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CHAPTER gland, of whose fidelity to their oaths in case hostilities should commence Stuyvesant had very great doubts, took 1653. an active part in this movement. The convention was dissolved by the director, who rejected its demands as extravagant and absurd, sneering at their New England origin. His authority, he declared, was derived from "God and the West India Company," and needed not the supporting consent of a wavering and ignorant multitude. By his own authority he proceeded to assess upon forty-two of the principal inhabitants sums varying in amount from fifty to two hundred gilders, $20 to $80, toward the defense of New Amsterdam against the threatened invasion from New England. Stuyvesant's cavalier treatment of the insolent commonalty-indeed, his conduct throughout the whole affair was warmly approved by the company in Holland.

1655.

The danger on the side of New England was hardly over, when the Swedes, by stratagem, got possession of Fort Casimir. But things in Europe had now greatly changed. Sweden was no longer a formidable power, and the West India Company sent orders to Stuyvesant to subdue the Swedes, and take exclusive possession of the South Bay and river.

After a year's preparation, the Dutch director, with a force of six hundred men, embarked for the Delaware. The Swedes, whose whole population did not exceed seven hundred persons, did not feel themselves strong enough for resistance. The Swedish posts submitted in succession, and New Sweden, after an independent existence Sept. of seventeen years, was again absorbed into New Netherland. All civil connection with the mother country was severed, but the Lutheran Church of New Sweden continued to recognize an ecclesiastical dependence even down to the period of the American Revolution. Such

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of the inhabitants as consented to take the oath of alle- CHAPTER giance to the States-General were guaranteed the possession of their lands and other property. The few who 1655. refused were shipped to Holland.

While the director was absent on this expedition, the Indians, who had not yet forgotten their old quarrel, appeared before New Amsterdam in sixty-four canoes. They caused great alarm, made some prisoners, and did some damage; but dispersed and disappeared when the Dutch forces returned.

The affairs of New Netherland now began to improve. Settlers came in from various quarters; among the rest, some Jews, fugitive Protestants from Bohemia, France, Switzerland, and Italy, and fugitive sectaries from New England, where religious intolerance was now more violent than ever. Already New Amsterdam was a cos- 1656. mopolitan city. Stuyvesant, as a Calvinist, hated the Lutherans; he shared with the English colonists a detestation of the Quakers. But his bent toward persecution was checked by his superiors at home, who sent orders that the same religious indulgence which made the parent city a general asylum for the oppressed, should prevail also in its namesake at the mouth of the Hudson.

The West India Company was largely concerned in the slave trade, and some slaves were imported into New Netherland. Most of them remained the property of the company, and the more trusty and industrious, after a certain period of labor, were allowed little farms, paying, in lieu of all other service, a stipulated amount of produce. This emancipation did not extend to the chil dren, a circumstance inexplicable and highly displeasing to the commonalty of New Netherland, who could not understand "how any one born of a free Christian mother could nevertheless be a slave."

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To strengthen the colony on its southern frontier, where encroachments from Maryland began to be appre1656. hended, the West India Company sold to the city of Amsterdam the tract along the west shore of Delaware Bay, from the Brandywine to Cape Henlopen. A colony was sent out, consisting principally of persons bound to service; in spite, however, of the penalty of death imposed upon runaways—a penalty imitated from the Maryland code—these involuntary immigrants fled in numbers to the neighboring Maryland settlements. But the city of 1659. Amsterdam persevered, and, by a subsequent grant, received from the West India Company the whole western. bank of the Delaware. Fendal, governor of Maryland, claimed this district, at least all of it below the fortieth parallel of latitude, as a part of his province; but this claim, subsequently renewed by Lord Baltimore, was pertinaciously denied by the Dutch, who insisted on their right by prior occupancy.

Amicable relations had all along existed between New Netherland and Virginia. A trade, undisturbed by the short war between England and Holland, had been carried on, satisfactory to both parties; and, notwithstanding a parliamentary ordinance, a considerable part of the tobacco of Virginia, even of that destined for England, seems to have been shipped in Dutch vessels. After the Restora1660. tion this intercourse still continued, and Stuyvesant artfully attempted, but without success, to obtain from Berkeley an express acknowledgment of the Dutch title to New Netherland.

Meanwhile, new danger was threatened on the side of 1659. the restless New Englanders. Connecticut, still intent on conquest, had solicited Richard Cromwell to send an expedition against Manhattan. The region on the upper Hudson was claimed as falling within the chartered lim

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its of Massachusetts, the ground being taken that the CHAPTER late arrangement of boundaries related only to Connecticut. Some adventurous citizens of Massachusetts, hav- 1659. ing obtained from the Commissioners for the United Colonies a letter to that effect, applied to Stuyvesant for leave to ascend the Hudson for the purpose of establishing a settlement on its upper waters.

No sooner had Connecticut obtained a royal charter, 1662. embracing, also, the territory of New Haven, as will be related in a subsequent chapter, than claims began to be put forth under it to Long Island, Westchester, and 1663. all the main land east of the Hudson. Several of the Dutch towns on Long Island, inhabited principally by English settlers, petitioned Connecticut to take them under her jurisdiction. Stuyvesant, greatly alarmed, went in person to Boston to inquire of the Commissioners for the United Colonies if they considered the former treaty binding. Agents were sent on the same errand to Hartford. The New England Commissioners and the magistrates of Connecticut promised fairly, but their conduct still continued to excite suspicion; and, notwithstanding the contempt he had formerly expressed for popular assemblies, Stuyvesant followed the example of his predecessor in calling together, for advice and consultation, a body of deputies from the several villages and settlements. They recommended an appeal for protection to the West India Company and the States-General. Another similar assembly, called the next year, did but repeat the 1664. same bootless advice. The time had come, at length, when the English claim to New Netherland, so often insisted on, was now, at last, to be enforced.

Shortly after the restoration of Charles II., the Duke of York, the king's brother, had purchased up the vari ous claims of Lord Sterling under the grants from the

CHAPTER extinct Council for New England, already so often menXIII. tioned. This purchase was presently confirmed by a 1664. royal charter conveying a great American territory to March 12. the duke, called NEW YORK, in honor of the proprietary

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-not Lord Sterling's provinces only, but the larger part of New Netherland also. This territory included, on the east, the tract between the St. Croix and the Pemaquid, one of Sterling's provinces; and on the west the region between the Connecticut and the Delaware, with all the islands south and west of Cape Cod. Swallowing up New Netherland, encroaching also on the chartered limits of Massachusetts and Connecticut, this new province completely embosomed within its wide circuit the old Puritan colonies of New England.

Before any intimation had been given to the Dutch of impending hostilities, three ships were dispatched with six hundred soldiers, and Sir Robert Nichols, Sir George Cartwright, and Sir Robert Carr as commissioners, to take possession of New Netherland for the Duke of York. They touched at Boston, and asked there for additional soldiers; but, as the same commissioners were also authorized to investigate certain complaints against the government of Massachusetts, of which an account will presently be given, their reception in that colony was sufficiently cold. Without waiting for the action of the General Court, without whose sanction, as Endicott and the magistrates alleged, no soldiers could be raised, the commissioners, after a short delay, proceeded toward New Netherland. The newly-chartered colony of Connecticut was more zealous, and Winthrop, the governor, went personally on board the squadron, which presently came to anchor within Sandy Hook.

Rumors of an intended invasion had reached Manhattan; but the West India Company, suffering as it was

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