THE PEOPLE STRUGGLE FOR POWER.

25

With the Africans came the African institution of abject slavery; the large emigrations from Connecticut. engrafted on New Netherlands the 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. In whole towns New England men had planted "their liberties in a Congregational way," with the consent of the Dutch. 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, in 1642, delegates from the Dutch towns, at first twelve, then perhaps eight in number, had mitigated the arbitrary authority of Kieft. But there was no distinct concession of legislative power to the people. In 1652, the city of New Amsterdam obtained privileges, not the citizens. The province gained only the municipal liberties, on which rested the commercial aristocracy of Holland; and citizenship, far from being a political enfranchisement, was not much more than a license to trade.

In November, 1653, the persevering restlessness of the people led to a general assembly of two deputies from each village in New Netherlands — an assembly which Stuyvesant was unwilling to sanction, and could not prevent. As in Massachusetts, this first convention sprung from the will of the people; and it claimed the right of deliberating on the civil condition of the country. "The States General of the United Provinces," said its members, are our liege lords; but we are a member of the state, and not a subjugated people. We 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."

66

Stuyvesant was taken by surprise. "Laws," he replied, "will be made by the director and council. If the rule that the people elect their own officers should 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. The old laws remain in force; directors will never make themselves responsible to subjects." "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.

propose;

"have no

The West India company declared resistance to arbitrary taxation to be "contrary to the maxims of every enlightened government." "We approve the taxes you thus they wrote to Stuyvesant; regard to the consent of the people; "let them indulge no longer the visionary dream, that taxes can be imposed only with their consent;' " and the colonists, in their desire that popular freedom might 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.

The claim of Lord Baltimore to the country from Newcastle to Cape Henlopen was defended by his agents in America, and even presented, in Amsterdam, to the States General of the United Provinces. But the West India company was inflexible; and the Dutch, and Swedes, and Finns, kept the country safely for William Penn. At last, in 1663, 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 the river from Cape Henlopen to the falls at Trenton, certainly remained under the jurisdiction of the Dutch.

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

But,

1663.] DISCONTENTS IN NEW NETHERLANDS.

27

upon the restoration, the act of navigation, at first evaded, was soon enforced; and, in 1664, Berkeley, whose brother coveted the soil of New Jersey, threatened hostility. Clouds gathered in the south. In the north, affairs were still more lowering. Massachusetts did not relinquish its right to an indefinite extension of its territory to the west; and the people of Connecticut increased their pretensions on Long Island, and steadily advanced towards the Hudson. The original grant from the States General was interpreted as conveying no more than a commercial privilege. To the plea of discovery, purchase from the natives, and long possession, it was replied, that Connecticut, by its charter, extended to the Pacific. Where, then," demanded the Dutch negotiators, "where is New Netherlands?" And the agents of Connecticut answered, "We do not know."

66

These unavailing discussions were conducted during the horrors of a half-year's war with the savages round Esopus. In June, 1663, the rising village on the banks of that stream was laid waste; many of its inhabitants murdered or made captive; and it was only on the approach of winter that an armistice restored tranquillity. The colony had no friend but the Mohawks. "With them it kept but one council fire, and was united by a covenant chain."

The necessities of the times wrung from Stuyvesant the concession of an assembly; the delegates of the villages would only appeal to the States General and to the West India company for protection. But the States General had, as it were, invited aggression by abstaining from every public act which should pledge their honor to the defence of the province; and the West India company was too penurious to risk its funds, where victory was so hazardous. A new and more full diet, in the spring of 1664, demanded plainly of Stuyvesant"If you cannot protect us, to whom shall we turn?" The governor, faithful to his trust, proposed the enlistment of every third man, as had more than once been

66

done in the Fatherland." without defence; the people would not expose life for the West India company; and the company would not risk bankruptcy for a colony which it valued chiefly as property. Half Long Island revolted; the settlements on the Esopus wavered; the Connecticut men had purchased of the Indians all the seaboard as far as the North River. Such were the narratives of Stuyvesant to his employers.

And thus Manhattan was left

In the mean time, while the United Provinces had confidence in a firm peace, the English were engaging in a piratical expedition against the Dutch possessions on the coast of Guinea. The king had also, with equal indifference to the chartered rights of Connecticut, and the claims of the Netherlands, granted to the duke of York not only the country from the Kennebec to the St. Croix, but the whole territory from the Connecticut River to the shores of the Delaware; and, under the conduct of Richard Nichols, groom of the bed-chamber to the duke of York, the English squadron which carried the commissioners for New England to Boston, having demanded recruits in Massachusetts, and received on board the governor of Connecticut, in the last days of August, 1664, approached the Narrows, and quietly cast anchor in Gravesend Bay. Long Island was lost; soldiers from New England pitched their camp near Breukelen Ferry.

In New Amsterdam there existed a division of counsels. Stuyvesant, faithful to his employers, struggled to maintain their interests; the municipality, conscious that the town was at the mercy of the English fleet, desired to avoid bloodshed by a surrender. A joint committee from the governor and the city having demanded of Nichols the cause of his presence, he replied by a letter, requiring of Stuyvesant the immediate acknowledgment of English sovereignty, with the condition of security to the inhabitants in life, liberty, and property. "The surrender," Stuyvesant nobly answered, "would be reproved in the Fatherland," and angrily tore in

1664.]

CONQUEST OF NEW NETHERLANDS.

29

pieces the letter from the English commander. On the third of September, a new deputation repaired to the fleet; but Nichols declined discussion. When may

66

"On

we visit you again?" said the commissioners. Thursday," replied Nichols; "for to-morrow I will speak with you at Manhattan." "Friends," it was smoothly answered, are very welcome there." 'Raise the white flag of peace," said the English commander, "for I shall come with ships of war and soldiers." The commissioners returned to advocate the capitulation, which was quietly effected on the following days. The aristocratic liberties of Holland yielded to the hope of popular liberties like those of New England.

The articles of surrender, framed under the auspices of the municipal authority, by the mediation of the younger Winthrop and Pynchon, accepted by the magistrates and other inhabitants assembled in the town hall, and not ratified by Stuyvesant till the surrender had virtually been made, promised security to the customs, the religion, the municipal institutions, the possessions of the Dutch. The enforcement of the navigation act was delayed for six months. During that period, direct intercourse with Holland remained free. The towns were still to choose their own magistrates, and Manhattan, now first known as New York, to elect its deputies, with free voices in all public affairs.

The colonists were satisfied; very few embarked for Holland; it seemed rather that the new benefit of English liberties was to be added to the security of property. On the twenty-fourth of September, Fort Orange, now named Albany, from the Scottish title of the duke of York, quietly surrendered; and the league with the Five Nations was wisely renewed. Early in October, the Dutch and Swedes on the Delaware capitulated; and, for the first time, the whole Atlantic coast of the old thirteen states was in possession of England. Our had obtained geographical unity.

The dismemberment of New Netherlands e its surrender. The duke of York had, in J