to pardon and pass them by"; and he hoped he "should be more wise and watchful thereafter."

So magnanimous a course could not but dispose of the personal complaint; but the question which had arisen, "about the magistrates' negative vote in the General Court," was not to be so easily determined. "One of the magistrates wrote a small treatise, ..... showing thereby how it was fundamental to the government, which, if it were taken away, would be a mere democracy. He showed also the necessity and usefulness of it by many arguments from Scripture, reason, and common practice, &c. Yet this would not satisfy, but the Deputies and common people would have it taken away. An answer also was written (by one of the magistrates, as was conceived) to the said treatise." The Deputies "pressed earnestly" for an immediate decision; "but the magistrates told them the matter was of great concernment, even to the very frame of the government." At length, it was agreed that there should be further opportunity for consideration, and "that the elders should be desired to give their advice before the next meeting of the Court. It was the magistrates' only care to gain time, that so the people's heat might be abated, for then they knew they would hear reason."

"1

The magistrates' confidence in the people was not misplaced. The people did hear reason; and, when the next action was had upon the subject, the negative vote was not "taken away," but duplicated. Without opposition, so far as is known, the following preamble and vote were passed by the General Court.

1644.

March 7.

1 Winthrop, II. 115-119; comp. lingham. A copy of Winthrop's tract Mass. Col. Rec., II. 51.

2 Winthrop had, in the mean time, written and circulated "A Reply to the Answer" mentioned above, which answer there can be no doubt that he understood to be from the pen of Bel

is in the Hutchinson collection of manuscripts in the Library of the Massachusetts Historical Society (pp. 59-66). It bears the date, 4 [June], 4, 1643, and is signed "Jo. Winthrop, Gov."

"Forasmuch as, after long experience, we find divers inconveniences in the manner of our proceeding in Courts by magistrates and Deputies sitting together, and accounting it wisdom to follow the laudable practice of other states who have laid groundworks for government and order in the issuing of business of greatest and highest consequence,

"It is therefore ordered, first, that the magistrates may sit and act business by themselves, by drawing up bills and orders which they shall see good in their wisdom, which having agreed upon, they may present them to the Deputies to be considered of, how good and wholesome such orders are for the country, and accordingly to give their assent or dissent; the Deputies in like manner sitting apart by themselves, and consulting about such orders and laws as they in their discretion and experience shall find meet for common good, which, agreed upon by them, they may present to the magistrates, who, according to their wisdom having seriously considered of them, may consent unto them or disallow them; and, when any orders have passed the approbation of both magistrates and Deputies, then such orders to be engrossed, and in the last day of the Court to be read deliberately, and full assent to be given; provided, also, that all matters of judicature, which this Court shall take cognizance of, shall be issued in like manner."1

"This Order," not by hurtfully withdrawing a power

1 Mass. Col. Rec., II. 58, 59; comp. Winthrop, II. 160.-The original draft of this important Order is in the archives of the Commonwealth. In this draft, as it was first made, between the words "given" and "provided," in the last line but two of the Order as printed above, stood the following words, viz. "without alteration by the major vote of both, of magistrates and Deputies together, which vote shall issue and confirm all laws and orders of this Com

monwealth as authentic, and to be obeyed by all the country." After the word "manner," at the end, the following words are added, in Winthrop's handwriting, viz. "Nor shall this order hinder but that both magistrates and Deputies may sometimes meet together to consult upon any special case or affair, when either party shall desire it." Both these clauses are crossed out with a pen.

from the magistrates, as had been attempted, but by beneficially conferring an equal power upon the Deputies, "determined the great contention about the negative voice," and completed the frame of the internal government of Massachusetts, destined to undergo no further organic change for forty years.

Confederation

A measure of still greater moment had been consummated some months earlier. This was no less than a political confederation of the four princi- of four Colopal Colonies of New England.

nies.

This measure, the scheme of which had perhaps been derived from the Confederacy of the Low Countries, had been conceived several years before. Such of the reasons finally availing for its adoption, as seemed fit to be committed to a formal record, are set forth in the preamble to the Articles.2

"Whereas we all came into these parts of America with one and the same end and aim, namely, to advance the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to enjoy the liberties of the Gospel in purity with peace;-and whereas in our settling (by a wise providence of God) we are further dispersed upon the sea-coasts and rivers than was at first intended, so that we cannot, according to our desire, with convenience communicate in one government and jurisdiction; -and whereas we live encompassed with people of several nations and strange languages, which hereafter may prove injurious to us, or our posterity; — and forasmuch as the natives have formerly committed sundry insolences and outrages upon several plantations of the English, and have of late combined themselves against us; and seeing by reason of those sad distractions in England which they have heard of, and by which they know we are hindered from that humble way of seeking advice, or reaping those comfortable fruits of protection, which at other times we might well expect: -We

1 Winthrop, II. 160.

2 The instrument is in Hazard, II. 1-6.

therefore do conceive it our bounden duty without delay to enter into a present consociation amongst ourselves, for mutual help and strength in all our future concernments; that, as in nation and religion, so in other respects, we be and continue one."

Of the five specifications here made, it was the third particularly that expressed the original occasion of the movement. The "people of several nations and strange languages" were the French upon the eastern frontier of the English colonists, the Dutch upon the western, and the Swedes on Delaware Bay. Six years after the fall of Gustavus Adolphus on the field of Lützen, a small company of this nation, following up a plan of colonization in America which had been favored by that hero, planted what proved to be the germ of the present State of Delaware. They were too distant and too few to be formidable to New England. The French did not seem likely for the present to attempt the use of any force, beyond what Massachusetts, which alone was exposed to it, was amply competent to cope with. But Connecticut and New Haven, from the first, had suffered annoyance from the Dutch settlement at the mouth of the Hudson.

1638.

1633.

When Minuit' was superseded as Director-General of the colony of New Netherland, it did not continue to thrive as before. But under the administration of his successor, Walter Van Twiller, a tradinghouse was erected on the Delaware, or South River, five years before the arrival of the Swedes; while another,

1 See above, p. 237.- Minuit, on his way back to Holland, in 1632, was driven by stress of weather into the English port of Plymouth. Here Captain Mason had his ship libelled, for carrying on an unlawful trade in a country belonging to the king of England, and followed up that step by a

representation to Sir John Coke, Secretary of State. The Dutch ambassador remonstrated, and a correspondence took place, in which the English government peremptorily maintained its right to the territory about Hudson's River, though, as an act of favor, Minuit's vessel was released.

established by him on the Connecticut, gave occasion to the disputes which have been mentioned, with the Plymouth people in the first instance, and afterwards with the planters from Massachusetts.1

Van Twiller, after an administration of four years, was succeeded by William Kieft, a man of resolution

1637.

1638.

1642.

and ability, though not worthy of esteem. When New Haven came to be planted, the settlements of English and Dutch, with fickle Indians between them, were drawing too close to each other for mutual satisfaction; and Kieft protested against the approach of his new neighbors, as an intrusion upon his masters' domain. There was a standing feud between the few Dutchmen at Hartford, and the later comers by whom they were surrounded; and it sometimes led to blows, in which the Dutch were worsted. Kieft drove off a party of English who attempted to plant at the western end of Long Island. He broke up a factory which the New Haven people had established on the Delaware, destroying the property and making prisoners of the people. Various other proceedings of his were thought to indicate a wide reach of unfriendly designs, and a purpose to rouse the hostility of the natives. He neglected complaints made against the Dutch for harboring fugitives from justice and runaway servants; for furnishing the Indians with arms and ammunition; and for dealing with them for goods stolen from the English.

1 See above, pp. 340, 451.

2 This was the party, from Lynn in Massachusetts, which ultimately, near the east end of the island, founded the town of Southampton (see above, p. 604). They had obtained a tract at the west end, on the north side, by purchase from the Indians and from one Forrett, who pretended to author ity to sell it as agent for the Earl of Stirling, patentee of the Council for New England. "The Dutch

VOL. I.

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sent men to take possession of the place, and set up the arms of the Prince of Orange upon a tree. The Lynn men sent ten or twelve men with provisions, &c., who began to build, and took down the Prince's arms, &c., and, in place thereof, an Indian had drawn an unhandsome face. The Dutch took this in high displeasure, and sent soldiers and fetched away their men," &c. (Winthrop, II. 6.)