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the first rumors of the revolution were received with uncontrollable delight.

Meantime the king sent orders for Nichols to continue for the present the administration of affairs. But this officer had previously been obliged to depart for England, in consequence of the people's opposition. As the appointment was accompanied by the provision, "or to such as for the time execute the law," Jacob Leisler, the popular leader, applied this to himself, and assumed the gubernatorial office. He held two assemblies, and concluded a treaty with New England, agreeing to raise nine hundred men for the mutual defence. But though supported by a majority, a powerful party disowned his authority and insulted him in the capital. After much difficulty the opposition was put down; but King William took no notice of Leisler's pretensions.

In March, 1691, Colonel Sloughter arrived at New York to take charge of affairs. Leisler refused to acknowledge him, pretending that the colonel's commission was defective, and that he would abdicate only by an order from the king's own hand. Being unpopular, he was compelled, through an insurrection, to tender his resignation. Refusing to receive it, the new governor arrested him, and appointed a special commission for his trial. He was speedily condemned to death, and with Milbourne, his principal adviser, suffered on the scaffold. Sloughter himself died soon after, [August 2, 1691,] and was succeeded by Colonel Fletcher. The only important act of Sloughter's administration was the renewal of a treaty with the Five Nations.

Fletcher was an able officer; but his domineering temper, a fault too common in those days, soon involved him in violent contests with the Assembly. A leading object was the establishment of episcopacy, which after great exertions was sanctioned by the members, with the salvo annexed that the people should choose their own ministers. In a violent speech on this occasion, Fletcher so far forgot the dignity of his station as to denominate the members ill-tempered, stubborn and unmannerly, and even accuse them of attempts to engross the entire legislative power. After the failure of his attempt to obtain command of the Connecticut militia, he seems to have moderated his views, and gave up the fruitless scheme of intimidating the colonial assemblies.

Fletcher was succeeded [1698] by the Earl of Bellamont, whose mild government went far toward soothing the jealousies still existing

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between the partisans of Leisler and their aristocratic opponents. I' was under his administration that the famous Captain Kidd was commissioned to suppress piracy, which had increased to an alarming extent. This individual betraying his trust, turned pirate himself, and after making his name a terror to seamen, was at length arrested at Boston, and sent to England for trial.

Bellamont died in 1701, and was succeeded by Lord Cornbury, a degenerate descendant of the Earl of Clarendon. Entirely opposite to his predecessor, he showed an embittered enmity to the popular party, accompanied by a bigoted attachment to episcopacy, and hatred of all other forms of religion. He seconded also the attempts made by Dudley to subvert the charter of Connecticut. Indulging in extravagant habits, he squandered large sums of the public money, and contracted debts, the payment of which his official situation enabled him to evade. He thus rendered himself odious and contemptible to all parties, who united in a firm remonstrance to Queen Anne, and induced her to revoke his commission. No longer protected by the privileges of office, he was thrown into prison, and ob

GOVERNORS HUNTER AND BURNET.

279 tained liberation only when the death of his father raised him to the peerage.

Lord Lovelace succeeded, who, on his arrival, made a demand, destined to cause much dissension, for a permanent salary to the governor. Yet his general deportment was popular and satisfactory; but he lived only a few months. The reins were then held for a short time by Ingoldsby, who also made himself very acceptable; and in 1710, the office was filled by Sir Robert Hunter, a man of wit and talent, by which he had raised himself from a low rank in society. He went out, however, strongly imbued with monarchical principles, and determined to resist the claims of the Assembly. In advancing the demand for a fixed income, he made use of very offensive expressions, insinuating doubts of their right to appropriate the public money, and suspicions that it was the government, not the governor, whom they disliked. In the council also, the doctrine was advanced, that the Assembly existed only "by the mere grace of the crown." The latter body strenuously vindicated their rights, and refused to grant more than a temporary provision. They remonstrated strongly also against the establishment of a court of chancery, suspected to be with a view of increasing his emoluments. On this ground there seemed great hazard of a collision; but Hunter, being a sensible man, and seeing their very strong determination, deemed it expedient to yield; and, during his latter years, he studied with success to maintain harmony among the different branches of the administration.

He was succeeded by Burnet, a son of the celebrated bishop and historian, an accomplished, amiable man. He appears to have zealously studied the welfare of the colony; he became very generally popular; and was particularly successful in gaining over the Indian tribes. His attempt, however, to maintain the obnoxious court of chancery, involved him in violent disputes with the Assembly. On the advice of a few patriotic but indiscreet individuals, he adopted the injurious measure of prohibiting all commercial intercourse between New York and Canada. In 1720 he was removed, though compensated with the government of Massachusetts.

After a short interval, the direction of affairs was assumed in 1732 by Colonel Cosby, a man of such a violent character as created general aversion to him. Strong interest was excited by the trial of Zenger, editor of a journal which had attacked his administration; but through the exertions of Hamilton, an eminent advocate, he was triumphantly acquitted. Cosby died in 1736, and was followed by

Clarke, who, having given scarcely more satisfaction, yielded the place in 1741 to Clinton, who ruled upwards of ten years with considerable success and popularity. His successor, Sir Danvers Osborne, suffered severely by the discovery, in 1754, of very arbitrary instructions transmitted to him from home. A great ferment was thus kindled, but gradually subsided; and we find the royal authority subsequently respected till the time of the Revolution.s ITHERTO little has been said concerning

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the Indian tribes of this colony. Difficulties with the Five Nations and other tribes early occurred. In 1640, Staten Island was attacked and New Amsterdam threatened; but peace was at length secured through the exertions of Roger Williams. Kieft rendered himself infamous for his cruelty to the red men, which but for the far different policy of Stuyvesant, would have produced serious results. In 1663, Kingston, [then called Esopus,] was unexpectedly entered by the Indians, and sixty-five persons killed or carried away. This was retaliated by a force from New Amsterdam, who laid waste the Indian villages, and killed a number of their warriors.

But the most terrible calamity which befel the colony while in the hands of the English, was the burning of Schenectady. Early in 1690, several hundred French and Indians marched from Canada, to attack this village, which was then a somewhat remote settlement on the Mohawk. The weather was so intensely cold, and the road through wilds, forests, and mountain districts, so difficult, that only three hundred reached the Mohawk, but in so dispirited a condition that they resolved to surrender. Arriving at Schenectady about midnight, and finding every thing in unconscious security, they again changed their design, and resolved to improve so fair an opportunity for massacre. They spread themselves through the vil lage, fired it in different places, and tomahawked all ages, sexes and conditions, that fell into their hands. Sixty were killed and thirty carried off for torture. Many of those who escaped the massacre, froze to death in journeying to other settlements. This was followed by various movements against the neighbouring tribes, until the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713.

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TEW JERSEY, being a branch detached from the state just named, will be considered most advantageously in connection with that colony. When Nichols, in 1664, made the conquest of the united territory, the tract along the seacoast, from the west end of Long Island to the Delaware, appeared to him the most favourable for settlement. He invited thither farmers from New England, who already displayed a migratory and enterprising character, and going in considerable numbers. formed along the shore a range of villages. While Nichols, however, was exulting in the success of these efforts, he was struck with dismay by a commission being presented to him, in which the Duke of York constituted Lords Berkeley and Carteret proprietors of this

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