SEEKING BETTER FORTUNE.
On peace and rest my mind was bent,
And fool I was I married;
But never honest man's intent
As cursedly miscarried.
--BURNS.
In Virginia's colonial days, no man was better known than John Smith Stevens. His father was one of the original founders of Jamestown and, it was said, had felled the first tree to build the city. John Smith was his first born, and was named in honor of Captain John Smith, a personal friend.
John Smith Stevens was born about the year 1625, the same year that Governor Wyat defeated the Indians. He was four years of age when John Harvey became colonial governor in 1629, and a year later, 1630, Sir George Calvert came to Jamestown on his way to colonize Maryland under the charter of Lord Baltimore. He was old enough to remember the stormy days in the assembly, when, on the "28th of April, 1635, Sir John Harvey thrust out of his government, and Captain John West acts as Governer till the king's pleasure is known." He never knew exactly why Sir John Harvey was thrust out; but he heard some one say he was interfering with the liberties of the people.
He knew that the king replaced him, however. Then the people said that all Virginia was divided into eightShires: James City, Henrico, Charles City, Elizabeth City, Warwick River, Warrosquoyake, Charles River, and Accawmacke, and that a lieutenant was appointed over each to protect them against the Indians. John Stevens remembered when William Claybourne, the famous rebel of colonial Virginia, tried to urge the people, against the will of the king, to drive the colonists out of Maryland, which they claimed as a part of their domain.
Claybourne established a colony at Kent Island, from whence a burgess was sent. Leonard Calvert was governor of Maryland, and a misunderstanding arose between him and Claybourne on Kent Island. Claybourne must go, for the island was part of Maryland, although the right of his lordship's patent was yet undetermined in England. Claybourne resisted. He declared that he was on Virginia territory by the king's patent, and was the owner of Kent Island, and that he meant to stay there. He would also sail to and fro in his trading ship, theLongtail, to traffic with the Indians. If he were attacked he would defend himself. He soon had an opportunity to make good his boasts. Leonard Calvert seized theLongtail, and Claybourne sent a swift pinnace with fourteen fighting men to recapture her. This was in the year 1634, when John Stevens was nine years of age; but the affair was the talk of the time, and consequently was indelibly stamped on his young mind. Two Maryland pinnaces went to meet Claybourne, and a desperate fight occurred on the Potomac River. A volley of musket-balls was poured into Claybourne's pinnace, and three of his men fell dead. Calvert captured the pinnace; but Claybourne escaped. He was driven from Kent Island and escaped to Virginia; but Sir John Harvey refused to surrender him, and John Stevens saw the rebel when he embarked for England, where he made a strong fight before the throne for Kent Island. Although he seemed for a while about to triumph, the lords commissioners of plantations finally decided against his claims, thus dispelling the rosy dreams of Claybourne.
In 1642, there came to Virginia as governor of the colony Sir William Berkeley, then almost forty years of age, when John Stevens was only seventeen. Berkeley was a man of charming manners, proverbially polite, and he delighted the Virginians, who had a weakness for courtliness. He belonged to an ancient English family, and believed in monarchy as a devotee believes in his saint, "and he brought to the little capital at Jamestown all the graces, amenities, and well-bred ways which at that time were characteristic of the cavaliers. He was a cavalier of the cavaliers, taking the word to signify an adherent of monarchy and the established church," and thoroughly hated anything resembling republicanism. For his king and church, this smiling gentleman, with his easy and friendly air, was going to fight like a tiger or a ruffian. Under his glove of velvet was a hand of iron, which would fall inexorably alike on the New England Puritans and the followers of Bacon. With the courage of his convictions, he was ready to deal out banishment for the dissenters; shot and the halter for rebels. He lived on his estate of about a thousand acres at Greenspring, not far from Jamestown. "Here he had plate, servants, carriages, seventy horses, fifteen hundred apple trees, besides apricots, peaches, pears, quinces and mellicottons. When, in the stormy times, the poor cavaliers flocked to Virginia to find a place of refuge, he entertained them after a royal fashion in this Greenspring Manor house. As to the Virginians, they were always welcome, so that they did not belong to the independents, haters of the church and king."
From the very first, John Stevens did not like Governor Berkeley and in a short time learned that he was a tyrant. Berkeley issued his proclamation against the Puritan pastors, prohibiting their teaching or preaching publicly or privately.
John Smith Stevens participated in the Indian war in 1644, and saw Opechancanough, at this time almost a hundred years of age, captured and brought to Jamestown, where he requested his captors to hold open his eyes, that he might see and upbraid Sir William Berkeley for making a public exhibition of him. A short hour afterward the aged chieftain was treacherously wounded by his guard.
In the year 1648, John Stevens married Dorothe Collier, the daughter of a clergyman of the church of England. This naturally united him to the cavalier or church party, while his mother, brother and sister were Puritans. Sometimes John thought he had the best wife living, at others he was almost persuaded that she was intolerable. She was a beautiful brunette, with great dark eyes which smiled when the sky was fair, but in which appeared the lustre of a tigress when enraged. Love in its full strength and beauty seldom dwells in the heart of both husband and wife through all the vicissitudes of life. It was so in John's case. When the honeymoon waned and practical existence began, the wife became ambitious for a more showy manner of life and more pleasures than the husband could afford. He was prosperous; but his wife's extravagance, in which he indulged her at first, kept him poor. Poverty became a burden and marriage a mockery. He who had been insanely in love, and who was unable to live out of her presence, proved an indifferent husband before the honeymoon was over. Why? John had thought his wife an angel, and marriage had shattered his idol. His ideal woman had fallen so far below his expectations that disappointment drove him to indifference. His wife thought herself his superior, and John, to her, was more a convenience than a husband.
Gradually Dorothe grew indifferent toward her husband's mother and young sister, who idolized him, and though they bore her no thought of ill, she came to despise them. John's mother saw that her son's wife was ruining him by her extravagance, yet she dared not interpose as it would make the rupture complete. Dorothe was a haughty cavalier and despised all Puritans and, most of all, her husband's mother; but the cavaliers were in trouble. King Charles was tried, condemned and beheaded in 1649, and a protectorate (Oliver Cromwell) ruled over England a few months after the execution of the king. John Stevens' wife gave birth to a son who was named Robert for his wife's father.
Though England was a commonwealth, Virginia remained loyal to the wandering prince, who slept in oaks and had more adventures than any other man of his day. Berkeley, it is said, even invited him to come and rule over Virginia, assuring him of his support; but Parliament took notice of the saucy colony and, in 1650, ordered a fleet to conquer it. The fleet did not reach Jamestown until 1652, when, after a little fluster, Sir William Berkeley retired to Greenspring, and the government was turned over to the roundheads, who chose Richard Bennet, Esquire, to be governor of the colony for one year. On the day of Bennet's inauguration, John Steven's second child, a daughter, whom he named Rebecca, was born. These two links of love made his wife more dear to him. At times she was pleasant; but usually she studied to thwart his will. She was humbled with the cavaliers and hated the Puritans. Ann Linkon, an old woman given to gossiping, incurred the displeasure of Dorothe Stevens, because she gossiped about her extravagance. She had her arrested, condemned and ducked as we have seen. There was no open rupture between Dorothe and her husband's relatives. She still greeted them with half-smiles; but those half-smiles were cold and uncongenial, and there seemed to be a settled purpose on her part as well as theirs to dislike each other. To no one did Dorothe express this dislike save to her husband, and to him she never lost an opportunity for doing so.
In 1654, Claybourne, who was in possession of Kent Island, was threatened by the Catholics from Maryland, and John Stevens, with his friend Hugh Price and half a dozen more, went to aid in the defence of the island. They camped at the mouth of the Severn, in the vicinity of the present city of Annapolis, where they were joined by Claybourne and a body of three hundred men.
On the 25th of March, 1654, Stone sailed with a force down the river, landed and attacked Claybourne. At early dawn the sleeping Puritans were awakened by the boom of cannon and volleys of muskets. They arose, formed their lines of battle and poured a tremendous fire upon the enemy. The Marylanders landed and tried to storm their fort; but after an hour retreated, leaving twenty killed and twice as many wounded on the field. Claybourne had conquered and, for a brief space of time, was to hold sway over the Severn and Kent Island.
John Stevens returned to his home to find that his wife's extravagance had impoverished his estates and almost brought him to beggary. He had remonstrated with her without avail. She wrecked her husband's fortune for a few weeks of vain show.
"Were you more prudent, Dorothe," said John, "we could soon live at ease. I have fine estates and earn money sufficient to make us comfortable for life and leave a competency for our children."
"Peace, man! Do you disdain to labor for your wife and children? Do not other men support their families, and why not you, pray?"
"But other men have helpmates in their wives."
This was the spark which ignited the hidden fires. Her black eyes blazed, and her breast heaved. She upbraided him until he withdrew and, mounting his horse, rode away. At night he returned to find his wife silent and morose, and for nine days they scarcely spoke. This life was trying to John.
After a few days she grew more amiable and expressed sympathy with her husband in his financial straits.
"I am going to economize," she declared. "I will take no heed what I shall eat, nor what I shall drink, nor wherewithal I shall be clothed."
Again for the thousandth time he took heart. After all, Dorothe might become a helpmate. She was so beautiful and so cheerful in her pleasanter moods that he thought her a treasure. When he took his baby on his knee and felt her soft, warm cheek against his own, he realized that life might be endurable even in adversity.
One evening, as they talked over his financial troubles, he said:
"Our family has a fortune in Florida."
At the name of fortune, Mrs. Stevens' head became erect, and she was all attention like a war-horse at the blast of a trumpet.
"If you have a fortune there, why don't you go and get it?" she asked.
"We would, I trow, did we know we could have it for the going," he made answer.
"And wherefore can you not?"
"St. Augustine is under the Spanish rule, and we know not that they will permit an Englishman even to inherit property there. My grandfather was a Spaniard and died possessed of valuable property."
"Can you not get it? Can you not get it?" she asked.
"I do not know."
"Try."
"We have thought to try it."
His brother was sent to Florida, but failed, though assured by the lawyers that they might in time recover it.
There is no business so unprofitable as waiting for dead men's money. Fortune flies at pursuit and smiles on the indifferent.
The prospects of John Stevens were certainly at a low ebb, and he found his affairs daily growing worse. Large consignments of tobacco sent to England remained unpaid for, and he stood in danger of losing all. He thought of making a voyage to London for the purpose of looking after his accounts. John Stevens had never been away from his family, save in the short campaign on the Severn, and he dreaded to leave home. He loved his children and, despite her faults, he loved his wife. As he held his baby in his arms and listened to her gentle crowing and heard the merry prattle of his boy at play, he asked himself if he should ever see those children again, were he to go away.
John had three friends in whom he reposed great confidence. They were Drummond, Lawerence, and Cheeseman. One evening he met them at the home of Drummond and, relating his condition, asked:
"Knowing all as you do, what do you advise?"
"By all means, go to London," answered Drummond.
"Ought I to leave my wife and children?"
"Wherefore not?"
"If I perish on the voyage, they will be wholly unprovided for."
"Your father was a sailor."
"But his son is not."
"Yet methinks the son should inherit some of the father's courage."
John Stevens' cheek reddened at the delicate insinuation against his courage, and he responded:
"Have I not, on more than one hard-fought field, established my claim to courage?"
"True, yet why shrink from this voyage?"
"A soothsayer once predicted that dire calamities would overcome me, were I ever to venture upon the sea."
At this Cheeseman and Drummond laughed and even the thoughtful Mr. Lawerence smiled. Though soothsayers in those days were not generally gainsaid, those four men at Drummond's house lived in advance of their age.
"Go on your voyage and save the sum in jeopardy," was Drummond's advice.
"If your going will make sure the sum, hesitate not a single moment," interposed Cheeseman.
"How much is involved?" asked the thoughtful Mr. Lawrerence.
"Eight hundred pounds."
"Quite a sum."
"Verily, it is. The amount would at this day relieve all my embarrassments; yet, if I go, I leave nothing behind, for my property is gone, and my family is unprovided for."
"Secure the eight hundred pounds and provide for them."
With this advices in mind, he went home, and that same evening Hugh Price, the young royalist, who lived with Sir William Berkeley at Greenspring, called to see him, and once more the voyage to London was discussed.
"By all means, go," Hugh advised. "It is your duty to go."
Mrs. Stevens was consulted and thought she should go also; she saw no reason in his taking a pleasure voyage and leaving his wife at home; but this was out of the question, for the baby was too young to endure the voyage; besides, the cost of taking her would more than double the expense. Then Mrs. Stevens, who thought only of a pleasant time, wanted to know why she could not be sent in his stead. He explained that it was a matter of business which a woman could not perform; but Mrs. Stevens became unreasonable, declaring:
"You wish to go to London and pass your time in gay society."
"I do not," he answered.
"Verily, you do. You tire already of your wife; you would seek another."
"Dorothe, I would wed no other woman living," answered John, with a sigh.
"They all say that; yet no sooner is the wife laid in the grave than they are anxious to find one younger and more fair."
"Women do the same," John ventured to urge in defence of his sex.
"Not so often as the men."
Then Mrs. Stevens began a harangue on the evils of second marriages and wound up by declaring they were compacts of the devil. John Stevens returned to the original question of his going to London.
"My friends all declare that it is my duty to go," he said.
"Your friends! who are your friends?"
"Drummond."
"An ignorant Scotchman."
Drummond was far from being ignorant, yet he stood not in favor with Mrs. Stevens.
"Mr. Lawerence advises it."
"He is a canting hypocrite."
"Mr. Edward Cheeseman also thinks it advisable."
"Verily, he is a scheming man, who will swindle you out of the eight hundred pounds when you have secured it."
"Hugh Price agrees with them."
"Does he?" asked Mrs. Stevens.
"He does."
"I don't believe it."
Hugh Price was, in her estimation, the perfection of manhood. He was of the same church, a thorough royalist and a close friend of Sir William Berkeley the deposed governor.
"Dorothe, I said he recommended it. Pray do not doubt it."
The matter was settled next day when Hugh Price himself said to Mrs. Stevens that it was best for her husband to go. She secretly resolved that during her husband's absence she would enjoy herself.
"John," she said, "if you are going away to London to enjoy yourself, you must leave with me two or three hundred pounds."
John Stevens interrupted her with a sarcastic laugh.
"Dorothe, had I two or three hundred pounds, I would not go."
"Verily, how do you expect me to pass the dreary interval of your absence, if I have no luxuries."
"Luxuries in our poor country are uncommon, and what few we have are expensive. Think not of luxuries, but rather of necessities. Husband the little money I shall be able to leave you and be prepared against adversity. I may never return."
"Wherefore not?" cried Mrs. Stevens. "Do you contemplate an elopement? You were seen holding converse with Susan Colgate."
Mrs. Stevens had, among other weaknesses, enough of the "green-eyed monster" to make herself miserable. Susan Colgate was a pretty maiden at Jamestown, whose charms John Stevens had praised in his wife's presence. He smiled at her interruption and, after assuring her that he had no intention of eloping, said:
"The ship may sink; then you and these two little children will be unprovided for. I beseech you, husband the little I leave."
"Have no fears, I shall care for them in some way; but I am not going to forego anything in anticipation of disaster. Surely you will come back. My great grief at the absence of my husband will rend my heart so sorely that I must needs have some pleasure to drive away the sorrow and perpetuate the bloom on these cheeks and the brightness in these eyes for you."
Silly John Stevens yielded to his wife and consented to set apart for luxuries some of the small amount he was to leave. Mrs. Stevens was born to squander. Ann Linkon had said of her:
"She could cast from the window more than the good husband could throw in at the door." But Ann was adjudged of slander, and ducked for the charge.
John paid his mother a visit before departing. That sweet, gentle mother greeted her unhappy son with, tears. It was seldom Dorothe permitted him to visit her. His mother knew it and always assumed a cheerfulness she was far from feeling. Ofttimes poor John had a hard struggle between duty to his mother and fidelity to wife. It was a struggle in which no earthly friend could aid him.
The day to sail came. At an early hour the vessel was to weigh anchor, and just as the approaching day began to paint the eastern horizon an orange hue, John rose and prepared to depart. All the town was quiet. His children were sleeping, and he bent over them and pressed a kiss upon the cheek of each, murmuring a faint:
"God bless you!"
"Shall I awake them?" his wife asked.
"No, no; the parting will be much easier if they sleep.
"Dear, I do so regret your going!" sobbed Mrs. Stevens, genuine tears gathering in her eyes.
"Heaven grant, Dorothe, it may not be for long."
"I will go with you to the boat," she said, hurriedly dressing herself.
John's small effects had been carried aboard the evening before, so he had only to go on board himself. As Mrs. Stevens buckled her shoes, she repeated:
"I do so regret your going. I shall be so anxious about you and so lonesome."
[Illustration: Once more he bent over the sleeping children.]
John heard her, but made no answer. He was standing with folded arms gazing on his sleeping children. Moisture gathered in his eyes, and he murmured a silent but fervent prayer to God to bless and spare them. There came a knock at the door. It was a sailor come to tell him the boat was waiting to carry him on board the ship, that the tide and wind were fair and they only awaited his arrival to sail.
Once more he tenderly bent over the sleeping children and pressed a kiss on the face of each. A tear fell on the chubby cheek of little Rebecca, causing her to smile.
"Farewell, little darling!" and the father quitted his home and, accompanied by his wife, hurried to the beach. Here was a short pause, a last embrace, a fond adieu, and the husband left the weeping wife on the strand, while he was rowed to the great ship which had already begun to hoist anchor.
THE COLONIES OF THE NEW WORLD.
We love
The king who loves the law, respects his bounds,
And reigns content within them; him we serve
Freely and with delight, who leaves us free:
But recollecting still that he is a man,
We trust him not too far.
--COWPER.
The Dutch, who still held possession of Manhattan Island and the territory now known as New York, were not enjoying the peace and tranquillity promised the just. Because some swine had been stolen from the plantation of De Vries on Staten Island, the Dutch governor sent an armed force to chastise the innocent Raritans in New Jersey, believing that a show of power would disarm the vengeance of the savages. The event was so grossly unjust that it not only aroused the Raritans, but all neighboring tribes, and they prepared for war. The hitherto peaceful Raritans killed the whites whenever they found them alone in the forest. Fifteen years before some of Minuet's men murdered an Indian belonging to a tribe seated beyond the Harlem River. His nephew, then a boy, who saw the outrage and made a vow of vengeance, had now grown to be a lusty man. He executed his vow by murdering a wheelwright while he was examining his tool-chest for a tool, cleaving his skull with an axe. Governor Kieft demanded the murderer; but his chief would not give him up, saying he had sought vengeance according to the customs of his race.
The governor, who cared little for the "customs of the race," determined to chastise that tribe as he had the Raritans, and called upon the people to shoulder their muskets for the fray; but they, seeing the danger to which the rashness of the governor was leading them, refused. They had been witnesses of his rapacity and greed, and they now charged him with seeking war that he might "make a wrong reckoning with the colony," and reproached him with selfish cowardice.
"It is all well for you," they said, "who have not slept out of a fort a single night since you came, to endanger our lives and homes in undefended places."
The autocrat was transformed by the bold attitude of the people. Reason dawned upon his dull brain, and he invited all the heads of families in New Amsterdam to meet him in convention to consult upon public affairs. The result of this invitation was the selection of twelve men to act as representatives for the people, which formed the first popular assembly and first representative congress for political purposes in the New Netherlands. Thus were planted the seeds of a representative democracy, in the year 1641, almost on the very spot where, a century and a half later, our great republic, founded upon similar principles, was inaugurated, when Washington took the oath of office as the first president of the United States.
These twelve representatives of the people chose De Vries as president of their number. To that body the governor submitted the question whether the murderer of the wheelwright ought to be demanded of his chief, and whether, in case of the chief's refusal, the Dutch ought to make war upon his tribe and burn the village wherein he dwelt. The twelve counselled peace and proceeded to consider the propriety of establishing a government similar to that of the fatherland. To this the governor cunningly agreed to make popular concessions if the twelve would authorize him to make war on the offending tribe at the proper time, to which they foolishly assented. Then the surly governor dissolved them, saying he had no further use for them, and forbade any popular assemblage thereafter.
Next spring (1642) Kieft sent an expedition against the offending tribe, but a treaty disappointed his thirst for military glory. The river Indians were tributary to the Mohawks, and in midwinter, 1643, a large party of the Iroquois came down to collect by force of arms tribute which had not been paid. The natives along the lower Hudson, to the number of about five hundred, fled before the invaders, taking refuge with the Hackensacks at Hoboken and craving the protection of the Dutch. At the same time many of the offending Westchester tribe, and others fled to Manhattan and took refuge with the Hollanders. De Vries thought this a good opportunity to establish a permanent peace with the savages; but Kieft, who still seemed to thirst for blood, made it an occasion for treachery and death.
One dark, cold night, late in February, 1643, when the snow fell fast, and the wind blew loud and shrill, and there was not a star to be seen in the sky, eighty men were sent by Kieft to attack the fugitives at Hoboken and those at "Colaer's Hook," who were slumbering in fancied security. Forty of those at the Hook were massacred, while the Hollanders, who had stealthily crossed the river through floating ice, were making the snows at Hoboken crimson with blood of confiding Indians and lighting up the heavens with the blaze of their wigwams. They spared neither age nor sex. "Warrior and squaw, sachem and child, mother and babe," says Brodhead, "were alike massacred. Daybreak scarcely ended the furious slaughter. Mangled victims, seeking safety in the thickets, were driven into the river, and parents, rushing to save their children, whom the soldiery had thrown into the stream, were driven into the waters and drowned before the eyes of their unrelenting murderers."
[Illustration: KIEFT, FROM THE RAMPARTS, WATCHED THE BURNING WIGWAMS.]
It has been estimated that fully one hundred perished in this ruthless butchery. Historians state that Kieft, from the ramparts at Fort Amsterdam, watched the burning wigwams. This treachery and wholesale murder roused the fiery hatred of the savages and kindled a war so fierce that Kieft was frightened by the fury of the tempest which his wickedness and folly had raised, and he humbly asked the people to choose a few men again to act as his counsellors. The colonists, who had lost all confidence in the governor, chose eight citizens to relieve them from the fearful net of difficulties in which they were involved. Almost the first these eight advisers did was to ask the states-general at home to recall Governor Kieft, which was promptly done, and while on his way to Europe with his ill-gotten gains, his vessel went down, and the governor perished.
Peter Stuyvesant, the brave soldier who had lost a leg in the West Indies, was sent as governor to New Amsterdam, and he arrived in May, 1647. The stern, stubborn old soldier was received with great demonstrations of joy by the Hollanders. Despite all his stubbornness, Stuyvesant was a man of keen sagacity. He was despotic, yet honest and wise. He set about some much needed reforms, refusing to sell liquors and arms to the Indians. He soon taught the Indians to respect and fear him; but at the same time they learned to admire his honesty and courage.
By prudent and adroit management, Stuyvesant swept away many annoyances in the shape of territorial claims. When the Plymouth Company assigned their American domain to twelve persons, they conveyed to Lord Stirling, the proprietor of Nova Scotia, a part of New England and an island adjacent to Long Island. Stirling tried to take possession of Long Island, but failed. At his death, in 1647, his widow sent a Scotchman to assert the claim and act as governor. He proclaimed himself as such, but was promptly arrested by Stuyvesant and put on board a ship bound for Holland. The vessel touched at an English port, where the "governor" escaped, and no further trouble with the family of Lord Stirling ensued.
Stuyvesant went to Hartford and settled by treaty all disputes with the New Englanders which had annoyed his predecessors. Then he turned his attention to the suppression of the expanding power and influence of the Swedes on the Delaware. The accession of a new queen to the throne of Sweden made it necessary to make a satisfactory adjustment of the long-pending dispute about the territory. Stuyvesant was instructed to act firmly but discreetly. Accompanied by his suite of officers, he went to Fort Nassau on the New Jersey side of the Delaware, whence he sent Printz, the governor of New Sweden, an abstract of the title of the Dutch to the domain and called a council of the Indian chiefs in the neighborhood. These chiefs declared the Swedes to be usurpers and by solemn treaty gave all the land to the Dutch. Then Stuyvesant crossed over and, near the site of New Castle in Delaware, built a fort, which he called Fort Cassimer. Governor Printz protested in vain. The two magistrates held friendly personal intercourse, and they mutually promised to "keep neighborly friendship and correspondence together." This strange friendly conquest was in the year 1651. The following year an important concession was made to the inhabitants of New Amsterdam. A constant war was waged between Stuyvesant and the representatives of the people called the "Nine." The governor tried to repress the spirit of popular freedom; the Nine fostered it. They wanted a municipal government for their growing capital and, fearing the governor, made a direct application to the states-general for the privilege. It was granted, and the people of New Amsterdam were allowed a government like the free cities of Holland, the officers to be appointed by the governor. Under this arrangement, New Amsterdam (afterward New York) was, early in 1653, organized as a city. Stuyvesant was very much annoyed by this "imprudent entrusting of power with the people."
Stuyvesant was a royalist, and for years he struggled with the increasing spirit of republicanism, which was constantly growing among his people; but he was not troubled by his domestic affairs alone; his foreign relations were once more disturbed. Governor Printz returned to Sweden, and in his place the warlike magistrate John Risingh came to the Delaware with some soldiers under the bold Swen Schute, and appeared before Fort Cassimer demanding its surrender.
The Dutch residents fled to the fort demanding protection; but Bikker the commander said:
"I have no powder. What can I do?"
After an hour's parley, Bikker went out, leaving the gate of the fort wide open, and shook hands with Schute and his men, welcoming them as friends. The Swedes fired two shots over the fort in token of its capture and then, blotting out the Dutch garrison, named it Fort Trinity, as the surrender was on Trinity Sunday, 1654.
Stuyvesant was enraged and perplexed by this surrender. At that time he was expecting an attack from the English, and the doughty governor prepared to wipe out the stain on Belgic prowess caused "by that infamous surrender." On the first Sunday in September, 1655, with seven vessels carrying more than six hundred soldiers, he sailed from New Amsterdam for the Delaware. He landed his force on the beach between Fort Cassimer and Fort Christina near Wilmington, and an ensign with a drum was sent to the fort to demand the surrender. The warlike Schute complied next day, and in the presence of Stuyvesant and his suite he drank the health of the governor in a glass of Rhenish wine. So ended the bloodless conquest.
[Illustration: Stuyvesant.]
On his return to Manhattan, Stuyvesant found the wildest confusion reigning because of a sudden uprising of the Indians. A former civil officer named Van Dyck had a very fine peach orchard which caused him no little annoyance on account of the constant pilfering of the Indians. Van Dyck, had grown exasperated and had vowed to kill the next Indian whom he should discover stealing his fruit. One day while the stout Dutchman was at his midday meal, his son ran in to tell him that he had seen an Indian squaw enter the orchard. Van Dyck sprang from the table vowing vengeance, and from the rack made of deer's horns he took down his fusee and rushed into the orchard, taking care to conceal himself until he was within easy range. The squaw saw him and, with a yell of fear, wheeled to fly for her life; but Van Dyck was a true shot and, bringing his gun to his shoulder, killed her as she ran.
[Illustration: THE SQUAW, WITH A YELL OF FEAR, WHEELED TO FLY FOR HER LIFE.]
The fury of the tribe was kindled, and the long peace of ten years was suddenly broken. One morning before daybreak almost two thousand river Indians in sixty large war-canoes landed, distributed themselves through the town and, under pretence of looking for northern Indians, broke into several dwellings in search of Van Dyck. A council of the inhabitants was immediately held at the fort, and the sachems of the invaders were summoned before them. The Indian leaders agreed to leave the city and pass over to Nutten (now Governor's Island), before sunset; but they broke their promise. That afternoon Van Dyck was discovered, and they opened fire on him. He fled down the street, but was finally shot and killed, and the lives of others were threatened. The people flew to arms and drove the savages to their canoes. The Indians crossed the Hudson and ravaged New Jersey and Staten Island. Within three days a hundred inhabitants were killed, one hundred and fifty made captives, and the estates of three hundred utterly desolated by the dusky foe. In the height of the excitement, Stuyvesant returned and soon brought order out of chaos, yet distant settlements were still broken up, the inhabitants in fear flying to Manhattan for safety. To prevent a like calamity in the future, the governor issued a proclamation ordering all who lived in secluded places in the country to gather themselves into villages "after the fashion of our New Engand neighbors." After some desultory fighting on the frontier, Dutch and Indian hostilities in a great measure ceased, and for about ten years, beyond the threatenings of the English on the one hand and the Indians on the other, New Netherland enjoyed a season of peace and prosperity.
The New England colonies, with the exception of Rhode Island and a part of the Mason and Gorges claim, had, in 1644, formed a confederacy. The New England Confederacy--the harbinger of the United States of America--was simply a league of independent provinces, as were the thirteen states under the "Articles of Confederation," each jealously guarding its own privileges and rights against any encroachments of the general government. That central body was in reality no government at all. It was composed of a board of commissioners consisting of two church members from each colony, who were to meet annually, or oftener if required. Their duty was to consider circumstances and recommend measures for the general good. They had no executive or independent legislative powers, their recommendations becoming laws only after they had been acted upon and approved by the colonies. The doctrine of state supremacy was controlling. Though it was not a government, or at least only a government in embryo, yet the student can see from these separate colonies, jealous of their rights, the outcoming of the United States.
Of that famous league, Massachusetts assumed control because of her greater population and her superiority as a "perfect republic." It remained in force more than forty years, during which period the government of England was changed three times. When trouble arose between King Charles I. and Parliament, the New Englanders, being Puritans, were in sympathy with the roundheads. In 1649 King Charles lost his throne and life, and England for a brief time became a commonwealth. Unlike the Virginians, the New Englanders sympathized with the English republicans, and found in Oliver Cromwell, the ruler of England next to the beheaded Charles I., a sincere friend and protector. The growth of the colony of Massachusetts was particularly healthy. A profitable commerce between the colony and the West Indies, now that the obnoxious navigation laws were a dead letter, was created. That trade brought bullion, or uncoined gold and silver, into the colony, which led, in 1652, to the exercise of an act of sovereignty on the part of the authorities of Massachusetts by the establishment of a mint. It was authorized by the general assembly, in 1651, and the following year "silver coins of the denomination of threepence, sixpence and twelvepence, or shilling, were struck. This was the first coinage within the territory of the United States."
There lived in Boston at this time a family named Stevens. The head of the family was a white-haired old man named Mathew, whose dark eyes and complexion indicated southern blood. He was a foster-son of the Pilgrim Father, Mr. Robinson, and had come to New England in theMayflowerwhen she made her first memorable voyage to Plymouth, thirty-two years before.
Mathew Stevens had removed with his family from New Plymouth to Boston the year before the king of England lost his head. This man was a brother to the father of John Stevens of Virginia, and though he had Spanish blood in his veins, he was a Puritan. The Puritan of Massachusetts was, at this time, the straitest of his sect, an unflinching egotist, who regarded himself as eminently his "brother's keeper," whose constant business it was to save his fellow-men from sin and error, sitting in judgment upon their belief and actions with the authority of a divinely appointed high priest. His laws, found on the statute books of the colony, or divulged in the records of court proceedings, exhibit the salient points in his stern and inflexible character, as a self-constituted censor and a conservator of the moral and spiritual destiny of his fellow-mortals. A fine was imposed on every woman wearing her hair cut short like a man's; all gaming for amusement or gain was forbidden, and cards and dice were not permitted in the colony. A father was fined if his daughter did not spin as much flax or wool as the selectmen required of her. No Jesuit or Roman Catholic priest was permitted to make his residence within the colony. All persons were forbidden to run or even walk, "except to and from church" on Sunday, and a burglar, because he committed his crime on that sacred day, was to have one of his ears cut off. John Wedgewood was placed in the stocks for being in the company of drunkards. Thomas Petit, for "suspicion of slander, idleness and stubbornness," was severely whipped. Captain Lowell, a dashing ladies' man, more of a cavalier and modern society fop than a sober Puritan, was admonished to "take heed of his light carriage." The records show that Josias Plaistowe, for stealing four baskets of corn from the Indians, was ordered to return to them eight baskets, to be fined five pounds, and thereafter to "be called by the name of Josias, and not Mr. Plaistowe, as formerly." The grand jurors were directed to admonish those who wore apparel too costly for their income, and, if they did not heed the warning, to fine them, and in the year 1646 there was enacted a law in Massachusetts which imposed a penalty of flogging for kissing a woman on the street, even in the way of honest salute. This law remained in force for a hundred years, though it was practically ignored.
In this school of rigid Puritanism lived the northern family of Stevens, of the same Spanish branch as the Virginia family. The head of the family, having been trained by such devout men as John Robinson and William Brewster, of course grew up in the law and customs of the Puritans. Puritanism to-day has a semblance of fanaticism; but in the age of pioneers, when civilization was in its infancy, the frontierman naturally went to some extreme. Extreme Puritanism is better than the reign of lawlessness which characterized many frontier settlements in later years. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between fanaticism and the keenest sagacity, and the folly of one age may become the wisdom of a succeeding century. Fanatic as the Puritan may be called, he was the sage of New England and gave to that land an impetus in the arts, literature, and science, which has enabled that country to eclipse any other part of the New World.
While New England was steadily progressing, despite changes in the home government, Maryland was without any historical event worth mentioning, save the trouble with Claybourne.
That portion of the United States known as New Jersey and Delaware consisted at this time of only a few trading settlements hardly worthy of being called colonies. Except for the Swedish and Dutch troubles and the Indian wars mentioned, these countries were in the last decade wholly without historical interest. After all, territory is but the body of a nation. The people who inhabit its hills and valleys are its soul, its spirit and its life.
All south of Virginia was a wilderness occupied by tribes of Indians until the Spanish settlements were reached. That portion now known as Carolinia and Georgia was claimed by Spain. In 1630, a patent for all this territory was issued to Sir Robert Heath, and there is room to believe that, in 1639, permanent plantations were planned and contemplated by his assign William Howley, who appeared in Virginia as "Governor of Carolinia." The Virginia legislature granted that it might be colonized by one hundred persons from Virginia, "freemen, being single and disengaged of debt." The attempts were unsuccessful, for the patent was declared void, because the purpose for which it was granted had never been fulfilled. Besides, more stubborn rivals were found to have already planted themselves on the Cape Fear River. Hardly had New England received within her bosom a few scanty colonies, before her citizens began roaming the continent and traversing the seas in quest of untried fortune. A little bark, navigated by New England men, had hovered off the coast of Carolinia. They had carefully watched the dangers of its navigation, had found their way into the Cape Fear River, had purchased of the Indian chiefs a title to the soil, and had boldly planted a little colony of herdsmen far to the south of any English settlement on the continent. Already they had partners in London, and hardly was the grant of Carolinia made known before their agents pleaded their discovery, occupancy and purchase, as affording a valid title to the soil, while they claimed the privilege of self-government as a natural right. A compromise was offered, and the proprietaries, in their "proposal to all that would plant in Carolinia," promised emigrants from New England a governor and council to be elected from among a number whom the emigrants themselves should nominate; a representative assembly, independent legislation, subject only to the negative of the proprietaries, land at a rent of half a penny per acre and such freedom from customs as the charter would warrant.
Notwithstanding all these offers, but few availed themselves of them, and the lands were for most part abandoned to wild beasts and natives. From Nansemond, Virginia, a party of explorers was formed to traverse the forests and rivers that flow into the Albemarle Sound. The company which started in July, 1653, was led by Roger Green, whose services were rewarded by a grant of a thousand acres, while ten thousand acres were offered to any colony of one hundred persons who would plant on the banks of the Roanoke, or the south side of the Chowan and its tributary streams. These conditional grants seem not to have taken effect, yet the enterprise of Virginia did not flag, and Thomas Dew, once the speaker of the assembly, formed a plan for exploring the navigable rivers still further to the south, between Cape Hatteras and Cape Fear. How far this spirit of discovery led to immediate emigration, it is not possible to determine. The country of Nansemond had long abounded in nonconformists, and the settlements on Albemarle Sound were the result of spontaneous overflowings from Virginia. A few vagrant families were planted within the limits of Carolinia; but it is quite certain that no colony existed until after the restoration.