but was prevented by the violence of the wind. On 1690. the eighth, all the effective men, amounting to between twelve and thirteen hundred, landed at the Isle of Orleans, four miles below the town, and were fired on, from the woods, by French and Indians. Having remained on shore until the eleventh, and then learning by a deserter the strength of the place, they embarked with precipitation. A tempest soon after dispersed the fleet; which made the best of its way back to Boston."

sued in the

Success had been so confidently expected, that First paper adequate provision was not made at home for the money is payment of the troops. There was danger of a mu- colonies. tiny. In this extremity, the government of Massachusetts issued bills of credit, as a substitute for money; and these were the first, that were ever issued in the American colonies."

King William sent a large body of French refu- French refugees. gees to Virginia; and lands were allotted to them

I Hutchinson, i. 399-401. Smith N. York, 68, 69. Colden, 126-131. Sir William arrived at Boston on the 19th of November. Some vessels of the fleet were blown off to the West Indies; one was lost on Anticosta ; and two or three were wrecked, or never heard of. About 200 men were lost by the enemy and by sickness; "not above 30 by the enemy.”—A small vessel had been sent to England express, early in April, to solicit assistance for the reduction of Canada; but the English government had too much on its hands, to pay any attention to the proposal. Massachusetts however determined to proceed; and Connecticut and New York engaged to furnish a body of men. From these two colonies 2000 were expected to march by Lake Champlain, and attack Montreal, at the same time when the forces by sea should be before Quebec. The fleet, which sailed 9 August from Nantasket, contained between 30 and 40 vessels, the largest of 44 guns and 200 men. The whole number of men was about 2000. Great dependence was placed on the expected division of the French force; but the army, designed against Montreal, had unhappily retreated; and the news of its retreat had reached Montreal before the fleet arrived at Quebec. This occurrence must have dispirited the English forces, and proportionally have animated the French. Count Frontenac was now able to employ the whole strength of Canada against the little invading army. Some writers ascribe the return of the New York and Connecticut troops to a culpable cause. Charlevoix, with whose account Smith seems best satisfied, says, our army was disappointed in the intended diversion, by the small pox, which seized the camp, killed 300 men, and terrified our Indian allies.

2 Hutchinson, i. 402. Belknap N. Hamp. i. 263.

1690. on the banks of James river. Others of them, pur chasing lands of the proprietors of Carolina, transported themselves and their families to that colony, and settled on the river Santee.'

S. Sothel's

Seth Sothel, countenanced by a powerful faction, usurpation. and presuming on his powers as proprietary, arrived suddenly at Charlestown, the capital of Carolina, and seized the reins of government."

St. Christo

pher's reta

ken by the

English.

New Providence.

H. Slough

at N. York

The whalefisheryat Nantucket commenced this year.3 The island of St. Christopher's was reconquered from the French, by the English under colonel Codrington; and the male white inhabitants, amounting to about eighteen hundred, were sent, with their women and children, to Hispaniola and Martinico.* The island of New Providence had now become so populous, that the proprietaries sent Cadwallader Jones to be its governor.

1691.

Colonel Henry Sloughter arrived at New York, ter arrives with a commission to be governor of that province. The first assembly, after the Revolution, was holden on the ninth of April. The province was now, by an act of assembly, divided into ten counties."

asgovernor.

I Hewet, 108. Others, who were merchants and mechanics, took up their residence in Charlestown, and followed their different occupations These new settlers were a great acquisition to Carolina. It is highly to the honour of England, that, even in the reign of king James, large colle tions had been made for the French refugees; and that, after king William » accession to the throne, the parliament voted £15,000 sterling to be distributed among persons of quality, and all such as, through age or infirmity, were unable to support themselves or families.

2 Chalmers, i. 552. Hewet, i. 102-104. His popularity and power were of short duration. The assembly compelled him to abjure the gov ernment and country forever. The proprietaries dissented from the laws, passed under his government; and, in 1692, appointed a new governor. 3 Coll. Hist. Soc. iii. 157. 4 Univ. Hist. xl. 278. 5 Ibid. xli. 332 6 Smith N. York, 71-73. All laws, made in the province anteceder to this period, were disregarded both by the legislature and the courts a law. In the Collection of the Acts of the province, made in 1752, the con pilers were directed to begin at this Assembly. Ibid. Leisler, having refused to deliver up the fort to the governor, was afterward condemned to death for high treason. Ibid.

7 Ibid. 186. The division is there said to be into 12 counties; yet 12 only are described; and there were no more than 10, so late as A. D. 1753See Smith, ib. 206.

Major Peter Schuyler, with a party of Mohawks, 1691. passed over lake Champlain, and made a bold ir- Expedition ruption into the French settlements at the north end Schuyler.

of the lake.'

of P.

The general assembly of Virginia solicited and Charter of obtained a charter from the crown, for the establish- William & Mary Colment of a college, projected in that colony. The lege king and queen gave, at the same time, nearly two thousand pounds toward the charge of building; and endowed the seminary with twenty thousand acres of the best land, together with the perpetual revenue, arising from the duty of one penny per pound on all tobacco, transported from Virginia and Maryland to the other English plantations. In grateful acknowledgment of the royal patronage and benefaction, the college was called William and Mary.*

1 Smith N. York, 78. Univ. Hist. [xxxix. 350.] says, Schuyler had 300 English and 300 Indians. Colden [129.] says, that, in his several attacks, the French lost 2 captains, 6 lieutenants, and 300 men.

2 Keith, 169. Beverly, 138, 139. Coll. Hist. Soc. v. 165.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

THIS VOLUME brings down the Annals to the Revolution of William and Mary. A very respectable historian remarks, that the legal and constitutional history of the American colonies, in their early periods, affords but little instruction. Cecinit prælia. His subject was war. Chalmers supposes, that the political annals of the colonies from their settlement to that Revolution may be thought by some the most curious and instructive; because, during that eventful period, the colonies were planted; their constitutions, after various changes, were established; the groundwork of their future jurisprudence was laid; and they were sensibly affected by every change, which the innovations of those days introduced into the parent country.

Ttt

NOTES.

NOTE Lp 17, 18.;

ofere dine to this voyage. In the Voyages of Ramusius, Sebus

Count is prorrentes as placing in 1496; and respectable historians have hence takes there for the true year. On a critical examination of the account in Ramusus, Come does sint appar som ground for their conclusion. Ramasis derived his acmarine bur paris, the pope's legate in Spain, who derived his information from £ Caber Iz Cabor's account, which was merely verbal, the time of the voyage wa Rodent Renticted, and withest precision: The king commanded two caravels to be furnlibed with a wings appertaining to the voyage; which was, as fare a 1 Fem de year 1436, in the beginning of sommer." Nor cught this uncertainty of Cabot himself to appear strange, when it is considered, that he was then an old mim, as we learn from the same conversation with the legate: After this I made mary other voyages, which I nowe pretermit; and wareing cid I give myself to rest from ruch traves" Instead therefore of trusting to so vague an account. I have chosen to rely on an extract taken out of the map of Sebastian Cabot concerning his dis covery of the Went I: Les, which," Hakluyt mys, " is to be seene in her majesty's pri vegeter Westmorer, and in many other ancient merchants houses." The exthat which is preserved in Hakluyt, 6, begins thus: Anno Domini 1497 loandes Cubotas Venetus, & Sebastianus illius filius" &c.-The extent, as well as the time, of this celebrated voyage has been involved in obscurity. By some writers the Cabots are represented as having sailed to 56 deg. north latitude; by others, to 58; by others, to 60. Ramusins, in his 3d volume, says, it was written" to him by Sebastian Cabot, that he sailed to the latitude of 67 degrees and an halfe, under the north pole." Hakluyt, 7-9. This account is probably the true one-Some authors say, that the Cabcts sailed no farther to the south, than to 38 deg. or 36 deg north lat. P. Martyr says, Cabet went nearly as far south, as the latitude of the straits of Hercules, or Gibraltar. Dr. Belknap (Amer. Biog. i. 154) accordingly considered 36 deg, as the extent of the voyage; and Dr. Forster (Voy. 267.), on the authority of that passage in P. Martyr, says, “Sebastian Cabot must have been about as far as Chesa peak Bay in Virginia" But the entire passage, in the original (p. 232-), seems to inply, that Cabot proceeded still to the west, probably southwesterly, as the coast lies, after he had reached the 36° of latitude. P. Martyr, having mentioned the obstruction which Cabot found from the ice, in his voyage to the north, adds: “ Quare coac tus fuit, uti ait, vela vertere, et occidentem sequi: tetendit que tantum ad meridiem, littore sese incurvante, ut Herculei freti latitudinis ferè gradum æquârit: ad occidentenque profectus tantum est, ut Cubam insulam à lavo, longitudine graduum penè parem, babuerit.” Obscure as this passage is, it satisfies me, that Cabot sailed to Cape Florida, which lies | in 25 deg. 20 min. north lat. The English founded their original claim to the principal part of North America on the discovery made of it in this voyage; but some writers consider the claim as of no validity, because the Cabots made no settlement See Hazard Coll. i. 603; Univ. Hist. xli. 86. See also p. 9, 10, of this volume. The i question of right is left to jurists and statesmen; but it must be granted, that, according to the prevalent notions of former times, this was a most important voyage "For the time once was here, to the world be it known, "When all a man sail'd by, or saw, was his own."

NOTE IL (p. 66.)

Freneau.

The Mexicans lived in Aztlan, a country situated to the north of California, unti about A. D. 1160; when they commenced their migration toward the country Anahuac. After a temporary residence in several intermediate places, they at leng arrived at that situation on the lake, where they were to found their city. As soon a they had taken possession of it, they erected a temple for their god Huitzlopocht around which they now began to build huts of reeds and rushes. Such was the bege

ning of the great city of Mexico.

See Clavigero, i. 112-123. For a distinct view of the situation of the city with its causeways, see the map prefixed to the 2d volume of Clavigero ; or the maps in other Mexican histories. A. D. 1325.

NOTE III. (p. 95.)

Although the era of the Puritans commenced in the reign of Edward VI; yet that pious young prince very soon after began an ecclesiastical reformation. Had he lived to perfect it according to his intentions, the Puritans would probably have been satisfied. But he died in 1553, at the early age of XVI; and was succeeded by queen Mary, a bigotted papist, under whose administration John Rogers, of pious memory, was burnt at Smithfield; and bishop Hooper, with other pious reformers, suffered martyrdom. On the accession of queen Elizabeth, the reformation, which had been begun by Edward, was, in some degree, restored; but that illustrious queen, addicted to show, and jealous of prerogative, soon made the Puritans feel the weight of her royal power. Bishops and other clergymen were deprived, for refusing the oath to the queen's supremacy. At length (31 Jan. 1563) the Convocation of the English clergy met, and finished the XXXIX Articles. Of the lower house, 43 present were for throwing out the ceremonies, but 35 were for keeping them; and these, with the help of proxies, carried their measure by one vote. The bishops now began to urge the clergy to subscribe to the Liturgy and ceremonies, as well as to the Articles. Coverdale, Fox, Humfrey and others, refused to subscribe; and this was the epoch of NONCONFORMITY. What hard treatment the Puritan Reformers received under the succeeding administrations of James I, and of his successors, until the Revolution of William and Mary, is well kuown. As authorities, that confirm this Note, and give full information on the subject, the reader is referred to Burnet's History of the Reformation of the Church of England, Peirce's Vindication of the Dissenters, Prince's Chronology, and especially Neal's History of the Puritans.

NOTE IV. (p. 99.)

Some historians entirely overlook this temporary settlement of the French in the English Carolina; others confound it with the settlement at St. Matheo, a few leagues north of St. Augustine. Not one of them has ascertained the place of it, with precision. Chalmers says, Ribault built Fort Charles on the river Edisto. The authors of the Universal History say, it was built on the river St. Croix, which indeed, Charlevoix says, was the Spanish name of Edisto river. Charlevoix says, Ribault's Fort stood near the place where Charlestown, the capital of South Carolina, now stands. Mezeray says, it was built " at the end of the Streight at St. Helen's." I wrote, some time since, to Dr. Ramsay, the well known historian, and made inquiry of him respecting this article. The Doctor obligingly wrote to me in reply: "I have taken some pains "to inform myself of the place where Ribaud commenced his settlement of French "Protestants; but without any satisfactory result. Edisto river, in its nearest part, is "about 36 miles from Charleston; but there is no evidence of any French settlement "ever having been made in its vicinity. There is no river in South Carolina, known "by the name of the Shallow or Base river. Mr. Drayton, our late governor, has “been consulted on the points, relative to which you wish for information, who assur"ed me, that, while writing his View of South Carolina, he minutely enquired into "the very subjects, which have perplexed you, and found them so involved in dark"ness and contradiction, that he did not see his way clear to assert any thing on the "subject, more than you will find in the 5th page of his work."

It would not become me to be positive on a subject, that is attended with such acknowledged difficulties, and that has baffled such intelligent inquiries. I am satisfied however, that neither the latitude of the place where the fort was built, nor its distance from the river of May,† will allow us to fix it so far north, as the river Edisto. It appears clearly to have been on an island up Port Royal river, in about the latitude of 32 deg. It seems probable, that it was the island of St. Helena, or some island in its vicinity. Mezeray's account seems to fix it there. Charlevoix, in his Map of the Coasts of Florida, has placed it in that quarter, though, I apprehend, too far north, at an island toward the mouth of Edisto. It is asserted on the face of the map: "Dans cette Isle Ribault bâtit petit Fort, et le nomma Charles Fort." There is one additional + Sixty French leagues. Charlevoix.