130

NORWALK NAMED.

[1651. New-Haven. He informed the commissioners that he had directions from Holland to cultivate friend. ship with the colonies, and proposed to form an intimate union: but this was declined until the will of the colonies should be known.

Difficulties, however, arose about the payment of the stipulated sums to Mr. Fenwick, and a new agreement was made with him, according to which £180 was to be paid annually for ten years, besides several sums from different towns, and an impost on beaver-skins, so that the whole amount paid for ordnance, arms, and stores at the fort, and the right of jurisdiction, was above £2000. Committees from the towns met at Saybrook on the 5th of February, 1651, to hear an explanation of the agreements, by which the inhabitants obtained satisfactory information on the subject.

The General Court recommended to the commissioners to consider the conduct of Rhode Island

in receiving fugitive criminals. A Dutch vessel, commanded by Augustus Harriman, was seized this year at Saybrook for trading with the Indians, and confiscated with the cargo, while he was fined £40.

John Winthrop, Esq., at this early period having hopes of discovering mines, was authorized by the Assembly to possess any mines or salt-springs which he might discover and work, together with the land around them to a distance of two or three miles, if not within any town then settled.

The eastern and middle parts of Norwalk had been purchased ten years, but, as yet, contained few inhabitants. The western part was bought in 1650, on the petition of Nathan Ely and Richard

Olmstead, and the court named it and gave permission for its settlement.

Middletown was settled by families from Eng. land, Hartford, and Wethersfield about this time. Most of them went from Hartford. Numbers soon

came from Woburn, Rowley, and Chelmsford, in Massachusetts. It was called by the Indian name, Mattabeseck, until 1653. There were only fifty. three householders in the town twenty years later.

Governor Stuyvesandt soon gave the people of New-Haven reason to change their opinion of him': for he seized and imprisoned a party from that colony who were on their way by sea to settle on Delaware Bay, and made them relinquish their design. He also forbade some of the people of Southampton to remove their property within their line. The commissioners, who met that year at New-Haven, addressed a protest to him, charging him with violating his agreement, and declaring their intention of sending 100 men or more to Delaware, to protect settlers on the land owned by New-Haven.

The commissioners now ordered Captain Mason to require of the Pequods the tribute of wampum which they had agreed to pay annually on their submission in 1638; and Uncas came to Hartford to arrange the difficulty, accompanied by some of Ninigrate's men. It was agreed that past dues should be given up, and that, after the payment of the tribute for the next ten years, no more should ever be required of them. The Pequods showed their satisfaction with this arrangement by their subsequent faithfulness in peace and war.

The celebrated minister John Eliot, commonly

132

THE NAVIGATION ACT.

[1651.

called the Apostle to the Indians, began his benev. olent and successful labours among the natives in 1646 as a missionary, under the patronage of the legislature of Massachusetts, who in that year passed an act for the encouragement of the Gospel among the savages. He afterward visited Hartford during the meeting of the General Assembly, when they invited the Podunk Indians to hear that excellent man explain the Christian religion in their own language. Numbers of them went from East Windsor to hear him: but, after listening to a long address, when they were asked to determine wheth er they would receive the Gospel or not, the chief men replied that they had no wish to change the customs of their fathers; and the tribe remained in their original heathen state.

CHAPTER XVI.

1651-1652.

The Navigation Act passed by Parliament to restrict the Com merce of the Colonies.-Disregarded.-Commissioners from Canada to invite the Colonies to join them in War with the Five Nations.-The Proposal declined.-In consequence of the War between England and Holland, Governor Stuyvesandt assumes a hostile Attitude.-Apprehensions of the Colony from Dutch Intrigues with the Indians.-Explanations demanded by the Commissioners, but not made.-Troops ordered to be raised, and War declared.-Massachusetts refuses to approve and to sustain the War.-The other Colonies protest. The Commissioners declare War against Ninigrate, Sachem of Nehantic.-A Dutch Fleet expected.-It fails to arrive.

IN 1651 the Navigation Act was passed by the British Parliament, forbidding anything to be exported from the colonies to any place out of the

English possessions. New-England would not submit to this law, denying the right of Great Britain to restrict her trade; and the commerce of the Eastern colonies continued free with different parts of the world. The English complained, but never seriously attempted to suppress it.

Two petitioners of an uncommon description presented themselves before the commissioners this year. They were French Jesuits of good address from Canada, who had come to engage the colonies in a war against the Mohawks. Their names were Godfroy and Gabriel Druillets, and they came with commissions from the governor of Canada and the council of New-France. They requested that, in case the colonies should not engage in the war, volunteers might be enlisted and sent, and that the Acadians might be taken under their protection, promising a liberal reward from the French government, and an arrangement for free trade with Canada.

The commissioners declined the proposals, expressing their compassion for the Acadians, but saying that they should expose many of their friendly Indians by engaging in the war, and that some of them professed to be Christians. They stated that the Mohawks had treated them well in the Pequod war; and that, although they wished to treat the Canadians in a friendly manner, they could not even permit the proposed enlistments. They then urged objections to the trade in fire. arms and ammunition which was carried on by the French.

Captain Mason was about to accept of an offer from some of the people of New-Haven, to become M

134

HOSTILITY OF STUYVESANDT.

[1652.

governor of a colony which they proposed to form on Delaware Bay: but the General Court of Connecticut prevented him, and the enterprise failed. The first grand list of Connecticut was made out, and embraced seven towns, amounting to £75,492 10s. 6d.

The people were under serious apprehensions in the year 1652, on account of dangers both at home and abroad. The Dutch and English had become involved in a war in 1651, and there were symptoms of a general war with the Indians. Say. brook Fort was strengthened, and the families were ordered to retire to it, while all Indians who would not give up their arms were regarded as enemies. Governor Stuyvesandt assumed an unfriendly and contemptuous tone, revived his renounced claims, and tried to hire Indians to destroy the English. On the discovery of this, an extraordinary meeting of the commissioners took place in April. Strange as it may seem, after the friendly arrangements he had made and proposed, it was too clearly proved that he had visited the western Indians beyond Hudson River, and urged them to join him against the English; that he had had Ninigrate with him, and sent him home in a sloop, with arms and ammunition; and that many tribes in different parts of the country had received invitations from him. Such, however, are the unrighteous principles of war, which civilized and Christian nations have too often adopted. They allow falsehood in negotiations and the most detestable plots for the destruction of enemies. He, no doubt, had received orders from Holland, on the declaration of the war with England, to distress the English colonies to