of the leading articles. When his code was ready, Nicolls summoned a deputation from all the towns on Long Island to meet at Hempstead on the last day of February and listen to the new plan of government. The deputies, full of expectation, came punctually to the meeting. There were Dutch from the Holland towns, English from the east end,-a respectable list of names, many of whose descendants are still known in their ancient seats. Nicolls, as governor, began the proceedings by reading his commission and distributed among the deputies his code of laws. They no doubt received it with eager interest. But great was the disappointment of those who had lived under the Connecticut charter and elected their own rulers. They asked to be allowed to choose their own magistrates, but Nicolls showed them the Duke's instructions by which all officers of justice were to be selected by the governor alone. The deputies found that they had only assembled to hear the laws of an autocrat. They passed a loyal address to the Duke of York and separated. Nicolls proceeded to appoint sheriffs and other officers for the various towns; but the people murmured; they felt that their liberty was gone.

To amuse them or himself the governor introduced the favorite sport of the English, and founded the Hempstead race-course. The broad plain around the town offered a level, convenient site, well covered with.

soft grass; it was known as "Salisbury Plain." The race-course was called "Newmarket," after that famous scene of license in England. Nicolls gave a cup to be run for at the annual meeting in June. Newmarket has long passed away, but Long Island has always been famous. for its fine horses and its bold riders, male and female; they may well trace their origin to the sport-loving governor of the seventeenth century.

Besides the conquest of New Netherland, the four commissioners were intrusted with a duty almost equally ignoble. They were to take away, if possible, the charters and liberties of New England. Two separate instructions had been given them,—one to be shown publicly, the other to be known only to themselves. In the first the King expressed his warm affection for New England subjects, directed his commissioners to consult their wishes, win their regard, and act as arbiters of their differences and disputes. In the second and. secret one they were instructed to induce them to give up their charters, to allow their governors and officials to be appointed in England, and to reduce them to an entire and perfect obedience to the crown. It seems that by some unknown means the Massachusetts officials had obtained copies of both papers, and were well acquainted with their secret purpose. And hence, when on a fair Sabbath eve in July the English frigates sailed into Boston harbor, they were met

the Massachusetts rulers. His violent temper was roused by disappointment; he suffered from the gout, and he left America in no pleasant mood. But, fortunately for Massachusetts, he was captured by a Dutch privateer and carried into Spain. His papers were lost, and when at last he reached England the dangers of the war engaged all the attention of the English ministers.

with no eager welcome. The stern Puritan officials received the commissioners with cold civility. Never before had an English frigate sailed into Boston harbor; the event was ominous of change, and Endicott and Bellingham saw with alarm the first footsteps of European tyranny. A second time Maverick and Cartwright now went to Massachusetts. They had gone through Connecticut and Rhode Island and been received everywhere with evidences of respect. But when they reached Boston in February, they met with a worse reception than before. Endicott had now passed away; the sternness of the earlier generation was softening with time. But Maverick and Cartwright soon roused the fierce tempers of the Puritans; they knew their object and contemned them. Bellingham was chosen governor, and Willoughby in the second place, in the face of the commissioners. The people defied them; they read their declaration of rights by the sound of the trumpet, before the house where Maverick and Cartwright stayed. Nicolls came to Boston to their aid by a long and tedious journey, but could be of little use. Massachusetts, "presumptuous and refractory," drove off the royal commissioners.

Cartwright and Maverick went eastward to Maine and Nicolls went back to New York. In June Cartwright sailed for England, carrying with him papers and despatches that would give no favorable account of

body politic, under the government of a mayor, aldermen, and sheriff, and I do appoint for one whole year, commencing from the date hereof and ending the 12th day of June, 1666, Mr. Thomas Willett to be mayor." Willett was from Plymouth, a useful and active man. The first aldermen were Delavall, Van Cortlandt, Van Brugh, Van Ruyven, and John Lawrence. The sheriff was Allard Anthony, who had been the Dutch schout. Three of the new officials were English-Willett, Delavall, and Lawrence; four were Hollanders. Yet the Dutch murmured when their old government passed away. They wished at least to retain the right of appointing their successors, but this Nicolls would not allow. With pleasant words he soothed his angry opponents, and on the 14th of June the magistrates took the oath of office and the new government began; the bell in the fort rang three times to celebrate the new birth of the city.

The Willett

The first meeting of Willett and his associates was on June 15, 1665. The Dutch language was prescribed; the English was to be used in future in all civic matters. To translate from the English to the Dutch, Johannes Nevius was first appointed secretary, and when he resigned Nicolas Bayard took his place,

Seated on his uneasy throne, the ruler of immense regions, peopled by only five or six thousand persons, most of whom were his avowed or secret enemies, with a small garrison and a crumbling fort, Nicolls might well feel at times all the perils of a despot. War began; he was ordered. to put his poor stockades in order to resist invasion. He knew that De Ruyter was abroad. Nicolls found himself perfectly neglected by his countrymen at home. No ship from England directly had entered the harbor; no supplies nor soldiers had reached him since the surrender in August, 1664. Nearly a year had passed. He seems to have been in want of everything; money he could. only raise by borrowing, and he soon came to be deeply in debt. The cares of his government weighed heavily upon him, and he would have been glad to resign his office. He had given liberal grants of land to his fellow-officers; for himself, he had wasted his private fortune to feed and pay his soldiers, and now war was to still further diminish the resources of his province and cut off what little trade had lingered after the port was closed to the ships of the Dutch.

Suddenly a blow came upon him that he had scarcely looked for, and the larger and fairer part of his dominion was taken from him. Across the Hudson lay the broad tract of territory now known as New Jersey. It was as yet an unknown wilderness; no traveler had penetrated the fertile

wilds where now great cities flourish and railways of unequaled speed bind together the two chief seats of Eastern trade. A few Dutch settlements were struggling for life on the river. Thin tribes of savages roamed over the interior. The country was believed to be fertile beyond Long Island, and the shores of the Hudson rich in furs, fish, and game. But as yet no one had settled on the banks of the Raritan and the Hackensack, and imagination painted the interior country in its fairest colors. Perhaps Nicolls had already planned to obtain a grant of Albania for himself, and hoped to leave behind him to his collateral heirs a fine estate. He had already given tracts of land at Elizabethtown to four families from Jamaica, Long Island, and had confirmed another purchase from the Indians near Sandy Hook. He was evidently preparing to extend his authority over the fair lands of Albania.

GEMZETIA.

The Duke of York in June, 1664, before the fall of New Netherland, had conveyed all of what is now New Jersey to two court favorites-Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley of Stratton. Carteret, brave, passionate, impulsive, had deserved well of his king. When Charles was an exile Carteret had given him a refuge on his island of Jersey, of which he was governor and where his family had

been eminent for many centuries. He had boldly resisted the parliamentary forces and yielded only at the command of his king. He came back at the restoration, to become a favorite servant of Charles and James, and to live forever in his true colors. In the amusing portraiture of Samuel Pepys, no one can forget the bold, fierce controller of the navy, or the rare art with which Pepys brought his son. Philip Carteret to marry Lady Jemina Montague.

Jobzerkley

Berkeley, too, had deserved rewards and favors. But the grant to the two patentees had been kept secret from the commissioners and was a perfect surprise to Nicolls. The first news of it came to him from Virginia. Here Philip Carteret, a cousin of Sir George, had been driven by storms into the Chesapeake. He had been appointed governer of the new colony, which was to be called New Cesarea or New Jersey, in honor of the Carterets and their native island. Carteret brought with him a letter from James to Nicolls directing him to aid the grantees and give up the province. He obeyed, but evidently with intense disappointment and regret. He even ventured to write a remonstrance to the Duke, pressing him to give Carteret and Berkeley other lands along the Delaware. He urged

that New Jersey was the most valuable part of the Duke's possession, capable of receiving "twenty times. more people than Long Island." "I gave it the name of Albania," he adds, and the blow was one that he felt most keenly. Yet it was a most fortunate event for the future progress of the country. Carteret by the "concessions" was able to give free institutions to his people. Carrying a hoe on his shoulder, he landed at the head of thirty emigrants he had brought over and founded Elizabethtown. It was named in honor of Sir George's wife. New Jersey under his liberal government soon began to flourish; New York, however, under the despotic rule of Nicolls, scarcely advanced. Many towns grew up on the Jersey shore: Elizabeth, Perth Amboy, Middletown, and Newark, were settled by active and cultivated immigrants. Carteret had no easy place at the head of his free and turbulent people. He lived amidst perpetual discord. But his temper was mild, his disposition liberal. He married an intelligent and wealthy wife, and lived and died at Elizabeth. To the free spirit of his laws New Jersey owes much of its greatness and of the vigorous growth that has made it always a bulwark of union and independence.

Late in August Nicolls sailed up the Hudson for the first time, surveyed its wild and desolate shores, and reached Albany in safety. He went there ostensibly to quiet the In

On

dians, but more probably to observe the conduct of the Dutch inhabitants. He placed Captain Baker in charge of the fort at Albany, with instructions to keep strict watch and discipline, to live in peace with the Dutch, and avoid all disputes and differences. Captain Manning, he removed to New York. He licensed the first English schoolmaster at Albany, one of Baker's soldiers. his return down the river in October, he stopped at Esopus, where Brodhead was in command, and gave him some wise counsel. He was to be patient, prudent, forbearing. But Brodhead forgot the advice, and was soon in open hostility with the Dutch settlers. At Esopus, Nicolls bought large tracts of land from the Indians. The loss of New Jersey had evidently led him to wish to draw settlers to the banks of the Hudson. He wrote a prospectus, a taking account of the advantages offered to planters under the" Duke's Laws " and of the fertility of the lands. This paper he was obliged to print at Cambridge. Here the only printing press existed in all the English possessions of America; New York had not a printer then.

One of the peculiar traits of the time when printers were few was the trial of Ralph and Mary Hall for the "abominable crime" of witchcraft. It was held before the Court of Assize of New York in October; 1665. A jury of respectable merchants and others was summoned, of whom Jacob Leisler, afterwards so conspicu