%images;]> gckb-041 The Dutch and Quaker colonies in America,: a machine-readable transcription. gckb Selected and converted.American Memory, Library of Congress.

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THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES IN AMERICA BY JOHN FISKE ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS MAPS FACSIMILES CONTEMPORARY VIEWS PRINTS AND OTHER HISTORICAL MATERIALS VOLUME I

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THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES IN AMERICA BY JOHN FISKE IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME I Nieuw Nederlant is een seer schoon aengenaem gesont en lustigh lantschap daer het voor alderley slagh van menschen beter en ruymer aen de kost of gemackelycker door de werelt te geraken is als in Nederlant offte eenige andere quartieren des werelts mijn bekent. Adrian van der Donck, 1656 For I must needs tell you, if we miscarry it will be our own fault; we have nobody else to blame ; for such is the happiness of our Constitution, that we cannot well be destroyed but by ourselves. William Penn, 1679 CAMBRIDGE $rinte& at MDCCCCIII

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D FHt ! rt-r: Two Copies QCT 23 (ecciivefl 1903 Copyijjf.il tmr> CLASS fct COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY JOHN FISKE COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN Si CO. ALL EIGHTS RESERVED tunbteb anb JFiftp

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i 3 u To MY OLD FRIEND JOHN SPENCER CLARK WHO HAS LONG FELT A DEEP INTEREST IN THIS WORK 3t now tiebfcatt it WITH SINCERE AFFECTION

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PUBLISHERS' NOTE In preparing this edition of The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, the publishers have been able to secure for illustration original manuscripts and other material never before reproduced. They have also followed the plan adopted by Mr. Fiske in previous cases, and have used only illustrations that possess distinct historical interest. Credit is given in the list of illustrations for many courtesies, but special thanks are due to Wilberforce Eames of the New York Public Library, Gen. James Grant Wilson of New York, R. V. R. Stuyvesant, Esq., of New York, A. J. Van Laer of the State Library, Albany, N. Y.» Samuel A. Green of the Massachusetts Historical Society, T. J. Kiernan of the Harvard University Library, William Nelson of the New Jersey Historical Society, and Albert C« Bates of the Connecticut Historical Society. Boston, October, 1903.

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PREFACE In the general sequence of my volumes on American history, the present work comes next after " The Beginnings of New England," which m turn comes next after " Old Vir* ginia and Her Neighbours." It will be observed that these books leave the history of New England at the overthrow of James II., while they carry that of the southern and middle colonies, with some diminution of details, into the reigns of the first two Georges. It is my purpose, in my next book, to deal with the rise and fall of New France, and the development of the English colonies as influenced by the prolonged struggle with that troublesome and dangerous neighbour. With this end in view, the history of New England must be taken up where the earlier book dropped it, and the history of New York resumed at about the same fime, while by degrees we shall find the histories of Pennsylvania and the colonies to the south of it swept into the' main stream of Continental history. That book will come down to the year 1765, which witnessed the ringing out of the old and the ringing in of the new, the one with Pontiac's War, the other with the Stamp Act I hope to have it ready in about two years from now. In connection with the present work I have to express my thanks especially to my friend, Colonel William Leete Stone, for several exdellent suggestions, and for procuring for me a

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x PREFACE beautiful set of the " Records of New Amsterdam," edited by Mr. Berthold Fernow; and likewise to Mr. James Roberts, the State Comptroller, for a similar set of the " Colonial Laws of New York." Cambridge, May-day, 1899.

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CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE MEDIAEVAL NETHERLANDS PAGE Fe'nelon's remark about Amsterdam......i Significance of the fact that New York is the daughter of Amsterdam ............2 Kinship between the English and Dutch people .... 2 Dutchland and Welshland........3 Belgians and Batavians........ 4 Flemish and Frankish speech........6 The Frisians as heathen........7 The Frisians as Christians........8 Lotharingia, the Middle Kingdom....., 9 Lorraine............10 The Crusades; feudal states in the Low Countries . . . 10, 11 Political circumstances which favoured the Netherlands . .11 Favourable industrial circumstances......12 Agriculture; dikes and canals......12, 13 Horticulture and manufactures.......13, 14 The fine arts...........14 Scholarship.......... 15 Erasmus............16 Dutch literature.......... 16 The Bible in the Netherlands.......17 Public schools..........17 Urban and rural population . . . , . . . , 17,18 Modern features of the mediaeval Netherlands . . . 18-20 Political development in England......20 Contrast in the political development in the Netherlands . . 20 The guilds......., ... 21 The local lords; the overlords . . . . . . .21 The disaster of Roosebeke in 1382......22 Philip the Good, and Charles the Bold.....22-24 Lady Mary and the Great Privilege......24

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xii CONTENTS Philip of Austria t...... 2S Charles V............ 26 Dutch and Flemish liberties in danger...... 26 CHAPTER II DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND Non-English elements in the American people . . . .27 Patriotic bias; Anglophobia ,......27, 28 Free public schools; the fallacy of post and propter . . .29 A Bohemian view . . . . . . 29,30 Flemings in mediaeval England; politics and wool . . 30,31 Trade between Flanders and England.....31 Immigration from the Netherlands into England . . . .32 Netherlander in East Anglia.......32 Puritanism was especially strong in the eastern counties of England ............34 The Lollards..........34, 35 Influence of the Netherlands upon English Puritanism . . 35, 36 Antagonism between priestcraft and commerce . . . . 36, 37 Some features of the revolt of the Netherlands . . . .38 The Netherlands broken in twain......39 Hegira of Dutch and Flemish Puritans into England . , 40 Dutch family names anglicized ....... 41 Migration of Flemish Protestants into Holland . . . .42 Growth of the Dutch provinces at the expense of the Flemish . 42 Relations of the Low Countries with Portugal . . . .43 Death of Don Sebastian; seizure of Portugal by Spain . . 43, 44 The Dutch in the East Indies.......44 How they introduced tea and coffee into Europe ... 46 The Dutch in the Moluccas, and in Australasia . . . 47,48 The affair of Amboyna........48 The Dutch in Brazil.........49 Arctic explorations ; Linschoten and Barendz . , . . 49, 50 Antarctic voyages, and discovery of Cape Horn . . . .51 CHAPTER III VERRAZANO AND HUDSON The Newfoundland fisheries.......52 The voyage of Dieppe sailors in 1508......53 Giovanni da Verrazano, the Florentine.....54

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CONTENTS xiii He visits a " new land " in 1524.......55 And stands " between two boundless seas" . . . . 55, 56 The Sea of Verrazano.........56 He visits the harbour of New York......57 And finds a " port of refuge " in Narragansett Bay ... 58 He sees the peaks of the White Mountains, and turns his prow seaward from the mouth of Penobscot River .... 58 His letter to Francis 1..........59 He is captured by Spaniards and hanged.....60 The voyage of Estevan Gomez in 1525......60 The voyage of Jean Allefonsce in 1542, and the French fort at Albany...........60, 61 The Norumbega question........61 The River of the Grand Scarp.......62 Difficulties in the study of old maps.....63, 64 Importance of Cabo de Arenas.......64, 65 The Gastaldi map..........65 Mercator's map of 1569........66 AUefonsce's manuscript.........67 Testimony of other maps; probability that the " City of Norumbega " was a village near the site of the present City Hall in New York...........67 Temporary cessation of French activity on the ocean ... 68 Beginnings of English maritime enterprise ; the Muscovy Company 69 Henry Hudson, the alderman of London.....69 Thomas Hudson, of Mortlake.......70 Thomas Hudson, of Limehouse.......70 Christopher Hudson..... ... 70 Henry Hudson the Navigator.......70 His first and second voyages .......71 He enters the service of the Dutch East India Company . . 72, 73 In his third voyage he is baffled at Nova Zembla . . . -73 What next? Lok's map and John Smith's letter ... 74 The whale fishery..........75 Sun spots...........75 Hudson goes in search of the Sea of Verrazano . . .75. 76 The Half Moon in the harbour of New York .... 76 The Half Moon in the Catskills......76-78 Indian hospitality.........78, 79 Hudson returns to service of the Muscovy Company . . 80 His last voyage and tragic fate.......80, 81 Hudson in folk-lore........81, 82

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xiv CONTENTS CHAPTER IV THE WEST INDIA COMPANY Significance of the year 1609......83, 84 The American question in Holland......84 The Calvinist or Orange party...... . 85 The Arminian or Republican party ,t . . 86 William Usselincx..........87 Founding of the Dutch East India Company in 1602 ... 88 Its indifference to America........88 Dutch pioneers at Manhattan, 1613......89 The Ordinance of 1614 ........90 Voyage of Adrian Block........90, 91 Voyage of Cornelius May........91 First appearance of the name of " New Netherland " . . 91 Fort Nassau, and the vale of Tawasentha ..... 92 Treaty with the Five Nations.......94 Triumph of the Orange party.......94> 95 Petition of the Leyden Pilgrims to the States General, i62d . 95 It is rejected by the States General ...... 96 By accident the Mayflower, intended for Delaware Bay, arrives in Cape Cod Bay..... , . . 96 Founding of the Dutch West India Company, 1621 ... 98 English claims upon the coast of North America * . . 99 John Smith's voyage to New England, 1614 . . , 99, 100 Thomas Dermer's voyages, 1619-20 ...... 100 The Council of New England......100, 101 A government for New Netherland......102 Arrival of the ship New Netherland at Manhattan . . . 102 Fort Orange, on the North River ....... 102 Fort Nassau, on the South River ....... 103 Fort Good Hope, on Fresh River . . . . 4 . ,103 Walloon Bay......., . . 103 Why England did not interfere......104,105 Accession of Frederick, Prince of Orange ..... 105 Purchase of Manhattan by Peter Minuit, 1626 . . . .105 The building of Fort Amsterdam.......106 Mohawks and Mohegans........107, 108 Minuit's discussion with Governor Bradford . . . .108 Crushing naval defeats of the Spaniards by the Dutch . . no, in

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CONTENTS xv CHAPTER V " PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS " The English people as colonizers......./ 112 Contrast with the French........113 Why Huguenots did not go to New France.....114 Influence of habits of self-government upon colonization . . 114 There was no self-government in New Netherland . . . .115 Contrast with Plymouth and Virginia......116 Slow growth of the Dutch colony.......116 The patroons.........118-120 Limitations upon trade and manufactures.....120 Feudal features in the charter of 1629......121 David de Vries, and hi* colony of Swandale, 1630 . . . .122 Staten Island and Pavonia........123 Rensselaerwyck..........123 Disputes between the Company and the patroons . . .124 Recall of Minuit..........124 The affair of the ship Eendragt revives the English claim . . 125 Queen Elizabeth's doctrine........125 What constitutes occupation of a country? . . . . 125,126 Why Charles I. refrained from pressing the question . . .126 Appointment of Van Twiller as Director General . . » 126 His portrait by the veracious Knickerbocker ..... 127 An unwelcome English visitor.......128 A broadside of bumpers.........129 True explanation of the affair.......129 A Dutch fortress on the Schuylkill.......129 Portentous growth of New England......130 Mohegans in the Connecticut valley......130 Completion of Fort Good Hope ... ... 131 Disputes with New England........131 Plymouth-men on the Connecticut River.....132 Troubles with the Pequots........132 The English fort at Point Saye-Brooke.....133 The founding of Connecticut........134 The Pequot war..........134 Van TwilleHs chivalrous intervention......135 The reason why there was so much bravado with so little fighting between English and Dutch......136, 137

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xvi CONTENTS CHAPTER VI KING LOG AND KING STORK Comical notions associated with the name " Dutch " . . .138 Silly generalizations......... 139 The Athenian prejudice against Boeotians..... 139 Irving's Knickerbocker........ 140 Capture of English intruders on the Delaware River . . . 140 Growth of New Amsterdam........ 142 Van Twiller's purchases of land....... 142 Bibulous magnates......... 143 How Van Twiller was removed from office..... 144 Arrival of William Kieft........ 145 Kieft's method of governing........ 146 Illicit trade in peltries; Kieft's proclamations .... 147 Quality of the New Netherland population..... 148 The proposals of the patroons....... 148 The abolition of monopolies........ 150 New inducements to emigration....... 150 English settlements on Long Island Sound..... 151 The republic of New Haven....... 151 Wampum as currency......... 152 The wampum treasures of Long Island..... 153 Advance of the English on Long Island...... 154 The Algonquin tribes......... 154 Selling firearms to the Iroquois....... 155 Kieft undertakes to tax the Algonquins..... 156 The Raritans destroy De Vries's plantation on Staten Island . 156 Murder of Claes Smit......... 157 The board of Twelve Men........ 157 Reforms proposed......... 158 English settlers in New Netherland...... 158 The Bogardus wedding....... . 159 A murder at Hackensack........ 159 Arrival of Mohawk tribute-gatherers; panic among the Algonquins ............ 160 Kieft's insane conduct; massacres of Indians .... 160 General rising of Algonquins....... 161 Massacre of Mrs. Hutchinson's household .«,... 162 Departure of De Vries........ 162 John Underhill arrives upon the scene...... 162 And destroys the Algonquin fortress at Stamford, with a wholesale slaughter of Indians......... 163 Peace............ 163

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CONTENTS xvii CHAPTER VII a soldier's paternal rule The board of Eight Men.........164 Financial necessities........164, 165 Kieft's excise ; protest of the Eight Men .... 165, 166 Kieft's rudeness..........166 The Eight Men address a petition to the States General, and beg for self-government........166-168 Appointment of Peter Stuyvesant as Director General . . 168 Kieft's treaty with the Algonquin tribes......169 Quarrels between Kieft and Bogardus......170 Arrival of Stuyvesant; his theory of government . . . .171 His name and family.........172 His character...........172 His autocratic behaviour.......173,174 Petition of Kuyter and Melyn for a judicial inquiry into Kieft's conduct...........174 Stuyvesant befriends Kieft........174 Who attacks Kuyter and Melyn.......175 Kieft and Bogardus, Kuyter and Melyn, all sail for Holland in the same ship...........177 Which is wrecked on the English coast; Kieft and Bogardus are drowned, while Kuyter and Melyn, with their papers, are saved............176 Stuyvesant's board of Nine Men.......177 A Director's difficulties.........178 Rensselaerwyck..........179 Feudal insubordination of Van Rensselaer . . ¦ ¦ .180 "Weapon right"..........180 Beverwyck and its traffic.........181 Staple right...........181 The Bear Island incident........182 Adrian van der Donck, the Jonkheer......182 Selling firearms to the Indians.......183 Insubordinate conduct of Schlechtenhorst at Beverwyck . . 183 Stuyvesant's wrath and Schlechtenhorst's defiance . . . 184 What the Mohawks thought of " Old Wooden Leg " . . .184 Stuyvesant's quarrel with Van der Donck.....186 A deadlock...........'88 Return of Melyn..........188 Memorial to the States General......188, 189 The Vertoogh, or Remonstrance.......'89

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xviii CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII SOME AFFAIRS OF NEW AMSTERDAM How the late Lord Sherbrooke once tried to measure historic events with a foot rule..........190 Importance of homely beginnings......191 English self-government.........192 Differences between the English and Dutch migrations . . 193 Government by a commercial company.....193, 194 Spontaneous reproductiveness of English institutions . . 194 Differences between insular and continental conditions . . . 195 The Dutch West India Company and the States General . . 196 Incorporation of New Amsterdam.......198 Five phases of colonial growth.......198 Recovery of strength after the Indian war.....200 Influx of sects; polyglottism and cosmopolitanism of Manhattan Island..........200, 201 Lutherans and Baptists........201, 202 The Quakers ; shameful persecution of Hodshone . . 202, 203 The case of Henry Townsend ; protest of the men of Flushing 203, 204 The glory of Flushing.........204 Stuyvesant is rebuked by the Amsterdam Chamber . . . 205 Origin of New Sweden.........206 Peter Minuit and his Swedes on the Delaware River . . 206-208 Affairs of New Sweden.........208 John Printz, the ponderous governor......209 He receives a visit from De Vries.......210 Fall of New Sweden.........210 CHAPTER IX DUTCH AND ENGLISH Change in the relations between England and the Netherlands . 211 Government and political circumstances of the Netherlands . 212 Marriage of William II. to the Princess Mary .... 213 Schemes of William II. and Mazarin......214 Death of Williamll..........214 Proposed union between England and the Netherlands; its failure ............216 The Navigation Act, and the resulting war between England and Holland...........218 The second and third Dutch wars.....218-220

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CONTENTS xix Grant of Long Island to Lord Stirling ...... 220 Affair of the San Beninio.......221-223 Extradition of criminals between New Haven and New Nether- land............223 Czar Stuyvesant and his Nine Men......224 Stuyvesant's visit to Hartford........225 The treaty of Hartford, September 19, 1650 .... 226 Wrath of the Nine Men.........227 Origin of Wall Street.........227 The excise...........228 Absurd rumours as to Stuyvesant's endeavouring to incite the Indian tribes to a concerted attack upon the English . . .229 The grain of truth..........230 Underbill's manifesto.........231 He seizes Fort Good Hope........231 Exit Underhill..........232 A panic...........232-234 Disaffection upon Long Island.......234 A popular convention, and a remonstrance.....235 Triumph of Stuyvesant........236 Van Dyck shoots a squaw ........ 237 New Amsterdam thronged with redskins.....237 Massacres at Hoboken, Pavonia, and Staten Island . . . 238 Conference at Esopus.........238 Bloodshed at Esopus.........239 Growth of New Netherland........240 Growth of New England.........240 Colonization of Pelham Manor.......241 The Connecticut charter, 1662.......241 English and Dutch claims ........ 242 The English view..........243 The Navigation Laws.........244 Signs and omens; intriguers against New Netherland . . . 244 The Dutch envoys at Hartford.......245 The rise and fall of President Scott.....246, 247 Grant of New Netherland to the Duke of York, 1664 . . 247 Colonel Richard Nicolls and his commission.....248 Arrival of the English fleet in the Lower Bay .... 249 New Amsterdam helpless........249 Nicolls's letter to Winthrop; Stuyvesant tears it to pieces, but Nicholas Bayard puts the pieces together . . . 250, 251 Popular murmurs..........25r On this occasion Stuyvesant's pen was not mightier than Nicolls's sword............2Sl

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xx CONTENTS Stuyvesant surrenders.........252 How the Dutch took their revenge......253 Political consequences........253 Stuyvesant's visit to Holland.......254 His last years and death........254-256

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NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS Peter Stuyvesant (photogravure)........Frontispiece From the original painting in the Library of the "New York Historical Society, by the kind permission of the owner, R, V. R. Stuyvesant. Autograph from Winsor"s America Page Amsterdam in the Seventeenth Century.......i From an old Dutch engraving. Roman Occupation of Holland...........5 From an engraving after the original by F. v. Bleyswyck. Jacob Cats ..... .............. 7 From Cats's Works, 1700, in the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Radbod refusing Baptism.............9 From an engraving after the original by L. F. du Bourg. Joseph Scaliger.................ij From an old print Erasmus {photogravure)............facing 16 From the painting by Holbein in the Louvre. Autograph from facsimile MS. in the Boston Athenaeum. The Syndics of the Cloth Guild........... 19 From the original painting by Rembrandt in the Ryks Museum, Amsterdam. Charles the Bold................23 From the original painting by Rubens, in the Imperial Gallery, Vienna. Facsimile of Title of Book printed for Dutch Refugees at Norwich, England.............33 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. A Page from Wycklif's New Testament, cir. 1380. The Gospel of John................34 From the Banister copy in the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. The only perfect copy in existence which belongs to the fourteenth century.

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xxii NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS Charles V. of Spain...............37 From the original by Titian in the old Finakothek, Munich. William the Silent................39 From the original by Michael J. van Mierevelt, National Gallery, Amsterdam* Antwerp in 1576.................40 / From an engraving in the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Facsimile Title of Book describing the First Dutch Voyage to the East Indies, 1595-97......... 45 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Abel Tasman..................47 From a print in the Boston Public Library. Autograph from Tasman's Journal, facsimile edition, Amsterdam, 1898, in the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. William Barendz.................50 From an old Dutch engraving. Facsimile Title of Schouten van Horn's Journal, 1618 . 50 / In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Schouten van Horn and Magellan..........52 / From the same. Extract from the Chronicle of Eusebius, 1512, describing the Bringing to Rouen of Seven Wild Men from America...................53 From the same. Giovanni da Verrazano (photogravure).....facing 54 From the engraving in Uomini Illustri Toscani. After the painting by G. Tocchi. Autograph from Winsor's America. Maiollo's Map, 1527, showing Verrazano's Discoveries . . 56 From a photograph in the Lenox Collection, New York. Public Library. The original is in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. Manhattan, in the English Map of America, 1610 .... 58 Facsimile from contemporary copy preserved in the Simancas archives, a tracing of which was first reproduced in Brown's Genesis of the United States. This is the earliest known map in which the name Manhattan appears. New Netherland in the " Carte Fugurative," 1612 ... 60 From facsimile in O'Callaghan's History of New Netherland.

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NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS xxiii Part of Gastaldi's Map made in Venice in 1556.....64 From the copy engraved in Ramusio, Navigationi t Viaggi, Venice, 1556. Gerard Mercator (photogravure)........facing 66 From Mercator's Atlas, 1613. In the Library of Harvard University. Autograph from Winsor's America. Part of Mercator's Mappemonde, made in Duisburg, 1569 68 From the facsimile published at Berlin, in 1891, by the Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde. Hudson Coat-of-Arms...............yi In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Facsimile of a Portion of Hudson's Journal, describing the Discovery of New York Harbour.......77 ¦ From Purchas's Pilgrimts. In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Sir Dudley Digges............, ... 79 From Brown's Genesis of the United States. West India Company's Warehouse......... . 85 From an old Dutch engraving. Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange (photogravure)facing 86 From Brown's Genesis of the United States. Autograph from Wilson's Memorial History of New York. Hugo Grotius..................87 From an engraving in the Library of Harvard University. William Usselincx................89 From the portrait by Steelink in the Ryks Museum, Amsterdam. Autograph from Winsor's America. Grant to * The United New Netherland Company," October 11, 1614.................93 From a photograph, loaned by General James Grant Wilson, of the original MS. in the Royal Archives at the Hague. John of Olden Barneveld (photogravure).......94 From the original painting in Amsterdam. Autograph from Wilson's Memorial History of New York. Facsimile Title of West India Company's Charter, 1621, First Edition.................97 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Sir Dudley Carleton...............i°i From Brown's Genesis of tit United States. Seal of New Belgium...............i°2 From O'Callaghan's Documentary History of New York.

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xxiv NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS Autograph of Peter Minuit.............i°5 From Winsor's America. Schaghen Letter, announcing the Purchase of Manhat- tan Island for Twenty-Four Dollars.......106 From a photograph in the possession of General James Grant Wilson. Facsimile Title of Heyn's Capture of the Spanish Silver Fleet....................109 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. The Beginning and End of a Letter of Domine Jonas Michaelius, First Minister of the Reformed Dutch Church in North America, dated at Manhattan, 11 August, 1628................115^ From the original In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. A full translation of the letter is given in the 1896 Year Soot of the (Collegiate) Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of the City of New York. Facsimile Title of " Privileges and Exemptions," printed in 1630, the First Printed Book on New Netherland . 117 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Heading of " Privileges and Exemptions " and Twelfth Article relating to the Island of Manhattan . . .119 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. New Amsterdam about 1630............. 122 From Hartgers's Virginia, 1651. This reproduction is reversed for reasons suggested by J. H. Innes in his New Amsterdam and Its People. The fact that old engravers often reversed the original which they reproduced may also account for the error. Wouter van Twiller (photogravure).......facing 126 J After the painting by Washington Allston. Autograph from Winsor's America. Autograph of Wouter van Twiller.........127 From Winsor's America. Autograph and Seal of John Winthrop........133 From Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Autograph and Seal of Thomas Hooker.......134 From the same. Earliest Known Plan of New Amsterdam, about 1640 . . 137 Made by John Vingboons for the Dutch West India Company about the year 1640. Reduced facsimile from VIllustration, July 2,1892, of the original MS. plan in the possession of Mr. Henry Harrisse of Paris.

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NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS xxv Facsimile Title of Irving's Knickerbocker, 1809, First Edition................ , . 141 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Anthony van Corlear...............j.45 After the drawing by C. R. Leslie, reproduced in Irving's Knickerbocker. Autograph of William Kieft............ 146 From Winsor's America. William Kieft introducing a New Mode of Punishment for Beggars.................149 After the drawing by C. R. Leslie, reproduced in Irving's Knickerbocker. Facsimile of Beginning and End of Davenport and Eaton Letter, 1638.................151 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. David Pieters de Vries (photogravure)...... facing 156 From an engraving by Cornelius Visscher, in the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Autograph from the State Library, Albany. Autograph of Everard Bogardus..........159 From Winsor's America. Autograph of Cornelius Melyn...........164 From Winsor's America. Seal of Peter Stuyvesant............ . 169 From the original seal in the possession of R. V. R. Stuyvesant. Peter Stuyvesant rebuking the Cobbler ....... 173 After the drawing by C. R. Leslie, reproduced in Irving's Knickerbocker. Rensselaerwyck Seal............... 179 From O'Callaghan's History of New Netherland. Kilian van Rensselaer (photogravure)......facing 180 From the original portrait in the possession of the family. It was painted over two hundred years ago, and was brought from Holland in 1844. Autograph from Winsor's America. Autograph of Adrian van der Donck.........182 From Winsor's America. Facsimile Title of Cornelius Melyn's Breeden-Raedt, printed in 1649, THE Second Printed Book on New Netherland................. 185 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Facsimile Title of Van der Donck's Vertoogh, 1650, the Third Printed Book on New Netherland .... 187 From the same.

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xxvi NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS Facsimile of Order apportioning Cost qf Stockade at Cambridge..................190 ¦/ From the original MS. in the State Library, boston. First Page of the Records of the Burgomasters and Schepens, 1653................194/ From the original HS. in the City Hall, New York city. Stadt Huys of New York in 1678.........197 Restoration from Dankers and Sluyter's map. Facsimile Title of Van der Donck's Description of New Netherland, 1655, First Edition.........199 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Autograph of Johannes Megapolbnsis........201 From Winsor's America. Visscher's Map of New Netherland, with a view of New Amsterdam, 1655...............202J In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Facsimile of the Flushing Protest, December 27,1657 . . 204 * From the original MS. in the State Library, Albany, New York. Gustavus Adolphus..........^ ..... 207 From the original painting by Van Dyck. Autograph of Peter Hollender.......... 208 From Winsor's America. Lieutenant Peter Hollender was a nobleman, since he signed himself " Ridder." Autograph of Queen Christina...........209 From Winsor's America. William II. of Orange..............213 From an old Dutch engraving. John de Witt (photogravure).........facing 214 From the original painting in Amsterdam. Autograph from the State Library, Albany, New York. Cardinal Jules Mazarin............, 215 From Gruyer's Peinture au Chateau de Chant illy, after the painting by Pierre Meynard. Facsimile Title of "The Commonwealth's Great Ship". 217 In the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. The Four Admirals................219 George Monk, Duke op Albemarle. From National Portrait Gallery, after the original painting by Sir Peter Lely.

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NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS Martin Herbertsz Tromp. From an engraving in the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. Michael de Ruyter. From the same. Robert Blake. After the painting in Wadham College, Oxford. William Alexander, Earl of Stirling........221 From Walpole's Noble and Royal Authors. Autograph of Van Tienhoven ........... 222 From O'Callaghan's History of New Ndherland. The Old Wall restored.............229 From Valentine's Manual of the City of New York. Autograph and Seal of John Underhill.......231 From Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Facsimile Title of the Second Part of the Amboyna Tragedy, 1653.................233 From the collection of Mr. E. D. Church, New York city. Autograph of George Baxter ........... 236 From the State Library, Albany, New York. Autograph and Seals of Samuel Maverick....., 245 From Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. James, Duke of York (photogravure)......facing 246 ^ From an engraving in Boston Athenaeum. Autograph from facsimile MS. in the same library. Autograph of George Cartwright.........248 From Winsor's America. Autograph of Robert Carr........... . 248 From Winsor's America. Autograph of Richard Nicolls...........250 From Winsor's America. Autograph of Nicasius de Sille........, . 252^ From the State Library, Albany, New York. Facsimile of Articles of Agreement for the Surrender of New Netherland to the English in 1664. ... 252 From original broadside in the Lenox Collection, New York Public Library. The Peter Stuyvesant House...........254 From Valentine's Manual of the City of New York. The Stuyvesant Pear-Tree............*55 From Valentine's Manual of the City of New York.

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AMSTERDAM IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY I;

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CHAPTER I: THE MEDIÆVAL NETHERLANDS 40 0001

THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES IN AMERICA CHAPTER I THE MEDIiEVAL NETHERLANDS " When one beholds this city," says F^nelon, in speaking of Amsterdam, " one is inclined to believe that it is not the city of a particular people, but the common city of all the peoples in the world, and the centre of their commerce." If now after the lapse of two centuries the good archbishop could return to this world and visit the New Am- Amsterdam sterdam at the mouth of Henry Hudson's river, ciiyTiflw how could he better record his impressions than by York using the selfsame words ? Among great cities New York is especially conspicuous and notable for its cosmopolitanism, and this feature, as we shall have occasion to observe, has belonged to it from the beginning. It is not altogether a consequence of the vast commercial growth upon Manhattan Island, but in great part a direct inheritance from the mother-city at the mouth of the Amstel. The differences in social physiognomy between the Boston and the New York of to-day are surely not greater and are probably less than between the village of John Endicott and the village of Peter Stuyvesant. The coming of the Dutch to the coast of North America introduced an element of variety that has always been of high interest and importance. They were then indisputably the foremost commercial people in the world, and they seized upon a position marked out by its geography as an imperial centre for trade. Many things in

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2 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES American life are implicated with the fact that New York is virtually the daughter of Amsterdam. The circumstances, moreover, which brought the Dutch to America were complicated and interesting. They form an important chapter in the history of the process by which the great period of maritime discovery ended in the transfer of commercial supremacy from the Latin to the Teutonic world. It is worth our while to pass briefly in review the career of the people of the Netherlands, and note the steps whereby they achieved their high position, and the vicissitudes by which they were made to bear the brunt of the great struggle for liberty that convulsed the sixteenth century. With the Dutch, as with the English, the beginnings of colonization and of maritime empire were intimately associated with the work of curbing the aggressive power of Spain. The supreme crisis in modern history found the two peoples closely allied. To us who speak English the people of the Netherlands are especially interesting as our nearest cousins. Of all foreign speech to-day the Dutch comes closest to ours. If I say that "Sokrateswas de wijste onder de Grieken," all can understand me; but that is good Dutch. The chief diver-Kinship gence between the languages arises from the well-the^"iish known en?ect of the Norman Conquest upon Eng-and Dutch lish ; if we had kept on saying chapman instead op of merchant and againbite instead of remorse, the divergence would be very slight. If we take the oldest specimens of Flemish and Frisian, and compare them with the English of King Alfred and the Norse that was spoken by the settlers of Iceland, we realize how very close was the kinship a thousand years ago among the people on all the coasts of the German Ocean. The Teutonic conquerors of Britain, with the Angles or English of Sleswick for their right wing, and the Saxon tribes between the Elbe and the Ems for their centre, had their left wing made up of Frisians from the region where long afterward, in the twelfth century, the boisterous ocean broke in and formed the Zuyder

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THE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDS 3 Zee, or "Southern Sea." All these learned to call themselves English in their new home, where under various names their next of kin invaded their coasts, and ended by reinforcing their ranks, whether led by Guthorm the Dane, or by Harold of Norway, or by William the Norman. Among all these children of Thor and Wodan the family likeness is strong. Men of stalwart frame, indomitable in fight, at home upon the wave, venturesome, fond of good cheer, fierce sticklers for liberty, prone to encourage individuality and do their own thinking. Of these various cousins, as I said, those who speak Dutch are our nearest kin; and their historic interest for us consists largely in this, that they may be regarded as that portion of our race which has remained upon the continent of Europe, and has thus during fourteen centuries been affected by political and military conditions different from those which have shaped the career of its insular brethren. From the Netherlands we may learn some of the ways in which English history might have been modified in the absence of that silver streak of water which defied Farnese and Bonaparte. Looking across that narrow bit of sea, the English have always applied in a special sense to their next of kin the name "Dutch," which means "people" or "folks," and is the vernacular name for the whole Teutonic race away up to the Highlands of Austria and the TyroL The dwellers in those mountain regions, along with the greater part of the lowland population, we call by a Latin name, " Germans," as if we had first learned about them by reading Caesar's Commentaries. One can see how the popular name " Dutchland " would naturally remain asso- DutcUand dated especially with that bit of shore with which and c J Welshland our forefathers had most to do. For a century after Hengist and Horsa the green island which they were conquering was a " Welshland," or abode of strangers, while the "Dutchland," or home of "the folks," was the half-sunken coast they had left behind them. The first glimpse we get of the Low Countries is in the

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4 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES year 57 b. c, when Caesar defeated the Nervii in a great battle on the Sambre, not far from the site of Valenciennes. The people of the confederated cantons, whose strength he broke in that campaign, were known as Belgians, and and their land was then as now, ethnologically as Batavians wgjj ag geOgraphically, a border between Germans and Kelts. No people in Gaul offered a more obstinate resistance to the conqueror. To the north of them we find the Batavians, without being subdued, entering into alliance with the Romans and contributing to the strength of their legions. It was a brilliant charge of Batavian cavalry that gave victory to Caesar on the great day of Pharsalia. A century later they seem to have grown restive under the connection. In 69 A. d., a noble Batavian, known to the Romans as Claudius Civilis, took advantage of the struggle between Vitellius and Vespasian to set up an independent confederacy of Belgic and Low German tribes. His superb resistance and gradual discomfiture are described in immortal colours by the greatest of Roman historians, whose narrative fails us in the very crisis of his fate. When Civilis steps out upon a bridge for a private interview with the Roman commander^ there the manuscript breaks off in the middle of a sentence, and how it fared with the Batavian hero and his people we are not likely ever to know, unless some of the Egyptian tombs which have given back to us a lost essay of Aristotle and lost poems of Bacchylides should by and by yield up the missing books of Tacitus. Important, however, the Batavians surely remained. On many occasions their cavalry was noted as the best in the Roman service. In the year 357, when the youthful Julian the Apostate overthrew the Franks and Allemans in a tremendous battle at Strasburg, it was once more a resistless charge of Batavians that won the day. After this we hear little more of Netherlander under the name of Batavians, but in all probability they were the same as the Frisians, part of whom in the next century joined in the English invasion of Britain, while part

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£>'l ROMAN OCCUPATION OF HOLLAND iBMcMs

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6 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES remained in their old seats by the delta of the Rhine. Nothing is more common in ages of shifting sovereignty than thus to meet with old friends under new names; as, for instance, with the near neighbour of the Frisians, that renowned warrior, Clovis, whom we know first as a Sicam-brian prince, but afterward only as the head of a permanent confederation of Low German tribes known as the "freemen," or " Franks." Where Civilis failed Clovis was successful, and with prodigious results; for his Franks were not only converted to the Catholic form of Christianity, but extended their power throughout the whole of Gaul and a large part of Germany, thus doing much to determine the form which European life should take during the Middle Ages. Many old tribal names on the lower Rhine become. lost in the wider designation of Franks. The descendants of the old Belgian tribes who made so much trouble for Caesar Flemish were surely included among them. The Flemish f"1 id h language, which to this day is spoken throughout a great part of Belgium, is a form of Frankish speech. It is very much like Frisian, which comes so close to Anglo-Saxon, while between Flemish and Frisian stands the Dutch of literature, the noble tongue in which are written the histories of Cornelius Hooft, the poems of Cats, and the tragedies of Vondel, to whom John Milton has been thought to have owed so much. It is interesting to consider what a Netherlandish affair the Frankish monarchy was. When the sceptre was ready to fall from the hands of the degenerate descendants of Clovis, it was seized by the so-called Carolingians, who were a family of Brabant. The Flemish-speaking Pepin of Lan-den, between Brussels and Liege, was the founder of their fortunes; and his great-grandson, Charles Martel, the saviour of Europe from the Saracens, was grandfather of the mighty Charlemagne. When the powers of this wonderful family had failed, there once rnore came to the front a man from the lower Rhine, Robert the Strong, ancestor of the

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THE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDS 7 Capetian kings who have occupied the throne of France till within the memory of men now living. Into the Frankish and Christian empire all of the Netherlandish people seem to have entered willingly except the redoubtable Frisians, who insisted upon maintaining their independence and worshipping Wodan and Thor. Delightfully characteristic is the old monkish story of the Frisian JACOB CATS chief Radbod. Having been very thoroughly beaten in battle by Charles Martel, the redoubtable Frisian The Fr. was persuaded to accept Christianity, and Bishop siansi as Wolfram was called upon to administer the rite of baptism. Radbod had already thrust one stalwart leg into

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8 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES the consecrated font when a startling query presented itself to his mind, and he suddenly exclaimed, " Where now are the souls of my ancestors ?" With a frankness not sufficiently tempered by prudence the bishop replied, " In Hell, with all other unbelievers!" "Very well, then," said Rad-bod, withdrawing his leg, " none of your baptism for me; I will feast in Valhalla with my forefathers rather than dwell in Heaven with your paltry band of Christians." The noble English missionaries, Willibrod and Winfrid, better known as St. Boniface, proved more persuasive than the Frankish arms. It is pleasant to think of England doing this great service for the Netherland, which in later ages was destined in so many ways to repay it. Before the end of - Th f tne e'Sntn century the Frisians were a Christian people. They had also, after years of warfare in Christians wnicn we ^ tol(j tnat a nun(jre(j thousand lives were lost, come to terms with Charlemagne and consented to be ruled by his governors, provided it should be according to their own laws. One of their customs was the free allodial proprietorship of land; and this they succeeded in maintaining throughout the Middle Ages, while most parts of Europe accepted in different degrees the feudal system. The great emperor not only respected the local liberties of the Netherlands, but had one of his favourite homes there at Nymwegen, overlooking the lovely meadows of the Waal and the lower Rhine. With the memorable family compact of Verdun in 843, by which the Empire was divided among the three grandsons of Charlemagne, we begin to see a foreshadowing of the modern map of Europe, and our Netherland region becomes somewhat better defined than before. The eldest brother, Lothair, takes the centre and core of the Frankish dominion, the whole of Friesland with the left bank of the Rhine, from the sea up to its sources in the Alps, thence going southerly and taking in the whole of the old Burgun-dian kingdom east of the Rhone, together with Italy. This long strip of territory, from the German Ocean to the

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THE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDS KADBOD REFUSING BAPTISM Straits of Messina, came to be known as the Middle Kingdom, or more often as Lotharingia. It contained the political capital, which we now call Aix-la-Chapelle, Lotharin-as well as the ecclesiastical capital, Rome, and its fj^^e sovereign, Lothair, was recognized as Emperor of Kingdom the West. To the east his brother Louis took the lands east of the Rhine and north of the Alps ; while the domain of Charles on the west comprised what has since become France, with as much of Spain as had been rescued from the Saracens. Thus we get France on the left and Germany on the right, with Lotharingia between them, first in point of dignity but least even then in political coherence and military strength. After a quarter of a century this Middle Kingdom is divided between its stronger neighbours ; France takes the Burgundian part, but Germany gets Friesland with all the left bank of the Rhine, and not long afterward acquires Italy and the imperial dignity. This might seem to have ended the Middle Kingdom, but

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io THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES there was a sense in which it continued to live on for ages. While France and Germany waxed in strength on either side of it, this middle region acquired a somewhat chaotic semi-independence. Large portions have remained until the present day a debatable ground between the two great neighbours. The name Lotharingia, called Lothringen Lorraine ^v tne Germans and Lorraine by the French, still remains attached to a part of the territory which changed hands, possibly not for the last time, in 1871. The country of Lorraine, with Alsace on its east, the Franche Comtd or free countship of Burgundy to the south, and the Flemish-Dutch countries to the north, these have for centuries represented the old Middle Kingdom. Surely it would be difficult to point to a region more full of historical and romantic interest. In journeying through it, all the way from Strasburg to Rotterdam, one is perpetually struck with the general diffusion of intelligence and refinement, strength of character and personal dignity; and there is reason for believing that at any time within the past four or five centuries our impression would have been relatively very much the same. In certain ways the Middle Kingdom has evidently been a favoured portion of the earth. It has had, in particular, two kinds of advantages, first, political, secondly, industrial. Let us devote a few words to each of these. The ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries were a period of extreme turbulence, though in some ways full of promise. TheCru- At its beginning no such movement as that of sades - the Crusades would have been possible; but at the end of it we see the armed hosts of Christendom joyously rushing forth to beat back the common enemy, until after repeated spasms of giant struggle we find civilized Europe thrilling as never before with the sense of a religious life in common, the popular feeling that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries built churches of unspeakable sublimity and carried the Papacy to the height of its power. Now in the turmoil of the tenth century monarchy reached perhaps its lowest extremity, of weakness; duchies, counties, and

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THE MEDLEVAL NETHERLANDS n barons did each what was right in its own eyes, and warfare between such small combatants was perpetual. But in the fourteenth century, along with a marked advance toward order and quiet, we find monarchy waxing so strong Feudal as to begin to suppress the feudal system. During Jg^Jj those four centuries little states grew up in the Countries Low Countries, which as fiefs of Germany were in a measure protected from the aggressions of French royalty, while on the other hand the absorption of German energy in the great struggle between Pope and Emperor was so complete that they were left pretty much to themselves. Thus out of lower Lorraine grew up the Duchy of Brabant; thus the Earls or Counts of Flanders acquired autonomy; thus came into existence the semi-independent Duchy of Luxemburg, the countships of Limburg, Hainault, and Namur, names heavily fraught with historic associations; thus waxed in importance the bishoprics of Liege and Utrecht, while in the Frisian territory grew up such communities as Zeeland and Overyssel, and in the tenth century a certain Frisian lord, named Diedrich or Dirk, emerged into fame as Count of Holland. Now in France the growth of such small feudal countships and duchies was overshadowed by the simultaneous growth of the royal power. Either the small communities or a great fief full of them would be added to the royal domain, or where they continued to be governed by their local lords the king's law and the king's officers were always present. The power that could be called forth for the suppression of local liberty was overwhelming. It was far from being so in the eleventh century, but it came Favourable to be more and more so. But in the Low Coun- ^rc^a. tries, on the other hand, the political and social dd- stances velopment of Holland under its count, or Brabant under its duke, went on without any curbing or cramping at the hands of an all-devouring royal power. The force that could be called forth for the suppression of local liberty was itself in the main local and such as could be resisted. Zeeland and

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12 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES Holland and the other Netherlands were indeed fiefs of the Empire, but precious little they cared for the imperial diet at Frafikfort. The central power in Germany grew weaker instead of thriving as in France, so that after a while the connection of the Netherlands with the Empire came to be merely nominal. Among their little states there was a vast amount of bickering and clashing, but it was the turbulence of health and freedom and seems to have done small harm to the manly qualities of the people. In this way the political circumstances of the Netherlands were favourable. They were also highly favoured by industrial circumstances. Taken lengthwise, the Middle Kingdom, from Basel to the Zuyder Zee, is the most direct pathway for commerce from Italy and the Levant to the British Islands and Scandinavia, while at the same time all trade between Favourable France and Germany must run across it. For ex-dreum'-"1 ample, the city of Bruges in Flanders would take stances copper and iron, pitch and tar, and lumber from Sweden, hides and tallow and furs from Russia, and send in exchange to those countries nearly all manufactured articles from a spade to a clock. So Bruges would likewise send ale from Hamburg all over Europe, and clothing and blankets of English wool, with cargoes of salted fish from Iceland, and in return would distribute the wines of France, the fruits and oils of the Mediterranean, the ivory and spices, the Bagdad silks and India shawls, that came by way of Cairo and Venice. We may thus form some conception of the brisk commercial life of the Low Countries during the four centuries preceding the Discovery of America. But some further detail is desirable. The Dutch and Flemish states were scarcely less eminent for agriculture and manufactures than for commerce. The Agricul- broad alluvial meadows afforded fine pasturage, and tan Dutch cattle were esteemed the best in Europe. Among the exports of the Netherlands were dairy products ; in the Middle Ages the cheeses of Edam and Limburg were famous as now. Hop gardens also flourished in the Nether-

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THE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDS i3 lands, whence they crossed the channel into Kent, and the first steps in the perfecting of beer by the use of the hop are claimed for the brewers of Holland. It is worthy of note that by the fourteenth century the Low Countries depended largely upon the Baltic trade for their supplies of wheat and rye, but this grain was ground in their own windmills, which they were the first to build in great numbers, and on improved plans for this and other kinds of mechanical work. The name " Holland" means simply hollow or marshy land. In Old English, as in Dutch, it is a common noun, and the fen country in southern Lincolnshire has been known from time immemorial as "the holland." In its un-regenerate state the land of the Dutch was a mere mud-hole over large parts of which the ocean flowed at high tide, while rivers like the Rhine and Scheldt were by no means confined within their banks. The problem of redeeming Dikesand the country by dikes made the inhabitants expert canals in hydraulic engineering; an elaborate system of canals and locks was developed, to the manifest benefit of commerce, while the ability to drown specific areas of country at will was of great value for purposes of military defence; in this advantage the northern provinces had a larger share than the southern. In cities like Amsterdam and Bruges one might go from house to house in a boat, very much as in Venice. With their skill in hydraulics the Dutch took the lead in drainage, by the use of fertilizers they increased the size and the frequency of crops, they introduced new varieties of vegetables and were the first to use hotbeds sided with boards and roofed with glass. Their preeminence Hortfcoi-in horticulture was admitted in the thirteenth cen- ture tury, and no one who has read Dumas's famous story, " The Black Tulip," is likely to forget what it was in the seventeenth. Haarlem and Leyden were the first cities in Europe to have botanical gardens, and it was in Holland that Linnaeus found the materials for his great work in classification.

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i4 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES The soil of the Low Countries is favourable not only to gardening but to the arts of the brickmaker and the potter. Immense quantities of bricks were made, while the mere mention of Dutch tiles for roofing or flooring, and of exquisite Delftware for the table, tells its own story. Other Manufac- industries of prime importance were spinning and tures weaving. The best cloths of woollen and of linen were made in the Low Countries, Arras was famed for its rich tapestries, Brussels for its carpets, Cambrai for its fine cambric, Lille for its thread and the fabrics woven from it. Gingham and galloon were first made in Flanders. The rough frieze, or woollen cloth of Friesland, was noted for its warmth. The bleacheries about Haarlem were so famous that linens from many countries were sent there to be whitened. For centuries the world has been familiar with the fine linen called " Hollands," and the handmade paper prepared from it for printing books is unequalled for strength and beauty. When we come to mention lace which at once suggests such names as Mechlin and Brussels and Valenciennes we arrive at the borderland where industrial art shades into the fine arts, where the artisan becomes the artist; and we are reminded also of the close commercial relations and The fine interchange of ideas between the Netherlands and "** Italy. Nowhere did the artists of Italy find more apt pupils than among the Flemings and Dutchmen. The names of Hans Memling and Hubert and John Van Eyck show the progress which painting had made in the earlier period of the Renaissance, while in modern times there are, of course, no greater names outside of Italy than Rubens and Rembrandt. But in one department of art, the latest to come to maturity, in the art of music, the Netherlanders were the pioneers and came to be the masters. From the tenth century onward the art of counterpoint was developed by Flemish musicians, until in the fifteenth century and early in the sixteenth we meet with the first two composers of world-wide and everlasting renown. From their names

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THE MEDIAEVAL NETHERLANDS 15 one might suppose that Josquin was a Frenchman and Orlando Lasso an Italian ; but these are embellished names, and both men were pure-blooded Flemings, natives of Hai-nault. From these great masters the sceptre passed with Palestrina to Italy, whence two centuries later it was won for Germany by Handel and Bach. In an industrial society of such keen intelligence and ar- JOSEPH SCALIGER tistic capacity one might expect also to find high scholarship, along with a general diffusion of the reading habit, schoiar-A well-known statue and inscription at Haarlem shlp claim for a native of that city, Laurens Janszoon Koster, the invention of printing with movable type, but the claim rests upon insufficient evidence, and the priority of Guten- ¦¦¦¦

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16 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES berg is not shaken. But in the work of multiplying books the change from parchment to paper was scarcely less important than the change from blocks to type, and here the abundant linen of the Netherlands furnished the needed material. Soon the Dutch presses turned out more work than any others, and had no rivals for excellence save in Venice. Thus their country became a principal centre for the diffusion of the new learning, and for the reproduction of Greek and Latin classics and of the Bible. Under such circumstances we need not wonder that the greatest scholar of the sixteenth century, Joseph Scaliger, made his home at Leyden, where his pupil, Hugo Grotius, became one of the most illustrious of jurists. Vesalius, the founder of modern anatomy, was a native of Brussels, Boerhaave, prince of physicians and botanists, was born a few miles from Leyden. The seventeenth century witnessed the profound philosophical speculations of Spinoza and the discovery of the undulatory theory by Huyghens; and during the same period the telescope, microscope, and thermometer were invented in Holland. These examples bring us quite out of the Middle Ages and into modern times, but it is needful to cite them as instances of fruition for which the seed was sown long-before and under mediaeval conditions. The literary name which before all others in Europe illuminates the close of the Middle Ages is that of the mighty Erasmus, whose birth in 1467 is commemorated by an inscription over the door of a little house in Rotterdam. One of the pro-foundest and most widely accomplished scholars of the Renaissance period, Erasmus was master of a literary style scarcely inferior to that of Voltaire. So dreaded was the power of his pen that even the Papacy deemed it prudent to leave him unmolested. The mention of this great style reminds us forcibly that the literary eminence of the Netherlands bears no sort of proportion to their eminence in art and science and scholarship, and this is chiefly because their best writers have so often written in Latin or French. In

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THE MEDLEVAL NETHERLANDS 17 this respect their cosmopolitanism has perhaps been excessive. Neither Dutch nor Flemish possesses a body of literature which adequately represents the national genius. One of the most important parts of the work of Erasmus consisted in the editing and textual criticism, and in the translating of the Scriptures, and one of its effects was to make the Netherlands a centre of Biblical scholarship. The first English translation of the Bible was published at Antwerp in 1535, and before that date there had been published more than fifteen editions in Dutch and Flemish. During the sixteenth century the Bible was nowhere else so generally read by the common people. The great Florentine historian, Guicciardini, whose testimony is of the highest value, assures us that in his day, or before 1540, even the peasants in Holland could commonly read and write their own language. State archives pubiiC of Holland, Zeeland, and Friesland show that free schooIs schools, supported by public taxes, were the subject of legislation at various times during the sixteenth century. The impression produced by this accumulation of facts is that at the close of the Middle Ages civilization had assumed a more modern type than in any other part of Europe. There are other ways in which we are led to this conclusion, and one of them is closely concerned with the density of population and with the concentration of people in Urban ^ cities. At the present day it is well known that rural pop-Belgium is the most densely peopled area in Europe, while England comes second, and Holland third. Holland is a trifle larger, Belgium a trifle smaller, than the state of Maryland ; the two taken together are less than half as large as the state of New York, and have a population of over 11,000,000, or about equivalent to New York and Pennsylvania together. Rather more than one third of these people live in cities of more than 20,00a inhabitants, and of these cities the largest, such as Amsterdam or Brussels, have about half a million inhabitants. Now in the sixteenth century the Netherlands covered somewhat more territory

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18 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES than now, for France has since then pared off slices from Flanders and Hainault. The population was about 5,000,000, or nearly- the same as that of England, and it was much more dense than that of any similar area elsewhere in Europe. France, for example, had then about $000,000 people. Of the ratio of urban to rural population in the Low Countries at that time, one cannot speak with precision, but it was probably larger than at the present day. Bruges in its prime was four times as populous as now. Ghent could put into the field an army of 50,000 men. Antwerp, which has lately taken on fresh life and come to rank next after London, Liverpool, and New York, as the fourth seaport of the world, has scarcely yet recovered its old dimensions. On the whole, we may safely conclude that during the later Middle Ages city life played a greater part in the Netherlands than elsewhere; for while Italy had its great cities, the ratio of urban to rural population was certainly less. Now a civilization characterized by the predominance of great commercial cities carrying on international trade, with manufactures highly developed, with a higher standard of comfort than had ever before been attained, with wealth Modem faMy distributed and education widely diffused, features of with eager attention paid to scientific inquiry and vai Neth- to the fine arts, such a civilization was of course eriands comparatively modern in. its features. One of its most conspicuous aspects is its bringing into the foreground the solid and sober middle classes. As the typical figure in the England of those days was the country gentleman in his noble hall, the typical figure of the Netherlands was the burgher in his city house, no mere huckster of narrow intelligence and sordid views, but the merchant prince accustomed to manage great enterprises, the magistrate learned and grave. Such types of men, with their strength and shrewdness, their look of comfort^ their charming refinement and bonhomie, have been immortalized in one of the world's greatest pictures, the so-called " Syndics " of Rembrandt. It was indeed characteristic of Netherland art that

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20 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES it took a new departure. While the ancient Greek carved statues of gods and heroes to stand in his public square, while the mediaeval Italian decorated his church with sublime paintings of martyrs and saints, the Netherlander was the first to find in domestic life worthy subjects of artistic treatment; he painted dewy landscapes with sleek cattle, or cosy kitchens and alehouses, or the sports of children on the village green, and in this new departure we see most distinctly the modern character of Netherland civilization. In order to acquire for the burgher class the measure of freedom which it enjoyed at the close of the Middle Ages, a prolonged and complicated struggle was necessary. The forces engaged were so many and worked so often at cross purposes that it is difficult to make a clear and coherent story of the beginnings of civil liberty in the Netherlands. Political The contrast with England is very strongly marked. menHn" ^n England, during the eleventh and twelfth cen-Engiand turies, we see the royal power so far curbing the great barons as to secure national unity of administration, and to establish the king's peace throughout the land. Then to prevent the crown from acquiring despotic power, the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries saw the rural aristocracy allied with the merchants and craftsmen of the towns securing steady representation through a parliament, with control over the public purse. The result was that, although the power of parliament declined somewhat during the fifteenth century, yet it remained too strong to be overridden by the crown at its strongest. Even Henry VIII. could not defy parliament, but was obliged to cajole it or else to pack it by means of rotten boroughs. In the Netherlands the growth of constitutional liberty was by no means so steady or so sure-footed. The parties Political were more numerous, the alliances more shifting, menUnthe anc* tne resu^ts m°re fragmentary and precarious. menUnthe Nether- There were first, the rural squires with the peasantry, but the condition of the latter was better than in most parts of the continent, and serfdom disap-

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THE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDS 21 peared as early as in England. Secondly, there were the dwellers in the cities among whom we first recall the craft-guilds and merchant-guilds that made the strength and wealth of those communities. Life in the cities was so attractive that many of the feudal aristocracy lived in them, as in the Italian cities, instead of dwelling apart in the country. The cities thus became the scene of struggles, sometimes violent and bloody, between the middle class of tradesmen and artisans and the arrogant folk who prided themselves on doing nothing. But besides this the guilds were often heavily hampered by dissensions between one The gufld* another, as in Ghent, for example, between the weavers and the fullers. Moreover, there were quarrels between neighbouring cities, as in Italy, though less prolonged and deadly. Thus when the guilds were in control of Ghent and the notable people were in control of Ypres, the men of Ghent laid siege to Ypres; and we are not surprised to learn that the gate was opened to them by a party of their friends within, just as was continually happening in ancient Greece. Then, as another belligerent party, there was the great local lord or ruler, the Count of Flanders, the Duke of Brabant, the Marquis of Antwerp, the Count of Hoi- Tht local land, and so on. The local rulers tried to assert Iords a sovereignty which the cities would not allow. In general they governed the rural districts more despotically than the cities, where their chief opponents were the sturdy guilds-men. Usually the local ruler favoured the notables of the cities as his allies against the guilds; for example, in the affair just alluded to, when the craftsmen of Ghent marched against Ypres, the Count of Flanders sent a party of knights there to defend the notable people. The last of the belligerent parties was the overlord, either the Emperor or the French king, who laid claim to The om-some of the southern Netherlands as French fiefs. lords Interference came much more often from France than from the Empire, the energies of which were otherwise occupied. Sometimes the French got the worst of it, as in the great

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22 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES battle of Courtray, in 1302, when Philip the Fak was so badly beaten by the Flemings, one of the first battles that proved the superiority of infantry to men-at-arms. But sometimes French intervention was highly effective and disastrous, as in 1382, in the famous struggle between Louis de Male, Count of Flanders, and the men of Ghent led by Philip van Artevelde. That popular leader was winning a The (lisas- goodly fight for liberty when he was overwhelmed ^ and slain bv the French at Roosebeke. It is such events as this that make all lovers of liberty thank God for the English Channel. In 1264, in the midst of the great war that put an effectual curb on the English crown, a powerful French army was raised to aid the king, but as has happened more than once since, it could not cross those few miles of water. In spite of all untoward circumstances, however, including occasional bloody overthrows, as at Roosebeke, the liberties of the Low Countries grew from more to more. Whether the citizens with lances and cross-bows wrenched from their feudal lords the privilege of being governed according to law, or whether they bought immunities and franchises and paid for them in hard cash, they had succeeded by the fifteenth century in building up a goodly body of liberties. A notable change then occurred in their political condition, which in course of time resulted in one of the world's most memorable revolutions. This change was their gradual absorption into the dominions of the House of Burgundy. In 1363 King John of France granted the duchy of Burgundy to one of his younger sons, Philip the Hardy, a gift which the next three kings of France saw reason to regret. For this line of dukes began acquiring in one way or another by marriage, purchase, or usurpation the different pro-Phfflp the ^nces °f the Netherlands. The third duke, the ver-g«h£ satile rascal known as Philip the Good, by cheating his unhappy cousin Jacqueline out of her dominions of Holland, Zeeland, and Hainault, nearly completed the acquisition. As ruler over so many great commercial and

64 0023

THE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDS

CHARLES THE BOLD manufacturing cities, Duke Philip was the most powerful sovereign in Europe. At the beginning of his reign in 1419, when in revenge for the murder of his father he allied himself with the King of England, it made the English masters of France; and when in 1436 he quarrelled with the Duke of Gloucester about Cousin Jacqueline, and withdrew his aid from the English, their stay in France was speedily ended. Philip's court was the most magnificent in Europe, and so great was his power that it seemed quite proper that he should be made a king. Controlling the Netherlands, with parts of Alsace and Lorraine, as well as the duchy and

I

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24 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES county of Burgundy, he might well ask to be recognized as the restorer of the old Middle Kingdom, or Lotharingia. This ambition shaped the policy of his terrible son, Charles Charles ^e ^°'^»anc* un^er ^e ru^e °* thesetwothe Neth-the Bold, erlands had a foretaste of the long woes that were M 7~77 to come. The fifteenth century witnessed few more frightful crimes than the massacres at Dinant and Liege, which had ventured to disown the jurisdiction of these tyrants. Such lurid examples showed what honest burghers everywhere might expect should they refuse to contribute to public enterprises in which they felt no sort of interest. For a time it seemed as if Charles the Bold was on the point of succeeding in his schemes and becoming king of a renovated Lotharingia, when his evil star brought him into collision with the Swiss. His death in battle left a young daughter to succeed him, whereupon his duchy of Burgundy Lad was forthwith seized by France, and soon the Lady Mary, Mary retained little of her father's possessions ex-I47?" * cept the Low Countries. Her marriage to Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, was followed by her death in 1482, and again we see illustrations of the fact that feudal sovereignty had grown to be too strong over the Netherlands. The death of Charles the Bold had seemed to offer a golden opportunity to the sturdy Dutch and Flemish burghers. Intent upon putting an end to tyranny, they extorted The Great from the Lady Mary a charter of liberties, known Privilege ag tne great privilege. Among other things it provided that no new taxes should be imposed save by consent of the provincial estates, and that no war, either offensive or defensive, should be begun without such consent first obtained. Any edict or command of the sovereign that conflicted with the privileges of a city was to be held invalid. The sovereign must come in person before the estates, to make his request for money, and no city should be compelled to raise supplies which it had not itself freely voted. The sovereign must also be bound by the decisions of the courts

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THE MEDLEVAL NETHERLANDS 25 of justice; and citizens were to be guaranteed against arbitrary arrest. While such wholesome measures were under discussion at Ghent, an embassy was sent by the estates to the King of France. Two of the envoys, Imbrecourt and Hugonet, old servants of Mary's father, so far forgot themselves as to take a secret message from her to Louis XL, craving his aid against her subjects. On the return of the envoys to Ghent the king betrayed their treasonable secret, whereupon they were quickly seized and beheaded in the market-place in Mary's presence, and in spite of her frantic tears and prayers. In the mind of the citizens it was the merited punishment of traitors, but contemporary chroniclers, in whose eyes all burghers were merely a canine rabble, called it a foul murder, and were more shocked by it than by the wholesale massacre of Dinant. The prompt and sharp action of the men of Ghent heralded the time when kings could be brought to the public scaffold for treason against their subjects. After Mary's death left her infant son Philip sovereign over the Netherlands, his father, the Archduke Maximilian, acted as regent and found many opportunities for revenging himself upon the freedom-loving burghers. Alone Philip of he was hardly equal to the task of curbing them, but Austria with an army furnished by his father, the Emperor, he was able to bring them to terms. During eleven years his knavish tyranny was such as England never witnessed in her darkest days. Since the coming of Hengist and Horsa no English king could have behaved like Maximilian and stayed upon the throne eleven weeks. In 1494, shortly after Maximilian had become emperor, the boy Philip entered upon the task of governing the Netherlands, and in taking his oath of office did not even deign to mention the great charter which his mother had granted. Evidently the Netherlands were not so favourably situated as England for defending their liberty. Our forefathers who crossed to the island occupied a better strategic position for that purpose than their cousins who remained on the continent. The chief

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26 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES danger for the latter was that freedom might at any time be overwhelmed by sheer brute force. Such a catastrophe was suggested by the battle of Roosebeke, and far more forcibly by the rule of the House of Burgundy. At the end of the fifteenth century a great crisis was preparing. Young Philip married Joanna of Castile, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the year 1500 saw the birth at Ghent of v t'iat Cnarles who was to be king of Spain and lord over the Netherlands and emperor, with half the military force of Europe at his beck and call, and all the treasures of Mexico and Peru within his reach. What hope could there be for Dutch and Flemish liberties if attacked by such prodigious power ? The Low Countries had been the garden of freedom ; were they not in danger of becoming its grave ? Thus we come to the great struggle of the sixteenth century in which mightier issues were consciously involved than in any other crisis of history before or since. In considering it we shall find the courses of English and Dutch history running very closely together, and at times intermingling, while we come upon the circumstances that led to the planting of a Dutch colony in North America.

CHAPTER II: DUTH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND 68 0027

CHAPTER II DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND The earlier writers on American history were apt to ignore or pass over in silence the contributions to American civilization that have been made by other people than the English. Perhaps this may have been because our earliest historians were men of New England whose attention was unduly occupied with their own neighbourhood. At all events there can be no doubt of the fact. The Non.Eng. non-English elements in our composite civilization lish ele: ,.,,,.,. ments in were not so much denied as disregarded, like mnn- the Ameri-itesimals in algebra. Your historian would not canpeope deny that the settlement of New Netherland counted for something, nevertheless his general group of statements would fail to take it into the account. Against this narrowness recent years have witnessed a reaction. Various historical societies, grouped upon a principle of nationality, have begun to do excellent work in collecting fresh materials for the study of the colonization of America. Such work deserves our warmest encouragement, and it would be highly unreasonable to complain because it sometimes shows an excess of enthusiasm. In reading the memoirs and proceedings of Huguenot societies, Holland societies, Jewish societies, Scotch-Irish societies, etc., one is sometimes inclined to ask whether the people about whom we are reading for the moment ever left anything for other people to do. Your Ulsterman is clear that the Patriotic migrations of Englishmen to Virginia and New blas England were small affairs compared with the migration from Ulster to Pennsylvania; your Huguenot sees in men of his race and faith the chief builders of the United

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28 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES States ; and statements are made about the Jew which seem quite incompatible with the size of the home market for pork. These patriotic writers are wont to act upon the maxim of the late Zachariah Chandler, and " claim everything ;" and amid so many claims that of England to further recognition as the mother country of the United States seems for the moment overridden. Added to these influences comes that of Anglophobia, which now and then bursts out with virulence when such topics are discussed. A notable illustration was furnished a few years ago, in a book by the late Douglas Campbell, of Cherry Valley, N. Y., entitled "The Puritan in England, Holland, and America." This work is inspired not so much by love for Holland as by hatred of England, which the author inherited from Scotch-Anglo- Irish ancestors; if the abuse of England, most of phobia it irrelevant, were omitted, the two bulky octavos would shrink at once into one small duodecimo, and the clearness and force of ^he argument would be greatly enhanced. In the century, of American development before the Scotch-Irish came, Mr. Campbell holds that the dominant influence here was Dutch; while it cannot be denied that the Dutch were comparatively few in number, it is nevertheless held that their ideas and institutions prevailed to such an extent that the Republic of the United States is far more a child of the Dutch Republic than of England. Throughout the book the animus is one of unwillingness to admit that anything of value in our own much-vaunted country can have come from the land where unjust laws were once made for the men of Ulster. It is to be regretted that historic inquiries should so often be conducted in such a spirit. In the present case the first result is to cast some discredit upon an argument which contains many strong points. There can be no doubt that the influence of the Netherlands upon the formation of the United States has been great in many ways. In the history of the planting of our Middle Colonies that influence will now and then come up for discussion; we shall have occasion

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DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND 29 to consider what the Dutch influence has been. In the mean time, while freely admitting that it has been great, we must let drop a word of caution as to the method to be pursued in arriving at conclusions. We must be on our guard against the common fallacy oipost and propter. For example, if in the sixteenth century we find free public schools Free pub. in operation in the Netherlands but not in Eng- lie schools land, we must beware of too hastily inferring that the free schools of New England in the seventeenth century were introduced or copied from Holland. A different explanation is quite possible. One of the cardinal requirements of democratic Calvinism has always been elementary education for everybody. In matters of religion all souls are equally concerned, and each individual is ultimately responsible for himself. The Scriptures are the rule of life, and accordingly each individual ought to be able to read them for himself, without dependence upon priests. Hence it is one of the prime duties of a congregation to insist that all its mem-shall know how to read, and if necessary to provide them bers with the requisite instruction. In accordance with this Calvinistic idea some form of universal and compulsory elementary education sprang up during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries wherever Calvinism had become dominant, in the Protestant parts of France and Switzerland, in Scotland, in the Netherlands, and in New England. Obviously, then, it might be held that free schools in New England were a natural development of Calvinism, and do not necessarily imply any especially close relation with Holland. One further illustration I am tempted to cite for its extreme aptness, as well as for its delicious narvete1. We have in these days a good many fellow-citizens of Bohemian birth or parentage, especially in the states of Illinois and A Bohe. Wisconsin; and in 1894 a "History of Bohemia," "ianview by Mr. Robert Vickers, was published in Chicago, a book with many sterling merits. In his preface the author urges that a knowledge of the history of Bohemia is indispensable for every American, and adds: "Citizens will perhaps hear

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30 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES with incredulity the assertion that the civil constitution of Bohemia is the parent of that of England and of our own." Truly in the face of such a statement incredulity is the proper frame of mind. The institutions of Bohemia and those of England are in many points traceable to a common primitive Aryan source, and the family likeness may often be plainly discerned; but it is not likely that any single feature of old English life was derived from Bohemia. Mere speculation on such points is liable to be as hazardous as when in philology we base conclusions purely upon the resemblances or identities between words. In Calcutta you may hear a ship called "nava," an Old Aryan word that has survived not only in Sanskrit but in Latin, whence it ha^s been adopted into English; we have the word " navy," but we did not get it from India. In similar wise there are points of family likeness between the village institutions of New England and those of Russia, resemblances that have survived a long night of ages j but we did not get our town meetings from Russia. In considering the contributions made by the Low Countries to civilization in America, we must begin by considering their contributions to civilization in England, and we shall find that these were many and important. There is no doubt that the commercial and social relations between Britain and the Continent were greatly multiplied and strengthened by the Norman Conquest. In particular, the relations with Flanders grew closer, and we find a party of Flemings, driven Flemings from home by floods, seeking and obtaining per-in England mission from William Rufus to make a settlement in England. This was accomplished about 1112 under Henry I., who planted the new colony in Pembrokeshire to serve as a buffer against the Welsh. Thence, if Fabyan is correctly informed, they spread into other parts of the island, and already they were known as skilful weavers, insomuch that about 1150 David I. of Scotland, by special privileges, induced some of them to come and settle north of Tweed.1 1 Fox-Bourne, English Merchants, i. 9-11.

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DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND 31 But a long time was yet to elapse before England was to become a manufacturing country. For the next two centuries all the better grades of woollen cloth came from the Flemish cities. The wool grown on British sheep Politics was the best in the world, and most of it went <u»dwooi to Flemish looms, whence some of the fine cloths made from it came back to clothe the people of Britain, while the rest were sent all over Christendom, and even into the dim, vast Orient. Throughout the later Middle Ages, and into the seventeenth century, one is struck with the singularly close and steady alliance between the Low Countries and England. Along with divers political causes for this alliance there was one permanent and pervading economical cause. A failure in the supply of English wool was as paralyzing to the Flemish weavers as the failure in the supply of American cotton during our late Civil War was paralyzing to the great manufactories of England; while conversely any flagrant disturbance of manufacturing in Flanders would spoil the market for the English sheep farmer. Wool was symbolic of the wealth of the two countries. In glorification of Netherland industry Duke Philip of Burgundy instituted the order of Knights of the Golden Fleece, and in the House of Lords at Westminster the Lord Chancellor still sits upon the woolsack. But other things than wool passed back and forth across the Channel. How it was in the time of Henry VIII. we may learn from the accurate observer, Guicciar- Trade be-dini. "To England," he says, "Antwerp sends J^S"1" jewels and precious stones, silver bullion, quick- England silver, wrought silks, cloth of gold and silver, gold and silver thread, camblets, grograms, spices, drugs, sugar, cotton, cummin, galls, linen fine and coarse, serges, demi-ostades, tapestry, madder, hops in great quantity, glass, salt fish, . . . arms of all kinds, ammunition for war, and household furniture. From England Antwerp receives vast quantities of fine and coarse draperies, fringes and other things of that kind to a great value, the finest wool, excellent saffron in small quan-

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32 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES tities, a great quantity of lead and tin, sheep and rabbit skins without number, and various other sorts of fine peltry and leather, beer, cheese, and other sorts of provisions ; also Malmsey wines, which the English import from Candia."1 He might have added that many a cargo of delicate Moselle wine found its way across the Channel westward. It will be observed that in Guicciardini's list the English exports are mostly of provisions or of raw materials, while the imports from Flanders are mostly products of skilled labour. This is only one among many indications that the superiority in material civilization was on the side of the Continent. The introduction of skilled labour into England, especially so far as* concerns textile fabrics, was largely due to the immiera- actual immigration of workmen from the Nether-*}"> 'n> lands. This migration began to assume considera-lands into ble proportions in the fourteenth century, in the ng n reign of Edward III. That was not, as we sometimes find it carelessly asserted, the beginning of woollen manufactures in England. I have already mentioned the Flemish weavers there in the twelfth century, and we know that some English cloths were exported in the thirteenth.2 It is worth noting from first to last how close was the intercourse between the two sides of the Channel, and how the Netherlanders appear in the attitude of teachers. Edward III. encouraged artisans with special privileges, and there were many who found life, liberty, and earnings more efficiently protected by the English Parliament than by any power their civic governments could put forth on the Continent. The first influx of this Netherland population was into the East Anglian counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. In the Nether- reign of Henry V. the cloth industries were mainly E^eAn" centred in Norfolk, whose capital, Norwich, then s118 ranked as the second city in the kingdom. An- other Norfolk town, Worsted, has fallen into oblivion in spite of its splendid Gothic church, but the name of the thread 1 Traill's Social England, iii. 369. * Traill, iii. 399.

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CHHONYG. flfozfe Ut rWblcn cfi op)Off en oojfpjetic jarc i' Kotutpctti/ E>octe«r fcpsctt Eccbt?iuot t!/ftf,oby|'ct!jiftelicfe 2|Mit?fiadersdtuerfctje Copien VSScncf^J K'(brftii«,PI«f«e», Ae<t>orieiFvtn pyfei, V-Cfi A^nwn.Artidca ffi VfrboneenJfl&n.in'KcktMUife'jtl'f fn V«rbontemi}cB,io Nededaift cdrud; totNoortwitzt ? TITLE OF BOOK PRINTED FOR DUTCH REFUGEES AT NORWICH, ENGLAND

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34 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES first made there is known to all the world. From East Anglia the making of cloth gradually extended southwest-ward to Winchester and Salisbury and northwestward into Cheshire until by the time of James I. the share of the West in it had begun to predominate. To go back to Henry V., the company of Merchant Adventurers, devoted exclusively to the exportation of manufactured woollens, was chartered in 1407; for three centuries it was a body of much importance, and after its type were constructed some of the greatest of modern mercantile companies. Thus the Flemish influence upon mediaeval England was commercially of great significance. But there was much more in it than spinning and weaving. One cannot long study the period of the Reformation, say from Henry VIII. Puritanism to Oliver Cromwell, without observing that the in the eastern counties were the stronghold of democratic eastern counties of ideas and of Puritanism. The contrast with the ng West was finely illustrated in the two universities; Oxford was sure to be High Church and Tory, while Cambridge was Liberal and more or less Puritan. During the Civil War the Eastern Counties Association furnished the backbone of the Parliament's army. Three of the oldest county names in America Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, curiously put wrong end first on the map remind us that a large majority of the earliest settlers of New England came from those old world counties. Quite in keeping with this is the fact that of the 280 martyrdoms in the brief fury of Bloody Mary, 240 occurred east of a straight line which you might draw from Brighton through London to the Wash.1 It is utterly impossible that these relations should be accidental. But let us go back to the fourteenth century and to the preaching of Wyclif. The career of Lollardism is unsur-The passed in importance by any other phenomenon Lollards m English history. Lollardism was the earliest phase of Protestantism in England, as the Catharism of the 1 Green, History of the English People, ii. 259, 260.

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DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND 35 Albigenses was the earliest phase of Protestantism in France. The tenets of the Cathari were very different from those of the Lollards, but as forces disintegrating to Catholic theology and the Papacy they were quite similar. If the Albigenses had not been exterminated in the thirteenth century, France would probably have become a Protestant country in the sixteenth. If the House of Lancaster had succeeded in exterminating the Lollards, very likely the reformation under the House of Tudor would have stopped where it was left by Henry VIII. But the eastern counties were always the stronghold of Lollardism, and it was among the weavers of Norwich and Worsted and Lynn and Colchester and other such towns that Wyclif found his earliest and staunchest disciples. About a hundred Lollards were burned in the course of the fifteenth century, and of these cases more than half occurred in the single county of Norfolk. So late as 1520, Longland, bishop of Lincoln, reported that in the course of a single visitation of his diocese more than 200 persons were brought before him under the charge of Lollardism. Such testimony shows how far from true is the statement, often carelessly made, that the Lollards were suppressed in England. It is true that their ministers were prevented from preaching openly, but the multitude of them went on quietly reading Wyclif's Bible and keeping up their own thinking until the stirring times when the eloquence of Latimer and Hooper and the theology of Calvin brought them into the foreground of history as the Puritans. From the foregoing group of facts it is extremely probable that the beginnings of Puritanism in England were intimately related to the influence exerted upon England by the Netherlands. On general principles it would not be strange that the eastern side of the island, looking toward Influence the Continent, should have exhibited earlier symp-toms of progressiveness than the west side, backed by the wild mountains of Wales. In modern times, since England has become a great maritime power, other

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36 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES conditions prevail and the west and north have become more important than the east; but in the Middle Ages the east side was favoured as we have seen. The centre of commerce, of art, of learning, of cosmopolitan life, was in northern Italy; and from that centre the light of civilization shone upon the north of Europe along the great pathways of trade, nearly all of which were interlaced with one another in the Netherlands, making that region second only to Italy as a centre of cosmopolitan culture. In the time of Henry VIII. civilization was further advanced in the Low Countries than in either France or England. The towns were far cleaner, there was more domestic comfort, less squalor and poverty, more general education, finer pictures and better music, more knowledge of the great world. Life in England, abounding in racy vigour, was comparatively rural, provincial, narrow-minded. A general survey of the Middle Ages would lead one to the conclusion that there was a certain antagonism between the ecclesiastical and the commercial spirit, or, as a priest of those days might have seen fit to phrase it, between God and Mammon. Clearly where commerce was most highly developed, the priesthood never attained its full measure of political power". The most striking illustration of this is Antago- the failure of the Papacy, at the zenith of its tyr-t"w nbe' anny in the thirteenth century, to fasten the In-ancTcom" qm'sition upon Venice.1 That baleful institution merce never acquired a secure foothold in the mediaeval Netherlands; in 1430 it had been almost forgotten at Lille what should be done with the forfeited estates of persons burned for heresy.a Yet there can be little doubt that in a quiet way much thinking was done outside of ecclesiastical lines. In northern Italy Catharism was never thoroughly stamped out as it was in France, and Catharist notions hovered in the air all the way down the Rhine from the mountains to the sea. Catharists found their way as far as Holland, where the Dutch corrupted their name into "Ketters;" 1 Lea, Inquisition, ii. 249-253. * Id., i. 521.

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¦ DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND 37 CHARLES V. OF SPAIN they were forerunners of the Mennonites and Anabaptists of a later day. Among the Dutch gardeners and Flemish weavers were also to be found Waldenses from Savoy, members of the earliest of the sects that are now reckoned among Protestants. In those manufacturing and commercial cities people of sectarian opinions contrived to live side by side with remarkably little strife. Such a society contained all the materials for a mighty rebellion against priestcraft.

"-" I HBB ¦ - - ¦:. ¦ Hfl

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38 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES Commercial intercourse with such a society and the receiving of immigrants from it could not fail to stimulate progressive thought in England. It is evident, too, that such a society could not well pass through the crisis of the Reformation without a paroxysm of persecution and torment. This was made practically certain by the exposed situation of the Netherlands. I showed in the preceding chapter that, as long as cities like Antwerp or Rotterdam could protect themselves against military coercion at the hands of . some feudal superior, it was possible for them to the Neth- develop a great amount of practical freedom. The " position of the patchwork Middle Kingdom, be- tween France and Germany, and without any general head of its own, was wonderfully favourable to such development. But when the powerful feudal superior came, in the shape of the House of Burgundy, the danger soon became apparent. When a proud city like Dinant could be levelled with the ground and 8000 of its people massacred, at the behest of a feudal prince, it was a day of ill omen for human liberty. Far worse was it when the Netherlands came to have for their lord the most powerful monarch on earth. The little finger of Charles of Spain was thicker than the loin of his great-grandfather, Charles of Burgundy. The conflict, moreover, was irrepressible. The revolt of Martin Luther made it necessary for those who would maintain the old order of things to attack the liberties of the Netherlands. Since the suppression of the Albigenses persecution had been spasmodic until the founding of the modern or Spanish Inquisition in 1480; but with the advent of Protestantism it became systematic and persistent. The reign of the Emperor Charles was largely occupied with the attempt to exterminate heresy in the Low Countries. If the statement of Grotius can be accepted, that more than 50,000 heretics were put to death, it was a persecution almost beyond precedent. It was a fit preparation for the most desperate and tragic revolt against tyranny of which we have any record. Americans must always remember with pride that it

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DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND 39 was an American historian who first adequately portrayed the sublime figure of William the Silent and described the magnificent epoch in history known as " The Rise of the Dutch Republic." He who would refresh his memory as to the incidents should go back to Motley's glowing narrative. But there are a few points which we are here especially concerned to mention. Let us first observe that the success of the revolted provinces in winning their independence was but partial. The mighty Strug- TheNeth- gle broke the Sednsin Netherlands twai» in twain. The Flemish provinces, the land of the Nervii, were once more compelled to bow the knee unto Caesar, but the Frisian descendants of sturdy Radbod triumphantly defied him. The free United States of the Netherlands came com monly to be known by the name of their most important commercial state, Holland, very much as if the United States of America were to be commonly called New York. The Flemish provinces, remaining attached to the House of Hapsburg, were called Spanish Netherlands until that family was superseded in Spain by the House of Bourbon. Then they were known as Austrian Netherlands until the French Revolution. The European Congress of 1815 created a kingdom of the Netherlands, which comprised both the Dutch and the Flemish WILLIAM THE SILENT

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40 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES portions, but this arrangement was short-lived. The line of cleavage established by the great separation of 1579 had in the following two and a half centuries become only more pronounced; and in 1830 the Flemish provinces were erected into a distinct kingdom and comprehended under the ancient classic name of Belgium. Some mutual effects of the separation of 1579 upon the Dutch and Flemish provinces will presently call for notice; but some mention must first be made of the effects upon England of that great war of liberation. The first effect was the migration of Netherlanders to England on a larger scale than ever before. This migration began before the middle of the century, as a consequence of Hegira of the persecutions under Charles V.; it was checked Fkmish1"1 f°r a moment during the reign of Mary Tudor, but £to e°s- began again with the accession of Elizabeth. In land 1560 the Spanish ambassador reported to Philip II. that there were more than 10,000 recent Flemish refugees in England, and two years later he gave the number as at least 30,000. In 1568 there were more than 5000 in London alone, and as many more in Norwich.1 The Cinque Ports were full of Dutch and Walloon refugees; in 1566 they numbered in the town of Sandwich 120 householders, as against 291 English householders; that is, they were nearly one third of the population. They introduced into Sandwich the manufacture of paper and silk. In Maidstone the next year such refugees established the linen thread industry. To Honiton and other Devonshire towns they brought the dainty art of lace-making. They began the steel and iron works of Sheffield, and the making of baizes and serges at Leeds. They revolutionized the art of glass-making in England, and raised market-gardening and horticulture to quite a new level. There is thus no doubt that to the very marked and rapid rise in the standard of domestic living, which characterized the age of Elizabeth, this influx of Netherlanders contributed in no small degree. It is part of Elizabeth's 1 Campbell, i. 488; Froude, vii. 270,413 ; Traill, iii. 368 ; Griffis, 154.

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DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND 41 legitimate glory that during most of her long reign and through her own policy, profound internal peace was preserved in England throughout one of the stormiest periods of history. Thus the Netherland influences quickly took root and greatly thrived. After the capture of Antwerp by the Duke of Parma in 1585, more than one third of the merchants and shipmasters of that opulent city found homes on the banks of the Thames, and in such ports as Yarmouth and Lowestoft, Boston and Hull. During the reign of Elizabeth probably more than 100,000 Dutchmen and Flemings became Englishmen. They were picked men, and it is safe to say that nearly all were Puritans. In point of blood every Netherlander was more than half English already; a slight change of speech was enough to complete the transformation, and probably the first generation of children were indistinguishable from native Englishmen. To this immigration we owe not only such family names as Dutchfam-Fleming, Hollander, and Gaunt, together with nu- J^1^^ merous Vans which tell their own story, but also many others less obvious, such as Hickman or Bentinck, and others that refer to the arts of the Weaver and Fuller and Dyer, the Flaxman and Whittier, the Bleecker and Limner. Besides this, the immigrants often modified their names by spelling, as De Witt into Dwight, or simply translated them, as Groen into Green/ Goudsmid into Goldsmith, Timmerman into Carpenter, or Koopman into Chapman. There is thus strong ground for the assertion of Mr. GrifEs, that many Americans who boast of their " unmixed English stock " are descended from Dutch or Flemish ancestors who first saw England in the Duke of Alva's time. One hardly sees how it could be otherwise. In the days of Charles I. a considerable part of the rank and file of Puritans were children and grandchildren of Netherlanders, and of these surely many must have been included among the 20,000 who came to New England between 1629 and 1640. Let us next observe that the separation of 1579 between the southern and northern states of the Netherlands was fol-

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42 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES lowed by an extensive migration from the former into the latter. Of those who could on no account be induced to accept the political situation and bow the knee to Spain, many Migration went northward into Holland, mostly Protestants, artisans, and large and small capitalists. Protest ants into The general result was greatly to strengthen Holland, and by the same token to diminish the life and vigour of the Flemish provinces. The latter became less enterprising and more submissive, and the part which they have played in the world since the separation has been far less important than that which they played in the Middle Ages. After the year 1600 we hear much less of Antwerp and Ghent, and much more of Amsterdam and Rotterdam than before. Of the famous cities of Belgium some, such as Bruges, are absolutely smaller now than in the fourteenth century; all save Brussels are relatively of less weight; and while the grade of civilization is very high, it is plain that the old preeminence has passed away. The contrast with Holland became so conspicuous soon after the separation as to seem highly dramatic. After Parma's capture of Antwerp in 1585, men fled from it as from a wreck. Within twenty years its population had fallen away by more than 50,000, while at the same time Amsterdam was increasing so fast that temporary booths and fragile shanties had to do duty while better shops and houses were building1 very much as in an American western " boom." Growth of The fortunes of war, indeed, were adverse for Ant-*"£Jgu£h werp; for the Dutch held Flushing at the mouth at the ex- of the river Scheldt and took toll of all ships going the Hem- up. But the causes lay deeper than this, and were ^ connected with the rapidly growing power of the Dutch upon the ocean, which was itself a consequence of the change in the routes of trade wrought by the maritime discoveries of the Portuguese. Before the fall of Antwerp these causes had been steadily at work for eighty years, strengthening the Dutch at the expense of their Flemish 1 Motley, United Netherlands, iv. 551.

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DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND 43 brethren, insomuch that we may look here for one of the reasons why the latter succumbed to Spain and the former did not. Let us note what had happened. Early in the sixteenth century, after the Turks had closed up the Mediterranean routes of Asiatic trade, there was a decline in the volume of commercial transactions of Venice and Genoa, and the effects of this were soon apparent in the Low Countries. At the same time the ocean route to the East Indies, sought in vain by Columbus, was dis- Relations covered by the Portuguese, who soon controlled the withPortu-trade of the Indian Ocean and began building up for themselves an Asiatic empire. This led to a rapid development of maritime trade between the Netherlands and Lisbon. The shawls of India, the silks of China, the dye-wood of Sumatra, the spices of the Molucca Islands, which had formerly come through Alexandria to Venice, and thence down the Rhine country to the Netherlands, now came around the Cape of Good Hope to Lisbon, and thence to the Netherlands by water. This change favoured the Dutch at the expense of the Flemish provinces, by reason of the much greater length of the Dutch coast-line. While Belgium has only forty miles of seacoast, Holland has about three hundred and fifty. By dint of marvellous energy and skill the two little states of Zealand and Holland came to be virtually one vast seaport, the great distributing centre between Lisbon and the North. A powerful merchant marine had long since been called into existence by the herring fisheries; now its volume was rapidly and steadily increased by the Lisbon trade, and a considerable share of the prosperity thus gained for Amsterdam and Deventer and Bergen-op-Zoom was deducted from the prosperity of Bruges and Ghent and Namur. By the end of the sixteenth century the Dutch were the foremost power on the sea Now it happened that in 1578 one of the grandsons of Charles V, that King Sebastian of Portugal who has been made the theme of so many romantic legends, led an expedition into Morocco and there was slain in battle, leaving

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44 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES no issue. His kinsman, Philip II. of Spain, then laid claim Seizure of to t^ie throne of Portugal, and in 1580 seized that Portugal kingdom for himself. This was the end of the he-y pam roic age of Portugal, which for the next sixty years was held in unwilling subjection to Spain. Now in 1580 the war in the Netherlands was in its most acute phase. The Spanish seizure of Portugal suddenly cut off the India trade of the Dutch, but at the same time it transformed all the Portuguese colonies politically into dependencies of Spain, and thus left the Dutch free to attack and conquer them wherever they were able. The English alliance was now of great service to them. The work of crippling the Spanish treasury by attacks upon the colonial sources of supply, The Dutch which had been begun by Elizabeth's captains, was in the East vigorously kept up by the Dutch. After the de-111(1163 feat of the Invincible Armada in 1588 they proceeded at once to invade the colonial world of Portugal. They soon established themselves in Java and Sumatra, and by 1607 they had gained complete possession of the Mojucca Islands. Sometimes their ships were taken by Spaniards and their sailors thrown overboard or carried home for the next auto-de-fi'; but this happened less and less often. Dutch ships, became so fleet, so strongly armed, and so ably handled, that none save the English could compete with them. Thus they soon superseded the Portuguese in controlling the Indian Ocean, and began to build up the noble empire which Holland possesses to-day in the East Indies, with a rich territory four times the size of France, a population of 30,000,000, and a trade of which the floating capital is more than $150,000,000. At the close of the sixteenth century the formation of joint-stock companies for large enterprises was just coming into vogue. Nowhere else were such associations so successful as in London and Amsterdam. The founding of the English East India Company in 1600 and of the Dutch East India Company in 1602 mark an epoch of cardinal importance in modern history. The latter was "the first great joint-stock

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n - . THE DESCRIPTION ofa voyage made by certaine Ships of Holland into the Eaft Indies. With their aduentures and fuccefle: Together With the delcription of the Countries, TovvneSj and inhabitautcs of the fame: Who fct forth on the fecond of April: 15^-5, -4-,: returned on the 14, of Augufi, iyp7, Tr^nfiaudmt ef Dutch into Ettglifh hW.Pm LONDON lip«« TITLE OF BOOK DESCRIBING FIRST DUTCH VOYAGE TO EAST INDIES

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46 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES company whose shares were bought and sold from hand to hand ;" and so remarkable was its prosperity that it soon paid dividends of sixty per cent.1 So fast grew the Dutch colonial empire at Spain's expense that by 1619 it was found desirable to bring it together under a general system of administration, and in Java the city of Batavia was built to serve as a colonial capital, a kind of Oriental Amsterdam. From Java Tea and tne Dutch dealt with China. One memorable result coffee of their presence in the East was the introduction of tea and coffee into Europe. They bought tea at Chinese ports, but presently took the island of Formosa and worked it for themselves. At first they carried Mocha coffee from Arabia to Europe around the Cape of Good Hope, but after a while they took the Arabian coffee and planted it in Java, thus originating a new and excellent variety. Within half a century the numerous cafds in Paris and coffee-houses in London testified to the social virtues of the new beverage. The monopoly of the tea and coffee trade was a source of great wealth, and not less so was the trade in pepper and spices. The possession of the Moluccas was worked for all it was worth from the monopolist's point of view. The Dutch in the islands were too few to occupy all the cultivable soil; therefore they occupied the best spots, and destroyed the spice trees elsewhere as far as possible, so as to keep all European rivals out of the field. Moreover, if their crop happened to be very large they would burn a part of it in order to keep up the price. When they had ousted the Portuguese from all their old settlements on the coast of Malabar, they acquired a similar control of the market for pepper. To this day on the mainland of India, in such towns as Chinsurah and Negapatam, and in sundry ports on the Malabar and Coromandel coasts, may be seen canals bordered with quaint brick houses roofed with tiles, relics of the time when the Dutch were masters in those neighbourhoods.8 With the Malay peninsula and the island of Ceylon in their 1 Payne, European Colonies, p. 55. * W. W. Hunter, Imperial Gazetteer of India, vi. 363.

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DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND 47 possession, and with the places just mentioned in Hindustan, the Dutch found it desirable to have a half-way station between Europe and the East, and this led to the founding of their colony at the Cape of Good Hope. In the arduous work

of maritime discovery their captains took some part. It is often said that Australia was discovered by the TheDutch Dutch in 1605. There can be little doubt that the in Austrai-coast of that remote continent was visited by ror-tuguese sailors as early as 1542/ but that event lapsed into oblivion, and in 1605 the discovery was made for the second 1 Major, Prince Henry the Navigator, pp. 44°-452-

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48 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES time by the Dutch. For two centuries thereafter Australia was commonly called New Holland. Between 1640 and 1650 the great navigator Abel Tasman explored its coasts,1 and also discovered New Zealand and the island which he named after Anthonie Van Diemen, governor-general of the Indies, but which is now more fitly called after himself, Tasmania. The English had no mind to allow the Dutch a monopoly in these remote enterprises. When Drake, in 1579, and Cavendish, in 1588, were circumnavigating the globe, they visited the Spice Islands and Java, and most friendly overtures were made to them by the native chiefs, who detested the Portuguese. England's hour had not quite come, but these things were remembered. Soon after 1600 the English East India Company began visiting Hindustan and trading in Malaysia, and thus they came into collision with the Dutch. In 1619 an amicable arrangement was effected, whereby the two powers established a joint protectorate over the Spice Islands. The produce was to be shared in the proportion of one third for the English and two thirds for the Dutch. But peace was not preserved. A small Amboyna ^^ of Englisnmen settled in the little island of Amboyna and went to gathering cloves. For a while the Dutch endured the presence of these rivals, but the heart of monopoly is hard. Certain Japanese servants accused the English of a conspiracy for seizing the fort and getting control of the island. English historians maintain that these Japanese were suborned by the Dutch. However that may be, Captain Towerson and nine of his men were seized and tortured until they confessed themselves guilty. Then they were killed and the rest of the English were driven from the island. This affair, which occurred in 1623, has ever since been known in England as "the massacre of Amboyna." Though a slight affair for so grewsome a name, it was historically important. The close alliance between Dutch and English, which with rare exceptions had been maintained for centuries, was fast giving way before their keen commercial 1 Collingridge, The Discovery of Australia, Sydney, 1895, p. 279.

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DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND 49 rivalry, and such an incident as that of Amboyna sowed seeds of hatred and strife. The English, however, did not feel strong enough to dispute the Dutch supremacy in the Malay Archipelago. So they bent their minds to the Indian mainland and within a few years had built the city of Madras and laid the foundations of their vast Asiatic empire. One of Portugal's dependencies, Brazil, lay west of the Atlantic, and thither the Dutch made their way in 1624. It had been found that sugar plantations there, worked by gangs of slaves imported from Africa, yielded large profits. For twenty years the Dutch held the country and kept The Dutch one of the Nassau princes there as stadholder. But ta Brazil the revolt of Portugal from Spain was the signal for a revolt in Brazil against the Dutch, who were bitterly hated as monopolists and as heretics. The Portuguese thus recovered that spacious country, but of nearly all their other possessions they remained shorn, and never again was Portugal the power that it had been in the sixteenth century. The great length of the voyage to the Spice Islands, whether eastward around the Cape of Good Hope or westward through the Strait of Magellan, led to persistent attempts to discover water routes, which it was supposed would be more direct, through North America or around the north of Asia. Not until the seventeenth century was far advanced did Europeans obtain definite ideas concerning the interior of North America and the vast continental expanse of Siberia. In the next chapter we shall see Henry Hudson looking for a northwest passage at Manhattan Island, and a long tale of suffering and death was necessary before men could give up the belief in a pleasant summer sea stretching over the unexplored region now known to us as icy Siberia. It was Sebastian Cabot, in his old age, who advo- Arcti(; . cated this northeastern route to Cathay, and the potions Muscovy Company was founded in London for the purpose of exploring it. The first expedition sailed in 1553, and rounded the North Cape. Two ships were lost with all their hands on the wild coast of Lapland; we are told that the

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So THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES gallant commander, Sir Hugh Willoughby, was frozen to death as he sat writing in his cabin;1 the third ship, more fortunate, entered the White Sea, and returned to England after a hospitable entertainment by the Russians. Within the next few years English mariners discovered Nova Zembla. Then the Dutch undertook to go farther, but there was a difference of opinion among them. The grand pensionary, Olden Barneveldt, believed that after passing the strait between Nova Zembla and the Russian mainland, an open sea would be reached over which one might comfortably sail to China. But the Amsterdam pilot, William Barendz, thought it more promising to sail between Nova Zembla and the pole. Both methods were tried in the years 1594 to 1597. Linschoten sailed through the strait to find a sea choked with icebergs and an atmosphere heavy with blizzards. The gallant Barendz discovered Spitzber-gen and came within ten degrees of the pole, or nearer than any navigator had come before. He passed around the northern extremity of Nova Zembla and was delighted to find a broad, open sea before him, but in less than three days a sudden accumulation of drifting ice had driven him back. Nothing in all the history of Arctic adventure is more full of romance and heroism than the three voyages of William Barendz, in the last of which he perished from hardship. A born leader of men, 1 The story is discredited by Harrisse, John Cabot and Sebastian his Son, p. 347. WILLIAM BARENDZ

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DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND 51 a true devotee of science, endless in resources, of zeal unquenchable, great-hearted, blithe, and lovable, he stands in the front rank of the world's great sailors. Curiously enough, only three years after Barendz had reached the highest northern latitude as yet attained, another gallant Dutch captain approached nearer to the south pole than man had ever been before. In 1502 Americus Vespu-cius had astonished Europe by his voyage to South Georgia, in latitude 54° south, where he found an antarctic The Dutch climate, and proved that Pomponius Mela was to ^c Ant" that extent right. In 1599 this record was sur- Ocean passed by Dirk Gerrits, who discovered the desolate country now called South Shetland, which seems to be a part of the great antarctic continent. At that time sailors who passed from the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific still threaded the difficult strait of Magellan, for nothing was known about the termination of South America. But in 1616 Schouten van Horn discovered and doubled the cape which still bears his name. The facts here grouped together show us vividly how, just at the time when the first English colonies were being planted in America, Dutch enterprise was finding its way to every corner of the globe. Every part of the story has points of interest. But that which most nearly concerns us is the search for a northern route to China, for it is this quest which brings upon the scene that illustrious navigator, Henry Hudson, and indirectly leads to the founding of a New Netherland in the most commanding commercial position on the coast of North America.

CHAPTER III: VERRAZANO AND HUDSON 102 0052

CHAPTER III VERRAZANO AND HUDSON It seems to be not uncommonly believed, even to-day, that Henry Hudson was the discoverer of the river that bears his name. But the student of history gets accustomed to finding that the beginnings of things were earlier than had been supposed. So many famous discoveries have turned out to be rediscoveries that we become cautious about asserting that any event or achievement was the first of its kind. With regard to the Hudson River, there can be no sort of doubt that it was visited by many Europeans before Hudson, and in the story of these earlier voyages there is much that is of interest. The expeditions of John and Sebastian Cabot, in 1497 and 1498, found no traces of civilization, or of spices, or gold, or precious stones, on the coasts which they visited, and hence their efforts were not followed up as otherwise they might have been. But one source of wealth attracted their atten-The New- ^on> the fisheries on the banks of Newfoundland, foundiand Englishmen were rather slow in availing themselves of this information, inasmuch as they had long been accustomed to find codfish and haddock in plenty in the waters about Iceland. But sailors from Portugal and the Basque provinces of Spain, and in still greater numbers from Normandy and Brittany, soon flocked to the Newfoundland fishing grounds. From 1504 to the present moment there has probably never been a year when the French flag has not been seen and the French language heard upon those waters. The name of Cape Breton, which is perhaps the earliest European name north of the West Indies, tells its own story. It is only natural to suppose that now and then some hardy

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1 i \ I *L^Miihliiiiiiiiiii«ii»iii>\ in j- iiiiinM^teimrMii- ifflfijtffMifMiMimi SCHOUTEN VAN HORN AND MAGELLAN

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VERRAZANO AND HUDSON 53 C&eptem hoies fyfijeftrescxeaitulacgue terraj nooa dicit )Kothomag6 addJjanuHTV-fi cymTj Pa/yettwnens g arims eorqtFuligmet tat cola? tts/groffisIabris/fligmatawYadegerenttt / ab j aureadmediu mentu' ipftar liuidg ycnulgpcr maxiIlasdcdutfa^Cnnen<gro& groflb vteqna luba.BaAap torii vitfltmlla/ ne vllu sintotocor pe pffl9 preter ca; Ha,Baltheuger6t: ^------ -------- -- - - - ^^----- »- - ^«-_ -^ w^ ^«^ pr w^vwaw ^V ^*v« ^^» ^^» geda vercdaTidioma labrit formanrel^o nult, Jatcymba eoro coracea I qni homoyna mann f eoehatfaihiitnerosArinaeoro-.arait latf/chor»f ~^ "' """ / au^nerniTaliCa^agittg^ cari~a?f autoflepifciaacuinfriaig.Cibu>'eoru:cac< ties toft^Potuataqua.Panis 8t vini & pecunia tu;nullus oino yfustNud»cedut;aut veftfti pcf libus aialia/vribfo/cerooru/ vituloy marinoy | &flmiflift.Reg<o eorfipaialdlus iepnmjgw>a» j" tis plus fub occBaue g GaBica t egio Aiffa oc> ctdcntem* EXTRACT FROM THE CHRONICLE OF EUSEBIUS, 1512, DESCRIBING THE BRINGING TO ROUEN OF SEVEN WILD MEN FROM AMERICA skipper, impelled by curiosity or in quest of further gains, would cruise along the mainland and enter the mouths of the broad rivers; and so in fact it seems to have happened. The local annals of Dieppe assure us that on the loth of August, 1508, two ships from that port entered a mighty river which they named after the patron saint of that day, St. Lawrence.1 They ascended the river for eighty leagues, driving a lucrative trade in peltries, and when they returned to Europe they carried to Rouen seven wild men, who are thus described in a chronicle printed at Paris in 1512: "They are of a sooty colour, . . . with hair black and coarse like a horse's mane; having no beard throughout the whole life. . . . They have 1 Desmarquets, Mtmoires pour servir & Phistoire de Dieppe, Paris, 1785, i. 100.

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54 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES a speech, but no religion. Their canoe is bark, which a man can lift on his shoulders with one hand. Their weapons are large bows, the strings being intestines or sinews of animals; their arrows are canes barbed with flint or fishbone. Their food is boiled flesh, and of bread, wine, or money they have no knowledge." 1 The documentary evidence for this voyage is not all that could be desired, but there seems no good reason for doubting that it was made. As to the naming of the St. Lawrence, it is pretty clear that Jacques Cartier gave that name to the gulf on the ioth of August, 1535; but that is eminently one of the kind of incidents that might happen twice. In this voyage of 1508 the name of one of the captains is given as Thomas Aubert, a Frenchman, and that of the other as Jean Wrassen, a Frenchified form of the Italian name, Giovanni da Verrazano. Concerning the early life of this famous . navigator our details are meagre. He was born in da ver- Florence about 1480, and evidently received a good razano education. He was one of the most highly trained scientific pilots of his time, was deeply versed in geographical lore, and had a naturalist's eye for the physical contour of countries and for their plants and animals. The Norman city of Dieppe was then one of the busiest ports in France, and the place where most attention was given to ocean navigation. As Verrazano was engaged there, and in command of a ship, at the age of twenty-eight, it was apparently after long experience and mature reflection that he offered his services to Francis I. to conduct an expedition for the discovery of a westward passage to Cathay. In the autumn of 1523 he sailed from Dieppe with four ships, but all were disabled in a storm and obliged to put back. Starting again with only two ships, he ran down to the Madeira islands, and seems to have suffered some further mishap, for when he again weighed anchor, on January 17, 1524, it was only with a single ship, La Dauphine. On the ioth of March he sighted land on the North Carolina coast, a little north of 1 Eusebii chronicon, Paris, 1512, fol. 172.

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VERRAZANO AND HUDSON 55 Cape Fear, "a new land," Verrazano calls it in his letter to the king, "a new land never before seen by men in ancient or modern times." He called it Anewland " Diepa," an Italianized form of Dieppe. This is an eloquent reminder of the date of the voyage. Twenty years earlier Verrazano would probably have supposed himself to be on the coast of Japan, or perhaps of China. But since the Portuguese, sailing eastward, had reached the Spice Islands in 1511, it had become obvious that there was an immense difference in longitude between eastern Asia and the coasts discovered by Columbus. Before Verrazano started on this voyage he must have heard of the circumnavigation of the earth by Magellan. So now he did not call the American coast by any Asiatic name, but simply a " new land." Nevertheless the fragrance of spring herbs and flowers in the Carolina woods set him thinking about spices, and the yellow soil suggested gold, as it did in later days to the English settlers of Virginia. In his letter Verrazano tells us : " My intention in this voyage was to reach Cathay, on the extreme coast of Asia, expecting, however, to find in the newly discovered land some such obstacle as I found." The problem before him was to find a passage through this obstacle, and with this object in view he sailed slowly northward, keeping the coast in sight and occasionally landing and parleying with the natives. His vigilance, however, seems now and then to have been relaxed. He must have passed the entrance to Chesapeake Bay by night or too far offshore, or perhaps in a fog, for he makes no allusion to such an opening; but when next he landed, it must have been, I think, on the Accomac peninsula There he stayed three days, and there he may well have got the glimpse of a western sea which had curious results. A tramp of ten miles might have taken his party neck of to some point like the present site of Hoffmann's }^nbtwo Wharf, whence he might look out upon a waste ^usn<Uess of waters stretching north, south, and west, as far as the eye could reach; and how was he to know that this

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56 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES water was not the Pacific Ocean, but only a bay which future generations were to call by the name of Chesapeake? If any such incident happened, it may seem strange that it should not be mentioned in his letter to Francis I. But that letter is extremely brief and unsatisfactory, and was evidently never intended as a report in any full sense of the word. Against this negative evidence may be set the fact that after the return of the expedition to Europe, the navigator's brother, Girolamo Verrazano, made a map which shows a long narrow isthmus just about where the Accomac peninsula is situated, and on it is the inscription : " From this eastern sea one beholds the western sea; there are six miles of land between the two." From Florida indefinitely westward the map shows a narrow mass of continent connecting with Mexico and running up to about the 37th parallel. Next comes the isthmus just mentioned, and to the north of that we come to a region which might include the states of New York and Pennsylvania, with New England and Canada, and which is called Francesca, after Francis I. This Chesapeake isthmus is in the map-maker's mind the only land connection between the Florida region to the south, which he leaves in possession of Spain, and the region just mentioned to the northward, which he claims for France. The Sea ^ne western shore of the narrow isthmus is washed of Vena- by a mighty ocean, which covers nearly the whole 2an0 area of the United States, and is continuous with the Pacific, thus making an uninterrupted waste of waters from Accomac to China. This imaginary sea soon came to be known as the Sea of Verrazano, from its discoverer. We find it repeated on the important map made by Vesconte Maiollo in 1527, now in the Ambrosian library at Milan,1 and on a series of other maps, including the one which Dr. Michael Lok, of London, made for Sir Philip Sidney in 1582.* The seventeenth century was well advanced before 1 There is a beautiful reproduction of it in Kretschmer, Die Ent-deckung Amerikas, Atlas, xiv. 1 It is given in my Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, Illustrated Edition, i. 64.

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MAIOLLO'S MAP, 1527, SHOWIN G VERRAZANO'S DISCOVERIES

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VERRAZANO AND HUDSON 57 belief in the Sea of Verrazano had become extinct. It is not easy to rid oneself of the feeling that this colossal blunder must have originated in gazing upon Chesapeake Bay from the Accomac shore. The late Dr. Justin Winsor suggested that the water actually seen might have been Pamlico Sound looked at from inside of Cape Hatteras. To this view my objection is that Pamlico Sound is too near Verrazano's first landfall at Cape Fear, and not near enough to New York His narrative implies a greater interval of time between Cape Fear and the place where he made his three days' stop than between the latter place and New York. However that may have been, there can be no doubt whatever as to Verrazano's entering New York harbour. Why he should have passed Delaware Bay and its sentinel capes without mention is not obvious, but such difficult questions perpetually encounter us in the letters of these old navigators. At all events, his description of the approach to New York is unmistakable. About the middle of April he arrived at Sandy Hook, which he called Cape St. Mary, as we learn from Maiollo's map. Northward the channel now called the Narrows seemed full of promise. The neighbouring hillsides were alive with peering savages as the French ship passed between Staten Island and the Gowanus shore and entered the great landlocked harbour which Thehar. Verrazano compares to a beautiful lake. At the bourof upper end of it was a delightful place among small steep hills, between which una grandissima rtviera, a very great river, emptied into the bay. Canoes, filled with red men in paint and feathers, darted hither and thither. Verrazano does not call the river a strait, and did not ascend it in order to find an entrance to his western sea; so that his inferences from what he saw seem here to have been correct. He sailed out between Sandy Hook and a point of land which appears on Maiollo's map as Angoule'me, the name of Francis I.'s countship before he became king ; this may have been Coney Island. Here the general trend of the Atlantic coast changes, he tells us, toward the east. He cruised along the

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S8 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES southern shore of Long Island, noticing the throng of natives gathering wampum at Rockaway Bay, then presently discovered Block Island, which he called Louise, after the king's mother; then passing Point Judith, which appears on the map as Cape St. Francis, he found himself in Narragan-Narragan- sett Bay and had a lively parley with the Indians. «»" B»y Here he stayed a fortnight and explored the whole of the bay, which seems greatly to have pleased his fancy. He called it Refugio, and on several maps of the next half century it appears as Port de Refuge. The accuracy of Ver-razano's astronomical observations is shown by his statement that this bay "is situated on the parallel of Rome, in4i° 40'." Now Newport is in 410 29' and Providence is 410 49', so that as an average between them his figure is correct within thirty seconds; or if intended for the entrance the error of only eleven minutes was a very small one for the astrolabes of the sixteenth century. From this harbour of refuge the worthy Florentine set sail on the 6th of May, passed to the south of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, which he mistook for portions of the mainland, rounded Cape Cod, and went ashore probably somewhere between Nahant and Cape Ann. Here the sailors had a scrimmage with the Indians, who shot stone-tipped arrows among them without killing anybody. Some of these belligerent redskins wore copper earrings. The country there was densely wooded, but as La Dauphine approached the Piscataqua neighbourhood it became more open, and far inland against the northwestern horizon loomed the peaks of the White Mountains, some of them still streaked and The coast patched with snow. Thence, following the coast of Maine northeasterly, as far probably as the mouth of the Penobscot River, Verrazano was struck with the multitude of small islands, all near to the continent, making many beautiful bights and canals like those on the coast of Illyria and Dalmatia. At length on the 10th of June, as the supply of food was running short, La Dauphine turned her prow seaward and after a voyage of eight-and-twenty days arrived safely at Dieppe.

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MANHATTAN, IN THE ENGLISH MAP OP AMERICA, l6lo The earliest known map in which the name Manhattan appears

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VERRAZANO AND HUDSON 59 A few years ago an attempt was made to discredit this letter of Verrazano to Francis I. as an ingenious forgery based on the Ribeiro map of 1529 by some Florentine man of letters. But this notion, which never had much to recommend it, has been completely exploded.1 The date of the Maiollo map has been fixed beyond a doubt at 1527; and for the information contained in it and in the map of Giro-lamo Verrazano concerning the American coast from North Carolina to Maine, there was no possible source except actual exploration. The letter was dated from Dieppe, in July, 1524, immediately after the ship's return, and its vraz statements are strictly borne out by the two maps. ktter Now up to that time there was absolutely no map or document of any sort in Europe which could have given a forger any information about New York Bay or Narragansett Bay, or could have told him that our coast turns eastward from Sandy Hook and northward after passing Cape Cod. No man of letters, in his study at Florence, could have imagined inland mountains visible from a ship's deck, as the White Mountains are, and then have passed on to the islands of the Maine coast and so happily compared them to those of Illy-ria. This was probably the first voyage that was made by Europeans between Chesapeake Bay and the Bay of Fundy, unless we go back to the Icelanders. It is possible that John Cabot in 1498 may have come as far south as Cape Codj* Americus Vespucius with Vicente Pinzon in that same year came perhaps as far north as Chesapeake Bay.8 For the first exploration of the intervening coast, the first mention of New York and Narragansett bays, of the White Mountains and the romantic coast of Maine, we have to thank the Florentine captain, Giovanni Verrazano. 1 Evidence enough to set the question at rest is adduced in Har-risse's Discovery of North America, pp. 214-228. ' Harrisse is disposed to allow that Cabot may have followed the coast as far south as Florida; see his Discovery of North America, p. 43; John Cabot and Sebastian his Son, p. 137. But the evidence is far from satisfactory. See my Discovery of America, ii. 89.

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60 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES This interesting voyage was not vigorously followed up by Death ot tne French. Their terrible defeat at Pavia in 1525 verra- an(j the captivity of the king seem sufficient to account for this. As for Verrazano, he did not long survive. The MS. archives of the city of Rouen prove that he sailed again in May, 1526, for the American coast, and two documents in the archives of Simancas tell us how in the autumn of 1527 he was captured by a Spanish squadron and taken to Cadiz, where he was hanged as a pirate.1 The next captain to visit the Hudson River was the Spaniard, Estevan Gomez, who in 1525 crossed the ocean to Lab-Voyageof rador and coasted southward to Florida, looking Gomez, for a passage. Gomez took notice of Cape Cod, Narragansett Bay, and both the Hudson and Delaware rivers. After Gomez we hear no more of Spaniards, coming so far north, but there can be little doubt that French skippers from time to time visited the River of the Steep Hills, and even ascended it as far as the site of Albany, in order to get furs from the Mohawks. About 1540 they built a fort on a long low island on the west side of the river, " near the present southern limits of the city of Albany," 8 but their work was partially destroyed by violent freshets. The pilot, Jean Allefonsce, of Saintonge, makes mention of this incident in , the journal of his voyage in 1542. Allefonsce came Allefonsce, to Canada in that year with Roberval, and in the 1542 course of the summer made a voyage by himself and was the first to explore in some detail the shores of Massachusetts Bay. He may also have been the first to approach New York harbour through Long Island Sound; in one passage he has been supposed to describe the dangers 1 The often repeated story that Verrazano was devoured by Indians is based upon a statement of the Venetian historian Ramusio, who misunderstood a passage in Oviedo (lib. zxv. cap. vi.), which tells how one " Johan Florin " was eaten by Indians in Venezuela in 1528. Verrazano was often called "Johan Florin," or John of Florence, so that Ramusio's mistake was a natural one. * Weise, The Discoveries of America, p. 361.

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¦¦ ¦ ¦¦ : " ¦¦£&¦¦ NEW NETHERLAND IN THE "CARTE HUGUSATIVE," 1614

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VERRAZANO AND HUDSON 61 of Hell Gate, but his meaning is not perfectly clear. As for his mention of Frenchmen trading far up the Hudson River, it is corroborated by important Dutch testimony. In 1614 a syndicate of Dutch merchants applied to the States General of the Netherlands for a special license to trade up and down that river, and they affixed to their petition a manuscript map enriched with explanatory notes and memoranda.1 In these notes it is stated that the French were the discoverers of the river and had traded there with the Mohawks long before Hudson's time. Such testimony seems conclusive. Before passing from the French to tell of the coming of the Dutch, some mention should be made of a question over which geographers and historians have long been puzzled. Immediately after Verrazano's voyage there began to appear upon maps the name " Norumbega," a name which evidently had for contemporaries much meaning, but which in less than a century fell out of use without making ample provision for gratifying the curiosity of later gener-ations. Neither the maps nor the allusions of rumbega explorers have as yet enabled us fully to solve the ques on difficulties presented by this name. We find it applied to three things: first, a spacious territory; secondly, a river somewhere in that territory; thirdly, a town or village somewhere upon that river. Now the territory called Norumbega does not present much difficulty; it may be roughly defined as the land included between the Hudson and the Penobscot rivers. It is thus not far from equivalent to New England. But when we come to the river there is a wide difference of opinion, and as to the origin of the name there has been much brave guessing. Perhaps the most common opinion is that the Penobscot was the River of Norumbega, with a village on its bank somewhere up country, where European skippers 1 The original map is in the Royal Archives at the Hague; there is a copy in the State Library of New York, at Albany. It is engraved as frontispiece to O'Callaghan's History of New Netherlands vol. i.

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62 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES traded with the natives for furs ; and the name is often said to be Indian.1 But a very different explanation of Norumbega, suggested in 1884 by Arthur James Weise, of Troy, has some strong points in its favour.2 Mr. Weise maintains that the River of Norumbega was the Hudson and that the town was on Manhattan Island. The name is evidently connected with Ver-razano's8 voyage, and the Hudson River is the only one which in his letter he speaks of entering. How many other streams he may have entered without seeing fit to mention the fact, we cannot say; but clearly the Hudson River and Narra-gansett Bay were the two localities which most deeply impressed him. He describes the Hudson as a very broad river running between small steep hills, which indicates that he may have gone up as far as Spuyten Duyvil. Now if this was really the River of Norumbega, visited and described by this party of Frenchmen, it is fair to ask if the name may not be some French epithet, mutilated and disguised in its pilgrimage among the map-makers. Might not the map-name Norumbega be simply a Low-Latin corruption of Anor-ThePaii- m^e Berget In sixteenth century French that sades means Grand Scarp, and where could one find a better epithet for the majestic line of cliffs that we call the Palisades ? a feature so unusual and so striking that one could hardly fail to select it for description. The River of Norum- 1 In recent years it has been maintained, by the late Professor E. N. Horsford, of Cambridge, that the River of Norumbega was the Charles, and that at its junction with Stony Brook stood a city founded by Northmen early in the eleventh century; we are asked to believe that after keeping up a trade with Europe for three hundred years this Norse colony vanished, leaving no trace in European tradition, but the Indians remembered its name for two centuries longer and imparted that name to the whites, Norumbega being the Indian attempt at pronouncing Norvega, the Latin form of Norway. In accordance with these views a tower with a commemorative inscription has been somewhat prematurely erected on the supposed site of the city. ' The Discoveries of America to the Year 1525. New York, 1884. * It first appears as Aranbega on Hieronimo da Verrazano's map, of which there is an engraving in Brevoort's Verrazano the Navigator.

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VERRAZANO AND HUDSON 63 bega, then, is simply the River of the Grand Scarp. It is in favour of this view that on some old maps the name occurs as Norumberg and Anorumberga. But far more important testimony may be drawn from the maps. Here the question may arise in some minds, why should not the maps at once and decisively settle the question ? If the River of Norumbega is given upon maps under that name, why should we be in doubt as to whether it is to be identified with the Penobscot, or the Hudson, or ... Old maps with some river between them? A modern map would not leave us in doubt. Very true. A modern map is based upon full and correct knowledge of the country depicted, and its names have become firmly attached to the places and objects which they denote. The maps of the old explorers were based upon scant and fragmentary knowledge, eked out by an indefinite quantity of inference, some of it sober and more of it wild. Names, moreover, once given, were liable to be migratory, for an honest skipper might suppose himself to be at some particular spot which his predecessor had baptized, and yet in reality he might be two or three hundred miles away from it. Thus the next map might move the name two or three hundred miles. Even descriptions would suffer in this way; for your worthy skipper, observing some hill or river or wild beast which his predecessor had not mentioned because it was not there, would go and add it to his predecessor's descriptions, thus mingling two true pictures to make one false one. It would be hard to find a subject more abounding in pitfalls for the unwary than the geography of the great ages of discovery, and by the same token it would be hard to find a subject more full of fascination. In most of the sixteenth century maps the coast between Chesapeake Bay and the Bay of Fundy, the region first mapped by Verrazano, appears in a very abridged and sketchy shape. Just obliterate all the names now familiar to us, take away Long Island Sound, and reduce to insignificance Nova Scotia, Cape Cod, and the Delaware capes, and the map of

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64 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES our Atlantic coast, thus bedevilled, loses much of its instruc-tiveness. Most of the older maps give to the region now occupied by New England a very squeezed look, and the way in which your mind works depends more or less upon which side you start from. If you carry your eye westward from Nova Scotia to a river which seems in the right place for the Penobscot, and then look for some other familiar feature of New England, ten to one you are confronted with something in Maryland. Or if you start from Chesapeake Bay and look north and east for the Hudson River, you may find it in a plausible position, but your next movement eastward is likely enough to drop you in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Hence it is not strange that there has been so much difficulty in locating the River of Norumbega. Nevertheless the old maps have important testimony to offer. On many of them we find certain important names recurring in the same order of sequence. One of those Cabo de names is Cape St. Helen, in latitude 320, evidently Arenas ong of the capes at the mouth of Savannah River. Farther north we observe a very prominent cape, one of the most prominent features on the whole Atlantic coast; it is usually called Cabo de Arenas, or " Sandy Cape," but sometimes appears in French as Cap des Sablons, which means the same. This prominence has often been identified with Cape Cpd, but there are serious obstacles to this view. On most, if not all, the sixteenth century maps where it appears, this sandy cape is placed below the 40th parallel, and usually with much persistence at the 39th. In the very interesting maps of Diego Ribeiro (1529) * and Alonso de Santa Cruz (1542),* the Atlantic coast between Florida and Newfoundland is divided into two great regions called the Land of Ayllon and the Land of Gomez. The former corresponded roughly with the territory of the Virginia Company, and was named for Lucas d'Ayllon, who in 1526 made a disastrous attempt i Kretschmer, Die Entdeckung Amerikas; Atlas, xv. * A facsimile was published by the Swedish Staff-General, with notes by E. W. Dahlgren, Stockholm, 1892.

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KJELA DE IAIOB.ADOJI Safe!

H-§m NVOVA F1ANC I As PART OF GASTALDl'S MAP, MADE IN VENICE IN 1556

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VERRAZANO AND HUDSON 65 to found a Spanish colony on James River.1 The region named for the navigator Gomez corresponded roughly with New England. Now both Ribeiro and Santa Cruz place the Cabo de Arenas in the northern part of the Land of Ayllon, a position which might answer for Cape Henlopen, but not at all for Cape Cod. Again, the historian Gomara, in a deeply interesting passage wherein he gives many distances along the Atlantic coast, not only gives the latitude of Cabo de Arenas as 390, but makes it 210 Spanish leagues distant from the Savannah River, thus clearly indicating Cape Henlopen.2 The large river, then, which appears on many old maps immediately north of Cabo de Arenas is the Delaware. It is called Rio de San Antonio, a name which Gomez bestowed probably upon the Hudson, but which was often shifted to the Delaware.8 The correct identification of Cabo de Arenas is of vital importance. Fifty leagues or so to the north of it the coastline bends rather abruptly to the eastward. Now if Arenas is Cape Cod, this eastward trend must be that of the Maine coast, and the great river hard by, which often bears the name of Norumbega, must be the Penobscot. But if Arenas is Cape Henlopen, the eastward trend must be that of the coast of Long Island, and the River of Norumbega must be the Hudson. In this connection the map made by Gastaldi, in Venice, in 15 56, is instructive.* It is under obligations to Verrazano; it calls the Coney Island region Angouleme, and The Gas_ Narragansett Bay a Port of Refuge. The Hudson **& maP River is carried up to its junction with the Mohawk, and even higher, to an imaginary junction with the St. Lawrence. 1 See my Discovery of America, ii. 490. * Gomara, Historia general de las Indias, Saragossa, 1552, cap. xii. * On Dr. Dee's map (1580) the Delaware is called San Antonio and the Hudson (on which appears Norumbega) is called the River Gamas (i. e. Gomez). A rough sketch of this map is given in Winsor, Narr. and Crit. Hist., iv. 98. 4 It is engraved in Ramusio, Navigationi e Viaggi, Venice, 1556, iii. 353-

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66 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES Now on this map Norumbega is plainly comprised between the Hudson River and Narragansett Bay, over the mouth of which Block Island keeps a strict watch. But far more decisive is the testimony of the great Flemish geographer, Gerard Kramer, whose Latinized name of * -i Mercator is familiar to everybody who uses an atlas Mercator's . J J map of or sails a ship. Mercator made several maps of the 15 9 world, which are all of the highest value as showing the progress that was achieved between them. On one of these maps, made at Duisburg in 1569,1 the Hudson River is so clearly indicated, midway between Cabo de Arenas (Cape Henlopen) and Claudia (Block Island), that there could be no two opinions about it even if it had no name attached But it has a name attached, and that name is Riviere Grande, the Great River, a name appropriated to the Hudson at that day and by which it continued to be known long after Hudson's time. The bay of New York is at its foot, and far up country the Mohawk is seen entering it; hypothetical mountains are shown as the source of both rivers. Now on this map the territorial name, Norombega, has its first three letters on the west side of the Hudson River and its final a comes due north of Block Island, thus agreeing with the Gastaldi map just mentioned. But there is something better yet. East of the river and at the head of New York Bay is a tiny picture of a village with a fort, and this village is labelled Norombega in smaller type than the territorial name just above it. Here, then, we seem to have the testimony of one of the greatest geographers of the sixteenth century, that the River of Norumbega was the Hudson, and that the village of Norumbega was at the head of the bay into which it empties, that is to say, on Manhattan Island. 1 The original is preserved in the Stadtbibliothek at Breslau. A superb facsimile, in eight sheets of elephant folio size, was published at Berlin in 1891 by the Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde. There is a reproduction of the part which gives the American coast in Weise's Discoveries of America, p. 360.

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VERRAZANO AND HUDSON 67 The original of this map is in the National Library at Paris, and in the same library is a manuscript folio of 194 leaves written by Jean Allefonsce, the navigator Aiie-already mentioned. From this document it would ^ >s appear that Allefonsce sailed up the River Norom- scriPt btgue at least as far as the site of Foughkeepsie, for he found the water tasting salt at a distance of ninety miles from the sea. This is true of the Hudson, but could not be said of the Penobscot, where the tide rises only as far as Bangor, about sixty miles from the sea. We further learn that the French fort of Norombegua was situated on a small island or partly submerged isthmus in a lake upon the island of Manhattan. In other words it was a little north of the present City Hall. The lake, which the Dutch used to call sometimes the Collect, sometimes the Fresh Water, was a familiar feature in New York until after the present century had come in. John Fitch used it for experiments with a small steamboat in 1796. It covered a large part of the Five Points neighbourhood. Here, we are told, French fur traders had a village and blockhouse1 in 1540; and such was then the city of Norumbega. It may well have been in its origin an Indian village, most opportunely situated between the peltries of the upper country and the great aboriginal wampum fields of Long Island. The details of Mercator's map are closely followed by another eminent geographer, Abraham Ortelius, in his map of 1570;* and the same conclusion as to Norumbega seems borne out by the maps of Rascicotti (Venice, 1583)8 other and Cornelius Wytfliet (Louvain, 1597).* In strong ""P8 contrast with these is the vague and confused treatment of Cornelius de Judaeis (Antwerp, 1593) 6 and Matthias Quadus 1 Perhaps on the isthmus between the Collect and Little Collect, where a powder magazine was built in 1728. See below, vol. ii. pp. 64, 67,68. Nordenskjold's Facsimile-Atlas, xlvi. Remarkable Maps of the Bodel Nyenhuis Collection at Leyden, Amsterdam, 1894, xii. ? Nordenskjold, li., but the good Wytfliet's latitudes are out of joint * Id., xlviii.

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68 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES (Cologne, 1608) j1 while a haziness of conception that lends itself readily to the Penobscot theory may be seen in the maps of Pierre Desceliers (Arques, 1546) a and Franciscus Hoeius (Amsterdam, cir. 1600).8 The tendency to identify the River of Norumbega with the Penobscot grew with the lapse of time, and there the good Champlain searched for " the city " in 1604 as far as the site of Bangor, but sought in vain.4 This solution of the Norumbega problem seems to me the one that best harmonizes with such data as are accessible, but the subject is not one which admits of dogmatic assurance. However it may come out with Norumbega, it is clear that for a quarter of a century or more after the voyage of Verrazano the Hudson River was visited by French fur traders, and that they had blockhouses on Manhattan Island Temporary and at Albany. Then there seems to have been a cessation falling off in these French visits ; at least we hear no of French ° ' activity on more about them ; and this falling off may well have the ocean , , , , . . , . , been the reason why the position and meaning of Norumbega were forgotten. Of expeditions supported by the crown there seem to have been none after Roberval and Allefonsce until the beginning of the seventeenth century, an interval of sixty years. This cessation of maritime enterprise was probably due to the absorption of France in the Huguenot struggle, including thirty-six years of civil war. From the accession of Henry II. in 1547 down to the Edict 1 Nordenskjold, xlix. * Kretschmer, Die Entdeckung Amerikas; Atlas, xvii. * Remarkable Maps, etc., vii. In this map C. de Arenas is placed below 40°, but its shape b made strikingly like that of the Cape Cod peninsula; and the river usually labelled Grande is moved eastward from the name Grande, which is attached to a much smaller river. * On Champlain's map of 1612 (see Winsor, Narr. and Crit. Hist., iv. 381), the Fenobscot River is called Naranberga. Perhaps the latest occurrence of the name is on the map made by Lucini for Robert Dudley's Arcano del Mare, Florence, 1647, an engraving of which is given in O'Callaghan's Documentary History of New York, Albany, 1849, vol. i. Here the territorial name stands upon the locality of the White Mountains.

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A N V S 4d m A Tf s - * PART OF MERCATOR'S DUISBURG MAPFEMONDE, 1569 I V fl

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VERRAZANO AND HUDSON 69 of Nantes in 1598, we need not be surprised at the absence of any traces of French voyages to America, except for the fishing on the banks of Newfoundland, which was an industry too solidly established to be easily overthrown. It was early in this period of French quiescence beyond sea that the English formed their first joint-stock The company for the prosecution of maritime trade and Muscovy colonization. This was the Muscovy Company, in- ompany corporatedin February, 1555, for the purpose of trading with Russia and discovering a northeastern passage to the Indies. Its first governor was the veteran navigator, Sebastian Cabot, who had lately returned from the Spanish into the English service, and one of its founders and directors or assistants was a Henry Hudson. With the careless prodigality of spelling characteristic of that age, the name of this gentleman occurs in more than thirty different forms, including such aberrations as Herdson, Hodgson, Huddesdon, and Hogeson, so that when modern scholars began looking him up, a good deal of patient research was required to prove his identity under so many disguises. This Henry Hudson, described in legal documents as Gentleman, was a citizen of London, a member of the guild of Tanners, one of the twelve companies from which the Lord Mayor must be chosen. He was alderman of London at the time of the founding of the Muscovy Company, and is often Aiders,, mentioned as Alderman Hudson. Beside his great Hudson wealth acquired in trade, he was lord of at least a dozen ancient manors, some of which had been conferred upon him by Henry VIII. out of the spoils of the monasteries. This Alderman Hudson died of a malignant fever in December, 1555, and was buried in the church of St. Dunstan's in the East, where his monument is still to be seen. He was noted for his public spirit and benevolence, and had the respect and confidence of all classes of people. Of Alderman Henry Hudson's eight sons, the eldest, Thomas Hudson, who lived at Mortlake on the Thames, was a friend of the learned and eccentric philosopher, Dr. John

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jo THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES Dee, whose private diary, published by the Camden Society, Thomas gives interesting information about him. We learn Hudson, of that among his intimate friends were Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir Walter Raleigh, Rev. Richard Hakluyt, and the great Arctic navigator, John Davis. We find that in 1583 this Thomas Hudson took part in a conference of such choice spirits in planning the voyages which have left the name of Davis upon the western gateway to the Arctic Ocean; and a cosy picture it is when Queen Elizabeth one winter day, after a noon dinner at Walsingham's house at Richmond, passes Dr. Dee's door and calls out to him, whereupon he walks by her horse's side and chats with her till they reach Mr. Hudson's dwelling.1 It seems to have been a different Thomas Hudson, of Limehouse, below London, who in 1579, in the service of the Muscovy Company, commanded an expedition to Archangel, and thence across country and down the Volga to Thomas Astrakhan, and so on over the Caspian Sea to Per-Lta.T1' ^ sia- Hakluyt's narrative shows this Captain Hud-house son to have been a man of nerve and resource. There was also a Christopher Hudson, whose career as agent of the Muscovy Company we can follow from his appointment in 1560 to 1601, when we lose sight of him. He was a man of great and varied abilities, and deeply interested both in Arctic exploration and in what was then called " western planting " or the founding of colonies in America. He seems to have been a son of Sir Christopher, brother of Alderman Hudson. Into the relationships of these worthies we can go just far enough to be tantalized, for in matters of genealogy a miss is as bad as a mile; but there are fair grounds for believing them all to have been kinsmen. It Henry has been conjectured that Henry Hudson the Navi-Se'Navi- gator was the grandson of Alderman Hudson. The &*** moment at which history first actually knows him is the first day of May, 1607, when he sailed from Greenwich in command of an Arctic expedition, but we also know 1 Read's Hudson, p. 54.

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HUDSON COAT OF ARMS VERRAZANO AND HUDSON 71 that he was a citizen of London ; and the Dutch historian, Van Meteren, who was consul at London, tells us that there was a warm friendship between Henry Hudson and Captain John Smith. We learn from documents collected by Hakluyt that it was a custom for members of the Muscovy Company to apprentice their children in the art of navigation for the Company's service. It therefore seems highly probable that Henry Hudson, as member of a family which had already for two generations been devoted to the interests of Arctic navigation, had grown up in the employ of the Company. In 1607 and 1608 he made two voyages in its service. In the first he tried to penetrate between Greenland and Spitz- Hisfirst bergen, in the hope of passing across the North *°daseecsond Pole and finding beyond some available stretch of water over which he could sail to the eastern ports of Asia. In the second voyage Hudson tried to pass between Spitz-bergen and Nova Zembla. In this high latitude he tells us that on the morning of the 15th of June two of his sailors saw a mermaid, who came close to the ship's side and gazed earnestly at them. Her face and breasts were those of a woman, but below she was a fish as big as a halibut, and in colour like a speckled mackerel.1 It has been plausibly conjectured that this creature might have been a seal, an animal which at that time had seldom been seen by English sailors. Although neither of these voyages accomplished its purpose, yet on his return to England in August, 1608, Hudson 1 Purchas His Pilgrimes, iii. 575. The same explanation suits the mermaid seen by Captain Richard Whitbourne, off the Newfoundland coast; see my Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, Illustrated Edition, i.

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72 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES found himself famous. He had been nearer the pole than any man before him, and his superb seamanship was widely reported. Naturally the Dutch East India Com-en"ere°the pany felt that if he were to undertake a third voy-theVDut°ch aSe»il had better be in their behalf than in that of ComIndia tne'r Eng'ish rivals. Their offers were probably made through his friend, the Dutch consul Van Meteren, but how they prevailed upon him to leave the English service, we do not know. One Dutch historian, Adrian van der Donck, who wrote in 1650, assures us that Hudson had before 1607 spent several years in Holland, and this may be the source of the tradition which paints him as in some indescribable way half a Dutchman, and affectionately calls him Hendrik Hudson. But Van der Donck is notoriously untrustworthy {or matters outside of his own personal knowledge ; he no more thinks of sifting his statements than any other old gossip. If Hudson had spent much time in Holland he could hardly have failed to know something about the language, which is so like our own and so easy to learn. It was Hudson's friend Van Meteren who declared that English was only " broken Dutch."* But Hudson in 1608 knew scarcely a word of Dutch. In the fourteenth century, a set of sailing directions for the northern seas was written in Icelandic by Ivar Bardsen, steward of the bishopric of Gardar, in Greenland. This was translated into Dutch about 1592 by the illustrious pilot, William Barendz, of whom I gave some account in the preceding chapter. When this version was shown to Hudson he was unable to use it, and it was then translated into English for his especial behoof. This English version, used by Hudson, was published at Albany in 1869. As for Hudson's name, the Dutch contract drawn up by Dutch lawyers at Amsterdam, under which he sailed, calls him Henry. Instead of being half naturalized in Holland, he was evidently a stranger there, invited because of 1 William Bradford, on the other hand, an excellent linguist, calls Dutch a "strange and uncouth language" History of the Plimoth Plantation, p. 11); but he heard it with the ears of an exile.

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VERRAZANO AND HUDSON . 73 the sudden fame of his two recent voyages. He was the Nansen of the year 1608. Others than the Dutch directors were eager to secure the great sailor's services. Henry IV. of France wished to establish a French East India Company and find work for it, so that he too was interested in an Arctic passage to Cathay, and his ambassador at the Hague approached Hudson on the subject. One grave source of weakness in the Netherlands was an excess of state sovereignty, which was apt to impair unity of action. Even the great commercial company must have its separate chambers to represent the interests of different localities. The Amsterdam chamber had no power to make a contract that would bind the whole Company, and the next general meeting would come too late for starting such a voyage in the spring of 1609. But while things were thus pending, news of the French ambassador's overtures reached the Amsterdam directors, and they instantly assumed the responsibility of sending Hudson out. Thus we may with peculiar propriety call New York the child of Amsterdam. It was on the 4th of April, 1609, that Henry Hudson set sail on the Zuyder Zee. His equipment for penetrating the polar seas was such as to make us marvel at the mighty courage which could undertake such arduous work with such slender means. One little yacht, of eighty tons burden, with a crew of sixteen or eighteen sailors, that was all. The mate was a Netherlander, and about half the crew were English. The records of voyages were now much better kept than in Verrazano's time. Sebastian Cabot had introduced sailors of the Muscovy Company to the practice of keeping the log-books, with observations systematically recorded from day to day. Hudson's movements, therefore, present us with comparatively few difficulties. He doubled the North Cape on the 5th of May, and headed for taffledat Nova Zembla. But the sea was so full of ice that ^u the prospect of getting through was dismal, and the little crew became mutinous. Hudson was required by his instructions to return to Amsterdam in case of failure

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74 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES to find a passage here, but he had expedients of his own in mind, and probably felt that in an enterprise of such magnitude his own discretion must be allowed to count for something. He had not yet tried the northwestern routes; he might sail through either Davis Strait or Frobisher Strait and see what he could find beyond. But yet another and perhaps more promising course was open. There was the great Verrazano Sea, behind Virginia; he might try to find a passage into that. Nothing had as yet occurred to refute the belief in such a sea. It is true that Fernando de Soto had reached the Mississippi River, and Cabega de Vaca had gone through Texas, and Coronado had visited the pueblos of New Mexico. These discoveries are reflected in Michael Lok's map of 1582, which shows a solid continent from Florida to the Gulf of California, reaching up in many places to the 40th parallel. But north of this and west of Norumbega this map shows the andjohnP enormous Sea of Verrazano sweeping over the letter1'1 whole of North America, and divided from the Atlantic only by a narrow isthmus just at the 40th parallel. One might still hope somewhere about here to find a strait. In the preceding summer John Smith had explored Chesapeake Bay and entered the Potomac, Patapsco, and Susquehanna rivers. There was no passage there, but there might be one a little farther north. So Smith thought, and so he had written to Hudson, who had received the letter at Amsterdam and had it with him now. When Hudson explained the matter, it was decided to cross the Atlantic and look for a northwest passage in latitude 400. Thus curiously is the name of John Smith linked with the beginnings of American history in the middle as well as in the southern and northern zones. Smith was the saviour of Virginia, he gave to New England its name, and he was instrumental in sending the Dutch to Manhattan! These northern voyages of Hudson, aside from their intrinsic interest in the history of navigation, are memorable for two things. First, they revealed the existence of whales

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VERRAZANO AND HUDSON 75 in vast numbers about Spitzbergen, larger and better in bone and blubber than any hitherto known, and whale. thus they led to a revival and extension of whale- fishery fishery, in which Holland kept the lead until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Secondly, on the 21st of May, 1609, while doubling the North Cape on his return ^ , to the Atlantic waters, Hudson made thejirst recorded ob- i^° (f servation of a sun spot. It was a year and a half £ J later that sun spots were observed by Hariot and Sun8pots again by Galileo, to the holy indignation of good Aristotelians, who deemed it flat blasphemy to say that the Eye of the Universe could suffer from ophthalmia! Nine days after passing the North Cape, the little Half Moon put in at the Faroe Islands, and the casks were filled with fresh water. On the 3d of June the sailors were surprised at the force of the current which we call the Gulf Stream. On the 18th of July they arrived in Penobscot Bay, with foremast gone and sails much the Sea of the worse for wear. Here they anchored and went errazano ashore to cut a pine-tree for a new foremast. It took them a week to make the mast and repair their sails, and meanwhile they must have lived like princes, for they caught fifty cod, a hundred lobsters, and one great halibut. They were visited by two French shallops full of Indians, who offered them fine beaver skins in exchange for red cloth. Nine days after leaving Penobscot Bay the Half Moon anchored near Cape Cod, and another day brought her to Old Stage Harbour, on the south side of that peninsula. On the 18th of August, amid gusts of wind and rain, she was off the Acco-mac peninsula and sighted an opening, probably Machipongo Inlet, which Hudson mistook for the James River. " This," he says, " is the entrance into the King's River in Virginia, where our Englishmen are." He made no attempt to visit them, perhaps because he may have been conscious that Dutch explorers upon this coast would be regarded by Englishmen as poachers. Presently turning northward, he entered Delaware Bay on the 28th of August, and began taking

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76 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES soundings. He found many shoals, and several times the Half Moon struck upon the sands ; the current, moreover, set outward with such force as to assure him that he was at the mouth of a large and rapid river. This was not encouraging, for a large river, discharging loads of sand, implied something more than a narrow neck of land behind it. Before daybreak he weighed anchor, and on the 3d of September dropped it again somewhere between Sandy Hook and Staten Island, as Verrazano had done eighty-five years before. When the Half Moon entered the great bay, says the mate's journal, "the people of the country came aboard of us, seeming very glad of our coming, and brought greene tobacco, and gave us of it for knives and beads. They goe in The HaK deere skins loose, well dressed. They have yellow theharbour c0PPer> They desire cloathes, and are very civill. of New They have great store of maize or Indian wheat, whereof they make good bread. The countrey is full of great and tall oakes. . . . Some of the people were in mantles of feathers, and some in skinnes of divers sorts of good furres. Some women also came to us with hempe. They did weare about their neckes things of red copper. At night they went on land againe, so wee rode very quiet, but durst not trust them." It soon appeared that this suspiciousness was well founded. Next day the ship's boat was sent out toward Bergen with five men to make some observations; on their way back they were assailed by a score of Indians in canoes, and one Englishman was killed with an arrow. As the Half Moon passed on up the river she was occasionally saluted with flights of arrows, and sometimes these volleys were answered by mus^ ket shots with deadly effect On the 14th of September the The Half ship passed between Stony and Verplanck's points threat*. an(* entered upon the magnificent scenery of the w1* Catskills. On the 22d she had probably gone above the site of Troy, and the boat found only seven feet of water, so that progress was stopped. On the way down there were

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Colman fUme* Colm ans Point, Treacherous Sttotges. L1B. I Ha A **ty good Harbour. The people of iheCountrcy come aboord, they ate yerf ciuili. Veliow Copper. TtllOakes. r-nts. Hewpe. KtdCopper. farther vp. So we fent our Boate to found, and found that it was a very good Harbour; and tome and fiue fathom** two Cables length from theftware. Then we weighed and went in with our fliip. Then our Boate went on Land with out Net to Filh, and caught ten great Mulleti,of a foot and a halfe long a pcece, and a Ray as great as foure men could hale into the (hip. So wee trimmed our Boate and rode itill all day. At night the wind blew bard at tht North-weft, and our Anchor came home, and wee droue on (hoare, but vooke no hurt, thanked bee God, for the ground is ibft land and Oze. This day the people of the Countrey came aboord of vs, feemtng very glad of our comming, and brought greene Tabacco, andgjue vs of it for Kniuts and Beads i They goe in De«re skins loofe, well dreied. They haue yellow Copper. TneydefireCIoathei, and are very ciuill. They haue great Sore of Maiz or Imbut Whcate, whereof they male good 10 Bread. The>Countrey » full of great and tall Oakes, The fifth, jn tibe morning as fcone as tbe.day was light, the wind ceafed and the Floodxame, -So weheauedoffourfliipagaineintorluefathoms water,and ftnt our Boatetofound the Bay, apd we found that there was three fath'om&Jhard by the South e"i (hoare. Our msn went on Land thsre, and law great ftoreof Men, Wowen sad Children, who gaue them Tabacco at their comming on Land, So they went vp intothe Woods,and faw great ftote of very goodly Oakes,and fome Currants. For one of them came sboord and brought Tome dryed.and gaue me forae, wjiich werefwtecand good. This day many of the people csma aboord, fome »n Mantles of Feathers, i, and fome in Skmnes of diuers" fcrts of good Forreg. Some women a!fo came to vs with Hempe. They had red Copper Tabacco pipes, and other things tf Copper they did weare je about their neckes. At nig lit they went on Land sgaine, To wee rode rery quiet, but durB ______not truli them. ______ ._________________________'_________' HUDSON'S JOURNAL (IN PURCHASES " PILGRIMES ") DESCRIBING THE DISCOVERY OF NEW YORK HARBOUR

¦MUM

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78 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES some adventures. "The people of the mountaynes," says the journal, "came aboord us, wondring at our ship and weapons. We bought some small skinnes of them for trifles. This afternoone, one canoe kept hanging under our sterne with one man in it, which we could not keepe from thence, who got up by our rudder to the cabin window, and stole out my pillow, and two shirts, and two bandeleeres. Our master's mate shot at him . . . and killed him. Whereupon all the rest fled away, some in their canoes, and some leapt out of them into the water. We manned our boat and got our things againe. Then one of them that swamme got hold of our boat, thinking to overthrow it. But our cooke took a sword and cut off one of his hands, and he was drowned. By this time the ebbe was come, and we weighed and got down two leagues." On another occasion there was quite a skirmish, the barbarians swarming by hundreds in their bark canoes and shooting persistently, though with little effect, while the ship's cannon sank them and musketry mowed them down. But the meetings were sometimes more friendly. Somewhere near the site of Catskill, " I sailed to the shore," says Hudson, " in one of their canoes, with an old man, who was the chief of a tribe, consisting of forty men and seventeen women; these I saw there in a house well constructed of oak bark, and circular in shape, so that it had the appearance of being well built, with an arched roof. It contained a great quantity of maize . . . and beans of the last year's growth, and there lay near the house for the purpose of drying, enough to load three ships, besides what was growing in the fields. On our coming into the house, two mats Indian were sPread out to s^ upon, and immediately some hospitality f00(j y^s served in well made red wooden bowls; two men were also despatched at once with bows and arrows in quest of game, who soon after brought in a pair of pigeons which they had shot They likewise killed a fat dog, and skinned it with great haste, with shells which they had got out of the water. They supposed that I would remain with them for the night, but I returned after a short time on

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VERRAZANO AND HUDSON 79 board the ship. The land is the finest for cultivation that I ever in my life set foot upon, and it also abounds in trees of every description." This picture of Indian hospitality, with its festal dish of dog, is one with which we are all familiar in books. On coming out of the great river, on the 4th of October, Hudson SIR DUDLEY DIGGES left behind him the shore which the natives called Manna-hatta, and on the next day he sailed out through the Narrows and headed for Europe. On the 7th of November the Half Moon arrived at Dartmouth, and the Englishmen in the crew compelled the captain to land there. He sent to Amsterdam a report of the voyage, with a request for more money and half a dozen fresh men in place of the unruly ones ; then he

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80 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES proposed to start in March on a fresh search for the northwest passage. When this letter reached Amsterdam the directors instructed Hudson to come first to Hol-turnstothe land. But meanwhile King James had interfered f te w*tn an order forbidding him to leave the country, covy Com- xhe foreigners were not to be allowed to have so pany valuable a man, and so Hudson was unceremoniously brought back into the service of the Muscovy Company. The Half Moon was sent on her way to Amsterdam, a new ship was fitted up by Sir Dudley Digges and others, and in the following April our bold navigator set sail once more for the New World. The voyage was full of hardship as the ship made her way His last into the great inland water which has ever since voyage ^en known as Hudson's Bay, but ought rather to be called Hudson Sea, since it is bigger than the Black and Caspian together. From the 3d of November, 1610, till the 18th of June, 1611, the ship was locked in ice in James's Bay, at its southern extremity. During this long and unexpected delay the supply of food fell short and Satan found mischief for idle hands and busy brains. The crew insisted upon returning home as soon as the ice should break up, but the captain, nourishing his great purpose and finding himself on this broad western sea, naturally wished to press on westward. Perhaps the summer might show that he had already cleared the barrier between the Atlantic Ocean and the waters that washed the coast of Asia. An Indian came on board one day with a poniard, which Hudson believed to be of Mexican make, and this confirmed him in the belief that he must be near the Pacific coast, where he might find fresh supplies. Fish could be caught in considerable numbers, but there was scarcely bread enough to last a fortnight On the ship was a young man named Henry Green, of worshipful parents but of froward and unseemly life, whom the captain had befriended and sought to reform and to have for his secretary. This viper devised a mutiny ; and on midsummer day, three days after leaving winter quarters, Henry Hudson,

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VERRAZANO AND HUDSON 8l with his son John Hudson,1 and seven sick men, were set adrift in an open boat upon that waste of waters, His tragic while the ship faced about for England. Our fate chronicler tells us with satisfaction that before reaching the ocean the faithless Green and his abettors were slain by the Indians. On arriving in England the crew were thrown into jail and an expedition was sent out in search of the great navigator ; but in spite of diligent seeking no more was ever seen or heard of Henry Hudson. The man who came to such an untimely end was a notable instance of the irony of human destiny. Of all the searchers for a northerly route to the Indies none was ever more persistent or more devoted than he. In the brief four years during which we can follow his career he tried four ways of finding it, the way across the pole, the way by Nova Zem-bla, by the imaginary sea of Verrazano, and by the veritable sea of Hudson. Had his life been spared we should doubtless have seen him enter the bay afterward discovered by Baffin, the route by which success could be attained, but only with modern resources and in the middle of the nineteenth century. In all that he attempted he failed, and yet he achieved great results that were not contemplated in his schemes. He started two immense industries, the Spitz-bergen whale-fisheries and the Hudson Bay fur trade; and he brought the Dutch to Manhattan Island. No realization of his dreams could have approached the astonishing reality which would have greeted him could he have looked through the coming centuries and caught a glimpse of what the voyager now beholds in sailing up the bay of New York. But what perhaps would have surprised him most of all would have been to learn that his name was to become part of the folk-lore of the beautiful river to which it is at- Hudson in tached, that he was to figure as a Dutchman, in folk-lore spite of himself, in legend and on the stage, that when it is thunder weather on the Catskills the children should say it is Hendrik Hudson playing at skittles with his goblin crew. 1 Asher's Hudson, p. 122 ; Read's Hudson, pp. 167, 172.

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82 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES Perhaps it is not an unkindly fate. Even as Milton wished for his dead friend Lycidas that he might become the genius of the shore, so the memory of the great Arctic navigator will remain a familiar presence among the hillsides which the gentle fancy of Irving has clothed with undying romance.

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CHAPTER IV THE WEST INDIA COMPANY To any one whose mind is accustomed to dwell upon the tremendous and world-wide nature of the issues that were decided in 1759 upon the Heights of Abraham, there is something romantic in the fact that in the summer of 1609 the first founders of the Dutch, the French, and the English powers in America were pursuing their adventurous signifi-work but a few hundred miles apart. While Hud- Jj£^£ son in September was sailing on the " River of the l6°9 Mountains," we may wonder if any rumour can have reached him of the wild fight in July, when Champlain defeated the Mohawks by the forest-clad shores of the beautiful " Lake of the Iroquois," better known now by the name of the victor than of the vanquished. In that same September, hard by the falls of the James River, John Smith was holding friendly parley with the tribe that had adopted him, and bought of them the tract of land where the city of Richmond now stands. In the previous summer of 1608 Smith had met a party of Iroquois on the Susquehanna, and had entertained them in amicable discourse. Thus the first Englishman ever seen by those tawny lords of the wilderness came to them as a friend, while the French were now making them deadly enemies. The shots fired by Champlain, so few miles from the river on which the Half Moon was sailing, determined that whatever colony hostile to France should be planted at the mouth and along the banks of that river should enjoy the friendship and alliance of the strongest confederacy of Indians upon the American continent. It made the Iroquois the allies first of the Dutch and afterward of the English;

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84 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES and this is one of the great central and cardinal facts in the history of the New World. Had the Iroquois been the allies of the French, it would in all probability have been Louis XIV., and not Charles II., who would have taken New Amsterdam from the Dutch. Had the Iroquois not been the deadly enemies of the French, Louis XIV. would almost certainly have taken New York from the English. The year 1609 was thus an eventful date in the history of the colonial world. It was so for yet other reasons. It was the year in which the star of empire for Spain finally disappeared below the horizon, when after forty years of war she was compelled virtually to acknowledge what had long been an accomplished fact, the independence of the Dutch Netherlands, and when, with suicidal superstition, she sought t6 appease the wrath of God by driving from her soil a million of her most intelligent and thrifty people, the Christian descendants of the Moors. The downfall of Spain left France, England, and the Netherlands in the foreground; and now Holland stepped forward to occupy for a brief season the commercial centre of the American coast, to which Henry Hudson had led her. His The reports of the abundance of fur-bearing animals qu s«onnin stimulated the commercial zeal of the Dutch. But Holland m Spite of this, the proposal to occupy a portion of the American coast encountered some vigorous opposition in Holland, and when she came forward it was by no means with a stride or a bound. The opposition to a settlement in America was closely connected with the peculiar relations of the Dutch to the Flemish Netherlands and to Spain. A few words of explanation as to the Dutch political situation will not be superfluous. I have said that in 1609 Spain was compelled virtually to acknowledge the independence of the Dutch. But the arrangement concluded that year was only provisional There was to be a truce for twelve years, with many chances of a renewal of bloodshed at the end of that time. Now there was a party in the Dutch Netherlands that wished to have

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THE WEST INDIA COMPANY WEST INDIA COMPANY'S WAREHOUSE the war renewed and kept up until independence should be achieved for the Flemish Netherlands also. There The cai-were in Holland more than 100,000 Flemish re- ange°r fugees who were of this way of thinking, and they Party were among the most esteemed citizens. They wanted to see every rood of Netherland soil freed from the Spaniard's polluting presence ; they wanted to see the docks of Antwerp once more merry with bustle; they wanted to go back to the homes of their childhood, in Bruges, in Lille, in Mechlin, in Valenciennes. They proposed to fight until these things should be accomplished. Among their leaders were most of the Calvinist clergy, and at their head was Prince Maurice of Orange, son of the idolized William the Silent, and himself the most famous soldier of the age, doubtless the greatest general between the death of Alexander Farnese and the appearance of Gustavus Adolphus. Opposed to this war party were most of the municipal dignitaries of the Dutch Netherlands, and especially of Hoi-

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86 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES land. In this province the principal civic offices had become TheAr- hereditary in a few families. Thus an oligarchy Rlpubiiran came near controlling Holland, and with it all the party Dutch Netherlands, for in wealth and population Holland was at least equal to the other six provinces together. She contributed more than half the revenue and exercised a proportional influence over public policy. A large part of Holland's preponderance was due to the fact that within her territory were most of the large cities which received the 100,000 Flemish refugees, picked men for enterprise and wealth. The oligarchs did not wish to see these men return to the homes of their childhood; they preferred to have them stay and add to the greatness of Amsterdam and Leyden, Gouda and Rotterdam. Accordingly they were opposed to the renewal of war with Spain; they held it better to remain satisfied with what had been accomplished than to take new risks, or to incur certain damage with doubtful results. At the head of this peace party was the illustrious John of Olden Barneveld, and one of its greatest leaders was Hugo Grotius. Arminian theology seems to have suited the politics of these men better than Calvinism. Whenever you met an Arminian in Holland you might safely assume that he belonged to the party of these friends of peace. It was often called the Arminian party; but otherwise the Republican party, for one of its points was jealousy of the Orange princes, whom it accused of aiming at monarchy. On the other hand, the war party was called the Calvinist, or otherwise the Orange party. In numbers the Orange party was much the stronger, while its policy was broader and more national. But the Republican party, with a narrower and more sectional policy, was very strongly entrenched in the monopoly of municipal offices and in the interests of such cities as Amsterdam. It is needless to add that both parties were truly patriotic, while each was prone to suspect the other of treason. In the year 1609 the Twelve Years' Truce marked the moment when the power and influence of the Republicans were at their height.

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THE WEST INDIA COMPANY 87 Now these two parties differed in their views of colonization, of maritime commerce, and the best methods of conducting naval warfare. The most thoroughgoing and unreserved advocates of an aggressive policy on the ocean were to be found among the Flemish exiles, among whom wniiam one of the most eminent was William Usselincx, Usselincx one of the great merchants who had come from Antwerp to Amsterdam. After the defeat of the Armada he was one HUGO GROTIUS of the first to urge upon the Dutch government the desira bleness of imitating the policy of England in striking at the Spaniard's sources of revenue in the New World and in the East Indies. In his views of the importance of planting a Protestant colony in America that should be self-supporting, Usselincx may be compared with Gilbert and Raleigh. In 1592 this far-seeing man formed a scheme for organizing a West India Company, but it was premature and failed for

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88 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES want of support. Dutch enthusiasm on the subject of America was groused but slowly. 3ut the necessity for controlling the East Incjies was quickly appreciated, since the trade with The Dutch Portugal had created powerful Dutch interests in c^^j* that direction. The India trade must not be allowed 1602 to languish/ and here the aggressive policy won its first victory. The astute Olden Barneveld realized the situation, and saw that it would not do to let such a lucrative trade redound to the political credit of the Orange party; he must get the control of this trade into the hands of his own followers; with this end in view he was foremost in creating the Dutch East India Company in 1602, and he contrived that the Republicans should always have an overwhelming majority in the board of directors. This East India Company confined its operations mainly itsindiffer- to *^e regi°ns formerly controlled by Portugal, and ence to did not meddle with America. The fact that Us- enca selincx and the Orange party were eager to emulate Raleigh's policy in America was of itself enough to make the Republicans condemn such a policy. But besides this the Republicans, especially after the truce was concluded, were unwilling to irritate Spain more than was absolutely necessary. They wished to see the truce followed by a permanent peace; and while Spain was now biting her nails in unavailing rage, like Bunyan's giant in his cave, because of the new English settlement on James River, it was not deemed wise to goad her to madness with a Dutch settlement on the same coast. So felt the Republican directors of the East India Company. They had sent out Hudson to find a northeast passage; in defiance of their instructions, he had crossed the Atlantic; and they did not now propose to take advantage of what he had thus done. So the East India Company shrugged its shoulders and let Manhattan Island severely alone. Nevertheless it was impossible for the commercial mind tamely to let go such a chance for fine peltries as the reports of Hudson's voyage suggested. During the next four years

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MB| ¦¦¦¦¦I THE WEST INDIA COMPANY 89

sundry Amsterdam merchants fitted up small ships for themselves and found it very profitable to get skins of beaver and otter and mink in exchange for blue glass beads Dutch and strips of red cotton. By 1613 four rude houses EhatS at had been built upon Manhattan Island, and Hen- tan» l6l3 drick Christiansen was sailing to and fro, on all the waters near at hand, drumming up Indian customers. Now came a warning, not from Spain but from England. In November, 1613, young Captain Argall, who had just broken up the Jesuit settlements at Port Royal, in Acadia, and at Mount Desert, and was on his way back to Virginia with more

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90 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES French prisoners than his ship could comfortably carry, thought it worth his while to come in through the Narrows and see what was going on. He contented himself with scolding Christiansen and making him haul down the Dutch A \ \ « flag and raise that of England. Not dismayed, however, but /V £** perhaps rather stimulated by this rebuff, the Dutch mer- jA chants who were becoming interested in furs sought and \ ** obtained from the states of Holland and Friesland a mono- poly of the trade during the time that might be required for six voyages. A curious document is this Ordinance Ordinance of March 27, 1614 : you may look through it in vain ° * l* for any allusion to America or Manhattan Island or furs; yet it grants most unmistakably the monopoly requested. The object is attained by circumlocution j instead of the unpleasantly definite proper names we have common nouns of glittering generality. It is provided that the discoverers of " new Courses, Havens, Countries, or Places . . . shall alone resort to the same or cause them to be frequented," and for anybody else who shall venture to poach upon this preserve there is a penalty of 50,000 ducats. In case of diplomatic complications there might be safety in this vagueness of utterance. But we can also see, on the part of the states of Holland and Friesland, a desire to encourage exploration and acquire a title through discovery followed by settlement. Just at this time a fresh attempt was made by Usselincx and his friends to get a charter for their projected West India Company, but the peace party was still too strong. Explorers, however, suddenly became active, stimulated by the Ordinance of 1614. Three good ships, commanded by Hen-drick Christiansen, Cornelius May, and Adrian Block, set sail for Manhattan. Scarcely had they arrived when Block's ship, the Tiger, caught fire and was burned to the water's edge. Then the sturdy skipper built him a yacht 44 J^ feet Voyage of m length by nji feet in breadth of beam, and Adrian named her the Restless. With this little craft he iflocK made a voyage through waters as yet unfamiliar to Europeans, though they may possibly have been visited

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THE WEST INDIA COMPANY 91 by Allefonsce. Block passed through the East River, which he called " Hellegat," after a branch of the Scheld. The name seems to have pleased the English, for it has been retained to this day with its meaning narrowed down to the rocky and dangerous point where the waters of the East River merge in those of Long Island Sound. So far as the form of the Dutch name goes, it may mean " entrance to hell," but it may equally well mean " a clear passageway." Block saw the Housatonic River, and ascended the Connecticut as far as the site of Hartford ; he explored Narragansett Bay quite thoroughly, and rounding Cape Cod went on as far as the site of Salem. His name has remained upon Block Island, known to earlier navigators as Louise and as Claudia. While Block was thus passing through the Sound, the south side of Long Island was carefully studied by Cornelius May, who continued his voyage southward till he Cornelius reached and explored Delaware Bay. Of the two May capes which sentinel that bay, one is named after this captain, Captain May, the other after Henlopen, a town in Fries-land. Some time afterward Captain Hendricksen, in the Restless, ascended the Delaware River as far as the Schuyl-kill. The merchants in Amsterdam who were interested in these explorations now obtained from the States General a monopoly of the trade along the coasts and rivers which their agents had thus explored. The grant was made to them under the style of "The United New Netherland Company." This is the first appearance of the name New Neth- New Neth. erland, which always, by the way, occurs in the erland singular and never in the pluraL The European Netherlands are plural because they are an aggregation of small states; but there was only one New Netherland, and to speak of it in the plural, as many persons do, is to commit a solecism. The southern limit of New Netherland was the South River, as the Delaware 'was then commonly called. The northern limit was the 45th parallel, to avoid collision with the French on the St. Lawrence. The eastern limit, accord-

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92 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES ing to Dutch ideas, was Cape Cod, or as far east as Block and Christiansen had sailed; but new-comers were soon to dispute this claim. The noble stream which Verrazano had called Grand River, which Gomez knew as River of St. Anthony, which appears on Mercator's map of 1569 as River of Norumbega, and which Henry Hudson called the River of the Mountains, now received more formal baptism as Prince Maurice's River; but in course of time all these epithets succumbed to the name of Hudson himself. At the same time the Dutch very commonly called it the North River, as we still do to-day, and practically New Netherland was the country between the North and South rivers. To the west it had no definite limits, but never extended many miles from the west shore of the Hudson. One of the first things done by the agents of the New Fort Nas- Netherland Company was to visit the old fortress the'raie of w*"cn tne French had built in 1540, just below the Tawasen- site of Albany. They found an enclosure in the form of a square 58 feet on a side and surrounded by a moat 18 feet wide; within were the remains of a strong house 36 feet by 26. These works, which were dilapidated and partly in ruins, the Dutch thoroughly repaired and furnished with a dozen cannons mounted on swivels and a garrison of a dozen men. They called the place Fort Nassau. Jacob Eelkens was left in command, a man whose name deserves to be remembered, since his personal qualities were such as to win the esteem of the Mohawks; among the influences that brought about the all-important Iroquois-Dutch alliance, his sagacity and tact must not be omitted. It was soon found necessary to change the site of Fort Nassau; floods and freshets made it difficult to keep it in good repair, and it was accordingly moved four miles down-stream near " the groves of singing pine-trees, in the green and silent valley " of Tawasentha. Here on one of the hills that overlooked the vale of Tawasentha was held in 1618 a memorable conference between the commandant of Fort Nassau and the principal chiefs of the

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94 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES Five Nations. Since the fight at Ticonderoga, nine years Treaty before, these Indians had learned from their ene-Fwethe raies on tne St- Lawrence that thunder and light-Nations ning could be wielded by red men as well as by pale-faces, provided they were supplied with the proper talismans. A solemn treaty was now made by which the Dutch agreed to supply the Iroquois with muskets and ammunition in exchange for peltries. This treaty was never violated or seriously infringed. The Five Nations were always more or less steadfast allies of the Dutch, and afterwards of the English, until after 1763 their policy came to be less clear and certain. By the charter of the New Netherland Company its monopoly lasted only three years, so that it was necessary to make large profits if one were to get riches in so short a time. In 1618 the Company tried to get an extension of the monopoly, but there was so much opposition to this on the part of other merchants that decisive action was delayed, and the Company went on with its trade and prospered even without the monopoly. It soon became evident that there was more than trade enough for those who were engaged in it, and the New Netherland Company began to entertain more exten-. . sive schemes of colonization. But before anything Triumph of 4 , the Orange could come of this, their enterprise was destined to par be absorbed in a greater organization. The Orange party, friendly to the establishment of a West India Company, was getting the upper hand, and in May, 1619, its victory was celebrated by a shameful judicial murder, when John of Olden Barneveld, the foremost citizen of the Netherlands, after forty years of the noblest public service, was beheaded on an absurd charge of treason. It reminds one curiously of the murder of Sir Walter Raleigh the year before, and it is a foul blot upon the career of Maurice of Orange, although morally less guilt attaches to him than to King James. Wherever Olden Barneveld was concerned, Prince Maurice's intellectual vision was hopelessly distorted, and he slew him in much the same spirit in which an opponent of Irish Home

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THE WEST INDIA COMPANY 95 Rule a few years ago might have devoutly prayed for the sudden death of Mr. Gladstone. The overthrow of the Republicans meant a strengthening of national unity in the loose Netherland confederation, it portended a renewal of war with Spain at the expiration of the truce, and it promised to afford Prince Maurice an opportunity of devoting his superb military talent to the task of setting free the Flemish Netherlands. The triumph of the war party meant that Usselincx and his friends would have their way and obtain a charter for the long-talked-of West India Company. Just at this time, in February, 1620, a petition was addressed to the stadholder, Prince Maurice, by the directors of the New Netherland Company. They wished to found a substantial colony at Manhattan, and over- theLeyden tures had lately been made to them by Rev. John f^ ^0 Robinson, an English preacher versed in the Dutch General, language and dwelling in Leyden. The Pilgrims from Scrooby and Austerfield and other English refugees had now sojourned for twelve years in Holland, and some of them wished to go and make a settlement in America. Mr. Robinson thought he could answer for 400 families, some from Holland, some from England, to go at once to New Netherland. It is true, the Pilgrims had already obtained a patent from the London Company for Virginia, authorizing them to plant a colony wherever they liked in Virginia south of the 40th parallel. But the king refused to give them a charter guaranteeing religious liberty; so they preferred to see, first, what could be done under Dutch auspices. In a Dutch colony they would have no fear of being molested for their opinions on theology or ecclesiastical polity^ All that Robinson asked was that the United States of the Netherlands should guarantee the protection of these colonists in case of military disturbance. The New Netherland Company caught eagerly at the proposal; they promised to transport the Pilgrims to the North River free of charge and to furnish every family with cattle; but as for the desired military protection, that was a question for government to decide. Hence the

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96 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES directors petitioned the Prince of Orange, and he referred the matter to the States General. But the States General now had larger aims in view than simply to found a small colony and send two or three warships to defend it. They were already at work upon the constitution of the West India Company, a gigantic commercial monopoly whose gains were to be employed where occasion required in dealing out blows to Spain, tion is re- The founding of a Protestant state in America was lected by the states part of the scheme, but it was thought that the General details of it had better be left to the West India Company. Moreover, the Dutch statesmen were well aware that the English government regarded the North River and Manhattan Island as part of Virginia, and was likely to» resent any attempts of theirs to found a state there. In view of the coming war with Spain it would be prudent to avoid a quarrel with England. The States General might harbour in their own country Englishmen whom King James regarded as half rebellious, but if it should come to planting a colony of such Englishmen on territory which King James called his own, and then undertaking to guarantee them against in-1 trusion, such conduct would be likely to bring on a quarrel at once. The Dutch could not afford thus to hamper themselves, and in any case a war between the two great Protestant powers would be a scandal; so the States General rejected the petition, and the Pilgrims, instead of sailing for Manhattan, went on and organized their expedition under the auspices of the London Company. It was their intention to By aed- g° to Delaware Bay. Had they done so and landed V on tne Jersey shore, they would have found them-- MaVower intended selves in New Netherlands as unwelcome guests. ware Bay, The Dutch on Manhattan, who might have loved p them as fellow-citizens, would feel differently toward Bay them as neighbours under foreign jurisdiction. As it happened, the Mayflower, under stress of weather, ran somewhat out of her course and carried the Pilgrims north of Cape Cod and out of the jurisdiction of the London Com-

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OCTROY, IJ" ytttrn &tatm dBeiutart/ to tfccnt anite Hfctt-3nt)ifrf)e Cotupagtiic / inbatt ben bertien / s'GRAVEN-HAGHB, By HUlebrant Iacobflz , Ordinaris cndc Ghdwottn DruAcr vandc Ed: Mo: Hccrcn Statcn van Hol- landten Wcft-Vricflaiidt. Anno 1611, TITLE OF WEST INDIA COMPANY'S CHARTER

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98 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES pany. About fifty years afterward, Nathaniel Morton, secretary of Plymouth Colony, said that he had heard a report that certain Dutchmen had bribed the skipper of the Mayflower to take the Pilgrims out of their course, and this tale has been often repeated by writers of history. But a solitary hearsay rumour fifty years after the event cannot be accepted as testimony; and in this case the tale is silly unless we assume that the bribers could read the future and foresee that the Pilgrims, instead of persisting in finding the London Company's territory, would choose the bolder alternative of squatting upon the Plymouth Company's land and getting a title afterwards. In the spring of 1621, while the Pilgrims were building their first permanent houses at Plymouth, the constitution of the West India Company was advancing toward completion at the Hague. The charter, which was issued in June, 1621, gave that Company exclusive jurisdiction over Dutch navigation and trade on the barbarous coasts of America and _ ni. Africa. No citizen of the Netherlands could sail The Dutch West India to any point between the tropic of Cancer and the ompany q^q of Good Hope, or between Newfoundland and the Strait of Magellan, except in the name or by the consent of the Company, under penalty of forfeiting ships and goods. The powers with which the West India Company was invested were well-nigh imperial. It was authorized to appoint and remove all governors and other public officers within its territories, to administer justice, to build forts, make treaties with barbaric chiefs or princes, and resist invaders. Formal declaration of war could be made only after obtaining the consent of the States General, which were then bound to furnish the Company with a fleet of twenty warships, to be manned and supported at the Company's expense. Besides this, the Company must keep in commission a fleet of its own, also to consist of twenty warships. Supreme appointments, such as those of governors-general, needed to be confirmed by the States General. The government of the Company was in the hands of five separate chambers or boards,

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THE WEST INDIA COMPANY 99 representing different sections of the Netherlands; but there was one executive board, sometimes known as the College of Nineteen. Eight of these directors were from Amsterdam, four from Zealand, two from Dordrecht, two from North Holland, two from Friesland and Groningen, and one was a director-at-large, a spokesman for the States General. Upon the issue of this charter subscription books were opened, and it was announced that until New Year's Day, 1622, anybody who liked, whether a Dutchman or a foreigner, might become a stockholder of the company. After that date no new members could come in. But in fact the subscription was kept open for two years, while the charter underwent some slight modifications and various matters of detail were arranged. On the 21st of June, 1623, the subscription was closed, and the career of the West India Company was begun. Meanwhile, if we go back three years to the spring of 1620, when the request of the Pilgrims to be guaranteed in making a settlement in New Netherland was under consideration, we find the attention of England drawn toward the movements which the Dutch were making. In the original charter of Virginia, issued in 1606, King James Engiish asserted dominion over the American coast from daims the 34th parallel, which cuts through the mouth of Cape Fear River, to the 45th, which now divides Vermont from Canada. All the country between Cape Fear and Potomac rivers was open for the London Company to colonize; all between the Bay of Fundy and Long Island Sound was open to the Plymouth Company; all between Long Island and the Potomac was open to the competition of the two companies. From the English point of view the Dutch in New Netherland were poaching partly upon the Plymouth Company's preserves, partly upon the neutral region. The energetic Sir Ferdinando Gorges, governor of Plymouth in smith's Devonshire, and one of the most active members £jjjvo"f" of the Plymouth Company, had in 1614 sent Cap- »««> l6l4 tain John Smith to explore the coasts assigned to that LofC.

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ioo THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES company. While Block was sailing through Long Island Sound, Smith was scanning the shore from Penobscot Bay to Cape Cod. The result was an excellent map of that coast, and the name New England, by which it has ever since been known. The next year Smith started on a second expedition, but was captured by a French squadron and carried to France. In 1619 and 1620, Gorges sent one of Smith's comrades, Thomas Dermer, to make further investigations. Dermer sailed over the same waters and voyages, by the same coasts formerly visited by Block. In 1 19-20 jgjg ne passe(j from tne Sound through East River and out at the Narrows without stopping at Manhattan, and apparently without seeing any Dutchmen. But in the spring of 1620 he visited Manhattan and found a multitude of traders all busy with furs. Dermer warned them that they would not be allowed to stay there, inasmuch as the c6untry belonged to the English and would presently be taken possession of by the Plymouth Company, The Dutchmen replied that they did not understand it in that way, and had ¦ found no Englishmen there when they came; so they hoped that they had not given offence. This answer was certainly quite to the point. It was Queen Elizabeth who had laid down the doctrine that in order to acquire a valid title to wild lands beyond sea, mere discovery followed by neglect is not enough; discovery must be followed up by occupation. Now in the spring of 1620 the English had occupied no part of the American coast except the peninsula between the York and James rivers. It would therefore be difficult to dispute the claim of the Dutch, that they took possession of New Netherland as an unoccupied territory to which they had as good a right as anybody else. But when Dermer carried to London the news of the multitude of fur traders at Manhattan, and of their reply to The Coun- n*s f"en<ily notice to quit, the king was gravely e1 °LSdW concerned- In the autumn of that year, 1620, while the Mayflower was on the ocean with her company of Pilgrims, there was drawn up a charter which created

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tmmmm THE WEST INDIA COMPANY IOI an executive body known as the Council of New England, and in this charter New England was defined as including all the land between the 40th and 48th parallels from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. This bold document declared that King James was credibly informed that no other Christian people were as yet settled within these limits, wherefore he took possession of the territory within them and hereby SIR DUDLEY CARLETON warned off all intruders. Apparently the king's information was not of a trustworthy sort, for his definition of New England made it include not only New Netherland but New France. A year later, in the autumn of 1621, Sir Dudley Carleton, English ambassador at the Hague, was instructed to call the attention of the States General to the fact that Dutchmen were trespassing upon English territory at Hudson's River. The matter was discussed for more than a year, and ended

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102 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES V nowhere ; it does not appear that any answer was ever made to the English government. Meanwhile Dutch skippers a govern- traded with the Indians not only at Manhattan, but mentpro- on the Connecticut River and the shores of Nar- vided for New Neth- ragansett and Buzzard's bays ; and the West India erland , , . . Company proceeded to organize a government for New Netherland. The province was made equivalent for dignity to a countship, and its official seal was a shield bearing a beaver, surmounted by a count's coronet, and encircled by the motto, Sigil-lum Novi Belgii, or " Seal of New Belgium," a recourse to the old Latin usage in which the name Belgium did not exclude the Dutch provinces. The government was especially assigned to the Amsterdam chamber. SEAL OF NEW BELGIUM The principal executive officer, or, as we should say, the governor, was styled Director General, and the first person chosen to fill this office, in 1623, was Cornelius Jacobsen May. In the spring of 1623 the good ship New Netherland, with the first party of permanent colonists, arrived at the ship Manhattan, and came upon a French skipper in the New Netherland, 1623 very act of planting the fleur-de-lis on the shore. A Dutch yacht, armed with two cannon, was at once detailed to wait upon him, and so he and his ship were politely escorted down the harbour and bowed out at the Narrows. Some people were put ashore at Manhattan, and the rest sailed in the New Netherland up to Fort Nassau, in Fort the vale of Tawasentha. Once more the site of the North6 °" f°rt was changed ; this time it was moved a few River miles up-stream, and built within the present limits of the city of Albany. Its name was changed to Fort Orange.

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THE WEST INDIA COMPANY 103 In after years its exact site was for a long time occupied by the Fort Orange Hotel, which was burned in 1847. Eighteen families settled in the neighbourhood of the fort, and with them stayed May's lieutenant, Adrian Joris, of Tien-pont. Such were the beginnings of Albany. In Fort Nas-the course of the next month another Fort Nassau U^tH" was built on the east bank of the South River, op- *iret posite the land now covered by Philadelphia. Yet another party of Dutchmen visited the Connecticut River, which they called the Fresh River of New Netherland, to Fort Good contrast it with the salt Hudson. On the site of p°^on Hartford they began building a fort which they River called Good Hope, but it was some years before it was finished. Yet another party of the New Netherlands passengers settled on the shore of Long Island at a deep bay where now is the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The name Wallabout Bay is one of those very common cases of unconscious tautology of which Berkshire County is a familiar instance. Wallabout by itself means Walloon Bay. King Alfred would Wauoon have called it Wealha Bight, that is, Welshmen's Bav or foreigner's bay. As the English applied to their neighbours who did not speak Teutonic the name Welsh, or strangers, so the Dutch called Walloons, or strangers, those inhabitants of the southern Netherlands who spoke French instead of Flemish. At the present day about one third of the population of Belgium are thus to be classed as Walloons.1 Spanish persecution drove many Walloons into Holland, and a party of them entertained the idea of migrating to Virginia, but failed to come to a satisfactory agreement with the Virginia Company. While their negotiation was pending the Dutch West India Company offered better terms and secured them as colonists. In this expedition the Dutch may be said to have taken 1 Another less probable explanation of Wallabout has been suggested, as from Waal-bocht, or " curving bay." See Putnam, Origin ofBreucke-len, Half Moon Series, vol. ii. No. xi.

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IO4 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES possession of New Netherland. It was their intention, by occupying such positions as those on the upper Hudson, the Connecticut, and the Delaware, besides the central position at Manhattan, to proclaim themselves the owners of that wide territory. The fact that they had come to stay was signalized in 1625 by the arrival of two shiploads of cattle and horses, swine and sheep. And now their position was to be assured for the present by the political turn of events. The attitude of England furnished the chief source of anxiety. We have seen James I. in 1621 complaining to the States General. Now in January, 1625, the ship Orange Tree from g- Amsterdam, on her way to New Netherland, stopped at Plymouth in Devonshire, whereupon Sir fere Ferdinando Gorges detained her there for several weeks, while the matter was discussed in the Privy Council. It was decided to let her go on her way, for war was impending between Spain and England, and it was deemed best not to irritate the Dutch. Six years of the Thirty Years' War had now elapsed, and the English people were warmly in sympathy with the Protestant princes of Germany. The daughter of James I. was wife of the Elector Palatine, and now that Spanish troops had overrun the Palatinate and were holding it, the king was ready to go to war in behalf of his son-in-law's party. James died in March; in September Charles I. entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with the Dutch. It was agreed that both countries should maintain fleets for the purpose of destroying Spanish commerce, and that the ports of each country should be open to the ships of the other. This was the famous treaty of Southampton. At the time when it was concluded there was much indignation in England over the so-called " massacre of Amboyna," to which allusion was made in my second chapter. The news of this affair was fresh in England, and the king declared that nothing in the treaty should prevent his demanding justice. The implication was that the States General were ready to grant justice if the facts c6uld be proved. Nothing was said about New Netherland, and it

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THE WEST INDIA COMPANY 105 was evident that so long as the two countries were once more allied in a war against Spain, the English would refrain from molesting the Dutch colony. Indeed, New Netherland was now safe for nearly forty years. The English were fighting against both Spain and France until 1630; then the quarrel between Charles I. and his Parliament so absorbed English energy that small heed was paid to America; the chronic unrest of the Commonwealth period had a similar effect; and so New Netherland was safe until the days of Charles II. The death of James I. was followed within a few weeks by that of Maurice, Prince of Orange, who was succeeded in the stadholdership by his half brother, Frederick, young- Changes of est son of William the Silent by Louise, daughter ralers of Coligny. Frederick was an excellent general, if not so great as Maurice, but as a statesman and a man he was far superior. In the province of New Netherland, too, there was a change of rulers. In 1624 Cornelius May gave place to William Verhulst, and in 1625 Verhulst was succeeded by Peter Minuit, a native of the duchy of Cleves. Early in May, 1626, Minuit arrived at Manhattan and took command of New Netherland. The first important act of Minuit's administration was the purchase of the island of Manhattan from the natives. For the name Manhattan many explanations have been suggested, and among other things we have been told that the island was named after the tribe which inhabited it. But this is getting the cart before the horse. These Indians were a branch of the great Lenni-Lenape confederacy, afterwards known as Delawares. Now in the Lenni-Lenap6 language Manatey means "island" and Manhattanis are "those who dwell upon an island."1 Evi- 1 Beauchamp, Indian Names in New York, p. 45 5 cf. Brinton, Len-api-English Dictionary, s. v. Menatey.

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io6 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES dently, therefore, the Manhattans were simply the island tribe of Delawares. Throughout the seventeenth century the island was designated indifferently Manatey and Manhattan. When we say " Manhattan Island " it is a case of unconscious taulogy, like those formerly cited. From these island Indians Minuit bought their whole island, containing about 22,000 acres, for the value of 60 guilders in beads and ribbons. These 60 guilders are usually mentioned as equivalent to 24 gold dollars of the present day; but the purchasing power of gold was then five times as great as now, so that the price paid for Manhattan was really equivalent to about 120 dollars.1 That must have furnished enough ribbons and beads to give every brave and every new squaw a chance. The next thing to be done was to build a suitable fort. The site selected was where the row of steamboat offices now stands, on the south side of Bowling Green. At first it was simply a blockhouse encircled by red cedar palisades backed Fort Am- by earthworks. This was called Fort Amsterdam, sterdam £ast of ft, along the shore of East River, stretched a line of one-story log-houses with bark roofs, some thirty or more in number, which gave shelter to the greater part of the population of 200 souls. Such was v the beginning of 1 High Mighty Sirs: Here arrived yesterday the ship The Arms of Amsterdam which sailed from New Netherland out of the Mauritius River on September 23 ; they report that our people there are of good courage and live 'peaceably. Their women, also, have borne children there, they have bought the island Manhattes from the wild men for the value of sixty guilders, is 11,000 morgens in extent. They sowed all their grain the middle of May, and harvested it the middle of August. Thereof being samples of summer grain, such as wheat, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, canary seed, small beans, and flax. The cargo of the aforesaid ship is: 7246 beaver skins, 178^ otter skins, 675 otter skins, 48 mink skins, 36 wild-cat (lynx) skins, 33 minks, 34 rat skins. Many logs of oak and nut-wood. Herewith be ye High Mighty Sirs, commended to the Almighty's grace, In Amsterdam, November 5, Ao. 1626. Your High Might's Obedient, P. SCHAGHEN.

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THE WEST INDIA COMPANY 107 Pearl Street, the oldest street in New York; at that time its east side was the river bank ; since then three blocks have grown up to the easKof it on made land. Communication with the little settlement at Wallabout was kept up from the site of Peck Slip. There Cornelius Dircksen owned a farm or bouwerie, and used to ferry passengers across in a row-boat for a fare of three stivers in wampum, equivalent to three farthings of that time, or about six cents of to-day. Near the site of Canal Street the primeval forest resounded nightly with the growl of bears, the wailing of panthers, and the yelps of wolves, while serpents lurked in the dense underbrush. For the present the neighbouring Indians were not dangerous ; and Minuit, who was an eminently just, honourable, and sensible man, knew how to win their confidence and keep them well-disposed toward the settlers. For a moment, however, the party at Fort Orange were in danger of a breach with the Mohawks. The nearest neighbours of this formidable tribe were the Mohegans Mohawks of the Housatonic valley. These people belonged ??d to the great Algonquin family, and between them and the Mohawks burned the fires of hatred, diabolical and unquenchable. In 1626 a war party of Mohegans approached Fort Orange and besought the garrison to aid them in an attack upon the Mohawks. The commander, a rather dull person by the name of Krieckebeeck, allowed himself to be persuaded, and set out with them, taking along six of his men. After a few miles they were surprised and badly defeated by the Mohawks. Krieckebeeck was killed by an arrow, his Indians were put to flight with heavy slaughter, and the victors dined that day on roast Dutchman. Having thus won the field and discharged all blood-dues to their tutelar deities, the Mohawks showed remarkable forbearance. Their envoys came to Fort Orange and justified their conduct, while they blamed the Dutch for wantonly attacking them at the request of their enemies. The Mohawks, they truly said, had never offended the Dutch ; and if in this unfortunate affair a few Dutchmen had been slain by their arrows, if was the

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108 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES Dutchmen's fault and not theirs. After this plain speaking, which the new commander took in good part, the old treaty of alliance was renewed, and things went on harmoniously. The Dutch had learned a lesson. This meddling in intertribal quarrels was extremely dangerous, although sometimes hard to avoid. It was similar meddling that some years later made it necessary for the settlers of New England to crush the Narragansetts in self-defence. It was just such indiscretion that had led Champlain to attack the Mohawks, and make them the irreconcilable enemies of Frenchmen. Probably the Dutch could not have adjusted the matter so easily as they did if the Mohawks had not been keenly alive to the value of an alliance which supplied them with firearms. This prevailing need, and the hope of punishing the French, gave to the Dutch, and to the English after them, a very firm hold upon the Iroquois tribes. But while all was quiet on the upper Hudson, there was some uneasiness among the people at Fort Orange, and Minuit brought them all down to Manhattan^ leaving only a garrison of sixteen men in the exposed position. The little colony at Fort Nassau, on the Delaware River, was also withdrawn, and the building of Fort Good Hope, on the Connecticut, was suspended. All the settlers were concentrated at Manhattan for greater security. But their ships found their way up the rivers and into all the bays and inlets where red men could be found with peltries to sell. Among other tribes with which, they traded were the Wampanoags, on Buzzard's Bay, and thus, they were brought into immediate contact with Dbeussion the Pilgrims of Plymouth. Dutch envoys visited Mimiit'and Governor Bradford and were received most hospit-Btadford abiv> Letters passed between Bradford and Minuit in which the courtesy and kindliness of expression is evidently more than merely formal. It is clear that both writers highly value the alliance between their two nations against their common enemy, the Spaniards; both are mindful of the friendly relations sustained for centuries between the Netherlands and England; both are anxious to maintain

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TRIVMPHBASVYNE- Cat <&abt& mi mtjt roent Utt ©atabieten jjeUeltcn / ban W am it bffob&mige bet ,©pae«frf»e J>ilb«-blote btitt i^ob» ©ifpata/fnft« ®aij ban jfBatatita/ boo; be git'jtjjen bwiCf <tBc-l©(i36ifljC</D8f6I6 t©(i3nfjCojjj8 . fBanfjaftc *?ertn .See-^elfien Pistes Hevn, <©cnttaei/tn&e R1CX KORNEHSIEN LONK, filS^. 15*8, SAMVEL AMPZING, GoitUlvkfii Wttrds mde gonej/we its Htfm btfontn H4trkm T»-t Hasrlem. AdriaenRooraan, < elo Io c xxjx. ' TITLE OF HEYN'S CAPTURE OF THE SPANISH SILVER FLEET

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no THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES such friendship. Yet Bradford thinks it necessary to say that he doubts whether the Dutch have a right to plant colonies or trading stations within the limits of New England, which include everything above the 40th parallel. To this claim, which would have left nothing of New Netherland except the southern part of New Jersey, the Dutch governor replied that he derived his authority from the United States of the Netherlands, and was in duty bound to maintain it. He did not even feel that he had any right to yield to Bradford's suggestion that the Dutch might at least forbear to trade with the Narragansetts and Wampanoags " which is, as it were, at our doors." But while he could not make concessions, Minuit's courtesy never failed him; his letter was accompanied by two Holland cheeses and a runlet of sugar, to sweeten its flavour. This friendly controversy is one among many proofs that the English always disputed the title of the Dutch to New Netherland. In 1627 it was settled for the time by a proclamation of Charles I. declaring that in accordance with the treaty of Southampton all trade with England and her dependencies was free to the Dutch. This was equivalent to full permission to trade anywhere upon the American coast claimed by England, while it in no way recognized the Dutch title to New Netherland. Matters rested for some years upon this basis. While these things were going on in America, the Dutch and English fleets were carrying everything before them on the ocean, while the power of Spain was declining year by year. That piece of insane wickedness, the expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609, had deprived her of recuperative power Crashing by spoiling her principal industries, while the work tteSpan- °f destruction, begun long ago by Hawkins and >"<k Drake, was approaching completeness. For ex- ample, in a tremendous battle off San Salvador, May 20, 1627, the Dutch admiral, Peter Heyn, knocked to pieces and sank twenty-six Spanish warships. On September 5 the same skilful commander captured the whole Spanish silver fleet of nineteen vessels, with booty equivalent to thirty mil-

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THE WEST INDIA COMPANY m lion dollars. We need not wonder that the West India Company declared large dividends. As for Spain, the extent of her humiliation may be inferred from the fact that in 1629 the proposal for a renewal of the truce came from her and was rejected by the Dutch, who preferred to keep up the war in which all the expense was borne by their old oppressors. No wonder that a war which brought limitless pelf and ample revenge, along with naval glory, should have been popular. It was supported by the zeal of the Calvinist clergy as well as by the cupidity of the mercantile classes. In 1630 England made a separate peace with Spain. Charles I. was entering upon his experiment of governing without Parliament, and wished to disencumber himself of all complications. But the naval war was kept up successfully eighteen years longer by the Netherlands, until the general European settlement of 1648. While the Dutch flag was thus covered with glory on the high seas, the progress of the colony on Hudson's River was not quite what was desired. The nature of the weakness which began to become apparent about 1628, and the attempts that were made to mend matters, will claim our attention in the next chapter.

CHAPTER V: “PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS” 191 0112

CHAPTER V "PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS" Few facts in history are more conspicuous than the preeminence of England in the work of founding colonies. The fact is often mentioned, and not unfrequently the question The Eng- is asked, Why have the English been so much more as cok!?ple successful than other people ? Such questions never nizers can be answered by a single sentence or paragraph, for there are too many factors concerned. A full discussion of the subject would involve a great many considerations. Some points, however, are so obvious as to need but brief mention. Of course the case of a colony in which a small group of invaders hold sway over a large subject population, as in Spanish Peru or British India, is very different from the case in which masses of civilized men move into the wilderness and organize themselves into new states, as with the English in North America and in Australasia. Properly speaking, it is only the latter that are really colonies; the former may be called dependencies, but only in a loose sense colonies. With regard to dependencies, like Peru and India, the advantage possessed by people accustomed to a free government is manifest enough. The sway of the English over India, which is one of the most wonderful and romantic things in the world, may or may not be permanent; but there can be no doubt that its moment of mortal peril, forty years ago, was brought on by carelessly shocking Hindu religious prejudices. Now in any Spanish dependency that has ever existed, such shocking of prejudices would not have been an instance of momentary carelessness, but part of a deliberate policy. The English approached the people of India with missionary preachers, but in Mexico and Peru the

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"PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS" 113 Spanish Inquisition has been at work even since the nineteenth century came in. It is pretty clear that Spanish methods would never have won Hindustan or held it with increasing firmness for two centuries. As regards real colonies, planted in a wilderness, it is obvious that success cannot be achieved unless large numbers of people go thither to stay. The successful colony must first become a home. Trading posts or fishing stations or gold diggings, where people flock together between' for temporary profit, expecting to go back to their old homes, are not likely to become self-support-ing colonies unless aided by other circumstances. Creating a state involves creating new homes. Now we sometimes hear it said that France has had so little success as a colonizing nation because Frenchmen are such stay-at-home people, never <juite happy outside of their own beautiful country, whereas an Englishman can make himself at liome anywhere. There is truth in this, but are we not in danger of inverting the relation between cause and effect ? May it not be that Frenchmen are such stay-at-home people because they have not been successful colonizers, and thus have not cultivated the habit of moving to foreign lands? In the seventeenth century no people took up the work of remote exploration with more zeal than Frenchmen, and for indomitable energy such leaders as Champlain and La Salle, Brebeuf and Frontenac have never been surpassed. These men could leave home behind and throw themselves into the work of carrying civilization into the wilderness with as much self-devotion as any Englishman ever showed. The suggested explanation will not fit their case. Again, the close of the seventeenth century witnessed an emigration from France incomparably greater than any that has ever gone out from England. In the course of twenty-five years nearly a million Huguenots, or about seven per cent, of the whole population, left their native country. Compared with this colossal movement the migration of 20,000 Puritans to New England seems a small affair. It is true, these French-

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H4 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES men were subjected to persecution more vexatious than any that England ever witnessed. But the event showed that in order to better their condition they could leave their country, just as the Puritans did. Suppose these Huguenots had poured in great masses into Canada and Louisiana, as many of them would have been glad to do, would not the history of North America have been seriously altered? Perhaps* they might have taken New York and held the country west of the Alleghanies and ousted the Hudson Bay Company. At all events, I doubt if we should have heard much about the natural incapacity of Frenchmen for founding colonies. Now the reason why the Huguenots did not come over to New France was simply that they were not allowed to do so. Although Louis XIV. was sorely vexed and alarmed at Why the the slowness of increase in the population of Can-Huguenots ada, he would not allow a heretic to be received to Newg° there on any terms. The Huguenots, therefore, France were oyjge(j to iose their nationality and their speech, as the Pilgrims would have done if they had stayed in Holland. They became absorbed in the populations of northern Germany, Holland, England, and the English colonies. Here, then, we come back to the advantage possessed by people with a free government. As between a Spanish colony, with its Inquisition and its arbitrary taxes, and an English colony, with its freedom of the press, its habeas corpus, and its popular assemblies, it is easy to see which is most likely to attract settlers. The capacity for self-government, the kind of political training which combines civil liberty with respect for law, which enables every town or village to govern itself while influence at ^ same time national unity is not impaired, is of seif-gov- doubtless the most important prerequisite for suc- ernment . *. .,, upon coio- cess in founding colonies. A village accustomed nuation tQ manage jts own affairs win continue to do so if transported into the wilderness, but this is far more difficult for a village which has always been governed by prefects

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195

m£- a^^^r v-C-joaAi) C

THE BEGINNING AND END OF A LETTER OF DOMINE JONAS MICHAELIUS, FIRST MINISTER OF THE REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH IN NORTH AMERICA, DATED AT MANHATTAN, II AUGUST, 1628

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"PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS" 115 sent from a distant capital. Mr. Parkman has abundantly shown the weakness which this lack of training in self-government entailed upon New France. If we look at modern Germany, we see that its people easily overcome the disposition to stay at home. Thousands leave Germany every year, but they do not try to plant new colonies; they find their way to the United States or to Australia. If we ask why England has been preeminent as a colonizer, we may call attention to the fact that nearly all the free constitutions in the world have been consciously copied either from England or from the United States during the nineteenth century. Between these two facts the connection is far from accidental. In the Dutch colony on the Hudson a most liberal policy was pursued with regard to the admission of immigrants. New Netherland never suffered from this noseif-gov-source of weakness which afflicted New France. N^w'Seth-Nobody was excluded for heresy. But as regards erland the transfer of self-government to America, the Dutch were not wholly successful. In the course of this narrative we shall observe the difficulties which they encountered. At first, the government was simply that of the agent of a commercial company. Laws for the settlers were chiefly made in the Amsterdam Chamber of the West India Company. They were administered by Peter Minuit, the Director General, assisted by a council of five members appointed in Amsterdam. This council united executive with legislative and judicial powers. It could make local regulations, subject to approval or reversal at Amsterdam. It was a court for the trial of civil and criminal cases, and could inflict fine and imprisonment, but not the death penalty. Persons convicted of capital crimes must be sent to Holland. Two important officers were the Kooptnan, who was secretary and the Company's bookkeeper; and the Schout, who discharged the duties of sheriff and collector of customs. This was a very simple government, suited for an infant community, but the people took no part in it. It was not government of the

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u6 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES people, by the people, and for the people; but it was government of the people, by the Director and Council, for the West India Company. The 300 inhabitants of New Amsterdam, in 1628, lived compactly enough to hold town meetings, yet Contrast there was nothing of the sort. At that same time outhand"" tne 3°° inhabitants of Plymouth made laws for Virginia themselves in a primary assembly and elected their governor; while the 4000 inhabitants of Virginia, distributed in a dozen communities, had their elected house of representatives, without whose consent the governor appointed by the crown could not raise so much as a penny by taxation. So far as it goes, the contrast seems hardly in keeping with the hypothesis that our free institutions were derived not from England but from Holland. It is true that the English government in Virginia began with an autocratic governor and council, agents of a commercial company in London, and thus it was like the Dutch government in New Neth-erland; but it took Virginia only eleven years to outgrow such a situation and secure a representative assembly. We shall hereafter see how differently it fared with New Nether-land. The years 1628-30 mark the beginning of a new era in the colonization of North America. More than 1000 Englishmen came to Massachusetts Bay, and more kept coming until in a dozen years the population of New England was 26,000. Lord Baltimore was at the same time preparing to Slow make a settlement in Maryland. But the colony at thlTSiiten Manhattan grew very slowly. Traders came and colony went, but the number of new homes did not come up to the Company's expectations. The country was well fitted for agriculture, but farmers were too few. It required a very strong inducement to draw the Dutch farmer away from Holland. Since the Spaniards had been expelled, there was no country pleasanter to abide in. Complete security for person and property, full toleration of differences in religion, with general thrift and comfort, were things too good to run away from. Had there been more poverty and dis-

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VRYHEDEN a ctttt)tenc toanbc 6eoctropeet&e JntJtfciie Ccmpacjmc urrgunt am alien omgtjtiietilotemricheCfltonien m," ^ ¦ ilienplanren. Jn htt He hi ghegheven-* Om bckco t tc mak en wat Profi jtcn ende Voordeclcn aldaer in Niett- Neder!andt, voor de Colonkrs ende dec felver Patroonen ecde Meefters, midtlgaders de Participantcn, die de Colonicn aiaa<!r pknt«B, zijn becomeu* 'VevJzifyttt'yby'itttbs ^MacJtt hrangt Stfverjiiatcn in. TUMST E t ft E P A M, 25m Mittentanfz Brandt S«ilt5KK(»(jp£t/tlJ«8tWt>e 6^1 TITLE OF "PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS"

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n8 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES content in the mother country, New Amsterdam would doubtless have grown more rapidly, and farmsteads would have sprung up on the banks of its noble river. To encourage agriculture and to create permanent homes, The the West India Company in 1629 issued its famous patroons charter of "Privileges and Exemptions." This charter declared that any member of the Company who should within the next four years bring to New Netherland fifty grown-up persons and settle them in homes along the Hudson River should receive a liberal grant of land, to hold as " patroon " or lord of the manor. The estate was to be on the Hudson or some adjacent navigable river, and might have a frontage of sixteen miles if all on one shore, or of eight miles on both shores. As to the depth of these lots, they might run as far back into the country as circumstances should make feasible. The patroon was full proprietor of the estate, and could devise it by will. He had the exclusive right of hunting and fishing within the boundaries, but could of course grant to others a share in these privileges on such terms as suited him. The patroon was chief magistrate on his estate, and could hold manorial courts, from which, if the matter in dispute involved more than the value of 50 guilders, an appeal could be taken to the Director and his council at New Amsterdam. In practice, the patroons evaded this provision by exacting from their colonists at the outset a promise not to make any such appeal. The colonists were to be exempted from all public taxation for the term of ten years, but during that period they were not at liberty to leave one estate and become tenants of another or to change their abode from country to town. This was not serfdom, inasmuch as it was regulated by a purely voluntary contract, but it reminds one of serfdom enough to seem a curious provision when we remember that the last vestiges of that institution had disappeared from the Netherlands three centuries before this charter was written. It shows how strongly the Company was bent upon obtaining a population of farmers. Restlessness must be discouraged. In return for the

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¦PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS' 119 enDe Cjretttpttctt fmt fc ft f # De ren/ Die op j&teu-l&e&erfotrtt emigre £olonim tnbt Bet fullcn planten / gticconftDercett ten Dientt ban be generate HDcft- §notfctje Compagnte trt jftteu-jdeoetianDc / tnae tjet tiaojoecl DanDt J?&= trooneu/ #ketta# enDe parrauUtreru «5tiDe alfobintmriebanDe Compagm* fef§et <£b> ton&t Ban Ue Manhattes tioa? eerQ te populecen / fal &U itmp^oUtfioncltirU oocfe 31m &e ftapel ttan atle B^ut^ ten enoe H^aren / trie op De |^oo?Dt-JSttjtet enDe Ham 6enliaei;outs*ntii4J|w /«twi>«?«*ris««fonaen fallen moglj?n UjojDm: W t gljenomcn Die tint Dewiatuji^e.i/ fflu am nier nut 3UttDe / ofte met a!0 met graoteu on^ btenft toan De &pg$enaer0 Oder geb^cbt fouDen moe^ V 3Jn\»cle^engli?4jalte Df C D fullen if^ jp aenDeConipasmealper/oKe Den f 6ent enoe fiaoni aioaer / ttjDeltjclt Dp ©ijtefcJuifcc te re* monftreren/ om Dare tn Do^uen te ia?srroen/al0 na gfje^ %|0 &Hen betoonDmtal ttjetom te billow ten. HEADING AND TWELFTH ARTICLE OF "PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS" exemption from taxes, the settler must bind himself to stay in one place and develop its resources. Of capital with which to start he had no need, for the patroon bore the expense of clearing the land, building the farmhouses and barns, and providing the tools and cattle. In return for these extensive outlays, the patroon received a fixed rent, usually payable in stock or produce, as in the old manors of Maryland. Be-

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120 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES sides this fixed rent, the patroon was entitled to a parf of the increase of cattle and a part of the crop. He could also buy all the remainder, or as much as the farmer could spare; in other words, the farmer must not sell any stock or produce to other parties without first offering to sell it to the patroon. Furthermore, the farmer must grind all his grain at the pa-troon's mill, and he could hunt and fish only with a license from the patroon. If a farmer died intestate the patroon was his legal heir.1 As for trade, the patroons had full liberty to buy whatever goods they wanted (except furs) in New Netherland or in the French and English colonies. But before such goods could be sent to Europe they must stop at New Amsterdam and Limita- Pav an export duty of five per cent, to the Com-tradeand" Panv> The ^ur trade was expressly reserved from maoufac- this permission. Nobody but the Company, through "res its appointed agents or factors, could deal in .furs. As for the weaving of any kind of cloth, whether woollen or linen or cotton, that was absolutely prohibited ; the market for the products of the looms in Holland must not be curtailed. The use of slaves in tilling the soil or in household service was sanctioned, and the Company somewhat vaguely promised to supply the colonists " with as many blacks as they conveniently could," but not " for a longer time than they should think proper." No land within New Netherland could be appropriated for settlement without paying the Indian possessors such a price as they would deem satisfactory. We sometimes hear this scrupulousness in paying the Indians cited as peculiar to the Dutch and Quaker colonies, but there could not be a greater mistake. It was the general custom of the English. Not a rood of ground was taken by the settlers of New England without paying for it, except in the single instance where the Pequots rashly began a war and were exterminated. Between the moral attitude of the Dutch and English in such matters there was really no difference. 1 J. H. U. Studies, iv. 16.

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"PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS" 121 Finally having thus carefully prescribed the relations of patroons and their tenants to each other and to the Company, the charter promised that Fort Amsterdam should speedily be strengthened and the settlers defended against all invaders. It was further recommended that prompt provision should be made for the support of a parson and a schoolmaster, " that thus the service of God and zeal for religion may not grow cool and be neglected among them." Such a recommendation was most certainly called for. Twenty years had elapsed since Henry Hudson sailed up the river, fifteen since settlements began at Manhattan, six since the West India Company had taken possession, and still in a population of 300 souls there was neither a minister nor a schoolmaster. Nothing could show more forcibly how little the thought of making permanent homes had entered into the minds of the traders who had come hither for furs. This famous charter of 1629 was clearly the outcome of careful study, but it fell far short of producing the effect that was intended. The feudal system had never Feudal fea-acquired more than a slight hold upon Holland, yet charter".*e this charter, drawn up by Dutchmen, introduced '629 some characteristic features of the feudal system into the New World. Its provisions were not oppressive, like those which tormented the peasantry in France, but they certainly did not hold'out strong inducements to the prosperous farmer in Holland to cross the ocean and begin life anew on the banks of an American river. His position as tenant of a patroon was to be less free and less dignified than his position before leaving home. It seems rather strange that the makers of the charter failed to see this. With regard to the patroons the aim was more accurate. In a community of merchants there is always a fair chance of finding some who are willing to exchange their avocation for the lordship of great landed estates. In Amsterdam and other cities of Holland there were wealthy burghers to whom the change seemed like a rise in the social scale. No doubt there were some to whom the vague prospects of adventure

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122 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES were attractive. At first men showed more readiness to come as patroons than as tenants. The first manor that was granted under the charter lay beyond Delaware Bay, west of Cape Henlopen, within the present state of Delaware. It was taken by Samuel Godyn and Samuel Blommaert, two of the Company's board of directors, and next year they took a district sixteen miles square on the opposite shore, including Cape May. Then NEW AMSTERDAM ABOUT 163O five other directors were taken into partnership to increase the capital, and Captain David Pieters De Vries for the sake of his ability as a man of business. Two ships were sent out De Vries m December, 1630, with colonists, tools, and cat-?oion'Sof ^e' ^ne was caPtured by pirates ; the other Swandaie, reached Delaware Bay in April, 1631, and landed its people 32 in number a few miles above Cape Henlopen. A house surrounded with a stockade was built, and the place was called Zwaanendal, that is, Swan-dale. De Vries followed with reinforcements, but before his arrival the Indians burned the house and massacred all the colonists, so that he found nothing but charred timbers and

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«PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS" 123 bleaching skeletons. De Vries had the rare gift of knowing just how to deal with barbarians. He had not force enough with him to attack the Indians, and besides he preferred other methods. He persuaded them that it would be for their advantage to have his men as neighbours. But famine was a more pitiless foe than the red men. De Vries had been more intent upon catching whales than upon planting corn, but whales were scarce on that coast and bread gave out, so that it was necessary to return to Holland. The partners had already begun to quarrel, and on his return the partnership was dissolved, the land titles were sold back to the Company, and such was the somewhat Ignominious end of Swandale, the first of the patroonships. The career of the next was different but not successful. In the summer of 1630, Michael Pauw, one of the directors, secured for himself Hoboken, with the region now covered by Jersey City, and the whole of Staten Island, so gtaten called in honour of the Staaten, or States General, island and To this noble manor Pauw gave his own name with a latinizing twist, making it Pavonia. His small colony maintained itself on the site of Jersey City for about *even years, but the neighbouring Indians were very troublesome, and the enterprise did not pay expenses. So Pauw sold out to the Company, but his name remains to-day in Pavonia Ferry. More prosperous fortunes waited upon Kilian Van Rens-selaer, a jeweller or lapidary who was one of the members of the Amsterdam Chamber. By purchase from the Mohawks he secured the greater portion of the land now contained in Albany and Rensselaer counties, excepting Fort Orange itself, which remained the property of the Company. Reasselaer's party of colonists, consisting mostly of Rensse_ farmers, were carefully selected and instructed, and kerwyck very completely equipped. Industry throve at Rensselaer-wyck, and the value of the property came to be enormous. In such wise a few great estates came to be planted on the Hudson River, while the attempts on the Delaware were unsuccessful and on the Connecticut none were as yet made.

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124 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES Very soon the patroons began to incur the censure of the Dis utes Company by engaging on their own private account betweenthe in the fur trade. They justified themselves in this andX"7 by what would be called in modern phrase a " loose patroons construction " of the charter. This led to fresh regulations on the part of the Company and to renewed evasions on the part of the patroons. In truth, the trade in furs was so lucrative that it was not in human nature to let it alone. The Company had some reason to feel that in creating the patroonships it had let loose an unruly elephant Not only did their private Indian trade interfere with the monopoly expressly reserved to the Company, but it tended to defeat the very object for which the patroonships had been created, for it prevented the growth of a healthy interest in agriculture. The Company charged the patroons with failure to keep their engagements; but the patroons retorted in kind. Had not the charter promised to defend the settlers against all invaders and yet failed to prevent the destruction of Swandale by the Indians? Amid such recriminations the dispute was referred to the States General, and one of the incidental results was the recall of the Director General, Peter Minuit, who was accused of showing too great partiality for the patroons. There were probably motives working below Recall of t^ie surface to which we have no adequate clue. Minuit Minuit, who was an eminently just and honourable man, always felt that his treatment on this occasion was harsh and unfair. One of the last achievements of Director Minuit's administration was the launching of the great ship New Nether-land, built at Manhattan in 1631. She was a merchantman of 800 tons burthen, armed with 30 guns, with which she might stoutly defend herself against pirates or privateers. She was for some time famous as one of the largest ships afloat, and her building at Manhattan proves that at least some of the mechanic arts were well represented there. On hearing of his dismissal, Minuit left the government in the hands of the council, and sailed for the Old World in

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"PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS" 125 March, 1632, in the good ship Eendragt, or "Union." A fierce gale in the English channel compelled the Eendragt to take refuge in Plymouth harbour, where Captain John Mason, member of the Council for New England, at once put her under arrest on the charge of illegally trading within King Charles's dominion in America. iish%ia!m Instantly there came a protest from the Dutch again embassy in London, messages were sent to Amsterdam and the Hague, the king and his attorney-general were interviewed, and a very pretty dispute was begun, in the course of which the States General drew up an able statement of the Dutch claim to New Netherland, and challenged the English government for an answer. The argument was a difficult one for England to refute, inasmuch as it was Queen Elizabeth who had announced the doctrine that mere discovery of a wild country is not enough to give a title to it; discovery must be followed by occupation. Now while England claimed the coast of North America on the strength of Cabot's discovery in _ . rr . , . Queen 1497, she did not effectively occupy any part of it Elizabeth's until the settlement of Jamestown in 1607. The Dutch maintained that they discovered the North River in 1609, a claim which might have been successfully disputed by France, but not by England. They alleged, with truth, that Dutchmen had been present in that region, which they found unoccupied, ever since 1610; that they had kept up forts and garrisons there since 1614; and that since 1623 their colony had been steadily growing. Against this strong argument Englishmen sometimes urged in conversation, that Hudson's discovery of the North River should be counted to the credit of England rather than of Holland, because of his nationality and without regard to the service in which he was sailing. But this could not be seriously urged, because by the same logic it would follow that John Cabot, a native of Genoa, had discovered North America for the Republic of Genoa, and not for England. A more plausible argument hung upon the question

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126 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES as to what constituted occupation of territory. In 1606 James I. had defined Virginia as extending from the 34th to what the 45th parallel, and had granted it by charter to Mcupa"*68 tw0 joint-stock companies. If such an act of sov-tionF ereignty as granting the land was to be reckoned as equivalent to taking possession of it, then the Dutch might be regarded as intruders. This theory was set forth by the English. They flatly denied the jurisdiction of the States General, or of the West India Company, over New Netherland; as for individual Dutchmen or families of Dutchmen, there was no objection to their settling there, only by so doing they abandoned their nationality and became subjects of Charles I. Such was the English view of the case. King Charles, however, had so many embarrassing questions on hand that he was not disposed to press this one to an issue. So after a detention of nearly two months the Eendragt was allowed to proceed on her way, " saving any prejudice to his Majesty's rights." No attempt was made to meddle with the cargo of 5000 beaver skins which she was carrying to Amsterdam. The action of the English government was merely an emphatic protest, intended to justify a policy which might hereafter be carried out should circumstances prove favourable. » The Company's choice of a successor to Minuit was not a happy one. Wouter (or Walter) van Twiller was one of the Van Twii- clerks in the Company's warehouse at Amsterdam. Director6" He had married a niece of Kilian van Rensselaer, General and one of the Rensselaers had married his sister. To this family connection Twiller seems to have owed his appointment. His qualifications were slender. He had little knowledge of anything beyond the routine which he had learned in the counting-room, and his character seemed often strangely irresolute. This peculiarity did not escape the notice of that veracious chronicler, Diedrich Knickerbocker, who indulges himself in a smile over it. " With all his reflective habits, he never made up his mind on a subject. . ..

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Walter van Twiller

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211

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"PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS" 127 To this has been attributed his surname of Twiller; which is said to be a corruption of the original Twijfler, or, in plain English, Doubter" The description of the personal appearance of this Walter the Doubter is almost too well known to need citation : " He was exactly five feet traitjbythe six inches in height, and six feet five inches in cir- KriSer-* cumference. His head was a perfect sphere, and bocker of such stupendous dimensions, that Dame Nature, with all her sex's ingenuity, would have been puzzled to construct a neck capable of supporting it; wherefore she wisely declined the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his backbone, just between the shoulders. . . . His legs were short, but sturdy in proportion to the weight they had to sustain; so that when erect he had not a little the appearance of a beer-barrel on skids. His face, that infallible index of the mind, presented a vast expanse, unfurrowed by any of those lines which disfigure the human countenance with what is termed expression. . . . His habits were regular. He daily took his four stated meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each ; he smoked and doubted eight hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the four-and-twenty. Such was the renowned Wouter van Twiller, a true philosopher, for his mind was either elevated above, or tranquilly settled below, the cares and perplexities of this world." The worthy Knickerbocker goes on to inform us that it is "with infinite difficulty" that he has collected these personal details, which is his pleasant way of confessing that they are drawn from the depths of his own imagination. The picture is suggested by certain incidents in Twiller's

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128 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES career, but there were some features of strength and sense in the man that are lost in this broad caricature. When the new Director arrived at Manhattan in April, 1633, in the warship Soutberg, or Salt Mountain, bringing with him a force of 104 soldiers, he was accompanied by Dominie Everardus Bogardus, the second clergyman, and Adam Roelandson, the first schoolmaster, of New Nether-land. Van Twiller had been ashore but a few days when he received a visit from Captain De Vries, returning from the ruined colony at Swandale, and there occurred an incident which may have first suggested to Irving his grotesque description. At noontide, while De Vries and Van Twiller were sitting at dinner, a ship bearing on her foremast the An English Te& cross of St. George,1 came blithely up the bay, visitor an(j presently dropped anchor before Fort Amsterdam and sent a boat ashore. In the boat came our old friend Jacob Eelkens, the same who made the treaty with the Iroquois chiefs in the vale of Tawasentha fifteen years ago. Eelkens had incurred the displeasure of the Company in 1623, and had been dismissed from its service. He was now in the employ of Clobery & Co., merchants, of London,8 and had come in the ship William to buy furs on the shores of Henry Hudson's river. That English sailor had discovered the country, and it belonged to King Charles. " Don't talk to me about Henry Hudson's river," retorted Van Twiller, " it is the River Mauritius I " and he swore that no English ship would be permitted to go up; so he hoisted the blue, white, and orange flag over the fort and fired a salute of three guns in honour of Prince Frederick. But Eelkens coolly went on board the William and fired a salute for King Charles. After this exchange of defiances the English ship waited a few days, and then without further ado weighed anchor and stood up-stream. At this saucy behaviour Van Twiller was for a moment speechless with rage. The citizens of New Amsterdam were already gathering in groups 1 Preble, History of the United States Flag, p. 176. a O'Callaghan, History of New Netherland, i. 143.

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"PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS" 129 about the fort; Van Twiller sent the crier to summon everybody. Then he broached a mighty cask of Rhenish wine, and generous bumpers were drunk to the confusion A broad of the renegade skipper and his English ship. De side of Vries was vexed at such frivolity. " Why did you umpers let him sail out of range ? A shower of iron beans would have brought him to his senses. We did not put up with such things in the East Indies, I can tell you; these English think they own the earth, but we taught them how to behave." Walter appears to have spent several days in doubting. Then he sent a pinnace and a caravel up the river with part of his troops. They found Eelkens near Fort Orange, collecting a rich cargo of beaver skins, all of which they confiscated. The ship William was then escorted down to the Narrows and sent on her way with no cargo save ballast. This affair started up a fresh discussion between the English and Dutch governments, in which the old arguments were once more beaten threadbare. De Vries enjoys a high reputation for veracity, and his picture of the plethoric governor taking deep draughts of Dutch courage on the Bowling Green is surely quite comical. But when we remember that the English and Dutch governments were anxious to avoid a quarrel, the situation Thetrue loses much of its absurdity. Perhaps if De Vries expiana-had been the responsible magistrate, instead of a mere friendly adviser, he would have been less ready to fire upon the unwelcome vessel. And after all, when it came to deeds, the action of doubting Walter, though tardy, was quite to the point. However it might fare with the law and logic of such cases, one fact was growing painfully evident. The English were coming over to America much faster than the Dutch. On Chesapeake Bay it was understood that Lord Baltimore's long projected colony was just coming upon the a Dutch scene. Preparations were accordingly made for Jj^^f renovating Fort Nassau, and Arendt Corssen, crossing the Delaware River, bought of the Indians a tract

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130 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES of land on the Schuylkill, where a fort was afterwards erected, called Bevers reede, or " Beaver Road Fort." Thus we see the Dutch leaving a landmark upon Pennsylvania, as well as upon Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. In 1633 the last-named quarter was the one which excited Portentous most interest. The outlook in the direction of growth of Massachusetts Bay was truly portentous. For England some time after the coming of Peter Minuit, the little colonies at Manhattan and at Plymouth had kept about evenly balanced, each with about 300 inhabitants; but now within five years Winthrop's new colony had grown from nothing to 4000 souls, and was already rivalling Virginia. Englishmen were coming to Boston at the rate of 1000 a year and were beginning to push inland. Plainly no time was to be lost in securing the river which Adrian Block, its discoverer, had called the Fresh River of New Netherland, in contrast to the salt Hudson, but which was known to all the Algonquin tribes as Long River, or Connecticut. It will be remembered that in 1623, under Director May, the Dutch had begun to build Fort Good Hope, on the present site of Hartford, but had soon desisted. Their numbers were too small for the territory they wished to cover. But Mohegans in 1628 Indian affairs drew their attention east-necticu?on ward. The Mohegans of the upper Housatonic val-vaiiey jey Were driven from that region by the Mohawks; in the central hill country of Massachusetts their progress was blocked by the Nipmucks; so they moved down into the lower Connecticut valley, among their own kinsmen, whose chief sachem dwelt at Mattabeseck, on what is now known as Indian Hill, in the city of Middletown. The newcomers, under their sagamore, Sequeen, occupied the site of Wethersfield. Their coming led to complications with the Pequots of the Thames valley, the most powerful tribe in New England. After three defeats the Mohegans submitted to pay annual tribute to the Pequots, but at the same time they appealed to the Dutch for protection. Now the

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"PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS" 131 Dutch, as allies of the Mohawks, could hardly strike a blow in behalf of the Mohegans or furnish them with firearms, though they were otherwise ready to trade with them on most friendly terms. So in 1631 the Mohegans sent an envoy to Boston to seek English aid, but none was granted. In the summer of 1632 Dutch agents bought of the Mohegans large tracts of land on both sides of the river, and at its mouth, at a point which they named Kievit's Hook, after the little bird which we call Pewit, they nailed to a large tree the arms of the States General. In the next sum- ComPie-mer Van Twiller sent Jacob van Curler, who built tumof fort Good Hope Fort Good Hope with yellow brick from Holland and armed it with two cannon. The fort was finished early in June, 1633. While Captain De Vries was carrying the news of these proceedings to Holland, there was some excitement along the shores between Cape Cod and Cape Ann. The Plymouth people talked of taking up arms, and Winthrop sent an envoy from Boston to New Amsterdam, by way of Long Island Sound, to notify Van Twiller that the Connecticut River was within the dominions of the king of England. The Disputes envoy and his friends were treated with the great- *hN est cordiality, and after five weeks returned to Boston with a polite note from Van Twiller to Winthrop, suggesting that the English should defer their "pretence or claim " to Connecticut until the States General and the king of England should come to some agreement with regard to such matters. " In this part of the world," said Van Twiller, "are divers heathen lands that are empty of inhabitants, so that of a little part or portion thereof, there needs not any question." He therefore hoped that Christians might dwell there, like good neighbours, without bickering. He did not withdraw his garrison from Fort Good Hope, however; and the government of Plymouth decided to interfere, while Massachusetts remained quiescent, The action of Plymouth had unforeseen consequences. It seems that a small band of Indians probably a sept of

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132 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES Mohegans, had been expelled by the Pequots from their home Plymouth at the present site of Windsor, a few miles above connecti-he Fort Good HoPe- The Plymouth government cut River bought this land from the banished Indians and proposed to reinstate them. The frame of a blockhouse, all ready for raising, was packed on a barge, and in this craft Lieutenant William Holmes, with a party of Plymouth men and their cinnamon-skinned comrades, on a bright September day sailed up the Connecticut River. As they passed Fort Good Hope, the Dutch commander shouted to them to turn and go back, under penalty of a volley from the two cannon. Holmes replied that he was under orders from the governor of Plymouth, and should go on, volley or no volley. " So they passed along," says our chronicler, " and though the Dutch threatened them hard, yet they shot not." On reaching the site of Windsor they quickly put up their frame house and built a strong stockade around it. They were not long in hearing that their dealings with the banished Indians had given mortal offence to the Pequots. Yet the blow, when it came, did not fall upon these men of Plymouth, but upon another party of Englishmen ; and the whole story affords a good illustration of the difficulty of keeping clear from Indian complications. Early in the following January, as Captain Stone, a skipper from Virgina, was sailing up the Connecticut River with seven companions, on an errand to Fort Good Hope, he imprudently allowed a dozen Pequots to come on board his little vessel. At night, when Stone and his men, or most of Troubles t^ ' were asleep, these Indians murdered them with the alL Shortly afterward they surprised and slew sev-8(1110 eral of Sequeen's Indians at Wethersfield. Van Curler, the commander at Fort Good Hope, felt that it would not do to allow such things within his jurisdiction; so, catching some Pequots who were known to have had a hand in these murders, he had them hanged. The wrath of the powerful tribe was thus turned against the Dutch, but they deemed it wise to get the assistance of white men. So they

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'PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS' 133 sent emissaries to Boston, offering to cede more land on the Connecticut, to surrender the surviving Indians concerned in the Stone massacre, and to pay a handsome tribute in wampum beside, in exchange for English protection. These overtures led to the intervention of the Boston government to keep peace between the Pequots and Narragansetts, but otherwise nothing came of them, and the murderers of Stone were not surrendered. While these things were going on, Van Twiller sent a party of 70 men, in December, 1634, to drive the Plymouth men from their blockhouse at Windsor, but on reconnoitring 1 the situation and finding that the little garrison refused to budge, these humane and philosophic troopers returned to New Amsterdam, where doubtless a fresh cask was tapped for them, for such was the Doubter's way. The next year witnessed a further trial of his temper. Two English noblemen, Lord Saye and Lord Brooke, had in 1632 obtained a grant of the Connecticut River and lands adjacent. Now in November, 1635, the younger John Winthrop, acting under their orders, brought a party to Kievit's Hook, the name of which he changed to Point Saye-Brooke, after his pointSaye. two patrons. These Englishmen tore down the Brooke arms of the States General from the tree to which the Dutchman had fastened them, and nailed up in their place a board with a ludicrous and insulting picture. A Dutch sloop, sent from Manhattan to interrupt the pro- ceedings, arrived upon the scene ; but finding a couple of English cannon in possession, she quietly turned and retired up the Sound. Then Winthrop built a fort at Saybrook, by the hands of Lyon Gardiner, an accomplished engineer, who had formerly served in Holland under the Prince of Orange. The narratives of the time abound in ; 1

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134 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES 1 I such instances, which show the closeness and frequency of the intercourse between the two nations. Gardiner remained in command of Fort Saybrook, which practically cut off Fort Good Hope and isolated it from New Amsterdam, for overland communication through the primeval forest was full of difficulty and danger. But now this forlorn hope of eastern New Netherland was about to be not merely isolated, but in a measure overwhelmed in a new tide of English migration. The ing of Con- majority of the people in Cambridge, Watertown, and Dorchester disapproved of some theocratic features in the government of Massachusetts, and in particular of the restriction of the suffrage to church members. In 1636, under their great leader, Thomas Hooker, the Cambridge congregation came in a body through the wilderness to the fields which Fort Good Hope vainly as- t pired to command, " /ft/} ' and began building Hartford. So wholesale was the move that only eleven families were left in Cambridge, which, but for a new arrival from England, would have presented the appearance of a deserted village. In similar wise, the Dorchester congregation came to Windsor and quite swallowed up the little Plymouth settlement; and the Watertown congregation came to Wethersfield. The English population of 800 souls, thus suddenly brought into Connecticut, far outnumbered all the Dutch in New Netherland. Against such odds there was small hope of success, but the Dutch remained for some years unmolested at their Hartford fortress, for the English could well afford to disregard them. The ferocious Indian war that followed this migration hardly belongs to the history of New Netherland, except for The Pe- an incident which reflects great honour upon the quotwar Dutch governor and has been too little noticed. We may briefly recall to mind how certain Narragansetts murdered an English trader at Block Island, whereupon

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"PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS" 135 John Endicott came with three vessels and slew Indians and burned wigwams at Block Island, and then, coming over to the mainland, peremptorily demanded of the Pequots that they surrender to justice the Stone murderers, and getting only an evasive answer went on to shed Pequot blood and set fire to Pequot wigwams. How this grim Puritan thus came near uniting against the English the two most powerful tribes of New England, each numbering more than 1000 warriors; how the diplomacy of Roger Williams averted this serious danger and won over the Narragansetts; how the Pequots butchered English settlers until human nature could no longer bear it, and one terrific blow, such as Cromwell might have struck, removed that tribe from the face of the earth; all this is a familiar story. But what Van Twiller did is seldom mentioned. In the spring of 1637, shortly van Twii-before the final catastrophe, a band of Pequots J.^ss j^ 1' rushed into Wethersfield, killed nine men, and car- venti«"> ried two young women into captivity. On hearing the news, Van Twiller, without wasting a moment in doubting, sent a sloop to the Thames, with orders " to redeem the two English maids by what means soever," even though it should involve war with the Pequots. The sloop was stopped by the English at Fort Saybrook, but was allowed to go on when her captain made a written statement of his friendly purpose. On arriving in the Thames River, a large ransom was offered and rejected. Then the Dutch skipper succeeded in capturing half a dozen Pequot warriors for hostages; with these he effected an exchange, and with the two girls safe in his cabin went on his way rejoicing and delivered them to their mourning friends. Surely this rescue was a most neighbourly and Christian act on the part of Director Van Twiller. It lights up the commonplace figure of the puzzled Amsterdam clerk with a gleam of true chivalry; and when one thinks of it one is inclined to forgive him for many shortcomings. Though he had more than once sent home to Holland for permission to attack the English, though the latter indeed were dreading

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136 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES an assault from him in the midst of their troubles, yet when it came to leaving Christian women in the power of the barbarians, all quarrels of Dutch and English were for the moment set aside, and in the promptness with which he acted there was little to remind one of Walter the Doubter. With regard to his alleged pusillanimity in not attacking The reason tne English at Windsor and at Saybrook, as also in why there not firing upon the ship William at Manhattan, much bra- there has been much unjust criticism. The scenes so little' are so funny that they fail to get serious attention, fighting <pne Spectacie of a band of armed men marching up to a fortress and demanding its surrender, and then, when the demand is refused, marching meekly away, reminds one irresistibly of Dogberry: Dogb. You shall comprehend all vagrom men: you are to bid any man stand, in the Prince's name. 2 Watch. How, if a will not stand ? Dogb. Why then, take no note of him, but let him go; and presently call the rest of the Watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave. It is scenes like this that have aroused the humour of Irving and the contempt of many writers who have not paused to consider the very peculiar situation in which Van Twiller was placed. He was expected to assert the Dutch territorial claims as loudly as possible, but if he were to fire upon an English ship or an English fort, he would certainly incur the censure of the States General for such belligerent conduct. He asked for permission to use his own discretion as to bringing on a fight, but he never received such permission, and thus was always confronted with a dilemma ; which was a state of things well calculated to encourage the habit of doubting. The truth is that the Dutch and English people were quite friendly inclined to one another, and their governments were determined not to quarrel; sentiment and policy alike forbade it. At the same time their antagonism and rivalry in America was a geographical necessity, from which they could not escape. Under such circumstances

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"PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS" 137 the only available resource was a game of bluff, and such games are apt to have their ludicrous side. In making these remarks I am not at all concerned to defend Van Twiller, but only to do justice. Even small facts in history are worth the effort required to see them in then-true light, for the habit thus fostered is helpful when we come to deal with great facts. As for the Dutch governor, no literary legerdemain can ever make him a hero, or anything but a commonplace character, with some grave faults; as we shall see in the next chapter when we shall have done with his career and can see how it fared with New Nether-land under his successor. EARLIEST KNOWN FLAN OF NEW AMSTERDAM, ABOUT 164O

CHAPTER VI: KING LOG AND KING STORK 223 0138

CHAPTER VI KING LOG AND KING STORK I have sometimes wondered why we are inclined to associate something slightly comical with the names " Dutch " and " Dutchmen." That there is some such inclination is, I think, undeniable ; but the origin of it is not obvious. All Germans call themselves Dutch, while Dutchmen call them-Comicai selves by a territorial designation, as Hollanders or StouTthe Netherlanders; but when we call a German a Dutch-Dutch man we d0 it with a smile. It seems to be implied, though ever so slightly, that there is something funny in being a Dutchman. We cannot ascribe this feeling to the effect left upon our minds by Irving's humorous pictures of old dignitaries and his charming legends of the Hudson, for the feeling is older than Irving and gave him his clue for the Knickerbocker chronicles. I think it must be referred to the seventeenth century, that period of keen rivalry and occasional warfare between the English and their Nether-land cousins, when they were more in each other's minds than ever before or since. It is then that we begin to encounter such disparaging expressions as " Dutch comforters " for those who bid you thank God it's no worse, " Dutch bargains " where the wits are clouded with beer, " Dutch courage " such as comes from ardent spirits, or " Dutch defence " for a premature and cowardly surrender. Shakespeare never uses any of these phrases, and I have not found them in any of the Elizabethan playwriters, but they were in common use by the time of Charles II. Some of them are very silly, coming from people who had lately found in Dutchmen the toughest antagonists they had ever encountered. There is more savour of spleen than of wit in such phrases.

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KING LOG AND KING STORK 139 But besides this we must bear in mind that neighbouring or closely related communities are apt to make generalizations about one another that are either ill-natured or patronizing, and in either case convey some implication of superiority. With communities that are widely different there Silly gen. is less temptation to do this. The existence of eraiizations wide differences is taken for granted, and our own immeasurable superiority, on whichever side we may happen to be, goes without saying. When the differences are slight, self-flattery thrives by harping upon them, and sometimes leads to queer statements. For example, there is a kind of American humour to which Englishmen do not always quickly respond, and forthwith we hear it said that Englishmen have no sense of humour, a strange charge to bring against the countrymen of Dickens and Thackeray and Lewis Carroll! The Englishman sometimes brings the same charge against the countrymen of Scott and Burns! Every one has heard the famous remark of Sydney Smith, but the delicious reply of the great Scottish humourist, John Wilson, is not so generally known. Smith had said, " You cannot get jokes into a Scotchman's head without a surgical operation." " Ay, to be sure," retorted Wilson, " English jokes!" It was in the spirit here illustrated that ancient Athenian writers used to allude to their near neighbours, with such effect that the prevailing popular conception of Boeotians is that of a thick-witted people with small interest in art or literature. Yet from this people came Hesiod and The Athe-Pindar and Plutarch, with the painters, Nicomachus 3{«ap^ and Aristeides, and the general, statesman, orator, Boeotians and scholar, Epaminondas, in whom the moral grandeur of a Washington was united with the brilliant versatility of a Raleigh. In a learned monograph on the Boeotians, in which a modern Welsh scholar, Professor Rhys Roberts, shows how little there is to support the traditional view, there is a chapter on the Boeotians as the Dutchmen of Greece. The references there collected show that other Greeks regarded them as comfortable and easy-going people, fond of good dinners,

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140 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES and not averse to a social glass. The conception answers irving's verv closely to Irving's picture of the inhabitants of Kmcker- New Netherland. When his Knickerbocker was first published, in 1809, many people of Dutch descent in New York and Albany read it with fierce indignation. In certain quarters there was an attempt to frown the youthful author out of society. Nine years afterward, Mr. Gulian Verplanck, in an address before the New York Historical Society, called it a "coarse caricature." Irving might have replied that it was meant for caricature and is not coarse. One sometimes wonders what there can be in the climate of North America that makes its inhabitants so morbidly sensitive to banter. But the kindliness of Irving's humour, the total absence of malice, ended by winning all hearts ; and the name of Knickerbocker has come to be regarded almost as a title of nobility by the children of those whom it once so sorely offended. At the close of the preceding chapter we left Director Van Twiller in great and growing difficulties; on his Connecticut frontier. In the opposite direction there was further cause for anxiety. Lord Baltimore's people began coming to Maryland in 1634, and the next year a small party from Virginia Capture of came up the Delaware River and took possession English of Fort Nassau, which the Dutch had abandoned. intruders on the As soon as Van Twiller heard of this, he despatched Delaware & warsnip thither, which captured all the English and brought them to New Amsterdam. The question what should be done with them called for all the Doubter's powers of meditation; but Captain De Vries, who had stopped in the harbour on his way to Virginia, relieved his perplexity by carrying all the prisoners to Point Comfort There they found a second English ship just starting for Fort Nassau, but the return of this first company, with its tale of discomfiture, put an end to the enterprise. The history of Van Twiller's administration is in great part a monotonous record of such bickerings with the English. But this did not prevent very brisk commercial inter-

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A HISTORY

NEW. YORK. FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD TO THE ESD Of THE DUTCH JOtKASTY. Among many Surprising and Gflrioas Matter*, "..Panderings of Wiw** the Doubi-sb, the Disastrous '-'¦ Selects of Wii/tiAM THE Testy, and tlte- ChlvaWfc ¦..., A^uevwents of Pbtbb, tw ijEADSfaoHai'.-.thfe td'ree. Dutch Govwaoiftl of Ne%v Amstekoam; being the oniy nric Hi?lory of the Tijiies thai ever hath;be«n,, or evfi* be BY OIEDR1CH KNICKERBG Dc tot&ia Ut in miftv tag, ©<? tontt me? lto$j"t» <tatt sew D4§, i IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. BY SXSKEEP (J BHADFOaD, NEW STORK 3Y, BOSTON ; COAUE C1" THOMAS, Jl^ WILI.INGTOKt £3* CO. J8O9.

TITLE OF IRVING'S "KNICKERBOCKER"

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142 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES course. Salt and tobacco were carried in Dutch vessels from Manhattan to Boston and Salem, and horses and oxen of the finest breeds were brought over from Holland for use in New England. The voyage between Amsterdam and Boston usually took from five to six weeks. In the general increase of commercial activity which was due to the founding of so many English colonies, New Amsterdam had its share; and Growth *ts Pronts were enhanced by the prerogative known Amsterdam as "staP^e "&nt»" according to which all passing vessels must either stop and unload their cargoes to be sold on the spot, or else pay a duty for the privilege of passing. Quite a number of yellow brick houses were built, as also a wooden church and parsonage, a few shops, three windmills, and a brewery. Two houses were also built at Pavonia, on the Jersey shore, and nine at Fort Orange. Agriculture made some progress at Manhattan, and it is worthy of note that the first successful crop was tobacco. Of the Virginians who were taken prisoners at Fort Nassau, two or three found New Amsterdam so pleasant that they stayed there and introduced the culture of tobacco. It was not long before tobacco grown near the site of the present City Hall was exported in considerable quantities to Holland, where it brought nearly as good prices as tobacco from Virginia. Large estates were bought by Van Twiller and his friends, in the expectation of a rise of values. Among these was the little island in the bay, which the Indians called Pagganck, and the Dutch Nut Island, but which ever since Van Twiller's purchase has been known as Governor's Island. Other such estates were on Long Island, comprising the Van Twit present town of Flatlands. The Indian occupants °^ tnese lands were paid for them after the usual fashion, but in order to get a valid title under the West India Company's regulations, it was necessary that such purchases should be formally approved in the Amsterdam Chamber. Van Twiller foolishly disregarded this rule, and thus laid himself open to imputations of dishonest dealing, imputations that were damaging, even if not sustained

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KING LOG AND KING STORK 143 by adequate proofs. It was also observed that his farms prospered much better than those of the Company, and it was hinted that he took advantage of his position to secure for himself the best service that was to be had, without a proper regard for the interests of his employers. While he indulged in these irregularities, Van Twiller's arbitrary temper got him into many quarrels with merchants and skippers and magistrates, and presently with Dominie Bogardus, who once called him a "child of Satan" and threatened to preach him such a sermon next Sunday as would make him shake in his shoes! From such indications we may gather that the parson's gentleness was not precisely dove-like, and in fact he was said to be a sturdy guzzler, like the Director. According to De Vries the orgies at Manhattan were frequent and unseemly. In June, 1636, that excellent mariner, returning from Virginia, had his leaky ship hauled up and careened on the site of Maiden Lane for repairs. Van Twiller informed him that Cornelius van Voorst had just arrived as superintendent of Pauw's estate of Pavonia. Van Voorst had brought with him a few cases of prime claret, and so the Director, with De Vries and Bogardus, went over to pay their respects to him. The sequel suggests that the claret must have been followed by cognac or schnapps. The Director, the parson, and the superintendent got into a hot altercation over a murder lately committed in the neighbourhood ; but presently peace and good-will were restored. As the visitors were stepping down to their boats, Van Voorst gave them a parting salute with an old swivel which stood in front of his house, but bungled it in such a wise as to shower sparks on the roof, and in less than half an hour the building was reduced to ashes. A few weeks later, on a warm morning in August, as De Vries was about to weigh anchor for Holland, the constable of New Amsterdam gave him a farewell banquet, under a large open tent where the assembled company could look down upon the blue water and catch the salt breeze blowing over the bay. Wine flowed freely, and the hilarity

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144 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES was growing somewhat boisterous, when suddenly the trumpeter, Anthony van Corlear, blew a blast and made several persons jump. Thereupon the koopman of stores and the koopman of cargoes upbraided the trumpeter and called him by divers opprobrious names, until that doughty musician assaulted them both and thrashed them soundly. The koop-men, with aching sides, ran home to get their swords, vowing with mighty oaths that they would carve and eat Van Corlear ; but the pot-valiant threat was never fulfilled. Among the officers at New Amsterdam who disapproved of the Director's methods and manners was the schout-financial, or treasurer, Lubbertus Van Dincklagen, one of the ablest men in the Company's service. His criticisms How Van were so freely expressed that the angry Van Twiller removed*" dismissed him from office and sent him back to from office Holland. On the Director's part this was a rash proceeding, for Van Dincklagen immediately drew up a formal complaint against him and lodged it with the States General. It was a' moment of bitter discontent and disapproval of the course which things had taken in New Netherland. There was nothing there yet that could with confidence be called a permanent colony; there was only a considerable trading station, with a group of tiny settlements. Colonists would not come out in any number as tenants on the great manors, and the patroons, neglecting agriculture for the more lucrative fur trade, kept working at cross purposes with the Company. During the last five years the population of Manhattan had slightly diminished, while the neighbouring English colonies to the east and to the south were rapidly expanding and threatening to overwhelm it. Something must be done to mend fnatters, and first of all the competency of the government must be ensured. The States General instructed the Company that they must either refute the charges against Van Twiller or recall him. This was throwing the burden of proof upon the Company. They could not refute the charges, and accordingly Van Twiller was removed from office. He continued for some years to live in New Amster-

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KING LOG AND KING STORK dam, but played no important part there. We have the record of his death in Holland, early in 1657, but nothing is known of the circumstances of his return. The person appointed to succeed Van Twiller as Director ANTHONY VAN CORLEAR General was named William Kieft. He was appointed in September, 1637, and arrived at New Amsterdam Arrivalof in March, 1638. He was a very different sort of William person from his predecessor, and the change was like that from King Log to King Stork. Kieft was a man of restless activity. The picture of him given by Knicker-

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146 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES bocker is of course based upon fancy, but it gives a correct impression of his type of character; " a brisk, wiry, waspish little old gentleman," with sharp features, " cheeks scorched into a dusky red by two fiery little gray eyes; his nose turned up and the corners of his mouth turned down, pretty much like the muzzle of an irritable pug dog/* This Kieft seems to have had a good education, and is said to have been fond of interlarding his talk with scraps from Greek and Latin authors. As a merchant he had once been bankrupt, and his enemies accused him of crooked conduct on at least one occasion, when, as it was said, he had been entrusted with money for redeeming certain Christian captives from Turkish bondage, and had secreted part of it for his own use and behoof. Either the Company did not believe these charges, or perhaps they were willing to accept his energy as covering up a multitude of sins. Unfortunately they did not take sufficient pains to inquire into his character for prudence and tact; in these qualities he was wofully wanting. In coming to this new country Director Kieft knew that he would be held responsible for the government of his province, and therefore he wished to have absolute control, so Kieffs *ar as Poss'ble- Therefore, while he retained the method of advisory council, he reduced it to two persons, governing himself an(j one councillor. In this council of two the Director had two votes and the other man one, so that Kieft was practically an autocrat. The choice of a councillor, however, was a good one, Jean de la Montagne, a keen and forceful Huguenot physician. The only other officers of importance were the koopman, or commissary of the Company, and the schout, or treasurer and general executive

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KING LOG AND KING STORK 147 officer. Kieft's ordinary method of governing was to issue proclamations or edicts, and it was the business of the schout to see that they were duly enforced. On extraordinary occasions special councillors, usually some of the company's salaried servants, were added to the council, and Kieft followed their advice or not, just as he pleased Our petty autocrat found a sad state of things in New Netherland. We have seen how it was complained of Van Twiller that he devoted more thought to his own interests than to those of his employers, surely a grave offence in a governor. With the patroons, who were open to the same charge, the offence was perhaps somewhat more venial; but the bad example infected the whole trade in community. Illicit traffic in peltries was universal. p'^tma People visited the warehouses and bought for themselves the most valuable furs, until only the poorest ones were left to be shipped on account of the Company; and by this means not only were its receipts diminished, but its reputation suffered in the European market, and in the keen competition with Russian traders the Dutch found themselves losing ground. Accordingly one of Kieft's first acts was to issue a proclamation forbidding the Company's servants trading in peltries, under penalty of forfeiting their wages and all such claims as they might have against the Company. No person whatever was to engage in trade of any Kieft,s sort, within the limits of New Netherland, without a prodama-license. Any trader who could not show a license was to suffer confiscation of all his goods, and was liable to further punishment at the discretion of the Director. Communication between people ashore and ships in the bay was most jealously guarded, and no sailor was allowed to stay on shore after sundown without express permission, under penalty of forfeiting two months' wages for the first offence and instant dismissal without any pay for the second offence. Life and property were so insecure that it had been found necessary to modify the provision that capital punishment should not be inflicted in the colony. A gallows in Holland was too

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148 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES remote to inspire terror in evil-doers, and accordingly murderers were publicly executed at Manhattan. Kieft's earliest proclamations announced that no mercy would be shown to criminals. Penalties were fixed upon hard drinking. Any keeper of a tavern or alehouse who sold liquor to tipsy customers or allowed brawls upon his premises was liable to a fine of 25 guilders and the loss of all his stock. No doubt, if proclamations could reform society, the waspish and wiry little governor would have had the millennium in full operation in New Netherland within a twelvemonth. But one of the lessons which history inculcates with strongest and most reiterated emphasis is this: that by no conceivable ingenuity of legislation or vehemence of proclamation can you ever make a sound society out of unsound individuals. Now at the time of Kieft's arrival the small population of New Netherland was unquestionably tteNew poor in quality. That it did not represent the good poepuuuoniid people of Holland seems quite clear. In Holland, m Kieft's even m the humblest society, it was very unusual to find a person who could not read and write; and so it had been for more than a century at the time of which we are treating. But in Manhattan it was only a small minority of the population that could read or write.1 For the most part it was still a waterside population of sailors, wharf-keepers, and longshoremen, including a fair proportion of rough and shiftless characters. The thrifty and respectable people of Holland had not yet begun to come in any considerable numbers to the New World. And now the patroons came forward with a proposal which, had it been adopted, would have made matters jtill worse. They laid before the States General their so-called " New Project," concerning which it is not worth The propo- ' . , , sal of the our while here to notice more than one provision, pa roons gince the inducements Offered under the manorial system had not proved sufficient to draw free and thrifty yeomanry from Holland to America, the patroons requested 1 O'Callaghan, i. 187.

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KING LOG AND KING STORK 149 the States General to furnish them with white servile labour such as England was then sending to Virginia, convicts and vagabonds, outcasts and paupers, to serve under indentures for a term of years and then to receive their freedom. Fortunately this request was not granted, but recourse WILLIAM KIEFT INTRODUCING A NEW MODE OF PUNISHMENT FOR BEGGARS was had to far more wholesome measures. In September, 1638, after consultation with the States General, the West India Company issued a proclamation which marked the beginning of a new era. The previous monopolies, alike in trade and in agriculture, were renounced and abolished.

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150 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES The fur trade and the right to hold and cultivate land in Abolition *ree ^^^ proprietorship were thrown open to the of monopo- whole world. The same privileges in New Netherland were extended to foreigners as to Dutchmen, while all alike were subject to a few moderate regulations. The only monopoly retained by the Company was that of carrying the settlers with their merchandise and cattle, at a reasonable charge for the service rendered. At the same time the prohibition upon manufactures was removed. Besides this abandonment of monopoly, certain direct encouragements for immediate emigration were provided. A farmer who was willing to start at once for New Netherland was carried thither with his family without any charge; on his arrival he was furnished, for a term of six years, with a induce- fartn °f sucn s*ze as ^e could profitably cultivate, ments to together with a house and barn, four horses, four emigration cows, sundry sheep and swine, and the needful tools; for all of which he was to pay a yearly rent in money equivalent to about $200 of the present day, besides 80 pounds of butter. At the end of the six years he was to restore the equivalent of the live stock originally furnished, retaining for himself all the increase. Provisions were made for supplying clothes and other necessaries on credit, in certain cases, as well as loans of money. The effect of these measures was remarkable. Settlers of excellent quality began coming in considerable numbers, so that, for example, in the year 1639 the seven farms or bou-weries on Manhattan increased to more than thirty. Not Beneficial onty smgle families came, but large parties con-results ducted by men of substance. The first of these parties came with De Vries at Christmas, 1638, and began building houses on Staten Island. In the following June came Joachim Kuyter, of Darmstadt, and Cornelius Melyn, of Antwerp, whom we shall meet again in the course of our story. About the same time Antoine Jansen, a Huguenot, began the settlement at Gravesend. Englishmen came also. Some came from Virginia and engaged in planting

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KING LOG AND KING STORK 151 tobacco, or in raising orchards of peaches and cherries. Many also came from Massachusetts, where they were finding the rule of the theocracy oppressive. Englishmen, indeed, came in such numbers that, in view of possible complications with the English government, it was deemed wise to make sure of their being on the right side. An oath of allegiance to the States General, to the Prince of Orange, and to the Director of New Netherland was accordingly required of them. This question of allegiance having once been disposed of, no distinction whatever was made in New Netherland between Dutchmen and foreigners, but the same rights and privileges were enjoyed by all. Even now, however, the rate of increase was far from keeping pace with that of New England. The pursuit and slaughter of the wretched remnant of Pequots had just revealed to English eyes the rich and beautiful shores between Saybrook and Fairfield, when there came another great wave of migration from the mother country. Under the lead of Eaton and Davenport these people sailed from Bos- English set-ton to the place which the red men knew as Quin- t£££n£on nipiack, and which Adrian Block had baptized as land Sound Roodenberg, or Red Mount; there they founded the town and colony of New Haven in 1638. By June of the following year there were fifty houses at Stratford; Norwalk and Stamford had come into existence, and two houses marked the beginning of Greenwich, within thirty miles of New Amsterdam. This year 1639 witnessed that league of three river towns which began the organization of the state of Connecticut. Of these towns Hartford already had more than a hundred houses, with a spacious church. Fort Good Hope still existed on sufferance, though there were brawls between the garrison and the neighbouring farmers. It must be borne in mind that of the new settlements along the Sound, the towns of New Haven, Guil- The repnb. ford, Branford, Milford, and Stamford, together with '£a°fenNew Southold, on the opposite shore of Long Island, were about this time united into the federal republic of New

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152 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES Haven, the most theocratic and aristocratic of the New England colonies; while the intervening towns of Stratford, Fairfield, and Norwalk, whose settlers came chiefly through Hartford and Windsor, were joined to the comparatively liberal and democratic colony of Connecticut. The fort at Say-brook remained separate, and as for Greenwich, the Dutch laid hands upon it. Quite recently Jonas Bronck had reared an outpost for New Amsterdam in the region now known as Westchester County, where Bronx River still bears his name. Thoroughly alarmed at the solid and steady advance of the English settlers, Director Kieft lost no time in buying from the Indians the triangle between Norwalk and the site of Sing Sing. He then so far overawed the settlers of Greenwich as to make them acknowledge Dutch jurisdiction ; and thus the republic of New Haven and the countship of New Netherland actually touched one another. But the chief controversy was now concerned with Long Island. The Dutch already had settlements at Wallabout Long and Gravesend, and on the site of Flatlands, and island at Breuckelen, so called after a pretty village on the road between Amsterdam and Utrecht. Presently they acquired from the red men a title to all the territory now comprised within the counties of Kings and Queens. Until the arrival of the New Haven people the greater part of the island remained undisturbed in the hands of its aboriginal possessors ; but the Dutch had free access to its shores, and this was of great value to them. Those shores were a kind of primitive American mint. For ages untold the currency of the red men had been wampum, or strings of beads made Wampum from sea-shells. There were two sorts, the white as cun-ency beads made from a kind of periwinkle, and the black beads made from the clam. It had some of the features of a double standard, inasmuch as black wampum was worth about twice as much as white; but as no legal tender act obliged anybody to take the poorer coin for more than its intrinsic value, no confusion resulted. It was good currency, for it had an intrinsic value that was well understood and

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KING LOG AND KING STORK 153 remarkably steady so long as Indians continued to form an important portion of the trading world. For any material to be fit to serve as a currency three conditions are indispensable : 1. It must be an object of desire for its own sake, apart from its use as currency. 2. It must be difficult to obtain. 3. Its value must not be subject to fluctuations. Wampum satisfied these conditions. It was used for a number of purposes, and in particular was highly prized for personal adornment. In order to find it, one must go to its native coasts and gather the shells and prepare them, and the areas in which these shells occurred were limited. Since wampum thus cost labour it could easily serve as a measure of other labour. The amount of effort involved in getting a beaver skin could readily be estimated in terms of the effort involved in getting a fathom of beads. The relations between wampum and beaver were subject to but slight variation; immemorial custom, the net result of ages of barbaric experience, had determined them. As for gold and silver, the red men cared much less for them than for the venerated medium of traffic and diplomacy, the repository of tribal records, the coveted decoration alike for men and women. Throughout the seventeenth century wampum played almost as important a part in the northern colonies as tobacco played in Virginia, and as a medium of exchange it was far better than tobacco. It has been well said that " wampum was the magnet which drew the beaver out of interior forests;" * or in other words, it was for the white man a currency redeemable in those peltries which were wanted throughout the civilized world. Now the shores of Long Island abounded in the shells of which wampum is made, and the Indians upon those The shores were the chief manufacturers of wampum on the whole Atlantic coast. The Pequots in swarms of Long of canoes used to cross the Sound and make raids upon this convenient mint; and when the dreaded Mohawk came down the River of the Mountains, collecting tribute from all the Algonquin tribes, it is said that he would now 1 Weeden, Economic History of New England, 1. 39.

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154 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES and then prolong his journey and levy blackmail upon the primeval treasuries of Great South and Shinnecock bays. Here Indians were wont to throng, and one of the many earmarks of truth in Verrazano's narrative is his notice of the fact. The presence of this treasure, at the very doors of the Dutch, had given them great advantages in trading with the Indians. They were the first to perceive the economic significance of these wampum shores, and it was now with great disgust that they witnessed the approach of the English. In 1635 the Earl of Stirling obtained a grant of Long Island, and soon afterward proceeded to dispose of portions of its territory. In 1639 Lyon Gardiner bought Gardiner's Island, The Eng- and in the following year a party from Lynn ad-Long"1 vanced as far as Cow Bay in Queens County, bland There they tore down the arms of the States General and carved a fool's head on the tree to which they had been hung. These invaders were presently driven away by Kieft's orders, and then retreated to the eastern part of the island, and on its south shore built Southampton. The founding of Southold, on the north shore, by the New Haven people, came at the same time. The policy of Director Kieft, however, was destined to do more to shake the hold of the Dutch upon Long Island than all these aggressive advances of their rivals. The circumstances of New Amsterdam were such as to call for sagacity and tact on the part of the government in dealing with the Indians of the neighbourhood; but Kieft had neither tact nor sagacity in such matters. In explaining the case, it must be remembered that all the Indians upon the lower Hudson and on both sides of it, all the way from the Delaware River to the Connecticut and far beyond, belonged to the Algon-TheAigon- quin family. Under various local names, such as quin tribes Raritans, Manhattans, Weckquaesgecks, Tappans, etc.,^^ most of those with whom our story deals were either members or detached fragments of the widespread and extremely loose Algonquin confederacy known as Delawares

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KING LOG AND KING STORK 155 or Lenni-Lenapd All had suffered unspeakable humiliation at the hands of the terrible Iroquois, to whom they were now compelled to pay tribute. No enmity known to history was ever more deadly than that between Algonquin and Iroquois. Now the Dutch had from the first entered into a treaty of friendship with the Iroquois, and such a fact was of itself calculated to discredit them with their Algonquin neighbours. Nevertheless the Dutch had hitherto contrived to keep on very pleasant terms with these also. Minuit and Van Twil-ler had treated them well, and the influences of De Vries upon them was always excellent. But under Kieft the increase of farming population began to cause inconvenience to the red men ; they complained bitterly that stray cattle spoiled their unfenced fields of growing corn, and sometimes they protected their crops by killing the cattle, which led to reprisals. But far more serious trouble came indirectly from supplying the Iroquois with firearms. A rule of the West India Company, approved by the States General, forbade the selling of such weapons to any Indians whatever, under penalty of death. Now the government at Manhattan rigorously enforced this prohibition in the neighbourhood, but with regard to the distant Iroquois the enforcement was comparatively lax. When a Mohawk was glad to give twenty beaver skins for a musket, he was pretty arms to the sure to get it; and as the Iroquois had great wealth roquois of furs at their disposal, no other red men enjoyed such facilities for acquiring firearms. The effects of this were prodigious. Already the superior organization of the confederated Iroquois tribes had made them invincible; now, armed with the white man's weapons, they became irresistible. In the next half century they reduced to a tributary condition nearly all the northwestern tribes as far as the Mississippi River. Now when the Algonquins around Manhattan found that the Dutch would sell firearms to the Iroquois but not to themselves, they were not only offended but alarmed; for

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156 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES how could such a preference for their deadly enemies for-bode anything but mischief? At this juncture the unhappy Kieft un- Kief t ventured upon what seemed to him a brilliant T stroke of policy. He was spending a good deal of money in repairing Fort Amsterdam and other works which he said were a protection to the Indians as well as to the white men; therefore they must be made to pay their share for such protection, they must be taxed! Accordingly he sent his collectors to the Tappans, demanding corn, furs, and wampum. The Indians were sarcastic ; surely, they said, the white sachem at Fort Amsterdam must be a mean fellow to ask them to give him their property for nothing. Protection, indeed! his fort was no protection to them. They had not asked him to build it, and were not going to help maintain it. While these things were going on new settlements were springing up around Manhattan. Cornelius Melyn and his people occupied portions of Staten Island, where the little colony of De Vries was flourishing. That able patroon also began a new colony, called Vriesendael, on land which he had bought from the Indians at Tappan. In 1641 another settlement was made at Hackensack. And now came an explosion. Theft and Some wretches in the Company's service, on their murder way to the South River, landed on Staten Island and stole some pigs belonging to De Vries. The offence was charged upon the Raritans, and Kieft, without investigation, sent out a party of fifty men who slew several of those Indians and burned their crops. In revenge the Raritans swooped upon De Vries's plantation and destroyed it, and massacred his people. Then Kieft issued a proclamation offering a bounty of ten fathoms of wampum to every one who should bring in a Raritan's head. It was thus already a very pretty quarrel when a further complication arose. Fifteen years before, while Minuit was building Fort Amsterdam, an Indian of the Weckquaesgeck tribe, at Yonkers, came down to Manhattan with furs to sell, and was foully waylaid and murdered by white men. His

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KING LOG AND KING STORK I57 little nephew, who witnessed the deed, silently vowed revenge. On a summer day of 1641 this nephew, grown to manhood, stopped at the lonely house of one Claes Smit, a wheelwright, on the East River, near the site of Murder of Forty-fifth Street. He wanted to buy a piece of CUes Smit coarse cloth known as duffels, and when the unsuspecting Dutchman turned to get it, the Indian seized an axe and beat his brains out. As soon as this was known, Kieft sent up to Yonkers and demanded the murderer, but the Weck-quaesgeck sachem refused to give him up. He had only been doing a sum in Indian arithmetic, just balancing a little account; why should he be given up ? And now there came up the situation which has so often recurred in the history of despotism. A war is expensive, and when the ruler would undertake it he must sometimes consult his people, no matter how disagreeable such a step may be. Kieft therefore reluctantly convened an assembly of heads of families, ta consider the question of peace or war. " In case the Indians persist in refusing to surrender this murderer, is it not proper to destroy their whole village ? and if so, when and how shall this Twelve best be done ? " The assembly chose a board of en Twelve Men, with De Vries for chairman, to consider these questions. The board, after deliberation, agreed that the surrender of the murderer must be insisted on, but they would not consent to a war at present because the necessary preparations had not been made. To this decision Kieft, though chafing, felt it prudent to yield. In the following winter, as no reparation had been made for the murder, the Twelve Men promised to support the Director in his war measures, in return for a redress of grievances. We have seen how ingeniously Kieft had constructed his council, with only one member besides himself. When sometimes for the sake of appearances he had thought fit to enlarge it, he had been wont to call to it not the most able and upright men of the colony, in whom the settlers would be sure to have confidence, but only the inferior agents of the Com-

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158 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES pany "common folk" who were dependent upon him for their salaries, and were accordingly afraid to oppose his wishes. The Twelve Men now demanded that the council Reforms should hereafter be composed of not less than five proposed members, of whom four should be chosen by a popular vote, and that the " common folk " of the Company should no longer be admitted to seats in the council. In return for this and some other concessions of less importance, the Twelve Men gave their consent to an expedition against the Weckquaesgecks. This reform would have gone far toward limiting the Director's absolutism in future, and in the emergency Kieft's behaviour was that of the typical despot. He began by denying the competency of the Twelve Men to undertake to bind him by any such agreement; next he promised, though in a sulky and gingerly fashion, to grant the demands of this tiny parliament; finally, he dissolved it and forgot all about his promise. He did not forget, however, to proclaim that no public meetings should be held in New Amsterdam without his express permission. The first expedition into Westchester County was a ridiculous fiasco ; it served to scare the Indians into promising to give up Smit's murderer, but the promise was not kept. There was a moment's respite, during which more outlying and exposed settlements were made, chiefly by English people who found Massachusetts an uncomfortable place for free English thinkers. One was Rev. Francis Doughty, who, settlers while preaching at Cohasset, was dragged from his pulpit and thrust out of doors for saying that "Abraham's children ought to have been baptized." Doughty brought a party of adherents with him, and received a tract of 13,000 acres on Long Island. Another of these heretics was John Throgmorton, who settled with 35 English families on the peninsula now known as Throg's Neck, opposite Flushing. A third was the celebrated Anne Hutchinson, who came with her large family to Pelham Neck, the next peninsula east of Throg's Neck. So many English had now come to New Netherland that it was found necessary to have an Eng-

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KING LOG AND KING STORK 159 lish secretary as one of the permanent colonial officials ; and so many coasting vessels stopped at Manhattan that a large stone tavern was built on Pearl Street, fronting on the East River. The next thing we need, said De Vries, is a respectable church, and he subscribed 100 guilders toward it. A few days afterward the daughter of Dominie Bo-gardus was married, and at the wedding breakfast, gardus after wine had circulated pretty freely, Kieft passed wedding around a paper and got it covered with such generous subscriptions that the morrow dawned upon some repentant souls. The church was built of stone within the enclosure of Fort Amsterdam. While this church was building, on an evening of January, 1643, De Vries, with his musket shouldered, was walking from Vriesendael toward the new settlement at Hackensack, when he met a drunken Indian. Some at Hacken-people at Hackensack had plied him with brandy and then had stolen his coat; he was going for his bow and arrows in order to square accounts by killing somebody. De Vries tried in vain to soothe him, and when he arrived at Hackensack he warned the people to be on their guard. But next day one of the settlers who was thatching the roof of a house was slain by an arrow shot by this revengeful Indian. Then the chiefs of the murderer's tribe were seized with fear. They durst not for their lives go near Kieft, but they hastened to De Vries at Vriesendael and sought his advice and aid. They were willing to pay a liberal weregild, 200 fathoms of wampum, to the murdered man's widow, and thought that any reasonable person ought to be satisfied with this. De Vries went with them to Fort Amsterdam, but Kieft would hear of nothing but the surrender of the

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l6o THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES murderer. But the chiefs said he had fled up the river to the Haverstraws, and thereupon Kieft sent to Pacham, the wily chief of the Haverstraws, a peremptory demand for his surrender. February arrived, and Pacham had not obeyed, when suddenly a force of 90 Mohawks, every one of them armed with a musket, came down to gather tribute from the river Arrival of tribes. These human tigers were not particular as ^ to k°w many of their tributaries they might hap- pen to kill. Thus they drove before them several hundred terror-stricken fugitives, who swarmed into Vriesen-dael and begged the patroon for aid against their tyrants. De Vries explained that the Dutch were bound by treaty with the Iroquois and could not interfere between them and Algonquins, but he would give the refugees such shelter as he could. Hour by hour the stampede of river Indians increased till there were more than 1000 encamped by the oyster banks at Pavonia, while another force crossed to Manhattan and occupied the fields near Corlear's Hook, on the East River, not far from the site of Grand Street Ferry. Now the wise De Vries saw that the moment had come when a courteous and pacific intervention might call off the Mohawks without offending them, and also win the gratitude of the persecuted Algonquins. To such diplomacy he was doubtless equaL But the short-sighted and waspish Kieft saw nothing but the chance for striking a blow at the Algonquins who had put themselves within his reach without ever having given up the assassins of Smit and the roofer at Hackensack. His views were upheld by a hot-headed creature named Adriansen; and in spite of the passionate protests of De Vries, of Dr. La Montagne, and of Dominie Bogardus, the infatuated Director proceeded to strike his blow. It was a base and cruel affair. At midnight of Feb-Massacres ruary 25, Sergeant Rodolf with a party of soldiers of Indians ,-ughed mto tjje sleeping encampment at Pavonia and massacred 80 Indians, while Adriansen in similar wise murdered 40 more at Corlear's Hook. In the morning, the

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KING LOG AND KING STORK 161 soldiers marched exultingly back to Fort Amsterdam bringing many severed heads of their victims. Kieft called it a truly Roman achievement. It seemed as if madness lurked in the very air and infected those who breathed it. The Marechkawiecks of Breuckelen were a strong tribe and had never offended the Dutch, but in the general fury some settlers of Flatlands attacked a party of them without provocation, slew three or four warriors, and carried off two wagon-loads of their corn. The results of this insane conduct were appalling. Eleven Algonquin tribes at once took up the hatchet, and on every trail between the Raritan River and the Housa- General tonic was repeated the direful spectacle of burning Aig"n-°f homesteads and mangled corpses. Even Vriesen- <iuins dael was attacked; the cattle, crops, and outhouses were destroyed, and the settlers were besieged in the stout manor-house ; but at this stage something happened worth noting. An Indian arriving upon the scene spoke in praise of De Vries and expostulated with the besiegers, whereupon they all desisted and went away, declaring their regrets for the slaughtered cattle, and leaving even the brewery undisturbed, much as they craved its copper kettle to make arrow-heads. Popular indignation waxed strong against Kieft, and there was some talk of nutting him on a ship and sending him back to Holland. His alarm revealed the meanness of his spirit, as he tried to throw the blame upon his advisers, and especially upon Adriansen. This man's farm had just been destroyed by the Indians, and his temper was ugly. Hearing what had been said, Adriansen seized pis- ua"e tol and cutlass and with half a dozen comrades rushed into the Director's room, called him a liar, and was just pulling trigger when Kieft's servants grappled with him. One of his comrades fired at Kieft and missed, whereupon he was instantly shot and his head mounted on the public gallows. After some weeks of such anarchy and distress, the efforts of De Vries secured a peace, first with the Long Island

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162 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES tribes, and afterwards with the tribes along the North River. But the respite was of short duration. Pacham, the crafty chief of the Haverstraws, believed it possible to exterminate the white men, and at his instigation the war was renewed in August by attacking a boat on its way down from Fort Orange with 400 beaver skins. In September a party More of Weckquaesgecks destroyed Mrs. Hutchinson's massacres homestead and murdered that lady with all her household except a little eight-year-old granddaughter, who was carried into captivity. Throgmorton's settlement was the next to be destroyed, and then Doughty's; and so everything on Long Island was overwhelmed, save at Gravesend, where Lady Moody, an Anabaptist from Salem, with her forty brave colonists, repulsed the barbarians. Before the end of October nothing was to be seen at Hackensack and Pavonia but smoking ruins, while on Manhattan itself, from the site of Canal Street up to Harlem River, no more than Departure five or six bouweries remained. At this time New ofDeVries Netherland lost its ablest citizen; circumstances obliged De Vries to return to Holland. He left in gloom and bitterness, declaring that God would avenge upon the Director's own head the shedding of so much innocent blood. But while the province lost this excellent patroon, who ought for all these years to have been its Director instead of such men as Van Twiller and Kieft, she received compensa-John tion in the shape of an eminently skilful and ac-UnderhUi complished soldier. Captain John Underhill, who divided with John Mason the laurels of the Pequot War, had in his versatile capacity of swashbuckler, heretic, and gay Lothario, found Boston an uncomfortable home. After trying his fortune in the Piscataqua country, and then at Stamford, he came at this most critical moment and gave the tot-tering colony of New Netherland the benefit of his military skill and experience. Perhaps it would not be extravagant to call him the saviour of New Netherland. Things had reached a point where the civilized methods of De Vries were of no more avail. An annihilating blow was needed, and

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KING LOG AND KING STORK 163 Underhill was the man for such work. His crowning exploit was almost an exact repetition of the storming of the Pequot village, except for the absence of the element of surprise. The Indians had a very strong palisaded village in the rugged mountain country north of Stamford, and there in March, 1644, more than 700 warriors were congregated. Underhill came from Manhattan, with 150 Dutch soldiers, in three yachts, and landed at Greenwich, whence a long day's march took them to the mountain. There was a full moon, as on the Pequot night, and the white snow made it like Destruc-day, when at midnight they rushed upon the strong- Algonquin hold. The Indians were keeping a vigilant watch, stronghold but fared no better thaif the Pequots. Before daybreak all was over. The village was in ashes, eight Indians had escaped and seven hundred corpses lay reddening the snow, while the Dutch had lost but fifteen men. The immediate result of this appalling blow was the breaking up of the formidable league of tribes against the Dutch. By the middle of April the tribes of Long Island and Westchester sued for peace, and before the close of the summer every tomahawk was quiet. Thus ended a war which endangered the very existence of New Nether-land, and was fraught with manifold consequences the consideration of which must be deferred to the next chapter.

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CHAPTER VII a soldier's paternal rule The terrible Indian war of 1641-45, which threatened to terminate the existence of New Netherland, was complicated with sundry political questions. We have seen how at the outset Director Kieft was obliged to call a meeting of the people, and how this primary assembly elected a representative board of Twelve Men, to consider the Director's policy and proposals. We have seen how this board authorized the raising of money for war expenses, and was dissolved, after having wrung from the Director certain promises that were never kept. In the summer of 1643, after the renewal of hostilities by the Haverstraws, the desperate nature of the crisis compelled Kieft again to call a meeting of the people. The Eight ^his time a board of Eight Men was chosen. Five Men were Dutchmen, of whose names that of Cornelius Melyn, the patroon of Staten Island, is best remembered; one was a German Joachim Kuyter, from Darmstadt; and two were Englishmen, one of whom, Isaac Allerton, was one of the Mayflower Pilgrims ; in 1638 he had removed to New n^-A ^ Amsterdam, and was one of the most prosperous merchants in th&town. The other Englishman, Thomas Hall, was from Virginia. In the spring of 1644, soon after Underbill's wholesale slaughter of Indians near Stamford, this board of Eight Men was confronted with, the problem of raising money under difficulties. The provincial treasury was empty, all business was at a standstill, and most of the farms were de-

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A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE 165 strayed, so that voluntary contributions were not forthcoming. The stone church, begun in 1642, was not yet finished, for part of the money subscribed had to be used for war purposes. Nor could any help be had from the West India Company, for recent operations in Brazil had made 'it well-nigh bankrupt. A bill of exchange, which Kieft had drawn upon the Amsterdam Chamber, actually came back protested for want of funds. Some money could be had from time to time by cruising in the West Indies and capturing Spanish ships, but this was too irregular to be relied on, and necessities were pressing. There was a strong stockade to be built across the Island at the place where it afterwards gave its name to Wall Street. There were also soldiers to be hired and maintained. A company of 130, withdrawn from Brazil, had landed at Curac.oa, and were promptly sent by Peter Stuyvesant, the governor of that island, to New Amsterdam. These soldiers were quartered on the citizens of Manhattan; it was understood that the cost of their board would be defrayed by the Company when its fortunes should be mended; meanwhile it had neither suitable clothes for them nor money to pay their wages. Kieft therefore proclaimed that brewers should make an exact return of the quantity of beer they might brew, and should pay an excise of three guilders on every tun. Kieft's In modern money this would be equivalent to rather exclse less than four fifths of a cent per gallon. Besides this an excise was imposed upon wines and spirits at the rate of four stivers or forty cents per quart; and likewise upon every beaver skin one guilder, or two dollars. Such were war taxes in 1644.1 Now in issuing this proclamation Kieft acted in flat opposition to the Eight Men who had been chosen as his advisers. They argued that imposing taxes was an attribute of sovereignty which the West India Company had never delegated 1 It will be remembered that the value of gold was then five times as great as now, so that in reading of a pound sterling in the days of Charles I. we must think not of $5 but of $25.

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166 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES to its agent, the Director of New Netherland; moreover, it , , was the business of the Company, not of the set- Protestof . . , ,. . the Eight tiers, to hire and equip soldiers, since the Company 611 had expressly guaranteed military protection to the colony; besides, the settlers were ruined and could not pay taxes. If ready money must be had, why not clap a heavy tax upon sundry traders and speculators who somehow contrived always to amass wealth even while everybody else was on the road to the poorhouse. We can seem to see the wicked smile which puckered the Director's weazened face as he exclaimed, " In this country I am my own master and may do as I please; for I have my commission, not from the Company, but from the States General." A specimen of Kieft's official courtesy lights up the sober pages of the Dutch colonial documents. His arbitrary proclamation was received by the people with murmurs and growls, whereupon he sent for three of his board Kuyter, Melyn, and Hall to come next morning at eight o'clock and confer with him as to the best means of allaying the popular discontent. Apparently, however, he had not the Kieft's matter very closely at heart, for he was up with rudeness the dawn and off somewhere on other business, while the three gentlemen duly arrived at his office at eight and sat there unheeded till past noon, when they went off to their dinners "as wise as they came." Then the brewers refused to pay their tax of three guilders, and the question was carried into court, or, in other words, before Kieft himself and his subservient council, who speedily gave judgment against the men of malt, and punished their contumacy by confiscating sundry casks of beer and handing them over to the thirsty soldiers. After six months of such wrangling, while the embers of the Indian war still smouldered, the Eight Men could bear Petition of *' no l°n&er> an^ tney addressed an eloquent letter the Eight to the States General: " Our fields lie fallow and m waste; our dwellings and other buildings are burned; not a handful can be either planted or sown this autumn

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A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE 167 on the deserted places; the crops which God permitted to come forth during the past summer remain on the fields standing and rotting; ... we have no means to provide necessaries for wives or children ; and we sit here amid thousands of barbarians, from whom we find neither peace nor mercy. . . . There are among us those who ... for many long years have endeavoured at great expense to improve their lands and villages; others, with their private capital, have equipped with all necessaries their own ships; some, again, have come hither with ships independent of the Company, freighted with a large quantity of cattle, and with a number of families; who have erected handsome buildings on the spots selected for their people, cleared away the for-est, enclosed their plantations and brought them under the plough, so as to be an ornament to the country and a profit to the proprietors, after their long laborious toil. The whole of these now lie in ashes through a foolish hankering after war. For all right-thinking men here know that these Indians have lived as lambs among us, until a few years ago. . . . These hath the Director, by various uncalled-for proceedings, so embittered against the Netherlands nation, that we do not believe that anything will bring them and peace back, unless the Lord, who bends all men's hearts to his will, should propitiate them." The memorial goes on to give an account of the origin and progress of the war, and of the Director's methods of government; and it warns the States General against putting their trust in an elaborate report which Kieft had himself sent over to the Hague. " If we are correctly informed by those who have seen it," says the memorial, " it contains as many lies as lines." Then the Eight Men conclude their petition as follows: " Honoured Lords, this is what we have, in the sorrow of our hearts, to complain of: that one man who has been sent out, sworn and instructed by his lords and masters, to whom he is responsible, should dispose here of our lives and property according to his will and pleasure, in a manner so arbitrary that a king would not be suffered legally to do. We shall end here, and

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168 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES commit the matter wholly to our God, who, we pray and heartily trust, will move your Lordships's minds and bless your Lordships's deliberations, so that one of these two things may happen either that a Governor may be speedily sent with a beloved peace to us, or that their Honours L e. the Company will be pleased to permit us to return, with wives and children, to our dear Fatherland. For it is impossible ever to settle this country until a different system be intro-Request duced nere» and a new Governor be sent out with forseif-gov- more people, who shall settle themselves in suitable places, one near the other, in form of villages and hamlets, and elect from among themselves a bailiff, or schout, and schepens, who shall be empowered to send deputies to vote on public affairs with the Director and Council; so that hereafter the Country may not be again brought into similar danger." This petition thus asked for a new governor and for some limitation of his power by representatives of the people. The first part of the request was promptly granted. It was decided that the government of New Netherland should be vested in a Supreme Council of three persons, the Director General, a Vice Director, and a Fiscal, or Treasurer. After some changes of plan, the person selected for Director General was Peter Stuyvesant, lately governor of the island of Peterstuy- Curacjoa. Having lost a leg in a fight with the Por-vesant tuguese at San Martin, he returned to Holland in the autumn of 1644, and was appointed in May, 1645, to replace Kieft in the government of New Netherland. Various causes, however, delayed the Company in completing its preparations and instructions, so that it was only after the lapse of two years, in May, 1647, that Stuyvesant arrived at Manhattan. Meanwhile, in the summer of 1645, a solid peace was made with the Algonquin tribes. The terrific blow struck by Un-derhill in the preceding year had put an end to anything" like concerted action among the tribes, and some had hastened to make terms for themselves, while others had kept up a

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A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE 169 vexatious desultory warfare. By this time all had come to realize that, since every white man's scalp cost sev- Treaty eral Indian lives, fighting was too expensive a lux- Algonquin ury. On the 30th of August there was a concourse tribes of citizens in front of Fort Amsterdam, their sober doublets and dark peaked hats contrasting strongly with the particoloured blankets, the scarlet feathers, and shining bead-work of the cinnamon-hued sachems of Weckquaesgecks and Sing Sings, Tappans and Haverstraws, Hackensacks and Marechkawiecks, Wappinecks and Raritans, with other Algonquins who had come to smoke the pipe of peace. In a group by themselves sat the Mohawk envoys, who represented the great Iroquois league, the friends of the Dutch and overlords of the Algonquins, upon whom their small eyes glowered in a Satanic ecstasy of contempt. Pipes were smoked and belts of wampum passed. The articles of the treaty were read and received with acquiescent grunts. One of them prescribed that in case of any injury done to an Indian by a white man, the proper remedy was not to murder white men, but to make complaint to the Director at New Amsterdam ; and similarly, in case of damage done by Indians, the Dutch were to complain to his sachem. Various provisions were made for avoiding quarrels, and by a special article the Indians bound themselves to restore the captive granddaughter of Anne Hutchinson. This promise was fulfilled, and it is said that the little girl, now eleven years old, could speak Algonquin much better than English and was unwilling to come back to civilized life. The return of peace did not regain for Kieft whatever popularity he may once have had. The news that he had been superseded was hailed with general rejoicing. It is SEAL OF PETER STUYVESANT

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170 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES said that more than one citizen threatened to give him a flogging as soon as he should have taken off the livery with which his masters had bedecked him. Such allusions to Kieft as a public servant were sure to throw him into a rage; he called it seditious talk, and punished it with fine and imprisonment. He would allow no appeal from his own decisions to Holland, and on this point many sturdy citizens Kieft and assailed him. Dominie Bogardus thundered at Bogardus hjjn from the pulpit; " What are the great men of this country but vessels of wrath and fountains of woe and trouble ? They think of nothing but to plunder the property of others, to dismiss, to banish, to transport to Holland 1" When it came to this pass, the wrathful Director tried to out-thunder the man of God. He kept a squad of soldiers waiting just outside the church, and when the parson ventured upon any such invective, a deafening roll of drums would respond ; then the voice of Bogardus would wax louder and his words more defiant, and the roar of cannon from the fort would reinforce the rattle, but in vain; the stentorian Dominie could neither be silenced nor browbeaten. Kieft therefore had recourse to legal proceedings, and summoned Bogardus before the court to answer a list of accusations, with a preamble, of which the following extract is a specimen : " You have no less indulged in scattering abuse during our administration. Scarcely a person in the entire land have you spared, not even your own wife and your sister; especially when you were in good company and tipsy. Still mixing up your human passion with the chain of truth, you associated with the greatest criminals of the country, taking their part and defending them," and so on. This last allusion is explained by a clause of the indictment, which charges the Dominie with upholding Adriansen after his attempt to assassinate the Director. The arraignment is a long one, but reduces itself to this, that Bogardus is an ill-mannered drunkard, who stirs up the people to sedition. When this document was served upon the fiery parson, he refused to appear and plead to it, declaring that the Director had no legal

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A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE 171 right to summon him, and here the matter stayed. In spite of endless discussion the Dominie held his ground. He was not only a much stronger character than Kieft, but he likewise had the people on his side; so he naturally prevailed, and the mortified director had to submit. Of the marriage of Bogardus to the pretty and wealthy widow, Anneke Jans, and the century of litigation over the title to her farm, we shall have occasion to speak hereafter.1 At length, in May, 1647, Peter Stuyvesant arrived, and the glee of the people sought expression in such Arrival of profuse military salutes that nearly all the powder stuyvesant in the fort was used up. Stuyvesant's speech was brief and to the point, but it was not exactly that of a ruler who meant to be guided by public opinion rather than his own. " I shall govern you as a father his children, for the advantage of the chartered West India Company, and these burghers, and this land;" in these words he summed up his view of the situation, and he summed it up correctly. In his mind the contrast between bad and good government was not the contrast between paternal and popular government, for the latter he would have ruled out as mere idiocy; it was the contrast between selfish and unselfish paternal government. If his rule was to be better than Van Twiller's and Kieft's, it was because God had given him more honesty or more sense, or both. But he had no notion of resigning any of a ruler's prerogatives. He was first and always a man of masterful personality. There is something curious about this man's family name. When Diedrich Knickerbocker tells us that Twiller is a corruption of Twijfler, or " Doubter," he is of course simply laughing with us. But in all seriousness the name Stuyvesant is a compound of stuyven, to stir up, with sand. It seems to have been originally the name of a breezy locality on the shore of the Zuyder Zee, where the sand blew about pretty freely ; and nothing is more common than the adoption of a place-name for a family-name, as Bolton, Greenfield, * See below, vol. ii. pp. 250, 251.

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172 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES or Frothingham. But if we were inclined, like Knickerbocker, to a little harmless jesting, we might interpret Stuy-vesant, not without some show of propriety, as he who kicks up a dust. Peter Stuyvesant, son of Rev. Baltha- zar Stuyvesant, was born in 1592. He had a col- jege eciUoation, and always prided himself on his attainments in Latin. After leaving college he entered the army, but very few details of his life are known until we find him, as governor of Curagoa, losing a leg in battle. He married Judith Bayard, granddaughter of Nicholas Bayard, a French Protestant clergyman who fled to the Netherlands in 1572, after the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Tradition connects him with the family of Bayard, the knight without fear and without reproach. Judith Bayard's brother Samuel married Peter Stuyvesant's sister, and their sons, Nicholas, Balthazar, and Peter, were the progenitors of the Bayards in America. The ship which brought Director Stuyvesant to Manhattan brought also his wife and sister and these three nephews. We are not obliged to draw upon the worshipful Knickerbocker's imagination for a picture of Peter, for among the collections of the New York Historical Society there is a fine portrait of him painted from life, and probably in Holland shortly before his coming to New Netherland, for the face His char- *s tnat °^ a man rather more than fifty years old. It acter is a strong face, such as might have belonged to one of Cromwell's sturdiest Ironsides. "A valiant, weather-beaten, mettlesome, obstinate, leathern-sided, lion-hearted, generous-spirited old governor," such are the epithets applied to him by the admiring but judicious Knickerbocker. Years of military service had made him a rigid disciplinarian, and in public places there was much less of the suaviter in modo to be seen about him than of the fortiter in re. Interference and meddling, or what he chose to call so, had short shrift at his hands. On the voyage to New Netherland, his little squadron captured a Spanish ship, and he invited his Vice Director, Van Dincklagen, to a consultation as to

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A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE 73 how the prize had best be disposed of. The Treasurer, Van Dyck, also came into the cabin to give advice, His whereupon Stuyvesant gave him a push and ex- autocratic r J ° c behaviour claimed, " Get out of here! when I want you I '11 call you !" When he formally assumed command at Fort II PETER STUYVESANT REBUKING THE COBBLER Amsterdam, he sat with his hat on, as our informant tells us, " quite like the Czar of Muscovy," while a group of the principal inhabitants stood before him bareheaded and waited quite long enough before he condescended to take personal notice of them. He soon began issuing proclamations with

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174 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES as much zeal as Kieft had shown. The usual provisions were made against drunkenness, brawling, and selling liquor to the Indians, and the time-honoured anathemas were hurled at smugglers. The export duties on all furs were increased, and a new excise was laid upon wines and spirits, much to the disgust of a good many people. Some said the new governor was not so much of a father, after all; some asked, with a sigh, if this was not just the sort of thing they had complained of in Director Kieft. Now the affairs of ex-Director Kieft were about to give some kind of an answer to this question, and to show on which side Stuyvesant's natural sympathies were enlisted. On the day when Kieft handed over his office to his successor, it was proposed that the conventional vote of thanks Petition of should be given him for his official conduct; where- d UP011 tW° °f the ableSt °f the Ei&ht Me"» Kuytef and Melyn, spoke out boldly, saying they had no reason to thank him, and would not. Presently these two gentlemen came forward with a petition for a judicial inquiry into Kieft's policy and behaviour from the time, in 1639, when he first tried to impose taxes upon the Indians. They wished to propound a series of interrogatories, and they intended to base upon the answers a report to be carried over to Holland and used as a weapon against the late Director. Stuyvesant was not so dull as to overlook the bearings of this bold proposal. If such a weapon could be forged against Kieft, another of like metal might some day be sharpened against himself. The sacredness of the Directorship must be sustained. Stuyvesant felt as in later days the Emperor Joseph II. felt when he warned his sister Marie Antoinette stuyvesant that tne French government was burning its fingers befnends m helping the American rebels. I, too, like your Americans well enough, said he, but I do not forget that my trade is that of king, c'estmon mitier ditre roi t So it was Stuyvesant's trade to be a colonial governor, and the business must be respected. He at once took Kieft's part. He declared that the officers of the government must

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A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE 175 not be obliged to disclose government secrets simply on the demand of two private citizens. Moreover, to petition against one's rulers was flat treason, no matter how much cause there might be for it. This was practically equivalent to the abominable doctrine set forth a few years later by Sir Robert Fil-mer, that " a thing may by the king be commanded contrary to law, and yet obedience to such a command is necessary." But there was no standing up against Stuyvesant in the council, and the petition of Melyn and Kuyter was rejected. This refusal, however, was not enough to soothe the ruffled dignity of the Director. It was now his turn to assume the aggressive; the two "malignants," as he called them, must be made to smart. He ordered that Kuyter and Melyn should be interrogated concerning the origin and conduct of the Indian war. Here Kieft, finding Stuyvesant so ready to take his part, came forward and accused them of being the real authors of the memorial which the Eight Men had sent to the West India Company, and which had led to his removal. That memorial, said Keift, was a false libel which those two malignants had contrived to send to Holland without the knowledge of their colleagues. Kieft urged Attacks that they should be compelled to produce all their correspondence with the Company, and to show cause why they should not be summarily banished as " pestilent and seditious persons." When Stuyvesant granted this request and summoned the two gentlemen to answer, they soon began to show such superabundant evidence in support of their accusations against Kieft that it became necessary to drop this line of proceeding and find some other. Indictments were accordingly brought against Kuyter and Melyn, on sundry trumped-up charges, chiefly alleging treacherous dealings with the Indians, and attempts to stir up rebellion. With shameless disregard of evidence a prearranged verdict of guilty was rendered; Melyn was sentenced to seven years banishment and a fine of 300 guilders, Kuyter to three years' banishment and a fine of 150 guilders. Stuyvesant wished to have Melyn sentenced to death, but it was felt that this

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176 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES would be going too far.1 Melyn and Kuyter were to be sent to Holland, but they must beware of telling their tale of woe to the authorities. " If I thought there were any danger of your trying an appeal," quoth Stuyvesant to Melyn with a baleful frown, " I would hang you this minute to the tallest tree on the island! " On another occasion he observed, " If any man tries to appeal from me to the States General, I will make him a foot shorter, pack the pieces off to Holland, Kieft and let him appeal in that fashion." This was brave talk, but if hard-headed Peter supposed his victims were going back to Holland without using their tongues, he did not show his wonted good sense. On the 16th 6i August, 1647, Kieft set sail for Holland, with his fortune, which his enemies said was ill gotten, while they rated it at 400,000 guilders. He took with him Kuyter and Melyn as prisoners, and m the same ship went Dominie Bogardus. And now there happened one of those singular incidents which we sometimes hear called " special providences." By some error of reckoning the ship which carried this discordant company got into the Bristol Channel, struck on a rock, and was beaten to pieces. In the presence of death Kieft confessed to Kuyter and Melyn that he had grievously wronged them, and he begged their forgiveness. At day-Ship- break the ship went down in the presence of hun-wrecked dreds of Englishmen on the strand, who did what they could to rescue the passengers. Eighty-one persons, including Kieft and Bogardus, were drowned; twenty reached the shore in safety, and among these were Kuyter and Melyn. No sooner were they landed than these canny men, 1 As for Kuyter, he was, in Stuyvesant's opinion, little better. He had shaken his finger at Kieft, and that great jurisconsult, Josse De Damhouder, maintained that he who threatens a magistrate or clergyman, even by a frown, is guilty of assaulting him; how much more guilty, then, if he shakes his finger at him ? Kuyter had also spoken ill of the ex-Director, and, according to the learned Bernardinus de Muscatellus, "he who slanders God, the magistrate, or his parents, must be stoned to death." O'Callaghan, Hist. New Netherland, ii. 33.

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A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE 177 caring even more for reputation than for life, had the shallow waters dragged for three days, until they brought up a box which contained their most important papers unharmed. Armed with these documents they were enabled completely to justify themselves before the States General, and in the course of this story we shall again encounter them. In spite of Stuyvesant's hot and arbitrary temper he soon showed that he had more sense than Kieft. He found the military defences of New Amsterdam in a shocking state of dilapidation, and his instructions required him to use all possible despatch in putting everything into excellent repair. Much money was required for this, and the only way to get it was to yield in some degree to the popular demand for representation. The excise on beer and wines was universally detested and partially evaded, and more revenue was indispensable. It was necessary to give New Amsterdam at least some semblance of a free town government; and naturally the framework of government introduced was that with which the Dutch people were already familiar. In the Netherlands, since the thirteenth century, every town below the grade of a city was governed by what old writers call " A Tribunal of Well-born Men," elected by all the inhabitants entitled to vote. This tribunal was not only an TheNine executive body, but also sat as a court in criminal Men and civil cases. The number of the Well-born Men varied, but was usually nine. The analogy of this board was commonly followed in the case of representative bodies chosen by a group of constituencies. In such cases the local lord sometimes participated ; the people would choose twice the number of representatives required, and out of these the lord would select half. On this principle Stuyvesant ordered an election, in September, 1647, in which the people of Manhattan, Breuckelen, Amersfoort, and Pavonia chose eighteen of their "most notable, reasonable, honest, and respectable" persons, from whom the Director and his council were to select the board of Nine Men, to assist, when called upon (for, mind you, Director Stuyvesant had no notion of

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178 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES letting them assemble without permission), to assist, when called upon, in providing for the general welfare. It was only at first that these dangerous Nine Men were to be obtained through the incendiary expedient of a popular election. There was to be an annual meeting of the board in December, at which six members were to go out and nominate twelve candidates to succeed themselves, and out of these twelve the Director and council would select six. Thus the Nine Men formed a self-perpetuating body, calculated to fall more and more under the Director's influence. Nevertheless, as we shall see, the Nine Men contrived to maintain a more or less independent attitude and to represent with some efficiency the interests of the people. The beginnings of constitutional government were somewhat more visible than under Kieft. But before we go on to recount some of Stuyvesant's adventures with his Nine Men, affairs at the north of New Netherland call for a moment's mention. The position of the Director of this New World province had some curious points of resemblance, albeit on a petty scale, with the position of a feudal king in the Middle Ages. He had to be perpetually alert to meet the invasion of barbarians tor's diffi- on the encroachments of civilized neighbours; he m ies had to pay some heed to the distant States General, which interfered very little with him, as the Emperor meddled but little with remote vassals ; he had to pay much more heed to the distant Company, which interfered a good deal, as the popes meddled much with kings; at his own doors he had to consider how to make both ends meet without surrendering his sovereignty to a parliamentary body; and finally he had to assert over neighbouring feudal chiefs an authority which they refused to acknowledge. Of this insubordination there was a curious instance in New Netherland. In sketching the administration of Peter Minuit I observed that of all the early patroonships there were none that flourished like that which was founded by Kilian van Rensselaer

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{ A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE 179 RENSSELAERWYCK SEAL far up the river. This greater prosperity was due partly to Van Rensselaer's more intelligent policy, and partly Rensse-to geographical situation. Among the colonists feerwyck were many thrifty farmers who took pains in cultivating their estates, and for general education and respectability the standard was much higher than down at Manhattan. The advantage of situation lay in the proximity of the Mohawks. It will be remembered that in the early days of Fort Orange there were Mohegans in the neighbourhood, between the Hudson and Housatonic valleys, and the Dutch here came near being drawn into the intertribal quarrels of Algonquin and Iroquois. But in 1628 the Mohawks drove the Mohegans into the lower valley of the Connecticut; on the Berkshire Hills they made a solitude and called it peace. Fort Orange and its neighbourhood thereafter were secure in Mohawk protection. In the terrible war of 1641-45 Rens-selaerwyck and Fort Orange were unmolested. In after times the relations of the great manorial lords to the Indians of the Long House especially of the Dutch Schuylers at Albany and the Irish Johnsons in the Mohawk valley made Albany until after the Revolutionary War one of the most important places in North America. This situation also made Van Rensselaer's feudal domain comparatively independent. All the patroons, as we have seen, were inclined to assert for themselves a freedom of action, especially in buying and shipping furs, which the government at New Amsterdam was not at all disposed to allow. The exercise of such freedom was of course much easier at a distance of 150 miles than in Staten Island or Pavonia. It was also easier in a manor that was large enough to be suffi-

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180 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES cient unto itself. Already at his first coming the Amster-Feudai in- dam jeweller, Kilian van Rensselaer, had held his nand somewhat high, asseverating that he held his van Rens- patroonship directly from the States General and 86 er was not amenable to the authorities at Manhattan. The venerable Knickerbocker's humorous description comes near to the letter of history and is entirely true to its spirit. As despatches came now and then to Van Twiller and his council, narrating sundry usurpations of authority on the part of the lordly Kilian, " at each nfiw report," says Knickerbocker, "the governor and his councillors looked at each other, raised their eyebrows, gave an extra puff or two of smoke, and then relapsed into their usual tranquillity. At length tidings came that the patroon of Rensselaerwyck had extended his usurpations along the river, beyond the limits granted him by their High Mightinesses ; and that he had even seized upon a rocky island in the Hudson, commonly known by the name of Beam or Bear's Island, where he was erecting a fortress, to be called by the lordly name of Rens-selaerstein. Wouter van Twiller was aroused by this intel-Weapon ligence . . . and despatched a letter to the patroon ri8ht of Rensselaerwyck, demanding by what right he had seized upon this island, which lay beyond the bounds of his #?*- patroonship. The answer of Kilian van Rensselaer was in his own lordly style, By wapen regt \_=By weapon right , that is to say, by the right of arms, or in common parlance by club-law. This answer plunged the worthy Wouter in one of the deepest doubts he had in the whole course of his administration." Now there was nowhere a livelier trade in beaver skins

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A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE 181 than on Van Rensselaer's manor, insomuch that the tiny hamlet hard by Fort Orange, which was its commercial centre, and which in course of time developed into the city of Albany, was significantly baptized Beverwyck. Van Bey Rensselaer as patroon claimed and exercised the right of engaging in this trade for his own private behoof, a claim which the Company and the government at New Amsterdam steadfastly denied. He also undertook to forbid all other persons from trading in furs, within the limits of his manor, for their own private benefit. But his attempts to restrain such traders, though more successful than the Company's attempts to restrain him, were far from satisfactory. In 1644 it was estimated that between three and four thousand furs had been carried away during the past twelvemonth by unlicensed traders. The patroon then bethought him of his fortress of Rensselaerstein which he had erected on Bear Island by "weapon right." He now proceeded to invest that place with another kind of right, also familiar to most people in the Middle Ages. At Dordrecht it was staple called "staple right," by which name it came to be nght well known throughout Europe. The word " staple," which is common to English and Dutch, means originally a pile or heap; and staple right, conferred upon a town, was the right to compel any passing vessel either to pay a duty for the privilege of passing by, or else to unload its cargo to be sold to customers in the town. The heaps of unloaded cargo piled up on the docks or in the market-place were the staples, whence in modern times the word has acquired a wider application to merchandise bought or sold in great quantities. Now Van Rensselaer in 1644 invested Bear Island with staple right, and appointed Nicholas Koorn as his " wacht-meester " {watchtnaster) or guard in command of the fort. Koorn's instructions were to collect a toll of five guilders from every vessel passing up or down the river, except the Company's own ships. Every skipper, too, must strike his colours in homage to the patroon. So it happened that on

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182 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES a summer day, as Govert Loockermans, on his way from Fort Orange to New Amsterdam in his yacht Good Hope, was passing Bear Island, a charge of powder was fired from Bear the fort and a figure on the rampart shouted, island « strike thy colours ! " " For whom shall I strike ?" asked Loockermans. " For the Lord Kilian and the staple right of Rensselaerstein," cried the watchmaster; to whom quoth the sturdy Loockermans, " I strike for nobody but the Prince of Orange and their High Mightinesses the States General." Koorn then fired three shots, the first of which tore a sail and cut a rope, while the second passed overhead, and the third made a hole in the flag. For this arrogant behaviour Koorn was summoned to New Amsterdam and mulcted in damages, against which he made a formal protest, asserting the right of his master, the patroon, to keep out free traders and to exact homage from all persons entering or leaving his domains. Early in 1646 the death of Kilian van Rensselaer left his youthful son Johannes as representative of his vast estates, and for a moment the boy's uncle, Van Twiller the ex-Director, emerges from obscurity as one of his guardians. Brandt van Slechtenhorst was appointed commissary to govern Rensselaerwyck, and Nicholas Koorn was promoted from his fort on Bear Island to be schout-fiscal or collector Adrian van an(* treasurer of the patroonship. The person whom der Donck he replaced was a man of erudition, an interesting character, Adrian van der Donck, of Breda. He had been schout-fiscal of Rensselaerwyck for five years, but had lately married a daughter of Rev. Francis Doughty, and now moved to New Amsterdam. It was Van der Donck's wish to become a patroon, and he bought from the Weckquaesgeck tribe a tract of land north of Spuyten Duyvel Creek. The people used to call him Jonkheer (" young lord ") Van der

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A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE 183 Donck, which indicates that his father was either a nobleman or a personage of some consequence; his manor was commonly known as " de Jonkheer's Landt," and the name to us is now familiar as Yonkers. We Yonkm shall presently meet with this "young lord" as one of the Nine Men. Director Stuyvesant was not long in getting into trouble with Rensselaerwyck. One effect of the late war was to make him particularly determined to suppress the practice of selling firearms to the Indians. The firearms people of Manhattan and its neighbourhood, sur- toIndian> rounded by unfriendly Algonquins, cordially supported him in this policy, but in Rensselaerwyck, where there were none but friendly Iroquois within reach, the feeling was different. It was not felt to be necessary to obey the Director General, and Van Slechtenhorst seized the first opportunity of showing his insubordination. Stuyvesant appointed the 26th of April, 1648, to be a day of fasting and prayer, and when the proclamation was received in Beverwyck, Van Slechtenhorst refused to have it read, and made a formal protest against it as trespassing upon the authority of his lordship the patroon. On hearing of this, the Director went up to Fort Orange with a small military guard, and exchanged defiances with Van Slechtenhorst. It was Greek against Greek ; the commissary was as blunt and obstinate as the Director. Stuyvesant handed over a list of peremptory orders; Slechtenhorst declared he would not obey this one any way, nor this, nor that, nor the other, and he asked with a sneer if the Director supposed himself to be patroon of Rensselaerwyck. The quarrel had its comical side, as most quarrels have. The hamlet of Beverwyck snuggled so close to Fort Orange that Stuyvesant thought it wise to forbid the building of houses within range of its guns, lest they might interfere with firing. He- also ordered that the wall of palisades should be replaced by a wall of stone masonry. As soon as Stuyvesant had departed, Slechtenhorst began putting up some houses within pistol-shot of the fort, and

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184 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES he issued an order forbidding any servants of the Company to quarry stone or cut timber upon the patroon's estates. We can imagine Stuyvesant's wrath on hearing of this contumacious conduct. He sent up a squad of soldiers to Fort Orange, with orders to Van Brugge, the commandant, to pull down the houses that were just begun, and suit's to arrest Van Slechtenhorst and serve upon him a wrath summons to appear at Fprt Amsterdam. At the same time notice was sent that no more firearms should be supplied to the manor of Rensselaerwyck except upon express orders from the Company. Van Brugge was a courteous officer, and refrained from meddling with the houses or trying to arrest the patroon's commissary. But he served the summons, which Slechtenhorst answered by a letter to Stuyvesant, in which he told . . him he should not obey it. As for his houses, they Slechten- . J * horst's were going to stay just where he had put them, e ance and as for Stuyvesant's taking stone or timber from the manor, he would like to see him try it I The Director replied by ordering Van Brugge to take the stone and timber by force if necessary, and to pull down every house within musket range of the fort. He also sent a peremptory notice to Slechtenhorst to appear at a court to be held at New Amsterdam in April. This controversy caused much excitement in the quiet hamlet of Beverwyck, and mightily astonished a party of Mo hawks who happened to be tarrying there. The question of jurisdiction was too complicated for their understandings, a Mohawk but one °f lts practical aspects especially struck comment them. " Is n't old Wooden Leg a queer fellow," they said, "to wish to pull down houses that would shelter you in winter! " But the government in Holland approved what Wooden Leg was doing. Early in 1650 the dispute was settled, the Director was sustained at every point, and the hopes of Rensselaerwyck for independence were forever dashed. Meanwhile the troubles which had been growing between

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186 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES the Director and the Nine Men came at length to a crisis. Debts due to the Company to the amount of 30,000 guilders, which Kieft had left uncollected, were now called in by Stuy-vesant, and distress was thus occasioned. Moreover, trade suffered from an unwise commercial policy. The experiment of high custom-house duties was being tried with a thoroughness which aroused much discontent, and the Director's favourite punishment for attempts at evasion was a wholesale confiscation of goods. Thus Manhattan began to get a bad name among seaports, and ships from the West Indies were afraid to come in there. There was so much complaint that the Nine Men proposed that a delegation should be sent to Holland, to set forth the present condition of the colony and stuyve- '° ask f°r divers reforms. At first the Director M>t'» quar. strongly approved of this suggestion, but presently Van der it appeared that he intended to have the delegation sent in his name. On the other hand, the Nine Men insisted that it should go in the name of the people, and should give their own statement of the case. They were willing to promise not to send anything to Holland without giving the Director a copy, so that he might answer it if he wished, but they were not willing to entrust to him the statement of their case. Adrian van der Donck, the "young lord " already mentioned, had lately become a member of the board of Nine Men, and was at once recognized as a natural leader. He was a full match for Stuyvesant, who had now made up his mind that no formal representation of facts should be allowed to go to Holland which did not emanate from himself. Thus the issue was drawn. The case is peculiarly interesting, since there were no atrocities or instances of gross oppression to be complained of, nor even any grievous mismanagement such as Kieft's Indian war. Stuyvesant was not a vulgar tyrant, but an honest and conscientious man, who was governing New Netherland as well as he knew how. The purpose of the Nine Men, as expressed by their spokesman Van der Donck, was equally honourable. It was simply one theory of government contending against another.

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VERTOQGH VAN Nieu-Neder-Land, Weghens de Gheleghentheydt, i Vruchtbaerheydt, en Sobe-ren Staet deflelfs. In 'sGraven-Hage, Ghedmckt by Michkl St*el, Bouck-verkoopet woonende op'tBuyKi3i-Ho£tegea-ovcideGe'range-Poorr, 16 y *. ; I

TITLE OF THE " VERTOOGH "

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188 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES Thus there came about a deadlock, which the Nine Men proposed to undo by calling a great council or assembly of citizens to consider the points at issue. But Stuyvesant would not call together such an assembly. New A deadlock . , , J, Amsterdam, however, was a small town, so that Van der Donck and his friends could go from house to house in a neighbourly way and learn the sentiments of every family. Van der Donck made a note of such things in a journal, whereat Stuyvesant threw him into jail and seized all his papers. Then he summoned a council of his own choosing, and charged Van der Donck with bringing allegations calculated to throw the government into contempt; let him either prove these allegations or retract them; and meanwhile let him be unseated from the board of Nine Men. This decree, to call it by its right name, was received with tame acquiescence, and the outlook for the popular party seemed gloomy, when all at once came a thunderbolt. A ship arrived from Holland, bringing Cornelius Melyn. He Return of and Kuyter, saved from shipwreck, had made their Melyn complaint to the States General, and Stuyvesant's harsh treatment of them had been condemned. Melyn now returned to Manhattan with a safe-conduct from their High Mightinesses, and he brought with him also a writ of mandamus, citing the Director to appear at the Hague and defend himself. When Melyn landed at Fort Amsterdam the people were assembled in church, and he had the keen satisfaction of reading the judgment and the mandamus to the entire company. This was a staggering blow for Stuyvesant. He declared that he should at once obey the mandamus by sending his attorney to speak for him at the Hague. He was so far sobered as to refrain from further annoyance of Van der Donck, with whom the sympathy of the people was freely Memorial expressed. Thus the Nine Men had their way and sta'tet prepared a memorial to the States General, asking General for three things: First, that their High Mightinesses should oust the Company and assume the direct gov-

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A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE 189 ernment of New Netherland; Secondly, that they should give New Amsterdam a suitable municipal government; Thirdly, that they should establish the boundaries of New Netherland beyond question by treaty with friendly powers. In the course of this memorial the Nine Men invite the attention of the States General to the golden example set by their neighbours of New England, where, as they say with emphasis, "neither patroons, nor lords, nor princes are known, but only the people." Such is the kind of government they wish to imitate in New Netherland. Apparently the thesis of the late Mr. Douglas Campbell, that American free institutions are derived not from England but from Holland, had not occurred to the Nine Men. Attached to this memorial was an eloquent Vertoogh, or Remonstrance, full of rich historical meat. Both The Re_ papers were written by Van der Donck, who was monstrance chosen, with two colleagues, to go to the Hague and lay them before the States General; and so we will leave them in midsummer, 1649, speeding with a fair wind across the Atlantic, while the good wishes of the people go with them.

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CHAPTER VIII SOME AFFAIRS OF NEW AMSTERDAM Twenty-five years ago, when the late Lord Sherbrooke, better known as Robert Lowe, was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he made a very shallow speech on the uses of a classical education, in the course of which he amused himself with belittling the Greeks and Romans. Their history, ne sa"*' was narcNy worth the time spent on it. Measun events with The battle of Marathon, for example, was of less a °° e account than a modern explosion in a coal mine, which often slays a greater number of victims than the 192 Greeks who perished in withstanding the hosts of Darius Hystaspes. The moral intended was that the newspaper is a better text-book than Herodotus. Now I can imagine that too exclusive attention to the newspaper, with its myriad disconnected items of fact and fancy, might so destroy one's sense of perspective as to blind one to the importance of an event upon which hung the whole future of European civilization. No one with any sense of historic perspective needs to be told that the battle of Borodino, where 70,000 were killed and wounded, was a trivial event, even for Russians, compared with the battle of Marathon. In history we cannot measure things with a foot rule. Possibly it may have occurred to some of my readers that the events recounted in the three foregoing chapters are extremely petty, almost beneath what some people call the dignity of history, whatever that may mean. We have the squabbles of rather commonplace men in a wilderness, intrigues and fulminations over the possession of some crazy blockhouse, campaigns in which there is more cursing than slaying, varied by the protests of a small trading village

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SOME AFFAIRS OF NEW AMSTERDAM 191 against misgovernment. There is not much that is inspiring in it, and the pettiness stands to some extent confessed. There is certainly no fateful Marathon here, yet here too we find that events physically small may have large consequences. Champlain's victory over the Mohawks at Ticon-deroga in 1609 was in itself a small affair compared with Montcalm's victory over British and American troops at the same place in 1758; yet Champlain's fight is an event of prime importance in American History, while Montcalm's is but a subordinate incident. But even where the moral significance of an event is less marked than in this instance, there is real interest in the study of the minute and homely beginnings out of which great communities have grown. It is to be hoped that students of history will never forget the refusal of the men of Watertown in 1631 to pay part of the cost of a stockade at Cambridge; nor is it in any wise beneath the dignity of history to recall the fact that the sitting of the Massachusetts legislature in two chambers instead of one was determined by the grotesque incident of the Widow Sherman's stray pig.1 So in New Netherland the disputes of the Director with his board of Nine Men, the questions of jurisdiction between the Company and the patroons, involve principles of permanent interest to any one who studies the building of states. Oftentimes, indeed, there is an advantage in contemplating political and social phenomena on a small scale. The forces at work and the personalities of the actors seem to stand out more sharply and distinctly against the simple background. In spite of Mr. Robert Lowe, there is no better elementary training in history than that which one gets from studying the small city-states of ancient Greece, or the town life of Italy and Flanders in the Middle Ages. In the beginnings of European colonization in America it is instructive to watch the kind of political seed sown in a virgin soil and see what it tells us concerning the fruition 1 See my Beginnings of New England, Illustrated Edition, pp. 112-116.

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192 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES attained by the country from which it came. In the memorial addressed by the Nine Men of New Amsterdam to the States General at the Hague, we have seen that three things were asked for: i. Government by the States General instead of by a commercial company; 2. A free municipal government at New Amsterdam instead of the arbitrary rule of the Director; 3. An adjustment of boundaries by treaty with the English government, so as to afford some security for the future. At the same time the Nine Men took occasion to express their admiration for the easy and spontaneous way in which free government had sprouted up in the English colonies all around them. There were many things of which they did not approve in their seitgov- neighbours of New England, but they did approve emmen oj ^e town meetings and selectmen, the elected governors and the free legislative assemblies. These were time-honoured English institutions, which the Puritans brought with them as inevitably as they brought their English speech, their Bibles, and their steeple hats. Under the influence of the feudal system the ancient English township meeting had differentiated into the open vestry for ecclesiastical and the manorial courts for civil purposes. The migration to New England was mainly a movement of organized churches ; the manor with its courts was left behind, while the open vestry, resuming civil functions, became the town meeting. The change was almost automatic and unconscious ; it did itself. The genesis of the legislature was equally simple. The representation of towns and boroughs by elected deputies in a county court had been for ages familiar to every Englishman, and the principle that only by such chosen representatives could he be taxed had been admitted for four centuries, though now and then a king had partially succeeded in evading it. When the Company of Massachusetts Bay with its governor, its deputy-governor, and board of assistants transferred itself across the Atlantic, it was only necessary to add to it the elected representatives, as was done after the Watertown protest, and

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SOME AFFAIRS OF NEW AMSTERDAM 193 there was at once a miniature parliament. When the towns on the Connecticut River organized themselves into a state with a written constitution, they naturally followed the same model. It was the form in which the English idea of government found spontaneous expression. Now we do not find in New Netherland any such immediate and irrepressible reproduction of the free institutions of Holland. One explanation for this contrast at once suggests itself. The migration to New Eng-land was a migration of communities already organ-ized in England; the parish, crossing the ocean, became the township, and, in its relations to the powers above it, assumed a shape essentially similar to that which it had maintained in the old country. The most fundamental fact in the case was that government by the primary assembly had not lost its vitality in rural England. What did not cross the ocean at that time, but was at a later period made the subject of conscious imitation, was the urban form of representative government, with the mayor at its head. Now the Dutch migration to New Netherland was not a migration of churches but of individuals. It brought with it no preexisting organization. The resulting community was for a long time a fortuitous aggregation of traders, more at home on a ship's deck than in the farmyard, and without that abiding interest in creating and sustaining homes which an agricultural community feels. This shifting mercantile community was governed by a commercial company whose prime interest in it was to make large dividends for its stockholders. The Director General was the salaried servant of the Company, and felt responsible to the Company rather than to the people whose affairs he administered. An honest officer, like Stuyve-sant, never forgot that his first duty was to do things according to the Company's wishes, and he sometimes confessed, with a sigh, that he would be glad if it were consistent with duty to be more agreeable to people. A man of doubtful character, like Kieft, had little or nothing

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i$>4 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES to restrain him f&om pursuing his own selfish ends at the expense of the people and in the name of the Company. In this rule, then, of a great commercial corporation, we see a grave obstacle to the ready transference of Dutch freedom from the Old to the New Netherland. We understand why the Nine Men in 1649 begged the home government to oust the Company and govern Dutchmen in America on the same principles as in Europe. We observe that sooner or later the same kind of petition was apt to go forth from English colonies under the government of proprietaries, as in the case of the Carolinas and Georgia. And perhaps we may feel like concluding that the principal cause of the difference between New Netherland and New England was the rule of the West India Company. But the example of Virginia shows that such an explanation does not quite cover the ground. During the first seventeen years of its existence Virginia was governed by a great commercial corporation; during the first eleven years its population was quite as nondescript as that upon the island of Manhattan; and among its early rulers the unscrupulous Argall and the honest Dale were quite as despotic as Kieft and Stuyvesant, and far more harsh. Yet while New s ntane- Netherland had to struggle so long, and with ous repro- meagre success, for self-government, Virginia got of English it in full measure simply for the asking. The crea-mstitutions tjQn Q£ a jjouse of Burgesses in 1619 was as remarkable an instance of the reproductiveness of English institutions as anything that can be cited from New England. It was the work of two illustrious members of the Virginia Company, Sir Edwin Sandys and the Earl of Southampton, far-sighted statesmen who did not need to be told that a self-supporting English colony should be governed on the same principles that had made England great. It was easy to make this House of Burgesses because its constituencies, the parishes, had already sprung up spontaneously in Virginia. It immediately asserted the principle that no power save itself could lay taxes upon Virginians, and as early as 1635

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SOME AFFAIRS OF NEW AMSTERDAM 195 we find it deposing an unpopular governor and sending him back to England. Thus in spite of the fact that Virginia, like New Netherland, started under the rule of a commercial company, there can be no doubt that English liberties flourished in Virginia as notably as Dutch liberties languished in New Netherland. The example of Maryland is similarly instructive. In 1632 the need for a representative assembly in an English colony was recognized by making express provision for one in Lord Baltimore's charter. The growth of parishes, manors, and hundreds in Maryland is a further illustration of the spontaneous reproductiveness of English free institutions. If we go to the bottom of the question, I think we shall see that the framework of political liberty on a national scale had never been so thoroughly organized in the Netherlands as in England. In some points the Dutch of the seventeenth century were still struggling with ideas which the English had mastered in the thirteenth and four- Differences teenth. This was because the continental people between of the Netherlands had been exposed to vicissitudes continental from which their insular cousins had been free. conditions There was always the risk of a set-back from such a catastrophe as Roosebeke, or horrors like those of Liege and Dinarit. Meanwhile Netherlandish liberty was won chiefly by walled cities, by guilds of craftsmen and traders. It was not uniformly diffused through the rural and urban populations, as in England. The Netherlands had never seen anything like the rising of the barons under Henry III. The burgomaster and the country squire had never learned to cooperate with each other as freely and naturally as in that House of Commons where the county magistrate, heir to a dukedom, sat side by side with the weaver and the locksmith. The form which the Dutch political constitution should assume on a national scale was not yet fully determined. For rural organization in the Dutch colony, the Dutch mind had reached only the patroonship; for urban organization the burghers asked for that with which they

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196 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES were familiar, a representative municipal government. The uses and powers of the primary assembly no longer retained their vitality, as in England. When Mr. Douglas Campbell, in the midst of his asseverations that American free institutions are derived almost entirely from Holland and scarcely at all from England, comes to the point where such contrasts as the above need to be taken into consideration, he turns away his head and assures us that at least we learned from Holland the practice of recording deeds and mortgages! Resuming our narrative where it was broken off at the close of the preceding chapter, we may note that Van der Donck's mission to the Hague achieved some of the results contemplated, albeit slowly and in spite of desperate opposition. The States General did not feel able to take over to themselves the government of New Netherland, for the interests enlisted in behalf of the West India Company were too The Com- powerful to be overridden. So the first article of thesStes tne Nine Men's petition was not granted. As to General tne second article, the States General were willing that New Amsterdam should have a muncipal government, with a schout, two burgomasters, and five schepens, and they recommended to the Company various wholesome measures, at the same time resolving that Stuyvesant should again be summoned to the Hague to give an account of his conduct. As to the third article, there was no serious objection to a commission for settling boundaries. The chief discussion was over the second article. The Company was opposed to the States General in every particular, denied the need for any reforms at New Amsterdam, sneered at the Nine Men, and upheld Stuyvesant in everything. This encouraged him to go on with his arbitrary ways. He began by insulting the Nine Men. The consistory of the church had assigned them a certain pew for their sole use; Stuyvesant forbade their using it. Then he stigmatized them in public as promoters of " schisms, factions, and intestine commotions." Finally

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198 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES a brilliant idea came to him ; when a vacancy occurred in the board he refused to allow it to be filled, and by this ingenious method the obnoxious body was practically dissolved. But before such a consummation was reached, the Nine Men again appealed to the States General. At last, in 1653, the opposition gave way, and New Amsterdam was incorporated as a city. Its population had reached something like the number of 800 souls. It was declared with a flourish that the municipal government was to be as nearly as possible incorpora- like that of the mother-city Amsterdam; but the Amstep?ew Company's ideas of possibility were evidently quite dam limited, for Stuyvesant retained in his own hands the appointment of schout, burgomasters, and schepens, and insisted that he had still the right in his own person to make ordinances or to publish interdicts binding upon the city of New Amsterdam. The ordinary meetings of the city government were held on Monday mornings in the City Tavern which Kieft had built on Pearl Street; the building was thereafter known as the Stadt Huys, or City HalL There the burgomasters and schepens at nine o'clock opened their sessions with prayer, and then proceeded to civic business. Stuyvesant often sat in the room and stamped on the floor with his wooden leg when things were not going as he wished. This year 1653 may be cited as marking a new era for the Dutch province. Down to this time its progress in numbers and wealth had been slow and precarious. Looking back to the arrival of Henry Hudson in 1609, we can seem to distin- guish five successive phases of colonial life : 1. The period of occasional visits of fur traders, from 1610 growth t0 1614; 2. The period of unorganized and desultory effort under the New Netherland Company's monopoly, from 1614 to 1623 ; 3. The first experiments of the West India Company, under May, Verhulst, Minuit, and Van Twil-ler, from 1623 to 1638, including the establishment of pa-troonships; 4. The administration of Kieft, from 1638 to 1647, beginning with the attempt to attract colonists by

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BESCHR YVINGE ¦ Van., NIEUVV- NEDERLANT (©fjrlrjtfc \)t t tegentooo?Oi00 in &tmt is) Bcgrijpende de Nature, Aert, gelegenthey t en vrucht-baerhcyt van hct fel ve Lant; micigaders de proffij telijcke en- de gewenfte toevallen, die aldaer tot onderhout der Menfchen , (foo ¦'. uythacrfclvcn ills van buyteil ingcbracht) gevonden wordcsi. A t. S M E D E Dc mamew tn onggememe epgenfcf^appen Wttom ofttjfr aturtlltti banptn H £cn byfbndcr verhael vanden wondcrlijcken ende bet Weefen der B ETE R S, Daek. Noch B» Gevoeos* Ij tuffcfjen een Nederfandts Patriot Nieuw Nederlander. ten "JBefthreven doer D R I. A E N vander Dv O N C Beyder Rechtcn Do&oor, die teghenwobP- digh noch in Nieuw Nederfant is. fAEMSTELDAM, Even Nieuwcnhof, 2Sottfe-t)etta«5pet / K, TITLE OF VAN DER DONCK'S "DESCRIPTION OF NEW NETHERLAND'

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200 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES throwing down all monopolies, and ending with the exhaustion consequent upon a great Indian war; 5. The first six years of Stuyvesant, during which the province was rapidly recovering from this loss of strength. This rapid recovery was in part the tardy effect of the wholesome liberal measures of 1638. Colonists were begin-ning to come during Kieft's administration in much greater Recovery numbers than before, and had it not been for the of strength Julian war the population would surely have shown an increase. In point of fact it diminished. But in 1649 the mission of Van der Donck to the Hague gave a more decided impulse to colonization than anything that had happened before. The long and animated discussion in the States General, and the personal eminence of Van der Donck, who was an advocate in the Supreme Court of Holland and a Doctor of Laws in the University of Leyden, created an interest in America hitherto unknown. In 1653 Van der Donck published his " Description of New Netherland," which was very widely read, an excellent book for whatever had come within the author's direct knowledge, but often uncritical in what he gives us from hearsay. To the fresh interest in New Netherland thus excited on the continent of Europe there was added the knowledge that the traditional Dutch policy of religious toleration had been consistently carried out by Director Kieft. Of this there were several conspicuous instances, some of which I mentioned in a former chapter. It was thus that many men of many creeds and tongues influx of were drawn to New Amsterdam. During Stuyve-sects sant's rule there was a great influx of Waldenses from Piedmont and of Huguenots from France, and besides these there were Scotch Presbyterians, English Independents, Moravians, Anabaptists, and Jews. In 1655 you might have gone from the Penobscot all the way to Harlem River without meeting any other civilized language than English, but in crossing the island of Manhattan you might have heard a dozen or fifteen European languages spoken. At

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SOME AFFAIRS OF NEW AMSTERDAM 201 that early stage the place had already begun to exhibit the cosmopolitan character which has ever since distinguished it. The increase of population consequent upon such a general migration was remarkable. In 1653 the population of New Netherland was about 2000, including the 800 in the city. By 1664 the total population was nearly 10,000, of which about 1600 were in the city. Thus while the population of Manhattan doubled in those eleven years, that of the whole province increased fivefold. Farmers had come, at last, and rural settlements had greatly expanded on Long Island and Staten Island, and on both shores of the Hudson, while the remotest northern frontier was pushed out from Beverwyck to Schenectady. The universal tolerance which made New Amsterdam so cosmopolitan was simply the traditional Netherlandish custom. It was not prescribed by the Company; on the contrary, one of the Company's rules forbade the setting up of any church except the Calvinistic Dutch Reformed. At first this restriction made no trouble. For several years there was no regular clergyman except Dominie Bogardus, and not enough people to make it worth while to establish other churches, while the general spirit was charitable and tolerant. But with the wholesale influx of sects under Stuy-vesant a change was witnessed and attempts were made to ^ inaugurate a per- " either Stuyvesant was less intelligent than Kieft or else his sense of duty to the Company was greater; and moreover the pastor at New Amsterdam, the most influential clergyman in the colony, Dominie Megapolensis, was something of a heresy hunter. By 1658 there were quite a number of Swedish and German Lutherans in New Amsterdam, who instead of going to church to listen to Megapolensis preferred to hold conventicles in private houses. They petitioned the Company for leave to set up a Lutheran church, u erans with a pastor of their own, but the permission was refused.

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2O2 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES Stuyvesant imprisoned several persons for attending private meetings, but for this he was censured by the States General. In 1657, when Rev. Ernestus Goetwater arrived at Manhattan, with a commission from Amsterdam to act as pastor for the Lutherans, Dominie Megapolensis had him arrested and sent back to Holland. The heavy hand of the law was also laid upon a few humble Baptists at Flushing. William Hallett, the sheriff, had the audacity to hold conventicles in his own house, and there " to permit one William Wickendam to explain and comment on God's Holy Word, and to administer sacraments, though not called thereto by any civil or clerical authority." For this heinous offence Hallett was removed from office and fined 500 guilders; while Wickendam, " who maintained that he was commissioned by Christ and dipped people in the river," was fined 1000 guilders and ordered to quit the country. On inquiry it appeared that he was " a poor cobbler from Rhode Island," without a stiver in the world; so the fine was perforce remitted, but the Baptist was not allowed to stay in New Netherland. The worst sufferers, however, were the Quakers, a party of whom, expelled from Boston, landed at New Amsterdam in August, 1657. Several were at once arrested, but one of them, Robert Hodshone, kept on to Heemstede, on Long Island, where he spoke to several persons about the new society of Friends and its benevolent aims. While walking in an orchard he was seized and taken before a local magistrate, Richard Gildersleeve, who locked him up and went Quakers: over to consult with Stuyvesant. Presently Gilder-shamefui sleeve returned with a squad of soldiers, who took persecu- tion of away Hodshone's Bible and papers, tied him to a cart's tail, and dragged him x>ver a rough road to the Brooklyn ferry. On arriving in New Amsterdam he was thrown into a filthy cellar among vermin and kept there half starved for several days. Then he was brought before Stuyvesant and the council, but was not allowed to speak in his own defence. He was sentenced to two years' hard labour

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VISSCHF.K'S MAP OF NEW NETIIERLAND, WITH A VIEW OF NEW AMSTERDAM, 1655

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SOME AFFAIRS OF NEW AMSTERDAM 203 with a wheelbarrow, or else to pay 600 guilders. As he had no money, the first alternative was imposed upon him. So on a sultry August morning the poor Quaker was brought out from his dungeon, chained to a wheelbarrow, and ordered to load it. He said he had done no evil and broken no law, and he would not obey. Then he was stripped to the waist, and a stalwart negro with a piece of rope beat him until he fell to the ground. This was repeated for several days, on one of which Hodshone was brought before Stuy-vesant, who warned him that the whipping would go on until he should submit to his sentence. This, he assured the Director, he would never do. Then he was kept for two nights and a day without bread or water, and then hung up to the ceiling by his hands while a heavy log of wood was tied to his ankles. In this position he was cruelly beaten with rods. As he remained obdurate, the same torture was repeated after two days. But public sympathy was now aroused for Hodshone. An English woman came and bathed his wounds, and her husband sought to bribe the schout with a fat ox to let him come to his house until he should recover. It could not be done, said the schout, unless the whole fine were paid. There were those who were ready to make up the sum, but the Quaker would not allow it; a principle was at stake, and he would rather die. At length Stuyvesant's sister, Mrs. Bayard, a woman of sense and spirit, came to her brother and implored and upbraided him until in sheer self-defence he was obliged to set the prisoner free. This outrageous treatment of Hodshone was condemned by public sentiment. We do not know what was said, but we may infer its tone from what happened a fortnight later at Flushing. One Henry Townsend, an upright and respected citizen, had some Quaker meetings in his house. He was fined eight pounds Flemish, or was else to be flogged and banished. The town officers of Flushing doggedly refused to enforce the sentence; and they set their names to a magnificent protest, in which they say: " The law

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2O4 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES of love, peace, and liberty, extending in the state to Jews, Turks, and Egyptians, forms the true glory of Hot the" men of land j so love, peace, and liberty, extending to all in Flushing Q^^st jesus> condemn hatred, strife, and bondage. But inasmuch as the Saviour hath said that it is impossible that scandal shall not come, but woe unto him by whom it cometh, we desire not to offend one of His little ones, under whatever form, name, or title he appear, whether Presbyterian, Independent, Baptist, or Quaker. . . . Should any of these people come in love among us, therefore, we cannot in conscience lay violent hands on them. We shall give them free ingress and egress to our houses, as God shall persuade our consciences." In so doing, they said, they were convinced that they were conforming to the law of God, to the spirit of their charter, and to the wishes of the States General.1 The names of thirty-one valiant men are signed to this document. I do not know whether Flushing has ever raised a fitting monument to their memory. If I could have my way I would have the protest carved on a stately obelisk, with the name of Edward Hart, town clerk, and the thirty other Dutch and English names appended, and would have The o it set up where all might read it for the glory of of Flush- the town that had such men for its founders. mg From Director Stuyvesant it brought them perse- cution. The town clerk was kept three weeks in jail; the two justices of the peace were suspended from office, the sheriff was cashiered and condemned to pay 200 guilders and costs, or, in case of refusal, to be banished from New Netherland, and various penalties were inflicted upon some of the other signers. We sometimes hear the tolerant policy of New Netherland commended in loose general terms which seem to imply that the record of that colony is unstained by acts of persecution. Unfortunately that is not the case. Quite a number of instances of persecution might be added to those 1 O'Callaghan, History of New Netherland, ii. 350.

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SOME AFFAIRS OF NEW AMSTERDAM 205 which I have cited. But they were certainly exceptional cases, condemned by public opinion, and wholly at variance with Dutch policy. They redound to the discredit not of New Netherland, but of Stuyvesant. Had there been any effective constitutional method of restraining the Director's arbitrary will, they would not have occurred ; and therefore we cannot hold the people of New Netherland responsible to such an extent as we hold the people of Massachusetts responsible for the hanging of Quakers on Boston stuyvesant Common. As for Stuyvesant, his violent zeal car- Jjjjj ^ * ried him too far. There were narrow-minded men sterdam in the Amsterdam Chamber who did not favour the setting up of Lutheran or Baptist churches ; but when it came to active persecution, the condemnation was unanimous ; and a sharp rebuke was sent across the ocean to the over-zealous Director. Thus ended the letter of censure from the Amsterdam Chamber: " The consciences of men ought to be free and unshackled, so long as they continue moderate, peaceable, inoffensive, and not hostile to government. Such have been the maxims of prudence and toleration by which the magistrates of this city have been governed ; and the consequences have been, that the oppressed and persecuted from every country have found among us an asylum from distress. Follow in the same steps, and you will be blest." The refined and courteous tone of this reprimand took nothing from its severity. Stuyvesant interfered no further with liberty of conscience. The case illustrates a tendency of his to err through excess of zeal, which made him sometimes a trial to the impatience of his employers. It was more than once decided to recall him to Holland, but the decision was often reconsidered. The points in his favour were his absolute integrity and loyalty, his executive ability, and the general confidence in his military capacity. The time was one when such a public officer could not well be spared. New Netherland was beset with rivals and enemies. Something must be said of the colony of New Sweden and

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206 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES of the rupture between Holland and England which had such momentous consequences in America. It will be remembered that the original projector of the Dutch West India- Company was the exiled Antwerp merchant, William Usselincx. After the incorporation of that company, in 1623, Usselincx visited Sweden and submitted a similar project to the consideration of Gustavus Adolphus. It was hoped that Gustavus would soon take part in the great war that was raging, which we now remember as the Thirty Years' War. Usselincx wished to see the Spaniards driven . from the Flemish Netherlands, and an important of New step toward this desirable end was to add to the number of Spain's enemies on the ocean. In 1624 Gustavus issued a manifesto for the establishment of a trading association to be known as the Australian Company, with extensive privileges of traffic with Asia, Africa, and America. If Swedish colonies could be established anywhere on the American coast, it would be welL There was plenty of room for them, and they might prove to be safe places of retreat for political and religious refugees. The scheme met with much favour, and the subscription list, headed by the king, contained the names of many pf the nobility and clergy, with some of the most enterprising merchants and craftsmen. But the war in Germany absorbed so much attention that nothing was done until 1635, after the death of Gustavus. Then the Chancellor Oxenstjerna formed a specific scheme for planting a colony in America under the auspices of this corporation, which had now come to be known as the South Company. The person selected to conduct the expedition was none other than Peter Minuit, who had formerly been Director General of New Netherland and had reason to feel PfitftT Minuit and that his dismissal was undeserved and unjust. In 1 Minuit landed his colonists on the west shore of Delaware Bay, and bought of the natives a tract of land on and about the present site of Newcastle and Wilmington, stretching northward as far as the

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SOME AFFAIRS OF NEW AMSTERDAM 207 GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS Schuylkill and westward as far as circumstances might determine. This region he called New Sweden, and built a blockhouse to guard it, which he called after the queen, Fort Christina. He sent a sloop to Jamestown for a cargo of tobacco, and while she waited at anchor in James River the treasurer of Virginia wrote to England for permission to oust these Swedes from the Delaware, which he described as the boundary between Virginia and New England. Protests were soon heard also from Lord Baltimore's colony. When the Swedish sloop went up the Delaware River she was challenged by the Dutch commander at Fort Nassau,

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208 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES and presently a notice came from Director Kieft, warning Minuit that he had better go away. But Minuit paid no heed to protests or threats. He worked away at his fort until everything was quite secure and comfortable, left it abundantly stocked with food and ammunition, and started home for reinforcements. While stopping at the island of St. Christopher in the West Indies, the worthy Minuit perished in a hurricane, but his ships returned safely to Sweden. Now in spite of Kieft's warning, the Swedes well knew that the Dutch would be extremely unwilling to enter into hostilities against them. The Thirty Years' War was still raging. The Swedish generals, Bane> and Torstenson, able pupils of Gustavus, were inflicting heavy defeats upon the Imperialists; and the sympathies of Holland were with Sweden. She did not wish to interfere with such good Affairs of wor^ Accordingly, when a richly laden Swedish New vessel was arrested at Enckhuysen for illegally trading within the West India Company's American dominions, and when the Swedish minister at the Hague demanded her release, she was at once set free in the most courteous and obliging manner. For these reasons the little Swedish colony at Fort Christina was unmolested, and in 1640, along with a new ,1 governor, Peter Hollender, it received consid- f erable accessions. The Dutch f more hospitable to / the Swedes in this neighbourhood / than to the English. The good people of the New Haven colony seem always to have found something attractive in the shores to the south of Sandy Hook. In 1641 they made a settlement near Salem, on the Jersey side of the Delaware River, and another on the Schuylkill, and declared that these settlements formed a part of the republic of New Haven. But in 1642 Kieft sent a couple of sloops with a small force of soldiers who arrested all the English in these two settlements, and carried them to Fort Amsterdam,

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SOME AFFAIRS OF NEW AMSTERDAM 209 whence they were sent back to New Haven. In the work of arresting them, a party of Swedes assisted. No blood was shed, but the English complained that they had suffered damages to the amount of j£iooo sterling. In that same summer Queen Christina sent out John Printz, who had been a lieutenant of cavalry, to be governor of New Sweden, and she guaranteed military protection to the colony. Printz was instructed to maintain as pleasant relations with both Dutch and English as might be consistent with not allowing either of them to encroach a foot upon his territory. Within its limits nobody was to be permitted to trade in peltries except the agents of the Swedish Company. The Lutheran was to be the established john church, but the Dutch Reformed Church was to be Print2! tolerated. Early in 1643 the new governor arrived at Fort Christina, accompanied by the pastor and historian, John Campanius, and two shiploads of settlers. Printz built on Tinicum Island, on the west shore, about twelve miles below the site of Philadelphia, a fortress of heavy logs, which he called New Gottenburg. Between here and Fort Christina many farms were planted. Opposite New Gottenburg, on the east shore whence the New Haven people had lately been driven, Printz built a triangular fort which he called Elsingburg and armed it with eight cannon. Now the Dutch Fort Nassau was a few miles higher up the river, and these twin fortresses, New Gottenburg and Elsingburg, watched over the approach to it like Bunyan's lions before Palace Beautiful. Every ship coming up must strike her colours and wait for Governor Printz's permission to pass on. The first person to arrive upon the scene was our old friend

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210 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES David De Vries, the genia) mariner and colonist, the racy aviat an(* cnamun£ chronicler. He was coming up the from Do river in a Rotterdam ship when the challenge °" came from Elsingburg, and the skipper asked him if he had not better lower his flag. " Well," said De Vries, " if ii; were my ship I should n't lower to these intruders;" but the skipper's view of the case was " anything for a quiet life," and he hauled down his colours. Then an officer came aboard, and they passed on to New Gottenburg, where they were cordially welcomed by Governor Printz, " a brave man of brave size," says De Vries, "for he weighed more than 400 pounds." Printz was delighted at meeting a man of whom he had heard so much, and the fate of whose colony at Swandale had aroused such wide interest. He produced a colossal jug of Rhenish wine, and the evening was passed in friendly discourse. For a dozen years more the colony of New Sweden was suffered to exist, and the altercations which from time to time arose stopped short of warfare. But in Stuyvesant's time, after the peace of Miinster, Holland had no longer the same reasons for wishing to keep from interference with _ j, Sweden. Moreover, Queen Christina was dead, New and her successor, Charles X., was absorbed u\ that mighty war with Poland which forms the theme of Sienkiewicz's brilliant novel " The Deluge." It was the golden opportunity for New Netherland, and Stuyvesant seized it in the summer of 1655. With a force of seven warships and 700 soldiers he swooped into Delaware Bay and up the river; and there was nothing for New Sweden, whose total population was barely 500 souls, to do but surrender. The settlers were not interfered with, but only changed their allegiance. The time was coming when a precisely similar fate was to overtake Peter Stuyvesant and New Netherland. The relations between the Dutch and British governments were suddenly altered, and into the causes and consequences of this change we shall inquire in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER IX DUTCH AND ENGLISH The year i6£i was an important date in English history. The passage of the Navigation Act in that year marked the beginning of a commercial policy which soon led to disturbances in Massachusetts and Virginia, and in the end played a considerable part among the causes of the separation of the American colonies from the mother country. It also marked a sudden and violent change in the in the86 relations between the English and the Dutch. £J£££ From time immemorial there had been unbroken England and the friendship between the two peoples, and for three Nether-centuries the intimacy had been extremely close. In 1584, after the assassination of William the Silent, the people of the Netherlands sent to Elizabeth of England a formal invitation to become their sovereign ; but this honour she declined, while she actively intervened in their behalf and sent an army across the Channel to aid them. Now in i6$i, after the premature death of William's grandson, William II., a similar proposal to unite the two countries under one government was made by the English and refused by the Dutch. Let us observe how peculiarly the two countries were then situated with reference to each other. The treaty of Miinster, in 1648, had at last and forever rid the Dutch of the incubus of Spain. The United Netherlands ranked as the wealthiest nation in the world, with by far the largest merchant marine, and a navy which was rivalled only by that of England. The seven states were united in a loose confederation somewhat like that of the American States between 1776 and 1789. Their States Gen-neral, assembled at the Hague, had more the character of

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212 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES of a diplomatic body than of a sovereign legislature; it was more a congress than a parliament. State rights flourished at the expense of national unity and strength, but there was Govern- a party that dreaded too much national unity, very S«nNeth- much as it was dreaded in America by Patrick eriands Henry and Samuel Adams, The States General constituted but one chamber, but there was another body which discharged many of the functions of an upper house and .which represented the nation at large. This was the council of State, consisting of eighteen men, who were obliged to forswear allegiance to their own states and to take an oath of allegiance to the United Netherlands. The principal executive officer was the Stadholder, a word which is commonly misspelled with a / after the first d, because it looks as if it meant " town-holder," or perhaps " state-holder." In reality it means "stead-holder," a substitute or deputy. It is exactly translated by "lieutenant." The stadholder was in the old days the sovereign's lieutenant, and there was one in each of the provinces, the chief executive magistrate and commander of the army. In 1555 the Emperor Charles V. appointed William, Prince of Orange, his stadholder for Holland and Zealand, and after the rebellion had broken out those states and others continued him in his place by election and under the old title. His two illustrious sons, Maurice and Frederick, succeeded him by election, and there was visible the usual tendency for an elective life-magistracy to lapse into hereditary monarchy. The great personal qualities of these men and their incomparable services to their country made this tendency very strong. William the Silent might have been king had he been willing to accept such a dignity. There was nothing too good for the House of Orange ; such was the feeling in most of the states, but it was by no means universal. There were those who dreaded the tendency toward monarchy, and this Republican party was strongest in the state or province of Holland, which contained most of the large cities, and in population and wealth outweighed the other six provinces

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DUTCH AND ENGLISH 213 together. This party had once been represented by Olden Barneveld; its present leader, just coming to the front, was John De Witt; it had grown in strength since the peace of 1648 made it no longer necessary to smite the Spaniard ; and WILLIAM II. OF ORANGE it sympathized warmly with the Roundhead party in England. On the other hand, there was at this moment strong sympathy between the House of Orange and the House of Stuart. The great stadholder Frederick died in 1647, an^ was succeeded by his son William II., then twenty-one Marriage years of age. In the opinion of De Witt this young °* wiJ|Jem prince was an abler man than his father or his uncle. At the age of fifteen he had been married to Mary, daughter of Charles I., so that he was formally admitted to Princess

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214 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES the fellowship of crowned heads. The son of this marriage was that William III. under whom for a few years at the end of the century England and Holland were to be united. Now the first great event in this young stadholder's administration, the treaty of Miinster, was a bitter disappointment to him, as it was to his neighbour and ally, Cardinal Mazarin. If the war could be continued both hoped to profit by the misfortunes of Spain. William II. thirsted for military glory, and would have been glad to free the Flemish Netherlands from the Spanish yoke. The treaty of Miinster was as odious .to him as the Twelve Years' Truce had been to his uncle Maurice. But perhaps it was not irrevocable. The treaty had been the work of the Republican party, the burghers of Amsterdam and other great cities, the extreme advocate of state sovereignty. But the Orange Scheme of Party> which stood for Dutch national unity, and William il which had a majority in all the states except Hol-Mazarin land, would be glad to see the interminable war renewed. Accordingly Mazarin made secret overtures to the States General in the hope of inducing them to cancel the treaty, and William entered into a compact with Mazarin, some features of which have not been known until recently, while other aspects of it were correctly inferred at the time from the general situation. On the whole it was a very ambitious programme. The combined armies of France and Holland were to set free the Flemish Netherlands, and also to interfere in England in behalf of Charles II. When this scheme was devised, in October, 1650, the battle of Dunbar had just been fought, and one is inclined to wonder how it would have fared with young William of Orange and his cousin, Marshal Turenne, if they had succeeded in landing an army in England, and had come into collision with the mighty Oliver. But scarcely had the compact been made when the young Death of prince suddenly died, and the Orange party in the wuiiam ii. Netherlands instantly became powerless. Within a week after .William's death the babe was born who was

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DUTCH AND ENGLISH 215 to become illustrious as William III. Until this child should grow up there was nobody to represent the monarchical principle that held the party together. A long minority is a misfortune to an established monarchy; it is likely to be fatal when the monarchy is only a matter of aspiration. The CARDINAL MAZARIN Republican ascendency now became pronounced. Nobody was elected to the stadholdership, but the office was held in abeyance for more than twenty years, while John De Witt, as Grand Pensionary or president of the States General, was virtually chief magistrate of the Netherlands. The Dutch Republic now proceeded to recognize the English Common-

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216 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES wealth, and two ambassadors, Walter Strickland and Oliver St. John, were sent by Parliament to the Hague, to negotiate a league of perpetual friendship between the two nations. What was proposed was a kind of federal union under a council of Englishmen and Dutch- men> which was to hold its meetings in London. wuether" ^° manv Persons sucn a union seemed much more natural than the union of England and Scotland under a single sovereign. The relations between English and Scotch had for centuries been hostile, while those between English and Dutch had been friendly. It was important for civilization that the alliance between two great liberal and Protestant powers should be made perpetual. Matters, however, were not well managed. St. John and Strickland insisted as a preliminary that all English fugitive royalists should be expelled from the Netherlands, but the Dutch policy was to make their own country an asylum for political fugitives, and they could not be persuaded to break this rule. Now James, Duke of York, and his sis- Fauure , . , of the ter the Princess Royal were then tarrying at the proposal fjagUe> ancj almost daily they drove slowly past the ambassadors' house, staring and pointing at it in an insulting fashion, while a rabble would gather and hoot at the nation which had sacrilegiously beheaded the royal grandsire of the baby Prince of Orange. The ambassadors were further warned that royalist fanatics at Rotterdam were planning to murder them. So after six months they returned to London with nothing to show for their mission. There was a circumstance which tended to alienate the English and Dutch nations in spite of the many ties of friendship between them. This was their keen commercial rivalry. Now that the common enemy, Spain, was out of the way this rivalry became a predominant motive, and even while the discussion with St. John and Strickland was going on, the States General concluded a treaty with Denmark concerning the customs of the Sound, which was calculated to work mischief to the .English. The shores of the Baltic

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THE GR EAT SHIP called the Sovbraign^ oftlie SE AS-, built in tEeycare, ,1637. a *rae and exailDtmenfion of her Bulk and Bur* fi d rtK a *rae d D deo, andthofe Decorements which beautifie and adornc her, with the Carving work, Figures, and Mottoe* upon thtm Sbee is bejides her Tipmage xGyj.Tms in Iwrdm: Shee £bblififbitbihhUttfi>t tftatdMfr itini*ptgingme*mbtt Wlbtbtmf Mcfit,Stiles,rnidCerdagetbisthehngmtoa SHtt- As alfoAc n«met of a!! our Co«nn>at«3«ni at Sta, the nymbcr o and Gann«« which every SHp earritth both in their Adi ¦ Vice Admiral! , *n«J Rrare-Admirall. With all the Pightt wt«!i*r« bid with the Hollander, g»gem«nt of Litattnant* Ad mi rail ^rcmpe nc«re DOVER, 4ga inft the Englilh Fl«t ondcr theConan*ndofG«nrr»il Kni^y at the time tini<" that th«« of their EtnbaHkdourt here treating of P E AC E. A&for sncreift of Shipping, and Ett-gtionofthhNation , which To much dJfpliaCeth th« & 0 It A N V £¦ R. Cot mt ftri&i&fU) " ffnw ,it«/} iioM Jy»sw net vhm n ioe is J&e rarf ifcerw ' ' ' ' ' & 0 m v 0 *?, Ftiatcti by H- Simmou, for fb»: Jermer, and ar« to tie tcHA «'llitSuuth 5 of the Royall El^ TITLE Of "THE COMMONWEALTH'S GREAT SHIP"

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218 . THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES Sea were a great storehouse for naval materials, and this The Navi- treaty hindered England's access to them. In re-gation Act venge the Long Parliament passed the Navigation Act, which turned out to be the first nail in the coffin of Dutch maritime supremacy. Before 1651 three fourths of England's carrying trade had been done in Dutch vessels by Dutch skippers. As an immediate consequence of the Navigation Act, the nitin two nations, instead of embracing, came to blows, war be- and the English Channel saw some of the hottest land^nd"8 sea fighting that the world has ever known. Equal Holland heroism and skill were shown by the two sides; Monk and Blake were fairly matched against Tromp and De Ruyter. One marvels at such splendid fighting, and wishes it had been done in some worthy cause, and not in this wicked fratricidal quarrel. One fact was elicited by the fighting. The English had been improving the build of their warships, increasing the weight and strength without losing in agility, and the war revealed their superiority. The Dutch merchant shipping suffered so severely that in 1654 they were anxious for peace, and Cromwell, who had lately turned out the Long Parliament, and had sorely grieved over such a war between the two Protestant powers, was glad to make peace. He insisted upon the permanent exclusion of the baby Prince of Orange from the stadholdership, and the state of Holland, in submitting to such dictation, prevailed over the other six states. On the restoration of the Stuart monarchy the Dutch in-Second stantly repealed this exclusion clause. Charles II. Dutch war na(j of course no objection to this. The second war with Holland, which began in 1664 with the capture of New Amsterdam, and ended in 1667 with the treaty of Breda, was purely a quarrel between commercial rivals. In the course of it Dutch warships actually entered the Medway and the Thames, but the terms of peace left the English in possession of New York. The third Dutch war, which began in 1672 and ended in

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Monk Tromp De Ruyter THE FOUR ADMIRALS Blake

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220 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES 1674, was different from the others. It marked the begin- ning of that period of infamy when Charles II. be- came the paid tool of j^^ XIV Jn his great assart upon political liberty. Then came the Dutch frenzy, the cruel murder of De Witt and his brother, the election of William IIL to the stadholdership, and the magnificent resistance in which Holland defied the united forces of Louis and Charles. This period of shame for England ended with the expulsion of James II. and the union of the English and Dutch nations for thirteen years under the masterful leadership of the third William of Orange. We must now turn our attention to New Netherland, and see how it was affected by the course of events in the Old World. Bickerings between the Dutch and English communities in America continued to go on in Stuyvesant's time as in the times of Van Twiller and Kieft. Upon the breaking up of the Council for New England in 1635, Charles I. granted Long Island to William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, who was Grant of secretary of state for Scotland. The attempts of Lo"8 his agents to take possession of the island were alto Lord ways resisted by the Dutqh, although, as we have Stirling geen^ many Engjish peOpie settled there. Shortly after Stuyvesant's arrival in New Amsterdam a strange visitor from Scotland called upon him. His name was Andrew Forrester, of Dundee, and he had been sent out by Lord Stirling's widow to take possession of Long Island. He would fain inspect the Dutch Director's commission; if it should turn out to be a better document than his own power of attorney from Lady Stirling, he would give way to Stuy-vesant; otherwise Stuyvesant must give way to him. In the Director's bosom for a moment amusement may well have contended with indignation for the mastery. He lost no time in putting the bold Scotchman on board a ship bound for Holland, but the ship happened to stop at an English port and her prisoner escaped,

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DUTCH AND ENGLISH 221 At about the same time, Van Tienhoven, the secretary of New Netherland, happened to go to New Haven, and there in the harbour he found a Dutch ship, the San Beninio, which had been quietly riding at anchor for several weeks,

WILLIAM ALEXANDER, EARL OF STIRLING doing a brisk trade with the English, in total defiance of the rules which required a license from the West India Company. The owners of the cargo requested a license from New Amsterdam, promising to pay the customary Affair rf exorbitant duties. On his return to Manhattan the San the secretary obtained the license and sent it to New Haven. A fortnight later one of the owners, Mynheer Samuel Goedenhuyzen, made his appearance at Manhattan, but as to paying duties or even showing his invoices, gave

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322 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES no sign. When, therefore, he let fall the imprudent remark that the San Beninio was about ready to sail for Virginia, it was not unnaturally inferred that he was meditating a fraud upon the Company. It was now the Director's opportunity to show the long reach of his arm. He had recently sold one of the Company's ships to Stephen Goodyear, the deputy governor of New Haven, and had agreed to deliver her at that port. In this vessel Stuyvesant now embarked a military force under Captain Paul van der Grist, with orders to seize the San Beninio in New Haven harbour and bring her to Manhattan. It was a venturesome deed, as the San Beninio mounted ten guns, but it was most neatly and successfully done. On a Sunday morning in October, when all the people were in church, and very little truancy on such occasions was permitted by the magistrates of that devout colony, the Dutch captain brought his ship alongside of Master Goedenhuyzen's craft, when in a trice he boarded her, overpowered her crew, and steered her out of the harbour. There was clamour and cursing enough to disturb Parson Davenport's sermon, and some rushing from the pews to the meeting-house door ensued, but it was too late to stop the exultant Dutchman as he sped away with his prize up the Sound before a spanking breeze. On the next day the San Beninio was condemned at New Amsterdam and duly confiscated for violating the Dutch revenue law; on Tuesday Stuyvesant issued a proclamation declaring that New Netherland extended from Cape Henlopen to Cape Cod, and that duties would be rigorously levied by him upon all vessels trading at ports on the Sound. His notification of these proceedings to Governor Eaton,

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DUTCH AND ENGLISH 223 of New Haven, was considered by that gentleman discourteous ; on the following Monday he thus wrote to Stuyvesant t u Sir, by your agent, Mr. Govert, I received two pages from you, the one sealed the other open, but neither of them written either in Latin, as your predecessors used, or in English, as you yourself have formerly done, both to me, and to the other colonies; but in Low Dutch, whereof I understand little; nor would your messenger, though desired, interpret anything in them, so that part, at least, must lie by me till I meet with an interpreter," Governor Eaton knew enough of what had happened, however, to bring a heavy indict-' ment against the Director for "disturbing the peace be^ tween the English and Dutch in these parts." He pressed the matter so earnestly as to call forth a soothing reply from Stuyvesant, who could be made to realize the imprudence of proceeding to extremities. Meanwhile three delinquent servants of the West India Company had fled to New Haven, where they were arrested and sent to jail. Provisions for the mutual extradition of fugitives had been in force since 1643 between New Neth-erland and the United Colonies of New England, and Eaton had accordingly promised to surrender these prisoners. But now that Stuyvesant had claimed sovereignty ovef Exte.. New Haven, Eaton was unwilling to do anything tion of ,. . . . ... , . criminals that malicious critics might interpret as obeying the behest of an overlord, and therefore he withheld the prisoners and took them into the service of the colony* The General Court at Boston wrote to Eaton, seeking to dissuade him from this course, but he was obdurate. Stuyvesant thereupon in retaliation proclaimed that" 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." This measure was generally condemned. The good people of New Amsterdam feared it might make their pleasant little town a refuge for criminals, and the Company deemed it

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224 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES unwise to give needless offence to England. Stuyvesant was thus placed in an awkward position, from which he withdrew himself by a sudden stroke of genius. He contrived to convey to the fugitives in New Haven an assurance of full pardon and kind treatment if they would at once return to Manhattan. They were prompt to avail themselves of this promise from a man whose word could be trusted; and as soon as they had safely arrived, the Director was enabled with easy grace to annul his rash proclamation. The seizure of the San Beninio was but a single incident in a general policy so rigorous as to frighten away many skippers who would have been glad to trade with Manhattan, and Stuyvesant's conduct met with sharp criticism at the firesides of the burghers and in the board of Nine Men. His unselfish devotion to the interests of the Company was a continual source of irritation to the people, whose obvious needs sometimes suffered neglect. The year 1650 came in with weather so cold that "ink froze in the pen," and while Manhattan was actually suffering from dearth of food the Director obeyed the Company's order to send a supply of food away to Curagoa. By the next August civil dudgeon had grown so high that Stuyvesant drove out the Nine Men Czar stuy- from the pew in church " with which they had thTifine"1 Deen honoured by the consistory," and caused the Men seats to be removed, so that they might not return to it. As Van Dincklagen, from Melyn's stockaded domain on Staten Island, wrote to Van der Donck at the Hague: "Our great Muscovy Duke goes on as usual, resembling somewhat the wolf; the older he gets the worse he bites." It was but natural that the Nine Men, speaking for the people of New Amsterdam, should address a memorial to the States General, begging for a change of government. But, curiously enough, the Director found supporters and apologists among the English settlers on Long Island. The Englishman who wielded most political influence at that time was George Baxter, of Gravesend, who was Stuyvesant's English secretary of state. The letters addressed by the magistrates

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DUTCH AND ENGLISH 225 of Gravesend and Heemstede to the Amsterdam Chamber breathe a spirit of sycophancy toward the Director.1 They express a fervent hope that no change will be made; they are deeply convinced of the desirableness of a strong government ; and, in particular, they disapprove the suggestion that the people of New Netherland should elect their own governor, forasmuch as the sure result would be anarchy and ruin. Thus did Stuyvesant, the faithful servant of the Company, find himself in a singular position, defended by his alien subjects while condemned by nine in ten of his own countrymen. It was at this time that he visited Hartford and engaged in a conference with the Federal Commissioners of New England. As he rode through the flourishing town-ships along the shore of the Sound, and then pro- rant's visit ceeded up the beautiful valley of the Connecticut, toHartford he was everywhere greeted with marked courtesy, but every mile must have impressed him with the utter improbability that the English grasp upon that country could ever be shaken. The idea of ousting the inhabitants was ridiculous ; and as for extending his jurisdiction over them, it would be impossible without a much greater force than the States General were ever likely to be able to send him. Even the two colonies, Connecticut and New Haven, would be more than a match for him; but an attack upon either of these would be an attack upon the Confederacy, and would at once bring Massachusetts and Plymouth into the lists. In case of war, while the Netherlands could still cope with England on fairly even terms, they were not likely to have much spare energy to devote to America. Stuyvesant was too much of a soldier not to realize the military weakness of his position. His claim to the whole coast from Delaware Bay to Cape Cod, and his masterful demeanour toward his neighbours at New Haven, were fine exhibitions of bluff. But when he came face to face with the commissioners for settling questions of jurisdiction that gravely concerned the peace of 1 N. Y. Colonial Documents, ii. 154-156.

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226 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES Christendom, he showed his good sense by knowing how to yield. At the start, however, Stuyvesant put forth the customary bravado. He wrote a statement of his case, which he dated at »' Hartford in New Netherland," and in the course of which he took pains to twit Connecticut and New Haven with their lack of charters by calling them " pretendant colo-The treaty nies." But after a few quips and grimaces thus firdj'siept «v°ked had cleared the atmosphere, business went 19,1650 on serenely. The Dutch claim promptly receded from Cape Cod to Point Judith, but presently the whole question of boundaries was left to a board of four arbiters. One of those selected by Stuyvesant was his own English secretary, George Baxter, already mentioned; why he should have appointed another Englishman (Thomas Willet, merchant, of Plymouth) has not been satisfactorily explained. This board of arbitration speedily decided that on Long Island the boundary between the Dutch and English jurisdictions should run across from Oyster Bay to the Atlantic Ocean. On the mainland it should start west of Greenwich Bay, four miles from Stamford, and thence run northerly, but was never to come within ten miles of Henry Hudson's river. As for the disputed region near Hartford, the Dutch were to have jurisdiction only over such lands as were actually in their possession and determined by metes and bounds. Such was the famous treaty of Hartford, September 19, 1650, by which Stuyvesant practically abandoned all claim to New England territory. It astounded the Dutch. " All the arbitrators were English," wrote Van der Donck, and '' they pulled the wool over the Director's eyes."1 Or, as another writer said, " they entertained him like a prince " at Hartford, but " he never imagined that such hard pills would be given him to digest. New England speaks of him in terms of great praise, . . . because he hath allowed himself to be entrapped by her courtesy." a When the Director heard the 1 N. V. Colonial MSS., ii. 458, Holland Documents, vi. * Newes from New England, 1650.

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DUTCH AND ENGLISH 227 decision of the board, he is said to have cried out, " I 've been betrayed ; I 've been betrayed !" It is pretty clear, however, that he was not so much astonished as other people; he was simply yielding after his own fashion to what he knew was inevitable. On returning to New Amsterdam he kept the matter a secret from his council, and late in November an indignant letter from the Nine Men to Van der Donck says: " The annexed news from New England, which has , . , , , , , , . Wrath of been brought here and thrown Into a certain Eng- the Nine lish house, where the English themselves laugh at Men the Director, is, we fear, too true, as it is also confirmed by daily rumours." It is significant that Stuyvesant, in his report to the Company, withheld the text of the treaty, and no authoritative copy of it reached Holland until 1656, when the States General, by ratifying it, plainly indicated their consciousness that the concession^ made were inevitable. Attempts were made to induce the English government to ratify it, but in vain. England never extended to New Netherland the recognition which such an act of ratification would have involved. In the midsummer of 1652 broke out the first war between the Dutch Republic and England. On the western shores of the Atlantic there was no inhabited spot which had such good cause for alarm as New Amsterdam. The little fortress which had watched over it since the days of Peter Minuit was unequal to the demands of such a crisis. Not only must the fort be repaired, but a wall must be built across the island at the northern limit of the city, for hostile forces might be landed at almost any point above. ori .^ rf This wall, which was finished by May-day of 1653, waU was the beginning of one of the most famous streets in the world, one of the chief centres of commerce and finance, none other than Wall Street. There was a line of round palisades, six inches in diameter and twelve feet in height, strengthened at intervals of a rod by stout posts to which split rails were fastened at a height of ten feet from the ground. Within this line of palisades was a sloping

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228 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES earthwork four feet in height. The wall ran up the East River a little way to the Water Gate, near the present junction of Pearl and Wall streets, and then followed the line of the latter to the Land Gate at the corner of Broadway, and thence westward to the steep bluff which overlooked the North River near the site of Greenwich Street1 The building of these fortifications was a fresh source of contention between Stuyvesant and the burghers. The duties from exported furs, amounting to scarcely 23,000 guilders ($9000) yearly, were not enough to cover public expenses in war time; and a public loan had been made, tut still more money was needed. The burghers held that it was the business of the Company to defend them. The excise on wine and beer, which had been established in Kieft's time, was always unpopular; and the burghers now insisted that Stuyve-. sant must apply this excise to the military needs of , the city before they would consent to another loan. In this matter the Director was obliged to give way, though but partially and with an ill grace.2 He consented to surrender to the city the excise upon liquors consumed within its limits ; a fair source of revenue, one might suppose, since we are told that one fourth of the entire number of buildings in New Amsterdam were inns or tap-houses for the sale of beer and spirits.* One of the most striking features of the great cosmopolitan city in these modern days is the frequency of places for quenching thirst, insomuch that the wayfarer upon Third Avenue or Sixth Avenue, who passes whole blocks consisting entirely of tap-rooms, is inclined to wonder how so many competitors can earn a livelihood. It is interesting to find that this feature of city life already characterized New Amsterdam, and we are assured by De Vries that from the outset the beer brewed there vied in excellence with that of the Fatherland. 1 See Villard's Early History of Wall Street, in that excellent little group of monographs " The Half Moon Series," New York, 1897. 1 New Amsterdam Records, anno 1653. Cutting, Old Taverns and Posting Inns, Half Moon Series, ii. 2461

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DUTCH AND ENGLISH 229 The strength of Stuyvesant's palisadoes was never put to the test of war. The Director's wish to preserve peace found support in Massachusetts, the strongest of the New England colonies, and thus the fire-eaters of New Haven THE OLD WALL RESTORED and Connecticut were restrained. It was rumoured that the Mohegan chief Uncas had accused Stuyvesant of inciting the Nyantics and other neighbouring tribes to make a concerted attack upon the English. As soon as the Absurd Director heard of this slander he met it with rumours prompt and vigorous denial. The chiefs in question also denied it, and the Nyantic sachem Ninigret undertook to show its absurdity, so far as he was concerned. He had visited Manhattan with a pass from John Winthrop, governor of Connecticut. His object in going there was to try the efficacy of some Dutch medicine of which he had heard, but his reception was not such as to make him love Dutchmen. " It was winter time," said Ninigret, " and I stood a great part of a winter day before the governor's door, and he would neither open it nor suffer others to let me in. I am not wont to find such carriage from my English friends." But these denials did not satisfy the people of Connecticut r !

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230 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES and New Haven. It was asserted that Ninigret brought back from Manhattan a stock of powder and ball, besides "wild-fire which, when shot with arrows, will burn anything j" and he was moreover said to have promised his thirsty braves unstinted fire-water. Moreover, some Dutchmen at Manhattan, it was said, had threatened the English with an " East India breakfast, in which, it is conceived, they allude to the horrid, treacherous, and cruel plot and execution at Amboyna." * Commissioners from the New England Confederacy visited Manhattan to make inquiries of Stuyve-sant, whom they treated with great rudeness, while they gave heed only to such sayings and acts as might seem to incriminate his people. In these accusations there was perhaps just a grain of truth. Agents of Stuyvesant had probably sounded sun-The grain dry Indians to learn whether their help could be of truth obtained in case of an attack upon Manhattan by the English. Such measures had been recommended, as a matter of prudence, by the Amsterdam Chamber. The employment of barbarian allies was easily tolerated in that age, nor was it effectively condemned until since the beginning of the nineteenth century. But between what Stuyvesant may have honestly intended and the outrage with which he was charged, the difference was a very wide one. In the midst of his denials of treachery, he did not hesitate to declare that, should the English make war on him he should get from the Indians what help he could, The eccentric John Underhill here appears once more upon the scene. To this doughty champioif, as to the Gow Chrom on the North Inch of Perth,2 it seems to have made little difference on which side he fought. He now busied himself in gathering testimony in support of the charges against Stuyvesant. This led to his arrest and brief imprisonment at New Amsterdam. On his return fo his home on Long Island he boldly hoisted the Parliament's flag at 1 See above p. 48. * In Scott's novel, The Fair Maid of Perth.

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DUTCH AND ENGLISH 231 setting Heemstede and Flushing, and issued a manifesto forth the reasons which impelled him to abjure the x iniquitous government of Peter Stuyvesant over the manifesto people living on Long Island. That tyrant, said the manifesto, had seized upon land belonging to private individuals, he had imposed taxes that were excessive and without due warrant of law, he had violated liberty of conscience by acts of religious persecution, he had kept men in prison without trial, he had " imposed magistrates on freemen without election and voting," he had " treacherously and undoubtedly conspired to murder all the English," he had "been guilty of the unheard-of act of striking with his cane an old gentleman, a member of his council," and he had "publicly threatened every freeman " who failed to conform to his pleasure. "The above grounds," continued Underhill, "are sufficient for all honest hearts that seek the glory of God and their own peace and prosperity to throw off this tyrannical yoke. Accept and submit ye, then, to the Parliament of England, and beware ye of becoming traitors to one another, for the sake of your own quiet and welfare." x When this address was published, Underhill was immediately ordered to quit New Netherland. He fled to Narra-gansett Bay and sent a letter to the Federal Commissioners at Boston, offering them his military services, while for the moment he accepted a commission from Providence Plantations analogous to a letter of marque, giving him authority to capture Dutch vessels. The same privilege was conferred upon William Dyer, first secretary of Rhode Island.2 Underhill Underbill's first exploit shows him to have been a seizes Fort master of the art of " liberal construction ; " if he might capture a Dutch ship on the high sea, why not a 1 New York Colonial MSS., ii. 154, Holland Documents, vi. 2 Husband of the Quaker lady who seven years afterward was cruelly hanged on Boston Common. I i

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232 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES Dutch fortress on the mainland ? So he sailed up the Connecticut River to Hartford and nailed a placard upon the abandoned Fort Good Hope, declaring that he confiscated it as a piece of Dutch property, and held it subject to the General Court of Connecticut. Then he proceeded to sell the property for his own behoof; but in quiet disregard of all this, the General Court next year laid hands upon it as public domain.1 Thus was the last vestige of Dutch dominion in New England wiped out. In this conquest of any empty blockhouse there was not much glory for Underhill. As he will not come mto Our story again, we may here dismiss him with the remark that he lived to see New Amsterdam become New York, and his last years were spent at Oyster Bay, on Long Island, where he died in 1672. The letters of marque issued by the Narragansett Bay magistrates gave rise to more or less privateering on the Sound, which came perilously near to piracy, as when Edward Hull captured a French ship, and when Thomas Baxter preyed upon Dutch and English commerce with strict impartiality and unimpeachable loyalty to pelf. More seri-. ous warfare was averted, chiefly through the action pamc of Massachusetts. The fear of Indian attack kept the towns along the Connecticut River and the Sound in perpetual agitation, and they clamoured for a campaign that might overthrow New Netherland and bring all the neighbouring Algonquin tribes under English control. ' The government^ of Massachusetts, more remote from the frontier panic, seems to have realized Stuyvesant's situation more accurately and to have understood that there was more safety in maintaining peace than in rushing into war. For this attitude the men of Boston were roundly blamed at Hartford and New Haven, and there were moments when the strain seemed so severe as to threaten the dissolution of the Confederacy. There were excited meetings of armed men at Fairfield and Stamford, and an appeal was made to 1 Hartford Records, Towns and Lands, k 77, 81, 86-88.

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The Second Part of the TRAGEDY OF Amboyna: OR, A TRUE RELATEON OF A Moft Bloody, Treacherous, and CrueLDefign of the Dutch in the New-Netherlands in America. For the total Ruining and Murthering of the Englifh Colonies in New-England. Being extracted out of feveral Letters very lately written from New-England to feveral Gentlemen and Merchants in London. London, Printed lor Thomas Matthews, at the fign of the Cock in S' Pauls Church-yard.

TITLE OF " THE SECOND PART OF THE TRAGEDY OF AMBOYNA '

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234 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES Oliver Cromwell. A pamphlet appeared in London, entitled " The Second Part of the Amboyna Tragedy; or, True account of a bloody, treacherous, and cruel plot of the Dutch in America, purporting the total ruin and murder of all the English colonists in New England." The Amsterdam Chamber without delay brought out a Dutch translation of this pamphlet and stigmatized it as " an infamous, lying libel, at which the Devil in Hell would have been startled."1 How far Oliver may have been influenced by such tales is uncertain, but he was persuaded by the agents of New Haven and Connecticut to send four ships of war to America. This little fleet, upon which 200 soldiers were embarked, was commanded by Major Robert Sedgwick and Captain John Leverett They carried a letter from the Lord Protector to the New England governors, requesting prompt and hearty cooperation. Massachusetts refused to take an active part in the enterprise, but allowed 300 volunteers to enlist; Plymouth promised to contribute 50 men, but failed to get them ready; Connecticut raised 200 men, and New Haven 133; so that in all there were 833, a force with which Stuyvesant could not cope, The days of New Netherland seemed numbered, when suddenly on a July day of 1654, just as Sedg-wick's fleet was preparing to sail out from Boston harbour, an English ship came sailing in with the news that peace had been made between their High Mightinesses and the Lord Protector. A weight was lifted from the anxious hearts of the worthy burghers at Manhattan. To the danger from without there Disaffec- had been added danger from within. The Eng-L.ongupo11 lish uP°n LonS Island, who had once been Stuy-isiand vesant's staunch supporters, now showed strong symptoms of disaffection. In a spirit of mistaken caution the West India Company had instructed the Director to give the public offices to none but Dutchmen; whereupon it began presently to appear that the men of Gravesend and Flushing were no longer so fond of " strong government" 1 Albany Records, viii.; O'Callaghan, Hist. N. JV., ii. 571.

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DUTCH AND ENGLISH 235 as formerly; they had come to dread anarchy less and tyranny more. Foremost among the leaders of this opposition was George Baxter, who had once been a confidential agent of the Director and one of the arbiters in the treaty of Hartford. The political troubles came to a crisis in December, 1653, when the Director, with extreme reluctance, allowed a " landdag " or popular convention to as- a popular semble at New Amsterdam for a discussion of pub- ^dV|^.on' lie affairs. Four Dutch and four English towns * monstrance were represented in this convention by ten Dutch and nine English delegates. A remonstrance addressed to the States General was drawn up by George Baxter and adopted by the convention. It grouped the grievances of the people under six heads: 1. " Our apprehension of the establishment of an arbitrary government amongst us;" 2. The protection afforded by government against the Indians is grossly inadequate; 3. Officers and magistrates are appointed without the nomination or consent of the people, and contrary to the laws of the Netherlands; 4. Long-forgotten orders and decrees of the Director and council are raked up for the confusion and punishment of persons who could not be supposed to know them; 5. Promised grants, on the faith of which large tracts of land had been improved, have been withheld { 6. Immense estates have been granted to favourites, whereby sundry villages and towns have suffered detriment. This Remonstrance was signed by all the nineteen delegates, and sent to the Director, with the request that he would return a specific and categorical answer to each of its allegations. His answer was neither specific nor categorical, but it was characteristic. It was full of the evasions and subterfuges in which unconstitutional rulers in all ages and countries have been wont to indulge. " Arbitrary government, indeed!" he would like to know what they meant by 1 The Dutch towns were New Amsterdam, Brooklyn, Flatlands, and Flatbush; the English were Flushing, Middleburg, Hempstead, and Gravesend.

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236 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES that. Had not all the remonstrants sworn to obey the present government ? Well, then, if they would make out their case it was incumbent on them to show that it was more arbitrary than Kieft's! As for appointments contrary to the laws of the Netherlands, what did George Baxter, an Englishman, know about the laws of the Netherlands ? And as for this convention, whose acts " smelt of rebellion," by what right did it come together to heap unprovoked affronts and contumely upon those in authority? What nonsense to say that " the law of Nature " authorizes men to hold meetings to concert measures for the protection of their lives and property! It is only ma-gistrates and not common folk who have any right thus to assemble. " W