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Harper & VdSCOnh be A^loUo COnpOSu^ l^anc cnrfa-rn r>'\ /iparc ^nbicuTT) MAIOLLO'S MAP, 1527, SF m Klavoradore M arc Occ a n ixrn. «:^4!:^ '^ >T^ \ \ N .^ .> / ^ -' '^,^\ :^^^ ING VERRAZANO'S DISCOVERIES 'OJIVUKAHOK ]n]aTiuaanno^nj T^ljbie X>CTiece.nhvis /ir)are ^nbicuTT). 15- % I \ V \ \ \ ij/-'-"-x\\ Marc Oceanum. MAIOLLO'S MAP, 1527, SHOWING VERRAZANO'S DISCOVERIES f5^l V.I HU-- THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES IN AMERICA BY JOHN FISKE Nieuiv Nederlant is een seer scJioon aenge7iaein gesont eit histigh lantschafi daer het voor alderley slagh van 7nenschc7t betcr en rityiner aen de kost of gemackelycker door de iverelt te gerakeit is als in Nederla7it offte eetiige andere quartieren des werelts niijft 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 s:ich is tJie happiness of diir Co7i$titutioti, that we cannot well be destroyed but by ourselves. William Penn, 1679. IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME I BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY (Cbe 0ibcrgitic JSre??, Cambridge 1S99 COPYRIGHT, 1S99, BY JOHN FISKE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO MY OLD FRIEND JOHN SPENCER CLARK WHO HAS LONG FELT A DEEP INTEREST IN THIS WORK I NOW DEDICATE IT WITH SINCERE AFFECTION PREFACE. In the general sequence of my volumes on American history, the present work comes next after " The Beginnings of New England," which in turn comes next after " Old Virginia and Her JSTeiffhbours." 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 de- tails, 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 pro- longed struggle with that troublesome and danger- ous 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 time, 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 VI PREFACE. 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 excellent sugges- tions, and for procuring for me a 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. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDS. PAGE F^nelou's remark about Amsterdam i Significance of the fact that New York is the daughter of Amsterdam . ........ 2 Kinship between the English and Dutch peoples ... 3 Dutchland and Welshland 4 Belgians and Batavians 5 Flemish and Frankish speech 6 The Frisians as heathen 7 The Frisians as Christians 8 Lotharingia, the Middle Kingdona ..... 9 Lorraine 10 The Crusades ; feudal states in the Low Countries . .11 Political circumstances which favoured the Netherlands . 12 Favourable mdustrial circumstances . . . • .13 Agriculture ; dikes and canals 13, 14 Horticulture and manufactures ...... 15 The fine arts 16 Scholarship .......... 17 Erasmus .......... 18 Dutch literature 18 The Bible in the Netherlands 18 Public schools ......... 19 Urban and rural population . . . . . . 19, 20 Modern features of the mediaeval Netherlands . . 20, 21 Political development in England ..... 21 Contrast in the j)olitical development of the Netherlands . 22 The guilds 22 The local lords ; the overlords . . . o . . 23 The disaster of Roosebeke in 1382 24 Vlll CONTENTS. Philip the Good, and Cliarles the Bold Lady Mary and the Great Privilege . Philip of Austria .... Charles V. . Dutch and Flemish liberties in danger . 25 26 . 27 28 28, 29 CHAPTER II. DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND. Non-Engiish elements in the American people . Patriotic bias ; Anglophobia ...... Free public schools; the fallacy oi j)ost and 2)ropte7- . A Bohemian view ........ Flemings in mediaeval England ; politics and wool Trade between Flanders and England .... Immigration from the Netherlands into England Nethei'landers in East Anglia ..... Puritanism Avas especially strong in the eastern counties England . ........ The Lollards ......... Influence of the Netherlands upon English Puritanism Antagonism between priestcraft and commerce Some features of the revolt of the Netherlands The Netherlands broken in twain ..... Hegira of Dutch and Flemish Puritans into England Dutch family names anglicized ..... Migration of Flemish Protestants into Holland . Growth of the Dutch provinces at the expense of Flemish Relations of the Low Countries with Portugal . Death of Don Sebastian ; seizure of Portugal by Spain The Dutch in the East Indies How they introduced tea and coffee into Europe . The Dutch in the Moluccas, and in Australasia The affair of Amboyna The Dutch in Brazil Arctic explorations ; Linsehoten and Barendz Antarctic voyages, and discovery of Cape Horn 30 . 31 32, 33 33, 34 35 . 36 37 37,38 of 38 39,40 40,41 41,42 42, 43 . 44 45 . 46 47 the . 48 48,49 . 49 50 . 51 52,53 53, 54 54 55,56 57 CONTENTS. IX CHAPTER III. VERKAZANO AND HUDSON. The Newfoundland fisheries 58 The voyage of Dieppe sailors in 1508 . . . . .59 Giovanni da Verrazano, the Florentine .... 60 He visits a " new land " in 1524 61 And stands " between two boundless seas " ... 62 The Sea of Verrazano ........ 63 He visits the harbour of New York ..... 64 And finds a " port of refuge " in Narragansett Bay . . 65 He sees the peaks of the White Mountains, and turns his prow seaward from the mouth of Penobscot River . 66 His letter to Francis I. . . . . . . . .67 He is captured by Spaniards and hanged .... 68 The voyage of Estevan Gomez in 1525 ., . . . ,68 The voyage of Jean AUefonsce in 1542, and the French fort at Albany 60 The Norumbega question 70 The River of the Grand Scarp 71 Difficulties in the study of old maps .... 72, 73 Importance of Cabo de Arenas 74, 75 The Gastaldi map 75 Mercator's map of 1569 76 AUefonsce's manuscript 77 Testimony of other maps ; probability that the " City of Norumbega " was a village near the site of the present City Hall in New York 78 Temporary cessation of French activity on the ocean . 79 Beginnings of English maritime enterprise ; the Muscovy Company 80 Henry Hudson, the alderman of London . . . .80 Thomas Hudson, of Mortlake ...... 81 Thomas Hudson, of Limehouse 81 Christopher Hudson 82 Henry Hudson, the Navigator 82 His first and second voyages ...... 83 He enters the service of the Dutch East India Company 84, 85 In his third voyage he is baffled at Nova Zembla . . SQ What next ? Lok's map and John Smith's letter . . 87 The whale fishery 87 Sun spots . , . o 88 X CONTENTS. Hudson goes in search of the Sea of Verrazano . . 88, 89 The Half Moon in the harhour of New York ... 89 The Half Moon in the Catskills 90 Indian hospitality 91 Hudson returns to the service of the Muscovy Company . 92 His last voyage and tragic fate ..... 92, 93 Hudson in folk-lore 94, 95 CHAPTER IV. THE WEST INDIA COMPANY. Significance of the year 1609 .... The American question in Holland The Calvinist or Orange party .... The Arminian or Republican party William Usselincx ...... Founding of the Dutch East India Company in 1601^ Its indifference to America ..... Dutch pioneers at Manhattan, 1613 The Ordinance of 1614 Voyage of Adrian Block Voyage of Cornelius May First appearance of the name " New Netheiland " Fort Nassau, and the vale of Tawasentha . Treaty with the Five Nations .... Triumph of the Orange party .... Petition of the Leyden Pilgrims to the States 1620 It is rejected hy the States General . By accident the Mayflower, intended for Delaware arrives in Cape Cod Bay .... Founding of the Dutch West India Company, 1621 English claims upon the coast of North America John Smith's voyage to New England, 1614 . Thomas Dermer's voyagers, 1619-20 . The Council of New England .... A government provided for New Netherland Arrival of the ship New Netherland at Manhattan Fort Orange, on the North River Fort Nassau, on the South River .... Walloon Bay ....... Why England did not interfere .... . 96, 97 . 98 . 98, 99 99, 100 . 100 101. 104, 101 102 102 103 104 105 . 105 . 106 . 107 107, 108 General, . 108, 109 . 110 Bay, 110, 111 . 112 . 113 . 113 . 114 . 115 116 116 116 117 117 119 lir 118, CONTENTS. XI Accession of Frederick, Prince of Orange . Purchase of Manhattan by Peter Minuit, 1626 The building- of Fort Amsterdam . . ' Mohawks and Mohegans .... Minuit's discussion with Governor Bradford 122, 123, 119 120 121 123 124 Crushing naval defeats of the Spaniards by the Dutch 125, 126 CHAPTER V. PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS.' The English peoj^le as colonizers Contrast with the French ...... Why Huguenots did not go to New France . Influence of habits of self-government upon colonization There was no self-government in New Netherland Contrast with Plymouth and Virginia Slow growth of the Dutch colony The patroons ........ Limitations upon trade and manufactures Feudal features in the charter of 1629 David de Vries, and his colony of Swandale, 1630 Staten Island and Pavonia. ..... Rensselaerwyck Disputes between the Company and the patroons Recall of Minuit ........ The afEair of the ship Eendragt revives the English claim Queen Elizabeth's doctrine .... What constitutes occupation of a country ? . Why Charles I. refrained from pressing the qxiestion Appointment of Van Twiller as Director General His portrait by the veracious Knickerbocker An unwelcome English visitor A broadside of bumpers True explanation of the affair A Dutch fortress on the Schuylkill Portentous growth of New England Mohegans in the Connecticut valley . Completion of Fort Good Hope Disputes with New England Plymouth men on the Connecticut River Troubles with the Pequots . The English fort at Point Saye-Brooke 128, 13- 127 129 130 130 131 132 133 135 136 137 138 139 139 140 140 141 142 142 143 143 144 145 146 147 147 148 148 149 149 150 151 152 Xll CONTENTS. The founding- of Connecticut 153 The Pequot war 154 Van Twiller's chivalrous intervention .... 155 The reason why there was so much bravado with so little fighting- between English and Dutch 156, 157 CHAPTER VI. KING LOG AND KING STORK. Comical notions associated with the name " Dutch " . . 158 Silly generalizations 159 The Athenian prejudice against Boeotians .... 160 Irving's Knickerbocker 160 Capture of English intruders on the Delaware River . . 161 Growth of New Amsterdam 162 Van Twiller's purchases of land 163 Bibulous magnates ........ 164 How Van Twiller was removed from office .... 165 Arrival of William Kieft 166 Kieft's method of governing ....... 167 Illicit trade in peltries ; Kieft's proclamations . c , 168 Quality of the New Netherland population .... 169 The proposals of the patroons ...... 170 The abolition of monopolies . . . . . . .170 New inducements to emigration ...... 171 English settlements on Long Island Sound .... 172 The republic of New Haven ...... 173 Wampum as currency . .174 The wampum treasures of Long Island .... 175 Advance of the English on Long Island .... 176 The Algonquin tribes 177 Selling fire-arms to the Iroquois ...... 178 Kieft undertakes to tax the Algonquins . . . 178, 179 The Raritans destroy De Vries's plantation on Staten Is- land 179 Murder of Claes Smit 180 The board of Twelve Men 180 Reforms proposed ......... 181 English settlers in New Netherland 182 The Bogardus wedding ....... 182, 183 A murder at Hackensack 183 CONTENTS. xiii Arrival of Mohawk tribute-gatherers ; panic among the Al- gonqnins .......... 184 Kieft's insane conduct ; massacres of Indians . . . 185 General rising of Algonquins ..... 185, 186 Massacre of Mrs. Hutchinson's household .... 186 Departure of De Vries ........ 187 John Underhill arrives upon the scene . . . .187 And destroys the Algonquin fortress at Stamford, with a wholesale slaughter of Indians 188 Peace 188 CHAPTER YII. A soldier's paternal rule. The hoard of Eight Men 189 Financial necessities . . . . . . . .190 Kieft's excise ; protest of the Eight Men .... 191 Kieft's rudeness 192 The Eight Men address a petition to the States General, and beg for self-government ...... 192-194 Appointment of Peter Stuyvesant as Director General . 195 Kieft's treaty with the Algonquin tribes . . . 195, 196 Quarrels between Kieft and Bogardus .... 196-198 Arrival of Stuyvesant ; his theory of government . . 198 His name and family . . . . . . . .199 His character 200 His autocratic behaviour 200, 201 Petition of Kuyter and Melyn for a judicial inquiry into Kieft's conduct 201 Stuyvesant befriends Kieft 202 Who attacks Kuyter and Melyn 203 Kieft and Bogardus, Kuyter and Melyn, all sail for Holland in the same ship 204 Which is wrecked on the English coast ; Kieft and Bogar- dus are drowned, while Kuyter and Melyn, with their papers, are saved 204, 205 Stuyvesant' s board of Nine Men 205, 206 A Director's difficulties 207 Rensselaerwyck 207 Feudal insubordination of Van Rensselaer . . . 208 " Weapon right " 209 Beverwyck and its traffic 210 XIV CONTENTS. Staple right . . 210 The Bear Island incident ....... 211 Adrian van der Donck, the Jonkheer ..... 212 Selling- fire-arms to the Indians ...... 212 Insubordinate conduct of Sehlechtenhorst at Beverwyck . 213 Stuyvesant's wrath and Sehlechtenhorst's defiance . . 214 What the Mohawks thought of " Old Wooden Leg " . . 214 Stuyvesant's quarrel Avith Van der Donck . . . 213 A deadlock 216 Return of Melyn 217 Memorial to the States General 217, 218 The Vertoogh^ or Remonstrance ..... 218 CHAPTER VIII. SOME AFFAIRS OF NEW AMSTERDAM. How the late Lord Sherbrooke once tried to measure historic events with a foot rule ....... 219 Importance of homely beginnings ..... 220 English self-government 221, 222 Differences between the English and Dutch migrations . 223 Government by a commercial company .... 224 Spontaneous reproductiveness of English institutions . 225 Differences between insular and continental conditions . 226 The Dutch West India Company and the States General . 227 Incorporation of New Amsterdam ..... 228 Five phases of colonial growth ...... 229 Recovery of strength after the Indian war . . . 229, 230 Influx of sects ; polyglottism and cosmopolitanism of Man- hattan Island . ' 230,231 Lutherans and Baptists ........ 232 The Quakers ; shameful persecution of Hodshone . 233, 234 The case of Henry Townsend ; protest of the men of Flush- ing ........... 234 The glory of Flushing 235 Stuyvesant is rebuked by the Amsterdam Chamber . . 236 Origin of New Sweden 237 Peter Minuit and his Swedes on the Delaware River . . 238 Affairs of New Sweden 239 John Printz, the ponderous governor 240 He receives a visit from De Vries ..... 241 Fall of New Sweden .242 CONTENTS. XV CHAPTER IX. DUTCH AND ENGLISH. Change In the relations between England and the Nether- lands 243 Government and political circumstances of the Netherlands 244 Marriage o£ William II. to the Princess Mary . . . 246 Schemes of William II. and Mazarin .... 246, 247 Death of William II 247 Proposed union between England and the Netherlands ; its failure 248 The Navigation Act, and the resulting war between England and Holland 249 The second and third Dutch wars 250 Grant of Long Island to Lord Stirling . . . .251 Affair of the San Beninio 252, 253 Extradition of criminals between New Haven and New Netherland 254 " Czar " Stuyvesant and his Nine Men 255 Stuyvesant's visit to Hartford 256 The treaty of Hartford, September 19, 1650 . . . 257, 258 Wrath of the Nine Men 259 Origin of Wall Street 259 The excise 260, 261 Absurd rumours as to Stuyvesant's endeavouring to incite the Indian tribes to a concerted attack upon the English 261 The grain of truth 262 Underhill's manifesto ....... 263 He seizes Fort Good Hope 264 Exit Underbill 265 A panic 265, 266 Disaffection upon Long Island ...... 267 A popular convention, and a remonstrance . . . 267, 268 Triumph of Stuyvesant ....... 269 Van Dyck shoots a squaw 270 New Amsterdam thronged with redskins .... 271 Massacres at Hoboken, Pavonia, and Staten Island . . 271 Conference at Esopus 272 Bloodshed at Esopus 273, 274 Growth of New Netherland 274 Growth of New England 275 Colonization of Pelham Manor 275 XVI CONTENTS. The Connecticut charter, 1662 276 English and Dutch claims 277 The English view 278 The Navigation Laws 279 Sig-ns and omens ; intrig'uers ag'ainst New Netherland . . 280 The Dutch envoys at Hartford 281 The rise and fall of President Scott .... 282, 283 Grant of New Netherland to the Duke of York, 1664 . ?84 Colonel Richard Nicolls and his commission . . 284-286 Arrival of the English fleet in the Lower Bay . . . 1-86 New Amsterdam helpless i87 Nicolls's letter to Winthrop ; Stuyvesant tears it to pieces, but Nicholas Bayard puts the x)ieces together . . . 288 Popular murmurs 289 On this occasion Stuyvesant's pen was not mightier than Ni- colls's sword ......... 289 Stuyvesant surrenders ....... 290 How the Dutch took their revenge ..... 291 Political consequences 291, 292 Stuyvesant's visit to Holland 292 His last years and death 292-294 MAPS. Maiollo's Map, 1527, showing Verrazano's discoveries Frontisjnece From Kretschmer's Entdeching Amerilcas^ Berlin, 1892. The original is in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. Part of Gastaldi's Map, made in Venice about 1550 . . 74 From the copy engraved in Ramusio, Navigationi e Viaggi, Venice, 1550 ; in my library. Part of Mercator's Mappemonde, made in Duisburg, 1569 . 78 From the facsimile published at Berlin, in 1891, by the Gesellschaft fiir Erdkunde ; in my library. Van der Donck's Map of New Netherland, 1656 . . .230 From his Beschrijvinge van Nieu Nederlant, ghelijch het tegemvoordig in staet is, Amsterdam, 1656 ; in Har- vard University Library. THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLO- NIES IN AMERICA. CHAPTER I. THE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDS. " When one beholds this city," says Fenelon, 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- sterdam at the mouth of Henry Hudson's Amsterdam river, how could he better record his im- dty"oYNew pressions than by using the selfsame ^^^^' words? Among great cities New York is espe- cially conspicuous and notable for its cosmopoli- tanism, 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 com- mercial 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 2 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. Endicott and tlie 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 com- mercial people in the world, and they seized upon a position marked out by its geography as an im- perial centre for trade. Many things in 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 inter- esting. They form an important chapter in the history of the process by which the great period of maritime discovery ended in the transfer of com- mercial 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 begin- nings of colonization and of maritime emjDire 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 esj^ecially interesting as our near- est cousins. Of all foreign speech to-day the Dutch comes closest to ours. If I say that " So- krates was de wijste onder de Grieken," all can THE MEDIAEVAL NETHERLANDS. 3 understand me ; but that is good Dutch. The chief diversence between the lanouaoes "^ Kinship be- arises from the well-known ertect oi the tweenthe /-^ T^ T 1 • p English and Norman Conquest upon Enolish ; if we Dutch . , . If peoples. had kept on saying cliapman instead oi merchant and againbite instead of re7no7'se, 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 kin- ship a thousand years ago among the people on all the coasts of the German Ocean. The Teu- tonic 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 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 Wil- liam 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 encour- age individuality and do their own thinking. Of these various cousins, as I said, those who speak Dutch are our nearest kin ; and their historic 4 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. interest for us consists largely- in tliis, 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 Bona- parte. Looking across that narrow bit of sea, the Eng- lish have always applied in a sj^ecial 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 High- lands 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 Gommentaries. Gne Dutcliland , , , -r\ i and Welsh- can see how the popular name " JJutch- land" would naturally remain associated esj^ecially with that bit of shore with which 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 year 57 b. C, when Caesar defeated the Nervii in a great battle on the Sambre, not far THE MEDIAEVAL NETHERLANDS. 5 from the site of Valenciennes. The people of the confederated cantons, whose strength he Belgians and broke in that campaign, were known as ^''^t^^i''^"^. Belgians, and their land was then as now, ethno- logically as well as geographically, a border be- tween Germans and Kelts. No people in Gaul offered a more obstinate resistance to the conqueror. To the north of them we find the Batavians, with- out being subdued, entering into alliance with the Eomans 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 inde- pendent confederacy of Belgic and Low German tribes. His superb resistance and gradual dis- comfiture 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 Bacchy- lides 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 6 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. the 5' ear 357, when the youthful Julian the Apos- tate overthrew the Franks and Allemans in a tre- mendous battle at Strasburg, it was once more a resistless charge of Batavians that won the day. After this we hear little more of Netherlanders under the name of Batavians, but in all probabil- ity they were the same as the Frisians, part of wdiom in the next century joined in the English invasion of Britain, while part remained in their old seats by the delta of the Rhine. Nothing is more common in ages of shifting sov- Frisians. . , , • i t t ereignty than thus to meet with old friends under new names ; as, for instance, willi 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 pro- digious results ; for his Franks were not only con- verted 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 descend- ants of the old Belgian tribes who made so much trouble for Caesar were surely included among Flemish and them. The Flcmisli language, which to Frankish. ^|-j-^ ^j^y |g spokcu throughout a great part of Belgium, is a form of Frankish speech. It is very much like Frisian, which comes so close to THE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDS. 1 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 Yondel, to whom John Milton has been thought to have owed so much. It is interesting to consider what a Netherland- ish afPair 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 Landen, 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 more came to the front a man from the lower Rhine, Eobert the Strong, ancestor of the Capetian kings who have occupied the throne of France till within the memory of men now liv- ing. Into the Frankish and Christian empire all of the Netherlandish people seem to have entered willingly except the redoubtable Frisians, who in- sisted upon maintaining their independence and worshipping Wodan and Thor. Delightfully char- acteristic is the old monkish story of the Frisian chief Radbod. Having been very thoroughly beaten in battle by Charles Martel, the redoubt- able Frisian was persuaded to accept The Frisians Christianity, and Bishop Wolfram was ^«h«^*^«"- called upon to administer the rite of baptism. 8 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. Radbod had already tlirust one stalwart leg into the consecrated font when a startling qnery presented itself to his mind, and he suddenly exclaimed, "Where now are the sonls of my ancestors?" With a frankness not sufficiently tempered by prudence the bishop replied, " In Hell, with all other unbelievers ! " " Very well, then," said Radbod, withdrawing his leg, '' none of your bap- tism 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 ser- vice for the Netherland, which in later ages was destined in so many ways to repay it. Before the end of the eighth century the Frisians were a Christian people. They had also, after The Frisians „ « . ^ • ^ , i i as Chris- ycars 01 wariare m which we are told that a hundred 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 cus- toms was the free allodial proprietorshi}) of land ; and this they succeeded in maintaining throughout the Middle Ages, while most parts of Europe ac- cepted 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 THE MEDIJEVAL NETHERLANDS. 9 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 ehlest brother, Lothair, takes the centre and core of the Frank- ish 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 tak- ing in the whole of the old Burgundian the Middle' ' ,.-, ciTTJi 1 '1 Kingdom. kmgdom east oi the Khone, together with Italy. This long strip of territory, from the Ger- man Ocean to the 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, as well as the ecclesiastical capital, Rome, and its sovereign, Lothair, was recognized as Emperor of 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 o*et 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 mili- tary 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 10 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. Kingdom, but there was a sense in which it con- tinued to live on for ages. While France and Germany waxed in strength on either Lorraine. ._ „. ,. •in • •! Side 01 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 neigh- bours. The name Lotharingia, called Lothringen by the 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 Comte 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 Rotter- dam, 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 cer- tain ways the Middle Kingdom has evidently been a favoured portion of the earth. It has had, in particular, two kinds of advantages, ^rs^, 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. At its beginning no such THE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDS. 11 movement as that of the Crusades woukl have been possible ; but at the end of it we see the rji^g (.j,^. 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 popu- lar feeling that in the twelfth and thirteenth cen- turies 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 barons did each what was right in its own eyes, and warfare between such small combatants was perpetual. But in the four- teenth century, along with a marked advance to- ward order and quiet, we find monarchy waxing so strong as to begin to suppress the feudal feudal system. During those four cen- LowCoun^^ turies little states grew up in the 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 impor- tance the bishoprics of Liege and Utrecht, while 12 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. in tlie Frisian territory grew up such communities as Zeeland and Oveiyssel, and in tlie tentli cen- tury 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 pre- sent. The power that could be called forth for the suppression of local liberty was over- poiiticai cir- wlielmiug. It was far from being so in the eleventh century, but it came to be more and more so. But in the Low Countries, on the other hand, the political and social development 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 Holland and the other Netherlands were indeed fiefs of the Em- pire, but precious little they cared for the imperial diet at Frankfort. The central power in Germany grew weaker instead of thriving as in France, so that after a while the connection of the Nether- lands 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 turbu- lence of health and freedom and seems to have done small harm to the manly qualities of the industrial circum- stances. THE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDS. 13 people. In this way the political circumstances of the Netherlands were favourable. They were also highly favoured by industrial cir- cumstances. Taken lengthwise, the Middle King- dom, 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 France and Germany must run across it. For favourable example, the city of Bruges in Flanders "JJ would take copper and iron, pitch and tar, and lumber from Sweden, hides and tallow and furs from Kussia, and send in exchange to those countries nearly all manufactured articles from a spade to a clock. So Bruges would like- wise 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 broad alluvial meadows afforded fine pasturage, and 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 14 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. were famous as now. Hop gardens also flourished in the Netherlands, whence they crossed the chan- nel 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 imme- morial as " the holland." In its unregenerate 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. Dikes and ^'^^^ problcui of redeeming the country canals. j^y dikes made the inhabitants expert 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 advan- tage 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 THE MEDIAEVAL NETHERLANDS. 15 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 in Horticui- horticulture was admitted in the thir- *"'^®" teenth century, and no one who has read Dumas's famous story, '' The Black Tulip," is likely to for- get 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. The soil of the Low Countries is favourable not only to gardening but to the arts of the brick- maker 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 industries of prime importance were spinning and weaving. The best cloths of woollen and Manufac- 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 Flan- ders. The rough /He2;e, or woollen cloth of Fries- land, 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 un- equalled for strength and beauty. 16 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. 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 inter- chanoe of ideas between the Netherlands The fiue arts. t x i at i t i and Italy. Nowhere did the artists of Italy find more apt pupils than among the Flem- ino-s and Dutchmen. The names of Hans Memlino' and Hubert and John Van Eyck show the progress which painting had made in the earlier period of the Kenaissance, Avhile 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 re- nown. From their names 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 artistic capacity one mioht expect Scholarship. ^ o -. i • , , i i • i • i also to find high scholarship, along with a oeneral diffusion of the reading habit. A well- THE MEDIAEVAL NETHERLANDS. 17 known statue and inscription at Haarlem 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 Gutenberg is not shaken. But in the work of multiplying books the change from parch- ment to paper was scarcely less important than the change from blocks to type, and here the abun- dant linen of the Netherlands furnished the needed material. Soon the Dutch presses turned out more work than any others, and had no rivals for excel- lence 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 cir- cumstances we need not wonder that the greatest scholar of the sixteenth centur}^, 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 phy- sicians 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 Huy- ghens ; 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 18 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. others in Europe illuminates the close of the Middle Ao-es is that of the miohty Erasmus, Literature. J^ ,.,.^^^_. whose birth m 1467 is commemorated by an inscription over the door of a little house in Rotterdam. One of the profoundest 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 this respect their cosmopolitanism has perhaps been excessive. Neither Dutch nor Flemish possesses a body of literature which ade- quately represents the national genius. One of the most important parts of the work of Erasmus consisted in the editing and textual criti- cism, and in the translatino- of the Scrip- The Bible. c • oc i tures, and one oi its eiiects was to make the Netherlands a centre of Biblical scholarship. The first English translation of the Bible was pub- lished 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 THE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDS. 19 in Holland could commonly read and write their own language. State archives of Holland, Zeeland, and Friesland show that free scSs. 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 cities. At the present day mrai popu- 1 T» 1 • • 1 lation. it IS well known that JJelgium 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 20,000 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 territor}^ 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 20 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. then about 9,000,000 people. Of tlie ratio of urban to rural population in tlie 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 arm}^ 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 seajiort of the world, has scarcely yet recovered its old di- mensions. 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 predomi- nance of great commercial cities carrying on inter- national trade, with manufactures highly developed, Modern fea- ^^^^^^ ^' liigl^^r Standard of comfort than medL^va"'^ had cvcr before been attained, with wealth Netherlands, fr^j^iy distributed and education widely diffused, with eager attention paid to scientific inquiry and to the fine arts, — sucli a civilization was of course 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 mer- chant prince accustomed to manage great enter- prises, the magistrate learned and grave. Such THE MEDIJEVAL NETHERLANDS. 21 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 " Syn- dics " of Rembrandt. It was indeed character- istic of Netherland art that 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 sub- lime paintings of martyrs and saints, the Nether- lander 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. The contrast with Eng- , , . , 1 1 T T7 Political de- land IS very strongly marked, in i^ng- yeiopment land, during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, we see the royal power so far curbing the great barons as to secure national unity of ad- ministration, 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 al- 22 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. lied with the merchants and craftsmen of the towns securing steady representa^tion through a parlia- ment, 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 were more numerous, the alliances more shifting, and the results more frag- mentary and precarious. There were firsts the rural squires with the peasantry, but the condition of the latter was better than in most parts of the Political de- coutiueut, and serfdom disappeared as theTthe'r." ^arly as in England. Secondhj, there lauds. 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 The guilds. ^1 ' n\ ^ i 1 one another, as m (jrhent, tor example, between the weavers and the fullers. Moreover there were quarrels between neighbouring cities, THE MEDIAEVAL NETHERLANDS. 23 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 ^iie locai Antwerp, the Count of Holland, and so ^^'''^^• on. The local rulers tried to assert 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 guildsmen. Usually the local ruler favoured the notables of the cities as his allies asfainst 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 over- lord, either the Emperor or the French The over- king, who laid claim to some of the south- ^°''^^' ern Netherlands as French fiefs. 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 battle of Courtray, in 1302, when Philip the Fair was so badly beaten by the Flemings, one of the first battles that proved the superiority of infantry to men-at-arms. But some- times French intervention was higlily effective and 24 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. disastrous, as in 1382, in the famous struggle be- tween Louis de Male, Count of Flanders, and the men of Ghent led by Philip van Artevelde. That popular leader was winning a goodly fight for liberty when he was overwhelmed and slain by the French at Roosebeke. It is such events The disaster i • i ^ ii i f ti of Roose- as this tliat make all lovers of liberty beke, 13S2. . . "^ 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 coi^d not cross those few miles of water. In spite of all untoward circumstances, however, including occasional bloody overthrows, as at iioosebeke, 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 j^rivilege of being governed ac- cording 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 an- THE MEDIJEVAL NETHERLANDS. 25 other — by marriage, purchase, or usurpation — the different provinces of the Nether- ^ . Philip lands. The third duke, the versatile ras- the Good, cal known as Philip the Good, by cheat- ing his unhappy cousin Jacqueline out of her do- minions of Holland, Zeeland, and Hainault, nearly completed the acquisition. As ruler over so many great commercial and manufacturing cities, Duke Philip was the most powerful sovereign in Europe. At the beginning of his reign in 1419, when in revenofe for the murder of his father he allied him- self v>^ith the King of England, it made the Eng- lish 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. Control- ling the Netherlands, with parts of Alsace and Lorraine, as well as the duchy and county of Bur- gundy, he might well ask to be recognized as the restorer of the old Middle Kingdom, or Lotha- ringia. This ambition shaped the policy of his terrible son, Charles the Bold, and under the rule of these two the Netherlands had a fore- the bom, taste of the long woes that were 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 26 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. 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, where- upon his duchy of Burgundy was forthwith seized by France, and soon the Lady Mary retained little Lady Mary, ^^ ^^^^ father's posscssious cxccpt the 1477-82. Low Countries. Her marriage to Maxi- milian, 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 strono- over the Netherlands. o 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 from the Lady Mary a charter of liberties, known as the Great The Great Privilege. Among other things it pro- Priviiege. yldcd tliat uo ucw taxcs should be im- posed save by consent of the provincial estates, and that no war, either offensive or defensive, should be begun without such consent first ob- tained. 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 per- son 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 of justice ; and citizens were to be THE MEDIAEVAL NETHERLANDS. 27 guaranteed against arbitrary arrest. While sucli 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 XI., craving his aid against her sub- jects. 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 herakled the time when kings could be brought to the pub- lic 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 he was hardly equal to the task of curbing them, but phmpof with an army furnished by his father, ^"^*^'i^- 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 Eng- lish king could have behaved like Maximilian and stayed upon the throne eleven weeks. In 1494, 28 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. shortly after Maximilian had become emperor, the boy Philip entered npon 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 fore- fathers who crossed to the island occupied a bet- ter strategic position for that purpose than their cousins who remained on the continent. The chief 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, daugh- ter of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the year 1500 saw the birth at Ghent of that Charles 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. AVhat 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 THE MEDIAEVAL NETHERLANDS. 29 running very closely together, and at times inter- mingling, while we come upon the circumstances that led to the planting of a Dutch colony in North America. CHAPTER II. DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND. The earlier writers on American history were apt to ignore or pass over in silence the contribu- tions 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-English noi^-Euglish elements in our composite the"Ameii" civilizatiou wcrc not so much denied as can people, disregarded, like infinitesimals in alge- bra. Your historian would not deny that the set- tlement 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 wit- nessed a reaction. Various historical societies, grouped upon a princii)le of nationality, have be- gun to do excellent work in collecting fresh ma- terials 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 enthu- siasm. In reading the memoirs and proceedings of Huguenot societies, Holland societies, Jewish DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND. 31 societies, Scotcli-Irisli societies, etc., one is some- times inclined to ask whether the people about whom we are reading for the moment ever left anything for other people to do. Your patriotic Ulsterman is clear that the migrations of ^'''^' Englishmen to Virginia and New 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 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 fur- ther recognition as the mother country of the United States seems for the moment overridden. Added to these influences comes that of Anglo- phobia, which now and then bursts out with viru- lence 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- Irish ancestors ; if the abuse of England, ^ngio- most of it irrelevant, were omitted, the p^*^^^*- two bulky octavos would shrink at once into one small duodecimo, and the clearness and force of the argument would be greatly enhanced. In the century of American development before the Scotch-Irish came, Mr. Campbell holds that the 32 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. doiiiiuant influence here was Dutch ; while it can- not be denied that tlie 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 unwill- ingness 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 dis- cussion ; we shall have occasion to consider what the Dutch influence has been. In the mean time, while freel}^ 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 of Free public P^'^^ ^^^^ propter. For example, if in schools. ^i^g sixteenth century we find free public schools in operation in the Netherlands but not in England, we must beware of too hastily inferring that the free schools of New England in the seven- teenth century were introduced or copied from Holland. A different exjolanation is quite pos- DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND. 33 sible. One of the cardinal requirements of demo- cratic 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 Scrip- tures are the rule of life, and accordingly each individual ought to be able to read them for him- self, without dependence upon priests. Hence it is one of the prime duties of a congregation to insist that all its members shall know how to read, and if necessary to provide them with the requisite instruction. In accordance with this Calvinistic idea some form of universal and compulsory ele- mentary 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 Nether- lands, 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 naivete. We have in these days a good many fel- low-citizens of Bohemian birth or parent- ^ Bohemian age, especially in the states of Illinois ^^®'''" and Wisconsin ; and in 1894 a " History of Bo- hemia," 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 34 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. with incredulity the assertion that the civil consti- tution 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 has 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 sur- vived a long night of ages ; but we did not get our town meetings from Kussia. In considering the contributions made by the Low Countries to civilization in America, we must begin by considering their contributions to civili- zation 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 multi- plied and strengthened by the Norman Conquest. In particular, the relations with Flanders grew closer, and we find a party of Flemings, driven DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND. 35 from home by floods, seeking and obtaining permis- sion from William Rufus to make a set- Flemings in tlement in England. This was accom- ^"s^^"*^- plished 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.^ But a long time was yet to elapse before Eng- land 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 was the best pontics and in the world, and most of it went to Flem- ^°^^- ish 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 cen- tury, 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 pervad- ing 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 con- versely any flagrant disturbance of manufacturing 1 Fox-Bourne, English Merchants, i. 9-11. 36 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. in Flanders would spoil the market for tlie English sheep farmer. Wool was symbolic of the wealth of the two countries. In glorification of Nether- land 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 Trade be- ^f Hcury VHI. wc may learn from the derTan?''"' accuratc obscrvcr, Guicciardini. ''To England. England," he says, " Antwerp sends jew- els and precious stones, silver bullion, quicksilver, 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 quantities, 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." ^ 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 materi- 1 Traill's Social England^ iii. 369. DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND. 37 als, 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 actual immigration of workmen from the Netherlands. This from the . , •111 Netherlands migration began to assume considerable intoEng- proportions in the fourteenth century, in the reign of Edward III. That was not, as we sometimes find it carelessly asserted, the beginning of woollen manufactures in England. I have al- ready mentioned the Flemish weavers there in the twelfth century, and we know that some English cloths were exported in the thirteenth.^ 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. Ill the reign of Plenry V. the 7 ,T • T . . . T , 1 • Netherland- clotn industries were mainly centred m ersinEast Norfolk, whose capital, Norwich, then ^^^^' ranked as the second city in the kingdom. An- other Norfolk town, Worsted, has fallen into obliv- 1 Traill, iii. 399. 38 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. ion in spite of its splendid Gothic cliurch, but the name of the thread first made there is known to all the world. From East Anglia the making of cloth gradually extended south west ward to Win- chester 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 Y., the company of Merchant Adventurers, devoted exclusively to the exporta- tion 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 compa- nies. Thus the Flemish influence upon mediseval Eng- land was commercially of great significance. But there was much more in it than spinning and weav- ing. One cannot long study the period of the Reformation, say from Henry YIII. to Oliver Cromwell, without observing that the eastern coun- Puritanism ^^^^ wcrc tlic stroiigliold of dcmocratic eTn^comSes i^leas aud of Puritanism. The contrast of England, ^j^j^ ^j^^ ^y^^^ ^^^ ^j^^j^ 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, Suf- folk, and Essex, curiously jmt 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 keei^ing with this is DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND. 39 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.^ 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 Lol- lardism is unsurpassed in importance by any other phenomenon in English history. Lollardism was the earliest phase of Protestautism in TheLoi- England, as the Catharism of the Al- ^''^^^• bigenses 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 Lan- caster had succeeded in exterminating the Lol- lards, very likely the reformation under the House of Tudor would have stopped where it was left by Henry VIII. But the eastern counties were al- ways 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 1 Green, History of the English People, ii. 259, 260. 40 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. visitation of his diocese more than 200 persons were bronght before him under the charge of Lol- lardism. 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 W^^clif's Bible and keeping up their own thinking until the stirring times when the elo- quence 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 Eng- land were intimately related to the influence ex- erted upon England by the Netherlands. On general principles it would not be strange that the eastern side of the island, looking toward the Con- tinent, should have exhibited earlier symptoms of progressiveness than the west side, backed by the wild mountains of Wales. In modern times, since Influence of England lias become a great maritime landau" on' powcr, othcr couditious prevail and the England. wcst and nortli have become more impor- tant 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 cosmo- politan 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 witli one another in the Netherlands, making that region second only to Italy as a centre of cosmopolitan DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND, 41 culture. In the time of Henry YIII. civilization was farther 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, nar- row-minded. A general survey of the Middle Ages would lead one to the conclusion that there was a cer- tain 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 the failure of the Papacy, at the zenith of its tyranu}^ in the thirteenth century, to fasten the In- between Quisition upon Venice.^ That baleful and com- iHGrcG institution never acquired a secure foot- hold in the mediaeval Netherlands ; in 1430 it liad been almost forgotten at Lille what should be done with the forfeited estates of persons burned for heresy. 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 1 Lea, Inquisition^ ii. 249-253. ^ Id., i. 521. 42 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. Holland, where tlie Dutch corrupted their name into ^ Ketters ; " they were forerunners of the Mennonites and Anabaptists of a later day. Amono- the Dutch oardeners 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 manufac- turing and commercial cities people of sectarian opinions contrived to live side by side with re- markably little strife. Such a society contained all the materials for a mighty rebellion against priestcraft. 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 Re- formation without a paroxysm of persecution and torment. This was made practically certain by the ex- posed 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 the Nether- to dcvclop a gTcat auiouut of practical freedom. The position of the patchwork Middle Kingdom, between 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 BUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND. 43 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 irrepres- sible. The revolt of Martin Luther made it neces- sary for those who would maintain the old order of thino:s to attack the liberties of the Nether- lands. 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 Em- peror Charles was largely occupied with the at- tempt 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 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 glow- ing narrative. But there are a few points which we are here especially concerned to mention. Let us first observe that the success of the re- volted provinces in winning their independence 44 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. was but partial. The mighty struggle broke the Netherlands in twain. The Flemish provinces, the land of the Nervii, were once more compelled to bow the knee unto Csesar, but the Frisian descend- ants of sturdy Radbod triumphantly defied him. The free United States of the Nether- Tlie Nether- , , i i i i lands broken lauds cauic commoiily to be known by in twain. , f i • the name oi their most important com- mercial 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 SiDanish Netherlands, until that family was super- seded 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 kinodom of the Netherlands, which comprised both the Dutch and the Flemish portions, but this arrangement was short-lived. The line of cleavage established by the great sepa- ration 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 no- tice ; but some mention must first be made of the effects upon England of that great war of libera- tion. The first effect was the migration of Nether- landers to England on a larger scale than ever be- fore. This mifjration beoan before the middle of DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND. 45 the century, as a consequence of the persecutions under Charles V. ; it was checked for a Hegira of moment durino^ the reio^n of Mary Tudor, i>utch and *. • 1 1 . I Flemish but beofan aoain with the accession of Puritans into ° ° . England. Elizabeth. In 1560 the Spanish ambas- sador 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.^ The Cinque Ports were full of Dutch and Walloon refugees ; in 1566 they numbered in the town of Sandwich 120 householders, as against 291 Eng- lish 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 legitimate glory that during most of her long reign and through her own policy, profound internal peace was preserved in England 1 Campbell, i. 488; Froude, vii. 270, 413: Traill, iii. 368 3 Griffis, 154, 46 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. tbrougliout one of the stormiest periods of history. Thus the Netherland influences quickly took root and greatly thrived. After the capture of Ant- werp 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 Lowe- stoft, 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 Nether- lander was more than half English already ; a slight change of speech was enough to complete the transformation, and probably the first genera- tion of children were indistinguishable from native Englishmen. To this immigration we owe not only such family names as Flemino- Hollander, Dutch f am- ,--, . ^r iiy names aud Grauut, too^ethcr with numerous vans Anglicized. , P 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 immi- grants often modified their names by spelling, as De Witt into D wight, or simply translated them, as Groen into Green, Goudsmid into Goldsmith, Timmerman into Carpenter, or Koopnian into Chap- man. There is thus strono- OTound for the asser- tion of Mr. Griffis, 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 DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND. 47 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 followed by an extensive migra- tion 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 went northward into Holland, mostly Pro- Migration of testants, skilled artisans, and large and SstantsTnt'o small capitalists. The general result was h^i^^^^^- greatly to strengthen Holland, and by the same token to diminish the life and vigour of the Flem- ish 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 conspic- uous soon after the separation as to seem highly dramatic. After Parma's capture of Antwerp in 48 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. 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 Amster- dam was increasing so fast that temporary booths and fragile shanties had to do duty while better shops and houses were building ^ — very much as in an American western " boom." The fortunes Giowthof o^ vfiM\ indeed, were adverse for Ant- prov?i"ce?at wcrp ; for the Dutch held Flushing at the of'the^^"'^ mouth of the river Scheldt and took toll Flemish. q£ ^j| ships goiug 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 Portuf>"uese. Before the fall of Antwerp these causes had been steadily at work for eighty years, strengthening the Dutch at the expense of their Flemisli 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 com- mercial 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 Colum- with Poitu- bus, was discovered by the Portuguese, who soon controlled the trade of the In- dian Ocean and began building up for themselves 1 Motley, United N ether la?ids, iv. 551. DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND. 49 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 dyewood of Sumatra, the spices of the Molucca Islands, which had formerly come through Alex- andria to Venice, and thence down the Khine 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 power- ful 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 pro- sperity thus gained for x4.msterdam and Deventer and Bergen-op-Zoom was deducted from the pro- sperity 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 grand- sons of Charles V., that King Sebastian of Portu- gal who has been made the theme of so , . , ^ ^ Seizure of many romantic legends, led an expedition Portugal by into Morocco and there was slain in bat- tle, leaving no issue. His kinsman, Philip 11. of Spain, then laid claim to the throne of Portugal, 50 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. and in 1580 seized that kingdom for himself. This was the end of the heroic age of Portugal, which for the next sixty years was held in unwill- ing 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, which had been begun by Eliza- beth's captains, was visforouslv kept up The Dutch i ' o J \. l in the East bv tlic Dutcli. After the defeat of the In- Xiidics* vincible Armada in 1588 they j^roceeded at once to invade the colonial world of Portugal. They soon establislied themselves in Java and Sumatra, and by 1607 they had gained complete j)ossession of the Molucca Islands. Sometimes their ships were taken by Spaniards and their sail- ors thrown overboard or carried home for the next auto-de-fe ; 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 super- seded the Portuguese in controlling the Indian Ocean, and began to build up the noble empire which Holland j^ossesses 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 1150,000,000. DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND. 51 At the close of tlie sixteenth century the forma- tion 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 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.^ 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 the Dutch dealt with China. One memorable result of their presence in the Tea and 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 car- ried 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 cafes 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 1 Payne, European Colonies, p. 55. 52 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. and spices. The possession of the Moluccas was worked for all it was worth from the monopolist's point of view. The Dutch iu the islands were too few to occupy all the cultivable soil ; therefore they occupied the best sj^ots, and destroyed the spice trees elsewhere as far as possible, so as to keep all European rivals out of the field. More- ever, 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 Nega- patam, 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. 1 With the Malay peninsula and the island of Ceylon in their possession, and with the places just mentioned in Hindustan, the Dutch found it desirable to have a half-way station between Eu- rope 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 Dutch in 1605. The Dutch i t i i i i i iuAustra- I here can be little doubt that the coast of that remote continent was visited by Portuguese sailors as early as 1542,^ but that event 1 W. W. Hunter, Imperial Gazetteer of India, vi. 363. ^ Major, Prince Henry the Navigator, pp. 440-452. DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND. 53 lapsed into oblivion, and in 1605 tlie discovery was made for the second 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,^ 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 cir- cumnavigating the globe, they visited the Spice Islands and Java, and most friendly overtures were made to them by the native chiefs, who de- tested 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 protec- torate 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 party of Englishmen settled m 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 con- 1 Collingridge, The Discovery of Australia, Sydney, 1895, p. 279. 54 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. spiracy 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 Am- boyna." 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 w^ay before their keen commercial 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 plan- tations there, worked by gangs of slaves imported from Africa, yielded large profits. For twenty The Dutch years the Dutch held the country and in Brazil. \^Q^^i quc of tlic Nassau priuccs there as stadholder. But the revolt of Portugal from Spain was the signal for a revolt in Brazil against the Dutch, who were bitterly hated as mono2:)olists and as heretics. The Portuguese thus recovered that DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND. 55 spacious country, but of nearly all their other pos- sessions they remained shorn, and never again was Portugal the power that it had been in the six- teenth century. The great length of the voyage to the Spice Is- lands, 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 con- cerning the interior of North America and the vast continental expanse of Siberia. In the next chap- ter we shall see Henry Hudson looking for a north- west 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 Arctic ex- Cabot, in his old age, who advocated this pioj'^^ions. northeastern route to Cathay, and the 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 gallant commander. Sir Hugh Willoughby, was frozen to death as he sat writing in his cabin ; ^ the third ship, more fortunate, entered the White Sea, and returned to England after a hospitable entertainment by the 1 The story is discredited by Harrisse, John Cabot and Sebas- tian his Son, p. 347. 56 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER .COLONIES. 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 ice- bergs and an atmosphere heavy with blizzards. The gallant Barendz discovered Spitzbergen 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 accumu- lation of drifting ice had driven him back. No- thing 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, a true devotee of science, endless in resources, of zeal unquenchable, great-hearted, blithe, and lov- able, he stands in the front rank of the world's great sailors. Curiously enough, only three years after Ba- rendz had reached the highest northern latitude as yet attained, another gallant Dutch captain ap- proached nearer to the south pole than man had DUTCH INFLUENCE UPON ENGLAND, bl ever been before. In 1502 Americus Vespucius had astonished Europe by his voyage to South Geors^ia, in latitude 54° south, where he ° ' . T The Dutch found an antarctic cbniate, and proved intheAnt- arctic Ocean. that Pomponius Mela was to that extent right. In 1599 this record was surpassed 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 Ma- gellan, for nothing was known about the termina- tion 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 col- onies were being planted in America, Dutch enter- prise 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 illus- trious 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. VEKRAZANO 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 be- ginnings of things were earlier than had been sup- posed. 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 attention, the fisheries on the banks of foundiand Ncwfouudland. Englishmen were rather slow in availing themselves of this infor- mation, inasmuch as they had long been accus- tomed to find codfish and haddock in plenty in the waters about Iceland. But sailors from Portu- VERRAZANO AND HUDSON. 59 gal and the Basque provinces of Spain, and in still greater numbers from Normand}^ and Brittany, soon flocked to the Newfoundland fishing grounds. From 1504 to the present moment there has prob- ably 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, wliich 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 skipper, impelled by curiosity or in quest of fur- ther gains, would cruise along the mainland and enter the mouths of the broad rivers ; and so in fact it seems to have happened. Tlie local annals of Dieppe assure us that on the 10th of August, 1508, two ships from that port entered a mighty river which they named after the patron saint of that day, St. Lawrence.^ They ascended the river for eighty leagues, driv- ing a lucrative trade in peltries, and when they returned to Europe they car- Dieppe saii- ried 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 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 ^ Desmarquets, Memoires pour servir a Vhistoire de Dieppe^ Paris, 1785, i. 100. 60 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. food is boiled flesli, and of bread, wine, or money tliey have no knowledge." ^ 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 10th 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 Ycrassen, a Frenchi- fied form of the Italian name, Giovanni da Verra- zano. Concerning the early life of this famous navigator our details are meagre. He was born in Giovanni da Floreucc about 1480, and evidently re- verrazano. ccivcd a good cducatiou. Hc 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 2:)hysical 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 atten- tion was given to ocean navigation. As Verra- zano was enofa^ed 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 Diej^pe with four ships, but all were disabled in a 1 Eusebii chronicon, Paris, 1512, fol. 172. VERRAZANO AND HUDSON. 61 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 10th of March he sighted land on the North Carolina coast, a little north of Cape Fear, — "a new land," Yerrazano . . II* -^ ^^^^ land. calls it m his letter to the king, " a new land never before seen hj men in ancient or mod- ern times." He called it " 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 dis- covered by Columbus. Before Yerrazano started on this voyage he must have heard of the circum- navigation 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 Caro- lina woods set him thinking about spices, and the yellow soil suggested gold, as it did in later days to the English settlers of Yirginia. In his letter Yerrazano 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 62 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. passage tlirougii tins obstacle, and witli this object in view lie sailed slowly northward, keeping the coast in sight and occasionally landing and par- leying 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 re- sults. A tramp of ten miles might have taken his party to some point like the present site of Hoff- mann's Wharf, whence he might look neck of land out upou a wastc of watcrs stretcliiug boundless uortli, soutli, and west, as far as the eye could reach ; and how was he to know that this water was not the Pacific Ocean, but only a bay which future generations were to call by the name of Chesapeake ? If any such inci- dent 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 re- turn 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 be- VERRAZANO AND HUDSON. 63 tween the two." From Florida indefinitely west- ward 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 Si)ain, and the region just mentioned to the northward, which he claims for France. TheSeaof The western shore of the narrow isthmus ^errazauo. is washed by a mighty ocean, which covers nearly the whole area of the United States, and is con- tinuous with the Pacific, thus making an uninter- rupted 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 Ves- conte Maiollo in 1527, now in the Ambrosian library at Milan,i and on a series of other maps, including the one which Dr. Michael Lok, of Lon- don, made for Sir Philip Sidney in 1582.^ The seventeenth century was well advanced before be- lief 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 gaz- ing upon Chesapeake Bay from the Accomac 1 There is a beautiful reproduction of it in Kretschmer, Die Entdeckung Atnerikas, Atlas, xiv. 2 It is given in my Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, i. GO. 64 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. 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 Pam- lico Sound is too near Verrazano's first landfall at Cape Fear, and not near enougli 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 Dela- ware Bay and its sentinel capes without mention is not obvious, but such difficult questions per- petually 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 neigh- bouring hillsides were alive with peering savages as the French ship passed between Staten The harbour -^ , , ^ ^ A i i of New island and the (iowanus shore and en- York. tered the great landlocked harbour which Yerrazano compares to a beautiful lake. At the upper end of it was a delightful place among small steep hills, between which una gi'cmdissima idviera^ 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 VEURAZANO AND HUDSON. 65 an entrance to his western sea ; so that his infer- ences 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 Angouleme, the name of Francis I.'s countship before he became king ; this may have been Coney Island. Plere the general trend of the Atlantic coast changes, he tells us, toward the east. He cruised along the southern shore of Long Island, noticing the throng of natives gathering wampum at Kockaway 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 Narragansett Bay and had a lively parley with the Indians. Here he stayed a fortnight ^arragan- and explored the whole of the bay, which ^^^^ ^^^' seems greatly to have pleased his fancy. He called it Refugio, and on several ma23s of the next half century it appears as Port de Refuge. The accuracy of Yerrazano's astronomical observations is shown by his statement that this bay "is situ- ated on the parallel of Rome, in 41° 40'." Now Newport is in 41° 2W and Providence is 41° 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 Floren- tine set sail on the sixth of May, passed to the south of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, which he mistook for portions of the mainland, rounded 66 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. Cape Cod, and went ashore probably -somewhere between Nahant and Cape Ann. Here the sailors had a scrimmao'e with the Indians, who shot stone- tipped arrows among them without killing any- body. Some of these belligerent redskins wore copper earrings. The country there was densely wooded, but as La Dauphine approached the Pis- cataqua 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 patched with snow. Thence, following the coast northeasterly, as far probably The coast ^^ *^^^ moutli of tlic Pcuobscot Rivcr, of Maine. Yerrazauo was struck with the multitude of small islands, all near to the continent, making many beautiful bights and canals like those on the coasts of lUyria and Dalmatia. At length on the tenth 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 Diep^^e. A few years ago an attempt was made to dis- credit 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.^ 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 Girolamo Yerrazano concerning the American coast from North Carolina to Maine, 1 Evidence enough to set the question at rest is adduced in Harrisse's Discovery of North America, pp. 214-228. VERRAZANO AND HUDSON. 61 there was no possible source except actual explora- tion. The letter was dated from Dieppe, verrazano's in July, 1524, immediately after the ^^'^*^''- ship's return, and its statements are strictly borne out by the two maps. Now up to that time there was absolutely no map or document of any sort in Europe which could have given a forger any infor- mation about New York Bay or Narragansett Bay, or could have told him that our coast turns east- ward from Sandy Hook and northward after pass- ing 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 Moun- tains are, and then have passed on to the islands of the Maine coast and so happily compared them to those of Illyria. 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 Cod ; ^ Amerieus Vespucius with Vicente Pinzon in that same year came perhaps as far north as Chesapeake Bay.^ For the first explora- tion 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. ^ 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. 2 See my Discovery of America, ii. 89. 68 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. This interesting voyage was not vigorously fol- lowed np by the French. Their terrible defeat at Death of Pavia in 1525 and the captivity of the verrazano. \^{Y^g sccm Sufficient to accouut for this. As for Yerrazano, 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 Si- mancas 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.^ The next captain to visit the Hudson River was the Spaniard, Estevan Gomez, who in 1525 crossed the ocean to Labrador and coasted south- Voyage of i ^^ t-i • i i i • c Gomez, Ward to i^ loricla, looking tor a passage. Gomez took notice of Cape Cod, Narra- gansett Bay, and both the Hudson and Delaware rivers. After Gomez we hear no more of Spaniards cominir 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," ^ but their work was partially destroyed 1 The often repeated story tliat Verrazano was devoured by Indians is based upon a statement of the Venetian historian Ramusio, who misunderstood a passage in Oviedo (lib. xxv. 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. 2 Weise, The Discoveries of America^ p. 301. VERRAZANO AND HUDSON. 69 by violent freshets. The pilot, Jean Allefonsce, of Saintonge, makes mention of this incident in the iournal of his voyao:e in 1542. AUe- « /^ 1 • 1 -1 Voyage of fonsce came to Canada m that year with Aiiefonsce, •^ 1542. Roberval, and in the course of the sum- mer made a voyage by himself and was the first to explore in some detail the shores of Massachu- setts 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 of Hell Gate, but his mean- ing 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 sj^ecial license to trade up and down that river, and they affixed to their petition a manuscript map enriched with explanatory notes and memoranda.^ In these notes it is stated that the French were the discov- erers of the river and had traded there with the Mohawks long before Hudson's time. Such testi- mony 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 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 0' Callaghan's History of New Netherlands vol. i. 70 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. evidently had for contemporaries mncli meaning, bnt wliicli in less than a century fell out Norumbega of usc without makmo; ample provision question. . • • c i for gratiiymg the curiosity of later gen- erations. Neither the maps nor the allusions of explorers have as yet enabled us fully to solve the difficulties presented by this name. We find it applied to three things : firsts 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 equiva- lent to New Enoiand. 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 opin- ion is that the Penobscot was the River of Norum- bega, with a village on its bank somewhere up country, where European skippers traded with the natives for furs ; and the name is often said to be Indian. 1 But a very different explanation of Norumbega, 1 In recent years it has been maintained, hj the late Professor E. N. Horsford, of Canibi-idge, that the liiver 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 keejjing 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 iVorye^a, the VERRAZANO AND HUDSON. 71 suggested in 1884 by Arthur James Weise, of Troy, has some strong points in its favour.^ 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 Verrazano's ^ 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 Narragansett Bay were the two localities which most deeply im- pressed 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 Novumhega be simply a Low-Latin corruption of Anormee Berrjo, ? In six- teenth century French that means Grand Ci 11 11 n 1 1 xi The Palisades. jocarp^ and where could one nnd 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 descrip- Latin form of Norway. In accordance with these views a tower with a commemorative inscription has been somewhat j)rema- turely erected on the supposed site of the city. 1 The Discoveries of America to the Year 1525. New York, 1884. ■^ It first appears as Aranhega on Hieronimo da Verrazano's map, of which there is an engraving in Brevoort's Verrazano the Navigator. 72 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. tion. The Elver of Norumbega, then, is simply the River of the Grand Scarp. It is in favour of this view that on some okl maps the name oc- curs as Normiibevcj and Anorumherga. 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 with some Old maps. . i o a i river between them? A modern map would not leave us in doubt. Very true. A modern map is based upon full and correct know- ledge 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. VERRAZANO AND HUDSON. 73 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 oblit- erate 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 our Atlantic coast, thus bedevilled, loses much of its instructiveness. 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, yon may find it in a plausible posi- tion, 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 Norum- bega. Nevertheless the old maps have important testi- mony to offer. On many of them we find certain important names recurring in the same order of 74 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. sequence. One of those names is Cape St. Helen, cabode ii^ latitude 32°, evidently one of the capes Arenas. ^^ ^^iQ mouth of Savaunah 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 Cod, but there are serious obstacles to this view. On most, if not all, the sixteenth century maps tvhere it appears, this sandy cape is placed below the 40tli parallel, and usually with much per- sistence 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 to found a Spanish colony on James River .^ 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 pas- 1 Kretzsclimer, Die EntdecTcung Amerikas ; Atlas., xv. 2 A facsimile was published by the Swedish Staff-General, with notes by E. W. Dahlgren, Stockholm, 1892. ^ See my Discovery of America, ii. 490. JBjiMoKXAK X^JwTX XKCOGKITA O S T R^C ^ tmSmmm PART OF GASTALDI'S MAP, MADE i^Sm VENICE ABOUT 1550 yAUrZ IN^COGHITA ULiMoNTANA Jf T -B K^RJ^ DE XA:b OB.ADOH. >^ ^^^i. Ji ^/,^^lL-j' ^- ^_^^ S-. ('/^^ 1^1 PART OF GASTALDI'S MAP, ^ADK IN VENICE ABOUT VERRAZANO AND HUDSON. 75 sage wherein lie gives many distances along tlie Atlantic coast, not only gives the latitude of Cabo de Arenas as 39°, but makes it 210 Spanish leagues distant from the Savannah Kiver, thus clearly in- dicating Cape Henlopen.i The large river, then, which appears on many old maps immediately north of Cabo de Arenas is the Delaware. It is called Kio de San Antonio, a name which Gomez bestowed probably upon the Hudson, but which was often shifted to the Delaware.'^ The correct identification of Cabo de Arenas is of vital importance. Fifty leagues or so to the north of it the coast-line 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, about 1550, is instructive.'^ It is under obligations to Yerrazano ; it calls the TheGastaWi Coney Island region Angoulcme, and ™^'^' Narragansett Bay a Port of Refuge. The Hudson River is carried up to its junction with the Mo- 1 Gomara, Historia general de las Indias, Saragossa, 1552, cap. xii. ^ Oil 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. ^ It is engraved in Ramusio, Navigationi e Viaggi, Venice, 1556, iii. 353. 76 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. hawk, and even higher, to an imaginary junction with the St. Lawrence. Now on this map Normii- bega 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 Mercators Latiuizcd name of Mercator is familiar map of 1569. ^^ evcrybody who uses an atlas or sails a ship. Mercator made several maps of the 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,^ 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 Hlviere Grande^ the Great River, a name appropriated to the Hudson at that day and by which it continued to be known long after Hud- son'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, Noromhega^ 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 ^ The original is preserved in the Stadtbibliothek at Breslau. A superb facsimile, in eight sheets of elephant folio size, \vas published at Berlin in 1S91 by the Gesellschaft flir Erdkunde. There is a reproduction of the part which gives the American coast in Weise's Discoveries of America, p. oGO. VERRAZANO AND HUDSON. 11 Gastaldi map just mentioned. But there is some- thing better yet. East of the river and at the head of New York Bay is a tiny picture of a vil- lage with a fort, and this village is labelled JVo- romhega 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 Norum- bega was at the head of the bay into which it empties, that is to say, on Manhattan Island. 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 Aiiefonsce's by Jean Allefonsce, the navigator al- ^^^""^^^^p*- ready mentioned. From this document it would appear that Allefonsce sailed up the River No- romhegue at least as far as the site of Pough- keepsie, 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 fur- ther learn that the French fort of Norombegue 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 78 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. neiglibourliood. Here, we are told, French fur traders had a village and blockhouse^ 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 wam- pum fields of Long Island. The details of Mercator's map are closely fol- lowed by another eminent geographer, Abraham Ortelius, in his map of 1570 ;2 and the same con- clusion as to Norumbega seems borne out by the maps of Rascicotti (Venice, 1583) ^ and other maps. Q^^.j^^^-^^g Wytflict (Louvaiu, 1597).^ In strong contrast with these is the vague and con- fused treatment of Cornelius de Judseis (Antwerp, 1593) 5 and Matthias Quadus (Cologne, 1608) ; ^ while a haziness of conception that lends itself readily to the Penobscot theory may be seen in the maps of Pierre Desceliers (Arques, 1546) " and Franciscus Hoeius (Amsterdam, cir. 1600).^ The 1 Perhaps on the isthmus between the Collect and Little Col- lect, where a powder magazine was built in 1728. See below, vol. ii. pp. QS, 71, 72. " No rdenskj old'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. 6 Id., xlix. '^ Kretschmer, Die Entdeckung Amerikas ; Atlas, xvii. ^ Remarkable Maps, etc., vii. In this map C. de Arenas is placed below 40°, but its shape is 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. PART OF MERCATOR'S DUISBU MAPPEMONDE, 1569 PART OF MERCATOR'S DUISBURG MAPPEMONDE, 1569 VERRAZANO AND HUDSON. 79 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.i This sokition 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 and at Albany. Then there seems to have been a falling off in these French visits ; at least we hear no more cessation of about them ; and this falling off may well tivity on the OCGtlH. have 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 mari- time 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 of Nantes 1 On Champlain's map of 1612 (see Winsor, Narr. and Crit. Hist., iv. 381), the Penobscot River is called Naranberga. Per- haps 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 0' Callaghan's Documentary History of New York, Albany, 1849, vol. i. Here the territorial name stands upon the locality of the White Mountains. 80 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. in 1598, we need not be surprised at the absence of any traces of French voyages to America, ex- cept 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 company for the prosecution Muscovy of maritime trade and colonization. This ompany. ^^^ ^^^ Muscovy Company, incorporated in February, 1555, for the purpose of trading with Russia and discovering a northeastern passage to the Indies. Its first governor was the veteran navi- gator, 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 differ- ent forms, including such aberrations as Herdson, Hodgson, Iluddesdon, 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 Gentle- man, 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 Alderman ^^ ^^^^ Muscovy Company, and is often Hudson. mentioned as Alderman Hudson. Beside his great wealth acquired in trade, he was lord of at least a dozen ancient manors, some of which VERRAZANO AND HUDSON. 81 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. Dun- stan'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 Pludson's eight sons, the eldest, Thomas Hudson, who lived at Mortlake on the Thames, was a friend of the learned I ^ Thomas and eccentric philosopher, Dr. John Dee, Hudson, of '^ , ^ . Mortlake. whose private diary, published by the Camden Society, gives interesting information about him. We learn 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 wjien Queen Eliza- beth one winter day, after a noon dinner at Wal- singham'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.^ It seems to have been a different Thomas Hud- son, of Limehouse, below London, who in 1579, in the service of the Muscovy Company, commanded an expedition to Archangel, and thence across 1 Read's Hudson^ p. 54. 82 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. country and down the Volga to Astrakhan, and so on over the Caspian Sea to Persia. Hudson, of Hakluyt's narrative shows this Captain Limeliouse. ttijII c i Muason to nave been a man or nerve and resource. There was also a Christo2)her 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 colo- nies 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 gene- alogy a miss is as bad as a mile ; but there are fair grounds for believing them all to have been kins- men. It has been conjectured that Henry Hudson the Navigator was the grandson of Al- soi"uie " derman Hudson. The moment at which avigaoi. i^ig^Qjy f^Y^t actually knows him is the first day of May, 16 OT, when he sailed from Green- wich in command of an Arctic expedition, but we also know 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 friend- ship 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 Comj^any's service. It therefore seems highly probable that Henry Hudson, as member of a family which had already VERBAZANO AND HUDSON. 83 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 second Spitzbergen, in the hope of 2)assing across ^'^■^^^^^' the North Pole and finding beyond some available stretch of water over which he could sail to the eastern ports of Asia. In the second voyage Hud- son tried to pass between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. In this high latitude he tells us that on the morning of the 15th of June two o£ 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.^ It has been plausibly conjectured that this creature might have been a seal, an animal which at that time had seldom been seen by Eng- lish sailors. Although neither of these voyages accomplished its purpose, yet on his return to England in Au- gust, 1608, Hudson found himself famous. He had been nearer the pole than any man before him, and his superb seamanship was widely reported. Natu- rally the Dutch East India Company felt Hudson en- that if he were to undertake a third voy- ^^^^ S the "^ age, it had better be in their behalf than J^ldifc^m- in that of their English rivals. Their p^^^- offers w^ere probably made through his friend, 1 Purchas His Pilgrimes, iii. 575. The same explanation suits the mermaid seen by Captain Richard Whitbourne, off the New- foundland coast; see my Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, i. 201. 84 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES, the Dutch consul Van Meteren, but how they pre- vailed 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 tradi- tion which paints him as in some indescribable way half a Dutchman, and affectionately calls him Hen- drik Hudson. But Van der Donck is notoriously untrustworthy for matters outside of his own per- sonal 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 direc- tions 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 chaj^ter. 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 pub- lished at Albany in 1869. As for Hudson's name, ^ 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. VERRAZANO AND HUDSON. 85 the Dutch contract drawn up by Dutch lawyers at Amsterdam, under which he sailed, calls him Henry. Instead of being half naturalized in Hol- land, he was evidently a stranger there, invited because of the sudden fame of his two recent voyages. He was the Nan sen of the year 1608. Others than the Dutch directors were eager to secure the great sailor's services. Henry lY. 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 sepa- rate chambers to represent the interests of difPer- ent 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 over- tures 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 equip- ment 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 86 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. 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 re- cords of voyages were now much better kept than in Verrazano's time. Sebastian Cabot had intro- duced the sailors of the Muscovy Company to the practice of keeping log-books, with observations systematically recorded from day to day. Plud- son's movements, therefore, present us with com- paratively few difficulties. lie doubled fled at Nova tlic Nortli Cape ou thc 5th of May, and headed for Nova Zembla. But the sea was so full of ice that the prospect of getting through was dismal, and the little crew became mutinous. Hudson was required by his instruc- tions to return to Amsterdam in case of failure to find a passage liere, but he had expedients of his own in mind, and 2>robably felt that in an enter- prise 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 pas- sage 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 Cabe^a de Yaca 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 VERRAZANO AND HUDSON. 87 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 j^^^^,^ „,^p this map shows the enormous Sea of Ver- s";lth?" razano sweeping over the whole of North ^^"®^' America, and divided from the Atlantic only by a narrow isthmus just at the 40tli 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 Po- tomac, Patapsco, and Susquehanna rivers. There was no passage there, but there might be one a little further 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 de- cided to cross the Atlantic and look for a north- west passage in latitude 40°. Thus curiously is the name of John Smith linked with the begin- nings 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 in vast numbers -^^aie- about Spitzbergen, larger and better in ^^^^^^y- bone and blubber than any hitherto known, and thus they led to a revival and extension of whale- fishery, in which Holland kept the lead until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Secondly, 88 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. on the 21st of May, 1G09, while doubling the North Cape on his return to the Atlantic waters, Hudson made the first recorded observation of a sun spot. It was a year and a half later that sun spots were observed by Hariot and 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 w^ith fresh water. On the 3d of June the sailors were surprised at the force Hudson goes ^^ ^^^^ currcut whicli wc call the Gulf ["lie seaof'^ Stream. On the 18th of eluly they ar- verrazano. y\yq({ \i\ Peuobscot Bay, witli forcmast gone and sails much the worse for wear. Here they anchored and went 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 hali- but. They were visited by two French shallops full of Indians, who offered them fine beaver skins in exchange for red cloth. Nine days after leav- ing Penobscot Bay the Half Moon anchored near Cape Cod, and another day brought her to Old Stage Harbour, on the south side of that penin- sula. On the 18th of August, amid gusts of wind and rain, she was off the Accomac peninsula and sighted an opening, probably Machipongo Inlet, which Hudson mistook for the James Eiver. " This," he says, " is the entrance into the King's VERRAZANO AND HUDSON. 89 River in Virginia, where our Englishmen are." He made no attempt to visit them, j^erhaps be- cause he may have been conscious that Dutch explorers upon this coast would be regarded by- Englishmen as poachers. Presently turning north- ward, he entered Delaware Bay on the 28th of August, and began taking 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, dischar- ging 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 Plook and Staten Island, as Yerrazano had done eighty- five years before. When the Half Moon entered the great bay, says the mate's journal, " the people of the coun- try 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 deere skins loose, well dressed. They have yel- ^iie Half low copper. They desire cloathes, and £bou?of^ are very civill. They have great store ^^^^ork. 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 man- tles 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 90 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. 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 English- man v/as 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 musket shots with deadly effect. On the 14th of September the ship passed between Stony and Yerplanck's points and entered The Half *^ . ^._ ^ f ^ ^ Moon in the upou thc magnillcent scenery oi the Cat- skills. 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 some ad- ventures. '' 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 v/e 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, VERRAZANO AND HUDSON. 91 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 pur- pose of drying, enough to load three ships, besides what was growing in the fields. On our coming into the house, two mats were spread out to sit upon, and immediately some food was Indian served in well made red wooden bowls ; ^hospitality. 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 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." 92 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. 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 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 Eng- lishmen in the crew compelled the captain to land there. He sent to Amsterdam a report of the voy- age, with a request for more money and half a dozen fresh men in place of the unruly ones ; then he proposed to start in March on a fresh search for the northwest passage. When this letter reached Amsterdam the directors instructed Hud- turns to the son to come first to Holland. But mean- the Muscovy whilc King Jauics had interfered with an order forbidding him to leave the country. The foreigners were not to be allowed to have so 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 into the great inland water which has His last ^^^^ since been known as Hudson's Bay, voyage. y^^^ 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 VERRAZANO AND HUDSON. 93 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 return- ing 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 be- tween the Atlantic Ocean and the waters that washed the coast of Asia. An Indian came on board one day with a poniard, which Hudson be- lieved 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 fro ward 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, with his son John Hudson,^ and seven sick men, were set adrift in an open boat His tragic upon that waste of waters, while the ship ^^^^' faced about for England. Our 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 1 Asher's Hudson, i>. 122 ; Read's Hudson, pp. 167, 172. 94 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. 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 de- voted 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 Zembla, by the imaginary sea of Verra- zano, 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 Spitzbergen whale- fisheries and the Hudson Bay fur trade ; and he brought the Dutch to Manhattan Island. No real- ization of his dreams could have apj^roached 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 Hudson in ^o wliicli it is attached, that he was to folk-lore. figure as a Dutchman, in spite of him- self, in legend and on the stage, that when it is thunder weather on the Catskills the children VERRAZANO AND HUDSON. 95 should say it is Hendrik Hudson playing at skittles with his goblin crew. Perhaps it is not an un- kindly 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 navi- gator will remain a familiar presence among the hillsides which the gentle fancy of Irving has clothed with undying romance. CHAPTER IV. THE AVEST INDIA COMrANY. 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 adven- Significance 5^ of the year turous work out a fcw hundred miles 1G09. , , apart. While Hudson in September was sailing on the ^' River of the 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 ami- cable discourse. Thus the first Englishman ever seen by those tawny lords of the wildern^s came to them as a friend, while the French were now THE WEST INDIA COMPANY. 97 making them deadly enemies. The shots fired by Champlain, so few miles from the river on which the Half Moon was sailing, determined that what- ever 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 conti- nent. It made the Iroquois the allies first of the Dutch and afterward of the English ; 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 prob- ability have been Louis XIV., and not Charles 11. , 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 disapj^eared 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 to 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 sea- son the commercial centre of the American coast, 98 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. to which Henry Hudson had led her. His reports of the abundance of fur-bearino^ animals TheAmeri- • i i . • i i p i can question stimulated thc Commercial zeal of the in Holland. Dutch. But in spite of this, the proposal to occupy a portion of the American coast encoun- tered 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 settle- ment in America was closely connected with the peculiar relations of the Dutch to the Flemish Netherlands and to Spain. A few words of expla- nation as to the Dutch political situation wall not be superfluous. I have said that in 1609 Spain was compelled virtuall}^ to acknowledge the indei^endence 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 The Calvin- • i t-w i at i ist, oror- there was a i)arty in the Dutch Nether- ange party. -^^ ' lands that wished to have the war re- newed and kept up until independence should be achieved for the Flemish Netherlands also. There were in Holland more than 100,000 Flemish refu- gees who were of this way of thinking, and they 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 wdtli 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 THE WEST INDIA COMPANY. 99 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 him- self the most famous soldier of the age, — doubt- less the greatest general between the death of Alexander Farnese and the appearance of Gus- tavus Adolphus. Opposed to this war party were most of the municipal dignitaries of the Dutch Netherlands, and especially of Holland. In this province the principal civic offices had become hered- ^he Ar- itary in a few families. Thus an oligar- RepuWicTa chy came near controlling Holland, and p'^''*^' with it all the 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 pro- portional 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 Kotterdam. 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. 100 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. Arminian theology seems to have suited the poli- tics of these men better than Calvinism. When- ever 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 Am- sterdam. It is needless to add that both parties were truly patriotic, while each was prone to sus- pect 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. Now these two parties differed in their views of colonization, of maritime commerce, and the best methods of conducting naval warfare. The most thorough-going and unreserved advocates of an aggressive policy on the ocean were to be found William among the Flemish exiles, among whom Usseiincx. ^^^^ ^£ ^|^g most eminent was William Usselincx, one of the great merchants who had come from Antwerp to Amsterdam. After the defeat of the Armada he was one of the first to urge upon the Dutch government the desirableness THE WEST INDIA COMPANY. 101 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 pre- mature and failed for want of support. Dutch enthusiasm on the subject of America was aroused but slowly. But the necessity for controlling the East Indies was quickly appreciated, since the trade with Portugal had created powerful Dutch interests in that direction. The India trade must not be allowed to languish, and here the The Dutch aggressive policy won its first victory, comp^fyf 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 con- trived that the Republicans should always have an overwhelming majority in the board of directors. This East India Company confined its opera- tions mainly to the regions formerly controlled by Portugal, and did not meddle with America. The fact that Usselincx and enceto 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 102 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. the truce was concludecl, 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 mad- ness 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 instruc- tions, 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 commer- cial mind tamely to let go such a chance for fine peltries as the reports of Hudson's voyage sug- gested. During the next four years sundry Am- sterdam merchants fitted up small ships for them- selves and found it very profitable to get skins of beaver and otter and mink in exchange for blue Dutch glass beads and strips of red cotton. By ESat 1613 four rude houses had been built 1613. ujDon Manhattan Island, and Hendrick Christiansen was sailing to and fro, on all the wa- ters 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 settle- ments at Port Royal, in Acadia, and at Mount Desert, and was on his way back to Virginia with THE WEST INDIA COMPANY. 103 more French prisoners than his ship coukl com- fortably carry, thought it worth his while to come in through the Narrows and see what was going on. He contented himself with scolding Chris- tiansen and making him haul down the Dutch flag and raise that of England. Not dismayed, how- ever, but perhaps rather stimulated by this rebuff, the Dutch merchants who were becoming interested in furs sought and obtained from the states of Hol- land and Friesland a monopoly of the trade during the time that might be required for six voyages. A curious document is this Ordinance of The March 27, 1614 : you may look through ordinance . . . „ 11 . . oflG14. it m vain for any allusion to America or Manhattan Island or furs ; yet it grants most unmistakably the monopoly requested. THe object is attained by circumlocution ; instead of the un- pleasantly definite proper names we have common nouns of glittering generality. It is provided that the discoverers of " new Courses, Havens, Coun- tries, 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, 104 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. suddenly became active, stimulated by the Ordi- nance of 1614. Three good ships, commanded by Hendrick Christiansen, Cornelius Ma}^ 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^ feet in length by 11^ feet in breadth of beam, and named her the Eestless. With this little craft he Voyage of ,^ i . Adrian madc a voyao^e throng:!! waters as yet Block. . . unfamiliar to Europeans, though they may possibly have been visited by AUefonsce. 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 pas- sageway." Block saw the Housatonic River, and ascended the Connecticut as far as the site of Hart- ford ; he explored Narragansett Bay quite thor- oughly, 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 Cornelius studicd by Cornelius May, who continued May. ]j-g Yoyr^ge soutliward till he reached and explored Delaware Bay. Of the two capes which THE WEST INDIA COMPANY. 105 sentinel that bay, one is named after this captain, Captain May, the other after Henlopen, a town in Friesland. Some time afterward Captain Hen- dricksen, in the Kestless, ascended the Delaware Kiver as far as the Schuylkill. The merchants in Amsterdam who were inter- ested 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 NewNeth- New Netherland, which always, by the ®^^*"^- way, occurs in the 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, according 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 106 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. himself. At the same time the Dutch very com- monly 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 ex- tended many miles from the west shore of the Hudson. One of the first things done by the agents of the New Netherland Company was to visit the old Fort Nassau, foi'trcss whicli the Freucli had built in vafeo'f' ' 15^0. ji^st below the site of Albany. T;vvasentha. rpj^^y f^^^^^j ^^^ cuclosure iu the fomi 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 cannon 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 per- sonal 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 THE WEST INDIA COMPANY. 107 conference between the commandant of Fort Nas- sau and the principal chiefs of the Five . , 1 r> 1 m- Treaty with Nations, omce the fio^ht at Ticonder- the Five oga, nine years beiore, these Indians had learned from their enemies on the St. Lawrence that thunder and lightning could be wielded by red men as well as by palefaces, provided they were supplied with the proper talismans. A sol- emn 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 de- layed, 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 extensive schemes of colonization. But «,.,. Triumph of before anythmo; could come of this, their the orange . . party. enterprise was destined to be absorbed in a greater organization. The Orange party, friendly to the establishment of a West India 108 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. Company, was getting the upper hand, and in May, 1619, its victory was celebrated by a shame- ful judicial murder, when John of Olden Bar- neveld, the foremost citizen of the Netherlands, after forty years of the noblest public service, was beheaded on an absurd charge of treason. It re- minds 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 o^uilt attaches to him than to Kino- James. Wherever Olden Barneveld was concerned. Prince Maurice's intellectual vision was hopelessly dis- torted, and he slew him in much the same S23irit in which an opponent of Irish Home Rule a few years ago miglit have devoutly prayed for the sud- den 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, Petition of ^^y ^^^ directors of the New Netherland PiTgdms^to Company. They wished to found a sub- Ge^neraif^ stautial colony at Manhattan, and over- ^^"^- tures had lately been made to them by Rev. John Robinson, an English preacher versed THE WEST INDIA COMPANY. 109 in the Dutch language and dwellmg 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 o'o and make a settlement in America. Mr. o Robinson thoug-ht he could answer for 400 fami- lies, 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 lib- erty ; so they preferred to see, first, what could be done under Dutch auspices. In a Dutch col- ony they would have no fear of being molested for their opinions on theology or ecclesiastical polity. All that Pobinson asked was that the United States of the Netherlands should guarantee the protection of these colonists in case of military dis- turbance. The New Netherland Company caught eagerly at the proposal ; they promised to trans- port 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 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 monojjoly 110 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. whose gains were to be employed where occasion required in dealino^ out blows to Spain. The petition ^n „ ,. c -i^ • is rejected TliB founding" of a Pi'otestant state m by the . * States America was part of the scheme, but it General. ^ . '. w^as thought that the details of it had better be left to the West India Company. More- over, 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 w^ould be prudent to avoid a quarrel with England. The States General might har- bour in their own country Englishmen wdiom King James regarded as half rebellious, but if it should come to planting a colony of such English- men on territory which King James called his own, and then undertaking to guarantee them against intrusion, 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 w^ould be a scandal ; so the States General rejected the petition, and the Pilgrims, instead of sailing for Manhattan, went on and organized their expe- dition under the aus2:)ices of the London Company. It was their intention to go to Delaware Bay. By accident Had they done so and landed on the Jer- flower^m- ^^y sliorc, they would have found them- Sa^^arr sclvcs in Ncw Ncthcrlaud as unwelcome x^^'cape''''"' guests. The Dutch on Manhattan, who Cod Bay. Height havc lovcd them as fellow-citizens, would feel differently toward them as neighbours THE WEST INDIA COMPANY. Ill under foreign jurisdiction. As it happened, the Mayflower, under stress of weather, ran some- what out of her course and carried the Pilgrims north of Cape Cod and out of the jurisdiction of the London Company. About fifty years after- ward, Nathaniel Morton, secretary of Plymouth Colony, said that he had heard a report that cer- tain 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 Plym- outh Company's land and getting a title after- wards. 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 naviga- tion and trade on the barbarous coasts of America and Africa. No citizen of the Nether- lands could sail to any point between the westindia tropic of Cancer and the Cape 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 112 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. India Company was invested were well-nigh im- perial. 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 fur- nish 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 con- firmed by the States General. The government of the Company was in the hands of five separate chambers or boards, representing different sections of the Netherlands ; but there was one executive board, sometimes known as the College of Nine- teen. Eight of these directors were from Amster- dam, four from Zealand, two from Dordrecht, two from North Holland, two from Friesland and Gro- ningen, and one was a director-at-large, a spokes- man 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 stock- holder of the company. After that date no new members could come in. But in fact the subscrip- tion was kept open for two years, while the charter underwent some slight modifications and various matters of detail were arranged. On the 21st of THE WEST INDIA COMPANY. 113 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 English James asserted dominion over the Ameri- «i^""s- can coast from the 34th parallel, which cuts through the mouth of Cape Fear River, to the 45th, which now divides Vermont from Canada. All the coun- try 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 Plym- outh Company's preserves, partly upon the neu- tral region. The energetic Sir Ferdinando Gorges, governor of Plymouth in Devonshire, and one of the most active members of the Plymouth Com- pany, had in 1614 sent Captain John Smith to explore the coasts assigned to England that company. While Block was sail- ing through Long Island Sound, Smith was scan- ning 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 114 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. 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 Dernier, to make further investigations. Dermer sailed over the same waters and voyages, bv thc sauic coasts formerly visited by 1619-20. »/ ^ Block. In 1619 he passed from the 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 multi- tude of traders all busy with furs. Dermer warned them that they would not be allowed to stay there, inasmuch as the country 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 Eng- lish 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 THEJWEST INDIA COMPANY. 115 of their reply to his friendly notice to quit, the king was gravely concerned. In the autumn of that year, 1620, while the Mayflower was T .11 <• -r»'i The Council on the ocean with her company ot ir'il- ofNewEng- grims, there was drawn up a charter which created an executive body known as the Council of New England, and in this charter New England was defined as including all the land be- tween 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 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 Gen- eral 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 nowhere ; it does not appear that any an- swer was ever made to the English government. Meanwhile Dutch skippers traded with the In- dians not only at Manhattan, but on the Connect- icut River and the shores of Narragan- sett and Buzzard's bays ; and the West ment pro- India Company proceeded to organize a New Nether- government for New Netherland. The province was made equivalent for dignity to a IIG THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. coiintsliip, and its official seal was a shield bearing a beaver, surmounted by a count's coronet, and encircled by the motto, Slg ilium Movi 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 cham- ber. 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 Nether- land, with the first party of permanent colonists. Arrival of arrivcd at Manhattan, and came upon a Ne^thedaud7 Frcuch skippcr in the very act of plant- 1G23. -j^g ^|-^g 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 the vale of Tawa- sentha. Once more the site of the fort on North was cliaugcd ; this time it was moved a few miles upstream, and built within the present limits of the city of Albany. Its name v/as changed to Fort Orange. In after years its exact site was for a long time occupied by the Fort Orange Hotel, which was burned in 1847. Eio^hteen families settled in the neighbourhood of the fort, and with them stayed May's lieutenant, Adrian Joris, of Tienpont. Such were the begin- nings of Albany. In the course of the next month THE WEST INDIA COMPANY. 117 another Fort Nassau was built on the east bank of the South River, opposite the land now covered by Philadelphia. Yet another on south ' party of Dutchmen visited the Connect- icut River, which they called the Fresh River of New Netherland, to contrast it with the salt Hudson. On the site of Hartford Hope, on they began building a fort which they called Good Hope, but it was some years before it was finished. Yet another party of the New Netherland's pas- sengers 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 Berlcshlre County is a familiar instance. Walla- bout by itself means Walloon Bay. King Alfred would have called it Wealha Bight^ that Walloon is, Welshmen's or foreigner's bay. As ^^^' the English applied to their neighbours who did not speak Teutonic the name Welsli^ 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.^ Spanish perse- cution 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 1 Another less probable explanation of Wallabout has been suggested, as from Waal-bocht, or " curving bay." See Putnam, Origin of Breuckele?i, Half Moon Series, vol. ii. No. xi. 118 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. India Company offered better terms and secured them as colonists. In this expedition the Dutch may be said to have taken 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 2:>osition at Man- hattan, 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 atti- tude of England furnished the chief source of anxiety. We have seen James I. in 1621 com- plaining to the States General. Now in January, 1625, the ship Orange Tree from Amsterdam, on her way to New Netherland, stopped at land did uot Plymouth in Devonshire, whereupon Sir 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 Pro- testant 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 THE WEST INDIA COMPANY. 119 into an offensive and defensive alliance with tlie Dutch. It was agreed that both countries should maintain fleets for the purpose of destroying Span- ish commerce, and that tlie 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 indig- nation 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 imj)lication was that the States General were ready to grant justice if the facts could be proved. Nothing was said about New Netherland, and it 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 Com- monwealth 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, youngest son of changes of William the Silent by Louise, daughter ^"^®^'^- of Coligny. Frederick was an excellent general, if not so great as Maurice, but as a statesman and 120 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. 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 administra- tion 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 PurclifiSG of Manhattan tliis is getting thc cart before the horse. Minuit, These Indians were a branch of the great Lenni - Lenape confederacy, afterwards known as Delawares. Now in the Lenni-Lenape language Maiiatey means " island " and Manliat- taiiis are " those who dwell upon an island." ^ Evidently, therefore, the Manhattans were simply the island tribe of Delawares. Throughout the seventeenth the island was called by Europeans indifferently Manatey and Manhattan. When we say "Manhattan Island" it is a case of unconscious tautology, 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, ^ Beauchamp, Indian 'Names in New Yorlc, p. 45 ; cf. Brinton, Lenape-English Dictionary^ s. v. Menatey. THE WEST INDIA COMPANY. 121 so that the price paid for Manhattan was really equivalent to about 120 dollars. That must have furnished enough ribbons and beads to give every brave and every squaw a chance. The next thing to be done was to build a suit- able 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 block- house encircled by red cedar palisades backed by earthworks. This was called Fort Am- ^ort Am- sterdam. East of it, along the shore of s*^^^^^^"- 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 popu- lation of 200 souls. Such was the beginning of 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 east of it on made land. Communication with the little set- tlement at Wallabout was kept up from the site of Peck Slip. There Cornelius Dircksen owned a a farm or bouwerie, and used to ferry passengers across in a rowboat 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. 122 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. For a moment, however, tlie party at Fort Orange were in danger of a breach with the Mo- hawks. The nearest neighbours of this formidable tribe were the Mohegans of the Housa- aiKiMobe- tonic vallcj. These people belonged 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 be- sought the garrison to aid them in an attack upon the Mohawks. The commander, a rather dull per- son 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. Hav- ing 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 Mo- hawks, they truly said, had never offended the Dutch ; and if in this unfortunate affair a few Dutchmen had been slain by their arrows, it was the 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 some- THE WEST INDIA COMPANY. 123 times hard to avoid. It was similar meddling that > some years later made it necessary for the settlers of New England to crnsh 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 French- men. Probably the Dutch could not have ad- justed 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 with- drawn, and the building of Fort Good Hope, on the Connecticut, was suspended. All the settlers were concentrated at Manhattan for greater secur- ity. 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 the Pilgrims of piscussion Plymouth. Dutch envoys visited Gov- Mhmltand ernor Bradford and were received most ^^''^^^«r<^- hospitably. Letters passed between Bradford and Minuit in which the courtesy and kindliness of ex- 124 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. pression 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 Enoland ; both are anxious to maintain 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 sug- gestion that the Dutch might at least forbear to trade with the Narragansetts and Wam2)anoags — " 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 proclama- tion 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 THE WEST INDIA COMPANY. 125 Dutcli 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 every- thing 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 by spoilino- her principal industries, while ■J r & i^ i^ ' Crushing de- the work of destruction, beofun lons^ asfo feats of the ' ^ ^ . Spaniards. by Hawkins and Drake, was approaching completeness. For example, in a tremendous bat- tle ofe 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 million 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 pre- ferred 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 sep- arate peace with Spain. Charles I. was entering upon his experiment of governing without Parlia- ment, and wished to disencumber himself of all 126 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. complications. But the naval war was kept up successfully eighteen years longer by the Nether- lands, 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." Few facts in history are more conspicnoiis than the preeminence of England in the work of found- ing colonies. The fact is often mentioned, and not unfrequently the question is asked, T-« T 1 ^''® English Why have the Eno^lish been so much people as r ^ 1 1 TOO! colouizers. more successful than other people ? Such questions never can be answered by a single sen- tence 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 men- tion. 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 depend- encies, 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 128 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. 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 de2)end- ency that has ever existed, such shocking of preju- dices would not have been an instance of momen- tary carelessness, but part of a deliberate policy. The English approached the people of India with missionary preachers, but in Mexico and Peru the Spanish Inquisition has been at work even since the nineteenth century came in. It is pretty clear that Spanish methods would never have won Hin- dustan or held it with increasing firmness for two centuries. As regards real colonies, planted in a wilder- ness, it is obvious that success cannot be achieved unless large numbers of people go thither to stay. The successful colony must first become Contrast rr\ t o i • between a homc. Iradiuo^ posts or nshnis: sta- Englishand ^^ ^ - i i French as tious or p^oid dif>'i>ino"s, whcrc iDcople colonizers. ^ ^ ^ flock together for temporary profit, ex- pecting to go back to their old homes, are not likely to become self-supporting colonies unless aided by other circumstances. Creating a state involves creating nev/ 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 quite happy out- side of their own beautiful country, whereas an Englishman can make himself at home anywhere. There is truth in this, but are we not in danger of inverting the relation between cause and effect? PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS. 129 May it not be that Frenclimen 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 car- rying 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 wit- nessed an emigration from France incomparably greater than any that has ever gone out from Eng- land. 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 migra- tion of 20,000 Puritans to New England seems a small affair. It is true, these Frenchmen 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 Allegha- nies and ousted the Hudson Bay Company. At 130 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. all events, I doubt if we should have heard much about the natural incapacity of Frenchmen for foundino' colonies. Now the reason why the Huguenots did not come over to New France was simjily that they were not allowed to do so. Although Louis XIV. was sorely vexed and alarmed at the slowness of wiiythe increase in the population of Canada, he ?id^iio"go\o would not allow a heretic to be received New France. ^^^^^^ Qu any tcruis. The Hugucnots, therefore, were obliged to lose their nationality and their speech, as the Pilgrims would have done if they had stayed in Holland. They became ab- sorbed in the populations of northern Germany, Holland, England, and the English colonies. Here, then, we come back to the advantage pos- sessed 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 liabeas cor^ms^ 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 vil- influenceof -^^8'^ ^^ govcm itsclf wliilc at the same luenrupon' ^ime uatioual unity is not impaired, is coioiuzatioii. Joubtless the most important j^rerequisitc for success in founding colonies. A village accus- tomed to manage its own affairs will 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 sent from a distant PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS. 131 capital. Mr. Parknian has abundantly shown the weakness which this lack of training in self-gov- ernment entailed upon New France. If we look at modern Germany, we see that its people easily overcome the disposition to stay at home. Thou- sands 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 con- sciously copied either from England or from the United States during the nineteenth century. Be- tween these two facts the connection is far from accidental. In the Dutch colony on the Hudson a most lib- eral policy was pursued with regard to the admis- sion of immia;rants. New Netherland ^, ^ There was never suffered from this source of weak- "^ seif-gov- ernment m ness which afflicted New France. No- New Nether- land. body was excluded for heresy. But as regards the transfer of self-government to Amer- ica, the Dutch were not wholly successful. In the course of this narrative we shall observe the diffi- culties 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, 132 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. 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 Koopjiian^ who was secretary and the Company's bookkeeper; and the Sellout^ 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 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 there was nothing of the sort. At that same time the Contrast ^^^ inhabitants of Plymouth made laws outil Tnd™ for themselves in a primary assembly and Virginia. elcctcd their governor; while the 4000 inhabitants of Virginia, distributed in a dozen communities, had their elected house of representa- tives, 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 gov- ernment in Virginia began with an autocratic governor and council, agents of a commercial com- pany in London, and thus it was like the Dutch government in New Netherland ; but it took Vir- ginia only eleven years to outgrow such a situation PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS. 133 and secure a representative assembly. We shall hereafter see how differently it fared with New Netherland. The years 1628-30 mark the beginning of a new era in the colonization of North America. More than 1000 Englishmen came to Massachu- setts 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 make a settlement in Maryland. But the colony at Manhattan grew very slowly. Traders came and went, but the number of new ofthe'Dutch homes did not come up to the Company's expectations. The country was well fitted for agri- culture, 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 pro- perty, 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 discontent 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 perma- nent homes, the West India Company in 1629 issued its famous charter of " Privileges r^^ye and Exemptions." This charter declared P^troons. that any member of the Company who should within the next four years bring to New Nether- land fifty grown-up persons and settle them in 134 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. 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 pa- troon was chief magistrate on his estate, and could hold manorial courts, from which, if the matter in disjiute involved more than the value of 50 guild- ers, an appeal could be taken to the Director and his council at New Amsterdam. In practice, the patroon s evaded this provision by exacting from their colonists at the outset a promise not to make any such appeal. The colonists were to be ex- empted 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 curi- ous 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. PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS. 135 Restlessness must be discouraged. In return for the exemption from taxes, the settler must bind himself to stay in one place and develop its re- sources. 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. Besides this fixed rent, the patroon was entitled to a part 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.^ As for trade, the patroon s had full liberty to buy whatever goods they wanted (except furs) in New Netherland or in the French and English col- onies. But before such goods could be sent to Europe they must stop at New Amsterdam and pay an export duty of five per cent, to Limitations the Company. The fur trade was ex- X minu! pressly reserved from this permission. ^^^*^^'^®^- Nobody but the Company, through 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 ; 1 J. H. U. Studies, iv. 16. 136 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. tlie market for the products of the looms in Hol- hiiid must not be curtailed. The use of slaves in tilling the soil or in household service was sanc- tioned, and the Company somewhat vaguely pro- mised 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. Finally, having thus carefull}^ prescribed the re- lations 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 neg- lected 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 PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS. 137 since the West India Company had taken posses- sion, 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 miwds of the traders who had come hither for furs. This famous charter of 1629 was clearly the out- come of careful study, but it fell far short of pro- ducing the eft'ect that was intended. The Feudal fea- feudal system had never acquired more charteTof'*^ than a slight hold upon Holland, yet this ^^'^'^' charter, drawn up by Dutchmen, introduced some characteristic features of the feudal system into the New World. Its provisions were not oj^pres- sive, like those which tormented the peasantry in France, but they certainly did not hold out strong inducements to the prosperous farmer in Hol- land 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 dig- nified than his position before leaving home. It seems rather strange that the makers of the char- ter 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 were attractive. At first men showed more readiness to come as patroons than as tenants. 138 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. The first manor that was granted nnder the charter Liy beyond Delaware Bay, west of Cape Henlopen, within the present state of Delaware. It was taken by Saninel Godyn and Samuel Blom- maert, 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 five other directors were taken into partner- ship 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 in De- cember, 1G30, with colonists, tools, and De Vries i /^ t i and his cattle. One was captured by pirates ; colony of -r^i -r»«*»i Swaudaie, the otlicr rcachcd Delaware Bay m April, 1G31, 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, Swandale. De Vries followed with reinforcements, but before his arrival the Indians burned the house and mas- sacred all the colonists, so that he found nothing but charred timbers and 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 PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS. 139 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 reorion now covered by X A- 1111 c c^ Statenls- Jersey Oity, and the whole oi otaten land and Island, so called in honour of the Staaten^ or States General. 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 seven 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 re- mains to-day in Pavonia Ferry. More prosperous fortunes waited upon Kilian Van Rensselaer, 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 Com- pany. Rensselaer's party of colonists, consisting mostly of farmers, were carefully selected Rensseiaer- and instructed, and very completely ^^^^' equipped. Industry throve at Rensselaerwyck, 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 140 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. Connecticut none were as yet made. Very soon the patroons bes^an to incur the censure Disputes be- I * . tweentiie oi the Companv by enoaoincv on their Company . ^ '^ J ^ & & & and the owu Drivatc accouut in the fur trade. patroons. . „ They justified themselves in this by what woukl be called in modern phrase a " loose con- struction " of the charter. This led to fresh regu- lations 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 pa- troonships it had let loose an unruly elephant. Not only did their private Indian trade interfere with the monopoly expressly reserved to the Com- pany, but it tended to defeat the very object for which the patroon ships had been created, for it prevented the growth of a healthy interest in agri- culture. 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 dis- pute 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 the Recall of surfacc to wliicli we have no adequate Minuit. clue. Minuit, who was an eminently just and honourable man, always felt that his treatment on this occasion was harsh and unfair. PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS. 141 One of the last achievements of Director Mi- nuit's administration was the launching of the great ship New Netherland, 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 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 charo^e of illeo'ally tradino^ within Kins^ Charles s dominions m America. In- lish claim again. stantly there came a protest from the Dutch 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 chal- lenged 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. 142 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. Now while Engiand claimed the coast of North America on the strength of Cabot's dis- Eiizabeth's coverv in 1497, she did not effectively doctrine. _ . •! i i occupy any part or it 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 gar- risons there since 1614 ; and that since 1623 their colony had been steadily growing. Against this strong argument Englishmen some- times urged in conversation, that Hudson's dis- covery of the North Eiver should be counted to the credit of England rather than of Holland, be- cause 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 as to what constituted occupation of territory. In 1606 James I. had defined Virginia as extending from the 34th to the 45th parallel, and had granted it by charter to two ioint-stock companies. constitutes it sucli ail act 01 sovcrcignty as grant- occupation ? . ^ mg the land was to be reckoned as equiv- alent 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 PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS. 143 jurisdiction of the States General, or of the West India Company, over New Netherland ; as for in- dividual Dutchmen or families of Dutchmen, there was no objection to their settling there, onl}^ by so doing they abandoned their nationality and became subjects of Charles I. Such was the Eng- lish view of the case. King Charles, however, had so many embarrass- ing 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 pro- test, intended to justify a policy which might here- after 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 clerks in the Company's warehouse at Amsterdam. He had mar- y^^ TwiUer, ried a niece of Kilian van Rensselaer, ^h-JitOT and one of the Rensselaers had married ^^"'^'''^^• his sister. To this family connection Twiller seems to have owed his appointment. His quali- fications 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 peculiar- ity did not escape the notice of that veracious chronicler, Diedrich Knickerbocker, who indulges 144 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. himself in a smile over it. " Witli all his reflec- tive habits, he never made up his mind on a sub- ject. ... To this has been attributed his surname of Twiller ; wliich is said to be a corruption of the original Twijfler, or, in plain English, Doiibterr The description of the personal appearance of this His portrait, ^^^^Itcr the Doubtcr is almost too well cfoJs KnTck- known to need citation : " He was ex- erbocker. ^ctlj five fcct six iuchcs lu height, and six feet five inches in circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stupendous di- mensions, 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 appear- ance of a beer-barrel on skids. His face, that infallible index of the mind, presented a vast ex- panse, unf urrowed by any of those lines which dis- figure 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 PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS. 145 us tliat it is " with infinite difficulty " that he has collected these personal details, which is his plea- sant way of confessing that they are drawn from the depths of his own imagination. The picture is suggested by certain incidents in Twiller's 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 sol- diers, he was accompanied by Dominie Everardus Bogardus, the first clergyman, and Adam Roe- landson, the first schoolmaster, of New Netherland. Van Twiller had been ashore but a few days when he received a visit from Captain De Vries, return- ing from the ruined colony at Swandale, and there occurred an incident which may have first sug- gested to Irving his grotesque description. At noontide, while De Vries and Van Twiller were sitting at dinner, a ship bearing on her foremast the red cross of St. George,^ came blithely up the bay, and presently dropped anchor before ^^ English 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 o£ Tawasentha fifteen years ago. Eelkens had incurred the displeasure of the Com- pany in 1623, and had been dismissed from its service. He was now in the employ of Clobery & Co., merchants, of London,^ and had come in the ship William to buy furs on the shores of Henry 1 Preble, History of the United States Flag, p. 170. 2 O'Callaglian, History of New Netherland, i. 143. 146 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. Hudson's river. That English sailor had discov- ered the country, and it belonged to King Charles. '' Don't talk to me about Henry Hudson's river," retorted Van Twiller, " it is the Eiver Mauritius ! " and he swore that no English ship would be per- mitted 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 ex- change of defiances the English ship waited a few days, and then without further ado weighed anchor and stood upstream. At this saucy be- haviour Van Twiller was for a moment speechless with rage. The citizens of New Amsterdam were already gathering in groups about the fort ; Van Twiller sent the crier to summon everybody. Then he broached a mighty cask of lihenish wine, and A broadside geucrous bumpcrs were drunk to the con- of bumpers, f^gjo^ of tlic rcncgadc skipper and his English ship. De Vries was vexed at such friv- olity. " Why did you let him sail out of range? A shower of iron beans would have brought him to his senses. We did not put uj) 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 confis- cated. The ship William was then escorted down to the Narrows and sent on her way with no cargo PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS. 147 save ballast. This affair started up a fresli dis- cussion between the English and Dutch govern- ments, 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 re- member that the English and Dutch governments were anxious to avoid a quarrel, the situ- rpj^g ^j,^,g g^. ation loses much of its absurdity. Per- i^i'"^=^<^'<^"- haps if De Vries had been the responsible magis- trate, 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 mioht fare with the law and lo^ric 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 pro- jected colony was just coming upon the scene. Preparations were accordingly made for renovating Fort Nassau, and Arendt Corssen, crossing the Delaware Kiver, bought of the Indians ^ d^j^^j, a tract of land on the Schuylkill, where S'thr"""'* a fort was afterwards erected, called ^^^''^'^•'*''®- Bevers reede^ or " Beaver Koad Fort." Thus we see the Dutch leaving a landmark upon Pennsyl- vania, as well as upon Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. In 1633 the last-named quarter was the one 148 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. which excited most interest. The outlook in the Portentous clircction of Massachusetts Bay was truly growth of portentous. For some time after the com- Engiand. -^^g, ^£ p^^^^, Miuuit, thc 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 o'rown from nothino- to 4000 souls, and was already rivalling Virginia. Englishmen were com- ing 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 Elver 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 Plartford, but had soon desisted. Their numbers were too small for the territory they wished to cover. But in 1G28 Indian affairs drew their attention Moliegaiis in iv t i the Connect- castward. Tlic Mohe^ans oi the upper icut valley. . ^ ^\ Housatonic valley were driven from that region by the Mohawks ; in the central hill coun- try of Massachusetts their progress was blocked by the Nipmucks ; so they moved down into the lower Connecticut valley, among their own kins- men, whose chief sachem dwelt at Mattabeseck, on what is now known as Indian Hill, in the city of Middletown. The new - comers, under their sagamore, Sequeen, occupied the site of Wethers- field. Their coming led to complications with the PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS. 149 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 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 Mo- hegans 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- /->! 1 Completion mer Van Twnler sent Jacob van Curler, of Fort who built 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 Is- land Sound, to notify Van Twiller that the Con- necticut River was within the dominions of the king of England. The envoy and his friends were treated with the greatest with New cordiality, and after five weeks returned to Boston with a polite note from Van Twiller to 150 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. Winthrop, suggesting that the English should defer their "pretence or claim" to Connecticut until the States General and the kino- of Enirland 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." lie 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 unfore- seen consequences. It seems that a small band of Indians, probably a sept of Mohegans, had been expelled by the Pequots from their home at the present site of Plymouth Windsor, a few miles above Fort Good connectkut Hopc. Thc Plymouth government bouglit i^i^er- i\^\^ land from the banished Indians and proposed to reinstate them. The frame of a block- house, all ready for raising, was packed on a barge, and in this craft Lieutenant William Plolmes, 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, thc Dutch commander shouted to them to turn and go back, under penalty of a volley from the two cannon. Holmes rej^lied that he was under orders from the governor of Plym- outh, and should go on, volley or no volley. " So they passed along," says our chronicler, "and PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS. 151 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 Virginia, was sailing up the Connecticut River with seven companions, on an errand to Fort Good Hope, he imprudently al- lowed a dozen Pequots to come on board his little vessel. At night, when Stone and his men, or most of them, were asleep, these Indians Troubles murdered them all. Shortly afterward with the they surprised and slew several of Se- queen'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 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 152 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. led to the intervention of the Boston government to keep peace between tlie Peqnots and Narragan- setts, but otherwise nothing came of them, and the murderers of Stone were not surrendered. AYhile these things were going on, Van Twiller sent a party of 70 men, in December, 1C34, to drive the Plymouth men from their blockliouse at Windsor, but on reconnoitring 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 1G32 obtained a grant of the Connecticut Kiver and lands adjacent. Now in November, 1635, the younger John Winthrop, act- ing under their orders, brought a party to Kievit's Hook, the name of which he changed to Point Point Saye- Sayc - Brookc, after his two patrons. Brooke. Thcsc Englishmen tore down the arms of the States General from the tree to which the Dutchmen 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 proceedings, arrived upon the scene ; but finding a couple of English cannon in j^osses- sion, she quietly turned and retired up the Sound. Then Winthrop built a fort at Saybrook, by the hands of Lyon Gardiner, an accomplished engi- neer, who had formerly served in Holland under the Prince of Orange. The narratives of the time abound in such instances, which show the closeness PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS. 153 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 for- est was full of difficulty and danger. But now this forlorn hope of eastern New Neth- erland was about to be not merely isolated, but in a measure overwhelmed in a new tide of English migration. The majority of ingofcon- the people in Cambridge, Watertown, and Dorchester disapproved of some theocratic features in the government of Massachusetts, and in par- ticular 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 aspired to com- mand, 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 Water- town 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 Hart- ford fortress, for the English could well afford to disregard them. 154 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. The ferocious Indian war that followed this migration hardly belongs to the history of New ThePequot Netliei'land, except for an incident which ^^^- reflects great honour upon the Dutch gov- ernor and has been too little noticed. We may briefly recall to mind how certain Narragansetts murdered an English trader at Block Island, where- upon John Endicott came with three vessels and slew Indians and burned wigwams at Block Island, and then, coming over to the mainland, perempto- rily demanded of the Pequots that they surrender to justice the Stone nnirderers, and getting only an evasive answer went on to shed Pequot blood and set fire to Pequot wigwams. How this grim Puri- tan thus came near uniting against the English the two most powerful tribes of New England, each numbering more than 1000 warriors ; how the diplo- macy 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 tliis is a familiar story. But what Van Twiller did is seldom men- vanTwii- tioucd. lu the spring of 1G37, shortly before the final catastrophe, a band of Pequots rushed into Wethersfield, killed nine men, and carried two young women into cap- tivity. 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 ler's chival- rous inter- vention. PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS. 155 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 war- riors for hostages ; with these he effected an ex- change, 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 for- give him for many shortcomings. Though he had more than once sent home to Holland for permis- sion to attack the English, though the latter indeed were dreading an assault from him in the midst of their troubles, yet when it came to leaving Chris- tian women in the power of the barbarians, all quarrels of Dutch and English were for the mo- ment 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 English at Windsor and at Say- brook, as also in not firing upon the ship rphe reason William at Manhattan, there has been ^i^so'much much unjust criticism. The scenes are solluie'^'''^ so funny that they fail to get serious ^s^ing. attention. The spectacle of a band of armed men marching up to a fortress and demanding its sur- 156 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. render, and then, when the demand is refused, marching" meekly away, reminds one irresistibly of Dogberry : — Dogh. You shall comprelieiul all vagrom men : you are to bid any man stand, in the Prince's name. 2 Watch. How, if a will not stand ? Dogh. 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 liave aroused the hu- mour of Irving and the contempt of many writers who have not paused to consider the very peculiar situation in which Van T wilier 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 thins^s well calculated to encourao^e the habit of doubting. The truth is that the Dutch and English people were quite friendly inclined to one another, and their governments were deter- mined not to quarrel ; sentiment and policy alike forbade it. At the same time their antagonism and rivalry in America was a geographical neces- sity, from which they could not escape^ Under such circumstances the only available resource was a game of bluff, and such g-ames are apt to have their ludicrous side. In makino: these remarks I am not at all con- PRIVILEGES AND EXEMPTIONS. 157 cerned to defend Van Twiller, but only to do jus- tice. Even small facts in history are worth the effort required to see them in their 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 Netherland under his successor. 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 themselves by a territorial designation, as Hollanders or Nederlanders ; but when we call a Ger- Comical no- -,^^ , -, . . , .-, tions about uiau a Dutclimau we do it with a smile. the Dutch. -p i • t i i i 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 Netherland 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 bar- gains " where the wits are clouded with beer, KING LOG AND KING STORK. 159 "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. Tliere is more savour of spleen than of wit in such phrases. 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 differ- siiiy generai- ent there is less temptation to do this. ^^**^^"^- The existence of wide differences is taken for granted, and our own immeasurable superiority, on whichever side we may happen to be, goes with- out 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 Eng- lishmen do not always quickly respond, and forth- with 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 I The Englishman sometimes brings the same charge against the countrymen of Scott and Burns ! Every one has heard the famous re- mark of Sydney Smith, but the delicious reply of the great Scottish humourist, John Wilson, is not 160 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. so generally known. Smith had said, " You can- not 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 litera- The Athe- turc. Yct f roui this people came Hesiod Slce^Srst and Pindar and Plutarch, with the Boeotians. paintcrs, Nicomachus and Aristeides, and the general, statesman, orator, and scholar, Epami- nondas, in whom the moral grandeur of a Wash- ington was united with the brilliant versatility of a Raleigh. In a learned monograph on the Boeotians, in which a modern Welsh scholar. Pro- fessor 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 peo- ple, fond of good dinners, and not averse to a social glass. The conception answers very closely to Irving's picture of the inhabitants of Irving's o j. Knicker- Ncw Ncthcrland. When his Knicker- bocker. bocker was first published, in 1809, many people of Dutch descent in New York and Albany read it with fierce indignation. In certain quar- ters 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 carica- KING LOG AND KING STORK. 161 ture." 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 o-reat and o^rowino^ diffi- culties on his Connecticut frontier. In the oppo- site direction there was further cause for anxiety. Lord Baltimore's people began coming to Mary- land in 1634, and the next year a small party from Virginia came up the Delaware River and 1 • r» -n* AT I'll Capture took possession oi r ort JNassau, which the of English T-kiiiiiiA TT intruders Dutch had abandoned. As soon as Van on the ifi'i 1 11 Delaware. Twiller heard of this, he despatched a warship thither, which captured all the English and brought them to New Amsterdam. The ques- tion 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 carry- ing 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 bicker- 162 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. ings with the English. But this did not prevent very brisk commercial intercourse. Salt and tobacco were carried in Dutch vessels from Man- hattan to Boston and Salem, and horses and oxen of the finest breeds were brought over from Hol- land 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 its profits were enhanced by the ])re- Growth of , ^ 1 • New Am- rosfativc kuowu as " staple riiiht," accord- ing 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 expecta- tion of a rise of values. Among these was the little island in the bay, which the Indians called KING LOG AND KING STORK. 163 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 present town of Flat- lands. The Indian occupants of these lands were paid for them after the usual ler's lai.a . 1 • 1 • 1 purchases. fashion, but in order to get a valid title under the West India Company's regulations, it was necessary that such purchases should be for- mally approved in the Amsterdam Chamber. Van Twiller foolishly disregarded this rule, and thus laid himself open to imputations of dishonest deal- ing, imputations that were damaging, even if not sustained 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 magis- trates, and presently with Dominie Bogardus, who once called him a " child of Satan " and threat- ened 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 gentle- ness 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, Bibulous 1636, that excellent mariner, returning ^^sn^^^^. from Virginia, had his leaky ship hauled up and 164 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES, careened on the site of Maiden Lane for repairs. Van Twiller informed liim that Cornelius van Voorst had just arrived as superintendent of Pauw's estate of Pavonia. Van Voorst had brought with liim a few cases of prime claret, and so the Director, wdth De Vries and Bogardus, went over to pay their respects to him. The sequel suggests that the claret must have been fol- lowed 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 dow^n to their boats. Van Voorst gave them a part- ing salute with an old swivel which stood in front of his house, but bungled it in such 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 fare- well 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 was growing somewhat boisterous, when suddenly the trumpeter, Anthony van Corlear, Ijlew a blast and made several persons jump. Thereupon the koop- man of stores and koopman of cargoes upbraided the trumpeter and called him by divers oj^probri- ous names, until that doughty musician assaulted them both and thrashed them soundly. The koop- men, with aching sides, ran home to get their KING LOG AND KING STORK. 165 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 dis- approved 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 were so freely expressed that the angry Van Twiller HowVan dismissed him from office and sent him Jemov™^ back to Holland. On the Director's f^°-«ffi««- part this was a rash proceeding, for Van Dinck- lagen immediately drew up a formal complaint ac^ainst him and lodged it with the States General. It was a moment of bitter discontent and disap- proval 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 sta- tion, 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 Man- hattan had slightly diminished, while the neigh- bourins: Eno^lish colonies to the east and to the south were rapidly expanding and threatening to overwhelm it. Something must be done to mend matters, and first of all the competency of the government must be ensured. The States General instructed the Company that they must either re- fute the charges against Van Twiller or recall 166 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. him. This was tlirowiug 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 Amsterdam, but played no important jmrt there. We have the record of his death in Hol- land, early in 1657, but nothing is known of the circumstances of his return. The person appointed to succeed Van Twiller as Director General was named William Kieft. He was appointed in September, 1637, and Arrival of . ^ _^ . ^ ^ . i» zr i William arrived at JNew Amsterdam m March, Kieft. ^ . , 1638. He was a very different sort of person from his ^^I'edecessor, 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 Knickerbocker is of course based upon fancy, but it gives a correct impression of his type of character ; "a brisk, wiry, waspish lit- tle 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 KING LOG AND KING STORK. 167 not believe these charges, or perhaps they were willing to accept his energy as covering up a mul- titude 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 Ivieft knew that he would be held responsible for the government of his province, and therefore he wished to have absolute control, so far as Kieft's possible. Therefore, while he retained method of . . 1 1 • governing. the advisory council, he reduced it to two persons, — himself and 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 Montague, 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 officer. Kieft's ordinary method of governing was to issue procla- mations 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 mora thought to his own interests than to those of his employers, surely a grave offence in a governor. 168 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. With the patroons, who were open to the same Illicit trade t'hai'ge, the offence was perhaps somewhat in peltries, iyloyq Venial ; but the bad example in- fected the whole community. Illicit traffic in pel- tries was universal. 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 repu- tation suff'ered 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 Comi^any. No person what- Kieft's ^ ^ i 1 (. prociama- evcr was to cugagc m trade oi any sort, within the limits of New Netherland, without a 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 be- tween people ashore and ships in the bay was most jealously guarded, and no sailor was allowed to stay on shore after sundown without express per- mission, 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 pun- ishment should not be inflicted in the colony. A gallows in Holland was too remote to inspire ter- KING LOG AND KING STORK. 169 ror in evil-doers, and accordingly murdei'ers were pnblicly 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 ale- house who* sold liquor to tipsy customers or al- lowed 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 ho conceivable ingenuity of legis- lation 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 popu- lation, of New Netherland was unques- Qnj^ntyof tionably poor in quality. That it did NSSiand not represent the good people of Holland ,^,^St'T seems quite clear. In Holland, even in ^'™®* 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. ^ 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 respec- table people of Holland had not y^t begun to come in any considerable numbers to the New World. 1 O'Callao-han, i. 187. 170 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. And now the patroons came forward with a pro- posal which, had it been adopted, would have made matters still worse. They laid before the States General their so-called ^' New Project," sal of the concernnig- which it is not worth our patroous. i -i i while here to notice more than one pro- vision. Since the inducements offered under the manorial system had not proved sufficient to draw free and thrifty yeomanry from Holland to Amer- ica, the patroons requested the States General to furnish them with white servile labour such as, England was then sendino- to Viroinia, — 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 was had to far more wholesome measures. In September, 1G38, 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 Abolition a • ^ n^ c ofmonopo- abolislicd. Tlic fur trade and the ripht lies. . . *. to hold and cultivate land in free allodial proprietorship were thrown open to the whole world. The same privileges in New Netherland were extended to foreigners as to Dutchmen, while all alike were subject to a few moderate regula- tions. The only monopoly retained by the Com- pany was that of carrying the settlers with their merchandise and cattle, at a reasonable charge for the service rendered. At the same time the prohi- bition ui)on manufactures was removed. KING LOG AND KING STORK. 171 Besides this abandonment of monopoly, certain direct enconragements 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 farm of such size as he could profitably cultivate, together with a house and barn, ments to , emigration. tour horses, tour 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 1200 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 also 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 con- siderable numbers, so that, for example, in the year 1639 the seven farms or bouweries on Man- hattan increased to more than thirty. Not only single families came, but large parties Beneficial conducted by men of substance. The ^'^^"^*^- first of these parties came with De Yries at Christ- mas, 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 172 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. and engaged in planting tobacco, or in raising or- chards of peaches and cherries. Many also came from Massachusetts, where they were finding the rule of the theocracy oppressive. Englishmen, in- deed, came in such numbers tliat, in view of pos- sible 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 recpiired of them. This question of allegiance hav- ing once been disposed of, no distinction wdiatever 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, wdien there came another great wave of migration from the mother country. Under the English set- ^^^^ of Eatou and Davenport these peo- ilong iSand P^^ sailcd froui Boston to the place which Sound. ^Y\Q red men knew as Quinnij^iack, and which Adrian Block had baptized as Roodenberg, or Red Mount ; there they founded the town and colony of New Haven in 1G38. By June of the fol- lowing year there were fifty houses at Stratford ; Norwalk and Stamford had come into existence, and two houses marked the beginning of Green- wich, within thirty miles of New Amsterdam. This year 1639 witnessed that league of three Tlie republic of New Haven. KING LOG AND KING STORK 173 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 settle- ments along the Sound, the towns of New Haven, Guilford, Branford, Milford, and Stamford, to- gether with Southold on the opposite shore of Lono' Island, were about this time united into the federal republic of New Haven, of New 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 Saybrook re- mained 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 liiver still bears his name. Thoroughly alarmed at the solid and steady advance of the English settlements, 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 settle- 174 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. meiits at Wallabout and Gravesend, and on the site of Flatlands, and at Breuckelen, so Long Island. called after a pretty vdlage on the road between Amsterdam and Utrecht. Presently they acquired from the red men a title to all the terri- tory now comprised within the counties of Kings and Queens. Until the arrival of the New Haven people the greater part of the island remained un- disturbed 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 from sea-shells. Wampum as Tlicre wcrc two sorts, the white beads cunency. m^dc froui 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 under- stood and 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 KING LOG AND KING STORK 175 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 sub- ject 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 vener- ated medium of traffic and diplomacy, the reposi- tory 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 civil- ized world. Now the shores of Long Island abounded in the shells of which wampum is made, and the Indians upon those shores were the chief manufacturers of wampum on the whole Atlantic coast. Thewam- The Pequots in swarms of canoes used to l^^^^^i^' cross the Sound and make raids upon i^o"g inland. this convenient mint ; and when the dreaded Mo- ^ Weeden, Economic History of New England^ i. 39. 176 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. hawk came down the River of the Mountains, collecting tribute from all the Algonquin tribes, it is said that he would now 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. Tlie 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 wam- pum 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 dis- pose of portions of its territory. In 1639 Lyon Gardiner bought Gardiner's Island, and in the fol- lowing^ year a party from Lynn advanced The English o f^ T) • r\ r^ on Long as tar as Cow 13ay m i^ueens County. 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 des- tined to do more to shake the hold of the Dutch upon Long Island than all these aggressive ad- vances of their rivals. The circumstances of New Amsterdam were such as to call for sagacity and KING LOG AND KING STORK. Ill tact on the part of the government in dealing with the Indians of the neighbourhood ; but Kief t had neither tact nor sagacity in such matters. In ex- plaining 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 Algonquin family. Under various local TheAigon- names, — such as Raritans, Manhattans, '^''''^ *"''®^' Weckquaesgecks, Tappans, etc., — most of those with whom our story deals were either members or detached fragments of the widespread and ex- tremely loose Algonquin confederacy known as Delawares or Lenni-Lenape. All had suffered unspeakable humiliation at the hands of the terri- ble 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. Neverthe- less the Dutch had hitherto contrived to keep on very pleasant terms with these also. Minuit and Van Twiller had treated them well, and the influ- ence of De Vries upon them was always excellent. But under Kieft the increase of farming popula- tion began to cause inconvenience to the red men ; they complained bitterly that stray cattle spoiled their unfenced fields of growing corn, and some- times they protected their crops by killing the cattle, which led to reprisals. But far more serious trouble came indirectly 178 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. from supplying the Iroquois with fiieaiiiis. 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 neigh- bourhood, but with regard to the distant Iroquois the enforcement was comparatively lax. When a Mohawk was eiad to give twenty beaver arms to the sldus for a muskct, he was pretty sure Iroquois. , -^ • i i to get it ; and as the Iroquois had great wealth 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 tribu- tary 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 how could such a pre- ference for their deadly enemies forbode anything but mischief? At this juncture the unhappy Kieft ventured upon what seemed to him a brilliant Kieft under- ^trokc of policy. Hc was spending a the Aig^'on^'' good deal of money in repairing Fort qums. 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 KING LOG AND KING STORK. 179 be taxed ! Accordingly lie sent liis 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 pro- tection 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 settle- ments were springing up around Manhattan. Cor- nelius 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 laud which he had bought from the Indians at Tappan. In 1641 another settlement was made at Hackensack. And now came an explosion. Some wretches in the Company's service, on their way to the Theft and South Kiver, 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 be- fore, while Minuit was building Fort Amsterdam, an Indian of the Weckquaesgeck tribe, at Yonkers, came down to Manhattan with furs to sell, and was 180 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. foully waylaid and murdered by white men. His little nephew, who witnessed the deed, silently vowed revenge. On a summer day of 1641 this nephew, grown to manhood, stopped at the lonely Murder of house of ouc Claes Smit, a wheelwright, ciaes Smit. ^^^ ^^le East River, near the site of Forty- fifth Street. He wanted to buy a piece of coarse cloth known as duffels, and when the unsuspect- ing 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 de- manded the murderer, but the Weckquaesgeck sachem refused to give him up. He had only been doing a sum in Indian arithmetic, just bal- ancing 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 under- take 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, to consider the question of peace or war. '^ In case the Indians persist in refusing to surrender this murderer, is it not pro- The Twelve P^^' ^^ dcstroy tlicir whole village ? and ^*^"' if so, when and how shall this best be done?" The assembly chose a board of Twelve Men, with De Yries 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 prepara- KING LOG AND KING STORK. 181 tions 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 sup- port the Director in his war measures, in return for a redress of grievances. We have seen hov/ ingeniously Kieft had constructed his council, with only one member besides himself. When some- times 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 confi- dence, but only the inferior agents of the Com- pany— " common folk" who were dependent upon him for their salaries, and were accordingly afraid to oppose his wishes. The Twelve Men now de- manded that the council should hereafter Reforms be composed of not less than five mem- p^^p^^®^- bers, of whom four should be chosen by a popular vote, and that the "common folk" of the Com- pany should no longer be admitted to seats in the council. In return for this and some other con- cessions of less importance, the Twelve Men gave their consent to an expedition against the Weck- quaesgecks. This reform would have gone far to- ward 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 pro- mised, 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. 182 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. 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 In- dians into promising to give up Smiths murderer, but the promise was not kept. There was a mo- ment's respite, during which more outlying and exposed settlements were made, chiefly by English people who found Massachusetts an uncomfortable place for free thinkers. One was Kev. Francis English Doughty, who, while preaching at Cohas- settiers. ^^^^ ^^^ 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 re- ceived a tract of 13,000 acres on Long Island. Another of these heretics was John Throgmorton, who settled with 35 English families on the penin- sula now known as Throg's Neck, opposite Flush- ing. 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 Eno'lish had now come to New Netherland that it was found necessary to have an English 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 Yries, is a respectable church, and he subscribed 100 guilders toward it. A few days afterward the daughter of Dominie Bogardus was married, and at the wedding breakfast, after wine KING LOG AND KING STORK. 183 had circulated pretty freely, Kieft passed around a paper and got it covered with such generous subscriptions that the morrow Bogardus 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 Yriesen- a murder at dael toward the new settlement at Hack- Hackensack. ensack, when he met a drunken Indian. Some 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 mur- derer'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 were- gild, 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 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. 184 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. February arrived, and Pacliam had not obeyed, when suddenly a force of 90 Mohawks, every one Arrival of ^^ them armed with a musket, came down tax-gather- ^^ gather tribute from the river tribes. ^^^' These human tigers were not particular as to how many of their tributaries they might happen to kill. Thus they drove before them several hundred terror-stricken fugitives, who swarmed into Vriesendael and begged the patroon for aid against their tyrants. De Vries explained that the Dutch were bound by treaty with the Iro- quois 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 oc- cupied the fields near Corlear's Hook, on the East River, not far from tlie site of Grand Street Ferry. Now the wise De Vries saw that the moment had come when a courteous and pacific interven- tion might call off the Mohawks without offending them, and also win tlie 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 Adri- ansen ; and in spite of the passionate protests of De Vries, of Dr. La Montague, and of Dominie Bogardus, the infatuated Director proceeded to KING LOG AND KING STORK. 185 strike his blow. It was a base and cruel affair. At midnight of February 25, Sergeant Massacres of Eodolf with a party of soldiers rushed ^"*^^"^^- into the sleeping encampment at Pavonia and massacred 80 Indians, while Adriansen in similar wise murdered 40 more at Corlear's Hook. In the morning the 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 appall- ing. Eleven Algonquin tribes at once took up the hatchet, and on every trail between the -r. • -n- 1 1 TT . General Karitan Kiver and the liousatonic was rising of iiTr>i 1 CI • Algonquins. repeated the direful spectacle of burning homesteads and mangled corpses. Even Vriesen- dael was attacked ; the cattle, crops, and outhouses were destroyed, and the settlers were besieged in the stout manor-house ; but at this stage some- thing happened worth noting. An Indian arriv- ing upon the scene spoke in praise of De Yries 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. 186 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. Popular indignation waxed strong against Kieft, and there was some talk of putting 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 pistol 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 tribes, and afterwards with the tribes along the North River. But tlie respite was of short duration. Pacham, the crafty chief of the Haverstraws, believed it possible to exter- minate the white men, and at his instigation the jjQ^,g war was renewed in August by attack- massacres. 'j-^g. ^ l^oat ou its way dowu froui Fort Orange with 400 beaver skins. In September a party of Weckquaesgecks destroyed Mrs. Hutch- inson's homestead and murdered that lady with all her household except a little eight-year-old grand- daughter, who was carried into captivity. Throg- morton'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 KING LOG AND KING STORK 187 forty brave colonists, repulsed the barbarians. Before the end of October nothins: 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 five or six bouweries remained. At this time Departure New Netherland lost its ablest citizen ; ^* ^^ ^'^''^• circumstances oblio:ed De Vries to return to Hoi- land. 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 pa- troon, who ought for all these years to have been its Director instead of such men as Van Twiller and Kieft, she received compensation in the jqj^„ shape of an eminently skilful and accom- ^nderhiii. plished soldier. Captain John Underbill, who di- vided with John Mason the laurels of the Pequot War, had in his versatile capacity of swashbuckler, heretic, and gay Lothario, found Boston an un- comfortable home. After trying his fortune in the Piscataqua country, and then at Stamford, he came at this most critical moment and gave the tottering 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 Yries were of no more avail. An annihilating blow was needed, and Underbill 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 188 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. had a very strong palisaded village in the rugged mountain country north of Stamford, and there in March, 1644, more than 700 warriors were congre- gated. 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 Destruction *^^^ Pcquot uight, and the white snow Algonquin Made it like day, when at midnight they stronghold. ;^,^^^ijed upon the stronghold. The In- dians were keeping a vigilant watch, but fared no better than 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 Netherland, and was fraught with mani- fold consequences the consideration of which must be deferred to the next chapter. CHAPTER VII. A soldier's paternal rule. The terrible Indian war oi 1641-45, which threatened to terminate the existence of New Netherland, was complicated with sundry political questions. We have seen how at the outset Di- rector 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. This time a board of Eight Men was chosen. Five ^he Eight 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 English- men, one of whom, Isaac Allerton, was one of the Mayflower Pilgrims ; in 1638 he had removed to New Amsterdam, and was one of the most prosper- ous merchants in the town. The other English- man, Thomas Hall, was from Virginia. In the 190 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. spring of 1644, soon after Underhill'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 emj^ty, all business was at a stand- still, and most of the farms were destroyed, 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 bank- rupt. 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 Cura9oa, and were promptly sent by Peter Stuy- vesant, the governor of that island, to New Am- sterdam. 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 A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE. 191 might brew, and should pay an excise of three guilders on every tun. In modern money j^^^^^,^ this would be equivalent to rather 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.^ Now in issuing this proclamation Kieft acted in flat opposition to the Eight Men who had been chosen as his advisers. They argued that impos- ing taxes was an attribute of sovereignty which the West India Company had never dele- T • 1 x>w r« AT Protest of gated to its agent, the Director of New the Eight Netherland ; moreover, it was the business of the Company, not of the settlers, to hire and equip soldiers, since the Company had expressly guaranteed military protection to the colony ; be- sides, 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 Keift's official courtesy lights up 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. 192 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. 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 matter very closely at heart, for he Kieft's ^^^s ^^P with the dawn and off somewhere rudeness. ^^ other busiucss, wliilo the three gentle- men 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 it no longer, and they addressed an eloquent letter to the States Gen- eral : " Our fields lie fallow and waste ; our dwellings and other buildings are burned ; not a handful can be either planted or sown the Eight this autumn on the deserted places ; the Men. crops which God permitted to come forth during the past summer remain on the fields stand- ing and rotting ; ... we have no means to pro- vide necessaries for wives or children ; and we sit here amid thousands of barbarians, from whom A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE. 193 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 capi- tal, have equipped with all necessaries their own ships ; some, again, have come hither with ships in- dependent 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 forest, enclosed their plantations and brought them under the plough, so as to be an ornament to the coun- try 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 govern- ment ; 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 com- 194 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. plain of ; that one man wlio 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 plea- sure, in a manner so arbitrary that a king would not be suffered legally to do. We shall end here, and commit the matter wholly to our God, who, we pray and heartily trust, will move your Lord- ships's minds and bless your Lordships's delibera- tions, 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 [i. 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 introduced here, and a new Governor be sent out Request for . , i i i n i i Beif-govern- witli uiorc pcopic, who shall scttlc tlicm- ment. i • • i i i i selves 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 depu- ties 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 gov- ernment of New Netherland should be vested in a Supreme Council of three persons, — the Director General, a Vice Director, and a Fiscal, or Trea- surer. After some changes of plan, the person A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE. 195 selected for Director General was Peter Stuyve- sant, lately governor of the island of Curagoa. Having lost a leg in a fight with the Por- pg^g^. g^^y. 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, de- layed 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 Underbill in the preceding year had put an end to anything like concerted ac- tion among the tribes, and some had hastened to make terms for themselves, while others had kept up a vexatious desultory warfare. By this time all had come to realize that, since every white man's scalp cost several Indian lives, ^ , ' Treaty with fiohtins: was too expensive a luxury. On theAigon- ^ '^ ■"■ "^ quia tribes. the 30th of August there was a concourse of citizens in front of Fort Amsterdam, their sober doublets and dark peaked hats contrasting strongly with the parti-coloured blankets, the scarlet feath- ers, and shining bead-work of the cinnamon-hued sachems of Weckquaesgecks and Sing Sings, Ta]D- pans and Haverstraws, Hacken sacks and Marech- kawiecks, 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 196 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. Algonquins, upon wliom their small eyes glowered in a Satanic ecstasy of contempt. Pipes were smoked and belts of wam23um passed. The arti- cles 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 Indi- ans bound themselves to restore the captive grand- daughter of Anne Hutchinson. This promise was fulfilled, and it is said that the little girl, now eleven years old, could sj^eak 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 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 pun- ished it with fine and imprisonment. He would allow no appeal from his own decisions to Hol- land, and on this point many sturdy citizens as- Kieftaud Sailed him. Dominie Bogardus tliun- Bogardus. ^^^^^ ^^ |^- ^^^ f ^.^.^ |.|^g pulpit I " What are the great men of this country but vessels of wrath A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE. 197 and fountains of woe and trouble ? Tliey think of nothing but to plunder the property of others, to dismiss, to banish, to transport to Holland ! " 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 re- spond; 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 Bo- gardus before the court to answer a list of accu- sations, with a preamble, of which the following extract is a specimen : " You have no less indidged 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 198 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. tlie Director had no legal 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 nat- urally ]3revailed, and the mortified Director had to submit. Of the marriage of Bogardus to the pretty and wealthy widow, Anneke elans, and the century of litigation over the title to her farm, we shall have occasion to speak hereafter.^ At length, in May, 1647, Peter Stuyvesant ar- rived, and the glee of the people sought expres- Arrivai of ^^^^ ^^^ sucli prof use military salutes that stuyvesant. n^^rly all the powder 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 chil- dren, 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 situa- tion, and he summed it up correctly. In his mind the contrast between bad and good government was not the contrast between ijaternal 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. 1 See below, vol. li. p. 259. A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE, 199 There is something curious about this man's family name. When Diedrich Knickerbocker tells us that Tiviller is a corruption of Twijflei\ or "Doubter," he is of course simply laughing with us. But in all seriousness the name Stuyvesant is a compound of stiiyven^ 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, or Froth - ingham. But if we were inclined, like Knicker- bocker, to a little harmless jesting, we might interpret Stuyvesant, not without some show of propriety, as he who kicks up a dust. Peter Stuyvesant, son of Rev. Balthazar Stuy- vesant, was born in 1592. He had a col- namJaSd lege education, 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 Cura^oa, losing a leg in battle. He married Ju- dith 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 Sam- uel married Peter Stuyvesant's sister, and their sons, Nicholas, Balthazar, and Peter, were the pro- genitors of the Bayards in America. The ship which brought Director Stuyvesant to Manhattan brought also his wife and sister and these three nephews. 200 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. 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 His- torical 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 is that of a man rather more than fifty years old. His char- ^^ ^^ ^ stroug f acc, sucli as might have acter. bclouG^ed to oue of Cromwell's sturdiest Ironsides. " A valiant, w^eather-beaten, mettle- some, obstinate, leathern-sided, lion-hearted, gener- ous-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 how the prize had best be disposed of. The Treasurer, Van Dyck, also came into the cabin to give advice, whereupon Stuyvesant gave him a push and exclaimed, " Get out of here ! autocratic whcu I waut vou I '11 Call you ! " When behaviour, ,« -,-, ■^ i -r^ he formally assumed command at J^ort Amsterdam, he sat with his hat on, as our infor- mant tells us, " quite like the Czar of Muscovy," while a group of the principal inhabitants stood be- fore him bareheaded and waited quite long enough before he condescended to take personal notice of A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE. 201 them. He soon began issuing proclamations with as much zeal as Kieft had shown. The usual pro- visions 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 peoj^le. 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 Direc- tor 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 pro- posed that the conventional vote of thanks should be ffiven him for his official conduct ; 1 f 1 p 1 T-i- 1 Petition of whereupon two oi the ablest of the height Kuyter and Men, Kuyter 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 202 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. metal miglit some clay be sharpened against him- self. 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 that the French government was burninsf its finsrers in helpinof the Ameri- Stiiyvesant f J= -.ma befriends can rcbcls. I, too, lilvC vour Americans Kieft. ' . "^ well enough, said he, but I do not forget that my trade is that of king, — c'est man metier d'etre roil So it was Stuyvesant's trade to be a colonial governor, and the business must be re- spected. He at once took Kieft' s part. He declared tliat the officers of the government must 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 Filmer, 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 " ma- lignants," 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 Stuyve- sant so ready to take his part, came forward and accused them of being the real authors of the me- A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE, 203 morial which the Eight Men had sent to the West India Company, and which had led to his removal. That memorial, said Kieft, was a false libel which those two malignants had contrived to send to Holland without the knowledsfe of their ° Attacks coUeaOTCS. Kief t urcred that they should uponKuyter * . andMelyn. be compelled to produce all their corre- spondence with the Company, and to show cause why they should not be summarily banished as *'■ pestilent and seditious persons." When Stuyve- sant granted this request and summoned the two gentlemen to answer, they soon began to show such superabundant evidence in support of their accusa- tions against Kieft, that it became necessary to drop this line of proceeding and find some other. In- dictments 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 would be going too far.^ Melyn and Kuyter were to be ^ As for Kuyter, he was, in Stuyvesaiit's opinion, little better. He had shaken his fing-er at Kieft, and that g-reat jurisconsult, Josse de Damhouder, maintained that he who threatens a magis- trate or clerg'yman even by a frown, is g"uilty of assaulting him; how much more g-uilty, 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'Cal- laghan, Hist. New Netherlands ii. 33. 204 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. sent to Holland, but they must beware of telling their tale of woe to the authorities. " If I thoufrht 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 and let him appeal in that Kieft sails fasliiou." This was brave talk, but if for Holland, harcl-headcd Peter supposed his victims were going back to Holland without using their tongues, he did not show his wonted good sense. On the 16th of August, 1647, Kieft set sail for Holland, with his fortune, which his enemies said was ill gotten, while they rated it at 400,000 guild- ers. He took with him Kuyter and Melyn as prisoners, and in 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 com2)any 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 sjjip. forgiveness. At daybreak the ship went wrecked. Jown in tlic prcscncc of hundreds of Englishmen on the strand, who did what they could to rescue the passengers. Eighty-one per- sons, including Kieft and Bogardus, were drowned ; twenty reached the shore in safety, and among A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE. 205 these were Kuyter and Melyn. No sooner were they landed than these canny men, caring even more for reputation than for life, had the shallow waters dragged for three days, until they brought np 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 Stuy vesant's hot and arbitrary temper he soon showed tliat he had more sense than Kieft. He found the military defences of New Amster- dam in a shocking state of dilapidation, and his instructions required him to use all 23ossible de- spatch 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 indispen- sable. It was necessary to give New Amsterdam at least some semblance of a free town govern- ment ; 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 The Nine tribunal was not only an executive body, ^^"' but also sat as a court in criminal and civil cases. The number of the Well-born Men varied, but was usually nine. The analogy of this board was com- 206 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. monly 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 Pa- vonia chose eighteen of their " most notable, reason- able, 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 letting them assemble without permission), — to assist^ ichen 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 con- trived to maintain a more or less independent atti- tude and to represent with some efficiency the interests of the people. The beginnings of consti- tutional government were somewhat more visible than under Kieft. But before we go on to recount some of Stuyve- sant's adventures with his Nine Men, affairs at the A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE. 207 north of New Netherlancl call for a moment's men- tion. Ttie position of the Director of this New World province had some curious points of resem- blance, 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 ^ Director's barbarians or the encroachments of civil- ^i®c^^*^i<^^- ized neighbours ; he 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 sover- eignty 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 was none that flourished like that which Rensseiaer- was founded by Kilian van Rensselaer ^^^^- far up the river. This greater prosperity was due partly to Van Rensselaer's more intelligent policy, and partly to geographical situation. Among the colonists 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 208 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. Fort Orange, tliere were Mohegans in the neigli- bourliood, 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 Connecti- cut ; on the Berkshire Hills they made a solitude and called it peace. Fort Orange and its neigh- bourhood thereafter were secure in Mohawk pro- tection. In the terrible war of 1641-45 Rensse- laerwyck and Fort Orange were unmolested. In after times the relations of the great manorial lords to the Indians of the Long House — espe- cially 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 feu- dal 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 sufficient unto itself. Already at his first com in "^ the Feudal . n t^-t t^ insubordi- Amsterdam jeweller, Kilian van Kensse- van laer, had held his hand somewhat high, Rensselaer. , i i i i i • i • asseverating that he held his patroonship directly from the States General and was not amenable to the authorities at Manhattan. The A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE. 209 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 new report," says Knick- erbocker, *' 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 Rensselaerstein. Wouter van Twiller was aroused by this intelli- gence . . . and despatched a letter to the patroon of Rensselaerwyck, demanding by what Weapon 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 rigJit]^ 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 adminis- tration." Now there was nowhere a livelier trade in beaver skins than on Van Rensselaer's manor, in- somuch that the tiny hamlet hard by Fort Orange, which was its commercial centre, and which in 210 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES, course of time developed into the city of Albany, was significantly baptized Beverwyck. Beverwyck. ^ "^ ^ i • 1 i Van Kensselaer as patroon claimed and exercised the rig^lit of eno^aQ^ino: in this trade for his own private behoof, a claim which the Com- pany 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 thou- sand furs had been carried away during the past twelvemonth by unlicensed traders. The patroon then bethought him of his fortress of Rensselaer- stein 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 A^es. At staple right. -^ _ i • n i i • i i? Dordrecht it was called " staple right, by which name it came to be well known through- out Europe. The word " staple," which is com- mon 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 sta- ples, whence in modern times the word has ac- quired a wider application to merchandise bought or sold in great quantities. A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE. 211 Now Van Rensselaer in 1644 invested Bear Island with staple right, and appointed Nicholas Koorn as his " wacht-meester " (watchnaster) or guard in command of the fort. Koorn' s instruc- tions 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 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 the fort and a figure on the rampart ^^^^ shouted, "Strike thy colours!" "For ^^^''^"^• whom shall 1 strike ? " asked Loockermans. " For the Lord Kilian and the staple right of Rensse- laerstein," cried the watchmaster ; to whom quoth the sturdy Loockermans, " I strike for nobody but the Prince of Orange and their High Mighti- nesses 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 Amster- dam 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 leav- ing his domains. Early in 1646 the death of Kilian van Rensse- laer left his youthful son Johannes as representa- tive of his vast estates, and for a moment the boy's uncle, Van Twiller the ex-Director, emerges from 212 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. obscurity as one of his guardians. Brandt van Slechtenhorst was appointed commissary to govern Rensselaerwyck, and Nicholas Koorn was pro- moted from his fort on Bear IsLand to be schout- fiscal or collector and treasurer of the patroonship. Adrian van ^lic pcrsou wlioui lic rcplaccd was a man derDouck. ^£ ^rudition, an interesting character, Adrian van der Donck, of Breda. He had been schout-fiscal of Eensselaerwyck 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 Jonhheer ("young lord ") Van der 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 Yonkers. . „ .,. -«7- i name to us is now lamuiar as i onkers. We shall presently meet with this " young lord " as one of the Nine Men. Director Stuyvesant was not long in getting into trouble with Eensselaerwyck. One effect of the late war was to make him particularly deter- mined to suppress the practice of selling Selling fire- i t t mi i ^ arms to firearms to the Indians, ihe people of Indians. -« t i i • • i i Manhattan and its neighbourhood, sur- rounded by unfriendly Algonquins, cordially sup- ported him in this policy, but in Eensselaerwyck, where there were none but friendly Iroquois within reach, the feeling was different. It was not felt to be necessary to obey the Director Gen- A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE. 213 eral, and Van Sleclitenliorst seized the first oppor- tunity of showing his insubordination. Stuyve- sant appointed the 26th of April, 1648, to be a day of fasting and prayer, and when the proclama- tion was received in Beverwyck, Yan Slechten- horst 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 insubordi- a small military guard, and exchanged Suet at"' defiances with Van Slechtenhorst. It ^^^^^^^y^^^- was Greek against Greek ; the commissary was as blunt and obstinate as the Director. Stuyvesant handed over a list of peremptory orders ; Slecht- enhorst 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 re- placed by a wall of stone masonry. As soon as Stuyvesant had departed, Slechtenhorst began put= ting up some houses within pistol-shot of the fort, and 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 214 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. Brugge, the commandant, to pull down the houses stuyvesant's ^^^^^ Were just beguu, and to arrest Van wrath. Slechtenhorst and serve upon him a summons to appear at Fort Amsterdam. At the same tmie notice was sent that no more firearms should be supplied to the manor of Rensselaer- wyck except upon express orders from the Com- pany. Van Brugge was a courteous officer, and re- frained 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 Stuvvesant, in which he told Slechten- , . , i i i \ • a c i • horst's him he should not obey it. As tor his defiance. . . , houses they were going to stay just where he had put them, and as for Stuyvesant's taking stone or timber from the manor, he would like to see him try it ! 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 peremp- tory 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 aston- ished a party of Mohawks who happened to be tarrying there. The question of jurisdiction was too complicated for their understandings, but one A Mohawk ^^ i^s practical aspects especially struck comment. ^\^q^^ '' Jg n't old Woodcu Leg a queer fellow," they said, " to wish to pull down houses that would shelter you in winter ! " But the gov- ernment in Holland approved what Wooden Leg A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE, 215 was doing. Early in 1650 the dispute was settled, the Director was sustained at every point, and the hopes of Kensselaerwyck for independence were forever dashed. Meanwhile the troubles which had been growing between 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 Stuyvesant, 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 punish- ment for attempts at evasion was a wholesale con- fiscation 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 pro- posed that a delegation should be sent to Holland, to set forth the present condition of the colony and to ask for divers reforms. At first the stuyvesant's Director strongly approved of this sug- van'^dtr'^^^^ gestion, but presently it appeared that ^o^^<=^- 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 216 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. 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 mismanage- ment such as Kieft's Indian war. Stuyvesant was not a vulgar tyrant, but an honest and conscien- tious 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 an- other. Thus there came about a deadlock, which the Nine Men proposed to undo by calling a great council or assembly of citizens to con- A deadlock. . . -r* o sider the points at issue. But otuyvesant would not call together such an assembly. New 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 Stuyve- sant 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 alle- gations calculated to throw the government into contempt ; let him either prove these allegations or A SOLDIER'S PATERNAL RULE. 217 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 ^^^y^- made their 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 manda- mus^ 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 com- pany. This was a staggering blow for Stuyvesant. He declared that he should at once obey the manda- mus 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 ex- pressed. Thus the Nine Men had their • 1 1 Memorial to way and prepared a memorial to the the states o /^ 1 1 • c 1 . General. fetates (ieneral, asking tor three things : FirsU that their High Mightinesses should oust the Company and assume the direct government of New Netherland ; Secondly., that they should give New Amsterdam a suitable municipal government ; Thirdly., that they should establish the boundaries 218 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. of New Netlierland 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, "nei- ther patroons, nor lords, nor princes are known, but only the people." Such is the kind of govern- ment they wish to imitate in New Netlierland. AjDparently 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 The Remon- ^^^^at. Botli papcrs wcrc written by Van strance. ^^^ Douck, wllO WaS choSCU, witll 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. CHAPTER VIII. SOME AFFAIRS OF NEW AMSTERDAM. Twenty-five years ago, when the late Lord Sherbrooke, better known as Kobert Lowe, was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he made a very- shallow speech on the uses of a classical educa- tion, in the course of which he amused himself with belittling the Greeks and Romans. Their history, he said, was hardly worth the time spent on it. The battle of Mara- events with thon, for example, was of less 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 discon- nected 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 Rus- sians, compared with the battle of Marathon. In history we cannot measure things with a foot rule. 220 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. Possibly it may have occurred to some of my readers that the events recounted in the three fore- going chapters are extremely petty, almost beneath what some people call the dignity of history, what- ever 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 curs- ing than slaying, varied by the protests of a small tradino- villas^e asrainst misoovernment. There is not much that is inspiring in it, and the pettiness stands to some extent confessed. There is cer- tainly no fateful Marathon here, yet here too we find that events physically small may have large consequences. Champlain's victory over the Mo- hawks at Ticonderoga in 1609 was in itself a small affair compared with Montcalm's victory over Brit- ish 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 o™homeiy of liistory will never forget the refusal of egmnmgs. ^^^ i^Qji of Watcrtowu 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 Massachu- setts legislature in two chambers instead of one was determined by the grotesque incident of the SOME AFFAIRS OF NEW AMSTERDAM. 221 Widow Sherman's stray pig.^ So in New Nether- land 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 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 : 1. 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 admira- tion for the easy and spontaneous way in which free government had sprouted up in the English ^ See my Beginnings of New England^ pp. 105-108. 222 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. colonies all around tliem. There were many English self- tilings of wliicli tliey did not approve government, j^^ ^j^^^^ neighbours of New England, but they did approve of the town meetings and select- men, the elected governors and the free legislative assemblies. These were time-honoured English in- stitutions, 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 represen- tation 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 novf and then a king had partially succeeded in evading it. When the Company of Massachusetts Bay — with its governor, deputy-governor, and board of assist- ants — transferred itself across the Atlantic, it was only necessary to add to it the elected representa- tives, as was done after the Watertown protest, and there was at once a miniature parliament. When the towns on the Connecticut River organ- ized themselves into a state with a written consti- SOME AFFAIRS OF NEW AMSTERDAM. 223 tution, they naturally followed tlie same model. It was the form in which the English idea of govern- ment found spontaneous expression. Now we do not find in New Netherland any such immediate and irrepressible reproduction of the free institutions of Holland. One expla- nation for this contrast at once suggests between the __, . . AT T^ 1 1 English and itself. Ihe migration to JNew iLngland the Dutch migrations. was a migration oi communities already organized 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 imita- tion, was the nrban form of representative govern- ment, 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 commu- nity 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 agricul- tural community feels. This shifting mercantile community was gov- erned by a commercial company whose prime inter- est in it was to make large dividends for its stock- holders. The Director General was the salaried servant of the Company, and felt responsible to the 224 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. Company rather than to the people whose affairs Government ^^^ administered. An honest officer, like nfe?cfaT"' Stuj^vesant, never forgot that his first duty company. ^^^^ ^^ ^^ things according to the Com- pany'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 to restrain him from pursuing his own selfish ends a.t the exjDcnse 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 free- dom 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 prin- cipal cause of the difference between New Nether- land 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 cor- poration ; during the first eleven years its popula- tion was quite as nondescript as that upon the island of Manhattan ; and among its early rulers the unscrupulous Argall and the honest Dale were institutions. SOME AFFAIRS OF NEW AMSTERDAM. 225 quite as despotic as Kieft and Stuyvesant, and far more harsh. Yet while New Netherland had to struggle so long, and with meagre success, „ ,„ , ^y. . . ■ •, • Spontaneous lor sell-government, Virginia got it m reproduc- • 1 c 1 1 ' rrn tiveness of lull measure simply tor the askino^. ihe English creation of a House of Burgesses in 1619 was as remarkable an instance of the reproductive- ness 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 par- ishes, had already sprung up spontaneously in Vir- ginia. It immediately asserted the principle that no power save itself could lay taxes upon Virgin- ians, and as early as 1635 we find it deposing an unpopular governor and sending him back to Eng- land. Thus in spite of the fact that Virginia, like New Netherland, started under the rule of a com- mercial company, there can be no doubt that Eng- lish 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 spontane- ous reproductiveness of English free institutions. 226 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. 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 thor- betweenin- oughlj Organized in the Netherlands as continental in England. In some points the Dutch of the seventeenth century were still struggling with ideas which the English had mas- tered in the thirteenth and fourteenth. This was because the continental people of the Netherlands had been exposed to vicissitudes from which their insular cousins had been free. There was always the risk of a set-back from such a catastrophe as Roosebeke, or horrors like those of Liege and Di- nant. 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 burgo- master and the country squire had never learned to cooperate with each other as freely and natu- rally 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 as- sume on a national scale was not yet fully de- termined. 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 were familiar, a representative municipal government. The uses and powers of the primary assembly no longer retained their vitality, as in England. SOME AFFAIRS OF NEW AMSTERDAM. 227 When Mr. Douglas Campbell, in tlie 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 powerful to be overridden. So the first article of the Nine Men's peti- rphe com- tion was not granted. As to the second Eraen-^ article, the States General were willing ^'^^^' that New Amsterdam should have a municipal gov- ernment, with a schout, two burgomasters, and five schepens, and they recommended to the Company various wholesome measures, at the same time re- solving that Stuy vesant should again be summoned to the Hague to give an account of his conduct. As to the third article, there was no serious objec- tion 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 228 THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES. upheld Stiiyvesant 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 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 popu- lation 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 like that of the mother-city Amsterdam ; incorpora- ^^^* *^^^ Couipauy's idcas of possibility Amster^^"^ wcrc evidently quite limited, for Stuyve- ^^™" sant retained in his own hands the ap- pointment of sellout, 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 Kief t had built on Pearl Street ; the build- ing 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 SOME AFFAIRS OF NEW AMSTERDAM. 229 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<