JAMES II. AND VIRGINIA.

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The people ran to arms: general discontent threatened chap. an insurrection. The governor, in a new country, without soldiers and without a citadel, was compelled to practise moderation. Tyranny was impossible; it had no powerful instruments.' Despotism sought in vain to establish itself in Virginia; when the prerogative of the governor was at its height, he was still too feeble to oppress the colony. Virginia was always "a Land of LIBERTY."

A LAND OF

Nor let the first tendencies to union pass unnoticed. In the Bay of the Chesapeake, Smith had encountered warriors of the Five Nations; and others had fearlessly roamed to the shores of Massachusetts Bay, and even invaded the soil of Maine. Some years before Philip's war, the Mohawks committed ravages near Northampton, on Connecticut River; and the General 1667 Court of Massachusetts addressed them a letter:"We never yet did any wrong to you, or any of yours," such was the language of the Puritan diplomatists" neither will we take any from you, but will right our people according to justice." Maryland and Virginia had repeatedly negotiated with the Senecas. In July, 1684, the governor of Virginia and of New York, and the agent of Massachusetts, met the sachems of the Five Nations at Albany, to strengthen and burnish the covenant-chain, and plant the tree of peace, of which the top should reach the sun, and the branches shelter the wide land. The treaty extended from the St. Croix to Albemarle. New York was the bond of New England and Virginia. The north and the south were united by the conquest of NEW NETHERLANDS.

1 Burk, ii. 302-306.

2

2 Colden's Five Nations, 44, &c. Massachusetts Records, 1667

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CHAPTER XV.

NEW NETHERLANDS.

CHAP.

XV.

THE spirit of the age was present when the foundations of New York were laid. Every great European event affected the fortunes of America. Did a state prosper, it sought an increase of wealth by plantations in the west. Was a sect persecuted, it escaped to the New World. The reformation, followed by collisions between English dissenters and the Anglican hierarchy, colonized New England; the reformation, emancipating the United Provinces, led to European settlements on the Hudson. The Netherlands divide with England the glory of having planted the first colonies in the United States; they also divide the glory of having set the examples of public freedom. If England gave our fathers the idea of a popular representation, Holland originated for them the principle of federal union.

At the discovery of America, the Netherlands were in possession of the municipal institutions which had been saved from the wreck of the Roman world, and of the feudal liberties which the middle ages had bequeathed. The power of the people was unknown to the laws; but the landed aristocracy, the hierarchy, and the municipalities, possessed political franchises. The municipal officers, in part appointed by the sovereign, in part perpetuating themselves, had common interests

CONSTITUTIONS OF THE NETHERLANDS.

257

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with the industrious citizens, from whom they were CHAP. selected; and the nobles, cherishing the feudal right of resisting arbitrary taxation, joined the citizens in defending national liberty against encroachments.

to

The urgencies of war, the reformation, perhaps also the arrogance of power, often tempted Charles V. to 1517 violate the liberties of the states; Philip II., on his 1559 accession, formed the deliberate purpose of subverting the constitutions of the Netherlands, and found in the church the willing instrument of usurpation. During the middle age, the church was the sole guardian of the people; and the political influence of the clergy rested on gratitude towards the order, which had limited absolute power by invoking the truths of religion, and, indifferent to the claims of birth, had opened for plebeian ambition an avenue to the highest distinctions. In the progress of society, the political influence of the clergy had fulfilled its office. The ward was now of age, and could protect its rights. But would the guardian resign its supremacy? The Roman hierarchy, rigidly asserting authority, refused to subject faith to inquiry, and struggled to establish a spiritual despotism: the sovereigns of Europe, equally refusing to subject their administrations to discussion, aimed at absolute dominion in the state. A new political alliance was the consequence. The Roman church, and the temporal sovereigns, during the middle age so often and so bitterly opposed, entered into a natural and necessary friendship. By increasing the number of bishops, who, 1559 in right of their office, had a voice in the states, Philip II. destroyed the balance of the constitution.

Thus arbitrary power was arrayed against national liberty. Patriotism and hope were on the side of the provinces; despotism and bigotry on the side of Philip.

CHAP. Each party was destined to be represented in the United XV States. We have witnessed the sanguinary character

of the Spanish system at St. Augustine; we are now to trace the feudal liberties of the Netherlands to the Isle of Manhattan.

The contest in the Low Countries was one of the most memorable in the history of the human race. All classes were roused to opposition. The nobles framed a solemn petition; the common people broke in pieces the images that filled the churches. Despotism then seized possession of the courts, and invested a commission with arbitrary power over life and property. To overawe the burghers, the citadels were filled with mercenary soldiers; to strike terror into the nobility, Egmont and Horn were executed. Men fled; but whither? The village, the city, the court, the camp, were held by tyranny; the fugitive could find no asylum but the ocean, no refuge but the pirate-ship.

The establishment of arbitrary tribunals was followed by arbitrary taxation. But feudal liberty forbade taxation except by consent; and the levying of the tenth penny excited more commotion than the tribunal of blood. Merchant and landholder, citizen and peasant, Catholic and Protestant, were ripe for insurrection; and even with foreign troops Alba vainly attempted to en1572. force taxation without representation. Just then a April 1. party of the despised fugitive "beggars" succeeded in 1572. gaining the harbor of Briel; and the states of Holland, July 15. creating the prince of Orange their stadtholder, prepared to levy money and troops. Courage increased. 1575. Zealand joined with Holland in demanding for freedom 11. some better guaranty than the word of Philip II., and 1576. nearly all the provinces united to drive foreign troops 8. from their soil. "The spirit that animates them," said

July

Nov.

HOLLAND AND ZEALAND.

259

Sidney to Queen Elizabeth, "is the spirit of God, and chap. is invincible."

XV

Jan.

The particular union of five northern provinces at 1579. Utrecht, perfected the insurrection by forming the basis 23. of a sovereignty; and a rude structure of a republic was the unpremeditated result of the revolution.

The republic of the United Netherlands was by its origin and its nature commercial. The device on the first Dutch coin was a ship laboring on the billows without oar or sails. The rendezvous of its martyrs had been the sea; the muster of its patriot emigrants had been on shipboard; and they had hunted their enemy, as the whale-ships pursue their game, in every corner of the ocean. The two leading members of the confederacy, from their situation, could seek subsistence only on the water. Holland is but a peninsula, intersected by navigable rivers; protruding itself into the sea; crowded with a dense population on a soil saved from the deep by embankments, and kept dry only by pumps driven by wind-mills. Its houses were rather in the water than on land.

And Zealand is composed of islands. Its inhabitants were nearly all fishermen ; their villages were but nests of sea-fowl on the margin of the ocean. Both provinces were by nature a nursery of sailors; the principles of navigation were imbibed from infancy; every house was a school for mariners. The sport of children was among the breakers; their boyish pastimes in boats; and if their first excursions were but voyages to some neighboring port, they soon ventured into every clime, and braved the dangers of every sea. The states advanced to sudden opulence; before the insurrection,'

1 William Wsselinx, in Argonautica Gustaviana, 1).