CHAPTER XVII.

JAMES II. CONSOLIDATES THE NORTHERN COLONIES.

THE Country which, in June, 1674, after the reconquest of New Netherland, was again conveyed to the duke of York, extended from the Kennebec to the St. Croix, and from the Connecticut river to Maryland. We have now to trace an attempt to consolidate the whole coast north of the Delaware.

The charter from the king sanctioned whatever ordinances the duke of York or his assigns might establish; and in regard to justice, revenue, and legislation, Edmund Andros, the governor, was responsible only to his employer. He was instructed to display all the humanity and gentleness that could consist with arbitrary power; and, avoiding wilful cruelty, to use punishments as an instrument of terror. On the last day of October, he received the surrender of New Netherland from the representatives of the Dutch, and renewed the absolute authority of the proprietary. The inhabitants of the eastern part of Long Island resolved, in town-meetings, to adhere to Connecticut. The charter of that government did not countenance their decision; and, unwilling to be declared rebels, they submitted to New York.

In July, 1675, Andros, with armed sloops, proceeded to Connecticut to vindicate his jurisdiction as far as the river. On the first alarm, William Leet, the aged deputy governor, one of the original seven pillars of the church of Guilford, educated in England as a lawyer, a rigid republican, hospitable even to regicides, convened the assembly. A proclamation was unanimously voted, and forwarded by express to Bull, the captain of the company on whose firmness the independence of the little colony rested. It arrived just as Andros, hoist

ing the king's flag, demanded the surrender of Saybrook fort. Immediately the English colors were raised within the fortress. Despairing of victory, Andros attempted persuasion. Having been allowed to land with his personal retinue, he assumed authority, and, in the king's name, ordered the duke's patent, with his own commission, to be read. In the king's name he was commanded to desist; and Andros was overawed by the fishermen and yeomen who formed the colonial troops. Their proclamation he spoke of as a slander, and an ill requital for his intended kindness. The Saybrook militia, escorting him to his boat, saw him sail for Long Island; and Connecticut, resenting the aggression, made a declaration of its wrongs, sealed it with its seal, and transmitted it to the neighboring plantations.

In New York itself Andros was hardly more welcome. than at Saybrook; for the obedient servant of the duke of York discouraged every mention of assemblies, and levied customs without the consent of the people. But, since the Puritans of Long Island claimed a representative government as an inalienable English birthright, and the whole population opposed the ruling system as a tyranny, the governor, in 1676, advised his master to concede legislative franchises.

The dull James II., then duke of York, of a fair complexion and an athletic frame, was patient in details, yet singularly blind to universal principles, plodding with sluggish diligence, but unable to conform conduct to a general rule. Within narrow limits he reasoned correctly; but his vision did not extend far. Without sympathy for the people, he had no discernment of character, and was the easy victim of duplicity and intrigue. His loyalty was but devotion to the prerogative which he hoped to inherit. Brave in the face of expected dangers, an unforeseen emergency found him pusillanimously helpless. He kept his word sacredly, unless it involved complicated relations, which he could scarcely comprehend. As to religion, a service of forms alone suited his narrow understanding; to attend mass, to build chapels, to risk the kingdom for a rosary-all this was within his grasp. Freedom of conscience was, in that age, an idea yet standing on the threshold of the world, waiting to be ushered in; and none

but exalted minds-Roger Williams and Penn, Vane, Fox, and Bunyan-went forth to welcome it; no glimpse of it reached James, whose selfish policy, unable to gain immediate dominion for his persecuted priests and his confessor, begged at least for toleration. Debauching a woman on promise of marriage, he next allowed her to be traduced, and then married her; he was conscientious, but his moral sense was as slow as his understanding. He was not bloodthirsty; but to a narrow mind fear seems the most powerful instrument of government, and he propped his throne on the block and the gallows. A libertine without love, a devotee without spirituality, an advocate of toleration without a sense of the natural right to freedom of conscience, he floated between the sensuality of indulgence and the sensuality of superstition, hazarding heaven for an ugly mistress, and, to the great delight of abbots and nuns, winning it back again by pricking his flesh with sharp points of iron, and eating no meat on Saturdays. Of the two brothers, the duke of Buckingham said well, that Charles would not and James could not see. On the first of January, 1677, James put his whole character into his reply to Andros, which was as follows:

"I cannot but suspect assemblies would be of dangerous consequence, nothing being more known than the aptness of such bodies to assume to themselves many privileges, which prove destructive to, or very often disturb, the peace of government, when they are allowed. Neither do I see any use for them. Things that need redress may be sure of finding it at the quarter sessions, or by the legal and ordinary ways, or, lastly, by appeals to myself. However, I shall be ready to consider of any proposal you shall send."

In November, some months after the province of Sagadahock-that is, Maine east of the Kennebec-had been protected by a fort and a considerable garrison, Andros hastened to England; but he could not give eyes to the duke; and, on his return to New York, in 1678, he was ordered to continue the duties which, at the surrender, had been established for three years. In 1679, the revenue was a little increased; but the taxes were hardly three per cent on imports, and

really insufficient to meet the expenses of the colony; and an attempt to thwart the discipline of the Dutch Reformed church by the prerogative had been abandoned. As in the days of Lovelace, the province was "a terrestrial Canaan. The inhabitants were blessed in their basket and their store. They were free from pride; and a wagon gave as good content as in Europe a coach, their home-made cloth as the finest lawns. The doors of the low-roofed houses, which luxury never entered, stood wide open to charity and to the stranger.' The island of New York may, in 1678, have contained not far from three thousand inhabitants; in the whole colony there could not have been far from twenty thousand. Ministers were scarce but welcome, and religions many; the poor were relieved, and beggars unknown. A thousand pounds seemed opulence; the possessor of half that sum was rich. The exports were land productions-wheat, lumber, tobaccoand peltry from the Indians. In the community, composed essentially of freeholders, great equality of condition prevailed; there were but "few merchants," "few servants, and very few slaves." Prompted by an exalted instinct, the people, in a popular convention, demanded power to govern themselves; and when, in 1681, the two Platts, Titus, Wood, and Wicks, of Huntington, arbitrarily summoned to New York, were still more arbitrarily thrown into prison, the purpose of the yeomanry remained unshaken.

The government of New York was quietly maintained over the settlements south and west of the Delaware, till they were granted to Penn; over the Jerseys Andros claimed a paramount authority. We have seen the Quakers refer the contest for decision to an English commission.

In East New Jersey, Philip Carteret, as the deputy of Sir George, had, in 1675, resumed the government, and, gaining popularity by postponing the payment of quit-rents, confirmed liberty of conscience with representative government. A direct trade with England, unencumbered by customs, was encouraged. The commerce of New York was endangered by the competition; and, disregarding a second patent from the duke of York, Andros, in 1678, claimed that the ships of New Jersey should pay tribute at Manhattan. After long

altercations and the arrest of Carteret, terminated only by the honest verdict of a New York jury, Andros, in 1680, again entered New Jersey, to intimidate its assembly by the royal patent to the duke. New Jersey could not, as in the happier Connecticut, plead an earlier grant from the king. “We are the representatives of the freeholders of this province:" such was the answer of the assembly; "his majesty's patent, though under the great seal, we dare not grant to be our rule or joint safety; for the great charter of England, alias Magna Charter, is the only rule, privilege, and joint safety of every free-born Englishman."

The trustees of Sir George Carteret, tired of the burden of colonial property, exposed their province to sale; and, in 1682, the unappropriated domain, with jurisdiction over the five thousand already planted on the soil, was purchased by an association of twelve Quakers, under the auspices of William Penn. A brief account of the province was immediately published; and settlers were allured by a eulogy on its healthful climate and safe harbors, its fisheries and abundant game, its forests and fertile soil, and the large liberties established for the encouragement of adventurers. In November, possession was taken by Thomas Rudyard, as temporary deputy governor; the happy country was already tenanted by "a sober, professing people." Meantime, the twelve proprietors selected each a partner; and, in March, 1683, to the twenty-four, among whom was the timorous, cruel, iniquitous Perth, afterward chancellor of Scotland, and the amiable, learned, and ingenious Barclay who became nominally the governor of the territory, a new and last patent of East New Jersey was granted by the duke of York. From Scotland the largest emigration was expected; and, in 1685, just before embarking for America with his own family and about two hundred passengers, George Scot, of Pitlochie, addressed to his countrymen an argument in favor of removing to a country where there was room for a man to flourish without wronging his neighbor. "It is judged the interest of the government"-thus he wrote, apparently with the sanction of men in power-"to suppress Presbyterian principles altogether; the whole force of the law of this kingdom is levelled