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county of Peebles, in Scotland, who dying, left her with six children, four sons and two daughters. Three of the sons entered into the army, and were distinguished for their conduct; one at Maida,* and the others at Stoney Creek and Chrysler's farm, in Canada.

Their son John, who was a physician, and served under the Duke of Wellington, in the peninsular war, lost his life in the discharge of his professional duties, was buried at Coimbra, and has a monument erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.

His second daughter, Mary, married Lieutenant General William Doyle, of Waterford, in Ireland, many years in the staff of that country as a general officer. Both are now dead. They have left two sons and one daughter, who are living.

His third daughter, Harriet, married Jonathan Dewitt, Chief Justice of the province of Lower Canada, by whom she has eleven children, several of whom are honourably settled at Quebec.

*The battle of Maida is one of the most brilliant achievements of the British See Mr. Windham's speech in the House of Commons. Annual Regis

arms.

ter. 1806.

THE

HISTORY OF NEW-YORK.

PART I.

FROM THE DISCOVERY OF THE COLONY TO THE SURRENDER IN 1664.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, a Genoese, employed by Ferdinand and Isabel, king and queen of Castile, was the first discoverer of America.* He sailed from St. Lucar in August, 1492, and made sight of one of the Bahama Islands, on the eleventh of October following. Newfoundland and the main continent were discovered five years after, by Sebastian Gabato, a Venetian, in the service of Henry VII. of England, from the thirty-eighth to the sixty-eighth degree of north latitude.

On the 10th of April, 1606, King James I. for planting two colonies, passed the great north and

* Some authors allege that Columbus first offered his services to the republic of Genoa; then to John II. of Portugal, and afterwards to our King, Henry VII.; but this disagrees with Lord Bacon's account, who informs us, that Christopher Columbus sailed before his brother Bartholomew had laid the project before the king, which was owing to his falling into the hands of pirates on his way to England.

VOL. I.-1

south Virginia patent. To Sir Thomas Gates, and others, leave was given to begin a plantation, at any place on the continent they should think convenient, between the thirty-fourth and forty-first degrees of latitude; and all the lands extending fifty miles, on each side, along the coast, one hundred miles into the country, and all the islands within one hundred miles opposite to their plantations, were granted in fee, to be called the First Colony. By the same patent, a like quantity was granted to Thomas Henham, Esquire, and others, for a plantation between thirty-eight and forty-five degrees of latitude, under the name of the Second Colony. The first began a settlement in the great bay (Chesapeak) in 1607. The latter was planted at Plymouth, in New-England, 1620.

Henry Hudson, an Englishman, according to our authors, in the year 1608,* under a commission from the king his master, discovered Long-Island, New-York, and the river which still bears his name; and afterwards sold the country, or rather his right, to the Dutch. Their writers contend that Hudson was sent out by the East-India Company in 1609, to discover a north-west passage to China; and that having first discovered Delaware bay, he came hither, and penetrated Hudson's river as far north as the latitude of forty-three degrees. It is said, however, that there was a sale, and that the English objected to it, though they for some time neglected to oppose the Dutch settlement of the country.

In 1610, Hudson sailed again from Holland to

* See Note A.

this country, called by the Dutch New-Netherlands; and four years after, the States General granted a patent to sundry merchants, for an exclusive trade on the North River, who, in 1614, built a fort on the west side, near Albany, which was first commanded by Henry Christiaens. Captain Argal was sent out by Sir Thomas Dale, governor of Virginia, in the same year, to dispossess the French of the two towns of Port-Royal and St. Croix, lying on each side of the Bay of Fundy, in Acadia, then claimed as part of Virginia.* In his return he visited the Dutch on Hudson's river, who, being unable to resist him, prudently submitted for the present to the king of England, and under him to the governor of Virginia. The very next year, they erected a fort on the south-west point of the island of Manhattans, and two others in 1623; one called Good-Hope, on Connecticut river, and the other Nassau, on the east side of Delaware bay. The author of the account of New-Netherlandt asserts that the Dutch purchased the lands on both sides of that river, in 1632, before the English were settled in those parts; and that they discovered a little fresh river, farther to the east, called Varsche Riviertie, to distinguish it from Connecticut river, known among them by the name of Varsche Rivier, which Vanderdonk also claims for the Dutch.

Determined upon the settlement of a colony, the States General made a grant of the country, in 1621,

* Charlevoix places this transaction in 1613. Vol. I. hist. of N. France in 12mo. p. 210. But Stith, whom I follow, being a clergyman in Virginia, had greater advantages of knowing the truth than the French jesuit.

+ See note B.

to the West-India Company. Wouter Van Twiller, arrived at fort Amsterdam, now New-York, and took upon himself the government, in June, 1629. His style, in the patents granted by him, was thus: "We, director and council, residing in New-Netherland, on the island Manhattans, under the government of their high mightinesses, the Lords States General of the United Netherlands, and the privileged West-India Company." In this time the New-England planters extended their possession westward as far as Connecticut river. Jacob Van Curlet, the commissary there, protested against it, and, in the second year of the succeeding administration, under

William Kieft,* who appears first in 1638, a prohibition was issued, forbidding the English trade at fort Good-Hope; and shortly after, on complaint of the insolence of the English, an order of council was made for sending more forces there, to maintain the Dutch territories. Dr. Mather confesses, that the New-England men first formed their design of settling Connecticut river in 1635, before which time they esteemed that river at least one hundred miles from an English settlement; and that they first seated themselves there in 1636, at Hartford, near fort Good-Hope, at Weathersfield, Windsor, and Springfield. Four years after, they seized the Dutch garrison, and drove them from the banks of the river, having first settled New-Haven in 1638, regardless of Keift's protest against it.

* We have no books among our Dutch records remaining in the Secretary's office, reiating to state matters before Kieft's time, nor any enrolment of patents till a year after Van Twiller arrived here. Mr. Jacob Goelet supplied as with several extracts from the Dutch recorbs.

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