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of New Sweden-and sailed to Delaware Bay. Resistance was hopeless. The Dutch forces were landed at New Castle, and the Swedes gave way. Before the 25th of the month every fort belonging to the colony had been forced to capitulate. Governor Rising was captured, but was treated with great respect. Honorable terms were granted to all, and in a few days the authority of New Netherland was established throughout the country. Except a few turbulent spirits who removed to Maryland and Virginia, the submission was universal. After an existence of less than eighteen years, the little State of New Sweden had ceased to be. The American possessions and territorial claims of France, England, Holland, Sweden and Spain will be best understood from an examination of the accompanying map, drawn for the year 1655.

How hardly can the nature of savages be restrained! While Governor Stuyvesant was absent on his expedition against the Swedes, the Algonquin tribes rose in rebellion. The poor creatures were going to take New Amsterdam. In a fleet of sixty-four canoes they appeared before the town, yelling and discharging arrows. What could their puny missiles do against the walls of a European fortress? After paddling about until their rage, but not their hate, was spent, the savages went on shore and began their old work of burning and murder. The return of the Dutch forces from the Delaware induced the sachems to sue for peace, which Stuyvesant granted on better terms than the Indians had deserved. The captives were ransomed, and the treacherous tribes were allowed to go with trifling punishments.

For eight years after the conquest of New Sweden the peace of New Netherland was unbroken. In 1663 the natives of the county of Ulster, on the Hudson, broke out in war. The town of Esopus, now Kingston, was attacked and destroyed. Sixty-five of the inhabitants were either tomahawked or carried into captivity. To punish this outrage a strong force was sent from New Amsterdam. The Indians fled, hoping to find refuge in the woods; but the Dutch soldiers pursued them to their villages, burned their wigwams and killed every warrior who could be overtaken. As winter came on, the humbled tribe began to beg for mercy. In December a truce was granted; and in May of the following year a treaty of peace was concluded.

Governor Stuyvesant had great difficulty in defending his province beyond the Delaware. The queen of Sweden and her ministers at Stockholm still looked fondly to their little American colony, and cherished the hope of recovering the conquered territory. A more dangerous competitor was found in Lord Baltimore, of Maryland, whose patent, given under the great seal of England, covered all the territory between the

1634

Chesapeake and Delaware Bay, as far north as the latitude of Philadelphia. Berkeley, of Virginia, also claimed New Sweden as a part of his dominions. Connecticut pushed her settlements westward on Long Island, and purchased all the remaining Indian claims between her western frontier and the Hudson. Massachusetts boldly declared her intention to extend her boundaries to Fort Orange. The indignant Stuyvesant asked the agents of Connecticut where the province of New Netherland could shortly be found; and the agents coolly answered that they did not know.

Discord at home added to the governor's embarrassments. For many years the Dutch had witnessed the growth and prosperity of the English colonies. Boston had outgrown New Amsterdam. The schools of Massachusetts and Connecticut flourished; the academy on Manhattan, after a sickly career of two years, was discontinued. In New Netherland heavy taxes were levied for the support of the poor; New England had no poor. Liberty and right were the subjects of debate in every English village; to the Dutch farmers and traders such words had little meaning. The people of New Netherland grew emulous of the progress of their powerful neighbors, and attributed their own abasement to the mismanagement and selfish greed of the West India Company. Without actual disloyalty to Holland, the Dutch came to prefer the laws and customs of England. Under these accumulating troubles the faithful Stuyvesant was wellnigh overwhelmed.

Such was the condition of affairs at the beginning of 1664. England and Holland were at peace. Neither nation had reason to apprehend an act of violence from the other. In all that followed, the arbitrary principles and unscrupulous disposition of the English king were fully manifested. On the 12th of March in this year the duke of York received at the hands of his brother, Charles II., two extensive patents for American territory. The first grant included the district reaching from the Kennebec to the St. Croix River, and the second embraced the whole country between the Connecticut and the Delaware. Without regard to the rights of Holland, in utter contempt of the West India Company, through whose exertions the valley of the Hudson had been peopled, with no respect for the wishes of the Dutch, or even for the voice of his own Parliament, the English monarch in one rash hour despoiled a sister kingdom of a well-earned province.

The duke of York made haste to secure his territory. No time must be left for the states-general to protest against the outrage. An English squadron was immediately equipped, put under command of Richard Nicolls and sent to America. In July the armament reached

Boston, and thence proceeded against New Amsterdam. On the 28th of August, the fleet passed the Narrows, and anchored at Gravesend Bay. The English camp was pitched at Brooklyn Ferry; and before the Dutch had recovered from their surprise, the whole of Long Island was subdued. An embassy came over from New Amsterdam. Governor Stuyvesant, ever true to his employers, demanded to know the meaning of all this hostile array. To

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receive the surrender
of New Netherland
was the quiet answer
of Nicolls. There
must be an immediate
acknowledgment of the
sovereignty of Eng-
land. Those who sub-
mitted should have the
rights of Englishmen ;
those who refused
should hear the crash
of cannon-balls.
Dutch council of New
Amsterdam was im-
mediately convened.
It was clear that the
burgomasters meant to
surrender. The stormy
old governor exhorted

The

PETER STUYVESANT.

them to rouse to action and fight; some one replied that the Dutch West India Company was not worth fighting for. Burning with indignation, Stuyvesant snatched up the written proposal of Nicolls and tore it to tatters in the presence of his council. It was all in vain. The brave old man was forced to sign the capitulation; and on the 8th of September, 1664, New Netherland ceased to exist. The English flag was hoisted over the fort and town, and the name of NEW YORK was substituted for New Amsterdam. The surrender of Fort Orange, now. named Albany, followed on the 24th; and on the 1st of October the Swedish and Dutch settlements on the Delaware capitulated. The conquest was complete. The supremacy of Great Britain in America was finally established. From the north-east corner of Maine to the southern limits of Georgia, every mile of the American coast was under the flag of England.

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CHAPTER XX.

NEW YORK UNDER THE ENGLISH.

ICHARD NICOLLS, the first English governor of New York, began his duties by settling the boundaries of his province. It was a work full of trouble and vexation. As early as 1623 the whole of Long Island had been granted to the earl of Stirling. Connecticut also claimed and occupied all that part of the island included in the present county of Suffolk. Against both of these claimants the patent of the duke of York was now to be enforced by his deputy Nicolls. The claim of Stirling was fairly purchased by the governor, but the pretensions of Connecticut were arbitrarily set aside. This action was the source of so much discontent that the duke was constrained to compensate Connecticut by making a favorable change in her south-west boundary-line.

Two months before the conquest of New Netherland by the English, the irregular territory between the Hudson and the Delaware, as far north as a point on the latter river in the latitude of forty-one degrees and forty minutes, was granted to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. This district, corresponding, except on the northern boundary, with the present State of New Jersey, was now wrested from the jurisdiction of New York, and a separate government established by the proprietors. The country below the Delaware, until recently called New Sweden, but now named THE TERRITORIES, was consolidated with New York and ruled by deputies appointed by the governors of that province. Finally, the new name conferred by Nicolls on his capital was extended to all the country formerly called New Netherland.

At the first the people were deluded with many promises of civil liberty. To secure this, the Dutch, against the passionate appeals of the patriotic Stuyvesant, had voluntarily surrendered themselves to the English government. But it was a poor sort of civil liberty that any province was likely to obtain from one of the Stuart kings of England. The promised right of representation in a general assembly of the people was evaded and withheld. To this was added a greater grief in the annulling of the old titles by which, for half a century, the Dutch farmers had held their lands. The people were obliged to accept new deeds at the hands

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