sands of their countrymen into that province. Queen Anne's liberality to these people was not more beneficial to them than serviceable to this colony. They have behaved themselves peaceably, and lived with great industry. Many are rich; all are protestants, and well affected to the government. The same must be said of those who have lately settled amongst us, and planted the lands westward of Albany. We have not the least ground for jealousy with respect to them. Amongst us they are few in number, compared to those in Pennsylvania: there they are too numerous to be soon assimilated to a new constitution. They retain all the manners and principles which prevail in their native country; and as many of them are papists, some are not without their fears that sooner or later they will become dangerous to our colonies.*

The late attempt to attack Canada proving abortive, exposed us to consequences equally calamitous, dreaded, and foreseen. While the preparations were making to invade it, the French exerted themselves in cajoling their Indian allies to assist in the repulse; and as soon as the scheme dropped, numerous parties were sent out to harass the English frontiers. These irruptions were principally made on the northern parts of New-England, where the most savage cruelties were daily committed. NewYork had, indeed, hitherto escaped, being covered by the Indians of the Five Nations; but the danger we were in induced governor Hunter, soon after his arrival, to make a voyage to Albany, where he met the confederate chiefs and renewed the old covenant. While there, he was strongly solicited by the NewEngland governments, to engage our Indians in a

* The surprising importation of Germans into that colony, gave rise to the scheme of dispersing English clergymen and schoolmasters amongst them. The project is founded on principles of sound polity. If a political mission among the Indians had been seasonably encouraged, the province of Pennsylvania might have escaped all that shocking devastation, which followed the fatal defeat of general Braddock's army on the 9th of July, 1755; and would perhaps, have prevented even the erection of fort Quesne, which has already cost the nation so much blood and treasure.

war with those who were daily ravaging their borders, but he prudently declined a measure which might have exposed his own province to a general devastation. A treaty of neutrality subsisted at that time between the confederates and the Canada French and their Indians, which depending upon the faith of lawless savages, was at best but precarious, and yet the only security we had for the peace of our borders. A rupture between them would have involved us in a scene of misery at a time of all others most unseasonable. However the people of NewEngland might censure the governor it was a proof of his wisdom to refuse their request; for besides a want of men and arms to defend us, our forts were fallen down and our treasury exhausted.

The new assembly met at New-York, on the 1st of September. Mr. Nicoll, the speaker Mr. Livingston, Mr De Lancey, and colonel Morris, were the members most distinguished for their activity in the house. Mr. De Lancey was a protestant refugee, a native of Caen, in Normandy, and, by marrying a daughter of Mr. Courtlandt, connected with a family then perhaps the most opulent and extensive of any in the province He was an eminent merchant, and by a successful trade had amassed a very considerable fortune. But of all these, colonel Morris had the greatest influence on our public affairs. He was a man of letters, and though a little whimsical in his temper, was grave in his manners and of penetrating parts. Being excessively fond of the society of men of sense and reading, he was never wearied at a sitting till the spirits of the whole company were dissipated. From his infancy he had lived in a manner best adapted to teach him the nature of man, and to fortify his mind for the vicissitudes of life. He very early lost both his father and mother, and fell under the patronage of his uncle, formerly an officer of very considerable rank in Cromwell's army, who after the restoration disguised himself under the profession of quakerism,

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and settled on a fine farm within a few miles of the city, called, after his own name, Morrisania. Being a boy of strong passions, the general indications of a fruitful genius, he gave frequent offence to his uncle, and, on one of these occasions, through fear of his resentiment, strolled away into Virginia, and thence to Jamaica in the West Indies,* where. to support himself, he set up for a scrivener. After several years spent in this vagabond life he returned again to his uncle, who received the young prodigal with joy; and, to reduce him to regularity, brought about his marriage with a daughter of Mr. Graham, a fine lady, with whom he lived above fifty years, in the possession of every enjoyment which good sense and polite manners in a woman could afford. The greatest part of his life, before the arrival of Mr. Hunter, was spent in New-Jersey † where he signalized himself in the service both of the proprietors and the assembly. The latter employed him to draw up their complaint against my lord Cornbury, and he was made the bearer of it to the queen. Though he was indolent in the management of his private affairs, yet through the love of power he was always busy in matters of a political nature, and no man in the colony equalled him in the knowledge of the law and the arts of intrigue. From this character, the reader will easily perceive that governor Hunter showed his prudence, in taking Mr. Morris into his confidence, his talents and advantages rendering him either a useful friend or formidable foe. Such were the acting members of this assembly. When brigadier Hunter spoke to them, he recommended the settling a revenue, the

* He was one of the council in that province, and a judge of the supreme court there, in 1692. Upon the surrender of the government to queen Anne, in 1702, he was named to be governor of the colony; but the appointment was changed in favour of lord Cornbury, the queen's cousin.

+ Hugh Coppathwait, a quaker zealot, was his preceptor: the pupil taking advantage of his enthusiasm, hid himself in a tree, and calling to him, ordered him to preach the gospel among the Mohawks. The credulous quaker took it for a miraculous call, and was upon the point of setting out when the cheat was discovered.

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defence of the frontiers, and the restoration of the public credit, which Lord Cornbury had almost entirely destroyed. To stifle the remaining sparks of our ancient feuds, he concluded with these words: "If any go about to disturb your peace by reviving buried parties or piques, or creating new ones, they shall meet with no countenance or encouragement from me; and I am sure they deserve as little from you." The address of the house was perfectly agreeable to the governor. They promised to provide for the port of government, and to restore the public credit, as well as to protect the frontiers. In answer to the close of his speech, they declare their hope, "That such as excited party contentions might meet with as little credit. and as much disgrace, as they deserve." This unanimity, however, was soon interrupted: Colonel Morris, for some warm words dropped in a debate, was expelled the house; and soon after a dispute arose between the council and assembly, concerning some amendments made by the former to a bill "For the treasurer's paying sundry sums of money.' The design of it in mentioning the particular sums, and rendering them issuable by their own officer, was to restrain the governor from repeating the misapplications which had been so frequent in a late administration. The council, for that reason opposed it, and adhered to their amendments; which occasioned a prorogation, on the 25th of November, after the passing of several other necessary laws.

Mr. Hunter cautiously avoided entering publicly into the dispute between the two houses, till he knew the sentiments of the ministry, and then he opened the spring sessions with a speech too singular not to be inserted.

"Gentlemen: I hope you are now come with a disposition to answer the ends of your meeting, that is, to provide a suitable support for her majesty's government here, in the manner she has been pleased to direct; to find out means to restore the

public credit, and to provide better for your own security.

"They abuse you who tell you that you are hardly dealt by in the augmentation of salaries. Her majesty's instructions which I communicated to you at our last meeting, might have convinced you that it was her tenderness towards her subjects in the plantations, who suffered under an established custom of making considerable presents to their governors, by acts of assembly, that induced her to allot to each of them such a salary as she judged sufficient for their support in their respective stations, with a strict prohibition of all such presents for the future; which instruction has met with a cheerful and grateful compliance in all the other colonies.

"If you have been in any thing distinguished, it is by an extraordinary measure of her royal bounty and care. I hope you will make suitable returns, lest some insinuations much repeated of late years, should gain credit at last, that however your resentment has fallen upon the governor, it is the it is the government you dislike.

"It is necessary at this time that you be told also, that giving money for the support of government, and disposing of it at your pleasure, is the same with giving none at all. Her majesty is the sole judge of the merits of her servants. This right has never yet been disputed at home, and should I consent to give it up abroad, I should render myself unworthy, not only of the trust reposed in me, but of the society of my fellow-subjects, by incurring her highest displeasure. If I have tired you by a long speech, I shall make amends by putting you to the trouble of a very short answer.

"Will you support her majesty's government in the manner she has been pleased to direct, or are you resolved that burden shall lie still upon the governor, who cannot accuse himself of any thing that may have deserved this treatment at your hands?

"Will you take care of the debts of the govern