Gambar halaman
PDF
ePub

11. Our principall places of Trade are New Yorke and South'ton except Albany for the Indyans, our buildings most wood, some lately stone & brick, good country houses & strong of their severall kindes.

12. Wee haue about 24 townes, villages or parishes in Six Precincts, Divisions, Rydeings, or Courts of Sessions.

13. Wee hane severall Rivers, Harbours and Roades, Hudson's River the chiefest & is abt. 4 fathom water att coming in butt six, tenn or more within & very good soundings & anchorage either in Hudson's River or in the Sound, the usuall roade before the town and moulde.

14. Our produce is land provisions of all sorts as of wheate exported yearly about 60000 bushells, pease, beefe, pork, & some Refuse fish, Tobacco, beavers, peltry or furrs from the Indians, Deale & oake timber, plankes, pipestaues, lumber, horses, & pitch & tarr lately begunn to be made, Commôdityes imported are all sorts of English manufacture for Christians & blanketts, Duffells &c. for Indians about 50000lb yearly, Pemaquid afords merchantable ffish & masts.

15. Wee haue noe Experience or skill of Salt Peter to be had in Quantityes.

16.

Our Merchts are not many but with inhabitants & planters about 2000, able to beare armes, old inhabitants of the place or of England, Except in & neere New Yorke of Dutch Extraction & some few of all nations, but few Servts, much wanted & but very few slaves.

17. Noe persons whateuer are to come from any place but according to act off Parl wch the magistrates and officers of the severall townes or places are to take care of, accordingly the plantacôn in these late yeares increased, but noe Generall acct hath been taken soe is not knowne how much nor what persons. Some few slaues are sometimes brought from Barbadoes, most for Provisions and sould att abt 30lb or 351b Country pay.

18. Ministers have been soe scarce & Religions many that noe acct cann be giuen of Children's births or christenings.

19. Scarcity of Ministers and Law admitting marriages by Justices, noe acct cann be giuen of the number marryed.

20. Noe acct cann be giuen of burialls, formes of burialls not being generally obserued & few ministers till very lately.

21. A mercht worth 1000lb or 500lb is accompted a good substantiall merchant and a planter worthe halfe that in moveables accompted [rich ?] with all the Estates may be valued at about £150,000.

22. There may lately haue traded to ye Collony in a yeare from tenn to fifteen shipps or vessells of about togeather 100 tunns each, English new England and our owne built of wch 5 small shipps and a Ketch now belonging to New Yorke foure of them built there.

23. Obstruccôns to Improuemt of planters, trade, Navigacôn and mutuall assistance are ye distinction of Collonies for our owne produce, as if different nations and people, though next neighbours upon the same tract of land, and His Maties subjects, we obserueing acts of trade & navigacôn &c. 24. Aduantages, Incouragemt & Improuemt of Planters trade & Navigacôn would be more if next neighbours of or own Nation the King's subjects on the same tract of land might without distinction, supply each other with our owne produce, punctually obserueing all acts of parliam1 for Exportacon & would dispose all persons the better for mutuall assistance.

25. Rates or dutyes upon Goods exported are 2$ for each hhd of Tobacco & 1s 3d on a beaver skin & other peltry proportionably, Provisions and all else paye nothing, Goods imported payes 2 per cent except Liquors particulerly rated something more, & Indian trade goeing up the river payes 3 per cent, there are some few quitt-rents, as also Excise or license moneys for retaileing stronge drinke & a way house or publique Scale: all applyed to ye Garrison and publique charge, to which it hath not hitherto sufficed by a greate deale.

26. There are Religions of all sorts, one church of England, Several Presbiterians & Independents, Quakers & Anabaptists of Severall sects, some Jews but presbiterians & Independ's most numerous & Substantiall.

27. The Duke maintaines a chapline wch is all the certaine allowance or Church of England, but peoples free gifts to ye Ministry, and all places obliged to build Churches & provide for a minister, in weh most very wanting, but presbiterians & Independ's desierous to have and maintaine them if to be had, There are abt 20 Churches or Meeting places of wch aboue halfe vacant their allowance like to be from 401b to 70lb a yeare and a house and garden. Noe Beggars but all poore cared ffor. If good Ministers could be had to goe thither might doe well & gaine much upon those people. Endorsed

"Answers of inquiries of New-York

Reed from St Edm. Andros on the 16th
of Ap. 1678."

NOTE.-Chalmers gives in his annals what purport to be copies of these Reports, but they will be found to be rather abstracts when compared with the official MSS. which are now published in full, it is believed for the first time.

[ocr errors]

V.

Ꮲ Ꭺ Ꮲ Ꭼ Ꭱ Ꮪ

RELATING TO

M. de la Barre's Expedition to Hungry Bay,

JEFFERSON COUNTY.

1684.

EXTRACT OF THE INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN BY THE KING TO M. DE LA BARRE.

[Paris Doc. Vol. II.]

Versailles, 10th May, 1682. He is equally informed that the Savages nearest adjoining to the French Settlements are the Algonquins and the Iroquois, that the latter had repeatedly troubled the peace and tranquility of the Colonies of New France until His Majesty having waged a severe war against them, they were finally constrained to submit and to live in peace and quietness without making any incursions on the lands inhabited by the French. But as these restless and warlike tribes cannot be kept down except by terror, and as His Majesty has even been informed by the last despatches, that the Onnontagués and Senecas-Iroquois tribes-have killed a Recollet and committed many other violences and that it is to be feared that they will push their audacity even further; It is very important that the said Sieur de la Barre put himself in a condition to proceed as early as possible, with 5 or 600 of the militia most favorably situated for this expedition along the shores of Lake Frontenac at the mouth of Lake Conty, to exhibit himself to those Iroquois Settlements in a condition to restrain them within their duty and even to attack them should they do any thing against the French, wherein he must observe that he is not to break with them without a very pressing necessity and an entire certitude to promptly and advantageously finish a war that he will have undertaken against them..

He must not only apply himself to prevent the violences of the Iroquois against the French. He must also endeavor to keep the Savages at peace among themselves, and prevent the Iroquois by all means making war on the Illinois and other tribes, neighbors to them, being very certain that if these Nations whose furs, the principal trade of Canada, are destroyed, should see themselves secure against the violence of the Iroquois by the protection they would receive from the French, they might be so much the more excited to wear their merchandizes and will thereby increase trade.

At the meeting held the tenth October, 1682, composed of M. the Governor, M. the Intendant, M. the Bishop of Quebec, M. Dollier Superior of the Seminary of St. Sulpice at Montreal, the Rev. Fathers Beschefer Superior, D'Ablon and Fremin, Jesuits, M. the Major of the City, Messrs. de Varenne Governor of the Three Rivers, de Brussy, Dalibout, Duguet, Lemoine, Ladurantais, Bizard, Chailly, Vieuxpont, Duluth, de Sorel, Derepentigny, Berthier, and Boucher.

It is proposed by M. the Governor, that from the records which M. the Count de Frontenac was pleased to deposit in his hands of what had passed at Montreal on the 12 Sept. last, between him

[blocks in formation]
« SebelumnyaLanjutkan »