Possession was gained without bloodshed, either by the cowardice of the commander or by stratagem.

1654. STONE was again deposed from the governorship of Maryland.

He disregarded, on account of instructions from Lord Baltimore, the provisions of the commissioners, and demanded an oath of fidelity from the settlers to the proprietary, though he proclaimed Cromwell as protector. Bennet and Calvert, by threats of a force from Virginia, forced him to resign, appointed William Fuller governor, appointed a new council, and called a new assembly, in which no one was allowed to sit or vote for its members who was a Roman Catholic, or had taken up arms against parliament. This assembly excluded "papests and prelatists" from the benefits of the act of toleration, and denied the claim of the proprietary to be "absolute lord" of the province.

1654.- PEACE being made between the Indians of New York and Canada, the Jesuits established missions among the Indians south of Canada.

Le Moyne, on a visit to Onondaga, found the salt springs there, and a settlement by persons from Montreal was made at Lake Onondaga.

1654.-AN expedition sent from England against the Dutch in New Netherland arrived at Massachusetts.

Before the New England levies to take part in the attack on the settlements in New Netherlands were ready, news came of the peace between the English and the Dutch, and the expedition was directed to an attack upon the French settlements in Acadie. France and England were at peace, but the claim of unpaid money was brought forward, and Acadie surrendered to the expedition, liberty for their religion and security for their property being guaranteed them.

1654.- WAR was declared by the commissioners of New England against the Indian chief Ninigret.

An unsuccessful expedition was the only result.

1655.-STONE, being assured by Lord Baltimore that Bennet and Clayborne had no warrant for their action, called the Catholic settlers of Maryland together, and made an expedition against Providence, the headquarters of the new council.

He had about two hundred men, and was completely routed. Both parties then appealed to Cromwell, who referred the dispute to the Committee of Trade.

1655. THE freemen of Saco, Maine, agreed with Roger Spencer that he should set up a saw-mill there.

He was to pay for it twelve thousand feet of boards, and to agree to employ townsmen in preference to others.

1655. THE importers of malt and other merchants of Boston, petitioned the assembly to lessen or remove the duty upon the importation of malt.

The court referred the petitioners to a previous order made upon this subject.

NORTH AMERICA

AMERICA

1655. THE Plymouth colony sold their tract at the mouth of the Kennebec to Messrs. Tyng, Brattle, Boies, and Winslow. The price was five hundred pounds.

1655. THIS year the society in London for propagating the gospel among the Indians, sent over to Massachusetts a second press, with a supply of printing material.

This press was set up in the same building in which was the first; a substantial brick structure at Cambridge, which was built for an Indian College, at a cost of between three and four hundred pounds.

1655, MAY 30.-The assembly of New Haven ordered "that if an iron worke goe on within any part of this jurisdiction, the persons and estates constantly and onely imployed in that work shall be free from paying rates."

1655. THE West India Company sent an expedition to New Amsterdam, to take possession of the settlements on the Dela

ware.

Stuyvesant went with them. The Swedish settlement contained about seven hundred inhabitants, and being unable to resist, surrendered, and became a part of New Netherland. Such as agreed to take the oath of allegiance to the Dutch authorities, were guaranteed possession of their lands. The rights and freedom of the Swedish Lutheran Church were expressly secured, and depended ecclesiastically on Sweden until the Revolution. Those who would not take the oath were sent back to Sweden. Thirty of the Swedes are said to have taken the oath.

1655. THE Indians attacked the settlements at New Amsterdam.

In three days a hundred persons were killed, and a hundred and fifty made prisoners. The loss of property inflicted was estimated at eighty thousand dollars. The prisoners taken were ransomed.

1655. THE commissioners for the United Colonies of New England fitted out a vessel to cruise in Long Island Sound.

1656, MARCH.-William Coddington made a formal submission to a general court held at Warwick, Rhode Island.

It was in these terms: "I, William Coddington, doe hereby submit to ye authoritie of His Highness in this Colonie as it is now united, and that with all my heart."

1656.

STUYVESANT, at New Amsterdam, issued a proclamation against conventicles, fining both the preachers and hearers. He had been induced to this by Megapolensis, the minister at Manhattan, and his colleague Drusius, with Polhemus, a clergyman on Long Island. Stuyvesant had already refused an application of the Lutherans in New Amsterdam for a church of their own, and the Company in Holland had also refused their appeal. The instructions of the Company had been that all should enjoy "the free exercise of their religion within their own houses." Stuyvesant's proclamation was however enforced, and against the Quakers he issued others.

1656. CROMWELL made a grant of Nova Scotia to La Tour and others.

La Tour had revived his claim on the grounds of the grant given his father by Sir William Alexander. He had married D'Aulney's widow.

1656.IN May, the general court of Massachusetts passed an order "for the improving as many hands as may be in spinninge woole, cotton, flaxe, &c."

"All hands not necessarily employed on other occasions, as women, girls and boys, shall and hereby are enjoined to spin according to their skill and ability." The selectmen of the towns were to see that this was done, each family being assessed "at half, or a quarter of a spinner, according to their capacity." "Every one thus assessed for a whole spinner" was, "after the present year 1656" to "spin for thirty weeks every year three pounds per week of linen, cotton or woolen, and so próportionally for half or quarter spinners, under the penalty of twelve pence for each pound short." The selectmen had also authority to see that the commons were cleared for the pasturage of sheep, and were to "impart the mind of this court to their inhabitants concerning the sowing of seeds both of hemp and flaxe."

1656. IN Chelmsford, Massachusetts, William How was allotted twelve acres of meadow and eighteen of upland, "provided he set up his trade of weaving, and perform the town's work."

1656. IN May the general court of Massachusetts granted Mr. Winthrop the exclusive privilege of making salt "after his new way."

This is supposed to show that the salt enterprise of 1647-8 was successful.

1656. THE colony of New Haven appointed sealers of leather for each town where there was a tanner or shoemaker.

The next year the court received complaints from Stamford that boots were sold there at thirty shillings, while twenty shillings was the price for as good elsewhere, and the shoemakers were ordered to reform or answer at the next court.

1656, OCTOBER.The general court of Connecticut appointed sealers of leather for each of the towns.

They also prescribed the method of preparing the hides. The sealers were paid by fees.

1656.A SAW-MILL was built at Scituate, Massachusetts, by Robert Studson, Mr. Hatherly, and Joseph Tilden.

In granting the privilege, the authorities stipulated that sawing was to be done for any one who brought timber for this purpose, and that the owners of the mill should have "one half for sawing the other half." The price at which boards should be sold was placed at "three shillings and six pence an hundred inch sawn."

1656. AT New Amstel, or New Castle, Delaware, which had

been sold by the West India Company to the city of Amsterdam, and given this name, bricks were made this year.

Jacobus Crabbe petitions the court concerning a plantation near the corner where bricks and staves are made and baked."

1656. AN act of the assembly of Virginia was passed as follows: "Whereas we conceive it something hard and unagreeable to reason, that any person shall pay equal taxes, and yet have no votes in elections," it was ordered that acts excluding freemen from voting for burgesses should be repealed.

The assembly also imposed a fine upon every planter who had not at least one mulberry-tree planted for each ten acres he had under cultivation.

1656. ANOTHER execution for witchcraft took place in Massachusetts.

The arrival of two Quaker women from Barbadoes caused special laws to be made against Quakers "as a cursed sect of heretics lately risen in the world." Any one bringing in a "known Quaker" was fined a hundred pounds, and obliged to carry him away again, or be imprisoned. The Quaker was whipped, imprisoned, and kept at hard labor until sent off. All Quaker books were to be burned, the person defending their opinions to be fined, and on the third offence banished. The laws were made still more severe the next year, and on the recommendation of the commissioners for the United Colonies, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven passed similar acts.

1657. — A DESCRIPTION of Boston, Massachusetts, speaks of it as having "large and spacious houses, some fairly set forth with brick, tile, slate and stone, orderly placed, whose continual enlargement presageth some sumptuous city."

1657, SEPTEMBER.The commissioners of the United Colonies assembled in Boston, Massachusetts, wrote a letter to the authorities in Rhode Island urging the banishment of the Quakers there, and the prohibition of any others entering that state.

To this the president and assistants replied that there was no law in Rhode Island for the punishment of men for their opinions.

1657. SALT-WORKS are mentioned as existing at New Amstel (Newcastle), on the Delaware, during the directorship of Stuy

vesant.

As early as 1649 the establishment of salt-works was one of the charges brought against the provincial authorities to the States General in Holland.

1657.- AN attempt was made to introduce the culture of silk in the province of New Netherlands.

Two years afterwards mulberry-trees were exported to Curaçoa.

1657.-A PREMIUM was offered in Virginia for the growth of flax.

1658, OCTOBER 19.-A law was passed in Massachusetts, inflict

ing death upon all Quakers who should return to that province after banishment.

1658, NOVEMBER 5.-The assembly of Rhode Island sent a letter to Cromwell through the agent of the colony, appealing that "they may not be compelled to exercise any civil power over men's consciences, so long as human orders, in point of civility, are not corrupted or violated."

The threats made to exclude Rhode Island from all trade or intercourse with the rest of New England, for her refusal to join in the persecution of the Quakers, was the origin of this letter.

1658.-SOON after the formal surrender of the country by the Swedes to the Dutch, Joost Adriansen & Co. proposed to build a saw and grist-mill below the Turtle Falls at Newcastle in Delaware.

The Director General, Peter Stuyvesant, granted their request, and issued a patent to them on condition that they should charge no more for grinding than the Company's mill charged. The Company's mill was probably the wind-mill erected upon their farm at Manhattan, on or near Broadway.

1658.-SAMUEL GREEN, the superintendent of the press at Cambridge, was granted, on petition, three hundred acres of land, " where it is to be found.”

The land was granted for his encouragement, and was subsequently laid out for him at Haverhill.

1658.

AN arrangement was made between Lord Baltimore, and Bennet and Mathews, concerning the affairs of Maryland.

The past was to be forgotten. Grants of land were to be made to those entitled to them. The oath of fidelity was replaced by an agreement in writing to submit to the proprietary's lawful authority. The inhabitants were to keep their arms, and the proprietary was to maintain the act of toleration.

1658. THE laws of Virginia were again revised and codified. They made one hundred and thirty-one acts. The counties not yet divided into parishes were to be so divided, and a tax levied for building churches. Five years' possession of land gave a title. Persons who had no tobacco could tender other goods in payment of debts. An export duty of ten shillings a hogshead of three hundred and fifty pounds, was laid on tobacco exported in Dutch vessels elsewhere than to England. Free trade was promised the Dutch, and the duty on tobacco was reduced to two shillings in favor of vessels bringing negroes to the colony. Virginia-built vessels could carry tobacco free; otherwise a duty of two shillings was laid on its exportation, to raise a salary for the governor. It was forbidden to transfer the services of Indian children placed with colonists for education. The assembly denied the right of the governor to dissolve them, and claimed the right to elect all officers; that existing commissions were not valid, and ordered public officers to obey no warrants unless signed by the speaker. Rules were also adopted for the regulation of the proceedings of the assembly. Personalities, and being "disguised with over much drink,” were forbidden.