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also established, with the right to appeal to the king in council.

Governor Phipps died in February, 1695, and pending the appointment of a new governor, Stoughton, the lieutenant-governor, took charge of the affairs of the colony. In June, 1697, Richard Coote, Earl of Bellomont, left New York, arriving in Boston in May, 1699, and succeeded Stoughton as governor. By his conduct he soon succeeded in gaining the good will of the colonists. He opened the general court with a formal speech, as was the custom with the Irish lord lieutenants, copies of the speech being delivered to the two houses, and subsequently printed. His first speech was concluded in the following terms:

"I should be wanting to you and myself too, if I did not put you in mind of the indispensable duty and respect we owe the king, for being the glorious instrument of our deliverance from the odius fetters and chains of popery and tyranny, which have almost overwhelmed our consciences, and subverted all our civil rights. There is something that is godlike in what the king hath done for us. The works of redemption and preservation come next to that of creation. I would not be misunderstood, so as to be thought to rob God of the glory of that stupendous act of his providence, in bringing to pass the late happy and wonderful revolution in England. His blessed work it was, without doubt, and He was pleased to make King William, immediately, the author and instrument of it. Ever since the year 1602, England has had a succession of kings, who have been aliens in this respect, that they have not fought our battles nor have been in our interests, but have been, in an unnatural manner plotting and contriving to undermine and subvert our religion, laws, and liberties, till God was pleased, by His infinite power and mercy and goodness, to give us a true English king in the person of his present majesty, who has, upon all occasions, hazarded his royal person in the fronts of our battles and where there was most danger: he has restored to our nation the almost lost

character of bravery and valor; and, what is most valuable of all, his majesty is entirely in the interest of his people. It is therefore our duty and interest to pray to God, in the most fervent manner, that he would bless our great King Wil liam with a long and prosperous reign over us, to which I am persuaded, you that are present and all good people will heartily say, Amen."*

His last speech was somewhat in the same strain, as follows:

"The parting with Canada to the French, and the eastern country called Acadia or Nova Scotia, with the noble fishery on that coast, were most execrable treacheries to England, and intended, without doubt, to serve the ends of popery. It is too well known what interest that king favored who parted with Nova Scotia, and of what religion he died."

Meanwhile the pirates, having been deprived of English and French support by the remonstrances of Spain, were compelled to forego a large amount of their depredations along the coast. Numbers of them settled in Hayti, but others still continued their practices in various places, being often well received and their lawlessness sanctioned by the authorities. In 1697 a company was formed for the purpose of recovering the prizes which had been captured by the pirates, and in this company King William became a partner. In command of the ship sent out by the company was the famous Captain William Kidd who had, up to this time, borne an excellent reputation. The outlook for clearing a fortune was so good, however, that he abandoned the object for which the company had been formed and he himself turned

* Hutchinson, vol. ii., p. 154.

pirate. In 1698, therefore, Bellomont was instructed to capture Kidd if it were possible. The connection of the king with this enterprise had become known, and it was surmised that the authorities were conniving to render Kidd's capture impossible. Bellomont, therefore, feeling that the reputations of both himself and his friends were at stake, used every endeavor to effect Kidd's capture. It is supposed that Kidd buried his treasures on the eastern end of Long Island, although a number of places have been given as the repository for his ill-gotten goods. He then burned his ship and openly appeared at Boston, in practical defiance of the authorities. He was arrested, however, sent to England for trial, and there with a number of his companions was executed in May, 1701.*

Meanwhile, Bellomont had succeeded in obtaining from the Assembly a grant of more salary than had been enjoyed by any of his predecessors, the General Court voting him about $9,000 during the time he acted. as governor. On the other hand, his influence was not sufficient to prevail upon the Assembly to vote money to rebuild the fort at Pemaquid or to pass ordinances to enforce the Navigation Act, the councilors insisting "that they were too much cramped

Doyle, English Colonies in America, vol. iii., pp. 333-337; J. S. G. Abbott, William Kidd; Fiske, Dutch and Quaker Colonies, vol. ii., pp. 223-227, 230-235; the "Trial of Captain Kidd and Others for Piracy" in Howell's State Trials, vol. xvi.

in their liberties already and they would be great fools to abridge, by a law of their own, the little that was left them." Rhode Island and Connecticut also showed a like unwillingness to be restricted in their commercial liberties, and Bellomont was thus caused an endless amount of trouble and vexation. In May, 1707, while in New York and engaged in a controversy connected with the enforcement of the Navigation Act, Bellomont suddenly died.

To succeed him as governor the king appointed Joseph Dudley, who was not at all popular in the colony. His commission was given him by Queen Anne who had now succeeded William on the throne, and in June, 1702, he arrived in the colony. His first speech was little calculated to conciliate the colonists. He informed them that the Queen had instructed him to observe to them, "that there is no other province or government belonging to the crown of England, except this, where there is not provided a fit and convenient house for the reception of the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary, judges, and all other officers; which, therefore, is recommended to you. And since this province is so particularly favored by the crown, in more instances than one, their more ready obedience is justly expected in this and all other occasions." In answering this the House said: "As for those points which, in obedience to her majesty's command, your excellency has laid

guarded the frontiers, the treatment accorded them was extremely niggardly. They were robbed by land speculators, cheated by traders, received scarcely any support in their wars against the French, and were given but few presents in return for the 1,000 warriors who had fallen in the common cause. This ingratitude had its effect on the Indians who began to doubt the sincerity of the English, and their suspicions and fears were also aroused by tales from French sources that the king had ordered the governor of New York to poison them. They thus believed that the two rival nations had conspired to destroy them and divide their lands, and that they had been bewitched by sorcerers, both English and French.*

On the other hand both French and English endeavored to gain the good will of the Indians: the former, to insure their neutrality in the event of another war; the latter, so that they could be used as an offensive weapon

against the French. The French, however, pursued their purposes energetically and skillfully, while the English efforts were intermittent and feeble, and whatever good results were secured by these efforts were

generally offset by the bungling of some official who little understood the characteristics of the Indians. The French governor sent many agents, chiefly Jesuit priests, among the Indians, while the English tried to

* N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. iv., p. 658.

counteract their influence by sending Protestant ministers, but the latter were no match for their more astute Jesuit adversaries, who after converting the Indians, induced many of them to remove to Canada, where they naturally cast their lot in with the French.

The Far Indians " of the Great Lake regions, from whom Canada secured her furs, were nominal allies and friends of the French but they were also enemies of the Five Nations, whose friendship the French desired and wished to retain. The Dutch merchants of Albany, who were cool in their devotion to the English crown, wished to secure some of this trade in furs, but the Five Nations wished to act as middlemen — thus securing some of the profits for themselves-and therefore the Dutch, not caring to pay double for their furs, carried on an illicit trade with the "Far Indians" through the converted Indians who had gone to Canada. These Indians carried the furs to Albany, exchanging them for guns, knives, blankets, etc., which they carried to Canada and sold to the French traders, who in turn used them in bar

tering with the "Far Indians." This played directly into the hands of the French, who thus had several weapons to hold over the heads of the English colonists; for they could at any time put a stop to it if political designs warranted such a step, beside which, if the Five Nations learned of the