voice is said to have been singularly musical. He spoke for the knowledge that was in him; and his appeal so affected certain members of the body judging him that, according to the reports of the trial current among the patriot circles of the day, they were conmovidos hasta verter lágrimas (so moved as to shed tears). But the Tribunal represented the Spain that had grown proud since the reign of her Ferdinand and Isabella, since the expulsion of the Moors, since the discovery of America; the Spain that in the hands of her effeminate Kings had become base enough to class, as prime state-maxims for a great Continent, two colossal lies: the right of despotism to be a thief, the right of despotism to be a butcher. What could Cáldas expect from such a Tribunal? He was a student, who had confessed himself artillerist: he was a philosopher, who had not hesitated to declare himself rebel. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. His bearing before the judges had been worthy, in its enthusiasm, of the patriot. In prison, it was worthy, in its dignity, of the philosopher. The hours that remained to Cáldas were not spent by him in struggling with those twin horrors of the condemned, idleness and despair. He addressed a letter to General Morillo, in which he begged for time, even though that time should be passed in prison and in chains. He needed time, he said, to complete his labors in that "Botanical Expedition,' which had been intrusted to him by his dead master Mútis. He needed it for the systematization of his own great geographical and astronomical work, so that he might put it into a shape, by which the world might not lose the lessons of which it, through him alone, contained the fruitful germ. Such was the spirit which moved the learned Doctor Peter Van Vordt, burnt at Häarlem, for wizard, in 1306, to declare that "Had they left this poor head a little longer on my shoulders, it would have done more for human happiness than all this bonfire." Such, also, was the spirit that moved the prayer of Archimides to his Roman assassin, to "forbear a moment, so that he might not leave his theorem imperfect." If separated by centuries, these are scenes of history which, save for the faces and the accessories, might, in photography, be fitly substituted the one for the other. Archimides with his assassin; Peter Van Vordt with his bonfire; Cáldas with his death volley! Had the world of science known beforehand of the sacrifice which was to be exacted of it, had it had time to act intelligently in its own defense and for its own honor, it would, in Europe, have ransomed the ashes of Van Vordt as it would, in America, have claimed the life of Cáldas. It is said (and it seems with some reason) that General Morillo, the commander-in-chief, favored granting temporarily, under the conditions submitted by his prisoner, the life of Cáldas. It is also said that Eurile, the second in command, was as violently opposed to granting it. Morillo was a puma, with a touch of mercy rising, now and then, from a very satiety of blood. He had waded through carnage to power. He had achieved fame at Madrid, but among the crushed populations that then lay in the lands ravaged by his brutal soldiery, that fame was only another name for infamy. He knew well enough that, were he once believed to lean to clemency, once known to become human, his past massacres would, at home, avail him nothing. Morillo was no mixture of high honor and remorseful ferocity like Othello. But he had in Eurile a Lieutenant that might have stood with Iago when, with false clink and falser heart, he hobnobbed with Cassio. Could the result be doubted? Cáldas found the most unsteady of friends in the commander, as he found the fiercest of enemies in his lieutenant. The council ignored his appeal, as judges of their calibre had, nearly five centuries before, rejected that of Van Vordt. The inquisitive student of history may find in the Pacificador—a journal of that day-the names of those condemned to suffer la pena capital and the following entry: "En 29 Octubre (1816) Doctor Francisco Caldas, Ingeniero general del ejercito rebelde y general de brigada. Fue pasado por las armas, por la espalda, y confiscados sus bienes." Which, put into English, reads: "October 29 (1816) Dr. Francisco Cáldas, Engineer-in-chief of the Rebel Army and General of Brigade. He was shot in the back, and his goods were confiscated." It is not to be wondered at that New Granada should claim for Francisco José de Cáldas a place as her representative in the scientific world by the side of Linnæus and Humboldt, Newton and Hugh Miller, Franklin and Agassiz. Nor can it be held as a reproach against those who are not Colombians that they should not know him as intimately, or honor him as highly, as his countrymen. But it would seem to be something worse than either, if those who constitute the Supreme Council of Science in both hemispheres, not recognizing at their proper value the lofty qualities of a brother born for great things and cursed by small ones, should fail to see that the debt due to his memory shall not be protested at the Bank of History.. EARLY CONNECTICUT CLAIMS IN PENNSYLVANIA IN April, 1662, King Charles II. issued letters patent, confirming to the colony of Connecticut certain rights and privileges, and defining the boundaries of the colony. On the south it was bounded by the sea, and "in longitude as the line of the Massachusetts colony running from east to west, that is to say, from the said Narragansett Bay on the east, to the South Sea on the west part, with the islands thereunto belonging."* This charter confirmed the patent granted to the Earl of Warwick some years before. As early as 1655 some New Haven people had made a settlement on the Delaware, near the site of Philadelphia, thus showing that it was the original understanding that the Earl of Warwick's patent extended two degrees in breadth below Massachusetts, and stretched across the continent. The southern boundary of this claim was the forty-first parallel of north latitude, and took in almost the entire northern half of Pennsylvania. Such was the ignorance of the Europeans respecting the geography of America, says Morse, that their patents extended they knew not where. Many of them were of doubtful construction, and very often covered each other in part, and thus produced innumerable disputes and mischiefs in the colonies. Connecticut construed her charter as authorizing them to pass over New York, which was then in possession of a Christian prince, and claimed, in latitude and breadth mentioned therein, to the South Sea.t For nearly a century, however, Connecticut neglected to claim these lands, which lay westward of New York. But after she had granted all her lands eastward of that colony, a company was formed with the design of colonizing the lands within her charter on the Susquehanna. This company was formed in 1753, and the next year a purchase was made, or at least was claimed to have been made, from the sachems of the Six Nations of a large tract at Wyoming. This tract was within the charter granted to William Penn. In a short time considerable settlements were made in the valley of the Susquehanna, and fierce disputes arose between the colonies of Pennsylvania and Connecticut. The first intimation we have of the coming trouble is in a letter from James Parsons, a justice of the peace of Northampton county, to Deputy Governor Hamilton, February 8, 1754. He writes that he had heard that some persons, under "pretence of an authority from the government of Connecticut," had gone to Wyoming, "giving out that those lands were included within the boundaries of the royal charter to that colony;" that upon further inquiry he found that his "information was but too true;" and he adds, "I thought I should be wanting in my duty if I did not give your honor this information."* A few days later, Daniel Broadhead, also a justice of Northampton county, writes to the governor on the same subject, and says that he "was at a loss how to act," lest he should "do the thing not just," and asks for advice in the matter." This letter being laid before the council, it was decided that Governor Hamilton should write to the authorities of Connecticut, apprising them of these movements, and requesting their interference, lest "the colonies should have the additional affliction of seeing a civil war commence in the bowels of two of their most prosperous provinces." Governor Hamilton wrote accordingly on the 4th of March, and on the 13th of the same month Governor Wolcott, of Connecticut, wrote a letter in reply, in which he says, "I don't suppose our people had any purpose to quarrel with Pennsylvania." At the same time Col. John Armstrong, who had acted as the messenger of Governor Hamilton to Governor Wolcott, reported that the people of Connecticut earnestly and seriously determined to make a settlement on the Susquehanna, within the latitude of their province. In November following, Armstrong, who had been sent again to inquire into and report upon the matter, wrote that the purchase of lands from the Six Nations "was intirely of a private nature," and that the government had had nothing to do with it. He adds: “The generality of the more knowing people despise the scheme as wild and preposterous, but some others mightily cry up the antiquity and extent of their charter whereon their claims are chiefly built."+ The defeat of General Braddock in 1755, and the subsequent irruptions and devastations by the Indians, seem to have put a stop for some years to the attempts at settlements at Wyoming. In February, 1761, Governor Hamilton called the attention of the council to the fact of renewed encroachments by Connecticut people in the northern part of the province, and laid before them a report on the state of affairs by the sheriff and justices of Northampton county. In this report the whole difficulty is gone over from the beginning. By advice of the council the governor issued a proclamation, "strictly requiring and enjoining in his Majesty's *Col. Rec., Vol. v., p. 736 name all and every person and persons already settled or residing on the said lands, immediately to depart and move away from the same.' The Connecticut people, however, continued to flock into the disputed territory, forming their principal settlement at a place called Cushietunck. Governor Hamilton sent Captain Hyndshaw to observe what was doing there, or likely to be done; and in April, 1761, he made a report, from which it appears the settlement was in a thriving state, and fresh settlers were crowding in. In the following September, Governor Hamilton issued another proclamation, "requiring and enjoining," etc., which seems to have had about as much effect as the first. At the same time the Indians of the Six Nations kept on remonstrating and threatening, but Governor Hamilton succeeded in preventing any outbreak by promising that measures would be taken to prevent those "troublesome people" from encroaching upon their lands. In June, 1763, the king issued a commission to require and command the settlers in the disputed region forthwith to desist from their undertaking, and "to depart and remove from thence within such limited time" as the commissioners might think "necessary and reasonable." This action on the part of the king was based entirely on the fact that the land in question had not been purchased from the Indians; and it seems to have had the desired effect; for there is no notice of any further trouble from this source until the year 1769. Having in the meantime settled by purchase with the Indians, the Connecticut people felt themselves at liberty to resume operations at Wyoming, and the Susquehanna Company was revived. In April, 1769, Governor Penn wrote to General Gage, commander-in-chief of the royal forces in America, detailing the history of the trouble; and he adds: "They now not only openly resist the execution of the king's process and set government at naught, but have lately gone so far as to attack and fire upon a party of our people, who had one of their associates under legal arrest. * * I find myself under the disagreeable necessity of applying for the aid of the military to support the civil power." This application General Gage respectfully declined. "The affair in question," he writes, "seems to be a dispute concerning property, in which I can't but think it would be highly improper for the king's troops to interfere." But if the "king's troops" were not to participate in the controversy, armed conflict on a certain scale was to take place nevertheless. In the early part of the year 1770, scenes of riot and violence were inaugurated; houses were pulled down, cattle were shot, goods were destroyed, and even blood was shed. *Col. Rec., Vol. viii., p. 567. * |