XVII. and multiplied in the woods. In a few years, a law of CHAP. 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; the humblest laborer might soon turn farmer for himself. In all the borders of the colony, said Gawen Laurie, "there is not a poor body, or one that wants." Thus 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, outlive the Stuarts. Every thing breathed hope except the cupidity of the duke of York and his commissioners. They still struggled to levy a tax on the commerce of New Jersey, and at last to overthrow its independence. The decision of Jones, which had for a season pro- 1681. tected the commerce of New Jersey, roused the merchants of New York. The legality of customs arbitrarily assessed was denied by the grand jury; and Dyer, the collector, was indicted as a traitor against the king, for having encroached on the English liberties of New York. Without regard to the danger of the precedent, Dyer was sent for trial to England, where no accuser followed him. Meantime ships that entered Manhattan harbor visited no custom-house, and for a few short months the vision of free trade was realized. Thus was New York left without a revenue, just as Andros returned to England; and the grand jury, the sheriff of Yorkshire, the provisional governor, the council, the corporation of New York, all joined to entreat for the people a share in legislation. The duke of York 1682 was at the same time solicited by those about him to Mar. 416 THE PEOPLE OF N. Y. EXERCISE LEGISLATIVE POWER. XVIL Nov. CHAP. sell the territory. He demanded the advice of one who always advised honestly; and no sooner had the 1682. father of Pennsylvania, after a visit at New York, transmitted an account of the reforms which the province required, than, without delay, Thomas Don1683. gan, a Papist, came over as governor, with instructions to convoke a free legislature. 17. At last, after long effort, on the seventeenth day of Oct. October, 1683, about seventy years after Manhattan was first occupied, about thirty years after the demand of the popular convention by the Dutch, the representatives of the people met in assembly; and their selfestablished "CHARTER OF LIBERTIES "" gave New York a place by the side of Virginia and Massachusetts. Records. 66 Supreme legislative power"--such was its declaration-"shall forever be and reside in the governor, counAlbany, cil, 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." 1686, 1687. Thus did the collision of different elements eliminate the intolerance and superstition of the early codes of Puritanism. But the hope of a permanent representative government was to be deferred. It shows the true character of James, that, on gaining power by ascending the 103, 104. English throne, he immediately threw down the insti Wood, XVII. 103, 104 tutions which he had conceded. A direct tax was CHAP. decreed by an ordinance; the titles to real estate were questioned, that larger fees and quitrents might be Wood extorted; and of the farmers of Easthampton who protested against the tyranny, six were arraigned before the council. Albany Records, De Laet, Van der Donk, Van Meegen. Cham La Hon- Colden, John son, Galla While the liberties of New York were thus seques- / tered by a monarch who desired to imitate the despotism of France, its frontiers had no protection against encroachments from Canada, except in the valor of the Iroquois. The Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, the Five Nations, dwelling near the river and the lakes that retain their names, formed a confederacy of equal tribes. The union of three of the Latau, nations precedes tradition; the Oneidas and Senecas were younger associates. Each nation was a sovereign republic, divided again into clans, between which a slight subordination was scarcely perceptible. The clinton, clansmen dwelt in fixed places of abode, surrounded by tin. fields of beans and of maize; each castle, like a New England town or a Saxon hundred, constituted a little democracy. There was no slavery; no favored caste. All men were equal. The union was confirmed by an unwritten compact; the congress of the sachems, at Onondaga, like the Witena-gemots of the Anglo-Saxons, transacted all common business. Authority resided in opinion; law in oral tradition. Honor and esteem enforced obedience; shame and contempt punished offenders. The leading warrior was elected by the general confidence in his virtue and conduct; merit alone could obtain preferment to office; and power was as permanent as the esteem of the tribe. No profit was attached to eminent station, to tempt the sordid. As their brave men went forth to war, instead of martial XVII. CHAP. instruments, they were cheered by the clear voice of their leader. On the smooth surface of a tree from which the outer bark had been peeled, they painted their deeds of valor by the simplest symbols. These were their trophies and their annals; these and their war-songs preserved the memory of their heroes. They proudly deemed themselves supreme among mankind; men excelling all others; and hereditary arrogance inspired their young men with dauntless courage. When Hudson, John Smith, and Champlain, were in America together, the Mohawks had extended their strolls from the St. Lawrence to Virginia; half Long Island paid them tribute; and a Mohawk sachem was reverenced on Massachusetts Bay. The geographical position of their fixed abodes, including within their immediate sway the headlands not of the Hudson only, but of the rivers that flow to the gulfs of Mexico and St. Lawrence, the bays of Chesapeake and Delaware, opened widest regions to their canoes, and invited them to make their war-paths along the channels where New York and Pennsylvania are now perfecting the avenues of commerce. Becoming possessed of fire-arms by intercourse with the Dutch, they renewed 1649. their merciless, hereditary warfare with the Hurons; 1653 and, in the following years, the Eries, on the south 1655. shore of the lake of which the name commemorates their 1656 existence, were defeated and extirpated. The Allegha1672. ny was next descended, and the tribes near Pittsburg, probably of the Huron race, leaving no monument but a name to the Guyandot River of Western Virginia, were subjugated and destroyed. In the west, the Miamis and the Illinois were reduced; and the wilderness between Ohio and the chain of lakes as far as the Mississippi was annexed by conquest to the empire of the Iroquois. to to XVII. 1615. But the Five Nations had defied a prouder enemy. CHAP. At the commencement of the administration of Dongan, the European population of New France, which, in 1676. 1679, amounted to eight thousand five hundred and fifteen souls, may have been a little more than ten thousand; the number of men capable of bearing arms was perhaps three thousand, about the number of warriors of the Five Nations. But the Iroquois were freemen; New France suffered from despotism and monopoly. The Iroquois recruited their tribes by adopting captives of foreign nations; New France was sealed against the foreigner and the heretic. For nearly fourscore years, hostilities had prevailed, with few interruptions. Thrice did Champlain invade the country of the Mohawks, till he was driven with wounds 1609 and disgrace from their wilderness fastnesses. The to Five Nations, in return, at the period of the massacre 1622, in Virginia, attempted the destruction of New France. 1623. Though repulsed, they continued to defy the province and its allies, and, under the eyes of its governor, 1637. openly intercepted canoes destined for Quebec. The French authority was not confirmed by founding a 1640. feeble outpost at Montreal; and Fort Richelieu, at the 1642. mouth of the Sorel, scarce protected its immediate environs. Negotiations for peace led to no permanent 1645. result; and even the influence of the Jesuit missionaries, the most faithful, disinterested, and persevering of their order, could not permanently restrain the sanguinary vengeance of the barbarians. The Iroquois warriors scoured every wilderness to lay it still more waste; they thirsted for the blood of the few men who roamed over the regions between Huron, Erie, and Ontario. Depopulating the whole country on the 1649. Outawas, they obtained an acknowledged superiority |