-town. j.j )e enemv j u force, numbering altogether, probably, about 
 twelve hundred men, made up of British regulars, Tories, and In- 
 dians, under Captain Macdonald of the British army, the Tor} 7 par- 
 tisans Colonel John Butler and his son, Captain Walter N. Butler, 
 and the Mohawk chief, Joseph Brant. 
 
 On a steep ridge between a creek and the river, this force was dis- 
 posed in a position protected on two sides by a bend in the river, 
 and skilfully strengthened in front by a breastwork, partially con- 
 cealed among pine trees and shrub oaks and branches artfully placed 
 among them. It was meant as an ambush ; the advancing Ameri- 
 cans, it was supposed, would wind along the base of the ridge by an 
 open path, parallel to the breastwork, and when their flank was com- 
 pletely exposed, a deadly fire from twelve hundred hidden rifles was 
 to be poured into them from the heights above. Sullivan commanded 
 not less than three thousand men, led by able and experienced sol- 
 diers. If stratagem did not succeed against them, there was little 
 chance of hindering their advance. 
 
 The stratagem \vas not successful. The earthworks were discov- 
 ered by the advanced guard, and from a tall tree a rifleman descried 
 the whole plan of offence and defence. Discovery was equivalent to 
 defeat. A portion of the army under General Hand was brought in 
 front of the enemy into line, which Brant and his Indians, by repeated 
 and desperate sorties, attempted to break. While they were so occu- 
 pied in front, Generals Poor and Clinton were quietly making their 
 way through woods and swamps for an attack on the rear and flank. 
 The enemy were caught in the trap which they had hoped would be 
 
1779.] INDIAN SETTLEMENTS LAID WASTE. 5 
 
 fatal to their opponents. The artillery, under Colonel Proetor, opened 
 fire upon the breastworks and their defenders at tlie moment that 
 Poor's men, followed by Clinton's, rushed up the hill in the rear with 
 the cry of " Remember Wyoming ! " The English and their allies 
 \vere outgeneralled as well as outnumbered, and though they fought 
 with courage, they were driven at length to headlong flight. Their 
 loss was so heavy, while Sullivan's was slight, and their defeat 
 so complete, that neither Brant's power, the influence of the Tories, 
 nor the promises of the English, could rally the Indians again in any 
 large numbers to oppose Sullivan's progress. 
 
 Destruction of Indian Villages. 
 
 Two days later the army resumed its march, and for weeks its prog- 
 ress was marked by utter desolation. The Six Nations Thr iftofthe 
 had achieved a degree of civilization unknown before that Six Natlon8 
 time to the American Indians, and never since attained by them 
 except among the Cherokees. They had gathered together in towns; 
 log-huts, and even frame-houses, convenient, rudely furnished, and 
 well-painted, had taken the place of wigwams. Their subsistence 
 they gained in part by agriculture ; their habitations were sur- 
 rounded by many hundreds of cultivated acres, and they had planted 
 thousands of fruit-trees, many already in full bearing. 
 
 n 11. i i i i Their coun- 
 
 oullivan spared neither the people nor their possessions, try aeras- 
 
 He met sometimes with desperate resistance, and the most 
 
 cruel tortures were inflicted upon some of his men who fell into the 
 
6 SULLIVAN'S EXPEDITION. [CHAP. I. 
 
 hands of the Indians. The provocation, on the other hand, was ter- 
 rible. Of forty villages, some of them containing more than a hun- 
 dred houses, not a trace was left, except in ashes. Every fruit-bearing 
 tree was cut down, and in one orchard alone there were fifteen hun- 
 dred peach trees ; two hundred thousand bushels of Indian corn, im- 
 mense quantities of potatoes, beans, and other products of their farms 
 and gardens, which the thrifty natives were about to harvest for win- 
 ter use, were destroyed. 
 
 The objective point of the expedition, probably, was really not 
 Niagara, but the Seneca Castle, or town, the chief westernmost set- 
 tlement of the Six Nations, the extreme western door of the Long 
 House, as they designated their confederacy. At this point, not far 
 from Geneseo, on the Genesee River, Sullivan retraced his footsteps. 
 The work was done thoroughly, with a loss to him of not more than 
 forty men. The Indians had neither shelter nor food to carry them 
 through the ensuing winter, which happened to be one of the severest 
 on record, and many of them perished from want and disease. Their 
 power \\ r as broken, and though they resumed, the following year, their 
 depredations upon the border settlements, they ceased from that time 
 to be the formidable enemy whose alliance with the English was an 
 important incident in the progress of the war. Sullivan resigned 
 his commission soon after rejoining Washington's army, and it was 
 accepted by Congress ; not, however, because of any disapprobation 
 of his merciless warfare against the Indians, but because he had in- 
 curred the enmity of many members of Congress by his frank and 
 perhaps imprudent reflections upon the conduct of the war. 1 
 
 Colonel Daniel Brodhead, who was in command of the fort at Pitts- 
 Brodhead-s burg, started early in August, in obedience to instructions 
 expedition. f rom fj le Commander-in-chief, on an expedition up the Alle- 
 ghany River, with about six hundred men. It was to have started 
 some months earlier, and to join Sullivan in an attack upon Niagara ; 
 but the purpose, at last, was only to punish the Indians, destroy their 
 villages and corn-fields, and in so doing make a diversion that should 
 be of effectual aid to Sullivan's more general campaign. The march 
 was almost wholly within the boundaries of Pennsylvania, and in the 
 course of it they crossed " a creek called Oil Creek," to be famous 
 nearly a century afterward. In the oil which the soldiers found float- 
 ing upon the top of a spring, they bathed their joints, to " the great 
 relief of the rheumatism with which they were afflicted." 
 
 The expedition, though occupying a comparatively short time and 
 
 1 The fullest and most accurate history of Sullivan's campaign is given in the Centennial 
 Addresses of the Rev. David Craft, at the celebration in August, 1879, at Elmira, Waterloo, 
 and Geneseo, N. Y. 
 
1779.] WAR IN THE SOUTHWEST. 
 
 few men, was of signal service, in the general plan of striking a blow 
 at the Six Nations that should be fatal to the strength of that con- 
 federacy. In his month's absence from Pittsburg, B redhead destroyed 
 many villages and hundreds of acres of growing corn, without the loss 
 of a man. The tribes he attacked were too much taken up in their 
 own defence to reenforce those whom Sullivan was driving before him, 
 and a number of hostile chiefs hastened to Pittsburg at Broilhead's 
 return, with solemn promises of their future good behavior. 1 Some of 
 them may have kept these promises ; but many more, doubtless, were 
 mindful rather of their wrongs. How well these were remembered, 
 Brant and three hundred of his warriors showed the next Brant - g re _ 
 summer, when, in conjunction with a force of British troops vcnge - 
 and Tories, a raid was made into the Mohawk Valley, its farms laid 
 waste, the dwellings, barns, and crops given to the flames, cattle and 
 sheep destroyed, and no mercy shown to either man or woman. 
 
 The declaration of war made this summer by Spain against Eng- 
 land, strengthened the bonds of friendship between Spain ^arinthe 
 and the United States, and John Jay was sent out as minis- Southwest - 
 ter with power to negotiate for the free navigation of the Mississippi 
 and a loan of five million dollars. The injury done to England, how- 
 ever, was much greater than any immediate benefit to the United 
 States. Galvez, the young and ambitious Governor of Louisiana, 
 moved up the Mississippi with a force of nearly fifteen hundred men 
 Oliver Pollock, the agent of Congress, with a company of volun- 
 teers, making a part of the expedition and soon captured the Brit- 
 ish posts of Fort Manchac, Baton Rouge, and Natchez. These suc- 
 cesses were followed by others ; eight English vessels were captured 
 on Lake Pontchartrain and on the Mississippi soon after the fall of 
 the forts, and a few months later Mobile was taken, the last post in 
 West Florida, except Pensacola, in British possession. That also was 
 reduced by Galvez the next year. But important as these conquests 
 seemed at the time to Spain, and to Spain alone, they were, in the 
 end, of infinitely more moment to the United States. Had England 
 been in possession of the Mississippi as well as of the St. Lawrence, 
 at the negotiation of peace, however idle it may be to speculate 
 upon what might have been, in that case, the history of the North 
 American Continent for the next hundred years, it is not difficult 
 to see that the United States would have had, in all human proba- 
 bility, quite another destiny. 
 
 1 Brodhead's expedition has usually been considered of little moment, and it has even 
 been denied, or doubted, by some writers, that it ever took place. Its incidents are for the 
 first time carefully collated and fully told by Obed Edsou, in The Magazine of History for 
 November, 1879. 
 
8 THE WAR AT THE SOUTH. [CHAP. I. 
 
 What was not Avas not to be ; else one might indulge also in specu- 
 lation as to the probable result of the war, had not the Brit- 
 ofthf new ish ministry determined that the basis of operations should 
 be removed from the Northern to the Southern States. The 
 attempt to suppress rebellion in the North had been baffled for nearly 
 five years ; it would be, it was thought, a wiser plan, and more easily 
 accomplished, to overrun the sparsely populated southern country, 
 separate its States from the Union, and compel its people to return to 
 their allegiance to the King. Congress and the Commander-in-chief 
 had good reason to be alarmed at this determination. 
 
 It was with the utmost difficulty they could deal with the perils 
 which already confronted them, and reduced them often almost to 
 despair. The army mustered only about fifteen thousand men en- 
 listed for the war, and of these not more than eleven or twelve 
 thousand were in the ranks. The terms of service of about twelve 
 thousand additional militia would expire at intervals during the first 
 half of 1780, and whether these would reenlist, or their places could 
 be supplied by raw recruits, was a contingency beyond control or 
 calculation. The pay of the soldiers was months in arrears; they 
 were always without sufficient clothing and the ordinary necessities 
 of comfort in camp life, often without provisions for two days in 
 advance, and sometimes without rations for the passing day. The 
 one thing that was plentiful was paper money, and that, at the cur- 
 rent rate of forty to one, was the one thing that was almost good for 
 nothing. As it would pay for so little, and was so little pay for 
 what it bought, it hardly added to the general distress that the neces- 
 sities of the army were met by requisitions upon the country for food 
 and forage wherever they could be found. The government was 
 kept afloat by foreign loans. 
 
 With this miserable army Washington confronted Clinton, who 
 commanded a well-appointed force of nearly thirty thousand men, in 
 New York and its dependencies. To be always on the vigilant defen- 
 sive, and to watch warily for every chance to strike a telling blow at 
 any unguarded or carelessly guarded point, was the policy of the 
 American General. It was fortunate for him that Clinton, with his 
 greater strength and superior resources, either from want of energy 
 or courage, was even less aggressive. He was content to watch 
 Washington, as Washington w r as compelled to watch him. 
 
 But there was this important difference in their conditions : Clin- 
 ton could threaten more than one point by detachments from the 
 army with which he perpetually menaced the Northern and Middle 
 States ; while Washington had neither men nor means to meet any 
 such movements. Clinton knew, quite as well as he, the difficul- 
 
1779.] 
 
 ATTACK ON SAVANNAH. 
 
 9 
 
 ties of the situation, and that, so far as the main army in the field 
 was concerned, either the North or the South must be left defence- 
 less. The conclusion was obvious, the conquest of either North or 
 South would be easy and inevitable, and the conquest of one was the 
 conquest of both. Sound as the reasoning seemed, it was a fatal 
 mistake. 
 
 Lincoln's success in maintaining his position at Charleston sug- 
 gested, perhaps, that the aspect of affairs would seem less 
 hopeless if Savannah could be retaken. D'Estaing was in in the 
 the West Indies, where he had gained more credit for the 
 French arms than in his abortive movements about Rhode Island the 
 year before. He consented to give his aid in a brief campaign in 
 Georgia, and early in September appeared off the coast with a fleet 
 of about forty ships, carrying six thousand troops. 
 
 D'Estaing had sent word of his approach to General Lincoln, who 
 immediately left Charleston for Savannah, with the Conti- Attackon 
 nental force under his command and a bodv of militia. Be- s*" 1 * 11 
 
 / 
 
 fore his arrival, D'Estaing had invested the town and summoned it 
 to surrender, not, however, 
 in the name of the allied 
 powers, but in that of the 
 King of France. This 
 breach of military etiquette, 
 if it was no worse, was either 
 explained or overlooked, 
 perhaps, even, would have 
 been altogether forgotten, 
 had not the French com- 
 mander, by his want of 
 promptness now, as by his 
 want of promptness the year 
 before at Rhode Island, 
 thrown away the opportu- 
 nity of achieving success. To 
 his demand for surrender, 
 the British General, Prevost, 
 asked for a truce of twenty- 
 four hours, and it was 
 granted. In the time thus 
 gained he completed his 
 works of defence, and was 
 reeuforced by Lieutenant-colonel Maitland with eight hundred vet- 
 erans then stationed at Beaufort. Before their arrival, the city was 
 
 General Lincoln. 
 
10 THE WAR AT THE SOUTH. [CHAP. I. 
 
 at D'Estaing's mercy ; for not more than ten guns were mounted then 
 upon the unfinished earthworks. With such an addition to its gar- 
 rison, Prevost's final answer to the demand for surrender was an an- 
 swer of defiance. Within a few days his defences were completed, 
 and surmounted by eighty heavy guns. 
 
 About a month had elapsed since the arrival of the French fleet, 
 and D'Estaing was in haste to return to his station in the West In- 
 dies, partly to escape the probable storms of the autumn, and partly 
 to avoid the possible arrival of an English fleet from New Yoi'k. 
 Either the siege must be abandoned, or the place carried by assault, 
 for D'Estaing either could not or would not await the completion of 
 trenches. On the 9th of October the attempt was made. 
 
 Here, at least, there was no reason for reflecting upon D'Estaing. 
 He was twice wounded as, with Lincoln, he led the attack. The com- 
 bined forces engaged in the assault numbered more than four thou- 
 sand men, and they were aided by a cannonade of shot and shell from 
 the French fleet. But the defence was conducted with great skill 
 and courage, and with an advantage from behind abatis and earth- 
 works that outweighed numbers. The assailants, crowded together 
 within the redoubt, were exposed for nearly an hour to a terrible fire, 
 while the utmost they could do was to plant a French and an Amer- 
 ican standard upon the ramparts. 
 
 This was the centre of in tensest interest. Sergeant Jasper, who 
 had restored the flag to its place when shot down at Fort Moultrie at 
 the beginning of the war, w r as here mortally wounded in defence of 
 his colors ; three lieutenants, Bush, Thomas, and Grey, fell with the 
 staves in their hands, Bush with the flag beneath him ; and one 
 only of the standards was rescued from the hands of the enemy by 
 Sergeant McDonald, who escaped unhurt. The British lost less than 
 fifty killed, and not many more wounded and missing ; while on the 
 other side the loss, in killed and wounded, was between eleven and 
 twelve hundred, including many officers, and chief among them the 
 Count Pulaski, who fell mortally wounded at the head of his bat- 
 talion. Jt was the end of the siege of Savannah ; in ten days the 
 French fleet was under sail for the West Indies, and Lincoln was 
 compelled to return to Charleston. 
 
 Georgia was virtually restored to the Crown, so far as the province 
 was under any civil government at all, and Clinton, encour- 
 to charies- aged by the repulse at Savannah, resolved upon energetic 
 measures for the reduction of the whole South. Late in De- 
 cember, he embarked with seven thousand five hundred men for 
 Charleston, leaving Knyphausen in command at New York, with force 
 enough to occupy Washington's attention, who, compelled to detach 
 
1779-80.] 
 
 A SEVERE WIXTER. 
 
 11 
 
 the Virginia and Maryland troops for Southern service, could under- 
 take no aggressive movements of importance. 
 
 The winter was one of exceptional severity, and the American 
 army at Morristown endured almost the extremity of suffer- ^^^y of 
 ing from cold, from want of food, and want of clothing. thcw ' Dter - 
 Even the British troops, in their comfortable quarters in New York, 
 were compelled to submit to many privations, while they could not 
 relax their vigilance for an hour. They were in perpetual fear of 
 
 Fall of Sergeant Jasper. 
 
 attack, for the town could be approached on either side over the solid 
 ice which closed the North River, the East River, and the bay for 
 miles. Each army did all it could to harass the other during the 
 winter. Lord Stirling crossed the Kill on the ice, at Elizabethtown, 
 to Staten Island, marched two thousand men nearly to the Narrows, 
 and burned a fortified house and several vessels, with slight loss. A 
 few days afterward a party of the enemy crossed from the Island 
 to Elizabethtown, and burned the Presbyterian meeting-house, the 
 
12 THE WAR AT THE SOUTH. [CHAP. I. 
 
 court-house, and some private dwellings ; and the same night another 
 party crossed the North River in sleighs, marched to New- 
 ark, burned the academy, and sacked some of the houses. 
 These and similar excursions served to exercise the vigilance and 
 keep up the discipline of the men on both sides through the winter 
 months. 
 
 It was near the middle of March before Clinton could take any 
 effectual steps for investing Charleston, for his voyage from New 
 York was tempestuous, and several of his transports were lost. The 
 garrison of the town was about three thousand men, and General 
 Lincoln believed he could hold it, provided it was approached from 
 the land side only. Commodore Whipple was in the harbor with 
 nine small vessels, and with these, and the guns of Fort Moultrie, he 
 was confident the British fleet could be prevented from crossing the 
 bar. But the bar was passed without difficulty or opposition, and 
 Whipple could put his small fleet to no better use than to sink the 
 whole of it, with the exception of one ship, at the mouth of Cooper 
 River, to obstruct that channel. A few days later, the enemy passed 
 Fort Moultrie and anchored in front of the town. 
 
 Clinton in the mean time had made good his position in the rear 
 siege of f the town, where Lincoln had thrown up fortifications and 
 Charleston, fag a cana } across the low lands between the two rivers. 
 These works were not formidable, as Lincoln had not feared an attack 
 from that direction that he could not repel so long as the harbor was 
 in his possession. With a fleet in front, holding the town under its 
 guns, Clinton could make his approaches at his leisure, and wait for 
 reinforcements from Savannah. 
 
 With the completion of his first parallel on the 10th of April, at a 
 distance of about a thousand yards, the town was summoned to sur- 
 render. Lincoln replied, that " duty and inclination pointed to the 
 propriety of supporting it to the last extremity," for he might, he 
 said, have abandoned it at any time, had he seen fit, during the sixty 
 days that had elapsed since the siege began. This was quite true 
 during the earlier weeks of the siege, so far as his movements could 
 be controlled by the enemy ; but it was not quite true that his action 
 and judgment had been entirely unrestrained. The question had been 
 warmly discussed, in more than one council of war, after the British 
 fleet had crossed the bar, whether it was not wiser to save the army 
 by retreat, rather than await almost certain capture ; and the decis- 
 ion to remain Avas influenced, if it was not absolutely determined, by 
 the threats of the townspeople, that if the attempt were made " they 
 would cut up his [Lincoln's] boats, and open the gates to the en- 
 emy." l 
 
 1 Moultrie's Memoirs. 
 
1780.] SURRENDER OF CHARLESTON. 13 
 
 But retreat soon ceased to be possible. The cavalry stationed at 
 Monk's Corner, about thirty miles up the Cooper River, were sur- 
 prised and dispersed ; a like misfortune befell a post on the Santee, 
 where Colonels White, Washington, Jamieson, and other officers saved 
 themselves by swimming the river ; some smaller posts nearer the 
 city were necessarily abandoned, and Lincoln's only available road of 
 escape, between the Cooper and Santee rivers, was cut oft . Clinton 
 closed slowly but surely around the city. Early in May, Fort Moul- 
 trie was surrendered ; the third parallel was finished a few days later 
 within a few yards of the canal ; the canal, the first barrier of the 
 besieged, was drained and occupied by the enemy ; and the town 
 was then at his mercy. Negotiations were begun on the 8th of May, 
 and concluded on the 12th, by honorable capitulation. The s urren ,ierof 
 Adjutant-general, John Andre, reported the number of male tbecit ^- 
 citizens as prisoners at nearly six thousand ; these and the militia 
 were released on parole, while the Continental troops and seamen were 
 held as prisoners of war. 
 
 The failure to take Savannah the previous autumn, and the loss 
 now of Charleston and of the whole southern army at a single blow,, 
 were most serious disasters to the cause of the Americans. The Brit- 
 ish army in Georgia and South Carolina numbered nearly fourteen 
 thousand men, and with Charleston and Savannah as their base, the 
 easy and early subjugation of all the Southern States seemed certain. 
 Clinton spoke with entire confidence of the absolute possession of 
 Georgia and South Carolina, but his conduct showed at first CH nton-8 
 that he looked upon the population of both as a people f lie y- 
 still to be conciliated, and not as one already subdued. Had he con- 
 tinued in this temper, he would have left a less difficult task to his 
 successor. A large number of persons had given their paroles and 
 accepted protections, with the understanding that they should be ex- 
 empt from any participation in the war on either side. But Clinton, 
 in a second proclamation, required that " all persons should take an 
 active part in settling and securing his Majesty's government," and 
 that those who neglected to do so should be considered as " enemies 
 and rebels." 
 
 There were many who would consent to remain in an attitude of 
 neutrality in the contest, who were by no means willing to take up 
 arms against their own countrymen. A Major James was sent as the 
 representative of some of this class to ask of Captain Ardesoif, the 
 commander of the British post at Georgetown, an explanation of the 
 proclamation. The answer he received was, that " his Majesty offers 
 you a free pardon, of which you are undeserving, for you all ought to 
 be hanged ; but it is only on condition that you take up arms in his 
 
14 
 
 THE WAR AT THE SOUTH. 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 cause." James replied that those whom lie represented would not 
 submit to such conditions. " Represent ! " shouted the British officer ; 
 " you damned rebel ! if you dare speak in such language, I will have 
 you hung up at the yard-arm ! " James, who was unarmed, knocked 
 him down with a chair, for answer, and left him senseless. The five 
 brothers of the James family were from that moment among the most 
 active partisans of the State. 1 Many followed their example. Clinton 
 
 James and Ardesoif. 
 
 foolishly compelled them to fight, and under that compulsion they 
 preferred to fight against the King, not for him. 
 
 When the news of the fall of Charleston reached New York, Knyp- 
 liausen was persuaded that it would so discourage the soldiers of 
 the American army in New Jersey, whose privations and complaints 
 
 1 Lift of Francis Marion, by W. G. Siiums. 
 
1780.] RAIDS IN NEW JERSEY. 15 
 
 were well known to him, that they would be an easy conquest. On 
 the 6th of June, he crossed with six thousand troops from 
 Staten Island to Elizabeth town Point, and marched toward invades N>" 
 the village of Connecticut Farms, seven miles beyond Eliza- 
 bethtown. The militia, under Colonel Elias Dayton, and a brigade 
 of Continental troops under General William Maxwell, from whom 
 Knyphausen expected a welcome, disputed every foot of the road 
 from sunrise till dark, as the British advanced. They fell back step 
 by step before a superior force, but it was with the utmost coolness 
 and good order. In the course of the day the village of Connecticut 
 Farms was burned, and the wife of the clergyman, the Rev. James 
 Caldwell, was killed by a shot through the window of the room 
 where she was sitting surrounded by her children. It was asserted 
 in the contemporary reports in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania 
 newspapers, that this was the deliberate deed of a passing British 
 soldier, 1 and the statement, though denied on the other side, was gen- 
 erally believed, and excited universal indignation. 
 
 When at last the Americans crossed the Rahway, at Springfield, 
 and Washington had advanced to their support, if needed, Knyphau- 
 sen fell back the way he came. "At the middle of the night," 
 wrote Maxwell, to Governor Livingston, of Xew Jersey, "the en- 
 emy sneaked off and put their backsides to the Sound near Elizabeth- 
 town." They held the road from Eli/abethtown to De Hart's Point 
 on the Kill van Kull. 
 
 On the 17th of June, Clinton, having taken unwittingly the first 
 step in the train of events that was to lead to the loss of the 
 cause entrusted to him, arrived from Charleston. Six days 
 
 afterward he ordered another movement, the preparations 
 for which were watched with anxiety. Washington at first supposed 
 an attack upon West Point was intended, but he divined Clinton's in- 
 tention in season to meet the advance into New Jersey. Greene was 
 put in command of about fifteen hundred men at Springfield, and with 
 Maxwell's and Stark's brigades and Lee's infantry, was ready to give 
 the enemy a warm reception. Colonels Angell, Shreve, and Dayton, 
 with their respective regiments, opposed one column of the enemy, 
 and Major Lee with his cavalry and Colonel Ogden with his regiment 
 checked the other. Dayton's militia were inspired by the presence 
 and example of their chaplain, Caldwell, whose wife had been shot 
 only a few days before. When the men were in want of wadding for 
 their guns, he distributed hymn-books among them, with the s pr i ngficld 
 exhortation, " Put Watts into them, boys ! " 2 Springfield, turned - 
 however, was taken and burned, and the enemy then returned to 
 Staten Island. 
 
 1 See Moore '9 Diary of the Revolution. 2 Irving's Life of Washington. 
 
16 ARNOLD'S TREASON. [CHAP. I. 
 
 On the llth of July, five thousand French troops, under De Ro- 
 chambeau, arrived at Newport, the first division of an army 
 of twelve thousand men which Lafayette had induced the 
 
 King to promise should be sent to America. Again, for a 
 time, the French alliance proved rather a hindrance than a help. The 
 enthusiasm aroused by Rochambeau's arrival was almost extravagant, 
 and important and decisive measures, it was supposed, would imme- 
 diately follow. Washington proposed to move, supported by the 
 French, upon the city of New York. But it was the 15th before the 
 French troops were all landed, and nearly one fifth of them, sick from 
 a voyage of seventy days, were sent into hospitals ; on the 21st, an 
 English fleet Avas seen in the offing ; on the 25th, a messenger was sent 
 by Rochambeau to the government of Massachusetts to ask that the 
 troops of that province might be ordered to reenforce his army, as he 
 had just learned from Washington that Newport was to be attacked 
 by the British. 1 That it was not attacked, was due solely to a disa- 
 greement between Sir Henry Clinton and Admiral Arbuthnot. When, 
 a little later, a squadron under Admiral Rodney joined that of Arbuth- 
 not to make the blockade of Newport effectual, a considerable force 
 was detached from the American army to aid in the defence of the 
 allies and their fleet. 
 
 It was an autumn of enforced inactivity and of hope deferred ; and 
 Arnold's while the country was under these depressing influences, it 
 treason. was showed by the disclosure of Arnold's long premeditated 
 treachery, which, had it been successful, would have led, no doubt, to 
 the most disastrous consequences. For eighteen months he had been 
 in communication with Sir Henry Clinton, to whom, through Major 
 John Andre", Adjutant-general of the British army, he had given, from 
 time to time, much valuable information. His schemes were now 
 complete, through which he believed that, by the sacrifice of his coun- 
 try, he could achieve rank, and fame, and wealth for himself. 
 
 It is not unusual to explain Arnold's crime by the suggestion of 
 jits charac- some extraordinary impulse as that a proud and haughty 
 spirit could not brook certain humiliations which had been 
 put upon him in the American army that a lofty ambition led him 
 to extravagances in his way of living from which it was difficult, if 
 not impossible, to extricate himself, while the very heedlessness with 
 which they were incurred was the evidence only of a warm and gen- 
 erous temper. It is difficult to admit that his conduct may be so 
 explained when his whole career, both before and after his treason, 
 is considered. He was certainly distinguished for wonderful energy 
 
 1 Journal of Claude Bluncliard, Commissary of the French Auxiliary Army sent to the United 
 States during the American Revolution, 1780-1783. 
 
1780.] 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE WITH ANDRE. 
 
 17 
 
 and remarkable physical courage; and as a soldier these seem to 
 have been his chief merits. But there was something in the way of 
 his success which, from the beginning of his public life, always con- 
 fronted him among those who knew him best, and those whose duty 
 it was to fathom his true character. There was an apparently in- 
 surmountable distrust of his integrity, and, with some, a vague, but 
 positive, suspicion of his loyalty. His dash excited admiration, and 
 at first won him hosts of unthinking friends ; but the more reflecting 
 looked for, and did not find, in his conduct, that rigid rule of a severe 
 morality and that keen sense of honor of which he was so apt in 
 boasting. 1 The treatment he received from Congress, in 1777, in 
 relation to his commission as 
 Major-general, is in itself al- 
 most his condemnation, as it 
 could not have been without 
 strong reasons ; that he should 
 not have immediately retired 
 from public life on being so 
 treated, is a remarkable proof of 
 that absence of self-respect that 
 fully justifies the withholding of 
 respect in others. 
 
 While in command at Phila- 
 delphia, he had married a second 
 wife, a daughter of Edward 
 Shippen, a distinguished Tory. 
 In the gay winter of 1777, when 
 Sir William Howe occupied the 
 city, this young lady was a fa- 
 vorite of the British officers, and 
 after her marriage she kept up 
 a correspondence with Major Andre". The assertion, so generally 
 made, that Arnold took advantage of this correspondence to put 
 himself in communication with Andre, can hardly be true ; for Mrs. 
 Arnold was ignorant, till the last moment, of the treacherous rela- 
 tion her husband had established with the enemy, and Andre* and 
 Sir Henry Clinton were for a long time unable to ascertain the real 
 name of the person to whom they were indebted for much valuable 
 information. Arnold may have detected something in the tone 
 of the letters to his wife, that led him to believe he would find in 
 Andre* one with whom he could safely conspire in his intended trea- 
 son ; but he could not have availed himself of the communication al- 
 
 Benedict Arnold. 
 
 VOL. IV. 
 
 1 See Sparks's Life of Benedict Arnold. 
 2 
 
18 ARNOLD'S TREASON. [CHAP. I. 
 
 ready existing, -without exciting suspicion in his wife, or betraying 
 his identity to her friend. 
 
 The correspondence that followed was conducted under the pre- 
 tence of being upon commercial affairs, Andre* assuming the 
 race with name of " John Anderson," and Arnold that of " Gustavus." 
 For months it was necessarily confined to keeping the Brit- 
 ish officer, and through him the British Commander-in-chief, carefully 
 informed of military and civil intelligence that could be of use to the 
 enemy. The estimation in which this was held was much increased 
 when Clinton was led by several circumstances to conjecture the 
 name of his correspondent, and was then assured that still more im- 
 portant services were to come. 
 
 While in command in Philadelphia, various charges had been 
 preferred against Arnold by the State, which brought him in the end 
 before a court-martial. When again restored to active service, 
 after receiving a public rebuke from the Commander-in-chief, in ac- 
 cordance with the sentence of the court, he contrived, under pre- 
 tence that an old wound unfitted him for duty in the field, to get the 
 appointment of commander of West Point. It was perfectly char- 
 acteristic of the man of his self-conceit and his insolence, of his 
 reckless disregard of truth, of his bold hypocrisy and pretence of honor 
 that he should have said before the court-martial, after recount- 
 ing his own services and merits : " When our illustrious General was 
 retreating through New Jersey with a handful of men, I did not pro- 
 pose to my associates basely to quit the General, and sacrifice the 
 cause of my country to my personal safety, by going over to the enemy 
 and making my peace." The allusion was to President Reed, of 
 Pennsylvania, about whom there were some whispered suspicions J 
 then for the first time publicly alluded to. Yet at this moment Ar- 
 nold had been already for months in secret communication with the 
 enemy, and was only delaying some final act of stupendous treachery 
 till he was in a position to make it the most disastrous to his country. 
 He had attained to that position in the command of West Point, 
 and had skilfully manoeuvred to acquire it for the sole pur- 
 ofTl^t" pose of betraying his trust, and selling himself at a high 
 price. When he proposed to Clinton to put him in pos- 
 session of the place, that general wrote to the Ministry that it was 
 worth being secured "at every risk and at any expense." As a mil- 
 itary post, its acquisition would be as important to one party as its 
 loss would be serious to the other. It commanded the navigation of 
 the Hudson, and, to a certain degree, the communication with Canada, 
 and between the Northern and Southern States ; it and its dependen- 
 
 1 See vol. iii., p. 526, note. 
 
1780.] 
 
 THE CONFERENCE WITH ANDRE. 
 
 19 
 
 cies were held by garrisons numbering more than three thousand 
 men ; they were defended by about one hundred guns, and contained 
 large stores of provisions and ammunition. With the betrayal of the 
 place, a large portion of the men and property, it was supposed, would 
 be captured. 
 
 It Avas necessary that the final arrangement should be made by a 
 personal interview, and it Avas by both Clinton's and Ar- 
 nold's wish that this was intrusted to Andre*, through whom em* with 
 the correspondence had all along been conducted. To one 
 other person only in the British army Colonel Beverley Robinson, 
 commanding a regi- 
 ment of American 
 Loyalists was the 
 negotiation known. 
 Arnold was too 
 wary to trust any 
 one on his own side 
 with a knowledge 
 of his contemplated 
 villany. Robinson's 
 estate was opposite 
 West Point, on the 
 other side of the 
 river, and the house 
 was occupied by 
 Arnold as his head- Robmson-, House 
 
 quarters. Under a pretence of asking for a conference in regard to 
 the restitution of this confiscated property, Robinson attempted to 
 bring about a meeting between the conspirators. To allay suspicion, 
 the letter which on its face seemed innocent enough was shown 
 to Washington, who objected to the interview, as the question seem- 
 ingly proposed to be discussed could only, he said, bo settled by the 
 civil authorities. 
 
 Arnold had some days before attempted to get Andre* within the 
 American lines as a merchant, under the name of " John Anderson," 
 and had directed Colonel Sheldon, in command of a post at Lower 
 Salem, Westchester County, to receive and have him conducted to 
 headquarters. Probably the hazard of going openly within the ene- 
 my's lines under an assumed name, and with a pretended purpose, 
 deterred Andre from this undertaking ; for he could hardly have 
 failed to reflect that if his true character were discovered he would 
 be arrested as a spy, and the exposure of the plot would follow. 
 There is, indeed, no other supposable reason for his rejecting this 
 
20 ARNOLD'S TREASON. [CHAP. I. 
 
 method of bringing about the desired and essential interview ; and 
 had he never abandoned that cautious conduct, but had compelled 
 Arnold to take the risk which in any case would attend the accom- 
 plishment of his purpose, the less guilty of the two conspirators 
 would have escaped an ignominious death. At any rate, Andre* de- 
 clined Arnold's invitation, and appointed to meet him at Dobbs 
 Ferry. Arnold attempted this, but failed for want of proper pre- 
 caution somewhere, was fired upon by the guard-boats, and came 
 near being taken prisoner. Two days later he again attempted to 
 induce Andre* to come within the American lines, promising that a 
 trusty person should meet him at Dobbs Ferry and conduct him, in 
 disguise, to a place of safety, where the interview should take place. 
 At the same time, in case Andre* should have changed his mind, and 
 be willing now to take the hazard of a ride to headquarters through 
 the American posts, the General wrote to Major Tallmadge, at North 
 Castle, if one John Anderson arrived there, to send him forward 
 under an escort. 
 
 But Andre* had not changed his mind. Arnold had given him the 
 alternative of meeting a messenger at Dobbs Ferry, or on board the 
 British sloop-of-war Vulture, then lying off Teller's now Under- 
 bill's Point, just above Sing Sing. Clinton's positive orders to his 
 Adjutant-general were, that he should neither go within the American 
 lines, assume a disguise, nor accept papers. It was in accordance with 
 the spirit of these orders that Andrd did not remain at Dobbs. Ferry 
 to wait for a messenger, but pushed on to the Vulture. There he 
 would still be under the British flag, and would be nearer Arnold's 
 headquarters, who, he hoped, would meet him on board the ship. 
 
 This was on the evening of the 20th of September, and up to this 
 time it is quite plain that Arnold, in that intense and remarkable 
 selfishness which always governed his conduct, was determined that 
 all the dangers of the enterprise should fall to others, and the chief 
 reward to himself ; and it is equally plain that Andre* understood these 
 dangers and was determined to avoid them. Great reward was to be 
 his also, if the treacherous business could be brought to a successful 
 end ; but so long as he remained in New York, his own cool judg- 
 ment, and that of the commanding General, were quite sufficient to 
 convince him that the hope of reward, however great, could not jus- 
 tify the enormous risk of being captured as a spy. He, no doubt, felt 
 that he would be quite as strong to resist temptation on board the 
 Vulture as in his quiet quarters in New York. 
 
 It was now three weeks since the interview had been talked about, 
 and there were many reasons why some conclusion should be speedily 
 reached. It was known to a number of persons that there was some- 
 
 
1780.] THE CONFERENCE WITH ANDRE. 21 
 
 thing urmsual and mysterious going on between the American Gen- 
 eral and the enemy ; and though nobody suspected its real character 
 and purpose, some unlucky accident, where watchfulness had been 
 once aroused, might lead at any moment to a catastrophe. Military 
 reasons, moreover, were imperative. Washington and Rochanibeau 
 were in conference at Hartford ; a movement might be made that 
 would prevent the attack upon West Point by the British, which was 
 an essential part of Arnold's plan ; while, if the movement of the allied 
 armies should be anticipated by the capture of that stronghold, all 
 Washington's plans would be completely defeated. 
 
 It was impossible that such obvious considerations should not greatly 
 influence Andre" s mind, and induce him at last to yield to circum- 
 stances which he could not control. Another day Avas lost, and days 
 now, even hours, were very precious ; but as possibly Arnold, or 
 his massenger, might have gone or sent to Dobbs Ferry, presuming 
 that his confederate would stop at the point nearest to New York, 
 it was necessary to let him know that John Anderson awaited him on 
 board the Vulture. A pretext was found for sending a letter to the 
 American General, which was countersigned " John Anderson, Secre- 
 tary." In the evening of the 21st a boat with muffled oars came 
 alongside the ship ; but it brought, instead of Arnold, one Joshua 
 Hett Smith, who supposed that he was to take back to shore the Tory 
 Colonel, Beverley Robinson. Arnold, it was plain, meant to take no 
 personal risk for himself, and calculated, perhaps, how great this 
 temptation would be to an impetuous young man to brave what did 
 not seem to be a very great danger, for the sake of an interview on 
 which so much depended, and for which there might not be another 
 opportunity. 
 
 Both Captain Sutherland of the Vulture, and Colonel Robinson, 
 it is said, earnestly advised Andre" not to leave the ship; but 
 throwing aside the caution which, apparently, had hitherto governed 
 him, or had been imposed upon him by superior authority, he was 
 deaf to their counsels. If Arnold would not come to him, he must 
 go to Arnold ; and it seemed possible to do so, under existing circum- 
 stances, without any very great hazard. Concealing his uniform 
 under a long overcoat, he took boat with Smith, was rowed to the 
 west bank of the river, and met Arnold at the foot of the Long Clove 
 Mountain, about six miles below Stony Point. 
 
 The conference between the two conspirators, concealed in the 
 bushes, lasted for several Ijours, till Smith warned them that, as day- 
 light was approaching, it was not safe either for them or the boat to 
 remain longer. Smith, in his narrative, published years afterward in 
 England, declares that Arnold urged him and the boatmen to return 
 
22 ARNOLD'S TREASON. [CHAP. I. 
 
 to the Vulture with their passenger ; but the boatmen two brothers, 
 named Colquhoun, who, both because they were fatigued, and be- 
 cause they thought a secret expedition in the night to a British vessel 
 was wrong, had at the outset refused to be engaged in it till Arnold 
 threatened them with arrest testified on Smith's trial that they 
 did not see Arnold at all, that Smith only asked if they were willing 
 to go back to the ship, and they replied in the negative. The point 
 is not unimportant. There is not the least evidence that Andre" pro- 
 posed or wished to return ; much still remained to be arranged, and 
 he consented, apparently without hesitation or protest knowing 
 that he was within the enemy's lines and was not, as he afterward 
 confessed, under the protection of a flag to go with Arnold, to 
 Smith's house, about three miles distant. Arnold had provided for 
 this contingency by having a horse in readiness, and by requiring 
 Smith, a day or t\vo before, to send his family from home. 
 
 To take advantage of treachery on the other side, is held to be jus- 
 tifiable in war. Andre" s first error was when, to gain that advantage, 
 he quitted the protection of his own flag ; his second step was irrep- 
 arable and fatal in entrusting his life without reserve to his accom- 
 plice. Perhaps he became conscious of this almost immediately after 
 his arrival at Smith's house, from the windows of which he saw the 
 Vulture drop down the river under a heavy cannonade which Colonel 
 Andres di- James Livingston had ordered to be brought to bear upon 
 lemma. ] ier f rom Teller's Point. She returned, however, in the 
 course of the day, and, as evening approached, Andre showed great 
 anxietv to be taken on board. But Smith, in whose hands Arnold 
 
 v 
 
 had left the spy, was now too much alarmed to venture again upon 
 the river, and Andre* had no alternative but to accept the risk of that 
 ride through the country which he had so steadily refused to take, 
 when under the guidance of Sir Henry Clinton, and free to exer- 
 cise his own common sense. He had placed himself in a position 
 where he could no longer govern his own actions, but must trust to 
 chance. 
 
 Arnold was hardly less helpless. To Smith, who had made it his 
 business for a considerable time to gather news from inside the Brit- 
 ish posts, there was nothing in the case before him to distinguish it 
 from others with which he was in daily familiarity. So far as he 
 knew, here was only an ordinary spy who had voluntarily exposed 
 himself to the dangers which a spy must always encounter. He was 
 quite willing to help him to the usual facilities of avoiding such dan- 
 gers, but felt under no obligation to expose his own life by venturing 
 again to board the Vulture, now so closely watched. Arnold evidently 
 did not dare to exercise absolute authority, for that would quicken 
 
1780.] 
 
 ANDRE'S DILEMMA. 
 
 23 
 
 the suspicions of Smith, who already knew more than could easily be 
 explained. He therefore left Andre" to Smith's mercy ; and that he 
 knew what Smith Avould do, is evident from the fact that lie provided 
 a pass for Andre* to go by land to White Plains, and persuaded him 
 to substitute for his uniform coat a plain one of Smith's, explaining to 
 that gentleman that it was only vanity in this tradesman, John Ander- 
 son, that had led him to appear in the garb of a British major. It 
 was determined that he should return to New York by land, and the 
 journey was begun at night. They crossed the river at Verplanck's 
 
 
 *t+??~*^7 &"? *>*-2. ' d t^e^Z*^***'' 
 
 ' ' <r 
 
 ^^^ * 
 
 ^,cs^?&tr&& t^-jZ* 
 
 * ^"T 
 
 Fac-simile of Andre's pass. 
 
 Point, and at Crompond, eight miles farther, learned from Captain 
 Boyd, who was in command of a patrolling party, that a band of Cow- 
 boys, or marauders in British pay, who infested the country above 
 New York was probably in the neighborhood, and they had better 
 iTelay their journey till morning. 
 
 The road they were on led to Pine's Bridge, over the Croton River, 
 and at this point, in the morning, Smith left Andre* to pursue his 
 
24 ARNOLD'S TREASON. [CHAP.!. 
 
 way alone, presuming that he would keep on by the most direct way 
 to White Plains. But Andre" had heard the night before from Cap- 
 tain Boyd that the Cow-boys were on the Tarry town road, along the 
 east bank of the Hudson, and his wish was, of course, not to avoid 
 but to fall in with some of these people, with whom he would be safe. 
 After parting with Smith, therefore, he left the White Plains road 
 for the road to Sing Sing, and hurried forward to strike the Tarry- 
 town road. 
 
 He had reached to within half a mile of Tarrytown when he was 
 stopped by three men John Paulding, Isaac Van Wart, 
 
 Hi- capture. A . 
 
 and David Williams who were out in pursuit of the 
 Cow-boys. He hoped, he said, incautiously, that they belonged to 
 the " Lower Party ; " and on being assured they did, he declared that 
 he was a British officer, abroad on particular business, and must not 
 be detained. They ordered him to dismount, and guessing now that 
 he had committed a blunder, he exclaimed, u My God ! I must do 
 anything to get along," and pulled out Arnold's pass to John Ander- 
 son. It was too late. When Paulding was asked at Smith's trial 
 why he did not release the prisoner when the pass was shown, he an- 
 swered, 4k Because he said before he was a British officer. Had he 
 pulled out General Arnold's pass first, I should have let him go." 
 They led him out of the road, behind some bushes, took off his boots 
 and stockings, and within the stockings found the papers revealing 
 Arnold's treason. He was asked by Williams if he would give his 
 horse, saddle, bridle, watch, and a hundred guineas if they would 
 release him. He offered not only these, but any sum of money or 
 quantity of dry goods they should ask for, to be sent to any place 
 they should name. "No, by God," said Paulding; "if you would 
 give us ten thousand guineas, you should not stir a step." 
 
 The nearest military post was North Castle, where Colonel Jame- 
 son was in command, and thither the prisoner was taken. 
 
 Col. Jame- . . ... 
 
 eon's biun- This officer was utterly bewildered. He was familiar with 
 Arnold's handwriting, and it was impossible to doubt that it 
 lay before him in the pass to " John Anderson " and the documents 
 found in his stockings. There is no intimation anywhere that Jame- 
 son supposed it possible that these papei-s might be forged. He prob- 
 ably believed that here was some deep and wicked plot altogether 
 beyond his power of unravelling ; but that the commanding General 
 was a monstrous traitor, was an idea absolutely beyond his compre- 
 hension. He was dazed and stunned, and utterly incapable of using 
 what little judgment he possessed. Naturally, he did the most unwise 
 thing he could do ; the papers he dispatched to Washington, by a 
 messenger, whose chance of missing was quite as great as of meeting 
 

 w 
 
 es 
 
 PS 
 
 c 
 
 w 
 Pi 
 D 
 
 p. 
 
 < 
 u 
 
1780.] ANDRE'S DEFENCE. 25 
 
 the Commander-in-chief, then on the road somewhere between Hart- 
 ford and West Point ; but the prisoner he sent under guard to Ar- 
 nold, with a letter explaining the circumstances of his arrest. 
 
 Fortunately, the Major of the regiment, Benjamin Tallmadge, was 
 not destitute of discretion, nor incapable of facing an emergency. He 
 was absent from camp through the day, but when on his return in the 
 evening he heard from Jameson of the arrest of the man called John 
 Anderson, and of the character of the papers found upon him; and 
 that the man had been sent to Arnold with a letter; he comprehended 
 at once that, if here was a revelation of some infamous act of trea- 
 son, the most effectual step possible for the escape of the traitor and 
 his accomplice had been taken by the Colonel. His own judgment 
 was helped by a conviction of many years' standing, that Arnold was 
 not to be trusted, and by remembering that some days before Arnold 
 had ordered him to send one John Anderson, should he fall into his 
 hands, to headquarters. But it was useless to argue on this point 
 with Jameson. He was persuaded to send a messenger for the return 
 of Anderson ; but nothing could induce him to recall the letter to 
 Arnold. The guard was overtaken, and returned in the morning to 
 North Castle. Tallmadge saw by his gait that the prisoner was a 
 soldier, and he was evidently in disguise ; he was therefore sent in the 
 course of the day to the headquarters of the regiment at Lower 
 Salem, for safer custody. 
 
 Andre" wrote at once to Washington, and announced his true name 
 and condition. "It is to vindicate my fame," he said, "that 
 
 T i i T >i *^T i i Andre's let- 
 
 1 speak, and not to solicit security. Nevertheless, the letter ter to wash- 
 was meant as a defence and a solicitation an anticipation 
 of a probable indictment and a possible verdict. As yet there had 
 been no accusation ; he was himself the first to put a construction 
 upon the facts of the case. He had been betrayed, he said, " into 
 the vile condition of an enemy in disguise, within your posts: " "I 
 was involuntarily an impostor." Thus his standing before the court 
 of public opinion, for that time and for all time to come, was fixed by 
 himself, as an enemy in disguise in a vile position as an impos- 
 tor. Was it true that this was his misfortune rather than his fault ? 
 that he was the victim of treachery, betrayed in spite of himself 
 into a false position ? 
 
 The case is a remarkable instance of the value of the first word. 
 Eight days afterward, the 2d of October, Andre" was hanged Analyg j 80f 
 as a spy at Tappan, N. J., hanged by the sentence of thecase - 
 a court-martial consisting of fourteen Major-generals and Brigadier- 
 generals of the American army. As he in his letter to Washington 
 acknowledged, he was captured when in the vile condition of an 
 

 26 ARNOLD'S TREASON. [CHAP. I 
 
 enemy in disguise, and as an impostor; so they therefore decided that 
 as a spy ho deserved to suffer an ignominious death. The falsehood, 
 that lie was betrayed, against his will, into that unhappy position, had 
 no weight with the court. Every step he had taken was taken, as we 
 have shown, of his own free will. He left the Vulture with alacrity, 
 against the advice of his friends; he made no effort to return to the 
 ship that night, but went willingly to Smith's house with Arnold to 
 conclude the arrangements for the nefarious business that had brought 
 them together, and for the successful accomplishment of which he 
 was to be made a brigadier-general. That circumstances intervened 
 which prevented his return to the ship the next day, was a contin- 
 gency of which he took the risk when he left her ; he accepted a dis- 
 guise ; he hid upon his person the documents which would enable his 
 commander to strike a terrible, if not a fatal, blow at the enemy ; all 
 his acts were the acts of a spy ; he assumed the responsibility they 
 inevitably involved against the judgment of his friends, against the 
 positive orders of his General, against even his own better sense of 
 prudence when lie was free to jndge with coolness. 
 
 Nevertheless, for a hundred years that first statement of his, 
 that he had been betrayed into a false position, has been accepted 
 by multitudes of people as true, and in spite of its sophistry and 
 falsehood, has spread a deceptive light over the whole transaction. 
 He was, indeed, the one victim of Arnold's abortive treachery to his 
 country ; but this was not treachery to him ; his betrayal was self- 
 betrayal, when in a moment of rashness and over-confidence he forgot 
 the laws of war, and ventured upon a step which, indeed, if success- 
 ful, would help himself as well as his King, but if unsuccessful would 
 lead down to death. That he was a gentleman, a man of culture 
 and of many accomplishments, of an agreeable person and capti- 
 vating manners, and that he talked much of his high sense of honor, 
 should not as it did not with his judges cover up, in the least, 
 the true character of the conduct that has made him famous, rather 
 than infamous. The sympathy that regrets the fate of one with 
 many admirable qualities, degenerates into mawkish sentimentality 
 when it remembers only those qualities and forgets the crime which 
 the possession of such qualities does not palliate, and ought to have 
 prevented. His associates and superiors in the British army had no 
 other plea to offer on his behalf than that he acted under a flag of 
 truce. He acknowledged this was not true, and rested on the de- 
 fence that lie was treacherously dealt with. One plea was as false 
 as the other. Had the great crime in which lie was an accessory, 
 succeeded, the execrations which the world has always visited upon 
 his principal would, no doubt, have fallen upon him in equal measure. 
 
1780.] 
 
 ESCAPE OF ARNOLD. 
 
 Because the greater criminal went unpunished and gained his reward, 
 the lesser, whom the other tempted, was first pitied and then made a 
 hero of. 
 
 It is a curious instance of how accident may dominate the judgment 
 of men, and how little real merit may have to do with fame. The 
 country that Andre" meant to serve if he was well rewarded, and the 
 country that he meant to ruin, are not yet tired of raising monuments 
 to his memory ; but for that other noble gentleman, Nathan Hale, ac- 
 complished, highly educated, young, and attractive, who suffered death 
 in the same way, and technically for the same crime as Andrews, his 
 countrymen have no honors and no tears, almost no memoi-y. ^ et 
 one had accepted an odious task as an imperative duty to his country, 
 
 Arnold's Escape. 
 
 and purified the deed by the motive of its performance ; the other 
 braved the consequences of a legal crime in the hope of receiving a 
 great professional reward. Hale mounted the scaffold saying only 
 that he wished he had another life to give to his country. Andre" 
 remembered himself as the central figure of a tragic drama, and called 
 upon the bystanders to observe that he met his fate like a brave 
 man, that, as a more vulgar criminal would have said, he " died 
 game." 
 
 The letter sent to Arnold by Jameson reached him at the Robinson 
 house on the morning of the 25th, while he was at bi-eakfast Escape of 
 with two of Washington's aids. A glance at it revealed to Arnold 
 him that his treason was discovered and he must fly for his life. 
 Showing no emotion, and arousing no suspicion, he went quietly to 
 his wife in another room, explained to her in a few hurried and ter- 
 
28 ARNOLD'S TREASON. [CHAP. I. 
 
 rible words the peril in which he stood, and then left her insensible. 
 With the same imperturbability he mounted a horse at the door, rode 
 to the river-side, took boat, and ordered his men to pull down the 
 river, tying his white handkerchief to his cane and raising it as a flag 
 of truce. It was not till the afternoon that he was missed at head- 
 quarters or his treason known. Jameson's messenger, with the papers 
 found on Andre*, had missed Washington on the road from Hartford, 
 and had followed him to Robinson's house. Arnold was then safe on 
 board the Vulture. 
 
 The most earnest efforts were made by General Clinton to save his 
 friend and Adjutant-general from the fate to which he had been 
 condemned by the most deliberate judgment, and after the most care- 
 ful and dispassionate consideration of all the evidence in the case. 
 As we have already said, his friends had no other serious plea to 
 offer on his behalf than that he had acted under the protection of a 
 flag of truce. It was a mere pretext, which it was impossible to sus- 
 tain. It would then have been weakness, not mercy, to permit an 
 act to go unpunished which, both by the laws of war and by act of 
 Congress, was a capital crime a crime, in this case, so monstrous, 
 that had it succeeded, it would have cost thousands of lives, and per- 
 haps the liberty of a whole people. 
 
 Clinton could have saved Andrd as Washington let him know 
 
 by the surrender of Arnold ; and it is to the honor of the British 
 General that he would not betray his plighted faith to a traitor even 
 to save his friend. The penalty of the crime fell upon the accom- 
 plice ; the chief criminal was paid his price in a commission as Brig- 
 adier-general, and six thousand three hundred and fifteen pounds 
 sterling in money. Pensions of five hundi-ed pounds a year to Mrs. 
 Arnold, and of a hundred pounds a year to each of her children, 
 were also awarded when Arnold took his family to England. His 
 three sons by his first wife the eldest being only twelve years of 
 age, and the youngest eight years at the time of their father's treason 
 
 were given commissions as lieutenants of cavalry in his American 
 Legion, and received half-pay as retired officers to the end of their 
 lives. To all the sons by the second wife were given, besides their 
 pensions, military education and commissions in the British army. 1 
 England was not ungrateful. 
 
 Immediate steps were taken by Washington for the capture of 
 Arnold, nor were they ever pretermitted so long as he remained in 
 the country. Even before Andr was executed and partly with 
 the hope that the less guilty of the conspirators might be saved by 
 the capture of the chief a hazardous enterprise was set on foot for 
 
 1 See Life of Benedict Arnold, by Isaac N. Arnold (1880). 
 
1780.] SERGEANT CIIAMPE'S ATTEMPT TO CAPTURE ARNOLD. 29 
 
 this purpose. Sergeant-major John Champe, a young and deserving 
 soldier belonging to Lee's legion, deserted, to the astonishment of 
 all his comrades. He was pursued within the hour, on the road to 
 Elizabethtown Point, and only escaped, when nearly overtaken, by 
 abandoning his horse, rushing into the sea, and swimming off to a 
 Hritish vessel in the bay. The desertion was only feigned, however, 
 and made at Lee's request at the suggestion of Washington. On the 
 Sergeant's arrival in New York he was taken to Arnold v and enrolled 
 in a corps the traitor was already raising, of loyal Americans. After 
 much difficulty and delay, a well-contrived plan was arranged to seize 
 the General in a garden attached to his lodgings, where he was known 
 to walk late at night, and to take him across the river to Hoboken, 
 where a company of dragoons was to be in waiting to receive the 
 prisoner. The arrangements were all carefully laid, and would have 
 been successful probably, had it not happened that on the day of the 
 evening appointed, Arnold changed his lodgings, and the corps to 
 which Champe belonged was ordered on board ship. It was a year 
 and a half before the Sergeant could find an opportunity to rejoin his 
 old corps then in South Carolina where he was received with great 
 coldness and distrust by his old comrades till the true explanation of 
 his absence was made known by Major Lee, and his devotion and 
 courage recognized by the Commander-in-chief. 
 

 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SOUTHERN CAMPAIGN. 
 THE EFFECTS OF ARNOLD'S TREASON. BUFORD DEFEATED ox THE WAXHAW. 
 
 CORNWALLIS MISCALCULATES HIS TASK. ACTIONS AT ROCKY MOUNT AND HANG- 
 ING ROCK. PARTISAN WARFARE. GATES ASSUMES COMMAND IN THE SOUTH. 
 THE MILITARY SITUATION. BATTLE OF CAMDEN. SKIRMISHES. BATTLE OF 
 KING'S MOUNTAIN. GREENE SUPERSEDES GATES. His PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. 
 BATTLE OF COWPENS. CONDITION OF GREENE'S ARMY. His RETREAT. RE- 
 CEIVES REINFORCEMENTS. BATTLE OF GUILFORD COURT-HOUSE. CORNWALLIS 
 RF.TREATS TO WILMINGTON. 
 
 " WHOM can we trust now ? " was Washington's despairing excla- 
 mation to Lafayette and General Knox, when he received 
 Arnold's the papers disclosing Arnold's treason. There was not dur- 
 ing the war a gloomier moment. No material harm, indeed, 
 came of that monstrous crime, for it was happily discovered in sea- 
 son to prevent it ; but the moral effect of such treachery, both in 
 the army and upon the people, might lead to that despair which is the 
 first step to ruin. Then the news of Arnold's crime followed close 
 upon the news of the utter defeat of Gates by Cornwallis in South 
 Carolina. It might well be feared that the plan of the Ministry in 
 England, to reduce each State in detail, while all were rendered 
 incapable of a mutual defence, would succeed, if treason on the 
 one hand, and the lack of military ability on the other, should come 
 to the help of the British General. 
 
 The capture of Charleston was not merely the loss of a seaport ; it 
 
 was the loss of the army on which the State relied for its 
 
 de"eatt defence, and the opening of a gate through which a hostile 
 
 Wfcxhaw , .,, ., . 
 
 army was to enter. Inere were none to oppose its imme- 
 diate progress. Col. Abraham Buford, who was sent, with about 
 four hundred Virginia troops, to the relief of Charleston for which 
 he was too late was followed on his return by a force of about 
 three hundred cavalry and mounted infantry, under command of 
 Lieutenant-colonel Banastre Tarleton. By a forced march of two 
 days, he overtook the Virginians on the banks of the Waxhaw. A 
 flag of truce, sent on in advance, demanded a surrender, which was 
 
1780.] CORNWALLIS MISCALCULATES HIS TASK. 31 
 
 refused. Giving Buford no time to prepare for an attack, the British 
 dragoons immediately fell upon the Americans with irresistible im- 
 petuosity. Some few attempted to defend their lives ; some threw 
 away their arms and begged for mercy ; others fled before a charge 
 which no time was given them to meet. Buford escaped with about 
 one fourth of his men ; more than one third of the whole force were 
 killed on the spot, without regard to their prayers for quarter ; about 
 fifty were taken away as prisoners, and the rest were left upon the 
 ground so severely wounded that they could not be moved. It was 
 not a battle, but a massacre of men who had ceased, or had not at- 
 tempted, to fight, of men who had thrown away their arms and 
 begged that their lives might be spared. From that moment, Tarle- 
 ton was as much feared for his cruelty as he soon became famous for 
 the celerity of his movements ; and the character of the warfare, on 
 both sides, for many months to come, was determined by the slaugh- 
 ter on the Waxhaw. 
 
 Georgia was considered as already permanently restored to the 
 Crown. By concentrating troops at Augusta, Ninety-Six, cornwaius-s 
 and Camden, Lord Cornwallis hoped to hold South Carolina error 
 in subjection, and bring to an end the desperate resistance of her re- 
 bellious people, when they should be cut off from all possibility of 
 help, by the conquest of North Carolina. The distribution of troops 
 through the summer was made with reference to a movement north- 
 ward, as well as for holding the country assumed to be already sub- 
 dued. But Cornwallis had yet to learn by protracted and painful 
 experience that rebellion was not suppressed by holding a few strong 
 posts, and that, till rebellion was suppressed, the holding of those 
 posts was of small moment. The partisan was almost always certain 
 to be heard of where he was least expected and was most unwelcome, 
 and it was quite as certain that when he was looked for he was not 
 to be found. The nearer Cornwallis approached to North Carolina, 
 the wider was the unconquered country he left behind him ; and the 
 garrisons of isolated posts, if they were so fortunate as to be unmo- 
 lested, or were able to maintain their ground, enforced submission 
 only so far as their guns could carry. 
 
 These posts, moreover, were perpetually harassed. Sumter, in con- 
 junction with Major Davie, another of the most active par- Rock 
 tisans, determined in July to carry two of them, Rocky nan"^ 1 "" 1 
 Mount and Hanging Rock, on opposite sides of the Ca- Rock - 
 tavvba, and both within thirty miles of Camden. Though neither 
 place was taken, much damage was inflicted upon the enemy. Davie, 
 as he approached Hanging Rock, fell in with a portion of the garri- 
 son, out upon a foraging expedition, killed almost the whole of them, 
 

 32 
 
 THE SOUTHERN CAMPAIGN. 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 and brought off sixty horses and a hundred muskets and rifles, 
 booty of no small value to men who needed always, from their 
 method of warfare, to be well mounted, with whom arms were so 
 scarce that saws were made into swords, and whose fire-arms were 
 only those which each man brought from his own home. At Rocky 
 Mount, Sumter made three successive assaults, and his want of suc- 
 cess in carrying the place was due rather to the demoralization of his 
 own militia, who scattered to rifle that portion of the hostile camp 
 they had carried, than to the obstinate defence by the British. 
 But the activity shown by movements of this character was of 
 much more moment in their influence upon the people than 
 the capture of a post, or the cutting off of a detachment. The 
 timid were strengthened, the lukewarm encouraged, the brave made 
 more determined, and the Tories led to doubt if their choice of sides 
 had been wise. One Lieutenant-colonel Lisle, in command of a bat- 
 talion of loyalist militia which had been enrolled, after the fall of 
 
 Partisan 
 warfare. 
 
 Signature of Sumter 
 
 Charleston, in the districts on the Ennoree and Tiger rivers 
 marched off when his men were thoroughly armed and equipped, and 
 put them under the rebel Colonel Neale, who led them to reenforce 
 Sumter. It was " an instance of treachery," Tarleton said, " which 
 ruined all confidence between the regulars and the militia." Nor 
 was it the only instance of " treachery " of this kind. Major Mc- 
 Arthur, in command at Camden, sent away a hundred of his men to 
 go into hospital under escort of a body of supposed loyalists; when far 
 enough from camp to do so with impunity, they secured the sick and 
 their own officers as prisoners, and marched them off into North Caro- 
 lina. The bitterness of the warfare between the loyalists and the 
 rebels was relieved by those occasional evidences that patriotism was 
 a deeper feeling than the assumed allegiance to the King. 
 
 Cornwallis was not long in learning that even with his army of 
 nearly seven thousand men, most of them trained soldiers, the contest 
 must be a hard, if not a hopeless one, in such perfectly unscientific 
 warfare witli men fighting for their homes; with bodies of troops 
 
1780.] 
 
 PARTISAN WARFARE. 
 
 33 
 
 which could dissolve in a night into individual, quiet husbandmen, or, 
 if holding together, Avould escape all search by hiding in forests and 
 swamps; who would appear in companies of fifty or a thousand, as 
 the exigency of the moment required, when least expected and least 
 prepared for ; whose vigilance Avas sure to observe Avhen a post Avas 
 weakest, when a foraging party was off its guard and could be cut to 
 
 pieces, or Avhen a detachment 
 could be found beyond the reach 
 of succor. The pursuit of such 
 leaders as S u m t e r, Marion, 
 Davie, Pickens, and Davidson 
 Avas almost hopeless ; to bring 
 them to fight Avas gen- 
 
 Marion in Camp. 
 
 erally impossible, except on their own terms, and in positions of their 
 own choosing. 1 Probably, the British General began already to feel 
 as he wrote a few months later to General Phillips, in Virginia 
 " I am quite tired of marching abo'ut the country in quest of adven- 
 tures." He kneAv, at any rate, that the devoted patriotism of the 
 
 1 Lieutenant-colonel Lee relates in his Memoirs that when sent by General Greene to 
 make a junction with Marion, who was sometimes in North Carolina, sometimes in 
 South Carolina, sometimes concealed in the swamps of the Pedee, sonn-times in those of 
 the Black River, but nobody ever knew exactly where, lie only found that active parti- 
 san by accidentally falling in with a small detachment of his men ; and even they were 
 compelled to search some hours before they reached the camp of their General, hidden in 
 the swamps of the Pedee. 
 VOL. iv. 3 
 

 34 THE SOUTHERX CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. II. 
 
 people could never be overcome so long as they were animated by the 
 hope that aid could reach them from the North, and there was any 
 thing left for them to fight for. 
 
 When, therefore, it was known that tl*e Baron de Kalb was on the 
 march southward with the Maryland and Delaware troops 
 
 Gates takes e t i- 11 i -i i i -i 
 
 command in of the line, and that these were to be ioined by bodies of 
 
 the South. ... ... 
 
 militia from Virginia and North Carolina, under Stevens and 
 Caswell, Cornwallis determined to intercept their progress. At Hills- 
 borough, N. C., General Gates, who had been appointed by Con- 
 gress to conduct the campaign, overtook and superseded De Kalb. 
 Gates took the shortest route to meet the enemy, unfortunatelv 
 through a sterile and impoverished country, where forage was scarce, 
 and where his men were compelled to rely largely upon green maize 
 and unripe fruit for their subsistence. Unfortunately, also, in his 
 haste to get forward, he neglected, or refused, to take measures for 
 filling up the cavalry regiments of Colonels Washington and White 
 the arm of the service which, if not more important than any other, 
 
 was absolutely indispensable 
 in the mode of warfare made 
 necessary by the character of 
 the country and of the inhab- 
 itants. By 
 hisfirst 
 mistake 
 
 Gates di _ 
 
 Signature of Marion. 
 
 J 
 
 his force by sickness, and led into action, when the time came, a 
 body of men enfeebled from want of sufficient food ; by the second, 
 he was compelled to accept defeat when efficient cavalry might have 
 turned disaster into success. 
 
 De Kalb led his line forward toward Camden by a more circuitous 
 The military route, but through a fertile region, and his men, therefore, 
 situation. we re in a better condition to face the enemy. Lord Raw- 
 don, who was in command at Camden, went out to meet Gates about 
 fifteen miles from the town. The American army numbered about 
 three thousand men, mainly raw recruits, ill-clothed, ill-fed, and un- 
 disciplined. The British force, though fewer in numbers, were in 
 good condition, and almost all veteran troops. Under such circum- 
 stances, it would have been wiser on the part of the American Gen- 
 eral to avoid the enemy ; even had the disparity in effective force not 
 existed, there was too much depending upon the issue of a general 
 battle to justify a resort to it, if it could be avoided, unless the result 
 could be anticipated with almost absolute certainty. Gates does not 
 
KtfO.] GATES AND CORXWALLIS. 35 
 
 seem, till it was too late to recede, to have admitted a doubt of a fa- 
 vorable result. He sent Marion, who had joined him, into South Caro- 
 lina on a reconnoissance, ordering him, it is said, to destroy all the 
 bridges and boats and scows in his way, that the British might have 
 no means of escape in their coming flight to Charleston. 1 
 
 The reasons which should have led the American commander to 
 avoid a general battle were precisely the reasons which led Corn- 
 wallis to seek it. The enthusiasm of rebellion, encouraged by the 
 arrival of an army from the North, was already at its height in both 
 the Carolinas. The difficulties in his way would not be greatly in- 
 creased by a reverse, and a reverse, by no means irreparable, was 
 all that could happen to him. But if, on the other hand, he could 
 achieve a victory, which, with his superiority in artillery, in cavalry, 
 and in the military character of his army, he might reasonably 
 expect, that victory would be, not merely a reverse, but a terrible 
 disaster to the enemy ; it would strike with paralysis the brave and 
 devoted people who would face poverty, starvation, and death so long 
 as hope was left them, and would stir their opponents to fresh enthu- 
 siasm, courage, and hostility. For four days the armies lay encamped 
 on the opposite banks of Lynch's Creek, each waiting for the other 
 to move. During this time Gates, in his over-confidence of his 
 strength, detached four hundred men from his little army to inter- 
 cept a convoy at a ferry on the Wateree, near Camden. Then mov- 
 ing on the right of Rawdon, that General fell back and was followed 
 by Gates with the purpose of bringing him to battle. Had Gates 
 instead moved with more celerity up the Creek by a forced march, 
 he could, Tarleton asserts in his " Memoirs," have pushed Lord Raw- 
 don's flank, reached Camden before him, and captured that impor- 
 tant magazine of British stores. 
 
 On the 13th of August, Cornwallis arrived and took command of 
 the army. He was as anxious as Gates to fight, and with far B&tt}e of 
 better reason. On the night of the 15th, both armies moved, c * mden 
 each intending to surprise the other. The American vanguard was 
 led by Colonel Armand, a brave French officer, whose command of 
 less than a hundred men, most of them deserters, 'broke and fled at 
 the first onslaught, and were pursued by the enemy. Some confusion 
 followed in the front division ; but Colonel Potterfield and Major 
 Armstrong, with the Virginia and North Carolina militia, came up 
 from both flanks and checked the advance. Both armies now waited 
 for daylight. 
 
 Gates immediately called a council of war. He knew from pris- 
 oners that the army in front was commanded by Cornwallis in person. 
 
 1 Simms's Life of Marion. 
 
36 
 
 THE SOUTHERN CAMPAIGN. 
 
 [ClIAP. II. 
 
 and he had learned the day before, for the first time, from the re- 
 turns of his Generals, that his whole force was only about three 
 thousand men. Less than half of these were regulars. Perhaps 
 now he felt the need of advice, and doubted the correctness of his 
 own judgment. "Has the General given you orders to retreat the 
 army? " asked the Baron de Kalb, when called to the council by 
 the Adjutant-general. But the council, when convened, had no 
 advice to give. General Stevens, of the Virginia militia, said it was 
 too late to retreat. This was acquiesced in only by silence. " Then 
 we must fight," replied Gates. " Gentlemen, please to take your 
 posts." 
 
 In the line of battle that was soon formed, Cornwallis carefullv 
 
 tf 
 
 observed the disposition of the opposite army, and took advantage of 
 it. To the untried militia he opposed his best troops, under his best 
 officer, Colonel Webster. These opened the battle with a spirited 
 charge, before which the Virginia militia broke, and after firing a 
 single shot, threw away their arms and fled. The contagion of a 
 senseless panic seized upon the North Carolina militia, and they also 
 scattered in every direction. The Generals of these two brigades, 
 Stevens and Caswell, assisted by Gates, made vain efforts to reas- 
 sure and rally them ; but the whole left wing fled almost without a 
 blow. On the right the Continentals under De Kalb and Gist, and a 
 North Carolina regiment under Dixon, held their ground with great 
 firmness and coolness and pushed the enemy before them, De Kalb, at 
 one point, breaking their line by a furious charge with the bayonet. 
 But the whole American line was forced to give way, when Web- 
 ster, released by the easy and rapid rout of the left wing, enabled 
 Cornwallis to concentrate his whole force on the right. More than 
 a third of the Continentals were killed and wounded, and the rest 
 sought safety in the woods and swamps. De Kalb, at the head of 
 his Mary landers, fell under eleven wounds, was stripped of his cloth- 
 ing by the soldiers, and was rescued from further indignity by the 
 fortunate appearance of Cornwallis. He died three days afterward. 
 
 Gates's army, as an organized force, was annihilated. The militia 
 as their custom often was in the southern campaigns when they 
 deemed their services no longer needed, or when they became irksome 
 for any reason generally dispersed to their homes. The General 
 himself, before the day was over, was sixty miles from the field of 
 battle ; for several following days scattered remnants of his command 
 reached Charlotte and other towns, and these he proceeded to gather 
 together as a nucleus for a new army, making his headquarters at 
 Hillsborough, one hundred and eighty miles from the field of his 
 overwhelming defeat. 
 
1780.] 
 
 SKIRMISHES. 
 
 37 
 
 Two days after that defeat, another, though smaller misfortune, 
 befell the American arms. Sumter, to whom Gates had 8umter ,. 
 sent a reenforcement to enable him to intercept a British pri8cd 
 convoy from Charleston, had succeeded in that enterprise, but was 
 taken off his guard by Tarleton. The baggage train Sumter had cap- 
 
 De Kalb wounded. 
 
 tured was recovered, and so complete was the dispersion of his force 
 of eight hundred men, that only three hundred could be mustered 
 when the fight was over. 
 
 Early in September, Cornwallis was again in motion, confident that 
 North Carolina would now be an easy conquest before Con- g kirm j sh at 
 gress could send another army to dispute his progress. The Wahab ' s - 
 main body advanced from the Waxhaw Settlement toward Charlotte, 
 Tarleton moving through the country on the left, and Lieutenant- 
 colonel Ferguson keeping still nearer to the frontier with a corps of 
 
38 THE SOUTHERN CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. II. 
 
 provincial troops. The partisan leaders, notwithstanding the late 
 reverses, had lost none of their spirit and activity ; before Cornwallis 
 moved, Colonel Davie had surprised a party of loyalists and of the 
 British Legion at a place called Wahab's plantation, had put them to 
 flight, and captured about a hundred horses, with their equipments, 
 and a hundred and twenty stands of arms. 
 
 It was Tarleton's and Ferguson's business to find and disperse these 
 troublesome parties of patriots, while Ferguson was also to add to his 
 own numbers by reassuring and rallying the loyalists. At Gilbert- 
 town he learned that a force of militia in the southern part of the 
 State, under Colonel Clarke, had attacked Augusta, Georgia, where 
 Lieutenant-colonel Browne was in command ; that he and the garri- 
 son had been reduced to extremity, and the place was on the point of 
 being taken, when Clarke was compelled to withdraw by the appear- 
 ance of a body of loyalists. Ferguson received orders from Corn- 
 wallis to intercept Clarke on his retreat. He had hardly left Gilbert- 
 town, in obedience to this order, when a large body of riflemen from 
 Kentucky and North Carolina arrived, on their way to Augusta to 
 the assistance of Clarke. As Ferguson had gone in pursuit of Clarke, 
 so fifteen hundred of these hardy mountaineers, each armed with his 
 own rifle, each mounted upon his own horse, started in pursuit of 
 Ferguson. 
 
 They overtook him on the 8th of October, at King's Mountain, near 
 
 the boundary-line between North and South Carolina, and 
 
 Kin B -s west of the Catawba River, a hill of moderate elevation 
 
 Mountain. in i i i 
 
 covered with wood. Ferguson had encamped on the sum- 
 mit. The Americans approached in three divisions, led respectively 
 by Colonels Cleveland, Shelby, and Campbell, ascending the hill at 
 different points. Cleveland first reached the summit, and his moun- 
 tain riflemen first opened fire from behind the trees. Ferguson 
 charged upon them furiously with the bayonet and pushed them down 
 the hill. Then from another quarter came Shelby, who poured volley 
 after volley into Ferguson's flank or rear. Another bayonet charge 
 met this second assault, and Shelby fell back. Campbell gained the 
 top of the hill as Shelby's men retired, and for a third time Ferguson 
 was compelled to meet and to repulse a fresh assailant. Even when 
 the three columns were united and advanced upon him in one body, 
 he held his ground against superior numbers, with indomitable cour- 
 age. The fight lasted for almost an hour, and was only brought to 
 an end by the death of Ferguson. His officers and men surrendered 
 when no longer inspirited by his brave words and brave example. 
 The loss of the British Avas three hundred killed and wounded ; eight 
 hundred prisoners were taken, and double that number of stands of 
 
 
1 780.] 
 
 GREENE SUPERSEDES GATES. 
 
 39 
 
 arms, intended for the loyalists, who would, it was hoped, join the 
 corps as it advanced through the country. The force was chiefly 
 loyal militia, and some of the most obnoxious of them were hanged 
 by their captors an indefensible and barbarous retaliation ; but the 
 example had been set them by Cornwallis, who had, not long before, 
 issued a proclama- 
 tion to the rebel- 
 lious people, com- 
 manding them to 
 return to their al- 
 legiance, and, for 
 the encouragement 
 of the rest, had put 
 to death some of 
 those whose con- 
 duct was the most 
 determined, and 
 whose influence, 
 was most to be 
 dreaded. 
 
 B y Ferguson's 
 defeat, the effec- 
 tive fighting force 
 under Cornwallis 
 was reduced one 
 fourth, and his far- 
 ther advance into 
 North Carolina 
 checked for the 
 present. While 
 waiting for a reen- 
 forcement under 
 General Leslie who had left New York for the South the army 
 was not idle. Its most energetic officers were occupied in attempts 
 to meet, under favorable circumstances, with S unite r or Marion, or 
 some other of the partisan leaders who, from the Black River to the 
 Broad, now here now there, coming down from the mountains, or 
 tip from the swamps, kept up perpetual hostilities against the enemy, 
 foreign and domestic, and fanned into perpetual flame the sacred fires 
 of rebellion. Sumter, in an encounter with Tarleton at Blackstock 
 Hill on the Tiger River of whose coming Sumter was g kirm j sll(l t 
 warned by a country-woman, who watched the approach of Blackstock 
 the enemy from the edge of a wood, and then hastened through a by- 
 
 A Woman Reconnoitering. 
 
40 THE SOUTHERN CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. II. 
 
 way to Sumter's camp with the information was grievously wound- 
 ed, and his men, deprived of their favorite commander, dispersed for 
 a time to their homes. And this was almost the sole advantage that 
 Cornwallis gained during the autumn before Greene arrived to take 
 command of the remnant of the army which Gates for three months 
 had been diligently engaged in recruiting and reorganizing. 
 
 Greene arrived at Charlotte, North Carolina, on the 2d of Decem- 
 ber. " I think I am giving you a general,'' Washington said 
 supersedes to a member of Congress ; " but what can a general do 
 without men, without arms, without clothing, without stores, 
 without provisions?" A general, however, was all that could be 
 spared, at that moment, to strengthen the southern army ; even as it 
 was, Congress wanted means to feed and clothe it, and Greene reported 
 that it " may literally be said to be naked." But a good general was 
 worth many battalions. 
 
 qf 
 
 Greene's plan of a campaign was the reverse of that which Gates 
 had acted upon. It was, to avoid as long as possible any general 
 battle, but to hinder the enemy at every step of his progress ; to annoy, 
 harass, perplex, disgust, and exasperate him ; to defeat him in detail, 
 and to convince him, at length, of the hopelessness of his labor. 
 
 On this plan he acted at once. The army moved into South Caro- 
 lina in two bodies, the. larger under the personal direction 
 of the General commanding, and the other under General 
 Morgan. Morgan entered upon the country between the Catawba 
 and Black rivers, as far as the Pacolet. Greene moved down the 
 Pedee till he was about seventy miles east of Cornwallis at Winns- 
 borough. General Leslie had arrived at Charleston, and was ordered 
 to march at once, with a thousand men, to Camden ; but when Corn- 
 wallis was apprised of Greene's movement, and that the enemy was 
 within from fifty to seventy miles on both his flanks, his attention was 
 necessarily turned to this new condition of affairs, and he again aban- 
 doned his purpose of advancing immediately into North Carolina. 
 
 Tarleton was at once detached in pursuit of Morgan, who, it was 
 feared, threatened the whole line of posts in the rear of the British 
 army, including Ninety-Six and Augusta. About the same time, 
 Cornwallis moved from Winnsborough to intercept Morgan, in case 
 he should retreat before Tarleton, and attempt to cross Broad River 
 to rejoin Greene. Cornwallis paused, however, after marching a few 
 miles, to wait for Leslie, whom he ordered to join him with all pos- 
 sible haste ; for it suddenly occurred to him that, while he was in 
 pursuit of Morgan, Greene might take advantage of that movement 
 to intercept Leslie. The wisdom of the disposition of his forces by 
 the American General was already apparent. 
 
1781.] 
 
 BATTLE OF COWPENS. 
 
 41 
 
 Tarleton was on the banks of the Paeolet on the 15th (January, 
 1781). Morgan, thoroughly informed of the movements of Battle of 
 both his antagonists, fell back to a point about six miles C "'!* 118 - 
 from Broad River, called the Cowpens, on the farm of a grazier 
 named Hannah. Here he determined to abide the issue of battle. 
 It was a decision of exceeding boldness, but was not a rash one ; for 
 to attempt to cross the river while Tarleton was in hot pursuit, 
 and Tarleton was never so much to be dreaded as when his foe was in 
 flight before him, or was taken 
 by surprise, with Cormvallis 
 possibly on the other side to 
 dispute the passage, would be 
 so hazardous an undertaking 
 that the militia would disperse, 
 and leave the regular troops to 
 almost certain destruction. But 
 here Morgan could choose his 
 own ground; he had only one 
 antagonist to contend with, and 
 that not so much his superior 
 in numbers and in arms as to 
 make the contest hopelessly 
 unequal ; and there was just 
 enough of the desperate in the 
 situation to arouse his men to 
 the highest point of enthusiasm, 
 if bravely led. He determined, 
 therefore, to fight ; and it was 
 the determination, not only of a brave man, but of an able soldier. 
 
 The ground chosen by Morgan was a field of open woods, in which 
 cavalry could manoeuvre easily, extending in length about five hun- 
 dred yards. From the front, the ground ascended with a gradual 
 slope for three hundred yards to the highest point in the field ; then 
 gently falling off, like a rolling prairie, for another hundred yards, 
 rose again to a second elevation. On the first eminence were posted 
 about four hundred men, under Lieutenant-colonel Howard, his 
 own battalion of nearly three hundred Maryland regulars, two com- 
 panies of Virginia militia, but composed of veterans, and two of 
 Georgia riflemen. This was the main body, on which Morgan chiefly 
 relied to bear the brunt of the battle, from its numbers, discipline, 
 and position. Directly in its front, at a distance of a hundred and 
 fifty yards, was the first line, composed of Colonel Pickens's militia 
 of nearly three hundred men, with skirmishers thrown out in front. 
 
 Gen. Daniel Morgan. 
 
42 THE SOUTHERN CAMPAIGN. [CiiAP. II. 
 
 Colonel Washington's famous cavalry, and a corps of mounted in- 
 fantry, numbering altogether a hundred and twenty men, were placed 
 as a reserve on the second eminence ; and behind them were picketed 
 the horses of the militia, ready for whatever use the issue should de- 
 termine whether pursuit or flight. On the field were about eight 
 hundred and fifty men, placed with great military skill and in the 
 most imposing order ; when Tarleton, in the early morning, came in 
 sight of them, he reckoned that about two thousand men confronted 
 him. 
 
 Morgan rode along his lines in the hush of expectation of the com- 
 ing struggle, encouraging each separate corps with such stirring words 
 as would best arouse their local pride and personal courage. The 
 skirmishers he told to scatter and fight from tree to tree, and check 
 the enemy's advance by their good marksmanship. Pickens's first 
 line of militia he exhorted to stand firm, and when the British were 
 within fifty yards, to give them twice a cool and well-directed fire, 
 and then fall back in good order to the left of the main body ; 
 a panic, he told them, would insure their destruction ; if they 
 fought with manly courage, as they had often done before, victory 
 was sure to follow. To the veterans under Howard he explained his 
 plan of battle, prepared them for the falling back of the militia upon 
 their line, directed them to stand firm and fire low, and, if they were 
 forced to retire, to move leisurely and in order to the second emi- 
 nence, to be strengthened by the cavalry. 
 
 The enemy came on, a force of a thousand men, most of them 
 of the best troops in the British army, veteran soldiers, accustomed 
 to victory, and strengthened by two pieces of artillery. When they 
 had dislodged the skirmishers from behind their trees, they rushed 
 with a shout upon Pickens's militia, who received them with a deadly 
 fire, repulsed Tarleton's dragoons, emptying fifteen of their saddles, 
 and only yielded their ground at the point of the bayonet and be- 
 fore the fire of the two pieces of artillery on their flanks. When 
 their line was once broken, some of them, as the inveterate habit of 
 the undisciplined militia was, fled for safety to their horses, in the 
 extreme rear, each to take care of himself ; but most of them fell 
 back without panic upon Howard's left. 
 
 The enemy advanced now upon the second line with a vigorous 
 charge, which was met so steadily that Tarleton ordered up his re- 
 serve. With this reinforcement, the charge was renewed, falling 
 most heavily upon Howard's right flank. To meet the danger of this 
 flank attack, the order to change front was given to the right com- 
 panv, but was misunderstood ; the company, instead of wheeling to the 
 right to repel a flank movement, faced about and inarched toward the 
 
1781.] BATTLE OF COWPENS. 43 
 
 rear. The whole line, supposing that to be the order, followed their 
 example. The movement was made, however, with the precision and 
 coolness of men upon parade. " Men were not beaten, who retreated 
 in that order," Howard said to Morgan, who rode up rapidly from 
 the left where he had re-formed Pickens's militia and ordered an ad- 
 vance. He saw at a glance that Howard was right, and that the 
 misunderstanding of the order could be turned into an advantage. 
 
 Pickens's men had moved forward again and opened fire on the 
 British right. Washington with his horse charged upon that wing 
 at the same moment, with such impetuosity that he broke through 
 their lines, then wheeled, and charged again upon their rear, and 
 scattered them to the right and left. The pursuit of the flying cav- 
 alry had brought him in the rear of the advancing British left, 
 which, supposing Howard to be in retreat, was about to fall upon 
 him, and end the battle, as Tarleton thought, by pushing the Amer- 
 icans into a disastrous flight. But as Washington reached the British 
 rear he sent word to Morgan, " They are coining on like a mob ; give 
 them a fire, and I will charge on them." At the instant Morgan 
 ordered Howard's line to halt and wheel, shouting, " Face about boys ! 
 give them one fire, and the victory is ours ! " The order was promptly 
 obeyed ; the enemy, within thirty or forty yards, recoiled before the 
 steady fire with which they were met, and the bayonet charge which 
 followed it up. Washington fell upon their rear, and the rout was 
 utter. Some threw away their arms and fled ; others threw them 
 down and, kneeling, prayed for quarter. " Tarleton's quai'ter ! " rang 
 along the line, and it was with much difficulty that the officers with- 
 held the men, who recalled Tarleton's bloody fields, from turning the 
 victory into a massacre. 
 
 In the excitement of pursuit, Washington at one time had ad- 
 vanced some distance ahead of his troops, when he was 
 charged upon by three British officers. Sergeant-major coionei 
 Perry came up just in time to parry the blow and disable 
 the sword-arm of one of them as he swung his sabre to cut down 
 Washington ; another on the other side was pressing him hard, when 
 a young trumpeter named Collins, too small to wield a sword, brought 
 the assailant down with a pistol-shot ; the sword-thrust of a third, 
 supposed to be Tarleton, was parried by Washington himself ; but 
 he received a pistol-shot in the knee from the officer as he retired 
 from the contest. 
 
 Tarleton calls the result of the battle a "decisive rout." When he 
 fled precipitately with a handful of men, he left behind him, out of his 
 whole force of a thousand men, in the hands of the enemy, six 
 hundred prisoners, one hundred dead upon the field, his two guns, 
 
44 
 
 THE SOUTHERN CAMPAIGN. 
 
 [CHAI-. II. 
 
 his colors, eight hundred muskets, a hundred dragoon horses, and 
 a large part of his baggage-train. It is not the least I'emarkable 
 thing in this remarkable battle, that the casualties on the side of 
 the Americans were only twelve killed and sixty wounded. 
 
 It is a striking evidence of the forlorn condition of the American 
 arms at the beginning of the last year of the war, that little could 
 be done to take advantage of so brilliant a victoi-y. It 
 had cost Cornwallis a fourth of his army, and Tarleton 
 complains that his chief lost, by hesitation and delay, the 
 opportunity to repair that misfortune. But Greene was in no con- 
 dition to avail himself of Morgan's achievement. His army was 
 destitute of almost everything; many of his men had absolutely no 
 
 
 
 Encounter between Tarleton and Colonel Washington. 
 
 clothing except a strip of cloth around the loins, and this in the 
 winter, though it was the winter of the Carolinas. His force was 
 largely militia, who came and went as their own inclination or inter- 
 est dictated, and could not be relied upon for any continuous service. 
 Any immediate aid in men or supplies from the North was out of 
 the question, for Brigadier-general Arnold had sailed from New 
 York for the invasion of Virginia, in the latter part of December, 
 with sixteen hundred men. How the developments of the next few 
 months were to make this movement of the great traitor the first of a 
 series of events which should bring about the final catastrophe, was 
 not then foreseen. But it was apparent enough that to save the 
 
1781.] GREENE'S RETREAT. 45 
 
 more Southern States, should Virginia be lost, would be hopeless ; 
 to save Virginia, therefore, was now the primary object of the Com- 
 mander-in-chief. Greene must be left to take care of himself. 
 
 Greene's plan of defence was still as imperative as ever to avoid 
 a general battle, to lead the enemy into a protracted pursuit, and to 
 harass his march. Morgan retreated with great deliberation and 
 coolness before Cornwallis, to rejoin the main army. Greene fell 
 back toward Salisbury, where he proposed that several bodies of 
 militia should unite with him. It was desirable to keep Cornwallis 
 on the west side of the Catawba as long as possible ; but he crossed 
 at McGowan's Ford, where General Davidson, w T ith three 
 hundred North Carolina militia, was posted to dispute the McGowan's 
 passage. The river at this point was five hundred yards in 
 width, the current rapid and waist-deep ; but a British detachment, 
 under Lieutenant-colonel Hall, crossed in the darkness on the 1st of 
 February, far enough below the usual ford to be out of the reach of 
 Davidson's fire till they were safely over. In the fight that followed, 
 both the commanders were killed. 
 
 The road to Salisbury was now open to Cornwallis, and pursuit 
 was renewed. Greene pushed on to Guilford, putting the Greene's re- 
 Yadkin between him and the enemy, and there waited till trcat 
 Cornwallis crossed at the upper fords. The next river was the Dan, 
 then swollen with freshets, and. Cornwallis hoped, impassable. But 
 Greene still eluded him, having provided boats for such an emergency, 
 and passed over into Halifax County, Virginia. Here he had. leisure 
 to rest his wearied troops, and to wait for reenforcements of militia; 
 for Cornwallis, baffled and vexed with his fruitless efforts to overtake 
 him, retired to Hillsborough and contented himself for the present 
 with issuing a proclamation, announcing that as he had driven the 
 enemy out of tiie State, the loyal people of North Carolina might 
 now safely return to their allegiance. 
 
 There were more Tories than Whigs in North Carolina, and Greene 
 was confronted with a new danger. Should he not return to the State, 
 the royal rule might be completely restored by the encouragement 
 given to the loyalists by his apparent discomfiture, and by the sub- 
 mission of the patriots who would believe themselves abandoned. 
 The loss of North Carolina was the loss also of South Carolina and 
 Georgia. The time had come, therefore, for a change of policy, and 
 to risk a temporary defeat by a general battle. Recrossing the Dan, 
 he moved back upon Guilford, but baffling and eluding Cornwallis 
 who again started in pursuit as before, till he was confident enough 
 in his own strength, and in a field of his own choosing, to try the 
 issue of a fight. 
 
46 THE SOUTHERN CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. II. 
 
 The American army had been reenforced with Virginia and Caro- 
 lina militia to a total of forty-three hundred men ; but of 
 icansretn- this force nearly three quarters were raw recruits. Corn- 
 wallis commanded twenty-four hundred veteran troops, thor- 
 oughly equipped and disciplined, used to fighting, and accustomed to 
 success. General Morgan, whom ill-health had compelled to retire, 
 wrote to General Greene in February : " I expect Lord Cornwallis 
 
 will push you until you are obliged to fight him You '11 have, 
 
 from what I see, a great number of militia. If they fight, you '11 
 beat Cornwallis ; if not, he '11 beat you, and perhaps cut your regu- 
 lars to pieces." 
 
 On the 15th of March, Greene, choosing his ground near Guilford 
 Battle of Court-house, and forming his line of battle, awaited the en- 
 [ou'rt"" 1 em y- His army was deployed in three lines, the first, 
 made up of North Carolina militia, under Generals Butler 
 and Eaton ; the second, of Virginia militia, under Stevens and Law- 
 son ; the third, entirely of regulars. The lines were about three 
 hundred yards apart, and the flanks of the militia were supported by 
 Washington's cavalry, the legion of Lee, and Campbell's riflemen. 
 Gen. Isaac Huger commanded the Virginia brigade on the right 
 wing, Col. Otho Williams that from Maryland, on the left. In front, 
 the ground was open, bordered by trees and fences, behind which the 
 first line was sheltered ; thence there was a gradual ascent of thickly- 
 wooded land for about half a mile to Guilford Court-house. It was 
 a well-chosen battle-field ; every advantage of ground was made avail- 
 able ; the men, who were well commanded, were placed with great 
 skill, and they were sufficient in numbers ; but Greene's fatal weak- 
 ness was the want of tried soldiers. 
 
 When the British army advanced in a steady, unbroken line, the 
 North Carolina militia nearly equal in numbers delivered a scat- 
 tering fire from their secure position behind the trees and fences, and 
 then fled precipitately, throwing away their arms and knapsacks. 
 Some sought safety in the thick woods behind Campbell's riflemen ; 
 the rest tumbled back upon the second line, which received them qui- 
 etly, and, opening its ranks, passed them to the rear. This second line 
 of Virginia militia bravely held their ground till the British charged 
 with the bayonet, when they also broke and took refuge in the woods 
 or behind the third line of regulars. The brunt of the battle now fell 
 upon this portion of Greene's force, numbering only, with the cav- 
 alry, between sixteen and seventeen hundred men, to Cornwallis's 
 twenty-four hundred. 
 
 Lieutenant-colonel Webster, on the British left, pushed on over 
 the ground from which he had driven the Virginia militia, and struck 
 
1781.] 
 
 BATTLE OF GUILFORD COURT-HOUSE. 
 
 the First Regiment of Maryland Continentals, under Colonel Gunby. 
 The Marylanders met the attack with a steady and destructive fire, 
 before which Webster recoiled, and then, charging with the bayonet, 
 compelled him to retreat across a ravine to a hill on the other side, 
 where he waited for assistance. Lieutenant colonel Stuart, with the 
 first battalion of the Guards, 
 followed by other corps, hur- 
 ried forward at Webster's dis- 
 comfiture, and attacked the Sec- 
 ond Maryland Regiment, on the 
 left of the First, which at that 
 moment was hidden from sight 
 in the woods. The Second Regi- 
 ment fled, pursued by Stuart ; 
 but Lieutenant-colonel Howard, 
 Gunby being dismounted, 
 wheeled and led the First Regi- 
 ment in a vigorous bayonet 
 charge upon Stuart's battalion, 
 while Washington, as Stuart 
 wavered, charged with his cav- 
 alry. Stuart encountered per- 
 sonally Captain John Smith, of 
 the Maryland regiment, and 
 was killed ; an expert swords- 
 man of Washington's cavalry cut down thirteen of the enemy before 
 they yielded. 
 
 A repulse at this point and at that moment was so critical, that 
 Cornwallis ordered artillery to open upon the Americans, regardless of 
 the fact that his guards were exposed to the same fire. Two other Brit- 
 ish regiments were advanced. Colonel Webster recrossed the ravine, 
 over which the First Maryland had driven him, to reengage in the 
 fight. Tarleton, with his horse, and the Second Battalion of Guards, 
 came in from the other wing, where they were less needed, concen- 
 trating at this spot, near the Court-house, a force witU which Greene 
 saw it was useless to contend, as any possible advantage in victory 
 could not compensate for certain loss. What had become of Lee's 
 legion and Campbell's riflemen, who were separated from the main 
 body when the North Carolina militia fled in a panic, and left the 
 ground they should have held to be occupied by the enemy, the com- 
 manding General did not at that moment know. Had he known that 
 they had fought their way successfully, with great damage to the en- 
 emy, and were already at hand near the Court-house, Greene might 
 
 Gen. Nathanael Greene. 
 
48 THE SOUTHERN CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. II. 
 
 have continued the battle. As it was, with nearly the whole weight 
 Greene-s f CornwalHs's force bearing upon a portion of his own, he 
 defeat. ordered a retreat. But it was a retreat, not a flight. The 
 army fell back in good order for about twelve miles, to Troublesome 
 Creek, upon ground selected to be used in case of a reverse. 
 
 How well fought a field it was, is plain from the report of casual- 
 ties. About thirteen hundred of the Americans were returned as 
 dead, wounded, or missing, though probably a thousand of these were 
 only missing militiamen who had run, after shutting their eyes and 
 firing a shot, and opened them again only to find the way home. 
 The loss of Cornwallis was nearly a fourth of his army, or about five 
 hundred and fifty killed and wounded. Some of his most valuable 
 and distinguished officers were on this list, among them Lieutenant- 
 colonel Webster, who was mortally wounded. Greene wrote, before 
 the day was over : " The enemy gained his cause, but is ruined by 
 the success of it." Fox said in the House of Commons, when the 
 news reached England: "Another such victory would ruin the Brit- 
 ish army." The ruin came without the victory. 
 
 Greene was prepared for and expected an attack the next day. 
 Cornwallis wrote to Sir Henry Clinton, at New York, that 
 the ^tigue of his troops made it impossible for him to con- 
 ton - tinue the pursuit of the enemy, or again to offer battle. " I 
 
 thought it was time," he adds, " to look for some place of rest and 
 refreshment." But there was a thought beneath this. He had al- 
 ready determined to abandon the Carolinas, where he was " tired of 
 marching about in search of adventures." When he had reached his 
 place of rest, he wrote : " If we mean an offensive war in America, 
 we must abandon New York, and bring our whole force into Virginia. 
 .... If our plan is defensive, let us quit the Carolinas (which can- 
 not be held defensively while Virginia can be so easily armed against 
 us) and stick to our salt pork at New York, sending now and then a 
 detachment to steal tobacco, etc." Two days after the battle of Guil- 
 ford Court-house, he was on the march for Wilmington. When 
 Greene discovered his purpose, he started in hot pursuit ;. but he 
 could no more overtake Cornwallis than Cornwallis had been able to 
 overtake him. 
 
New York at the time of the Revolution. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 END OF MILITARY OPERATIONS. 
 
 . 
 
 ARNOLD'S EXPEDITION TO VIRGINIA. MUTINY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA LINE. ITS 
 CAUSE. LAFAYETTE SENT SOUTHWARD. CORXWALLIS'S PLANS. DISAPPROVED 
 OF BY CLINTON. LAFAYETTE ADVANCES FROM MARYLAND. JOINED BY WAYNE 
 AND STEUBEN. His CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. CORNWALLIS AT WILLIAMSBCRG. 
 FIGHT AT JAMES ISLAND. GREENE'S CAMPAIGN IN SOUTH CAROLINA. BATTLE OF 
 HOBKIRK'S HILL. RAWDON ABANDONS CAMDEN. FORTS MOTTE AND GRANBY, 
 ORANGEBURG AND AUGUSTA, TAKEN BY GREENE. SIEGE OF NINETY-SIX. ABAN- 
 DONED BY THE BRITISH. HANGING OF COLONEL HAYNE. BATTLE OF EUTAW 
 SPRINGS. GREENE'S GENERALSHIP. MOVEMENT OF THE ALLIED ARMIES. OPE- 
 RATIONS AGAINST NEW YORK ISLAND. THEY MARCH SOUTHWARD ARNOLD'S 
 EXPEDITION TO NEW LONDON. ARRIVAL OF ENGLISH AND FRENCH FLEETS FROM 
 THE WEST INDIES. ALLIED ARMIES IN VIRGINIA. CORNWALLIS BESIEGED AT 
 YORKTOWN. His SURRENDER. 
 
 " To steal tobacco, etc.," was the object of Arnold's expedition to 
 Virginia, rather than, by a well-conceived plan, to subjugate 
 the State and bring back the people to their allegiance to peauion to 
 the King. No better instrument could be chosen for such a 
 work, no man so ready as the unhappy traitor to harass and to rav- 
 age any part of the country against which his rage glowed so fiercely, 
 because his abortive attempt to ruin it had brought him, on all sides, 
 hatred, contempt, and imperishable infamy. Clinton knew how well 
 
 VOL. iv. 4 
 
50 END OF MILITARY OPERATIONS. [CHAP III. 
 
 he could depend upon the renegade General as a marauder ; but 
 never after that fatal morning when he fled to the British man-of-war 
 Vulture, had Arnold shown any of those soldierly qualities which had 
 once distinguished him. The opportunity, indeed, for any splendid 
 achievement was lost to him ; but fear Avould have held him back even 
 had opportunity been given. What, he anxiously asked of a prisoner, 
 taken in this raid into Virginia, would be done with him if captured? 
 'Why, sir," w r as the reply, "if I must answer your question, you 
 must excuse my telling you the plain truth ; if my countrymen should 
 catch you, I believe they would cut off that lame leg, which was 
 wounded in the cause of freedom and virtue, and bury it with the 
 honors of war, and afterwards hang the remainder of your body in 
 gibbets.'' lie must have known how anxious Washington was for his 
 capture, and fear never forsook him. He w r as no longer the brave and 
 dashing soldier ; what little of courage there was left in him could 
 only face small dangers ; he saw in every bush, not merely an officer, 
 but a hangman. 
 
 Virginia was singularly, perhaps unavoidably, unprepared for an 
 invasion. Arnold landed at Westover, on James River, and marched 
 thence, at the head of nine hundred men, to Richmond, almost with- 
 out sign of opposition. Four hundred of his troops were detached, 
 under Lieutenant-colonel Simcoe, to move upon Westham. Military 
 stores, private property, and many of the public archives were de- 
 stroyed at Richmond ; at Westham, besides much else, a powder-mill 
 and the only cannon foundery in the State. On the return of the 
 troops down the James, they were annoyed by a body of militia, under 
 Baron Steuben, which had been hastily called out ; but Arnold 
 reached Portsmouth, where he intended to establish a post, having 
 inflicted immense damage upon the enemy, especially upon private 
 citizens, with a loss to his own force of only half a dozen men. 
 
 The movement was one of serious import, and demanded the imme- 
 diate attention of Congress and of the Commander-in-chief, 
 thei'eiinxvi- And it happened at a moment when they were sorely per- 
 plexed by an unlooked-for event in the Northern army, 
 which threatened even more serious consequences. The whole Penn- 
 sylvania line, consisting of thirteen hundred men, mutinied, and pro- 
 claimed their determination to return to their homes. The authority 
 of their officers was defied, some of whom were dangerously wounded, 
 and one, Captain Billing, was killed. Several of the mutineers were 
 also killed in this first outbreak of the insurrection ; but when a bay- 
 onet was presented at the breast of Wayne, that brave General, who 
 did not know what fear was, was compelled to yield to save his own 
 life and the lives of his officers. The regiments then, under the com- 
 
1781.] 
 
 MUTINY OF PENNSYLVANIA TROOPS. 
 
 51 
 
 mand of their sergeants, marched off for Princeton, taking with them 
 six field-pieces. 
 
 A successful revolt might become contagious, for some of the griev- 
 ances of these men the want of pay, the want of food, and the want 
 of clothing were the grievances of the whole army. An attempt 
 to compel their return to duty by leading troops against them, might 
 prove a dangerous experiment, not merely because there was a com- 
 munity of suffering in the whole army, but because that of which the 
 
 Mutiny of the Pennsylvania Line. 
 
 Pennsylvania troops specially complained entitled them to a good 
 deal of sympathy. There had been either fraud or blundering at the 
 time of their enlistment, and it was this injustice, rather than the 
 ordinary hardships of army life, which all bore alike, that had led, at 
 last, to mutiny. 
 
 The law of Congress under which they were enlisted provided that 
 the term of service should be either for three years or for the 
 war one or the other. The ambiguity of its terms either 
 misled or was taken advantage of. Most of the men declared that 
 
52 END OF MILITARY OPERATIONS. [CHAP. III. 
 
 they had rightfully understood the text of the statute, and having en- 
 listed, not for the war, but for three years only, they were now enti- 
 tled to their discharge. It was claimed, on the other hand, that the 
 enlistment was for thi'ee years in any event, and for the war, should it 
 extend beyond that period. 
 
 The question became, therefore, one of legal interpretation, and was 
 wisely left to the civil authorities. In the settlement, other matters 
 were taken into consideration, and arrearages of pay and a supply of 
 clothing were provided for. That it was no want of patriotism, but a 
 sense of gross wrong, in addition to absolute physical suffering, that led 
 those men to resort to so desperate a measure as revolt, they showed 
 by one very unequivocal act. When Sir Henry Clinton sent 
 emi-saries emissaries among them to aggravate the difficulty by offer- 
 ing to the mutineers aid and protection, and to receive them 
 within his own lines, these messengers were delivered to the proper 
 authorities to be executed as spies. There were, however, men in the 
 army who, without the same reason for dissatisfaction that existed in 
 the Pennsylvania line, had none of their scruples. A brigade of New 
 Jersey troops, soon after the adjustment of the first difficulty, revolted 
 in the hope of extorting concessions. Washington ordered a detach- 
 ment, under General Howe, to reduce them to obedience, and to 
 hang the ringleaders without delay, and his orders were promptly 
 executed. 
 
 Threatening as these events appeared at the moment, the real con- 
 dition of affairs was more hopeful, at this period, for the Americans 
 than for the other side. The States raised a large sum of money to 
 appease the not unreasonable clamors of the soldiers, and to put the 
 army in a better condition than it had ever been before. It was, 
 moreover, evident, after the suppression of the mutiny in the Jersey 
 brigade, that the earnest patriotism of the troops which must be 
 after all the essential element of their efficiency could be implicitly 
 relied upon. There was a certain freedom of action in Congress, 
 as in substituting for the clumsy committees, through w T hich the pub- 
 lic business had been carried on, bureaus of foreign affairs, of finance, 
 of war, and of the navy, to be intrusted to secretaries, which indi- 
 cated a larger statesmanship mid a higher confidence in themselves as 
 the representatives of a nation. And the States, by the adoption of 
 the Articles of Confederation, which had been under dis- 
 t;onfe<jera- cussion for five years, were drawn together in a more de- 
 cided bond of federal union, which, however imperfect, was 
 an evidence of their faith in the establishment of a national exist- 
 ence. The English ministry, blind to these signs of the times, were 
 never more sanguine, than at this period, of the early suppression of 
 
 
1781.] LAFAYETTE SENT SOUTHWARD. . 53 
 
 what they still looked upon as only a rebellion ; they were uncon- 
 scious all the while that in the divided counsels among their generals 
 in America lay an element of weakness which was leading slowly 
 but surely to final disaster. 
 
 Washington recognized the significance of Arnold's invasion of 
 Virginia, and in February made preparations for a campaign 
 in that State. A detachment of twelve hundred men, mainly s .'. nt ! to . 
 of New England troops, under Lafayette, was ordered to the 
 head of Chesapeake Bay, to embark for the lower part of Virginia. 
 The British fleet under Arbuthnot, blockading the French at New- 
 port, had been recently disabled by a storm, and Washington pro- 
 posed to Rochambeau and Admiral Destouches that advantage should 
 be taken of this accident to send the whole squadron to Chesapeake 
 Bay in aid of the movement under Lafayette. There was a month's 
 delay before the whole fleet put to sea, though in the mean time 
 three of the ships sailed for Portsmouth and found Arnold too strong- 
 ly posted to be meddled with by so small a force. When Destouches 
 afterward went to sea he was overtaken by Arbuthnot off the Capes 
 of Virginia, and an engagement followed which sent the French fleet 
 back to Newport. 
 
 "There seems but little wanting," Clinton wrote to Cornwallis 
 early in March, "to give a mortal stab to rebellion, but a proper 
 reenforcement, and a permanent superiority at sea, for the next cam- 
 paign." He only waited to hear that the French fleet had returned 
 to Newport, when General Phillips was sent with an additional force 
 of two thousand men to take command in Virginia. The campaign 
 that followed was a continuation of that which Arnold had begun. 
 There was much marching and countermarching up and down the 
 Peninsula; detachments embarked at several points, to land at others 
 which were undefended; trading vessels were destroyed; much tobacco 
 and many stores of provisions were burned ; Phillips pursued Steuben 
 and Steuben pursued Phillips, with no great harm to either : but the 
 whole country was ravaged, and consternation and suffering visited 
 upon the inhabitants on both sides the James. No attempt, however, 
 was made to fortify or to hold any other place than Portsmouth. 
 
 These operations were intended only to help Cornwallis at the 
 South by depriving Greene of men and supplies except, of course, 
 the general aim of all war to bring the most distress upon those 
 who least deserve it and are most defenceless. That more compre- 
 hensive idea of Cornwallis that there must be an absolute con- 
 quest and possession of Virginia evidently had little influence over 
 Clinton's plans. He clung to his original policy of conquering the 
 South from Georgia northward, while he, with the help of the fleet, 
 
54 END OF MILITARY OPERATIONS. [Cn.\r. III. 
 
 should hold Washington and Rochambeau immovable on the Hudson 
 and at Newport. 
 
 " Greene took the advantage " Cornwallis wrote to Phillips late 
 cornwaiiis-g * n April from Wilmington "of my being obliged to come 
 plans. j. t ],j s p] ace? an( j i, as marched to South Carolina." Disaster, 
 
 he apprehended, would follow to Lord Rawdon ; but it was not in his 
 power, he thought, to succor him. The truth was, he did not wish to 
 help Rawdon ; neither did he mean to be helped himself to hold the 
 Carolinas. He wrote to Clinton a month later, with great coolness, 
 that if Greene should continue offensive operations in South Carolina, 
 Rawdon would probably be compelled to abandon Camden and Nine- 
 ty-Six, quit " a part of the country, which for some months past we 
 have not really possessed," and content himself with limiting the 
 defence of that province to the line of the Congaree and the Santee. 
 But now, in April, the Commander-in-chief was notified of the in- 
 tended movement into Virginia, and in accordance with that deter- 
 mination, Cornwallis ordered Phillips to meet him, if possible, at 
 Petersburg. When Clinton received this despatch his reply was, that 
 had it been " intimated " to him earlier that such a movement was 
 proposed, ;t I should certainly have endeavored to have stopped you, 
 
 as I did then as well as now consider such a movement as 
 ofhvi'iin- likely to be dangerous to our interests in the Southern 
 
 Colonies." With this clash of opinion and of purpose, all 
 cordialitv of feeling ceased between the two Generals, and with it all 
 
 if 
 
 efficient cooperation in the conduct of the war. 
 
 Lafayette, after a delay of some weeks, had been ordered to inarch 
 Lafavette to Virginia, from Baltimore, much to the discontent of his 
 advances. New England men, who dreaded exposure to the heat of a 
 Southern summer. To quell a threatened mutiny, one of the ring- 
 leaders was executed, and the rest were then told that those who 
 chose to desert their country in time of danger were at liberty to go 
 home. It was the end of insubordination ; not a man left the ranks. 
 Lafayette borrowed tw r o thousand guineas on his personal credit, and 
 used this sum in the purchase of shoes and of cotton cloth which the 
 ladies of Baltimore made into shirts for his men. In nine days the 
 inarch was made from Baltimore to Richmond. 
 
 When Arnold General Phillips having died at Petersburg, of 
 fever, before Cornwallis reached there was reen forced 
 overrun by by Coi'iiwallis, Lafayette's force was largely outnumbered, 
 and he fell back to make a junction with Wayne, who was 
 approaching with eight hundred of the Pennsylvania line. To pre- 
 vent this junction was Cornwallis'a first object; his second to overrun 
 the country, and to destroy tobacco and all public stores of provisions. 
 
1781.] 
 
 MOVEMENTS IX VIRGINIA. 
 
 55 
 
 Of Lafayette lie said, " The boy cannot escape me. v Of the ac- 
 cumulations of provisions in private hands, his orders were that only 
 so muc-h was to be spared as supplied the immediate necessities of the 
 families. In work of this kind, Tarleton and Simcoe were especially 
 active; for, mounting their men on the best horses to be found on the 
 plantations, they moved with great celerity, and had no scruples in 
 obeying the orders of destruction to the very letter. In one of these 
 excursions Tarleton was only a few minutes too late at C'harlottes- 
 
 French and American Uniforms. 
 
 ville to capture Governor Jefferson and the whole Legislature of the 
 State. 1 
 
 1 Jefferson's plantation of " Mouticello '' was taken by the enemy, and he there also 
 narrowly escaped capture. Expeditious into the interior of the State were made by water 
 as well as by laud, and one of these, anchoring opposite Mount Veriion, seut on shore for 
 provisions. They were supplied by Lund Washington, who was in charge of the estate. 
 When he reported to the Comnuinder-in-cliief the losses consequent u|xm this visitation. 
 Washington wrote in reply : " I am sorry to hear of your loss. I am a little sorry to hear 
 of my own. But that which gives me most concern is, that you should have gone on board 
 the vessels of the enemy and furnished them with refreshments. It would have been a less 
 painful circumstance to me to have heard, that in consequence of your non-compliance with 
 their request, they had burnt my homo and laid the plantation in ruins." 
 
56 END OF MILITARY OPERATIONS. [CHAP. 111. 
 
 Lafayette was not overtaken, and the pursuit was relinquished 
 when he was joined, first by Wayne, and a day or two after 
 
 by Stenben, with a considerable body of militia. Disap- 
 pointed in his immediate object, Cornwallis countermarched 
 down the valley of the James, leaving Richmond on the 20th of June, 
 called in his detachments under the bold riders, Tarleton and Simcoe, 
 and arrived at Williamsburg on the 25th. The first fighting of the 
 campaign was when, within half-a-dozen miles of that place, Colonel 
 Butler, aided by Wayne, struck the rear-guard of the enemy under 
 Simcoe, and came near bringing on a general battle. The loss on 
 each side was about thirty killed and wounded, Lafayette withdrawing 
 when lie saw that the whole British force was preparing to engage. 
 The day after his arrival at Williamsburg, Cornwallis received 
 dispatches from Clinton, the expectation of which, and the 
 
 Cormvnllis , , , . , . 
 
 -it Williams- orders he supposed the}" would bring him, had influenced 
 him in his retreat from the upper country. Clinton wrote 
 that he had reason to believe that New York was about to be be- 
 seiged ; that as Cornwallis was evidently not disposed to act upon 
 the plan which the Commander-in-chief had laid down for the con- 
 duct of the campaign a movement up the Chesapeake and an attack 
 upon Philadelphia and then to move on to New York the next 
 best thing to be done was for Cornwallis to put himself behind de- 
 fences at Portsmouth or Yorktown, and send three thousand men 
 from his force to Clinton's relief. 
 
 Cornwallis obeyed, but obeyed sullenly. The difference between 
 them was irreconcilable. Clinton clung to the policy of the conquest 
 of the southernmost States first, as the only wa} 7 to end the rebellion. 
 Cornwallis had tried that plan, as he believed, thoroughly, and found 
 it utterly impracticable. For the sake of driving in the wedge that 
 was to split the confederacy in halves, he had said it would be bet- 
 ter even to abandon New York and concentrate in Virginia. Lord 
 George Germaine rather agreed with him, not at all because he had 
 taken the trouble to qualify himself to form an intelligent judgment 
 upon the subject, but because he believed in the Earl of Cornwallis 
 and did not much believe in Sir Henry Clinton. Clinton, neverthe- 
 
 / 
 
 Differences l ess was Commander-in-chief, and now that he chose to give 
 peremptory orders, Cornwallis rendered that kind of implicit 
 ooe cU ence which is almost certain to defeat its object. He 
 would do nothing to avert failure, should failure come, where his 
 counsel had been disregarded. He was plainly quite willing that 
 Clinton should have every opportunity to prove himself in the wrong, 
 though it is not at all likely that he apprehended the final catastrophe 
 which would bring disaster and disgrace to both. 
 
1781.] 
 
 GREENE'S CAMPAIGN AT THE SOUTH. 
 
 His preparations for retiring to Portsmouth were soon completed, 
 and on the 4tli of July the march was begun. Lafayette fol- Fi(Chtat 
 lowed in close pursuit, and on the 6th, supposing the main lamestown - 
 body of the enemy to have crossed to Jamestown Island, an attack 
 was made upon what he presumed to be the rear-guard. Cornwallis, 
 anticipating this movement, had remained upon the north bank of 
 the river, and confronted the advance with his whole force. The 
 Americans were driven back, and, but for a bold charge with the 
 bayonet made by Wayne and his Philadelphia troops, might have 
 been signally defeated. 
 
 The situation of affairs was one that might well give both the Eng- 
 lish Generals great anxiety. While Cornwallis sullenly obeyed the 
 orders of his superior, by 
 which he felt that Virginia 
 was lost to them, he sub- 
 mitted it to the considera- 
 tion of Clinton whether it 
 was "worth while to hold a 
 sickly, defensive post in this 
 Hay," liable always to sud- 
 den attack, which neither 
 facilitated predatory excur- 
 sions into the State if that 
 was all that was to be done 
 nor was of assistance to 
 movements f arthe r so u th. It 
 was plain, moreover, by this 
 time, that those Southern 
 States, to regain which so 
 much time, so much treas- 
 
 ure, and so many lives, had been spent, were lost lost, Cornwallis 
 of course believed, because his plan of driving the wedge home in 
 Virginia had been rejected ; lost, Clinton of course believed, because 
 his well-conceived plan of Southern conquest had been abandoned 
 for a scheme which, if carried out, would compel him to exchange 
 New York for Richmond, New York Bay for James River. 
 
 For Greene had "taken advantage," as Cornwallis said, of his 
 abandonment of North Carolina, and marched southward. 
 Lee was detached to join Marion and cut off Lord Raw- 
 don's communication with Charleston, on which he de- 
 pended for supplies. This was done by the capture of Fort Watson 
 on the Santee. The besiegers were without artillery, but Major 
 Maham suggested the erection of a wooden tower of logs, the top of 
 
 Lord Cornwailis. 
 
 
58 END OF MILITARY OPERATIONS. [CHAP. IH. 
 
 which would overlook the stockade. When this was completed, the 
 sharp-shooters from behind a breastwork could pick off the garrison 
 at their leisure, and a white flag was speedily hung out in token of 
 surrender. The fall of the place gave the Americans command of 
 the road from Charleston to Camden, and a force of five hundred 
 men, under Major Watson, on the way to reenforce Rawdon, was 
 compelled to fall back and seek another route. 
 
 Marion and Lee were to join Greene at Camden, when they should 
 have reduced Fort Watson ; before their arrival, however, 
 Hobkirk's Greene, who had encamped upon a low ridge called Hob- 
 kirk's Hill, near the town, was attacked on the 25th of April 
 by Rawdon, who hoped to repulse him before reinforcements could 
 come to his help. Greene was taken by surprise ; but the British 
 advance was delayed by his pickets long enough to enable him to 
 form a battle line. The attack was made with great spirit. Both 
 wings of the enemy, however, were wavering under the warm recep- 
 tion given them by the Virginia brigade, under General Huger, on the 
 right, and the Maryland brigade, under Colonel Williams, on the left, 
 while Colonel Washington dashed in upon their rear with his cav- 
 alry. But, at the critical moment, the veteran regiment of Colonel 
 Gunby, of the Maryland brigade, was seized with an unreasonable 
 panic, and fell back in disorder. Into the gap thus made the enemy 
 rushed with a shout, the whole line was thrown into confusion, and 
 the summit of the ridge was carried. It was impossible to rally the 
 veterans, who had lost some of their best officers ; the reserve in the 
 rear, consisting only of militia, could not be relied upon, and Greene, 
 therefore, ordered a retreat to save his army. His loss in killed and 
 wounded was two hundred and seventy-one, out of a total of about 
 fourteen hundred men ; that of Rawdon was even larger, being two 
 hundred and fifty-eight out of about nine hundred. 
 
 Like the victory of Guilford Court-house, it was a victory without 
 gain. By the sacrifice of nearly one third of his men, Rawdon de- 
 layed, for about two weeks only, what it was Greene's object to 
 compel him to do, when the American army should be reentorced by 
 Marion and Lee. These two officers could not prevent Watson from 
 joining Rawdon, by which his strength was nearly doubled , but nei- 
 ther could Rawdon compel Greene to risk a second general battle, nor 
 to leave him unmolested. With communications between Charleston 
 and the interior already actually interrupted, or likely to be so, either 
 by Greene, Marion, or Lee, Camden was abandoned on the 
 10th of May by Rawdon, who burned all the stores he could 
 ish not take away, and a considerable portion of the town. Or- 
 
 ders were given at the same time for the evacuation of other posts, 
 but were not obeyed, because the despatches were intercepted. 
 
1781.] 
 
 CAPTURE OF FORT MOTTE. 
 
 59 
 
 From Camden, Rawdon marched toward Motte's Fort, on the Con- 
 garee, above the junction with the Wateree, at that moment besieged 
 by Lee and Marion, that he might relieve the garrison and save the 
 most important post between Ninety-Six and Charleston. Greene 
 moved toward the same point by another way, that he might be at 
 hand to protect the besiegers in case of necessity. This fort was a 
 spacious family mansion, situated upon a hill, prepared to withstand 
 a siege, and holding a garrison of nearly two hundred. The owner, 
 a Mrs. Motte, had been turned out of it and compelled to remove to 
 
 Preparing to burn Fort Motte. 1 
 
 a farm-house upon an opposite hill, not many yards distant. From 
 this point, the siege was conducted with not much hope of success by 
 ordinary measures. When the news of Rawdon's approach reached 
 the camp, Marion and Lee determined that, as no time was to be lost, 
 the house should be set on fire, to compel its surrender or evacuation. 
 Arrows were to be used, with burning flax attached to them, by 
 which the wooden shingles of the roof could be ignited in many 
 places at the same moment. The decision was announced to Mrs. 
 Motte with great reluctance ; but she not only cheerfully acquiesced 
 
 1 The figure representing Mrs. Motte in this picture is from a portrait in the possession 
 of her descendants. 
 
HO KXD OK MILITARY OPERATION'S. [CiiAiv III. 
 
 in it, but brought out a well-made Indian bow and some arrows, as 
 Fort Mott.- better adapted to the purpose than any that the men could 
 make on the instant. The roof was soon ablaze in several 
 places.' No measures could be taken to extinguish it by the garrison, 
 under the fire of the sharp-shooters, and the commanding officer has- 
 tened to hang out a white flag. 
 
 From Fort Motte, Lee pushed on to Fort Granby. farther up the 
 river toward Ninety-Six, and reduced it in a few hours. An- 
 r.OiMM*- other of the line of posts between Ninety-Six and Charles- 
 Ai'i^ii*'!;" ton, at Orangeburg, was captured about the same time by 
 Sumter. who had taken the field again with a body of militia. 
 A few days later, Georgetown, on the coast, fell into the hands of 
 Marion. Rawdon. unable to follow his active enemy at so many 
 points, and discouraged by these repeated disasters, fell back behind 
 the Santee to Monk's Corner, and soon after to Charleston. Of all 
 the inland posts in South Carolina and Georgia, Ninetv-Six and Au- 
 gusta alone remained in British possession by the 1st of June. On 
 the ">th of that month, Pickens and Lee having first reduced the 
 small post known as Fort Galphin, a dozen miles below Augusta, on 
 the Savannah River compelled the surrender of Augusta, ending a 
 long siege by bringing to bear upon the interior works a " Maham 
 tower*' of logs, by means of which Fort Watson had been reduced a 
 few weeks before. By these successive and rapid captures, many pris- 
 oners and large stores of provisions and ammunition had fallen into the 
 hands of the Americans. 
 
 While the siege of Augusta was in progress, Greene sat down be- 
 siege of f re Ninety-Six. The place so called because it was 
 Ninety-six. n i ne t v -six miles from tile chief town of the Cherokee Nation 
 was an important post, and therefore strongly fortified ; its five 
 hundred and fifty men were all Americans, commanded by Lieuten- 
 ant-colonel John Harris Cruger, a loyalist from New York : and it 
 was certain, therefore, that the defence would be desperate. There 
 was nothing the Tories so much dreaded as to fall into the hands of 
 the Whigs, as there was nothing the Whigs so much dreaded as to 
 fall into the hands of the Tories. It would be hardly true to say that 
 Cruger was peculiarly obnoxious ; for, as no Tory leader would per- 
 mit himself to be outdone by any other Tory leader in cruel persecu- 
 tion of the patriots, so they were all obnoxious alike. Cruger had 
 hanged many of the opposite party who had fallen into his hands, and 
 he hoped, he said, to hang many more. The gibbet was the sign un- 
 der which both sides hoped to conquer, so far as the war was a civil 
 war, and Cruger and his followers knew that military discipline was 
 not always strong enough to save men from the gallows, even though 
 
1781.] 
 
 NINETY-SIX. 
 
 61 
 
 they were prisoners of war, who were themselves hangmen when the 
 chance was on their side. Under Greene's immediate command, out- 
 rages of this character were unknown ; yet the enthusiasm of his army 
 was at fever-heat when brought before the last stronghold in the 
 State, west of Charleston, held by the enemy, and that defended by 
 Tories alone. 
 
 The approaches were diligently made under the skilful direction 
 of Kosciusko, and among these was the " Maham tower," which had 
 
 proved so efficient in other 
 places. As a protection 
 against the 
 
 The Water-carriers of Ninety-Six. 
 
 fire which 
 from this 
 
 structure could be brought to 
 bear upon the garrison, sand- ; ;! 
 bags were piled upon the par- 
 apets. The siege was pressed 
 with great vigor from the 22d of May to the 19th of June, and the 
 garrison was reduced almost to extremity for want of water, which 
 could only be brought in small quantities by a few negroes at night 
 stripped naked, that they might be invisible in the darkness. The 
 place would probably have fallen from sheer exhaustion, had the in- 
 vestment been continued for three or four days longer. 
 
 But news was received that Kawdon, strengthened by the recent 
 arrival of three Irish regiments, had left Charleston, and was march- 
 ing to the relief of his last stronghold in the interior. A countryman. 
 
62 END OF MILITARY OPERATIONS. [CHAP. III. 
 
 or, as some say, a woman contrived to get within the fortress 
 with this important intelligence, and Greene, who had not half the 
 force that Rawdon was bringing against him, was compelled either to 
 carry the place by an immediate assault, before his preparations were 
 quite ready, or lose altogether the labors of a month. The attack 
 was made in the night-time at three separate points, one column at- 
 tempting to pull down the sand-bags from the parapets, opposite the 
 Maham tower, with iron hooks, while assaults were made at two 
 other places to get within the defences. The resistance of the garri- 
 son was so spirited, that it was soon evident to Greene that, if the 
 place could be carried at all, it could only be at a greater sacrifice of 
 his men than his numbers warranted, and he ordered a retreat. 
 
 Rawdon arrived three days afterward, and though Ninety-Six was 
 for the moment saved, Greene was beyond his reach. Rawdon pur- 
 sued the American army northward for a few days, but without over- 
 taking it, and then reversed his march to Ninety-Six, pursued, in his 
 turn, by Greene. To hold the country with that single fortress, in 
 the face of a formidable enemy, was obviously impossible ; it was 
 already nearly midsummer, when the climate forbade any very active 
 Ninetv-six operations. Rawdon, therefore, ordered that Ninety-Six 
 abandoned, gjjoy)^ be abandoned, that its Tory garrison and the Tory 
 neighbors should seek refuge in Charleston, while he and his army, 
 at the same time, moved in the same direction. The pursuit was con- 
 tinued till the whole British force was on the southern side of the 
 Santee River. Greene then retired to the High Hills on the north of 
 that river, to rest and recruit his wearied troops. Rawdon, broken 
 down in health, sailed for England, leaving Lieutenant-colonel Stew- 
 art in command. 1 
 
 One more battle only remained to be fought between the contend- 
 ing armies of the South. Late in August, Greene took the field again, 
 his men invigorated by rest and the wholesome air of the hills. A 
 recent incident had intensified the enmity which so peculiarly charac- 
 terized the war in the Carolinas, and the men on both sides could 
 Hanging of hardly fail to be reanimated by that feeling. Colonel Isaac 
 coi. iiayne. Jj a y n6i an estimable citizen and warm patriot, was hanged 
 in Charleston by order of Lord Rawdon and Lieutenant-colonel 
 Balfour, who was in command in that city and the adjoining dis- 
 tricts. " The affair," says Lee, in his Memoirs, " would probably 
 have led to a war of extermination, had not the fast approach of 
 peace arrested the progress of a system deliberately adopted by 
 
 1 Kawdon was so unfortunate as to be taken by a French cruiser, was carried to 
 Chesapeake Bay, and was present at the final discomfiture of his late commander, Com- 
 wallis. 
 
1781.] BATTLE OF EUTAW SPRINGS. 63 
 
 , 
 
 Greene, and ardently maintained by every individual of his army." 
 General Greene had issued a proclamation, with the earnest approba- 
 tion of the officers of his army, that the death of Hayne should be re- 
 taliated, not upon " the deluded Americans who had joined the royal 
 army," but upon " the officers of the regular forces." 
 
 Hayne was one of those who, taken prisoners at the surrender of 
 Charleston, were released on parole. Another class of the inhabi- 
 tants, also held at first on parole, were afterward required to give in 
 their allegiance to the British Government, and to take up arms, if 
 required, in its defence. The distinction, however, between the two 
 classes was probably soon forgotten ; it was, at any rate, in the 
 case of Colonel Hayne, and rather than be parted from his wife and 
 children at a time when they were in peculiar need of his care all 
 being ill with small-pox, and three of them fatally he consented to 
 promise allegiance to the King. To this promise he was faithful till 
 the British were driven out of the district in which he lived. That, 
 he conceived, released him from an obligation which it was a breach 
 of faith to enforce, and to which circumstances compelled him to sub- 
 mit under protest. He once more took up arms on the side of his 
 country, was unfortunately captured, and, without any regular trial, 
 condemned and executed. The indignation of the people and the 
 army was almost ungovernable at what they considered an atrocious 
 abuse of military power. 
 
 By a circuitous march, crossing the Wateree and the Congaree, 
 Greene transferred his army to the southern side of the Santee, and 
 followed Stewart to Eutaw Springs, a small stream flowing into the 
 lower part of that river. In falling back forty miles to this point to 
 meet a convoy from Charleston, Stewart seems not to have been aware 
 how closely he was followed by Greene, though constantly annoyed by 
 Lee, till the two armies confronted each other at Eutaw Springs on 
 the 7th of September. The numbers on each side were about equal, 
 being a little over two thousand men. 
 
 The Americans advanced, early in the morning of the 8th, in two 
 columns, and met a body of the enemy about four miles from 
 their camp, who were speedily put to rout. Still advancing, Eutaw 
 the British were found drawn up in single line in front of 
 their tents, and here the battle began in earnest. The South Carolina 
 militia, forming a part of the first line, fell back under a severe fire, 
 though not without some spirited resistance. The rest of the line 
 stood their ground with great firmness, and the gap made by the re- 
 treat of the militia was filled up instantly from the centre of the sec- 
 ond line. All along the line the advance was steady. First with fire, 
 and then by a charge with the bayonet, which was irresistible, while 
 

 64 KXP OF MILITARY OPERATIONS. [CHAP. III. 
 
 Lee, at the same moment, by a flank movement turned the left of the 
 enemy, who were forced back and driven beyond their camp. In the 
 pursuit, three hundred prisoners and two piece's of artillery were 
 taken by the Americans. 
 
 But as the main body of the British fled, Major Majoribanks, with a 
 reserve of a battalion of grenadiers and light infantry, moved into ac- 
 tion, and Washington with his cavalry was sent to get in his rear. 
 In attempting this the horse were impeded by underbrush through 
 which they forced their way with great difficulty, while under a mur- 
 derous fire from the enemy, advantageously posted in the woods. 
 Washington's horse was shot under him, and, entangled in its fall, lie 
 was wounded and taken prisoner. Most of his officers and men were 
 either killed or wounded, and so complete was the destruction of the 
 corps, that Majoribanks was free almost immediately to turn to the 
 assistance of the defeated main bodv. 
 
 tf 
 
 Near the road, along which the pursuit was necessarily made, stood 
 a large brick house, and on its possession largely depended the fate 
 of the day. A party of British threw themselves into it, followed so 
 closely by a party from the other side that a struggle of sheer physi- 
 cal strength took place at the door-way to secure the entrance. The 
 Americans being excluded and the door barred, a fire was opened 
 from the three tiers of windows, which was terribly destructive. Ar- 
 tillery was brought up to make a breach in the walls, b^t it was inef- 
 fectual. The American advance was checked ; Stewart had time to 
 rally his flying troops ; the lost ground was recovered, the camp re- 
 taken, quite as much, however, because it was impossible for the 
 American officers to recall the men from plundering the tents and 
 from the barrels of rum, as from the prowess of the enemy, and 
 Greene was compelled to retreat. 
 
 The battle was one of unusual severity, lasting three hours. The 
 British loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners was nearly seven hun- 
 dred ; that of the Americans was somewhat less. The British claimed 
 the victory ; but, as the case was in all Greene's decisive battles at the 
 South, the essential advantage was his. Stewart retreated the next 
 day, and Greene followed him to within twenty miles of Charleston. 
 And to within twenty miles of Charleston the British forces were 
 south caro- confined till the war was ended, the troops of the two armies 
 lure <^u'- i8la " never again facing each other, except in the casual skir- 
 venej. mishes of detachments. Within a short time after this final 
 
 battle at Entaw Springs, Governor Rutledge convened the Legisla- 
 ture of South Carolina within thirty-five miles of Charleston. 
 
 ' I give you a General," Washington said, when he sent Greene 
 to take command at the South. It was generalship that was most 
 
1781.] 
 
 MOVEMENTS OF THE ALLIED ARMIES. 
 
 6f> 
 
 needed. Clinton's grand scheme for ending the war by the subjuga- 
 tion of the Southern States had come to this that not a corporal's 
 guard of the British army could be found in Georgia or the Caro- 
 linas, except in the near vicinity of Charleston, Savannah, and Wil- 
 mington. 
 
 Clinton had not taken counsel of his fears only when he wrote to 
 Cornwallis that troops must be returned to him. for he was 
 
 . ( i i i -v XT' if i Movement* 
 
 apprehensive of being besieged in New i ork. Washington <>f teamed 
 
 and Rochambeau held a conference in May at Wethers- 
 field, Conn., at which it was proposed that the capture of New York 
 should be undertaken, with the aid of the French fleet at Newport, 
 and that of the Count de Grasse, from the. West Indies, who was 
 ordered to spend the summer on the American coast. That a demon- 
 stration against 
 New York was de- 
 cided upon, Clinton 
 knew from inter- 
 cepted letters ; he 
 did not know that 
 an ulterior purpose 
 was also under con- 
 sideration ; that as 
 the French com- 
 manders doubted 
 the wisdom of at- 
 tempting to invest 
 the city by sea, and 
 as De Grasse 's stay 
 was limited to Oc- 
 tober, it was still 
 an open question 
 whether the real 
 campaign of the 
 
 summer should be on the Bay of New York or on Chesapeake 
 Bay. 
 
 Early in June, Rochambeau issued marching orders to his army of 
 four thousand men. Moving in lour divisions, they marched through 
 Connecticut, in the exhausting summer heat, in perfect order and 
 discipline, many of the officers leading them on foot. 1 North Castle, 
 in Westchester County, New York, was reached from the 2d to the 
 
 1 For a minute and clear narrative of the march of the French army from Connecticut 
 to New York, ami the subsequent operutious of the allied armies east of the Hudson. ><-e 
 The M<Kjnzine of American History, for January, 1880. 
 VOL. iv. 5 
 
 The Webb Mansion (Roehambeau's Headquarters), Wethersfield. Conn. 
 
66 END OF MILITARY OPERATIONS. [CHAI-. III. 
 
 4th of July, and by the 6th the allied armies were encamped in a 
 line from Dobbs Ferry, on the Hudson, to the Bronx River. 
 
 Washington had advanced his army from the neighborhood of West 
 Point a few days before, and was in readiness for active op- 
 
 Operations . TT , in . > t t 
 
 on New York crations. He proposed to take and destroy immediately the 
 posts on the upper end of New York Island, and on the 3d 
 of July, General Lincoln, with eight hundred men, dropped down the 
 North River in boats, witli this object, and landed at the mouth of 
 Spyten Duyvel Creek. The legion of the Duke de Lauzun was de- 
 tached from the French army, and ordered, by a forced march, to be 
 at Morrisania at the same time to cut off Colonel Delancey, who, at 
 the head of a corps of refugees, held all Westchester County in per- 
 petual dread. The detachments were to support each other in case 
 of necessity, and Washington moved the rest of his army to within 
 four miles of King's Bridge, to be within supporting distance of both. 
 The movement only served to alarm and warn the enemy. Lincoln 
 was promptly met by a British force, and, to avoid the possibility of 
 being surrounded, fell back. Lauzun was too late to find Delancey, 
 who had left Morrisania. 
 
 Quite as much was accomplished, perhaps, as was hoped for. De- 
 sirous as Washington was of capturing New York, he never meant to 
 make a serious attempt to do so with a probability of failure. If Clin- 
 ton should be led to believe that he entertained such a purpose now, 
 and should recall troops sent to Virginia, that would be a relief to 
 Lafavette ; and it is not likely that the Commander-in-chief intended 
 
 V V 
 
 more than this at this juncture, when it was uncertain whether De 
 Grasse would consent to attempt to enter the Bay of New York with 
 as Clinton afterward called them his " long-legged " ships. The 
 apprehension of a siege had already induced the British General to 
 withdraw from Cornwallis a considerable portion of his force ; the 
 appearance of a siege might induce him to withdraw Cornwallis him- 
 self from Virginia. 
 
 The Commander-in-chief, in truth, was making a fool of Clinton. 
 Washington knew on the 14th of July that De Grasse had decided to 
 go to the Chesapeake, and that determined his own action. Yet, 
 seven days afterward, the British were alarmed by a reconnoissance 
 of five thousand men, pushed across Harlem Creek to Throg's Neck, 
 which occupied two days. It was apparently of so much importance 
 that the movement was personally directed by Washington and Ro- 
 chambeau. Parties of observation were often seen at the most favor- 
 able points for overlooking the city. The gathering of stores, the 
 accumulation of boats, the laying out of camp-grounds, the building 
 of ovens, and the massing of troops in New Jersey opposite the north 
 
1781.] MOVEMENT OF THE ALLIED ARMIES. 67 
 
 shore of Staten Island, seemed unmistakable preparations for an in- 
 vasion of that island, which commands the entrance to Xew York 
 Bay. Clinton busied himself in strengthening his works on all sides 
 to meet the expected siege, and he was greatly relieved when, early 
 in August, a reinforcement of three thousand Hessians arrived in 
 New York from Bremen. 
 
 Washington, meanwhile, had written Lafayette to hold Cornwallis 
 where he was, and to guard especially against his escape into Xorth 
 Carolina. He wrote also to Philadelphia, to Robert Morris, the 
 financial agent of the government, for information as to the quan- 
 tity of stores to be procured for the use of the army, and the number 
 of vessels to be had for transportation down the Delaware and Ches- 
 apeake Bays. About the middle of the month came definitive news 
 from De Grasse that he would be at the mouth of the Chesapeake by 
 the end of August. The time had come for which Washington had 
 been waiting, though probably, even now, not a man in the allied 
 armies with the exception of the Commander-in-chief himself, Ro- 
 chambeau, and General Heath, who was to be left in command of the 
 force to remain on the banks of the Hudson was aware of the 
 splendid strategetical movement about to begin, though a few may 
 have suspected it, and hoped for it. 
 
 On the morning of the 19th of August the American army was 
 ordered under arms, with its face toward Xew York, an ad- The allied 
 vance-guard having been sent forward to clear the road in "JTh 
 that direction. But when the order to march was given, southward 
 the troops were faced to the right and put in rapid motion for King's 
 Ferry, on the North River. On the 22d they had safely crossed the 
 river and were encamped at Haverstraw. On the 19th, also, the 
 French army moved, marching to King's Ferry by way of Xorth 
 Castle, occupying all the roads in their rear to guard against pursuit 
 from New York, should Clinton be active enough to attempt it 
 which he was not. It was not till the 26th that their rear-ofuard had 
 
 o 
 
 crossed the river. u To misguide and bewilder Sir Henry Clinton," 
 wrote Washington, his column, about two thousand strong, marched 
 toward Springfield, dragging boats upon wheels, as if Staten Island 
 were the object of the movement. The French marched directly for 
 Trenton, the advance-guard being well on their way before the rear- 
 guard had crossed the Hudson. 
 
 Clinton did not discover till the 2d of September that the supposed 
 siege of New York was raised, and that the allied armies with the 
 exception of Heath's three thousand men encamped at Fishkill had 
 disappeared. The American troops that day were passing through 
 Philadelphia. The French followed them on the 3d. There could 
 
68 
 
 END OF MILITARY OPERATIONS. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 ]M''lii ic.n to 
 New I/ Hi- 
 don. 
 
 be no further concealment of the destination of the armies. They 
 were received by the citi/.ens with unrestrained enthusiasm, for none 
 were so deaf that they could not hear in the steady tramp of that 
 armed host a certain prophecy of the coming of great events. 
 
 It may have been with the hope of recalling Washington by a 
 threat of overrunning New England, as is often said, that 
 Clinton despatched an expedition against New London. As 
 the expedition sailed, however, on the very day he learned 
 that the allied armies were well on the way to Virginia, the plan of 
 sending Arnold, at the head of seventeen hundred men, to New Lon- 
 don, must have been already arranged. Clinton, indeed, may have 
 hoped that it would influence Washington's movements; but its origi- 
 nal purpose was simply a predatory raid which would gather rich 
 booty, and inflict great loss on the enemy ; for New London was 
 
 a privateering 
 port, to which 
 valuable car- 
 goes were of- 
 ten taken. A 
 London ship, 
 t li e Hannah, 
 had not long 
 before been 
 carried in 
 there by Cap- 
 tain Dudley 
 
 Saltonstall, of the privateer Minerva, laden with the richest cargo 
 that had been shipped to America during the war. 1 
 
 Arnold landed his force at the mouth of the Thames on the 6th 
 of September, and, dividing it into two columns, advanced up both 
 banks of the river. That on the New London side Arnold com- 
 manded in person, and between him and the town was only a single 
 Aveak fortification Fort Trumbull held by only three or four and 
 twenty men, under Captain Shapley, who, after a single volley which 
 killed several of the enemy, fled, and crossed the river to join the 
 garrison of Fort Griswold, on the Groton side. This stronger posi- 
 tion might have made good its defence, had not the militia in the 
 neighborhood declined to come to its help, though willing to face the 
 enemy on the open field. Lieutenant-colonel Ledyard, nevertheless, 
 refused to surrender, when summoned, even under the threat of no 
 quarter should the place be carried. 
 
 The assailants numbered between six and seven hundred men ; the 
 
 1 History of New London, by Miss Caulking. 
 
 New London Fac-limile from an original sketch in 1776- 
 
1781.] ARNOLD AT NEW LONDON. 69 
 
 garrison only about one hundred and thirty or forty. The assault was 
 on two sides at the same moment, and was met witli great 
 spirit. Here Colonel Eyre was wounded and carried f rom Fort 
 
 r / 
 
 wold. 
 
 the field. On the other side, Major Montgomery led his 
 men up the embankment, and, as he reached the top, was killed with a 
 spear by Jordan Freeman, the colored servant of Colonel Ledyard. 
 But a struggle with such .overwhelming numbers could not last long. 
 The British swarmed over the ramparts, and, as further resistance 
 was useless, Ledvard ordered his men to throw down their arms. 
 
 *> 
 
 Submission only invited slaughter; it was seven men to one, and by 
 sword and bullet and bayonet tire devoted garrison fell on all sides. 
 "Who commands this fort?" shouted Major Bromfield, now the 
 British commanding officer. " I did ; but you do now," said Ledyard, 
 as he presented his sword. Either with that sword, or with another 
 in the hand of some other officer, tradition has left the point unset- 
 tled, he fell on the instant, transfixed and dead. No order was 
 given to stay the massacre till eighty-seven of the garrison were killed 
 and thirty wounded, and of these three only were killed before Led- 
 vard gave the order to surrender. The dead were stripped of their 
 clothing, and when preparations were made for blowing up the mag- 
 azine of the fort, a wagon, on which the wounded were piled, was 
 rolled by its own impetus down the steep declivity of the hill, tortur- 
 ing all and killing some when it brought up suddenly against a tree. 
 That region had known much of Indian warfare in the early years of 
 its settlement, but the barbarity of the English at the capture of Fort 
 Griswold had no parallel in the cruelties of the savage. 
 
 Arnold, on the other side of the river, among his old friends and 
 neighbors, his birthplace and the home of his youth were at Nor- 
 wich, a few miles distant, had entered New London. For the atroc- 
 ities committed at Fort Griswold he was not responsible, and in the 
 town he gave orders that the property of some of those whom he rec- 
 ognized should be spared ; but the pillage generally was unchecked. 
 The wharves, and all the shipping, except a few small vessels that 
 escaped up the river, nearly a hundred and fifty buildings among 
 them the Episcopal church, the court-house, the custom-house, the 
 jail, and the market, were destroyed. Clinton publicly expressed 
 regret that the town was burned, and Arnold said it was an accident. 
 It is impossible to prove that it was not, and, so far as Arnold is con- 
 cerned, hardly worth while to disprove it, for a crime more or less 
 adds little to his infamy. Accident, however, if it was accident 
 that overruled his conduct, was singularly consistent, for fire left 
 even less of Groton, on the other side of the river, than it did of New 
 London. The tradition is, that he carefully directed the work of 
 
70 
 
 EXD OF MILITARY OPERATIONS. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 destruction ; and it is related that a Mrs. Himnan whose guest 
 Arnold had often been in former years, and whose property, for the 
 sake of that old friendship, he now ordered should be spared was 
 so incensed at all she saw done by his orders, that she seized a musket 
 and aiming at him, as he sat on horseback in front of her house, would 
 have killed him then and there, had not the gun missed tire. 
 
 Sir G. B. Rodney, the British Admiral in the West Indies, learning 
 The west that De Grasse had sailed for the American coast, detached 
 
 Heets. Admiral Sir Samuel Hood in pursuit, with fourteen ships 
 of the line. He arrived in the Chesapeake on the 25th of August, 
 
 " Lord, now iettest tnou tny servant depart in 
 
 but not finding the French .fleet, 
 either there or in Delaware Bay, 
 kept on to New York. On the 
 
 day of his arrival at Sandy Hook, with the intelligence that De 
 Grasse was somewhere near the coast, Clinton heard that De Barras 
 had sailed from Newport with the French fleet under his command 
 at that port. Admiral Graves, with five ships of the line from the 
 squadron in New York Harbor, reenforced by Hood, put to sea, in- 
 tending, if possible, to fall in either with De Grasse or De Barras 
 before they could form a junction, not doubting that the British fleet 
 
1781.] THE ALLIED ARMIES IN VIRGINIA. 71 
 
 was more than a match for either, if encountered alone. Not meeting 
 with De Ban-as, they sailed for the Chesapeake, where De Grasse 
 had arrived on the 30th. 
 
 But De Grasse alone was stronger than the British Admirals had 
 supposed, and on the 5th of September he stood out to sea NBTal en . 
 to give battle. His force was twenty-four ships, to nineteen ^ g t e , e "pes 
 of the enemy, but the enemy had the advantage of being to of Vir s ima 
 windward. The British Admiral, however, failed for some reason to 
 bring all his ships into action, and the result of the encounter, if it 
 was anything more than a drawn battle, was a victory for the French, 
 as they destroyed one of the enemy's vessels, and the rest were 
 roughly handled. For the next four days, De Grasse kept at sea, 
 drawing in slowly to the Capes of Virginia, and avoiding another en- 
 gagement. His object was gained in crippling his antagonist ; an 
 absolute victory was not worth the risk of defeat, for the loss of the 
 possession of Chesapeake Bay would be the ruin of the expedition, 
 which, without his aid, would end in disaster. To Graves, defeat 
 would be only the loss of a naval battle a failure to gain the su- 
 premacy in the Chesapeake, for which he was contending ; the risk of 
 defeat, therefore, was nothing compared to the importance of possi- 
 ble victory. One avoided further encounter by which he might lose 
 everything, and could gain nothing worth fighting for ; the other 
 sought a battle which, if successful, would give him all he was 
 striving for, but, if lost, would leave him no worse off than before. 
 De Grasse returned to his anchorage in Chesapeake Bay, where he 
 found De Barras, who, by keeping well out to sea, had escaped his 
 pursuers. Graves returned to Xew York baffled, and in fact defeated. 
 Seaward there was no hope for Cornwallis. 
 
 On the 25th of September, the allied armies a small portion 
 coming by water down the Delaware and the Chesapeake 
 had arrived at Williamsburg, 1 where they were joined by armies m 
 the army under Lafayette. Early in August, Cornwallis, in 
 obedience to orders from Clinton, had evacuated Portsmouth, and 
 taken possession of and fortified Yorktown and Gloucester, on the op- 
 
 1 An incident occurred on this march which we do not remember to have ever seen in 
 print. The authority for it is General Knox, who related it to the author's father. When 
 passing through Pennsylvania, General Washington and his staff, General Knox, and 
 others, stopped at a farm-house to breakfast. When the meal was finished, and the partv 
 were waiting for their horses, the people of the neighborhood were admitted to pay their 
 respects to the Commander-in-chief, for whom the popular love and admiration were uni- 
 versal. Among the visitors was an old and venerable man, evidently the patriarch of the 
 place, who approached Washington and stood before him for a few moments, gazing in 
 his face without speaking. The attitude of the aged patriot was observed by all in the 
 room in perfect silence, when, raising his hands and eyes to heaven, he exclaimed, in tones 
 of mingled pathos and veneration " Lord, now lettcst thou thy servant depart in peace, 
 for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." 
 
72 EXD OF MILITARY OPERATIONS. [CHAP. III. 
 
 posite banks of York River. In accordance, apparently, with his 
 fixed purpose of obeying his superior officer, on whom he 
 at York- chose tlitit the full responsibility should rest, he made no 
 remonstrance, though not approving the order. He was, of 
 course, no more aware then than Clinton was, that subsequent events 
 would prove how fatal a mistake that movement was ; he only be- 
 lieved that his enforced inactivity would show in the end that he was 
 right and Clinton wrong, while apprehending that no other evil would 
 follow than the loss of opportunity for a successful campaign. There 
 seems to be almost a spice of satisfaction in the curt brevity of his 
 despatches to Clinton announcing the arrival of De Grasse; but when 
 he learns that Washington is at Williamsburg, he. sees how desperate 
 his position is, and writes to Clinton "If you cannot relieve me 
 very soon, you must be prepared to hear the worst ; '' and it was only 
 after he was compelled to surrender, that he declared the post was 
 one which he had never looked upon "in a favorable light," that it 
 could "only be reckoned an intrenched camp,'' that " nothing but 
 the necessity of fortifying it as a post to protect the navy could have 
 induced any person to erect works upon it." Clearly as he saw the 
 end, however, when he knew that the French fleet was in possession 
 of the bay, and that Washington and Rochambeau were, with Lafay- 
 ette, within twenty miles of him on the Peninsula, he did not lose 
 courage. The desperate condition of affairs seems, on the other hand, 
 to have completely bewildered and unnerved Clinton. He had no 
 orders to give Cornwallis who was immovable without them to 
 provide for his safety, when such orders might possibly have saved 
 him. He wrote that he should come to the aid of his unfortunate 
 lieutenant ; but he only came when it was too late. 
 
 By the 30th of September Yorktown was surrounded, from a point 
 Yorktown on tne river above to another below, the French being on 
 besieged. t ] ie ,-jght, the Americans on the left. Cornwallis retired 
 within his works, and for the next nine days he saw weaving around 
 him a mingled web of ditches, redoubts, and batteries, from which he 
 could never break. He kept up a frequent fire upon the busy sol- 
 diers, whose task was never intermitted, by night or by day, and who 
 were sometimes brought down dead or wounded ; but there was no 
 reply till the 9th of October, when the first parallel was finished. 
 A battery, on that day, under command of Col. John Lamb, of the 
 artillery, opened fire, the match being applied by the Commander-in- 
 chief to the first gun discharged. Governor Nelson, of Virginia, was 
 asked to direct the cannonading of the town. He pointed out a cer- 
 tain house as likely to be, from its size and appointments, the British 
 headquarters. The house was his own. 1 
 
 1 Sparks's Writings of Washington. 
 
 

.. 
 
 1781.] SURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS. 73 
 
 For four days the fire was incessant ; most of the batteries of the 
 enemy were ruined, and their guns dismounted ; the largest English 
 man-of-war and two transports in the harbor were set on fire and 
 destroyed. The situation of Cornwallis was becoming daily more 
 desperate ; of his seven thousand men, two thousand were in hospital, 
 incapable of service ; his assailants were not less than fifteen thou- 
 sand, and by a second parallel they had advanced to within three hun- 
 dred yards of his works. But Clinton had assured him that on the 
 5th he should sail from New York with five thousand men, and come 
 to the rescue. Cornwallis held out in the hope of his coming. 
 
 On the 14th, his two most important redoubts were carried by as- 
 sault, one by Lafayette, the other by the Baron de Viomenil. On 
 the 16th, a sortie was made, before daybreak, on the other side, a 
 hundred Frenchmen killed, and some cannon spiked ; but reenforce- 
 ments coming up from the trenches, the British were driven back 
 within their works. Eleven days had passed, and Clinton had not 
 come. 
 
 Cornwallis now determined to trust to his own devices, and to wait 
 no longer for help from New York. He wrote, indeed, to 
 Clinton on the 15th, "The safety of the place is so pre- *** 
 carious that I cannot recommend that the fleet and army 
 should run great risque in endeavouring to save us." The sortie had 
 failed even to gain time ; the only thing left was to save the army by 
 flight, or to surrender instantly. Enough of the convalescents from 
 the hospitals were to be posted upon the ramparts for a pretence that 
 the place was still occupied ; then his whole effective force was to be 
 embarked, on the night of the 16th, to cross the river to Gloucester, 
 leaving behind the baggage, the stores, the sick, and the wounded, 
 commending these by letter to the humanity of Washington, into 
 whose hands they were about to fall. 
 
 Gloucester was invested by three thousand five hundred men. under 
 General Choise". These Cornwallis proposed to fall upon suddenly, 
 and, breaking through them, make good his escape into the upper 
 country. On the way he hoped to seize horses enough to mount his 
 army, by rapid marches delay pursuit, and baffle interruption by leav- 
 ing it uncertain whether his object was to retreat to North Carolina 
 or join Clinton at New York. 
 
 At midnight the weather favored him, and the first division crossed 
 the river. But as the boats were returning for the second Surrenderof 
 division, there came on a sudden and violent storm, which Yorktowu 
 dispersed and drove them down the river. They were not recovered 
 till after daylight, and then the troops that had crossed were brought 
 back. Yorktown was no longer tenable, and before sunset of that 
 
74 END OF MILITARY OPERATIONS. [Cn.\r. III. 
 
 day Cornwnllis offered to surrender. On the 19th the terms of capit- 
 ulation were concluded. In the imposing ceremonies of surrender 
 Cormvallis took no part, but was represented by General O'Hara, the 
 second in command, whose sword, when presented to General Lin- 
 coln, was immediately returned to him. The commanding General 
 pleaded illness in excuse for his absence, and, in truth, he had reason 
 for illness ; but it is hardly uncharitable to see in this the token of 
 that insubordinate and impatient temper which had led, in some 
 measure, to this great catastrophe. That had happened which, he 
 ought to have reflected, was, in certain contingencies, sure to happen ; 
 but he seems to have thought it quite as great an outrage that he 
 should be compelled to submit to the inevitable, as that he should 
 be required to submit to the judgment and authority of a superior 
 officer. 
 
 On that day, also, Clinton sailed from New York to the relief of 
 Yorktown to sail back again when, on the 24th, off the Capes, he 
 learned that every British soldier in Virginia was a prisoner of war. 
 If he remembered then to regret his own dawdling, it was probably, 
 to regret only that he had been too cautious ; if he was moved to 
 sympathy for his unfortunate countrymen, tliat sympathy, perhaps, 
 was swallowed up in reflections upon the man whose obstinate self- 
 will, he believed, had first frustrated the plans of his Commander-in- 
 chief, and then, by a faithless obedience to a forced construction of 
 orders, brought ruin upon his army, and upon his country disaster for 
 which there was no remedy. 
 
 "Elizabeth Town Stage wagon. Two days to Philadelphia." 
 From a newspaper advertisement, 1781. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FIRST YEARS OF PEACE. 
 
 EFFECT OF THE SURRENDER. ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF INDEPENDENCE. A TREATY 
 OF PEACE NEGOTIATED AND SIGNED. THE VERMONT QUESTION. ITS FINAL 
 SETTLEMENT. CONDITION AND TEMPER OF THE ARMY. THE XEWBURGH AD- 
 DRESSES. CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES. EVACUATION OF NEW YORK. WASH- 
 INGTON'S FAREWELL. WEAKNESS OF CONGRESS. RELATIONS OF THE FEDERAL 
 AND STATE GOVERNMENTS. NECESSITY FOR UNION. COMMERCIAL POLICY. 
 THE ARMY. THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. THE ORDINANCE OF 1787. THE 
 QUESTION OF REVENUE. SHAYS'S REBELLION. 
 
 THE surrender of Cornwallis was virtually the end of war between 
 England and America. On the 25th of November, the dis- Effe( .toftbe 
 agreeable tidings reached London. The struggle thence- 6Urrender - 
 forth was to be a struggle of party, not of arms. Parliament met 
 two days afterward, and amendments were moved in both houses to 
 that portion of the King's address in which a vigorous prosecution of 
 the war was proposed, notwithstanding this crowning disaster at 
 Yorktown. Any appeal in the Upper House to common sense or to 
 the sense of national justice, was of coui'se hopeless. In the Com- 
 mons the opposition grew day by day more vigorous. Outside of 
 both, a large body of the people were tired of wasting life and treas- 
 ure to no purpose, and were alarmed at the rapid progress, both by 
 sea and by land, of the French in the insular English colonies. 
 
 Lord George Gennaine was first thrown over to appease the 
 clamor for peace. It was not enough. In February, 1782, a res- 
 olution was passed in the House of Commons, declaring that they 
 who advised a continuation of the war in America were enemies of 
 their country. Two or three weeks later, repeated motions of cen- 
 sure of the Ministry and of want of confidence were only lost by 
 small and decreasing majorities at each motion. The indignant King 
 threatened to retire to Holland ; but the threat frightened nobody. 
 In March, Lord North announced the dissolution of his administra- 
 tion, and a new one was soon formed, with Lord Rockingham at its 
 head, and the Earl of Shelburne as Secretary for the Colonies. 
 
76 
 
 FIRST YEARS OF PEACE. 
 
 [CHAP. IV. 
 
 Independ- 
 ence ac- 
 knowledged 
 
 The first condition of Rockingham's consent to accept office was 
 the independence of the United States. Informal measures 
 to that end were taken in April, when Mr. Richard Oswald 
 was sent by Shelburne to Paris to confer with Franklin, one 
 of the American Commissioners in Europe, with John Adams, John 
 Jay, and Henry Laurens. 1 Delay arose in the first place from a dif- 
 ference between the two Secretaries of State, Shelburne and Fox, 
 each claiming that negotiations with America belonged to his office. 
 But this embarrassment ended when, on the death of Rockingham in 
 
 July, Shelburne became First 
 Lord of the Treasury, and Fox 
 retired from office. This, how- 
 ever, disposed of only an initial 
 difficulty ; for,' when official rela- 
 tions were established between 
 the English and American 
 Commissioners, the preliminary 
 question, whether independence 
 should be acknowledged before 
 negotiations were entered upon, 
 or whether it should be an arti- 
 cle of the treaty itself, had first 
 to be settled. Jay especially 
 insisted upon the acknowledg- 
 ment of independence as a nec- 
 essary preliminary to the dis- 
 cussion of a treaty. Both he 
 and Adams believed that this 
 was contrary to the wishes and 
 purpose of Vergennes, the French minister, and that his influence 
 was secretly used against America on the question of the boundaries 
 and that of the fisheries It was, moreover, the interest of Eng- 
 land that the negotiations between the several powers should be sep- 
 arate and distinct. With France and Spain the reverse was true, 
 as they hoped, by prolonging negotiations and entangling the Amer- 
 ican claims and proposals with their own, to make better terms for 
 themselves. 
 
 1 LauiTiis was a prisoner in the Tower of London for nearly two years, having been 
 captured on his way to Holland in the summer of 1780. Among his papers was found 
 the draft of a treaty, which had neither the sanction of the States General nor of Con- 
 gress, but had been drawn up by William Lee and certain private persons in Amsterdam. 
 It was held, however, in England, to be evidence of hostility on the part of Holland, and 
 led to a rupture between the two governments. Laurens was exchanged for Cornwallis 
 after the negotiations for peace between the United States and England were begun. 
 
 Cour.t de Vergennps. 
 
1782.] THE PRELIMINARY TREATY. 77 
 
 A satisfactory settlement of these questions was at length reached, 
 the most difficult that relating to the preliminary acknowledgment 
 of independence by the assent of Jay to the use of the term " the 
 thirteen United States of America," instead of naming each State, 
 as the equivalent of preliminary recognition. In the discussion of the 
 details of a treaty, the disagreements, though serious, were 
 
 i TI i* j -ij. , . Negotiation 
 
 overcome by England s yielding on the more important ques- of a treaty 
 tions to the determination of the United States. England 
 wished to retain the valley of the Ohio ; to extend the western line 
 of Nova Scotia so as to enclose a larger portion of the territory of 
 Maine ; to insure compensation to Tories for their losses ; to deprive 
 Americans of the right to fish on the Grand Bank, and the privilege 
 of drying fish on British territory. But by the treaty the eastern 
 boundary-line of the United States was made the St. Croix ; the 
 northern, the St Lawrence and the Lakes ; the western, the Missis- 
 sippi which was to be free to both nations to its supposed 
 source ; the southern, not differing essentially from the present north- 
 ern line of Florida when extended to the Mississippi. Restitution of 
 property to Loyalists by Congress was impossible, as confiscation was 
 the act of the States. The Commissioners could only agree that the 
 several States should be advised to make compensation ; knowing 
 very well, and saying so frankly, that not the least heed would be 
 paid to that gratuitous suggestion. It was provided, however, that 
 there should be no further confiscations, and no impediments should 
 be thrown in the way of the collection of debts incurred before the 
 war. The right to the fisheries in eastern waters, and the privilege 
 of drying fish on the uninhabited lands of the coast, were secured 
 to the Americans by the persistence of John Adams, who would not 
 desert the interests of Northern industry. Laurens, the Southern 
 Commissioner, was also careful to I'emember the Southern working- 
 men ; he guarded against their asserting their right to the " pur- 
 suit of happiness," in the prohibition of " carrying away any ne- 
 groes" in the withdrawal of British troops and ships from the United 
 States. 
 
 These were the essential stipulations of the preliminary treaty, the 
 first article of which acknowledged the independence of the late 
 colonies for that, as the unhappy King had said, was " the dread- 
 ful price " of peace. It was signed on the 30th of November, 1782, 
 but the final ratification was delayed nearly a year. The three allied 
 powers were pledged to each other not to conclude a peace except 
 by common consent ; and the United States, therefore, was compelled 
 to wait for the more difficult adjustment of the differences between 
 Great Britain and France and Spain. 
 
78 FIRST YEARS OF PEACE. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 That long season of waiting was a time of trial in the United 
 
 States trials both civil and military. Civil war on the northern 
 
 frontier had more than once seemed inevitable in the course 
 
 The Vor- 
 
 mom HUPS- of the current years, as a consequence of the determination 
 of Vermont to maintain her existence as an independent 
 State in spite of the territorial claims of New York on one side, of 
 New Hampshire on the other, and the support which both received 
 from Congress. The case was one always of serious import ; and in 
 the spring of 1781 it put on a new and alarming aspect. 
 
 Vermont had repeatedly asked for admission into the Union, but 
 this had been denied her, partly because of the opposition of her 
 neighbors, who claimed her territory, and partly because of the 
 jealousy of the Southern States, who feared then, as they have feared 
 ever since, the admission of any Northern State without a Southern 
 State to counterbalance it. 
 
 But Vermont, claiming now to be a State, had no political existence 
 as a distinct colony of the Crown at the time when the other thirteen 
 States were created by an agreement between the representatives of 
 thirteen revolting royal colonies. The thirteen new States, therefore, 
 were under no legal obligation to admit that community of citizens 
 into their confederacy as a fourteenth State. And of course it was 
 equally true that those citizens, if they had established an autonomy 
 of their own, were quite as free from any obligation to the Union as the 
 Union was to them. If, however, the half of Vermont belonged to 
 New York and the other half to New Hampshire, the question involved 
 another consideration. As the members of the confederacy were 
 bound to defend the territory of one another, then the duty of Con- 
 gress was clear if the claims of those two States were unquestionable. 
 
 But there was no such easy solution of the difficulty. The ques- 
 tion involved, in the first place, the interpretation of the original 
 patent to the Plymouth Company, in 1620, and their grants in the 
 several New England States; and in the second place, the meaning 
 of the terms of the grant to James, Duke of York, in 1664, and its 
 renewal in lb'74. Even the most modern title to the lands west of 
 the Connecticut, on which New York could rely, that the King 
 and Council, induced to do so, it was alleged, by false representations, 
 had declared, in 176.3, that the west bank of the river was her east- 
 ern boundary, was offset, in a measure, by a royal order of 1767, 
 forbidding New York to make any more grants of land in the dis- 
 puted territory. This order was never rescinded, and the Crown, 
 therefore, it was declared, had resumed authority over the region in 
 question as royal domain. 
 
 At the breaking out of the Revolution, the " Green Mountain 
 
1782.] 
 
 THE VERMONT QUESTION. 
 
 79 
 
 The flreen 
 Mountain 
 Bo>8. 
 
 Boys," as they called them- 
 selves, were in ac- 
 tual possession of 
 the countiy ; for, 
 though New York had dis- 
 obeyed the royal injunction, 
 and had continued to grant 
 the lands, she was unable to 
 establish her authority in 
 the disputed territory. On 
 whom, then, when the royal 
 prerogative ceased, did the 
 title devolve? The "Green 
 Mountain Boys," by con- 
 ventions and committees, 
 and actual service in the 
 field, took their share in 
 the work of revolt, as a dis- 
 tinctive people. In 1777 
 they declared themselves an 
 independent State, adopted 
 a Constitution, and elected 
 a Governor and other State 
 
 853 
 
 / Cr' 
 
 
 Scene in the Green Mountains. 
 
80 FIRST YEARS OF PEACE. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 officers. Their right to political existence was precisely the same 
 as that of any of the late colonies, the right of successful rebellion 
 and of successful self-government in the country they occupied and 
 were able to defend against all coiners. 
 
 Threatened by the public enemy on their northern border ; threat- 
 ened in the possession of the homes they had made for themselves in 
 that rugged and inhospitable region ; frowned upon by Congress ; 
 seeing the face of no really earnest friend anywhere except in Massa- 
 chusetts, the lot of the sturdy mountaineers, who from the beginning 
 had never swerved in their devotion to the American cause, was a 
 hard one. In 1780 a fresh appeal was made to Congress for admis- 
 sion to the Union, declaring that, should it be still in vain, they 
 would propose to the other New England States and to New York, 
 " an alliance and confederation for mutual defence, independent of 
 Congress and of the other States." If neither Congress nor the 
 Northern States would listen to them, then, said the memorial, 
 " they are, if necessitated to it, at liberty to offer or accept terms of 
 cessation of hostilities with Great Britain without the approbation 
 of any other man or body of men . . . for she has not the most 
 distant motive to continue hostilities with Great Britain, and main- 
 tain an important frontier for the benefit of the United States, and 
 for no other reward than the ungrateful one of being enslaved by 
 them." 
 
 The reception of the Vermont agents by Congress was unsatis- 
 factory ; the proposal was made to the neighboring States for an 
 alliance, but this, of course, was unsuccessful. The Legislature of 
 New York, however, was so impressed with the seriousness of the 
 crisis as to be able to see that Vermont had justice on her side. 
 In February, 1781, the Senate of that State, with only a single dis- 
 senting vote, proposed to recognize the independence of Vermont. 
 The House voted to take up the resolutions sent from the Senate, 
 when a message was received from Governor Clinton, which put an 
 end to the proceedings. The Governor threatened that if the sub- 
 ject were not dropped, he would prorogue the Legislature. 
 
 Affairs put on presently a new and more serious aspect. In the 
 inTasion spring a force of ten thousand men from Canada threatened 
 threatened. an j nvas i on across the northern border. Washington could 
 not spare a man from his army, and New York and Vermont were 
 left to provide for their own defence. The panic was intense, and 
 the people of northern New York were preparing to abandon their 
 homes and fly before an enemy whom there was not sufficient force 
 to resist. Vermont met the emergency by sending Ira Allen a 
 brother of Ethan Allen as a 'toaimissioner to Isle aux Noix, in 
 
1782.] THE VERMONT QUESTION. 81 
 
 May, to meet commissioners from Canada. An armistice and an 
 exchange of prisoners were agreed upon, the temporary cessation of 
 hostilities including New York as well as Vermont. 
 
 This power Vermont assumed as an independent State ; but it had 
 more significance than the conclusion of a temporary peace. The 
 anomalous position of her people had been for some time an object 
 of interest to the British Government. Haldimand, Governor of 
 Canada, had written to Lord George Germaine, nearly two years 
 before, of the differences between Vermont and her neighbors, and 
 Germaine had replied that "much advantage might be derived" from 
 that circumstance, should the hope be held out to them of being 
 made a separate province under the King. 
 
 In March, 1781, Beverley Robinson, the refugee Colonel, wrote on 
 behalf of Sir Henry Clinton, to Ethan Allen, repeating 
 
 . J . Vermont 
 
 Germaine s suggestion, and urging the return ot the people tempted to 
 of Vermont to their allegiance to the King. No response urituh 
 
 Province. 
 
 was made to this letter by Allen, and in February of the 
 next year it was repeated, but with the suggestion, now changed into 
 a positive assurance, that the 
 reward of a revolt against the 
 Union into which Vermont 
 Avas not admitted, should be her 
 independence as a British prov- 
 ince. The next month Allen, 
 after consultation with the Gov- 
 ernor and others, sent both let- 
 ters to the President of Con- 
 gress. In April they were laid 
 before the General Assembly 
 of the State. Ira Allen went, 
 a month later, to meet Haldi- 
 mand's commissioners and ne- 
 gotiate an armistice and cartel, 
 and then an earnest discussion 
 was held upon this subject. 
 Allen, at first, talked only of 
 neutrality, with the under- 
 
 ' Governor George Clinton. 
 
 standing that when the war 
 
 was over, they would give their allegiance to the ruling power, who- 
 ever it might be, on condition of receiving a free charter; but without 
 that, he said, like his brother Ethan, he was prone "to wreak him- 
 self upon expression," "they would return to the Mountains, turn 
 Savages, and fight the Devil, Hell, and Human Nature at large." 
 VOL. iv. 6 
 
82 FIRST YEARS OF PEACE. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 " The conduct of the Vermontese," wrote General Schuyler to 
 Washington, about this time, " is mysterious." Dangerous conse- 
 quences, he thought, might follow this intercourse with the enemy, 
 though he did not believe that the people generally understood it to 
 be anything else than a scheme to alarm New York and Congress, 
 that the independence of Vermont might be acknowledged. The 
 only way to end this unhappy condition of things, and to test the con- 
 duct of the leaders, was to admit the State into the Union. 
 
 The mystery which Schuyler saw in the conduct of the Vermontese 
 has been a mystery ever since. The negotiations continued from 
 that time, and the question has been, and still is, whether the Aliens, 
 Chittenden, and their associates had any serious intention of becom- 
 ing a British province, or whether they meant to deceive and amuse 
 the British, on the one hand, and alarm the Americans, on the other, 
 that they might secure their admission to the Union. The 
 
 Negotiations . J ' . . 
 
 with the conclusion reached by many writers is, that, in the one case. 
 
 British. . J J T 
 
 their conduct was hardly that of honorable men, and, in the 
 other, that of men who were traitors to their country. But the more 
 obvious construction seems also the most rational : By right of revo- 
 lution the country they occupied was their own ; if the war did not 
 secure independence to them, as it did to the colonies of the Union, 
 they reserved to themselves, as they frankly said, the right of choice 
 of sovereigns ; they preferred to be an independent province under 
 the Crown of Great Britain, rather than cease to be a province at all, 
 and become the subjects of a State they detested. The justification 
 of the revolt of the colonies was their justification. They prayed to 
 be a part of that Union which none believed in more firmly, or fought 
 for more earnestly ; if that was denied them, they meant to take the 
 next best thing, a union with Great Britain rather than submis* 
 sion to New York. They said this frankly, and they meant to 
 
 deceive nobody. They would have gladly accepted union 
 
 Their pur- J . i TT i n i ! 
 
 pose and re- at any moment with the United btates ; they temporized 
 with Great Britain because they did not mean, except in 
 the last extremity, to be driven into her embraces. They restricted 
 their boundaries on the New Hampshire side for the sake of peace ; 
 they gave up on the New York side, by order of Congress, territory 
 they had annexed, no doubt injudiciously and wrongfully, but in 
 the hope of strengthening their position, as both concessions were 
 required as the price of admission to the Union, though the promise 
 was not kept. And more than all, two indubitable facts testify to 
 the patriotism of the " Vermontese," and to the rightfulness of all 
 they contended for: When peace was declared, Vermont was not a 
 British province, though the State was not admitted to the Union 
 
1782.] THE ARMY WAITING FOR PEACE. 83 
 
 till 1791 ; and her western boundary to-day is that which she main- 
 tained in her struggle with New York, twenty miles east of the 
 Hudson River. 1 
 
 During the two years of negotiation and waiting for the final con- 
 summation of peace between the allied powers, there were Waiting {or 
 no general military operations. The distant rumbling, as fetce - 
 of a retiring storm, of Indian hostilities in the new settlements of the 
 South and West, and of skirmishes with marauding parties in South 
 Carolina and Georgia, was the only indication in the clash of arms 
 that the long struggle was not yet quite finished. But the letters of 
 the Commander-in-chief during this period show how anxious and 
 dubious he was as to the prospect of a permanent peace, and whether 
 he might not be compelled to enter upon a new campaign with an 
 army smaller and more destitute than ever, and behind it a people 
 incapable, perhaps, of being aroused again to that height of enthu- 
 siasm and devotion which had hitherto sustained them. Financial 
 difficulties continued to beset the Republic, whose paper money, both 
 national and state, had become almost absolutely worthless ; the in- 
 dustry of the country was paralyzed ; commerce was almost annihi- 
 lated ; large portions of the States, especially at the South, were 
 devastated ; poverty was universal ; and the revulsion of a long war 
 brought its own inevitable troubles. 
 
 Clinton was recalled soon after the surrender of Yorktown, and 
 Sir Guy Carleton arrived at New York to take his place. As Carle- 
 ton was much the better soldier, as well as abler man, his appoint- 
 ment was not encouraging to the Americans in the event of a renewal 
 of hostilities. He not only continued to hold New York, but even 
 Savannah was not evacuated till the summer of 1782, nor Charleston 
 till the following December. It was impossible to disband the Amer- 
 ican army in the presence of the enemy ; and while negotiations 
 dragged their slow length along at Paris, Washington, with his im- 
 poverished and impatient troops at Newburgh, watched Carleton at 
 the mouth of the Hudson. 
 
 That an army half-starved, half-naked, without pay, and with noth- 
 ing to do, should become also discontented and grow ripe for 
 
 i e i 11 rr>i i Condition 
 
 mischief, is not to be wondered at. I he wonder rather is, and temper 
 
 i "iiiii i i 11 T -i ' '^e army. 
 
 that evil should have been threatened only and not done ; 
 that men who had taken cities should be great enough, with arms 
 in their hands, to rule their own spirits, put aside their own wrongs 
 and many provocations, submit to the first command of discipline, 
 and listen to the first sober injunction of common sense and patriot- 
 
 1 See Collections of Vermont Hist. Soc., vols. i. and ii., and Documents and Records relating 
 to New Hampshire, vol. x. 
 
 . 
 
84 
 
 FIRST YEARS OF PEACE. 
 
 [CHAP. IV. 
 
 ism. Some of them knew almost no other government than military 
 rule ; they felt its strength in the creation of a nation, and the instru- 
 ments of that achievement they held in their own hands. For such 
 civil government as there was, they had small respect ; for they saw 
 its imbecility in the long-suffering of years, in hunger, in nakedness, 
 in the poverty to which their own devotion to their country had 
 brought their wives and children at home. There was little promise 
 of future pensions in the long arrears of pay which Congress could 
 not, or as they sometimes suspected would not, discharge. If 
 their wrongs were ever to be righted, they felt that they must be 
 
 Headquarters at Newburgh. 
 
 righted by themselves, and righted now while it was in their power. 
 What reliance, they asked each other, can we have, when the army is 
 dissolved and we are scattered and helpless, upon the gratitude of a 
 i-ountry which, while we are together and powerful, denies us justice ? 
 Justice was all that most of the men asked, though there were dem- 
 agogues and mischief-makers among them who had quite other pur- 
 poses. Greene hanged one of these in his camp, in South Carolina, 
 who stirred up a mutiny, one design of which was to kidnap the Gen- 
 eral, and deliver him as a prisoner to the British in Charleston. 1 But 
 
 1 There is a tradition at Newbur<;h that a similar plan to capture Washington and 
 deliver him a prisoner at New York, was revealed to the Commander-in-chief by the 
 daughter of the man who made the attempt. It was frustrated by the warning given, and 
 the man was arrested, but permitted to leave the country, in kindness to his daughter 
 No soldier, however, was engaged in this conspiracy if it ever existed. 
 
1782.] CONDITION AND TEMPER OF THE ARMY. 85 
 
 no such desperate measures were ever revealed in the army on the 
 Hudson. The troops would have followed Washington to Philadel- 
 phia at a nod, and dispersed Congress, if their demands were not 
 acceded to ; but there was no insubordination, no wish to usurp 
 power and displace civil with military rule. There were some who 
 seem to have doubted the wisdom of attempting to establish a repub- 
 lic ; but there is no evidence that they were many or very earnest in 
 that opinion. 
 
 'One of these, a Colonel Lewis Nicola, a foreigner by birth and 
 education, a meritorious officer, esteemed by Washington, 
 wrote, in the spring of 1782, a remarkable letter to the proposed to 
 General, in which it is alleged that he spoke for some others 
 as well as himself. The occasion, however, was one where conjec- 
 ture was not in the least likely to fall short of the truth. Nicola 
 was alone responsible for the letter, and no great importance, perhaps, 
 would ever have attached to it, had it not been that Washington 
 thought it worthy of a signal rebuke. The wretched condition of 
 the country, and the distress and poverty of the troops, were the mov- 
 ing cause of the appeal, and these were attributed to the imbecility 
 of government, the fatal weakness inherent in republics. A mixed 
 government, it was argued, was more conducive to the happiness of 
 the people, and this might be established under that great chief who 
 had led the army in a successful war of eight years. In obedience 
 to popular prejudice, "it might not at first be prudent to assume the 
 title of royalty," but when "all other things were once adjusted, the 
 title of King" might be admitted. It was, Washington said, "with 
 a mixture of surprise and astonishment " that he read this letter ; no 
 occurrence during the war had given him more painful sensations 
 than the assurance that such ideas existed in the army, and he 
 viewed them with abhorrence and reprehended them with severity. 
 He conjured his friend to banish such thoughts from his- mind, if 
 he had any regard for his country, concern for himself or his pos- 
 terity, or respect for his chief. Had the movement, if it was im- 
 portant enough to deserve that designation, been very much stronger 
 than it was, Washington's decisive and indignant reply would have 
 made an end of it. 
 
 The complaints of the army, however, were not silenced ; they 
 grew louder as the months wore on ; the men were still without pay, 
 and were not permitted to return to their homes ; violent outbreaks 
 were not unfrequent among the least intelligent of the soldiers, and 
 many doubted whether thev were not cruelly trilled with by conceal- 
 
 t/ //*. 
 
 ing from them the fact of the supposed conclusion of peace between 
 the two governments. They could not easily comprehend the nature 
 
86 FIRST YEARS OF PEACE. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 and the necessity of the protracted negotiations carried on at Paris 
 and London. 
 
 But in the winter of 178283, the proposed redress of griev- 
 ances assumed a more practical form than that presented in Colonel 
 Nicola's letter, and received the hearty approval of the Com- 
 mander-in-chief. A memorial, assented to by the principal officers 
 of the army, as a calm and candid presentation of its claims 
 upon the Government, was taken to Congress by a committee of 
 three, General McDougal, Colonel Ogden, and Colonel Brooks. 
 Immediate attention was given to it, and the friends of the army in 
 Congress probably did the best they could in a proposed adjustment 
 of arrears of pay, and the question of future pensions. But party 
 politics had too much weight even upon a question which should have 
 been settled upon the single principle of common justice. Neither 
 the thing done, therefore, nor the way of doing it, was satisfactory at 
 Newburgh, and affairs put on a more threatening aspect than ever. 
 The camp was a magazine, which needed only a torch, applied 
 at the right place and at the right moment, to produce a terrible 
 explosion. 
 
 The torch was lighted, but fortunately the strong hand was ready 
 to extinguish it on the instant. On the 10th of March an anony- 
 mous notice was circulated, calling a meeting of the general 
 burgh Ad- and field officers, a commissioned officer from each company, 
 and a delegate from the medical staff, to consider the late 
 action of Congress, " and what measures, if any, should be adopted to 
 obtain that redress of grievances which they seem to have solicited in 
 vain." With the notice was issued an address, written, it was 
 found years afterward, by John Armstrong, 1 then a Major and an 
 
 1 Gordon, in his History of the American Revolution (London, 1783) says of the ad- 
 dresses that they were, " though anonymous, known since to have been drawn up by Major 
 Armstrong." For this information Gordon was indebted to General Gates, according to a 
 letter from Gates to Armstrong, published forty years afterward by Armstrong himself. 
 This letter is in a note in a review of Johnson's Life of Greene, published in The United 
 Staffs Magazine of January, 1823, and, though unacknowledged, written as we know 
 positively by Armstrong. Johnson, in the Life of Greene, attributed to Gouvemeur 
 Morris the authorship of the Newburgh Addresses, and the main point and object of Arm- 
 strong's review was to deny this theory, and to show that they were written by himself, 
 " Major Armstrong, a very young man (the aid-de-camp of General Gates), who. yielding 
 to the solicitations of his friends, in a few hours produced an address which was believed to 
 be peculiarly adapted to its purpose." In the chain of evidence on this point, there are 
 some statements that are inexplicable, and some that are irreconcilable ; and through it 
 all there is apparently a design to cover up the essential fact in regard to the actunl origin 
 of the addresses by the substitution of another fact which reveals only half the truth. It 
 may be quite true that, as Gates says, and as he informed Gordon, " the letters were writ- 
 ten in my quarters by you " [Armstrong] ; but it does not follow therefore, that they were 
 written as Armstrong attempts to show on the sudden impulse of the moment, nor 
 that there was not, behind the mere writing, some potent influence which inspired that 
 
1782.] THE NEWBURGII ADDRESSES. 87 
 
 aid-de-camp of General Gates, in which was discussed with much 
 ability and great warmth the condition of the army. " What," 
 asked the writer, " have you to expect from peace when your voice 
 shall sink and your strength dissipate by division ; when those very 
 swords, the instruments and companions of your glory, shall be taken 
 from your sides, and no remaining mark of military distinction left but 
 your wants, infirmities, and scars ? Can you, then, consent to be the 
 only sufferers by this Revolution, and, retiring from the field, grow 
 old in poverty, wretchedness, and contempt ? Can you consent to 
 wade through the vile mire of despondency, and owe the miserable 
 remnant of that life to 
 charity which has hitherto 
 been spent in honor ? If 
 you can, go, and carry with ^ * 
 
 you the jest of Tories and Signature of Armstron e- 
 
 the scorn of Whigs ; the ridicule, and, what is worse, the pity of the 
 world ! Go, starve, and be forgotten ! But if your spirits should 
 revolt at this .... awake, attend to your situation, and redress 
 yourselves ! If the present moment be lost, every future effort 
 is in vain ; and your threats then will be as empty as your entrea- 
 ties now." And this was his counsel: "I would advise jou, there- 
 fore, to come to some final opinion upon what you can bear, and what 
 you will suffer. If your determination be in any proportion to your 
 wrongs, carry your appeal from the justice to the fears of govern- 
 ment. Change the milk-and-water style of your last memorial." 
 And let that, he said, be not a memorial, but a * k last remonstrance," 
 and Congress should be told in this " that the slightest mark of 
 indignity now must operate like the grave, and part you forever ; 
 that in any political event, the army has its alternative. If peace, 
 that nothing shall separate you from your arms but death ; if war, 
 that courting the auspices, and inviting the direction of your illus- 
 trious leader, you will retire to some unsettled country, smile in your 
 turn, and * mock when their fear cometh on.' ' 
 
 It is not likely that Washington overrated the possible influence of 
 
 writing, dictated its tone, its terms, and its aim, and constituted the real authorship. To 
 ussunie this, it must be acknowledged, is to assume a great deal, is to put upon the whole 
 transaction a new face, involving an essentially new chapter in the history of that period. 
 But that Washington believed there was much more in the matter than met the eye, is 
 evident enough from his own letters ; and, indeed, his energetic conduct, the unusual 
 warmth of feeling displayed in his address to the meeting which he assembled, and the 
 importance he attached to the crisis which he felt called upon to meet in so unusual a man- 
 ner, are hardly explicable on any other supposition. Any presentation of the subject, how- 
 ever, on this side of it, would require an analysis of evidence, the citation and comparison 
 of contemporary writings, and the production of testimony, hitherto unpublished, which 
 the limits of this work forbid. 
 
FIRST YEARS OF PEACE. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 words like these, appealing to the most violent passions of men al- 
 i-eady inflamed to the point of desperation. It was an emergency to 
 be met by the promptest, but, at the same time, the most cautious 
 and judicious action. Any attempt at coercion was out of the ques- 
 tion ; indeed, where was any instrument of coercion to be found ? 
 If his personal influence was not sufficient to control the army, there 
 could be little hope now of any moderate measures. 
 
 The day after the appearance of the call for the meeting and the 
 address, they were made the subject of general orders. The reputa- 
 tion and true interest of the army, the Commander-in-chief said, 
 made it his duty to avow " his disapprobation of such disorderly pro- 
 ceedings," though he was " fully persuaded that the good sense of the 
 officers would induce them to pay very little attention to such an 
 irregular invitation." His reliance, nevertheless, was more upon his 
 own good sense than theirs ; for he asked that the representatives of 
 the army should assemble at his invitation on the following Saturday, 
 the 15th, instead of on that day, the llth, which the anonymous 
 call had named. The purpose of the writer of the siddress, and his 
 associate conspirators, was thus checkmated. The meeting of Tues- 
 day was not held ; four days of calm consideration of the inflamma- 
 tory appeal were secured, though its author made a weak attempt, 
 during those four days, to cover his own defeat by a second address, in 
 which he claimed that Washington's order was favorable, and meant 
 to be favorable, to the writer's purpose. 
 
 The army had only to wait till Saturday to know the truth. The 
 
 meeting was opened by Washington himself. In a calm but 
 
 addresses forcible address, he answered every statement and appeal of 
 
 the army. 
 
 the anonymous writer, and showed how unwise and intem- 
 perate that counsel was which instigated a rebellion against Con- 
 gress. " My God ! " he exclaimed, " what can this writer have in 
 view by recommending such measures ? Can he be a friend to the 
 army ? Can he be a friend to this country ? Rather is he not an in- 
 sidious foe? some emissary, perhaps, from New York, plotting the 
 ruin of both by sowing the seeds of discord and separation between 
 the civil and military powers of the continent ? And what a compli- 
 ment does he pay to our understandings, when he recommends meas- 
 ures in either alternative impracticable in their nature ? " Then he 
 urged them to patience, to rely upon the justice of Congress ; he 
 pledged his own utmost exertions on their behalf, and begged them 
 to " give one more distinguished proof of unexampled patriotism and 
 patient virtue, rising superior to the pressure of the most compli- 
 cated sufferings." 
 
 Washington retired when his speech was finished, and the meeting 
 
WASHINGTON TAKING LEAVE OF HIS OFFICERS. 
 

1782.] CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES. 
 
 then Major-general Gates presiding as senior officer passed a 
 series of resolutions, setting forth their own grievances, as had been 
 so often done before, but avowing their confidence in Congress, and 
 declaring that the army viewed with abhorrence and rejected with 
 disdain the infamous propositions of the anonymous address, and re- 
 sented with indignation the attempts to collect the officers together 
 in a manner totally subversive of all discipline and good order. The 
 crisis was over ; nor was it among the least of the commanding Gen- 
 eral's many victories that by his energy and prudence he saved the 
 country from a possible revolt that would have threatened its 
 existence. 
 
 Though general orders announced, a few days later, the cessation 
 of hostilities, and the news was received with almost ex- Ccssation of 
 travagant demonstrations of joy by the army at Newburgh, hostllltles - 
 there were months of weary delay before actual peace was de- 
 clared and all the worn-out soldiers were permitted to return to 
 their homes. Many were discharged in the course of the summer 
 and autumn ; but the whole army was not disbanded till December. 
 The question of pay was not settled without much discussion and dis- 
 appointment, but it gave rise to no further trouble, except in Phila- 
 delphia, where a body of about eighty raw recruits mutinied, and took 
 possession of the State House. Congress adjourned to Princeton. 
 Fifteen hundred troops were ordered to inarch from the Hudson to 
 suppress this insurrection ; but before they reached Pennsylvania it 
 was ended. 
 
 On the 25th of November, Xew York was evacuated by the British, 
 Washington, with so much of his army as remained, and 
 Governor Clinton, with the other civil officers of the State, oir "NOW ' 
 marching in to take possession. On the 4th of December, 
 a ceremony of less pomp, but involving far deeper feeling, took place 
 at Fraunces's Tavern, in Broad Street, where the Commander-in-chief 
 parted witli his companions in arms. In October, he had taken 
 leave of his army in an affectionate address ; but the parting now was 
 from those officers, with many of whom he had been in the Farewell to 
 most intimate personal as well as official relations. Such a thearm >- 
 separation could not be without great emotion on both sides. " I 
 cannot come to each of you," he said, after a few words of farewell, 
 k4 to take my leave, but shall be obliged if each of you will come and 
 take me by the hand." Not another word was spoken, hardly was 
 another word possible at such a parting of such men. On the 23d of 
 the same month he returned his commission to Congress, then at An- 
 napolis, in public session. 
 
 On the 3d of September, 1783, the final treaty of peace was signed 
 

 90 
 
 FIRST YEARS OF PEACE. 
 
 [HAP. IV. 
 
 Boundaries. 
 
 at Paris, by which Great Britain acknowledged the United States to 
 be "free, sovereign, and independent." 
 
 The absence of a solid sovereignty in which the Commonwealths 
 Necessity for could rest, had long been a serious injury to the separate 
 union. States. Each had its own interior history, its institutions 
 modified if not produced by its own circumstances, and it was possi- 
 ble for this individuality to assert itself finally in a petty sover- 
 eignty. In the first Congress, Patrick Henry had expressed the 
 larger thought which was at work : " The distinctions between Vir- 
 ginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no 
 more. I am not a Virginian lam an American." But this was 
 the inspiration of a great mind at a great moment. The 
 boundaries of the colonies still existed, and in the slow 7 years 
 of the war, and slower years of the peace that followed, were more 
 
 sharply defined. 
 The treaty with 
 Great Britain 
 had fixed as the 
 limits of the Uni- 
 ted States, the 
 Atlantic Ocean, 
 the Gulf of Mex- 
 ico, the Missis- 
 sippi River, 1 and 
 the Great hakes ; 
 Florida being 
 excepted, as be- 
 longing to Spain. 
 The western 
 boundaries of the 
 Southern States, 
 drawn at the 
 great river, were 
 political bounda- 
 ries only; between that line and the scattered settlements which 
 reached out from the seacoast, there was a vast and almost unex- 
 plored region. Pittsburg was an advanced military post. A trail 
 through the wilderness extended from Johnson's house on the Mo- 
 hawk to the Great Lakes. 
 
 1 In triiciiig out this boundary, the Missouri was considered the main branch of the 
 Mississippi, and the line followed up that stream. But from lack of exploration about the 
 headwaters, there was confusion as to the northwest boundary, which in fact was undeter- 
 mined. There was a similar confusion as to the northeastern boundary, which was net 
 settled till 1842. 
 
 Fraunces's Tavern. 
 
 

 
1782.] THE NEW NATION. 91 
 
 The Southern States had somewhat over a million of inhabitants, 
 while the Middle States and New England divided equally between 
 them a million and a half. The three great States were Virginia, 
 with its 400,000 inhabitants, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, each 
 with 350,000. Hut the character and influence of the three States 
 varied in accordance with the inherent differences in the character 
 of the people and their social and industrial systems. In Virginia 
 there was no single important centre ; but large plantations, occupy- 
 ing the broad lands in the middle and eastern portions, gave singular 
 importance to particular families. The Northern traveller, as he 
 moved southward, no longer saw contiguous villages and small, well- 
 cultivated farms along the road, but large, ill-built, isolated houses, 
 surrounded with groups of rude shanties or log-huts for the negro- 
 quaiters. Within he found the rough hospitality of a people with- 
 out neighbors, and with few intellectual resources to relieve the 
 tedium of their lives, living in the coarse plenty of the plantation, 
 self-confident in tone, and overbearing in manners from the constant 
 practice of petty tyranny over their helpless slaves. There were two 
 classes only, the very poor and the very rich. And already the soil of 
 the eastern counties of these slave States showed signs of exhaustion 
 under the excessive drain of the tobacco crop, and the planters were 
 heavily indebted to English capitalists and merchants. The war had 
 stayed the collection of these debts, but the fear lest their creditors 
 should force their claims through the General Government made the 
 planters suspicious of increasing in any way the powers of Congress. 
 Yet the half-feudal life in the Old Dominion and neighboring States, 
 and the absence of any pursuit save that of politics, gave their lead- 
 ing men an undue influence in public affairs. 
 
 At the close of the war, Philadelphia was the chief city in the 
 country, its population of forty thousand being double that 
 of Boston, and more than three times that of New York. 
 It became the fashion, shortly after this date, to celebrate public 
 events by processions of tradesmen and mechanics, and in one such 
 pageant in Philadelphia, nearly fifty distinct trades were repre- 
 sented ; companies existed for the better protection of the interests 
 of the trades, and a library had been founded fifty years before, 
 chiefly by this class. Upon the solid foundation of manufactures and 
 trade had been built a society living in comfort and ease, and the 
 social manners of the city marked it as the most agreeable on the 
 continent. New York was still paralyzed from the occupation by the 
 British and from the ravages of fire. New England, with its restless 
 population centering about seaports, was busy with ship-building and 
 with the coasting-trade, which extended to the West Indies, its best 
 

 FIRST YEARS OF PEACE. 
 
 [CHAP. IV. 
 
 market. The forests of Maine and New Hampshire sent vast quan- 
 tities of lumber to the seaboard ; and Newport, Providence, and the 
 harbors on the Connecticut coast drove a thriving trade with the 
 Bahamas and Bermuda. On the return of peace the markets were 
 flooded with British goods, and the courts were filled with suits of 
 British creditors. 
 
 The policy which Great Britain had so long maintained, of regard- 
 ing the colonial trade as existing only for her own benefit, could not 
 
 A New England Farmhouse 1790. 
 
 at once be changed ; that country aimed at a monopoly of the trade 
 of the new States, and the Crown, authorized by Parliament, issued 
 commercial two proclamations, the first of which required the importa- 
 policy - tion of the produce of the United States to be committed 
 either to British vessels, or to vessels belonging to the particular State 
 of which the cargo was the produce ; the second, with special reference 
 to the West Indies, prohibited American vessels or citizens from trad- 
 ing to the British colonies. The effect was threefold : commercial 
 treaties with other nations were encouraged, the several States passed 
 
1 782.] 
 
 COMMERCIAL POLICY. 
 
 resolutions conferring large power on Congress, and local retaliatory 
 acts were passed, all tending to derange commercial relations and to 
 intensify the hatred of England. But the unequal operation of State 
 laws drove commerce from one port to another, and still further wi- 
 dened the breach between the States. Maryland, by lower duties, 
 gained the commerce of Virginia. Madison had been suspicious of a 
 proposed measure of Hamilton's, that it would inure to the benefit 
 of the Eastern States ; but those States themselves drove away com- 
 
 A Planter's Residence 1790. 
 
 merce by retaliatory regulations. The remedies proposed, while look- 
 ing sometimes to closer alliances with neighboring States, were all in 
 the direction of conflict of interests throughout the Union ; commer- 
 cial leagues were formed between New Jersey and Pennsylvania, be- 
 tween Virginia and Maryland, and a competition sprang up for secur- 
 ing trade by the reduction of duties. 
 
 All the while the balance of trade against the country was 
 rapidly increasing. Within two years after peace was declared, the 
 value of goods imported from England into the United States wsis 
 
94 
 
 FIRST YEARS OF PEACE. 
 
 [CHAP. IV. 
 
 not far from thirty million dollars, while the exports during the 
 same time were only between eight and nine millions. This great 
 influx of goods crushed the feeble manufactories which had been 
 started during the war, and drew off nearly all of the specie which 
 still remained behind the great volume of depreciated paper money. 
 There was no mint, and the States as well as Congress issued 
 money. In April, 1783, the debt of the United States was esti- 
 mated at $4-2,000,000, and that of the separate States at $20,000.000. 
 
 A Lumbering Scene. 
 
 Congress vainly implored the States to provide the means for meet- 
 ing its debts. England held by her policy of monopoly, and more- 
 over made the difficulty of collecting debts due from American mer- 
 chants to her citizens a further excuse for delaying compliance with 
 the provision of the treaty of peace which called for the evacuation 
 of the frontier posts. The disorganized state of the country aroused 
 a belief in England that the restoration of the colonies to Great 
 Britain was not impossible. 
 
 Congress was already making use of the public lands for settling 
 
1786.] WEAKNESS OF CONGRESS. 95 
 
 the claims of its creditors, and among these creditors the soldiers of 
 the late army held preference. A movement at once began, which 
 for a hundred years has been changing the face of the country. Wash- 
 ington held lands in the West, and made a journey toward the more 
 remote of his possessions, his mind full of schemes which took shape 
 in the Potomac and James River companies. Timothy Pickering, who 
 had thought of buying wild lands in Vermont, was tempted rather by 
 the reports of the fertile fields of Ohio, and in company with many 
 officers of the army, devised a plan for the formation of a new State 
 west of the Ohio River, '' the total exclusion of slavery from the 
 State to form an essential and irrevocable part of the Con- 
 
 . . ,, r., , . ... The Ordi- 
 
 stitution. ihe plan formed by that company or omcers in imnceof 
 camp at Newburgh, though crude and incomplete, was one 
 of the earliest steps in that series of popular and legislative acts which 
 issued finally in the Ordinance of 1787. 
 
 The one political institution which claimed to hold the country 
 together the Congress of Delegates was losing its power weakness of 
 and reputation with astonishing celerity. 1 " Is it not among Con e ress 
 the most unaccountable things in nature," wrote Washington to 
 Grayson, July 26, 1786, " that the representation of a great country 
 should generally be so thin as not to be able to execute the functions 
 of government?" Congress was frequently compelled to adjourn 
 for want of a quorum. The States, in their jealousy of one another, 
 dreaded a phantom power in Congress, and exercised their ingenuity 
 in sending their delegates instructions which repeatedly blocked the 
 measures of the General Government. 
 
 Jefferson had been sent as Commissioner to France, John Adams 
 as Minister to England in 1786, and the relations with Spain Foreign,^. 
 were negotiated by Jay, the new Secretary of Foreign Af- lation8 - 
 fairs at home. Jefferson was impeded by his own free-trade theories, 
 and by his disagreement with Congress ; Jay was embarrassed bv the 
 claims of Spain to control the navigation of the Mississippi ; Adams 
 had to contend against the obvious failure of separate States to ob- 
 serve the terms of the treaty of peace. The imbecility of Congress, 
 joined to the determination of England to maintain her monopoly 
 (if the sea, made it seem impossible for Adams to m;ike any headway 
 in negotiating a commercial treaty. The United States acquired no 
 
 1 The president of Congress, Richard Henry Lee, wrote to Samuel Adams, under date 
 of November 18, 1784 : " It is now eighteen days since Congress ought to have assembled 
 here [Trenton], and as yet we have but five States ; and it surprises me that these rive are 
 southern ; none but the worthy Dr. Holton, from your State, being yet arrived from the 
 eastward, whence formerly we used to derive much punctuality, alacrity, and judicious 
 despatch of public business. And yet there are many subjects of great importance, that 
 demand the speedy, temperate, wise, and firm discussion of Congress." 
 
96 
 
 FIRST YEARS OF PEACE. 
 
 [CHAP. IV. 
 
 Internal 
 troubles. 
 
 respect as a nation. " The most remarkable thing," wrote Adams, 
 " in the King's speech and the debates is, that the King and every 
 member of each house has entirely forgotten that there is any such 
 place upon the earth as the United States of America. We appear 
 to be considered as of no consequence at all in the scale of the 
 world." Washington summed up the situation a few months later, 
 when he wrote: "Without them [i. e., adequate powers] we stand 
 in a ridiculous point of view in the eyes of the nations of the world, 
 with whom we are attempting to enter into commercial treaties, 
 without the means of carrying them into effect, who must see and 
 feel that the Union, or the States individually, are sovereigns, as 
 best suits their purposes ; in a word, that we are one nation to-day, 
 and thirteen to-morrow." 
 
 The dangers at home were even greater. Not only were the States 
 arrayed against Congress whenever their local interests 
 seemed in jeopardy, but popular conventions and neighbor- 
 hood meetings began to arrogate mtbority. " Bodies of men," wrote 
 
 Samuel Adams in April, 
 1784, "under any denom- 
 ination whatever, who 
 convene themselves with 
 a design to deliberate up- 
 on and adopt measures 
 which are cognizable by 
 legislatures only, will, if 
 
 The Franklin Penny First United States Coin. COlltillUed, SOO11 bring leg- 
 
 islatures to contempt and dissolution." Washington again, in 1786, 
 wrote with warning to his nephew Bushrod against societies formed 
 in Virginia for the indirect management of public affairs : " Socie- 
 ties, nearly similar to such as you speak of, have lately been formed 
 in Massachusetts ; but what has been the consequence ? Why, they 
 have declared the Senate useless, many other parts of the Constitu- 
 tion unnecessary, salaries of public officers burthensome, etc. To 
 point out the defects of the Constitution, if any existed, in a decent 
 way, was proper enough ; but they have done more. They first vote 
 the courts of justice, in the present circumstance of the State, oppres- 
 sive, and next, by violence, stop them, which has occasioned a very 
 solemn proclamation and appeal from the Governor to the people. 
 You may say no such matters are in contemplation by your society. 
 Granted. A sno\v-ball gathers by rolling." The power issuing from 
 the people was being reclaimed by them individually, from lack of a 
 supreme authority in which the incomplete fragments of the state 
 could rest. 
 
1786.] 
 
 INTERNAL TROUBLES. 
 
 The indications of this extreme logic of local sovereignty were 
 many and frequent. When the authority of the Government was 
 weakened over the old States, it was to be expected that the frontier 
 would show more open independence. In the Wyoming country of 
 Pennsylvania there had been a long-continued dispute between the 
 Pennsylvania Government and that of Connecticut, which had sent 
 emigrants to occupy the wilderness. The boundaries and respect- 
 ive rights of the States were open questions then ; but it was finally 
 settled that the Wyoming country was under Pennsylvania's juris- 
 diction. There- 
 upon the State 
 claimed that the 
 settlers from 
 Connecticut 
 could hold their 
 lands only under 
 fresh titles. The 
 settlers, well 
 used by long con- 
 troversy to a re- Dollar of l794 - 
 
 bellious attitude, took up arms and resolved to form a new State, but 
 were suppressed as rioters. 
 
 The western counties of North Carolina set up an independent 
 Government, organizing themselves into the State of Frank- 
 
 mi Quarrels 
 
 land. There arose at once a local quarrel. I he portion over new 
 
 ^tittPS 
 
 of Virginia which afterwards became Kentucky set up 
 similar claims to independence. Maine, a province of Massachu- 
 setts, struggled for a separate government, and finally in Massa- 
 chusetts the disorganizing and rebellious elements broke out into 
 formal and armed insurrection. The accumulation of debts shays's Re- 
 rendered the courts of justice, in the minds of many, mere b *" ion - 
 " engines of destruction ; " the increasing distress in private affairs, 
 the depression in commerce, and the burden of Federal taxation, 
 swelled the popular discontent. The old methods of opposition to 
 British tyranny were resumed in this new opposition to what was 
 imagined to be Federal tyranny. Local conventions were held, and 
 committees formed, and the movement was spreading into the neigh- 
 boring States. 1 Congress ordered troops to be raised, pretending 
 
 1 "The number of these people amounts in Massachusetts to about one fifth part of 
 several populous counties, and to them may be collected people of similar sentiments from 
 the States of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, so as to constitute a body 
 of about twelve or fifteen thousand desperate and unprincipled men. They are chiefly of 
 the young and active part of the community." Knox to Washington, in Writings of 
 Washington, ix., 207. 
 vou iv. 7 
 
 . . 
 
98 
 
 FIRST YEARS OF PKACE. 
 
 [CHAP. IV. 
 
 that they were for service against the Northwestern Indians. Fortu- 
 nately the Government of Massachusetts had a man of force at its 
 head in Governor Bowdoin. At Worcester and at Springfield an 
 
 A Scene in Shays's Rebellion. 
 
 attempt was made to prevent the sitting of the Courts, and at the 
 latter place was ludicrously unsuccessful. 1 Here also the insurgents 
 
 1 " Previous to Shays appearing at the head of au armed mob, so called, an attempt was 
 made to stop the courts of justice. A court was to be held at Springfield ; a few warm 
 partisans had assembled about the court-house, in plain sight of the old brick school-house, 
 where I attended school, and from my windows saw all that was going on. Mr. Sheriff 
 Porter, with his insignia of office and side-arms, preceded the judges; and when the Sheriff 
 came to the door-steps, which had been taken possession of by the mobility, he sung out at 
 the top of his voice, 'Clear the way for the court ! ' But the party in possession did not 
 Imilge an inch, until the Sheriff drew fortli his glittering sword and made several bold and 
 cutting thrusts upon the naked air. At this moment a young man full of zeal stepped for- 
 ward, seized the leader by the collar, aud drew him forth. The others gave way, the court 
 entered, opened, and closed in due form, O yes! The two persons clenched each other, 
 rough and tumble, and both rolled into the brook, which passed under the court-house. I 
 had looked on with intense interest, but could no longer resist the impulse, but sung out, 
 ' Master, they are at it ! ' detaching my hat from the peg, without leave or license, and 
 
 
1786.] MOVEMENT TOWARD UXIOX. 99 
 
 threatened the arsenal, under the lead of Daniel Shays, who had been 
 a captain in the Continental army. The State militia, under General 
 Lincoln, drove the rebels from Springfield to Petersham, and finally 
 dispersed them. At Exeter, N. H., two hundred armed men had as- 
 sailed the Assembly and demanded the emission of paper money as 
 a relief from unendurable burdens. They held the legislative cham- 
 ber for a day, but gave way at the appearance of formidable oppo- 
 sition. 
 
 That the difficulties of the country sprang from the lack of a close 
 and authoritative union in which all the members could rest, was 
 forced upon the minds of men. At a meeting of commissioners from 
 Maryland and Virginia, at Alexandria, for the purpose of 
 regulating the navigation of the Chesapeake and the Poto- toward 
 mac, a convention of the States was suggested. Five States 
 sent commissioners to Annapolis in September, 1786. Alexander 
 Hamilton, who h;id foreseen this necessity six years before, proposed 
 a national convention to meet at Philadelphia in May, 1787, " to take 
 into consideration the situation of the United States, to devise such 
 further provision as shall appear to them necessary to render the 
 constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of 
 the Union, and to report such an act for that purpose to the United 
 States in Congress assembled, as, when agreed to by them, and after- 
 wards confirmed by the legislature of every State, will effectually pro- 
 vide for the same." l A memorial signed by Governor Dickinson, 
 chairman of the meeting, was addressed to the legislatures represented 
 by the Commissioners. Virginia at once responded in a grave and 
 noble address, which recognized the crisis and accepted the proposed 
 measure. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Delaware 
 followed. In Congress the party which feared the consolidation of 
 power was in the ascendancy ; but it finally assented to a conven- 
 tion, provided it confined itself to "the sole and express purpose 
 of revising the articles of Confederation." Delegates were elected 
 from the other States, except Rhode Island, and the instructions 
 given, or the character of the men elected, foreshadowed, in some 
 degree, the probable result of the important labor on which they 
 were about to enter. 
 
 rushed out of the school to see the whole fun and mingle with the crowd. The master anil 
 whole posse of urchins soon followed." Daniel Stebbins, in the American Pioneer, i., 385. 
 1 J. C. Hamilton's Life uf Alexander Hamilton, iii., 166. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION. INAUGURATION OF WASHINGTON. MANNERS OF 
 THE TIMES. ADJUSTMENT OF PUBLIC DEBTS. GROWTH OF POLITICAL PARTIES. 
 
 THE NATIONAL BANK. PROTECTIVE TARIFF. CULTIVATION OF COTTON. 
 CONSTITUTIONAL COMPROMISE WITH SLAVERY. GENERAL EDUCATION. WEST- 
 WARD EMIGRATION. DEFEAT OF HARHAR AND ST. CLAIR. WAYNE'S CAMPAIGN 
 AGAINST THE INDIANS. TlIE WlIISKEY INSURRECTION. FRIES's INSURRECTION. 
 
 HAMILTON AND JEFFERSON. FRENCH INFLUENCE. GENET. JAY'S TREATY. 
 
 POPULAR DISSATISFACTION WITH IT. 
 
 THE Convention met at Philadelphia, on the 14th of May, 1787, 
 adjourned from day to day until enough delegates were present for or- 
 ganization, and began 
 to work on the 2oth 
 dav of the same 
 
 / 
 
 month. It met in the 
 chamber where the 
 Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence had been 
 signed. The chair 
 which had been filled 
 by Peyton Randolph, 
 when Johnson of 
 Maryland had nom- 
 inated the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of 
 the army in 1776 ; by 
 
 John Hancock, when presiding over the Continental Congress which 
 affirmed the independence of the States ; and by Henry 
 tion of the Laurens, when the Articles of Confederation were signed, 
 was taken now by the delegate from Virginia, George 
 Washington. Many of these men assembled in Independence Hall 
 had been members of the old Continental Congress or of succeeding 
 ones. Those who had achieved independence were still leaders of pub- 
 lic opinion. Langdon, Gerry, Sherman, Franklin, Morris, Clymer, 
 
 The President's Chair. 
 
 
1787.] A CONVENTION OF THE STATES. 101 
 
 Wilson, Read, Wythe, Dickinson, Daniel Carroll, were in this Con- 
 vention. With these were others of national note, including two 
 young men who were to have preeminence in the councils of the na- 
 tion Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. 
 
 The members represented two unformed parties ; yet as the Con- 
 stitution slowly issued out of the contest of debate, the very names 
 by which these parties were called seemed finally to be transposed. 
 The rules of the body having been determined, including one enjoining 
 secrecy, and one giving a vote to each State, Randolph of Virginia 
 submitted fifteen resolutions, proposing a national legislature of two 
 branches, a national executive, and a national judiciary embracing 
 grades of courts. Pinckney of South Carolina brought in a similar 
 but more elaborate plan. Both plans were discussed in committee 
 of the whole. The Virginia plan, as it was called, gathered The Virginill 
 to itself those in favor of the national government. Its fun- plan " 
 damental proposition was finally embodied in the first resolution 
 adopted : " Resolved, that it is the opinion of this Committee that 
 a national government ought to be established, consisting of a supreme 
 Legislative, Judiciary, and Executive." The debate was chiefly upon 
 two points, the power of the General Government to coerce the 
 States, and that representation in Congress should be proportioned to 
 population. The one gave Congress an unquestioned supremacy ; 
 the other referred all power directly to the people. 
 
 The resolutions were re-committed to the Convention on the 13th 
 of June. Two days later Patterson of New Jersey presented The Jeraey 
 resolutions of the minority. They maintained that the Con- plan - 
 vention was only to revise the Articles of Confederation in accordance 
 with the call of Congress ; hence the Jersey plan, as it was called, 
 contemplated the enlargement of the powers of Congress, without any 
 radical change in the principles of the Confederation, recognizing the 
 States as both equal to each other and superior to the Confederation. 
 Those who supported this plan were at first called the Federal 
 party, favoring a federal or league government ; the supporters of the 
 Virginia plan were known as Anti-federalists. Patterson's resolutions 
 were referred to the committee of the whole, and at once Rutledge, 
 seconded by Hamilton, moved a recommitment of the Virginia reso- 
 lutions which had been adopted by the Convention, so that the two 
 plans might be placed on an equal footing. The Virginia resolutions, 
 by being first on the floor, had the advantage at the start. The op- 
 ponents could now rally about an equally concrete plan. The larger 
 States naturally favored the first, which based representation upon 
 population ; the smaller favored the other, which gave but one house 
 and an equality of power to the States, irrespective of population. 
 
102 
 
 UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 [CHAP. V. 
 
 Hamilton brought in a proposition of his own, which went beyond 
 the Virginia resolutions in providing for a centralized power, rather 
 as a well-defined criticism of those plans which were before the Con- 
 vention than as an independent system. Back of all the discussions 
 lav the consideration that if the work of the Convention should be 
 
 v 
 
 accepted, it would not be as the triumph of a party, but as the adjust- 
 ment of practical difficulties, the very existence of which had called 
 the Convention into existence. When the Constitution should be 
 presented to the States for ratification, the question would turn 
 upon its principles, not upon any abstract consideration of the power 
 of the convention framing it. Hence the great questions which divided 
 
 the Convention were settled, 
 not by forcing the will of 
 the majority, which would 
 have been only a barren vic- 
 tory of debate, but by the dis- 
 covery of a common ground 
 which should give a practical 
 trial to the controversy at 
 issue. By giving the States 
 an equal representation in 
 the Senate, and assenting to 
 the fatal compromise of per- 
 mitting three fifths of the 
 slaves to be counted in form- 
 ing the basis of popular rep- 
 resentation in the House, 
 the Convention transferred 
 the questions which agitated 
 them to other arenas and to 
 later days. It accomplished 
 
 its work of providing a bond of union under which, if the people 
 accepted it, the whole country might organize and present a single 
 front to the world. 
 
 On Monday, the 17th of September, 1787, the Constitution, finally 
 agreed upon, was signed by the delegates Gerry of Mas- 
 sachusetts, and Edmund Randolph and Mason of Virginia, 
 alone withholding their signatures and submitted to Congress, which 
 in turn called upon the States in separate conventions to act upon the 
 instrument, the acceptance of nine States being requisite before it could 
 be declared adopted. The debates, which had been secret, were now 
 renewed, not only in the several State conventions but in the public 
 
 press and bv every fireside. The discussions of the winter of 1787-8H 
 
 * / 
 
 Alexander Hamilton. 
 
 The Consti- 
 t ution . 
 
1788.] ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 103 
 
 . 
 
 were the political education of Americans. The series of papers 
 which have been collected under the title of " The Federalist " present 
 the defence of the Constitution by those who had most to do with its 
 formation. The name, which now became the name of the party 
 maintaining national as distinguished from confederate principles, 
 indicates, in spite of its anomalous application, the spirit of the domi- 
 nant party. The contest was over the necessity of a strong central 
 government ; and those who thought this the paramount need of the 
 country took the name of Federalists as the distinction between them- 
 selves and those who would have made State authority supreme. As 
 the positive, aggressive, and structural pa|ty, they threw upon the 
 opposition the necessity of accepting the negative title of Anti-federal- 
 ists, a name which was accepted unwillingly, and finally left behind 
 when those who had borne it found themselves in power. 
 
 The opposition to the Constitution was mainly in the large States. 
 In the smaller States it was quickly seen that their only hope of se- 
 curity was in a general government so defined that the assumption 
 of undue power by the larger States would be restrained by the 
 ( 'onstitution and the laws. Various conventions tried hard to evade 
 the naked issue, and to put limitations upon their consent. North 
 Carolina drew up amendments, and made her assent conditional 
 upon their acceptance ; Massachusetts, giving a bare majority, strongly 
 recommended certain amendments, and other States followed her ex- 
 umple. One by one the States fell into line, until on the 21st of 
 June, 1788, New Hampshire, the ninth State, ratified the Constitu- 
 tion. Two conventions were still in session at that date in the im- 
 portant States of Virginia and New York. When on the 2oth of the 
 same month Virginia ratified, it was under the supposition that her 
 vote had finally decided the result. The vote was not reached with- 
 out a hard struggle. The ratification was carried by a majority of 
 only ten in a convention of one hundred and sixty-eight, and was 
 hampered with several proposed amendments and a bill of rights. 
 
 The New York Convention was in session at Poughkeepsie while 
 Congress was sitting in New York. But all interest centred about 
 the Convention. The important geographical position of the State, 
 and the dawning commercial greatness of her chief port, made her 
 decision of the utmost importance. The opponents of ratification, 
 ably led by Clinton and Lansing and Smith, fought bitterly to the 
 
 ff 
 
 last. Against them stood Alexander Hamilton, and behind him 
 was a strong popular opinion. The unceasing activity of Hamilton, 
 and his persuasive eloquence, gave the contest a dramatic interest. 
 The opposition yielded inch by inch, taking its stand finally on a 
 conditional acceptance. There the last struggle came, and a major- 
 
104 
 
 UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 [CHAP. V. 
 
 ity of two was given in favor of the Constitution. The final decision 
 was reached on the 25th of July, when the Constitution was ratified 
 by a vote of thirty to twenty-seven. The man who at the age of 
 thirty-one had achieved this victory, returned to his seat in Congress 
 in New York, and presented the result of the Convention's work. Dur- 
 ing the last days of the Convention the city had been in a tumult of 
 
 apprehension and anticipation ; 
 upon the receipt of the news, it 
 broke out into clamorous rejoic- 
 ings, and on the return of Hamil- 
 ton a great festival was held. 
 The ratification was celebrated 
 by a joyous procession of traders, 
 merchants, artisans, and profes- 
 sional men, in which banners bore 
 the mingled names of Washington 
 
 Celebrating the Adoption of the Constitution. 
 
 and Hamilton, while the Federal ship 
 
 Hamilton, a frigate fully manned, was 
 
 borne on wheels, its cannon saluting and receiving salutes through- 
 
 out the course of the pageant. 
 
 The first Congress assembled in New York on the 4th of March, 
 1789, but it was a month before a quorum could be ob- 
 tained, and the government was not fairly organized until 
 the 30th of April. The votes of the presidential electors 
 
 had been counted, and the unanimous first choice was for George 
 
 ton - 
 
 
1789.] INAUGURATION OF WASHINGTON. 105 
 
 Washington. Of the other candidates, John Adams received the 
 largest number, thirty-four out of sixty-nine, and was declared Vice- 
 president. Washington was notified of his election by a special 
 messenger sent by the President of the Senate, and two days later 
 he set out for the seat of government. 1 His journey to New York 
 was through files, as it were, of uncovered heads, and when, on the 
 30th of April, he took the oath of office upon the balcony of the hall 
 in which Congress was assembled, the vast concourse before him 
 maintained a religious silence. Services had been held in all the 
 churches of the city, and after the delivery of his inaugural speech, 
 the President went on foot to St. Paul's Church, where prayers were 
 read by Bishop Provoost. In the evening the city was brilliant with 
 illuminations and fireworks. 
 
 The work which most needed to be done pertained immediately 
 to the office of the Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton, Hamilton 
 strongly recommended by Morris, and proved by his own ^"iraus- * 
 essays to be the fit man for the place, was appointed to ur)- 
 the office, and his extraordinary administrative power was at once 
 employed in organizing the department with such completeness of 
 detail that subsequent officers have never found it necessary to mod- 
 ify his plans in any essential particular. An incredible number of 
 minor affairs were submitted to the Secretary by Congress, or intro- 
 duced by his own fertile brain, as the sale of public lands, naviga- 
 tion laws, regulation of the coasting trade, the purchase of West 
 Point, establishment of revenue cutters, number and condition of 
 light-houses, petitions for claim and relief, plans for collecting the 
 revenue, and various legal questions growing out of the hitherto con- 
 fused relations of government and people. 
 
 The great question of the day, however, was that suggested by res- 
 olutions of the House of Representatives, passed September 21, 1789, 
 ten days after Hamilton received his commission, in which he was 
 called upon to report such measures as he should deem expedient for 
 providing for the national debt and sustaining the public credit. The 
 debt of the Confederation, including the interest arrears, amounted to 
 fifty-four millions ; the debts of the States, incurred for 
 general objects, amounted to twenty -six millions. Between 
 
 January and November, 1789, the public securities rose 
 thirty-three per cent., and by the beginning of 1790, when Hamil- 
 
 1 On the day of his departure he wrote in his Diary : " About ten o'clock I bade adieu 
 to Mount Veruou, to private life, an<l to domestic felicity ; and, with a mind oppressed 
 with more anxious and painful sensations than I have words to express, set out for New 
 York in company with Mr. Thompson and Colonel Humphreys, with the best disposition 
 to render service to my countiy in obedience to its call, but with less hope of answering its 
 expectations." 
 
106 UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. ['CHAP. V. 
 
 ton made his report, advanced still higher. The means which he 
 proposed was, briefly, to fund the entire debt, issuing new certificates. 
 The whole principle of Hamilton's measure was an emphatic notice 
 to the world that the new Federal Government was the organic suc- 
 cessor of the old confederation, assuming all its obligations and pro- 
 viding, as that could not, for their discharge. 
 
 The most important branch of the subject was the assumption of 
 the State debts. Again the two great parties divided upon this ques- 
 tion. Hamilton and those who thought with him were in favor 
 of their assumption. The opposition, acting upon various grounds, 
 but resting finally upon State supremacy, maintained a solid front 
 not easily secured on any less vital point. They understood the im- 
 mense cohesive power which lay in the assumption. 1 The Federal 
 Political P ar ty was in the minority ; but as the special upholder of 
 parties. ne new Government it was the more forcible and deter- 
 mined. The Anti-federal party was in the majority ; when it could 
 act in concert it could defeat the measures of the minority ; but the 
 
 very con- 
 
 stitution 
 of the par- 
 
 ty as the 
 
 Signature of Richard Henry Lee. 
 
 aggregate 
 
 of representatives of various local interests, made it lack cohesion. 
 But the lines of party were not yet firmly fixed. Madison, for in- 
 stance, who had been one of the principal writers in the " Federalist," 
 was a leader now among those opposed to assumption. The question 
 at issue was seen by Hamilton to be vital. He was once defeated, 
 but gained success by a political mano3uvre. Men who opposed as- 
 sumption were still more eager to secm*e certain local ends. The 
 question of the seat of national government was one appealing to 
 some of these men with great force especially to the Virginians ; 
 and Virginia, having a greatly reduced State debt, was opposed to 
 assumption. White and Lee, from that State, under Hamilton's in- 
 fluence, changed their votes in consideration that Hamilton and Rob- 
 ert Morris should use their influence to secure the establishment of 
 the capital upon the banks of the Potomac. By this bargain, Ham- 
 ilton gained his point. 
 
 In 1791, Hamilton carried another measure for the relief of govern- 
 ment from financial embarrassment. There were at the time but 
 
 1 " A greater thought than this of assumption," said Stone, of Maryland, an Anti-feder- 
 alist, " had never been devised by man, and if put into execution, would prove to the Fed 
 eral Government a wall of adamant, impregnable to any attempt on its fabric or opera- 
 tions." 
 
1791.] THE BANK AND THE TARIFF. 107 
 
 three banks in the country one in Philadelphia, one in New York, 
 and one in Boston. These were all State institutions. He T h e Nation- 
 recommended the establishment of a bank which, under alblulk 
 private direction, was yet to serve the Government, by making it 
 owner of one fifth of the capital stock of ten million dollars, and a 
 preferred borrower to the same amount. The subscriptions were to 
 be paid, one quarter in gold and silver coin, three quarters in the six- 
 per-cent. certificates of the national debt. This measure was also 
 the signal for fresh antagonism between the two nascent parties, but 
 the division took place mainly upon sectional grounds ; the planting 
 States opposing it, the commercial States favoring it, and gaining the 
 point. The establishment of the bank gave occasion for a remark- 
 able evidence of the strengthening of public credit ; for the whole 
 number of shares offered was taken up in two hours. 
 
 The borrowing of money, however, could be but a temporary ex- 
 pedient ; it was necessary to make provision for permanent Protective 
 means of support. The adoption of the Constitution made tariff - 
 a uniform tariff possible, and one of the first acts of Congress was to 
 pass a tariff bill. The measure was necessarily temporary, and it 
 was not until 1791 that Hamilton made his great report upon manu- 
 factures, in which he took ground distinctly in favor of a system of 
 protection as the only one he thought possible in that stage of na- 
 tional life and in the condition then of the civilized world. 
 
 He proposed the exemption of the materials of manufacture from 
 duties, prohibition of rival articles, and other methods which taken 
 together were to comprise " one great American System, superior to 
 the control of transatlantic force or influence, and able to dictate the 
 connection between the Old and New World." x A bill embodying 
 the recommendations of this report was passed February 9, 1782. 
 The power of a sovereign state was also exercised in the coining of 
 money, and a mint was established. A bill had also passed, impos- 
 ing a duty upon imported and domestic spirits, for the purpose of 
 bringing the revenue up to the required point. 
 
 There were circumstances in the times which gave a great impetus 
 to American enterprise. The French Government, in 1787, 
 issued a decree placing American citizens commercially on 
 the same footing with Frenchmen, and admitting American produce 
 free of duty ; and as France had a free-trade treaty with England, 
 this act practically nullified British hostility to American commerce. 
 Then upon the breaking out of war between France and England, 
 the carrying trade of the world fell into the hands of the United 
 States, and an immense stimulus was given to the exportation of 
 
 1 Report of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States on the Subject of Manufactures, 
 presented to the House of Representatives. 
 
108 
 
 UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 [CHAP. V. 
 
 American produce. The trade with the West Indies, which England 
 had manoeuvered to keep in her own hands, became almost wholly 
 American. French ships could not safely trade there, Spanish trade 
 was carried on under a neutral flag, and even English merchants 
 found it safer to employ American bottoms. At this time arose 
 also those great commercial houses which sought out and held the 
 China and East Indian trade, and American commerce nurtured a 
 bold and hardy race of seamen who united mercantile sagacity with 
 courage, honesty, and enterprise. 1 
 
 During this period one industry received an extraordinary and 
 
 momentous impetus. The ex- 
 port of cotton in 1792 was only 
 138,328 pounds; in 1795 it had 
 risen to 6,276,300. So little at- 
 tention did this export attract, 
 however, that neither Jay nor the 
 English ministers with whom he 
 negotiated his treaty in 1794, re- 
 membered that cotton was a prod- 
 uct of the United States. This 
 is the more remarkable, inasmuch 
 as its culture had long been nur- 
 tured in the Southern States. 
 Nearly twenty years before, the 
 State of South Carolina had giv- 
 en to one of her citizens a reward 
 of two hundred pounds for in- 
 venting a cotton card, and official 
 measures were taken to bring it 
 into use. 2 Whitney invented the 
 cotton-gin in 1793, and from that moment the question of slavery 
 assumed an importance which was to make it paramount to all others 
 for the next seventy years. 
 
 1 A view of the exports of the country shows a steady increase from $19,012,041 in 1791, 
 to $67,064,097 in 1796. They fell off the next year, to increase again in 1798. The fisheries, 
 which had suffered during the war and had not recovered in 1790, revived again under the 
 impulse of a special bounty and the resumption of trade. 
 
 8 The following report is from the original manuscript, in the possession of Samuel Wilde, 
 
 Esq., of New York : 
 
 " IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLT, 
 the ZW rtay of August, 1777. 
 
 " Report of the Committee to whom the Petition of Thomas Leuoir was referred, as 
 amended and agreed to bv the House. 
 
 J 
 
 " That they have considered the Petition of Mr. Lenoir, and have had sufficient evidence 
 to convince your committee that the said Petitioner is qualified to carry on the business 
 
 The Cotton Plant. 
 
1783.] COMPROMISE WITH SLAVERY. 109 
 
 The continued existence of slavery was one of the most difficult 
 questions of settlement and compromise in the formation 
 and adoption of the Federal Constitution. The Convention 
 hoped it had been put to rest forever by securing the termination of 
 the slave trade in 1808. Opposition to that trade and to slavery was 
 with many, and especially the Friends, a religious conviction. In the 
 first year of the new government petitions were sent in from mem- 
 bers of that society in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey, ask- 
 ing for its abolition. One from a Delaware Quaker, Warner Mifflin, 
 for the abolition of slavery, was returned to the petitioner. 1 The 
 ground was generally taken, however, that Congress had no power 
 over slavery in the States. In the Territories, indeed, it had power, 
 and it exercised it with geographical distinctions. 
 
 In 1783, the several States claiming the right of domain in the re- 
 gion northwest of the Ohio River ceded those claims to the United 
 States, and in March, 1784, a committee was appointed by Congress, 
 with Jefferson as chairman, to report a plan for its government. 2 By 
 that plan, slavery was prohibited, but not till the year 1800. This 
 was Jefferson's famous Ordinance, for which so much credit has been 
 awarded him ; but fortunately this portion of it relating to slavery 
 was defeated for want of Southern votes. Had the slaveholders 
 been wise enough to accept it, and maintained the right of posses- 
 sion from 1784 to 1800, there can hardly be a doubt that the move- 
 ment of half-a-dozen years later, led by William Henry Harrison, 
 
 both of drawing the wire and making as good wool and cotton cards as are usually im- 
 ported into this State, and do therefore recommend that the sum of Two hundred 
 Pounds be immediately given to Mr. Lenoir, as a reward, he being the first Person that 
 has begun that business, and a farther sum of Eight hundred pounds advanced him on 
 his giving an obligation to deliver to Joseph Kershaw, Esquire, at Camden, and in case of his 
 death or absence from the State, to such Person a-t mat/ be appointed by the President for the 
 time being to receive the same, to be sold on account of the public, after giving twenty days Pub- 
 lic notice of such Sale, Forty jtair of good cotton cards at the end of one year, and forty pair 
 equally good at the end of the second Year, proved upon oath to have been all manufactured by 
 the said Thomas Lenoir within this State. 
 
 " Ordered, That the Commissioners of the Treasury be served with a copy of the fore- 
 going Report, and that they advance the sums of money and take the obligatiou therein 
 mentioned. " By order of the House. THO. BEE, Speaker." 
 
 " Received, August 22, 1777, from the Com'srs of the Treasury, One Thousand Pounds 
 of the within Resolution of the Gen. Assembly. " THOS. LESOIU." 
 
 1 "As I do feel alarmed," Siiid Miffliu in commenting on the refusal to receive his 
 petition, " when I consider that the solemn professions so lately made in time of extrem- 
 ity and danger, and held up as the national faith, should so soon on this important occa- 
 sion seem to be regarded as mere trick* of State, what can be thought will be the issue ? 
 May it not be considered as trifling with omnipotence ? " A Serious Expostulation with the 
 Members of the House of Representatives of the United Slates. 
 
 2 The Ordinance reported provided that the States into which the region was to be 
 eventually divided should have the fanciful names of Sylvania, Michigania, Chersonesus, 
 Asseuisipia, Mesopotamia, Illinoia, Saratoga, Washington, Polypotamia, and Pelcsipia. 
 
110 UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. [CHAP. V. 
 
 to make Illinois and Indiana slave States, would Lave been success- 
 ful. 
 
 But by the Ordinance of 1787, all the territory northwest of the 
 Ohio, then belonging to the United States, and comprising the pres- 
 ent States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, was 
 saved for free men and free labor bv the interdiction of slavery then 
 
 / / 
 
 nnd forever. It was expected that this western country would be 
 settled by emigrants from the Northern States, and millions of acres 
 were bought for that purpose by a Massachusetts Land Company, 
 and others, at the time of the passage of the Ordinance. It was 
 probably for this reason that the Constitution and laws of Massachu- 
 setts were made the basis of the Ordinance, and the work of framing 
 it was intrusted to Nathan Dane, a member of Congress from that 
 State ; and for this reason, probably, the Southern members of the 
 committee, to whom the subject was referred, acquiesced in the pro- 
 hibition of slaverv in a region where thev did not believe it would 
 
 V / 
 
 flourish. 1 
 
 It was held by some that the Ordinance of 1787 applied to all the 
 Territories ; but when, in 1789, North Carolina ceded her western 
 lands to the Union, under the condition "that no regulation made or 
 to be made by Congress shall tend to the emancipation of slaves," the 
 cession was accepted with that condition. 
 
 The necessity for general education had been recognized in the 
 Ordinance of 1787, and the measures then taken were per- 
 
 Education. 1-10 e m 
 
 petuated in the States formed out of the lerritones. Jn the 
 older States the necessity had been felt, and provision made in differ- 
 ent degrees ; but in nearly all the new State constitutions, educational 
 interests were acknowledged. The great movement for compulsoi-y and 
 universal education came at a later date ; the people were still some- 
 what influenced by old habits which separated the great body of un- 
 
 1 An attempt was made in The North American Revitic for April, 1876, by Mr. W. F. 
 Poole, to show that Dr. Manasseh Cutler, and not Nathan Dane, was the real author of 
 the Ordinance of 1787. Dr. Cutler was the agent of the Ohio Land Company of Massa- 
 chusetts, and other proposed purchasers of Western lauds, and the purchases depended, 
 apparently, upon the character of the government to l>e established over that region. It is 
 quite probable, therefore, that Cutler may have been permitted to read the Ordinance be- 
 fore it was reported to the House, and he may have suggested some changes. The evi- 
 dence that he wrote the article relating to the prohibition of slavery depends upon the 
 assertion of Dr. Cutler's son in 1849, that, forty-five years before, he heard his father say 
 twenty years after the date of the Ordinance that the article relating to slavery was 
 his. But the evidence that it was written by Dane is his own handwriting, on a printed 
 copy of the instrument found among the archives of the United States. An earlier attempt 
 to take away the honor from Dane, and to bestow it upon Jefferson, was made by Senators 
 Bcnton and llayne, in a debate with Webster in 1830, in the United States Senate. But 
 the Ordinance of 1784, which Jefferson wrote, did not prohibit slavery till 1800, and even 
 that never became the law, uor was there any essential similarity in the two ordinances. 
 
1787.] 
 
 GENERAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Ill 
 
 educated from the small body of educated men. Nevertheless, the 
 growth of free government was the growth of education for all. 
 Noah Webster, a man of narrow but forcible intellect, in 1788 began 
 the publication of elementary school-books, and continued xohw-h- 
 his work amidst ridicule and against obstacles which would st<;r 
 have appalled a man less obstinate and self-confident. He avowed 
 his purpose to be kt to diffuse an uniformity and purity of language 
 in America, to destroy the provincial prejudices that originate in the 
 trifling differences of dialect and produce reciprocal ridicule, to pro- 
 mote the interest of literature and the harmony of the United States/' 
 He preached a crusade of nationalism, and had dreams of an Ameri- 
 
 Fort Washington Cincinnati. 
 
 can language. Societies for the preservation of historical material 
 began also to come into existence, and the scattered and feeble repre- 
 sentatives of literature and science to combine into associations. 
 Society itself was undergoing a change in manners and gradation, 
 under the enthusiasm of republican ideas ; but the distinctions of 
 rank did not disappear suddenly. At Philadelphia, the seat of gov- 
 ernment, they were still rigidly insisted upon. The President rode 
 out to take the air, with six horses to his coach, and two footmen. 
 He held a republican court in which the unwritten laws of etiquette 
 were carefully regarded. It was proposed, and the proposition de- 
 bated with ardor, that he should be addressed as his " High Mighti- 
 ness." His birthday was celebrated in the cities, and odes were often 
 
112 UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. [HAP. V. 
 
 addressed to him. Much of this state, however, grew out of the per- 
 sonal regard in which Washington was held. The judges of the 
 Supreme Court wore robes of scarlet faced with velvet ; clergymen 
 wore wigs with gowns and bands ; and gentlemen and ladies were 
 distinguished by the richness and elaborateness of their dress. Col- 
 lege customs imitated in miniature the ranks and grades of society in 
 the outer world. The Revolution had made many inroads upon these 
 customs, but the years following peace saw them still carefully ob- 
 served by many people, especially in the cities. 1 
 
 North Carolina had given in her adhesion shortly after the formation 
 of the Government, and Rhode Island followed in a few months, 
 the last of the original thirteen. Vermont was admitted in 1791, 
 Kentucky in 1792, and Tennessee in 1796. 
 
 In the North, the western part of New York was still the Great 
 westward West ; but the Ohio country was receiving settlers from 
 emigration, jfew England, Kentucky from Virginia, and Tennessee from 
 North Carolina. The removal of the western frontier was accom- 
 panied by the same conflict which had gone on since the discovery 
 of the country. Every step taken over the mountains into the fer- 
 tile lands of the West was taken in teiTitory held by Indian tribes. 
 John Cleves Symmes, afterward famous for his theory that the earth 
 is hollow, with openings at the poles, obtained in 1788 a grant of one 
 million acres bounded south by the Ohio and west by the Miami 
 extending twenty miles on the Ohio, and about eighty on the Miami. 
 Here two principal settlements were begun, North Bend and Cincin- 
 nati. The former seemed likely to become the centre of trade for 
 the Miami country, but a personal incident decided otherwise. En- 
 sign Luce, sent thither to make a fortification for the protection of 
 the settlers, became enamoured of a beautiful woman, the wife of a 
 settler, and the prudent husband presently removed with her to Cin- 
 cinnati. Thereupon the Ensign began to doubt the strategic impor- 
 tance of North Bend, and against the protestations of Judge Symmes, 
 he removed his command to Cincinnati, and put up a substantial 
 block-house, and the. necessity for protection soon drew after him 
 most of the inhabitants of North Bend. A few years later the block- 
 house was replaced by a work called Fort Washington. 2 
 
 Some of the frontier posts which, under the treaty of 1783, should 
 Hostilities in have been surrendered, were still retained by England. 
 From these posts, communication was kept up with the In- 
 dians, who were made to believe that the Americans had no claim to 
 any territory beyond the Ohio, and were incited to continual acts of 
 
 1 For muiiy details on these points, sue Recollections by Samuel Breck, Watson's Annal* 
 of Philadelphia, and The Harvard Book. 
 
 2 Buruet's Notes on the Northwestern Territory. 
 
1788.] 
 
 INDIAN HOSTILITIES. 
 
 113 
 
 
 hostility- A cruel warfare upon settlers was gradually developed. 
 
 Men went out in the morning to plough, and at evening were found 
 
 dead in the furrow. Women and children were killed in their houses. 
 
 The savages lay in concealment along the lines of travel, and fired 
 
 upon all, whether white 
 people or negroes, who 
 passed. The great rivers, 
 being the principal high- 
 ways, were the scene of 
 many of these tragedies. 
 A lofty rock on the south- 
 ern shore of the Ohio, a 
 short distance above the 
 mouth of the Scioto, com- 
 mands a view of the river 
 
 The Indians' Rock, near Po'tsmouth, on the Ohi< 
 
 for a long distance, and was used as a watch-tower for the discovery 
 of boats descending the stream. Often a white prisoner was sent to 
 the water's edge, to decoy them to the shore, and after the bloody 
 
 vol.. iv. 8 
 
114 I NDKK TIIF. roXSTITt'TIOX. CCIIAI-. V. 
 
 work was done, the boat-load of corpses was sent adrift to tell its 
 ghastly story to the settlements below. Several incipient villages 
 were plundered and burned, and their scattered inhabitants never re- 
 built them. Judge Harry Innis declared that to his knowledge fif- 
 teen hundred persons had been killed or captured by the Indians on 
 or near the Ohio since 17S : V and the number of horses stolen was 
 estimated at twenty thousand. 
 
 Antoine Gamelin, who liad been an Indian trader. Avas sent out in 
 the spring of 1700 to visit the disaffected tribes and invite them to 
 enter into a treaty of peace with the United States, or confirm the 
 treaty that had been made at Marietta the previous year. He found 
 the older people generally disposed to be peaceful, but the young men 
 were not so pacific. Said a chief of the Kickapoos, " You invite ns 
 to stop our young men. It is impossible to do it, being constantly 
 encouraged bv the British." All the tribes told him they could not 
 
 / 
 
 give a final answer till they had conferred with the British authorities 
 at Detroit. When it was found that peace through peaceable means 
 was hopeless, Congress authorized General St. Clair. Governor of the 
 Territory, to call for five hundred militiamen from Pennsylvania, and 
 a thousand from Kentucky, and with these and a ivgiment of four 
 hundred regulars under General Harmar. make a campaign against 
 iiarnwr s some of the principal Indian villages. By the 1st of October 
 campaign. j.j ie expedition, commanded by Harmar, was fairly in motion. 
 It passed up the valley of the Little Miami, and found the Indian 
 villages at the head-waters deserted. Here the troops girdled the 
 fruit-trees and destroyed the winter store of corn. Thence the line 
 of inarch was westward, crossing the Great Miami at Piqua, and 
 thence northwesterly about thirty miles, when a halt was made. The 
 principal village, Girty's Town, was fifty miles distant, near the pres- 
 ent site of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Colonel Hardin was cent for- 
 ward with six hundred men to surprise it. They found it deserted 
 and burned, and went into camp to await the arrival of the main 
 body. Four days later, October 20, Colonel Hardin was sent with 
 a hundred and fifty militiamen and thirty regulars to destroy a town, 
 six miles southward, on the St. Mary's. This detachment fell into 
 an ambuscade, and the militia at once broke and fled. The regu- 
 lars stood their grouiul, and fought bayonet against tomahawk, till 
 all were killed but two officers and two privates, who escaped to a 
 swamp. General Harmar immediately resolved to make his way 
 back to Fort Washington ; but he had only marched eight miles 
 when intelligence came that the Indians had re-occupied their village. 
 Hardin begged for an opportunity to retrieve his disaster, and was 
 
 1 Letter to the Secretary of War, July 7, 1790. 
 
1791.] 
 
 EXPEDITIONS AGAINST THK INDIANS. 
 
 11. 
 
 
 's raid. 
 
 permitted to turn back with six hundred militia and sixty regulars. 
 He made skilful dispositions, and attacked vigorously ; but the savages 
 were more skilful than he. They pretended to be defeated, fell back 
 across the Maumee, and then retreated up the St. Joseph, followed 
 for two miles by the militia. But a portion of them had remained 
 behind in ambush to intercept the regulars, and now fell upon them 
 in overwhelming numbers. The fight was desperate, and largely 
 hand-to-hand, and but eight of the regulars escaped. The militia 
 were unable to overtake the Indians in their front, and on their re- 
 turn down the St. Joseph were annoyed by a continuous fire from 
 both banks. The remnant of Harmar's force returned to Fort Wash- 
 ington, having lost one hundred and eighty-three killed and forty 
 wounded, but had not killed more than fifty Indians. Harmar and 
 Hardin were court-martialed, but acquitted. 
 
 The next spring, Gen. Charles Scott, of Kentucky, organized a 
 brigade of mounted riflemen, crossed the Ohio at the mouth 
 of the Kentucky, surprised and destroyed several Indian 
 villages on the Wabash and Eel Rivers, laid waste their corn-fields, 
 and returned in June with 
 fifty-eight prisoners, with- 
 out having lost a man, and 
 with only five wounded. 
 In August a similar raid, 
 with similar success, was 
 made by Colonel Wilkinson 
 against the villages on the 
 northern tributaries of the 
 Wabash. 
 
 Meanwhile General St. 
 Clair was organizing a more 
 formidable expedition, con- 
 sisting of about two thou- 
 sand men, with cavalry and 
 artillery. Leaving Fort 
 Washington on October 3, 
 this force advanced twenty 
 
 miles tO Fort Hamilton 011 General Arthur St. Clair. 
 
 the Miami, thence twenty miles farther north, and erected Fort St 
 Clair, and thence twenty miles farther and erected Fort St _ ( , Mr . f 
 Jefferson, near the present boundary between Ohio and In- cau 'i )ai g" 
 diana. The force was now considerably reduced, not only by the 
 detachments for garrisons, but by numerous desertions. St. Clair 
 pushed forward into the wilderness, and on November 3 encamped 
 
116 UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. [CHAP. V. 
 
 on a wooded plain among the southeastern sources of the Wabash. 
 Before sunrise next morning a horde of Indians, led by Blue Jacket, 
 Little Turtle, and Simon Girty, fell upon the camp of the militia, 
 who at once retreated in disorder upon the main camp, and threw 
 it into confusion. The Indians pressed close after them, and attacked 
 furiously, especially on the centre, where the guns were posted. Con- 
 siderable execution was done by these ; but the gunners were repeat- 
 edly driven from their pieces. Several bayonet charges routed the 
 savages on either flank in succession ; but each time they rallied and 
 returned to the attack, their numbers apparently undiminished, while 
 the American forces were constantly decreasing, the loss of officers 
 being especially heavy. At last the artillery was silenced, half of the 
 army had fallen, 1 and the remainder began a retreat that quickly de- 
 generated into a disgraceful rout in which everything was abandoned. 
 The Indians pursued only a short distance, and then returned to de- 
 spatch the wounded and scalp the dead. Several of their prisoners 
 were burned at the stake. During the fight, British officers in full 
 uniform were seen on the field. They had come from Detroit to 
 witness the exploits of their savage friends. 
 
 After these defeats, a peaceful settlement was more hopeless than 
 \vayne? ever. Repeated flag-parties sent out to open negotiations 
 campaign. were treacherously murdered. The renegade Simon Girty, 
 a Pennsylvania!! in the British service, who had great influence with 
 the savages, declared that he would " raise all hell to prevent a 
 peace," and Lord Dorchester, in the autumn of 1793, issued a procla- 
 mation to the Indians, in which he said : " From the manner in 
 which the people of the United States push forward, act, and talk, 
 I should not be surprised if we are at war with them in the course 
 of the present year. If so, a line will have to be drawn by the 
 warriors." The only remedy was vigorous war, and the most vigor- 
 ous man to prosecute it was Anthony Wayne. 
 
 This dashing soldier of the Revolution was appointed Major-gen- 
 eral in 1792, and given the supreme command in the West, with 
 power to raise three additional regiments of infantry and two thou- 
 sand dragoons, for a term of three years. Early in 1793, he began to 
 concentrate troops and supplies at Fort Washington ; but recruiting 
 was slow, and it was September before he could advance. Then he 
 marched northward eighty miles, built Fort Greenville, the present 
 site of Greenville, Darke County, Ohio, and went into winter quar- 
 
 ht officers and six hundred privates were killed or missing, and twenty-one 
 officers and two hundred and forty-two privates wounded. Amonp the camp-followers 
 were two hundred and fifty women, fifty-six of whom were killed, and most of the others 
 captured. 
 
1794.] 
 
 WAYNE'S CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE INDIANS. 
 
 117 
 
 ters. At the same time, Governor Simcoe marched from Detroit 
 with a detachment of British troops, and established a military post 
 at the rapids of the Maumee. All winter the Indians were vigilant, 
 and they seldom failed to attack any small party that ventured far 
 from the fortifications. They seemed to understand that a decisive 
 struggle was at hand, and quotas were sent from nearly all the 
 northern and western tribes. In June, a strong detachment sent 
 out by Wayne to the scene of St. Glair's defeat, buried the bleaching 
 bones of six hundred men, and built Fort Recovery. This work was 
 attacked, on June 30 and July 1, by a large body of Indians, assisted 
 by a considerable number of French Canadians with blackened faces, 
 and encouraged by a few British officers whose brilliant uniforms were 
 conspicuous on the field. 
 The Americans lost twenty- 
 five killed and thirty 
 wounded ; but the assailants 
 were driven off with heavy 
 loss. The Indians were em- 
 ployed two nights in carry- 
 ing away their dead and 
 wounded. 
 
 In July, Wayne was re- 
 enforced by 1,600 mounted 
 Kentuckians under General 
 Charles Scott, and having 
 now nearly four thousand 
 men, he set out for the In- 
 dian towns on the An Glaize. 
 He had been minutely in- 
 structed by President Wash- 
 ington, whose experience of 
 savage warfare dated back General Anthony Wayne ' 
 
 to Braddock's defeat, and the orders were carefully observed. He 
 inarched with open files, to secure quickness in forming a line in 
 thick woods, or prolonging the flanks. He kept his army together, 
 and always halted in the middle of the afternoon, encamped in a 
 hollow square, and surrounded it with a rampart of logs. On the 
 2d of August he arrived at St. Mary's River, where he erected Fort 
 Adams and left a garrison. Thence he crossed the Au Glaize, and 
 marched down that stream, through villages and fertile fields, all 
 deserted, to its junction with the Maumee, where he built Fort Defi- 
 ance. Meanwhile the cavalry were laying waste the country for 
 miles on either side the line of march. The next advance was down 
 
118 UXDKR THE CONSTITUTION. [CHAP. V. 
 
 the Maumee, to the head of the rapids, within seven miles of the 
 British Fort Maumee, where Wayne built Fort Deposit. He now 
 had two thousand regulars and eleven hundred mounted riflemen, all 
 well disciplined. On the morning of August 20, the Americans ad- 
 vanced in three columns, and found the Indians and Canadians 
 formed in three lines, their left resting on the river, and their right 
 extending nearly two miles to a dense thicket. While the cavalry 
 attempted to turn their flanks, the infantry advanced with trailed 
 arms against the centre, roused the enemy with the bayonet, poured 
 a volley into them as they turned their backs to retreat, and then 
 continued the charge so impetuously that the line was completely 
 broken, and the fugitives, pursued for two miles, took refuge under 
 the guns of the British fort. 
 
 In this action Wayne lost forty-four killed and a hundred wounded. 
 The loss of the enemy was not ascertained. The victorious troops 
 were encamped for three days in sight of the British post, and de- 
 stroyed all the houses and property in the vicinity. They then re- 
 turned to Fort Defiance, laying waste the country as they went, and 
 continued the march to the Miami villages, at the confluence of the 
 St. Joseph and St. Mary's, where Fort Wayne was built. This 
 campaign put an end to Indian hostilities for the time, and rendered 
 the name of Wayne a terror to the savages, which no persuasions of 
 their English friends could allay. In 179o a treaty was made at Fort 
 Greenville, by which the Indians ceded a large tract of land to the 
 United States, and the close of these Indian hostilities marks the be- 
 ginning of the rapid and safe settlement of the West. 
 
 In the recommendation of an excise on distilled spirits, made by 
 Secretary Hamilton in his report of 1790, he asserted that 
 
 The whiskey 
 
 iuHum. - such duties were not novel, as several of the State govern- 
 ments had imposed them, 1 and that all ground for objection 
 might be removed by giving the officers no summary jurisdiction, and 
 restricting their search to depositories which the dealers themselves 
 should designate. A bill drawn up by him was passed by Congress, 
 in March, 171H, after a long debate, and went into operation in July. 
 It increased the duty on imported spirits, making it from twenty to 
 forty cents a gallon and laid a tax on distillation. The law met with 
 violent opposition, especially in central North Carolina and Western 
 Pennsylvania. The Legislature of Pennsylvania had instructed their 
 representatives in Congress to vote against it, and the people of the 
 western counties sustained by several eminent men, among whom 
 was Albert (Jallatin held meetings, appointed committees, and 
 
 1 This was true. But it was also true, that ill some of the States, uotably Peimsyls-ania. 
 it hud been found impossible to collect them. 
 
1791.] 
 
 THE WHISKEY INSURRECTION. 
 
 119 
 
 adopted resolutions demanding an unconditional repeal. So violent 
 was the feeling, that General John Neville who, at his own ex- 
 pense, had equipped and marched a company to Boston in 1776, who 
 was known far and wide for his benevolence, and in years of scarcity 
 had thrown open his wheat-fields to his poor neighbors was insulted 
 and mobbed, and finally had his house burned down, because he ac- 
 cepted the office of collector for Western Pennsylvania. 
 
 The counties west of the Alleghanies Fayette, Washington, Al- 
 legheny, and Westmoreland contained about 70,000 inhabitants, 
 
 A Mountain Still. 
 
 including a considerable number of recent Irish emigrants, who had 
 brought with them their traditional hatred of excise laws and their 
 habitual methods of opposing them. Several of Neville's deputies 
 were tarred and feathered ; others yielded to the clamor of the mob, 
 and resigned. It was pleaded on behalf of the insurgents that the tax 
 bore heavily upon the poor people of this- region, who had no trans- 
 portation over the mountains except by pack-horses, and had, there- 
 fore, no market for their grain unless they reduced it to spirits, a 
 fallacious argument, though even now believed in, since all taxes are 
 added to prices and ultimately come out of the consumer. It was not 
 the. tax on the whiskey they sent over the mountains that reallv 
 
120 
 
 UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 [CHAP. V. 
 
 troubled these people, 
 but on that which they 
 drank themselves, said 
 to be no inconsiderable 
 portion of their whole 
 product. 
 
 The rebellion rapidly 
 gathered head, till final- 
 ly there was a thorough 
 organization for resist- 
 ance to the law. On 
 July 15, 1794, General 
 Neville's house, barri- 
 caded and occupied by 
 his servants and a few 
 friends, was attacked 
 by forty armed men, 
 who were fired upon 
 and driven off, six of 
 them being wounded. 
 The next day the mob 
 returned, increased to 
 five hundred, and led 
 by John Holcroft, who 
 had become notorious as 
 " Tom the Tinker," and 
 under that signature 
 had written seditious 
 articles which the news- 
 papers did not dare re- 
 fuse to publish. But 
 the party in the house 
 had been reenforced by 
 a dozen soldiers, and 
 the demand for surren- 
 der was rejected. The 
 rioters attacked the 
 house, and received a 
 volley which killed 
 their chosen military 
 leader, one MeFarlane, 
 and wounded several 
 others. The outhouses 
 
1794.] FRIES'S INSURRECTION. 121 
 
 were then set on fire, the defenders, three of whom were wounded, 
 were compelled to surrender, and the mansion itself was soon in 
 flames. A few days later, the mail to Philadelphia was intercepted, 
 and several letters which gave accounts of the riotous proceedings 
 subjected their writers to special persecution. 
 
 The insurgents next summoned the militia to meet on Braddock's 
 Field, August 1, armed and provisioned for four days, and seven thou- 
 sand responded. William Bradford assumed command, and marched 
 them into Pittsburg ; but they were unwilling to carry out his design 
 of capturing Fort Pitt, and gradually dispersed. Governor Mifflin, 
 on various excuses, declined to call out the militia to suppress the 
 insurrection, and it was spreading to contiguous States. President 
 Washington, who feared that successful resistance to one law might 
 be the beginning of rebellion against all law, called on New Jersey, 
 Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia for 15,000 men, and sent com- 
 missioners to the scene of the disturbance with power to arrange for 
 peaceful submission any time before September 14. Ten days after 
 that date, they returned to Philadelphia, having failed to make a 
 satisfactory settlement. The troops were promptly put in motion, 
 the Governors of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia command- 
 ing their respective quotas. The left wing, marching by Braddock's 
 route, captured more than a hundred insurgents at Hagerstown ; the 
 right, marching through Carlisle, had an encounter with the popu- 
 lace, and killed a man and a boy. It is said that many of the sol- 
 diers died of disease contracted while crossing the Alleghanies in 
 inclement weather. On the appearance of the troops, the insurrec- 
 tion subsided. Some of the leaders left the country ; many hastened 
 to avail themselves of the proffered amnesty ; others were arrested 
 and brought to trial. Two only were convicted of treason, and they 
 were pardoned by the President. 
 
 Five years later, a similar, but much less violent, insurrection took 
 place in another section of Pennsylvania. Discontent with Frieg - s in . 
 the window-tax began to manifest itself in 1798, and in the surrection - 
 spring of 1799 a rebellion against it broke out in Northampton 
 County, and quickly spread into adjoining counties. Most of the in- 
 surgents were Germans, or of German descent. The President 
 promptly called out the militia, and in a short time the leaders, de- 
 serted by their followers, submitted to arrest. The chief of them, 
 John Fries, was put upon trial in May, for high treason. The trial 
 lasted nine days, and resulted in a verdict of "guilty." A new trial 
 was granted, and held in April, 1800, with the same result, and Fries 
 was sentenced to be hanged. Against the advice of every member of 
 his Cabinet, the President not only pardoned him, but issued a gen- 
 
1-2 UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. [CHAP. V 
 
 eral amnesty for all the offenders. 1 Fries had declared that "great 
 men were at the bottom of the business," but he gave no names, and 
 there was only his own word to justify the statement. Oliver Wol- 
 cott, Secretary of the Treasury, in writing to the President, said : 
 " B. McClenachan, of the House of Representatives, was certainly an 
 agitator among the insurgents, but I do not know, nor do I believe, 
 that the insurgents had any general views, other than to defeat the 
 execution of the act of assessment." Fries subsequently opened a tin- 
 ware shop in Philadelphia, and became rich and respectable. The 
 pecuniary cost of this insurrection, to the government, was compara- 
 tively trifling eighty thousand dollars. The Whiskey Insurrection 
 had cost eleven hundred thousand. 
 
 Hamilton's associate in office was Thomas Jefferson, who, as Sec- 
 retarv of State, represented the relations which the country 
 
 Hamilton -i i t j r> T 
 
 ami jeifer- held with Europe. It is true that so far as those relations 
 
 POD 
 
 were commercial, as they chiefly were, they belonged 
 to Hamilton's department, and the two Secretaries were brought into 
 close communion. That the contact was one of conflict was inevita- 
 ble, both from the nature of the men and from the widely opposing 
 views which they represented. Hamilton, possessed of the keenest 
 intellect and the most aggressive nature in the Federalist ranks, 
 boldly stood in the front upon all the great national questions. 
 His leadership, moreover, was of men having a clear conception of 
 the work needed in establishing the government. The opposing 
 party blindly and fiercely attacked the Federalist measures, but not 
 until it found its leader in Jefferson did it discover its own power 
 as a party. Gradually it dropped the negative title of Anti-federal, 
 French in- an( l adopted that of Republican. Jefferson came back from 
 fluence. France filled with the popular ideas, which were looked 
 upon as the manifestation of a new humanity, and he found a large 
 number of people ready to kindle to enthusiasm at the mention of 
 France. His adherents were among those who were moved by a 
 constant jealousy of a strong central government. France was estab- 
 lishing the " Rights of Man ; " they had themselves taken part in the 
 deliverance of their own country from British tyranny, and they 
 feared in Hamilton and his associates a party which would forge new 
 
 1 It was argued by the prisoner's counsel that resistance to a specific law was not high 
 treason, but simply riot, except in the case of the militia law, resistance to which was 
 tantamount to resisting all laws, since they all depended upon this for their enforcement. 
 Mr. Adams appears to have adopted this view, for which he was severely criticised by 
 Hamilton. Timothy Pickering, Secretary of State, had written to the President: "Pain- 
 ful as is t In 1 idea of taking the life of a man, I feel a calm and solidjsatisfaction that an o|>- 
 portunitv is now presented, in executing the just sentence of the law, to crush that spirit 
 which, if not overthrown and destroyed, may proceed in its career and overturn the govern- 
 ment." 
 
1793.] RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 123 
 
 chains for them. Clubs sprang up all over the country, in imitation 
 of the French republican clubs, and the dress and names of the French 
 heroes of the hour were enthusiastically copied in the streets of Phil- 
 adelphia, New York, and Boston. 
 
 The Federalists, reviled for their supposed English proclivities, were 
 certainly not helped by those whose allies they were charged Eng , and - s 
 with being. England, in 1791, had tardily sent George attitude 
 Hammond to represent her in the United States ; but she continued 
 to treat them as if they were still rebellious colonies. The effort 
 made by Hammond on his arrival to negotiate a commercial treaty 
 was obstructed by Jefferson. The sharpest controversy between the 
 two countries arose when England, at war with France, undertook to 
 control the commercial movements of the world. In June, 1793, she 
 ordered that the goods of a neutral power, if consisting of provisions 
 for the enemy, were to be captured or bought up, unless shipped to a 
 friendly port. In November, she declared all vessels laden with the 
 produce of a French colony to be lawful prize, and claimed the right 
 of search, with power to impress into her service all seamen of Brit- 
 ish birth, wherever found. These acts created the bitterest feeling 
 against England, and fanned into a stronger flame the zeal of the 
 French party. 
 
 But the French were no less aggressive. In April, 1793, Edmund 
 Charles Genet landed at Charleston, accredited to the United 
 States from France. He came fresh from the councils 
 which had sent Louis XVI. to the scaffold, and was received with 
 enthusiasm by the French party in the United States. Without 
 waiting to present himself at Philadelphia, he issued commissions 
 to privateers and ordered that their prizes should be tried and con- 
 demned by French consuls in the United States. He fancied that 
 the people who welcomed him constituted the Government of the 
 United States, or at least could control it. He threatened to appeal 
 to the people against the decisions of the officers of the administra- 
 tion, and became, at last, so violent in his insolence, that there was no 
 decent or dignified course to pursue but to demand his recall. The 
 Neutrality Act of 179-4 was passed by Congress as a defensive meas- 
 ure at this critical juncture. 
 
 A British order in council, issued in November of this year, direct- 
 ing the cruisers to make prize of any vessel carrying the Dallgero{ 
 produce of a French colony, or transporting supplies to war 
 such colon)', became public two months later, and created great ex- 
 citement in the United States. This was intensified by the speech 
 of Lord Dorchester, already referred to. An embargo for thirty days, 
 afterward extended to sixty, was at once laid by joint resolution of 
 
124 
 
 UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 [CHAP. V. 
 
 Jay's treaty. 
 
 Congress, and measures for strengthening the military power were 
 introduced ; a resolution for the sequestration of debts due to British 
 subjects, was debated ; and one to discontinue all commercial inter- 
 course with Great Britain till the western posts had been surrendered, 
 passed the House, and was only lost in the Senate by the casting vote. 
 To avert war, Washington determined to send an envoy extraordinary 
 to London to negotiate a treaty of amity and commerce, and after 
 careful consideration conferred the appointment upon Chief Justice 
 Jay, who sailed in May, 1794. 
 
 He found Lord Grenville, Minister for Foreign Affairs, apparently 
 quite as anxious as himself to place the relations of the two 
 governments on a better footing, and by November they had 
 agreed upon a treaty which was ratified by the Senate in June, 1795, 
 
 and went into opera- 
 tion in February, 1796. 
 The first ten articles, 
 which were intended 
 to be perpetual, pro- 
 vided for the with- 
 drawal of British 
 troops and garrisons 
 from the western posts 
 by June 1, 1796 ; for 
 free inland navigation 
 and trade to both na- 
 tions upon lakes and 
 rivers, except that the 
 United States were ex- 
 cluded from the do- 
 main of the Hudson 
 Bay Company ; for 
 the admission of Brit- 
 ish vessels to the rivers 
 and harbors on the sea- 
 coast of the United 
 John Ja x States, but closing to 
 
 the vessels of the latter the rivers and harbors of the British colo- 
 nies on the continent, except to small vessels trading between Mon- 
 treal and Quebec ; the Mississippi to be open to both ; a joint survey 
 of the head-waters of the Mississippi ; a commission to determine 
 what was meant by the St. Croix River, and fix the northeastern 
 boundary ; the United States to guarantee payment of debts to 
 British creditors in all cases where they would be collectable by an 
 
1795.] JAY'S TREATY. 125 
 
 American creditor ; Great Britain to pay for losses by irregular cap- 
 tures by British cruisers; citizens of either country to be permitted to 
 hold landed property in the territory of the other; and no private 
 property to be confiscated in case of war. By the twelfth article, 
 which was to become void two years after the close of the existing 
 war, trade between the United States and the West India Islands, in 
 the productions of either, might be carried on on equal terms in both 
 American and British vessels ; but the former were prohibited from 
 carrying West Indian, products from the islands or from the States to 
 any other part of the world. It provided for further negotiation at 
 the end of the two years. The remaining articles, whose operation 
 was limited also to two years, unless the negotiation then under the 
 twelfth article should decide otherwise, provided that American 
 vessels might trade to the East Indies, but in time of war must not 
 take thence any rice or military or naval stores, without special per- 
 mission, and must not carry anything to any place but the United 
 States ; established liberty of commerce between the British domin- 
 ions in Europe and the United States ; provided for the regulation of 
 duties, the appointment of consuls, the proceedings with prizes cap- 
 tured at sea, and the rules of blockade, defined contraband of war, 
 regulated privateering, 1 and promised to punish piracy ; citizens of 
 either country were not to accept commissions from any state at Avar 
 with the other, on pain of being treated as outlaAvs ; no reprisals were 
 to be made till a demand for satisfaction had been refused ; ships of 
 war Avere to be received in each other's ports ; foreign priA r ateers were 
 not to arm, or sell prizes, in the ports of either, if warring on the 
 other ; in case of war betAveen Great Britain and the United States, 
 citizens of either in the other's territory were not to be molested ; 
 and criminals escaping from one country to the other Avere to be de- 
 livered up. 
 
 This, as its friends admitted, was not altogether a good treaty ; it 
 Avas much more favorable to England than to the United States. But 
 they argued that to the United States it was better than no treaty, 
 better than war, better than a continual liability to war. Washing- 
 ton favored it, and all his cabinet, except Randolph, agreed with him. 
 The opposition to it Avas very violent. Public meetings to denounce 
 it, Avith riotous demonstrations, Avere held in Boston, New York, 
 Philadelphia, Charleston, and elsewhere. When it came before the 
 House of Representatives, the opposition of the Democrats Avas bitter 
 and unrestrained. The President's instructions to Jay, and all other 
 papers relating to the treaty, were demanded. The President, with 
 
 1 Mr. Jay had proposed an article abolishing privateering altogether, by citizens of either 
 power against the commerce of the other ; but Lord Grenville would not agree to it. 
 
126 
 
 TXDER THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 [CHAP. V. 
 
 the assent of his Cabinet, denied that the House could rightfully 
 make any such demand, and refused to comply with it. The treaty- 
 making power was conferred by the Constitution exclusively upon 
 the President and Senate ; but the Democrats proposed to nullify 
 the supreme law by withholding the necessary appropriations to carry 
 out the terms of the treaty. Their ground was, that where the execu- 
 tion of any treaty and treaties with Spain, with Algiers, and with 
 the Northwestern Indians, as well as with Great Britain, were at 
 this moment before the House depended upon appropriations, they 
 might be made or withheld at the pleasure of the House; that as re- 
 garded this particular treaty, it favored England, it was opposed to 
 France, it was for the benefit of Northern trade, it failed to provide 
 for the loss of slaves who fled with the British armies at the close of 
 the Revolution. The resolution to make the needed appropriations, 
 however, passed after a long and hot debate ; but it was carried by 
 Northern votes, only four votes from States south of the Potomac be- 
 ing given in its favor. The South was already quick to oppose any- 
 thing that did not add to its own strength. The cloud, at first not 
 bigger than a man's hand, was growing visibly larger. 
 
 Franklin s G'ave in Philadelphia. 
 

 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ADMINISTRATIONS OP ADAMS AND JEFFERSON. 
 
 THIRD ELECTION OF PRESIDENT. NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN JEALOUSY. THE 
 CHIEF OF ONE PARTY THK SUCCESSOR TO THE CHIEF OF THE OTHER. SENSITIVE- 
 NESS OF PUBLIC MEN AND VIRULENCE OF THE PRESS. ALIEN AND SEDITION LAWS. 
 
 THE CARRYING TRADE OF THE WORLD. FRANCE AND AMERICA. ENGLAND AND 
 AMERICA. THE CONDESCENSION OF FOREIGNERS. ENVOYS TO FRANCE. THE 
 X. Y. Z. CORRESPONDENCE. NAPOLEON'S ACCESSION TO POWER. YELLOW FEVER 
 IN AMERICA. WASHINGTON'S DEATH. THREATENING OF WAR WITH FRANCE. 
 PREPARATIONS AGAINST SPAIN. NAVIGATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI. WILKINSON'S 
 CORRUPT INTRIGUES. SPAIN'S DRBAD OF THE UNITED STATES. HAMILTON AND 
 MIRANDA. FOURTH ELECTION OF PRESIDENT. THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA. 
 
 AARON BURR'S EXPEDITION. His TRIAL FOR TREASON. 
 
 WITH the autumn of 1796 caine the period prescribed for the third 
 election of President. Through the summer it was not known, 
 excepting to Washington himself, perhaps, and possibly to 
 some confidential friends, whether he would serve for a third 
 term. He had requested Madison and Hamilton to prepare drafts 
 for a farewell address, but this he had done in 1792, at the end of 
 his first term. There was then no precedent which suggested that 
 eight years was the period of a full presidency ; nor do any of the 
 authors of the Constitution seem to have committed themselves for 
 or against such a suggestion. So far was it uncertain whether Wash- 
 ington would consent to serve that, in the nomination of electors, both 
 parties aimed to strengthen themselves, if possible, by naming candi- 
 dates who were certain to vote for him if he would stand. The other 
 candidates were John Adams, who was supported by the Federalists, 
 and Jefferson, who had received four electoral votes in the election 
 for the second term. 
 
 It may well be believed that Washington permitted the doubt as 
 to his purpose in the hope of strengthening the canvass of Adams's 
 friends. And probably it had some effect in this direction. Hut it 
 was easy for the Democratic leaders, who worked under very careful 
 counsels from their own candidate, to name electors whose first vote 
 would have been given to Washington. This was done in Virginia, and 
 
128 ADMINISTRATIONS OF ADAMS AND JKFFERSOX. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 probably in other States. The voters of the Federal party voted for 
 electors with the intention of making Adams President, if they could, 
 and Thomas Pinckney, of South Carolina, Vice-president. The in- 
 tention of Democratic voters was to make Jeffeison President, and to 
 elect as Vice-president Aaron Burr, of New York, who had received, 
 four years before, one electoral vote thrown away in South Carolina. 
 The reader must remember, however, that it was impossible for the 
 electors in the most distant States to confer with one another in the 
 period between their own election and the day when they met to 
 choose the President. The North was jealous of the South, and the 
 South of the North. In the fear, therefore, at the North, that Mr. 
 Pinckney might be chosen President at the South over Mr. Adams, 
 the New Hampshire electors threw away their six votes for Oliver 
 Ellsworth of Connecticut. One elector in Massachusetts and four in 
 Rhode Island did the same. Five of the Connecticut electors voted 
 for Jay instead of Pinckney. In South Carolina, to have the whole 
 government in the hands of Southern men, the electors, regardless of 
 other party ties, gave their eight votes for Jefferson and Pinckney, 
 though one was a Federal candidate and the other a Democrat. This 
 was exactly what the Northern electors had feared. Pinckney also 
 lost four votes in Georgia, which were given to George Clinton. The 
 result was, that while Adams had seventy-one votes, just the number 
 necessary for a choice, Mr. Pinckney had but fifty-nine. Jefferson, 
 whose votes were all given by persons in opposition to Adams, had 
 sixty-eight votes not a majority. The Senate had to choose him 
 or Pinckney Vice-president, and chose Jefferson. Thus the head of 
 one party was chosen President, and the head of the other, Vice-pres- 
 ident, of the Republic. 
 
 To the eyes of the actors in the politics of those four years, unac- 
 customed as they were to the larger movements of nations, their con- 
 tests seemed of supreme importance ; and certainly they were con- 
 ducted with an acrimony that had never been known in America 
 
 before, and never has been known since. The writers for 
 ness of poii- the press were, unfortunately, in many cases, adventurers 
 
 from other lands, who had nothing at risk, and were quite 
 unacquainted with the traditions of America, and with those underly- 
 ing and fundamental characteristics of a nation, which cannot be ex- 
 pressed, even in constitutions, but which need to be recognized in all 
 its policy. To the bitterness of the invective and satire of such 
 writers, the public men of the country were new. Of the impotence 
 of such invective and satire they had no experience. Their letters 
 and their public addresses, therefore, are full of such allusions to 
 the venomous and hateful slanders of the press as must have de- 
 
JOHN ADAMS. 
 (Af/fi- a portrait hy S/uai-t at/out 
 
1798.] THE ALIEN AND SEDITION LAWS. 129 
 
 lighted the assailants, really insignificant, whose spite thus gained far 
 more influence than it deserved. 
 
 The violence of such invective drove the Government to propose a 
 measure, passed by Congress, which was in fact aimed at 
 these very writers. On the 18th of June, 1798, this act was and smuion 
 approved. The facility of naturalization was restricted, and 
 the President was permitted to send out of the country such aliens as 
 he thought dangerous to the United States. He might give license 
 to aliens to remain during his pleasure ; he might require bonds for 
 their good behavior. Aliens who had no licenses might be impris- 
 oned ; and masters of vessels who brought them might be fined for 
 not reporting their arrival. This statute was certainly not in the 
 tone of those trumpet proclamations which represented America as 
 the home of the oppressed of all nations. It did not meet with a 
 very hospitable welcome from those travellers more remarkable for 
 their former rank than for their numbers who in the troubles of 
 Europe sought America as the land of promise. Volney, Talleyrand, 
 and Chateaubriand, and the son of Philippe 1'Egalitd, the Duke of 
 Orleans, are representatives of this class of travellers, some of whom 
 had some thought of becoming citizens of the Republic. The framers 
 of the law had not such men in mind, so much as men of whom Cob- 
 bett and Duane are the better types, who had brought sharp pens 
 with them, which they were ready to use whenever they could sting 
 men to madness or draw hot blood. It is still a question whether 
 this law was unconstitutional. 1 Handled as it was by the writers 
 whom it was meant to terrify, it certainly proved obnoxious. 
 
 It was coupled in the popular opinion with what was called the 
 Sedition Law. The "-Alien and Sedition Laws" stood and fell to- 
 gether as monuments of what their friends called the courage, and 
 their enemies the folly, of the Federal party. The Sedition Law 
 made five offences penal, which have been briefly described as " de- 
 faming Congress or the President," " exciting the hatred of the people 
 against them," "stirring up sedition in the United States," " raising 
 unlawful combinations for resisting the laws," and "aiding foreign 
 nations against the United States." It cannot be doubted, that in 
 
 1 Vou Hoist (Constitutional History of the United St(ttes) savs, "for a long time thev had 
 been considered in the United States as unquestionably unconstitutional." This is t<>o 
 strong. But Chief Justice Marshall is said to have intimated it. There is a letter of Cnl- 
 houn's which Von Hoist probably had in mind, in which he says that " no constitutional 
 question of a political character which has been agitated" since the adoption of the 
 Constitution " has ever been settled in the public mind, except that of the uueonstitu- 
 lionality of the Alien anil Sedition Laws, and, what is remarkable, that was settled against 
 the decision of the Supreme Court." Hut the Supreme Court never gave anv decision, 
 although all the judges of the time, except Judge Chase, in different decisions pronounced 
 them constitutional. 
 
 VOL. iv. 9 
 

 130 ADMINISTRATIONS OF ADAMS AND .TF.FFKRSON. [CiiAi-. VI. 
 
 the organization of the government some legislation on such points 
 was necessary. Such legislation has been silently approved and as- 
 sented to in later times. Hut in the process of forming national 
 opinion and a national life, this particular measure met the same 
 storm of dissent which fell upon the Alien Act. That act had the 
 additional misfortune of being based on an English model. The 
 English Alien Law, indeed, had given to the English Government the 
 power of banishing some of those strangers whose comfort here was 
 now threatened bv the sister act in America. 1 
 
 w 
 
 Both acts, and the bitter discussion which accompanied them, 
 m 'ght have fallen into the forgetfulness in which lie many 
 other laws passed and repealed in times of great partisan 
 excitement, but for the comments made on them by the 
 legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky. In resolutions which for 
 half a century were celebrated, referred to, indeed, more often 
 than they were read, these legislative bodies declared, that when 
 Congress passed acts beyond its constitutional powers, the States 
 were not bound to obey, and that each State had the right to 
 determine the question of constitutionality. The resolves had the 
 more importance because they were secretly dictated by Vice-pres- 
 ident Jefferson, the leader of the Democratic party. In the 
 W* nuiii- Kentucky resolutions, the significant word " nullification " 
 first occurs. In the original draft of the Resolutions of 1798, 
 written by Jefferson himself, he says : " Where powers are assumed 
 which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the right- 
 ful remedy : that every State has a natural right, in cases not within 
 the compact, to nullify, of their own authority, all assumptions of 
 power by others within their limits." Though this passage was 
 omitted in the resolutions of that year, it was restored, with some 
 slight verbal changes, in those adopted a year later. The resolutions 
 were transmitted to the legislatures of the other States. They be- 
 came matters of eager discussion, and were for half a century the 
 declaration of the tk State Rights " theory of the Constitution. As, 
 in point of fact, Jefferson became President, in an election where 
 these resolutions made the programme of his supporters, as he never 
 had any thought afterward of abandoning any power which the Fed- 
 eral Government could claim, and as his successors followed the same 
 convenient precedents, the " nullification " resolutions never had any 
 practical effect, until South Carolina, led by Mr. Calhoun, attempted 
 to carry out the doctrine, a generation afterward. For the present, 
 
 1 " During this debate, an Irish representative remarked to a stranger in the lobby, that 
 nearly one fourth of the members then present were natives of Europe. " American Annual 
 Register, vol. ii. The debate was on the stamp-tux on naturalization papers, July 1, 1797. 
 
1798.] COMMERCIAL RELATIONS. 131 
 
 the resolutions gave the rallying cry to the Republican or Democratic 
 party for the overthrow of President Adams and his supporters. 
 
 Foreign negotiations, meanwhile, occupied attention and interest, 
 such as belonged to a struggle in Europe in which every Foreignre . 
 fundamental principle was involved. That struggle, from latlons 
 the very nature of the case, interested the sailors and merchants of 
 the United States. It appeared already that a "carrying trade " was 
 possible for American vessels, because they were neutrals, which 
 might become a trade of very great value. Between Europe, Amer- 
 ica, and the East Indies, and between the different ports of Europe, 
 American vessels could go and come, while the vessels of bellige- 
 rent powers were restrained by frequent blockades. This profitable 
 commerce gave a development which even later times would call 
 large, to the ship-building and mercantile life of the United States, 
 especially in those States whose people had most experience on the 
 sea. 
 
 But it was fettered by many annoyances. England had never 
 abandoned the custom, which now seems so barbarous, of 
 
 i-r- i Restriction* 
 
 impressing into the naval service of the King such seamen on com- 
 
 merce 
 
 as might be needed, wherever they were found. In the 
 voyages of English cruisers, the commanders did not scruple to 
 search for English seamen on board of American merchant ships. 
 They often abused a privilege which was at best but the right of the 
 stronger, and would take from an American vessel Amer- .^ .< ri _ ht 
 ican seamen, under the pretext that they were English. o8earoh -" 
 Commanders of blockading squadrons, also, when they had over- 
 hauled an American merchantman, did not readily abandon such a 
 prize because she was a neutral. The vessel would be turned from 
 her voyage, and sent into a convenient port for adjudication. Even 
 if the court there pronounced the seizure illegal, and released the 
 vessel, the delay of her voyage was an insult to the nation and a seri- 
 ous injury to her master, crew, and owners. As, generally speaking, 
 half Europe was at war against the other half, every American vessel 
 sailing from one belligerent port to another had to pass two blockad- 
 ing squadrons, if the blockades which had been proclaimed were en- 
 forced. It may readily be supposed that the unprotected merchant- 
 men of a nation far away were by no means sure of friendly inves- 
 tigation by officers of such squadrons. 
 
 Nor were considerations of interest the only ones which brought the 
 people of the United States into close relationship with European 
 politics. The sympathy of France with America through the Revo- 
 lution had been close and efficient. The present war was the result 
 of an effort made by Frenchmen to establish a republic, and they 
 

 132 ADMINISTRATIONS OF ADAMS AND JEFFERSON. [CiiAi-. VI. 
 
 were eager to acknowledge that they had taken their first lessons in 
 republican government in America. On the other hand, it was from 
 a war with England that the United States was only now recovering. 
 All along the coast were traces of the incursions of English soldiers 
 or English sailors. War had assumed all those forms of personal 
 resentment which are inevitable where hostile armies land on an 
 unprotected coast, and where the first object of the invasion is to 
 strip the farms of the food which may be necessary to the invader. 
 Such memories do not die in one generation. In this instance they 
 left a bitterness against England in the minds of the people of the 
 United States, which was never vainly appealed to by the leaders of 
 parties, till half a century had gone by. 
 
 The proceedings of Genet, Adet. and Fonchet in representing the 
 French Government in America had been exasperating to 
 
 AttitU'li' of 
 
 Kmirhen- Washington. To that air of condescension still observable 
 in all foreigners in America, they added the arrogance which 
 reminded their hosts of the bounties of Louis XVI., and an arrogance 
 of their own, as representatives of pure republicanism, in comparison 
 with which they considered that of America but a sham. More 
 than one of these diplomatists met the rebuke of Washington and his 
 cabinet. In these rebukes even Jefferson was obliged to join some- 
 times, though it was well enough understood that he and his party 
 favored the French, and were willing to apologize for the indiscretion 
 and insolence of their envoys. But to diplomatic insults, which 
 aroused some indignation in the country, was added the blow to 
 American commerce, as vessel after vessel was seized by one or an- 
 other French cruiser, detained for examination, and perhaps con- 
 demned. Nearly a thousand vessels, thus detained or captured, were 
 named in the authenticated despatches published by the Government, 
 and of the 1' ie Directory of France justified such measures only by 
 pleading their displeasure at the Jay Treaty. They went 
 so far as to refuse to receive Pinckney, whom the American Govern- 
 ment had sent out as its envoy, and ordered him to quit the Re- 
 public. 
 
 On this news the President called an extra session of Congress. 
 He named Pinckney, John Marshall, and Elbridge Gerry as a com- 
 mission to renew the negotiation. In this appointment he not only 
 tried to pacify France, but to satisfy the opposition to his own admin- 
 i>t ration by numing Elbridge (jerry from the number of his oppo- 
 nents. The first news received from them was not favorable. It 
 was a decree of the Directory and Council that all neutral ships 
 bearing any English commodities should be good prize, and that 
 French ports should be closed against all neutral vessels which had 
 
1798.] 
 
 ENVOYS TO FRANCE. 
 
 133 
 
 touched ports under the English flag. The next report informed the 
 Government that on their arrival in France they had been met by 
 unofficial agents, who assured them that they would not be received 
 until they had offered suitable bribes to officers of the government. 
 Talleyrand himself, who was then Foreign Minister of France, was 
 implicated in this disgraceful proposal. 1 Externally, any reception 
 was refused to the three envoys by the Directory. Privately they 
 were made certain that if they paid the bribes they would be re- 
 ceived, with good 
 probability of suc- 
 cess ; " money is 
 needed, a great 
 deal of m o n e y." 
 Once received, 
 the American 
 Government 
 would be asked to 
 make a handsome 
 loan to the French 
 Republic, the cred- 
 it of which was at 
 a verv low ebb. 
 
 mf 
 
 If this loan was 
 granted, the Di- 
 re c t o r y, on its 
 part, would make 
 concessions. The 
 envoys rejected the 
 humiliating propo- 
 sal. They were 
 then ordered out 
 of the country, 
 with the exception 
 of Mr. Gerry, 
 who, as an adherent of Jefferson's, it was supposed might prove more 
 pliable. 
 
 The report made by its envoys was at once published b}- the Gov- 
 ernment of the United States, and republished in England 
 and France. In place of the names of the three unofficial 
 agents, the letters X, Y, and Z were substituted in the pub- 
 lication, and the correspondence has been known ever since as " the 
 
 1 Of this there can be no doubt. Gerry's letter proves it. Napoleon knew it to IK; true. 
 Compare Sir Henry Uulwer's sketch of Talleyrand. 
 
 Chief Justice Marshall. 
 
 
134 ADMINISTRATIONS OF ADAMS AND JEFFERSON. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 X. Y. Z. correspondence." * The disgraceful proposal aroused the 
 whole country to indignation. Congress ordered an enlargement of 
 the standing army by twelve regiments. It ordered the construction 
 of a navy of twenty- four vessels, and authorized merchantmen to arm 
 themselves against the French vessels of war. So far as the acts of 
 their cruisers went, the two nations were, in fact, at war. It was not 
 so long since the privateering of the Revolution but that seamen and 
 merchants could fit out their ships for fighting in the most effective 
 way. In the West Indies two serious conflicts took place. The Dela- 
 ware, of the United States navy, captured a heavy French privateer, 
 and the Constellation took V Inmrgente, a French frigate. Both ves- 
 sels were sent into port as prizes. 
 
 Had that unwise and ill-fated body, the Directory, led France any 
 Napoleon's longer toward her ruin, war would certainly have been pro- 
 p llc y- claimed on one side or on both. But the young Napoleon, 
 when he seized the reins of power, had sense enough to see the mad- 
 ness of the claims on which the Directory had insisted. He received, 
 with the most cordial welcome, the new embassy sent out by Adams. 
 It consisted of Chief Justice Ellsworth, William R. Davie, and Wil- 
 liam Van Murray. Napoleon had already learned that Talleyrand 
 was not above suspicion in matters where pecuniary integrity was 
 involved. He made his own brother Joseph the head of the three 
 plenipotentiaries appointed to treat with the Americans. 2 Orders 
 were immediately given to French cruisers to avoid the molestation 
 of American vessels, and that cordial understanding between the 
 countries began of which the important result was the cession of Lou- 
 isiana two years later. 
 
 Meanwhile, in America, every step of the negotiation, and every 
 turn in the politics of France, was marked by new appeals to the one 
 political party or the other. The national feeling inevitably stood 
 with the party which seemed, at the moment, most zealous for na- 
 tional honor. All political discussion was impregnated with senti- 
 ments which sprang from the sympathy of the parties with the dif- 
 ferent combatants in Europe. In the Federal party itself, great dis- 
 affection was aroused at every step by which the President attempted 
 either to conciliate their opponents or to take a middle course be- 
 tween extremes. His appointment of another mission to France, 
 without consulting his Cabinet, in spite of the contemptuous treat- 
 ment of the late envoys, in spite of his own declaration that he 
 would never send another minister to that government till he was 
 
 1 X. was Hottingner, a banker ; Y., Bellamy, of Hamburg ; Z., Hautval, a Frenchman. 
 
 2 Joseph Bonaparte, as Count de Survilliers, afterward resided for many years in Amer- 
 ica. 
 
1798.] 
 
 YELLOW FEVER IN AMERICA. 
 
 135 
 
 assured of a cordial reception, alienated the confidence of some of 
 the most influential leaders of his party. The result of this dis- 
 affection, and of the unpopular Sedition Law, appeared in the issue 
 of the election of 1800. By that issue the administration of govern- 
 ment was taken out of the hands of the Federalists, to fall into and 
 remain in the hands of the Democrats for the next quarter of a 
 century. 
 
 The country had other interests of great importance which were 
 quite independent of these European complications. In the Yenow fe . 
 summer of 1798, yellow fever, that disease which is still as Ter 
 mysterious in its movements as it was then, established itself in most 
 of the principal seaports of 
 the Atlantic coast. Con- 
 gress fled from Philadel- 
 phia before its approach. 
 The administration of the 
 government was seriously 
 affected by the absence of 
 leading members. Trade 
 of course suffered, espe- 
 cially commerce with for- 
 eign nations. In the ne- 
 gotiations with the Barba- 
 rians on the Moorish coast, 
 our envoys even apologized 
 to the Dey of Tripoli for 
 the cessation of our govern- 
 ment while the pestilence 
 had driven men from the 
 
 Capital. In the Summer Of Elbridge Gerry. 
 
 1800 the capital was removed to Washington, " the Federal City " as 
 it was at first called. 
 
 While the preparations for war with France were impending, and 
 for war with Spain under the pretext of war with France, D^^ of 
 the whole country was moved with profound sorrow by the Waiihin 8 ton 
 announcement of the death of Washington, December 14, 1799, at his 
 home at Mount Vernon. For some years past, his resolute sympathy 
 with the national policy of the Federalists had brought on his head 
 some of the most rancorous abuse of the opposition journals of Phila- 
 delphia. The English writers, who then attempted to lead public 
 opinion, were, as they have often been in later cases of history, es- 
 pecially bitter. But all such abuse ceased when his death was an- 
 nounced. The whole country, even in its smaller towns, arranged 
 
136 ADMINISTRATIONS OF ADAMS AND JEFFERSON. [CiiAi-. VI. 
 
 public solemnities by which to express its grief. From that time 
 it hiis been difficult to discuss the character or exploits of Wash- 
 ington with the same impartiality with which those of any other man 
 are regarded. It was felt at the time, and has been felt ever since, 
 that his services through the war, and through the crystallization of 
 the Constitution in its first years, were such as no other man could 
 render. A single passage in the address made before Congress by 
 General Henry Lee has become proverbial. It pronounced him 
 ' First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his country- 
 
 men." l 
 
 
 The Beginning of the Capitol, From an old print. 
 
 At the time of his death, Washington had been appointed Lieuten- 
 ant-general of the enlarged army, with a view to its organ i- 
 
 zation for what was called the war with France. But he 
 did not suppose, nor did the President, nor did Hamilton, 
 who was first in command under Washington, suppose that France 
 would invade America. Of course they did not propose that America 
 should invade France. Twelve new regiments were to be recruited 
 and stationed at Fort Washington now Cincinnati. At that post 
 General Wilkinson, who commanded in the West, was directed to 
 Wilkinson. \) U \\^ flat-boats sufficient to carry the army thus formed 
 down the Ohio and the Mississippi. The plan of the campaign was 
 digested between Hamilton and Wilkinson by conference in part, 
 
 1 The resolutions passed by Congress on the death of Washington, contained the words, 
 ' to the memory of the man, first in war, first in peace, nnd first in the hearts of his fellow- 
 citizens." Marshall (Life of Washington) says the resolutions were written by General 
 Lee, though read by another member. In the oration pronounced before both Houses of 
 Congress by General Henry Lee, the words used were -"first in war, first in peace, and 
 first in the hearts of his countrymen." It is a fact worth noting that Henry Lee, the son 
 <f the General, in a note to the second edition of his father's Memoirs, says the oration be- 
 fore Congress was delivered by Marshall. It is a remarkable mistake to make, but that 
 it is a mistake, there can ! no question. 
 
1799.] 
 
 NAVIGATION' OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 
 
 13" 
 
 Hi* treason. 
 
 and in part by letters. Wilkinson was, in truth, the last person who 
 should have been entrusted with any such business. He had left the 
 army at the end of the Revolution, and settled in Kentucky. He 
 had soon after entered into personal communication with 
 Miro, the Spanish Governor of Louisiana, which resulted 
 in his receiving, regularly but secretly, an annual payment from the 
 Spanish Government, to buy his services for detaching Kentucky 
 and the Western States from the Union. 1 Such w r as the traitor into 
 whose hands Adams and Hamilton gave with confidence the corn- 
 
 Vernon in 1797. From an old print. 
 
 maud of what was called " The Legion of the West." Such was 
 the man who afterward had the fortune of arresting if he did not 
 first desert the movement of Aaron Burr, and compelling him to 
 that flight in which he became a prisoner to the United States. 
 
 The determination to strike at Orleans, 2 and wrest it from Spain, 
 was forced on the Government by the exasperation of the 
 people of the States on the Ohio and Mississippi, when their 
 trade by the great river was suddenly arrested. From the 
 time of the treaty of 1783 they had been ill at ease. Under that 
 treaty Spain held the mouth of the river. For, though the eastern 
 
 1 This treason, suspected at the time, is now made certain by the documents copied from 
 the Spanish archives for the Slate of Louisiana. See Gayarre's Louisiana. 
 
 2 So it was generally called till the cession of Louisiana, though the official name was 
 " Nouvi'lle Orleans.." 
 
138 ADMINISTRATIONS OF ADAMS AND JEFFERSON. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 side of the Mississippi had been granted to the new nation, the west- 
 ern side was left to Spain, the ally of the United States as against 
 England. Spain also had the eastern side, south of 31 N. latitude, 
 partly because Orleans was on the eastern side, and partly because 
 the boundary between Florida and Louisiana had never been deter- 
 mined. But, before 1783, there were settlers from the sea-coast 
 States in the valley of the Mississippi. As they increased in number, 
 the necessity for a route to the sea by the river was more and more 
 manifest. Such was the severity of the Spanish colonial policy, that 
 all goods sent down the river had to be transhipped at Orleans, and, 
 indeed, to be sold to Spanish purchasers. Tobacco, a large part of 
 the produce of Kentucky, could be sold only to the Spanish Ci-own, 
 which assumed the monopoly of that trade. All these impositions 
 enforced by the Spanish Government Were regarded by the new set- 
 tlers as the greatest hardship, as, indeed, they were. Many of the 
 settlers had emigrated to escape taxation at the East; but they 
 found their agriculture and commerce in their new home hampered 
 by restrictions more severe than any Eastern taxation. Their dis- 
 affection showed itself from time to time in different forms. 
 
 Some men thought of independence of the United States, with close 
 alliance with Spain ; some proposed to submit to Spain, as a part 
 of her colony of Louisiana ; others dreamed of seizing Orleans, and 
 making war with Spain, by the unaided force of the West ; others 
 hoped to induce Congress to declare war ; and still others proposed 
 an alliance with France, and to persuade her to reassert her empire 
 over the valley of the Mississippi. Of course the great body of 
 settlers were ignorant of such intrigues. But such schemes, more 
 or less distinctly formed, were in the minds of all leading men. 
 They did not lack counsellors from without. Miro, the shrewd 
 Spanish Governor of Orleans and Louisiana, held Wilkinson in 
 his pay, as has been said, for many years. Nor was the Governor 
 slow in bribing other politicians or employing other agents. Lord 
 Dorchester, in Canada, known to the officers of the American Revo- 
 lution as Sir Guy Carleton, the ablest officer, except Cornwallis, 
 whom Great Britain then employed in high command in America, 
 was on the alert to fed the dissatisfaction of the West by his agents. 
 Genet, the envoy of the French Republic, freely issued commissions 
 in the West, to such as adhered to the broad schemes of the Directory 
 for the universal emancipation of mankind. Into the details of such 
 intrigues it is not more necessary to go than into the history of the 
 intrigues of any other self-seeking politicians, who, in the end, attain 
 no object of public importance. 
 
 The relations of the United States with Spain came to one crisis 
 
1799.] RELATIONS WITH SPAIN. 139 
 
 when Adams sent Ellicott, as a scientific commissioner, with an escort, 
 to Natchez, to run the line of 31 N. latitude, in conjunction with 
 the Spanish authorities. The Spanish Governor, still relying on his 
 plans for separating the Western States from their alle- Troubles 
 giance, deferred, to the very last, the withdrawal of Spanish "panilh"- 
 garrisons from territory which was confessed to belong to ' 
 the United States. When Ellicott arrived with his escort at Natchez, 
 the American troops occupied one cantonment, while the Spanish 
 troops still held the old forts at Nogales. 1 The surveys went for- 
 ward, and Ellicott, as American commissioner, steadily pressed the 
 removal of the Spanish garrison. Castilian diplomacy and politeness 
 exhausted themselves in the long delays, but these lasted till the end 
 of March, 1799. Captain Guion, commander of the American forces, 
 finally told Gayoso, the Spanish commander, that he would storm the 
 forts if they were not evacuated before the 1st of April. This threat 
 prevailed. The Spaniards sent their guns down the river, and, with- 
 out any notice, either to the commissioner for the boundary, or to 
 the military commander, withdrew silently and sullenly on the 29th 
 of March, just in time to avoid a collision. 
 
 A policy more likely to be effective on their part, would have 
 been, to soothe the Western settlers by every concession possible. 
 Hut the traditional severity of the colonial laws of Spain did not per- 
 mit such concession ; and there is mixed up in all the Spanish di- 
 plomacy of the period, a curious distrust of the future enmity of the 
 people, whose good-will at the moment the governors at Orleans 
 should have been attempting to obtain. As early as 1776, when, at 
 the instance of Oliver Pollock, 2 Governor Unzaga was supplying 
 powder to the American insurgents by way of Pittsburg, in obedience 
 to commands from Madrid, he wrote to Madrid : " I suspect that at 
 any moment the royalists and insurgents may make up their quarrel 
 and unite to take possession of one of the domains of some European 
 power." This was fifteen days before the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence. The same suspicion haunted the Spanish officers in all the 
 after negotiations. In 1787, Navarro wrote home: "I see clouds 
 rising and threatening us with a storm which will soon burst on this 
 province, and the damage would be still greater if, unfortunately, 
 the inundation extended itself to the territories of New Spain." 
 Acting under this terror, he and his successors attempted to guard 
 against the Americans by keeping them away. With a policy as 
 wise as that which should have dammed the Mississippi itself, in 
 dread of such an inundation- as Navarro's metaphor suggests, the 
 successive Spanish governors of Louisiana attempted to hold back 
 
 1 Now knowu as " Walnut Hills." - See vol. iii.. j>. 413. 
 
140 ADMINISTRATIONS OF ADAMS AND JEFFERSON. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 the settlers from any access to the sea. Once and again, in the 
 course of seventeen years, between the treaty of 1783 and the trans- 
 fer of the province back to France, the indignant Kentuckians en- 
 rolled their hunters to go down on the flood of the river and take 
 possession of the little capital. The French envoy, Genet, who 
 founded Jacobin clubs in the West, whispered promises of similar 
 invasion. In 1796, as a result of negotiation in Madrid, the pre- 
 ceding year, the malcontents on the river were in a measure satisfied 
 by a concession on the part of Spain of the "right of deposit" at 
 Orleans. This meant simply that the settlers might send their 
 goods there, to store them and await a market. 
 
 But, in 1799, as soon as these three years had expired, Morales, 
 who was the Intendant of Commerce at Orleans, announced, by an 
 unexpected decree, that this concession would be allowed no longer. 
 Once more the rage of the Western States burned hot. Once more 
 contempia- they threatened to take law into their own hands. It was 
 on d New C or- tn ^ en tnat ' under the pretext of the war with France, Presi- 
 leang. dent John Adams began the enlistment of the twelve regi- 
 
 ments for service in the West. They reported for duty at Fort Wash- 
 ington, and here flat-boats were built to convey them to the attack 
 on Orleans. Spain had no force there to resist them. The garri- 
 son of Orleans was but a handful. Its defences were a bare picket 
 fence. And, as was just now said, the commanding post at Nogales, 
 near Natchez, had been abandoned at the pressing instance of Cap- 
 tain Guion of the United States army. 
 
 In this willingness to attack the little Spanish post, it may be 
 said that all parties of influence among the Americans joined. The 
 Western men were eager; they filled the ranks of the newly-enlisted 
 army. President Adams had been always determined to secure 
 access to the sea by the Mississippi, and he had no hesitation in tak- 
 ing decisive measures. Hamilton, who was practically first in com- 
 mand, seems to have been led on not only by these considerations, 
 but by the eagerness of a successful soldier, still young, for 
 andMiran- a field worthy of his ambition. He had become interested 
 in Miranda, a Spanish adventurer, who only lacked success 
 to earn a more honorable name in history. Miranda had persuaded 
 Hamilton that the English Government would support him in a 
 scheme for overthrowing the Spanish authority in the Spanish Main ; 
 and, without committing himself to the plan, in any public document, 
 he entertained the hope of leading the armies of the United States in 
 an attack on their Southern neighbors. It is interesting to observe 
 that he had thus enlisted himself in an enterprise not differing 
 widely from that which proved, a few years after, to be the crisis in 
 the life of Aaron Burr. 
 
1799.] HAMILTON AND MIRANDA. 141 
 
 Miranda's acquaintance in the United States was as early as the 
 Revolutionary War. He was said to know more of its families and 
 parties than any man in the country. 1 His talk of the 
 
 , ~ , . mm, ., 1-11 Their Plans. 
 
 resources of South America, and the ease with which the 
 Spanish yoke could be thrown off, fascinated young men eager for 
 adventure ; and all the correspondence of the time shows that such 
 schemes were largely entertained among adventurous people in the 
 West. 2 The project took definite form when, in December, 1797, 
 four men, who professed to be commissioners of disaffected South 
 American constituents, prepared a " Convention " in Paris. These 
 men were Miranda, Sucre, Salas, and Duperon. Their plan pro- 
 posed a union of an English fleet and an American army with the 
 Spanish rebels who were to throw off the yoke. The ninth article 
 of this Convention proposed that the United States should be in^ 
 vited to join in a treaty. The possession of the two Floridas and of 
 Louisiana was to be guaranteed to them, and, in exchange, the United 
 States was to furnish to South America an auxiliary force of five 
 thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry. Miranda, in an "adroit 
 letter " to President Adams, written on the 24th of March, commu- 
 nicated to him the probability of such an effort, without giving the 
 details of the plan. To Hamilton he was more explicit : " It seems 
 that the time of our emancipation draws near, and that the estab- 
 lishment of liberty in the whole Continent of the New World is 
 entrusted to us by Providence. The only danger which I foresee is 
 the introduction of French principles, which will poison liberty in its 
 cradle, and will finish soon by destroying yours." 
 
 While the President himself looked incredulously on a scheme so 
 bold, three members of his cabinet approved it, and were in cor- 
 respondence with Hamilton to carry it forward. In Hamilton's mind 
 it involved the necessity that he should be the head of the movement. 
 So soon, therefore, as the new army was ordered, he was eager to 
 secure its real command. Adams wished to make him second, 
 under General Knox, Washington being the nominal head. But 
 Hamilton refused subordination to any but his old chief. Wash- 
 ington had already pronounced in Hamilton's favor. Pinckney was 
 made second, and Knox third, the President himself acceding to 
 Washington's proposal. 3 Hamilton found himself, therefore, so near 
 the object of his wishes as to be at the head of an army of West- 
 
 1 John Adams to Lloyd, March 6, 1815. 
 
 2 Thus Philip Nolan, quoted in Moor's deposition of 1797, said, "I look forward to the 
 conquest of Mexico by the United States, and I expect my patron and frieud, the General, 
 will, in such an event, give me a conspicuous command." The General was Wilkinson. 
 
 8 See a number of interesting letters on this subject from distinguished Federalists in 
 chap. vi. of Life and Letters of George Caltot. By Henry Cabot Lodge. 1877. 
 
142 ADMINISTRATIONS OF ADAMS AND JEFFERSON. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 ern riflemen, with easy access to Orleans, and a good cause of quarrel 
 with Spain. Miranda gave good reason to hope that the English 
 fleet, an important part of the combination, would be ready in time. 
 
 But all these plans, fine-drawn at the very best, fell to pieces, 
 influence of when to the game of European politics, which thus far had 
 Nnpoieon. been played by the cooperation of many bunglers, there 
 came one master player. Napoleon Bonaparte took in one hand the 
 varied enterprises which had confused the Directory, and which the 
 Directory had so mismanaged. With his accession to power, the 
 envoys of the American Government were again welcomed cour- 
 teously. The seizure of American vessels ceased for a time. Navi- 
 
 w 
 
 gation on the Mississippi was again permitted. Cause of war with 
 
 France was thus removed 
 from the complicated plan. 
 The opposition to the Ad- 
 ministration, and the na- 
 tional dislike of standing 
 armies, were too intense to 
 permit a large armed force 
 at Cincinnati without an 
 ostensible object. It has 
 since been surmised, by 
 some of the few pei'sons 
 who have paid any atten- 
 tion to this piece of history, 
 which at the time was care- 
 fully concealed, that if Mr. 
 Adams had promptly given 
 his support to Miranda, the 
 English Government would 
 have done the same. In 
 that event Hamilton and 
 
 Wilkinson would probably have captured Orleans when the high 
 water of 1799 raised the Mississippi. The invasion of South America 
 would have followed, and Hamilton's after career would have been 
 left to the chances of war in Venezuela. It is interesting to observe 
 that one of his anxieties in assuming the command which Washing- 
 ton's favor had secured for him, was his fear that he might not have 
 the choice of his subordinates, and in particular that he might have 
 Aaron Burr as quartermaster in his new campaign. So sensitively do 
 men dread the presence of those who hate them. 1 
 
 1 It would seem as if all who were interested in this first "fflibotteriag" expedition 
 wished to conceal the record of it. The fact that the new nrinv made rendezvous nt Fort 
 
 Aaron Burr. 
 
1800.] DEFEAT OF THE FEDERALISTS. 143 
 
 As the nation became a nation, and grew unconsciously to that 
 unity of life which the makers of the Constitution hoped for, Therigeo f 
 but dared not expect, national parties took more definite v* rtle *- 
 form. When the election of 1800 approached, the Federalists named 
 Adams and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, of South Carolina, with 
 the general wish that Adams might be first and Pinckney second. 
 With this critical election the Federal party lost its control Def eat0 f the 
 of the nation, and it never regained it under that name. F< ' der 1 " lte - 
 The loss is generally ascribed to that distrust of the people which, 
 from the beginning, hampered the leaders of that party, and which 
 deserved the recompense of failure. But this interpretation comes 
 after the fact, and is not warranted by the details of the contest. 
 There can be no doubt that the national position assumed by Mr. 
 Adams in the controversy with France, increased his popularity in 
 the nation at large. The distrust of him which was entertained by 
 Hamilton and by other of the Federal leaders, rather improved his 
 popularity in States not immediately under their control. The Se- 
 dition Act was the cause, and, so far as the final vote shows, the chief 
 cause, of Adams's defeat, and it was only within a single State that 
 that cause proved important. That State was New York. In the 
 two elections of 1796 and 1800 she won the title of the " Empire 
 State," by exerting the power which she has so often used since in 
 determining the election of President. In 1796, her twelve electors, 
 chosen by the Legislature, voted for Adams. As early as April, 
 1800, the new Legislature was chosen, which would elect the pres- 
 idential electors in November of that year. This State election 
 proved decisive. The city of New York had the year before given a 
 Federal majority of nine hundred. This year it elected Republican 
 members to the Legislature. This result was due in part to local con- 
 tentions among the great families which then governed New York, 
 and in part to the skill with which Aaron Burr conducted the canvass, 
 he having had the address to see that his own name, which was at 
 the moment unpopular, was not on the Republican ticket. More sur- 
 prising to the Federalists was their loss of the western district of the 
 State. This loss was due to the severity of proceedings under the 
 Sedition Law. As the result of these elections, it was known, early 
 in 1800, that the Legislature of New York would give all its twelve 
 votes in the Electoral College for the Republican candidates. Only 
 
 Washington, was of course known at the time, and roused the jealousy of the Spanish 
 ambassador. But no publication of the plans of Government was made in Congress or 
 elsewhere. Even in the Life of Pickering, who was Secretary of State, no allusion is made 
 to probable war in the West. The Life of Hamilton furnishes little information. But no 
 doubt of the facts, as stated in the text, will rise in the mind of readers of John Adams's 
 Life, of his letter to Lloyd, of Stoddard*> Louisiana, of the letters of Miranda, and of Ham- 
 ilton's unpublished private correspondence with Wilkinson. 
 
144 ADMINISTRATIONS OF ADAMS AND JEFFERSON. [L'HAP. VI. 
 
 the year before, the Republicans of the State had attempted to choose 
 the electors by popular vote, by districts. They would gladly have 
 acceded to such a plan, which, in practice, would have nearly neu- 
 tralized the vote of the State. But the Federalists, confident in 
 their strength, had refused to make this concession. 
 
 All Mr. Adams's gains elsewhere were insufficient to overcome this 
 defection of the State of New York. In face of the discouragement 
 of such an event, which made almost a foregone conclusion of the 
 presidential election, his friends gave him seven more votes in Penn- 
 sylvania than he received in 1796, and three more in North Caro- 
 lina. He lost two in Maryland, and that State gave one vote less 
 than in 1796. The result of the election, therefore, gave Jefferson 
 and Burr, the Democratic candidates, seventy-three votes each, while 
 Mr. Adams had but sixty-five. 
 
 Warned by the risks which the last contest had disclosed, the Re- 
 Burrand publican electors voted " solidly " for each candidate. Burr 
 Jefferson. j ia( j as man y votes as Jefferson. This consolidation of the 
 Democratic vote brought about a result which may have been antic- 
 ipated by the makers of the Constitution, but was none the more ac- 
 ceptable to Jefferson. As he had received the same number of votes 
 with Burr, the election was thrown into the House of Representa- 
 tives, under the constitutional provision. The Federalists were there- 
 fore called upon to say which of the two Democratic candidates they 
 preferred. After some hesitation, they determined to support Burr. 
 Hamilton used all his influence with the Federal leaders in Jefferson's 
 favor. In Burr the Northern States, who had all supported Adams, 
 had at least a Northern man to vote for. Here was also the best 
 chance for the discomfiture of Jefferson, whom the Federalists hated 
 with a very perfect hatred. A long and bitter contest in the House 
 followed. Thirty-five ballots were taken, with the same result, 
 eight States voting for Jefferson, six for Burr, and two being divided. 
 At last, at a Federal caucus, " all acknowledged that nothing but des- 
 perate measures remained, which several were disposed to adopt, and 
 but few were willing to disapprove." The words are those of Bayard 
 of New Jersey. On the thirty-sixth ballot, the Federalist votes of 
 Vermont and Maryland were wanting. The result gave Jefferson ten 
 States, and he was elected. He owed his election to the influence of 
 Hamilton and the action of Bayard in caucus. The extreme Federal- 
 ists wished to prevent any election, and leave the President of the 
 Senate the acting President for an interregnum. But Jefferson and 
 his friends were determined, " one and all, that the day such an act 
 was passed, the Middle States would arm, and no such usurpation 
 should be submitted to." These are Jefferson's words, and John 
 
1802.] PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA. 145 
 
 Randolph afterwards added the local color and detail. " Had we 
 not," lie said, " the promise of Darke's Brigade, and of the arms at 
 Harper's Ferry, which he engaged to secure?" All such plots be- 
 came unnecessary, when the Federalists, under Hamilton's and Bay- 
 ard's influence, gave way. And in after years all parties would have 
 been glad to consign such plots to oblivion. 1 
 
 So soon as Jefferson was inaugurated, it proved that his dread of a 
 consolidated government had vanished, now that it came j e ff ergon - s 
 under his control. The forecast of Hamilton proved true, ^ llc y- 
 that Jefferson would calculate on what would promote his own inter- 
 est. The inaugural speech contained a phrase which afterwards be- 
 came proverbial : " We are all Republicans ; we are all Federal- 
 ists ; " and as the nation became a nation indeed, and grew in strength, 
 Jefferson, and his followers in the presidency, were as willing as any 
 men to wield the national power. His first act, the purchase of Louis- 
 iana, was quite outside all constitutional provisions. It was wholly 
 justified by the great necessity ; and the results have shown that no 
 single act of an American President, down to Lincoln's emancipation 
 of the slaves, has been so important. But no strict construction of 
 the Constitution permitted any such act, and this Jefferson and his 
 advisers knew. 
 
 Indeed, the purchase of the immense region known as Louisiana 
 was no plan of his, or of theirs. On his accession to office, Pmy.^,, of 
 he found the negotiation with France in the most promising Loui( " an *- 
 condition which it had presented for many years. All immediate 
 cause of quarrel with France was over. Jefferson, moreover, was 
 ready to do anything that France asked because she asked it without 
 asking questions. It soon became an open secret among diploma- 
 tists that, by a private article in the Treaty of St. Ildefonso, signed 
 on the 18th of October, 1800, Spain had again ceded to France the 
 territory of Louisiana, meaning, as the reader must always remem- 
 ber, not merely the State now known under that name, but the region 
 north of Florida, west of the Mississippi, and east of the Rocky 
 Mountains and a line drawn though the Sabine, Red, and Arkansas 
 
 1 To guard against such dangers in future, Jefferson provided for a change in the Con- 
 stitution, and, since that time, the Vice-president and Presideut have been designated by 
 the electors. In this celebrated election, the vote of South Carolina was doubtful. The 
 opposition to Adams in that State offered to unite on Jefferson and Pinckney, as four jears 
 before the State Legislature had united on Jefferson and the other Pincknev. But Charles 
 C. Pinckney, loyal to his leader, refused to consent to such an arrangement. Had he 
 agreed to it, he, and not Burr, would have had the second number of votes. Pinckney 
 would have been Vice-president and Jefferson President. That is to say, the same condi- 
 tion of things that had resulted from the election of 1796 would now have recurred, but 
 with the Democrats first and the Federalists second. Probably the makers of the Consti- 
 tution foresaw such contingencies. 
 
 VOL. iv. 10 
 
146 ADMINISTRATIONS OF ADAMS AND JEFFERSON. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 rivers. 1 At home the Government was goaded by constant appeals 
 from the Western States to secure open passage to the Gulf of Mex- 
 ico for their products. Actuated by a sort of madness, which has 
 never been fully explained, the Spanish Intendant, Morales, in 1802, 
 suspended a second time even the right of deposit at Orleans. 2 
 Again the Western States roused themselves, and protested that they 
 would take the city and sweep the Spaniards, if necessary, into the 
 sea. Impelled by their indignation, Jefferson sent new powers to 
 Livingston, our Minister in France, to whom Monroe was joined, 
 and bade the two propose to the First Consul the purchase of the 
 island on which Orleans stands, and the right of passage to the sea. 
 
 The commissioners were authorized to offer the First Consul two 
 and a half million dollars. Before Monroe's arrival, however, Liv- 
 
 1 In the map, entitled " Acquisition and Transfer of Territory, 1780 to 1870," published 
 iu vol. i. of The Ninth Census of the United States, 1870, the "Province of Louisiana, 
 1803," appears as extending from the mouth of the Mississippi, on the southeast, to a north- 
 western limit, on the Pacific coast, including Oreeon and Washington Territory. This 
 map is erroneous, inasmuch as the Province of Louisiana did not extend, either under Spain 
 or France, west of the Rocky Mountains. The mistake probably arose from want of care in 
 distinguishing between the line agreed upon by the United States and Spain to mark their 
 boundaries in the Florida Treaty of 1819, and that line understood to be the western boun- 
 dary of Louisiana in the treaty of 1803. It is worth while to correct the error, as it has 
 been repeated in popular school-books since the publication of the official map in the vol- 
 ume of the Census, and probably on its authority. 
 
 The original territory of Louisiana, as a French province, comprised, under the title of 
 " The Government of Louisiana," in general terms, the valleys of the Mississippi, the 
 Ohio, the Missouri, and the Illinois. At the close of the French war in 1763, France ceded 
 to Great Britain all that portion of Louisiana lying east of the Mississippi and north of 
 the Iberville, or Bayou Manchac, about a hundred miles above Orleans ; and at the same 
 time transferred to Spain all the rest of her territory on the western side of the Missis- 
 sippi. In 1800, the province was retroceded to France by Spain by the treaty of St. II- 
 defonso, " with the same extent," so runs the treaty, "that it now has in the hands of 
 Spain, and that it had when France possessed it." And it was precisely these words, 
 quoted from the Treaty of St. Ildefonso, that were chosen to describe the Territory of 
 Louisiana when Napoleon sold it to the United States in 1803. Its southern portion was 
 bounded on the west by the region held or claimed by Spain ; the northern jxmiou by 
 the mountain ranges which separate the Pacific slope from the region whose waters flow 
 into the valleys of the Missouri and the Mississippi. In 1819, however, the United States 
 and Spain agreed, in the treaty of Florida, upon the dividing line between their possessions 
 west of the Mississippi, Spain agreeing to relinquish all claim to any territory east and 
 north of it, and the United States surrendering her pretensions to all south and west of it. 
 This line was from the mouth of the Sabiue to the 32d parallel, thence north to the 
 Red River, and along that river to the 100th meridian, thence north to the Arkansas, 
 and along that river to its source in the 42d parallel, and thence west to the Pacific. 
 It is this boundary which is erroneously designated in the census map of " Acquisition and 
 Transfer of Territory" as the western boundary of the "Province of Louisiana, 1803." 
 See an exhaustive discussion of the whole question in an article by Albert Salisbury, in 
 the Wisconsin Journal of Education for May, 1880. 
 
 2 October 16, 1802. The measure almost caused famine in Orleans. His own statement 
 was, that, by the Treaty of Amiens, Spain had regained a direct commerce with England ; 
 that the " right of deposit " had only been justified by the state of war, and that it cease 
 because peace had returned. 
 
1802.] PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA. 147 
 
 ingston was met by a proposal which astounded him. Napoleon was 
 sure by this time that the existing peace with England would not last 
 long. England had the supremacy of the sea, and so soon as war 
 began, her fleet would seize Orleans and the mouths of the river. 
 When the journals announced that the new American envoy was on 
 his way, he sent for Marbois, his Minister of the Treasury, and bade 
 him meet the commissioners immediately and offer to sell them the 
 whole region for fifty million francs. Marbois was in every way a 
 proper person for the negotiation. He had been an envoy of France 
 in the Revolution, had lived in Philadelphia, and was intimate with 
 Livingston, the head of the American mission, who at that time was 
 American Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Marbois told the young 
 Consul that the price proposed was too small, and obtained permis- 
 sion to name harder terms at the outset. Accordingly, as soon as 
 Livingston arrived, Marbois met him with the proposal to sell him 
 this empire for one hundred million francs, with the additional pro- 
 posal that the United States should pay to the American merchants 
 who had suffered from French spoliation all their fair claims against 
 France. 
 
 Livingston was surprised at an offer so extraordinary. Marbois 
 hastened to say that he knew the sum was exorbitant, but the Con- 
 sul had suggested that the Americans could borrow it. Livingston 
 and his companions asked time to send the proposal home. But 
 delay was dangerous, for England might at any moment declare war 
 by seizing the mouths of the river. Marbois pressed Livingston in 
 turn to name a price, and finally suggested that he would try to per- 
 suade the Consul to accept sixty million francs. All this was the 
 by-play of diplomacy. As we have said, Marbois was instructed to 
 take fifty million francs, if he could get it. The bargaining ended 
 when the American envoys agreed to give sixty million francs, in 
 stocks bearing six per cent, interest, and to assume the payment of 
 all that was due from France to her own merchants, not exceeding 
 twenty million francs more. As the United States Government, for 
 three quarters of a century, has neglected to pay these claims, they 
 have proved to be only a feather-weight in the great negotiation. 
 It is curious to see that, when Marbois went back to his principal, 
 well pleased with his success in obtaining ten million francs more 
 than he was authorized to sell for, Bonaparte rebuked him that he 
 had not obtained a hundred million. But when the secretary re- 
 minded him of his own original proposal, he expressed himself de- 
 lighted with the result. " There is nothing left to ask," he cried ; 
 " sixty million for an occupation that will not last a day, perhaps. 
 Let France enjoy this unexpected capital." In fact, he dictated a 
 
148 ADMINISTRATION'S OF ADAMS AND JEFFERSON. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 decree for the construction of five canals with it. But the American 
 payment was sunk in the renewal of the fleet of ti'ansports gathered 
 at Boulogne for the invasion of England, and in the equipment of the 
 other fleet which was scattered at Trafalgar. Napoleon, however, had 
 at heart a policy which looked further. In his joy of success he said, 
 " This accession of territory strengthens forever the power of the 
 United States. I have given England a rival." 
 
 The consent of the commissioners to this great purchase was not 
 HOW it was received in America with the enthusiasm which it deserved, 
 received. They did not themselves in the least know how well they 
 had builded. When, in the previous negotiation, Talleyrand had 
 
 Flat-boat going down the Mississippi 
 
 asked if the Americans wanted the whole, Livingston had stoutly said 
 " No," and had said truly. In one of his letters, he was careful to 
 impress on the French that the United States would not for a hundred 
 years make any settlements west of the river. " I told him we had 
 no wish to extend our boundary across the Mississippi." These were 
 Livingston's words, and the same indifference to territorial aggran- 
 dizement may be observed in all the public utterances of the time. 
 Before the invention of the steamboat, indeed, the regions acquired 
 were so nearly inaccessible that statesmen may be pardoned who did 
 not foresee their exceeding value to the nation. 
 
 It will be more convenient to the reader to anticipate in this chap- 
 ter the course of events, so far as to trace the first results of this 
 
1805.] AARON BURR'S EXPEDITION. 149 
 
 great acquisition. The Government took possession of the new ter- 
 ritory by a public act on the 20th of December, 1803. General Wil- 
 kinson, so long in the secret pay of Spain, was now commander of 
 the American army, and, with Claiborne, Governor of the Territory 
 of Louisiana, was authorized to receive possession. For this purpose 
 the Spanish Government made the cession to the French Prefect, 
 Laussat, who had been appointed, as it proved, for this purpose of 
 ceremony only. The joy of the West was unbounded. At the East, 
 the wisest men looked gloomily on the prospect of the depletion of 
 the old States by emigration into these rich valleys. 
 
 With the next summer a new element displayed itself. Aaron Burr 
 had been chosen Vice-president in 1800. But he had lost 
 all his friends in 'both parties in the election. In the course 
 of a bitter political quarrel in New York, in 1804, he chal- 
 lenged Hamilton to a duel. Hamilton was mad enough to accept 
 the challenge, and was killed. 1 Even after this event Burr presided 
 in the Senate ; but, with the election of 1 804, when Jefferson was 
 reflected and George Clinton became Vice-president, Burr lost office, 
 as he had lost friends before. Moved by the very same spirit that 
 had disposed Hamilton to coquet with Miranda, he took up 
 the thread of the very same adventure which Hamilton had trr\ou* m: 
 been forced to lay down, and after some private correspond- 
 ence in the East with men who were to furnish money, and prob- 
 ably with Miranda, he went down the Mississippi River, almost as a 
 conqueror seeking a new empire. To take the expressive phrase 
 which the West has since invented, Burr was " prospecting " on this 
 
 1 There is a prevalent error in regard to the house in which Hamilton died, which is 
 worth correcting, if only to show how little tradition is to be trusted. The duel between 
 him and Burr was fought at Weehawken, in New Jersey ; Hamilton, mortally wounded, 
 was immediately taken back to New York, the boat landing at what is now the foot of 
 Gansevoort Street, and he was carried to the nearest house, that of his friend, William Bav- 
 ard. This house stood between the present Greenwich and Washington Streets, about the 
 centre of what is now Horatio Street. The common belief is (see Historical Magazine, vol. 
 x., 1866), that the house now standing at No. 82 Jane Street was the Bayard House where 
 Hamilton died. But that house stood a block farther north on Horatio Street, as we have 
 just explained and the house at No 82 Jane Street was another country residence known 
 at that time as the Ludlow House. The estates joined on the line of Jane Street, and this 
 house occupied the block south of the line, as the Bayard House did the block north of it. 
 When, about half a century ago, the land of that neighborhood was filled in from about the 
 line of Washington Street to the present bank of the river, and streets were opened and 
 graded, the Ludlow House was turned round and placed on the south side of Jaue Street 
 No. 82 and the Bayard House was demolished. 
 
 The late Hon. Henry Meigs, long an eminent and highly, esteemed citizen of New York, 
 occupied both these houses alternately for many years. His children grew up in them, and 
 from two of his sons, Henry and Charles, these facts are obtained. One of these gentlemen 
 has preserved a water-color drawing by his father of the Ludlow House, while his family 
 occupied it, and of its identity with the house No. 82 Jane Street, there can be no question. 
 
 
150 ADMINISTRATIONS OF ADAMS AND JKFFEUSOX. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 journey. What his plans were, history is not yet able to say pre- 
 cisely. Probably they "were not precise. Probably he would have 
 found it as difficult to explain them clearly as it is to the historian 
 after seventy years. Those who wanted to make their fortunes in 
 adventure, thought he was going to take possession of Mexico. To 
 those whose suspicions he wanted to disarm, he said he was going to 
 settle on the Baron Bastrop's lands on the Washita River. Those 
 who thought they knew, supposed he was going to take Orleans and 
 
 View on Blennerhassett's Island. 
 
 establish a Western empire. He undoubtedly interested adventur- 
 ous people in the West, who still maintained the hatred for Spain 
 which the Spanish authorities had so steadily fanned. Thus he would 
 1'iiiiipXo- cultivate the indignation which had been roused by the vio- 
 lation of the safeguard of Nolan, and the death of that pop- 
 ular young adventurer. Philip Nolan was an agent of Wilkinson's, 
 who had gone into Texas to collect horses for the Spanish post at 
 Orleans, under a pass from the Governor of Texas and Coahuila. 
 
 
180G.] AARON BURR'S EXPEDITION. 151 
 
 The Spanish Governor, alarmed by new orders from home, had sent 
 to arrest him. In the skirmish which followed, Nolan was killed. 
 All his companions were captured and sent to the mines. Event- 
 ually one was shot. From the time of La Salle down, Spain had 
 been jealous of any interference from the East with her silver mines 
 in New Mexico and Arizona. Her statesmen, although purblind, 
 could foresee what has come in the present generation. To this 
 jealousy Nolan and his companions owed their fate, and every such 
 act of cruelty on the part of Spanish viceroys hastened the inev- 
 itable issue. The death of the Kempers in Florida was a similar 
 transaction. 
 
 On such chords Burr played on his first voyage down the river. 
 He visited Blennerhassett's Island, in the Ohio, not far B ] ennerhas . 
 from Marietta, and made the acquaintance of Harman Blen- sett - 
 nerhassett and of his charming wife. They had emigrated from Ire- 
 land in 1798, and had made of the island what the writers of that 
 day describe as a paradise. Blennerhassett himself was quite ready 
 by this time for new adventure, and, when Burr wrote to him after- 
 wards, enlisted readily in the enterprise. From point to Burr's prog- 
 point, as Burr stopped on the river, he was received with "*" 
 enthusiasm. Public dinners were made for him ; and, in vague 
 terms, he intimated that he was to come again at the head of an 
 army. When he met Wilkinson T he had long private conferences 
 with him. These were followed through the next winter by corre- 
 spondence in cipher. Of what passed in the conferences, the ac- 
 counts differ absolutely. Burr declares that Wilkinson committed 
 himself entirely to his views. Wilkinson declares that he declined 
 all complicity. As we now know that Wilkinson was a traitor to his 
 country long before, very little weight is to be given to his uncon- 
 firmed asseveration. 
 
 Encouraged by his reception, Burr made the attempt, in the sum- 
 mer of 1806, of which he had given such fair warning. But Jeffer80n - g 
 Jefferson at last roused himself to take notice of an enter- attion - 
 prise so audacious. The Spanish Government had been watching it 
 from the first with the most intense curiosity. The best account of 
 it would now be found in their archives, for all that the Government 
 of the United States knew of it was destroyed when the State De- 
 partment was burned in 1814, if it had not been earlier destroyed 
 by order of Jefferson. So vindictive did his treatment of Burr ap- 
 pear afterwards, that it seemed as if he wished to lure him to his 
 fate by the indifference with which his first movements were met, 
 and by the civility with which Wilkinson was permitted to treat him. 
 However this may be, when Jefferson acted he acted decisively. 
 
152 ADMINISTRATIONS OF ADAMS AND JEFFERSON. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 Burr made his first rendezvous at Blennerhassett's Island. Blen- 
 nerhassett himself had provided boats and provisions, and arms and 
 ammunition were here placed on the boats. A considerable party of 
 men joined the expedition here, and recruits were added at different 
 points on the way. But Jefferson published a proclamation denoun- 
 cing the whole scheme, and the United States marshals of Virginia, 
 Ohio, and Kentucky made attempts, more or less zealous, to arrest it. 
 The expedition, as it advanced, was flying from pin-suit while going 
 
 Parade of Burr's Force. 
 
 to conquest ; and the danger from behind was such that the arrange- 
 ments made to secure victory before were at best sadly hurried. 
 Still he stopped at the various forts on the way, asked favors and 
 received them, and gained a few recruits. At the mouth of the 
 Cumberland River, two boats and a few men joined him. He now 
 had thirteen boats and sixty men. He drew them up on the shore 
 and addressed them, but did not reveal his plans. This parade was 
 subsequently called the array in arms of a military force. 
 
1807.] 
 
 BURR'S TRIAL FOR TREASON. 
 
 153 
 
 With this force Burr came within thirty miles of Natchez, to learn 
 that Wilkinson had betrayed him. That is his way of stating it. 
 Wilkinson says he had received Swartwout, an envoy of En(lo f t he 
 Burr's, had amused him by pretended sympathy, and had ent<ir pn^. 
 dismissed him. Wilkinson probably changed his mind at some period 
 in the matter, and determined to stand by Jefferson rather than Burr; 
 or, on Burr's first visit, he may have well supposed that all this was 
 done with Jefferson's connivance. The little party found the mili- 
 tia of the Territory in arms to oppose them, and were all taken to 
 Natchez as prisoners of war. A grand jury was impanelled at once. 
 True to the general sympathy for Burr, they presented the military 
 force raised against him as a grievance, and declared that he Avas 
 guilty of no crime. Burr awaited no further inquiry, lie disguised 
 himself as a boatman, and disappeared in the wilderness. But in his 
 attempt to cross the country to the Atlantic, he was recognized in 
 Alabama, arrested, and sent home for trial. In 1807 he was tried at 
 Richmond for treason. The Government attempted to make 
 out that he had enlisted troops within its jurisdiction for an 
 attack on one of its allies, the King of Spain. The charge was, that 
 this constituted treason. Judge Marshall, who presided, instructed 
 the jury that the overt act of embodying an army must take place 
 within the State where the trial was held. On this point Burr was 
 acquitted. Jefferson's rage at his escape could not contain itself. 
 But from that moment Burr was without a shadow of his old power. 
 After times have seen many similar enterprises attempted in the 
 United States, mostly against Spain or Mexico ; but none has ever 
 attracted the universal attention of Burr's. Mvsterv has alwavs sur- 
 
 mt / / 
 
 rounded its history. The downfall of a man who came within a single 
 vote of holding the highest office in the state, to be an adventurer 
 without friends, often literally a beggar, was a fall too profound not 
 to be noted by the moralists. A complete absence of moral prin- 
 ciple is enough to account for such utter failure. 
 
 Burr's trial. 
 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 JEFFERSON AND MADISON. 
 
 THE BARBARY STATES. WAR WITH TRIPOLI. THE IMPORTANCE OF LOUISIANA. 
 
 INCREASE OF POPULATION AND WEALTH. JEFFERSON'S CREKD AND HIS POLICY. 
 
 SETTLEMENT OF THE WEST. LEWIS AND CLARKE'S EXPEDITION. FOREIGN- 
 COMMERCE AND ITS DIFFICULTIES. THE BERLIN AND MILAN DECREES, AND THE 
 ORDERS IN COUNCIL. CONDITION OF THE NAVY. THE AFFAIR OF THE " CHESA- 
 PEAKE." THE EMBARGO. MADISON'S ACCESSION. THE " PRESIDENT " AND THE 
 "LITTLE BELT." BATTLE OF TIPPECAXOE. CLAY AND CALIIOUN. PREPARA- 
 TIONS FOR WAR, AND ITS DECLARATION. 
 
 To Mr. Jefferson's administration was due a partial settlement of 
 il long-standing grievance, the existence of which was not 
 altogether creditable to the management of the foreign 
 affairs of the government in its earliest years. American 
 ships had been compelled to submit to spoliation by the corsairs of 
 the Barbary States for twenty years, and from time to time large 
 sums had been paid to redeem the captured crews from slavery. In 
 1787, a treaty was ratified with Morocco, for which Congress paid 
 eighty thousand dollars; in 1790 another was made with Algiers, by 
 which it was agreed to pay forty thousand dollars for the release of 
 thirteen Americans held as slaves in that State, a large amount in 
 cash besides, and an annual tribute of twenty-five thousand dollars as 
 the price of exemption from future aggressions. Delay occurring in 
 the first remittance, still further exaction was submitted to, and a 
 ship of war, costing about a hundred thousand dollars, was sent t,o 
 the Dey, ostensibly as a present to his daughter. Eventually the 
 treaty was made to cost even more than these large sums ; as the 
 tribute was to be paid, when required, in naval stores at stipulated 
 prices, and these were so far below the cost of the stores that the 
 expenditure was often several hundred per cent, above the estimate. 
 
 The humiliation that was submitted to at the hands of these pirates 
 was as remarkable as the consent to purchase their forbearance. The 
 subsidy for 1800 was sent to Algiers in the frigate George Washing- 
 ton, commanded by Captain William Bainbridge. The Dey ordered 
 his own tribute to the Sultan consisting partly of slaves and wild 
 
1801.] 
 
 WAR WITH TRIPOLI. 
 
 155 
 
 animals to be taken on board and carried to Constantinople, and 
 that the American flag should be hauled down and his own hoisted in 
 its place. Bainbridge assented, by advice of the American Consul, 
 but declared that he hoped, should he ever again be sent with trib- 
 ute, he might deliver it from the mouths of his guns. Unless, as 
 has been asserted, he ran up the national flag again after leaving 
 port, the first American ship that ever passed the Dardanelles sailed 
 as the vassal of a vassal. " You pay me tribute," the Dey had said, 
 " by which you become my slaves ! 
 
 The next year (1801) war was declared by Tripoli, because the 
 Dey was dissatisfied with his pecuniary relations with the - a rith 
 United States. It was a war of naval engagements, al- Tr 'i > l1 
 most of duels, and in these battles some of the men who in later 
 
 Tripoli. 
 
 years placed their names highest in the naval annals of their countn-, 
 won their first laurels. Indeed, these operations in the Mediterranean, 
 for the next two or three years, were of importance, not so much for 
 the immediate result for that could have been secured at any time 
 as for the fact that in them and the men who conducted them we 
 find the germ of that navy which in the next war saved the country 
 from the most absolute humiliation, if not from political destruction. 
 And nothing exemplifies so pointedly the extreme partisanship of the 
 times as that Jefferson and his followers who opposed the creation 
 of an efficient navy because the Federalists demanded it would not 
 
156 JEFFERSOX. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 or could not see that just so far forth as America had reason to be 
 jefforcons proud of her miMul achievements in the Mediterranean, just 
 so far she had ijeason to be ashamed of Jefferson's em- 
 phatically Jefferson's naval system at home. By that it was as- 
 sumed to be sufficient for the defence of a continent that a small fleet 
 of gunboats should be kept in dock-yards, carefully housed to protect 
 them from the weather, ready to be floated in case of emergency. 
 
 The first engagement of note was fought in August by Lieutenant 
 Sterrett, in the Enterprise, of twelve guns and ninety men, with a 
 Tripolitan vessel of fourteen guns, off Malta. The enemy had struck 
 after a two hours' fight, and then treacherously discharged another 
 broadside when the Americans had left their guns and were cheer- 
 ing for their victory. The battle began again, and again the Tripo- 
 litans struck, when defeated in their attempt to board the Enterprise. 
 Then ranging under her quarter, they once more resumed the fight, 
 hoisting a bloody flag. Sterrett raked his treacherous enemy from 
 stem to stern, shot away his mizzen-mast, riddled his hull, killed 
 and wounded fifty of his men, and kept up this terrible fire till the 
 captain begged for mei'cy with frantic gestures, and tossed his colors 
 into the sea. He was ordered to throw overboard also all his arms 
 and ammunition, his remaining masts were cut away, his ship was 
 completely dismantled, and then, under a jury-mast and a single sail, 
 he was left to make his way home, with Lieutenant Sterrett's com- 
 pliments to the Dey. Notwithstanding the length of the fight, and 
 the repeated attempts to take the Americans by surprise, they did 
 not lose a single man. 
 
 As a naval power, these semi-barbarians were contemptible ; what 
 Minor en- fighting faculty they had, they exhibited only in hand-to- 
 gagm-iit.s. i, ant i encounters, just as they were formidable as pirates in 
 boarding peaceful merchant ships. Naval engagements were frequent, 
 in which their vessels and crews were destroyed, wholly or in part, 
 without the loss of a man to the Americans. In July, 1802, the frig- 
 ate Constellation, Captain Murray, fought nine gunboats, off Tripoli, 
 and drove five of them ashore, while the others escaped into the har- 
 bor. In June, the next year, a Tripolitan cruiser of twenty-two guns 
 was driven into a bay seven leagues east of Tripoli, where she an- 
 chored with springs on her cables, while nine gunboats were sweep- 
 ing along the shore to her assistance, and a body of cavalry appeared 
 on the beach. The John Adams, Captain Rodgers, and the Enter- 
 prise, Lieutenant Isaac Hull, stood in and gave battle at point-blank 
 range. In three quarters of an hour the enemy's guns were silenced, 
 and her people leaped overboard. The Americans manned their 
 boats to take possession, when a boat-load of Tripolitans returned to 
 
1804.] 
 
 THE MEDITERRANEAN SQUADRON. 
 
 157 
 
 her and reopened fire. The Adams replied, and in a few minutes 
 the Tripolitan's colors came down, then her guns were all discharged 
 at once, and the next instant she blew up with an explosion that 
 tore her hull to fragments. 
 
 In 1803, the squadron in the Mediterranean numbered nine ships, 
 carrying two hundred and fourteen guns. The Philadelphia cap- 
 tured a Moorish cruiser which the Governor of Tangier had author- 
 ized to prey upon American commerce. Commodore Treble entered 
 that harbor with four of his fleet, and demanded an explanation of 
 the Emperor, who disavowed the act of the Governor, and the treaty 
 between the United States and 
 Morocco was renewed. The 
 Philadelphia soon after struck 
 upon a reef in the harbor of 
 Tripoli, when in pursuit of a 
 blockade-runner. In this help- 
 less condition she was attacked 
 by gunboats, and Captain Bain- 
 bridge was compelled to surren- 
 der. She promised to be a val- 
 uable prize to the enemy, when, 
 floated by an unusually high 
 tide, she was hauled off and re- 
 fitted. 
 
 But Bainbridge's misfortune 
 was remedied by the daring act 
 of a young lieutenant, Stephen 
 Decatur. Running into the 
 harbor one night in February, 
 1804, in a small prize vessel 
 which had been named the Intrepid, he made fast, under pretence 
 of being a merchantman and that he had lost his anchors, to the 
 Philadelphia. At a given signal, his men rose from the deck and 
 poured over the frigate's side and through her ports. With a cry of 
 " A merikanos !" the terrified Tripolitans ran below or plunged into 
 the water. In twenty-five minutes, Decatur cleared the decks, car- 
 ried combustibles to every part of the ship, and set fire to them. 
 Regaining his own vessel, he cast off and sailed out to sea -as the 
 flames ran up the rigging, and the heated guns of the burning ship 
 fired her last broadside. 
 
 In July, Preble was off Tripoli with his fleet. On the 3d of Au- 
 gust he entered the harbor, and for two hours bombarded the town 
 from his mortar-boats, while his frigates and schooners attacked the 
 
 Stephen Oecatur. 
 
158 JEFFERSOX. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 batteries. It was intended that the six gunboats should engage the 
 
 enemy's boats at close quarters ; but one of them fell off to 
 
 ment of leeward, another had her lateen yard shot away, and a third 
 
 Tripoli. J J 
 
 obeyed an erroneous signal of recall. The other three 
 closed with the enemy. One of them, commanded by Lieutenant 
 James Decatur, a brother of Stephen, attacked a Tripolitan gun- 
 boat, and fired a volley, when her antagonist struck. As Decatur 
 stepped upon her deck, the Tripolitan commander shot him through 
 the head, the boats drifted apart, and for the time being the enemy 
 escaped. 
 
 Stephen Decatur, in command of another boat, poured a shower 
 of musket-balls into the nearest enemy, and then laying alongside, 
 boarded. His men, dividing into two parties, charged around each 
 side of the open hatchway, bayonetted all who resisted, or who did 
 not leap overboard, and compelled the surrender of the rest. De- 
 catur next turned to the boat where he knew his brother had just 
 met his death. Throwing himself on board with his men, he sin- 
 gled out, after a general fight of twenty minutes, the Captain, who 
 had shot Lieutenant James Decatur. He was a large and powerful 
 man, and defended himself with a pike. As he made a thrust with 
 this, Decatur attempted to cut off the head with a blow of his sword ; 
 Exploits of but the blade struck the iron, and broke at the hilt. The 
 Decatur. next thrust he partially parried with his naked arm, but the 
 point of the pike entered his breast. Tearing this out, he wrenched 
 the staff from the Turk, and grappled with him, and they rolled upon 
 the deck together. While the Turk strove to use his poniard, De- 
 catur held his arm with one hand, and with the other cocked a pistol 
 in his own pocket, and, without drawing it, shot his antagonist. The 
 wound was mortal, and the dying Turk relaxed his grasp. 1 
 
 While this contest was going on, a Tripolitan officer aimed a blow 
 at Decatur from behind ; but a young sailor named Keulien James 
 interposed his arm, according to one version, his head, because 
 both arms had been disabled, and saved the life of his commander 
 at the expense of the arm, which was shorn clean off. Of the eighty 
 men in the two boats captured by Decatur, fifty-two were killed or 
 wounded. 
 
 A similar desperate, personal encounter occurred upon another of 
 the gunboats, commanded by Lieutenant Trippe, who, by the re- 
 bound of his own boat in an attempt to board another, was left on 
 the deck of the enemy, with only ten men. The commanders met 
 
 1 There are various versions of this famous encounter. The one here given, from Mao- 
 kenzie's Life of Decatur, professes to have been obtained from the hero himself by two of 
 his intimate friends. 
 
1804.] 
 
 ASSAULTS UPOX TRIPOLI. 
 
 159 
 
 and fought, Trippe with a pike, his antagonist with a sabre. The 
 American was forced to the deck, covered with wounds ; but muster- 
 ing all the strength that was left him, he succeeded in transfixing 
 the Turk with his pike. At the fall of their Captain, the crew, of 
 
 Decatur and the Turk. 
 
 whom twenty-one were killed or wounded, submitted. The result 
 of the battle was, three of the enemy's boats sunk, and three others 
 captured, with a loss to the Americans of only fourteen killed and 
 wounded. 
 
 Four other assaults were made upon the city in the course of Au- 
 gust and September ; but with little impression, because, as it was 
 afterward ascertained, of the poor quality of the bomb-shells. Ex- 
 
160 JEFFERSON. [CfcAp. VII. 
 
 perience, moreover, had taught the enemy to avoid coming into close 
 quarters with the American gunboats, and to fight at long range. 
 In a cannonade which lasted three hours, Preble lost eighteen men ; 
 and a single hot shot from a battery, exploding the magazine of one 
 of his gunboats, cost him more than would have befallen him in the 
 capture of a half-dozen of the enemy's vessels. Though with her 
 stern under water, her brave crew loaded and fired a last shot from 
 their long gun, and gave three cheers as her decks sank under them. 
 Meanwhile the bomb-ketch Intrepid had been fitted up as an kk in- 
 fernal," and the night of September 4 was selected as the 
 of th.. in- time for sending her into the harbor. Two rooms had been 
 
 trepul. 
 
 planked up in the hold, and filled with a hundred barrels of 
 powder and missiles. On the deck over this were piled a hundred 
 and fifty heavy shells, and a large quantity of shot and fragments of 
 iron. Captain Richard Somers, Lieutenant Henry Wads worth, and 
 eleven men were to take her in among the Tripolitan fleet, fire the 
 combustibles, and escape in two boats. The stars were visible, but 
 a thick haze overspread the water. The Intrepid, accompanied part 
 way by several of the smaller vessels, made for the western entrance 
 of the harbor, said a low farewell to her consorts, and disappeared 
 in the darkness. As she passed out of sight of her friends, she 
 came within view from the enemy's batteries, and they opened fire. 
 One observer, who tracked her with his night-glass, presently saw a 
 light move horizontally along her deck ; then it suddenly dropped 
 out of sight, as if carried down a hatchway, and the next instant 
 there was a tremendous explosion; a great column of fire shot up 
 from the vessel, the mast, with its rigging and canvas ablaze, rose 
 into the air, and bomb-shells were seen flying in every direction. 
 Two days afterward, thirteen mangled bodies, not one of which 
 could be identified, were found some in the hulk and some in 
 the water. Several' of them had been pierced by grape-shot. The 
 cause of the explosion has never been ascertained. The Intrepid 
 was at least a quarter of a mile from her destination when she blew 
 up, and probably did no damage to the enemy. 
 
 On the 10th of November, Preble was superseded by Commodore 
 Samuel Barron, who arrived with the President and the Constellation, 
 making the Mediterranean squadron the largest force the United 
 States had ever assembled at sea, ten vessels, carrying two hundred 
 and sixty-four guns. 
 
 The reigning Bashaw of Tripoli, Jussuf Caramalli, had gained 
 the throne by deposing his elder brother, Hamet, who was now 
 an exile in Egypt. William Eaton, the American Consul at Tunis, 
 sought the deposed prince, and, with the sanction of the Govern- 
 
1805.] PEACE WITH TRIPOLI. 161 
 
 ment, proposed to reinstate him. They got together a small force, 
 
 adventurers from various nations, and early in 1805 A i lian( . e 
 marched upon Derne. Within three miles of the place, with n * met - 
 arms and ammunition were lauded from the fleet, and several vessels 
 took position in the harbor. On the 27th of April fire was opened 
 on the town and batteries. After a bombardment of an hour, which 
 drove the enemy from their guns, the land force, numbering ( ^ 
 about twelve hundred, carried the works by storm, hauled Dorne 
 down the Tripolitan flag, and raised the American flag, the first 
 time it ever floated over a fortification on that side of the Atlantic. 
 The guns were turned upon the town, which, being assailed at the 
 same time from the other side, soon capitulated. The victors lost 
 only fourteen men. 
 
 The reigning Bashaw was now more than willing to make peace, 
 and on the 3d of June a treaty was negotiated bv Tobias 
 
 "' 
 
 Lear, Consul-general at Algiers. All payment of tribute 
 was abolished ; an exchange of prisoners was effected, and for those 
 still remaining in the hands of the Tripolitans a ransom of sixty 
 thousand dollars was agreed upon. Hamet retired to Syracuse, and 
 the Bashaw retained custody of his wife and children, as hostages for 
 his peaceful behavior in the future. Two years later, Hamet. justly 
 thinking that he had not been fairly treated by his powerful ally, 
 addressed a pathetic letter " To their Most Serene Highnesses." 
 meaning the United States Congress. in which he said: "I have 
 lost my family ; I have lost my inheritance ; my acquisitions and my 
 fair prospects are lost also. ... To my own individual sufferings I 
 ought to annex also those of my faithful people, whose attachment 
 
 to me has involved them in the same wretchedness I will not, 
 
 like the world, reproach the representatives of the American nation 
 with ingratitude. I rather implore their commiseration toward me, 
 
 at least so far as to restore me to my family, and to grant me a 
 competence." 
 
 Eaton was as little satisfied as Hamet. That prince, Eaton be- 
 lieved and asserted, had only been used as an instrument by the 
 United States to further their own purposes, to be abandoned, when 
 these were attained, to an unhappy fate. This treachery he ascribed 
 to Lear, the Consul-general, whom he accused at the same time of 
 betraying the best interests of his own government. Tripoli, Eaton 
 asserted, could have been easily taken, and the Bashaw compelled to 
 submit to any terms that the United States had seen fit to dictate. 
 On his return to this country, Congress and the Administration were 
 reluctant to admit the merit of his services, and even the settlement 
 of his accounts was delayed for years. Massachusetts was more grate- 
 
 VOL. IV. 11 
 
162 
 
 JEFFERSON. 
 
 [CHAP. VII. 
 
 ful; her Legislature, "desirous to perpetuate a remembrance of heroic 
 enterprise," presented him with ten thousand acres of land in her 
 province of Maine. 
 
 It was this Eaton who, in the Burr trial, was the most important 
 Eaton and witness. The plan of the proposed Southern expedition had 
 Burr - been confided to him by Burr himself ; and it is not at all 
 
 unlikely that at the outset he was dazzled by an enterprise which 
 seemed to promise so much of brilliant adventure, and offered a 
 temptation to which he was peculiarly open from 
 his African experience. But there seems no good 
 reason for doubting his integrity of purpose when 
 he turned against Burr, and, whether mistakenly 
 or not, denounced him as having aimed, not only 
 at foreign conquest, but at the subversion of 
 the Federal Union. 
 
 The acquisition of Louisiana was by far 
 the most important transaction of 
 Jefferson's administration. But it of u>uisi- 
 was not so regarded at the time, ex- 
 cepting by the settlers west of the Alle- 
 ghanies, who made no loud expressions of 
 their joy, and by those who thought the ac- 
 quisition important because they believed it 
 would prove disastrous. As in the preced- 
 ing administrations, the politics of Europe 
 engaged the chief attention of the people of 
 the Atlantic States, who had not yet learned 
 what was to be the true independence of the 
 nation. Nor had any public man, so far as 
 appears, any sufficient prescience of the 
 power which his country had gained when 
 she secured for every child rights often 
 given to the first born only ; when she pro- 
 vided for general education ; when she put 
 away the temptations and the expense of a 
 standing army, and virtually gave to every man who asked it, a share 
 Powerofthe f tne public domain. It has proved that in those years, 
 new nation, these privileges, and others closely connected with them, 
 were working changes in the state of affairs so great and so rapid 
 that history finds it difficult to record them. But the men in the 
 midst of them had no sense of their grandeur. They were as prone 
 as men always are, to say their country was going to ruin ; and they 
 mistook, as men are apt to do, some failure in their own plans, for a 
 
 The Sugar Plant. 
 
1807.] INCREASE OF POPULATION AND WEALTH. 163 
 
 check in the general prosperity. Least of all, had the country learned 
 the great lesson that the general administration ought not in strict- 
 ness to be called the government of the country. In truth, it was 
 governed not only at Washington, but in a thousand other places. 
 It was governed in its town meetings, or in its State legislatures; 
 in the assemblies which made its ecclesiastical rules, or in the agree- 
 ments which set on foot its emigration. In a thousand ways, under 
 the instinct for local government which has been the salvation of this 
 race since its history began, these people were governing themselves. 
 But the delusion still possessed most of them, as it possessed all the 
 writers for the press, and many of the members of the national Ad- 
 ministration, that they were governed by the President and Congress, 
 as France was governed by Louis XIV. and Louis XV. The move- 
 ments of local government are such as journals did not then record, 
 while the speeches in Congress, and the messages of Presidents, had 
 some chance for being circulated and read. The mistake is easily 
 accounted for which rejects the element of power that is unseen and 
 unheard. 
 
 Meanwhile, the population of the country nearly doubled in twenty 
 years, though there was, as yet, no such large number of Growth of 
 emigrants from Europe as Washington and other far-sighted thecountr J'- 
 men hoped for. At the end of the first ten years of the century, the 
 census showed a population of seven million two hundred and forty 
 thousand. The Abbe* Raynal, in his flattering prophecy of the great- 
 ness of the new nation, then much quoted, had fixed ten million as 
 the maximum number of its people. Wealth was increasing in a pro- 
 portion vastly greater. Reference has been made, in another chapter, 
 to the rapid increase of the cotton crop, resulting from Whit- The cotton 
 ney's invention. From the merely nominal amount of one crop- 
 hundred and eighty-nine thousand pounds exported in 1791, the ex- 
 port rose to sixty-two million pounds in 1811, the year before the war 
 with England, and, so soon as that war was over, to eighty-three mil- 
 lion. That is to say, this single export multiplied one hundred and 
 sixty fold. There was no other important article of commerce in 
 which the increase was so large. But the exports in all articles, 
 which were valued at only eighteen million dollars in 1701, rose in 
 value to one hundred and eight million in 1807 increasing six fold 
 in sixteen years. This increase was not steady. There was flux and 
 reflux, caused chiefly by the wantonness of foreign Avars and the fol- 
 lies of legislation at home. But, in face of all obstacles, and while 
 private fortunes were often wrecked in changes so sudden, the nation 
 was increasing in strength in a proportion larger than those ever 
 dreamed who thought they were its rulers. Of what was visible in 
 

 164 
 
 JEFFERSON. 
 
 [CHAP. VII. 
 
 Jeffprson's 
 creed 
 
 its prosperity, the features most important were its foreign com- 
 merce, and the shipbuilding and fisheries which were tributary to 
 this, the emigration to the West, and the exploration of the wilder- 
 ness. The improvement <>f internal communications, and the devel- 
 opment of manufactures were not, though begun, so obvious till the 
 second decade of the century, though in both directions a beginning 
 was made. 
 
 In this first decade, it was the great good fortune of the country 
 that Jefferson, elected President after a struggle of such 
 bitterness, was committed, in every form of language, to 
 the statement that the people could be intrusted with the manage- 
 
 ment of their affairs. 
 True, it proved on 
 many occasions that 
 Jefferson was not 
 able to resist the 
 temptations which 
 press on all men in 
 authority. He often 
 thought he knew 
 better than the peo- 
 ple he had praised. 
 But in his long an- 
 tagonism with Wash- 
 and Adams, 
 had constantly 
 
 ington 
 
 he 
 
 owned, what was at 
 bottom his political 
 creed, that the less 
 
 Whitney's Cotton Gin (from the Original Model). JlH'll \VCre tTOVenied 
 
 from above the better, and the more they governed themselves, the 
 wiser would the government be. Whenever, therefore, he yielded 
 to temptation, and forced a policy on an unwilling nation, he knew, 
 and all men knew, that he contradicted his own theory, and lie often 
 blundered. His was a character of not uncommon type, which starts 
 in life with lofty principles and purposes, but is ruled by circum- 
 stances, and often led into courses directly opposed to what were 
 once cherished convictions. 
 
 It was a misfortune that he fancied himself a philosopher ; for he 
 was not one, in any real sense of that word. But in his 
 residence in France, he had made acquaintance with those 
 fanciful speculators among the Encyclopedists, who thought that the 
 world was to be at once made over on the plans of an advanced 
 
 and char- 
 acter. 
 
1801.] THE PRESIDENT'S POLICY. 165 
 
 philanthropy. Many of these men in Europe had come to an un- 
 timely end in the horrors of the Revolution. So soon as the young 
 Napoleon took the helm, little indulgence was given to their dreams 
 or fancies. Of the whole circle, Jefferson was the only one who, in 
 a certain irony of destiny, had been promoted to be the chief of a 
 state. He was too steadfast to abandon then the theories which, in a 
 position less distinguished, he had proclaimed. To these fancies the 
 country owed more than one of the absurdities which nearly para- 
 lyzed its energies during the years of his administration. And when 
 he left the seat of the President he had to be satisfied with the poor 
 reflection that, as a friend of peace, he had not made war himself, 
 although he had done everything in the power of one man to drive 
 the country into war under his successor. 
 
 In his inaugural address, with a comprehensive courage which 
 gratified all parties, he accepted as his own the policy of the Fed- 
 eralists ; and, from that moment, for a generation, nothing was re- 
 ally heard from his followers of the demands for State rights, which 
 had been discussed for the last fifteen years, and theoretically main- 
 tained by the Democratic party. For, so soon as it held Thepo ii C y 
 office, following his lead, that party assumed habits of na- ***** 
 tional administration, such as no Federal leader even had ever dared 
 to propose. For the next genei-ation, the armory from which States 
 or men in opposition should draw their sharpest weapons would be 
 the resolutions of State rights framed by Jefferson and his compan- 
 ions in the bitter controversies with Adams. Majorities were to 
 govern now that the Democrats were in the majority. " All , Iig inaugu . 
 will bear ^in mind," he said, " this sacred principle, that raL 
 though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to 
 be rightful, must be reasonable : that the minority possess their equal 
 rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be op- 
 pression." Again he said : " We have called by different names 
 brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans ; we are all 
 Federalists." . ..." I know, indeed, that some honest men fear 
 that a republican government cannot be strong, that this government 
 
 is not strong enough I believe this, on the contrary, the 
 
 strongest government on earth Let us, then, with courage 
 
 and confidence, pursue our own Federal and Republican principles." 
 
 In another part of the address he enumerates these principles. 
 " Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, 
 religious or political ; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with 
 all nations, entangling alliances with none ; the support of the State 
 governments in all their rights, as the most competent administra- 
 tions for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti- 
 
166 JEFFERSON. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 republican tendencies ; the preservation of the general government 
 in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet-anchor of our peace at 
 home and safety abroad ; a jealous care of the right of election by 
 the people, a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by 
 the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided ; 
 absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital prin- 
 ciple of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital prin- 
 ciple and immediate parent of despotism ; a well-disciplined militia, 
 our best reliance in peace, and for the first moments of war, till reg- 
 ulars may relieve them ; the supremacy of the civil over the military 
 authority ; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly 
 burdened ; the honest payment of our debts, and sacred preservation 
 of the public, faith ; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce 
 as its handmaid ; the diffusion of information, and arraignment of 
 all abuses at the bar of the public reason ; freedom of religion ; free- 
 dom of the press ; and freedom of the person, under the protection of 
 the habeas corpus ; and trial by juries impartially selected." 
 
 As Jefferson and his friends interpreted these principles, they meant 
 a strong central government. As the nation grew in wealth and 
 power, that government grew in patronage and consideration. With 
 even- year the laurels and the prizes which any State government 
 could offer to ambitious or to selfish men, became of less importance, 
 in comparison with those the general government had in hand. Year 
 by year the extreme doctrines of State rights, as proclaimed in 1798, 
 were confined more and more to the eloquence of debating societies 
 and public dinners. In practice, the Republican or Democratic party 
 became the national party. Confident of popular support, the Presi- 
 dent and his followers were able to carry forward such measures as 
 they thought the national interests required ; and, for the first twelve 
 years of the century, even while local irritations were strong enough 
 to keep up very bitter partisan animosities, they fortunately never 
 offered any hindrance to the maintenance of a definite national policy 
 abroad, hud the President ever determined on such a policy, 
 nor any check on the development of healthy national sentiment at 
 home. 
 
 In Jefferson's first years, a Federal majority in the Senate to a cer- 
 tain extent restrained the full adoption of such measures as a con- 
 sistent fulfilment of the promises of the canvass would require. The 
 checks of the constitutional system often give such fortunate delay in 
 the work of eager partisans, affording a relief, which a seaman would 
 call lee-way, giving the ship of state sufficient time to change her 
 course. But success had its accustomed fruits. State after State 
 turned out its Federal rulers, and took part with the Republicans. 
 
1801.] 
 
 THE REPUBLIC AX PARTY. 
 
 167 
 
 Side by side with the legitimate political discussions of the people, 
 ecclesiastical discussions of the first interest were going forward, in 
 which the older order of church establishments were giving way to 
 the more popular adjustment of what we now call the " voluntary 
 system." In New England, the clergy who in Massachusetts and 
 Connecticut were settled for life, and, in a fashion, took on them- 
 selves some of the offices of an aristocracy, were threatened by the 
 change which has long since left the appointment and maintenance of 
 the ministry to the order of the congregations. A very large major- 
 
 
 Monticello the Home of Jefferson 
 
 ity of the ministers, as of the lawyers of New England, had allied 
 themselves to the Federal party ; in truth, the ministers and lawyers 
 had led it. The opposers of the system which maintained them, a 
 system clearly in opposition to the general drift of democratic institu- 
 tions, naturally allied themselves to the Republican party. In the 
 newer regions of the country, at the same time, the most enthusiastic 
 followers of the eager preachers of religious I'evivals were found in 
 like alliance with the Republican party. Chilled by the suspicion or 
 antagonism of the more decorous established clergy, they readily op- 
 posed any political scheme which that clergy was supposed to uphold. 
 In one part of the country, therefore, Jefferson's friends had the as- 
 sistance of the increasing body of what were called " Free-thinkers ; " 
 in another part, the ready support of religious enthusiasts. On the 
 other hand, the former leaders of the Federalists were left with no 
 
168 
 
 JEFFERSON. 
 
 ['CHAP. VII. 
 
 Settlement 
 of the West. 
 
 spell to conjure with. They could only appeal to the cultivated and 
 thoughtful men with whom politics was a science, not an amusement 
 or a game, men who knew that in the long run government would 
 succeed or would perish as it adhered to or abandoned certain great 
 fundamental principles. Jefferson permitted himself to be governed 
 by these principles when it suited his purpose, and, when it did not, 
 was quite ready to set them at defiance to defeat his opponents on 
 detailed questions of administration, which were often settled before 
 the discussion of them could well be brought before the popular tri- 
 bunals. Communication was difficult between different parts of the 
 country; the seat of government itself was an outpost in a wilder- 
 ness ; and the diffusion of popular information by a vigilant press was 
 in its infancy, as we speak of it to-dav, it was wholly unknown. 
 
 / * / * / 
 
 The rapid increase of the settlements west of the Alleghanies had 
 already shown itself in the results of the census of 1800. 
 That part of the Northwest Territory which we now know 
 as Ohio, was admitted into the Union as a State soon after Jeffer- 
 son's accession to 
 office. Its people 
 adopted a Constitu- 
 tion by a convention 
 which met at Chilli- 
 cothe in November, 
 1802. In admitting 
 the new State, Con- 
 gress adopted some 
 principles which 
 have become prec- 
 edents of the very 
 first importance. 
 In a wise determi- 
 nation to encourage 
 settlement, the new 
 State Constitution 
 provided, by an or- 
 dinance which could 
 not be repealed, 
 that for four years after any settler purchased land of the United 
 States, no local taxes should l>e laid upon it. Congress met this lib- 
 Lands given ^rality of the new-born State by a gift more than princely 
 for schools j n i{.g mun if; C ence, which has been made a precedent in all 
 subsequent legislation. The law granted to the State one township 
 in each section of the survey for the establishment of its schools. 
 
 Courthouse at Chlllicothe, O., 1801 From an old picture. 
 
1807.] 
 
 THE FIRST STEAMBOAT. 
 
 169 
 
 . 
 
 That is to say, one thirty-sixth part of the public domain has been 
 Consecrated since that time to the purposes of public education. A 
 grant so munificent, under a policy so large, has given to what are 
 still called the. "new States" in America, opportunities for a system of 
 public education unequalled in the world. In some instances, where 
 statesmen of prudence have been able to administer this fund from 
 the beginning, such a system of public education has been attained. 
 
 With the acquisition of Louisiana and the consequent free right of 
 navigating the Mississippi, the States in the valley of that river at- 
 tained every advantage which the boldest of their leaders dared to 
 ask. The increase of emigration into territories of such match- 
 less fertility and luxuriant beauty was proportionate. Not one of 
 those leaders, how- 
 ever, dared to fore- 
 cast the great in- 
 vention of the 
 steamboat, w h i c h 
 was necessary to 
 give to their terri- 
 tory its full value. 
 The experiments of 
 John Fitch in driv- 
 ing barges by steam 
 had been tried on 
 the Delaware, 
 where there was 
 really no local trade 
 sufficient to give much interest to his enterprise. In an early vol- 
 ume of the k * American Philosophical Transactions," Mr. Latrobe, 
 the engineer of most reputation in the country, expresses his regret 
 that American inventors waste so much time in futile ef- 
 forts to drive boats by steam, instead of turning their at- 
 tention to the improvement of the steam-engine for its work on land. 
 As early as 1804, the year after the United States had acquired Lou- 
 isiana, the American Robert Fulton was urging upon Napoleon, in 
 Paris, his own plans for the steamboat. But the experimental vessel 
 was too slightly built ; the boiler and engine, too heavy for it, broke 
 through and sank to the bottom of the Seine, and the discouraged 
 inventor was dismissed in disgrace. The first successful experiment 
 was to be made in this country. In the summer of 1807, a boat called 
 the Clernwnt made the trip from New York to Albany in thirty-two 
 hours, and back again in thirty. This was at the rate of about five 
 miles an hour ; and, although the experiment was ridiculed as im- 
 
 Fulton's First Steamboat. 
 
 Steamboats. 
 
170 JEFFERSON. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 practicable before it was made, and useless afterwards, it was, never- 
 theless, so conclusive from the start, that the speed attained on the 
 first trip was nearly half as great as that at which many ferry-boats 
 are run in the harbor of New York, more than seventy years later. 
 ' The morning I left New York," wrote Fulton, " there were not, 
 perhaps, thirty persons in the city who believed the boat would ever 
 move one mile an hour." It was not until 1812 that a steamboat 
 navigated the waters of the Ohio. 1 
 
 Long before this time, however, Jefferson, in the spirit of scientific 
 Lewis and research, which gives dignity to every period of his life, 
 
 had commissioned two officers of the army Meriwether 
 Lewis and William Clarke to explore the waters of the Missouri 
 River, cross the mountain range, and descend to the Pacific. This 
 commission they successfully fulfilled in 1804 and the two following 
 years. With a large party, they embarked on a considerable flo- 
 tilla of boats, and stemmed the rapid current of the Missouri for 
 twenty-six hundred miles. Leaving their flotilla there with a garri- 
 son, they crossed the mountains with the remainder of the party, 
 mounted on horses Avhich they hud captured, and were thus the 
 discoverers of the two streams still known as the Lewis and Clarke 
 Rivers. They followed these rivers to their junction in Columbia 
 River, which they then traced to the sea. This great river had 
 already been discovered by Robert Gray, of Salem, Massachusetts, 
 commander of the ship Columbia Rediviva, in May, 1792. On these 
 two discoveries first of the mouth of the river, and then of its 
 course rested, in part, the claim of the United States for its terri- 
 tories west of the Rocky Mountains. 2 In this journey, the party of 
 explorers met many Indian tribes who had never before seen white 
 men, some who, it was supposed, had never heard of white men. 
 It was the first journey ever made to the Pacific by the whites, north 
 of the line of Mexico. 3 
 
 The rapid development of the Western country was really the 
 
 feature of most importance in the history of the nation in 
 mento P f the the first decade of the century. But the great law held, 
 
 under which men do not at the moment fully estimate the 
 force of the deeper currents on which they are borne. Some of the 
 
 1 This vessel was the Orleans, built by Fulton and Livingston, at Pittsburg. She had a 
 stern-wheel and masts, and this seems to have been the first successful experiment with the 
 stern-wheel. 
 
 2 It eventually acquired by the Treaty of Florida nil the claims of Spain to that region. 
 8 The first, through northern Mexico, was that of Cabeea de Vaca, already described, 
 
 vol. i., p. 156. By absurd errors, the biographical dictionaries often say that the same jour- 
 ney was accomplished by Carver in 1767, and by Chateaubriand in 1791. These errors 
 are due to the ignorance of writers iu Europe on points of American geography. 
 
1805.] 
 
 FOREIGN COMMERCE. 
 
 171 
 
 most thoughtful men in the country deprecated the Western emigra- 
 tion. They thought it would reduce the Atlantic States to insignifi- 
 cance, and endanger the permanence of the Union. 
 
 In the immense development of the physical wealth of the nation, 
 the large increase of its foreign commerce attracted atten- Foreipll 
 tion more general. The rapid increase of exports, which commer< 
 has been alluded to, was due not only to the increase of domestic 
 
 Gate of the Mountains, on the Upper Missouri. 
 
 productions, but to the commercial necessities of the world, while the 
 European wars lasted. Allusion has already been made to the great 
 carrying trade which the European war almost forced upon the 
 fortunate American merchants. For such an article as sugar, for in- 
 stance, such countries as Holland, Italy, and France were largely 
 dependent on importations in American vessels. To a considerable 
 extent, the course of trade brought sugar from the West Indies to 
 ports in the United States, in accordance with the rule enforced 
 by England, in regard to neutrals, whence it was shipped again to 
 

 172 JEFFERSON. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 Europe. Of this single article, not then produced largely in Louisi- 
 ana, 1 the export from the United States in the three years 1805, 1806, 
 1807, exceeded four hundred million pounds. The export of coffee 
 from the United States was only less valuable, the amount being 
 one hundred and thirty million pounds. Although drawbacks were 
 allowed at the custom-houses on the principal foreign articles thus 
 exported, on foreign imports reexported which had no drawbacks the 
 treasury received four million dollars in those years. This single 
 item of revenue, wholly paid by foreign consumers, was nearly equal 
 to one quarter of all the expenditures of the national administration 
 in the same time. 
 
 It would also happen in the course of trade, that an American ves- 
 sel in a foreign port would find a profitable voyage to some other 
 port, without returning home. Freedom from danger of capture was, 
 of course, an immense premium in favor of the charter of such ves- 
 sels. Once in the foreign trade, or the "carrying trade," as it 
 came to be called, an American vessel might not return to the 
 United States for many years. From a stimulus so remarkable, ship- 
 building and maritime commerce increased in a ratio larger than that 
 of the population, while the national prosperity was in every way 
 quickened by such enlargement of the means for obtaining wealth. 
 The earliest statistics are of the years when the Constitution went 
 into operation, and even then the maritime activity of the new na- 
 tion was considerable. From that time, in seventeen years ending 
 with 1810, the increase of tonnage owned by citizens of the United 
 States was nearly threefold. The amount increased from four hun- 
 dred and eighty-nine thousand tons to one million three hundred 
 and ninety thousand. It will be observed that while the population 
 of the country doubled in twenty-two years, the tonnage, the best 
 index of its maritime success, was almost trebled in seventeen. It 
 was observed with pride that, in commercial rivalry with Great 
 Britain, the new nation already almost equalled the old in her ship- 
 ping on the seas. 2 
 
 It was a matter of course that a trade so lucrative, which fell into 
 the hands of the American merchants merely from the folly that 
 kept the European sovereigns and states in constant war, should be 
 looked on with jealousy by all nations. The great law insisted on 
 
 1 In 1810, the production of Louisiana was about ten million pounds. The production 
 of maple sugar in the Northern States was nine and a half million pounds. 
 
 2 In 1807, the tonnage of American vessels engaged in foreign trade, which entered the 
 ports of the United Stntes, was one million one hundred thousand tons. That of Great 
 Britain, which entered her ports, was one million five hundred thousand tons. In eacli 
 case the repented voyages were counted. But no estimate appeared of the large American 
 commerce which did not return in the year to American ports. 
 
1805.] COMMERCE AND ITS DIFFICULTIES. 173 
 
 by Catherine and the other neutral powers in the war of the Revolu- 
 tion, that neutral ships should make neutral goods, was hardly yet 
 accepted as a part of the international code of the world. Even had 
 it been accepted, its interpretation in practice was not left to jurists, 
 but to the commanders of cruisers eager to make prizes, and often 
 indifferent to the questions of national or personal privilege involved 
 in the particular case in hand. In many instances, indeed, the seiz- 
 ure of a merchantman, followed by a reference to a prize court of the 
 questions regarding her voyage, was in itself an injury hardly less 
 than her confiscation. Her cargo might be perishable, or its value 
 might depend on the rapidity of her voyage. 
 
 For such reasons, and a hundred others, it happened, with every 
 day of this lucrative commerce of the Americans, that some 
 indignity was committed by some commander of a blockad- ofthecan-y- 
 ing cruiser, which was fairly accounted an insult to the flag 
 of the new nation, and involved serious loss to those engaged in the 
 carrying trade. In such indignities and insults, as well as in the en- 
 forcement of real blockades, every belligerent nation that had a gun 
 afloat participated. But of course it happened that England was the 
 greatest offender, because her navy was the largest; and eventually, as 
 the victories of Nelson and others of her admirals captured or swept 
 out of existence the war-ships of other nations, she became indeed 
 the monarch of the seas. In her relations with the United States, 
 there were also other causes of antagonism. The older officers and 
 seamen remembered the time, not distant, when the two nations were 
 at war. The very trade which was so lucrative to America was trade 
 that had been carried on by English ships in days of peace. A mat- 
 ter that proved very difficult of adjustment, and a constant cause 
 of ill-feeling, was the identity of the language, not to say the habits, 
 of the sailors of the two nations. In the impressment of seamen, 
 already alluded to, officers who were seeking deserters from the King's 
 service felt at liberty to overhaul American vessels, and look for such 
 deserters there. The indignity of a search was, of course, in itself, 
 exasperating to a proud people. And when, as sometimes happened, 
 seamen who declared they were born in America, were taken from 
 American vessels, the outrage touched the national heart most sen- 
 sitively. 1 
 
 1 So indiscriminate were English officers in these outrages, that it sometimes happened 
 that black men were seized as English seamen. At that time, the public opinion of the 
 world was such that few statesmen troubled themselves much about the rights of negroes. 
 But, iu another generation, when it proved convenient in the United States to argue that 
 free negroes hud never been citizens, it was remembered that the cabinets of Jefferson and 
 Madison, in their diplomatic discussions with Great Britain, had been willing to argue that 
 the impressment of a free negro was the seizure of an American citizen. 
 
174 JEFFERSON. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 Difficult of settlement as these various questions were, the fact 
 should not be lost sight of that their discussion was governed by 
 recognized principles of international law at that time, and the tre- 
 mendous strain to which England was subjected by her wars with 
 Napoleon and his rapid progress in the subjugation of all Europe. 
 The natural right of the subject to change his national allegiance 
 was not then acknowledged, and once an Englishman always an 
 Englishman, was held to be a legal axiom. That England, how- 
 ever, was not disposed to push this to extremity, cannot be doubted 
 in the light of the diplomatic correspondence of the time. She was 
 not only willing, but anxious, that the question of the assumed right 
 of impressment, and the assumption of sovereignty over her citizens 
 who had repudiated their allegiance, should be reconciled, if possible, 
 to the American demand of the inviolability of the American flag. 
 In 1806, Monroe and William Pinkney concluded a treaty with Great 
 Britain which, had it been ratified, would have essentially changed 
 the relations of the two powers, and would, perhaps, have prevented 
 a recourse to war and the calamitous measures which preceded it. 
 In transmitting the treaty to the President, the ministers wrote on 
 the subject of impressment: " That, although this Government did 
 not feel itself at liberty to relinquish, formally, by treaty, its claim to 
 search our merchant vessels for British seamen, its practice would, 
 nevertheless, be essentially if not completely abandoned. That opin- 
 ion has been since confirmed by frequent conferences on the subject 
 with the British commissioners, who have repeatedly assured us that, 
 in their judgment, we were made as sure against the exercise of their 
 pretension by the policy which their Government had adopted in re- 
 gard to that very delicate and important question, as we could have 
 been made by treaty/' But a treaty with England would have 
 placed America in an inimical, if not hostile, attitude toward France, 
 and it was Jefferson's policy, so far as he had any, that this should 
 not be done. He quietly, therefore, put the treaty into a pigeon-hole 
 and said nothing about it to the United States Senate. 
 
 All these restrictions on American commerce, vexatious enough be- 
 fore, culminated in the proclamations, which were so fruit- 
 in'coul.ciT, ful a source of controversy and disaster, known in history 
 n d 8n'i I Mi- as the " decrees of Berlin and Milan " and the " Orders in 
 Council." By the Berlin and Milan decrees, Napoleon, in 
 the pride of his power, declared the English islands to be in a state 
 of blockade, and claimed the right to seize all vessels trading with 
 England or her dependencies. 1 To the Berlin Decree the English 
 
 1 The date of the Berlin Decree is November 20, 1806 ; that of the Milan Decree, Decem- 
 ber 17, 1807. The Orders in Council were dated November 11, 1807. 
 
1807.] THE NAVY. 175 
 
 Government replied by the King's " Orders in Council," prohibiting 
 all commerce with those ports of the Continent of Europe which 
 were under the dominion of France or her allies. This meant, in 
 substance, all Europe except Russia. By these decrees, American 
 merchant ships were subject to seizure wherever they might be. If 
 a naval commander of England suspected that a merchantman which 
 he overhauled was on her way to a European port, ho captured the 
 vessel and sent her into an English port for trial. Or, if a French 
 cruiser overhauled a merchantman, and suspected she was going to an 
 English harbor, he arrested the voyage and sent her to France. 
 Against these paper blockades the United States, now the chief neu- 
 tral power, protested, as Russia and the neutral states had success- 
 fully protested in the war of independence. In its diplomacy, the 
 United States maintained the position which is now accepted as fun- 
 damental in the public law of the world, that the blockade of a port 
 must be maintained by a competent force upon the spot. 
 
 Unfortunately, the United States was in no position to give dig- 
 nity to its diplomacy by a naval force of its own. The ad- ,. OIKli , ionof 
 ministration of Adams had made the beginning of a navy. tht>n!iv - v - 
 and the Navy Department w;is separated from the Department of 
 War as early as 1708. But one of the charges of extravagance made 
 against the Federalists was connected with their building a few frig- 
 ates, and preparing to build a few more. So soon as Jefferson's ad- 
 ministration came in, the timber in the dock-yards was sold, with a 
 certain affectation of economy. Thus it happened, that at a time \vhen 
 a proud government would have been glad to convoy its fleets of 
 merchantmen with a protection competent against insolent cruisers, 
 the Government of the United States, though the proudest of all, had 
 almost no vessels of war for such a purpose. This Government was 
 obliged, therefore, to see the carrying trade, which was really so prof- 
 itable to all parties, bullied almost out of existence, and could only 
 make its protests in well-argued ami bitter despatches. 
 
 Jefferson had more than parsimonious reasons for avoiding the 
 building of a fleet. One of the theories on which he most valued 
 himself involved the idea that war was unnecessary. He supposed, 
 and he taught, that nations could be conquered by letting them alone. 
 Like other patriots who remembered the beginning of the Revolution, 
 he supposed, falsely in fact, that the non-intercourse acts of the colo- 
 nies had largely affected public opinion in England. All Americans 
 thought too largely of the place of their country in the councils of the 
 world. The Virginians had more of this conceit than other Ameri- 
 cans ; and, of all Virginians, whether as an individual or as an 
 American, Jefferson was the most conceited. His philanthropy, his 
 
176 
 
 JEFFERSON. 
 
 [CHAP. VII. 
 
 The pun- 
 * st. m. 
 
 American pride, and this profound self-conceit, all united in direct- 
 ing a series of measures by which he hoped to gain the advantages of 
 war without its disasters. In place of a navy fit to go to sea, 
 ] ie p r0 p OStH ] ? an j Congress adopted, that system of gunboats 
 for harbor defence already mentioned. Each vessel was to carry one 
 heavy gun. Two hundred and fifty were to be built in ten years. 
 They were to be kept under sheds in time of peace, and in war to be 
 manned by the seamen or militia of the town attacked. No fortifica- 
 tions were to be required for harbors, which were to be protected by 
 
 Taking Deserters from the Chesapeake. 
 
 cannon on wheels, kept in readiness to be dragged from place to place 
 when needed. 
 
 At the moment when the annoyances to merchants reached their 
 
 height from the proclamation of the Berlin Decree, the in- 
 
 the chesa- suits offered bv English naval officers to the American marine 
 
 peake. " 
 
 culminated. Berkeley, the English Admiral on the North 
 American station, issued an order to his captains (June 1, 1807), re- 
 
1807.] AFFAIR OF THE CHESAPEAKE. 177 
 
 quiring them, in case they met the United States frigate Chesapeake 
 at sea, to search her for some deserters from the English navy who 
 were on board. The men's names' were given, and it was said to be 
 matter of notoriety that they were on board the Chesapeake. As the 
 result of this order, when the Chesapeake, after six months of prepara- 
 tion, went to sea from Norfolk, Virginia, whence she was ordered to 
 the Mediterranean, the English ship Leopard accompanied her from 
 that port. As soon as both vessels were well at sea, the captain of 
 the Leopard hailed the Chesapeake, asking leave to send despatches 
 on board. James Barron, commander of the Chesapeake, not having 
 the slightest suspicion of violence, received the boat. It brought to 
 him Admiral Berkeley's letter and a demand for the deserters, which 
 demand, after half an hour's reflection, he refused. So soon as his 
 note was received on the Leopard, her commander hailed; and, say- 
 ing that Admiral Berkeley's orders must be complied with, fired sev- 
 eral broadsides into the Chesapeake. Such was the encumbered con- 
 dition of the American vessel, which had gone to sea without any 
 expectation of war, that her officers were not able to fire a gun. No 
 match could be found, even, when guns were loaded. At last Barron 
 struck his flag, at which moment one gun on the American ship 
 was fired by a hot coal from the galley. Several English officers then 
 boarded the ship, mustered her crew, and carried off four deserters. 
 That they were deserters, there was no doubt ; but they said they 
 had been impressed from American ships. Three of them were black 
 men, whose nation was the United States. Two of them were born 
 in Maryland, and one had been brought up in Massachusetts, though 
 born in South America. 
 
 An outrage like this, inflicted not by accident or the brutality of a 
 separate commander, naturally excited the whole nation to the utmost. 
 Jefferson interdicted American harbors and waters to all vessels of the 
 English navy, and forbade intercourse with them. He sent a vessel 
 of war with a special minister to London to demand satisfaction. On 
 the other hand, the English Admiral hanged the deserter and dis- 
 missed the three black men with a reprimand, blaming them for dis- 
 turbing the peace of two nations. So soon as his account of the affair 
 reached England, George Canning, as foreign secretary, disallowed it, 
 and offered reparation, recalling Berkeley from his command. But at 
 the same time a royal proclamation was issued, directing commanders 
 to make a " demand " for all English seamen serving on foreign ships 
 of war, and, in case of refusal, to report such refusal. That the out- 
 rage did not end in immediate war, was due partly to Canning's con- 
 cessions, and partly to the fact that the Americans had no navy to 
 fight with. After the attack on the Chesapeake, the English fleet 
 
 VOL. IV. 12 
 
178 
 
 JEFFERSOX. 
 
 [CHAP. VII. 
 
 anchored outside the capes of James River, brought to every vessel 
 by firing, and even threatened to cut out the French frigate Sybil, 
 which lay in Norfolk harbor. The whole transaction was one of the 
 incidents most efficient in producing the situation that led to war. 
 
 In the midst of such irritation Congress met in the autumn of 
 The 1807. The Milan Decree had not yet arrived in America ; 
 
 embargo. j^j. g() soon as t ne Orders in Council were made certain, the 
 President sent to Congress a message pointing out the results of the 
 Berlin Decree, and other papers that showed the "dangers with 
 which our vessels, our seamen, and our merchandise are threatened 
 on the high seas and elsewhere from the belligerent powers of Eu- 
 rope." Jefferson asked Congress for an " inhibition of the departure 
 
 of our vessels f rom the ports 
 of the United States," on 
 the ground that it was de- 
 sirable to keep in safety 
 our maritime resources. 
 Congress immediately 
 passed the act proposed, 
 after short debate in secret 
 session, by a strong party 
 vote, nearly two to one 
 in the House of Represen- 
 tatives. It prohibited the 
 departure from American 
 ports of all American ves- 
 sels, and of all foreign ves- 
 sels except those in ballast. 
 No merchandise whatever 
 was to be exported. The 
 act, therefore, was not, in 
 fact, merely a law for sav- 
 ing American ships from 
 danger, as the message suggested ; it was a measure of aggression 
 against England. It was a measure unpopular, of course, in pro- 
 portion as men were or were not engaged in commerce. The men 
 of New England and New York, whose ships and seamen were ex- 
 posed, did not thank the philanthropy that kept them in port. But 
 the planters and farmers of the South and West were pleased with 
 the thought that they Avere making war against England without 
 firing a gun or taxing themselves a dollar. The maritime States 
 thought the agricultural States took a special satisfaction in a quasi 
 war, of which all the burden fell at first upon commerce. 
 
 James Madison. 
 

 1808.] THE EMBARGO. 179 
 
 But it proved, of course, as a wiser political economy knows, that 
 the burden at length became universal. True, the foreign 
 
 , . . . , Its effect. 
 
 powers, at whom this pacific war was aimed, were hardly 
 aware of its pressure. It furnished one of the stimulants much 
 needed for the manufacture of beet sugar in France ; l England cared 
 little for the loss of American products, which she could easily 
 supply from other places ; and in the immense convulsions of Eu- 
 ropean politics, it commanded little notice. At home the men whose 
 tobacco and cotton and corn could not be sent to market, soon 
 learned that they also, as well as the carriers of those products, were 
 paying a heavy tax by this interdiction of commerce. In the sea- 
 board cities it was said, without a metaphor, that grass was growing 
 in the streets and on the piers. What followed at once, to Jefferson's 
 undying mortification, was rebellion from their allegiance to him of 
 his partisans in the maritime States, and the disloyalty of many of 
 those most relied upon in other quarters. A presidential election 
 came on at this crisis. With the customary Virginian conceit, two 
 Virginians, Madison and Monroe, offered themselves as candidates. 
 To New York, Jefferson had owed his election, and George Clinton, 
 of New York, appeared as a Republican candidate against the Vir- 
 ginians. Jefferson determined that Madison should succeed him. 
 The election showed, however, that the Democratic party was every- 
 where losing the triumphant majority which had returned Jefferson 
 for a second time, and in his last message to Congress he wrote with 
 the knowledge that his favorite policy of war without fighting had 
 not been approved by the country. The message stated briefly the 
 failure abroad of that " candid and liberal experiment," to end the 
 embargo by a proposition to Great Britain and France that they 
 should first recall their orders and decrees against neutral com- 
 merce, and left to the " wisdom of Congress " a decision as to its con- 
 tinuance. Congress took the matter immediately in hand, and, in 
 entire subservience to the President, passed -resolutions for enfor- 
 cing the act, by majorities even stronger than those by which it was 
 passed. 
 
 This enforcing act proved the last straw on the patience of the 
 maritime States. The vehemence of the protest of their towns 
 showed itself in every form, not always pacific. The partisan ma- 
 jority vote, which was as strong as eighty-four to thirty on the 7th of 
 
 1 An American epigram of the time is worth preserving. 
 
 "I've a substitute found," says Boney: " No more 
 
 Of yonr sugar will I taste the sweet." 
 " Very well," says John Bull, " while I hold the cane, 
 
 You 're welcome, indeed, to get beet." 
 
180 MADISON. [UAP. VII. 
 
 December, 1808, vanished under the pressure of public opinion, and 
 so sudden was the change that on the 2d of February the 
 embargo was repealed. The Administration tried to stem 
 the torrent so far as to fix the 1st of June as the day for reopening 
 commerce, but its followers followed no longer, and on the 3d of Feb- 
 ruary the 1st of March was agreed upon. This curious and imme- 
 diate change of opinion was ascribed by Jefferson to a kind of panic 
 among the New England and New York members. Joseph Story, 
 afterwards Judge Story, had come on as a new member of Congress, 
 and to his influence in the House Jefferson imputed the revolution. 
 Jefferson left office with the mortification of seeing his favorite scheme 
 of peaceful war abandoned, and with the additional mortification of 
 seeing Congress reject the policy and plan of Madison, whom he had 
 named as his successor. 
 
 In the accession of Madison, the country had the advantage of 
 President choosing a magistrate who, if not endowed with genius, had 
 Madisou. gt jji t ] )e temperate or judicial habit which a great statesman 
 or legislator needs. The duties of the Executive, however, as many 
 nations have learned to their cost, are not simply those of a legislator 
 or of a constitution-maker. For an executive office, experience in 
 action seems necessary, and of this, Madison's careful training at the 
 bar and in diplomacy had given him little. There are, therefore, ele- 
 ments of pathos almost dramatic in his life. In the first half of it 
 he was overshadowed by his great leader, Jefferson. After work of 
 the first ability in making the Constitution and securing its adoption, 
 lie was forced for twenty years to work in public life as the subordi- 
 nate of one who was absent in Europe when the Constitution was 
 made, and who was always proud to say that he was not responsible 
 for its details. At last, Madison was emancipated from such control. 
 His master condescended to name him as his successor, and bade 
 his junior, Monroe, wait his turn. 
 
 But at this moment a new generation was stepping upon the 
 stage ; the counsels and plans of that older generation, to which 
 Madison belonged, were now to be pushed by as old-fashioned. And, 
 through his administration, Madison, who had served so patiently un- 
 der his master of the generation that was gone, was obliged to serve 
 for eight years more under the young masters of the generation that 
 was to come. Decrees of destiny, less bitter, have been chosen sub- 
 jects with tragic poets. For this is not the world's accustomed les- 
 son, in which a weak man is moulded by circumstances. This is the 
 picture of a strong man, who seems fitted for better things, but who 
 cannot avoid what the Greeks would have called his destiny. 
 
 The new President had been Secretary of State under the late ad- 
 
tlon- 
 
 1809.] MADTSOX'S ACCESSION. 
 
 ministration. But he and his friends found themselves powerless to 
 direct the panic-stricken Congress, which went out of power at the 
 same time with Jeffei-son. The best that could be done was, to ac- 
 company the repeal of the embargo by a provision which forbade 
 imports from Europe. This partial continuance of the non-inter- 
 course system diminished, of course, the joy with which the maritime 
 towns received the news of their victory. 
 
 From this policy of non-intercourse, and from the other difficulties 
 which, in a state of war, hindered importations from Eu- Effect of the 
 rope, was unexpectedly born that gigantic system under WMI; 
 which the United States has become a great manufacturing icy - 
 nation. An interesting symbol of the new industry is observed in 
 the fact that the new President, at his inauguration, was dressed in a 
 suit of cloth of American manufacture, which had been presented by 
 Chancellor Livingston for this use. Early in May, Madison met his 
 new Congress. The Democratic majority in name was diminished ; 
 but that deceptive good fortune, which had always seemed 
 to wait on him through life, did not yet fail him. Concilia- 
 tory despatches came from Canning. The younger Erskine, 
 a gentleman of honor and liberal views, came over as English Minister. 
 From a real and sensible hope for accommodation on both sides, such 
 arrangements were made that restrictions on English commerce were 
 removed. The maritime States were rejoiced. Again " men were all 
 Federalists, and all Republicans." A fleet of more than a thousand 
 merchantmen rushed across the ocean to take advantage of the con- 
 ciliation. Everything seemed to become new. 
 
 But all parties reckoned without their host. So soon as this news 
 arrived in England, the Tory Ministry of the Duke of Portland re- 
 jected Erskine's treaty. He had exceeded his authority, and Madi- 
 son was accused of having persuaded him to do so in the hope that 
 the ministry would take the course they did. Mr. Jackson, known 
 as "Copenhagen Jackson," was sent out as Erskine's successor 
 an appointment not agreeable in America, and probably not meant 
 to be. The Government finally refused to deal with him, and when 
 Congress met, at the close of 1809, it sustained the refusal. Madi- 
 son's friends now brought forward an American Navigation Act. 
 It excluded all French and English vessels from American harbors. 
 It placed its restrictions on the Europeans, and not on the Ameri- 
 cans. But to this bill the Senate could not be made to agree. The 
 President could not control his own party. Commerce was thus 
 finally left to take care of itself. Meanwhile the revenue from cus- 
 toms was diminishing. Seventeen millions of surplus with which 
 the Administration had proudly gone into the embargo policy, was 
 
182 
 
 MADISOX. 
 
 [CHAI-. VII. 
 
 dentami 
 
 absorbed. The English Government appointed no successor to Mr. 
 Jackson. Everything drifted, in the relations between America and 
 England, as might have been expected, when the Cabinet of one 
 country disavowed the acts of its own Minister, and the President 
 of the other could not direct the policy of Congress. That Congress 
 went out of service amid the general contempt which attaches to 
 bodies that have done nothing. 
 
 At about the same time it happened that the American frigate 
 President had a collision at sea with the English sloop-of- 
 war Little Belt. Following the presumptuous example of 
 the Leopard, the Little Belt had thrown a shot into the 
 President, which she answered by a series of broadsides that badly 
 crippled her assailant. There was also a little war-cloud on the fron- 
 
 tier. The Indian chief Tecum- 
 seh and his brother "the Proph- 
 et " had been for some time en- 
 deavoring to induce the western 
 tribes to abstain from whiskey 
 and return to the customs and 
 weapons of their ancestors, 
 with no better success than at- 
 tended the similar efforts of 
 Pontiac, half a century before, 
 when they found a grievance 
 in the treaty made in 1809 by 
 William Henry Harrison, Gov- 
 ernor of the Indiana Territory, 
 with several of these tribes. 
 For presents to the value of 
 eight thousand dollars, and stip- 
 ulated annuities, a tract on the 
 Wabash, above Terre Haute, 
 was ceded to the Government. 
 
 Tecumseh held that all the lands belonged to all the tribes, and none 
 could be sold without the consent of all. Harrison invited the war- 
 rior and his brother to a friendly conference, which just escaped 
 ending in a massacre. Depredations on the frontier suggested the 
 propriety of a post on the upper waters of the Wabash, and in 1811 
 Harrison, with two thousand men, ascended that stream and estab- 
 lished one at Terre Haute. An attempt to open friendly communi- 
 cations with the Prophet was repelled, and Harrison then 
 marc i ie( j a g a j ns t his town, encamping within ten miles of it, 
 en the Tippecanoe. Before daybreak, on the morning of November 
 
 W7, >,- 
 
 William Henry Harrson. 
 
1811.] 
 
 CLAY AND CALIIOUN. 
 
 183 
 
 7, the savages burst upon his camp with a terrific whoop. The sol- 
 diers put out their camp-fires, and stood their ground manfully in 
 the darkness, while the Indians tried in vain to break the square in 
 which they were formed. At sunrise the mounted men made a 
 gallant charge, and the enemy withdrew, carrying off their wounded. 
 The next day, Harrison found the Prophet's town deserted, and 
 burned it. 
 
 Everything in the foreign relations tended to irritation ; and the 
 elections of 1811 showed the determination of the country to adopt a 
 national policy, if anybody were wise enough to say what that policy 
 should be. The President, in his message, proposed an " armor and 
 attitude corresponding with the national spirit." If this had meant 
 preparations for defence, the assertion of the right to trade any- 
 
 Battle-field of Tippecanoe. 
 
 where, of any American to go where he pleased with arms in his 
 hands to protect himself and his commerce, the country to a man 
 would have rallied at his call. But already, with the first two years 
 of his administration, the control of affairs had passed from his 
 hands. A party had come into power who meant to have war, but 
 with England only. It was, moreover, a Southern, sectional party, 
 ambitious of power, and believing that the surest way to attain to 
 it was to " stand by their order " as slaveholders, against the intel- 
 ligence and the free labor of the North. The leaders of this party 
 who have since been best remembered, were Henry Clay, of Ken- 
 
184 MADISON'. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 tucky, and John Caldwell Callioun, of South Carolina. These two 
 ciay and men, afterward such bitter rivals, stood together in the out- 
 set as the most eager advocates of war. By an error, which 
 they long regretted, these young Hotspurs, as they have since been 
 called, and the men who followed them, distrusted the power at sea 
 of the young nation. Vainly did the New England speakers plead 
 for a fleet, if it were only of thirty frigates. The West and the 
 South would not trust New England, even when she offered to fight 
 for them. Their plans were made for invading Canada, by the en- 
 largement of the regular army and the help of the militia. A new 
 embargo was ordered. New regiments were added to the army. The 
 President was authorized to call out a hundred thousand militia, to 
 Preparation invade Canada for the protection of sailors' rights and free 
 for war. trade at sea. Still Madison wavered. He still hoped for 
 peace. But a committee, headed by Clay, waited upon him, and 
 told him that if he did not declare for war, he should not be re-nom- 
 inated as the candidate for the Presidency. 1 Both Monroe and Clin- 
 ton were quite willing to accept the nomination as war candidates. 
 The threat was sufficient ; the President yielded, and war against 
 England was declared on the 18th of June, 1812. 
 
 1 It was denied that any such bargain was made, but there can be no doubt that such 
 was the understanding enforced by Clay's committee. 
 
 
 F . V .. - -4, 
 
 "^ ''. V'-SSSHK* '.'/ '^ 
 
 - a 
 
 The Tomb of Washington. 
 

 
 Detroit in I8i5- 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 MESSAGE AND REPORT ON WAK WITH ENGLAND. DIVISION OF PARTIES ox THE WAR. 
 KIOT IN BALTIMORE. HULL'S SURRENDER OF THE NORTHWEST. FIRST CAM- 
 PAIGN ON THE NIAGARA. NAVAL BATTLES OF THE FIRST YEAR. WAR ox THB 
 LAKES. DESTRUCTION OF YORK. PERRY'S VICTORY. HARRISON'S INVASION OF 
 CANADA. TERRITORY OF MICHIGAN RECOVERED. WILKINSON'S DISASTERS ON 
 THB ST. LAWRENCE. SECOND CAMPAIGN ON THE NIAGARA. INDIAN WAR IN 
 THE SOUTH, JACKSON'S CAMPAIGN. NAVAL BATTLES OF THE SECOND YEAR. 
 
 THE confidential message of President Madison on the 1st of June, 
 and the report thereon of the House Committee on Foreign Thedec iani- 
 Relations, through its chairman, Mr. Calhoun, set forth at tiouofwar - 
 length the reasons for a declaration of war against England, with great 
 force and distinctness. The modern reader of those documents, how- 
 ever, will look in vain in either of them for any evidence of unself- 
 ish patriotism, or of the grasp of the statesman ; but he will be 
 amazed at the boldness of the political partisan. There had been 
 reasons enough, for more than fifteen years, for going to war with 
 more than one nation, provided war was the only way in which the 
 United States could protect her rights and her interests. In the 
 mighty struggle of the great powers of Europe, the little power in 
 America had been in danger of being crushed out of existence. It 
 
186 WAR WITH ENGLAND. fCiiAP. VIII. 
 
 was certainly true that the upper and the nether millstones of that 
 terrible mill ground hard, but it was no less true that they ground 
 alike ; and the victim of their weight had persisted in the most fatu- 
 ous way in remaining under their pressure, and, while groaning at 
 its cruelty, had declared with obstinate persistence that it was only 
 the upper stone that hurt. Whatever justification there was for war, 
 applied equally to France and to England ; whether the party trained 
 by Jefferson who so loved the doctrines and the action of the 
 French Revolutionists meant or did not mean to aid France at 
 first, and then Napoleon, every step they took was in favor of France ; 
 but whether war was justifiable for any reason, with any power, it 
 was plainly evident that Jefferson's naval policy of gunboats under 
 sheds, and a system of movable fortification by cannon on wheels 
 had put the nation in a condition as unfit for war as if the discipline 
 and doctrine of the Society of Friends had been adopted as an amend- 
 ment to the Constitution. 
 
 The decree, however, had gone forth, and the war of a faction, 
 which was the price of Madison's nomination for reelection, was to 
 be declared. Mr. Madison in his message and Mr. Calhoun in his 
 report, when both papers were stripped of specious argument, really 
 presented the determination of a war with England as a^ party meas- 
 ure. The President acknowledged that the very outrages which 
 called for that war " have been practised on our vessels and our citi- 
 zens," and that quite recently, by France ; but he added, " I abstain, 
 at this time, from recommending to the consideration of Congress 
 defensive measures with respect to that nation," because there might 
 be further negotiation : implying that the possibility of negotiation 
 with England was closed ; though if it were, it had only become so by 
 Jefferson's contemptuous rejection of the Monroe-Pinckney treaty. 
 And Mr. Calhoun in his report, with equal obliviousness to the force 
 of his acknowledgment, said " The committee do not hesitate to 
 declare that France has equally injured the United States, and that 
 satisfactory reparation has not been made for many of these injuries. 
 But that is a concern which the United States will look to and settle 
 for themselves : " by which he meant, if he meant anything, that 
 the United States would not be dictated to by Great Britain as to 
 her policy toward France ; forgetting, or not choosing to remember, 
 that in their policy towards Great Britain they had submitted to the 
 dictation of France. 
 
 Congress sat with closed .doors to consider the confidential message, 
 opposition But even the Democrats were not of one mind. There were 
 to the war. peace-democrats then, as in later years and more perilous 
 times there were " war-democrats." In a full house the Democratic 
 
1812.] OPPOSITION TO THE WAR. 187 
 
 majority was seventy ; the bill for the declaration of war was carried 
 by a majority of thirty only. In the Senate the vote was seventeen to 
 thirteen, six Democrats voting with the minority to the end, and even 
 then, Senator Bayard said, it would not have been carried but for a 
 difference of opinion in the Senate on other proposed measures. A 
 protest against the war, in the form of an address to their constituents, 
 was drawn up by Josiah Quincy, of Massachusetts, and signed by 
 thirty-eight members of the House. They complained of the tyranny 
 of the majority in passing in secret session a bill of so much import- 
 ance, without permitting it to be debated ; they denounced the war 
 as a pretext to give aid to Napoleon against England ; they showed 
 how unprepared the nation was, without either army or navy, to begin 
 a contest with the strongest nation in the world ; and they warned 
 their countrymen of the madness of that party policy which disre- 
 garded the danger of the dissolution of the Union, when the gov- 
 ernment was still "in no small degree experimental, composed of 
 powerful and independent sovereignties associated in relations, some 
 of which are critical as well as novel." 
 
 Intense opposition to the war, which showed itself in mass-meetings, 
 in pulpits, in newspapers, and in pamphlets, was met, on the other 
 hand, by support not less earnest. The first blood was drawn, not in 
 military movements, but in domestic violence, and, as in a later and 
 greater war, in the streets of Baltimore. In the night of Riotin Bai- 
 June 22d a mob sacked the office of the " Federal Repub- timore - 
 lican," edited by Alexander Hanson, and extended the outrage to 
 dwellings of Federalists and vessels in the harbor. A month later 
 the paper was reissued, and Hanson, aided by numerous friends, was 
 prepared to defend his property. Again the office was attacked, but 
 the defenders fired upon the mob, killing one and wounding others. 
 The militia, tardily called out, arrested, not the rioters, but Hanson 
 and his party, and lodged them in jail, where they were again at- 
 tacked by the mob, who killed General Lingan in the most cruel and 
 cowardly manner, lamed General Henry Lee for life, and assaulted 
 others. The ringleaders were tried and acquitted. 
 
 The regular army numbered six thousand men, but the enlistment 
 of twenty-five thousand had been authorized, and now by an- 
 other act the President was empowered to accept fifty thou- 
 sand volunteers and call out a hundred thousand militiamen. Henry 
 Dearborn, of Massachusetts, was appointed to the chief command. 
 
 General William Hull, the Governor of Michigan, was appointed 
 commander in the west, and was ordered to be in readiness Th< . OTH , uing 
 to invade Canada in the event of war. He seems to have moTeinent - 
 understood clearly enough the preparations and resources needed to 
 
188 WAR WITH ENGLAND. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 give to such a project any promise of success ; but, unfortunately for 
 himself, accepted his appointment without waiting for the assurance 
 of the Government that his counsel should be heeded and his necessi- 
 ties provided for. He marched from Ohio with about two thousand 
 men, chiefly militia, more uncontrollable and insubordinate, even, 
 than troops of that class usually are. When the declaration of war 
 readied him ho crossed the Detroit River, a few miles below Detroit, 
 with the avowed purpose of taking Fort Maiden, and issued a procla- 
 mation assuring the inhabitants of protection, but declaring that no 
 quarter would be given to those who should be found fighting in 
 company with the Indians. Had the Government taken the precau- 
 tion to advise him of the declaration of war a few days earlier, and 
 before the news of it could have reached Canada, Hull's first step 
 might have had a different issue. But for the want of such advices 
 the first step was the enemy's, not his ; the fort at Michilimackinac 
 was taken by surprise and compelled to surrender, and that first suc- 
 cess decided the hesitating Indian tribes to join their large force to 
 that side which promised to be the stronger. It was the fear of these 
 savages that a few days later so influenced Hull and brought about 
 the disastrous opening of the war. 
 
 A detachment sent out under Major Thomas B. Van Home to 
 
 guard a supply train was defeated by an overwhelming 
 
 force of English and Indians at Brownstown. But another, 
 
 under Lieutenant-colonel James Miller, sent to open communication 
 
 with the base of supplies at Raisin River, found an ambuscade at 
 
 Maguaga, and after a gallant fight of two hours routed the enemy, 
 
 who took to their boats. Nearly a hundred Indians lay dead on the 
 
 field, and the English lost about fifty men. 
 
 Captain Nathan Heald, in command of Fort Dearborn, where 
 Battle of Chicago now stands, was ordered by Hull to abandon it and 
 Chicago. j j n n j m a j. D e t ro it. Heald promised the friendly Indians 
 the property in the fort which he could not take away ; but in the 
 night he destroyed the fire-arms, gunpowder, and liquor, the arti- 
 cles they most wanted. On the morning of August 15th he set out, 
 with fifty soldiers, accompanied by several families. As they moved 
 down the shore of the lake they were suddenly attacked by a large 
 band of Indians posted on a low range of sand-hills at a point now 
 within the city limits. A battle ensued, in which the women fought 
 as bravely as the men. After heavy losses, including a wagon-load of 
 twelve children, who were all tomahawked by one Indian, the sur- 
 vivors surrendered, and of these all the wounded were scalped. 1 
 
 On the 16th, General Isaac Brock crossed Detroit River with over 
 
 1 The British Colonel Proctor, at Maiden, had offered a premium for American scalps. 
 
1812.] 
 
 HULL'S SURRENDER OF THE NORTHWEST. 
 
 189 
 
 two thousand regulars and Indians, and demanded the surrender of 
 that city, to which Hull had retreated. Hull, who had .q urreil derof 
 about eight hundred and fifty men, half his force having Detrolt - 
 been detached on distant expeditions, made admirable arrangements 
 for a stubborn defence ; but at the moment when the conflict was 
 expected to begin he hung out a white flag, and surrendered. 
 
 Brock, in demanding surrender, had declared he could not restrain 
 his allies, the Indians, from rapine and murder in case the place 
 should be carried by assault. Hull did not believe he could depend 
 upon the militia for any serious, much less for any desperate, fighting, 
 and he knew that the officers had en- 
 
 Battle of Chicago. 
 
 tered into a conspiracy for his 
 deposition from command. 
 This mutual lack of confi- 
 dence gave small promise of 
 successful defence, and, if unsuccessful, he dreaded the fate that 
 might await the women and children of the town, among whom 
 were a daughter of his own and her children. In this stern conflict 
 between the sense of soldierly duty and the feelings of a humane 
 man and a father, the soldier yielded. Whether right or wrong, the 
 act of the soldier could not be forgiven, and the popular clamor de- 
 manded a victim for the loss, not only of Detroit, but of the whole 
 Northwest territory, ami the failure to invade Canada. Hull was 
 tried by court-martial, and condemned to be shot. Though his crime 
 was compared, in the heated temper of the time, to Arnold's treason, 
 he was nevertheless pardoned by Madison, in consideration of his past 
 
190 AVAR WITH ENGLAND. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 services. 1 The President could hardly do less than grant his life to 
 a man left in so terrible a position by the neglect of the Government ; 
 their own fault was acknowledged in permitting the Secretary of War, 
 Eustis, to resign his office. 
 
 The second attempt to invade Canada, more disastrous than Hull's 
 surrender, for more men were killed or wounded than 
 
 Bnttlc of IT 11 1 1 I i i -VT- 
 
 Querns- [lull had in Ins entire command, was made on the Niag- 
 ara frontier. General Stephen Van Rensselaer, in command 
 there, resolved to capture the heights of Queenstown, and on the 
 morning of October 13th sent two small columns across the river. 
 Several of the boats lost their way ; others succeeded in landing, under 
 a fire from the vigilant enemy. The regulars, under Captain John 
 E. Wool, charged up the hill, and took position on the plateau. Here 
 the enemy attacked him, but after sharp fighting were diiven back. 
 The whole American force then retreated to the beach, where Wool 
 was reen forced and ordered to scale the heights, which WHS imme- 
 diately done, and a battery at the top of the slope was captured. 
 General Brock, who had ridden at full speed from Fort George, or- 
 ganized a force to retake the battery, and, after some fighting, the 
 Americans were driven to the very edge of the precipice. At tins 
 critical juncture, Wool, by exhortation and example, inspired his men 
 with courage for a charge so furious that the British broke and fled 
 down the slope. Brock led a fresh attack, in which he fell mortally 
 wounded. Three other officers, on whom the command successively 
 fell, were all either killed or desperately wounded, and the attempt 
 was abandoned. 
 
 Lieutenant-colonel Winfield Scott now crossed the river with a 
 small reenforcement, and assumed command on the heights. He ex- 
 pected to be followed by the militia ; but the militia fell back upon 
 their privilege, and stubbornly refused to be taken out of the State. 
 While Scott was preparing the position for defence, he was attacked 
 by a heavy force of British and savages. Twice he repelled them 
 with the bayonet; but a fresh column approaching, the Americans 
 were driven to retreat. Scrambling over the edge of the bank, they 
 let themselves down from ledge to ledge and bush to bush, till they 
 reached the water. But the boats were not there to receive them, 
 and they were compelled to surrender. The entire American loss in 
 this action was about one thousand. 
 
 The British navy at this time comprised more than a thousand ves- 
 
 1 He had served through the Revolution with (lisliuction. Much of the obloquy which 
 lias been heaped IIJMJII him is probably due 10 Lewis Cass, who hastened to Washington 
 with the first news, :ind gave it a coloring larsrelv supplied by his imagination. Cass's 
 letters, written before aud after the surrender, flatly contradict each other as to the state 
 of affairs at Detroit. 
 
1812.] 
 
 NAVAL AFFAIRS. 
 
 191 
 
 sels, manned by one hundred and forty-four thousand sailors. The 
 United States had twenty large war vessels and a few gun- 
 boats, together carrying about three hundred guns. The 
 war party, faithful to Jefferson's naval policy, and confident of the 
 subjection of Great 
 Britain by the easy 
 conquest of Canada, 
 rejected with scorn 
 all suggestions of 
 naval warfare. But 
 in spite of this, and 
 in spite of the ad- 
 vice of his cabinet, 
 Madison yielded to 
 the solicitations and 
 earnest arguments 
 of Captains Bain- 
 bridge and Stewart, 
 and consented that 
 the navy, small as 
 it was, should not 
 be allowed to re- 
 main idle. 
 
 Within one hour 
 after he was notified 
 of the declaration of 
 war, Commodore 
 John Rodgers put to 
 sea in the President, 
 remembered for 
 her encounter with 
 the Little Belt in 
 1811, and on the 
 morning of June 
 23d gave chase to 
 the frigate Belvi- 
 dere, which escaped, with the loss of seven men. The President lost 
 twenty-two, sixteen by the bursting of a gun. Rodgers 
 continued his cruise across the Atlantic, captured an Eng- uMiMfi- 
 li.sh privateer and seven merchantmen, and re-took an Amer- 
 ican prize. At the same time, an English squadron captured, off Xew 
 York, several merchantmen and the brig-of-war Nautilnx. 
 
 The Essex, Captain David Porter, sailed from New York soon after 
 
 Map of 
 NIAGARA RIVER 
 
 MILES 
 
 3 4 
 
 Map of Niagara River. 
 
 
 
192 WAR WITH ENGLAND. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 the President, captured several prizes, and, on the 13th of August, 
 fought the Alert, which struck her colors in eight minutes. Only a 
 week later, the frigate Constitution, Captain Isaac Hull, 
 tinu'anu fought the British frigate Guerriere. After rapid broad- 
 side firing and skilful manoeuvring at close range, the ships 
 grappled, and both parties attempted to board ; but the sea was so 
 rough and the musketry fire so deadly that this was found to be im- 
 possible. The Constitution freed herself from her antagonist and 
 shot ahead, just as the Guerrieres mainmast and foremast came 
 down. Her mizzen mast had already gone by the board, and, as the 
 Constitution was in a position to rake her fore and aft, she struck. 
 The Americans had lost fourteen men, the British seventy-nine. 1 
 The next morning it was found necessary to blow up the Guerriere, 
 as she was in danger of sinking. The admiration and enthusiasm 
 of the Americans at the result of this battle were only equalled by 
 the astonishment and anger of the English. It was true that the 
 American vessel was slightly superior in men and metal, but the 
 essential difference between the two ships was in seamanship and 
 gun-practice. The fact remained that frigate had met frigate in a 
 contest for which both were ready and willing, and in half an hour 
 the one with all the prestige in her favor was reduced to a helpless 
 wreck, while the other, whose defeat would have been confidently 
 predicted, lost less than one fifth as many men as her antagonist, and 
 only returned to port to dispose of her prisoners. When Captain 
 Hull landed in Boston, the whole population turned out to welcome 
 him ; the streets were gay with bunting, triumphal arches were 
 erected, and he and his officers were entertained at a public din- 
 ner. New York and Philadelphia paid him like honors; Congress 
 voted him a gold medal, and his crew fifty thousand dollars. 
 
 In October the sloop-of-war Waxp, Captain Jacob Jones, fought 
 wasp and the brig Frolic. The firing was at close range, and the 
 Frolic. spars of the Wasp were soon shot away, while the Frolic 
 was hulled at every discharge. When the vessels grappled, and the 
 Americans sprang upon the deck of their antagonist, they found only 
 the man at the wheel and two or three officers, who at once surren- 
 dered. The loss of the Frolic was frightful ; fewer than twenty of 
 the crew were unhurt. The Wasp had lost only ten men. But be- 
 fore night the British man-of-war Poictiers captured both vessels. 
 
 A week later (October 2oth) Commodore Stephen Deca- 
 tur, cruising in the frigate United States, after capturing 
 a packet with a large amount of specie, fell in with and en- 
 
 1 The American!} had placed sights upon large gun*, which the English, as yet, had not 
 adopted. Hence the greater accuracy of the American firing. 
 
 
1812.] NAVAL VICTORIES. 193 
 
 gaged the frigate Macedonian. The fight lasted two hours, when the 
 enemy struck. She had lost one hundred and four meh ; Decatur 
 but twelve. The prize reached New York on New Year's Day, and 
 Decatur met another such reception as had been given to Hull. 
 
 It was Bainbridge's turn next. He sailed from Boston, in the 
 frigate Constitution, in October ; but it was December be- Congti tution 
 fore he fell in with the British frigate Java, off the coast and Jaya - 
 of South America. After two hours of alternate firing and manoeu- 
 vring, the Java struck. She was a complete wreck, every spar hav- 
 ing been shot away, and she lost a hundred and twenty men, her cap- 
 tain being among the mortally wounded. The Constitution lost 
 thirty-four men only. The wounded were transferred to the Ameri- 
 can ship, and the Java was blown up. This action gave the Consti- 
 tution the title of " Old Ironsides," 1 and Bainbridge was received 
 on his return as enthusiastically as his brother captains had been. 
 
 Thus in the first six months of the war, that had brought only 
 defeat to the land forces of the Americans, their little navy, which 
 the Administration had proposed to lay up, which had no friends but 
 the party out of power, for which Congress had done nothing, and of 
 which nothing was expected, had six encounters with the enemy, and 
 in every one came off victorious. England was astounded at the suc- 
 cessful dispute of her supremacy on the sea, and her naval histories 
 abound with ingenious excuses to explain away what their authors 
 want the manliness to acknowledge. 
 
 Besides these victories, nearly three hundred British merchantmen 
 had been captured and brought into American ports. The prisoners 
 numbered over three thousand. In this service the navy had been 
 largely aided by privateers, which not only seized merchantmen, but 
 sometimes fought with armed cruisers. If the joy of the war-party 
 at these brilliant achievements was tempered by their mortification 
 at the repeated defeats on land, that of the opposition party was 
 unalloyed at successes obtained where, they had maintained, if war 
 was justifiable at all, the provocation for it had been given. 
 
 Early in the winter of 1812 a new army, of about ten thousand, 
 enlisted almost entirely from the Western States, was put ^ Me of 
 under command of General William Henry Harrison, whose Frenchtown - 
 military reputation had been gained by his victory at Tippecanoe. 
 His immediate object was to concentrate the militia of the Western 
 States for an expedition against Detroit and Maiden, for the recovery 
 of the territory lost by Hull's surrender. An advance detachment, 
 occupying Frenchtown (now Monroe, Michigan), was, on January 
 
 1 English journals, in ridiculing the American navy, had described this vessel as " a 
 bunch of pine boards under a bit of striped bunting." 
 VOL. iv. 13 
 
WAR WITH ENGLAND. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 2'2, 1813, attacked by fifteen hundred British and savages, under 
 Colonel Henry Proctor. The Americans were partially sheltered be- 
 hind the " puncheon " fences that inclosed the village gardens, but 
 the enemy had the advantage of six pieces of artillery. The Amer- 
 ican right wing was soon broken, and General Winchester became a 
 prisoner. The left was more stubborn, and inflicted heavy loss upon 
 the English. Of sixteen men in charge of one howitzer, thirteen 
 were killed by the Kentucky sharpshooters. Proctor, seeing little 
 opportunity of success, so wrought upon the fears of his prisoner by 
 threats of wholesale slaughter that Winchester sent word to Colonel 
 Madison, his successor in command, to surrender, which Madison did, 
 under Proctor's solemn promise of protection against the Indians. 
 The pledge was broken, and, although the fact has been disputed on 
 English authority, the evidence is beyond question that the British 
 commander left the wounded to the mercy of his savage allies, who 
 not only killed all the prisoners, but subjected them in many in- 
 stances to cruel torture. " The Indians are excellent surgeons," said 
 a half-breed chief, named Elliot, who was in Proctor's army, when 
 an appeal was made, before the massacre, that surgical aid be sent to 
 the wounded Americans. 
 
 In consequence of this disaster Harrison built Fort Meigs, at 
 siege of Fort the rapids of the Maumee, on the right bank. Proctor laid 
 siege to this work in April, with his usual threat of mas- 
 sacre in case of resistance. Harrison sent back a defiant reply, and 
 hurried forward reinforcements, under General Green Clay. Clay's 
 detachment came down the river in two bodies, one on either bank. 
 Those on the left carried the batteries gallantly, and spiked the 
 guns, but were drawn into a fight in the woods with the Indians, and 
 were finally dispersed or captured. Those on the right fought their 
 way through to the fort, and at the same time a strong sallying party 
 carried and spiked the enemy's lower battery. With his means of 
 offence so crippled, and the fort made stronger by the reinforcement, 
 Proctor was compelled to raise the siege. 
 
 Three months later, Proctor and Tecumseh, with five thousand 
 English and savages, attacked Fort Stephenson, on the San- 
 Fort' dusky, where Fremont now stands. The garrison, com- 
 manded by Major George Croghan, numbered but one hun- 
 dred and sixty men, and had but a single gun. To the summons to 
 surrender and threat of massacre. Croghan replied that when the 
 fort should be taken there would be none left to be killed. After a 
 long bombardment from gunboats and field artillery, the British ad- 
 vanced to the attack on two sides simultaneously. Croghan had 
 placed his single gun where it would enfilade the north ditch, loaded 
 
1813.J 
 
 OPERATIONS ON THE LAKES. 
 
 195 
 
 it to the muzzle, and masked it. The attacking party leapt into the 
 ditch, led by a lieutenant, who shouted, " Show the damned Yankees 
 no quarter ! The next moment the discharge of the gun swept 
 down nearly every man, including the lieutenant, who at once raised 
 his handkerchief on the point of his sword to ask for quarter. An- 
 other column entered the ditch and met the same fate ; and the re- 
 mainder of the storming party retreated in confusion before a sharp 
 fire of musketry. A single volley repelled the attack on the other 
 side. The battle was ended, and Proctor retired at night. 
 
 Neither belligerent could suffer the other to attain supremacy on 
 the lakes, if it could be prevented, for on that must depend largely the 
 successful invasion or defence of Canada. Had Hull's advice been 
 
 Battle of Fort Stephenson. 
 
 listened to in season on this point, his disgrace and the loss of his 
 army might have been avoided ; but measures to remedy the blunder 
 were not long delayed. Neither energy nor money was spared on 
 either side to occupy the lakes with formidable fleets by the spring of 
 1813, and on these all movements by land were to depend. Isaac 
 Chauncey was the American commodore and Sir James Yeo the 
 British admiral. 
 
 Late in April, 1813, Commodore Chauncey's fleet carried General 
 Dearborn and fifteen hundred men from Saekett's Harbor, and landed 
 them two miles west of York (now Toronto), at the other end of 
 the lake, which was then the capital of Upper Canada. Ostensibly 
 
196 WAR WITH ENGLAND. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 tliis was the first movement of a new campaign for the invasion of 
 Canada ; in reality it was an expedition for the capture of 
 <i"smi<-tiou a large ship then building at York, the possession of which 
 Chauncey thought would give him command of the lakes. 
 It was the plan of the Secretary of War, Armstrong, to open the 
 campaign by an attack upon Kingston, the headquarters of both the 
 armv and navy of the enemy, where even partial success would have 
 been a telling blow, and complete success would have secured the 
 command of the St. Lawrence. Excepting that some stores were cap- 
 tured, - to be lost again before the month was over, the expedi- 
 tion against York was not merely a mistake as the first step of inva- 
 sion, but a waste of time, by which nothing was gained. The ship 
 which Chauncey coveted had sailed before his fleet arrived there. 
 
 When the landing was made, under the protection of a schooner 
 commanded by Captain Elliot, the body of English and Indians 
 under General Sheaffe, who had disputed it, fell back behind fortifi- 
 cations near the town, closely followed by the Americans, led by 
 General Zebulon M. Pike. Here a halt was called to wait for the 
 artillery to come up and aid in the assault, when suddenly a maga- 
 zine near the works, containing a hundred barrels of powder, ex- 
 ploded, killing or wounding two hundred of Pike's men he himself 
 among the fatally injured and a few also of the enemy. 1 The 
 check, however, was only for the moment, as the Americans quickly 
 rallied, and pressed forward into the town. After holding the place 
 four days, they fired the government buildings and departed. 2 
 
 With the spoils of York, Chauncey returned to Sackett's Harbor, 
 on his way, however, landing Dearborn and his force near the mouth 
 capture of ^ Niagara River. At -this point they remained nearly a 
 FO ueorge. mon th awaiting Chauiicey's return with an additional force, 
 when Fort George was taken. 
 
 While this was going on at the west end of the lake, Yeo, with 
 General Prevost, at the east end was on his way to Sackett's Har- 
 bor, which Dearborn left almost defenceless. When Colonel Electus 
 Backus, in command of the post, heard of Yeo's approach he sent for 
 General Jacob Brown, a militia officer of the neighborhood, who in 
 a few hours gathered the militia from the surrounding country, to be 
 
 1 It has been affirmed and denied that the magazine was fired by the defenders. Except 
 as a question of accuracy, there is no reason why, according to the usual English method 
 of conducting war, there should be any denial. 
 
 2 It is a disputed cjuestion whether this was done under orders. A human scalp was 
 found hanging as a trophy on the wnll of the legislative chamber; and it has been sug- 
 gested that the sight of this ghastly reminder of a merciless warfare prompted the destruc- 
 tion of the buildings. The scalp, together with the Speaker's mace and a British stand 
 ard, was sent to Washington, where the English soldiers found them when they in turn 
 destroyed the American Capitol a year later. 
 
1813.] 
 
 OPERATIONS ON THE LAKES. 
 
 197 
 
 added to the small force of regulars and volunteers. A body of In- 
 dians was put ashore in the night from the British vessels to attack 
 the Americans in the roar, and on the morning of the 29th 
 
 Sackotfs 
 
 a landing and advance was made in front under fire. The Harbor 
 
 Utacked. 
 
 militia broke and fled at once ; but the regulars and volun- 
 teers, with a few pieces of artillery, stood till pressed back by sheer 
 weight of numbers, when they took refuge in the log barracks. As 
 the English advanced, General Brown, who had rallied a few of the 
 militia, made a feint of marching for the boats ; and General Prevost, 
 fearing that his escape would be cut off, ordered a retreat. It was 
 made in great disorder, two hundred and sixty dead and wounded 
 being left behind. The loss on the other side was hardly less severe; 
 both the colonels, Mills and Backus, were killed, and a hundred and 
 
 Sackett s Harbor, 1814. 
 
 thirty others either killed or wounded ; the stores, worth half a mil- 
 lion dollars, were destroyed, set on fire by a frightened lieutenant. 
 
 As Dearborn did not land in person till the day after the fall of 
 Fort George, General Vincent, its commander, had ample time to 
 put himself in a defensive position at Burlington Bay. Ba ttk>of 
 Here he was overtaken by two brigades sent in pursuit un- ston y Creek - 
 der General Chandler. The Americans took a strong position on the 
 eastern bank of Stony Creek where it crosses the great highway that 
 skirts the lake shore, and posting a guard at a little chapel a quar- 
 ter of a mile in advance, one regiment encamped in the meadows 
 on the west bank of the creek, but withdrew after night-fall to the 
 heights above, leaving their camp-fires burning. This final move- 
 ment Vincent had not observed, and he believed, therefore, that he 
 
WAR WITH ENGLAND. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 could surprise and destroy the camp by a stealthy attack at night. 
 At midnight his men advanced without firing, and dispatched the 
 guard at the chapel. When the deserted camp-ground was readied, 
 they rushed upon it with a shout, expecting to arouse the bewildered 
 soldiers from their sleep to become an easy prey. But they came 
 only upon the deserted camp-fires, and as they halted in their waning 
 light they suddenly found themselves a target for artillery and mus- 
 ketry from along the whole American line. But they soon rallied 
 and pressed on, broke over the intrenchments, captured several guns, 
 and became intermingled with their foes. A few shots iu the rear 
 alarmed General Chandler, who faced about a portion of his line to 
 meet an expected attack from that quarter, and the confusion was 
 hopelessly confounded. In the darkness and tumult. Generals Chand- 
 ler and Winder became prisoners ; and as the British retreated bear- 
 ing them off, they left behind their own commander, General Vin- 
 cent, who lost his way in the woods and was found next day in a 
 pitiful plight. The Americans returned to Fort George, Colonel 
 Burn, on whom the command devolved, hesitating, unfortunately, to 
 follow the advantage whicli his troops had manifestly gained. 
 
 One more mishap remained to finish the campaign for that season 
 on the Niagara frontier. Colonel Charles Boerstler was sent at the 
 head of his regiment of six hundred men to take a British post seven- 
 teen miles distant from Fort George, commanded by Colonel Bishopp. 
 When about to attack the stone house in which Bishopp was in- 
 trenched. Boerstler's force was suddenly surrounded by a body of In- 
 dians and English, and compelled to surrender. Three weeks after- 
 ward Bishopp made a similar attempt on the American post at 
 Black Rock, on the Niagara River, but was intercepted, as he was 
 about to retire with his booty, by a small force from Buffalo, and he 
 and many of his men were killed. On the 15th of July Dearborn re- 
 tired, by permission of the Secretary of War, and the army under 
 General Boyd remained shut up in Fort George, constantly threat- 
 ened by General Vincent till late in October. 
 
 But, inglorious as the summer's work was on the shores of Lake 
 Ontario, Lake Erie was the scene of an exploit as brilliant as it was 
 decisive. Early in June a squadron at Presq' Isle (now Erie) was 
 placed under command of Captain Oliver Hazard Perry. By August 
 he was afloat with ten vessels, carrying fifty-five guns, and went in 
 search of the British squadron of six vessels, armed with sixty-five 
 guns and commanded by Captain Barclay. 
 
 On the 10th of September, while at anchor in Put-in Bay, the 
 enemy was seen approaching, and Perry made ready for battle. The 
 British line was drawn up with a small vessel in advance, and the 
 
1813.] 
 
 PERRY'S VICTORY. 
 
 199 
 
 
 rie 
 
 flag-ship Detroit next. Perry placed two of his small vessels in a 
 
 similar position, the flag-ship Lawrence following. The 
 
 American line was somewhat straggling, and several of the 
 
 enemy concentrated their fire on the Lawrence. They used 
 
 long guns, and before the flag-ship could get near enough for effective 
 
 fire she suffered terribly. In two hours she was reduced to a wreck, 
 
 and dropped out of the action, and Perry, taking a boat, made his 
 
 way amid a shower of balls to the Niagara. By great effort his line 
 
 was closed up and brought to 
 
 close quarters, and the fortune 
 
 of the day presently turned. In 
 
 attempting to form a new line 
 
 of battle, the British squadron 
 
 was thrown into some confu- 
 
 sion, and the Niagara, favored 
 
 by a sudden breeze, sailed 
 
 through it, delivering broad- 
 
 sides right and left ; then luff- 
 
 ing across their bows, she raked 
 
 two or three of them, while the 
 
 small vessels came up and 
 
 poured in grape and canister. 
 
 Twenty minutes of this work 
 
 / 
 
 decided the contest, and the 
 
 whole British fleet surrendered. 
 
 Perry announced his victory in 
 
 a despatch to General Harri- 
 
 son which has become famous: " We have met the enemy, and they 
 
 are ours ; two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop."' 
 
 Harrison, meanwhile, had prepared to invade Canada at the west, 
 by collecting his forces on the peninsula near Sandusky. A mounted 
 regiment, commanded by Colonel Richard M. Johnson, was sent to 
 Detroit by land ; the remainder, transported by Perry's fleet, were 
 landed on the Canada shore of Detroit River. As these advanced on 
 Maiden, the English General, Proctor, sot fire to that place, and re- 
 treated rapidly, intending to make his way to the Niagara. Johnson's 
 regiment having rejoined him, Harrison started in pursuit, Perry 
 carrying his baggage and supplies through Lake St. Clair and fifteen 
 miles up the Thames. Sixty of Proctor's Indians deserted him in a 
 body, and offered themselves to Harrison, who declined their serv- 
 ices. 1 On the 5th of October Proctor faced his pursuers, and re- 
 
 1 Not solely because they were Indians , for two hundred friendly red iiifii accompanied 
 HarrboB. 
 
 Commodore 0. M Perry. 
 

 200 
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 solved to give battle at a point about forty miles up the Thames, 
 near Moravian Town. 
 
 The road from Detroit here skirted the river on the right or north- 
 Battieofthe ern bank. The edge of a marsh, five hundred yards dis- 
 tant, ran parallel with it for two miles, and midway be- 
 tween this and the road was a smaller marsh. Proctor planted his 
 guns in the highway, deployed his regulars between that and the 
 little marsh, placed a body of British and Indians, under Tecumseh, 
 
 between the two marshes, and 
 threw forward the remainder of 
 the Indians in the edge of the 
 larger. The ground was nearly 
 covered by an open growth of 
 trees, without underbrush. Har- 
 rison placed his mounted infan- 
 try in front, behind them two 
 thirds of his remaining troops, 
 and the rest on the left flank, 
 turned at a right angle to face 
 the Indians in the marsh. At 
 the sound of the bugle the 
 horsemen advanced. Moving 
 slowly at first, though under 
 fire, they increased their pace, 
 till with irresistible force they 
 rode through the enemy, kill- 
 ing, capturing, or scattering the 
 regulars in a few minutes. Proctor fearful of being called to ac- 
 count for his cold-blooded massacres drove away in his carriage; 
 but, being hotly pursued by a dozen well-mounted men, abandoned 
 the carriage, took to the woods, and escaped. Between the marshes 
 the fighting was more protracted. Tecumseh's Indians stood their 
 ground till their chief was killed, and then, at the advance of three 
 or four fresh regiments, they broke and fled. The savages posted in 
 the marsh escaped into the woods. 1 This battle restored to the Amer- 
 icans what Hull had surrendered, the Territory of Michigan. Three 
 weeks later, Harrison and his troops returned to Buffalo. 
 
 General Armstrong, the Secretary of War, chagrined at the failure 
 of the summer campaign on Lake Ontario, and attributing it to the 
 neglect of his own plan for the invasion of Canada, arrived about this 
 
 1 Whether Tecumseh was shot by Colonel Johnson, who was wounded in this charge, is 
 one of those unimportant questions that have been made interesting merely by being dis- 
 puted. 
 
 Tecumseh. 
 
1813.] WILKINSON ON THE ST. LAWRENCE. 201 
 
 time at Sackett's Harbor, determined that the attempt should be re- 
 newed under his immediate direction. Dearborn had re- 
 
 .,,.,. i ... .. , . i T Expedition 
 
 tired, with his high military reputation, gained in the Kev- down the st. 
 
 ii i TT 111 i i i Lawrence. 
 
 olution, almost as completely shattered as Hull s had been 
 the year before. Wilkinson, Dearborn's successor, was soon to meet 
 a similar fate. Wilkinson had been called from the south to take 
 command of this Northern army, consisting of Harrison's force at 
 Buffalo, Boyd's at Fort George, Lewis's at Sackett's Harbor, and the 
 right wing on the Vermont frontier, under the command of Wade 
 Hampton, numbering altogether about twelve thousand men. With 
 the exception of detach- 
 ments left behind to gar- 
 rison two or three posts, 
 Wilkinson was to move 
 down the St. Lawrence 
 with the left wing in 
 
 Signature o' Richard M. Johnson 
 
 boats, while Hampton 
 
 was to advance overland to some point on the river, where a junction 
 
 was to be made, and the whole army to move on Montreal. 
 
 It was not till late in October that Wilkinson had gathered his 
 forces together at Sackett's Harbor, and some days later before they 
 were fairly embarked on three hundred boats. Chauncey cleared the 
 way by driving Yeo into port and keeping him there, and it was not 
 apprehended that the British could muster men enough on shore to 
 impede the progress of the expedition. Disaster, nevertheless, at- 
 tended it from the start. The weather was unpropitious, the lake 
 and river rough ; many of the boats were unfit for service ; some were 
 driven ashore, and some went to the bottom, to the inevitable delay of 
 the whole flotilla to supply their places. Every mile of the way was 
 disputed by the enemy, in front and in rear, sometimes on the river 
 and sometimes from its banks ; the general-in-chief was always ill 
 and frequently drunk, and with such a head the body was generally 
 discouraged and often inefficient. At Prescott the whole army was 
 debarked to march around that fortified post, while General Brown 
 undertook to take the flotilla through the river at night, which he 
 did with great coolness, losing only a single man, and not one of his 
 three hundred boats receiving a shot from the constant fire through 
 which they passed. 
 
 At Williamsburg, dangers thickened. Troops were brought up from 
 Kingston and other places to the number of from fifteen hundred to 
 two thousand, and farther progress was stayed unless these could be 
 dispersed. General Boyd was ordered out with fifteen hundred 
 men, at a place known as Chrystler's, and for two hours the 
 

 202 WAR WITH ENGLAND. [CHAR VIII. 
 
 ground was contested with great spirit. It was so far a drawn battle 
 that both parties retired from the field in good order, with a loss of 
 about a hundred killed and two hundred and forty wounded on each 
 side, among the Americans General Covington. It would have 
 been probably anything but a drawn battle, had not Brown been de- 
 tached, and he and Boyd parted at this critical moment by a fifteen 
 miles' march. A victory at this point would have secured the way 
 to Montreal, almost without further opposition But Wilkinson was 
 neither in a mental nor physical condition to conduct such an expedi- 
 tion, and when, the day after the fight at Williamsburg, word was re- 
 ceived from the other imbecile General on the right wing, Wade 
 Hampton, that he would not make the junction agreed upon, Wilkin- 
 son eagerly seized upon that pretext to go into winter-quarters. 
 Hampton had started from Lake Champlain with nearly or quite five 
 thousand men to march on Montreal at the same time that Wilkin- 
 son's flotilla had left Grenadier Island. Lieutenant-colonel de Sal- 
 aberry, with a force of four or five hundred men, hundreds to 
 Hampton's thousands, had successfully baffled his advance. 
 
 With the main army thus disposed of, the commander-in-chief in 
 Fort Georee Canada was at liberty to turn his attention to other points 
 abandoned. Qn fo e boi'dcr. General Drummond appeared, in Decem- 
 ber, on the peninsula west of the Niagara River, between Lakes 
 Ontario and Erie. At his approach the costly acquisition of the pre- 
 ceding summer, Fort George, was abandoned, the garrison ruthlessly 
 burning the village of Newark as they fled to Fort Niagara for refuge. 
 This the enemy captured at night, a week later, without resistance, 
 killing eighty of the garrison, even those in the hospital, without 
 mercy. Lewiston, Youngstown, Tuscarora, and Manchester now 
 Niagara Falls Village were destroyed, and all the farms of that re- 
 gion laid waste by the invaders. At Buffalo and Black Rock a 
 militia force made some resistance ; but this was soon dispersed, and 
 Riall's regulars and savages sacked the two villages and laid them in 
 ashes, putting to death most of the few inhabitants who had not fled. 
 While the campaign, on the whole so disastrous, was going on along 
 The creek the northern border, there was more successful fighting else- 
 where, though only of local importance, except that it was 
 the beginning of the career of Andrew Jackson. Wilkinson, before 
 removing from the Southern Department, had taken Mobile from the 
 Spaniards without resistance. This was in accordance with the claim 
 which the United States maintained and Spain denied, that the east- 
 ern boundary of Louisiana was the Perdido River. The seizure of 
 Mobile was resented, and, though Spain professed to be neutral, the 
 powerful tribe of the Creeks were aroused to hostilities by supplies 
 
1813.] INDIAN WAR IN THE SOUTH. 203 
 
 of arms and ammunition distributed at Pensacola. Whether this was 
 instigated by England or not, it is at least probable that Tecumseh 
 was encouraged to go, if he was not directly sent, from Canada to in- 
 flame the Southern Indians against the Americans by his influence 
 and eloquence. Though the Creeks had attained to some degree of 
 civilization, and their old men were averse to war, the young men 
 listened eagerly to the persuasions of the powerful Northern chief 
 and to temptations held out to them by the Spaniards. 
 
 The militia of the Southwestern States were called out to meet this 
 emergency, and at the first encounter, at Burnt Corn Creek, Mawacpemt 
 a body of them were defeated. At Fort Mimms, on Lake Fort Mimu "' 
 Tensas, a stockade erected by a farmer of that name to protect his 
 buildings and cattle, a large number of the inhabitants of that neigh- 
 borhood took refuge, and Governor Claiborne sent for its defence a 
 garrison of a hundred and seventy-five volunteers. This place was 
 surprised on the 30th of August by a band of a thousand Creeks, un- 
 der the command of a noted half-breed, William Weathersford. The 
 garrison had been repeatedly warned, but when the savages appeared 
 before the fort there were no sentinels, the arms of the men were 
 stacked, and the outer gate stood wide open. The defence, neverthe- 
 less, was obstinate and prolonged for hours, for men were fighting, 
 not merely for their own lives, but that their wives and children 
 might escape death by torture. Large numbers of the Indians were 
 killed, but when they succeeded in setting the buildings on fire it was 
 no longer a fight, but a massacre. Twelve only of the garrison es- 
 caped across the lake, and of the rest they were fortunate who had 
 fallen early in the day in fair fight. 
 
 For these atrocities the Creeks suffered a severe and speedy retribu- 
 tion. The Legislature of Tennessee appropriated three hun- Jackson - s 
 dred thousand dollars for the campaign, and placed five thou- cam P ai n - 
 sand men under command of General Andrew Jackson. For the work 
 in hand, no better material could have been asked than these Western 
 pioneers; many were mounted, and all were skilled in forest-fighting. 
 Among them were Sam Houston and Davy Crockett, afterward so 
 noted. The most serious trouble was in forwarding supplies, and to 
 secure these Jackson built Fort Deposit, on the Tennessee. He 
 foraged on all sides, and burned every Indian village in his path. 
 
 The enemy were first found at Talluschatches (now Jacksonville, 
 Alabama), where Colonel John Coffee, with a thousand mounted men, 
 attacked them. No quarter was asked, and none was given, and not 
 an Indian was left alive, except the squaws and children, who were 
 taken prisoners. At Fort Talladega Jackson killed three hundred 
 out of a thousand who had surrounded a body of friendly Indians. 
 
204 
 
 WAK WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 At the same time General John Floyd moved from Georgia with a 
 force of four hundred Indians and a thousand whites. The Creeks 
 were between two fires, and Floyd was as relentless as Jackson, and 
 npt much less successful. From the West also came an avenging force, 
 under General F. L. Claiborne. He discovered a town of refuge, called 
 Econochaca, on the Alabama. It was built on holy ground, and no 
 patli led to it. Here the women and children had been sent for 
 safety, and here, in a little square, the prophets performed their relig- 
 ious rites. Captives of both sexes were standing bound to stakes, 
 
 The Canoe Fight. 
 
 ready to be burned, when Claiborne's columns appeared. The In- 
 dians fought desperately for a while, and then scattered in every di- 
 rection, while Claiborne sacked and burned the town. It was now 
 late in December; the forces were melting away by the expiration of 
 enlistments, and operations for that season were closed. 
 
 Among the many episodes of the campaign, and characteristic of 
 this frontier fighting, is the story of Captain Sam Dale's canoe fight. 
 He saw floating down the Alabama a large canoe containing eleven 
 Indians. Five of these were shot from the shore, and Dale then 
 pushed off in a small boat, with three men, to finish the work. Or- 
 
 
1813.] DOINGS OF THE BRITISH SQUADRON. 205 
 
 dering one of his companions to hold the boats together, Dale at- 
 tacked the Indians, with a foot on each canoe, till the current drifted 
 them asunder, leaving him on the larger, confronting four of the en- 
 emy. One was shot from the other boat ; two Dale killed ; the only 
 one then left alive was a famous Indian wrestler, Tar-cha-cha. " Big 
 Sam ! " he shouted, " I am a man I am coming come on ! " Club- 
 bing his rifle, he dealt Dale a blow that dislocated his shoulder, and 
 at the same moment he received Dale's bayonet through his body. 
 
 */ / 
 
 The brilliant naval achievements of the year 1812, which had 
 aroused the enthusiasm of both parties, and had almost rec- Thc COMt 
 onciled many to the war who had hitherto opposed it, *>***. 
 were wanting in 1813, and there was nothing, therefore, to compen- 
 sate for the continued disasters on the Northern frontier. In March, 
 a blockade, previously declared, was extended from Montauk Point, 
 on the eastern extremity of Long Island, to the mouth of the Missis- 
 sippi. A British squadron, under Admiral Warren, of six seventy- 
 fours, thirteen frigates, and eighteen sloops-of-war, was, of course, 
 altogether inadequate to guard so extensive a coast, but was quite 
 sufficient for serious interference with commerce and the distress of 
 unprotected maritime towns. Admiral Cockburn, Warren's second in 
 command, was the terror and scourge of the people along the shores 
 of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. He waged a 
 predatory warfare upon an almost defenceless people, letting his sail- 
 ors loose upon little villages and farms, who robbed, and burned, and 
 harried, often, apparently, for no other reason than mere wanton bar- 
 barity, without restraint from their officers. In some places, where 
 there were the means of defence, as at Lewes, on Delaware Bay, and 
 Craney Island, near Norfolk, they were repulsed ; but where this was 
 impossible, their depredations lost the character of war, and became 
 simply those of freebooters. They enticed away the slaves, not to 
 emancipate, but to sell them in the West Indies. They were accused 
 of atrocities of which even savages are seldom guilty, and though, 
 perhaps, the charges were exaggerated, there is evidence enough to 
 prove that Englishmen showed themselves here, as they have often 
 done elsewhere, to be in war the most brutal and merciless of civilized 
 nations. In July, the squadron threatened Washington, and but for 
 the want of energy in Admiral Warren it could have been taken as 
 easily then as it was a year later by Ross and Cockburn. 
 
 Congress authorized, in the course of the year, the building of four 
 ships of the line, six frigates, six sloops-of-war, and as many vessels 
 on the lakes as the operations there might require. A large number 
 of privateers were commissioned, and these vessels sometimes did 
 more honorable service than the capture of unarmed merchantmen. 
 
206 WAR WITH ENGLAND. [IIAP. VIII. 
 
 The privateer Dewliir captured the war schooner Dominica in an 
 action in which both vessels fought with great spirit. A still more 
 signal adventure was achieved on the 5th of July off Sandy Hook 
 by a fishing-smack, named the Yankee. With forty well-armed men 
 concealed below, but showing on deck only three men, a calf, a sheep, 
 and a goose, she sailed out of New York, and soon met with the 
 British sloop-of-wur Eagle* in want of fresh provisions. When the 
 Yankee was safely along-side, her forty men sprang on board the sloop- 
 of-war, and, by a well-directed fire, killed several of her men, drove 
 the rest below, and took possession. They sailed up the bay with 
 their prize, and were welcomed by the cheers of thousands on the 
 Battery, who were celebrating the anniversary of American inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 There were other naval engagements, watched by spectators on 
 shore with the in tensest interest. The brig Enterprise, on a cruise 
 along the coast of Maine in search of privateers, fell in with the Eng- 
 lish' brig Boxer, and the fight between them, which lasted three quar- 
 ters of an hour, was within sight of Portland, Maine. The Boxer's 
 colors were nailed to the mast, and when she surrendered that expla- 
 nation was given for not hauling them down sooner. Both Lieuten- 
 ant Burrows, commander of the Enterprise, and Captain Blythe, of 
 the Boxi-r, were killed, and buried side by side in Portland. The 
 American brig Arf/m was less fortunate. She cruised off the coast 
 of England, taking many merchantmen, till at last she captured one 
 laden with wine. In transferring the cargo, the crew were allowed 
 to help themselves, till all were drunk. The prize was set on fire, 
 and the light was seen by the English brig Pelican, who bore down 
 upon the Ar^u* and captured her ; not, however, till after a gallant 
 resistance and the killing of the English captain. 
 
 The assumed blockade of the coast was soon practically extended 
 to all New England, and in June several ships were cruising 
 in Massachusetts Bay. The Chesapeake was getting ready 
 in Boston harbor to go to sea, under the command of James 
 Lawrence, who had won fame when, as Captain of the Hornet, he 
 sunk the English sloop-of-war Peacock off the coast of British Gui- 
 ana. One of the English fleet, the Shannon, stood off and on at the 
 entrance of Boston harbor for days, challenging Captain Lawrence 
 to come out and fight him. The written challenge, offering the 
 choice of time and latitude, unfortunately did not reach Boston till 
 after the Cheaapeake had put to sea ; for, had Lawrence felt at liberty 
 to postpone the encounter till his ship and crew were in a condition 
 to meet it, whatever might have been the result, there would have 
 been, at least, some equality between the antagonists. As it was, the 
 
 
1813.] NAVAL BATTLES. 207 
 
 fight was between ships, one of which was in perfect sea-going con- 
 dition, in thorough fighting trim, her officers and crew, familiar with 
 and confident in each other and their ship, under admirable disci- 
 pline ; the other, not ready for sea, with a new crew, many of whom 
 were discontented and almost mutinous for want of prize-money al- 
 ready due, with officers wanting experience and unknown to each 
 other and to the men, and all without the discipline so absolutely 
 essential for a naval battle. If unwritten tradition may be trusted, 
 both the officers and men of the Chesapeake were seen about the 
 streets of Boston on the morning of the day she sailed, in a condition 
 that rendered it easy to foresee the result of the impending battle. 
 The popular excitement and enthusiasm, however, hardly left to 
 Lawrence any alternative but to accept Broke's evident defiance. As 
 the Chesapeake got under way, on the morning of the 1st of June, 
 multitudes watched her from the high hills along the coast, saw both 
 ships enveloped in the smoke of battle, and knew the result when the 
 smoke cleared away and both stood out to sea. 
 
 The Shannon opened fire as soon as her guns could be brought to 
 bear upon her opponent, but the Chesapeake was silent till a broad- 
 side could be effective, and then for about eight minutes the roar was 
 continuous. By this exchange the British frigate appears to have 
 been the greater sufferer in men, but the American was so injured 
 that she became unmanageable ; her mizzen-rigging fouled with the 
 Shannon s forechains, and she was open to a raking fire. The board- 
 ers were called ; but at this moment Lawrence was shot through the 
 body, and, as he was carried below, his last commands, it is said, 
 were : " Tell the men to fire faster, and not give up the ship. Fight 
 her till she sinks ! " The order was given, " Boarders away ! '' but 
 in the absence of all discipline, before the boarders could be brought 
 to quarters, the enemy had swarmed over the decks, and were pour- 
 ing a destructive fire down the hatchways. The ship was theirs after 
 an engagement that lasted only fifteen minutes. For so short a bat- 
 tle, the loss of life was unusually large, as the Chesapeake had forty- 
 eight killed and nearly a hundred wounded ; the Shannon, twenty- 
 three killed, and over fifty wounded. Broke was badly wounded, and 
 Lawrence died in a few days. 
 
 On the same day with this unfortunate encounter in Massachusetts 
 Bay, which aroused more despondency on one side and more exulta- 
 tion on the other than such a catastrophe warranted, Decatur was 
 chased into New London with the Macedonian, the United States, 
 and the Hornet, by a larger force of the blockading squadron. Nor 
 did any of the ships get to sea again while the war continued. 
 They were not in danger of capture, for the militia of Connecticut 
 
208 
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 rallied to the defence of the harbor in such numbers as to render anv 
 
 v 
 
 attack upon the ships hopeless ; but the naval commanders chafed 
 under their enforced idleness, and made more than one attempt to 
 evade the ships of the enemy. Decatur complained that all these 
 attempts were defeated by traitors on shore, who warned the ships 
 outside of his proposed movements by burning blue-lights. He and 
 his brother officers unquestionably believed that this was done, though 
 it was as emphatically denied by some of the most respectable inhabi- 
 tants of the town that any such signals were given. It was probably 
 true, though less frequently, perhaps, than was asserted. But if true, 
 it is far more likely that the treachery was confined to some very few 
 persons, if more than one was engaged in it, than that it was the act 
 of many. Nevertheless, so violent, bitter, and unreasoning was the 
 partisan rancor of the time that the whole Federal party was held 
 responsible for this aid given to the enemy, and all Federalists stig- 
 matized henceforth, so long as the party had a name to live by, as 
 " Blue Lights." That Decatur's ships remained safely at anchor till 
 the end of the war, protected from a powerful British squadron by 
 the Federal State of Connecticut, was lost sight of in the determina- 
 tion to make those obnoxious who believed the war was unwise, that 
 nothing would be gained by it, and who gave to it, therefore, no vol- 
 untary support. 
 
 Tne Giaves of the Captains, Portland, Maine 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. JACKSON'S MOVEMENTS AT THE SOCTH. THIRD CAM- 
 PAIGN ON THE NIAGARA. BATTLE OF LCNDY'S LANE. BATTLE OF PLATTSBURG. 
 CAPTURE OF WASHINGTON. EXPEDITION AGAINST BALTIMORE. NAVAL BAT- 
 TLES OF THE THIRD YEAR. BITTERNESS OF PARTY FEELING. THE REMEDY OF 
 DISUNION. THE HENRY CONSPIRACY. THE HARTFORD CONVENTION. DEFENCE 
 OF NEW ORLEANS. THE TREATY OF GHENT. 
 
 AT the opening of the year 1814 the prospects of the war were 
 gloomy in the extreme. The power of Napoleon had been 
 
 i i T i Condition of 
 
 broken at Leipsic, the British armament in American waters affairs m 
 was gradually increasing, and there seemed to be no reason 
 unless she was tired of war why England might not, with unlim- 
 ited reinforcements of veteran troops, speedily overwhelm the Amer- 
 icans. It was only after much debate that an act was passed to in- 
 crease the regular army to sixty-six thousand men, enlisted for five 
 years, with a bounty of a hundred and twenty-four dollars to every 
 recruit. That this increased army should not be used for purposes of 
 invasion, but should be confined to defensive measures for the estab- 
 lishment of rights infringed upon by Great Britain, was voted down 
 by a strictly party vote. Congress also authorized a new loan of 
 twenty-five million, and a re-issue of ten million in treasury notes. 
 
 Three times during the war, the Russian Government had offered 
 its services as mediator for peace, which had been declined by Eng- 
 land. But now a proposition was offered for direct negotia- Xego tiations 
 tions, either at London or at Gottenburg. This was ac- for f e&ce - 
 cepted at once ; Gottenburg was chosen as the place, and John Quincy 
 Adams, James A. Bayard, Henry Clay, and Jonathan Russell were 
 appointed commissioners, to whom Albert Gallatin, then in Europe, 
 was afterward added. Their instructions were at first to insist upon 
 an absolute discontinuance of search and impressment, and to repeat 
 the offer, made at the beginning of the war, to exclude British sea- 
 men from American vessels and to surrender deserters, a compro- 
 mise which, had it been offered any time during the ten previous 
 years, would have made war almost impossible. 
 
 VOL. IV. 14 
 
210 WAR WITH ENGLAND. [CHAP. IX 
 
 Active preparations were made, meanwhile, for the campaigns of 
 the liew year. At the South, Jackson, who had been cora- 
 missioned a major-general, was left at Fort Strotlier in Jan- 
 uary with nine hundred raw recruits, liis late army having gone home 
 at the expiration of their tei-m of service, in spite of all entreaties. 
 With his fresh recruits and two hundred Indians he marched into the 
 country of the Creeks, fought two battles, and lost about a hundred 
 men. In February his army was increased by fresh enlistments to 
 five thousand men, including a regiment of regulars. 
 
 At Horseshoe Bend, in the Tallapoosa, where a peninsula of a hun- 
 dred acres, with a neck not more than five hundred feet wide, is en- 
 closed by the stream, a thousand Creek warriors had encamped and 
 thrown up a rude breastwork across the neck. While Jackson 
 man-lied directly against this with nearly three thousand men, he sent 
 General Coffee, with the mounted men and friendly Indians, to gain 
 the enemy's rear. A two hours' cannonade had no effect on the breast- 
 work ; but when a cloud of smoke showed that Coffee had crossed 
 the river and set fire to the village, Jackson's men stormed the work, 
 fought hand to hand through the loop-holes for a while, and then, 
 leaping the defences, charged with the bayonet, and the Indians 
 broke and fled. They neither asked for quarter nor received it. 
 Whether attempting to hide themselves in the thickets, or to swim 
 the stream, they were hotly pursued, and if overtaken were mer- 
 cilessly shot. 
 
 The opening movements at the North were discouraging, and 
 seemed to promise a repetition of the failures of the two preceding 
 years. An attempt was made to recover Michilimackinac, which 
 ended in the repulse of the force landed on the island, and the capture 
 afterward by the English of the two schooners sent upon the expedi- 
 tion. Wilkinson ended as he had begun, in imbecile efforts 
 apii'nin- which accomplished nothing. Advancing from his winter- 
 quarters on Salmon River to Lake Champlain, he planned an 
 expedition into Canada which should cut off the upper from the 
 lower province. As the first step he proposed to take La Colle Mill. 
 A considerable force was sent from Champlain Village over a difficult 
 road when the whole country was buried in a foot of snow, and 
 though the assault was made with much spirit it was easily repulsed. 
 The act was the last of Wilkinson's military career. A spring 
 Wilkinson freshet forbade farther advance movements, and he with- 
 <'mm- b mar- drew his army within the boundaries of the United States. 
 "*' He was called to answer for his many mishaps and want of 
 
 generalship before a court-martial, and though he was acquitted by 
 the court he was condemned at the bar of public opinion. 
 
b. 
 U- 
 
 fc. 
 
 c 
 
1814.] BATTLE OF CIIIPPEWA. 211 
 
 The Secretary of War, General Armstrong, still adhered to his 
 plan for the invasion of Canada by the river St. Lawrence, and, as a 
 necessary preliminary step, the taking of Kingston. To mask this 
 movement, and that he might leave no enemy in his rear, General 
 Brown, who had been made a major-general, commenced operations 
 on the peninsula between Erie and Ontario. On the evening of the 
 2d of July he crossed the river from Buffalo, invested Fort Erie, and 
 compelled its surrender. Following up this advantage, he pursued a 
 British corps of observation down the river, till it crossed Battleof 
 Chippewa Creek and united with the main force under Ri- ^PP**- 
 all. The American advance fell back across Street's Creek, where it 
 was joined by the main body on the morning of the 5th. In the 
 afternoon Scott ordered out his brigade for a dress parade in the 
 little plain beyond the creek. As he approached the bridge, General 
 Brown, riding in from the front, exclaimed, " You will have a bat- 
 tle ! " and galloped past to bring up Ripley's brigade. The head of 
 the column was scarcely on the bridge when the British, concealed by 
 the woods that fringed the 1 creek, opened fire. " Nothing but Buffalo 
 militia ! " said Riall, as the Americans came into view ; but when he 
 saw them pass the bridge without wavering, and deploy under fire, 
 " Why, these are regulars I " he exclaimed, with profane emphasis. 
 General Peter B. Porter, with a force of militia and Indians, press- 
 ing forward on Scott's left, attacked the British right. Porter's men 
 fought well till a heavy column charged them with the bayonet, when 
 they gave way. But Major Jesup moved up and covered the exposed 
 flank, and the fighting became furious along the whole front. When 
 Scott observed that the British right wing had separated from the 
 line to engage Jesup, he put himself at the head of a regiment and 
 charged obliquely against the exposed flank, while at the same time, 
 and in the same manner, Leavenworth's regiment charged the left. 
 Through the gap between these charging columns, Towson's battery 
 poured in canister with rapidity and effect. The British line first 
 crumbled, and then retreated in great disorder. Jesup at the same 
 time defeated the detached wing, and the rout was complete. Riall 
 sent a portion of his troops to the forts at the mouth of the Niagara, 
 and with the remainder retreated to Burlington -Heights. His In- 
 dians, disgusted at the defeat, all deserted him. 
 
 With this well-fought battle the invasion of Canada seemed more 
 promising. Brown determined to move upon Kingston along the 
 lake shore, trusting to the cooperation of Chauncey's fleet. " For 
 God's sake, let me see you," he wrote to Chauncey. " All accounts 
 
 agree that the force at Kingston is very light We can threaten 
 
 Forts George and Niagara, carry Burlington Heights and York, and 
 
212 
 
 WAR WITH EXGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. IX. 
 
 proceed direct to Kingston and carry that. We have between us suf- 
 ficient means to conquer Canada in two months, if there is prompt 
 and zealous cooperation, before the enemy can be greatly reenforced." 
 But no cooperation came ; Chauncey was ill in body, still more ill 
 in mind. He had something better to do, he thought, than carry pro- 
 visions and stores for the troops on shore, and did nothing. 
 
 To move down the lake without the aid of the fleet, was manifestly 
 impracticable, and Brown was compelled to turn back upon 
 learning that Riall was at Queenstown, and had been reen- 
 forced by General Drummond from York. Scott now a 
 brigadier- general was sent forward with a corps of observation. 
 
 Lun.iy .s 
 
 Miller's Charge at Lundy's Lane. 
 
 As his troops emerged into a cleared space, bounded on the north by 
 Lundy's Lane, a road that runs at right angles to the river, nearly 
 opposite the Falls, they were confronted by the entire British force, 
 drawn up in the lane. The Americans deployed in line of battle, and 
 Scott at once engaged the right wing, sending Jesup's battalion to 
 
1814.] BATTLE OF LUNDY'S LANE. 213 
 
 turn the left. Both movements were successful, Jesup taking be- 
 tween two and three hundred prisoners, among them General Riall 
 and some other officers, though most of the men soon afterward es- 
 caped. The fight had continued for an hour before reinforcements 
 reached the ground, General Brown leading the way. But notwith- 
 standing the discomfiture of the enemy, the General saw, on a survey 
 of the field, that no permanent impression could be made upon their 
 position while their centre held an eminence on which they had 
 planted seven guns. Colonel James Miller, being ordered to take this 
 battery, answered briefly, " I '11 try, sir," and put his men in motion. 
 It was now dusk, and their approach was hidden by a fence. The 
 gunners were standing with lighted matches in their hands, when 
 Miller's men, in obedience to whispered orders, crept silently up to 
 the fence, thrust their muskets through it, shot down every man at 
 the guns, rushed forward in the face of a sharp infantry fire, and 
 captured them. The American line was re-formed, at right angles to 
 its first position, facing west. The British also re-formed, and made 
 two desperate but vain attempts to retake the battery. Generals 
 Brown and Scott were wounded, and the command devolved upon 
 Kipley, who, after waiting half an hour in expectation of a fresh at- 
 tack, withdrew from the field, carrying off his wounded. The enemy 
 returned, and encamped on the deserted ground. The battle of Lun- 
 dy's Lan e or Bridgewater, or Niagara, as it is variously called 
 was one of the hardest ever fought, considering its numbers. Of the 
 two thousand Americans engaged, seven hundred and forty-three 
 were killed or wounded; of the four thousand British, eight hun- 
 dred and seventy-eight. Brown, Scott, and Jesup were all seriously 
 wounded, Scott so severely as to withdraw him from active service 
 for the rest of the war. 
 
 The army was compelled to fall back upon the camp on the Chip- 
 pewa, for want of food and water, and the enemy claimed the victory 
 as the latest occupants of the field. Ripley, who wanted energy and 
 perseverance, but not courage, left the guns captured by Miller upon 
 the hill, and the enemy recovered them. For this negligence, and 
 for an unnecessary hasty retreat to Fort Erie, when he should have 
 held the banks of the Chippewa, Ripley's command was given to 
 General Edmund P. Gaines, till the Major-general's wounds should 
 permit him again to take the field. Drummond followed up the 
 army to Fort Erie, where a midnight assault on the 14th of August 
 cost him nearly a thousand men, and proved an utter failure. In 
 the regular siege that followed, Drummond brought his siege of Fort 
 works so close that shells and hot shot were thrown daily Erie- 
 into the fort. One of these disabled General Gaines, and General 
 

 214 WAR WITH ENGLAND. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 Brown resumed the immediate command. The enemy's camp was 
 two miles in the rear, and one third of his force was thrown forward 
 each day to work on the parallels. On the 17th of September a sud- 
 den sortie with two thousand men overwhelmed the working party, 
 dismounted the guns, and destroyed the works. But this was not 
 done without hard fighting, in which the Americans lost nearly five 
 hundred men, and the British nine hundred. Four days later, Drum- 
 mond abandoned the siege, and in October the Americans destroyed 
 Fort Erie, and returned to their own shore. This campaign on the 
 Niagara had indeed no practical result, except the destruction of a 
 village or two and the digging of a thousand graves; but it served to 
 dispel the despondency to which even the war party had yielded un- 
 der the reverses of the two previous years, and aroused a hope in 
 those who opposed the war that, though it might be unwise, it was 
 not to be dishonorable. 
 
 But the summer passed away, and both armies the British being 
 now much the larger still stood on the defensive on their own side 
 of the border. Sir George Prevost proposed, or was ordered by the 
 Home Government, to invade New York as far as Crown Point, at 
 least, by the pathway contended for so often in previous wars. 
 Chance favored him early in September, for General Izai'd, who had 
 succeeded Hampton in the command of the right wing of the Amer- 
 ican army, was ordered, late in August, to relieve General Brown, be- 
 leaguered at that time in Fort Erie by General Drummond. Izard 
 moved reluctantly indeed he never moved in any other way 
 from Plattsburg, leaving General Alexander Macomb behind him in 
 command of a small force, with the cheerful and encouraging predic- 
 tion that it and the commander would soon be in the hands of the. 
 enemy. Before advancing to Crown Point, Prevost believed it to be 
 absolutely necessary to reduce Plattsburg, and Macomb not in the 
 least influenced by Izard's prophecy, unless it were that he was stim- 
 ulated to prove it false prepared with great skill and energy to 
 give the enemy a warm reception. In all that he did he was ably 
 sustained by Lieutenant Thomas Macdonough, with a fleet of ten 
 barges or gunboats and four larger vessels on the lake. Izard had 
 left not more than about twenty-five hundred effective men at Platts- 
 burg, and to these Macomb added three thousand more of volunteer 
 militia, by appeals to New York and Vermont. Prevost advanced 
 with fourteen thousand men along the shores of the lake, accom- 
 panied by four ships and twelve barges, under the command of Cap- 
 tain Downie. 
 
 At Plattsburg the Saranac runs nearly parallel with the lake shore 
 for a short distance, and then turning sharply flows into the Bay. On 
 
1814.] 
 
 BATTLE OF PLATTSBURG. 
 
 215 
 
 the little peninsula the Americans had constructed three redoubts and 
 two block houses, and these the British proposed to carry by an ap- 
 proach from the rear, while Downie should engage Macdon- Batt)c of 
 ough on the lake, and fleet and town be taken together. 1>latt * bur 8- 
 Tn accordance with this plan, when, on the lltli of September, the 
 British flotilla rounded Cumberland Head and the naval fight was 
 begun, the troops on shore, under a heavy artillery fire, attempted to 
 cross the Saranac at several points, at all of which they were either 
 speedily driven back, or soon recalled by intelligence of Downie's 
 utter defeat. 
 
 When the British Admiral advanced to the attack he found Mac- 
 donough's four vessels drawn up in line nearly across the mouth of 
 
 Plattsburg. 
 
 the harbor, with his ten galleys inside and opposite the intervals be- 
 tween the larger vessels, calmly awaiting his opponent. 1 The Eng- 
 lish bore down steadily, firing as they advanced. The first American 
 gun, pointed by Macdonough himself, raked the deck of the English 
 flag-ship Confiance ; then the whole line opened, and for an hour 
 everything was ablaze, and the fire only slackened as gun after gun 
 was disabled. The first broadside from the Confiance struck down 
 forty men on the flag-ship Saratoga, and ultimately every gun of her 
 
 1 Macdonough had eighty-six guns and eight hundred and fifty men ; Dowiiie ninety- 
 five guns and a thousand men, and two more barges thau Macdonough. 
 
216 WAR WITH ENGLAND. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 starboard battery was disabled. But Macdonough had laid a kedge 
 broad off each bow, by means of which she was now swung com- 
 pletely round, and the larboard battery brought to bear upon her 
 antagonist. The same manoeuvre was attempted on board the Con- 
 fiance, but unsuccessfully, and she was soon compelled to strike her 
 colors. Those that had not already surrendered followed her example, 
 though most of the galleys drifted out into the lake, before they 
 could be taken possession of, and escaped. The victory was com- 
 plete both on the water and on shore. Prevost immediately recalled 
 his troops and abandoned his plan of invading New York. 
 
 As the British army in Canada had been largely reenforced by 
 troops released by the close of the war in Europe, the result of the 
 attack on Plattsburg, where many of these veterans were so sig- 
 nally defeated, renewed the spirits of the war party ; and it was 
 sadly in need of encouragement, for along the sea-coast the sum- 
 mer was one of disaster. Ships, as well as land forces, were re- 
 leased by peace abroad ; the blockading squadron was increased ; the 
 whole coast was kept in a state of perpetual alarm at every appearance 
 of a sail in the offing. Sir Thomas Hardy van into Eastport in 
 July, captured that place without resistance, and declared by procla- 
 mation that the islands of Passamaquoddy Bay were restored to the 
 Crown. The frigate Adams, which had gone into the Penobscot to 
 refit, was destroyed at the village of Hampden, and Castine, a few 
 miles below, was taken by General Gosselyn, after the small garrison 
 at that post had bloAvn up the fort and retreated. At Machias the 
 fort was abandoned, and the place taken without much resistance by 
 General Pilkington. There was no force in that part of the country 
 to resist so formidable an invasion, except the militia, not half armed, 
 and without discipline, and the valley of the Penobscot was seized as 
 a conquered province. 
 
 In August, Hardy appeared off Stonington, Connecticut, but met 
 there with another kind of reception. He gave the inhabitants one 
 hour to remove the women and children, and then bombarded the lit- 
 tle town steadily for three days, throwing into it fifty tons of iron in 
 solid shot, bomb-shells, carcasses, and stink-pots. The defence was 
 gallantly conducted by about a score of men, who handled two or 
 three old guns so well, particularly an eighteen-pounder at the point 
 of the peninsula, as not only to prevent the enemy from landing, 
 but to inflict upon him a loss of seventy men, killed or wounded. 
 Of the defendants seven only were wounded. 
 
 But an event more disastrous than the loss of the villages and a 
 portion of the domain at the eastern extremity of the country, and in 
 striking contrast with the stubborn defence of Stonington, occurred 
 
1814.] 
 
 CAPTURE OF WASHINGTON. 
 
 217 
 
 in the capture of Washington. On the eastern coast the enemy ap- 
 peared suddenly when he appeared at all, would make, or 
 threaten to make, a landing as he found the militia more march to 
 or less ready to receive him ; and these were more or less 
 ready as their towns were likely, for any reason, to be attacked. 
 In all cases the attacks were surprises. But at Washington, in all 
 the complication of miserable circumstances, there was no element 
 of suddenness, no palliation possible for want of warning, no excuse 
 for want of time. The capture of the city was an absolute and un- 
 mitigated disgrace, involving in dishonor every member of the Gov- 
 
 Stonington Bombarded. 
 
 eminent, and inflicting upon the people a humiliation which no other 
 nation, in the loss of its capital under like circumstances, was ever 
 called upon to bear. 
 
 In August, General Ross, with thirty-five hundred men, the finest 
 regiments from Wellington's army, arrived in the Chesapeake, where 
 he was reenforced by a thousand marines from Cockburn's blockad- 
 ing squadron. The whole force was landed at Benedict, on the 
 Patuxent, about forty miles below Washington. There was nothing 
 surprising in this approach of a formidable force. Cockburn's fleet 
 for more than a year had commanded and harassed the coast of the 
 Middle States, expeditions from it continuing to descend at will upon 
 defenceless villages, plundering without mercy and destroying with- 
 
218 WAR WITH ENGLAND. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 out reason, with small regard to the ordinary laws of war, the farms 
 and plantations near the shore. The year before, as has been already 
 related, this fleet had moved up the Chesapeake, and so infatuated 
 was party feeling that a proposition in Congress to adopt some meas- 
 ures to avert a threatened danger was denounced as an attack upon 
 the Administration. It was better to suffer from fear of the enemy 
 than to owe safety to the suggestion of the opposition. Even two 
 months before Ross landed at Benedict, the Government had been 
 wanied by Mr. Gallatin in London of the object of the reenforce- 
 ments sent to Chesapeake Bay, and, though the subject was brought 
 before a cabinet meeting by the President, no efficient steps were 
 taken. There needed to be still more " braying in a mortar " before 
 the driving out of foolishness. Madison consented to be alarmed, 
 but would not condescend to take advice from Armstrong, the Sec- 
 retary of War, whom he personally disliked. The Secretai-y of State, 
 Monroe, was too wise to accept warning from either circumstances or 
 persons. 
 
 But when Ross had actually landed at the head of forty-five hun- 
 dred veteran troops, with the evident purpose of marching either 
 upon Annapolis, Alexandria, or Washington, there was a sudden 
 awakening to the necessity of defence. Brigadier-general William 
 H. Winder had, indeed, been placed in command, a few weeks before, 
 of a district where, at most, there were only five hundred regulars and 
 two thousand militia to respond to his orders. No effective prep- 
 arations, however, were made to put even this small force in a condi- 
 tion to take the field, and no requisitions were made, till too late, for 
 forces from the neighboring States. 
 
 Ross advanced up the peninsula with great caution, and even hesita- 
 tion. He could not believe that the path was open before him to go 
 where he pleased without let or hindrance, and the concurrent testi- 
 mony of all English narratives of that march is, that it could have 
 been turned back any day had a few determined persons obstructed 
 the road by felled trees. 1 It was not till Cockburn joined Ross that 
 
 1 The late Judge William Crunch, of Washington, an eye-witness of the invasion, 
 wrote on the llth of September, 1814, to his sister in Massachusetts : " On Thursday, 
 August 18, information wa< received that the Enemy was ascending the Patuxent in large 
 force, and the militia of the District and adjacent parts of Maryland and Virginia were 
 called upon to turn [out] en ma8*e. The requisition was obeyed slowly. The Fairfax 
 militia, In-ing that nearest to Alexandria, was not ordered to muster untill the Tuesday 
 following (the 23d). On Saturday, the 20th, information was received that the enemy was 
 disembarking, and had landed a large force. Reports varied as to their number from 
 3,000 to 17,000, and what is astounding is that General Winder had no correct information 
 on that subject." Further on, in the same letter, he says: "The number of the British 
 forces which were in the expedition to Washington is not yet satisfactorily ascertained. I 
 am inclined to believe from all I hear that the number did not exceed 4,000. Winder had 
 
1814.] CAPTURE OF WASHINGTON. 219 
 
 some energy and determination was put into the General's movements 
 by the Admiral's advice to push on to Washington. It is by no means 
 certain that Ross had proposed at first to do anything more than to 
 destroy Admiral Barney's flotilla of gunboats, which had been a con- 
 stant annoyance to the British in Chesapeake. Bay, but had now been 
 compelled to withdraw for safety up the Patuxent as far as Marlbor- 
 ougli. Instead of protecting these boats by troops and staying Koss's 
 progress at that point, the Secretary of the Navy, Jones, saved the 
 British General the trouble of removing this impediment out of his 
 way, by ordering the fleet to be burned, and Barney and his na.^.-^,,. 
 men to retreat toward Washington. It was only that frenzy " llaburned - 
 of terror which had seized all official persons that could have 
 prompted an act depriving the Americans of their best arm of de- 
 fence, and giving the invaders an advantage which alone would have 
 been worth the risk of the expedition. 
 
 Inspirited by this success thrown at their heads, Ross and Cock- 
 burn pushed on to Bladensburg, where Winder had formed his line 
 of battle in a commanding position. The General had no confidence 
 in his troops, and little in himself, and listened to conflicting advice 
 on all sides, when he should have turned a deaf ear to everybody ; 
 permitted Monroe to change his disposition of troops, almost at the 
 last moment, without remonstrance; more anxious that his officers 
 should understand which way they should take in retreat than zeal- 
 ous in urging them not to retreat, but to fight, and fearful, apparently, 
 lest somebody should be hurt. Madison and his cabinet were on the 
 field, all anxious to instruct the unfortunate and perplexed General, 
 except the President, who occupied himself with pencilled bulletins to 
 his wife at Washington, urging her to flight, and who said, as Wil- 
 kinson asserts, " Come, General Armstrong, come, Colonel Monroe, 
 let us go, and leave it to the commanding General." In truth, it mat- 
 tered but little to whom it was left, for Winder was quite right in 
 assuming that no dependence could be placed on the crowd of men 
 gathered upon the hills with arms in their hands, but utterly without 
 military discipline and confronted by veteran soldiers. 
 
 They fled as the Congreve rockets of the enemy burst in their 
 faces, and the real fighting Avas left for Commodore Barney and Cap- 
 tain Miller of the marines, with six hundred men, who rushed for- 
 
 5,000, but they wore princip:illy raw militia huddled together not an hour before the battle, 
 without any confidence in each other. Yet, I believe the fault was in the officers. But 
 the great fault was in the Administration in taking no measures of defence after the re- 
 peated menaces and warnings they have had. There has been a wanton sacrifice of the 
 public property and the national pride. A wound is inflicted which ages will not cure, and 
 a sear will be left which time will scarcely efface." MS. papers in the possession of Judge 
 Crouch's daughter, Mrs. Erastus Brooks. 
 
2'20 WAR WITH ENGLAND. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 ward to dispute the passage of a bridge. The artillery they served 
 swept down the advancing British column, and compelled it to give 
 way. For more than an hour this small band of seamen and marines 
 held the enemy, outnumbering them three or four to one, at bay, 
 returned charge for charge, and again and again broke into their 
 serried ranks. Had the least support been given them, the fortune of 
 the day might have been turned ; but the only body of militia which 
 covered their flank, and had not already run away, broke and fled at 
 the first charge. Barney's men, thus exposed, were surrounded ; he 
 and Miller were both shot down and severely wounded, and were 
 compelled at last to surrender. Around them lay as many dead of 
 the enemy as the sailors and marines numbered at the beginning of 
 the fight. 
 
 The Americans fell back upon Washington, if that can be said of 
 a precipitate flight, when many were seeking for safety, no matter 
 where, like the President and other official gentlemen, many making 
 their way to their homes. When Washington was reached, however, 
 
 and the British followed close that evening upon their footsteps, 
 
 Winder, still true to his one comprehensive rule of military tac- 
 tics and the art of war, ordered farther retreat, and the city was 
 abandoned to the destroyers, the destroyers that came, as well as 
 those who remained, the chief difference between them being that one 
 side destroyed what was their own, the other the property of an en- 
 emy. The worst the British could have done to the navy yard below 
 the city, if they could have taken a place so easily defended, would 
 have been to destroy it ; and in anticipation of that possibility the 
 Secretary of the Navy ordered that it should be given to the flames. 
 The loss in provisions, in marine stores, in guns, in munitions of war, 
 in ships on the stocks or afloat, in buildings, in arms, was enormous ; 
 but it did not seem to occur to President, generals, or cabinet officers 
 that even if this great accumulation of property was not saved by de- 
 fence, there was at least the chance of its being spared by accident. 
 But in the frenzy of a popular panic like this, men take leave of their 
 reason. 
 
 The spirit of wanton destruction seemed to be aroused by the 
 craze of wild affright. The lurid glare of the burning of the largest 
 navy yard in the country by those who should have protected it at all 
 hazards, was responded to by the glow of the lesser fires kindled in 
 the city by the enemy. There were orders to spare, and some at- 
 tempt to save, private property, and the Post-office building was per- 
 mitted to remain unharmed because it contained the Patent Office, 
 which was of value to civilization. But the President's mansion and 
 the unfinished Capitol were burned, one of the stories of the time 
 
1814.] 
 
 CAPTURE OF WASHINGTON. 
 
 221 
 
 being that Cockburn leaped into the Speaker's chair, as his follow- 
 ers filled the halls of Congress, and shouted, " Shall this harbor of 
 Yankee democracy be burned ? All for it will say Aye ! " The pub- 
 lic libraries and such of the public archives as had not previously 
 been removed to a place of safety were burned. Nothing was spared, 
 except the Patent Office and jail, that could be considered public 
 
 Cockburn in the Chair. 
 
 property, or that could be put to public use. 1 The next night the 
 -invaders retired with the utmost caution and without beat of drum, 
 leaving their camp-fires burning brightly, lest they should be pursued 
 by the force which Ross believed the destruction of the capital must 
 needs arouse to overwhelm him. But he regained his ships without 
 molestation, except some annoyance from the country people. 
 
 1 " They destroyed everything public except the Patent Office ami the jail. The Patent 
 Office was spared at the intercession of Doctor Thornton who superintends it, and who as- 
 sured the officer that it contained nothing but private property and models of the arts of 
 the utmost use to the world." Letter of Judge Cranch. 
 
222 WAR WITH ENGLAND. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 It was a natural, almost inevitable, consequence that this exploit 
 
 should be followed by some other of a similar character. 
 npinst Bai- On the 6th of September Cochrane's fleet moved up the 
 
 Chesapeake ; on the llth entered the Patapsco, and landed 
 nine thousand men at North Point, a dozen miles below Baltimore. 
 They were not unexpected. Sir Peter Parker, some days before, had 
 landed a force on the eastern shore of Maryland, and in a skirmish 
 with militia was killed The citizens of Baltimore, warned in time, 
 had put up fortifications, and Major-general Samuel Smith, in com- 
 mand, called out the available troops to repel invasion. Ross, on 
 landing at the head of his advance, was picked off by a sharp-shooter, 
 and, mortally wounded, carried to his boats, where he died in a few 
 minutes. There was to be no repetition here of the experiences be- 
 Battieof low Washington. For three hours the three thousand vol- 
 North Point. un t ee rs, from Maryland and Pennsylvania, led by General 
 John Strieker, withstood the enemy, till the right wing was turned, 
 when they fell back upon the intrenchments. The British did not 
 follow till next day, but finding their opponents reenforced and 
 strongly placed, retired in the darkness of the ensuing night. 
 
 Meanwhile sixteen vessels moved up the bay, and opened fire upon 
 the immediate defences of Baltimore. For twenty-four hours they 
 poured an uninterrupted stream of rockets and shells into Fort 
 McHenry, Fort Covington, and the connecting intrenchments. Fort 
 McHenry was compelled to bear this bombardment almost in silence, 
 as its largest guns could not reach the enemy's vessels, anchored at a 
 safe distance. 1 At night a strong force was landed to attack the forts 
 in the rear ; but, being discovered, it was subjected to a fire of red- 
 hot shot, that inflicted severe loss and thwarted the project. The 
 enterprise was then abandoned, and Cochrane retired with his fleet. 
 Of the four notable battles this year on the ocean, all but the first 
 
 resulted in victory for the Americans. Captain David Por- 
 gageuients tcv, in the frig.ite Ettwx, had made a long cruise round 
 
 Cape Horn, creating terrible havoc with British commerce 
 in the Pacific, and securing many rich prizes, one of which he con- 
 verted into a war-ship, and named her the Essex Junior. But the 
 English Admiralty sent out the frigates Phoebe and Cherub, under 
 Captain James Hillyar, with orders to destroy or capture the IZssez at 
 all hazards, and by these two ships Porter was blockaded in the har- 
 bor of Valparaiso. On one occasion the hostile vessels almost fouled, 
 and Porter called away his boarders, and in a moment more would 
 have been on the Englishman's deck; but Hillyar so earnestly pro- 
 
 1 While watching the flag oil this fort, Francis S. Key, who had gone to the British fleet 
 to negotiate an exchange of prisoners, wrote the first draft of the Star-Spantjled Banner. 
 
1814.] 
 
 NAVAL BATTLES OF THE THIRD YEAR 
 
 223 
 
 tested lie had no intention of attacking in a neutral port, that he was 
 permitted to withdraw his ship from her suspicious position. At 
 length, on the 28th of March, Porter attempted to put to sea; but 
 the Essex was suddenly disabled by a heavy squall, and being pur- 
 sued, he tacked about and reentered the harbor. The enemy fol- 
 lowed, and, regardless of the neutrality of the port, took ERSexand 
 position under the stern of the Essex, and opened fire. The 1>hljebe - 
 American ran out three long guns at the stern ports, and in half an 
 hour compelled both of his antagonists to draw off for repairs. On 
 returning to the attack, they took position on Porter's starboard quar- 
 
 - 
 
 Fort McHenry. 
 
 ter, out of reach of carronades, and with their long guns fired at the 
 Essex as at a target. Porter then ran down upon the Cherub, and 
 after a short but lively action at close range, she was driven off. But 
 the Phoebe edged away, and kept up a steady fire ; at one gun on 
 board the Essex three whole crews were swept away in succession. 
 Porter tried to run her ashore ; but the wind suddenly shifted, the 
 springs on his cables were repeatedly shot away, and, to complete his 
 misfortunes, the ship took fire. As the flames burst up the hatch- 
 ways, he ordered all who could swim to jump overboard and make 
 for the shore. The helpless wreck was easily raked, three fifths of 
 her men were killed or wounded, and at last Porter struck his colors. 
 
, 
 
 224 
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. IX. 
 
 The sloop-of-war Peacock, Captain "\Varrington, captured the Brit- 
 other en- M 1 ^ VI S Epervier, on the 29th of April, after an action of 
 gi.gom.nts. f ,-ty minutes; and her sister ship, the Wasp, Captain Blake- 
 ley, captured the brig Reindeer, after a hot battle, in June, and in 
 September so badly injured the brig Avon that she sank. Within 
 twenty days the Wasp took three more prizes, and she was never 
 heard from afterward. The American privateer, General Armstrong, 
 Captain Samuel C. Reid, had put into the port of Fayal, Azores, in 
 
 The Armstrong at Fayal. 
 
 September, when three British cruisers entered the harbor, and sent 
 four boats to cut her out. But they were driven off with heavy loss. 
 The Governor remonstrated with the English commander against this 
 flagrant violation of neutrality, but was answered that the privateer 
 must be destroyed, and if she were protected lie would bombard the 
 town. At midnight, fourteen launches, each containing fifty men, 
 were sent against her. She opened on them with murderous effect, 
 and when two or three of them succeeded in getting alongside, a 
 hand-to-hand conflict ensued, which left scarcely a man in them alive. 
 
1814.] OPPOSITION TO THE WAR. 225 
 
 Next morning, one of the cruisers engaged the privateer, but was 
 soon obliged to haul off for repairs. Captain Reid, seeing Destruction 
 that the ultimate destruction of his vessel was certain, de- "- e ^i 
 stroyed her himself, and went ashore with his men. Only Armstron - 
 t\vo of his crew had been killed, and seven wounded, while the ascer- 
 tained loss of the British was a hundred and twenty killed, and ninety 
 wounded. The English commander had the effrontery to demand 
 that the authorities deliver to him as prisoners the gallant crew 
 whom he had failed to capture. This, of course, was refused, and 
 Captain Reid and his men took possession of an old convent, de- 
 claring they would defend themselves to the last. An apology was 
 made to Portugal for the violation of neutrality, but the owners of 
 the Armstrong never obtained any indemnity. 
 
 There were other actions at sea in the course of the next few 
 months, which added new laurels to the American navy. Decatur, 
 in the President, fought the Endymion, and reduced her to a wreck, 
 when, three other ships coming to her aid, he was compelled to sur- 
 render to this overwhelming force. Stewart, in the Constitution, was 
 more fortunate, as he captured the Cyane and the Levant. Riddle, 
 in the brig Hornet, fought one of the most brilliant naval battles 
 of the Avar with the Penguin, and took her. All these actions, how- 
 ever, in the winter or spring of 1815, were after peace was declared 
 in December. 
 
 But naval exploits, however brilliant, only served to convince those 
 who from the beginning had opposed the war, that its con- opposition 
 duct on shore was unwise and its aim misdirected. Henry tothewar 
 Clay at the outset had declared that with volunteers from Kentucky 
 alone he could in a short time overrun Canada ; but Canada, at the 
 opening of the winter of 1814, was as far from being a conquest of the 
 United States as when, in the summer of 1812, Hull had been driven 
 out of it and compelled to surrender. The disasters of two years on 
 the northern frontier had been atoned for in some degree by the 
 later battles on the Niagara peninsula and before Plattsburg. But 
 these comparatively small successes which only showed that Amer- 
 icans had not yet lost the faculty of fighting did not seem to the 
 opponents of the Avar to justify so enormous an expenditure of means 
 and of men for a purpose that not only had failed utterly, but, they 
 believed, should never have been attempted ; and much less did such 
 successes reconcile the maritime and commercial people, especially 
 of New England, to a policy which was proving their ruin. To 
 the want of any better i-esult on the northern borders, was added, 
 moreover, the loss to Massachusetts of a considerable portion of her 
 eastern territory, which the Administration had neglected to defend ; 
 
 VOL. IV. 15 
 

 226 WAR WITH ENGLAND. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 the humiliating reflection that the whole country had been outraged 
 by the capture and destruction of its capital, the mortifying spectacle 
 of a fugitive government, too imbecile to take proper measures for 
 defence, and too destitute of spirit to atone for its blunders by some 
 show of courage. Those who had opposed the war were not only 
 more than ever persuaded that it was conceived for a sinister pur- 
 pose, but that the result showed how incompetent the Administration 
 was to carry it on, equally incompetent either to continue it with 
 success or to end it with honor. 
 
 The feeling on the other side was not less bitter. The Federalists 
 The strife of were denounced as the British party. The accusation told 
 P"* 168 - with terrible force upon the minds of ignorant and unre- 
 flecting Democrats, and was used, therefore, without scruple for years 
 by those who knew 7 that sympathy with Great Britain, at that period, 
 only meant abhorrence of that monstrous military despotism with 
 which England was in deadly encounter. The charge of British 
 sympathy and of a wish to be reannexed to the Crown, carried with 
 it, of course, a charge of a purpose to dissolve the Union. And en- 
 mity to the Union was now, for the first time, looked upon as a crime, 
 because of this supposed ulterior object. 
 
 A separation of the States, up to the time of the immediate events 
 which led to the War of 1812, was the familiar remedy suggested for 
 all differences between the States. It originated in the fruitful brain 
 of Jefferson, who, notwithstanding his abstract love of peace, declared 
 that the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots 
 and tyrants once in twenty years, 1 who was opposed to the adop- 
 tion of the Constitution, who meant by the Virginia and Kentucky 
 Resolutions of 1798 to provide for its nullification, and to secure 
 the right of a dissolution of the Union whenever it should seem 
 good to any single State. It was a threat always on the lips of 
 Democratic orators, whenever any new step was proposed, or any 
 new measure carried by the Federalists, to consolidate and strengthen 
 the Government of the Union ; and the menace was as promptly 
 resorted to by the Federalists when they in their turn saw, or thought 
 they saw, a determination on the part of one portion of the States 
 to encroach upon another. The suggestion, made indifferently by 
 either party, was more or less serious, according to the seriousness of 
 the occasion that called it forth ; but that it was a perfectly proper 
 and legitimate one to make, was never questioned till party cunning 
 
 1 " God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a [Shays] rebellion 
 
 What signify a few lives lost in a century or two ? The tree of liberty must be refreshed 
 from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." Jef- 
 ferson's Works, vol. ii., p. 267. 
 
1814.] THE REMEDY OF DISUNION. 227 
 
 managed to confuse a proposition of disunion with a design to betray 
 popular government by the restoration of colonial dependence upon 
 England. That there was never the slightest truth in this accusa- 
 tion, may be asserted with entire confidence. 
 
 It should be remembered that the serious question in the minds of 
 the wisest of American statesmen, at the end of the last century, was, 
 whether a popular government was not a chimera. When, after a 
 few years' trial, it was concluded that such a government might be 
 possible under favorable circumstances, it was next doubted whether a 
 republic resting upon a union between the slave and free States could 
 be permanent, if, indeed, such a government could be called a 
 republic. Very few years passed away before such men as Alexan- 
 der Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, Timothy Pickering, Rufus King, 
 Josiah Quincy, George Cabot, and other distinguished statesmen of 
 the time, earnestly and frankly discussed the character of such a 
 union, and its evident failure as a just and rational form of govern- 
 ment. .Some of them were eager to abandon the attempt to reconcile 
 the irreconcilable ; others, with that timidity and hesitation which 
 have been so marked a characteristic of American politics from tlie 
 beginning, preferred rather to temporize, and postpone, and compro- 
 mise, to do anything rather than face an evil to-day, if it could be 
 put off till to-morrow. Naturally, this want of boldness provoked 
 and invited aggression from those with whom audacity h;id to do 
 service for right and justice. Merely to denounce the Federalists as 
 disunionists was, by itself, a feeble accusation ; for, if they were dis- 
 unionists simply because it was plain to their minds that there could 
 be no just and equal commingling between mediaeval and modern 
 civilization, so their accusers were equally disunionists when they 
 feared that the supremacy which the slaveholding representation in 
 the Government gave them was threatened by the progress and the 
 power of a free people. But when disunion was made to seem a 
 crime against republicanism, by the charge that it was only the first 
 step to a restoration of monarchy, an appeal was made to the passions 
 of the people, which was overwhelming. Monarchy was known and 
 hated ; slaveholding despotism was an abstract dread, which faded 
 away in the presence of a possible, immediate, and known evil. 
 
 The formation of a Northern Confederacy was undoubtedly consid- 
 ered by some of the wisest and the best of the Federal leaders as not 
 merely possible, but desirable. But, it should not be lost sight of, 
 this was only as a means to an end ; it was disunion for the sake of a 
 more perfect union ; the creation of an independent Northern Con- 
 federacy, which the weaker Southern States, in self-defence, would 
 be compelled to join on terms of reconstruction which would secure 
 

 228 WAR WITH ENGLAND. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 equality of representation, and give the greater weight to liberty, and 
 not to slavery. It was the misfortune of the Federal partv that un- 
 
 J L f 
 
 scrupulous opponents had the opportunity to invent evidence to show 
 that the desire to create such a Confederacy covered a design to 
 make it a part of the British Empire. Mr. Madison eagerly seized 
 upon a pretext of this sort not long before the declaration of war 
 in 1812, partly to strengthen his own party, but mainly to heap ob- 
 loquy upon the opponents of this war. 
 
 An adventurer of the name of John Henry appeared at Washing- 
 ton, with a marvellous tale of a conspiracy by which New 
 
 John Henry. r J * 
 
 England was to be detached from the United States and re- 
 stored to the British Crown. This man an Englishman by birth v 
 but married to a respectable American lady, and familiar with Amer- 
 ican affairs had persuaded the Governor of Canada, in 1809, to 
 send him as a political spy to Boston, believing that he would find 
 there the materials for organizing a plot if it did not already exist 
 for a revolution in favor of England. The papers laid by him, 
 three years later, before the President, by the President laid before 
 Congress, and afterward published, proved conclusively that the man 
 was of that vulgar class of knaves, known in the detective slang of 
 our day as " confidence-men." He was not the accredited agent of 
 the British Government ; he had discovered nothing ; he had nothing 
 to relate but what he might have heard at any time in the common 
 talk of men in the streets of New York, or Philadelphia, or Boston, 
 or even Washington, or might have read in any Federal news- 
 paper ; nothing to reveal that was not quite as well known to Mr. 
 Madison as to himself, of common Federal opinion ; not a single item 
 of evidence, whether hearsay or confidential, to bring against any in- 
 dividual of any complicity in any plot; nor any shadow of proof that 
 any plot existed either in England or America. 
 
 In the interval between his visit to Boston and his appearance at 
 Washington, Henry had been to England, and presented a claim for 
 services. It may be that he originally proposed only to persuade the 
 Ministry that he had acquired some valuable and important informa- 
 tion in New England, for which he deserved a large reward ; and his 
 want of success there may have suggested the more promising scheme 
 of pandering to the party purposes of Mr. Madison and his friends. 
 At any rate, the English Ministry repudiated him and his pretended 
 revelations ; and when it was clear that nothing was to be gained in 
 that quarter, the adventurer appeared in Washington, where he was 
 eagerly welcomed by the President and his Secretary of State, Mon- 
 roe, who imposed him upon the American people, as he would have 
 imposed himself upon the English Ministry, as one charged with 
 
1814.] THE HENRY CONSPIRACY. 220 
 
 a marvellous tale of conspiracies, plots, and treasons. The tale itself 
 would have been laughed at by all right-minded men for its evident 
 and absolute failure to fulfil its promise, but for the pretence that 
 it covered a design of Great Britain to recover some of her lost colo- 
 nies. Partisan passion and credulity, however, were large enough 
 for the deglutition of anything on that subject. The Federalists, of 
 course, made no reply, for the case was beyond the reach of any ap- 
 peal to argument, common sense, or common justice. The story was 
 told, not because he who invented it, or they who promulgated it, 
 could have maintained before any justice of the peace that there was 
 any truth in it, but because the one had hit upon an ingenious plan 
 to raise fifty thousand dollars, and the others were ready to pay fifty 
 thousand dollars for anything, true or false, that would bring odium 
 on the opposition party. To propagate this purely partisan calumny, 
 Mr. Madison paid one sixth as much as the House of Representatives 
 appropriated for the support of the navy at the outbreak of a war 
 with the strongest naval power in the world. 
 
 The influential men among the Federalists, who sincerely questioned 
 whether the Union had not proved a failure, and whether QuesUon of 
 the only remedy was not a reconstruction of States on a ane ' vL ' nion - 
 new basis, were not likely to be reconciled to the existing condition 
 of things by an attempt to prove that because they held to this be- 
 lief they were therefore disloyal to a republican form of government. 
 Their hostility to the war and to the war-party was intensified by 
 antagonism so unscrupulous, and, because it was an appeal to prej- 
 udice and passion so hard to meet. Massachusetts refused to respond 
 to the call for troops at the outset, on the ground that it was for 
 the Governor of a State, and not for the President, to decide whether 
 in any given case there was good and sufficient reason for calling 
 upon the militia ; and Connecticut, as well as Massachusetts, refused 
 to put the State troops under the command of United States officers. 
 On the second point both States were only maintaining a right re- 
 served to the States under the Federal Constitution ; but on the first 
 point Massachusetts simply took her stand upon the unalienable right 
 of revolution, asserted in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 
 1798 ; for her act was clearly one of nullification. 
 
 It was a natural and easy step to the Hartford Convention, two 
 years afterward. The war, which had proved disastrous, and till 
 recently except on the sea uniformly disgraceful to the Ameri- 
 can arms, had fallen with peculiar severity upon New England. Most 
 of her people believed that, bad as the war was, it was still more 
 badly conducted that the Administration was as imbecile as it was 
 unprincipled. The ruin of the country, they thought and said, could 
 
230 
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 [HAI>. IX. 
 
 only be averted first by the overthrow of such an Administration as 
 an immediate measure of relief, and then by such radical changes in 
 the terms of union between the States as should secure at least the 
 chance of a free and virtuous government in the future. 
 
 The Convention was called by a resolution of the Massachusetts 
 
 Legislature, passed in October, 1814. Twelve delegates 
 
 font convcn- \\ere appointed "to meet and confer with delegates from 
 
 the other New England States, or any other, upon the subject 
 
 of their public grievances and concerns .... of defence against the 
 
 enemy ; . . . . and also to take measures, if they shall think it proper, 
 
 for procuring a convention of delegates from all the United States, 
 
 in order to revise 
 the Constitution 
 thereof, and more 
 effectually to se- 
 cure the support 
 and attachment of 
 all the people, by 
 placing all upon 
 the basis of fair 
 representation." 
 It was ordered 
 that the resolu- 
 tion, of which this 
 is the essential 
 substance, should 
 be sent to the Gov- 
 ernors of all the 
 States. In the let- 
 ter written in obe- 
 dience to that or- 
 der, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of 
 Representatives were careful to say that " the general objects of the 
 proposed conference are, first, to deliberate upon the dangers to which 
 the eastern section of the Union is exposed by the course of the war, 
 which there is too much reason to believe will thicken round them 
 in its progress ; and to devise, if practicable, means of security and 
 defence, which may be consistent with the preservation of their re- 
 sources from total ruin, and adapted to their local situation, mutual 
 relations, and habits, and not repugnant to their obligations as mem- 
 bers of the Union." This was the immediate object of the Conven- 
 tion ; but the ulterior object that which went beyond relief from 
 the temporary evils of a disastrous war was to inquire "whether 
 
 Old State House Hartford. 
 
1814.] THE HARTFORD CONVENTION. 231 
 
 the interests of these States demand that persevering endeavors be 
 used by each of them to procure such amendments to be effected in 
 the national Constitution, as may secure to them equal advantage, 
 and whether, if in their judgment this shall be deemed impracticable 
 under the existing provisions for amending that instrument, an ex- 
 periment may be made without disadvantage to the nation, for ob- 
 taining a convention from all the States in the Union, or such of 
 them as approve of the measure, with a view to obtain such amend- 
 ment." This only meant put in briefer words a proposition to 
 amend the Constitution, if possible, with the assent of all the States ; 
 but if that was not possible, then the formation and adoption of a 
 new Constitution by so many of the States as agreed upon the ne- 
 cessity. In the last analysis, this was disunion, as the corollary of 
 reconstruction, but disunion that a free and equable republican 
 government, a government " of the people, by the people, and for 
 the people, shall not perish from the earth." 
 
 This, it should not be lost sight of, was peaceful disunion for the 
 sake of union. For it was never doubted that a slaveholding oli- 
 garchy, strong only by an alliance with a weak minority at the 
 North, would assent, by the necessity of the case, to the just demands 
 of a Northern majority when a refusal involved the creation of an 
 independent Northern confederacy. In the relative conditions of 
 the free and slave States, and in the clean-cut line between geograph- 
 ical parties at that period, this calculation upon speedy Southern 
 submission was probably well founded. Nearly half a century was 
 to pass away before the slaveholding oligarchy was strong enough 
 to take the bold ground that the extension and perpetuation of 
 human slavery was the price of union. The new Union, which the 
 Hartford conventionists aimed at only as a political policy, was then 
 achieved with a broader and higher purpose, but at enormous cost. 
 Not, however, that the North of 1814 was less in earnest than the 
 North of 1860 ; had the war with England continued a year or two 
 longer to widen the breach between the North and the South, the 
 War of Rebellion, perhaps, would never have been fought. The 
 new Union was delayed by the peace for half a century. 
 
 The Convention met on the 15th of December, and remained in 
 session for three weeks. 1 It sat with closed doors an unfortunate 
 
 1 The delegates were : From Massachusetts George Cabot, William Prescott, Harri- 
 son Gray Otis, Timothy Bigelow, Stephen Longfellow, Jr., Daniel Waldo, George Bliss, 
 Nathan Dime, Hodijah Baylies, Joshua Thomas, Joseph Lyman, Samuel S. Wilde. From 
 Rhode Island Daniel Lyman, Samuel Ward, Benjamin Hazard, Edward Manton. From 
 Connecticut Chauncey Goodrich, James Hillhouse, John Tread well, Zephaniah Swift, 
 Calvin Goddard, Nathaniel Smith, Roger Minot Sherman. From New Hampshire 
 Benjamin West, Mills Olcott. From Vermont William Hall, Jr. The last three were 
 not appointed by their State governments, but by committees of certain towns. 
 
232 WAK WITH ENGLAND. [CHAI-. IX. 
 
 necessity, if a necessity at all. It was watched with great interest, 
 on one side with hope, on the other with anxiety and apprehension. 
 Madison, always more than- half doubtful of the policy of his own 
 party, was in trepidation, and Major Jesup was sent to Hartford, 
 ostensibly to fill up his regiment by recruiting, but in fact to watch 
 the Convention and send bulletins of all he could gather to the Sec- 
 retary of State. But in truth there was nothing to fear, if any 
 overt act was looked for to justify the interference of either civil or 
 military authority. In revolutions, discussion must precede action ; 
 this Convention was not only met for deliberation and counsel ; it was 
 probably meant in some degree to stave off rash and hasty action. 
 
 There was material enough in the report which the members of the 
 Convention made to their constituents to serve as a basis for future 
 revolutionary action, should future events call for it. For abuses, 
 it said, * reduced to a system, and accumulated through a course of 
 years," clothed in " the forms of law," enforced by an executive, and 
 spreading corruption everywhere, there was no "summary means of 
 relief " but " direct and open resistance." But only necessity could 
 sanction such resistance when, after full deliberation, the people 
 were " determined to change the Constitution." Though many be- 
 lieved that " the time for a change is at hand," there were consider- 
 ations which still held out a " hope of reconciling all to a course 
 of moderation and firmness which might avert the evil, or at least 
 insure consolation and success in the last resort." There might yet 
 be " a reformation of public opinion, resulting from dear-bought ex- 
 perience, in the southern Atlantic States They may discard 
 
 the influence of visionary theorists, and recognize the benefits of a 
 practical policy." But " events may prove that the causes of our 
 calamities are deep and permanent ; " and when that shall appear, " a 
 separation by equitable arrangement will be preferable to an alliance 
 by constraint among nominal friends, but real enemies, inflamed by 
 mutual hatred and jealousy, and inviting, by intestine divisions, con- 
 tempt and aggression from abroad." A separation, then, was to be 
 the ultimate remedy, unless dangers and grievances could be averted 
 by measures which the report discussed at length and embodied 
 finally in a series of resolutions, proposing : That unconstitutional 
 drafts of militia should be prevented ; that the States should be em- 
 powered to defend their own territory ; that only the free inhabitants 
 of a State should be counted in the apportionment of representatives 
 and direct taxes ; that a two-thirds vote should be required to admit 
 a new State, to interdict commercial intercourse, or to declare offen- 
 sive war; that embargoes for more than sixty days should be for- 
 bidden ; that naturalized citizens should not be eligible to federal 
 

 1814.] DEFENCE OF NEW ORLEANS. 233 
 
 offices : that the President should be ineligible for a second term, 
 and should not be chosen from any State twice in succession ; and 
 finally, that if these ends were not attained, and peace not concluded, 
 another convention should be held in Boston in June. 
 
 But that convention never met. Some of the immediate causes of 
 discontent were removed by the sudden termination of the war, which 
 soon followed ; and in the universal rejoicing at the return of peace 
 the radical evil which threatened the permanence of the Union was 
 for a little while lost sight of, and left to be dealt with by another 
 generation in another way. 
 
 The British forces, meanwhile, had taken virtual possession of the 
 Spanish town of Pensacola, and used it as a station to fit out 
 expeditions against Mobile and New Orleans. To this place on 
 they invited their savage allies, equipped them for war, and 
 attempted to drill them in military organization. The commander 
 also offered Lafitte, the so-called pirate of Barataria Bay, a captain's 
 commission and liberal grants of land from the territory to be con- 
 quered, together with the less substantial boon of " the blessings of 
 the British Constitution," if he would assist with his fleet in the cap- 
 ture of Mobile and New Orleans. 1 
 
 With new levies of troops, raised principally in Tennessee and 
 Kentucky, Jackson marched southward to meet this new invasion. 
 In September an attack on Fort Bowyer, at Mobile, by the British, 
 was repulsed, with a loss to the enemy of one ship and many men. 
 At Pensacola they blew up and abandoned Fort Barrancas at Jack- 
 son's approach in November, and he took possession of the city. The 
 next month he was at New Orleans, where he made vigorous prep- 
 arations to defend that port, which, if taken, would give to Great 
 Britain possession of the mouth of the Mississippi, and, it was hoped, 
 the command of the western territory of the United States. 2 
 
 
 
 Jackson was not in the least appalled at the magnitude and impor- 
 tance of the work before him. He called out the militia; he 
 
 Jackson at 
 
 appealed to the free negroes, who enlisted in considerable *'*' Or - 
 
 numbers ; he enrolled the convicts ; he accepted the services 
 
 of Lafitte and his followers ; he hurried Coffee with two thousand men 
 
 1 Lafitte was not strictly a pirate, but a receiver of goods captured by half piratical 
 privateers. When he hud obtained from the British commander a full committal in black 
 and white, he sent the letters to Governor Claibome, and offered his services in defending 
 the coast, on condition of ail act of oblivion as to his past offences. A council of military 
 and naval officers decided that the letters were forged, and an expedition under Commo- 
 dore Patterson broke up his establishment. 
 
 2 An officer in the expedition, after describing the Mississippi and its tributaries, wrote: 
 " Whatever nation, therefore, chances to possess this place, possesses in reality the com- 
 mand of a greater extent of country than is included within the boundary-line of the 
 whole United States." Gleig's Campaigns at Washington and New Orleans. The London 
 
234 
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 [CHAP. IX. 
 
 from Mobile to New Orleans ; he inspected every rood of ground 
 about the city ; he made intrenchments, proclaimed martial law, in- 
 spired the people with his own confidence, and animated them with 
 his own energy. 
 
 The British had captured the American gunboats in Lake Borgne, 
 and landed twenty-four hundred men nine miles below the city. 
 With about two thousand, Jackson went down to meet them. It was 
 late in the day December 23 when he reached his enemy, and 
 the attack was made after dark. The schooner Carolina, lying in the 
 Mississippi, discharged a broadside which enfiladed the British left 
 wing, and this was the signal for the onset. There was almost ab- 
 solute darkness, except as the flashes of the guns lighted up one and 
 
 Jackson's Headquarters New Orleans. 
 
 another part of the field. In a lit- 
 tle while the two armies became 
 
 largely intermingled, and, as a participant wrote, " no man could tell 
 what was going forward in any quarter, except where he himself 
 chanced immediately to stand." After two or three hours of fight- 
 ing, the Americans withdrew to their fortifications four miles from 
 the city. Each side had lost more than two hundred men. 1 
 
 Hardly was this action over, when heavy reinforcements of British 
 troops arrived, and with them Generals Sir Edward Pakenham and 
 Samuel Gibbs. Pakenham was a brother-in-law of the Duke of Wel- 
 lington, and had won distinction in the Peninsular war. He found 
 the army he had come to command encamped on a narrow strip of 
 low and level land ; on one side was a broad river where it had no 
 
 Times announced that " most active measures are pursuing for detaching from the do- 
 minion of the enemy an important part of his territory." 
 
 1 Unofficial reports by British officers made their loss over five hundred. 
 
1815.] DEFENCE OF NEW ORLEANS. 235 
 
 shipping, on the other a morass ; in front were fortifications, manned 
 by an enemy of unknown strength ; two vessels in the river annoyed 
 the camp day and night, and frequent frost and rain filled up the 
 catalogue of miseries. 
 
 Pakenham brought a few heavy guns across the Peninsula, and 
 with hot shot destroyed one vessel and drove the other up stream. 
 After a costly reconnoissance, he determined upon siege operations, 
 and in a single night erected bastions of hogsheads of sugar, and 
 mounted thirty guns. On the morning of the new year fire was 
 opened upon these bastions ; sugar offered small resistance to cannon- 
 balls, and in a little while the whole treacherous rampart crumbled 
 away. Jackson had used cotton bales, which, though impenetrable by 
 shot, were knocked out of place and set on fire. But they answered a 
 temporary purpose till he could construct earthworks a mile and a 
 half in the rear. 
 
 In the week that followed, both sides were reenforced. The British 
 dug a canal across the isthmus, and dragged boats through from the 
 lakes to send a force against the batteries on the west bank of the 
 river. On Saturday, January 7, Pakenham climbed a tall pine tree 
 and surveyed the American lines, while at the same time Jackson, 
 standing on a high building, with an imperfect spy-glass in his hand, 
 was watching the operations of the enemy, whom he saw making lad- 
 ders and binding up sugar-cane into fascines. 
 
 Pakenham intended to attack on both sides of the river, before 
 dawn of the 8th. But there was delay in the passage of the river ; 
 the sun rose ; the fog began to roll away, and he impatiently sent up 
 the signal rocket and ordered his men forward long before those on 
 the west side were ready. The Americans, as well as their enemy, 
 understood the signal, and as many fire-arms as could be laid across 
 the parapet were pointed down the Peninsula, while a thirty-two 
 pounder was loaded to the muzzle with musket-balls. The enemy 
 advanced in two columns, each preceded by a regiment bearing 
 ladders and fascines, while midway between were placed a thousand 
 Highlanders ready to support an attack on both wings of the Ameri- 
 cans ; and in the rear was a strong reserve. Jackson's men were un- 
 erring with the rifle, and the artillery was served with coolness and 
 precision. When the thirty-two pounder discharged its bushel of 
 musket-balls, the entire van of one column melted away. Both of 
 the pioneer i-egiments wavered, and there was no means of crossing 
 the ditch till the men could be rallied and the lines re-formed. In 
 the attempt to do this under a withering fire, Pakenham was killed. 
 General Gibbs was wounded mortally, General Keene seriously, and 
 Colonel Dale fell at the head of his Highland regiment. Three offi- 
 
236 WAR WITH ENGLAND. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 cers who reached the breastwork were instantly shot, and fell into the 
 ditcli together ; of three others who reached it at another point, two 
 were riddled as they mounted it, and when the thii'd demanded the 
 swords of two Americans who confronted him, he was smilingly told 
 to look behind him. He turned, and found that the men he sup- 
 posed to be following him had utterly vanished away. In twenty- 
 five minutes the action was over, and the British had lost seven 
 hundred killed, fourteen hundred wounded, and five hundred prison- 
 ers, while the American loss was but seventeen. The force on the 
 right bank of the river had carried the American works, and were 
 pursuing the militia, when they were ordered to return. The British 
 fleet, ascending the river, failed to pass Fort St. Philip, and General 
 Lambert, on whom the command had devolved, disheartened at the 
 disasters which had befallen the enterprise, abandoned it and re- 
 treated to his shipping. 
 
 So brilliant a campaign, with the successes at the North, under 
 General Brown, would certainly have given a more hopeful 
 start to a third year of war, had the war been continued. 
 But peace was concluded at Ghent on the 24th of December, a fort- 
 night before the battle of New Orleans. The glory of the battle was 
 the glory of the skilful, successful defence of raw militia against 
 the best veteran troops of Europe, and from that there can be no de- 
 traction. But it had no influence, either upon continuing the war or 
 upon ending it. 
 
 Two incidents, occurring toward the close of this campaign, illus- 
 trated Jackson's despotic and violent temper as well as his stern, 
 though often narrow, sense of duty. Both became formidable weap- 
 ons in the hands of partisan opponents when, in later years, he became 
 the head of a political party. After the unofficial news of peace had 
 reached New Orleans, and when the official announcement 
 of X .HU U ' was daily expected, six militia-men, sentenced by court-mar- 
 tial to be shot for desertion, four months before, were ex- 
 ecuted near Mobile, with Jackson's approbation. These men one 
 of them a simple-minded, conscientious Baptist preacher, who had en- 
 listed that he might be near a son of sixteen who was also in the 
 army had gone home after the expiration of their three months' 
 service, believing that to be the full time for which they could be 
 legally held. One of them a captain was not even guilty of this 
 crime, if it was a crime, but was condemned on some very doubtful 
 evidence of having incited others to desertion. Three months' service 
 had been up to that time both the law and the custom, and these 
 men were clearly ignorant of any law that could hold them longer, 
 though there was a recent six months' enlistment act of Congress 
 
1815.] GENERAL JACK SOX. 237 
 
 under which, it was assumed, they had been enlisted on proclamation 
 of the Governor of the State. The question involved an honest mis- 
 understanding of the terms of enlistment was essentially the same 
 as that which led to the revolt of the whole Pennsylvania line in the 
 War of the Revolution, which Washington settled by conciliatory 
 measures. But Jackson was not Washington. The stern sense of 
 justice in Jackson was not mollified by mercy. He saw only dis- 
 obedience to military law, and was unmoved by the consideration 
 that the war was probably over, and that the service would not be 
 harmed by the pardon of men who had erred through ignorance. 
 They were all shot. 
 
 In New Orleans the General came into conflict with the civil au- 
 thorities. The citizens were impatient of the continuance 
 
 . , , , , i i i i i 11 Contest with 
 
 of martial law, when there was little doubt that peace had the cmi 
 been concluded, though the authoritative announcement had 
 not yet been received. The newspapers were forbidden to publish 
 any statement upon the subject until authorized to do so by orders 
 from headquarters. French citizens, who had not been backwai'd in 
 the presence of real danger, sought to escape military service when 
 they thought it no longer necessary, by asking the protection of the 
 French Consul. He, and all who had taken certificates from him, 
 were ordered to leave the town as if they were public enemies. A 
 Mr. Louaillier, a member of the Legislature, distinguished for his 
 zeal and activity in the presence of the enemy, was arrested and im- 
 prisoned for protesting, through the columns of a newspaper, against 
 the arbitrary proceedings of the commanding General. Judge Hall, 
 who issued a writ of habeas corpus in Louaillier's favor, was also 
 arrested on a charge "of abetting and exciting mutiny,'' imprisoned, 
 and then banished beyond the city limits. He, however, was of a no 
 less determined temper than Jackson himself ; when, a few days after, 
 peace was officially declared, he summoned the General before him 
 for contempt of court, and fined him a thousand dollars, which Jack- 
 son had the good sense to pay without resistance, even refusing to 
 avail himself of some popular tumult that was raised on his behalf. 
 The country learned from these early incidents in his cai'eer the char- 
 acter of the man, and they were not forgotten. Four years afterward 
 President Monroe thought of appointing him minister to Russia, and 
 asked Mr. Jefferson's advice. Jefferson's answer was ' Why, good 
 God ! he would breed you a quarrel before he had been there a 
 month ! " l 
 
 1 Diary, when Secretary of State, in Memoirs of John Quincy Adams. 
 

 Washington, from a Sketch made about 1830. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 THE NEWS OF PEACE. ITS EFFECT UPON THE HARTFORD MOVEMENT. CHARACTER 
 OF THE TREATY OF GHENT. RESULTS OF THE WAR. THE ALGERINE WAR. 
 CONDITION OF THE UNITED STATES. FINANCIAL QUESTIONS. EFFECT OF THE 
 TARIFF UPON NEW ENGLAND CITIKS. CHARACTER OF MADISON. ELECTION OF 
 MONROE. THE FIRST SEMINOLE WAR. REASONS FOR ANNEXING FLORIDA. 
 THE AFFAIR AT AMELIA ISLAND. JACKSON'S CAMPAIGN'. His EXECUTION OF 
 PRISONERS. His DISPUTE WITH MONROE. CESSION OF FLORIDA. 
 
 THE enthusiasm and joy at the news of peace were absolutely hila- 
 Thenewg nous among all classes of the people. There was no waiting 
 of peace. ^ Q fc now ^\ }e terms on which it had been concluded ; it was 
 enough to know that, honorable or dishonorable, advantageous or dis- 
 advantageous, just or unjust, wise or foolish, terms of some kind had 
 been agreed upon, and the war was over. In truth, it was better to 
 rejoice first and reflect afterwards. Federalists and Democrats could 
 exult that there was war no more ; middle-aged gentlemen of both 
 parties, eminent for the grave dignity and quiet respectability of their 
 lives, could mount the tables at public dinners and dance together in 
 white-top boots, among the empty bottles, in token of amity and fra- 
 ternity. There was time enough for sober after-thought when the 
 
1815.] THE NEWS OF PEACE. 239 
 
 Government should see fit to give more definite intelligence. In the 
 mean while both parties had reason enough for rejoicing : one, that it 
 was extricated from a war which had proved to be as unwise and as 
 useless as its opponents had declared at the outset it would be ; the 
 other, that their wisdom was justified, and the prophet's reward was 
 theirs; and both were glad to agree to disagree no longer. The 
 news from Ghent met the delegates from the Hartford Convention at 
 Washington. It was not a time to present their report of 
 
 1 hffert upon 
 
 grievances, and they made no sign. It was thoroughly Amer- the^ifartford 
 ican to seize the opportune moment to silence the solemn 
 appeal to reason by an appeal to the national love of humor and the 
 national love of forgetting anything serious. Otis and his companions 
 were advertised by the Democrats as strayed or stolen, 1 and a suit- 
 able reward offered for their return to their anxious friends in Boston. 
 The men who could have bravely faced a gibbet, trembled and fled 
 before a joke. 
 
 The real absurdity of the situation, nevertheless, attaches to their 
 opponents. The war had been carried on upon a single issue. The 
 Orders in Council had been revoked almost at the outbreak of hostili- 
 ties, and Dearborn and Admiral Warren had even agreed upon a 
 temporary armistice in the summer of 1812, which the Administration 
 had overruled mainly on grounds of diplomatic technicalities. This 
 left the impressment of seamen the sole cause of quarrel. The Com- 
 mittee of Foreign Relations in Congress, in a report upon the war. in 
 January, 1813, said : " The impressment of our seamen being deserv- 
 edly considered a principal cause of the war, the war ought to be 
 prosecuted until the cause was removed," notwithstanding the repeal 
 of the Orders in Council. When, early the same year, commissioners 
 were appointed to negotiate a peace on the proposed mediation of Rus- 
 sia, if England should accept it, Secretary Monroe said in his instruc- 
 tions to the Commissioners : " If this encroachment [impressment] of 
 Great Britain is not provided against, the United States have ap- 
 pealed to arms in vain. If your efforts to accomplish it should fail, 
 
 1 ADVERTISEMENT. MISSING. Three well-looking, responsible men, who appeared 
 to be travelling towards Washington, disappeared suddenly from Gadsby's Hotel in Balti- 
 more on Monday evening last, and have not since been heard of. They were observed to 
 l>e very melancholick on hearing the news of peace, and one of them was heard to say, with 
 a great sigh, " Poor Caleb Strong ! " [Federal Governor of Massaehu>etts.] They took 
 with them their saddlebags, so that no apprehension is entertained of their having any 
 intention to make away with themselves. Whoever will give any information to the Hart- 
 ford Convention of the fate of these unfortunate and tristful gentlemen by letter (post-paid) 
 will confer a favor upon humanity. The newspapers, particularly the Federal newspapers, 
 are requested to publish this advertisement in a conspicuous place, and send in their bills 
 to the Hartford Convention. P. S. One of the gentlemen was called Titus Dates [Har- 
 rison Gray Otis] or some such name. National Advocate, February, 1815. 
 
240 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. [CiiAr. X. 
 
 .... you will return home immediately." It was next proposed 
 
 to open negotiations at Gottenburg, and the Secretary wrote again 
 
 in the same tone : " This degrading practice must cease ; 
 
 Instructions ,, , , , J T ., , ,-, , 
 
 toc'ommis- our nag must protect the crew, or the United States cannot 
 
 cioners. i i ^ i ,. n>i 
 
 consider themselves an independent nation. The changed 
 accent of the same voice, a few months later, is in ludicrous contrast 
 with the eagle-scream of these war-cries. Early the next year in 
 February Monroe wrote to the same Commissioners that "should 
 peace be made in Europe, as the practical evil of which we complain 
 in regard to impressment would cease, it is presumed the British Gov- 
 ernment would have less objection to a stipulation to forbear that 
 practice for a specified term, than it would have, should the war con- 
 tinue. In concluding a peace .... it is important to the United 
 States to obtain such a stipulation." The mind of the Secretary 
 changed like the colors of the chameleon. Three months later he 
 wrote to the Commissioners : " You may concur in an article stipu- 
 lating that the subject of impressment .... be referred to separ- 
 ate negotiation.'' And two days after ordering that concession the 
 still more significant instructions were sent, to " ornit any stipula- 
 tion on the subject of impressment, if found indispensably neces- 
 sary to terminate it'' [the war]. Thus, "the principal cause of 
 the war," as the Democratic Congressional committee declared it 
 to be in 1813, the grievance which by war alone could be set- 
 tled, if the United States, as Secretary Monroe said in 1814, were 
 to "consider themselves an independent nation," was deliberately 
 abandoned. 
 
 The American Commissioners at Ghent 1 implicitly, in the letter 
 The treaty anc ^ ' n tne spirit, obeyed their instructions. In the course 
 of Ghent. o j.j je negotiations with the English Commissioners they de- 
 clared that " the causes of the war having disappeared by the mari- 
 time pacification of Europe, the Government of the United States does 
 not desire to continue it in defence of abstract principles " mean- 
 ing by abstract principles the impressment of American seamen 
 " which have, for the present, ceased to have any practical effect." 
 Accordingly, in the treaty then and there made, the subject of im- 
 pressment was not even alluded to. The cost of the war in human 
 life was thirty thousand men ; in money expended, and represented by 
 a national debt, one hundred million dollars : the loss in public and 
 private wealth, in the paralysis of industry and prosperity, was be- 
 yond any estimate. In the official volume of Treaties and Conven- 
 tions, published by the United States, the subject of the Treaty of 
 
 1 The American Commissioners were : John Quiucy Adams, James A. Bayard, Henry 
 Clay, Jonathan Russell, and Albert Gallatiu. 
 

 4g^^ 
 
 r 
 
 FAC-SIMILES OF SIGNATURES TO TREATY OF GHENT. 
 
1815.] THE TREATY OF GHENT. 241 
 
 Ghent is indexed as " Peace, Boundary, Slave-trade." Peace it cer- 
 tainly secured ; the question of boundaries was left to be further con- 
 sidered by commissioners to be subsequently appointed, and to vex 
 both governments for another thirty years ; on the abolition of the 
 slave-trade, by an empty generality it was agreed that " both the con- 
 tracting parties shall use their best endeavors to accomplish so desir- 
 able an object." The treaty in fact was not so good as that con- 
 cluded by Jay in 1794, for negotiating which he was burned in effigy 
 in the streets of New York ; nor was it so favorable to the United 
 States as that sent home in 1806 by Monroe and Pinckney, which 
 Jefferson refused to submit to the Senate. It concluded peace, and 
 it concluded nothing else. 
 
 The negotiations were prolonged for five months. Mr. Adams in 
 his diary frequently alludes to the insolent and supercilious tone as- 
 sumed by the English towards the American Commissioners, and often 
 predicts, in the earlier stages of the discussions, that they could last 
 only a few days longer, and must end in disagreement. But both 
 parties were sincerely desirous of peace, and it was easy to agree upon 
 that when at last it was determined that all questions between the 
 two nations should be left essentially where they were when the war 
 began. 1 Six months afterwards, however, a commercial convention 
 was entered into, which provided for reciprocity of trade between the 
 two countries, but. otherwise was, for the most part, a repetition of the 
 Jay Treaty. In one essential particular, however, it differed from the 
 Jay Treaty. One strong, if not the strongest, objection urged against 
 that treaty was, that it failed to settle the question of the payment for 
 slaves who had escaped to the British at the time of the Revolution. 
 Now Mr. Monroe, though he could abandon the rights of Northern 
 sailors, on whose behalf, it was pretended, the war was begun, did not 
 forget the interests of the slaveholders. " The negroes taken from 
 the Southern States," he instructed the Commissioners at Ghent, 
 " should be returned to their owners, or paid for at their full value." 
 This was insisted upon by the Commissioners, and, it was thought, 
 secured. The English commanders of vessels, however, when the ren- 
 dition of the slaves was demanded, would only return those who had 
 been taken prisoners, refusing to surrender those who had sought pro- 
 tection on board their ships. On such a point the Government w;is 
 unyielding. The demand was insisted upon for a dozen years with 
 unbending pertinacity, till at length, Russia construing the treaty in 
 favor of the United States, England paid about twelve hundred thou- 
 
 1 Mr. Clay said, in a conference of the American Commissioners the day before the final 
 agreement, that " We should make a damned bad Treaty, and he did not know whether 
 he would sign it or not." Diary in the Memoirs of John Quincy Adams. 
 VOL. iv. 16 
 
242 MOXROE'S ADMINISTRATION. [CHAP. X. 
 
 sand dollars to remunerate the slaveholders, principal and interest, 
 for their loss in slaves. 
 
 The end of the war was as inconclusive as the beginning was un- 
 Kffectof wise, and its conduct imbecile. To all this it is both an 
 inefficient and illogical answer that nevertheless out of so 
 much that \vas evil there came some good. Whatever there was of 
 good, it had been the policy of the Federalists to strive for, as it had 
 been the policy of the other party to oppose, through the sixteen 
 years of the administrations of Jefferson and Madison. The two par- 
 ties had not changed places ; but the Federal party partly through 
 their own mismanagement, partly through the essential unity of a 
 "solid South," with a Northern minority was overcome; while 
 the Democratic party was forced by the progress of events, and 
 their irresistible pressure the war among them first, to suc- 
 cumb to, and then to accept and maintain as their own, the political 
 ideas and principles they had so long resisted. From the close of 
 the war of the Revolution to the close of the second war with Eng- 
 land, the Federalists maintained that the United States, to be re- 
 spectable and respected, must be a strong government, literally one 
 and indivisible, not merely a confederation of thirteen independent 
 States ; a nation free from the entanglement of European politics, 
 with a navy strong enough to maintain its neutrality, to protect its 
 foreign commerce, and defend its rights upon the sea. Great revo- 
 lutions have not been often successful without a second struggle ; 
 and it was, perhaps, absolutely inevitable that there should be a 
 second war with England, not merely to wipe out old grudges, but 
 that the people of the United States should be brought to under- 
 stand that their independence was not achieved till they were united 
 as one nation. 
 
 It did not hurt England so far as her desperate struggle with 
 Napoleon was concerned, but the war, nevertheless, had its lesson for 
 her also as well as for her opponent. Her supremacy as a naval 
 power was no longer unquestioned. Though her navy was the largest 
 in the world, she could boast no longer that she ruled the seas, when 
 a young nation, that three years before was almost without any navy 
 at all, could meet her on equal terms, and beat her in better seaman- 
 ship and in the better fighting qualities of captains and men. It 
 was a humiliation to all England, not to be rejoiced in on that 
 account, though even in that not altogether unpleasing to the un- 
 regenerate mind, and a thing to be proud of, inasmuch as it secured 
 to the United States that respect which is always accorded to the 
 strong. The Democrats exulted that this was the result of their 
 war ; the Federalists while not reluctant to remind their opponents 
 
1815.] 
 
 WAR WITH ALGIERS. 
 
 243 
 
 that they for years had done their best to make that impossible of 
 which they now boasted rejoiced in that naval prowess the possibil- 
 ity of which they had never doubted. Though no acknowledgment 
 was asked for, and none given, that the visitation of American ships 
 and the impressment of American seamen were national outrages; 
 and though no stipulation was required, nor any offered, that hence- 
 forth they should cease forever, they were not likely to occur again, 
 now it was seen with how much vigor they were sure to be resented. 
 
 Decatur and the Dey of Algiers. 
 
 Before the country could settle down into absolute quietude there 
 was one other question of foreign hostilities to be disposed of, which 
 related, in some degree, to the late war. The Dey of Algiers, dissat- 
 isfied with the measure of the usual tribute, had declared war against 
 the United States, and renewed his depredations upon Anier- w ., rHitll 
 ican commerce. In the spring of lSlf>, Decatur was sent A1 e' ers - 
 with a squadron of nine vessels to the Mediterranean. In June he 
 fell in with an Algerine frigate and a brig of twenty-two guns, and 
 
244 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. [CHAP. X. 
 
 captured both within a day or two of each other. A few days after- 
 ward his whole squadron anchored in the harbor of Algiers, and 
 Decatur demanded the immediate negotiation of a treaty. This was 
 acceded to, and the negotiation was carried on on the quarter-deck 
 of his own ship. The Dey begged hard that there might be a con- 
 tinuation of tribute, if only a little powder, for form's sake ; for the 
 humiliating deference paid to these piratical principalities, he well 
 knew, if boldly broken by one nation would no longer be submitted 
 to by the rest. " If you insist upon receiving powder as tribute," 
 Decatur replied to the Dey's demand, ' you must expect to receive 
 balls with it," a threat to do that which, fourteen years before, 
 Bainbridge wished might be done, the payment of tribute from the 
 mouths of cannon. The threat was enough, and a treaty was con- 
 cluded with Algiers, to be followed by others with Tunis and Trip- 
 oli ; and these put an end to that remarkable submission of civilized 
 nations to semi-barbarous states, which had existed so long and with 
 so little reason. 
 
 The country was left in a deplorable financial condition as a result 
 condition f t ne war ? an d to provide some remedy for this was the 
 united fi rs t work of the Administration. The banks, excepting 
 those in Boston, had suspended specie payments ; the paper 
 currency was at a large discount, with the consequent derangement 
 of the business of the country ; foreign commerce had been almost 
 suspended, and the people were burdened with taxation. A. J. Dal- 
 las, the Secretary of the Treasury, proposed as a measure of relief 
 for the universal distress, that a new national bank should be char- 
 tered, with a larger capital and enlarged powers, and that the tariff 
 Financial should be readjusted. This plan was adopted ; a bank was 
 measures. chartered for one and twenty years, with a capital of 
 $35,000,000, a portion of the stock to be owned by the Government, 
 and to be represented in the management by five government direc- 
 tors in a board of twenty-five. By the tariff he recommended, the 
 average duties on imports amounted almost to a prohibition, and were 
 avowedly intended as an encouragement and protection to American 
 manufactures. 
 
 This policy was sustained by the Democratic, or Southern, party, 
 conflicting an d opposed by the Federalists, especially of New England, 
 interests. jj. wag no j. so much a question of abstract political economy 
 that divided the parties, as one of sectional interest. The capital of 
 New England was invested in commerce, and she deprecated the 
 adoption of a policy which in repulsing articles of foreign production 
 would ruin the carrying trade and compel those engaged in it to find 
 a new use for their capital. The South, on the other hand, were 
 
JOHN C. CALHOUN. 
 (From a j/ortr<ii> by Kiliij at th<- ('in<-i>i-<in Ail f;<tlli-ry.) 
 
1816.] 
 
 FINANCIAL QUESTIONS. 
 
 245 
 
 anxious to create a home market for their great staple, cotton, 
 against which there was a discriminating duty in England, and to 
 encourage the domestic manufacture of those coarse fabrics indispen- 
 sable in a cotton -growing and slave-holding region, which were now 
 imported and made of India cotton. The question really was one of 
 slave labor against free labor, though it was wrapped up in the eu- 
 phemism of protec- 
 tion to American 
 industry the free 
 trade party being 
 led by Daniel Web- 
 ster, of Massachu- 
 setts, and the tariff 
 party by John C. 
 Calhoun, of South 
 Carolina. So im- 
 mediate was the ef- 
 fect of this policy, 
 that the value of the 
 imports fell off the 
 first year about 
 thirty-two per cent, 
 although the in- 
 crease the first year 
 of peace, by 
 which the renewed 
 prosperity of the 
 
 * J. U ~>~ 
 
 country was measured, had been about nine hundred per cent. 
 Nor was this the whole of the price which Northern commerce had 
 to pay, that cotton might have a wider market at home by the in- 
 crease of domestic manufactures. In the adjustment of cap- 
 
 i Effect upon 
 
 ital and trade to an enforced industrial policy, the country Xew En - 
 
 . , . . * land cities. 
 
 was compelled to pass through a commercial crisis ot great 
 severity, and a paralysis fell upon the flourishing seaports of New 
 England, from Portsmouth to Long Island Sound, from which they 
 never recovered. Newburyport, Salem, Plymouth, New London, 
 Newport, and other places which had been centres of an important 
 and lucrative foreign commerce, sank into insignificance, or, if they 
 recovered some measure of prosperity, acquired it in other ways. It 
 is true, Manchester, Lowell, Lawrence, Fall River, Pawtucket, Wa- 
 terbury, and many other places became, in the course of years, the 
 seats of great manufacturing enterprise and wealth, but they owe 
 their existence to the indomitable energy and industry of a people 
 
 The Old United States Bank, Philadelphia. 
 
246 MOXROE'S ADMINISTRATION. [CHAP. X. 
 
 which no legislative interference with the natural laws could sup- 
 press. 
 
 The ensuing Presidential contest was decided by the result of the 
 war. Xot only was the anti-war party annihilated, but power re- 
 Political mained in the almost undisputed possession of that faction 
 which had taken it from the Federalists sixteen years before, 
 and had held it ever since. As Madison had succeeded Jefferson, so 
 it was determined that Monroe should succeed Madison. The sov- 
 ereignty of the Union was in the South, and the South was Virginia. 
 The Northern wing of the party was strong enough as an ally to 
 make it all-powerful ; it was not strong enough to assert any ascen- 
 dency of its own. It would have made a Northern man President if 
 it could, and its choice would have fallen upon Daniel D. Tompkins 
 of New York. Tompkins was the " war-Governor " of that period. 
 By his energy, executive ability, and personal pecuniary sacrifices, 
 he had done as much, perhaps more, than the Administration itself, 
 in conducting the war on the borders of Canada. His qualifications 
 for the chief magistracy were far superior to those of Monroe, who, 
 though an amiable man, had little strength of character, and little apti- 
 tude for affairs of moment ; was more anxious for personal popularity 
 than the independence and dignity of his administration ; tenacious 
 upon petty questions of Presidential etiquette, which he was more 
 fitted by nature to control than affairs of state. But Monroe was a 
 Virginian, devoted to the slave-power, while Tompkins, the war-Gov- 
 ernor of New York, was disqualified by Northern birth. 
 
 Nominations for the Presidency and Vice-presidency were at that 
 Election of time made in a Congressional caucus, and, as under the 
 Mouroe. equally pernicious system of national conventions now in use, 
 the only share the people had in filling those high offices was in go- 
 ing through the formality of voting for the choice of the party leaders. 
 The vote in the Electoral College for Monroe as President, and for 
 Tompkins as Vice-president, for the Northern Democrats were per- 
 mitted to have that honorary, but otherwise insignificant and power- 
 less office, was one hundred and eighty-three, while only thirty-four 
 were given to the opposing Federal candidate, Rufus King. 
 
 The tranquillity of Monroe's administration was soon seriously 
 threatened by the renewal of trouble with the Southern Indians ; or, 
 rather, such measures were taken by General Jackson in dealing 
 with the hostile movements of a handful of savages, that grave and 
 The erst .*em- well-founded apprehensions were felt that the country was 
 inoiewar. a boiit to be forced into a war with both Spain and Eng- 
 land. The origin of the difficulty \va.s twofold : first, the injustice 
 which has always marked the treatment of Indian tribes whose lands 
 
1816.] 
 
 THE FIRST SEMIXOLE WAR. 
 
 247 
 
 were coveted by the whites ; and secondly, the revival of the old 
 grievance, that Florida was a refuge for the fugitive slaves of Georgia 
 and South Carolina. The treaty made at Fort Jackson at the end of 
 the campaign of 1814, by which the Creeks were compelled to sur- 
 render a large portion of their territory in Georgia and Alabama, 
 was repudiated by many of them. They resented any encroachment 
 upon those lands, and it was easy to kindle that resentment into open 
 hostility. Naturally they made common cause with the Seminoles of 
 Florida ; and they, ever since their 
 expulsion from Georgia in the co- 
 lonial wars of the previous cen- 
 tury, had been objects of hostility 
 to the planters of that State. The 
 greed of land and the greed of 
 slaves combined were the most pow- 
 erful incentives to an Indian war. 
 
 The Seminoles had never with- 
 held a welcome to the Georgia 
 negro who preferred their wild 
 freedom to the lash of an over- 
 seer on a cotton or rice plantation. 
 The Georgians could never forget 
 that the grandchildren of their 
 grandfathers' fugitive slaves were Daniel D - Tom P kins 
 
 roaming about the Everglades of Florida, mere unproductive capital, 
 and that to these there were constant additions of other ignorant 
 creatures Avho stupidly abandoned the lovely and ameliorating in- 
 fluences of the Christianity and civilization of the plantation, for life 
 among the Seminoles. The American Revolution was a mockery, 
 and republicanism a snare, if this state of things was to continue. 
 The first duty of the Federal Government, the Georgians thought, 
 was to catch all these runaway negroes ; and the Federal Government 
 only needed to be reminded of its duty. The first treaty made by 
 the United States, in 1790, after the adoption of the Constitution, 
 was one with the Creeks for the return of fugitive slaves ; and to give 
 the form of legality to any steps that might be taken for their recla- 
 mation, it was assumed that the Seminoles were a party to the treaty, 
 though not a man of that tribe had anything to do with the nego- 
 tiation. But the Government of the United States has always been 
 remarkable for the ingenuous simplicity of its devices to accomplish 
 its ends where slavery was concerned. So long as there were Semi- 
 noles in Florida, and so long as Florida belonged to Spain, just so 
 long would the negroes of Georgia find an asylum in Florida with 
 
248 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION! [CHAP. x. 
 
 the Seminoles. If at any time it should be desirable to declare war 
 against these Indians, and prudent to invade the Spanish province 
 in pursuit of them, what could be more convenient than to have 
 somewhere about the Secretary of State's office a violated Seminole 
 treaty ? 
 
 A Avar with the Indians of Florida, therefore, was always literally 
 and emphatically a slave-hunt. A reclamation for fugitives was 
 always repulsed by the Seminoles and the Spaniards, and, as they 
 could be redeemed in no other way, Georgia was always urging the 
 Federal Government to war. It was, of course, desirable for other 
 reasons, that Florida should become a part of the United States ; 
 but the paramount reason for all movements against either the Semi- 
 noles or Florida, was the determination to capture negroes who had 
 been running away, for several generations, and to deprive others, 
 who might escape in future, of a place of refuge. This was, of course, 
 perfectly natural on the part of the Georgia slaveholders ; the point 
 to be observed is, the recognition, almost unquestioned, of the assump- 
 tion that the protection of slavery was the great duty of the Federal 
 Government, and that it was never to be permitted to fall into the 
 hands of those who did not believe this to be its chief end and aim. 
 In 1811 a secret act was passed, authorizing the seizure of 
 
 Seizure of r 
 
 Amelia Florida, and a General Mathews of Georgia took possession 
 of Amelia Island. Spain remonstrated, and Madison dis- 
 avowed the act of Mathews, and recalled him, probably because the 
 foreign relations of the Government were too critical at that mo- 
 ment to admit of any other course. But the project was only post- 
 poned, not abandoned. 
 
 After the departure of the British army, in 1814, Colonel Nichols 
 " Negro remained in Florida, induced to do so, apparently, from sym- 
 Fort " pathy with the Indians. He built a fort for them on the 
 Appalachicola, not far above its mouth, and within the boundaries of 
 Florida, supplying it with large quantities of arms and ammunition. 
 On his return to England, taking with him some of the chiefs with 
 whom he had pretended to negotiate a treaty on behalf of the English 
 Government, but without the slightest authority, he left the fort 
 in the hands of the Seminoles. From their possession it soon passed 
 into that of the negro refugees, and for a year or more General Ed- 
 mund P. Gaines, who was in command on that frontier, was unwearied 
 in his complaints to the Government at Washington of the dangerous 
 character of this "Negro Fort." It is quite likely that the complaint 
 was well founded ; for such a post outside of the boundaries of the 
 United States was so convenient, and apparently so safe a refuge for 
 fugitive slaves as to be a serious threat to the quiet possession of 
 
1816.] INVASION OF FLORIDA. 249 
 
 slave property. Gaines's complaints were listened to by the Admin- 
 istration, and the subject was referred to General Jackson. There 
 was no doubt on his part as to what should be done. He wrote with 
 entire frankness to Gaines, that the fort " ought to be blown up, re- 
 gardless of the ground on which it stands," in the territory of a 
 friendly power, and " the stolen negroes and property returned to 
 their rightful owners." 
 
 This was the real reason for an advance upon the fort by a de- 
 tachment under Colonel Duncan L. Clinch, in July, 1816. The pre- 
 text was, that a fleet of boats, then coming up the river from New 
 Orleans with supplies for the American Fort Scott, might be inter- 
 rupted in its progress. Clinch's advance, with an evidently hostile 
 purpose, would, of course, provoke such an interruption, whether it 
 had been previously intended or not. A boat's crew was fired upon 
 as the fleet approached. 
 
 The gunboats, under Sailing-master Loomis, then warped up stream 
 and made an attack. It did not last long. A red-hot shot from the 
 fleet entered the magazine of the fort, where were stored nearly eight 
 hundred barrels of gunpowder. The explosion that instantly fol- 
 lowed laid the fort in ruins, killed immediately two hundred and 
 seventy of the three hundred and thirty-four inmates , negroes and 
 Indians, men, women, and children ; and of the sixty-four left alive, 
 all were so grievously wounded that most of them soon died. Of the 
 few survivors, an Indian chief, and Gannon the negro commander, 
 were given to some friendly Seminoles in Clinch's detachment, to be 
 put to death after the Indian manner. This was in retaliation of the 
 death by torture of one of Loomis's men, who had been taken pris- 
 oner a few days before. 
 
 Neither Seminoles nor negroes needed other warning or other in- 
 centive to the most desperate hostility than this signal chastisement. 
 A year passed, however, before Gaines found another pretext for 
 attack. Now and then settlers were murdered and settlements robbed 
 by the Indians; but, said King Hatchy, "while one American has 
 been justly killed, while in the act of stealing cattle, more than four 
 Indians have been murdered, while hunting, by these lawless free- 
 booters." He probably spoke the truth. Gaines accused him of re- 
 ceiving " a great many of my black people among you." " I harbor 
 no negroes," answered the King ; and, he added. " I shall use force 
 to stop any armed Americans from passing my lands or my towns." 
 
 At Fowltown, on Flint River, the Indians erected the war-pole, and 
 danced the war-dance around it. The chief warned Colonel FoW | town 
 Twiggs, in command at Fort Scott, not to cross the Flint destr y ed 
 River. " That land is mine,'' he said. " I am directed by the pow- 
 
 
250 
 
 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION; 
 
 [CHAP. X. 
 
 ers above and the powers below to protect it. I shall do so." Gaines 
 arrived at Fort Scott with a reenforcement of regular troops, and 
 summoned the chief before him. He refused to obey. Twiggs 
 marched upon the town, and killed some of the people. Gaines, 
 soon after, burned the village to the ground. 
 
 For this act there came swift vengeance. A few days later the 
 Seminoles lay in ambush on the river near Fort Scott, surprised a 
 passing boat containing forty soldiers under Lieutenant Scott, besides 
 some women and children, and except four of the men, who swam 
 
 Indians in Ambush. 
 
 to the opposite bank, and one of the women, who was held as a pris- 
 oner by a chief killed them all. 
 
 Affairs were now ripe for the appointment of Jackson to bring this 
 border war to a conclusion. Not that there was any want of soldierly 
 ability in Gaines, nor any lack of earnestness in driving Indians from 
 the lands they claimed as their own, or in running down the slaves 
 who had escaped from their masters. But he was ordered upon 
 another service. 
 
 Amelia Island, at the mouth of St. Mary's River, on the coast of 
 Florida, had long been the resort of lawless men, whence 
 goods were smuggled to the mainland, where fugitive slaves 
 were supposed to find a refuge, and slaves imported from Africa were 
 landed. As the foreign slave-trade was prohibited by law, its exist- 
 
 Amelia 
 Island. 
 
1816.] 
 
 AMELIA ISLAND. 
 
 251 
 
 ence if it did exist to any extent on Amelia Island was a spe- 
 cious ground of complaint against its people. But it was only a 
 hollow pretence of national virtue ; for negroes were imported from 
 Africa at the rate of from ten to twenty thousand a year long after 
 that trade was declared illegal ; no serious effort was ever made by 
 the Federal Government to put a stop to it, and Southern members 
 of Congress openly defied any attempt to enforce the law. If the 
 island, therefore, was of any essential aid to that traffic, Georgia and 
 South Carolina would have insisted that it be let alone. There were 
 other and more imperative reasons for its seizure. 
 
 It was probable that Florida might soon be transferred by Spain to 
 the United States, provided the spirit of revolution and independence, 
 
 Amelia Island. 
 
 which was rapidly stripping Spain of all her American possessions, 
 should leave her Florida to transfer. It was for the interest, there- 
 fore, of the United States to permit no outrages but her own to be 
 visited upon Florida. The South American revolutions had attracted 
 thither European adventurers of various nationalities, and some of 
 them at length, when the revolutionary business was dull in other 
 places, found their way to Amelia Island. Some of them bore South 
 American and Mexican commissions, and, with that island as a ful- 
 crum, Florida was to be shot, as a star of lesser magnitude, into the 
 constellation of new republics. Sir Gregor McGregor, a Scotchman, 
 whose lieutenant was one Woodbine, an English officer, declared that 
 he meant to hand over the province, when its independence should 
 be achieved, to the United States. Nobody seems to have believed 
 him ; but his intentions were of small consequence, for he was driven 
 
252 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. [CHAP. X. 
 
 off by an Englishman named Hubbard. But next came a Commodore 
 Aury, an associate of McGregor, and he drove off Hubbard. The 
 Administration at Washington now thought it time to interfere; for 
 these adventurers were too strong for the Spanish authorities of 
 Florida to cope with, and if the province was to be acquired by 
 treaty, its safety must be insured against the designs of the South 
 American revolutionists. To aid in carrying out this policy, Gaines 
 was sent to the coast, though, before he arrived, Aury had surren- 
 dered to Commodore Henley. 
 
 A few days before Jackson received orders from the Secretary of 
 
 War, Calhoun, to take command of the expedition against 
 
 opinions on the Seminoles, the General wrote a private letter to the 
 
 the war. 
 
 President, in which he plainly set forth the plan which he 
 thought should be adopted in conducting the campaign. The letter 
 was written as a commentary upon the orders sent to Gaines, 
 which Jackson had read, authorizing him to cross the frontier in 
 pursuit of the Indians, " but to halt and report to the department in 
 case the Indians should shelter themselves under a Spanish fort." 
 " Permit me to suggest," wrote Jackson, " the catastrophe that might 
 arise by Genei-al Gaines's compliance with the last clause of your 
 order." Should Gaines, he said, defeat the Indians, and they should 
 take refuge with the Spaniards at Pensacola or St. Augustine, and he 
 should then halt there for further orders from Washington, the dis- 
 contented militia would desert him, leaving him only the regulars 
 with which to defend his position. Then the Indians, reenforced by 
 the Spaniards, perhaps by Woodbine's partisans, or by Aury, with a 
 force from Amelia Island, might attack Gaines, and the result would 
 be probably " defeat and massacre." 
 
 To guard against this possible catastrophe consequent upon certain 
 improbable contingencies, that is, the desertion of the militia, and 
 Gaines's neglect to retreat, as an act of common prudence, when thus 
 abandoned ; the renewal of hostilities by the beaten Indians ; the in- 
 itiation of war with the United States by the Spaniards ; an alliance 
 with Woodbine or Aury, who had invaded Florida that they might 
 wrest it from Spain, to guard against the " defeat and massacre " 
 which was to follow this concatenation of events, Jackson declared 
 that ' the arms of the United States must be carried to any point 
 within the limits of East Florida where an enemy is permitted and 
 protected." This would be to leave it to the discretion of a young 
 general to involve the country in a war with Spain, perhaps with other 
 powers, without waiting for consultation with the Government at 
 Washington, without authority from the President, without regard to 
 that provision of the Constitution which restricts the right to declare 
 war to Congress alone. 
 
1816.] JACKSON'S CAMPAIGN IN FLORIDA 253 
 
 The great soldier was always more frank than clear-headed. All 
 East Florida, he said, ought to be seized simultaneously with the 
 seizure of Amelia Island, forgetting, or, if not forgetting, indiffer- 
 ent to the fact that Amelia Island was to be taken, not because it was 
 a part of East Florida, but because the authorities of that province 
 were not strong enough to hold the island against the revolutionary 
 adventurers, who were to be driven out of it by a friendly force, 
 partly that it might be restored to Spain. But he was clear enough 
 as to his own motives, declaring that the province should be " held 
 as an indemnity for the outrages of Spain upon the property of our 
 citizens." And those outrages were what? Solely that the fugi- 
 tive slaves of Georgia were free when they crossed the border-line of 
 Florida. He was clear, also, in this: that this act of war against Spain 
 might involve us in " a war with Great Britain or some of the Con- 
 tinental powers combined with Spain." His method of avoiding this 
 difficulty was perfectly characteristic. " This [the seizure of Florida] 
 can be done without implicating the Government. Let it be signified 
 to me, through any channel (say Mr. J. Rhea), that the possession 
 of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States, and in sixty 
 days it will be accomplished." If, in other words, the Government 
 wished to outrage and rob Spain, but wanted courage to assume the 
 responsibility, with its probable consequences, he, Andrew Jackson, 
 who was not responsible to other governments, was ready to help his 
 own to commit an act of war without incurring the penalty, if the 
 Government would only give him a private hint. 
 
 In this letter is the plan, baldly and frankly laid down, of his cam- 
 paign against the Seminoles. When the order to assume 
 command reached him, regardless of the direction to call upon pafgn ,i 
 the militia of the border States through their governors, he 
 raised a volunteer force among his old companions in arms in Tennes- 
 see, who would follow him anywhere. With these and the troops left 
 by Gaines, he marched into Florida. On the site of the Negro Fort he 
 built and garrisoned another, which he called Fort Gadsden. From 
 that point he advanced towards the Bay of St. Marks, almost with- 
 out resistance, and easily dispersing the few Seminoles who ventured 
 to impede his progress. The Spanish Governor of the fort at St. 
 Marks was in no condition to make a defence, and Jackson, on the 
 plea that some of the enemy were harbored there, marched in on the 
 7th of April, hauled down the Spanish flag, and raised the American 
 in its place. An American armed vessel had arrived in the bay a 
 day or two before, and, by displaying English colors, had enticed 
 on board two well-known Seminole chiefs, the prophet Francis, and 
 Himollemico, who was supposed to have been the leader in the mas- 
 
254 
 
 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 [ClIAP. X. 
 
 sacre of Captain Scott's party on the Appalaehicola. They were 
 brought on shore, and immediately hanged by Jackson's orders. 
 
 After two or three days' delay the inarch was resumed, a strong 
 garrison being left at St. Marks. The intention was to surprise and 
 destroy the chief Billy Bow-legs and his band at the Indian town 
 Suwannee, a place of resort for negro refugees. The town was a hun- 
 dred miles distant, and Jackson was too late. Warning of his coin- 
 ing had been received from St. Marks ; the women and children had 
 
 Capture of Indian Chiefs. 
 
 been sent to a place of safety across the river, and the men, after 
 some slight resistance, followed. 
 
 At St. Marks Jackson had taken prisoner, as he was about to mount 
 his horse to escape, one Alexander Arbuthnot, a Scotchman 
 
 Arbuthnot TT T TT i ' * e 
 
 and Aiubris- and an Indian trader. He had a depot ot goods near Su- 
 wannee, and had written his son to remove them to a place 
 of safety. By this means the Indians were warned of the advance 
 of the Americans. Jackson chose to look upon this man as an enemy, 
 and he was kept in confinement till the army, on its return march, 
 reached St. Marks. At Suwannee, an Englishman, Robert C. Am- 
 brister, an officer of the British army who had been suspended 
 from duty for a year for being engaged in a duel, blundered into the 
 camp, intending to join the Indians, and was also detained as a pris- 
 oner. On his arrival at St. Marks, Jackson ordered both men to be 
 tried by a court martial, over which Gaines presided. 
 
1816.] EXECUTION OF PRISONERS BY JACKSOX. 255 
 
 Both were found guilty. Arbuthnot was sentenced to be hanged, 
 and Ambrister to be shot. The verdict in Ambrister's ease, how- 
 ever, was reconsidered by the court, and a sentence for the infliction 
 of fifty lashes and a year's imprisonment substituted for that of death. 
 Jackson preferred the first sentence; or, rather, he chose to ThP jrexocu- 
 reject the final decision of the court, and the man was shot ' 
 by his orders. He approved the finding in the case of Arbuthnot, 
 and he was immediately hanged. 1 
 
 Neither in the law of nations, the laws of war, the law of neces- 
 sity, nor the laws of the United States, was there any justification 
 for these executions. There was hardly even the respectability of 
 a " Lynch " court attached to the court martial ; for that wild form 
 of justice sometimes has the excuse of the absence of any other law 
 for the punishment of crime, or the aroused indignation of a com- 
 munity refuses to restrain itself and await the slower process of law. 
 No such plea could be made in these cases. Neither Arbuthnot nor 
 Ambrister was a dangerous criminal, if they were criminals at all. 
 The offence of the latter was that in an idle mood he had come to 
 Florida from New Providence, his uncle was the Governor of the 
 Bahamas, and in the mere love of adventure had joined the In- 
 dians, whose wrongs aroused his sympathy. Taken in arms against 
 the United States, though not within her territory, he was a pris- 
 oner of war, and the rights as well as the penalties of that con- 
 dition were his. Arbuthnot's case was far stronger even than this. 
 He was not a soldier, but a peaceful trader. His sympathies also 
 were enlisted on behalf of the Indians; but, whatever influence he 
 had gained over them was exercised always to restrain them from 
 going to war. There was no evidence produced before the court to 
 show that he had urged them to hostilities that was not either clearly 
 false, as the testimony of unscrupulous rivals in trade, or abso- 
 lutely inconclusive ; and the proof was abundant and irrefragable of 
 his earnest efforts to preserve the peace. But Jackson's mind was 
 incapable of weighing evidence, and with him headlong credulity 
 and headstrong passion usurped the seat of judgment. 
 
 1 Jackson, who could shoot or hang prisoners of war without regard to the law of 
 nations, the laws of his country, or the laws of humanity, when a negro was taken at 
 Suwannee, whose acts were those of an open and dangerous eneuiv, could oulv see in him 
 the chattel personal who had run away. The General took to himself great credit for hav- 
 ing restored to a lady in Georgia her fugitive slave, whom, as an able military leader, lie 
 would have hanged without ceremony had the negro been either a white man or an Indian. 
 That heroic impetuosity of character, that exalted sense of duty, which his worshippers 
 delight in believing so completely governed all the actions of his life, at this time hid from 
 his sight so momentous a possibility as involving nations in war ; but these great qual 
 ities which, it is declared, always distinguished him, always palliated his errors of judg- 
 ment or of passion, were under the calmest and most complete control in the mollifying 
 presence of a thousand-dollar negro. 
 
256 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. [CHAP. X. 
 
 Jackson had reached Fort Gadsden, on his return march, when a 
 protest against this invasion of Spanish territory was sent him by the 
 seizure of Governor of Pensacola. He turned back on the instant, oc- 
 Pcnsacoia. CU pi e J Pensacola, and then took, with slight resistance, the 
 fort of Carries de Barrancas, to which the Governor had fled. He 
 regretted afterward, in a letter to a, friend, that he had not stormed 
 the fortress, taken the Governor, and hanged him, for an alleged 
 atrocity perpetrated by a band of Indians. 1 
 
 The execution of the Englishmen, the act of war against Spain by 
 the invasion of Florida, the building of a fort within her boundaries, 
 and the occupation of her own forts, were all subjects of warm and 
 protracted debates in Congress. Jackson's defence was, that the Sec- 
 retary of War had given to him full power to conduct the campaign 
 as should seem best to himself. Spain, he said, had failed to fulfil 
 that article of the treaty by which she was bound to restrain the 
 Indians within her borders from hostilities against the United States ; 
 and assuming to himself the right to judge whether the treaty had been 
 violated, and what should be the remedy in case it had, he deter- 
 mined that the punishment of the Seminoles should be used as an 
 occasion for outraging Spain, though that act, if resented, might 
 bring on war not only with her but with one or more of her Euro- 
 pean allies. The obvious and unanswerable reply was that it was 
 for the Government, not a general in the field, to decide whether a 
 friendly power had disregarded a treaty ; that the sovereign prerog- 
 ative of deciding upon war or peace could not be usurped either by 
 the President or the Secretary of War, much less by a major-general 
 of the army ; that the assumption of these rights, and the arbitrary 
 hanging and shooting of prisoners, were acts of military despotism not 
 to be tolerated by a free people under a constitutional government. 
 Partisan feeling, nevertheless, was strong enough to permit Jackson 
 to escape even a Congressional rebuke. 
 
 But it was not till thirty-five years afterward that Jackson's real 
 defence was made known in an ' Exposition " written by 
 him, and published after his death. 2 The letter to Monroe 
 
 the substance of which we have given and an answer 
 to which Jackson declared he received, he fell back upon as the real 
 justification of his conduct. As in that letter he had stated, in the 
 most unequivocal terms, what he believed should be the conduct of a 
 campaign against the Seminoles, so now he maintained that the Ad- 
 ministration knew precisely what he would do when it gave him com- 
 mand ; and that in the absence of an answer, he had the right to as- 
 
 1 See letter to G. W. Campbell, in Parton's Life of Andrew Jackson, vol. ii. 
 
 2 In Thirty Years in the United States Senate, by Thomas H. Bentou, vol. i. 
 
1819.] 
 
 JACKSON AND MONROE. 
 
 257 
 
 sume that silence was an implied assent to all that he proposed to 
 do. But he was not left even to draw an inference. " Let it be 
 signified to me," he had written, "through any channel (say Mr. J. 
 Rhea), that the pos- 
 session of the Flori- 
 das would be desira- 
 ble to the United 
 States, and in sixty 
 days it will be ac- 
 complished." And 
 Mr. Rhea, a mem- 
 ber of Congress 
 from Tennessee, 
 Jackson avers, did 
 write him " a con- 
 fid en tial letter," 
 and, by direction of 
 the President, as- 
 sured him that " he 
 [the President] ap- 
 proved of his sug- 
 gestions." 
 
 If this were true, 
 then it was Monroe 
 who was responsi- 
 ble for the outrage- 
 ous violation of the 
 Constitution perpetrated by Jackson, for his contempt of the faith of 
 treaties, his disregard of the dangers of foreign wars, his 
 relentless cruelty which trampled all law under foot. But tion of re- 
 
 111 11 i iini cponsibility. 
 
 unfortunately the letter could not be produced. ihea de- 
 clared that he had written it ; another person averred that he had 
 read it ; but it had been destroyed, Jackson says, at the President's 
 request, in the spring of 1819, lest "it should fall into the hands of 
 those who would make an improper use of it.*' The gentle and com- 
 pliant General, though at that moment his conduct was under debate 
 in the United States Senate and before the whole country, though it 
 was a question whether his utter ruin and utter dishonor were not 
 impending, meekly burnt the letter which was his complete justihYa- 
 tion. 
 
 The account which others gave of this correspondence is not less 
 remarkable. Monroe acknowledged that he had received the Gen- 
 eral's letter, but that, being ill, he gave it to Calhoun, who read and 
 
 
 
 James Monroe. 
 
 VOL. IV. 
 
 17 
 
258 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. [CHAP. X. 
 
 returned it, remarking that it was confidential, and that the Presi- 
 dent must answer it. The President declares that he did not answer, 
 that he even forgot its existence, and did not read it till long after- 
 ward. The question is thus narrowed down to one of veracity, or 
 accuracy of memory, between Monroe on one side, and Jackson, with 
 his two friends, on the other. Perhaps the President forgot ; per- 
 haps he lied. He was not a very strong or a very wise man ; but he 
 was a weaker man than he has ever been accused of being, if, know- 
 ing Andre\v Jackson as he must have known him, he threw aside 
 and forgot a letter which his Secretary of State had read, and said 
 was confidential, and " he must answer." 
 
 But whether Jackson's letter was answered or not, it was quite 
 sufficient for his purpose that it should not be answered. When 
 Calhonn read the bold proposition of this man to seize Florida on 
 his own responsibility, if the Administration feared to have it done 
 by their orders, he could hardly have failed to know what was about 
 to happen unless hindered by prompt and energetic interference. 
 But he did nothing ; the President did nothing ; and tlie moral re- 
 sponsibility for this was hardly less than if they had approved di- 
 rectly of all they knew Jackson would certainly do. 
 
 In this entanglement of assertion and contradiction, the truth will 
 probably never be known. Either Jackson and his two friends as- 
 serted what they knew to be absolutely false, in regard to the letter, 
 or Monroe failed to remember what it would seem impossible for him 
 to forget, or else deliberately denied what he knew to be true. Even 
 then, there remains the enigma of Calhoun's course, who, knowing pre- 
 cisely what Jackson proposed to do, did nothing to prevent it, and 
 yet gave it afterward, in all the cabinet discussions, according to Mr. 
 Adams's Diary, his unqualified disapprobation. Was he honest in 
 this disapprobation? This at least is certain that the acquisition 
 of Florida was determined upon by the Administration. During all 
 these months the Spanish Minister in Washington, Onis, and the 
 Secretary of State, Adams, were in negotiation upon a treaty. An 
 irresponsible seizure of the province might hasten Spain to come to 
 terms lest there should be nothing left her to come to terms about. 
 Should she refuse to come to any terms, and the Administration be 
 determined to take Florida by force, it would be a good initiative 
 war measure to have American garrisons in several of her important 
 forts. If this was the policy of the Administration, no more effectual 
 instrument to carry it out could be found, though he might be an 
 unconscious one, than Andrew Jackson. 
 
 The Spanish Minister protested against the invasion of the terri- 
 tory of his sovereign, but he, nevertheless, hastened whether it 
 
Cfi 
 
 2 
 
1819.] JACKSON AND MONROE. 259 
 
 was intended or not that he should be so influenced the negotia- 
 tions for a treaty. In February, 1819, it was concluded, CcsB i ono f 
 though the ratification was delayed for two years by Spain, fi, 1 ""^^ 
 The Floridas were ceded to the United States, the latter State8 - 
 agreeing to pay the claims of American citizens upon Spain to the 
 amount of five million dollars. The Sabine, instead of the Rio 
 Grande, was agreed upon as the dividing line between the territories 
 of the two governments west of the Mississippi ; that line to run 
 from the mouth of the Sabine to the 32d parallel, thence north to 
 the Red River and along it to the 100th meridian, thence north to 
 the Arkansas and along it to its source on or near the 42d parallel 
 and thence west to the Pacific. 1 
 
 1 See page 146, supra. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 MONROE S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 THE MISSOURI QUESTION. EXTENSION OF SLAVERY. DOMESTIC SLAVE-TRADE. 
 INCREASE OF THE SLAVE POWER. THE COMPROMISE LINE OF 36 30'. A 
 NORTHERN MEASURE. CONGRESSIONAL STRATEGY. No ADMISSION OF FREE 
 STATES WITHOUT SLAVE STATES. RANDOLPH'S " DOUGH-FACES." COMPROMISES 
 IN CONGRESS AND CABINET. LIMITED MEANING OF FOREVER. CLOSING YEARS 
 OF MONROE'S SECOND TERM. THE TARIFF. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 STEAM ON THE LAKES. FIRST OCEAN STEAMER. THE "MONROE DOCTRINE." 
 ELECTION OF JOHN QUINCV ADAMS TO THE PRESIDENCY. 
 
 WHILE the Florida question was under consideration in Congress, 
 there suddenly arose another, not less significant as to the 
 
 Slavery re- J 
 
 reives anew nctual cliiiracter of the government, and far more momen- 
 
 impetus. 
 
 tons in its influence upon the welfare of the people and 
 their future history. The two antagonistic elements struggling for 
 mastery in the Union the civilization of the North achieving results 
 in intellectual, moral, political, and material happiness that only the 
 labor of the heads and hands of free men can achieve ; and that rude 
 condition of society at the South where the laborer was little more 
 than a beast of burden, existing for the convenience of a small privi- 
 leged class which recognized neither the dignity, the beauty, nor the 
 power of an equality of rights as the true order of human society 
 these two forces were brought for the first time fairly and squarely 
 face to face. The compromise agreed upon in framing the Constitu- 
 tion, which unfortunately had acknowledged that slavery might have 
 a legal existence, was about to do its perfect work. The permission 
 to exist unmolested was thought, at first, all that the Constitution 
 granted ; but with toleration the system had grown strong enough 
 to assert that it had, not merely the right to exist, but the power to 
 govern. 
 
 " Let us alone," the slaveholders had cried out at the formation of 
 the Constitution. Some of them really believed, as all the North was 
 sincerely persuaded, that so unprofitable a system as that of slave- 
 labor would soon be abandoned when the cheap supply from Africa 
 ceased, and there were no longer any fresh and virgin lands to retreat 
 
1818.] THE DOMESTIC SLAVE-TRADE. 261 
 
 to from the worn-out fields of the Atlantic States. Whatever force 
 there was, if there were any, in this view of the subject, was nullified 
 first by Whitney's invention of the cotton-gin, and next by the ac- 
 quisition of Louisiana. The demand for cotton for manufacture was 
 enormously increased when the seed could be freed from two hundred 
 pounds of the fibre in a single day by the gin, whereas only a single 
 pound or two could be so cleansed in a day by hand. The value of 
 slave-labor rose in proportion, though this would have soon reached 
 ; limit had not the new lands ou the lower Mississippi opened a vast 
 field for the profitable employment of slaves in the production of 
 sugar and tobacco, as well as of cotton. 
 
 In the eastern portion of the older States, where the soil was 
 already exhausted, or was sure soon to be, slaves became a more val- 
 uable possession than ever. A market that it seemed almost impos- 
 sible to over-stock, was opened for the surplus production of men and 
 women on the worn-out lands where they soon would have been a 
 burden. The extension of slavery saved it from gradual extinction, 
 in this opening of a new slave-trade which no foreign legislation could 
 render precarious, and no domestic legislation would be per- 
 
 ' The domes- 
 
 Ill It ted tO tOUCh. Its importance to eastern stock-breeders, tic slave- 
 
 trade. 
 
 when fully established, was shown in a report of a south- 
 western agricultural society, which avowed it to be a sound princi- 
 ple, in the management of a plantation, to work up a gang of negroes 
 in seven years, and supply its place by new purchases, rather than 
 attempt to prolong the lives of a gang in hand by moderate labor. 
 The demand for slaves, in a market so active as that, was as certain 
 as the demand for beeves in the shambles of a great city. 
 
 There was some avowed natural abhorrence, even among those who 
 profited by it, to this inter-State traffic in the colored natives of the 
 South. The leading men of that part of the country and their sub- 
 servient followers of the North remembered chieflv for that sub- 
 serviency maintained, indeed, with increasing zeal the comprehen- 
 sive doctrine announced many years before by a Northern man, 
 Sedgwick, a member of Congress from Massachusetts, who said, 
 " to propose an abolition of slavery in this country would be the 
 height of madness." But there were some among the slaveholders, 
 like the eccentric John Randolph of Virginia, who, while upholding 
 slavery, denounced, without restraint, the traffic carried on at the 
 kitchen-doors and in the huts of Southern plantations, regardless of 
 any other consideration than the market price and the soundness in 
 wind and limb of the young men and women torn from their homes 
 for the allotted seven years of life and service in the southwest. 
 
 Thus in the progress of mechanical invention in the production 
 
262 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 and manufacture of cotton, and by the acquisition of new territory, 
 slavery had come to put on quite another aspect from that which it 
 presented when Southern statesmen had wept over it as a burden 
 imposed on the colonies by a tyrannical step-mother. They had, 
 indeed, never taken any effectual steps to rid themselves of that 
 burden, and if they were not quite frank enough to thank England 
 for her share in the bestowal of what they now accepted as a bless- 
 ing, there were many who were grateful for the foresight that had 
 cherished it. It was for the children now to avail themselves of the 
 wisdom of the fathers. Of what value would the compromises of 
 the Constitution be to them if, by the admission of new free States, 
 Necessity while the number of the slave States remained unaltered 
 *ion e of""ave or on ly s ^g n tly increased, they should be shorn of polit- 
 ical power? There must be new slave States in which five 
 slaves should be counted as three Northern freemen in the repre- 
 sentation of the South in the lower house of Congress new slave 
 States to keep the balance of State representation even in the Senate. 
 As an industrial system, slavery would sting itself to death if not per- 
 mitted to uncoil and expand ; as a political system, it would be stran- 
 gled in the hands of the young giant by its side, if checked in its 
 growth for want of nutriment. 
 
 The South could not, therefore, afford to give up, without a valu- 
 able equivalent, a foot of territory whose soil was suitable for the 
 products of slave- labor. By the Spanish treaty, at this time under 
 discussion, the claim to all the region between the Sabine and the 
 Rio Grande was abandoned ; and, though Florida was to be gained 
 for the occupation of slavery, and that safe refuge for self-emanci- 
 pated slaves was to be broken up forever, yet the surrender of all 
 claim to the southwestern region was looked upon as a great sacri- 
 fice. The possible ai'ea of the extension of slavery was by so much 
 limited, and the South was all the more determined to defend the 
 remaining territory, where slaves could be profitably used, against the 
 encroachments of free men and free labor. 
 
 In March, 1818, the citizens of Missouri asked permission of Con- 
 gress to form a State constitution, and to be admitted to the 
 soifriques- Union. It was too late for any action, beyond the report of 
 a committee, at that session ; but when action should be 
 taken it would settle the question whether the fundamental principle 
 of the Republic was liberty or slavery ; whether the rights of free 
 men and of free labor must yield to the privilege claimed by slave- 
 holders for the exclusive necessarily exclusive occupation of 
 the soil by their slaves whenever a conflict should arise between 
 these two forces ; and whether the government of the country should 
 
1818.] 
 
 THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY. 
 
 263 
 
 be in the hands of the people or in the hands of a class who derived 
 their power from their ownership of slaves. By the adoption of the 
 Federal Constitution the people had consented to leave the respon- 
 sibility for the continuance of slavery to those States where it then 
 existed. It was maintained, as a just consequence of that agree- 
 ment, that slavery might be carried into territory on the eastern side 
 of the Mississippi, belonging originally to those States, and that new 
 States created out of that territory should be admitted to the Union 
 with the right to hold slaves unquestioned. But the purchased Ter- 
 ritory of Louisiana, on the western side of the river, belonged to the 
 United States, not to several States ; and the question now was, 
 
 Choteau's Pond, 1820, now in St. Louis. 
 
 whether the Federal Government should deliberately establish slavery 
 by law where hitherto it had existed, if it existed at all, by suffer- 
 ance only. 
 
 The clumsy pretence had been, that the responsibility for slavery 
 did not rest upon the whole country, in spite of the constitutional 
 provisions the toleration of the foreign slave-trade for twenty 
 years ; the representation of property in slaves by the three-fifths 
 rule ; and the rendition of fugitives, which made the law of slavery 
 paramount to the natural law of freedom, to the remotest corner of 
 the Union. This soothing figment, that the North had nothing to 
 do with slavery, lulled the sluggish Northern conscience and befogged 
 Northern intelligence ; and it was a convenient plea for the slave- 
 
264 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 holders to assert, when it suited their purpose, that the Federal Gov- 
 ernment had nothing to with the system. But to establish slavery 
 de novo in territory belonging to the United States, by the action of 
 Congress, would be to take away both pretence and plea. The pur- 
 pose of the Constitution was primarily " to establish justice, insure 
 domestic tranquillity, promote the general welfare, and secure the 
 blessings of liberty." The enslavement of a portion of the people 
 was to violate justice, jeopard domestic tranquillity, interfere with 
 the general welfare, and deny the blessings of liberty, either directly 
 or indirectly, to all who were not slaveholders. The framers of the 
 Constitution had weakly consented to let slavery alone ; but neither 
 in accordance with the principles of that instrument, nor by any 
 rightful exercise of power pertaining to human governments, could 
 such a system be created as a legal condition by act of Congress or 
 by State legislation. 
 
 Nevertheless, the fathers had eaten sour grapes, and the children's 
 Power of the teeth were set on edge. The Constitution had put political 
 power into the hands of the slaveholders as a class, and the 
 alternative presented now, as when the Constitution was adopted, was 
 submission, or a dissolution of the Union. The North, though in the 
 majority in Congress, were defeated, after a long and anxious struggle, 
 first, by superior organization, and secondly, by the adherence of a few 
 Northern allies to the party determined upon the extension of slavery. 
 "The slave-drivers, as usual," wrote John Quincy Adams, the Sec- 
 retary of State, in his Diary, "whenever this topic is brought up, 
 bluster and bully, talk of the white slaves of the Eastern States, and 
 the dissolution of the Union, and oceans of blood ; and the Northern 
 men, as usual, pocket all this hectoring, sit down in quiet, and submit 
 to the slave-scourging republicanism of the planters." They were not 
 many who thus submitted, but they were enough. 1 
 
 1 Mr. Adams doubted if, under the Constitution, Congress had the right to prohibit 
 slavery in a territory where it already existed. But he did not shrink from a considera- 
 tion of the question of dissolution. " If," he wrote, " the dissolution of the Union should 
 result from the .--hive question, it is as obvious as anything that can be foreseen of futurity, 
 that it must shortly afterwards he followed by the universal emancipation of the slaves. . . . 
 A dissolution, at least temporary, of the Union as now constituted, would be certainly 
 necessary [for emancipation], and the dissolution must be upon a point involving the ques- 
 tion of slavery, and no other. The Union might then be reorganized on the principle of 
 emancipation. This object is vast in its compass, awful in its prospects, sublime and beau- 
 tiful in its issue. A life devoted to it would be nobly spent or sacrificed." He neverthe- 
 less approved of the Missouri Compromise, while foreseeing its consequences, believing it 
 the only way then of meeting the difficulty. But after it was passed he said, " Perhaps 
 it would have been a wiser as well as a bolder course to have persisted in the restriction 
 upon Missouri, till it should have terminated in a Convention of the States to revise and 
 amend the Constitution. Tin's would have produced a new Union of thirteen or fourteen 
 States, unpolluted with slavery ; with a great and glorious object to effect, namely, that of 
 
1819.] THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY. 265 
 
 In February, 1819, a bill was introduced in the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, for the admission of Missouri. James Tallmadge, 
 Jr., of New York, proposed as a condition of admission, that admit >iis- 
 from that moment there should be no personal servitude 
 within the State, except of those already held as slaves, and that 
 these should be manumitted within a certain period. This proposal 
 he subsequently modified by moving as an amendment to the bill 
 that the introduction of slavery into the State should be prohibited, 
 but that those already slaves within the territory should remain so. 
 and their children after them to the age of twenty-five years. Here 
 at the outset was a weak concession, for instead of the absolute ex- 
 clusion of slavery, it permitted the enslavement of a generation as 
 yet unborn. The bill was passed with the amendment, however, by 
 a small majority, and sent to the Senate, where it was rejected. As 
 the two Houses could not agree, the question went over to another 
 vear. 
 
 v 
 
 The debate from the beginning had been, on the part of the Xorth. 
 an earnest appeal to reason, to patriotism, to humanity, and to funda- 
 mental law ; on the part of the South, which presented a stern, un- 
 broken front, impassioned, overbeai'ing, defiant, and threatening. The 
 North was told to " beware of the fate of Caesar and of Rome : " a 
 Northern member was denounced as "no better than Arbuthnot and 
 Ambrister, and deserves no better fate ; " Cobb of Georgia said that 
 this attempt to interfere with slavery was " destructive of the peace 
 and harmony of the Union ; " that those who proposed it " were kind- 
 ling a fire which all the waters of the ocean could not extinguish. It 
 could be extinguished only in blood ! " For that pi-ophecy he deserves 
 that his name should go down in history. While the debate was in 
 progress, a striking illustration of what the South was contending for 
 was said Tallmadge in his speech "witnessed from the windows 
 of Congress Hall, and viewed by members who compose the legislative 
 councils of Republican America ! " Missouri must be secured as a 
 negro-market. "A slave-driver," he said, "a trafficker in human 
 flesh, as if sent by Providence, has passed the door of your Capitol, 
 on his way to the West, driving before him about fifteen of these 
 wretched victims of his power. The males, who might raise the arm 
 of vengeance, and retaliate for their wrongs, were handcuffed and 
 chained to each other, while the females and children were marched 
 in their rear, under the guidance of the driver's whip ! " 
 
 rallying to their standard the other States by the universal emancipation of their slaves." 
 Had the " wiser and bolder course " been persisted in, and the question of disunion met and 
 settled in 1820, who can doubt that civilization and free and intelligent government would 
 have been advanced forty years, without the enormous sacrifice which waiting forty years 
 demanded ? 
 
266 
 
 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 [CHAP. XI. 
 
 The Arkan- 
 sas I'.,.: 
 
 The Missouri question being thus disposed of for that session, the 
 cognate question of the establishment of a government for 
 the southern part of the Missouri Territory, south of 36 
 30' the Arkansas country was taken up. Both in the House and 
 in the Senate an amendment to prohibit slavery therein was moved 
 and lost, and the first step in the controversy was gained by the 
 South. 1 In the course of the debate Louis McLane, a representative 
 
 A Slave-Coffle passing the Capitol. 
 
 in the House from Delaware, suggested as a compromise a division 
 of the Western territory between the free and slave States. 
 
 The next session, convened in December, the contest was renewed, 
 
 1 Wilson, in his liiae uiul /'a// of the Slace Pou-f-r in Aiitericti, i.s in error in assigning the 
 action of Congress on the Arkansas Bill to the following December. This is not merely an 
 error in date: the passage of the bill would have lost much of its significance had it 
 been postponed ten month*. It should be remembered that on the 16th of February, 
 Tallmadge's amendment to the Missouri Bill, prohibiting slavery, had passed the House. 
 Immediate alarm was taken ; the Arkan>as Bill was introduced the next dny, and before 
 sunset the perpetuation of slavery south of 30 30' was assured in the territory west of the 
 Mississippi. It was a great point gained. The precedent was secured of establishing slav- 
 
1819.] CONGRESSIONAL STRATEGY. 267 
 
 the North, meanwhile, in resolutions of State legislatures, and the 
 unequivocal expressions of public opinion, condemning the exten- 
 sion and perpetuation of slavery under the protecting power of the 
 national government. A northeast wind could not have been less 
 heeded at the South. " They may philosophize and town- 
 
 , , , . , , Sentiments 
 
 meeting about it as much as they please, said Macon, of the 
 
 a North Carolina Senator, with contemptuous insolence ; 
 
 " but, with great submission, they know nothing about the question." 
 
 In the House, the question was presented, as at the previous ses- 
 sion a bill for the admission of Missouri, with an amendment, pro- 
 posed by John W. Taylor, of New York, prohibiting slavery, except 
 in regard to those who were already slaves in the Territory. The 
 anti-slavery men, led by Taylor, kept that issue clearly in view for 
 several weeks of hot and passionate debate, and did not permit them- 
 selves to be turned from their purpose by propositions and 
 resolutions, some of which were treacherous and some only 
 stupid. These, however, it should be said, came often from 
 Northern members, who, having determined to betray the North, 
 aimed to do so by rendering service as conspicuous as it was possible 
 to make it, compatible with the degree of ignominy it was their aim 
 to avoid. Chief among these were John Holmes, from the Maine dis- 
 trict of Massachusetts, and Henry R. Storrs, of New York. The bill 
 was finally passed by a vote of ninety-one to eighty-two, the prohib- 
 itory amendment being first adopted by a majority of eight. 
 
 But this was a defeat only of the advanced guard. The real strug- 
 gle was in the Senate, where the final victory was bv parliamentary 
 strategy, which first confused and divided, and then dispersed the 
 weaker Northern column. To a bill for the admission of Maine the 
 admission of Missouri was attached as an amendment. The Maine 
 bill was sent to the Senate from the House, possibly before it oc- 
 curred to anybody that use might be made of it to influence the 
 other question. The suggestion of a resort to this stratagem was, at 
 any rate, first made in a speech in the House by the Speaker, Henry 
 Clay, on the 20th of December, who declared " that he did not mean 
 to give his consent to the admission of the State of Maine into the 
 Union, so long as the doctrines were upheld of annexing conditions 
 to the admission of States into the Union from bevond the moun- 
 
 M 
 
 tains." It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that there was no 
 just parallel in the two cases. The right of Maine to admission as a 
 
 cry by positive legislation in territory not belonging to the United States at the time of the 
 adoption of the Constitution ; and the difficulty was avoided, in the further consideration 
 of the Missouri question, of there being free territory, or territory still to dispute over, 
 south of the parallel of 36 30'. 
 
268 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 part of one of the original thirteen States, with a republican form of 
 government, was absolute under the Constitution. The question with 
 regard to Missouri was whether, under the Constitution, Congress 
 had the right to create a new State out of purchased territory, and 
 admit it to the Union without a republican form of government. 
 
 But Clay's threat in the House was improved in the Senate. The 
 memorial from the Legislature of Missouri was taken from the files 
 of the last session and referred to the judiciary committee of the 
 Senate. A few days afterward, a bill for the admission of Maine was 
 received from the House, and that was referred to the same commit- 
 tee. In accordance then with a suggestion from Barbour, of Virginia, 
 in a notice of a proposed motion, the judiciary committee re- 
 ported the House bill for the admission of Maine, but adding to it 
 an amendment for the admission of Missouri. 
 
 An unsuccessful attempt was made to defeat this trickery. Jona- 
 than Roberts, of Pennsylvania, moved to amend the amendment by 
 prohibiting slavery in Missouri. This was rejected by a majority 
 of eleven, six of the number being Senators from free States. Had 
 the six Northern votes been added to the sixteen given in favor 
 of the amendment by the other Northern Senators, it would have 
 been carried by a majority of one. There was still, however, a 
 chance to defeat the bill on the proposition to make the admission of 
 Division of Maine dependent upon the admission of Missouri. But that 
 the vote*. a ] so wag carr j ec i by Northern votes. The majority was two 
 in the affirmative, the Senators from Illinois, Edwards and Thomas, 
 and one of the Indiana Senators, Taylor, voting for it. The whole 
 forty-four votes of the Senate were cast on this question ; as Van 
 Dyke and Horsey, of Delaware, voted with the North, the majority 
 would have been four against the bill, had the three Senators from 
 Illinois and Indiana been faithful to the cause of the free States. 1 
 
 The two Houses now stood directly opposed to each other. The 
 Representatives would not recede from their decision to prohibit 
 slavery in Missouri, nor accept the Senate's amendment to make the 
 admission of Missouri the condition of the admission of Maine. The 
 Senate was equally determined that Missouri should come into the 
 Union as a slave State, and that unless that point was yielded, no free 
 State should be admitted. Had the House maintained its ground, the 
 United States, for the next half century, would have had another 
 history. 
 
 */ 
 
 But Thomas, of Illinois, who had voted thus far with the South, 
 now came forward with the compromise measure, in accepting which 
 
 1 The vote on prohibition was 27 to 16; that on adding the admission of Missouri to 
 the Maine bill, 23 to 21. 
 
1819.] 
 
 THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 
 
 269 
 
 the North gave up the essential principle that the opponents of slav- 
 ery had all along contended for. Present peace, indeed, was The compro- 
 gained, if peace were really in jeopardy, but it was mise 
 only by smothering a fire which at a future day was to break forth 
 with a violence ;md destructive force of which it was at that time in- 
 capable. The gain on one side was the extension of slavery and the 
 admission of a new slave State ; on the other was the promise of a 
 prohibition of slavery in future States, the fulfilment of which was 
 only secured, when the time came, by fighting for it. 
 
 A Sugar Plantation. 
 
 Thomas's proposition was, to prohibit slavery in all that portion of 
 the Louisiana purchase lying north of 36 30', excepting Missouri. 
 This make-shift was acceded to by twenty Northern Senators, two 
 only voting against it ; and by fourteen Southern Senators, eight vot- 
 ing against it. 1 A second vote on this proposition on a motion to 
 recede from it was the same, except that Senator Sanford, of New 
 York, voted against it instead of for it, as on the first ballot. Yet, 
 when the bill came up for its final passage, two days later, it was 
 
 1 The vote was 34 to 10. 
 

 270 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 passed by a majority of four only, Edwards and Thomas, of Illi- 
 nois, Hunter, of Rhode Island, and Parrott, of New Hampshire. 
 
 A committee of conference from the two Houses had met in the 
 mean time, and recommended that the Senate recede from the amend- 
 ment which added the admission of Missouri to the bill admitting 
 Maine, and that the House recede from its amendment prohibiting 
 the introduction of slavery into Missouri, and accept, instead, the 
 compromise line of 36 30' adopted by the Senate. But this the 
 House had already done before the committee of conference had re- 
 ported, receding from its own amendment by a vote of ninety to 
 eighty -seven. Twelve Northern men voted in the affirmative, three 
 times as many as were needed to secure a majority. The compromise 
 measure was then passed by the overwhelming vote of one hundred 
 and thirty-four to forty-two ; and among the forty-two, thirty-seven 
 were from the slaveholding States, leaving five opponents only from 
 the free States. The more radical of the slaveholders denied the 
 right of fi'ee labor to any territory whatever. 
 
 The measure was a Northern measure, canned by Northern votes. 
 With some the threats of disunion wei-e a sufficient influence ; l some, 
 whom in the debate Randolph called "dough-faces," did not need 
 even that. The Southerners stood bv their order without failure and 
 
 v 
 
 without faltering. The threat to keep out Maine, unless Missouri 
 were admitted, did its work, nor did the Senate recede from that 
 HOW it was menace till the House had succumbed. There was even 
 secured. another trick still in reserve. Before the House bill was 
 sent to the Senate, Randolph moved a reconsideration, that the ques- 
 tion might be reopened, in the hope of defeating the compromise and 
 saving the territory north of 36 30' for slavery. Clay, the Speaker, 
 declared the motion out of order till the ordinary business of the 
 House the reading of the journal was disposed of. While this 
 was going on, the Speaker hurried off the bill to the Senate, and, 
 Avhen Randolph renewed his motion, pronounced it again out of 
 order, as the bill was no longer in possession of the House. Ran- 
 dolph's anger was unrestrained. He moved that the clerk had been 
 guilty of a violation of the privileges of a member ; and, when that 
 was negatived, he moved that the rule securing to members the priv- 
 ilege he had exercised in regard to a motion of reconsideration be 
 expunged as useless. The question was serious enough to call for an 
 
 1 " In the hottest paroxysm of the Missouri question iu the Senate, James Barbour, one 
 of the Virginia Senators, was going round to all the free-State members and proposing to 
 them to call a Convention of the States to dissolve the Union, and agree upon the terms of 
 separation and the mode of disposing of the public debt and of the lands, and make other 
 necessary arrangements of disunion." Adams's Diary. 
 
1820.] 
 
 THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 
 
 271 
 
 . 
 
 explanation from Clay, at the next session of Congress ; but the only 
 true explanation was, that the victory having been once gained, it was 
 not to be jeoparded by another struggle through obedience to par- 
 liamentary law. 
 
 There was still another compromise to be made, and that was in 
 the Cabinet. When the bill came to the President, he asked advice 
 on two points. First, whether Congress had a constitutional right to 
 prohibit slavery in a Territory ? The Cabinet were agreed Action of 
 that the right existed. Then he asked if the section prohib- ^nt^d'hi* 
 itiug slavery " forever " referred only to the territorial con- Cabinet 
 dition, or was also applicable when a Territory should become a State? 
 The Cabinet, except Mr. Adams, 
 agreed that u forever " applied 
 only to the territorial condition ; 
 but the Secretary of State main- 
 tained that " forever" meant lit- 
 erally forever, whether in Terri- 
 tory or State. The President 
 wished the answers to be in 
 writing ; to which Mr. Adams 
 said that, as he stood alone, in 
 his reply to the second question 
 he should wish to give his rea- 
 sons. To escape this, it was 
 proposed to avoid the question of 
 " forever " as relating to States, 
 and ask only whether the section 
 prohibiting slavery in the Terri- 
 tories forever was constitutional. And on this the order of proceeding 
 was reversed : Mr. Adams was only to reply in the affirmative without 
 his reasons, while the rest were to explain in writing, that the prohibi- 
 tion was constitutional, but "forever" meant only while the territorial 
 condition existed. With this mental reservation on the part of the 
 President and his Cabinet Mr. Adams excepted the bill was 
 signed, and in it was the whole pith and meaning of the Missouri 
 Compromise, as the country learned thirty-five years afterward. It 
 was a promise and agreement given to the ear and broken to the hope. 
 When at that later time these written opinions of Monroe's Cabinet 
 were searched for in the Department of State, " it is a singular cir- 
 cumstance," says Mr. Charles Francis Adams, in a note to his father's 
 Diary, " that nothing was found but what appeared to have been an 
 envelope referring to them as enclosed." 
 
 But even yet the pretended compromise was not quite finished. 
 
 X 
 
 John Randolph. 
 
272 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 The next session Missouri sent her Constitution to Congress, and 
 asked admission. An article of that Constitution declared 
 c.on'utu- 8 that " it shall be the duty of the Legislature to pass laws to 
 prevent free negroes and mulattoes from coming to and set- 
 tling in the State, under any pretext whatsoever." The question of 
 the admission of the State was reopened, though upon new ground. 
 Her Constitution must be in accordance with the Constitution of the 
 United States, and that declared that " the citizens of each State shall 
 be entitled to all the immunities and privileges of the several States." 
 Were free negroes and mulattoes citizens ? If they were, the Con- 
 stitution of Missouri was not in accordance with the Constitution of 
 the United States, and she was not entitled to admission. 
 
 For three months the debate on this question continued in the 
 same spirit, with much of the same asperity and menace on the one 
 hand, and the same faltering on the other. The House was for a 
 while as firm as it was before against the admission of Missouri as a 
 slave State, and the Senate was equally firm that the colored citizens 
 of other States should be denied citizenship by her if she so pleased. 
 It came at last, as before, to a conference committee, and the ques- 
 tion, as before, under the leadership of Clay, was compromised. It 
 was decided that the State should be admitted when her Legislature 
 should agree that the section of the Constitution in question should 
 not be construed as authorizing a law excluding any citizens of other 
 States from any immunities and privileges to which they were enti- 
 tled under the Constitution of the United States, and that no such 
 law should be passed. Such a pledge the Legislature of Missouri 
 gave ; but the objectionable clause remained in her Constitution, and 
 the power remained with her, notwithstanding the act, to decide 
 whether free negroes and mulattoes were citizens in other States, 
 and, if they were not, to deny them citizenship in Missouri under 
 her Constitution. 
 
 It was three years from the time the Missouri question first came 
 before Congress (March, 1818) to this final compromise (February, 
 1821), by which the slaveholders gained all they contended for, and 
 the Federal Government made itself responsible, not merely for the 
 toleration of slavery, but for its establishment where it could exist 
 only because it was so established. The slaveholders had learned 
 how to govern, and the secret lay, first, in the perfect organization of 
 their own order, and secondly in holding in their pay a menial party 
 at the North, called sometimes by one name, sometimes by another, 
 on whose obedience they could always count, and with whose aid 
 they were almost always invincible. In the admission of Missouri 
 there was, for the first time, a clean-cut, unmixed issue on the ques- 
 
 
1821.] 
 
 TRIUMPH OF THE SLAVEHOLDERS. 
 
 273 
 
 tion of a free government or a slaveholding government in the United 
 States ; and the slaveholders trampled the principles of the Consti- 
 tution and the rights and interests of freemen beneath their feet. 
 Henceforth the inevitable conflict between freedom and slavery was 
 an open one, and it could only end in the dissolution and reconstruc- 
 tion of the Union. Cobb's prophecy was to come true, though not in 
 the way lie meant. 
 
 The completeness of the triumph of the slaveholders was plain to 
 all men, and those who were wise saw in the almost immediate use 
 
 f *r-.f=r- 
 
 made of it what the future 
 might bring forth. 
 Foremost among the 
 
 treacherous representatives of the Northern States in the 
 late struggle had been the Senators of Illinois and Indiana, 
 and that treachery was followed up, as the next step, by an attempt 
 to make them both slaveholding States, notwithstanding the funda- 
 mental and binding law of the Ordinance of 1787. The project was 
 defeated, however, by a popular movement, led in Illinois by Gover- 
 nor Edward Coles. 
 
 But even this failed to arouse a suspicion of the price the future was 
 to pay for the Missouri Compromise, and that what had been so fatu- 
 
 VOL. IV. 
 
 18 
 
274 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. [CHAP. XT. 
 
 ously mistaken for a bargain was meant to be a gigantic fraud. The 
 mass of the people in 1820, at the North at least, were, without 
 doubt, heartily sick of the subject, and were anxious for peace on 
 almost any terms. Missouri was then, and was likely to continue to 
 be, a far-off and unknown land to most of the people of the Northern 
 Atlantic States. Why need they care whether there were slaves there 
 or not? Why, especially, need they be troubled that free negroes 
 were to have no rights in Missouri ? Was it quite certain that free 
 negroes had any rights anywhere, though in some States they were 
 tolerably secure in the privilege of not being slaves ? The question 
 was soon forgotten. 
 
 " So with a sullen ' All 's for best,' 
 The hind seemed settling to its rest." 
 
 Topics of more immediate interest, and generally esteemed of more 
 importance, engaged the popular attention. The question of internal 
 internal im- improvements grew in importance year by year, and noth- 
 provements. } mar k e d ,,,,,,,. distinctly the departure of the dominant 
 party from the principles by which it had been governed in its ear- 
 lier days. It was a favorite doctrine of the earlier Federalists, that, 
 both for the good of the people, and for the sake of consolidating the 
 Union, such improvements were a legitimate object of the fostering 
 care of the Federal Government. The strict constructionists as 
 the Democrats assumed to be opposed this doctrine. The Jeffer- 
 sonian party held no more positive principle than that works of pub- 
 lic improvement should be left to the States or to private enterprise, 
 and that there was nothing in the Constitution that warranted the 
 assumption of such a duty by the Federal Government. One of 
 Madison's last acts was to veto a bill passed by Congress " to set 
 apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements." 
 
 But it was not difficult for strict constructionists to find sufficient 
 authority in the general purposes of the Constitution to warrant the 
 interference of the Federal Government when it suited them to change 
 their policy. More than a million dollars were expended during Mon- 
 roe's administration to build the national road from Cumberland, in 
 Maryland, to Ohio ; other roads and canals were projected then, or a 
 little later, in different parts of the country, which, before they were 
 finished, received of the Government still larger sums. It would be 
 an instructive inquiry to examine the cost, the usefulness, and the end 
 of some of the works thus undertaken for the public good at the pub- 
 lic expense, and to learn how far they have been outstripped and su- 
 perseded by works built by private energy, with private capital. 
 
 But whether Federal legislation was wise or foolish under the im- 
 pulse of material progress, that progress was rapid and general during 
 
 
1818.] 
 
 INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 275 
 
 this period, sometimes with the aid of State Legislatures, sometimes 
 through the unassisted labors of private citizens of large brain and 
 iron will. In the face of unsparing ridicule, De Witt Clin- The Erie 
 ton dug his "ditch" three hundred and sixty-three miles Canal - 
 long, connecting Lake Erie and all the upper lakes with the tide-water 
 of the Atlantic. On the 4th of July, 1817, the first spade-full of 
 earth was turned in this great work, and in October, 1825, the largest 
 canal in the world was open for traffic. Its route was through a 
 region of almost unsurpassed fertility, much of it then a wilderness, 
 and new towns sprang up along its banks, some of them to grow, in 
 a few years, 
 to large cities. 
 Its original 
 cost was seven 
 million six 
 hundred thou- 
 sand dollars, 
 and its annual 
 earnings have 
 sometimes 
 been nearly 
 half that sum, 
 while the 
 amount of 
 traffic has sur- 
 passed that of 
 the River 
 Rhine. 1 
 Steamboats 
 
 were no 
 
 Ion- 
 
 Steamboat " Walk-in-the-Water." 
 
 ger a novelty 
 
 and an experiment in eastern waters, where they were coming grad- 
 ually into favor. At the West, in 1818, the long smoke- 
 pennant floated over Lake Erie from the steamer Walk-in- boat on the 
 the- Water, which ran regularly to Detroit. The next year 
 a more memorable event occurred, in the first passage of a steamship 
 across the Atlantic. On the roll of honored names of those who 
 gave their energies to the successful application of steam to navi- 
 gation belongs, among the first, that of Moses Rogers, of New Lon- 
 don, Connecticut. It was he who first ventured out to sea in com- 
 mand of the steamboat Phoenix, sent by John Stevens, of New York, 
 
 1 The project of the Erie Canal is believed to have been originated by Jesse Hawley, 
 who in 1807-8 published a series of articles upon its feasibility aud value. 
 
276 
 
 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 [CHAP. XL 
 
 in 1808, from that port to Delaware Bay. In the summer of 1819, 
 in command of the ship iSavannah, of three hundred tons, he sailed 
 First ocean an( l steamed for he used both sails and wheels from 
 steamship. j^ w York to Savannah, thence to Liverpool, and thence 
 up the Baltic to St. Petersburg. His ship carried seventy-five tons 
 of coal and twenty-five cords of wood, and to economize these he 
 depended on hi.s sails when the wind was favorable. When under 
 sail, and in stormy weather, the wheels were unshipped and taken on 
 board. 
 
 The voyage was nine days to Savannah from New York, and 
 twenty-five days from Savannah to within sight of the coast of Ire- 
 land. When seen from on shore, she was sxipposed to be a ship on 
 fire, and a revenue cruiser went out from Cork to offer her relief. 
 The Savannah was built in New York, and her engines made at 
 Morristown, New Jersey. The enterprise was purely American, but 
 its importance found no recognition by Congress. Captain Rogers 
 visited Washington in his ship, after his return from Russia, and an 
 attempt was made to sell her to the Government. The ship and 
 her remarkable vovage seem 1o have been utterly unnoticed by that 
 
 * v / 
 
 body of men, who could hardly give themselves rest for a single 
 session from months of discussion upon American industry. This 
 transatlantic voyage had no immediate influence upon the commerce 
 of the world, and the attempt was not repeated for twenty years ; it 
 was, nevertheless, an advancement in the art of navigation, as im- 
 portant in the intercourse of nations as that obtained by the inven- 
 tion of the mariner's compass. 1 
 
 The last two years of Monroe's administration were crowded with 
 political intrigues for the presidential succession. The Pres- 
 i'lent himself sank almost into insignificance as his power 
 waned ; and it is pitiful to see how the man who. from the 
 very birth of the Republic, had been among the most distinguished 
 of her statesmen, was pushed aside, as his. long career drew towards a 
 close, and is hardly visible at all except in the attitude of a suppliant 
 to the new men for some arrearages of pay for forgotten services. In 
 his Cabinet were three candidates Adams, Crawford, and Calhouiv 
 for the chair he was about to vacate ; for the early rule had not yet 
 fallen into desuetude, that the fit person to fill the office of chief mag- 
 istrate was to be found among those whose unquestioned ability, faith- 
 ful public service, and long experience in other responsible positions, 
 entitled them to the confidence of their fellow-citizens. It was not 
 
 1 Captain Rogers died within two years of his return from this voyage. His log-book, 
 from which we make a fac simile extract, was kindly lent me by his daughter, Mrs. S. A. 
 Ward, of New York. 
 
 cioe of 
 
 tlou - 
 

1823.] CLOSE OF MONROE'S SECOND TERM. 277 
 
 till years afterward that this wise unwritten law was departed from 
 in the nomination of James K. Polk. From that time till now, how- 
 ever, its violation, under the despotism of the National Convention, 
 has been rather the rule than the exception, the selection of a Presi- 
 dent depending, not upon the wishes or the will of the people, nor 
 the eminence for character, ability, and distinguished services of a 
 candidate, but upon the combinations matured or momentary, but 
 always selfish and often corrupt of party leaders. 
 
 But besides the three Cabinet candidates, there were two others 
 Clay and Jackson and around each clustered many warm 
 and earnest partisans. Fortunately this large number to 
 choose from made it possible to get rid of the imperious power of 
 dictation which had grown out of the method of presidential nomina- 
 tions by the Congressional caucus. 
 As Crawford had the largest fol- 
 lowing among the members of 
 Congress, a caucus nomination, 
 should it be accepted, was a fore- 
 gone defeat of all his competi- 
 tors. The first necessity, therefore, 
 was to set aside such a nomina- 
 tion, and Crawford's opponents 
 could unite in this if they could 
 agree in nothing else. When, in 
 due season, the caucus was called, 
 they refused to attend it, and the 
 decision of the followers of Craw- 
 ford was held to be not binding 
 upon the party. The people were Wi:iiam H - Crawford 
 
 free to vote for whomsoever they pleased. The other candidates 
 were all, it should be remembered, of the same party ; although that 
 "era of good feeling," which was held to be significant of Monroe's 
 administration, really because the Federal party was finally exter- 
 minated, and the Republicans, or Democrats, were left in unques- 
 tioned possession of power had resulted in dividing the Republicans 
 into as many factions as there were acknowledged leaders. But be- 
 neath this division lay a deeper discord, the hidden consequence of 
 the Missouri Compromise, which the "era of good feeling" had 
 made possible, that the time had come for the end of the twenty- 
 four years of the Virginia dynasty, and the election of a Northern 
 President. 
 
 There were cabals, intrigues, and, no doubt, bargains without num- 
 ber in this struggle of factions, this strife of ambitious politicians, 
 
278 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 amid the final explosion of fraternal amiability. 1 This condition of 
 Anew things had its influence upon all subjects which came be- 
 fore Congress for discussion and settlement. The revision 
 of the tariff, which occupied the attention of both Houses for nearly 
 three months in the session of 1823-24, was decided, more than ever, 
 by considerations of geographical interests. With more distinctiveness 
 and determination than ever, it was maintained that duties upon im- 
 ports should be enforced for the encouragement and protection of 
 manufacturing industry at home, rather than with reference to the 
 easiest way of providing a revenue for the necessities of the govern- 
 ment. Revenue, indeed, needed no consideration, provided the tariff 
 was so adjusted that the price of all foreign manufactures should 
 be made sufficiently high to give a large profit to the domestic com- 
 petition, but not so high as to prohibit importation. 
 
 The South had already changed her mind upon this subject. It 
 had become evident that slave-labor could only be used in the rudest 
 kind of manual industry ; intelligent artisans could not be made from 
 a people whose only incentive to diligence was the lash, and the im- 
 parting to whom even a knowledge of the alphabet was a penal 
 offence by statute. The Federal Government had, in the Southern 
 mind, only one reason for being to protect slavery and enlarge the 
 area for the cultivation of its coarse products. To develop those 
 varied industries to which the labor of freemen only could be profita- 
 bly applied, was an iniquitous policy if it enhanced the price of negro- 
 cloth and cotton bagging. New England still adhered to the doctrine 
 of free trade, partly because the larger portion of her capital still 
 remained invested in foreign commerce, and partly because she be- 
 lieved her infant manufactures would develop into as healthy a growth 
 as they were capable of, without any legislative nursing. But the 
 
 1 The jealousies of rival candidates greatly disturbed the harmony of the Cabinet. The 
 more earnestly Mr. Monroe strove to maintain an attitude of perfect neutrality, the more 
 he was suspected by at lenst one of his secretaries Crawford, perhaps by more than 
 one, of partisanship. The significance of an anecdote told by Mr. Adams in his Diary is 
 a curious evidence of this alienation between the President and the Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury, due partly to Crawford's resentment on this subject. He had waited upon the Presi- 
 dent to ask for certain appointments to office among his followers, to which Mr. Monroe, 
 on good grounds no doubt, objected. The Secretary's reply was so disrespectful as to call 
 for rebuke. Whereupon relates Mr. Adams " Crawford, turning to him, raited his cane, 
 as in the attitude to strike, and said, 'You damned, infernal old scoundrel!' Mr. Mon- 
 roe seized the tongs at the fire-place for self-defence, applied a retaliatory epithet to Craw- 
 ford, and told him he would immediately ring for servants himself, and turn him out of the 
 house ; upon which Crawford, beginning to recover himself, said he did not intend, and had 
 not intended to insult him, and left the house. They never met afterwards." Mr. Adams 
 tells this story after his own election, on the authority of Samuel L. Southard, who had 
 received it from Monroe immediately after the occurrence. The writer adds, "If I had 
 known it at the time, I should not have invited Mr. Crawford to remain in the Treasury 
 Department." To that invitation, Monroe, when consulted, had made no objection. 
 

 1823.] THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 279 
 
 Western and Middle States, with a few votes from other parts of the 
 country, were strong enough to give to the new tariff-bill a small 
 majority. From that time the imposition of protective duties marked 
 the dividing-line between political parties, and the tariff policy 
 thenceforth lost, in a great degree, the character of a scientific ques- 
 tion, properly discussed only in the light of the invariable laws of 
 political economy. 
 
 To no act of his life was Monroe so indebted for the preservation 
 of his name from oblivion as to a passage in his annual ad- The Monroe 
 dress to Congress in 1823, announcing what has ever since ! 
 been called " The Monroe Doctrine." The doctrine was not the less 
 excellent because it is so often supposed to be American international 
 law, or mistaken for a principle rather than an opinion ; nor is it 
 the less creditable to Monroe that it was first suggested to him by 
 his Secretary of State, Mr. Adams, and carefully discussed and ap- 
 proved by every member of the Cabinet. Its annunciation was called 
 forth by a conjunction of circumstances which has never occurred 
 since and is never likely to occur again, and is therefore as little 
 applicable as the old Articles of Confedei'ation are to the condition of 
 our time, or, probably, of any time to come. 
 
 But the declaration then had a peculiar fitness. The allied sov- 
 ereigns of France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria had seen fit to re- 
 store, in 1822, through the arms of France, to the Spanish King, 
 Ferdinand, those royal prerogatives of which he had been deprived 
 by the Cortes three years before. The Holy Alliance assumed thus 
 to check in Spain what was conceived to be a dangerous defiance of 
 the doctrine of the divine right of kings ; and succeeding in this first 
 measure, it was next proposed by Ferdinand that the Alliance should 
 aid him in reducing to obedience those revolted colonies of his in 
 America, which had not only thrown off their allegiance to him, but, 
 following the example of the United States, had resolved themselves 
 into independent republics. 
 
 It was to this condition of things that the declaration of Monroe 
 was addressed. In the war between Spain and her colonies the 
 United States, he said, had observed and should continue to observe, 
 the strictest neutrality. " But," he added, " with the Governments 
 who have declared their independence, and maintained it, and whose 
 independence we have, on great consideration, and on just principles, 
 acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose 
 of oppressing them, or controlling, in any other manner, their destiny, 
 by any European power, in any other light than as the manifestation 
 of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States." Hardly 
 less than this could be said, if anything was said at all, by the lead- 
 
280 MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 ing power among the republics of tlie Western hemisphere when 
 the possible interference of the Holy Alliance with those of South 
 America was contemplated ; and it was hardly possible to avoid saying 
 something, for England disapproving from the beginning of all that 
 had been done by the allied sovereigns on behalf of Ferdinand had 
 invited the United States to join with her in some effectual measure 
 for the protection of the independence of the new American repub- 
 lics. The declaration was altogether cautious ; it might mean much 
 or it might mean little a threat of armed resistance, or an expres- 
 sion only of harmless and pacific sentiment ; what it really did mean 
 was the subject of long and hot debate in the first year of the next 
 administration, when Mr. Adams proposed to send ministers to a 
 congress of representatives of American states to assemble at Pan- 
 ama. The President, in another paragraph of the same message, in- 
 formed Congress that an agreement had been made with England 
 and with Russia to settle, by amicable negotiation, any question of 
 conflicting rights on the northwest coast. In the discussions upon 
 this subject it had been proper to assert, he said, as a principle, that 
 the American continents were " henceforth not to be considered as 
 subjects for future colonization by any European power." This also 
 is sometimes held to be a part of the Monroe Doctrine. But it 
 seems to have had no deeper meaning considering it in connection 
 with the topic to which it specifically related than that thereafter 
 it should be considered that the unsettled country within the acknowl- 
 edged boundaries of American states was exclusively their own, and 
 not subject to foreign occupation. It certainly was no new doctrine, 
 though it might be proper to repeat it on such an occasion, that the 
 United States would always protect her own territory. 
 
 In the presidential election there was no choice by the Electoral 
 College. Adams received the popular vote of all New Eng- 
 
 Electionof l r * __ , . , 
 
 Adams as land, and a maiority of that of New 1 ork, with a minority 
 
 President. i-vV ' i in* 
 
 vote from Delaware, Maryland, Louisiana, and Illinois. 
 The popular vote in three of the Northern States, New Jersey, 
 Pennsylvania, and Indiana, was given to Jackson, and this, with 
 that of seven Southern States, gave him a majority in ten States. 
 The votes in other States were divided between Crawford and Clay, 
 and the election, therefore, was thrown into the House of Representa- 
 tives, where a choice was to be made between the three highest can- 
 didates, Jackson, Adams, and Crawford. Adams was elected by a 
 majority of the States voting by their delegations thirteen. In 
 addition to those States whose votes he received in the Electoral Col- 
 lege, he now received the three which had been given to Clay, two 
 which had been given to Jackson, and one which had been divided 
 
1824.] ELECTION OF JOHN QUIXCY ADAMS. 281 
 
 in the choice of electors. Calhoun, whose name had been withdrawn 
 from the list of presidential candidates, had been already chosen 
 Vice-president in the Electoral College. 
 
 Jackson, who in the House had been voted for by seven States 
 only, had received a plurality in the vote for electors, both p oliticil i 
 as to States and as to the popular vote. There had been calumn y- 
 charges of a corrupt bargain between Adams and Clay, even before 
 the election. These charges were now pressed with added bitterness 
 when the States which had chosen Clay electors gave their votes for 
 Adams in the House, the Kentucky delegation disregarding the in- 
 structions of the State Legislature, as they had a perfect right to 
 do. But when Clay was appointed Secretary of State by the new 
 President, the act was considered, by the party in opposition, as con- 
 clusive proof that the two highest offices in the Government had been 
 bought and sold. There was, however, no other evidence than these 
 circumstantial coincidences on which to found this partisan slander. 
 It was a slander, however, that did not easily die, and it played an im- 
 portant part in the next presidential canvass. But it was always 
 met with the most positive and indignant denial by both the gentle- 
 men accused, and by unquestionable proof of the avowed determina- 
 tion of Clay, previous to the time of the alleged bargain, to use his 
 influence if not available for his own election on behalf of 
 Adams. One must have a very imperfect comprehension of Character of 
 the character of Adams to accept as true that which gives Adain8 - 
 the lie to every other act of his long and eventful life. He some- 
 times erred in judgment ; and sometimes, like all other men that ever 
 lived, he committed acts of weakness ; but he was the wisest and 
 purest of the statesmen of the middle period of the first century of 
 the Union. He must look with distorted vision upon the career of 
 this remarkable man, who believes him capable of even entertaining 
 the thought of condescending to any political baseness under any pos- 
 sible temptation. 
 
Political 
 transition. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ADAMS AND JACKSON. 
 
 THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING. ADMINISTRATION or JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. THE 
 PROPOSED CONGRESS OF SOUTH AMERICAN STATES. OPPOSITION OF THE SLAVE- 
 HOLDERS. POLITICAL EDUCATION, NORTH AND SOUTH. A SOI.ID SOUTH. IN- 
 DIAN TROUBLES AND STATE SOVEREIGNTY IN GEORGIA. THE TARIFF MADE A 
 SKCTIONAL QUESTION. THE BLACK HAWK WAR. JACKSON'S CHARACTER, AUD 
 HIS POPULARITY. HE ESTABLISHES THE SYSTEM OF REMOVALS FROM OFFICE. 
 THE EATON SCANDAL. THE CONTEST OVER THE UNITED STATES BANK. RE- 
 ELECTION OF JACKSON. ANTI-MASONRY. NULLIFICATION. PREPARATIONS FOR 
 WAR IN SOUTH CAROLINA. THE COMPROMISE BILL. THE PUBLIC LANDS. 
 MATERIAL PROGRESS. INCREASING USE OF STEAM POWER. THE FIRST RAIL- 
 ROADS. EARLY MANUFACTURING. 
 
 THE administration of Monroe was a period of transition in which 
 the old party divisions upon questions having only a tem- 
 porary interest gradually disappeared. But beneath the 
 apparent calm of the " ei*a of good feeling " new parties were slowly 
 forming upon essentially radical principles, on the overthrow or es- 
 tablishment of which must ultimately rest the stability of the Gov- 
 ernment and the welfare of the people. Not that these differences 
 were at first distinctly seen or generally understood ; but under the 
 force of circumstances the increase of population ; the settlement of 
 new country ; the increase of material prosperity ; the new applica- 
 tions of industry ; the greater earnestness of the struggle for politi- 
 cal power between the two systems of society, one resting on the 
 rights of freemen, the other on the privileges of the holders of slaves 
 parties took new and more positive forms. Nor was it that in 
 that process of growth either party was absolutely wrong or abso- 
 lutely right, whether upon fundamental principles or upon questions 
 of temporary interest ; but that a marked division-line was drawn, 
 growing ever wider and deeper, leading at last to a dissolution of the 
 Union and to civil war. That dividing-line even civil war and the 
 reconstruction of the Union has not yet obliterated. 
 
 On the accession of Adams to the Presidency, parties were reor- 
 of ganized, on the single question at first, of supporting or op- 
 posing his Administration. On the surface there was appar- 
 ent, for the moment, no other cause of political difference than whether 
 
1825.] 
 
 PROPOSED SOUTH AMERICAN CONGRESS. 
 
 283 
 
 he should be reflected or whether he should be succeeded by Jackson 
 or Calhoun. That, indeed, was comprehensive enough, for the real 
 question was the old one of a Northern or a Southern President. The 
 opposition to Adams at once drew together the party composed mainly 
 of Southern slaveholders, which, with a sufficient Northern alliance, 
 has been able, with occasional interludes, to maintain always the po- 
 litical ascendency under whatever party name. To the support of the 
 Administration, on the other hand, rallied that instinctive antagonism 
 to a slaveholding Democratic party, which survived as a living prin- 
 ciple, often feeble, its existence often denied, or not recognized, but 
 still always active in various political organizations, whether known 
 as National Republican, or Whig, or finally as the Republican party. 
 
 The Adams Mansion, Quincy, Mass. 
 
 Mr. Adams, in his first message to Congress, presented an oppor- 
 tunity for concerted ppposition which was instantly seized 
 upon ; and it was the more significant of how earnest that AmeriJiL 
 opposition was to be, that there was, on his part, no inten- 
 tional provocation. The South American states had agreed to hold 
 a Congress at Panama, the purpose of which was to consider their 
 relations to each other and to foreign states, political and commercial, 
 and the expediency of a league among themselves. In this Con- 
 gress the United States had been invited to be represented, and Mr. 
 Adams announced that the invitation had been accepted, and that 
 ministers would be sent to take part in the deliberations, " so far as 
 may be compatible with that neutrality from which it is neither our 
 
284 ADAMS AND JACKSON. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 intention, nor the desire of the other American States, that we should 
 depart." As the mission would involve the United States in no al- 
 liance with these South American states without the assent of the 
 President and Senate, while it gave the ministers who should attend 
 the Congress the opportunity of understanding and of influencing its 
 purposes, no harm, at least, could come of the President's decision. 
 Had the decision been otherwise, there would have been quite as 
 much reason for hostile criticism, and it would have been seized upon 
 with equal eagerness, probably, to oppose the Administration. 
 
 The papers relating to the subject wer^ sent confidentially to the 
 Senate, and considered in secret session. It was determined, obviously 
 for the influence that might be exercised upon the popular mind, that 
 the debates and the documents should be made public. The Presi- 
 dent was asked if the removal of the injunction of secrecy would be 
 injurious to any pending negotiations. A negative answer was ex- 
 pected, as no negotiation was pending. But Mr. Adams was too wary 
 a man to be entrapped into am 7 assumption of a responsibility which 
 did not belong to him, but which the Senate proposed to throw from 
 their OAvn shoulders upon his. His reply was, that that body was the 
 best judge of how their proceedings should be conducted. Here was 
 new cause for complaint, and the answer W T HS denounced as little else 
 than insolent. It had to be accepted, however, and the Senate opened 
 the doors which the President declined to open for them. 
 
 What the character of the debate should be what it was that 
 Randolph * ne people were to be called upon to listen to was settled 
 riMvcy beforehand. A Virginia Senator sounded the key-note, 
 question. There was often method in the madness of that political 
 mountebank, John Randolph ; as he himself once said in debate with 
 a Congressman who had been a carpenter, he "knew a hawk from a 
 handsaw." Before the Senate determined to discuss the Panama mis- 
 sion with open doors, he moved a resolution which could only be 
 meant to be laid on the table, and was laid on the table, with his con- 
 sent, when his speech upon it was finished that the President be 
 requested to give the Senate any information in his possession, " touch- 
 ing the principles and practice of the Spanish American states, or 
 any of them, late colonies of old Spain, in regard to negro slavery." 
 That the President could have any information to give upon such a 
 subject that WHS not open to all the rest of the world as well, neither 
 Randolph nor any other member of the Senate could suppose for a 
 moment. The Spanish American states, like the United States, 
 professed a belief in the natural right of all men to liberty ; and 
 their practice unlike that of the United States was in accord- 
 ance with their principles, and had been to sweep negro slavery, so 
 
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
 
 " fnjr/mit lit/ >'////(//. 
 
1825.] OPPOSITION OF THE SLAVEHOLDERS. '285 
 
 far as they could, from off the face of the earth. But the object 
 of the resolution was gained when Randolph, in a characteristic 
 speech, denounced the proposal to send representatives to a Congress 
 of those foreign states who had set the pernicious example of giving 
 freedom to negroes ; where the black Republic of Hayti might be rec- 
 ognized; where the independence of Cuba, so dangerously near to our 
 own shores, and the possible emancipation of her slaves, might be dis- 
 cussed. To send representatives to such a Congress was to touch 
 slavery, and slavery must be " let alone." That it would not be let 
 alone, Randolph said, was " a great danger a danger that has in- 
 creased, is increasing, and must be diminished, or it must come to its 
 regular catastrophe ; " and therefore the consideration of all other in- 
 terests which the United States might have in common with the 
 South American republics must be put aside that slavery be pro- 
 tected from the danger even of discussion by foreigners in the pres- 
 ence of Federal representatives. 
 
 For nearly the whole session the Panama Congress was debated in 
 the Senate under one or another pretext ; it came before the The Monroe 
 House on the question of an appropriation, and a large por- doctnne 
 tion of the time was given to it there from January to April. That 
 the neutrality of the United States might be jeoparded by the official 
 recognition of the Congress, was urged as one reason for rejecting the 
 nominations of the President ; but, inasmuch as it was expressly pro- 
 vided that such neutrality should remain intact, that argument had 
 little weight. The attack on the Administration was pressed with 
 much more vigor on the proper interpretation of u The Monroe Doc- 
 trine." A meaning was given to it, it was declared, which its terms 
 did not warrant, by the assurance of Mr. Poinsett, the Minister to 
 Mexico, sanctioned apparently by Mr. Clay, the Secretary of State. 
 that in that declaration a pledge of protection was made to the South 
 American states in the event of European aggression. It was de- 
 nied, and the denial generally accepted, that " The Monroe Doctrine " 
 was meant to convey an assurance so dangerous to the future peace of 
 the country. 
 
 But all this was, for the most part, a. skirmish of words. The 
 question more important than all others was the question of slavery, 
 and on this the debate was in dead earnest. A Congress of American 
 nations, some of whom believed in the right of all men to liberty ; a 
 Congress that would recognize Hayti as a sister republic; a Congress 
 that might lead to the independence of Cuba and Porto Rico, and to 
 the emancipation of their slaves, was not a body in which the United 
 States should be represented. The one interest in the United States, 
 absorbing and supreme, was the interest of slavery. It must govern 
 
286 ADAMS AND JACKSON. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 in the foreign relations of the Government, as it was meant it should 
 govern at home. 
 
 To enforce this doctrine was the object of the debate ; the Congress 
 itself was only a secondary matter. The South has always under- 
 stood the importance of political education, and the necessity of in- 
 Poiitica culcating great primary principles. These were, that the 
 ucationof true foundation of democratic government w;is negro slav- 
 
 the South. 
 
 ery ; that the supreme power should rest in the hands of a 
 few thousand white men generally about one per cent, of the 
 whole population of the country by virtue of their ownership of 
 negro slaves ; that the highest and most imperative function of the 
 Constitution and the Union was the support of a government so 
 constituted ; and that the Union must cease to exist the moment the 
 Federal Government was perverted from that end, and the sanctity 
 and peace of slavery were imperilled. From generation to genera- 
 tion the young men of the South have sat at the feet of their proph- 
 ets to learn this lesson. The divine right of kings was never enforced, 
 even when taught as an article of religions faith, with the earnest- 
 ness that the cognate doctrine was enforced at the South. But there 
 was no political education to answer to this in the North. The 
 strength of firm convictions and abiding faith, on the one hand, was 
 met with hesitation and doubt on the other. The South believed 
 in slavery with its whole soul, and knew what it wanted ; the North 
 was not quite sure whether it believed in it or not, and was by no 
 means certain of what it was that the South was aiming at. 
 
 When enough had been said in both Houses to show, as had been 
 so often shown before, and would be so often shown again, that 
 slavery must never be meddled with, but that all moral and political 
 forces must be bent to its support, the nomination of the delegates 
 to Panama was confirmed, and the appropriation made. In itself 
 the act was of no consequence, for the Congress never met. But 
 some of the Southern senators were quite willing that the delegates 
 should be appointed, if instructed to use their influence as repre- 
 sentatives of the United States to pi-event the recognition of Hayti, 
 and arrest any movement in aid of the independence of Cuba. In 
 reality there was no anxiety on either point. There could be no 
 misconception of the position of the Government, as represented by 
 the Secretary of State. Mr. Clay had earnestly urged the interven- 
 nay-sposi- t ' on ^ Russia with Spain, to induce her to recognize the 
 tion independence of her late colonies, that she might retain 
 
 Cuba ; and he had persuaded those colonies to delay any movement 
 against Cuba, in the hope that recognition would leave that island 
 and Porto Rico in the possession of Spain. Mr. Clay was an enthu- 
 
1825.] 
 
 A " SOLID SOUTH." 
 
 287 
 
 siast in the cause of liberty in South America ; nor did he stop to 
 ask what races white, black, or copper-colored, pure or mixed 
 might enjoy that liberty in those far-off countries. But his enthusi- 
 asm was under perfect control, and the new republics were made to 
 understand that no pernicious example of the abolition of slavery 
 was to be tolerated so near the United States as in Cuba. Nor was 
 there the slightest reason to suppose that the Government under 
 Mr. Adams would interfere with slavery ; but with that wise fore- 
 thought which the South 
 never lost sight of, the op- 
 portunity was seized to set 
 forth by months of debate 
 the radical doctrine that the 
 Union only existed for the 
 support of slavery, and that 
 when it ceased to do that 
 it must cease to exist. 
 
 The Republic was al- 
 ready nearly a half cen- 
 tury old, and once before 
 there had been a Northern 
 President, and he chosen 
 against the will of the 
 South. In this fact there 
 was danger, and it was 
 time to rally a " solid 
 South " in an opposition 
 party. Innovations must 
 be met at the outset. " I will cry out obsta principiis" said Ran- 
 dolph. In this first encounter with a Northern Executive, A golid 
 he said, " The step you are about to take is a match " South - 
 to so much gunpowder "enough to blow. not the first of the 
 Stuarts but the last of another dynasty, sky-high sky-high/' 
 And Hayne replied, that when " the policy of that portion of the 
 Union [the South] should be called in question, or their safety endan- 
 gered, .... the whole South will be as one man." 
 
 The doctrine of State Rights however precious and true it may 
 be when rightly interpreted in a union of reallv free 
 
 c, , . . , T. 
 
 States meant nothing in this slaveholders organization 
 but the supremacy of slave States. Georgia soon made this 
 manifest in her conduct in regard to the Indians still within her 
 boundaries. A condition of the cession of her western territory to 
 
 w 
 
 the Federal Government was, that the title to the Indian lands 
 
 Henry Clay. 
 
 Indian trou- 
 
 

 288 ADAMS AND JACKSON. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 should be acquired by the United States and transferred to her. The 
 Government was willing to redeem this promise ; but it had been 
 long deferred because of the unwillingness of the Creeks and Cher- 
 okees to part with tlieir land. A council of Creek chiefs resolved, 
 as firmly as men could resolve, not to sell a foot, and to visit the 
 penalty of death upon any chiefs who should disregard the resolution. 
 Commissioners were appointed, and in 1825 they concluded a treaty 
 with Melntosh and some other chiefs at Indian Springs, by which 
 the lands were conveyed to the United States ; and thereupon the 
 Creeks made good their word by putting the signers of the treaty 
 to death. The State of Georgia meanwhile had ordered a survey of 
 the territory occupied by the Indians, and if this were carried out 
 a conflict between the surveyors and the Indians was inevitable. 
 The treaty, which had been ratified by the Senate and the Presi- 
 dent, continued the Creeks in possession till September 1, 1826, and 
 there could be no color of right under the treaty even, much less out- 
 side of it, for interference by Georgia. But the Governor, George M. 
 Troup, assumed at once a position which ignored laws and treaties, 
 Beginning ant ' rested upon the title of a sovereign State. In his eor- 
 iughts*on respondence with the Government, he assumed in the bald- 
 test est and boldest language the independence of Georgia, and 
 
 insolently informed the President that the survey would go on. The 
 Governor professed to see in the attitude of the Government a secret 
 hostility to slavery, and called upon the Legislature to act in self- 
 defence. 1 A committee of the Legislature reported, in very tem- 
 pestuous language, that the time had come for united action on the 
 part of the South in resistance to the Federal Government. 
 
 A long discussion then ensued, between the Governor on the one 
 side and General Gaines, who had been sent to Georgia to keep the 
 peace, and the Secretary of War, on the other. The President was 
 firm, and near the end of July, 1825, he instructed the Secretary 
 of War to write to the Governor that, pending a new consideration 
 of the treaty by Congress, the terms of the recent treaty were such 
 as to forbid the survey. " I am, therefore," writes the Secretary, 
 
 1 " Soon, very soon, therefore," said Governor Troup, " the United States Government, 
 discarding the mask, will openly lend itself to a combination of fanatics for the destruc- 
 tion of everything valuable in the Southern country ; one movement of the Congress, un- 
 rcsisted by you, and all is lost. Temporize no longer; make known your resolution that 
 this subject shall not be touched by them but at their peril. But for its sacred guarantee 
 bv the Constitution, we never would hnve become parties to that instrument. At this 
 moment you would not make yourselves parties to any constitution without it. Of course 
 you will not be a party to it from the moment the General Government shall make that 
 movement. If this matter be an evil, it is our own ; if it be a sin, we can implore the for- 
 giveness of it ; to remove it, we ask not either their sympathy or assistance ; it may be our 
 physical weakness it is our moral strength." Niles's Register, xxviii. 240. 
 
1827.] STATE SOVEREIGNTY IN GEORGIA. 289 
 
 "directed by the President to state distinctly to your Excellency 
 that, for the present, he will not permit such entry or survey to be 
 made." A new treaty was negotiated at Washington, and new cause 
 of complaint loudly declared in Georgia. Troup, who had been re- 
 elected Governor by a bare majority, again ordered surveys upon the 
 basis of the former treaty. The Indians appealed to Adams, who pre- 
 sented the whole subject afresh to Congress. The message, throw- 
 ing the burden upon Congress, was a clear statement of the case ; but 
 the people were not prepared to test the relative authority of Union 
 and State. The interests involved were of little moment to the peo- 
 ple at large. The dispute was only over a tribe of Indians who 
 blocked the way. The President was expected to maintain treaty 
 obligations, but no authority was given him by Congress to assert 
 the authority and dignity of the Federal Government when it in- 
 volved direct collision with a State. A let-alone policy was accepted ; 
 Georgia triumphed, and the Administration and the Indians went to 
 the wall. 
 
 The advantage gained over the Creeks was repeated immediately 
 in a contest with the Cherokees, which lasted from 1826 to 1837. 
 By a series of enactments the Georgia Legislature pressed hard upon 
 the unfortunate Indians. The authority of the State was extended 
 
 w 
 
 over the entire territory, and was so exercised as to make life in 
 Georgia unendurable to the Cherokees. The missionaries living 
 among them were treated as felons, and the longer the Indians pre- 
 sented a passive resistance the more malignant was the persecution 
 visited upon them. The State, having once secured its position be- 
 fore a temporizing Congress, resisted effectively every attempt on be- 
 half of the Indians. When Jackson succeeded Adams, he declared 
 officially to the Cherokees that they had no choice except to obey the 
 laws of the State or " to remove, and, by associating with your 
 brothers beyond the Mississippi, to become again united as one na- 
 tion ; " but the declaration ignored the fact that the Cherokees were 
 still a nation, by treaty, with the United States ; it yielded the 
 whole question to Georgia. 
 
 The Indians appealed to the United States Supreme Court, and 
 William Wirt, the ex-Attorney-general, appeared on their behalf. 
 But here the anomalous political position of the Cherokees confronted 
 the judges, and, as interpreters of the law, they were obliged to give 
 a decision contrary to their own sense of justice. In the complaint, 
 the Cherokees had been described as a foreign state, having adopted 
 a constitution for their own government ; but as such they could not 
 bring a case before the Federal courts. But Chief Justice Marshall, 
 in rendering the decision, said, " So much of the argument as was in- 
 
 VOL. IV. 19 
 
290 ADAMS AND JACKSON. [CHAP. XIL 
 
 .* 
 
 tended to prove the character of the Cherokees as a state, as a dis- 
 tinct political society, separated from others, capable of managing its 
 own affairs, and governing itself, has, in the opinion of the majoi'ity 
 of the judges, been completely successful. They have been uni- 
 formly treated as a state from the settlement of our country. The 
 acts of our Government plainly recognize the Cherokee nation as a 
 state, and the courts are bound by those acts." 
 
 The Court soon came into more direct conflict with the State on a 
 question of jurisdiction, and both Governor and Legislature treated 
 the order of the Supreme Court as an interference with the rights of 
 Georgia, and paid no heed to it. Another occasion arose later still, 
 The case of when a Presbyterian minister, named Worcester, was con- 
 worcester. JemneJ to four years' imprisonment at hard labor for the 
 crime of remaining in the territory with a dying wife beyond the ten 
 days allowed him for leaving. The case of Worcester was appealed 
 to the Supreme Court, and the act of the State of Georgia was de- 
 clared void. Nevertheless, the State court paid no attention to the 
 decision, and Clayton, of Geoi-gia, in the House of Representatives, 
 said that " before the decree of the Supreme Court should be carried 
 into execution, Georgia should be made a wilderness." The country 
 was stirred to indignation, but rather at Georgia's inhumanity than 
 at her rebellion against the Union, and it was found convenient by 
 the Federal Government to avoid a crisis on behalf of the Indians. 
 
 Thus through two administrations the Federal Government was 
 defied by a single State ; the doctrine of State Rights, as it was un- 
 derstood at the South, was carried to its legitimate conclusion ; and 
 Georgia assumed, and proved herself, to be as absolutely independent 
 of and above the authority and laws of the Union, where her special 
 interests were concerned, as if the Union had ceased to exist. The 
 controversy was upon too remote an interest to alarm the North as to 
 its real character ; nor has the sense of justice and humanity toward 
 the Indian ever been so keen that the cruelty visited upon the Creeks 
 should, at that time, arouse the sympathies of the country on behalf 
 of that unhappy people. But the conduct of Georgia was sustained, 
 directly or indirectly, by her sister States of the South, and her suc- 
 cess rejoiced in as a complete and triumphant assertion of the South- 
 ern policy. There was no long time to wait before another struggle, 
 with essentially the same result. 
 
 The question of the tariff was becoming moi-e and more a sectional 
 question. The breach between North and South was wid- 
 a sectional ened as the inevitable antagonism between free labor and 
 slave labor was made more manifest by the protective pol- 
 icy. The recuperative power of the North was irrepressible. She 
 
1828.] THE TARIFF A SECTIONAL QUESTION. 291 
 
 grew rich and prosperous, whether, under free trade, her energies 
 were devoted to agriculture and commerce, or whether, under a pro- 
 tective tariff, her capital and labor were forced into the development 
 of manufacturing interests. It was just the reverse at the South. 
 Slavery and prosperity were incompatible, and while the North flour- 
 ished under either free trade or tariff, the South grew poor un- 
 der both. All the North asked for was a steady and uniform pol- 
 icy ; she also wanted to be " let alone." Hut the South, which had 
 first established the protective policy for her own supposed advan- 
 tage, now demanded a return to free trade for the same reason. The 
 North, she believed, gained by her loss, for she could not under- 
 stand that the North could accommodate herself to any policy be- 
 cause her labor was free, but that there could be no like prosperity 
 at the South because her laborers were slaves. It was certainly true 
 that the cheaper everything else was, the greater was the value of 
 a crop of cotton or tobacco. To sell it at the highest possible price, 
 and to buy in return all that was needed on a plantation at the 
 cheapest, was a very simple problem in political economy. But there 
 were other terms to the problem ; the North, against her will, had 
 been compelled to invest her capital and labor in a variety of in- 
 dustries, and she demanded that as legislation had put her in that 
 position, legislation should protect her. It was not a question of po- 
 litical economy between the two sections of the Union, whatever it 
 might be in the abstract; but whether the ability in capital and 
 industry in one portion of the country should be directed and con- 
 trolled by the inability in both of the other portion. But cotton was 
 king, and kings are not necessarily held to reason. 
 
 The tariff of 1828 was a more comprehensive measure, and more 
 distinctly adjusted to encourage American industry than any previ- 
 ously enacted. All New England and most of the Middle and West- 
 ern States were now united on this subject, and in 1827 a large 
 National Convention of Protectionists was held at Harrisburg to con- 
 sider their various interests and to influence legislation. The number 
 of articles wool, iron, lead, hemp, distilled spirits, and others of 
 smaller general importance demanding protection was increased. 
 The question was made, more positively than had been done four 
 years before, one of party politics. 
 
 It only influenced, however, without governing parties, for there 
 were protectionists who voted for Jackson, though there were no 
 anti-protectionists who voted for Adams. At the present rharacterof 
 time, with the general diffusion of information and the Jackson - 
 rapid communication between the different parts of the country, the 
 people usually have a pretty clear understanding of the character of 
 

 292 
 
 ADAMS AND JACKSON. 
 
 [CHAP. XII. 
 
 presidental candidates, when, as still sometimes happens, there are 
 candidates who have any characters to be understood. But it is not 
 
 Northern Industry. 
 
 to be wondered at that fifty years ago Jackson was voted for in dif- 
 ferent parts of the Union for precisely opposite reasons. 
 
 It seems, at first sight, difficult to find in General Jackson's per- 
 
1828.] 
 
 JACKSON'S CHARACTER. 
 
 293 
 
 sonal qualities the cause of his great popularity. He was neither a 
 wise nor a good man, and in many respects he was both a foolish and 
 
 Southern Industry. 
 
 a bad one. He was not only illiterate which may be a misfortune 
 without being a fault but ignorant; he was easily provoked to 
 anger, and his rage was not only cruel but uncontrollable ; in temper 
 
294 ADAMS AND JACKSON. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 he was as despotic as he was fearless, and lie was as free from scruples 
 as he was without fear. As a brave and successful soldier, he was 
 known to the people ; if he was capable also of strong domestic at- 
 tachments and of warm friendships, which no doubt truly is al- 
 leged of him, that could have had little to do with his popularity, as it 
 could not be generally known. The worst and the largest side of him 
 is that which for thirty years was presented to the public, and either 
 because of it or in spite of it, the larger number of the people admired 
 and honored him. But that large part at least in his first election 
 was from the Southern States, and his popularity there is easily ac- 
 counted for. The strong points in his character were precisely those 
 engendered and developed in the mastership of a gang of negro slaves, 
 and the education of the plantation. "The whole commerce between 
 master and slave," said Jefferson, "is a perpetual exercise of the most 
 boisterous passions ; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, 
 
 and degrading submissions on the other The parent storms, 
 
 the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same 
 airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to his worst passions, 
 and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but 
 be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prod- 
 igy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such cir- 
 cumstances." An education of this sort had in Jackson been 
 
 Reasons for 111- / i i i i i 
 
 his popular- rounded and intensified by his long experience in the pecul- 
 iar warfare carried on against the Indian tribes of the South. 
 The slaveholders saw in him a magnified reflection of themselves, 
 and they admired and esteemed him accordingly. That his popular- 
 ity should have extended subsequently to the North, admits of some- 
 thing of the same explanation. As a result of " the most boisterous 
 passions " engendered by slavery, Jefferson deduces " degrading sub- 
 missions," as well as ' unremitting despotism." There has been 
 always a singular servility in the character of a portion of the Ameri- 
 can people. In that class the slaveholder has always found his 
 Northern servitor. Randolph first gave it a name to live by in the 
 term " doughface." It always loves to recognize a master, as the 
 slave is always most abject under the lash that cuts the keenest and 
 oftenest. It was this class that loved Jackson simply because they 
 saw a master in his despotic will, which no scruple ever controlled. 
 Besides this, there was that other weakness of the American charac- 
 ter which has so much to answer for the capacity of being aroused 
 to an irrepressible enthusiasm on the most factitious pretexts, and of 
 raising the most ordinary mortals to immortality with shouts so fran- 
 tic that they come at length to be believed sincere. 
 
 It was during the closing years of Adams's administration that the 
 
1832.] THE BLACK HAWK WAR. 295 
 
 last serious Indian war occurred within the borders of the present 
 northwestern States. In 1830 a treaty was made with the The Bla( . k 
 tribes of Sacs and Foxes, by which their lands in Illinois lliiwkwar - 
 were ceded to the United States. They were nevertheless unwilling 
 to leave their country, and Governor Reynolds, of Illinois, called out 
 a militia force to remove them beyond the Mississippi. Black Hawk, 
 a chief of the Sacs, then about sixty years of age, refused submission, 
 and the next year returned with a small force. He was driven back 
 by the troops at Rock Island, but in March, 1832, he reappeared, at 
 the head of about a thousand warriors, Sacs, Foxes, and Winne- 
 bagos, and penetrated into the Rock River valley, declaring that 
 he came only to plant corn. But either he would not or could not 
 restrain his followers, and the devastation of Indian warfare soon 
 spread among the frontier settlements. Farms were laid waste, farm- 
 houses given to the flames, and their occupants put to death. The 
 force at Rock Island was sent out to stay these ravages, and Generals 
 Scott and Atkinson ordered from Buffalo with a reenforcement, 
 which on the way was greatly diminished by cholera and desertions. 
 The Governor of Illinois called for volunteers, and an effective force 
 of about twenty-four hundred men was soon marched against the 
 enemy. Black Hawk's band fled before it. General Whiteside, who 
 was in command, burned the Prophet's Town, on Rock River, and 
 pursued the Indians up that stream. But his advance under Major 
 Stillman was led into ambush at a point about twenty miles from the 
 present town of Dixon, and defeated. The Indians were overtaken 
 and badly defeated on Wisconsin River ; and the survivors, still re- 
 treating northward, were again overtaken near Bad Axe River, on 
 the left bank of the Mississippi. Here Black Hawk attempted to get 
 his main body (across the Mississippi, himself and twenty warriors 
 forming a rear-guard to make a show of force and keep the pursuers 
 at bay. But his movements were understood, the rear-guard soon 
 driven in to the main body, and that was surrounded. Many of the 
 Indians were shot in the water while trying to swim the stream; 
 others were killed on a little island where they sought refuge. Only 
 about fifty prisoners were taken, and most of these were squaws and 
 children. The dispersion was complete, and the war was soon closed 
 by the surrender oc capture of Black Hawk, Keokuk, and other 
 chiefs. Many persons are still living who can remember the melan- 
 choly progress of these warriors on their way to Washington to ac- 
 knowledge their subjection. 
 
 In the presidential election of 1828 the Norther n dynasty was 
 blown, as Randolph said it should be, " sky-high sky-high." Adams 
 received the electoral vote of New England, of Delaware, and a por- 
 
296 
 
 ADAMS AND JACKSOX. 
 
 [CHAP. XII. 
 
 tion of that of Maryland. All the rest were given to Jackson, rnak- 
 Eiectionof m g a total of one hundred and seventy-eight electoral votes 
 Jackson. to Adams's eighty-three. There was at least one man in 
 the country who was not surprised at this result; Adams had ex- 
 pected it, and had prepared, though with great reluctance, to retire 
 to private life. Calhoun was again elected to the vice-presidency. 
 
 At the inaugural ceremonies in the following March, a larger crowd 
 assembled at Washington from all parts of the country than had ever 
 
 . 
 
 
 ^ ' " u* 
 - #; -' 
 
 
 Battle of Bad Axe. 
 
 before come together on a similar occasion. Mr. Adams was con- 
 spicuous by his absence, a fact commented upon then, and remem- 
 bered ever since against him, by those who, perhaps, did not know 
 that the incoming President had carefully abstained from showing 
 him, before the inauguration, the usual courtesies due to the retiring 
 chief magistrate. The matter was considered of sufficient impor- 
 tance for Mr. Adams to seek counsel from his friends, and to be 
 guided by their advice. 1 
 
 1 The excuse made for Jackson in Parton's Life of Jackson that he took this method 
 
1829.] THE SYSTEM OF REMOVALS ESTABLISHED. 207 
 
 The inaugural address rather surprised both parties, and disap- 
 pointed those who expected a condemnation of the tariff. n i8 inuKu- 
 On that subject it was moderate enough to encourage the ** 
 protectionists to hope that the established policy would not be med- 
 dled with. Upon the necessity of reform that much-abused word 
 in American politics the address was pronounced and emphatic. 
 In saying that a "correction of those abuses that have brought the 
 patronage of the Federal Government into conflict with the freedom 
 of elections " was required, nothing was meant, probably, but a re- 
 flection upon the preceding Administration. It was a rash charge to 
 make, however, for whatever other, political sins might be attributed 
 to Mr. Adams, that of an undue use of patronage was certainly the 
 one of which he was absolutely innocent. Jackson had, indeed, dis- 
 tinguished himself years before, by urging Monroe to disregard party 
 in the choice of his secretaries ; and, when in the United States Sen- 
 ate, he had proposed an amendment to the Constitution forbidding 
 the appointment of members of Congress to any office whatever, ex- 
 cept upon the bench. However unjust, then, the implied accusation 
 against Mr. Adams might be, it was assumed that the President really 
 meant to lay down a rule for himself. The country had not to wait 
 a month to see how ludicrous the word reform was in his mouth. 
 Members of his Cabinet were taken from the Senate and the House, 
 and it was soon understood that not to have been in favor neegtab . 
 of his election was to be held as forfeiture of office, that ^^of 
 places might be given as a reward to his active partisans. reinoT l8 - 
 In the forty years of previous administrations there had been sev- 
 enty-three removals ; Jackson removed a larger number in the first 
 month of his administration. Before the year was out, six hundred 
 and ninety of his partisans were rewarded with places made vacant 
 for them, and these, in their turn, punished and rewarded hundreds 
 more of subordinates. 1 The character of the government was com- 
 pletely changed by the introduction of this new system of the tenure 
 of office ; an element of corruption was introduced, for which no 
 remedy has yet been found ; and an injury done to the morals of 
 the people, and to the cause of republican government, so monstrous 
 that it would have been better had Andrew Jackson never been 
 born. It was this partisan spirit that distinguished his adminis- 
 tration for eight years, and made it, though in some things excel- 
 
 of showing his resentment at some reflections made upon his wife, in a newspaper supposed 
 to he the political organ of the Administration in Washington only shows, if true, how 
 incapable Jackson was of discretion whore his feelings or his passions were concerned. 
 
 1 Washington made nine removals from office ; John Adams, nine ; Jefferson, thirtv-uine ; 
 Madison, five ; Monroe, nine ; John Quincy Adams, two ; Jackson made, and caused to be 
 made, probably not less than two thousand. 
 
298 
 
 JACKSON. 
 
 [CllAI-. XII. 
 
 lent, of so evil example. He esteemed himself not a part of the 
 State, but the State. In one week he vetoed more bills sent him by 
 Congress than all his predecessors had vetoed in forty years. 
 
 Martin Van Buren was his Secretary of State; the rest of his 
 Cabinet, excepting John M. Berrien, the Attorney-general, 
 
 His Cabinet. . ~. 
 
 were men who left no mark upon their time. His "Kitchen 
 Cabinet,'' as it was called in the slang of the day William B. 
 
 Lewis, Duff Green, 
 Amos Kendall, and 
 Isaac Hill were 
 the advisers and 
 confidants of the 
 head of the State. 
 The official Cabinet 
 was scattered, o r 
 scattered itself, be- 
 fore the end of the 
 first term, moved 
 thereto by a per- 
 sonal scandal which 
 Jackson wanted the 
 dignity and d e 1 i- 
 cacy to smother, 
 but insisted instead 
 upon forcing upon 
 the public. It oc- 
 cupied too i m p o r- 
 tant a place in the political history of those years to be forgotten. 
 John H. Eaton, the Secretary of War, had married a Mrs. Timber- 
 lake, who, it was said, had been his mistress while her first 
 husband was living. Whether this was true or not, it was 
 believed, and it is certain that the woman was of bad reputation be- 
 fore Eaton married her. The families of other members of the Gov- 
 ernment, and those of foreign Ministers, as well as those of the better 
 class of people generally in Washington, refused to recognize or admit 
 her to their houses. There was a touch of chivalry in the impetu- 
 osity and passion with which Jackson came to the defence of this 
 woman. From the same remarkable incapacity of weighing testi- 
 mony which he showed on other occasions, he assumed this case to be 
 parallel to his own ; and by the zeal with which he defended an 
 apparently indefensible cause, acknowledged, in the minds of many 
 people, the justice of the charges that had long been brought against 
 himself and his own wife. Eaton, it is true, was his personal friend, 
 
 The Hermitage Residence of General Jackson. 
 
 The Eaton 
 scandal. 
 
1829.] THE EATON SCANDAL. 299 
 
 and Mrs. Timberlake and her family had long been known to him. 
 But it would be doing him great injustice to suppose that there was 
 no deeper influence than ordinary friendship, no other impulse at 
 work than headlong obstinacy, to impel him to a course of conduct 
 which so controlled the first three years of his administration. Th^ 
 defence of Mrs. Eaton was the defence of his own wife, dead not 
 many weeks, and mourned with a passionate sorrow. There was 
 really no parallel in the two cases, nor could Jackson see that it was 
 he who was reflecting upon the memory of his dead wife by admitting 
 any possible similarity. When, nearly forty years before, he had 
 married, she was, as both believed, fully divorced from a former hus- 
 band. When this was found to be a mistake, the proper legal steps 
 were taken, and they were married again. Years afterward this 
 perfectly innocent error was seized upon and tortured by political 
 malice into a cruel scandal ; and it seemed to him a sort of vindication 
 of the memory of his wife, and a righteous resentment for what she 
 had been made to suffer, to defend another woman who seemed to 
 him visited with similar injustice. It did not occur to him that in 
 inviting comparison he was confessing judgment. 
 
 Moved by such an impulse, his pertinacity and violence on this 
 topic are less to be wondered at, and even from one view to be ap- 
 plauded. It was characteristic of the man, however, that he should 
 permit this purely personal feeling to override all other considerations. 
 He might have conceded so much to an almost universal belief as to 
 have consented that his public conduct should not be governed by his 
 private opinion. But to this his imperious temper could never con- 
 sent. Harmony in his Cabinet meant that the wives of his secreta- 
 ries should open their doors to Mrs. Eaton. Because they would not 
 submit to this interference with their domestic relations, and yield 
 their sense of decency and of moral obligation to his dictation, Cab- 
 inet meetings became less and less frequent, were at length given up 
 altogether, and finally the Cabinet was broken up, in part, at least, 
 from this want of harmony. He threatened to dismiss a foreign 
 minister whose wife declined to recognize Mrs. Eaton ; he sent Mrs. 
 Donelson and her husband his nephew and secretary who resided 
 with him in the presidential mansion, back to Tennessee, because she 
 declined to receive Mrs. Eaton ; and he was almost beside himself 
 with imbecile rage when, in those private parlors where he had pro- 
 cured her admission, the ladies of Washington retired from before her 
 as if her presence were a contamination. Jackson was himself, undoubt- 
 edly, as chaste as a virtuous woman ; but it was, nevertheless, through 
 the overbearing self-will of this man that the simplicity and purity of 
 a republican Administration was, for the first time, and so far for the 
 
300 JACKSON. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 last, smirched with the scandalous intrigues that in earlier times dis- 
 tinguished the courts of monarehs. 
 
 The President's hostility to the United States Bank, which dis- 
 Th, rnite.i tinguished his first term of office, and had more to do, prob- 
 " lk ably, than anything else with his reelection, showed itself in 
 his first message. As the Hank would soon ask for a renewal of its 
 charter, which would expire in 183b\ he called the attention of Con- 
 gress to the constitutionality and expediency of the law creating it. 
 It had failed, he said, in establishing a sound and uniform currency, 
 and he suggested that a National Bank, founded upon the credit and 
 revenues of the Government, might be devised which would be con- 
 stitutional, and be beneficial to the finances of the country. 
 
 It was the beginning of a long struggle which convulsed the coun- 
 try as long as it lasted. That its final result was beneficial, was not 
 long doubted after the party passion the encounter excited had sub- 
 sided : nor is it incredible that the motives of Jackson's hostility were 
 
 / 
 
 what he professed they were, though their first impulse may have 
 been purely personal. Certain it is that those private counsellors of 
 his who were soon known as the " Kitchen Cabinet" had already had 
 an encounter with the officers of the Bank, and to this is usually 
 traced the immediate hostility of the Administration. In the sum- 
 mer of that year, 1829. an attempt was made to remove the President, 
 Jonathan Mason, of the branch bank at Portsmouth, N. H. Com- 
 plaints were made of its management by Isaac Hill and Levi Wood- 
 bury, both active politicians and warm friends of the Administration 
 in that State. Ingham, the Secretary of the Treasury, held a long 
 correspondence with Nicholas Biddle, President of the parent bank, 
 at the conclusion of which the Bank firmly and with some asperity 
 declared its intention to pursue a course entirely independent of polit- 
 ical dictation. As the appointments were in the hands of the Direct- 
 ors, the victory was for the time complete. But it was a victory 
 which aimed a direct blow at Jackson, and from that time, till he 
 was able to strike a fatal blow in return, he continued in successive 
 messages to press the subject upon the attention of Congress. 
 
 The Bank was accused meanwhile of using its means and its in- 
 fluence to bring the question of a re-charter within the arena of party 
 politics. It became, at any rate, a party question in the canvass for 
 the next presidential election, the Clay party hoping to defeat the 
 Jackson party either by procuring the re-charter of the Bank by Con- 
 gress, or by an appeal to the country should that attempt fail. In the 
 session of 1832 the Bank asked that its charter be renewed, and an 
 act was passed by large majorities ; but when the President vetoed 
 the bill, there was not a two-thirds vote in the Senate to sustain its 
 
ANDREW JACKSON. 
 (Afttr ti </it(ruen-toty/>e.) 
 
1832.] THE UNITED STATES BAXK. 301 
 
 previous action, and the bill failed. At the beginning of the session 
 of 1832-33 the President expressed doubts of the solvency of the 
 Bank, and recommended the removal of the deposits of public money, 
 which, by the act incorporating the Bank, was subject to the order of 
 the Secretary of the Treasury, who was required to give to Congress 
 his reasons for removal. When Congress refused to authorize such 
 action, the President assumed the responsibility himself. Technically 
 he was free to do so, through tlie Secretary, and to give his reasons 
 afterward ; but the action of Congress upon his message was virtually 
 a refusal to sanction such a proceeding. Jackson's argument, reiter- 
 ated in many forms, was that the Bank was buying up members of 
 Congress, and would obtain a two-thirds majority at the next session 
 unless he crippled it at once, and that as a matter of fact it was not 
 solvent. He read to his Cabinet a long paper on the subject, in which 
 he accused the officers of the Bank of the most flagrant mismanage- 
 ment and corrupt practices, and concluded with the announcement 
 that he had fully determined upon the removal, and should assume 
 the entire responsibility. He sent Amos Kendall on a tour of inquiry 
 among the State banks, with a proposition that certain of them should 
 receive the deposits, and give a combined guaranty for their safety. 
 
 The Bank made a stubborn fight for its life. The management 
 acknowledged that in four years it spent fifty-eight thousand dollars 
 in defending itself. On the floor of the Senate, Mr. Benton was the 
 representative of Jackson's enmity to the Bank, while its chief de- 
 fenders were Mr. Dallas and Mr. Webster. Though nearly the whole 
 debate was confined to the question of the character and management 
 of this institution, strong objections had been urged from the first 
 against the existence of any United States Bank at all. Jackson had 
 opposed the scheme in Hamilton's day, being at that time a Senator 
 from Tennessee. The argument for a bank, briefly stated, was, that 
 it would give the country a uniform and comparativelv stable cur- 
 rency, money that would pass at one value in every State of the 
 Union, making prices steady and business safe; while at the same 
 time, when an unusual amount was wanted in one section as at the 
 West, when the crops were to be moved the surplus of other sec- 
 tions could, through a bank with branches in every State, be readily 
 drawn upon. The argument against it was, that to create such a cen- 
 tralized money power and monopoly was dangerous to the Govern- 
 ment, whose elections and legislation it might control, and dangerous 
 to the people, whom it might impoverish for its own gain ; while it 
 was contended that all the benefits might be secured by some other 
 system of banking, and these perils avoided. Mr. Webster, who was 
 now in favor of the Bank, had opposed it when it was chartered in 
 
302 JACKSON. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 1816 ; and he was not the only member of Congress who had changed 
 sides on the question. It became necessary for the President, in 
 carrying out his object, to remove Secretary Duane, because of his 
 refusal to transfer the deposits. His successor, Roger B. Taney, 
 afterward Chief Justice, complied with the President's wishes, and 
 the deposits were thereafter placed in several selected banks. 1 The 
 Senate resolved that the reasons for removing the deposits were un- 
 satisfactory, and that the President had usurped unconstitutional 
 power over the Treasury by removing the Secretary ; the House re- 
 solved that the Bank ought not to be re-chartered, nor the deposits 
 restored. 
 
 Before the conclusion of this struggle over the Bank, a new presi- 
 dential election had come and gone. 
 There is a prevalent belief that Jack- 
 son was reflected by an unprecedented 
 majority. But of the eight presi- 
 dential elections from the elder to the 
 younger Adams including both 
 the successful candidates in four of 
 them were chosen by larger majorities 
 than were given to Jackson. It was 
 only that there was more noise than 
 ever before, with the result that the 
 country then formed the pernicious 
 habit of depending more upon noise 
 than reflection in the selection of a 
 chief magistrate. But though this en- 
 thusiasm produced an erroneous im- 
 pression, there was evidence enough 
 of the President's great popularity in two hundred and nineteen elec- 
 toral votes cast for him, out of a total of two hundred and 
 eighty-six. His course in regard to the Bank, though not 
 the sole cause of his popularity, undoubtedly had much to do with it. 
 A thorough knowledge of fiscal affairs and the true functions of a 
 bank was not necessary to an intelligent comprehension of the fact, 
 that there might be a far wiser and more prudent disposition of the 
 public finances than to intrust them to a banking institution con- 
 trolled by private persons, and that they might be, when so placed, 
 
 1 Knowiug what would be the fate of this appointment, Jackson refrained as long as 
 possible from sending Mr. Taney 's name to the Senate for confirmation. When, in the 
 last week of the session, he did present it, it was promptly rejected by a vote of two to 
 one. The " removal of the deposits " did not consist in any actual withdrawal of funds 
 from the Bank, but in making all deposits thereafter at certain other designated banks. 
 
 Roger B. Taney. 
 
 Reelection 
 of Jackson. 
 
1632.] ANTI-MASONRY. 303 
 
 perverted to personal or party purposes. With such a substratum 
 of sound argument, it was easy to arouse almost unbounded enthu- 
 siasm for the man who, on this plea, could be made to appear as 
 the poor man's friend as against the rich, as the protector of the 
 rights of the many as against the few. 
 
 Clay in this election was Jackson's competitor, and, besides the 
 suffrages of the high-tariff party, it was expected that he 
 would acquire great strength from the support of the Anti- the Anti- 
 masons. This party originated in the murder, in 1826, of 
 one William Morgan, who professed to expose in a book the secrets 
 of the order, and was, therefore, deliberately killed by direction of 
 his official superiors. Out of this incident grew a political party, op- 
 posed to all secret societies, and determined to suppress the Masonic 
 order by law. It was stronger in New York than anywhere else, for in 
 the western part of that State Morgan had lived and was murdered ; 
 and it was there that, a year afterward, a coroner's jury was either 
 induced or cajoled by some clever political knaves to declare that a 
 dead body found on the shore of Lake Ontario was that of Morgan. 
 This body was of a man recently drowned ; Morgan had disappeared 
 a year before. Morgan was a smooth-faced, bald-headed man ; the 
 face and head of the corpse, when first found its appearance was 
 changed in a few hours in these particulars were well covered with 
 hair ; the drowned person was four inches taller than Morgan was 
 known to be ; and finally a Mrs. Monroe appeared and recognized the 
 corpse as that of her husband, who was drowned a few weeks before, 
 and the clothes it had on as those she had mended with her own 
 hands ; and the man who was with Monroe when he fell overboard 
 from a boat also identified him. But up to this time it was a disputed 
 point whether Morgan was alive or dead ; it was necessary to the 
 Anti-masonic frenzy that his death should be proved ; and on this 
 verdict of a coroner's jury a political tornado swept the country. 1 
 Its violence was too far spent, however, to withstand the counter gale 
 of Jackson's popularity in the election of 1832. 
 
 But there were other causes besides his conduct toward the bank 
 that aroused enthusiasm on behalf of Jackson. The reve- Jackson - 8 
 nue during his administration had far exceeded expenditure, PP uUrit >- 
 and the national debt was in process of rapid extinction. His mod- 
 erate tariff views commended him to that large class of persons who 
 would levy imposts only for revenue, giving protection an incidental 
 
 1 The essential facts relating to the origin of this remarkable political episode in the his- 
 tory of parties in the United States are first fully set forth in a recent monograph entitled, 
 American Political Anti-masonry, with its " Good Enough Muryan," by Henry O'Rielly. 
 Mr. O'Hielly was at that period editor of the Rochester Daily Advertiser, the first daily 
 newspaper west of the Hudson River. 
 

 304 
 
 JACKSON. 
 
 [CHAP. XII. 
 
 
 consideration. He had saved the government from enormous expen- 
 ditures by his vetoes of bills for internal improvements, for the Dem- 
 ocrats of that day believed that such use of the public funds was un- 
 wise as well as unconstitutional. The long-standing difficulty between 
 England and the United States, in regard to the West India trade, 
 had been favorably settled by Louis McLane, the Minister at London, 
 though at the price, the opposition declared, of the dignity of the 
 
 
 A Hickory-pole Election. 
 
 Government. But the trade was opened ; and Jackson's popularity 
 was not injured in his own party, that, in bringing about a result so 
 desirable, he had made concessions to England which Adams had con- 
 sidered humiliating. For all these reasons, he had become almost as 
 popular at the North as he had long been at the South not, per- 
 haps, among the most intelligent of the people, who could not forget 
 the radical defects of the man, nor the corrupt influence, in many re- 
 spects, of his administration, but among those whose admiration for 
 his courage and strength of will blinded them to his other qualities, 
 
1832.] A SURPLUS OF REVENUE. 305 
 
 and who believed that he was as pure as he was strong. So absolute 
 and intense was the character of this singular man, that he so com- 
 pletely absorbed the attention of those who saw one side of him only, 
 that the other side was totally invisible, and he was accordingly either 
 beloved and admired, or detested and feared. 
 
 The country was becoming embarrassed with a difficulty hitherto 
 unknown in the histories of states. Unencumbered with AeuTpluao{ 
 
 revenue. 
 
 debt, as it would be presently, its revenue would be larger 
 than it could have any possible use for. The problem did not seem 
 to be one difficult of solution, as the source of revenue, the tar- 
 iff, could be reduced, and this would not only render a surplus im- 
 possible, but would at the same time lift a burden of taxation from 
 the shoulders of the people. But what in that case would become of 
 protection ? Mr. Clay answered the question by pushing through 
 Congress, in 1832, a bill which provided for a reduction of duties 
 upon foreign products, except where they came in conflict with arti- 
 cles of domestic manufacture. As sufficient revenue could be pro- 
 duced without a resort to such an expedient, this was an announce- 
 ment that the Northern protective policy was accepted absolutely as 
 the policy of the Government, in spite of the Southern slaveholding 
 interest. It was a signal of a renewal of the conflict between free 
 labor and slave-labor, which broke out soon after in the nullification 
 contest with South Carolina. 
 
 There had been some preliminary skirmishing, for South Carolina 
 had shown signs of revolt in public meetings after the pas- 
 sage of the tariff bill of 1828, and Georgia sent in an earnest Webster de- 
 but solemn protest against it. In 1830, the constitutional 
 question involved was settled, so far as argument could settle it, in a 
 memorable debate between Hayne and Webster, in the Senate. A 
 resolution was offered by Samuel A. Foot, of Connecticut, directing 
 an inquiry into the expediency of suspending, for a time, the sale 
 of public lands, and under it Mr. Hayne brought up the question 
 of State Rights. His argument was the old one old as the Consti- 
 tution itself that the "consolidation of the government" was the 
 one great evil to be dreaded and resisted. Webster took his stand 
 upon the ground of the early Federalists, that the United States was 
 a Nation. It was not the servant of four and twenty masters, but 
 "the people's Constitution, the people's Government ; made for the 
 people ; made by the people ; and answerable to the people." It was 
 not " the creature of State Legislatures;" it was the "independent 
 offspring of the popular will." Jackson was attached to the Union 
 with all the strength of his impulsive nature, and did not need to be 
 aroused to the impending conflict ; but Webster's speech made, prob- 
 
 vou iv. 20 
 
306 JACKSON. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 ably, a deeper and more abiding impression on the minds of the 
 Northern people than any other ever delivered in the halls of Con- 
 gress, before that time. 
 
 Nullification was a practical application of the doctrine of the 
 Nuinfica- Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798. It was not, its 
 supporters maintained, necessarily secession nor war, though 
 it might in the last resort lead to both. The first duty of the citizen 
 was to the State, not to the Federal Government. The State was 
 Calhoun's argument having determined to protect its citizens by 
 an act of nullification, would put an insuperable obstacle in the way of 
 any penalty imposed by the Federal courts for obedience to that act. 
 The nullification, he contended, did not disturb the legal relation be- 
 tween the State and the Union, but rather confirmed it. Force 
 could not be employed by the Federal Government, not only because 
 no such power was intrusted to it by the Constitution, but because, 
 the question being a moral one, no physical opposition would be 
 found. Even should the final step of secession be taken, and he 
 granted that under certain conditions it might be necessary, force 
 could then only be applied after due formalities, the seceding State 
 being now in law and in fact a foreign government. His argument 
 found ready listeners, to whom it seemed conclusive. Moreover, 
 there was a strong precedent in the summary and unrebuked manner 
 in which Georgia, not long before, had defied the authority of the 
 General Government, and refused to obey the decision of the Su- 
 preme Court. The difficulty with South Carolina lay deeper, inas- 
 much as it involved wider interests and the peaceful relations of 
 different sections of the Union ; but the essential question was the 
 same in both cases. As that, however, related to the rights of In- 
 dians, while now it was a question of the supremacy of slaveholders 
 as slaveholders, the position was so -much the stronger. 
 
 As the power to act in such an emergency must come directly from 
 the people, the Legislature of South Carolina called a Con- 
 tion ordi- vention. This assembled on the 24th of November, 1832, 
 south caro- and an ordinance was passed, declaring the tariff acts to be 
 null and void ; that the payment of duties should not be en- 
 forced within the State ; and that any attempt on the part of the 
 Federal Government to enforce its laws would absolve the State from 
 all connection with the Union, and it would immediately establish a 
 separate and independent government. Nullification, if not assented 
 to, was to be followed by secession. 
 
 At the meeting of the Legislature immediately afterward, the 
 Governor, in his message, said that the ordinance was the funda- 
 mental law of the State ; and that it was the duty of that body to 
 
1832.] 
 
 NULLIFICATION. 
 
 307 
 
 Preparations 
 
 
 " look to and provide for all possible contingencies." Various acts, 
 accordingly, were passed to meet the emergency. The Gov- 
 
 " , . , . e 
 
 ernor was authorized to accept the services or volunteers; 
 
 fortifications were ordered to be repaired ; old arms were to 
 
 be put in order, and new ones manufactured ; ammunition to be pro- 
 
 vided, and everything done that could be done to prepare for war. 
 
 A martial rage took possession of the people ; the men everywhere 
 
 devoted themselves 
 
 to military drilling ; 
 
 the women had no 
 
 occupation but to 
 
 make palmetto 
 
 cockades and pre- 
 
 pare battle-flags and 
 
 ensigns of State sov- 
 
 ereignty; the Uni- 
 
 ted States flag was 
 
 raised union down, 
 
 while some of the 
 
 volunteer regiments 
 
 had provided a red 
 
 standard with a sin- 
 
 gle black star in the 
 
 centre, to be un- 
 
 furled at the mo- 
 
 ment secession 
 
 should be pro- 
 
 claimed. Two or 
 
 three mass m e e t- 
 
 ings were held 
 
 every week, to keep 
 
 up the enthusiasm. 
 
 At one of these 
 
 meetings, Governor Miking cockades. 
 
 Hamilton told the 
 
 crowd that, to try whether the Federal authorities would dare to 
 
 enforce the revenue laws, he had ordered several boxes of sugar 
 
 from Havana. " And," he added, " if Uncle Sam puts his robber 
 
 hand on the boxes, I know you '11 go to the death with me for the 
 
 sugar ! " a declaration that was received with immense applause. 
 
 But when the sugar arrived, it was quietly locked up in one of the 
 
 forts in Charleston harbor. 
 
 The President replied to the ordinance with a proclamation and a 
 
308 JACKSON. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 message to Congress, which left no doubt of the temper in which he 
 would meet any attempt at disunion. 1 He denied the right 
 
 Position of,.. 1 1 X 11 
 
 the Presi- of either nullification or secession, pointed out the absurd- 
 ity of State sovereignty, and assured the South Carolinians 
 that if they resisted the laws they would be coerced by the combined 
 power of the other States. Finally, as a fellow citizen and a native 
 of their State, he entreated them to give up their foolish scheme. 
 tk Contemplate the condition of that country of which you still form 
 an important part. Consider its government uniting in one bond of 
 common interest and general protection so many different States, giv- 
 ing to all their inhabitants the proud title of American citizen, 
 protecting their commerce, securing their literature and their arts, 
 facilitating their intercommunication, defending the frontiers, and 
 making their name respected in the remotest parts of the earth. 
 . . . Behold it as the asylum where the wretched and the oppressed 
 find a refuge and support. Look on this picture of happiness and 
 honor, and say, We too are citizens of America. . . . And then add, 
 if you can, without horror and remorse, This happy Union we will 
 dissolve; this picture of peace and prosperity we will deface; this 
 free intercourse we will interrupt ; these fertile fields we will deluge 
 with blood ; the protection of that glorious flag we renounce ; the very 
 name of Americans we discard ! " 
 
 General Scott was summoned to Washington, and it was deter- 
 mined that strong garrisons should at once be thrown into 
 s'cott sent to Fort Moultrie, Castle Pinckney, and the arsenal at Augusta, 
 Georgia, and a sloop-of-war and several revenue cutters be 
 sent to Charleston harbor. " Proceed at once and execute those 
 views," said Jackson. " You have my carte blanche, in respect to 
 troops ; the vessels shall be there, and written instructions shall follow 
 you." Scott went to Charleston, with sufficient military and naval 
 force under his command, to carry out the President's orders. He 
 maintained, however, amicable relations with the citizens, and often 
 invited individuals or parties to the forts, that they might see what 
 they would have to encounter if it came to war. 2 
 
 Calhoun, who had resigned the office of Vice-president, had taken 
 his seat in the Senate, in the place of Hayne. Although it was un- 
 
 1 Two years before a public dinner was given, nominally to celebrate the birthdav of Jef- 
 ferson, but really as an impetus to the doctrine of nullification. The President, being called 
 upon for the first volunteer toast, gave that which has passed into a proverb, " Our Federal 
 Union : it must be preserved." Mr. Calhoun was next called upon, and gave this : " The 
 Union : next to our liberty the most dear : may we all remember that it can only be pre- 
 served by respecting the rights of the States, and distributing equally the benefit and bu/- 
 den of the Union." The incident was accepted as a sign of what was coming. Betitou's 
 Thirty Years' View, i., 148. 
 
 2 Scott's Memoirs. 
 
1832.] COMPROMISE. 309 
 
 der his teachings that South Carolina had been led into her present 
 position, it was also his determination to keep the contest Popu i ar 
 within the bounds of speech; and while Jackson was equally feelin 
 in earnest in his purpose to use force if necessary, it became plain, as 
 the, weeks wore on, that the fury displaying itself in proclamations 
 and laws was not yet ungovernable. It is by 110 means certain that the 
 President would not have preferred to compel South Carolina to re- 
 turn to her allegiance to the Union, by force of arms ; and it is certain 
 that many in both Houses of Congress agreed with Adams and Web- 
 ster that no concession should be made till the State had receded from 
 her rebellious attitude either voluntarily or by compulsion. How far 
 the country at large would have approved of extreme measures, it is 
 impossible to tell, but it is probable that Jackson's great popularity 
 would have carried the Northern wing of his party with him, and 
 the National Republicans would have united with it. Most of the 
 States, through their legislatures, assumed positions upon the abstract 
 doctrine of nullification. Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, 
 Delaware, Indiana, Tennessee, and Missouri condemned it. Virginia 
 passed conciliatory resolutions, and appointed a special messenger to 
 carry them to South Carolina. North Carolina and Alabama con- 
 demned nullification, but pronounced the tariff unconstitutional and 
 inexpedient. Georgia did likewise, and proposed a convention repre- 
 senting Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, the Carolinas. and 
 Georgia, to devise some relief from the protective system. 
 
 But there was compromise in the very air. The President asked 
 that special and enlarged powers should be given him to The 
 meet the emergency, and a bill was introduced for that pur- J' romise 
 pose, called the Force Bill. It hung fire ; it was not till it was no 
 longer necessary that it became a law. But compromise did not hang 
 fire. The great champion of protection, Clay himself, introduced a 
 new tariff which essentially abandoned the policy of protection and 
 conceded to South Carolina the principle for which she was con- 
 tending. It provided that where ad valorem duties exceeded twenty 
 per cent., one tenth of the excess should be remitted after December 
 
 30, 1833 ; one tenth thereafter on each alternate year, till December 
 
 31, 1841, when half of the remaining duty was to be remitted ; and 
 after June, 1842, all duties were to be reduced to twenty per cent., 
 on a home valuation, to be paid in cash. Mr. Clay and his friends 
 conceded thus far for the sake of peace, reserving only this modified 
 protection for nine years to come. Mr. Calhoun and the nullifiers 
 graciously assented not to ruin at a single and sudden blow those 
 who had invested largely in manufacturing under a protective tariff. 
 As Pinckney went home, at the formation of the Federal Constitu- 
 
310 JACKSON. [CHAP. XTI. 
 
 tion, and explained to South Carolina that she could safely accept 
 that instrument as a sufficient guaranty of slavery, so Calhoun now 
 went back, and persuaded the people of the State that they could 
 safely lay down their arms, for their cause had triumphed. The bill 
 in the Senate was passed on the 1st of March, by a vote of twenty- 
 nine to sixteen. 
 
 In the House, meanwhile, a bill, introduced by Mr. Verplanck of 
 The ver- New York, was painfully and tediously dragged along from 
 pianck Bill, ^ygg^ t o wee k. Its object was to make the needed reduc- 
 tion in the revenue, but, at the same time, to save the protective pol- 
 icy. It was disposed of, and Mr. Clay's bill made to take its place 
 by one of those strategic movements by which compromise measures 
 have more than once been carried in similar struggles. Senator Ben- 
 ton who, as a Southern representative, opposed any concession to 
 the Protectionists is our witness. Late in the afternoon of the 25th 
 of February, he says, " Mr. Letcher of Kentucky, the fast friend of 
 Mr. Clay, rose in his place, and moved to strike out the whole Ver- 
 planck bill every word of it, except the enacting clause, and in- 
 sert, in lieu of it, a bill offered in the Senate by Mr. Clay This 
 
 was offered in the House, without notice, without signal, without pre- 
 monitory symptom, and just as the members were preparing to ad- 
 journ. Some were taken by surprise, and looked about in amaze- 
 ment ; but the majority showed consciousness, and what was more, 
 readiness for action. The Northern members, from the great manu- 
 facturing States, were astounded, and asked for delay," which was 
 not granted. Thus, he continues, " the bill which made its first ap- 
 pearance in the House late in the evening, when members were gather- 
 ing up their overcoats for a walk home to their dinners, was passed 
 before those coats had got on the back ; and the dinner which was 
 waiting had but little time to cool before the astonished members, 
 their work done, were at the table to eat it." l It is a striking pic- 
 ture of Southern legislation by one of their own artists. But South 
 Carolina was appeased ; the Union was once more saved, after the 
 Southern manner ; and the North meekly turned away to see what 
 next she could do with her dollars and her labor. 
 
 There were many who believed that it would have been better had 
 the question of disunion been then and there settled. But it is ex- 
 ceedingly doubtful if it could have been. Jackson would have en- 
 forced the laws and suppressed the insurrection with an unrelenting 
 will, for he did believe in the Union, and he did long, it was asserted, 
 for an opportunity to hang Calhoun. But the difference between 
 the North and the South lay deeper than a division upon a revenue 
 
 1 Thirty Years' View. By Thomns H. Benton. 
 
H 
 
 w 
 
 S 
 o 
 
 H 
 
 x 
 
 H 
 Z 
 
 O 
 
 w 
 

1832.] THE PUBLIC LANDS. 311 
 
 or a protective tariff. One might be wise and the other foolish ; the 
 North could grow prosperous and rich under either, while the South, 
 so long as slavery existed, would be poor and ignorant, and only half 
 civilized, under both. It would have been more manly to have sup- 
 pressed South Carolina. It was her statesmen, more than all others, 
 who, in 1816, had compelled the North to accept the policy which 
 now, in 1832, that State, rather than obey, would scatter the Union 
 into fragments. It would have been well enough, for the dignity 
 and the political morality of the nation, had there been only left 
 some fragments of South Carolina ; but that would have left, after 
 all, the great and inevitable battle still to be fought. Liberty and 
 Slavery could not exist forever in one Union. The final conflict be- 
 tween them must come upon a broader field than a tariff of duties. 
 
 Next to the tariff the public lands were, during the administration 
 of Jackson, a fruitful source of debate in Congress, not 
 merely for their own sake. An interest so immense could be 
 easily made to play an important part in the affairs of political par- 
 ties. It was part of Clay's compromise that the West should be rec- 
 onciled to the reduction of duties by a division of the proceeds of the 
 sales of public lands among the States within whose boundaries the 
 sales were made. The President's veto nullified that part of the bar- 
 gain. Then Western politicians used the question of the price and 
 disposition of the public domain to further their private ambitions. 
 There could be, however, no question of the right of Congress to 
 control all lands in territory not organized into States ; but when the 
 State was formed it was maintained by many persons that the lands 
 
 V V i 
 
 became its property a position stoutly and successfully contested by 
 Webster and others. From the first, the importance of these lands 
 as sources of revenue was never lost sight of. The price, reduced 
 in 1820 from two dollars to a dollar and a quarter an acre, continued 
 for many years. The action of Congress was generally favorable to 
 actual settlers. In 1835 and 1836 the purchases were much larger 
 than was required for occupation, 1 although the encouragement given 
 by Congress had a steadily appreciable effect upon foreign immigra- 
 tion. New settlers, finding lands preoccupied and held at high prices, 
 passed beyond the frontier surveyed, to settle where no immediate 
 payment was necessary. 
 
 The tables of immigration during the decade show a fluctuation 
 which is interesting, as indicating the waves of prosperity in 
 
 m, . ., nm , c i' ' Immigration. 
 
 the country. Ihus, in 18ol, the number or alien immi- 
 grants was nearly twenty-three thousand ; the next year it was over 
 
 1 Rising from less than five millions in 1834 to over fourteen millions in 1835, and 
 nearly twenty-five millions in 1836. 
 

 312 JACKSOX. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 fifty-three thousand. In 1834 the number was sixty-five thousand ; 
 in 1835 it had fallen off to forty-five thousand. It increased, until in 
 1837 it was nearly eighty thousand ; but the next year after that dis- 
 astrous one it fell to less than thirty-nine thousand. In 1840 the 
 number was eighty-four thousand. The immigration had already, in 
 Jackson's time, begun to affect personal politics, and the Irish vote 
 was spoken of as a constituency to be respected. 
 
 There came, in the mean time, the financial crisis of 1837. The 
 United States Bank, on the refusal of Congress to extend its charter, 
 had procured a new one from Pennsylvania, but it differed from the 
 State banks only in the magnitude of its operations. The State 
 banks, under the impetus given by the breaking up of the United 
 States Bank, had increased their issue of paper from sixty-one mil- 
 lions in 1830 to a hundred and forty-nine millions in 1837. 
 
 Large quantities of these notes had been received in payment for 
 The panic of public land, when, alarmed at the accumulation of so much 
 paper of uncertain value, the Secretary of the Treasury, by 
 order of the President, issued a circular instructing the agents in 
 charge of the land-offices to receive only gold and silver. This at 
 once caused a demand for specie, which could only be met by those 
 banks where the government funds were deposited. 1 Most of the 
 others suspended. And when, a little later, the Government called 
 for its deposits, in order to make the distribution of surplus revenue 
 to the States, many of the favored banks were involved in the gen- 
 eral ruin, and the panic of 1837 was the grand result. 
 
 The attacks upon the Bank shook public confidence in it. The re- 
 moval of the deposits, and the refusal to extend the charter, weakened 
 the Bank itself, and led to an unlimited extension of local banks. 
 The immediate enormous increase of paper gave a specious show of 
 wealth, and while the paper floated on the public debt, it was used 
 both for promoting new industrial schemes and for luxuries. The 
 final result of the Congressional debates over the currency and the 
 banking system was the establishment, in 1840, of the sub-treasury 
 system, a measure which had been proposed by both parties alter- 
 nately, and was looked upon as ending the controversy. Henceforth 
 the Government was to transact all its business by means of a metal- 
 lic currency, and to be completely dissociated from all general finan- 
 cial operations. 
 
 A single fact must be observed, from its conspicuous and yet appar- 
 v- ently feeble influence upon the state of affairs. In June, 
 1836, when the public debt was nearly extinguished, au act 
 was passed providing that after January 1, 1837, all surplus revenue 
 
 1 Called, in the slang of the day, " pet banks." 
 
1837.] DISTRIBUTION OF SURPLUS REVENUE. 313 
 
 exceeding five million dollars should be divided among the States as 
 a loan, only to be recalled by direction of Congress. This unpre- 
 cedented problem perplexed the statesmen of the time, but mainly as 
 to the principle of distribution. The ghost that could never be laid, 
 stalked again into the halls of Congress. Should the money be 
 divided according to population ? If the slaves were counted, that 
 would be to pay an unequal share to their masters ; if they were not 
 counted, the slave States would receive only their just proportion 
 according to the number of citizens. Compromise, as usual, healed 
 the difference at the expense of the North. The electoral vote was 
 made the rule of distribution. Thus Pennsylvania, whose electoral 
 vote was thirty, received about three million eight hundred thousand 
 dollars ; yet its population was nearly two hundred thousand more 
 than the free population of the six slave States, South Carolina, 
 Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Kentucky, whose elec- 
 toral vote was fifty-three, and their aggregate share of the surplus 
 fund over six million seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 1 
 
 The distribution, which extended over a year, amounted to twenty- 
 eight million dollars, and none of it was ever recalled. Before the 
 amount was all expended, it was evident that there would be a 
 deficit in the treasury. The States used the surplus variously : some 
 involved themselves in extensive improvements ; some divided the 
 amount received among their citizens in petty sums. Never was 
 there a more unsatisfactory business operation. 
 
 After the blow of 1837, States as well as persons found themselves 
 insolvent. The expanded credit which an over-sanguine confidence 
 had sought and granted, had been especially applied to the enterprises 
 of States. The widespread bankruptcy made it easy for certain 
 States to persuade themselves that they also might take advantage of 
 the common course and put in the bankrupt's plea. A large part of 
 the State bonds was held abroad, and ever}' effort was made by the 
 bondholders there to bring moral force to bear upon the repudiating 
 States. Congress was petitioned to assume the debts of the States, 
 in accordance with the precedent of 1791, but after a long debate 
 refused to take any action. 
 
 Notwithstanding financial disturbance, commercial disaster, politi- 
 cal strife and corruption, the country shared with the rest orowthof 
 of the world in the wonderful material progress and pros- tUecountr y- 
 perity which mark this period. Steam came into general use as a 
 motive power in communication by water and by land, and in the 
 numberless uses to which it has since been put by inventive genius 
 and human industry. One born within the last twenty years to the 
 
 1 A View of the Federal Government in behalf of Slavery. By William Jay. 
 
314 
 
 JACKSON. 
 
 [CHA1>. XII. 
 
 First rail- 
 roads. 
 
 common hcirship of the present time, can hardly conceive how great 
 a change has been wrought within only half a century by a single 
 agency. Indeed, it is hardly fifty years since confidence in it was 
 so far established as to command the energies and the capital of men 
 and of States. 
 
 The first timid experiment in railroads was a tramway in Quincy, 
 Mass., built in 1826, chiefly by Thomas H. Perkins and Grid- 
 ley Bryant, of Boston. Its only purpose was for the easier 
 conveyance by horses of building-stone from the granite quarries 
 of Quincy to tide-water. It was the germ, however, of a mighty 
 movement in this country. The first railway in America for passen- 
 gers and traffic the Baltimore and Ohio was chartered by the 
 Maryland Legislature in March, 1827. The capital stock at first 
 
 was only half a million dol- 
 lars, and a portion of it was 
 subscribed by the State and 
 the city of Baltimore. Horses 
 were its motive power, even 
 after sixty-five miles of the 
 road were built. But in 1829 
 Peter Cooper, of New York, 
 built a locomotive in Balti- 
 more which weighed one ton 
 and made eighteen miles an 
 hour on a trial trip to Elli- 
 cott's Mills. In 1830 there 
 were twenty-three miles of railway in the United States, which was 
 increased the next year to ninety-five, in 1835 to one thousand and 
 ninety-eight, and in 1840 to nearly three thousand. 
 
 Manufactures at the same time were rapidly increased, though this 
 Develop- was a long-established interest. A single mill for the man- 
 manuflc- wfacture of cloths and cassimeres was in operation in Hart- 
 tures. or( j^ Connecticut, in 1791. Three years later one was es- 
 
 tablished in By field, Massachusetts, and in. 1809, one at Oriskany, 
 New York. One which was built at Middletown, Connecticut, in 
 1812, Avas able to turn out from thirty to forty yards of broadcloth a 
 day, and was considered very large. In 1810 the total woollen manu- 
 factures in the United States were estimated at twenty-six million 
 dollars ; but these were nearly all home-made. The rise of the 
 cotton industry diminished the production of woollen goods, so that 
 its value, in 1820 only four and a half million dollars, rose in 1830 
 to fourteen and a half million, and in 1840 to twenty-one million. 
 Samuel Slater, who had been apprenticed to Strutt and Arkwright 
 
 First Locomotive built in America. 
 
1840.J 
 
 EARLY MANUFACTURING. 
 
 315 
 
 in England, and had assisted Strutt in improving his inventions, came 
 to New York in 1789, bringing in his head the whole idea of tlieir 
 cotton-spinning machinery. The exportation of the patterns had 
 been prohibited by act of Parliament, with heavy penalties, and at 
 the same time the Pennsylvania Legislature had offered a bounty for 
 their introduction. Slater set up three carding-machines in Paw- 
 tucket in 1790, and three years later began to erect mills in Oxford 
 (now Webster), Massachusetts. 
 In 1821 the water-power at Low- 
 ell, on the Merrimac, was pur- 
 chased by Boston capitalists, who 
 planted there the enterprises 
 which have developed what was 
 then a village of two hundred in- 
 habitants into a large city. 
 
 But water-power soon ceased 
 to be an absolute necessity for 
 manufacturing purposes, as steam- 
 engines came into use. Other 
 cities and towns grew up all over 
 the country, wherever labor could 
 hold in its hands any other imple- 
 ment than a hoe. The railroads 
 annihilated space and time, and as 
 
 they carried the multitudes from the sea-coast to the prairies to peo- 
 ple a continent, so the fruits of all industries could be brought back 
 rapidly and cheaply. The navigation of the Mississippi, for the right 
 to which nations once contended, ceased to be in a few years of any 
 other than local importance, as travel and commerce found a shorter 
 way across the Alleghauies from the Atlantic to the eastern slope of 
 the Rocky Mountains. 
 
 In 1840 S. F. B. Morse, of New York, obtained a patent for an ap- 
 paratus by which instantaneous communication could be carried over 
 wires, for any distance, by electricity. Four years afterward it was 
 put to practical use between Washington and Baltimore. The net- 
 work of wire that has since been woven about the globe has changed 
 the relations of the human family. 
 
 Samuel Slater. 
 
Head of "The Liberator." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SLAVERY AND ANTI- SLA VERY. 
 
 A NEW ERA. THE MODERN ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT. GARRISON AND " THE LIB- 
 ERATOR." His EARNESTNESS AND DETERMINATION. DEBATE ON SLAVERY IN 
 VIRGINIA. THE SOUTHAMPTON INSURRECTION. PANIC AT THE SOUTH. THE 
 SOUTHERN IDEA OF GOVERNMENT. SLAVERY MET ON A NEW ISSUE. THE ABOLI- 
 TIONISTS. THE ATTEMPTS TO SUPPRESS THEM. PENAL LEGISLATION PROPOSED. 
 THE RESORT TO VIOLENCE. THE REIGN OF MOBS. INFLUENCE OF SLAVERY ON 
 MORALS, MANNERS, LITERATURE, AND COMMERCE. 
 
 IN 1831 appeared the first sign of a movement which, when con- 
 Theanti- temporaneous passions and prejudices shall have passed 
 slavery era. awaVi W JH be recognized as the beginning and largely the 
 source of a new era in American history. It was a natural consequence 
 of the old slaveholding dispensation that the generation that has 
 passed, or is just passing away, should be made to believe that " Abo- 
 litionism " not slavery was the sum of all villanies ; it was almost 
 inevitable that the next generation should fail to recognize in the 
 influence which governs their time, that very movement of which 
 they know little except that their fathers hated and reviled it. But 
 hated as it was, by those who had eyes enough to see into to-morrow, 
 despised as it was, by the vulgar and the ignorant who have eyes 
 that can hardly see even to day, the future will discern in this move- 
 ment the germ of one of those revolutions that overturn dynasties, 
 save nations, and insure continued progress in human affairs. 
 
 It was in that year that William Lloyd Garrison, a young printer, 
 from a country town in Massachusetts, established in Boston 
 
 and "The a newspaper, which he called "The Liberator," to be de- 
 Liberator/' 
 
 voted to the abolition of slavery. He saw, with the vision 
 of a prophet, the long and terrible struggle before him, as he said in 
 the first number of that journal with the eloquence of a sublime pur- 
 
1831.] 
 
 GARRISON AND THE LIBERATOR. 
 
 317 
 
 
 pose, " I am in earnest ; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse ; I 
 will not retreat a single inch ; and I will be heard." And he kept his 
 word. From that time till slavery was abolished, " The Liberator " 
 appeared weekly, weighed down often with discouragements and diffi- 
 culties, reviled, hated, and feared, but never faltering, never untrue 
 to the great idea of its founder, who would never equivocate, never 
 excuse, never retreat a single inch, and was never afraid. In its ear- 
 liest days one of Garrison's staunchest supporters said to him, " My 
 friend, do try to moderate your indignation and keep more cool ; 
 why, you are all on fire." " Brother," he answered, " I have need to 
 be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice about me to melt." It was 
 a flame that soon set the nation ablaze. 
 
 It is with moral as it is with material discoveries they go for 
 nothing till the world is ready 
 for them. Garrison was not the 
 first to discover that slavery was 
 an evil and ought to be done 
 away with. That thought was 
 as old almost as the distinction 
 between right and wrong. It 
 was no more questioned than that 
 original sin was an evil, or that 
 an earthquake or a flood was a 
 disaster. But then the compen- 
 sating doctrine was, that it could 
 no more be eradicated than the 
 natural tendency to moral or 
 physical weakness could be done 
 away with ; no more be brought 
 under control than a convul- >> 
 
 sion of the earth; no more be /r *gfst-i 
 stayed than the rush and roar 
 of mighty waters. The slaveholders, indeed, for that very reason, 
 could hardly help looking upon themselves as the elect of Thenew 
 Heaven ; for where else in all the economy of creation was doctnne - 
 there a sin that needed no repentance, a crime for which a whine 
 was always sufficient atonement? Where else was there a wrong, 
 of man's own devising, for which there was no remedy? 
 
 Garrison's startling proposition w;is, that all this involved a stu- 
 pendous lie ; that there was no more necessity for the continuance 
 of slavery than for the continuance of murder or robbery or dishon- 
 esty, for wrong or outrage of any kind that one man might commit 
 upon another ; that, on the contrary, it could and should be brought 
 
 
318 SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 to an immediate end ; that the slaveholder must stop holding slaves, 
 as the murderer should cease to kill, or the robber to steal, or the 
 knave to cheat, or the criminal of any kind to continue in his evil 
 courses. If Garrison had talked of slavery as the divines preach of 
 man's inherent depravity, as a thing that came in with Adam, and 
 might go out with the Second Advent, nobody would have minded. 
 I3ut lie said, here is a gigantic wrong of man's contrivance; for the 
 sake of humanity and in obedience to the laws of God, there is one 
 way to deal with it, and one only, make an end of it now, not wait 
 for the Second Advent. 
 
 The slaveholders heard presently of this new doctrine with conster- 
 nation. Slavery to them was wealth and power, social supremacy and 
 supremacy in the state. They were not forgetful of the attending dan- 
 gers the degradation of the many of their own race, kept in igno- 
 rance and poverty which must needs be a continual menace ; and the 
 possible vengeance of a still lower class which was none the less to 
 be dreaded because their condition was but just above that of the 
 brutes. But eternal watchfulness was the price of slavery, and its 
 privileges were valued by the few who profited by them, more than 
 its dangers were feared. The pleasure of possession was enhanced by 
 the impudent acknowledgment that such a state of society was ab- 
 stractly wrong ; but that the responsibility rested on wicked people 
 of two or three centuries back, and the penalty would fall upon those 
 who were to come some centuries hence. " But as for me and my 
 house," said the slaveholder, " we will serve the Lord." 
 
 There came an end to this contentment and tranquillity, in the light 
 of this new doctrine, that it was not the century before the last 
 that this evil was begun, nor the century after the next that some- 
 thing should be done about it ; but that the sun which rose this morn- 
 ing looked down upon a wrong done anew this day, and that before 
 it set it should shine upon penitence. Garrison spoke to an awaken- 
 ing Northern intelligence. Calhoun said somewhere, when the North- 
 ern conscience is aroused, and religious conviction is brought to bear 
 upon this question, then the Union will be dissolved, or slavery be 
 abolished. What the result must needs be was evidently foreshad- 
 owed in Calhoun's own mind, by this concession that the case was 
 one to be carried into the court of conscience with religion for its 
 counsel. And these two men represented, with equal intellectual in- 
 tegrity, the two antagonistic ideas which were to save or destroy the 
 Republic. 
 
 It was a notable coincidence that within the year of the appearance 
 of "The Liberator," Virginia should have proved in a debate of 
 weeks in the State Legislature, how impotent were all the plans that 
 
1831.] DEBATE ON SLAVERY IN VIRGINIA. 319 
 
 slaveholders could devise for the extirpation of slavery ; how fear- 
 ful its continuance was among them, and how completely, 
 nevertheless, the love of power, which the system secured 
 to them in so many ways, could overcome all other consid- 
 erations. The debate was remarkable for the thorough exposure of 
 the evils which march with slavery with even stride of its degrada- 
 tion of all manual labor, its destruction of material prosperity, the 
 ignorance it enforces, the immorality it engenders. But not less re- 
 markable was it that in all this it was the white man wlio was referred 
 to ; there was little consideration of the rights of the men who were 
 black. These were not, in Southern estimation, exactly men and 
 women, but chattels personal, 1 although endowed with certain human 
 attributes, such as the gift of articulate speech, and the habit of walk- 
 ing on their hind legs. He best spoke to the moral sense of that 
 Assembly who said that "the owner of land had a reasonable right to 
 its annual profits, the owner of orchards to their annual fruits, the 
 owner of brood mares to their products, and the owner of female 
 slaves to their increase." There was just a tinge of sarcasm pointed 
 at the supposition if anybody should make it that these colored 
 women could be anything but breeders for the vigintial crop of Vir- 
 ginia slaves; but it was meant to be, nevertheless, a bold statement 
 of a matter of fact. It was the opposite doctrine that gave power to 
 the new anti-slavery movement in Massachusetts, and so aroused the 
 whole nation, that an infernal wrong was done to men and women 
 in the South, and that there must be an immediate end of it. The 
 difficulty was in making it plain that they were men and women, and 
 not brood mares and stallions, or other cattle ; but when that should 
 be done, none understood so well as the slaveholders themselves the 
 mighty meaning of that word immediate. 
 
 The debate was significant in another respect it was the result of 
 abiect fear. The Southampton insurrection, as it was called, 
 
 J The South- 
 
 had occurred the previous August, and, though speedily sup- ampton in- 
 pressed, and involving only a limited district of country, was 
 magnified by the terror of the white inhabitants into a formidable 
 outbreak. Its leader was one Nat Turner, who believed himself 
 chosen of the Lord to lead his people to freedom. For a long time 
 he had heard voices in the air and had seen signs in the sky ; por- 
 tents were written on the fallen leaves of the woods and in spots of 
 blood upon the corn in the fields, to warn him of a divine mission ; 
 his Bible, which he knew by heart, he found full of the prophecies of 
 the great work he was called upon to do. Fanaticism like his has 
 led men to great deeds, but Turner wanted followers like himself, 
 1 In Louisiana negro slaves were real estate. 
 
320 SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 and, though he was believed to be a man of unusual mental power 
 and resources, he was singularly wanting in any plans or preparations 
 that could promise success. 
 
 Only six men were in his confidence. With these he started at an 
 appointed time to go from house to house, to kill every white person, 
 of whatever age, sex, or condition, to inspire universal terror, and 
 arouse the whole slave population. Beginning at Turner's own home, 
 they first killed his master, and going then to other plantations, were 
 joined by their slaves. An advance guard on horseback surrounded 
 each house in turn, holding it till their followers on foot, armed 
 with axes, scythes, and muskets, came up to complete the work of 
 destruction, while the horsemen rode on to the next house. In forty- 
 
 / 
 
 eight hours, fifty-five white persons were killed without loss to the 
 insurgents, who by this time had increased to about sixty. The band 
 then moved toward Jerusalem, the county seat, where they expected 
 to find plenty of fire-arms, and to be joined by large numbers. But 
 on the way, against Turner's protest, the majority insisted upon stop- 
 ping at a plantation to enlist some of their friends. Here the band 
 became separated, and were attacked by two bodies of white men, 
 who, after some fighting, dispersed them. In forty-eight hours the 
 insurrection was suppressed. In the nature of things, no other re- 
 sult than a speedy end of it was possible. 
 
 It now only remained to hunt down the offenders, and make an in- 
 
 / 
 
 discriminate slaughter of suspected blacks, or those who were not 
 suspected but were only black. Turner, who had escaped to the 
 woods, dug a hole under a pile of fence-rails and lived in it for six 
 weeks, recording the weary days by notches on a stick, and leaving 
 his shelter only at midnight. He was accidentally discovered, and 
 compelled to change his quarters. For ten days he hid among the 
 wheat-stacks on a plantation. Again he was discovered and shot 
 at, but again escaped. The whole county was alive with armed men 
 in search of him ; and as he crept one day from a hole beneath some 
 felled pine trees, he was confronted by a man with a leveled rifle, 
 and surrendered. Turner was marched off to Jerusalem, where he 
 was given a sort of trial, was of course found guilty of murder, and 
 one week later (November 11, 1831) was hanged. 
 
 This was only the beginning of the retribution. Turner's young 
 wife, a slave, was tortured under the lash to compel her to produce 
 papers which, probably, had no existence. Fifty-three negroes were 
 formally tried, of whom seventeen were convicted and hanged, in- 
 cluding one woman ; twelve were transported, and the remainder were 
 acquitted. But the extra-judicial punishments were much more 
 numerous. Negroes suspected of complicity were tortured, burned, 
 
1831.] 
 
 THE SOUTHAMPTON INSURRECTION. 
 
 321 
 
 shot, and mutilated. The heads of some of these were set up along 
 the highways as a warning to their fellow slaves. The panic contin- 
 ued till late in the autumn. On the least alarm, families abandoned 
 their homes and fled to the woods for safety. The terror gpread of 
 had spread from Southampton County all over the State, the f ^ tuc ' 
 and not only through Virginia, but as far west as Kentucky, as far 
 south and southwest as Georgia and Louisiana. But nowhere could 
 there be found, though arrests were made in many places, and dili- 
 
 ./ > 
 
 c . > 
 
 f ,-x 
 
 Discovery of Nat Turner. 
 
 gence and watchfulness were everywhere unremitting, the slightest 
 trace of any concerted movement, or that the plot extended beyond 
 Nat Turner and his six followers. Could any have been found, ven- 
 geance would have been swift and sure in the universal terror; it was 
 only nine years before, without this incitement, that twenty-five slaves 
 were hanged at one time, in Charleston, South Carolina, by order of a 
 justice's court, without indictment and without a jury, on mere sus- 
 picion of plotting insurrection. 
 
 VOL. IV. 21 
 
322 SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 It was the theory of slavery to deny that the black was really a 
 man ; but his manhood was, nevertheless, too thoroughly believed in 
 to admit of a doubt that he longed for freedom and thirsted for ven- 
 geance. There was always an avowed dread therefore, of insurrec- 
 tion, which was sincere enough when there was any real danger. 
 But when danger was not immediate, its possibility was made good 
 use of to excite the sympathies of those who knew of slavery only 
 by report, and who would be less likely to meddle with it if con- 
 vinced that the slaveholders reluctantly submitted to what they could 
 not help, and were entitled, therefore, to pity rather than deserving 
 of blame. It is remarkable how seldom the negroes, in the course of 
 two hundred years, attempted to redress their own wrongs ; while 
 the frantic fears aroused by those infrequent attempts show the keen 
 consciousness, on the part of the masters, of how terrible the wrongs 
 were that sometimes provoked retaliation. It was this fear and this 
 consciousness that had aroused the law-makers of Virginia. 
 
 But the panic soon subsided, the danger was forgotten, or re- 
 membered only as something that might return again for a few hours 
 to some future generation, and old thoughts resumed their sway. 
 Those, it is said, who had made themselves most conspicuous in this 
 momentary revolt against the order of Southern society were driven 
 from public life, and were henceforth marked as men who needed 
 watching. In later years it was declared by the Northern opponents 
 of the Abolitionists that it was their measures which defeated this 
 movement against slavery in Virginia. But Garrison's " Liberator " 
 was then only in its first year, and it is safe to say that at that time 
 not a member of the Virginia Legislature could have ever heard 
 of him or of it. The simple truth was, that a cry of despair rent the 
 air when the volcanic flames illumined the heavens ; but when they 
 sank again and vanished, it was treason to say that the land was 
 not fair, and that beneath its thin crust the fires were still burning. 
 
 Hitherto, whatever struggle there had been with those who held 
 stru K(? ie slavery as an organized power, it was almost purely polit- 
 on^'oiit^a.? ical. The contest was unequal, because on one side, under 
 the Constitution, was the representation only of numbers; 
 on the other was the representation both of numbers and of property. 
 Numbers, on one side, might be, and were, divided in opinions and in 
 interests ; property, on the other side, held opinions and interests to- 
 gether in a single compact organization which, whenever slavery was 
 in question, could never be broken. Then slavery was, in the nature 
 of the case, always aggressive. Its contest was with the laws of the 
 universe ; the very stars in their courses were against it ; the strug- 
 gle for mastery was with all that is wise, with all that is good, with 
 
 
1831.] 
 
 SOUTHERX IDEA OF GOVERNMENT. 
 
 323 
 
 all that contributes to the progress, the virtue, the manliness, and the 
 happiness of the human race. To be passive was to perish ; it could 
 only live by continual conquest ; and this, if not always easy, w.is 
 always sure, when worth its while, so long as its opponents would 
 consent to confine the struggle to the field of politics. There it had 
 become irresistible by the force of centralization in the administra- 
 tion of the Federal Government, through the power con- ThPsUvp . 
 ferred by the Constitution upon slaveholders as an order. 
 " Domestic slavery," said Governor McDuffie, of South Caro- 
 lina, " instead of being au evil, is the corner-stone of our republican 
 edifice," because it superseded 
 " the necessity of an order of 
 nobility and all the other ap- 
 pendages of a hereditary system 
 of government." This was the 
 Southern theory of the Repub- 
 lic not that it was a popular 
 government, but a government 
 in which the slaveholders were 
 the ordained rulers. They as- 
 sumed to be a privileged aris- 
 tocracy, an order set apart from 
 and above the people, whose 
 Constitution recognized the 
 fact. To call the government 
 a republic, was only a conces- 
 sion to popular sentiment. It 
 was intended that the suprem- 
 acy and perpetuation of the or- 
 der should be the fundamental 
 principle of the government, and the moment the Constitution was 
 perverted from that purpose, then from that moment the allegiance 
 of the order ceased. For more than half a century the history of the 
 government was made to conform to this theory. McDutrie's order 
 of nobility whose coat-armor was a slave-whip and handcuffs 
 practically reigned, though not altogether to the satisfaction of men 
 like Calhoun and McDuffie, who believed that tin; ideal government 
 would not be reached, nor a perfect social condition be established, 
 till all laborers were slaves. They were thoroughly logical. If the 
 true theory of government was an aristocracy, the essential basis of 
 which was the ownership of the laboring class, then emigrants from 
 Ireland and Germany should be brought in and held as slaves, as well 
 as emigrants from Africa. It was maintained at the South that a 
 
 John C Calhoun. 
 
324 SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 fatal mistake was made when assent was given to the prohibition of 
 the introduction of laborers from Africa to be held as slaves, while 
 there was no restriction upon the coming of the corresponding class 
 at the North who were recognized as freemen. The balance should 
 have been kept even, either by the unrestricted introduction of slaves, 
 or the prohibition of free emigrants. 
 
 It was not long before Garrison made himself heard, and gathered 
 about him a small band of men and women as determined as himself. 
 The political aspect of the question was not to them of chief impor- 
 tance. They acknowledged at the outset the limitations of the Con- 
 stitution, and avowed in the clearest and most unmistakable 
 the P Atoii- way their determination not to invoke Federal legislation to 
 interfere with slavery in the States. Where, however, Fed- 
 eral responsibility existed, as in the District of Columbia, the terri- 
 tories, and the domestic slave trade, there they demanded action. 
 But even for that purpose they neither formed, nor proposed to form 
 a political party, only praying that Congress should take into consid- 
 eration the condition of the people who were under its control, and, 
 by its laws, were held in bondage. They were not so foolish as to as- 
 sume that there, or in the States, legislation would precede conviction, 
 and it was to the task of conviction, therefore, that they addressed 
 themselves. The slaves, they said, were robbed of their birthright, 
 of their manhood, of the fruits of their toil, of all material well-be- 
 ing, of intellectual growth, of religious culture, of equality and pro- 
 tection under the law, of their rights as husbands, wives, and par- 
 ents ; that all that made human life worth having was taken from 
 them. They were reduced to the condition of the brute, and like 
 beasts of burden bought and sold in the market. 
 
 The appeal was to the humanity, the mercy, and the consciences of 
 the people, on behalf of these two million of their countrymen, 
 whose condition had no parallel among civilized nations. But the 
 Abolitionists counselled no sudden or violent measures ; the slaves 
 themselves if their words could reach them they would exhort 
 to patience, forbearance, and longer suffering ; the masters they 
 urged, by argument, remonstrance, and exhortation, to repent of 
 wrong-doing and "let the oppressed go free;" but above all they 
 addressed themselves to the great body of the Northern people, who, 
 without the excuse of immediate contact with slavery, free from the 
 influence of personal interest in its continuance, belonging to a higher 
 grade of civilization than is ever possible where slavery exists, yet 
 stood in the presence of this monstrous wrong with profound indif- 
 ference to its existence, or in criminal apathy at their own moral and 
 political responsibility. Slavery, the Abolitionists said, is an offence 
 
1331.] ANTI-SLAVERY AGITATION. 325 
 
 of such magnitude that none can innocently uphold it, directly or in- 
 directly. The North was not less guilty than the South, and it was 
 meet that they should first call the North to repentance. 
 
 In this brief statement is the whole body of doctrine of modern 
 Abolitionism, the full measure of its offending. In the progress of 
 events, it is true, there came up side issues, growing out of some inev- 
 itable application of fundamental principles, when followed to logical 
 consequences, or unlooked-for complications to which that gave rise. 
 But all was comprised in the assertion of the truth that a black man 
 was no less a man because he was black ; that to hold him as a slave 
 was a sin ; that for sin there was one remedy, and one only, in ethics 
 and religion, immediate repentance and immediate atonement. It 
 was as simple as the Gospel ; and its preaching, like the preaching of 
 the Gospel, brought not peace, but a sword. Many received 
 it gladly as the word they had waited for; many were faith- 
 
 ful to the end ; nvany fainted by the way ; many proved that 
 they were of a generation of backsliders. Those who preached it, 
 preached according to their gifts, for, whatever other charges were 
 laid to the Abolitionists, it was not one of them that they were not 
 independent in thought and word, each man for himself and no re- 
 specter of authority. Some were as gentle as the Apostle whom the 
 Master loved ; some, like the Master, cried, " Woe unto you ! scribes 
 and pharisees, hypocrites ! " Others were filled with the spirit, and 
 sometimes with the power, of the older prophets, and with Jeremiah 
 cried out, "Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, 
 and his chambers by wrong ; that useth his neighbor's service with- 
 out wages, and giveth him not for his work ! " One of the most po- 
 tent and the most ludicrous of the arguments brought against them 
 was that their language was harsh and intemperate. The baser sort 
 rebuked it with oaths, revilings, and brickbats, to inculcate modera- 
 tion ; the less violent, but no less earnest, opponents of emancipation 
 professed, with a fine contempt of logic, to deprecate the use of lan- 
 guage which made, they said, emancipation almost impossible. 
 
 It was, however, what the Abolitionists said, not how they said it, 
 that raised against them a storm of calumny and persecution the like 
 of which is unknown in any civilized community of modern times. 
 They were not misunderstood ; rather they were understood too well. 
 The whole country seemed to recognize the ominous sounds of an im- 
 pending conflict in which the two great forces of liberty and slavery 
 were arrayed against each other for the first time in dead earnest and 
 for a final struggle. There was not an interest or a relation, social, 
 political, or commercial, that would not be involved in this strife, 
 and the first popular impulse was to meet and suppress a movement, 
 
 
SLAVERY AND AXTI-SLAVEKY. 
 
 [CllAP- XIII. 
 
 the immediate cost of which was apparent, while the ultimate good 
 seemed dim and uncertain. The South was quicker than the North 
 to apprehend the danger, nor did her far-seeing leaders make a mis- 
 take as to where that danger lay. Calhoun ridiculed the notion that 
 the Abolitionists proposed to liberate the slaves by force of arms. 
 " The war," he said, " which they wage against us is of a 
 preh<m a ion P very different character, and far more effective, it is 
 waged, not against our lives, but our character." "We 
 do not believe," said Duff Green, a Washington editor, " that the 
 
 Abolitionists intend, nor could they 
 if they would, excite the slaves to 
 
 insurrection It is only by 
 
 alarming the consciences of the 
 weak and feeble, and diffusing 
 among our people a morbid sensi- 
 bility on the question of slavery, 
 that the Abolitionists can accom- 
 plish their object." It was pre- 
 cisely because they exposed the true 
 character of slavery and slavehold- 
 ers, and because they appealed to 
 conscience, that the South was 
 alarmed and that the North was 
 called upon to arrest the agitation. 
 Before "The Liberator" had made 
 itself known in Boston, except to the few who sympathized with 
 its editor, an eminent legal gentleman of a Southern State wrote 
 to the Mayor of that city, Harrison Gray Otis, in 1831, complaining 
 of the publication of the paper, and commending it to his official 
 A Northern consideration. The Mayor replied that this was to him the 
 response. gj.^ intimation of the existence of such a sheet, but he had 
 verified it by repeated and diligent inquiries. He found that it had 
 received only " insignificant countenance and support," and that 
 the South had nothing to fear from Boston. But, should there 
 ever be indications that " opinion was taking a wrong direction," offi- 
 cial application for its correction would receive "prompt and respect- 
 ful attention." 
 
 If a quick response like this could come, at the first intimation of 
 peril, from one of the foremost men of Massachusetts, one who, as 
 a leader in the Hartford Convention, not twenty years before, had 
 discerned, on political grounds alone, that between liberty and sla- 
 very there could be no unity, if such response from such a source 
 could come when the sharpened vision only of the slaveholder could 
 
 Phillips 
 
1831.] THE ABOLITIONISTS. 327 
 
 see the first red spark of fire, what was to be expected when the 
 whole horizon was kindled into flame ? First tens, then hundreds, 
 then thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands were drawn 
 together by a new-born zeal, animated by a common religious convic- 
 tion, inspired by pity for human suffering, demanding, with one 
 voice, from Heaven and from man, justice and mercy for those who 
 were dumb. These people were the stuff that martyrs are 
 
 p 11 XT i i Ohnrartpr of 
 
 made of in all ages. .None doubted, none can doubt, that thcAboii- 
 
 i . i i c i i. tionists. 
 
 they were single-minded, of the purest lives, the longest- 
 headed, the picked and chosen of the body politic, the men and 
 women most esteemed, most trusted, in all things else save this of 
 anti-slavery, in the several communities where they were known for 
 their individual characters. But a broad and sharp dividing-line 
 was soon drawn between them and their countrymen. Some were 
 called upon to be literally martyrs, even unto stripes, imprisonment, 
 and death. Social ostracism was visited upon them all. Fanatics, 
 fools, traitors, infidels, incendiaries, were their mildest designations; 
 the climax of objurgation was reached with " nigger ! ' The South 
 demanded their suppression as public enemies, and the 
 
 Their sup- 
 
 North obeyed. Commerce, it was proclaimed, was in peril ; prewion de- 
 the state was in peril ; the church was in peril ; civil society 
 was in peril ; religion was to be trampled under foot ; civilization 
 was to be wiped out ; the throats of all the masters were to be cut by 
 their slaves ; all the white women were to be given up to the blacks ; 
 all white men were to take black wives. The intelligent and educated 
 class in whose hands were the wealth and all that intelligence and 
 wealth command in the organization of society were to be brought 
 into subjection by one sixth of their number, ignorant to the last 
 degree, possessed, as their share of the material resources of the 
 country, of a knife and a bludgeon. It may be questioned which 
 madness of that time is the most marvellous the atrocities visited 
 upon the Abolitionists, or the pleas put forward to justify them. But 
 almost the whole North and the whole South became possessed of the 
 devil, because these people said that black men, as well as white, k ' are 
 endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights," and that to the 
 nineteenth century after Christ was as long a delay in the establish- 
 ment of that fact as could be reasonably tolerated. 
 
 The plans of the Abolitionists were as simple as their aim was 
 direct. They organized societies with brief but clear decla- 
 rations of principles. They printed newspapers and pam- 
 phlets, and sent forth speakers to disseminate these principles and 
 influence public opinion. Could they bring others to see as thev 
 themselves saw, that slavery was a sin to be at once abandoned, the 
 
328 SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY. [CHAP. Xlll. 
 
 work would be done. They denied that slavery was, as the slave- 
 holders loved to call it, an Institution. As well, they said, talk of 
 the institution of counterfeiting, of forgery, of house-breaking, of 
 horse-stealing. A slave was originally a man stolen, and the robbery 
 was perpetuated in him or his descendants by sheer brute force. It 
 w;is simply a system of man-stealing, they said, and was no more to 
 be tolerated than any other monstrous wrong. As they were in 
 earnest and meant to be heard, it was easy to see what the end 
 \\ould be if they could not be answered. It is our character that 
 is at stake, said Calhoun ; it is our consciences they appeal to, said 
 Dull Green. Then they must not be heard, and the readiest way to 
 silence them was by violence. 
 
 To emancipate the blacks even by common consent, would neces- 
 Thproicn sarily involve some sacrifices, and there were formidable 
 obstacles to be overcome before that consent could be ob- 
 tained. If to these difficulties was added the fear of terrible dis- 
 asters, of anarchy, of the shedding of innocent blood, it would be 
 easy, it was thought, to trample out agitation as though it were a 
 pestilence. The whole country, therefore, gave itself over to a dis- 
 pensation of lies some to creating, some to believing them, but 
 all to make them the apology for violence. For years the mob 
 reigned. 
 
 Large rewards were offered in some of the slaveholding States for 
 Southern ^ ne apprehension of several of the leading Abolitionists. 
 The Legislature of Georgia passed a law appropriating five 
 thousand dollars to be paid to any person who should arrest, bring to 
 trial, and prosecute to conviction, under the laws of that State, the 
 editor of k - The Liberator." Mr. Williams, the publisher of *' The 
 Emancipator " in New York, who never in his life had been in the 
 State of Alabama, was indicted for declaring that man should not be 
 held as property, and his rendition was demanded as a fugitive from 
 justice, by the Governor of that State. Virginia. North Carolina, 
 South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, called upon the Northern States to 
 suppress the anti-slavery societies by penal enactments. Governor 
 W . L. Marcy, of New York, and Governor Edward Everett, of Massa- 
 chusetts, earnestly commended the subject to the legislatures of those 
 opi.-sitmn States, and a committee of the New York Legislature re- 
 !!,' m',d/ ported that such laws would be enacted the moment they 
 pe " ;ii seemed necessary. A bill was reported, though not passed, 
 
 by a committee of the Rhode Island Legislature, ior the trial and pun- 
 ishment of Abolitionists. At a public meeting in Mississippi, it was 
 resolved that whoever should circulate-anti-slavery publications, "was 
 justly worthy in the sight of God and man of immediate death," and 
 
1833.] 
 
 PERSECUTION OF ABOLITIONISTS. 
 
 329 
 
 that such would be the penalty in any part of that State. In South 
 Carolina persons were appointed to examine all travellers ar- 
 
 , . .. ... Pmciiti..!i< 
 
 riving at ( harleston by steamboat or rail, ana to deliver '" 
 
 S i u th 
 
 over to the Vigilance Committee all suspected of anti-slavery 
 opinions. In Tennessee. Amos Dresser, a travelling agent of the 
 Bible Society, in whose possession were found some anti-slavery pub- 
 lications, not for sale but for his own use. was sentenced, at a public 
 meeting, at which the Mayor presided, to be punished with thirty 
 lashes upon his bare back. 1 In Washington. Dr. Reuben Crandall, 
 it was accidentally 
 discovered, had re- 
 ceived some pack- 
 ages, the wrappers 
 of which happened 
 to be anti-slavery 
 newspapers. He 
 was thrown into 
 prison and was 
 kept there for nine 
 months before h e 
 was permitted to 
 
 
 answer to an m- 
 
 The Domestic Slave-trade 
 
 dictment for pub- 
 lishing a malicious and wicked libel with an intent to excite the 
 slaves to insurrection. A Mr. Black, an agent of the Bible Society, 
 when it became known in New Orleans that he hud offered a Bible 
 to a slave, was compelled to fly for his life from the mob, after being 
 severely reprimanded in a court of justice. The local society pub- 
 licly apologized for Black's conduct, with the acquiescence of silence 
 in the parent society in Xew York. 
 
 Manifestations like these for these are a few only among many 
 show the spirit then aroused at the South at what the South 
 instinctively recognized as an attack upon slavery that must inevi- 
 tably lead to its destruction. The appeal to the North was met in 
 a like spirit. The legislative committee of New York did not recom- 
 mend immediate legislation for the punishment of the Abolitionists, 
 because they believed, as Marcy suggested, that the popular oppo- 
 sition to the movement would soon make an end of it. A perpetual 
 
 1 One of the books found iu Dresser's |x>ssessiou w;i> called The Aiiti-Slnct/y licord, 
 it IK! it contained the engravinjr of which we jrive a fac-simile. " This," savg Dresser in his 
 narrative, " added considerably to the jreneral excitement." He adds: ' Mr. Stout," who 
 had caused Dresser's carriage to lie searched, " told me tli.it the scene represented in the 
 cut was one of by no means uufrequent occurrence that it was accurate in all its parts, 
 and that he had \vitue>sed it again and again. Mr. Stout is himself a slaveholder." 
 
330 
 
 SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY. 
 
 [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 conflict was waged with the mob. In 1834, the house of Lewis Tap- 
 pan, a wealthy and distinguished merchant of New York, was sacked, 
 Northern aiu ^ the furniture destroyed. In October, 1835, on one and 
 persecution. ^] le same c j a y a m ob, led by the most prominent citizen 
 of the town, broke up an anti-slavery meeting at Montpelier, Ver- 
 mont ; another at Utica, New York, with the member of Congress 
 from that district and a county judge at its head, dispersed a meet- 
 ing of the National Society, ami compelled it to adjourn to the house 
 of Gerrit Smith, at Peterborough ; in Boston a meeting of women 
 was beset by a mob of " gentlemen of property and standing " 
 as the newspapers of the town styled them in justification of their 
 conduct ; Garrison was rescued from the rioters, with a rope already 
 
 The Alton Riot From an old Print. 
 
 tied about his boay, and lodged in the city jail for safety, by order 
 of the Mayor, who seemed to think it best he should not be hanged, 
 though his life was not worth the suppression of a riot. The ladies 
 found refuge in the private house of Francis Jackson. The next 
 summer, the press and types of " The Philanthropist," a newspapei 
 established in Cincinnati by James G. Birney, a Southerner by 
 birth, who had been a slaveholder, but had given freedom to his 
 slaves, were thrown into the Ohio. " Gentlemen," said the Mayor 
 to the rioters, when the work was finished, " it is now late at night, 
 and time we were all in bed ; by continuing longer you will dis- 
 turb the citizens or deprive them of their rest, besides robbing your- 
 
1836.] 
 
 THE REIGX OF MOBS. 
 
 331 
 
 Burning of 
 
 Pennsyiva- 
 
 selves of rest. No doubt it is your intention to punish the guilty 
 and leave the innocent ..... We have done enough for one night. ' 
 The following year a mob attacked a warehouse in Alton, Illinois, 
 where a printing-press was stored belonging to the Rev. E. Murder of 
 P. Lovejoy. Here, and on the opposite side of the river, in ****& 
 Missouri, his newpaper, " The Observer," had been three times sus- 
 pended by the destruction of his printing materials. This 
 
 . J e . r 
 
 time, the fourth, the suppression was permanent, for the 
 
 editor was murdered. The news was received by what some 
 
 of the leading citizens of Boston tried to turn into a congratulatory 
 
 meeting in Faneuil Hall ; but which gave to anti-slavery a convert, 
 
 Wendell Phillips, whose career, 
 
 destined to be so marked in its 
 
 influence upon the history of 
 
 the next thirty years, began at 
 
 that moment. Six months after- 
 
 ward, Pennsylvania Hall, a 
 
 costly building erected in Phila- 
 
 delphia, that there might be one 
 
 place there always open to free 
 
 discussion, was for that reason 
 
 burned to the ground. It was 
 
 dedicated the previous day by an 
 
 anti-slavery meeting, at which 
 
 a poem by the young poet Whit- 
 
 tier was read. The keys were 
 
 given to the Mayor that he 
 
 might be responsible for its 
 
 safety ; but no effort was made 
 
 either to suppress the rioters or 
 
 to extinguish the fire. 
 
 The vears of these incidents 
 
 
 
 were especially marked by such evidence of the popular determina- 
 tion to suppress at any cost this dangerous movement against slavery. 
 But these were only the more remarkable instances of the character 
 of that violent opposition ; it was continued, sometimes with greater, 
 sometimes with less bitterness, down to the very eve of the rebellion, 
 according to the temper of the moment. During all that time, as 
 the voice of the anti-slavery lecturer and press never ceased in the 
 land, proclaiming the only issue on which slavery could ever be suc- 
 cessfully met, namely, its inherent and absolute sinfulness, so to the 
 end, till the contest was virtually over, there was always the sole re- 
 sponse that had any force in it, namely, trample out that doctrine 
 
 John G. Whittier. (1838.) 
 
332 SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 and those who preach it. When a generation or two more have 
 passed away, it will be easier to see and to understand how the scat- 
 tered seed of a new faith yielded a thousand-fold of fruitfulness, and 
 the North was gradually educated to meet the question of a govern- 
 ment of and for the people, or the rule of and for an oligarchy of 
 slaveholders. 
 
 The condition of the free negro was one result of slavery which the 
 Abolitionists could not overlook. They exposed the charae- 
 
 Thc foloni- .,, . . 
 
 ter oi the Colonization society, established in 1816, which, 
 
 at the North, sought the support of philanthropists under 
 the pretence of facilitating emancipation, by returning at last all the 
 slaves to Africa; while at the South its avowed purpose was to expa- 
 triate all free negroes, lest by their presence the slaves should be re- 
 minded that their bondage was not altogether hopeless. It was not 
 one of the least of the anti-slavery offences that Garrison and Judge 
 William Jay so thoroughly stripped that society of its hypocritical 
 pretence. Gerrit Smith, the Tappans, Birney, and many others of 
 the earliest and most earnest of the anti-slavery people, were Coloniza- 
 tionists, till they discovered that in supporting that scheme they had 
 been the dupes of the slaveholders ; nor could it longer rely upon the 
 aid and countenance of the Federal Government, which had hitherto 
 been given it almost without question. The popular opposition to 
 the anti-slavery movement was strengthened, therefore, by the hos- 
 tility of the Colonization ists, who gave the whole weight of their 
 influence to add to the torrent of misrepresentation and persecution. 
 
 The condition of Northern free blacks- was hardly better than that 
 The Free ^ *he same class in the Southern States. They were pa- 
 Biacks. riahs ; if the law recognized them at all, it was to oppress, 
 not to protect them ; no calling was open to them, save the lowest 
 menial service ; their presence among whites in public places was a 
 forbidden intrusion ; the schools were shut in their faces ; if they 
 were permitted to worship God in common with their fellow-creatures, 
 it was only in the negro-pew, above the galleries, close under the ceil- 
 ing, as far as they could be removed from the rest of the congrega- 
 tion ; should enough of the spirit of the white man's Christianity 
 reach them there to lead to a wish to commemorate the Last Supper, 
 they were taught that the Lord had spread for them a second table ; 
 and when at last dust unto dust was pronounced over their poor black 
 bodies, it was in some remote corner of the grave-yard, lest when the 
 trumpet of the resurrection sounded there should be a disagreeable 
 confusion of persons. In all the more ferocious mobs it was the in- 
 nocent colored people who were the chief sufferers. The rage against 
 the Abolitionists would yield, even at white heat, to the deeper hatred 
 
1836.] 
 
 THE FREE BLACKS. 
 
 333 
 
 of the blacks. When Pennsylvania Hall was burned, the rioters wei-e 
 easily turned aside, when on their way to attack the private houses 
 of some of the leading anti-slavery people, by a cry, " to the nigger 
 school-house ! " raised by one who put himself at their head to divert 
 their blind rage from the taking of life to the destruction only of 
 property. In New York, in Boston, in Cincinnati, and in other 
 places, it was a sort of sportive relief from the serious business of 
 suppressing anti-slavery gatherings to sack the meeting-houses and 
 the dwellings of negroes. 
 
 
 
 Ruins of Pennsylvania Hall. 
 
 It was only where the blacks were very numerous that they were 
 permitted to acquire the merest rudiments of education in ty..^^ 
 schools of their own. The promise of anything more was re- denledthem - 
 sented, so true was the logical instinct that every advanced step of 
 the free colored man was one step nearer the freedom of his race. It 
 was therefore, that when Miss Prudence Crandall of Cantei-bury, 
 Connecticut, opened a school for colored young women, she was pur- 
 sued with months of persecution, her furniture destroyed, her house 
 set on fire, the lives of her pupils endangered, she herself thrown into 
 prison, and an act passed by the Legislature forbidding schools of 
 that character within the boundaries of the State. When a few col- 
 ored boys were admitted into an academy at Canaan, New Hamp- 
 shire, it was declared by a vote in town-meeting, that the school was 
 a nuisance ; and the people of the neighborhood assembled with a 
 
334 SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY. [HAP. XIII. 
 
 hundred yoke of oxen, dragged the building from its foundations for 
 some distance, and left it in ruins. At Zanesville, Ohio, a young 
 woman opened a school for colored children, but it was broken up by 
 the destruction of her furniture and the books, and the teacher driven 
 from the town by personal abuse. In Brown County, in the same 
 State, a school-house was burnt to the ground, with all it contained, 
 and the teacher compelled to leave the place, for the same offence. It 
 was proposed to establish a collegiate school in New Haven, Connecti- 
 cut, for the education of colored boys ; but the Mayor, when he heard 
 of it, called a public meeting, and the citizens declared that they 
 would resist the establishment of such a school in that town, and the 
 scheme was necessarily abandoned. 
 
 It must not be supposed that acts like these were the acts of mere 
 ruffians. The mobs of that period were often l^d in person, 
 
 Character of ,, ..,. / -i i . i 
 
 Northern and always incited, by men of the inchest social, political, 
 
 moba. i i- " TFII 1-1- 
 
 and religious position. If the law was invoked, it was to 
 justify riot ; if the officers of the law interfered, it was to protect the 
 rioters. It was assumed that the interests of politics, of commerce, 
 of literature, of art, of education, of religion, were involved in the 
 speedy suppression of the agitation against slavery. At the second 
 anniversary of the National Society, in New York, a leading member 
 was called out of the meeting by one of the principal merchants of 
 Northern ^ ne c ity t give him this warning, "We cannot afford to 
 
 let you and your associates succeed in your endeavor to over- 
 throw slavery. I have called to let you know, and to let your fel- 
 low-laborers know, that we do not mean to allow you to succeed. 
 We mean to put you down, by fair means if we can, by foul means if 
 we must." The Faculty of Lane Theological Seminary, at Cincin- 
 nati of which Dr. Lyman Beecher was President ordered its 
 students to break up an anti-slavery society they had formed among 
 themselves, a mandate which they obeyed by nearly breaking up 
 the seminary, for they left it almost in a body. One of the largest 
 publishing houses in the country said in a letter published in a South- 
 ern newspaper, " it must be pretty generally understood in your sec- 
 tion, as well as elsewhere, that we uniformly decline publishing works 
 calculated to interfere in any way with Southern rights and Southern 
 institutions." In the same letter they said : kk Since the receipt of 
 your letter, we have printed an edition of the ' Woods and Fields ' in 
 which the offensive matter has been omitted." The " Woods and 
 Fields" was an English book of tales, reflecting somewhere upon 
 slavery, of which the New York publishers had inadvertently printed 
 an edition without mutilation. They wrote directly to another South 
 ern newspaper " that they had refrained from republishing a certain 
 
1834.] NORTHERN BASENESS. 335 
 
 English work, very ably written and likely to be profitable," because 
 the author was an "Abolitionist, and we would have nothing to do with 
 him." In Hinton's "History of the United States" republished by 
 another Northern house in numbers there was something objection- 
 able to the slaveholders ; all the numbers, containing it, that could 
 be found in New Orleans were seized and burned, and the agent com- 
 pelled to flee for his life ; in Charleston they were withdrawn from 
 circulation, and the New York publishers printed a new and expurgated 
 edition. Do these things seem too base and too cowardly to be credi- 
 ble ? They are only a few instances among many that showed the 
 servile spirit of the time. It pervaded all things and governed even-- 
 where. Intense excitement and debate was aroused in the House of 
 Representatives at Washington because there had been placed upon 
 the shelves of the Congressional Library a work upon political econ- 
 omy, in which a chapter was given to the consideration of slavery 
 purely as a question in social science. Dr. Wayland, President of 
 Brown University, in a work upon Moral Philosophy, asserted the 
 natural equality of all men, and that the enslavement of any part of 
 the human race was incompatible with that law. The protest at the 
 South against ever again sending Southern youth to that college, was 
 loud and earnest. 
 
 It is not to be denied that the great mass of the Northern people 
 were absolutely destitute of any humanity for the blacks, or any 
 principle in regard to slavery. They knew nothing of the character 
 of the Slave Code unmatched for its atrocities in any body of law 
 reduced to writing within the last thousand years and they cared 
 nothing for the condition of those who under it were held as property 
 and treated as beasts. But they believed that any interference with 
 slavery would convulse the political, commercial, and social relations 
 of the country, and, though it might be confessed an evil, its cure was 
 not worth such a convulsion. It may be said also, in their defence, a 
 defence that can be made, however, only at the expense of Northern 
 intelligence, that they honestly believed the Abolitionists meant to 
 arouse the slaves to insurrection. The lie was purely a Southern 
 invention, accepted by the thoughtless, or used as a pretext for vio- 
 lence by those who knew it to be a lie. It hardly needs now to be 
 said, that in the whole range of anti-slavery publications, in all the 
 constitutions of anti-slavery societies, in the speeches of anti-slavery 
 lecturers for thirty years, not a single word was ever printed or ever 
 spoken that sustains this accusation. On the contrary, till John 
 Brown went to Virginia, in 1859, all appeals to the slaves were dis- 
 avowed, officially, individually, in thousands of ways, on thousands of 
 occasions. Moreover, the very philosophy of the movement showed 
 
336 SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 the absurdity of the calumny. That was nothing if not moral ; it 
 relied on no arm of flesh ; no Abolitionist ever lifted his hand even 
 to repel outrage upon himself ; his faith was absolute in the appeal 
 to reason and to conscience, and if this failed he had no hope left. 
 
 That such a chai'ge was accepted, only proves the readiness of the 
 Pro-fiavery Northern people to secure their own peace by the sacrifice of 
 accusations. JKJ j]ij ong o f their colored countrymen, by assuming a pretext 
 which both North and South knew to be false. They not only knew 
 it to be false, but they also knew that no such appeal could be 
 made to the slave, nor would it be heeded if it could. The African 
 in America, whether bond or free, either from inherent quality of 
 race, or from the habit of submission, patience, and long-suffering en- 
 gendered by centuries of subjection, has rarely shown any spirit of 
 revolt. He may sometimes run away, but he does not resist. The 
 Abolitionist was too wise and too merciful to attempt to stir up a 
 servile war, which could only end in prolonging the servitude of the 
 blacks ; the slaveholders laughed that the great majority of the 
 Northern people were either so stupid or so wicked as to consent to 
 be duped by so absurd a pretext. But the few who, after all, made 
 the public opinion of the North were not dupes, however it might be 
 with the rabble who followed them. If slavery were really in danger, 
 much else would be in danger also. From 1830 to 1840 the whole 
 country was afloat upon a wild sea of speculation ; the price of cotton 
 went up in the course of that decade from six cents to twenty, and 
 fluctuated anywhere between, as there was access or decrease of the 
 public fever ; more than twenty million acres of public lands were 
 condition of bought in the southwest; nearly four hundred thousand 
 the country. 8 } aves we re transferred from the slave-breeding to the cotton 
 and sugar States, for the cultivation of these lands ; all this was done, 
 mainly, with borrowed capital, and plantations, slaves, cotton-crops 
 were mortgaged directly or indirectly to Northern capitalists, through 
 public or private credit, and whatever threatened to disturb it threat- 
 ened great pecuniary loss. With all this was involved the never- 
 ceasing struggle of the slaveholders for the perpetuity of their political 
 ascendency, who offered their favor to the highest bidder among 
 Northern politicians. These influences, however little they may pal- 
 liate the pro-slavery furor of the time, are not to be lost sight of in 
 any consideration of its history. The North thought, at least, that 
 its rage was not altogether without reason. 
 
 But the lie was sent forth to the world with the highest sanction. 
 President Jackson, in his annual message to Congress in 1835, called 
 "attention to the painful exitement produced in the South by at- 
 tempts to circulate through the mails inflammatory appeals addressed 
 
I 
 
 1835.] 
 
 PRO-SLAVERY ACCUSATIONS. 
 
 337 
 
 to the passions of the slaves, in prints, and in various sorts of publica- 
 tions, calculated to stimulate them to insurrection, and to produce all 
 the horrors of a servile war." It is quite likely that he believed this 
 to be true, for he never permitted himself to be embarrassed by evi- 
 dence in coming to a conclusion ; and accordingly, he urged Congress 
 
 to pass a law to pre- 
 vent " the circula- 
 tion in the South- 
 ern States, through 
 the mail, of incen- 
 diary publications 
 
 Burning Mail-matter in Charleston. 
 
 intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection." Of course the pur- 
 pose was to prohibit the use of the mails for the conveyance of any- 
 thing that touched the question of slavery. The sagacity of Calhoun 
 was not at fault, when as chairman of the committee to whom the 
 subject was referred, he reported that it should be left to the States 
 to decide what was an incendiary publication. This was in accord- 
 ance with his State-Rights theory, that the slave State should decree 
 and the Union execute; and he knew, besides, that even then there 
 were Northern members of Congress who would not consent to self- 
 stultification, but would demand the evidence of the existence of anv 
 
 / 
 
 publication addressed to the slaves or designed, in the remotest de- 
 gree, to excite them to insubordination, and that no such evidence 
 
 VOL. iv. 22 
 
338 SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 could be found. Nor did the slave States need any such law. Six 
 mums the months before the message, the mails had been seized in 
 Charleston, S. C., and some few anti-slavery publications, 
 addressed to influential gentlemen for their possible enlightenment, 
 taken out and publicly burned. The precedent was one which every 
 postmaster at the South was ready to follow ; even the postmaster at 
 New York had assumed the power of rifling the mails of everything 
 which he thought might offend the South ; and the Postmaster-gen- 
 eral, Amos Kendall, had written to his subordinates both in Charles- 
 ton and New York, justifying their assumed censoi'ship of the press, 
 though, as he acknowledged, there was no law to authorize it. 
 
 But neither laws nor lawlessness, neither tyranny nor subserviency, 
 The right of neither sagacity nor stupidity, could stay the tumult of dis- 
 petitiou. eussion that swept over the country. Every obstacle it met 
 only served to add to its strength, and on all sides questions arose in 
 unexpected ways that increased the agitation. The slaveholders and 
 the slaveholders' friends put into the hands of the anti-slavery people 
 a tremendous weapon, by denying them, for years, the right of peti- 
 tion. Keeping carefully within the letter and the spirit of the law, 
 they prayed that Congress would exercise its undoubted right of abol- 
 ishing slavery in the national domain under its exclusive control, and 
 of interdicting the domestic slave-trade. Their prayers would have 
 been soon silenced, had they been simply received and denied ; but 
 when the attempt was made to destroy even the right to pray, then 
 for every petition rejected there came a thousand new ones. For ten 
 years they were hurled like fire-brands as if against a fortress of 
 straw, and bastion and battlement were in a constant blaze and the 
 magazines in continual explosion. A few brave men in Congress, 
 led by John Quincy Adams, fought that fight against all the forces, 
 Northern and Southern, of slavery. Session after session the attempt 
 to get the petitions before the House was defeated, by a standing 
 TheAther- ru ^ e known as the "Atherton gag" so called from one 
 ton gag. Atherton, of New Hampshire, who belonged to the class of 
 Northern "white trash," bearing the same political relation to the 
 slaveholders that the poor whites of the South occupied socially, too 
 degraded, that is, to be respected even by slaves. But session after 
 session the agitation widened, and the demand grew louder that when 
 Northern citizens spoke they should be respectfully listened to, no 
 matter what they said. When, in 1842, Mr. Adams presented a peti- 
 tion from some persons in Massachusetts, asking for a dissolution of 
 the Union, and resolutions of severe rebuke were offered, his defence 
 of himself and of the right of petition aroused hundreds of thousands 
 of the Northern people to indignation and reflection upon the true 
 meaning of the conflict out of which that incident grew. 
 
1835.] THE ATHERTOX GAG. 339 
 
 The "Atherton gag," however, was only the perfected rule for 
 excluding from Congress the consideration of any subject reflecting 
 unfavorably upon slavery though whatever favored it was never 
 prohibited and was always in order. The initiative step was taken 
 nearly three years before, in a resolution offered by Pinckney of 
 South Carolina, upon which Mr. Adams refused to vote, declaring, 
 " I hold the resolution to be a direct violation of the Constitution of 
 the United States, the rules of this House, and the rights of my con- 
 stituents." The ground was thus clearly taken at the outset : on 
 the one hand the inviolability of Slavery, and, on the part of Adams 
 and a few others, the saciedness of the right of petition. The de- 
 fenders of that right never yielded a single inch ; petitions were 
 sometimes presented by the hundreds in a single day, and of the 
 thousands who signed them to assert the abstract right, many came 
 at length to feel hardly less interest in the immediate object of the 
 prayer. Pinckney's rule was renewed at the opening of the next 
 Congress, and Mr. Adams, a few days afterward, asked if a paper 
 in his possession, purporting to come from twenty-five slaves, would 
 be laid on the table, without any action upon it, under the rule. 
 The turmoil that followed, though paralleled many times since, 
 was then without a precedent in the halls of Congress. The mob- 
 ocratic spirit which ruled in Northern towns and cities, blazed up in 
 the House. It was gratuitously assumed that a petition from slaves 
 was a petition for their freedom, and the slaveholders and A ^m^ 
 the slaveholders' friends vied with each other in denouncing from 8laTes - 
 a proposition so monstrous, and the audacity of the man who dared to 
 ask for it a hearing. Public censure at the bar of the House was the 
 mildest punishment proposed for him; one member from South Caro- 
 lina denounced him as having rendered himself liable to the penal 
 laws of the District of Columbia, and threatened, that should he per- 
 sist in presenting such a petition, he would expiate the offence within 
 the walls of the penitentiary. The first onslaught of the storm soon 
 exhausted itself by its own fury ; but it broke out again Avith renewed 
 violence when Mr. Adams reminded his sissailants that he had not yet 
 presented the petition, but only inquired as to its probable disposition 
 under the rule if he should present it, and then informed them that, 
 whether genuine or not, it was not, as they had assumed it must be, 
 for the abolition of slavery, but that slavery be let alone. 
 
 A similar and not less extraordinary scene occurred at the open- 
 ing of the next session, when William Slade asked that a petition for 
 the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Colum- 
 bia be referred to a committee, with instructions to bring in a bill 
 granting the prayer of the petitioners. It was the first time such a 
 
340 SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 proposal had been made, and the House was immediately in an up- 
 roar. Slade was speedily silenced by points of order, which were as 
 quickly violated by Southern members with impunity. Representa- 
 tlves f rom several Southern States called upon their col- 
 leagues to leave the House, and when a motion to adjourn 
 tb House. wag ma d ei a n the members of those States were invited to 
 come together to take this crisis into consultation. Rhett called it, 
 in a report to his constituents, " the memorable secession of the 
 Southern members," and the word was cherished. He prepared 
 resolutions declaring it " expedient that the Union should be dis- 
 solved," and that a committee be appointed of " two members from 
 each State to report upon the best means of peaceably dissolving it." 
 But another "gag" rule was passed the next day, and the South was 
 again appeased by enjoining silence once more upon the North. It 
 only taught the North to think the more and talk the louder. 
 
 Elsewhere than in Congress events were constantly occurring at 
 that period and from that time forward were constantly cumulating 
 to intensify the public excitement, and to strengthen the North in 
 the final struggle which was at some time inevitable, and, it was now 
 evident, could not be long delayed. Not that such events had never 
 occurred before ; but that to the awakened observation and conscience, 
 to which the anti-slavery people were perpetually appealing, such 
 events no longer passed by unheeded. Thus, in 1839, the Governor 
 of Virginia demanded of the Governor of New York the ren- 
 dition of three sailors as criminals charged with aiding a 
 
 and vir- slave who had secreted himself on board their vessel to es- 
 cape from bondage. The demand, a few years earlier, would 
 have been complied with without hesitation. But now no Abolition- 
 ist of the extremest school could have taken higher ground than that 
 taken by Governor Seward in his refusal. The laws of New York, 
 he said, did not recognize property in man, and to aid a person, there- 
 fore, to escape from slavery was not a crime. His exposition of nat- 
 ural law and of the law of slavery was masterly and unanswerable, 
 and in the long controversy that followed, Virginia was driven to the 
 ultima ratio of the slaveholder a threat to dissolve the Union. The 
 Virginian Governor appealed for sympathy to the other States ; but 
 Mr. Seward was neither alarmed by threats, nor moved from his 
 position by an attempt at retaliation. While the controversy was 
 pending, he asked for the rendition of a forger who had escaped to 
 Virginia, and the request was refused until the prior demand of Vir- 
 ginia was complied with. But on this point, the Governor of Vir- 
 ginia went a little further than even his own Legislatui'e would sus- 
 tain him, and he indignantly resigned his office. An act was passed, 
 
1839.] CONTROVERSY BETWEEN FREE AND SLAVE STATES. 341 
 
 however, requiring that all New York vessels in the ports of Vir- 
 ginia should be searched when about to sail, on the presumption that 
 slaves were secreted on board ; and this law was to continue in force 
 till the alleged fugitives from justice, whom Seward had refused to 
 surrender, were returned and the recent act of New York, giving a 
 trial by jury to all persons claimed as fugitive slaves, was repealed. 
 The Governor was sustained by his own party, though the opposition 
 the Democrats in the Legislature, passed resolutions upholding 
 the pretence of Virginia to make the laws of New York subordinate 
 to her own. 
 
 A similar controversy arose between New York and Georgia, about 
 the same time, with a like result, in which the Governor NewYo rk 
 of the latter State, profiting by the experience of Virginia, aDdGeor K' 
 hoped to succeed in his purpose by stratagem. He demanded the 
 return of a colored sailor on board a New York vessel, on a charge 
 of stealing, first, a quantity of wearing apparel, and second, a slave. 
 Governor Seward chose to go behind the indictments ; according to 
 natural law, no crime had been committed in aiding a slave to escape 
 from bondage, and there was, therefore, no criminal to return ; and 
 the knavish cunning of the Georgians he refused to be taken in by, 
 as the clothes the man was charged with stealing were the clothes 
 worn by the slave who had attempted to escape. Georgia was also 
 unfortunate about the same time, in a controversy with Maine, where 
 a like demand for the rendition of an alleged fugitive from justice 
 was made and peremptorily refused. It was the old question, 
 always recognized and inculcated as the fundamental principle of 
 state-craft at the South of the subordination of the Union, and the 
 free States, to the law of slavery. 
 
 That the North was learning a new lesson, and learning it rapidly, 
 is plain to see when it is remembered that only four years before 
 Mr. Seward declared that New York did not recognize property in 
 man, a "joint committee of the Massachusetts Legislature 
 
 1111-11 i i < i ii Attitude of 
 
 had declared that " the right of the master to the slave is Massachu- 
 as undoubted as the right to any other property," and that 
 " any attempt, whether direct or indirect, to deprive the slaveholder 
 of this property, as of any other, is a violation of the fixed laws of 
 social policy, as well as of the ordinary rules of moral obligation." 
 This report, signed by George Lunt as chairman of the committee, 
 was in response to the message of Governor Everett, in which he 
 commended to the consideration of the Legislature the demands of 
 five of the slaveholding States, that the discussion of slavery should 
 be made a penal offence. The rebuke of this pro-slavery fanaticism, 
 however, was not long delayed in Massachusetts. Only two years 
 
342 SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 later another joint committee of the Legislature in a report de- 
 claring that Congress had the power to abolish slavery in the Federal 
 domain, to interdict the domestic slave-trade, and to refuse admission 
 to the Union of any new slave State, said, " There is little differ- 
 ence of opinion in this Commonwealth as to the moral, social, and 
 political character of domestic slavery. It is regarded by all, or nearly 
 all, as a wrong in itself, and an evil in all its relations and influences. 
 .... The wrong is the greatest which man can inflict upon his 
 fellow, and the evil deep, certain, and aggravated." The chairman 
 of this committee was James C. Alvord, and the report one of the 
 firebrands which Adams shook in the face of Congress from session 
 to session, till the slaveholders were ready to tear him limb from 
 limb. Marshall, a member from Kentucky, acknowledged in open 
 debate that the venerable ex-president would probably be lynched 
 should he venture into that State, and threats of assassination were 
 sent him almost daily by mail from the South. 
 
 The position taken by the governors of New York and Maine, in 
 
 answer to the demands of slave States, was only one of the 
 dareques- indications of the rapid growth of anti-slavery opinion at the 
 
 North. Events were leading to nice distinctions. If, for 
 example, to aid a man to escape from slavery was not recognized as a 
 crime in Northern jurisprudence, how happened it that the escaping 
 man must be returned to bondage ? Hitherto there was no question 
 anywhere, except perhaps among a few Philadelphia Quakers, as to 
 the return of fugitive slaves ; but the doctrine spread, that if there 
 were a bond for a pound of flesh, no drop of blood must be spilled in 
 tearing it from the living tissue. It is not likely that the number 
 of slaves attempting to escape was increased ; but those who did now 
 found a multitude of friends ready to invoke the law, so far as it was 
 possible, in defence of liberty, and where that could not be done, 
 there were many more who were swift to obey what they believed to 
 be a law higher than that of the Constitution. Thousands of fugi- 
 tives passed stealthily through the free States, aided from point to 
 point, to a safe refuge in Canada; others stopped on the way in 
 Northern cities, but always ready for further and instant flight if the 
 word of warning came, that the chase was on their tracks. Every case 
 that came before the courts aroused profound interest, and set men to 
 thinking upon the character of slavery, and the nature of funda- 
 mental law. In every arrest that was made public, where no oppor- 
 tunity was given, or none existed, for an appeal to judicial decisions, 
 the appeal to pity for the unfortunate fugitives was irresistible with 
 the thoughtful and humane. What right has one man to hold another 
 in bondage ? How far shall the municipal law of the slave States be 
 
1839.] 
 
 FUGITIVE SLAVE QUESTION. 
 
 343 
 
 permitted to override all law in the free States, where tlie end of 
 government is the protection of the citizen in his right to life, to 
 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? As every incident in the 
 debates of Congress and of State legislatures, in the courts, in the 
 action of Northern governors, in the attitude of religious organiza- 
 tions, in the persecution of individuals, and in the thousand attempts 
 of the mob to suppress free speech, aroused reflection and intensified 
 the struggle, so it was because the question of slavery had come be- 
 fore the people in a new aspect, and was seen with anointed eyes. 
 
 Where did a man's right to himself begin, and where did it end? 
 In 1839 the United States brig Washington, Captain Gedney, over- 
 hauled, near the coast, and 
 brought into New London, a 
 Spanish vessel, the Amistad, 
 having on board a number of 
 Africans, who had been kid- 
 napped in their own country, 
 and sold as slaves in Cuba. 
 On their way to another Span- 
 ish island in the West Indies, 
 they captured the vessel, under 
 the leadership of one Cinque, 
 killed the captain and cook in 
 fair fight, and put the rest of 
 the crew and the white passen- 
 gers, among them their pre- 
 tended owners, in confinement. 
 Knowing nothing of naviga- 
 tion, they ordered one of the 
 Spaniards to steer the vessel 
 for Africa. He obeyed in the daytime, when his captors could tell 
 by the sun which way the vessel was heading, but at night TheAmistlul 
 he reversed her course, till he brought her upon the Amer- ease- 
 ican coast. These men, born free, reduced to bondage contrary to 
 the law of nature and of nations, were thrust into jail to await a 
 trial, on the assumption that they were slaves and pirates. From 
 the State courts the case was taken up to the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, where the final decision was. that the prisoners had 
 been kidnapped in Africa and carried unlawfully to Cuba ; that their 
 present pretended owners had purchased them knowing these facts ; 
 that as they were not slaves they could not be pirates in taking the 
 measures they did to regain their freedom . and that, therefore, they 
 should be discharged. In the contest for justice to these helpless 
 
 Cinque. 
 
344 SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 strangers, their friends were compelled to fight every step of the way 
 against the influence of President Van Buren's Secretary of State, 
 John Forsyth, of Georgia, and the Attorney-general, Felix Grundy, 
 of Tennessee, who were anxious that these men, who, had they been 
 white, would have been welcomed as heroes, should either be surren- 
 dered as slaves, or sent back to Cuba to the merciless disposition of 
 Spanish law. 
 
 The fate that might befall these native Africans had no relation to 
 American slavery, except as it touched the abstract question of prop- 
 erty in man. But this was enough, for the slaveholders never forgot, 
 and the North was beginning to learn, that on this question hinged 
 the whole controversy. But in 1841 there happened a similar occur- 
 rence that came closer home. An American slaver, the Creole, 
 sailed from Richmond with a cargo of one hundred and 
 
 The Creole 
 
 thirty-five slaves, gathered, not from the wilds of Africa, but 
 the slave huts and kitchens of the Virginia and Maryland planta- 
 tions. Among them was one whose very name was revolutionary 
 Madison Washington. This man knew something of liberty, for he 
 had been a fugitive in Canada, and had gone back thence to Virginia 
 to release his wife from bondage; but he had been retaken and sold, 
 as was usually done with those whose intelligent discontent marked 
 them as dangerous, for the depleting discipline and the safer distance 
 from Mason and Dixon's Line, of a southwest plantation. Early in 
 November, when the Creole was near the Bahamas, the black Wash- 
 ington, putting himself at the head of nineteen of his fellows, whose 
 arms altogether were only four knives, attacked the crew, and after a 
 struggle, in which one white, a slave-trader, was killed, and the cap- 
 tain and some others wounded, the blacks obtained possession of the 
 vessel. They compelled the captain to take her into Nassau, New 
 Providence, where those not immediately engaged in the revolt were 
 declared to be free. Washington and his eighteen companions, 
 who, the captain of the Creole demanded, should be surrendered to 
 him to be taken to the United States for trial for mutiny and mur- 
 der, were detained ostensibly to be tried in the English courts. The 
 whole cargo was a loss to the slaveholders ; but there were thousands 
 of people at the North who persisted in considering it not in the light 
 of a loss of property, but as a restoration to one hundred and thirty- 
 five human beings of the liberty of which they had been robbed 
 since their birth. Calhoun, Clay, and other Southern senators de- 
 nounced the English Government for stretching its protecting arm 
 over acts which they looked upon as piracy and murder, and for refus- 
 ing to permit the United States to extend its slaveholding law into 
 its dominion. Not a voice in the Senate was raised to defend the 
 
 

 1841.] CASE OF THE CREOLE. 345 
 
 inalienable rights which Madison Washington and his companions 
 had asserted for themselves. Daniel Webster, the Secretary of State 
 of the acting President, Vice-president Tyler, wrote instructions to 
 Edward Everett, then Minister to England, which satisfied even 
 Calhoun. In the House of Representatives a scene of characteristic 
 violence ensued when Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio, offered a series of 
 resolutions, the essential point of which was, that every man has a 
 natural right to himself, and that the slaveholding laws of the South- 
 ern States, however potent they might be at home, whatever sanction 
 they might receive from the Federal Constitution, were void beyond 
 their boundaries. A vote of censure was immediately passed by an 
 overwhelming majority, and the bold member who thus challenged 
 the legitimacy of slavei-y, as instantly resigned his seat, and Keil jg nat j on 
 before the sun set was on his way to Ohio to appeal to his ' 
 constituents. " I hope we shall soon see yon back again," said Adams 
 with emotion, as Giddings took leave of him. The wish Avas ful- 
 filled; the interval was long enough only for a new election, when he 
 was back with an increased majority of thousands. The doctrine ad- 
 vanced by Calhoun was not new, but partly because of the peculiar 
 character of the case of the Creole, partly because of the agitation of 
 the public mind, it had never before attracted attention so serious. 
 Within the ten previous years three American vessels engaged in the 
 coastwise slave-trade had been wrecked at different times in the West 
 India Islands, or driven into port by stress of weather. So long as 
 slavery existed in her colonies, England consented to make compensa- 
 tion for the American slaves who were thus liberated ; but after that 
 event she declined any such concession would hardly acknowledge 
 that the principle involved was worthy of discussion. 
 
 Almost at the very moment that Congress was so hotly debating 
 the nature of slaveholding law, the Supreme Court of the ^p p,.; 
 United States was pronouncing what that law was, so far case - 
 as it governed the right of the recapture of fugitive slaves. More 
 than once in former years attempts had been made to induce Con- 
 gress to put an end to the kidnapping of free negroes along the 
 border between the free and slave States ; but it had hardly been 
 possible to arouse attention enough to the subject to listen to a mo- 
 tion. In 1826 Pennsylvania, after conferring with Maryland, passed 
 an act intended to prevent and punish kidnapping while, at the same 
 time, it enforced the returning of fugitive slaves, and prescribed the 
 method of seizure. In 1839 one Edward Prigg went into Pennsylva- 
 nia, and, in disregard of the Act of 1826, carried out of the State a 
 colored woman, Margaret Morgan, and her children, to restore them 
 to a former mistress, Margaret Ashmore, in Maryland, from whom 
 
346 SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 the woman and her children except one born in Pennsylvania 
 had escaped some years before. Prigg was brought to trial and found 
 guilty of kidnapping, not, however, because he had taken fugitive 
 slaves, but because he had taken them without regarding the method 
 prescribed by the law of the State. The case was carried to the 
 Supreme Court by agreement between the States of Pennsylvania 
 and Maryland, and its decision excited universal discussion, and quite 
 as universal surprise and resentment. Many learned, for the first 
 time, what the compromises of the Constitution really meant, though 
 few, probably, saw foreshadowed in this decision the Fugitive Slave 
 Act of 1850, and the decision of the same court in the Dred Scott 
 case in 1856. 
 
 The court declared that to secure to the slaveholders the complete 
 Decision of right and title of ownership in their slaves, as property, in 
 the court. everv State of the Union, to which they might escape, was a 
 fundamental article of the Constitution without which the Union 
 could not have been formed. That this positive, unqualified right, no 
 State law could qualify, regulate, control, or restrain. That the slave- 
 owner could seize his fugitive slave wherever he found him, if he 
 could do so without a breach of the peace, could seize, that is, one 
 claimed as a slave, without question of his right or title, in the streets 
 of Boston, as he would unquestioned in New Orleans or Charleston. 
 Hut though the Constitution thus executed itself, it was the duty of 
 Congress to enforce this right by special law, which it had done by the 
 Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 ; and as the right to legislate upon the 
 subject belonged to that body alone, all State legislation whatever 
 its object, whether to protect its own citizens, to require evidence of 
 the legality of the ownership of the slave, or even to aid the claim- 
 ant in the recapture was unconstitutional and void. One privilege, 
 however, was left to the free States : they might forbid their own 
 magistrates to act, as the law of 1793 required them to do, though 
 the magistrates might act unless they were so forbidden. Yet under 
 their general police power, the States might pass laws for the arrest 
 of fugitive slaves, to remove them from their borders or otherwise 
 protect themselves, a saving clause intended for the protection of 
 those States which presumed all colored persons to be slaves who 
 could not prove they were free, and sold them to the highest bidder 
 at public sale, if no owner appeared to take them away, which was 
 the law in the District of Columbia : and finally, the law of Pennsyl- 
 vania of 1826 a part of the title and object of which was, " the pro- 
 tection of free people of color ; and to prevent kidnapping " under 
 which Prigg was indicted, was pronounced unconstitutional and void. 
 Hy this decision the country was taught that the law of slavery was 
 
1841.] THE PRIGG CASE. 347 
 
 supreme in the free as in the slave States; that the right of the slave- 
 holder to his human property could tolerate, under the Constitution, 
 no interference even for the sake of protecting the liberties of free- 
 men. It rudely interrupted the controversy then going on between 
 Governor Seward and the Governor of Virginia, by deciding that the 
 law of New York, giving the right of trial by jury to a fugitive slave, 
 was unconstitutional. There were differences of opinion among the 
 justices on some points of the decision, mainly upon whether Congress 
 had so exclusive a control of the subject as to prohibit any legislation 
 by the States. On this point Chief Justice Taney went far beyond 
 the Court, though agreeing with it in the main ; it was the duty of 
 the free State, he thought, to legislate, not for the protection of its 
 own citizens, or on behalf of any unfortunate person who might be 
 unjustly seized as a fugitive from labor, but to aid the slaveholder 
 everywhere in recapturing the slave. In the doctrines here advanced 
 by him was the germ of the decision in the Dred Scott case ^^ g,.^ 
 in 1856, when Taney gave it as the opinion of the Supreme declslon 
 Court, that as, at the adoption of the Constitution, the negro was 
 regarded as one who "had no rights which the white man is bound 
 to respect/' so he was not, and never could be, a citizen of the United 
 States the doctrine which at this moment, fifteen years after eman- 
 cipation, rules the thought and the action of the South, that this is 
 " a white man's government." 
 
 So everywhere the anti-slavery agitation made its way, and con- 
 vulsed the nation. And nowhere else was that agitation so pro- 
 found, or the result more significant or more permanent, than in the 
 Church. The Southern Church, in its defence of slavery, The Church 
 was driven to maintain its divine character ; at the North and 8laTe| 7- 
 the world and the Church were agreed that the cost of meddling 
 with the subject of measuring Southern conduct and Northern re- 
 sponsibility by the New Testament and the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence would be too great. The chief religious organizations by 
 their acts and by their words gave the support of their enormous in- 
 fluence and power to slavery, till one after another they divided into 
 New and Old, into the Church North and the Church South ; for the 
 earnest anti-slavery minority strove, year after year, to bring them to 
 deal with man-owning and man-selling, which they all condemned in 
 the abstract, as they dealt with other sins. No newspapers were so 
 bitter in their hostility to the anti-slavery movement as the religious 
 journals which represented the old organizations ; no one class of the 
 community reflected so faithfully and so zealously that hostility as 
 tlieir clergymen ; keen as the eyes of the world were to detect the 
 colored intruder in any place of public resort, they were not so keen 
 
348 
 
 SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY. 
 
 [CHA1-. XIII. 
 
 as the eyes of the Church in discovering any trace of African blood 
 in one who should kneel in prayer anywhere but in the negro-pew, 
 or ask for admission to the Lord's Table. The natural and inevita- 
 ble result was that in the end, while the Church could only hinder 
 and delay the emancipation of the slaves, multitudes of their own 
 members were emancipated from ecclesiastical domination. It was 
 no less an insult to the common sense than to the religious convic- 
 tions of many serious Christians, that the General Assembly of the 
 
 Old School Presby- 
 terians should reject 
 a resolution calling 
 upon them " to pu- 
 rify the Church of 
 this great iniquity " 
 by treating it as 
 they treated " all 
 other sins of great 
 magnitude." For 
 while declaring 
 that they did "not 
 think it for the ed- 
 ification of the 
 Church for this 
 body to take any 
 action on the sub- 
 ject," the same 
 meeting declared 
 "promiscuous 
 dancing " to be so 
 " entirely unscrip- 
 tural," and "so 
 wholly inconsistent with the 
 spirit of Christ," and with " pro- 
 priety of Christian deportment and 
 
 The Negro- Pew. [An Actual V.ew.] pur i ty () f heart," aS to Call for tll6 6X- 
 
 ercise of Church discipline. They did not choose to remember that 
 in the Southern churches, which they "fellowshipped," there was no 
 rebuke for that promiscuous relation between the men and women 
 of three millions of people which had taken the place of legal and 
 Marriage Christian marriage. In North Carolina and Georgia it had 
 among" been considered for the edification of Baptist associations to 
 slaves. declare that where husband and wife were separated by 
 sale, for the pecuniary benefit of the master, either might take a 
 
1841.] THE QUESTION IN THE CHURCHES. 349 
 
 new husband or a, new wife. It was difficult to evade the question, if 
 these people were men and women, and not brutes to be held as prop- 
 erty, whether their pretended owners were to be recognized as unof- 
 fending Christians by churches which maintained the right of disci- 
 pline over their members. It was a question which shook the Church 
 to its foundations and could not be stilled. As the gradual encroach- 
 ments of the slaveholding dynasty proved how grievously the second 
 and third generations had departed from the political faith of the 
 founders of the Republic, so the anti-slavery agitation in the churches 
 showed that they had fallen away even more lamentably from the 
 testimonies and the discipline of earlier days. From the sowing of 
 such seed, the red harvest was ripening. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PROGRESS OF SOUTHERN RULE. 
 
 THE SECOND SEMINOLE WAR REMOVAL OF THE CHEROKEES COST OF A SLAVE- 
 HUNT. TROUBLE ON THE CANADIAN FRONTIER. BURNING OF THE CAROLINE. 
 TRIAL OF McLEOD. THE LOG-CABIN CAMPAIGN OF 1840. DEATH OF PRESIDENT 
 HARRISON. SUCCESSION OF VICE-PRESIDENT TYLER. HE BREAKS WITH THE 
 WHIGS. His SOUTHERN POLICY. THE ASHBURTON TREATY. EASTERN AND 
 NORTHWESTERN BOUNDARIES. THE DORR WAR OF RHODE ISLAND. THE AN- 
 NEXATION OF TEXAS. THE MANNER AND PURPOSE OF IT. ELECTION OF JAMES 
 K. POLK. WAR WITH MEXICO. ITS RESULTS. ANNEXATION OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 sem- 
 
 THE second Seminole War, though begun under the administration 
 ^ Jackson, dragged slowly through all the years of that of 
 y an g uren? an( j was no ^ indeed, quite finished till the sum- 
 mer of 1842. It was a war, like all other Indian wars, for the pos- 
 session of the lands of the natives; but it arose primarily like the 
 former war with the Seminoles from a wish to reduce to slavery the 
 maroons of Florida, and the determination of South Carolina and 
 Georgia not to have so near their borders an asylum for fugitive slaves. 
 It was not because the Seminoles were not sufficiently peaceable when 
 unmolested, that their removal to a reservation beyond the Missis- 
 sippi was demanded ; the chief reason for hostility against them was, 
 that they would not give up to slavery the blacks who by long asso- 
 ciation and intermarriage had become identified with their tribe, and 
 who in the swamps and Everglades led a free and happy, if a savage 
 life. So long as this state of things continued, Florida was not practi- 
 cally slave territory, and to make slave territory was the object of the 
 purchase from Spain. 
 
 A treaty had been signed at Camp Moultrie, a few miles south of 
 St. Augustine, in 1823, by which the Indians were confined to a res- 
 ervation on the eastern peninsula; but this did not cure the difficulty, 
 and the territorial Legislature petitioned Congress for their 
 removal. By the Treaty of Payne's Lauding, negotiated in 
 May, 1832, it was stipulated that seven chiefs of the Semi- 
 noles should examine the country assigned to the Creeks, west of the 
 
 's 
 
1832.] 
 
 THE SEMIXOLES. 
 
 351 
 
 Mississippi, and if they found it satisfactory, and that the two tribes 
 could live together amicably, the Seminoles were to be removed thither 
 within three years ; surrendering all their lands in Florida, and receiv- 
 ing fifteen thousand dollars and an annuity, besides certain supplies. 
 It was also stipulated that the demands for "slaves and other prop- 
 erty" stolen or destroyed by the Seminoles should be investigated, 
 and, if proved just, 
 be liquidated by the 
 United States to the 
 amount of seven 
 thousand dollars. 
 President Jackson, 
 determined that the 
 Seminoles should re- 
 move at all hazards, 
 sent a special com- 
 mission to the West, 
 to convince the seven 
 chiefs that the coun- 
 try was eminently 
 desirable, and a sup- 
 plementary treaty 
 was obtained from 
 those seven, who 
 signed it without con- 
 sulting the rest of the 
 tribe. 
 
 A portion of the 
 Seminoles were un- 
 alterably opposed to 
 removing, as thev 
 
 / 
 
 feared to come under 
 the domination of 
 the Creeks, from 
 whom they had se- 
 ceded eighty years before. Among the leaders of this party was a 
 young chief named Osceola, son of a half-breed woman and Oscoola and 
 an Englishman. His wife, the daughter of a slave, had his p ^ rt> ~ 
 been treacherously seized and carried off, to be surrendered to her 
 mother's master. At a council, Osceola drew his knife and drove 
 it into the table, saying, " The only treaty I will execute is with 
 this!" The exact point of the controversy turned upon the interpre- 
 tation of a pronoun in the Treaty of Payne's Landing. The pream- 
 
 Osceola at the Council. 
 
-s mas- 
 
 352 PROGRESS OF SOUTHERN RULE. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 ble, after providing for the mission of the seven chiefs, stipulated that, 
 ''should they be satisfied with the character of the country," etc., the 
 removal was to take place. President Jackson held that " they" re- 
 ferred only to the seven deputies; Osceola and his party held that it 
 referred to the opinion of the whole tribe after they should hear the 
 report of the deputation. Osceola's party swore to punish with in- 
 stant death any Indian who should prepare for removal, and the thi'eat 
 was executed upon one of the chiefs. 
 
 Hostilities broke out in 1835, and under Osceola's leadership the 
 Seminolcs were aggressive, vigilant, and merciless. In De- 
 cember, Major Francis L. Dade, with about a hundred and 
 forty men, set out from Tampa Bay on an expedition against the hos- 
 tile Indians. When they reached the Big Withlacoochee, they were 
 fired upon by an unseen foe, and Dade and nearly half of his men 
 fell at the first volley. The remainder took shelter behind trees, and 
 the skilful service of a six-pounder with grape and canister drove off 
 the Indians, who had been hidden in the tall grass. The survivors 
 of Dade's command immediately erected a small breast-work of logs; 
 but in less than an hour the savages returned in immense numbers, 
 and fired steadily upon the little band from every direction, till all 
 were shot down. After they had gone with the arms and accoutre- 
 ments, a band of negroes came up and butchered the wounded, except 
 two who escaped. Three days later, General Clinch defeated, on the 
 Withlacoochee, a band of Seminoles under Osceola. 
 
 The Territory was now in a general state of alarm. The settle- 
 ments in the interior were broken up, and the white inhabitants 
 General flocked to the larger towns and forts. General Gaines with 
 Games. seven hundred men sailed from New Orleans in February, 
 1835, landed at Fort Brooke on Tampa Bay, and attempted a march 
 across the country. But as he was without sufficient provisions, and 
 had no knowledge of the ground, he was soon compelled to turn 
 back, and was attacked at a point on the Withlacoochee where he 
 had expected to find a ferry. While he constructed rafts, he was 
 held in close siege by the Indians, and would perhaps have been de- 
 feated, had not Clinch finally corne to his assistance. General Scott, 
 who resented Gaines's movement as " interloping," then assumed 
 command in Florida. The Indians improved every opportunity to 
 murder express riders and isolated families and to cut off wagon- 
 trains, 1 and attacked in force the post at Micanopy, but were driven 
 off. The summer of 1836 was exceedingly sickly, and the forces at 
 all the posts were depleted by disease. Fort King and Fort Drane 
 
 1 It was said that these outrages were often the work of white men in disguise, and in 
 t'.vo cases this was proved to be the fact. 
 
1835.] 
 
 THE SECOND SEMINOLE WAR. 
 
 353 
 
 had to be abandoned, and later in the summer Micanopy, which 
 gave up a large tract of country to the Indians. In an action near 
 Newnansville, the Indians were defeated, and in the autumn a force 
 under General Call routed them on the Withlacoochee, but failed to 
 drive them from the Wahoo Swamp. 
 
 Once more a change of commanders was tried, when General 
 Thomas S. Jesup superseded Call, witli eight thousand G( . neral 
 men, and entered upon a winter campaign. The Indians Jesup 
 were forced from their positions on the Withlacoochee, and pursued 
 toward the Everglades, till in February, 1837, they sued for peace. 
 Nevertheless, five 
 days afterward they 
 made a determined 
 though unsuccessful 
 attempt to take Fort 
 Mellon. In March, 
 at Fort Dade, five of 
 the chiefs signed an 
 agreement to cease 
 from war, and await 
 the decision of the 
 Government as to 
 whether they might 
 remain in Florida. 
 General Jesup hav- 
 ing vainly urged 
 that such permis- 
 sion be given, about 
 seven hundred In- 
 dians and negroes were secured before the decision was announced to 
 them, and sent off to Tampa for shipment. Osceola and a few others 
 were sent to Charleston as prisoners, where Osceola soon died of 
 grief. In May, 1837, General Zachary Taylor succeeded General 
 Jesup. The remaining Indians and maroons were now so Ta > lor - 
 wary, and scattered themselves so widely in the swamps and woods, 
 that it was exceedingly difficult to follow them with an organized 
 force. Jesup had taken measures to procure bloodhounds Useo fbiood- 
 from Cuba, to track the refugees ; perhaps because a dog hounds - 
 of more sagacity was needed than the common hound trained for 
 negro-hunts on the Southern plantations. Taylor and the Administra- 
 tion approved the plan, and thirty-three hounds, with five Spaniards 
 to manage them, were imported from Cuba, at an expense of several 
 
 VOL. iv. 23 
 
 A Cuban Bloodhound 
 
354 
 
 PROGRESS OF SOUTHERN RULE. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 General 
 Worth. 
 
 thousand dollars. 1 But the dogs, trained only to track negroes, would 
 not take the scent of an Indian, and proved useless. 
 
 Taylor's plans were disarranged by the President, who sent Gen- 
 eral McComb to make peace with the Indians, and though Taylor 
 had defeated them at Okechobee on Christmas day, 1837, he too 
 was obliged to retire from the command, which then devolved upon 
 General VV. R. Armistead. During all this time, robbery and massa- 
 cre had been going on, and as fast as small parties of Seminoles and 
 negroes were captured they were sent to the reservation beyond the 
 Mississippi all save those whom any individual slaveholder chose to 
 claim as his property. One more change of commanders was resorted 
 to, when General William J. Worth, a man of more ability and more 
 discretion than any of his predecessors, in the spring of 1841 suc- 
 ceeded Armistead. In a summer campaign, Worth's troops, 
 in small parties, ascended the rivers and penetrated the 
 swamps to the islands, where they destroyed not only the shelters of 
 
 the enemy but many of the crops 
 on which they must depend for 
 the next winter. Worth then 
 made use of a chief who had 
 been brought to Tampa in irons, 
 to secure a peace. Assuring 
 him that he (Coacoochee) was 
 a powerful chief, and could bring 
 the war to a close, Worth bade 
 him name five of his fellow cap- 
 tives and set a time which should 
 be long enough for them to reach 
 the tribe, and tell them that un- 
 less they appeared at Tampa and 
 gave themselves up within that 
 time, Coacoochee and his fellow prisoners would be promptly hanged. 
 In a few days they surrendered themselves, and from this beginning 
 General Worth soon received the surrender of all the bauds, and sent 
 them to the West. 
 
 The war was ended at last, and it only remained to count the 
 
 gains, and the cost. Somewhat over five hundred persons 
 
 an.? the' had been reduced from freedom to bondage, and Florida 
 
 was no longer an asylum for fugitive slaves. That was the 
 
 1 " I wish it distinctly understood," wrote the General to the Department, " that my 
 ol>jcct in employing dogs is only to ascertain where the Indians can be found, not to worry 
 them." And the Secretary of War, Hon. Joel It. Poinsett, of South Carolina, who had 
 authorized the purchase of the hounds, outdid Taylor in his humane notions, directing that 
 the dogs be " mu/.zled and held in leash while following the enemy." 
 
 William J Worth. 
 
1837.] TROUBLE ON THE CANADIAN FRONTIER. 355 
 
 gain. The cost had been about forty million dollars twice as much 
 as was paid for the territories of Louisiana and Florida together, 
 and an unknown number of lives. It was estimated that for each 
 person reduced to slavery, eighty thousand dollars and the lives of 
 three white men had been expended. 
 
 But the war, long and costly as it was, as it dealt only with Indians 
 and negroes, seemed, at the moment, of less consequence than a men- 
 ace of hostilities on the northern border. A rebellion broke out in 
 Canada in 1837, and so great was the sympathy for the insurgents 
 on the American side, that General Scott was sent with a small 
 regular force, and with power to call upon the Governors of New 
 York and Michigan for volunteers in case of any serious 
 difficulty. In spite of the efforts to maintain the neutrality 
 of the United States, a small American steamboat, the a araRiver - 
 Caroline, made regular trips across Niagara River to carry supplies 
 to a party of five hundred insurgents on Navy Island. Captain. 
 Drew was sent from Chippewa with a considerable force on the 29th 
 of December, 1837, to capture this vessel. Not finding her at Navy 
 Island, Drew crossed to Grand Island, which was American territory, 
 boarded her, and, in the struggle with those on board, killed twelve 
 of them. The boat was towed into the stream, set on fire, and left 
 adrift to be carried down the rapids and hurled over the falls of Ni- 
 agara. . 
 
 The Government of the United States at once demanded redress ; 
 but no definite and satisfactory reply could be obtained for three 
 years. But in 1840, one McLeod, who boasted that he had partici- 
 pated in the affair, and had " killed a damned Yankee " with his 
 own hands, visited the American side of the river, where he was 
 under indictment for murder. He was at once arrested, and held for 
 trial. The British Government promptly came to the rescue with 
 a demand for his release, on the ground that what he had done was 
 an act of war, performed under the orders of his commanding officer, 
 for which he could not be punished by any civil tribunal. The Pres- 
 ident replied that no answer had yet been received to the question, 
 asked three years before and many times repeated, whether the de- 
 struction of the Caroline was an authorized act of war ; and that, in 
 any case, the Administration had no power to prevent a State court 
 from trying persons indicted within its jurisdiction. The Ministry 
 assumed a hostile attitude, and threatened war in case McLeod were 
 not released. The trial proceeded after the regular forms, and seemed 
 likely to bring the two countries into conflict ; but this calamity was 
 happily averted by a verdict of acquittal on the question of fact. 
 It was proved that McLeod had been asleep in Chippewa at the time 
 
 
356 PROGRESS OF SOUTHERN RULE. [CHAI-. XIV. 
 
 of the affair, and his story was wholly the product of his imagination. 
 The natural excitement to which such a trial and its possible results 
 gave rise was intensified by the attitude either of indifference or 
 obstinacy assumed by the acting President, Tyler. In spite of the 
 indignant remonstrances of Governor Seward, a United States Dis- 
 trict Attorney for New York was permitted to act as counsel for 
 McLeod, and retain his office, presenting the remarkable spectacle of 
 a law officer of the Government attempting to prove that in a case 
 which might lead to war his own Government was wrong. 
 
 The political revolution of 1840, by which Mr. Van Huron was 
 defeated, and General Harrison elected, was, as we now know, an 
 entire surprise to the President himself. Looking back upon 
 son ram- it, it is easy to see that dissatisfaction with the mechanical 
 administration of party power, had as much to do with the 
 change as the popularity of the new President, or any measures to 
 which his partisans were committed. The financial crisis of 1837 had 
 spread to every part of the country. The West at last felt the 
 " pressure," as the pecuniary disturbance was popularly called, as 
 much as the financial centres. The attitude of the Government in 
 refusing any effort for temporary relief, irritated men who could sell 
 nothing, could buy nothing, and had debts to pay. Still the State 
 elections of 1839, as has been seen, had been favorable to the Admin- 
 istration. They seemed to confirm Mr. Van Buren in his appeal to a 
 "sober second thought," which became fora generation proverbial. 
 The Whig members of Congress proposed a national convention, to 
 which should be intrusted a nomination for the Presidency the first 
 in the series of such meetings, which in their turn were to outgrow 
 their usefulness. This convention was held at Harrisburg on the 4th 
 of December, 1839, fifteen months before the President to be elected 
 could take his chair. The firmness of the opposition appeared at once 
 in the representation. Every State sent delegates, except South 
 Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Arkansas. 
 
 On the first ballot Mr. Clay had one hundred and three votes, Gen- 
 eral Harrison ninety-four, and General Scott fifty-seven. On the 
 fifth ballot one hundred and forty-eight votes were given to Harrison, 
 and he was named as the candidate. John Tyler, of Virginia, was 
 named as the Vice-president. It was the custom afterward to speak 
 of him as an accident. But at the period of the Convention the 
 leaders of the new-formed party had no such confidence of success 
 that they could neglect support anywhere. They wanted the votes 
 of all who were disaffected toward Mr. Van Buren. The State of 
 Virginia threw twenty-three votes at that time. All these had been 
 given to Mr. Clay in the Convention. It was clearly wise to concil- 
 
1840.J 
 
 THE LOG-CABTX CAMPAIGN. 357 
 
 iate so strong a State, and the nomination of Mr. Tyler was due to 
 the desire to do so. 
 
 The canvass which followed this nomination began a new era in 
 elections. The same changes in travel which had made the MaM . mect . 
 Convention possible made possible immense gatherings of " lg " 
 the people at central points, for what was called the kk ratification *' of 
 the nomination of the opposition. Only too late did the leaders of 
 the Administration party learn the value of such mass-meetings, as 
 they came to be called. On the 4th of May nearly twenty thousand 
 young men gathered at Baltimore, the largest assembly ever held in 
 the country. More than one thousand came from a State as distant 
 as Massachusetts. The only object, of course, was to show the at- 
 tachment of the members to the cause they upheld ; they showed it 
 in songs, in the applause of eager speeches, in fervid resolutions, and 
 adjourned to meet in Washington at the inauguration of General 
 Harrison on the 4th of March. At the same time the smaller Con- 
 vention, authorized by the Democratic leaders to make their nomina- 
 tions, met in the same city. Mr. Van Buren was named as the 
 candidate for President unanimously. But for Vice-president no 
 nomination was made, and the determination was left to the respec- 
 tive States. 
 
 The popular canvass which followed was marked with the same 
 differences as those which characterized the two Conventions. The 
 Whigs held everywhere those enormous, jovial meetings, and the 
 Administration party ridiculed them as unworthv the occasion. The 
 parts played by the Jackson men of 1825 and their antagonists 
 seemed to be wholly reversed. In the midst of the canvass, a phrase 
 thrown out by a Baltimore journal, 1 in its ridicule of General Harri- 
 son, gave a rallying cry to the opposition which was remembered for 
 a generation. The editor said of Plarrison that if anybody 
 would give him a pension of a few hundred dollars and a 
 barrel of hard cider, he would sit down in his log cabin con- derii i mb u - 
 tent for life. Some happy observer in the West seized on the un- 
 fortunate sneer. To ridicule the log cabin, in which every West- 
 ern man was born, ill became the representative of the democracy of 
 Andrew Jackson. From that moment the " log cabin " became the 
 symbol of the opposition. Log cabins were set on wheels and drawn 
 in processions. Large log cabins were built in the midst of crowded 
 cities, to be used as rallying places for the faithful. Ardent politi- 
 cians wore log-cabin buttons and handkerchiefs, and smoked log-cabin 
 cigars. Even laundresses advertised that they were able to do up 
 shirts in the most approved log-cabin style. Log-cabin songs were 
 
 1 The Baltimore 
 
 
358 
 
 PROGRESS OF SOUTHERN RULE. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 heard everywhere, often sung with choruses of tens of thousands, 
 uniting in enthusiasm for " Tippecanoe and Tyler too.'' 
 
 Between sucli popular excitement on the one side, and the decorous 
 methods of the Administration, the prestige which Andrew Jackson 
 had given to Mr. Van Buren vanished. His only considerable 
 van Buren - s strength, as it proved, was that which he had gained by his 
 potion. loyalty to the South. That loyalty even Calhoun for 
 years his rival and political enemy could not doubt ; for Van 
 
 Buren, as President 
 of the Senate, had 
 given, in 1836, his 
 casting vote in favor 
 of Calhoun 's bill 
 making it a penal 
 offence in postmas- 
 ters knowingly to 
 permit any anti-sla- 
 very matter to be 
 delivered from the 
 mails ; and he had 
 assured the South 
 that he " must go 
 into the Presidential 
 chair the inflexible 
 and uncompromising 
 opponent of any at- 
 tempt on the part of 
 Congress to abolish 
 slavery in the Dis- 
 \' trict of Columbia, 
 
 Martin Van Buren. against the wishes of 
 
 the slaveholding 
 
 States." And even in this he gave the benefit of a doubt to the 
 slaveholders, for, as he said in the same letter, he was not quite sure 
 that Congress had not complete power over the subject in the District. 
 The nomination of John Tyler by the Whigs did not give them Vir- 
 ginia. That State, with South Carolina and Alabama, voted for Van 
 Buren. His friends only carried Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas, in 
 the West, all small States then, and the ever-faithful New Hamp- 
 shire, in New England. All the Middle States voted for Harrison, 
 though this was the section to which Mr. Van Buren himself belonged. 
 It was not the first nor the last instance in which a candidate for 
 the Presidency could not gain the support of the region from which 
 
1841.] 
 
 ACCESSION OF TYLER. 
 
 359 
 
 ands 
 
 in: 
 
 strong 
 
 lie came. These few States, loyal to the memory of Jackson and the 
 instructions of Calhoun, could only give the President sixty votes ; 
 the one hundred and seventy-five electoral votes of the other States 
 were given to General Harrison. His majority of the ballots given 
 by the people themselves was about 146,000 in a vote of 2,403,000, 
 of all the States but South Carolina. In that State the Legislature 
 threw the vote, and no precise estimate, therefore, could be made of 
 the popular preference. 
 
 On the 4th of April, after a short illness, the President died, at the 
 age of sixty-seven years the first chief magistrate of the Harrison's 
 United States who had died in office. In his brief term he death 
 had retained the Western openness of which his friends had boasted : 
 he had permitted himself to be 
 overwhelmed by visits of those 
 who would congratulate, would 
 advise, or would seek office, and, 
 fairly exhausted by such de- 
 on his good nature, the 
 constitution gave way, 
 which had not quailed in fron- 
 tier life or Indian warfare. His 
 death brought into office, by the 
 united vote of the Northern States, 
 a Virginian, whose whole public 
 life had committed him to the 
 State Rights theory, as Jeffer- 
 son proclaimed it. The next 
 four years proved that Mr. Tyler 
 was a person with whom self- 
 conceit led to arrogance, while 
 it blinded him to considerations of a large, national policy, even 
 it' he were capable of grasping one. The control of the Accewsionof 
 Executive office by a bigot to the Southern policy, precipi- Tyler - 
 tated, as it proved, what has since been called the irrepressible con- 
 flict. At the outset, the Cabinet, and Mr. Clay, who held quite as 
 large a share as Mr. Webster in leading the party, tried to persuade 
 themselves that Mr. Tyler would be true to the power which had 
 made him what he was. He took the oath prescribed for the Presi- 
 dent u for greater caution," although he considered that no other 
 oath was necessary than that which, as Vice-president, he had already 
 taken. In an address to the people, he expressed the opinion that 
 there should be a radical change in the method of appointing the 
 agents entrusted with the custody of the public moneys. He de- 
 
 John Tyler. 
 
360 PROGRESS OF SOUTHERN RULE. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 nounced removal from office for none but political reason, but said 
 that active partisanship was sufficient reason. As to the financial 
 embarrassment of the country and the relation to it of the Adminis- 
 tration, he condemned the Sub-treasury Act of Van Buren, and said 
 he should give his sanction to any constitutional measures which 
 Congress might propose for the restoration of a sound cir- 
 culating medium. The address was received with satisfac- 
 tion by the Whigs, as announcing good Whig doctrine. But the 
 extra session of Congress, summoned by President Harrison to meet 
 in May, soon showed that the President meant to have a policy of 
 his own. In this first message he recognized the veto of the United 
 States Bank as approved by the nation, the failure of the State 
 bank system was obvious, but as some " fiscal agent " was neces- 
 sary, the selection of that agent should be left to the wisdom of Con- 
 gress, and any constitutional measure, he promised, should receive 
 his approval. 
 
 Whether Mr. Tyler then meant to break with the Whig party and 
 its leaders, has never been made known. In truth, he was not- a man 
 of whose purposes or intentions much need ever be said, so freely 
 was he moved by impulses, whether of flatterers or of passions. The 
 understanding that he had doubts as to the rights of Congress to es- 
 tablish fiscal institutions anywhere within the States, led to a plan 
 for a central bank in the District of Columbia. The certainty that 
 his views were speculative or theoretic rather than such as were de- 
 rived from a practical knowledge of finance, and a wish to apply it 
 in a practical way, led Congress to the unusual course of asking the 
 Secretary of the Treasury to submit a plan for a fiscal agent. Mr. 
 Ewing accordingly submitted such a plan. The details are now of 
 no importance. The opposition in the Whig party and out of it was 
 strong enough to change the project materially before the President 
 received it for his signature, and returned it with his veto. He 
 objected especially to the discount power of the proposed branches. 
 Congress was persuaded by the leaders of the Whig party to pass a 
 new bill which did not grant the privilege of discount banks. This 
 also was vetoed by the President on the 9th of September, on the 
 ground that it created " a national bank to operate per se 
 over the Union." With this veto came a final breach be- 
 tween him and the party that had elected him. The Cabinet, ex- 
 cepting Mr. Webster, resigned. They put their resignation on the 
 ground that he had not kept faith with them. They were careful to 
 say that he was entitled, of course, to his opinion on the subject of 
 the Bank. But they declared that he had asked his Cabinet to stand 
 by him and procure the passage of such a bill as he now vetoed. 
 
1841.] TYLER BREAKS WITH THE WHIGS. 361 
 
 They had done so, and the President had then failed to keep his 
 promises. To these attacks no reply was made ; perhaps none could 
 be made. From that moment to his death, his reputation for polit- 
 ical integrity was lost with the country. 
 
 The consequences of this first struggle between the President and 
 the Whig party were of much more importance and signifi- FiDancia i 
 cance than any that attached to it as a mere financial affairs - 
 measure. The rapid increase of the country in wealth, soon gave rise 
 to operations in exchange and other details of finance so large that 
 the business of the Government was no longer of special importance ; 
 and the simple, almost Arcadian, device of the Sub-treasury proved 
 quite sufficient for the administrations of the next twenty years, 
 which were always spending up to the very edge of their income. 
 Mr. Tyler's declaration of personal independence threw him and the 
 country into the arms of the extreme Southern interest, at a moment 
 when it seemed as if that interest had received its severest check. 
 Van Buren had played the part of a " Northern man with South- 
 ern principles," till he had hesitated to open the door of the Union 
 when the slaveholders knocked for the admission of Texas. His 
 recompense was the scanty vote of four Southern States, while he 
 was deserted everywhere else but in New Hampshire, Illinois, and 
 Missouri. So stern a lesson was given, even thus early, to the alli- 
 ance between the Northern Democrats and the Southern slaveholders. 
 But the moment when Tyler broke with the party which chose him, 
 he fell back for support upon his own State and the extreme South. 
 He soon made close alliance with Calhoun, and what was left of his 
 administration was devoted to an extreme Southern policy. 
 
 Of this change of policy the annexation of Texas to the United 
 States was the first result. The first communication 'which Phiiipxoian 
 citizens of the United States had with that territory was in In Texl "- 
 a few expeditions made by Philip Nolan, an adventurous Kentuckian, 
 for the capture of wild horses. He made these expeditions in 1801 
 under license of the Spanish government of New Orleans. But so 
 jealous was the Spanish Crown of encroachments from the United 
 States, that by special order from Spain, the Spanish Governor of 
 Chihuahua surrounded Nolan's party, killed him, and took them pris- 
 oners, in entire violation of his pass of safe-conduct. From that time 
 to 1820, a series of incursions were made into the territory by adven- 
 turers from the western part of the United States, all of whom 
 were driven off, or killed, or imprisoned by the Spanish authorities. 
 In 1820, however, Moses Austin, an American, obtained a grant of 
 land in Texas, and his son Stephen Austin in 1822 took a body of 
 colonists to settle there. 
 
PROGRESS OF SOUTHERN RULE. 
 
 [CiiAi-. XIV. 
 
 By the constitution of Mexico, slavery WHS prohibited in Texas, 
 The Texas ail( ^ that alone was sufficient reason why the South should 
 question. w i s h to control it. Separation was the first step to be 
 taken ; the rest would follow. Jackson, when President, tried to 
 buy the province, as Adams had done before him, but this failing, 
 other measures were resorted to. 1 Mr. Poinsett, the Minister to 
 Mexico, wrote home that " we can never expect to extend our bound- 
 ary south of the Sabine without quarrelling with these people." 
 The quarrel was undertaken by General Samuel Houston, a Tennes- 
 
 The Alamo. 
 
 seean, and a friend of the President's, who went to Texas, ostensibly 
 as an emigrant, actually as a revolutionist. All this was an open 
 secret hardly disguised, never seriously denied. In the autumn of 
 1835 the province declaimed its independence ; in the spring of 1836, 
 about a month after the siege of Alamo, where the Texan garrison 
 was killed to a man, the decisive battle of San Jacinto was fought, 
 
 1 Adams in his Diary says that "Jackson was so sharp-set for Texas, that from the first 
 year of his administration he set his double engines to work, of negotiating to buy Texas 
 with one hand, and instigating the people of that province to revolt against Mexico with 
 the other. Houston was his agent for the rebellion, and Anthony Butler, a Mississippi 
 land-jobber in Texas, for the purchase. Butler kept him for five years on the tenter-hooks 
 of expectation, negotiating, wheedling, promising, and finally boasting that he had secured 
 the bargain by bribing a priest with half a million of dollars." That method of negotia- 
 tion, however, Jackson absolutely forbade. The priest was to compass his end by the use 
 of influence ; precisely how, can only be conjectured, but he was the father-confessor of 
 the sister-in-law of Santa. Anna, the Mexican President. 
 
1844.] TYLER'S POLICY. 383 
 
 Houston being in command of the Texans ; Santa Anna, the Presi- 
 dent of Mexico, was taken prisoner, and he agreed that the inde- 
 pendence of Texas should be acknowledged. 
 
 When the newspaper report of this event reached Washington, 
 and before any official tidings could be received, the Senate, 
 in indecent haste, took up the question of recognition. PIM>^ 
 Calhonn urged, not merely recognition, but immediate an- 
 nexation. The times were not yet ripe, however, for that measure, 
 and all that could be done at the moment was to provide by a resolu- 
 tion, offered by Clay, that the independence of the State should be ac- 
 knowledged when there was sufficient evidence that she could main- 
 tain it. Another year passed, and that evidence was not forthcoming. 
 Then, only three or four days before the expiration of Jackson's term 
 of office, an amendment was made to the appropriation bill providing 
 for the pay of a diplomatic agent to Texas, as an independent power, 
 should the lacking evidence of her ability to be one be received by 
 the President. Andrew Jackson was not the man as the reader 
 has seen in more than one instance to be hampered by legislative 
 restraints if they stood in the way of his purposes. Almost the last 
 act of his official life was to sign the appropriation bill with this 
 amendment, and immediately appoint the official agent to Texas, 
 thereby acknowledging her independence. The first step in the 
 great conspiracy to get possession of territory large enough for five 
 new slave States, was secure. 
 
 From that moment the project of annexation was pushed with 
 great persistence, but without much apparent success till about the 
 middle of Tyler's administration. It was charged that a corrupt in- 
 terest in well-nigh worthless Texan stocks influenced Ty- Tv | er - a 
 ler's counsels ; it can hardly be questioned that speculations P "' 1100 - 
 in Texan lands gave great vigor to the proposed measure. But it was 
 the interests of States, not of individuals, that gave to the scheme its 
 importance and strength. An ex-president of Texas, but a native of 
 the United States, General Mirabeuu B. Lamar, when on a visit 
 to Georgia in 1844, wrote a letter in reply to a request to deliver a 
 public address, in which he sets forth with great frankness the rea- 
 sons for annexation, with the more frankness, probably, 1<nmar . s 
 that his letter was addressed to a Southern audience, printed lctter - 
 obscurely in a Southern city, and not intended for Northern reading. 
 Annexation, he said, "addressed itself with special and peculiar force 
 to the people of the South." On the question of slavery their in- 
 terest and that of Texas were identical, and the " overthrow of the 
 system in either country would lead to its extirpation in the other." 
 There was great danger of that catastrophe. The majority of the 
 

 364 
 
 PROGRESS OF SOUTHERN RULE. [CiiAi>. XIV. 
 
 people were not the owners of slaves ; if the independence of the 
 State were much longer deferred, Mexico under the alleged influ- 
 ence of England refusing it till slavery was prohibited, this ma- 
 jority of non-slaveholders might soon begin to ask, " How long shall 
 we suffer for the benefit of slaveholders?" And this majority was 
 constantly augmenting by the immigration of free laborers, while the 
 timid slaveholders, with laborers that were property, held back till 
 annexation should settle the question. " I do not see how it is pos- 
 sible," he said, " in her present unacknowledged condition to main- 
 tain it [slavery] against the tremendous efforts which will be made 
 for its subversion. And when slavery gives way in Texas, the ruin 
 of the Southern States is inevitable." That ruin, he predicted, 
 
 might come within half a century, 
 through the moral influence of 
 a great free republic on the south- 
 west, combining with all the rest 
 of the world " in a sleepless cru- 
 sade," while slaves, for whom 
 there was no outlet, would so 
 accumulate that they would ex- 
 haust the soil of the Southern 
 States, cease to be valuable to 
 their owners, and become a bur- 
 den. But if Texas was annexed 
 to the Union, how brilliant a 
 future was presented to the slave 
 States ! In that immense and 
 fertile region was an almost ex- 
 haustless field of wealth in rais- 
 ing cotton by slave-labor, an al- 
 most exhaustless market for the surplus crop of negroes at the South. 
 This, in brief, was the argument of this remarkable letter, and no 
 Abolitionist could have stated the case with more frankness or with 
 more truth. It covered the whole ground. 
 
 When Texas asked for admission during Van Buren's administra- 
 tion, and the President declined, it killed him politically. Mr. Web- 
 ster's unwillingness to abet it, as Tyler's Secretary of State, caused 
 his removal from the Cabinet. He tried to persuade his 
 
 The ques- 
 tion of ad- old friends at the North to interest themselves in united 
 
 mission. 
 
 opposition to the measure, and failed ; and this failure, it 
 was supposed, was one source of the irritation which he afterwards 
 showed when the anti-slavery sentiment of the country sought his 
 help in vain. Before long the country knew that the danger was 
 
 Sain Houston. 
 
1842.] THE ASHBURTOX TREATY. 365 
 
 real. Mr. Webster was removed, and Mr. Upshur of Virginia took 
 his place. 
 
 Had Mr. Webster's public career come then and there to an end, 
 his memory would have been revered for his devotion to principle. 
 As a statesman he had already signalized his administration of the 
 office of Secretary of State by the adjustment of the boundary ques- 
 tion with Great Britain, which had been for more than half 
 a century a menace to the pence of the two nations. Lord burton" 
 Ashburton was sent by England to this country in 1842 
 on a special mission, and the terms of a treaty were agreed upon be- 
 tween him and Mr. Webster. The most difficult question in the set- 
 tlement related to the northeastern boundary defining the limits of 
 the State of Maine. Between the line claimed by England and that 
 claimed by Maine, for which her people were at one time anxious 
 to involve the country in war, lay a territory of over twelve thou- 
 sand square miles, or larger than the whole of Vermont. Much of 
 it is of little worth, either for agriculture or for any possible military 
 operations. The worst part of the route of Arnold's expedition 
 against Quebec in 1775, lay through this tract, and that operation 
 was never likely to be repeated. The line was agreed upon as it 
 now stands on all modern maps of Maine, giving to the United States 
 seven thousand square miles of the disputed territory, and to Great 
 Britain five thousand, with a stipulation for free navigation of St. 
 John's River. The northern boundary of Vermont and New York 
 was supposed to be the forty-fifth parallel of latitude. But it had 
 been shown that the line surveyed as such was slightly erroneous, 
 and a correction of it would have thrown Rouse's Point, and a narrow 
 strip of land held in good faith by citizens of Vermont, on the Canada 
 side. It was agreed not to make the correction. 
 
 On the northwestern boundary, St. George's Island, containing 
 forty square miles, in the passage between Lakes Superior and Huron, 
 was given to the United States ; as was also Isle Royale, near the 
 western end of Lake Superior. The line was thence traced from 
 the mouth of Pigeon River up through the chain of rivers and small 
 lakes to the Lake of the Woods, and thence along the forty-ninth 
 parallel to the Gulf of Georgia, on the Pacific coast, as it now 
 stands on all good maps. 
 
 The Treaty also provided for the rendition of fugitives charged in 
 either country with " the crime of murder, or assault to commit mur- 
 der, or piracy, or arson, or robbery, or foi-gery, or the utterance of 
 forged paper," on the production of sufficient evidence to warrant 
 the arrest and trial of the person so accused in the place where he 
 should be found. And it also gave pledges of renewed, efforts to sup- 
 
366 PROGRESS OF SOUTHERX RULE. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 press the African slave-trade. Ratifications were exchanged at Lon- 
 don in October, and the Treaty was proclaimed by the President on 
 the 10th of November. It was officially designated as the' Treaty of 
 Washington, but was popularly called the Ash burton Treaty. The 
 opposition in England called it " the Ashburton capitulation ; " and 
 fault was also found with it in the United States, as conceding too 
 much to England, though it was probably as good a settlement as 
 could then have been made. 
 
 By a subsequent Treaty ratified in July, 1846. the boundary -line 
 was continued westward from the Rocky Mountains along the forty- 
 ninth parallel to the middle of the channel between Vancouver's 
 Island and the continent, thence southerly through that channel and 
 Fuca Straits to the Pacific, reserving the right of navigation in the 
 channel and straits to both parties. For more than twenty years 
 Oregon had been, by agreement, in the common occupancy of Great 
 Britain and the United States, subject to termination by either party 
 at twelve months 1 notice. The expediency of giving the notice was 
 the subject of long and heated debate in both Houses of Congress 
 during the winter of 1845-46. There was much talk of war; patri- 
 otic members as one of them said "had rather make that ter- 
 ritory the grave of his fellow-citizens, and color its soil with their 
 blood, than to surrender one inch of our soil." It was for the bound- 
 ary of 54 40' "fifty-four forty or fight," was the cant phrase of the 
 hour that these belligerent members were so ready to lay down the 
 lives of their constituents ; but the final settlement of this long vexed 
 question on the forty-ninth parallel was acquiesced in by the people 
 at large with entire equanimity. 
 
 The year was marked by another event, which wore, at one time, a 
 The Dorr threatening aspect. Though technically it was a rebellion, 
 War - and though it may be questioned whether the object aimed 
 
 at could not have been attained in a less turbulent way, the reform 
 at last secured was one which should have been granted long before. 
 Rhode Island was still governed by her old colonial charter, by which 
 the right of suffrage was restricted to freeholders, by ownership or 
 lease, and to their eldest sons, and the popular representation, under 
 the old apportionment, had become exceedingly unequal. Thus Prov- 
 idence was given four representatives in the lower house of the Legis- 
 lature, and Newport six ; but in 1840 Providence had twenty-three 
 thousand inhabitants, and Newport but eight thousand. Similar dis- 
 crepancies existed in other parts of the State, so that in the Legisla- 
 ture of that year twenty-nine thousand of the inhabitants were rep- 
 resented by seventy members, and eighty thousand by thirty-four 
 members. Here was reason enough for popular discontent. 
 
1841.] THE DORR WAR IN RHODE ISLAXD. 367 
 
 Repeated and vain appeals to the Legislature to take measures for 
 a reform of the Constitution failing, the people at length took the 
 matter into their own hands. A new Constitution was formed by a 
 popular convention in October, 1841, submitted to the people in De- 
 cember, and accepted by a majority of the votes of the male adult 
 population of the State. Under it an election was held the following 
 April, and Thomas Wilson Dorr was chosen Governor. The crisis 
 was reached on the 3d of May, when Dorr, and the other State officers 
 elected with him, attempted to assume the government and were re- 
 sisted by those who held office under the charter, at the head of whom 
 was Governor Samuel W. King. Both sides took up arms, and an 
 appeal was made to the Federal Government. The Dorr party were 
 twice May 18th and June 25th dispersed without bloodshed. 
 Dorr was convicted of high treason, and sentenced to imprisonment 
 for life, but after three years was released under a general amnesty, 
 and in 1851 was restored to full citizenship. Meanwhile the Legis- 
 lature yielding to the inevitable had called a convention to draw 
 up a constitution ; but its work, submitted to the people in March, 
 1842, was rejected. Another convention was called, and another con- 
 stitution was formed, which, being satisfactory to the people, was rati- 
 fied, and went into effect in May, 1843. 
 
 The negotiations with Texas, at once opened by Secretary Upshur, 
 were suddenly interrupted by his death. 1 The President then called 
 to his assistance the master to fill the place of the man. In the last of 
 March, 1844, he made Mr. Calhoun Secretary of State. He 
 believed in the annexation at any cost, and no scruples on any comet, ^re- 
 man's part now retarded the negotiation. Mr. Tyler justi- tary 
 fied his invitation to Texas to join the United States by what he 
 thought, or pretended to think, the certainty that Great Britain was 
 engaged in diplomatic intrigue to abolish slavery there. Four Pretexte for 
 times in verbal assurances to the American Minister at nne]I tion - 
 London, Mr. Everett, and in written assurances to the English Min- 
 ister at Washington, Mr. Pakenham Lord Aberdeen had declared 
 that his Government had not interfered, and did not intend to in- 
 terfere with slavery in Texas. It suited Mr. Calhoun to assume the 
 contrary, and to take measures therefore to annex that State to the 
 United States for the protection of slavery, the one paramount 
 function of the Federal Union. He made a treaty with Texas, which 
 was sent to the American Minister at Mexico to communicate it to 
 the Government. He represented that the efforts which Great Britain 
 was making to abolish slavery compelled the United States to make 
 the treaty without the assent of Mexico. But he offered Mexico ten 
 1 He was killed by the explosion of a cauuon on board the Princeton, in the Potomac. 
 
 

 368 
 
 PROGRESS OF SOUTHERX RULE. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 million dollars as indemnity. On the same day the treaty was sent to 
 the United States Senate, where it was rejected by a vote of thirty- 
 five to sixteen. It had not even the support of the Democratic party. 
 Mr. Benton opposed it hotly, but was supposed to carry an old ani- 
 mosity to Calhoun into his objection. Mr. Van Bui-en, who was the 
 prominent candidate of the Democrats, in the pending election, pub- 
 licly opposed it also. Mr. Clay, who was the Whig candidate, led his 
 party with this question as the great issue of the Presidential campaign. 
 The opposition of these statesmen sealed their political fate. The 
 Election of Democratic Convention nominated Mr. Polk of Tennessee, 
 Poik. wno was m f avor O f annexation, and Mr. Van Buren's public 
 
 life was over. Mr. Benton by his opposition lost the favor of Missouri. 
 
 The Whigs had nom- 
 inated Mr. Clay 
 unanimously ; but the 
 sincerity of his oppo- 
 sition to annexation 
 was not believed in 
 by the anti-slavery 
 voters, and he lost the 
 support of both New 
 York and Pennsyl- 
 vania. In New York 
 a sufficient number of 
 voters gave their vote 
 to the candidate of 
 the new Liberty Par- 
 ty, James G. Birney, 
 to give Mr. Polk a 
 plurality; and in 
 Pennsylvania he 
 avowed moderate 
 tariff sentiments, just 
 in time to secure a majority there. These two States, which together 
 gave sixty-two electoral votes, decided the election. Mr. Folk's plu- 
 rality in New York was only 5,106 out of a vote of 485,000, and 
 his plurality in Pennsylvania was only 6,332 out of 350,000 votes. 
 Though he had not a majority in the popular vote, his electoral vote 
 was 170, against 105 for Mr. Clay. 
 
 The certainty of this result stimulated the action of the dying 
 Congress. The new candidate used all his influence to obtain an 
 adjustment of the matter before his inauguration. As a treaty with 
 Texas was impossible, a vote of two thirds of the Senate being nec- 
 
 James K. Polk. 
 

 HENRY CLAY. 
 (After a dayutrreotype.) 
 
1845.] ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 369 
 
 essary, a joint resolution annexing Texas was introduced. Jt passed 
 the House after a protracted discussion, which rent in two 
 
 _v . i-i ri-vi Annexation 
 
 the Democratic party, to winch a section or the .Northern by joint 
 
 . , . , resolution. 
 
 part wns never again united. A proviso was annexed, 
 necessary to meet some men's constitutional scruples, which pro- 
 vided that the new President might act, if he preferred, by treaty. 
 The Senate, which in April, 1844, had rejected the treaty, by the vote 
 of thirty-five to sixteen, was induced to accept the joint resolution. 
 This was the 1st of March, when President Tyler's term had three 
 days to run. On the same day when the joint resolution passed, .Mr. 
 Calhoun sent a messenger to Texas to bring her in under the joint 
 resolution. Mr. Polk had promised that he would act under the treat}' 
 proviso, but as Mr. Tyler had taken the responsibility of acting under 
 the joint resolution, Mr. Polk considered himself discharged from his 
 promise. Thus in the confusion of the last moments of a Congress, 
 and of an administration, the annexation of Texas was carried, as 
 under precisely similar circumstances the acknowledgment of its in- 
 dependence had been carried eight years before. So. by a resort to 
 similar tactics, the Missouri Compromise had been forced through the 
 House in 1820, and the Nullification Compromise in 1833. 
 
 Polk came into power with the certainty of a war with Mexico on 
 his hands. Before Secretary Upshur was killed, Mr. Van p^., 
 Zandt, one of the Texan ministers at Washington, had ad- P IIC - V 
 dressed him a letter, asking whether, in case of annexation, Texas 
 could rely upon the United States for aid against Mexico ? Mexico, 
 it was assumed, would end the armistice then existing between her 
 and her revolted province, and the negotiations then going on for 
 peace, and renew, or threaten to renew hostilities. The inquiry 
 was made in January, 1844, but was not replied to by Mr. Cal- 
 houn, Upshur's successor,. till the following April. The reply was 
 for some time withheld from the papers sent to the Senate. In 
 the mean time the treaty had been rejected, and it seemed, there- 
 fore, of comparatively little consequence then that the Secretary had 
 assured the Texan ministers that in expectation of the ratification of 
 the treaty, a strong naval force had been sent into the Gulf of Mex- 
 ico, and all the disposable military force ordered to the southwestern 
 frontier. The significance of this preparatory movement was better 
 understood when, in the following March, annexation was accom- 
 plished by joint resolution. 
 
 The United States army, in 1845, numbered about five thousand 
 men, and three thousand six hundred of them were at Cor- w arwitll 
 pus Christi, Texas, under General Zachary Taylor. In Mexico 
 March, 1846, Taylor moved southward to a point on the Rio Grande 
 
 VOL. iv. 24 
 
370 PROGRESS OF SOUTHERN RULE. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 opposite Matamoras, at the same time calling upon the Governors of 
 Louisiana and Texas for five thousand volunteers. On the 1st of 
 May he moved eastward with his main body, to open communication 
 with Point Isabel. To intercept his return, the Mexican General 
 Battle of Arista moved with about six thousand men to Palo Alto, 
 Raio Aito. n j ne m ji es f rom Matamoras, and planted his force across 
 the road. Taylor's returning column struck this position on the 8th, 
 and gave battle. Two eigh teen-pounders and two light, batteries made 
 dreadful havoc in the close ranks of the Mexican infantry, while an 
 attempt to turn the American right was promptly thwarted. The 
 prairie-grass between the contending lines took fire, and behind the 
 curtain of smoke Arista drew back his left. Taylor made a corre- 
 sponding change, advanced his artillery again, and renewed the fight. 
 A movement to turn the American left was discovered through the 
 smoke, when two guns were wheeled round to meet it, and under 
 their steady fire the attacking column was finally put to flight. 
 
 Early next morning the Mexicans fell back to Resaca de la Palma, 
 Battle of anc ^ *k position on both edges of a deep ravine that 
 curved somewhat in the shape of a horseshoe, the open side 
 toward the advancing Americans. The point where the 
 road crossed this ravine was commanded by three batteries, and the 
 whole position was obscured by thick chaparral. Taylor deployed a 
 large part of his force as skirmishers, and Captain May's dragoons 
 overran the most advanced Mexican battery. An American battery 
 was advanced to the crest, while a regiment from the reserves charged 
 down the road in column, crossed the ravine, and, joined by a portion 
 of the skirmishers who had clambered through at other points, 
 sei/ed the enemy's artillery, and after hard fighting in the chaparral, 
 put the infantry to flight. On the 13th of May, before news of 
 these events could have reached Washington, Congress declared war 
 and authorized the President to call for fifty thousand volunteers for 
 one year. 1 
 
 1 President Polk, in his message of May 16, 1846, and in several later ones, labored to 
 show that the territory of the United States had been invaded by the Mexicans, and the blood 
 of her citizens shed on her own soil, whereupon Abraham Lincoln, then a member of the 
 House of Representatives, introduced in that body what became famous as " the Spot Res- 
 olutions," wherein the President was called upon to inform the House as to the exact loca- 
 tion of the spot where this blood was shed, with reference to the boundaries of the Spanish 
 possessions, and also " whether our citizens whose blood was shed, as in his messages de- 
 clared, were or were not at that time armed officers and soldiers, sent into that settlement 
 by the military order of the President ; " and "whether the military force of the United 
 States was or was not so sent into that settlement after General Taylor had more than 
 once intimated to the War Department that, in his opinion, no such movement was neces- 
 sary to the defence or protection of Texas." Mr. Lincoln's speech, supporting these res- 
 olutions, and making a sharp analysis of the whole question, is printed in full in Lamon's 
 Life of Lincoln, p. 283. 
 
 
1846.] 
 
 WAR WITH MEXICO. 
 
 371 
 
 General Taylor was told that the public were impatient, and with- 
 out waiting for reinforcements lie must " take foot in hand, and off 
 for the halls of Montezuma," he being distant from those halls nearly 
 five hundred miles, as the crow flies. Before he could open his cam- 
 paign, he was embarrassed by conflicting instructions, but gave it as 
 liis opinion tliat the operations from the Rio Grande should only be 
 for the purpose of holding the northern provinces. His movements 
 were also delayed by the necessity of sending for light-draught 
 steamers to ascend the river. These and the volunteers arrived at 
 length, and in July General Worth's division established itself at 
 Camargo, where Taylor organized an expedition to Monterey, ninety 
 miles distant. 
 
 While this movement was in pi'og- 
 ress, one of those revolutions without 
 which her people never seem content, 
 broke out in Mexico, and the garri- 
 sons of Vera Cruz and San Juan de 
 Ulloa pronounced for the return of 
 Santa Anna to power. Commodore 
 Connor, commanding a squadron that 
 had blockaded Vera Cruz, was or- 
 dered to permit Santa Anna, who in 
 1845 had been banished for ten years, 
 to reenter the country ; and Presi- 
 dent Polk, to create a feeling that his 
 war was just, sent a proposition to 
 negotiate for peace, knowing that, in 
 the disturbed condition of Mexican 
 affairs, it was not likely to be entertained. By the middle of Sep- 
 tember, Santa Anna reached the city of Mexico and assumed military 
 command as President. 
 
 Monterey is in a valley at the eastern base of the Sierra Madre, on 
 the high road from the Rio Grande to the city of Mexico. Capture of 
 It was protected by a strong citadel on the northern out- Montere y- 
 skirt of the town, by several lunettes on the east, and by^two forti- 
 fied hills that rose on either side of the river just above the town. 
 Taylor, with six thousand six hundred men, sat down before it on the 
 19th of September. On the 20th, Worth's division passed above the 
 city and planted itself on the enemy's line of retreat. Garland's 
 brigade led the attack, and advancing between the citadel and the 
 first lunette, and enfiladed by both, reached the streets of the city, but 
 with heavy loss. Three companies, moving to his support, attacked 
 the lunette in front, but at the first discharge of its guns one third of 
 
 Santa Anna. 
 

 372 PROGRESS OF SOUTHERN RULE. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 their numbers fell, and the remainder retreated. Two other compa- 
 nies passed to its rear, and from the roof of a tannery poured into its 
 open gorge such a fire of musketry that the crowded Mexicans, on 
 whom every bullet told, made all haste to abandon the work, which 
 Quitman's brigade soon occupied. An attempt to capture the second 
 lunette was unsuccessful, as the streets through which the troops ad- 
 vanced were swept by an artillery fire, and the loss was severe. 
 
 On the morning of the 21st Worth sent a strong force to capture 
 the fortified eminence south of the river, called Loma Federacion. 
 The enemy not only directed a plunging artillery fire upon the ad- 
 vancing troops, but sent a cloud of skirmishers half way down the 
 rocky slopes to resist the ascent. In the face of this the Americans 
 advanced steadily by companies, with sharpshooters skirmishing on 
 the flanks, till they clambered over the parapet and turned the 
 guns upon the flying Mexicans, who took refuge in Fort Soldado, 
 at the extremity of the ridge. Thence they were quickly driven 
 by two supporting regiments moving along the slope. At night 
 Worth sent out a detachment which at daybreak carried Loma d'ln- 
 dependencia, the hill on the north side of the river, and then dis- 
 lodged the Mexicans from the ruins of the Obispado, half way down 
 the hill. These two positions commanded the western half of the 
 city, upon which fire was opened, and on the morning of the 23d the 
 troops east of the city fought their way into it ; but the streets were 
 bamcaded and stoutly defended, and the attempt on that side was at 
 length given up. On the west, however, Worth's men pushed into 
 the town, fully prepared for a slow fight. When they reached a 
 point where the streets were swept by Mexican artillery, the troops 
 of the line broke through the inner walls of the houses, and thus 
 worked their way from square to square, while the sharpshooters 
 mounted to the roofs, and by a continual dropping fire did effective 
 work. This steady advance was continued through the night, and 
 in the morning Ampudia capitulated, and an armistice of eight weeks 
 was agreed upon. 
 
 In May a movement was made in a new direction. Colonel Philip 
 
 Kearny was ordered to organize an expedition for the occu- 
 ot^ew " pation of New Mexico and Upper California, and by the 
 
 end of July he had collected eighteen hundred men, at Bent's 
 Fort, on Arkansas River, at the head of whom he marched into New 
 Mexico unopposed, and arrived at Santa FC" on the 18th of August. 
 Here he issued a proclamation declaring the inhabitants absolved from 
 allegiance to Mexico, organized the State as a Territory of the United 
 States, appointed a civil governor, and on the 6th of October, with 
 a small cavalry force, set out for California. 
 
1847.] WAR WITH MEXICO. 373 
 
 An exploring expedition under Captain John C. Fremont was 
 overtaken in May, by a messenger bearing letters from Sec- 
 retary of State James Buchanan and Senator Benton, where- of caufor- 
 in it was hinted that he should remain in California, to 
 thwart any designs that foreigners might have upon the territory. 
 As no foreigners but Americans were at all likely to have any such 
 designs, it was not difficult for Fremont to understand what the Ad- 
 ministration wanted, though war had not then been declared. He 
 returned to Sacramento, learned that De Castro, the Mexican com- 
 mandant, was about to expel American settlers, and at once assumed 
 the offensive. On the 15th of June he captured Sonoma, after which 
 he marched into the interior, enlisted men, and returned in time to 
 drive away De Castro. He then called a meeting of settlers at Sonoma, 
 and advised them to declare independence, which they did. Meanwhile 
 Commodore Sloat was taking possession of the towns on the coast. 
 Late in July he was superseded by Commodore Stockton, who organ- 
 ized an expedition, drove De Castro out of his camp at Los Angeles, 
 joined Fremont, and on the 13th of August took possession of Monte- 
 rey, then the capital of California. Proclaiming his conquest of the 
 territory, he set up a provisional government, with himself at its head. 
 Before the news of this reached Washington, the Government had 
 sent to California a company of artillery, in the storeship Lexington^ 
 which was two hundred days making the passage round Cape Horn. 
 In this company were Lieutenants William T. Sherman, Henry W. 
 Halleck, and E. O. C. Ord. The ship was commanded by Theodorus 
 Bailey, who, sixteen years later, led the first division of Farragut's 
 fleet when it captured New Orleans. 
 
 In pursuance of its purpose to cut off the northern provinces, the 
 Administration planned an expedition to Chihuahua, under 
 command of General John E. Wool ; but it went no farther against chi- 
 than Parras, a hundred miles west of Monterey. Taylor's 
 armistice at Ampudia was disapproved by the Administration, and in 
 November he advanced to Saltillo. In the same month, General Win- 
 field Scott was ordered to Mexico, to take chief command and 5^^,^ M 
 conduct the war according to his own plan. This was, in Me3UCO 
 brief, to carry an expedition against Vera Cruz, reduce its defences, 
 and then march on the cit}' of Mexico by the shortest route. On 
 his arrival at Camargo in January, 1847, he made a requisition for 
 about ten thousand of Taylor's troops, which left Taylor not quite 
 seven thousand. A duplicate of the despatch was intercepted and 
 carried to Santa Anna, who at once prepared to strike while his enemy 
 was divided and weakened. 
 
 Taylor had advanced to Agua Nueva, but learning of the approach. 
 
374 
 
 PROGRESS OF SOUTHERN RULE. 
 
 [C HAP. XIV. 
 
 of 
 
 ta, 
 
 PL AN OPTOE BATTLE 
 
 OF 
 
 BUENA VISTA 
 
 NOKNINO 23*Ke.t8t7 
 
 of an overwhelming Mexican force, and knowing that his rear might 
 be gained, he fell bark to a strong position south of Saltillo. 
 'pj^ now f amous battle-ground, which takes its name from 
 the neighboring estate of Buena Vista, is a section of a rugged val- 
 ley from two and a half to four miles wide, between mountain walls 
 a thousand feet high. The slopes on either side are cut by deep 
 ravines, and in the midst is a broad plateau, whose borders are in- 
 dented by the bluffs that alternate with the ravines. The fighting 
 
 took place on and 
 around this plateau. 
 Taylor had present 
 five thousand two 
 hundred men ; San- 
 ta Anna's force was 
 probably twelve 
 thousand. 1 The na- 
 ture of the ground 
 precluded the em- 
 ployment of cavalry, 
 and rendered use- 
 less much of the ar- 
 tillery of the attack- 
 ing party, while it 
 gave special advan- 
 tages to that of the 
 Americans. Taylor 
 placed his forces 
 in groups, rather 
 than in line on 
 the crests of some of 
 the bluffs, at the 
 base of the eastern 
 mountain, and near 
 the front or southern 
 edge of the plateau. 
 The battle opened in the afternoon of the 22d of February on the 
 left, where the light Mexican troops attempted to flank the position 
 by scaling the steep mountain wall, but were checked by a counter 
 movement. At the same time the Mexican cavalry, under General 
 Mifion, gained the rear by a detour, for the purpose of attacking the 
 
 1 It has been commonly stated at twenty thousand ; hut there seems to be no other au- 
 thority for this than the fact that when Santa Anna summoned Taylor to surrender, he 
 boasted that his force numbered twenty thousand. 
 
 MEXICAN l 
 
 UNITED STATBSs 
 
 Infantry CutMrr | ArlMcrf MeruiJ bCJuAtUct 
 $ Artilieiy Receiving UuAtUeK. 
 
1847.] WAR WITH MEXICO. 375 
 
 Americans in their expected retreat. At dawn of the 23d the action 
 was renewed on the left, where the Mexicans had taken possession of 
 the crest during tlie night. Santa Anna prepared to attack in front 
 with his main force, in three columns, intending that the light troops 
 should at the same time descend from the mountain and fall upon the 
 flank. Under Taylor's personal direction, the Mexican cavalry in the 
 rear was driven back by the dragoons. These being ordered to the 
 plateau, the Mexican horse returned and attacked two unsupported 
 companies of volunteer cavalry, and a fierce hand-to-hand fight en- 
 sued, friend and foe being mingled in confusion, around the hamlet of 
 Buena Vista ; but on the return of the regular dragoons, the Mex- 
 ican cavalry retreated. The Mexican columns attacking in front, 
 came on steadily in spite of all resistance. Two regiments fled before 
 one of them, which then, with a heavy battery, concentrated its fire 
 upon an advanced American battery, and soon compelled its with- 
 drawal. The column next made a junction with another, which had 
 also ascended the plateau, and with the light troops moving down 
 from the mountain, and the combined mass turned the American left. 
 The third column, led against the American right, was shattered by 
 the artillery, thrown into confusion, and compelled to retreat. To 
 meet the flank movement, the Americans had formed a new front. 
 The Mexicans found it impossible to cross the plateau in the face of 
 this, and were attempting to gain the rear by skirting the base of the 
 eastern mountain, when Taylor put in motion two regiments of infan- 
 try, supported by artillery and dragoons, who advanced down the 
 plateau in the face of the enemy, steadily firing into the heavy mass 
 as they approached it. The coolness and intrepidity with which this 
 movement was executed, saved the day. The Mexican column broke 
 before it, and Taylor, making a combined attack upon their right, 
 drove it up the slopes of the eastern mountain, and seemed likely to 
 isolate it. But at this moment a flag of truce appeared, and the fir- 
 ing was stopped in expectation of a surrender. It was only a ruse, 
 which enabled the endangered wing to escape. As soon as this was 
 accomplished, Santa Anna formed his whole force into one column, 
 and advanced up the plateau. Several regiments gave way, and some 
 guns were lost ; but most of the artillery was placed where it could 
 plough the column through and through, and was served with great 
 rapidity. At the same time the Americans slowly fell back, and at 
 nightfall they held only the northwest corner of the plateau. When 
 morning broke, the enemy had retreated. The Americans had lost, 
 killed, wounded, or missing, seven hundred and forty-six men ; the 
 Mexicans, about two thousand. 1 
 
 1 Among the slain were Colonels John J. Ilnrdin, William H. McKee, and Archibald 
 
376 
 
 PROGRESS OF SOUTHERN RULE. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 Scott's ex- 
 
 pedition to 
 
 Mexico. 
 
 On the 7th of March, the fleet with Scott's army came to anchor a 
 few miles south of Vera Cruz, and two days later he landed 
 
 - J 
 
 his whole force nearly twelve thousand men by means of 
 
 * 
 
 surf-boats. Vera Cruz was a city of seven thousand inhabi- 
 tants, strongly fortified. About a thousand yards off shore, on a reef, 
 stood the Castle of San Juan de Ulloa, commanding the channels of 
 the harbor. This was supposed to be very strong, and the Mexicans 
 had assumed that any approach to the city would necessarily be under 
 its guns. Lines of investment were drawn, and siege batteries erected, 
 
 Bombard- 
 Vera Cruz. 
 
 Vera Cruz. 
 
 with little opposition. On the 22d the investment was complete. A 
 summons to surrender being refused, the batteries opened, 
 and the bombardment was kept up for four days, the small 
 war-vessels joining in it. The Mexican batteries and the 
 
 castle replied with spirit, and with some little effect ; but the city and 
 
 castle were surrendered on the 27th. 
 
 The want of draught animals and wagons delayed till the middle 
 of April the march upon the capital of the country, two 
 hundred miles distant. The first obstacle was found at 
 
 Cerro Gordo, fifty miles northwest of Vera Cruz, where the Mexicans 
 
 Yell, and Lieutenant-colonel Henry Clay, a son of the Kentucky statesman. Some idea of 
 the desperate nature of the fighting may be gained from the fact that Colonel Clay, dis- 
 abled by a shot in the thigh, was home off in the retreat till his men were obliged to drop 
 him, and then lay on his back, fighting with his sword, while his enemies pierced him with 
 lances. Colonel Yell received a lance in his mouth, which tore off his jaw ; and Colonel 
 Hardiu was also killed with a lance. The Mexican cavalry did a great deal of execution 
 with that ancient weapon. Among the troops that rendered most efficient service on the 
 American side were the Mississippi riflemen, commanded by Colonel Jefferson Davis. 
 
 Battle of 
 
1847.] WAR WITH MEXICO. 377 
 
 had taken position on the heights around a rugged mountain pass, 
 with a battery commanding every turn of the road. A way was 
 found to flank the position on the extreme left, and on the morning of 
 April 18th, the Americans attacked in three columns. Pillow's brigade 
 advanced against the Mexican right, where three hills, in the angle 
 between the road and the Rio del Plan, were crowned with batteries. 
 Shields's brigade made the detour and, climbing up by a path that 
 Santa Anna said he did not believe a goat could ascend, fell upon the 
 enemy's left and rear. The divisions of Twiggs and Worth left the 
 road at a point within the pass, and, bearing to the right, attacked 
 the enemy on a hill called El Telegrafo, carried it, and then attacked 
 the height of Cerro Gordo, where the Mexicans were most strongly 
 intrenched, and where Santa Anna commanded in person. This being 
 carried by storm, its guns were turned first upon the retreating Mex- 
 icans, and then upon the advanced position that Pillow was assault- 
 ing in front. The Mexicans, finding themselves surrounded, soon 
 surrendered. Santa Anna, with the remainder of his troops, fled 
 toward Jalapa, where Scott followed him and took the place. Here 
 he waited for reinforcements, the last of which arrived on the 6th of 
 August under Brigadier-general Franklin Pierce. 
 
 At this point, Santa Anna opened secret negotiations with Scott, 
 offering to bring about a peace without any more fighting, in ^^ Anna 
 consideration of one million dollars to be paid to him person- ^117 place 
 ally: ten thousand dollars at once, and the remainder after fora P nce 
 the establishment of peace. The communications were made through 
 the British consuls. Scott paid the ten thousand dollars ; but Santa 
 Anna failed to convince the Mexican Congress that the situation was 
 desperate, and the temper of the country seemed to warrant the de- 
 termination to hold out in hope of a victory. 
 
 After calling in all the garrisons except that of Vera Cruz, Scott had 
 about fourteen thousand men, and leaving the convalescents 
 to garrison Puebla and to care for the sick, he resumed his on the <api- 
 march toward the capital. On the 10th of August the lead- 
 ing division passed over the crest of the Rio Frio mountains ; the 
 city of Mexico, in the midst of a fertile basin dotted with spark- 
 ling lakes, was in sight. Northeast and southeast of Mexico, within 
 a radius of twenty miles, are three lakes. The land immediately sur- 
 rounding the city was entirely under water at the time of the Spanish 
 invasion, but it had been drained, and the capital was now approached 
 by causeways crossing low and marshy ground. Out of this plain 
 rose numerous rocky hills ; and wherever one commanded a causeway, 
 it was fortified. Reaching Lake Chalco, the one farthest from the 
 city, to the southeast, the American forces paused for a choice of 
 
378 PROGRESS OF SOUTHERN RULE. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 route. It was found that the city was strongest on its eastern side, 
 and weakest on the south and west. Accordingly, Scott passed around 
 Lake Chalco, and thence west, skirting the southern shore of the lake 
 that was nearer the city. 
 
 Santa Anna, who had been guarding the eastern approaches, moved 
 southward to intercept the Americans, taking up his headquarters at 
 San Antonio, five miles from the city. His position was flanked on 
 the west by a rugged field of broken lava, called the Pedregal, and 
 on the east by marshy ground. West of the Pedregal another road 
 led to the city, and this road could be reached by a mule-path across 
 the southwest corner. Pillow's division was converted into a work- 
 ing-party to make of this mule-path a road for the passage of the 
 trains. But the Mexican General Valencia had taken up a fortified 
 Battle of position on the slope of a hill commanding the junction of 
 concerns. t j ie mu ] e .p a th with the road, and not far from the village 
 of Contreras. In front of this camp was a deep and rugged ravine. 
 When Pillow had completed half the road, the Mexican artillery 
 opened upon him. Twiggs's division passed to the front, and drove 
 in the Mexican skirmishers. Twiggs then ordered Riley's brigade 
 to cross the Pedregal by an oblique movement to the right, to secure 
 a position on the road at the village of San Geronimo, and flank the 
 Mexican left. Cadwallader's brigade was sent to his support, while 
 Pierce's reenforced Smith's at the front. The ground was as bad 
 as troops were ever compelled to clamber over. General Pierce was 
 severely hurt by the fall of his horse, which had stepped into a cleft 
 of the rocks ; and later in the day Twiggs, though on foot, received a 
 similar fall and injury. The artillery horses and caissons were shel- 
 tered behind huge blocks of stone ; but the howitzers, which had been 
 advanced with immense labor, were no match for the heavier guns of 
 the Mexicans. 
 
 Valencia had neglected to occupy the crest of the hill in rear of 
 his camp, and Riley proposed to occupy it in the darkness of the 
 ensuing night, and swoop down upon him at daybreak. Meanwhile 
 Santa Anna sent orders to Valencia to spike his guns, destroy his 
 stores, and retreat by the mountain paths ; but Valencia refused to 
 stir, and Santa Anna left him to his fate. Riley's movement, de- 
 layed till daylight, was discovered, but the men pressed on, supported 
 by the brigades of Cadwallader and Smith. Taking the Mexican 
 intrenchments in reverse, they rushed into them in a body. One 
 regiment cut off retreat southward, while Smith stopped it north- 
 ward. The Mexicans were thrown into utter confusion ; many were 
 cut down on the spot, others escaped through the gaps in the Amer- 
 ican lines ; more were made prisoners by the troops of Smith and 
 
1847.] WAR WITH MEXICO. 379 
 
 Shields, thrown across the road to the city. The loss of the Mexi- 
 cans in killed and wounded was estimated at two thousand, while 
 nearly a thousand, including four generals, were captured. Twenty- 
 two guns and all the stores and ammunition fell into the hands of 
 the victors, who had lost sixty, killed or wounded. The Americans 
 followed the flying enemy toward Churubusco, on the main B . ltt]( , f 
 road to the capital, where Santa Anna, retiring before ( ' hurubusc< 
 Worth, had concentrated his whole force. The river here runs in a 
 straight, artificial channel, protected by levees. The head of the 
 bridge was strongly fortified, and the convent, a large stone building, 
 had been pierced for the use of muskets, and surrounded by a strong 
 field-work. Here all was ready for action, but the remninder of the 
 Mexican force was in much confusion, and the fortification around 
 the bridge was blocked up by the ammunition train which had broken 
 down at this point. 
 
 The battle opened, when the advance of Worth's forces, charging 
 the works at the bridge, was stopped by a heavy fii-e from the con- 
 vent. At the same time Pillow took position in the corn-fields on 
 the right, and Twiggs made a determined but useless attack on the 
 convent. This building, says an eye-witness, " was one sheet of 
 flame and smoke, and wherever the assailants were exposed, their 
 loss was excessive." l The brigades of Pierce and Shields had been 
 ordered to make a detour and come upon the main road in the rear of 
 Churubusco. As they reached it, they struck the Mexican reserves, 
 and all the troops on both sides were then engaged. The fighting was 
 obstinate and bloody throughout. Pierce and Shields were largely 
 outnumbered, and would perhaps have been defeated, but Worth and 
 Pillow carried the head of the bridge in time to save them. Their 
 men, creeping closer and closer, taking advantage of every ditch and 
 dike, yet with sad losses, at last established themselves so close to the 
 Mexican left that it gave way. A detachment of Americans crossed 
 the river and threatened the bridge from the rear, and immediately 
 Worth drew his whole force to the right, across the road, and poured 
 it in upon the broken Mexican line. Through the ditches, waist-deep 
 in water and over the parapets, they went with a rush and a shout, and 
 the battle of Churubusco was won. A captured gun, being brought 
 to bear at close range upon the flank of the reserves, broke it, and 
 relieved Shields and Pierce. A gun at the bridge was then served 
 upon the convent, and a position was discovered where a battery 
 could command the surrounding field-work, but as this battery was 
 about to open fire, a white flag rose above the walls. The American 
 loss in this battle was one thousand killed or wounded, among them 
 seventy-six officers. 
 
 1 Major R. S. Ripley, in his History oftlir War with Mexico. 
 
380 
 
 PROGRESS OF SOUTHERN RULE. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 Battle of 
 
 
 The Americans now occupied several villages in the suburbs of 
 the capital. At the instance of the English Embassy, who came out 
 from the city, an armistice was agreed upon. Negotiations followed, 
 lasting for a fortnight, till Scott, finding that Santa Anna only aimed 
 to gain time and strengthen his position, put an end to the armis- 
 tice. The American commander now had about eight thousand 
 five hundred effective men, and sixty-eight guns. His first 
 
 _ ' J ,, ,. . , _. 
 
 movement, September 7th, was upon the Molino del Key 
 (King's Mill), a group of stone buildings where, he had been 
 informed, the church-bells of the city were being cast into cannon. 
 
 This group forms the western 
 side of the enclosure surround- 
 ing the gardens, rock, and castle 
 of Chapultepec. It is eleven 
 hundred yards from the castle, 
 and that is about a mile and a 
 half from the city wall. The 
 buildings, five hundred yards 
 long, had been barricaded and 
 loopholed, and provided with 
 sand-bag parapets. Five hun- 
 dred yards west of the northern 
 corner was the Casa Mata, a 
 strong, square, stone building, 
 also prepared for defence. Be- 
 tween these positions the Mex- 
 icans had planted a four-gun 
 battery, and stretched a line 
 of infantry. When he sent 
 Worth's division, on the even- 
 
 ing of the 7th, to destroy the supposed foundry, Scott was not aware 
 that the enemy had occupied the position in force. When Worth 
 discovered this he asked that he might delay the attack till sunrise of 
 the 8th, and extend the operation so as to include the capture of 
 Chapultepec. To the first request Scott assented ; the other he de- 
 clined. His purpose was to enter the city by the south, and he 
 therefore considered the castle of no importance, as it only com- 
 manded the western approach. 
 
 Scott supposed the fight for the Molino would be but a skirmish ; 
 Worth knew it would be a desperate struggle. His plan was, to 
 pierce the Mexican centre, while making strong movements against 
 the flanks. Garland's brigade and two field-pieces were to advance 
 and cut off support from Chapultepec. On the left of these, two 
 
 
 Winfield Scott. 
 
1847.] WAR WITH MEXICO. 381 
 
 twenty-four pounders were to be supported by a light battalion. 
 Five hundred picked men, under Major Wright, were to storm the 
 battery in the Mexican centre. A brigade under Lieutenant-colonel 
 M'Intosh, with a battery, was to attack the Casa Mata. And the 
 cavalry were to form on the extreme left, under Major Sumner. Cad- 
 wallader's brigade formed the reserve. All these positions were 
 taken while it was yet dark, on the morning of the 8th. A little 
 after three o'clock the twenty-four pounders sent their shot crash- 
 ing through the walls of the Molino, and a few minutes later the 
 storm ing-party advanced toward the point where the battery had 
 been observed the day before. But its place had been changed, and 
 the first appearance of life in the enemy was when it suddenly opened 
 on the flank of the five hundred, with round shot and grape. A 
 rush was made for it, and the gunners were driven back, but in the 
 face of the infantry fire at once concentrated on the captors, it could 
 not be held. Eleven of the fourteen officers in the storming-party 
 fell, and almost a like proportion of the rank and file. The re- 
 mainder retreated, while the Mexicans came forward and deliberately 
 killed every wounded man on the ground, save two. 
 
 The light battalion advanced through the shattered ranks of the 
 storming-party to renew the assault; and as the Mexicans were at the 
 same time attacked on the flank by Garland's brigade, they fell 
 back. One company, finding shelter under the edge of a low bank, 
 acted as sharpshooters to clear the flat roofs. Drum's battery was 
 run forward to a position where it could rake the Mexican battery at 
 close range, and, with the aid of a steady infantry fire, soon drove 
 away the gunners and their support, and the guns were seized. The 
 fighting on this part of the field then became a struggle for the pos- 
 session of the Molino. General Leon led a spirited but unsuccess- 
 ful sortie, in which he was mortally wounded. While the sharp- 
 shooters were picking off the men who ventured upon the roof, and 
 Drum's battery was pounding at the walls, parties of infantry sur- 
 rounding the building were firing in at the windows and trying to 
 pry open or batter down the gates. At last the southern gate gave 
 way, and the assailants poured in, but only to renew the fight inside 
 with bayonet and sword. In this desperate conflict Worth lost a 
 large number of the very flower of his forces. At last the surviving 
 Mexicans retreated to Chapultepec, all but seven hundred, who 
 being on the roof, with no escape, surrendered. 
 
 On the left, Duncan's battery and M'Intoslfs brigade advanced 
 against the enemy, but were received with a murderous fire from a 
 low embankment, from the Avorks, and from the Casa Mata. M'In- 
 tosh fell mortally wounded ; his successor in command was shot dead, 
 

 382 
 
 PROGRESS OF SOUTHERN RULE. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 and the next officer was soon disabled. The men had approached 
 within thirty yards of the Casa Mata, and had suffered accordingly. 
 A large portion of the survivors fell back ; a remnant still kept up 
 the struggle. At this point in the action, Santa Anna sent cavalry 
 and infantry against the American left ; but they were driven back. 
 The whole artillery was then brought to bear upon the walls of the 
 Casa Mata and the surrounding works, which the Mexicans were soon 
 compelled to abandon. A few old cannon-moulds were found inside 
 the Molino, but there was no foundry. Except as an outpost to Cha- 
 pultepec, it had no strategic value, and Scott's orders positively for- 
 bade Worth to take Chapultepec. In fact, after the prisoners were 
 
 
 Chapultepec. 
 
 
 secured, and the American dead and wounded removed, Worth, by 
 Scott's order, drew back his whole command, and left to the enemy 
 the field that had been won at so dear a price. About three thousand 
 five hundred Americans had been actually in the fight, and seven hun- 
 dred and eighty-seven had fallen, including fifty-nine officers. 
 
 Near the eastern end of an enclosure a mile long and one third of 
 a mile wide, rises the rock of Chapultepec, a hundred and 
 fifty feet high, bearing the great castle, once the palace of a 
 Spanish viceroy, now a military school. The northern side was abso- 
 lutely inaccessible ; the eastern and a portion of the southern, nearly 
 so ; the southwestern and western could be scaled. The regular ac- 
 cess was by a long zigzag road on the southern side, which was swept 
 
 Chapultepec. 
 
1847.] WAR WITH MEXICO. 383 
 
 by a battery planted in its angle. The crest of the rock was strongly 
 fortified, and the castle had been provided with sand-bag parapets. 
 The grounds around it were broken by walls, aqueducts, and ditches. 
 The southern line of the enclosure was a long, heavy stone wall, with 
 a redan at its central point. The northern side was formed by an 
 aqueduct whose arches had been filled up with masonry. The Mo- 
 lino del Rey was the western side. From the great gate on the east 
 two divergent causeways led into the city of Mexico. The place was 
 garrisoned by two thousand men ; thirteen heavy guns were mounted 
 to be used in its defence, two to sweep the main approach. After 
 many reconnoissances it was determined, in a council of war, that the 
 castle must be reduced before the city could be taken. 
 
 When a bombardment from three heavy batteries had proved that 
 the place could not be reduced by artillery fire alone, a select party 
 advanced at a run and seized the Molino, Captain Joseph Hooker 
 having first approached alone, and found that it was unoccupied, 
 and at night Pillow tln*ew his whole force into it. Then at dawn of 
 the loth, fire was reopened upon the castle, and upon the Storming of 
 Mexican lines south of the city. At eight o'clock the iiifan- c^P" 116 ? 6 *- 
 try advanced. A fire from a light battery was directed across the re- 
 dan that covered an opening in the southern wall of the enclosure ; 
 and when the defenders had sought shelter, a battalion of voltigeurs and 
 a storm ing-party rushed upon the redan, went over the works in the 
 face of a musketry fire, advanced through the grounds of the enclos- 
 ure, and took in reverse the in frenchmen ts that crossed it facing the 
 Molino. At the same time a similar force, rushing from the Molino, 
 had assaulted these intrenchments in front. The two forces united, 
 and, using the shelter of the trees, which here formed a large grove, 
 gradually pressed back the Mexicans. 
 
 Reenforced by a storming-party, the combined forces pushed up the 
 hill. Its western slope was filled with mines, but the Mexican offi- 
 cer, as he was about to explode them, was shot down. The as- 
 sailants gained the crest in spite of the plunging fire from a work 
 at that point and from the castle. The scaling-ladders not being 
 at hand, they took shelter in the clefts of the rocks, and employed 
 the interval in picking off the Mexican artillerymen. At the same 
 time a regiment passed around the northern front of the rock to 
 cut off the Mexicans who were letting themselves down the almost 
 
 o 
 
 perpendicular eastern face. When at length the ladders arrived the 
 walls were rapidly scaled, in face of a destructive fire ; and Cap- 
 tain Howard, with a considerable force, safely gained the parapet. 
 Ladders were thrown across the ditch, and the whole force on the 
 western side joined their comrades. Meanwhile another storming- 
 

 384 PROGRESS OF SOUTHERN RULE. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 party had climbed up the southern slope, pushed up the main road, 
 running over the small work at the angle with two guns, entered at 
 the great gate, and joined the other party. The whole castle was 
 now occupied by the Americans, and their fire was directed upon the 
 lower batteries. The enemy was dislodged, and the way was opened 
 for the advance of Quitman's troops through the grounds, who took 
 a large number of prisoners as they fled from the castle. 
 
 It only remained to pursue the flying enemy into the city, and 
 capture of take possession of the capital. But this was still a difficult 
 task. The approach was by two roads ; one to the Belen 
 gate, the other to the San Cosme, each along an aqueduct supported 
 on stone arches. Quitman's infantry fought their way slowly from 
 ai'ch to arch, toward the Belen, sheltered by the piers ; but the artil- 
 lery, advancing by the open road, was more exposed and suffered 
 heavy loss. At last the Mexicans were pressed back into the city, 
 and Quitman's whole command entered the first work. Here he 
 confronted the citadel, where Santa Anna commanded, and a fire so 
 terrible swept all approaches, that further advance was impossible. 
 
 On the San Cosme road a detachment under Colonel Trousdale, 
 fighting the Mexicans while the storming of the castle was going on, 
 had cleared the first barricade. Worth's column now followed up 
 this advantage, and pursued the enemy to a second barricade, at an 
 angle in the aqueduct. This was assaulted by two advanced parties, 
 one operating directly in front, under Lieutenant Gore, the other 
 to the left, under Lieutenant U. S. Grant. It was soon carried, and 
 the Mexicans retired into the suburb. As soon as Worth's column 
 could be concentrated, the advance was continued. But it was hard 
 fighting and slow work. When they arrived at the suburb, one bri- 
 gade passed through the arches, to the right of the aqueduct, and 
 then all began breaking their way through the walls of the houses. 
 The fortunate discovery of a quantity of engineering tools greatly 
 facilitated this work. As the Americans gained possession of one 
 building after another, howitzers were hauled to the roofs, and served 
 upon the main gate, which at last was carried with a charge, by a 
 storm ing-party under Captain McKenzie. 
 
 It was now nightfall. The Mexicans held a council of war in the 
 
 O 
 
 citadel and determined to withdraw their army from the city, liber- 
 ate the convicts in the prisons, arm them, and instigate these and the 
 inhabitants to a war from the house-tops, as a last desperate measure. 
 But before morning a deputation from the civil authorities appeared 
 at Worth's headquarters and proposed a capitulation. Scott, consid- 
 ering that the city was already his, refused to grant any terms. At 
 dawn, Quitman found the citadel abandoned, inarched to the grand 
 
1848.] 
 
 THE WILMOT PROVISO. 
 
 385 
 
 plaza, and occupied the palace. An hour or two later, General Scott 
 took up his headquarters there. Presently gangs made up of the lib- 
 erated convicts, deserters, leperos, and thieves began firing upon the 
 soldiers from the houses, and casting down the paving-stones which 
 had been carried up in immense numbers and stacked in convenient 
 piles upon the flat roofs. It became necessary to sweep the streets 
 with grape and canister, and to turn the artillery upon some of the 
 houses, after which they were given up to plunder. By the morning 
 of the 15th, order was restored, hospitals were established, and the 
 
 The Plaza 6f the City of Mexico. 
 
 American commander was in quiet possession of the capital of the 
 country. 
 
 The treaties which ended the war gave to the United States, not 
 only Texas, the apple of discord, but New Mexico, California, and 
 Arizona. The old question instantly arose, Should these be slave ter- 
 ritories or free ? David Wilmot, a Democratic Representative from 
 Pennsylvania, had moved, as early as 1846, that, in all territory ac- 
 quired from Mexico, slavery should be prohibited. So hot was the pres- 
 sure behind Democratic members of Congress at their homes, that, 
 when Mr. Wilmot introduced this " Proviso " it commanded almost 
 every Northern Democratic vote. As the war went on, the The Wilmot 
 division of the Democratic party became evidently incura- Proviso - 
 ble. At the Democratic Convention to name a President in Mav, 
 
 / * 
 
 1848, one branch of the double Democratic delegation from New 
 
 VOL. iv. 25 
 
386 
 
 PROGRESS OF SOUTHERN RULE. 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 The election 
 
 1481 
 
 York insisted on the " Wilraot Proviso." The Convention proposed 
 to them that they should divide the vote of New York with the rival 
 delegation. This they refused to do, and retired. The field was left 
 to Democrats who opposed the Proviso, and General Cuss was nomi- 
 nated. 
 
 The Whigs, at their convention, passed by Mr. Clay and Mr. Web- 
 ster, so long the leaders of their party, and nominated Gen- 
 eral Taylor of Louisiana, the hero of the war just ended. 
 Mr. Van Buren, who had yielded to the decision of his party four 
 years before, and had canvassed New York for his successful rival, 
 was now named with Charles Francis Adams as candidate for the 
 second office as the candidate of the " Wilmot Proviso" men, who 
 took the name of the " Free-Soil Party." Van Buren received more 
 than half of the Democratic votes of New York ; Cass came third ; 
 General Taylor received the plurality vote of the State, and was 
 elected by the country. New York again justified her name as the 
 41 Empire State." The electoral votes were 163 for General Taylor, 
 127 for General Cass. Of the popular vote General Taylor liud 
 1,360,101 ; General Cass 1,220,544 ; and Mr. Van Buren 291,263. 
 So important a factor had the u Free Democracy " already become. 
 
 In the short session which followed General Taylor's election, he- 
 fore he assumed office, Calhoun organized a series of meetings of 
 caihoun's slaveholding members of Congress, which were attended by 
 manifesto. sev enty or eighty members. Calhoun, as chairman of a sub- 
 committee, reported an address, which was signed by forty-eight Sen- 
 ators and Representatives. It denied the power of Congress to ex- 
 clude slavery from California and the other new Territories. Nor did 
 it stop here, for it denied the power of the legislatures or inhabitants 
 of the Territories to exclude it. The South was to hold no connection 
 with any party at the North not prepared to enforce the Constitu- 
 tional guarantees in favor of the South. Among the failures of the 
 North to do this, was named the neglect to enforce the old Fugitive- 
 Slave Law. 
 
Site of San Francisco, in 1848. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE COMPROMISES OF 1850. 
 
 ELECTION OF TAYLOR TO THE PRESIDENCY. CALIFORNIA. DISCOVERY OF GOLD. 
 THE COMPROMISES OF 1850. THE NEW FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. ADMINISTRA- 
 TION OF FlLLMORE. ELECTION OF PlERCE. DOUGLAS'S KANSAS - NEBRASKA 
 
 BJLL. REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. SETTLEMENT OF KANSAS. 
 MASSACHUSETTS EMIGRANT AID SOCIETY. REEDER APPOINTED GOVERNOR. IN- 
 VASION OF KANSAS BY "BORDER RUFFIANS." 
 
 IN February, 1848, the treaty of peace with Mexico the Treaty 
 of Guadalupe Hidalgo was concluded. Almost at the 
 
 Discovery of 
 
 
 same hour the discovery of gold was made in California. On 
 the ranch of Colonel Sutter, a Swiss emigrant, who had 
 lived for many years in the valley of the Sacramento, some laborers 
 were opening a trench, for conducting water to a mill. They turned 
 up earth, which may be precisely described in the words of Shel- 
 vocke, used one hundred and thirty-one years before, " black earth 
 spangled with gold." If any effort was made to keep the discovery 
 secret, that effort was futile. It was soon known that the alluvial 
 deposits of that great river and as it afterwards proved, of other 
 waters flowing from the Sierra Nevada were largely charged with 
 gold. The only wonder was, that it had not been discovered before. 
 In 1844, the crew of the United States ship Peacock, with the geol- 
 
388 
 
 THK COMPROMISES OF 1850. 
 
 [CHAI-. XV. 
 
 ogist of the exploring expedition to which she had belonged, passed 
 down this very valley to San Francisco, encamping every night upon 
 the placers, or gold-dust beds, now known to be invaluable. Similar 
 experiences are related by officers and soldiers who served in the 
 war. But none of these pioneers had discovered gold. The sugges- 
 tion has been made that Jesuits and Franciscans both had made the 
 great discovery, but had 
 withheld it from civiliza- 
 tion, in dread of the mis- 
 eries it would inflict upon 
 the province and upon man- 
 kind. But those fraterni- 
 
 
 Sutler's Mill. 
 
 ties have shown no other instances of such timidity. The truth' is, 
 
 that the discovery by Slitter's workmen was a surprise to all mankind. 
 
 A tide of emigration immediately set in upon California, from 
 
 all parts of the world. Its population, including the In- 
 to caiifor- dians who had taken up fields, was estimated at 15,000 when 
 
 the century began. It was not much larger in 1846, at the 
 beginning of the Mexican war. But before the census of Septem- 
 ber, 1850, it numbered 92,597. By far the larger part of this increase 
 was due to the emigration consequent upon the discovery of gold, 
 and it came chiefly from the northwestern and northeastern States. 
 From the West, adventurers in great numbers went with their 
 cattle and horses, by routes till then scarcely known, through the 
 passes of the Rocky Mountains and the Sierras. From the East, men 
 Avent round Cape Horn, or by the route till then little used for two 
 centuries, across the Isthmus of Panama. 
 
 So large a population as this, of people mostly bred in the United 
 States, was naturally not satisfied without a government of its own. 
 
1849.] CALIFORXIA. 389 
 
 The new administration of President Taylor eagerly seconded its 
 wishes. The President despatched an agent to California, imme- 
 diately after his inauguration, urging the people to apply for admis- 
 sion as a State. He felt that such an application would so far relieve 
 Congress from the exciting slave question as to its position while 
 a Territory. General Riley, the military commander, issued a proc- 
 lamation on the 3d of June, 1849, calling a convention to make a 
 State constitution. This Convention met, prepared a constitution 
 for the new State, and sent it to Washington for approval. All 
 this was done without an " Enabling Act," or provision by Admission 
 Congress for such a convention. The constitution was a -" aState - 
 so far made under the influence of the Northern settlers that slavery 
 in the new State was forever prohibited. 
 
 By this overture to California the policy of General Taylor may 
 be well enough discerned. He, and a group of men around 
 him, were hoping against hope, perhaps, that the slavery iwte* 
 questions might be " tided over," that they might adjust 
 themselves one by one, without Congressional action. If California 
 could arrange her own matters, if New Mexico could be left to the 
 old Mexican law, and all territory north of the line of 36 30' left to 
 the Missouri Compromise of 1820, there would be no vacant terri- 
 tory open for the application of the " Wilrr.ot Proviso," which at this 
 time was the embarrassing question to both parties in Congress. For 
 the other territories, Arizona and New Mexico, acquired from Mexico, 
 the President recommended that they should be left under Mexican 
 law. This disposition of the question irritated the Southern members 
 of Congress of both parties. But it was readily accepted by such 
 men as Mr. Seward, the Senator from New York, and by the other 
 Northern statesmen who opposed the extension of slavery. 
 
 When the new Congress met in December, 1849, the composition 
 of the House of Representatives showed at once that the Partieg in 
 sway of the old parties must be modified. Although Gen- Con e res - 
 eral Taylor had a decided majority in the Electoral College, 1 he was 
 in a minority of the popular vote, having received but 1,360,101 
 votes out of a total of 2,871,908. The Free-Soil party had given 
 291,263 votes for Mr. Van Buren. The strength of this third party 
 showed itself in the House, and at the same time there appeared an 
 unwillingness in Southern members to ally themselves with the Whig 
 party in any measures which seemed to run counter to the interest 
 of slavery. All the elements of discord showed themselves in the 
 election of Speaker. Robert C. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, the Whig 
 Speaker in the last Congress, was again the candidate of his party. 
 1 163 Electoral votes, to 127 given for General Cass. 
 
390 
 
 THE COMPROMISES OF 1850. 
 
 [CHAP. XV. 
 
 But the Free-Soil members were not satisfied with his record, while 
 at the same time five Southern Whigs refused to vote for him. In 
 thirty-eight ballots, therefore, he failed to receive the support of 
 either of the extremes of those nominally connected with the Whig 
 party, and he withdrew his name after the thirty-ninth ballot. Mr. 
 Brown, a Democratic member from Indiana, had received in that 
 ballot a larger mimber of votes than any other candidate. Some of 
 the Free-Soil members, having received from him an assurance that 
 
 he would constitute 
 the committees on 
 the District of Co- 
 lumbia, the Judici- 
 ary, and the Ter- 
 ritories so as to be 
 satisfactory to them, 
 voted for him on the 
 fortieth ballot. He 
 failed of an election 
 by two votes only. 
 So close an approach 
 to an alliance be- 
 
 t \vccn the Demo- 
 ( .,, irs ;in( ] the Free . 
 
 Soil members 
 alarmed the South- 
 ern portion of both 
 parties. They unit- 
 ed so far as to carry 
 a vote that a plural- 
 ity should elect. On 
 the next trial, How- 
 
 ell Cobb, of Georgia, received one hundred and two votes. Mr. Win- 
 
 throp received one hundred only. 
 
 Standing committees which would protect to the utmost the extreme 
 
 Southern interest were thus secured. This issue of a long and heated 
 
 controversy was even less important than the discussion which accom- 
 panied it. Southern members of both parties not merely 
 
 Slavery in * 
 
 m ade threats of dissolution, but declared that the Union 
 would virtually be dissolved if slavery were suppressed in 
 the Territories. The steadiness with which this threat was uttered, 
 and the desire of the friends of the Union, as men between the ex- 
 tremes began to call themselves, to avert such an issue, can alone 
 account for the abatement of the zeal of a large number of North- 
 
 Zachary Taylor. 
 
 
1850.] CLAY'S RESOLUTIONS. 391 
 
 ern members. On the fourth of February, 1850, Mr. Root's resolu- 
 tion, prohibiting slavery in the new Territories, was laid on the table 
 by a majority of twenty-six. Only five weeks before, a motion to the 
 same effect had been rejected. Forty votes had been changed in the 
 mean while. So far as men justified this change, it was on the ground 
 that the question was really settled without the prohibitory proviso, 
 and that the preservation of the Union was the overruling neces- 
 sity. But, whatever the form of the justification, the truth was that 
 the solid front offered by Southern statesmen of all parties alarmed 
 the more timid of the Northern Representatives. 
 
 In the midst of the excitement which showed itself every day, Mr. 
 Clay, who had returned to the Senate, offered himself once more as 
 the conciliator of extreme views, as he had done in 1820 and in 1833. 
 He was now to make his last appearance in public life in an attempt 
 to assuage a greater storm than he had dealt with on those two pre- 
 vious occasions. As if by way of preparation for this new effort, 
 he had, in his own State, recently offered a proposal for the extinction 
 of slavery. Kentucky was making a new Constitution, and Mr. Clay 
 tested his own power with the community which was so proud of 
 him, by public expressions that condemned, in principle, the system 
 of slavery. In a letter written in February, 1849, he de- 
 nounced the doctrine that " slavery was a blessing," and >" pro- 
 he proposed a gradual emancipation, with the condition that Kentucky 
 all slaves born after 1855 or 1860 should be made free 
 when they were twenty-five years old, and be colonized in Africa. 
 The scheme was absurdly impossible. The only result of it was a 
 more decisive victory of the friends of slavery in the Kentucky con- 
 vention than they dared expect. But the occasion had shown that 
 Mr. Clay did not choose to be counted among those extreme adher- 
 ents of the system of slavery, who, by a certain felicity of colloquial 
 expression, now began to be called ' Fire-eaters." He 
 availed himself of his position on the 29th of January, 1850, misesof 
 by introducing eight resolutions which he offered as a com- 
 promise on all pending issues. These resolutions were meant to cover 
 all the open questions. They admitted California without restric- 
 tion. They established territorial governments without conditions 
 regarding slavery. They carried the boundary of Texas to the Rio 
 Grande, providing for her debt " to a limited extent," on condition 
 that she relinquished her claim to New Mexico. They declared it 
 inexpedient to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, but they 
 prohibited the introduction of slaves into the District for merchan- 
 dise or ti-ansportation. They made more effectual provision for the 
 recovery of fugitive slaves, and they declared that Congress had no 
 
392 THE COMPROMISES OF 1850. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 power to obstruct the trade in slaves between the States. On these 
 resolutions, and on other measures already before the Senate, a de- 
 bate sprang up, which really lasted, with little break, until Con- 
 gress adjourned in September. 
 
 General Taylor and his Cabinet were hoping, from the beginning, 
 to hold to a course between extremes, and the President did not look 
 with particular favor on Mr. Clay's efforts at conciliation. Perhaps he 
 thought it would have been better for the country had they not been 
 made. The majority of the Whig representatives of free States in the 
 Webster s Senate and the House, were willing to go with the Presi- 
 pooition. ( j ent ag ar as j )e wen ^ b ut no f ar ther. When, therefore, 
 
 Mr. Clay went beyond him in the compromise plan, and when Mr. 
 Webster joined him, as he did in a speech which became celebrated, 
 on the 7th of March, Mr. Seward of New York, who had steadily 
 represented the Northern sentiment, became really the leader of the 
 friends of the Administration in the Senate. General Taylor did not 
 take kindly the unwillingness of the leaders of his own party in the 
 Senate to support his plan ; but it was not the first time, nor the last, 
 when a President has found that the leaders of his party, in Senate or 
 in House, cared little for his policy or his suggestions. 
 
 Mr. Webster's course, in supporting the resolutions of Mr. Clay, ex- 
 cited great indignation among his constituents, great surprise among 
 many of his friends, and was, indeed, a crisis in his life. 1 When, in 
 Mr. Tyler's time, he became acquainted with the details of the plan 
 for annexing Texas, he tried, in private, to arouse his friends in the 
 Whig party to the danger which the North would incur in such an 
 enlargement of the country. Undoubtedly he was disappointed, not 
 to say angered, by the reception which was then given to his efforts 
 by men of character and influence at the North. It would seem as if 
 
 / 
 
 he persuaded himself that the favorable opportunity had then been 
 lost ; and he determined that he would not attempt again to sac- 
 rifice himself to create a national feeling in communities which had 
 once failed to respond to his wish. If they would not follow when he 
 led, he would not lead at all. When in the spring of 1850 he had 
 to determine whether he would sustain Mr. Clay's system of com- 
 promise, or take the side which Mr. Seward took, in resolute sup- 
 port of all measures which would arrest the extension of slavery, this 
 old dissatisfaction probably acted on his mind. 2 From the memoirs of 
 gentlemen prominent in maintaining the Northern policy, it appears 
 that they were confident of Mr. Webster's support. And when in 
 
 1 Mr. Adams, however, wrote iu his Diary as early as 1843 : " Daniel Webster is a 
 heartless traitor to the cause of human freedom." 
 
 2 See, for details, Wilson's Slave Power in America, vol. ii., 241. 
 
1850.] 
 
 WEBSTER'S POSITIOX. 
 
 393 
 
 a speech carefully considered, and pronounced with all the dignity 
 which belonged to a great crisis, lie abandoned them and theirs, when 
 afterward he told Massachusetts even that she must "conquer her 
 prejudices," they were personally indignant, as if a tried compan- 
 ion had deserted them, while they lamented the loss In(lj|rnatinn 
 which the true policy of the country had sustained. Thev agai " st '"'" 
 thought, and the country thought, that Mr. Webster was consumed 
 by the ambitious hope of 
 becoming President. If the 
 motives of public men may 
 ever be judged of, this be- 
 lief in regard to Mr. Web- 
 ster was true. It did not 
 need even his great sagac- 
 
 c o 
 
 ity to see that thus far in 
 the history of the country, 
 the Southern road was the 
 road to power. His green- 
 est laurels had been won as 
 the defender of the Consti- 
 tution. Every representa- 
 tive of Southern opinion, 
 from Calhoun down to the 
 meanest of the disciples at 
 his feet, was proclaiming 
 disunion, and if the Union 
 was to be preserved, it must 
 be, Mr. Webster thought, on their own terms. Perhaps he would 
 have preferred that it should be saved for the sake of freedom ; but he 
 had no convictions upon the question of slavery that could prevent his 
 accepting the other alternative, especially if it might give him the 
 Presidency, as well as save the Union. Anti-slavery principles now 
 seemed to him only sentimental and morbid prejudices. He would 
 not or could not see that the question was not simply one of the own- 
 ership of black men, but of the supremacy of an ill-born, ill-bred, un- 
 educated, and brutal handful of slaveholders over a people of a higher 
 strain of blood, with centuries of gentle breeding, and a high degree 
 of moral and intellectual cultivation behind them. He undervalued 
 the power in the long run of those " prejudices " which he bade the 
 Massachusetts people conquer, prejudices created, he said, "by the 
 din and roll and rub-a-dub of Abolition presses and Abolition lectur- 
 ers, beaten every month, every day, and every hour'' as an appeal to 
 the feelings of the North. 
 
 Daniel Webster. 
 
394 THE COMPROMISES OF 1850. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun, the third of the trio of statesmen of another genera- 
 tion, was also in the Senate. But he was dying. A speech written 
 by him on the issues before the country, was read by Mr. Mason of 
 Virginia. This Senator had prepared the bill for the more effectual 
 surrender of fugitive slaves, which, as the result proved, was the 
 most odious measure to the people of the North ever passed by Con- 
 gress. Mr. Calhoun died on the 31st of March, 1850. 
 
 So much power had the various agencies brought to bear in these 
 
 great debates, that the Wilmot Proviso, which had a ma- 
 Adoption of . ' . 
 
 compromi.se jontv in tlie House when the session began, was defeated, as 
 lias been said, on the 4th of Februai-y, by a vote which 
 showed a change in forty members. Mr. Clay's eight resolutions 
 did not pass Congress in the form in which they were drawn. But 
 bills based upon their principles, worked their slow way through a 
 session which lasted through the heat of summer into September. 
 As that hot summer of excitement passed, the body of Northern 
 statesmen lost such strength as they had gained from the midway 
 Death of policy of General Taylor and his Cabinet. The President 
 died suddenly on the 9th of July, and the Vice-president, 
 Millard Fillmore, succeeded him. General Taylor had the advantage, 
 in any measures of conciliation, of being a Southern man and a slave- 
 holder. He was determined to support the Union, and had said that 
 if any State left it, he would lead the army which should reduce it 
 to submission, and that for this army he would not ask for one North- 
 ern man. He and his Cabinet would probably have been as well 
 pleased if Mr. Clay had not lent his influence to measures so odious 
 as the Fugitive Slave Bill of Mr. Mason. By the President's death, 
 which placed a Northern Whig in his chair, any sympathy which the 
 South had with a Southern President was withdrawn from the parti- 
 sans of a midway policy. Mr. Fillmore took Mr. Webster into his 
 Cabinet as Secretary of State. This was a public notification that 
 the new Administration would support the measures of compromise. 
 They passed Congress, one by one, after debates which went to the 
 very foundations of society and of morals, and excited the whole na- 
 tion to the quick, and Mr. Fillmore signed them all. 
 
 Among these measures was a bill which established the boundaries 
 f Texas, and secured to her, for the relinquishment of her 
 c j a i ms O11 ^e\v Mexico, ten million dollars. While all the 
 other States had ceded their public lands to the Union, Texas alone 
 had been permitted to retain hers, an appanage of wealth untold. In 
 addition to this gift, ten million more were now offered to her. This 
 bill passed the Senate by a majority of ten. It was driven through 
 the House by a strong combination, which made it necessary to set 
 
1850.] THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 395 
 
 aside even a decision of the Speaker, and finally passed by a majority 
 of eleven. Before this bill was introduced, the public debt of Texas 
 was worth only seventeen cents on a dollar. So soon as the bill 
 passed it rose to par, which it has almost always maintained since 
 that time. The country believed, of course, that 
 the holders of Texan securities bought the passage 
 of the bill. But the President, himself a states- 
 man of personal honesty, signed this with all the 
 others. The other bills admitted California with 
 its Constitution ; provided that when Utah should 
 be admitted it should be with or without slavery, 
 as its constitution might prescribe ; and provided 
 the most rigid measures for the surrender of fugitive slaves. 
 
 Of these " adjustments " the Fugitive Slave Law was that which 
 most challenged the public indignation of the North, and, 
 from the inquisitorial character inseparable from such an tivesii^e 
 act, provoked the most determined opposition whenever its 
 provisions were put in practice. With the great increase of travel to 
 and fro, which had in a thousand forms changed the whole character 
 of the nation, the frequency and ease of escapes from slavery were 
 largely increased beyond anything possible in earlier times. The 
 events of twenty years, and the persistent labors of the Abolitionists, 
 had shown nowhere else more significant results than in the universal 
 sympathy felt for a fugitive slave. Those known as Garrisonians 
 openly declared that they would not, for conscience' sake, obey the 
 Constitution and the laws on this subject. The exercise of political 
 rights implied an oath to the Constitution, and they 
 would not swear obedience to a government whose 
 laws they defied. They were, therefore, non-voters, 
 and they declared they had no union with slave- 
 holders, for right was higher than law. Others, less 
 scrupulous than they as to the sanctity of an oath, 
 or else persuading themselves that the citizen could 
 put his own construction upon his oath by a mental 
 reservation, others still who were influenced by mere humane feel- 
 ing, were equally disobedient. An escaping slave found friends the 
 moment he crossed the border ; he was passed openly or secretly, 
 as the exigency of the case required, from friend to friend, finding 
 everywhere aid, shelter, and advice, and was forwarded on his way to 
 Canada, or the more retired parts of the North. 1 Whole villages of 
 
 1 It was estimated that more than 30,000 fugitive slaves found homes in Canada during 
 the thirty years of the anti-slavery agitation ; and that at the time of the passage of the act 
 of 1850 there were not less than 20,000 in the free States. Advertisements for " runaways " 
 were always illustrated as above in Southern newspapers. 
 
396 THE COMPROMISES OF 1850. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 refugee-slaves grew up in Canada, settled by the exodus from the 
 Southern States. To reclaim such slaves from the more distant 
 Northern and Northwestern States, had proved difficult. From the 
 States on the border, they were often brought back by brute force. 
 The men who pursued them relied, in earlier years, largely on the 
 indifference of the inhabitants, who, very frequently, shared in the 
 Southern contempt for those counted of an inferior race. But as 
 the facilities for escaping from slavery increased, and as those who 
 were left behind learned from those who had preceded them that 
 they were comparatively safe when once they had reached a free 
 State, and absolutely safe when they had crossed the Canadian line, 
 so it became more and more difficult, as time went on, and the feel- 
 ing against slavery at the North increased, to enforce the statute of 
 1793. A new act, therefore, was demanded, and one was drawn by 
 Mr. Mason, a Senator from Virginia. 
 
 The difficulties which surrounded it were pointed out from its birth, 
 Proposed m * ne debates in both Houses. Mr. Webster had prepared 
 a provision giving the fugitive a jury trial. This amend- 
 , nen fc AV as introduced by Mr. Dayton, but failed. When 
 men afterward held that the act was unconstitutional, this failure 
 to grant jury trial was one of the features they relied upon. An 
 amendment, offered by Jefferson Davis, provided that the Government 
 of the United States should be responsible for the expenses of the 
 slave's delivery. This was adopted. Mr. Davis, a Massachusetts 
 Senator, offered an amendment providing that when free colored sea- 
 men were imprisoned in Southern ports, the United States District 
 Attorney should sue out writs of habeas corpus for their delivery. 
 But this failed. For thirty years South Carolina had imprisoned 
 all colored sailors entering her ports, and they would be reduced to 
 slavery, if by any accident they were not taken away again in the 
 vessel in which they came. England had complained more than once 
 of this outrage upon British subjects ; the law had been pronounced 
 unconstitutional, but South Carolina defiantly maintained it, and other 
 States had followed her example. In 1844 Massachusetts had sent 
 Mr. Samuel Hoar to South Carolina, and Mr. Henry Hubbard to Loui- 
 siana, to seek redress for this grievance; but both gentlemen had 
 been compelled, by threats of being lynched by mobs, to make their 
 escape from Charleston and New Orleans. Had Mr. Davis's amend- 
 ment passed, it would only have subjected the North to new indignities. 
 
 By the new law the alleged fugitive was denied a trial by jury, was 
 denied the right of testifying to the court that he was not the slave of 
 the claimant, or that he was not a slave sit all ; but any court of rec- 
 ord or judge therein was required to surrender him to the claimant 
 on his word. As courts mi^ht not be; always accessible, the act pro- 
 
1850.] 
 
 THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 
 
 397 
 
 
 vided for special commissioners, wliose decision should be absolute in 
 all cases, and whose fee, when they decided in favor of the claimant, 
 should be double that when the decision was against him. The posse 
 comitatus might be called upon, if the officers making the arrest 
 thought necessary; all good citizens were "commanded" to aid the 
 execution of the law, and if they helped the prisoner, they were 
 subject to heavy penalties. When the bill came before Congress 
 there were some Northern members who declined to vote ; but it was 
 passed by a large majority, signed by the President, and pronounced 
 constitutional by the Attorney-general. 
 
 The last of the five measures, which was meant to meet North- 
 ern susceptibilities as to the 
 slave trade in the District of 
 Columbia, authorized the city 
 authorities of Washington and 
 Georgetown to abate the traffic 
 in slaves brought into the Dis- 
 trict for sale. It did not in- 
 terfere with the sale between 
 residents in the District, nor 
 prevent their selling slaves to 
 be taken from it. Mr. Sew- 
 ard moved to amend by abol- 
 ishing slavery in the District, 
 
 / 
 
 and appropriating two hundred 
 thousand dollars for compen- 
 sation. But this amendment, 
 of course, failed. 
 
 As if to test the submissive- 
 
 ness of the North, the Fugitive Slave Act was put into immediate 
 operation. The alarm of the colored population was intense, among 
 those who were free as well as those who had escaped from slavery. 
 And as it happened, the first arrest was that of a freeman, for 
 whose surrender to the slave-hunter the Commissioner earned his 
 double fee, though the slaveholder to whom the alleged slave was 
 taken, was frank enough to acknowledge that he had never seen 
 the man before. But the indignation of the North did not wait 
 upon the execution of the law. It broke out all over the country, 
 and found expression in public meetings, in the pulpit, in the press, 
 in the solemn resolution of many thousands that they would never 
 help in the return of a fugitive from slavery, and that they would 
 hinder if they could. On the other hand, that large class of con- 
 servative people who, like Mr. Webster, valued the Union more 
 
 Millard 
 
398 THE COMPROMISES OF 1850. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 than liberty at least more than the liberty of those who were poor 
 and helpless were not silent. Great public meetings were held 
 in New York, in Boston, and in other cities, in which men distin- 
 guished in society, lawyers, merchants, clergymen, insisted, with all 
 the weight of influence that wealth, position, and ability could give, 
 that the compromise measures must be sustained, and, chief of all, 
 that requiring the capture of all runaway negroes, or those said to 
 be runaways, in the free States. If the duty had been made obnox- 
 ious, so much the more merit in its performance ; for it was the 
 price of the Union, and would leave commerce and trade undis- 
 turbed. To those who asked what such a Union was worth, and 
 what was to become in the end of government by the people, if the 
 laws of the country were to be dictated by slaveholders for their ex- 
 clusive benefit, some of the more eminent of the clergy, like Dr. 
 Moses Stuart, a professor in the Theological School at Andover, Mas- 
 sachusetts, Dr. Lord, the President of Dartmouth College, Bishop 
 Hopkins, of Burlington, Vermont, Dr. Nehemiah Adams, a leading 
 evangelical clergyman of Boston, Dr. Taylor, of the Theological De- 
 partment of Yale College, and Dr. Orville Dewey, a Unitarian clergy- 
 man of New York, came forward to enforce the moral and religious 
 obligation of saving the Union by implicit submission. Those who 
 wished to be justified, justified themselves by such teachings; those 
 who thought with Seward that there was " a higher law than the 
 Constitution," and those who, like the Abolitionists, declared that a 
 rightful property in man was impossible, were shocked at a fanati- 
 cism as short-sighted as it was unchristian. 
 
 One writer upon the events of this period has estimated that more 
 fugitive slaves were reclaimed under this Act in a single year than 
 had been returned for the previous sixty years of the Government. 1 
 There are no statistics to warrant any such assumption, and it could 
 only be made through an erroneous estimate of the temper of the 
 times. In the earlier years, the Constitution, as it was said, in the 
 decision in the Prigg case, it might literally " executed itself." 
 One searching for and finding a runaway slave, took him, whether 
 in a slave State or a free State, with as little question, generally, and 
 as little formality, as if he were a horse which had strayed from its 
 owner. Philadelphia was the only place in the country, probably, 
 where any feeling upon the subject asserted itself. And there it was 
 chiefly confined to Friends, one of whom, Isaac T. Hopper, in the first 
 quarter of the century, aided and found safe places of refuge for 
 hundreds of the flying bondmen. 2 But it was because the recapture 
 
 1 Greeley's American Conflict. 
 
 " See a curious and interesting record of his labors in the Life of Isaac T. Hopper, by 
 Lydia Maria Child. 
 
1850.] THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 
 
 of fugitives was so easy, and the indifference to the subject was gen- 
 erally so great, that the kidnapping of free negroes became so com- 
 mon along the border that Maryland had more than once called the 
 attention of Congress to the subject in the earlier part of the century, 
 and finally had induced Pennsylvania to pass that law under which 
 Prigg was convicted. As the Anti-slavery movement grew in strength 
 in the North, the facilities for escape and the difficulties of recapture 
 increased ; and when, at length, the Act was passed which was to 
 trample Northern " prejudices " and Northern law alike under foot, 
 few, if any, slaves, or alleged slaves, were arrested without arousing 
 immediate resistance. It seemed to the careless observer that this 
 was a new thing, because hitherto it had passed without observation. 
 In reality the cases of capture were few, partly because the fugitives 
 now were less willing to take the risk of remaining in the free States, 
 and partly because the dangers and difficulties of recapture were 
 multiplied a thousand-fold. 
 
 The law was simply defied, as not being justified either by reason, 
 by right, or by the Constitution. If the terms of the Union enforced 
 the obligation to surrender fugitive slaves, it was demanded that at 
 least the obligation should be shown to be valid in every given case. 
 The law that refused this was considered a breach of the contract, 
 and the obligation being disregarded on one side was held to be no 
 longer binding on the other. Wherever it was possible to appeal to 
 the laws and courts of the State, the appeal was made. The doctrine 
 of State Rights, hitherto maintained only for the protection of slavery, 
 was declared to be at least of equal virtue for the protection of lib- 
 erty. When the State courts failed to protect the alleged fugitive, 
 he was, if possible, rescued from the hands of the officers of the law 
 and sent to a place of safety. Not many years before, an Anti-slavery 
 gathering anywhere brought together a mob, and he who gave utter- 
 ance to a word of condemnation of slavery, did so at risk of life and 
 limb. Now a rumor of the seizure of one accused of being a slave, 
 assembled a multitude of the most thoughtful and most worthy in 
 every Northern community, to resent the outrage and insult which, 
 in the person of that outcast, were offered to the North. 
 
 The most significant enforcements of the law were made in Boston. 
 A slave named Shadrach was taken, by a sudden dash of his Fugitire 
 friends, from the court room of the Supreme Court of the slaTeca! * s 
 State, when it was plain that there was no hope of help from the 
 law. In the next case in that city the grip upon the fugitive was 
 firmer. The precaution was taken, in the first place, to arrest 
 Thomas M. Simms on a charge of theft, and then to hold him as a 
 fugitive from slavery. The contempt felt for the superserviceable 
 
400 THE COMPROMISES OF 1'850. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 . 
 
 zeal of the United States officers, who wanted the manliness to re- 
 fuse to hold offices to be put to such base uses, was not limited 
 to those who were ready to resist them at every turn. 1 That zeal 
 was never-failing, but at no time was it so active as in that deepest 
 humiliation of Massachusetts, and supreme triumph of slaveholding 
 ascendency the surrender of Anthony Burns. The attempt to 
 rescue him in an attack made upon the Court House, in which 
 one man was killed failed, but the extreme measure, nevertheless, 
 of upholding civil authority by force of arms was resorted to. The 
 militia of Boston were called out, and the Marshal made requisition 
 for all the United States troops in the vicinity, on the day appointed 
 for the surrender of the slave. The events of that day are as mem- 
 orable as some that occurred in those same streets nearly 
 Burn* ur- a hundred years before. At the end of one of the 
 wharves lay a revenue cutter, sent by President Pierce to 
 convey this poor fugitive back to Virginia. The streets were cleared 
 and held by the military ; the banks and other places of business on 
 the line of march were closed; flags draped in mourning and at half- 
 mast were hung out in many places ; at the appointed hour, Marshal 
 Devens, with his prisoner surrounded by more than a hundred civil 
 officers of Boston, marched out of the Court House in a hollow 
 square formed by United States Marines and a company of United 
 States Artillery. Massachusetts was not yet organized for revolu- 
 tion, to repel invasion, or to suppress insurrection, but in the silent 
 multitude, from Boston Court House to Long Wharf, who watched 
 that spectacle, lay the suppressed fire that blazed into a fierce red 
 flame, when seve years afterward the Massachusetts Sixth marched 
 through Baltimore. 
 
 Nowhere else was there quite the pomp of enforced submission dis- 
 played under the law that the slaveholders, and the creatures who 
 lived on the breath of slaveholders, chose should be made in Boston. 
 For Boston or rather all Massachusetts still stood where she hail 
 stood for a century, at the head of the host that was gathering to join 
 battle again when the time should come, for freemen and a free gov- 
 ernment. But the spirit that animated her broke out in many places. 
 Elsewhere as there, when the appeal to law failed, force was resorted 
 to and fugitives were rescued. Arms were put into their hands, and 
 
 1 " How much trouble poor Devens makes for himself. I never had any trouble about 
 these niters. And I was very careful. Whenever they came to me and said they wen- 
 looking for a nigger, I would go myself and hunt for him. I would go over to ' Nigger 
 Hill ' [a district in Boston] at once, and >ay, ' Boys, have any of you seen such a man ''. 
 If you sec him briug him to my office.' Many 's the time I 've gone to look for 'em. But 
 I never found one." Such was the shrewd, amusing, and contemptuous commentary of a 
 Democratic ex-Marshal, on the si;i\ c-humini; y.eal of Marshal Charles Devens. 
 
1854.] 
 
 FUGITIVE SLAVE CASES. 
 
 401 
 
 they were told to use them. Now and then lives were lost on both 
 sides ; arrests were made and sometimes punishments were inflicted 
 for resistance to the law. In some States the use of prisons and the 
 services of State officers in the arrest of fugitives were forbidden by 
 
 Rendition of Anthony Burns. 
 
 State legislation. Even some of the Southern statesmen were wise 
 enough to see that they had committed an enormous blunder. 
 
 But the South was lighting in her own cause. Mr. Fillmore and 
 Mr. Webster were looked upon as traitors to the cause of 
 the North, and it was neither forgotten nor forgiven. Other- 
 wise, in the administration of national affairs of less mo- 
 ment, the President won some credit. It was under that adminis- 
 tration that postage was further reduced, that the Agricultural Bureau 
 
 Fillmore "s 
 
 Aduiiuistra- 
 
 tion. 
 
 VOL. IV. 
 
402 THE COMPROMISES OF 1850. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 was established, that the first steps toward a Pacific Railroad were 
 taken, and the great enlargement of the Capitol was begun. He sent 
 out Commodore Perry to Japan, on a mission which was the first of 
 the measures that have opened Japan to the world. Had it not been 
 for the black cloud of the slavery question which would not be dis- 
 sipated, Mr. Fillmore had a fair chance for the honor which he cer- 
 tainly coveted, of being elected directly to the Presidency. But that 
 cloud grew blacker and blacker. The men in public life, or eager 
 in the management of parties, tried to persuade themselves that the 
 " Compromises " had ended the discussion. They had only brought 
 it to the beginning of the end. 
 
 Before the thirty-first Congress adjourned, forty-three members, of 
 whom ten were from free States, published a compact in 
 
 Presidential r 
 
 nomina- which they pledged themselves not to support lor Presi- 
 dent, or Vice-president, for Congress or any State Legisla- 
 ture, any man not opposed to the renewal of the agitation of slavery. 
 Mr. Clay and Mr. Cobb, as leaders of the Whig and Democratic par- 
 ties, headed the subscription. The record of the Democratic party 
 was sufficiently clear in these matters. The division in the State of 
 New York, which had given her vote to President Taylor and had 
 elected him, was now healed. The " Free Democracy " of that State 
 acted again in sympathy with the party throughout the country. 
 
 Each party held its Convention for the nomination of a candidate 
 Democratic at Baltimore. That of the Democrats met first, on the 1st 
 conrention. o f j une? 1852. The prominent candidates were James Bu- 
 chanan of Pennsylvania, Lewis Cass of Michigan, Stephen A. Doug- 
 las of Illinois, and William L. Marcy of New York. On the first bal- 
 lot Mr. Buchanan had the largest number of votes, one hundred and 
 sixteen. But this was not enough for his nomination. A protracted 
 series of ballotings followed, which ended with the forty-ninth, when 
 General Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire received all the votes 
 but six. Such distinction as he had, he had earned in the command 
 of the New Hampshire volunteers in the Mexican war ; but his name 
 was wholly unknown to the country when he was nominated. In his 
 letter of acceptance he said that no word or act of his life was in 
 conflict with the principles of the resolutions of the Convention. He 
 was adopted as a candidate, on the principle, by this time familiar 
 to the statesmen of the South who controlled these conventions, of 
 choosing " a Northern man with Southern principles." One of the 
 earliest acts of his administration the rendition of Burns showed 
 that here, at least, they had made no mistake. 
 
 The Whig Convention met on the 16th of June. At the opening 
 of the session of Congress, six months before, it had seemed as if Mr. 
 
1852.] WHIG AND FREE-SOIL CONVENTIONS. 403 
 
 Fillmore might be adopted as the candidate of the party, and it was 
 also certain that the friends of Mr. Webster, his Secretary \vhigcon- 
 of State, would support him. The Whig party, as a party Teiltlon - 
 of voters, could not be confidently counted on, as the Democratic 
 party could, to sustain the Compromise Measures. It was certain that 
 a nomination strictly committed to those measures would lose votes in 
 the canvass in the Northern States. Still the Convention adopted 
 the measures in a resolution which said, " We will maintain this sys- 
 tem as essential to the nationality of the Whig party, and the integ- 
 rity of the Union." This resolution was adopted by a vote of two 
 hundred and twenty-seven to seventy-six. When the ballot for can- 
 didates came, Mr. Fillmore and General Scott had nearly equal num.- 
 bers, and Mr. Webster twenty-nine, enough to prevent either of the 
 others from receiving a majority. Nor did this state of the vote 
 change materially till the fifty-ninth ballot, when General Scott re- 
 ceived a majority, one hundred and fifty-nine votes. William A. 
 Graham of North Carolina, a member of Mr. Fillmore's Cabinet, was 
 made candidate for Vice-president. The hope of the supporters of 
 General Scott was, that his military reputation would rally strength 
 for him, which neither of the recognized chiefs of the party could 
 command. 
 
 The third Convention, called by those men who were wholly dissat- 
 isfied with the Compromises, and who saw that the slavery Free ^ oil 
 question was the only question of vital import in the politics Convention - 
 of the nation, was held at Pittsburg, on the llth of August. They 
 had lost the strength which the breach in the Democratic party of 
 New York gave them four years before. On the other hand, they 
 had the additional power given them by the indignation through the 
 North aroused by the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law. In their 
 proclamation of principles they declared slavery to be a " sin against 
 God and a crime against man ;" they denounced the Fugitive Slave 
 Act as a violation of the Constitution, and of the common law, hos- 
 tile to the spirit of Christianity and in opposition to the sentiments of 
 the civilized world. They declared the Whig and Democratic parties 
 both hopelessly corrupt and unworthy of confidence. 
 
 The resolutions Avere drawn by Mr. Giddings, who had been once 
 virtually expelled from Congress for maintaining these principles 
 which the Abolitionists had laid down as the foundations of their so- 
 cieties twenty years before. Even these resolutions were criticised in 
 the Convention as not sufficiently thorough for the exigency, but thev 
 were accepted as its proclamation to the people. The Convention 
 named for the candidate for President John Parker Hale of New 
 Hampshire, who had left the Democratic party on the admission of 
 Texas ; for Vice-president, George W. Julian of Indiana. 
 
404 
 
 THE COMPROMISES OF 1850. 
 
 [CHAP. XV. 
 
 This election is of historical interest, as the first and the last in 
 which the two great parties presented to the country as candidates 
 men who were not very highly esteemed even by the persons who 
 nominated them. On both sides, the leading statesmen of the par- 
 ties were set aside, for the nomination of men who were called 
 u available '' in the language of party. The result of the election 
 showed that the ingeniously contrived Compromises, joined with the 
 adjustment of the dissensions of the New York Democrats, had really 
 
 had some effect in 
 diminishing the vote 
 given at the North 
 for the candidates of 
 " Free Soil," or the 
 Free Democracy. 
 
 V 
 
 In neither election 
 had the "third par- 
 ty" expected to 
 choose a single Pres- 
 idential Elector. 
 But in 1848, they 
 gave 291,263 votes 
 for Martin Van Bu- 
 ren ; and in 1852 
 they gave only 156,- 
 149 votes for John 
 P. Hale. Their prin- 
 cipal loss was in the 
 State of New York, 
 where the Demo- 
 cratic party united 
 in supporting Gen- 
 eral Pierce, and the vote of the Free Democrats was therefore re- 
 duced by nearly one hundred thousand. General Pierce gained, in 
 the popular vote, nearly four hundred thousand on the vote given 
 for General Cass, four years before. General Scott gained only 
 twenty-six thousand on the vote given for General Taylor. In the 
 electoral vote, the defeat of General Scott was overwhelming. He 
 had onlv forty-two electoral votes, those of Massachusetts and Ver- 
 
 / * 
 
 mont in the East, with those of Kentucky and Tennessee in the 
 West. Twenty-seven other States, giving an electoral vote of two 
 Election of hundred and fifty-four, pronounced in favor of General 
 Pierce. Never was a more complete victory. The Dem- 
 ocrats who had supported the Compromise Measures were thus tri- 
 
 Franklin Pierce. 
 
1854.] ELECTION OF PIERCE. 405 
 
 umphantly sustained. The Whig leaders who had supported them, 
 had the mortification of destroying their party, without other advan- 
 tage for the general welfare than such as could be hoped for from 
 an administration committed to extreme pro-slavery measures. 
 
 At the end of Pierce's administration, it was said that he came 
 into office with very little opposition, and went out without any. 
 The language abridges into an epigram the history of four fatal 
 years. It was not, however, the first time that an immense popular 
 success has proved fatal to a man or to a party. In his first message 
 he spoke with a certain doubt of his own power, which , 
 
 His course 
 
 only foreshadowed too well a fatal weakness by which, ap- {oTf - 
 
 ' . J r shadowed. 
 
 parently with no will of his own, he became the tool of 
 different managers, and in consequence of which his party was re- 
 duced to a minority among the people, and, in a quarter of a cen- 
 tury, it has never recovered the ascendency. In the inevitable 
 
 / * / 
 
 conflict of which his administration makes an important part, it hap- 
 pened that its failure belongs to a part of the history of slavery. 
 But the weakness of the man was such that it is impossible that 
 even in the happiest time he could have directed large measures 
 with any success. 
 
 In his inaugural address he used the strongest language with re- 
 gard to the Compromise measures and the question of slavery. " I 
 fervently hope," he said, "that the question is at rest, and that no 
 sectional or ambitious or fanatical excitement may again threaten the 
 duration of our institutions or obscure the light of our prosper- 
 ity." At the end of the same year, in his message he spoke of the 
 repose which had followed the Compromises, and said, " that this re- 
 pose is to suffer no shock during my official term if I have power to 
 avert it, those who placed me here may be assured." Only six weeks 
 after, on the 4th of January, Mr. Douglas, of Illinois, one of the un- 
 successful competitors for the nomination in the Democratic , 
 
 Douglas's 
 
 Convention, introduced in the Senate a bill for opening the * el ' ra * k * 
 territory of Nebraska to settlement. Before this time all 
 territory west of Iowa and Missouri had been closed against emi- 
 grants, that is, it was impossible for them to secure their farms if they 
 should settle. By the word " Nebraska," in this bill, was meant all 
 the territory north of the line of Texas and west of the States 
 named, as far as the Rocky Mountains. On the 16th of January, Mr. 
 Dixon, of Kentucky, moved that in the territory thus opened the 
 Missouri Compromise should not apply, and on the 23d, Mr. Douglas 
 introduced a second bill including that provision. These two gentle- 
 men thus reopened the slavery discussion which the President six. 
 weeks before had spoken of as closed forever. 
 
406 THE COMPROMISES OF 1850. [CiiAP. XV. 
 
 It is difficult for another generation to understand how entirely the 
 Missoui'i Compromise, born in excitement and rejected at first by 
 the most steadfast Northern feeling, had come to be regarded 
 throughout the Northern States as virtually belonging to an unwrit- 
 ten Constitution. At the East, " Mason and Uixon's line " between 
 Pennsylvania and Maryland, had been spoken of for a generation as 
 the line between freedom and slavery. At the West, the parallel of 
 36 30', fixed upon in 1820, was regarded as making the same separ- 
 ation. Men even spoke as if a certain eternal line of climate were 
 represented by this imaginary parallel, so that it parted countries in 
 which slave labor could be productive from countries in which slave 
 labor would be impossible. Even the school-books which children 
 read fostered this sentiment without intending it, and among things 
 settled, which conservative people were determined not to unsettle, 
 nothing can be named more fixed than this dividing line. To over- 
 leap this boundary now and remove all barriers to the extension of 
 slavery, was the determination of the South, or presently became so. 
 
 When on the 4th of January, Mr. Douglas, from the Committee on 
 Territories, reported a bill for the organization of Nebraska, the 
 report questioned the original validity of the Missouri Compromise, 
 and declared that the new Compromise of 1850 left all question of 
 Proposed re- slavery to the decision of the people residing in any given 
 MifUniri e territory. This is the doctrine which in the discussions of 
 the next six years was called "Squatter Sovereignty," a 
 phrase originally given to it by General Cass. As announced by 
 Mr. Douglas, it may be considered an illustration of his interest in 
 the new settlers of the W T est, and his determination to stand by 
 their rights. But it was impossible to say that any abrogation of the 
 Compromise of 1820 had been contemplated by the men who united 
 in the Compromise Measures of 1850. The text of these measures 
 admitted of no such construction, and a careful examination of the 
 debates of the session in which they were passed, actually showed that 
 no allusion to the Missouri Compromise was made, or any proposal to 
 overthrow it. In all the discussions South or North upon the sub- 
 ject, it had seemed to be taken for granted that the Compromise of 
 1820 was eternal, or, as has been said, that it was now an unwritten 
 article of the Constitution. It afterwards appeared, that in the sum- 
 mer following Pierce's election, a warm discussion had sprung up in 
 the western counties of Missouri among persons who wished to take 
 up the rich bottom lands of what is now Kansas and cultivate them 
 as slave territory ; that in that discussion it had been held that the 
 Missouri Compromise was no longer binding. 1 In fact, the Missouri 
 
 1 A pamphlet by " Lynteus " avowed this view, and is now oue of the curiosities of Amer- 
 icaii history. 
 
1854.] 
 
 REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 
 
 407 
 
 Compromise had been disregarded when the State of Missouri, with 
 the consent of Congress, had added to her territory that triangle 
 in the northwestern part of it which was known as the Platt Pur- 
 chase. It is probable that the wishes of these Missouri speculators 
 were reflected in Mr. Douglas's proposal. Mr. Douglas, also, though 
 he was a man. of large Northern popularity, probably was not ex- 
 empt from that eager desire to secure popularity at the South which 
 governed so many of the statesmen of the hour. He was in the \K>- 
 sition of chairman of the Committee on Territories, so that he was 
 obliged to take ground on the one side or the other. He always 
 insisted that the clause which he introduced was neither a pro- 
 slavery clause nor an anti-slavery 
 clause, that it simply left the in- 
 stitutions of the Territory to the de- 
 cision of those who were to reside 
 u*pon its soil. 
 
 Whatever Mr. Douglas meant or 
 did not mean, whatever the Southern 
 statesmen who applauded his fatal pro- 
 vision meant or did not mean, the 
 proposed abrogation of the compro- 
 mise line of 1820 was received through- 
 out the Northern States as a proposal 
 to change by Act of Congress an ar- 
 ticle of the Constitution would have 
 been received. It was plain that the 
 South, having obtained every advan- 
 tage it could claim under the Missouri 
 
 Compromise, in the admission of the States of Florida, Arkansas, 
 and Missouri as slave-holding States, now chose to throw away that 
 agreement, when for the first time any advantage was to come to 
 the North. It was felt throughout the Northern States that the 
 repeal of the Missouri Compromise was an " uncalled for and un- 
 necessary act, even a violation of plighted faith." These are the 
 words of Mr. Kenneth Ray nor of North Carolina, in an address made 
 the next year. 
 
 The original bill proposed the creation of a Territory to be known 
 as Nebraska. An early amendment separated the region by the line 
 which still parts Kansas from Nebraska. But the name first chosen 
 still attached to the bill, and the debate was generally called the 
 " Nebraska debate." After a week or two of silent surprise, the 
 whole North showed its indignation at the destruction of the Missouri 
 Compromise. This indignation, if nothing else, united the Southern 
 
 Stephen A. Douglas 
 
408 THE COMPROMISES OF 1850. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 Senators and Representatives in its favor, and the Kansas-Nebraska 
 Bill passed into a law on the 30th of May, after the most 
 
 Kansas- . , ,. . i i TT TI* i 
 
 Nebraska excited discussion in both Houses. In that vote, as it has 
 proved, was the last step of that Southern domination 
 which had controlled the country since the election of Jefferson. 
 Many Northern Whigs and Democrats, who had felt bound in 
 honor to support the Compromises, now felt themselves released 
 from that obligation. From this moment there w r as no longer 
 any reason which could be urged on men of honor for their sup- 
 port. If the South would not hold to these measures except when 
 it suited her, why should the North be bound by them ? But it 
 happened, the proposal for " Squatter Sovereignty " started a larger 
 emigration than that of a few partisans from the western counties 
 of Missouri. All the Northwest was eager to furnish "Squatters." 
 The discussion had roused the country, and especially that part of it 
 which furnishes emigrants for new States. Slaveholders with slaves 
 do not care to take them into doubtful regions. Men without slaves 
 can move far more quickly. In the northwestern States, men who 
 had thus far opposed the Southern policy by their votes alone, saw 
 that now they had the opportunity to oppose it more directly. 
 
 In the Eastern States, Eli Thayer conceived an organization of the 
 emigration of the year, with the view of directing it to Kan- 
 emigration sas. On the 20th of April, before the Nebraska Act passed 
 
 to K:in>:i>. _ , , , . . . , . , i r 
 
 Congress, he and his friends were incorporated as the " Mas- 
 sachusetts Emigrant Aid Company." They were permitted to hold 
 a capital of five million dollars. A ready exaggeration, made in a 
 hostile interest, announced that they had this capital. In fact, that 
 company had not collected twenty thousand dollars, when the year 
 closed. But the fame of its wealth answered the purpose as well as 
 the possession. Undecided men were willing to throw in their 
 chances, where an organization, supposed to be so strong, led the 
 way. The glove thrown down too hastily, in a challenge to the 
 Northern emigrant, was taken up on the instant. On the last days 
 of July, as soon as the Territory was open to settlement, the pioneer 
 party of the Emigrant Aid Company took up claims at the point now 
 known as Lawrence. Before winter, this company had sent from New 
 England five hundred emigrants. From other free States had poured 
 in enough more to make a population of eight thousand. These 
 pioneers had experienced some difficulty in passing through Missouri. 
 The men on the borders of that State the "border ruffians " as 
 they soon and most appropriately came to be called had under- 
 taken the task, which soon proved hopeless, of damming the tide. 
 A winter unexpectedly open favored the settlement. On the other 
 
1854.] 
 
 SETTLEMENT OF KANSAS. 
 
 409 
 
 hand, no man had dared take into the Territory property so valuable 
 as slaves then were, with the slave's propensity to leave his home. 
 The great contest, the moment it was reduced to rivalry in settling 
 a new region, was evidently an unequal one. 
 
 Side by side with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in Con- 
 gress, treaties had been quietly made in Washington with <! , tl< , mpnt 
 the half-civilized Indian tribes, already in possession, under cfLa " reuce - 
 which they gave up their lands for settlement. But the Indian titles 
 
 were not extinguished when the first New _-. - 
 
 England colony arrived, and it therefore 
 
 planted itself at Lawrence, the first available point as yet free from 
 Indian claims. Meetings of men in the slave interest were held in 
 Missouri, in which they pledged themselves to remove any and all 
 emigrants who should go to Kansas under the auspices of the Em- 
 igrant Aid Societies. President Pieive appointed A. H. A p P omt- 
 Reeder, of Pennsylvania, Governor of the Territory, and he ReetLrL 
 arrived in October. From all regions of the Northwest ^ VCTnor 
 settlers poured in, and met with occasional outrages on the Missouri 
 line, sometimes involving loss of life. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE KANSAS STRUGGLE. BUCHANAN. 
 
 THE FRAUDULENT ELECTION'S IN KANSAS. THE TERRITORIAL LEGISLATURES. 
 THE KANSAS CODE. BORDER RUFFIANS AIDED FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. SACK 
 OF LAWRENCE. JOHN BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE. DISPERSION OF THE TOPEKA 
 LEGISLATURE. ELECTION OF BUCHANAN. LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION AND THE 
 ENGLISH COMPROMISE. THE MORMONS. WALKER'S EXPEDITION. ATLANTIC 
 TELEGRAPH CABLE. JOHN BROWN'S INVASION OF VIRGINIA. His CAPTURE AND 
 EXECUTION. ELECTION OF LINCOLN. 
 
 Ox the 20th of November, an election was ordered in Kansas, to 
 choose a delegate to Congress. Immediately the border 
 
 Election of . & > 
 
 delegate to counties of Missouri prepared to send over voters. The Sen- 
 
 Congress. 
 
 ator in Congress from Missouri, David Atchison, gave this 
 direction in a public speech : v ' When you reside within one day of 
 the Territory, you can send five hundred of your young men who will 
 vote in favor of your institutions." Such directions were literally 
 complied with. The election day was a day of invasion, and the can- 
 didate of the slaveholding interest was chosen, by an enormous ma- 
 jority. Indeed, he received eleven hundred votes more than the 
 number of legal voters in the Territory three months afterward. 
 The census was taken in February. It showed a population of 
 
 5,128 men, and 3,373 women; of these 3,469 were minors. 
 
 i i i ,1111 -i 
 
 A iittle less than five hundred, as has been said, was the 
 number of emigrants, greatly denounced in Missouri, from 
 New England. Most of the remainder were from the Northwest. Of 
 the whole number, 2,905 had the qualifications for voting. Governor 
 Reeder now appointed a second election, at which the Legislature of 
 the Territory should be chosen. An organized movement was made 
 in Missouri, 1 by which companies of men from that State were sent 
 into every council district of Kansas. Many of the resident voters, in 
 the face of this invasion, refused to sanction at the ballot- 
 box the violence that only condescended to use a legal for- 
 mality. The result was the fraudulent election of thirteen 
 councillors, and twenty-six members of the lower house, a portion 
 
 1 See Congressional Report. 
 
 Second elec- 
 
 tionap- 
 
 Le K i*iat 
 
1855.] THE SHAWXEE MISSION LEGISLATURE. 411 
 
 of them Missourians by six thousand three hundred and twenty 
 votes, more than twice the number of legal voters in the Territory, 
 only about half of whom, or exactly thirteen hundred and ten, 
 went to the ballot-box. If history repeats, so it often reverses itself. 
 In this preliminary outbreak of the slaveholders' conspiracy against 
 civilization and republican government the resort was to a fraudulent 
 ballot before the seizure of the bayonet; in the next stage, the 
 rebellion of 1860, armed insurrection came first, and that failing 
 fraudulent voting is relied upon to subvert the government. 
 
 But the Legislature thus chosen, the first result of "Squatter Sov- 
 ereignty," was recognized at Washington. Its first act was to eject 
 the single free-soil councillor who was returned, whereupon the only 
 member of the party in the House resigned. The next step was to 
 quarrel with the Governor, Reeder, who they soon found was not to 
 be counted on to support these outrages. They h;id met at Pawnee, 
 a hundred miles from Missouri, but adjourned to the Shawnee Mi>- 
 sion, which was nearer to their base of operations. Reeder declared 
 them dissolved by this adjournment ; but they proceeded to Ita procped . 
 act. A code of laws, of a thousand pages, was passed by 
 copying the Missouri Statute Book, and changing the word "State " 
 to " Territory." They provided that every officer in the Territory for 
 the next two years should be appointed by themselves, and of course 
 these officers were selected from their own body. They recognized 
 slavery in the most stringent legislation, and decreed the punishment 
 of death for decoying slaves from their masters. 
 
 Governor Reeder, indignant at this absurd parody on legislation, 
 reported his views at Washington. But the President did 
 not wish any half-way interpretation of his compacts with rT^ies s ' 
 the South, and at once removed Reeder. to appoint Wilson 
 Shannon, a man of a different stamp. Meanwhile the people of the 
 Territory, in frequent meetings, disclaimed the whole of the legisla- 
 tion of the usurping body, and a convention was called, to be held at 
 Topeka in September, specially to form a State Constitution, and to 
 ask admission as a State into the Union. Reeder, whose upright 
 course had commended him to the Free-State party, was elected as 
 their delegate to Congress, on a different day, however, from that ap- 
 pointed by the Shawnee Mission Legislature. On that appointed day 
 the slavery party chose .John W. Whittield. 
 
 The two conventions of the Free-State party were held at Topeka, 
 one preliminary, one to make a State Constitution. The second Con- 
 vention prepared a draft of a Constitution, which was accepted by 
 their constituents. The issue was thus joined between the two par- 
 ties, the k> border-ruffians " and the Abolitionists," as they desig- 
 nated each other on the spot. 
 
412 
 
 TIIK KANSAS STRUGGLE. 
 
 [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 Between these parties a protracted civil war followed, provoked 
 i war in by outrages upon the actual settlers, leading inevitably, not 
 Kansas. merely to defence but to retaliation. Governor Shannon 
 culled out the militia, ostensibly to keep the peace; but his call 
 was answered by numerous volunteers from Missouri, for his sym- 
 pathies were well understood. The town of Lawrence was threat- 
 ened in the later months of 1855, but escaped destruction for the 
 time by the readiness of its leading citizens to go into arrest and 
 test in the courts the charges of their accusers. With the spring 
 of 1850, however, a military company from South Carolina under 
 
 South Carolina Troops in Missouri. 
 
 Major Buford arrived, pledged to war. They bore a red flag with 
 the motto, " South Carolina and State Rights." This year the at- 
 tack on Lawrence was renewed, under the direct authority of the 
 Government at Washington. It was the policy of the Free-State men 
 never to resist this authority, while they never submitted to border 
 outrage. The Free-State Hotel and the dwelling of Governor Rob- 
 sa<-kiiiKof inson, the Governor under the Topeka Constitution, were 
 burned and the town was sacked. In the mutual attacks 
 of these months many lives were lost on both sides, and the animosity 
 on both sides became, if possible, more and more bitter. The whole 
 influence and power of the Administration at Washington was thrown 
 against the Free-State party, and the United States troops at Leaven- 
 worth were often used by Shannon to carry out his purposes, direct 
 
 
1857.] 
 
 TOPEKA LEGISLATURE DISPERSED. 
 
 413 
 
 or indirect, to assist the invaders from the slave States. The grand 
 jury called by the Territorial authorities found indictments for high 
 treason against Robinson and others of the Free-State leaders, and 
 Robinson was kept for four months under arrest. The Free-State 
 Legislature met, and were dispersed by the United States forces, to 
 which, as always, they deferred. 
 
 Governor Shannon at length either resigned or was displaced by 
 President Pierce for failing to bring the Free-State party to 
 terms, and John W. Geary was appointed in his place. At- points GOT- 
 chison, of Missouri, led another army into the Territory. A 
 detachment of his force destroyed the village of Ossawatomie, then 
 the home of John 
 Brown, who was, 
 however, absent in 
 pursuit of a party 
 of the "border-ruf- 
 fians," who held as 
 prisoners two of his 
 sons and kept them 
 in chains. Another 
 son of his had been 
 some time before 
 inhumanly mur- 
 dered. So soon as 
 the Free-State 
 forces approached, 
 Atchison led back 
 his men into Missouri. Geary. - 
 on arrival, called on both parties to 
 disarm, but was met by a new invasion 
 from Missouri. A murder having taken 
 
 place almost in his own presence, he arrested the murderer, aud at 
 once lost favor in the eves of the slavery party. 
 
 V ' 
 
 He reported at length to the President that peace and order "' 
 were established. With the beginning of 1857 the Topeka 
 Legislature met; but the United States Marshal imniedi- a'tT |*ka 
 ately arrested the prominent members, and left both Houses 
 without a quorum. The Territorial Legislature also met at Lecoinp- 
 ton aud provided on their part for a State Constitution. Meanwhile, 
 on a report from a committee, the National House of Representatives 
 had declared void all the Territorial enactments ; but the bill did not 
 pass the Senate. At the same time Governor Geary resigned, dis- 
 gusted with the failure of President Pierce to support him, aud 
 
 Jonn Brown s Log House. 
 
414 
 
 THE KANSAS STRUGGLE. 
 
 [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 
 Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi, was named in his stead. Walker, 
 however, was alsq deposed, for no reason but the simplest adherence 
 to good faith with the settlers, and J. W. Denver became Territorial 
 Governor. The Free State men refused to vote for the Le- 
 
 .. IITI-II 
 
 comnton C onstitution ; and so completeiv did it lack popular 
 
 . 
 
 support that when again submitted ten thousand votes were 
 
 . rr . 11- 
 
 given against it ; and when Congress renewed the experi- 
 ment the same result was gained. Governor Denver resigned in turn, 
 
 Adversc 
 
 vote* on 
 
 Lecompton 
 
 tion. 
 
 Border Ruffians invading Kansas. 
 
 and Samuel Aledary was appointed in his place. The bitter struggle 
 the real opening of the war of the Rebellion which followed soon 
 came to an end. The attempt to force a pro-slavery Constitution 
 was given up. Franklin Pierce, the weak creature who filled the 
 chair of the President during the most of these outrages, had retired 
 to his original obscurity. A Constitution which repudiated slavery 
 in Kansas was made and ratified in 1850, and Charles Robinson was 
 the first Governor chosen. But it was not until the slave States had 
 gone out of the Union that Kansas was permitted to come in. 
 
18.>G.] WEAKNESS OF PRESIDENT PIEKCK. 
 
 Such are the external turning-points only of a history of bloodshed 
 and terror, then wholly new in the annals of the United St;ites. 
 Every step in it was marked with intense interest. The vacillations 
 of President Pierce, as it went on, were pitiable. One day 
 
 - . iii Weakness of 
 
 he announced that he had no power to preserve the peace ; ti,.- i-resi- 
 another day he employed the army; another day he left the 
 military commander to take the responsibility of his action. Two 
 days after the destruction of Lawrence, when that atrocity was not 
 known in Washington, an agent who had travelled night and day 
 from that town to explain to him the state of affairs, called upon the 
 President in Washington. He was distressed by the intelligence, and 
 shed tears possibly maudlin tears in expression of his sorrow. 
 He drew a despatch which he sent to Governor Shannon at once, bid- 
 ding him dismiss the "militia" so called, and rely only on the 
 regular forces. This, he declared, had been his intention from the 
 beginning; but when the different parties, eager to justify them- 
 selves, produced their several orders, it proved that Governor Shannon 
 had been directed not to employ the regular army unless he found 
 the " militia : ' insufficient. Such a scene is a fit illustration of the 
 vacillation of a man unfortunately intrusted with power, who may 
 not have been absolutely bad, but who was so weak and so destitute 
 of a political conscience that he was a mere tool in the hands of the 
 stronger men about him. 
 
 As early as the moment when the abrogation of the Missouri Com- 
 promise was proposed, a committee of Free Democrats, led by Mr. 
 Vinton of New York, had waited on the President to ask him the dis- 
 position of the Administration. The President said in reply that he 
 had certainly calculated on the support of the " softs,'' } as these men 
 were familiarly called, for he had shown them at least equal consider- 
 ation in the distribution of patronage. This remark on a question 
 which involved the most serious moral principles, is chai-acteristic of 
 the man. In an interview with Mr. Marcy, on the same day, the 
 committee learned that Mr. Douglas and some Southern gentlemen 
 had had two long discussions with the President. They had at last 
 compelled him to assent to their views, and he had himself put in 
 writing the passage which related to the abrogation of the Missouri 
 Compromise. This was the fulfilment of his promise, that the coun- 
 try's repose on the slavery question should suffer no shock during my 
 official term if I have power to prevent it/' The interview between 
 ibis committee and the President may be compared to the celebrated 
 
 1 The Democratic party of New York was divided into two factions, respectively called 
 the ' Hard Shells " and the " Soft Shells." The former were iu alliance with the slavery 
 propagandists of the South. 
 
416 THE KANSAS STRUGGLE. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 interview between the young Democrats of 1811 and Mr. Madison, 
 when they compelled him to assent to war with -England. As always 
 in such cases, the aggressors were able to threaten their victim with 
 the loss of a second term of his office. When the President yielded 
 he falsified every statement he had made up to this period, and, of 
 course, lost the prize which he had coveted. From this moment the 
 Democratic party was again divided. All persons, indeed, who were 
 determined that slavery should never be extended beyond its existing 
 limits, all persons who wished that the new Territories should be for- 
 ever free, could now act together untrammelled by real or supposed 
 obligations of honor. 
 
 At this period appeared a new combination in the politics of the 
 country, of which the full history has never yet been written, 
 nothing and, from its vei-y nature, perhaps never will be. A secret 
 society had been formed in the city of New York in the yea'- 
 1853, with the purpose of checking foreign influence, especially the 
 influence of the Pope, purifying the ballot, and maintaining the use 
 of the Bible in public schools. Whether these were or were not the 
 only objects of the founders, they have never yet told the world. But 
 these objects alone were such as could be readily made acceptable to 
 most of the rank and file of the native voters of either party, and 
 with the fascination which attends well-organized secret movements 
 would of themselves secure for it a large support. The organiza- 
 tion called itself the American Party, but was popularly named the 
 44 Know-nothings," one of the habits of its members, under their 
 mutual agreement, being to say to unlicensed inquirers that they 
 knew nothing of its secret proceedings. 
 
 The organization was increasing in numbers when the abrogation 
 of the Missouri Compromise, in 1854, completely dissolved all old 
 party ties at the North. Men of all shades of opinion, thus set free 
 from old companionships, were glad to use the new machinery. 
 Among these men at the North were some of the more intelligent of 
 the anti-slavery politicians, who thought that here was the opportu- 
 nity which they had sought in vain before for a national organization 
 friendly to their plans. At the South a considerable number of men 
 who distrusted the extreme measures of the " fire-eaters " joined them, 
 in hope that this organization might be used for the maintenance of 
 the Union. And as always happens in such cases, a large number of 
 discontented men of all views or of no views, who thought they had 
 not been sufficiently considered, offered themselves as leaders in its 
 councils. 
 
 So rapid was the enrolment of members, that more than a million 
 and a half of voters had accepted its pledges before the year 1855. Jn 
 
1855.] THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY. 417 
 
 the elections of the autumn of 1854, they carried the vote of many of 
 the Northern States, and in all well-nigh paralyzed the efforts of the 
 old organizations. The indignation of the North at the overthrow 
 of the Missouri Compromise, and the power of this " American " or- 
 ganization, resulted in the defeat of the Democratic party through 
 the Northern States. The Whig party was broken in pieces. The 
 elections of that year indicated to the President and those who had 
 advised him, that, whatever else was uncertain, it was certain that 
 they had lost the support of the Northern constituencies. 
 
 The new organization of the " Americans " was, however, no bet- 
 ter able than the old parties to hold together those who wished and 
 those who did not wish to extend slavery. Kenneth Raynor, of North 
 Carolina, had suggested establishing in it a " third or Union degree," 
 by which its members pledged themselves, in what is described as 
 a very serious and impressive ceremonial, " to maintain the Union 
 of the States, against any and all assaults." Before six 
 months had passed, more than a million and a half men, Mmajnth* 
 North and South, had taken this pledge. But, after all, 
 the pledge meant, for the most conscientious, the Union as they un- 
 derstood it; for those less conscientious, as events have proved, it 
 seems to have meant nothing. 
 
 The frequent alliances between the " American " party and the 
 Free-Soilers at the North, did not escape attention at the 
 
 oictf i 1 i Alliances 
 
 oouth. oo tar as anti-slavery men were directing the uh t-ree- 
 " American " councils, the friends of slavery at the South 
 saw the direction given. The result of such observation showed itself 
 in Virginia in the spring elections of 1855. Henry A. Wise, one of 
 the most notorious and insolent of the Virginian leaders, had been 
 counted, in earlier times, as one of the most influential men among 
 the Whigs. He now led the Democratic party of Virginia Defeated in 
 in a triumphant canvass, the result of which entirely over- 
 threw the new organization there. The hopes of its leaders to become 
 a national party were rudely blighted by this defeat. 
 
 Still the " National Council " which represented the organization, 
 was the organ of nearly a million and a half of men who had pledged 
 themselves to support its measures. No President, at this time, had 
 ever received seventeen hundred thousand votes. If the members 
 of the subordinate lodges could be kept united, the National Council 
 could be well-nigh sure of the next President. In that Council almost 
 every State was represented, generally by seven delegates each. The 
 Northern and Southern views at once expressed themselves. The 
 Council proved to be only another Congress, with every element rep- 
 resented in it, which would have been found in the Senate or the 
 
 VOL. iv. 27 
 

 418 
 
 THE KANSAS STRUGGLE. 
 
 [CiiAi>. XVI. 
 
 House of Representatives in Washington. Two weeks were spent in 
 M.-etin of * ne P re P :irjl ti n of resolutions : and the majority proved to 
 its council, be in favor of suppressing all discussion of slavery. Of 
 course the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, then fresh in all mem- 
 ories, was discussed. It was then that Kenneth Raynor used the 
 expression which has been already cited. " I have to say," he said. 
 ' that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was an uncalled for and 
 unnecessary act, an outrage even, a violation of plighted faith ; and 
 1 would have seen my right arm withered and my tongue palsied 
 before I would have voted for it." He proposed an amendment, 
 declaring that the American party recognized the right of private 
 judgment, of freedom of speech and of the press, on the subject of 
 slavery ; that all questions touching its agitation should be ignored 
 and discouraged, but that, should this party "come into power, it 
 would so dispose of that question as to mete out justice to all sec- 
 tions and interests." But this amendment was rejected. The North- 
 ern resolutions were also rejected. The Southern resolutions were 
 adopted by a vote of eighty to fifty-nine. 
 
 This was the last act of the National Council in which it could 
 be said to represent the whole country. The Northern delegates 
 met, and agreed to an address to the order, which demanded the 
 restoration of the Missouri Compromise line, the admission of Kan- 
 sas and Nebraska as free States, and the protection by the national 
 Government of actual settlers in the free exercise of the elective fran- 
 chise. The interference with the elections in Kansas by invasion 
 from Missouri suggested the last demand. For, at this moment, the 
 impression in the wavering fancies of President Pierce, was that he 
 had no right to give such protection. 
 
 The majority of the order were thus freed from the embarrassments 
 of anti-slavery alliance, while they lost the support of a large num- 
 ber of their Northern constituents. In the autumnal elections of 
 185"), the party carried the States of New York, California, and 
 Massachusetts ; but the division enabled the Democrats to carry New 
 Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Illinois. In all these cases the 
 victory was that of a plurality, not a majority of voters. 
 
 Under such lurid skies, the President met the thirty-fourth Con- 
 gress in December. So complicated were the partisan 
 
 N. P. Bank. *?. . . , , , . . TT 
 
 speaker of divisions, that two months passed before the House organ- 
 ized itself by the election of a Speaker. Two years before, 
 after a similar contest, the extreme Southern candidate was 
 chosen. Tin's year, under the plurality rule, as then, Nathaniel 
 P. Banks, of Massachusetts, was chosen, receiving one hundred and 
 three votes, while William Aiken, of South Carolina, received one 
 
 
1855.] 
 
 THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY. 
 
 419 
 
 hundred. Nineteen members were absent, eleven scattering votes 
 were given, and there was one vacancy. Meanwhile the Presi- 
 dent had brought the affairs of Kansas before Congress by a special 
 message on the 24th of January. The affairs of that Territory, al- 
 ready the scene of civil war, attracted largely the attention of Con- 
 gress through the session. Even Mr. Douglas, the champion of 
 " Squatters and Squatter Sovereignty," in a report from the Commit- 
 tee on Territories, denounced 
 the action of the " New Eng- 
 land Emigrant Aid Company," 
 and the President went so far 
 as to characterize the Eastern 
 settlers in Kansas, as persons 
 "foreign" to its interests. A 
 committee of the House visited 
 the Territory in person. They 
 obtained official records which 
 verified the history, now cer- 
 tain, of the constant armed in- 
 vasions from Missouri on davs 
 
 */ 
 
 of election. 
 
 In the course of the discus- 
 sion in the Senate, Charles 
 Sumner, Senator from Massa- 
 chusetts, delivered on the 19th 
 and 20th of May a speech which, when published, he called " The 
 Crime against Kansas." He was replied to bv Senators Cass, 
 
 ... * . Sumner's 
 
 Douglas, Mason of Virginia, and Butler of South Carolina, speech on 
 
 K aiitAS 
 
 in speeches whose tone is indescribable, except by the slang 
 phrase which distinguishes a certain grade of language and of man- 
 ners : they " blackguarded " the Senator from Massachusetts in terms 
 to which ordinary decency set no limit. Unfortunately, in his reply, 
 he permitted himself to retaliate in something of the same temper. 
 
 A reference to Mr. Butler was the ground of an assault made 
 on Mr. Sumner two days after. The Senate had adjourned. ^ ssaulu>d in 
 Mr. Sumner remained at his desk writing. Preston S. the! * I ' t - 
 Brooks, a Representative from South Carolina, accompanied by Mr. 
 Keitt, another member from the same State, as an accomplice, ap- 
 proached him and said: " I have read your speech twice over care- 
 fully ; it is a libel upon South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a 
 relative of mine." While he spoke, he struck Mr. Sumner over the 
 head with a heavy stick, as he sat confined by the desk at which 
 he was writing, and the blows were continued till he fell stunned,. 
 
 Charles Sumner. 
 
420 THE KANSAS STRUGGLE. [CnAP. XVI. 
 
 insensible, and bleeding to the floor. The injuries that he received, 
 seemed to threaten his life at first ; and it was, indeed, not till the 
 end of four years, that his medical advisers permitted his return to 
 his active duties. During that period, the State of Massachusetts was 
 not unfitly represented in the Senate by his empty chair. 
 
 Mr. Wilson, his colleague, called on the Senate the next day to 
 Action in vindicate its dignity. The temper of the Senate and of the 
 the senate. t j me a pp ears m {\ }e f ac t fa^ t] ie Senate chose a committee 
 
 of five Democrats to report on the assault. They reported, that as 
 Mr. Brooks Avas a member of the House, the Senate had no jurisdic- 
 tion, and should take no action. In a subsequent debate, Mr. Slidell 
 said: "When AVC heard that some one was beating Mr. Sumner, Ave 
 heard the remark \vithout any particular emotion. I remained very 
 quietly in my seat. The other gentleman did the same. We did 
 not move." Mr. Douglas said: "My first impulse Avas to come 
 into the Senate Chamber and help to put an end to the affray, if I 
 could. But it occurred to my mind in an instant, that my relations 
 to Mr. Sumner Avere such that if I came into the hall, my motives 
 might be misconstrued, and I sat doAvn again." Mr. Toombs said, 
 " I probably said I approved what Mr. Brooks did. That is my 
 opinion." 
 
 Such Avere the manifestations of opinion among Senators. Senator 
 senator \vii- Wilson, Mr. Sumner's colleague, Avas challenged by Brooks 
 lenged'bjr ^ or calling the assault "brutal, murderous, and coAvardly." 
 Mr. Wilson declined the challenge on the ground that duel- 
 ling was a part of the barbarism Avhich dictated the attack. When 
 Mr. Burlingame, of Massachusetts, subsequently accepted a challenge 
 from Brooks and proposed to meet him in Canada, Brooks declined, 
 on the ground that the state of Northern feeling Avas such that he 
 could not safely travel there. It was generally believed that his real 
 reason was a fear of Mr. Burlingame's rifle. 
 
 The House, on a report of its committee, voted to expel Brooks, by 
 Action of a v te of one hundred and twenty-one to ninety-five. For 
 the House, expulsion, under the rules, a vote of tAvo thirds was neces- 
 sary, so he retained his seat. A vote of censure Avas adopted by a 
 large majority. In an insolent speech he then resigned his seat 
 His constituents at once returned him, and in two Aveeks he took the 
 oaths again. Southern statesmen of the first rank Avere eager in con- 
 gratulations. Mr. Mason, of Virginia, said, " I know of no represen- 
 tative Avhose public career I hold more worthy of the full and cordial 
 approbation of his constituents." Jefferson Davis said, " I have only 
 to express my sympathy Avith the feeling Avhich prompts the sons of 
 Carolina to welcome the return of a brother Avho has been the sub- 
 
1856.] PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATIONS. 421 
 
 ject of vilification, misrepresentation, and persecution, because he re- 
 sented a libellous assault upon the representative of their mother." 
 Mr. Buchanan, however, went so far as to say that Mr. H rooks was 
 " inconsiderate." Brooks died within the year. In a eulogy on him 
 in the House Mr. Savage, of Tennessee, said, " History records but 
 one Thermopylae ; there ought to have been another, and that one for 
 Preston S. Brooks. The scene in the Senate Chamber shall carry the 
 name of the deceased to all future generations." History would, in- 
 deed, be incomplete without such record of the passions of the time, 
 though, the man who at the moment seems a hero to his friends, 
 stands revealed in the future to all men as only a ruffian and a bully 
 of a not uncommon type. 
 
 With such excitements, with the destruction in Kansas even of 
 the theory of Squatter Sovereignty, with the approval by 
 
 J a i PraidentuU 
 
 the Southern leaders of a murderous assault upon a Worth- canvass in 
 ern Senator, all parties made their preparation for another 
 election of President. The " American " Convention had met in 
 Philadelphia on the 22d of February, the anniversary of Washing- 
 ton's birthday. Mr. Perkins, of Connecticut, after an exciting debate 
 on the issues of the day, said, " There are two great questions before 
 the people : one the reform in the naturalization laws, one the restora- 
 tion of freedom in Kansas." He proposed that, as the Convention 
 would riot consider the latter question, those who thought it a real 
 issue should withdraw, and fifty members withdrew. The remaining 
 members gave Mr. Fillmore one hundred and seventy-nine votes, and 
 he was made their candidate. Andrew Jackson Donelson was made 
 candidate for Vice-president. 
 
 On the same day a convention was held at Pittsbnrg to perfect the 
 national organization of what was now called the Repub- TheRepub _ 
 lican Party, in which name it was hoped the different ele- llcan Party - 
 ments of opposition to the extension of slavery might be united. 
 This meeting proposed a national convention on the 17th of June, 
 supposed to be an auspicious day in the history of American rebel- 
 lion, because the anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill. 
 
 On the 2d of June there met at Cincinnati the Convention of the 
 Democratic party. President Pierce, who had come in with v,, mncniic 
 little opposition, was to go out with none. It was no longer c ' onveutlon - 
 a time for unknown men or weak men. Yet, with the power which 
 always belongs to an administration, he was brought forward as a 
 candidate. Mr. Douglas was another. James Buchanan, of Penn- 
 sylvania, was another. Fortunately for him, he had been Minister in 
 England when the Missouri Compromise was repealed, and in that 
 matter his hands were clean. The Convention balloted, without any 
 
422 TUB KANSAS STRUGGLE. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 nomination, sixteen times, the rules adopted requiring a vote of two 
 thirds. On the sixteentli ballot Mr. Buchanan received one hundred 
 and sixty-eight votes, Mr. Douglas one hundred and twenty-one. 
 There were but six others. On the seventeenth ballot Mr. Buchanan 
 received a unanimous vote and was chosen candidate. John C. Breck- 
 inridge was made candidate for Vice president. 
 
 The Convention of the new Republican party met at Philadelphia 
 Republican on the 17th of June, just after Lawrence was sacked, Mr. 
 roi.Ttion. Sumner beaten in the Senate Chamber, and Mr. Brooks con- 
 gratulated on the deed of an assassin. Men of very varied antece- 
 dents met there. Here was Preston King, of New York, the life-long 
 friend of Governor Marcy. Here was Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky, 
 a relative of the great Senator. Here was Henry Wilson, of Massa- 
 chusetts, fresh from the Senate Chamber where Sumner had been as- 
 saulted. Here was Francis P. Blair, the friend of General Jackson. 
 Here was David Wilmot, whose good fortune it was to move the Wil- 
 mot Proviso. The Convention, on its first ballot, gave to John 
 Charles Fremont three hundred and fifty-nine votes. Judge McLean, 
 of Ohio, received one hundred and ninety-six. General Fremont was 
 thus made the candidate. William L. Dayton received the majority 
 of votes for Vice-president, though one hundred and ten were given 
 to Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois. 
 
 Fremont was well known to the country, and favorably, as the ex- 
 oenenii plorer of the mysterious regions of the West. As early as 
 Fremont. }g42, a young officer in the army, he had been sent out, at 
 his own request, into the "great American desert" of those days. 
 He had shown rare temper, perseverance, and executive ability, in a 
 series of explorations carried forward by him ; he had corrected many 
 grave mistakes in American geography ; had opened California to 
 Western emigration ; and had, indeed, laid the foundations for the 
 Pacific Railway of after years. For the purposes of the new party 
 organization, it was desirable, not to say necessary, that its candi- 
 date should have had no close connection with either political party. 
 It has been a habit of officers in the regular army to keep themselves 
 almost proudly free from any such connection. It was certainly an 
 advantage that Colonel Fremont was the son-in-law of a statesman so 
 Senator distinguished as Colonel Benton, for a generation Senator 
 from Missouri. This Senator, though a slaveholder, and a 
 slaveholder in the District of Columbia, had in many critical moments 
 refused to act with th Fire-eaters, and, in face of the current of 
 public opinion in Missouri, had shown himself the friend of the set- 
 tlers in Kansas. 
 
 The seceders from the American Convention had met in New York 
 
1856.] 
 
 ELECTION OF BUCHANAN. 
 
 423 
 
 slavery. 
 
 
 on the 12th of June. They had proposed for the Presidency, the 
 Speaker of the House, Mr. Banks; and for Vice-president. 
 
 TIT -11- T- T i t rt i ' rr-i -, , Nominations 
 
 William v. Johnson, of Pennsylvania. These candidates -f "i. *nrr- 
 ct. J -iUJ ican |i:irt> ' 
 
 were afterwards withdrawn. 
 
 Three candidates for the Presidency were thus before the people ; 
 and for the first time in many years, each represented a real wiciN 
 conviction. Each indeed was a man who had given proof 
 of real ability. Mr. Buchanan stood for the South and its ors - 
 policy. Colonel Fremont stood for the non-extension of 
 Mr. Fillmore stood 
 for the Union of the 
 States, and for that 
 strong conservative 
 feeling which re- 
 garded all questions 
 as little, in compari- 
 son with this Union. 
 An incident of the 
 autumn, which fore- 
 shadowed what was 
 to follow, was a pro- 
 posal made by Gov- 
 ernor Henry A. Wise, 
 of Virginia, for a 
 conference of the 
 Governors of South- 
 ern States, to take 
 into consideration 
 the state of the coun- 
 trv. The invitation 
 
 / 
 
 was on the whole 
 
 kindly received, but there was no meeting except of the Governors 
 
 of Virginia and the two Carol inas. 
 
 The election resulted in the choice of Mr. Buchanan, which was 
 due wholly to the division of his antagonists. Of the pop- Tho ,!,,,,. 
 ular vote he received 1,838,16'J. Here were more than two tio "- 
 hundred thousand votes more than President Pierce had received, so 
 intense was the excitement of the canvass. But he was still in a 
 minority of nearly four hundred thousand. Colonel Fremont had 
 1,341,000 votes. Mr. Fillmore had 875,000. Of the Electoral votes 
 Mr. Buchanan received one hundred and seventy-four. Colonel Fre- 
 mont had one hundred and fourteen, and Mr. Fillmore the eight votes 
 of Maryland, which showed itself true to its mid-way position be- 
 
 James B uchann. 
 
424 THE KANSAS STRUGGLE. [C HAP. XVI. 
 
 tween North and South. Mr. Buchanan owed his election to the vote 
 of Pennsylvania. As the canvass went forward in this State, he had 
 pledged himself to insure to Kansas an honest vote of her own people. 
 With this assurance, Mr. Buchanan obtained a plurality of the vote 
 of Pennsylvania, which proved essential for his election. 1 
 
 But when he came into office, the auspices were all against him. 
 No President, except the second Adams, had ever been chosen by so 
 small a proportion of the popular vote. 2 Of the Northern States, 
 Mr. Buchanan had received the votes of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, 
 Illinois, and Indiana. But in two of these he \vas in a minority. In 
 Pennsylvania, his majority was only one thousand and twenty-five in 
 a vote of four hundred and sixty thousand; and in Indiana it was not 
 two thousand in a vote of nearly two hundred and forty thousand. 
 The days of Northern men with Southern principles were over. 
 
 Still Mr. Buchanan was not so weak a man as his forgotten prede- 
 Buchanan as cessor. He was not a fool, though his political career was 
 President, j^y no means f ree f roin vacillations and inconsistencies. He 
 probably hoped, in his old age, that with the prestige of the name of 
 President, he could control such spirits as he had in his Cabinet ; 
 such men as Howell Cobb, and Floyd, who afterward abused their of- 
 ficial position under his eyes, to prepare for war against the nation 
 which they pretended to serve. The President's first message re- 
 peated the assurances that the discussion of slavery had come to an 
 end. It was remembered afterward for its attack on the clergy of 
 the country, whom he charged with fomenting the disturbance which 
 had so endangered its institutions. But in that message, he declared 
 himself friendly to the admission of Kansas into the Union with a 
 constitution agreeable to a majority of the settlers. He referred to 
 a decision of the Supreme Court, soon to be made, and asked for 
 acquiescence in it, whatever its character. Such a reference, from a 
 President to an undelivered opinion of the Supreme Court, was a 
 novelty. It soon appeared, however, that he had reason for going 
 outside of precedent. 
 
 The decision referred to, of which the new President had had some 
 The Dred early intimation, was the decision in the " Dred Scott " case. 
 Scott case. ^ n a( ^i on na( j been begun by Dred Scott, a negro, in the cir- 
 cuit court of Missouri, for his freedom and that of his children. His 
 claim was that he had been removed, in 1884, to Illinois, then a free 
 
 1 The details of this transaction are given in a very curious speech by Mr. J. \V. Forney, 
 who obtained the pledge from Buchanan, read at the Quarter Century celebration of the 
 settlers of Kansas, at Bismarck Grove, September 20, 1880. 
 
 2 Mr. Adams's vote in 1824 was only 29.92 percent, of the popular vote. In 1844, Mr. 
 Folk's wns 49.55 per cent. In 1848, General Taylor's was 47.36 per cent. Mr. Buchanan's 
 was 45.34. 
 
1857.] THE DRED SCOTT CASE. 425 
 
 State, by his master, and afterwards taken into territory north of the 
 Compromise line ; that in 1838 only had he been taken back into 
 Missouri and sold again to his present master. To this Sanford, his 
 master, replied that Scott was not a citizen of Missouri, and could not 
 bring an action ; and also that he and his children were Sanford's 
 slaves. The lower courts had differed, and the case came before the 
 full bench. The case was twice argued with care. When the de- 
 cision came, for which the new President asked attention and concur- 
 rence, it swept the whole ground indeed. The opinion of the Court 
 was prepared by Judge Taney, the Chief Justice. It dismissed the 
 case on Sanford's first reply, namely, that Died Scott was not a cit- 
 izen of Missouri. Black men could not be citizens, the Court said vir- 
 tually. The opinion went historically back to the origin of the Con- 
 stitution. Referring even to the words of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, that all men are equal, the Court said it was plain that its 
 authors did not embrace the negro race, which, by common consent, 
 had been excluded from the civilized governments, in the family of 
 nations, and devoted to slavery. In the Constitution, the Court said, 
 the idea could not be entertained that negroes were citizens, "as the 
 only two provisions which point to them and include them, treat them 
 as property." 
 
 With this statement the case itself ended. The Chief Justice, avail- 
 ing himself of the fact that the plaintiff rested his plea for freedom 
 on the ground that his owner had taken him into territory made 
 free by the Missouri Compromise, went beyond the record to declare 
 the Missouri Compromise to be unconstitutional. From the decision 
 Judge McLean and Judge Curtis dissented ; but it was in itself suffi- 
 cient, as Mr. Benton said, to make a new departure in the working of 
 the Federal Government. It made slavery the organic law of the land. 
 " No longer the exception with freedom the rule ; but slavery the rule, 
 with freedom the exception." Such a decision moved the heart of 
 the whole North, and showed to the most conservative that the whole 
 line of argument and of action was forever changed. 
 
 The new Congress met in December, 1857. The Democrats were 
 able to choose their own Speaker, the division between the American 
 and the Republican parties giving a House in which the Democrats 
 had one hundred and twenty-eight votes, the Republicans ninety -two, 
 and the Americans fourteen. 
 
 To the difficulties of a minority in the popular vote, and a general 
 distrust through the North, were now added those of a great 
 commercial revulsion. One of those ebb-tides of trade for disasters of 
 which no man has yet fully accounted, and which have been 
 referred by bold physicists even to changes in the heavenly bodies, 
 
426 THE KANSAS STRUGGLE. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 swept over the world. Such crises always follow periods of great 
 commercial activity and supposed prosperity. In this case the im- 
 mense treasure drawn from the mines of California had greatly en- 
 larged the banking operations of the counti-y. The great railroad 
 system, which secured for the agricultural States the markets of the 
 world, was developed with rapidity that would have once seemed 
 fabulous. New institutions of credit, on a scale gigantic to the enter- 
 prise of earlier times, were established in the larger cities. It was 
 the failure of one of these the "Ohio Life and Trust Company" 
 which precipitated the fatal discovery. The world of commerce 
 found how large was the " inflation " and how hollow the promise, 
 on which this great prosperity had been reared. The civilized world 
 felt the shock, and commerce did not recover from it for many years. 
 The Treasury of the United States was emptied in the crash, and the 
 new Government was not even able to pay its officers. 
 
 The vote on the Lecompton Constitution in Kansas was the test of 
 
 that pledge of a "fair election" which Buchanan had given to the 
 
 Pennsylvania Democrats. He said that now the question was a mere 
 
 point of honor, which the North could afford to yield ; that 
 
 Buchanan's ' 
 
 faithless- all men knew that Kansas would be free ; that, so soon as 
 admitted, the State could change its Constitution, and the 
 South could not then complain that her rights had been abandoned. 
 In this declaration he broke faith with a large portion of the party 
 which had till now sustained him. In the Senate a bill was passed 
 to admit Kansas under this Constitution. But the old Democratic 
 majority could no longer be relied upon. Bell, Broderick, and Stuart, 
 and, most fatal sign of all, Douglas, voted for a substitute offered by 
 Mr. Crittenden, but not adopted : that the Constitution should be sub- 
 mitted to the people of Kansas, who, should they reject this, would be 
 authorized to take the preliminary steps for the formation of 
 
 Admission 
 
 of Kansas another. In the House the substitute was again presented 
 
 proposed. 
 
 by a Democrat, Montgomery, of Pennsylvania, and adopted, 
 and the two Houses disagreeing, a committee of conference was ap- 
 pointed which drew up a compromising bill, Seward of the Senate and 
 Howard of the House dissenting. From the name of its author, this 
 plan was called the " English Compromise." It proposed a submis- 
 sion to the people, but only on the hard conditions that, if 
 iish com- they refused, they should lose their allotments for education 
 and for internal improvements, and should not be admitted 
 until their population numbered ninety-three thousand three hundred 
 and fifty inhabitants, the quota at that time for one Representative. 
 This " compromise " passed. The Constitution was sent to Kansas, 
 and, as has been seen, the people absolutely rejected it. The vote 
 was 1,788 in its favor and 11,300 against it. 
 
1857.] 
 
 THE MORMONS. 
 
 427 
 
 In the autumn of 1857, the defiant resolution of the Mormons in 
 Utah compelled the President to remove their Governor, TheMor 
 Brigham Young, and appoint Alfred Cuming, an officer of 1 "" < 
 the army, his successor. Young was the " prophet," so called, the im- 
 mediate successor of the founder of the Mormon Church. As the tide 
 of emigration rolled westward, the colony of this remarkable people 
 had become of national importance, with vitality enough in their faith 
 to gather together a church of from thirty to forty thousand people, 
 and, as the Church was the State, with strength enough to defy the 
 
 ^ 
 
 Federal Government. Driven first from Missouri to Illinois, in 1838, 
 
 Salt Lake City. 
 
 and thence, ten years afterward, into the wilderness, they sought a 
 resting-place and refuge in what was then called "The Great Amer- 
 ican Desert," and pitched their tents and built their tabernacle on the 
 shores of Salt Lake. Their government was, and is, a hierarchy ; 
 their faith was founded on the pretended discovery of a new revela- 
 tion written on golden plates that had lain buried for centuries in a 
 hill at Manchester, Xew York, and were dug up by Joseph Smith ; on 
 this, in after years, the lecherous temper of their chief saints had im- 
 posed the system of polygamy as a later revelation to Smith ; and it is 
 hard to say which is the greater marvel that there should be cre- 
 dulity and ignorance enough among the civilized peoples of the nine- 
 

 428 THE KANSAS STRUGGLE. [HAP. XVI. 
 
 teenth century for tlie formation of such a sect, or that an enlight- 
 ened government should have so long tolerated organized immorality 
 under the guise of a religion. " The twin relic of barbarism," as it waa 
 called by Owen Lovejoy, could not, like slavery, seek protection un- 
 der the sheltering compromises of the Constitution. 
 
 With an army of only three hundred, the new Governor was sent to 
 his destination. The Mormon prophet forbade his entrance into the 
 city, and it was only by a mortifying submission that this force was 
 allowed to remain unmolested, in its encampment. With the next 
 summer the army was reenforced, the Mormons yielded ; and since 
 that time, the national Government lias appointed a " Gentile," so 
 called, to the government of the Territory. 
 
 Fac-simlle of Characters of the Mormon Plates. 
 
 President Pierce had permitted the departure from the country of 
 an adventurer named William Walker, who attempted to 
 make himself master of Nicaragua, with a force of four hun- 
 
 dred men. He had even held some communication with an 
 envoy of Walker's. Once and again Walker had been forced to re- 
 turn. But on the 24th of November, 1857, he landed at Greytown 
 again, in sight of a vessel of the United States navy. Commodore 
 Paulding arrested him and sent him back for trial. The jury, how- 
 ever, when he was tried at New Orleans, failed to agree. 
 
 In the summer of this year, on the 4th of August, the first tele- 
 Atuntic graphic message passed from America to Europe. The 
 Telegraph. ca bj e na( j been laid successfully with the assistance of the 
 governments of England and the United States. The communi- 
 cation was soon interrupted by an accident, but before long the regu- 
 lar transmission of public and private news between the continents 
 was established. 
 
 The elections of 1858 taught even the President that he had relied 
 too far on the large vote which elected him. In the State of 
 
 Proposal to 
 
 pun-base Jsew 1 ork only lottt Democrats were returned to the House 
 
 ('lll)'L 
 
 of Representatives. The extreme Southern party, however, 
 brought forward, at the short session, a bill to permit the Government 
 to purchase Cuba for thirty million dollars. It met the full Republi- 
 can opposition, and was at last abandoned by its friends. 
 
1858.] 
 
 JOHN BROWN. 
 
 429 
 
 John Brown. 
 
 Among the early emigrants from New York to 
 
 In the midst, however, of the victories and defeats of the men who 
 were prominent before the country, careless of the hopes 
 and fears of politicians or of statesmen a poor man, un- 
 known to them all, was, in his wild way, concerting the plans which 
 precipitated the crisis of the nation's history. John Brown had al- 
 ready devised a movement of those whom lie called the " True 
 Friends of Freedom." It has been remembered that he was of Puri- 
 tan blood. His whole life was characterized by Puritan enthusiasm, 
 as well as by the personal purity and stern will which belong to the 
 Puritan character. 
 Kansas who determined to make 
 it a free State, he was one. 
 Among all the brave and devot- 
 ed men of that struggle, none 
 were braver or more devoted, 
 and none more dreaded by the 
 " border -ruffians," than John 
 Brown, of Ossawatomie. He 
 no more forgave than he forgot 
 the atrocious murder of one of 
 his sons, and that another had 
 been driven to insanity by cruel 
 treatment when a prisoner. 
 From that moment he devoted 
 his life, all that he was, and all 
 that he had, to one single pur- 
 pose, the extirpation of sla- 
 very. He believed that God 
 hated it, and he believed that he was God's messenger to destroy 
 it. Early in 1858 he called together at Chatham, in Can- ThemeetinK 
 ada, a quiet convention of the " True Friends of Freedom," atchathaln 
 where, with the utmost secrecy, was drawn up a " Provisional Con- 
 stitution for the people of the United States.'' It is not probable 
 that more than two or three persons were present, but they chose 
 Brown commander-in -chief. Richard Realf Secretary of State, and 
 J. H. Kagi Secretary of War. As early as the autumn of 1857 
 Brown had organized a small body of men, and had undertaken to 
 give them military instruction. 
 
 From this time forward he proposed the invasion of Virginia by a 
 small military force, with the expectation of arousing the ,, is plan of 
 slaves in that State so that they should assert their own inrasion - 
 freedom. He was able to control some small part of the arms which 
 had been freely provided for the use of the Free-State men in 
 
 John Brown. 
 
430 
 
 THE KANSAS STRUGGLE. 
 
 [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 Kansas; and he was in communication, from time to time, with the 
 truest friends, in New England, of the Kansas settlers. From a se- 
 cret committee in Boston he received about four thousand dollars in 
 money, and about twice that value in arms. Of these gifts the 
 larger part were made by George L. Stearns, a conscientious and un- 
 flinching friend of Kansas through the whole period of troubles. An 
 Englishman named Forbes, a retired officer of the British army, who 
 had been employed as a military drillmaster of recruits for Kansas, 
 informed Senators Seward, Hale, and Wilson, in May, 1859, that 
 
 Arsenal at Harper's Ferry. 
 
 the arms furnished for the Kansas settlers had been obtained by 
 Brown, who would use them unlawfully. This information the Sen- 
 ators sent to the Massachusetts Kansas Committee, who at once wrote 
 Brown that the arms must not be used except for the defence of 
 Kansas. His plans were thus for the moment checked. But as the 
 summer passed, Mr. Stearns obtained possession of that portion of 
 the arms which were his own, and transferred them to Brown, with 
 four hundred dollars. Brown at once went to Marvland and estab- 
 
 tf 
 
 M,,*,., into lished himself five miles from Harper's Ferry, at the Ken- 
 virginia. nedy Farm. Of this the Secretary of War was apprised as 
 early as August, but he took no notice of the information. On the 
 16th of October, with fourteen white men and four negroes armed 
 and equipped for war, Brown took possession of the United States 
 Armory buildings at Harper's Ferry, stopped the railroad trains, cap- 
 
 
1859.] JOHN BROWN IX VIRGINIA. 431 
 
 tured several citizens, liberated several slaves, and held the to\vn 
 about thirty hours. Virginia was in a paroxysm. The whole 
 country thrilled to the heart. The invasion of Kansas from 
 Missouri to establish slavery did not create anything like the 
 excitement aroused by this invasion of Virginia by fifteen 
 white men and four negroes, to give freedom to the slaves. 
 Brown's own hope was, that the slaves of Virginia would 
 immediately rally about him and assert their freedom. But 
 there has never been any evidence that he had negotiated 
 with them, nor did they ever show any intention of sustaining 
 him. 
 
 The Government of the United States at once sent troops 
 to Harper's Ferry. Brown retired to the "engine- 
 
 r '-. Capture at 
 
 house, where he was attacked and captured by a Harpers 
 detachment of United States marines. They were 
 under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee, soon to be him- 
 self the commander-in-chief of an insurrection, at that time on 
 the staff of General Scott. Brown was wounded in several 
 places. Thirteen of his band, including two of his sons, were 
 killed or mortally wounded. Brown and his six followers 
 were at once tried, convicted, and executed. 1 
 
 Three days after his execution the new Congress met at 
 Washington. Every effort was made to convict the leaders of 
 the Free-State party of complicity with Brown in this effort. 
 Through the whole country it gave occasion for the friends of 
 the Union to point out the danger which they thought latent 
 in all efforts to arrest the course of slavery. At the South it 
 conveyed the impression that the Free-State men of the North 
 meant insurrection and liberation. From tliis time, at least, 
 the intention to divide the Union at any moment Effe otofhis 
 when Southern supremacy ceased to be absolute, be- attem P t - 
 came the universal Southern idea. In the minds of most of the 
 Southern leaders such had been the intention long before, and 
 there can be hardly a doubt that had Fremont been elected in 
 1856 the attempt would then have been made to dissolve the 
 Union, which the election of Buchanan postponed only for 
 four years. 
 
 The new Constitution of Kansas, ratified by the people in 
 John October, was laid before Congress at this session. So strong 
 p>ke. " was the Northern sentiment in the House that a bill admitting 
 
 1 John Brown's body was given to his friends and was buried at North Elba, New York. 
 That " his soul goes marching on " was the refrain of a song, to the music of which many 
 a Northern regiment marched in less than two years to suppress the Southern rebellion. 
 

 432 THE KANSAS STRUGGLE. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 the new State passed by a vote of one hundred and thirty-four to 
 seventy-three. But, what may be called the dying act of 
 the party of slavery was the refusal of the Senate, on the 
 
 disposed of. _ , ,. , 11-111 f 
 
 7th of June, to take up the bill, by a vote of thirty-two 
 to twenty-eight. The next winter, when, on the 21st of January, 
 1861, the Southern Senators, with some characteristic effort at dra- 
 matic effect, withdrew from the Senate, the first Senators from Kan- 
 sas entered it as the representatives of a free State. 
 
 The country approached the canvass for the next Presidential elec- 
 
 tion with a distinct understanding of the threat of the ex- 
 
 PreMilrntial 
 
 -inip:iign of treme southern leaders that the success of the Republican 
 
 IgtjU. 
 
 party should be the signal for disunion. So far as this 
 threat was believed, it induced conservative men to withdraw their 
 support from the Republican party and to attempt, at least, some 
 midway course. But it was not generally believed through the North- 
 ern States. Arrogance was considered to be a habit of the planta- 
 tion, and to govern by threats to be the policy of masters who were 
 used to slaves. As a token of conciliation the Democratic party held 
 its convention, not at one of the central cities, but at Charleston, 
 Democratic South Carolina. Mr. Douglas, of Illinois, was the member 
 convention, of the party who carried the most popularity at the North, 
 but, as has been already said, he had refused his support to the Le- 
 compton Constitution. He would have lost his own constituency by 
 any other course ; but from that moment the Southern leaders op- 
 posed him with bitter but undeserved hatred. 
 
 When the Convention met, its committee on credentials had to 
 decide at once on the claims of two delegations from New York, and 
 those of two delegations from Illinois. In both cases they decided in 
 favor of Mr. Douglas's friends. For nearly a week a debate raged 
 on the resolutions to be presented as the "platform" of the Con- 
 vention. The result showed that the Douglas faction were in the 
 majority. They had been satisfied with the platform of four years 
 before, while the Southern delegates insisted *' that there was no 
 power to prevent slavery in the Territories," and that Government 
 ought to " protect the rights of person and property on the high 
 seas." The last statement was supposed to cover the African slave- 
 trade. So soon as this vote was announced, the delegations from 
 Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Texas, withdrew, and a part of 
 those from Louisiana, South Carolina, Arkansas, Delaware, and North 
 Carolina. The seceders were encouraged by the most extravagant 
 approval of the citizens of Charleston. On the ninth day of the 
 Convention a vote was reached. It had been decided that two thirds 
 of the votes should be necessary to a nomination. In fifty-seven bal- 
 
I860.] 
 
 THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1860. 
 
 433 
 
 lotings Mr. Douglas's vote reached a clear majority. A motion was 
 then made to adjourn to Baltimore on the 18th of June. By this 
 adjourned Convention Mr. Douglas was named the Democratic can- 
 didate, and Mr. Fitzpatrick of Alabama, 1 the candidate for Vice-pres- 
 ident. But this was not till the delegates of seven States, and a part 
 of those from Massachusetts, had withdrawn. The seceding delega- 
 tions held a Convention on the 28th of June, and named J. C. Breck- 
 inridge of Kentucky, and Joseph Lane of Oregon, as their candidates 
 for President and Vice-president. 
 
 On the 9th of May the " Constitutional Union National Conven- 
 tion " met. It was called in good faith by the remnants of 
 the old Whig and American parties, who still hoped to avoid tionai' union 
 the inevitable conflict. On the second ballot, John Bell of 
 Tennessee was made the candidate for President ; Edward Everett 
 
 Lincoln's Early Home Elizabethtown, Ky. 
 
 of Massachusetts, who had expressly charged his friends in the Con- 
 vention not to permit his nomination MS President, was nominated 
 for Vice-president, because he had neglected to say he would not be 
 second when he had refused to be first. He did not, however, decline 
 the nomination. 
 
 On the 16th of May the Republican Convention met. The choice 
 lay between Mr. Seward, who had wisely led the Republican forces 
 in the Senate, and Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln was not so well 
 
 1 Fitzpatrick declined, aud H. V. Jolmsoii, of Georgia, was iiauicd in his place. 
 VOL. iv. 28 
 
434 
 
 THE KANSAS STRUGGLE. 
 
 [CiiAr. XVI. 
 
 known as Mr. So ward at the East, but in the West he had distin- 
 Repubiiesn guishi'd himself in a canvass of profound interest, in which 
 convention. j ie j ia( j | )een opposed to Douglas. For Vice-president the 
 Convention named Hannibal Ilamlin of Maine. The four candidates 
 were not unworthy of the crisis. They represented the principles of 
 the voters who supported them. The days of available or make-shift 
 candidates were in the past and the future. 
 
 The canvass was intensely earnest and anxious. All felt it to be 
 the most momentous the country had ever known ; some understood 
 that it was a question of Avar, of free government at the North, and 
 of liberty in the Southern States. In the Southern States no votes 
 
 w 
 
 were given to the Republican candidates, excepting in Virginia, where 
 Mr. Lincoln received less than two thousand, and in Kentucky, where 
 lie received thirteen hundred. Of the popular vote he received 
 Election of 1,866,000, the largest vote which had then ever been given 
 for any President. But even this vote was not a majority 
 of the whole. Mr. Douglas received 1,37;~>,000 votes ; Mr. Breckin- 
 ridge, 848,000 ; Mr. Bell, 691,000. But in the division of the Electo- 
 ral vote Mr. Lincoln had one hundred and eighty being that of all 
 the free States, except New Jersey, who gave him, however, four out 
 of her seven, being a clear majority of fifty-seven over all. Mr. 
 Breckinridge had sevent} r -two votes ; Mr. Bell thirty-nine ; Mr. 
 Douglas twelve. 
 
-i .**fr : 
 
 * 
 
 ' 
 
 : 'ttf^mWM" 
 
 On the Parapet at Fortress Monroe. 
 Drairnby Gitslav Verbftkfrom aji/totograph. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 OPENING OF THE WAK. 
 
 THE SECESSION IDEA NOT UNFAMILIAR IN TIIK SOUTH. ACTS OF SECESSION LED 
 BY SOUTH CAROLINA. ORGANIZATION OF THE GoUTOEBACY. PI:OPOSEI> PEACE 
 COMPROMISES. SEIZURE OF UNITED STATES FORTS AND ARSENALS. T\VIG>.'- 
 
 SCRRENDER. INDECISION IV WASHINGTON. FEDERAL OCCUPATION OK FORT 
 
 SFMTER. INAUGURATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. SECRETARY SEWARD OUTLINES 
 A POLICY FOR THE NEW ADMINISTRATION. THE GUN AT SUMTER. SECESSION- 
 OP SOUTH CAROLINA AND VIRGINIA. THE FIKST CALL FOR TKOOP*. SECESSION 
 MOB IN BALTIMORE. FIGHT AT BIG BETHEL. MILITARY OPERATIONS IN WEST 
 VIRGINIA. BATTLE OF BULL RUN. McCi.Ei.i.AN IN COMMAND. 
 
 THE election of Abraham Lincoln was the immediate pretext for 
 the beginning of the Southern insurrection. But the mind of the 
 Southern people had long been familiarized with the proposition of 
 secession ; and threats of disunion had been so often made in the 
 South that the revolutionary movements which followed the election 
 of 1860 appeared to be logical consequences, unexpected though they 
 were to the majority of the people of the non-slaveholding States. 
 The extremely radical doctrine of the absolute sovereignty of the in- 
 dividual States was taught in the resolutions adopted by the Legisla- 
 tures of Virginia and Kentucky in 1798-09, when the young Republic 
 was just recovering from the effects of the long and exhausting war 
 of the Revolution. The right of secession was frankly 
 avowed by the State of South Carolina in 1832, when the and the ee- 
 
 i '_ "o i 11 i w"s>oii idtM. 
 
 people of that State were ready to take themselves, then- 
 State, and their communities out of the Federal Union because they 
 

 430 OPENING OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 were dissatisfied with a newly enacted tariff law. While Congress 
 hesitated over the proposition to admit Texas to the Union, in 1843- 
 44, the Southern leaders, set upon the adoption of that scheme, de- 
 manded that Texas he admitted or disunion would surely follow. 
 During the agitation that flamed throughout the nation when the 
 so-called compromise measures of 1850 were under discussion in Con- 
 gress, this pernicious doctrine was once more brought to the fore in 
 South Carolina, where it was solemnly declared that the Palmetto 
 State would quit the Union in case any legislation hostile to the 
 cherished institution of slavery were seriously attempted. Again, 
 two years later, the dogma of the right of secession was re-stated, and 
 South Carolina, having affirmed that right, magnanimously declined 
 to exercise it, in deference to the desires of other States whose provo- 
 cation was no less aggravated. 
 
 It should be borne in mind that there had long been a wide differ- 
 ence between the people of the North and the people of the South on 
 this very question of the right of a State to leave the Union, with or 
 without the consent of the other members of the Federation. It must 
 be admitted that in the earlier years of the Republic's existence, dis- 
 cussion of this proposition had not been confined to the people of the 
 Southern States. When by the purchase of a vast tract of territory 
 known as Louisiana in 1803 the area of the slaveholding section 
 of the United States was greatly enlarged, many Northern men boldly 
 proposed that a separation of the free States from the slaveholding 
 States was becoming necessary. And later, when the material in- 
 terests of New England excited the people of that section to a bitter 
 opposition to the war with England in 1812, the thought of separation 
 became prominent in local discussion ; and the famous Hartford Con- 
 vention, in 1814-15, adopted a report which, while denying any pres- 
 ent intention to dissolve the Union, admitted that if such a dissolution 
 should ever be necessary, " by reason of the multiplied abuses of bad 
 administrations, it should, if possible, be the work of peaceable times 
 and deliberate consent." Finally, the more advanced leaders of the 
 Abolitionist party had so often urged that a peaceable sepa- 
 ration of the non-slaveholding States was better than a con- 
 dition of perpetual alarm and friction, that the mere threat 
 of secession had to some degree lost its terrors in both sections of the 
 Union. 
 
 But it must also be admitted that, jvhile the idea of separation was 
 never received with general hospitality in the North, that idea gradu- 
 ally found greater favor in the South. And, although all talk of a 
 peaceable secession ceased among the Northern people, the Southern 
 people were so familiar with the topic that when there arose a possi- 
 
 
I860.] THREATS OF SECESSION. 437 
 
 bility that the people of the United States would elect a President 
 who was inflexibly opposed to the further extension of slavery, they 
 unhesitatingly declared that such an election would be the signal for 
 their abrupt departure from the confederation of States. They did 
 not hesitate to threaten that disunion would follow the election of 
 Lincoln. They did not stop to urge that there was even a possibility 
 that his election would be accomplished by any but lawful and regu- 
 lar agencies, as provided under the Constitution of the United States. 
 Before the election had been held, the Southern leaders, in Congress 
 and in the political field at home, averred that the success of Lincoln 
 would be sufficient cause for secession, and that that step would be 
 taken as soon as the event was assured. 
 
 Accordingly, South Carolina, which had always been the leader in 
 the boldest discussion of the right of a State to quit the Union at its 
 own pleasure, led in preparations for quitting as soon as the proba- 
 bilities of Lincoln's election became tolerably certain. In October, 
 1860, one month before the Presidential election came off, 
 the Governor, Congressmen, and leading politicians of South 
 Carolina met in solemn conclave and prepared a resolution ( ' arolnia 
 to the effect that their State ought to withdraw from the Federal 
 Union if Lincoln should be elected. Similar action was taken in 
 Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi, although it did not ap- 
 pear then or afterwards that declarations of this sort were so well 
 received by the people of those States as they were by the people of 
 South Carolina, where the bare proposition of secession had obtained 
 a wide popular favor. The Governor of South Carolina sent a secret 
 circular to the executive officers of all the slaveholding States, inform- 
 ing them that his State would leave the Union if others would go 
 
 with her ; or South Carolina would 
 go alone, if any other State would 
 promise to follow. Although the 
 right of secession was claimed as in- 
 alienable and unquestionable, even 
 South Carolina was unwilling to go 
 out alone and set up for herself an 
 independent sovereignty. 
 
 The election of Lincoln having 
 been assured by the popular will, as 
 expressed at the ballot-box, Novem- 
 ber 6th, 1860, South Carolina was in 
 haste to be gone. In that State still 
 prevailed the ancient custom of choos- 
 
 Henry A. Wise, of Virginia. . 1 A- i i i IT 
 
 (Afterwards Brigadier-General, C. S. A.) l"g presidential electors by the LeglS- 
 

 438 
 
 OPENING OF THE WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 lature, not by the people ; and when that body assembled on the day 
 appointed to choose electors, the Governor of the State sent in a mes- 
 sage recommending that in the event of Lincoln's election a conven- 
 tion of the people should be immediately called to consider the means 
 to be adopted to secure redress ; and he declared that in his opinion 
 there would be no alternative for South Carolina but secession from 
 the Federal Union. Next day, the 7th of November, the choice of v 
 the people of the United States being assured, the Federal officials in 
 Charleston resigned their commissions ; on the 10th of the month the 
 United States Senators from South Carolina, Messrs. Hammond and 
 Chesnut, resigned their seats in the Senate ; on that day a conven- 
 tion was called to meet December 17th, to consider the situation, the 
 delegates to be chosen December 6th ; on the 13th the Legislature of 
 the State ordered the staying of the collection of all debts due to 
 citizens of non-slaveholding States from citizens of South Carolina; 
 on that day, Francis W. Pickens, having been elected Governor of 
 the State, he appointed a " cabinet," as if the separate nationality of 
 South Carolina were already assured ; the so-called cabinet consisted 
 of the following members: A. G. Magrath, Secretary of State; David 
 F. Jamison, Secretary of War; C. G. Memminger, Secretary of the 
 Treasury ; W. W. Harlee, Postmaster-General ; and Albert C. Gar- 
 lington, Secretary of the Interior. This amusing comedy was played 
 before the adoption of the ordinance of secession ; that ac- 
 
 .,, . 
 
 tion by the convention selected for that purpose was taken 
 
 December 20th, 1860. 
 
 In the Northern States these proceedings were viewed with alarm. 
 But it was at first believed that the secession fever, so excited in 
 South Carolina, would not spread be- 
 yond the boundaries of that State. In 
 South Carolina, however, every means 
 had been adopted to " fire the South- 
 ern heart," as the popular phrase then 
 went. The action of the Secession 
 Convention was joyfully ratified by 
 the people; bells were rung, salutes 
 fired, processions and pageants organ- 
 ized, meetings of congratulation held, 
 and every possible demonstration of 
 approval and satisfaction made by the 
 people of Charleston and other cities 
 and towns of the Palmetto State. 
 Not only so, but it became evident Jacob Tho -"P so ". of Mississippi. 
 
 ,, ., . i i (Secretary of the Interior under President 
 
 that the agencies employed to secure Buchanan.) 
 
 Action 
 
 the 
 
I860.] THE SOUTHERN LEADERS. 439 
 
 the cooperation of other slaveholding 
 States would prevent a recurrence of 
 the failure of 1832, when the solitary 
 attempt of South Carolina to defy 
 the authority of the government of 
 the United States was summarily 
 defeated by the vigorous measures 
 ordered by President Andrew Jack- 
 son. 
 
 Cannon salutes, bells, bonfires, and 
 other tokens of joyous applause were 
 the response of several of the slave- 
 John B. Fioyd, of Virginia. holding States to the act of secession 
 
 proclaimed by South Carolina. In 
 
 many of these States steps were at once taken to follow the lead 
 of South Carolina. But it required much persuasion and some force 
 to induce the people of those States to consent to the act of secession. 
 With rare inconsistency, while the Southern leaders loudly protested 
 against the attempt to " coerce a sovereign State " to remain in the 
 Union, they did not hesitate to apply the most forcible means to coerce 
 their own people to declare themselves and their local governments 
 out of the Union. The organization of the conspiracy of rebellion 
 was exceedingly complete and effective. Messengers were 
 sped from State to State and from city to city, from hamlet > other 
 
 * State*. 
 
 to hamlet, and from plantation to plantation, exhorting to 
 immediate action, inciting to rebellion, and warning the people that 
 this was the day of their deliverance from " the thraldom of the 
 North." 
 
 It may be worth while to identify some of the leaders in this move- 
 ment. They are vaguely known as " plotters and disunionists ; " but 
 their names were on the tongue of every man during the stormy days 
 which followed the presidential election of 1860. Of the South Caro- 
 linians who participated in the meeting held in October, 1860, at the 
 house of United States Senator Hammond were the following : W. 
 
 O 
 
 H. Gist, then Governor of the State ; ex-Governor J. H. I>Mders in 
 Adams; James L. Orr, formerly Speaker of the National secei " <i011 
 House of Representatives ; Representatives John McQueen, Law- 
 rence M. Keitt, Milledge L. Bonham, John D. Ashmore, and Wil- 
 liam W. Boyce, and Senators Hammond and Chesnut ; besides these 
 were several other prominent politicians. Of the other " fire-eaters " 
 from that State mention may be made of Robert Barnwell Rhett, 
 who had declared that " all true statesmanship in the South consists 
 in forming combinations and shaping events so as to bring about as 
 
440 OPENING OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 speedily as possible a dissolution of the present Union, and a South- 
 ern Confederacy." In Virginia, where the zeal of the secession 
 leaders far outran the willingness of the people to secede, the most 
 conspicuous of the disunionists were ex-Governor Henry A. Wise, 
 ex-President John Tyler, United States Senators R. M. T. Hunter 
 and J. M. Mason ; John B. Floyd, Secretary of War, and Thomas 
 S. Flournoy, all of whom subsequently proved their devotion to the 
 cause of secession by their activity in promoting that cause up to 
 the verge of fighting. 
 
 Of the leaders in other States it is not necessary now to speak ; 
 but four of the chiefs who remained in Washington, in the cabinet 
 of President Buchanan, were not only notably active, but especially 
 influential in hurrying the steps that led up to the attempt to dissolve 
 the Union. These were Howell Cobb, of Georgia, Secretary of the 
 Treasury ; John B. Floyd, of Virginia (already mentioned). Secre- 
 tary of War ; Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, Secretary of the In- 
 terior; and W. H. Trescott, of South Carolina, who, as Assistant 
 Secretary of State, was a valuable member of the cabal and central 
 bureau of intelligence, although not exactly a member of the cabinet. 
 While these men were drawing pay from the treasury of the United 
 States, they were plotting for the destruction of the Union of the 
 States ; and while they were holding confidential relations with the 
 Chief Executive, they were in constant communication with the in- 
 surgents, sending them information accessible only to the high officials 
 of the government ; and they remained in place as long as they could 
 best serve their fellow-conspirators without exceeding the bounds of 
 their personal safety. 
 
 As a curious example of the astuteness and the intelligence with 
 which one of these men, John B. Floyd, had calculated the possibili- 
 ties and probabilities of secession, quotation may be made from a 
 letter written by him, November 20th, 1860, while he was yet exer- 
 cising the functions of Secretary of War. Writing to a friend (a 
 Mr. Peterson, of Mississippi), Floyd said : " South Carolina will go. 
 I consider Georgia and Florida as certain. Alabama probable. Then 
 Mississippi must go. But I want Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Ten- 
 nessee, North Carolina, Virginia ; and Maryland will not stay behind 
 
 long." 
 
 As a matter of fact, South Carolina having passed an ordinance of 
 
 secession on the 20th of December, Georgia, Alabama, Mis- 
 tio?r"f z the sissippi, Louisiana, and Texas followed her during the first 
 tonf-d- rn two months of the next year, 1861. In February of that 
 
 year, delegates from these seven States met at Montgomery, 
 Alabama, and organized a provisional government for " The Confed- 
 
1861.] JEFFERSON DAVIS. 441 
 
 Jefferson Davis. Alexander H. Stephens. 
 
 THE HEADS OF THE CONFEDERACY. 
 
 erate States of America ; " and on the 9th of that month Jefferson 
 Davis, of Mississippi, and Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, were 
 chosen as provisional President and Vice-President, to hold office 
 for one year. 
 
 Jefferson Davis was a native of Kentucky, and was fifty-three years 
 old when he was chosen Provisional President by the Montgomery 
 delegates. He had served his adopted State of Mississippi in the 
 United States Senate, leaving that body only when his presence at 
 the national capital was no longer useful to his section. He was Sec- 
 retary of War during the administration of President Pierce, and had 
 faithfully promoted the interests of the institution of slavery wherever 
 and whenever he had an opportunity. Although "cold as a lizard," 
 according to one who knew him well, 1 he could on occasion pose as a 
 " fire-eater,'' as a ridiculous episode in his career manifested. , Tefferson 
 W. H. Bissell, a Representative in Congress from Illinois, I)avls - 
 who had been a colonel in the Mexican War, corrected a misstatement 
 made in Congress by a Virginia member, relating to the conduct of a 
 Mississippi regiment commanded bv Davis : and Davis took it upon 
 himself to challenge Bissell to mortal combat for words spoken in 
 debate, having violently distorted those words to suit his purpose. A 
 suggestion of fighting the duel with muskets resulted in Davis's with- 
 drawal from the bloodless field of honor. Davis was an ardent sup- 
 porter of the most radical doctrine of State Rights, and had desired 
 to wear the mantle of John C. Calhoun, the Great Nullifier. As 
 early as November, 1858, when the Republican party had begun to 
 show itself formidable, Davis said in a public speech at Vicksburg 
 
 1 General Sam. Houstou. 
 

 442 OPENING OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 that, in case that party should elect a President in 1860, he " was for 
 resistance stern resistance. Rather than see the Executive chair 
 of the nation filled by a sworn enemy of our [Southern] rights, he 
 would shatter it into a thousand fragments before he had an opportu- 
 nity of taking his seat." And the declaration of Mississippi, on seced- 
 ing from the Union, was undoubtedly that of Davis. " Our position," 
 said the Mississippi declaration, " is thoroughly identified with the 
 institution of slavery the greatest material interest in the world." 
 Davis was the logical candidate for the presidency of the Confederacy. 
 
 Mr. Stephens, being a member of the Congress from Georgia, was 
 at once sworn into office as Vice- President ; Davis, who had remained 
 at his home in Mississippi, arrived in Montgomery a few days later, 
 and was inaugurated with as much pomp as was possible under the 
 circumstances, amid the fervid cheers and enthusiasm of the throngs 
 that filled the improvised capital of the new Confederacy. 
 
 The new constitution was modelled on the lines of the old, with a 
 
 few radical changes. State sovereignty was sought to be recognized 
 
 in this instrument by substituting the phrase of "each State, 
 
 Conftitution . . f -,--,-, 
 
 of the con- acting in its sovereign and independent character, for the 
 simpler " we, the people," employed in the framing of the 
 preamble of the Federal constitution. The new constitution did not 
 recognize the right of any member of the new Confederacy to take 
 itself out of the combination under any circumstances whatever. On 
 the contrary, while the constitution was declared to be binding on all 
 judicial and executive officers, courts, and tribunals of the Confederate 
 States, no provision was made for the withdrawal of a State from the 
 compact ; and the dogma of State Rights, on which the secessionists 
 had laid so much stress, was left to be inferred in the instrument; it 
 was passed by in silence. 
 
 On his way to Montgomery, Davis made many speeches to the 
 multitudes that assembled along his route to do him honor; these 
 speeches were reported in the Southern newspapers, and were calcu- 
 lated to " fire the Southern heart " with their bloodthirstiness and 
 warlike tone. Years afterwards, when the piping times of peace gave 
 the ex-President of the Confederacy ample time to correct his judg- 
 ments and to write a book, he complained that he had been misre- 
 ported, and that he had not indulged in the fireworks and inflamma- 
 tory rhetoric with which the newspapers had decorated his remarks. 
 In his inaugural address, Davis, while he expressed a willingness to 
 receive the so-called Border States into the new Confederacy, took 
 occasion to say that his understanding of the situation was that " a 
 reunion with the States from which we have separated is neither 
 practicable nor desirable." 
 
1861.] HOPES OF A COMPROMISE. 443 
 
 Davis proceeded to the formation of his cabinet, which was as fol- 
 lows : Robert Toombs, of Georgia, Secretary of State ; C. G. Mem- 
 minger, of South Carolina, Secretary of the Treasury ; L. P. 
 Walker, of Alabama, Secretary of War ; S. R. Mallory, of federate 
 Florida, Secretary of the Navy ; J. H. Reagan, of Texas, 
 Postmaster-General ; Judah P. Benjamin, of Louisiana, Attorney- 
 General. The Provisional Congress authorized the establishment of 
 a regular army of about ten thousand men, and called for one hun- 
 dred thousand volunteer troops, to serve one year under the so-called 
 national (or Confederate) authority ; at the same time it was ordered 
 that the State troops already raised should be incorporated into the 
 Confederate army. The distinction between regular and volunteer 
 troops was to be observed with rigid punctilio. Among other sover- 
 eign acts of the new Congress were the authorization of a loan of fifteen 
 million dollars, an export duty on cotton, and the establishment of a 
 navy whose nucleus was to consist of ten steam gunboats. Then it 
 was joyfully proclaimed that the Southern Confederacy was in work- 
 ing order. 
 
 The Confederate President now formally assumed control of mili- 
 tary affairs in the States that had joined the Confederacy, and by his 
 orders the Secretary of War, who had been borrowed from the " cabi- 
 net " of the Governor of South Carolina, issued a call for ten thousand 
 volunteers to serve at points along the border and coast-line of the 
 newly created Confederacy. Agents were appointed to buy war 
 material in Europe and to labor with the governments of foreign 
 countries to secure immediate recognition of the Confederacy. And 
 then a commission of three persons was appointed to proceed to 
 Washington to procure, if possible, the consent of the remaining 
 members of the old Union to a peaceable dissolution. 
 
 Meantime, peace-loving men were busy framing propositions for the 
 adjustment of the questions on which the South had so long threat- 
 ened secession. During the winter of 1860-61, the " Crit- 
 tenden Compromise." as it was called from its author, a 
 
 Senator from Kentucky, was continuously before the Senate, 
 and was once lost for want of Southern not Northern Republican 
 votes, because the South preferred disunion. Yet it gave up to slav- 
 ery all territory south of 36 30' ; it forbade Congress to abolish 
 slavery, even in places under its exclusive jurisdiction within the 
 States or in the District of Columbia so long as it existed in Virginia 
 and Maryland ; it provided for the legal transportation of slaves, as 
 slaves, through the free States ; it secured to the slaveholder payment 
 by the United States for his fugitive slave if his capture had been 
 obstructed ; and it prohibited Congress from interfering with slavery 
 
444 OPENING OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 anywhere. It was not till the confusion of the closing hours of the 
 session that this measure was defeated by a single vote; but then 
 it mattered little what was done by a body whose members from the 
 seceded States had been permitted to withdraw with much ceremony 
 of leave-taking, instead of being ordered into the custody of the ser- 
 geant-at-arms. 
 
 In both Houses, committees were appointed to devise some other 
 way of meeting the threatened troubles than the direct one of the 
 immediate suppression of insurrection and the punishment of treason. 
 One of these committees reported a joint resolution, which passed 
 both Houses, proposing an amendment to the Constitution, prohibit- 
 ing Congress to interfere with slavery anywhere, without the consent 
 of all the States. The House passed resolutions reported by the 
 same committee of one from each State affirming that all State 
 legislation interfering with the capture of fugitive slaves should be 
 repealed ; that slavery should not be prohibited in New Mexico ; and 
 that the North disclaimed all intention of meddling with it in the 
 States. 
 
 In February, 1861, a Peace Congress, suggested by Virginia, con- 
 vened at Washington. In it were represented all the 
 Northern States, except Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, 
 California, and Oregon, and all the Southern States except the eight 
 that had already seceded. The result of its three weeks of delibera- 
 tion was, as Senator Sumner said, to propose " to give slavery positive 
 protection in the Constitution, making it national instead of sectional." 
 The resolutions it adopted were conceived in essentially the same 
 spirit that suggested the Crittenden Compromise and the resolutions 
 of the committee which the House had adopted. It was the North 
 that was arraigned as criminal ; the North that must repent of her 
 evil ways ; the North that must clothe herself in sackcloth, and 
 sprinkle ashes upon her head. 
 
 If the South needed encouragement to secede, she had far more 
 than she could have ever hoped for. Party leaders at the 
 
 Position of r *' 
 
 Northern North were as ready to sacrifice everything for the sake of 
 
 politicians. J , , . 
 
 peace and of union, or to avow openly their sympathy with 
 the slaveholders, as the majority of Congress were to offer a submis- 
 sion that was almost abject. The Mayor of New York, Fernando 
 Wood, proposed to the Common Council early in January, that, 
 should there be a separation of the States, the city should declare 
 itself independent of them all. How sincerely he hoped for the suc- 
 cess of disunion he showed before the end of the month,, by avowing 
 his regret that he had no power to punish the police, who seized a 
 quantity of arms about to be sent to the insurgent State of Georgia. 
 
Salmon P. Chase, Treasury. William H. Seward, State. 
 
 Simon Cameron. War. Montgomery Blair, Post. Gen. Edward Bates, Atty. Gen. 
 
 Caleb 15. Smith, Interior. Gideon Welles, Navy. 
 
 PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FIRST CABINET. 
 
Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President. Robert Toombs, State. 
 
 C. G. Memminger, Treas. Leroy P. Walker. War. John H. Reagan, Post. Gen. 
 
 Stephen R. Mallory, Navy. Judali P. r.L-njamin, Ally. Gen. 
 
 JEFFERSON DAVIS'S VICE-I'KESIDEN I AND CABINET. 
 
1861.] TAKING THE FIRST STEPS. 445 
 
 A Democratic Convention assembled, about the same time, at Albany, 
 whose object was to protest against the use of force for the suppres- 
 sion of an insurrection of slaveholders. The party was represented 
 at that meeting by its most eminent leaders in the State, and no 
 expression of opinion there met with so hearty a response as the 
 declaration, that if force were used it should be " inaugurated at 
 home," an echo of the assurance given by ex-President Pierce to 
 Jefferson Davis, some months before, that should there be fighting, it 
 would be within "our own borders, in our own streets," between the 
 anti-slavery people and their opponents. In December, a great meet- 
 ing in Philadelphia passed resolutions of submission as absolute as if 
 Pennsylvania were already a conquered province. 
 
 Some of the early steps taken by the newly installed Confederate 
 Government were to possess itself of the arsenals and forts within 
 the territory over which it claimed jurisdiction. Some of these had 
 already been seized by the authorities of the seceding States. The 
 arsenals, which Mr. Buchanan's Secretary of War, John B. , 
 
 J Seizure of 
 
 Floyd, had recently supplied with arms belonging to the f-n* n.i 
 United States Government, were easily taken. The forts 
 on the Mississippi, below New Orleans, and those at the entrance 
 of Mobile Bay, were also secured without a struggle. But when 
 the Pensacola navy-yard was seized, Lieutenant Adam J. Slemmer, 
 commanding at Fort McRae, transferred his small garrison to Fort 
 Pickens, a stronger work, on Santa Rosa Island, where he was subse- 
 quently reenforced by troops brought in two United States vessels, 
 and the post was held by the national forces throughout the war. The 
 forts at Key West and the Tortugas were also held. The greater part 
 of the regular army of the United States was in Texas, com- TV^-,, 
 manded by General David E. Twiggs. Three commission- furrender - 
 ers from a so-called Committee of Public Safety met him at San 
 Antonio, February 18th, where they demanded and received the capit- 
 ulation of the entire force, and a surrender of all the military prop- 
 erty of the United States in Texas, valued at about a million and a 
 half of dollars. The troops were permitted to retain their arms and 
 march to the coast to embark for the North. 
 
 While these portentous events were happening at the South, 
 public opinion in the North was divided ; and, although gloom and 
 alarm pervaded the ranks of the thinking people, sluggish- ituation in 
 ness and inaction were the condition under which they lay. the Xorth - 
 The indecision of the National Administration, so far as that was 
 exemplified in the conduct of President Buchanan, was reflected in 
 the general temper of the people, so far as that was expressed in the 
 public press and by speakers. There appeared to be a grave doubt 
 
440 
 
 OPENING OF THE WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 as to whether the Nation possessed the power to coerce a sovereign 
 State to remain in the Union, and whether a Union maintained by 
 such coercion were worth maintaining at all. These were the ques- 
 tions actually discussed by leading members of the Republican party 
 whose votes had just elected Abraham Lincoln President of the 
 United States. 
 
 President Buchanan, while he conceded that " the long-continued 
 and intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question 
 of Slavery in the Southern States*' had produced estrangements and 
 troubles, argued that the election of a President obnoxious to the 
 citizens of one section of the Republic was no excuse whatever for 
 the rebellion and secession of the offended citizens of that section. 
 In like manner, members of the more conservative Democratic party 
 of the North, while they exultingly cried, " We told you so ! " as 
 their prophecies of ill were fulfilled by the swift recurrence of acts of 
 secession, plaintively pleaded with their erring Southern brethren 
 to remain in the Union, and submit once more to a trial of their 
 patience and forbearance. Generally, the spirit of patriotism in the 
 North lay dormant. Confusion reigned in the councils of the people ; 
 public opinion refused to crystallize ; apparently nothing but a blow 
 would precipitate these floating elements into definite and concrete 
 shape. 
 
 The chief public interest, North as well as South, now centred in 
 the defences of Charleston Harbor. Commanding the chan- 
 nel, stood Fort Su inter, on an artificial island built up 
 with large blocks of stone and chips from 
 Northern stone-yards. It was not yet 
 finished, and the garrison maintained at 
 this point l occupied Fort Moultrie, on 
 the northern side of the harbor. This 
 small force was under command of 
 Lieutenant-Colonel John L. Gardner, a 
 veteran of the war of 1812, who in 
 November was relieved by Major Rob- 
 ert Anderson, a Kentuckian. In De- 
 cember the question of reenforcing Fort 
 Moultrie was discussed iu the Cabinet, 
 and the project was opposed by the Pres- 
 ident, who carried his point. Thereupon 
 Mr. Cass resigned the Secretaryship of 
 State, and Jeremiah S. Black, of Penn- 
 
 Fort Sum- 
 ter. 
 
 John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky. 
 
 (The originator of tbc " ('rittendeu Com- 
 promise.' 7 ) 
 
 1 Seven officers, sixty-one men, and thirteen musicians, of the First United States Anil 
 lery. 
 
18G1.] ANDKRSOX IN FORT SUMTER. 447 
 
 sylvania, succeeded him. The fort, which had become somewhat 
 dilapidated and was overlooked by immense sand-heaps that had accu- 
 mulated near it, was put into better repair; but it was evident that 
 it could not be held with so small a force if at all against any 
 serious attempt to take it by the thousands of armed men gathering 
 at Charleston and clamoring for the expulsion of every United States 
 soldier. 
 
 Left to his own resources by an Administration that was afraid 
 to withdraw him for fear of exasperating the North, and afraid to 
 reenforce him for fear of precipitating war, Anderson determined 
 to leave an untenable work for one that at least promised safety. In 
 the night of December 26th, he secretly removed his command to 
 Fort Sumter, taking with him all his portable supplies, dismounting 
 the guns of Moultrie, and burning the carriages. On the same day 
 three commissioners from South Carolina arrived in Washington, to 
 negotiate for the surrender of the forts and other public property. 
 By order of Secretary Floyd, a force of workmen had been previ- 
 ously sent to Fort Sumter, to put it in repair, and mount the guns, 
 evidently to enhance its value for the insurgents when they should 
 have seized it. Many of these laborers were found wearing secession 
 cockades when the garrison landed, and they angrily asked, " What 
 are these soldiers doing here?" They were driven into the fort, and 
 made prisoners. There was great excitement in Charleston next 
 morning, and that day a body of State troops took possession of Fort 
 Moultrie and of Castle Pinckney, a small round fort in the harbor, 
 nearer the city. 
 
 The removal of his force to Fort Sumter was in accordance with 
 the instructions sent to Major Anderson from Washington. It was 
 accepted by the insurgents at Charleston as a, sign of hostility, though 
 the same orders which justified it also instructed Anderson to re- 
 frain from all hostile acts unless compelled to resort to them in self- 
 defence. The commissioners at Washington had telegraphed to Gov- 
 ernor Pickens to hasten the preparations for war. and the insolence 
 of their tone, in their communications with the President, was 
 enough to rouse even him to take some vigorous step. The sloop-of- 
 war Brooklyn, then at Fortress Monroe and ready for sea, was 
 ordered to Charleston with three hundred men to reenforce Sumter. 
 But delay occurred for a day or two, in deference to the courtesy 
 which the President thought due to the South Carolina commission- 
 ers, from whom he awaited some further communication, and then 
 the order was countermanded at the suggestion of General Scott, who 
 feared that Fortress Monroe would be dangerously weakened by tak- 
 ing from it so large a portion of its garrison. That this could have 
 
448 OPENING OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 been avoided, however, and the Brooklyn sent upon her errand, is 
 certain. A proposal was sent from New York to provide an equal 
 number of men from the military organizations of that city, but the 
 offer was rejected. In place of the Brooklyn, a side-wheel merchant 
 steamer, the Star of the West, was sent, laden with provisions and 
 recruits. On the 9th of January she entered Charleston harbor, and 
 was repulsed by fire from the insurgent batteries, against which she 
 was powerless ; nor was a single shot fired in her defence from Fort 
 Sumter. No attempt had been made to conceal the object of this 
 expedition ; nor/indeed, would it have availed if there had been, for 
 the offices of the Government of Washington were filled with South- 
 erners who acted as spies. 
 
 The condition of the isolated fort, surrounded by watchful enemies, 
 remained unchanged for the remainder of the winter, except that it 
 was growing, day by day, less able to make any effectual resistance, 
 by the rapid consumption of its provisions, while the insurgents grew 
 stronger by the erection of new l-atteries, and the accumulation of 
 the munitions of war. A new commission of two, one from Major 
 Anderson and one from Governor Pickens, was sent, by agreement, 
 to Washington, but it only served to add one more influence to the 
 general policy of indecision and delay. It was not, however, to be 
 regretted: the real danger was, that the rebellion would not be left 
 to be dealt with by the incoming Administration, but would be con- 
 doned by some disgraceful and disastrous compromise. 
 
 On the 23d of February, Mr. Lincoln arrived at Washington, 
 having escaped a concerted plot for his assassination at Baltimore, by 
 inaugura- taking an earlier train than that in which he was expected 
 Abraham ^ ar ''i ve - On the 4th of March he was duly inaugurated, to 
 Lincoln. confront a civil war which Mr. Buchanan wanted either the 
 will or the nerve to avert or to meet. The inaugural address of Mr. 
 Lincoln was couched in the most conciliatory and winning language. 
 While he argued that the Federal Union was indestructible save by 
 the consent of all the States, and expressed his determination to sanc- 
 tion no invasion of the Constitution under which slavery had existed 
 and flourished in the several States, he gave notice that the Admin- 
 istration of the Government now committed to his hands would con- 
 tinue the conduct of affairs as usual, unless interrupted and hindered 
 by rebellious malcontents. The mails would be carried and the 
 customs collected, and the ordinary functions of the Federal Govern- 
 ment exercised under the authority of the United States. Appealing 
 to those who were malcontent, he said : " In your hands, my dissatis- 
 fied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of 
 civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no 
 
1861.] 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 449 
 
 The Interior of Fort Moultrie in 1801. 
 From a photograph. 
 
 conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath 
 registered in Heaven to destroy the Government, while /shall have 
 the most solemn one to ' preserve, protect, and defend it.' ' 
 
 There was affectionate pleading in his conclnding sentence : " I 
 am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not 
 be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, 
 our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching 
 from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and 
 hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the 
 Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better 
 angels of our nature." 
 
 The cabinet of the newly installed President was as follows : 
 
 / 
 
 Wm. H. Seward, of New York, Secretary of State : Salmon P. Chase, 
 of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury ; Simon Cameron, of 
 Pennsylvania, Secretary of War ; Gideon Welles, of Con- 
 necticut, Secretary of the Navy ; Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, Secre- 
 tary of the Interior ; Edward Bates, of Missouri, Attorney-General ; 
 Montgomery Blair, of Maryland, Postmaster-General. Of these men, 
 four, Seward, Cameron, Chase, and Bates, had been presented to the 
 Republican National Convention of 1860 as candidates for the nomi- 
 nation which subsequently fell to Lincoln. Of the four, Mr. Seward. 
 
 VOL. IV. 
 
450 
 
 OPENING OF THE WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. XYIL 
 
 An Interior View of Fort Sumter in 1861, showing how the wails were strengthened 
 
 From a photogrnph. 
 
 by his statesmanlike treatment of the great questions that had occu- 
 pied the attention of Congress while the issues of war and peace were 
 hanging in the balance, was regarded as the ablest and the wisest. 
 It was naturally expected that he would be called to the first place 
 in the cabinet ; and although the title of " Premier " is entirely un- 
 known to the legal usage of the United States, that dignifying prefix 
 appeared to be more rightfully Mr. Seward's, when he went into the 
 cabinet of the rough western politician, than it ever had been when 
 applied to other Secretaries of State. 
 
 Possibly Mr. Seward was conscious of the oppressiveness of his 
 official duties, charged as he was, not only with the responsibilities of 
 a great place in time of war, but also with the management of deli- 
 cate matters of government under the administration of one who was, 
 to say the least, unfamiliar with statecraft. Lincoln, it was tacitly 
 understood, was to be the figure-head of the new Administration ; 
 its policy was to be framed and carried out by Secretary Seward. 
 Acting upon this theory, which did not seem unreasonable to those 
 who were more familiar with Seward's talents than with Lincoln's 
 genius, there would have been no surprise expressed if it had been 
 made known that the Secretary early manifested his intention to 
 "run things," as the popular phrase went. Accordingly, while the 
 
1861.] LINCOLN AND SEWARD. 451 
 
 President, with his habitual steadiness and deliberation, waited for 
 active developments in the insurrectionary States, the Secretary of 
 State, April 1st, 1861, drew up for the consideration of his 
 chief a memorandum l in which, after noting that no policy, r -J ' memo- 
 
 ' r J' raudum. 
 
 foreign or domestic, had yet been formulated by the Gov- 
 ernment, he proposed that the question before the people be changed 
 from one concerning slavery to one of Union or Disunion. The issue 
 should be withdrawn from Fort Su rater, he suggested, and, by a 
 blockade of the insurrectionary States and a reenforcement of the 
 forts in the Gulf of Mexico, the question of Union or Disunion would 
 be distinctly raised. 
 
 More amazing than this was the proposition of the Secretary that 
 " explanations " should be demanded from Spain and France at once, 
 and that " explanations " less imperative should also be sought from 
 Great Britain and Russia, and emissaries sent into Canada, Mexico, 
 and Central America to excite a vigorous spirit of resistance against 
 European intervention in the affairs of the American continent. 
 Unless immediate and satisfactory explanations were received from 
 France and Spain, war should be declared against them. It was 
 evidently the hope of Mr. Seward that, the issue of Union or Dis- 
 union being settled in favor of the first member of the proposition, a 
 foreign war would so unify the sentiment of the entire nation that 
 further danger of secession would pass. 
 
 The President's reply to this communication expressed his deter- 
 mination to abide by the policy outlined in his inaugural, viz., to use 
 the power confided in him to hold, occupy, and possess the places 
 belonging to the Government, and to collect the duties and imposts. 
 The President further said that he could not see how the reenforce- 
 ment of Fort Sumter could be done on a slavery or party issue, while 
 that of Fort Pickens, for example, could be done on a more national 
 and patriotic one. The Secretary, in his memoi'andum. had suggested 
 that as some one must be charged with the execution of the details of 
 his plan, he would not shrink from the responsibility. The Presi- 
 dent, in his reply, simply said, " If this must be done, I must do it; " 
 but he expressed the wish that on all matters of policy he should 
 have the advice of all the cabinet. Here the matter rested ; the 
 Secretary addressed himself with ardor and patriotism to the duties 
 of his office ; the President made no comment to any one on the 
 remarkable proposal of the Secretary to undertake to guide the 
 Administration; and, with singular accord and perfect trust in each 
 other, these two great men went forward together in the work of 
 defending and restoring the Federal Union. 
 
 1 The Nicolay-Hay Life of Lincoln, vol. iii. p. 445. 
 

 452 
 
 OPENING OF THE WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 All eyes were now turned toward Fort Sumter. By common con- 
 sent, this fortification commanding the channel entrance of Charles- 
 ton harbor, was regarded as the key of the situation. South Carolina, 
 in the exercise of its claim to be a sovereign and independent State, 
 demanded that the work be turned over to its government, 
 tionof Fort with the other defences of the harbor. Concession here, by 
 
 Suuiter. 
 
 the Government of the United States, would be a virtual 
 acknowledgment of the independence of South Carolina, and, inci- 
 dentally, a concession of the whole question at issue. In the North 
 the question was, Will the rebels dare to use force to get hold of 
 those works ? In the South the question was, Will the Administra- 
 tion dare to reenfoice any of these forts in the face of our expressed 
 determination to have and hold them ? The crisis came at last. 
 
 On the 8th of April President Lincoln notified the Governor of 
 South Carolina that the Government had determined to provision 
 Fort Sumter at all hazards. General G. P. T. Beauregard 
 who had resigned a commission in the United States army 
 to join in the rebellion being now in command of the works erected 
 for the destruction of the fort, at once telegraphed to the government 
 at Montgomery for instructions, and on the 10th was ordered to open 
 fire. He first sent two of his staff to demand a surrender ; this Major 
 Anderson declined, volunteering the information that he would soon 
 be starved out. That evening another messenger came, to ask what 
 day he would evacuate, if he were not attacked, and he answered, at 
 noon of the 15th, unless he was previously relieved or received fresh 
 instructions. 1 Before daylight on the morning of the 12th, Beaure- 
 
 The bom- 
 barduifut. 
 
 Lieutenant-General G. P. T. Beauregard, 
 C. S. A. 
 
 Colonel (afterwards brevet Major-General) 
 Robert Anderson. 
 
 1 As we had pork enough on hand tn last for two weeks longer, there ws 110 necessity 
 fur tixing so early a day. It left too little margiu for naval operations, as, in all probaliil- 
 
1861.] 
 
 THE FIRST SHOT FIRED. 
 
 453 
 
 The Exterior of Fort Sumter, showing the cheveaux-de-frise. 
 From a photograph. 
 
 gard sent word to Anderson that in one hour he should open fire. 
 The first shot was fired from the Curnmings Point battery, by an 
 aged secessionist, Edmund Ruffin, of the most rabid type, who had 
 come from Virginia to beg that privilege. It was answered by a gun 
 fired at that battery by Captain (afterward General) Abner Double- 
 day, and the civil war was actually begun. 
 
 The bombardment continued, with little intermission, from day- 
 light of the 12th till midday of the 13th, and was replied to as briskly 
 as the condition of the fort and its armament would admit. Nineteen 
 batteries rained shot and shell upon it, from every direction except 
 that of the open sea. The barracks and officers' quarters were set on 
 fire, and to prevent an explosion ninety barrels of gunpowder were 
 thrown overboard and the magazine was closed. The ammuni- 
 tion being thus exhausted, and the fort filled with stifling The oapitu- 
 smoke, a capitulation necessarily followed, and the garrison latlon - 
 marched out next day, with the honors of war. In saluting the flag T 
 one of their number was killed by the premature discharge of a gun. 
 The fleet, outside the harbor, had witnessed the conflict, but were 
 powerless to take part in it. All the buoys that marked the chan- 
 
 ity, the vessels, in case of any accident or detention, would arrive too late to be of service- 
 This proved to be the case. Doubleday's Rtminiscenct*. 
 

 454 
 
 OPENING OF THE WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 Edmund Ruffin, of Virginia, who fired the first 
 gun in the Civil War, from the Point Cum- 
 mings battery against Fort Sumter. 
 
 (Mr. Ruffln committed suicide just before the 
 end of the war, when the ruin of the Con- 
 federate cause became apparent.) 
 
 nels had been removed, and the prin- 
 cipal vessel was aground on a shoal. 
 
 The gun fired at Fort Sumter was 
 the blow that was needed to crystal- 
 lize public sentiment at the North. 
 Thenceforth there was no question as 
 to the intention of the insurgents, 
 none as to the temper of the loyal 
 people of the United States. The 
 gun was the signal for an outpouring 
 of the patriotic people who had deter- 
 mined that, now that the arbitrament 
 of war had been invoked by their 
 misguided brethren of the South, the 
 war must be fought out to the end. 
 The response of the people of the 
 slaveholding States was equally deci- 
 sive and clear. It was evident that 
 secession would be no longer confined to the States that had so fai- 
 led the van. 
 
 Nevertheless, the insurgent leaders found some difficulty in precipi- 
 tating other slaveholding States into the vortex of secession. When 
 the gun was fired upon Sumter, only seven of the fifteen slaveholding 
 States had adopted ordinances of separation. Virginia, " the mother 
 of Presidents," whose departure from the Union would place the 
 verge of battle on the banks of the Potomac, hesitated to take the 
 fatal plunge. Virginian politicians, like Roger A. Pryor and Edmund 
 Ruflin, had early gone to South Carolina, to assist in the work of 
 inflaming the people of Charleston, while the fate of Sumter hung in 
 the balance ; and men of their stamp were urgent in Richmond while 
 the convention deliberating over the ordinance of secession was in 
 session. That convention met in the middle of February; 
 the middle of April came without any decisive action having 
 been taken to further the wishes of the ardent secessionists 
 who hung about the lobbies, urging and arguing immediate secession. 
 The central junta at Montgomery used all means available for the 
 coercion and the enticement of the unwilling delegates. In the face 
 of storm and blandishment, the convention, as late as April 4th, refused 
 by a vote eighty-nine to forty-five to declare for secession. 
 
 Evidently, something must be done to drive the State out of the 
 
 / * ^y 
 
 Union. Accordingly, when even the crisis of Sumter had failed to 
 inflame the hearts of the loyal delegates so that they were willing 
 to vote Virginia out of the Union, threats were resorted to, and the 
 
 The situa- 
 tion in 
 Virginia. 
 

 1861.] 
 
 VIRGINIA SECEDES. 
 
 455 
 
 Captain (afterward Major-General) Abner 
 Doubleday, who fired the first shot from 
 Fort Sumter. 
 
 From a photograph made directly after 
 his return from the fort. 
 
 Union members were plainly told that 
 they must vote for secession, absent 
 themselves at roll-call, or be hanged. 
 Terrorized, they either abstained from 
 voting or acted with the minority who 
 desired secession. The convention, 
 which had shown a majority of one 
 hundred and fifty-three against seced- 
 ing, now adopted the ordinance by a 
 majority of thirty -three ; the total vote 
 had shrunk to a figure below that of 
 the original majority for the Union. 
 The ordinance provided for its submis- 
 sion to a popular vote ; but the conspir- 
 ators cared little for that. Before the 
 date of the popular election arrived, the 
 convention, which remained in session, 
 had entered into a league with the Montgomery government, placing 
 the command of the Virginia troops in the hands of Jefferson Davis ; 
 the Provisional Constitution was ratified by the same body ; delegates 
 were appointed to the Confederate Congress which was about to 
 assemble ; provision was made for the raising and equipment of an 
 army and navy ; Jefferson Davis and his coadjutors were invited to 
 remove their seat of government to Richmond ; and, finally, the so- 
 called annexation of the Commonwealth of Virginia to the Confed- 
 eracy was officially proclaimed. And all this before the people had 
 voted on the proposition to secede from the Federal Union. 
 
 The determined temper of the insurgent leaders was best exemplified 
 in a letter written by United States Senator James M. Mason, and 
 printed in the " Winchester Virginian," May 16th, one week before 
 the date of the popular election. In that document the Senator urged 
 that a defeat of the ordinance by vote of the people would be a viola- 
 tion of " the sacred pledge " given by those who had already con- 
 cluded a league with the Montgomery government. And he said of 
 those who could not conscientiously vote for disunion, " They must 
 leave the State." This threat settled the case. On the 23d V irpma 
 of May, the ordinance of secession was ratified by a vote of seceUes - 
 125,950 against 23,373. The people of the northwestern part of the 
 State defied the secessionists ; they had assembled at Wheeling, where, 
 following the notable example set them in Richmond, they took steps 
 preliminary to a formal secession from Virginia. Their votes were 
 not accounted for in the popular election of May 23d. 
 
 The exuberance of the insurgent leaders knew no bounds when the 
 
456 OPENING OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 State of Virginia was declared out of the Union. All over the South 
 there prevailed great joy at the prospect of a speedy invasion of the 
 North and the capture of the national capital, now that the soil of 
 the Old Dominion, which bordered on Pennsylvania and Maryland, 
 was to be the tattle-ground of the contending armies about to be 
 arrayed against each other. "On to Washington!" was the cry of 
 politicians and press ; and some of the more sanguine expressed the 
 hope that before three months should pass the Confederate Govern- 
 ment would be installed in the offices of the Federal capital. 1 Fran- 
 tic efforts had been made in North Carolina to force the State out of 
 the Union ; Governor John VV. Ellis and United States Senator T. L. 
 Clingman being foremost in the difficult work of instilling the people 
 with the notion that their welfare and honor lay in the direction of a 
 separate confederation. But the people, voting on the proposition of 
 Convention or No Convention, ordered by the Legislature, decided 
 against a convention to consider separation. But, after months of 
 wearying pressure and intimidation from within and without, a con- 
 vention called by the Legislature adopted an ordinance of secession 
 on the anniversary of the so-called " Mecklenburgh Declaration of 
 Independence," 2 May 20th, 1861. 
 
 The proceedings in other States in which ordinances of secession 
 were ultimately adopted were similar in character to those already 
 other states described as having been taken in Virginia and North Caro- 
 co'nfed- lina. Although the Union sentiment of the South was full 
 eracy> and strong, the machinations of the conspirators, their 
 thi'eats and bullying, sufficed to bring on a reign of terror, during 
 which the form of adopting acts of secession was gone through with ; 
 and, on the slightest pretext, the junta at Montgomery and their 
 supporters in the coerced States loudly proclaimed successive acces- 
 sions to the Confederate cause. 
 
 On the 15th of April, two days after the evacuation of Fort Sum- 
 The first caii * er ' tne President called for 75,000 troops. The first to 
 for troop*. arr ive in Washington were 530 Pennsylvanians, who were 
 there on the 19th. On that day the anniversary of the fight at 
 
 1 The dates at which the several Stales seceded, and the votes on the ordinances in con- 
 vention, were as follows: South Carolina. December 2, 1860, unanimous; Mississippi, Janu- 
 ary 9, 1861,84 to 15; Alabama, January 11, 61 to 39 ; Florida, January 11,62 to 7; Georgia, 
 January 19, 208 to 89 ; Louisiana, January 26, 103 to 17 ; Texas, February 1 , 166 to 7 ; Vir- 
 ginia, April 17, 88 to 55; Arkansas, May 6, 69 to 1 ; North Carolina, May 20, unanimous. 
 
 2 The Mecklenburph Declaration was so called from a tradition that a convention of 
 patriotic citizens of Mecklen burgh County, North Carolina, met May 20th, 1775, and prepared 
 a declaration of independence from Great Britain, using some of the phraseology that was 
 subsequently employed iu the Declaration of Independence of July 4ih, 1776. As there is 
 no contemporaneous evidence that such a document was written, its authenticity is seriously 
 questioned. 
 
> 
 

18G1.] 
 
 THE FIRST BLOODSHED. 
 
 457 
 
 Major-General John B. Magruder, C. S. A. 
 
 Lexington, Mass., at the beginning 
 of the Revolution por- 
 
 * Fight with 
 
 tions of the Sixth Massa- " mob in 
 
 Baltimore. 
 
 chusetts and Seventh Penn- 
 sylvania regiments, passing through 
 Baltimore to the defence of the na- 
 tional capital, were attacked by a vast 
 mob of insurgents, who had the sanc- 
 tion of many of the wealthier and 
 more respectable citizens. Two hun- 
 dred Massachusetts men, having been 
 separated from their regiment, were 
 surrounded by a dense throng of 
 rioters, estimated to number nearly 
 10,000. The troops marched slowly, 
 headed by the Mayor and a detachment of police, and exhibited ad- 
 mirable discipline in refraining from retaliation when pelted with 
 brick-bats and paving-stones and fired at with revolvers ; the missiles 
 coming not only from the crowd but from windows of the houses. 
 At last, when three of their number had been killed l and eight 
 wounded, the troops fired into the mob, of whom they killed seven, 
 and wounded an unknown number. One 1'ioter was killed by the 
 Mayor, who had begged that the soldiers might not be permitted to 
 fire, but seeing, at length, the necessity of defence, seized a musket 
 and shot the most conspicuous leader of the assailants. 
 
 The indignation aroused by this outrage was intense all over the 
 country. The Seventh Regiment of New York, under Colonel Lef- 
 ferts, had already volunteered their services for one month, and were- 
 under arms when the news from Baltimore reached the city. They 
 marched down Broadway amid the cheers of an immense multitude, 
 and embarked the next morning at Philadelphia for Annapolis. 
 There they joined General B. F. Butler, with the Eighth Regiment 
 of Massachusetts, who had also avoided Baltimore, at Perryville had 
 seized a steamboat, and reached Annapolis on the 21st. The com- 
 bined force, under General Butler, took up the line of march for 
 Washington. A portion of the railroad track had been torn up and 
 the locomotives disabled by the insurgents, but they were repaired 
 with little delay. The officers called for men who understood track- 
 laying, bridge-building, or the construction and management of loco- 
 motives, and such men at once stepped out from the ranks of the 
 Massachusetts Eighth, many of whom were mechanics. 
 
 1 The names of the killed were Luther C. Ludd, Suinuer El. Xeedhara, aud Addisou O 
 Whitney. 
 
458 OPENING OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 The arrival of the Pennsylvanians in Washington, however, was a 
 great disappointment to the plotters who infested the national capi- 
 tal. It had been hoped that the few squads then hovering around 
 Washington would be strong enough to seize the seat of government, 
 occupy its buildings, and hold it for the advance of Jefferson Davis 
 and his colleagues in the insurrectionary government. The Pennsyl- 
 vanians were mostly unarmed; they had departed in haste from their 
 homes, and their number was not large enough to make them very 
 Arrival of formidable under any circumstances. But the event of 
 wilTiilg. tne arrival was greatly magnified in importance ; and after 
 they had been quartered in the House of Representatives 
 in Washington the word went forth that 2,000 soldiers, armed with 
 Minie rifles, were in the city for its defence. The secessionists had 
 no stomach for the fighting which seemed to them imminent ; they 
 made no attack. 
 
 Still, the capital was far from safe. After the interruption of rail- 
 way travel through .Maryland, a portentous cloud seemed to settle upon 
 Washington. The survivors of the volunteers who were attacked in 
 the streets of Baltimore made their appearance and were affection- 
 ately received and welcomed by the distressed and anxious President. 
 But after these had been disposed in their temporary quarters, there 
 were no more military demonstrations in Washington. Anxiety and 
 gloomy forebodings were in every loyal heart ; it appeared likely that 
 at any moment the slumbering volcano which was believed to lie 
 under the surface of Washington would burst forth, and carnage and 
 bloodshed would rage in the streets. The mental tension of waiting 
 men. waiting for the blow to fall or relief to come, was terrible. 
 But on the 25th, the Seventh Regiment of New York reached the 
 beleaguered and isolated capital early in the afternoon. The regi- 
 ment marched straight to the White House, where it was thankfully 
 greeted by the President ; and along its route it was welcomed by 
 happy and loyal people. The danger was over. The National 
 capital was safe. 
 
 At the end of April, General B. F. Butler, who commanded the 
 department within which Baltimore was situated, had under his con- 
 trol 10,000 men, his headquarters being in Annapolis, the capital of 
 the State, near the mouth of the Severn, on Chesapeake Bay. By a 
 dexterous movement, on the 5th of May, he seized and occupied the 
 most important point on the railway between Baltimore and Wash- 
 ington, nine miles from the first-named city. The presence of a 
 Butier in large force of Federal troops at this junction strengthened 
 Baltimore. j. Re Union sentiment of Baltimore and overawed the insur- 
 gents. Thenceforth there was no more active opposition to the passage 
 
1861.] 
 
 THE SAFETY OF WASHINGTON ASSURED. 
 
 459 
 
 Fortress Monroe. 
 
 of national soldiers through the city. Availing himself of a heavy 
 thunderstorm, during the night of May 13th, Butler marched into 
 Baltimore, occupied a commanding position on Federal Hill, over- 
 looking the city, and the doom of secession in Maryland was sealed. 
 
 Other events, big with importance, were meanwhile occurring in 
 various parts of the Union. The blockade which had been Inid by 
 the proclamation of the President upon the ports of the seven States 
 claiming to be the Southern Confederacy was now (April 27th) 
 extended to the ports of North Carolina and Virginia ; and on the 
 3d of May, the President issued another proclamation calling for 
 42,000 three-years' volunteers ; 22,144 officers and men to 
 serve in the regular army and 18,000 seamen for the navy, 
 The previous call, it should be borne in mind, was in the 
 nature of a requisition for 75,000 men of the State's militia, to serve 
 three months, as duly provided by law. But the loyal States had 
 already responded to the Government with a fulness and freeness that 
 bespoke their readiness to sustain the Union at all hazards and at 
 any cost. More than 150,000 men were either under arms or were 
 ready to be mustered into service when the call of May 3d was made; 
 and at that time offers of financial assistance to the amount of more 
 than -$40,000,000, from individuals, corporations, societies, and asso- 
 ciations, had reached the Government of the United States. 
 
 Up to this time, the insurgent leaders had confidently counted on 
 the sympathy and support of their ancient allies in the Democratic 
 
 
 
. 
 
 460 
 
 OPENING OF THE WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 Attitude of 
 
 Northern 
 
 Democrats. 
 
 party of the Northern States. The most vociferous opponents of 
 " coercion," as applied to States that professed to have seceded from 
 the Union of States, were the leaders of that party. Their orators 
 and the newspapers were loud in their expressions of sympathy with 
 " the down-trodden South " while the preliminary acts of the secession 
 drama were being marshalled upon the stage. But when the crisis 
 actually came, and men must choose between Union or Disunion, vast 
 num tiers of the Democratic party in the North forsook that organiza- 
 tion and supported war measures and war candidates. From that 
 time to the end of the rebellion these were known as " War 
 Democrats." The party which they abandoned preserved 
 its name and organization, and the sympathy which it had 
 heretofore extended to the slaveholding politicians of the South was 
 not withdrawn from them now that they had lifted the standard of 
 revolt. Under the pretext of a strict adherence to the Federal Con- 
 stitution and a rigid construction of its provisions, they thereafter 
 opposed all war measures in Congress and obstructed the war policy 
 of the Government in every possible way. But, for all practical pur- 
 poses, this sincere attempt to aid the Southern revolt was to the 
 insurgents disappointingly inefficient. 
 
 The Confederate capital was removed from Montgomery to Rich- 
 mond, the first meeting of the Congress there being appointed for 
 Payment of J u ty 20th. It was not till June 1st, 1861, that mail service 
 in the rebellious States, on the existing United States con- 
 tracts, was discontinued. But the lines were being rapidly 
 drawn. Southern tradesmen refused to pay their Northern debts, an- 
 ticipating the act of the insurgent Congress of May 21st requiring 
 that such debts should be paid into the Confederate treasury. All 
 the ecclesiastical organizations, the Masonic and other benevolent fra- 
 ternities, and the Bible and mission- 
 ary societies, that extended over the 
 whole country, snapped in twain on 
 the line between the free and the 
 slave States. 
 
 A serious disaster to the Union 
 cause was the destruction of a num- 
 ber of naval vessels at the Gosport, 
 Virginia, navy-yard, on the 21st of 
 May. This establishment, being near 
 Norfolk and at a point from which a 
 naval force could have been employed 
 with efficiency, had been the object of 
 
 the earnest Solicitude Of the Admin- Major-Gener.l Benjamin F. Butler. 
 
 Northern 
 debts for- 
 bidden. 
 
1861] THE FIRST FIGHTING. 461 
 
 A Negro Family arriving within the Union lines. 
 Dmicnby Gustav Verbeek from ap/ioto%ra/ifi 
 
 istration in Washington. But the greater number of officials in charge 
 of the yard were secret enemies of the Union and were ready D 
 to exercise their authority in the premises so as to prevent p 
 the use by the Government of the vessels and the war mate- Yard - 
 rial of which they were the faithless guardians. The buildings were 
 set on fire and the ships scuttled and sunk, the pretence being that 
 they would otherwise fall into the hands of the insurgents. 
 
 It is a remarkable proof of the peaceful character of the Southern 
 negro, that neither in the confusion of the beginning of hostilities, 
 nor in all the subsequent years, when opportunity was even greater, 
 was there the slightest attempt at the insurrection in mortal dread of 
 which the South had always professed to be living. As the Federal 
 armies approached the border, many of the slaves sought protection 
 and liberty within their lines, only to be given up by Union officers, 
 when their masters appeared and demanded their property, so 
 imperative for a while was the habit of Northern subserviency. For- 
 tunately a wiser precedent was soon given for meeting such emergen- 
 cies, by General Butler, then in command at Fortress Mon- 
 
 J . ' Slaves "coc- 
 
 roe. Some fugitives and their claimants were brought be- tratmndof 
 fore him, and he decided that this species of property, like 
 any other which could be of use to the enemy, was contraband of war, 
 and ordered them to be fed and clothed and put to work upon his for- 
 tifications. Thereafter the fugitives were universally called "contra- 
 bands." 
 
 The insurgents' forces on the peninsula between York and James 
 livers were under command of General J. B. Magruder. General 
 Butler, at Fortress Monroe, commanded the National volun- Fightat 
 teers in the same territory, for whom he had established ^B 8 *" 1 * 1 - 
 camps of instruction at Newport News and near Hampton village. 
 These being annoyed by raids from Big Bethel, where Magruder had 
 intrenched himself with a considerable force, General Butler planned 
 

 462 OPENING OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 an expedition against that place, which was but a dozen miles distant 
 from Fortress Monroe. It was placed under command of General 
 Pierce, and was to march by night, on the 9th of June, in two col- 
 umns, which were to unite at Little Bethel, rout any force that might 
 be there, and push on to Big Bethel, four miles farther, and capture 
 the place. The expedition was mismanaged from first to last. As 
 portions of the two columns came in sight at daybreak, they opened fire 
 upon each other, and did not discover their mistake till ten men had 
 fallen. No enemy was discovered at Little Bethel, and at Big Bethel 
 he was found so strongly intrenched, with a clear space in front and 
 a thick wood behind, that any attack was imprudent, unless some 
 way could be found to take him in flank. Nevertheless, a front 
 attack was made with much spirit, but was repulsed. The Union loss 
 was fourteen killed, forty-nine wounded, and five missing. Among 
 the killed were Lieutenant John T. Greble, of the regular army, who 
 served a piece of artillery with great gallantry and effect, and Major 
 Theodore Winthrop, an aid of General Butler, who had volunteered 
 to go with the expedition, and was shot as he rushed forward and 
 put himself at the head of the men in a desperate charge on the left. 
 After the fight was over, the enemy fell back to Yorktown. 
 
 General Robert E. Lee, who had at first refused to quit the service 
 of the United States, in which he had discharged his duties with honor 
 and credit, " went with his State," even before Virginia adopted the 
 act of secession ; he said that he could not take arms against his 
 native State, and accepted the command of the Virginia troops. One 
 of his first acts was to send a force into western Virginia, 
 western under Colonel Porterfield, to obtain recruits and suppress 
 secession from the Confederacy in that portion of the State. 
 General George B. McClellan, in command of the Federal Depart- 
 ment of the Ohio, who had hitherto remained on the free-State side 
 of the river, met this movement by promptly crossing over with a 
 considerable force in pursuit of the enemy. In a brief campaign, the 
 insurgents lost about 250 killed, over 1,000 prisoners, and five guns, 
 while the Union loss was but 20 killed and 60 wounded. These 
 actions were small affairs, from a military point of view ; but they 
 had considerable importance in saving western Virginia to the Union. 
 The reputation they gave to General McClellan raised him soon after- 
 ward to the chief command, in place of General Scott. 
 
 Meanwhile the material for a considerable army had gathered at 
 The Army of Washington, and was in camp across the Potomac, where 
 thePotouiuc. ne recrn it; S W ere instructed and drilled under the eye of 
 General Scott, with General Irwin McDowell in immediate command. 
 
 Impatience at the long inaction of what seemed to be a powerful 
 
1861.] 
 
 THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN. 
 
 4G3 
 
 Major-General Irwin McDowell. 
 
 army, at length broke forth in the cry 
 of " On to Richmond ! " and prepara- 
 tions were made to attack the in- 
 surgent force which, under General 
 Beauregard, had taken up a posi- 
 tion around Manassas Junction, about 
 thirty miles west by south from 
 Washington. Harper's Ferry, aban- 
 doned and burned by the National 
 forces on the 18th of April, was now 
 evacuated in turn by the Patterson's 
 Confederate force of about m "'"'- 
 9,000 men, under General Joseph E. 
 Johnston, who in June retired toward 
 Winchester, so as either to cooperate 
 with Beauregard or to be able to unite their forces. General Robert 
 Patterson, who had been gathering a force at Chambersburg, mainly 
 of Pennsylvania troops, for the recapture of Harper's Ferry, now occu- 
 pied that place. He afterwards advanced to Martinsburg, and thence 
 to Bunker Hill. Here he was expected to hold Johnston in check, 
 though Johnston was nearer than he to the grand centre of operations. 
 The army under General McDowell, of about 30,000 men, contained 
 less than 1,000 regulars. The rest were volunteers and most of them 
 three-months' men, whose term of service would soon expire. <. 0n to 
 Being assured by General Scott that Patterson, with his Rifhn "> n<1 -" 
 18,000 men, would either hold Johnston in check or attack him, Mc- 
 Dowell planned an advance movement. His plan was, in general 
 terms, to march to Fairfax Court House, there turn southward, and 
 crossing Oecoquan Creek, place his army on Beauregard's line of 
 communication. 
 
 The army broke camp in the afternoon of the 16th of July, and 
 marched in four divisions, under Generals Tyler. Hunter, Bnttleof 
 Heintzelman, and Miles, leaving one division to protect BullKun - 
 Washington. They moved in four columns, by nearly parallel roads, 
 found Fairfax Court House abandoned, and next day reached Centre- 
 ville. Beauregard's arrny was in position on the line of Bull Run, -^- 
 a stream running in a channel sharply cut through red sandstone, 
 occupying for about five miles the southern bank from Sudley Spring 
 to Union Mills, where the Orange and Alexandria Railroad crosses. 
 Within this distance are six or seven fords, and a stone bridge where 
 the Warrenton turnpike crosses. General McDowell found that his 
 plan of turning the enemy's right flank was not practicable, from the 
 nature of the ground. Two days were spent in reconnoitering. On 
 

 464 
 
 OPENING OF THE WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. XVIL 
 
 Blackburn's Ford, Bull Run. on July 4th, I 862. 
 Drairn by Harry Finn from a photograph. 
 
 the 18th, Tyler's division had an engagement at Blackburn's Ford, 
 across the stream, each side losing half a hundred men. A new 
 movement was planned, by which the divisions of Hunter and Heint- 
 zelman were to move up stream, cross at Sudley Ford, and sweeping 
 down the right bank, uncover the other crossings. The other divi- 
 sions were then to cross, and all together advance upon the enemy. 
 
 At three o'clock on Sunday morning, the 21st, the Union army 
 was in motion. Tyler's division took the main road to the stone 
 bridge. Hunter and Heintzelman diverged to the right, and crossed 
 at Sudley Ford, about nine o'clock. Beauregard, ignorant of this 
 movement, ordered an attack on the Union left; but his order miscar- 
 ried. Colonel Evans, however, holding the extreme left of the insur- 
 gent line, whose suspicions had been aroused, marched up stream with 
 half a brigade, and confronted the turning column beyond the turn- 
 pike. Instead of deploying in line of battle, and sweeping away the 
 obstruction at once, Hunter sent successive detached regiments and 
 brigades against it. Time was lost, during which Evans was heavily 
 reenforced, and took up a new position a little in the rear. Hunter 
 was also reenforced by Sherman's and Keyes's brigades. The com- 
 bined force steadily drove back the enemy to the plateau. They 
 were in great confusion, and Beauregard and Johnston, 1 besides niak- 
 
 1 This General was the ratikiug officer, and real commauder, but had adopted Beau re- 
 gard's plans. 
 
18G1.J 
 
 THE BATTLE DECIDED. 
 
 465 
 
 vj. 
 
 Ruins of the Stone Bridge across Bull Run on the Wrrenton Turnpike. 
 Draicn by Harry Fenn/rom a photograph. 
 
 ing personal efforts to rally them, ordered up all tlieir reserves, and 
 formed a new line of battle of six thousand five hundred men, with 
 thirteen guns and two companies of cavalry. McDowell attempted 
 to work around the enemy's left, and ordered the batteries of Griffin 
 and Ricketts to take position on a ridge overlooking a height which 
 formed the strongest point in the rebel line. General T. J. Jackson 
 (afterward known as " Stonewall " Jackson) sent a regiment to take 
 this battery, and the movement succeeded, the cannoneers supposing 
 it to be a New York regiment coming to their support. The guns 
 were speedily retaken, however, when fresh supports were brought 
 up, and the fight renewed around these batteries. But at this 
 moment there arrived by rail seven regiments of Johnston's troops ; 
 these were ordered to fall upon the right flank of the Union army. 
 Assisted by a battery and five companies of cavalry, the 
 
 , . ' r , i , The (Meat. 
 
 order was obeyed with promptness and vigor, and this de- 
 cided the battle. About half-past four o'clock the Union right broke 
 and retreated in confusion, soon followed by the centre and left, 
 though in less disorder. The retreat became a panic ; infantry, 
 VOL. iv. 30 
 
466 OPENING OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 artillery, trains, ambulances, members of Congress, and private citi- 
 zens who had come out on horseback or in carriages to see the fight, 
 were mingled in a confused crowd upon the roads to Washington. 
 No pursuit was made, except by small bodies of cavalry, who took 
 some prisoners. The i-egulars, forming the left of the line, brought 
 up the rear in good order, while the reserves also preserved their 
 organization and were ready to repel pursuit. 
 
 The forces engaged on each side of this disastrous fight were about 
 equal in number. The Federal losses were as follows : 460 killed, 
 1,124 wounded, 1,312 captured or missing; total, 2,896. The Con- 
 federate losses were: 387 killed, 1,582 wounded, 13 captured or 
 missing ; total, 1,982. The defeat was the result of a combination of 
 causes. General Patterson, a Pennsylvania volunteer officer, but a 
 veteran of the Mexican war, had been instructed to hold Johnston's 
 army in check at Winchester, in the Shenandoah valley, while Mc- 
 Dowell should attack Beauregard at Manassas Junction, on Bull 
 Run. Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott, who, up to this time was 
 the military chief of the United States forces, with headquarters in 
 Washington, had planned the battle and had expected that his orders, 
 frequently repeated to the two commanders in the field, would be 
 implicitly carried out. Whatever may be said of McDowell's con- 
 duct of the battle of Bull Run, the responsibility for the escape of 
 Johnston's force in season to reenforce that already at Bull Run rests 
 on Patterson. An accident caused the panic that ensued when the 
 arrival of these troops was followed by the fatal break in the Union 
 lines. 
 
 For a time, however, the Confederates did not realize the extent 
 of their success. It was even reported, after the breathless scare on 
 the Federal side had somewhat subsided, that both armies fled wildly 
 in opposite directions. As a matter of fact, Jefferson Davis, who had 
 come out from Richmond to see the field, did subsequently reproach 
 his generals with having failed to follow up their victory. But this 
 was said long after the war was over, when he had leisure and incli- 
 nation to fight his battles over again and show how fields might have 
 been won. One of the generals thus criticised by the ex-President 
 of the Confederacy replied that Davis had forgotten that his army 
 " was more disorganized by victory than that of the United States 
 by defeat." 
 
 The troops on both sides were raw and undisciplined. One of the 
 reasons for the rout of the Federals, when defeat seemed certain, was 
 the natural reflection of the three-months' men that their time was 
 on the eve of expiring. Why should they not run away when it was 
 not expected of them that they would be ready to fight another day ? 
 
1861.] A GREAT UNIOX DISASTER. 467 
 
 They had gone to Bull Run, as one 
 critic said, "an aggregation of town 
 meetings." It required years of dis- 
 cipline in the hard school of war to 
 make seasoned veterans of these green 
 novices in the art of military fighting. 
 On the whole, neither side engaged 
 in the battle had real cause for humil- 
 iation on account of the behavior of 
 the men. Whatever may be said of 
 the strategy employed, the fighting 
 was sufficiently courageous. 
 
 Major-General Robert E. Patterson. Tlle effeCt f this dgfeat U P n the 
 
 whole country was marked. In the 
 
 South the feeling was one of exultation, after the fact was realized 
 that the first fighting on a large scale had resulted in a vie- Reguitsof 
 tory to the Confederate arms. The old boast that one UullRun - 
 Southerner could put five, and possibly ten, " Yankees " to flight was 
 renewed with many glowing additions. While the demoralized ranks 
 of Johnston were repairing the breaches made by the fight, there 
 arose in their rear a clamorous demand that they should at once pre- 
 cipitate themselves upon Washington, now well fortified and strongly 
 garrisoned. 
 
 On the other hand, when the throngs of holiday-makers who had 
 come out from Washington to see the fight, much as city folk would 
 go to a horse-race in the suburbs, fled in disorder to the capital, they 
 carried with them the news of a defeat which their fears and inex- 
 perience enormously exaggerated. Terrifying stories were told of the 
 strength of the Confederate forces ; and it would not have been sur- 
 prising if the people of Washington, panic-struck by the tales of these 
 pallid civilians and by the demoralized condition of soldiers who were 
 only civilians in uniform, had made ready for instant flight or surren- 
 der. But the foe came not. He was fully occupied with nursing his 
 wounds. In the North there was soreness over defeat, consternation 
 over the possibilities of other such disasters immediately to come. 
 Timorous men considered the day utterly lost and the end of all 
 things nigh at hand. In the blackness of his own despair, the editor 
 of the foremost Republican newspaper in the land thus advised Presi- 
 dent Lincoln : l "If the Union is irrevocably gone, an armistice for 
 thirty, sixty, ninety, one hundred and twenty days better firee i ey ^ 
 still for a year ought to be proposed at once, with a view advice - 
 to a peaceful adjustment. Then Congress should call a National 
 
 1 Horace Greeley to President Lincoln ; the Nicolay-Hay Life nf Lincoln, vol. iv. p. 366. 
 
468 
 
 OPENING OF THE WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 Major-General George B. McCleMan. 
 
 Convention, to meet at the earliest 
 possible day. And there should be 
 an immediate and mutual exchange 
 or release of prisoners and a disband- 
 inent of forces." 
 
 But patriotism and popular cour- 
 age soon rallied. The people of the 
 loyal States were determined that 
 the Union should be preserved, if 
 men and money could save it. In 
 the hamlets and villages, cities and 
 towns where the cruel tidings from 
 Bull Run had carried mourning and 
 lamentation, the fires that were kin- 
 dled when Sumter fell flamed up 
 anew. Mass meetings were held to incite the raising of more troops 
 for the field and the pledging of more funds for the outfitting and the 
 succor of those who were to fight the battles of the Union. Inspirit- 
 ing songs were written and sung to "swell the chorus of the Union " 
 and to express the patriotic determination of the loyal people. With 
 that grim sense of humor which even the horrors of war never blunted, 
 the people took up some of the grotesque incidents of the Bull Run 
 disaster and made them seasonable jests. The scared correspondent 
 of a London newspaper wore " Bull Run " before his own proper name 
 for years afterward ; then too came into general popular use some 
 of the phrases that had been coined to express the conditions of the 
 fight; and men were "demoralized," or they "skedaddled," as they 
 incorporated these volunteer military terms into their humorous 
 speech. 
 
 On the day after the battle of Bull Run, General George B. Mc- 
 Clellan, who had won fame by a short and brilliant campaign in 
 Western Virginia, was called to the command of the Army of the 
 Potomac, as the forces immediately around Washington were now 
 called. McClellan was a favored child of fortune, his ante- 
 cedents, culture and social environment having been of the 
 highest order. He was a graduate of the United States Military 
 Academy, had seen some service in Mexico, and had been assigned 
 to sundry posts of honor and distinction while in the army. At the 
 outbreak of the rebellion, when he was again commissioned in the 
 army from which he had retired to civil life, he gave up an impor- 
 tant po^t as railroad president. He was an engineer of acknowledged 
 skill, a scholar well versed in military science, and as an organizer of 
 forces was without a superior. He took hold of the work of building 
 
 General 
 UcClellan. 
 
1861.] 
 
 ENTER GENERAL McCLELLAN. 
 
 469 
 
 Colonel Edward 0. Baker. 
 
 (Senator from Oregon when killed at Ball's 
 
 Bluff.) 
 
 up the Army of the Potomac and 
 systematizing the fortifications of 
 Washington with such splendid zeal 
 that the fickle public, heretofore rest- 
 ing with confidence on the courage, 
 prowess, and military experience of 
 Lieutenant - General Scott, fondly 
 hailed " Little Mac " as the deliverer 
 of the imperilled Union, the savior 
 of his country. 
 
 On October 31st, General Scott, 
 then in the seventy-sixth year of his 
 age, pleading his infirmities, resigned 
 from active service and was placed 
 upon the retired list. General Mc- 
 Clellan, who had worried the old gen- 
 eral and bad embittered his last days of service by disobedience of 
 his orders and an affected ignorance of his high official station, now 
 succeeded to the command of all the armies of the United States, with 
 headquarters in Washington. In little more than a half-year, General 
 McClellan had passed from civil life to the post of commander of all 
 the armies of the United States, subject only to the orders of the 
 President, who, by virtue of his exalted office, was Commander-in- 
 Chief. 
 
 Congress, then in session, rose to the emergency and at once took 
 steps to sustain the hands of the President in his efforts to put down 
 the rebellion. On the day after the battle of Bull Run, John J. Crit- 
 tenden, whose proposals for a compromise earlier in the struggle had 
 made his name famous, and who was now a member of the House 
 of Representatives, offered a resolution pledging Congress to full 
 support of the war which was waged, as the resolution declared, 
 " to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to 
 preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality and rights of the 
 several States unimpaired.'' The resolution passed both houses of 
 Congress almost unanimously ; and on that day Congress voted for 
 the raising of an army of 500,000 men, and the appropriation of 
 $500,000,000 for the expenses of the war. 
 
 In October an affair hardly less discouraging than that of Bull Run 
 occurred at Ball's Bluff, on the upper Potomac. General Charles 
 P. Stone, commanding a corps of observation, ordered The affair at 
 Colonels Devens and Lee, with the Fifteenth and Twen- B lisBluff 
 tieth Massachusetts Regiments, to cross the river here divided by 
 Harrison Island on the night of the 20th, and surprise an insurgent 
 
470 
 
 OPENING OF THE WAR. 
 
 [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 camp said to have been discovered in the direction of Leesburg. The 
 crossing was made in three scows, a life-boat, and two skiffs, all of 
 which would hold but 150 men at a time, and the force was nearly 
 700. No hostile camp was found ; but in the morning the troops 
 were attacked by a heavy force concealed in the woods, and driven 
 back. In the forenoon Colonel E. D. Baker, of California, then Sena- 
 tor from Oregon, crossed the river with a supporting column of 1,900 
 men, and assumed command. But the enemy was reenforced ; Baker 
 was killed, and at dusk his men were driven back over the bluff. 
 Three of the boats were sunk, and under an unremitting fire the rem- 
 nant of the Union forces straggled back in one way and another to 
 the Maryland shore. They had lost nearly 1,000 men. The loss of 
 General Baker, who was a brilliant and accomplished man, gave the 
 public a severe shock. The disaster, not by any means insignificant 
 in itself, was unduly magnified ; and the depression of the people 
 was correspondingly great. General Stone was naturally selected as 
 the most available scapegoat for this emergency. He was arrested 
 without the preferring of charges and was thereafter treated with 
 unexplained severity. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE FIGHT FOR THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
 
 INSURGENT OPERATIONS TO HOLD VICKSBDRO. ATTEMPTS TO CAPTURE ST. Louis. 
 FAILURE OF THE PLANS OF CLAIBORNE F. JACKSOX. GENERAL LYON CAITURES 
 THE INSITROENT CAMP JACKSON. CIVIL WAR BEGUN IN MISSOURI. OUTBREAK 
 OF GUERILLA WARFARE. PRESIDENT LINCOLN ENTREATED TO AID THE NORTH- 
 WESTERN STATES TO HOLD THE MISSISSIPPI. FREMONT IN COMMAND. DEATH OF 
 GENERAL LYON. CIVIL TROUBLES IN MISSOURI. FREMONT'S EMANCIPATION AND 
 REPRISAL PROCLAMATION. His SUBSEQUENT REMOVAL. GENERAL HALI.ECK IN 
 COMMAND. THE STRUGGLE IN KENTUCKY. THAT STATE BECOMES THE BATTLE- 
 GROUND OF THE WAR IN THE SOUTHWEST. 
 
 EARLY in the conflict it became evident that there must be a 
 struggle for the control of that great waterway, the Mississippi River, 
 and its tributaries. Perceiving the importance of prompt TheMi^g. 
 occupation of sucli a commanding position on the lower por- F1 PP |KlTer - 
 tion of the stream as would hold with a firm hand its navigation, the 
 insurgents planted cannon on the bluffs of Vicksburg, in January, 
 1861, with a determination to hail and examine every vessel that 
 should attempt to pass. Among the first acts of the Montgomery 
 Congress was the ordering of a " Confederate " custom-house at 
 Neine's Landing, on the northern boundary of the State of Missis- 
 sippi. 
 
 In the next great centre of population on the river, to the north- 
 ward, the elements of secession were already seething ; St. Louis was 
 not only one of the most important and influential cities in the Mis- 
 sissippi Valley, but it was the chief city of Missouri, a State which 
 was ardently coveted by the conspirators in Montgomery. The Gov- 
 ernor of the State, inaugurated in January, 1861, was Claiborne F. 
 Jackson, who, while wearing a thin pretence of devotion to the Federal 
 Union, was at heart a rebel and a secessionist. The Legislature which 
 assembled that year was largely of Jackson's way of thinking; it 
 readily seconded his motion to call a convention of the peo- 
 ple "to consider Federal relations; " but the plotters were ti"nin 
 
 ... Missouri. 
 
 greatly dismayed to find that the convention, when it as- 
 sembled at the end of the following month, was almost unanimously 
 
41-2 THE FIGHT FOR THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XVIIL 
 
 opposed to separation ; there were a few secret secessionists in the 
 convention, and a few " Conditional Unionists," as the lukewarm 
 were beginning to be called ; but there was an overwhelming major- 
 ity against every form of open disunion. A " Commissioner " from 
 Georgia was permitted to address the convention in behalf of the 
 Confederacy, but his sophistries fell on unheeding ears, and the spec- 
 tators in the galleries hooted the speaker. 
 
 Jackson could hope for nothing from that convention, and he turned 
 his attention to the Legislature, from which he now procured such leg- 
 islation as would enable him to drag the State out of the Union. He 
 assumed the lofty tone of a State Executive striving against unjust 
 and unlawful oppression. When the President's call for State troops 
 came, Jackson had insolently replied: " Your requisition, in my judg- 
 ment, is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary in its objects, 
 inhuman and diabolical, and cannot be complied with." Under the 
 inspiration of Daniel M. Frost, a native of New York and a graduate 
 of the National Military Academy, Governor Jackson seized the United 
 States arsenal at Liberty, Missouri, distributed among the disloyalists 
 the arms thus stolen, applied to the authorities of Louisiana for a 
 share in the plunder of the arsenal at Baton Rouge, and established 
 a military camp near St. Louis for the nominal purpose of military 
 instruction for the State militia. But the capture of the United 
 States arsenal at St. Louis, with its large stores of munitions of war, 
 was the object of the most ardent desire with the secession leaders. 
 The institution was under the command of Captain Nathaniel Lyon, 
 a brave officer of the United States army, who, with the assistance 
 of Frank P. Blair, Jr., secured permission to enroll loyal citizens of 
 St. Louis in the military service of the United States, the number not 
 
 / 
 
 to exceed 10,000. On the 19th of May, hearing that cannon 
 captain and mortars had been secretly taken into the so-called camp 
 
 1 v on H t 
 
 camp of instruction, known as Camp Jackson, Lyon surrounded 
 
 Jackson. * J 
 
 the grounds and demanded the surrender of the State troops, 
 numbering some 1,200; Lyon's force was vastly superior in numbers, 
 and Frost, who had been put in command of the militia forces, sur- 
 rendered. Lyon offered to release his prisoners on condition that 
 they would take the oath of allegiance to the United States, declining 
 which, they were locked up until calmer reflection convinced them 
 that this was their wiser course. 
 
 The dispersion of the nest of secession at Camp Jackson and the 
 evident miscarriage of their plans to seize the St. Louis arsenal, filled 
 the Missouri disunionists with consternation and rage. The Legisla- 
 ture proceeded to put the State on a war footing, placing all military 
 control in the hands of the Governor and authorizing the raising of a 
 
1861.] BARNEY'S UNFORTUNATE TACTICS. 473 
 
 Pivot Gun Battery on the BMfs at Vicksburg. 
 
 (The view is taken looking southwest, and shows in the distance De Soto Point.) 
 Draicn by F. C. Ransom from a contemporary photograph hithrrto itn]iblishnl. 
 
 large loan for war purposes. Meanwhile, General "W. S. Harney, who 
 was the actual commander of the military department which included 
 St. Louis, but who had been absent from the post, returned and began 
 to undo what had been done to assure the State to the Federal Union. 
 He entered into a compact with Sterling Price, the President of the 
 State Convention, then a general of the State militia, by which Price 
 pledged himself to maintain order, and Harney agreed that no further 
 military movements should be made as long as order was maintained. 
 The obvious purpose of the plotters was to gain time and collect mu- 
 nitions of war. The compact was disallowed by the Federal Govern- 
 ment, to whom General Harney had reported it for approval, but 
 Price, craftily assuming that it was still in force, ever after conducted 
 his affairs as if it were a substantial basis of agreement. Harney was 
 removed from command, and Lyon, who had been promoted to be a 
 brigadier-general, succeeded to his post, now denominated the Depart- 
 ment of the Missouri. After a few fretful struggles against the Na- 
 tional authority, Price and Jackson withdrew to Jefferson City, the 
 capital of the State, whence the Governor fulminated a proclamation 
 advising the people of Missouri that their first allegiance was due to 
 their own State, and that they were under no obligations whatever 
 to obey " the unconstitutional edicts of the military despotism which 
 had enthroned itself at Washington, nor to submit to the infamous 
 and degrading sway of its minions in this State." It was the role of 
 
474 THE FIGHT FOR THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 all such inciters to rebellion to assume that the President of the 
 United States was a usurper, and that all laws and regulations enacted 
 after his election were null and void. 
 
 Civil war was now begun in Missouri. The State troops, which 
 civil war m ^ Ia( ^ been reorganized and reenforced "for the purpose of 
 Missouri. repelling invasion," were set in motion. Important railway 
 bridges between the capital and St. Louis were burned and the tele- 
 graph lines were cut. Price, under the orders of the Governor, 
 marched to take possession and hold the important towns of Lexing- 
 ton and Booneville, on the Missouri River. General Lyon, having 
 meantime seized and fortified Bird's Point, an important strategic 
 position on the Mississippi opposite the city of Cairo, followed in pur- 
 suit of Price and Jackson, who, burning their bridges behind them, 
 were moving into the western part of the State. Lyon's forces, how- 
 ever, took the water route, ascending the Missouri River by steamer, 
 so that the device of bridge-burning to avoid successful pursuit availed 
 the insurgents nothing. At their approach to Booneville, Price, 
 alleging a sudden attack of illness, fled to Lexington, and the scared 
 Jackson directed that no resistance be made. But J. S. Marmaduke, 
 then a colonel in the State forces, attempted to withstand the advance 
 of Lyon, who, after a short engagement, captured the insurgent camp 
 with a large number of prisoners, most of whom, being young men 
 who had been impressed into the service, or enlisted under false pre- 
 tences, were released. 
 
 The two leaders, Jackson and Price, who had kept at a safe dis- 
 tance from the fighting, now gathered up all available troops and fled 
 still further to the west, finally halting at Montevallo, Vernon County, 
 on the extreme western verge of the State. General Lyon held se- 
 cure control of the entire eastern part of Missouri and of that portion 
 Guerilla which lies north of the Missouri River. A vexatious guerilla 
 warfare. \varfare now broke out all over the State. Civilians with 
 very little pretence of military organization raided the rural districts 
 and infested the small towns. When troops were sent against them, 
 only men working peaceably in their fields or shops would be found ; 
 but no sooner were the backs of the soldiers turned than these mis- 
 creants were in the saddle to kill or kidnap Union men, burn their 
 barns and houses and harry Union districts with desperate mischief. 
 Unavoidable delays hindered the immediate advance of the National 
 forces ; and in the mean while the insurgents, now in the southwestern 
 corner of the State, were cheered by accessions to their number from 
 Arkansas. General Leonidas Polk, " the fighting bishop " of Missis- 
 sippi, was maturing plans to respond to the call for aid which came 
 from the despairing Governor of Missouri. From Memphis, Tennes- 
 
18C1.] 
 
 DISCONTENT IN THE NORTHWEST. 
 
 475 
 
 Captain (afterwards Brigadier-General) 
 Nathaniel Lyon. 
 
 see, where he had been stationed to 
 secure command of that portion of 
 the Mississippi River, Polk reported 
 his intention to send 25,000 men 
 under Ben McCulloch, the Texan 
 Ranger, against Lyon, who was then 
 at Springfield ; and to despatch an- 
 other column into southeast Missouri 
 under General Gideon J. Pillow and 
 William J. Hardee. Although this 
 ambitious scheme was not executed, 
 the situation in the valley of the 
 Mississippi daily grew more critical. 
 In Kentucky there was an absolute 
 suspension of all military operations, 
 the month of September, 1861, being 
 fixed upon as the very earliest date on which active military move- 
 ments of any kind should be permitted. The closing of the great 
 waterway from the Northwestern States to the Gulf of Mexico had 
 begun to be felt disastrously all over these States. It was seen that 
 the languishing of the fight in Missouri, the supineness of the Union 
 element in Kentucky, and the activity of the insurgents in the South- 
 west were not adequately counteracted by the Federal Government, 
 already harassed by the pressing necessity of effective military opera- 
 tions along the line of the Potomac. The vast resources of the West, 
 in men and money, were waiting to be employed in the opening of 
 the blockaded Mississippi. It was loudly demanded that the North- 
 western States should be permitted to embark on military under- 
 takings for this purpose. Later on in the war, when Western men 
 were transferred to the armies operating in the East, it was bitterly 
 complained by the Confederates and their sympathizers in the North 
 that the Westerners were being employed for "the subjugation of 
 the South," in direct violation of obligations which were thus re- 
 motely suggested but never specified. 
 
 Finally, a conference of the Governors of the Northwestern States 
 was held to consider the dangerous situation, and a formal 
 
 J..... ,, r . Action of 
 
 request was made upon the Administration at Washington the Govern- 
 to move forward and make the line of the Ohio River secure Northwest- 
 by occupying advanced posts in Kentucky and Tennessee, 
 organize the war material ready to its hand in the West, and appoint 
 a competent commander who should take charge of a grand military 
 movement which might open the great river to free navigation and 
 divide the insurgent States of the Southwest in twain. By very gen- 
 
47G THE FIGHT FOR THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 johnc. 
 
 Fremont. 
 
 A Typical Roadside Scene near Vicksburg, Miss. 
 Drairn by G. W. Peters from a photograph. 
 
 eral consent, public opinion had already selected as the leader in tins 
 tremendous task John C. Fremont, who, allied to the family of the 
 Missouri Bentons by marriage, a Western explorer of renown and 
 romantic interest, a dashing soldier and a brilliant actor in the drama 
 of the organization of California into a free American commonwealth, 
 was thought to have peculiar qualities for the work desired 
 of him. Fremont, as the candidate of the Republican party 
 
 . J 
 
 in 1856, when defeat seemed certain, had gained a National 
 reputation and had established a claim upon the grateful recognition 
 of the party now in power. On arriving home from a winter in Eu- 
 rope, early in July, 1861, Fremont was commissioned a major-general 
 in the regular army and was assigned to the command of the Depart- 
 ment of the West, which consisted of the State of Illinois and all the 
 States and Territories between the Mississippi River and the Rocky 
 Mountains. It was thought that the hour and the man had come in 
 the West. 
 
 After a long and inexplicable tarry in New York, General Fremont 
 reached his headquarters in St. Louis July 25th, at a most critical 
 time. Recruits were to be had in plenty, but arms and munitions of 
 war were not ready to hand. Fremont began by organizing an im- 
 mense and showy staff ; useless and unscientific fortifications were 
 built at extravagant cost ; regiments without equipments were rushed 
 off to the front ; and a wild confusion of orders and countermands took 
 the place of the moderate military proceedings that had been carried 
 on at headquarters up to this time. There was apparently very little 
 system in the organization of the forces at Fremont's command. Yet 
 among those forces were such men as Grant, Pope, Logan, Blair, Lyon, 
 Schofield, McClernand, Curtis, Palmer, Sturgis, Hurlbut, and others 
 whose names are illustrious in the history of war, to say nothing of 
 
1861.] 
 
 A CRITICAL SITUATION. 
 
 477 
 
 the sturdy soldiers in the ranks and in tue field who were more than 
 ready to hew their way to the Gulf. 
 
 Before Fremont left New York, the guerilla warfare in the north- 
 western portion of Missouri had become so aggravating that General 
 Lyon's adjutant at headquarters had selected Brigadier-general John 
 Pope to take the field with eight Illinois regiments to attempt to 
 restore order, General Fremont having given permission by telegraph 
 that these steps should be taken. On his arrival at St. Louis, there- 
 fore, the new commander found this situation : Cairo, the key to the 
 Mississippi Valley, was believed to be menaced by an overwhelming 
 force which had been gathered for the purpose of seizing it; the insur- 
 gent General Gideon J. Pillow had crossed the Mississippi into Mis- 
 souri at New Madrid with 6,000 men; great numbers of fighting 
 men were swarming over the southwestern border of the State from 
 Arkansas and Texas, led by Ben McCulloch and General Pearce, of 
 Arkansas ; and Lyon, his little force daily crumbling in consequence 
 of the expiration of the terms of enlistment of his men, was occupying 
 a defensive position near Springfield, in the southwestern part of the 
 State. Colonel Franz Sigel, with a detachment of Lyon's forces, had 
 meanwhile executed a series of brilliant marches, and, after dealing 
 a severe blow against the insurgents at Carthage, Jasper County, 
 southwest/tff Springfield, had fallen back upon the last-named place, 
 pressed by the overwhelming numbers of the enemy, now heavily 
 reenforced. Troops were pouring into Missouri from the southwest : 
 and no attention was being paid to the arming and the supporting of 
 the Nationals, well-nigh shut up in the vicinity of Springfield. The 
 demands made upon General Fremont were enormous ; his skill and 
 
 his military resources were taxed to 
 their utmost. 
 
 Early in August, Lyon found him- 
 self confronted by an insurgent force 
 of about 20,000 men. The Union 
 force was about 5,000, but 
 
 Battle of 
 
 Creek. 
 
 Lieutenant-General Leonidas Polk, C. S. A., 
 
 in his Bishop's robes. 
 
 ... . 
 
 Lyon, after waiting in vain 
 
 
 
 for expected reenforcements, 
 determined to attack rather than at- 
 tempt a retreat which could hardly 
 fail to be disastrous in the face of a 
 force four times larger than his own. 
 On the night of the 9th of August, 
 Sigel moved to gain the right flank 
 
 of tllC 6116111 y aild fall UpOll it by day- 
 
 light. Lyon, with 3,700 men and 
 

 478 THE FIGHT FOR THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 ten guns, gained the enemy's left, and at five o'clock in the morning 
 attacked it vigorously, continually gaining ground and advancing his 
 line against greatly superior numbers. Sigel was also successful at 
 first ; but his men fell to plundering the camps, when the enemy 
 rallied and defeated him in turn, capturing five of his guns and many 
 men. Lyon was twice wounded early in the action, and was after- 
 ward killed at the head of the First Iowa Regiment, which 
 
 Death of 
 
 General was brought up to repel a movement on Ins flank. " Who 
 will lead us ? " said the men, for their colonel was absent. 
 "I will lead you ! Onward, brave boys of Iowa ! " answered Lyon, 
 as he rode forward waving his hat. He fell soon after with a bullet 
 through his heart. The enemy, despite his great superiority of num- 
 bers, was driven from the field. But retreat of the National forces 
 was also necessary, and Major Sturgis, upon whom the command 
 devolved, brought them in the course of a week to Rolla, some 150 
 miles to the northeast of Springfield. Fremont was bitterly re- 
 proached for the disaster at Springfield, and was even charged with 
 being indirectly responsible for the death of the gallant Lyon. His 
 defenders pleaded that Fremont had no reinforcements to send to 
 Lyon. But his critics forcibly replied that Lyon, overwhelmed by 
 superior numbers and constantly weakened by the expiration of enlist- 
 ments in his little army, should have been recalled. Momentarily in 
 expectation of a support which never came, and deprived of even a 
 word of explanation, Lyon was left to perish. 
 
 These disasters turned public attention angrily upon Fremont, who 
 was now the object of much harsh and unjust criticism, and was 
 likely to share the fate of other popular idols, who, after a few weeks 
 or months of sunshine, were consigned to gloom and oblivion. Roused 
 by these assaults, Fremont widened his circles of fortifications and 
 evinced an intention to put himself on the defensive rather than 
 begin the grand campaign which had been so eagerly expected of 
 him. Political troubles also assailed him from within the State. 
 Jackson having vacated the governorship and fled, the lieutenant- 
 governor, Reynolds, had taken up the reins, and, in a bombastic and 
 ridiculous proclamation, avowed his determination to maintain the 
 independence of the sovereign State of Missouri. The State Conven- 
 tion, before alluded to, was reconvened, and its patriotic members 
 proceeded to organize a provisional government, H. R. Gamble being 
 selected to perform the duties of Provisional Governor, pending a 
 regular popular election. Although admonished from Washington 
 that he should cooperate with Gamble as far as possible, Fremont 
 studiously disregarded him in all his movements, civil and military, 
 arrogating to himself the powers and duties of a military dictator. 
 
1861.] A FAMOUS PROCLAMATION. 479 
 
 The climax came when Fremont, 
 justly indignant at the impunity 
 with which marauders and assassins 
 harassed the Union citizens of Mis- 
 souri, issued liis famous proclama- 
 tion of reprisals and eman- Fremont - g 
 cipation. This document, 
 sent forth on the 31st of 
 August, placed the State tion> 
 under martial law, prescribed the 
 death penalty for bridge-burners 
 and telegraph-cutters, and contained 
 this remarkable clause : " The prop- 
 erty, real and personal, of all per- 
 
 Brigadier-General Gideon J. Pillow, C. S. A. SQns j n the g^g Q f Mi ssour ^ wnQ 
 
 shall take up arms against the United States, or who shall be directly 
 proven to have taken active part with their enemies in the field, is 
 declared to be confiscated to the public use ; and their slaves, if any 
 they have, are hereby declared free men." 
 
 Two days after the proclamation was issued, the President wrote a 
 private letter to Fremont, taking exception to the two main points. 
 "Should you shoot a man," wrote Mr. Lincoln, "nccording to the 
 proclamation, the Confederates would very certainly shoot Mr Uncoln 
 our best men in their hands in retaliation ; and so, man for ","" prec _ 
 
 man, indefinitely I think there is great danger that lauiatlon - 
 
 the closing paragraph, in relation to the confiscation of property, and 
 the liberating slaves of traitorous owners, will alarm our Southern 
 Union friends, and turn them against us ; perhaps ruin our rather fair 
 prospect for Kentucky. Allow me, therefore, to ask that you will, 
 as of your own motion, modify that paragraph so as to conform to the 
 first and fourth sections of the Act of Congress entitled, 'An act 
 to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes,' approved 
 August 6, 1861." This act confiscated such property and slaves as 
 were, with the consent of the owner, used in any hostile service to 
 the United States. Fremont declined to change his proclamation 
 "as of his own motion," and suggested that if it was to be modified, 
 the President himself should do it openly, which he did. 
 
 As from this incident arose what in the course of time came to be 
 regarded as a serious issue in the West, "the Missouri quarrel," it 
 is well to consider some of the circumstances with minuteness. The 
 Blair family, Frank P., senior, living on the outskirts of Washing- 
 ton ; Montgomery, in the cabinet of Lincoln ; and Frank P., junior, 
 now a Representative in Congress from Missouri, had from the first 
 
480 
 
 THE FIGHT FOR THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 been the warm friends of Fremont and the enthusiastic defenders of 
 his soldierly reputation. They were amazed when Fremont's want 
 of generalship began to sow uneasiness where implicit confidence in 
 the " Pathfinder " had before existed. And, as this incapacity began 
 further to develop itself, and politics, rather than military success, 
 engaged the general's attention, the friendly Blairs took the alarm. 
 When popular clamor against Fremont began to be heard, Montgom- 
 ery Blair, being naturally regarded by the President as the fittest 
 man to advise confidentially with the headstrong Fremont, was sent 
 to St. Louis ; he was accompanied by Quartermaster-general Meig.s, 
 who was instructed to look over matters in St. Louis, General Fre- 
 mont having been accused of harboring about him sundry speculators 
 who were enriching themselves by means of fat contracts, giving very 
 little for the great compensation which they received. 
 
 This mission of the Postmaster-general, Fremont chose to regard 
 as a personal affront to himself. He had also become embroiled with 
 Quarrel be- Colonel Frank P. Blair, Jr., in an unseemly quarrel, and had 
 placed that officer under arrest. Colonel Blair retorted by 
 preferring charges of incapacity against Fremont, and from 
 that day the quarrel between the Missouri " Conservatives " and 
 " Radicals " increased in bitterness and rancor. It is impossible to 
 resist the conclusion that Fremont had become engrossed with politics, 
 to the exclusion of everything else ; his ambition had been fired by 
 the opportunities of his position ; and he assumed the attitude of a 
 dictator, setting np a bureau of abolition and issuing manumission 
 papers, long before the President of the United States had begun to 
 consider the advisability of availing himself of emancipation as a 
 war measure, to be exercised by the supreme executive power of the 
 
 tween Fre- 
 mont and 
 Blair. 
 
 United States. 
 
 Another frightful military disaster 
 complicated the situation in Missouri 
 and hastened the popular verdict that 
 Fremont as a commander was a failure. 
 The insurgent commanders had quar- 
 relled among themselves, and the three 
 armies under them had separated, 
 Pearce with his Arkansas forces re- 
 turning home, McCulloch taking his 
 three regiments back to the border of 
 the Indian Territory, where he re- 
 sumed his post of watchfulness, and 
 Price slowly leading his Missourians 
 northward to the Missouri River, his 
 
 
 Major-General John C. Fremont. 
 
 
1861.] 
 
 PRICE'S VICTORIES. 
 
 481 
 
 Typical Contrabands. 
 
 Drawn by F. C. Ransom from a irar photograph 
 hitherto unpublished. 
 
 objective point being Lexing- 
 ton, an important town on 
 that stream. Colonel James 
 A. Mulligan, commanding the 
 famous Irish Brigade, of Chi- 
 cago, was sent forward to the 
 relief of Lexington, and, with 
 a small reinforcement which 
 joined him on the way, he oc- 
 cupied th place with 2,800 
 men and eight guns. The in- 
 surgent force under Price now 
 numbered about 20,000 men, 
 with thirteen guns. On the 
 18th of September ?ifKeof 
 began the siege of ^""s' 00 
 Lexington, Mulligan having 
 fortified himself on College 
 Hill, in the suburbs of the 
 city. His water supply was 
 soon cut off; his entrench- 
 ments were filled with the 
 wounded and the dead ; and, after a hot and gallant fight of fifty- 
 two hours, Mulligan surrendered. 
 
 It was charged with a show of justice that some of the available 
 troops at various points might have been gathered up and hurried 
 forward to the relief of Mulligan, during the leisurely march north- 
 ward of his assailant. Fremont telegraphed to Washington that ho 
 was about to take tlte field himself and that he hoped to destroy 
 Price's army before it could escape southward. But this expectation 
 was not realized. Price got away with an immense booty, part of 
 which was the great seal of the State and the official records, which 
 had been brought to Lexington by the Union troops from Jefferson 
 City, and the possession of which greatly elated Price, who appeared 
 to regard his capture as something in the nature of a palladium. 
 
 The growing scandals relating to Fremont's incapacity and his 
 inattention to details of management called for an investigation ; and 
 about the middle of October, the Secretary of War and the Adjutant- 
 general of the Army were sent by the President to St. Louis on a 
 special mission of inquiry. The Secretary was armed with a letter 
 from the President ordering Fremont's removal from command, which 
 he was to use at his discretion. This order, though privately shown 
 to the general, was not officially pnsented. But a consensus of 
 
 VOL. IV. 31 
 
482 THE FIGHT FOR THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 opinion from the generals immediately under Fremont's command 
 showed that they had lost all confidence in his ability to conduct any 
 military movement of importance. This was the verdict of such 
 general officers as David Hunter, John Pope, and Samuel R. Curtis. 
 
 So vice-regal had become the surroundings of General Fremont in 
 St. Louis, and so personal was his following in the army of quarter- 
 masters and provost-guards that surrounded headquarters, that it was 
 even intimated that he could not be removed from his command with- 
 out disturbance and resistance. But on the 24th of October, Presi- 
 dent Lincoln directed that an order relieving Fremont from command 
 and assigning General Hunter as his successor be sent by messenger 
 to General Curtis at St. Louis. The order was enclosed in a letter 
 to General Curtis in which that officer was directed to deliver it to 
 General Fremont unless at the time of its receipt in St. Louis, Fre- 
 moiit should have won a battle, or should then be actually 
 engaged in a battle, or be in the actual presence of the 
 mand - enemy. Neither of these contingencies being actual, Fre- 
 mont was relieved from command and Hunter succeeded him without 
 the least friction. For a time at least Missouri now appeared to 
 have been abandoned to the insurgents. Active military operations 
 ceased. 
 
 Meanwhile, the ostensible attitude of the authorities of Kentucky 
 had been one of studious neutrality. In this respect, Kentucky was 
 quite as inconsistent as Virginia ; for the last-named State, while 
 vigorously protesting against the " invasion " of her sacred soil by 
 the forces of the United States, had virtually made that soil the 
 camping-ground of the army of the Confederates. Before the ordi- 
 nance of secession was passed upon, and while the State was yet nom- 
 inally in the Union, Virginia welcomed to her fields the 
 
 Thesitua- .... . . . 
 
 tion in Ken- recruits which were set in motion by the signatories of the 
 
 tuokv. 
 
 Montgomery compact. In like manner, while the Governor 
 of Kentucky, Beriah Magoffin, boisterously insisted that the Govern- 
 ment of the United States must respect the neutrality of his State, 
 he was openly giving aid and comfort to the rapidly assembling 
 cohorts of the insurgents. Recruiting for the Confederate army and 
 for the Tennessee militia was carried forward in Kentucky without 
 let or hinderance from local authority ; and when the loyal citizens of 
 the State began to assemble at military rendezvous, under the direc- 
 tion of Lovell H. Rousseau and William Nelson, two patriotic sons 
 of Kentucky, Governor Magoffin sent a querulous complaint to Wash- 
 ington protesting against this violation of " neutrality." 
 
 A more flagrant instance of double-dealing on the part of the in- 
 surgents was the seizure of Columbus, Kentucky, by " the fighting 
 
1861.] APPEARANCE OF U. S. GRANT. 483 
 
 Bishop of Mississippi," Polk, in order to influence the loyal Legis- 
 lature of the State, just then assembling (September 4th, 1SG1). 
 The insurgent Seci-etary of War ordered Polk to withdraw, but Jeffer- 
 son Davis, the higher power, telegraphed to the militant churchman 
 approving of his act and adding the comforting reflection, " The 
 necessity must justify the act." Magotfin contented himself with 
 asking the Governor of Tennessee why troops from that State were 
 entrenched on the soil of Kentucky; to this mild request for infor- 
 mation Governor Harris replied that he was very sorry indeed to 
 learn that an event so untoward had occurred ; he would telegraph 
 to " President " Davis requesting the immediate withdrawal of the 
 troops. But the Legislature passed a series of spirited resolutions 
 directing the Governor to " expel and drive out the invaders ; " and 
 it was further resolved that the assistance of the National Govern- 
 ment be invoked to the end that the sacred soil of Kentucky be freed 
 
 
 
 from " the lawless invaders " who were camped in the State. Ma- 
 goffin, who had lectured the Legislature on the folly and sin of per- 
 mitting the Government of the United States to enlist troops in 
 Kentucky in violation of its extremely precious neutrality, had now 
 no alternative but to obey the legislative mandate ; with ill grace he 
 carried out the order, after he had vetoed ineffectually the resolutions, 
 which were passed over his veto. He mildly proclaimed that he had 
 been instructed that " Kentucky expects the Confederate, or Tennes- 
 see, troops to withdraw from her soil immediately." This ended the 
 neutrality of Kentucky so far as its rebel politicians were concerned. 
 Henceforth, the military forces were to fight out the issue without the 
 moral aid of the Governor. 
 
 While these events were in progress. General Ulysses S. Grant, 
 then in command of a district which included the city of Cairo, Illi- 
 nois, whose defence he had been specially commissioned to look after, 
 took military possession of Paducah, Kentucky, at the mouth , ;eDer ,, 
 of the Tennessee River. Secession flags were flying there, u - s - Grant - 
 and Tennessee troops were encamped at Columbus and Hickman. 
 Grant, at the beginning of the war, after drilling a regiment of Illi- 
 nois troops, but having no command, had ventured to hope that 
 General McClellan, when he was organizing his forces at Cincinnati, 
 would offer him a place on his staff ; but McClellan, although he had 
 known Grant in the Military Academy at West Point, and knew that 
 he was ready to reenter the army, failed to perceive any opportunity 
 to give active employment to his old classmate. An offer of Grant's 
 services to the War Department had been pigeonholed in the hurry 
 and confusion of the time ; and there was every probability that Mr. 
 Grant would remain in civil life, when Governor Richard Yates, of 
 
484 THE FIGHT FOR THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 Lieutenant-General Simon B. Buckner, 
 C. S. A. 
 
 Brigadier-General Felix K. Zollicoffer, 
 C. S. A. 
 
 Illinois, for hick of any other available man to put in command of a 
 regiment, placed him at the head of the 21st Illinois Volunteers. 
 He was first sent to aid in the task of putting an end to the bush- 
 whacking and guerilla warfare in Missouri, but his orders were 
 changed and he was set to work in the southeastern part of that 
 State, and, after various service in the region, was placed in command 
 at Cairo, then an important military depot and rendezvous. By his 
 Padueah sudden march upon Paducah, Kentucky, he checkmated the 
 occupied. rebel occupation of Columbus, from which stronghold a 
 column was about to be sent out by the insurgent commander, who 
 now had his hands full with the Union forces under Grant within 
 easy striking distance. 
 
 General Robert Anderson, commanding the department of Ken- 
 tucky, learning that the insurgent General S. B. Buckner was moving 
 upon Louisville, the chief city of the State, sent out a considerable 
 force under the command of his lieutenant, General W. T. Sherman, 
 to head off the invader. Buckner, checked by Sherman's advance, 
 established himself at Bowling Green where he intrenched himself, 
 and, after the fashion of the day, issued a proclamation. That was a 
 time of turgid and windy proclamations and pronunciamentos ; and 
 Buckner's was no exception to the rule. He abused the National 
 Government in good "set terms, declared that he had been solicited 
 by " the people of Kentucky " to come in and help preserve that in- 
 valuable neutrality of which it was then the custom to speak with 
 bated breath, and admonished everybody that he was at " the head of 
 a force, the advance of which is composed entirely of Kentuckians " 
 whose duty it would be to enforce the strictest neutrality "against the 
 
1861.] THE ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND. 485 
 
 two belligerents alike." This grotesque fanfaronade, which deceived 
 nobody, was followed, it is hardly necessary to add, by a counter- 
 proclamation from General Anderson. 
 
 General Sherman, having established a rendezvous near Elizabeth- 
 town, Kentucky, devoted his energies, which were abundant, fien , >nil w 
 to laying the foundation of the military organization after- T Shermsn - 
 wards known as the Army of the Cumberland. He, too, was a 
 graduate from the United States Military Academy, and had seen ser- 
 vice in the war with Mexico. The breaking out of the civil war 
 found him at the head of a military school, which post he left and 
 accepted a colonelcy in the army. He was subsequently put in com- 
 mand of a brigade and participated in the battle of Bull Run. Now, 
 in consequence of General Anderson's continued ill health, Sherman 
 was placed in command of the Department of the Cumberland, which 
 included the State of Tennessee, two very important points to be 
 held on the line of the Ohio, if control of the Mississippi valley was 
 to be in the hands of the National Government. General Sherman 
 fretted because the plenteous outpouring of the loyal men of the 
 North was not more promptly made available ; and when he asked 
 for 100,000 men for the defence of the line of the Ohio and declared 
 that the Government would need an army of twice that number to 
 expel the insurgents from Kentucky and Tennessee, which they had 
 now overrun, he was regarded by many superficial critics of public 
 affairs as being insane. Even the Secretary of War discredited Sher- 
 man's judgment, after this expression of opinion ; he was subse- 
 quently removed from his command. 
 
 By the middle of November, the insurgents had secured a firm 
 foothold in Tennessee; and they had so established them- 
 selves in Kentucky that they virtually held its entire south- ferrate* in 
 
 F i Tennessee. 
 
 ern tier or counties, trom the mountains to the Mississippi 
 River ; and in Missouri they roved almost unchecked over the western 
 portion of the State. Polk held the western end of the Confederate 
 line in Kentucky ; Buckner, at Bowling Green, was near the centre, 
 and General Felix Zollicoffer, who had invaded the State from Ten- 
 nessee, with Humphrey Marshall and others, was posted at the eastern 
 end, where he kept guard over the mountain passes. The Union out- 
 look here was gloomy. 
 
 Once more the lines of military subdivisions were changed, and on 
 the 9th of November, General Henry W. Halleck, who Oen erai 
 had been employed in the practice of law after his retire- 
 inent from the army and previous to the breaking out of 
 the insurrection in the South, was assigned to the command Ml( * oun 
 of the new Department of the Missouri; this included Missouri, Iowa, 
 
486 THE FIGHT FOR THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 General Albert Sidney Johnston, C. S. A. 
 
 Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ar- 
 kansas, and that portion of Kentucky 
 which lies west of the Cumberland 
 river. General Hunter, who had tem- 
 porarily superseded Fremont, was now 
 assigned to the Department of Kan- 
 sas ; General Don Carlos Buell, in 
 the mean time, had superseded Gen- 
 eral Sherman, and was in command 
 of the Department of the Ohio, which 
 included the State of Ohio and that 
 part of Kentucky which lies east of 
 the Cumberland River, and which had 
 formed part of the old Department of 
 the Cumberland. 
 
 General Halleck's military rule was characterized by great strict- 
 ness, not to say severity. He cleared out cliques of secessionists who 
 had made St. Louis their headquarters, gave aid and refuge to the 
 multitudes of hapless Unionists who had been plundered and stripped 
 by the brutal insurgents, assessed wealthy rebels for the expense of 
 maintaining a relief fund, and issued stringent orders for the arrest, 
 trial, and punishment of spies and others guilty of conveying infor- 
 mation to the enemy. The spirit of patriotism revived again ; loyal 
 citizens of Missouri began to pluck up courage and assert them- 
 selves still faithful to the cause of the Federal Union. In his zeal, 
 General Halleck doubtless made some blunders, his order forbidding 
 fugitives from labor to enter or remain within his lines being an 
 error which subsequent events corrected. But by the end of the 
 year comparative order had been restored in St. Louis and vicinity ; 
 General Pope had partially cleared the western part of the State of 
 guerillas, and had captured an insurgent camp on the Blackwater, 
 with much plunder and many important prisoners ; and martial law 
 had been declared in St. Louis and over all the railroads and their 
 immediate neighborhood. 
 
 Although the action of the loyal Legislature of Kentucky had 
 checkmated the treasonable plans of Governor Magoffin, he did not 
 relinquish the scheme to set up at least a semblance of Confederate 
 authority in the State which had so bluntly repudiated him and his 
 policy. In October, 1861, Kentucky was included in the so-called 
 Western Military Department of the Confederacy ; that subdivision 
 of the insurgent territory was under the command of Albert Sidney 
 Johnston, an officer of the Federal Army, who, coining from Cali- 
 fornia, where he had a command at the outbreak of the civil war, had 
 
1861] 
 
 COMPLICATIONS IN KENTUCKY. 
 
 487 
 
 Governor Beriah Magoffin, of Kentucky. 
 
 enlisted under the banner of the 
 Montgomery government. Under his 
 protection, his headquarters being at 
 Nashville, Tennessee, the secession- 
 ists of Kentucky got behind the lines 
 of insurgent troops that were stretched 
 across the State from east to west 
 and proceeded to " secede " on their 
 own private account. They met at 
 the county town of Logan county, 
 on the 29th of October, and gravely 
 proclaimed themselves and their con- 
 stituents independent of Fed- 
 
 111 Efforts to 
 
 eral authority. As the dele- <"> K"- 
 
 J . . tucky into 
 
 gates Who assisted in this the Confed- 
 eracy. 
 
 extraordinary performance were not elected by the people 
 of the counties which they pretended to represent, their independ- 
 ence was personal, not representative ; but it served the desperate 
 purpose of the plotters. 
 
 That purpose, of course, was the nominal adhesion of the State of 
 Kentucky to the Montgomery compact. So, having formally seceded 
 from the Federal Union by adopting an ordinance of secession, the 
 little cabal organized a " Provisional Government " by choosing a 
 governor, legislative council, treasurer, and auditor. Bowling Green 
 was selected as the capital of the newly organized State, the lawful 
 capital being at that time in possession of " the invader." Next, 
 commissioners were appointed to enter into negotiations with the 
 " Confederate Government" looking to the admission of Kentucky to 
 the so-called Confederacy ; in due time this arrangement was com- 
 pleted and ten men were selected by the so-called legislative council 
 to represent the sovereign State of Kentucky in the Confederate Con- 
 gress. This solemn farce was kept up during the war ; and it was 
 pretended by the disloyalists that Kentucky was an integral part of 
 the Southern Confederacy, and that persons who derived their 
 authority from others than the people were representatives of the 
 commonwealth in the " Congress " of the insurgents. 
 
 With amusing effrontery, General Zollicoffer, whose invasion of 
 Kentucky with his Tennesseeans has been already noticed, carried 
 out the military portion of this programme by issuing a proclamation 
 in which he announced that he came as a " liberator from the Lin- 
 coln despotism," to defend the people from the ravages of "the 
 Northern hordes." Although as a matter of fact, a part of Zollicof 
 fer's mission was to harry the Unionists of Tennessee and Kentucky 
 
488 THE FIGHT FOR THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 so that they would flee, or submit to the despotism of the Confed- 
 eracy, he bravely proclaimed that he and his Tennesseeans had 
 arrived to repel those who were "attempting the subjugation of a 
 sister State." With fictions like these was the progress of the insur- 
 rection profusely decorated and masked. 
 
 It now became more than ever patent that the key of the situation 
 in the valley of the Mississippi was the possession of the region 
 drained by the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. The first-named 
 of these rises in the tumultuous mountain region of southwestern 
 Virginia, with tributaries from North Carolina and Georgia ; it 
 sweeps through northern Alabama with a curve of some three hun- 
 dred miles, thence passes into Tennessee, and, taking a course nearly 
 due north, enters Kentucky and traverses that State in a northwest- 
 erly direction and empties into the Ohio River seventy miles above its 
 mouth. The stream is navigable by light-draught steamers for five 
 hundred miles above its junction with the Ohio. The Cumberland 
 river rises in the Cumberland Mountains of Eastern Kentucky, and, 
 after a broad curve to the southward, pursues a course generally par- 
 allel to that of the Tennessee, and, like that stream, falls into the 
 Ohio. It is navigable for light-draught steamers for a distance of 
 more than five hundred miles from its mouth. Along these lines 
 were to be fought some of the most decisive battles of the war in 
 the Southwest. 
 
 Louisville was the objective point of the Confederate campaign. 
 To hold the great waterway of the West, the war must be carried 
 up into valleys traversed by the most important tributaries of the 
 stream ; it was to be expected that the armies of the Union would 
 soon sweep down the system of rivers here outlined ; and 
 the"bSlttil. unless the Confederates should seize and hold Louisville, 
 
 Paducah, and Cairo, in the Ohio system, the Union forces 
 would pour into the Confederacy and ravage the extreme 
 southern States thereof, splitting in twain the Southwest by opening 
 the Mississippi to the Gulf. This made Kentucky (the Dark and 
 Bloody Ground of colonial tradition) the theatre of war for years 
 afterward, precisely as Virginia became the field of strife until the 
 final collapse came. 
 
 If these two States had early cast in their lot unreservedly with 
 those who stood by the Federal Union, they would not have suffered 
 so poignantly from the horrors of war ; but strategic reasons, not sen- 
 timental considerations, made them both the theatre of many de- 
 structive and desolating campaigns before peace came again. 
 
A Typical Confederate BlocUade-Runner The Ttastr. 
 Drairn from a photograph by F. C. Hansom. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 EXPANSION OF THE FEDERAL NAVY. 
 
 DISPERSION OF THE UNITED STATES FLEET FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE REBELLION. 
 A GREAT NAVAL CONTINGENT IMPROVISED. EXTENT OF THE LINE TO BE BLOCK- 
 ADED. GUNBOATS REQUIRED ON WESTERN RIVERS. CAPTURE OF PORT ROTAI, 
 ENTRANCE. THE TRENT INCIDENT. BURNSIDE'S EXPEDITION TO NORTH CARO- 
 LINA. ROANOKE ISLAND. THE FIGHT OF THE IRON-CLADS IN HAMPTON ROADS. 
 
 AT the outbreak of the rebellion, the navy of the United States 
 consisted of ninety vessels, of which forty-two were in commission, 
 twenty-seven were out of commission, and twenty-one were unservice- 
 able. With the intention of putting the serviceable vessels The Unlted 
 where they could not be made available in the suppression ^'^ "St? 
 of insurrection, the conspirators in President Buchanan's breakofw r - 
 cabinet had managed, on one pretext aud another, to scatter them to 
 distant parts of the globe. Thus the largest screw frigate in the 
 navy, the Niagara, was at Cape Town, South Africa ; the Hartford, 
 at Hongkong ; the Richmond, Susqueh'inna. and Iroquois, in the Medi- 
 terranean, and others were in the waters of Brazil, the East Indies, 
 the Pacific, or on the coast of Africa. Of the forty-two vessels in 
 commission, only eleven, carrying about one hundred and thirty-four 
 guns, were in American waters ; and of these four of the most for- 
 midable were in the harbor of Pensacola, Florida. 
 
 A blockade had been declared by the President, but the coast-line 
 to be guarded, in case that blockade was to be other than one of 
 paper, required a naval force many times greater than the little fleet 
 then under the control of the Government. From Chesapeake Bay 
 to the mouth of the Rio Grande the coast-line of the insurgent 
 
490 
 
 EXPANSION OF THE FEDERAL NAVY. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 The block- 
 ade. 
 
 States is a shore indented with innumerable harbors and intricate 
 inlets, the entire line being some three thousand miles in extent. 
 To patrol this coast with a force ample enough to shut out blockade 
 runners loaded with war munitions and material, foreign mails and 
 the commodities absolutely necessary to a successful prosecution of 
 the insurrection, seemed a physical impossibility. Unfriendly foreign 
 critics, viewing the situation with a skepticism born of their dislike 
 for everything American, declared that no civilized power could 
 respect a mere paper blockade. And the over-confident insurgents 
 regarded the President's proclamation of the blockade as ridiculously 
 inoperative. 
 
 But if the southern coast-line demanded an efficient navy to main- 
 tain a real blockade to strangle the Confederacy, much more did the 
 campaign in the Southwest require a strong fleet to operate 
 on the numerous streams with which the country is inter- 
 laced. Gunboats carrying heavy guns and armored so as to enable 
 them to pass fortifications planted along river banks were needed to 
 open the Mississippi, and, by cooperating with land forces, to clear 
 the river system of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio, preliminary to 
 freeing the Father of Waters so that he might go u unvexed to the 
 sea." 
 
 For the use of the navy along the coast-line and on the ocean, the 
 Government immediately began to expand its force, buying every 
 merchant vessel that could be made available for fighting purposes or 
 for the transportation of men and war material. Eight sloops of war 
 were ordered to be built, and contracts were made for the construc- 
 tion of heavily plated gunboats. For service on the rivers, thirty- 
 The river nme gunboats were constructed on entirely new plans. Some 
 gunboats. Q f t nese boats were adapted from the river steamers already 
 in use on the Western rivers ; and others were built for the emer- 
 gencies of war. Generally, they were sidewheel and double-enders, 
 the paddle-wheels being protected from shot. They were very broad 
 in proportion to their length, being usually about fifty feet wide and 
 one hundred and seventy- 
 five feet long. These pro- 
 
 portions gave them the 
 steadiness of a floating 
 battery ; and their sides 
 were covered with thick 
 iron plates, sloping down- 
 ward under water and 
 upward above from the 
 water-line at an angle of 
 
 U. S. Steamer Pillsburg. 
 
1861.] 
 
 THE POTOMAC BLOCKADED. 
 
 491 
 
 U. S. Steamer Cairo. 
 
 forty-five degrees, so that the shot of an enemy should glance off harm- 
 less. These novel gunboats were light-draught, so that they could 
 navigate the rivers on which they were expected to serve, ascending 
 the streams as far as most of the merchant steamers had been accus- 
 tomed to go in peaceful times. 
 
 The insurgents had early removed the buoys and other marks along 
 the Potomac River, and had lined the banks of the stream with bat- 
 teries to maintain an effectual blockade of that line of commu- 
 nication with the National capital. The work of re-surveying and 
 marking out the channel by the vessels of the United States was a 
 difficult one, and was undertaken and carried out under the guns of 
 frowning fortifications on either hand. In this arduous duty, Com- 
 mander J. H. Ward, a brave and accomplished officer of the navy, 
 was killed early in the war ; his death was one of a series of calami- 
 ties which greatly moved the loyal people. About the same time, 
 the steam frigate Pawnee, cooperating with Ellsworth's Zouaves, 
 compelled the evacuation of Alexandria, where the insurgents had 
 long flaunted their flag in sight of the capitol in Washington. In 
 the act of hauling down the flag from a tavern in Alexan- T))e Rhoot . 
 dria, Colonel Ellsworth was shot by the tavern-keeper, who, jfSl? 1 ^ 
 in turn, was instantly killed by Ellsworth's sergeant. The worth 
 death of the gallant Ellsworth was another of the tragical events 
 which, at the beginning of hostilities, when the people were unused 
 to the grisly terrors of war, created a deep and mournful impression 
 and possibly weakened somewhat the ardor of some who, while they 
 loved their country, were sickened by the bloodiness of the sacrifices 
 required for its preservation. 
 
 On the 26th of August a small expedition left Fortress Monroe, 
 Hampton Roads, and in two days arrived at Hatteras Inlet, North 
 Carolina, the principal entrance to Pamlico Sound. Here insurgent 
 
492 
 
 KXPANSION OF THE FEDERAL NAVY. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 The Hut 
 teras ex- 
 pedition. 
 
 Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth. 
 
 earthworks had been thrown up 
 mounting fifteen guns. The 
 expedition five war - ves- 
 sels, two transports, and a 
 tug, with 800 soldiers was com- 
 manded by General Butler and Com- 
 mander Silas H. Stringham. Fire 
 was opened at once on the works, 
 principally with shells, and after a 
 bombardment of two days the enemy 
 surrendered. Their loss was thirty 
 or forty men killed or wounded, and 
 nearly 700 prisoners. Blockade-run- 
 ners had already begun to swarm 
 along the coast, and this inlet was one 
 of the most convenient approaches. 
 
 The secret of the expedition had been so well kept that for several 
 days these vessels continued to come in, and of course fell into the 
 hands of the Federals. Besides the capture of the men, 1,000 stand 
 of arms, 35 cannon, and two strong forts were among the results of 
 this business-like expedition. The inlet had been a favorite channel 
 through which blockade-runners had been accustomed to slip out and 
 in. The State of North Carolina, as soon as the ordinance of seces- 
 sion had been pushed through, fitted out a small steamer, the Wins- 
 low, which, under the command of an ex-officer of the United States 
 navy, committed many depredations on the commerce along the coast. 
 The avenue through which these operations had been conducted was 
 now permanently closed. 
 
 The Hatteras expedition, as well as others which followed it, was 
 undertaken at the suggestion of a board of officers convened by Pres- 
 ident Lincoln for the purpose of examining maps and charts, coast 
 defences, arid other accessible data for formulating a comprehensive 
 plan of operations. This board was composed of Captain Samuel F. 
 Dupont and Captain Charles H. Davis, of the navy ; Major John G. 
 Barnard, of the army, and Alexander D. Bache, of the United States 
 coast survey. The next expedition, more important than any which 
 had been projected, was organized at Fortress Monroe, Hampton 
 Roads, Virginia, for the purpose of closing the Port Royal entrance 
 to one of the most intricate portions of the coast of South Carolina, 
 below Charleston. At the head of the bay of Port Royal was the 
 flourishing town of Beaufort, and the region, intersected by several 
 small streams, was one of the most fertile of the cotton-producing 
 sections of the State. The expedition sailed with sealed orders on 
 
Drawn by G. II'. !\!, 
 
 THE SHOOTING OF COLONEL ELLSWORTH AT THE MARSHALL 
 
 HOUSE, ALEXANDRIA. 
 


 1861.] A FORMIDABLE FEDERAL FLEET. 493 
 
 October 29th, and was instructed to stop at Charleston bar, on the 
 way southward, in order to mislead the enemy. But the efficiency 
 of the insurgent spy system was handsomely vindicated on this occa- 
 sion. General Drayton, commanding the confederate land forces at 
 Port Royal, was warned from Richmond, under date of November 1st, 
 that the fleet was ordered to attack his forts. The expedition con- 
 sisted of a heavy frigate, the Wabash^ fourteen gunboats, 
 
 I.,* i i The Port 
 
 thirty-four steam transports, and twenty-six sailing vessels. Rojai ex- 
 Most of these vessels were taken from the merchant marine, 
 including some of the largest and swiftest, among which were the 
 Great Republic and the Vanderbilt. Altogether there were about 
 10,000 troops, and, including the crews, about 22,000 men in all. 
 The ships were commanded by Commander Samuel F. Dupont, the 
 troops by General Thomas W. Sherman. In a storm off Cape Hat- 
 teras four transports were lost, and two vessels, rendered useless by 
 throwing their armament overboard, put back to Fortress Monroe. 
 When it cleared, not a single sail could be seen from the deck of the 
 flag-ship ; but the scattered craft came up one by one, and three war- 
 ships left blockading stations to join the fleet, till all had gathered 
 at the rendezvous off Port Royal. The entrance to this harbor, 
 two and a half miles wide, was commanded by heavy earthworks 
 Fort Walker on Hilton Head, the southern shore, and Fort Beaure- 
 gard on the northern. The channel buoys had been removed, but 
 soundings were made, and new buoys placed, under fire from the Con- 
 federate fleet of five small steamers, under Josiah Tatnall, a former 
 officer of the United States navy. His diminutive vessels were 
 known as " Tatnall's Mosquito Fleet," but they did not fulfil the 
 high expectations of their inventor. The attack was made on the 
 7th, by the naval force alone. The gunboats ran into the harbor, 
 holding Tatnall in check, while the larger war-ships, sailing round 
 and round in an ellipse between the two forts, for four hours poured 
 in an incessant fire till the guns of both forts were silenced, and the 
 garrisons were compelled to abandon them, leaving their flags flying. 
 The loss of the fleet was only eight men killed and twenty-three 
 wounded. Not only were the forts abandoned, but every white in- 
 habitant fled from Beaufort. The insurgent losses were 66 in killed, 
 wounded, and missing. Attempts to rekindle the Union sentiment 
 of the people of this part of South Carolina, by the circulation of a 
 proclamation, were useless. There was no response to the alluring 
 pronunciamentos that were put forth by the Union officers. General 
 Sherman's appeal, couched in ridiculously wild terms, addressed to 
 the " proud and hospitable people among whom he had passed some 
 of the pleasantest days of his life," was treated with derision. 
 
494 
 
 EXPANSION OF THE FEDERAL NAVY. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 A View on the Smith Plantation at Beaufort, S. C., showing 
 five generations of a negro family. 
 
 Drawn by Victor S. Perard from a photograph. 
 
 The Port Royal expedition, which gave the Federal Government 
 one of the most notable and important successes of the early part of 
 the war, brought great encouragement to the loyal people of the 
 North, who now began to hope for the immediate reduction of 
 Charleston and Savannah ; indeed, it was believed that both of these 
 insurgent strongholds would soon fall an easy prey to the prowess of 
 the Union forces. All over the North there was great rejoicing ; 
 bells were rung, flags hung out, and salutes fired to express the gen- 
 eral joy. The Departments of War and Navy publicly thanked the 
 commanders of the expedition and their men, and salutes were ordered 
 to be fired at all the navy-yards of the United States in honor of this 
 signal victory. As an illustration of the parting of some families in 
 the South upon the question of loyalty to the government of the 
 Union, it was noted that the commander of one of the United States 
 war-ships, the Pocahontas^ Captain Percival Dray ton. and the com- 
 mander of the insurgent forces on land, General T. F. Drayton, were 
 brothers. 
 
 A few days after this famous victorj^ of the Federal arms in the 
 suppression of rebellion, the act of an officer of the navy brought 
 on a serious complication in the relations of the United States with 
 
1861.] 
 
 SEIZURE OF MASON AND SLIDELL. 
 
 495 
 
 >rv- .. # 
 
 Building a Pontoon Bridge across Port Royal River, at Beaufort, S. C. 
 Drawn by F. C. Ransom from a photograph made in March. 1862. 
 
 England. James M. Mason and John Slidell both of whom had 
 left the United States Senate to join in the rebellion hav- Theaffairo f 
 ing been appointed Commissioners to the courts of London theTreut - 
 and Paris, sailed on a blockade-runner from Charleston harbor, and 
 reached Havana, whence they took passage for England on the Brit- 
 ish mail steamer Trent. Captain Charles Wilkes, in the United 
 States steamship San Jacinto, watching for this vessel, overhauled 
 her on the 8th of November in the Bahama Channel, took off the 
 Commissioners and their secretaries, and then allowed the Trent to 
 proceed on her voyage. By the law of nations, and in accordance 
 with the British proclamation of neutrality, 1 he might have brought 
 the Trent into port as a prize. His reason for not doing so was, that 
 he could hardly spare men for a prize crew, and he especially desired 
 
 1 The Queeu'a proclamation, dated May 13th, 1861, warned her subjects that "if any of 
 them shall presume to do any nets in derogation of their duty as subjects of a neutral sov- 
 ereign, or in violation or contravention of the law of nations, as ... by carrying officers, 
 soldiers, despatches, arms, military stores, or materials, or any article or articles considered 
 and deemed to be contraband of war, according to the law or modern use of nations, for 
 the use or service of either of the contending parties, all persons .so offending will incur 
 and be liable to the several penalties, etc. . . . And all our subjicts who may misconduct 
 themselves in the premises, will do so at their peril, and of their own wrong, and they will 
 in no wise obtain any protection from us against any liability or peual consequences." 
 

 490 
 
 EXPANSION OF THE FEDERAL NAVY. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 Charles Francis Adams. 
 
 not to inflict injury upon innocent 
 persons by delaying the mails and 
 the passengers. On receipt of the 
 news in Liverpool, a meeting was 
 called at the Cotton Exchange, where 
 the most violent harangues were 
 loudly applauded, and the few speak- 
 ers who counselled moderation could 
 scarcely get a hearing. The excite- 
 ment spread to all classes, and the 
 feeling was general in England that 
 there must be an immediate release of 
 the prisoners, and an apology for this 
 interference with an English ship on 
 the high seas, or a declaration of war. 
 
 Secretary Seward instructed Mr. Charles Francis Adams, the Amer- 
 ican Minister in London, to assure the British Government that in 
 the capture of the Commissioners Captain Wilkes had acted without 
 any instructions, and that the American Government would be ready 
 to discuss the matter in a friendly spirit when the ground taken by 
 the British Government should be made known. The official com- 
 munication of Earl Russell, under date of NoA r ember 30th, after recit- 
 ing the statement of the Captain of the Trent, in which the fact that 
 the men seized were known to him and to everybody else to be insur- 
 gent emissaries, was avoided, proceeded to say, " It thus appears 
 that certain individuals have been forcibly taken from on board a 
 British vessel, the ship of a neutral power, while such vessel was 
 pursuing a lawful and innocent voyage, an act of violence 
 w ijj c h was an affront to the British flag and a violation of 
 international law," after which it demanded " such redress as alone 
 could satisfy the British nation," namely, the liberation of the pris- 
 oners, and a suitable apology. At the same time England began 
 naval preparations for war, and ordered troops to Canada. 1 
 
 Mr. Seward's answer, dated December 26th, discussed the subject 
 at considerable length, in all its bearings, arguing: First, that the 
 persons named and their despatches were contraband of war; Sec- 
 ond, that Captain Wilkes might lawfully stop and search the Trent 
 for them ; Third, that he exercised the right in a lawful and proper 
 manner ; Fourth, that he had a right to capture the Commissioners ; 
 
 1 It is a ludicrous fact that the transports bringing these troops found the ports of Can- 
 ada frozen up, and the British Government was under the humiliating necessity of asking 
 permission of the American Government to land at Portland and convey across American 
 territory the very troops with which it was preparing to make war on the American people. 
 The permission was graciously granted. 
 
 The corre- 
 
 
1861.] SURRENDER OF THE COMMISSIONERS. 497 
 
 but, Fifth, that he did not exercise that right in the manner allowed 
 and recognized by the law of nations, because he decided for himself 
 the question whether the prisoners were contraband, and voluntarily 
 released the vessel, instead of bringing both vessel and prisoners 
 to port for adjudication in a prize court. On this ground he ordered 
 the release of the prisoners, who had been confined in Fort Warren, 
 Boston Harbor, and they were at once transferred to a British war- 
 vessel which was waiting for them at Provincetown. 
 
 If the American people felt a momentary chagrin at the surrender 
 of the insurgent Commissioners, they could not fail to see that Sec- 
 retary Seward had skilfully averted what would hardly have failed 
 to be, in the condition of the country at that moment, a disastrous 
 foreign war. Calmer second thought suggested that England could 
 have hardly permitted such an act as that of Captain Wilkes to pass 
 unchallenged. But the sympathy of the more influential part of her 
 people for the slaveholders' rebellion had been so loudly and so offen- 
 sively avowed, that this incident gave intensity to a resentment al- 
 ready deep and keen. The result of the affair, however, was a bitter 
 disappointment to the secessionists, who had hoped for a war be- 
 tween England and the United States, which might lead to an alliance 
 between England and the Confederacy. 
 
 The dignity and moderation with which the United States Gov- 
 ernment conducted these delicate and embarrassing proceedings 
 greatly served to disarm the unfriendly foreign criticism with which 
 it had been pursued. The language of some of the English news- 
 papers, while the case was yet pending, was brutal and highly offen- 
 sive; leading journals vied with each other in the bitterness of their 
 comments on the Trent incident. And, to the credit of the American 
 people, it should be recorded that the surrender of the Commissioners, 
 
 when that step was resolved upon, was 
 acquiesced in with wonderful patience 
 and moderation. Although some of 
 the hare-brained politicians and news- 
 papers of the Republic clamored 
 against the Administration for its al- 
 leged timidity, the mass of the people, 
 readily perceiving that ''we can have 
 only one war on hand at once/' ac- 
 cepted the action of the State Depart- 
 ment with confidence in the patriotism 
 and sagacity of Secretary Seward and 
 the President. Xor should it be for- 
 
 Rear-Admiral Samuel F. Dupont. gotten that tll'lS aCCCptailCC of the Slt- 
 
 VOL. iv. 32 
 
498 
 
 EXPANSION OF THE FEDERAL NAVY. [CHAP. XIX 
 
 Rear-Admiral Charles Wilkes, U. S. A. 
 
 nation was rendered more difficult by 
 the elation that had been 
 
 Difficulties . . .. , , , . 
 
 of the Trent caused in all parts <>t the loyal 
 North by the capture of the 
 two insurgent envoys. When Congress 
 met, soon after the capture of Mason 
 and Slidell, the House of Representa- 
 tives passed, without a dissenting vote, 
 a resolution thanking Captain Wilkes 
 for " his brave, adroit, and patriotic con- 
 duct," and other resolutions requested 
 the President to treat the prisoners 
 with something of the severity which 
 had characterized the treatment of 
 Union captives in Confederate prisons. 
 
 Captain Wilkes had been publicly thanked by the Secretary of the 
 Navy for " the great public service " which he had rendered, and the 
 city (if Boston gave the hero of the hour a handsome banquet. The 
 revulsion of feeling which took place when the cause of all this grat- 
 ulation was surrendered to Great Britain was obviously sharp and 
 painful. It was effected without any hesitation. 
 
 The next important expedition was organized for operations in 
 Pamlico and Albemarle sounds, on the coast of North Carolina. 
 The Union forces held Hatteras inlet and the cape. The insurgents, 
 fortified on Roanoke Island, to the northward, where Roanoke and 
 Croatan sounds lead into Albemarle Sound, were meditating an 
 attack on the Union position. To dislodge them and to clear the way 
 to the inner coast-line of North Carolina, north and south of Roanoke 
 Island, a naval and military expedition was organized. Accordingly, 
 x- on * ne 12th of January, 1862, a fleet of thirty-one gunboats 
 an( | fifty-seven transports, commanded by Commodore Louis 
 M. GoldsboroHgh, left Fortress Monroe under sealed orders. On the 
 transports were about 11,000 troops, under General Ambrose E. 
 Bnrnside, divided into three brigades, commanded respectively by 
 Brigadier-generals John G. Foster, Jesse L. Reno, and John G. Parke. 
 The fleet was formed into two columns for active service, commanded 
 by two naval officers, Commanders S. C. Rowan and S. F. Hazard. 
 The aggregate armament of these vessels was ninety-four guns. 
 
 On Roanoke Island were three heavy earthworks, mounting alto- 
 gether twenty-four guns, behind which were about 3,000 men. To 
 reduce this was the preliminary work of the expedition, and that w;is 
 done early in February. On the 12th of March the fleet ascended the 
 Neuse River, from Pamlico Sound, and the next morning landed the 
 
1862.] FEDERAL SUCCESSES IN NORTH CAROLINA. 499 
 
 James Murray Mason. John Slidell 
 
 THE CONFEDERATE COMMISSIONERS TO LONDON AND PARIS. 
 
 troops on the west b;mk seventeen miles below the city of Xewbern. 
 A well-constructed breastwork stretched from the river to a swamp ; 
 batteries were placed along the bank, and the stream was 1{attl( , of 
 filled with formidable obstructions. All day the troops N>wbern - 
 were moving slowly up toward the city by roads heavy with long 
 rains, while the gunboats, commanded by Rowan, preceded them, 
 silencing the batteries and removing the obstructions in the river. 
 The real battle was fought at the breastwork, three miles below the 
 city, on Sunday, the 14th. This work was well provided with artil- 
 lery, and behind it were about 3,000 men. The assault in front was 
 determined but not successful, though si few guns were temporarily 
 captured ; but when the Union left wing had flanked it at the weakest 
 point, and swept down the line, taking everything in reverse, while 
 si little hiter the right wing burst upon the Confederate left, the 
 defenders took to flight, sivailinsj themselves of a. train of cars to 
 hasten their escape to the city. To prevent pursuit they set fire pre- 
 maturely to the railway bridge over the Trent, and those who were 
 left behind became prisoners. The Union troops, crossing the river in 
 the gunboats, followed to the town, and pushed the enemy to still 
 further flight ; but not till they had kindled a fire which destroyed 
 large quantities of cotton, turpentine, and military stores, the court- 
 house, a hotel, and some private residences. The Union loss in this 
 battle, killed and wounded, was 471. The Confederate loss was 578. 
 The city was permanently occupied, and General Foster was made 
 military governor. On the 20th of March, Burnsidc, with Parke's 
 brigade, marched into Beaufort. A small detachment was sent at 
 the same time to occupy Washington, on Tar River, where the inhab- 
 itants were for the most part still loyal to the Union. Fort Macon, 
 

 500 EXPANSION OF THE FEDERAL NAVY. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 which commanded the entrance to the harbor of Beaufort, was taken 
 Reduction of on the 25th of April. The faithfulness of many of the 
 Fort Macon. p eO pi e o f North Carolina to the National Government was 
 shown in a picturesque incident at the surrender of the fort. When 
 An incident the rebel flag was struck, and the national standard took its 
 of the Hag. pi ace? an o ij man> with a long white beard, leaped upon the 
 ruined rampart, with a silver bugle in his hand, and blew the notes 
 of the " Star-Spangled Banner." 1 
 
 The results of this expedition were highly important to the Union 
 cause. Roanoke Island was one of the chief defences of Norfolk, 
 and it commanded the entrance to Albemarle and Currituck sounds ; 
 its possession by the Federal troops gave the Government full control 
 of all approaches to the river and canal system of North Carolina, 
 besides affording a safe harbor and undisputed command of a great 
 line of sea-coast, from Cape Henry on the north to Cape Lookout on 
 the south. Great was the joy of the loyal North over this capture 
 of an important strategic position on the mainland of one of the sea- 
 board insurgent States ; and equally great was the depression of the 
 insurgents, who sought for official heads to hold responsible for the 
 disaster. Judah P. Benjamin, who at that time was acting as 
 Confederate Secretary of War, was blamed by a committee of the 
 Confederate Congress for his failure to provide adequate defences 
 at Roanoke Island and thus prevent the calamity that had befallen 
 them. In spite of this censure, however, Jefferson Davis subse- 
 quently promoted Benjamin to the office of Secretary of State. 
 
 During one of the engagements that cleared Albemarle Sound of 
 the insurgents, a shell from a shore battery entered the gunboat 
 Valley City, and, exploding, set on fire the woodwork of the maga- 
 zine. John Davis, gunner's mate, seeing the danger of firing a 
 barrel of gunpowder from which he had been serving, deliberately 
 sat in the open head of the barrel and remained there until the fire 
 was extinguished. For this act of heroism Davis was rewarded by 
 the Secretary of the Navy with a promotion to the rank of gunner 
 and the gift of the naval medal of honor ; and citizens of New York 
 made up a purse of 81,100 for him. 
 
 The most remarkable addition to the navies of the world was that 
 Ericsson's f ^ ie little iron-clad Monitor, built under the direction 
 Monitor. Q f j tg j nven t O r, John Ericsson, and commissioned in the 
 United States navy February 25th, 1862. Captain Ericsson was 
 born in Sweden, in 1803, and, after a somewhat checkered life, dur- 
 ing which he had met with indifferent success in his endeavors to 
 interest courts and sovereigns of Europe in some of the plans and 
 1 Victor's History of the Southern Rebellion. 
 
1862.] 
 
 BUILDING OF THE "MONITOR." 
 
 501 
 
 The Bugler at Fort Macon. 
 
 inventions which his genius had evolved, he migrated to the United 
 States, arriving here in 1839. From that time forward he was busily 
 engaged in the production and perfection of many useful and nota- 
 ble inventions. Among these was the screw propeller, which revo- 
 lutionized the ocean carrying trade and the naval construction of the 
 world. Notwithstanding a rebuff from the Navy Department of the 
 United States, he persisted in urging upon the Federal authorities 
 his plan for an iron-clad vessel which was the first to include the 
 principle of the revolving turret. The novel craft which he subse- 
 quently constructed for the Government in the brief space of one 
 hundred days was named the Monitor, because, said its inventor, 
 " this structure will admonish the leaders of the Southern Rebellion 
 that the batteries on the banks of their rivers will no longer present 
 barriers to the entrance of the Union forces. The iron-clad intruder 
 'will thus prove a severe monitor to those leaders." And he added 
 that there were other leaders who would be admonished ; to the slow- 
 going British Admiralty, with whose inertness he had already had 
 some experience, the new craft would be " a monitor suggesting 
 doubts as to the propriety of completing those four steel-clad ships 
 at three-and-a-half millions apiece." 
 
 
502 
 
 EXPANSION OF THE FEDERAL NAVY. [C HAP. XIX. 
 
 Thi- Mer- 
 rinmc. 
 
 When the Gosport navy-yard, near Norfolk, Virginia, was so dis- 
 gracefully abandoned and destroyed at the breaking out of the rebel- 
 lion, one of the ships burned was the steam frigate Merrimac, of 
 3,500 tons and 40 guns. During the succeeding summer, the insur- 
 gents raised the hull of the vessel, and, with marvellous skill and 
 dexterity, converted her into a floating battery. The craft was so 
 altered and reconstructed that her former berth-deck was brought 
 just to the water's edge, and amidships was built a sloping 
 iron-clad roof covering so much of the gun-deck as was 
 required to mount the guns to be placed in position. This roof was 
 170 feet in length and was seven feet above the gun-deck. Under it 
 were mounted ten guns of six, seven, and nine-inch bore, respectively. 
 The deck of this structure was 70 feet long at each end of the vessel, 
 and was covered with heavy iron plates. The bow was armed with 
 a formidable iron ram ; the draught of the vessel was 22 feet. News 
 of her building had been carried into the Union lines, and great 
 apprehension as to her impregnability and fighting qualities had been 
 excited all over the North. 
 
 Work on the Merrimac had so far proceeded that no large vessel 
 could be built in time to meet her when she should be ready for 
 offensive operations. The Monitor was a fighting machine drawing 
 only ten feet of water, with a submerged lower hull 122 feet long 
 and 34 feet wide, joined to an upper hull 172 feet long and 41 feet 
 wide. The revolving turret on the deck (which was almost level 
 with the water) was 20 feet in diameter and ten feet high; it con- 
 tained two guns of eleven inches bore. The vessel was commanded 
 by Lieutenant John L. Worden, and on her way to Hampton Roads, 
 where she had been ordered from New York, the officers and crew 
 suffered many hardships from their 
 confinement in the novel craft, which 
 encountered a severe storm. The ex- 
 periment of navigation had not been 
 made before on board the new ship, 
 and her management then and after- 
 wards was necessarily embarrassed by 
 lack of experience with this strange 
 fighting machine; the storm at sea 
 tried the courage and endurance of 
 the men as it did the buoyant qual- 
 ities of the ship. 
 
 On Saturday noon, March 8th, 
 the long-expected and much-dreaded 
 Merrimac was seen making her way John Ericsson. 
 

1862.] 
 
 AN HISTORIC NAVAL DUEL. 
 
 503 
 
 Deck View of the Monitor, looking from the bow. 
 Drawn by Victor S. Perard from a photograph marie in July, 1862. 
 
 down the Elizabeth River from Norfolk towards Hampton Roads, 
 where then lay a considerable fleet of Federal naval vessels, 
 gunboats, and transports. The sailing frigate Congress, 50 mackttL-k 
 
 guns, and the sloop of war Cumberland, 24 guns, lay at an- 
 chor in the mouth of the James River, not far from the place 
 of entrance of the Merrimac, as that craft came into the watery arena. 
 The frigates Roanoke and Minnesota were lying at anchor at Fortress 
 Monroe, Hampton Roads, several miles distant ; and when the Merri- 
 mac steered directly for the ships in the mouth of the James, those at 
 Fortress Monroe were signalled to come to the assistance of their 
 threatened comrades. They could not reach them in time to render 
 much aid. In the face of broadsides from the Congress and the Cum- 
 berland, the Merrimac pushed on for the last-named ship and rammed 
 her so vigorously on her starboard fore-channels that an enormous rent 
 through which the water rushed in torrents was made in her wooden 
 hull. Lieutenant Norris, temporarily in command, fought bravely 
 with the iron monster, but, after a hopeless struggle, the doomed 
 ship went down in 54 feet of water, her colors flying as she sunk. A 
 greater part of the crew saved themselves by jumping overboard and 
 swimming for their lives ; about one hundred sick and wounded went 
 down with the ship. 
 
 Meanwhile, two Confederate gunboats had engaged the Congress, 
 and, after a -gallant fight, she grounded in shallow water, where she 
 was next assailed by the Merrimac, the Cumberland having been sent 
 to the bottom. Unable to reach the frigate to board her, the enemy 
 
504 
 
 EXPANSION OF THE FEDERAL NAVY. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 poured hot shot into her hull, and, after a fire that raked her fore 
 and aft, during which the commander of the Congress, the gallant 
 Lieutenant Joseph B. Smith, was killed, the Merrimac was interfered 
 with by the Minnesota, which had now come up from Fortress Mon- 
 roe. During the diversion which followed, the crew of the Congress 
 managed to escape, the white flag of surrender having been hoisted 
 on the ship. Later on, the Merrimac returned and set fire to the 
 Congress, then, darkness having set in, she returned to the Elizabeth 
 River, her officers and crew well satisfied with the destruction that 
 they had wrought, and confident of finishing the rest of the Federal 
 fleet on the morrow. 
 
 During that night the little Monitor stole into the Roads and took 
 up a position near the menaced Minnesota. On Sunday, March 9th, 
 the news of the great disaster to the Federal fleet in the Roads flew 
 all abroad. In the Confederacy there was joyful exultation beyond 
 anything that had ever been known since the war began. It was 
 believed that the National capital would now fall an easy prey to the 
 terrible Merrimac, that the great metropolis of New York would be 
 laid under contribution, and that a naval war would be carried 
 to the closing of the ports of the North which had sent forth so 
 many fighting ships for the " subjugation of the South." In the 
 loyal North there was alarm and grief. The disaster seemed irre- 
 
 
 Crew on Deck of the Monitor. 
 
1862.] FINAL DEFEAT OF THE "MERRIMAC." 505 
 
 Commander Worden and the Officers of the Monitor. 
 
 trievable ; the result of the fighting of Saturday apparently left no hope 
 for the escape of the remainder of the fleet when the monster should 
 again emerge from her lair on Sunday. Panic was felt in Washing- 
 ton ; it was reflected thence to all the great cities of the Union, from 
 Maine to California. 
 
 On Sunday morning, when the Merrimac, coming down in the 
 early dawn, saw the minute floating battery that glided out 
 from behind the lofty Minnesota, the astonishment of the to the 
 Confederates was very great. " A tin can on a shingle ! " 
 was the exclamation of some ; " A cheese-box on a raft ! " had been 
 the surprised comment of others who beheld this strange appearance. 
 The duel opened. The Monitor's circular turret began to move, and 
 from her port-holes burst forth tremendous shot in quick succession. 
 In vain the Merrimac manoeuvred to get out of the range of the battery 
 of the Monitor ; whichever way she moved the guns of the Monitor 
 followed her with feverish lips. The broadsides of the Merrimac 
 fell harmless on her antagonist ; and the ponderous shot of the Monitor 
 apparently produced no effect whatever on the Confederate iron-clad. 
 After a fierce and terrible struggle that resulted in nothing definite, 
 the duellists separated, the Merrimac leaving her impregnable foe 
 and making once more for the Minnesota, still aground on the edge 
 of this novel naval battle. Hardly regarding the broadside that the 
 frigate sent upon his sloping iron deck, the commander of the Mer- 
 rimac fired a shell into the hull of the frigate, setting the ship on 
 
506 
 
 EXPANSION OF THE FEDERAL NAVY. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 Admiral Franklin Buchanan, C. S. A. 
 
 Rear-Admiral John L. Worden. 
 
 fire and doing other serious damage. The flames were extinguished, 
 and the little Monitor bore down upon the Merrimac, com- 
 
 Thefirstbat- . r . 
 
 tie of iron- pellmg her to change position, in doing which she went 
 aground and was for a critical moment in deadly peril : but 
 she was soon got off and started for her anchorage up the river. Pur- 
 sued by the Monitor, she turned once fiercely and attempted to ram 
 her plucky adversary ; but her prow glanced from the iron deck of 
 the Monitor without inflicting the least damage, and another heavy 
 shot striking the iron sides of the Merrimac, made a great indentation 
 which, if followed by another, would probably have penetrated her 
 fortress. She sullenly drew out of the fight and proceeded up the 
 river in safety. The day of wooden fighting ships was done. 
 
 It was the errand of the Merrimac to destroy the Federal fleet in 
 Hampton Roads, and so change the whole course of the war. That 
 errand failed. The presence of the Monitor, so providential and 
 so wonderfully opportune, saved the fleet, preserved the lines estab- 
 lished by the Government forces, and neutralized forever the formid- 
 able engine of destruction on which the Confederates had lavished 
 so much time, money, and ingenuity. It was a drawn battle in the 
 regard that neither ship was destroyed. It was a Federal victory, 
 for the Confederate plan was defeated ; and the fleet and the line of 
 the James river were saved to the forces that had been organized to 
 crush the rebellion. 
 
 This remarkable and memorable sea-fight, according to one of the 
 participants in it, "showed the power of resistance of two iron-clads, 
 widely differing in construction, model, and armament, under a fire 
 which in a short time would have sunk any other vessel afloat." l The 
 
 p 
 
 1 John Taylor Wood, C. S. A., in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 
 
 
1862.] 
 
 IMMEDIATE RESULTS OF THE FIGHT. 
 
 507 
 
 The Monitor's Crew on Deck. 
 
 depression which had pervaded the Xorth when the destruction of the 
 two sailing ships was announced from Fortress Monroe, was speedily 
 replaced by a great cheer that spread all over the country. The 
 names of Ericsson and Worden were on the lips of everybody ; and 
 in foreign lands the news of the first fight between iron-clads was 
 conned with thrilling interest. Both of the vessels sustained dam- 
 age, but neither was fatally crippled. Franklin Buchanan, who com- 
 manded the Merrimac, was wounded during the engagement, and 
 his place was taken by Lieutenant Catesby Jones. Captain Worden, 
 commanding the Monitor, was wounded by the explosion of a shell 
 oil the outer -side of the peep-hole of the pilot-house, through which 
 he was looking at the time, and the command of the ship then 
 devolved on Lieutenant S. D. Greene, the executive officer, at that 
 time only twenty-two years of age. 
 
 The Merrimac took no active part in the subsequent hostilities, 
 although she occasionally steamed down from Xorfolk to offer battle 
 to her wary antagonist, the Monitor, which was under orders to guard 
 the Roads and accept no challenge to fight. Early in May 
 the Confederate forces, in consequence of military operations evacuation 
 
 ,, , , ,, ,,. * , , T . of Norfolk. 
 
 on the peninsula between the lork and James rivers, evacu- 
 ated Norfolk without making any communication to the commander 
 

 50M 
 
 EXPANSION OF THE FEDERAL NAVY. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 The Interior of the Monitor during the Fight with the Merrirnar. 
 
 of the Me.rrimac. 1 The officers of the iron-clad, noting the absence 
 of their flag from the batteries at the mouth of the Elizabeth, set 
 about to search for the reason ; they soon discovered that their mili- 
 tary friends had fled from Norfolk. Nothing remained but destruc- 
 tion. Norfolk was occupied by Federal troops ; they were between 
 two fires. Accordingly, on the llth of May, the once-dreaded mon- 
 ster was run ashore and blown up. 
 
 The Monitor had some part in subsequent operations on the James 
 Kiver, but she never again met a foeman worthy of her steel. In 
 November, 1862, she was sent to sea under sealed orders, encountered 
 a gale off Cape Hatteras, and went to the bottom. Nearly all of her 
 officers and crew were rescued by the steamer acting as her convoy. 
 A fleet of iron-clads was built upon the model of Ericsson's marvel ; 
 to her successors was given the generic name of the original proto- 
 type, and thereafter that class of fighting machine was known as 
 monitors. 
 
 1 The official name of the vessel was the Viryinia, but she was usually known by her 
 original name, the Alerrimac. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. 
 
 CAPTURE OF FORT PULASKI. GENERAL HUNTER ix SOUTH CAROLINA. His TREAT- 
 MENT OF THE NEGRO QUESTION. ANOTHER PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION OVER- 
 RULED. MC-CLELLAN'S MOVEMENT TO THE PENINSULA. THE SIEGE OF YORK- 
 TOWN. THE CONFEDERATE RETREAT. ON THE CHICKAHOMINY. "STONEWALL" 
 JACKSON IN THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY. ALARM IN WASHINGTON. BATTLE OF 
 SEVEN PINES. R. E. LEE IN COMMAND OF THE CONFEDERATES. J. E. B. STUART'S 
 RAID AND RECONNAISSANCE. THE SEVEN DAYS' FIGHTING. MCCLELLAN'S CHANGE 
 OF BASE. LEE'S SUPERIOR STRATEGY. BATTLE OF MAI.VERN HILL. THE 
 FLIGHT OF THE FEDERALS TO HARRISON'S LANDING. END OF THE CAMPAIGN. 
 DEVELOPMENT OF MCCLELLAN'S POLITICAL AMBITIONS. 
 
 As the civil war wore on into its second year, its effects began to 
 be apparent in the habits, methods, and thoughts of the Effects of 
 American people. A stranger might have said that a condi- th<MVar - 
 tion of war had become permanent in the minds of men, notwithstand- 
 ing the earnestness with which peace was hoped and prayed for, and 
 notwithstanding the irksomeness of the burdens laid upon the peo- 
 ple. Military phrases became incorporated into the popular speech ; 
 military and naval strategy was the study of everybody ; the frequent 
 visits in the homes of non-combatants of men hot from the front of 
 battle, and their letters from the field, kept families well informed 
 as to the details of army life ; and copious newspaper accounts of 
 battles, sieges, and skirmishes made even the children of remote and 
 peaceful towns familiar with the progress of the war and with innu- 
 merable incidents of individual heroism and bravery on land and sea. 
 There were not many households in which the badge of mourning 
 
510 
 
 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 Edwin M. Stanton. 
 
 was not worn. The news from the 
 field of battle, after any general en- 
 gagement, was scanned in innumera- 
 ble homes with eager eyes and anx- 
 ious hearts. 
 
 The Avar drama was acting along 
 the border of the slaveholding States ; 
 it was hardly time for it to make its 
 appearance on the mimic stage of the 
 theatre ; but war songs resounded in 
 the streets of cities, towns, and ham- 
 lets. Rhymesters, poets, and com- 
 posers tickled the popular ear with 
 ballads and lyrics in which the smoke 
 of battle, the throbbing of the drums, 
 the rattle of musketry and the clangor of arms were mingled with 
 songs of victory, the plaint of mothers bereft of their sons, the war- 
 cries of soldiers pressing to the front, and the tramp of marching 
 regiments. Then came the comic travesties of the satirists and the 
 humorists. The elastic spirits of the people turned gratefully to the 
 writers who found food for laughter in the thick of the grim realities 
 of war. The strain of anxiety and suspense was relieved by grotesque 
 fun which men managed to extract from even the darkest of days of 
 doubt and despondency. 
 
 The sudden demand for ships, arms, supplies of clothing, rations, 
 and multitudinous materials required in the prosecution of the war 
 created a vast army of contractors, exhausted warehouses that had 
 been filled with goods, swept the markets bare of certain commodi- 
 ties in a single day, and brought on a fever of speculation that did 
 not abate until long after the war was over. Fortunes were realized 
 in a month ; the sharp exigencies of the Government would not wait 
 for the customary slow processes of purchase in times of peace. 
 Prices of the necessaries of life, as well as of those which were drawn 
 into the uses of army and navy, were suddenly sent up to high figures. 
 Bad men cheated the Government with false bids and worthless goods; 
 then was brought into use the word "shoddy," which, from being 
 applied to a fraudulent fabric of woollen cloth, came to be known as 
 the apt title of those who had become suddenly rich by means which 
 would not bear too close a scrutiny. 
 
 Although the great heart of the people was sound and true, dishon- 
 est men battened on the woes of the Nation, and the very name of 
 that patriotism which bound the Northern people to the Union was 
 worn as a livery to serve the selfish purposes of adventurers. And it 
 
1862.] CALLS FOR EMANCIPATION. 511 
 
 came to pass at last that a profession of loyalty was suspected, and 
 men who were ready to find fault with the conduct of the war and to 
 criticise its purpose were equally ready with their sneers for those 
 whose loyalty might be under suspicion for its selfishness. Men in 
 high places were suspected of conniving at, if not participating in, 
 profitable and loosely drawn contracts with the Government ; the 
 secret enemies of the Republic were swift to accuse and slow to acquit 
 those whose ardent and pure patriotism offended them. 
 
 Politics in the non-slaveholding States soon became agitated over 
 the status of the slaves of the South, as well as with the s , atU!i(>f 
 conduct of the war. The patient President, waiting for the tlu ' slaT< ' 
 opinions of the loyal Xorth to crystallize, was beset by radical leaders 
 who urged him to hasten the steps that were to free the l>ondman, 
 while the conservatives were equally clamorous that nothing be done 
 to alienate the support of the men of the border States with whom 
 slavery was yet a cherished institution. The action of Congress early 
 struck the shackles from the limbs of the blacks who had been em- 
 ployed by the insurgents in their prosecution of the war. Federal 
 commanders were given instructions to employ these "contrabands" 
 whenever that employment gave them military advantage : and the 
 time drew near for the drafting of the black men into the active mili- 
 tary forces of the Union. The ill-advised proclamation of Fremont, 
 granting emancipation to the slaves under certain circumstances, 
 raised a tempest in the Xorth : but it was impossible to overlook or 
 gainsay the fact that any attempt to give freedom to the black man 
 whose slavery had been one of the causes of the rebellion was greeted 
 with applause from a majority of the people. 
 
 To arm the ex-slaves was the next step. Their ultimate freedom 
 was now regarded as inevitable. During the latter part of 1861, the 
 Secretary of War, Mr. Simon Cameron, prepared his annual report to 
 the President, to accompany the President's message to Congress : 
 but, contrary to usage, did not first submit it to the President. The 
 document was mailed to distant parts of the country under seal of 
 privacy, to be released when the announcement was made of the 
 delivery of the message to Congress. Inquiry developed the fact that 
 the Secretary had anticipated somewhat the march of events and had 
 proposed to Congress that the time had come when it might be the 
 duty of the Government to arm and equip the ex-slaves and turn 
 them against the insurgents " under proper military regulation, dis- 
 cipline, and command." President Lincoln, while he agreed with the 
 Secretary in the proposition that the Government had the right to 
 use the ex-slaves against their masters in any lawful capacity, did not 
 think that the time had come to form them into marching regiments. 
 
512 
 
 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN*. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 Major-General David Hunter. 
 
 Brevet Major-General Rufus Saxton. 
 
 War. 
 
 He accordingly cancelled that part of the Secretary's report; and the 
 revised document, having been recalled, was sent in to Congress with- 
 out the argument and suggestion of the Secretary. The immediate 
 outcome of this incident was the first change made in the cabinet of 
 President Lincoln. Mr. Cameron withdrew, accepting a diplomatic 
 appointment to Russia ; and Mr. Edwin M. Stanton succeeded him 
 in the War Department. 
 
 The new Secretary of War was in the very prime of life when he 
 took office under President Lincoln. He had been trained 
 
 Stanton as . . ..... 
 
 y of a lawyer, and his energy, eminent abilities, and skill had 
 raised him to a high place in his profession. During the 
 melancholy collapse of President Buchanan's cabinet, not long before 
 the accession of Lincoln, Stanton became Attorney-general at the 
 President's invitation. With most of the other members of the Buch- 
 anan cabinet, Mr. Stanton went under a cloud as soon as he retired 
 from office, March 4th, 1861, and it might have been supposed that he 
 would be heard of no more. His correspondence at that time shows 
 that he was embittered against the new Administration and that he 
 had a very mean opinion of Mr. Lincoln's talents. He referred to 
 the ' painful imbecility " of the newly inaugurated President, to the 
 "venality anil corruption" that reigned in high places, and to the 
 possibility that there would be no change for the better "until Jef- 
 ferson Davis turns out the whole concern." He was called into the 
 Cabinet of President Lincoln without any knowledge on the part of 
 the President that he was secretly chafing over what seemed to him 
 a chaos of mismanagement and WHS writing ignorantly of matters 
 entirely beyond any possibility of his comprehension while he was 
 outside of the counsels of the Government. Stanton soon became one 
 
1862.] MAINTAINING THE BLOCKADE. 513 
 
 of the most dominant and powerful figures which the civil war 
 developed in the United States. When he knew Lincoln better, he 
 gave him his hearty personal service ; and to his country he rendered 
 the most unswerving loyalty and the devotion of all his powers and 
 his genius. 
 
 Events were now taking place on the Atlantic seaboard which 
 were destined to change greally the political complexion of the w;ir 
 and divert the attention of the Confederates from blockade-running 
 to a more ardent defence of their military lines. General Quincy A. 
 Gillmore, being ordered to reconnoitre Fort Pulaski, which com- 
 manded the mouth of the Savannah River, late in November, 1S61, 
 entered upon that important duty in the following month. The fort 
 was situated on a low island between the two channels that form the 
 mouth of the river. The work covered nearly the whole of the island, 
 and its walls were twenty feet high and seven feet thick, Rp ,i uction o{ 
 mounting forty heavy guns, and defended by nearly 400 F 
 men. The General reported that it could be reduced by batteries on 
 Big Tybee Island and Venus Point, and he received orders to carry 
 out his plan. A portion of February and the whole of March was 
 spent in the erection of the works and placing the guns, which, from 
 the softness of the ground, could only be accomplished with enormous 
 labor, and from the nearness to the fort could only be done at night. 
 Thirty-six rifled guns and heavy mortars were at length in position, 
 some of them having been dragged for miles, on movable platforms, 
 over a deep morass, requiring 250 men to move them. The distance 
 of the batteries from the fort was from less than a mile to two miles. 
 On the 10th of April, 1862, fire was opened. The rifled guns made 
 enormous breaches in the walls, and soon reduced them to ruins. In 
 the afternoon of the llth, the fort was surrendered. Ten guns had 
 been dismounted, one of the garrison killed and a few wounded. Tho 
 assailants lost one man killed. The Savannah River was now perma- 
 nently closed to blockade-runners. The Atlantic coast was lost to the 
 Confederates. 
 
 Major-General David Hunter, formerly commanding in Kansas, who 
 on the last day of March had been placed in command on the 
 South Carolina and Georgia coast, issued a general order rpiaoripa- 
 on the 9th of May, wherein he said, k * Slavery and martial 
 law in a free country are incompatible. The persons in these States 
 Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina heretofore held as slaves, 
 are therefore declared forever free." Ten davs later the President 
 
 9 
 
 issued a proclamation annulling Hunter's, and adding: ' I further 
 make known that, whether it be competent for me, as commander-in- 
 chief of the army and navy, to declare the slaves of any State or 
 VOL. iv. 33 
 
514 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 States free ; and whether at any time, or in any case, it shall have 
 become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the govern- 
 ment to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my 
 responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I cannot feel justified in 
 leaving for the decision of commanders in the field." At the same 
 time, the President made an appeal to the border States, still holding 
 on to slavery, to avail themselves of the generous offer of Congress to 
 pay for their slaves if they would of their own accord abolish human 
 slavery. He gently reminded them that " the signs of the times " 
 pointed to the certain destruction of this long-cherished institution. 
 They might anticipate the day of its doom. 
 
 Another important movement of General Hunter while he was in 
 command in South Carolina, was the raising of a regiment of col- 
 ored troops, the first mustered into the service of the United States. 
 Very soon after his assignment to the Department of the South, 
 Hunter had asked the Secretary of War for authority to enlist colored 
 men, the country in which he was operating being then filled with fugi- 
 tives, or masterless slaves. General Hunter, conceiving that a showy 
 uniform would take the fancy of the negroes and promote enlistments, 
 asked for fifty thousand pairs of scarlet pantaloons, and added, " This 
 is all the clothing I shall require for these people." The experiment 
 was not immediately successful. The colored men did not volunteer 
 with the readiness that was expected of them ; and conscription 
 frightened them. In the course of time, the Government was moved 
 to take steps looking to a general enlistment of colored troops all over 
 the lines into which the fugitives from labor had come. One com- 
 coioreo P an y in Hunter's command was gradually developed into a 
 troops. fl ne regiment and was known as the First South Carolina 
 Volunteers ; it was commanded by Colonel Thomas Wentworth Hig- 
 ginson. The men were well drilled and their evolutions were alto- 
 gether admirable. Congress having given the necessary authority, 
 the Secretary of War (August 25, 1862) instructed General Kufus 
 Saxton, in command at Port Royal, South Carolina, to enlist 5,000 
 colored troops. 
 
 But, although these experiments were not markedly successful, and 
 the forces then raised were not by any means formidable, the fact 
 that ex-slaves were being formed into bodies of fighting men threw 
 the Southern people into hysterics of rage and fright. The old bogy 
 of " a servile war " was brought into requisition, and the project of 
 enlisting colored men was declared to be a violation of the laws of 
 war. In Congress, those who secretly sympathized with the rebellion 
 professed vast indignation at the course of General Hunter and others 
 who speedily imitated his example. One of these sympathizers 
 
1862.] 
 
 ARMIXG THE EX-SLAVES. 
 
 515 
 
 
 " Quaker Gun " in the Confederate Fortifications at Centreville, V. 
 Drawn by Harry Fenn from a photograph taken in Slnrrh, 1862. 
 
 with rebellion, a Representative from Kentucky, introduced in the 
 House a resolution asking for information on the subject, which was 
 adopted. The Secretary of War referred the resolution to General 
 Hunter ; and Hunter, with due decorum and gravity, replied : " No 
 regiment of fugitive slaves has been or is being organized in this 
 department. There is, however, a fine regiment of persons whose late 
 masters are fugitive rebels men who everywhere fly before the 
 appearance of the National flag, leaving their servants behind them 
 to shift as best they can for themselves. ... In the absence of any 
 fugitive-master law, the deserted slaves would be wholly without rem- 
 edy, had not their crime of treason given the slaves the right to pur- 
 sue, capture, and bring back these persons of whose protection they 
 have been so suddenly bereft." The Confederate authorities, how- 
 ever, affected to take a more serious view of the matter. General 
 Lee, remonstrating with General Halleck, in behalf of the insurgents, 
 complained that " Major-General Hunter has armed slaves for the 
 murder of their masters, and has thus done all in his power to inaugu- 
 rate a servile war/' The Confederate authorities solemnly denounced 
 General Hunter and others engaged in the work of enlisting colored 
 troops, as outlaws and felons who, if captured, were to be executed as 
 robbers and criminals deserving death. This was in 1862. Two 
 years later, the Confederate Congress, with the otticial approval of 
 
510 
 
 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 Battery Number I in Front of Yorktown. 
 
 (At that time the heaviest battery in the world : 5 one-hundred-pounders, and 2 two-hundred-pound, 
 
 eight-inch, rifled guus.) 
 
 General Lee, passed a bill authorizing Jefferson Davis to " ask for 
 
 and accept from the owners of slaves the services of such number of 
 
 able-bodied negro men as he may deem expedient for and during the 
 
 war, to perform military duty in whatever capacity he may direct." 
 
 Early in March, 1862, it seemed that the long inactivity of the 
 
 Army of the Potomac was to come to an end. The Confed- 
 
 The Army * 
 
 of the erates foresaw this, and began to move away from the posi- 
 
 tions whence they had threatened the National capital. By 
 the 9th it was known that they were leaving Centreville and Manas- 
 sas. On the next day General McClellan started in that direction. 
 He thought it, he said, a good opportunity for his men to learn some- 
 thing of marching, and he took care not to move while there was 
 any danger of that exercise being interrupted. The infantry halted 
 at Centreville, but McClellan rode on to Manassas, and a body of 
 cavalry was pushed a few miles farther. They found that the Con- 
 federates were falling back rapidly, but in good order. 
 
 At Fairfax Court House McClellan and his four corps-command- 
 ers Sumner, McDowell, Heintzelman, and Keyes agreed upon a 
 plan of operations ; and on the 13th the President put forth an order 
 directing the mode of its execution : " First, leave such a force at 
 Manassas Junction as shall make it entirely certain that the enemy 
 shall not repossess himself of that position and line of communica- 
 tion. Second, leave Washington entirely secure. Third, move the 
 
1862.] 
 
 THE ARMY IN MOTION. 
 
 517 
 
 Battery Number 4 in Front of Yorktown. 
 
 remainder of the force down the Potomac, choosing a new base at 
 Fortress Monroe, or anywhere between here and there; or, at all 
 events, move such remainder of the army at once in pursuit of the 
 enemy, by some route." 
 
 On the 14th, McClellan issued an address to the army, in which 
 he said that the period of inaction had passed, and that he was now 
 about to lead to the battle-field " a real army, magnificent in mate- 
 rial, admirable in discipline and instruction, excellently equipped and 
 armed." This was intelligence which the country, discouraged by 
 the long delay, amused for so many months by the assurance that " all 
 is quiet along the Potomac," heard with gladness. There would have 
 been less satisfaction had it been then known that the direction of 
 the proposed movement was against the wishes and the judgment of 
 the President and the Secretary of War. The President's plan was 
 "to move directly to a point on the railroad southwest of Manassas," 
 as involving less expenditure of time and money, more likely to break 
 the enemy's line of communication and lead to success, and as insur- 
 ing an easier line of retreat in case of disaster. In deference, how- 
 ever, to General McClellan, who insisted upon moving upon Rich- 
 mond by going down the Chesapeake and up the Peninsula between 
 the York and James, Mr. Lincoln had ordered, about the middle of 
 February, a council of war, determined to abide by its decision. At 
 
THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. 
 
 [CHAP. XX 
 
 Servants at Headquarters, Army of the Potomac, May, I 862- 
 Drawn by Harry Fennfrom a photograph. 
 
 this council the two plans were carefully discussed, and although the 
 older generals the wiser and the better soldiers agreed with the 
 President and the Secretary of War, the younger men agreed with 
 their commanding general. It was a majority of numbers against 
 weight of judgment ; and Mr. Lincoln, unfortunately, permitted him- 
 self to be governed by the popular rule of decision by mere numbers. 
 
 McClellan's general plan was to capture Yorktown, where the Con- 
 federates had thrown up strong works, held by men under 
 General J. B. Magruder; thus to open the York River, as 
 West Point on that stream was to be the base of supply for his army 
 in its inarch toward Richmond ; for the more direct route, by way of 
 the James, was thought to be barred by the Merriment. Had he ascer- 
 tained how weak was the force in his front, he might easily have 
 marched up the Peninsula without even touching Yorktown. He did 
 indeed make a feeble movement in this direction ; but vastly over- 
 estimating the enemy, he determined to lay regular siege to York- 
 town. This cost a month. Herein lay the initial error in the cam- 
 paign. Richmond was at this time, and for four weeks and more 
 afterward, utterly without defence. 
 
 Much was to be done before the siege could even be begun. 
 Leagues of road were to be made through forest and swamp. Miles 
 of trenches were to be dug, redoubts raised, and batteries constructed. 
 All this time the army suffered more severely in health and condition 
 than it would have done in confronting the enemy in the field. But 
 at length on the 3d of May the engineering work was considered as 
 
1862.] 
 
 TWENTY-THREE THOUSAND MISSING MEN. 
 
 519 
 
 finished. Three days more were to be devoted to final arrangements, 
 and on the 6th fire was to be opened from every battery. McClellan's 
 attitude was actually one of defence. He was intrenched behind 
 extensive works, with nearly one hundred heavy pieces of artillery in 
 position. 
 
 In the mean time, however, Johnston had sent down the Confeder- 
 ate force from Manassas, arriving himself on the 17th of 
 April. He brought with him 35,000 men, raising his forces 
 to 53,000. McClellan's information was again at fault. Ten days 
 before Johnston's arrival he telegraphed to Washington: "Johnston 
 arrived at Yorktown yesterday with strong reinforcements. It seems 
 clear that I shall have on my hands the whole force of the enemy 
 not less than 100,000 men, possibly more. When my present com- 
 mand all joins me, I shall have about 85,000. With this army I 
 could assault the enemy's works, and perhaps carry them ; but were 
 I in possession of their intrenchments, and assaulted by double my 
 numbers, I should not fear the result." The President replied : 
 "When I telegraphed to you on the 6th, that you had more than 
 100,000 men, I had just obtained a statement, taken from your own 
 returns, making 108.000 with those going or on the way. You say 
 that you have but 85,000. Where are the other 23,000 ? " A month 
 
 Due de Chartres. Comte de Paris. Prince de Joinville. 
 
 THE FRENCH OFFICERS OF McCLELLAN'S STAFF AT YORKTOWN, MAY, 1862. 
 
520 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 before he had written, "There is a curious mystery about the num- 
 ber of troops now with you." It continued for some weeks longer. 
 As a matter of record it may be said that General McClellan's report, 
 signed by his own hand and dated April 13th, 1862, showed the fol- 
 lowing: "Number of troops composing the Army of the Potomac 
 after the disembarkation on the Peninsula : Aggregate present for 
 duty, 100,070 ; on special duty, sick, and in arrest, 4,205 ; aggregate 
 absent, 12.4<% : total aggregate, 117.721." l 
 
 Johnston had no idea of holding Yorktown. On the afternoon of 
 May 3d, a desultory but harmless fire was opened upon the 
 
 KrnniiiMon i " 
 
 advanced works of the Union army, lasting until midnight. 
 On the morning of the 4th, it was reported from the front 
 that there was a great fire in the town. General Heintzelman went 
 up in a balloon, from which he could overlook the Confederate lines. 
 Their camp-fires were nearly all out, and the guns at Yorktown were 
 gone. Johnston with his whole force had retired, taking with him 
 everything worth carrying away. McClellan telegraphed jubilantly 
 to "Washington: "We have the ramparts; have guns, ammunition, 
 camp equipage. We hold the entire lines of the enemy's works. I 
 have thrown all my cavalry and horse-artillery in pursuit. No time 
 shall be lost. I shall push the enemy to the wall." 
 
 The Confederates had a good start, and before the retreat was fairly 
 known their trains and artillery were well on the way to Richmond. 
 
 / * 
 
 General George Stoneman's cavalry followed them, and a little after 
 noon came in view of some works near Williamsburg. They halted 
 for the infantry to come up. Meanwhile General Joseph Hooker, of 
 Heintzelman's corps, had set out in pursuit, through a heavy rain, 
 which made the march slow and difficult; but he pressed on until 
 midnight, and then halted for rest. An hour after daybreak the next 
 morning they were in front of Fort Magruder, into which the Confed- 
 erates were driven. Hooker sent back word that he had the enemy 
 in a vise, and could hold him there until more men should come up. 
 But there was no actual commanding officer at Yorktown. McClellan 
 was doing quartermaster's duty in directing the movements of Frank- 
 lin's corps, which had arrived by water. 2 Heintzelman had been put 
 in charge of the movements in front ; but in the evening, General E. 
 
 1 It is difficult to see how, in the face of these official figures, General McClellan could 
 subsequently declare, as he did in his paper on the Peninsular campaign (Battles and Lend- 
 trs in the Civil War, Vol. ii. p. 171), that he had at that lime "only some 67,000 for battle " 
 available. 
 
 a Franklin's corps, sent to McClellan in response to his strenuous call for rei-nforcements, 
 had idly laiu in the transports in the river for two weeks. According to McClellan's 
 own official report, he had, on April 30th, an aggregate of 112,392 men present for duty. 
 Johnston left Yorktown with about 50,000 men. 
 

 
1862.] 
 
 THE CONFEDERATE RETREAT. 
 
 521 
 
 Exploded Gun in Confederate Battery at Yorktown. 
 Drawn by Harry Fcnnfrom a photograph. 
 
 V. Sumner came up, and although lie brought no troops with him, he 
 took the command by right of seniority. 
 
 The works near Williamsburg, on the line of retreat up the Penin- 
 sula, had been lightly held ; but Longstreet. who com- 
 manded the rear of the Confederate retreat, saw that the "imams- 
 
 burz. 
 
 pursuit must be held in check until the trains and artillery 
 were beyond reach. He turned back, and on the morning of the 4th 
 of May took the defensive." He was hotly assailed by Hooker, with 
 inferior numbers, hoping every hour to be reenforced. Sumner, mis- 
 understanding the position, sent Hancock in another direction, where 
 he gained a decided advantage over the enemy. Hooker kept up the 
 fight from daybreak until late in the afternoon, when his ammunition 
 began to fail. At this moment General Philip Kearny came up. 
 For six hours he had been struggling along a single miry road. He 
 outranked Hooker, who gladly yielded the command to him. Kearny 's 
 opportune arrival turned the wavering balance. The Confederates, 
 having gained their point, abandoned the field. Late in the day 
 McClellan came up, and " pushed the enemy to the wall," by orders 
 that the pursuit should not be resumed in the morning, as he had 
 
522 
 
 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 Panic in 
 Richmond. 
 
 other arrangements in mind. The cavalry picked up a few stragglers, 
 and four or five guns, which had stuck fast in the mud. The Federal 
 loss in the battle was 468 killed, 1,442 wounded, and 373 missing, of 
 whom more than two thirds were from Hooker's division. Hooker 
 complained bitterly of his division being left to fight an overwhelming 
 force, "unaided in the presence of more than 30,000 of their comrades 
 with arms in their hands." There seemed to be no responsible officer 
 at the head of affairs. The corps and division commanders were 
 apparently left to fight or retreat in their own way. The Confeder- 
 ate losses in this battle were 288 killed, 975 wounded, and 297 cap- 
 tured or missing. 
 
 When General McClellan came up and surveyed the field on which 
 the real horrors of war were depicted in sanguinary colors, he took 
 alarm at once, and telegraphed to Washington : " I find General Joe 
 Johnston in front of me in strong force, probably greater a good deal 
 than my own." But Johnston, with his 50,000 men or less, was 
 rapidly falling back on Richmond. The Confederate capital was 
 about fifty miles distant. The march of the Union army 
 was very slow ; beginning on the 8th of May, the advance 
 did not reach the Chickahominy until the 20th. During this month 
 stirring events had occurred. New Orleans had been captured by 
 Farragut, Norfolk had been surrendered, and the Merrimae^ " the iron 
 diadem of the South, worth 50,000 men," had been blown up. From 
 the moment when it was known that the Federal army had landed 
 on the Peninsula, dismay had reigned at Richmond. The Confed- 
 erate Congress adjourned on the 21st of April, and the government 
 archives were sent to Lynchburg and to South Carolina. All places 
 of business were ordered to be closed 
 at two o'clock in the afternoon, and 
 all able-bodied men were ordered to 
 drill for four hours daily. 
 
 But the condition of Richmond 
 was not so desperate as it seemed. 
 In three or four days Johnston ar- 
 rived from Yorktown, bringing with 
 him 47,000 men. The Merrimac 
 had been blown up on the llth of 
 May ; but the Federal gunboats, 
 among which was the Monitor, in 
 attempting to ascend the James, 
 were checked at Fort Darling, eight 
 miles below the city, and could go 
 
 nO farther. Their guns COuld not Major-General Philip Kearny. 
 
1862.] 
 
 ON THE CHICKAHOMINY. 
 
 523 
 
 reach the fortified heights above them. Huger had come up from 
 Norfolk with 7,000 men, and Branch and Anderson were coining 
 down from the Rappahannock with 13,000 more. So that when, near 
 the end of May, McClellan reached the Chickahominy with ThP rhi<-k- 
 about 135,000 men, the Confederate force at Richmond num- ahomi - v - 
 bered 67,000. The real defence of Richmond at this time was the 
 
 Chickahominy, which rises in 
 
 */ 
 
 swampy uplands northwest of 
 Richmond, flows southward for 
 fifty miles, parallel with and 
 
 Panic in Richmond. 
 
 nearly midway between the James and the York, and empties into the 
 James. Below Richmond its course from six to ten miles is little 
 more than a brook. In dry summer seasons the channel is only a few 
 yards broad, and hardly four feet deep ; but a continuous rain-fall, or 
 a sudden shower, floods the swamp and bottom-land. This season had 
 been an unusually wet one ; the low lands were flooded, so as to be 
 impassable for cavalry or artillery, though infantry, if unopposed, 
 might have picked their way across at one point or another. Thus 
 the narrow Chickahominy, with its bordering swamps, was more for- 
 midable as a military obstacle than a broad river would have been, 
 over which pontoon bridges could be thrown. McClellan's army had 
 
524 
 
 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 The White 
 House. 
 
 Lieutenant-General Thomas J. (" Stonewall ") 
 Jackson, C. S. A. 
 
 now been organized into five corps: 
 the old corps of Sumner, 
 Heintzelman, and Keyes; a 
 new one under Fits-John Porter ; and 
 the fifth was Franklin's, which had 
 arrived on the day of the Confeder- 
 ate abandonment of York town. The 
 base of supply was for the present 
 established at West Point, or rather 
 at the White House, five miles up 
 the Pamunkey. 
 
 On the 20th of May the advance 
 of the Federal army reached the 
 Chickahominy at Bottom's Bridge, 
 which had been partly destroyed, but 
 the abutments remained, and in a few 
 
 days the bridge was restored. Keyes's corps, and a part of that of 
 Mccieiian-g Heintzelman, 30,000 men in all, were sent over, and their 
 positions. advanced posts on the west side were within half a dozen 
 miles of Richmond. They met with no opposition, for Johnston's force 
 was some miles farther up, watching points which it was expected 
 would be attacked. As McClellan's other divisions came up, they 
 were posted for a distance of some fifteen miles along the east side of 
 the Chickahominy. The army was thus practically divided into two 
 parts. Between them lay the Chickahominy, with its flooded swamps. 
 The entire position was in shape somewhat like the letter V, only the 
 right arm was two or three times longer than the other. This was a 
 grave military error, which was nowhere better set forth than by Mc- 
 Clellan himself, not long after. He said : " The only available means 
 of uniting our forces at Fair Oaks for an advance upon Richmond was 
 to march the troops from points on the left bank of the Chickahominy 
 down to Bottom's Bridge, and thence over the Williamsburg road to 
 a position near Fair Oaks, a distance of about twenty-three miles. In 
 the condition of the roads at that time this march could not be made 
 with artillery in less than two days." 
 
 McClellan had all along urged that McDowell's corps should be 
 sent to him on the Peninsula. On the morning of the 24th 
 
 Jackson n . , _ , . i i i 
 
 the shenan- of May a despatcli announced that this corps would soon be 
 with him ; but in the afternoon another despatch informed 
 him that the execution of the order to McDowell had been suspended. 
 The reason for this sudden change is to be found in the bold and 
 skilful operations of "Stonewall " Jackson in the great valley of the 
 Shenandoah. This remarkable Confederate officer was a graduate 
 
1862.] ALARM IN WASHINGTON. 525 
 
 Major-General Samuel P. Heintzelman. Mijor-General Erasmus D. Keyes. 
 
 of the United States Military Academy, in morals a purist, in reli- 
 gion a fanatical zealot, and in military strategy a scientific expert. 
 It is not certain that he would have been successful as commander of 
 a great army. But as chief of an army corps he was a tremendous 
 power. His courage was like adamant ; he knew no fear. It was 
 said that his opinion was that the South should take no prisoners 
 alive. When Johnston moved towards Yorktown, Jackson had been 
 left behind in the Shenandoah valley with about 6,000 men, and 
 Ewell with as many more on the Rappahannock, their forces being 
 soon after united. By the 23d of May, Jackson had driven the Fed- 
 eral forces from the valley, and was supposed to be marching upon 
 Washington. On the 25th the Secretary of War telegraphed to the 
 Governors of the Northern States : " Intelligence from various quar- 
 ters leaves no doubt that the enemy in great force are inarching upon 
 Washington. You will please organize and forward immediately all 
 the militia and volunteer forces in your State ; " and on the same 
 day the President took possession of the railroads, to be used for 
 transmitting troops and munitions of war. General McDowell, with 
 40,000 men, and Fremont with 20,000, were sent by different routes 
 against Jackson, who had barely 16,000. By rapid marches he eluded 
 both for a while ; but on the 8th of June the Federals and the Con- 
 federates came within sight of each other at Port Republic, a little 
 hamlet near the junction of the north and south forks of the Shenan- 
 doah. Here ensued a desultory engagement, known as the battle of 
 the Cross Keys. Both sides claimed this as a victory ; but the real 
 advantage lay with Jackson, who gained his object of escaping across 
 the South Fork of the Shenandoah. He remained there for a fort- 
 night, when he was summoned to the Chickahominy. 
 
 
526 
 
 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 The Pres- 
 ident and 
 McClellan 
 differ. 
 
 To the order depriving him of McDowell's corps, McClellan mainly 
 ascribes the disastrous result of his campaign. The Presi- 
 dent explained in reply that General N. P. Banks had been 
 driven to Winchester, and from Winchester to Martinsburg; 
 that the advance of the enemy seemed a general one, and not as " if 
 he was acting upon the purpose of a very desperate defence of Rich- 
 mond." He adds : " I think the time is near when yon must either 
 attack Richmond or give up the job and come to the defence of 
 Washington." However willing the rebels might be to exchange 
 Richmond for Washington, Mr. Lincoln was not disposed to take that 
 risk by leaving the capital defenceless for the sake of reenforcing the 
 army in the swamps of the Chickahominy. 
 
 One or two gleams of apparent success preluded the dark days to 
 come. Intelligence was received that a considerable force 
 of the enemy were near Hanover Court House, a few miles 
 to the northeast of McClellan. "s right, and partly in his rear, 
 " in a position," he said, " either to reenforce Jackson or to impede 
 McDowell's junction, should he finally move to join us." It was sup- 
 posed that this force had been sent from Richmond, whereas it really 
 consisted of L. O'B. Branch's North Carolinians, who had just been 
 ordered to Virginia after their defeat by Burnside at Newbern. Fitz- 
 John Porter was sent against them. On the 27th he found them well 
 
 Battle of 
 Hanover 
 Court 
 House 
 
 Robertson's Battery near Fair Oaks, Va., in June, 1862. 
 Drawn by Guftav Verbetkfrom a photograph. 
 
186-2.] A SUCCESSION OF FIGHTS. 527 
 
 Battle-field of Seven Pines. 
 
 posted near the Court House. They were driven from the field ; but 
 most of them made their way to Richmond. The results, as given by 
 McClellan, were, " Some 200 of the enemy's dead buried by our troops, 
 730 prisoners sent to the rear. Our loss amounted to 53 killed, 344 
 wounded and missing." Fitz-John Porter, on this occasion, handled 
 his troops with great skill and spirit. 
 
 Johnston the wariest, and some think the ablest, of the Confed- 
 erate generals could not fail to perceive the faulty disprtsi- nattle o{ 
 tion which McClellan had made of his army. The left Se pin <*- 
 wing, across the Chickahominy, apparently invited attack. Johnston 
 thought only Keyes's corps was over, whereas a part of Heintzelman's 
 was there, making the whole number not less than 30.000. Upon 
 this the Confederate general undertook to throw in his whole dispos- 
 able force, consisting of the divisions of Huger, Longstreet, D. H. 
 Hill, and G. W. Smith, numbering in all nearly 50.000. Longstreet 
 and Hill were to attack in front, Huger on the Federal left, and 
 Smith on their right. But Huger lost his way, and did not come up, 
 so that the actual attacking force was something less than 40,000. 
 The attack was to be made on the 31st of May. On the preceding 
 afternoon a furious storm set in, which retarded the movements. 
 
 The attack was to be made at daybreak ; but it was eight o'clock 
 before Longstreet and Hill were in position on the front. They 
 waited until a little past noon for Huger to strike upon the Federal 
 left. He did not come, and Longstreet opened the fight. The bulk 
 of Keyes's corps was slightly intrenched at Seven Pines, on the Wil- 
 liamsburg road, half way between the Chickahominy and Richmond. 
 Casey's division had been pushed a mile farther ; but he was soon 
 

 528 
 
 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 Flying Artillery Benson's Battery, 2d U. S. Mounted Artillery near Fair Oaks, June, 1862. 
 Dratrn by G, W. Peters from a photograph. 
 
 forced back to Seven Pines, where the fighting was hot for two 
 hours, when Casey's troops gave way, and fell back in some disorder. 
 Couch's division took a road to the right, where it soon found itself 
 engaged in the quite separate battle of Fair Oaks. At dusk Heintzel- 
 man and Keyes, with mere fragments of regiments, formed a new line. 
 This poured in so hot a fire tlmt the Confederates recoiled. The Fed- 
 eral troops then fell back a mile or two, and both armies lay upon 
 their arms. The battle of Seven Pines, although indecisive, had 
 been in favor of the enemy, Longstreet and Hill having forced back 
 the Federal left and centre. If things had gone as well with Smith 
 on the Confederate right, a complete victory might be expected the 
 next day. Johnston had taken his place with Smith's division, in 
 order, as he savs, " that I might be on a part of the field where I 
 could observe and be ready to meet any counter movement which the 
 enemy might make against our centre and left. Owing to some 
 peculiar condition of the atmosphere, the sound of the musketry did 
 not reach us. I consequently deferred giving the signal for General 
 Smith to attack until four o'clock." By this time an unexpected 
 Federal force had come upon that part of the field. 
 
 The noise of the opening action at the Seven Pines, inaudible to 
 Hattieof Johnston, four miles away, was heard at McClellan's head- 
 Fair u ; ,k-. q lU4r ters on the other side of the Chickahominy, eight or ten 
 miles distant in a straight line. McClellan was ill, but he ordered 
 
18G2.] 
 
 FAIR OAKS. 
 
 529 
 
 Sumner, who had constructed two shaky bridges over the stream, to 
 hold himself in readiness to cross. Sumner was more than ready to 
 
 * 
 
 obey. The water had begun to rise, and the approaches to the 
 bridges were like floating rafts. Sumner, with a single division, that 
 of Sedgwick, crossed, and guided by the noise of the firing marched 
 toward the battle-field. At Fair Oaks Station on the railroad, lie 
 met Couch, who said that in falling back from the Seven Pines his 
 division became separated from the rest of the corps, and that he was 
 in momentary expectation of being attacked. Before Sumner could 
 bring his troops into line, the enemy attacked. The action lasted 
 two or three hours. " The strength of the enemy's position," says 
 Johnston, " enabled him to hold it until dark/' Sumner then ordered 
 a charge, by which the assailants were driven back, and both armies 
 bivouacked on the field so close to each other that their sentinels 
 were within speaking distance. 
 
 The battle of Seven Pines had gone in favor of the Confederates ; 
 that of Fair Oaks in favor of the Union forces ; yet neither was 
 decisive. All depended on what should be done the next day. Just 
 
 Field Hospital at Savage's Station after the Battle of June 27, I 862. 
 Drawn by t~. C. Hnnsnm from a 
 
 VOL. IV. 
 
530 
 
 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 at sunset Johnston was struck by the fragment of a shell, and was 
 borne away, it was thought fatally wounded. The command devolved 
 upon G. W. Smith, by right of seniority. After the action was over, 
 Richardson's division of Sumner's corps came up, and was posted so 
 that it could take part in the expected fight of the next day. In the 
 morning Smith found that Longstreet at the Seven Pines was in no 
 condition to renew the battle in that quarter ; but it was resumed at 
 Fair Oaks, where Suraner had been fm % ther strengthened by Hooker's 
 division of Heintzelman's corps. In an hour all was over, and the 
 entire Confederate force fell back in disorder to Richmond. About 
 noon McClellan came over. He was quite satisfied with what had 
 been achieved, and had no special orders to give. In the judgment of 
 all his corps-commanders, if the pursuit had been pressed, Richmond 
 would have fall- 
 en. The Fed- 
 eral losses in 
 this double bat- 
 tle are officially 
 given as 890 
 killed, 3,627 
 wounded, and 
 1,222 missing, 
 5,732 in all. 
 The Confeder- 
 ate loss was 980 
 killed, 4,749 
 wounded, 405 
 missing, 6,134 
 all told. Smith's 
 command of the 
 Confederate ar- 
 my lasted only 
 three days. He 
 had, it is said, 
 a slight para- 
 lytic stroke, and 
 the command 
 was given to 
 General Robert 
 E. Lee. 
 
 After the bat- 
 tle of Fair Oaks 
 McClellan occu- 
 
 Lowe's Military Balloon at Gaines's Mill, Va, 
 
 (Many ascensions were made in this balloon just before the battle of 
 
 Gaines's Mill for purposes of observation.) 
 Drawn by Gustav Veror.ek from a photograph. 
 
18C2.] 
 
 McCLELLAN'S DELAYS. 
 
 531 
 
 
 
 '*' 
 
 . 
 
 y-^ * ,, i , ,' 
 
 ment8 - 
 
 Inflating the Balloon at Gaines's Mill. 
 Drawn by Gustav Verbeckfrom a photograph. 
 
 pied himself for nearly a month in building bridges across the Chick- 
 ahominy. There were eleven of them ; but only eight ap- Bridge . 
 pear to have been necessary. For a week after the battle of buildin s- 
 Fair Oaks, the general complained of the weather. The river rose 
 and flooded the entire bottom, and the country was impassable for 
 artillery and cavalry except upon the narrow roads. No movement, 
 he said, was possible against the enemy, and he asked that detachments 
 should be sent him from Halleck's army. But Halleck's army in the 
 Mississippi Valley had gained signal successes, and was now 
 engaged in operations which rendered it unadvisable that it 
 should be weakened. McDowell's corps, or at least McCall's division 
 of it, had been again promised to McClellan. He had apparently 
 been satisfied with this, for on the 7th of June he wrote : " I shall be 
 in perfect readiness to move forward and take Richmond the moment 
 McCall reaches here, and the ground will admit the passage of artil- 
 lery." McCall's division, 10,000 strong, arrived on the 12th ; about 
 the same time several regiments, numbering 5,000 men, had been 
 sent up from Fortress Monroe, raising the force under McClellan's 
 immediate command to the highest point which it reached during this 
 campaign. The returns for June 14 showed 158,838 men, of whom 
 115,152 were present for duty. 
 
 On the 13th of June headquarters were moved across the Chicka- 
 
532 
 
 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 hominy. On 
 that day the 
 Confederate 
 cavalryman, 
 General J. E. 
 B. Stuart, with 
 1,500 cavalry, 
 set out upon a 
 bold raid clear 
 around the Fed- 
 eral lines. He 
 crossed the 
 Chickahominy 
 some distance 
 
 Battle-field of Malvern Hill. 
 
 
 above McClellan's extreme right, then, turning southeastward!}*, he 
 dashed to the White House, destroying some depots of provisions, and 
 recrossed the Chickahominy some miles below the extreme Federal 
 left. He brought with him one hundred and sixty-five prisoners and 
 twice as many horses, having lost only one man. This reconnoitering 
 expedition did not appear to disturb McClellan. 
 
 The corps of Heintzelman, Keyes, and Sumner were already across 
 Fini prepa- * ne Chickahominy ; that of Franklin was soon brought over, 
 rations. leaving only Porter's corps and McCall's division on the 
 north side. On the 18th of June McClellan telegraphed to the Pres- 
 dent : " Our army is well over the Chickahominy. The rebel lines 
 run within musket range of ours. A general engagement may take 
 place at any hour. After to-morrow we shall fight the rebel army as 
 soon as Providence permits. We shall await only a favorable condi- 
 tion of earth and sky, and the completion of some necessary prelim- 
 inaries." Another week passed, marked mainly by occasional picket- 
 firing. On the 25th, he said, " the bridges and intrenchments being 
 completed, an advance of our picket line on the left was ordered, 
 preparatory to a general advance movement," the object being to 
 ascertain the nature of a belt of swampy ground a mile beyond the 
 Seven Pines. The movement was opposed, and there was a desultory 
 conflict, lasting from eight o'clock in the morning till five in the 
 afternoon. The insurgents called this the battle of King's School 
 House. Each side lost five or six hundred men. McClellan says 
 this " was not a battle, but merely an affair of Heintzelman's corps, 
 supported by Keyes, with some aid from Sumner." At five o'clock 
 he telegraphed to Washington : " The affair is now over, and we have 
 gained our point. All is now quiet." 
 
 Within less than two hours he put upon the wires quite a different 
 
1862.] THE SEVEN DAYS' FIGHTING. 533 
 
 despatch. Jackson's advance, he said, was at Hanover Court House ; 
 Beauregard was at Richmond ; a force of 200,000 men was M cciiun- 
 opposed to him, and he would probably be attacked the next t ' ars " 
 day, and should have to contend against vastly superior numbers. He 
 would do all he could, but if his army was destroyed, he could at least 
 die with it, and share its fate. There was no use of asking for further 
 reinforcements. If the result should be disaster, the responsibility 
 could not be thrown upon his shoulders. There was not in all this 
 that entire accuracy to be looked for in affairs of great importance at 
 decisive moments from officers in posts of great responsibility. Beau- 
 regard was, in fact, hundreds of leagues away in Alabama, and had 
 been removed from his command in the Mississippi region. This only 
 was true, that Jackson was not very far from Hanover Court House, 
 and McClellan was to be attacked the next day. But there was no 
 overwhelming force against him. The numbers on each side were 
 about equal, neither varying much from 100,000 men ; the National 
 force being reported at 105,000, the Confederate at 80.000 to 00,000. 
 Thursday, June 26th, had been fixed upon by both Lee and 
 McClellan for a decided offensive movement. Lee took the 
 initiative. According to his plan, Magruder and Huger ever nam 
 were to remain in front of Richmond, and Holmes at Fort 
 Darling, on the James, ready to cross the river when ordered. On 
 this side of the Chickahominy were about 33,000 men, besides cavalry. 
 On that side McClellan had fully 70,000. The divisions of A. P. 
 Hill, Longstreet, and D. H. Hill, 34,000 in all, were to cross the Chick- 
 ahominy above the Federal right, unite with Jackson, and then, about 
 60,000 strong, to press down upon Porter, whose corps, with McCall's 
 division, numbered 30,000, besides cavalry. Longstreet and the 
 Hills began their march during the night of the 25th. Early the 
 next morning they reached the river and waited until afternoon for 
 the coming of Jackson, whose march had been delayed. At four 
 o'clock A. P. Hill crossed and attacked the extreme right of the 
 Federal army, thus beginning the actual fighting of the historic 
 Seven Days. 1 The Federal position, held by two brigades of McCall's 
 division of 6,000 men, was a strong one. In front WHS Beaver Dam 
 Creek, five or six yards wide, and four feet deep, with steep banks, 
 beyond which was an open field that the assailants must cross under 
 the fire of the Federal artillery. The attack made by the two Hills 
 was with about 12,000 men. They were repulsed at nightfall, and 
 
 1 The actions during this periixl have been variously designated. That of the 26th has 
 been styled the battle of Beaver Creek Dam, or of Mechanicsville ; that of the 27th, the 
 hattle of Cold Harbor, Giiines's Mill, or the Chickahoiuiuy ; that of the 30th, the battle 
 of Frazier's Farm, or of Charles City Court House. 
 
534 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 withdrew, having lost about 1,500 men, the loss on the other side 
 being not more than 300. This position was held merely to check 
 the advance of the enemy, and during the night McCall was with- 
 drawn to join Porter in his position at Cold Harbor, five miles below. 
 
 Early the next morning, D. H. Hill bore a little northward to unite 
 Battle of \vit\i Jackson, under whose command his division remained 
 cold H.rbor for the rest of ^ campaign. A. P. Hill and Longstreet 
 moved down the bank of the Chickahominy. Their advance was 
 slow, for they might come at any moment upon the Federal troops. 
 At noon, Hill, who was in the advance, reached Gaines's Mill, where 
 a slight skirmish ensued. A little beyond the Federal force was 
 drawn up on the opposite side of a shallow creek, in front of which 
 was a swampy plain a quarter of a mile broad, bordered by a tangled 
 undergrowth. Porter's line was drawn tip semi-circularly, so as to 
 cover the bridge across the Chickahominy. 
 
 At half-past two Hill began the attack. His brigades dashed across 
 the plain, floundered through the swamp, and pressed up the opposite 
 Hiirs re- slope, under a fierce fire of artillery and musketry. For 
 pulse ' two hours the contest was obstinate; then the Confederate 
 
 troops gave way, and fell back in apparent rout. Longstreet was 
 now ordered to support Hill, by making a feint on the left; but he 
 found it necessary to bring on his whole force, and make a 
 rea l attack. At this moment Jackson's command came 
 * on ' down, and Lee ordered a general advance along the whole 
 
 line. It was now past four o'clock. Two hours before this Porter 
 had sent over to AlcClellan for aid. McClellan, foreseeing the prob- 
 able necessity of this, had ordered earl}' in the morning a part of 
 Franklin's corps to cross, and had soon sifter countermanded the 
 order. But they were now directed anew to cross, and came upon 
 the field 8,000 strong, soon after the general attack had begun. Still 
 the Confederates had nearly three to two, their whole force, with the 
 exception of a single brigade, 1,400 strong, kept in reserve, being 
 hotly engaged. An hour before sunset the great preponderance of the 
 assailants had enabled them, though at a fearful cost, to pass the 
 swamp and thus place themselves upon equal ground. The Federal 
 line was severely pressed, and began to give way at every point. It 
 was not yet a rout, though fast threatening to become one. The core 
 of every division was still solid, but fragments were breaking off. 
 All, whether soldiers or fugitives, were pressing towards the bridge. 
 Just at dusk the Federal brigades of French and Meagher appeared 
 from the other side. Dashing up to the crest of the bluff, they 
 moved straight upon the Federal rear, now to become the front. 
 Those who had been retreating faced round, and a firm line was 
 
18G2.] 
 
 THE BATTLE OF GAIXES'S MILLS. 
 
 535 
 
 formed. The Confederates paused in the pursuit, gave a few volleys, 
 and fell back, as darkness was setting in. 
 
 When morning broke, the Union forces were safely across the 
 Cliickahominy. Their loss in killed and wounded was about 
 4,000, besides some 2,000 prisoners, consisting mainly of 
 three rfgiments, who had been cut off during the Confederate rush. 
 They also lost twenty-two guns. The enemy, attacking under a 
 heavy fire, suffered far more severely. Their loss in killed and 
 wounded was about 9,500. 
 
 While this battle was in progress McClellan had fully 70,000 men 
 on his side of the Chiekahominy. Between him and Rich- 
 mond were only linger and Magruder. with barely 25,000 ciuckahom- 
 men. But this force was so handled that even Suinner and 
 Franklin thought that it was as much as they could do to hold their 
 positions. The ground in front of them was cut up by ridges, 
 
 wooded swamps, 
 and ravines, which 
 shut out all sight of 
 what was passing a 
 few hundred yards 
 
 / 
 
 awav. A body of 
 
 - V 
 
 the enemy appear- 
 ing at any point 
 might be a single 
 regiment, or the 
 head of a division. 
 The Confederates 
 showed themselves 
 at one point and 
 soon after at an- 
 other, thus appar- 
 ently doubling or 
 
 The White Houie. near Yorktown, McClellan's Base of Supply. trebling their real 
 
 numbers. It was 
 
 Magruder's role to rattle around in front of the Union forces, bewil- 
 dering them so that McClellan might think his enemy four times as 
 numerous as he was. The ruse was successful. There was, however, 
 no real fighting on that side of the river until about sunset, when 
 General " Bob" Toombs undertook, with two regiments, to drive in a 
 Federal picket station. In that action Toombs lost nearly 200 men 
 from his 650. 
 
 The results of this fight, known as the battle of Gaines's Mill, filled 
 McClellan with consternation. He imagined that the annihilation 
 
536 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 of his army was imminent; he prepared an order for the destruction 
 of military baggage, and, according to some authorities, actually con- 
 templated the capitulation of the Army of the Potomac. 1 Towards 
 midnight McClellan held a council of war. It was decided 
 
 Mcflellnn to 
 
 the swr."- to make a "change of base, by abandoning the Chicka- 
 
 tary of War. . ' . 
 
 hominy and retreating to the James. He then wrote a 
 bitter letter to the Secretary of War. He now knew, he said, the 
 whole history of the day. On the left bank of the Chickahominy 
 his men had done all that men could do, but they had been repulsed 
 by vastly superior numbers. On the right bank lie had repulsed 
 several strong attacks. If he had 20,000 or even 10,000 more fresh 
 troops he could take Richmond to-morrow ; but he had not a man in 
 reserve, and he should be glad to retreat and save the men and mate- 
 rial. He asserted that the government had not sustained the army, 
 and if this were not done at once, " the game was lost." " If I save 
 this army now," he concluded, " I tell you plainly, that I owe no 
 thanks to you or to any other person in Washington. You have 
 done your best to sacrifice this army." To this the patient President 
 replied : " Save your army at all events ; you are ungenerous in assum- 
 ing that reinforcements have not been sent as fast as possible. Your 
 repulse is the price we pay for the safety of Washington." The 
 impulsive Secretary, if left to himself, would hardly have been so 
 forbearing. 
 
 If Richmond could only be taken by a long siege, the James was 
 Peril of * ne Des t position. But it must have fallen in a few hours 
 Richmond. ha( j McClellan made a direct assault upon the 28th. To 
 defend the long line of works there were only Magruderand Huger, 
 with about 25,000 men. Lee, with less than 50,000, after his losses, 
 was on the other side of the Chickahominy, and could not make the 
 march back by the way he had come in less than two days. Right 
 between the two Confederate bodies was McClellan's whole force, 
 fully 95,000 strong after all its losses. A force of 25,000 men could 
 have prevented any passage of the river by Lee, and 70,000 could 
 have been hurled in a body upon the Confederate capital. Magruder 
 was fully aware of the peril of the situation. He says: "Had 
 McClellan massed his whole force in column and advanced it against 
 any point of our line of battle, though the head of the column would 
 have suffered greatly, its momentum would have insured him suc- 
 cess, and the occupation of our works about Richmond, and conse- 
 quently of the city, might have been his reward." Richmond lost, it 
 is not easy to conceive how the Confederate army could have failed 
 to go to pieces, for Lee had marched out with rations for not more 
 
 1 See memorandum of Secretary Chase, Sliuckers's Life nf S. P. Chase, p. 447. 
 
1862.] 
 
 RICHMOND WAS NOT TAKEN. 
 
 537 
 
 Military Bridge across the Chickahominy. 
 
 than four days, and within a hundred miles of him there was not, out 
 of Richmond, food enough for a week's supply for his army. Rich- 
 mond was not taken, but why, nobody appeared to be competent to 
 answer. 
 
 Keyes moved first and took up a position on White Oak Creek, so 
 as to protect the passage of the trains, guarded by Franklin's ^^ge-., 
 and Porter's corps. Heintzelman and Stunner, who lay near- statlon - 
 est Richmond, came down to Savage's Station, destroyed such stores 
 as could not be taken away, and then moved on toward Malvern Hill. 
 They were followed by Magruder, with two or three brigades. An 
 attack was made upon Sumner, Magruder losing about 400 men, the 
 Union general about 600. At midnight Sumner abandoned this 
 point, leaving behind him 2,500 sick and wounded in the hospital. 
 
 Early in the morning of that day Lee had become assured that 
 McClellan's entire army was retreating to the James. He ^.g 
 resolved upon a bold but hazardous movement. Jackson strate ey- 
 was to cross the Chickahominy by the New Bridge, which Magruder 
 had already repaired, and fall upon the rear of the retreating army. 
 Longstreet and A. P. Hill were to cross by Simmer's (irapevine 
 Bridge, make a long detour almost to Richmond, and then, joined by 
 Magruder, Huger, and Holmes, fall upon the flank. It was esti- 
 mated that 70,000 men were available for this combined movement. 
 It failed mainly because only A. P. Hill and Longstreet performed 
 
538 
 
 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 
 
 the part assigned to them. Jackson crossed the Chickahominy on 
 the morning of the 30th, and at noon came up with the rear of the 
 Federal force at White Oak Creek. The bridge had been destroyed, 
 and all the approaches were covered by artillery. His men could 
 not be brought to face the fierce fire to which they were exposed, 
 and all that afternoon he was compelled to listen idly to the noise of 
 the battle at Frazier's Farm, hardly two miles distant. Holmes had 
 crossed from Fort Darling, on the James, and early in the morning 
 came in sight of the head of the retreating Federal column. A few 
 rounds of artillery and a few shells from the gunboats in the James 
 scattered his raw troops. This was the only part which they took in 
 the operations of the Seven Days. 
 
 Longstreet and Hill crossed the Chickahominy on the morning of 
 the 29th, and at night encamped near the head of the White 
 Oak Swamp. They had made a forced march under the 
 hot midsummer sun, and many of their men dropped from 
 sheer exhaustion. Resuming their march in the morning, at noon of 
 the 30 th they came close upon the centre of the Federal column, the 
 head of which had already reached Malvern Hill, the rear being in 
 the White Oak Swamp. The Confederate generals waited three 
 hours for the arrival of Huger, who did not come up at all, having lost 
 his way, as he had done at the Seven Pines. At four o'clock in the 
 afternoon, the onset was begun by Longstreet, Hill soon following. 
 The fight lasted un- 
 til dark, but owing 
 to the nature of the 
 region it was a se- 
 ries of combats be- 
 tween brigades, 
 rather than a regu- 
 lar battle, yet ra- 
 ging almost contin- 
 uously along the 
 whole line, each side 
 alternately gaining 
 and losing ground. 
 Of few battles are 
 the accounts given 
 by the various trust- 
 worthy actors so dis- 
 cordant. Sumner 
 says : " After a furi- 
 
 ous Contest, lasting Hanover Court Houie. 
 
 
 
 
 
1862.] RETREAT TO MALVERN HILL. 
 
 until dark, the enemy was routed at all points and driven from the 
 field." But there was no rout, and the Confederates at the close re- 
 mained in possession of the field. A. P. Hill gives a clearer account. 
 He says : " On our extreme right matters seemed to be going badly. 
 Two brigades of Longstreet's division had been roughly handled, and 
 fallen back. Archer was sent in, and affairs were soon restored in 
 that quarter. About dark the enemy were pressing us hard along our 
 whole line, and my last reserve was directed to advance cautiously. 
 Heavy reserves of the enemy were brought up, and it seemed that a 
 tremendous effort was made to turn the fortunes of the battle. The 
 volume of fire that, on approaching, rolled along the whole line, was 
 terrific. Seeing some troops of Wilcox's brigade, who had rallied, 
 they were rapidly re-formed, and being directed to cheer long and 
 loudly, they moved again to the fight. This seemed to end the con- 
 test, for in less than five minutes all firing ceased, and the enemy 
 retired." 
 
 As soon as it was clear that there would be no more fighting, the 
 Federal troops resumed their march, and in the morning the 
 
 r e Result?. 
 
 last of them arrived at Malveru Hill. The Confederates 
 remained upon the battle-field, and so won a formal victory. But 
 the divisions of Longstreet and Hill were so shattered and exhausted 
 that they were not called upon to take part in the great battle of the 
 next day. Hill had marched from Richmond four days before with 
 14,000 men ; here and at Beaver Dam and Cold Harbor he lost 3,780 
 killed and wounded. Longstreet had marched with 10,000 ; here and 
 at Cold Harbor he lost 4,182 killed and wounded, and nearly 300 miss- 
 ing. The losses are not given separately for each action. At Frazier's 
 Farm the loss of the Confederates was about 2,000 killed and wounded. 
 The Federal loss was about 1,800 killed and wounded, besides 30 pris- 
 oners and 20 guns, captured at the beginning of the action. 
 
 Malvern Hill is an elevated plateau, sixty feet high, a mile and a 
 half long and half as broad. Along the front are ravines 
 
 & Battle of 
 
 passable only where they are crossed by roads. As the Mairem 
 troops came up, they were assigned positions by General 
 Barnard, the chief engineer ; for McClellan had gone to select a posi- 
 tion upon the river to which the army might continue its retreat. 
 Sumner, by seniority of rank, was left in command, without having 
 been formally invested with it, or receiving instructions. The entire 
 force was nearly 90,000. Both flanks rested upon the James, and 
 were protected by gunboats. On the crest of the hill were seven 
 heavy siege guns, and the remainder of the artillery were so posted 
 that the fire of sixty pieces might be concentrated upon any point 
 from which the enemy could approach. 
 
540 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 Jackson moved on as soon as the Federal position on White Oak 
 Creek was abandoned. His command had suffered severely at Cold 
 Harbor, and now, including 1). H. Hill's division, it could not have 
 numbered more than 30,000. Hill's advance brought him at nine 
 o'clock in front of the Federal line. " Tier after tier of batteries," 
 he says, " were grimly visible on the plateau, rising in the form of 
 an amphitheatre. We could reach the first line of batteries only by 
 traversing an open space of three or four hundred yards, exposed to a 
 murderous fire of grape from the artillery, and of musketry from the 
 infantry. If that was carried, another and another still more formi- 
 dable, remained in the rear." He thought an attack would be hazard- 
 ous, and urged Lee not to make the attempt. But Lee was not ready 
 to abandon his elaborately conceived plan, although lie could not 
 bring many more than 50,000 men to its execution, and Jackson was 
 ordered to begin the assault. At ten o'clock Hill advanced Ander- 
 son's brigade so that it came within reach of the Federal artillery. 
 4i This brigade," he says, " was roughly handled : the division was 
 halted, and the Union position was reconnoitered." 
 
 Magruder, in command of his own division, and virtually of that of 
 Huger, came up. Upon him the real work of attack was to fall, prep- 
 arations for which were completed at four o'clock in the afternoon. 
 Lee wrote to each of his division commanders: "Batteries have been 
 established to act upon the enemy's lines. If they are broken, as is 
 probable, Armistead, who can witness the effect of the fire, has been 
 ordered to charge with a yell. Do you the same." Each of these 
 forty words cost him a hundred men. Fire was opened by the Con- 
 federate batteries at six o'clock, and the real battle of the day began. 
 
 Hill says that " Instead of one or two hundred pieces, only a single 
 battery opened, and that was knocked to pieces in a few minutes ; 
 and one or two others shared the same fate of being beaten in detail." 
 He wrote to Jackson that " the fire from the batteries was of a most 
 farcical character;" but received for reply that he must advance as 
 ordered, as soon as he heard Armistead's yell. Armistead drove in a 
 few skirmishers, and gave the expected yell. Lee ordered Magruder 
 to press forward the whole line, and follow up Armistead's success. 
 In a few minutes Magruder' s command was confronting a deadly fire. 
 " The battle-field," he says, " was enveloped in smoke, relieved only 
 by flashes from the contending troops. Round shot and grape crashed 
 through the woods ; shells of enormous size, which reached far beyond 
 the headquarters of the commander-in-chief, burst amid the artillery 
 parked in the rear. Belgian missiles and minie balls lent their aid to 
 this scene of stupendous grandeur and sublimity." This fire made no 
 impression upon the Federal lines, not even disturbing a single bat- 
 
1862.] 
 
 FRIGHTFUL LOSSES OX BOTH SIDES. 
 
 541 
 
 Cold Harbor. 
 
 tery. Darkness set in, and then, continues Magruder. "I concluded 
 to let the battle subside." Hill in the mean time had heard Armi- 
 stead's yell, and an hour and a half before sunset pushed his division 
 forward. " We advanced alone," he says, not quite accurately ; 
 "neither Whiting on the left, nor Huger on the right, moved for- 
 ward an inch. The division fought heroically, but in vain. Finally 
 Ewell came up, but it was after dark, and nothing could be accom- 
 plished. I advised him to hold his ground, and not to attempt a for- 
 ward movement." Hill's division, 8,000 strong at the beginning of 
 this attack, lost 1,709 killed and wounded in that hour and a half. 
 The remainder of Jackson's command hardly touched the battle at all. 
 
 The entire Federal loss during the six days is officially stated at 
 15,249, of whom 1,582 were killed, 7,709 wounded, and 
 6,958 missing. The Confederate losses in the divisions of 
 Jackson, D. H. Hill, Longstreet, and A. P. Hill are given in Lee's 
 Report. They amount to 14,645, of whom 2,472 were killed, 11,774 
 wounded, and 399 missing. Magruder's losses may be estimated at 
 about 4,500 in all ; making the entire Confederate loss something 
 more than 19,000. 
 
 The pitiable condition of the Confederate army after the battle of 
 Malvern Hill is set forth by Trimble's account, embodied in Theflight 
 Lee's report. He says : 4i The next morning by dawn I I^u^uid- 
 went off to ask for orders, when I found the whole army in ing - 
 the utmost disorder. Thousands of straggling men were asking every 
 
 Losses. 
 
542 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 passer-by for their regiments ; ambulances, wagons, and artillery were 
 obstructing every road, and altogether, in the drenching rain, present- 
 ing a scene of the most woful and heart-rending confusion." The 
 Federal army in its retreat from the Chickahominy had suffered lit- 
 tle, except that small portion engaged at Frazier's Farm ; it outnum- 
 bered the enemy by more than three to two, and was in far better 
 plight. Yet when in the gray dawn the Confederates looked up to 
 Malvern Hill, they saw no trace of the grim batteries and serried 
 lines against which they had dashed themselves in pieces. In the 
 darkness and storm, through mud and mire, McClellan had fled from 
 the field of a great victory, as though it had been one of a crushing 
 defeat. " The greater portion of the transportation of the army," 
 says McClellan, " having been started for Harrison's Landing during 
 the night of the 30th of June and 1st of July, the order for the move- 
 ment of the troops was at once issued upon the final repulse of the 
 enemy at Malvern Hill." 
 
 By midnight the army was on its weary march along a single narrow 
 passage. This retreat was a flight. " We were ordered to retreat," 
 says Hooker, " and it was like the retreat of a routed army. We re- 
 treated like a parcel of sheep. Every one was on the road at the 
 same time, and a few shots from the rebels would have panic- 
 stricken the whole command." Keyes, who commanded the rear- 
 guard, was thus instructed: "Bring along all the wagons you can; 
 but they are to be sacrificed, of course, rather than imperil your 
 safety. Celerity of movement is the sole security of this position." 
 The distance was only fifteen miles, but the last of the trains did 
 not reach Harrison's Landing until noon of the 3d of July. On that 
 day McClellan telegraphed to Washington that the army was thor- 
 oughly worn out. It was quite impossible to estimate his losses, but 
 he doubted if there were more than 50,000 men with their colors. 
 He hoped that the enemy were in no better plight, and that he should 
 have a breathing-space before he was again attacked ; but in order to 
 capture Richmond, reinforcements should be sent to him, "rather 
 much more than less than 100,000 men." 
 
 With the flight from Malvern Hill, properly closed this ill-omened 
 Peninsular Campaign, though the army remained on the James until 
 the middle of August. During this period much was proposed, but 
 nothing was done, and little attempted. To McClellan 's re- 
 son Laud- peated requests for large reinforcements, first for 50,000, 
 then for 100,000 men, even " more rather than less," the 
 President had replied that the demands were absurd and compli- 
 ance impossible, for there were not, at that time, outside of the army 
 on the Peninsula, seventy-five thousand troops in the service east of 
 
1862.] 
 
 END OF THE CAMPAIGN. 
 
 543 
 
 Gunboats at Malvern Hill. 
 
 the mountains. McClellan's own plans had contemplated 75,000 for 
 the protection of the National capital. The campaign from York- 
 town to Harrison's Landing was three months of disastrous failure. 
 McClellan's attempt to throw the responsibility upon the Govern- 
 ment because it declined to supply him with all the men he asked 
 for was meant to hide an unwilling service or a confession of his 
 incapacity to cope with the enemy unless he outnumbered him at 
 least three to one. There is not, perhaps, in history so remarkable 
 an instance of the patience and forbearance of a government with a 
 general commanding its armies in the field. It is the more remark- 
 able that General McClellan should at this time have had the pre- 
 sumption to write to the President a letter of advice as to the "civil 
 and military policy" which he McClellan thought should be 
 adopted. In this amazing epistle, dated at Harrison's Landing, Vir- 
 ginia, July 7th, 1862, the defeated general lectured the President in 
 good set terms and advised him that the time had come " when the 
 Government must determine upon a civil and military policy cover- 
 
 
 

 544 
 
 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 Wet Weather on the Chickahominy. 
 
 letter. 
 
 ing the whole ground 
 of our national trouble." 
 The determination of 
 that policy, he went on 
 to say, must be taken 
 by the President, "or 
 our cause is lost." He 
 proceeded to outline 
 such a policy, confining 
 
 himself chiefly to the military branch thereof, but he insisted that "a 
 declaration of radical views, especially upon slavery, will 
 rapidly disintegrate our present armies." And he modestly 
 suggested that as a commander-in-chief of the army would be needed 
 he was willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of the accomplishment 
 of the object proposed. President Lincoln, sorely distressed with 
 matters of more immediate and pressing importance than the framing 
 of a " policy," took no notice of McClellan's missive. 
 
 As we shall have occasion hereafter to consider General McClellan 
 as a political leader, it may be said that from this point in his career 
 he became more and moi'e identified with politics. He had not been 
 regarded as " a political general " of the class of which there were 
 already too many in the army. But as soon as he touched the zenith 
 of his military fame, it became bruited abroad that he had formerly 
 acted with the Democratic party whenever he had taken any position 
 at all on the political questions of the times. Efforts had been made 
 to induce him to identify himself with that organization ; but for a 
 
1862.] McCLELLAN'S COMMENTS. 545 
 
 long time he refrained from taking any step whatever in the direction 
 of a definition of his political views. No man can tell what were the 
 mental exercises, what the personal ambitions of General McClellan 
 while he was conducting the campaign on the Peninsula, a campaign 
 destined to end in defeat and humiliation. But it is certain that at 
 that time his heart was filled with bitterness and hostility to the 
 Administration whose officer he was. 
 
 McClellan's letters, printed by his literary executors, reveal his 
 state of mind during his stay at Harrison's Landing, after the Seven 
 Days. He wrote home : " I have no faith in this Administration. . . . 
 I am tired of serving fools. . . . Marcy l and I have just been discuss- 
 ing the people in Washington, and conclude they are 'a mighty tri- 
 fling set.' ... I begin to think they wish this army to be destroyed. 
 When you contrast the policy I urge in my letter to the President 
 with that of Congress and Mr. Pope, 2 you can readily agree with me 
 that there can be little natural confidence between the Government 
 and myself. We are the antipodes of each other. I am satisfied that 
 the dolts in Washington are bent on my destruction." In the failure 
 of the Administration to accede to his preposterous demands, McClel- 
 lan apparently saw evidence of a determination to crush a formidable 
 and rapidly developing political power. 
 
 While General McClellan was continually demanding additions to 
 his army, it appeared that over 38,000 men were absent on furlough, 
 granted on his authority. On the 8th of July the President, deter- 
 mined to see for himself the condition of affairs, visited the army ; on 
 the 9th, he summoned a council of war at the general's headquarters, 
 and on requiring from each corps-commander the return of men fit for 
 duty that morning, he found the aggregate 36.000 more than the gen- 
 eral had telegi'aphed to him, after the army had reached Harrison's 
 Landing. 3 
 
 On the 4th of August the divisions of Hooker and Sedgwick took 
 possession of Malvern Hill, and made reconnaissances some miles to- 
 ward Richmond. " I feel confident," telegraphed McClellan, " that 
 with reeuforcements I could march this army there in five days." 
 Next morning peremptory orders were received from Halleck that the 
 army should be withdrawn from the Peninsula, and Malvern Hill was 
 again abandoned. McClellan urged that the order for withdrawal 
 
 1 McClellan's father-in-law. 
 
 2 General John Pope, in command of the Army of Virginia. 
 
 3 "I polled the corps-commanders," said Mr. Lincoln, deseiibing the scene, a few dav8 
 afterward, in a private conversation, "as one who polls a jury. I asked of each the return 
 of men present for duty in his corps that morning, put down the figures, added them up, 
 and then passed the sheet to General McClellan, without a word. The difference between 
 the sum and his statement was thirty-six thousand." 
 
 VOL. iv. 35 
 
546 
 
 THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. 
 
 [CHAP. XX. 
 
 A Typical Sleeping Tent. Lieutera- 1 S. W. Owen, Pa. Cavalry, at Westover Landing, August, I 862. 
 
 should be rescinded. Hooker thought it should be disiegarded. They 
 had sufficient men, he said, to capture Richmond. If the attempt 
 should fail, it would probably cost McClellau his head, '" but he might 
 as well die for an old sheep as for a lamb." For a moment McCIellan 
 seemed inclined to run the risk. On the 10th Hooker received a 
 written order which was communicated to the whole army, to provide 
 himself with three days' rations, and hold himself in readiness to 
 march on the llth. "I firmly believe," says Hooker, "that this 
 order meant Richmond ; but, before the time came for executing it, it 
 was countermanded." 
 
 On the 16th of August the stores and the sick were embarked. 
 A pontoon bridge for the passage of the troops had been 
 
 f . r Withdrawal 
 
 thrown across the Chickahommy towards its mouth. On from the 
 
 i 11 i Peninsula. 
 
 the loth the rear-guard was over, and the bridge was taken 
 down. McCIellan had apprehended an attack upon his rear, and was 
 ill at ease until the Chickahominy was between him and the enemy. 
 But for days and weeks there had been hardly the show of a Con- 
 federate force near him. Jackson and A. P. Hill had been sent to- 
 wards the Rappahannock ; Lee with most of the remainder of his 
 army had followed on the 13th. At and near Richmond were only 
 the weak division of D. H. Hill and a few thousand raw conscripts. 
 
Fredericksburg. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA TXDER POPE. MCCLELLAN'S RELUCTANCE TO LEAVE THE 
 PEXINSI-LA. EXPOSTILATIOXS FROM THE ADMINISTRATION. POPE FIGHTS AM> 
 LOSES THE SECOND BATTLE OF Bri.i, RTN. A GREAT DISASTER. McCi.Ei.i.AN 
 
 ONCE MORE IX COMMAND <>F THE ARMIES. LEE'S INVASION OF MARYLAND. 
 
 BATTLE OF AXTIETAM. McCi.Ei.LAX DECLINES TO MOVE. His REMOVAL FROM 
 COMMAND. BTRNSIDE IN COMMAND OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. TIIF. 
 BATTLE OF FHEDERICKSBI'RG. ANOTHER NATIONAL DISASTER. BURNSIDE'S 
 Frxii.E ATTEMPTS TO RETRIEVE. "FIGHTING JOE HOOKER" AT THE HEAD OF 
 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 
 
 ON the 26th of June, 1862, while the first of the Seven Days' 
 Fight on the Peninsula was in progress, General John Pope, 
 who had been in command of the armv corps known as the Pope in 
 
 ...... . " if command of 
 
 Army of the Mississippi, WHS put in command of a new the Army of 
 military organization called the Army of Virginia. This 
 body was composed of the armies under Fremont, Banks, and 
 McDowell. The three armies were scattered over the northern part 
 of Virginia, without much cooperative plan or intimate communica- 
 tion with each other ; Fremont and Banks being at Middletown, in 
 the Shenandoah valley; McDowell's command east of the Blue 
 Ridge, one division (King's) being at Fredericksburg, on the Rap- 
 pahannock, and the other (Ricketts's) at and beyond Manassas 
 Junction, not far from the field of the battle of Bull Run, fought in 
 1861. All three of these commanders were Pope's military seniors; 
 Fremont declined to serve under an officer who was his junior. He 
 
548 
 
 NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XXL 
 
 was replaced accordingly by General Franz Sigel, who had been trans- 
 ferred to the East from Missouri, where he had been fighting earlier 
 in the war. 
 
 On the day after Pope's taking command, his army, according io 
 the official records, showed an aggregate strength of 50,600 effective 
 men, distributed as follows: Headquarters, 200; Sigel's (formerly 
 Fremont's) corps, 13,200; Banks's, 12,100; McDowell's, 19,300; 
 cavalry, 5,800. The discovery of an error in Banks's return subse- 
 quently reduced this total somewhat. Pope had been graduated, in 
 1842, from the United States Military Academy, in the same class 
 with James Longstreet, D. H. Hill, Lafayette McLaws, Mansfield 
 Lovell, G. W. Smith, R. H. Anderson, A. P. Stewart, and Earl Van 
 Dorn, now in the Confederate service; and John Newton, W. S. 
 Rosecrans, George Sykes, and Abner Doubleday, now in the Federal 
 service. By one of the strange vicissitudes of fate, these men were 
 to confront each other on opposite sides of a long and sanguinary 
 conflict. Pope was an imaginative man with a hopeful, even san- 
 guine, temperament; and he was not always accurate in his state- 
 ments nor in his conclusions. His general appearance and demeanor 
 were the exact opposite of McClellan ; for while the commander of 
 the Army of the Potomac was scrupulously exact and orderly in his 
 bearing and dress, precise in his methods and a martinet in his 
 organizing of forces, Pope was loose in his methods and generally 
 ramshackle or disorderly in his bearing and military habits. 
 
 To a certain extent, Pope's transfer to the consolidated armies in 
 Northern Virginia was an experiment. McClellan had so far dis- 
 appointed the Administration that it had become evident that he 
 would win no battles on the Peninsula ; his withdrawal had become 
 inevitable. The creation of the 
 Army of Virginia from the scattered 
 forces already described was intended 
 to provide for the defence of Wash- 
 ington and for offensive operations 
 against the Confederate forces around 
 Richmond, so as to draw off from 
 Lee's army as many men as possible, 
 Lee then being in front of McClellan, 
 on the Chickahominy. But it was 
 very well known that, if McClellau's 
 and Pope's armies were to be so 
 manoeuvred that they must act in co- 
 operation with each other, or as one 
 army, the commander of the Army Major-Generai John Pope. 
 
1862.] A TRYING MILITARY SITUATION. 549 
 
 of the Potomac, who was the general- 
 in-cliief of the armies of the United 
 States, would not only outrank the 
 commander of the Army of Virginia, 
 but he would naturally regard with 
 jealousy a junior commander who 
 might appear to him as a possible rival. 
 To bridge over the apparent gap be- 
 tween the two generals, a new compli- 
 cation became necessary. General 
 Halleck, who had been operating 
 against the Confederate forces in 
 Northern Mississippi, was ordered to 
 Washington to act as military adviser 
 
 Major-General Henry W. Halleck. . , .* 
 
 to the President with the title of gen- 
 
 eral-in-chief. This was practically a superseding of General McClel- 
 lan, and he so regarded it. 
 
 General Pope indiscreetly discomposed the situation still further 
 by an order which he made on taking command. If his Pope . g 
 purpose was to anger the officers of the Army of the Poto- order - 
 mac, and deeply incense its commander, he admirably succeeded. 
 Among other things, he said : " I have come to you from the West, 
 where we have always seen the backs of our enemies ; from an army 
 whose business it has been to seek the adversary and to beat him 
 when found ; whose policy has been attack, not defence. ... I pre- 
 sume that I have been called here to pursue the same system and to 
 lead you against the enemy. It is my purpose to do so, and that 
 speedily. . . . I desire you to dismiss from your minds certain phrases 
 which I am sorry to find so much in vogue amongst j'ou. I hear 
 constantly of ' taking strong positions, and holding them ; ' of * lines 
 of retreat,' and of ' bases of supplies.' Let us discard such ideas." 
 It is not surprising that this address, which Pope expected and 
 intended should animate and inspirit his men, provoked a storm of 
 wrath and ridicule. Sent forth, as it was, just after a series of con- 
 flicts on the Peninsula, during which the Army of the Potomac had 
 been constantly "taking strong positions and holding them," until 
 forced back upon " lines of retreat," the bombastic order appeared 
 to be a satire on the operations of General McClellan, who was 
 greatly beloved by his command ; and the country at large, impartial 
 in any quarrel between the two commanders, laughed at the swelling 
 periods and inflated rhetoric of the newly-arrived general, who, in an 
 hour, had so seriously damaged the admirable reputation which he 
 had won in the West. 
 
550 
 
 NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XXL 
 
 
 The Battle-field of Cedar Mountain, seen from the West. 
 Drawn by W. St. John Harper from a photograph taken in August, 1862. 
 
 In his own narrative, printed after the war was over, Pope admits 
 that he entered on the new command " with great reluctance and 
 serious forebodings." Neither Pope nor Halleck approved of the 
 tactics adopted by McClellan during his peninsular campaign ; and 
 neither of these generals appeared to regard the commander of the 
 Army of the Potomac with admiration for his military abilities. 
 McClellan's retreat to the James River naturally disturbed Pope's 
 equanimity still further; McClellan was calling for reinforcements 
 which it was impossible to give; it had become necessary that the 
 two armies should be united as soon as possible ; the question of the 
 supreme command of the consolidated forces was one of great diffi- 
 culty ; and, to crown all, an angry and bitter controversy arose over 
 the final action of McClellan in retreating to the James River. 
 
 Finally, the objects of the approaching campaign of the Army of 
 pian of the Virginia were declared to be twofold: (1) To cover the 
 campaign, approaches to Washington from any enemy advancing from 
 Richmond, and to delay any such advance in order to give time for the 
 transfer of the Army of the Potomac from the James River to some 
 other point nearer the capital ; and (2) to operate on the lines of 
 communication of the enemy, with Gordonsville and Charlottesville, 
 so as to divert the attention of Lee from McClellon, and to that 
 
1862.] McCLELLAN LEAVES THE JAMES. 551 
 
 extent facilitate the withdrawal of the Army of the Potomac. It 
 was expected that the two armies would be united on the line of the 
 Rappahannock, and Pope was instructed to hold fast to his lines of 
 communication with Fredericksburg, through which place it was 
 expected that McClellan would effect his junction with the Army of 
 Virginia. It was subsequently found that that line was too far to the 
 front, and it was abandoned. 
 
 General McClellan relinquished his field of operations on the James 
 River with great unwillingness. As we have seen, he signalized his 
 arrival on the James by the announcement that he had saved his army, 
 but would require at least 50,000 men before he could safely resume 
 offensive operations. A little later, after it had been resolved that 
 his withdrawal from the Peninsula was imperatively necessary (July 
 3d), he declared that the needed reinforcements should be " rather 
 much over than much less than 100,000 men." The cordial, almost 
 affectionate, note of the Secretary of War, addressed to General 
 McClellan, met with a cold response; the commander of the Army 
 of the Potomac reproached the Secretary of War with his official 
 conduct towards him, which, he said, had been " marked by repeated 
 acts done in such a manner as to be deeply offensive to my feelings, 
 and calculated to affect me injuriously in public estimation." Natu- 
 rally, McClellan regarded the order for his withdrawal from the 
 James as equivalent to a rebuke. He undertook the work Mecieiun's 
 with reluctance and after many protests. For a time he attltude - 
 paid no attention to the order from Washington for the removal of 
 his sick ; and when that order was repeated, he replied, after some 
 delay, that he could do nothing unless he were informed as to the 
 ultimate destination of his army. He added : " If I am longer kept 
 in ignorance of what is to be effected, I cannot be expected to accom- 
 plish the object in view." As if the general who had retreated now 
 declined to change his base still further unless the plans of future cam- 
 paigns were laid before him for approval. In reply to this despatch, 
 General Halleck simply notified McClellan that he was expected to 
 send off his sick, according to orders, without waiting to find out 
 what were, or would be, the instructions of the Government concern- 
 ing future movements. On the 13th of July he was again ordered 
 to send away his sick. He moved tardily and with manifest sullen- 
 ness, and, although admonished of the danger that now threatened 
 Pope, he still delayed his movements. Finally, on the 17th of August, 
 McClellan telegraphed to Washington that he had left his camp on 
 the James; ten days later, he reported for duty at Alexandria, Vir- 
 ginia. At that time Pope's campaign had reached its most critical 
 stage. 
 
552 
 
 NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 confederate 
 
 As soon as Pope had begun to develop his plan of campaign, which 
 was to threaten the Confederate line of communication with Gordons- 
 ville, Lee saw the significance of the movement and hastened to meet 
 
 ^- ^ n tne l^ 1 f J u ty ne sen ^ Jackson, with his own divi- 
 
 g j on an( j ^^ o { Ewell, to Govdonsville, with the promise of 
 reinforcements. Jackson found that Pope was too strong to war- 
 rant offensive operations, and contented himself with occupying 
 Gordonsville. A fortnight passed, when it was learned that Burn- 
 side's corps had sailed from Nortli Carolina, and arrived at Fortress 
 Monroe ; thence it had gone to the Rappahannock instead of going to 
 McClellan on the James. On the 27th Lee sent A. P. Hill's division 
 to Jackson at Gordonsville, raising his force to 35,000. Jackson then 
 moved northward, while Pope had already begun to move southward. 
 Quite by accident the advance of the two armies came into collision 
 
 on the 9th of August at Cedar Mountain, twenty miles north 
 Cedar Moun- of Gordonsville. Banks was here with 8,000 men, and was 
 
 attacked by Ewell with about as many. For a while the 
 fight was in favor of the National troops; but Confederate reinforce- 
 ments coming up, Banks was driven back, pursued by the enemy. 
 Pope was a few miles away with the bulk of his force. He hurried 
 up, and at dark checked the pursuit. Jackson then fell back to the 
 battle-field of the morning. For two days the armies lay fronting 
 each other, neither commander caring to attack. Jackson, then learn- 
 ing that Pope had received reinforcements from Burnside's corps, fell 
 back across the Rapidan. The Confederate loss at Cedar Mountain 
 is given at 1,314, 
 of whom 223 were 
 killed, 1,060 
 
 wounded, and 31 
 missing. Pope put 
 his at about 1,900 
 killed, wounded, 
 and missing. 
 
 Meanwhile the 
 force at Richmond 
 had been largely 
 augmented by con- 
 soription. By the 
 13th of August it 
 was certain that 
 the Federal army 
 
 . . rf The House in which General Winder (Confederate) was killed ai 
 
 WaS tO be With- Cedar Mountain. 
 
 drawn from the Drau-n by F. C. Ransom from a photograph. 
 
1862.] 
 
 LEE CONFRONTS POPE. 
 
 553 
 
 Cedar Mountain. 
 
 Peninsula. Pope learned that the enemy were moving upon him in 
 great force, and fell back across the Rappahannock. Lee J>w .- sa< i. 
 came up to the river with 80,000 men ; Pope, with 45,000, ju|, < j l h n t . h<> 
 confronted him on the other bank, being assured that he nock - 
 should be largely reenforced within three days. On the 20th his 
 pickets were driven in. For two days Lee sought to find an un- 
 guarded place to cross the river; but Pope was always in front of him 
 in force sufficient to meet any serious attempt. 
 
 On the stormy night of the 22d an incident occurred which gave 
 shape to the campaign. Pope's headquarters were at Cat- Cnt ietf 
 lett's Station, ten miles in the rear of the centre of his line, Station - 
 guarded by 1,500 infantry and a few companies of horse. Stuart, 
 with 1,500 cavalry, crossed the river some distance above Pope's right, 
 and, guided by a negi-o, dashed through the darkness upon the tents 
 occupied by Pope's staff, some of whom were made prisoners. Before 
 the alarm could be given, he rode off, having lost but two men in this 
 daring raid. But he had secured a prize which proved of inestimable 
 value. This was Pope's despatch-book, containing precise informa- 
 tion of the numbers and positions of the forces then with him, of the 
 reinforcements promised to him, and the quarter from which they 
 were to come. This information rendered it possible, and even prob- 
 able, that if the entire Confederate army could be flung upon Pope's 
 rear, his communications might be cut off, and his army routed before 
 
554 NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 it could be reenforced from the Arm)' of the Potomac. This move- 
 ment must be a surprise ; and to give it success the first part must be 
 made with a celerity impossible for an army incumbered with trains. 
 Lee must therefore divide his force for some four days, in face of an 
 enemy probably outnumbering either division, though much inferior 
 to both combined. There was danger in the attempt; but the chances 
 of success were thought sufficient to warrant the risk. 
 
 The initial movement was committed to Jackson, who began his 
 Jackson's march on the morning of the 25th of August. Unincum- 
 marcn. bered by anything except his artillery, he moved rapidly up 
 through the narrow valley on the east side of the Bull Run Moun- 
 tains, by rude country roads and across the fields. At midnight he 
 reached the head of Thoroughfare Gap, through which the mountains 
 must be passed. This narrow gap might have been held for hours by 
 five thousand men against fifty thousand. It was wholly unguarded, 
 and on the morning of the 27th Jackson passed through, and headed 
 southward for Bristoe Station, an important point on the railroad 
 which formed Pope's main source of supply. Leaving Ewell here,. 
 Jackson went northward to Manassas Junction, where was an im- 
 mpnse depot of stores, almost unguarded. These were taken, and 
 what could not be consumed on the spot were destroyed. Pope had 
 in the meanwhile learned of this movement, and had despatched 
 Hooker towards Bristoe. A sharp encounter took place that evening, 
 in which Ewell was worsted. 
 
 Jackson's position was now critical. Pope was aroused ; his corps 
 were approaching from different points, and in a few hours 
 
 Jackson's . 11 -r i T 
 
 defensive might fall upon Jackson in greatly superior force. Long- 
 street's corps had begun to move, but it was distant two 
 days' march, and perhaps more. Jackson's course was speedily 
 decided upon. He would fall back towards Thoroughfare Gap, and 
 take up a position which he hoped to hold until Longstreet came up. 
 To mask his purpose he first moved northeastward to Centreville, 
 then turned westward, and took up his defensive position upon the 
 spot where the battle of Bull Run had been fought, a little more 
 than a year before. The position was strong, part of it lying along 
 an abandoned railroad, whose deep cutting formed an admirable in- 
 trenchment. 
 
 The battle was fairly opened on the morning of the 29th. It raged 
 
 from daylight until after dark, Jackson standing upon the 
 
 GroTeton. defensive. After midnight Jackson withdrew his left, so HS 
 
 August 29. . -IT 
 
 to enable it to connect with Longstreet, whose advance was 
 now at the head of Thoroughfare Gap. To Pope this looked like a 
 forced retreat, and early next morning he wrote to Washington : 
 
1862.] 
 
 RETREAT TURNED INTO BATTLE. 
 
 555 
 
 " We fought a terrific battle here yesterday with the combined forces 
 of the enemy, which lasted from daylight until dark, by which time 
 the enemy was driven from the field, which I now occupy. The news 
 has just reached us from the front that the enemy is retreating to the 
 mountains. I go forward to see." On the morning of the 
 30th more troops had come up, raising his force to 40,000. uroveton, 
 
 i i- August 30. 
 
 At noon he was confirmed in his belief that the enemy 
 was retreating. McDowell was ordered to press on in pursuit. The 
 supposed flight and pursuit soon became a battle, in which nearly the 
 entire force on both sides was at last engaged. The Federal troops 
 attacked along Jackson's whole front, and gained some advantage. 
 Jackson says: "At four o'clock the Fedei'al infantry advanced in 
 
 Stuart's Raid upon Catlett's Station on 
 the Night of August 22, I 862. 
 
 several lines, first engaging 
 our right, but soon extend- 
 ing the attack to the centre 
 
 and left. In a few moments our entire line was engaged in a fierce 
 and sanguinary struggle with the enemy. As one line was repulsed 
 another took its place. So impetuous and well-sustained were these 
 onsets as to induce me to send to the commanding general for reen- 
 forcements." Lee ordered Longstreet to send aid to Jackson. But 
 Longstreet brought artillery to bear upon the Federal ranks, and their 
 advance was checked. Then, he says, "nay whole line was rushed 
 forward at a charge." 
 
556 NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 Longstreet's line was nearly at a right angle with that of Jackson, 
 but quite out of sight, being concealed from the Federal view by the 
 formation of the ground. Fitz-John Porters corps, and some other 
 troops, were close to the angle made by these lines. Hard by was a 
 hillock from which Reynolds's division had fallen back before Long- 
 street's battery. Warren then a colonel, soon to be a major-gen- 
 eral seized this point, with two weak New York regiments and a 
 battery, and held it until he was fairly enveloped by the advancing 
 enemy. Out of 990 men, he lost 443. The brunt of Longstreet's 
 charge now fell upon Fitz-John Porter's corps. Outnumbered three 
 to one, outflanked on the left, and unsheltered on the right, where 
 Heintzelman was falling back before Jackson's advance, this corps 
 retreated in good order, still showing a firm front, and checking the 
 pursuit. It had entered into the action 9,000 strong, and had sus- 
 tained a loss of 2,174. Next morning the Federal army, defeated 
 but not routed, crossed the Bull Run, and fell back to Centre ville. 
 
 These consecutive actions have been called " the Second Bull Run," 
 or " the Second Manassas." A better designation is the 
 Battle of Groveton, from a little hamlet close by. The 
 entire Confederate loss since the 27th was 1,553 killed, and 7,921 
 wounded 9,474 in all. The Federal loss, from the Rappahannock 
 to the Potomac was as follows : 1,747 killed, 8,-J52 wounded, and 
 4,263 missing total 14,462. But the diminution in the force was 
 much greater, in all fully 20,000. Lee claims to have taken 7,000 
 unwounded prisoners. Pope says, "Half the great diminution in 
 our forces was occasioned by skulking and straggling. Thousands 
 of men straggled away from their commands, and were never in any 
 action." 
 
 On the 31st a heavy rain-storm set in, but Lee, resuming his 
 tactics, sent Jackson across the Bull Run to turn the Federal right. 
 McDowell and Heintzelman were sent to head him off, and at dusk 
 on the 1st of September the two forces met at Chantilly. There 
 were several severe skirmishes, but no great battle. During these 
 encounters, however, the Federals lost two able and valuable generals. 
 In the darkness General Philip Kearny, a brave, loyal, and cool- 
 headed soldier, mistook a force of the enemy for his own troops. 
 Riding up to the men, he put an inquiry to them which disclosed the 
 situation at once. Perceiving his mistake, and refusing to comply 
 with a demand to surrender, he put spurs to his horse and attempted 
 to ride away. A volley laid him low, and his body fell inside of the 
 Confederate lines. General 1. 1. Stevens, formerly governor of Wash- 
 ington Territory, was a brave and able officer. He was killed while 
 leading a charge against the enemy, and he carried in his hands 
 
1862.] 
 
 POPE'S SORRY EXIT. 
 
 557 
 
 Confederate Winter Quarters at Manassas. 
 Drairn by Harry Fennfrom a photograph. 
 
 the colors of a New York regiment, just fallen from the hands of a 
 wounded sergeant. 
 
 On the 2d of September Pope's situation at Centreville was not 
 unfavorable. Banks and some others of his own army had joined 
 him. The corps of Franklin, after inexplicable delays, had come up 
 from Alexandria, and these, with Sumner's troops, fresh men from 
 the Army of the Potomac, augmented Pope's forces to 70,000 or 
 thereabouts. Lee had also been reenforced by D. H. Hill's division, 
 which had been hurried from Richmond with great celerity ; and the 
 numerical strength of the two antagonists was very nearly equal. 
 Pope had the advantage of entrenchments, and he could be still fur- 
 ther reenfoi-ced from Washington, while Lee could not expect another 
 man from any quarter. But General Halleck gave orders for the 
 Army of Virginia to fall back upon the capital. 
 
 This was done forthwith, and Pope's repeated application to be 
 reassigned to a command in the West was granted. McClel- 
 
 i . , ., , , , to , . , End of the 
 
 Ian was assigned to the " command of the fortifications of Army of 
 Washington, and of all the troops for the defence of the 
 capital." The troops lately under the command of Pope were ab- 
 sorbed into the Army of the Potomac, and the Army of Virginia, after 
 an existence of less than seventy days, disappeared from the rolls of 
 the armies of the United States. 
 
 It was obvious that McClellan had organized a party for his sup- 
 port in the army. The Administration was unwilling to affront the 
 McClellan party there and in the country. Although many generals 
 
558 
 
 NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XXL 
 
 ^:W ? fr^ '' ^.i^^uii^::^: --:; - ;: ,; 
 
 r'?^ *to- t iy - "- ^ - . ' .'---^ ' r 5*'- V- - - - ' . 
 
 * I r7*(t^r^^ lulJi SfifH ."'*: -77 V-'' -- rf -* '*-"V* " '"A "~ ' - ""." . "*. r '';.**.' " ' '- - , ; 
 
 Fugitive Negroes crossing the Rappahannock after Pope's Retreat in August, 1862. 
 Drairn by F. C. Hansom from a photograph. 
 
 and many military critics who were devoted to McClellan complained 
 bitterly of the " political generalship " which was still too prominent 
 in the conduct of the war, the partisanship on which McClellan 
 relied, both in and ont of the army, was at once political and personal. 
 The men in the ranks, unwilling or unable to have their faith shaken, 
 still held him in affectionate respect. They believed him capable of 
 leading them to great victories, even after long and disastrous cam- 
 paigns. They welcomed his return to command, after the failure of 
 the experiment with the Army of Virginia had been made complete; 
 and the enthusiasm and effusiveness of the greeting which lie received 
 when he joined the army attested the strong hold which he had upon 
 the men under his command. Nevertheless, it is evident that the 
 failure of the campaign of the Army of Virginia was chiefly due to 
 the unwillingness of McClellan and his party in the Army of the 
 Potomac to aid Pope, who had made himself so obnoxious to them. 
 On the 27th and 29th of August, while dispositions were being 
 made for the battles that ensued, Pope sent peremptory 
 
 The Fitz- . r . 
 
 John Porter orders to Fitz-Johu Porter to move up to the support of the 
 Federal left. These orders were not obeyed. Porter's 
 
 / 
 
 defence was that the force in front of him was too strong to permit 
 
1862.] 
 
 THE CASE OF FITZ-JOHN PORTER. 
 
 559 
 
 an immediate obedience of the order of his commander. Pope attrib- 
 uted the failure of his campaign to Porter's inactivity during the 
 critical moments of the fighting on the two days above-mentioned. 
 These charges, which were very grave, were considered by a court- 
 martial composed of officers of high rank, and, after a long and fair 
 trial, Porter was found guilty and sentenced to be cashiered. The 
 sentence of the court was approved by the President, and Porter was 
 dismissed from the army in disgrace. After the war was over, and 
 the military records of the Confederates were made accessible to the 
 world, Porter, who had persistently protested against the injustice 
 which he declared had been done him, sought to have his case re- 
 opened. In addition to the zealous championship of the military and 
 political parties which would naturally espouse his cause, General 
 Porter now had the cordial advocacy and friendship of some of those 
 who had fought on the Confederate side during the \var. But an 
 elaborate defence of the cashiered officer, prepared by himself, which 
 was brought to the attention of the President of the United States 
 long after the close of the war, did not avail to procure from the 
 President (U. S. Grant) at that time an order for the reopening of 
 the case. After his retirement from the presidency, General Grant 
 changed his mind and wrote a paper in favor of General Porter. 
 Later, an advisory board, during the presidency of General R. B. 
 Hayes, appointed to reexamine the case, acquitted Porter of all blame 
 but for indiscreet and unkind criticism of his superior officer. Still 
 later, a bill was passed by Congress restoring him to the army. It 
 was disapproved by the President (Mr. Arthur), who, however, 
 removed from Porter the disabilities imposed upon him by sentence 
 of the court. Finally, some twenty-five years after the battle in 
 
 which these offences had been com- 
 mitted, both houses of Congress hav- 
 ing become Democratic, a bill was 
 passed restoring General Porter to 
 the army from which he had been 
 dismissed; and he was honorably re- 
 tired. By this time the question, 
 which was partly military and partly 
 political when first raised, had become 
 wholly political. General Porter's re- 
 instatement was " a political issue ; " 
 the Democratic party in Congress 
 voted solidly for the bill for his relief. 
 But, to resume the thread of nar- 
 Potter. rativc of military events taking place 
 
560 NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XXL 
 
 along the borders of Virginia and Maryland : A movement into Mary- 
 land, and a menace at least against Pennsylvania, had long 
 
 The inva- i T i T , T 
 
 sionof been a favorite idea with Jackson. It now seemed to Lee 
 that the time had come when this might be attempted. 
 The movement was begun on the 3d of September, and on the 5th 
 the army crossed the Potomac at a point thirty miles above Washing- 
 ton. The entire force was rather less than 60,000 ; for by casualties 
 in battle, exhaustion, and desertion, Lee had lost fully 30,000 men in 
 six weeks. The march from Manassns to the Potomac had been 
 especially trying. On the 7th the army reached Frederick 
 City, where Lee issued an address to the people of Mary- 
 Mar>iand. l an d. The people of the Confederate States, he said, had 
 long watched the wrongs inflicted upon the citizens of a common- 
 wealth to which they were bound by so many ties, and wished to aid 
 them in throwing oft' this " foreign yoke." There would be no com- 
 pulsion or intimidation, " and while the Southern people will rejoice 
 to welcome you to your natural position among them, they will only 
 welcome you when you come of your own free will." Bradley John- 
 son, a Marylander in the Confederate service, put forth a call for 
 recruits : " We have arms for you," he said, " and I am authorized 
 to muster in for the war companies and regiments. Let each man 
 provide himself with a stout pair of shoes, a good blanket, and a tin 
 cup. Jackson's men have no baggage." Less than 500 Marylanders 
 responded to this appeal. 
 
 McClellan rapidly reorganized the Federal army, and in less than a 
 Mocieiian-g week had 172,000 men, of whom 100,000 were to form the 
 movements. mova ble force, the remainder to be retained for the defence 
 of the capital. Banks was placed in command of the fortifications at 
 Washington, his old corps being given to Mansfield. Sumner, Frank- 
 lin, Porter, and " Burnside retained their old corps, considerably in- 
 creased from the former Army of Virginia, while Hooker received 
 that of McDowell, between whom and McClellan there was no 
 friendly feeling. On the 7th McClellan moved towards Lee, whose 
 force he estimated at 120,000, more than twice its actual number. 
 
 On the 10th Lee moved northwestward, his immediate destination 
 Harper's being Hagerstown, Maryland. He had to cross the South 
 Ferry. Mountain, a steep range one thousand feet high, cut through 
 to a depth of four hundred feet by Turner's and Crampton's Gaps, 
 six miles apart. The Federal advance reached Frederick on the 12th. 
 Here accident threw into McClellan's hands a copy of Lee's general 
 order for the movements and operations of the next few days. At 
 Harper's Ferry were 14,000 or 15,000 raw Federal troops, under 
 Colonel Miles, whom Lee wished to capture or drive away. The 
 
1862.] 
 
 LEE'S PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. 
 
 561 
 
 Ferry, in a narrow valley at the junction of the Potomac and Shen- 
 amloah, is commanded on three sides by heights. If these were occu- 
 pied, a force below would be subject to a plunging fire, to which 
 they could make no reply. Lee purposed to take these heights by 
 surprise. To do this he must divide his army into two parts. Jack- 
 son's corps, now 15,000 strong, was to pass through Turner's Gap, 
 then make a wide de*tour, crossing the Potomac some miles above the 
 Ferry, and, going down, seize Bolivar Heights on the west. McLaws, 
 with two divisions of Longstreet's corps, 15,000 strong, was to go by 
 the way of Crampton's Gap and seize Maryland Heights on the east, 
 while Walker, with 4,000, was to move up the Potomac and seize 
 Loudon Heights on the south. With Lee there would be Longstreet's 
 
 Antietam Creek. 
 
 two remaining divisions, D. H. Hill's and the cavalry, 26,000 in all. 
 Harper's Ferry captured, the whole army was to be reunited at 
 Hagerstown. 
 
 McClellan availed himself of this valuable information. Frank- 
 lin's corps was to follow McLaws, overtake him if possible, Cramptoll .g 
 or in any case bar his direct way of rejoining Lee. But Gap- 
 McLaws had gained Maryland Heights before Franklin had cleared 
 Crampton's Gap. On the 14th McLaws sent back three brigades 
 with orders to hold the pass, if it cost the last man. These brigades 
 were brushed away after a fight in which the Federal loss was 115 
 
 VOL. iv. 36 
 
562 
 
 NORTHERX VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XXL 
 
 Surrender 
 of Harper's 
 Ferrr. 
 
 The Bridge over the Antietam, looking Northwett. 
 Drawn by Harry Fennfrom a photograph made in Srptcmber, 1862. 
 
 killed and 416 wounded ; the Confederate loss was something more, as 
 they left behind 600 prisoners, mostly wounded. Franklin debouched 
 into Pleasant Valley, six miles from Harper's Ferry, from which 
 firing was heard, showing that the place had not yet fallen. Walker 
 had already gained London Heights. 
 
 Jackson gained Bolivar Heights, marching eighty miles in three 
 days. Harper's Ferry was now quite untenable, but there was no- 
 thing to prevent the troops there from marching away up the Poto- 
 mac. The cavalry, some 2,000 in number, did so, and got 
 off. The infantry were raw men, with inexperienced offi- 
 cers. Miles raised the white flag in token of surrender, but 
 before it was seen he was mortally wounded. Unconditional surren- 
 der was Jackson's only terms ; and 12,520 men laid down their arms, 
 and were at once paroled. The Confederates gained lso 72 guns, 
 13,000 small arms, and some stores. In a few hours Jackson was 
 summoned to rejoin Lee, with whom things had gone ill, and who 
 was sorely bestead fifteen miles away. There was brief time for 
 rest. Jackson's old division, " the Stonewall," were ordered at three 
 o'clock on the afternoon of the 16th to prepare rations for three 
 days. The march commenced at an hour after midnight, and in the 
 gray dawn of the 17th such of the men as could endure the march 
 appeared on what was to be the battlefield of Antietam, and were 
 forthwith assigned their place in the line. Jackson brought only 
 5,000 men. 
 
1862.] LEE INVADES MARYLAND. 563 
 
 In the mean time Lee and those with him had marched through 
 Turner's Gap, heading leisurely for Hagerstown. In the Turners 
 afternoon of the 13th he learned that the Federals, whom Gap 
 he supposed to be quietly resting at Frederick, were following him 
 through the Gap. He saw the peril of his situation. He had barely 
 26,000 men, stretched for two score miles along the road, and should 
 his pursuers pass the Gap, their whole force would be between him 
 and Harper's Ferry. Ordering his trains to cross the Potomac, at 
 a point further up than Harper's Ferry, D. H. Hill, whose division 
 was in the rear, was turned back to hold the Gap until he could be 
 aided by Longstreet. Hill, with 5,000 men, reached the crest of the 
 Gap at noon on the 14th. just as the Federal army Hooker in ad- 
 vance appeared, coming up from the other side. For four hours 
 Hill contested the steep and narrow way, but was slowly pressed 
 back. A part of Longstreet's corps now came up, but they were 
 too late to change the fortune of the day. When night fell, the Gap 
 was clear for the passage of the whole Federal force in the morning. 
 Its loss in this, the battle of the South Mountain, was 312 killed and 
 1,234 wounded ; among the killed was General Reno. The Con- 
 federate loss was greater, probably not less than 2,000 killed and 
 wounded. Hill says that of his 5,000 he had only 3,000 left. Long- 
 street's loss was also considerable. 
 
 Lee turned his retreat in the direction of Harper's Ferry, and on 
 the morning of the 15th took up a defensive position on the Antietam 
 west side of Antietam Creek, near the little village of Creek- 
 Sharpslaurg. The stream, fordable in many places, and crossed by 
 three stone bridges, was no formidable defence, but beyond it the 
 ground consisted of low swells with narrow valleys intervening, cut 
 up by patches of woodland, cultivated fields, with sunken roads, 
 fences, and stone walls. The limestone ridges crop up here and there 
 waist-high above the surface of the soil, giving good shelter to troops. 
 It was a position which 20,000 men might hope to hold against 
 30,000, or which a commander with 30,000 might venture to assail 
 against 20,000. Lee had now not more than 22,000, besides cavalry, 
 which could here be of little service, but if he could hold his ground 
 for two days he might hope to be joined by as many more from 
 Harper's Ferry, of the capture of which he was well assured. Mc- 
 Clellan reached the east bank of the Autietam in the afternoon. He 
 had with him over 70,000 men, besides Franklin's corps a few hours 
 distant. He thought it too late to attack that day ; all the next dav 
 he thought it too soon. 
 
 His plan, as finally decided upon was, as he says, " to attack the 
 enemy's left with the corps of Hooker and Mansfield, supported, if 
 
564 NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 necessary, by Franklin's, and as soon as matters looked favorable 
 there to move the corps of Burnside against the enemy's extreme 
 right; and whenever either of these flank movements should be suc- 
 cessful, to advance our centre with all their forces then disposable." 
 This attacking " in driblets," as General Sumner called it, enabled 
 Lee to mass his comparatively small force upon the point of immedi- 
 ate action, so that, in fact, the forces engaged upon either side, at any 
 one time and place, were very nearly equal. 
 
 Hooker began his attack early in the morning of the 17th, the 
 The battle onset falling upon Jackson, who was speedily forced back, 
 of Antietam. a ]th O ugh reenforced by Hood. Mansfield soon followed, and 
 by nine o'clock Hooker thought he had gained a great victory, and 
 sent word to Sumner to advance. A few minutes later Mansfield was 
 killed, and Hooker, wounded in the foot, was borne from the field. 
 McLaws and Anderson, who had just come up from Harper's Ferry 
 with 7,000 men, half the number of their divisions hurried up, 
 and by the time that Sumner reached the field the corps of Hooker 
 and Mansfield were streaming away in rout. They took little further 
 part in the action. The arrival of Sumner's strong corps wrought an 
 immediate change. Lee now brought to this point every available 
 man, stripping his right until there were hardly 2,500 men to with- 
 stand Burnside's 14,000 who lay idly in their front. The battle raged 
 fiercely with varying fortunes, each side alternately gaining or losing 
 a little ground at one point or another. The fighting ceased about 
 the middle of the afternoon, both sides being utterly exhausted. At 
 the close both parties held nearly the ground which they had oc- 
 cupied when Sumner entered the fight. All this time Porter's corps 
 and two thirds of that of Franklin, 25,000 in all more by half 
 than Sumner had were within cannon-shot, but were not sent into 
 action. 
 
 Burnside was to attack the enemy's right as soon as he received 
 orders so to do. McClellan says that such an order was sent 
 advance and at eight o'clock. Burnside says that it did not reach him 
 until ten. Be this as it may, he did not cross the Antietam 
 until one o'clock. Then there was another delay of two hours ; and 
 it was nearly four o'clock when his real attack began. The heights 
 opposite Sharpsburg were carried, and a position gained from which 
 the Confederate lines might be enfiladed. At this moment A. P. 
 Hill came up from Harper's Ferry, bringing with him 4,000 men, 
 who had marched seventeen miles that day. Hill flung himself into 
 the fight; but it was over before he could bring more than half his 
 men into action. Burnside's corps fled back in wild disorder to the 
 creek, which they crossed the next morning. In this whole futile 
 
1862.] 
 
 A LAME CONCLUSION. 
 
 565 
 
 Lee's escape. 
 
 A Signal Station on Elk Mountain, near Antietam. 
 Draicn by Gustap Verbtekfrom a photograph. 
 
 movement Burnside lost 2,293 killed, wounded, and missing. The 
 Confederates lost in all about 1,000. 
 
 During the night Lee fell back a little, contracting his lines around 
 Sharpsburg. McClellan would not renew the action next 
 day. The reason he gave was, that *' the National cause 
 could afford no risk of defeat. One battle lost, and almost all would 
 have been lost. Lee's army might then march as it pleased on Wash- 
 ington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, or New York, and nowhere east of 
 the Alleghanies was there another organized force able to resist its 
 march." During the 18th he was joined by the divisions of Couch 
 and Humphreys, 14,000 strong, and he proposed to attack the next 
 morning. But the next morning there was no enemy to attack. 
 During the night Lee had quietly slipped away, and was safely across 
 the Potomac. 
 
 The battle of Antietam, says Lee, " was fought with less than 
 40,000 men." All told, he had, first and last, about 40,000 ; Forcesand 
 of these all except half of A. P. Hill's 4,000 were hotly en- Io8se8 - 
 gaged. McClellan had 87,164, of whom 60,000 were engaged, succes- 
 sively and in "driblets." The entire Federal loss was 2,010 killed, 
 9,416 wounded, and 1,043 missing, 12,469 in all. Including the 
 losses at Crampton's and Turner's Gaps from September 3d to 20th, 
 it was 15,203. This does not include the losses at Harper's Ferry. 
 
566 NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 The Confederate loss is a matter of question. As summed up in Lee's 
 Report, there were 1,567 killed, and 8,274 wounded, 10,291, besides 
 the missing; but a collation of the subsidiary reports appended shows 
 at least 2,000 killed, 10,000 wounded, and 5,000 missing, 17,000 in 
 all. Including the losses at Turner's and Crampton's Gaps, the en- 
 tire loss must have been at least 20,000. 
 
 As a mere passage of arms, the battle of Antietam was indecisive. 
 For the Confederates it was a defeat inasmuch as it turned back that 
 invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania which had been planned for 
 the purpose of raiding the rich and fertile regions of those States for 
 the replenishment of the commissary department of their army, and 
 to transfer the seat of war to the States still loyal to the Federal 
 Union. The projected invasion had been repelled ; that was all. 
 Nevertheless, in the North, where the loyal people were always ready 
 to hail with joy any semblance of triumph to the Union arms, the 
 battle was regarded as a notable victory. The result of the fighting 
 known as the Second Battle of Bull Run had been profoundly depress- 
 ing to the hopes of the people. The great loss of life, which carried 
 lamentation and grief into thousands of homes in the North, inflicted 
 upon the long-suffering and patient people a blow from which they 
 did not readily recover. But the repulse of the invader at Antietam, 
 accomplished though it was by another frightful sacrifice of 
 life, was popularly accepted as an indication that the tide of 
 battle had at last turned, and that other and more decisive victories 
 would follow until the capital of the insurgents should fall before the 
 prowess of the advancing hosts of the Nation. 
 
 This view of the situation emboldened President Lincoln to put 
 forth his premonitory proclamation for the abolition of slav- 
 
 The prelim- ,11 i i,r 
 
 inary proc- erv, which he had prepared months before, announcing that 
 
 lauiation " . T i i 1 1 11 
 
 ofemanci- if on the 1st of the ensuing January the rebellion should 
 still continue, he should in virtue of his power as Com- 
 mander-in-chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, order 
 and declare that all persons held as slaves in the rebellious sections, 
 " are and henceforth shall be free," and that " the Executive Govern- 
 ment of the United States, including the military and naval powers 
 thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons. 
 . . . And such persons of suitable condition will be received into 
 the armed service of the United States." 
 
 The expediency of issuing this proclamation had been a topic of 
 discussion in the President's cabinet for some months. Various rea- 
 sons for withholding it had been presented by some of the members 
 of that council ; and, although there was no opposition to its ultimate 
 promulgation, the mind of the President was chiefly affected, it would 
 
1862.] A LONG PAUSE IN THE FIGHTING. 567 
 
 appear, by the suggestion that the 
 most opportune time to send forth 
 the proclamation would be just after 
 a military success, not when, in the 
 midst of alarm and depression, it 
 would come like a cry of distress. 
 President Lincoln, not long after the 
 proclamation made its appearance, ex- 
 plained to a Massachusetts Represen- 
 tative in Congress how he chose the 
 time for the promulgation of the 
 proclamation. He said: 1 "When Lee 
 came over the river (the Potomac) I 
 made a resolution that if McClellan 
 
 Lieutenant-General J. E. B. Stuart, C. S. A. 
 
 drove him back I would send the pro- 
 clamation after him. The battle of Antietam was fought Wednesday, 
 and until Saturday I could not find out whether we had gained a vic- 
 tory or lost a battle. It was then too late to issue the proclamation 
 that day ; and the fact is I fixed it up a little Sunday, and Monday I 
 let them have it." 
 
 After crossing the Potomac, Lee's army fell back to Winchester, 
 Va., where he had ordered a rendezvous for the troops of Theoppog. 
 stragglers who had fallen out of the ranks while the Confed- J3ferAntie- 
 erate army was in Maryland. On the 30th of September, tam - 
 when many of these had come up, his muster rolls showed a total of 
 nearly 63,000 present, but only 52,609 were reported as " present for 
 duty." At that time, McClellan's reports showed that he had with 
 him present and fit for duty, under his immediate command, 100,144 
 men; of this the total number of the forces under his command, in- 
 cluding those under Banks in Washington was 303,959 ; but of this 
 vast number, 101,756 were absent, 28,458 were on special duty, and 
 Banks's effectives numbered 73,601. So that, leaving out of the cal- 
 culation the absentees and those on the sick list or on special duty, 
 General McClellan's actual effective force was over 100,000, with 
 73,601 more men within supporting distance. 
 
 While the Army of the Potomac was resting and recuperating 
 after the exhausting struggle at Antietam, Lee was again reorganizing 
 and reenforcing his army. Having discovered indications that the 
 enemy was accumulating men and material, McClellan was filled with 
 the gravest apprehensions for his own safety. Although he had an 
 army of 200,000 fighting men, he dreaded attack ; he could not find 
 in the long delay of the enemy in his front any opportunity for him 
 
 1 The Lawyer, the Statesman, and the Soldier, by George S. Boutwell. 
 
568 NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 to attack. Accordingly, he renewed his habitual clamor for more 
 men and material. On the 23d of September, nearly a week after 
 the battle of Antietam, lie called for reinforcements for the army of 
 more than 100,000 men, which he then had fully in hand. On the 
 27th he renewed his demand, and informed the Government that he 
 should stay where he was and " attack the enemy should he attempt 
 to recross into Mai-yland." His chief anxiety was that he might at 
 once receive more men and supplies, horses and equipments, and he 
 hoped that the river might rise so as to present a natural obstacle to 
 any attack of the enemy on the other side. 
 
 The President, inexpressibly wearied with these delays, again went 
 to the army headquarters, as he had gone when the camp 
 head- was at Harrison's Landing, to see for himself what could be 
 
 effected by a personal interview with the general command- 
 ing the Army of the Potomac. McClellan was shrewd enough to 
 see that the President's visit had some relation to a possible forward 
 movement, which he (McClellan) was determined should not be 
 made with his consent. In a letter written at this time to a member 
 of his own family, McClellan said, referring to the President's visit : l 
 " His ostensible purpose is to see the troops and the battle-field. I 
 incline to think that the real purpose of his visit is to push me into 
 a premature advance into Virginia." During this visit President 
 Lincoln, accompanied by a friend, walked to a hill from which they 
 could see nearly the whole of the vast encampment, the white tents 
 of the mighty hosts shining in the light of the rising sun. Gazing 
 on the inspiriting sight for a moment, the President said to his 
 companion, " Do you know what this is?" "It is the Army of the 
 Potomac," was the astonished reply. " So it is called," responded 
 the President, " but that is a mistake ; it is only McCIellan's body- 
 guard." i 
 
 On the 6th of October Halleck wrote to McClellan a despatch, 
 under instructions from the President, directing him to cross 
 ordert<i an the Potomac and drive the enemy southward. He was in- 
 formed that he might move by the line eastward of the 
 mountains, where he could be reenforced with 30,000 men ; or he 
 might move up the valley of the Shenandoah, where his reenforce- 
 ments would not be more than 12,000 or 15,000 men, since the latter 
 movement would to a certain extent uncover Washington. McClel- 
 lan ultimately chose the interior line of advance, keeping himself 
 within reach of the greater number of reinforcements. But he still 
 declined to move, persistently clamoring for military supplies and 
 
 1 McCIellan's Own Story. 
 
 a The Nicolay-Uay Life of Lincoln, vol. vi. p. 175, 
 
Pinkerton 
 
 Lincoln 
 
 McClernand 
 
 PRESIDENT LINCOLN WITH GENERAL McCLERNAND AND 
 ALLAN PINKERTON, AT ANTIETAM, IN OCTOBER, 1862. 
 
1862.] 
 
 McCLELLAN'S DEMANDS. 569 
 
 Major-General William B. Franklin. Major-General Edwin V. Sumner. 
 
 material of various sorts. Many days were consumed in expostula- 
 tions and recriminations between the War Department and the gen- 
 eral commanding the Army of the Potomac. No sooner was one 
 requisition honored than another, apparently hitherto unthought-of, 
 was made. At one time during this exasperating and unprofitable 
 controversy (for the exchange of messages soon became a contro- 
 versy), McClellan suddenly asked how long it would take to give 
 him three or four thousand hospital tents. This happy thought was 
 responded to by the quartermaster-general with the statement that a 
 sufficient supply of these tents had already been sent to the army, 
 and that it would require a long time and an expenditure of half a 
 million dollars to give him the additional number suggested in the 
 inquiry. 
 
 While this debate was going on, the dashing Confederate cavalry- 
 man, J. E. B. Stuart, derisively insulted the Federal com- 
 mander, as he had done once before on the Peninsula, by to'cham- 
 riding all the way around the Army of the Potomac. 
 Crossing the river on McClellan's right, at Williamsport, with 1,800 
 cavalry, Stuart pushed on to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where he 
 destroyed a large amount of military stores, supplies, and other prop- 
 erty, and captured and paroled several hundred sick in the military 
 hospitals. Then, sweeping around McClellan's army, he recrossed the 
 Potomac at White's Ford, on the left of the army, around which he 
 had made a complete circuit. This mortifying incident apparently 
 had no other effect upon McClellan than to induce him to renew his 
 demand for horses. He complained that he was unable to mount 
 more than 1,000 cavalrymen, on account of the shortness of his supply 
 and the sickness that prevailed among his horses. This led to an 
 
570 
 
 NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 acrimonious dispute, the President having naturally demanded expla- 
 nations of the department charged with the duty of supplying the 
 army with needed animals. The fact was then brought out that 
 there had been sent to the Army of the Potomac during the six weeks 
 previous to the preferring of these complaints, no less than 10,254 
 horses and a large number of mules. In reply to McClellan's com- 
 plaint that his horses were used up by fatigue, the patient President 
 asked him, with an unwonted touch of asperity, " Will you pardon 
 
 
 :'": ;;.;,,- 
 
 The West Side of the Hagerstown Road after the Battle of Antietam, September, I 862. 
 
 
 Further 
 delay by 
 McClellan. 
 
 me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the 
 battle of Antietam that fatigues anything ? " 
 
 The partisans of McClellan had spread abroad reports that there 
 was a systematic attempt on the part of the authorities in 
 Washington to cripple the Army of the Potomac by with- 
 holding material needed for its efficient activity. This was 
 urged with much vehemence by newspapers which, while they habit- 
 ually deprecated the war and opposed its vigorous prosecution, were 
 ready to complain of their favorite general that he was not properly 
 supported or fairly treated. The Administration was roundly abused 
 for not giving him what he absolutely required to execute the work 
 laid upon him. The Secretary of War demanded of General Hal- 
 leek an explanation and a report upon the subject in dispute. It then 
 
1862.] McCLELLAN'S POLITICAL COURSE. 571 
 
 appeared that every requisition from General McClellan had been 
 immediately and promptly filled save one, the articles called for 
 not being in store at the time when they were demanded. It was 
 added that "no armies in the world, while in campaign, have been 
 more promptly or better supplied than ours." An explanation of 
 the delay to move the Army of the Potomac was incidentally supplied 
 in the report of a member of McClellan's staff at that time. Gen- 
 eral Ingalls, chief-quartermaster of the Army of the Potomac, in a 
 letter dated October 26th, said : " I have frequently remarked that 
 an army will never move if it waits until all the different commanders 
 report that they are ready and want no more supplies. It has been 
 my pride to know the fact that no army was ever more perfectly 
 supplied than this has been as a general rule." The explanation of 
 McClellan's inaction must be sought for in other directions than that 
 of the quartermaster's department. 
 
 It will be remembered that in his remarkable letter of advice to 
 the President, dated at Harrison's Landing, after his retreat 
 to the James, McClellan warned Mr. Lincoln against taking ddrewto 
 any radical stand on the question of slavery. When the 
 Proclamation of Emancipation was promulgated to the armies in 
 general orders, September 24th, 1862, the general was much disturbed. 
 In a private letter, dated September 25th, he said : " The President's 
 late proclamation, the continuation of Stan ton and Halleck in office, 
 render it almost impossible for me to retain my commission and self- 
 respect at the same time." After long meditation on the subject, 
 he issued an address to the army, dated October 7th, in which he 
 deprecated any excited or intemperate discussion of " public measures 
 determined upon and declared by the Government," as if he antici- 
 pated and feared a mutiny among his troops. He added, that " the 
 remedy for political errors, if any are committed, is to be found only 
 in the action of the people at the polls." The natural inference from 
 this incident was that the general commanding the Army of the 
 Potomac, while he profoundly disapproved of the Proclamation of 
 Emancipation, magnanimously counselled his army to submit without 
 mutiny or demoralizing protest, relying upon the popular verdict at 
 the ballot-box; to rebuke or chastise the Administration for its " po- 
 litical error." 
 
 Earlier than this, however, an indication of the prevailing temper 
 at McClellan's headquarters had been given in the trial of T hecaseof 
 one of his officers. Major John J. Key, brother to Colonel Mai r Key- 
 Thomas M. Key, of McClellan's staff, was reported to have said, 
 when replying to the question, " Why was not the rebel army bagged 
 immediately after the battle of Sharpsburg ? " " That is not the 
 
 
572 NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 game ; the object is that neither army shall get much advantage of 
 the other ; that both shall be kept in the field till they are exhausted, 
 when we will make a compromise and save slavery." Major Key 
 and the officer to whom this remark was made were summoned before 
 the President. No defence having been made by Key, except in the 
 statement that he was loyal to the Union, the President endorsed 
 upon the record of the case these words : " In my view it is wholly 
 inadmissible for any gentleman holding a military commission from 
 the United States to utter such sentiments as Major Key is within 
 proved to have done. Therefore, let Major John J. Key be forth- 
 with dismissed from the military service of the United States." 
 Speaking of this matter afterwards, President Lincoln said : " I dis- 
 missed Major Key because I thought his silly, treasonable expressions 
 were ' staff talk,' and I wished to make an example." 1 
 
 In his despatch of October 6th, directing an advance of the Army 
 A race for ^ * ne Potomac, Halleck left with McClellan the choice of 
 Richmond. rou t es southward. McClellan chose the line on the eastward 
 of the Blue Ridge, Lee being on the westward, in the Shenandoah 
 Valley. Then began a race for Richmond, McClellan having finally 
 crossed the Potomac ; he reported himself fully over the river No- 
 vember 2d. It was hoped and expected that McClellan, with his 
 greatly superior force and equipment, would be able to outflank the 
 enemy, and, by striking him through the passes of the Blue Ridge 
 full on his flank, destroy his army or cripple him so severely that he 
 would be unable to offer serious resistance to the advance of the 
 Federal troops upon Richmond. But Lee, as usual, was too quick 
 for him. Anticipating McClellan's movement, Lee sent Longstreet's 
 corps through the gaps of the mountain range, and, at Culpepper Court 
 House, once more flung an army between the Army of the Potomac 
 and Richmond. But this was a dividing of Lee's forces, which, with 
 an alert and skilful commander on the other side, might have re- 
 sulted most disastrously to the Confederates. Was McClellan such a 
 commander ? Some of his friends and partisans contended that he 
 was, and that if he had been left to himself he would have finally 
 profited by the good fortune so often put into his hands and so often 
 rejected. But it would appear that when the news reached Wash- 
 ington that Lee had outstripped McClellan in the race on parallel 
 lines for Richmond, the waning confidence in McClellan's ability to 
 fight and win battles finally vanished. 
 
 President Lincoln sent an order, dated November 5th, relieving 
 McClellan from command of the Army of the Potomac, and naming 
 as his successor Major-general A. E. Burnside, then commanding the 
 
 1 The Nicolay-Hay Life of Lincoln, vol. vi. p. 188. 
 
1862.] 
 
 BURNSIDE SUCCEEDS McCLELLAN. 
 
 573 
 
 Ninth Corps of that 
 army. This order was 
 borne to McClellan's 
 headquarters at Rec- 
 tortown, Virginia, by 
 General C. P. Buck- 
 ingham, from the War 
 Department. Gen- 
 eral McClellan was 
 instructed to turn over 
 his command to Gen- 
 eral Burnside, and to 
 report at Trenton, 
 New Jersey. When 
 the two generals, 
 Buckingham and 
 Burnside, presented 
 themselves with their 
 orders, McClellan re- 
 ceived them with 
 calmness, and " read 
 the papers with a 
 smile." But as soon 
 as he was left alone, 
 he sadly ejaculated, 
 " Alas for my poor 
 country ! " l The 
 
 news of his removal 
 from command was 
 distressing to the rank and file of the army, most of whom still clung 
 to him with blind and unreasoning affection. To the officers who 
 more immediately surrounded him with their adulation and their 
 zealous partisanship, his removal was a frightful blow. In later years 
 McClellan put on record the fact that some of these advised him to 
 head a mutiny of his troops. He said : 2 " Many were in favor of 
 my refusing to obey the order, and of marching upon Washington to 
 take possession of the Government." Fortunately for him, McClellan 
 declined so perilous an undertaking. He issued to the army McClel i a n' 
 a touching and eloquent farewell order, and retired to the farewe11 - 
 capital of New Jersey. Henceforth was to begin his strictly political 
 career. His military career was ended. 
 
 1 McClellan 's Own Story, p. 662. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 652. 
 
 Lincoln and McClellan at Antietam in October, I 862. 
 
574 NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 Irresolution, rather than cowardice or disloyalty, appears to have 
 cause of been the cause of McClellan's repeated failures in the field, 
 his failures, jf jj e jjij not distrust his own abilities, he constantly dis- 
 trusted and underrated his own resources. And he as constantly 
 overestimated the resources of his opponent. It was notorious that 
 the Confederate quartermaster's and commissary departments were 
 far inferior to those of the National troops. Lee's brave men fought 
 under every disadvantage of physical privation, poor equipment, and 
 scantiness of supply. The captives from his forces, falling into the 
 hands of the Federals, had no need to tell tales of hunger, poverty, 
 and raggedness. Their personal appearance was eloquent witness of 
 their condition. They marched with marvellous celerity and fought 
 with indomitable courage, notwithstanding the slenderness of their 
 outfit and the scantiness of their war material. But while these ill- 
 clad, ill-fed troops were capering derisively around his army, or were 
 tricking him with wooden guns and dummy fortifications and sen- 
 tries, McClellan continually exaggerated the numbers of the troops 
 confronting him, and listened with credulity to fantastic tales of the 
 reenforcement of the enemy from distant parts of the United States. 
 He dreaded the coming of Beauregard and Bragg to the support of 
 Lee, when those redoubtable chieftains were hundreds of miles away, 
 fully occupied with most arduous labors. His anxiety for more men, 
 more guns, more ammunition, more supplies of every sort and de- 
 scription, amounted to a mania. This was harshly satirized by one 
 of the humorists of the time, who represented that the army was 
 waiting for a supply of umbrellas before undertaking a forward 
 movement. A peerless organizer, a skilful engineer, he excelled in 
 planning and manning defences ; he would have been invaluable in 
 the defensive works around Washington. He certainly did not have 
 the qualities of a fighter. 
 
 General Burnside's first act was to change the organization of the 
 Bunwide'g Army of the Potomac by the consolidation of its six army 
 on g oTtht corps into three grand divisions of two corps each. The 
 *"** right grand division was commanded by General E. V. 
 
 Sumner, and was composed of the Second Corps, under General 
 Couch, and the Ninth, under General Wilcox ; the centre, under 
 General Joseph Hooker, was made up of the Third Corps, under 
 General Stoneman, and the Fifth, under General Butterfield ; and the 
 left division, under General W. B. Franklin, was composed of the 
 First Corps, under General Reynolds, and the Sixth, under General 
 W. F. Smith. Twice before Burnside had been offered the com- 
 mand of the Army of the Potomac, and he now accepted it only 
 from a stern sense of duty. Taking command, as he did, in the face 
 
1862.] 
 
 A RACE FOR FREDERICKSBURG. 
 
 575 
 
 of the enemy, and oppressed by the magnitude of the trust so sud- 
 denly thrust upon him, he was naturally cautious. Instead of going 
 forward to offer battle, as it was supposed McClellan might have 
 done, or proposed to do, Burnside prepared a new plan of campaign, 
 and occupied about ten days in getting in hand his army, which had 
 to be reorganized to a certain extent. The perfect marching and 
 fighting weather of an American autumn had been wasted while Mc- 
 Clellan was making his elaborate preparations for a forward move- 
 ment in which he had neither heart nor confidence. November was 
 well advanced before Burnside could say that he had his army well 
 in hand. It cannot be said that that army welcomed him with cor- 
 diality or regarded with confidence any possibility of victory that 
 might be promised in his plans. For the general was not only told 
 that he must take command of the Army of the Potomac, but he 
 must say what he proposed to do with it. Two days after he had 
 taken command, and while the work of reorganization was going on, 
 he had his plan ready for approval. 
 
 Instead of moving toward Richmond by way of Gordonsville, Burn- 
 side proposed to make " a rapid move of the whole force Burnside .g 
 to Fredericksburg, with a view to a movement upon Rich- plwi ' 
 mond from that point." This plan was accepted, and on the 15th 
 of November the movement was begun, masked by a feint toward 
 Gordonsville. Lee was not deceived by this device, but divining the 
 intent of Burnside, he headed his force toward Fredericksburg. The 
 armies moved down the Rappahannock, but upon opposite sides, Lee 
 upon the south side, Burnside upon the north. Burnside had sev- 
 eral days the start, and on the 17th his advance, under Sumner, 
 reached Falmouth, where it bad been purposed to cross the Rappa- 
 hannock to Fredericksburg. But when 
 he reached that point he found that 
 the bridges had all been destroyed, and 
 the pontoons which were to have been 
 there had not been sent. Before these 
 came, Lee had brought down his whole 
 force, now numbering nearly 80,000 ; 
 had fortified the heights, and was 
 awaiting the further movements of 
 Burnside, whose force numbered fully 
 113,000. 
 
 After a delay that appears to have 
 been fatal to the plan of the command- 
 ing general, the pontoons for crossing 
 
 Lieutenant-General James Longstreet, ., . / 11 i i .1 
 
 c. s. A. the river finally arrived, and on the 
 
576 NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 10th of December Burnside decided to lay down several bridges and 
 Fredericks- cross. It was no part of Lee's plan seriously to obstruct the 
 burg- passage. He preferred to let the enemy cross and attack 
 
 him in his strong position. The passage of the river was made on the 
 llth and 12th, followed on Sunday, the 13th, by the disastrous battle 
 of Fredericksburg. This was a vain effort to carry an almost 
 Freae e ricks- impregnable position, held by an almost equal force. Be- 
 ginning at ten o'clock in the morning, attempt after attempt 
 was made to force the Confederate lines at several points. Here and 
 there the assailants for a brief space won a little ground, but were 
 soon hurled back. The hottest fighting took place at the foot of 
 Marye's Hill, just behind Fredericksburg. This hill, crowned by bat- 
 teries, falls off abruptly to a sunken road, faced on the city side by a 
 low stone wall. This sunken road, which really formed a ditch for 
 the defence of the fortress hill, was the decisive point in the battle. 
 The first assault upon Marye's Hill was committed to the divisions of 
 French and Hancock of Sumner's grand corps, " two of the most gal- 
 lant officers in the army," says Sumner, " and two divisions which had 
 never turned their backs to the enemy." The front to be carried was 
 so narrow that scarcely more than a brigade could be brought upon it 
 at once. Brigade after brigade rushed forward only to be swept back 
 so rapidly that it seemed like a single assault. Something like 10,000 
 men took part in it, and it lasted two hours and more ; of these fully 
 4,000 were killed or wounded. Twice as many men could not have 
 carried the hill in face of the forces opposed to them. The first line 
 of the Confederate entrenchments had not been carried. The dead 
 bodies of the Federal troops, lying in winrows, marked the extreme 
 point of the advance, twenty or thirty paces from a stone wall, behind 
 which the enemy stood secure. 
 
 Burnside, from across the river, had watched the fight. " That 
 The final crest," he said to Hooker, "must be carried to-night." 
 assault. Hooker crossed the river, and consulted with Hancock, 
 French, and others, all of whom, with a single exception, thought that 
 it could not be done. But Burnside was inflexible, and ordered a 
 fresh assault to be made. Night was fast approaching when Hooker 
 was ready to attack. He began by a fierce artillery fire, hoping to 
 make " a hole sufficiently large for a forlorn hope to enter." It made 
 no more impression, he says, " than if it had been made against a 
 mountain of rock." The Confederate fire from the crest had ceased, 
 their ammunition being exhausted. At sunset Hooker ordered 
 Humphreys, with 4,000 men, to " make the assault with empty 
 muskets, for there was no time to load and fire." Looking upward 
 from the base of the hill, all that they could see was a steep slope, 
 
1862.] 
 
 A FRIGHTFUL SLAUGHTER. 
 
 577 
 
 Culpepper Court House, Va. 
 
 with a low stone wall, near the base. The sunken road below was 
 quite invisible, and they knew nothing of its existence. But in 
 it troops were standing four deep, and perfectly protected from any 
 fire. Humphreys pushed to within a few rods of this road, when his 
 column was met by a solid sheet of lead and fire, before which it 
 melted away like a snow-drift before a jet of steam. The whole 
 affair lasted barely a quarter of an hour, but in that brief space out 
 of 4,000 assailants fully 1,700 were killed or wounded, while not a 
 man of the enemy appears to have been struck. Then, says Hooker, 
 grimly, " finding that I had lost as many men as my orders required 
 me to lose, I suspended the attack." There was no complaint of any 
 lack of ardor on the part of Hooker's men. " They ran hurrahing." 
 And he adds : " The head of Humphrey's column reached a point 
 about fifteen or twenty paces from the stone wall, which proved the 
 advance line of the rebels, and then was driven back as quickly as it 
 had come. The time taken was probably not fifteen minutes, and it 
 left behind 1,760 men out of 4,000." 
 
 The battle of Fredericksburg was over. But Burnside did not 
 give up without a struggle his hope of carrying the impreg- A fte r the 
 nable lines in the rear of the little city. After the final and battle - 
 deadly repulse, he called a council of corps and division commanders : 
 even the veteran and well-seasoned Sumner had expostulated with 
 
 VOL. IV. 
 
 37 
 
578 
 
 NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XXL 
 
 Major-General Ambrose E. Burnside. 
 
 him over the wasteful and hopeless 
 attacks on the insurgent line of in- S 
 trenchments. The council voted 
 unanimously against the proposed 
 attack. Burnside, although ago- 
 nized by the fearful loss of life al- 
 ready incurred, could not readily 
 yield. He crossed the yver to ascer- 
 tain the opinion of other officers who 
 were not of the council. Every- 
 where he met with the same reply. 
 Further attack was hopeless. Fi- 
 nally, Franklin, whose military skill * 
 and courage were undoubted, pro- 
 nounced against the proposed at- 
 tempt. During two days the army kept a bold front. It remained on 
 the line of battle before an enemy who made no sign of renewing the 
 fight. The dead and wounded lay exposed on the snowy ground be- 
 tween the lines of the opposing armies. At night there were frequent 
 alarms caused by picket-firing ; and marauders from the insurgent 
 lines stripped the bodies of Union soldiers lying dead or dying on the 
 field. A woman who lived near the edge of the battle-field said 
 that on " the morning after the battle the field was blue ; but on the 
 morning after the Federals withdrew the field was white." The 
 blue ujiiforms of the Federal soldiers often served the insurgents a 
 double purpose, they covered their own nakedness and disguised 
 them to the eyes of their foes. 
 
 The forces engaged in the battle of Fredericksburg, and the losses 
 that accrued to each, were greatly disproportionate. The 
 
 The forces. V i /-, 
 
 aggregate of the several corps under the command of Gen- 
 eral Burnside, according to his own report, on the morning of De- 
 cember 13th, was 113,000 men. This was about 3,600 less than he 
 had reported on the 10th of that month as " present for duty 
 equipped." The total Federal loss in killed, wounded, and missing, was 
 12,653. There is no official record of the number of Lee's forces at 
 the battle of Fredericksburg. His return for December 10th showed 
 a " present for duty " of 78,513. But this included the cavalry, 
 which was not directly involved in the engagement ; and from it 
 should be deducted the usual proportion of non-combatants, the 
 absent on leave, and the cavalry engaged in other fields. One 
 authority 1 says : " Less than 20,000 Confederate troops (about one 
 fourth of the army under General Lee) were actively engaged " in 
 1 Taylor's Four Years with General Lee, p. 81. 
 
1862.] 
 
 A GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT. 
 
 579 
 
 The results. 
 
 this battle. The Confederate loss in killed, wounded, and missing, 
 was 5,377. 
 
 Once more an enormous disaster had fallen upon the people in the 
 loss of a great battle. When the Army of the Potomac 
 returned to its camps on the eastern side of the Rappahan- 
 nock, it withdrew in good order and without the evident demoraliza- 
 tion of defeat. For a few days the people, ignorant of what had 
 happened and purposely deprived of exact intelligence from the seat 
 of war on the Rappahannock, dreamed of an immediate renewal of 
 the attack. None outside of military or governmental circles knew 
 what a frightful havoc had been wrought in the lines of the Federal 
 army. When the truth gradually leaked out, and the vast losses 
 sustained were fully comprehended, the popular feeling at the Xorth 
 was one of wrathful grief and indignation. Burnside was harshly 
 berated, and his military ability derided ; and corps commanders who 
 had deserved well of their country were angrily denounced as traitors 
 and cowards, who had allowed partisanship to control them even to 
 the throwing away of a battle. Never was there a more unjust 
 assault made upon the generals of any command. But in their blind 
 fury, civilian critics involved nearly all the military leaders in their 
 volleys of objurgation. 
 
 General Burnside turned the edge of hostile criticism by his assum- 
 ing without demur the entire responsibility for the disaster at Fred- 
 
 The Wall at Fredericksburg after the Battle. 
 
580 
 
 NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 ericksburg. In his report to the general -in-chief, on the 19th, he 
 said that he owed everything to the brave officers and soldiers who 
 had performed most difficult feats ; and he added : " For the failure 
 in the attack, I am responsible." He began at once to rally his army 
 and to plan new movements against the enemy. He now proposed 
 to make a feint on the right of his army, as if he were meditating 
 an attack above Fredericksburg ; but to cross the river at the Seddon 
 farm, about six miles below the city, with the main body of the army 
 and turn the Confederate right. At the same time a large body of 
 cavalry was to cross the river at Kelley's Ford, the Rapidan at Rac- 
 coon Ford, and the James at a point some thirty miles above Rich- 
 mond, pass around the city at a distance, going south of Petersburg, 
 destroying the Confederate communications in every direction, and 
 finally joining the forces of General Peck, then in Suffolk. 
 
 The details of the plan were carefully worked out and everything 
 A new plan was ^ n readiness by the 30th of December. Roads through 
 of campaign. ^e woods to the Seddon House had been opened and made 
 passable for trains of artillery and wagons ; the detachments of cav- 
 alry designed to mask the coming movement were at their posts ; a 
 brigade of infantry had even made a demonstration on the right 
 bank of the river ; and General Averill was at the head of his column 
 of cavalry at Kelley's Ford, when everything was brought to a stand- 
 still by an order from the President directing Burnside to undertake 
 no general movement without first consulting him. Burnside was 
 thunderstruck. He had communicated his plans to none but his 
 generals. He believed that he had been left to carry out his own 
 scheme ; and he was amazed and indignant that he was so suddenly 
 and arbitrarily interfered with just when he was on the eve of 
 beginning a new campaign. He 
 hastened to Washington, where he 
 learned that two of his generals 
 Newton, commanding the third divi- 
 sion of the Sixth Corps, and Coch- 
 rane, commanding a brigade in the 
 same division had been to Washing- 
 ton and had communicated directly 
 with the President, repre- 
 
 ComplaintB . . 
 
 against senting to him that the armv 
 
 Burnside. . e J 
 
 was in a demoralized state, 
 resulting largely from its want of 
 confidence in the commanding gen- 
 eral, and that the movement then 
 
 . Brigadier-General Conrad r. Jackson. 
 
 probably under contemplation (as (Killed at Fredericksb 
 
1862.] 
 
 BURNSIDE'S PATIENCE TRIED. 
 
 581 
 
 A Typical Incident of the War in Virginia, a family leaving the old homestead. 
 Drawn by Victor S. Ptrard from a photograph. 
 
 they judged from appearances) was foredoomed to failure. It was 
 generally supposed, when these facts became known, that Xewton 
 and Cochrane were merely the mouthpieces of others who had no 
 confidence in Burnside's ability to carry out a plan of campaign. 
 Burnside's subsequent actions showed that he entertained that belief. 
 The details of the proposed movement were soon made known to the 
 Confederate leaders through their spies in Washington ; the plan 
 was definitely abandoned. 
 
 Another scheme of attack was immediately formed by the general. 
 This time he proposed to cross the river at Banks's and the rhangeg of 
 United States Fords, above Fredericksburg, flank the enemy plan- 
 and then give him battle. This time he had a qualified consent for 
 his movement ; and the two grand divisions of Franklin and Hooker 
 went up the river on parallel roads, while Couch's division made a 
 feint below the city. The troops were overtaken by a fierce storm 
 of rain and sleet. The men were exposed to the pitiless peltings of 
 the blast ; wagons, artillery, and horses were inextricably mired in 
 the bottomless soil of Virginia, and, after the three days' cooked 
 rations were gone, the army was led back to its camps, where it 
 remained for the remainder of the winter. This movement, under- 
 taken in the depth of winter, and thwarted by storms that delayed 
 
582 NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. [CHAP. XXL 
 
 and betrayed it, is known in the history of the Army of the Potomac 
 as the famous Mud March. 
 
 General Burnside's patience and forbearance had now given way 
 under an accumulation of trials and disappointments. He went to 
 Washington with an order dismissing from the service Major-generals 
 Joseph Hooker, John Newton, and W. T. H. Brooks, whom he 
 charged with fomenting discontent in the army ; and, by the same 
 order, Generals W. B. Franklin, W. F. Smith, John Cochrane, and 
 Edward Ferrero, and Lieut.-colonel J. H. Taylor were to be relieved 
 from duty in the Army of the Potomac. The President was sorely 
 tried. He appreciated the patriotic services and the soldierly quali- 
 ties of Burnside ; he could not sympathize with him in his denun- 
 ciation of the officers who had taken it upon themselves to protest 
 against movements which, under the circumstances, appeared to be 
 certain to lead to the destruction of the army. He liked Burnside, 
 and admired his courage and his much-enduring patience, but he was 
 not prepared to say that the criticisms that had been made upon his 
 strategy were unjust. After talking familiarly and intimately with 
 Burnside, the President finally consented that the general 
 succeeded should be relieved from command of the Army of the Poto- 
 mac. At the same time Franklin and Sumner were re- 
 lieved, the latter at his own request. General Joseph Hooker was now 
 assigned to the command relinquished by Burnside. Burnside had 
 been at the head of the Army of the Potomac less than ninety days. 
 
TABLE OF DATES. 
 
 1779. Sullivan's Expedition. 
 
 1780. May, Capture of Charleston by the British. 
 July, Arrival of Rocharabeau. 
 
 August 15, Battle of Camden. 
 September, Arnold's Treason. 
 
 1781. January 17, Battle of Cowpens. 
 
 March 15, Battle of Guilford Court House. 
 
 September 8, Battle of Eutaw Springs. 
 
 October 19, Cornwallis's Surrender at Yorktown. 
 
 1782. November 30, Preliminary Treaty of Peace signed. 
 
 1783. September 3, Final Treaty of Peace with Great Britain signed. 
 November 25, Evacuation of New York. 
 
 December 4, Washington takes leave of his officers. 
 
 1784. Jefferson's Northwest Ordinance proposed. 
 
 1786. Shay's Rebellion. 
 
 1787. Northwest Territory organized, and Ordinance adopted. 
 May 14, Constitutional Convention met at Philadelphia. 
 
 September 17, Constitution of the United States signed by the Delegates. 
 
 1788. June 21, Constitution ratified by New Hampshire, securing its adoption. 
 
 1789. March 4, First Congress assembled in New York. 
 April 30, Washington inaugurated President. 
 
 1790. Cotton-spinning established in the United States. 
 
 1791. First National Bank established. 
 
 1793. Wayne's campaign against the Indians. 
 Cotton Gin invented by Eli Whitney. 
 
 1794. The Whiskey Insurrection. 
 
 1795. Jay's Treaty ratified. 
 
 1797. March 4, John Adams inaugurated President. 
 
 1798. Alien and Sedition Laws enacted. 
 
 1799. Fries's Insurrection. 
 
 December 14, Death of Washington. 
 1801. March 4, Jefferson inaugurated President. 
 War with Tripoli. 
 
 1803. Louisiana purchased. 
 
 1804. Lewis and Clarke's Expedition. 
 
 1805. Treaty of Peace with Tripoli. 
 
 1806. Aaron Burr's Expedition to the Southwest. 
 Monroe and Pinkney Treaty, suppressed by Jefferson. 
 November 20, The Berlin Decree issued. 
 
 1807. Trial trip of Fulton's first steamboat. 
 

 584 TABLE OF DATES. 
 
 1807. November 11, The Orders in Council issued. 
 
 December 17, The Milan Decree issued. 
 
 December, The Embargo Bill passed. 
 1809. March 4, Madison inaugurated President. 
 
 181 1. November 7, Battle of Tippecanoe. 
 
 1812. June 18, War declared against England. 
 August 16, Hull's surrender of Detroit. 
 
 1813. March 4, Madison inaugurated. 
 September 10, Perry's victory on Lake Erie. 
 October 5, Battle of the Thames. 
 
 Jackson's campaign against the Southern Indians. 
 
 1814. Campaign on the Niagara; Battles of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane. 
 August 25, Capture of Washington by the British. 
 
 September 11, Battle of Plattsburg. 
 December 15, Hartford Convention met. 
 December 24, Treaty of Peace signed at Ghent. 
 
 1815. January 8, Battle of New Orleans. 
 War with Algiers. 
 
 1816. United States Bank chartered. 
 First Seminole War. 
 
 1817. March 4, Monroe inaugurated President. 
 
 1818. Steam navigation begun on the Western lakes. 
 
 1820. Missouri Compromise passed. 
 
 1821. Ratification of Treaty of 1819, ceding Florida to the United States. 
 
 1825. March 4, John Quincy Adams inaugurated President. 
 
 1826. Murder of Morgan, and rise of the Anti-masonic Party. 
 July 4, Death of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. 
 First railroad built in the United States. 
 
 1829. March 4, Jackson inaugurated President. 
 
 1831. Garrison established "The Liberator." 
 August, The Southampton Insurrection. 
 
 1832. The Black Hawk War. 
 Nullification in South Carolina. 
 
 1833. Removal of deposits from the United States Bank. 
 1835. Second Seminole War begun. 
 
 Texas declared her independence of Mexico. 
 1837. March 4, Van Buren inaugurated President. 
 1839. Capture of the Amistad, and trial of Africans. 
 
 1841. March 4, Harrison inaugurated President. 
 Case of the Creole. 
 
 1842. The Dorr War in Rhode Island. 
 
 The Prigg Case in the Supreme Court. 
 The Ashburton Treaty concluded. 
 
 1845. Texas annexed by joint resolution. 
 March 4, Polk inaugurated President. 
 
 1846. May 8, Battle of Palo Alto, beginning of the Mexican War. 
 August 8, David Wilmot introduced his Proviso in Congress. 
 
 1847. February 22, 23, Battle of Buena Vista. 
 March 27, Surrender of Vera Cruz. 
 
 September 14, City of Mexico occupied by the American forces. 
 
 1848. February, Treaty of Peace with Mexico concluded. 
 
TABLE OF DATES. 
 
 585 
 
 1848. Gold discovered in California. 
 
 1849. March 4, Taylor inaugurated President. 
 
 1850. The Clay Compromises including the Fugitive Slave Law passed. 
 
 1853. March 4, Pierce inaugurated President. 
 Rise of the Know-Nothing Party. 
 
 1854. May 30, The Kansas-Xebraska Bill became a law. 
 
 1856. Lawrence, Kansas, sacked. 
 
 1857. March 4, Buchanan inaugurated President. 
 March 6, The Dred Scott case in the Supreme Court. 
 August 4, First message sent by Atlantic cable. 
 
 1859. October, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. 
 
 1860. November, Lincoln elected President. 
 December 20, South Carolina seceded. 
 
 1861. January, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana seceded. 
 February, Texas seceded ; provisional Confederate Government organized. 
 March 4, Lincoln inaugurated President. 
 
 April 12, 13, Bombardment of Fort Sumter. 
 
 April 17, Virginia seceded. 
 
 April 19, First blood shed, in Baltimore. 
 
 May, Arkansas and Xorth Carolina seceded. 
 
 June 10, Battle of Big Bethel. 
 
 July 21, Battle of Bull Run. 
 
 August 10, Battle of Wilson's Creek ; death of General Lyon. 
 
 August 26, The Hatteras Exdedition sailed. 
 
 August 31, Fremont's Emancipation Proclamation issued. 
 
 October 29, The Port Royal Expedition sailed. 
 
 November 8, The Confederate envoys taken from the Trent by Captain Wilkes. 
 
 1862. January 12, The Roanoke Expedition sailed. 
 March 9, Fight of the Merrimac and Monitor. 
 
 May 4, Yorktown evacuated by the Confederates ; Battle of Williamsburg. 
 
 May 9, Hunter's Emancipation Order issued. 
 
 May 27, Battle of Hanover Court House. 
 
 May 31, Battle of Fair Oaks. 
 
 June 26, The Seven Days' battles before Richmond begun. 
 
 August 29, Battle of Groveton, or Second Bull Run. 
 
 September, Invasion of Maryland ; Battle of Antietam. 
 
 The President's preliminary Proclamation of Emancipation issued. 
 December 13, Battle of Fredericksburg.