Upon the application of the inhabitants, in 1663, a charter was granted by Charles II. to the Rhode Island and Providence plantations. On the accession of James II., the assembly of Rhode Island immediately transmitted an address, acknowledging themselves his loyal subjects, and begging protection for their chartered rights. But reformation of abuses in New England was then the order of the day, and articles of high misdemeanor were exhibited against them before the lords of the committee of colonies, accusing them of breaches of their charter, and of opposition to the acts of navigation. This committee ordered that Sir Edmund Andros, the governor of Massachusetts, should demand the surrender of their charter, and govern them as other colonies of New England. In December, 1686, Andros accordingly dissolved the government of Rhode Island, broke its seal, and assumed the administration of affairs. When the revolution put an end to his power, Rhode Island and Providence resumedtheir charter, on the ground that an act which was extorted by terror might justly be recalled when restraint no longer remained.
The wise, peaceful and beneficent counsels of Williams, had preserved the colonists from the dangers of Indian incursions. Their prosperity was proportionate to their moderation. The population increased with great rapidity, and in 1761 amounted to forty thousand. Brown university was founded at Warren, in 1764. Six years afterwards it was removed to Providence, where a large and elegant building was erected for the students.
NEW YORK.
NEW YORK was first settled by the Dutch, who erected a fort near Albany, which they called fort Orange, and a few trading-houses on the island of New York, then called by the Indians Manhattan. The claims of the Dutch to the property of the soil were disputed by the king of Great Britain, who founded an adverse claim on the discovery of the Cabots in the previous century. In the first year of their settlement, they were visited by captain Argal, who claimed the country for his sovereign, and warned them to acknowledge his authority. The colony was small, and prudently acquiesced in the demand: but within a twelvemonth their number was increased, and the demands of the English were promptly resisted. For a series of years they continued in undisturbed quiet, and by toil, perseverance and unwearied activity, surmounted the dangers and troubles of an infant colony.
In 1621, the Dutch republic granted to their West India company an extensive territory on both sides of the Hudson, and called it New Netherlands. Under the management of this company, the settlement was soon both consolidated and extended; and the foundations were laid of the cities of New Amsterdam, afterwards New York, and of Albany. In 1623, they erected a fort on the Delaware, which they called Nassau; and, ten years afterwards, another on the Connecticut, which they called Good Hope. Near the former the Swedes had a settlement; and from the interfering claims of the two nations, quarrels arose between the settlers, which, in a few years, terminated in the subjugation of the Swedes.
The policy of the Dutch, in extending their settlements so far eastward as Connecticut, soon brought them into collision with more powerful neighbors. Numberless causes of dispute arose between New Netherlands and the colonies of Connecticut and New Haven; but neither party allowed itself to forget the substantial claims of humanity, or the forms of ordinary courtesy. In the Indian wars, the English never delayed to render due assistance to their Dutch neighbors, who were so unwarlike that they found it necessary to invite captain Underhill, who had been banished from Boston for his eccentricities in religion, to take command of their troops. Collecting a flying party of one hundred and fifty men, he was enabled to preserve the Dutch settlements from destruction. The number of Indians whom he killed in the course of the war, was supposed to exceed four hundred. In 1646, a severe battle was fought on that part of Horse-Neck called Strickland’s Plain. The Dutch were victorious; on both sides great numbers were slain; and for a century afterwards the graves of the dead were distinctly visible.
When Charles II. ascended the British throne, he did not hesitate to assert his claim to the province of New Netherlands; and without any attempt at negotiation with the states, he executed a charter, conveying to the duke of York the whole territory from the eastern shore of the Delaware to the western bank of the Connecticut. This grant took no notice of the existing possession of the Dutch, or of the recent Connecticut charter, which it entirely superseded. No sooner did the duke of York obtain this grant, than he conveyed to lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret all that portion now constituting the province of New Jersey. To carry such a grant into effect, it was necessary to call in the aid of the military, and an armament was despatched from England under the command of colonel Nichols; who was also appointed governor of the province he was about to conquer. After touching at Boston, the fleet sailed to the Hudson and took a position before the capital of New Netherlands. The Dutch governor, Stuyvesant, had determined on a resolute resistance, but his followers were of a less gallant temperament, and compelled him to agree to a treaty of capitulation.
Immediately after its subjugation, New Amsterdam, and the whole conquered province, received the name of New York. Few of the inhabitants thought proper to remove from the country; even governor Stuyvesant lived and died there. Nichols at once assumed command of the conquered territory, and proceeded to reduce the affairs of the state to one uniform constitution and policy. Many of the Dutch forms of government were retained, but English influence gradually brought about a change; and on the twelfth of June, 1665, the inhabitants of New York were incorporated under a mayor, five aldermen, and a sheriff. At the peace of Breda, New York was regularly ceded to England in exchange for Surinam, by a general stipulation that each of the belligerents should retain what its arms had acquired since the commencement of hostilities.
The interior of New York was originally inhabited by a confederacy, which consisted at first of five, and afterwards of six, nations of Indians. This confederacy was formed for mutual defence against the Algonquins, a powerful Canadian nation, and displayed much of the wisdom and sagacity which mark the institutions of a civilized people. By their union they had become formidable to the surrounding tribes. Being the allies of the English, the French were alarmed at their successes, and became jealous of their power. In the year 1684, De la Barre, the governor of Canada, marched to attack them, with an army of seventeen hundred men. His troops suffered so much from hardships, famine, and sickness, that he was compelled to ask peace of those whom he had come to exterminate. He invited the chiefs of the Five Nations to meet him at his camp, and those of three of them accepted the invitation. Standing in a circle, formed by the chiefs and his own officers, he addressed a speech to Garrangula, of the Onondago tribe, in which he accused the confederates of conducting the English to the trading grounds of the French, and threatened them with war and extermination if they did not alter their behavior. Garrangula, knowing the distresses of the French troops, heard these threats with contempt. After walking five or six times round the circle, he addressed De la Barre in the following bold language, calling him Yonnondio, and the English governor, Corlear:—
‘Hear, Yonnondio, I do not sleep; I have my eyes open, and the sunwhich enlightens me, discovers to me a great captain at the head of a company of soldiers, who speaks as if he was dreaming. He says that he only came to smoke the great pipe of peace with the Onondagas. But Garrangula says, that he sees the contrary; that it was to knock them on the head, if sickness had not weakened the arms of the French. We carried the English to our lakes, to trade there with the Utawawas, and Quatoghies, as the Adirondacs brought the French to our castles, to carry on a trade which the English say is theirs. We are born free; we neither depend on Yonnondio nor Corlear. We may go where we please, and buy and sell what we please. If your allies are your slaves, use them as such; command them to receive no other but your people. Hear, Yonnondio! what I say is the voice of all the Five Nations. When they buried the hatchet at Cadaracui, in the middle of the fort, they planted the tree of peace in the same place, to be there carefully preserved, that instead of a retreat for soldiers, the fort might be a rendezvous for merchants. Take care that the many soldiers who appear there do not choke the tree of peace, and prevent it from covering your country and ours with its branches. I assure you that our warriors shall dance under its leaves, and will never dig up the hatchet to cut it down, till their brother Yonnondio or Corlear shall invade the country which the Great Spirit has given to our ancestors.’