that ensued. Twenty innocent people, including several women, were condemned and put to death. Fifty-five others were tortured into the confession of abominable falsehoods. A hundred and fifty others lay in prison awaiting their fate. Still two hundred others were accused or suspected, and ruin seemed to impend over New England.

Fortunately for mankind, it is in the nature of such atrocities-diseased as they are to cure themselves by reaction. At the very crisis of this delusion the reaction came and the people arose and righted themselves. Notwithstanding the vociferous clamor and denunciation of Mather, the witch tribunals were overthrown. The General Assembly convened in October, and the atrocious court which Governor Phipps had appointed to sit at Salem was at once dismissed. The spell was dissolved. The thraldom of the public mind was broken. Reason shook off the terrors that oppressed it. The prison doors were opened, and the poor victims of superstition, malice and delusion went forth free.

When the War of the Spanish Succession, so called, came on in Europe, the American colonies as dependencies of the foreign Powers became involved in the conflicts. The French settlements of Canada and the English settlements of Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York went to war because the parent kingdoms were trying to determine with the sword who should occupy the Spanish throne. The Canadian Jesuits instigated the Indians to take up arms against the English colonies. During the year 1703–04. havoc and desolation were spread by the savages along the exposed frontiers of Connecticut and New York.

As the war dragged on, a great expedition was planned by Massachusetts for the capture of Port Royal from the French. In 1707 a fleet bearing a thousand soldiers sailed from Boston harbor for Acadia. But Baron Castin, who

commanded the French garrison of Port Royal, conducted the defense with so much skill and courage that the English were obliged to abandon the undertaking. Massachusetts gained nothing but discouragement and debt from her costly and disastrous expedition; but she resolved to prosecute the war with redoubled energy.

A second armament was fitted out in 1710. A squadron of thirty-six vessels bearing four regiments of troops sailed from Boston to Port Royal and began a siege. The garrison was now weak and the French commander had not the ability of his predecessor. The supplies ran out; famine came, and after a feeble defense of eleven days the place surrendered at discretion. All of Nova Scotia passed by this conquest to the English crown. The flag of Great Britain was raised over the conquered fortress and the name of Port Royal gave place to Annapolis, in honor of Queen Anne.

With the English Revolution of 1688 and the accession of William and Mary, the people of Massachusetts hoped for a betterment of their political condition. The event, however, did not justify the expectation. It was found that King William was not disposed to relinquish the claims of his predecessors in the matter of a royal government over the colonies. This policy of sending out governors from England was continued; but the officers who were sent were received with dislike by the people, and there was constant variance of interests and views between the citizens and the governors. Phipps and his administration were heartily disliked. Governor Shute was equally unpopular. Burnett, who succeeded him, and Belcher afterward, were only tolerated because they could not be shaken off.

In such a condition of affairs the people either find or make a way according to their wishes. The opposition to the royal governors in New England took the form of a

controversy about their salaries. The General Assembly of Massachusetts insisted that the governor and his councilors should be paid in proportion to the importance of their several offices and for actual service only; but the royal commissioners gave to each officer a fixed salary which was frequently out of all proportion to the rank and services of the recipient. After many years of antagonism the difficulty was adjusted with a compromise in which the advantage was wholly on the side of the people.

We thus reach the middle of the eighteenth century, at which time the common interests of the American colonies began to prevail over their prejudices and to bring them into closer union. The circumstances which led to a community of action and finally to the establishment of a common government will be narrated hereafter. The danger which came to all by the French and Indian War was the most powerful single cause which overcame the spirit of localism and tended to the union of all the colonies. For the present-as in the case of Virginia and Massachusetts-we take up the progress of the Dutch settlements on the Hudson and follow their history down to the time when it merged in the common history of the country.

CHAPTER VIII.

FOR ten years after the establishment of the first settlers on Manhattan Island New Amsterdam was governed by Directors appointed by the Dutch East India Company. In 1623 a new colony of thirty families arrived at Manhattan. The immigrants, called Walloons, were Dutch Protestant refugees from Flanders. They were of the same religious party with the Huguenots of France and the Puritans of England. They came to America to find repose from the persecutions to which they were subjected in their own country. Cornelius May was the leader of these immigrants, the greater number of whom settled with their friends at New Amsterdam; but the captain with a party of fifty sailed down the coast of New Jersey, and entered and explored the Bay of Delaware. On his return in the following year he was made first governor of New Netherland. The official duties of May were such as belonged to the superintendent of a trading-post. In 1625 he was succeeded in office by William Verhulst. Meanwhile other Dutch ships came to Manhattan Island bringing herds of cattle, sheep and swine. In January of 1626 Peter Minuit, of Wesel, was regularly appointed by the Dutch West India Company as governor of New Netherland. The population increased, and the census of 1628 showed two hundred and seventy persons in the colony. The industry of the first settlers was directed to the fur trade. The Dutch boats and ships were found in all the bays, inlets and rivers between Rhode Island and the Delaware.

As the colony increased in strength and influence, the West India Company prepared a new scheme of colonization. The corporation, in the year 1629, prepared what was called a Charter of Privileges, under which a class of proprietors called Patrons were authorized to possess and colonize the country. Each patron might select for himself anywhere in New Netherland a tract of land not more than sixteen miles in length and of a breadth to be determined by the location. In accordance with the provisions of the charter, five estates were soon established. Three of them, lying contiguous, embraced a district of twenty-four miles in the valley of the Hudson above and below Fort Orange. The fourth was laid out by Michael de Pauw on Staten Island, and the fifth and most important included the southern half of the present State of Delaware. At the beginning, success seemed to attend the plans of the West India Company as developed in the Charter of Privileges.

It was at this date that the Swedes first began to plant settlements on the American coast. Four of the European nations-Spain, France, England and Holland-had now succeeded in establishing permanent colonies. Sweden was the fifth, and the great King Gustavus Adolphus was the patron of the enterprise. It was in 1626 that a company of Swedish merchants was organized to promote the emigration of a colony to America. For this purpose a large capital was subscribed, to which the King himself contributed four hundred thousand dollars. But before the purpose of the company could be carried out, Gustavus Adolphus was killed in battle, and the work was transmitted to the great Swedish minister Oxenstiem. The charter which the late King had given to the company was renewed, and after four years of preparation the enterprise was brought to a successful issue.

The first company of Swedes and Finns left the harbor