and rare personal charm. One of his first measures, however, was for a time extremely unpopular. There was far too much intercourse between the French and the warriors of the Long House. It was an excellent instance of the shrewdness with which Onontio made trade and religion support each other. Jesuit priests had made converts to Christianity even among their arch-enemies the Mohawks, and with these converts they formed a colony at Caughnawaga, a place on the right bank of the St. Lawrence, a short distance above Montreal. These Caughnawaga Indians soon became a source of danger to New York. The most prolific source of the furs which made so large a part of the wealth of the province was the country about the Great Lakes, inhabited by Ottawas, Sacs and Foxes, Pottawatomies and other AlgonThe Caugh- quin tribes, besides Dakotahs. These were commonly called the "Far Indians." Now since the English commercial policy, however narrow, was far more liberal than that of Louis XV., the best supply of goods for the Indians was in New York and Albany, not in Montreal. Knives and guns, powder and blankets, were apt to be plenty and cheap among the English, while scarce and dear among the French. Accordingly the Caughnawagas soon became the middlemen in a brisk and lucrative trade. By way of the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain they brought furs from the Great Lakes to Albany and exchanged them there for tools and weapons, blankets and beads, which they forthwith carried to Montreal and sold to the French nawagas and their trade. traders. It was often in this way only that the Frenchmen obtained the wares which they needed for getting furs from the "Far Indians." 1 Now this trade through the Caughnawagas was profitable to merchants in New York and Albany, as well as in Montreal. But every Caughnawaga was a Jesuit spy whose presence upon Its dangers. English soil was a possible source of danger. Moreover, the use of the St. Lawrence route played into the hands of the enemy by diverting trade from the safer avenue of the Mohawk valley. With a statesman's glance Governor Burnet comprehended the situation, and his action was prompt and decisive. He procured an act of the assembly prohibiting trade with Montreal under the penalty of £100 fine with forfeiture of goods; while at the same time he bought the land at Oswego from the Six Nations 2 and built a small fort there, and as the assembly was slow in providing the money, he paid the expenses out of his own pocket. Much to the delight of the Long House, some forty young men, headed by Quidor's son, Philip Schuyler, came among them to carry on trade. It was decidedly for the interest of the 1 See Parkman, A Half-Century of Conflict, i. 15. Founding of Oswego, and tions with closer rela the Mohawk valley. 2 After the crushing defeats of the Tuscarora tribe of Iroquois in North Carolina, by Barnwell in 1712 and by Moore in 1713, the remnant of the tribe migrated into New York and were admitted into the confederacy of the Long House, as a sixth nation. The territory there assigned to the Tuscaroras lay south of the Oneidas and southeast of the Onondagas. For their career in North Carolina, see Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, ii. 297– 304. Six Nations to become the middlemen in a flourishing trade between the "Far Indians" and Albany. Accordingly the measures of Governor Burnet had lasting results, although his prohibitory act was after a few years quashed by the Lords of Trade. The main course of the fur trade was in great measure diverted from Fort Frontenac and Lake Champlain to Oswego and the Mohawk valley. Intercourse between the English and the Six Nations thus grew closer and the danger from Canada was lessened. Probably the action of Burnet was the most important event in the history of the Anglo-Iroquois alliance between the death of Frontenac in 1698 and the arrival of William Johnson in 1738. Cosby's Upon the accession of George II., Burnet was transferred from the governorship of New York to that of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. His successor, John Montgomery, died in 1731, and the next year came Colonel William Cosby, who had been governor of Minorca and acquired there The a reputation for gross avarice. dispute with principal event of his administration in Dam. New York was a money dispute with Rip van Dam, who as president of the council had conducted affairs during the interregnum after Montgomery's death. Out of this dispute grew a trial which excited intense interest throughout the English colonies, and deserves mention in every account of the development of political liberty. Rip van Since 1725 New York had had a newspaper, 1 The first newspaper printed in English America was "Public Occurrences, both Foreign and Domestic," Boston, September edited by William Bradford, a gentleman who had come from Pennsylvania in 1693 and brought with him the art of printing. He was printer for the government, and his paper, the "New York Gazette," of which the first number appeared October 16, 1725, was to some extent a gov- Bradford ernment organ. One of Bradford's and Zenger. apprentices was John Peter Zenger, a German who had come over from the Palatinate in 1710, being then a lad of thirteen. In 1733 Zenger started an opposition paper, called the "Weekly Journal.” He had no money, but received help and encouragement from some of the ablest and best men of the province, including Lewis Morris, Rip van Dam, James Alexander,1 and others. In point of telling argument and bold sarcasm Bradford was no match for Zenger, and when sundry deeds of 25, 1690. Only this first number was printed. The first permanent newspapers were as follows: The Boston News Letter, Boston, April 17, 1704. The Connecticut Gazette, New Haven, January 1, 1755. 1 This eminent lawyer was a Scotch Jacobite who had found the old country too hot for him after the rebellion of 1715. His son, William Alexander, was the Revolutionary general commonly known as "Lord Stirling." Cosby were held up to scorn the governor writhed under the infliction. At last, in November, 1734, the council could endure it no longer. They pronounced four numbers of the "Weekly Journal” "seditious" and ordered the common hangman to make a public bonfire of them in front of the pillory. The mayor and aldermen, however, pronounced this order of the council illegal, and would not allow the hangman to obey it. The Persecution papers were accordingly burned by one of of Zenger. the sheriff's negro slaves. Then Zenger was imprisoned on a warrant from the governor and council, who requested the assembly to concur with them in prosecuting him; but the assembly simply laid the request upon the table. He was brought before Chief Justice De Lancey, and his counsel, James Alexander and William Smith, two of the foremost lawyers in the province, wished to have him admitted to bail, but as he was unable to find the excessive sum of £800 which was required, he was remanded to jail, where he continued to edit his paper by dictating to his clerks through a chink in the door. A grand jury was impanelled, but refused to indict him. Therefore the attorney-general filed an "information" 1 against him for "false, scandalous, malicious, and seditious libels." Six months elapsed before the trial came on, and meanwhile the plain-speaking Zenger was kept in durance. His counsel, Smith 1 An information "differs in no respect from an indictment in its form and substance, except that it is filed at the mere discretion of the proper law officer of the government ex officio, without the intervention of a grand jury." Bouvier, Law Dictionary, s. v.; Blackstone's Commentaries, iv. 308, |