personal magnetism that the Blarney stone is said. to impart. His blithe humour veiled a deep earnestness of purpose, long experience with Frenchmen had fitted him to deal with the dangers that were threatening from Canada, and while he was a most devout Catholic none could surpass him in loyalty to Great Britain and its government. The first 1683. The arrival of Governor Dongan in New York, with the news of his errand, was hailed with vociferous delight. The assembly was duly elected and held its first meeting in Fort James on the 17th of October, 1683. Its composition forcibly reminds us of what places the assembly, Duke of York's province consisted. The places represented were Schenectady, Albany, Rensselaerwyck, Esopus, Harlem, New York, Staten Island, Long Island (under the name of Yorkshire in three districts called "ridings"), Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, and distant Pemaquid. There were in all eighteen representatives. Several wholesome laws were passed, and an admirable charter was drawn up and sent to England for the duke's approval. All this took some time, and before he had signed the charter an event occurred which wrought many changes. 1 This assembly divided New York and its appendages into twelve counties, the names of some of which are curious: New York, Westchester, Dutchess (after the duke's new wife, Mary of Modena), Albany (Ulster, after the duke's Irish earldom), Orange (after William, the duke's Dutch son-in-law, destined to supplant him), Richmond (probably after Louise de Keroualle's bastard), Kings, Queens, Suffolk (a good name for such a Puritan county), Dukes (including Martha's Vineyard and neighbouring islands), and Cornwall (comprising the Maine districts). See Brodhead's History of the State of New York, ii. 385, 386. In February, 1685, a stroke of apoplexy carried off Charles II., and the duke became king. His proprietary domain of New York thus became a royal province, one among a group of colonies over which he now exercised similar and equal control, and his policy toward it was altered. He did not sign the charter, but let it lie in abeyance while he was turning over in his mind an alternative scheme the outcome of which we shall presently see. Meanwhile the sagacious Dongan had his hands as full as they could hold of French and Indian diplomacy. Happily the determining feature of the situation was in his favour. We have seen Iroquois politics. how the pivotal fact in early American history was the alliance between the Five Nations and the white men on the Hudson River, first Dutch, afterwards English. We have seen how they dealt with the Dutch, exchanged peltries for muskets, and then entered upon a mighty career of conquest. How they destroyed the French missions in the Huron country in 1649 is one of the most lurid chapters in history. By Governor Dongan's time they had reduced to a tributary condition nearly all the tribes east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio and Potomac. They had lately wiped out of existence the formidable Susquehannocks, and now guaranteed the safety of Penn's new colony. We have seen how in 1675 they bestowed upon Andros the title of "Corlear," and promised to befriend the English as they had befriended the Dutch. Were they ready to go further, if need be, and attack Onontio himself, the Great White Father, in his strongholds upon the St. Lawrence? It was more than they had yet undertaken, and these dusky warriors of the Stone Age well knew the prowess of the soldiers of France. Dongan with a statesman's foresight knew that a deadly struggle between France and England for supremacy in this wilderness must soon begin, and his military eye saw that the centre of the fight must lie between the Hudson and the St. Lawrence. Either Louis XIV. must be checkmated in Canada or he would drive the English from New York. So Dongan's hands were full of Indian diplomacy as he sought to fan the fires of hatred in the Mohawk valley. His opponent, the Marquis Denonville, viceroy of Canada, was also an astute and keen-witted man, as one had need to be in such a position. No Russian game of finesse on the lower Danube was ever played with more wary hand than the game between those two old foxes. While their secret emissaries prowled and intrigued, their highnesses exchanged official letters, usually polite Some spicy in form, but sometimes crusty, and always letters. lively enough, despite the dust of these two hundred years. On one occasion the Frenchman lectures Dongan for allowing West India rum to be sent to the Long House. "Think you that religion will make any progress, while your traders supply the savages in abundance with the liquor which, as you ought to know, converts them into demons and their wigwams into counterparts of hell?" One seems to see the Irishman's tongue curl under his cheek as he replies, "Methinks our rum doth as little hurt as your brandy, and in the opinion of Christians is much more wholesome." But presently the marquis gets a chance for a little fling. Dongan writes at the end of a letter, "I desire you would order Monsieur de Lamberville1 that soe long as he stays among those people of the Five Nations he would meddle only with the affairs belonging to his priestly function. Sir, I send you some oranges, hearing that they are a rarity in your parts." In Denonville's reply the polite attention is thus acknowledged: "Monsieur, I thank you for your oranges. It is a great pity that they were all rotten." 2 In this diplomatic duel the Blarney stone prevailed, and a black and grewsome war-cloud began gathering over Canada. Meanwhile in a chamber of the palace at Versailles the king was maturing his counterplot with the aid of a greater than Denonville, the wily and indomitable Frontenac. That picturesque veteran, now more than seventy years of age, was coming back to Canada, to undertake what could be entrusted to no one less fertile in resources. In a word, he was to surLouis XIV. prise New York and wrest it from the English, as the English had wrested it from the Dutch. A force of 1000 French Plan of for conquering New York. regulars with 600 Canadian militia was to pounce upon Albany and there to seize boats, canoes, and small sloops wherein to glide merrily down the river. In New York harbour a French fleet would arrive in season to meet this force, which no defences there were fit to resist. With the capture 1 A Jesuit very adroit and busy in political intrigue. of New York the supply of firearms to the Long House would cease. The French could then overcome that barbaric confederacy, after which their hands would be free to undertake the conquest of New England. Such was the ambitious scheme of the Most Christian King, but before coming to the latter part of it, New York, the first conquest, must be purged of its damnable heresies. The few Catholic inhabitants must swear allegiance to Louis XIV., and would then be protected from harm. Huguenot refugees were to be sent back to France. All the rest of the people were to be driven to the woods to shift for themselves. Their houses and lands were to be parcelled out among the French troops; all their personal property was to be seized and a certain amount of it divided among the troops; the rest was to be sold at auction and the money paid over into the French treasury.1 With these amiable instructions Frontenac was sent to Canada, but when he arrived, in October, 1689, he found things not as he had expected. It was indeed already known in France that the black war-cloud had burst over the colony, but the horrors of that summer had not yet been told. In all directions the ruins of smoking villages bore witness to the frightful ravages of the Iroquois. The environs of Montreal were a scene of mournful desolation, the town itself had barely escaped capture, and the inhabitants, who had looked out upon friends The Iroquois defeat the plan. 1 Mémoire pour servir d'Instruction sur l'Entreprise de la Nouvelle York, 7 juin, 1689; New York Colonial Documents, ix. 422. |