Then Bacon called a convention and an assembly of his own, and as he was popular with a large number of the people, perhaps might have made himself governor, if he had not been taken ill, from exposure in the marsh around Jamestown, and died suddenly. After this Berkeley published a proclamation, pardoning all who would come back and submit to his authority, except a few of the most noted rebels. As they had now no leader, and no plan of resistance, the insurgents laid down their arms, and went home. When quiet was restored, Berkeley began to hang all those whom he had exempted from pardon. He put several of the assembly to death, and many honest persons who had really meant and done no harm, till the colonists petitioned him to hang no more. How long he would have continued this wholesale hanging, if Charles II. had not called him back to England, I do not know. When the king heard of the affair he said, "That old fool has hanged more men in that naked country, than I have for the murder of my father."

Berkeley died soon after in England, and Virginia had a new governor named Jeffreys. The Indians do not seem to have troubled them any more at this time, and thus ended the most notable disturbance which ever took place in the Virginia colony, which is known in history as Bacon's rebellion.

CHAPTER XXV.

AFFAIRS IN NEW YORK AND MASSACHUSETTS.

England and Holland at War.

The Dutch take New York City again. - Edmund Andros in Boston. - His Tyrannies there. His Journey to Connecticut. - Disappearance of the Charter. The New English King. — Uprising in New York. Leisler executed. - Char

ter Oak.

AFTER Bacon's rebellion, Virginia remained quiet and prosperous for many years. While we leave her to raise tobacco, and cultivate her plantations by the help of her increasing negro slaves, we must look at New York, and see how she is prospering. You remember, the last account we had of this colony, Charles II. had given her to his younger brother, the Duke of York, from whom the State took its present name. This Duke of York, whose name was James Stuart, had made Richard Nichols governor, after the colony was conquered by the English and surrendered by sturdy Peter

Stuyvesant, the last Dutch ruler. After Nichols had remained in office three or four years, he went to England, leaving the colony prosperous, and the duke sent a gentleman bearing the romantic name of Francis Lovelace, as his representative in New York.

About this time war broke out between England and Holland. While Charles II. was wasting the money of his poor people, and behaving like an idle vagabond who has no object in life but his own amusement, the plucky little state of Holland came near conquering England. One of the Dutch admirals sailed up the River Thames, frightening the London people nearly out of their wits, and almost succeeding in making Charles serious for a few days. Holland gave instructions to one portion of her fleet to go over to America and recover her lost possessions there. Early in 1673 they came over, and after very little trouble took New York into their own hands, and renamed it New Amsterdam. They did not keep it long, however. In sixteen months the countries across the ocean nade peace with each other, and Holland gave New York back to its duke. From that time it remained a colony of England. When Charles II. died, his brother James became king. Of all the Stuarts, he seems the weakest and most unfit to be king. He had sent during his dukeship a very tyrannical governor to New York, Sir Edmund Andros, and after his accession to the throne, he transferred him to Massachusetts.

Never was a man more heartily hated than Sir Edmund Andros by the people of Massachusetts. He brought over in his train to Boston some companies of British soldiers. These were the first English soldiers in the colony, and were looked on with great disfavor by the people, who had got so accustomed to taking care of themselves, that they were very much afraid of any military interference.

But what most outraged the Puritans of Boston, was the fact that Andros put an English clergyman in their "South Meeting-house,' and bade him read there the service of the Church of England. The Puritans hated surpliced priests, and litanies, and all ceremonial worships as much as ever. They would not even have a cross on their meeting-houses, because it reminded them of the Church of Rome. And now, to have a clergyman in long robes reading a litany out of book in their own pulpit, was too much to be borne. The sexton refused to ring the church bell to call the worshipers together, and all the owners of the meeting-house were in great indignation.

But Andros did something worse than appropriating their churchbuilding to his own uses. He made an attack on the liberties of the people, and sought to take away the charters, which the people guarded as the very ark and covenant of their freedom.

The charters of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island were all very liberal, and gave the people large powers. They had been given by King Charles at a time when he probably regarded the colonies as not of much consequence, and a little freedom more or less as a thing not material to English rule in America. These charters Andros pronounced void; the people were forbidden to assemble in town meeting to elect their officers as they had been wont to do; they were heavily and unjustly taxed; their citizens were arrested for acts which their charter pronounced legal; in short, all the indignities that a narrow tyrant could heap upon a people, Sir Edmund Andros heaped upon the colony he was sent to govern.

After establishing as firmly as he might his system of tyranny in Massachusetts, he made a visit to Connecticut, designing to take away her charter and repeal all the laws which gave freedom of action to the people. Arriving in Hartford, where that sacred document of the liberties of the colony was carefully guarded, he called a meeting in the court-house. The strong box containing the charter was placed upon the table in the midst of the assembly. Then the officers of the colony began a long argument with Sir Edmund Andros and his party, until it grew so dark that candles were lighted in the apartment. Suddenly all the candles were put out. It was pitchy dark for a few minutes, and when the confusion was over and lights were brought in, the box with the charter had disappeared, nobody knew where. Sir Edmund Andros had to go back without it and to content himself with telling the people that the rights it gave them were good for nothing, and they had no rights at all except the very few he and King James chose to grant them.

By this time the people of England were getting as tired of James II. as the Massachusetts people were of Andros. For one thing he was a bigoted Romanist, and all the English people now were firmly Protestant. They resolved to dethrone James, and sent to William of Orange, who had married the Princess Mary, eldest daughter of James, to come and be their ruler. It was agreed that this husband and wife should govern England as joint sovereigns, and their reign is called "the reign of William and Mary."

As soon as the Massachusetts people heard of James's removal from the throne, they resolved they would not endure Andros any longer. One morning in April the Boston people rose as one man, beat their drums, and set up a flag on Beacon Hill. Then they took the governor and his men prisoners. Andros tried to escape by dressing up in woman's clothes, and had got past two of his guards, when the next one caught sight of his shoes, saw that they were not a lady's shoes, and so stopped his escape.

He was sent back to England, and although nothing was done to punish the colonies for his arrest, no steps were taken against him. Indeed, he was afterwards made governor of Virginia, but behaved better there, and gave the colonists no great alarm by his onslaughts on their liberties.

Governor Dongan of New York (one of King James's governors) was a mild ruler and not unjust to the people. But the Protestants there did not like him because he was a Catholic. When the news

reached New York that William of Orange was king, there was an insurrection of the New York people, headed by Jacob Leisler. He took possession of the fort, and then sent word to England that he was holding the government against the Catholics for William and Mary. In the mean time, the king had sent Colonel Henry Sloughter to govern New York. When he arrived he arrested Leisler for treason.

Leisler had many enemies, and they put the worst color upon his acts, so that after a trial, he with his son in-law, Jacob Milbourne, were sentenced to die. They met death bravely, saying they had meant no treason, but had simply defended the rights of Protestantism and the new king and queen. This was the only blood shed in the colonies on the new change of government, and was the only cloud on the bright prospects of the new reign.

Are you wondering meanwhile what became of the Connecticut. charter, which disappeared so suddenly from under the nose of Sir Edmund Andros? A certain Captain Wadsworth had seized it in the dark, and hidden it in a hollow place in an oak-tree just outside the court-house. There it stayed till William and Mary were proclaimed sovereigns of England, when it was taken out with great rejoicing. The old oak was always called the "Charter Oak" and remained green till 1856, when a storm blew it down.

And amid great rejoicing all over New England at the recovery of their liberties and the restoration of a Protestant monarch to the throne of England, the reign of William and Mary began.

B.lief in Witches.

CHAPTER XXVI.

SALEM WITCHCRAFT.

Causes for this Belief. The Idea of the Devil.Study of Necromancy. Two Children " bewitched." — Arrest of Friendless Old Women. - Babies chained and thrown into Prison as Witches. Torture of Witches. Confessions. - Hanging of Women. Witches' Hill. - End of the Witchcraft Madness.

SHORTLY after Sir Edmund Andros was deposed, and while the colony was under little or no government but that of the local authorities of Massachusetts, one of the worst events took place ever recorded in the annals of the American colonies. It is known as the Salem Witchcraft.

Of course you understand that there are no such things as witches; that there never have been and never can be. But in the days of which I write, a large number of people, whom we should think ought to have known better, believed in witchcraft. They believed that witches were a class of persons who had made a league with the devil to be his servants and children, and in return got power from him to do evil deeds and torment innocent people. In Europe, this belief was almost universal, and men and women had been not unfrequently burned, hanged, and tortured for witchcraft. King James I. of England, a stupid, narrow-minded old bigot, had believed in witches, and caused some to be hung in his day. Several times in the colonies there had been a brief excitement of this kind, and in many places some poor withered old woman, who lived. by herself, was looked on with suspicion as a witch. But nothing in this country, and few things abroad, equaled the madness on the subject that prevailed in Salem in the year 1692.

We must take into consideration the fact that Salem was a peculiar colony. Its chief and founder was John Endicott, who was a stern, gloomy, fanatical man; naturally the colony fostered by him had something of his spirit impressed upon it, the spirit that had driven the good Roger Williams out into the wilderness. Salem, like most of the New England towns, was stanch in the idea that amusement or recreation must form a very small part in life. Religion—a hard, sombre kind of religion we should think it to-daywas the first thing in life; and work was the next thing. To dance, or play games, laugh gayly, sing much except psalm tunes in minor keys, were to them "ungodly customs." ungodly customs." The severe colonists of