itself to attempt the conquest of the Canadian stronghold; and the troops of New York and New Jersey were obliged to retreat. Again, in 1711, when the incompetent Sir Hovenden Walker was pretending to conduct his fleet up the St. Lawrence, and was in reality only anxious to get away, the army which was to invade Canada by land was furnished by New York. A second time the provincial forces reached Lake George; but the dispiriting news of the disaster to Walker's fleet destroyed all hope of success, and the discouraged soldiers returned to their homes.

Failure and disgrace were not the only distressing circumstances of these campaigns; a heavy debt remained to overshadow the prosperity of New York and to consume her revenues. For many years the resources of the province were exhausted in meeting the extraordinary expenses of Queen Anne's war. In 1713 the treaty of Utrecht put an end to the conflict, and peace returned to the American colonies. In this year the Tuscaroras of Carolina-a nation of the same race with the Iroquois and Hurons of the North-were defeated and driven from their homes by the Southern colonists. The haughty tribe marched northward, crossed the middle colonies and joined their warlike kinsmen on the St. Lawrence, making the sixth nation in the Iroquois confederacy. Nine years later a great council was held at Albany. There the grand sachems of the Six Nations were met by the governors of New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. An important commercial treaty was formed, by which the extensive and profitable fur-trade of the Indians, which, until now, had been engrossed by the French, was diverted to the English. In order to secure the full benefits of this arrangement, Governor Burnett of New York hastened to establish a trading-post at Oswego, on the southern shore of Lake Ontario. Five years later a substantial fort was built at the same place and furnished with an English garrison. As late as the middle of the century, Oswego continued to be the only fortified outpost of the English in the entire country drained by the St. Lawrence and its tributaries. The French, meanwhile, had built a strong fort at Niagara, and another at Crown Point, on the western shore of Lake Champlain. The struggle for colonial supremacy between the two nations was already beginning.

The administration of Governor Cosby, who succeeded Burnett in 1732, was a stormy epoch in the history of the colony. The people were in a constant struggle with the royal governors. At this time the contest took the form of a dispute about the freedom of the press. The liberal or democratic party of the province held that a public journal might criticise the acts of the administration and publish views distasteful to the government. The aristocratic party opposed such liberty as a dangerous

license, which, if permitted, would soon sap the foundations of all authority. Zenger, an editor of one of the liberal newspapers, published hostile criticisms on the policy of the governor, was seized and put in prison. Great excitement ensued. The people were clamorous for their champion. Andrew Hamilton, a noted lawyer of Philadelphia, went to New York to defend Zenger, who was brought to trial in July of 1735. The charge was libel against the government; the cause was ably argued, and the jury made haste to bring in a verdict of acquittal. The aldermen of the city of New York, in order to testify their appreciation of Hamilton's services in the cause of liberty, made him a present of an elegant gold box, and the people were wild with enthusiasm over their victory.

New York, like Massachusetts, was once visited with a fatal delusion. In the year 1741 occurred what is known as THE NEGRO PLOT. Slavery was permitted in the province, and negroes constituted a large fraction of the population. Several destructive fires had occurred, and it was believed that they had been kindled by incendiaries. The slaves were naturally distrusted; now they became feared and hated. Some degraded women came forward and gave information that the negroes had made a plot to burn the city, kill all who opposed them, and set up one of their own number as governor. The whole story was the essence of absurdity; but the people were alarmed, and were ready to believe anything. The reward of freedom was offered to any slave who would reveal the plot. Many witnesses rushed forward with foolish and contradictory stories; the jails were filled with the accused; and more than thirty of the miserable creatures, with hardly the form of a trial, were convicted and then hanged or burned to death. Others were transported and sold as slaves in foreign lands. As soon as the supposed peril had passed and the excited people regained their senses, it came to be doubted whether the whole shocking affair had not been the result of terror and fanaticism. The verdict of after times has been that there was no plot at all.

During the progress of King George's War the territory of New York was several times invaded by the French and Indians. But the invasions were feeble and easily repelled. Except the abandonment of a few villages in the northern part of the State and the destruction of a small amount of exposed property, little harm was done to the province. The alliance of the fierce Mohawks with the English always made the invasion of New York by the French an exploit of more danger than profit. The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, concluded in 1748, again brought peace and prosperity to the people.

Notwithstanding the central position of New York, her growth

was slow, her development unsteady, and her prospects darkened with much adversity. In population she stood, at the outbreak of the French and Indian war, but sixth in a list of the colonies. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia had all outstripped her in the race. But the elements of future renown were nowhere else more abundantly bestowed. Here at the foot of her principal city lay the most convenient and commodious harbor on the Atlantic. A magnificent river-draining the country as far as where, at Onondaga, burned the great council-fire of the Six Nations-rolled down through fruitful valleys to join the waters of the bay. Best of all, the people who inhabited the noble province were ever ready to resist oppression, bold to defend their rights, and zealous in the cause of freedom.

Such is the history of the little colony planted on Manhattan Island. A hundred and thirty years have passed since the first feeble settlements were made; now the great valley of the Hudson is filled with beautiful farms and teeming villages. The Walloons of Flanders and the Puritans of New England have blended into a common people. Discord and contention, though bitter while they lasted, have borne only the peaceful fruit of colonial liberty. There are other and greater struggles through which New York must pass, other burdens to be borne, other calamities to be endured, other fires in which her sons must be tried and purified, before they gain their freedom. But the oldest and greatest of the middle colonies has entered upon a glorious career, and the ample foundations of an EMPIRE STATE are securely laid.

COLONIAL HISTORY.-CONTINUED.

MINOR EASTERN COLONIES.

THE

CHAPTER XXI.

CONNECTICUT.

HE history of Connecticut begins with the year 1630. The first grant of the territory was made by the council of Plymouth to the earl of Warwick; and in March of 1631 the claim was transferred by him to Lord Say-and-Seal, Lord Brooke, John Hampden and others. Before a colony could be planted by the proprietors, the Dutch of New Netherland reached the Connecticut River and built at Hartford their fort, called the House of Good Hope. The people of New Plymouth immediately organized and sent out a force to counteract this movement of their rivals. The territorial claim of the Puritans extended not only over Connecticut, but over New Netherland itself and onward to the Should the intruding Dutch colonists of Manhattan be allowed to move eastward and take possession of the finest valley in New England? Certainly not.

west.

The English expedition reached the mouth of the Connecticut and sailed up the river. When the little squadron came opposite the House of Good Hope, the commander of the garrison ordered Captain Holmes, the English officer, to strike his colors; but the order was treated with derision. The Dutch threatened to fire in case the fleet should attempt to pass; but the English defiantly hoisted sails and proceeded up the river. The puny cannons of the House of Good Hope remained cold and silent. At a point just below the mouth of the Farmington, seven miles above Hartford, the Puritans landed and built the block-house of Windsor.

In October of 1635 a colony of sixty persons left Boston, traversed the forests of Central Massachusetts, and settled at Hartford, Windsor and Wethersfield. Earlier in the same year the younger Winthrop, a man who in all the virtues of a noble life was a worthy rival of his (184)

father, the governor of Massachusetts, arrived in New England. He bore a commission from the proprietors of the Western colony to build a fort at the mouth of the Connecticut River, and to prevent the further encroachments of the Dutch. The fortress was hastily completed and the guns mounted just in time to prevent the entrance of a Dutch trading-vessel which appeared at the mouth of the river. Such was the founding of Saybrook, so named in honor of the proprietors, Lords Sayand-Seal and Brooke. Thus was the most important river of New England brought under the dominion of the Puritans; the solitary Dutch settlement at Hartford was cut off from succor and left to dwindle into insignificance.

To the early annals of Connecticut belongs the sad story of THE PEQUOD WAR. The country west of the Thames was more thickly peopled with savages than any other portion of New England. The haughty and warlike Pequods were alone able to muster seven hundred warriors. The whole effective force of the English colonists did not amount to two hundred men. But the superior numbers of the cunning and revengeful savages were more than balanced by the unflinching courage and destructive weapons of the English.

The first act of violence was committed in the year 1633. The crew of a small trading-vessel were ambushed and murdered on the banks of the Connecticut. An Indian embassy went to Boston to apologize for the crime; the nation was forgiven and received in friendship. A treaty was patched up, the Pequods acknowledging the supremacy of the English and promising to become civilized. The Narragansetts, the hereditary enemies of the Pequods, had already yielded to the authority of Massachusetts and promised obedience to her laws. A reconciliation was thus effected between the two hostile races of savages. But as soon as the Pequods were freed from their old fear of the Narragansetts, they began to violate their recent treaty with the English. Oldham, the worthy captain of a trading-vessel, was murdered near Block Island. A company of militia pursued the perpetrators of the outrage and gave them a bloody punishment. All the slumbering hatred and suppressed rage of the nation burst forth, and the war began in earnest.

In this juncture of affairs the Pequods attempted a piece of dangerous diplomacy. A persistent effort was made to induce the Narragansetts and the Mohegans to join in a war of extermination against the English; and the plot was wellnigh successful. But the heroic Roger Williams, faithful in his misfortunes, sent a letter to Sir Henry Vane, governor of Massachusetts, warned him of the impending danger, and volunteered his services to defeat the conspiracy. The governor replied, urging Williams