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was shipped to England to pay for goods. To stop this CHAPTER drain of specie, Massachusetts was induced to try the experiment of a local coinage. A mint was set up at 1651. Boston, which coined shillings, sixpences, and threepences, with a pine tree on one side, and "New England" on the other. These pieces were alloyed one fourth below the British standard-an experiment often tried elsewhere, under the fallacious idea that, thus debased, they would not be exported. Thus it happened that the pound currency of New England came to be one fourth less valuable than the pound sterling of the mother country—a standard afterward adopted by the English Parliament for all the North American colonies. The use of wampum as a coin seems to have been kept up in New Netherland long after it had ceased in New England.

We have already had occasion to allude to the controversy as to bounds and territories carried on by the people of Connecticut and New Haven with their Dutch. neighbors. This dispute, of which more will be said in the next chapter, had been recently allayed by an arbitration and a treaty of limits. But very soon it re- 1650. vived again, and with new force, by reason of obstacles 1651. put by the Dutch to the re-establishment by New Haven of her former settlement and trading-house on the Delaware. The English Council of State having declared war against Holland, the people of New Haven and 1652. Connecticut were anxious, also, for a war against New Netherland. Uncas, the Mohegan sachem, always ready for mischief, spread a report that Ninigret, the Niantic sachem, had visited New Amsterdam during the winter, 1653. and had arranged with the Dutch governor a grand plot, in which it was said that even the praying Indians were engaged, for a general Indian insurrection, and the

CHAPTER murder of all the New England colonists.

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In conse

quence of this report, the Commissioners for the United 1653. Colonies assembled in special session at Boston, and sent May. messengers and interrogatories to Ninigret and Pessacus, both of whom totally denied any knowledge of the pretended plot. Envoys and a letter were also sent to New Amsterdam, with a long declaration of grievances; and, to be ready, in case "God called the colonies to war," five hundred men were ordered to be raised. Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor, sent back an indignant denial of the alleged conspiracy with the Indians, and a long declaration of grievances on his part. This denial it was attempted to set aside by the ex-parte affidavits of certain English and Indians, residents of New Netherland-affidavits which the New England envoys to New Amsterdam had assumed the extraordinary liberty of taking in that city, for the very purpose of contradicting Stuyvesant, who found it necessary to pocket this affront, though he refused to sanction it by being present to cross-examine the witnesses.

Upon the strength of the testimony thus taken, the commissioners assembled at Boston determined on war. But the General Court of Massachusetts, in session at the same time, desired the opinion and advice of the elders, and the documents were referred to a joint committee of the court and the commissioners, to prepare a statement of facts on which that opinion might be taken. The committee could not agree, and two statements were drawn up. The elders saw, in the documents laid before them, plain evidence of an "execrable plot tending to the destruction of many dear saints of God," but they did not find the proofs of it so "fully conclusive as to clear up present proceedings to war." Others, however, viewed the matter differently. "Many pensive hearts" at Sa

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lem, headed by their minister, sent a memorial to the CHAPTER commissioners, urging the justice and necessity of hostilities. Six out of the eight-the constitutional major- 1653. ity-were sufficiently inclined to this step; but they found an unexpected and insuperable obstacle in the denial, by the General Court of Massachusetts, of any power in the commissioners to declare an "offensive war"

except by unanimous consent. An able and eloquent paper, put forth by the court in defense of this position, concluded in the following spirited terms: "It can be no less than a contradiction to affirm that the supreme power, which we take to be the general court of every jurisdiction, can be commanded by others; an absurdity in policy that an entire government and jurisdiction should prostitute itself to the command of strangers; a scandal in religion if a general court of Christians should be obliged to act and engage on the faith of six delegates, against their consciences-all which must be admitted in case we acknowledge ourselves bound to undertake an offensive war upon the bare determination of the commission."

The session of the commissioners having broken up in disgust, the towns of Stamford and Fairfield, on the Dutch frontier, headed by Ludlow, undertook to raise volunteers and to make war against the Dutch on their own account. This irregular proceeding having been suppressed with some severity, Ludlow was so much disgusted that he emigrated to Virginia. Despairing of aid from Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Haven united in a solicitation to Cromwell, between whom and Cotton some complimentary letters had lately passed. They besought the Lord General and the Council of State to fit out an expedition for the conquest of New Netherland. Meanwhile, they carried on a warm dispute with Massachu

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CHAPTER setts as to the true interpretation of the articles of union. At the regular annual meeting of the commissioners this 1653. controversy was renewed. The commission seemed to Sept. be just on the point of breaking up forever, when the Massachusetts Court, by an ambiguous sort of conces sion, induced the commissioners to proceed to business.

The tributary Indians at the east end of Long Island had complained of hostilities commenced against them by the Niantics. Ninigret, being sent for by order of the commissioners, had returned a "proud, presumptuous, and offensive answer." The commissioners thereupon conceived themselves called by God to make a present war against Ninigret," and they ordered two hundred and fifty men to be raised for that purpose. Bradstreet, one of the Massachusetts commissioners, dissented from this vote. In his opinion, the United Colonies were under no obligation to protect the Long Island Indians, nor to engage in Indian quarrels, "the grounds whereof they can not well understand." The Massachusetts Court sustained this sensible objection; and as they saw no sufficient ground for war, they "dared not exercise authority to levy men." Thus a second time, by the opposition of Massachusetts, were the commissioners' warlike intentions defeated.

The solicitations addressed to Cromwell were not altogether without success. Robert Sedgwick and John Leverett, the latter son of the ruling elder in the Boston Church, and late a captain in the Parliamentary army, the former recently chosen to succeed Gibbons as 1654. major general of Massachusetts, were authorized to undertake an expedition against New Netherland, toward which Cromwell, now Lord Protector, furnished two or three ships, with a small body of troops, authority being given to the commissioners to raise more in New En

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gland. Roger Williams entertained grateful feelings to- CHAPTER ward the Dutch of New Netherland, and by his interference the sailing of this expedition was a little delayed. 1654. When the armament arrived in New England the Dutch war was already over; and before the New England contingents could be raised, news of the peace reached Boston. July. Instead of proceeding against New Netherland, Acadie became the object of attack. It was a time of peace between France and England; but Cromwell alleged that a sum of money, promised by France in consideration of the cession of Acadie, had never been paid, and that the cession, in consequence, was not binding. D'Aulney was dead, and La Tour, lately returned from Hudson's Bay, having married the widow of his old enemy and rival, had thus recovered possession of Port Royal, St. John's, Penobscot, and the other Acadien trading posts. But D'Aulney's principal creditor in France had renewed the old complaints against La Tour, had obtained an order to take possession of all D'Aulney's American property, and for that purpose had just arrived, when both he and La Tour found themselves obliged to surrender to Leverett and Sedgwick. The dexterous La Tour now revived his claims under the old grant to his father from Sir William Alexander; and, two years after, Cromwell made a new grant of Nova Scotia to La Tour, Crowne, and Thomas Temple, brother of the celebrated Sir William Temple, and soon sole proprietor.

Some three years previous to the present time, the bankrupt Gibbons had removed to Maryland, being appointed by the proprietary admiral of that colony and one of the council. He built a wind-mill at St. Mary's; but, dying there this year, his widow transferred the mill to Lord Baltimore in payment of a debt of £100 due by her late husband to his lordship. Previous to the

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