of the "tract of land lying between the Rivers of Naumkeck and Merrimack, and three miles northward thereof." An extract from this letter will finish what is to be said on this subject.' His Majesty, after reciting the opinion of the Attorney and Solicitor General as to the validity of Mason's claim, and the decision of the Chief Justices in 1677, says:

"To the end, therefore, that justice may be administered with the most ease and the least expense to all the said parties who shall see cause to defend their respective titles, we have thought fit hereby to signify our pleasure unto you, that the said Robert Mason be forthwith admitted to prosecute his right before the Courts of Judicature established within the limits of that our Corporation; and that in all cases wherein the said Robert Mason shall claim any interest in lands, and that the present possessor shall dispute his right, a trial at law may be appointed and allowed, wherein no person who has any lands in the possession of himself, his servants, or tenants under him, depending upon the same title upon which such person shall be so impleaded, shall sit as judge or be of the jury; and that if it shall so happen that the dispensation of justice, hereby directed, shall be delayed by you, or such judgment given wherein the said Robert Mason shall not acquiesce, he may then appeal unto us in our Privy Council, and that all persons concerned be obliged to answer such appeal within the term of six months after the same shall be so made. And our further will and pleasure is, that in case the said Robert Mason shall lay claim to any parcel of lands situate within the bounds aforesaid, which are not improved or actually possessed by any particular person or tenant in his own right, you do thereupon proceed to put the said Robert Mason into the possession of those lands, and cause his title to be recorded, so that he may not receive any further disturbance thereupon. And in case you shall refuse so to do, and shall not shew good cause to the contrary, within the space of six months after demand of possession so to be made by the said Robert Mason, we shall then, without further delay, take the whole cause of the said Robert Mason into our consideration, in our Privy Council, with the damages sustained by him by reason thereof, and shall give judgment upon the whole matter, as in a case where justice has been denied. And to the end the said Robert Mason may not be any ways hindered in the prosecution of his right, we do strictly charge and command you to secure him, his servants, and agents, from all arrests and molestations whatsoever, during his or their abode within the limits of your jurisdiction, we having granted him our royal protection until the matters complained of by him shall be fully determined."

Page 661, note a. For an account of the "Praying Indians," see Gookin's invaluable 66 Historical Collections of the Indians in New England," printed, from the original MS., in Mass. Hist. Coll. 1. 141-227; Mather's Magnalia, Book ш. pp. 190-206.

Page 663, note a. From a letter written by Roger Williams, about August, 1638, to Governor Winthrop, (Mass. Hist. Coll. xxI. 171) we learn that they were one Arthur Peach, of Plymouth, an Irishman, John Barnes, his man, and two others come from Pascataquack, travelling to Qunnihticut."

Page 669, note a. After diligent investigation, in the hope of discovering the owner of these initials, I was led to suppose that they might belong to Daniel Denton, and the conjecture ripened into a certainty upon a comparison of Hubbard's text (what there is left of it) with a copy of Denton's work, in the Library of our University. By this discovery we are enabled to complete this portion of Hubbard's narrative. Our author, having brought his History of New England to a close, and briefly noticed "the country

1 The letter may be found, at length, in Mass. Hist. Coll. xxI. 72–4.

about Hudson's River," informs the reader that, "for any further discourse of the Dutch Plantations next adjoining, or the description thereof," he "may take the following relation, with little variation, in the words of D. D., some time an inhabitant there." In accordance with this announcement, we are presented with a series of extracts from Denton's work, as a sort of Appendix to the "General History."

This portion of the MS. is much worn, some parts being scarcely legible, and, in several instances, the words at the beginning and end of the lines are deficient. Such deficiencies have been supplied (enclosed by brackets) from Denton's pages.

DANIEL DENTON was one of the first settlers of the town of Jamaica, in Queen's County, on Long Island. His father, Rev. Richard Denton, (whom Johnson calls Mr. Lenten) " was born of a good family, at Yorkshire, England, in 1586," and received his education at Catharine Hall, Cambridge, where he proceeded Bachelor in 1623. He "was settled as minister of Coley Chapel, Halifax, for the period of seven years," but "was by a tempest then hurried into New England,' where, first at Weathersfield, and then at Stamford, his Doctrine dropt as the Rain, his speech distilled as the Dew, as the small Rain upon the tender Herb, and as the show'rs upon the Grass." His name, which appears among the first settlers of Weathersfield, is found among those who planted Stamford, in 1641.3 In the spring of 1644 he removed to Long Island, with part of his church and congregation, and began the settlement of the town of Hempstead. He went to England in 1659, leaving behind him his four sons, Daniel, Nathaniel, Richard, and Samuel, "and spent the remainder of his life at Essex, where he died in 1662, aged 76."

DANIEL, the eldest son of Rev. Richard Denton, was one of the original settlers of Hempstead, and was the first town clerk. In the year 1656 he, with other inhabitants of Hempstead, obtained leave to begin a plantation, midway between Hempstead and "Canarise," which they called Jamaica, and on Feb. 18, 1657, Denton was appointed "to write and enter all acts and orders off publick concernment to ye towne, and to have a dais work of a man ffor y sayd employment." Sept. 26, 1664, a petition was presented to Governor Nichols by John Bailey, DANIEL DENTON, and others, for liberty to purchase and settle a parcel of land on the New Jersey side of Staten Island Bay, now known as Elizabethtown." The petition was granted, a deed obtained from the Indians, bearing date Oct. 28, 1664, and a confirmatory Patent from the Governor, dated Feb. 5, 1665. Denton soon after sold his share in the purchase," and it is believed went to England some three or four years after." In 1665 he, with Thomas Benedict, represented Jamaica in the General Assembly of Deputies, held at Hempstead, by order of

Mr. Thompson, in his valuable History of Long Island, says that Mr. Denton probably arrived in New England, with Governor Winthrop, in 1630, accompanied by many of those who, having belonged to his church in the mother country, were determined to share his fortunes in a new region, and settled with him at Watertown, whence they removed, in 1635, to Weathersfield, from there to Stamford, and finally to Long Island, where most of them spent the remainder of their lives, and where their posterity are still found. I would merely remark, in this connection, that Mr. Denton's name is not to be found in the early records of Watertown, (viz. for the first thirty years after its settlement.) either in the Town, or Proprietors', Books. 2 Mather's Magnalia, Book 111. p. 95.

3 In the year 1640 New Haven Colony, by their agent, Capt. Nathaniel Turner, purchased all the lands at Rippowams, or Rippowance. This tract was sold, on the 30th of October, 1640, for the sum of £33, to Andrew Ward and Robert Coe, in behalf of themselves and others, who had determined to remove from Weathersfield, on account of the divisions which had sprung up in that place. The purchasers obliged themselves to remove before the last of November, 1641. The settlement, which was called Stamford, was begun in the spring of 1641, and before the end of the year there were thirty or forty families established in their new quarters.

Governor Nichols. On this occasion it was that the code called "The Duke's Laws" was promulgated, which seems to have been far from giving perfect satisfaction, and the Address to his Highness the Duke of York, with which the proceedings of the Assembly terminated, exasperated the people to such a degree that the Court of Assize was obliged to declare, Oct. 1666, that "whosoever hereafter shall anywayes detract or speake against any of the deputies signing the Address to his Royal Highness, at the general meeting at Hempstead, they shall bee presented to the next Court of Sessions, and if the justices shall see cause, they shall from thence bee bound over to the Assizes, there to answer for the slander, upon plaint or information."

It was on Denton's arrival in England that, "through the instigation of divers Persons in England, and elsewhere," he drew up his " Brief but true Relation of a known unknown part of America," being "the first printed description, in the English language, of the country now forming the wealthy and populous State of New-York, and also the State of New Jersey." Its title page reads as follows:

"A Brief Description of New York: Formerly Called New-Netherlands With the Places thereunto Adjoyning. Together with the Manner of its Scituation, Fertility of the Soyle, Healthfulness of the Climate, and the Commodities thence produced. Also Some Directions and Advice to such as shall go thither: An Account of what Commodities they shall take with them; The Profit and Pleasure that may accrew to them thereby. Likewise A Brief Relation of the Customs of the Indians there. By DÁNIEL DENTON. London, Printed for John Hancock, at the first Shop in Popes-Head-Alley in Cornhil at the three Bibles, and William Bradley at the three Bibles." [1670].

In 1845 appeared a new edition of Denton's work, "with an introduction and historical notes, by Gabriel Furman," forming the first number of the enthusiastic William Gowans's "Bibliotheca Americana." The volume is a neat Svo, reflecting much credit on the publisher.

See Thompson's History of Long Island, i. 80, 132, 136–7, ii. 3–4, 6, 7, 19-20, 96, 97, 102, 104, 105; Johnson's New England, p. 140; Mass. Hist. Coll. XXVIII. 247; Mather's Magnalia, Book 111. pp. 95-6; Trumbull, i. 119, 121, 286, 494; Hinman's Catalogue, pp. 19, 88, 128-9, 164; Holmes, i. 259; Denton's New York, (Furman's ed., 8vo. New York, 1845,) Introduction, pp. 9, 15-17.

Page 676, note a. These last nine words are illegible in the MS.; but dim traces of them yet remain, sufficient to show us that they concluded a paragraph at the bottom of the 338th page of the MS. We may, therefore, be pretty sure that this was the conclusion of the work as left by the author. This is certain, that we have all that Prince had when he wrote the Preface to his Chronological History of New England, in the year 1736, so that if anything is wanting in this portion of the work, it was lost before the time of the venerable Annalist.

POSTSCRIPT.

SOME progress had been made in a biographical notice of the Ipswich Historian, but circumstances have prevented its completion. The reader is therefore referred, for information, to Farmer's Genealogical Register; the Biographical Dictionaries of Eliot and Allen; Farmer's Memorials of the Graduates of Harvard University, (8vo. Concord, 1833,) pp. 14-19, Felt's History of Ipswich, (8vo. Cambridge, 1834,) pp. 11, 75, 201, 22832; Johnson, pp. 109-10; Hutchinson, ii. 136; Young's Chronicles of Mass., pp. 34-5; Holmes, i. 490; Peirce's History of Harvard University, p. 49; Quincy's History of Harvard University, (8vo. Cambridge, 1840,) i. 58, 59; Savage's Winthrop, i. 296-7; Mass. Hist. Coll. v. 206, vii. 263, x. 32-5, 187, XII. 121, 260, 281-3, XIII. 286-90; N. H. Hist. Coll. II. 212; Farmer and Moore's Hist. Coll. III. 185.