CHAP. II. grown with grass, and the awful silence was broken only by the nightly round of the pest-cart.* 1665. New Neth erland and Poleron. In Holland, naval defeat almost produced a revolution. The people began to murmur against De Witt, and all anxiously looked for the return of De Ruyter from America. Louis, annoyed at the growing haughtiness of Charles, pressed De Witt to exchange New Netherland for Poleron; and the Pensionary, avowing that the sacrifice would be 23 July great, agreed that the French king might, "as of his own accord," propose it to the King of England. This step was kept secret from the States General, for both Louis and De Witt feared that the people might declare for the young Prince of Orange. The French ambassadors at London were directed to make the proposed offer "as from 16 August. themselves," and Louis promised to break with Charles if it was not accepted. The States General were urged to sustain De Witt's secret agreement; but they only directed 20 August. the East and West India Companies, which were chiefly interested, to give their opinions upon the proposition.† August. English claims. The English answer to the French overture was, that the Dutch had usurped New Netherland, to which they had no Haughty right, and that the king was surprised at a proposal to cede Poleron "in compensation for a country already his own." With headstrong subserviency, Clarendon reiterated the falsehood that King James had granted the country, “afterwards named New Netherland," to Lord Stirling; that "the Scotch had begun to cultivate it a long time before the Hollanders were received there;" and that, as the Duke of York had bought the rights of Stirling's heirs, the Dutch province legitimately belonged to the English. Yet the chancellor well knew that Lord Stirling's claim affected Long Island only, and not the rest of New Netherland. * Aitzema, v., 377-384, 443–460; Basnage, i., 741-743; Pepys, ii, 243-330; Evelyn, i., 417-422; Kennett, iii., 255, 256; Burnet, i., 218, 219; Rapin, ii., C39, 640; Clarke's James II., i., 405–422; Lister's Clarendon, ii., 333-335; iii., 380-384; Courtenay's Temple, i., 80; Martin, i., 270. The Guinea and the Martin, two of the ships which had assisted in the reduction of New Netherland, were in the British fleet in the battle of June, 1665, but under other commanders. Three of the captains who returned from New York were also in that battle with other ships. Hyde, of the Guinea, commanded the Jersey, 48; Grove, of the Martin, the Success, 30; and Hill, of the Elias, which foundered on her voyage home, the Coventry, 22.-Allen's Battles of the British Navy, i., 46; Aitzema, v., 444, 445; Pepys, ii., 185, 249; iii., 249; ante, p. 50, note. + D'Estrades, iii., 197, 215, 219, 221, 242, 249, 250, 262, 265, 278, 295–301, 318; Aitzema, v., 348-388, 393; Col. Doc., ii., 341-353; Basnage, i., 743, 750-754; Lister, iii., 381, 387, 385,~ 393; Lambrechtsen, 78, note. 1665. The Hollanders, he argued, had only been tolerated there CHAP. II. as they would have been had they established themselves. in England or elsewhere, where they would not, for that reason, acquire any right of sovereignty for their republic. The ambassadors of Louis answered this burlesque of rea- Answer of soning by showing its utter want of analogy. But they saw that "the interest of the Duke of York prevailed," and that Clarendon did not believe that the Dutch would break off on the point of New Netherland, especially as the King of France himself had offered to cede it for Poleron. the French. August. clares the 19 right of the New Neth This answer of Charles was justly considered by Louis as rather. "hard, dry, and haughty." He wrote at once to D'Estrades, at the Hague, “I will say to you that, having examined what the English and the Hollanders have writ- Dutch to ten upon the subject of New Netherland, it appears to me erland. that the right of the Hollanders is the best founded; for it is a species of mockery to make believe that those who have built and peopled a city without any one saying a word to hinder them would have been tolerated as strangers in France or in England; and habitation, joined to a long possession, are, in my judgment, two sufficiently good titles to destroy all the reasons of the English.” At the same time, Louis thought, that as the Dutch had already lost their American province, they should be willing to abandon it for the sake of peace.* But the States of Holland were too much interested in the preservation of New Netherland to consent to its surrender. The city of Amsterdam likewise insisted upon re- 3 Septem. covering what had cost it so much. The States General would not treat with England unless Charles receded from his position; and De Witt's private agreement with Louis was repudiated. The French mediators—who thought 17 Septem. that while the Duke of York would not give up New Netherland, the Dutch made its restitution rather "a point of honor"-made farther propositions to the English government. Charles haughtily replied that they were "not 25 October. adapted to secure a firm peace." The West India Company, not yet satisfied with Stuyvesant's behavior, resolved 27 October. that their own province in America should not be ex-Co. will not changed for Poleron, because they had "no partnership" New Neth * D'Estrades, iii., 324, 330-354; Aitzema, v., 393; Col. Doc., ii., 354, 355; Basnage, i., 754. The W. I. give up erland. 1665. CHAP. II. with the East India Company, which had an entire monopoly in the Eastern seas, while not only were private persons largely concerned in New Netherland, but also great public interests were involved which would be ruined by its loss.* 17 The States Meanwhile Downing had left Holland, after having sent to the States General a reply to their answer of the ninth April. of February, in which he insisted upon the English title to New Netherland, and mendaciously affirmed that it had not been "taken by any order" of the king. This having 10 Septem. been published in London, the Dutch government ordered their rejoinder to be printed. The absurdity of the En31 Decem. glish claim was demonstrated; because, while James the maintain First might insert in a patent such clauses as he chose, hẹ could not thereby prejudice the rights of others; and, moreover, he had expressly excepted territory in the possession of other states. The "imaginary subterfuge" that Charles had not directed the capture of New Netherland was exposed by quoting his own orders to Nicolls of the 23d April, 1664. Full appendices completed this able state paper, which fitly closed the long correspondence between Holland and England about the conquest of New Netherland. their right to New Netherland. The answer of Charles to the propositions of Louis ended any hopes of a peaceable adjustment. All the cities of 3 Decem. Holland thanked God that he had not accepted them. They determined to bear increased taxation for war rather than submit to dishonorable terms of peace. Van Gogh 11 Decem. was recalled from London by a letter, in which the States Fiercer war at hand. General set forth their offers of reciprocal restitution, and the British haughty repulse of them. Charles, on his part, 16 Decem. insisted that the Provincial States of Holland were "the real authors" of a war which seemed to "prejudice the Protestant religion." And as this eventful year closed, the two great champions of the Reformation prepared for a fiercer struggle. * D'Estrades, iii., 360, 365, 371, 382, 395, 435, 444, 472; Aitzema, v., 395; Basnage, i., 755; Col. Doc., ii., 357, 358, 361, 417-419; Courtenay's Temple, i., 75; MSS. N. Y. H. Soc., communicated by M. F. A. G. Campbell, of the Hague. † D'Estrades, iii., 363; Aitzema, v., 394; Col. Doc., ii., 331-335, 379-415; ante, p. 19. Aitzema, v., 394, 396, 397; D'Estrades, iii., 565, 566, 577, 5S1; Basnage, i., 756. CHAPTER III. 1666-1668. clares war England. Feb. A FRESH element now entered into the history of New CHAP. III. York. Louis, reluctantly fulfilling his engagement to as1666. sist Holland against England, issued a declaration of war 29 Jan. against Charles the Second. It was very moderate in its France detone; for the French king secretly sympathized with his against English brother, and was really hostile to the Republic of heretics and merchants. "This is a great step I have taken,” wrote Louis to D'Estrades at the Hague," for the sole interest of the States, and in almost every thing contrary to my own." The next month England declared war against France. Charles immediately directed his Ameri- 22 Feb. can colonies to be on their guard against the enemy, and to colonial reduce “all islands and plantations in those parts belonging to the French or Dutch nation, and especially that of Canada." These orders, however, did not reach New York until the following summer. But they foreshadowed an aggressive colonial policy, which, culminating in the conquest of New France by England a century afterward, prepared the way for the American Revolution.* Interesting events had meanwhile happened on the northern frontier of New York. The treaty which Nicolls had so promptly caused to be made with the native Indians at Albany, and his subsequent behavior toward them, were meant to make them firm friends of the English, as they had been of the Dutch. The territory of the Mohawks and Oneidas was within the Duke of York's patent; and even at that early day the time was perhaps anticipated when the five confederated nations, instead of Aitzema, v., 693, 695, 912; D'Estrades, iv., 47, 65, 76; Kennett, iii., 258; Rapin, ii., 641, 642; Basnage, i., 770; Lavallée, iii., 212; Martin, i., 272; Courtenay's Temple, i., 82; Col. Doc., iii., 120, 137; Col. Rec. Conn., ii., 514; Shea's note to Miller's N. Y., 113, 114. English orders. New York da. CHAP. III. being treated as equals, would be claimed as English subjects, and used as barriers against the neighboring French 1666. in Canada. Between New France and New Netherland and Cana- there had been little if any disagreement, while many acts of kindness shown by the Dutch were long remembered by the French authorities. But now, instead of placid Holland, aggressive England was sovereign of New York. Where there had been friendship was soon to be discord; and national antipathies, which could not be repressed in Europe, were destined to begin, in the country of the Iroquois, an eventful struggle for ultimate supremacy in North America. French policy in Canada. It had been the policy of France to obtain a spiritual as well as temporal dominion over the savages who encompassed her colonists in the New World. Wherever the lilies were planted, there was set up the cross. With heroic devotion the missionaries of Christianity pushed on their labors among the tribes south of the Saint Lawrence and "the beautiful lake" which the Iroquois called “Ontario."* Of all these confederated tribes the Onondagas were the most friendly to the French. This was chiefly owing to their greatest orator, Garakontié, "the sun that advances," who had nothing savage in him "except birth and education." A nephew of the "Atotarho," or great sachem of the Iroquois, but himself neither sachem nor chief, Garakontié had acquired immense power over his countrymen by his eloquence and his political wisdom. He had protected the Jesuit father Simon le Moyne at Onondaga, and had induced the remote Cayugas and Senecas to join his own nation in releasing their French prisoners, with whom the missionary returned to Canada in the summer of 1662.+ But the nearer Oneidas and Mohawks cherished enmity, and even threatened Montreal. This aroused the Canadian government. The Baron Pierre du Bois d'Avaugour, who had succeeded D'Argenson in 1661, was a soldier, who * "Ontario" signifies in Indian "the beautiful lake:" Col. Doc., ix., 16; Hennepin's Louisiana, 5. The note in Col. Doc., ix., 76, which renders Ontario "the Great Lake," is contradictory, and seems to be erroneous. † Col. Doc., ix., 13, 16, 76; Relation (ed. Quebec, 1858), 1661, 32–38; 1662, 10–12; Hennepin, Desc. de la Louisiane, 5; Charlevoix (ed. 12mo), ii., 88, 108-119, 144; Shea's Catholic Missions, 242, 248; Ferland, Histoire du Canada, i., 470-477; Faillon, Hist. de la Col. Française en Canada, ii., 450; iii., 2, 92; Sparks's Life of La Salle, 71; Bancroft, iii., 120-162; ante, vol. i., 84, 704. Le Moyne died at the Cap de la Madeleine, 24 November, 1665: Col. Doc., iii., 123; ix., 38; Shea's Missions, 243. |