DISCONTENTS OF THE PEOPLE.

125

XIII.

they spoke many different languages." The public docu- CHAP. ments were issued sometimes in Dutch, sometimes in English, and sometimes in French. Two centuries ago it was prophesied that here would be centred the commerce of 1658. the world. Time is realizing the prediction. To promote emigration the mechanic had his passage given him. The poor persecuted Waldenses came from their native valleys and mountains at the expense of the old city of Amsterdam. Africa, too, had her representatives. Her sons and daughters were brought as slaves at the charge of the West India Company; and the city of Amsterdam, in this case also, shared the expense and the profit.

The spirit of democracy began to pervade the minds of the Dutch; the credit of this has been given to the New Englanders, who were continually enlightening them on the subject of the freedom of Englishmen. This annoyed Stuyvesant beyond endurance. He often expressed his contempt for the "wavering multitude;" he despised the people, and scoffed at the idea that they could govern themselves: it was their duty to work, and not discuss the mysteries of government. They had no voice in the choice of their rulers, and were even forbidden to hold meetings. to talk of their affairs. Stuyvesant finally consented to let them hold a convention of two delegates from each settlement; but as soon as these delegates began to discuss his conduct as governor, he dissolved the convention, bluntly telling them he derived his authority from the company, and not from "a few ignorant subjects." When a citizen, in a case in which he thought himself aggrieved, threatened to appeal to the StatesGeneral of Holland, "If you do," said the angry governor, "I will make you a foot shorter than you are." When the day of trial came, Stuyvesant found that by such despotic measures he had lost the good-will of the people of every class and nation.

Rumors were now rife that the English were about to

XIII.

CHAP. subdue New Netherland. The people for the most part were indifferent; they had now no civil rights, and to 1664. them the change might be for the better; it was not probable that it would be for the worse. The English portion longed for the rights of Englishmen. Though there had been war between England and Holland, the people of Virginia and New England, except perhaps those of Connecticut, were well-disposed toward the Dutch as neighbors.

Stuyvesant was soon relieved of his troubles with the people of Manhattan. Charles II., without regard to the rights of Holland, with whom he was at peace, or to the rights of the people of Connecticut under their charter, gave to his brother, the Duke of York, the entire country from the Connecticut to the Delaware. The first intimation Stuyvesant had of this intended robbery, was the presence of a fleet, under Richard Nicholls, sent to put in execution the orders of the English king. The fleet had brought to Boston the commissioners for New England, and there received recruits, and sailed for New Amsterdam. All was in confusion; Stuyvesant wished to make resistance, but the people were indifferent. What was to be done ? The fleet was in the bay, and the recruits from New England had just pitched their tents in Brooklyn : Long Island was already in the hands of the enemy. Nicholls sent Stuyvesant a letter requiring him to surrender his post, which the valiant governor refused to do without a struggle. A meeting of the principal inhabitants was called; they very properly asked for the letter which the governor had received from the English admiral. They wished to know the terms he offered to induce them to acknowledge English authority. Rather than send the letter to be read to the "wavering multitude," the angry Stuyvesant tore it to pieces. Instead, therefore, of preparing to defend themselves against the enemy, the people protested against the arbitrary conduct of the governor.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE DUTCH.

127

XIII.

At length the capitulation was made, on the condition that CHAP. the people should be protected in their rights and property, religion and institutions.

In a few days Fort Orange surrendered; and in a few weeks the Dutch and the Swedes on the shores of the Delaware passed under the rule of England. Nicholls was appointed governor. New Amsterdam was to be hereafter known as NEW YORK, and Fort Orange as ALBANY.

A treaty was also made with the Mohawks: they had been the friends of the Dutch, and they now became the friends of the English, and remained so in all their contests, both with the French, and the Colonies during the revolution. They served as a bulwark against incursions from Canada. Their hatred of the French was intense. They said, the Canada Indians never invaded their territory unaccompanied by a "skulking" Frenchman.

England and Holland were soon at war again; and suddenly a Dutch squadron anchored in the bay, and demanded the surrender of the colony. Thus the territory became New Netherland once more.

In a little more than a year peace was made, and the province was restored to England. Thus after half a century, the rule of the Dutch passed away, but not their influence it still remains to bless. The struggles of their fathers in Holland in the cause of civil and religious freedom, are embalmed in the history of the progress of the human mind. In their principles tolerant, in religion Protestant, a nation of merchants and manufacturers, laborious and frugal, they acquired a fame as wide as the world for the noble virtue of honesty. Defenders of the right, they were brave, bold, and plain spoken; they were peaceful; they were justly celebrated for their moral and domestic virtues nowhere was the wife, the mother, the sister more honored and cherished. Such were the ancestry and such the traditions of the people just come under British rule. A little more than a century elapsed, and

Sept. 1664.

XIII.

CHAP. their descendants, with scarcely an exception, took their places with the lovers of their country in the struggle for 1664. independence.

The change of rulers was not beneficial to the people; the promises made to them were not kept; their taxes were increased; the titles to their lands were even called in question, that the rapacious governors might reap a harvest of fees for giving new ones. It was openly avowed by the unprincipled Lovelace, the successor of Nicholls, that the true way to govern was by severity; to impose taxes so 1667. heavy that the people should have "liberty for no thought

but how to discharge them." When the people respectfully petitioned in relation to their grievances, their petition was burned by the hangman before the town-hall in New York, by order of the same Lovelace. The same species of tyranny was exercised over the colonists on the Dela

ware.

come from Long Island.

The Duke of York sold to Lord Berkeley, brother of Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia, and Sir George Carteret, the soil of New Jersey. They made liberal offers to emigrants to settle in the territory, promising to collect no rents for five years. Many families were induced to Their principal settlement was 1670. named, in honor of Carteret's wife, Elizabethtown. All went smoothly till pay-day came, and then those colonists who had lived under Dutch rule refused to pay. They contended that they had bought their lands from the Indians, the original owners of the soil, and that Carteret had no claim to rent because the king had given him a grant of land which did not belong to him. Others said they derived no benefit from the proprietary, and why should they pay him quit-rents?

The Duke of York had but little regard to the rights 1674. of Carteret or Berkeley; he appointed Andros, "the tyrant of New England," governor of the colony. Berkeley, dis

SCOTCH PRESBYTERIANS IN EAST JERSEY.

129

XIII.

gusted by such treatment, sold what was called West CHAP. Jersey to Edward Byllinge, an English Quaker, who in a short time transferred his claim to William Penn and two 1674. others, who afterward made an arrangement with Carteret to divide the territory. Penn and his associates taking West Jersey, and Carteret retaining East Jersey, the line of division being drawn from the ocean, at Little Egg Harbor, to the north-western corner of the province.

Episcopacy having been re-established in Scotland, a certain portion of the Presbyterians, the Cameronians or Covenanters, refused to acknowledge the authority of that church, and in consequence they became the victims of a severe persecution. To escape this they were induced to emigrate in great numbers to East Jersey, which thus 1688. became the cradle of Presbyterianism in America. The original settlers of New Jersey were the Dutch, English, Quakers, Puritans, from New England, and Presbyterians, from Scotland, which may account for that sturdy opposition to royal or ecclestiastical tyranny so characteristic of its inhabitants.

9