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In these circumstances, the West-India Company instructed their Governor of New Netherland to "live with his neighbors on as good terms as possible." Some negotiation followed, with a view to a conference between the parties; but the preliminaries could not be adjusted. The Commissioners took no pains to promote it, and showed their confidence in themselves by forbidding, under pain of a confiscation of goods, "all persons but such as were inhabitants within the Aug. 6. English jurisdictions, and subject to their laws and government," to trade with the Indians within those jurisdictions.1

1649.

Visit of

to Hartford.

1650.

Sept. 11.

At length Stuyvesant decided to waive ceremony, and make a strenuous effort to bring about a better state of things. He came to Hartford while the Federal Commissioners were in session there, and after Stuyvesant two days addressed to them a letter, which, however, he dated at "New Netherland." The Commissioners replied that they could not treat with him till the pretension thus implied was retracted. His next note, and others which followed, bore the date of "Connecticut;" and in this the Commissioners acquiesced, while their own letters were dated at "Hartford."

The Dutch Governor opened his business by complaining of various injuries done to his countrymen, of which the chief was the "unjust usurpation and possessing the land lying upon the river commonly called Connecticut or the Fresh River." Of this land he frankly "desired a full surrender." He proposed an arrangement for the restoration of fugitives, and a repeal of the law forbidding Dutchmen to trade with Indians within the Colonies; and he extended his letter by the mention of some minor causes of offence. The reply of the Commissioners asserted the English title to the lands on the Connecticut,

1 Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 134; N. H. Rec., 530 - 536.

Sept. 15.

as derived from "patent, purchase, and possession." It treated lightly the other matters of complaint, and expressed the opinion that, when the question of territory should be disposed of, "a due consideration might be had of fugitives, and how to settle a right understanding and neighborly correspondency."1 Stuyvesant proceeded to argue his case with zeal; but he saw that he had adversaries not less pertinacious or well prepared than himself, and that a different expedient must be tried. Varying a little the terms of his former offer of an arbitration, he proposed that the Commissioners should "delegate two indifferent persons out of the Colonies of Boston and Plymouth," who, with two referees to be in like manner named by himself, should pass a final judgment on the matters in controversy. The offer was accepted, after an explanation of some of its phraseology, which had given offence. Simon Bradstreet and Thomas Prince were appointed arbitrators on the part of the Confederacy; and Thomas Willett and George Baxter, English residents at New Amsterdam, on the part of the Dutch. And they were empowered, by formal commissions, to consider, and conclude upon terms for, - “ 1. A composing of differences; 2. A provisional limit of land; 3. A course concerning fugitives; 4. A neighborly union." Their award was made on the day after the issue of their commissions. In all its particulars it disallowed the claim of the Dutch. It decreed that, as to of disputes fugitives, "the same way and course should be observed betwixt the English of the United Colonies and the Dutch within the province of New Netherland," as was prescribed for the Colonies by the eighth article of their confederation. "The proposition of a nearer union of friendship and amity betwixt the English and Dutch nation in these parts, especially

Settlement

and establish

ment of a boundary.

1 Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 154 – 159.

66

against a common enemy," it referred to "due and serious consideration by the several jurisdictions of the United Colonies." Its most material provision was that of a boundary. This was, " upon the main, to begin upon the west side of Greenwich Bay, being about four miles from Stamford, and so to run a northerly line twenty miles up into the country, and after as it should be agreed by the two governments of the Dutch and of New Haven, provided the said line came not within ten miles of Hudson's River." It was "agreed that the Dutch should not at any time build any house or habitation within six miles of the said line;" that the planters at Greenwich should remain, till further consideration thereof, under the government of the Dutch;" and that the Dutch should "hold and enjoy all the lands in Hartford that they were actually possessed of, known or set out by certain marks and bounds, and all the remainder of the said land on both sides Connecticut River to be and remain to the English." To the English also most of Long Island was assigned, the line between them on the east, and the Dutch on the west, being a meridian drawn from "the westernmost part of the Oyster Bay." The arrangement subjected Stuyvesant to severe displeasure and complaint at New Amsterdam. But it was not to have been expected that he should obtain one on more favorable terms; and it is probable, that, when he appointed Englishmen to be arbitrators on his part, he had made up his mind to the necessity of full concessions. After seeing Hartford and learning the temper of the Commissioners, he had ceased to aim at anything more than to escape without dishonor from a fruitless contest.

But New Haven and Connecticut were uneasy and suspicious; and further provocations followed. The New Haven people had revived their enter

1 Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 159–173.

1649.

prise of a settlement upon the Delaware, though in so doing they had failed to obtain from the Commissioners an assurance of protection;2 and they had there suf fered from the Dutch Governor "several high and hostile injuries." When the war broke out between the parent countries, Connecticut esteemed it a fit measure of precaution to put the fort at Saybrook in an efficient state of defence. Both Colonies were in a condition to lend a ready ear to reports, which got abroad, of a plot of the Dutch

Renewal of

jealousies. 1653.

Feb. 23.

Suspected plot of the Dutch with

to enlist against them a joint force of the Mothe Indians. hawks and Nyantics, and of other natives within their own borders. When the rumor-confirmed by some representations of Uncas, the Mohegan, to Mr. Haynes

1 See Vol. I. p. 625.

* Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 127. - Plymouth was very peremptory in refusing to become compromised in the matter: "Whereas, by a letter from New Haven, aid by them was requested and required in settling a plantation at Delaware against such as do oppose them in that respect, the Court, having considered thereof, think it not meet to answer their desire in that behalf, and will have no hand in any such controversy about the same." (Plym. Rec., II. 169.)

toothache, that he could not come sooner, if he might have had all Plymouth." In these circumstances, and in consideration of the importance of the precedent that would be established, if any informality, as to the time of meeting, or the number of persons acting, should be allowed, it was concluded not to transact any business, further than to answer a letter received from the Society for Propagating the Gospel, and to send a message of advice to some Narragansett Indians. The Plymouth copy of the Records of the

* Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 171; Commissioners contains no account of comp. 181, 192–196.

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this proceeding, and accordingly there is none in Hazard, who followed it in his edition. Mr. J. Hammond Trumbull, in a recent publication ("Extracts from the Records of the United Colonies," &c.), has supplied this and other chasms from the more complete record, preserved in Connecticut. Each of the four Colonies kept a copy (Winthrop, II. 246), but those of Massachusetts and New Haven are lost.

Something more passed than is anywhere recorded; for when the General Court of Massachusetts, meeting in the

April 2.

-reached Boston, the Magistrates with all speed summoned a special meeting of the Commissioners, to be held at that place; and before the meeting, to prevent loss of time, they sent messengers to the Narragansetts Pessacus and Mixam, and to Ninigret, sachem of the Nyantics, with letters requiring their testimony as to the existence of such a plot. The chiefs returned explicit replies, severally denying all knowledge of it; and they sent four or five messengers to give any further satisfaction that might be desired. The principal envoy was carefully examined, and nothing could be obtained from him in corroboration of the report. He explained a recent visit of Ninigret to New Amsterdam as having been made for the purpose of obtaining medical advice.1

following month (Oct. 19), declared "their approbation and justification of their Commissioners in judging their last meeting at Plymouth to be frustrate," they added that they "expected satisfaction from the jurisdictions of Plymouth and New Haven," and "ordered a letter to be writ to the Governor of Plymouth, &c., requiring satisfaction for an affront put by one of their Commissioners on one of ours." (Mass. Rec., IV. (i.) 110, 111.) It must have been Browne that had offered the affront; for the gentle Bradford was the other Commissioner from Plymouth, and it was Browne's inopportune toothache that prevented his helping to make up a quorum. Browne had made himself disagreeable some years before by his interference with the claim of Massachusetts to jurisdiction at Shawomet (Winthrop, II. 308), and not improbably had said or done something offensive at the last annual meeting of the Commissioners (in 1651), when that claim was again canvassed. (Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 199 – 203.) question of the boundary line between Plymouth and Massachusetts was also

VOL. II.

The

27

"

to have come up at the "frustrate' meeting (Plym. Rec., III. 13); and this may have occasioned altercation. All that I know of subsequent proceedings in relation to the demand of Massachusetts for "satisfaction" from Plymouth, is furnished by the following votes passed by the General Court of the latter Colony in the following April, viz.: "If, by any ordering hand of God's providence, such as are chosen Commissioners are hindered that they cannot appear at the day appointed until a day or two after, the Court declare their minds to be, that notwithstanding they may act, and their acts in such case to be accounted valid and of force. In case both the Commissioners be present at the next meeting at Boston, and do not both sit, then the Court's mind is, that neither of them shall act." (Ibid., 26.) They intended to commission Browne again (Ibid., 30), and they probably apprehended that, in consequence of the offence which he had given, he might be excluded from his seat.

1 Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 203 -212. In the course of the corre

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