Historic Events of Colonial Days

by Rupert Sargent Holland

Now it had been supposed that the English towns on Long Island would join the colony of Connecticut, but instead the settlers proclaimed their own independence and chose John Scott for their president. Then the court at Hartford sent John Allyn, with a party of soldiers, to arrest Captain Scott for treason. Scott met the Connecticut soldiers with soldiers of his own, and demanded what they wanted on his land. The Connecticut officer read the order for Scott's arrest. Then said Captain Scott, "I will yield my heart's blood on this ground before I will give in to you or any men from Connecticut!" The men from Hartford answered readily, "So will we!"

But in spite of his bold words his opponents did succeed in arresting Scott, and, taking him to Hartford, put him in prison there. Governor Winthrop went to Long Island to appoint new officers in the English villages in place of Scott's men, and Stuyvesant seized the chance to go to meet the Connecticut governor and make some treaty with him. The governor of New Netherland explained to the governor of the Connecticut Colony that the Dutch claimed the land they occupied by the rights of discovery, purchase, and possession, and reminded him that the boundary between the two colonies had been defined in a treaty made in 1650. Said that treaty, "Upon Long Island a line run from the westernmost part of Oyster Bay, in a straight and direct line to the sea, shall be the bounds between the English and the Dutch there; the easterly part to belong to the English, the westernmost part to the Dutch."

Yet, in spite of this, Governor Winthrop was now many miles west of the line, claiming villages that were clearly in Dutch territory. The truth was that Governor Winthrop knew Peter Stuyvesant had not the needful number of men to oppose the English claims. And the upshot of the meeting was that Winthrop simply declared that the whole of Long Island belonged to the king of England.

That king of England, Charles II, now took a hand in the matter himself. On March 12, 1664, he granted to his brother, James, Duke of York, the whole of Long Island, all the islands near it, and all the lands and rivers from the west shore of the Connecticut River to the east shore of Delaware Bay. It was a wide, magnificent grant, sweeping away the colony of New Netherland as if it had been a twig in the path of a tornado.

Word reached New Amsterdam that a fleet of armed ships had sailed from Portsmouth in England, bound for the Hudson River, to take possession of the neighboring territory. The prosperous Dutch settlers were in a panic. Peter Stuyvesant called his council, and they decided to lose no time in making their fortifications as strong as possible. Money was raised, powder was sent for, agents hurried to buy provisions all through the countryside. In the midst of these preparations the Dutch government, which had been completely fooled as to the plans of the English king, sent a message to Governor Stuyvesant saying that he need have no fear of any further trouble from the English.

This was pleasant word; it relieved the fears that had been raised by the message of the armed fleet sailing from Portsmouth for the Hudson. The work on the forts was stopped, and Stuyvesant went up the river to Fort Orange to try to quiet Indian tribes in that neighborhood who were threatening to take to the war-path.

The English fleet, four frigates, with ninety-four guns all told, meantime came sailing across the Atlantic, and arrived at Boston the end of July. Colonel Richard Nicholls was in command of the expedition, with three commissioners sent out with him from England. Their instructions were to reduce the Dutch to subjection. They were to get what aid they could from the New England colonies. The people of Boston, however, were too busy with their own affairs, and too content, to be interested in helping to fight the Dutch. But Connecticut was quite ready to help, and so Colonel Nicholls sent word to Governor Winthrop to meet the English fleet at the west end of Long Island, to which place it would sail with the first favoring wind.

A friend of Peter Stuyvesant's in Boston sent news of the English plans to New Amsterdam. A fast rider carried the message to the governor at Fort Orange. Stuyvesant hastened back to his capital, very angry at having lost three weeks in which to make ready his defenses. He called every man to work with spade, shovel and wheelbarrow. Six cannon were added to the fourteen already on the fort. Messengers rode through the country summoning other garrisons to come to the aid of New Amsterdam.

On August 20th the English frigates anchored in Nyack Bay, just below the Narrows, between New Utrecht and Coney Island. All communication between Long Island and Manhattan Island was cut off. Some small Dutch boats were captured. Three miles away from the fleet's anchorage, on Staten Island, was a small fort, a block-house, some twenty feet square. It boasted two small guns, which shot one pound balls, and was garrisoned by six soldiers. The English, sending some of their men ashore, had little difficulty in capturing the fort and rounding up the cattle that were grazing in the near-by fields.