1651. THE assembly of Connecticut passed an act to encourage the discovery of mines.

1651.-A LICENSE was granted to Governor John Winthrop to work a lead mine discovered at Middletown, Connecticut.

It is not known if he began operations that year or not. In 1852 the same mine was reopened. The ore is not abundant, but of a highly argentiferous quality.

1651.THE assembly of Massachusetts forbade the wearing of gold, silver, silks, laces, and other extravagances, together with great boots, by those whom the selectmen considered unable to afford it.

1651, APRIL 3.-William Coddington obtained from the coun cil of state in England a commission to govern the islands of Rhode Island and Connecticut during his lifetime, with a council of six, to be named by the people, and approved by himself.

He had been chosen president of the colony in 1648, but had never entered on the office, and went over to England to obtain a separate charter. Having obtained his commission, he returned home.

1651, OCTOBER.

Roger Williams and John Clarke were sent to England by the colonists of Rhode Island.

John Clarke was to obtain a repeal of Coddington's commission, and Williams a confirmation of the charter of the settlements. Not being allowed to sail from Boston, they went to Manhattan to embark. Sir Henry Vane being then a member of the council of state, they obtained the recall of Coddington's commission, and, notwithstanding the opposition "of all the priests, both Presbyterian and Independent,” the confirmation of the Rhode Island charter.

1651.- A LAW was enacted in Massachusetts, making it obligatory on a church, before settling a minister, to have the consent of a council of the neighboring churches, and "some of the magistrates."

It was passed to justify the action of the court in fining the church at Malden for presuming to settle a minister without consulting any but themselves.

1651. AN order was issued in Massachusetts that wampum should no longer be received for taxes.

The trade with the Indians being the basis of this circulation, and the amount of it being increased by the exactions from the Indians, while the trade with them was passing into the hands of the French, made it depreciate; and as silver was necessary to pay for imports, the want of currency caused the court to set about the establishment of a mint.

1651, OCTOBER. Parliament passed an ordinance prohibiting the importation of any merchandise into England from Asia, Africa, or America, except in English-built vessels, owned in England or the colonies, and navigated by Englishmen.

1651.- MESSENGERS from Canada came to New England to ask aid in the war with the Five Nations, which was then raging.

They asked leave to enlist volunteers, or that the war parties of the converted Indians on the Penobscot should be allowed to pass through the territory of the United Colonies. The commissioners gave a civil refusal. The messengers were John Godefroy, one of the council of New France, and Dreuillettes, a Jesuit missionary.

1652.—THE assembly of Virginia passed several acts for the encouragement of the manufacture of cloth.

Flaxseed was ordered distributed to each household, and premiums offered for its culture. Two pounds of tobacco were given for every pound of flax or hemp prepared for the spindle; three pounds for every yard of linen cloth a yard wide, and five pounds for every yard of woollen cloth made in the province. Every tithable person was required to produce yearly two pounds of dressed hemp or flax, under a penalty of fifty pounds of tobacco. Ten pounds of tobacco were offered for every good hat of wool or fur, or for every dozen pair of woollen or worsted stockings. Fifty pounds for every pound of silk wound, and every owner of a hundred acres was to plant and fence in twelve mulberry-trees. No wool was to be exported under a penalty of fifty pounds of tobacco for each pound. The bounty on silk was claimed by several persons. One of these, Major Walker, a member of the assembly, had seventy thousand mulberry trees planted.

1652. THE Commissioners in command of the parliamentary expedition to Virginia deposed Stone, the governor of Maryland, and appointed a new council.

He was shortly afterwards reinstated.

1652, MARCH. — An expedition sent by parliament reached the Chesapeake.

It was under the direction of five commissioners, of whom two were Richard Bennet (a Puritan emigrant to Maryland) and William Clayborne, now the treasurer of Virginia. It had started in September of the year before, but had been delayed by taking part in the attack upon Barbadoes, which had surrendered after making an express stipulation that their assembly should alone possess the right to levy taxes. The colony capitulated without resistance. Two sets of articles were signed; one with the assembly, and the other with Berkeley and his council. These last were allowed a year to settle their affairs, sell their property, and go where they pleased. The articles with the assembly guaranteed the colony against any claim of conquest, or the expense of the expedition. It granted the right of government by the assembly; indemnity for the past; the security of land grants; the existing arrangement for fifty acres to each settler; the same freedom of trade enjoyed in England; the sole right of the assembly to levy taxes; the use of the Book of Common Prayer for a year; and a year's time for those who did not wish to subscribe the oath "to be true and faithful to the commonwealth of England as it is now established, without King or House of Lords," to arrange their affairs. These articles signed, Berkeley's commission was declared void, an assembly was called, and Bennet was elected governor, with Clayborne secretary.

1652. THE first coinage was issued by the mint at Boston, Massachusetts.

The issue was of shillings, sixpences, and threepences. In 1662 an issue of twopences was made. The coinage was of silver, as fine as the English issue, but

by weight" two pence in the shilling of less valew than the English coyne." The issue is known as the pine-tree shilling from this device upon some of the larger coins. Sixteen varieties of the shilling are known. They all bear the same date. The dies were made by Joseph Jenks, and the coinage done by John Hull (a goldsmith) and Robert Sanderson.

1652. HEZEKIAH USHER, the first bookseller in the United States, began business at Boston, Massachusetts.

1652.—IN May, it was ordered by the general court of Massachusetts that salt-works be set up at Cape Ann.

Cape Ann had been included in the grant to Mason, but was now reunited to Massachusetts.

1652.- EDWARD BURT was granted permission to make salt at Cape Ann by a new method, "provided he make it only after his new way."

His grant was for ten years, and at the same time he was refused the use of two islands near Salem for this purpose, as prejudicial to the town in divers regards."

1652. THE general court of Massachusetts ordered that the north boundary line of the province should be considered as passing through a point three miles north of every part of the Merrimac, and thence upon a straight line east and west to each sea.

1652, MAY 18.-The general court met in Rhode Island.

It was held by the towns of the Mainland; those of the Island remained quiet under the rule of Coddington. At this session a law was passed against involuntary servitude. It provided that no man could be kept to service longer than ten years from the time of his arrival in the colony, under a penalty for those holding him of forty pounds. At this time white men, as well as negroes and Indians, were held to involuntary service; and the law, though its provision applied equally to all, was most probably intended not to apply to negroes.

1652, MAY 19.- The Dutch were forbidden by the authorities of Rhode Island to trade with the Indians within that province. A letter to this effect was sent to Peter Stuyvesant, the governor of Manhattan.

The war which had begun between Holland and England was the cause of this action. The commercial and trading relations of Rhode Island and Manhattan were for the time quite extensive.

1652, OCTOBER 8. An order of council was issued revoking Coddington's commission, and directing the towns of Rhode Island to again unite under the charter.

The news was brought from England by William Dyre, who arrived on the 18th of February, 1653.

1652.—WILLIAM CODDINGTON, in whose name the title to Aquedneck stood, made a joint deed to the purchasers.

1652. PETER STUYVESANT built Fort Casimir on the site of Newcastle, Delaware.

It was within five miles of the Swedish fort Christina, and was built to prevent an intended occupation of the territory by the New Englanders.

1652.THE first forge built in America was erected at Raynham, Massachusetts.

It was built by James and Henry Leonard, who came from Monmouthshire, England. They were the ancestors of the numerous Leonards who have been so extensively known in the iron industry of the country.

1653. JOHANS DE HULTER was among the emigrants to the New Netherlands this year.

He was called by the Directors in Holland "an extraordinary potter," and the provincial authorities were asked to aid him in any way they could. He established himself somewhere on the Hudson, and appears to have been successful; for about the time the province passed to the jurisdiction of the English, Madame De Hulter's pottery was leased for eleven hundred guilders a year, and a tile-kiln attached to it for three thousand seven hundred and seventeen guilders ($1480). In Long Island the Dutch are said to have made pottery equal to that made at Delft. About this time the Directors refused to sanction grants the provincial authorities had made for potash works, salt works, brick and tile works, and others, using the following language: "The grants we not only entirely disapprove, but require that you will not give one single grant more hereafter, as it is in our opinion a very pernicious management, principally so in a new and budding state, whose population and welfare cannot be promoted, but through general henefits and privileges, in which every one who might be inclined to settle in such a country, either as a merchant or mechanic, may participate."

1653. THE exportation of head corn was forbidden in New Amsterdam; and it was ordered that for every hill of tobacco planted a hill of corn should be, while the consumption of grain for brewing was strictly prohibited.

The devotion to the fur trade and the culture of tobacco caused a frequent scarcity of grain in New Anısterdam.

1653. A CATECHISM in the dialect spoken by the Nipmuck, or Natick, Indians, and made by Mr. Eliot, was printed. The expense was paid by the society in England for propagating the gospel among the Indians in New England.

1653, MAY 17. Two distinct assemblies met in Rhode Island; that of the Mainland at Providence, and that of the Island at Newport.

The first elected Gregory Dexter as president; and the second John Sandford, Sen., as president. On the demand of the Island assembly, Coddington declined to surrender the documents in his possession, or resign his commission, giving as his reason that he had received no order from England. The chief point of dispute between the portions of the colony was concerning the place in which the assembly should meet. The Island assembly granted commissions to privateers

against the Dutch, and appointed a court of admiralty. Under these commissions several captures were made.

1653. A "LANDTDAG," or diet, was held at New Amsterdam.

It was composed of delegates from New Amsterdam and eight villages -four Dutch and four English. The aggressions of the Rhode Island privateers had created an excitement in the settlements. Other disputes arose, and a remonstrance was sent to Holland, complaining of the director and his council, of their arbitrary legislation, appointment of magistrates without consulting the people, and of his favoritism in granting land. The remonstrance produced no effect, Stuyvesant being blamed for a want of rigor in not punishing the discontented "in an exemplary manner."

1654. THE first mention of the salt springs of Western New York was made by the Jesuits, who discovered them this year.

Père Le Moyne thus records in his journal the discovery ten days after his arrival among the Onondagas. He carried back a sample of the salt to the governor of Canada. "The sixteenth we came to the entrance of a small lake, in a great basin, partly dry; we tasted the water which a demon had made stinking; having tasted it I found that it was a fountain of salt water; and in fact we made salt from it as natural as that from the sea, of which we had brought a supply from Quebec. This lake is full of fish — salmon trout and other fish." The original record is in French. Father Le Moyne subsequently informed the Rev. Mr. Megapolonsis, of New Amsterdam, of this discovery, who, in repeating it to his class, said, "Whether this be true, or whether it be a Jesuit lie, I do not determine."

1654.-SALT was subject to a duty of twenty stivers (forty cents) a bushel at New Amsterdam.

The next year the duties on imports were reduced to ten per cent.

1654. — THE general court of Massachusetts ordered the regular printing of such laws as were ordered to be published, in editions of from five to seven hundred.

The secretary of the colony was to pay for it, in "wheate or otherwise," at the rate of one penny a sheet, or eight shillings a hundred; and copies were to be distributed to all the freemen of the colony, so that each should have one.

1654. THIS year the general court of Connecticut granted Mr. William Goodwin liberty to make use of waste lands to keep his saw-mill in work.

1654, JULY 12.-A full court of commissioners met at Warwick, Rhode Island, and signed articles of agreement.

The court consisted of six members from each of the towns. The terms of settlement were, that the united colony should act under the charter, and that the general assembly for the management of the public affairs should be composed of six delegates from each of the towns.

1654.-A COMPANY from Sweden, under Rysingh, as successor to Printz, came to New Sweden, and obtained possession of Fort Casimir.