We have seen Elizabeth of England a partner in the commerce, of which the Stuarts, to the days of Queen Anne, were distinguished patrons; the city of Amsterdam (1) did not blush to own shares in a slave-ship, to advance money for the outfits, and to participate in the returns. In pro

portion to population, New York had imported as 1664. many (2) Africans as Virginia. That New York is not a slave-state like Carolina, is due to climate, and not to the superior humanity of its founders. Stuyvesant was instructed to use every exertion to promote the sale of negroes. (3) They were imported sometimes by way of the West Indies, often directly from Guinea, (4) and were sold at public auction to the highest bidder.(5). The average price (6) was less than one hundred and forty dollars. The monopoly of the traffic was not strictly enforced; and a change of policy sometimes favoured the export of negroes to the English colonies. (7) The enfranchised negro might become a freeholder.(8)

With the Africans, came the African institution of abject slavery; the large emigrations from Connecticut engrafted on New Netherlands the Puritan idea of popular freedom. There were so many English at Manhattan as to require an English secretary, preachers who could speak in English as well as in Dutch, and a publication of civil ordinances in English.(9) Whole towns had been settled by New England men, who, having come to America to serve God with a pure conscience, and desiring to provide for the outward comforts and souls' welfare of their posterities, planted New England liberties in a Congregational way, with the consent, and under the jurisdiction, of the Dutch.(10) Their presence and their activity foretold a revolution.

In the Fatherland, the power of the people was unknown; in New Netherlands, the necessities of the colony had given it a twilight existence, and delegates from the Dutch towns, at first twelve, then perhaps eight in number, had mitigated the arbitrary authority of

1642.

(1) Albany Records, viii. 383.

(2) Ibid. xxii. 308, 244; xviii. 116, 272, 299; xiii. 340.

(3) Ibid. iv. 371.

(4) Ibid. iv. 2; viii. 14. The Records contain permits for the voyages, the numbers imported, &c.

(5) Ibid. iv. 332.

(7) Ibid. iv. 333, 172, 371, 456; xix. 26; xi. 35. (8) Ibid. xxii. 331. But compare ii. 242.

(9) Ibid. iv. 74.

(6) Ibid. xviii. 72.

(10) Ibid. xix. 409-419.

Kieft. There was no distinct concession of legislative power to the people; but the people had, without a teacher,

become convinced of the right of resistance. The 1644. brewers refused to pay an arbitrary excise: "Were we to yield,” said they, "we should offend the eight men, and the whole commonalty." The large proprietaries did not favour popular freedom; the commander of Renselaer Stein had even raised a battery, that "the canker of freemen" might not enter the manor; but the patrons cheerfully joined the free boors in resisting arbitrary taxation.

As a compromise, it was proposed that, from a double 1647. nomination by the villages, the governor should appoint tribunes, to act as magistrates in trivial cases, and as agents for the towns, to give their opinion whenever they should be consulted. Town-meetings were absolutely prohibited. (1)

Discontents increased. Vander Donk and others were 1649- charged with leaving nothing untried to abjure what they 1652. called the galling yoke of an arbitrary government. A commission repaired to Holland for redress; as farmers, they claimed the liberties essential to the prosperity of agriculture; as merchants, they protested against the intolerable burden of the customs; and, when redress was refused, tyranny was followed by its usual conse quence-clandestine associations against oppression. (2) The excess of complaint obtained for New Amsterdam a court

1650.

of justice like that of the metropolis; but the municipal 1652. liberties included no political franchise; the sheriff(3) was appointed by the governor; the two burgomasters and five schepens made a double nomination of their own successors, from which "the valiant director himself elected the board."(4) The city had privileges, not the citizens. The province gained only the municipal liberties, on which rested the commercial aristocracy of Holland. Citizenship was a commercial privilege, and not a political enfranchisement.(5) It was not much more than a license to trade.(6) The system was at war with Puritan usages; the 1653. Dutch in the colony readily caught the idea of relying on themselves; and the persevering restlessness of the people led to a general assembly of two deputies from each

(1) Albany Records, iii. 187, 188; vii. 74, 82, &c.

(2) Ibid. iv. 25, 29, 30, 33, 68.

(3) Ibid. xiii.,96-99; viii. 139-142.

(4) Ibid. xix. 33, 34.

(5) So afterwards, in 1657. Albany Records, xv. 54-56. (6) Ibid. xxiv. 45. Compare xx. 247, 248.

village in New Netherlands; an assembly which Stuyvesant was unwilling to sanction, and could not prevent. As in Massachusetts, this first convention (1) sprung from the will of the people; and it claimed the right of deliberating on the civil condition of the country.

66

"The States General of the United Provinces"-such was the remonstrance and petition drafted by George Baxter, and unanimously adopted by the conventionare our liege lords; we submit to the laws of the United Provinces ; and our rights and privileges ought to be in harmony with those of the Fatherland, for we are a member of the state, and not a subjugated people. We, who have come together from various parts of the world, and are a blended community of various lineage; we, who have, at our own expense, exchanged our native lands for the protection of the United Provinces; we, who have transformed the wilderness into fruitful farms,-demand that no new laws shall be enacted, but with consent of the people; that none shall be appointed to office, but with the approbation of the people; that obscure and obsolete laws shall never be revived.”(2)

Stuyvesant was taken by surprise. He had never had faith in "the wavering multitude ;"(3) and doubts of man's capacity for self-government dictated his reply. "Will you set your names to the visionary notions of the New England man? Is no one of the Netherlands' nation able to draft your petition? And your prayer is so extravagant, you might as well claim to send delegates to the assembly of their high mightinesses themselves.

1. "Laws will be made by the director and council. Evil manners produce good laws for their restraint; and, therefore, the laws of New Netherlands are good.

2. " Shall the people elect their own officers? If this rule become our cynosure, and the election of magistrates be left to the rabble, every man will vote for one of his own stamp. The thief will vote for a thief; the smuggler for a smuggler; and fraud and vice will become privileged. 3. "The old laws remain in force; directors will never make themselves responsible to subjects."(4)

(1) The original is Lantdag Dutch Records, 2.

(2) Albany Records, ix. 28-33. I have selected and compressed the prominent points. Every word will, I trust, be found to be sanctioned by the Dutch originals. Of course I have not adhered strictly to the words of Vander Kemp's honest but ungrammatical version.

(3) Ibid. vii. 73.

(4) Ibid. ix. 38-46.

The delegates, in their rejoinder, appealed to the inalienable rights of nature. We do but design the general good of the country and the maintenance of freedom; nature permits all men to constitute society, and assemble for the protection of liberty and property."(1) Stuyvesant, having exhausted his arguments, could reply only by an act of power; and dissolving the assembly, he commanded its members to separate, on pain of arbitrary punishment. "We derive our authority from God and the West-India Company, not from the pleasure of a few ignorant subjects:" such was his farewell message to the convention which he dispersed.

The West-India Company (2) declared this resistance to arbitrary taxation to be "contrary to the maxims of every enlightened government." "We approve the taxes you propose ;"-thus they wrote to Stuyvesant-" have no regard to the consent of the people ;" "let them indulge no longer the visionary dream, that taxes can be imposed only with their consent." But the people continued to indulge the dream; taxes could not be collected; and the 1654- colonists, in their desire that popular freedom might 1658. prove more than a vision, listened with complacency to the hope of obtaining English liberties by submitting to English jurisdiction.

Cromwell had planned the conquest of New Netherlands; in the days of his son the design was revived; and the restoration of Charles II. threatened New Netherlands with danger from the south, the north, and from England. In previous negotiations with the agent of Lord

Baltimore, the envoy of New Netherlands had firmly 1659. maintained the right of the Dutch to the southern bank of the Delaware, pleading purchase and colonization before the patent to Lord Baltimore had been granted. The facts were conceded; but, in the pride of strength, it was answered that the same plea had not availed Clayborne, and should not avail the Dutch.(3) On the restoration, Lord Baltimore renewed his claims to the country from Newcastle to Cape Henlopen; they were defended by his agents in Amsterdam and in America, and were even presented to the States General of the United Provinces. (1) Albany Records, ix. 48, 49, &c. &c.

(2) Ibid. iv. 129, 133, 168, 175, &c.; xiv. 169, 171. Compare xviii. 77. (3) Heerman's Journal of his Embassy to Maryland, in reply to Col. N. Utie, &c., in Albany Records, xviii. 337-365. Compare, also, viii. 185. So, too, Maryland Papers, in N. Y. Hist. Coll. iii. 369-386.

1660.

The College of XIX. of the West-India Company was inflexible; conscious of its rights, it refused to surrender its possessions, and resolved "to defend them, even to the spilling of blood."(1) Beekman, the Dutch lieutenant-governor on the Delaware, was faithful to his trust; the jurisdiction of his country was maintained; and 1659- when young Baltimore, with his train, appeared at 1664. the mouth of the Brandywine, he was honoured as a guest; but the proprietary claims of his father were triumphantly resisted. The Dutch, and Swedes, and Finns, kept the country safely for William Penn. At last the West-India Company, desiring a barrier against the English on the south, transferred the whole country on

the Delaware to the city of Amsterdam. The banks of 1663. the river from Cape Henlopen to the falls at Trenton, certainly remained under the jurisdiction of the Dutch.

With Virginia, during the protectorate, the most amicable relations had been confirmed by reciprocal courtesies.

Even during the war between England and Holland, 1653. friendly intercourse had continued for why, it was said, should there be strife between old friends and neighbours, brothers in Christ, dwelling in countries so far from Europe? Commerce, if interrupted by a transient hesitancy as to its security, soon recovered its freedom, and was sometimes conducted even with Europe by way of 1659- Virginia. Equal rights in the colonial courts were 1664. reciprocally secured by treaty. But upon the restoration, the act of navigation, at first evaded, was soon enforced; and by degrees, Berkeley, whose brother coveted the soil of New Jersey, threatened hostility. Clouds gathered in the south. (2)

(1) This statement is opposite to the account which the enemies of Penn have given. It is, nevertheless, the true one. The original despatch of the West-India Company exists at Albany. The English reader may consult Albany Records, viii. 293, 294, where he will find the words of the text. Now compare Chalmers, 634: "The West India Company sent private orders to its officers to withdraw to the northward of Lord Baltimore's boundary." The company sent private orders not to give up the country, but to defend it even to the spilling of blood. Once more turn to Chalmers, 634: "Charles Calvert, the son of the proprietary, immediately occupied what his opponents had relinquished." This also is wrong. The heir of Lord Baltimore made a visit on the river, and was hospitably entertained by Beekman as a guest, not as a proprietary. See Records, xvii. 286, 297. But Chalmers hated Penn, and recklessly or passionately falsified history. And how hard to destroy error! How many have copied this statement of Chalmers !

(2) Albany Records, iv. 133, 165, 168, 198, 211, 236, 248, 282, 351, 320, 382; xxiv. 101, &c. 300, 399, 401; xviii. 157, &c. 197, 258-262.