With Cartwright went Willett of Plymouth, who was to aid him in treating with the Indians and Captain Breedon; his two military aides. were Captains Manning and Brodhead. The only opposition they met. with at Albany was from the Dutch Councilor De Decker, who was afterwards summarily banished from the province by Nicolls. On their way down the river they landed at Esopus, and were well received. They made little change in the officials; William Beekman was retained in office as sheriff and Thomas Chambers as commissary; Captain Brodhead and an English garrison were left in charge of the fort. So peaceful had been the change to the English rule that no one had yet any reason to complain.

Unfortunately the expedition sent to enforce the submission of Delaware was not so free from blame. Sir Robert Carr, the least reputable of the four commissioners, was placed in command. He wanted wholly Nicoll's prudence and self-restraint. After a long and weary voyage around the capes of Delaware Bay, the frigates arrived in front of Amstel,

now Newcastle,-the chief fort. of the Dutch. Carr summoned it to surrender; a part of the garrison would have yielded, but the commander, Hinnoyossa, refused to capitulate. With less than fifty men he resolutely held the fort. English ships opened their broadsides upon it, the English soldiers

The

stormed the works, and the place was taken by assault. Three of the Dutch were killed and ten wounded. Then began a barbarous pillage and sack of the Dutch settlement; Carr seized upon the farms of Dutch officials, and kept one for himself; one he gave to his son, and others to his officers. He sold the Dutch soldiers into slavery in Virginia; he sacked the village of the Mennonites, and robbed them of all their possessions. He even declared himself independent of Nicolls and sole governor of Delaware. When Nicolls and his colleagues heard of his conduct, they at once sent orders to him to return. But he refused, and Nicolls went himself to Delaware in November, to repair the wrong. He rebuked Carr and obliged him to give up part of his plunder, but he was still left for a time in charge of the place. The name was changed to Newcastle and a garrison stationed in it under Captain John Carr, the son of the commissioner. Delaware was for several years a part of the province of New York.

The next important act of the governor was to determine the eastern boundary of New York. His wise foresight led the way to the compromise by which all future disputes were settled. Under the charter of 1664, granted by Charles to James, the Connecticut River was made the eastern limit of his territory, and New York would thus embrace more than half of Connecticut, a large part

of Massachusetts, including the Berkshire region, and all Vermont. But Connecticut, by its earlier charter of 1662, was entitled to all the land to the Pacific Ocean,-"the South Sea," as it was called, or at least to the borders of the Dutch; and now it pointed out to the commissioners that to limit its boundary to the Connecticut River would deprive it of the best portion of its domain. The Connecticut government, under Governor John Winthrop, had in fact laid out for

JOHN DAVENPORT.

itself an extensive province; it ruled over all the east end of Long Island, it claimed control over "The New Haven Colony" and Stamford, and it had even intruded its officials into Westchester County and occupied a part of New Netherland. But under Stuyvesant a line was drawn limiting

it on the west. New Haven, under Davenport's guidance, still refused to submit to the Hartford government, and Stamford professed to be independent of both. The quarrel between the rival settlements was at its height when Nicolls, by his prudent compromise, founded the present State of Connecticut.

It furnishes a comic element in history to trace the easy assurance with which the kings of this early age bestowed whole empires of wild lands upon their relatives or dependents and fixed the title to property to which they themselves had no possible right. Charles II., in 1662, had plainly granted to Connecticut a tract of land reaching across the continent; in 1664 he revoked his gift and had presented the larger part of Connecticut to the Duke of York. No one ventured to doubt the royal prerogative. Connecticut, unlike Massachusetts, was too weak or timid to oppose the will of the King. Her officials pleaded chiefly the ruin that must follow to their trade should the grant be confirmed. They showed their earlier charters and claims. But they appealed to the better feelings of the commissioners and found a friend in Nicolls Had he insisted on the plain words of the patent, New York would have gained a large territory. But he represented to his master the injustice of despoiling Connecticut of the better part of its lands, and induced his associates to yield to his arguments. It was de

cided that a line should be drawn as nearly as possible twenty miles east of the Hudson.

This decision gave a new impulse to the growth of Connecticut. But still greater results followed from the example of Nicolls. New York yielded the same boundary to Massachusetts that it had given to Connecticut. The line was not run until 1787, and when the dispute arose between New York and the settlers in Vermont as to their rival titles-the wellknown controversy of the New Hampshire grants-New York appealed to the charter of 1664 and the settlers chiefly to the line of twenty miles east of the Hudson which had been laid down by Nicolls and his associates. New York abandoned its claim with a graceful compromise, and in 1790 Vermont came into the Union, the only State that had ever from its first settlement condemned slavery as a crime.

At the same time that Connecticut received this addition to its territory it was deprived of its authority on the islands. All except Block Island were included in the grant to the Duke. All Long Island, with Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, were joined to New York. Even Fisher's Island was claimed to belong to it. But the change of government was distasteful to the people of Southold and the Hamptons; they preferred the free institutions of Connecticut.

It was a sight of singular interest when in October, 1664, the chief citi

zens of New Amsterdam came to take the oath of allegiance that made them subjects of the British crown. At first they offered some opposition, fearing they must renounce wholly their connection with the fatherland; but Nicolls assured them that every article of the capitulation should be strictly observed, and they yielded. The chief citizens within five days hastened to take the oath. Stuyvesant and the two Dutch clergymen led the way; Beekman, the three Bayards, Van Rensselaer, and other leading citizens followed; in all two hundred and fifty of the Dutch inhabitants swore allegiance to the English King. Many did so, no doubt, unwillingly; some refused; but the city authorities joined in a letter of compliment to the Duke of York, praising the "wise and intelligent" Nicolls, and asking that their commerce might be as free from burdens as that of Boston. Nicolls was now sole master of an immense territory. He called the province "New York "; Long Island was named "Yorkshire," and to the fertile lands across the Hudson he gave the name of "Albania." Thus everywhere the faithful follower strove to pepetuate the memory of the Duke of York and Albany.

Meanwhile the news of the capture of New Amsterdam had reached Europe, and De Witt sent over an order to the ambassador, Van Gogh, in London, to demand its restitution from the King. Charles listened to

him with impatience, denying the title of the Dutch to New Netherland, and prepared for war.

Downing, the English envoy in Holland, sent an insolent memorial to the States-General. De Witt insisted that "New Netherland" must be restored. He sent out De Ruyter with a strong fleet to recover the Dutch settlements on the American shore, taken by the English; and Charles in turn ordered his fleet to seize Dutch merchantmen wherever they could be found. Teddeman, the English commander, attacked the Bordeaux fleet and made many prizes. On November 21st, Pepys writes: "The war is begun: God give a good end to it." A fine English fleet put to sea with the Earl of Sandwich on board. But

Pepys tells us the English had now begun to fear the Dutch as much as they had once contemned them.

The West India Company, enraged at the loss of their fine possessions in the New World, now sent a summons to Peter Stuyvesant and his secretary, Van Ruyven, to come home and explain the causes of the surrender. Stuyvesant went, in May to Holland. He carried with him a certificate of good character from the burgomasters and schepens and a long defense of his own conduct. He threw the blame of the loss of the colony on the West India Company, who had left it without any means of defense, without a single ship of war, and with only a few barrels of powder. He

pointed out his own helpless condition when the English besieged him -cut off from all succor, left alone upon the hostile continent, surrounded by foes on land and sea. He said he would rather have died than surrender. He yielded only to the prayers of the inhabitants and to save women and children from the terrors of assault. To all his arguments the directors of the company replied by violent charges of cowardice and treason. They asserted that he should have fired his guns upon the hostile fleet and sent his troops to dislodge the few companies at the "Ferry." But Stuyvesant was evidently right. He saved the city from sack and perhaps destruction. The Dutch were too few to resist the forces of New and Old England, and the fate of New Netherland was not to be averted. Stuyvesant, after two years' absence, came back to New York to his fond wife and children, his fine bouwery and wide possessions. While in Europe he had prevailed on the English King to allow several ships to carry goods between Holland and New York-a seasonable relief to its trade. He lived in retirement the remainder of his life. He planted the pear-tree on the Bowery which some of us have seen. He died at a great age, and lies buried in the vaults of St. Mark's Church.

But his successor began now to feel the cares and weight of his wide command. De Ruyter was at sea, and every moment a powerful Dutch

fleet might be looked for in the harbor. Nicolls repaired the ancient fort and would have quartered his soldiers on the citizens, but the officials interposed, and provided that each citizen should pay a weekly sum for their support. Stuyvesant paid four guilders a week, others three and two. Yet the soldiers suffered various hardships, and Nicolls complained that owing to the poverty of the city they slept on straw and had scarcely a tolerable bed.

STUYVESANT'S PEAR-TREE.

Nicolls, a bachelor of about forty, was a scholar, fond of quoting Latin, and wrote letters that are full of good sense and good feeling. His mind was active, his knowledge considerable, and in the leisure moments

of his first winter in New York he employed himself in planning a code. of laws for his wide domain that should be in unison with the wishes of the Duke and not displeasing to the people. On one point the Duke had insisted-there should be no trace of a popular assembly. Nicolls formed his constitution and laws upon the principle of a perfect despotism. All officials were to be appointed by the governor; all taxes were laid, all laws were imposed by him. There were to be no elective magistrates. There could be no opposition to his autocracy. He was endowed with more complete authority than any Persian satrap or Turkish bey, a despot, but a benevolent

one.

In producing his digest he had studied the laws of Massachusetts and Connecticut and borrowed their best traits. He was humane, and insisted that every one else should be so; perfect religious freedom he granted to all; he would have wrong done to no one. His code was arranged in alphabetical order, like the New England codes, and was known. generally as the "Duke's Laws." The Court of Assize met in New York City; trials were by jury; each person was assessed according to his property; all land was held by license from the Duke, and all persons were required to take out new patents and pay a fee when the seal was affixed; all conveyances were to be recorded in New York. These are only a few