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should be made in and through all the counties, cities, towns, and parishes of England and Wales, for a charitable contribution to be as the foundation of so pious and great an undertaking." And it directed "that the Commissioners of the United Colonies of New England in New England, or such as they should appoint, should have power to receive and dispose of the moneys brought in and paid to the Treasurers for the time being, or any other moneys, and goods and commodities, delivered by the care of the said Corporation at any time, in such manner as should best and principally conduce to the preaching and propagating of the Gospel amongst the natives, and the maintenance of schools and nurseries of learning for the education of the children of the natives." 1

While Massachusetts thus sought the aid of the government and people of England in her endeavors to civilize and evangelize the Indians, she made no communication to Parliament respecting her intercourse with American subjects of the Continental States of Europe. Her foreign relations she preferred to keep strictly under her own charge, and the charge of the Confederacy which confided much to her discretion. Her French neighbors at the east had not yet ceased to be troublesome. D'Aulnay, blockading La Tour's strong-hold, at St. John, took a Boston vessel which was carrying provisions for the relief of that post, and treated D'Aulnay her crew with severity. The Magistrates sent to him a letter of remonstrance, replying, at the same time, to one received from him, in which, in arrogant terms, he had charged them with a breach of the neutrality lately agreed upon. It was probably

1 The Ordinance is in Hazard, I. 635. The reader of it will not overlook, in the Fourth Article, the formal recognition of the Confederacy of the four New

and La Tour.

1645.

England Colonies, by the actual government of England.

* Winthrop, II. 217, 218.-It seems from D'Aulnay's letter (for which see

April.

while the letter from Massachusetts was on its way, that D'Aulnay took his rival's fort in an assault assisted by treachery from within, and put the garrison to the sword. La Tour was absent at the time on a third visit to Boston. His spirited wife, who had defended the fort with heroism, "died within three weeks after." His great loss of property fell heavily upon the Boston merchants, to whom he was largely indebted.2 He went to Newfoundland, in hope of assistance from the English governor, but "returned to Boston again by the vessel which carried him, and all the next winter was entertained by Mr. Samuel Maverick at Noddle's Island."3 His last dealings with his Boston friends were matter of strong resentment. They fitted him out for a voyage to the eastward, "with trading commodities to the value of four hundred pounds." With his retinue of Frenchmen, he rose upon the English part of the crew, and set them on shore in the winter on the wild coast about Cape Sable; "whereby," says the disappointed Winthrop, who to his own cost had been his patron, “it appeared, as the Scripture saith, that there is no confidence in an unfaithful or carnal man. Though tied with many strong bonds of courtesy, &c., he turned pirate, &c."* Meanwhile the Federal Commissioners had taken up

1646.

Mass. Hist. Coll., XXVII. 102), that it was written ("from Port Royal, the last of March") in reply to a letter from the Governor, of which Mr. Hathorne had been the bearer.

'Haliburton (History of Nova Scotia, I. 58, 59) says that D'Aulnay put the garrison to the sword, in violation of articles of capitulation, and that he treated Madame La Tour with insulting cruelty. But I do not so read the earlier authorities.

La Tour's mortgage deed to MajorGeneral Gibbons is in Hazard, I. 541. Winthrop says that by Gibbons's loss on this occasion he was "quite undone."

(II. 237, 238.) It amounted to “ more than 2,500 pounds.”

3

Winthrop, II. 247, 248; comp. Mass. Hist. Coll., XXVII. 105–108.

* Winthrop, II. 266. His sun, however, had not gone down. (Bella gerant alii; tu, felix Austria, nube.) D'Aulnay, while out, fishing, in a boat, was frozen to death, May 24, 1650. La Tour, wherever he had been roving meanwhile, presently reappeared, and, marrying his widow, was reinstated in position and property. Garneau says (I. 151) that La Tour, during part of this interval, had been hunting for furs on Hudson's Bay.

1645.

Sept. 2.

1646.

May.

the dispute between Massachusetts and D'Aulnay. At Boston, at their third meeting, they ratified the treaty which had been provisionally made between these parties; and, for greater security, a special messenger was despatched to obtain a renewal of the Frenchman's subscription. This he refused until the new controversy that had arisen should be composed. The General Court of Massachusetts (the Commissioners being no longer in session) then determined to send the Lieutenant-Governor, with Mr. William Hathorne and Mr. Daniel Dennison, to treat with him at Penobscot. D'Aulnay was too courteous to receive such an embassy without an expensive hospitality; and, being ill able to put himself to such a charge, he proposed on his part that the negotiation should take place at Boston.3 Thither accordingly Marie, the former envoy, came, with two associates. The business occupied a week. The old complaints and explanations were mutually revived and discussed. At length, an agreement was reached for "all injuries and demands to be remitted, and so a final peace to be concluded," on the condition of "a small present to M. D'Aulnay in satisfaction" of an act of violence committed by a Boston shipmaster, which the Magistrates did not undertake to justify.*

1 Records of the United Colonies, in Hazard, II. 53, 54; comp. above, p. 149. 'Mass. Rec., III. 44. The messenger was Mr. Bridges. (Winthrop, II. 259.) A translation of the Latin reply which he brought back from D'Aulnay is in Mass. Hist. Coll., XXVII. 109.

Winthrop, II. 259, 260, 266, 267. Ibid., 273-275; comp. 135. The French visitors were entertained with ceremony. They were escorted daily to and from the place of conference. They were lodged and dieted at the public charge, "and the Governor accompanied them always at meals." They

Sept. 20.

passed one Sunday in Boston, and were informed "that all men either came to the public meetings, or kept themselves quiet in their houses." "They continued private all that day until sunset," at the Governor's house, “and made use of such books, Latin and French, as he had, and the liberty of a private walk in his garden, and so gave no offence. The two first days after their arrival, their pinnace kept up her flag in the main-top;" after which time, on a courteous intimation from the Governor, it was struck.

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These transactions are of little interest except as showing with what freedom the Confederacy or, as the case might be, Massachusetts, acting for it-took the position of an independent power.1 On her western border, New England had foreign relations of a more practical description to oversee and adjust. The Dutch at New Netherland were, from time to time, asserting the Dutch of a claim which the English colonists considered New Nether themselves to be under obligations alike of honor and of interest to fend off, at least as long as their friends in England were too busy to give it their attention.

Disputes with

land.

1646. Aug. 8.

Sept. 7.

The New-Haven people having set up a trading-house some ten miles northwestwardly from their town, the Dutch Governor wrote to the Governors of Massachusetts and New Haven to remonstrate against what he represented as an encroachment on his domain.3 The business came before the Federal Commissioners, who sent a messenger to New Amsterdam, to declare their approbation of the proceeding of their friends at New Haven, and to make a counter complaint of misbehavior on the part of the Dutch at Hartford. Kieft, the Governor of the Dutch, was soon after displaced; and his successor, Peter Stuyvesant, being arrived at the Manhattoes, sent his secretary to Boston, bearing a letter to the Gover nor, "with tender of all courtesy and good correspondency." Some of the Commissioners would have met his overture with cordiality; but, as in the letter he "laid claim to all between Connecticut and Delaware," the

1647.

5

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Aug. 17.

Commissioners from the western Colonies "thought otherwise, supposing it would be more to their advantage to stand upon terms of distance. And answer was returned accordingly, only taking notice of his offer, and showing our readiness to give him a meeting in time and place convenient." It complained at the same time of the sale of arms and ammunition by the Dutch to the Indians, and of the extortion by them of high duties from English traders.

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2

September.

A serious occasion of resentment occurred when Stuyvesant, by a stratagem, captured a Dutch vessel in New-Haven harbor for an alleged evasion of certain payments due to his government. The Commissioners were not sure that the charge was not well founded. But it in no sort justified the outrage on friendly territory; and the Dutch Governor had even gone so far as to intimate a claim to "the place, and so all along the sea-coast to Cape Cod," and had directed his letter to "New Haven in the Netherlands." Three servants of his, who had come to New Haven, were there imprisoned. He wrote to demand their restitution, which was refused.*

While new in his place, Stuyvesant had misunderstood the proprieties and the capacities of his situation. A better acquaintance with it tended to lower his tone; and he now wrote to the Governor of Massachusetts,

1648.

proposing to submit to him and the Governor of March. Plymouth the matters in dispute between New Haven and New Netherland, "with some kind of retractation of his former claim." The General Court was consulted, who thought the matter more weighty and general to the concernment of all the country, than that anything

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1 Winthrop, II. 314. For the letter, see Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 97.

2 N. H. Rec., I. 508, 511, 515; O'Callaghan, New Netherland, II. 48. Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 132.

3

See N. H. Rec., I. 511-530, for a collection of letters which passed, at this time, between New Haven and the Dutch Governor; comp. 361, 413.

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