Sir George Mackenzie, and in the previous year had sent over a large number of settlers, came himself to act for a few months as chief magistrate. When Campbell withdrew, the executive power, weakened by transfers, was intrusted by him to Andrew Hamilton. The territory, easy of access, flanked on the west by outposts of Quakers, was the abode of peace and abundance, of deep religious faith and honest industry. Peaches and vines flourished on the river sides, the woods were crimsoned with strawberries, and "brave oysters abounded along the shore. Brooks and rivulets, with "curious clear water," were as frequent as in the dear native Scotland; the houses of the towns, unlike the pent villages of the Old World, were scattered upon the several lots and farms; the highways were so broad that flocks of sheep could nibble by the roadside; horses multiplied in the woods. In a few years, a law of the commonwealth, giving force to the common principle of the New England and the Scottish Calvinists, established a system of free schools. It was "a gallant, plentiful" country, where the humblest laborer might soon turn farmer for himself. In all its borders, said Gawen Laurie, the faithful Quaker merchant, who had been Rudyard's successor, there is not a poor body, or one that wants."

The mixed character of New Jersey springs from the different sources of its people. Puritans, Covenanters, and Quakers met on her soil; and their faith, institutions, and preferences, having life in the common mind, survive the Stuarts.

Everything breathed hope, but for the arbitrary cupidity of James II., and the navigation acts. Dyer, the collector, eager to levy a tax on the commerce of the colony, complained of their infringement; in April, 1686, a writ of quo warranto against the proprietaries menaced New Jersey with being made "more dependent." It was of no avail to appeal to the justice of King James, who revered the prerogative with idolatry; and, in 1688, to stay the process for forfeiture, the proprietaries, stipulating only for their right of property in the soil, surrendered their claim to the jurisdiction. The province was annexed to New York.

In New York, the attempt to levy customs without a

colonial assembly had been defeated, in March, 1682, by the grand jury, and trade became free just as Andros was returning to England. All parties joined in entreating for the people a share in legislation. The duke of York temporized. The provincial revenue had expired; the ablest lawyers in England questioned his right to renew it; the province opposed its collection with a spirit that required compliance, and in January, 1683, the newly appointed governor, Thomas Dongan, nephew of Tyrconnell, a Roman Catholic, was instructed to call a general assembly of all the freeholders by the persons whom they should choose to represent them. Accordingly, on the seventeenth of the following October, about seventy years after Manhattan was first occupied, about thirty years after the demand of the popular convention by the Dutch, the people of New York met in assembly, and by their first act claimed the rights of Englishmen. "Supreme legislative power," such was their further declaration, "shall for ever be and reside in the governor, council, and people, met in general assembly. Every freeholder and freeman shall vote for representation without restraint. No freeman shall suffer but by judgment of his peers; and all trials shall be by a jury of twelve men. No tax shall be assessed, on any pretence whatever, but by the consent of the assembly. No seaman or soldier shall be quartered on the inhabitants against their will. No martial law shall exist. No person, professing faith in God by Jesus Christ, shall at any time be any ways disquieted or questioned for any difference of opinion." So New York, by its self-enacted "charter of franchises and privileges," took its place by the side of Virginia and Massachusetts, surpassing them both in religious toleration. The proprietary accepted the revenue granted by the legislature for a limited period, permitted another session to be held, and promised to make no alterations in the form or manner of the bill containing the franchises and privileges of the colony, except for its advantage; but in 1685, in less than a month after he had ascended the throne, James II. prepared to overturn the institutions which, as duke of York, he had conceded. A direct tax was decreed by an ordinance; the titles to real estate were questioned, that larger fees and quit-rents might be ex

torted; and of the farmers of Easthampton who protested against the tyranny, six were arraigned before the council.

The governor of New York had been instructed to preserve friendly relations with the French; but Dongan refused to neglect the Five Nations, and sought to divert their commerce to the New York traders by a reciprocal amnesty of past injuries.

The Oneida, Onondaga, and Cayuga warriors had left bloody traces of their inroads along the Susquehanna and near the highlands of Virginia. The impending struggle with New France quickened their desire to renew peace with the English; and in July, 1684, the deputies from the Mohawks and the three offending tribes, soon joined by the Senecas, met the governors of New York and Virginia at Albany.

After listening to the complaints and pacific proposals of Lord Howard of Effingham, Cadianne, the Mohawk orator, on the fourteenth rebuked the Oneidas, Onondagas, and Cayugas for their want of faith, and expressed gladness that the past was to be buried in the pit. "The covenant," he said, "must be preserved; the fire of love of Virginia and Maryland, and of the Five Nations, burns in this place; this house of peace must be kept clean. We plant a tree whose top shall touch the sun, whose branches shall be seen afar. We will shelter ourselves under it, and live in unmolested peace."

At the conclusion of the treaty, each of the three nations of wrong-doers gave a hatchet to be buried. "We bury none for ourselves," said the Mohawks, "for we have never broken the ancient chain." The axes were buried, and the offending tribes in noisy rapture chanted the song of peace.

"Brother Corlaer," said a chief for the Onondagas and Cayugas, in August, "your sachem is a great sachem, and we are a small people." "When the English came first to Manhattan, to Virginia, and to Maryland, they were a small people, and we were great. Because we found you a good people, we treated you kindly, and gave you land. Now, therefore, that you are great and we small, we hope you will protect us from the French. They They are angry with us because we carry beaver

to our brethren."

The envoys of the Senecas, on the fifth, told their delight

that the tomahawk was buried, and all evil put away from the hearts of the English. The sachems returned to nail the arms of the duke of York over their castles, a protection, as they thought, against the French, an acknowledgment, as the English assumed, of British sovereignty.

Among the chiefs, especially among the Onondagas, there were those who were jealous of English supremacy, and desired to secure their own independence by balancing the French against the English. The French, they said, they had for ten years called their father as they had called the English their brother; "but," said an Onondaga chief, "it is because we have willed it so. Neither the one nor the other is our master; we are free; we are brethren; we must take care of ourselves." Yet the English claimed the domain of the Iroquois south of the lakes as subject to England, and set no bounds to their traffic with the red men. In the summer of 1686 a party of their traders penetrated even to Michilimackinac. The limits between the English and French never were settled, but at that time the Five Nations of themselves were a sufficient bulwark against encroachments from Canada.

The alarm of Massachusetts at the loss of its charter, in 1685, had been increased by the report that Kirke, afterward infamous for military massacres in the west of England, was destined for its governor. It was a relief to find that Joseph Dudley, a degenerate son of the colony, was intrusted for a season with the highest powers of magistracy over the country from Narragansett to Nova Scotia. The general court, in session at his arrival, and unprepared for open resistance, dissolved their assembly, and returned in sadness to their homes. The charter government was publicly displaced by the arbitrary commission, popular representation abolished, and the press subjected to the censorship of Randolph.

On the twentieth of December, 1686, Sir Edmund-Andros, glittering in scarlet and lace, landed at Boston, as governor of all New England. He was authorized to remove and appoint members of his council, and, with their consent, to make laws, lay taxes, and control the militia of the country. He was instructed to tolerate no printing-press, to encourage Episcopacy, and to sustain authority by force. From New York

came West as secretary. In the council there were four subservient members, of whom but one was a New England man. The other members formed a fruitless but united opposition. "His excellency," said Randolph, "has to do with a perverse people."

Personal liberty and the customs of the country were disregarded. None might leave the colony without a special permit. Probate fees were increased almost twentyfold. "West," says Randolph-for dishonest men betray one another-"extorts what fees he pleases, to the great oppression of the people, and renders the present government grievous." To the scrupulous Puritans, the idolatrous custom of laying the hand on the Bible, in taking an oath, operated as a widely disfranchising test.

The Episcopal service had never yet been performed within Massachusetts bay except by the chaplain of the hated commission of 1665. Its day of liberty was come. Andros demanded one of the meeting-houses for the church. The wrongs of a century crowded on the memories of the Puritans, as they answered: "We cannot with a good conscience consent." Goodman Needham declared he would not ring the bell; but at the appointed hour the bell rung; and the love of liberty did not expire, even though, in a Boston meetinghouse, the Common Prayer was read in a surplice. By and by the people were desired to contribute toward erecting a church. "The bishops," answered Sewall, "would have thought strange to have been asked to contribute toward setting up New England churches.”

At the instance and with the special concurrence of James II., a tax of a penny in the pound and a poll-tax of twenty pence, with a subsequent increase of duties, were laid by Andros and his council. The towns generally refused pay ment. Wilbore, of Taunton, was imprisoned for writing a protest. To the people of Ipswich, then the second town in the colony, in town-meeting, John Wise, the minister who used to assert, "Democracy is Christ's government in church and state," advised resistance. "We have," said he, "a good God and a good king; we shall do well to stand to our privileges." "You have no privilege," answered one of the coun

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